PWP, character death, sadness.

Kisu suru

I swear that when our lips touch, I can taste the next sixty years of my life.

Except…

Except that it wasn't supposed to be like this. A kiss shouldn't taste of blood… how fitting is it that our last kiss is reminiscent of our first?

You were supposed to watch me grow old and grey, while you remained youthful and beautiful, watch my face become weathered and my eyes crease with laugh lines while yours was forever smooth.

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

Not like this, not in fire and dirt and dust so thick it was like mud in the back of her throat. Her fingers were slippery with blood, splayed and pressed against his broken armor so tightly that her wrist throbbed. The clang of steel on steel had left her almost deaf, the noise was muffled now, and her heart lodged somewhere in her stomach in fear.

Had the battle come to an end too?

She couldn't look away from him, from the hole in his chest. The blood had started to slow now, barely a trickle. It had been like watching a dam bring a raging river to a trickle, and a sob wracked her frame.

Gently, clawed fingers entwined with her blood soaked ones and he squeezed softly and even though his intention had been one of comfort she felt her heart stutter in her chest. There was no power behind his grip, no fire in his eyes.

Even so close…so close, his presence was immense. She had tried to gather him up in her lap, tuck his head across her legs, and push blood stained locks of hair out of the way of his eyes. She wanted to wrap her arms around his shoulders and draw him against her, and take them far, far away from this battlefield.

There was no moving him, he was just too large for her and there just wasn't enough time. There was never enough time. He would lay prone on the battlefield, in a field so soaked with blood that the ground bled beneath her feet, until he died.

Until Sesshomaru, the Lord of the West would die. He was dying.

They were all dying, but Sesshomaru was dying.

In her arms, in a land that was not their own, for a fight that wasn't his to begin with Sesshomaru would draw his last breath.

She sort of felt like she was drawing her last breath now, as the realization slowly began to sink in that this was really it, there would be no coming back from this. With her free hand she traced the stripes along his cheeks and the moon on his forehead biting her cheeks so hard that she could taste blood, trying to burn his face – this moment – in her mind's eye. She didn't want to forget a single moment, even one so horrible as this.

"Sess—"

His name caught in her throat, the weight of words unspoken turned her tongue to lead and shut her throat. A sob wracked her frame; she dropped her forehead to his and felt the slickness of blood dribble down her nose.

How can this be real?

She felt his hands on the back of her head, tangling in her hair like he had done almost every day for the last year. He loved her hair, loved how the silky locks slipped through his fingers and the rustling of a breeze sent a tidal wave of scent through the air. With crystal clarity she could still see the look of disbelief on his face as she tried to explain shampoo, and that was why her hair smelled like, "the heaviness in the air before a thunderstorm."

He had asked her if she took him for an idiot. Choking on giggles she took him by the hand and to the bathhouse, washing his silver locks with her "air before a thunderstorm" in a bottle.

Now, he lay in her lap choking on his blood.

She tangled her hands through his hair, the blood had made it hard for her fingers to part through the silver locks and the warmth made bile rise in the back of her throat. She could feel the breath from his lips, the movement, but could not hear his words. His eyes had closed, but a smile curved the corners of his lips.

Her tears slid down his cheeks, she couldn't feel his hand on the back of her head anymore, and pressed a trembling kiss upon the moon.

"Sesshomaru, I swear…"

…that when our lips touch, I can taste the next sixty years of my life…

A/N: No point to this except to relieve a little end of the semester related frustration. Snippet taken from Rudy Francisco's Love Poem Medley