Author's Note: Twisted.
Disclaimer: I do not own Blake's poem or Inuyasha. I wish I did, though.
Summary: He revels in the pain he causes her. It's a compliment, really.
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THE SICK ROSE
By William Blake
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O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
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Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
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Hurt You
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She finds him in the cave, her dark hair wild and tangled with leaves like a river after a storm.
"You . . . stop . . . make it stop," she gulps in air like a dying fish.
He is sitting in the place where the thief used to lie, draped in purple shadows.
When he says nothing, she collapses to her knees in front of him, hair pooling over her shoulders. Her small mouth is stained from the harsh elements, and she wets it with a dry tongue. Her breathing begins to fall back into rhythm.
For a long time there is no sound in the cave but for the distant moan of the wind. The breath clouds out from her parted lips, smoke for their own private ceremony. Her breath is sacred.
Then, "What is the meaning of your coming here?" asks the voice, rich and deep as gems but just as hard. "I told you to go to the village and wait there."
Leaning on her palms and peering at them in the dark, she replies timidly, "I don't want to do this anymore."
He does not dignify her with a response.
She looks up. "Please. I don't want to hurt them! Why – why don't you just take it from me? Why do you have to – "
The words end in the sound of a swift slap to the cheek. Her face stings as if it's been scorched.
He leans in, and the dim light straggling into the cave casts diagonally over his face. Black locks twist around a glinting red eye. "Now. Back."
She raises her head, slowly. Something wet and clear trickles down her face, stripping away dirt from her wind-burned cheeks. She doesn't move.
The man leans back and sighs, unworried. He watches her for a while, completely relaxed. The long, white legs tremble like a fawn's. The thin air pinches her cheekbones until they glow pink. She mutters to herself. In fact, she is quite endearing. Her very demeanor has the tendency to raise sympathy and protectiveness out of any who cross her. She is an enigma to him, a new frontier waiting to be explored. And she has such trusting eyes.
After a moment, she continues, "I won't – I won't go back."
"So all my threats and promises have lost their value for you?"
"At first – it wasn't so bad. At least I wasn't hurting them."
"What did you assume it would lead to?"
"I . . . I don't know." Her eyes dart shamefully.
He crosses an arm over his chest, raises the other one to cup his chin thoughtfully.
She watches him warily. "Little things – like weaning the kitsune and, and shunning Inuyasha – they seemed a small sacrifice in exchange for . . . for our protection," she finishes in a dull tone, like a stone that's been worn of its shine.
He nods slowly, showing he's listening.
"But this, this impassiveness . . . when they need me the most!" Her voice breaks, ending at a high pitch, and her trembling white hands swipe at her face desperately, trying to gain control of the tears.
He allows her time to compose herself.
She swallows. "I just – I just don't understand why . . .." But her voice fades. She peers questions at him in the dark.
A corner of his mouth twitches upward. "You're becoming too comfortable with me, Kagome, if you mean to understand my motives."
She blanches at the sound of her name. It always sounds dark and sensuous on his tongue.
"But . . . but Kikyo . . .," she whispers, circles the cave with her eyes.
"I am not Onigumo any longer," he responds wryly to the unspoken.
"Still," the girl ventures, "she is more powerful than I am and more tortured."
"But not more beautiful," he states flatly, causing her to double back. He laughs. "Kikyo bores me. I know too much of her soul. It's familiar."
"So . . .." He can see the thoughts gestating in her mind through her eyes. "I'm an experiment."
He laughs again.
"You place me in a fixed environment with certain ingredients and wait to see the outcome."
His expression remains unchanged: cold and stoic, with a touch of cruel humor.
When she speaks again, it is for her purpose only. "You're not after the jewel at all."
He lets this thought register before murmuring. "The forbidden." He traces the soft edge of her jaw with a single finger. She looks made of marble, but for the flash of her throat as she breathes. "What can be more tempting to one than that which he does not know?"
"And – and the meaning of severing me from my friends?" she asks shrilly, her fear and fury summoning this temporary loss of caution.
His hand drops. His furrowed brows betray the intensity with which he now gazes at her.
Kagome traps her breath in the prison of her lungs. She's struck something tender, something that bothers him.
Darkly, lowly, "I want you to need me."
She has lasted this long without bleeding. She presses on. "W-why?"
"So that you will come to me. Always. So that you will ask me before you dare to move, so that you will look for my consent to breathe, so that you will tell me your heart's desires, so that you will have no one but me to find solace in when you despair."
She regrets her boldness immediately. He is being far too open with her.
She leans away, but his large hand grasps her wrist, lurches her forward.
His face approaches hers until their profiles are nearly touching. She can feel his sweltering breath on her numb lips. He confides in a whisper, "I must be able to hurt you."
His eyes swim with the color of blood. She has never seen him so undone.
She dares not struggle. "But you can hurt me. You've always had the power to hurt me."
"No. It's not the same if you let me."
A single tear escapes. But it freezes halfway between its journey from her eye to her chin.
He grasps her beneath the jaw. His cheek slides across hers, his warm tongue slips through the corner of his mouth, thaws the tear away, then returns.
She is crying fully again. But she persists. "Why do you have to hurt me?" the question comes out in a choking sound.
"It's sinful," he speaks contemplatively into her hair, ignoring her inquiry. "Like . . . ripping the petals off of a rose blossom, one by one."
He leans back slowly, still holding her face. Takes in her full demeanor. He wants to harm her the way the hanyou can harm her – with wounds so deep they're invisible.
Squeezing her throat tightly enough to give her a good scare, he asks bluntly, "Have I answered enough questions for tonight?"
She nods, eyes downcast.
He releases his hold on her, almost reluctantly. "Go back to the village and wait."
"I won't obey you any more," she tells him cautiously but resolutely.
"I thought as much."
Her eyes round naively. Then, quickly, she gathers all her wits about her, trying to disguise her insecurity. "I'm not leaving . . . I dare you to move."
Normally, this silly remark would have solicited a smile. She always puts up a good fight. But he is thoroughly tired. In a fluid, graceful movement and the swish of heavy fabric, he lowers himself to the ground. He is lying in the spot where Onigumo did half a century ago. His eyelids cover his bright, gem-like eyes. He sees Kikyou underneath them. There is an imperceptible touch on his shoulder, and the image of one priestess is replaced by another.
He waits for Kagome to say something as her eyes search his face for a weakness. She thinks it is Onigumo. If only it were.
Then, clutching at her chest as if in pain, she rises on feeble legs. He wonders if she'll keep her secret. She may or may not. Either way, he has buried himself into the belly of the rose too deeply to be dug out.
He hears her stumble out of the pebbled cave into the harsh, embracing wind. It mourns for her.
But the sound of it echoes strangely in the cavern. It sounds like a voice - his voice, eerie and hollow, taunting him and making his veins go cold.
Because hurting you is the only way I know how to love.