Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, Rumiko Tahakasi does; nor do I own Don't Speak, which is sung by No Doubt. Please, listen to this song- it gives you quite a good feel for the story...
Don't Speak
He held her close, two hearts beating against each other, one in a rapidly declining pace, the other a fluttering, then clenching, aching irregularity. He felt the liquid warmth of her tears on his neck, her head cradled in there much like her body in his arms, and the staining crimson blood soaking through his clothes to stick to his chest and imprint forever in his memory. A hand feebly held twisted material in a loosening grip, its partner trapped between the crushed torsos. The inhale, exhale pattern from his love slowed, sped, hitched. His hands tightened.
He chanced a look at her face.
You and me
We used to be together
Every day together always
Ivory pale, startlingly white against its bordering midnight black bangs, damp and clinging from the pain put in form: Pain of leaving and hurting the ones she cared most for.
Pain for knowing she was leaving him at last... and she wasn't going to be able to come back.
She opened her vivid eyes, the gray fog creeping over the fading hazel. Lips pulled back in a weak watery grin as another tear trekked down her cheek to pool at her chin and drop unnoticed onto her battered school uniform. Her nose flared, moisture running lacksidasically down to the stressed smile.
"Inu... yasha," she breathed, voice wavering in her tightening throat. "I'm sorry."
"Don't," he commanded, wiping the tears from her face with a feather-light touch. "Don't leave me again, Kagome."
"I'm sorry."
I really feel
I'm losing my best friend
She relaxed in his arms, adding weight to his heavy heart while resting her weary bones. She sniffled lightly, smiling for him, knowing her time was running out. She couldn't and she wouldn't live through this. They both knew it.
Her hand tightened around the Shikon no Tama for a little more time to speak, for the strength she needed to tell him.
"Inuyasha... don't ask me... for the impossible," she plead, never letting her eyes go from his. She committed him to memory at that moment, his eyes sparkling in fear, in pain, in helplessness... In love. "Please don't do it."
Inuyasha shook his head viciously, warding off her words with each toss of his head, banning the tears welling in his eyes from falling. "You can't leave. A week, Kagome... That can't be all we have together after... after Naraku's gone - It can't be-"
"I was... foolish," she whispered. "Foolish to think... I could stand up... to that.."
I can't believe
This could be the end
-Kagome, don't leave me like this- I can't move! You can't protect yourself out there and you know it! You're going to get yourself hurt! I won't be there to help you- Kagome! That's it, I want these beads off - now!-
He heard his voice echo in the back of his mind, wishing that no truth had been in those words, that she would have been fine stomping back to Kaede's by herself. He wished Sango hadn't gone to her village with Miroku and Kirara. He even wished he had let Shippo journey with him and Kagome this time, even if it was just a check up on Jinenji and his mother to tell them about their travels.
'Kagome, you idiot,' he thought affectionately, wiping yet another tear from her face, watching the light of Life dim a bit more, then struggle to flare back...
... for him.
Her grip slackened, her throat visibly clenching as a spasm of pain ran through her. She bit her lip to hold back another gasp.
She smiled...
It looks as though you're letting go
... for him...
"You can't... not now..."
Kagome gulped, licking her lips as her voice croaked, "I can and I am, Inuyasha... You can't stop... this."
And if it's real,
Well I don't want to know
It hurt her, the physical torment, yes, but more so the knowledge of how he felt...
Now he had to show it. Now he let his mask fall. Now he displayed his love and she would only see it in the borrowed time, this stolen time that was growing from seconds to minutes, stretching her pain that jabbed at her with each burning breath.
Now he held her close... and cried.
Her heart's spiderweb cracks splintered and widened, each seem digging into her body, each crevice leaking blood and love in a splendid red river.
To see tears fall from his golden eyes.
"No, you're going to live, Kagome!" he exclaimed irrationally, his lips curling into a snarl. "Are you listening! You'll live!"
"I love you."
Don't speak
I know what you're saying
"K-Kagome..."
She let her hold on his Fire-Rat robe fall, clasping his hand that rested on her cheek and pulling it to her lips, closing her eyes as she kissed the palm moistened with her tears. Was this it? Was this the last time she'd feel him so close, so real, so rightfully ever-present?
She opened her eyes, gazing up through the forming tunnel above her. He sat staring with wide, frightened eyes. His beauty captured her there in her death throes, his silver hair luminescent as his amber eyes, triangular fur ears a cotton-to-silk transition from his main. His sharp, angular face and sloping nose so close yet so far away...
"We've both known... Don't... play it off now," she ordered. Words were becoming hard for her to utter.
A ghost of a smile graced his features, already perfect in her eyes. "... Yeah, we've known."
"Tell me."
The command came out as a whimper, eyes watering with pain, eyes sliding closed in preparation for death. She just needed to hear it, just once.
"You aren't going to die."
She cried, wishing he'd stop the useless declarations and tell her what she needed to hear. "Inuyasha, please, tell me..."
"You aren't-"
"It hurts, Inuyasha!" Kagome sobbed, "it hurts to hear... we both know it's not true!"
So please stop explaining
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
Don't speak
I know what you're thinking
Inuyasha fell silent, watching her face twist in pain, her eyes squeezing shut as tight as possible, tears leaking from the corners. Her face had paled even farther, her body growing colder in his embrace as the seconds wore on. The blood continued to soak through their clothing, leaving a lasting mark that would forever bond him to her, heart and mind and soul...
And he'd be alone with a bond that threaded itself from life to nonexistence.
'Oh, Kagome, you feel just like...'
-Why did you betray me, Inuyasha?-
"It hurts, so much..."
I don't need your reasons
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
"I'm so sorry, Kagome," he whispered, finally, holding her more closely, burying his face in her ruffled hair. Struggling to hold back a sob that threatened to rack his body almost violently, he breathed in her scent, letting his thoughts drift.
Her room had always smelled of the first day of frost, iced over with a slight juniper tang. Her scent- Juniper and frost... It wasn't the field and meadows of Sango, or the backwater swap of Kaede, or the spring blossoms of Kikyo... It was her own, unique in every way - from it's impurity of sweat and the way it mixed and mingled with his own.
Now, it was covered over by salty water and death.
Yet, he'd always remember the frosted juniper he tracked her by when in Tokyo or that he inhaled when she rested around the campfire with Shippo on her stomach and a peaceful or troubled expression on her face. He'd remember the way her scent flared we they were uncomfortably close, or the joy that flooded it when she wrapped her arms around him from behind and he hooked his hands underneath her thighs to settle her for the run ahead of them, or the excited coloring it got when she saw him again after her three-day break back home, no matter the scowl she put on her face. Or the different flavors of love that were ever present, for him, for Shippo, for Sango and Miroku...
Still, mostly for him.
He'd still remember her smiles; the smiles that lit up his day and made him scowl and glare all the more. Then there were the fights, so bitter-sweet. Then he could look back on the battles- where she saved him or he saved her, or both were powerless and called on help from their companions.
The same companions who weren't there when they were needed the most.
His sorrow dwindled as misplaced hatred flared.
They weren't there to protect her when he couldn't!
He couldn't protect her because she had spelled him into the ground...
She had spelled him into the ground because he had opened his big mouth and sputtered nonsense that obviously wasn't appealing.
It was his fault.
Blame was switching hands faced, and each time, the inner flare dwindled to self-loathing and pity.
"Kagome... Remember when I woke from my enchantment... and that centipede trapped you to the tree with me?" He whispered into her hair, the strands moving to tickle his nose. He felt her head bob down in a nod. "I didn't know what to think, then. My whole body just needed to help you, yet I hated you... I hated you in the depths of my soul because you were wearing her skin... I can't imagine it now, though. I just know I felt that way. Now, I can't feel it. I haven't since Yura attacked. Since you tried to help me... And now..."
His hands fisted into her arms, strong to the point of bruising. But he knew... She couldn't feel it... She couldn't feel the pain anymore.
"And now," he choked, the sobs breaking lose from their entrapment in his throat. "And now-"
Our memories
They can be inviting
But some are altogether
Mighty frightening
"-And now, I can't do anything to help you!"
Her breath hitched again with the alarm. Her mind comprehended his words, no matter how dizzy she was becoming. His scent lingered in her nose, just barely recognizable, but there. Wild and free, like a forest after a light drizzle of revitalizing precipitation. Oh, how she'd miss that smell.
"I feel it, Kagome, I do," he had continued to say. "I feel like I'm dying..."
She only dipped her head a bit more. Her death, it was the same as if he died- to both of them. Her death to him meant the death of everything beautiful in his life, everything worth living for. To her, it was his death because she knew it hurt him that much, and that pained her all the more.
As we die, both you and I
With my head in my hands
I sit and cry
"It hurts so much, Kagome."
"Inuya-"
Don't speak
I know what you're saying
So please stop explaining
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
His eyes squeezed shut tighter when his name was cut off abruptly, her voice lingering in the air. It was a haunting melody, the way the forest buzzed with nocturnal life to contrast with the dying breath of his love.
"Kagome... I'll bring you back..."
Even in her week state, she pulled away to look at him. He let another tear roll by at the darkness clouding her eyes now. She frowned.
"Don't..."
"Why? The Shikon-"
She stopped him with a whisper, "because... I don't want... to be... like..."
Don't speak
I know what you're thinking
I don't need your reasons
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
"Shhh," Inuyasha hushed, pulling her against him once more. He didn't need to hear it.
-Why did you betray me, Inuyasha?-
No, he didn't need to hear it again...
"I'm... sor-sorry... I hope... next time you meet me- this soul- that... you'll be happy like we were... that you'll live and grow old together..."
It's all ending.
I gotta stop pretending who we are...
"Next time our souls meet, we will... I promise you, Kagome..."
He could sense it, the fading. Her strength, even relying on the Shikon no Tama as it had, was burned out at last. A light was darkening- a light of joy, of happiness, of life, of love. It was slowly being draped in black nothingness, cold and heavy and damp, lifeless. Unfeeling.
"Please, Inuyasha..." Her breath was ragged, worn and now useless. It would no longer work for her.
-I love you. We've both known... Don't... play it off now. Tell me.-
She's holding on for me... She's been holding on for me to say it...
But can I tell her if she's going to just leave me!?
Don't speak
I know what you're saying
So please stop explaining
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
"Kagome," he breathed, leaning away to look her in her eyes one last time. She looked back steadily, a sharp spark igniting a brief second to die away again. Her loving smile was slowly slipping. He'd remember her this way. Out of everything else, he'd remember her half-smile and sparking eyes filled with genuine love. He'd remember her with the blood soaking her shirt, her chest barely rising, but falling deeply. He'd remember the teary streaks on her cheeks, her puffy red eyes, her clinging bangs, her pale, colorless face.
He'd remember the death staring him in the face welcomingly, lovingly, longingly.
Longing to stay alive...
Telling him... Stay alive! You must live! Live for me...
Don't speak
I know what you're thinking
She saw him, felt him surrounding her, sensed him holding her. But her vision was cloudy and the color had drained away, smoggy black at the edges.
But she saw his golden eyes. And she heard his voice.
She saw him understand.
I don't need your reasons
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
"I love you, too, Kagome," he whispered, lowering his head to plant his lips against hers in one last farewell.
Farewell to love.
I know what you're saying
So please stop explaining
Don't speak
Don't speak
Don't speak
I know what you're thinking
I don't need your reasons
I know you're good
I know you're good
I know you're really good
He felt her smile against his lips, felt the Shikon no Tama throb and call to be used then fall silent and gray before disappearing, felt her life slip through his fingers as he sat in the forest clearing, the moonlight pooling around them.
He felt and she no longer would.
He smiled and she no longer would.
He lived, he loved, he laughed, and she lay still in his arms, smiling peacefully with closed eyes.
She no longer would.
And that's just how she wished- Inuyasha would live and love again.
... Two strangers would meet a thousand years from now...
"I promise, Kagome..."
... In this exact field.
A/N: This is an hour's worth of writing... I hope you enjoyed it. It was a spontaneous thing, like most of my work, so the description dwindles quite a bit, but I like how it turned out, so I'm sticking with the way it is right here. Please, don't hold that against me!
Have a great day!
Sakura-chan88