Title: Unfair

Author: Personification of Fluff, September 2007

Rating: PG, because I like being on the safe side.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Inuyasha. The fact that I can screw with them like this is just a loophole that I extort often.

Summary: Just something that actually occurred to me when I read the chapters about Sango fixing her weapon, but it took me until now to get it out. Yakurou Dokusen gave Miroku the ability to not feel pain, but what if it came at a price that, given Miroku's rashness to drink it to help Sango, he never had a chance to warn Miroku about?

It wasn't fair.

But then, when was anything to do with Houshi-sama ever fair?

It wasn't fair that he was so smart, or too smug for his own good, or so interested in women, or his curse, or the way he seemed to enjoy life the most out of all of us, and I find myself thinking that perhaps, even without the curse, he would be the type of man to enjoy the most out of life. It's unfair that his gorgeus blue eyes dance the way they do when he looks at me, or how it makes all my defenses drop, and it's unfair that he's been known to take advantage of that fact.

It's unfair that I finally find out, only now, how much he's gone through to protect me. It's unfair that now I begin to see how much Houshi-sama loves me.

I felt my bottom lip beginning to shake and I knew that if I didn't gain control of my whirling mind I was going to burst out with a sob. Only with him.Only with Houshi-sama could I have become such a mess so quickly! It wasn't fair. I managed to do so, but I still felt myself back up into a tree as I struggled to stay standing. "How long ago? When did it get so far?"

"Last week," he said, hanging his head in shame. He was ashamed too, bless his poor confused little heart! I think he was expecting the angry, retaliating blow that we both knew should have been coming. Didn't angry girls always hit the boy that made them mad? According to Kagome they did. But I had no strength to lift my head, and so eventually he lifted his head to look at me.

His hair was damp—he had from a quick dip in a cold river. He was only half dressed. Shippo had seen the shouki wounds when Miroku had been bathing and had run to tell me. He, at least, had the decency to think that I should know, as Houshi-sama's fiancée, how far the wounds had become. I needed to see for myself, and now I did. They came to just above the center of his chest, almost perpendicular to his Adam's apple. I couldn't stand to look at it. It marred his beautiful body, and mocked me!

"But, there was no pain, no warning sign… why didn't you tell Kagome, or Kaede?" My voice was escalating. My fear and worry and sadness and guilt had all bundled together into anger—the righteous kind that burned hot and fierce, with explosive potency. When my Houshi-sama looked away again, his level blue eyes gazing at the horizon, I knew. "You did tell them, didn't you? And you swore them to secrecy to keep me from finding out, is that it? We're supposed to be engaged, Houshi-sama! Is this what you would be like as a husband, keeping secrets from me?"

"No, no, never!" He was vehement, perhaps thinking I was suggesting he was going to be unfaithful again, and maybe I was. But then he realized that despite how earnestly he protested, he already was keeping secrets from me. My question had been merely rhetorical. "I just didn't want to worry you."

What hurt the most was that he was being honest. How could I be mad at him for being honest and worrying about me? I shook my head, confused, and trying to clear it. My voice was close to cracking, though the fury inside of me was still growing strong—I suppose that over the last year I've grown better at dealing with my anger with Miroku. When once it was like a bursting volcano, now it was no more than sparks, even when perhaps I had the right to be furious with him. "Could they do anything for you?"

"No."

My hands clenched with the next thought. My back wouldn't leave the tree trunk. "What about the pain. Could Kagome do anything about that?" I could recall how much pain he had been in when he had first been poisoned by the shouki. When it stopped, I thought it had been a miracle. It frightened me to think that he had been dealing with that—with worse than that—silently for so long.

He was silent a long time. I took a cautious step or two forward, the leaves from the soil crunching beneath my sandals. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bouncing, and then he looked at me directly. He looked guilty. "There is no pain, Sango."

"What do you mean, Houshi-sama?"

And then he told me what he had done. I stared at him, and looking back on it now, I hope that I wasn't too terrified. He smiled at me weakly, like a puppy who wagged it's tail as it waited for the yelling and the blows to fall. I did neither, but kept staring at him, and I wished again for the safety of that tree pressing into my back to keep me afloat. Instead I felt his hand on my shoulder, steadying me a little as I swayed on my feet.

"Nothing? You mean… absolutely nothing? No pain—not even if you stub your toe or get cut?" I licked my lips nervously, and for once the lecher was too intent on the conversation between us to notice. It was silly for me to ask, I know, but I felt like I needed to know. I felt like something precious had been taken from me, and I had been too preoccupied to even notice, and so now I groped for it, praying that it was still there—our safe and reassuring bantering. "Not even when I slap you for groping me, or hit you when you flirt with other women?"

I think he knew how much that banter had meant for me. He shook his head, small drops from his wet bangs landing on the dry fall leaves between us. "Not even that, Sango."

It was my turn to lower my head. "You idiot. People are supposed to feel pain. It's how you know that you're still alive. If you can't even feel that, how do you know when you're dead?" I shook my head, lifting my hands to dry my eyes. Luckily, they were too teary to see that my hands were shaking. "You're such a hypocrite, Houshi-sama. You told me that yourself, and then when your opportunity knocks…"

"Sango…" It's unfair the way he says my name. He should have let me rant, but the way he always whispers it so delicately always makes me stop. Miroku, like me, knows the power of names. I keep his hidden, tucked away where he can never hear me say it, and he uses mine like a charm to draw me in and drown me in those blue eyes. I looked up, but only to his chin. I didn't want to be drowned. He pulled me into his arms and pulled me tightly. His voice was a whisper between us.

"Sango, even the pain from the kazaana is gone. I've never felt more alive in my life, except for possibly the times when I was alone with you." He chuckled and it echoed in my stomach, even though by now I really was crying. "I was so excited at every instance, always thinking that I was going to get to kiss you, or hear you say my name for the first time… Sango, there was a side effect."

I lifted my head and stared at his chin again. I've spend a lot of time staring at his chin. There is a small scar on one corner of his chin—from what, I don't know. I doubt other people even know it's there. "What do you mean there was a side effect?"

He pushed me from him enough to lift up my chin, forcing me to see his whole face. I didn't fight it—I knew not to fight it. The way he touched me, so gently, made me not want to fight it. His eyes were sad, there sparkled of life gone for now. I think he looked sad—I think he looked lonely. "As a result of drinking the potion, I can't feel anything."

My fear gripped my words, making them tiny. "Anything?"

"I can feel neither the sting of a sword, nor the wind on my face, nor…" He paused for a moment, and his fingertips gently dusted my face free of my tears. His expression softened, and I saw the blatant longing—not the lustful looks he had caught now and then, but a yearning for something so much simpler. His words were a shudder. "Nor your skin against mine."

I felt cold. "Nothing?" He shook his head. His hand fell away. "Nothing at all? Nothing ever—nothing ever since then? All those times you groped me, or the times we were along and you touched me accidentally, or stroked my hair… nothing? You could feel none of that?"

"I could feel none of that… but I could remember. And I can imagine! I've spend enough nights laying awake and thinking… wondering…" For a moment he was lost in daydreams and then he came back to the cold reality.

"Why?" I pulled out from under his grip, balling my fist and taking an aggressive stance. "Why would you do something like that? Whatever would posses you to do something like that?"

"It's not like I knew that there would be side effects! I was just told it would take away my pain!" he yelled back, defensive now that I had risen my voice and was crying in front of him. Houshi-sama hated seeing me cry.

"So, what, you just wanted a way out of the pain?"

"No! No, I wanted a way to protect you, Sango!"

I turned and began to walk away from the escalating fight, shaking my head. I was almost spitting with anger. "I'm a fighter, Houshi-sama, like Inuyasha! I don't need to be protected! I can protect myself! You should have been worrying about yourself too, and less about me."

He flinched; I had hurt him, but his anger was not burnt through yet. Miroku was slow to anger, but when he did become mad it burned like my own. When we were both mad we had been known to have explosive fights, like this one. Houshi-sama darted forward to grab my arm before I could leave him. I didn't fight it when he pulled me back. "You're also a woman, Sango, and the woman I love. I wanted to protect you because I love you, and I couldn't do that if I couldn't fight myself. Surely you couldn't understand that, Sango. Can't you?"

"Yes," I said, looking away. I could understand that—I could even understand why he was unable to let me protect him and be satisfied with that. It was hard; it was frightening. It made you feel powerless. I kept looking away, long enough that Houshi-sama worried.

"Sango?" It was probing. "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm wondering, Houshi-sama…."

"Wondering about what?" He lifted a hand to stroke my hair gently, brushing strands of it back into place. I think he was trying to be comforting.

I turned to look at him slowly and I slipped my arm from his grip. He let me go. My eyes went to his, and I was not afraid of being drowned. His eyes were as haunting, as hypnotizing as ever, but my walls were up, leaving me untouched by his gaze. "I'm wondering, Houshi-sama, how you could ever need me now when you know that I could never please you—not in the way a wife could please her husband. How can you ever want to be with me when you know that?"

"I told you… I love you. I don't care if I can't feel you when I touch you. I just… I want to be with you. Always."

"I know you do, but can I be with you when I would never be giving back to you? I want to be, oh so much! I want to be with you. I want to have your children, Houshi-sama, and I want a future with you…" I glanced down at his chest and pointed. "But even that seems to be growing impossible again."

"Then maybe we won't have forever," he admitted after a heavy moment, his deep voice liquid smooth again, as if we had never fought. "But we have right now, Sango. We have the present, and I'm here with you... I can't feel you, but I am any way."

He was right. He was here now, with me. I remember the pot into which I climbed; I remembered what I told hiraikotsu. If I pushed him away, even knowing that when I kissed him he couldn't feel him; if I rested my head on his chest, I was weightless; if he caressed me, I was nothing but the wind, that I truly would die. He had made me love him, and to nothing now could keep me from him. It was unfair that he was so easy to love.

I stared at him. My walls were still up, but I threw myself into those deep blue eyes anyway. What did it matter if we didn't have forever? My Houshi-sama was right. We were here now, and he was still with me even if he couldn't feel me. I leaned forward and I kissed him; he kissed me back, so overwhelmingly that he been able to feel my kiss and responded in full I think I might have died from it.

It wasn't fair.

It was never fair with Miroku.