A/N: Okay, so lemons aren't really my deal. I prefer the more subtle bits of romance, but I was reading Inuyasha a while ago and started this, and I had to come back and finish it. I do that a lot. I'm not sure I love the title, but give me your thoughts on it anyway.
Once I finish my current long-term FanFic projects, I might add some chapters to this, but for now I think it stands well as a oneshot.
Anyway, read on.
Disclaimer: Not anyone of importance. At all. Seriously. The most influential thing I own is my mp3 player, and that's only because I bring the party with my speakers.
Such Pretty Lies
He had made her a palace in the stone.
She was used to the comfort of worldly things, of cushions and spring-mattresses, not of the heaps of straw and pallates they used to sleep; to them the most comfortable bed, to her, the most lowly of places. So he set about retrieving the things that she longed for, though she would never say it. He brought her fine wood tables and tatami mats for the cold stone floors and tapestry coverlets and things to make her comfortable, as long as she would remain his.
And each day he returned with more and more riches, she would not smile at him, nor would she congratulate him for the bounty he retrieved from the villages he'd slaughtered. She would look at him with her fast-emptying eyes and say, 'I would like to leave.'
And he would reply; 'You are mine. You shall remain.'
And she would fall silent, and retreat from the flea-ridden wolves den and curl up on her mattresses and goosedown covers and fluffy pillows and seek the sleep that would alleviate the pain.
She felt like a character in a fairy tale, the heroine trapped in a tower who asked her keeper each day the same question, receiving the same answer. But in fairy tales, a few sentences transcended the years, and the days dragged for her, and no sentence she could speak would make the time run faster.
After a while, the fighting stopped, and she grew accustomed to being called 'Nee-san' and sleeping even in her palace with the stench of wolves, and she grew used to his hungry eyes and, though it took so much longer, she resigned herself to the fact that Inuyasha would not return for her.
After days and days of vacancy, the light came to her eyes once more as she began tidying the lair in the sheer-rock cliff. She chucked out the bones that the wolves nibbled on, fashioned herself a broom of a stick and lengths of straw, and swept dusty debris out, organized everything. The men of the Cave of Wolves grew fond of her despite themselves, and slept better on fresh-straw pallets that no longer swarmed with fleas.
She had stopped her pleading to be returned home for weeks, resigning herself to this life. She was stubborn, and sure Inuyasha had decided to leave her; to let the bothersome girl he could barely put up with alone and collect the fragments himself.
It was on that day when in the branch of the cave that housed the hot spring used for bathing, Kagome, naked as a child, allowed herself to give in to the simple pleasure of a warm bath, and cleanliness. On Kouga's strict demand, no one visited the hot spring while Kagome did so, even though many of them had cultivated more than a brotherly affectation for her. However, since she was, 'his woman', a title she abhorred, he sat in the cave-darkness beyond the spiderweb cracks in the ceiling that let the light in and admired her nakedness.
She was quite slim, her already slight figure made smaller by the effort it took to prepare food suitable for her to eat in the fireless place: the only warmth the men there knew was the wolves as they slept among. One of her thighs was self consciously slid over the other even in supposed private, hiding the secret she shared with the women of the world. Her moon-pale legs were smooth as silk, unmarred by hairs, when he had marveled at this and queried over it she had mumbled something about wax.
By the wolf, he wanted to take her there and then.
But even the kisses they shared were chaste and careful, her cheeks not aflame with the embarrassment and pleasure that came from enjoying a kiss, but pale and lifeless, her smile tight as she stepped away from him and paced down to where she slept, her nest of opulence in a place of squalor. She would never let him . . . and he would never have her hate him.
All of a sudden, with quick, graceful movements that made him jump slightly, she righted herself in the water and moved like a ghost through the water, white and beautiful, her toes hovering just above the black bottom.
He noticed, with a sick feeling, that her clothes were at the edge of the pool closest to him. He pulled his legs close and watched her with a dulled worry as she collected them, sliding the perplexing two-pieced undergarment she insisted upon wearing about her chest and clasping it. Using a large swatch of her cloak as something of a towel, she carefully dried herself and folded it upon the ground, bending double. Kouga couldn't help it, her mostly-nakedness in the dim light of the hot spring caused him to fall back against the stone, his breath hitching.
A bow and quiver slid out from where they hid beneath clothes, Kagome nocking one and sighting along the shaft of the arrow in a matter of seconds. A fertility goddess, splendid in her plain nakedness, whose hand on her arrow relaxed as she recognized her viewer, but her expression did not. Her voice was cold when she spoke.
"What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like?" he asked with unflappable confidence. "I was watching you bathe. You're quite beautiful, Kagome."
"Thank you," she said tonelessly, returning her arrows to their quiver and setting down her bow.
"Why do you carry that
around? We can protect you."
Her eyes were bleak as she
regarded him. "I'm tired of being protected."
He reached forward, seeking her bare shoulder, but she stepped away. She would fall into the spring if wasn't cautious.
"Careful," he said. "You might fall."
"I will not," Kagome said in that same monotone. He wanted to make her voice full of passion once more, like it was when she shouted his name; concerned in battle; Inuyasha! He wanted her to—no, that was wrong already—he wanted her.
Moving quickly, he stepped forward and pressed his mouth to hers. In this blinking moment they were already further than they had ever been, and she did not fight back as he pulled her with surprising gentleness from the waters edge. He wasn't separated from her by more than the thick fur they used as clothing, and he was sure she could feel his arousal through it.
She didn't object or struggle when she was laid down on the cold stone floor, and he thought he might have been able to fool himself into thinking she kissed him back for a second before he broke away, fumbling with his clothes, determined to achieve nakedness.
Kagome, who'd had an inkling from the beginning, felt fear and anxiety build in her stomach. She'd always been so attracteed to Kouga . . . but she wasn't sure she wanted . . . whatever would happen. And without fail it would happen.
Strangely, even though she didn't want it, she wasn't opening her mouth to object. She knew she'd be heeded. She knew he'd draw away and pretend like it had never happened. And yet she couldn't bring herself to opening her mouth and telling him off.
She stared vacantly at the ceiling for these few seconds, lost in thought, when something jammed itself into the unexplored part of her body, and the pain and absolute pleasure it brought only intensified her halved status. In any case, between the two, a moan escaped her lips, and all the things she'd learned in Sex Ed came together; her mystification of why teens wanted sex that badly, of why people didn't use condoms or check that they knew the person they were ferrying into a corner in the haste to do the deed.
In and out of the hole she'd only just really realized was there finalized the matter, she didn't want him to stop. Not sure she was able to.
"K-Kouga!" she stutter-moaned his name almost instinctively, and her eyes were half-open enough to see the happiness shoot across his face as he answered with a groan of her name.
In, out, back, forth, thrust, thrust, thrust.
The pain she'd initially felt proved to be soon drowned by the pleasure, and her cries of his name grew louder as the feelings in the pit of her stomach grew stronger.
(The two, in the midst of what could be called 'passion'; failed to notice the mortified wolf-youkai standing at the mouth of the cavern, watching the lovemaking with stunned bemusement and yet seemingly unable to tear themselves from the sight.)
He put his entire legnth into the curious new section of her body, and the dampness there increased as she felt something come out of him and into her. That was the seed, she realized. Holy fuck. She might end up pregnant.
Too euphoric to really care much. They lay next to each other, panting their satisfaction. Kagome was suddenly struck by the thought of Inuyasha walking in on them like this, naked as children though certainly not as innocent, his rage and hurt and sulkiness. The delicious feeling of being wanted, if half-heartedly by one, by two men filled her, perversely.
Not for the first time she craved Inuyasha and pushed him away from her thoughts all the same. He hadn't come to rescue her. Guess Kikyou was better the entire time. Better superior clay and bone than low-grade flesh and blood, she supposed. It swung the same way with Inuyasha; better high-born hanyou than small-fry youkai.
What about Kouga? Should she really just keep on holding off any semblance of happiness she might have waiting on a phantom? She might not adore Kouga, but he was, if not nice, then enthralling. And kidnapping her had been an act of passion, something Inuyasha only ever enacted when he was protecting her.
Besides, now that Naraku was done, he really didn't have much of a reason to leave her for extended periods of time, at least often, seemed to like being around her, loving her, not yell at her constantly for various trespasses and swing moodily from one, making her lie to make him feel better.
She was good at lying, no matter what Inuyasha said.
Kagome turned her head slightly and watched Kouga watching her. Their arms were still entwined, and both of them were aching and sated.
"I love you," she whispered.
Such pretty lies she spoke.
Hey! Leave me a review! Please! Can I use any more exclamation points! Obviously!
Love,
Vacancy