Disclaimer: If I owned InuYasha, I would've sent Kagome back home and probably killed him, 'cause I'm a sucker for tragic love and not fucking up time-space continuums.
Notes: I had no intentions of sinking back into this fandom, but finding out there's only 1.2k fics in the Inukik tag in this site has filled me with a vindictive need to write them together.
The air blows cold, and his ears twitch as the storm approaches. His eyes are turned towards the darkening skies and his nose picks up the faintest scent, just enough to give him pause and dream of autumns long gone.
"Inuyasha?"
"There's something," he murmurs absently, without turning. "In the air. I can..."
Kagome is looking at him, frowning, and he realises he probably can't fool her. His ears turn pink as his gaze softens and he runs a thumb across his nose, coughing.
"We should find somewhere safe to stay tonight," Miroku says, staring at him uneasily. "A storm's coming."
They say nothing else of it, but his mind is already racing, senses attuned and sharp, and searching. The village is close-by, sheltered by tall peaks and mountains that will break most of the currents, and the locals have already prepared against landslides. They manage to stay in a small shed, a courtesy of the villagers' respect for Miroku and what they sense as a benevolent miko. They are provided with food, and as many blankets as can be spared and Inuyasha helps bring down the gates and carry firewood as payment for their kindness.
The skies have darkened, and the sun is quickly disappearing when he picks up the scent once more. Wrinkling his nose he sniffs, and when Kagome steps out, he's gone before she has a chance to stop him.
"Stay inside," he warns her. "I'll be back before the storm hits."
He'd known he had been lying, and can already imagine the look on Kagome's face as he faded into the woods, but this is not something he can easily control. Her anger, he can deal with; knowing Kikyō is close and not going to her though, is beyond him. He claws his way deep into the forest, over the mountain, tracking her down like he used to, before. There is nothing loving about the memory; it is a cruel, pathetic mockery of the lives they have left behind.
When he finally reaches the crux, he slows down. It is an old, run-down temple; the ricepaper windowpanes are broken and a few tiles miss from the roof, but the structure looks sturdy enough to last the night. It's already late, the snowstorm is already upon him and even if his nose could be deceived, his heart cannot. He will find her inside, he knows this, but it doesn't make it any less breathtaking when he does.
She is lying down on the tattered tatami, half-naked from the waist up. Her body glows dimly, but the light offeres no warmth. For a moment he longs to stay there, quietly taking in the sight of her but before he knows it, her name has spilled from his clumsy tongue.
"Kikyō."
Her eyes open slowly, almost lazily.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, face stern. Inuyasha won't answer; she already knows, and the question only puts to evidence just all that lingers between them.
"You're hurt."
He hadn't noticed, until her Shinidamachu came back, bringing with them their eerie light and the souls of the dead. Kikyō looks ashamed for a moment, and he wants to jump at her, shake her, ask her why she didn't call for him. Instead, he sits back as her then-snakes-now-maidens gently pour the souls they have gathered into her, slowly and lovingly nursing her back to some semblance of health, as if they are tending to physical wounds that can heal.
"Leave me," she murmurs, weary. They do not hesitate, fading into their noncorporeal forms and disappearing entirely from his view, though he knows they remain nearby. Kikyō sits up, reaching for the top of her tunic and he reaches for it first, standing and gently placing it upon her bare shoulders.
"You shouldn't have come."
"I couldn't leave you," he says, very quietly. "A storm is coming."
His hands haven't left her shoulders and she places one of her small hands atop his.
"It's already here."
The wind roars and whistles through the cracks in the old temple and she would have shivered, if she hadn't been dead. Inuyasha still stands behind her and slowly pulls her closer, arms wounding tightly around her chest.
"We can brave it," he murmurs into her hair, and they both know he is no longer talking about the storm. "Together."
Her body is different, but as he buries his face in her neck and breathes her in, he can almost pretend it isn't. For a moment she is soft, and pliable, and warm, and she is everything he ever loved. She doesn't say anything when he removes her tunic again, when he parts her hair to expose the elegant column of her neck, or when he bends down gently to kiss her naked shoulder. She smells like earth, and rain, and fragrant flowers on the brink of death, when they are sweetest. Her skin feels velvety, and cool, and he wants to rub her down into stone, and flesh, and bone, and inside his chest his heart breaks, because he cannot.
A small whimper gives him pause and she turns around, facing him with a face made of glass.
"Why did you come for me?" she asks, not ungently, but her eyes hold him fast.
"You keep asking me why," Inuyasha replies. "How can I not? You are..."
"Dead," she says bitterly. "I'm already dead, Inuyasha."
It hits him right in the face, right in the heart and when he shivers it has nothing to do with the cold wind outside.
"... mine," he finishes, and his hands hold her closer, so tightly that she feels as if they could very well be one.
His lips are determined, his breath warm, and sweet. He kisses the top of her head, her long, flowing locks, the pale shoulders that peek under rivers of raven hair. They slide down to the floor and he rubs her arms up and down, up and down, trying to lend her the warmth death has stolen from her. These moments too, are stolen. Kikyō has a different purpose now, and it does not involve loving him. As for him, there is someone out there waiting, braving the storm alone.
"I could've been," she murmurs with lips like paper wings. "I should've been."
"But you are. You said my life belongs to you," he repeats, turning her towards him. His hands frame her face and for a hanyō he is surprisingly gentle, and this stirs another ache inside her chest. "And it does. But you belong to me, too, Kikyō."
The shikigami have started a fire and the warmth that envelops them, seems to soothe them both. In the half-light her body is bathed in gold and orange, and the pallor that was so sweet to him in their youth seems to have returned to her. Here, in his arms, with a fragrant fire burning between them, there is nothing unnatural about Kikyō, and there is nothing unnatural about Inuyasha. She hugs her knees to her chest, guarded, like the child she never was, and gazes at him under thick, dark lashes.
He gazes out the window as the storm beats down forcefully around them, hitting hard from every direction and burying them under feet of cold snow. They are safe for now, and they are together. The souls that often gather around her linger and when her hand touches his back, he cannot suppress a shiver. Come, she says, but her lips do not move.
Closer, so much closer.
This time he kisses her eyes, and when their lips meet it is everything he had ever wanted. He's crying, holding her desperately until her eyes are wet too, and the sounds he makes break her heart anew.
"Stay," he begs. "Just tonight."
He doesn't ask always, and every night; he already knows they are worlds apart. But she is here tonight, and that is all that matters. They settle near the flames, in lumpy, moldy cushions, and he covers them both with his red tunic. And maybe it's the fire, and maybe it's his skin but tonight she isn't cold and he isn't lonely, and Kikyō kisses the corner of his mouth, his jaw, his collarbones. She tastes the salt in his eyes and knows he weeps because she cannot, because he loves her, because tonight is all that they can have.
And Kikyō knows that she will love him, in this life and the next and perhaps another, even if he has been the death of her and always will.
Outside, flower white obliterate, the snow keeps falling.