Elegant Nightmares
CagedRaven
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"Here is the document you requested earlier, sir."
"Thank you, Higurashi."
She waited, waited for him to look at her like he always had done in the past few months, but nothing came. It was strange, he didn't smile, and his eyes didn't glow like they had. That she knew of, his amber eyes never fell on her. Maybe their short fight had ruined the whole relationship, not even they words "we can still be friends," was said – though she doubt if they indeed had it would not have meant much.
"If that is all, I would like to leave a little earlier today."
"Yes, that's fine." Inuyasha said, his eyes never leaving the paper.
Maybe it was better this way…
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She hadn't had any dreams either. If it was a good thing or bad, she didn't know. The one's she did have were usually based around Inuyasha so that may have something to do with it.
She lit a cigarette, blowing the gray smoke up to her ceiling and watched it sit there in the air until it slowly dissolved. It reminded her of the smoke that came out of a muffler on a car. She could see it; the car just sitting there in the street, the nasty smoke – succeeding in killing the earth faster, her vision slowly darkening until it is completely consumed in a black fog. For reasons unknown to her everything reminded her of car…
Maybe it had something to do with her new found fear towards them.
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"Sue isn't here again today."
There was an enigma surrounding Sue's absence, no one knew why she was out and from what she could tell, no one cared. It was like Sue didn't exist.
She hated admitting it but this feeling making her shoulders shag was loneliness. Inuyasha wouldn't talk to her, Sue wasn't here, and besides them no one else really talked to her – her other co-workers were too intimated. Missing a friendship she didn't even know she owned; what nerve she had.
'I need a smoke.'
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Why was she sitting here? That had been the one question running through her head the whole time she was in the company of her family. Her mother nagged her about her smoking habits, over demanding job, and her ring-less finger just as she always had in the past. Nothing had changed.
Souta, her brother, was neither annoying nor comfort. He didn't pick a side in the conversations. He never agreed with her mother and yet he didn't try to disagree with her either. Nothing had changed with him also.
It was because of that same, never changing mood that she didn't understand why she was even with them after it had taken her years to get away.
"Kagome, pass the salt for your brother."
She hated that her arm moved without her knowing; she hated that she listened.
She watched them, absentmindedly toying with her fork. Their eyes never left the plates before them. Their lips only opening to allow more food in.
'Nope, nothing will even change here. I am more sure of that than anything else in my life.' She thought, popping a forkful of pasta into her awaiting mouth.
Her eyes moved off her boring family and to the world outside the window. Her brows creased in puzzlement. The sky hadn't changed much either, it was still gray…
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He had called her into his office. She wondered what the problem could have been seeing as how lately he didn't want her fingerprints on any files. She walked slowly there, closing the door after herself just as he had asked her to do.
"Oh, Kagome."
How'd he get behind her so fast? Why were his lips near her ears and his hands on her hips; and why was he calling her by her first name?
"Excuse me?" She glared at him, pushing him away roughly. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Inuyasha's expression was filled with confusion. "Are you feeling alright, Kagome?"
She held up her index finger as her brow moved in fury, "No, I am not! I would like to know why you were about to feel up on my ass and why on earth you are calling me by my first name."
"But we always do this during your lunch break, everyday of the work week." He answered nonchalantly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"I have done no such thing, I would never do this with a boss much less one that is younger than me and has no respect." She said, gathering her features back to their indifferent state. "Besides, we haven't been talking, going out after work, or anything else."
She could see that the puzzlement hadn't left his mind, "What are you talking about? You and I only have sex because we want to…"
She didn't say anything; her face didn't move a single muscle. She walked up to Inuyasha and slapped him hard, an echo filled the room.
"I quit." She turned away from him, walking back out the door and whispered "Asshole" under her breath as she slammed it closed.
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That's right; she had quit her job about a week ago after the ass had suggested they have a fling – in his office of all places. Then, on top of that, he had the effrontery to deny what he had done in the earlier weeks and continue to proclaim that she had wanted sex with him. She hoped that her slap had knocked his head clean off his neck.
She breathed in the gray smoke filling her room, coughing a little as it tickled her throat.
She wanted him to be the headless chicken again, and her, the fly on the wall watching it all happen.
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This wasn't her bed, her room, her home; the closet wasn't even filled with her clothes. Where the hell was she?
Nothing made sense, nothing seemed to anymore. Everything was changing way too quickly for her. No, not too quickly, it was just… not natural.
She had quite. She remembered quitting, slapping Inuyasha, packing her things and storming out of the building. All of it. But here she was, sitting at her desk, doing her work, not even remembering how she got there. On top of it Inuyasha didn't recall any of the things she had told him of. It was all very strange; and the sky was still gray…
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"Good morning Mrs."
"Good morning Mrs."
"Oh, hello, miss; do you need help with anything?"
If she heard these people call her 'Mrs.' one more time she would cut off all there heads and drain out every drop of blood.
Her morning had already started off on horribly, waking up in Inuyasha's bed. At the moment she just wanted to see him.
"Oh, Mrs.!" Sue called happily, finally returning from her unknown vacation.
"Give me a second, Sue, I need to speak with Inuyasha." She paused in mid step, turning around to face Sue. "Wait, why did you call me Mrs.?" Sue had never called her that.
"Huh? Is this a joke? You asked us all to all you that after the wedding, seeing as how Inuyasha is surname-less."
"What?" She yelled, taking a step back. "Wedding; since when have I been married?"
Sue wrinkled her brows, "Last summer… are you feeling alright?"
She looked down at her left hand and there sat a diamond ring, she was sure it wasn't there that morning.
"Married…?"
"Do you have morning sickness or something?" Sue wondered aloud, forcing her t sit in a chair.
"Morning sickness? Does this mean you think I'm pregnant too?" Kagome shouted.
"Uh, you told us you were last week…"
'Oh my god!' She cried in her head, grabbing fistful hands of her hair. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed everything would just go away.
"Mrs.?" Sue called her, her voice sounded miles away. She wanted it to go further, so far that Sue's voice couldn't be heard anymore. She imaged the gray sky that had never left over the past few months, she imaged the way her life had once been so carefree and how, possibly, her life would remain. She closed her eyes tighter and tighter, her vision blurred, mixing colorful dots together until black consumed her eyesight. It was the most failure thing she had seen in a long time.
A steady beeping sounded and gradually become louder, as if she was coming up from water; along with any other noises she couldn't give a name. She blinked open her brown eyes, not prepared for the bright light, and groaned as she lifted up her hand to block it out. The simple movement shot a pain throughout her body and left her gasping in pain, breathing in a funny smell and tasting it on her tongue, it made her feel nauseous.
"Higurashi?"
She looked over to her right through teary eyes; she wasn't expecting to see him there. She tried to speak but her throat was too dry for an words to come out, her esophagus felt like it had been left in the desert for years and only now put back into her body.
"I'll be right back, alright?"
She watched him leave the room, a room that wasn't hers. The near white walls and colorless blankets with small, leather seats told her it was a hospital room. Had everything she gone through been just a dream?
'So then that beeping…' she tilted her head back and looked over to the large square machine hanging off the wall keeping track of her heart rate. '…and that smell…' she looked down at the oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth. The smell of fresh oxygen wasn't the greatest smell in the world.
He came back in with a woman dressed in a normal nurse's uniform, dull white and red scrubs; in her hand was a needle. She came around and injected whatever it was into the IV line and smiled down at her,
"That should help with the pain."
Her eyes followed the yellow tinted liquid all the way until it entered her body. She could feel it instantly. It forced her muscles to relax and her eye lids to become heavy. She heard him thank the exiting nurse and sit back down into the seat beside her bed.
"How…" she rasped out, "How did I end up here?"
"You don't remember?"
She shook her head slightly from side to side.
"They say you were hit by a car."
That could be true, it was defiantly how she felt.
"I'm sorry, if I had been there-"
"It still would have happened, most likely." She whispered.
The room was silent save for the repetitious beeping. Inuyasha fisted his hands under his chin and let his eyes fall to the ugly tiled floor.
"Shouldn't you be at work?" she asked.
"I took the week off; I would have done it again and again until you woke up."
Her cheeks had a fine dusting of pink coating them as her face was pointed up to the ceiling. "Asshole,"
Inuyasha smiled, she was back to her old self.
"You shouldn't say something like that seeing as how we were acting towards each other before I got run over."
"What do you mean? Lovers always have little arguments, but at times like these its best to forget about our differences."
"No, its best to understand why we ended up that way to begin with, and were not lovers." She said, coughing a little.
"You shouldn't talk so much, rest. I'll see if I can get you some water."
She tried to make him stop but he continued to walk out the door. Maybe water was a good idea; her throat could really use it. Inuyasha came back with a cup of ice.
"They said no water - the pain killers will make you have an upset stomach- so I got you a cup of ice instead – which they 'Okayed'. It's the same thing though, why you could just have the water, I'll never understand."
She took the ice willingly - slipping it under her mask- sucking on the tiny cubes until they melted in her mouth. They were better then nothing.
When her throat was a little bit better and the soreness less noticeable she asked, "Are you going to tell me your side of the argument?"
"Are you going to tell me yours?" he retorted.
"There's nothing for me to say, one day you just changed and had little to nothing to say to me, instead enjoying to outside world more – looking out of windows and such every chance your got." She said, her face holding onto its indifferences. "I grew tired of it so I walked away."
"I was thinking…" he said, letting the sentence hang in the air. When it was clear he wasn't going to say anything else she pushed for more.
"Thinking of what?"
"You and me, my mother, all that."
Was this a joke? He wasn't thinking of proposing to her, was he? If that was the case she would easily smash his hopes and dreams right here and now.
"You see, my mother is sick, the doctors think its cancer but their not too sure yet. I wanted her to meet you before… incase something happened to her. I just didn't know how or when to really ask you something like that."
So that was it, that's the reason behind his silence at their dinner dates. How unfortunate for his family to be having such a hard time. If she hadn't been in a hospital bed herself, living off of pain killers, she would have told him to point the way.
"Why me?" she asked instead.
"Because I've told her all about you since the first day I saw you in college." He smiled, linking his fingers in hers.
"Inuyasha, you could have just told me." She said, 'I thought you were tired of seeing me.'
"I told you now."
"Now, when I can't go." She pointed out.
"Well, when you get better and can go home we can make a date. Though, I don't know if I like the idea of you going home alone. Maybe you can stay with me until you're ready to leave – if that day will ever come." He grinned.
"I will go home and be just fine in my own bed." she said, pulling her hand free and removing the oxygen mask off her face, tired of sleeping the fowl air.
"I don't think you're supposed to take that off."
"Oh, leave me alone." She sighed, the hospital air wasn't much better.
She could feel his eyes on her.
"You know, without the mask, your lips seem so much more reachable."
"Do they?"
"Yup, so much so that I would love to kiss them right now."
"I don't know if you'd want to do that, I heard somewhere that kissing the physically damaged is like hoping it happens to you."
"Hmm, I've never heard that before." He said, leaning over and listening with his ears into the hallway, making sure no one would come.
The heart monitor's beeping grew faster revealing her excitement, unfortunately.
"Let's see if I can take away all your pain, shall we?"
His kiss was gentle and played on her lips for what seemed like hours. It remained her how large he told her his feelings were. How long he said he'd kept them for her. And how deep they ran. In this moment she wanted to tell him through the kiss that she was working on it. That maybe soon her feeling would match his.
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The End
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I hope you liked it. I knew I wanted to have this short so there it is :) besides I need to work on my other story, lol.
READ: The end of Teen rated story. For the real finish I'll make an M rated oneshot containing a lemon.
Review~
CagedRaven
