Gomen na sai, my loyal readers! Didn't mean to keep you waiting so long for an update, but I've been friggin' swamped. If you read Unholy Attraction (which most of you do…or should ;;), then you'll know I've decided to post the last few chapters of these fics before I continue with my new ones. Only make sense to get these knocked out of the way so I can put more focus on my others. Four fics is way too many to juggle at once, considering I'm in the habit of updating only once all of them are ready. Hopefully, none of you will kill me for switching methods. By the way, THE NEXT CHAPTER IS THE LAST. Review while you can.
Without further ado, here's the tenth chapter of my lil Sesh/Mir lovefest, entitled 'Hello'. It uses the song 'Hello' off of Fallen, by Evanescence.
Disclaimer: Good sweet Jesus, how I wished I owned it. Alas, life is a fickle mistress yet.
…
Playground school bell rings again.
Rain clouds come to play again.
"Is this infernal rain ever going to let up!" Miroku muttered indignantly, gesturing at the rain-laden gray clouds above. He immediately regretted speaking as another bout of brutal coughing wracked his slender form. His throat ached with the force of it, feeling raw and ragged. This was what he deserved for walking around in the rain. His worries about catching cold had proven justified indeed. His soaked clothing, dank surroundings, and generally gloomy mood had finally overwhelmed him. For the first time in many years, Miroku had fallen ill.
He scrunched up his face against a tickle building in his nose. He hated sneezing. It never relieved anything and more often than not was followed by even more sneezing. Despite his attempts, the sneeze soon came, sending him into a spasm. The monk groaned as his head throbbed in response to the violent motion.
He sighed, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to create some warmth. He was freezing to the bone and sick to death of this cave. He couldn't even make a fire to warm himself with. Drowsiness clogged his mind like sludge, and goose bumps popped up on his skin faster than weeds after a good rain.
He pulled his knees to his chest, attempting to lock some of his body heat in. The limbs shook as he drew them close, which he was alarmed to find he could barely manage. Miroku's strength was waning fast.
"I need to get out of here," he whispered to himself over the droning roar of rainfall. "I need to get somewhere warm. This illness is only getting worse by the minute. I need…warmth." His thoughts, sluggish as they were, immediately darted to the thought of Sesshoumaru. To have that warm body lying over his, nourishing him, heating his flesh, loving every inch of him…the thought alone was enough to raise heat to the human's cheeks. His breathing hitched with remembrance, altogether stilling in his throat.
Has no one told you she's not breathing?
The haze of illness in his veins mixed with the fevered fantasies in his mind. The heat he much needed to keep his body warm was now flowing to his cheeks and groin. The reaction was immediate and potent. The thought alone of that beautiful demon could drive the monk to normally unreachable brinks. He still didn't completely believe that he'd been imagining it before….
"Sesshoumaru…" he whispered drunkenly, "were you here? Did you call out to me before? Please tell me it wasn't a dream…." He couldn't say who he was speaking to, but in his muddled thoughts it seemed a perfectly logical thing to do. His dark eyes gazed out into the pounding rain as if seeing nothing and everything at once. The rain turned the world outside into a blanket of colorless smog. The blurry shapes of trees and rocks morphed into a thousand different consistencies, some he recognized and some he didn't. The longer he watched, the more entranced he became until he actually began to think the shapes were real. He waved to images of his friends, balked from the forms of demons he'd fought, and watched the prancing of mythical creatures. It all seemed so perfectly real….
And finally, the rain and fever combined to shift the images he saw into the one thing he wanted to see most. Sesshoumaru emerged out of the haze, glistening like a porcelain figurine sprinkled with stardust. Some small part of Miroku understood that his mind was playing tricks on him, but the rest was simply too tired and sick to care.
Hello, I'm your mind, giving you,
Someone to talk to.
"Sesshoumaru!" Miroku called out, pausing as another cough raged through him. "Sesshoumaru, I knew it was you! I felt you earlier, watching over me like an angel…or maybe like a curse." He was babbling; he knew it. Miroku would never say such things under normal circumstances. He couldn't seem to stop himself.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Miroku climbed shakily to his feet, supporting himself with a hand pressed to the mossy cave wall. He was whispering underneath his breath, the same thing over and over again: a name that meant more to him than anything else in the world. The fever had finally clenched its fell grip around him completely. Nothing seemed real except the things that weren't real. Madness danced along the edges of his vision, and the same image always remained squarely before him.
"Sesshoumaru."
Hello.
Rain beat against his clammy skin as he stepped out of his musty sanctuary. Miroku's dark eyes were clouded with sickness, and his pale skin burned with an unnatural heat. He looked like a corpse that had been freshly wrenched from its grave. He stumbled out into the night, aware of only what the fever let him see.
Sesshoumaru was waiting for him, just beyond his reach. He could see the demon standing there, somehow completely dry even in the middle of this torrent. A seductive smirk was fixed on his lips, the one Miroku remembered seeing so many times before. Golden eyes flashed with a hint of mischief that made the human wonder what his demon lover had in store for him.
"Sesshoumaru, I'll be right there! Please don't leave me…." Miroku's voice barely carried over the pounding rain. "I knew I heard your voice before. You were calling to me, but I couldn't see you! Where were you hiding? Why didn't you just come to me?"
Miroku felt tears of frustration stream down his face, mingling with the freezing rain. He stumbled along after Sesshoumaru but couldn't seem to reach him. That smirk was always just a few feet ahead, taunting him mercilessly. A violent shudder raced down Miroku's spine. The rain was like ice, and the roaring wind chilled him to the bone. His fever flared up in response, and Miroku knew every second spent in this tempest was making his illness worse. Even so, he couldn't stop chasing the dream in front of him.
If I smile and don't believe,
Soon I know I'll wake from this dream.
"Sesshoumaru," he coughed out, stumbling forward again. It seemed the demon was right in front of him, but he felt nothing as he reached out with pale, bony fingers. Exhausted, he collapsed to his knees. The effort of fighting back the fever had drained him of what little strength he had. He couldn't fight for his dream anymore. He couldn't even keep his eyes open….
"Sesshoumaru," Miroku whispered weakly as his body fell to the cold, muddy ground. His fingers clenched as if wishing to wrap around his lover's hand. Darkness invaded his vision like nightfall, and slowly he drifted away from the world—a broken china doll lying in the middle of a gray wasteland.
Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken.
"Miroku," a new voice called out, carrying easily over the storm. Light footfalls echoed through the air as a lone figure approached the monk's still form. "What have you done, little human?" The voice held a surprising note of compassion in it, considering its usual lack of emotion. The figure, clad mostly in white and with long silver hair, knelt down next to the monk, gently cupping his face.
Sesshoumaru's golden eyes narrowed as he saw how chalky his lover's skin had become, the color and consistency of ash in a fireplace. He'd been watching the monk this whole time, wondering what in the world he was thinking by stumbling out into a storm this fierce. He hadn't been able to pick up all of what Miroku had been mumbling, but he'd heard the human call his name quite a few times.
"Surely you didn't come out here in search of me?" Sesshoumaru whispered, more to himself than to the unconscious human that he now pulled into his strong arms. Miroku's clothing was soaked through, acting as a layer of ice attached to his alarmingly hot skin. The inu youkai's strong senses could detect the sickness within him as easily as it could the scent of blood on the air. They both held the same foreboding flavor. Sesshoumaru covered the frail human in the folds of his kimono, as if trying to hide him from the sickness itself.
Hello, I'm the lie, living for you so you can hide.
"Miroku…" Sesshoumaru muttered absent-mindedly, obvious lost in thought. One long-fingered hand came up to stroke the human's cheek. He grimaced at the fever he felt there, even as he admired the silky quality of Miroku's complexion. This was the second time Sesshoumaru had seen his lover like this, hanging over the edge between this world and the next. This was also the second time the Taiyoukai himself had been the cause of it. How was it that the human still sought him after all the problems Sesshoumaru had brought upon him?
"You fool…" a cold voice whispered, no louder than the tap-tap of rainfall. The demon wasn't quite certain if he meant himself or Miroku. He knew what he had come to feel for the human, in some back corner of his mind. It remained unacknowledged, but that was only for as long as he could stave the feeling off. It would burst through eventually, like torrents of water held behind a spindly bridge for one storm too many.
Sesshoumaru jerked with sudden surprise as he felt fingers curl in his clothing. He glanced down, his golden eyes whirring with anticipation at the thought that his human lover had woken already. His hopes were dashed when he saw nothing but a shivering, sleeping man lying in his arms. A twinge of pain spiked in Sesshoumaru's chest, in a place he hadn't felt anything for a long time. Tears were flowing down Miroku's face, mingling with the rain beading on creamy skin. The demon couldn't say what the monk was crying over in the haze of his fever, but it ripped at his heart to see him do so.
Don't cry.
Sesshoumaru leaned down and kissed the salty liquid from underneath Miroku's eyes. He lapped it up like a kitten lapped at cream, intent on being rid of it all. Something inside of Sesshoumaru was ordering him to get rid of those tears, to get rid of every tear that fell from Miroku's eyes from that day forward. He would be there for every cut, every rain cloud, every nightmare, and every dream. The realization was like coming out of a dream of his own. Sesshoumaru had finally woken up.
Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping.
"Miroku," he whispered, more to himself than to the human. "You must get well. There's something I need to tell you when you wake up."
Hello, I'm still here.
Sesshoumaru stood, cradling the still form of his lover in his arms. This rain would do nothing but aggravate the sickness further. Miroku needed to be taken someplace warm and dry, where he could receive proper medical attention.
A nagging fear that it might already be too late sounded at the back of the demon's mind. He angrily shoved the sentiment away. Miroku couldn't leave him now that everything finally made sense. That simply wasn't acceptable. Sesshoumaru strode further into the dismal gray of a weeping world, one solid destination in mind. With a small smile, he pressed cold lips to Miroku's own. The Taiyoukai would make sure that Miroku lived, that he got to see every tomorrow until they became so many yesterdays. Together.
All that's left of yesterday.
To be continued….
As I said before, the next chapter is the LAST. Get your comments in now, while you still can. Ja mata, peeps.