Keep Her
Her scent dominates his home. That first afternoon, the human girl had invaded. She had touched every object, the spine of nearly every book, the furniture, even the walls, and now they exude a delicate waft of sweet scent. It is...irksome. This stark apartment no longer feels like it is his alone; her scent tangles with his on everything except the bed she still declines to use. Sesshoumaru finds himself purchasing new, fairly worthless objects on his brief departures to pick up food for her, just so she can touch more things, examine them, possess them with her scent. A winter coat. A lamp. A strange globe with white flakes floating inside it. Anything that catches his eye from windows on his way to whatever restaurant he happens to be heading towards. There is no kitchen in the apartment because he has never needed one, and so he orders in expensive food for this strange woman at every indication that she could possibly eat. He will not neglect her frail human needs; he learned that lesson long ago and learned it well.
She is bored. He can tell. By the second day, she picks up and examines items more frequently. She removes his dry histories from his shelves and flips through their introductions. She moves aimlessly from room to room. Her activity is disturbing. They are silent and move awkwardly around each other, two cold satellites.
He is preparing to go for her evening meal on the second day. She is sitting on the sofa as he buttons his coat. "You are a coward," he tells her. "You fear this city. This is why you stay."
"I do not fear the city."
"A coward and a liar." He knows she is neither of these things. But there is something wrong with her. His memory is not so short that it fails to remember his brother's loudmouthed wench. This insipid creature, mysterious as she may be, is so inanimate she may as well be dead. He tells her so and is gratified by the flash of anger in her eyes, and is not terribly surprised when she stands, hands defiantly placed on her hips.
"I'm going. We will eat there," she informs him. He wonders if she realizes that he had hoped for this reaction. Every time he leaves, he thinks of her gathering her few things and departing; he knows that in the stink of the city, her scent will disperse quickly and he will not be able to track her efficiently. He does not think about why it matters, one way or the other, if she stays or goes. He doesn't know why he feels he must keep her.
