InuYasha was happy to see Sesshomaru and Sango leave a few days later. Miroku had tried to comfort him with the idea that Sesshomaru had been lying, but there was nothing to gain from lying.
All he'd done was push everyone farther away. Again.
Sango was barely speaking to him, she hadn't been a fan of the vicious way he'd spoken to InuYasha. He'd heard them arguing the night before.
She'd torn into him for being cruel and for making it hard for everyone around them and he'd said nothing for the longest time.
There was a crash and everyone had gone running. As feisty as Sango could be, she was no match for a demon lord. They found her glaring up at him, looking for all the world as if she didn't notice him -forearm deep in the wall behind her.
"I won't let you hurt him."
She'd looked so determined, completely unafraid against a man who could ball her up and throw her away if he chose to.
And InuYasha saw the words on his lips. There was a tension in his neck and a vibe swirling around him that told InuYasha that he was going to open up, just a little, but then his muscles relaxed and he pulled his hand from the wall.
"You can't stop me."
Now that they were gone, ice swirling around them despite the Summer heat, InuYasha knew what he was going to say.
Because he hadn't been opening up to InuYasha. When he told them about his time with Izayoi, he hadn't been talking to InuYasha, he hadn't shown the scars to InuYasha.
He'd shown them to her.
So when she stared in his eyes, bold and protective he'd wanted to ask her if she would protect him the same way.
He'd wanted to ask, "what about me?" But he hadn't. He missed his chance and now Sango thought him heartless. Once again, he'd pushed someone away.
XxXxXxXxXx
Sango worked in silence. The weeds had overtaken the darkest corners of her home and she only had today to finish everything.
To her surprise, Sesshomaru was helpful -even if he refused to speak a word to her. There were times when she'd turn to see him staring at her, something on his lips, but in the end he'd duck his head without a word. It was only once they began digging Kohaku's grave that she couldn't take his silence anymore.
"Sesshomaru, tell me why you hate InuYasha." She stared at the hole they'd created. He'd gotten farther than her, but she was satisfied with her work so far. Once Kohaku was buried they would put flowers on the graves and be off.
"Why should I?"
"Because I don't want things to end here." She continued her digging, focusing on making sure the hole was level.
He brushed her away from her work, "finish the flowers." She'd been intertwining them during their break earlier, "and there's nothing to end. There was never anything in place." She didn't let his cool indifference bother her.
"That's a lie. I'm not saying that we were involved but there was definitely a blossoming of feelings. And I don't want that to end."
She needed twelve more of these flower bunches and it would seem that she'd have enough left over to make a flower crown. Even in her adulthood flower crowns made her feel a little less dreary.
"I don't want to talk about InuYasha. The past is gone. Whether we talk about him or not there is nothing to be done about our relationship."
"The past is the past, but it also affects the future. Those guys are my family, Sesshomaru. InuYasha's loneliness hurts me as much as my own does. We're all rooting for one another." He was busy leveling the dirt with his boots, his expression flat, but his mind racing, "and as much as I want to be with you...I can't just leave them behind. We're a packaged deal."
Sesshomaru didn't know what to say to that. He was drawn to her and when she'd yelled at him about the way he'd treated InuYasha he'd felt betrayed. Once again the world was on his side.
If he was being fair he'd admit that it was difficult to side with someone who was impossible to talk to. They'd given him the chance to explain his actions, but he didn't want their sympathy.
There was no way to tell his mother's story without painting it as it was; tragic.
"Do you know why I like Rin and Jaken?"
The grave was finished and he sat down beside her to help her weave the flowers together. Depending on how long it took for her to say goodbye, they may be back to the inn before the moon rose too high in the sky.
She shook her head no.
"They're both so blind to my wrong doings. They're both so mindlessly supportive. I've done horrible things and yet I've never lost their love." He spun a pale, pink flower between his fingers, "Being who I am is enough for them."
"Who you are is enough, Sesshomaru." She huffed at him, a petulant pout in place, "I'm not asking you to be less petty or become more talkative. You're free to throw your rocks and sing your lullabies whenever you'd like."
"Then what are you asking me to do?"
She finished the last bouquet and moved to inspect Kohaku's body. Her fingers trailed along his cold, pale cheeks and she felt sobs shaking her against her will. The words that she'd planned to speak clogged her throat like she'd swallowed cotton.
"I'm asking you to-," she sat beside the body, pulling her brother into her arms as something invisible slammed into her chest. She couldn't speak, couldn't breath.
Sesshomaru looked up when she sat beside her brother's corpse. He watched as her face split into an expression so raw, so horrible, that he found himself backing away. Her racking sobs pounded against his ears, assaulting him, dragging him under, and all he could see was himself bowing over another head of silver hair.
He needed to save her, to hold her, something- but he could not see past the delusion that overwhelmed him. He'd never really held his brother in any capacity, but he could feel his coarse hair, could imagine the smell of death settling in around them.
"Promise me," her words were muffled, but her anguish tore through her, loud as the clapping of thunder, devastating as the tidal waves and it echoed within him. In that moment he would promise her anything.
Anything for the image of his brother, cold and limp in his arms, anything to be free of the hollow agony that shredded him from the inside out.
"Promise me you'll make up with him." He collected her, wrapping his arms around her, squeezing her as tightly as he dared. Her fists were pounding into his chest, her terrible cries ringing in his ears and he promised again and again that he would fix things. He didn't know how long he rocked the beast in his grasp, how many times he promised her that he'd fix things, but when she finally opened her eyes again, finally looked at the boy without screaming, he rose to place him in the dirt.
Every fibre of his being was trembling with anxiety and he found that he feared nothing more than the torrential emotions that she shared with him.
"Are you ready to say goodbye?" Sesshomaru stood awkwardly, almost blocking the body from view. His throat hurt, as if he'd been screaming with her.
"No, but, we don't have all night."
Her hair fell around her shoulders, shrouding her in darkness. He could feel her emotions building again, rising and crashing like a dangerous wave. In a last ditch effort to survive the storm he knelt in the dirt, decorating his dark hair with some leftover, crumpled flowers, "there. Now he doesn't look so pale."
It was her duty to bury her brother. She knew that. He knew that.
Slowly, she took the shovel in her hand, raising it to the mound of upturned dirt. Her hands trembled as she stared down at his freckled face. The sunny poppies that decorated his dark hair reminded her of when they were young.
Sesshomaru watched the shovel clatter back into the dirt, the onslaught of devastation returning without warning. Her emotions dragged him into the dirt with her, but he couldn't separate reality from echo. The strength she displayed days ago, distancing herself from his bloodlust-
A human woman had bested him once more. He only wanted to protect her, to hide her in his arms until she could breathe again, until everything went away, but he couldn't. He couldn't protect himself.
No matter what he knew was there, no matter the fact that he knew Kohaku was in that hole, he could only see InuYasha. Blood splatter and dead eyes and silver hair and Gods he would be sick if he couldn't detach himself. He could feel his stomach lurching, and he couldn't block out the cries of "my brother, I- , my baby brother."
He clamped a hand over his mouth, rushing to the shovel. If he could cover the body then maybe her grief would subside, even if it was only a bit.
Her emotions calmed for a moment, but his stomach had made its choice. It rolled once more, making its intentions clear and he scrambled for a bush. His hands were trembling. She chased after him, rubbing his back and apologizing as she did.
Their emotions were linked, all the horrible things that had filled her chest had bombarded him. She was used to feeling everything so intensely, but when she looked into Sesshomaru's eyes she saw that he wasn't.
She'd never seen anyone look so scared or vulnerable.
He hoisted himself upwards, pulling the water from his hip and rinsing his mouth.
"Are you alright?"
He looked a bit sheepish, "I'm fine. Let's continue. Are you alright to pray over the grave?" His sudden humanity made her smile despite the circumstances. He was looking at the grave, now completely covered, thinking of something he kept private.
She took his hand and dusted the dirt from her clothes. With the grave covered she moved forward. Her brother was in there, but -without having to stare into his freckled face- the thought was manageable.
"I feel like we should say something, but I don't know what to say."
"We can do it how I did for my mother's funeral." She nodded, telling him to go on, "normally there are more people, but I did it with one person," she noticed that he was still shaking and she wished she could take away the fear that plagued him, "so I'm sure that two is more than enough."
He laced the fingers of both hands with hers, "tonight we remember Kohaku, the demon slayer." She squeezed her eyes shut tight, "and we pray for his freedom." Her turn.
"We pray for his happiness."
"We pray for his healing."
"We pray that he finds mama and papa." Her tears dotted the dirt like rain drops and she wanted nothing more than for him to squeeze her breathless in those strong arms again.
"We pray that he's whole. By the Gods and Goddesses we send you into your next life. Sango will miss you, Kohaku." He bit into his wrist, "but she will always find you in the next life and the next, endless, constant, for your fates are intertwined." He faced the moon, bold and celestial and for a moment it was as if the moonlight shined a little brighter. Blood dripped into the dirt and he answered the question in her eyes, "for protection. Nothing with a brain will ever disturb him again."
XxXxXxXxXx
InuYasha waited on the roof of the inn, impatient and restless. Miroku warned him that they may need to wait another day, Sango was only human and burying her brother was bound to be traumatic, but InuYasha would hear none of it.
Koga was completely inept at basic guardianship. Kagome ran circles around him, giggling gleefully while she played with Rin and Shippo -who were equally impossible with Kagome as their leader.
"InuYasha! If you help me figure out how to turn her back I will take your guard shifts for two weeks!" Koga had been begging for the better part of twelve hours now and InuYasha had given him nothing.
"Wolfman! You burned my eggs again!" Kagome came outside with her hands on her hips, "is the lesson that my dad dying was a blessing in disguise?"
InuYasha spluttered and leapt off the roof, holding Miroku close as he landed. Sesshomaru and Sango were near.
They walked silently to the edge of the trees.
"I've decided," Sesshomaru was pink as he faced Sango. She'd slept on Kirara the entire night, far too exhausted to walk. Now she regarded him sleepily, "I don't want things to end here either." He placed the flower crown on her dark, frizzy hair, remembering that Kohaku once told Rin that he made them for his sister. It wasn't perfect, the flowers were crooked and in some places they hardly connected at all, but the smile she offered him made something flutter stupidly within his chest.
He gave her no chance to answer. He tilted her face towards his, his thumb mindlessly running along her rounded chin. Her lips were pink and parted, but the pounding of his heart was drowning out the thumping of his courage. Instead, he chose to press his lips to her forehead.
She smirked up at him, "coward." He blanched, all but stomping after her as she glided away.
"I'm no coward, woman." His hands on her shoulders gave her pause and she kept smirking, baiting him, perfect and kind and his.
"No worries," she sighed, jerking him down to her level, filling the space between them with a natural grace. She commanded his senses and he was stuck, watching her inch closer, "lucky for us, I'm no coward." Her lips on his were enough to steal his complaints. He didn't care if she thought he was a cow, because he was -for the first time in his long life- breathless and helpless and falling into ribbons at her touch.
She pulled away, releasing the crumpled silk, but he could only hover near her, as if he'd been sucked into her orbit. He was a victim of her gravity. An asteroid. A shooting star.
"I'm glad."
"If you guys are done making out!"
Sesshomaru tensed, as if it had taken all of his self control to not rocket into the atmosphere. Siblings sure knew how to ruin a moment.
Miroku could see that Sesshomaru had a couple of choice words for the both of them, but he swallowed them, "isn't it a bit early for you to be this obnoxious?" No one doubted that this was the edited version of his previous thoughts.
InuYasha rolled with it, "not at all. We're burning daylight." He turned on his heels and led them away, "let's go already!"
A.N./ Depending on what I'm listening to at the time the language gets mad flowery. Any guesses for the song I listened to when I wrote the kiss scene?