yosh! Finally got around to taking SL down... *weeps* due to ff.net's anti-nc17 policy. I'm reposting the first chapter, however, to direct anyone who wants to read the finished product (the last two chapters were completed after ff.net's policy change) to my fanfic page, the link to which you can find on my profile.

Thanks SO much to all of you who r&r-ed this fic... My final hitcounts were at about 250 readers per chapter. *blush* I feel so loved! Ara... this was a pleasure to write, and I was thrilled to hear from all of you!

For any first-time readers, warnings for this fic: Non-canon. Yaoi, SesshomaruxMiroku pairing. NC-17 in later chapters. (not posted here)

--= Chapter One = Obsession =--

I don't know why his eyes affected me like they did. They were ordinary human eyes. Dark in color, round in shape. Nothing to set them apart from the rest of the countless numbers of human eyes he had seen.

His eyes though... they laughed. They didn't cry for the brutality and chaos surrounding him, rather they smiled at it, knowing somehow that it would turn out alright. They didn't ache as children starved and families were ripped apart by demons and worse, humans bent on cruelty and conquest... instead they held compassion and surety in a smile, a strange knowledge that times yet to come would erase the disease, that history surely had to have something better in store than the stinking pit of death and decay that was currently human civilization.

They laughed through the pain that I knew he must feel everyday, living an impossible life, fighting against the expanding void of time. They laughed at me even when he was serious, when he was angry, when he was fighting. His eyes reflected a wry sense of humor, a deep knowledge of the way the world really was. His eyes, as they smiled, betrayed the depth of thought he possessed, betrayed his secrets, even as they sought to deny them. They refused to take the world, or themselves seriously.

His eyes smiled at everything, and perhaps it was that strangeness, that oddity that drew me to him.

Oh, there were other things I found attractive in him. His build was slighter than mine, his skin soft, his hair silky and strangely long for a human. And of course there was that attitude, the one that challenged me at every step. Unlike most humans, I didn't intimidate him. In fact, it seemed as if I didn't even exist for him. He would fight me, it's true, but without the same emotional intensity that Inu-Yasha did. Instead, the handful of times we had confronted each other, he hardly seemed to notice me as anything but an obstacle, a hindrance on the path to realizing his quest.

It, quite simply, irritated me. His eyes, instead of just laughing at the world, seemed to direct their quiet amusement towards me. It was then, when I realized that he wasn't just laughing at everything, that he was laughing at me that I became obsessed.

His eyes didn't even scream in terror when I robbed his voice from him, wrapping my hands around his throat and cutting off all sound, breath, and blood. Still, they mocked me, amused, laughing, ridiculing me, even as they fell shut, and his body finally lay, limply in my arms.

My father loved a human woman.

That seems so foreign to say, even to myself, even in the solitude of my own thoughts. To love a human, to share intimately with a species so much below your own. Some would call it bestiality. I called it such. I run my hand through the unconscious human's hair as he lays bonelessly in my lap. There is a smile on his lips. I wonder why.

Funny, I don't remember her name. I wonder if I ever knew it.

I also don't remember his name, or if I had ever heard it. I'm sure I must have. The human wench my brother always had following him around like a lovesick bitch yelled out names all the time. Those names blurred into each other, a constant murmur and scream and chant of the names of all of their comrades.

KagomeKikyouInuYashaSangoShippoKagomeShippouMirokuInuYashaInuYashaKikyouInuYashaKagomeKikyouInuYasha...

One of those names must belong to my human. One of them would give me the key to him, power over that strange mysterious mirth. Power to find out just where it came from and what it was.

I was sure if I could just know his name then everything else would fall into place. My emotions, usually so controlled, were in a snarled knot. My claws hitched in his unbound hair, finding a tangle. I worked at it, smoothing his hair as mine fell over us both, falling over my arms and onto his, curling on his chest and brushing his sleeping face, those softly smiling lips.

Soft lips, pale rose. Not overly feminine, and they were pulled up in the corner. The soft smile had become a smirk. He was mocking me again, even in his unconscious state.

I hardly noticed my growl as I brushed my fingers over his lips, trying to erase that amusement evident on them. His lips moved under my fingers, brushing softly over sensitive pads, parting slightly. I froze as my fingertips dropped into his mouth, resting against a row of even teeth. I drew my hand away, closing my eyes.

I was disgusted with my father when he chose a human for his new bride. I hated him, I hated her, and most of all, I hated the misbegotten cub she bore. The dilution of our proud and noble bloodline rankled deep within me. From the day she came into my father's life, I would bear the stigma. My father was guilty of loving humans. My family was guilty.

I looked at him again, ignoring the angry, almost frantic tones of my self-loathing. He shifted slightly in my arms, and breathed a touch deeper. His comatose state couldn't last forever. I let my hands explore his face, neck, shoulders, chest; letting myself feel his incredibly soft skin, tasting it with claws that did not quite mar the delicate flesh, watching his reactions. His body twisted in my arms now, truly alive, as soft sounds, barely aware of their own origin escaped from those lips.

His eyes flickered open.