AN: Kagome and /Shippou/? O.o Do tell me you're kidding...
Chapter Three: Scattered
"At first I believed her, you know. But then when I found out I couldn't cast any of those cool magic spells I saw on T.V..."-- Kagome
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Do you believe in miracles?
...Because—
Her body throbbed all over, like someone had skinned her alive and then hung her out to dry. A shudder rippled through her frame, and she clutched desperately at her pillow.
—I know I don't.
"How long has it been? Since you..."Blankets tangled around her legs, poisonous limbs of thick-bodied serpents. She tried to fight them. She couldn't.
The answer came, short and brusque. "Twenty-three hours."
Dull pain ached somewhere back in the recesses of her skull. How do the dead feel pain?
"...How?" The voice lilted female, and puzzled. Confused. Astonished?
How do the dead hear voices?
Silence. Then: "I don't know."
Help me.
Him again. The one called...Inuyasha. That's his name. "Sesshoumaru's right. She was never human."
I'm human. I'm Higurashi Kagome, I'm twenty-one, I love Thai pickles and spicy curry, and stuffed animals that smell like my laundry room, and annoying the hell out of my little brother, and singing and music and playing chopsticks on the piano. I'm human—and you people are all crazy.
"She smells...different."
"...Yeah." He was quiet for a moment. "I should've noticed."
"You should've been more careful!" The female voice held warmth, the beginnings of anger.
"I know!" Inuyasha—ragged, desperate, defeated. "I know."
Silence. She wanted to lapse back into her dream world—to be alone—but something kept her there, a twisting, burning feeling lying dead in the bottom of her stomach. A touch of wet cloth smoothed across her forehead, but the coolness did nothing but make her want to scream, to get out, away. Fever churned against the back of her throat, and her mouth tasted of old copper pennies and the faint after-traces of alcohol.
She opened her eyes—and saw nothing.
Darkness. Anger. Power. Fear. The weak scream ripped away the remaining air in her lungs, leaving her to cough, violent and spasming, into her twisted blankets. The cloth scratched like old straw against her cheek. She didn't know how. Why. Where. She was dead—dead dead, dead—but dead people didn't cough, they didn't wake up trapped in blankets, they didn't wake up blind.
"Oh!" The woman, voice surprised. Hands reached out towards her, a breath of movement in the darkness. She clawed at them in trembling fear, swiping blindly. Feel—the stir of air as they came for her, the scrape of a chair. She remembered then, the bite of harsh fingers around her wrists, bruising, and the fire that had swept through her after, merciless and destroying everything it had touched. Me. Destroying me.
"Kagome!" The name sounded strange, coming from this stranger's mouth. "Girl!—" (that's better) "Damnit, stay still!"
The blankets yanked out from under her. She gave a cry, limbs flailing in every which way. Her lungs tightened in panic. She remembered—
The power oh god oh god don't touch me
The air stirred again, someone lunging out to catch her as she scrambled backwards, mattress creaking in protest at her weight. The room—so dark. Her eyes searched, seeing nothing, darting in and out of madness. The room—it smelled of werewolf. The smell clung to her hair, her body, and—where were her clothes?
The room—it was suddenly so cold.
Higurashi Kagome, you get up this instant and stop acting so weak!
Mother...
She stopped moving. The hands that reached out for her hovered at the edge of her awareness, dim movements of—sound? smell? taste?
"Kagome..." the female voice said, unsure and questioning.
She shivered in the darkness, tugged the blanket up over her shoulders. A coppery stench lingered like an ominous reminder in the air. "Who...are you?"
Someone shifted, maybe even impatiently. The sound reached her ears like a faint rustling of raven wings. "I'm..." the woman hesitated.
"Just tell her." Inuyasha.
"Are you so sure?"
"Do it!" A growl trickled into his voice.
"What the hell are you yelling at me for, you arrogant—!"
"I am your dominant, little one. Now tell her!"
"Oh, so now you're pulling rank on me! Well, let me tell you something, Inuyasha. You were stronger—once. But that was a long time ago." Her yelling had gone ragged. "You left your pack behind, ran away with your tail tucked between your legs. You should be happy that I am willing to help you at all!"
Silence. Kagome closed her eyes. Maybe they'll tear each other apart before they can even get to me.
Not damn likely. Not with her luck.
Then his voice cracked bitter laughter in the darkness. "I won't be an outcast for long. But even if I were, I can still handle you in a fair fight. Don't overestimate yourself, Sango."
She hissed. "You can try right now, you prick."
"No."
"What?"
"I said no."
Sango laughed scornfully. "I have never heard of you refusing a fight before. You're getting soft, Inuyasha."
"We have more important things to deal with."
"'We'? This is your doing. Deal with it yourself." Wood screeched against iron hinges, and light flooded into the dank room, warm and butter yellow. Sango paused at the doorway, casting a lean shadow of tense werewolf. Her voice when it came was softer, and slightly pitying. "Good luck for now—Inuyasha." She left.
Silver hair hid the right side of his drawn face. His eyes shone gold in gentle light, but they were unfocused, unsure.
I'm not—blind.
Nor was she alone.
"Inuyasha...?" Her words croaked out, and she nearly choked on the cotton dryness of her tongue.
He handed her a glass of water, but said nothing. Drinking obediently, she noted distantly his hand was no longer tipped with knives.
"You okay?"
"My head hurts."
He shook his head, and strands of hair fell into his eyes, hiding his face. "You'll be fine."
She was quiet for a while. "Will I?"
Inuyasha barked out a laugh. The sudden sound drove pain into her skull, and it wasn't because of a hangover. She knew it wasn't. It was...different, somehow. Just a dull ache of...something.
The laughter stopped, cut off like a dead phone line. "Depends on what you mean by 'fine', girl."
"Stop calling me that," she said automatically.
"What?" He glanced at her, one black eyebrow arched sardonically. "'Girl'? Don't you have more important things to worry about now?"
She folded her arms across her chest, blanket and all. "It would be nice if you could tell me what those things are."
I really must be okay if I'm snapping at him like this.
He shrugged indifferently, but she caught the flash of pain in his eyes.
"Well?"
He whirled around, teeth bared. "You're talking to a werewolf here, not a foot slave."
She didn't cower, like she knew he wanted her to. He wasn't going to hurt her, not after he had gone through all that trouble to save her from the faceless brother named Sesshoumaru and a whole swarm of werewolves. Not after he had taken her with him, to this strange house that smelled like copper and raspberries. Not when...
...she wasn't human. No.
"I am."
"What?"
"I said I am!" She clenched her fists. "I'm human," she repeated. "I am."
He said nothing, just watched her with his strange eyes.
"Your brother," she pointed at him, arm trembling. "Sesshy something or other. He's crazy. He was lying, wasn't he?"
Inuyasha laughed sardonically. "My brother might be crazy, but he never lies."
"That's insane!"
He looked away. "Typical reaction for a girl like you."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
He shrugged. She huffed in annoyance.
"I should get going now, then, since you don't need me anymore." You ass, she added silently. She scrambled to her feet, the blankets that were gathered around her shoulders falling just long enough to cover her knees. She wrapped them around herself tightly, trying to fend off the cold. "You pervert, what did you do to my clothes?!"
His answer came snide and deliberately provoking. "I tore them off."
Blood rushed to her face, and she was glad he was still turned away from her. "You are one sick puppy, you know that?"
He was suddenly in front of her, so fast that she blinked, and then he grabbed ahold of her arms, fingers gripping just hard enough to hurt. Anger flickered like fireflies in his eyes. "Don't push it, wench."
Anger made her stupid. "Let go of me this instant!" Air stirred cold around her bare shoulders, and heat rose to her cheeks. Her hand ached to slap him, but they were busy holding up the heavy blankets, which were now slipping precariously lower. Damnit. "Let go!" She heaved violently, kicked at him with a bare foot. His fingers loosened as he fell backwards with a surprised grunt. She was suddenly looking down at him as he sprawled loosely on the floor.
Shock, or maybe wearied expectation, flared in amber eyes, and he lowered his face; silver hid the line of brow and jaw and nose in shadow. The blanket slipped from nerveless fingers.
I pushed him down. I pushed a werewolf down.
He looked up. She started towards him, hand reaching out in startled apology. "Inuyasha, are you—"
—Okay?
The blanket puddled in a spread of cream and white folds on the carpet. Oh my god—
She felt the heat of his gaze sliding along her skin, real and intimate. Blood flared on cheeks in a rush of warmth, and she stooped down to the floor so fast that it made her dizzy, trying to ignore him, sitting there, so goddamn casual in his observation. Her whole body felt hot, and it wasn't just because of shame, it was because—hell, I don't even want to admit it to myself—
"STOP STARING AT ME!" she shrieked. The cloth, which had felt like hay used to feed cows only a few minutes ago, now slid like pure silk against her skin. Her voice was scratchy with embarrassment. She gave the blanket a violent jerk, as if by pure will she could somehow hold it in place. You fall one more time, and just watch what I'll do, you asshole.
God. Here she was, screaming obscenities at her blanket, of all things.
"Werewolves enjoy being in their natural forms, you know." Inuyasha sounded amused. She would have gladly given her right arm to scratch his eyes out at that moment. "Why are humans so easily embarrassed?"
"You—!" she seethed.
"Wait." He shook his head, lips curving into a bitter line in the semi-darkness. "You're not human. I keep on forgetting that."
"Oh yeah?" She crouched down until she was eye level with him. "Then what am I?" She made her voice skeptical, trying to provoke some reaction out of him.
He ignored her. "You can't be. Otherwise you wouldn't have survived..."
Survived what?
His hand shot out, and she gave a surprised squeak as fingers closed around her wrist. Her other hand had a death grip on the blanket, and when he jerked her forward, it stayed, thank god.
"Look." His finger traced a shivery line of warmth on the tender skin of her forearm. "It's still not healed yet."
The cuts.... Silvery crescent-shaped marks, slightly reddened. Inuyasha drew a nail along one edge of a particularly large one, and she made a small pain sound. It stung, like a prick of rose thorns, but there was no blood.
"You marked her."
Sesshoumaru. His silver hair trailed onto the floor, shining and flowing like a river of precious metals. His breath whispered warm against her neck.
"Fool. You are honor bound to her now."
His hands drew her closer. She went unwillingly. Or so she told herself.
"She's going through it right now."
Her breath hissed out. "Stop it." She tried to make her voice commanding, but it came out small, a breathy whisper. He ignored her, a frown marring thick black brows, and when he jerked her wrists up it wasn't gentle.
"Hey! Watch it!" She tried to yank her hand back. "You're hurting me!"
"Goddamn woman, hold still!" His fingers trapped her arm to him, harsh and bruising. He darted forward in one quick motion, nose twitching like a rabbit's, or a dog's, or a wolf's, for that matter—
"Ow!"
"Feh," he muttered, sharp teeth grown to his bottom lip. Ivory white and gleaming—
For all things holy, are those fangs?!
"Inuyasha!" Fear made her voice high, wispy. She wound her free hand through his long hair, and yanked, just hard enough to let him know she meant business. It was soft, like cornsilk, and she tried not to think about how warm it was in the grip of her hand, or how close he had pulled her, or how ticklish his nose was as he sniffed along the curve of her inner arm...
Or how much it hurt when his teeth broke through the tender skin of her wrist.
The scream stuck somewhere in the back of her throat. He had stilled, and her fingers were still tangled in his hair, wound through that shining silver river. His breath was hot against her wrists, and the something odd stung behind her eyes.
He bit me.
Hysteria stirred in her chest. Warmth trickled down her forearm, but she didn't look, couldn't look, eyes frozen on a distant spot on the ceiling. The stucco ceiling. If she stared hard enough she could make out an upside down elephant with rabbit ears among the dots.
She slumped down, defeated. Everything that had happened during the past day or two—has it only been a day? it feels more like a week, or even a century—roiled deep in her throat, hot and choking and suffocating. Wetness stung in her eyes, and she didn't try to wipe the tears away. But she didn't let them spill over, either.
"That...hurt, you know." Her voice came thick and heavy.
Inuyasha's head jerked up, and he tossed her wrist aside, cursing. She didn't look at him, only away at the ceiling, where the elephant had long since dissolved into a blur of white and gray dots.
"Damnit. I was only trying to—"
She glanced at him, quickly, before snapping her head away in shame. He's seen me naked. And now he's seen me cry.
Somehow the second seemed infinitely worse.
Her wrist ached distantly. "Inuyasha."
He let loose another string of profanities. "I'm sorry." The two words came out forced, but sincere. "I should've asked you before—it's just that I'm not use to—"
She smiled, faintly. "Human courtesies?"
"Yeah." He was silent for a little. "Aren't you going to ask me why I did that?"
She looked down at her hands. The small imprint of teeth showed only a little red around the edges. "Some werewolf thing?" she asked, finally.
He shook his head. "I had to know for sure." He tucked one hand into the folds of her blanket, twisting it into a tight ball of wool. "You were—are—a...witch."
She watched him from the close distance of the little room. He had huddled closer, almost unknowingly, eyes down and bare arm brushing hers. His breath came slow, even, but hers was quick, and shallow, like a drowning girl who had just been tossed a life raft. Her blanket was wrapped securely around her shoulders, but the wooden bedpost bruised hard against her back.
"...You had to bite my wrist to tell me that?"
"I said I'm sorry!" he growled, shooting forward into a defensive stance. "Aren't you even surprised? Jesus, it's not like I tell every girl I meet in a bar she's a goddamn witch, for christsakes, and definitely not one so powerful—"
"Powerful? Me?" She laughed, but something echoed in the back of her mind, a distant memory of inane afternoons and fried Chinese sausages and gnarled, liver-spotted hands—
"My grandmother always said...." She looked down at her hands, not knowing how to continue.
He tilted his strange eyes her way, gaze searching and curious. "What?"
"She said that...my family...my mother and my grandma and me are supposed to be descendants of powerful...mikos." The word tasted strange on her tongue. "What everyone else calls bruja, or wise-woman, or witch. Or devil's spawn, for that matter." She shrugged. "I never believed her though. Thought she was a little..." Kagome tapped her temple. "...Batty up here."
"Why didn't you?"
"She said the gift skipped every other generation. In her case it had skipped both my mom and her. It went missing for a while, and it was supposed to manifest in me." She laughed in self-deprecation. "But it didn't. And at first I believed her, you know. But then when I found out I couldn't cast any of those cool magic spells I saw on T.V...." The mirth faded off her face. "Silly, huh?"
He snorted. "Yes."
She sighed. "You know you're not supposed to agree with a girl when she asks you a question like that."
"Oh for christsake. I don't need any of your pmsing right now, Kagome."
"Pmsing? Pmsing! You sexist son of a—"
"Stop it!" He grabbed her arm again, the one unscathed, and shook her, hard enough that the tendons in her shoulder gave a protesting squeak of pain. "This explains it all. Your...miko blood...you still even alive at all..." He gave a huff of bitter laughter. "Unfortunately for me."
"...That's a rude thing to say, Inuyasha!"
"Why should I care?"
"Because you're the one to get me into this mess in the first place. The least you can do is be polite about it!"
"Damnit!" he snarled, so close that she could've scratched his eyes out. "Try and make this a little easier for me, why don't you!"
"'Why should I care'?" she snapped, imitating his previous tone. "You're not the one that's in deep shit here!"
He hissed. "You don't know deep shit yet, bitch."
She leaned close, too angry to care that the man in front of her could've torn her apart in the blink of an eye and not lost any sleep over it. "Well then. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and hit me, you bastard!"
Silence, and then a tremor ran through his tense frame; his eyes widened to shock and soft light, dawning in some distant memory of a time long gone. His grip on her arm loosened, fell away like cut strings. She was kneeling in front of him, his breath warm against her hair—and yet he didn't see her at all.
Go ahead and hit me!
"...Inuyasha?"
His eyes snapped to hers, feral and violent. Something moved behind the amber stillness; the air strained, crackled like distant thunder. "You wanted to know what happened, miko."
"Yes," she whispered, suddenly too terrified to look, or move, away.
I don't.
He smiled. The fangs gleamed through like slender ivory daggers. "Be ready."
"Be ready," he whispered, and then—
Heat spat out in long, writhing tongues of flame. Distantly came his voice, hard and unpitying, but still there might have been a small thread of compassion.
"I'm sorry."
His power writhed around her, riding the air in the small room until it was like trying to breathe in pure liquid metal, a force field of static electricity that sparked in tiny frissons of pain along her bare shoulders. The blanket twisted hard around her thighs, jerked unknowingly by her own hands, but she didn't notice, could only choke on hot smell of wolves—like a roiling mass of fur that smothered in her mouth, her nose—and Inuyasha had collapsed besides her, the hands held out in front of his face slightly furred. His eyes had taken on a strange red under-tint, a light crimson that stained the front of his face with (unholy) power, not seen, but felt. She pitched forward again, only to be caught by those clawed hands, and when the fear surged through her veins like a wash of icy water, she couldn't find the strength to push him away.
Don't—the claws—
She waited for the sting, and the burning. None came, but he snarled suddenly, and the sound rang through her deafened ears, harsh and unyielding. Claws tightened but didn't break through skin—when she looked up to his eyes he was still human, still real, still believable. The skin of his cheek was smooth underneath her fingertips, and the look on his face was unguarded shock; naked, raw—
pain.
"I'm sorry."
She saw, in a cold torrent of revelation and knowledge and bleeding, wintry fear—
The ceiling of the club exploded around them, and the shape in his arms lashed out with a clawed hand.
(No.)
He caught her arm, the arm that now writhed underneath his fingers like churning waves of the ocean, during a storm of violence and electric death. Fur sprouted, her pelt emerging, ripping through the hideously cute top she wore. Torn white cotton fell away below them, and the snarls of pursuing wolves reached his ears. He snarled himself, a sound of anger, frustration, and pure, unadulterated hate, then launched atop the darkened houses and through the forests of the night.
(That isn't—)
The bundle of fur howled. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled in dread.
(I'm insane, aren't I.)
He dropped her onto the damp forest grounds. The spark of violet in her eyes was one of bloodlust; the weak, human female that he had just met at the bar had gone in a rush of heated fur and bloodied nails.
His nails.
(Yes. That must be it.)
The wolf snapped sharp teeth at him; he withdrew his hand, foreboding twisting like poison in the bottom of his stomach.
"...You can't control yourself."
(How can that be me if I can't even remember?)
He cursed, and even the sound was tired.
"Damnit, girl."
(Don't call me that.)
Leaves crinkled beneath his knees like faded newspaper, old and yellowed with time. "Come back to yourself," he demanded, yanking her snout to him. The wolf launched itself at him, jaws snapping and smelling of uncontrollable hunger. Inuyasha caught her easily, seemingly delicate human hands locking around her forelegs, and he shook her. Hard.
"Girl..."
(...)
He cursed again. She tried to snap off his fingers.
"Girl!"
(Stop it.)
"Wake up!"
(Leave me alone.)
"KAGOME!"
She came back into herself in that same cold torrent of frozen fire. His hair tickled her face like wild grasses against bare legs, and she tried to breathe, but his hair got in the way, all those fine strands of silver that she couldn't help but snuffle into her nose. His power had slackened, draining out of the room like water, and the temperature had plunged back into its previous state of sickening warmth. Her limbs jerked unconsciously. Panic writhed in her chest.
"Kagome."
Her hand latched on to the cloth at his shoulders, burying itself through cotton folds. "You bastard," she half-whispered, half-screamed, and her voice cracked despite herself. She grabbed him hard around his neck, slender fingers clawing at his exposed throat in violent grieving. "You asshole, you freak—"
You've made me a freak too.
"Kagome—" He didn't raise a hand to defend himself, only sat there, regret and anger laced through his voice. "I'm sorry."
She tried to scratch at him harder, but her nails were human, too weak, too soft to do any good. Shock swarmed in her head, a massive buzzing of adrenaline that plunged a thousand needles into her temples. "I...hate...you..." It came out as a half sob, and more, but she hid herself away, into the folds of his shirt, and tried to dig her fingers through his throat at the same time. "I...don't want...to be..."
A freak.
His arms went around her, warm and almost tentative. Was he trying to comfort her?
Because it's not working, she thought hysterically. Stop it stop it stop it. He yelled something against her hair, but it was lost in the numbing torrent of shock. Oh grandma, if you could only be here to see me. Her thoughts chased each other around her head like drunken monkeys. How you would laugh. She clutched at his shoulder, his hair. Your beloved, precious granddaughter. What is she now? Terror strengthened her voice; panic stole all rationality. "Let go of me—!" and she tried to shove him away, but his arms held on to her, a grip too strong for her to break. A werewolf, a circus freak, oh god oh god— The air cloyed thick in her lungs, and cold sweat trailed down her forehead. She struggled against him, hopelessly, and then in a flash of that frozen fire she could feel something, some distant force manifesting from within herself. She stilled, and her voice came out choked, "Inuyasha!" but it was too late for her to fight it.
Even as she did, it would still win.
Inuyasha—
But she fought anyway, teeth clenched until her jaws ached like holy hell, nerves tightened to breaking point, but still the force trickled down, like water seeping from a crack in the dam, through hands, thighs, feet. My hands. Her hands were first to go, and when she saw the nails thickening into hooks of ivory, and the dark brown fur flowing onto her forearms, and the knuckles cracking, warping into inhuman joints—
And she screamed, long and hard and scratchy in her throat, lashing out with wolf limbs and a furred tail until she caught Inuyasha across his cheek, claws scarring four long gashes down his skin, and the sticky red worms ran down into his shirt, and she was still screaming, and screaming, because she knew if she stopped the thing that was her and yet wasn't her would come and take her over completely like the feared monster-under-the-bed, except this monster was herself, and that was when he hit her across her face, and then everything went
—Numb.
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AN: Don't you just love cliffhangers and gratuitous violence?
(This chapter also known as: Kagome Goes Nutty—Not to Mention Furry.)
Meanwhile!
...the chapters just keep getting longer...and longer...and longer... (and the poor author faints dead away from trying to keep up with her crazed muse, who, incidentally, is on speed.)