A/N: I wanted to put more action in the last chapter, but lets face it,
Eiji is no match for Inuyasha. I'll try to work in some real violence
later on, but for now you'll just have to bear with me.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions
Kagome found Inuyasha sitting on the floor with his arms and legs crossed. His head was bowed so his shaggy white bangs mostly obscured his face. The white dog-ears on the top of his head swiveled toward the sound of the girls feet thudding softly on the hardwood floor. One golden eye slid open, then the other.
"What are you doing up?" he asked gruffly.
"I couldn't sleep," Kagome told him honestly, sitting down beside him. He grunted a response. After a moment her natural curiosity got the best of her and she asked, "Do you sleep?"
Inuyasha sighed heavily. "No," he told her. "I do not sleep. I suspend my functions, and I can be shut down--" he gave an almost invisible shiver as he said that, but Kagome noticed "--but it's not the same."
The girl pondered this. "But if you've never slept--or never slept when you knew for sure you were sleeping-- then how could you tell to difference?"
The hanyou shifted uneasily at her question, and his amber eyes caught the light, making them seem to glow. Finally he ceded, "I don't know. . ."
"Oh," Kagome said. If he didn't know what it was to sleep, if no one had ever told him what sleeping was but always called it 'suspended function' or whatever, how would he know if he were to fall asleep? That question lead to others: What if no one ever told him he was angry? Happy? Sad? What if he felt these emotions, but he didn't know what they were, and no one ever taught him how to deal with them? Suddenly the girl had a pretty good idea why hanyou were unstable. Other questions also came to mind. "Do you dream?"
"What?" He was giving her his 'you-have-got-to-be-the-stupidest/craziest- girl-on-the-face-of-the-planet' look.
"Do. You. Dream? It's not that hard a question."
"I. . ." Inuyasha stopped, scowling, then continued, "When I suspend function, I get. . . I guess you could call it feedback. It's nothing really. Random memory, unprocessed data, other shit that goes through my head while my primary nervous center cools off. I suppose you could say it's like dreaming."
Kagome blinked, trying to decode his answer. The only part that really made sense was the last bit. ". . .unprocessed data. . ." what a weird way to describe dreaming. Wasn't it easier just to say dreaming? Answer: obviously not for a hanyou.
"Is that what you came down here for?" Inuyasha interrupted her musing. "You should go back to bed. It's almost two in the morning, and you have to get up in a few hours."
"No, that's not what I came down here for," Kagome said, moving closer. "I wanted to thank you. For saving me."
"Feh," came the predictable response, and he looked away from her. "I was just doing what I was made to do."
"Yeah, I know," Kagome said, refusing to let his attitude depress her. "But you didn't have to force me to take you to work with me. I know I wanted to leave you behind, but I am 'really' glad you were there. So, thank you."
Inuyasha was watching her again, and his expression was somewhere between disbelief, pleasure, and the sort of curiosity a little boy might have for a particularly bizarre insect. For a long moment he just fixed her with that mixed, incredulous expression, then he shifted uncomfortably and looked away. "You're welcome. Now go back to bed."
"I think I'll stay here a while," she said, smiling, "if you don't mind."
"Go ahead. I can't--" he cut off as Kagome leaned on his shoulder. He was warmer than she would have guessed, being a machine. Actually, she would say he was probably a little warmer than a human.
Finally feeling safe, Kagome dozed off. But before sleep claimed her, she thought she heard the hanyou whisper softly, "I'm glad I was there too."
*~*~*
Sesshomaru teased the woman with his tongue as she moaned and made little pleading sounds in her throat. If he had a choice, he would have left right then. But then, if he had a choice, he wouldn't have been here in there first place. With a few more desultory strokes, his mistress climaxed, her back arching and her hands twisting in the sheets.
The youkai pulled away, wondering why his maker had bothered giving him the facility of taste. Now he would have to wash her flavor out of his mouth. He breathed in and the smell of her pleasure and marijuana smoke coated his throat unpleasantly. Sesshomaru looked away from the sight of Ryoko panting as she slowly recovered from her orgasm.
He heard the flick of her lighter, and knew that she was through with him for the night. Without waiting for a dismissal, he dressed and straightened his hair, heading for the door.
"My husband will be home in a few days," the woman said, drawing the youkai's attention back to where she lay. She'd pulled her silk sheets up around her chest, and was playing with her cigarette.
"So?" Sesshomaru asked, seeing no reason he should be concerned with her husband.
"Just stay out of his way," the woman husked, taking a drag and exhaling the smoke through her nose. "That's all."
Sesshomaru nodded and excused himself. He made his way down the stair and to the back door in search of fresh air. His creators, for reasons best left to themselves, had granted him and their other top of the line models with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. It allowed him to read the moods and intentions of the humans around him, which Sesshomaru had to admit was useful, but now he was left with the need to clean the stink out of his delicate nose.
Directly off the back porch was a neat garden, the kind used for entertaining. Several white, rod iron lawn chairs were set out, as well as two glass-topped tables with brightly colored sun umbrellas. In the artificial security light, the reds and yellows on the fabric or on the flower looked strange, too bright with the sky so black. No stars were visible; the lights drowned them out.
The youkai took a deep breath, and air scented with rose and jasmine and wet grass helped wash away the other, more cloying odors. He exhaled slowly through his mouth, letting the cool night air roll over his tongue. Sesshomaru closed his eyes and inhaled again. For a moment he stood there silently, just breathing.
Then he realized that he wasn't alone. He opened his eyes and found the person his sharp nose had already told him would be there. The girl, Rin, watched him raptly, her head tilted slightly to one side.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Sesshomaru asked, his voice without inflection.
The girl smiled and shrugged. She was mute, he had learned. Or rather, she wasn't mute, but she didn't talk. There was no physical reason for it, according to Ryoko. The doctors had recommending therapy. The woman had laughed after she told him that, not a happy sound. He didn't know why she had laughed, but he could guess.
The girl's bruises were old, but in the harsh white light their ugly green contrasted drastically with her pale skin.
The sight of her bruises inspired a strange reaction in Sesshomaru. It felt as though something inside of him was trying to switch over--to change circuits or something--but wasn't quite managing it. Whatever it was wouldn't quite click. Instead, there was a place where that something, whatever it was, should be. A shape with nothing filling it in. Unconsciously, Sesshomaru ran his fingers through his long, silvery hair.
"It's very late," he said. The girl shrugged again. After that, the youkai felt no need to say anything else. Most humans talked so much, and said so little. It was pathetic. He sat down on one of the lawn chairs, and gazed up at the perfectly blank night sky. A fake owl perched on a mock orange tree, briefly catching his attention. What was the point? Who was the mystery man who owned this house, and kept this wife, and who, the youkai strongly suspected, was responsible for those bruises. Why was he so paranoid?
Without warning, Rin walked over and plopped down next to him. She gave him another wide grin, then settled herself uninvited against his chest.
Sesshomaru froze, completely unsure how to deal with this kind of behavior. The girl was too young for his normal services, and she refused to tell him what she wanted. Indeed, she refused to 'want' anything. She seemed perfectly content to use him as a pillow. Slowly, the youkai relaxed as it dawned on him that he didn't have to do anything. She was happy to just as she was.
He could push her away. She was not his mistress; he was not required to please her. . . but why? It ought not matter either way. Youkai didn't care. And Sesshomaru didn't care, really, but there was that odd gap. . . as though his responses were being shaped around that place where nothing was.
He breathed in. The girl did not smell like her mother. Even if Ryoko's scent hadn't been tainted with her perfume, her tobacco and her narcotics, her natural scent was abrasive and musky. The girl smelled young, and fresh, like the watered grass smelled fresh, but it was a human scent. She did not smell unhealthy.
Sighing his acceptance, Sesshomaru put his arm around the girl's shoulder, and felt her snuggle closer.
*~*~*
Kikyo woke in the dark. She couldn't remember why it was dark, nor where she was, or even falling asleep. The chain of events leading up to now was hazy in her mind, and she wasn't sure what was real and what she had dreamt. Oddly, she didn't feel anything as she considered her situation. She knew she ought to. She should be frightened, or at least apprehensive, but for some reason she couldn't muster either emotion. Blinking, she levered herself up on stiff joints. Her body was heavy, and she was beginning to think that she had slept far too long.
She blinked again, and was able to pick out some of the details of her surroundings. Not that there was anything to see. She was lying on a table, in a room devoid of any other furnishing. There were light fixtures on the ceiling, but they weren't on, obviously. There was a door, barely discernible from the wall. There was the table she was on, which was covered in tissue paper, like a doctor's would be. Other than that, she was the only feature in the room.
Coldly, she examined herself, and found that she was naked. Now she was positive she should be worried, but she still felt the same complete and resounding. . . nothing. Not even an echo of feeling. Maybe I'm in shock, she wondered vaguely, pushing herself onto her feet.
It was possible, but she didn't think so. She couldn't remember any reason why she might be in shock. Her last clear memory. . .
She fought with that thought for a moment, trying to pin down the point where she was still sure of her memories.
She remembered numbers, and a door, and. . .
Inuyasha! She remembered the hanyou, regarding her with intense, molten gold eyes. She remembered his long, snowy white hair. She remembered him smiling at her uncertainly.
And suddenly she felt something: fury. It filled her with heat and burned in her throat like acid. She no longer felt simply cold when she thought of the hanyou, she felt so cold it burned. Coldfire seemed to race through her.
But she didn't know why.
The door slid open with a hiss, and Kikyo whirled on the figure that stood framed in the entrance.
"I see you're up."
*~*~*
A/N: Wow, I found even more time to write, and I was feeling very inspired for some reason. Well, the result is another chapter, way before I thought I'd be able to write it.
Just so you know, both Eiji and Ryoko are just little people I cooked up to serve plot purposes in this story. If either of those names pop up in the anime, I didn't know/remember them. I just don't happen to have a vast stock of Japanese names, and these happen to be two of them.
Thanks for reading, and if you liked it, review. If you didn't like it, review anyway, and tell me why.
Later.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions
Kagome found Inuyasha sitting on the floor with his arms and legs crossed. His head was bowed so his shaggy white bangs mostly obscured his face. The white dog-ears on the top of his head swiveled toward the sound of the girls feet thudding softly on the hardwood floor. One golden eye slid open, then the other.
"What are you doing up?" he asked gruffly.
"I couldn't sleep," Kagome told him honestly, sitting down beside him. He grunted a response. After a moment her natural curiosity got the best of her and she asked, "Do you sleep?"
Inuyasha sighed heavily. "No," he told her. "I do not sleep. I suspend my functions, and I can be shut down--" he gave an almost invisible shiver as he said that, but Kagome noticed "--but it's not the same."
The girl pondered this. "But if you've never slept--or never slept when you knew for sure you were sleeping-- then how could you tell to difference?"
The hanyou shifted uneasily at her question, and his amber eyes caught the light, making them seem to glow. Finally he ceded, "I don't know. . ."
"Oh," Kagome said. If he didn't know what it was to sleep, if no one had ever told him what sleeping was but always called it 'suspended function' or whatever, how would he know if he were to fall asleep? That question lead to others: What if no one ever told him he was angry? Happy? Sad? What if he felt these emotions, but he didn't know what they were, and no one ever taught him how to deal with them? Suddenly the girl had a pretty good idea why hanyou were unstable. Other questions also came to mind. "Do you dream?"
"What?" He was giving her his 'you-have-got-to-be-the-stupidest/craziest- girl-on-the-face-of-the-planet' look.
"Do. You. Dream? It's not that hard a question."
"I. . ." Inuyasha stopped, scowling, then continued, "When I suspend function, I get. . . I guess you could call it feedback. It's nothing really. Random memory, unprocessed data, other shit that goes through my head while my primary nervous center cools off. I suppose you could say it's like dreaming."
Kagome blinked, trying to decode his answer. The only part that really made sense was the last bit. ". . .unprocessed data. . ." what a weird way to describe dreaming. Wasn't it easier just to say dreaming? Answer: obviously not for a hanyou.
"Is that what you came down here for?" Inuyasha interrupted her musing. "You should go back to bed. It's almost two in the morning, and you have to get up in a few hours."
"No, that's not what I came down here for," Kagome said, moving closer. "I wanted to thank you. For saving me."
"Feh," came the predictable response, and he looked away from her. "I was just doing what I was made to do."
"Yeah, I know," Kagome said, refusing to let his attitude depress her. "But you didn't have to force me to take you to work with me. I know I wanted to leave you behind, but I am 'really' glad you were there. So, thank you."
Inuyasha was watching her again, and his expression was somewhere between disbelief, pleasure, and the sort of curiosity a little boy might have for a particularly bizarre insect. For a long moment he just fixed her with that mixed, incredulous expression, then he shifted uncomfortably and looked away. "You're welcome. Now go back to bed."
"I think I'll stay here a while," she said, smiling, "if you don't mind."
"Go ahead. I can't--" he cut off as Kagome leaned on his shoulder. He was warmer than she would have guessed, being a machine. Actually, she would say he was probably a little warmer than a human.
Finally feeling safe, Kagome dozed off. But before sleep claimed her, she thought she heard the hanyou whisper softly, "I'm glad I was there too."
*~*~*
Sesshomaru teased the woman with his tongue as she moaned and made little pleading sounds in her throat. If he had a choice, he would have left right then. But then, if he had a choice, he wouldn't have been here in there first place. With a few more desultory strokes, his mistress climaxed, her back arching and her hands twisting in the sheets.
The youkai pulled away, wondering why his maker had bothered giving him the facility of taste. Now he would have to wash her flavor out of his mouth. He breathed in and the smell of her pleasure and marijuana smoke coated his throat unpleasantly. Sesshomaru looked away from the sight of Ryoko panting as she slowly recovered from her orgasm.
He heard the flick of her lighter, and knew that she was through with him for the night. Without waiting for a dismissal, he dressed and straightened his hair, heading for the door.
"My husband will be home in a few days," the woman said, drawing the youkai's attention back to where she lay. She'd pulled her silk sheets up around her chest, and was playing with her cigarette.
"So?" Sesshomaru asked, seeing no reason he should be concerned with her husband.
"Just stay out of his way," the woman husked, taking a drag and exhaling the smoke through her nose. "That's all."
Sesshomaru nodded and excused himself. He made his way down the stair and to the back door in search of fresh air. His creators, for reasons best left to themselves, had granted him and their other top of the line models with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. It allowed him to read the moods and intentions of the humans around him, which Sesshomaru had to admit was useful, but now he was left with the need to clean the stink out of his delicate nose.
Directly off the back porch was a neat garden, the kind used for entertaining. Several white, rod iron lawn chairs were set out, as well as two glass-topped tables with brightly colored sun umbrellas. In the artificial security light, the reds and yellows on the fabric or on the flower looked strange, too bright with the sky so black. No stars were visible; the lights drowned them out.
The youkai took a deep breath, and air scented with rose and jasmine and wet grass helped wash away the other, more cloying odors. He exhaled slowly through his mouth, letting the cool night air roll over his tongue. Sesshomaru closed his eyes and inhaled again. For a moment he stood there silently, just breathing.
Then he realized that he wasn't alone. He opened his eyes and found the person his sharp nose had already told him would be there. The girl, Rin, watched him raptly, her head tilted slightly to one side.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Sesshomaru asked, his voice without inflection.
The girl smiled and shrugged. She was mute, he had learned. Or rather, she wasn't mute, but she didn't talk. There was no physical reason for it, according to Ryoko. The doctors had recommending therapy. The woman had laughed after she told him that, not a happy sound. He didn't know why she had laughed, but he could guess.
The girl's bruises were old, but in the harsh white light their ugly green contrasted drastically with her pale skin.
The sight of her bruises inspired a strange reaction in Sesshomaru. It felt as though something inside of him was trying to switch over--to change circuits or something--but wasn't quite managing it. Whatever it was wouldn't quite click. Instead, there was a place where that something, whatever it was, should be. A shape with nothing filling it in. Unconsciously, Sesshomaru ran his fingers through his long, silvery hair.
"It's very late," he said. The girl shrugged again. After that, the youkai felt no need to say anything else. Most humans talked so much, and said so little. It was pathetic. He sat down on one of the lawn chairs, and gazed up at the perfectly blank night sky. A fake owl perched on a mock orange tree, briefly catching his attention. What was the point? Who was the mystery man who owned this house, and kept this wife, and who, the youkai strongly suspected, was responsible for those bruises. Why was he so paranoid?
Without warning, Rin walked over and plopped down next to him. She gave him another wide grin, then settled herself uninvited against his chest.
Sesshomaru froze, completely unsure how to deal with this kind of behavior. The girl was too young for his normal services, and she refused to tell him what she wanted. Indeed, she refused to 'want' anything. She seemed perfectly content to use him as a pillow. Slowly, the youkai relaxed as it dawned on him that he didn't have to do anything. She was happy to just as she was.
He could push her away. She was not his mistress; he was not required to please her. . . but why? It ought not matter either way. Youkai didn't care. And Sesshomaru didn't care, really, but there was that odd gap. . . as though his responses were being shaped around that place where nothing was.
He breathed in. The girl did not smell like her mother. Even if Ryoko's scent hadn't been tainted with her perfume, her tobacco and her narcotics, her natural scent was abrasive and musky. The girl smelled young, and fresh, like the watered grass smelled fresh, but it was a human scent. She did not smell unhealthy.
Sighing his acceptance, Sesshomaru put his arm around the girl's shoulder, and felt her snuggle closer.
*~*~*
Kikyo woke in the dark. She couldn't remember why it was dark, nor where she was, or even falling asleep. The chain of events leading up to now was hazy in her mind, and she wasn't sure what was real and what she had dreamt. Oddly, she didn't feel anything as she considered her situation. She knew she ought to. She should be frightened, or at least apprehensive, but for some reason she couldn't muster either emotion. Blinking, she levered herself up on stiff joints. Her body was heavy, and she was beginning to think that she had slept far too long.
She blinked again, and was able to pick out some of the details of her surroundings. Not that there was anything to see. She was lying on a table, in a room devoid of any other furnishing. There were light fixtures on the ceiling, but they weren't on, obviously. There was a door, barely discernible from the wall. There was the table she was on, which was covered in tissue paper, like a doctor's would be. Other than that, she was the only feature in the room.
Coldly, she examined herself, and found that she was naked. Now she was positive she should be worried, but she still felt the same complete and resounding. . . nothing. Not even an echo of feeling. Maybe I'm in shock, she wondered vaguely, pushing herself onto her feet.
It was possible, but she didn't think so. She couldn't remember any reason why she might be in shock. Her last clear memory. . .
She fought with that thought for a moment, trying to pin down the point where she was still sure of her memories.
She remembered numbers, and a door, and. . .
Inuyasha! She remembered the hanyou, regarding her with intense, molten gold eyes. She remembered his long, snowy white hair. She remembered him smiling at her uncertainly.
And suddenly she felt something: fury. It filled her with heat and burned in her throat like acid. She no longer felt simply cold when she thought of the hanyou, she felt so cold it burned. Coldfire seemed to race through her.
But she didn't know why.
The door slid open with a hiss, and Kikyo whirled on the figure that stood framed in the entrance.
"I see you're up."
*~*~*
A/N: Wow, I found even more time to write, and I was feeling very inspired for some reason. Well, the result is another chapter, way before I thought I'd be able to write it.
Just so you know, both Eiji and Ryoko are just little people I cooked up to serve plot purposes in this story. If either of those names pop up in the anime, I didn't know/remember them. I just don't happen to have a vast stock of Japanese names, and these happen to be two of them.
Thanks for reading, and if you liked it, review. If you didn't like it, review anyway, and tell me why.
Later.