Title: Flesh Bones, and Warmth
Author: Anney
Genre: Um, not too sure about this. AU, Angst? I don't know.
Rating: PG13-ish
Fandom: InuYasha
Pairing: Kagome/InuYasha/Sango/Miroku/Shippo
Warnings: Shippo's probably over the age of consent, but with demons and aging you never really know do you?
Disclaimer: Not mine, yada yada
Summary: They fall into a heap of flesh and bones and warmth.
A/N: Why do I keep writing InuYasha fics now? Because it's evil and has eaten my brain? Most probably.
Flesh, Bones and Warmth
Every story she ever told always started with 'Once upon a time' and then a princess and a prince were involved in some crazy situation that never really happened in real life.
She is fifteen years old and pulled down a well into the past. Her story starts out mundane and everyday only to suddenly switch gears and spin out. Her only goal in life had been good grades, good school, and a good job. Maybe a family, eventually, maybe a husband a dog or a cat. Maybe reality.
How long did she wander around the world with creatures that are just fairy tales surrounding her. How wonderful did the wind feel as it ran fingers through her hair as she flew across the skies. How long did it take before her reality was so skewed that it wasn't reality anymore.
The future, that wasn't really future but home, became a place that she no longer knew. It became it's own creature to be wary of, to walk softly around. There were dangers she ceased to understand around every corner. The longer she stayed in the past the more it became her present and the future just became confusion. Even the people she loved, the things she loved, the things she brought back became things to treat softly. Her family became only on the weekends, and her companions became constant every days.
She hoped that in the end after the final battle was over and the good guys could rejoice in a hard battle won that she could choose where she would stay. Sometimes she would think here sometimes she would think there but always she thought him and her and lover and everything. She saw them more than she saw anyone, anything, else.
One night, under the stars and the moon so bright that it was too bright almost, with a bundle of youth curled up on her chest his hair tickling her chin she remembered that she couldn't remember what her mother's face looked like. Her mother's voice had faded to a mumble and all she could hear was Sango, and Shippo, and Miroku inside her head where the voices of her loved ones lived. The only face she could see was one with soft doggy ears, and sharp doggy fangs. How mad would he be with her if he knew she thought that way?
Then one day, so close to the end but so far away really, her way home was full of water and she can swim, of course, but she was never very good at it. She didn't like how it felt to be so fully covered by something that could kill you so easily. She would stay until the water went down.
Sango was the first to find a grey hair. There was teasing, and laughter, and she chased Shippo around the campfire for so long everyone got dizzy and then everyone was collapsed in a pile of flesh and bones and warmth. The grey threaded through so beautifully, fallen stars through black midnight.
Shippo grew taller, but not so much, and his tail fluffed out from that puffy little poof that it was. A true fox tail and she can remember how proud he was of it. How he would wave it at her and show it off. She can remember when she fell in love and when he fell in love and when the group expanded and everyone was in a pile of flesh and bone and warmth. Even Sango stopped slapping wondering hands months, days, years ago. Miroku always wanted children, he got all the he could handle.
The well water never seemed to go down, even when it did. She would stand on the edge and lean over until she could feel herself about to fall but she never did. She couldn't. There was a voice in the back of her mind that said one more fall would be her last. She loved Sango's gray hair and the wrinkles in the corner of Miroku's eyes too much for the risk. She loved Shippo's tail, and his tricks. She loved InuYasha's sullen pouts and expressive ears.
Her mother must be gone by now, she thinks, her brother grown up and married. Maybe he has a little girl with her name. Maybe in some odd amount of years, after she's gone with Sango and Miroku to be buried in the ground under the tree where it all began, there will be another Kagome that falls through the well and swims through the water she can't get past. Maybe Shippo will have someone else to love with her name. Maybe InuYasha won't be alone for too long after everyone's gone.
Half-demons don't live as long as full demons so in the end it's Shippo that she worries about the most. It's Shippo that will lose not just his mother and father but his sister and lovers and in the end there will be only one of their group that really does see the next tomorrow.
Miroku finally looks trustworthy with those wrinkles by his eyes and the grey in Sango's hair just speaks of strength and hard won battles. Shippo barely looks fifteen and yet he sleeps against her back with his arm curled around her waist up to her shoulder where he holds on to her like he thinks she'll disappear in the night. They are a family now and she has a little boy with floppy dog ears and sharp doggy fangs with her brothers name that follows her around like the sweet little puppy she calls him. He has an older sister with dark, dark hair and blue. blue eyes like her father that chases him around the yard until they fall tangled in a heap by the fire and call for her to kiss their scraped knees and bruised shins.
They could never be loyal to anyone else so when Sango's next child is born she has floppy dog ears and golden eyes because they all sleep together in a heap of flesh and bones and warmth. They fight for the middle space but she always has an arm wrapped across her waist and up to her shoulder. There is always someone holding onto her, in case she tries to disappear into the night.
They all live happily ever after, because that's the way fairy tales end.
end