Author's Note: I'm really sorry about the lack of updates for such a long period of time. I've been under a lot of stress from my family, and I've been helping a friend with some personal issues, and of course, school work. I'm currently working on the next chapter, because I'm home sick, so hopefully I'll be able to post it today or maybe by the end of the weekend. Once again, I'm very sorry.
Chapter Six: The Road to Hell
As school let out, Rin couldn't help the sinking feeling of disappointment that covered her like a blanket. The class was slow and tired as they gathered their backpacks to leave, except for Shippou, who was out of that classroom as though the hounds of Hell were on his tail. She sighed as she waited for Kohaku to catch up, wishing she knew what the kitsune's problem was. He'd barely spent five minutes in her presence since he had come over to talk. He'd seemed ok then.
"You look like you lost your best friend." Kohaku remarked as he stopped next to her. She was still staring wistfully at the path Shippou had all but run.
"Sue seems that way, doesn't it?" Rin said wearily.
"Shippou still avoiding you then?" Kohaku hedged.
"You mean he's not avoiding you?" She tried not to let her bitterness seep into her voice.
Kohaku shrugged. "He's a bit distant, but I wouldn't say he's avoiding me."
"Distant," Rin said, "is an understatement."
They continued the conversation as they walked home, starting the way Shippou had gone as was their habit since before they could remember. The day was deceitfully bright for winter, though the steely gray clouds threatened rain during the night.
"So," Kohaku began slowly, "what's been going on between you two?"
"I wish I knew." Rin said, shrugging. The effect was lost beneath the weight of her backpack.
Kohaku raised his eyebrows, pinning her with a look. "You don't know?"
"Well he has been avoiding me, you see…" Rin said sarcastically.
"And nothing happened between you two before then?" Kohaku pushed, his tone implying that he was talking to someone mentally retarded. Rin gave him a half-hearted slap on his shoulder.
She was silent for a while, looking down at the sidewalk as they went home. It made sense that he would have avoided her about the kiss, but then why would he talk to her, tell her he'd do it again if she asked? Was that why he was avoiding her? What if it had nothing to do with her?
"Would you kill me if I said I didn't know?"
"Why wouldn't you know?"
"Don't get me wrong, Rin. I care about you a lot. There are just so many things that say me kissing you is… I dunno… wrong."
Rin grimaced, pulled out of her reverie by Kohaku's voice.
"He may be youkai, but in his feelings he's just as human as we are." Kohaku said sagely. "Humans make mistakes, as do youkai, but a human tends to make more mistakes in their feelings because we think we know what's best."
"But we don't…" Rin interjected, stopping on the corner of her street, where she usually parted with Kohaku and Shippou.
"Youkai don't make that many mistakes because they use their instincts. That's how they solve problems. We know this because a lot of our friends are youkai. But Shippou's friends are humans, despite the fact that Inuyasha is a hanyou. I wouldn't put it past him for him to think that he knew what was best instead of relying on his instincts to solve a problem."
She sighed. He had a point, but still… "Kohaku, say you had a friend with a problem they wouldn't tell you."
"Ok…" Kohaku said, a telltale curve to his lips that meant he was trying not to smile.
"Then say they gave you the name of one person in the problem who was only slightly involved. Would you talk to that person?"
Kohaku looked thoughtful for a minute. "Which person? The one with the problem or the one who is slightly involved?"
Rin's sudden frustration was a tangible thing. "The person who's slightly involved."
"Sounds under-handed, to be honest," Kohaku answered, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"But what if he refuses to tell you the problem even though you can see it's hurting him? That's not under-handed, is it? All that is is good intentions." Rin persuaded him.
Kohaku froend. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions, you know. And there are people who don't want to be helped."
"Everyone wants to be helped." Rin retorted. "Some of them just don't know it yet."
"I'm not the one you should be telling that to." Kohaku pointed out.
Rin nodded, her indignation vanishing as quickly as it had accumulated. "I'll see you later, Kohaku." She said quietly, quickly walking towards her house.
"Bye, Rin." Kohaku said belatedly, knowing she couldn't hear him now.
EF
"Hello?"
"Why haven't you been answering the damn phone?"
Kagome sighed, wishing that the angry hanyou on the other end of the phone line would go away for a little longer. "I've been busy, that's all."
"The fuck you have," Inuyasha growled. "You're avoiding me. Avoiding your mate."
"I can do what I want, Inuyasha. I'm a big girl."
"No, you fucking can't." He retaliated.
"Why not? Because I'm your mate?" Kagome supplied, knowing the argument by haeard. She'd heard it so many times before.
"That's exactly why you can't." Inuyasha ground out, obviously in danger of losing his phenomenal temper.
"We aren't married, we don't have any children binding us, and we don't live together. I'm not your mate, I'm your long-term affair." Kagome said in a tired voice.
She heard him whimper like a dog in pain, but she didn't wait for the rest of his argument as she hung up the phone.
EF
Inuyasha whimpered again as the line went dead. Kagome had hung up on him? His whimper turned into a growl. His mate had hung up on him and rejected him! As quickly as the growl started, it stopped. His heart hurt. His mate had rejected him. The hanyou quickly redialed her number, pressing the phone to his cheek tightly while his ears twitched atop his head to catch even the tiniest sound. He felt like a crazed man.
A minute later the busy signal dashed his hopes that she might listen to him. Angriliy, he threw the phone across the kitchen, hearing it slam into the opposite wall and break into shattered plastic pieces. No satisfaction came from the act. The hanyou leaned against the counter by the sink, feeling his heart beat wildly against his chest, aching almost too painfully to bear. His youkai's voice inside his soul began to get louder, and he feared it.
Kagome feared it, and he wanted to growl at the thought of her fearing any part of him. But it'd been unspoken, it hadn't been talked about. It was his mistake, his shame that he could lose control like that. Long ago he'd learned how to block out his youkai, the screaming demon torrent inside him that had woken up furious. The baser instincts of mating had woken up with it.
Inuyasha brought his hands up to his face as a new awareness gripped him and threatened to let go at the same time. Emotions he knew were not his own had become a clear calling to him, even as the strength of that calling grew weaker with every beat of his heart. His mate was angry at him, and pining away from him, and…
…and she'd been with another.
Unbelievably he felt his heartbeat increase. Blood rushed so fast and hard he felt dizzy. Slowly he sank down to the cold linoleum, his hands in front of him to steady himself. A pounding necessity was hounding him, giving his youkai strength to scream louder at him.
"Mate…" He wasn't aware of speaking, but the gruff voice was undeniably his.
The beat of his heart was deafening, the cacophony of sound threatening to kill him with its intensity. The kitchen around him blurred as his instincts took control. Kagome's emotions tore at his soul as well as the memory of their first time together so long ago, the knowledge that she'd let someone who wasn't him touch her.
A person came into the kitchen, a woman, a familiar woman. His youkai took control as hanyou Inuyasha felt his thoughts shut down and fade away. He'd ignored his demon blood for far too long.
EF
Shippou sighed heavily as he sat down in Kagome's living room. She was answering a phone call in the kitchen. The kitsune stayed quiet, lost in his own thoughts. Rin had seemed so sad the last few days, her scent weighed down with a heaviness when usually she could touch the clouds she was so happy. Ever since they had talked, ever since he decided to keep his distance, she'd been this way. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't be near her. Not after that explosive question.
"Would you do it again… if I asked?"
He looked up as Kagome entered the room, once again catching the elusive addition to her scent. He couldn't figure it out. Now her scent was sad, like Rin's was sad, like his father's had been sad. Why was everyone so upset? There seemed an unusual tension in her, tinged with the familiar remorse. Vaguely Shippou wondered if her feelings had changed with the phone call, or if she'd been this way all day.
"Hey, sorry about that." Kagome said, sounding falsely bright. Shippou inwardly winced but let it pass; she'd tell him if she wanted to talk. "So what did you want to talk about?"
"I think I hurt Rin's feelings…" The kitsune said quietly, looking down at his hands instead of the human across from him. For some reason unidentifiable to him, he felt deeply ashamed by his avoidance.
"And why do you think that?" Kagome asked.
"I figured I'd keep my distance, you know? I couldn't stand being around her before and then she had to go and ask if I'd kiss her again…" Shippou explained, exasperated and distressed and feeling a deep blush staining his cheeks. He heard Kagome trying to stop a laugh and grumbled, "It's not funny." He was glad that her laugh sounded real, at least.
"Sorry, Shippou. I didn't mean to laugh at your problem. But would kissing Rin again really be that bad?"
"No," Shippou admitted, "it wouldn't. Mom finding out, however, would be."
Kagome frowned at the mention of Kikyo. "Does Rin know about your home issues yet?"
"What do you mean, 'yet'?"
"Rin's a smart girl. She's bound to figure it out sometime." Kagome noticed Shippou's sudden distinct discomfort. "So does she already know?"
"I… uhh… gave her a clue or two…. Would it be bad for her to know?" Shippou asked with the air of one about to be arrested for an obvious crime. Kagome's frown deepened.
"That depends… What do you think she'd do about it?"
"About it? She said she wanted to help me. Is that… um… could that be bad?"
She sighed. "I don't know. I'd have to know how Rin wants to help you."
"She… doesn't want to see me in pain, that's all." The kitsune said quietly, his eyes unfocused. As if disconnected from reality, Shippou felt the world spin slowly beneath him. He realized that he hadn't quite meant to say that at all. Rin really didn't want to see him in pain, did she? But that was a stupid question. He willingness and determinedness to help solve the problem proved as much.
Kagome felt the undercurrent of change in the kit. "Shippou?"
He felt his mind slam down to earth again. "What?"
Kagome's frown had disappeared before, but was back with a vengeance at his almost breathless voice. Shippou caught the beginnings of fear in her scent and sat back on instinct, edging away from her slowly in hopes of making the fear go away.
Kagome shook her head. "It's nothing." Her tone didn't manage to convince the kit sitting next to her, and neither did her scent, which still held the elusive new scent. "So you think you hurt Rin's feelings?"
Shippou once again looked down at his hands, which still rested on his knees, blushing scarlet. "Well… I told her that… um, that I'd kiss her again, if she asked me to."
"Only if she asked?" Kagome asked, the humor in her voice almost real.
He nodded. "She thought I regretted kissing her… It's just a bad memory to me now."
"Why would it be bad at all?" She was almost afraid to know his answer.
"Mom caught me kissing her."
Kagome didn't say anything. If he hadn't come to her house because of it, the beating must not have been too bad, maybe just a couple of bruises. They might even have healed by now. She wasn't sure. Something inside her wished he'd stop calling Kikyo his mother, though her conscious nagged her for the thought. Of course he'd call her his mother; Kikyo did raise him most the time.
"How bad was it?" She didn't have to elaborate; he'd know what she was talking about.
Shippou shook his head. "Some bruises, made me a little sore for the night. They're almost gone now."
Kagome reached over and tugged up his shirt, trying not to look at the almost-healed scratches that had once been gouges. They would scar, she knew it. The kit would be stuck with reminders for the rest of his life of how he had an abusive drunk for a mother. The thought made her vindictive. The bruises he'd told her of were small and not very discolored compared to Kikyo's past work. They just looked a little deeper in color compared to the rest of his skin.
She sighed, so tired of this. Shippou was practically her son, for the good mothering Kikyo had done. Kikyo had driven the kit to her time and again, forcing him to learn lessons he should never have had to learn. It drove her crazy to think that Shippou thought of Kikyo as his mother when Kagome had been the one to clean him up after a beating, to hold him when he cried, to make it all better.
To Be Continued…
