Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha he belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
Warning: Contains rape. And a possible lemon...-.-
Every Time A Rainbow Dies
.:Two:.
Inuyasha walked fast. The he ran, down blocks, across avenues, even if they took him farther away from Eastern Parkway. Away from his house. His rooftop. His birds. He simply ran, stopping twice to mop his face, around his eyes with the T-shirt, the one the old woman had thrown at him, the one he had struggled to put on the raped girls body. It didn't help. Wiping would not stop the pictures that played before him. Running could not put any bit of it behind him. Everywhere he turned masks followed him, vivid and distorted. He ran and ran but couldn't shake those sounds, those pictures. The scream, birds fluttering, the punch, one guy on top of her, the other holding her down, another punch-he still ducked-blood streaming from a busted lip, a closed eye, purple and swollen, plum-colored nipples, opened legs, the crushed rose, more blood, arms whirling, hands slapping, mad-crazy eyes of the old woman.
When he thought he would scream or lose his mind, he heard his mothers voice say, "Still yourself."
Inuyasha slowed to a trot, then a brisk walk, and none too soon. Up ahead he made out the distinct crawl of a blue-and-white in the next block. Spending his days on his rooftop did not make him ignorant of the streets below. He had seen enough to know how to carry himself and was determined to pass without being stopped by cops looking for a suspect.
The patrol broke left on Nostrand. Inuyasha slid id hands in his pockets and tried to walk casually in case he was being watched. This was not easy, as he felt he looked guilty to anyone who saw him. Especially to the girl who would not stop hitting him, the old woman who cursed him in her language, and to the eyes who peeped out from behind the curtains. Guilty.
She had to know that he had watched. That he could have been there thirty seconds sooner. That maybe she hadn't had to take that last punch. Her eye wouldn't be swollen, her lip busted up. She wouldn't have had to take so much from them if he had come down off the roof at her first scream. Why else would she continue to hit him when he told her to stop?
He was exhausted but not ready to come home. Home was where he settled, and he was far from doing that. He took President Street, which was still lively with people, then walked two blocks, where there was no one. When his head began to clear somewhat, and the images that haunted him where not as sharp, one thought occurred to him: They're still out there. They had to have seen him, even if it was dark.
Inuyasha turned into Kingston, then thought: What makes you think they're not on Kingston?
He turned down Bedford.
What makes you think they're not on Bedford? They could be packing. If they could rape her, they could just as easily shoot me.
The he heard it again, "Still yourself."
Inuyasha turned up Prospect Place and told himself, What will be, will be. If he had to step to them, he would. He had no one to back him up besides his brother, Sesshoumaru, and Inuyasha didn't carry anything to defend himself. For all the good it did him, he had fourteen birds on a rooftop and, to his surprise, some heart.
Inuyasha returned to his block on Eastern Parkway, back to everything familiar. Even so, he could not go inside his house. He was drawn to the alley and had to see the place where it happened. He looked down upon the spot where he had found her, knelt, and touched the rough ground where she had lain on her back. Though he could not see it, he knew her blood was on the street, perhaps where he had ran his hand.
To look at it, a strip between a Chinese takeout place and a barbershop, there was no trace of a crime scene. Just a place from which you'd naturally turn your gaze. A place where men took a piss in broad daylight and sanitation workers collected garbage from the dumpster in the early hours,
Even though he was not one to throw himself before people, he felt that he should tell someone that a girl had been raped where he stood. But whom would he tell? Could he open his mouth and have sense come out? All through school teachers had implored him to speak up or speak clearly. Talking was not his favorite thing.
He stood up and dusted off the grit from his hands on his shorts. It was then that he saw some figure billowing up from the ground on the side of the dumpster. He approached it carefully, for it seemed alive. Inuyasha grabbed the moving thing. His fingers discovered it was merely a piece of cloth.
The thin material slid through his fingers like silk, but it wasn't silk. It was a fine cotton. Almost sheer. He couldn't imagine why this fine cloth had been thrown away. When he held it up to the sky, he could see by the way the bottom danced in the breeze that it was a skirt.
Instantly he knew it was hers. He thought it was the kind of thing she would wear, though he did not know her at all. He pictured her wearing it.
He opened the skirt fully. It was a free flowing skirt that was tied, not zippered or buttoned. The tie, a simple strip, had been ripped, yet managed to hang onto the body of the skirt by a few loose threads. He looked about. Someone could be watching him. He shook the street off the cloth and rolled it into a tight loaf that he held under his arm. It was time to go home.
Upon seeing him, Rin, his sister-in-law, let out a gasp, an exaggerated one. "Ya look a sight!"
He shrugged but thought,'Got to get past her.'
Rin did not mean to let him pass. She stood, her belly huge, and legs a big A before him. "And what do ya mean, chargin' through heah wild and crazy, scarin' poor Old Myoga to his grave?"
Mr. Myoga, a country man from Inuyasha's village, was the tenant in the first-floor apartment. He had been a retired photographer for many years when Inuyasha's mother rented to him ten years ago. His mother was fond of saying, "He knew me before my parents were born." Now Old Myoga was decrepit. Inuyasha laughed inwardly at Rin's concern for their tenant. Both she and Sesshoumaru had plans for that apartment as soon as the boneyard claimed Old Myoga.
"The food is put away. You'll have to fix your plate it ya want to eat."
Rin waited for some reply, the usual thing he'd say about her half cooking. All he wanted was to get away from her.
"M'not hungry," he said, taking a big step to get around her. He could see she was all face full of questions and she wanted to talk.
"What's that you got there?" She spoke to his back. He wouldn't turn around.
It was easier when Sesshoumaru wasn't on night shift because them Rin had no use for Inuyasha. She and Sesshoumaru would sit at the kitchen table and dream their dreams. Rin was having some sort of difficulties with her pregnancy and was trapped in the house.
Inuyasha closed and locked his door by wedging the backrest of his chair underneath the knob. He fell into his bed with the cloth still tightly in his grasp. He lay on his back fingering the cloth, thinking that it had been tied around her body. The fine cotton cloth.
He had touched her. The girl. In fifteen or twenty seconds he had seen what girls hold secrete, though she did not invite him. Or them. And he had her skirt. The torn cloth. In his bed.
He took the cloth and unfurled it from the tight roll, then spread it into a full rectangle on his bed. It was beautiful. An indigo sea, streaks of violet, drops of turquoise in bolder drops of gold. He ran his hands along the fabric, searching for the girl who wore it. To picture her in it, he had to see it fully open. He took two nails and a hammer from his bottom drawer and began to nail the cloth to the wall facing his bed.
"Inuyasha! What's that noise?"
He ignored Rin.
She jiggled the door knob but could not get in.
"Inuyasha! What are ya doing?"
"Leave me alone" is what he said, but it came out in a mumble.
"Inuyasha, open."
He blasted his stereo. Some Wycleft Jean. Finally she gave up
Rin didn't really care, he reasoned. She was doing what she thought her role as woman of the house called for. He wished she'd do it elsewhere and leave him alone. He wanted no words tonight.
He hammered the last nail; then he lay in his bed to admire the skirt. He was so struck with the cloth that he couldn't sleep. At the dumpster he could not fully appreciate the colors. The indigo. The turquoise. The violet and gold. But now in his bed with the lights turned off, he saw the design, which was the pattern of as peacock in full fan. Inuyasha could not take his eyes off the colors. And in the semi-darkness it seemed as if a hundred golden eyes of the peacock all stared back.
redfluffydice05