White Dogs: Perversity.
Rating: PG-13. R, to be safe for some parts.
Pairing: Sess/Kag, we get to see something of affection in here. Or would that be desperation?
Song-fic: …. I'd suggest going to yahoo launch and scouting out Rod Stewarts song 'Weak'. You'll notice I've used a snippet it from the lyrics in this chapter somewhere.
Disclaimer: ::rolls eyes upward.:: Oh, that I were the one who had created Inuyasha that I had given life to Sesshoumaru. But alas, I cannot claim anything at all. For I was not the one to do the creating merely the one to envy the creator. Translation: I own ..::checks stock:: two pieces of lint and a monkey. Nothing more. I wonder where the third piece of lint went to?…::we switch scenes to see a piece of lint, obviously the runaway one, having a snog-fest with a dust bunny.:: …!!!::pales:: I didn't want to know that bad!!
Summary: Strange happenings are afoot, and a midnight call is made to an agent in the search for information on Kagome; A nice spot of tea will do nicely to calm one's soul. Or in this case rising headaches…not that they are mentioned.
Genre: Everything left of the middle. But count on some comical relief. I can't write a good, complete uninterrupted angst-drama to save my sorry existence.
A.N.: Well, no one guessed why the Toujikin was begging for blood and very much awake, though one person came so very close to it, but not quite. Either way, the offer still stands. It would not be fair to me to only give you so little clues and expect you to piece together the mystery. But, Some very kind soul corrected me on my spelling of Toukijin, for which I give them great kudos. Doomo Arigatou, you marvelous person you.
In answer to Silver Kitsune, I pointed out in one chapter that Sesshoumaru had spies. Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer and all that. I'm sure half of this is the reason why Sesshoumaru knew where to find Inuyasha when ever he sought the Tetsusaiga. As for the second bit, Kagome's going to get her head out of her sorrow and ask to call her mother soon enough, just at the moment she'd rather hide, as cowardly as it seems. And I don't think Sesshoumaru really thinks much on her angst for he himself is still sore over his father's betrayal of his mother. That kind of thing is something that sticks with you for a long time. And since he's lived so long a human year to him must seem like a mere second of his life so things that happened five hundred years ago are still as fresh as last month's happenings. Besides, I have a bit of a surprise in this chapter. I'm sure it'll drop your jaws, or at least have you …surprised. Yes, yes it will.
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"It's only forever,
Not long at all.
Lost and Lonely
No one can blame you
For walking away
Too much rejection,
No love injection.
Life can be easy,
It's not always swell.
Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl
'Cause it hurts like hell."
- David Bowie, The Labyrinth opening theme.
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Perverse: Marked by a disposition to oppose and contradict. Resistance to guidance or discipline. Marked by immorality; deviation from what is good, right or proper.
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Chapter Six: Sizzling Language.
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Night arrived with a flourish of her velvet skirts, dusted with dozens upon dozens of minuscule diamonds. The moon, a grand pearl linked to the chain of the milky way, was fat with the gathered glow of the sun's rays, lancing them down on the slumbering city. The silver blue beams bathed the glass towers and concrete building a curious hue, enchanting and frozen in its beauty, as cold as the sun's liquid gold was warm.
In a particular tower, the lights were on in a single room or rather studio where a lone figure worked diligently. If it could be called work that is. Rather, it seemed more that he was enspelling canvas. His left arm moved in fluid ways characteristic of a mage's arcane motions when chanting a spell, while the right held up a pallet with a mixing of hues. Yet, no such spell was being woven aside from the magic that was worked upon the once blank canvas. With each effortless motion a new splash of color was added to the tapestry. Each brush stroke was another thread, that when complete would tell a story.
The energy in the motions apparently exhausted the man, for he finally stepped back from the canvas. Oddly hued eyes appraised the magic he had wrought, as he placed the pallet and brushes down upon the stool just in front of the easel upon with the canvas rested. Sweeping the back of his palm over his forehead, he turned away from his work, arms swinging around to his back to untie the ties of his pigment blotched apron then pulled it from over his head and hooking it on it's peg on the easel.
Sesshoumaru heaved a sigh, entirely satisfied with what he had done. One small step yes, but then Rome hadn't been built in a day.
Examining his work, he praised himself on such an exquisite beginning. To an uneducated eye it would seem nothing more then chaotically placed blobs of paint, but to the trained one it was a marvelous promise of something great once finished.
Leonardo Da Vinci could not have done better himself, Sesshoumaru congratulated himself smugly. An ingenious mix of impressionism and a great amount of detail, with a touch that was all his own. He had paid special attention the lighting of the scene, twisting the rays in such a way the light seemed to really be radiating from the girl in the painting, coiling around her form like waves of holy power, then gentle sweeps of a finely bristled brush had somehow managed to mold a few stray beams of light and shadow into wings that seemed to be woven from that of spiders silk arching from her back.
In some odd way, Kagome would become to him, what Mona Lisa was to Da Vinci.
Padding over to the door, Sesshoumaru gave an absent look at his hands and found them to have several now dried paints smears. He frowned and altered course to the bathroom. Having random colors on one's hand was rather unbecoming, taiyoukai included. And the hues really clashed with his complexion.
The cool running water ran with streams of red and creamed colors as Sesshoumaru rubbed his hands clean of the slick nearly slimy oil paints. He did not bother to glance at his reflection, instead his mind wandered as it seemed prone to. Briefly, he pondered over Toukijin's call for blood for breakfast – his lips twitched at his awful play on words- then pin wheeled off to another thought. Such as when his agent would call him with news on his newest book and whether or not the publisher was in love and had decided to put it on the shelves in the fall. He had no doubt that it would be a positive answer.
The little rat of a man would have been a fool to turn down his book.
Sesshoumaru pulled a small hand towel from its rack and began the task of drying his hands, turning several more thoughts in his mind. One of them came to the fore quite quickly and he nearly slapped himself for not thinking it sooner. He had an injured girl in his home, missing for over eight hours… someone had to have noticed and called the police. If he didn't want to deal with those incompetent fools (given there was no way that they could possibly pinpoint him and all that nonsense), he'd have to find out how to solve this little problem.
He grunted, throwing the towel down into the laundry basket and moved out of the full bathroom. There was no need to shut off the lights for the lights had not been turned on during his stay. He was a youkai; night vision was a part of the fangs, claws and other marvelous powers package.
In the studio once again, he rifled through his phone book for the last name of Higurashi, though his eyes did wander to the painting once or twice and the paints he had yet to put away. In the phone book, he found seventy-five listings under that one surname; this was a Tokyo phone book after all. Annoyed he slammed the book back into it's drawer and shut it, gaining some small satisfaction from the bang of oaken wood on oaken wood. Leaning back in his office chair, Sesshoumaru sighed heavily and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, positively peeved with the whole ridiculous affair. Should have taken her to the hospital. Curiosity killed the bloody cat, and was currently making short work of the dog. Skinning it. Bah.
He didn't even know if the girl lived with anyone, or if she like him, confined herself to solitude in order to keep the secret of her aging, or lack thereof, a secret. For all he knew, she could live with a family that had lived as long as she had.
Sesshoumaru didn't like not knowing anything of true importance of his enemy, or whatever Kagome was to him. His Mona Lisa, his mystery, the pain that she was proving to be even asleep.
He eyed the drawer again, very much annoyed with the seventy-five names he'd have to mess around with and the though of melting the book was proving to be the forbidden fruit. Another page was added to his Book of Bad as he leaned down and hauled the evil book from it's dwelling, silently vowing never to lend a helping hand again, obsessions or curiosity be damned. And compassion right along with them.
But, damn him, he couldn't just have left her there to bleed to death. She was his enigma, a puzzle box yet to be solved. He'd taken her up as such the moment he allowed his claws to shred the bum's life, the moment he had placed her on his coffee table and began to task of caring for her.
He'd made his bed, now he'd have to sleep in it, as the saying went. He frowned, what moron had come up with that little adage anyways? Besides, he smirked, there was already someone sleeping in his bed. Once more, his expression quickly soured, as that someone needed to get out of his bed.
Giving up on the phone book, he shoved it back into the drawer it seemed to have been spawned from and went to his rolodex in search of his trusted agents number to see if he would divulge precious information on one Higurashi Kagome (and why had he not thought of this before? Where in bloody hell had his mind gone?). The afore mentioned number was the first one in the rolodex, much to his relief, and he glanced at the digits, memorizing them. With the never before used number ingrained in memory, simply because his agent was always the one to call him for whatever reason, Sesshoumaru rose from the chair and padded out of the studio, lights going out once he was five steps down the hall. The door as well slid shut, lock clicking into place and holding tight.
The smooth plastic casing of the black cordless phone was cool against the skin of his palms, even as he punched glowing green keys oddly reminiscent of the green poison his claws could excrete. Each little bleep that accompanied each press of the button irritated his sensitive hearing, but it was a necessary evil should he wish to speak to the young man that played the role of his agent.
Sesshoumaru couldn't help the lilting smirk that twisted his lips as he entertained the thought of how his dear friend would react at his random inquiry.
On the other side, the phone twittered and chirped a few times before something crashed into it and a sluggish hand lifted the receiver. A sleep drugged voice answered though the fatigue was quickly replaced by annoyance.
"If this is who I think it is, and I know it is, then you had bloody well have a good reason for waking me up at-" the owver of the peeved voice paused, checking the time, "At one thirty in the bleedin' moring! What in the seven hells are you trying to pull Hito-fuck that- Sesshoumaru? Have you gone mad? You must have, calling people at ungodly hours of the bleedin' morning."
Sesshoumaru had found a speck of paint on his index nail in the meantime and was currently prying it off, absently listening to the tirade on the other side, phone cradled between his shoulder and cheek.
The lull in the rant was his cue. His voice rippled from his tongue, his question carrying through the phone and electrical pulses to come out in the other man's ear.
"What can you tell me about Higurashi Kagome?"
Immediate shocked and pained silence quickened the other's heart; Sesshoumaru fancied the organ to have skipped several beats then to make up for missed time start pumping with feverish violence.
Sesshoumaru bit back his chuckle, examining his nails then his person for any more paint specks. He found none.
"Okay, you are fuckin' cruel. Wha- no, why are you asking me about Kagome?"
The taiyoukai felt his lips lift in the familiar smirk that would have had people wanting to hit him with something blunt and heavy, preferably a statue of some sort. A very big one, provided they could lift it.
He said: "Oh come now, you know the rules; I asked you first. Answer my question and then I'll enlighten you with the answer to yours"
His ear rang with a few choice words from the other man, and he rolled his eyes. The boy had obviously been in his brother's company for far too long in the past.
" Oh, fine. But you'd better keep your end of the bargain." The boy griped, then muttered a few more epitaphs concerning other things Sesshoumaru could do at one thirty-four in the morning, and in great detail, to get his daily amusement. One of which included him and a… Sesshoumaru nearly gagged. Where on earth did this boy come up with these thoughts and ideas? Or was he just that creative?
Bah, humans. Where else?
"Don't I always?" He asked, frowning.
"Pompous ass." His agent groused.
Sesshoumaru's frown deepened, "Are you drunk?" His agent was never usually this volatile. Then again, he never really bothered to call his agent at 'ungodly hours of the bleedin' morning' either.
The response was a violent one. "Oh, go knock up a nun. I am not drunk, thank you very much. Do you want me to answer your damned question or not? Other wise I'm gonna hang up and you can annoy someone else."
"So sorry. You have-"
"Shut. Up. Kagome, right. Grrrreat." He grumbled some more, then yawned. Sesshoumaru heard the bones pop, and arched a brow. " Well, she was a miko, you know that, but she wasn't … Kami, how to explain all this."
"Spit it out, I haven't got all night to shoot the breeze." Sesshoumaru grinded.
"Who called who, you ass? Kagome, well, she wasn't born in the Sengoku Jidai, rather, she was transported by a well, which was more of a rip in time or something. Like a loop of time circled in on itself and the points it met at was what created the portal that she traveled through. Err, something like that. Anyways, she's really from this time, I believe… I only gleaned so much info from her when I was a kit, but the jist of it was that she had been dragged through the well and into the past by a demon of some sort because it sensed the Shikon in her and, well, you know, the greedy bastard wanted it for itself. So anyways, she came back through the well, from the what was the future-"
"Yes, yes, I get that. What else?" Sesshoumaru intervened, impatient.
"Don't get your panties in a twist, hun. I'm doing the best I can. It'd be easier if I had her here to help."
Sesshoumaru glared at the wall he was staring at, knowing full well that the boy was having a good time teasing him. The little sadist.
"So she came back from what was the future to the past, which about then was our present and somehow created a band of misfits, as you know I'm sure. You did after all try to kill us a few times. By the way, was that fun? You must have enjoyed it, seeing as how "Die Inuyasha" somehow became your catch phrase."
Sesshoumaru's left eyebrow twitched. He flexed his hand not occupied with holding the phone, in want of a throat to wring.
The boy's voice took on a more somber note as he continued, "Well, we went on gathering shards and I noticed that Kagome was, at the time I didn't know what it was, but I noticed that she was falling in love with Inuyasha. But that moron was too freakin' tied up with that corpse. Kagome, we could all tell that she was hurting badly. Then one night she just went home. At first we all thought that she'd been kidnapped or something like that because she left her pack, I still have some of the stuff… Inuyasha finally figured out that she went back to her time. But when he went to get her he couldn't, she…she must've sealed the well on her side. Kami…"
The taiyoukai features softened as he listened to the boy choke up. "I see now. Thank you Shippou. I'll answer your questions now if you like, and I'll set up the guest room for you as well."
"Huh? Why? The guest room I mean?" The voice, now revealed as Shippou, on the other side was very much confused.
"Because, Your long lost Kagome has been stabbed, don't worry she's doing fine. And she's here with me. Of course, she doesn't know it's me, to her I'm Hitori."
"I'll be there first thing in the morning. Wait, how are we supposed to… er, explain this all to her, you and I and all that I mean?"
"Well cross that particular bridge when we get to it, I'll be expecting you in the morning then. Ja ne, Shippou." Sesshoumaru clicked the phone back into it's cradle before the kitsune could exchange the parting formality, and leaned back against the counter to digest the new bit of information he'd just been fed. The red light of the charge button flowed from the phone and filled the room with a dim aura.
He sighed, closing his eyes a moment and shifting his weight. What to do, what to do? Well, he supposed the best way would be to 'cross that bridge' when the time came.
Flying by the seat of his pants wasn't his style but there was hardly any other choice. That little problem averted, Sesshoumaru headed back down the darkened hallway to check on the girl once more then put away his paints and cover the painting. That and hide it in the back room…
Should Shippou get nosy and start poking around in the studio, the painting of Kagome would have to be well hidden otherwise the kit would get the wrong ideas and never let him live it down. Sesshoumaru wasn't about to have that annoying boy all over him about having any sort of feelings towards the girl. Shippou had always been of the mind that Sesshoumaru should get a woman. Hell if he knew why. The boy was so uptight about families, and Sesshoumaru could understand that, poor boy, no matter how old he was never got over the loss of his parents or Kagome. A few hundred years ago, Sesshoumaru had found the young adolescent Shippou and earned his trust and, therefore became his adoptive father (what was with all these orphans suddenly voting him 'Papa' anyways?) and from then on, the cunning little fox had tried to match him up with a few females. However they were all half hearted and Sesshoumaru wagered it was because the kit felt no one could quite take Kagome's place.
Therefore it was safe, though not sane, to assume the little matchmaker would try to pair him up with the miko. It was probably going to be like some sort of demented parent trap run by the Kitsune from Hell….
Sesshoumaru's left eyebrow twitched; he was going to make some tea. Some nice, relaxing tea…then he was going to melt the phone book, check on the girl, or more specifically her wound. It was rather odd that she'd not woken up since the after noon, but then, he supposed her natural healing powers were taking their toll on her. They would until she had better control over them, without that control she could expend far much more then what was needed and overthrow her boundaries thus rendering her exhausted…
Right; tea. Good, steaming chamomile tea with a dollop of honey and perhaps a good book… There was always the morning to puzzle out his little project, and Shippou would prove to be a valuable asset to him in the way of the miko.
Experience was, in effect, the best teacher.
End chapter.
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