White Dogs: Perversity.
Rating: PG-13,
R for some parts
Song listened to: Jackie's Strength – Tori Amos
Genre: Everything left of the middle. Beware the dry wit. And Sarcasm. Could be dangerous to your health.
Warnings: What could I warn you about that you haven't already read?
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Summary:. Sesshoumaru has an epiphany. We'll call this epiphany Kagome. And we'll subtitle it, Humanity.
A.N.: Writers block kicked my ass. Totally and completely. However, I bite back. So, I'm now in the recovery stage. Hope to God I can crawl the rest of my way out of this obscenely deep abyss the Block threw me. It'll be slow going at first, and all I ask is that you will bare with me. I hope you forgive me.
Review Responses: I love you. Oh yes. You.And you. And yes, even you. 3
" Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other woman cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies."
– William Shakespeare. Antony and Cleopatra.
Chapter Fourteen: Gardenia Humanity.
At some point in time, Humanity had come to mean more then just being of the homo-sapient origin. Perhaps this time was when Jesus walked the earth, compassion and healing and love his weapons of choice where blades of metal would not suffice. Perhaps, this time came after and the Christ child of God was merely the sewer of this seed named Humanity. In such effect, Humanity came to encompass the hearts capacity for kindness, compassion, love and loyalty to those it held most dear. It came to mean sympathy, empathy, and the ability to forgive and show mercy. Humanity was humanity merely because it had been something only humans (to their knowledge)had experienced. In all other animals instinct and primal urges ruled; the heart was but an organ meant to pump blood laden with oxygen to the body for nourishment and sustained living. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sesshoumaru, neither a being animal or human but something of both, a hybrid of something more, sat and as he regarded the ebon haired, steel eyed mortal before him in that moment determined that Kagome was singularly one of the most humane creatures he'd ever encountered. He was, quite simply, astounded. Floored, even.
Leaning back into his plush chair, he continued his perusal of her determined features and once more marveled at this thing called humanity that she seemed to have in over abundance.
"Ahhh," he sighed, "Human beings never cease to amaze me."
"Pardon?" she blinked liquid grey eyes.
With a rolling shrug of his shoulders, he clarified: "One minute broken a hearted little thing, the next you're preparing to reach out with a strength that wasn't there before. It is intriguing." The sharp gold eyes focused on her, speculation and something deeper taking place behind the honeyed veil and slit black pupil. It was the deeper something that drove his next actions.
Frozen in front of him, caught and held by those golden iris-ed eyes, she stood. Poised as if for flight. A bird in front of a cobra, hypnotized by the sudden danger and power of the beast and frozen by her own mortality. Mesmerized, Kagome didn't see his hands with their fatally sharp claws until she felt the velveteen warmth of his palms and finger pads cage her face and tilt it upwards for his view. Black bangs were swept aside by long, elegantly lethal nails leaving him an unobstructed panoramic of her eyes. Her heart gave a curious leap at the contact. Some small voice in the back of her being wondered if this was where he killed her now. But that look in his eyes… she felt more like he was devouring her.
Her words came tumbling out from parched lips like dry water, "Wh-What are you talking abou," and were dammed just as quickly by one gentle, rough-padded thumb.
Kagome shivered. It was only partially from being cold.
What a delicate little picture she made, poised in place like she was, trapped by his hands. Grey eyes wide, pale skin kissed by a slight flush of dusky rose, blue ebony hair in a haphazard tumble around her shoulders. Most intriguing was how damn fragile she felt beneath his hands. All spider-web skin, butter-soft muscle and ceramic bone tied and reinforced with silken-will tendons. Like a china doll. And beneath all that, hidden by the skin and bones, the gardenia that beat fiercely, flooding blue humanity through tissue paper veins.
In the lower edge of his vision, her blood fluttered like the wings of a butterfly in the pale spider-web column of her throat. It would take but a single claw to scissor through her skin and release her butterfly pulse. Something so simple could easily banish her life to the other-realm. She was entirely too breakable for his liking, held as she was between his solid strength.
He felt the shiver that passed through her body, felt it as is passed into him. He was suddenly acutely aware of her state of dress, or lack thereof, and inwardly scowled for forgetting.
The poetic moment slid back into the shadows of his mind as his thoughts sharpened.
Frowning marginally, his hands fell away from her face and in one fluid motion his body bent while his arms scooped her up against his chest -her startled 'eep' tickling his ear as she threw her arms about his neck instinctively- and he started forward to the door. He was quite intent on taking her back to the warmth of bed and healing of sleep; the arm that was not holding her legs reached for the knob knowing that she herself had a nice enough grip around his neck to sustain her torso. The knob turned, door opened and down the hall they went. Well, he went, she was along for the ride.
'What', Kagome wondered later as she watched the stars through the skylight and her unholy angel sleeping in his chair from the corner of her eye, 'had that been about?' He'd gently tucked her into bed, all stern mother hen and gruff old protective hound (which was really too much of a pun), telling her conversationally that she was going to die of blood loss if she kept up with her moving about. She'd been too discombobulated to protest this, her stomach still dancing with nerves from that strange, heated almost-moment.
But she found, after the shock wore away, she wasn't able to ask the thought she so wanted. Something in his gilded eyes made her throat close around the words and keep them locked up. Her throat stayed seized by an invisible force as he backed away from her and made himself comfy in the chair by the bed. Strangely, she'd swallowed her words and felt them come to rest in the pit of her belly – waiting for another time perhaps- as he closed his own eyes and seemed to sigh into sleep.
She knew he wasn't truly asleep, even as she watched him now from the corner of her eye, watched the moonlight play on his impossible hair and angelic face and felt the weight of words swallowed. She knew somehow that he was watching her too though not with his eyes. No, there were other senses to watch with. Inu- She slammed the box shut, determined not to make Pandora's mistake a second time. Still, she knew that eventually she'd have to open the box and face what had become her fear.
With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes and, still seeing the serene Inu Tai-youkai in her mind, fell into a troubled sleep.
The life of the sigh was melancholy though short lived. It told of covered emotions, a shredded shroud wrapped around a bleeding heart. Sesshoumaru listened to it and felt the prick of need to... He severed the thought in half, like the severing of a wrist from it's hand that had been placed too familiarly on his person.
He waited till he was quite positive the woeful creature in his bed had fully slipped away to Morpheus' land of dreams, then rose to his feet and quit the room in favor of his studio. This was becoming a discomfort; these stirred up emotions he had never wanted anything to do with ever were suddenly inundating his reality. The studio was a haven from the insanity. He fled to it eagerly, fled to his paints where there was control and he held the reins of the carriage that seemed intent on crashing over the cliff of his perception and plunging down to the sea of unwanted desires and feelings.
Of course, he should have expected to find more then just his sanctuary in the night. Just simply getting away in peace was too much to ask, for who should be hunkered down by the plain white door but a single kitsune hell-bent on picking magical locks and ruining his plans of staying detached and collected?
The taiyoukai's lips twisted into a sneer of irritation. On silent feet, he padded past Shippou, grabbing the kit deftly by his collar on his way by and twisting the pliant material tight in his hand around the overly curious neck.
"Come along, runt." He said. It was a tone that said "Argue and I will be glad to introduce to you your spleen."
The sudden tightening of his shirt around his throat and hauling of his person jarred an expletive of surprise from Shippo's mouth, but he couldn't very well offer more resistance than that. So, he settled on the only show of rebellion he could and crossed his arms over his chest (a la petulant child) as he was dragged down the hall and into the living room. He grumbled to himself the whole way, and mentally wrote his will with a fancy quill and elegant script.
To whom it may concern,
I would like my collection of pranks to be given to any orphanage, my bottle cap collection can be sold to whoever, but I must insist that anything of true value goes to Miss Kagome Higurashi.
I'd also like the smut I have to be burned, please.
Let it be known that Hitori Wasuremono is not to get a bloody dime, and that his latest book should not be published. Let the ass take that and smoke it. Bruise his ego a bit I hope, getting turned down and all. Then again… that might get someone headless… Hm… in which case…
There is blackmail material in the vault at my home, you can find it behind the picture of the hot blonde in the Porsche. The combination is 1-11-32-OW!
Inner monologue cut off by a smart cuff to the side of his head, Shippou gave an indignant squall much akin to that of a cat who has had the unfortunate experience of being dipped in water. Several times. Upside down, even. Shippou felt entirely not happy, and entirely doomed. And, now that he was paying attention, he realized the feeling of being upside down was because, in fact, he was upside down. Oh dear. That didn't bode well.
The feeling of doom increased by the vertigo and blood rush, the kitsune adopted his best pair of puppy eyes (though he had nothing on Rin in this regard) and unleashed them on the unfeeling block of ice holding him by his ankles.
For an unfeeling ice cube, the two golden eyes staring down at him in boredom were contradictive in their warmth of hue. But, Shippou knew that the more bored Sesshoumaru looked, the more painful the demise of whoever happened to be on the receiving end of said bored look. Sesshoumaru looked mighty bored up there. Somewhere, Shippou mused, there was a gravestone with his name on it and an epitaph reading"Suspected he ran out of luck". And suspect he did. Lady Luck, you are a cruel mistress and have left my bed cold. Damn you.
In the beginning of this chapter, Sesshoumaru describes Kagome very poetically. He describes her heart in the following:
"And beneath all that, hidden by the skin and bones, the gardenia that beat fiercely, flooding blue humanity through tissue veins."
Figuratively speaking, of course. Anyways, in the meanings of flowers, the gardenia is supposed to stand for purity. Which is perfect, I think, for Kagome because she IS pure, no? And, the gardenia happens to be my favorite flower. 3 Also, gardenia's stand for "secret love". Oh, the symbolism.
I was going to use a gladiolus for her heart, because that meant strength of character. Buuuuut, that flower was also the flower, to my understanding, of the gladiators. So you can see why I didn't use that particular blossom.