A/N: So, I'm writing this as I'm going along. My idea is going somewhere and I just don't know where yet. Hopefully it turns out well, ne?
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or any other characters. They belong to Rumiko. Don't sue me.
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Stalker
"Jaken, you disappoint me," Sesshoumaru sighed heavily. "I thought you would be at least capable of this much."
"Please forgive me, Lord Sesshoumaru!" Jaken begged, bowing low to the ground.
Sesshoumaru sighed again, wondering why he was putting up with the stupid frog. Although, he had to admit, the toad did keep Rin occupied when he left, and he tried to protect her, so maybe he was halfway useful after all.
"And yet you can't even do this," Sesshoumaru sighed again.
Rin looked at them both strangely, wondering what int he world was going on. She had no idea what either of them were talking about, but she had the sneaking suspicion that Jaken was about to get pummeled. She debated inwardly on whether she should sit back and enjoy the show, or whether she should help the poor imp out of whatever he had gotten himself into.
"Um, Lord Sesshoumaru..." Rin piped up hesitantly. Both demons turned to glance at her.
"What's going on?" she asked shyly.
"You need not concern yourself over it, Rin," Sesshoumaru said quietly, turning his attention back to the toad.
Rin watched in bewilderment as the two demons simply stayed there, still as stone, for almost five full minutes. Then, suddenly, she saw something...twitch. A very strange something, in the bushes, and almost familiar...
"Ears?" she wondered out loud, looking at the bush strangely. "Lord Sesshoumaru, what..."
"Don't worry about it, Rin," Sesshoumaru said abruptly, silencing her questions.
Twitch twitch. Twitch. Twitchtwitchtwitch.
Rin stared uneasily at the bushes, shifting around on Al-Un and trying to ignore it.
Twitch.Twitch. Twitchtwitchtwitchtwitchtwitch.
"Lord Sesshoumaru..." Rin began again, a bit worried that her Lord had lost his senses. Shouldn't he notice this? Why wasn't he doing anything about it? What was wrong with him all of a sudden?
"Rin, there's nothing to worry about," Sesshoumaru said calmly.
Twitchtwitchtwitchtwitch. Twitchtwitch. Twitch. Twitch.
"But Lord Sesshoumaru, what is it?" she pointed over at the ears, concerned about what they belonged to.
Sesshoumaru glanced over boredly, then raised an eyebrow at her.
"There is nothing to worry about, Rin," he repeated steadily. Rin nodded and frowned at herself; what was wrong with her? It was just a silly pair of ears. There was nothing wrong with a pair of ears.
Right. An anonymous pair of ears seemingly growing out of a perfectly normal bush, and it seemed that her Lord hadn't even noticed it, and she wasn't supposed to worry about it. Yes, yes, everything was just fine. Nothing out of place at all.
Sure.
Twitch. Twitchtwitchtwitchtwitch. Twitchtwitch.
"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!" Rin finally shrieked. Sesshoumaru glanced over at her coolly, and she huffed a few times and kept herself from hyperventilating. It wasn't working very well.
"Rin, you have no reason to concern yourself. There is nothing here that will harm you. I will make sure of that myself."
"But Lord Sesshoumaru, there's a pair of EARS growing out of that bush over there! A pair of twitchy furry ears growing out of a bush is not something normal! I want to know what's going on!" she said frantically, on the verge of hysterics.
"There are no ears growing out of any bushes, Rin," Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow at her carefully.
"But just look and see! You're standing over there, that tree probably blocks your view! Please, Lord Sesshoumaru? I promise there's ears growing out of that bush, and they're all twitchy and everything!" she said hurriedly, pointing at the foliage. Sesshoumaru sighed lightly and went over, seeing that she had a valid point. His view was partially blocked by a few trees.
Rin pointed at the bush, opening her mouth to say something...
And the ears were gone.
Sesshoumaru looked at her almost boredly, as if expecting as much.
"But they were there just a second ago!" she protested, her arm still suspended in the air from pointing.
"I'm sure they were," Sesshoumaru said neutrally, though Rin could tell that he didn't believe her. She sighed and dropped her arm, then hung her head and gave up on it.
"I'm sorry for wasting your time, Lord Sesshoumaru," she mumbled.
Sesshoumaru said nothing as he glanced over at the line of trees, wondering why he had an inclination to really believe her. He wished he would be able to detect a scent, but after his recent...fight...with Inuyasha, he couldn't sense anything but his younger brother's scent.
Then, after thinking about what had happened a day ago-or was it two days ago?-Sesshoumaru nearly smacked his own forehead. He had been in a rare mood even before that; it wasn't usually his habit to be so sensitive. He knew why he had been-it was the medicines he had taken.
He was allergic to catnip, and even the scent of it would send him into a coughing fit, make him sick, all those other wonderful symptoms. So as soon as he had caught a slight tinge of the scent in the air, he had tried to avoid it, but things never were that easy. It was simply unavoidable; so he had to resort to using the only remedy that ever allowed him to withstand a walk through, or even near, a field of catnip. Unfortunately, the medicine was almost as bad as the allergy-it made him overly emotional, flightly, childish, sensitive, whiny, the list went on. But he had taken it, because he didn't feel like stopping every thirty seconds to fail at trying not to get sick, and so on and so forth.
So he had put up with acting like a complete child, feeling all those emotions that he hated to feel, because he had warned both Jaken and Rin beforehand. They had been surprised but not overly so, and they really hadn't been as bad as he thought they would be. He knew he had aggravated both of them; even Rin had been pushed to her limits with his childishness.
But all of that was fine with him. It wounded his pride a bit to act so uncouth, but he could deal with it. They were his companions, the closest thing he had to friends in this world, and so it didn't bother him as much. But to make such a fool of himself in front of people he didn't know, to play around with his brother like that...it made him shudder. He felt so...guilty. It was strange, but true. He felt guilty becuase he knew that he also felt hurt by it, as if it dashed his pride to pieces, and for some reason it just didn't seem like he should care about it that much. It was a strange combination, but it was there nonetheless.
All of this thinking took about twelve seconds on Sesshoumaru's part, but in that brief time, Rin had seen the ears again. They popped up unexpectedly, and resumed twitching once more.
Twitch. Twitchtwitchtwitch. Twitchtwitch. Twitch.
"DAMMIT YOU STUPID EARS! JUST GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Rin screamed, then began to cry. Sesshoumaru was startled abruptly out of his reverie, nearly jumping at the sudden sound of her voice. The hair on the back of his neck and along his ams bristled, and he shot a look over towards where she had been looking...
And there was nothing. He frowned and looked back at her a bit worriedly, wondering if she was still sane anymore. Had he really been such a horrible role model that she had lost all her wits? He knew that taking in a human had risks, but he thought at least that he could keep her naive and innocent until she was of proper age, protect her and make sure she was fed and everything...
While Sesshoumaru contemplated whether he had been a bad parent and warped her for life, Jaken smirked slightly, knowing that he was completely ignored by both human and demon. Al-Un was asleep, Rin was sobbing, Sesshoumaru was standing there stupidly without a clue as to how to handle the inconsolable child...
Revenge was sweet, the imp decided.
"The ears...they're twitching and twitching...they won't stop..." Rin sobbed even more, burying her face in her hands and crying her poor traumatized little heart out. "I'm not seeing things, they're really there, they're real and they twitch and everything. It's a pair of eas growing out fo a bush, why is that so hard to believe?" she wailed.
"Um, there there, Rin, don't get so upset..." Sesshoumaru tried gruffly, unused to lending any emotional support to, well, anyone.
"But they keep twitching and everything!" she cried, flinging herself onto his chest and clutching at his sleeve. Sesshoumaru blushed, but sat down and hesitantly rested his hand on her small shoulders, trying his best to attempt to comfort her. He wasn't sure how these things really worked, he wasn't used to comforting people in any way, but he had seen other people before and thought he could at least try.
Rin eventually quieted down, crying herself to sleep while still clutching onto Sesshoumaru's sleeve. Sesshoumaru sighed wearily and leaned back slightly against the tree he was under right now, staring up at the moon. Dealing with crying children was more draining than he had imagined. And he hadn't slept in a while, he realized now. A very, very long...while...
Within less than a minute, Sesshoumaru was asleep as well, quietly closing his eyes as he dozed off.
"Did it work?" a dark figure whispered softly, a shadowed form popping up from the bushes.
"Yes, yes, it worked perfectly," Jaken whispered back with a huge grin. Everything had gone exactly as he planned, to a perfect point.
"You know, I would have never said this before, but you're a genius," the figure grinned.
"I didn't used to be ruler of the plains of Musashi for nothing," Jaken beamed proudly. "Thanks for helping, Inuyasha."
"No problem," Inuyasha grinned evilly as he looked at the imp. "Now about my payment..."
"Here you are," Jaken smirked and handed a bag of something to Inuyasha. Inuyasha took the bag, then looked inside, sniffed it, and left, satisfied.
And the best part was, Sesshoumaru had been so caught up with Rin's crying, he had forgotten entirely why he had planned on punishing Jaken-or even that he had intended to at first. Jaken was off the hook, he got his revenge on the girl and demon who had tormented him for so long, Sesshoumaru was showing his paternal fatherly feelings for Rin, Rin was less afraid to ask for comfort, Ah-Un was peacefully unaware, and the imp was seemingly uninvolved...
Perfectly done, with the aid of a certain dog-eared halfdemon.
"I'm so much smarter than anyone else," Jaken sighed happily to himself. "I could be such a villain if I wanted to."
"So, imp, would you consider-" a voice began enticingly.
"Naraku, for the last time, I don't want to work for you."
"No, I was going to ask if you wanted any chips," Naraku shrugged as he stepped into view. "I stole them from Kagome, but I don't like these kind. Here, you can have them. Nobody else wants them."
"Oh, thank you," Jaken nodded as Naraku disappeared again. Jaken went off to the side and quietly dug into the bag of Sour Cream and Onion flavored chips, wondering why Naraku had stolen them in the first place.
"Boy, was that anti-climactic or what?" Kagura sighed as she looked through Kanna's mirror. "Having Naraku come out of nowhere and hand him a bag of chips-why does that somehow just not fit in with the rest of this?"
"It's not supposed to," Kanna said in a monotone. "This is the end of the chapter. It doesn't make sense at all because the author wants it to be weird and stuff."
"Weird and stuff? Kanna, you don't talk like that normally."
"I do now," Kanna shrugged and set her mirror down. "I'm gonna get a cup of milk. You want anything to eat or drink?"
"I think this chapter should end right now," Kagura said with wide eyes.
"If you insist," Kanna shrugged as she waved her hand at the mirror, blacking it out and ending the chapter.
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Whee, that was strange. Ne, I had no idea how I was going to make any coherent sense out of that. I probably didn't. It wasn't as funny as I wanted it to be, at least I don't think so, but maybe someone else will like it. Or be able to make sense of it.
Please review, even if you hated it. Flames are welcome.