Allís Fair in Love and War

Chapter Forty One

Dirty

Inu Yasha found himself stirred from his thoughts when the front door burst open and he heard his father collapse on the rug near the opening. He heard that man cough roughly a few times then he slowly approached him and stood by his body for a moment, wondering if the man even knew he was standing there. He knew he couldnt just lie there all night.

Slowly, Inu Yasha kneeled beside him, gently pulling the mans arm over his shoulder and hoisting him up with all his strength, and he aided him to his room. He had never been allowed in the man's room, ever since he was little, and he soon saw why. All around the floor, the dresser, the bed, were littered remnants of the horrors of the adult world. If it were any other time and any other day, he would be shaking on the floor, because even after years of being exposed to these things; the drugs, the needles, the weapons, the utter grime and dirtiness, he had managed to keep himself at a reasonable distance from everything.

Stepping in this room felt somewhat like dying a slow and incredibly painful death.

He kept on walking, slowly, steadily, and with as much care and gentleness as he would have used to support Shippou, or Kagome, or any other of his friends. The man was dead weight in his arms, and on his shoulders. He carefully maintained his posture, even though the weight on his shoulders was at least twice that of his own body.

"Sick..." the man mumbled. "Th... throw up." he gargled pathetically. This made enough sense to Inu Yasha who walked even faster now, trying to get to the bathroom to set his father beside the toilet so that the contents of the man's stomach did not end up on the floor of his bedroom, where it would mesh and blend with the dirtiness and stench surrounding the room. It would go unnoticed.

He trudged through the remainder of the room and into the man's bathroom. The man on his shoulders grunted occasionally and Inu Yasha responded by contorting and twisting to a position he thought would be more comfortable for him. The master bathroom was floored with hard tile which was a bit easier for Inu Yasha because the man apperently found a second wind and weakly supported himself with his feet, stumbling his way towards the toilet. The trip was as exhausting as it was long but Inu Yasha did not feel tired. He didn't feel weak. Or scared. Only strange. It was as if the positions were changed and his father were just a giant sickly child he was caring for as the father.

It seemed that as soon as the man's knees touched the tile of the bathroom floor, the contents of his stomach burst into the bowl, propelled by some reflex, or some chemical within him. Inu Yasha was glad that he had waited this long and that the entire house did not have to smell like half digested food for the next month. The mixture of chunks of food, an orange bubbly liquid and a clear thick mucous like substance filled the bowl pretty quickly and settled in the water. The man heaved and choked and gagged for at least ten minutes, although it could have been longer.

Inu Yasha simply stood above him and watched him. A twinge of discomfort pulled at the inside of his chest, but other than that, he was pretty okay, as if this happened every night. This particular situation didn't happen every night. His father coing home drunk, or sick, or high or angry, that happened quite often, but he had never lifted him up and carried him to his toilet. He had never lifted him up and carried him anywhere. Usually, he would hide in his room, under the thin blanket that Shippou slept in now and close his eyes and tuck his knees in close to his body, praying that he could just be forgotten about, just this one night, and avoid a beating for a little while.

Something about seeing someone one is so used to fearing, or hating, or being controlled by lie on the floor; powerless, defenseless, reduced to a state of total inability makes the heart change in strange ways.

The mans arms grasped the edge of the porcelain bowl, fingers curling and unfurling, chest heaving, mouth spewing fluid, back shaking with each cough, and rumbling with each groan. Inu Yasha kneeled down beside him as the man seemed to have stopped throwing up and placed a hand on his shaking back. "Are you okay?" he asked softly, yet sternly.

The man stared at the dirty water in the bowl for a while then stared up at Inu Yasha. He didnt look him in the eyes, but instead stared at his chest. After a few coughs racked his chest he wheezed a weak but audible reply

"Your hair ... looks like shit." For some reason, the insult seemed incredibly comical, perhaps because of how strangely out of place it was. He didn't reply, only brushed a strand away from his face. The man coughed a few times more and he could hear the phlegm and fluid shift inside his throat. "Y'ever gonna cut that shit?"

"Maybe." he ventured softly. He figured he should at least answer questions.

"Good." he wheezed and then was racked with another set of rough coughs. "Its goddamned ... long." Inu Yasha continued to stare at him with the same stoic, calm gaze he had been wearing since he got home as the man faced the toilet water.

"Where the fuck you've been?" he asked, though it seemed like one big word by the way he asked it.

"My friends." he said simply.

"Oh yeah. ... That Kagome there? Was she there? Tell me was she-" His sentence was interrupted as he heaved another mass of bubbling orange fluid into the bowl.

"I saw her."

"That's one pretty girl, nice fucking broad too. You should have her over. Why don't she come to dinner?" the man told him shakily even though he was speaking to his emptied stomach contents.

"No."

"Whu... Whythefuck not?" he muttered with his hand over his mouth, wiping the vomit from his cheeks and lips.

"Too dirty."

"What? This house not clean enough for you? You been doing your chores, right? It's your job to clean this piece of crap, so long as you stay the fuck outta my room."

"I do."

"Yea. I know you do, atta good kid. Now you run along and go call that girl. Tell her she's coming to eat food here. I'll even cook the shit myself." he mumbled. "I'll make 'er pasta er meat or ... or I dunno, whateverthefuck she wants ... I don't mind cooking if it's for her ... she's a nice girl, you gotta make more friends like that ..." He continued in that manner as Inu Yasha hooked his arm around the mans back and lifted him up. He ranted about food that he would cook all the way back to his bed. Inu Yasha gingerly set the man down on the mattress and he instantly fell backwards, collapsinng into a tired, sick mass. His eyes closed and he pulled a pillow towards his head. "nice girl ... nice nice nice ..." he mumbled almost incoherently as he fell asleep.

Inu Yasha pulled the comforter at one end slowly to the other, draping it over the man's body. Then, for some reason, he found he was unable to leave his side. A sudden wave of fear came over him and he knelt by the bedside. He reached his hand out towards the mans back and it shook and trembled as it came so close he could feel the warmth off of the man's shoulder. It came down slowly and the very tips of his fingers grazed the shirt fabric. His hand instantly recoiled and he tightly gripped the fingertips that had touched his father, as if they were burnt from the touch.

His eyes remained fixed on the back of his head, turned away from him, for a while after that as he massaged his hands together. His face remained as stoic as it had all night. He rose to his feet slowly, silently.

"Good night." he whispered and turned away, retreating to his own bed.