Chapter 25: Twenty Days to Love You

Inuyasha stirred, sighing as he came into consciousness to discover two things. The pain was gone, and he could feel something warm and wet lapping at his abdomen. The first he could attribute to the fact that Sesshomaru had pulled him kicking and screaming—and there had been a lot of screaming—into the sweat tent to try to rid the miasma and save his life. Honestly, he didn't know he bothered, but his mate always was stubborn.

The second...well…

A moan left his throat as that wetness dragged its way along his rib bone, causing whatever was moving above him to freeze.

"You're awake…" was the almost breathless gasp that met his ears as Inuyasha opened his eyes finally, sitting up in worry at what he saw.

Sesshomaru's eyes were nearly gone with how red they were. His cheeks were streaked with tears. His mouth was covered in blood, and as Inuyasha looked down he saw that the marks on his chest and stomach were almost completely healed. No doubt with some help from his mate's saliva.

"Sessh?" he questioned, swallowing the nervous feeling in his gut as he stared at those crazed eyes. ...Eyes he hadn't seen since Miroku's hut when it had all went so incredibly wrong.

"You died…" Sesshomaru managed. "You left me again...and I couldn't...I can never…" The youkai lashed out then, grabbing Inuyasha's hair and tugging him close so he could see the true crazed fury in those eyes. "I'm going to gut him for what he did to you."

"I'm okay," Inuyasha tried to placate, wincing as he was met with a growl. "Sessh...I'm okay."

"You wouldn't have been," Sesshomaru bit out. "You'd be dead now if I ever left anything up to my reckless mate." Sesshomaru's claws gripped into his hips, yanking him closer as he buried his face in Inuyasha's neck, practically quivering in his arms. "Tasting you has been...difficult."

"Difficult?" Inuyasha repeated, his fear being truncated by amusement as he heard the barely repressed strain in Sesshomaru's tone. "Difficult how?"

Sesshomaru growled low in his throat, his eyes clearing slightly as the gold began to peak through. He yanked Inuyasha close as the hanyou smiled, able to feel just what had been so difficult for his stepbrother.

"So you're telling me you got off licking my bloody incapacitated corpse?" Inuyasha questioned, fang showing as he threaded his fingers through the meticulous white mane. "Pervert."

Sesshomaru arched a brow, claws kneading into his hips as Inuyasha realized he was only clad in the red hakama he had come here in, his torso remarkably bare. "I wouldn't entirely say I had, as you so eloquently put it, got off."

The grin on Inuyasha's face grew, not able to comprehend how he was feeling this giddy after everything that had happened. "You're flirting with me."

"Am I not allowed to?" Sesshomaru questioned, hand dragging its way up his bare flesh to cup his face. "You're mine to flirt with if I see fit."

"Yours?" Inuyasha questioned, resisting the urge to reach for his neck where the possession mark lay. "Choice words."

Sesshomaru frowned, now golden eyes flickering to the mark before falling back on his face. "Should I have different ones? Did we not forgive each other?" Inuyasha recognized the hint of disapproval, having heard it from his mate time and time again. He pushed against that hand on his hip, wincing as the claws only tightened against his flesh. "Do not squirm away from me."

Inuyasha pressed his palm against Sesshomaru's chest, shifting to get a better angle as arms tightened around him. "What are they going to think of me? The other lords when they smell me? What will they think of what I am?"

"What you are?" Sesshomaru questioned, claws lessening to draw up his back as Inuyasha let out a sigh at the feel of those hands on his flesh. "A lordling? A prince?"

"A half-breed," Inuyasha corrected. "A slave. Did you think I wouldn't have to claw my way up in the first place? Now when they smell me they'll know what I let you do to me."

"I mated you," Sesshomaru argued, lip curling as his fangs were revealed. "I let you bite me. I didn't ask to be separated from you. I begged you not to!"

Inuyasha understood...of course he did. He had played just as much of a part in their sordid tail. Now he was living out the consequences. His impulsiveness is the reason they had mated, his temper had been the reason they had separated, his stupidity was what had caused him to go to Lycani, and his vanity had been what had made him run to Naraku. Sesshomaru, for his part, had done what he could to swim in his wake.

They were drowning.

"You have to become the heir," Inuyasha said suddenly, knitting his brows as he cupped Sesshomaru's cheeks, ignoring the frown.

"What?" the youkai asked, the familiar impatience bordering on disgust back in his tone. "Do I even want to ask?"

"If you become my father's heir then we aren't an embarrassment." Inuyasha explained, mind bouncing to a hundred different scenarios. "It'll be just the same as it was...except you'll get the lands. You take care of them anyways this just makes it—"

Inuyasha grunted as he was thrown backwards, Sesshomaru got out of the bed and grabbed for his kimono. "You're such an infuriating moron," the youkai growled under his breath. "Every time you open your mouth I want to strangle you."

He sat up on his knees, looking around their tent at the various maps and weapons strewn about. He didn't know why his step brother was getting so angry. He practically ran the west as it was. "Why are you getting so upset?" he questioned, wincing as he was met with yet another glare.

"I don't want your land. I've told you this," Sesshomaru explained, ripping at the sash as he tightened it around his hips. "Do you want this responsibility? Shall I give it to you?" Sesshomaru's eyes had once more began to tinge red as he grabbed for Inuyasha's haori, tossing it at him. "Put it on."

Inuyasha stared down at the clothing, stomach squirming as he could feel Sesshomaru's anger...and under that...his hurt. "I didn't want to piss you off. I just mean...it makes sense...with what happened between us."

"What happened?" Sesshomaru repeated. "Do you want to know what I feel about what happened?"

"Guilt?" Inuyasha decided to hazard a guess, slipping the fire rat haori slowly over his shoulders.

"Infinite," Sesshomaru agreed. "But that's not the particular emotion you're evoking at this moment. I feel relief."

"Relief?" Inuyasha questioned, voice guarded as he watched Sesshomaru stalk back and forth.

"Yes, my darling half-breed, I feel relief that I am not parted from you." Inuyasha blinked away his shock at the rare showing of emotion. "That I don't have to see others look at you and wonder if they can chance it."

"You overestimate my powers of seduction," Inuyasha assured him, though heat was rising to his cheeks regardless.

"Do I?" Sesshomaru question. "Tell that to that canine bitch who caused all of this in the first place."

Inuyasha's eyes flashed cold, glaring at the youkai. "You killed her," he accused, not understanding why he was bringing this up now.

"Naraku killed her—in a roundabout way," Sesshomaru corrected. "But this isn't the argument I want to have right now."

"Did you ever think that you shouldn't bring up butchering my friends then?" Inuyasha questioned, pulling the haori tight around his shoulder as he attempted to quell the anger he had with not only Sesshomaru, but also with himself over what had happened to the lady from the east.

"You fucked her, Inuyasha...I'd commit that sin over and over again for the crime," Sesshomaru assured him. "Another reassurance that I don't need to worry about you straying."

"And what about you?" Inuyasha accused right back.

"Me?" Sesshomaru asked incredulously. "Who have I looked at in my life besides you?"

"Kagura?" Inuyasha accused, trying to ignore the sentimentality behind such a brazen statement. "I happen to recall you sticking your dick in her more than once."

"A means to an end," Sesshomaru explained. "Nothing but crude pleasure."

"And Naraku?" Inuyasha questioned, drawing back slightly at the deep growl that left his mate's throat. "Don't get angry. I just want to know."

"The cautionary tale that is my life?" Sesshomaru questioned.

"Yes," he spoke, hesitantly crawling across the futon and towards his lover's ire. "I want to know everything about you. I want to know why he's doing this to us."

"To us?" Sesshomaru questioned, voice a thinly veiled mask of emotion as more red began to speckle in his eyes. "What are you asking of me, Dagger?"

"The truth?" Inuyasha suggested, pushing up onto his knees on the bed as he motioned Sesshomaru close. "I know what he did to you…" His hand went up to the mark on his neck instinctively, and was met with another deep growl. Inuyasha realized his mistake in the subtle comparison, slowly lowering his hand. "I just don't know why."

"Because he's a sadist," Sesshomaru answered, body stiff and wary as he stared down at the hanyou on the bed. "What more do you need to know."

Inuyasha took a deep breath, already knowing how this was going to turn out before he said it. "Tell me about your father."

The reaction was instantaneous. Sesshomaru glowered at him, before turning to grab for his armor and swords. Inuyasha pushed out of the bed, wincing at the pain of how sore his stomach still was as he worked through it to shove his way in front of his mate's clearly annoyed retreat.

"Wait," Inuyasha started, grabbing onto Sesshomaru's arm to prevent him from working on his armor. "I'm not trying to piss you off. I just want to know what happened." He took a deep breath, hesitantly wrapping his arms around the back of the inu-youkai. "We met that night."

"You don't remember…" Sesshomaru breathed, back still tense in Inuyasha's hold. "I knew you didn't when you saw me again."

Inuyasha pressed up onto his toes, using one clawed hand to draw back the mane of white so that he could press his mouth against the spot on Sesshomaru's neck that would have his mark if he hadn't wished it away. "When I called you beautiful."

He felt Sesshomaru shudder against him, burying his face further into that neck to inhale the scent of the one he loved, despite everything. "It wasn't the first time," the youkai began. "You did it at the party."

"I called you beautiful?" Inuyasha asked in surprise, making sure not to relinquish his grip as Sesshomaru seemed to be somewhat relaxing.

"You did," he agreed in fondness. "Clearly you knew how to irritate even at that age...yet...it was adorable."

Inuyasha laughed. "Did you really just use the word adorable?"

When Sesshomaru glanced over his shoulder his eyes were completely back to molten gold, a fond smile on his face. "Do you want to hear the story or not?" Inuyasha enthusiastically nodded, pulling on the youkai's hips to drag him back to the futon and away from his retreat.

"Please," he spoke, voice excited as a child at his nameday party. Sesshomaru grunted as he was yanked backwards onto the mattress, Inuyasha not hesitating in swinging his leg over the other, straddling his waist as he stared down into calm eyes. "Please tell me more."

Inuyasha gasped when Sesshomaru leaned close, pressing their lips softly together as his hands pushed into the loose haori, encircling his thin waist before pulling back. "You followed me all over the party...don't remember what we spoke about. I do remember being sad when my father told me it was time to leave. I begged him to let us stay a bit longer...I never beg. He told me we could stay the night...that I could stay with my new friend." Sesshomaru knitted his eyebrows, and Inuyasha encircled his neck, playing with his hair to try to soothe the obvious anxiety. "It was the last thing he said to me...besides...well…"

It was silent in the tent as Sesshomaru's eyes went far away, and he just wished there was anything he could do to spare him this pain. However, they needed to get through it. Whatever had been done to Sesshomaru that night had been done to both of them. The youkai had been holding it in for so long...he had been angry for so long.

"When he died?" Inuyasha suggested quietly, claws still twining through silky white hair as if it might help the other process this level of pain.

"I found him the next morning—strung up and hanging in the courtyard of your lands. He was bleeding out...suffering...and he asked me to help him. To end his pain." Sesshomaru's eyes traveled along the scars on Inuyasha's forearms from being strung up for days, and the hanyou's stomach tightened with a horrifying realization. "It was the same way I found you. The same exact way."

"Sessh…" Inuyasha was speechless, feeling his mate's pain seeping from him even if they were no longer bonded.

"I cut off his head," Sesshomaru spoke, eyes wide and unseeing as he was buried in the horrific memory of it all. "Inutaishou found me like that...cradling what was left of my father. He hated me that moment and every moment since."

He chose to overlook the carnage of the retelling in favor of his curiosity towards his own father, tilting his head to the side. "Why? Why would my father hate you for that?"

The inu-youkai was silent for several moments, face downcast as he obviously considered how to answer. "Dagger—" The words seem to catch in his throat as Inuyasha felt his chest expand underneath his fingertips. "I didn't see it at the time. There was a lot I didn't see in those days, but looking back on it," he hesitated. "Inutaishou made several visits throughout my childhood. My father left to visit your lands more times than I can count."

"So?" Inuyasha asked, shrugging it off as he didn't understand what Sesshomaru could possibly be referring to. "Your Dad was a Lord. It would make sense that they would visit…" He trailed off, his mind catching up with the implication as his eyes widened. "No."

"I have no proof," Sesshomaru conceded.

"No," Inuyasha repeated, nose curling in disgust despite himself. "That disgusting...our dads can't have been boning."

"Your eloquence astounds me as always," Sesshomaru mused, the intrepid darkness of his voice being replaced by obvious amusement.

"Ugh," Inuyasha spat, shaking his head back and forth as he considered the possibility of this thing between him and Sesshomaru being weirder than it already was. "That's so nasty." His father had loved his mother. He had risked marrying a ningen and infuriating the youkai lords. He wouldn't have done that just to have a bit on the side. He wouldn't have betrayed her like that. Sesshomaru said he had no proof. That this was just a theory...a water colored memory through the lense of a child. ...Because they were both children back then. His mate had to end his father's suffering as a child. He had to endure that loss as a child.

"How did you end up with Naraku?" Inuyasha asked, pushing past the idea that his father had been unfaithful. "Why would you go to the north?"

Sesshomaru's mouth set into a thin line, clearly not wanting to edge around such a topic. "My mother sent me. You see, like your father, she couldn't stand the sight of me either."

"Why?" Inuyasha bit out, defensive as hatred towards that woman bubbled up his throat. "It wasn't your fault what happened to him!"

"Just like it wasn't my fault what happened to you?" Sesshomaru questioned. "There was a reason Inutaishou threw me into a dungeon to rot until he needed me to fight a war for him."

"Stop trying to vilify my father, Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha snapped, anger seeping into him despite telling himself he'd be calm and supportive through this tale.

"I was vilifying myself," the youkai corrected. "Something, apparently, my hothead mate is too dim to realize."

"Your hotheaded property," Inuyasha corrected, teeth bared as he pushed back on Sesshomaru's lap, claws digging into his chest.

"Hot headed property then," Sesshomaru bit out. "Regardless, I can't manage to make you behave even long enough to tell you about the worst time of my existence."

"Not reacting was never my strong suit," Inuyasha defended, retracting his claws as the wounds on Sesshomaru's chest began to heal.

"Clearly," the inu-youkai agreed with tempered patience. "In any case...the story ends how you know it. I was sent to Naraku for tutelage after my father passed. I was there for nearly twenty years as I was taught everything the Lord of North knew."

Rage bubbled up his stomach at the thought of Naraku getting 20 years with his mate. Twenty years to brainwash him with hate with that bitch of a sister of his. 20 years of Sesshomaru thinking that it was all his fault.

He took a deep breath to quell the jealousy, shifting on Sesshomaru's lap so that he could lay his head on his shoulder. He was shocked by how accommodating the youkai was being as delicately deadly hands found their way onto his hip. "Was he in love with you then?

Sesshomaru stiffened slightly, looking down into his face with a frown. "What?" he questioned. "Why do you presume?"

Inuyasha shrugged, not realizing how much he had missed just being able to lie in Sesshomaru's arms as he snuggled closer. "I loved you after 20 days...can't imagine it would take him 20 years." He blushed at the sentimentality, knowing Sesshomaru would probably hate it as he quickly covered his affections. "It doesn't excuse what he did at all...fucker shoulder die screaming...I'm just saying that I get his obsession."

Sesshomaru reached down then, clawed nails tilting his head up as lips pressed against his. He didn't deepen the act, seeming content to just barely taste him before pulling away. "You're entirely too good for me, Dagger."

He wasn't. Not really. Inuyasha had been the cause of most of the fighting between them. Sesshomaru could take the blame if he wished, his mate certainly seemed intent on martyring himself over what had transpired in the hut, but it hadn't only been him. Inuyasha knew what would happen when he took Lycani. He had felt the pain the night before with Kagura.

He knew what it would get him if he pushed his step-brother to his limits.

...He had been counting on it.

Sesshomaru bottled up so much pain over the things that had happened to him in his life. Pain that sometimes lashed out as a cold rage. He had been on the receiving end of those lashes too many times to count. It was all because of that night. ...The night they had met and the inu-youkai had lost everything. Had Sesshomaru and his father grieved over the same loss? Had the pain bonded them in some way? Inutaishou's rage over Inuyasha's injuries suddenly made sense. To think he had almost lost two people in the same manner.

"How did he know?" Inuyasha asked out loud, the question coming to his mind as he contemplated the amount of pain seeing him strung up in such a way had caused his mate.

"What?" Sesshomaru asked, arching a brow as he looked down at him. "Forgive me for not being quite adept yet at reading your every thought."

"Naraku," Inuyasha explained, frowning at the sarcasm as he drew his head off Sesshomaru's shoulder to look into his face. "Was he at the party?"

Sesshomaru knitted his eyebrows as he clearly tried to catch up with this line of reasoning. "I don't remember. He could have been."

"Most of the guests left for the night." Inuyasha's mind ran at an alarming rate as he pushed off Sesshomaru's lap altogether, pacing in front of him as he considered the possibilities. "Did you tell him? Did you tell him about your father?"

"Everyone knew about the murder," Sesshomaru concluded, the studious voice filled with a note of confusion.

"But the details Sessh!" Inuyasha exclaimed. "The exact details...did you tell him?" Of course he didn't. It had taken near death for Sesshomaru to open up to him about that night. He knew that the youkai was different in those days, but surely he couldn't have been that different.

"What are you implying?" Sesshomaru questioned, voice a dangerous snarl.

"Who killed your father, Sessh?" Inuyasha asked, no longer beating around the bush about it. "Did they find him?"

Of all the lessons he learned in life, the one he adamantly refused to acknowledge was the level of Sesshomaru's temper. The second he spoke those words the youkai's markings began to glow as his eyes flooded red. Power pulsed from him as strong as his fury as his teeth grew, his face starting to elongate as he struggled not to transform.

"Sesshomaru," Inuyasha tried placatingly to calm him down, already realizing his mistake. "Sesshomaru wai—" He needn't have bothered as the inu-youkai transformed into a ball of light, blowing passed Inuyasha's head before he could ever even get the words out to tell him to stop.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,,.,.

A.N- I can't believe I wrote this. I'm so sorry if it felt choppy. It was just so hard to get into writing on a project I haven't touched in a decade besides the edits. This is obviously a pivotal chapter, and I hope I was able to evoke the emotion between them while still keeping it consistent with the past writing style. Hopefully after all this time this doesn't stray too far from the rest of the material. You learn some BIG secrets this chapter, and clearly I couldn't help myself from leaving you with a cliffie. Please please pllleassseee review and let me know if this is any good or if I've destroyed this after all the years. (Dies a little in nervous anticipation)