A/N: Let it never be said that I ever left a story unfinished. Love you guys-if i never hop back on again, I genuinely wish all of you the bestest luck and the greatest happiness.
The air is crisp as Sesshomaru steps down from his carriage, the first signs of winter making itself known through a biting cold in the stillness of the air, the almost clear white of the day sky. The atmosphere in the tea house is that of a panic when he arrives, the geisha scattering from him all at once, like warriors on the losing end of a battle. Sesshomaru pauses.
Curious.
!i
"You lost him."
"He has fled from us," she corrected, her face a mask of white paint and red lips, "but he will return, my king."
His inu-pup was devious. Sesshomaru was amused.
"He will return…" Sesshomaru drawled, his eyes looking towards the outside, the slight drizzle pattering the ground, "Why is this your assumption?"
The mother kept her composure even after the king's deduction, keeping her eyes to her hands, clasped politely atop her thighs.
"Inuyasha has not so much as stepped foot outside of these walls without escort—has never seen the realities of this world." Her fingers flexed into themselves, the fabric of her kimono ruffling beneath them, betraying the calm of her tone, "He is weak." She concluded, "He will return, my lord."
Sesshomaru looked to her then, to the slant of her stature, the tired in her eyes, sunken into their sockets. She worried. For herself or the hanyou Sesshomaru did not know.
"For your own sake," he began again, his voice pointed, deep in warning, "I do hope you find him before I do."
Sesshomaru could hear the breath fall still in her chest.
He rose to leave, not skipping a beat even as he spoke, a last remark thrown over his shoulder as he retreated towards the open shoji.
"He is stronger than you realize."
I!
It was a near six days' time when Sesshomaru next spotted that familiar head of white hair, this time unbound and falling in a heap of tangles. Sesshomaru hovered above him for a moment, doing nothing but watching the inu-hanyou as he crouched, bent over the lip of an empty well. He took a moment to see Inuyasha in a different environment than those burgundy walls; surrounded by the green of forestry and completely unbound.
He could feel his brow furrow in confusion at the hanyou's antics before giving Au-Un a gentle nudge and dropping from the sky to land in the frosted grass below, directly in front of his target. Inuyasha nearly fell backwards, eyes widening, long, wild locs of snowy white hair falling to his hip. Sesshomaru watched him as he stalled, could practically see the knobs in his brain working, golden eyes dancing, trying and failing to think on his feet.
"You thirst?" he'd said, eyes flickering down to the well, to the near blue of Inuyasha's lips.
He wondered why the hanyou hadn't fled. Sesshomaru raised in eyebrow at him, eyes traveling his frame, studying the fluidity of his limbs, the tensing of his shoulders—but he was tense from distress, not harm. Then he'd heard it, the rattling in his lungs upon inhale, slight but there.
He was filthy. Dirt clung to the red of his hakama, growing in size until it became mud at the hem. Blisters were covering the pads of his fingers and Sesshomaru counted at least three blunted claws, broken and bloodied from the base. Inuyasha stood tall despite this, meeting Sesshomaru's stare, the mucus Sesshomaru could hear crowding his airway doing nothing to stop the set of the pup's jaw, the determination in his eyes.
"You are unwell."
For a time, Inuyasha said nothing, fists tightening, breath coming out stronger now, posture rigid in preparation for a fight. Sesshomaru found himself biting back laughter; a rare occasion.
"Leave me the fuck alone, Sesshomaru."
His speech was slurred, drunken with sickness.
"You are hardly in a position to make demands upon me, inu-hanyou."
They watched each other, Inuyasha's stare challenging; resilient. Sesshomaru stepped forward, expecting his hanyou to flee, expecting the chase he realized he was hungry for. Inuyasha didn't budge.
"Will you not run?" he'd queried, amused.
Inuyasha shook his head once, his lips forming a firm line as he let his fists come upwards, his feet grounding themselves into the dirt—a fighter's stance.
"I'm done running." He told, body trembling but stare unwavering, "And I ain't going back to that teahouse."
Sesshomaru stopped, watching him; calculating. Inuyasha could hardly keep his balance.
"Hn," he'd begun, eyes flickering, "You would challenge me, with the odds near completely against you."
Inuyasha paused and—for a moment—Sesshomaru saw the extreme emotion behind his eyes. Inuyasha shook his head of it before letting his features stretch into a cocky grin, misplaced, empty of any real emotion—a lie.
"I got nothin' to lose."
Sesshomaru blinked.
Curious, indeed.
Sesshomaru walked the length of the well, his steps even and paced. Inuyasha's eyes never broke contact. He eyed the thin sheen of sweat beading against Inuyasha's hairline, soaking the fine hairs against his forehead.
"You are fevered," he'd said, speaking slowly, a low calm, "Don't be foolish. Come willingly."
Inuyasha's laugh was a pitiful sound, a breathless gust of air from cracked lips, "You know better."
!i
There weren't a great many things Sesshomaru claimed to enjoy. Even as a young lord—where other pups ran in the sun with their peers, jumping into nearby cooling springs, Sesshomaru was often found leaning against the bark of a tree trunk, yellowed eyes half-lidded and uninterested.
As he'd grown older, the list of enjoyments grew with him, albeit slowly. He'd realized he enjoyed the strength behind the slice of a blade, he enjoyed his mother's silent and calmed presence, her rare stories of childhood. He enjoyed the color red in most circumstances. He enjoyed Inuyasha most of all.
Inuyasha whined. Like a newborn pup, a breathed out high-pitched sound of distress—a sound of begging. The sound was so appealing, low and involuntary and so rare that Sesshomaru'd tried to analyze it as it happened, tried to study the sound of it, why it was happening and why it would stop.
It was once, when Sesshomaru'd had him on his back with one hand in those thick tendrils of hair and the other holding down both of the smaller demon's wrists—a learned mistake after the inu-hanyou sliced him across the chest, quick and desperate. That was the trick with Inuyasha, Sesshomaru had learned. He would fight until he couldn't, would fight until he exhausted himself, until his muscles would buckle and fall limp from it, even as his mind was still raging behind his eyes—and Sesshomaru had seen that rage, seen it in the inu's stare, unwavering, stronger, even as they were filled with tears he refused to let fall anymore, even with the set of his jaw so tight, the bone jutted out almost unnaturally from the force of it.
It was never in these moments, never in the moments where Inuyasha was still challenging him, still looking Sesshomaru in the eye, still clenching his fists, waiting to strike him again. Always when Sesshomaru wasn't looking for it, when he was closest to his finish—lost in the tightness of Inuyasha's body, feeling nothing but the heat of the geisha's skin and that hot electric pressure in his own gut, building, making him slam himself harder and harder into his counterpart. It was here, when Inuyasha's eyes were squeezed so tightly against each other that the creases showed up between his brow, in the worry of his lips. He would twist his head away, as far as he could get, and Sesshomaru would grab him, a firm hold to the jaw, his remaining fingers long and strong around the hanyou's neck—forcing his head back facing frontwards, the tips of their noses bumping on rhythm to Sesshomaru's thrusts.
It was here—a fucked out whine from the bottom of his throat that Inuyasha himself didn't even realize he was vocalizing.
Sesshomaru found himself lost in these thoughts while sitting with the small council, while dining with his mother, while training. Seshomaru thought of the wildness of his hair now that it was kept unbound, thick and tumbling—messy. He thought about expanse of Inuyasha's shoulders, how the strength behind his fists seemed stronger each day. He thought about that teahouse.
He'd had every intention to return the inu back to where he belonged—but then he'd been sick. Then, he'd had every intention to return him after the palace doctors had seen him. Then it was as soon as he was well enough to travel. Now, Sesshomaru didn't intend to at all.
!i
His mother's scent drenched the halls leading to the rooms he'd harbored the hanyou in. Sesshomaru followed it until he'd reached his kings guard—a wolf demon standing outside of Inuyasha's rooms.
He stumbled upright from his slouched position at the king's arrival, clenching his staff until his knuckles whitened. He began to stutter through an explanation Sesshomaru near completely ignored as he stepped passed him and towards his mother's chambers.
"You've met Inuyasha." He'd stated, seating himself at the foot of her bed. She stood a few feet away at the balcony, the wind whispering against the hem of her gown.
"My Sesshomaru," She began, clawed fingers tapping absently against the wood, "He doesn't belong here."
Sesshomaru said nothing.
"You will return him."
"I will not."
His mother remained with her back to him, her silhouette near black against the vivid colors melting into the horizon.
"You would let a halfling geisha take your mind away from your purpose—away from the kingdom your father gave his life for."
Sesshomaru paused, "Is there a war I am unaware of?"
"And if there was, I shudder to think what would become of us."
"If there was, I will prevail as I always have—"
"He belongs in a teahouse—"
"He belongs to me."
"He is a child," she growled, whipping around, yellowed gaze near identical to his own glowing in the fading light, "A boy, Sesshomaru—hardly fourteen summers lived."
Her eyes were nearly lit with frustration, emotions blazing, an extreme sadness in her stare—an extreme understanding. She sympathized with him. Sesshomaru was puzzled, eyebrow raised, mind searching. She looked away, snapping her eyes back to the outside, her shoulders nearly vibrating with emotion.
Sesshomaru's mind brought him back to a previous time, a prior conversation they'd shared in a similar circumstance—the only other time he'd discussed the geisha with his mother. He remembered her laugh, her mocking, her final statement.
Look harder, my Sesshomaru. There is little difference between he and I.
"My Sesshomaru," She said again, turning back to him with eyes softening, tone nearly at a whisper, "Perfect in every way save empathy."
!i
Sesshomaru looked passed the words on the page in front of him, his mind reeling between his ears. He could feel the stare of his tutor boring into the side of his head, could see the icy blue of his eyes watching him in his peripheral. Sesshomaru set his jaw in his own stubbornness.
"My king has been distracted entirely too long," Kong begun, folding forearms thick with fur across his chest, "What is it that has gotten your head in the clouds?"
Sesshomaru remained silent, watching the letters melt together in front of his eyes.
"Or should I say whom."
Sesshomaru's eyes snapped up to his tutors, anger budding in his chest, clawed fingers beginning to tap on the wood of the table—a sign of waning patience. Kong met his stare evenly.
"This glare may work on your underlings, my lord, but I've watched you grow—taught you since you were old enough to walk." He leaned away from the table, stretching his hands behind his head so that his stance became more relaxed, "Now tell me what's ailing you."
Sesshomaru looked away, letting the silence sit before responding, his tone even despite his confliction, "What use could I have for empathy?"
The bear demon hummed, "King's must have empathy to lead the masses, my lord. No good ruler comes from selfishness."
Sesshomaru's eyes returned to the words on the page, his stare running over the characters absently, "I should… empathize with the hanyou?"
"You have before—when he was hungry. Don't think I never noticed your sticky fingers in the kitchen, your old robes always smelling of meat pies and lemon cakes."
Sesshomaru scoffed, "They were starving him,"
"And what are you doing, my lord? It is killing him just the same, only slower."
"You shame me?" Sesshomaru raged, his finger tapping becoming a steady drum, claws digging groves into the glossed wood, "He who preached of feeling powers purest form through sharing the bed of the unwilling—the hypocrisy is laughable."
Kong laughed out loud, throwing his head back with it.
"Take a few unwilling?" he questioned, grinning across the table at Sesshomaru, "Yes. But to keep them—to lock them away in your mythical castle in the sky. My king, I am unsure that you can blame that decision solely on my council."
Sesshomaru closed his eyes against the budding anger, madness trying to burst within his chest. He breathed, slow and steady; calming.
"He was mine to claim." He stated, finally.
"Hai, my lord. So why does it ail you?"
A flash of his mothers hurt, her eyes glowing with frustration, manicured hands gripping the wood of the balcony.
There is little difference…
Sesshomaru didn't respond.
!i
Sesshomaru went to him in the early afternoon, walking passed the wolf guard a second time and scanning the chambers for but a moment before spotting him. He sat on the cool marble of the balcony, fingers holding the wooden pillars of the railing absently, his grip slack and ghostly. Golden eyes glanced back to Sesshomaru as he entered the space. Sesshomaru studied him, a moment to memorize the translucence of his hair, the white of it seemingly set ablaze behind the brightness of the sun shining behind him.
"You will die if you jump." Sesshomaru informed, "This height will crush your body before it even hits the surface."
Inuyasha's stare was vacant as he met Sesshomaru's, reading him, trying to calculate the king's intentions for a visit so early in the day.
"Wasn't gonna jump," He began, turning away again, watching the clouds float by, "Until I kill you, I refuse to fuckin' die."
Sesshomaru sat, watching the hanyou from inside the rooms. His eyes skated the black silk of his robes given to him by the maids, the smallest size they could find in the male yukata and still drowning him, still brushing his toes where it should stop at his ankle.
Sesshomaru tried to remember being this small. He didn't feel the gap between their ages significant enough to explain the size difference. He watched the twitch of the inu's ears, oversized and covered in thick white fur. A halfling geisha. Sesshomaru didn't have enough experience with the humans to judge if the hanyou's development was normal from their perspective.
Inuyasha caught his eye and Sesshomaru straightened, caught off guard. He set his teeth, flexing his jaw in frustration, clenching his fists to keep his fingers from his insistent tapping. The hanyou was indeed a distraction.
"You look like your ma'," he'd muttered, watching Sesshomaru almost as closely as Sesshomaru was watching him.
"What did she say to you?" he'd said, unhinging his jaw, flexing his fingers within his own fists.
Inuyasha broke eye contact first, looking passed Sesshomaru, watching the wood of the door as if he was expecting her return.
"Didn't say nothin'," he started, "Just looked at me."
Sesshomaru tried to picture his mother in his place, walking in on the hanyou as he looked at the outside, eyes watching the ground below as if life's answers were at the bottom of a leap.
"She wants me to release you."
Inuyasha's eyes snapped back to his, golden irises bright with interest before he forced them down again, picking at the blunted claws Sesshomaru'd had cut not three days after his arrival; one too many swipes later.
"You gonna?" he'd asked, voice strongest here; potent.
Sesshomaru could feel his fingers flexing again, tighter.
"You're too weak to survive on your own." Sesshomaru'd responded, teeth clenched.
Inuyasha's laugh was bitter, a harsh scoff from the bottom of his throat, "And is that what the fuck you're doing?" he spat, "Protecting me—making sure I survive?"
"Have I not?" he growled, the anger overcoming him, eyes bleeding red, "If not for me, you would have starved, you insistent half-breed. And then again, running away in the dead of winter with no means of shelter or heat—an imbecilic decision that would have had you buried with that sickness if not for my finding you, if not for my doctors—my medicines."
He laughed outright this time, shaking his head with it, "You're fucking insane" he accused, that empty laughter stopping at once as he turned, watching the door again. They sat in silence, Inuyasha's eyes jumping, mind reeling.
"I'll thank you properly once I get bigger—once I get stronger." He'd said, his expression manic as he spoke, "I swear to God, Sesshomaru. I swear to any God that's listening, if any of em' are up there," he looked to Sesshomaru then, eyes as serious as he'd ever seen them, "I swear to fucking God, I'm gonna drive a sword through your gut and watch it come out on the other side."
Sesshomaru held his stare, watching the breath run haggardly though the geisha's chest, his emotions blazing, his expression as transparent as it always had been, ever since that first night when he came stumbling into his life, the flesh of a watermelon nestled at his chest.
"Hn," Sesshomaru'd hummed, standing, smirking at the memory, "I look forward to it."
!i
He'd released the hanyou on the first day of spring—sent him to the ground by guard and dragon. Afterwards, it was like he'd disappeared.
There were years of nothing, with no word and no sightings. Sesshomaru doubted him, his survival, knew he should have kept him locked away, kept him until he was strong enough.
Then one day a letter by crow from a soldier guarding the borders of his lands.
The inu had fallen for a priestess, had been vacating a human village when she'd shot him through the heart, pinned him to a tree—Inuyasha's Forest.
He'd made time one morning, flew out before the sun was high enough to illuminate him, flying through the sky in pursuit. The arrows energy crackled when he stepped near, purifying even now.
He'd let his eyes sweep the inu's form, let his eyes follow the curve of his neck, his torso, taught with muscle even through the burgundy of his robes. His limbs were near double the length they were when he'd last seen him. He wore a robe of red, the shade concealing the spot of blood blooming from the arrow's injection—through the heart just as it was written.
Sesshomaru felt the rustle of the wind, shaking the geisha's hair loose, dancing with it before allowing it to settle again. Sesshomaru turned away from him, mounting his dragons without looking back.
The vision stayed burned throughout his mind despite the fact.
!i
Sesshomaru was training, driving the blade against his captor who fervently attempted an escape, jumping and falling, rolling away. Prolonging the inevitable. He'd just driven the final blow, a single swoop—a beheading—when his tutor ran towards him, stopping right as the prisoners severed skull rolled to a stop at his feet.
Kong turned away, fetching a rag from his chest and placing it over his nose, over the remainder of his expression, "The exact reason I vouched to become an intellectual," he muttered, disgusted, stepping over the remains so that he could come within arm's length.
Sesshomaru watched him pointedly. There was a moment of nothing, of Sesshomaru watching the bear demon, whose smirk grew with each climbing second of silence.
"Speak or have your skull join his." He stated, tossing the blood from his sword with a flick of the wrist.
Kong laughed, a hearty chortle from deep in his stomach.
"Your inu lives, my lord."
Sesshomaru paused. The air was still, the world seemingly stopping on its axis. Then, a ghost of a smile, mischief behind those piercing yellow eyes.
"Hn," he'd said, sheathing his blade, walking in front of the bear demon towards the indoors.
"Maybe not as weak as we'd expected, my lord?" he'd asked, genuine surprise lacing his tone.
Sesshomaru didn't break stride as he responded, "Stronger than you'll ever realize."