AN: "Whatever could this be?!" you say. TWO chapters within SIX MONTHS? "Verily, you lie to us, Ma'am!" I lie not, good gentlemen and gentlewomen. Guilt is a bitch.

I was thinking I might eventually go through the earlier chapters and reformat them so that the shifts in narration are clearer. If I can get enough time. Anywho, I have no idea what will happen, and neither do you, so let's have fun.

It's NOt SANE

Chapitre 14

"Mine eyes do deceive me, or I've passed into the afterlife and gone straight to Hell."

"Nope. I'm too pretty for hell," Inuyasha grinned.

I'd forgotten that my brother could actually look somewhat presentable when he was wearing a suit and had taken a shower within a week.

"Bet you forgot how good all of my manly bits fill out a-- "

"You've ruined it."

"I didn't realize we were having a moment."

"If you'd like a moment with another man, I'd be happy to call up Jaken for you."

"You're one sick bastard."

"So I'm told."

"Speaking of which, did you fix it with Kagome then?"

"What was there to fix?"

Besides the colossal fuckup I'd made, the near endangerment of our abusive boss-secretary relationship, and the general horndog comments I'd presumable picked up from Inuyasha at some horrible point in my life I couldn't remember.

"I'm taking Rin to her house for dinner."

We began walking from my office towards the meeting room, two floors below my office.

"Did she ask you to bring Rin?"

"Yes."

"Ouch."

"Quite."

For once, I would let him insult me. It was true that, despite all seemingly fair laws of the world, one thing Inuyasha did have more experience in than me was women. If one night stands counted as experience.

"So, what's on dock?"

"Dinner. Ordered, I presume."

Fuck if I was going to tell him about the looming Cinderella marathon.

"She's always been good at dialing a phone."

I stopped, midstep and Inuyasha halted too.

"What did you say?"

Inuyasha turned to me, a semi-hardened look on his face, eyebrows knit, his face scrunch in a disgusting way. He was thinking.

That meant he'd screwed up.

He suddenly beamed at me.

"She's not the girly type, is she? Any woman who can put up with you must be half beast, after all. She told me once that she'd rather pick up a phone than a spatula."

I began walking again in full strides so Inuyasha had to skip a little to keep up.

"And when did you have that conversation?"

"When I was waiting outside your office for you one day."

"Huh. Well, I'd appreciate it if you would not accost my secretary. You do enough damage to my being, I'd appreciate it if you left alone the woman who organizes my already decidedly (since you've come) shitty day."

"You need me today."

"And hopefully never again."

I opened the large meeting room door and entered. Sitting down at my seat at the head of the rectangular table, I perused the faces of our clients, barely seeing them.

Inuyasha never waited for me outside of my office. Inuyasha was not that polite.

"That was very polite of you," I stated at the back of Inuyasha.

I'd been surprised to see him in the office earlier that morning, walking with Sesshoumaru. It wasn't like I didn't know about Sesshoumaru's dire wish for anything Inuyasha-related to internally combust. I myself would have avoided him entirely if he hadn't been standing right in front of the coffee maker.

"Hey, Kagome!"

Inuyasha turned cheerily, and I took a step back to insure no spilling of scalding down my front. Ah, spilled coffee and Taishos. The memories.

"I know your sarcastic look. What'd I do this time?"

"I don't know the full measure of your rudeness, because I left after 'she must be half beast'.

"Oh, that. Take it as a compliment."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"You're a beast…in bed."

I would have smacked him, but that would take too much energy. So I sighed and elbowed him out of my way. Where the hell was Jaken when I needed him to do the coffee run? Probably making tadpoles in the loo with all of the slimy creatures that seemed to work in the building.

"The beast was you. I don't think a bear could snore that loud while they hibernate."

"Oh, come on, we were great."

"No, no we were not. You were young and horny. Not too sure you aren't still the latter. And now I'm tired, so if you'll please excuse me—"

"Have you thought about what I said before?"

"About me being a beast?"

"Forget that, please. Before before."

"Yes I have."

"….And?"

I looked up at him, into his huge warm eyes. He was wearing his puppy smile, and it promised that, if I were with him, everything would be okay. It would be happy. I'd be happy. That was a big promise, and something I really needed. But Inuyasha, though it seemed he'd matured greatly, had never been good with promises. Inuyasha's eyes squinted a bit as he smiled brighter. Suddenly he looked older and different than the Inuyasha I remembered. He had a handsome smile now, not just cute or sexy. The type of smile that you know will look good when he's fifty. And he was different. The Inuyasha I remembered never would have waited for me to give him an answer. He wouldn't have leaned forward like this and wrapped his arms around me warmly.

I let my hands come up to rest on Inuyasha's back for a moment. He was warm. Though he wasn't as tall as Sesshoumaru, he was still quite a bit taller than me and he felt comfortable. Being around him was either fun and relaxing or annoying, but never depressing. Well, not anymore.

"Inuyasha…"

I patted his back and pulled away, looking him straight in the face.

"Yeah."

"Are you okay with that?"

"You know me, Kagome. I'll deal. I'm almost as strong as you."

Inuyasha smiled into my shoulder.

"I'm not as strong as a lot of people think."

"I think you're pretty freakin' amazing. And if dealing with my brother's advances isn't strong, I don't know what it is."

"I don't know, maybe beastly?"

"Hey, I said half-beast! Don't make me out to be some bad guy."

I smiled a little for him.

"So we'll end this on good terms."

"Yep. I give you my blessing and good luck. You're gonna need it."

Inuyasha threw away his coffee cup and started away.

"Hey, I never said that Sesshoumaru and I are—"

"Kagome."

Inuyasha turned back around and walked up to me. He put both hands on my shoulders, bent down slowly, and kissed me with more passion than I remembered him ever kissing me for all of a split second before I pulled away as quickly as I could.

Inuyasha grinned at me like a fox that had just caught a chicken. A fat one. Not saying that I'm fat.

"You didn't want that. That's how I know."

"You mean that, just because I don't want to date you, that means I want to get into Sesshoumaru's pants?"

"No. I mean you're obsessed with him. You work for him, you stress out about him, and you don't know what to do with yourself around him. You're obviously conflicted."

"You've been talking to Miroku haven't you."

It wasn't a question.

"No…?"

"You would never use the word conflicted in a sentence."

"…I may have chatted with him for a second the other night."

"Right. So what else did he tell you?"

"Nothing. All I know is I'd like to be with you, but you don't want to be with me. For some reason I can't understand, you like Sesshoumaru. Why you chose a prick like him beats me though."

"Guess I like jerks."

He quirked an eyebrow, and for a split second, I saw a thread of relation between him and Sesshoumaru besides hair color and impossible attitutudes.

"So I wish you luck, Kagome."

"You too, Inuyasha."

I stood up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, holding my coffee in one hand, then made my way around him, back towards the office.

"If you get tired of the stiff, you know where to find me," I heard him call out as I rounded the corner. I made my way back to my desk, feeling surprisingly light and not too bad about the whole deal. Inuyasha was being mature, and he was trying to support me in his own way. Now I just had to make it through the harrowing dinner tonight with his less supportive brother.

"They're both impossible," I sighed to myself as I sidled down into my chair, pulling my blouse down unceremoniously. Who invented low-rise suit pants anyways? Didn't they know you can't wear shorter, cuter blouses with them without your ass hanging out this way to Sunday? I'd have to commandeer an office supply catalogue and order myself a chair with a solid back. One of those cushiony ones. With rolly wheels. Yeah, those are awesome. If I aimed right, maybe I could kick Jaken while rolling down the hall…but my fantasy was interrupted. They always are.

"Who's so impossible that they warrant a sigh from Hurricane Higurashi?"

Great. I can do this.

I could have remarked on Kagome covering her ass with her blouse, but some things are too easy for a person of my calibur.

"Who's so impossible?"

The snap of her head was nearly audible. Ah, satisfaction.

"My boss. He won't buy me a good chair."

"Do you need one that will cover your exposed…flesh?"

Okay, so when she was concerned, it didn't seem I was above much at all anymore. This was getting critically bad.

"I want one that won't break my back when I take all of the calls you don't want to, plan all of your meetings, separate all your mail and email, fill our your check reqs, deal with Jaken, and check openings for swanky restaurants to take your clients to so you may roofie their Dom Perignon and make them sign away their life blood along with their earnings."

"For your information, I've never had to roofie a drink to get anything I wanted."

"Right. That's what your money's for. Tell me, do you pay the women of the night to come with you, or do they pay you to go away?"

"I wouldn't know. All the sluts I need seem to congregate around my office."

I stopped short with my witty reply. We'd been savage to each other before, but it escaped my memory if we'd out right ever called each other dirty names. We were more subtle than that. More artful. Right.

"Did you just call me a slut?"

"Verily."

"Well, considering how hard you've been trying, but that you still haven't gotten a piece of this," I swept my hands over my figure, making sure they curved where they needed to, "I think you'll need to rethink your definition of slut so as to exclude me."

"You don't have to have slept with me to be a harlot."

"I—"

Where the hell was this personal vendetta coming from? It was different than our usually pointing fingers and name-calling, okay? So why was he so damned pissed, even if he wasn't showing it on his face--

Oh.

Oh, I thought. How would he not know? Inuyasha and I had let slip enough.

"I'm not dating him anymore. I haven't in years."

"Somehow, I don't find that comforting."

"We'll you're going to have to deal with it."

"I don't have to deal with you."

"Look, Asshat."

I was p-i-double-s'd.

"I'm not about to play déjà vu with you, and this is one too many times you've accused me of being a whore. You were wrong the first time and you're wrong now. If you don't want to associate with me, then don't come begging me to work for you. I owe you a shit ton of nothing. You insulted me beyond humor, left me to fry with Onigumo, French-braided anything with thread in my house, and molested my doughy food products. If anyone has morality or personality problem, it's you. So pull your foot out of your ass and make some room for it in your mouth."

With that, I collected my purse and not-so-elegantly stormed out of the place. Taishou could get his own goddamned coffee.

……

After my bitchfit, I sat at home the rest of the day drinking wine, eating ice cream, and rewatching Breakfast At Tiffany's at least three times. Yeah, life was good again.

I tried not to think about how fired my ass was. I tried not to think about how much I really. Didn't. care. Sure the man was powerful, intelligent, and disgustingly attractive if you could get over…him…but that was not enough to make me take abuse like that. Call me a bitch, remark on my nonexistent love life, break all of the staplers in the office, but do not call me a whore.

I was so serious about this topic that I made sure to remind the Pizza Palace worker that I placed my order with of this fact, making him only slightly uncomfortable, as he had to explain politely that he did not call me a whore and would never because he couldn't afford to lose his job and I seemed nice enough anyways.

Poor guy, he had more zits on his face than the pepperoni pie I was looking forward to.

I was on my third glass of wine and feeling rather foompish at the world when the bell rang. I sprang up, only stumbling in a way barely noticeable, and nearly skipped to the door.

"Oh, thank God, I thought I was going to die—oh hell."

There, instead of the pimply seventeen-year-old I had expected was the annoying tall Sesshoumaru Taisho, holding a box of pizza. Behind him I could barely make out the delivery boy scampering to his car for dear life.

"I hope you at least tipped the poor bastard."

"He'll be able to afford a bike without training wheels now, if that's what you mean."

"Great."

Taishou stood, pizza box in hand, looking pointedly at me. I didn't care.

"Are you forgetting something?"

"You're right. I'll be taking that."

I snatched my heavenly grease slabs from his hand.

"You're forgetting something else."

"Sorry, did you need something," I asked through a mouthful of dough and sauce. I'm genius when it comes to opening pizza boxes one-handed. College skills.

"It would only be common etiquette for you to invite me in about now."

I chewed for a minute, holding one hand up to signal for him to wait. Swallowing happily, I blinked at him, looking confused and innocent like a dear lost in a hunting range, but too focused on the shininess of the rifles to realize it was time to run like hell or become Bambi-Mommed. Real verb, I swear.

"Well, considering I'm not common, and you have no etiquette, I see no reason for me to extend a gracious hand of hospitality to you, so I think I will go on with feeling foompish at the world and finish my pizza, thankyouverymuch."

I slammed the door in his face most delicately and stood against it, happily gnoshing on slice number two.

Through the door, I pretended not to here the now slightly pissed voice of one slightly pissed businessman.

"You know, I think you are too quick to judge me. And when you do, it's wrongly."

I finished my slice in one more bite and wished I had a glass of soda with a sippy straw so I could hold it with the other hand. Instead, I opened the box for another slice.

"I don't think so."

"Really." He sounded annoyed. "So when you've called me narcissistic, stubborn, idiotic, self-centered, and abusive—"

"You've forgotten petty, indecent, jealous, rude, and seventeen others."

"Right. So you think I deserve all of that."

"I'm a good judge of character."

"So tell me what it says about a person when they storm out of their job, and answer their door, inebriated, only for the medium pepperoni pizza which they plan to consume on their own."

"It's a large."

"Large pizza then."

"It says they know when to not put up with shit."

"I believe it says a lot more than that, and you are aware of it."

"Yeah, whatever dude."

Yeah. I called him dude. You wanna fight?

"Well, I suppose I'll take dude over Bert."

"Hunh?"

Pizza again.

"You referred to me as Bert from that kids program before. On reflection, however, I realized that you did actually make a characterization mistake. Berk is the dumb roundish one. Ernie is the one who, using your most favorite phrase, has a "stick up the ass".

"People make mistakes. For instance, now I'm thinking I should have ordered Hawaiian," I said, chewing openly. I could do this all night. All it would take was another call to Pizza Palace.

"Yes, you're quite right."

"I am?"

I nearly choked on a round meat disk.

"Sure you are. People make mistakes."

"Oh, I thought you meant the pizza. I was going to have to ask for a new pie and possibly a refund."

"So you are admitting that people make mistakes."

"Yeah. Are you admitting you're a person?"

A little silence and a sigh. I could picture him rubbing the bridge of his nose, and the thought of his pain made the next bite of pizza just a little tastier.

"Yes, I make mistakes."

"God do you ever."

"The last one I will make talking to you right now. Goodbye."

"Peace, dickwad!"

Yeah, I'm epitome of maturity. I listened to his steps echo away from my door, his expensive Italian leather kicks making a hollow noise that at once annoyed and satisfied me.

I slid down the door and sat on the floor for a minute, momentarily exhausted. I stared at my socks for a minute, as if the rainbow striped toes would impart some universal truth if I broke my corneas looking at them.

A bit weary and a bit wondering what the hell to do now, I let my hands drop to my side, where the left one hit the pizza box. Ah, then socks answer.

Thinking about how I royally screwed myself over, I happily scarfed down the rest of my pizza, then managed to rally myself for a glass of diet coke. Feeling full, disgusting, and a bit calmer, I flipped on Cinderella and proceeded to feel foompish towards the world.

AN: This is a short chapter, and a bit dull. Hope you guys don't mind how much Kagome and Sesshoumaru are jumping back and forth. Personally, I'd have dropped the dumb twat. It won't last much longer. I think the next chapter will be the final chapter. Reason one- It feels like it's wrapping up for me. Reason two- Fifteen is my favorite number. Fifteen chapters would be swell. Hmm.