The Fall by Reflection of a Broken Dream

The Fall

The Fall

One-Shot

Prompt: Fall

Setting: Modern AU. Inuyasha and Kagome have grown up together, and Sesshoumaru has watched over them along with Toga Inu no Taisho all this time.

Disclaimer:

Not. Mine.

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The Fall

For the first time in his life, Sesshoumaru was nervous. And it was ridiculous. Ludicrous. He was a demon well over a thousand years old...there was no reason to feel such a weak emotion. Especially over a female. And yet...his once-dead heart fluttered in its cage as he peered over at the young woman lost in concentration over her studies for college exams. Raven hair kissed porcelain skin, a slight pout on her pretty pink lips. He swallowed, forcing himself to look away...lest he do something he might later regret. Sesshoumaru tried to focus on the newspaper in hand...but he gave up when he unsuccessfully read the same paragraph ten times. He could hear her every breath in the silence, every huff of annoyance, every hum of indecision...the steady beat of her heart. His youkai senses were a curse at times, truly.

"Is something up?" Kagome asked, not turning from her paperwork at his desk. He'd invited her into his sitting room whenever she needed help with studying...since Inuyasha was only a distraction when she earnestly tried to hunker down and retain the knowledge.

"Hn? Why do you ask?" Sesshoumaru asked in his casual stoic tone, turning to face her once more from his position in the middle of the couch nearest to the intelligent miko.

"Well...you keep looking at me," she replied, scratching down an answer with a satisfied sigh. He stiffened slightly. Curious azure eyes turned to him as Kagome put her pencil down. "Is there something you want to talk about...or is something wrong?" Genuine concern lit in her beautiful eyes, and Sesshoumaru could feel his palms heating and slicking with sweat. Damn insightful woman. She knew him too well now... He sighed, breaking eye contact, folding his paper up, and setting it aside. He discreetly wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and on the cushions in an attempt to hide the evidence of his nerves. This was getting to be too much...perhaps...he could ask without asking. Say it, without truly saying it...

"I...have a question."

"Alright, shoot," Kagome responded, swivelling towards him in his office chair. She was giving him her full attention...but he didn't dare make eye contact with her, his gaze facing forwards as she peered at him from his left.

"What...does it feel like...to fall in love?" He asked slowly, the words thick on his tongue. He felt as if he might choke on them...

"To fall in love?" She echoed with owlishly wide eyes. "You've never been in love with anyone before?"

"...No," his answer was a quiet one. "...But..."

"You think you might be?" She asked, eyes positively sparkling as Sesshoumaru briefly glanced over at her to nod jerkily. Kagome let out one of her excited little squeals as she did a dance in his chair. His brow rose, but she only laughed joyfully. "I'm just happy for you! It's wonderful that you've finally found a female that's caught your interest!"

"Hn," he hummed, the smallest of smiles curling at the very edges of his lips. If you looked closely.

"Who's the lucky girl?" She immediately started to interrogate. "Is she a demoness? Do I know her? What's she like?"

"This Sesshoumaru would prefer anonymity for my interest for the time being," he blocked her questions with discomfort. "I still do not know if this is...love." He said it as though it were a foreign word, a foreign concept, even. Honestly, it was.

"Oh, right," Kagome grinned, pulled back to his original question. "Weeellll..." Her bare feet twisted the chair from side to side a moment before she twirled it in a circle, stopping so that she was facing the desk and leaning against it. She tapped the pencil against her chin thoughtfully before finally giving him an answer. "It's...different for every individual person, because the situations vary. But...generally, you can get butterflies in your stomach around that person, a fluttery heart, high nerves, sweaty palms, and warmth on the inside just being near them and seeing them happy." Check, check, check. "Things like that. You don't want to see that person in pain...you'd do anything, give anything to ensure their safety and happiness." Her eyes were glazed over, a fond smile on her face. She was thinking about Inuyasha. He didn't have to say anything- Sesshoumaru knew without saying a word...and it made his heart clench in his chest.

"When you love them...and I mean really, genuinely, love them...you value their happiness over your own. Their happiness is your happiness," Kagome prattled on, painfully unaware of the heart she was pricking. "You would want to fight at their side, protect them, give your very life for that person...because that's how important they are to you. You can't bear the thought of living without them." Indeed. He agreed with those passionately-spoken statements. But... "Does...any of this make sense with how you feel?" Finally, she focused back on him...turning those beautiful eyes back to Sesshoumaru.

"...It does," he spoke slowly, Kagome's expression brightening. "...and that is a problem."

"What? Why?" Her innocent shock at his admission brought a sorrowful smile to stretch across his face.

"Because she is in love with another," his statement hit Kagome hard. It looked like someone had just knocked the breath from her lungs.

"Oh, kami, Sesshoumaru...," she breathed out. Were he not youkai, he wouldn't have heard her. "I...I-I'm so sorry...I didn't know..." She even sounded breathless. His darling little empathetic Kagome...

"That was the point," he replied simply, as though that solved everything. She looked like she was going to cry. He could smell the salt water welling before he saw it glossing her eyes...making them sparkle like lost gems in the deep of the ocean. "Do not mourn for me...it was...never meant to be. I knew it. I always knew it. From before the fall and after...her very soul is entwined with his. This Sesshoumaru has no place in her heart...and I never will. It is something I accepted when I noticed the first changes in the way I regarded her. But...I...this Sesshoumaru had to be certain of this feeling...these emotions. She gives my empty life meaning and fills it with color. ...There will never be another, because none can fill this hole as she does. But I can be satisfied in her happiness and know that she will live a long and joyous life with the male she loves." Thick tears had rolled down Kagome's cheeks halfway through his attempt at reassurance, his heart bared and raw. By the end, her chest was heaving, hand at her lips to conceal the sobs. She was such a pure little thing...his Kagome. In a flash she dashed from his chair and enveloped him in a tight hug, sobbing into his shoulder.

"Y-You don't, don't deserve th-this!" She wailed with a following string of hiccups. "You, you, you waited so lo-long! And, and now..."

"Silly female," Sesshoumaru chided gently, an unseen soft smile gracing his lips as he drew her close. "I told you not to mourn for this Sesshoumaru." One hand rubbed the small expanse of her back while the other tangled in her ever-wild locks. He drew in a deep breath, inhaling everything that she was. He doubted he would get much of a chance to do so again, so he cherished every moment. Kagome blubbered something incomprehensible, and he growled softly, the vibrations moving from his body to hers in an attempt to calm her. "Calm yourself, miko."

"I-I-I can't!" She sobbed with erratic breaths. "You-you...you..."

"My life will continue as it always has," Sesshoumaru interjected with soft shushing noises. "Nothing will change."

"Th-that's the, the problem!" She insisted. Kagome persisted for a while after, crying and arguing until she sobbed herself to sleep. He held her, rubbing soothing circles on her back until he knew she was good and asleep. Even then, Sesshoumaru did not want to relent his hold on her...but he knew he would have to. Picking the- usually- plucky woman up in his arms as though she weighed no more than a feather, he walked her into his bed chamber and set her upon his king-sized futon raised on a little dais. The daiyoukai wiped away her every tear as he tucked her in beneath his covers.

"What am I to do with you, hm?" Sesshoumaru asked the woman as she slept, fitful even in her dreams. "My dear Kagome..." He stroked her cheek with the loving care of a mate. A pained smile cracked across his face. "...the one that will never be mine." He leaned over the sleeping woman and planted a ginger kiss on her forehead.

"You could fight Inuyasha for her favor," Toga spoke in the silence that followed. Sesshoumaru had known he was there. His father had been listening in for quite a while.

"No," he dismissed immediately, his voice soft. "Kagome wouldn't like being treated that way. Besides that, her feelings for Inuyasha are steadfast. This one doesn't stand a chance."

"How do you know if you don't try?" Toga asked, his whisper filled with frustration. Not at his son, but for him.

"I respect her enough not to try," Sesshoumaru responded with a world-weariness to his voice. He caressed her lovely face one last time before standing and turning to face his father. Gold met gold. "And I love her enough to let her go." His agonizing and honest words shocked the older inu, his eyes as wide as saucers. Sesshoumaru casually strode across the room and past his father. He stopped five paces after passing him. "...I found who I want to protect...and I will do so at any cost."

"At the price of your own happiness? Your own life?" Toga questioned.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru merely hummed, walking away from his stunned father...and the only female who had ever really made him feel anything in his nearly-empty existence. She would never be his...but he would see to it that she would always be happy.

- End -

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- Please don't kill me! The inspiration hit and I wrote! ...I cried nearly the entire time I wrote this...

- I hope it was...somewhat enjoyable?

- Please review!