Title: Tarnished Silver
Author: Priestess Skye
Prompt: Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. - Jane Austen
Partner: Ladybattousai
Words: 2568
Rating: T
Universe: Alternate
Genre: Friendship, Romance
Kagome stared at her reflection in the water, watching it as it rippled and swirled with the wind and tides. It looked exactly like how she felt at the moment, torn, unstable, and unsure of where to go next. Sighing, she squatted down and dipped her hand in the cool water. This was her vacation, the one she had spent years saving for, one she had surprised him with months ago. Back then they were hot and heavy, and most especially the talk of the town. Throwing caution to the wind, Kagome had married Sesshoumaru impulsively, the two of them running to city hall after a whirlwind romance. It was very much unlike her and much more so unlike him. Her friends had warned her when she spoke to them the day she bought her wedding licence. They were too different. He was calm, cool, reserved; she was spunky, bright, friendly and outgoing. He was work-centered and, while she appreciated a good work ethic, she was social enough to avoid devoting all of her time to it.
He was disciplined. She was not.
He was quiet. She was loud.
He was everything she had once dreamed about finding in a man, but certainly there must be parts of her that he found lacking, else they would not be here at this very moment. Reality set in hard for both of them when they realized that hot, passionate nights couldn’t fill the gap between them. Emotion would only take them so far; it dawned her one day when he left for work with nothing more than a peck on her cheek. It hadn’t taken them long to fall into habits, routines, ones that often left them both feeling unfulfilled.
Except perhaps in the bedroom. That was the one place where sparks continued to fly and they both could feel beyond what they had ever felt with anybody else. But it wasn’t enough anymore.
Warm lips pressed themselves to the back of her neck. Moaning, Kagome felt herself lean back into him, allowing her body to react rather than her mind. “We need to talk,” she breathed, remembering the reason for taking them away from civilization.
“We are talking,” he murmured back, resting his hands on her hips as he pulled her against him. “This is my favourite kind of talking.”
“Hmmm...” Had she mentioned that she was not the least bit disciplined? She was the envy of many people, and she knew that many wished they could have what she did. Not everybody saw fireworks every night. Not many would resist what he had to offer. “Talk,” she demanded again, her resolve weakening. Her hands found themselves threading through his hair.
“Later.”
“Later,” she agreed.
~~
“I once wished I could be a ballet dancer,” she murmured as she snuggled into him. Lifting her fingers, she allowed them to run through the silver strands of his hair. So soft, she thought. She was lucky to be able to do this daily. Despite their troubles she loved him. She just wanted it to be the type of love that she had always imagined growing up.
“You can’t dance,” he replied, his arm settling around her waist, holding her close.
“No, I can’t. I remember pestering my mother for three years to allow me to join ballet. I wanted to be one of those girls in the big fancy tutus, and they always looked so graceful. I remember saving up my allowance for weeks just so I could buy a ballerina costume to play in.”
“What happened?”
Kagome smiled. “We couldn’t afford the lessons, and I never had the discipline necessary to maintain the diet and workout. I spent my time instead dancing around my room in my costume tutu pretending I was a ballerina until I grew out of that phase. As soon as I was in university and working a side job, I bought a ticket to Swan Lake and watched it. It wasn’t nearly as fascinating as I remembered it to me, and the dancers were entirely too thin.” She looked down at her own body, though while thin, still had curves and fat. She liked her body now. She like what it did to him. “What about you? Growing up, what did you wish to be?”
Silence met her and Kagome could slowly feel the disappointment rise within her. She wanted to love all sides of this man, but in the end she knew nothing about him.
“Does it matter? I am who I am.”
Disappointment was quickly met with frustration and she pushed herself off him, reaching for her robe. She froze when his hand grabbed hers and pulled her back downwards. “I am serious,” she commented, tugging lightly. “It matters to me.”
Sighing, he settled her against him and she relished the bits of warmth he offered, despite her anger. “I didn’t know. It was always known that I would follow in my father’s footsteps. I suppose I never thought of any other path. I intended to surpass him.”
“And have you?”
“That is yet to be determined. In some ways I already have. In others I am still following behind him in his footsteps.”
“How so?”
Shaking his head, he pressed her against him, indicating that he refused to speak on this further. Closing her eyes, Kagome supposed she had won enough battles tonight. She could allow him this little reprieve. Snuggling against him, she closed her eyes, inwardly celebrating her successes. Determined, she knew that she would eventually crack his shell.
~~
It was a rare day when they could be lazy and do nothing. Sesshoumaru always had his work on him and if he wasn’t in the office working, he’d be slogging through e-mail on the couch. She had demanded that he keep his laptop at home knowing that she’d make very little progress if she had to compete with this work.
He was beginning to get agitated.
Sesshoumaru was never one who moved without purpose and yet that was precisely what he was doing that day. Enjoying the sun, Kagome and Sesshoumaru had decided to spend the day in the private garden of the beach villa they chose to stay at. The air was fresh, inviting, welcoming. The sun was warm upon their skin and she took a moment to shed the light sweater she had put on in the morning. There was a cool breeze blowing through the place and every now and again she could hear the light rustling of the plant leaves. Sesshoumaru lay on the grass below a large tree while she explored the nearby rose bushes. He had given her flowers on their first date, white roses. She remembered breathing them in, enjoying the sweet scent, the feel of the velvet soft petals across her skin. Insisting that they must be placed in a vase, she had arranged them before they left. They lasted a week. The next time he had given her flowers he had bought her a corsage for a work event. He spent the night networking. She spent the night wishing that he would at least tell her she was beautiful. How was it that she didn’t see this coming back then?
“Do you even know what my favourite flower is?” she murmured more to herself than to anybody else. While she wasn’t an enthusiastic, and she didn’t have much of a green thumb, she did enjoy the thrill of having a good looking man present her with flowers.
“Lilies,” he replied, his eyes still closed. “I remember seeing them in your wedding bouquet and your mother had told me.”
“My mother,” she smiled sadly. He had never tried to find out on his own. Nor had he ever presented her with any since speaking with his mother. “My mother used to give me lilies every year on my birthday growing up. She started when I had moved away for university and they continued right up until I married you. She said it every woman needed to receive something beautiful on their birthdays. It compensated for turning a year older.”
“Hn.”
She wanted to cry. When had they become such strangers? Or were they simply used to each other to the point they were bored?
“I have yet to find a lily that catches my eye,” he stated, sitting up against the tree.
“You’ve looked?”
“Every year.”
Maybe there was hope, she thought. They weren’t quite friends yet, but maybe they were getting there. At least he was trying.
~~
He knew what she was up to. The point of the trip wasn’t lost on Sesshoumaru. He didn’t know her as well as he should. Something had told him when they met that she was indeed the one and he was a firm believer in following instinct. But she was a stranger to him. Not one to talk himself, he was disappointed to realize that when he did want to talk, there was nothing to say. They watched dozens of other patrons chat amiably with each other as they ate their dinner. Kagome, meanwhile, was trying to very nonchalantly push her food across her plate.
She was bored.
Despite not knowing her as well as he should, he could admit to knowing her habits. This was the same one that he would see a hundred times at home while they ate dinner. He stopped coming home for dinner, but clearly, it didn’t resolve the problem.
“I saw you reading a book earlier,” he commented, reaching deep within to find a safe topic to discuss.
“Hmm, yes. It’s good.”
“Which one is it?” He listened to her speak, and for once he listened. He knew much of her from speaking with her mother and grandfather, just as she learned bits about him speaking with Inuyasha, but this was a new side to him. She was excited by the content. In just a matter of seconds she had come to life and became vibrant.
And he was interested.
Making a mental note, he thought to pick up more books from this particular author as she seemed to favour him. That at least would give them a topic to discuss at dinner. “I know it’s not your flavour,” she continued, “but you really should read it when I’m done. It’s nothing deep, profound, meaningful, but it’s fun and I always look forward to what’s happening next.”
Reaching across the table, he let his hand fall upon hers. “I brought a surprise for tonight,” he whispered, shifting aside to watch the waiter return to the table, a bottle of champagne in one hand, five lilies in the other. “They’re not perfect, but then I figure at this point neither are we.”
The rosy blush he once found himself so amused with returned as her blue eyes lit. This look is what had enchanted him on the first day, though he would never admit it to her, only she had used it on somebody else. He couldn’t explain the jealousy and anger that day, as she didn’t belong to him, but he knew that he wanted that look directed at him, and only him. It was tonight and the territorial side of him preened.
To say that he wasn’t disappointed in the outcome of their marriage would be a lie. He loved her, yes, and he knew there wouldn’t be a time when he wouldn’t want her by her side, but he wasn’t happy either. Neither was she.
“It’s funny how we can look so perfect on the outside, at least according to everybody else, but we’re so broken inside,” she laughed. He didn’t find it funny. Hearing the truth in such a blunt manner hurt.
“We’re not broken,” he chided, pouring the champagne. “We’re just tarnished. Like all things worn out it’ll just take time and patience to make it shine again.”
“I hope so.”
So did he.
~~
“You have so much hair,” she sighed dreamily. “I wish my hair was like yours. You must be the envy of every woman at work.” Kagome reached for her bedside brush and began to run it through his silver locks. Sesshoumaru glanced at her before looking back down at the newspaper on his lap. In truth, he relished these moments when it was just the two of them, and he loved the feel of her hands on his scalp. Allowing her to brush his hair as she did before was an absolute sign of trust. Setting the paper aside, he reached and grabbed a lock of her own onyx hair and wrapped it around his fingers. It still smelled of the morning’s shampoo.
“The women at work can envy it all they like, as long as they complete their work.”
“Spoken like a true boss man,” she teased. “The women are probably terrified of you and your nasty demeanour and only envy your hair from afar.”
He frowned. While he considered himself no nonsense and demanding of his employees, not once did he ever think of himself as nasty. Was that how she viewed him? Did she see him like that at home? For somebody who was always more than certain of everything around him, Sesshoumaru found himself upset over this uncertainty.
“They can envy it all they like,” she repeated, still running her fingers through it. “It’s not theirs to touch. It’s mine.”
He felt the same way looking at hers. So soft, full of life, everything that was her. He kept a secret stash of photos under his bed from her childhood, given to him by her mother. Her hair back then was wild, unkempt, and so much like her. He wished he had known her back then. How much had she changed over the years? How much had he?
“This is our last night here,” she whispered, putting the brush down before resting her head on his shoulder. “It was nice.”
“Hnn.” It was nice. He had enjoyed spending time with his wife without work interfering, or her friends. He enjoyed having her all to himself. More importantly, he had learned things about her that he didn’t know already. He had spent years craving her touch. He still craved it, still wanted her with everything he had inside of him. As one unused to expressing any key emotions, it was easier not to acknowledge it verbally. He was a man a few words, but many actions.
“Are we going to be okay?” she asked, finally voicing the one fear he knew plagued her the whole week they were away.
In truth, there were probably many more things they needed to work through, but this week had been enlightening. “We made great strides,” he acknowledged, still holding a lock of her hair in his hands, watching the light shine off the black.
“But is it enough?”
Dropping the hair, he stopped and turned to look at her. Blue eyes looked ahead and he could see the worry. He didn’t doubt their love one bit, but it wasn’t easy either. They had been dating for a year before he proposed. They had been man and wife for four years. But they were never friends. He liked to think they well underway now. Tucking her into his side, he didn’t say a word. He just offered his silent support.
After all, that was what friends did, didn’t they?
AN
So this is my entry for the second annual Fanfiction tournament here at Dokuga. We have just begun round one and this round I was facing off against the epic and talented ladybattousai (banhammer over mod baton!) Anywho, please ensure that you read both stories (hers is titled Feudal Fusion) and send a pm in the direction of TangerineDream voting for your favourite of the two. The winner of these two stories will move onto the next round in the tournament.
Tangerine’s Profile: http://www.dokuga.com/profile/userprofile/TangerineDream
Thank you for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoyed the story!