Solace by EtherealCrescent

Solace

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or it's characters. They are the sole property of Takahashi Rumiko.

Solace

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Takes place some years after Inuyasha the final act.

Warnings: angst, a little dark at some parts, mention of character death, lemon/lime

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"Alone miko?" His even voice asks even as his fogged citrine eyes still focus on something far in the distance. He always looks so intense Kagome thinks. She wonders if he can see through time the way she'd once been able to jump through it. She misses time.

"Yes." Kagome answers softly, yet not as pained as she might have a few years ago. Time does heal all wounds she'd found out eventually, even time travelers were not exempt from that rule.

"And Inuyasha?" He asks her.

Kagome lets a moment float by before she replies. During which she watches Sesshoumaru's silver strands billowing in the breeze.

"He's dead." She finally decides that she should tell him. 'They were brothers after all' she explains to herself in her head even if they fought, maybe even hated each other. 'And blood is thicker than water' she knows.

But then she remembers that half of Inuyasha's blood had been the problem between them in the first place and since she can't figure out if demon blood is thicker than human blood she wishes that she still made wishes, cause then she'd wish she hadn't said anything at all.

"Hn."

Sesshoumaru's bored tone, because it was much more of a sound than a real word anyway, interrupts her ponderings about blood and wishes and endings and she realizes that he didn't even flinch at the news of his own brother's death, his posture still relaxed, eyes still gazing through eternity.

Kagome finds she doesn't mind his reaction as much as she should have, as much as she would have if she'd ever been able to comprehend anything about him. Sesshoumaru had always been an enigma to her. A riddle of death and beauty, hate and healing, a loather of humans with the love a smiling little girl and so she supposes that if he had flinched maybe then she'd have felt the world was inside-out, all wrong.

The way she usually feels now since Inuyasha's death.

So she smiles faintly because she hasn't felt this normal in a long time.

"He was going to marry me." She began to stop right there though, to push everything back into memory. She didn't know why she was telling him anything, why she thought he was even listening, why it even mattered. The past was the past and nothing could change it. It was better to leave things there everyone said. And she knew this but then again she was from the future so everything was past to her. She was already stuck here without an escape, without Inuyasha now, anyway so why should she bother listening to what everyone else said. "It's why I called you onni-san that day… do you remember?"

Sesshoumaru doesn't respond but this makes Kagome feel normal too so she continues.

"He died after he got injured protecting me." She says as she ponders over something with a heavily furrowed brow. "I guess… even with the jewel gone, youkai can't get enough of me." It's a cruel joke made at her own expense but she just can't seem to get her smile to turn bitter. It's still slightly sour though.

"The half-breed died a pathetic death." Sesshoumaru concludes and he's not looking through the decades anymore but through her and it's as if he wants her to be aware that he wants her to see the disapproval in his eyes.

And for some reason this makes her so angry that had she been courageous enough to have stepped closer when she first came upon him sitting against that tree in the forest, she was sure she would have slapped the look in his eyes off his stupid perfect face.

"He was not pathetic. He let himself die."

And there's a spark of curiosity that flickers sharply over the disapproval and so she tries to explain to him what she knows is true but always hopes is false.

"I know he didn't try to get himself hurt but…" And she hates that it makes so much sense to her that she falters for a moment. "But—but at the same time… she'd already died…"

And even though she's sure that Sesshoumaru has never known love before, has never known how death together could be better than life alone or life with your second choice, the look in his eyes changes and she's sure he already understands what she's saying, that she doesn't have to continue. But now that she's picked open an old wound, it's only right that she should let it bleed so she continues anyway.

"And I'm not so sure he tried that hard not to die too… He died to be with her."

The funny thing was that it hadn't even been that bad of a wound and Inuyasha… he'd been hurt so many times before. Bloodied and bruised and even torn through with a poisoned clawed hand once but he'd always healed, always had the will to.

Maybe it was because that day she'd been wearing miko garbs instead of an item from the loads of clothes she brought back with her when she left the future behind for him. Maybe that day she'd reminded Inuyasha of Kikyo and he'd remembered that she was waiting on him to die and join her in the same way that Kagome was waiting on him to live and not leave. Maybe… and Kagome knew it wasn't just a maybe, he'd finally made his choice.

And Kagome didn't hate him for it, wasn't angry, in fact she was just so damn joyful that someone got their twisted happy ending that she had no happiness left for herself.

"I see." was all that Sesshoumaru deemed appropriate to say and though he was no longer looking at her she felt like he could suddenly see all the way inside her, through her muscles and veins and tendons, right down to the place that her heart had once been and she felt too open, too vulnerable.

"Where's Jaken?" She asks, trying to take the attention off of herself.

"Gone."

At first she wonders if he means dead or just not travelling with him anymore but then she decides that it doesn't really matter which. He isn't here now and that's the only thing that separates those who live from those who die anyway.

And then she remembers who else isn't here now and she feels selfish because she'd been talking about her loss without thinking about his. Because she'd assumed that he knew nothing about love when she'd never known how he really viewed the smiling little girl that once followed him but does no more. Because she'd died even before Inuyasha had and it was almost as if Kagome had been acting like it'd never happened.

She could still remember when the little girl he'd left in Kaede's village stopped being able to smile. Kagome had still been happy then, in love with Inuyasha and he not letting himself waste away in front of her when Rin had gotten sick.

Sesshoumaru had come, silent and as emotionless as ever and Kagome had not been able to understand why he didn't show his worry. Even with all his strength and all his power, it was something that he couldn't have saved Rin from, something that Kagome could have if only she'd still had access to her medicine cabinet back home in the future.

They'd both been hopeless, helpless… Kagome and Sesshoumaru, though his face had never once shown it like hers did but she'd been there when the strangely delicate whisper of his clawed hand traced the little girl's lifeless cheek for the last time. It was the first time Kagome ever thought she had something in common with the cold, stoic demon and it was the last time he'd ever set foot in Kaede's village. She'd never seen him again… until now.

"I'm sorry." She whispers and she's almost sure he knows that she has remembered the smiling little girl because his eyes shift so quickly to set themselves on hers and the glare is so cold that she can't close her eyes and pretend it isn't happening. She's frozen, well everything is frozen except her mouth, that she can't seem to keep still.

"Rin… she died." She says and she wants to stop but the words continue slipping out, "…And I know it probably still hurts you…" This, she wants him to know because she still hurts sometimes too. "We buried her with tenseiga since you left it behind."

And he gets up in a flurry of silk and shining hair and glaring eyes and takes one intimidating step at a time until he's standing right in front of her but she still can't stop speaking.

"I'll take you to her grave if you want me to… She's next to Inuyasha." She informs him although she is sure that he could have sought out the grave if he wanted to in all the years that had gone by since Rin's death. She is sure that he'd be able to scent her decaying body even if a hundred years had gone by. Kagome is sure that he doesn't need her to take him anywhere.

He doesn't say anything, just keeps looking at her… studying her. And to Kagome it seems as if he's debating something of extreme importance and she can't figure out what he's seeing in her eyes that's making him debate so hard. She's almost sure she doesn't even have a soul inside anymore so what is it that his piercing orbs can't seem to stop looking at.

"Very well." He says and then the silk and the hair and the eyes are turning away from her, walking away from her and he's going in the perfect direction towards Kaede's village, towards Rin's grave and she follows behind him as she leads him there.

...O…

Kagome decides to look away and watches as the rain mixes with the newly unpacked earth, as the accumulating dirt and water muddy up the ground around her. She finds the pattering of the liquid drops to be relaxing, the mud more real than anything she's seen for quite some time.

Sesshoumaru continues to dig up Rin's grave.

For just one second, she gives him another glance. Alabaster flawless skin caked with the earth, thick muddy globs weighing down his silken kimono, silver mane coated in brown, as his claws rake through six feet of ground to the child hidden beneath it.

Kagome had thought that she might retch at first when he started but now half way through his actions seem to be rather endearing so she keeps watching it.

Bones. There is nothing left of her but bones, Kagome sees as she stares down into the ditch that Sesshoumaru's powerful arms and claws have managed to make and she watches as his dirty mud-caked hand rakes against the bone that would have been the child's fleshy cheek. He falters for a moment and Kagome imagines that he is seeing backwards through time, seeing Rin the way she looked before the maggots feasted, before she emitted the stench of death, and Kagome sees her smiling face too.

But then the moment passes and Rin is nothing but bones again and Sesshoumaru's hand is moving to grab the sword still clutched in Rin's bony little fingers and he pulls. The soft crack of Rin's thumb is the loudest sound Kagome has ever heard.

And Sesshoumaru's claws ripping through her belly are the hottest thing she's ever felt.

Kagome looks down just to make sure that her searing flesh is really searing flesh and then she looks at his dirty clawed hand, now coated in brown and crimson, just to make sure of that as well. She hadn't even seen him climb out of the ditch, he'd moved so fast.

She doesn't scream though, merely gazes into Sesshoumaru's bored eyes and notices that he doesn't look like he's debating anymore and then she falls. The last thing she remembers thinking before the black takes away that ability along with her one to breathe and have a heartbeat, is that she's thankful that the muddy ground is softer than the bottom of the well. She'd tried so many times to jump back through to the future since she didn't have one here in the past anymore.

Kagome closes her eyes.

…O…

And then she's opening her eyes again and she can't tell if it's the past or the future. She never really had a real present but he's leaning over her.

Knee on the ground, her body curled into his arm, Tenseiga humming loudly in his other hand, and Sesshoumaru's orbs are gazing intently and curiously at her. They both seem to change right in front of one another.

Kagome is no longer Kagome but just a girl that he saves, and Sesshoumaru is no longer Sesshoumaru but just a golden eyed, silver haired male that rescues her and they are both all that either had ever wanted but never got a chance to really have.

And so Kagome smiles again, but this time her smile is large, is true, is real because it is meant for the golden eyed silver haired love that she has found again and because that innocent, glowing smile reminds Sesshoumaru of someone else, who has grown up now, who smiles at him even when he doesn't know how to, he kisses her.

His fangs slit her lips and the kiss tastes like blood and poison but that's alright because Kagome likes fangs. Always has.

And they are both covered in mud, are dirty, and even though Kagome has always loved to be clean and Sesshoumaru has never been anything but pristine, they both can't find it in themselves to care. Instead they remove their clothes, Sesshoumaru rips off hers and she gently unties his silks, and they let the mud coat even the body parts that had been hidden as they take solace in each other.

Kagome finds that even though Sesshoumaru was meant to be in charge, to be dominant, that he loves it when she rides him and is in control. She traps him under her body, her much smaller hands pressing down on his strong chest. He could move her if he wanted but instead he snarls like he can't as his powerful body jerks and quivers in rapture.

Sesshoumaru finds that even though Kagome has always been so sweet, so innocent, that she loves it when his claws sink into her just a little too deeply. He grabs her neck, her hips, her thighs and then smears the blood from his claws on his lips. She gasps and impales herself on him harder.

It turns out that both of them love to bite, love to lick, love to clutch, love to groan in pleasure and although Sesshoumaru is the only one that can really growl and snarl and howl… Kagome's versions aren't that bad either.

She tugs on his silver hair because it's silver, and he tangles his claws into her wild tresses because they're wild. Nevertheless somewhere along the way they realize something undeniable.

This felt too right.

Kagome would have always been too shy to straddle and fuck Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru would have never taken pleasure in clawing and drawing blood from Rin but this was perfect, too perfect. The revelation makes them both burst, her around him, him into her, hot and sticky and wet like the rain continuing to crash into them.

Sesshoumaru pulls her under him then because even though they've finished he is still hard and she is still moist and they are not finished, could never be finished. His intense citrine eyes stare down at her and Kagome wonders if Sesshoumaru can see through time, the way she'd once been able to jump through it. And then she raises her body and kisses him again, wrapping her legs around his waist, drawing his steel into her as deeply as it can go because she realizes with him like this, she can see through time now too but she no longer misses it.

Sesshoumaru thrusts anew.

Kagome arches her back.

Time flickers and stops.

Word Count: 2711

A.N. I was in the mood to write this oneshot instead of the next chapter to one of my chapter stories, so I did o_O. Hope you liked it.

Don't forget to leave a review, let me know what you thought about it!

-E.C.