Shhhhh by naqaashi

Shhhhh

Dislaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

Shhhhh

Shhhhh

Dogs crave affection. Some dogs pretend to eschew affection, but their desire for constant attention refuses to be restrained. When such a dog finds itself isolated or otherwise quarantined from the focus of its pack, it sometimes resorts to drastic measures.

Such as aggression, theft, extortion, attempted murder – and this time – kidnapping.

For Sesshoumaru had just made off with his half-brother's pack-mate – one Higurashi Kagome by name, priestess by destined career, presumed slut by disastrously anachronistic fashion sense, and his last-ditch attempt at getting his little brother's attention, now that he was forever barred from trying to steal the Tetsusaiga.

She didn't come quietly.

She didn't stay quietly, either.

And when she met Rin, concepts such as peace, serenity, silence, reflection, stillness and yes, quiet, took to their heels and made for the hills in an attempt to protect their collective sanity.

Much to Sesshoumaru's chagrin, they didn't take him along, with the result that he was forced, within the week, to transport his ill-gotten priestess and constant-ringing-in-the-ears back to her original protector.

As it turned out, most unfortunately for Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha had taken full, proactive advantage of the girl's absence and acquired for himself a quiet, undead ex-girlfriend to perform in place of the living article. And he wanted to keep her. Thus routed and forestalled, the regretful kidnapper had no choice but to lug his now-catatonic kidnappee back home.

At the time, he had been praying for the preservation of his peace-of-mind.

A week or two later, he had been thankful that his prayers were answered, because no one had heard a peep out of the otherwise talkative girl.

Another week or so later, Sesshoumaru was beginning to worry.

A full month after Kagome became a reluctant Sesshoumaru's pack-mate, the taiyoukai realised that the girl had simply gone mute.

A day's reflection later, Sesshoumaru decided he was horrified.

And so began a silence-loving youkai's journey to destroy every last vestige of quietude in his life....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Human.”

Silence. His eyebrow twitched in irritation – intellectually, he knew this wasn’t deliberate, but his instincts were taking a fit at being what they perceived as ignored. He tried again, more sternly.

“Human.”

He could have been speaking to a wall for all the response she showed. Allowing his youki to swell into the room, pressing against her and poking incessantly, he said it again.

“Human.”

Her stillness was so absolute that the taiyoukai had to be impressed. Suppressing a wild and inexplicable urge to escalate the poking to a full-blown tickle-attack, he decided to retreat for the day.

But not without a parting shot.

“Hn.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sesshoumaru’s second attempt at conversation fell flatter than the first, if such a feat was possible.

“Human.”

Nothing.

“Girl.”

Still nothing.

“Priestess.”

Blank-faced emptiness.

“Human woman.”

Now he was beginning to sound repetitive to his own ears.

“Thing with the strange clothes.”

It really didn’t seem conceivable, but her face seemed to go even more vacant at that. And so he stalked out, chalking up yet another day of failure.

But, he grumbled to himself even as he closed the door to her room behind him, what was a poor dog to do when he didn’t even know the creature’s name? Bark at her?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Woof, woof” not being an acceptable option, the Western Lord nevertheless disdained the use of such charming epithets as “human” and “strange little object from parts unknown.” Even he could tell that they were conversation killers, not starters.

What he needed was a name for the girl. Unfortunately, he didn’t know whether she had one. Being a victim of kidnap had not curbed her tongue’s enthusiasm the last time he had been her keeper, but her name was something that she’d kept to herself. And he had never once heard his semi-sibling call her anything but “wench” or “idiot,” so he was forced to conclude that the mutt was equally clueless as to her identity, or just lacked manners in general.

The taiyoukai chose to believe the latter, serenely ignoring the fact that if anyone were to eavesdrop on his taunting conversations with the hanyou, they’d come away believing that the poor boy had been christened “half-breed.”

There had to be something he could call her. Something that defined who she was. Sesshoumaru raked through his memories, trawling every last piece of information he had regarding the girl and Inuyasha.

Something.

Anything.

Any damned thing at all.

And a face flashed before his eyes. A lovely, quiet face, brown-eyed and jet-haired. It suited her, in a distant way.

Best of all, it had a name.

Thus, on this third try at breaching the priestess' walls, Sesshoumaru opened communication with her name.

“Kikyo.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the space of a heartbeat, he thought he had flubbed it yet again.

But she moved, just a twitch. His sharp eyes caught the faint seizure of her body and he breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. He hadn't bungled it, after all.

And then he wished he had, because the stony void of before had to be better than the screeching, scratching, struggling ball of hyperventilating, enraged human that was currently attempting to claw him open with her pitifully blunt fingers. Shock leeched the strength from his hands; he couldn't have held her off even if he had tried.

A distant part of him managed to decipher her hoarsely shrill shrieking and decided that he would rather commit seppuku than try and stop her. Not because she didn't deserve to have her arms broken, the little ogre, but he simply deserved the desperate pummelling more.

So he stood patiently, allowing a petite human girl to assault him to the best of her meagre abilities, till she fainted from exhaustion and complete catharsis. Then he tucked her into her futon, ignoring the shimmering strands of silver clutched in her fists – strands snatched viciously from his scalp in her fury – and returned to his day's business, feeling very much like the lowest cur ever born.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day found him sauntering into her room with false bravado – calm prepossession outwardly, nervous dog inwardly. She was up and about, if sitting hunched within a cave of blankets and heavy kimonos could be termed so.

She greeted him with a black glare and a jade ornament to the head, both of which he deflected effortlessly. Once was acceptable, but a taiyoukai did not allow repeat transgressions against his person. The spiteful alpha dog in him thought of referring to her as “Kikyo” again, just to see what reaction he'd get out of her.

But the rational, honourable part demurred. Still, being honourable was not an excuse to be a doormat.

“What is this Sesshoumaru to call you?”

It seemed she wouldn't answer, deliberately this time, and he lost his three-day-old patience. With a snarl, he crouched before her, leaning uncomfortably close. “You shall be civilised. You shall respond. You shall give this Sesshoumaru the information he seeks. Or you shall be thrown out to the mercy of the wild – and your grave shall be marked with the name you detest so much.” He punctuated the last with a sharp little nip to her nose.

She started at the brief contact, throat working in fright. Eventually, her voice came, guttural from the previous day's exertion. “Kagome. My name, you canine bastard, is Kagome.”

Pleased, he acknowledged it with a nod and turned to leave.

But not before she got in a parting shot. “Call me the other name again and I'll kill you – even if it kills me too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He brought her lunch every day.

And everyday, she grumped and glared and griped her way through interrogations about her origins, her education, her powers, her destiny and her reason for existence in a time aeons before her own.

It was a relief, Sesshoumaru thought, to now that she was capable of talking like normal people. That is, with pauses. Lengthy, blessed pauses. And of not volunteering more than was asked of her.

He changed his mind when the time came to talk about her relationship with Inuyasha.

“Why did he repudiate you?”

Her face fell, fingers clenched and twisted, and lips pressed tight to prevent the slightest noise from escaping.

“Kagome, answer.”

She would not, she denoted with a jerking shake of her head.

He felt the familiar irritation rise. “Woman...,” he intoned warningly.

Her lower lip wobbled, and she seemed close to breaking, but held on to the answer. It was not, she believed, an answer that ought to see the light of day.

Silence reigned between them once again, the silence of a man inexperienced with women, and a woman heartbroken over a man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps a man would have known to leave well enough alone. Sesshoumaru, however, was a dog, and had inherited the tenaciousness of his species in full force. Kagome found herself besieged by the curious taiyoukai.

She would be wheedling Rin's tutor for lessons in ikebana and he would show up with his demands.

She would be enjoying a snack of pastel-coloured dango with her feet in the koi pond and he would sneak up on her, terrifying girl, fish and dango out of their collective wits.

She would be trying fancy knots on a new kimono and he would insist on tangling her hopelessly in yards of obi.

She would be sleeping peacefully and he would prod her awake with inane questions about exactly how far she had taken her thing with Inuyasha.

She secretly debated the merits of just telling him – he was paying for her room, food, clothes, entertainment and being a very good guardian in general. But there was something...not quite invasive, no. Desperate. Yes, she reflected, there was something desperate about his constant nagging.

A part of her saw the hilarity of witnessing Sesshoumaru act like a gossipy old hen.

A larger part of her fretted over the plaintive note of need in his voice that managed to wriggle out, despite his efforts to cloak it with stern superciliousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the end, the larger Kagome won out and blabbed her entire four-year history with Inuyasha to a rabidly curious Sesshoumaru.

Of course, larger Kagome always trying to do things to fit her magnanimous world view, the telling took a good seven hours, at the end of which her audience's curiosity had mutated to cringing horror, earache, and several demands that she stop.

Naturally, she didn't.

When she finally allowed him to flee, the taiyoukai was near-traumatised at his own blindness and utter lack of foresight.

To his dying day, Sesshoumaru doubted if he would ever understand why he had thought that encouraging the motor-mouthed girl to talk was a good idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As it was, he avoided her for a week, about as successfully as she'd avoided him earlier. Which was to say, not very well, for wherever went the dog, there followed his little human.

It was yap and gossip and nag and banter and questions and jokes and slang that no one understood and anecdotes and debates and heart-to-hearts and soul-searchings and chit-chats and fairytales and grumbles and whispers and secrets and talk everlasting for the rest of the very long and voluble year that followed.

And when the poor taiyoukai was finally at her mercy, inches away from complete insanity and he swore, deafness, though she didn't believe him – she went quiet again.

He wasn't sure about the wisdom of showing alarm at her sudden penchant for taciturnity, but affectionate canine protectiveness triumphed over common sense.

“Why so quiet, Kagome?”

She looked up from the paper cranes she was folding and shrugged.

“Has this Sesshoumaru offended?”

She shook her head.

“Kagome.”

Slowly, she looked up at him, mulishness on every curve of her face. “I figured I'd tortured you enough.”

He leveled a glare at her, demanding clarification with a look.

She sighed, flipping her hair away from her face in a careful gesture of nonchalance, but he could detect the nervous tremble of her fingers. “Oh, I don't know...you've been looking pretty irritated at me for the past few weeks. I...can't help talking. I was born a chatterbox. But I thought I owed you a break...I guess I forgot you don't really like talking. Or well, noise in general. So I thought I was being pretty ungrateful and stuff, I mean! You're so good to me! Getting me presents all the time and letting me stay here even though I just laze around all day and you even got me ikebana lessons! And I just went on prattling and prattling at you when I should've realised way earlier that it was pissing you off! I've been so ungrateful. And I really do mean to keep shut now, I swear! And...what I mean was...you won't hold it against me, will you? My bad behaviour all these months? Because, I don't want...well...I..I don't want that you should...I don't, well, leave, you know...I mean..”

At which point Sesshoumaru decided that she was simply telling him things that he should have seen for himself, and that he had grown inordinately fond of the girl in any case, so why natter about it?

He shut her up.

It was soft and slow and immensely tantalising. The sweet jasmine scent of her. The press of his lips to hers conveying his desire. The sultry silk of his cream sleeping yukata wrinkling beneath her hands. The patient tutoring of his tongue as it tangled with her own. The clawed fingers and strong arms clenched about her waist in cuddling comfort.

When he finally freed her mouth and loosened his grip on her, Kagome was thoroughly reassured about her place in his life.

That she was here to stay.

That he wouldn't kick her out because she irritated him.

That she did irk him, but his affection outshone his annoyance.

That he didn't mind her chattering nearly as much as he showed.

That he had finally found a fool-proof way of silencing her.

And that they would have an eternity in which to practise the various virtues of silence.

Or that was what Sesshoumaru believed, till he discovered the joy of the other set of noises she could produce.

 I hope you liked it, Lilli! Read and review, guys! :D