Of Brothers and Sisters by AdamiteAshes

Of Brothers and Sisters

Of Brothers and Sisters

"Quick! Kagome, get behind me!"

Inuyasha growled and swung his sword angrily at the demon that had dared attack Kagome while the unsuspecting girl cooked ramen. With a satisfying rip the massive blade tore through sizzling, slimy flesh.

"That ought to teach you," he declared with pride to the lifeless, smoldering pile, carelessly flinging Tessaiga over his shoulder. "See any shards, Kagome?"

Inuyasha fought back a smile that would ruin his gruff demeanor. Kagome smiled so sweetly, acted so innocently…he wanted to protect her, shield her and tend to her every means; yet at the same time, he knew she was hardly a little girl to take under his wing, and more often than not, it was he who relied on her for emotional support.

Kagome was the string that tied them all together. Sometimes he forgot how easily strings snapped.

"Nope, no shards. You okay, Inuyasha? It did a number on you." Kagome inspected him with genuine care. No, she was not a little girl in the slightest. Her loving motherly nature, her persistent perusal of his wellbeing—at some point she had taken the part of his long lost mother.

So, like a teenager in rebellion, he shrugged away the motherly attention with rudeness.

"Are you stupid, wench? Of course I'm fine," he muttered, turning away to hide his reddening cheeks.

"Are you sure? Just let me disinfect those cuts." Her soft, gentle hands reach for his chest. He felt awkward and unworthy.

"Leave me alone," he snapped, stomping away, stomping with rage at his own stupidly. With rage for nothing in particular. He smelled her discomfort, the slightest hint of salt in the air. But when he turned around to peek at her with the corner of an eye, she was shrugging, and packed away her bandages with a small sigh.

He took that as a sign that she would be alright.

"She was only worried about you, you know," Miroku noted as he walked up to him, his eyes glued to the packing priestess.

"Keh, whatever." A small tremble in his hands gave away the falsity of his indifference, reminding him of a tricky little feeling that reoccurred so often in his heart. Clawed hands curled into tight fists, their sharpened points poking his calloused skin until they drew blood, but it was too late. He couldn't deny it. Whenever Inuyasha saw Kagome, his heart warmed so exponentially. This flowering feeling bloomed in his chest, whenever his eyes met with her…it was love, undeniable and irresistible. But somehow, he just had to fight.

Why he was so stubborn? He himself wasn't too sure why he acted like an idiot. Inuyasha hoped he had not hurt Kagome too much, but his subconscious told him otherwise.

Damn. He would jump in front of a sword, claws, arrows, fangs, anything for her—but he just couldn't gracefully accept her kindness.

No matter how he craved it.

One reason Inuyasha always complained about having to take breaks during the shard hunt was because he would have to stop carrying Kagome. When he leapt through the trees, he smiled to himself, too blurred to be seen by others, elation bubbling in his heart. Kagome would wrap her slender legs around him, pressing her soft heat firmly against him, and then everything would be alright. It was during those times in which Inuyasha allowed himself a fleeting sign of happiness and contentment.

One reason Inuyasha always complained about Kagome going home was because he would not be able to see her. At first it was impatience, that he would have to wait for her return before completing the jewel. But the presence of Kagome became akin to a drug, her soothing fragrance pacifying his nerves, her benevolent light piecing the shattered bits of him together. What had been broken by the love in her former life, Kagome mended together. What had been a bitter loneliness, Kagome filled with sweet companionship.

He could not hold back his cherishment of her. What he could not speak of he attempted to convey with protective actions. Didn't she see? He cared for her too, like how she cared for him.

But why, whenever he gruffly sent her away, why did her eyes darken with that unreadable expression? Or was his sight failing him?

He loved her eyes, those life-filled orbs that twinkled and shone with light directly from her soul. A soul shared with another woman he had loved…

"Inuyasha?" Kagome's voice tugged at him

"Kikyo," his lips formed the ghost of a name.

The atmosphere became disturbingly silent. Even the chirping of the birds seemed out of place. Inuyasha's vision focused from his pondering, and he was met by those eyes he loved. Except they were shadowed with an unnamable emotion. Had he hurt her?

"What, bitch?"

"Sit."

"What was that for?!" Inuyasha yelped in pain as the rosary crushed him against hard packed earth. It hurt, but he knew he deserved it for being a jerk.

"Don't call me a bitch!"

"You are one!"

Instead of retaliating and subduing him again, Kagome turned away. Inuyasha wanted to run up and embrace her, comfort her; but his arms were frozen and he knew not how to comfort. Damn. He had upset her again.

*~*~*~*

"There's a jewel shard in that direction!" Kagome pointed from her elevated position on Kirara.

"About time," Inuyasha grumbled. Their travels had grown awkward, ever since Kagome insisted on riding with Sango instead of him. Carrying Miroku certainly was not half as comfortable as carrying the lovely young priestess. Especially since Miroku took it to himself to quietly chastise Inuyasha whenever he hurt Kagome.

With impatience Inuyasha dashed faster, and jumped higher in hopes of seeing Kagome in the corner of his eye. The manly legs around his waist tightened, and he fought the urge to gag. What he would give to have Kagome back!

He still hoped that Kagome wasn't angry at him. That night she made ramen, a good sign, which he gratefully devoured without criticism. The eyes in which she watched him with were warm, like a mother watching her growing child. It irked him somewhat that she looked at Shippo in the same way, too.

"I-I need to go out for a bit," he declared when he saw a pale soul collector beckoning to him with its swirling snake-like body in the forest canopy.

"Take your time," Kagome agreed without the slightest protest. She even sounded eager.

Relieved that she had not questioned him, Inuyasha ran into the nighttime forest. His nose sniffed in the sulfur of a hot spring. Maybe he would lead Kagome to it later.

"Kikyo," he murmured, stepping into a moonlit clearing. The woman he had loved was now a golem, lifeless because of his inability to protect her. Duty and past feelings stirred within him.

"Inuyasha," Kikyo breathed, exhaling the scent of graveyard soil. But Inuyasha could bear that. Walking close he gently wrapped him arms around the undead priestess, whom he owed so much, cared for so much. He closed his eyes.

"Look at me, Inuyasha," she pleaded softly. When he opened his eyes he took a startled step back. Those weren't the eyes he loved, not the ones that warmed him; they were not crystalline and brilliant like those of Kagome. Sad, murky brown eyes bore into him, along with the memory of tragic betrayal.

"Naraku has a new incarnation. He will seek you and my reincarnation once more. That is all I have to say."

The coldness in his arms disappeared, and the hard clay body was gone. His arms dropped weakly.

"Kikyo," he murmured wistfully.

"Inuyasha?"

Spinning around rapidly he froze. Kagome watched him behind a tree, her hair suspiciously wet.

"Huh? Kagome, why are you here?" He felt like a thief caught red-handed. Would she be hurt seeing him with Kikyo?

Kagome stammered a bit. "I just took a dip in the hot springs." That explained her wet hair, but she seemed to be hiding something…

"You know, Inuyasha, I don't mind you meeting with Kikyo," she cut off any accusations piled on his tongue.

"Keh, wench, I'll carry you back. It'll be faster."

"I-I'll walk on my own."

Bending forward he scooped her in his arms. "Idiot. You'll catch a cold."

She only smiled at him. With that warm feeling in his heart again, he sped back to camp, enjoying the moment with her plush softness in his arms, and her lovely, live scent. But something was off about her scent, something less flowery and more…thick and heavy, for lack of a better term. He buried his nose in her soft hair, and he knew something was suspicious about her late night escapade.

*~*~*~*

He opened his eyes that next morning, unsure of whether the night before had been a dream.

"Good morning Inuyasha," Kagome called over a bubbling pot of ramen. Her scent stayed light all the same, so perhaps he had been imagining things yesterday.

He happily let the delectable vapors of ramen douse his olfactory senses.

Inuyasha grumbled to himself quietly. Kagome had been disappearing each night, sometimes gone in the mornings, and it both worried and irked him that he didn't know what was happening. Any attempts at pursuing her ended with burial in a personal crater. She shrugged off his questions with excuses of baths and walks, or sometimes just "alone time," and he wasn't buying it. Sometimes she limped back, other times with bruises and cuts. She acted like him, shrugging off medical care, and he for once felt what she must have felt before, being dismissed each time.

And then there was the bizarre phenomenon of the shift in her scent. He was worried that she was ill, and demanded that she go home. Strangely enough she was reluctant and he had to drag her to the well. It was almost as if their roles had been switched.

"Inuyasha, I'll be back very soon," Kagome intoned softly. She sat on the well's wood rim and gazed at him with a unreadable expression.

"What?" Inuyasha bit out, embarrassed. He sat next to her on the worn wood.

She turned her head to him, her close proximity startling.

"I don't want to leave," she whispered.

"Kagome," he whispered back, staring at her eyes, at the depths that he could not reach. They had an alarming light in them; if he had know better it would be…desire…Unable to control himself, he leaned closer until her dainty nose almost touched his.

But her eyes, the way that she looked at him, it was frightening. Almost as if she had been teleported to another place, and that she was replacing him with someone else, someone very similar to him…

"Kagome," he breathed carefully.

Her lips formed the shape of another's name. His frantic heart stopped beating.

"Will you be my brother, Inuyasha? I love you," she murmured.

His motionless heart started beating again.

"You'll be the best sister," he kissed her softly.

Smiling, but with suspicious shiny wetness in her eyes, she fall backwards into the well.

Inuyasha stood up with a silly grin on his face. She had said she loved him! "As a brother," an annoying little voice nagged in the back of his mind. He didn't heed to it. He had long since realized that Kagome was the one he loved. Was it a romantic love? But the way she had looked at him was truly disturbing. Whose name had she formed with those sweet lips? The voice in the back of his head whispered something he hoped never to hear.

*~*~*~*

Everyone thought Inuyasha and Kagome were a couple. Inuyasha was embarrassed. Kagome was annoyed.

"He's not my husband," she explained patiently as she bandaged the arm of a little girl, "he's my brother." Inuyasha's heart faltered a little.

That night he was restless, and slept even later than usual. From his seated position aloof in a tree, he watched his companions sleep, and his dear Kagome. What he hadn't expected to see was for her sleeping, long-lashed eyelids to shoot open, and for her to smile mischievously at her slumbering friends. She looked up to where Inuyasha was resting, and he hastily squeezed his eyes shut.

He heard her tread quietly from their campsite, and he was impressed that she could move so stealthily. Steadily her scent faded from his nostrils. Peeking open his eyes, he trailed far behind her.

He was shocked to find his hated half-brother's scent growing stronger.

"Sesshomaru," he heard Kagome call out lovingly, with a voice she never used on any of them. It was an enamored voice, sweeter and softer than the kiss and embrace of a lover. And it called out the name of his cold blooded brother. "Sesshomaru" was the name that she had formed with her lips, "Sesshomaru" was the one she saw when she gazed at Inuyasha, "Sesshomaru" was the one she went to every night—and Inuyasha felt cold fury seep into his bones.

She had said she loved him, loved Inuyasha!

"But as a brother," the annoying voice that was Reason reminded him.

The fury left him and drained away his anger fueled strength. Was this how it felt, when long ago, he had seen Kikyo in Kagome? That same pain of Kagome seeing the silver and gold of Sesshomaru in Inuyasha?

He had been a fool for shoving her away.

He watched as she fell into the embrace of his brother, as she kissed Sesshomaru with a passion that Inuyasha had never seen. He saw his brother whisper to her, and saw her nod, their gazes never leaving each other. Finally Inuyasha realized that Sesshomaru was not as cold as reputed to be.

"Inuyasha," her voice called out, firm without the slightest tremor of guilt or apprehension. If she had, maybe he would have felt righteous anger. But now, he was merely guilty.

"Kagome?" he choked out as his ears flattened against his skull, "Why?"

"Sometimes, Inuyasha," Kagome wrapped her slender fingers around his brother's striped hand, "sometimes love just happens. And I am happy."

"K-Kagome, I—" Inuyasha stammered for a word to say.

"I love you, Inuyasha," his heart broke knowing what she would say next. "I love you like I love Souta. I love you like a brother. Now," she smiled, looked at Sesshomaru with heat—not mere warmth, but fire—in her eyes, "you can truly be my brother now, Inuyasha."

His throat was dry. Clogged by tears that threatened to spill, an array of emotions that took their toll on his heart. But Kagome was the string that held then all together, that kept him from falling apart. And now she had Sesshomaru as her strength.

"I-I'll be going now."

Leaping into the trees, Inuyasha tried to smile. There were plenty of women in the world, and he had plenty of years to search for one.

But Kagome was the greatest woman in the world, he thought sorrowfully.

"You have the greatest woman in the world as your sister. Be happy, you imbecile."

For once Inuyasha agreed with the Reason in his head. He allowed himself a small smile as he returned to camp, watching his companions sleep undisturbed, unaware of what had transpired that night.

Maybe afterwards, Inuyasha would be able to stand Sesshomaru as a brother.

*~*~*~*

Just a one-shot, a little scene that I needed to get out of my system. I like a nice Inuyasha. Well, how is it? Leave a review!

AdamiteAshes