.P O I S O N.

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Your web, I’m caught. . .

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Time passed, and Inuyasha healed.

Well, to be fair, his body healed. His pride was still in shreds, and he’d been in a funk about it for weeks. When he’d woken up after the altercation with his brother, it had been a whole day later and the bastard had hightailed it out of the area. To make matters worse, it had rained and washed away whatever scent had remained of him. Unable to track him and shred his hide to ribbons, Inuyasha moped and growled and generally frightened the villagers out of their plans to give him a good stoning. Considering the mood he’d been in, it probably saved their lives.  

Truthfully, he just didn’t know what to think of what had happened. What hazy memories he had of the whole debacle left him with a sour taste in his mouth. Resolving to forget about the whole thing, but not quite succeeding, Inuyasha attempted to get back to his usual daily routine. Thinking too much pissed him off, anyway.

Thinking too much led to questions that had no answer.

But as the days passed, he fell into a comfortable routine of manual labour, sword practice, and his usual daily attempt to scare the living shit out of the village children so they’d stop bothering him. Honestly, being a filthy hanyou sure didn’t count for much these days. At least the adults spanked them silly for coming anywhere near him, scrubbing their skin until it went pink just for trying to touch his ears. He was fairly sure that they deserved it, but damned if they didn’t keep coming back for more.

So after a few exhausting hours of swordplay to while away the hazy afternoon, enough to make his arms burn and his hair stick to his forehead, he was unsurprised to see a small gathering of kids watching his every move. Briefly entertaining the idea of putting a shirt on, he discarded it and sheathed the Tetsusaiga with one swift movement. His eyes caught the fading wound on his forearm and lingered for a moment. At the rate he healed, it was a surprise it had remained visible for as long as it had. He didn’t like the reminder. Running his clawed fingertips over the slightly raised skin, his golden eyes hazy with memory, he didn’t see the midget onslaught until they were tugging on his pants.

“Inuyasha, can I play with your sword?”

“Inuyasha, are you hungry?”

“Inuyasha, do you like Suki-chan?”

“Inuyasha, why do you have long hair?”

It was enough to drive a normal person insane. However, being apparently made of stronger stuff than even he’d given himself credit for, Inuyasha had yet to suffer so much as a nervous breakdown. He was fairly sure he was developing a tic in his eye though. “Would you shut up?” He eventually barked, bristling with frustration. “I’m gonna break my foot off in the ass of the next kid who asks a retarded question.”

Silence. Then;

“Inuyasha said ass!”

“Inuyasha, you’re so cool!”

“I’m gonna talk like Inuyasha from now on! Ass! Ass! Reeee-tarded!”

It might not be enough to drive him insane, but he’d soon be on the brink of infanticide if he didn’t get the hell out of there—now. Pressing his hands over the faces of the two kids in front of him, he shoved them onto their rumps and belted it the hell out of the field he’d been practicing in. God, he thought faintly as he ran, as sad as it was he’d actually prefer a few stones to the back of the head over the adoration of a handful of hyperactive human kids. He wasn’t used to it. The only kid who’d been like that around him was Kagome’s kid brother, and he’d never tried to search his goddamn hair for fleas.

His swift, completely manly escape took him all the way to the other side of the village, where the surrounding trees cleared into another, smaller field, this one rather muddy and therefore less popular to play in. Inuyasha grimaced as mud sank under his toenails, a little grossed out by the sensation. “Damn kids,” he muttered, shaking one foot out in front of him. “Chasing me out here. . .” Glad for the sudden silence all the same, he closed his eyes briefly, feeling the wind pick up and stir his hair, smelling of wet grass and the ragged purple wildflowers that dotted the field. He felt the tension in his shoulders ebb and disappear. This was better, getting out of the village, being alone again. He hadn’t really realised he was so used to it that after a while the villagers milling about felt almost oppressive. He didn’t like it, but he was conditioned to survive by himself. Depending on himself. Living for himself. With the others gone now, it was just the way things should be. When the threat of Naraku had thrown them all together it had been circumstance that had the others travelling with him—Kagome’s doing, he supposed. It was only natural that without her he had no reason to cling to them. Not that he wanted to. Humans should go on living human lives. A hanyou, on the other hand. . .

Inuyasha’s eyes darkened, his eyes falling to the torn snakebite on his arm. Hanyou had no place in the world to begin with, Sesshoumaru would have said.

Sesshoumaru. He closed his eyes and swore softly.

Kaede had filled him in on what details she knew of the missing week of his life, from Sesshoumaru bringing him to the village to his mysterious return seven days later. The unknown practices he used to heal him, break his fever and halt his quickening descent into death. She’d had no idea why he’d done it, and neither did Inuyasha. He found himself waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some illumination into the mind of his infuriating pure-blooded brother, but he came up empty handed. Only one thing rang clear in his mind.

If you survive this, hanyou, you’ll be in my debt.  

Hissing a sharp breath, he tossed his head, ears twitching madly. Debt, a debt—he’d never owed anyone a single thing in his life! No one had bothered. But for this, this one time—and it was Sesshoumaru. He had to have done it for a reason, and it sure wasn’t out of concern for his hanyou brother’s welfare. Dragging in a sharp breath, he tried to quell the urge to snarl his frustration to the brilliant summer morning. Indebted to that pure-blooded, uptight son of a bitch. . .to hell with that, he decided with furious determination. But so lost in his thoughts was Inuyasha that he didn’t react in time to the sudden rustle in the long grass behind him.

“A-ha!! Prepare to die, Inuyasha!!” A voice shrieked gleefully from behind him, and then the air around him exploded in flames.

Swearing loudly, the hanyou dove for the grass, skidding some meters in the slick mud by accident before somersaulting and simultaneously drawing his sword, facing his diminutive, green, and undeniably sycophantic foe. It was Jaken, brandishing the Staff of Heads, thrusting the damn thing at him like an amulet to ward off evil. Fire belched out of the old man’s mouth like a jet stream, pointing straight at him. It didn’t have much of an effect, to tell the truth, wearing the fire rat fur and all. But when Inuyasha started smelling burnt hair, he darted out of the flames with a fleet-footed movement, appearing behind Jaken to grab the staff and wrestle it out of the imp’s little webbed fingers. Tetsusaiga was slid back into place at his waist, being slightly overkill for Sesshoumaru’s little fanboy.

“Now what the hell is this,” Inuyasha snapped, batting at his face with his free hand. At his feet, Jaken was hopping into the air ineffectually, clawed hands outstretched as he tried to catch hold of his precious weapon. He just hefted it higher in the air. “You nearly burnt off my eyebrows!”

“A hanyou like you doesn’t deserve to have eyebrows!” Jaken squawked irrationally. “Give me back my staff!” Then, when the half demon just grinned ferally, his eyes shining gold, Jaken decided to hit below the belt. Literally. He brazenly punched Inuyasha square in the balls.

It felled him faster than the prayer beads ever had. Dropping like a stone, gasping, Inuyasha curled into the foetal position, spitting ineffectual curses like bullets.  But he didn’t let go of the staff. “Fucking—toad! I’ll kill you! Oh my God, you are so fucking dead!” Eyes watering, he swung wildly with the staff, smacking the toad like one of Souta’s baseballs and sending him flying into a puddle. He floated there for a while, breathing bubbles as he lay face down. Inuyasha violently hoped he drowned. Groaning furiously, he used the staff to get himself to his feet, covered head to foot in mud, his groin aching brilliantly. “SHIT!” He yelled to the sky, just to let off a bit of steam at his entire crappy afternoon. Rubbing his face viciously, he sifted out the charred ends of his ragged bangs and picked out drying clumps of mud with his claws. It didn’t do much for his appearance; he still looked like some kind of vengeful swamp demon.

A high squeal split the air behind him, and Inuyasha near drew his sword again in alarm. But it was just the girl running out from the woods, arms out at her sides and she dashed straight for him, beaming. “Inuyasha-saaaaan! You didn’t die!” The closer she got, the more he felt the inexplicable impulse to run away. What was it with kids running at him that scared the hell out of him? Their sticky fingers? Their uncomfortable questions? Or—

“Ooof! Fuck!” Inuyasha cursed, stumbling back and realising exactly what it was. Their random urges to hug him. Staring in horror down at his waist where Rin was plastered, having not slowed in the slightest when she’d run straight at him, he thought of what you were meant to do in situations like this. Duck and cover? Freeze? Play dead? Goddamn it, he couldn’t remember. “Damn it, when did I ever say it was okay to get all—clingy?”

Rin’s bright eyes sparkled up at him. “I hugged you when you were asleep!”

Yeah. . .Inuyasha thought blankly, because that wasn’t creepy at all. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” he eventually said, disturbed. Grimacing in discomfort, he carefully pulled her hands away from his waist and set her back at arms length, sharp eyes scanning the surrounding area for any sign of him. He was upwind of the direction the kid had come from, so no luck there, and he couldn’t see anything either. In his grip, Rin bounced excitedly on her toes.

“I’m so happy you’re okay, Inuyasha-san! R—I was really worried about you!” She insisted, as though he mightn’t have understood the first time. Inuyasha shrugged uncomfortably.

“It’s just Inuyasha,” he told her with a slight frown. “You can’t call me Inuyasha-san after you’ve hugged me in my sleep. It’s weird.” He realised something. “How come you’re not calling yourself Rin when you talk?”

Rin smiled again, eyes sparkling. “Jaken-sama says I am too old to talk like that, so he taught me what to say instead. Sesshoumaru-sama thinks I am doing very well!” She looked at him curiously. “Inuyasha, do you think I am doing very well? Jaken-sama says I’m doing okay for a stupid human, and you’re a hanyou, so you’d know better than he would.”

Against his will, a reluctant smile curved his lips. “Better even than your Sesshoumaru-sama, who’s not human at all?” He teased.

Rin hesitated for a moment, putting a finger to her lips. “You do talk much more than Sesshoumaru-sama does. . .” She hazarded, looking torn. It seemed to break something in her to do it, but she finally nodded. “Rin thinks you’d know better,” she rushed out, as though she was committing a sin just by saying it. “I mean I think so!” She took a big step forward and grabbed the waist of his pants in her small fists, staring up at him with wide eyes. “Don’t tell Jaken-sama I said that!”

Inuyasha was grinning. Knew better than Sesshoumaru, did he? Well, shit. Feeling suddenly magnanimous towards the small girl, he reached out and patted her on the head. “Take it easy. I think I killed him, anyway.” Looking over his shoulder at the imp, he lazily called out, “you still alive over there, toad?” Jaken had rolled onto his back during his small conversation with Rin, and was currently wringing out his little hat in disgust, mud splashed up one side of his face. The look he shot Inuyasha was pure disgruntled malevolence.

“Stupid hanyou! Rin, get away from him before he gives you fleas!”

Rin ignored him, bouncing on her toes again. “So are you going to help me, Inuyasha? We came back to find you since you were sick before. Sesshoumaru-sama told us to go find you without him, because he thinks you’d just get yourself killed fighting him if he came too. . .” Linking her hands together behind her back, she blinked her big brown eyes up at him. “I don’t want Inuyasha to die. I like you!”

He didn’t know what the hell to think about all that. Help her? The part about Sesshoumaru killing him was pure unadulterated bullshit, but the reason behind all this eluded him. What the hell did she want his help with? Why in the hell hadn’t his bastard brother come to beat the favour out of him, instead of sending his clingy little entourage to burn and hug him into submission? This was clearly fucked up in too many ways to even begin counting. Staring down at the girl, golden eyes serious, he thought of all the ways he could get the hell out of there before she could reinvent the puppy dog eyes and royally screw him once and for all. “Um, no,” he finally said, giving an internal shrug at the whole situation. “I’m not helping you. Whatever it is, Sesshoumaru can do it. Tell him to get off his lazy ass and do something. I’m not his fucking servant.”

Her eyes had widened long before he cursed, but as he finished speaking her eyes welled up with helpless tears. Her hands fell limply to her sides. “B-but I might die if you don’t! I don’t want to be a burden anymore! You’re half-human, so you can help me, can’t you? Oh, please? Jaken-sama has his staff, and Sesshoumaru said he’d kill me if he tried, because he’s so tall and strong and his claws have poison in them and he has only one arm to fight with and—and please you have to teach me to be useful!” Screwing her eyes shut and sending tears spilling down her cheeks, she threw herself down into the mud and bowed at his feet. “Please teach me to fight and look after myself, Inuyasha!” Muffled sobs shook her shoulders, tears dripping to the ground. “Please! Rin doesn’t want to be left behind!”

Inuyasha stared.

This was what had spurred Sesshoumaru into saving his life?

Teaching his pet human how to save herself?

It had long since been recognised that as brothers, the closest they’d ever some to family unity was the moment they’d defeated Sou’unga. Inuyasha would never admit it, but he’d had a lot to think about after that battle. A hell of a lot. But nothing changed; their enmity stayed the same. It was fine like that – he’d long since accepted Sesshoumaru’s hatred toward him. His disgust and disdain.

Inuyasha had a thick hide when it came to the sting of glares and insults. To some degree, he returned it a lot of the time; in Sesshoumaru’s case he sent it back glare for glare, swordstroke for powerful swordstroke. It just seemed fair when he’d tried to kill him so many times for being some scum-blooded hanyou with a human mother. It was because Sesshoumaru hated humans, after all.

He’d accepted that.

Until a few weeks ago, when his youkai brother had saved his life, merely so he could teach Rin, – a human – to survive for herself.

It. . .it had only ever been a whim.

Just a fucking whim.

Why he was surprised, Inuyasha had no answer. Why he was standing before the girl, fists shaking and eyes blazing, he had a very good idea. Gritting his teeth against a fierce snarl, he struggled for some kind of composure. Tipping his head forward, his hair obscuring his eyes, he turned his head slightly and cast his attention to Jaken. “Where is he?” He asked, his voice vibrating with emotion. “If he couldn’t even come here himself, where the hell is Sesshoumaru now?”

Jaken scoffed. “You think I’m going to tell you, so you can go and bother Sesshoumaru-sama? As if I’d ever. . .”

He’d only turned his face, just slightly, enough to regard the small youkai with one glaring golden eye. Whatever he saw there, Jaken seemed to blanch a little, stumbling over his words before settling on a simple answer. He pointed. “He’s that way,” Jaken said, his voice bleached of all his usual contemptuous bravado. “Or he was when we left.”

Without another word, Inuyasha walked away from the two, heading into the woods in the direction Sesshoumaru was in. Still streaked with mud, missing his shirt and haori, but completely uncaring as his speed picked up little by little, until he was streaking through the trees in search for the scent he knew so well. If he thought that the hanyou was just going to sit down and take this kind of shit, Sesshoumaru was in for a shock. That smug, arrogant son of a bitch. . . He was furious and he knew it, but this was different to the usual bad blood between them. Mostly because with everything tipped on its head, Inuyasha had no idea what to make of the last two centuries or so of hatred. If he’d done something himself to earn his brother’s contempt, then he could accept that. If it was just a general disdain for humans, well, that was all right too. But to suddenly find out that Sesshoumaru would go so far as to nurse him back to health, for some scrap of a human girl. . .just cast aside the past for her. . .when he would have simply let Inuyasha die if she hadn’t needed him for this one, tiny thing. . .

Something bitter and foreign bubbled up inside him, and disbelievingly he realised it was dangerously close to jealousy. The emotion was so alien to him that for a moment he almost stumbled in his hasty flight through the trees. Hollow laughter bubbled in his throat, tasting like copper nausea and acid. Ridiculous. If Sesshoumaru gave enough of a damn for the girl to save him just to help her, well, fine. But if there was a debt to repay now and he thought that his stupid hanyou brother was going to roll over for him. . .

Inuyasha had never owed anyone a single thing in his life.

That wasn’t going to change, but neither was Sesshoumaru going to get his way.
Not if he could help it.

The brief flicker of foreboding that filled him as the afternoon wore on did not go unnoticed. Tonight was the new moon, but he had no intentions of being anywhere near Sesshoumaru come nightfall. No, he was going to be somewhere else entirely.

It was half an hour before he picked up the scent of his brother, and by the time he did it was because he was almost upon him. Inuyasha burst into a clearing on the bank of a tiny stream, barely stopping himself in time before he actually slammed into Sesshoumaru. The tall youkai was sitting against a boulder embedded in the bank, one knee pulled up slightly, his golden eyes remote as he studied the water.
He didn’t even glance up. “You reek of mud,” he said, his voice empty of inflection. “Or should I assume you’re too afraid to bathe in that creek now, Inuyasha.” He lifted his head slightly, his face expressionless as he ran his eyes over the hanyou’s dishevelled form. His lip curled slightly in disgust, but that was the only movement he betrayed. Then an odd flicker crossed his face. “You’ve fully recovered, I see.”

The reference was enough to have his hackles back up in seconds. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it actually hurt a little to relax it enough to speak. “Enough with the bullshit pleasantries, asshole,” he grated, his breath hissing through his teeth. “Tell me just what the hell you’re playing at. Sending the kid up to me to try and, what, sucker me into saving you the trouble of teaching her the pointy end of a knife? That’s what you lowered yourself into saving me for?” A ugly smile twisted his mouth. “Is that how your pride gets around recognising that you’re helping a human girl? By twisting me into a position to do it for you? Go fuck yourself, Sesshoumaru.” The acid, poisonous words were spat directly at the youkai, intended to enrage and insult him. Honestly, at that point, Inuyasha could use an excuse to draw the Tetsusaiga on him. But Sesshoumaru didn’t take the bait. Oh, fury flashed in his gaze and his expression turned darker than a thunderhead, but he didn’t do anything more than flex his hand, the knuckles cracking loudly in the silence after his words.

“Your temper tantrums are unbecoming, little brother,” he eventually replied, his voice smooth and even. “So ungrateful, even after I saved your worthless life. You should be thanking me.”

Inuyasha paled. “Go to hell.” Then, with a deep breath to steady the rage threatening to usurp his reason, “did you really think I‘d agree to this? If you think I’m some human-loving saint, you’re out of your damned mind. She’s your kid. If she dies, it’s on you.”

Sesshoumaru’s mouth curved in a cold smile. “She’s quite taken with you,” was all he said in return. “A foolish endeavour, I expect, if you care so little of her welfare.”

“She’s not my responsibility!” Inuyasha said explosively. “Take your fucking guilt trips elsewhere, you son of a four-legged whore! If that was why you did it, then you should have just let me die!”

Whatever trigger was in his foul reply, it cracked Sesshoumaru’s cold mask and replaced it with something feral and bloodthirsty. “Watch your mouth, hanyou,” he said dangerously, getting to his feet in a fluid motion that reminded him of a snake uncoiling. Which was too close to another memory to do anything other than further fuel Inuyasha’s already blazing temper. “I brought you back from the brink of death for a reason, but if you’re going to refuse to repay the debt I could be persuaded to simply end your miserable life once and for all. I assure you, no one in this world will mourn your death for long.”

Something reckless and wild filled him then, and he laughed, knowing it sounded slightly unbalanced. He didn’t care. “You know what? I do. I completely and utterly refuse. So you might as well just kill me, Sesshoumaru. Go right ahead. I’m just a goddamn hanyou. Naraku’s dead. There’s nothing left to fight, nothing left to do, and I’d die before I ever helped you find a loophole around your fucking pureblood youkai pride. Here,” he said, his smile daring and absolutely fearless. At this point, he was beyond caution. Beyond caring in the slightest. He pulled Tetsusaiga from his waistband, sheath and all, and tossed it at Sesshoumaru’s feet. “Now I’m unarmed. So why don’t you just put me down like the mongrel dog that I am. Then you can take the blade, take your little servants, and live happily ever after.” Jaw set, the devil-may-care humour slid off his face as he stepped forward, right over his beloved sword, and got right in his brother’s face. “After all, if you saved me on a whim, you can kill me with as little thought. So go on, Sesshoumaru. Here I am, persuading you.” Expression grim and eyes steely, but blank of apprehension or unease, he stared up into his brother’s eyes and dared him to end his life.

Gazing back down into Inuyasha’s face, Sesshoumaru didn’t move at first, instead choosing to study the features turned up to his. From his mud-stiffened white bangs, over his dirty cheeks and the twitching muscle in his jaw, Sesshoumaru’s eyes grazed over his brother. Down to the exposed arch of his throat, where his pulse beat an unsteady cadence. Back up to the taut line of his lips and onto his mutinous golden eyes, somehow bleaker and emptier than the older youkai could ever remember seeing. Nothing gave away exactly why his younger brother was overstepping such deeply engraved lines in their history. Leaning in just a little, closing the distance between them in the tiniest way possible, he breathed in his scent until it filled his lungs, his throat, lingered over his tongue. Searching. But the taste he found was steeped in dirt and mud, and sweat. Nothing, other than aggression and fury, and the salt of his skin, the blood in his veins. And all the while, Inuyasha did not back down.

It was no bluff, Sesshoumaru eventually realised, his eyes widening imperceptibly. He leaned back slightly. Inuyasha was serious.

While he was not above refusing simply to anger the hanyou, and he knew he could easily take that path, the youkai raised one pale hand and placed the tips of his claws against the jugular vein visible just beneath the smooth skin before him. His claws stirred the drying mud on the skin as Inuyasha breathed, causing it to flake away slightly. The sight of his claws positioned against the vein, in such a dangerous place. . .it didn’t invoke any satisfaction in him. His mouth tightened, but he couldn’t seem to glance away. Inuyasha was offering up his life; it was his for the taking.

“Go on,” the hanyou said eventually, his voice low. “You’ve wanted to do it all this time, so go ahead. Either kill me now, or see to it we never, ever meet again. I’m not leaving the village—all you have to do is never come back. There’s no need for you and I to ever cross paths again. I get that you hate me, that I’m some disgusting freak in the family tree. I get that you think I’m at fault for the old man’s death. I’m a stupid hanyou that should have been drowned at birth, right? Right?” Gritting his teeth, he was mortified to feel something sting in his eye. “I was okay with that. You—you messed it all up. You should have let me die, damn you. If it was going to be for something that small. . .god, you should have just finished me off when you came back.”

“You’re telling me too much, Inuyasha,” Sesshoumaru murmured, a strange light in his eyes.

Inuyasha swallowed thickly. “Yeah? So what. You fucking humiliated me, you bastard. I’ve been trying to figure out why I so pissed off, and this is it. You couldn’t give a damn about me if you tried, but you’d spend a whole night nursing my worthless ass back to health so I could play teacher to some orphan human you picked up along the way? Some—some human kid. You’d try to kill me just because of the way I was born, but. . .” Realising Sesshoumaru was right, he was saying too much, Inuyasha reared back, mortified eyes darting away from his brother’s. “Forget it. Just forget everything. Forget I exist.”

It was enough. Finally, enough. Stepping back, almost stumbling, he shook his head slowly and turned away, feeling hollowed out. Sesshoumaru’s hand remained in the air for the briefest of moments, before it slipped back to his side with a whisper of fabric. He just watched Inuyasha as he bent and retrieved Tetsusaiga, sliding it mechanically into place at his hip. Unseen by the hanyou, he rubbed his fingers together as though they itched as his younger brother turned to leave. His expression never shifted by so much as a millimetre.

Head lowered, Inuyasha was almost out of the clearing before Sesshoumaru spoke.

“And if I said she was my excuse?”

Inuyasha stopped dead, his eyes blank and unseeing as he took in his brother’s smoothly spoken question. Then he blinked, and with a soft laugh, he turned his head and smiled self-depreciatingly. “But she wasn’t, was she,” he said knowingly.

Sesshoumaru looked away. His eyes turned to the water once again. He never replied.

Inuyasha’s eyes fell to the ground, and he let out a long sigh. “A debt, huh. . .” Then he laughed to himself, shaking his muddy hair back from his shoulders. A debt was still a debt. But he couldn’t save Sesshoumaru’s life in return. Perhaps though, there was still one thing he could do. It had been a while, a long while, but there was something to be said for the resilience of youkai flesh.

Raising his eyes to the sky, taking in the orange-pink hue of the late afternoon, the hanyou shrugged to himself.

It was worth a try.