InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Everlong ❯ House Call ( Chapter 5 )

A.N. Thanks for the feedback you guys, it's really helpful and motivating! And of course, huge ultra mega thanks to Lilith for being my copy editor. She's the best thing since Pocky, and I loooove pocky!

Oh yeah, I pushed the rating of this up to R. There's really nothing 'bad' in it right now, but I think eventually it will get kind of racy and there's some harsh language. I just want to be on the safe side.

Chapter 5- House Call

-The Tree Hugger-

I chose a bad day to wear a skirt, I realized with a blush, as I pressed my knees tightly together. I was seated reluctantly on the smooth cool metallic surface of the long table in the medical tent. I turned my face to the side, resting my chin on my shoulder and closing my eyes. It was getting increasingly difficult to ignore Inuyasha's advances, and with him crouched now at my feet, fingers working swiftly at my shoelaces, it was all I could do not to make room for him on the table beside me… or under me… or on top… however he wanted it done.

"A little early to undress me, wouldn't you say, Inuyasha?" I rasped out, eyes still gently closed.

"No such thing," he chided, removing my shoe and grasping my already tensed calf with his right hand while he slowly tugged off my sock with his left. His fingers were warm and strong on my leg, sending an involuntary shiver up my spine, causing my cheeks to rose even more. He must have noticed, because he ran his blunt nails tantalizingly slowly down the back of my leg to my heel before releasing my foot.

We were waiting for the doctor to come. Inuyasha had sent for one to treat my ankle, and now he decided that we should 'prepare my ankle for examination.' He also decided that I definitely needed his help to do so.

I grinned, peeping one eye open to glare at him sternly. "You don't have a foot fetish, do you?"

A third voice spoke then, low and velvety, one I did not recognize. "I would not put that past him."

I opened both my eyes this time, turning to the doorway to see a tall lithe figure, quite sleek in his grey suede Armani. Stunning burning golden eyes gazed out calmly from the shadow of his fedora hat, which he tilted politely in salutation.

I blinked in amazement, wondering what such a richly dressed gentleman could possibly be doing out in the sticks. It was only when I noticed the old fashioned black physician's bag that his occupation dawned on me. "Doctor?"

"Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha had leapt to his feet, his face white with shock. "What are you doing here?!?"

The doctor, Sesshomaru I suppose, ducked gracefully into the tent, regarding Inuyasha coolly. "Someone requested a physician."

Inuyasha gaped at him. "I called the emergency medical dispatch… not you!"

Sesshomaru hummed his discontent, removing his hat to reveal a head of long, neat silver hair that was tied back into a low ponytail. It was then that I made the unmistakable connection. Relatives?

"I just happened to be the one on duty," Sesshomaru commented offhandedly. "Besides, what a perfect chance for me to visit my dear little brother."

"Little… little brother?" I choked, marveling at the new information. So this was the brother Inuyasha had mentioned… he had said his brother was not much of a storyteller; and he certainly didn't look like one, either.

"You haven't talked to me for years," Inuyasha ground out between clenched teeth.

Clicking his tongue chidingly, Sesshomaru approached the table, setting down his bag and removing his elegant black gloves. "Why bring up the misfortunes of the past? You're just bitter because when Father was killed he left me his medical practice, and you that… strange accessory." He waved his hand dismissively at the loose necklace Inuyasha always wore.

I'd never really looked at it before, but it was rather unique. It looked very old, with large dark beads and unusual teeth I could not identify. I smiled at the thought that his father left it for him, fingering my own necklace through the thin weave of my shirt. Maybe we could swap stories sometime.

"Why bring up the misfortunes of the past?" Inuyasha echoed angrily, watching Sesshomaru like a hawk as the doctor arranged his supplies.

Sighing, the older brother turned his gaze to me, his piercing eyes making me feel slightly uncomfortable. "I assume you are my patient?"

I nodded once before Inuyasha cut in. "She's my new partner, Higurashi Kagome." He was now standing to the side, watching his sibling's every move with rapt, unwavering attention.

Sesshomaru smiled slightly. "Ah, is that what they're calling it these days?"

At first, Inuyasha began to smile rather cockily, but then he seemed to catch himself and snarled instead. "You're an ass, Sesshomaru."

Shaking his head disappointedly, Sesshomaru glared pointedly at his little brother. "I thought I taught you better than to use foul language in the presence of women."

I giggled at that. "Ass" was kindergarten speak according to Inuyasha's standards. Inuyasha opened his mouth to protest, but Sesshomaru ignored him, turning his polite attention completely to me. "Miss Higurashi, why don't you tell me what seems to be the problem?"

"Well, I tripped over a tree root and fell," I explained plainly. "And I did something to my ankle in the process. I'm not sure exactly what is wrong with it, but it's causing me a lot of pain and I can't walk on it."

Sesshomaru nodded, kneeling in front of me and raising his hands to take hold of my ankle. "Ok, let's have a look…"

"Hey!" Inuyasha snapped instantly. "Don't touch her!"

"Inuyasha!" I scolded, folding my arms over my chest and raising an eyebrow. He shrank back like a puppy that had been reprimanded, settling in the corner and scowling darkly at his brother.

"I am a licensed medical doctor, I am quite sure I will not damage your new… "'partner.'" I winced a little when Sesshormaru's now gently probing fingers hit a sensitive spot, causing Inuyasha to bristle a little and bare his teeth. Sesshomaru ignored him, standing with a sigh and replacing his gloves and hat.

"That's it?" I questioned, surprised by the brevity of the examination. "No x-rays or anything?"

The doctor raised an eyebrow at me, collecting his things before closing his bag with a snap. "Pardon me for saying so, but I am very good at what I do."

I smiled meekly, bowing my head subconsciously in subservience. Everything about Sesshomaru's presence radiated dominance. I could only imagine the power struggles he and Inuyasha must have had when they lived together.

"There are no breaks," Sesshomaru reported. "You twisted it when you fell, and pilled a few of your tendons. It will heal by itself if you stay off it and massage it every day. It's hard to do it yourself, so I suppose my brother could be of some assistance there." He glanced darkly at Inuyasha. "It is only your ankle that needs treatment. Not your calf, not your thigh, not your… anywhere else. Don't allow him to tell you otherwise."

"Hey!" Inuyasha cut in, approaching us angrily. "You're mistaking me for Miroku."

Sesshomaru dismissed his objection, moving towards the door. "Inuyasha, may I have a word with you?"
Inuyasha grunted an affirmative and Sesshomaru nodded once at me before exiting the tent. "Take care, Miss Higurashi."

"Stay here, Kagome," Inuyasha instructed before following behind his brother.

***

-The Grave Robber-

~~~

I never could remember my father. When I was really young, I used to fantasize about what he might have been like. Sometimes I would pretend my dad and I were brave samurai battling the bad guys. Sometimes we were saving the world from alien invaders. Sometimes we were just playing soccer. It didn't matter, it was always just he two of us, and we always won.

"I know what you're doing," Sesshomaru scolded me once, when I was five and had just tracked mud through his spotless apartment. I lived there, but it was never my home. Everything in it was expensive: priceless statues and original paintings, rare manuscripts and one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture. Everything prescribed to my half-brother's 'look but do not touch' policy. "Playing make-believe is for toddlers. It's about time you grew up." He sat me down in front of the dark footprints I had made in the thick, white, plush carpet, and supplied me with cleaning chemicals and a rag. He tapped his foot impatiently. "Clean up your own messes, and clean up our name while you're at it." Sesshomaru sighed, sinking deep into his Italian leather sofa and watching with keen observation as I half-heartedly scrubbed at the carpet. "I suppose it's not your fault Father got mixed up with that 'miko.' But you're the product of that disgusting affair of theirs and now I have to deal with you." He clicked his tongue disdainfully, crossing his legs ankle to knee. "Can't you work any faster? You definitely got your laziness from your mother. My mother is an accountant… definitely not lazy. And Father? It baffles the mind how he managed to be a police officer and still head up that medical practice of his… well, mine. It's mine now." He chuckled. "But that was Father for you. Always such a humanitarian."

I avoided that apartment like the plague. Most of the time I messed around in the sandlot behind the large brick building where my half-brother worked. For a little while there were a few other kids who showed up to play tag, but I think I was too rough or too bossy, because they stopped coming. Then it was just me and my dad; scaling mountains, elephant hunting, drag racing… finding an overgrown path at the back of the sandlot, hidden behind a medical waste dumpster, that lead to a graveyard.

The path was very narrow, and lined by scraggly raspberry bushes that cut into my shins when I wedged my way through. On the other side was a gigantic field that appeared endless from my tiny perspective. The field was of neat freshly mowed grass, and was crisscrossed by thin paved walkways and dotted with pink sakura trees in full bloom. Of course, it was the graves that really stood out. There were rows and rows of them, thousands of gleaming white stones, or tall angel-topped tombs, or just bronze plaques that rested close to the ground.

It was overwhelming, that field of the dead, and I remember thinking I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life. I was a pretty deprived kid.

I began at one end of the field, with a short pillar-shaped stone that marked the grave of a 'beloved father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.' I was determined to read every grave in the entire cemetery. Searching for that one familiar name. I was only five and could barely read, so it sometimes took me a good 15 minutes to sound out all of the words on a single stone, and even then I didn't understand half of them. I read hundreds and hundreds of inscriptions, epitaphs, and dates. Sometimes the sun reflected off the bright marble so that I had to shade my eyes to read, and sometimes it rained and I would shiver and curl in on myself while continuing my quest. So many names. So many people. I knew none of them. In the face of so many bodies I was grasped with the realization of how little I knew, how small I was, how utterly alone.

Sesshomaru did not take me to the sandlot every day, maybe only once or twice a week, and although my reading skills improved over the years, and although I discovered the towering wrought iron gate that was the main entrance off of the highway, it wasn't until I was 10 that I had read every gravestone in that wide field.

The grave I was looking for was the last one I read, in the far corner, the farthest from where I had begun. It occurred to me that had I started at the other end, I would have saved myself five years of reading, but I wasn't really upset about it.

My father's grave was neglected and ordinary. He had been dead nine years and it looked like nobody ever visited him. I guess that made some sense. My mother was dead. My half-brother resented my father, and his mother (my father's wife) never forgave my father for cheating on her with a fortuneteller. No one cared that he had been a courageous cop or a lifesaving doctor. The affair that I was born from condemned him in life, and now in death. I cried at my father's grave. I cried because I never knew my father, I never had a chance to be mad at him, or proud of him, or embarrassed of him, I never knew him. I never knew my own father. I cried because I didn't care what bad things he did. I didn't even care what good things he did. I just wanted a dad. And after seeing my father's name carved into a slab of granite, just above the dates of his birth and his death, his ghost did not come out to play with me any more. My fantasies could not deny the cold hard fact that he was dead, and he was never coming back. No more adventures, no more saving the world. I was just alone. Just alone.

~~~

"Father is dead, Inuyasha, but there is no reason to let his bad habits live on through you by fraternizing with women of such irritating professions." Sesshomaru and I stood a few feet away from the medical tent. I was surprised he even had the mercy to chide me in private.

"I know you don't approve of my field," I scoffed, my jaw clenching impatiently, but my half-brother just shook his head.

"No, archaeologists are bad enough. But her sorry bunch of whining hippies… I had hoped you had better taste than that."

I raised my eyebrows, bewildered. "What are you talking about?" Kagome? So she liked to complain… what did that have to do with hippies?

Sesshomaru closed his eyes gently, massaging his temples with his thumb and forefinger. "Never mind. I don't have the time to puzzle over your choice of staff." He sighed, eyes open again and scrutinizing. "Inuyasha, the country is watching you, you know. Everyone is amazed that some college dropout is trying to find the legendary Shikon no Tama. I'm embarrassed to share my surname with such a radical lunatic. However, if you're going to continue this search, then find it. Find the damn jewel already. Make some effort to clear the good name you tarnished with your bastard birth."

I felt my blood boil through his little sermon, and as he finished, it was all I could do not to wrap my calloused hands around that fucking alabaster neck of his and stop his preaching then and there. "You're living in the past, my lord," I seethed, digging my heels into the dirt in an effort to restrain myself. "Almost half the world's population was produced out of wedlock. And if you don't want to share a name with me, then change it. I'm just as disgusted by our connection as you are. I will find the Shikon no Tama, because I want to, not because I want to make your life any easier." I was frustrated to see that Sesshomaru was not listening to me at all any more, rather he was looking blankly through the doorway to the medical tent and prompting me to follow his gaze.

Kagome was standing by one of the screened windows, leaning on her good leg and oblivious to our conversation. She had her hair down (I noticed she kept it that way more often since I'd said I liked it) and she was gazing out into the distance with an expression of deep tranquility gracing her soft features. She looked… like Kikyou. I felt my corners of my lips tug up at the picture she made, but my thoughts were cut short by my half-brother's goading snicker.

"You go through them like cigarettes, don't you?"

***

Later that afternoon, after Sesshomaru had left before I could kill him, Kagome and I sat in the grass in what I had affectionately dubbed our clearing. Our stargazing had become a regular occurrence, as had her storytelling. There was something about her voice that soothed the turmoil inside me that I hadn't even been aware was there. Listening to her was addictive, and I was much more surprised to find her in our clearing every night than I was at my continuing to show up.

Sango always scolds me for my lack of commitment. I usually just 'keh' at her chiding, but really, it's ridiculous. I commit. I commit everything I have… if I like you enough.

I had liked Kikyou a lot.

Okay, I had loved Kikyou. I don't think there is anything I can do or say to change the way I had felt about her, or how utterly devastated I had been when it ended. But sitting with Kagome in our clearing made me wonder why exactly I had loved Kikyou as much as I had. As obvious the reasons for my growing affections towards Kagome were, the force behind my love for Kikyou was equally discrete. Kagome was kind, smart, beautiful, thoughtful, and Kikyou… well, Kikyou was beautiful. Kikyou knew she was beautiful. Kikyou was the most incredible narcissist I have ever known. She spent almost as much time in front of the mirror as she did studying. Kikyou was also a conceited, arrogant bitch. I used to think that lovingly, but now I think it because I want to believe that I don't need her any more, that she was never good for me in the first place, that I don't miss her at all. It feels good to think badly of Kikyou.

And then it feels terrible.

And then I remember why I was in love with her.

It didn't matter if Kikyou was moody, if she would lash out at me sometimes at random or blame me for things I had nothing to do with. It didn't matter if Kikyou was controlling, if she always decided what we did and where and why without any comments from the peanut gallery (me). It didn't even matter when Kikyou was careless and cut herself and got that smelly salve of hers all over me when I smuggled her to Kaede's. No matter what Kikyou did, I loved her, and I always would. I loved Kikyou because she loved me. I needed her because she needed me. Because I had spent a lifetime in a sandlot with my imaginary father, and as much as I loved him… the dead just can't love back.

***

-The Tree Hugger-

For me at least, the silence was growing uncomfortable. I spoke Inuyasha's name, and it hung in the air without any indication of a response. He was staring blankly out towards the horizon, obviously lost in thought. I wondered if he was thinking about the argument he had had with his brother earlier. I hadn't been able to make out their words, but it was clear to me that they were having quite a disagreement.

"Inuyasha…" I tried again, leaning towards him slightly, tucking a strand of my long black hair behind my ear. When he didn't respond, I reached out a hand and touched his knee timidly.

He sighed, finally turning his face to look at me. I went rigid, completely unprepared for the unchecked pain I found in his deep amber eyes. It was the pain of emptiness, the pain of loneliness, the pain of loss. It was a pain I had felt too many times before. "Yes, Kagome?"

I fisted my hands in the soft grass beneath us. At that moment, all I wanted to do was throw my arms around him and keep him close to me, keep him warm and safe, and far from the thoughts that were hurting him so much. I held myself back. Inuyasha did not need to be mothered. He did not need me to confuse him with my affection when I had been making a very constant effort to preserve our status as friends. So I just smiled warmly, trying to conceal my sympathy. "How about I tell you another story? A happy one this time."

He leaned back on his hands with a smirk, and I grinned as the darkness left his features, even though some of the hurt remained. "Not a romance," he dictated, shaking some of his wild silver bangs out of his eyes. "How about something strange, with animals that can talk and stuff. Do you know any of those?"

My smile only grew. Talking animals were the best at taking your mind off of unpleasant things. "I know lots of those."