Fanfic: In Dreams
Title: In Dreams
Fandom: Inuyasha
Pairing/Character: Kagome/Houjo, Kagome/Inuyasha
Word Count: 3211 words
Chapters: oneshot
Rating: M
Genre: Angst, Romance
disclaimer: The characters and world of InuYasha are not mine, they are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Warnings: Adult Situations
Story Description: Kagome has found happiness in the arms of the man she has grown to love. But what happens when his dreams take them both to places neither wish to visit? Will her love for Inuyasha pull her through or tear her apart?
In Dreams
By Sarga
I . . . “In Dreams”
“Die Inuyasha!” The blood-soaked woman demanded of him as he fled with the jewel in hand. Loosing an arrow she stood for long enough to ensure its true path before collapsing down to her knees. He felt the arrow piercing his chest and groaned in pain, reaching for the displaced jewel and the woman, both just beyond his reach.
“Kikyo...you...but I thought...”
Blackness overtook him and he was no more.
- - - - - - - - - -
He awoke in a sweat. Panting he sat bolt upright in his bed, the thin sheet slipping down his torso as he ran a shaky hand through his hair in a failed attempt to calm himself. Feeling the distress of her sleeping partner, Kagome awoke, furrowing her brow at his obvious pain.
“What is it,” Kagome's concerned voice helped to calm his rapid heart beat as she rubbed gentle circles on his bare back.
“More nightmares,” his voice was thick and harsher than he meant it to be. She understood though, she always did.
“What was it this time,” Kagome's voice sounded almost afraid but he brushed it off as concern for his well-being. What was there to fear?
“More of the same. This time the woman killed me.”
Silence.
“How,” Kagome's whisper was a mere breath.
“Arrow. Through the heart. Think I was stuck to something. Might have been a building or tree.” He turned to her then crushing her into his body with shaking arms in an attempt to feel something real after another of those blasted dreams. “Gods Higurashi, they're so damn vivid,” he murmured into her hair. “Like they actually happened.”
Kagome's arms wrapped around his body and continued their soothing motions even as her own heart beat sped up with anxiety.
“I know, Houjo,” she whispered painfully to her husband. “...but like you said, it was only a dream.”
- - - - - - - - - -
II . . . “Dreamer Awakens”
“Higurashi, come on, get up,” Houjo called to his wife as she snuggled deeper into her bed. Straightening his tie, Houjo prepared himself for projectile dodging as he goaded himself into doing the necessary. 'One...two...three...'
Houjo yanked the blankets off of the woman who in turn shrieked in displeasure at the severe loss of heat. Barely dodging the flying alarm clock Houjo chuckled to himself at the sight of her disarray. This was the only time of day she allowed herself to let loose, and boy, did she let loose.
“Fine, I'm up,” Kagome groused, stomping her feet on the floor as she stood. “Just what was so important that you had to wake me up at this ungodly hour anyway?” she grumped as she made the bed and prepared herself for the day ahead.
“Your mother's coming, remember? You told me not to let you sleep in because you wanted to bake something special for her.” Houjo grimaced as he remembered the last time he had given in to her morning demands and let her sleep in when her mother was coming to visit. She had refused to speak to him for three days afterword, despite the fact that her mother was not bothered by their small apartment's disorderly state.
Kagome smiled then, already losing some of her morning surliness. Turning her twinkling gaze to her beloved husband she dazzled him with her splendour.
“Thanks dear. Have you got the lunch I made for you last night?” She walked to the fridge and pulled out the lunch he had almost left behind. Tutting in mock anger she handed him his lunch and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Have a good day at work dear.”
And thus began the last day Houjo knew Kagome was his.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Kikyo!”
“I'm not Kikyo, my nameis Kagome, you got that? Ka-go-me!”
“Just shut up and let me protectyou!”
“Kikyo, I can't stop thinking about you. Not even for a minute.”
“Go home Kagome, and don't come back!”
“We both have one thing in common, the desire to be with you.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Houjo awoke with a start, his heart racing as hard as it had the night before. His earlier dreams had been something apart from himself, something he could detach from. He could wrap his arms around his wife and lull himself to sleep with the knowledge that he was not the fellow in his dreams, that Kagome was his and always would be. But those words were spoken from her lips so earnestly and they were spoken for another man. He could not pinpoint how or why, but he knew, he knew that this was real. Somehow, that other man, that Inuyasha had been the one who she had coveted during the time of her illness.
Kagome's illness. That was another thing. So sickly for years yet not even a check-up now and then. It was all so crazy, so...
Houjo rolled over and wrapped his arms around Kagome, drinking in her scent as she nuzzled back into his arms in her sleep. It was all so crazy. Too crazy.
Still...the seed had been sewn.
- - - - - - - - - -
III . . . “Reverie”
'I owe her my life,' Inuyasha thought to himself as he sat in the tree top overlooking the camp. 'Kikyo deserves my life!' If he repeated it enough, maybe his gaze would stop falling on the girl by the fire. Maybe he could get his mind out of the gutter long enough to finish the task Kikyo had a right to see finished...and maybe Naraku would saunter up with his shards of the jewel singing Koombaya, wearing a kilt, while doing the waltz with Sesshoumaru. His gaze fell once more to Kagome's sleeping form.
Dropping to the ground he stalked to her in silence, infinitely careful not to disturb the sleeping fox child in her arms. Gently stroking her hair he inhaled deeply of her scent before backing away and resuming his perch.
'I owe Kikyo my life...I owe Kikyo my life...'
- - - - - - - - - -
“Kagome is home, Inuyasha, how do you expect to find Naraku without her to help seek out the jewel,” Miroku's question was ignored.
Inuyasha fingered the shards up his sleeve, the ones Kagome had received from Koga a mere day earlier. Kagome would not get in harms way. He had brought her back to her time, secretly taken her shards and left her with the threat of “you'd better be back in two days when your test is done!” knowing full well she would take longer. It should be enough time to finish off their foe and for him to make his wish. He would not be able to fight and protect her at the same time. Kikyo was proof of his failures and he did not need another reminder. He would not give her the chance.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sango wept over the body of her brother, knowing it was for the best but mourning all the same. Her family had been avenged, she could move on, one way or another.
Miroku kneeled on the ground one hand on the ground, his other hand, the “cursed” hand, whole before his gaze. He felt numb with disbelief. He was finally free.
Inuyasha stared at his friends as they became aware of the new possibilities their lives had to offer. The slayer lay down the body gently with a tender kiss to the forehead. The monk cast aside his sealing hand covering. Standing almost in unison, the pair just gazed at each other from across the battlefield.
Inuyasha took his leave.
Crashing through the trees, Inuyasha leaped upward then raced toward the well. Reaching its edge he turned his attention to the newly reformed jewel in his clawed hand. Setting his jaw, Inuyasha spoke his heart's desire aloud.
“I wish for Kagome to be happy.”
Nothing happened.
Shaking the jewel like an etch-a-sketch, he tried again.
“Dammit! I said I wish for Kagome to be happy with that Houjo guy!”
This time a blast threw him backward from the well and he knew on mere instinct that it would no longer work, for him or for Kagome. That did not stop him from trying once or twice. Resigning himself to his misery, Inuyasha trudged back to his friends who had begun the arduous task of burial and cleansing.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Isn't she the cutest,” Sango cooed, “She has her father's eyes.”
Inuyasha muttered to himself, “Let's hope she doesn't have her father's hand,”
“Buck up, Inuyasha,” Miroku clapped a hand on his surly friend's shoulder. “Five hundred years can't be that long for a demon such as yourself.”
It was all he could do not to growl. After all, Inuyasha had never told them that the wish had sealed the well, nor that the wish had been made at all. After all the jewel was still whole, it was not like it had been wished out of existence like they had assumed would happen. It was not lying so much as omission of information.
'Keep telling yourself that,' Inuyasha huffed to himself. Turning on his heel, Inuyasha retreated to the tallest tree he could find and took out his precious jewel. It had worked the first time all those years ago, why not the second?
“Bastard probably doesn't even realize what he has. I wish the fucker knew what it was like to be me.”
- - - - - - - - - -
IV . . . “Doubt”
Houjo awoke, the pain in his heart greater than anything he had felt before. Over the past week Kagome had wanted to know his dreams, to know how he had felt when things had happened in them, why he had reacted in certain ways. Houjo realized she had been trying to understand the reason behind her abandonment, the reason for her sudden severance from the past. The whole time she had been using him to gain closure over it and he had not been aware of it.
“Sweetie, what is it, another dream?” Kagome sounded genuinely concerned, but was she really? Inuyasha had not let her go so much as shoved her out of harms way, was that what she was trying to find out?
“Yeah,” Houjo grunted. “Another dream.”
“Anything...” Kagome's voice hitched. “Anything new?”
'Inuyasha abandoned her and here I am throwing her back to him.'
“He stole your shards to keep you from harm. Brought 'em to the other side and defeated Naraku. He wished for you to be happy...” Houjo heart her sharp intake of breath. “...with me. Spent a few years sulking then wished I would know what it's like to be a fucking filthy half demon so that I might be worthy of your love like he felt he was.”
Startled by his vulgarity Kagome was even more taken aback by his desperate embrace. Knowing it would do too much harm to reject him, even if she had wanted to, Kagome tried to ease the mind of her husband even as she tried to ease her own.
- - - - - - - - - -
V . . . “Selfish”
He had felt so guilty after the last wish at the thought that he might have made another person suffer through the indignity of his life, but there was no going back. There is no such thing as an unwish. If only he could tell her how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. That's right, loved. Now that it was too late, he was free to admit it to himself.
“I wish I could be in Houjo's place right now.”
- - - - - - - - - -
VI . . . “Rejection”
Inuyasha found himself in a strange room wearing strange clothes and sporting distinctly human appendages. Chuckling to himself that the jewel must take things too literally, he felt his breath hitch in his throat as he saw the woman he had craved for so long as she entered the room. Kagome seemed unnerved by his staring.
“What?” She smiled nervously under his appraising stare.
“You're so beautiful, Kagome, do I tell you that enough?” Inuyasha, in the guise of Houjo, spoke from the heart.
Kagome looked startled before she gave a hesitant smile.
“Well, it never hurts to hear it every now and again.” Kagome's smile was enticing as she slid her pyjamas obviously from her shoulders and onto the floor. In doing so, she ignited in him a passion he never thought possible and though it hurt his heart a little to know that she thought he was another man, he needed this, he needed her before he could move on.
In the heat of their love making, he called her name, panting over her as she too replied in kind. Instead of her husband's name, she called his, called Inuyasha's name aloud. As the spiral uncoiled and the sweat on his body cooled, he sat up, afraid of the answer but unable not to ask.
“How did you know it was me,” Inuyasha's voice, foreign in this hijacked body, was soft and low, but not too low, for she heard him and responded.
“He's never called me Kagome,” she replied with a half smile, tugging the sheet around her chilling body as she sat up next to him.
“Not even when he's...” he trailed off, looking away from the woman who saw right through to his soul. Maybe she always had.
“Not even then.”
The silence was grating on him and this stranger's body was frustrating him to no end. Anger gave way and he growled low in his throat.
“Why the fuck didn't you stop me if you damn well knew I wasn't him,” Inuyasha barked.
Kagome huffed and shook her head pityingly. “Baka,” she bit out just as harshly. Softening her tone and smiling almost to herself, she cleared the air. “I was happier with you back then than I've ever been with him.” Kagome sighed wearily. “What makes you think you're the only one who wanted this?”
He was stunned, his human body weak and unmoving as she wrapped her arms around his body from behind, her bare chest pressing against his back.
“Inuyasha?” Kagome whispered. “Say something.”
She felt him swallow several times before taking a shaky breath and removing her arms gently from his body.
In a heartbroken tone he gave his reply. “Inuyasha's gone now, Higurashi. Looks like your stuck with me.”
- - - - - - - - - -
VII . . . “Nickels and Dimes”
“I'm sorry Houjo,” Kagome bit back tears with the realization that she had really, truly hurt him to the core. He knew she was in love with Inuyasha and she knew that he knew it; their marriage as they knew it was over.
“I know,” he whispered, hunched over as he played with a trinket in his hands. “So am I.”
Head shamefully hidden in her hands, Kagome felt the bed rise as Houjo left it. She heard as he put on a pair of pants and a shirt. Looking up through remorseful tears, she saw him pause in the doorway, a watery smile on his face as he spoke.
“I wish you happiness.”
- - - - - - - - - -
VIII . . . “Apart”
“You're sure you don't want to file for property rights? You do realize that you're giving up every penny the two of you have saved together since your marriage?” The lawyer tried one last time to provide something for the woman who had left the marriage with no property, no job and no support.
Kagome simply signed the final paper where indicated in silent response. As of the last pen stroke she was officially “Kagome Higurashi, divorcee”. Clicking the pen closed she handed it to her lawyer.
Kagome smiled wryly. “I went into the marriage with nothing but my clothing and my heartache. It's only right that I leave the same way,” she answered cryptically.
As the lawyer shook his head, she walked out his office a free woman with not a penny to her name. Walking the distance to the subway, Kagome took the tram that would take her home to the shrine. It had been years since she had been there, memories too raw to think of facing the God Tree or the well. She might as well start some time, why not now, seeing as she would be living with her mother until she found her own way in the world.
“Looks like I'll be some spinster for the rest of my life,” Kagome chortled as she walked up the shrine steps. Passing the God Tree, she stiffened her spine, forcing herself not to look at the place that had housed her half demon lover for fifty years half a millennia earlier.
“Ms. Higurashi?” a mail courier called from behind Kagome, pausing her as she resolutely ignored everything on the right of her periphery.
“I'll take it,” a familiar voice startled her into glancing to the right and she gaped open mouthed at the man as he accepted the package in her stead. Signing with a flourish, he handed the clipboard back to the courier and took the package.
“This is yours,” he said simply, handing her the package. “I didn't know if I'd have the balls to face you after I walked out, so I sent it by mail.” Houjo flashed her a winning smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “Looks like I made it.”
“What are you...” Kagome tried to breath as she thought of the years they had spent together, now just a fond, if painful, memory. “What are you doing here?” She asked, stunned that he was within a hundred metres of her.
“The 'shikon no tama', the Jewel of Four Souls.” Houjo looked past her shoulder. “It grants the wishes of humans and demons alike, always at a price, but who pays that price...that's the question.” He looked back at his ex-wife, seeing her as if for the first time. “He thought he was doing you a favour when he made that wish, you know.”
Kagome just nodded.
Houjo opened the package he had sent her and pulled out the object of his consternation.
Kagome stared openly at the completed Jewel of Four Souls dangling from a delicate chain in his hands. She reached for it and he gently laid it in her grasp, softly closing her hand over it and his over hers, he waited for her to look at him again before he spoke.
“Consider it my alimony payment.”
“I don't understand,” Kagome's brow was furrowed in confusion.
“When we switched back, I brought that with me,” he paused, seeing that she probably did not understand. “You can go back to him now.”
Eyes widening in understanding, she turned on her heel and ran to the well house. Sliding open the door and racing down the steps, she hesitated for but a heartbeat before vaulting over the side and into the past.
Houjo sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had not told her that he had kept on dreaming. He had not told her that he had seen Inuyasha's entire life laid out before him, a life filled with Kagome, their children, laughter and warmth. He had not needed to tell her; even if he had lied and told her she would have died alone at the bottom of a dried well she would have run to him regardless.
At least he knew with certainty that she would be truly happy.
In the knowing he too could move on with his life.
Read this story on Fanfiction.net
Fandom: Inuyasha
Pairing/Character: Kagome/Houjo, Kagome/Inuyasha
Word Count: 3211 words
Chapters: oneshot
Rating: M
Genre: Angst, Romance
disclaimer: The characters and world of InuYasha are not mine, they are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Warnings: Adult Situations
Story Description: Kagome has found happiness in the arms of the man she has grown to love. But what happens when his dreams take them both to places neither wish to visit? Will her love for Inuyasha pull her through or tear her apart?
In Dreams
By Sarga
I . . . “In Dreams”
“Die Inuyasha!” The blood-soaked woman demanded of him as he fled with the jewel in hand. Loosing an arrow she stood for long enough to ensure its true path before collapsing down to her knees. He felt the arrow piercing his chest and groaned in pain, reaching for the displaced jewel and the woman, both just beyond his reach.
“Kikyo...you...but I thought...”
Blackness overtook him and he was no more.
- - - - - - - - - -
He awoke in a sweat. Panting he sat bolt upright in his bed, the thin sheet slipping down his torso as he ran a shaky hand through his hair in a failed attempt to calm himself. Feeling the distress of her sleeping partner, Kagome awoke, furrowing her brow at his obvious pain.
“What is it,” Kagome's concerned voice helped to calm his rapid heart beat as she rubbed gentle circles on his bare back.
“More nightmares,” his voice was thick and harsher than he meant it to be. She understood though, she always did.
“What was it this time,” Kagome's voice sounded almost afraid but he brushed it off as concern for his well-being. What was there to fear?
“More of the same. This time the woman killed me.”
Silence.
“How,” Kagome's whisper was a mere breath.
“Arrow. Through the heart. Think I was stuck to something. Might have been a building or tree.” He turned to her then crushing her into his body with shaking arms in an attempt to feel something real after another of those blasted dreams. “Gods Higurashi, they're so damn vivid,” he murmured into her hair. “Like they actually happened.”
Kagome's arms wrapped around his body and continued their soothing motions even as her own heart beat sped up with anxiety.
“I know, Houjo,” she whispered painfully to her husband. “...but like you said, it was only a dream.”
- - - - - - - - - -
II . . . “Dreamer Awakens”
“Higurashi, come on, get up,” Houjo called to his wife as she snuggled deeper into her bed. Straightening his tie, Houjo prepared himself for projectile dodging as he goaded himself into doing the necessary. 'One...two...three...'
Houjo yanked the blankets off of the woman who in turn shrieked in displeasure at the severe loss of heat. Barely dodging the flying alarm clock Houjo chuckled to himself at the sight of her disarray. This was the only time of day she allowed herself to let loose, and boy, did she let loose.
“Fine, I'm up,” Kagome groused, stomping her feet on the floor as she stood. “Just what was so important that you had to wake me up at this ungodly hour anyway?” she grumped as she made the bed and prepared herself for the day ahead.
“Your mother's coming, remember? You told me not to let you sleep in because you wanted to bake something special for her.” Houjo grimaced as he remembered the last time he had given in to her morning demands and let her sleep in when her mother was coming to visit. She had refused to speak to him for three days afterword, despite the fact that her mother was not bothered by their small apartment's disorderly state.
Kagome smiled then, already losing some of her morning surliness. Turning her twinkling gaze to her beloved husband she dazzled him with her splendour.
“Thanks dear. Have you got the lunch I made for you last night?” She walked to the fridge and pulled out the lunch he had almost left behind. Tutting in mock anger she handed him his lunch and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Have a good day at work dear.”
And thus began the last day Houjo knew Kagome was his.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Kikyo!”
“I'm not Kikyo, my nameis Kagome, you got that? Ka-go-me!”
“Just shut up and let me protectyou!”
“Kikyo, I can't stop thinking about you. Not even for a minute.”
“Go home Kagome, and don't come back!”
“We both have one thing in common, the desire to be with you.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Houjo awoke with a start, his heart racing as hard as it had the night before. His earlier dreams had been something apart from himself, something he could detach from. He could wrap his arms around his wife and lull himself to sleep with the knowledge that he was not the fellow in his dreams, that Kagome was his and always would be. But those words were spoken from her lips so earnestly and they were spoken for another man. He could not pinpoint how or why, but he knew, he knew that this was real. Somehow, that other man, that Inuyasha had been the one who she had coveted during the time of her illness.
Kagome's illness. That was another thing. So sickly for years yet not even a check-up now and then. It was all so crazy, so...
Houjo rolled over and wrapped his arms around Kagome, drinking in her scent as she nuzzled back into his arms in her sleep. It was all so crazy. Too crazy.
Still...the seed had been sewn.
- - - - - - - - - -
III . . . “Reverie”
'I owe her my life,' Inuyasha thought to himself as he sat in the tree top overlooking the camp. 'Kikyo deserves my life!' If he repeated it enough, maybe his gaze would stop falling on the girl by the fire. Maybe he could get his mind out of the gutter long enough to finish the task Kikyo had a right to see finished...and maybe Naraku would saunter up with his shards of the jewel singing Koombaya, wearing a kilt, while doing the waltz with Sesshoumaru. His gaze fell once more to Kagome's sleeping form.
Dropping to the ground he stalked to her in silence, infinitely careful not to disturb the sleeping fox child in her arms. Gently stroking her hair he inhaled deeply of her scent before backing away and resuming his perch.
'I owe Kikyo my life...I owe Kikyo my life...'
- - - - - - - - - -
“Kagome is home, Inuyasha, how do you expect to find Naraku without her to help seek out the jewel,” Miroku's question was ignored.
Inuyasha fingered the shards up his sleeve, the ones Kagome had received from Koga a mere day earlier. Kagome would not get in harms way. He had brought her back to her time, secretly taken her shards and left her with the threat of “you'd better be back in two days when your test is done!” knowing full well she would take longer. It should be enough time to finish off their foe and for him to make his wish. He would not be able to fight and protect her at the same time. Kikyo was proof of his failures and he did not need another reminder. He would not give her the chance.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sango wept over the body of her brother, knowing it was for the best but mourning all the same. Her family had been avenged, she could move on, one way or another.
Miroku kneeled on the ground one hand on the ground, his other hand, the “cursed” hand, whole before his gaze. He felt numb with disbelief. He was finally free.
Inuyasha stared at his friends as they became aware of the new possibilities their lives had to offer. The slayer lay down the body gently with a tender kiss to the forehead. The monk cast aside his sealing hand covering. Standing almost in unison, the pair just gazed at each other from across the battlefield.
Inuyasha took his leave.
Crashing through the trees, Inuyasha leaped upward then raced toward the well. Reaching its edge he turned his attention to the newly reformed jewel in his clawed hand. Setting his jaw, Inuyasha spoke his heart's desire aloud.
“I wish for Kagome to be happy.”
Nothing happened.
Shaking the jewel like an etch-a-sketch, he tried again.
“Dammit! I said I wish for Kagome to be happy with that Houjo guy!”
This time a blast threw him backward from the well and he knew on mere instinct that it would no longer work, for him or for Kagome. That did not stop him from trying once or twice. Resigning himself to his misery, Inuyasha trudged back to his friends who had begun the arduous task of burial and cleansing.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Isn't she the cutest,” Sango cooed, “She has her father's eyes.”
Inuyasha muttered to himself, “Let's hope she doesn't have her father's hand,”
“Buck up, Inuyasha,” Miroku clapped a hand on his surly friend's shoulder. “Five hundred years can't be that long for a demon such as yourself.”
It was all he could do not to growl. After all, Inuyasha had never told them that the wish had sealed the well, nor that the wish had been made at all. After all the jewel was still whole, it was not like it had been wished out of existence like they had assumed would happen. It was not lying so much as omission of information.
'Keep telling yourself that,' Inuyasha huffed to himself. Turning on his heel, Inuyasha retreated to the tallest tree he could find and took out his precious jewel. It had worked the first time all those years ago, why not the second?
“Bastard probably doesn't even realize what he has. I wish the fucker knew what it was like to be me.”
- - - - - - - - - -
IV . . . “Doubt”
Houjo awoke, the pain in his heart greater than anything he had felt before. Over the past week Kagome had wanted to know his dreams, to know how he had felt when things had happened in them, why he had reacted in certain ways. Houjo realized she had been trying to understand the reason behind her abandonment, the reason for her sudden severance from the past. The whole time she had been using him to gain closure over it and he had not been aware of it.
“Sweetie, what is it, another dream?” Kagome sounded genuinely concerned, but was she really? Inuyasha had not let her go so much as shoved her out of harms way, was that what she was trying to find out?
“Yeah,” Houjo grunted. “Another dream.”
“Anything...” Kagome's voice hitched. “Anything new?”
'Inuyasha abandoned her and here I am throwing her back to him.'
“He stole your shards to keep you from harm. Brought 'em to the other side and defeated Naraku. He wished for you to be happy...” Houjo heart her sharp intake of breath. “...with me. Spent a few years sulking then wished I would know what it's like to be a fucking filthy half demon so that I might be worthy of your love like he felt he was.”
Startled by his vulgarity Kagome was even more taken aback by his desperate embrace. Knowing it would do too much harm to reject him, even if she had wanted to, Kagome tried to ease the mind of her husband even as she tried to ease her own.
- - - - - - - - - -
V . . . “Selfish”
He had felt so guilty after the last wish at the thought that he might have made another person suffer through the indignity of his life, but there was no going back. There is no such thing as an unwish. If only he could tell her how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. That's right, loved. Now that it was too late, he was free to admit it to himself.
“I wish I could be in Houjo's place right now.”
- - - - - - - - - -
VI . . . “Rejection”
Inuyasha found himself in a strange room wearing strange clothes and sporting distinctly human appendages. Chuckling to himself that the jewel must take things too literally, he felt his breath hitch in his throat as he saw the woman he had craved for so long as she entered the room. Kagome seemed unnerved by his staring.
“What?” She smiled nervously under his appraising stare.
“You're so beautiful, Kagome, do I tell you that enough?” Inuyasha, in the guise of Houjo, spoke from the heart.
Kagome looked startled before she gave a hesitant smile.
“Well, it never hurts to hear it every now and again.” Kagome's smile was enticing as she slid her pyjamas obviously from her shoulders and onto the floor. In doing so, she ignited in him a passion he never thought possible and though it hurt his heart a little to know that she thought he was another man, he needed this, he needed her before he could move on.
In the heat of their love making, he called her name, panting over her as she too replied in kind. Instead of her husband's name, she called his, called Inuyasha's name aloud. As the spiral uncoiled and the sweat on his body cooled, he sat up, afraid of the answer but unable not to ask.
“How did you know it was me,” Inuyasha's voice, foreign in this hijacked body, was soft and low, but not too low, for she heard him and responded.
“He's never called me Kagome,” she replied with a half smile, tugging the sheet around her chilling body as she sat up next to him.
“Not even when he's...” he trailed off, looking away from the woman who saw right through to his soul. Maybe she always had.
“Not even then.”
The silence was grating on him and this stranger's body was frustrating him to no end. Anger gave way and he growled low in his throat.
“Why the fuck didn't you stop me if you damn well knew I wasn't him,” Inuyasha barked.
Kagome huffed and shook her head pityingly. “Baka,” she bit out just as harshly. Softening her tone and smiling almost to herself, she cleared the air. “I was happier with you back then than I've ever been with him.” Kagome sighed wearily. “What makes you think you're the only one who wanted this?”
He was stunned, his human body weak and unmoving as she wrapped her arms around his body from behind, her bare chest pressing against his back.
“Inuyasha?” Kagome whispered. “Say something.”
She felt him swallow several times before taking a shaky breath and removing her arms gently from his body.
In a heartbroken tone he gave his reply. “Inuyasha's gone now, Higurashi. Looks like your stuck with me.”
- - - - - - - - - -
VII . . . “Nickels and Dimes”
“I'm sorry Houjo,” Kagome bit back tears with the realization that she had really, truly hurt him to the core. He knew she was in love with Inuyasha and she knew that he knew it; their marriage as they knew it was over.
“I know,” he whispered, hunched over as he played with a trinket in his hands. “So am I.”
Head shamefully hidden in her hands, Kagome felt the bed rise as Houjo left it. She heard as he put on a pair of pants and a shirt. Looking up through remorseful tears, she saw him pause in the doorway, a watery smile on his face as he spoke.
“I wish you happiness.”
- - - - - - - - - -
VIII . . . “Apart”
“You're sure you don't want to file for property rights? You do realize that you're giving up every penny the two of you have saved together since your marriage?” The lawyer tried one last time to provide something for the woman who had left the marriage with no property, no job and no support.
Kagome simply signed the final paper where indicated in silent response. As of the last pen stroke she was officially “Kagome Higurashi, divorcee”. Clicking the pen closed she handed it to her lawyer.
Kagome smiled wryly. “I went into the marriage with nothing but my clothing and my heartache. It's only right that I leave the same way,” she answered cryptically.
As the lawyer shook his head, she walked out his office a free woman with not a penny to her name. Walking the distance to the subway, Kagome took the tram that would take her home to the shrine. It had been years since she had been there, memories too raw to think of facing the God Tree or the well. She might as well start some time, why not now, seeing as she would be living with her mother until she found her own way in the world.
“Looks like I'll be some spinster for the rest of my life,” Kagome chortled as she walked up the shrine steps. Passing the God Tree, she stiffened her spine, forcing herself not to look at the place that had housed her half demon lover for fifty years half a millennia earlier.
“Ms. Higurashi?” a mail courier called from behind Kagome, pausing her as she resolutely ignored everything on the right of her periphery.
“I'll take it,” a familiar voice startled her into glancing to the right and she gaped open mouthed at the man as he accepted the package in her stead. Signing with a flourish, he handed the clipboard back to the courier and took the package.
“This is yours,” he said simply, handing her the package. “I didn't know if I'd have the balls to face you after I walked out, so I sent it by mail.” Houjo flashed her a winning smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “Looks like I made it.”
“What are you...” Kagome tried to breath as she thought of the years they had spent together, now just a fond, if painful, memory. “What are you doing here?” She asked, stunned that he was within a hundred metres of her.
“The 'shikon no tama', the Jewel of Four Souls.” Houjo looked past her shoulder. “It grants the wishes of humans and demons alike, always at a price, but who pays that price...that's the question.” He looked back at his ex-wife, seeing her as if for the first time. “He thought he was doing you a favour when he made that wish, you know.”
Kagome just nodded.
Houjo opened the package he had sent her and pulled out the object of his consternation.
Kagome stared openly at the completed Jewel of Four Souls dangling from a delicate chain in his hands. She reached for it and he gently laid it in her grasp, softly closing her hand over it and his over hers, he waited for her to look at him again before he spoke.
“Consider it my alimony payment.”
“I don't understand,” Kagome's brow was furrowed in confusion.
“When we switched back, I brought that with me,” he paused, seeing that she probably did not understand. “You can go back to him now.”
Eyes widening in understanding, she turned on her heel and ran to the well house. Sliding open the door and racing down the steps, she hesitated for but a heartbeat before vaulting over the side and into the past.
Houjo sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had not told her that he had kept on dreaming. He had not told her that he had seen Inuyasha's entire life laid out before him, a life filled with Kagome, their children, laughter and warmth. He had not needed to tell her; even if he had lied and told her she would have died alone at the bottom of a dried well she would have run to him regardless.
At least he knew with certainty that she would be truly happy.
In the knowing he too could move on with his life.
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