inuyasha oneshot || after the rain;
pairing: Sesshoumaru X Rin
rating: PG
Rain was paddling out on the concrete, rain was dripping off leaf boats that breathed calm in the misty gloom. There was only a vague hint of thunder standing electric in the air; but the rest was just a tropical song that came on with the dawn of summer. Everything was waiting- everything was stopped on the gold hand of a wristwatch.
Lights were low in his mind; Sesshoumaru’s footsteps, slow and steady in rhthym, illuminated the incoherence of the scene with each succession. Calling on you; the last relieved breath, the ice in the corners of the storm.
The storm was coming on. He moved through the fog like a king, everything he approached stopped dead and you could tell that with a flash of his wrist he could make it all happen. But he was biding his time. The small house at the end of the stone pathway had one light on that was gloomy and dusty in the ending sun. Every sound, a melody; every beat of the pulse, rhthym.
How old was she now? Fourteen, or something, but numbers passed by his head straight down into oblivion, and he’d never counted life that way. He still remembered the way she moved like milk and honey, and her eyes that were strange and secret- the little affectations of a girl. Mostly just the way she spoke, even though it was hard to remember sometimes the things she said. If it was a choice between remembering her voice or her words, he’d prolly choose the former. No sense in believing in abstractions, after all. Words meant nothing to him, after all this time. His .44 was slung careless at his hip, the suburb lights danced on the edge of his David Yurman ring...
Ho-ho, here he was now, at the door. He stood, leaning back against the thick air as the drizzle ebbed slightly and lightning spun into thunder in the background. He didn’t need to knock, she’d know.
The locks clicked open and for one moment the dust and the dread flashed, cut through his mind. Memories colored neon snuck into the present and then, just as quickly, died away- so that his mind, for a moment, was jumbled...The awkward angle of her pale elbow was the first part of her he saw before she pushed the door open.
The flush of her dark hair was coarse over her eyes; her...ponytail, or whatever it was, was done up with some green beads, and her eyes flashed quick and windy up to his. She was skinny now. Wearing shorts and a red shirt; her limbs were fixed at strange angles, and there was something in her demeanor that evoked the sad sweetness of honey.
Her expression halted; something in her movements jumped as if by nerve shock, and her face said nothing. "Sesshou- how ya doing?"
How many people have you killed to get here?
"Fine," he answered, looking at her evenly, moving strands of hair past his shoulder. There was thunder and lightning in his body- from the black linen to the Tallahassee denim; but the rain, she saw, was in his mouth. Soft and gloomy...
"I, uhm, missed you!" Rin replied, remembering to smile.
His head titled; he looked at her as though weighing his options. She leaned against the doorframe- spider white against dark wood, and smiled to herself, as though keeping a secret. "I was waiting for you," she mused, tugging at her silver earrings.
Ivory bone would have been more fitting. He didn’t move- he was elemental, some force of nature- hardly a person, or was he? She looked up at him and her smile faded; warmth in her eyes, within reach. Neither knew what to do.
"Wanna come in?" she asked, turning her head- thunder sang, crashed down messy to the ground nearby.
There was no response; she turned and he followed her into the thick dark. The storming thickened in the flowerbeds.