
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/437472.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      InuYasha_-_A_Feudal_Fairy_Tale
  Relationship:
      Rin/Sesshoumaru
  Character:
      Rin_(InuYasha), Sesshoumaru_(InuYasha), Sesshoumaru's_Mother_(InuYasha)
  Additional Tags:
      Necrophilia, Lolicon, Alternate_Ending
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-04-19 Words: 866
****** Married in Spirit ******
by Aiffe
Summary
     Alternate ending to the Hell arc. What if Sesshoumaru's mother hadn't
     had a convenient anti-death rock?
Notes
     Written for Ravyn Skye in the comments on her LJ. Yes, I'd long since
     officially left the fandom, but spontaneous commentfic doesn't count.
     >___>
Sesshoumaru stood over the small girl on the altar. His mother had seen that he
would rather be trapped in the depths of Hell forever than in the smaller,
personal hell of leaving her behind. But the girl did not stir, even to draw
breath.

“I’m sorry,” his mother said. “I didn’t know you had already revived her.”

“It would seem your lesson was unnecessary,” he said in understated bitterness.

She was crying. Not wracking sobs, but a few dignified, well-placed tears. For
a moment, it offended him that she should cry when his own face remained dry,
as though her pain was greater, as though she had the right. But he knew his
mother. She cried for her son that couldn’t.

It wasn’t enough.

“Then there isn’t another way.”

“I’m afraid not. Human life is so fragile.” She paused. “I am sorry, I did not
mean to cut it so short. But she would have died anyway, Sesshoumaru.”
He did not accept this.

“Kohaku,” Sesshoumaru said.

“I understand,” Kohaku replied. “I loved her too. It’s all right. But I warn
you, the jewel wants to be whole. You may not be able to keep her long.”

“Thank you, Kohaku,” Sesshoumaru said. The boy was brave, and honorable. He’d
never seen him falter, not at an eternity in Hell, or even at his own death. He
reached his hand to the boy’s shoulder.

His mother caught his hand. “No, Sesshoumaru. That isn’t life. If you love her,
do not do this to her.”

He hesitated, looking at the dead girl, thinking that any price would be worth
paying to hear her voice again. But he would not be the one to pay that price.
He dropped his hand, making a keening sound that didn’t seem to come from his
throat, but deep in his chest—deeper, even, like the terrible grinding a
glacier makes when something deep within it cracks. He touched Rin’s cold
cheek.

“Jaken,” he said to the small toad youkai bawling at a safe distance. “Collect
yourself, we are leaving.”

“Shall I carry her, Sesshoumaru-sama?” Kohaku asked.

“No…I will do it.”
-

Sesshoumaru gently cleaned the corpse, having cast away her dirty kimono, and
prepared a clean burial robe. His hands ran over the many small cuts and
scrapes her small body bore that would now never heal. It seemed he had never
been an adequate protector.

He grieved both for the girl he had lost and the woman he would never know. He
knew what Rin had meant when she said she wanted to be with him forever. It
wasn’t unusual, for young girls to love their protectors, to want to marry
them. He would never have taken advantage of that. He would have made sure she
was given a choice, as an adult. He would have let her see every part of him,
given her every opportunity to change her mind. If she came to love him in
return, it would be freely, with an adult’s judgment. But she hadn’t died like
that. She had died full of childish adoration of him. She had died waiting for
a kiss on her lips that never came.

He pressed his lips to her cold, unresponsive ones. It seemed so terrible to
him that he had never been able to give her the love she craved from him.
Perhaps now he knew how she’d felt, being the one longing for any gesture from
her, any sign of recognition, one word of affection, one touch, one breath, and
knowing it would never come, because she was not capable of it. How cruel he
had been.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and kissed her closed eyes, her forehead, her hair
that still bore her scent along with the stench of death. He ran the wet cloth
over every part of her body, and as if in some purifying ritual, trailed kisses
after it, only stopping to whisper, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” into her
unresponsive flesh.

In his mind, he allowed her to grow up. In one small act of kindness to
himself, the Rin in his mind only grew in love for him, never rejecting him as
he bared more and more of himself to her. Casting politics and youkai
interference aside, they were married in his mind, and Rin became his first
wife, always first in his heart. He would never know the body of another while
she lived. And they consummated their love together, the first of many unions,
and Rin told him she hoped to conceive a son. He could feel the contentment
coming off her warm body in waves, the fulfillment of a love she had carried
since she was only a child, her adoration undiminished and her dreams satisfied
after a long and worthwhile wait.

Deep within her cold, undeveloped body, the storm within Sesshoumaru finally
broke, and he left more tears than seed on her. Afterwards, he lay beside her,
naked and as cold to the touch as she was from the night chill, still weeping
slowly, like a wound draining.

But she had not passed on without his love. He’d made sure of that. They had
been married in spirit.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
