Dream of Me, My Darling...Continued by LadyGoshawk

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

[[A/N: For thetroll and Revvy.

Inspired by Dream of Me, My Darling by thetroll.

So, this is not my fault! It's all Troll's fault, I tell you!

This is a direct continuation of her fic "Dream of Me, My Darling" and is posted with her (entirely too enthusiastic) permission. This can probably be read on its own, but it might make much more sense if you go read her bit first!

Seriously, why could I not just leave well enough alone?!?]]

Kagome heard a distinctive thump outside her door and looked up wearily just as a clawed hand swept the bamboo curtain aside. She sighed and reached for another cup.

“Hello, Inuyasha. Would you like some tea?”

“You know I don’t like that crap,” the hanyō groused as he stepped inside and let the curtain fall back into place. “Tastes like boiled grass.”

Niceties dispensed, Kagome shrugged and went back to preparing her own tea. She had barely seen Inuyasha over the last couple of weeks, since the last time he’d wanted to “make the relationship work” had ended in her strange encounter with Sesshōmaru. They’d barely had a relationship before that, what with Inuyasha alternately acting gun-shy and like a bear with a sore tooth since her return from the future, and his behavior that day and since had put paid to any ideas she’d still cherished about a romantic future with him.

The hanyō stumped into the hut and dropped into a seat across the fire from her. “We gonna talk about this, or what?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, realizing as she did it that it might look similar to one of Sesshōmaru’s trademark expressions. The thought made her realize she could sense the daiyōkai somewhere nearby. She often had, especially lately, though her sense of him always seemed faint as though he meant to conceal himself – but not from her. Whether that was deliberate or not, she had no idea, but she figured he hung around sometimes to check in on Rin. She’d spent an awful lot of time thinking about the Lord of the West since that weird night in the forest. Wistfully, she gave her head a little shake and returned her attention to the conversation at hand.

“Talk about what?” She knew what he wanted, she just wanted to hear him say it.

“You know…” Inuyasha fidgeted, knee bouncing in agitation. “Us.”

Oh, very enthusiastic, she thought wryly. “You really want to talk about it now?”

“I figure now we’re here, you won’t find a village in trouble to get out of it.”

Her temper flared. “I’ve been here, Inuyasha. You’re the one who’s been kiting off who-knows-where the last two weeks. I know for a fact there aren’t that many villages around here with demon problems.”

He glared, but his ears flattened. She’d probably stolen the teeth out of his excuse for why he hadn’t been around. Waving a hand at him, she pulled the steaming kettle off the fire. “It doesn’t matter, so forget it. I don’t want to hear it anyway. I’ve known for a while now what I wanted to say about this, and honestly, the last time you wanted to have this talk just solidified it for me.”

“What?” He blinked at her as if surprised.

“Yep. Did you want to go first?”

His ears flicked backward warily. “Uh, no… Go ahead.”

“Great.” She set the kettle aside and reached for the tin of tea. “I’ve always done the hard work between us, anyway, so I might as well do the last of it. So. Us. If you want to stay friends, that’s fine by me, but beyond that it’s become very clear to me that there is no ‘us’. Not anymore, in my mind, and I’ve started to think there was never a romantic ‘us’ in your mind, anyway.”

Inuyasha blinked again, mouth dropping open in obvious shock. “Huh?”

She nodded. “I spent a lot of time letting my feelings, and then what I thought my feelings should be, get in the way of—well, pretty much everything, I guess. That’s my fault. I finally realized it back when you got mad at me for wanting to save that village, though, and I’ve had a lot of time to think everything through since you did your disappearing act. I’m thinking a lot more clearly now and…”

Pausing, she frowned at him. He looked a little bit glazed, like he’d been hit in the head by a falling building. “Inuyasha? Are you listening?”

“I…” He blinked several times but didn’t seem to focus much better. “Uh, yeah, I’m. Yeah.”

Dubious, she picked up her cup and blew gently on its contents. A cautious sip proved it was just the right side of drinkable temperature. “Anyway, my point is, you can stop worrying about it now. How did you put it last time? Oh, right. ‘I ain’t gonna wait on you.’ I guess at some point, I decided the same thing about you. And I’m okay with that.”

“You are?” His eyebrows did a sort of dip-and-hop-and-dip-again that would have been hilarious if she didn’t fully expect an explosion at any moment. “Wait, what? You are? With… What?”

She sipped her tea calmly. “Do you need a minute?”

He stared at her, gaze darting over her face as if expecting her to laugh about her joke or burst into tears. She had no inclination to either; she’d spent her tears for the dead relationship over the last couple of weeks, and she could find nothing to laugh about in this. Knowing about it beforehand did not make the conversation any easier. She waited quietly.

“You…really are,” he finally breathed after a long moment. “Since when?”

“I’m…not really sure.” She shrugged. “I had a lot of hope after Kikyō finally passed on, but you were grieving, and then things happened really fast and we didn’t get a chance to talk it out. Then I was stuck at home for a while, and I nearly gave up then. Maybe that’s when. When I realized the Well had opened back up, I thought all the hope came back again too, but…”

She shook her head. “I just can’t keep doing…what we’ve been doing. It hurts too much, and I deserve better. We both deserve better. So I’ve let it go. I’m done, Inuyasha. We can be friends if you want, but that’s all we’ll ever be.”

Oh, here it comes, she thought as his expression darkened.

His hands closed into fists on his knees. “Who is it?” The words sounded oddly compressed, as if he had to fight to get them out.

Her turn to blink in confusion. “What?”

“Who?” Now he snarled. “Who is it you think is gonna accept you, a weak-ass miko past her prime?”

She sucked in a sharp breath, shocked. “Inuyasha! What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s that mangy wolf, isn’t it? You think he’s gonna come sweepin’ in here an’ take you back to his dirty cave as his mate, don’t you?” The snarl had become a growl. “Joke’s on you, though. You’d only ever be second-best to him, too, ‘cause he already went an’ mated that Ayame!”

Deliberately, she set her tea cup down on the floor at her knee. Deep breath in, hold, out long and slow. Once more. And a third time. When she finally looked at him again, he stood against the wall of the hut, ears flat and hands fisted at his sides. She folded her hands in her lap.

“That, right there, is probably why I let go without realizing it.” She kept her voice steady and level. “I knew I would never be more than your second choice, just Kikyō’s replacement. You have never wanted to see me as just me.”

He growled again. “You promised to stay with me! I’m not lettin’ Kōga or anyone else take you away! You’re mine!”

She straightened in her seat, lifting her chin slightly. “I don’t belong to you or anyone, Inuyasha. What I do or do not do with my life from here on has absolutely nothing to do with you except as a friend, but if you keep talking like this, you’ll even lose that much. That’s your only warning.”

For a long moment, she sat there watching emotions chase each other across his expression. When his snarl had eased into tight lips and jaw, she nodded once firmly. “As it happens, there isn’t anyone. I have an interest in someone who is not Kōga, but I haven’t talked to them about it and I sort of doubt they’d want what I want, so it isn’t likely to matter, anyway. This conversation is just about me and you. And you look like you need to get out of my hut until you decide whether you still want to be my friend or not.”

He snarled as he vanished through the doorway, half tearing the bamboo curtain down as he went. She sighed and got up to fix it.

That’s probably the last I’ll see of him for another week or two.

As she wearily banked her fire and rolled out her futon a half hour later, she sent a tiny tendril of reiki out, seeking. To her surprise, she didn’t have to reach very far before her power encountered the tightly contained yōki she sought. With a light pat and a gentle squeeze of her power on his, she bade the lurking daiyōkai good night.

The answering stroke of his power on hers sent her into slumber with a smile.