Title: Beautiful Dreamers

Author: Shannello

Fandom: Inuyasha

Pairing(s) Kikyou&Kagome, Miroku&Inuyasha, Kagome&Naraku&Kikyou, Implied Sango&Kohaku

Genre: Dark&angst

Rating: PG-13

Squicks: yuri, yaoi, somewhat unrealistic, idk

Notes: I don't really know what to say about this peice.

Setting: Late.

Disclaimer: Nope.

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These dreams; troublesome and rousing- exciting, with no promise of reality.

She weaves through her cotton sheets, lost and smiling, spider-eyelashes spread across her cheeks. Tears twinkle in the corners near her nose, moonlight bottled.

Her daughter twists beside her, their dreams interweaving, leaving them raw and uncluttered, sweeping their souls from their shells.

Kagome sees a dark outline enter her dream, ensnaring the corners and folds of Kagome’s dream around her body, covering herself in it. Even in reincarnation, she always dominated.

She looks like she’s focused on one thing, somewhere at the back of Kagome’s mind, but she turns suddenly, and Kagome’s breathing halts. Her face is beautiful but she holds her cheek with her hand as tears fall unremittingly .

Kagome. Kagome. You’re there. Please, come back.

Kagome’s lips lose color, her mind- once dormant -stirring, her eyes limp.

Kagome. Stop hiding, Kagome. We know where you are. We... I need you.

Mama laughs out next to her, and Kagome’s heart hits the bottom of her chest, throbbing thickly in the dark. Her eyes- dark and tear-swollen- slip from their fault lines and open.

Her arms wobble as she rises herself up from the bed, her heart trembling from the familiar voice in her head. It was over long ago- why was she still there? In her heart. In her brain, bones, skin, core. She was everywhere, just like in the past.

“Mama,” she says finely, her words short and blank. “Are you awake?”

Her mother shifts, her head pressed into the down-pillow. A moan leaches from her chest, light and hollow from somewhere just beneath her skin. A man is in her dream, a man with hair full of spiders, and a cape of cobweb. Mama doesn’t know what to think, so her brain lies smoldering in the core of her skull.

A black shadow leaks into her dream; banished from Kagome’s, now that she’s awake. The body presses itself against the man, defeated, and for a moment, Mama can see frayed black eyes.

The shadow is a striking woman, far more beautiful than any geisha, any model, any woman Mama has ever seen. Immediately, she’s drawn to her. The woman looks so cold, but feels so inviting, fascinating and frightening simultaneously. Torn, her face is soft with tears and her lips are parted as if she’s holding words for someone who isn’t there.

You’re not Kagome. Who are you?

Kagome watches her mother smile- a smile she can’t recognize.

Mama sweats in the off-blue glow of the bedroom, her lips thin and refined, a secret hiding behind their spotless façade. Her heart beats loud, and Kagome shivers beside her, the indistinct silence of the room suddenly gone, replaced by the thunder of a spirit.

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Who are you?

Morning bleeds into her dream, and Mama flickers her eyes open.

She sits upright in the bed, her daughter’s place cool and empty. Kagome had left hours ago; her brain had shattered in the cold confines of her skull, and everything she thought she left behind (-down the well, down the well-) returned to her.

Mama runs an ice-kissed hand through her brown hair, something filling her, hot like magma, overflowing within her, under her skin, crawling like spiders.

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Kagome touches the wood, her fingers shaking. She feels the blood rushing to her head, to the top of her brain, then suddenly- tips and coils down her spine. Her eyes close involuntarily and she leans forward, breathing erratically in little, soft pants.

“I thought I let you go,” she reminisces. She doesn’t want to, but does. “I thought I left you in the past.” She coughs quietly, and it echoes deep through the walls of time.

“It was what you wanted, Kikyou.”

Her knees give out like twigs; snap and she slides roughly against the well. Her hand drops to her stomach, where a hot, bleeding Jewel sleeps. She shouldn’t have taken with her- she knows this now- and now she’s being called back.

But she doesn’t want to go back there. Where he thinks he owns her, them: the both of her- Kagome and Kikyou.

She cries a heavy moan; sharp and full of longing and non-longing.

Hands pull at her soul, and she falls closer to the well, her chin against the floor. Tears bleed into the dirt.

“I miss you, Kikyou, but I can’t-”

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Mama impulsively lets go of lethargy, and leaves.

“A walk should clear things up.” she decides, but never actually believes it to be true. She’s lying, and wants to trust herself, but it’s already too late. She’s already at the lake, and walks over to a bench to watch birds fly away.

She hears footsteps behind the trees, and a woman’s soft voice, and through the leaves she can see two pale bodies. Long black hair on both.

The man guides the woman by her hand, and Mama watches in hush, because its almost frightening how familiar they are.

Dark eyes meet hers for an instant, and the woman slows, stopping the man. She whispers something in his ear, and he looks at Mama. He’s almost as beautiful as the woman.

Mama doesn’t know what to think, so her brain lies smoldering in the core of her skull. They look exactly the same as the people in her- and Kagome’s -dream, but their clothes aren’t striking red and white, or dark blue and purple. But they are the same.

“You.” the woman says, walking in closer without the man. “You’re her mother.” She sounds calm, and looks dispassionate, but Mama sees something in the woman’s eyes that makes her heart beat hard.

“Do you know me?” the woman asks her suddenly.

Mama stops breathing, her eyes darting between the woman and the man, both beautiful, both so out of place.

“Do you?”

She sounds angry, but Mama knows that the woman’s going to cry. “No,” she starts, and looks away, ashamed for not knowing something she shouldn’t know. A hand presses on her arm, and Mama looks back, her eyes completely suppressed by the beautiful woman.

“Are you sure?”

Mama swallows, and believes herself for the first time. “You’re Kagome…you’re my daughter.”

The woman pauses then smiles, and squeezes Mama’s arm kindly, and Mama feels the connection between their bodies.

Mama blinks away her doubt, and smiles back. “You should be in the past.” she says deliberately impulsively, at first not knowing what she- herself- was saying. “You should be with there, Kagome.”

The woman looks through Mama, “Call me Kikyou.” The man behind her looks disdained at the woman, like he wants her to be something else, but he slows his gaze to the fall of her hair, and his eyes soften. Kikyou guides Mama up from the bench, and speaks quietly. “Can I walk you home?”

Mama grins, and takes Kikyou’s hand. “Please.”

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“Inuyasha. Inuyasha. Inuyasha.”

Kagome whispers into the well, her body hunched up against it. “Is Miroku-sama happy?”

He always did get the best from you.

You always...followed him when he and I walked on different paths.

She laughs sharply into the dark. “Did Kohaku-kun come home, yet? I bet he’s with Sango-chan. She always did like the young boys in the village. She liked to watch them play.”

I bet she wants his baby.

I wish I could see it.

Kagome coughs dustily into the wood, pressing her lips into it. “Inuyasha- did you forget about me? Did you die without me there?”

She wipes her eyes with her sleeve, “Are you mad that I left? Swallowed your shikon no tama?" Kagome coughs again, swabbing her lip gently. “Forgot you?” She laughs sickly, her mind swarming with youkai that she doesn’t even believe existed anymore. Nothing was real through the well. Nothing is real back through, either.

I didn’t want Naraku, Inuyasha.

But when I finally...when Kikyou took my place…

You had already fallen in love with someone else.

“I can’t forget you, Inuyasha.” Kagome admits, and hates herself for an instant, where nothing mattered. “I can’t forget Kohaku-kun and Sango-chan, or your Miroku-sama.” Tears drip-drop into the well, to the other side of time. “I love you too much to forget.”

She slides against the well again, wishing it would let her through. “I love my past too much, it’s going to kill me.”

Kagome waited before her words faded into air before pushing herself up from the dirt. She climbs up the stairs on stiff legs with scraped knees. Kagome walks though the door and coasts it back in place behind her, shutting away her past.

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“Kagome,” Mama calls into the house when she walks though the doorway. “Kagome, where are you?” She’s still smiling.

Kagome is on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, her head beating hard. Her tea does little to help the pain; in her head nor in her heart.

Mama totters to Kagome, her legs moving quickly like her heart, light and fast. “Kagome, someone was looking for you.” Kagome does little to show her interest, her soul still hurt from leaving Kikyou, Naraku, Inuyasha and everything behind. Mama touches her daughter’s shoulder, shaking her gently.

“Mama- please - I’m tired.”

Her mother grins down at her, “But Kagome,” she says, brushing her daughter’s bangs out her eyes, “You could have been her twin.” Kagome’s heart skids in her chest.

“What? What did you say?”

Mama nods slowly as Kagome rises from the couch. “Me- her twin?”

“Hai, she looked just like you; I mistook her for you for a moment.” Her mother laughs gently, covering her lips with her hand. “She was looking for you, a man was with her, too.”

“A man? Did he have long hair?”

“Yes, beautiful black hair. Just like Kikyou.”

Kagome’s expectations are proven to be correct, and the second after the “yo” sound leaves her mother’s lips she rips herself from the couch and runs to the door. “Where is she?”

Mama follows behind her, walking slower. “She left with the man, already, Kagome. She said she couldn’t meet with you today.”

Kikyou’s words were; soft and gentle, before she left. Mama touches her cheek where Kikyou leaned down to kiss delicately before walking away with the man.

Kagome’s soft sigh by the doorway makes her mother uncomfortable. She had a beautiful walk with Kikyou- whom Kagome seems so interested in. “I’m sorry, Kagome. She’ll come tomorrow.”

Kagome nods quietly, her fingers to the glass.

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“Kikyou,” he says to her, as she sits in the dark. “We can bring her back.”

“How can you believe that?” Kikyou hisses. Naraku walks to her side, pressing his fingers into her bony shoulder, the contact making her growl in her throat. “I could not keep us in her time long enough, how can I bring her back?”

“She’s Kagome. She’s bound to you.”

She shakes him off, and stands strongly, every red line in her body bright and angry. “If she was bound to me, she would have come back a year ago. It’s been too long. She’s given up on us. She knows the well will not reopen.”

She knows if she comes back..

If the shikon no tama returns to this time..

She will be bound here, forever.

Naraku moves away from her, back to his thrown, back to his seat of perpetual desire.

“Whatever you believe, Kikyou.” he says to her, and she stiffens. She listens to his breathing for many moments, building up inside of her something thick and strong. The castle stinks of Kagome, and her perfume, and Kikyou can’t stand smelling like Kagome because eventually that perfume will fade like the miko. Without Kagome here, nothing smells beautiful.

She only wished to stay with you, Naraku…

Because she didn’t want Inuyasha to die.

The Shikon no Tama could never grant wishes.

Kikyou picks up her bow and stops at the doorway. “I shall go see Inuyasha.”

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Inuyasha lives in Edo, champion of his village.

To all, he is a hero. He surrendered his love to stop the horrible Shikon no Tama from ever touching innocent flesh again.

But he is an outcast, born and raised an outcast, and even now, with Miroku, he is an outcast.

Kikyou knows what will make him normal, but Inuyasha doesn’t want that. He wants to stay an outcast:

Miroku will always hate himself for making Inuyasha hated, but he doesn’t want to do anything about it. So when Kikyou comes to the village, Miroku wraps his arms around Inuyasha, to protect him from the wish of humanity that Kikyou carries with her as her burden, because she is not human, and wishes she could be.

“Inuyasha.” Kikyou says, gripping tightly to her bow. “Kagome is-”

Inuyasha growls in his throat. Miroku lets go and moves closer to Kikyou, whispering, “It’d be best if you did not bring her up.” Miroku closes his eyes, breathing in slowly. “You’re resemblance to her hurts him more than words.”

Kikyou stares at Inuyasha, her eyes sad and soft. “Inuyasha. The well has been closed for years. Naraku‘s hold on Kagome has faded- she can return.”

“She doesn‘t.” Inuyasha spits, his eyes on Kikyou. She’s beautiful, but she’s a ghost of two loves that failed horribly. “She can stay in her future; we don’t need her here.”

“Inuyasha, don’t be stubborn. She has to-”

“She doesn’t need to come back!” he spears, “Look around- there’s no one here that wants her. I don’t want her, either.” Inuyasha looks away sharply, “She’s not one of us, anymore, Kikyou. She’s one of his.”

Kikyou tightens her gaze, narrowing her eyes on his pained expression. “What are you saying? She did what she needed to keep you from killing yourself.” Kikyou drops her bow, walking in slowly, and Miroku keeps his glare on her. “She’s still Kagome. The woman you loved.”

She runs her sleeves between his, gliding her arms around his body. Her pale cheek presses neatly against his hoari, and his chest, until she can hear his heart beat. “I am still Kikyou. The woman you once loved.” She closes her eyes, breathing in Inuyasha. “You haven’t forgotten us, have you?”

Inuyasha holds her to him, memories flooding his nearly indestructible brain, flipping over everything he once believed. Kikyou and Kagome- two of the same, women he loved, still love. It is too much to bare, and Inuyasha smothers Kikyou in his kimono, swallowing her scent, and feel, replacing her cold skin with his heat.

“Kikyou.” Inuyasha whispers.

She left me.

She left with you...for Naraku.

How can I...forget that?

Inuyasha breathes for a moment, listening to the emptiness of Kikyou, the impatient sighs of Miroku, until his mind betrays him. He’s flooded with memories of Kagome, her scent, her touch, and suddenly, he misses her more than ever.

“I’ll help get her back.”

The miko smiles into his chest. “Arigatou.”

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“Inuyasha. Do you still love me?”

Fireflies twinkle around her, seeping into the mini-shrine. “Do you still think about me?”

She sighs and walks around the well in the dark. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her lips chapped and dry, down into the well. “I’m sorry,” she says so quietly, so pain-stricken. “I always think about what I’ve done. I can’t forget any of it.”

Her steps halt and she slides her legs over the mouth, resting on the ledge. So softly, so silently she murmurs, “Naraku...he...he made me feel as if I had something to offer. As if I was powerful. He made me believe that keeping the Jewel from you would keep you alive.”

I was only making the Jewel black.

It was tainting me, and all I could think about was Kikyou…

And keeping the Jewel from you.

Kagome smiles, closing her eyes and leaning back, listening to the chirp of creatures around her. “I knew that was true. The Jewel would have killed you. Besides, he had Kikyou, and I couldn’t let him keep her.”

I’m horrible.

I should have left before Naraku knew I had the Jewel.

Before I was bound to him.

“I’m stupid- don’t you think? For believing Naraku wouldn‘t try to keep me.”

I was afraid for your life.

I couldn’t have let you die.

“Maybe he’s stupid, too. For believing I’d love him.”

It’s all a sick joke.

Life.

Kagome pushes off the mouth, falling down like rocks into the dark well, hitting the bottom with a sharp cry.

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Inuyasha carries Kikyou across the forest, over rivers that gleam like crystal. The shikon no tama twinkles in his mind’s eye, and he misses the little miko that made him

Kagome.

Kikyou shifts on his back, as if she heard his sudden thoughts of her second soul, shattered lover from another time. Inuyasha swallows; he hasn’t thought of Kikyou and Kagome- the both of them -as lovers. Not to him, but to each other. He heard of their relationship - sometimes from the tauntings Naraku gives him, sometimes from Kikyou’s visits, sometimes from dreams. He’d never think of the two of them together. It was painful.

But they would always love him. It was bled into their soul. Something they’d never be able to shake off and suppress. Unfortunately, neither could he.

His claws hit grass as he bounds into the clearing. The well sits, unawake, dormant, broken, in the circle of trees, waiting for life to pass over its lips.

Kikyou is not life, but she is time, and her fingers turn white against the wood.

“Are you gonna try to get through?” Inuyasha asks, and Kikyou breathes in air she doesn’t need.

"Yes," says Kikyou. “Perhaps the well will remember Kagome’s soul, and let me pass.”

Inuyasha presses his hand on hers, “Tell her I forgive her.” He pauses, hoping that Kagome will appear first, but when she doesn’t he continues. “Tell her, I’m sorry for making her cry.”

He looks into the well, straight to the bottom, where he saw love so many times. “I never meant to.”

Kikyou covers his hand with hers. “I will.”

Inuyasha looks back to her, Kikyou, and one moment passes over them that contains nothing but forgiveness, love renewed and everything they once shared. Inuyasha leans down and covers her lips with his, and Kikyou kisses back soulfully, bleeding with Kagome’s perfume.

“Bye,” Inuyasha says, his lips only inches from hers, his eyes still shut, his heart still beating thickly.

“Farewell.”

Kikyou let her eyes rise slowly, before turning away and holding her heart. “We can meet again…can’t we?” she whispers, unsure and concerned.

Inuyasha watches her slow movements, counting seconds before Miroku’s scent reaches his nose, and he knows that the monk will find them soon. “I think so.” he answers, and they laugh after a moment. “Yeah, yeah, we can.”

Reassured, Kikyou touches his hand one last time, before slipping her hands around his neck. His beads spark when her fingers make contact, and ultimately Kikyou slides it over his head. His hair falls around his face, silver-white and smooth, and Kikyou smiles as she glides it around her neck instead.

With one breath, Kikyou is gone.

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Kagome opens her eyes, her body throbbing with pain from her ankle and her wrist. Jumping was a stupid thing to do, but Kagome was losing everything she loved, the only way to her family, the only past she’s ever known. She’s loved so deeply on the other side, and now, as she lies in the cold sand of the well, the only thing she can think about is how much she’s lost.

Suddenly, her hair rises from her shoulders and back, and her clothes tousle quickly, pressing against her stomach and chest. She feels as if the ground is screaming at her, blowing her away. Blue burns around her, and waves crash like she’s in the middle of the ocean, drowning, unable to breathe.

She closes her eyes tight, blinded by the blue light, and out of the blue comes white arms that slip around her frail body.

The light dies down roughly, and Kagome slides her eyes open resignedly.

Kikyou…

Two years, its been, since she’s touched this woman. Kagome doesn’t know what to do, what to say or think, so she lets her brain lay dormant in the back of her skull.

Kikyou takes her neck and kisses her cheeks, her eyelids and forehead, relishing in the taste of Kagome. A delicacy she’s haven’t had in years.

“How did you- why - how?”

Kagome sits quietly after speaking, and Kikyou watches her breathe, because it is beautiful and so nostalgic. “Inuyasha helped me pass through.” Kagome looks away tiredly but Kikyou takes her hands.

“Inuyasha...he...does he hate me?”

Kikyou shakes her head slowly and Kagome watches with wide eyes.

“He asked me to tell you he is sorry. He forgives you.”

Kagome doesn’t believe it at first, but Kikyou’s tight look makes her collapse in the miko’s arms. Relieved.

“You’ll stay with me, Kikyou-sama, will you please?”

Kikyou smoothes down Kagome’s hair, sitting at the bottom of the un-broken well. “Will you stay by my side, this time, Kagome? You will not run away, again?”

“Never, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Kikyou breathes in Kagome’s perfume, and smiles. “Then, I will.”

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The first night Kikyou sleeps in Kagome’s bed she screams with agony; pain filling her eyes, her legs, her chest. Little, black spiders scratch from beneath her clay-shackled flesh, burning her from the inside out. Naraku knows when he owns something, and he knows when he doesn’t.

Unfortunately, Kikyou still had a place to fill, and until Kagome returned to the past, she was destined to fill that place.

Take me back.

Let me fall into the well, Kagome.

Set me free... Into restriction.

Kagome kisses Kikyou’s hands, knuckles, her tongue sliding along her cold flesh, making trails. Her saliva does little to soothe her.

Kagome gathers Kikyou in her arms, and in a hard, pain stricken walk she brings Kikyou to the well house. The well is black, streaked by silver strips of light through the cracks of the mini-shrine.

Drop me in.

Release me.

Kagome kisses Kikyou’s forehead, before sinking into the well.

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Blood rises throughout his body, when he sees his two girls.

They look stunning; Kikyou panting, leaning against Kagome’s frail form. They enter his castle, filling his home with energy that Naraku hasn’t felt since the first day he met Kagome.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asks, taunting, and Kagome grips her stomach at the sudden burn that fills her.

“Break the bonds you have on Kikyou.”

Naraku is amused, and for a moment, he feels radiation from her words. “I’m sorry, she belongs to me. Since you needed to leave so badly.”

Kagome shuts her eyes, and whispers rush-whispers, so quiet that only Kikyou can hear her.

Kikyou widens her eyes, in disbelief, in horror. “Kagome, you can’t, no-”

The Shikon no Tama burns inside Kagome’s stomach, and she doubles over in pain, the Jewel scuttling around, desperate for an exit. It bleeds through her skin, and Kagome screams out in anguish, her belly hot and spewing blood.

Kikyou covers the Jewel’s makeshift exit with her palm, suddenly alive, suddenly sorry and frightened.

The Jewel glows over head, Naraku’s eyes, hungry, devouring its image. He reaches out to grasp it, but its too high, and Kagome’s crying is making him angry.

The Shikon no Tama blazes pink, screams and sighs above them.

Kikyou kisses Kagome as the last of the castle is swallowed by the Jewel.

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“What did she wish for?”

Mama parts Souta’s hair down the middle and brushes her fingers against his cheeks. “No one really knows. Miko Kagome was very powerful, and lived many years ago; its almost impossible to know for sure. Maybe she wished to live with Kikyou in peace.”

Souta leans back against his mother, and as her only child, he gets all of her attention.

“But what if the story was messed up? What if Miko Kagome was actually evil, and killed that hanyou Naraku so she could be the most powerful?”

Mama laughs, “I don’t think Miko Kagome wanted that. I think she just wanted to be free.”

Souta eyes her quietly, “You’re really into this story, Mama. You’re being weird.”

She pats him on the shoulder playfully, “My, my boy is rude.” She smiles gently down at him, kissing his nose quickly. “I’m just hoping for a happy ending for Miko Kagome. Her life was thrown in so many directions; she lost many lovers, and finally when she found her true love, Kikyou-sama, the hanyou Naraku plotted against her. He tried to kill her and Kikyou. Terrible life, don’t you think?”

Souta squirms in place and shrugs, “Sounds really romantic- I don’t like it.” He silences for a minute before adding, “But Miko Kagome did kick some awesome butt, so..I guess she ought to have some kind of happy ending.”

Mama snuggles her son, “I’m glad you think so.”

“But what if-”

“Hush, Souta. Let’s leave Miko Kagome’s story alone; she's gone through enough." Mama kisses his forehead quickly, “Night, Souta.”

Souta shrugs and slides into bed, “Night, Mama.”

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Who are you?

Mama smiles.