The idea behind this story was sparked when I began my SK fancomic Etchings on DeviantArt two years ago. While Etchings is supposed to be a short, humorous, and last but not least unashamedly smutty look at a possible SK courtship (as befits the nature of a comic), the story behind it turned out longer and darker than I anticipated, and it ultimately deviated from the comic in several important points.

Same as the comic, though, it is unapologetically AU.

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~The Wish~

It all started with the wish.

There was a certain confusion as to who had wished on what, mostly due to an undignified scuffle. Kagome still cringed miserably whenever she remembered...

"What are you waiting for, wench? Give it here already!"

Exhausted, dirty and covered in blood, Kagome scowled. "Watch the language, Inuyasha. I'm not in the mood."

"What's that supposed to mean? Now give it to me!"

"Say please."

"The fuck I will." Inuyasha made to snatch the jewel from Kagome's numb fingers but the thing, now whole, appeared glued to her hands. It glowed belligerently when Inuyasha tried to grab it. He pulled his hand back with a cry of pain mingled with annoyance.

"I told you," muttered Kagome. "Ask nicely, and you'll get it." She was miserable but determined. This wasn't the way things were supposed to happen, and the sooner Inuyasha understood that, the better.

"No fucking way I'm going to ask. It's mine."

Kagome swallowed and stepped slowly back, trying to put some distance between her and Inuyasha. They were all at the end of their powers, but that was no reason to turn on each other, was it?

"Inuyasha," she said, struggling for calm. "We discussed this. We're friends, aren't we? Let's just think for a second. If we make a selfish wish, things could turn out worse than before."

Inuyasha merely scowled at her, fists clenched. She could see he was trembling with frustration, and her heart went out to him, but he had never been good at thinking before he leapt and this time, somebody had to.

She used a dirty sleeve to rub at her eyes, which were pricking suspiciously. "It's not just about us, Inuyasha," she told him in a whisper. She was afraid that otherwise her voice might break. "Sango has lost so much. So many people were slaughtered... Don't you care about that?"

He squared his shoulders. "Why should I? Nobody cares about me."

And here they went again. She knew that exhaustion often made Inuyasha regress to the untrusting bully he had been in the beginning, but she had not expected such a complete turnabout. The last year he had been nearly reasonable.

"That's not true," she said, even as she saw Sesshoumaru's mouth curl into a moue of disgust.

From the corner of her eye, Kagome saw Miroku take up his shakujo in a newly healed hand. Sango was still on her knees. She wouldn't be able to move, but Miroku would fight Inuyasha if he had to.

Kagome rubbed at her eyes again, angry at herself for crying, angry at Inuyasha for being such a jerk... angry at the world in general. Things weren't supposed to go like this. Naraku was dead. They should all be happy, relieved... anything but this resentment. Where had the camaraderie of the last seven years gone? She could practically see the battle lines being drawn.

Nobody begrudged Inuyasha his happiness. But he was stomping all over their friends, never mind herself, and it was just wrong.

"What would you wish for, Inuyasha?" Kagome asked quietly.

"You know what I'm going to wish for," Inuyasha said. He did not look belligerent any longer. He looked… sly.

"I suppose I do," Kagome whispered. The jewel was pulsing in her hand, a living thing anxious to be released. Kagome knew she could not put this off any longer but she was tired, so tired, and her eyes wouldn't focus. Not the best moment for an unselfish wish.

Inuyasha's claws were twitching, a sure sign that his patience was nearing its end. He was her friend, but right now he didn't see her that way. He saw her as the obstacle between himself and the thing he wanted most. Kagome was certain he saw it as a betrayal that she didn't give him the jewel. He didn't understand why she couldn't.

Had Sesshoumaru come closer, too? She couldn't tell through her blurry vision, but she thought he might have.

She had to think. What constituted an unselfish wish anyway? Kagome had thought long and hard about this, and thought she'd found a solution. But now that hard-won certainty suddenly eluded her.

What if she was about to make a horrible mistake?

Even though she wanted to, Kagome knew she couldn't erase all the horror and pain the jewel's shattering had brought. She could not give Sango her village back. Any specific wish, no matter how well-meant, could carry the taint of selfishness.

Ultimately, Kagome had decided that she could try to make whole only what had not been irreparably broken through the jewel's influence; she could only wish that everyone would have the opportunity to find some peace and happiness. And at the deep, dark core of that truth lay the realization that she could not begrudge her enemies the blessings she would so readily bestow on her friends.

The jewel did not play favorites, so neither could she.

She would have to deal with Kikyo, against who she had been measured and found lacking. It would have been easy to hate her, and for a while, Kagome had.

But Kikyo had been betrayed, and then ripped away from death to live a terrible half-life. She deserved a second chance. Kagome knew the risk to herself, had weighed it and found it great. And yet in the end, it didn't matter. She might die in the process, but she would force the jewel to clean up after itself, and Kikyo's resurrection was part of that. Kagome felt the truth of it like a chill in her bones.

Maybe that was it. There was no right answer, no good and evil, no best way to go forward. There was only this moment, and there was balance.

Kagome had been the keeper of the jewel. In this one, frozen moment, she was its keeper again.

She did not have to be fair, or weigh sins, or judge. Poised perfectly between past and future, her only task was to restore balance, because she was the only one who could.

Kagome lifted her head.

As if in answer to her newfound certainty, the shikon began to glow.

"No!"

Inuyasha had used her reverie to sneak closer, and now he made a desperate grab for the jewel. Startled, Kagome realized her reflexes were too sluggish to evade him, but the hand that closed over hers, enveloping her smaller one along with the jewel, was not Inuyasha's but Sesshoumaru's.

A booted foot met with Inuyasha's exposed belly, propelling him into a far tree.

"Enough childishness for today," Sesshoumaru said.

The glow expanded in pulsing beats.

Kagome's consciousness expanded with it, beyond her skin and into Sesshoumaru's. His youki lapped at her like the tide, then he was all around her too, like a dark and alien sea.

Inuyasha howled.

Silvery images brushed past her like flocks of fish: skies dark with dragons, vast golden deserts, spinning men in white clothes. An impossibly beautiful woman with teeth as sharp as a shark's lunged out of the dark, her jaws opened wide; statues came to life in shadowy gardens. She saw barred windows surrounded by delicate stonework, pyramids glowing blue against the night sky, red-robed men on flying carpets flying low through a silent night.

She sank further. The flashes faded, leaving only a menacing gloom.

In the depths of Sesshoumaru, it was cold and quiet. His youki pressed against her skin, tugged at her like a great and terrible ocean.

Her left shoulder hurt. The injury felt deep and vivid and hers. It was quite bad, and she would have been weary about it, had she allowed herself to be. She knew she was clutching the jewel with her left, could still see the purple pulse of power at the edge of Sesshoumaru's darkness, but suddenly, she could no longer feel her arm.

Kagome met Sesshoumaru's eyes, afraid of what she would find, but they were like blank coins. He must be as lost in her as she was in him, she realized dimly.

She wondered what he saw. She wondered how much of her own intrusion he felt; she barely registered him sifting through her thoughts and memories and still she felt shame at what he might discover. She wished she could draw back. If she was embarrassed, how much more painful would the experience be for someone as private as him?

Withdrawal did not seem to be an option and anyway she would not know where to begin. She was still sinking, past red layers of instinct to the coolest core of him.

She felt hate, cooled to scarred-over, icy rage by the pressure of his soul. He hated the stump of his arm. He abhorred the imbalance it created in his beautiful, battle-honed body. He had to live with the agony of youkai muscles as strong as steel cable pulling his shoulder into its socket without a full arm to provide counterbalance to those forces.

He slept only rarely now; the constant torture was difficult to ignore. The sleeplessness had provided him with many additional hours of training which he had used to adapt to his circumstances.

The wish was still growing around them; she could feel it working, shifting.

It was using them for fuel. It did not let her withdraw. If anything, it pressed them closer together.

The cold was arctic now. Kagome shivered as a fresh wave of darkness broke over her. Despair, held in check by iron will.

The arm was not regenerating. At all. It was a useless stump and would remain so for the rest of his very long life.

Kagome ached for him. She looked away from his terrible hollow stare; she didn't want him to think she pitied him, though surely he could see her every thought by now.

And then, for a brief, terrible moment, she was afraid he would corrupt the wish. Surely he would want his arm back. Surely…

Sesshoumaru lifted his hand off the jewel. Even bereft of touch their connection held as he gripped her chin, lifting her eyes to his. This time, his eyes and his soul held the same message: he would not wish for his arm back.

There was no spark of longing there, not a smidgen. Just utter, grim acceptance.

Point made, his hand fell away. His gaze still pinned her though. It seemed important to him that she understood.

And she did. But Kagome found she could not bear it.

The wish was fading, its work nearly complete. There were mere moments left and yet Kagome felt that in this space, in this moment, she was prepared for a last leap of faith. Lifting her right hand, she grabbed the stump of Sesshoumaru's arm, shaking away the disorientation as the touch of her own hand echoed weirdly through her nervous system.

She saw herself as a slim, shining creature. Fragile, painfully beautiful. There was a nascent sense of longing here, barely formed. Oddly, she could see the top of her own head.

One last act of balance, she thought, pushing the distractions away.

She might be drowning in him, but she was still herself. She only had to find her center…

There.

The last of the wish passed through Sesshoumaru with a ripple. Kagome saw his eyes widen, felt heat blossom beneath her fingers, then the glare became blinding.

A breath later, it collapsed to a heavy, icy nucleus in her hand. The link between her and Sesshoumaru stretched, then snapped.

Sesshoumaru leaned closer, gold eyes intent. He was holding her wrist, and he was doing it with his left…

Her other hand burned with cold.

Kagome looked down drunkenly. There was a charred ring of skin around the jewel, which was sinking... She stared at it, slowly realizing the icy feeling must be caused by extreme heat. She had no time to react beyond that: the jewel began to glow an incandescent white as it melted into skin and bone.

Kagome sucked in a breath. Her muscles seized. It felt as if her whole body had been dipped in lye and set on fire.

She had no breath left to scream.

As she fell into darkness, the pain followed.