I forgot I never uploaded this. Short oneshot done for the ebony-silks challenge, "White" theme. Tied for first place!
This one sort of just happened, I didn't plan it. Contains excessive use of metaphor (Seriously. Me and my rambling metaphors...). Enjoy!
The demon never, ever tanned, and Kagome thought this was fitting. Sunlight tanned, but moonlight didn't, and Sesshoumaru was a creature made to live in moonlight. He was pale and white and so very, very far out of reach.
Whenever he passed through, his little ward in tow, Kagome would study him from the corners of her eyes. His hair was as fine and snowy as his brothers, but it was his alabaster skin that drew her eye. She wondered if it was cool to the touch. She was fascinated by how skin so pale could have any blood in it, and yet, he wasn't sickly. White was a healthy glow for him.
He glowed and glowed and glowed, and she would watch and secretly wonder what it would be like to live in the moonlight with him.
And then Rin died, snuffed by pneumonia during the long dark winter, and the light went out.
She had been there that day, summoned with her medicines to the girl's deathbed, but it came too late. Her first death had left her too frail, perhaps.
And when Kagome looked up, teary-eyed, at Sesshoumaru, she found with horror that he had changed. Dull-eyed and sallow-skinned, with hair an ashen gray; on impulse she reached out and touched him, and her hand jerked back from the frozen chill.
She helped him bury Rin, and then he nodded to her, stiffly, and left.
She continued watching him, during their encounters in the following months, but he remained a dark and barren wasteland. Sometimes, when Inuyasha wasn't around, she would try and talk to him. At times he would even answer. It was some time though before she realized that their encounters came more frequently; that their paths crossed too often to be by chance.
It was also some time before she realized he was watching her too.
Whenever she laughed, he seemed to be there, appraising her with creased eyes; whenever she smiled, she found herself the focus of his unfathomable stare. Even in the midst of battle, trading blows with Inuyasha, his eyes were on her and not his opponent. When he caught her watching at those times, there would be a brief, funny flash in them, and then he'd end the battle and stalk away.
But then he'd be back, standing at the edge of the clearing when she went home through the well, or watching from a hilltop as they crossed a valley, or loitering near the village they were leaving; he was circling her, round and round in an endless orbit, and sometimes she saw a confusion in his hollow eyes that made her heart clench.
He studied her, and she studied him, and Kagome wondered what he saw.
One night, when they were alone near the well, she asked him.
Sesshoumaru looked at the starry sky for a moment, and then surprised her by brushing his clawed hand along her tanned cheeks. He then paused, looking very tired and lost.
"When I see you laughing," he said slowly, looking deep into her sky-blue eyes, imploring her to understand, "I wonder what it is like to live in the sunlight."
And she understood.
She smiled at him, a warm and sunny smile, and touched his hand, and in his dull eyes there was a gleam of light. He held her gaze for a long, heavy moment, and then he turned and left in a flurry of white silk, looking pale and beautiful like he used to. Glowing.
And this time, she followed him.
For she understood that like the moon, he had no light of his own, no happiness. He needed someone to shine on him.
And Kagome was more than willing to share, shining and shining and shining enough for both of them.