ax_main | Inu-yasha and Illyana | Backdated to 12/31

Inu-yasha pays Illyana a visit in the aftermath of Inner Demons

Inu-yasha leapt up to the windowsill, growling quietly to himself as he winced. Fuck, this damn wound was taking forever to heal.

A quick scent of the air assured him that Yana was alone in her room, so he knocked on the window, still scowling.

"Y'know," Illyana pointed out as she came over to open the window, "most people would use the door. It's a whole lot easier." She stepped back to let him climb in, though, wondering if he'd decided to give in and get his wounds healed up. She was half surprised he was still on his feet.

Inu-yasha flushed pink, looking away. Walking down the hallway of the girls dorm and knocking on a door where anyone could see? No fucking way. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, glancing suspiciously toward the closet. Shit, he hadn't thought this through. "Just wanted to talk to you," he muttered.

"You don't sound like you really want to talk to me," Illyana pointed out. She gestured towards her desk chair, though, and shrugged. "Have a seat before you fall over. What's up?"

"No, I mean I wanted to talk to you, not anyone else," he replied, leaning against the desk instead of sitting. "S'why I used the window." Golden eyes lingered on the claw marks on her floor, left from when he'd been dragged through the mirror. "...does that mirror still work?"

Illyaa frowned and shook her head. "No. Wanda broke it, and we haven't gotten a new one. Why?"

"Cause I'd smash it if it was still here," he replied with a snort, finally pulling his eyes from the scarred floor to look at Yana again, scowling. "So what happens now?"

"What do you mean, what happens now?" Illyana sighed. "Also, would you please stop scowling at me? It's not like I told Belasco to pull you through my mirror and demonize you."

Inu-yasha met her eyes for a moment, unflinching. He wasn't ready to make light of what had happened yet, or ready to hear it from Yana. Whatever she had suffered before, she hadn't felt what he had that day. His current wound was irritating, sure, but it was nothing to the pain of the possession. "You killed your enemy. What happens now?"

"Now?" Illyana shrugged. "Limbo is mine. It should start reshaping itself - I haven't seen a whole lot of sign of it yet, other than the acid lake shrinking, but it'll happen. I need to spend some time there and make sure the demons are behaving themselves, but I wanted to wait until after the semester got started." Her eyebrows climbed. "Also? Hopefully, you've gotten some brains in your head and decided to let me heal up the scratches you got there? Before it gets so bad that I can't?"

"It's fine," Inu-yasha replied petulantly, "I heal. It's just taking longer than usual." The gash on his chest was bandaged, which was enough for now. "So what, you're a demon now? And if you're some kind of demon queen, why bother with this place?"

"Demon sorceress. I told you that, months ago - it's really not new." Illyana smiled faintly and sat down on the foot of her bed. "And I like it here, okay? Maybe you're right, and I'm never going to be like them - but some of them don't care."

Inu-yasha didn't know what to do with that. "You actually want to stay here and do... book reports and shit?"

Illyana shrugged. "Why not? I spent years in Limbo already, and it'll still be there if I get sick of being here. But my friends are here. And Pyro - well, not here, maybe, but close enough. What else am I going to do, hang out with demons all the time?"

Inu-yasha stared, uncomprehending. How could any of this feel real to her, compared to what they'd seen? "We all almost died," he said, a growl in his voice as horrors flashed through his mind. "And that just doesn't matter?"

"Of course that matters," Illyana shot back. "But what do you want me to do about it?"

Inu-yasha frowned and looked away, huffing and glaring at the other side of the room.

"Right. Because sometimes, there isn't anything to do about shit that sucks except deal." Illyana shrugged. "I figured of anyone, you'd get that."

"I know how to deal with normal shit," Inu-yasha replied, more quietly now. "Never been dragged through a mirror and fuckin' possessed before. After all that crap, none of this," he gestured vaguely around him, "even feels real anymore..."

"It's real. It just doesn't..." Illyana groped for the right words, then shrugged. "It's not all life and death, here. All the stupid shit people get bent out of shape over? None of it matters. Or...it does, but not the same way."

Chancing a glance at her from under unruly silver bangs, Inu-yasha considered for a moment. "Could it happen again?"

"I guess? Technically?" She shrugged. "I'm in charge now, though, and I'm not planning to pull anyone through my mirror. Or turn them into demons." She fiddled with her hair and dropped her eyes from his. "Believe it or not, stabbing you through the chest? Not exactly something I'm looking to do again anytime soon."

That surprised him. "Are you kidding? You saved my fucking life." No matter how confused and screwed up he was after everything that happened, he was crystal clear on that point. Her sword had pulled the demon out of him.

"Yeah. Could've backfired though, right?" Illyana sighed. "Anyway, that doesn't matter. I don't think it's going to happen again, okay? But I can't promise that. I didn't make it happen the last time."

Inu-yasha gaped. "Wait, hang on-- you mean you coulda killed me?!"

"Hey, you were trying to kill me, remember? It wasn't like I had a whole lot of choice," Illyana objected. "Honestly, I figured it'd just go through you like it did Simon when we were practicing, but if you'd actually been part demon like you always say you are, I'm not sure what would've happened."

Regaining his composure, Inu-yasha snorted. "Not that kinda demon." He didn't bother responding to the rest of it. Of course that made sense. The memories he had of wanting to tear into them... A growl escaped his throat as he crushed the memories down again.

"Hey, how would I know? Those are the demons I'm familiar with." Illyana shrugged. "Kinda sucked, I'm guessing?"

"Huh?" Inu-yasha blinked out of his thoughts. "Being stabbed, y'mean?"

"Well, yeah, that. And being possessed. Pyro won't talk about it, other than to say that it sucked. So." She shrugged and grimaced.

Inu-yasha looked down silently, thinking, trying to find words. He didn't realize how tense he'd gotten until he tasted blood where a fang had pierced his lip. "Guh." He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "Didn't know anything could hurt like that," he muttered. "More'n just my body, too, it was..."

"Your soul." Illyana grimaced and nodded. "Yeah. I know a little about that part. You wouldn't think messing with that would hurt, but...yeah. Wrong."

Inu-yasha shifted uncomfortably, scratching at the edge of a bandage under his shirt and refusing to meet her eyes. He hated talking about anything that made him feel so weak, so he redirected. "An' you really think that's the end of it?"

"If you ask me one more time, I'm personally going to pull you through the bathroom mirror, clamp a collar on you, and keep you as a pet," Illyana pointed out. "Now, are you going to let me heal that up or not?"

“The fuck?! I’m not scared,” he griped at her, meeting her eyes again to be sure she knew he meant it (and glaring at her for the ‘pet’ comment). “Everything went to shit because we weren’t prepared - if there’s gonna be a next time, I wanna be ready for it. You’d be stupid to think no one’s gonna come after what you’ve got.”

And although Yana was many things, Inu-yasha didn’t think she was stupid. That’s why he kept pressing her about it. He held her gaze evenly. “So what happens when they do?”

"I deal with it." That was simple enough, right? Given that the demons were now answering to her, and Billy wasn't interested in Limbo for himself, she should have some time to come up with long-term plans. "And no one said you were scared. Though I'm starting to think that's why you won't let me heal your wound up," she pointed out, and smirked coldly. "Afraid it'll hurt, 'Yasha?"

"Oy!" Inu-yasha's temper flared at that, something about the coldness in her voice setting off warning bells in his head. "No more fucking hell-magic!" He didn't want her getting any ideas about casting a spell on him now.

"What the - y'know, none of this should be any kind of surprise to you," Illyana snapped. "None. You're the one person I never held back on showing exactly what I could do. Which was fine when you wanted to get rid of your hangover or have me fix the computer monitor you killed, but now that shit got real it's 'fucking hell magic'? What the hell did I do to deserve this?"

"Not you!!" he shouted back at her, not thinking about who might hear. He rounded on her with a snarl, but his body arched in protectively around the wound. "Just-- all of it!! They put a fucking demon in my soul and made me try to tear you apart!! I've had enough magic, okay?!"

Illyana recoiled, and she bit at her lip and nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

"...what??" Inu-yasha's shoulders sagged. He'd been expecting more of a fight, not... whatever had just happened.

"What, what? I get it, okay?" Illyana's eyes met his, her jaw setting resolutely. "Believe me, I get it. Belasco merged you with a demon for what, fifteen minutes? He twisted my soul into a demon's, starting when I was six. It sucks, and I can't walk away from it. You can. Congrats."

It was enough to short-circuit Inu-yasha’s anger, leaving him with confusion, and something else he didn’t have a word for. He frowned. “That was when you were a kid,” he said, crossing his arms (gingerly) over his chest. “Now he’s dead, and no one’s controllin’ you.” His head tipped slightly to one side. “So walk away now.”

And then, to make sure the words weren’t mistaken for him actually caring or something, he closed his eyes and shrugged, totally disinterested. “Or else stop whining about it already.”

"Just like that." Illyana's eyebrows rose. "Did you somehow miss the part in that statement where I basically am part demon? Because I'm not sure exactly how you walk away from that." Or if she'd even want to, especially now that she'd gotten what she wanted. "All I'm saying is I get why you don't want any part of it. Which raises the question of why you're here?"

Hanyou - half demon. That was something Inu-yasha understood, even if it wasn’t in the exact way Yana meant it. No shit there was no walking away from that.

“Part demon,” he repeated at her. “But also part-human,” he said, voice going quiet, soft almost. He glared off to the side, hating how exposed this kind of talk made him feel, but he needed to say it. “Doesn’t matter what you are or what they made you, as long as they can’t do it to you anymore. And the fucker’s dead, so now you get to choose - an’ I get to say I’ll heal my own damn way.”

"I didn't say you didn't." Because yeah, she understood that, much though she'd rather just fix it, if only because in all the fucked up aftermath, it was the one thing she could fix. "I just don't want you to die of being stubborn." She took a breath and exhaled. "Okay. If I promise not to use magic on it, will you let me take a look and rebandage it?" She held up her hand. "I won't use anything we don't have in the first aid kit, but at least you'll know if you're likely to die of demon poison - and if you are, you can go see Billy. His magic is guaranteed non-demonic, and he fixed up Kitty last time. Deal?"

He huffed and rolled his eyes - leave it to the witch to miss his point, but whatever - but relented. “Fine, if’ll get you off my back,” he griped without bite, moving to sit near her on the bed. “But I’m tellin’ you it’s fine. Just needs time.”

He peeled his T-shirt off, revealing white bandages wrapped like a sash around his torso, dark red blood oozed almost all the way through in places. He could smell the poison, still felt the sting of it, but could feel his body fighting back too. It was a much slower heal -his other scratches and wounds from Limbo had all completely disappeared already - but he was improving. He let her remove the bandages, body tensed against any winces as she got down to the last layer, revealing a long, deep gash that stretched from his left shoulder across his chest and ended just below his ribs on the right side of his body.

With an eyeroll at the comment about getting off his back, Illyana set to work - and was surprised to see that the wound, while still ugly, did actually show signs of healing. "Well, the good news is you're not going to die," she assured him. "It could probably use stitches, but I kinda doubt you're going to go do that, so. Stay put, and I'll get some stuff from Walgreens?"

“Whatever, fine,” he replied, just a little too quickly, because the wound really did sting in the open air. On top of his head, his silver ears had flattened out, the only visible sign of the pain.

Illyana stood up, squeezed Inu-yasha's shoulder, and offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile before taking a step back. "There's Tylenol in my desk drawer, help yourself," she said quietly before calling up a stepping disk and disappearing.

Inu-yasha blinked as she disappeared, letting out a tight breath. Yeah, his body was healing, but it was slow and he really didn't need anyone to know how weak it had left him -- and he definitely didn't need to rely on anyone's strength but his own to recover.

He glanced around the room, realizing suddenly that he was alone in a girl's room. Shit, what if Kitty walked in and found him shirtless in her room?! Shit! He flushed bright pink, but tried desperately to appear unconcerned until Yana got back.