An Unexpected Love Story by Midnighttomoscow

Part One Chapter One: Las Vegas

Part One: Vegas

Chapter One: 

I smile as I'm thrust more drinks from already drunk hands.  I'm being held hostage, technically, and I'm looking for an escape.  Of all the places in the world, Melanie decides to hold her wedding in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Not some beautiful hot spot destination that you dream of where you float in tranquility and awe, but the loud, hustling, dirty, gambling town of glitter and sparkle.

The bride in question, sits on her arranged pedestal as everyone fawns over her.

"Kagome!  Darling!  We should go out on the strip shouldn't we?  Look at how beautiful it is out there!  Come on girls, all this beauty can't go to waste!"  The entire entourage of bridesmaids make a beeline for the door.  Melanie and I are some of the last to exit and I can feel a small hand wrap around my arm to find my palm.  At the end of my wrist I find a very drunk Mel trying to shove a wad of small bills into my hand.

"What are you doing? Do you want us to get robbed or something?”

"I think you're going to need it for where we're going.  You'll be thanking me in the morning."  She attempts a wink, something she is unable to do even while sober, and stumbles out the door behind me.

"Oh dear." What on earth is Mel getting us into? 

I really do adore her, with all of my heart in fact.  She's the sister I never had.  However, when the limousine pulls into what I can only guess is a strip club I want to scream at the top of my lungs, throw the money I was given onto the pavement, and run all the way home. All the way to Japan.  All the way to the well.

The well that no longer works.  I want to see the people that no longer exist.  Slay the demons that now, have died out.  The jewel that no longer possesses any power.  A jewel that’s all used up with no more wishes.  I want nothing more than to return to a past that no one here knows about.

"Come on Kagome, it'll be fun!"  Someone grabs a hold of me and I’m sucked into the black hole doors.  All of my previous escape plans now no longer acceptable.

It's a strip club alright.  One that is exclusively for women.  They come in looking for dates and leave with much more, no dinner or wine and dine required.

The wedding party slides into a section, bride to be front row center while I stay on the outskirts, scoping for a new escape.  Music blares.  One of those endless songs, with an endless beat.  Male strippers parade around on a runway of glitter and gold before choosing tables.

"Hey there ladies, my name is Pierre.  Who am I pleasing first?" He shoots a suave look to everyone and I find even myself staring.

Melanie the self-proclaimed queen bee to her drones, orders him to please a rather rotund woman of our party in her classic Melanie tone.

He leaps onto the table and begins to shake his hips in a way I am assuming is supposed to be seductive.  The girls eat it up, they cat-call and hoot at him as he slithers down to eye level and starts to gyrate some more. 

After a couple of minutes, the music changes but the beat doesn’t.  Pierre bids us au revoir and another dancer hops onto our table.  He introduces himself just as Pierre did.

Musical chairs for adults.  Mel orders him off to some other patron of the wedding, while I try to hide. 

I sit quietly on the edge.  Everyone else talks and laughs in a drunken stupor.  I'm looking for exits when something catches my eye.  Just the smallest glimpse of silver.  I steady myself and take a deep breath.  It couldn't be.  My heart pounds as I close my eyes.  The music changes and Jason steps off the table.  My eyes still closed I hear the next stripper step on.

"Good evening ladies."  I'm too scared to open my eyes but that fear forces them open, and I stare at his feet.

"My name is…"  My curious eyes continue northward in an unflattering manor over tight calves, knees, thighs then his leather clad pelvic region and bare chest. 

"Ichiro."  No it's not.  My eyes wide I can’t help but stare.  My whole body is screaming, begging me to touch him.  Not in a sexual way, but in the most innocent of ways to see if he is actually there, and if it is truly him. 

"Who shall I be pleasing tonight?"  The eyes are nothing but a confirmation.  Those cold eyes, that now, suddenly look so exhausted. My mind races and wanders trying to pinpoint what his exhaustion could be from, this man, this demon. This ageless demon who has been roaming with no home for only he knows how long.

"Sesshoumaru."  I whisper so low and see his ears twitch.  I lock onto his gaze and want to scream.  Mel catches this and reads it as lust.

"I think it's Kagome's turn!”  I feel the blood completely drain from my body.  His eyes never leave mine.  I'm bursting with questions.  Where is Rin?  Jaken?  How did he end up here of all places, doing this of all jobs?  What happened after that day?

I feel degraded.  This once powerful demon lord now reduced to this, a dancer.  I feel like I should avert my eyes and look away but I can’t, I can’t seem to pry my eyes away from his. 

The music changes and he takes an audible breath, his eyes never leaving mine as he steps down and turns.  Suddenly everything is so loud.  Mel laughs and calls this dance for herself, exclaiming she’s the guest of honour.

I want to do nothing but leave this place, but the door is a black hole and we've turned into nothing but anti matter.  Don't let us collide or we'll explode and destroy everything in our way.

Much like he used to.  The great and terrible dog demon of the West, impassive, cold, brutal, lonely.  He was hiding in his eyes.  Those eyes that are so similar but so different to his brother. Sorry, half-brother.  My mind wanders, and I wonder if he has his father’s eyes. 

When we leave it is morning.  No one walks the streets, only the entertainers coming from or going to work.

"I think you liked him."  Melanie blurts as we go off to our separate but adjoining rooms.

"Sleep tight Mel."  I close the door and cut her off.  Cut me off.  Cut off the flow of the outside world, so it won't pollute me.

I flop onto the bed and grit my teeth.  So many questions.  So many unknown answers that may forever stay unanswered.  Rolling over, I pull my legs up to my chest and place my chin on my knees.  So full of scars from falling so many years ago, from being reckless and living reckless.

I would love to live reckless once more.  I spread out my arms and legs, looking over to the connecting door.

Perhaps. 

I slip over, unlock the door and pull it open just a crack.  Mel left her side of the door open.

Sliding inside I'm on a mission for a card, a number, a receipt linking me back to that place.

I find a receipt.  Creeping out of Mel's room I formulate a plan.  I decide to call the club, but first I need the number which is not on the paper in my hand.  Though, I know how to find it.

"Hello front desk?  Can you find a phone number for me?"  The voice on the other end takes a breath and says yes.

"Okay, the place is called Escorts with Etiquette." The voice on the other end takes another breath and tells me the number.  My hands shake as I write it down as fast as possible.  Bile rises into my throat along with a million what if’s and a small voice screaming ‘Put the phone down!’

"Hello, can I speak to Sessho…uhm Ichiro please?"  I hold my breath as he tells me hold on. There’s a series of muffled shouts and I can hear them passing the phone around.  Maybe he went home after we left?  

There's a familiar breath on the other end.

"Hello?"  I let out the breath I was holding for so long, and start to cry as he breathes on the other end…waiting.

"I-I'm sorry.  I just, I haven't seen anyone in so long.  I-I'm a little overwhelmed.  I have so many questions."  I wipe my teary eyes and breathe.  One prominent question surfaces.

"What happened?"  Nothing but breathing.  Slow, monotonous breathing.  Calculated, precise breathing.

“I left.”  Well that is an obvious answer.

"And what about Inuyasha?”  I almost don’t want to ask.  I almost don't want to know the answer, I’ve lived so long not knowing, why would knowing be so different. 

"He's dead."  He's dead.  I knew he would be.  I knew he was.  Some hidden part was secretly whispering he was still alive.  It was the same voice that told me to jump when I stood on the edge of tall buildings.

"He's dead?  How?  He's... gone?”

"He wouldn't have lived this long anyway.  Myoga said something about a cliff.  But I didn't pay it much attention."  I can hear the offhandedness in his tone and I want to scream at him, but instead.  "Why are you a stripper in Las Vegas?" 

There's a thread coming out of the hotel bed spread and all I want to do is pull it then watch it unravel, just like my dreams just did.

"I don't remember, I try to keep moving so people won't realize anything about me.”

"I see.  When did you leave Japan?”

"Many centuries ago.”

"Have you gone back?”

“No."

"Me neither."  There's silence, I close my eyes and see his sad eyes looking down at me from his tall height on the table.  He somehow still looked noble, formidable even, clad in nothing but tight leather, but I don't care about that.  I care about his sad eyes and nothing more.

"Do you want to go for coffee?  I just want to see you, so I can let go of the past and to face facts that you're alive so many ye-”

"Sure.  You don't have to ramble."  Cold, serious, to the point.  Normal.

I feel a smile spread across my lips.

xxx

End Chapter 1