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joiedecombatTitle: Things We Missed That Might Have Changed Our Lives
Fandom: Inuyasha
Characters: Miroku
Wordcount: 591
Status: Complete
Warnings: Vague spoilers through the Magatsuhi arc of the manga. A potentially wildly inaccurate portrayal of the Buddhist attitude towards death, but then again, Miroku is a terrible Buddhist. No actual character death, despite implications to the contrary.
Summary: Imagine the moments those lost hours hold. At the brink between life and death, Miroku reflects.
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ahumblepen's request: Miroku/Sango, things we missed that might have changed our lives, from Assemblage 23's "Horizon." It's... schmoopy. I may completely re-do the entire concept later this month. But for the time being...
He knows that he is dying.
The knowledge does not come as any particular surprise to Miroku. He has been dying for a long time; since Naraku's shouki cut its livid wounds into his body, reaching for his heart; since his father died and the kazaana opened in his hand. He'd had time in recent days to accept the fact that he was dying not just sometime in the future but any day now; he has pressed his luck farther and had more time than a flawed and worldly man has the right to ask for. Now that the day has arrived, he cannot claim it was not expected.
The end is coming more quietly than he'd anticipated, though. He'd prepared himself for a last blaze of - something; for disappearing into the roar of the kazaana... not for lying quietly in this dark no-place between life and death, with time to think about his life before its last moments ebb away.
He supposes he has Magatsuhi to thank for that. The bastard. May Inuyasha make his death quick and painful.
He would have liked to have beaten Naraku before it came to this, he reflects... but he does not think his soul will trouble itself much over that. Inuyasha will settle that score, too; Inuyasha and Kagome-sama and Sango.
He would have liked to have saved Kohaku for Sango, before the end.
He would have liked to have had a child.
He finds he cannot let go of these regrets as easily as he had meant to. But that's fitting. He would rather occupy his last moments with thoughts of Sango than spend them trying to empty his mind in preparation for his end. This death will not be the one that frees him from the cycle, whatever regrets he may choose to hold in his heart. She's worth that much. She deserves that much from him.
After all, he hasn't given her much else, has he? He's had his chances - there have been so many moments that he's felt the two of them stood on the brink of something important, when if he would only say the right words, make the right gesture, everything that he's hoped for would be his - but he has never felt free to give her more than the support that one companion in arms might give another, and his promise for an uncertain future that is not, now, going to come.
And he thinks now that it's better that he didn't. She's lost so much already. It wouldn't be fair of him to have taken this time for his own selfish pleasure, and then die on her this way. At least this way, he hopes, her grief will not last too long. Kagome-sama will be there to help her through it, and Shippo, and Inuyasha, too, in his crude way.
But still, he can't help but replay those moments in his memory, and imagine how different things might have been if he hadn't flubbed them. A touch to her shoulder, or her hair, instead of her (admittedly very fine) bottom. The right words, instead of the wrong ones. The truth instead of a casual quip.
Could it have changed everything? he wonders.
Will she only grieve more for what might have been, and never was?
Forgive me, Sango. She can't hear him, but he hopes that maybe it counts for something.
He hopes that he'll meet her again, somewhere along the cycle.
He hopes that, when he does, he has the wisdom to do things better.
He carries his hopes, and his regrets, with him into the dark.
Fandom: Inuyasha
Characters: Miroku
Wordcount: 591
Status: Complete
Warnings: Vague spoilers through the Magatsuhi arc of the manga. A potentially wildly inaccurate portrayal of the Buddhist attitude towards death, but then again, Miroku is a terrible Buddhist. No actual character death, despite implications to the contrary.
Summary: Imagine the moments those lost hours hold. At the brink between life and death, Miroku reflects.
Notes: Written for
ahumblepen's request: Miroku/Sango, things we missed that might have changed our lives, from Assemblage 23's "Horizon." It's... schmoopy. I may completely re-do the entire concept later this month. But for the time being...He knows that he is dying.
The knowledge does not come as any particular surprise to Miroku. He has been dying for a long time; since Naraku's shouki cut its livid wounds into his body, reaching for his heart; since his father died and the kazaana opened in his hand. He'd had time in recent days to accept the fact that he was dying not just sometime in the future but any day now; he has pressed his luck farther and had more time than a flawed and worldly man has the right to ask for. Now that the day has arrived, he cannot claim it was not expected.
The end is coming more quietly than he'd anticipated, though. He'd prepared himself for a last blaze of - something; for disappearing into the roar of the kazaana... not for lying quietly in this dark no-place between life and death, with time to think about his life before its last moments ebb away.
He supposes he has Magatsuhi to thank for that. The bastard. May Inuyasha make his death quick and painful.
He would have liked to have beaten Naraku before it came to this, he reflects... but he does not think his soul will trouble itself much over that. Inuyasha will settle that score, too; Inuyasha and Kagome-sama and Sango.
He would have liked to have saved Kohaku for Sango, before the end.
He would have liked to have had a child.
He finds he cannot let go of these regrets as easily as he had meant to. But that's fitting. He would rather occupy his last moments with thoughts of Sango than spend them trying to empty his mind in preparation for his end. This death will not be the one that frees him from the cycle, whatever regrets he may choose to hold in his heart. She's worth that much. She deserves that much from him.
After all, he hasn't given her much else, has he? He's had his chances - there have been so many moments that he's felt the two of them stood on the brink of something important, when if he would only say the right words, make the right gesture, everything that he's hoped for would be his - but he has never felt free to give her more than the support that one companion in arms might give another, and his promise for an uncertain future that is not, now, going to come.
And he thinks now that it's better that he didn't. She's lost so much already. It wouldn't be fair of him to have taken this time for his own selfish pleasure, and then die on her this way. At least this way, he hopes, her grief will not last too long. Kagome-sama will be there to help her through it, and Shippo, and Inuyasha, too, in his crude way.
But still, he can't help but replay those moments in his memory, and imagine how different things might have been if he hadn't flubbed them. A touch to her shoulder, or her hair, instead of her (admittedly very fine) bottom. The right words, instead of the wrong ones. The truth instead of a casual quip.
Could it have changed everything? he wonders.
Will she only grieve more for what might have been, and never was?
Forgive me, Sango. She can't hear him, but he hopes that maybe it counts for something.
He hopes that he'll meet her again, somewhere along the cycle.
He hopes that, when he does, he has the wisdom to do things better.
He carries his hopes, and his regrets, with him into the dark.
