Work Text:
When Inuyasha was young, he called his brother nii-sama, and meant all of the respect inherent in the title.
A round-faced angel of a child, it was difficult to hate him. When he smiled, it was toothy and exuberant and oblivious. When he cried it was loudly and without restraint. He did not know the meaning of 'diplomacy,' or 'manners,' or 'rules,' for that matter. He simply lived with all the joyous abandon of his heart.
Sesshoumaru loved him.
It was completely against his will, for he had nothing but contempt for Inuyasha's mother and found children distasteful in any case. However, there was something irrestistably beguiling about Inuyasha's enormous golden eyes crinkling at the corners when he was happy about something.
Sesshoumaru never smiled... but his eyes betrayed him sometimes by answering the warmth in his little brother's.
He thought nothing of leaving, the first time.
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When Sesshoumaru returned ten years later after experiencing the life of a soldier, he found a surly teenage Inuyasha who didn't love him anymore.
He tried to pretend that didn't hurt, but since he rarely had occasion to lie, he failed in silence and left again to hide the evidence written on his face. He had no way of knowing that leaving was what made Inuyasha decide not to love him anymore.
After that, Inuyasha called him nii-san with a grumble, and most of the respect was gone.
No one but Sesshoumaru noticed.
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When Inuyasha's mother died, Sesshoumaru did not attend the funeral.
When a weeping and bewildered Inuyasha came to his door once the rituals were concluded, he made the first consciously bad decision of his life and turned him back. What could he possibly say to the grief-stricken youth that would not sound trite? Nothing. There was nothing to say, and he could not bear to listen to Inuyasha fill the silence with his pain.
So he turned him away, trying not to see the betrayal in his little brother's eyes. It was not his fault, he told himself. He was not the right sort of person to give comfort to anyone.
The shoji made no sound when it slid shut before Inuyasha's dejected face, but Sesshoumaru heard the sound of finality anyway like the deep, dolorous knell of a gong.
Inuyasha left the following day, and did not come back when the sun set.
When next they met, Inuyasha called Sesshoumaru by his name.
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