All copywritten characters are the sole properties of their owners; no money is being made and no infringement is intended. "3 Libras" by A Perfect Circle is the song on the stereo - I make no claims to it, other than it is fun to play - once you down-tune far enough, that is. A small but significant note - someone once asked me to write a piece of dark erotica featuring Naraku and (adult, for chrissake!) Rin. That request turned itself into the story, "I'm Not Well, But I'm Better". I've always thought the key to real S&M is the control of another formidable will - by the most devastating means necessary, drowning in the play of power and pleasure. That is what these two are all about; power and pleasure. If you wonder at my thoughts about little Rin's powerful nature - even as a child - well, Sesshoumaru went to hell and back for her, neh? She must being doing something right.

Naraku is a physician with a dark secret and Rin, a nurse with a rather complex soul - please be warned for lightly mentioned drug use and violent sex. This plays itself off as a sort of afterward to "I'm Not Well..." but you don't need to know or care about that to enjoy this, I think. Just thought I'd do you the courtesy of mentioning it should I be wrong :) Enjoy.

Normally Rin hated to float to other units when the ICU was slow... especially during the midnight shift... but...

Tweaking the rate of the nitroglycerin drip before her smoky eyes, Rin couldn't keep the tiny grin from tickling the corner of her lips. The cardiac floor was like a mini-vacation. Integrillin, heparin... hell, even Doribax and vancomycin for the occasional infection – piece of cake. She could deal with the increase in patient load as long as... never mind.

"Nurse, can I have a drink of water?", the small woman in the bed asked her in a tiny voice, drawing her nurse back to reality.

"Just a tiny sip, Mrs. Qin – you're going for a heart cath in the morning and that means nothing by mouth after this, OK?", Rin smiled back, handing her bird-like patient a cup of cool water.

"Thank you; you're such a nice girl.", the patient tittered and settled back into her white puff of bedding, looking even more like a little silver-haired bird.

"Indeed – our hospital's nurses are very nice girls." drawled a familiar rasping voice too close to Rin's back for any sort of comfort.

What the fuck was he doing here at this hour?

"If you need anything or have any concerns, Mrs. Qin, please call me on your nurse call-light...", Rin smiled at her patient, ignoring the tall doctor standing in the doorway completely, attempting to get the hell out that room and out of reach before she could say something incredibly unprofessional in front of a patient.

Naraku Onigumo, MD strode into the room and putting a long pale hand across the back of her neck cut off all hope of escape completely. Drawing her back to the foot of the bed, he made Rin stand next to him as he did a leisurely consult visit for the sweet, smiling little bird-woman with a piss-poor heart.

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, Rin Taisho, RN ground her teeth at the tall physician taking his sweet time, discussing past history and current symptoms. She hated Onigumo so much – he was never nice to a patient... unless it suited his purpose, which tonight apparently was to make her wait at the foot of the bed, doing nothing – getting further and further behind in her own work, damn it! After reassuring the elderly woman laying before him, that her "lovely nurse" would be on hand for any further assistance, Dr. Onigumo too-politely dismissed himself from the room, without so much as a glance at the annoyed nurse at the foot of the bed.

"What a nice man! You should see if he's not married, dear...", Mrs. Qin tittered up at her through crinkled eyes, clearly enamored of her new Pulmonologist.

Rin Taisho just wanted to fucking scream.

Sanitizing her hands as she walked out of the room, Rin wondered how many of her patients now wanted her undivided attention and how many of those IV pumps going off were hers. The hand twisting her hair into a painful knot at the back of her head was the straw the broke the camel's back.

"Get your fucking sick hands off me!", Rin snarled at the mobile cardiac monitor that currently had her hair in a tangled death-grip. Rin cursed her luck, the idiot kami and last but certainly not least, she cursed Naraku Onigumo, whose fault every vile thing in her life owed itself. Father told her not to get involved with demons; too late to listen to him now...

The charge nurse and a few other staff members gaped at her like beached goldfish. Doctor Onigumo was immersed in his dictation behind a rack of charts, but Rin didn't miss his broad back shaking in devious glee at her embarrassment. Demons indeed.

"Do you need a hand?", a friendly nurse's aid asked her, trying not to laugh.

"Yeah – you can just shoot me now.", Rin dead-panned back with a heavy sigh, fiddling with the tele-mon tangled in her hair.

He was still there – and worse, he was busy. A stack of charts found their way into the discharge rack.

The charge nurse got off the phone as Rin was passing the desk with a cup of pills and an IV bag. Her smiling face is a bad sign, Rin thought to herself and tried to walk just a little faster.

"Rin, it looks like Dr. Onigumo is discharging most of his patients tonight and the super says the ER is dead, so we're going to cancel you for the rest of the night. It looks like you're going home, you lucky dog!", the charge nurse lobbed after Rin's scurrying form. "Hang those up and give report to Asa and Motoko, please."

"Damn it...", Rin ground out as she ducked into the next patient's room.

She saw him check his watch and had a flashback of checking that same mechanism for the time as a grey, gritty dawn came upon her, nervous and hungover in a stranger's bathroom. Giving report on her final patient to the blonde nurse before her, Rin nearly threw her hands up in victory when the tall, violet-clad figure of her worst enemy unfolded himself casually from the desk and stalked off to she didn't care where! Tossing his elaborately braided hair across his back, Rin remembered the gruesome sight that queered the otherwise gorgeous sight of Naraku's naked form... his back, a monstrous scar...

"Rin, you stopped talking – are you ok?", the nurse before her asked, concerned.

"Uh – yes, I'm fine. Sorry. Where was I?", she smiled nervously.

"Integrillin drip. You know something? They say he's dating some nurse up on SICU.", the younger woman replied with a conspiratorial smirk.

"Oh my god – are you fucking serious?", Rin groaned out, forgetting herself. Kagome...

"I know! Lucky bitch, right?", the other girl completely missed her meaning with a hungry smile.

She knew he'd be waiting for her. Rin walked out the ER doors after waving to the security guard, trying to give the big off-duty cop a genuine smile. Maybe he'd do something to save her from what she knew was waiting for her outside those glass doors. It was threatening sleet tonight and Naraku's black, wool-clad form seemed to suck her out into the cold, wet darkness from where he stood, half in and out of his professional form, dark cobalt lenses hiding his monstrous red eyes, his morbid purple lab coat peeking in the wind from under the dread black wings of his ubiquitous overcoat. The thin wisps of shining black hair escaping enforced captivity in his long serpentine braid caught her eyes as they strained in the swirling eddies of the cold late Autumn wind.

Beautiful and dangerous and all hers – whether Rin liked it or not.

The low growl of the large black car behind her lover's leaning form made her think of Charon and just to be a wise-ass, she fished into her pockets, pulled out a quarter and threw it at Naraku as she reached for the door.

"Let's go, Ferryman – take me to hell already." she muttered, unimpressed that he ignored the coin utterly, letting it bounce off his shoulder with a dull thud.

"You can't always get what you want, my girl.", Naraku whispered down into her ear, helping Rin into his car, helping himself to a handful of her ass in the process. A wicked smile missed his mad eyes utterly.

"Dr. Mengele!", Rin hissed back at her escort, who leaned over her with smoldering malevolence.

"Watch your tongue or I'll gag you right here, little bitch.", Naraku hissed back, his wicked voice a bass snarl, gripping his cock through his elegant doctor's garb. "Or don't you like the idea of showing off your great catch to the rest of the hospital?" He asked Rin quietly, stroking the side of her clenched jaw with his cold fingertips of devastating gentleness, making nerves sing fire in her ticklish cheek.

"Don't you dare!

"Oh yes, my girl, I believe I fucking love the idea, the feel of your beautiful pouting lips swallowing my cock inch by hard inch right here, right now. Come on, suck me.", Naraku whispered down to her, slowly massaging his groin, his broad, tall frame cutting off any escape back to the ER, trapping the suddenly dry-throated Rin in a very... compromising position.

"Naraku, get in the fucking car!" Rin hissed, her cheeks flamed in the flux of twin embarrassment and sudden desire.

Her tormentor laughed wickedly, shock himself off within his voluminous black coat and calmly helped himself to the driver's side of the idling car.

Sleet turned to thick wet snow as they drove in heavy silence. Every time Naraku shifted his marred back against the seat in unconscious discomfort, Rin was reminded of the taste of his skin, the feel of his captive body in her slick hand. The longer he said nothing to her, concentrating on the treacherous roads, the more she became aware of the man next to her.

After an eternity remembering the feel of Naraku's fist in her hair and hating herself for the fine tremor of desire now coursing under her skin, Rin tried to talk her way out her ball of confusion; it was her nature to talk when the going got weird.

"Where are we going?", she spoke up loudly, her voice echoing off the massive dash.

"Why do you suddenly care?", Naraku shot back without looking at her, neutering any further attempt at a civil discussion.

"Why do I suddenly care? Because I should be at work, dumb shit! Because I'm suddenly hurtling down some lost highway with my insane junkie boyfriend going god-knows-where! Fuck – I don't even like you, Naraku! Why me?", Rin blurted out, throwing her hands up and vented her grievances to the oncoming night.

She had time to see Naraku narrow his maroon eyes down at her and then she was holding on for dear life as he hit the brakes too hard, sending the car into a sickening fishtail on the slushy road. Rin found all the air had suddenly left her lungs in a shocked instant and all she could do was open her mouth on dead air where a scream was just dying to manifest – if it could have. The world before her eyes was a sick tilt-a-whorl for about 30 seconds until Naraku steered into the skid and the big black machine threw them back on the straight and narrow, happily eating down the miles towards their final destination.

"How sweet, Taisho – you called me your 'boyfriend'.", Naraku smiled down at her with infinite malice.

"Yeah, well – the truth hurts. Naraku, why the hell do you have to keep ruining my life?", Rin ground out with bitter humor, hiding her red face against the passenger seat.

"Don't blame yourself on me, bitch.", Naraku snarled suddenly and they continued their journey in pressured silence. Hate and desire twined visibly within the dark physician's hard eyes and each time Rin allowed herself the sin of looking up at him, she found he was looking askance at her...

She had been here before, damn it. Left to fend for herself in the den of her twin-manifest enemy with nothing but her purse, her well-worn kit of female resourcefulness. At least she had underwear this time... Rin mused bitterly as she bathed the scent of sickness and disinfectant off of her small body. Steam rose in waves around her and though the bathroom she found herself occupying was both bright and spacious, she kept seeing dark waves of amorphous monsters in the crack of the door. Rin wondered if Naraku was watching her with his mad red eyes, livid with weird fire in his beautifully cold white face. She wondered if the escaping humidity was making his hair writhe in frizzy waves about his taunt body – covered in wounds, both healed and unhealed. She wondered in a sick flash if the sight of her wet and naked made his cock hard.

"Ugh... I'm fucking sick in the head.", Rin mumbled to herself and scrubbed harder at her soap-slimy hair.

But still, she found her eyes wondering back to the crack of the bathroom door and its sliver of waiting darkness. Each time she caught herself looking for her dark lover's hungry gaze, she berated herself. Fingers sliding with soap along her hips, her thighs, Rin wondered what was really behind her blushing anger. Self-reflection with subsequent honesty was not her strong suit; that was what he gave her, what he dragged kicking and screaming from her, Rin frowned at her hands as they drew soapy trails down the glass encasing her in heat and denial.

Caring is what I do... !, her own shrill frustration rang in her too-sharp memory and Naraku's hard voice whipped back at her instantly:

But it does not have to be all you are...!

"You don't see me...", she whispered to herself and laying her suddenly still mind with its pretty dark head against the watery glass, just let the shower beat her into tiny wet submission.

She was surprised he didn't come to somehow torment her during her shower absolutions. There was no sign of her tormentor, except for a razor which she gleefully left full of stubble on purpose. He might not have ever existed except for in her smoky memories. And the the fact that somewhere in the dark of their secluded snowy refuge there was an oddly winsome music coming from another part of the cabin.

… I threw you the obvious and you flew with it on your back... a name in your recollection, down among a million same... difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed and passed over...

Strange down-tuned notes slid in rueful reflection and a sonorous voice wailed out the tragedy of knowing too much in her ears. Something threw itself across her own back, like a premonition of doom. Rin didn't like it – she suddenly had doubts about everything. Looking for something to cover her nakedness, she grabbed the nearest non-towel object and went out to face the music.

Naraku was lying on his belly upon the floor in front of a raging fire, his normal pallor a hellish cast of oranges and pinks upon a large white flokati rug. His long, tall form stretched out lazily, his hair still bound in its braid. His dark head lay upon his crossed arms, a thin dark shirt riding high across his ribs on one side in uncaring abandon, covering his horrific scar from her casual eyes. Somehow his long, bare feet made him look even more disarmed, Rin thought to herself for a second as she tried to move silently and enjoy the still moment of her lover at rest.

Moving with uncommon grace, Rin held the long indigo yukata closed when the arm of a couch pulled softly at her as she moved slowly closer to the fire's warmth.

The song continued to sway and slide against her ears, the voice pleading with her to not disappoint any more than she already had.

… I see you naked but oblivious and you don't see me...

A familiar longish, smallish black leather box taunted her from its place on the coffee table. A used insulin syringe sat quietly beside the box and screamed silent obscenities in her ears. Sublimaze, most likely... perhaps only morphine this time, Rin thought bitterly and ground her teeth together in dull red anger. Damn him!

… Here I am expecting just a little bet too much from the wounded... see through, see you...

She watched the rise and fall of his back and counted...

"I am still breathing, Taisho. You may quit looking around for the Narcan now." Naraku Onigumo's muffled voice drawled up to her through the baffle of his crossed arms. She could hear the dark smile on his lips from where she stood, one side of her on fire with blazing heat, the other dark and damp, chilled to the bone.

Silk rushed like solid water over his body as the large man before her pushed himself onto his back. Rin noted he did so with not even a stifled hiss of pain... and though she knew the reason for Naraku's madness, his addiction, still she hated him utterly for such weakness... pitied him, needed him, wanted to heal him... wanted to devour him...

...You don't see me... You don't see me... You don't see me at all...

"You look beautiful in my clothes – now take them off.", Naraku growled up at her and beckoned his tumultuous mistress to him on the floor.

Rin could see the fire-light jumping in Naraku's pin-point eyes, she saw desire and conquest and above all, she saw need. Even with the narcotics slurring through his veins, Naraku was hard as a stone for her. Power between them shifted and writhed and Rin felt a jolt of black frenzy to be the one looming over the supine form of her demon lover, descending at her whim for whatever her pleasure required. She stepped closer and let the deep blue robe slip down, once shoulder at a time. Her hand still clutched the mass of scattering silk to her solar plexus and as she knelt down slowly, her breasts were next to be exposed to the searing heat radiating from the fireplace before her. Naraku pushed himself up on one arm to join her in battle but before his dread voice could say anything to her, Rin issued her own command. Her voice was as hard as his body and just as hungry.

"You will turn around."

His eyes narrowed a fraction in irritation but Naraku did as he was told without a single word, facing the raging inferno and denying her his doomed beauty utterly.

Letting the robe fall open completely, Rin shook the sleeves down to her elbows and set to work unbinding her lover's waist-length captive hair. She could see the outline of his whip-hard body through the black silk of his own clothing. Resting one long arm on a bent leg, he bore her occasional pulling of his waving hair with stony silence. As her fingers made slow progress against the Gordian complexity of Dr. Onigumo's hair, Rin felt strange planes and valleys against the heels of her twisting hands as she traveled down his back; reminders of the seared wasteland of the man's flesh just under the thin covering of silk.

When she was untangling the ends of his full black hair, Rin remembered that the man before her was a tragedy, a fallen angel. Having stripped the malicious butcher Onigumo from her damned lover Naraku, Rin Taisho began to strip Naraku from his clothes. Her hands traveled around his ribs to the buttons of his shirt and began blindly to undo each one. When she undid the second one, she felt Naraku's hot hands on her bent legs, caressing what he could reach hungrily. Rin smiled to herself and slowed down. She scooted against Naraku's back, molding herself against his dark side and perching her chin upon his hard shoulder, concentrating on the feeling of trying to blindly pull him from his shirt. Fine downy hairs met her fingertips as she worked down the slow bellows of his fire-baked stomach. Concentrating on her work, Rin blew her small breaths against her lover's dark mantle of wild hair, tormenting him in his enforced stillness with the pressure of her own, cupping his marred body in her own with unconscious possession.

Grabbing her hands suddenly in his own, Naraku simply ripped the remaining buttons open and ran her hands up his fire-hot chest with a rumbling growl. He split her intentions, guiding one of her captive hands to his throat and the other into his lap, teasing her fingers with both life and death. Naraku thrust himself into her hand and closed her small hand around his throat. Rin could feel his heart hammering just under the thin skin and for a moment thought of trying to still it – that thought flew across her mind as Naraku once again pumped himself in her tight grip and the heavy breath that vibrated across her fingers decided her utterly; he wanted her to simply do whatever she had a mind to do to him, be it pain, sex or death.

Naraku's brutal honesty had always been his most disarming weapon against her. It was their eternal battle that set them both aflame. Rin allowed herself to run her nails against his carotid pulse, remembering the taste of metal in her mouth, remembering his own hungry words in the face of her self-righteous compassion. Leaning up and nosing her way through his hair to one ear, she whispered another throaty command.

"Give me what is mine.", Rin smiled into Naraku's captive ear, punctuating her will with a ironic laugh.

Quick as a serpent, Naraku had twisted her hand out of his silk-covered lap and pulling her by the hand around his throat, stretched himself out on the thick white flokati. Rin found herself suddenly exposed to the full heat of the roaring fireplace for a split second then found herself astride her dark lover, her hand still held captive at his throat. Naraku arched his back quickly, grinding her against him, tearing out a moan she never knew she was holding from him, causing her to momentarily tighten her grip on his throat. The unbidden gurgle of asphyxia lept from Naraku's open mouth and he curled up instinctively towards her, digging his own blunt nails into her arms in supplication.

"Take what is yours if you can, bitch.", he smiled up at her, grinding himself into her spread core once again, reflected fire taunting her in his crazy red eyes, panting against her steely grip.

Rin leaned down into Naraku's leering face, nose to nose. He let go of her hand around his throat to grip her hips. Rin thought of what she might do if he let her...

Instead she kissed him and though Naraku open his mouth to her advances, she did not take him.

She felt him twitch against her again and knew dominion.

Rin kissed him again, slower this time and delved into his open mouth with her own but stopped suddenly when Naraku engaged her tongue with his own, pulling herself to once again hover over his fire-lit face.

She saw frustration begin to surface in the taunt lines of his narrowing eyes, along his aquiline nose and Rin let herself admit that her lover was beautiful. So dangerously beautiful! Like Narcissus she'd fallen into his reflecting pool and knew she'd never emerge intact. He didn't want her to.

Again, after her momentary reflection, Rin once again kissed the man in her tightening grasp, slowly, licking at his lips, his tongue, the inside of his cheek, enjoying herself completely. When Naraku tried to join her with his own limber tongue, she tightened her grip upon his throat, which stilled him a handful of times...

Until he could no longer stand her teasing and simply gripped her head tightly to his face and let her choke him for his trespass. Nerves sang in her mouth at his invasion and angered at the loss of power, Rin dug her nails into his throat, earning her a gurgling groan of absolute yet somehow sickening pleasure from the man beneath her.

Pulling hard out of his iron grip, Rin's heaving breaths cleared the fog of dark desire from her mind enough for her to realize what she was doing.

"This is madness, Naraku...! What is it that you want – do you want me to kill you?", Rin heaved out between shaking breaths, holding herself up with moderate difficulty as Naraku again pumped himself against her soaked core. Crescent-shaped indents on his white throat accused her of depravities, and made Rin wonder just what she really was capable of. But something clenched hard within her at the thought of Naraku at her mercy – god, but that was so fucking hot... it is does not have to be all you are...!

"My beautiful liar, girl – what more do I have to do to make you real? You want what is yours?", Naraku smiled a filthy grin up at her and cleared his hoarse throat once more.

Grabbing her bodily, he shoved her back down his legs enough to free himself from the captivity of his remaining clothing, only to bring her back down to grind hard against him, flesh to wet flesh.

"This is yours, so take it.", he smiled and then moaned when she herself slipped hard against him.

He once again pulled one of her stiff arms forward and drug her nails across his heart, laughing once more at her shocked and needy face.

'This is yours, so take it, my girl.", Naraku growled up at her, the smile evaporating from his snarling lips.

Her other hand he once more placed at his throat.

"This is yours, so take it, my little lying bitch. You don't like me, you love me – you want me. You need me. So take me. Tell the truth for once in your life and shame the Devil." he cursed her with sudden throaty vehemence.

"I hate you, Naraku.", Rin whispered meaning it and so much more, thrusting herself hard down upon his offered cock with a growl all her own.

Rin rode Naraku, snarling back when his face drew up in a rictus of wicked pleasure. She poured her desire, her frustrations, her insecurities, her entire soul's twisted permutations into Naraku's brutal pitiless love and matched him thrust for thrust, pain for pain. Moments stretched into sweating eons of flesh slapping against flesh – fire-bright and midnite cold. Naraku flipped her onto her back and Rin gripped his throat with both hands of her own black desire to hurt, to force her mastery over the wicked owner of her now-tainted heart – anything just to hang on for dear life.

Sweating hands struggling for grip on her snapping hips as he fucked her senseless, Naraku snarled obscenities into her own shadowed face. Rin could only tighten her hands around his throat as she was held, stabbed and remade. When the tightening coil of insanity burst within her like an exploding star, Naraku, gurgling – choking in her death-grip, slammed himself within her yowling body, and clawed at her hands – coming in convulsions of blue-black strangulation and glory.

Days passed in delirium and once again Rin found herself at home in the ICU where she belonged. She could hear Kagome talking to someone, over the incessant beeps and wails of machinery life and death. Titrating a propofol drip, Rin didn't realize how loud everything around her had been until no one was talking suddenly. What the hell was everyone so quiet about suddenly out there?

She walked out to the main desk and her stomach hit the tile at her feet in what Rin was sure was an audible splat. The black braid hung down the familiar violet-coated back before her. But it was Kagome's voice that chilled her heart and flamed her cheeks.

"Doctor Onigumo, what happened to you?", Kagome actually managed to sound like she really cared, which was a really, REALLY bad sign.

He must have sensed her behind him, because the dark physician turned suddenly, giving Rin his profile and the best possible view of the blue-black bruises of her finger prints around his throat. His dried-blood eyes narrowed a fraction at her suddenly wan face and turned quickly back to the pile of charts before him, dismissing Rin utterly. Hate welled up hard in her gut for the prick Dr. Onigumo and Rin stalked back stiffly to her patient – cursing his name to any god who would listen. Fucking crazy junkie masochist mutherfucker... gorgeous... hot... insatiable...! The gods just smiled at her and continued to drool idiot light down on her embarrassed little head.

"The truth hurts, Ms. Higurashi – and you'll tell Nurse Taisho to come out here at once; I shouldn't have to wait on you nurses to complete my rounds.", Naraku's deep voice rasped out – then cracked into a hoarse croak.

Kagome blinked once, twice and then lowered her own voice. "What did she do to you?", the nervous charge nurse quietly asked the papers before her wide eyes.

Naraku idly scratched the deep purples and greens blooming on the side of his throat and smiled.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about...", Naraku snorted derisively.