Cure
by Scribe Figaro

Summary: Kikyou has a fever, and the only prescription is more Kagome.

I don't want to be right
Baby, every single night
I could tell you a thing
About taking your time
-Brad Sucks

Kagome moved quietly through the forest, her brown loafers swishing through the grass, her fingers brushing aside branches so they did not catch in her hair. The shindamachuu weaved pale ribbons in the moonlight, moving lazily before her, guiding her way to the priestess. Kikyou's barrier tickled her skin as she passed through it, its prickling caress an incontestable command that Kagome should pass, and all others, if there were others, may approach the priestess no further at this time. This was to be a private meeting.

Kagome found her in a seated position against a fallen tree, where the old trunk had curved inward, so even in her inert state she had not fallen to one side or the other. Her hands were clasped over her waist, and her legs were drawn up under her red hakama. To her right was a strung bow, and seven arrows, planted head-first into the dirt, as an archer would prepare them for battle. To her left lay a quiver, empty and abandoned. She bore no visible wounds; one would conclude the attack she had prepared for never came. Naraku had been looking for her, to finish the job, and he had failed.

She knelt beside the priestess. "Kikyou," she said. Kagome touched her shoulder and winced as she felt the shouki brimming beneath her skin.

Kikyou made a short, soft, feminine sound, half grunt and half moan, and her eyes opened.

"Kagome," she whispered.

"Kikyou..." Kagome's eyes welled with tears that she only barely held back; the strain of the priestess's voice was hard to bear. The woman was dying. Kikyou had taken so much of Naraku's shouki into her body that it was beyond imagining.

"I could try to purify the shouki, but it's so much..." She could lay her hands on Kikyou for years and still not extract more than half of the poison inside her chest.

The priestess raised one pale hand, and slipping two fingers into the collar of Kagome's shirt, brought the girl's face close to hers. Kagome brought her ear to the woman's mouth.

"I lack...the strength...to explain...in words..."

The woman's fingers trailed up Kagome's neck, stopping at her chin, placing thumb and forefinger at either side of her jaw. Kagome felt a strange hollowness in her chest, a twinge of fear and anticipation, and allowed Kikyou to turn her head with featherlight touch. Kagome stared into Kikyou's half-closed eyes, each pupil reflecting a speck of blue-white moonlight.

The priestess lay her fingers alongside Kagome's left cheek and began to move toward her ear, and as her thumb followed it brushed along her mouth as if accidentally, but at the corner of her mouth she stopped, and pressed her thumb against her lower lip, and slipped her thumb into Kagome's mouth, just a little bit, and the pad of her thumb was warm and salty on Kagome's tongue, and only when she drew her hand away did Kagome realize she had been suckling.

The soul inside Kagome linked her to the priestess, but this did not mean she could read the woman's mind. Still, sometimes she could feel a thing inside her, resonant with emotions she knew were not her own: echoes of Kikyou's soul that Kagome could sense only when the emotions had once been overpowering to the priestess. Kikyou's rage and pain and hate were barely whispers to Kagome; calm thoughts and introspection were impossible to read.

But the sweat of Kikyou's thumb tasted like words, and the words tasted like Do not listen with your ears.

Kikyou's thumb, wet with saliva, traced her ear, and then her hand was at the nape of her neck, her fingers weaving into her hair, shampooed and conditioned and, Kagome knew, altogether unlike any hair Kikyou had ever touched before, and Kikyou stroked Kagome's hair for a moment, and smiled - how strange it was, to see her smile! - and brought Kagome's mouth to her own.

Violent resistance was Kagome's knee-jerk reaction to nearly anything unusual and suspect, and indeed the word osuwari was ready on her lips before she realized that this was not Inuyasha doing this strange thing. But she could not bring herself to resist, to argue with, this weakened, this thrice-dead priestess. Kikyou is a girl. A priestess. Not a pervert. If she wants me to kiss her, I will kiss her.

Kagome kissed Kikyou.

It's nothing, she thought. Just a kiss. People in Europe kiss like it's bowing, like it's shaking hands. Casual. Perfunctory. Harmless.

Kikyou's lips felt like Listen with your mouth.

Paralyzed confusion claimed Kagome as she felt Kikyou's tongue slip between her lips, and when it brushed against her teeth it felt like Give me your tongue, so that I may speak with it.

Kagome gripped Kikyou's shoulder, and thought, This is not casual. This is not sisterly. Girls do not kiss each other with open mouths.

Kikyou's tongue prised at Kagome's teeth, explored that space between her teeth and her cheeks, flicked at her gums, and Kagome made an "oh" of surprise, and taking advantage of her slackened jaw, Kikyou's tongue slipped inside, and coaxed Kagome's tongue into her own mouth.

Kikyou's saliva tasted like There is one thing you can do that will save me.

A rush of heat filled Kagome, and suddenly she knew, she understood, she experienced Kikyou, as surely as she read her mind, as surely as she wore her skin. Thoughts and feelings, whispers and secrets, all spoken in the language of intimate touch. Never had the truth been so clear to her, the mystery of the relationship between her and Kikyou. She had always thought of Kikyou as her spiritual ancestor, but that was not even close to the truth. Kagome was not a descendant of Kikyou. She was not a reincarnation of her soul, nor was one soul split between them. Their soul was one soul, ageless and indivisible, incarnate in both of them simultaneously, sustaining and animating their physical bodies. Each incarnation of this soul could exist without being fully aware of the other, not because they were two pieces of one whole, but because they were two ends of a string, one so long neither of them could bundle up the slack and ever hope to find the other.

Kikyou's tongue was electric. Indeed, how else could Kagome describe the circuit their soul made, the wire that extended outward from Kagome's center, invisible, timeless, coursing outward into limitless dimensions, threading through countless eyelets of time and space, only to come back, here, only to return to her in the form of Kikyou's kiss? How could Kagome resist the mysterious, boundless energy that flowed from Kagome to Kikyou, the resonating loop of their soul, the spark-gap of their mouths? What impossible powers radiated forth from their contact?

Kagome buried her hands in Kikyou's hair, turned her head, drove her tongue deeper, jabbing at Kikyou's tongue, demanding an equally forceful response. Kikyou, stoic Kikyou, moaned into Kagome's mouth. Kagome felt Kikyou's body as her own, and she could feel Kikyou feel Kagome's body as her own. She tasted Kikyou's mouth and she tasted Kikyou tasting Kagome's mouth. She felt Kikyou's words inside her own chest.

The powers we have are the powers of our sex, the power to bind spirit to earth, the power to create life. People forget that birth is magic because it happens so often; or they pretend it is not magic, because it offends men to know the gods have not found them fit for this power. To heal, to purify, is only to take that same magic and focus it. When you lay your hands on a person and dispel shouki, and when you hold an arrow and imbue it with spiritual energy, that power is the same as a mother. Think of your belly, and imagine the power required to stretch it to such a size to allow a child to grow inside you. Think of your vagina, and imagine the power required to spread it so wide that a living infant can pass through. Think of your breasts, and imagine the power required to turn them into milk. All these things are as magical as a sealing arrow, or a purifying touch, and more so.

She did not hear with her ears, but with her soul, with her body, with her skin. Each word a featherlight touch on her face, on the flesh behind her ears, on her scalp and neck and shoulders. Each word a pleasure and a promise of greater pleasure. She felt the warmth of her body, and the warmth of Kikyou's body, and all reason, all propriety, fell aside, washed away by the imperative not of her body, but of her soul, to rejoin itself, to make contact.

"I need to see your shouki wounds," Kagome lied, uncertain if she actually broke the kiss to say the words, uncertain if she actually leaned away from the priestess so that she could see anything. Certain only of placing her hands on Kikyou's upper chest, gripping the material of her white hakui robe, pulling the robe off her shoulders. Kikyou's left shoulder bare, the skin warm, the strangely intimate sensation of tracing the hollow of her shoulder. Her right shoulder bare, rough, laced with jagged hairline cracks, shouki brimming beneath. A puncture wound scabbed over a deep and merciless infection. Kagome's right hand traced along a bloodless zigzag that approached perilously close to the woman's heart, and then found uninterrupted skin in the space just above and between her breasts. Pressing her palm here for a moment, and then turning her hand clockwise, Kagome's fingers slipped beneath the white garment, finding the swell of soft flesh and tracing its soft contour, bringing the heel of her palm to the underside of her left breast, splaying her fingers, lifting, squeezing. Kikyou's breast was warm and heavy in her hand. Her nipple stiffened against her palm and Kagome realized she wanted to suckle it.

Kagome moaned in Kikyou's mouth.

Yes, Kagome. Our bodies are as one, one soul, one being. Let us teach each other, Kagome, what it is for each of us, to see her body through the eyes of another, to feel her body through the hands of another. These clothes conceal these bodies, which are ours to share; strip me of them, and let yourself be stripped. Let us be pure, Kagome. Let us be naked.

There was the body of Kagome, and the body of Kikyou, and they were separate bodies, and that was unbearable. In her mind Kagome knew the strangeness, the wrongness, of the desire that coiled up in her chest, in her belly, and between her legs. But her heart pounded, a drum-beat felt throughout her body, which her hands took as marching orders. Her mind went to work, coming up with reasons and excuses for the things it could not stop her body from doing, and she knew there were medical reasons, healing reasons, good reasons, for following the priestess's instructions.

Finally breaking their kiss, Kagome's hands gripped the ties of Kikyou's red hakama, and began to pull, and the knot dissolved. Her hands pulled the material down, over her knees, and beneath that was the thin obi that Kagome untied, and then the white hakui, which Kagome spread open. And then there was only Kikyou laid bare atop her open robe, with her hakama a pile of red pleats and cords about her feet. Kagome took in pale skin, soft breasts, brown nipples, the dark patch of hair where her thighs joined, bare legs, and tabi socks.

Heat welled within Kagome. The scars of shouki did little to mar Kikyou's beauty; if Kagome did not look too closely, she could think that the the ink-black jagged lines that radiated from her right shoulder may have been a tattoo. And yet Kagome could not help but look closely at her wound, as she could not help but look at every part of her. And the lines were too sharp to be broken flesh; they were the fracture lines of porcelain, of glass, and Kagome saw Kikyou as herself, as the woman in the mirror, that woman in the mirror, that one time.

A year ago, or less, and no one was home but she locked her bedroom door anyway, and she opened her closet door so she could see herself in the full-length mirror that was on the inside of the door, the mirror with spiderweb-cracks at the upper left corner (she had a box of paperback books that she placed precariously on the top shelf; as soon as she closed the door there was a bang and crack and the box was on the floor and the mirror was broken) and she looked at herself, really looked, and she thought the woman in the mirror (the girl, you're still a girl) was strangely different, more attractive than she allowed herself to think she was. And she watched the girlwoman in the mirror as she pulled off her blouse, her skirt, as she twisted and turned and showed Kagome her plain white undergarments, smiling and blushing and giggling at the unusual attention. And she watched the girlwoman suddenly turn serious, and reach behind her back, and as she allowed her bra to tumble to the floor. And she examined herself still, cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples, watching, smiling, enjoying her body. And she watched her pull down her underpants, step out of them with one foot and then the other, and lazily test the texture of her pubic hair with her fingertips. She turned again, admiring the curves of her hips, her belly, her buttocks, seeing her body as something desirable, something that men would want. Something she could share with another, if she wanted to, but she didn't want to, not right now. But still she imagined the boys in her class - no boy in particular, not even Inuyasha, but some faceless, anonymous amalgam of male desire - and she imagined them looking at her now, wanting her. A ridiculous fantasy struck her, and she thought of herself at the head of her classroom, and the boys were sitting in their chairs, staring at her but too afraid to move, and someone had removed all the desks, all the furniture but the chairs they sat upon, so they could not hide their desire. They watched her undress, watched her touch herself, and they grimaced and fidgeted in their chairs, unable to conceal their erections from her, and she smiled devilishly as they gripped their chairs in white-knuckle embarrassment, as their penises strained painfully against their trousers. And pleasure came to her, as one by one they gasped and moaned and shuddered, as they muttered I can't and not here, as they lifted their hips and the apex of their tented trousers turned dark and wet, as she made them come without touching them, without them touching themselves. Pleasure came to her as they were defeated, as she reveled in her power over them, the power of her body, her movement, her sexuality. And Kagome lowered herself to the floor, and spread her legs, and the woman in the mirror did the same, and together they touched themselves, and watched each other touch themselves. Together they explored, were explored, watched and were watched, together they whispered and moaned and cried out, together they came, together they stretched out on the bedroom floor, together they lay.

"You were there, then?" Kagome whispered. "That time ... and every time ..."

We are bound as one, Kagome, even if you cannot feel it at every moment. When the wind blows you can feel the air that surrounds you and touches you, but when the wind is still that air remains. We perceive each other best when our emotions are strongest, but do not be misled that such emotions must be those of hatred and jealousy and fear. When you lock your bedroom door, when you close off the entire world so that you can open that spiritual gateway into yourself, your energy resonates with me. When you say the words that are not words, your voice summons me. When your energy reaches its apex, and the world drops away from you, the place you find yourself, if only for a few moments, is the place between us, the place where we are one soul and one body. I meet you there, Kagome. I have always met you there. So long as you continue to call for me in your crisis, I shall always answer.

Kagome knew what it was to find that special place inside herself, beyond herself, to explore the secrets of her body, secrets just for herself, and yet feel as if she was somehow sharing them with another, someone safe, someone who understood and did not smirk or judge. She knew what it was to close her eyes and float away and see herself, what it was to feel so sure she was touching someone else's body, to feel equally sure her body was being touched by another. She knew what it was to make this strange and wonderful connection, and now, only now, could she give a name to that mystery.

"Kikyou," she said, and as she said it she reached forward, and grasped Kikyou's left knee with her hand, and with the heel of her palm pushed her left leg away from her right, and made Kikyou spread out before her.

Kagome's boldness shocked herself for a moment, and there was the pang of fear, of dread, of a joke that had gone too far. But Kikyou knew, and through that strange conduit that connected them, whispered reassurance.

I invite you, Kagome, to touch my body as you would touch your own. If you ever wished to suckle your own breast, my breasts are yours to suckle. If you ever wished to study your own vulva, my vulva is yours to study. Praise me, with your eyes, with your touch. Let us share this impossible intimacy, the intimacy of two bodies and one soul.

Kagome palmed Kikyou's sex, and when she spread her labia, when she traced a finger down the length of her wetness and found her core and tested its depth and tightness, when Kagome began to finger Kikyou, Kagome felt it and felt it and felt it.

Inside your body is the power to purify unimaginable amounts of shouki, to make the cure of all cures. But it is not so simple as laying hands, of touching something impure with your finger and making it pure. We limit our own powers, because we dare not express them except through such innocent gestures. We cannot bear another to feel the power of our womanhood except through our hands. We cannot bear another to see our source, our secret and special place. But I speak of power that cannot be separated from its source, a power that we cannot reveal without also revealing ourselves. Those worthy of the honor of our special place are few, or none at all. But you and I are one soul and one person, Kagome, each able to experience the other's body as her own, if we allow ourselves such intimacy.

Kikyou's hands were suddenly beneath Kagome's skirt, and stroked her sex over her panties, and one finger drew the material aside, and bared Kagome's vulva.

We are priestesses, Kagome, and we are vessels.

Her fingers stroked quietly, testing her contours, finding her wetness.

As vessels, we can be empty.

One finger touched her, at the entrance, and stopped, only for a moment, and Kagome whimpered.

As vessels, we can be filled.

Kikyou's finger slipped inside, just for a moment, and Kagome cried out.

This is our source, the source of our healing, the source of our pleasure. To use this ultimate healing, to turn poison into cure, you must set aside dignity, surrender yourself utterly, give yourself to another, body and soul.

Kikyou held out her hand, which glistened with Kagome's wetness, and as Kikyou slipped her wet fingers into her mouth. Kagome could feel a tiny fraction of the shouki within the priestess recoil and become purified, and she could see the jagged lines of her injury recede.

To be cured, I need this, and more than this. Your undiluted power. The most special of special medicines.

Until now Kikyou lacked the strength to move anything but her arms, and even then but weakly, but now she moved, with slow care, onto her knees, kicking her hakama off her feet, slipping her arms out of her hakui, becoming fully naked beside Kagome.

"This sudden strength," Kagome said. "because you tasted..."

Kikyou's hand cupped Kagome's mound.

Here, between your legs, is this silver goblet which now fills itself with the wine of your purity. To be cured, to dispel every drop of shouki inside my body, I must put my lips to this sacred vessel, and drink this sacred wine.

For Kikyou to speak of her special place, for her to ask to put her mouth upon it - it was maddening, impossible. What kind of priestess would make a ritual of such an obscene act? What kind of priestess would worship this way?

And yet, the priestess was naked before her, and each of them was masturbating the other, and both of these were maddening and impossible not many minutes prior. And Kikyou's mouth must be so warm...

To purify me, Kagome, you must allow me to pleasure you, with my tongue, so my tongue may taste that pleasure. You must come to crisis on my mouth, Kagome. You must let me drink your crisis.

"Kikyou," she whimpered. "I can't. My ... my special place. It's too strange, Kikyou, to put your mouth there."

We are one soul, Kagome. I know your source is the same as my source. In texture. In taste. If you should spread your legs, and allow my tongue to probe the contours of your womanhood, it would be the same as doing this to my own body, Kagome. To experience your body is to experience my body while being outside myself. It is an impossible act of self-pleasure, Kagome. It is a means to taste my own vulva, to suck my own clitoris, to penetrate myself with my own tongue.

Kikyou's hands were on Kagome's hips and shoulder, and guided her onto her back. She felt Kikyou's hands on the back of her thighs, sliding all the way up under her skirt, the fingers hooking under the waistband of her panties. She felt the ground beneath her bare buttocks. She felt the damp and tangled cotton slide along her inner thighs. She felt the pleats of her skirt fall upon her pubic hair. She felt her underwear bunching and entangling at her knees, and drawn down to her feet, and discarded.

Kagome's legs were drawn up together, and Kikyou was kneeling before her, on her hands and knees, and Kagome felt her hunger.

Spread your legs for me, Kagome, and show me your source, your entrance, your fountain of life. Gateway to your womb, to the other world, the spirit world, giver of life, warm, wet, comforting, eternal. Honor me, let me kiss the source of your power, let me press my lips to your sacred flesh. Indulge me, permit my tongue to trace your contours, to coax aside your flesh and know the depth of you. Satisfy me, let yourself come to crisis upon my open mouth, let me drink the waters of your climax, let me swallow your heat, let me be sustained by your power. Do this for me, Kagome, let me drink my cure from your source. Let me taste you and know I am tasting myself.

Kagome sighed helplessly, and spread her legs, and Kikyou cupped her buttocks and brought her mouth to her special place.

Kikyou drew her tongue along her length, and spread her fully open, and she suckled her clitoris, her labia.

Kagome cried out, and rolled her hips against Kikyou's face, and she shuddered against the priestess as she licked, as she lapped her up, as she drank her, imbibing her power, her cure, and when Kagome thought her orgasm had passed, Kikyou tongued her vagina, making Kagome's hips rock and buck all over again. Kikyou's breaths came out in hot bursts, tickling her pubic hair, warming her mound, and Kagome sat up, and gripped Kikyou's hair, and forgetting herself completely, slammed herself against Kikyou's mouth, riding her tongue, mounting her face.

Supine, defeated, swimming in post-orgasmic bliss, Kagome dimly heard her skirt being unzipped, dimly felt Kikyou reach under her back and unfasten her bra, dimly realized the soul that linked them shared such mundane activites as dressing and undressing in 20th century clothing. Her skirt was pulled down and off her legs; her bra and blouse was pulled up and over her head. And now that Kikyou had stripped her, she straddled her, and kissed her, and the tongue that was in Kagome's vagina was now in her mouth. Kagome tasted herself, and in tasting, knew she must taste Kikyou as well, and sat up, and guided Kikyou to lie on her back.

Kagome drew herself along Kikyou's body, kissing her face, her breasts, her belly, kissing the hollows of her hips. She brought her face to Kikyou's mound, and inhaled her scent, and without hesitation slipped her tongue into her cleft and tasted Kikyou's womanhood. She tasted like exquisite wine, like spices foreign and otherworldly, like September rain. She was exquisite, intoxicating, and Kagome ate her like a starving woman, sucking the wet flesh into her mouth, tonguing her, tasting her, swallowing the wetness that flowed from her, and Kagome's hands gripped her buttocks and fused Kikyou's sex to her hungry mouth.

Every stroke of her tongue, every nibble, every bit of flesh sucked into her mouth, everything Kagome did she felt done to herself. Kagome's moans vibrated the wet sex beneath her and she felt those too. Kikyou's hands gripped Kagome's hair and pressed her face against her core, and Kikyou's hips rocked against Kagome's face, and Kikyou came, and made Kagome's face wet with her coming, and Kagome drank her power.

She tastes like me. It's different, from this perspective, but her body is so much like mine. It's like being outside myself. It's like tasting myself.

When they were both spent, Kagome rested in Kikyou's arms, with Kikyou's robes wrapped around them, and she nuzzled Kikyou's breasts, and when her lips brushed against a nipple she suckled, and Kikyou cradled her head, and whispered that she was so very beautiful, so very sexy, so very good. Their legs intertwined, and when Kikyou moved slightly and her pubic hair brushed against Kagome's thigh she itched and twitched slightly and then was still, and it was peaceful, impossibly peaceful.

Kagome did not know she had fallen asleep until after she was awake, and she was awake only because the warmth of Kikyou's body was missing, and the warmth of her robes as well.

She crossed her arms over her naked breasts, nipples stiff with chill, and saw Kikyou tying her hakama.

"The barrier is released, and you friends will be here very soon. You should dress yourself, Kagome."

Kikyou's voice was cool, as cool as the pre-dawn air, as cool as the dew that had collected on the grass around her, on her scattered clothes. Kagome nodded, and found her white panties balled up where Kikyou had brushed them off her feet, and found her school shirt and bra tangled together where Kikyou had thrown them. The link between them had been severed, the soul they shared cut off from itself. It hurt more than anything, to love and no longer be loved, to touch a part of herself and now have it sealed away. But Kagome understood.

I wish I could thank you better than this, Kagome. I wish we could love each other, and love Inuyasha. It would be terrible and wonderful, the three of us, Kagome. But this life is not mine, and Inuyasha is not mine. I do not love these things anymore. And sadly, the one thing I most want to give you is something that is not mine to give. Something that is already yours.

The priestess left her, her shindamachuu trailing silently in the pre-dawn light, and Kagome dressed herself, and thought deeply of this skill, this medicine, this pleasure that Kikyou had taught her. She wondered how long it would be before she could demonstrate her power this way again. She wondered if she could convince Inuyasha to taste her.

But let us pretend, Kagome, that I am generous. Let us pretend I was the one who gave you Inuyasha's heart.

The secret place between your thighs
Is a jewel crafted by an artisan;
A mound fine as stacked wheat,
Surrounded by hair as beautiful as lilies;
Your cleft is a precious goblet
Brimming with extraordinary wine.
Song of Songs 7:1-2

END