InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Contest One ❯ Just a Little Storm ( Chapter 3 )

Story Title: Just a Little Storm…

Author: Rurouni Star

Disclaimer: Um… by virtue of the fact that this is an M/K, you can tell I'm not Rumiko Takahashi. Because apparently, she likes couplings the way they are (pfft!). Therefore, I do not own Inuyasha.

Story Summary: Ah… snowstorm. I thought that was our assignment, teacher. ^^

Rating: PG-13 (surprisingly)

It was just one snowflake.

Really, I didn't think it meant much. It was just one.

God how wrong I was.

"Kagome-sama?" an amused voice had asked me. "Are you certain you should be out here? It looks like a storm."

I turned around, feeling just a little petulant. "Miroku-sama… you followed me."

He smiled that smile I was so used to seeing on his face - a pleasant thing, barely touching the corners of his mouth, but communicating so much more than a full one would have. "Of course I followed you," he told me, looping an arm around my shoulders easily. "Someone has to make sure the big bad demons don't get you."

I let out an angry snort. "I'm not a child, Miroku-sama. No matter what he says."

He gave me an odd look, and I blushed as I wondered what he'd really been thinking as he'd said it. "No," Miroku said, musing. "No, you're not." His hand on my shoulder tightened. "But none of us would want anything to happen to you."

I shivered as a very gentle, very cold wind snaked its way between us. But it wasn't just the wind; it was also because I'd realized something else.

They cared about me. All of them.

Even Inuyasha.

I was supposed to be the adult for him, really. What was I doing, storming off like this, being offended by mere words?

Miroku's smile widened, turned warm. "You do understand," he told me, and there was something akin to pride in his voice.

I looked away from him, embarrassed. "Yeah, well…" Then, I looked up again, sharply. "How do you always know the right stuff to say?" I demanded. "I was just ready to tear him a new one and then you just touch me on the shoulder and say something stupid and all of a sudden I'm not!" I huffed, crossing my arms (only partially because I was cold). It was strange how I'd just transferred my anger with Inuyasha to Miroku. Looking back… I have to laugh.

Miroku chuckled. "Perhaps you just react well to me? I don't have that effect on anyone else that I know of…"

And then, of course, I had to look away again, because a blush had crept its way up my cheeks. What an annoying way he had with me. He could and often did change my moods at his whim, and I had to conclude that he knew what he was doing. Because otherwise… otherwise…

Well. There was no otherwise. Because the only thing that came to mind was absolutely stupid.

At the very moment I'd decided that, Miroku stiffened beside me. It was a small sign of discomfort - the only reason I felt it at all was because I'd somehow snuggled myself much closer to him, seeking to share his warmth despite the obvious risks.

I looked to the sky, where he his own gaze had fallen.

There was… a second snowflake.

And a third.

And suddenly - there were much too many.

"Kagome-sama," he said in a controlled voice, "I think we should get back to camp."

But ah! there was the problem. Because suddenly, very suddenly, there was no camp.

Only white flakes, spiraling downward to a ground that suddenly welcomed them, one that made them part of itself and built up quickly to the point where the flakes were no longer distinguishable from each other. Miroku shifted uncertainly against me, and I suddenly knew fear beyond anything I'd felt before. What if we were stuck out here, what if we couldn't find our way back, if we froze to death because I'd been an idiot… fighting something that could be hurt was one thing, but you couldn't hurt the snow and it was silly of me even to think like that…

I realized then that my breathing had sped up, and that Miroku had pulled me farther into him, wrapping the robe as far around me as it would go. "It's fine," he reassured me softly. "This is a flash snowstorm, it should thin out in a few minutes…"

I know my eyes must have been glazed with terror, like some poor deer caught in front of a car. "They never end in a few minutes, Miroku, you know they don't-"

"Shh," he told me, smiling as though we were sharing some secret. "Someone will hear."

Ah, my mind said. Of course he's calm. He has nothing to fear but something that's coming anyway.

And for some reason, that comforted me immensely.

"Should we look for shelter?" I asked softly, my voice shaking just a little.

He shook his head. "No," he said, "Right now we're not too far from camp. I'm sure Inuyasha will come looking for us in a few minutes, and we want to be close enough to be found."

His tone was logical, his reasons were rational - a little bit more of that fear ebbed away.

And the snow kept falling in flurries, the sky dark, the wind still oh-so-gentle, but the way obscured by snow. They usually describe such storms to you as vicious, raging, terrors of nature.

Not so.

It was as still as death.

This was eminently more frightening.

Flakes drifted onto my shoulders, cold and wet and tingly. I brushed them off just as quickly, hoping to keep myself marginally dry. Snow pooled around our feet, and it went into my socks and it brushed my nose and caught on my eyelashes.

It went on for hours.

Well. Perhaps not quite. In fact, I'd be surprised if it had gone on for fifteen minutes.

But it felt like hours. It felt like I'd been abandoned. Everyone but Miroku had left me alone in the storm, and I was becoming scared again, like the little girl I'd insisted I wasn't. Only, I wasn't so determined not to be this time. This time, I wanted to be taken care of, to be told it was all right and to be reassured by someone I could mentally regard as more 'grown-up' than myself. Miroku filled that role admirably, running his fingers through my hair, whispering things I couldn't hear against the gentle, icy breezes that made me so terribly cold. My nose and ears and fingers went numb at some point, and I knew this was a danger sign, so I burrowed my face into his chest, and he obliged me easily. And later, when I looked up again, his face held the strangest, most foreign expression I'd ever seen on it.

He was frightened.

Then, as you usually do in those kinds of situations, I fixated on the strangest thing - he had snow in his hair. If I weren't so very sure that he knew me and my quixotic moods well, I think he might have been confused that I began to laugh. As it was, when I was laughing so hard that I was crying and unable to support myself, he did it for me, slipping one arm behind me to hold me steady. My face went into the black cloth; the soothing warmth there promised that I'd be okay, and the fit subsided.

"Am I really that funny?" he asked, and I knew he was straining to sound like his usual, vaguely amused self. It wasn't quite working. What was he suddenly afraid of that was worse than death?

"Oh yes," I choked. "Very much so."

His arm was still holding me up, but now it was shaking just the slightest bit.

"Sit down, Kagome-sama," he told me quietly. "There's enough snow to insulate the ground now, I should think." Had he been caught outside in one of these before? No, certainly not, he didn't live up north… but I recalled telling him something about the ground and how it held heat and cold, how it needed to be insulated, and wasn't it funny that snow could make the ground warmer? Through the haze of fright that my mind had been submerged in, I was embarrassed that he could recall something I couldn't remember, though I'd been the one to say it.

He packed the snow down to a reasonable level and lowered us both to the ground. I let out a surprised squeak as he undid the indigo cloth that usually went over his robe, then pulled off the actual heavy garment. Was he trying to freeze, now?

But soon, he disentangled his arms from me, leaving me exposed to the cold. I almost panicked, but one of his hands stopped to squeeze my shoulder reassuringly. I noticed with alarm that the skin was cold.

"Miroku-" I stopped with a blink as the hand moved up to brush the snow from the top of my head. Then, the blessedly warm robe was falling over me, being pulled down little by little, until I was leaning against him again, in velvet darkness.

"Do you mind at all?" he whispered in my ear; I could feel his bare chest behind me, though I couldn't see it. His hair brushed my face just a little, and I shook my head. I didn't quite trust my voice at this moment. Hesitantly, I pulled my legs up into the robe with me, thanking Buddha that his servants wore such useful clothes.

Inadvertently, my cheek brushed his bare skin. A shock went through me. He was warm. No… no, he was burning, radiating heat like a flame. Not daring to recognize that I was doing it, I pushed myself closer, slipping my arms around him and stealing that heat just a little.

This was something to finally surprise him. And really… it surprised me, too.

"What are you so scared of?" I whispered.

He was silent against me for a moment; we were disturbingly close, but it revealed nothing.

"What is it?" I insisted.

His hand traveled to my cheek, warmer now, and brushed across it momentarily. Despite the fact that it was cool, it left burning trails in its wake.

"Kagome-sama," he said hoarsely. "I don't care if I die. It's meaningless… but if you died, it would hurt so much more…"

But before I could protest (and I really, really wanted to - it definitely mattered if he died!) he had pulled me into himself, shifting his body around me as though he could protect me from everything else. And, I realized dimly, he could. He was like that.

"No," I managed. "You don't - don't you dare die. I'd have to hate you."

Through the dark, I could feel that same wry smile. "We couldn't have that, now could we?"

And his ice-touched lips descended on mine, claiming them softly - but still claiming them, as though they belonged there. They drew back almost as quickly.

"There is, I'm told, a fool-proof way to outlast a storm…" he murmured wickedly, showing another facet of his personality I'd seen a few times.

I might normally have gasped in indignation, or slapped him… but I found the prospect oddly appealing. That, perhaps, was even more frightening than the storm itself.

Something inside of me throbbed excitedly, flushing my face as he angled my head upward, drawing searing lips down my chin, to my throat, to the tiny spot that pulsed against them. And the robe was no longer comfortably warm, it was suffocating, because, really, how could someone possibly be cold in it? My fingers closed into fists against his skin; one arm had moved to support my back as I felt my body go limp, unable to do more than breathe and be, while another had somehow found the inside of my leg and was tracing its way slowly up the skin…

"Well," I breathed. "I… I feel loved. Violated, but loved." He paused, and I managed to laugh through the sheer disappointment that pause created in me. And he seemed to understand, because he continued, and he pulled me onto his lap, legs sliding behind him…

"Oi! Bouzou!"

He froze. I heard him swear beneath his breath.

Funny, really. Just a moment ago, I would have cried in relief at hearing that voice. But now, I was… irritated. Enraged.

"Wonderful timing, Inuyasha," he muttered. But, obviously, we needed rescuing.

He pulled free of me, and I made a high pitched noise as he slipped free of the robe and the top of it slid over my head. Only then did it begin to dawn on me exactly what he had been trying to do and exactly how much I had enjoyed it…

"Over here, Inuyasha!" Miroku called.

There was a spray of snow, and I ducked my head. When I looked up again, Inuyasha was inches away from me.

I was sure my face was beet red.

"Damnit, Kagome, I leave you for one fucking second-"

I stared past him, mesmerized.

Miroku's hair was tousled, his grin was still enticing, with just a touch of frustration about it. He looked absolutely charming. And really, how had I not noticed before…

"Are you listening to me, bitch, you could have died-"

I frowned at him. "I'm fine though, see?" And stalked off again.

Well. Not off. Not really. More toward somewhere, toward a somewhere that had a certain someone…

"We are never going to say anything about this again, right?" I half hissed, half pleaded.

He chuckled. "Not I, Kagome-sama," he reassured me. "I prefer to keep breathing, if you don't mind."

"I don't care if I die. It's meaningless… but if you died, it would hurt so much more…"

I was staring, I realized. And I had begun to blush again.

"But…" I managed. "If… if you really meant…"

He leaned forward, an interested and very incredulous look on his face. "If I meant…?"

I swallowed. "I guess we could talk about it. Maybe just a little."

It was putting myself on the line. Because I had never had anyone talk to me like that before… and I suddenly felt like I needed him to answer one way or another.

A strange _expression came over him… and his hand found mine, the beaded one…

"Kagome…sama…" he said. "If you know what this means, then you know I have been reckless. You should forget whatever it was you think I meant." And my face was suddenly frozen, and my heart had stopped beating in unadulterated fear… and there was no one to comfort me this time.

"But."

The word sent a twist through my throat, made the pain turn bittersweet as it tried to decide between hope and desolation.

"But once this is gone…" His hand tightened on mine; the beads shifted. "Then you can believe it completely."

"What in hell are you talking about?"

I jumped.

Inuyasha was standing behind me, looking at once both angry and confused.

"Oh! Inuyasha! Um… nothing!"

No, I didn't expect him to believe it. Of course not.

But he rolled his eyes because he was obviously too relieved to care. "Come on, I'll get you two back to camp - we need to move while the tracks are still open."

We did get back to camp.

And I went to bed with my fingers tracing my lips in disbelief.

"…Then you can believe it…"

"I'd like that," I whispered.

And the snow kept falling, but I was inexplicably warm.

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