InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Movie House Hanyou ❯ In the Throes of Many Things ( Chapter 26 )

Dripping and the light splashing of water woke him up. Inuyasha found himself standing in a bathroom foreign to him. Featuring blindingly white décor and tiles, the room, unnaturally and brightly lit, was devoid of common bathroom features save for a large, old fashioned white bathtub with claw feet in the middle of the floor. He had been woken by a splash, but the bathtub rim was dry. The dripping noises still echoed across the room.

Normally, his first thoughts at such an eerie sight would be to wonder, what the fuck am I doing here, where the fuck is here, and how the fuck did I get here? He didn’t have a bathtub in the first place, be it old fashioned and nailed to the floor so it wouldn‘t walk off, modern and one with the wall, or polished Japanese of any style.

But that’s if this were normal. It wasn’t. Not even close.

What was in the bathtub had very much occupied his attention first. The tub might as well have been under a spotlight.

Barely disturbed water up to maybe four inches below the rim had its entire surface covered in red rose petals, and in the water sat Kagome. Her hair was up. The water level was up to just below her neck, leaving her shoulders barely exposed, and she was staring off at the wall in front of her.

Inuyasha swallowed and shut his eyes tightly, whispering to himself to wake up.

Opening his eyes, he came upon almost the same sight. The sole difference was that Kagome had turned her head to face him. An inquisitive expression was painted all over her face. For a moment he thought her eyes looked vacant, but if they had, it had been fleeting. The water sloshed slightly with the movement of her legs below the surface, disturbing the blanket of petals. The sounds of the water didn’t quite sync up, though.

A strange smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, until she was smiling eerily at him.

The white noise was deafening, only disrupted on occasion by the occasional disjointed lapping of water.

Something inside Inuyasha forced him to walk toward her, despite his internal struggle against the action. He wanted to get the hell out of here. To escape. Nothing good would come of this confrontation, he told himself. Leave, idiot! Get the fuck outta here! But all that unspoken dialogue fell on deaf limbs. His body wouldn’t listen.

He felt his body, particularly his legs, moving of its own accord. The distance between the doorway and the tub shortened. His unwanted footsteps clacked upon the tile as he drew closer. All the while, the voice inside his head, his voice, was screaming, commanding that he turn right around and leave.

A few short strides, the voice being ignored, and he was standing in a puddle of water that had splashed upon a tile.

Inuyasha tried to keep his breathing under control. The hairs along the back of his neck bristled.

Kagome’s head went to the side in a coy manner, her gaze nailed to his in a way that almost disturbed him. Unnerved was more like how he felt. Not quite disturbed, but he certainly didn‘t feel all that at ease.

And yet, he couldn’t run. Only his thoughts could.

His view of her suddenly began to change in perspective, as if the tub were rising via hidden platform, her face becoming closer and closer. Inuyasha could not look away from her blue eyes. Short flashes of indecipherable emotions played upon them. His throat felt like invisible hands were tightening around it.

It was when his knees hit the damp tiles with a wet, sucking thud -that didn’t sound right- that he realized he had kneeled in front of the tub. Neither Kagome nor the tub had moved. But for occasional blinks and the slight movements as she breathed, Kagome was as still as a figure in a wax museum.

Unconsciously, he draped his forearms upon the tub rim like it was a windowsill. He only noticed when he felt the cold of the porcelain upon his skin.

Clawed fingers dragged through the water, disturbing several petals that subsequently stuck to his skin with dampness. He retracted his much too adventurous hand.

Kagome’s underwater hand immediately shot up, sending small, silent waves across the blanket of petals, and grabbed him at the wrist. The accompanying sound effects of the water came; they were deathly out of sync. Delayed. Diluted, almost. Watered down. Distorted.

All the while, her eyes stayed locked on his. Her dripping wet fingers tightened considerably. He couldn’t pull his hand away from her. It didn’t matter that she was inhumanly strong. He’d lost control of his limbs anyway.

Kagome’s smile became downright creepy. She licked her lips. The scent of roses suddenly spiked, as if his nose had been on mute this whole time up until now. Fighting the dizzying haze of his senses, Inuyasha tried to calm his racing heart.

Moving closer, Kagome settled into the middle of the tub. The warped sounds of water followed, out of sync, unaligned in time. Her new position made the water level drop.

Now it only partially covered her chest. Were it not for the petals obscuring Inuyasha’s view were he to look anywhere but straight into her eyes, it would be clear to anyone that she was completely naked. Even had he decided to look down, petals sticking to her skin covered much of the slick skin exposed above the water line.

Inuyasha didn’t know how he knew that. This inexplicable knowledge frightened him even more.

At random times he felt like he had a double view. There was the view through his eyes; he saw nothing but Kagome’s face then. Then, there was this strange view, almost overhead, an extreme high angle from far behind him. Like a security camera.

It was through this skincrawlingly detached, spontaneously engaged, sporadically inflicted view that he had seen this.

Inuyasha tensed as the water settled from Kagome’s movement. She bent his arm at the elbow. Her lips parted, and he fisted his hand when she bent down and forward to brush her lips against the inner part of his forearm, just inches below the intense grip she had upon his wrist. With shut eyes she kissed the skin lightly.

Warm breath heated his skin, and then there was the moistness. Her tongue met with his forearm in an open mouthed kiss upon the same stretch of skin.

Inuyasha’s eyes threatened to roll back. Instead, he flared his nostrils with a sharp intake of breath, swallowed hard, and nearly bit his lip. For all the drugging sensations he felt, she might as well have kissed him elsewhere. Specifically, below the belt. That single kiss on his goddamn arm gave him a hard on. A strange, strangled whine almost whimpered forth from his throat.

She pulled away, straightened her posture, and set to meet his gaze once more. Her lips curled at the corners into the same creepy smile as before. His entire frame going rigid, Inuyasha looked down to stare at the petals covering her chest.

Kagome came forward yet again and delicately darted her tongue out with a giggle, teasingly licking his face from bottom lip to upper lip.

Inuyasha’s eyes flashed open with a start as he shot into a sitting position, shuddering uncontrollably and panting to catch his previously held breath, like he’d been deprived of air. Kagome’s giggles resounded in his head like an echo that wouldn’t go away. Gasping and with wide eyes, he slowly calmed himself down. A quick glance around the dark room assured him he was where he should be… in bed, simply startled and jarred awake.

With his left hand he tore the sheets and blankets off in a flurry, accidentally tearing minor holes in them in the process. Looking down, he groaned at the sight in his lap.

Or better yet, above his lap. Most especially the sticky mess that covered his stomach, his other hand, and the tip of his waning hard on.

“God fucking damnit,” he muttered, “why the fuck can’t I have normal dreams like every-fucking-one else?”

With an exasperated sigh, Inuyasha rolled his eyes and grumblingly left his bed, taking the soiled sheet with him. It only barely sunk in that this was the first time he had ever jacked off while thinking, or dreaming, about Kagome. At the moment, he didn’t really give a fuck and merely brushed it off after the initial acknowledgement.

---

“Thank you for calling Pierce Theaters. This is Inuyasha speaking. How may I help you?” Inuyasha furrowed his brow at the woman’s response. It was Lissa Nonnenbach, from the District Manager’s office.

“Hey, how are things?” she asked.

Why the hell is the district office calling us on a Friday afternoon? He couldn’t remember the last time the district office had called at such a time. It was especially odd that Lissa hadn’t directly asked for any of the managers. Everyone at District as well as Corporate knew he was only a supervisor. He was two levels below Naraku- no, three. Kagura technically had her own level in between Naraku and the senior managers, the lucky bitch.

“Sales?” she continued on, sounding a bit stretched for words. What was she getting at?

“Things are fine,” he half lied, eying the pennants lining the upper edge of the wall off to his left. Merle had put him in charge of the backstage managerial duties until Naraku came in at six, so he was stuck in the GMO for the time being.

“Just the usual. Sales are a little slow, but I’m sure they’ll pick up next month when the last of the Matrix trilogy comes out--”

“You sure?”

Inuyasha detected a hint of uncertainty in her tone.

“To the best of my knowledge, yeah,” he answered, careful of his word choice.

“Is Mr. Vault there?” He suppressed his annoyance and growing curiosity, telling her Naraku wouldn’t be in for almost two hours. “Ms. Harmon?”

“Not coming in today,” he replied. “Merle’s here, but she’s on her break for another twenty minutes, ma’am. Right now I’m the one in high command.” So much did the desperation in the woman’s voice bug him that it took all of his willpower not to simply outright ask why she was calling.

“Well, are you aware of any big events, either just recently passed or in the near future?”

Damn, this woman‘s insistent. “Nope, none to my knowledge. What’s the concern over?”

“Could you just have Merle call the district office in Chicago once she gets back?”

That did it.

A tiny voice in his head told him something was suspicious about the nature of her call. He’d been feeling it earlier, but it was now confirmed.

Lissa’s reluctance to dispel any information normally would have gone right over him because of the whole managerial hierarchy, but an insistent, nagging little feeling just wouldn‘t leave him alone.

After a meager amount of respectful negotiation and figurative teethpulling, Inuyasha managed to extract a few choice details from her on the scenario under the guise of “Merle would want that info so she’d know what the hell she was calling the DM about.” Making Lissa part with the information had been difficult, but he had promised her that Merle would be the only one to hear it from him.

A few minutes later a knock at the door interrupted him. He set down his paperwork next to the payroll signsheet, got up, and looked through the peephole. He bristled.

Opening the door revealed a surprised looking Kagome, who immediately paled at his sight. With as straight a face as he could manage, he asked, “You’re a little, uh, early, aren’t you?” Uncertainty was as rank in his tone as was surprise. A bit of his unease from the night before flooded back.

The girl glanced around the inside of the office. Her anxiety was immediately noticeable, but he pretended it wasn’t.

“Um, you’re the only one in here?” she questioned as she stared at Naraku’s desk and the mess of papers upon one half of it.

“Yes,” he affirmed, then all but ordered her inside and shut the door. As soon as the automatic lock went into effect, he leaned against the door protectively, as if the lock wouldn’t be enough to keep out whatever might be on the other side. There wasn’t much more than a nearly empty hallway anyway, but still….

Kagome shot him a strange look, brow cocked and all, then inched toward one of the chairs in front of the desk.

“What are you here for?”

She flinched, and he realized his tone must have made her feel like she was trespassing. He immediately cursed himself for it.

“To talk to the manager--”

Inuyasha reluctantly peeled himself from the door. “Right now….” his voice was soft as he walked behind the desk and sat down in Naraku’s chair. “Right now, I’m the head management in the building. Merle’s back in fifteen. Till then, I’m in charge.”

Her eyes widened. He wasn‘t sure how to read it, if it was a good thing or not. He took the chance that it didn’t bode well.

“What is it?”

Clearly nervous, Kagome sat down but scooted her chair back away from the desk. “I wanted to talk to Naraku--”

“He comes in at six,” he interrupted curtly, then drummed the fingers of one hand once upon the desktop, then continued tapping one claw. “Besides, we’re trying to get rid of him, remember? What the fuck do you need to talk to him about that you can’t talk to me about?”

She tensed up at his strong words but said nothing. He sighed and covered his eyes, leaned over and groaned.

“Kagome?” This time he softened his tone, though some annoyance remained.

Instead of answering, Kagome looked off to the side and placed her attentions upon a barely recognizable, dart tattered circle of Britney Spears that still was proudly on display upon the wall.

Inuyasha huffed. Damn girl’d rather distract herself than answer him, eh?

“Kagome!”

She snapped her head back to look at him and chewed her lip, then dropped her gaze to the edge of the desk and folded her hands together in her lap.

“Huh?” She flitted her eyes upward at him for another moment before almost shyly returning to her inspection of an interesting spot upon the desk’s edge.

“You’re acting weird.” He sat back in the swivel chair, paperwork in hand and staring at it. Maybe she would calm down if she felt he wasn’t watching her like a hawk. The apprehension was already steaming off of her, and its scent bothered him greatly. He didn’t want to make it worse. Well, worse than he’d already done so since he’d answered the damn door, anyway.

After a considerable silence that oozed discomfort from both of them, Kagome spoke up. “I haven’t gotten my raise yet.”

Slowly, Inuyasha raised his head from the papers he had feigned studying and looked at her confusedly.

“For my promotion, you know?” she clarified, then swallowed; her head was still bowed. “Th-that’s what I was going to ask him about.” Finally, under his close watch, she met his gaze again. “I’m not sure if it’s just that the paperwork’s still being processed or--”

Inuyasha quickly stood up and shoved the swivel chair back, effectively silencing her. “What is it you’re afraid of?” he asked when she made no move to finish her statement. The tone in his demand was laced with incredulity.

Shaking her head, Kagome forced a smile and tried to wave it off. “It’s nothing, really--”

“Kagome,” Inuyasha interrupted, “you reek of fear. I know because I can smell it, and trust me, it’s a pretty nasty smell. Don’t lie to me about that.” She stiffened and stared at him as if he had grown another head.

Sending a glare toward the ceiling, Inuyasha grumbled to himself. The papers met the desktop with a loud thwack that made her flinch. Then, with a quick spring into his step, he cleared the desk in one swift jump and landed directly in front of a very startled Kagome. A hand on each arm rest, neither of which she was using, he leaned forward a bit until he was practically staring down at her, Kagome’s neck craning back so she could stare up at him.

Inches away from her face, he firmly stated, “Do not make me repeat myself. You’re worrying me.”

With that final statement, Kagome’s bottom lip quivered, and Inuyasha cursed to himself. Getting down on his knees before her, he looked up into her sad, confused eyes. Then he did the last thing he ever thought he would do in front of Kagome.

Bottom lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout and his hands on her knees, he began whimpering like a needy puppy who wanted attention. It was time for his most soulful puppy dog begging look. Well, most soulful, yet most laughably lame looking. Hopefully the slight head cock to the side gave it a special touch.

Inuyasha felt like a pathetic fool.

I can’t believe I‘m actually doing this. I mean, I want her to smile, but-but this…What if Merle walked in right now, and-- The embarrassment factor alone gave him a mental shudder - ye gods would he be mortified. He’d never hear the end of it from her!

But Kagome looked like she was about to cry. He’d do anything -even this- for her. If he could just get her to break into a smile, or at least laugh--

One of her hands went up to cover her mouth as she tried, in vain, to hold back a few girlish snickers.

Inside, Inuyasha rejoiced. Success!

“Come on,” he goaded with a smirk once she had recovered from her unavoidable fit of giggles. “Tell the little puppy what’s wrong?” His eyebrows disappeared behind his bangs as he looked at her with true concern this time, the smirk gone. His look all but pleaded with her.

After a nervous swallow, Kagome relented. “Just, after last week, and-and what you said--”

“And I meant what I said, Kagome,” he clarified. “I just need some more time. I--” he dropped his gaze to his hands where they rested just above her knees. With a groan that sounded more like a frustrated huff, he continued. “I know you’re hurt, but that was inevitable.” The muscles in her legs tightened under his grasp, and her heart rate accelerated with unease.

“How much time do you need?”

Her quivering voice immediately provoked him to lift his head and maintain eye contact for good. Her question had been unexpected. Studying the emotions playing upon her face, Inuyasha stared at her and thought.

Whatever still bothered him, no matter how much he tried telling himself she would be different from all the others, was damn persistent and difficult to purge. He wasn’t quite there yet, but he’d seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and perhaps, just-

“Gimme two weeks,” he said almost mechanically, “and I’ll be there, I promise.”

“Two weeks?” Kagome blinked her eyes rapidly, likely to keep from tearing up. Inuyasha nodded, and she swallowed hard. “Okay.” There was still a noticeable waver in her voice, but Inuyasha hoped she wasn’t too terribly affected.

Rising to his feet, he glanced off to the side before looking back at her and reaching out his hand, silently beckoning her to grab hold and let him pull her from her seat. After an initial stall, she gripped his hand firmly.

“So, was the paycheck shit the only thing you came in here for?” he asked as she quickly sought the door that lead to the hallway.

One hand on the handle, Kagome turned around and sent him a strange look, then paused for a moment of thought before answering. “Initially, yeah, but since you’re here, I guess there, um,” she paused to exert more proper control over her emotions, “there is something else. Something I wouldn’t be bringing up to Naraku.”

“And that is…” he trailed off leadingly, then motioned with a nod of his head and a strange sideways glance that he expected her to finish his sentence.

“Just some weird stuff from last weekend. I really think you should take a look at the gift certificate sales.” Worry spread across her face. He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Go into the TIMSBoot database and check out gift certificate sales. Someone bought a huge amount of them this weekend, then redeemed all of them the same day. Just looks suspicious, and I already told you what I think of those auditorium rentals. In fact, there was one this weekend too. The day you called in sick.”

She sent him an accusing look. “By the way, I thought you told me you couldn’t get sick.”

Inuyasha couldn’t keep the sheepish grin from surfacing for a mere moment. “So I lied to the manager cuz I still felt like shit, okay?” he admitted with a half caring shrug of his shoulders, then laughed nervously. “Seriously, I was a wreck that morning, all right?”

Kagome was about to give him a piece of her mind when they both heard keys enter the lock of the GMO door. She moved out of the way, and both supervisors stared at the door as it opened. In entered the medium height black woman they both knew as Merle.

“Kagome?” she asked in surprise. “You’s early, girl.”

Kagome clasped her hands together and immediately conjured up a cheerful façade. “Yeah, I am. Wanted to talk to the GM, but Inuyasha told me he doesn’t--”

“Come in till six, I know, hun,” Merle finished for her. “And I know why.” She gave an exaggerated pout. “I need to pester him about that fucking paperwork he hasn’t sent in yet--”

Contorting her brow as if she had just been insulted, Kagome glanced at Inuyasha before interrupting the senior manager. “Wait, he hasn’t even sent in the paperwork for my raise?”

“He the only one with the authority to do that, and I been after him for weeks on that. He ain’t even filled out the form for it. I’m beginning to think I should go and jus’ call the Corporate Office over that,” she nearly sputtered out, her Chicago accent taking over as it always did when she was annoyed. “I could run this place better ‘an he does right now.”

Kagome had long since stopped listening to Merle’s rant. She fumed in place, a look of intense anger marring her features. Her tightened fists shook.

“Inuyasha, I need you back in the stand for just a little bit,” Merle went on, her attitude subsiding, “and Kagome, if you want an extra hour this week, you can start your shift right now….”

Barely registering the offer, Kagome nodded with a mumbled yes before excusing herself from the office. The remaining occupants of the room silently watched her storm through the door before looking at each other and nodding simultaneously in an unspoken acknowledgement.

“She gon’ be okay, Inuyasha?” the woman asked once the door had finally shut, motioning with a nod toward the door. Concern was evident all over her face. “She’s a real good worker. I’d hate to lose her--”

“I’d hate to lose her too,” he jumped in, his tone dejected, “and yeah, she’ll be okay,” he breathed out a heavy and depressed sigh, “just needs to let off some steam.”

---

When Kagome reached the time card slots hanging on the wall, her hand automatically went for her time card but paused, inches from the plastic rectangle sitting in its metal slot. She shut her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply; she was brimming with fury, and she didn’t want to explode.

Drawing her hand back, she turned and launched a powerful kick into the stack of lockers she now faced, letting out a frustrated shout. The metal lightly dented inward, and the locker frame whammed against the wall with a creak and a rattle as locker contents shifted and locks -there were a few on lockers- clanged.

Her breathing erratic, Kagome muttered to herself and wrung her hands. “I swear, if I could, I’d shove a broomstick up Naraku’s ass and hope he gets splinters galore--”

She cut herself off and stared blankly at the lockers when she realized what she was saying. Where had such an angry statement come from? It wasn’t like her to say such things, no matter how vengeful she felt. Still standing in place, she quickly brought up her hands, palm side up, to study them, as if to look for the answer in the lines of her hands. No such luck.

But-but they lied to me. Well, kinda. But they promised me a raise, and I still haven’t gotten it, even weeks later. But no matter what she told herself, her inner reasoning just wasn’t enough to warrant such a statement coming from her, she acknowledged with a sigh.

And Inuyasha… he’d promised their separation would last only two more weeks. But, how did he feel about things? She still wished she knew why he’d reacted the way he did in the ramp. Was the two weeks a stipulation he was sure of, or would time prove that he still wasn’t ready? Could she handle it if he wasn’t ready? And if he was sure he’d come back to her, whether or not in two weeks’ time, then why did he still need those two weeks? Could she even wait that long? And what did he have to be insecure about?

She winced in remembrance of his statement about hurting her being inevitable. Surely there were other ways he could have told her he wasn’t ready. And why had these sudden problems sprung up only as soon as he no longer needed to worry about the police, anyway? If only he would simply communicate more clearly, she bemoaned silently. Doesn’t he know the effect he has on me? Do I have the same effect on him?

Kagome missed him, a lot. She missed the simple things most of all. Just the simple, physical things. For all the kissing they had ever done, she’d been most fond of those simple, light pecks upon her temple, his breath warming her skin. Even better was the simplicity of being wrapped in an embrace. Or just his hands upon her waist. She never could figure out what his infatuation with her waist stemmed from, but she dearly missed the physicality of it. It was entirely an Inuyasha thing.

A few of the tears she’d held back in the office fully formed and dribbled down her cheeks. They reached her jaw line before she wiped them away. A whimper escaped her throat as she dried her eyes before new tears could form.

But, that look on his face after he’d made her laugh. He’d looked as downtrodden as she’d felt, as downtrodden as she felt right now. Maybe he feels hurt too, Kagome willed herself to believe. Maybe he feels guilty he had to hurt me. Maybe… maybe. As long as he doesn’t start hurting himself like he did before. He stopped doing that because it hurt me, so-- Kagome continued reassuring herself, even if she didn’t really believe it right away. It was all she had to go on. Hopefully it was enough to keep her sane. She needed to have faith in Inuyasha. Inuyasha wouldn’t tell her he needed two weeks if he wasn’t sure that was all he’d need, right? …right?

Remaining in the break room until she was fully composed again, Kagome, with the hopes that no one would notice the slight redness of her eyes, took her time card and swiped it through the time clock, then returned it to its rightful spot and left the room.

---

The last few days at work had been pure fucking hell, and Inuyasha was more than happy to pass up Ground Zero that Thursday night.

After Friday afternoon, he’d had the weekend off. Monday had immediately seemed off to a bad start at work. He couldn’t fathom why, but Naraku seemed intent on working every single goddamn day that work week, which was unusual for him. Nor would it matter on Naraku’s paycheck, Inuyasha knew. Naraku was salaried for 40 hours a week and wouldn’t get a dime if he worked another 10 hours; the despicable man rarely put in the effort of extra, unpaid time.

He’d heard from the rest of the management that Naraku had been at work on Saturday and Sunday. Then, to see him voluntarily working nearly all day on Monday had sprung up as odd. Naraku commonly did not work on Mondays.

The bastard had been snappy as hell, much snappier than usual. It seemed as if he had been purposefully waiting for Inuyasha’s return to work that day. The first thing he’d been told to do upon his arrival was to meet with the GM in his office. It was only when he had gotten there that he finally fathomed -correctly- the reason for the impromptu conference.

“Am I correct in being under the impression that you took a call from the Pierce Theaters District Manager?”

Inuyasha could still feel Naraku’s eyes from when they’d glazed over him like radar in an attempt to identify- what? He didn’t know. If Inuyasha suspected anything? Maybe. Inuyasha did, of course, but he didn’t know if he’d hidden that from Naraku well enough.

Thankfully Naraku seemed not to find what he’d been looking for and dismissed him within minutes with little more than a reminder to know his place. Naraku’s line likely referred to the extrapolated info Inuyasha had given Merle.

All day Monday, Naraku had been a short fuse. No one and nothing was sacred that day.

Then on Tuesday, Inuyasha, pigeonholed in the cash room, had overheard Naraku get more than heated on Kagura in the GMO.

The two seemed awfully careful over their word choice; nothing Inuyasha overheard was worthy of being written down. It was little more than broken up, inane bickering. He supposed they were wary since he was in the room next door. Then Allen Schultz came in and the two higher ups started their usual routine that always ended in the doormat of a junior manager leaving the GMO with more than just a few head smacks to cover up the wounds caused by their words.

Why the fuck didn’t Schultz just fucking quit?

But even so, it was interesting to know of such a vast divide between the GM and his First Assistant. Strange that he hadn’t noticed much of it until lately.

Wednesday had been more of Naraku’s snappiness, as well as continued awkwardness between himself and Kagome. Thursday, Naraku snapped in another way. He completely blew his top. Damn Tanaya had been acting up again, and Naraku took her off her register and stuck her with the ushers for the rest of the evening. Normally Inuyasha would have rejoiced. Normally. But Naraku had taken it too far.

Tanaya had been assigned to clean out the drainage pipes in the floor behind the stand. After she’d gotten the screws out of the top plate of the cover and set said items aside on the floor, she’d pissed and moaned about the disgustingness of the crap she was to scrape out. With all the thick, black mud-like muck she’d started scooping out like blackened pumpkin innards, the damn pipe might as well have been someone’s clogged artery.

Sure, Inuyasha asserted, Tanaya had been super whiny over her task. Hell, he could have given it to any other concession stand employee, but annoying her was fun. Still, that didn’t mean Naraku had to threaten to cut her hours down to one shift a week for the next month if she didn’t “shut the fuck up.” In front of customers, no less.

Had any other Pierce employee said that to Tanaya, as much as she irritated him, he still would have written that employee up. Or, if someone above his rank had said it, he’d get someone high enough to do the damn write up.

No one writes up Naraku, though.

Inuyasha still remembered the odd looks many customers gave him after Naraku stormed off and Tanaya nearly started bawling right where she still knelt upon the tiles, one clear gloved hand covered in muck. Then again, Tanaya was a big baby when it all boiled down. Were they eying him strangely over Tanaya, or the GM who’d bitched her out?

As Inuyasha drove home after his Thursday night shift, he thought back to the situation he’d come upon the previous Friday concerning Kagome and her promotion. Kagome not having received her raise yet had been news to him. He’d heard nothing about it from the managers at all. Merle’s knowledge of Naraku’s hold off on it seemed innocent enough; Naraku was probably trying to cheat Kagome.

The mention of the payroll problem made Inuyasha take a double glance at his most recent paycheck. He still got his appropriate pay rate, and the hours that week looked about right. But it prompted him to page through his old paycheck statements. He looked for anything odd in the last twelve months.

He could hardly believe that Naraku had already lasted an entire year as the GM there at Megaplex 15. Okay, so maybe eleven and a half months. Still. He’d never liked the man, though at first it simply seemed to be a personality clash. Inuyasha had been amazed at getting his eight year raise -a whopping twenty-five cents, whoopee- on time. Most other employees got popkins, if anything. For the most part they’d been deferred due to lousy evaluations. Keeping in mind that those evaluations likely had some amount of truth to them, it still didn’t seem fair.

While paging through his old statements something peculiar caught his eye: in the last year, he’d never racked up more than forty hours according to any of those statements. There were at least three times when that should have happened. He frowned and wondered why he’d never noticed or said anything about it.

Another strange thing was that ever since Naraku had become GM, all his weekly hour logs were on even fifteen minute increments. Now that he thought about it, he figured Naraku probably rounded swipe times to the nearest fifteen minute increment. However, the lack of accuracy irritated him.

After boring through the stack of statements for other singularities for what seemed like a good hour, Inuyasha was more than ready to succumb to his sleepiness. As luck would have it, Miroku called as he was straightening the piles and sticking them back into the drawer where he kept them.

“Ground Zero?”

“Not up for it tonight, Miroku. I’m tired as fuck.”

“Oh,” said Miroku. “So, how goes it with your path to enlightenment?”

“The fuck you talking about?” Inuyasha couldn’t keep the grumpiness and grogginess from seeping into his voice.

“You know, with your little girlfriend?”

“Miroku, it is two in the fucking morning. I do not have time for this.”

“I’ll take that as a sign that things are not well yet.”

“You should take it as a sign that you should hang up and save this shit for another day, so I can get some damn sleep,” Inuyasha threatened, all but ready to hang up on him first.

“Ah, well, Saturday night, then?”

“If you hang up and let me sleep, then fine.”

“Ground Zero.”

“Fine. Now shut up.”

“Sweet dreams.”

Inuyasha had a sudden flashback -does one get flashbacks of dreams?- of his dream a week earlier and shuddered involuntarily.

“Miroku?”

“Yes?”

“Nev er, ever say that phrase to me again.”

---

Saturday night after work, he went straight to Ground Zero. Miroku was already there, waiting for him near the entrances for the restrooms. They outskirted the dance floor and nearly settled down in one of the booths along the far wall below the second level overhang, but the pool table was not in use, so Miroku suggested a game to get his hanyou friend to loosen up a bit.

Inuyasha avoided most of Miroku’s nosy questioning by giving him cryptic answers, such as “None of your fucking business” and “How the fuck would I know something like that?” Tapping his claws impatiently upon the rim of the pool table as he watched Miroku hit a solid color ball with his cue, Inuyasha wondered why his friend seemed to give so much of a damn over his love life. He never had before.

Inuyasha poised himself for proper aim of the striped fifteen ball, then flattened his ears beneath his bandana at the DJ’s latest choice in songs to spin. He sent a glare up toward the makeshift ceiling before concentrating on how to hold his cue again.

“You know, Miroku, you seem awfully interested in what goes on between me and her.”

“Ah, well, I’ve all but given up on being anything but single, so I suppose I’m living through you,” Miroku said and quickly scurried around the corner of the pool table, as if he expected the hanyou to react ferociously.

Inuyasha merely gave him a strange look, keeping his eyes focused on him in a strange, confused stare. He finally said, “Didn’t know you were the type to.” Miroku looked relieved.

They each took another shot, neither having landed a ball into a pocket yet, and then Inuyasha spoke up again, having to yell over the din of the pounding hardcore techno that was hurting his ears. “So, you’re seriously going to stay single? That‘s not like you. I mean, yeah, you‘ve been single for the last year, but that‘s cuz you still keep up hope that Sango will--”

“Inuyasha,” Miroku interrupted, placing his hand over his heart. “I merely wish to bond with her in ways she won’t let me.”

“Whatever.” Inuyasha sank a striped twelve ball.

“But yes, I’m going to stick with the porn and any kiss and tell I can rip out of you,” Miroku continued unabated with a chuckle.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes, though Miroku likely couldn’t tell too well in the meager lighting of the club. “When I do sleep with her--”

“Oh, so it’s a definite yes?”

“Number one, that’s moot. Number two, yes, I will. Number three,” he counted off in a warning tone, setting his pool cue against the pool table to gesture counting on one hand. “When I do, I will not be giving you details. There’s this thing called privacy.”

Miroku was wise and kept his mouth shut on the topic for the rest of the game.

After Miroku sank the eight ball, he declined a second game. The two friends spent the remainder of the night on the dance floor or in front of the bar engaging in small talk with people they knew.

When at home past two in the morning, Inuyasha lay silently in bed for a while. He didn’t evade sleep so much as it evaded him. This was typical for nights when he was to sleep and he’d been clubbing or just plain carousing, in so much as it usually took him another good hour to stave off the awakeness that saturated him to the core unless he was seriously dead tired.

A week since he’d promised Kagome he’d only need two more weeks, and he still felt like he was in the same spot. The same track of mind. That was it.

By four, he was still awake. The same thought continued to plague his mind. What was he going to do about Kagome? He was further than he was a week earlier, but…

Goddamnit. The last time he’d had a good night’s sleep, an honest to goodness GOOD night’s sleep, was- was when he’d slept with his arms around Kagome back in July.

Sleeping next to her had been bliss. The physical contact, the warmth bleeding into him, her comforting scent, and the way she seemed like she fit there, up against his chest. The debate on whether or not to risk a simple bed-sharing with her had been worth it. But he’d only had it once, and he missed it. He missed sharing a bed with another person.

Hell, that’s why he had paid for that night of company nearly four centuries ago. Why up until recently, he kept pulling others into bed with him. Why he had been with so many- because no one ever stayed.

This was where he wanted Kagome to fit in, he realized-

“Fuck it,” he mumbled and sat up with a groan. Within moments he was at his desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out one of several small prescription jars from a large Ziplock baggie. Shaking an oblong white pill into his hand, he stared at it.

Sango’s brother suffered from a mass of disturbances. Periodically, insomnia was one of them. Nothing chronic, but when the teen couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t sleep. When she’d taken him to the hospital back in July, it had been due to adverse reactions to Ambien, a sleeping aid he’d been put on only days earlier. The boy had experienced hallucinations like the auditory and visual ones Inuyasha was accustomed to when tripping on the new moon.

Sango had later told him that during the hallucinatory episode that sent him to the ER, Kohaku had been screaming about a dream stalker out to kill him. Inuyasha had immediately placed the boy’s stalker as Freddy Krueger. Kohaku had been watching the Nightmare on Elm Street movies in a marathon at a friend’s house the weekend before.

From Sango’s perspective, the delirious Kohaku had burnt his forearm on the kitchen stove to “wake” himself up. After that, she’d taken him to HCMC and had him taken care of, both for the burn and the unabated hallucinations.

After that, Kohaku’s scrip had been changed to something with no potential for such adverse side effects, and Sango had offered Inuyasha the remaining sleeping pills. They were still good, and hallucinations were a very rare side effect. She assumed it had just been a mismatch with Kohaku.

The 10mg pill between his thumb and forefinger, Inuyasha dry-swallowed the pill and capped the jar, put everything back in its place, and hobbled back into bed. He didn’t care what sort of weird effect it might have on him. He just wanted to sleep.

---

“Breakfast Club?”

“No.”

“Shrek?”

 220;No.”

“Notting Hill?”

“Heck no! I can’t stand Hugh Grant!”

Rin frowned as she put the DVD case back on the shelf. “Ten Things I Hate About You?”

“No, no, no,” Kagome practically giggled in response. “I’ve seen it so many times I’m sick of it.”

Rin pulled out another DVD and was about to list its title when she noticed its cover. She quickly put it back in its spot, her eyes wide as if she’d seen something embarrassing.

“What was that?”

“Um,” Rin blushed, “I’m going to have to ask my brother to keep his ‘specialty’ DVDs separate from the ones we share, if you know what I mean. Ew. I can’t believe anyone likes that kinda stuff.” Kagome laughed at her implications, while Rin went for another DVD. “Okay, how about A Life Less Ordinary?”

“Know nothing about it.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Rin said with a smile.

The two teenage girls settled on the couch with the DVD player remote in hand and a couple baggies of snack food and a twelve pack of Dr. Pepper scattered around them on the floor.

“The basement looks different,” Kagome commented warily. The last time she’d been in the Crenshaw’s basement, she’d been extremely drunk and, well, and physically bound to Rin’s brother’s bed.

With Inuyasha on top of her.

Straddling her waist.

The memory -drunken haze and all- still flustered her a bit.

Rin took a glance around the room in confusion, then nodded knowingly. “Yeah. We moved the TV down here a couple months ago. And the couch is new.”

“Well, it’s very nice.”

“All right, opening credits are rolling,” Rin said, and the two sat back and dug in.

For the most part Rin and Kagome kept their chat to the inevitable commentary that often went on when watching a movie for the first time with someone who’d already seen it.

The movie captured nearly every spec of her attention. She’d have preferred something not romantic, for obvious reasons, but it almost immediately won her over.

And just as she suspected, as soon as the ending credits began to roll, Rin sprawled her arm along the back of the couch, turned and gave her a look that Kagome immediately recognized as ‘I want details.’

“Come on, Kagome, what’s been bothering you? You’ve been mopey in school for the last two weeks now,” Rin prodded. “I mean, why else did you wanna come over, right?”

“Well, I know, but…” Kagome trailed off, beginning to close herself off even though she’d been the one wanting to talk in the first place. Rin had simply made the offer of being there for her. The only person in whom Kagome had confided about what had happened between her and Inuyasha was her mother.

Sighing, she looked toward her lap and tried to assess how much to tell, how much to hold back, and how to start.

“You know,” Rin began, “you were fine until after the thing with you and Kohaku. Is this related?”

Kagome quickly shot her head up in surprise. “No, not at all! Kohaku’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Well, I’m glad about that.” She smiled. “He thinks he did something--”

“Well, he didn’t, so he can stop worrying. He’s just a really good friend, and I’m seeing Inu--” Kagome froze on her own words, a pained look spreading across her face. “Um, I mean--”

“It’s Inuyasha, isn’t it?”

Rin took in Kagome’s expression and the way she had sent her gaze away from her, concentrating on the TV set in front of them, and the nervous fidgeting of her hands with each other. Kagome, bottom lip between her teeth, nodded silently.

It was Tuesday, a week and a half since Inuyasha had given her that promise. So far, the only contact she had with him during work -her only contact with him at all- was minimal. Essentially, whatever was necessary for two supervisors working in different departments when their shifts happened to overlap. Many of Inuyasha’s shifts were openers, while Kagome always closed if it was a weekday. She hadn’t had a driving lesson in a month.

The situation with him was much more overbearing than she ever would have guessed. Each day was slightly harder than the next. With only a few days until when he’d said he’d be ready, the stress really added up. Kagome felt like a wreck. It was all she could do not to cave in.

Hell. She’d wanted to open up to Rin. She might as well stop balking. Kagome took a deep breath and then started explaining.

“I know you don’t know me that well, Rin, but you know Inuyasha through your brother,” Kagome said after she finished describing what had led up to her feeling so down. “I guess, I don’t know. I just wish I could be sure that everything will work out.” She sighed again, her eyes focused on the hands in her lap. Rin’s arm came around her from behind. “Goddamnit.”

Rin rubbed Kagome’s far shoulder soothingly. “From what you tell me, he’s really going to lengths to keep you, even if he’s staying away from you like this. I don’t know him half as well as Kouga does, but Inuyasha is not the kind of guy who does that kinda stuff for most people. He’s so in-your-face and brutally honest that if he had no intention of--”

“I know that, Rin,” Kagome said softly. She lifted her head to look at her friend, seeing confusion all over her face. “I mean, what I’m having trouble with is why he’s got these problems, whatever they are.”

Rin glanced off to the side for a moment, then met Kagome’s gaze again. “I doubt you’ll find out short of asking him. I just know my brother thinks he sleeps around too much. He doesn’t keep girlfriends for long.”

The two continued chatting until they heard footsteps clomping down the carpeted stairs far behind them. “My brother must be home from work,” Rin said offhandedly.

Kagome immediately froze up. She wanted to get the hell out of there. Anything but to be around Kouga. Being hit on by him at his party -as well as her own drunken behavior afterward- still embarrassed her to even be in his presence.

“Yeah, I think I’ll just go home now,” she said in a forcibly cheerful voice and stood up, faking a smile as well. Rin looked at her strangely as she speed walked toward the upstairs stairwell.

“Don’t you want a ride home?” asked Rin.

Kagome didn’t answer. She was too intent on leaving. When a foot away from the stairwell she ran full on into Kouga, who looked surprised but not displeased at seeing her.

“What, no hello to your boyfriend’s friend, Kagome?” Kouga interjected before Kagome, skittish as all hell, could escape the Crenshaw family. Kagome did not like the amused look on his face.

She paled considerably before answering. “Uh, hi, Kouga. I’ll be going now.” She laughed. Must escape. Now. “I think I’ll take a bus, thank you.” Even though I don’t know what bus comes by here.

Kouga’s face lost the amusement, and he clamped a strong hand onto Kagome’s upper arm. “The hell is up with you?”

Oh, great, Kagome groaned inwardly. Kouga does the same weird eyebrow cock Inuyasha does all the ti-- “Um, I don’t really think you’d care,” she admitted sheepishly, her voice sounding strangled. “I mean, with all due respect and all and--”

“Damnit, Kouga, she’s having boyfriend problems,” Rin muttered and stood up. “Your comment probably made her ‘the hell up with her,’ geez!” She crossed her arms once she made her way toward her older, and barely taller, brother.

Kagome silently panicked at Rin’s declaration of her problems. “Um, if you could just let go of me,” she gave him a fake, toothy grin, “I’ll be on my way and when I get home, I think I’ll never leave my room again for the next two years.” She tugged her arm for emphasis. Kouga didn’t take the hint.

The older male looked from his sister, to Kagome, to his sister again. Then he finally said, “I did not make her be like anything, Rin.” Then he directed his attention upon Kagome, who continued to struggle and laugh nervously. She looked like someone had asked her to dance upon hot coals for a prize. “Kagome, if I may, I’d like to speak to you.”

“Um--”

“And then I’ll give you a ride home. Or Rin can. Whichever you prefer.”

“I, uh… don’t really have a choice, do I?” The iron grip on her arm wasn’t budging.

Kouga shook his head, half amused. “Only over who takes you home.”

“Fine.”

“Kouga, what’s going on?” Rin asked, eying him warily.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look, sis, I already knew there were problems between them. I just didn’t realize she was this fucked up--”

“Excuse me?!” Kagome glared at him. No longer did she feel embarrassed to be near him. She just plain didn’t like him.

Judging by the angry look on her face, Rin seemed to share her sentiments concerning Kouga’s latest comment, but she never got a chance to voice them.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” he snapped. “Just come with me. We talk. That’s all I want,” he told Kagome, effectively silencing both of them.

After neither girl responded with more than a stare or a sigh, he led her upstairs, still holding a fierce grip on her arm.

When they reached the kitchen he let go of her arm and told her to sit at the table. Kagome did. She also glared at him. “Well?”

Kouga removed a Coke from the fridge and popped it open, then took a sip, swallowed, and said, “Look, I didn’t realize you two were still apart, or I wouldn’t have said that.”

“What,” she asked dryly, “call me fucked up?”

“No, I mean I wouldn’t have called him your boyfriend,” he corrected. “But, what the hell’s up with you acting weird around me?” He took another sip, a long one this time, then locked his blue eyes on hers.

“You make me feel uncomfortable.”

He did that eyebrow thing, again. Just had to remind her of Inuyasha, didn’t he?

Shutting her eyes for a moment, Kagome suppressed a growl. “The party, remember?”

“Ah.” He nodded his head. “Okay. It was just a flirt, I swear.” The smile he flashed her unsettled her.

“That’s not what I meant,” Kagome muttered with a glare, and then Kouga donned a look of realization at what she had meant. “So, is that all you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked when he made no move to continue.

“Are you upset over him?”

“What kind of question is that, especially coming from someone I barely know?” Kagome sputtered indignantly. She couldn’t believe him. Of course she was upset! And what did he care, anyway? She wished he’d just hurry up so Rin could drive her home.

Kouga took note of her bristled, defensive reaction. He looked as though he were choosing his next words with much care. “Because he’s royally fucked up, and he’s my friend.”

Or maybe not, Kagome thought with cynicism, nearly forgetting to wonder how her sudden attitude had sprung up.

Kouga continued without waiting for her response. “I haven’t seen him in a couple weeks, but,” he paused to finish his Coke and drop the empty can onto the linoleum floor, “last I saw, he was fucked up. I figured his head would be screwed on correctly by now, but if you two are separated, then I guess not.”

Kagome refrained from wincing when he flattened the can with the heel of his boot. “So, he really does have problems?”

“Big time. I can’t tell you what they are, though.” He pulled out a chair and seated himself across from her. He smiled; he had her full attention. “Remember, I’m the one who knew about him and Jakotsu but kept my lips sealed.”

Kagome blanched. “Please don’t remind me about that. It’s kinda disturbing.”

Kouga laughed. “I won’t. Back to what I was saying. Lips are sealed.” He made that zipper-mouth gesture, then turned serious. “However...”

“However what?” As depressing as the subject was, she was all ears. She finally had a chance to get inside Inuyasha’s head, even if just a little bit.

Elbows on the table and hands balled below his chin, Kouga leveled his gaze at her. “While I can’t tell you what Inuyasha’s problems are,” his eyes narrowed into slits, “do take heed to my words. You matter to him, period, end of fucking story. You want your boyfriend back. I want my friend back.”

Kagome sent him a look that he read as ‘how in the hell have you lost him?’, so he clarified. “He’s acting like a big, immature fucking moron, and as long as he’s like that, he’s not exactly social. There’s a reason I haven’t seen him in a couple weeks, ya know.

“He may be a little fucked up for the time being, but when he does get his ass into gear,” he paused, then looked at the table top before meeting her eyes again, “you and I will both get what we want.”

Shocked at the vehemence in his tone, Kagome stared at him and said nothing, carefully digesting his words.

When she made no move to speak, he folded his hands together upon the tabletop. His smile returned, along with his more congenial side. “You and I just need to wait things out. Now, do you want a ride home on my motorcycle, or would you rather Rin or I drive you?”

“Is it safe?” she asked uncertainly. It was a unique opportunity, after all, even though it was still Kouga.

“Of course.” She nodded then, and his smile became the wide grin of a showoff with an opportunity. “Come on.”

---

Jittery fingers dialed a number, then held the cell phone up against the side of his face. His breath was less than even as he listened to the ringer. Impatient, he counted the number of rings in his head, hoping his friend wasn’t already too asleep to answer. Two… three…

“Hello?”

“Miroku, I know it’s late but--”

“Mmm? Huh?” Miroku’s voice was definitely weighed down with sleep. He nearly yawned his response.

“I said, I know it’s late, but it’s important.”

This time Miroku did yawn. “What’s so damn important? And what time is it? This better be an emergency.”

“Two. I need to talk.”

“Talk. At two in the fucking morning?”

“Look, if you’re too tired to drive over here--”

Miroku’s sigh reeked of annoyance and loss of patience. “We’re already on the phone, Inuyasha. Can we keep it to the phone?”

“Well, I was gonna say I could just come over there, but I can keep it to the phone if you promise not to fall asleep on me.” The hanyou ran his fingers through his hair, their path going right between his ears. “Well?”

“Yeah, fine. What’s up?”

“I’ve been having nightmares.”

“Nightmares. You’re calling me over nightmares,” Miroku muttered. “That’s a new one. I can’t fucking believe you’re calling me at two in the fucking morning about nightmares!”

“Well, you call me at weird times of the night for stupider reasons all the fucking time, and I’m fucking serious about this.” He rolled his eyes. “They’re nightmares about Kagome.” He went on before Miroku could respond to take back his angry comments. “Like last week on Thursday night, I had this fuckin’ creepy dream that was like something out of a Kubrick film.”

Upon hearing Inuyasha’s version of the details, Miroku grumbled, “That’s not Kubrick. That’s straight outta Amer--”

“Yeah, but I mean imagine that scene being done Kubrick style.”

“Fine. I get what you mean.”

“And then,” Inuyasha continued, filling him in on the other nightmares he’d had in the last few weeks.

He saved the one he’d just woken up from for last.

“It was like it left off right before where I’d woken up from the one with her in the tub with the fuckin’ rose petals. Kagome rose up from the tub, and I felt like I’d woken up, but I was somewhere else. I swear, it looked like I was back in Japan at the beginning of the 1600’s.

“I was in a village that had seen better days during a famine or a massacre. There was this woman with her back turned to me. She was dragging me by the wrist to the entrance of one of the nicer looking but still fuckin’ shabby huts nearby. I would have recognized that kimono anywhere, though.”

“Why does that matter? Geez, just hurry up and finish.”

“Because the whore I lost my virginity to almost four hundred years ago wore it,” Inuyasha ground out.

A long ‘ah’ sounded from Miroku’s side. “Go on.”

“So this woman wearing that whore’s kimono pulled me into the nearest hut. Now, I hadn’t caught a look at her face, but I’d assumed she was the whore. Inside it was very dark. No light sources except for the doorway. Before I could say anything, she had me up against the wall. She didn’t even question my modern clothes. She just-” Inuyasha paused to gather his wits, his voice gone frantic.

“She had her arms around my neck and was kissing me, and I was frozen, couldn’t do anything except kiss back. I figured it was just a weird memory resurfacing. But then her hands went for my waist, had my belt undone, and her hands were inside my pants and--”

“Are you sure you weren’t just having a really strange erotic dream?” Miroku asked, sounding fully awake and in danger of losing his patience once again.

“Well, it was that,” Inuyasha snapped back, “but the kicker was, as soon as she pulled away, the light was just enough for me to see her face.

“Miroku, it was Kagome. Beneath the white on her face and the red on her lips, it was Kagome, no mistake. And then in her own voice, she started talking like that whore had talked to me, saying she’d make it good for a beautiful one like me,” he finished, his voice strained. “Fuck, Miroku, she was a whore, and it sickened me, made me panic, to think of her servicing anyone other than ME. I mean, it’s Kagome, my Kagome--”

“Inuyasha,” Miroku cut in with a groan, “shut the fuck up and listen to yourself.” He was clearly fed up. “I think that if you don’t realize what these dreams mean, if they mean anything, then you’re the biggest moron I’ve ever met.” Shocked, Inuyasha bit back his initial response, shut up and waited for him to continue. “Here you are again, calling her yours, and yet you’re still tied up over things. Since you called me about your damn dreams, I will tell you what I think.”

The strung out hanyou waited with bated breath.

Miroku sighed and said, “I think the way you reacted to the thought of Kagome being with anyone other than you, whether or not for pay, is a sign. What, exactly, is still holding you back from being with her, again?”

“Cuz I--”

“You’re afraid that she won’t be more than a lay, right?”

“You took the words right outta my mouth.”

“Yes, well, here comes reality knocking at your skull with a big fucking ice pick, and it seems you’d prefer not to let it take residence in your little brain, Inuyasha--”

“But--”

“Look, if you’re dreaming of Kagome as the woman you lost your virginity to, and you can’t stand the thought of her being with anyone else, then I think that’s a pretty clear sign that you won’t have anything to worry about.”

Miroku paused for a breather, and Inuyasha, sitting tense upon his bed with his phone against where he, being a dog-eared hanyou, had no ear, clutched his left knee with his free hand and anxiously anticipated what his friend would say next.

“I think you’ve found your answer, and with that, don’t you dare call back, because I’m hanging up, unplugging the phone in my room, and going back to bed. I’m a normal human who needs normal sleep, and I have work in the morning.”

The hanyou stared at his cell phone long after Miroku did hang up and the lit up display no longer showed the call time.

He contemplated what Miroku had said, coming to his own conclusions that Miroku hadn’t been pulling his arguments out of his ass and likewise hadn’t simply been over irritated at the late night phone call. He put his phone away and took a deep breath, then pulled himself together. He got up to take a shower, despite the hour.

Hot water plastered his hair to his back. Inuyasha leaned forward to brace himself against the shower wall with his hands. His forehead rested upon the foggy panel encasing the shower, and he shut his eyes.

After repeating a long string of curse words to himself in as many languages as he could cuss in, he banged his forehead repeatedly against the panel and flattened his ears against his head to keep the water out.

When he finally nodded off to sleep in bed, dressed in a lightweight red yukata and with his hair blow dried, he was curled up on his side, facing away from the wall but scooted as close to it as possible. With barely damp eyes he’d stared at the spot in front of him. For quite some time he’d felt the emptiness of the mattress, like something was missing.

Something was, and he was finally sure that what was missing belonged there.

---

Kagome was nervous. It was Friday, two weeks to the day since Inuyasha had supplied a time frame answer to her ultimatum- wait, ultimatum? She frowned mentally and in reality. Since when had she started thinking of it as an ultimatum?

She shuffled all the way from the top of the escalators on the skyway level over to the staircase by the box office. All the while, dread pooled in her gut. Her feet felt heavy as she slowly scaled the stairs. When she reached the top, her eyes immediately scanned the main lobby for him.

As luck would have it, he was opening today. Their shifts would overlap for a mere hour. This was the only point in time today they’d have for- for coming to terms, Kagome supposed was the best way to put it.

With the movie lineup they had today it was doubtful the show sets would be busy enough to warrant Inuyasha staying past his scheduled shift by manager request. That Cusack movie and the Texas Chainsaw remake were the only flicks likely to draw crowds.

So far, there was no sign of Inuyasha behind the stand. However, he was a supervisor. He could be anywhere at the moment. In the prep room behind the stand. In the stock room. In the GMO. Actually, just about anywhere but up in the projection booth.

She sighed dejectedly. No use standing around staring at everyone, especially with her work shirt visible underneath her light jacket.

Kagome steeled herself and made her way across her end of the lobby, down the carpeted corridor and toward the break room, her eyes forward. She paid little attention to the customers who looked at her strangely with fleeting interest as they approached and eventually passed her by.

When she was almost to the break room door, she felt a hand upon her shoulder from behind. She immediately paused in place. Brimming with apprehension, she turned to see who’d stopped her. She grinned in a way that was nigh masochistic.

It was indeed Inuyasha.

There was a look of determination upon his face, and its effect on her was… not properly describable. It made her want to hug him closely and never let go, but at the same time, something about it -probably the hint of seriousness that she hadn’t quite expected- seemed far too aloof for her to be able to rejoice yet. Kagome wasn’t sure why.

Perhaps it was because she’d expected him to be smiling rather than solemn, even though he was more akin to smirking in self amusement than smiling in any fashion. Also, he had barely reacted to her bright smile.

She didn’t want to be the first to speak.

He didn’t say anything. Instead, hand now firmly clamped in place upon her shoulder, from which it still hadn’t moved, Inuyasha guided her the remaining few feet toward the door. Not wanting to make trouble for him at such a sensitive and volatile -where was her reassurance?- time, she refrained from balking; a tiny voice told her he might have something planned. Something away from prying eyes. She hoped it was right.

He released his grip on her to open the door himself. Once half inside, standing in the doorway with the outward opening door held open for her, Inuyasha inhaled sharply and said, “Inside.” He gestured with a head toss toward the innards of the room, still solemn.

As for what happened once she was inside and the door had clicked shut, whatever she had been expecting what with his behavior and body language so far, it hadn’t been what did transpire.

Almost immediately Inuyasha encased her in a crushing grip of a hug.

Kagome clutched him tightly in response, and as soon as their eyes met, she broke down. With her throat slowly tightening, she lay her head against his shoulder, shunning eye contact and fisting her hands into the back of his work shirt. It was all too tempting to begin shaking. She resisted, barely.

“I’m an asshole, and I’m sorry,” and his grip on her loosened. Kagome mumbled unintelligibly in response to his ambiguous reply. Either way, no matter what he’d meant by that, it still tugged at her heart.

A hand went up her back and her neck, the fingers threading into her hair awkwardly. Kagome felt warm breath upon her cheek, warning her seconds before he placed a kiss upon the shell of her ear, his fingers still cradling the back of her head.

Kagome shut her eyes; she whimpered and shivered, her eyes tearing up.

His fingers gnarled themselves into a good grip of the hair close to her scalp, and he gently pulled her head back to look at her. Kagome didn’t fight his desire to look at her. Warm lips pressed against hers, and then he spoke after a simple kiss.

“I shouldn’t have made you wait so long, but I had to be sure I wasn’t screwing up. Please take me back.”

Even with her tears, she couldn’t have been happier, long wait be damned.

Shaking, Kagome kissed him and then answered, “I already knew you were a bastard the day I met you. Of course I’ll take you back.” She pulled away and looked at him. “A-and what’s there to take you back from, anyway?” Damnit, she was stammering and rambling, but she couldn’t help herself. “You said so yourself. You were just a puppy, my puppy--”

Inuyasha grudgingly beamed at her new pet name for him; it was somewhat his fault. Kagome unfisted one hand and cupped his cheek with it. She gave him another feather light kiss and blinked away her tears.

“My puppy, who had personal problems to take care of,” she finished in a low, taunting voice, then tilted her head forward and pouted dramatically. “And now you’re back where you should be.”

“And tomorrow evening…” Inuyasha trailed off with a smirk, his fangs visible.

She sent him an indignant, expectant look. The hell was up his sleeve now? “Yes?”

With a suggestive eyebrow waggle, he nearly purred the second half of his statement. “Your puppy wants to get laid.” The pink tip of his tongue snaked out to wet his upper lip, effectively flustering Kagome for just a moment; at the same time, it sent an arousing flutter into the pit of her gut.

Upon her quick recovery of composure, Kagome laughed at the ultimate lack of romance in his blunt statement. She shook her head knowingly as new tears threatened to form. This time, though, they were the good kind of tears.

---

Just as he’d promised three and a half weeks earlier, Inuyasha was coming to her door. He’d already eased her mind and cleared her of trepidation over them, but only now did it hit her with full force. She was feeling the giddiness all over again.

Around half past five, Kagome peeked through the window. He was standing on her doorstep. She let him in. Such a smile was on her face that she’d have to worry about her cheeks becoming permanently fixed like that.

Following her inside with hidden glee, the black and red clad hanyou put his acting skills to work, forcing his expression into one of solemnity. They had already planned to tell her mother together, but he had something else planned as well. Something he hadn’t let anyone in on.

It was all Kagome could do not to squeal as she hugged him and dropped a couple light kisses at the base of his neck. She was bursting with energy. No, that was an understatement; she felt like Tanaya on caffeine or speed. Her mother was in the next room, so she needed to calm down first.

Chiho Higurashi was watching the History Channel when her daughter came in, Inuyasha in tow. At the sight of them, she immediately found the remote and turned off the TV.

Kagome and Inuyasha stood side by side about halfway between her and the doorway. Chiho creased her brow, her eyes running from one to the other in an attempt to determine exactly what they had come in for. Being ultimately fond of Inuyasha, she hoped they were here to announce that things had been remedied.

“Mom,” Kagome began and turned so she could wrap both her arms around his waist. She rested her chin on his shoulder; it fit snugly in place. “We’re--”

Inuyasha turned his head and interrupted her before she could finish her statement. “I have something to say to your mom.”

Both women focused their attention upon him. Slightly taken aback, Kagome stood aside to study his face; her smile disappeared as she wondered what he was up to. Her mother stood up and crossed her arms, a worried look on her face.

An arm around Kagome’s waist, Inuyasha spoke again, knowing he had their undivided attention. Hopefully Kagome would forgive him for his next action. “There’s something Kagome and I have kept from you. Something really important.”

His free hand went for his bandana and tore it off.

“Wha- Inuyasha, no!” But Kagome was too late in her outburst. And, even if she hadn’t been, she realized right then that she probably couldn’t have stopped him in the first place. She looked away from him and saw her mother staring at the two of them- no, just at Inuyasha. Surprise was etched all over her face, and her mouth was slightly parted.

Already in a panic, Kagome’s gaze went from her stunned mother back to Inuyasha. Then, to his white ears that- that drooped?! They never drooped unless… unless--

“Mrs. Higurashi,” he began in a horrible attempt at stoicism. “I’m a--”

Mrs. Higurashi interrupted him before he could continue, her answer astonishing the both of them. “Are you a youkai?”

But it was how she’d said it that astonished them, rather than what she’d said. Her tone had been simple, to the point, and- and curious.

Kagome looked back at his ears; they were still lowered. She nearly wanted to cry. Inuyasha wanted to- he- why had he come out to her mother? And why now?

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Inuyasha faltered in his façade, and a look of sadness managed to show upon his face, despite his efforts to suppress it. “Actually, I’m hanyou.”

Kagome’s mother continued to stare, effectively crumbling nearly every speck of confidence the hanyou had had in himself.

With uneven breathing he continued, “I- I… Kagome has known for a while. I don’t--” He shut his eyes, and after wetting his lips he turned and embraced Kagome more tightly than the day before in the break room. “Fuck, I can’t do this.”

In a whisper Kagome asked, “Then why are you--”

“Because, Kagome, I want your mother to accept me,” he snapped in a surly tone, his face a shell hiding the turmoil inside, “all right?!”

“I do, Inuyasha,” said Kagome’s mother in a perplexed tone.

Inuyasha’s ears went ramrod straight up as he froze. He looked at her. He’d stopped trying to act as soon as she’d said the y-word, and even before then it had been a terrible cover up. “You do?”

Speechless, Kagome wasn’t sure what to think, except for one thing. Her mother had been right. Inuyasha was capable of being scared of something. He’d been scared her mother wouldn’t approve of them because he was hanyou.

I should have known, Kagome said to herself. I should have known he’d do this. I just wish he’d have picked some other time to do it.

Oh, and he’d been scared when he’d come out to her, too. Can’t forget about that.

Inuyasha continued to gape at Kagome’s mother.

Kagome’s mother smiled. “I’ve never met any hanyou before, aside from you of course, but when I was younger, I knew a youkai. Back in Japan.”

“What? You never told me about that, Mom!” Then Kagome cringed at how whiny she’d just sounded.

Upon calming down, Inuyasha lightened up on his grip on Kagome. “You can’t be serious!” Petulance surfaced in his tone.

Sesshoumaru had been the last youkai-blooded person he’d seen, back in 1931. About to tell the fortysomething woman this, he caught himself as soon as he realized that would require revealing his true age. Goodness, what would she think about the age gap between him and her daughter? “Yes, Mrs, Higurashi, I’m more than six hundred years older than Kagome.” Um, no. Coming out as hanyou was enough. He stayed silent and awaited her response.

“It was when I was maybe ten or so, in the very late ‘60s.” She smiled, earning a stare from her daughter.

“I still can’t believe you never told me,” Kagome pouted, her arms secured around Inuyasha’s waist.

“Well, Kagome, I never told anyone, if that’s any consolation,” she answered apologetically. “But, I do have photos of him.” Mrs. Higurashi went toward a bookcase in the far corner of the room. The bottom half of the bookcase had drawers like a desk. Inuyasha and Kagome watched with intense interest as she opened the drawer second from the top and pulled out a mini photo album of the type with only one photo per page.

As her mother made her way back toward them, Kagome shot an apprehensive glance toward Inuyasha. “What if it’s your brother in those pictures?” she whispered.

“He left Japan only months after I ran into him. He told me he was leaving for Germany. Sesshoumaru’s not the type to change his mind over something like that, Kagome,” he told her quietly.

Kagome was about to reply when her mother reached them. She flipped the miniature album open to a specific spot and handed it to Inuyasha, who took it with the same hand he’d removed his bandana with. “Who’s Sesshoumaru?” she asked as he stared at the not so great looking instant Polaroid in its transparent sleeve.

“My older half brother, a full blood youkai,” he answered. “This is you?”

Kagome took a peek, and it was indeed a color photo of her mother. Why had her mother hidden this photo? She’d never seen that photo album before. “That’s definitely my mom. She stopped wearing her hair long when I was about eight.”

Mrs. Higurashi nodded. “This is from 1968, and the boy standing next to me--”

“Um, he looks pretty normal to me,” Inuyasha commented flatly.

“Well, check out the next photo.” She smiled knowingly. Inuyasha did.

“What the hell?”

Kagome let go of Inuyasha and pulled the album toward her so she could get a better look. “He looks almost the same, except he’s got pointy ears, red hair, and a long fox tail.”

Her mother laughed. “His name was Shippou. I knew him only for a few months, but he was a sweet young man. Looked about twelve years old, but he told me he was about two hundred. Wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, but if youkai exist, then I suppose something like that’s possible.”

Inuyasha choked on his own breath at her supposition, and when she sent him an odd glance, he acted innocent and tried to pass it off as a mere clearing of the throat, hoping she didn’t get the idea to ask him how old he was. She continued on after a moment, as if nothing had happened. He didn’t see the odd glance Kagome had thrown him.

“I was one of the few who ever saw Shippou as the kitsune youkai he was.” She rambled on about the fox boy a bit more, then took on a look of pensiveness as she took the photos from them. “No idea what happened to him. But anyway, back to the real situation.

“As you can see, Inuyasha, I’m glad to know your secret. It’s safe with me. You have no need to worry. And,” she managed to smile again, though she still looked a bit sad, “I’ve liked you since I met you. You are who you are, and Kagome really likes you.” She looked like she wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure how to bring it up. “Oh, um, may I touch your ears?”

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered and rolled his eyes like it was a burden, but his smirk told all.

Kagome laughed. “I guess it runs in our family?”

Kagome’s mother reached out and stroked Lefty a bit. At first her fingers touched the fur too lightly, making him flick his ear away from her hand; after that, she was a bit more firm and adventurous. She removed her hand once she’d had her fill, commenting on how soft and warm they felt.

After an odd silence that wasn’t quite awkward but still not quite proper, Kagome became antsy. “So, um, Mom, Inuyasha and I were gonna go out and um,” she stalled for a moment, not sure she wanted to be blunt, “do stuff.”

Her mother nodded and said for them to call if she’d be home particularly late, then turned and went to put the photo album back in its special hiding place. Kagome gave Inuyasha an extremely tight hug, and they headed toward the front door of the townhouse.

“Hey,” he said offhandedly, “would you be willing to change clothes?”

She took a glance at her current get-up, then gave him a puzzled look. “What’s wrong with a button down shirt and a long skirt?”

He feigned innocence. “Oh, nothing….”

“Spill it.”

“Fine.” He gave her a smirk, then bent to kiss her somewhere on the upper column of her throat, a nice, wet, open mouthed kiss that immediately reminded her of the Coke syrup incident several months earlier. She suppressed a whimper at the memory. He definitely wanted to get laid. “There’s just a little something I’d like to see you in. That’s all,” he said as he pulled away and placed his hands upon her head.

“I suppose,” she replied.

---

And as Kagome sat in the passenger seat of Fungus, she shook her head and wondered what the hell Inuyasha had been smoking when he came up with the idea of asking her to wear her--

“All right,” he said, interrupting her thoughts as he pulled into a parking spot along Minnehaha Parkway, a one way street along the south side of Minnehaha Creek.

“Where are we?” Through her window she saw just another suburban block of houses, and on Inuyasha’s side, a wide slope of trimmed grass that eventually met with an asphalt bike path, and on the other side of it, the bank of a creek. Farther up ahead of them, on the non-house side of the street, were lots of trees along the path and the creek banks.

“South Minneapolis. There’s a place I wanna show you.”

“I’d kinda wondered why we weren’t at your place yet.”

He was already out of the car when he replied, “Yeah, well, you said so yourself that we were going out to go ‘do stuff’.”

“You know exactly what I meant,” she said.

His subsequent nod was more than patronizing. “Of course I do. Now let’s go.” Not wanting to argue, and surprised at her eagerness ‘do’ the ‘stuff’ she’d euphemized, Kagome gave in and got out of the car. They crossed the street and walked down to the bike path, which they discovered was both a bike path and a walking path at that point. It split off as they further approached the woods.

“Get on my back. I‘ll give you a ride so we can get there faster.”

“Okay, tell me again, why the hell you wanted me to wear this?” Kagome muttered as Inuyasha crouched down.

He sent her a glance over his shoulder and took in the green and white seiraa fuku that made her look like she’d walked right out of some random shoujo anime or manga. Well, except her skirt wasn’t scandalously short. Thankfully it went a little past her knees.

“Because I like schoolgirl uniforms,” he replied succinctly, unable to keep a grin from his face. Then, before she could voice her opinion, he added, “Do you like me in leather pants?”

She paused, then answered with utmost honesty, “Well, you have the legs and ass for leather- hey!” The glare she sent him only made him laugh and gesture toward his back, beckoning her to get on.

“And you have the legs and ass for seiraa fuku. Now get on.”

Kagome rolled her eyes but succumbed to his request. “I’d hoped I’d escaped men like that by returning to the US, you know,” she muttered, her arms tight around his neck and shoulders. His bandana was all she could see if she looked forward.

Inuyasha stood up and took firm hold of her legs. “Well, tough shit.”

It had been months since he’d given her a ride, and as they shot through the woods down the path, Kagome realized she’d have to ask him for more such rides in the future. They were damn fun. She was very glad for succumbing only to Inuyasha’s request for the green and white uniform she never thought she’d have to wear again. He’d also asked her not to wear panties, and now she was glad she’d refused.

The rush of wind through her hair was really nice, nice enough that she wondered if Inuyasha ever missed the freedom of being able to run around at unchecked speeds. Surely he was always careful about when he did any displays of his speed, and where he did them.

As trees flashed by them, Kagome was glad that no one was on the path coming toward them. She wondered what any witness would think of the strange, speeding blur of red, white, green, and black that they were. They finally came to a stop near a large concrete bridge that supported a street up above as well as spanned the creek they’d been running alongside at a tolerable height.

This part of the parkway felt like it was at the twenty or thirty feet below street level, like in a tiny, not so dangerous ravine. The underside of the bridge was mostly plain, half eroded black dirt, and it sloped upward toward the street level, stopping at a fence.

“Come on, this way,” he instructed after letting her back onto the ground. She followed his lead. “These y-shaped concrete support beams are extremely thick and--”

“I can tell from here,” she interrupted.

He turned around and stopped. “What my point is, is that these beams,” he threw his left hand back behind him to point at the set of beams closest to the side of the ravine like slope off to his left, “are not about to let the bridge fall on top of us, and we’re nowhere near heavy enough to make them crumble.”

Then he turned and continued walking, his arm back at his side. “Now, these beams are in pairs. The far one--”

And Inuyasha, as he and Kagome found themselves caught in the bridge’s shadow, continued to explain the interesting setup he had come across several years before. There was one of the closest pair of beams whose little Y space was reachable. The lower half of that column seemed to spring out of the ravine slope itself. From afar, most of the lower half was visible, but from the other side of the bridge, the concrete disappeared into the soil about a foot below the Y opening.

While cars roared above and over them, their voices echoed as they walked farther under the bridge, as if entering a cave. They scaled the dry dirt of the hillside to get around to the entrance.

For a y-shaped beam, the inner spot they had access to now was relatively flat. It was about fifteen feet wide from beam wall to beam wall. It wasn’t completely level, for it sloped downward from the middle at minor angles, but Kagome found it a fairly cozy little nook. There was plenty of room on one side for several people to sit and chill.

Walking up to the edge of the beam, she looked down and saw that from her perch she could barely see the creek or the path or, really, anywhere beyond the bridge. She was so high up she really couldn’t see anything but what the bridge overshadowed. It was a long jump, or fall, downward. At least fifteen feet, she judged.

Arms came around her waist from behind and dragged her back a bit, startling her. After all, she was fairly close to the edge. If she’d been pushed rather than grabbed, she definitely would have fallen. Splat.

“Don’t surprise me like that,” she grumbled, her voice echoing lightly.

“Do you like it up here?” he purred into her ear with a hint of smugness, then tightened his hold on her.

She let him walk her back over to the middle, then said, “Yes. It’s a little grungy on the surface of the concrete, but if you clear it off a bit, I’d definitely be willing to actually sit down.” Glancing around appreciatively, she smiled and turned around in his arms till she faced him. “I like it very much. It’s like a secret hiding place, waiting for people to--”

Kagome’s words were cut off. Not by words coming from Inuyasha’s mouth, but by his mouth itself. At first she was simply surprised. When his kiss didn’t let up and he tightened his arms around her waist, the feel of being pressed up against him sent her pulse racing and made her want to melt in his arms. Insistent, his lips became a bit more demanding. She gave in and let him have his way for a while. It felt good to be kissing him like this again.

He pulled away with a satisfied grin on his face. “Exactly why I brought you here,” he nearly chuckled at her.

Letting go of her, he bent at the knees into a crouch, then swept away some grit with his hand before sitting upon the lightly sloping concrete. He patted the spot beside him, right around Kagome’s feet, and she followed suit with the routine, smoothing her skirt so the underside of it didn’t bunch around her rump.

Neither said anything for a while, just stared at the concrete wall of the support beam’s Y branch in front of them. Kagome could still feel a rush pooling between her legs at the earlier closeness, but even now, she didn’t feel daring enough be the one to make a move.

“Is it just me, or has the concrete only just now warmed up?” she rhetorically asked with a laugh. When her thighs had touched the concrete surface, they’d been seriously chilled even with the fabric of her skirt between her flesh and the stone-cement mixture. It was much cooler in general under the bridge than out in the sunlight.

Pursing his lips, Inuyasha faked deep thought. “Um, just you.” The look she sent him spoke of annoyance. “Oh, come on. Skimpy skirt, bare legs, what do you expect?”

“A skirt that goes past my knees is not skimpy,” she protested.

“Whatever you say,” and he drew his legs up a bit, then repositioned himself with a grunt so he was lounging on his side and holding himself partially upright with one arm. Then he licked his lips and sent her a devious smirk.

Kagome narrowed her eyes. That was it.

Within moments she was on top of him, flattening him onto his back and straddling his waist. “You’re making fun of me again, aren’t you?” she growled at him, nearly nose to nose. He looked surprised. But hell, he was probably faking it, Kagome thought.

Inuyasha went into Smartass Gear. “You do know the only reason you have me on my back like this is because I let you, right?”

“You--”

“And seriously,” he continued joking, his deadpan look gone, “isn’t it nice of me to be so laid back when I could easily be Mr. Dominant if I felt like it?”

Kagome would have huffed, but she was having trouble keeping her focus on anything other than his moving lips. She wasn’t even looking into his eyes anymore.

Even though he’d just recently trailed his tongue over the skin of his lips, they didn’t look wet enough to her. She’d have to remedy that.

She silenced him as he was about to begin another taunt, immediately beginning a kissing session of the sort that she’d been deprived of for weeks. Slow and warm, she started out gentle, then roughened up when she nibbled more than lightly on his lower lip, drawing a moan from him. Her heart rate rose, and she could feel her pulse between her legs, growing moist down there by the second.

Inuyasha slid his tongue into her mouth in between heated kisses, caressing her lips with his own. Wanting to catch her off guard, he dragged the tip of his tongue barbell teasingly along the back of her upper gums.

Kagome drew back from the kiss immediately, her hands on his shoulders and her arms holding her up as she stared at his amused grin. “That tickles!” He put his hands behind his head and stuck his tongue out at her.

“Good. That’s what I was going for.”

In her head, Kagome screamed why? However, she just said, “Well, obviously you’re not in the mood if you can’t even take kissing seriously.”

The hanyou between her legs snorted and scoffed, “Kag, there is a LOT I don’t take seriously.” Before she could reply, he cut in, “And if you were seated a little closer to my damn crotch, you’d know by now that I am in the mood,” his grin increasing with every word he spoke.

“Oh, well--” Kagome blinked repeatedly as she registered his words. They’d barely started kissing!

“With your thin panties, you should definitely be able to feel just how in the mood I am.” He forced himself upright and then quirked his brow. Kagome kept her grips upon his shoulders but settled farther back until she sat directly on top of his lap. The simple feel of the bulge in his pants -pressed against her, right there- was stimulating enough to put her breath in pants as she started kissing him again.

Her fingers slowly trailed down his chest, feeling the firm musculature beneath the thin fabric, until she decided she didn’t want that silly cloth barrier there anymore. As many times as she’d seen him without a shirt, she’d never really had the opportunity to feel him.

Her shins alongside his hips as she kneeled upon his lap, in between pants and hot, dizzy kisses, Kagome smoothed her hands over his chest blindly until she came to the buttons for his shirt. His hands went around her waist to lock her in place. Her breathing heavy now, she trailed her lips down to his throat and sucked lightly on the skin as he whimpered a husky groan.

One button of his shirt came undone. Then, another. Then…

“So, when are we going back to your place, Inuyasha?” The words came in a sibilant purr as Kagome placed a trail of kisses down his throat and further down to his collarbone, the farthest she could reach without curling inward too much. This teasing would simply drive him nuts, and she was more than happy to play around for a little bit right now--

“After we have sex, of course.”

Kagome’s lips froze in place. At the same time, her hands ripped his shirt the rest of the way open in shock, effectively debuttoning the lower half of his shirt. She pulled away and stared at him.

“You can’t be serious,” she said, “can you?”

It took him a few seconds to compose himself and be able to focus his eyes on her. “Of course I’m serious,” he said between pants. “Why the fuck do you think I brought you here?”

“But!”

“The only butts we’re gonna talk about are yours--”

He slid one hand from her waist to cup and squeeze her butt, an action that elicited a whimperish whine from her despite her current opinion of the situation.

“--and mine.”

Kagome opened her mouth to protest, but he squeezed her rear again, and out came another whimper. Actually, it sounded more like a stifled moan. Then she did whimper of her own volition - it felt good, and she was slowly losing her will to argue with him.

“Besides, we’re already in the mood, right?” he argued. “It’ll take us ten minutes to get back to my place. Do you really want to wait that long?”

“What if someone sees us, though?” she hissed, though it sounded more like a childish whine. “Or better yet, someone hears us?”

He made a sideways glance before meeting her gaze again. “Doubtful anyone would see us way up here, and if they hear us, then oh well.”

“Well, why here?!” Kagome put on her pouting face.

“I’ve been meaning to try something new. Never fucked on a bridge support beam before.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never done any fu- any sex, uh, stuff at all.”

“It’ll make this extra memorable, then, won’t it?”

Kagome narrowed her eyes. “Did you plan this?”

His grin widened. “Of course I did.”

Kagome huffed and flared her nostrils as she sent him an annoyed look. “Then where’d you get the idea I’d wanna do it here, or outdoors at all?”

He grinned sheepishly. “Thought maybe you’d like to be a little experimental.”

“Look,” she ground out, her tone peeved, “I wanted my first time to be on a bed.” She poked him in the chest with a finger. He snorted and rolled his eyes, and she tugged on his shirt. “Is that too much to ask?”

“Ah, come on and lighten up.”

“Excuse me?” She couldn’t believe it. He was absolutely incorrigible. “You make me wait three and a half weeks, leaving me hanging and wondering if you’d even come back after the two weeks you told me you still needed, and now we don’t even get to do it on a bed?!”

During the entirety of her speech, her tone had risen in pitch and anger, but what was truly startling and unsettling was the effect the nature of their current location had on her words. They boomed around them like she’d started yelling into a microphone set on some strange vocal effect for repetition. It was enough to even make Kagome figuratively sit back and shudder.

Grumbling in both annoyance and sympathy, Inuyasha practically snarled back, “You know what? I‘m fucking sorry, but I had a fucking problem, and yes, my problem was about FUCKING!”

“I don’t care.” She let go of his shirt and crossed her arms in front of herself, despite the lack of room.

“Let me finish. I ‘left you hanging’ because I didn’t want to fuck you only to find out you‘d be just another FUCK to me, all right?!” Inuyasha bared his fangs and growled, his brows set low. “You want your first time to be special, and I‘d want your first time with me to be special to me, and cuz I wasn‘t sure, I needed time to think. If that‘s not clear enough for you, then I don‘t know what is.”

Word by word, Inuyasha’s admission tore at Kagome’s heart with its honesty. Her eyes widened with pain.

“If I wasn’t gonna feel anything, I didn’t want to hurt you like that.”

Kagome slapped him hard on the cheek, just like she had the day he’d run her over. Then, as Inuyasha looked at her in shock, trying to figure out the meaning behind it, she gave him a starting clue.

“What do you mean… you didn't know? You either know those things or you don’t!”

“Look, I was fucking confused, ok--”

“About what? If there wasn’t feeling enough behind it before to make you think it would be special, then there's nothing you could have done in two weeks that could have changed that,” she hissed at him, then averted her gaze. Taking a deep breath, she turned and struggled in her attempt to rise from his lap.

She didn’t get far. Inuyasha frantically grabbed at her waist and yanked her back down into place, much to her annoyance.

“Kagome, listen--”

“There’s nothing to listen to. Take me home,” she ordered, her voice cold.

“No! Fuck no, I won’t. You're going to hear me out on this!”

“Look, Inuyasha--”

“URUSAI YO!”

And while the hanyou had been the one to bellow out the ‘shut the fuck up’ command, Kagome wasn’t the only one to cringe with her hands over her ears from the ominous sounding echo that resounded beneath the whole of the bridge and carried over like a ripple effect. His own damn utterance gave his ears skull aching pain and made his heart race faster than that of a mouse.

When she finally uncovered her ears, Kagome stared wide eyed at him, breathing heavily. He started before she recovered enough of her wits to say or do anything else.

“It WAS there, you idiot. I just didn’t know. I just wanted to make sure. I was just fucking confused! Have you any idea how long it’s been since I thought of a woman, or anyone for that matter, as I think of you?”

Numb, the girl on his lap continued in her attempt for self composure. “.....no.”

“I never have. You’re the first one.”

She dropped her gaze, and as soon as her throat no longer felt tight, which took a while, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

At the wistful look on her face, he added, “You’re the only one I want, and I want you now.” A clawed hand cupped her face and forced her to regain eye contact. She nodded once he’d stared at her long enough waiting for an answer.

Kagome planted a light kiss upon his forehead and apologized again. “Still, it’s outdoors!” she protested, more softly than last time, attempting to be reasonable. “And the echoes will magnify everything, and I don’t feel comfortable being naked out in the open, and, and…” she trailed off as apprehension took over, her shoulders drooping.

Why couldn’t Inuyasha be a more normal guy and just take her home and make love to her on his own damn bed? It’s not like she’d asked for a candlelit dinner and roses or anything. She was a low maintenance girl and always had been. It was just… why here? Was it too much to ask for her first time, at least, to be on a bed? He could use all the restraints and weird kinky stuff he wanted as long it didn’t squick her, but- a bed, please?

“Well, I thought the echoes would be kinda cool, actually.” He gave her an honest, considering look.

“And I- I don’t want to get my uniform dirty,” she added in an uncompromising tone, then raised her brow. “I already told you what I think of the concrete we’re sitting on. If you think I wanna be on my back on that--”

“I could fuck you against the wall if you want,” he suggested.

“That wouldn’t make up for it,” she retorted, nowhere near ready to concede, though the visual was tempting. The mental images his suggestion gave her only roiled her blood even more. “A-and I’d be that much more visible if someone happened to get curious about the echoing outcries of two people in the throes of passiommphh--”

Inuyasha cut her off with a needy kiss. Kagome relented immediately and melted into his kiss as her frame shuddered within his arms. A whimper escaped when he trailed kisses down past her jaw. She panted as he began teasing the side of her neck with playful nibbles, and when he sucked and licked the sensitive skin there, she shut her eyes tightly and swallowed.

“Okay,” he said when he pulled away, leaving her staring back at him with a sex-starved pout, “what do I need to do for you to agree?”

“Huh?” Kagome sent him a zombified look that spoke of no real intelligence. “Agree to what?”

He laughed. Her brain had probably turned to goo when he’d gone for her neck. “Under what conditions are you willing to fuck me right here, right now?” A firm tug at her waist reminded her that he was still aroused; she could feel it pressing hard and smooth against her panties.

Kagome, her thoughts half muddled and her entire body screaming for her to just pin him on his back again and yank his clothes off and kiss him till she was dizzy, somehow managed to understand exactly what he was asking. He wanted a compromise. Neither of them wanted to wait a moment longer, and while he was damn persistent about the location and she was damn opposed to it, he was willing to compromise… as long as it was on the support beam.

Compromise, he said. What kind of compromise was possible for such a compromising location, though?

Her misgivings were nothing unusual. She just wanted to do it on a bed as opposed to concrete. That, and she wasn’t too keen on being discovered by curious bike riders and anyone out for an early evening stroll along the banks of a scenic, burbling creek- and now that she thought about it, the location, minus the particular specifications as to which part of the location, was just starting to border on romantic. As long as they weren’t interrupted, it really was nothing to complain over.

After rolling those thoughts and many others through her mind, Kagome decided that with a few conditions of her choosing, she’d be fine with the location after all. She smiled deviously.

“Okay, I have three conditions.”

“Shoot.” The air he put up spoke of an inability to be conquered, as if he expected absolutely no condition she could ever throw at him to send him into the throes of regret.

He was about half off the mark, though.

“Number one, as soon as we get back to your place afterward, we have sex again, on your bed,” she began, and he nodded in a patronizing manner, still exuding confidence.

“Sounds good to me. Number two?”

“Number two,” and then she paused, waiting for him to get impatient.

“If you keep me waiting, I’ll forget about all this and take you back to your house, and we can consider fucking some other--”

She darted her gaze off to the side before returning it to lock upon his eyes as she finished her statement. “You have to remain completely naked once I strip you.”

“Not gonna argue about that. Last one?”

“Number three, you may not remove my uniform for any reason whatsoever.” A girlish giggle punctuated the final of her three requirements.

“Um.” His smirk vanished. He looked somewhere between stunned and surprised. Maybe even a bit regretful. Kagome silently rejoiced at his reaction to her little curveball. “Are you su--”

“You can move it out of the way, but I still must be technically wearing it at all times,” she clarified. This was fun.

Rather than answering verbally once he shook off his stunned expression, Inuyasha removed a hand from her waist and dug around in a back pocket, then pulled out a square condom packet. He flapped it back and forth between his fingers as he teased her, waving it around in the air in between them like it was some sacred treat to tempt her with.

“Hate these things, but whatcha gonna do, right?” he drawled as he tossed it lightly to the side. He held back a chuckle at all the signs of physical and mental relaxation Kagome began to display, finding it funny that something as simple and miniscule as a little piece of latex was the culprit of her relief. He had full plans of using them religiously. There was no reason for her to find out, and he didn’t know how he’d be able to handle being pitied by her. Some things other people were not meant to know.

Just as he was about to lean in to kiss her, something off to the side caught his eye. His gaze strayed back toward the packet on the concrete. Several smallish sized buttons were lying innocently nearby. After a scant glance at it and then a double take, he eyed her warily and examined the front of his button down shirt. Only the top four buttons or so were still there. Someone was in deep shit.

His nostrils flared. Kagome sent him a hesitant glance.

“Kagome, this was a nice shirt,” he groused, eliciting a shocked look from her. With wide eyes Kagome floundered in her attempt to explain that it wasn’t intentional, then immediately silenced at the feel of his hands tugging at the back of her skirt and pulling it up. The thought of stopping him didn’t occur to her until one hand holding her skirt up flat against her back pressed her flush against him.

Her confusion dissipated when his other hand quickly found her panties. Careful claws sliced them clean through above one hip and then the other, exposing her cheeks.

Well, he’d wanted her without panties, and now he’d gotten her that way. Kagome would have sighed and shaken her head had she been an observer of the whole thing. As that clearly wasn’t the case, she satisfied herself with a mental roll of her eyes. Thankfully these panties hadn’t been expensive. Still, afterward she’d need to have a little discussion with him about things. Things, as in never destroying any article of clothing she wore in the future ever again, period.

Kagome shivered at the touch of a warm hand cupping one bare cheek. The gesture instantly reminded her of Inuyasha’s earlier playful claim on her ass. He squeezed and rubbed the flesh of her rump in much the same manner as before, and Kagome assumed that meant more playfulness was to come. What she wasn’t expecting was the immediate withdraw and then smacking return of his palm, the connection harsh and almost stinging upon her unsuspecting skin. She jumped in place to immediate attention, sending a perplexed stare at a very angry looking Inuyasha for the- the spanking he’d just given her.

Inuyasha glanced askance before his gaze returned to lock upon the confusion that swam in her eyes, and he slightly modified his earlier statement and tacked on an incredulous sounding “I can’t believe you did that.” Her relief from earlier trickled away, and overwhelming nervousness took over at an exponential rate. Dealing with an intemperate Inuyasha welling up with anger over something so minor was not her forte.

“Um, it was in the height of passion?” she squeaked out in an attempt at cuteness. Hopefully he’ll buy that. She had, after all, been in the midst of--

He clucked his tongue, his eyes glistening darkly. “I don’t think so, young lady,” he chided sternly and without a speck of anger in his tone. Inuyasha patted her bare rump, soothing the tingling, spanked area in a circular motion before drawing his hand away and then bringing it back in a repeat of before. Kagome’s chest heaved as she squirmed upward at the contact in a futile attempt to escape. His strong grip forced upon her a hard, grinding land upon the ridge of his erection, evoking a surge of desire to jolt from her groin out to her limbs.

She bit her lip in an unsuccessful attempt to curb her outcry. Now Kagome knew she was trapped, erotically charged, bare assed and chest to chest, on the lap of a very aroused, very controlling, taunting Inuyasha. “You’re a naughty little girl. You need to be punished.”

Kagome gulped. “No, I swear I didn’t mean to!” she pleaded, her breathing erratic.

A salacious grin appeared on his face. “You’re still a naughty little girl.”

She made to protest, but another spanking sent a shudder through her. She arched her back and shut her eyes tightly, letting out a whispery groan. Blood rushed through her veins, and warmth continued to pool into her nether region as the inner muscles tightened in anticipation. Kagome wet her lips and tensed her legs with a whimper. To say that the increasing pace of her pulse between her legs was distracting would be a humiliating understatement. His hardness was firmly ridged upward between her folds, his leather pants and her soaked panties the only barrier between their flesh. Just the thought of that contact sent her over the edge with desire, sensitizing her at every spot their bodies touched, clothed or bare. It was like she was on overdrive.

Inuyasha deigned to prompt Kagome again once she finally composed herself and sent him a look that begged for an answer to his tenebrous behavior. “Are you a naughty girl?” She shook her head and answered no, despite her pants, still not able to comprehend the method to his most recent bout of madness.

“Wrong answer.”

Kagome quickly shut her eyes as she felt the rosy sting of his hand against her ass, followed by a slow, placating caress of the swatted skin. All of this had instantly reminded her of the time he’d spanked her at work, from the very first swat. Wincing murmurs trickled through her defense as her pulse sped and her limbs trembled. It was not fair. Here she was, stuck on his lap and being physically reprimanded, and all it did was turn her on. Each smack did nothing but send chills across her skin. How was he supposed to discipline her when she was secretly enjoying this?

“Tell me.” Inuyasha repeated his question, waggling his brow just a bit. When she didn’t respond with more than a blink, he added in a drawl, “I like naughty girls.”

Then, it clicked. Kagome’s eyes widened as her hanyou’s intentions became clear. He knew exactly what he was doing, and it was working so well she wanted to kill him for it later. She slowly nodded and answered in a wavering voice, “Yes, I’m a naughty girl,” catching onto the role play idea.

Being the subject of his discipline was endearing. It set her blood afire. The massage of his hand after each spanking was soothing, warming her undoubtedly reddened skin. He’d said quite a while ago that he’d never hurt her to make her feel real pain. Why she reacted with desire and lust to things like being hit with his crop or being restrained and at his mercy was a mystery Kagome felt she’d never uncover, but she trusted him, and he her.

And Kagome wanted him to do these things to her. She was his to do with as he pleased, so long as it was consensual. “I-I’ve been naughty, and you need to discipline me.”

A low, short, pleased growl came from him, immediately putting her at ease for her daring move of compliance. Kagome shut her eyes as he placed a small, nipping kiss upon the corner of her jaw where it met her neck. She whimpered at his touch.

“I’ll think about how to punish you later,” he mumbled against her throat as he stroked the tender skin of her reddened cheek with the roughened side of his thumb. She let out a strangled mewl, her hands going for his shirt and tugging on it. He chuckled as he pulled away from her throat and unhanded himself from her, much to her displeasure, then leaned back.

The girl on his lap sat back, her breathing heavy, while he began removing his shirt. “But- but I’m a naughty girl who needs to be punished, now,” Kagome mumbled, putting on a yearning pout. Slipping into the role he’d designated just for her helped her shed her nervousness, and she wanted him to keep it up.

Inuyasha paused at her responsiveness, amazed, his eyes taking in the sight before him. At this moment, nothing was more arousing to him than the devoutness she displayed. He cracked a smirk; this was simply too easy.

“Since you’re such a naughty little girl that you can’t be a patient little bitch when I say so,” he crooned, lust curling around each of his words, then paused for a deep sniff. Kagome was no doubt slick with her own juices, and they’d barely begun. The scent was intoxicating. “--then I suppose I have no choice.” His clawed hands snatched one of her wrists and brought her outstretched fingers to his lips.

Kagome went rigid when he took one finger into his mouth, almost frantic as she tried to fathom how this was discipline of any sort. Golden eyes stared into her blue ones as he lightly ran his tongue along the underside of her digit in a repetitive motion. The metallic bead in his tongue trailed along for the ride. Then the licking stopped, and he sucked upon her finger long and hard, making her gasp as he rolled it around in his mouth. He shut his eyes, an expression of bliss surfacing for a moment before he slowly withdrew her finger. She shivered when the pad of her finger passed alongside one of his sharp, abnormally long canines.

The tip was almost free from his lips when Inuyasha halted the action and lightly grazed her finger with the tip of one fang, pausing to bite down possessively. He kept the pressure light enough that no skin breakage would occur. Tightening his grip on her wrist, he set a fiery gaze upon her, then withdrew her finger completely.

“You have until I flip you on your back to please me as you wish,” he commanded, letting go of her and returning to the removal of his shirt. Kagome inhaled deeply, wide eyed. She had a time limit before he’d take complete control. “After that, any disobedience will only heighten your punishment.”

By the time he’d tossed his shirt aside, she was pressing him to the concrete. He hadn’t even had time to move his long hair out of the way. Kagome went to work, unsure of where to start but too anxious to care at the moment. Her lips migrated everywhere, from teasing his lips and their delectable jewelry down to languorously licking the sensitive skin of the hollow of his throat. Her hands explored his chest, fingers awkwardly searching for his nipples and then brushing across the small nubs repeatedly till they stiffened.

Inuyasha’s moaning sounds told her how good she made him feel. He tugged at the ruined scrap of cloth that should have passed as her panties until he’d yanked it out from behind, right between her legs, and tossed it to the side. Kagome pulled back from his neck to moan blindly at the sensation of the damp cloth running across such sensitive skin. It had barely missed grazing the little nub, unlike earlier when she’d sat atop his hardness.

The hanyou’s hands went from her waist up the sides of her torso and beneath her seiraa fuku top, slowly seeking out the breasts he’d never dared to touch before, the ones he’d only dreamed of cupping. The ones he’d run his tongue between far too long ago.

A grin spread across his face when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. He’d half expected it since she didn’t always wear them, like on that day by the lake and the day long before that on the river bank, but it was still a nice surprise. All the more quickly would he get to feel her there.

Kagome drew back from the spot where his shoulder met his neck at the feel of fingers softly brushing against the side of her breast. It was so soft it almost tickled. Inuyasha quickly pulled her against him and rolled her over onto her back, taking advantage of her lack of alertness and loss of dominance. She was the naughty one, after all. As her master, his duty was to exert his dominance.

Inuyasha pinned her down at the waist, then worked the front hem of her shirt up as far as he could. Supine, she reminded him about keeping her uniform fairly clean. At his request Kagome obediently arched her back. Inuyasha planted a tantalizingly cruel series of teasing licks and kisses upon her belly as he continued pulling up her shirt, stopping only when her chest was completely exposed.

He looked up to take in the pair of creamy, unrestrained mounds. The desire to cup them, caress them, suck upon her exposed nipples sent his desire skyrocketing. Kagome’s hands immediately went to cover herself up, but he stopped them at the wrists before they reached their destination.

“I want to see you. Do not cover yourself up like that,” he ordered, tightening his hands around her wrists to further his point. “You said as long as I don’t completely remove your uniform, I can move it around all I want.”

She made to protest, but he cut in, telling her that he wouldn’t have it. “Disobey me and get disciplined.” He waited until she nodded before accepting her submission.

Inuyasha freed her wrists and settled his hips astraddle her waist. Then, slowly, he began leaving a trail of kisses up and down her throat as he gently cupped one breast. He kept his other hand on her shoulder to complete the act of pinning down the squirming female.

During his ministrations she raked her fingers along the back of his ribs, digging in with intensity that reflected the pleasure coursing through her. A tender stroke along the outer curve of one supple mound made Kagome gasp with wide eyes and dig her fingernails into him bitingly; another made her shiver.

Intentionally avoiding her pert nipple, he gently massaged her breast in a cupping squeeze. The girl beneath him was sighing and whimpering and wriggling with his every touch, and each new sound she made only excited him further and hardened his already stiff arousal to a point at which he’d need to get out of his pants soon. It was straining against the leather of his pants, pressing into her bare belly. It yearned for more stimulation.

Kagome gave up, withdrawing her arms and resting them upon the concrete. She squirmed, moaned and panted beneath his touch at every gentle but firm, possessive squeeze of her flesh. Each lick and suck was painfully slow and erotic, evoking tremors throughout her frame. The hanyou slid farther down her, trapping her thighs between his knees, and started lightly teasing the sensitive skin of her breasts with his lips, again avoiding the nipples.

Her hands went for the blades of his shoulders.

The soft brush of his lips contrasted with the solid feel of his lip rings as he dragged slow, closed mouth kisses along the tender underside of her right breast, side to side and back again, parting his lips for a short moment to breathe hotly upon her skin. Her mind reeled and her back attempted to arch when her aching nipples finally received attention.

Not from his lips, or his fingers. From the very tip of his tongue flitting back and forth across the stiffened nub. Kagome parted her lips into a small O and moaned. She wanted to shake uncontrollably. It was all she could do not to simply grip the back of her head and hold his hungry, talented little mouth to her aching nipple.

Inuyasha made her feel exquisite. This level of desire was unlike anything she had ever been able to produce through self stimulation of any sort before, even when she’d visualized him doing these things to her. Fantasies could never compare to the real thing, and the real thing was here, and it was here now.

Inuyasha swirled the underside of his barbell carefully around her nipple, sending a shudder through her body. Her fingers nearly clawed at his back as she tried to keep her breathing under control. Warmth and moisture continued to pool between her legs in an ache that throbbed.

He was taking his time and intentionally torturing her by making her endure such slow, drawn out pleasure. Kagome wished he would hurry up and let her be more physical on him. She found it unfair that he’d been doing most of the exploring of bodies so far.

Kagome bit back a moan when he took one nipple into his mouth and began sucking upon her breast while his free hand made sure her other breast received attention. Careful of his claws, he rolled the stiff peak between the rough pads of his finger and thumb, then tugged on it in mid-twist. She let out a strangled, pleased scream, her echoing voice begging him not to stop but not to be too rough. Her hips bucked upward as she tried to kick her legs at the feel of him lightly nibbling upon the nipple in his mouth.

When Inuyasha pulled away he leaned back, leaving her high and dry and whimpering from his withdrawal. He stood up alongside her to reposition himself further down, demanding she part her legs. She complied immediately, knowing better than to disobey. She had no idea what sort of punishment lay ahead of her for ruining his shirt.

Inuyasha knelt between her legs. He lifted up her skirt by the hem and almost reverently smoothed it out over her belly, leaving exposed what her panties would have covered had he not already sliced them off.

The hanyou leaned back and shut his eyes for a moment. He inhaled deeply, reveling in the scent of her arousal. Kagome was hot, slick with wetness, and aroused, and all because of him. She wanted him, she’d offered herself to him, and he was so hard it took all of his self restraint not to just unzip his pants and thrust deep inside her, to just fuck her right there until he came.

Kagome froze as she felt his breath upon the skin of her thigh. Inuyasha was so close. Thoughts of what she knew he’d do next started to make her nervous with anticipation. Within a fleeting moment he grasped her thighs. He pinned them to the concrete, holding them open at an angle. Since the day she’d met him, Kagome had known Inuyasha was a man who loved oral sex. Anyone who listed oral sex as the reason for getting a tongue piercing was obviously into pleasing his partner with his tongue, tasting his partner down there. And since she began to reciprocate feelings with him, Kagome had always fantasized about what it would be like to receive oral pleasuring from him.

She craned her neck forward so she could see him, then immediately went for his bandana, firmly clutching at the barely protruding ears hidden beneath the black cloth. She was more comfortable on her back than leaning over him. From her preferred position, Inuyasha’s head was the only part of him within reach.

Inuyasha froze at the touch of her hands tugging on his bandana and growled, giving her the shivers. “Do not remove that, or you’re in really deep shit.” His head shot up, and he sent her a glare. She quickly drew her hands back, stunned. “And I’m not play acting or anything. You can play with them once we get back to my place. Is that understood?”

“Yes. I-I just wanted to touch you,” she admitted, instantly realizing he was simply paranoid about being seen with his puppy ears, “or at least occupy my hands.”

Inuyasha grinned, his glare vanishing along with his fleeting anger. “Forgiven.” He placed an open mouthed kiss upon her inner thigh, nursing the tender skin succulently. She inhaled sharply from the sensation, her head falling back upon the concrete.

“Touch yourself.”

“Wha--”

“Touch yourself. That’ll occupy your hands.”

“But I want to touch you!” she protested, unable to keep the whine from her tone. And it wasn’t just her desire to touch him. Naughty girl being forced to obey or not, she was far too touch shy to- to do that in front of him, especially out in the open.

“Good things come to those who wait,” and the hanyou between her legs licked her inner thigh. Kagome’s hips bucked inadvertently, and she panted. “You can touch me… all you want… when we’re fucking and… when we’re back at my place,” he said between impatient pants. “I want to taste you. And knowing you’re touching yourself will turn me on.” His final words came out in a lustful purr.

Kagome conceded immediately, but in her own way. All he’d said was for her to touch herself. But, he’d never specified how. The disobedient, naughty girl inside her told her she could get away with it, and she hoped she was right.

Kagome shut her eyes and drew her hands to her abandoned chest at his request, merely covering herself up. Her hands were touching her breasts, motionless. He’d never said she had to do more than that.

Meanwhile, Inuyasha’s lips bathed the sensitive skin of her thigh in lavish, worshipping kisses. He slowly made his way toward the source of her scent of arousal, nibbling lightly at her trembling skin in between. She was wet for him, and he was painfully desperate to taste its tanginess, but he forced himself to take his time. Teasing one’s partner was half the fun, after all.

The hanyou’s pierced tongue darted abruptly toward the slit that peeked through her trimmed curls, the gliding, upward motion eliciting a sharp, guttural moan from her.

He glanced up at her outcry. “I thought I told you to touch yourself.”

Kagome’s chest rose and fell erratically beneath the weight of her hands. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure tempting his wrath had been such a good idea. “I am. You didn’t say how you wanted me to. You just said I had to be touching myself.”

“You know what I meant.”

“The technicality is your problem, not mine.” Kagome felt her nervousness return. Would Inuyasha discipline her for going beyond her comfort level? “Y-You didn’t say, ‘Kagome, fondle and squeeze your boobs like I was doing just earlier’.”

“… fine.”

She remained on her back, stunned that he had waived his order so easily, but unwilling to question his motives. Returning to his task, Inuyasha inhaled once more before planting light kisses upon her lower lips. Her legs shook beneath his hands as his tongue darted out and carefully parted the slit from bottom to top, lapping up the slickness he knew was there.

Kagome gasped at the feel of his tongue and lips along the moist folds of skin, moaning as she felt him lap at her down there. She wanted to arch into his mouth.

Inuyasha quickly found the sensitive nub at the top of her opening and began swirling the barbell end around it. He ran his tongue along where he wished his cock was right now, then delved it experimentally into the opening itself. She whimpered at each lapping, moist touch he gave her, occasionally bucking her hips into his mouth.

Kagome’s fantasies of what receiving oral would be like could never compare to what she was experiencing. Her hands bunched tightly into the fabric of her skirt at every lick, flit, dart, and taunt of his tongue. His mouth left no part untouched. Her lower lips, the hot, moist folds surrounding the opening where only her fingers had gone before, and most definitely her excited clit. All the muscles in her pelvis felt tight.

If Inuyasha didn’t have such sharp claws for fingertips, she would have deigned to plead for him to please her with his fingers. As it was, she didn’t dare suggest it.

Just as Kagome seemed about to scream from his oral pleasuring, he drew away from her and stood up, ordering the squirming girl to stand up as well. Frazzled at the abruptness, she quickly tugged down the front of her shirt and smoothed her skirt over her legs as she glanced around. Inuyasha clucked at her modesty surfacing and smiled after licking his lips.

Cupping the previously spanked cheek through her skirt with one hand and nipping her upon the throat, he finally spoke again, his voice close to a purr. “I’ve decided how to punish you, my naughty, shy little girl.”

He could feel her throat move against his lips with her words as she anxiously whispered, “And what will you do to me?” She’d almost panted her words out. Inuyasha had left her without climax; wasn’t that punishment enough?

“If you want the rest of me naked, you have to unclothe me yourself,” he stated in a husky whisper.

Her breath caught in her throat at his implications. After an initial stall, Kagome responded in the affirmative. This wasn’t so bad after all, and it was an opportunity of near free range of his body.

He caught her hands just as they went for the top button of his pants, halting her by kissing her neck in the most distracting manner. “Worship my body with kisses and your hands as you undress me.”

Kagome stuttered a yes, her mind foggy. Inuyasha brought one of her hands down to the bulge protruding from his pants, guiding her to feel what she’d done to him, begging her to touch him. “Only you do this to me, understand? Only you have this effect on me,” he said against her throat before licking it experimentally. She murmured unintelligently and nodded with shut eyes at the stimulating, erotic statements.

She gently squeezed his length through his pants, caressing his stiff erection, then kissed him upon the lips, tracing her tongue along the crease before prodding them apart so she could delve it inside. She could taste her own slickness as they became tongues and teeth, the tanginess mixing well with their saliva. Her hands went back toward the task of undoing his pants when she finally withdrew her tingling tongue, and Inuyasha stopped her again, instructing her to remove his footwear first. Kagome nodded obediently and crouched down into an almost kneeling position and undid his shoes. He kicked them off by himself.

Once again, as soon as she’d gone for the top button on his leather pants, Inuyasha stalled her, asking her to kiss her way down to his waist from his throat. “The worship starts from the very beginning.”

And again, Kagome obeyed, willing to do anything like this for him if he so demanded. She raked her hands uncertainly down the sides of his chest as she kissed him slowly. Each time he firmly squeezed her shoulders, panted, and moaned as she made her way down, Kagome paused with excitement. Knowing that she was pleasing him, that she was responsible for making him feel this way, excited her.

She finally reached the waistband, yet again. This time she was on her knees. Kagome hesitated going further. She dug her fingers between the inner band and his skin, waiting to see if he would prevent her from undressing him yet another time.

A reassuring squeeze of her shoulders was followed by slurred words. “Kiss my cock through the leather first, and then you can take my pants off.”

Kagome couldn’t fight it. A blush practically burned itself onto her cheeks; she looked down and tried to control her breathing.

Kagome did nothing but breathe in place for an extended period, and once Inuyasha took notice that this was no ordinary hesitation, he dropped into a crouch and grabbed her face, cupping her cheeks as he looked deeply into her eyes, trying to decipher her ailment.

“Are you okay? Is the role play a little too much for you?” he asked, out of breath and his voice bogged down with the concern he reserved for few people other than her. Kagome flushed yet again, finding it difficult to look someone who’d just ordered her to kiss him there in the eye.

Oh yeah. Role play. Duh. “Um--”

“Shhhh.” Inuyasha kissed her, stroking his thumb across her cheek. “Did I push you too far?”

Swallowing, she gathered her wits and took a deep breath. “I’ve just never, um, seen a guy’s… uh, well, except in a few pictures, I mean, and most of them were drawings. That’s all.”

He put on a pout for her. It made him look so delectable she could nibble upon his lip for hours. “If it makes you that uncomfortable, I won’t make you. Why do you think I let you go on the touching issue earlier? Remember, this is just role play. It’s all in the head. Do you remember what I told you about safewords?”

Safewords, safewords… click. “A signal that one’s limits are being pushed?”

Inuyasha’s nod told her she was close enough to the correct answer. “Pushed too far. From now on, if I push you too far, or something goes wrong, yell out a safeword you pick, and I’ll stop. I have to. It gives you control.”

Control… Kagome took his words for what they meant at the simplest. The element of control went back to the whole seeming power exchange thing, along with trust, respect, consent, and obedience. Inuyasha had told her that all of these were required for these more deviant, unusual practices he enjoyed to work in a healthy manner. She didn’t know much about these things, but he’d told her enough. She could live with that.

As long as she kept to her naughty girl role Kagome felt she could relinquish her will to him. She had the final say in case he did go too far, and this way, with Inuyasha in charge, she wouldn’t fumble so much, being the inexperienced virgin that she was.

Well, he’d all but told her to pick a safeword. She might as well right now. She said the first thing that came to her mind.

“Poodle.”

Mainly, because she remembered Jakotsu mentioning it at the party during the summer.

Inuyasha raised a brow at her but refrained from commenting further than, “If that’s what you wanna pick, all right.” There was an empty pause then, and Kagome didn’t taken the opportunity to respond. Inuyasha went on. “So, did where we left off push you too much? Cuz if it did, then--”

“I’ll be fine,” she reassured him, cutting in. “Just nervous.” Nodding with a sigh of relief, Inuyasha kissed her again. He tried to pull away, but Kagome bit onto one of his lip rings, stalling him. After a short bit of teasing kissing she finally let him stand up again.

Inuyasha had barely straightened before her when her fingers went for the waist of his pants. Kagome was positioned almost directly in front of his erection. She closed her eyes, wet her lips, and leaned forward. Kagome kissed the leather covering his hardness, pressing her soft lips delicately to the material in several places.

Kagome’s hands migrated toward the solitary button of his pants, fingers nimbly working it out of its loop before fumbling for the zipper pull tab. Her heart pounded in anticipation. As soon as she had his pants off, he’d put the condom on, and then he’d--

“Do you want this?” his voice commanded just as she’d begun to pull the tab down. He was back in character. The words sent a charge through her. They were stimulating, tightening her to the core. “Do you want me?”

“Yes,” Kagome answered, tugging the zipper all the way down, then felt him again, showing him through actions just how truthful her answer was. Clawed fingers glided over her hair in a petting gesture, as if he’d signaled his approval of her. She worked quickly and almost anxiously, keeping her gaze down. She opened his pants enough to tug them down. Within moments they were at his knees. Then she helped him step one foot out and then the other.

The leather clothing landed behind her as she tossed it aside. Her eyes were immediately drawn to his no longer restrained erection. Inuyasha had worn nothing under all that leather. For a moment Kagome felt the need to stare, to take in the sight, but she did not succumb. Inuyasha ordered her to kiss his body, and to touch him in other ways, while undressing him. She oughtn’t delay.

Inuyasha looked down to see how she was faring with her task when he felt her place a kiss upon the upper front of his right thigh. He stiffened in surprise when Kagome’s left arm reached around his leg to grab at his exposed butt; her right hand went boldly for his shaft, fingers wrapping around it gently. The girl on her knees before him was breathing heavily and kissing his thigh, trembling in place all the while. The mere sight of where she was, and what she was doing, touching, was enough to make his cock double in hardness.

Hesitant, she stroked his length a couple times, then paused at the groan it had elicited from him. Experimentally she raked her fingers down his ass cheek and further down the back of his thigh. This time his panting and moans were accompanied by the return of his hand upon her head, his fingers carefully running through her long hair.

She gave his thigh another open mouthed kiss and his length another gentle, firm stroke. “I want you inside me.”

“As soon as you put the condom on yourself.”

Kagome stalled for a moment, then told herself it was nothing to balk at. She already had one hand wrapped firmly around his thick, stiff shaft, and the way his soft, velvet skin moved as she stroked him intrigued her. What more was putting the condom on him herself?

Kagome let go of him and made to stand up, but the hand still on her head pressed her back down to the concrete, back onto her knees. “Fetch it on your knees.” Kagome complied, kneeing her way over to the packet while trying not to trip over her skirt. When she returned with it, she tore it open.

“How do I--”

Guessing what she was going to ask, Inuyasha quickly told her how it was used. He watched her as she hesitantly pinched the tip, then slid the condom in place, cupping his head in one hand.

Inuyasha choked and gasped as he felt her trembling fingers on him. He was hard as marble now, simply from her touch. Her soft fingers gliding down across his sensitive skin were teasingly light as she rolled it, inch by inch, down his thick shaft. The urge to buck into her hand was far too tempting at this point.

Kagome removed her hands once she was done and looked up at him, hands on her thighs, waiting for his next instruction.

Inuyasha kept one hand around the lower half of his cock as he pointed behind himself with the other and, between heavy breaths, ordered, “Against the wall and facing me.” Kagome obediently followed instructions. He met her at the wall.

Inuyasha braced his free hand above her shoulder. Kagome lifted up her skirt and keep her legs parted at his order. The hanyou brought his hand down to the back of her hip and pulled her forward while guiding the tip of his length toward her opening. He bent at the knees for better access as he slowly entered her. Inuyasha distracted her with a silencing kiss, stifling her pain induced murmurs.

The streak of pain that he knew marred her face as he pushed deeper into him, inch by inch, was unsettling, but he had taken virgins before. It was to be expected. He occasionally shushed her in between kisses, hoping Kagome would quickly acclimate herself to the feeling of him deep inside her. He held both of her thighs up high above his hips and pressed her firmly against the wall. His partner instinctively locked her ankles around his waist tightly, and he let go. Still kissing, both of them shuddered and whimpered at the intense sensory overload.

Kagome nearly bit Inuyasha’s lip for wanting to scream at the intrusion. He’d slid in easier than she’d expected, but it was no less painful. When she was by herself the greatest size anything inside her had ever been was the width of her three fingers, and she had often found only two to be much more comfortable. Inuyasha had to be at least three fingers wide at the most tapered point. After what felt like the first two inches were inside her, slick with her natural lubrication, the remainder of his shaft had threatened to stretch her out completely. Her muscles tightened around the foreign shaft tensely. Every inch of him inside her filled her up, and it felt like her nerves were afire.

Kagome’s arms went around his neck tightly, holding on for dear life.

“Holy FUCK,” Inuyasha mumbled druggedly after breaking off his kiss, his breath no longer capable of anything other than panting heavily.

Kagome shut her eyes and tried to relax, licking her lips nervously. Her entire body was tense. Adjusting to his size certainly didn’t feel like it would happen right away. She whimpered in between breaths, gripping his neck so hard they were no longer face to face. His breath warmed her ear as they waited patiently and almost silently in their intimate embrace. Inuyasha’s tongue occasionally darted out to lick her lobe, which only elicited more whimpers and moans from her.

When she finally felt accustomed to the feeling of him thrust deep inside her, Kagome said, “I’m ready.”

Inuyasha quickly withdrew almost to the tip. The sensation overwhelmed Kagome. She rolled her eyes back, moaned, and trembled all over, overcome with the most intense pleasure she’d ever experienced. She felt her muscles twitching and contracting around his cock as soon as he pushed back in, her breath speeding up painfully. Hips bucking forcefully and emitting a shout that echoed around them, Kagome shuddered into stillness, her breath still coming in erratic gulps moments before a long calmness took over.

Pulling his head back, he looked at her in confusion.

Kagome’s eyes were still squeezed shut and a pleased grimace on her face as she whimpered out, “Please tell me… that’s not all…” in a high voice.

If he’d had a free hand, Inuyasha would have smacked his forehead with his palm. He threw his head back with a sigh of realization of her condition. He sent an annoyed glance toward the underside of the bridge above them. Not that it would care.

“No, that’s not all.”

Kagome rested, pliant in his embrace until she fully recovered her stamina. Then she started to ask, “Then--” Grinning, Inuyasha pulled out and pushed back in again, instantly silencing her and leaving her with a surprised look on her face. “Oh my gmmmph--” And this time he silenced her orally, closing the space between them.

Kagome nibbled and sucked passionately at his lips, moaning into his mouth each time he thrust into her. Inuyasha rhythmically fucked her against the wall, taking it slow for the time being. Those months of waiting had been worth it. Inuyasha had not gotten laid since February, and he was intent on making this the best, most memorable fuck he’d ever had. The only thing that could make it better would be if she could spend the night by his side, in bed.

Once she was past the whole foreignness of having him inside her, Kagome groaned and panted at every penetration. She always eagerly welcomed the return of his hardness, then whimpered and dug her nails into his skin at each withdrawal. She squirmed between him and the flat wall, released his neck and went for his shoulderblades. She felt hot and sweaty inside her seiraa fuku. Right now she was glad that this mid October evening wasn’t particularly warm. The slight nip to the temperature of the air was balmy. And refreshing upon her heated skin.

With a sudden burst of energy Kagome deigned to take charge, hungrily seeking out his tongue and drawing it into her mouth. She trapped it there possessively with her teeth and grunted in annoyance when Inuyasha made a futile attempt to take it back. “Mine,” she muttered with questionable articulation; she’d give him his tongue back when she felt like it.

When Kagome finally no longer had a lock on his tongue by the barbell, Inuyasha made a deep thrust and held her firmly, but awkwardly, against the wall at the hips, then let go of her thighs. She withdrew her arms from around him, just the slightest bit bewildered. Panting, he tugged her shirt up until her breasts were exposed. They were slick with sweat, and her nipples were but hardened nubs.

“Undo the knot on your scarf.”

The hell…? “What?” She blinked at him in between pants, trying to figure him out.

Inuyasha licked a finger and gave one pert nipple a harsh tweak. Kagome shut her eyes and literally squeaked as she winced, the pain and pleasure of it coursing through her, surging all the way down to her toes. It was not fair that his little coercion tactic had to feel so good.

“Undo the knot on your scarf,” he commanded, this time one hand at each nipple, “right now.”

“Y-yes,” she whimpered breathlessly, her hands going for the specified article of her uniform. Still staying firmly lodged inside her, he bucked his hips against her, further eliciting sounds of passion from her as she distractedly worked at the knot. Kagome tugged it out by one end and handed it to him when done.

Inuyasha took both of her hands along with the scarf and pinned them above her head, then kissed her, his tongue delving into her mouth and teasing hers, then mouthed her lips delicately, making her shudder. It wasn’t until he had released his grip on her hands and gone for her thighs again that she noticed just what he’d done while kissing her.

“Hey!” she cried out when he withdrew from the kiss, tugging at her wrists. They were firmly tied together, and her scarf was in place of those leather restraints he’d used on her back at Kouga’s party. She suppressed a growl. Inuyasha could have just waited until they were at his place for something like that. She wouldn’t mind so much were it not for the position they were in.

“Hands behind your neck, and I want to see you struggle from now on,” he said with a chuckle, licking his lips. Kagome pouted but did as told, and he immediately picked up where he left off.

Kagome precariously held onto him with only her legs now. She couldn’t keep from squirming and full out moaning each time he thrust in and out, it felt so good. She cursed the stupid wall of concrete behind her. Inuyasha was practically flush against her chest as he penetrated her over and over again with as little awkwardness as he could muster due to the position. Kagome truly had almost no room to arch her back. Doing it on a bed after they got to his place sounded especially nice right now. If she wasn’t too sore or exhausted by then, of course.

In the meantime, he wasn’t fucking her fast enough, hard enough. At this rate, he’d leave her high and dry by the time he himself came. There was no way in hell Kagome would allow him to do such a thing. Kagome swore that if she didn’t get satiated her first time, he was dead meat.

Chest to slick chest and nipples rubbing against skin, Kagome screamed out for him to quicken, a pant in between each single word. Taking shorter but quicker thrusts, Inuyasha happily complied, soon ramming upwards into her in a feverish rhythm. Each time he pushed into her it still felt like an intrusion, but when he was quick enough, and at the right angle, he seemed to hit a spot that made her want to tremble and moan and convulse. Places her own fingers could never reach.

Almost with a growl, Kagome did arch her back and press her chest into his, all in one quick motion. Then she leaned slack against the wall and murmured, panting, for him to go faster. He went for her throat and began kissing and licked at it in between each thrust, slowing down for a short period to calm her down. Inuyasha withdrew almost entirely before plunging back into her passage, repeating it several times when he saw how charged she became.

Kagome shrieked and trembled again, arms shaking as she bucked her hips and tightened her solitary grip on him, eyes shut tightly as a wave of pleasure washed over her. Then she felt the contractions and spasms around his hardness again. Utterly out of breath, Kagome no longer noticed his continued pumping into her, completely lost in little aftershocks of pleasure, until he had stopped about half a minute later.

Inuyasha stilled in place, his chest heaving with every intake of breath, and lightly kissed her jaw on one side, keeping himself fully sheathed inside her as he came.

Kagome’s breathing was even when he dropped her thighs. She kept her tied hands in place as she stood, the wall supporting her just as much as her own legs. She watched him pull out and dispose of the used condom, chucking it off to the side where it fell to the far ground.

It took her a while of watching him dress himself before she asked uncertainly, “A-are you still up for more at your place?”

His pants zipped and buttoned, he turned around and gave her an incredulous look before softening into a gentle smile. “Of course I am. You think I’m letting a virgin one up me?”

“What do you mean?” she asked as she tugged down her shirt with still tied hands, realizing it was still yanked up from before.

“You came twice before I did. There is no way I’m letting you get away with that.”

Kagome blushed. “Oh.” Goddamn, she thought, Inuyasha is one helluva sex fiend. And to think that she’d feared he’d be too exhausted after their… little romp against a wall.

“You owe me one.”

---

Miroku cursed to himself yet again. He never should have jumped down his best friend’s throat like that the other night, even if it had been at two in the morning. Inuyasha rambling and being frantic, period, should have been enough to make him realize it was something serious. An Inuyasha who is calling over nightmares is an Inuyasha who needs help, and help wasn’t exactly what he, Miroku, had given him. He really should have gone over there and comforted him, helped him compose himself at least.

He stared at the phone on the kitchen wall for a moment. Some of those things he’d said were so unlike him, even when he was angry. Even when they’d fought in the past, he’d never sounded so… uncaring and bitter.

Since he’d hung up on the distraught hanyou, Miroku hadn’t dared to try calling him. As soon as he’d woken up and realized the severity and razor edge of his words, he’d been far too scared to try initiating contact right away. If he wished to fare any chance of salvaging their friendship, it was best to give Inuyasha a few days to blow off steam. Still, after several days his best friend ’s number wasn’t on the Caller ID since that last call.

“Oh, screw it,” he told himself as he stood up and went for the phone. He dialed Inuyasha’s cell number and waited. “I should apologize to him right now and get it over with.” Miroku listened to the tone ring, glancing at the wall clock’s hour hand finally reach the giant ten.

The pick up of the phone instantly sent a wave of relief through Miroku’s mind. About to speak first, he noticed Inuyasha sounded extremely out of breath. That, and he heard a very familiar female yelling out something at the hanyou who’d answered.

“Miroku… you have… ten seconds to--”

The female’s voice interrupted him even as he panted in between every patch of syllables. Miroku had to strain his hearing to tell what she was saying.

“Why’d you bring your phone in here?!”

“Because it’s my only phone line!”

Now Miroku was confused. What ‘here’ was she referring to?

“If I could, I’d break out of this and take your damn phone and throw it out the window!” Then she sounded like she was about to speak again, but Miroku heard a loud smack of skin upon skin, and then a very feminine moan of pleasure.

“This room doesn’t even have any windows!”

“How would I know that? I can’t exactly see, you know--”

Another smack resounded, and the girl made an undeniable sound of… ecstasy as she pleaded for him to just hang up so they could get back to--

Suddenly, Miroku realized that calling at this particular time was probably not such a good idea.

“Yeah, Inuyasha, I think I’ll try later--”

“I’m shutting my phone off until tomorrow,” the now irritable hanyou grumbled. “If it’s important, leave a damn message.”