InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Every Breath I Take.... ( Chapter 26 )

Disclaimer: The only place that I own Inu & Co. is in my dreams….

26. Every Breath I Take…  

“What are you doing back here already? Is everything all right?”

Kagome turned a brilliant smile on her mother. “I know it’s only been a week, but I thought I should come back for a few days. You remember that conversation we had about ‘accidents?’ That’s why I came back--if we were together right now, there would be an accident: he wouldn’t be able to prevent it.”

The older woman nodded slowly. “I see. He always seemed like the kind who would go to extremes to honor a commitment.” She looked at her daughter. “So, what’s been going on back there?”

The girl sank into a seat at the table, shaking her head. “You’ll have to see it for yourself. You remember all that talk we had about a place to live? When we were here before, Inuyasha stole the plans we were working on one night and took them back there.” She shook her head again in wonder. “You wouldn’t believe what all those people did! You have to come back with us when we go home.”

They spent a pleasant couple of hours catching up on each other’s news. By the time Souta returned form school the two women had pretty much talked themselves out.

Although he was a little curious about why Kagome had come back--alone--so soon, he didn’t ask her about it. Since his sister didn’t seem at all unhappy, there was obviously nothing wrong back in the other time.

It was a quiet evening at the Higurashi shrine. Since the eldest family member would still be remaining at his friend’s home outside the city for another two weeks, there were only the three of them at home. Because Souta had school in the morning he had an early night. Tired from the last week of setting up housekeeping, Kagome retired soon afterward.

For the first time in her memory, Kagome spent a largely sleepless night in her own bed, something that had always been a source of great comfort to her. In truth, she missed having Inuyasha’s warm presence by her side. Instead of the usual peaceful sleep she had in this house, she tossed and turned. When she was finally able to sleep for a few moments, she was troubled by vivid dreams of the hanyou suffering some unspecified torment. Finally, at about five-thirty, she got up when it became clear that no further sleep would be likely.

“I thought I heard you come down here. Couldn’t sleep?” She turned to see her mother standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“How did you know?”

The woman started a kettle of water boiling and sat down at the table opposite her daughter. “I still remember what it was like when I was young. Your father was called away on business only a couple of months after we were married. It was a terrible couple of weeks. It was nearly impossible to sleep--I couldn’t even get comfortable in our own apartment.”

“Does it ever get any better?”

The older woman shook her head. “It get a little easier to live with over time, but it never really disappears.” She looked up at the faint easing of darkness at the window. “Did you hear something?”

“No--” the girl began, only to stop in mid-sentence as she also heard a scrabbling noise at the door. Getting to her feet, she turned on the outside light, then opened the door.

She looked around briefly, then yelped in surprise as something small and warm attached itself to her left leg. “Shippou!” She backed into the kitchen, carefully peeling the kit from her leg. “What are you doing here?”

Before answering, he raised his eyes to something behind her left shoulder. “Kagome--”

Remembering that she had been talking to her mother just moments before, she picked up the little kitsune and turned around. “Mama, you’ve heard me talk about my friends in the other world. Well, this is Shippou--he was the first to start traveling with us after we helped him avenge his family’s murder.”

The older woman took the fox child from her daughter. “He’s absolutely adorable!”

“Shippou,” she said quietly, “Why did you come here alone like this?”

At that point the little youkai remembered the errand that had brought him there. He leaped to Kagome’s shoulder, throwing his arms around her neck. “You have to come back right away!”

Despite the block of ice that seemed to have settled into the pit of her stomach, Kagome kept her voice carefully neutral. “What’s wrong?”

With only the barest glance at the older woman, Shippou shook his head. “I don’t know. Something’s wrong with Inuyasha--I think he’s sick.”

“What does Kaede say?” She didn’t want to sound hysterical, but she needed some information badly.

“She doesn’t know. She says she’s never seen anything like this before.”

“Mama--”

The woman nodded. “Go home. This sounds a little more important than staying around here just to keep us company. If you don’t come back by Saturday, we’ll go there to see you.”

Without a backwards glance, Kagome was out the door and on the way to the shrine’s well house.

After only a few seconds they emerged on the other side of the well. With Shippou clinging to her back she set off through the woods in the general direction of the shrine’s sacred tree. “Why are we going this way? Shouldn’t we be going back to the house?”

The little youkai shook his head. “He’s this way. I can smell him but he smells kind of funny--different, somehow.”

It was only a short trip to the Goshinboku. At first, the girl could see nothing. “Where is he, Shippou?”

The kitsune pointed to a thick clump of brush near the base of the holy tree. “Over there.”

At a quiet word from Kagome, the little youkai set off for the village to bring Kaede to their home. As he disappeared into the brush, Kagome advanced on the tangle of vegetation. As she drew nearer her destination she could hear the sound of hoarse panting punctuated by an occasional deep groan.

Following the sounds, she soon found the hanyou. He didn’t look at all well: he lay in the tangle of brush, curled into a tight knot of pain. He trembled uncontrollably, the violent shaking reminding her of the time someone in the mall nearest her Tokyo home had had a seizure. His eyes were open and unseeing, and his hair, soaked with sweat, was tangled with twigs and leaves from the forest floor.

Kagome watched in unbelieving silence for a few seconds, until an especially violent spasm snapped his head back. “Inuyasha?”

The blank eyes turned in the direction of the sound. Seeing his tortured expression for the first time, Kagome pushed through the brush and vines, dropping to her knees next to him.

The voice was nothing like that of the gentle, considerate lover she had left behind less than twenty-four hours earlier. The words were indistinct, forced from between tightly-clenched teeth. “Don’t touch me!”

As always, her compassion for someone in pain was immensely greater than her concern for her own safety. Ignoring the sharp twigs and stones on the ground, she scrambled around until she could ease his head into her lap. Her touch brought forth a painful groan from deep in his throat. Uncertain of exactly what was hurting the hanyou, she stroked the cold, clammy skin of his face, carefully pulling leaves and twigs from his long silver mane.

The shuddering seemed to subside for a time, and she tried to help him find a slightly more comfortable position. The labored breathing became a little faster and deeper as she tried to loosen the arms he had tightly wrapped around his middle. She looked on in horror as she pulled first his left then his right arm free--his hands were covered with blood: in his agony, he had dug his claws into his own body.

“Kagome--” Looking down at his face, the girl was thrilled to see the first hint of recognition in his eyes. “Leave me,” he snarled.

Having seen the slight but definite improvement in Inuyasha’s condition since her arrival, she shook her head, the tears spilling down her face. “No,” she sobbed. “I won’t leave you here to die alone.”

“I won’t--””

Looking into the hanyou’s golden eyes, Kagome demanded, “Tell me. Everything.”

He reached up, wiping the tears from her face with a hand still wet with his own blood. When he spoke, his voice cracked from pain and exhaustion. “I didn’t want you to see this--that’s why I tried to leave yesterday. I thought that if I got far enough away from you your scent wouldn’t trigger--this.” The self-loathing in his voice was readily apparent.

“Then this is my fault?”

His voice sounded a little stronger now. “Don’t be a fool. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just the way things are.” Now that he seemed on the road to recovery, he turned haunted eyes to her. “You have to leave--now.”

She shook her head. “I won’t do it. Just being away from you for a day caused this--how could I put you through that kind of horrible misery again?”

A pain that was not entirely physical was beginning to return to the hanyou’s voice. “Don’t you remember what will happen if you stay with me now?”

The anguish in her voice matched his own. “I don’t care! Don’t you understand? You don’t hurt the people you love.” She tried to help him to his feet. “Can you walk? I think we should go home now.”

With her help he was able to stand, but unsteadily at best. Kagome draped his left arm around her shoulders so that she could help to support him as they began the walk back to their home. As they walked along he seemed to move a little more easily as time passed.

His breathing was also improving as they moved along, although her scent was painfully distracting. Though her presence had cured him of his earlier symptoms, he was finding himself growing more and more desperate. He eased his arm from her grasp, finally able to stand and move on his own. “It’s probably best if you don’t touch me right now--this isn’t the best possible place for what would almost certainly happen.”

She blushed a little, and he shivered--that unconscious reaction had always been appealing, but now it was nearly irresistible. That it could still occur after all that they had seen and done and been through spoke to him of a purity of heart and spirit that he still couldn’t believe that he deserved.

His steps slowed, then stopped. He stood shivering, tormented by both his natural reaction to the scent of his mate’s readiness for breeding and his determination not to act on it. Kagome, who had walked a couple of steps ahead, realized that he wasn’t with her and returned to his side.

She grabbed his hand, prying open the fingers when she realized that the tightly clenched fist had driven his claws deep into his palm. She held on to his right hand, deciding that she would have to leave the left as it was for the moment.

Kagome dragged the hanyou through the woods, stumbling over pieces of fallen wood and tangled plants. Her voice and breathing fell into a rhythm with her steps, creating something very like a chant. “We’re almost there. Just a little more. You can do it. We’re almost--”

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of pulling the nearly unconscious Inuyasha through the forest, they arrived at the rear of the house. She studied him closely, trying to decide on the best way to ease his pain. The hand she held was cold even though he was sweating profusely. He stood with a strange, hunched posture, and Kagome realized that the spasms he had been having for who knows how long had left his muscles cramped and painful.

Pushing him down to a sitting position on the springy grass, Kagome relinquished her grip on his hand. “Stay here. I’ll be right back--I have to get something from the house.” Though she spoke slowly and clearly, there was no way for her to know if he understood or even heard her voice.

She sprinted back to the house, rummaging through a large cabinet in their bedchamber for the things she would need.

She returned to where she had left him sitting next to the smaller pool that caught the outflow from the hot spring. She helped him out of his clothes, dropping her own on the bank beside them. They climbed carefully into the smaller pool.

The two lathered and rinsed bodies and hair until no trace of dirt, forest debris, or soap remained before emerging from the pool. Grabbing his hand once again, Kagome led him up the three stone steps to the large upper pool.

She glanced back over her shoulder and stopped dead in her tracks, nearly forgetting how to breathe. Gods, he was beautiful! His pale, perfect hanyou skin seemed lit from within, much like an exceptionally fine deep water pearl. Even wet and plastered down, his hair picked up and reflected the light like strands of opal. And those eyes, like warm honey--!

Realizing that she had been staring, she shook her head, helping him into the water. She sat beside him, close but not quite touching, feeling the penetrating warmth loosening muscles knotted up by a sleepless night followed by hours of worry.

Since he hadn’t spoken in quite a long time, she looked at him closely. “Does this help at all?”

He flexed an arm experimentally. “The bruises aren’t so bad, but--” The hoarse whisper that was his voice broke off as he really looked at her for the first time. What the hell was wrong with him? Wasn’t he supposed to be the big bad hanyou who could handle anything? Anything, he decided, but this little human girl.

He shook his head, hissing as he pulled at an especially sore muscle in his neck. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get free of her scent--it filled his mind, blotting out any chance of coherent thought. “Kagome--”

The girl realized that she was probably putting him through hell, but could see no other way to bring him to the point where he would be able to end his torment. She had known all along that her mother had been right: he would do whatever was necessary to keep his word, and to hell with the consequences. This time, though, such determination was unnecessary. She grabbed his hand, pulling him from the water. She had him stretch out, face down, on the woven mat she had placed next to the pool.

She poured a very small amount of the scented oil into her hand. She rubbed her hands together for a few seconds to warm the oil slightly. She had chosen the oil with great care: although it was called “Tropical Rain,” the scent reminded her slightly of Inuyasha’s own--an earthy, woodsy smell much like a pine forest after a thunderstorm. Uncertain of how he would react, Kagome sat on the small of his back and began to carefully knead the knots from his neck and shoulder muscles. She proceeded slowly, making sure that each fiber was smoothed out and relaxed before moving on to the next. After a few moments she became aware of a low rumbling that she could feel rather than hear transmitted through her skin where it touched him.

Leaning forward, she took a look at the hanyou’s face. He lay quietly under her hands, his breathing deep and regular, eyes nearly closed. A sudden breeze blowing across her damp skin made Kagome shiver. Reaching out, she grabbed a towel to wipe the excess oil from her hands before slipping her arms into her robe.

She leaned forward again, resting on his back. She was surprised at the way his skin absorbed the oil--it was soft and smooth without the slightest hint of greasiness. She felt him stretch beneath her. Raising her head, she saw that his eyes were open and focused on her. “Get up.”

She simply stared for a few seconds. “Nani?”

“Get up,” he said, raising himself up on his palms. “You’re getting cold. Let’s go inside.” Using strength and coordination she hadn’t seen since before she had left the previous morning, he flipped over, dumping her on the grass by the side of the pool.

Though she couldn’t understand how he could have returned so quickly to something so like his normal condition, Kagome was delighted that he had done so. Never straying more than a foot or two from his mate, the hanyou helped her to gather up her supplies, slipping into his robe for the short walk back to the house.

Once they were safe from any casual intrusion, he took her by both shoulders, turning her to face him. “My turn,” he said, slipping the light robe off her shoulders. Lifting her easily, he turned, dropping her on the thick cushions.

The hanyou stood and simply looked at her, inhaling the scent that threatened to steal his will as surely as his transformations had. “Why,” he asked, his voice barely audible, “Didn’t you go when I told you to?”

She looked up at him in perfect trust, not at all sure she could make him see that her passion was quickly growing to match his own. “Because,” she said, “You’re so beautiful, and you’re my life, and I want you so much I can hardly stand it.”

He blinked in confusion. “Guys aren’t beautiful,” he said. “Especially hanyou guys.”

“You are to me.” She shook her head. “You never knew, did you? Remember what Mitake said about the first time he ever saw Sazuni? It was the same for me: the first time I ever saw you, you were sealed to the tree. I thought you were asleep--you looked so peaceful. I think I started to fall in love with you right then, but I couldn’t see it myself right away. By the time I realized what was happening I thought you wanted Kikyou, so I tried to fight it. Then, when I finally understood that you really wanted me, I couldn’t believe my good luck.”

He shook his head. “I’m still just a hanyou.”

She reached up to take both his hands. “What you are,” she said in a slightly acid tone, “Is an idiot.” She pulled him down to her, cradling his head against her shoulder so that she could stroke the velvety fur on the outside of his ears. “You’re not ‘just’ anything. You’ve always known that you’re much more than any human--you’re stronger, and faster, and tougher. What you can’t seem to understand is that you’re also more than any youkai: you understand things they can’t--compassion, and trust, and love. Don’t you see? Being hanyou makes you more than either of them, not less.”

The combination of her healing words, the pervasive, intoxicating scent that filled him with a vague hunger that words couldn’t adequately describe, and the maddening sensations caused by the rhythmic stroking of his ears accomplished the woman’s goal. He reached out, crushing her to him.

In that moment, all thoughts of self-denial and worries about the future left him and he gave himself over to the girl wrapped in his arms. Eyes glowing with a passion that could no longer be contained, he raised her face to meet his.