InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Right here ❯ Right here ( Chapter 1 )

Right here

By Midoriko-sama

August 03

Kagome looked at him from the corner of her eyes as he peered grumpily into the fire. Something was wrong about him. She just knew it, and it wasn't the lack of Shikon rumours, nor Shippo picking on him, nor the latest visit of Kikyou. Sure, they hadn't spoken for something like three days because of it, but it wasn't that.

She looked at the way his clothes seemed to hang more limply about him than usual, meaning that his shoulders and back weren't rim rod strait as usual, but he was haunching. She also took in the way his hair stuck to his face, and how it didn't seem to have its usual lustre. Or his skin, which seemed to become sallow, instead of its usual healthy wheat colour.

He was even slower than usual to notice that she had been staring at him.

"What are you looking at!" he snapped at her. She just smiled at him and opened her mouth to ask what was wrong with him, but then she realised that both Miroku and Sango were still awake and listening, and Inuyasha would never talk in front of them.

"Nothing Inuyasha, nothing at all" she smiled, and he gave her one more annoyed look before turning his hooded eyes to the fire once more.

**************

Shippo was wiggling incessantly, probably because even in his sleep he could feel that she was awake and worried.

Inuyasha had looked all but himself in the short break that afternoon, and Kagome had clearly felt that he had been fighting to keep up with Kirara the whole day when he usually outstripped her easily. Not to mention that he had only eaten half a packet of ramen. The last was the most worrying.

She opened her sleeping bag and slid out of it. She closed it once more around her little baby kitsune and tucked it around his miniature form before she padded as quietly as possible towards the tree she had seen Inuyasha hop onto when they had called it a night

"Inuyasha?" she whispered. She saw him stir, but he didn't answer her. "Inuyasha, I know you're up there, I can see you. Please Inuyasha, I know something's wrong-"

Kagome's words were cut off as the figure she had been talking up to slumped forward suddenly, hit the branch it had been sitting on, and then continued its crushing progress towards the ground, landing a few meters to the right of her

"Inuyasha!" she screamed, as millions of possibilities passed through her mind. Had he been silently attacked by a youkai and had suffered an injury? An arrow? Kikyou? Had he been more badly hurt than he let on during the last battle?

Kagome frantically turned him around onto his back and checked for any injuries. She opened his haori and his yukata to find him free of any sort of wound, but realised that he was burning with fever. His hair clung to the damp skin of his face, and sweat seeped through his thick clothes, she felt, as she passed an arm under his back to try to drag him sitting.

"Ka . .Ka-gome . . ." he whispered. She let his armpits go as she placed him gently on the grass and ran around to face him

"I'm here Inuyasha, I'm right here" she said, holding his hand

"The berries . . . I think they were poisoned . . . check on . . . Shippo . . he ate them too . . ."

"Shippo's fine Inuyasha, he's ok, there's nothing wrong with him. You're sick, hold on, I'll wake Miroku and-"

"No" he said, grabbing her wrist "I'm fine . . take me . . to . . the river. . ."

"I can't move you Inuyasha, you're-"

"I need to-" he convulsed and then started chocking. Kagome noticed that he had thrown up, and rolled him onto his side with all the strength she could muster. He writhed several times and tried to breath while he regurgitated, causing him to choke.

"Inuyasha, Inuyasha hold on please, hold on, I'm right here" Kagome kept saying, straddling his waist and holding his head up. The onslaught seemed to last forever until he shivered and slumped completely against her arms, gasping desperately.

"Take me . . to the river . ." he managed to say, spitting blood. Kagome removed her pyjama top and started cleaning his face and his hair with it, pushing the sodden wisps of white away from his face. He kept murmuring, and soon, she passed the pyjama top across his chest and under his arms and dragged him as fast as she could to the river.

His head lolled backwards and she tried to avoid his hair being caught and pulled underneath him. He was heavy, and he seemed to be battling to breathe, as more and more sweat rolled down his face and seeped into his outer haori.

"We're almost there" she said, gritting her teeth, "Nearly there Inuyasha, stay with me, stay with me"

"I'm cold Kagome" he whispered, never opening his eyes "I must be . . . fever . . . must cool down"

"Yes Inuyasha, I'll cool you down I promise, here" she let him fall gently and shivered, the night air cold against her bare skin "We're by the stream now, I'll put you in and-"

"Take my clothes . . off.. . weigh you . . down .. ." he whispered, his eyes rolling around as he tried to see her even if she was in front of him.

"I . . .I really need help in this, I'll go get Miroku and-"

"No" he rasped sharply, flailing his hands out until he touched her and drew her to him "Don't go. Stay . . . you . . . have to do it . . . ."

"Ok Inuyasha, I'll stay with you, I'll . . . let me undo your haori" she muttered, dying with embarrassment, pulling off the red coat that she had already half undone in the clearing. His light cotton yukata was nearly transparent with sweat, stuck to his chest like a second skin. She pulled it out of his hakama and then proceeded to remove it from his sweaty arms.

Kagome grabbed her now ripped and worn pyjama top and passed it under his arm pits again. Slowly, she made her way into the stream from a shallow part of the bank. The water rose steadily up her legs as she waded deeper into the water. Even as she held his head up and found his weight easier to handle, and his hair floated around them, he didn't wake. He breath came in gasps as it had all night, and his eyes rolled into his head as he began coughing blood again.

Kagome poured water onto his hair and face, but even as she did that he began convulsing again, and he threw up in the stream. Kagome pulled him to the bank, sitting on the shallower bed and letting him lie down, his body completely in the ankle-deep water but his head. Every time he was sick, Kagome held his forehead when he turned, giving him relief from pushing against nothing, and then washed his face, his hair and his chest with the passing stream water. Although the stream water was freezing, and her pyjama trousers clung to her as did her underwear, her exposed back and shoulders forming goose bumps in the wind, his fever gave no signs of breaking, and he was obviously in deliration.

He shivered violently all the time, making her shivers look little and insignificant. His body shook uncontrollably, and she couldn't help crying, watching him like that, helpless and sickly in her arms.

When his skin finally stopped burning up, so much that she had thought he was going to catch fire as she held him, she gladly pulled him to the bank once more. She settle with her back against a tree, mindless to the real danger she was in, unguarded and alone with a charge, the Shikon no kakera hanging in their bottle around her neck. She had taken to hold them there after the demon spider incident, where Inuyasha had been poisoned because they hadn't been on her person.

Now she set him like back then, although that night he had been human, and dry. His hair was equally beautiful, whichever colour it was in, and he was equally beautiful. Sick, poisoned or healthy, he was always beautiful.

She passed a hand through his wet hair and it didn't stop once. Not one knot. It was so thick that his hair never knotted, even when he fought, or when he ran around the trees with it whipping behind him.

Her hand came to rest on his bare chest, and she nearly felt as though she willed him better as it rose and fell at a steadier pace. Although his fever had broken, he was still occasionally sick through the night, and she had to push him off her lap to roll him to his side. She came and went from the stream, wetting her pyjama shirt and washing his face and hair with it.

While she was wiping his face one time, he opened his eyes blearedly. He had been calling many people in his delirium; his mother mostly, but also his father, and surprisingly his brother. He had called Kikyou too, but never her. Now he opened his eyes and tried to look at her, but his pupils were dilated so far that they covered most of his golden irises. He grabbed her wrist.

"Mother?" he croaked, his voice cracked and rasped from his continuous throwing up

"No, Inuyasha, it's me" Kagome whispered in return.

"You who? Who are you?" he asked, trying to sit up. She restrained him as she tried not to cry. She had been hoping that even though he hadn't called her, never during the delirium, he would at least recognise her now. He seemed slightly lucid.

He turned his head to the side, seemingly attempting to smell her. His nose made contact with her bare stomach, and she jumped, causing his head to bop on her thighs.

"You are holding me on your lap" he stated coarsely and severely, narrowing her eyes at her "Put me down. You cannot hold me like that"

"But you're sick" she protested. Let me hold you at least "You need-"

"You cannot hold me like this, only my companion can" he coughed, and she wiped the blood off his mouth, and he batted his hand away. Her heart wrenched, both at his action, and at how lacking of his usual strength it was "I told you only my companion can. How do you humans call it . . . my wife-to-be, I think"

"What's her name?" she asked, trying not to choke. She would play the part of Kikyou if it served to make him better and let her tend to him. Sometimes she wished she could become Kikyou for good, so he would stop shunning her, and even in a moment like this, let her hold him.

"Is she here, can you call her?" he asked eagerly, moving his head around wildly. Her heart clenched painfully "Call her"

"What's her name?"

"Kagome"

She stared at him motionlessly, holding her breath. Then she stroked his face tenderly and moved his hair out of his face

"Inuyasha," she called out tenderly "How are you feeling now?"

"Kagome? Was that you all alone?" he whispered, squinting at her to try and see her through his unfocused eyes "I can't smell . . my nose . . and I can't see you"

"Shhhh Inuyasha, I'm right here, I've been here all along" she shushed him

"Yes, I heard you say that, while I was ill, you were here . . ." he suddenly whimpered and clutched his abdomen "Kagome . ."

"Inuyasha" she called, and once again rolled him onto his side as he began to puke once more all over the grass around him. It was streaked with blood "Oh Inuyasha, how did you get so ill?"

"I ate . . .grass" he gasped, clasping onto her hand disparately. He convulsed again as another onslaught of nausea hit him

"Grass?" she asked pulling strands of his hair out of his mouth and wiping them clean against her trousers

"Those berries . . . were bad" he gasped "They weren't ripe enough, or they were poisonous, I don't know" he gasped and coughed out. Kagome wiped his mouth with her battered stained shirt "had to get it out . . . Shippo must too. . ."

"He complained about his stomach, but I gave his some medicine from my time. You should have too, you baka hanyou! Look at yourself" she pulled him onto her lap and wiped her tears away, but they kept coming "You're ill, you've got blood all over you, you have fever-"

"You're crying for me again" he said quietly, smiling as he rolled onto her lap again and closed his eyes. "Don't"

"Now I can hold you like this?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't take back what he said earlier "you said only I could"

"No" he said, and she tried not to look away. Her eyes filled anew but she fought it "You don't-" he looked away from her

"What is it Inuyasha? Can't I hold you like this for now at least? Till you're better, I know that you- you didn't mean it, when you said I was your companion, but-"

"I DID! I-" he fell silent again

"I want to be Inuyasha" she whispered "I want to be your companion"

He turned to look at her, and didn't move for a long time

"You don't know what you're saying" he finally said

"You were the one who was delirant, not me" she said, annoyed and hurt that he down played something as important as that

"I Mean that you'd be in danger all the time, that you'd be targeted, that all the attacks made to me will turn to you and-"

"Inuyasha, that happens already, all the time. We are attacked only because I have the shikon no tama. We wouldn't be otherwise"

"You're wrong, we would be" he replied, turning his head to bury his nose in her skin again "Why are you wearing only that lacy thing? Where is the thing you usually wear over it?" he asked, blinking and trying to see her face

"It's here" she said, batting his nose with the rag she had been using to wipe his forehead while he talked, aka her pyjama shirt. "It's thorn all over, and filthy, thanks to you, I can't use it now"

"I'm sorry" he stated

"I was joking" said Kagome, batting his nose with a finger. He sneezed into the now-rag, and then took a long sniff. He buried his nose in her skin again and Kagome jolted away slightly.

"It tickles"

"But now I can smell you at last" he said, blowing warm air onto her stomach. Kagome shivered. "You are cold" he stated. She nodded mutely

"I had to take you into the stream to lower your temperature" she explained "You're still wet too. Oh! I have to rinse your clothes!" she said, and before he could protest, she had lowered him gently and had run to dunk the dirty haori and yukata into the freezing water and then wrung them. When she turned around, she was surprised to see Inuyasha trying to sit up

"Baka hanyou, what are you doing?" she ran to him, and he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to him

"Don't you do that again. I can't see you, don't go where I can't smell you or feel you" he growled at her, pressing her nearly bare chest to his completely bare one "Don't do that again, stay here"

"I'm always right here Inuyasha" she said with annoyed tone, although she settled onto him without much protest

"No you aren't. You go back to your time and leave us" he stated. He threw his head aside and coughed violently. Something that looked like a berry came out with some more blood.

"I'll bring you some water" she said "I'll come back"

"No" he said, hugging her tighter. He coughed again, and she wiped the blood.

"Let me go, I'll come back, I'll always come back"

"Hai, I know." He let her go. She brought some water cupped in her hands and he drank as much as he could while she splashed it down. His hand moved up her arm and he tugged her down slowly, and she complied, lying on him again.

"Stay with me tonight. I'll keep you warm" he whispered into her ear

"Only tonight?" she whispered back

"Tonight, and every night you will have me"

"Then it will be every night, till you will have me"

"I'll be right here."

"So will I"

End

I never saw a fic with Inuyasha puking. And this came to me while I was kissing the toilet. Thanks to Wedge for the technical information.