Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha or any of the characters. If I did, I'm sure I'd have better things to do.

A/N: So, for any people who read my other story, this is my new one! For anyone new readers, welcome! :D This is my take on an, "InuYasha is an experiment in a lab," story. I always love those ones and I wanted to write one, but I wanted it to be unique. So, we end up with the premise that InuYasha doesn't want to escape from the lab, and doesn't know that there's anything different about it! Tada! Also, he has narcolepsy (I suggest googling this if you don't know much about the condition, as it would help), so, that's something. :P

In His Sleep

Chapter 1-Outside

"Wow," the man remarked thoughtfully as he entered the stark white room. "That's a lot of blood."

"Do you think?" a harsh female voice asked sarcastically from behind him. The man turned to see a woman with pitch black hair done up into a bun, her narrowed hazel eyes glaring at him. He rolled his own azure eyes back at her.

"Sorry if I wasn't expecting this, Kagura," he sneered.

"No one was," she replied, clipping toward him on her 4-inch heels. "You could be less of a dolt about it, though."

"Do we have any idea of where he is?" he inquired as she came and stood behind him, surveying the damage.

The walls were covered in claw marks, along with the bed and the linens upon it, which were ripped to shreds. Blood was spattered on every surface, though it conglomerated in large portions on the walls and floor in eerily human-shaped stains. Other than the blood, a 2-way mirror on the left side, the bed with its covers, and feathers that had been scattered around from the decimated pillow, there was nothing in the room. The bodies that had littered it an hour ago had been removed already, and the person who had caused this damage had taken off before then.

"Of course we do," Kagura replied as if the man were a small child (in her eyes, he basically was). "The tracking chip is functional. Should we need to locate him all we have to do is press a button. But let's be patient. We had told him what to do if he ever got out for some reason many times. This is an excellent opportunity to see if the training paid off. Having him be the loyal little doggy who always returns back to his owners certainly can't be a bad thing, now can it?"

"What if he does this sort of thing on the streets, though?" the man wondered concernedly. He felt a drop of something hit his forehead and he frowned, craning his head up to the ceiling. There was blood up there, too. How that had been managed he'd never know.

"This was the first time that this has happened," she stated simply, "so I doubt he'll do it again. The only things we have to be concerned about are his condition getting him into trouble, or people finding out what he is and getting us into trouble. That's what the tracking chip is for, though. We'll give him until tonight. If he hasn't contacted us by then, then we'll go after him and clean up any other mess he's managed to make."

.~*~.

"Shit," InuYasha groaned, pushing himself up off the ground. His whole body ached and his head hurt like hell. He didn't know what he'd been doing, but it'd obviously been a good workout. He sat back on his knees, blinking for a moment and gaping at his surroundings. Where the hell was he? There were...tall brown things, with puffy green tops. And the floor was brown and green, too. He touched the ground cautiously, wondering why it felt crumbly, when he noticed the state of his hands. They were covered in dried blood. He'd thought he had smelled something akin to blood, but he had been too distracted by...whatever all this was around him.

He turned his hands over a few times, trying to figure out how this had happened. It wasn't his; that was obvious. No, it smelled like a few different people's, people who he knew from the lab. He could smell his own blood mixed in there, though, somewhere, and he began inspecting the rest of his body, searching for the source. InuYasha lifted up his plain white t-shirt, noticing that it was covered in others' blood as well, along with some funny brown marks he assumed were from the strange floor. There was nothing on his stomach to suggest that he was hurt, and tilting his head around to the best of his ability so he could check, there was nothing visible to him on his back, either. He felt his face, seeing if there was anything there. His fingers came across a dried patch of blood, though there was nothing underneath it. He must have been cut there, but it had healed already.

Confident now that he was fine, InuYasha stood up, putting his hand out on one of the big brown things for balance. It felt rough, unlike anything at the lab. Everything there was smooth and sleek. He took his hand off, thinking now that he could stand up on his own, although that was never really the case. At any moment, really, he could drop to the floor, no longer able to move. It was annoying as hell, honestly.

He sighed and started walking, still trying to ascertain where he was. It smelled odd. Though he'd never scented things like this before, he could compare them to the sterile stench of the lab, and they were definitely the exact of opposite of the cleaners and chemicals he was used to. He strode along carefully in his white sandals, and the more he saw, the more he figured that this must've been the outdoors he had been warned about. InuYasha stared down at the steel bracelet he wore on his right wrist. Well, it was more like a chain, with a small, rectangular metal plate in the center that was engraved with a set of numbers. A phone number. That was it; he needed to get to a phone so he could call the lab. Then they'd come and pick him up, and everything would be fine.

That's right, InuYasha reminded himself, taking a deep breath. Everything's going to be fine. You're going to go back and they'll figure out whatever...happened. He looked down at his blood soaked clothing and frowned. This was probably going to cause some problems.

.~*~.

All he had ever been told to do if he got lost outside of the lab was find a phone. That was the only thing he had been given instructions about. Find a phone. People have phones. People live in things like houses. If you knock on the door of a house a person will usually open it, and then you can ask them to call us for you. You need to do that if you wind up on the outside, because it's very dangerous for you in your condition. That was it. He hadn't been told about anything else. He sighed, running across the street in search of one.

There were a few people walking down the sidewalk and he stopped. Why did they all look so weird? Nothing like him at all. He had spent years staring into that mirror in his room, and he knew what he looked like. Long, silver hair with big floppy bangs in the front, golden eyes, fangs, claws, and white triangular ears on top of his head. The lab people were always wearing gloves, masks, goggles, and hair coverings, so he'd assumed they looked like him, too, since he couldn't see their actual features. Did they? These people had shorter hair in dark colours, dark eyes as well, and short nails and teeth. Plus, they had no ears, at least not ones that he could see. He could tell that one of them did have these funny things on the sides of his head, where InuYasha had only unmarred skin, though. Why were they so different? None of this made sense.

InuYasha looked around, searching for the nearest house, but he couldn't see any. There were stairs in front of him, though. They obviously led somewhere. He ran up them, taking them two at a time. Might as well try to get back as fast as he could. He never knew when he was going to drop on the spot.

At the top he looked around at the expansive space. There were a lot of buildings, but they didn't look like the other houses he'd been shown pictures of at the lab, except for one two-story building farther back. Now that was a house; he knew that much. He wandered up to it and then knocked on the door, waiting as he heard footsteps from inside drawing nearer. The door opened and he started the speech that had been drilled into his brain.

"Hi, do you-" The girl who had answered was just staring at him with wide eyes, her mouth open in a gasp at his bloodstained clothing. She was about his age, and he suddenly felt embarrassed. He was acutely aware of how different he looked compared to her, and a blush began to spread across his face. Just then, she screamed.

Oh, fuck, he thought as his knees buckled out from under him at the shock he felt from the sudden noise. He collapsed to the ground, his head hitting the hard surface of the house's floor with a jarring thud, his lower half still outside. All he could do was lay there as he heard the girl drop down to where he was, shaking him frantically. It appeared that the new drugs weren't working as well as they'd hoped.

"Souta!" he heard her call. "Souta, come here, now!" There was a frantic edge to her voice, and he wished that he could tell her it wasn't necessary.

"What are you screaming about?" A little boy came walking down the hallway and asked grumpily, then stopped short when he saw the scene in front of him.

"Souta, you need to go get the phone and call an ambulance. I think something is really wrong with him. He's covered in blood and he's unconscious."

Not unconscious, InuYasha corrected mentally. Not unconscious in the least. He tried to sigh, but it didn't quite work. At least he knew they had a phone, though he didn't want them to be calling an ambulance, whatever that was.

Suddenly, InuYasha was, thankfully, able to move again. "Hey," he said, pushing himself slightly shakily up from the ground and into the house, to the great surprise of the girl before him. "Please don't call an ambulance. You need to call this number," he informed her, holding out his hand with the bracelet.

"What?" she managed, her mouth not feeling like it was working too well right about then.

"You need to call this number," he repeated slowly, pointing at the engraving on the little piece of metal.

"Sis, I have the phone," the boy named Souta said as he came rushing back into the room. "Hey, you're up!" he exclaimed happily as he saw InuYasha sitting upright next to his sister.

"You have the phone," InuYasha said, more to himself than anyone else. "Come here, then. You need to call this number."

"I need to call what now?" Souta questioned him, walking over to where they were sitting and bending down.

"This," InuYasha said, pointing to the bracelet once more. It was taking an irritatingly long time for these people to catch on to what he had thought was an easy request.

"Wait," the girl said, putting her arm in front of Souta to tell him to stop. "You." She pointed to InuYasha. "What just happened to you?"

"Cataplexy, a condition that comes along with my narcolepsy," he told her simply. "It's basically a loss of voluntary muscle tone that's brought on by intense emotions. You screaming," he pointed back at her, "surprised me and triggered it."

"Oh," Her face became etched with worry. "Sorry. I didn't mean to...it's just-"

"I know you didn't mean to," he interrupted. "It's fine."

"You just scared me. I mean...you're covered in blood and you look..." she searched for the right word, "different."

"I'm not sure how I got the blood on me," he admitted honestly. "But you look different, too."

Her eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't look like me."

"Well of course I don't look like you!" she snapped. "For one thing, you're a guy, and for another thing, you've got some really funky stuff going on there." She appraised him suspiciously. "Cosplayer?"

"Cos-what?" He was confused.

"You know, you dress up in costumes and run around pretending to be someone else."

"I'm myself," he told her slowly. Souta watched their exchange with great interest, forgetting about the phone.

"Well, what's your name, then?"

"InuYasha?"

"I meant your real name, not your cosplay name."

"That is my real name."

Her eyebrows rose. "I doubt that."

"Well, what's your name?" he countered.

"Kagome."

InuYasha snickered. "I meant your real name."

Kagome's mouth opened in shock and outrage. "You jerk!" she fumed.

"You insulted me first," he shrugged.

"That's because your name means dog demon! That's obviously fake, and you're just using it to go along with your crazy cosplay get-up." She gestured to the ears on the top of his head.

"Maybe your name is to go along with your weird looks," he sneered.

"Are you serious? Souta, call the cops on this guy," she ordered, livid.

"No, you're supposed to call this number!" InuYasha protested, jabbing at his bracelet and then remembering to calm himself down.

"And who's number is that? Your owner's?" She took a jab at his canine traits, though he didn't pick up on it.

"No, the lab. You call the lab and then they'll come and pick me up. Then I can go back and I won't have to worry."

"Lab?" Kagome looked confused. "And worry about what?"

"The lab, where I live. And worry about crazy people screaming at me and triggering my cataplexy. It's not exactly convenient, you know," he grumbled.

"I wouldn't think so," she replied, her voice softer. "But what's this about living at a lab?"

"I've always lived there. Well, no, not always. Apparently I didn't for a time because I was adopted from an orphanage, but I can't remember that. Anyway, the lab is where I need to go. It's safe there, and I should probably tell them that the new medication isn't working."

She looked at him strangely. "Did that bump on the head knock something in there loose?"

"What?" InuYasha returned the strange look.

"No one lives in a lab; at least not for their entire life."

"I do," he pointed out.

"Hey, do you have those robot ears?" Souta suddenly interrupted.

"Huh?" Now Souta was at the receiving end of the funny looks from both Kagome and InuYasha.

"Well, your ears move!" he continued. "And I saw these robot ears once that move according to signals from the person's brain. Yours look way more real, though."

"That's 'cause they are real." InuYasha crossed his arms indignantly.

"Still sticking with that story, are we?" Kagome raised an eyebrow.

"It's the truth," he shot back. "And what about your ears? Where are they?"

"Right here," she said, pointing to the ears on the side of her head like he was an idiot.

"So those are ears, then?" His voice was intrigued. "Can I touch them?"

"Why do you want to touch my ears?" she exclaimed angrily.

"They're funny-looking. I've never seen anything like them before," he explained, reaching out a hand and grabbing her right ear. Kagome's mouth formed an 'o' as he sat there rubbing it. "It's odd," he concluded. "Fleshy and squishy."

"Well, if-if you get to touch my ears, then I-I get to touch yours!" Kagome stammered, both furious and shocked.

"Then I get to touch yours more," he insisted, and they both lunged for each other's ears at the same time.

"You two are so weird," Souta said as he watched the scene on the floor.

They both ignored the little boy, and her eyes grew wide as she felt his ears. "Those are real," Kagome half-whispered as she drew back.

"So are yours," InuYasha agreed.

"Oh my gosh." She sat on her knees, shaking her head in disbelief. "What are you?"

"Me."

Kagome gave him a look that indicated she wasn't impressed. "Thanks, that tells me a lot," she said sarcastically.

"You're welcome," InuYasha replied, yawning. "Now I'm...I'm going to fall asleep," he said dozily, starting to curl up on the floor. "Phone," he managed before his eyes closed and he was out.

"...He's asleep," Kagome said, incredulous, as she stared at the slumbering boy before her.

"I'll go get a marker and we can draw on his face," Souta offered, running down the hall.

A/N: So, I'm going to try and focus on my other story, but please tell me what you think of this one! As well, if there's anyone reading that has narcolepsy/knows someone who does, I'd love to hear from you. I want to make sure it's portrayed as accurately and realistically as possible, so feel free to let me know if there are any issues/qualms. And that is it! Read and review and all those good things. :D