Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, he and his motley crew belong to Takahashi – sama. I also do not own the title of this story, which is a movie, that belongs to…someone I don't know.

A/N: I seem to work better with Inuyasha one – shots…hmm. Still, I'm trying to get my act together and continue Watching Over You, as well as write out two or three other ideas floating around in my head. Anygoo – enjoy!

Eight Legged Freaks
By: Moonlit Seductress

It was a typical, sunny day in the Sengoku Jidai. Lots of demon fighting, groping, "Keh"ing – and of course, walking. That was the worst part.

But Kagome wisely kept her mouth shut. If she mentioned the soreness of her feet, Inuyasha would only ridicule her. However, if she timed it correctly, a spastic fall and 'twisted ankle' would be enough to have the group come to a halt. Not to say that the stupid dog demon wouldn't make stupid comments anyways, but with a little luck, he'd be concerned about her ankle, and forget to tease her about how clumsy she was.

Unfortunately, Kagome's plans were disturbed. Because, you see, Inuyasha had just screamed.

And not a fake scream. A full out, girly, shriek. He also jerked to a stop in the middle of the pathway.

Distracted by the sound uttered by the half demon, Kagome didn't see him stop, and collided into his back, banging her nose quite painfully on a shoulder blade. Shippou tumbled off her shoulder, falling into the path of Miroku. The monk tried to stepside the kitsune, but somehow tripped, catching his hand in a strap on Kagome's backpack and bringing both himself and the schoolgirl crashing onto the dusty ground. Sango stumbled over one of Miroku's outstretched legs, sending Kirara flying off her shoulder and landing neatly on top of a dazed and perverted monk.

As the dust around the group settled, Kagome stared at Inuyasha. The cause of the whole crash – which, Kagome decided, must have looked like something off a bad TV sitcom – was the only one standing, amber eyes riveted on something just in front of his face.

"Inuyasha?" she tried tentatively. Nothing.

Extracting herself from the tangle of limbs and clothing and pausing to tug down the skirt that had ridden up around her waist, Kagome ignored Miroku's groan of disappointment and stepped to the side of the comatose Inuyasha, following his line of sight.

And there it was. Suspended on a thin line of silk, a large spider was dangling directly in front of Inuyasha's eyes, legs wriggling madly in midair.

Kagome grimaced. She didn't like spiders. Stooping to pick up a branch, she carefully wrapped the spider's line around the wood, before carrying it quickly into the trees.

"What was it, Kagome?" Sango asked, still twisted in a heap with Miroku.

"A spider," Kagome replied, brushing off her hands and returning to Inuyasha's side. He closed his eyes, then opened them, staring straight at her and sending more than a few shivers down her spine.

"A SPIDER!" Shippou exclaimed. "We all crashed because of a teeny, tiny spider!"

"Shut up," Inuyasha gritted out – the first sound he'd made since that original cry – a cry, Kagome now realized, that had been of fear. Undeterred, Shippou bounded onto Inuyasha's shoulder.

"You freaked out over a spider?" he taunted. "An itsy bitsy spider?"

Kagome choked back laughter, remembering the silly finger rhyme she had learned as a child. But the look on Inuyasha's face darkened. "I said shut up," he warned.

Shippou was undaunted. He had something – finally, he had something on Inuyasha, and he was not going to be denied this victory. "Woo, the spiders are coming, Inuyasha! Run away!" He suddenly recalled the first new moon – when they'd fought the spider head demon, and Inuyasha had nearly died. He remembered Kagome asking Inuyasha if he was afraid of spiders.

"Haha, she was right!" he gloated. "You were afraid after all!" With a pop, he turned into the same spider he had that night – one with great, googly eyes and a hairy yellow body – and dangled himself in front of glaring amber eyes.

"Shippou, stop it," Kagome scolded.

"I'm gonna eat you, Inuyasha! The big ugly spider is coming to get you!"

Inuyasha had had enough. With a lightening quick swipe, Shippou was on the ground, eyes spinning and a large bump blossoming on his head. "Kaaagomeeee," he whined, waiting for the inevitable "Sit!" and the resulting crash.

But it never came. Shippou looked up to find a reproachful expression on Kagome's face. "Not this time, Shippou," she said. "What you did was mean, and you deserve what you got." Her gaze flicked back to Inuyasha. "You okay?" she asked.

Instead of replying with his usual, "Keh, of course, wench!" Inuyasha found he could only nod. Kagome glanced at the sun, which was sinking below the trees, the sky painted a mixture of pinks and purples. "Can we stop for the night?" He nodded again, running a hand over his face. "Yeah, let's make camp," he agreed. His voice was dull and quiet. "But…" he trailed off; looking in the direction she had flung the spider.

Kagome smiled. "Okay, we'll move on a bit." The others struggled to their feet – "Miroku, if that hand 'wanders' one more time, it'll be gone." – and started to move again. Shippou made to jump back onto Kagome's shoulder, but a clawed hand jerked him from flight. "You walk," Inuyasha ordered with a growl.

Fighting free, Shippou stuck out his tongue and prepared again to jump onto the schoolgirl's shoulder. But it was gone – Kagome was already walking ahead.

She sensed Inuyasha just behind her, and slowed her steps, allowing him to catch up. "You're bleeding," he said softly. Flushing, she glanced down at her leg. "Yeah, I know. I must have hit a stone or something when I fell."

"Sorry."

The apology was unexpected, and Kagome nearly fell over again in surprise. "It's no big deal," she said, turning searching eyes on the hanyou. But he stared fixedly at the ground, and said no more.

They walked for another ten minutes, before stopping and setting up camp. Miroku built a fire, while Sango and Kagome slipped off the nearby hot spring. Inuyasha had vanished up a tree, and Shippou and Kirara basked in the warm glow of the fire.

Presently, the girls returned, and Kagome made the last of the ramen. Strangely, Inuyasha did not appear, even when Miroku threatened to eat his share of the noodles. Kagome stood, peering into the dark forest.

She caught sight of him, perched on a relatively low branch in a tree barely two feet away. Scooping up his bowl, she stepped towards the tree. "Inuyasha?" she called. "Aren't you hungry?"

"No."

"You sure? It's not like you to turn down ramen."

"I'm fine. Give it to the monk."

She frowned, before handing the bowl to Miroku.

The meal was soon over, and sleep was the only thing on the minds of the weary travelers. Sango unrolled her sleeping bag – a gift from Kagome some time ago – and crawled inside, issuing a very descriptive and gruesome warning to Miroku, who settled himself against a nearby tree. Kirara scurried in with her mistress, and Shippou, after seeing that Kagome was still disappointed with him, and had no intention of letting him in with her, followed the fire cat.

Kagome spread out her own sleeping bag, calling a goodnight to Inuyasha. She was shocked when the hanyou leapt from his tree and sat near her head, resting against the trunk like Miroku. "Goodnight," he replied, closing his eyes, one hand on Tetsusaiga's hilt as always.

Kagome woke abruptly, sitting up and staring at the glowing embers of the dying fire. She looked around, trying to find what had dragged her from her slumber, and her eyes landed on Inuyasha.

He was curled beside her, no longer sitting against the tree. His hair was strewn on the grass, and his body was coiled in a ball. Kagome had never seen him like this, and a pang of worry shot through her.

He whimpered slightly, and she realized that was what had woken her. Curious, she leaned closer to him. His face was twisted, and even as she watched, he whimpered again – sounding much like a puppy.

Cautiously, she reached out a hand, touching his shoulder gently. He jerked awake with a gasp, sitting straight up and eliciting a similar gasp from the dark haired girl beside him.

"Ka – Kagome?" he said softly. She brushed a lock of silver hair from his face. "Were you having a nightmare?" she asked incredulously.

Flushing, he turned away. Kagome stared. She had never known Inuyasha to have nightmares before – was it the spider that brought this one? Perhaps there was something in his past, something that had been revived by the afternoon's encounter. She frowned thoughtfully. "Was it the spider, from this afternoon?"

A shiver rolled down his spine. "Yeah."

She poked his side gently. "Hey. Look at me."

He turned towards her, but refused to meet her eyes. "It's stupid. I'm supposed to be strong…I'm not supposed to let shit like this get to me, but…this time, it did." He twisted his hands in his lap.

Reaching out, she tilted his head up with two fingers, forcing his molten eyes to meet her own chocolate ones. "It's not stupid," she said firmly, "And you're not weak." She smiled, but it was sad, and her eyes shone with unshed tears. "You've had a rough life, Inuyasha. You, out of all of us, have the reasons to have nights plagued with dreams."

He tried to look away, feeling his face flush red as her slim hand came up to run, feather light, across his jaw. But something in her eyes made it impossible to tear his gaze away, and he almost melted into her touch.

"You want to talk about it?" she asked, that same hand now winding tendrils of silver hair around itself. He nodded slowly. "Yeah, alright."

He broke the shared look and turned liquid gold eyes on the sky, watching the stars twinkle in the black sky. "When I was little…couldn't have been more than six or seven…I was playing in the woods near our village. I flushed out a rabbit, and I was tracking it…I was concentrating, really hard, and I wasn't looking where I was going. I fell through the ground, into this sort of…cavern. It was dark, and I couldn't see my hand in front of my eyes. But I could feel…things…crawling all over me, in my hair, through my clothes. Then it started to hurt. Like…thousands of pinpricks, all over my body. Somehow, I managed to get out of the hole, and I saw what was crawling on me."

He broke off, his body trembling almost imperceptibly, and Kagome tenderly rubbed his shoulder. He took a deep, shuddering breath and continued.

"Spiders. There were hundreds of them. All over me…they were in my hair, everywhere. They had bitten me…I was chewed to pieces, bleeding all over the place. I ran home. But some of the bites got infected, and I was sick with a fever for weeks."

"Somehow, the story got out into the village. Some of the kids would throw spiders at me, drop them down my back, stick them in my food. It got so bad that I would just black out."

His eyes left the star scattered sky and traveled to her face. He winced when he saw a tear fall from those brown eyes. "Kagome – don't cry, please don't cry, you know I…aw, hell." The tears were streaming down her beautiful face, and he gathered her close to his body, wiping the wet tracks from her cheeks. "I'm sorry," he whispered, face buried in her sweet smelling hair. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

"How can people be so cruel?" she cried, voice clogged with tears. She clung tighter to him, her hands clenched in the material of his haori. "How could they – how can they – do that to you? You're so beautiful…" she pulled back to look at him. "So kind and good and caring. How could they hurt you?"

He had no answer, and he could do nothing more than let her cry herself to sleep – nothing more than hold her tight, and wonder why she continued to cry for him.

He woke with a cry, staring around, at the dark campsite, at the tearstained girl who slept in his arms, at the dark shape crawling up his leg.

Hang on…

"…Yasha?" Kagome was awake, twisting in his grasp – which was tightening. "Inuyasha – you're hurting me."

The words instantly made him release her, but he continued to stare at the shadow creeping up his leg. Kagome's sharp gasp told him that she saw it as well.

They watched the creature move, eight spindly legs delicately probing at his hakama. It reached his hip, where his shirt had ridden up in the night, and poked at the flesh, before baring tiny fangs.

Inuyasha could do nothing more than watch as the spider prepared to bite him. He clamped his eyes shut, waiting for the pain…

…that never came. A rush of air surged past his face, and he opened his eyes.

Kagome had brushed the spider off his body, knocking it away. It scuttled back towards them, moving across the grass…but it was not prepared for the brown school loafer that descended from above.

Crunch.

Kagome wiped spider guts off the bottom of her shoe, before returning to snuggle into her half demon's chest. "Why'd you kill it?" he asked. "Why didn't you throw it away, like before?"

Kagome smiled up at him. "Cause you're always saving me…I decided that it was high time I saved you." She closed her eyes and sighed, as Inuyasha wrapped his arms around her. "Even if it was just from a little eight legged freak."

With a smile on his lips, Inuyasha let sleep claim him. And this time, a huge Kagome stomped on the spiders in his dreams.

The End.

A/N: Please review!