Author Note
Those of you you've read my story "Oh Brother" might notice some similarities between this scene and chapter 4. That's because I thought up the one-shot first but wanted to use the tree idea in my story.
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Night of the new moon
It was the evening of the night of the new moon. Inuyasha sat between the branches of the Sacred Tree, his legs crossed in their customary position and his head in his hands, thinking. Thinking about Kagome.
He didn't what it was that made him want to protect her, that meant that she was the only one who could taunt him without getting a whack over the head (Shippo) and what it was that made him just want to hold her in his arms. Did he love her? He knew now that he had loved Kikyo, but he had never wanted to hold her so passionately, he had never allowed her to insult him, she hadn't been content with the way he was. But Kagome was content. And she loved him, didn't she? He had never really let himself think about it before, he was too unsure of his own feelings. Did she love him?
Inuyasha had been thinking for some time when he heard a noise at the base of the tree. It was Kagome.
"Inuyasha, is it OK if I come up?" she called.
"Keh," he replied, not sure what she wanted. The last time he'd been near her when the new moon was out he had a feeling he'd said something stupid.
Kagome climbed up to the large branch where Inuyasha was sitting. She stumbled when she was almost up and he shot out a hand and dragged her towards him. As he pulled her up onto the branch Inuyasha realised she was shivering He untied his obi and threw his kimono to her, leaving him only in his kosode and hakama.
As they sat there side by side each absorbed in their own thoughts, the sun set in the sky and darkness descended. As Inuyasha became aware of the physical changes happening to him he also became aware of how cold he was, and once the transformation was complete he missed the warmth of his fire-rat kimono. Kagome, ever observant as she was noticed at once as cold he was in his changed stateand immediately felt guilty. She tried to give the kimono back to him but he resisted her, not wanting to be looked after, and she stopped.
"Fine! I'll have to find another solution then," she said. After what seemed like hours to the freezing Inuyasha, but was only really a matter of minutes, she climbed onto his lap.
"What are you doing wench?" he demanded, mentally scolding himself for the Miroku-esque thoughts running through his mind.
"Making us both more comfortable," she replied, and taking the shocked silence as permission to continue; wrapped the kimono around both of them, tying with the obi to stop the wind from blowing it away. Inuyasha sighed, and resigning himself to the fact they would probably be in this position all night, he shuffled back towards the tree trunk and leaned against it. Kagome's head was buried against his shoulder and her arms hugged themselves around her knees. Inuyasha tentatively wrapped his arms around her slight form underneath the kimono and rested his chin on her head, breathing the fruity scent of her hair in deeply. For the first time in weeks he began to feel sleepy, his eyelids drooping even as he tried to force them open. 'I've got the protect Kagome,' he thought distantly, it was the last thing that crossed his mind as his body succumbed to sleep.
This is a reference to episode 13 - The Mystery Of The New Moon And The Black Haired Inuyashawhen Inuyasha has transformed and asks if he can lay his head on her lap before commenting that she smells nice in a most un-Inuyasha-ish way.
His shirt and trousers, before I've heard of his shirt being referred to as a haori, but I looked it up and apparently that's a hip or thigh-length kimono coat, kosode seemed to fit though.
These are the ones that take place at the new moon when Inu turns into a human I don't want to sound patronising to any Inuyasha fans, but for any readers you haven't seen the series, the change happens in Inuyasha's blood and the physical changes are his hair turning black, his dog ears being replaced by human ones, his eyes changing from gold to dark brown and his fangs and claws turning into the human equivalents.