A (Disastrous) Day at the Beach

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha.

~oOo~

Sesshoumaru growled under his breath at sight of their destination – this trip to the beach had been all Kagome could talk about for days. For a rather murderously-tempered dog demon from five hundred years in the past, this trip was actually a disaster in the making.

There were humans everywhere, skinny ones, fat ones – he closed his eyes and wished he could scrub them of the visual he'd just gotten on that one – tall ones and short ones – and quite a few of the short ones were of the screaming child variety that everyone with ears in the vicinity would like to gag. Or kill, if you were Sesshoumaru.

He had no idea what had possessed Kagome to bring him on this 'trip'. He was not comfortable with a lot of humans – generally, when there were a lot of humans around it was because they had gathered to try to kill him, and that sort of thing usually ended with a lot of dead humans. But if he killed these humans he knew that Kagome would never let him near her again, and since he was aiming to get a great deal closer than he already had, that would most definitely not do.

She had packed several 'bags' with items she said were absolutely essential on the beach, but hadn't told him what they were. And she had made him change his clothes! Fortunately – for her – she'd had something made that was fairly close to his usual attire, and he'd finally deigned to put them on, admitting after a short while that they were acceptable. Though not likeable. He made sure to qualify that statement for her, for kami forbid she actually think that he liked them. She might then wish to repeat this visit to the beach, and that would not do. At all.

So here he was at the beach carrying several bags into the sand, and he set them down in a civilized manner when she found a spot she considered acceptable - which was thankfully a bit away from all the humans infesting the area like fleas infested Kouga and his mangy ookami. (While he would never admit it, he had always agreed with Inuyasha on that issue – ookami were smelly, flea-bitten, mangy, tick infested low-lifes, very far beneath his notice – unless he was unfortunate enough to smell them, and then he noticed.) And for all of this, he still didn't understand why they were here. If she had wanted to swim he could have taken her to any beach on the entire Western Shore in his era, and they would have had privacy and peace in which to indulge her need to swim - and possibly some of his needs. But no... she wanted to come to a place that was crawling with things he was beginning to look at as targets rather than people. Perhaps if he used his whip to kill just a few off, she wouldn't notice?

He was yanked from his rather dark musings when Kagome dropped her sundress right there in front of every human on the beach, and his eyes nearly fell out of his head and he almost swallowed his tongue.

It took him a few moments to get himself under control, the tiny scrap of cloth covering her upper body, and the just as tiny one pretending to cover her bottom half in a lovely shade of silvery blue sending his instincts into overdrive. What was she thinking!

"Miko, you will put your clothes back on. Those... scraps of cloth are not appropriate cover," he growled ominously, the charm she'd put on him to hide his form and make him look at least a little more human beginning to waver as his youki rose.

She just chuckled at him. "Come on, Sesshoumaru! Take a look around! Almost every girl here is wearing something like this – or even smaller," she teased, pointing out a woman wearing what may as well have been silk threads for all it covered. She almost choked at his disgusted expression.

"You are not her. She is obviously a whore while you are not. You are mine. Or will be, as soon as you stop beating around the bush about certain matters," he said darkly, glaring at her.

She just laughed. "Lighten up. She's not a whore, this is just standard here. If she were a whore, she wouldn't be wearing anything. There are beaches where people are totally nude, you know." His expression darkened, and she sighed. "Don't worry about it, Sesshoumaru. Just relax already. See? Everyone here is just enjoying themselves, spending time with their loved ones and swimming to cool the heat from their bodies. You said you wanted to spend time with me, and so we are. We're here alone together, with no annoying little brothers – on either side – to get in the way," she cajoled, patting the spot next to her under the umbrella she'd put up over the towels she'd laid down.

He eyed her, and then sighed minutely. He had said that he wished for some time alone together before their mating, and it was nice to be away from - both – annoying younger brothers. But this wasn't quite what he'd had in mind...

Still, he would give her this, as it came to him in that moment that he couldn't deny her anything when she looked at him like she was. How disappointing. I've become as much a whipped puppy as I had always accused Inuyasha of being. And the worst of it is, I cannot even bring myself to really care.

He sat down, a little grudgingly, but he did, and Kagome gifted him with that beautiful, intimate, loving smile she always had just for him when he'd pleased her. After a moment she turned away and began digging in one of the bags. When she pulled a tube from it with an almost excited smile, he grew curious. Slightly.

Turning to look at him she asked, with a mischievous wink that she hoped he would be unable to resist, "Would you rub this on my back, Sesshoumaru? Please?" She batted her lashes at him, not yet having realized that she certainly didn't have to beg for him to put his hands on her. He'd put his hands all over her if she'd let him, she certainly didn't have to beg – though he might end up doing just that if she didn't let him have his way with her soon. He really couldn't take much more.

He took the tube from her hand and looked at it with a frown. "What is it?" he asked, even as she took it back from him for a moment and opened the top before handing it back.

"It's sunscreen. It's so my skin doesn't get burned from too much sun. Like that woman over there," she pointed out discretely to her daiyoukai. The female in question had extremely red skin that she was currently – and apparently painfully – covering with a shirt. It looked like she'd fallen asleep in the sun.

Bad move.

"Hn," he replied after looking at the woman and noting her reddened skin. He squirted some of the cream onto his hand and had her lay down on her stomach – which was a mistake because he almost choked again as he saw what her lovely round rear end looked like in that 'bikini' she was wearing. "That would not have happened if she had been wearing clothes that actually covered her, woman, much like you. I cannot believe that such scanty clothing is allowed in your time. It is scandalous."

Kagome didn't say anything, she simply moaned as he continued to rub the cream into her skin as he lectured, so she was able to tune him out. Really – he was beautiful, caring under that mean hide of his, intelligent and her new number one criteria in a male - he didn't have any attraction for dead women. But he was so totally a prude. She chuckled again.

"I am finished," he said, wondering whether he was supposed to rub it on the flesh of her beautiful ass that was on display for all the other males on the beach to see. He could already tell that he would be very busy scaring people today and trying to keep himself from letting 'scaring' become 'killing just a little', which he much preferred. Okay, he really preferred 'killing totally', but he wouldn't quibble with the terms today. Any kind of killing at this point was good, in his opinion.

She sat up and smiled at him as he handed her the tube back, whereupon she smoothed it into the skin of her front half, leaving him wishing she'd had him do that, too. He sighed again, inwardly this time, as it wouldn't do for him to be overheard making such an ambiguous sound too often.

Finally feeling that she'd covered herself thoroughly, she smiled at him and laid back once more, simply enjoying the breeze and the sunshiny day. She slipped her sunglasses on and smiled up at him. "Wanna take a nap with me?" she asked sweetly.

He shook his head. "I thought you were here to swim, woman?"

"Oh, I will, a little later. So...?" she prompted again, and he simply laid back on his towel and watched her as she smiled at him and her eyes fell closed, obviously completely relaxed. He however was not, for there were far too many males on this beach where his soon to be mate was wearing practically nothing. Not a situation that was conducive to relaxation in an inuyoukai, and he thought she would have known this by now – after all, she'd survived close companionship with his maddening younger sibling for some years now, and Inuyasha was anything but sane when it came to keeping males away from her.

He sighed again and resigned himself to always be chasing other males away from what was his, since what was his had the bad habit of always wanting to flaunt what she – and now he - had. Or at least soon would. Perhaps if he killed a few people in a jealous rage she would figure out that it was a bad idea to incite jealousy in an inuyoukai by inciting desire in other males, even if it was unintentional, and become more circumspect? Somehow he doubted it.

Time passed as Sesshoumaru tuned out the humans around them and simply watched Kagome, and finally after a nice little nap she woke hot and ready for a swim. This was another thing that he did not do – swim in water where there were a lot of humans mucking up the purity of it – although her era was so polluted, it probably no longer mattered who did what in the water. His skin cringed at the thought of touching that water as that thought crossed his mind.

He was saved for the moment as they walked towards the shore when she looked back up on the sand and made an excited sound, coming to a stop and turning away from the water. Sesshoumaru came to a halt, confused, though not about to complain as he waited to find out what had caught her attention.

"Oh, look Sesshoumaru, ice cream!" she grinned, pointing up the beach and heading back towards her bag to pick up her well hidden wallet and withdraw some money, not paying any attention to anything else on the beach – including the males that had caught sight of a beautiful woman in an itty bitty bikini and were yelling up the beach, "Hey baby!" and wolf whistling.

And while Kagome might not have noticed, Sesshoumaru sure did and, temper blowing his top almost immediately his hand turned green, his stripes went jagged, and screams took over the beach as Sesshoumaru's anger burst his appearance spell and he went after those males with single-minded intensity, ignoring everything else as long as it stayed out of his way.

By the time Kagome got him back under control and calmed the beach was empty and they were being surrounded by police and swat teams, summoned by panicked beach-goer's reports of a 'demon' chasing a group of men up the beach while flying and threatening to disembowel them for 'looking upon his female with lust in their eyes'. They just barely escaped, Sesshoumaru being forced to fold them into his light orb and shoot straight at the sun so as to be hidden from any eyes still on the beach as they made their way home.

When they landed back at the shrine, an oddly bedraggled Kagome stomped inside her mother's house, determined to find some water and get into it – even if it was the water in the bathtub and not at the beach. She'd wanted to play in the water, and by god, she was going to!

Needless to say, Sesshoumaru did not receive a very warm welcome when he tried to enter the bathroom with her. Instead he spent the rest of the day back in his era, trouncing his brother soundly in a 'spar' and vowing never to go where there were that many humans again – especially if she were going to insist on wearing such tiny strips of fabric that covered very little and enhanced everything. He really didn't enjoy killing humans – it took forever to get all the little bits that were left out from under his claws, and the smell was simply unacceptable.

He sighed, yet again, and ruminated that it was becoming a habit while around her. The things he did for that woman...

~oOo~

A/N: Inspired by a little piece over on Deviantart called At the Beach by SadieB798. It's not quite exact, but it's what gave me the idea for this. Props go to the artist, because it's a funny piece!

Amber