All Dogs Play Fetch

A/N: This was written in response to an anonymous prompt I received on Tumblr, which reads: "Inukag, with Inuyasha being turned into a dog and Kagome reacting." It's likely not what the sender was expecting, but hopefully it's enjoyable anyway. ;)

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"Inuyasha, could you please stop licking yourself?"

The kishu ken's snout lifted from its inspection of its private parts. It was a large, handsome dog, with a brilliant solid white coat, broad face, long snout capped with a black nose—matched by gleaming black eyes—and upright triangular ears like little radars turning at every sound. The dog's head craned towards the school girl sitting next to him, dark eyes glaring. "Even a dog's gotta clean, Kagome."

"Fine, but can it wait until later? I'm right here."

Inuyasha heaved a sigh, but shifted his posture to properly cover his 'unmentionables,' leaning his weight on one back leg while the other lifted up to scratch almost casually at his neck and chin. "Don't see what you're getting all prissy about."

Kagome huffed, ruffling the ends of her dark bangs in the process. "'Prissy'? Try 'totally freaked'. I don't understand how you can be so casual about this."

"I don't understand how you're so worried about it."

"How can you not be?!"

Inuyasha uttered a soft whuff. "Relax, Kagome. We'll handle it."

Her eyebrows rose, the expression on her face echoing her incredulous tone when she replied, "'Handle it'? And how do you propose we do that, huh? We have three days!"

The leg scratching his chin dropped back to the ground. Inuyasha stood, shook his body once to resettle his fur, and then sat down closer to Kagome. Little tufts of white fur floated in the air around them, like dandelion seeds on a breeze. Kagome sneezed.

"Listen," the dog said, "Three days is more'n enough time."

A humorless laugh. "Sure doesn't seem like it from where I'm sitting." She propped her chin against her curled fist and closed her eyes on a sigh. "I don't even want to think about it, honestly."

"We just have to come up with the right plan of attack, that's all."

The girl sighed again, reaching out her free hand to rub her fingers through the thick fur on Inuyasha's neck, needing the comfort it gave her. She heard the softest swishing sound as the tip of his tail wagged across the dirt floor of Kaede's hut. "You really think so?" she asked, sounding somehow both skeptical and hopeful at once.

He nodded, then slid forward on his front legs until he was lying on his stomach. Her hand dropped from his neck to his back, scratching her nails along his spine. The swish-swish of his tail got a little louder as he replied, "I know so. We've been in tougher spots than this before, haven't we?"

Reluctantly, Kagome nodded.

"So then quit worryin'. Three days is plenty of time to fix—"

The sound of metal clinking against metal approached, followed by a familiar voice calling out, "Inuyasha?" The reed mat covering the doorway shifted aside, and Miroku ducked into the hut. His eyes landed on the pair of them, sitting side-by-side on the floor, and rounded. "Inuyasha, what has happened to you?"

The kishu ken tilted his head. "Huh?"

Miroku brandished his shakujō, holding it horizontally in front of him with a deeply vexed look on his face, one eyebrow raised and lips downturned. It took Kagome several long moments to realize what he was showing them: a series of prominent bite marks running along the length of the staff.

"What has happened," Miroku repeated slowly, with an obviously forced calm, "to your sense of propriety? Of respecting personal belongings, hm? What possessed you to chew on my shakujō?"

Kagome was surprised by a giggle that she had to stifle with her hand.

The dog in question simply lifted his shoulders in a canine shrug. "It was there. I was bored."

Miroku's eyelid visibly twitched. "You were bored."

"That's what I just said, ain't it?"

A jangling sound was Inuyasha's only warning before the flat side of Miroku's shakujō landed squarely on his head. An obviously restrained hit, meant as a reprimand rather than a real strike.

Which clearly didn't matter much to Inuyasha. "The fuck, Miroku?!" he growled as he leapt to his paws, fur bristling.

"How many times must we discuss this, Inuyasha?" The monk held up two fingers. "You are permitted to chew on two things: the leftover bones from dinner, and your own person. My shakujō is strictly off limits." He sighed loudly, rolling his eyes heavenward. "If you must chew on something larger, pick an object with more durability, like Hiraikotsu—"

"I don't think so, monk," came Sango's wry voice just before the woman herself appeared in the doorway, the reed mat falling back into place behind her. She narrowed her almond eyes at Miroku. "What's this about encouraging Inuyasha to chew on my weapon?"

The monk's tone shifted from exasperated to wheedling quicker than a blink. "My lovely Sango, I was merely pointing out that while my staff may be easily damaged, your Hiraikotsu is made from yōkai bone and can easily withstand"—his glance slid to their dog companion, a note of dryness entering his words—"Inuyasha's oral fixation."

Sango opened her mouth, but Inuyasha's aggravated growl cut her off. "I don't have an oral fixation, you asshole."

"Oh? Care to explain that to the teeth marks you left on my shakujō?"

"Miroku is right, Inuyasha," Sango said with a quiet sigh, stepping further into the hut to kneel opposite Kagome. "This can't keep happening. We've already had to replace Kagome's bow twice."

Inuyasha snorted, but the look he shot the schoolgirl was distinctly guilt-ridden, and his ears drooped a fraction.

Kagome reached out to scratch his neck again. "Water under the bridge, guys. I'll bring back some dog bones from my time, okay? They make ones for big chewers."

"I'm not a—"

"And anyway," Kagome continued forcefully, "We can talk about this later. Inuyasha and I were in the middle of strategizing."

Miroku's eyebrows raised, and he said with genuine curiosity, "Oh?" He took a seat beside Sango.

Some of Kagome's lightheartedness seemed to deflate, her shoulders drooping. "Yeah. Y'see, I have three makeup tests that I have to take at school three days from now. If I don't pass them, I'll…" She swallowed, shoulders drooping even lower. "I'll have to repeat the grade."

The dog, monk, and demon slayer all blinked at her, uncomprehending.

She sighed. "It means that all the work I've done in the last year? Won't count for anything. I'll have to do it all again."

Another moment of silence, and then the information finally seemed to sink in. Sango gasped, "But that's terrible!"

Miroku frowned. "Surely not the entire year, Kagome?"

Kagome nodded before dropping her chin back onto her hand. "Yep. The entire year. So it's really really important that I pass these tests. That's what Inuyasha and I were talking about when you came in."

Inuyasha leaned his weight against Kagome's side, a gesture of comfort. She reached around his shoulders to scratch at his chest in gratitude. He started panting in contentment.

There was a pause, and then Miroku cleared his throat. "Forgive me, but… how exactly was Inuyasha planning to help you with this?"

Sango groaned, elbowing Miroku in the ribs.

The happy panting ceased immediately, and black eyes glared at the monk. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Miroku held up his hands. "I mean no offense, my canine friend. But I cannot help wondering if you are in the, er, position to help Kagome with her studies."

"And why the hell wouldn't I be?"

"Can you even read?"

The dog blinked. "'Course not. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Er…"

"I'm a dog, Miroku, not an idiot. I can still help."

"But how—"

Inuyasha snorted. "We'll figure it out." He leaned more heavily against the girl in question and lifted his chin slightly. "I can always help Kagome."

Sudden warmth suffused Kagome's belly, chasing away the shreds of panic she'd been feeling before. She wrapped her arms around Inuyasha's furry neck in a hug and said, "I'm sure he will. Maybe he can help me with memorization exercises or something."

Inuyasha shifted on his paws. "C'mon, Kagome, quit with the mushy girly stuff. We gotta get to work."

"In a minute," she said, squeezing him harder and rubbing her cheek against the fur of his shoulder.

He sighed.

From outside, in the distance, they heard a high-pitched child's voice call, "Oh Inuyaaaaaasha. Where aaaaaare youuuuu?"

The dog huffed and grumbled, "Ignore him," just as Sango cupped her hands around her mouth and called out the door, "He's in here, Shippō!"

"Come out, Inuyasha," Shippō's voice sing-songed as though Sango hadn't said anything. "I've got something foooooor youuuuuu."

Then they heard a distinctly loud squeak.

Inuyasha's ears shot up on his head. His body stiffened under Kagome's arms.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome said, tone concerned.

Another shrill squeak, and another.

Inuyasha stood up, breaking Kagome's embrace, his head lowered toward the doorway, tail sticking out straight behind him.

"Inuyashaaaaa!" Squeak. "Come out and plaaaaaay!" Squeak.

"Ball," Inuyasha said. Then he bolted out the door, a streak of white moving quick as lightning.

"Wha…" Kagome blinked, watching the reed mat flap back into place.

They heard another squeak, and then Shippō's delighted laughter. "Fetch, boy!"

Kagome sat there blinking for a moment longer, then surged to her feet. "HEY!" she shouted out the door, one fist raised, jaw clenched. "What about my tests? What about helping me study?"

They heard another long squeak, followed by the sound of padding feet.

"INUYASHA! Stop playing fetch and get back here! What happened to 'I'll always help Kagome,' huh? INU—"

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"—yasha…"

"Oi, Kagome."

"Inu…"

"Oi! Wake up!"

A hand jostled her shoulder. She jolted up, a sleep-garbled yell lodged in her throat.

"Whoa, whoa!" Inuyasha—very much a man, all silver-haired and golden-eyed and broad-shouldered and handsome and eep! don't stare at him, don't stare Kagome—put his hands on her shoulders. "Calm down. It's okay. You were dreaming."

"I was," she paused, glanced around her, "dreaming?"

She sat on the ground, her sleeping bag all tangled around her waist and legs. It was the dark gray of early morning. Beyond Inuyasha, the remnant of their campfire smoldered; and beyond that, the indistinct lumps that were Sango and Miroku's sleeping forms.

She released a long breath. "I was dreaming," she repeated. She glanced back at Inuyasha, who crouched in front of her, still gripping her by the shoulders.

"Yeah. Must've been some dream, with the way you were thrashing around." He was all gruff-voiced and frowning concern, and oh no, she was doing the staring thing, wasn't she?

"I uh," she mumbled, gaze flicking around, looking anywhere but his face. And then her eye caught something. A flicker of movement above his head.

The twitch of a silver doggy ear.

"Was it a nightmare?" he asked. "What was—"

She coughed.

"...Kagome?"

And then giggled.

"Kagome, what—?"

And then laughed.

"Oi! What the fu—"

And then had to hold herself around the stomach, she was laughing so much.

"Have you lost your mind? The fuck is up with you?"

He shook her shoulders to get her attention. She wheezed, trying to catch her breath. Finally, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of her eye, she was able to stop laughing long enough to say, "Oh, Inuyasha, it's nothing. It was just a really good dream."