The Road to Recovery...
...a revisitation of episode 20 and the peculiar notions Miroku and Kaede seem to have about the definition of 'bed rest'.
an Inu Yasha fanfic by Majo-chan
Author's notes and warnings: Hiya everyone. This is my first Inu Yasha fic, so please review.^_^ All comments, criticisms, etc, are welcome, send them to majo_. Warnings: Slight, slight spoilers and some fluff and waffiness. Also, some very minor usage of japanese words. I tried to keep them out, but some things just don't translate well.
It was a beautiful day, with the sky clear and the sun shining brightly the moment she came out of the well. Sango, Miroku and Shippo were there to greet her, and as she walked along, Kagome tried to concentrate on that fact and the pleasant chatter from her friends instead of the nagging feeling growing deep in her chest.
Curiosity warred with caution, and she looked around trying to be inconspicuous about it. Everyone seemed to be acting perfectly normal, and she debated whether or not she should voice the obvious question.
"Kagome-chan, what are you thinking?" Shippo asked cutely from his perch on her shoulder.
Kagome was a direct girl, and she didn't like to beat around the bush. So she squared her shoulders, no mean feat when she had both Shippo and her huge backpack on them, and went right to the heart of the problem. "Where's Inuyasha?"
The dog-demon's absence had been conspicuous the moment she climbed out of the well. Usually Inuyasha was there the moment she stepped out, waiting with a sarcastic comment about her lateness or ogling her for some treat or another. This time though, the clearing had been oddly quiet when she came out.
Kagome frowned. They actually didn't have a fight before she left, which was something rather novel. Yes…there was an intense battle with yet another demon with the Shikon shards, and Inuyasha had been wounded pretty badly in the fight. Maybe that was why he didn't protest her leaving so much…
A pang of guilt hit her. Yes, she did have the mock entrance exams to take two days ago, missing them wasn't exactly an option. But she also had a badly injured friend who might've needed her help, that she abandoned...
Sango noticed the guilt crossing the younger girl's features and patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Inuyasha's fine, Kagome-chan. In fact, we're going to see him right now."
"We are?" Miroku asked.
Shippo rolled his eyes. "We are. Though we'd better get Kaede-obasan to come too. He might have worn out the wards by now."
"Wards?" Kagome's worry, temporarily alleviated by Sango's assurances, increased again. "What do you mean, wards?"
Shippo and Miroku exchanged a significant look for so long that Kagome started fuming. "That's right…She wasn't here the last time, was she?" Miroku said thoughtfully. Shippo nodded in agreement.
"What do you guys mean?" She said, her voice rising along with her irritation.
"You'll see." Sango said significantly.
Kagome still didn't 'see'. Especially not why Kaede-obasan was with them, and holding a large sheaf of ofuda, demon seals, to boot. She continued to be puzzled, but her anger and irritation had died down. She trusted her friends, her companions. They went through hell together, and she trusted them when they said that Inuyasha was all right.
But still…!
"We're almost there." Miroku said reassuringly when he noticed the young woman working herself back up into a bad mood. "Ah, here we are."
For a moment, Kagome was confused. They were standing at the very edge of the village, quite a ways from the houses and huts that made up the town. At the foot of a small hill was an old, run-down cabin.
After a second look, the girl realized that the building's walls were sparsely covered with slips of paper, the same ones that Kaede-obasan were holding.
The old woman sighed. "Looks like you were right, Shippo." She said in her raspy, wise voice. "Looks like he's worn out at least half of the seals…"
"At least that means he's feeling better." Sango suggested. Miroku hid a chuckle behind his hand. When the Demon exterminator gave him a questioning look, he shook his head.
Kagome ignored them and ran the rest of the way up to the door of the hut. On closer inspection, the paper seals were indeed made for containment of demons, and she reached out to remove them.
"Wait…" Kaede-obasan called out in warning.
Kagome was about to reply when she heard a familiar voice from within the hut.
His arms hurt. His legs hurt too, but not as much as his arms. His chest and head hurt the most of all, but he wasn't about to admit to that.
One white-furred ear twitched as he caught sounds. His nose was still no help, not through the sealed walls—even after three days—because of that foul smelling poison that the demon he fought used. But still, he could hear footsteps, sounds of people approaching.
And Inuyasha, being who he is, didn't wait long to make his displeasure known.
"KAEDE-BABA~! MIROKU!" He yelled, and then added some colorful expletives to make his point. "Let me out NOW!" He rolled closer to the door and kicked it a few times, for good measure. " Open up! Let me out! Let me OUT!" There was no reply and he somehow got himself to his feet. It was difficult to do with his arms tied securely behind his back, but the wounds on his abdomen had healed enough that the movement no longer threatened to cripple him with pain. "Miroku, if you don't open up RIGHT NOW, I'm going to kick your ASS! Let me OUT!" And needless to say, he was VERY miffed.
"Out?" There was something familiar about that voice…
"OUT!" He bellowed as he prepared to throw himself at the door.
She had jumped when the yelling started, her dark eyes going wider and wider as the trapped dog-demon cursed, kicked and screamed up a blue streak. Miroku merely rolled his eyes, not even surprised when Inuyasha threatened to trounce him soundly.
"You did this?" She asked faintly.
"With Kaede-obasan's help." He replied with an equally faint smile. "Inuyasha is not a good patient, by any stretch of the imagination." And as an afterthought he added, "It's a good thing he was unconscious, though. I doubt even the two of us could really hold him down when he's awake…"
Shippo was hiding behind Sango, peering half with fear, half with curiosity at the door. "Inuyasha's SCARY when he's stuck in there…" he said with conviction, having had to share the confinement with the demon before.
"You've done this before?" Kagome asked incredulously.
"How'd you think we got him to lay still long enough for us to tend his wounds and get him recovered?" Miroku shot back, stepping back as Kaede removed some of the wards. The pounding against the door seemed to grow louder as the power backing up the barrier died.
The voice was a bit muffled, but definitely belonged to the half-demon. "Let me outt!" *thump*
"Out?" Kagome repeated, still a bit shocked by the revelation. Sure, she knew Inuyasha was stubborn, self-centered, and hot-tempered…but she had no idea he was such a bad patient.
"Outtt!" came from behind the door, followed by another thump.
She stepped up and slid the door open.
"Let me—" Kagome was treated to the sight of Inuyasha getting ready to throw himself at the door again. He looked up and she saw his golden eyes widen in surprise as he stumbled, trying to stop himself from crashing into her. "ouuuu-oof!"
Sango merely sighed Inuyasha stumbled, thrown off balance by his attempt to abort his previous charge at the door and planted himself face first on the ground, without Kagome saying the magic word. Kagome, for her part, was snapped out of her daze by the rather comical topple the usually gruff and cranky dog-demon had just performed to avoid hurting her.
"Inuyasha!" She cried as he raised his head to look at her. "Are you okay? Why are you tied up?"
"Didn't you tie his feet too?" Kaede asked Miroku, who looked puzzled.
"I did." He affirmed. "However, his feet seem quite untied right now." There were a few incriminating pieces of rope still around his feet, and Miroku could do nothing but conclude that Inuyasha, in addition to having superhuman reflexes and senses, was also incredibly flexible. "Must've somehow chewed through the ropes.."
"Kagome?" The dog-demon said in confusion. For a brief moment, he wondered if he was hallucinating. There had been some stretches of delirium that left him believing that he DID see the dark-haired girl…but his senses told him this was real. Even his nose, tickled by her familiar, flowery scent, agreed with him.
"Hold still." She said quickly as she knelt down to work at his bonds. Miroku made a halfhearted protest that she ignored. Inuyasha, much to her surprise, held still as she had asked, still too surprised by what he thought was a sudden reappearance to be his usual caustic self. "Mou! Miroku-sama, it was mean of you to do this." She complained as she picked at the bindings, finding them a lot stronger than they looked. Of course, anything less wouldn't have held the half-demon nearly as long. Miroku protested his innocence, but she didn't seem to hear him.
"Kagome…you're back?" Inuyasha was trying to look at her, a difficult thing considering the position they were in. Kagome made a sound of triumph as the knots loosened. The dog-demon was only too glad to be freed. Immediately he pushed himself up into a sitting position and rubbed his wrists.
"Miroku…" He growled, looking ready to pounce. The priest had the good grace to look mildly abashed, but not afraid, much to Inuyasha's irritation. And Kagome immediately began fussing over him, ignoring his annoyed growl and his attempt to bat her hands away.
"Inuyasha." She said, just sharply enough to catch his attention. He glared at her, and she rolled her eyes. Back to normal, it seems. He grudgingly allowed her to take his temperature, but bared his teeth at her when she tried to check his bandages.
Miroku decided it was time to make a strategic retreat when the sparks started flying between the death-glares the two shot at each other. "My…It's a wonderful day outside, and this place is too stuffy to have all of us in here. We're all just going to go wait outside, okay?" Without waiting for a reply, he exited, holding Shippo under one arm and pulling Sango along with the other. Kaede lingered only long enough to let Kagome know what she should look for in her checkup.
"Geez, it's like they expect me to be able to do this…" She muttered when they were finally alone. Inuyasha was still looking at her with barely disguised suspicion, and she was once again reminded of how hard it was to deal with the dog-demon. When you held out your hand, you can never be sure if he'll accept it, or bite. Kindness sometimes softened his bluster…but it just as often got his heckles up. A part of her knew that he couldn't help it, because her kindness was an exception in his world. It was something that he could not expect and could not get used to having, because of his mixed blood. He had survived this long by not trusting, and some instincts are hard to fight.
Instead, she dug into her backpack and found antiseptic and gauze. She packed a lot of those into her bag now, and replenished her stock every time she went back. Come to think of it, this wasn't the first time she had treated his wounds…but then again, she went through the same battle every time. "Inuyasha." She said softly, because being angry usually got her nowhere. "Let me see your hands."
Kagome could almost see the struggle between giving in to her request and the need to maintain the image of being strong going on his face. Not to mention one of his ears was twitching in irritation. Finally, he held out his arm, allowing her to look over the rope burns. She felt him jump slightly as she sprayed some antiseptic onto the raw places. "These will heal soon," She said unnecessarily. The abrasions were minor, even by human standards. With his healing abilities, the wounds wouldn't last longer than a day at most. "He shouldn't have tied you up…"
Inuyasha's ears twitched a little. He was expecting her to berate him for…for something. He was not expecting her to take his side. "Well, he did." He said gruffly.
"Because you refused to stay put and recuperate, right?" Kagome repeated the process with his other wrist, not bothering with the gauze. She was saving that for later. "Don't scowl at me." She chided, "Do you deny it?"
The dog demon opened his mouth to protest …but only uttered a short, "Feh!" in his own defense. Surprisingly, Kagome didn't start yelling at him for being rude or inconsiderate, and he blinked, feeling a bit weirded out as she released his hand and sat there, with her own hands folded on her lap. "…Kagome?"
"…"
He was beginning to feel a cold, heavy weight settle in his stomach. It was a familiar sensation, usually one that made itself known right before Kagome started crying. He couldn't STAND it when a woman cried…When those tears start coming, he would do anything to make them stop. "…Hey, Kagome? Er…I'm…sorry?" He wasn't sure what he was apologizing for (of course he didn't do anything wrong), but he hated to see her cry.
Kagome peered up from under her eyelashes. The sight that greeted her almost made her burst into giggles, and she ducked her head lower to hide it. To see the dog demon so flustered, his expression a comical mix of confusion and dread, was a rather refreshing change from his perpetual scowl and smirk routine. But she decided she really shouldn't be cruel and poke at those soft spots she knew he had, and instead raised her head to meet his eyes. She could almost see him relax visibly when he saw that she was neither crying nor angry, the tense line of his shoulders loosening up and his ears perking forward cautiously.
"I'm not mad, Inuyasha." She said, just to be sure. Sometimes the half-demon could be amazingly dense. He 'hmph'ed, but grudgingly pulled his arms out of the sleeves of his white gi and allowed her to examine his back, which wasn't quite so bare, considering how much was covered by bandages. Kagome started unwrapping the bindings, being very careful to be gentle. "But…I think we need to talk a bit, especially if Miroku-sama is resorting to such drastic measures to keep you off your feet." Kagome kept her voice quiet and level as she worked.
Inuyasha immediately stiffened, then turned his head to scowl at her. Kagome knew that if she weren't holding on to the bandages that were still mostly wrapped around his torso, he would've turned around and then start his tirade.
"Hear me out." She cut him off, putting just enough steel behind the tone to let him know she was serious. This wasn't going to turn into one of their petty fights that resolved themselves by name-calling and excessive use of 'sit', not if she could help it. He bared his teeth a bit, but settled down into a low growl when she didn't relent. Finally, he turned away so she couldn't see his face, just his long fall of white hair and furry ears. She guessed this was as close to an invitation to keep talking as she was going to get, and so continued. "I know you don't like to be…confined. But no matter how strong you are, you can't go romping around before your wounds heal." The various gashes over his shoulder blades were faded and healing nicely, and she pulled off the gauze slowly, careful not to tug too hard at scabs and still-new skin. Kaede-obasan had mentioned that he had been sealed in for almost two whole days, and Inuyasha's natural healing abilities should have taken care of most of the wounds with that much time. Only the most serious injuries would still need tending, and for that Kagome was glad.
"I was fine." He replied grumpily. "Miroku had no right to tie me up and Kaede-baba had no right to seal me in there."
She smoothed her fingers over his left shoulder, slightly awed at the sight of mostly healed skin. The gash had been bleeding profusely, along with the puncture wound in his stomach and at least a dozen other cuts, when they had hauled the half-demon's unconscious body back to Kaede-obasan's village as fast as they could. Now it was just a faint pink scar. Amazing…and somewhat frightening. "You were NOT fine." She replied absently, "And I don't care how often you get maimed, mauled, eviscerated, or stabbed, you can't claim that getting used to it means you'll be fine."
Inuyasha had turned to look at her with slight alarm and Kagome realized that she had unconsciously raised her voice. His ears were pricked toward her and she coughed, embarrassed at her outburst. Kagome ducked her head and went back to removing bandages. She was almost done unwrapping the ones around his stomach when he finally spoke up.
"Thanks…for caring." He muttered so quietly that she almost didn't hear him.
But apparently, she DID hear him. "I'm not the only one, Inuyasha. Miroku-sama and Sango-chan and everyone care…that's why he tied you up, and that's why Kaede-obasan sealed you, so that you can recover without having to worry about fighting yet another demon, or go off running somewhere and hurt yourself in the process." He huffed a bit at the reminder of his imprisonment, a bit because he was feeling quite embarrassed. Inuyasha was glad his back was to her for the moment, because he was pretty sure he was blushing. Her hands paused for a second, then resumed their work lightly. "How about we make a deal, Inuyasha?"
He gave a non-committal grunt, and she had to roll her eyes. She couldn't read his expression, with his back to her, and the grunt wasn't much to work with. But at least, he hadn't rejected the idea outright. Still, she wasn't going to pretend she knew all the nuances of the male form of non-verbal communication, so she gave him a poke and he jumped a little. "What..?"
"If I make Miroku-sama and Kaede-obasan promise not to tie you up or seal you into any small, enclosed spaces, will you promise that you'll let them heal you, and stay off your feet as much as possible for as long as it takes so you can recover?"
"…I don't need them to baby me." He said sullenly.
"Inuyasha, they're just worried about you." She replied, winding the new bandages around his waist, making sure they're tight, but not uncomfortably so. The dog demon shifted restlessly, but she wasn't sure if it was because of her ministrations or his discomfort with her request. Probably a bit of both, maybe she did pull on the bandages a bit too hard. "Hey…what do you say?" She said, trying to keep her tone light.
"…" She blinked as he turned his head so he could meet her eyes. "…promise they won't do this-" he waved a clawed hand at the cabin in general, "-again, if I behave?" The last word was said with mild disgust, but she felt relieved anyway.
"Yes." His ears twitched at the enthusiasm in her voice. "I will speak to Miroku-sama and Kaede-obasan, for sure!" He felt oddly embarrassed by her happy tone, and turned back around.
"Feh. Fine then." Inuyasha muttered.
Kagome smiled. "Thank you, Inuyasha." She said softly, but her tone was full or something that made him feel…warm and calm, and maybe just a bit happy.
"Hmph. For what?" his voice was gruff, but she could tell there was no anger behind it. When he was really mad, it was easy to tell by the growling undertones beneath his words. Right now the almost purring rumble in his voice was nowhere near a growl.
"For trusting me…us." She started tying up the ends of the bandages, unable to keep the smile off her face. "And because it makes me feel better, knowing that you'll be okay while I'm gone, even if I'm not here to take care of you."
"I don't need taking care of!" he snarled, but without much bite to it. Kagome was content to let him defend his pride, satisfied with winning the promise of cooperation from him. She finished tying up the ends as he grumbled under his breath.
"There." She said, giving his back a quick pat. "All done." She said cheerfully as he put his arms through the sleeves and straightened the collar. "The wounds seem to be healing nicely, Inuyasha. Still, don't go around picking fights, okay?"
He rolled his eyes at her exasperatedly. "It's not like I go around looking for fights." The white-haired dog demon protested.
"You're a trouble magnet." Kagome said with absolute conviction.
"Am not. What's a magnet?"
End