Through the Night

**

"So let me see if I understand this," Sesshoumaru muttered, sounding almost bored, after he'd listened to the whole tale. "You made Inu-Yasha go deaf, and now you need my help to find a pair of snakes in a mountain, even though you have no idea which mountain. Why should I do a thing like that?"

Kagome frowned. Sure, she'd expected him to be cranky, what with the whole 'stay' business. But she had thought her little spell would have been more incentive to help, not less. She had promised to remove it when Inu-Yasha regained his hearing.

"You should do a thing like that because otherwise, Kagome is going to 'stay' you to death," Miroku commented mildly. "I've seen what she does to Inu-Yasha on occasion."

"I'm afraid you're very much mistaken if you think this human priestess' spell is going to hold me for long," said Sesshoumaru. "Simply because Inu-Yasha is too weak to escape his bonds, doesn't mean I fall to the same low standards."

"You tell 'em, Lord Sesshoumaru!" Jaken said proudly. He then yelped as Sango roughly shook the little wooden cage that had been built to hold Sesshoumaru's lackey.

"Is that really your decision?" Kagome asked. "You really won't help us, Sesshoumaru?"

"I thought that was obvious," Sesshoumaru said. "No, I really won't."

"Pity." Kagome stood up, gesturing for her companions to follow her. "Guess we'll just have to find some other method of curing Inu-Yasha's deafness." She paused and smiled at Sesshoumaru. "We'll be camping nearby; if you change your mind, just shout. Stay!"

THUD!

"Hey! That's not fair!" Jaken shouted after them as Sango set his cage down a short distance from where Sesshoumaru was indignantly stuck to the ground. "You can't just leave us here!"

"Sure we can," Shippô called back to them. "Unless, of course, you change your mind. But if you don't, it's okay. Have a nice night!" 

Inu-Yasha was the last to leave the small clearing. He stood and watched his brother for a long moment, his unreadable gaze locked with his brother's glare. Then silently, he followed his companions to where they were setting up their camp within shouting distance. The way he understood it, if Sesshoumaru hadn't agreed by morning, they'd have to come up with something else.

And anything would be better than having to try and travel companionably with his brother.

Sesshoumaru sighed, resigning himself to spending the night belly down on the forest floor. No way was he going to call to that human girl to let him up. The indignity of it all was bad enough already. Besides, they'd probably let him up in the morning one way or another, and then he could be on his way. He'd find a way to remove the spell that bound him, and then he'd return and kill them all. It was a good plan. In the meantime…

…it was starting to get darker, and colder. And he didn't imagine sleeping like this would be particularly comfortable.

Not too far away, Sesshoumaru could hear Inu-Yasha's companions talking and laughing, and the light filtering through the trees suggested they had a nice campfire going. Sesshoumaru shivered involuntarily; the ground they'd left him on was hard packed and cold, and as the night progressed, things only got colder.

Sometimes he could pick up on what Kagome and the others were saying, and he found himself wondering what Inu-Yasha was thinking, being unable to hear anything his companions were saying. Kagome had demonstrated how Inu-Yasha communicated now, with odd rapid hand movement gestures, but Sesshoumaru had just thought the silent language looked silly. Imagine, being reduced to that…

Eventually the light from the campfire went out, and the voices hushed as people went to bed. Curled in his cage, Jaken was starting to snore. Sesshoumaru couldn't sleep though, and he listened to the sounds of the forest he'd taken for granted so many times, and wondered if Inu-Yasha missed them.

He started shivering again. It was cold out here, and he was covered in dirt and there were bugs crawling on him. And he still couldn't unstuck his hands from the ground to even brush them away.

Something moved in the bushes, and Sesshoumaru was instantly alert. Inu-Yasha moved into the clearing, carrying a worn but still serviceable blanket. Sesshoumaru watched in confusion as Inu-Yasha covered him with it.

"What are you doing?" Sesshoumaru whispered.

Of course he got no response from his deaf brother, and Inu-Yasha turned and walked back to his own campsite. Warm now but bewildered, it took Sesshoumaru a little while before finally falling asleep.