Disclaimer: Unless I rename my dachshund "Inuyasha" (highly unlikely, as she barely responds to "princess-baby" as it is, and she's a female), I don't own any Inuyasha.

Hanyou Don't Get Sick

Chapter Five:

Fear

Kagome woke to the distinctly disturbing sensation that something wasn't right. She frowned at the ceiling, trying to pinpoint the source of her unease, but it danced just out of reach. She sighed loudly in frustration, swiping an impatient hand through her sleep-tousled hair as she sat up. If she was up anyway, she might as well put her time to good use and check on…

Inuyasha.

Oh, Kami-sama. Kagome stared at the empty futon as if her eyes were playing tricks on her. "Yeah, right, Kagome," she chided herself sarcastically, her brain still not registering the gravity of the situation. "If you blink just one more time, he'll reappear. Whoops, just a little bit of bad lighting here…"

Panic gave every neuron in her stunned brain one good, hard jerk by their dangling axons, and she bolted out of the room, forcing sleep-heavy limbs to respond to the adrenaline coursing in her blood. Her door was open, reaffirming the fact that he had gone…somewhere. Somewhere.

But where?

"Oh, Kami-sama," Kagome whispered aloud through a fear-stricken throat, her heart bouncing jaggedly in her chest as she dashed out the front door for the Goshinboku. "Inuyasha…" His first impulse—hers, too, it seemed—would have been to go outside, be outdoors, high up in a tree branch.

But he wasn't there.

He couldn't have been there, Kagome realized as she dashed back into the house and performed a frantic, in-depth search of every downstairs room. The front door had been locked, and all the windows were closed—he couldn't have left the house. It was a small relief to know he wasn't out wandering the early morning streets of Tokyo, lost and delirious, hazarding the perils of automobile traffic, pedestrians, cops, and whatever else he'd be faced in the modern-day world.

So where is he? Kagome called his name quietly as she paused at the foot of the stairs, straining for his response. If he had fallen somewhere, maybe rolled under a table she hadn't checked, or was hiding—thinking it was a game, perhaps? Not that she ever knew Inuyasha to play games—she didn't want to chance missing him just because he hadn't heard her call for him.

Worry began to recede as the familiar, welcome feeling of annoyance set in. "Inuyasha no baka," she growled, kicking at the closed bathroom door as she passed on her way to Souta's room. Inuyasha had a soft spot for her brother as large as that ketchup stain on her old white blouse, and she figured that maybe, just maybe, the big idiot had decided to spend some quality time with the little boy.

The bathroom door was closed.

Kami-sama.

They never left the bathroom door closed.

Her brain simply stopped functioning, switching off nicely as her hand closed over the handle, as she gave it a twist and ripped open the door without a single thought towards proprietary behavior or what she might find. Her breath strangled in her throat as her half-formed prayer sprang to frozen lips. Let Inuyasha be…

Naked. Drowning. Lying in the tub.

Kagome felt her eyes widen…felt her throat release an ear-piercing scream…and slammed the door shut.

Heart thumping altogether too rapidly, Kagome felt heat flush her face as she leaned back against the door and struggled for breath. Jeez. That was…she blocked the image from her mind—though couldn't quite put enough force behind her promise to block it from her memory forever to sound credible—and yanked the door open again.

She moved swiftly, with a speed and coordination borne of desperation. She wouldn't let Inuyasha die; she couldn't. She ripped a towel off the rack, throwing it straight into the tub and over Inuyasha's lower body to provide him with some modesty—whether for her sake or his, she wasn't sure. But there wasn't time to dwell on the thought as she wrapped her hands beneath his arms and hauled him out of the tub, laying him out on the floor.

And making sure the now-soaked towel was doing its job.

She had no time to appreciate overmuch the taut planes of his chest, the lean muscle that gleamed wetly in the light she'd hit as she'd burst into the room, the smooth skin that sent small tingles through her hands as she ran nervous palms over his chest to check for heartbeat. Her fingers pressed to his neck, checked for a pulse, but couldn't register the intake or exhale of breath.

Grunting, her mind one smooth, empty slate wiped clean by bowel-loosening terror, Kagome dragged Inuyasha to his knees, bracing his lower back against her own as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Any other time, she'd have noted the feel of his leanly muscled body between her arms. Any other time, she'd have felt the blush of embarrassment as his towel slipped dangerously low.

Any other time, however, he wouldn't have been on the brink of death.

Fisting her hands together, she positioned them at the center of his body, closed her eyes, and focused her energy on pumping water out of his body and forcing the air he so urgently needed back into his lungs. Once, twice…four times, Kagome counted with ragged gasps for breath. Five times. Was it normal to have to Heimlich-maneuver someone so many times? Six times. Inuyasha just wasn't normal. Seven.

Lucky charm number seven.

Inuyasha gagged loudly, his body lurching forward—dragging Kagome with him—as he choked up water and spit, coughing up whatever was in his abused stomach over the floor. His hands braced against the water-slick ground, his head pounding with a fierce ache that nearly overrode the buzzing in his ears and the almost playful twinge of his empty gut. The air was thick as honey as he fought to drag oxygen into burning lungs that felt as wrung out as old sponges.

And he smelled tears. Inuyasha's head whipped around—a motion that had his stomach rollercoasting queasily, a nauseating feeling that slicked gooey pain over the stabbing agony that reasserted itself with a merry little bare-knuckled jab into his abdomen.

Kagome was half-crouched, half-fallen beside him, her hair tangled and unruly around her tear-streaked face as her slim body shook with uncontrollable sobs of relief. She stared at him through long, wet lashes, the tears storming down her cheeks and dripping from her chin to fall to her thighs. And the look in her eyes, the pained, utterly grateful look that he was alive, damned him to a hell he didn't deserve.

Love you…

Weak and dizzy from the stomach pains and his recent resurrection; weak and dizzy with overwhelming guilt at having caused her so much pain, Inuyasha shifted to fold Kagome into his arms. Ignoring his stomach demons—kicking at them with a vicious oath—Inuyasha pressed his face weakly into her hair, settled his hands at the curve of her waist. Felt her arms wrap around his. Felt her turn her face into his water-sleeked chest. Felt her tears—hot, wet, damning—slide over bare skin.

"Sorry," he gulped air. "I'm sorry. Kagome. Don't cry." Panic had a chance to settle in around his roaring pain and the snarling fatigue. And her tears triggered his usual reaction, reducing him to a snarling, frightened mess of guilt and anger at her tears. "Stop it."

She smacked him, her fist accidentally, painfully, ramming dead-center into his kidneys. Recently reclaimed breath whooshed out of his lungs as she lifted her tear-stained face to his. "You have no right to be mad at me!" she sobbed, anger and the weakness that passed after gut-freezing terror slurring her voice. "I thought…You could have…You were…" Her sobs took over again, and Inuyasha pressed his lips to the top of her head, grateful only for this chance to hold her.

No matter what circumstances had brought them there. Whatever pain he had suffered…it had given him this chance to just hold her.

That alone was nearly enough.

"Baka," Kagome whispered, her arms tightening around his back, her fingers smoothing over his skin.

"Probably," he nodded agreeably with a pained half-smile. The world blurred around the edges, and he tugged urgently at a fistful of her hair. "Hey. Kagome. I gotta…I'm gonna…" Blackness spread through his mind and body. He didn't remember falling, but he knew she caught him, because his head never cracked against the ground.

He did manage, however, to alert her of his intention to pass out.

"Um…Bye."

Kagome's arms prevented him from making an irreparable dent in the floor. Her smile, trained only on his face, was tender as she stroked wet strands of hair out of his closed eyes. If not for the frenzied hurtling of her heart, the murky steam in the air, the uncomfortable wetness soaking into the seat of her pants, she could have enjoyed the moment she and Inuyasha had shared, the simplicity of the moment now as she ran her fingertips over his sleeping face.

And her mother's horrified shriek announced her arrival on the scene.

8.5.04

NOTES: This one was sort of muddled, I apologize. Minor InuyashaKagome moments between the vomiting, the swearing, the fainting, and the interruptions made by Mama. This will probably be my last installment of Inuyasha before I leave on Sunday.

Oh. And no worries, I haven't forgotten that throughout the entire little interlude in the bathroom, Inuyasha is buck naked.

I just wanted to make sure that you didn't forget it either.

Two chapters (er, or two-chapters-as-planned) left to go! And I will eventually explain what was causing his stomachache.