Author's Note 1: Again, sorry about the wait. I can't blame my muse this time. I blame my schedule. People want me to actually earn my living. Those bastards! Then this chapter turned out to be really long. Then my Internet broke. Anyway, it's up now. I hope it was worth the wait.

Aamalie: Actually, my angst/rage about boys is more from my job than any traumatizing first-hand experience. About soccer boys, I just tend not to trust boys who travel around in groups. However, my crush is a wonderful, nice, funny, and good-looking guy (hence the crush), and I will probably never date him. Crushing on and dating the same person tend not to work out for me. And bite your tongue about "Landslide!" I only wish I could write half so well as PoF. Oh, and thanks again for chapter 8 of OA! You rock.

BabyXBooX143: Perfect grammar? (Laughs hysterically) I wince when I read these stories again and catch things I didn't before. But, I'm glad they can be as invisible to other people as they are to me when I go over them for the 10th time.

Fantastical Queen: I really never have characters outwardly professing love. I have issues with saying "I love you," so that tends to get translated to my stories.

Fred the Mutant Pickle: Damn! I should really stop thinking I'm so original. I guess everything has been done. (Shrug)

animeluvur: Thank you for my song. :) (Backs away slowly.)

Iggy04: Whoa! I don't think Miroku is that stoic. The root isn't through Miroku! He just kind of landed on top of it. It went through his robes, but not his skin. If it were to go through him, it would probably more endanger Sango's left shoulder or arm than her head. No, I think if the root had speared Miroku, he wouldn't be so calm as he was.

lodz: (Gasp!) You're crazy!

Lady Sango77: I came up with the idea while snuggling with my dog. He's an 85-pound Labrador retriever and he thinks he's a lap dog. He also makes a great pillow.

Sexysaxist: No, my muse came around. Now she's mad that I've had to ignore her to get some work done.

ManaMage: I'm trying to become a hermit! But it's hard to find any kind of reason to say "No, I have to find a way to scratch Sango's nose," when a friend calls up and says, "A bunch of us are going out for drinks. Wanna come?"

And to silverjazz, jaded image, Bloody Red Raven, Sangonesan, YuniX-2, and Jessay: Thank you for your nice reviews. I'm glad that you're enjoying the story so far.

Discomfort

By Starzki

Chapter 3: The Best Policy

(grrr)

Sango continued to squirm against Miroku, trying in vain to turn her head into the monk's robes to rub her nose on them. The stubborn itch burrowed into the first couple of layers of the skin above her left nostril, near the pert tip of her nose.

Sango's nerve endings, somehow in communication with the itch on her nose began to fire through the rest of her, inciting phantom itches all over her body. First, the area between her shoulder blades began to tingle. Luckily, a branch pressing that exact part of her allowed a scratch as she wriggled against it.

It didn't help much.

The itch just resurfaced behind her right knee before moving on to her scalp to the roof of her mouth, to just above her belly button. Sango felt almost as though tiny spiders were crawling all over her skin, all because of a simple itch on her nose. Everything would be all right if she could just scratch her nose. The passing minutes grew longer as Sango racked her brain to discover a solution, any solution to her problem. She mentally promised her first-born son to whatever, whoever could give her some relief. She would sell her soul.

Sango felt a brief twinge of concern that she might actually go mad with itching before the itch resurfaced at both her right elbow and chin at the same time distracting her from her thoughts of impending insanity.

Miroku was tempted to find the situation funny. The mighty warrior, the mostly stoic and proud fighter, coming apart because of an itch. But it was frightening at the same time. Plus, all of Sango's wiggling, sighing, straining, and mewling was becoming… well… distracting.

Sango resumed trying to blow puffs of air up and across her nose to at least cool the itch and maybe make it forget what it was doing. Miroku joined her and blew a stream of air as hard as he could at her nose. Her bangs rustled and resettled and rustled some more.

"Gah!" exclaimed Sango. "That's just making it worse!" she cried.

"Sorry," apologized Miroku. "Maybe if you try thinking of something else…"

"Shut up, Houshi-sama. You don't get to talk any more," replied Sango testily, frustration taking over her mouth and forming the words in spite of her rational self.

"But…"

"I hate you, I hate you, Ihateyou, I hate you, Houshi-sama," spewed Sango, squealing and beginning to pant.

Miroku blinked, slightly hurt. Well, that was certainly uncalled for. It wasn't his fault that her stupid nose itched. But he did try to understand and didn't take her bilious words too much to heart. He contemplated squeezing her butt cheek in a way that she might find comforting, but then decided that he probably couldn't pull it off and that Sango would, as always, completely misunderstand his intentions. Also, the branch with the offshoot trying to spear his forearm was preventing circulation to his hand, numbing and cooling it. He wasn't sure he would be able to move it very much if he tried.

Sango, for her part, didn't even realize that she was venting at Miroku, on the verge of shouting every obscenity that she knew. All she heard was the rushing blood in her ears and all she saw was a deep brown-red as she wanted nothing more than to just stop everything, take a time out to scratch her nose, after which she would gladly rejoin her situation already in progress with a whole new perspective and attitude.

Unfortunately, taking a time out was not an option she had. But she needed something, anything else other than the itch. Pain was preferable to the inconstant and maddening pulse of the itch on her nose needling its way into her every conscious thought.

In a last ditch effort to take her mind off of her nose, Sango pushed against the branches that held her right arm. She pulled and strained with her hand, bicep, and shoulder against immobile vines. She railed against the immovable timber with every ounce of available strength she could muster.

Finally, a cramp seized her just under her right shoulder blade.

As the muscle spasmed, Sango let out a sharp gasp that was almost relief. The radiating pain refused to abate as the position of her arm did everything to extend and prolong the twitching pain. Sweat tingled at her temples and she had to endure both the cramping pain as her muscle tried to implode, collapse on itself, and the infuriating tenacity of the itch that she still felt. The cramp held on and refused to abate and the seconds ticked by with sadistic slowness. Sango grunted and her body shook with exhaustion as the muscle at last began to tire and relax, having spent all of its available energy.

The sharp pain dulled to an uncomfortable ache that stabbed into her lung.

And her nose still itched.

Sango decided that that had been a very stupid idea.

But maybe if she tried it with her left leg…

Miroku was growing increasingly worried. Sango was going to hurt herself if she kept this up. Well, he was just going to have to step up and figure out a way to help her out and try to scratch her nose for her before she started convulsing with pain and frustration.

His right hand had the most movement and it was so achingly close to her nose that it seemed the obvious appendage to use to try and help her. He thought that there was just enough room between his chest and the roots that were pinning him down to wriggle his fingers in and get to Sango's nose. There was also slight movement possible for his right elbow to bend and allow him some leeway to reach out to her.

The main problem was that the rosary around his right wrist was snagged on an inconvenient knot in one of the branches imprisoning him.

Now, this was quite a nasty little knot. When the forest witch used her powers to animate the plants, she invariably left a little of her scorn and rage for humans behind in the only-slightly dormant in the plants she had so recently possessed. And knots are a little more concentrated in wood fibers and, therefore, had more remaining animosity towards Miroku and Sango than did the rest of the parts of the plants.

In fact, it was this lingering odium within the plants as the forest witch withdrew her powers that made them spontaneously come together and conspire to trap the pair for as long as they could hold out. They weren't sentient exactly; they had just absorbed enough witchcraft to allow them to unite to make life for Miroku and Sango as terrible as possible. They got as far as pinning the duo down before they lost their self-awareness and froze. But the knot in the branch retained enough to hate the monk so that its single-minded obsession was to destroy the stringy/beady thing he wore around his wrist, out of mere spite.

And this nasty little knot found itself fortunate enough to catch a little of the thread between the beads of the rosary and it did everything it could to hold onto it to prolong the demon hunter's and monk's discomfort. The nasty little knot even laughed to itself manically as it did so, enjoying Sango's itchy pain and Miroku's struggles against it.

Apparently, it did not fully comprehend the utter doom for it and everyone if it snapped the thread. While slightly sentient and undeniably evil, this nasty little knot wasn't terribly clever.

Miroku felt the snapping tug of the knot as it clung desperately to the string of his binding rosary. He knew the risks of pulling too hard. He feared them. But Sango was wracking herself with cramps all along her back just to forget the itch. It was torturous to watch and probably much worse to feel. So he decided it was worth the calculated risk to try and scratch it for her.

So, while Miroku was highly aware and making this move for all of the right reasons, it could definitely be argued that in risking so much to just scratch a nose, he was not so much more clever than the knot.

Sango would probably disagree with that assessment if it had been spoken aloud. In that moment, anyway. However, she could not be described as a person completely competent in making that kind of judgment, given her precarious mental state.

A brief and weak tug-of-war ensued between Miroku and the knot. The nasty little knot held onto the string with its own brand of woody determinism. Miroku pulled and yanked and cajoled the knot to let go. He pressed, wiggled, and rocked the rosary to try and free it. The knot held on, still silently laughing manically.

"Nasty little knot," murmured Miroku lowly and through clenched teeth. Sango didn't notice, too caught up in her own troubles to realize the risk he was putting them in.

In the end, they both won. The knot bit loose a few of the thread's fibers, but did not sever the string. And Miroku was awarded with a few more inches of play with his right hand as he escaped the knot to help Sango.

Miroku now had to find a way to squeeze his right hand between the slight space between his chest and the obstructing roots holding the pair down. As his hand pressed into his own pectoral muscle, he realized he was just shy of the space needed to reach Sango. His glove kept snagging on the prickly branches of a small shrub. If he pressed down, he would be pressing himself into the terrible root that was trying its best to shallowly impale him.

He tried anyway. The pain was intense and he gasped.

Sango began to notice what the monk was doing. She could see his fingers inching toward her face. And for the first time she would ever readily admit, she began to hope recklessly that Miroku would succeed in touching her.

"Come on, Houshi-sama," she coaxed. "You can do it. Please try."

"I am," said Miroku through clenched teeth.

Sango silently prayed and rooted Miroku on in her mind. She even would have voiced her ebullient mental cheering if the itch hadn't effectively stolen all of the positive words from her vocabulary.

There just wasn't enough room. Miroku only needed a couple more millimeters of space between his chest and the root above it. He was just so close.

"Please," asked Sango plaintively. She sounded almost lost. Miroku decided that if he did nothing else for her for the rest of his life, he would do this, no matter what it took.

Seeing no other option, Miroku coordinated all of his muscles with any power and room to move and shift down and against the wounding root. With all of his might, he pressed with sharp force. His fingers slowly crept even closer to Sango's face as the sharp bark of the root began to slice through the skin of his back, drawing some blood. He struggled and strained and finally felt that last bit of give he needed as the root bore further into his flesh.

He touched her nose.

He scratched.

Sango murmured and sighed with the greatest relief she had ever known. She almost felt like crying. The insanity that resulted from the itch nearly changed to another completely different type of insanity from the sheer happiness of relief. She wanted to reward Miroku in some way. She almost, almost said that it was okay that he was touching her bottom.

But she bit the words back. That stupid monk probably would, as always, misinterpret her words as an invitation to squeeze her cheek whenever he wanted. The pervert.

But she was still so happy with him. "Thank you, Houshi-sama," she said with genuine gratitude in her voice. "I can't say how much I thank you." It was all she could do to keep herself from kissing the finger that so valiantly had scratched her nose.

Miroku, on the other hand, was not doing as well as he had been. In fact, he was doing everything he could to steady his heartbeat and his breathing as the pain from the root's puncture pulsed through his back into the rest of his body.

"So now you don't hate me, Sango?" he asked to take his mind off of the pain.

"Hate you?"

"Well, you said…"

"No, Houshi-sama. I don't hate you at all."

The pain had somewhat destroyed Miroku's characteristic guard, those layers that kept him from asking the questions he didn't want to know the answers to. So he asked, "But you don't like me much, do you?"

"What?" asked Sango, stunned. "Why would you think that?"

"You don't put up with much from me. You're impatient with me."

Sango felt that she owed Miroku an honest answer. She was still kind of riding high from the release of the scratch. "Of course I am," she responded "You have the potential to be such a great man. If I didn't think you were capable of changing for the better, I wouldn't waste my time or energy on you, yelling at you." Miroku felt the temperature around them increase a few degrees and he knew that Sango was blushing madly. It made him want to smile.

He began to forget his pain. He shoved it into a back corner of his mind as he thought about what Sango was saying. "Why would you think I have potential? Most people think I'm a lost cause."

Sango sighed and confessed, "It was one thing, really, that got me to notice. At Naraku's abandoned castle, when we found the graves, you took off your own clothes to help carry their remains from that horrible place. What you did, what you said, really meant a lot to me and I appreciated it."

Sango took another breath before continuing. "In that moment, I was glad to know you. I began to see you as a man with a lot of good and basic decency in him and I just wish you would act on it more often."

As the words passed over Sango's lips and made their way to Miroku's ears, he was overcome with an odd sensation. It was recognizable in that it was how he often felt when either he or Sango were being honest about their feelings. It was a complicated, kind of cramping feeling. It hurt in a way that wasn't painful and felt good in a way that he never wanted to ever experience again. It felt weird. And strangely squishy.

Sango fell silent, waiting for Miroku to say something. However, he was still trying to identify the odd feeling that had just overcome him. His neurons and synapses sang and fired with electricity as he applied his not unintelligent mind to the task. His education and underlying rational inclination led him to utilize the Law of Parsimony in that the simplest answer to a question was, most likely, the best answer.

Now, to be clear, Miroku wasn't actually thinking about the Law of Parsimony or intentionally directing his thought process to find the simplest answer. However, his decidedly male thought process and experience demanded a quick and rational answer for the uncomfortable and unidentifiable feelings coursing through him and latched onto the first thought that occurred to him that made sense. It was actually a thought that was pretty much just below the surface of all of his other thoughts pretty much all of the time.

Therefore, when Miroku felt the steadying vertigo, the loose tightness in his chest and all of the other oxymoronic feelings that confused him as Sango confessed that she didn't really hate him, when she was implying that she kind of liked him and was glad to have him around, he did not think the feeling was because of the sheer complexity of his feelings for her. He did not find himself touched and honored that a young woman as strong and beautiful and fantastic as Sango was saying that she found some good in him. He did not worry about the ramifications of falling in love in the midst of their shared quest for vengeance and redemption and the responsibilities for both of them such a love would entail. He did not lament that he did not deserve such a woman as she was growing to be or wonder if he could make himself a man worthy of such trust and devotion. And he did not think a single thought toward scaring Sango away before she fell for him, thus protecting her. These ideas were all too complex and jumbled (and far too accurate) for Miroku to identify with any success.

So, he went with Parsimony, basically because it was a lot faster and didn't make him think too much.

Instead, he identified the feelings as: I think would like to touch a booty. Or maybe a boob. Oh, hey! Sango's right here!

And then he moved his right hand without any thought at all, to try and reach down to pet her bottom.

Luckily for all involved, his hand only moved a few millimeters before meeting another plant obstacle.

But Sango did notice the general direction of his hand and knew exactly what he was thinking. Again, when one is faced with a pervert, one can usually tell what he is thinking. Sango smiled, knowing his attempt to grope her was foiled (and vaguely wondered why he didn't just squeeze with his left hand).

Normally, the realization that he was going to try and molest her would send Sango into a fighting temper, but she was just so thankful to him for the scratch that she couldn't seem to find the energy to correct his behavior.

At least for a little while.

They were still very stuck and all they had was time. And endless discomfort.

The seconds and minutes crept by. Sango was finding it increasingly difficult to remain so still. She was an active, athletic woman. While she did have an enormous store of patience (she never fidgeted when it was time to be still and meditative) and while she wasn't hyperactive, she felt the slow build of frustration as her muscles screamed to move into another position.

As the minutes passed, the cool and windy evening sank into an even colder night. The light happy feeling at the disappearance of the itch on her nose faded as a heavier frustration took its place. Sango could almost picture her muscles solidifying and freezing in this position if she didn't find a way to move them, soon. So she did what any person in her situation would do. She took it out on her completely innocent companion to get her mind off of her discomfort.

"Why do you do that?" she demanded with annoyance.

"Do what?" asked Miroku, who had been frowning to himself at his failure to caress her bottom. He had forgotten about his left hand because it was completely numb because of the cool air and the poor circulation it was receiving.

"Go to grab me any time I'm honest with you and try to be nice?"

"Uh," replied Miroku. He had no response because he didn't know about his brain's addiction to Parsimony. That, and, being male, he forgot every complicated feeling he had after an unsuccessful attempt to identify it, preferring to pretend it just had never existed.

Sango decided to switch tactics. "What's with you and butts, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you know I don't appreciate it, that it makes me angry and want to hurt you, and you do it anyway. Why?"

Miroku kind of liked this topic of conversation, especially since Sango had no physical recourse against him if he stuck his foot in his mouth. He tried to justify his actions. "I don't know how to explain it other than caressing your rear end is something I like to do."

"I still don't understand. Why?"

"I don't think I can explain that any more than you can explain why you like to eat handfuls of cherries and spit the pits as far as you can."

"Well, because that's fun."

"Well…" goaded Miroku.

"You find groping me fun?"

"Well, yeah, I guess."

"But it makes me so angry. At least I don't hurt anyone."

"Tell that to the cherries."

Sango sighed. "You know what I mean. And why do you single me out so often when I'm the one most likely to bruise you for doing it?"

Miroku decided to be as honest with her as she had been with him. "Because I like you best," he answered simply.

Miroku actually felt her body tense and blush at his words. He liked it. If nothing else, it was helping keep the chilling night air at bay.

Sango was silent for a while before starting, "But…"

Miroku anticipated her question. "Because you're strong and I like that you fight for what you want. Because you expect goodness from me. Because you expect so much from yourself that the rest of us can only try and rise to your example, making us better people."

Sango was speechless and touched. But that was before he continued, "And because you have, unarguably, the nicest rear end that I've ever felt."

He had been so close.

Sango felt that she would have melted under the intense focus of Miroku's attention and effusive words. The steady beat of his heart at her ear proved to her that he had not been lying as he coated her with his honeyed phrases. Then he had to go make her all self-conscious, again. He seemed to revel in keeping her off-balance around him.

Now, Sango wasn't all that much better at identifying emotions than Miroku was. Her warrior's mind read any sign of discomfort, self-consciousness, or internal conflict as aggression that needed to be purged. Preferably, to be purged violently.

Damn all of those weeds for their situation. She began to wish that she had just let the whole thing go. She reminded herself how great Miroku had been for scratching her nose. And he was being honest with her, which was good. And he hadn't even attempted to squeeze her butt since she had awoken. No, she decided. Miroku was still on her good side. For now.

It was Sango's turn to clear her throat, deciding to let the subject drop. "So, any new ideas on how to get out of here?" she asked, trying to shift again and take some of the pressure off of her left hip because her back was threatening to cramp up once more.

Miroku groaned at her movement as the root began to slice even deeper into his back because of Sango.

"What's wrong, Houshi-sama?"

"That root… It's just a scratch," he gasped in denial. His lungs felt paralyzed with pain and any inhalation and exhalation seemed impossible. He began to concentrate on just drawing breath.

Sango opened her mouth to respond but began to feel a warm and thick liquid nudge the outside palm of her left hand and spread to cover her pinky finger. She knew instantly that it was blood.

"Houshi-sama," she gasped, "You're bleeding!"

Miroku groaned again in an assenting manner to her accusation, the newly awakened pain forbidding him access to real words.

Then, both Miroku and Sango froze, simultaneously holding their breaths, as an eerie creaking and moaning coming from the imprisoning plants signaled their renewed movement. The blood of the monk had soaked into the root and given the plants and their latent evil tendencies nourishment, reminding them of their unsettled score against Sango and Miroku. The plants were waking back up. And they will still full of the malignancy that the forest witch had imbued them with before she had left. They were going to make this couple of humans more than a little uncomfortable.

TO BE CONTINUED

A/N 2: I couldn't keep the fluff out. I can't help but think it doesn't fit the whole tone of this story, though. Oh well.

FYI: The Law of Parsimony is also known as Ockham's Razor.

Three chapters down, one to go.