Disclaimer If I owned Inuyasha, he and Kagome would've gotten it on a looong time ago.

A/N I have officially lost all my sanity (y'know, what was left of it). I'm writing one of the three cursed fic types - the 'after-battle'! There are only two worse than this: the 'school fic' and the 'blanket scenario'. Ah, forgive me:D;;

Oh, and the name is a little odd, I know. But it does mean something! (collective gasps) It's actually Greek for 'scab'. No, seriously! It is!

Stop making fun of me and go read already. :P

Eskhara

By: SunshineandDaisys

"A hero, he says. He's trying to be a hero!"

Kagome paced the floor of Kaede's hut early one night, growling in exasperation and worry. Inuyasha had run off to God-knows-where without telling her a thing. She was mad! She had a right to be mad!

"How can he be so careless all the time? Doesn't he know he could get himself killed?" she fumed to her audience of five. Sango was trying her best to listen, but Miroku kept distracting her. Kirara was curled up in a snoring Kaede's lap, and Shippo was picking his nose. However inattentive they were, the miko still continued in naming Inuyasha's every fault to them.

"He picks the grime out from under his toenails and then he wipes it on the nearest surface, be it the grass, the wall, my bed ...! And he gets mad at me when I file my nails just because the minuscule nail molecules might float in the air and he'd have to breathe it. Well, God forbid anyone have to breathe that! His I-haven't-bathed-in-a-week smell is totally off the subject, because he thinks he smells like petunias!"

"I'm sure if you just talked to him..." Sango trailed off, beginning to get uncomfortable with the topic and Miroku's OCD with her backside.

"I've tried! I was just talking to him this afternoon about his hair needing to be combed when he saw Kouga run by. I didn't sense any shards, but you know Inuyasha, ready to beat the living daylights out of anything if it so much as looks at him." Kagome crossed her arms and took a breath. All this ranting was hard work. "Now that wasn't true. He hasn't tried to kill my mother yet."

"Kagome, really," Sango insisted, bending two of Miroku's fingers backwards 'till he yelped and pulled away, pouting. "He should be back soon, and after you've both gotten enough sleep, you should discuss it tomorrow."

"But he won't come back if he's dead!"

"Oh yes, Kagome," Miroku muttered, still massaging his hand. "Brilliant conclusion as usual."

Sango slapped his abused hand. "Don't be rude just because you're mad at me!"

Miroku bit his lip and shook his hand in the air, glaring at her heatedly until the pain was gone. "You know, considering that we're married, I have every right to--"

"--to what, Miroku? Have your way with me, huh? Huh!" Sango loomed in front of his face as if daring him to do something. His eyes flashed.

"Well, it would be nice to feel like a man every once in a while."

"So I make you feel like a woman?"

"Like a little pre-pubescent girl."

"Well, I'll have to change that." Sango grabbed his ponytail and connected their lips with abandon.

Kagome blushed and looked away, afraid of what they might be capable of. It was true that since they'd been married, they hadn't had much, if any, alone time. The results had been minor at first, but mild annoyance grew into a wild form of sexual tension over time, it would seem.

"Uh, Sango?" Kagome coughed, still not daring to look. "Really, if Inuyasha comes back tonight, I'll need some support. And Shippo is in the hut, also." A beat. "Sango!"

Kagome turned her head to face them at the exact moment that shouts began outside. The couple untangled themselves and stood in time for the door to be kicked open, revealing the two battered and bloody forms of Kouga and Inuyasha.

"Kami-sama," Sango breathed, still catching her breath. She and Miroku crossed the room. "What happened to you two?"

"Dog-shit decided to pick a fight because I was ugly or some shit," Kouga explained, glaring at the semi-unconscious hanyou leaning against his left side. The wolf prince didn't look much better off. "But during our fight, that I was winning, his brother showed up. Something about a sword and payback...?"

Miroku held up his hand, wincing at the pair before him and the new way his fingers bent. "That explains it all. Here, let me have him."

"Will they be alright?" Shippo asked worriedly, pulling out the spare mats and trying his best to stay out from underfoot. Kaede had awakened at the noise of the door bursting open, and now she was pulling out her own supplies and the ones Kagome provided.

Said girl watched all this with an uncharacteristic passiveness from the side, unsure of what to say or do. The ring of 'I told you so!' was about as nice as bathing him in liquid salt. All courses of action were pretty much in hand, and it was better to be useless than in the way.

But after they'd gotten Inuyasha on a mat, this reasoning took a U-turn. His head fell to the side, exhaustion keeping him from holding it up, and his eyes locked instantly on her face. Her fingers laced into his hair mere moments later.

"You idiot!" she cried, eyes searching his face with incredulity as she tried her best to resist hugging him. She pulled her digits from his hair and ran them down the angle of his jaw. "What were you thinking?"

"Nothing," he rasped, wincing as Kaede used hydrogen peroxide to clean his cuts. Inuyasha ground his teeth together to hold back a cry.

"There, there," Kaede patted his hand. "It hurt ye worse getting these injuries."

"So!" he snapped. The old woman only smiled and drenched his gashes in more disinfectant. Kagome kept from lashing out.

Staying mad at him now would be like mooning the Pope - it was just unethical. Softening, she pulled his sweaty bangs away from his forehead, kissing the skin in their absence. Inuyasha watched her with slowly hazing eyes. God only knew how much pain he was in.

"Hand me some antibacterial," she ordered, forcing all these thoughts from her mind. "I'll take the right arm."

Night had descended completely upon the Sengoku Jidai when Kouga insisted on going back to his pack. He assured Kagome they weren't too far away and bid her goodbye with a quick kiss on the cheek. Inuyasha emitted a growl at this gesture.

"Oh, come off it." she whispered, adjusting her pajama pants before sitting down next to him. "You're no feral animal."

"He's a feral animal," Inuyasha muttered. He would've said more, as he never ran out of insults for Kouga, but a yawn was in order. Kagome watched him stretch uneasily, knowing that it probably wasn't a good idea. Sure enough, "Shit!"

"Inuyasha," Miroku called lazily from his mat on the other side of the hut. "Shut the hell up. You've kept us awake half the night already."

"Hypocrite." Kagome heard Sango snap, the sounds of sheets rustling and foot-hitting-sensitive-areas followed soon after.

The miko sighed in resignation; her mind was too restless with worry to even comprehend sleep. Worries about home and Naraku were always present, but with Inuyasha's current state of "good" health, she was even more nervous. He looked like he'd been thrown off the Washington Monument into Loch Ness where Nessie had used him as her toilet paper.

Kagome slid down on her side, resting her chin on her palm. She watched as Inuyasha tugged the blanket up over his chest self-consciously. Why he worried about her seeing him was a mystery, considering all that she had seen before.

Not that she particularly wanted to see him bleeding through layers of white bandaging or anything. It was merely the principle.

"Mm, Inuyasha?" she inquired after a few minutes of silence.

"What?"

"Wanna tell me what happened tonight?"

Inuyasha looked at her with trepidation, but her eyes told him she wasn't going to judge. "I was winning," he began, trading his wariness for his usual cocky attitude.

"I'm sure you were," Kagome smiled softly, combing her fingers through the silver filigree fanned out over the floor.

"I was." he assured her. "But then the son of a bitch showed up and slammed your boyfriend into a tree."

She tugged at his hair lightly. "Kouga is not my boyfriend, and aren't you the one he slammed into a tree?"

"That's coming up."

"Ah."

"He said stuff about Tetsusaiga and how he was going to shove it up my ass, and then he put me through the tree." Kagome winced inwardly. He made it sound like a stroll through the park.

"I thought you weren't going to fight your brother anymore?"

"I went through a tree."

Kagome nodded and slid down further, placing herself eye to eye with the half demon and in the perfect position to rub his ears. He closed his eyes in appreciation, and she allowed herself to as well. It hadn't been that long since he'd started allowing her this gesture. She'd taken it as a final acceptance of sorts.

Suddenly, he hissed and sat up; the blanket slid down to the middle of his torso.

"What is it?" Kagome pulled herself up quickly and crawled behind him on her knees, steadying him so he could relax. His head fell back to rest on her shoulder.

"Back," he whispered, the strain of holding himself up causing his voice to become huskier than usual. "Felt like a knife..."

She turned to press her forehead against his; she began running her fingers through his hair, down his neck, over his bandaged chest and back again. As intended, this relaxed him, and soon his weight rested on her.

"This is what you get for running off, you know." she murmured, continuing her "petting". Kagome didn't enjoy the fact that her hanyou was in pain, but she couldn't help liking this free range of touch he was allowing her. Playing with his ears was a rare enough occurrence.

"Well, it's not so bad now," he replied, almost laughing as she pulled her face away in alarm. "I didn't mean it like that, Kagome."

"Oh, suuure," she teased, regaining her bearings. He nuzzled at her neck, and she found herself blushing this time.

"Oops," her fingers caught in a tangle. As she loosened it for removal, Kagome remembered berating him earlier for this problem. She frowned as guilt wormed its way into her heart.

"Inuyasha?"

"Hm?"

"Why did you leave after Kouga?"

He stopped his cat-like massaging of her neck and stiffened. "There wasn't a reason," he said at last, sounding unconvincing to both their ears. His face rested back into the curve of her neck, but didn't continue its previous occupation.

"Are you sure?" she pried, wanting this to be true but knowing it wasn't.

"Yes."

Kagome pulled out the tangle and sighed with her realization. "Was it because I was bothering you again about your hair?"

"I said, 'no reason'."

"Inuyasha." Brown eyes met yellow ones. The latter looked away.

"What does it mater?" he muttered.

"It matters a lot." Kagome insisted firmly, shifting to wrap her arms around his bare shoulders. "I don't want you to think that I don't like you for who you are, Inuyasha. I know lately I've been annoying, and... I'm sorry. I wouldn't change a thing about you, if that's what the attitudes have been about."

"I would change me, why wouldn't you?" There was a challenge in his tone.

"I told you, it's because I like you the way you are."

"Right." Ever the skeptic.

"Inuyasha, if I didn't like you, do you think we'd be having this conversation right now? I think you've got as many rough spots as Bill Clinton has STD's, but to take those away would be to take away what makes you you away. I would never do that."

So why had she been trying? She didn't want to change him, she just needed... an outlet.

"Who the hell is Bill Clinton?"

"Did you even hear the rest of what I said?" It was hard to keep her voice down in this silence.

An exhale of warm breath hit her neck followed by, "Yeah."

"Good."

Kagome cussed herself out mentally, telling her inner being that Inuyasha had already had to play too many mind games, and that this was not what either of them needed. Stressed out and exhausted as she was most days, it was still no excuse. Their relationship had always been built on silent support; she wouldn't ruin that now.

The schoolgirl let herself melt into his back, remembering all the things he'd ever done for her, and vice versa. Her sweet recollections were interrupted by Inuyasha's squirming. He'd been forced to hold more of his weight when she'd drifted off, causing his muscles to tense again.

"Oh. Um, sorry, Inuyasha." She laughed nervously and freed him to move however he liked. He chose to push himself into a sitting position. Then he tipped his head back towards her.

"Tired?" Kagome blinked a few times before nodding, then vocalizing a "yes" since he couldn't hear her nod.

"Good." Inuyasha raised the blanket up beside him, looking directly at her. "Well?"

More blinking. He rolled his eyes. "Kami, Kagome, I can't hold this for long."

"A-ah!" She understood. Cheeks pink once more, she slid her legs underneath and scooted 'till she was fully covered. Inuyasha dropped the blanket and lowered himself slowly to the mat, cursing under his breath at the discomfort.

Kagome reached out to help him, but he rolled over and prevented this gesture. Instead, they found themselves in the intimate position of her palms against his chest. It was hardly better than if her hands were not between them.

"Umm," The brilliant red on her face was only matched by his own. "I was just, uh, not trying to do this, really..."

Inuyasha grunted and pulled back enough to free her hands. She pulled them away, but when Inuyasha returned, she wasn't sure of where to put them. After trying a few awkward possibilities, Kagome realized there was only one way to make this work.

"Inuyasha, could you, well... here." Taking his hands, she adjusted his arms and her own so that they were both comfortably encircled in each other's embraces. A few stiff moments later, Inuyasha relaxed, allowing Kagome to snuggle against him. He returned the sentiment, and dropped off to sleep, leaving her to think.

After a little while, she smiled. She had reached a conclusion: Despite all his short comings, quirks, and attitudes, he was worth it. Worth any and all struggles, fights, or compromises that they would go through. She would become the person he would share his life with, because she loved him - scars and all.

"So, Kagome," Sango began with the smile she'd learned from her husband. It was both suggestive and coy. "I suppose that you and Inuyasha worked things out last night?"

Kagome blushed, watching her friend polish her boomerang. "Yes, we did."

"Told you so."

"Yeah, well, there wasn't much to work out - he's perfect after all."

Sango looked up from her work. "Perfect?" she echoed.

Kagome looked across the road to watch Shippo playing on Inuyasha's head. The hanyou's patience wore thin, and soon he was yelling obscenities at the kitsune. His demon blood allowed him to heal quickly, but he was still in no shape to punt Shippo across the village.

"Yeah," Kagome sighed happily. "Perfect."

End A/N: Just thought it was time to go more into Kagome's other emotions. She's got to spazz out sometimes, too. In this case it was subconscious and directed at Inuyasha, but I can definitely see her tearing things up, too. Just maybe not entire villages or masses of demons like her hanyou. But I digress.

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