All's Fair in Love and War

Chapter Forty

Fingernails

Shippou's grin and twinkling eyes went unnoticable to Inu Yasha, who panicked as the clawed fingers wiggled in front of him. He pulled the boy's hands in and squeezed them tightly in his own. Shippou looked down at the fingers with the claws, and back at Inu Yasha. Sango didn't appear to notice.

Curiously, Shippou's ears didn't appear. Only the claws. Why just the claws?

Shippou peered back up at Sango and Miroku, and his other friends. They were begginning to talk among themselves. He peered under the table. His small fingers were covered by Inu Yasha's. His long sharp claws hidden by Inu Yasha's crookedly clipped ones. He gazed at the boy, his wide green eyes almost slightly afraid. "They can't see them." he murmered, like a ventriloquist, whose lips didn't move. From his mouth came words only audible to Shippou, who could hear them, even in his human form.

Shippou, even though still a very young child, seemed to understand the concepts of such thing as shame, and the importance of the human mask. Inu Yasha gripped the child's hand tighter, like a signal for him to change back, to make the claws go away. Miroku, who sat two seats away from him, looked at him curiously. Trying to hide the fact that he had a certain interest with what was happening under the table. Inu Yasha looked up at him and tugged the corners of his mouth upwards a little bit, and Miroku cleared his throat and looked away.

Inu Yasha looked at the boys' fingers, relieved to see them claw free. He released what seemed to be a balloon's worth of air from his lungs in a sigh. "I'm finished." sighed Sango.

"Me too." said Kagome.

"Should we go?" asked Miroku.

"Are you all done?" Sango asked Shippou and Inu Yasha. Their heads bobbled up and down. "Then let's go!" The group exited the parlor, throwing away cups and napkins on their way out.

The rest of the day passed just as all good days pass. Too quickly. They ate lunch later on, played at the beach, and Sango recieved a strange entertainment from the size of the shops along the beach, as compared to the department stores she was used to in the cities and urban America.

At the moment, the group was sitting in the limo, things already packed up and away in the trunk. They left the hotel at around seven, after eating dinner.

The ride back home was quieter. Inu Yasha sat on the edge and Sango sat next to him, and on the other side of him was Kagome, whose head lolled against the back of the seat as she slept. "Sango ... I was just wondering..." he mumbled. Sango turned to him, after she stopped pinching Kagome's cheek, which she had been doing for a while now, for some reason. She giggled girlishly and smiled. "I want to give you my present now ... Is that okay?" Sango shrugged and then smiled again.

"Sure?" she said. He leaned forward and then pulled a paper out from behind him. He handed it to her so that the picture was facing the car seat. She took it carefully and then flipped it over. "OHMYGOD!" She shrieked, like it was one word. She took in a giant breath of air and put her hand over her mouth. "That's so amazing! You drew it yourself?" He nodded, proudly, absorbing the attention like a sponge. "It's perfect Inu Yasha!" she beamed at him and then threw her arms around his torso, squeezing him tightly in an awkward sideways hug. "I love it so much! I'll hang it on my wall when I get home, kay?"

He beamed proudly, and then blushed and looked away. "You're ... welcome." he muttered. "It was nothing..." he said and grinned.

"I love tigers!" she squealed. "How did you know?"

"Um ... guessed ...?"

"See Miroku?" she said, presenting the picture to the boy sitting next to Kagome, "See how nice and pretty it is?" Miroku's face went white, almost like his head had been flushed and a secret drain pipe behind his head carried away all his color. He gave Inu Yasha a pitiful look that almost said 'my present sucks compared to yours'. She turned back to Inu Yasha and smiled warmly.

"Besides ..." Inu Yasha started, "it's the least I could do for you after taking me with you here."

"To my birthday party?" she asked and raised a brow. She gave him a confused look and then laughed. "You're funny, Inu Yasha." He felt outcasted. You weren't supposed to thank people for inviting you to their parties? He squirmed and pressed his back into the seat. "It was nothing, really!"

"I mean .. well, it's just a really nice hotel, is all ... and it was really nice to invite me ..."

Sango started laughing quietly. "Oh ... that! No, it was literally nothing ... My dad owns that hotel. Thats what he does. He owns hotels ... or something like that."

"He ... oh ..." Inu Yasha felt stupid for a moment, again.

"I mean, not that like, if he didn't own it we would have stayed in a crappy hotel or anything!" she corrected and waved her hands. "But don't thank me, it's really fun to have you around. And not to mention, you keep my Kagome company." He felt nervousness bubble within him. Did she see them the night before? She couldn't have ... Did he close the door? He thought he did, but all of a sudden he couldn't remember. He would have heard them come in right?

He smiled unsurely at her. Apperently, if she saw, she didn't think much of it because she quickly went back to pinching at Kagome's cheeks. "Hey, you're ... you're going to wake her up!" She looked at him and put her finger over her lips, but continued squeezing her cheek with the other hand.

"So are you, loudmouth!" she said and laughed. Inu Yasha bit his lower lip softly. "Say, Inu Yasha?" she questioned randomly. He gave her his attention. "Do you like her?" she asked him. He stared at her dumbly. "Kagome?" she added, as if he were unclear on who 'she' was.

Instantly, in his mind, he knew the answer. But he couldn't bring himself to answer her. He stuttered random 'um's and 'i's but found he was only mumbling himself into a grave.

Kagome suddenly snapped awake and her head fell forward as she blinked into consciousness. "What are you doing?" she asked as she slapped Sango's hand away from her cheek and started to laugh uncontrollably.

"What? You're no fun when you're asleep!" she whined. She suddenly remembered the picture she was holding. "Oh! Look!" she shouted as she shoved the picture in her face. Kagome took it in her fingers softly and smiled. "Inu Yasha made it for my birthday."

She looked at him coyly. "It's beautiful." She started giggling. "I feel like if I touch it, I will start to feel the tiger's fur." she said quietly. "You're so talented, Inu Yasha."

"Are you going to be an artist when you grow up?" Sango asked as she took back her prize.

He stared at her blankly and thought for a while. He then realized that he had been so concerned with merely surviving that he hadn't put any thought into the future. Up until recently, he didn't think he had one. "I dunno ... I would like it ... I think ... If I could, I mean."

"I think you can do it Inu Yasha." she said, and he could tell it was sincerely spoken. He smiled shyly, and she grinned back. She knew he didn't believe her, and more importantly, that she couldn't persuade him.

"I mean... I guess I am better than some people but I'm not really that good." he spoke, dragging out the 'that'.

"Not that good?" Kagome spoke sarcastically, holding up the picture of the tiger and raising an eyebrow.

"Well ... I worked really hard on that particular picture." Sango seemed to like that fact and gleemed as she snatched up the picture. "See, Miroku?" she said as she held up the picture of the large cat's face to the boy. "Look at how hard he worked to make this for me." She told to the boy, comparing him to Inu Yasha for the second time that night.

"Hey, you haven't even seen what I've gotten you!" he replied, and his voice had the slighest bitter bite to it. Inu Yasha had a feeling Sango picked up on this because pretty soon after the ensuing silence, Sango stood and stumbled her way across Kagome, squeezing her way between her and him. She fell on Miroku's shoulder and grasped his hand tightly.

Kagome eased her way over to Inu Yasha, slowly sliding over the black leather seats. She glided against him and pressed into his side, nonchalantly rolling her head from side to side, as if she were stretching. The thing was, as she stretched towards him on the last roll she pressed her lips against the side of his neck in a half kiss and he felt the soft smooth skin of her lips rub from the back of his head near the hairline as she was stretching, across the skin below his jaw, like a whisper, ever so slowly she pulled away from him, he felt her face on the side of his arm. God, when she did things like that.

He was the last one to get dropped off, and the only person that would see him get out would be Sango, who probably wouldnt even get out of the car, just see him off from her seat. For this, he was extremely glad and he couldn't exactly say why. For some reason, he could see every worst possible scenario playing out as the limo pulled to his house. His father could be like he is most of the times on the weekends. His friends could be over with him. He never quite knew what his father did on the weekends, except for that most of the time, it didnt involve being home.

As the car pulled towards his house he wished that Kagome's house had not been closer to the hotel they had stayed at. He wished she were there, to hold his hand.

The building gloomed in the distance like a prison, and he could feel his heartbeat quicken inside his chest. His knees felt weak. His stomach felt empty. He awkwardly exited the vehicle and grabbed the bag with his things out of the trunk. He waved to Sango as he grabbed Shippou's sleeping body out of the car and thanked her again profusely before he finally closed the door and watched the limo disappear behind the curb.

He turned around and slowly made his way up the block, with Shippou lying sleepily in his arm. The boy was hardly awake. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night. The boy's warm breath fanned Inu Yasha's arms which were still pretty chilly from the air conditioning. In the other hand, a bag filled with old clothing dangled by his side.

He walked slowly up the driveway. Occasionally, he would stop and hold Shippou closer to him. He felt uplifted somehow, having the child back with him, not distracted by the allure of the human world. They were back to their own normal life. He had him back.

He walked first to his room and climbed carefully through the window, gingerly setting Shippou down on his bed and covering him completely in the thin sheet on his bed as he was accustomed to. He kneeled beside the bed and placed his hand on the body for a small while. He felt his chest go up and down, felt the boys small quick heartbeat, as if it would stop beating at any moment.

After he was sure of Shippou's safety and his palm was damp and radiating the heat he had absorbed from the boy's body, he ventured into the house. His step was tentative, and soft. He creeped silently, and shado like, pressing himself as closely to the walls as he could. He listened closely, trying to detect any sound, any movement, any breath other than his own supressed air. He wandered into the room with the television and found it was on. This was no surprise, as his father would often leave it on for days without turning it off, even though he was not in the house. He hated the sound of television but was utterly subdued by the lights it emitted, that filled a dark room. He found that as long as the man was distracted by this seemingly boring picture box, he could avoid most pain and beatings.

The sound nearly drove him insane though. The constant murmurings that blended into a roar of cheering sports fans, studio audience laughter, loud crashes, yelling, and sighing, screaming, groaning. When he was left alone for days at a time he remebered standing for hours at a time, with one finger on the power button. He'd consider turning it off, but it felt like every time he pushed his finger any further forwards, he'd feel his father burst through the door, yelling at him, getting angry and disappointed and upset. That happened a lot, though.

He approached the button and placed his finger over it. He looked around the dark room, viewing the flickering lights and changing colors. Then he pushed the button and watched as the entire room went dark. He stood completely still for a moment. He felt his legs shake and a strange convulsive blinking spell somehow fell over him. Nothing happened. The house was just as empty and dark, and stagnant as it was before he had come in. He had known his father wasn't there the second he had entered the house but for some reason, he felt like any second now, his father would burst in through the front door, his eyes blood shot and his movement unsure and wobbly. He hated that the most. The man didnt even seem human when he was like that. Not even close.

He sat on the sofa facing the television and pulled his knees in towards him and hugged them close to his body. He rested his head on his knees and thought of Kagome. She was so intoxicating in a way he couldn't even understand. For some reason, he felt as if all the tension and unrest had disappeared as she kissed him that night. Even if it was just for a day, or for that night, for that small amount of time, he hadn't thought about anything else. Not his parents, not his school, his past, his future, his anything, because in that moment she was everything.

What struck him, however, was that aside from the small amount of ease that ensued, nothing amazing seemed to change. Everything flowed. The next day he woke up, he met everyone for breakfast, they smiled at one another shyly, almost as if to find amusement in the cluelesness of their comrades. He didn't need her, or want her, or love her any more or any less. It was a simple kiss. Their lips had just touched each other's, but he found a very pure, clean delight in the basic affection. For a few moments, she had pulled him close to her body, and she had kissed him and he merely reciprocated. It was overwhelming, yet incredibly simple.

He somehow had a feeling that what he loved most about it, what he needed most and desired above all was not her lips kissing his, not her fingers against his back, not her soft skin, her warmth, her beauty; none of these, because these could be found in any girl of equal attractiveness. He longed for something else, the thing that made him want any of her in the first place. He wanted that.

He lived for it.

Author's Notes:

Hello hello hello. Hahaha. Well, long story short, I had lost my inspiration for quite a while. Apperently for about two months. I have been busy with 11th grade (EEP junior year!) and I did an Outward Bound course over the summer. (I am SO EFFING PROUD OF THIS PIN, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.) oh and did I mention? My dads getting divorced. So much for ... that. Didnt last long (6 months) yet, so much angst.

Somehow I have regained a second wind. Probably because I have gotten back my inspiration (probably after reading some of my FAVORITE authors stuff :P You know who you are!) and I went back to AFILAW and I am just SHOCKED I could forget, even for a week, how much I utterly LOVE this story Dont worry, readers, I WILL procrastinate, but I would NEVER abandon this story.

I love it with all my stupid sentimental heart. The day it grows up and leaves home is the day I cry myself to sleep and console myself with a pint of Haagen Daas coffee ice cream.