"Care" - InuKag Week Day 2
word count: 2700
Rating: T
Kagome's taken up painting as her new hobby.
She does it while I'm not home mostly. Sometimes I'll walk through the door and she'll be crouched over a piece of parchment with a deeply concentrated face, hands scrunched into some rags or brushes and always covered in vibrant water colors. Her tongue'd be stuck just over the close of her lips.
The moment I've stepped through the breach she glances up frantically and rushes to put all her materials away. "Hey, Inuyasha!" Overly innocent.
The first few times she did it, curiosity would linger on my mind like a fat cat sitting in wait for its bowl of fish. But eventually when I realized Kagome wasn't willing to show me what she was spending so much of her time on- or even talk about it for that matter- it turned into a steady beat of displeasure. Frustration. Annoyance.
In the night when I'm comfortably wrapped around her, she'll bump and nudge my arms away quietly- as if it wouldn't wake me up- and tip-toes out of our bedroom to the main one. She returns smelling of strong paint fumes and dirty water. I'll peek an eye open to catch the sad tired circles under her eyes, and a pouty mouth set in a mulish disappointed line. I didn't know why, but the urge to hug her was overwhelming, and a particularly new development since our marriage- one that I wasn't all that accustomed to yet.
But it settled on my mind anyway, so I did the best I could and pretended to yawn in order to throw an arm over her middle. Her breathing would ease, her posture relaxing, she'd lift a soft hand to caress mine, and I figured that only meant I did something right…for once.
However when the days turned into weeks, and the amount of times I walked in on her in a hurry to hidesomething, flipped into the double digits, I couldn't help it damnit-
"What the hell are you doing?" I finally ask one evening, probably harsher than necessary when I find her asleep in a shallow bowl of yellow paint.
"N-nothing!" She comically pats at her cheek and cringes when she realizes the paint has dried onto the skin.
"Doesn't look like nothing."
"Oh?" All the materials disappear into a box like they always do, and she collects her brushes in one giant swoop of her arms, "That's strange."
"Stop dodging the question!"
"I'm not!" She sing-songs from the hallway connecting to our bedroom, "How was your day? Did you gut any demons? Did Miroku help?"
My wife is damn good at distracting me. "Two giant ones," I do my best to sound humble with closed eyes as I bring the memory to surface. "Miroku was entirely fucking useless again, and it was left all up to me to take them down. But I did it. Without the sword too, I just went old-school with it."
"Amazing!" She gushed, finally reappearing with wide sparkling brown eyes. "Tell me more!"
And another day slipped by without me knowing what in God's name she was up to.
Until I come home and she's not there.
Neither are her paint jars, her papers, her canvases, or her brushes.
And the scent that hangs thick in the air is stale- my nose lets me know that it's probably been a long stretch of time since my wife has been around.
I don't panic though, this might have been the first, but it can't be a big deal right?
So she's not home. She's probably with Sango and the kids, or picking flowers, or herbs, or helping Kaede with the health visit rounds. Nothing to worry about.
I take it easy, relax into the plush downy sheets (cost me a ton of damn money by the way) of our bedding and decide to take a nap.
Except, I don't nap.
Except, I can't fucking nap.
Cause my wife isn't home.
On my human night.
But I give it some time, because this can't be normal right? This sinister paranoia that seeps so deep into my subconscious that I think it's turning my bones to lead? I'm heavier than normal, what the fuck is happening.
I wait. And I wait. My claws disappear and my ears melt down to my sides.
Then the muted orange of a sundown alerts me that it's been way too long and it's time to gear up into Protective Husband Mode in search for Clumsy and Easily Killed Wife.
"Goddamnit," I growl because I should have just started to look for her sooner.
It isn't until I'm finally rushing around the village asking for her when I've realized that the silent fear of losing her all over again is something very raw. And that it's crawling out of its nasty little hole at the bottom of my heart.
I do well to hold back from letting it show though. Despite all the terror- the familiar terror that's seized me for three goddamn years- that is fighting its way back to the front of my mind.
"Miroku! Sango! Have you seen Kagome? I can't find her, she wasn't home." I'm cool. I'm collected.
"Inuyasha calm down, I'm sure she's just gone to that newly abandoned hut at the end of the road."
"What?" I'm so confused, "Did you hit your head or something? I'm talking about Kagome. We have a home already-"
"I didn't hit my head." Sango interjects with a slight glower. Well I didn't mean to offend her…
"Sango's right, Inuyasha," Miroku tells me in a perplexed tone- like it should be fucking obvious that my wife has just randomly decided to house herself in an abandoned hut 'at the end of the road'. Where is that even supposed to be anyway? "She mentioned taking a look at it last week and she's been making visits ever since. I saw her on her way there not too long ago."
Maybe it's something about the look on my face because Sango finally softens up and sighs, "You didn't know about it?"
"No."
Why didn't I know about it?
Why didn't she tell me?
Is this a reflection of myself? Does she want to move away? Am I bad husband? Is it the smell?
I can't put it into words, but all the self-doubt gnawing on my insides is agonizing, like being eaten alive in front of an audience, and I want to ditch into the nearest tallest tree to lick my wounds. (Okay, maybe I can put it into words.)
But I have a wife now, and I have to find her.
"Where's the end of the road?"
Sango points west and I'm gone.
It's downhill, and I'm running as fast as I can, my hands curled tight into fists.
When I find the hut, I stop in front of it and breathe.
I stare at the lazy flap of burlap that covers the small pathetic home, and when the breeze picks it up I'm smacked in the face with the fresh paint fumes that I've grown accustomed to.
I have a staring contest with my shadow for a beat of silence, weighing on how I should confront this. I don't want to mess it up.
Crash in and announce yourself and the fact you don't want her to move away because she is your wife.
"Kagome! It's me! Don't even think about moving away! I haven't even put up the new connecting…bath…house…"
I'm breathless, and the view that meets me in the bright glow of the slowly dying fire breaks my heart.
She looks knocked out exhausted on the ground, surrounded by a floor full of water and oil and ink drawings, all done in expressionistic and bold strokes, with passionate earthy tones. Jars of paint are everywhere, and there isn't a section of the hut that isn't dotted with color.
The drawings are spiraled all around her, and thick canvases are leaned up against the walls. I look around wildly, putting my eyes on everything.
The first picture closest to me is of her mother. Cradling her face with laugh.
Then her grandfather. Sternly arguing with someone on the other side of the cloth.
Her brother. Holding up two fingers with a mischievous look.
Her friends from school, and some other faces that I hardly recognize but I know don't belong to anyone living in this era.
My heart lurches for the third time that evening, except this time it's so painful that I find myself on my knees.
The faces are all so vivid and it's almost as if they're caught in those things Kagome used to call fo-toh-grafs. Genuine happy smiles with closed eyes and wide gapped teeth. They're not posing or prepositioned, they're all perfectly portrayed in the same exact way I remember them as real living people of flesh and bone.
I realize Kagome has drawn everyone she's lost to the other side of the well.
I want to gather her in my arms and maybe drop in a comment on what a great artist she is, but I can't really stand to talk at the moment. So I move forward carefully.
I stop when I get to the image of her mother, a second one she's drawn. She's smiling but there are tears in her eyes.
The only other person I've seen smile while crying was my own mother and I start to wonder if it's something only mothers do. Always putting up an act to be okay and happy, and not even realizing that they're so torn up inside that it shows.
I swallow down a lump that sits high in my throat and push the painting away, getting my fingers dirty with the ink.
"Kagome?" I struggle to get out, my emotional strength dwindling. I feel miserable. I feel like this is somehow all my fault.
All my fault that she's left the safety of our home to creep into this dirty abandoned pity of a structure to hide away all the memories of her family.
I'm not worth whatever pain she's going through, I'm not even worth a drawing.
Literally, I mean…there isn't a single drawing of me in here. Not that I'm complaining…
I lay down on my side next to her, careful to avoid the other paintings and instinctively curl my finger to push back the hair that's fallen onto her face. There's a puddle of drool at the side of her cheek and I'm starting to feel a little bit lighter. Less dragged down by the reality of where I'm standing. Or laying.
I wish I had my demon abilities right now because all I want to do is listen to the lull of her heart. I've found that it does an amazing job of calming me down.
But I don't want to wake her.
After the whirl-tide of feelings that has decided to invade my human night (as it usually does), guilt finally falls pliantly like a smooth hot stone in my gut.
"I'm sorry," I whisper after several snaps of the fire.
Her lashes flutter up prettily and two maple colored eyes look at me with an intensity so fierce that my lips part in awe.
"What are you being sorry about?" She answers hoarsely, creeping slightly closer. I pretend not to notice her wiping the drool off her jaw with a shoulder.
I scan her face trying to read her. But all I can see is outpouring love and adoration and its killing me because I just want to kiss her senseless. The guilt holds me back.
"Your family."
She blinks and muses this response, almost as if she's just realized where we are and what I've seen.
"So you saw it."
"Why were you hiding it?"
"I just…didn't want you to blame yourself."
Like I am right now.
"…and," she continues, "I don't think I'm very good at this stuff. One day I started doodling on my notes for curing a minor cold with magnolia flowers, and next thing I know I'm sketching out the face of…" She hitches her breath and releases it slowly, "Mama."
I don't know what to say. So I wrap my arms around her waist instead and tentatively pull her close.
"You miss them," I try after a while, feeling safe around facts and blunt responses.
She nods and gazes into the flames of the fire pit across us. "And I'm scared of forgetting…"
Ah. I get it now.
"We'll put these up around the home." I decide out loud, watching with pride as she looks shocked at first and then melts down into smiles.
"I don't think they're that good though. And I'm sorry for falling asleep. I didn't mean to. You weren't worried were you?"
"Nope," I say somewhat gruff, then try to change back to the subject, "I wouldn't say you're bad at it though."
"Hmm?"
"The doodling stuff. This is the best stuff I've ever seen." I think I'm smiling, but if I am, I don't care. It's the damn truth. My wife is the best artist in Japan, no one can fight me on this.
"You're just saying that cause I'm your wife."
God I love hearing her say that. I cradle her as close as possible and hide my face into the crook of her neck because I think its glowing red and I don't want her to know. This damn wench would use it against me somehow.
"Stupid, why else?"
And then she chuckles and shakes as she does it, so full of mirth that it's leaking over into my ocean of doubt, clearing it as easily as when she used to pick jewel shards from the flesh of a demons.
"You're so bad!" She admonishes in her high voice, leaning into my neck and littering it with kisses, "Can't you be nicer? Aren't you supposed to be sweet on these nights?"
It fucking tickles.
And then I can't even hear anything else that spills from her mouth because I have begun to laugh very loudly.
Which only goads her further of course- reaching her lips to every uncovered spot of my body from the waist up, spider-dancing her fingers around to my armpits to continue the attack.
But then I decide this isn't a very fair fight, and retaliate as vehemently as I can from my side. She shrieks on cue and attempts to lift herself away from my hands but I've got better ideas. And then she's on her back and we've knocked over a jar of blue paint, turning the floor below us into a night sky.
"I-Inuyasha! Ah-stop!" She's giggling high and clear, like a bird who's just learned to fly.
I'm not sure what it is about what's happening now, and it's probably nothing, because we're just being silly and it's not like we've never been like this before, but somehow it has the unintended effect of pooling a huge amount of heat into my chest.
A hunger overtakes me- one that I've grown familiar to associate with my wife- and I'm overcome.
From one moment to the next I've reached over to pin her hands to the floor, staring at her intently, watching her catch her breath and the small ease of her chest as it heaves up and down.
Her hair is haloed over her head with blue paint smeared against the ends, and blotches of red and yellow are freckled all over her face. Her mouth is split in a wide happy grin and her eyes are crinkled with beads of tears from laughing so hard. The fire glows warm and enticing, encouraging me to look at her in a way I hadn't just a few moments ago.
I want to kiss her with a desperation that seems to have just grown out of thin air. Its gratitude, and relief, and joy, and the simple amazement that I can utterly love this creature so much, and nothing can ever take that away.
Not to mention the fact that when Kagome laughs, she looks devastatingly gorgeous.
So I crash into her, and she wraps her arms around me in response. And I'm kissing, kissing, kissing away anything terrible and disastrous and sad, taking care of her in the only way I can.
Is it working, though?
She wraps her arms around me and pulls me in closer, pressing her body to mine with a hum.
I think so.