Title: Helping hands
Author: kira
Rating: Teen
Characters:
Genre, AU/Canon, etc.: angst, fluff, canon
Words: 500
Summary: Kikyou has a lot on her hands with Suikotsu
Warnings: none

Author's note: Thanks to Jen and Hime-sama for helping me figure out what rating and genre this was as well as the summary.

Won second place at IYhedonism.

888

"Kikyou-sama!"

"Come quickly!"

The undead miko looked up from the herbs she had been gathering. She saw two of the village children running towards her. Brushing her hands together, she cleaned most of the dirt from them. "Children?"

They stopped, panting loudly while they caught their breath. The eldest one spoke. "Kikyou-sama, please come quickly! Suikotsu-sama is washing his hands again."

She nodded.

"And he won't stop mumbling about trying to get the blood off them!" the youngest added.

"Yeah! We know he's gets sick when he sees blood, but no one was hurt or bleeding or anything!"

"He likes you and we thought…"

"It's alright, children. I'll go see what's troubling him." Kikyou smiled at them and it seemed to reassure the two of them. "Go run along and play. Suikotsu-sama will be fine." She stood, watching them scamper off, before picking up the basket that held the herbs she had gathered. Kikyou hurried without appearing to do so, and it was not long before she reached the hut she shared with the good doctor and the orphans he looked after. Setting the basket down inside, she left the hut and walked around to the other side. There she found Suikotsu hunched over a ceramic basin.

Frowning when she saw that the children were right, she said softly as she approached him, "Suikotsu-sama, is everything alright?"

He looked up at her, his distraught expression igniting the vestiges compassion in her soul. She wordlessly knelt beside him, giving him her tight little smile, before reaching down to take his hands in her own.

"I can't get the bloodstains off…" he said softly.

"I see…" she replied. She noticed his hands were rough and chafed from the constant washing. She also noted that they were strong hands, big yet surprisingly gentle like the rest of him. Kikyou briefly wondered what it would be like to have those hands caressing her, touching her in places that she had once wished Inuyasha would touch, banishing those thoughts when his voice drew her back to the here and now.

"See?" he said, his voice a soft plaintive wail as he tried pulling his hands away.

Kikyou looked down and gently turned his hands palm up. She nodded, thinking he had been scarred by the carnage he had seen on the battlefield as he gave aid and comfort to injured and dying. "Please, let me help you, Suikotsu-sama."

He nodded and visibly relaxed as she took one hand and immersed it in the basin of water. It looked so painfully sore, that she ran her fingers carefully over his palm, pretending to finally wash away the bloodstains that only he could see. Holding it up, she said, "They're gone now."

Suikotsu examined his hand, a smile finally tugging his lips upwards in a smile. "Thank you, Kikyou-sama."

"You're welcome," she murmured as she set to work, repeating her previous ministrations.

"They're finally clean…" He grinned, the relief he felt clearly seen in his eyes.

"Yes…"