While You Were Sleeping

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.

She awakened to clear sunlight casting shaky shadows against the roof of a cave. Her shoulder ached and she did not know why. She attempted to sit up, but the shift of muscles tore something. She sucked air in through her teeth and fought down the urge to cry.

"Don't try to move." A warm, clawed hand pushed resistance against her good shoulder until she went limp under its touch. Familiar amber eyes frowned down at her, and the silvery hair that brushed against her face made her sneeze.

"Inuyasha?" She tried to speak but her throat felt tight, like there was a heavy stone sitting at the back of her tongue. She licked her lips and tried again. "Inuyasha, how long have I been asleep?"

ooOoo

He did not meet her eyes when he answered. He did not have the heart to tell her what had happened.

ooOoo

His voice had that soft quality about it, the one that she loved, and Kagome liked to think that was how his voice would have sounded all of the time if love had not betrayed him, if his mother had not died when he was so young, if he had not had to struggle in the limbo between human and youkai (if he had been born someone else).

So when he told her, "Not so long that I'm tired of protecting you," she took his word for it and let her eyes sink shut.

ooOoo

Kagome's wounds took less time to heal than he feared they would.

Everyday, Inuyasha cleansed them with cool water, wiping away the heavy dollops of dried blood and rewrapping the wound with crushed herbs to keep out infection.

After her initial reawakening, Kagome did not open her eyes again for several more days. After their first conversation, Inuyasha hoped that she would never remember her time with Naraku, and that he could bury those terrible weeks forever.

Inuyasha tried not to worry too much. Instead, he stuck to the schedule of cleaning and watching. He did not want her to leave his sight ever again.

Three days after Kagome first stirred, she opened her eyes as he leaned over her, and said, "I have the strangest feeling." She smiled and tugged on one of his forelocks. "I feel like I haven't seen you for weeks."

He grasped her hand. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm coming out of a dream."

She furrowed her brow, eyes darting over his face. "Like I'm still not sure what happened."

ooOoo

She sat up.

Inuyasha tried to press her down, but she ignored him.

She reached out in front of her, grasping at empty air. "The last thing I remember, we were fighting Naraku. And then—" She shrugged, letting her hands fall down to her sides. "Nothing. Is that when I hurt my shoulder? Was it Naraku? Did he get me when I broke his barrier shield?"

"Yeah, he got you," he told her thickly.

She nodded. That made sense.

"Sango? Miroku? Where are they?"

Inuyasha settled down beside her as he explained. "I told them to meet us back at Kaede's village. Your wounds were… serious. I didn't have time to wait on those slow-ass fuckers."

"So where are we now?"

"Cave."

"I can see that. Where?"

"About a week's travel from Kaede's village. Faster, if I carry you."

Kagome leaned into him, feeling the solid thump of his heart against her ear. "I'm not ready to leave yet."

"No shit. You're just a weak girl."

Weak. She didn't feel weak at all. She focused, letting her power collect in the tips of her fingers as they burrowed into the material of Inuyasha's haori.

His skin began to sizzle. "Fuck, Kagome! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

She pulled back and clapped her hands over her mouth. "Sorry!"

He eyed her hard, clearly waiting for an elaboration.

"I was just thinking about what a weak human I am."

"Feh. If that's all." Inuyasha tucked his hands into his sleeves. He acted like it was nothing, but Kagome could still detect the stench of burned flesh hours later.

She wondered where that kind of power had come from.

ooOoo

Two more weeks passed, and Inuyasha knew they would have to return to the village. Even with as angry as he had been at his companions during the weeks they had searched for Kagome, he was not comfortable with the idea of letting them worry about Kagome for too long.

Every now and then, though, Kagome would shift just a little closer into him, or sigh this breathy little gasp, and Inuyasha would think—to hell with it. He didn't want to deal with Sango's stupid should-have-seen-her-brother's-death-coming-all-along-mourning bullshit anyway.

And because, deep down, he just wanted to cherish the little remaining time with Kagome he had left.

Maybe that was why he kissed her.

ooOoo

Kagome had never kissed a boy before. She didn't know, when Inuyasha's jaw flexed and his fangs pierced her lips, whether or not that was normal. She didn't care one bit, though, when he groaned into her mouth.

Though she had never kissed a boy, she found she was not flustered when Inuyasha's mouth lingered like warm velvet on her lips. She had daydreamed about this moment for so long the pain of its realization threatened to unstring her heart.

Tentatively, Inuyasha's hand palmed the swell of her breast.

A breathy moan seeped into the air. Kagome was surprise to realize it was her own.

He growled a little against her and pulled her onto his lap. The feeling of his hard thighs and the brush of his hips as he slowly began to move against her seemed oddly familiar. The half-thought made her pull back long enough for Inuyasha to move his attention away from her mouth.

"God, Kagome, I've wanted this for so long," he rasped as he traced a clawed finger along the underside of her jaw. He leaned forward and pressed his nose against her thumping pulse, inhaling deeply.

"I have too," she told him honestly, blushing a deep red even as she said it.

Inuyasha smiled then, and the beauty of it stole Kagome's breath. The cruel curve of glistening fang might have frightened another woman, but all Kagome could see was the kind arch of his lips, the way the skin crinkled around his eyes, and the clean, masculine line of his jaw as he tilted his head just so.

When she cupped his face, he turned into the palm of her hand and kissed the skin where her thumb joint connected to the rest of her fingers. He continued to kiss his way along the inseam of her arm, up to the juncture of her shoulder, down her collarbone, inching progressively toward her breasts.

Impatiently, he began to pull at her disgustingly filthy blouse. She wondered, absently, how it had become such a mess in only one battle, but the thought dissipated as soon as she felt Inuyasha's wet mouth mapping the flesh of her hips.

They were going too fast.

Kagome thought of her mother, who had told her to never disrespect herself by giving away her chastity to a man who did not love her.

Did Inuyasha love her? she wondered. She felt her heart sink as the answer came that no, he did not.

But she loved him.

And this may be all she ever got.

Kagome locked her legs around his waist. His growl vibrated against her inner thighs, sending shooting shivers down her spine.

Lost in the sensation of his weight bearing down on her, of his sharp bones pressing promises from her body, she let him have his way.

She did not know what he felt for her—except, apparently, lust. Whatever it was to him, though, to Kagome, it was making love when Inuyasha finally flipped up her skirt and she finally gathered the courage to untie his hakama and snake them down his hips.

To her surprise, it did not hurt a bit. Wasn't losing your virginity supposed to be really terrible at first? There wasn't even any blood. Think what she would like, but Kagome just could not chalk the inconsistencies up to Inuyasha being a gentle lover. He wasn't.

True, he had held her with this shaking tenderness that seemed to bespeak all restrained passion, and the way he had stroked her with each rock of his hips had sent her into plumes of ecstasy. But that intensity had resulted in fevered caresses, in bleeding lips and bruised hips and in the quiet minutes afterward, while Inuyasha threaded his fingers through her hair, she wondered when the taste of copper in her mouth had become inextricably laced with the dull throb of satiation between her legs.

When the sun began to set, Inuyasha built a fire. The fire lit the cave walls a dappled orange, flickering shadows that moved like ghosts along the periphery of Kagome's vision. She tried not to look at them, but as they continued to creep like insects along the edge of her sight, she began to notice a pattern that was too terrible to consider.

ooOoo

For a few days, Inuyasha indulged in Kagome. He loved nothing more than the feel of her silky soft skin under his palms as he buried himself inside of her. He adored the way she mewed as he nudged his nose along her jaw, nibbling with the slightest of grazes as he edged down the column of her throat.

It was only fair to have this, he told himself, considering what he had given up to get her back.

They rutted constantly. He did not know what else to call it, this heat between them. He wondered why they had never done this before, why he had never just made the move and had her before Naraku, the fucking coward, had ever laid his filthy fingers on her.

He took care not to wince when he slid in to her the first time and realized fully what had happened while he failed to protect her. Instead he focused on the task at hand, the pure essence of Kagome as she bucked her hips against him.

Such a sweet, innocent girl. Her love for him was in her eyes. It broke his heart to look at her too long, even as it killed him to tear his eyes away for even a moment.

It was noon on the third day. Inuyasha trailed long patterns down her side, tracing circles on her inner thigh, brushing his knuckles against her warming center with every pass.

She gasped, her thigh twitched, and his finger slipped, cutting a long gash along the crook of her thigh.

"Shit, Kagome, I'm sorry." His hand hovered over the wound.

"Ite! Don't touch it!" she hissed through her teeth as she sat up. She leaned over and appraised the wound. "It's not so bad," she concluded. "It's really just a shallow…" She trailed off as blood puddled under her legs.

"Kagome?"

She remained transfixed by the dark blood fizzing from her leg. "I just remembered something," she murmured. She looked up. "Inuyasha, you left out the most important part of the story."

He knew, then, that his happiness was over.