That Night At the Inn
Worries
"Anything from InuYasha yet, Shippo?" Sango asked as she and Miroku walked toward the well.
They had arrived back in the village two days ago but the villagers said they hadn't seen either of them. They figured they had just immediately dived down the well.
InuYasha hadn't been back yet from the mysterious future, but that wasn't unusual. If it had been his baby and it's mother, Miroku thought, he wouldn't leave their side any more than he had to either.
Shippo had kept vigil on the well rim most of the time they had been there.
And, again, he lifted his tiny head and shook it negative.
"Do you think Lady Kagome would prefer her time or this one?" Miroku asked.
"This one, of course." Sango said, completely sure. "We just need her on the other side of the well for safety right now."
"So what are we going to do?" Shippo asked, tilting his head curiously.
"We'll keep searching, of course." Miroku said. "It'll be harder without Kagome and InuYasha but I, for one, have no choice."
"We found a new rumor in town." Sango told Shippo. "There was a big blast back towards the way we came from. Apparently, people only found the burned carcass of some kind of woman. They think it was the fault of a demon. Miroku and me are going to check it out. Do you want to come?"
Shippo shook his head. "I'll stay here and wait with Kaede for Kagome."
"Alright." Sango smiled. "Don't stay out too late."
"I wont." the kit promised. The fox child never liked to admit it, but he always felt sort of vulnerable when InuYasha wasn't around to protect him, and even more so when Kagome wasn't around to protect him from InuYasha.
Miroku and Sango turned away from the kit and began walking back to Kirara who was waiting for them just at the edge of the forest.
"Do you really think Naraku is responsible for that blast?" Sango asked. It had been Miroku who had heard the rumor from some traders that had stopped by through the village.
"No, not really." Miroku said honestly. "A big explosion isn't really Naraku's style. However, we need to check out every lead we can."
"I agree." Sango nodded as Kirara transformed.
They climbed onto her back, Miroku slipped his staff around Sango's waist and held onto that, as she didn't trust him grabbing onto her waist. In mid-flight she couldn't kick him off Kirara's back. Well, she could but she would feel bad in the morning.
"All right, Kirara." Sango told her feline companion saying that both of them were steady and ready.
The giant cat crouched down then jumped straight into the air, leaving Shippo behind looking forlornly into the open well.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Good morning." Kagome smiled as InuYasha walked out of the cave. Fresh fish was already cooking as she had woken up before him.
"Good morning." he replied as he sat down before the fire. He was rotating his shoulders a bit. He was still kind of sore, but no more than he would be after a good workout. All in all, that blast could have done much more damage.
Much more.
Kagome was still perfectly healthy. She didn't have a bruise on her body and his scent was still coming from her steadily so he knew the baby must still be all right.
Though he still did have a hard time imagining his pup growing in her womb. It's not that he couldn't accept, mentally, that they had mated and a baby was the obvious end result. It was emotionally that he was completely stunned.
As the fish cooked, all he could do was stare in wonder at her flat stomach.
A child, his child, was growing just under her skin. Even now as she turned the fish to cook both sides evenly, she was creating an entirely new life.
It was incredible, unbelievable, to him.
He was going to be a father.
How did he even prepare for that?
It's not like he had a father to compare to. His father had never done anything except name him and give him and his mother his own fire rat robe. He never knew him, had only ever seen him once, for a moment, and he had been almost completely transparent at the time. He had no idea how to even begin to be a father.
Kagome didn't seem at all worried about becoming a mother.
Of course not. Why should she?
She was already loving and nurturing. And she had a great mother to look up to, to emulate.
What did he have?
A handful of years with a mother trying uselessly to protect him from bullying, then years of abuse and neglect from pretty much every living creature he came into contact with after she died.
How could he possibly even begin to understand what it would be like to be a father?
"What's worrying you?" Kagome asked suddenly, jerking him from his thoughts.
"What?" he asked as she picked up a fish and passed it to him.
"I said, what's worrying you?" she repeated.
"Oh. Just..." he trailed off.
After all the time he spent with her, after all the struggles and hardships and pain; InuYasha still couldn't bring himself to admit, easily, a weakness to Kagome. It was that same old fear of 'what if'. What if she hated him for it? What if she used it against him? What if she mocked him?
He knew she was incapable of doing anything of the sort, and if she wanted to hate him she had plenty of other reasons besides a weakness. But it still stilled his tongue.
"You can tell me." Kagome coaxed gently. "I won't laugh, I promise."
InuYasha set his fish back over the fire, suddenly not very hungry. "I'm thinking...of how to be a father."
"Oh?" Kagome said. And that was it. She didn't say anything else and it made him kind of anxious.
"I just," he continued, needing to fill the silence, "I never had a father. I don't even know how to be one. I can't...I just can't imagine what it must be like."
Kagome smiled a bit. She wasn't laughing, it was a comforting smile.
"InuYasha," she said softly, "you are going to be a magnificent father. I don't know anything about being a mother, either. But I know that when I hold my baby for the first time in my arms, it's just all going to click. Women have been becoming mothers for...a long, long time. It's instinctual. It's bred inside us."
"But I'm not a mother." InuYasha pointed out. "I don't have...mother's instincts."
"No." Kagome agreed. "You have father's instincts."
InuYasha looked confused. He's never heard of such a thing before.
"You're protective of your family." Kagome explained. "Me and Shippo and Miroku and Sango. You protect us with your life. Whenever we need food, you go hunting without even thinking about it. Or fishing. It's just part of who you are and exactly what father's have been doing as long as mother's have been doing what they've been doing.
"Trust me, InuYasha, the first time you hold the baby, you'll just know. It'll come easy to you." Kagome came over to him and sat beside him. She lifted his hand and placed it gently over her stomach. "This is your baby. I know you will be a great father."
InuYasha seemed to be comforted by her words.
Then suddenly his face fell a bit and he asked, "What if the pup doesn't like me?"
It took Kagome a while to explain that she hadn't been laughing at him after that.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Are you sure you're going to up for travel tomorrow?" Kagome asked as they retreated back into the cave that night.
To keep the fire going without their supervision, Kagome had soaked a few logs in the river then placed them around the fire. As the water evaporated, the logs would slowly burn. It created a sort of delay that would keep the fire going through the night.
"We've stayed here too long." InuYasha told her. "We need to get going."
He wasn't used to going so long without something covering his chest, but he wasn't about to take back his robe from Kagome. It had already proved how well it could protect the two of them; she needed it more than he did.
However, that night she slipped it from her shoulders and made a little bit of a bed from it over the hard stone. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
InuYasha was standing, watching her as she spread it out along the cave floor. She was on all fours, smoothing it out, making sure no rocks had gotten trapped under it to poke them in the night. Just making a bed.
It was simple and not unlike her at all.
And still InuYasha felt his loins tighten at the sight.
He was free now, he considered himself free now, of his vow to Kikyo. There was no way he would abandon his child. He knew that, if nothing else, he would never leave his child and mate.
And that freedom, that freedom to love her, made her that much more desirable. When he couldn't have her, he had that as a buffer between his feelings and reality. Now there was no vow, no buffer, and his desire could be free and realized.
All he had to do was reach down.
And take it.
He dropped to his knees and pulled her up from her straightening.
She looked a bit surprised for only a moment before she saw, and recognized, that look in his eyes.
There was no sake fogging their brains this time. No alcohol dulling their wits and movements and feelings.
This time, when he reached for her, he could clearly feel the warmth of her body. And when he slipped his hands under that unusual top she wore and pulled it up over her head, he could notice and appreciate the silkiness of her skin.
Skin that she took such care of and it showed in its flawlessness.
Almost flawlessness.
There were scars and he recognized each of them.
A series of half circle puncture wounds on her left hip, front and back, from where Mistress Centipede had dug her fangs into the girl.
Ten half moon shapes on her arms that he could trace directly to his claws and a moment of insanity in a castle of nightmares.
And each scar, he adored. The flaws on her skin made her all that more beautiful in his eyes. Including the star shaped scar on her back where she had jumped in front of an arrow for him. They were beautiful.
She was beautiful.
Kagome gasped quietly as he began running the pads of his fingers up and down her torso. Tracing her scars, he didn't seem to mind the ugly, torn flesh, and cupping her breasts through her bra.
For a few minutes, that's all he did. He touched, stroked, and caressed her skin. Adoring every inch of her he could reach. The only thing touching her were his fingers, delicately tracing mindless shapes and muscle tone.
Kagome was lost in the feeling. It was such an incredible feeling, just having him delicately touching her. Her mouth was open, her heart speeding up a bit, and her body craved more and still basked in what he gave her.
When he had enough, for the moment, of just touching, InuYasha moved his hands to her face and framed it in his hands.
He kissed her delicately, at first, just dusting his lips over hers. The breath of a touch, a sigh, a savoring. And when they truly met, the experience was somehow heightened.
Kagome, emboldened by his own free touch, lifted her hands and moved them over his muscled chest.
He was built like a rock and everything in her female purred at those sturdy, iron muscles.
They kissed for what seemed like a sweet, sweet eternity before he laid her back on his robe.
He leaned over her for a moment, just looking.
Her black hair fanned out around his robe, the red and black mixing and contrasting as her brown eyes burned with lust and love.
She was perfection and she was his.
When he pressed his body back against hers, Kagome noticed he was careful to not put too much weight on hers even though their bodies were still obviously pressed together.
Kagome couldn't have imagined that her half demon had this tenderness in him.
When he couldn't figure out her bra fastenings, Kagome did it for him and slipped the white lace off her shoulders and threw it away. Her skirt and panties, he slid down her waist and legs, kissing along her hip and the outside of her leg as he did so.
While he was up, he removed his suikan and set it aside.
Then he came back and their flesh met. A sweet reunion of heat that was always hot but never burned.
Kagome bent her legs a bit, letting him between them.
He didn't slip inside her yet; he went back to kissing her. Caressing her, touching her in places Kagome never realized where seductive until that moment.
Their first joining had been hurried, drunken, and sloppy. He was trying to compensate for it now, she could tell, by giving her everything he could.
Kagome wasn't moaning, but she was sighing delightedly.
His lips danced over every piece of flesh they could reach. Her face, neck, shoulders, breasts, palms, wrists.
It wasn't until she was writhing, begging silently for more, that he pushed forward and speared her body with his.
Kagome did moan then as he began gently rocking within her.
It wasn't fast, it was slow and calm and glorious.
And when they climaxed, they climaxed together. Their bodies joined and the love pouring freely between them.
The fluff is very good here LoL. Sombra112 did very good with this story already that I really couldn't change much. :)