Untamed
By: The Hatter Theory
Chapter 3
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha
Kagome was still in her sleeping bag, ignoring the world when she heard the voices. Grumbling, her arm flopped out, then the other. Her head felt vaguely fuzzy, like it had cobwebs the little butler in her head had forgotten to clean as he made his rounds.
"Good, you're awake. Out," Kouga said. She looked up blearily and saw his head in the door.
"What?"
"The delivery men are here with your bed."
With that he disappeared and she crawled out of her sleeping bag, still feeling too asleep to roll it up. Instead she tossed it into her closet and stumbled out of the room and down the hall.
Coffee wafted from the kitchen, and she followed the smell, already feeling slightly more alive. The two delivery men were bringing up box after box, and she poured coffee into the brand new mug and wondered what time it was, and when Kouga had gotten up to raid her stash of groceries.
"I can't cook," He declared, staring at her from the entrance to the kitchen.
"Lucky you, I can," She chuckled, reaching for one of the two pans she had brought and then going to the fridge.
Thirty minutes later not only was Kouga eating, but she had insisted the two delivery men take the time to have a decent breakfast. They had eyed the toast and eggs greedily, and Kagome made second helpings for all three of the males when they had begun to eye the last few pieces of bacon, then one another, as if preparing themselves for a challenge.
Kouga helped her clean while the beds were being put together. She whistled an aimless tune, washing while he dried. When the men popped their heads in, they asked about the location of the couch.
It took all three men to get the couch in the door, and Kagome was helping to direct them as they moved to where she thought the couch should sit. Finally it was sat down as gently as possible.
"Ma'am, did you let him pick out this couch?" One of the gruff workmen asked.
"No, I did. It's comfy!" She sighed, taking a dive onto it. Both men laughed as she burrowed into the cushions. She heard Kouga tipping them and then the door closing.
"You look happy."
"I'm sorry about last night, if I said anything stupid or something. I didn't mean to be so short with you. I don't drink often." Ever. She felt apologetic, as if she really had done something wrong, especially in the face of his chuckling.
"You were fine for the most part. Anyway, the sheets for your bed should be in a box in your room, I'm going to go make mine."
He was gone before she could say anything, and her mood only slightly sullied by his constant aloofness, she sprang up from the couch and to her room, ready to set up a new-not-on-the-floor-bed.
What greeted her elicited the most unfeminine screech she had ever released.
"Careful, the neighbors will think we're involved," Kouga chuckled as he walked to her door and peered in.
"They got the order wrong, oh kami, I feel so horrible, they were so nice and they brought the wrong bed and all that work!" Kagome wailed.
"The order isn't wrong."
"Yes it is, I picked out a futon and frame, not, not this!" She said, gesturing wildly to the four poster cherry bed. The headboard and foot board weren't that tall, but the whole thing looked sumptuous. It was not a simple bed. It certainly wasn't a utilitarian bed.
"I saw that you liked this one. Consider it a fresh start present."
Once again he left her spluttering behind him as he made his way back to his room. She stared at his retreating form wondering when and why he was being so nice. They'd barely spoken civilly and he had bought her...that! When had he even seen her looking at it? She had loved it, but it she had also balked at the price and the impracticality of it. There was no reason she needed a bed like that!
And he had no real reason to buy it for her. Money or no, they'd alternated between friendly and quietly hostile almost every time they'd spoken. The gesture itself was confusing and annoying. Inu Yasha had been sort of like him, when they'd first met. Brash, a bit rude, but he hadn't been nearly so distant. Nor had his moods been so mercurial. Inu Yasha was rough around the edges, but he wasn't bordering on bipolar.
Giving up, she grabbed the packages of sheets and opened them, surprised when she was met with soft cotton jersey. It would certainly be warm. There were even pillows and a bagged down comforter sitting next to the bed, and she quickly tucked the sheets in and put the pillows in their cases.
The down comforter was a deep green, and she was grateful he hadn't ordered something pastel or worse yet, pink. It was luxurious as she spread it on the bed. And despite herself, she flopped on and snuggled into it. Much better than a sleeping bag, which she had originally intended to use to keep warm.
"You're going to have to thank him," She told herself, sighed the words aloud. They were muffled by the thick, down comforter, and she went over what to say.
A simple thank you would probably be best. Anything profuse would probably embarrass them both. He didn't seem like the type for profuse apologies, and she wasn't the type to give them. But a simple thank you wouldn't cover what he had done.
Her eyes lit on her trekking pack and an idea hit. She slipped off of the bed and grabbed her bag, grunting for it's weight, and carried it down the hall and to the living room. After that she went back down the hall and knocked on the door across from hers.
Seconds later it opened and he was staring down at her, making her realize just how tall he was, and how short she was in comparison.
"Thank you," She blurted when he eyed her curiously. "For everything."
"No problem," He told her, nodding his head. After an awkward moment of silence he was closing the door when she forced the words out.
"Did you want to go over the supplies?" She was immediately berating herself for the way she'd said it. She sounded like a nervous teenage girl asking a guy out, not an adult woman. But really, he was different each time she spoke to him, and more and more she was unsure about how to interact with him. His latest gesture only upset that balance more, knocking her off kilter and making her wonder what he was really like.
Or if he needed to be medicated.
"Sure, sounds good. Let me grab the pack."
She fled to the living room, hoping for a moment to compose herself. When she heard his door close she hurriedly began opening her bag and pulling various items out, needing to look busy. When she looked up, he was looking down at her, bag slung over his shoulder carelessly.
Like it didn't weight around thirty pounds, possibly more.
"So what first?" He asked, dropping it on the ground and sitting across from her on the floor.
She pulled out the firestarter and clicked the small button on it that made the magnesium strike pop out.
He looked at it curiously.
By the time she had finished explaining, he had burned two spots on the carpet, more out of surprise than out of carelessness. The initial burst of sparks had startled him, and he held the bright orange and black firestarter away from him.
"These smell worse than matches," He'd sneered, glaring at the small device, as if it had mortally offended him in some way.
She could barely smell anything, but shrugged.
"These are easier to work with, and they can be used in all weather," She explained quietly. "If there's no dry tinder around, you can use these," She added, showing him a box of tinder cubes. "These will stay lit no matter where you put them, so you have to be careful, but they'll heat up a can of stew in a pinch and sometimes you can use them to help start a fire with tender that's damp."
He nodded, opening the box and immediately holding it away from his face.
"Does everything you camp with have to stink?"
The was a faint chemical odor to the cubes, but nothing that bothered her overmuch. She wondered how sensitive his nose was.
"Well, we'll probably be dealing with them a lot in winter. It'll be difficult to find dry wood in the snow."
He nodding grudgingly, and she put the two items back in her pack. He opened his own and began pulling items out. Inu Yasha had obviously felt that he could handle a heavier pack, and had she not seen him hiking with it on their camping trips to test their equipment, she wouldn't have believed he could handle it.
That did not mean Kouga would be able to, however.
"This is a pedometer," She explained. "You wear it on your hip. It tells you how many steps you've taken."
"Why would I need that if I've got not only a GPS but a compass too?" He grunted, looking at the little machine, obviously not impressed.
"If you go out of camp for some reason, like to use the bathroom, you know how far away you are, and if you get lost, that sort of thing. It's not required, but it never hurts to be prepared," She added. He looked ready to protest, but shrugged his shoulders and nodded in the manner that she was getting used to.
"Okay, and this is?" He asked, holding up a pouch that clinked and jangled.
"It's a chain saw," She explained. "You hold the handles or put sturdy pieces of branch through them to cut through bigger logs or branches."
"Why?" He asked flatly.
"To make a shelter in an emergency, something like that."
He dropped the small pouch back in the bag and grabbed another box from the floor and opening it.
"That's a first aid kit," She tried, thinking, hoping at least, that he knew what it was for.
"Tell me this is not the only thing you guys packed for a first aid kit."
"It's got everything important in it, we can't over pack because of weight-" She tried defending, but he interrupted her, voice filled with a sort of angry disapproval that made her feel like a child.
"This is the kind of first aid kit people never use." He was looking at her like she was stupid.
"Well what you put in one?" She snapped, more than irritated with him, but not quite irate. Yet.
"Scalpel, needle, surgical thread, a clotting agent, maybe some low grade antibiotics," He pointed out. "You've covered light things. Sunburn, fever, scratches and scrapes. What about bigger problems?"
"I don't have that sort of stuff. I won't need it-"
"Say you won't and you will. Do you know anything about wound care or-"
"I am going to study animals. I have graduated from one of the finest veterinary schools in Japan, and I don't need someone asking me-"
"Animals are all well and good. Can you pull splinters out of a human being and sew them back up?"
She opened her mouth, but stopped. She had never tried giving a human stitches. In fact, she'd never worked on a human at all. It had never occurred to her that she might have to.
"Good thing you took this course before hitting Russia," He snorted.
She glared at him, more than ready to stuff everything in her pack and sling it at him.
"Look, you need to learn how to do minor wound care on humans-"
"But where am I going to-"
"I was one of the emperor's personal guards. I've been trained as a medic for that reason. I know basic field medicine, the sort that keeps someone together until they get to a hospital. It's probably all you're going to need."
She braced her elbows on her knees and rested her face in her hands, suddenly understanding how woefully under prepared she was for a venture as big as Russia. Even someone who had no experience with the wilderness, no idea how to use all the equipment, had spotted things she hadn't thought of, probably wouldn't have deemed important.
Until she needed them.
"I'm sorry," She muttered, feeling more childish and ignorant than she had in years.
"For what?" She peeked from behind her fingers, surprised to see that he looked genuinely surprised by the statement.
"For being so rude. I didn't even think about something as serious as wound care."
"Most wouldn't. But you keep talking about the wilderness. A lot can happen, and even with a medic on staff, you're better off being able to do it yourself. I'm just surprised you can't stitch someone up. I thought all doctors could," He admitted.
"I'm not a doctor yet. I was going to do my thesis based on the research I got in Russia. I only have my masters."
"Oh. So a lot is riding on this for you."
She nodded, feeling even more foolish the more she thought about what he had said.
"Look, you'll do fine. It's why you came here, right?" He asked, voice gruff. "So take the lessons and pray you never have to use them."
"Thank you," She sighed.
She didn't want to ask how they would be practicing stitching.
Because I enjoy torturing my characters. As always, a huge thank you to Velvy and Mana, who went over it and played cheerleader. And for everyone that reviewed, thank you for taking the time to do so. Reviews make me feel super squishy inside. (In a good way) XD