Author Note:

I'm updating again? Whoa, I know, crazy stuff, amiright? P.S. I like Med & Dia, because Femrock is cool, man.

"I saved that bottle, it's now ten years aged

I've got some baubles I could sell for money

And a pair of fresh shaved legs

Won't you baby come with me, I've got extra space

In my car, in my heart, in my mind

Look there's the passenger seat by the postcards you gave

I'm going away"

~Meg and Dia, I'm going away

"Miko?" Sesshoumaru whispered, his lip curled in mild disgust. He didn't dare nudge her awake for fear that her vile stench would permanently attach itself to his person.

"Mmmnaff?" She elegantly intoned, making an odd chewing motion and then proceeding to snore...loudly. He rolled his eyes as the woman next to her, who reeked of even more alcohol ⎯ if that was possible ⎯ shifted and the empty bottle of sake rolled out of her embrace.

Can I not leave you alone for one night? He inwardly sighed, holding his breath and chivalrously putting his senses aside to scoop up the slumbering miko and deposit her ever so carefully on the bed not ten feet away. Shrugging in a resigned sort of way he picked up the demon slayer as well and placed her beside Kagome.

They made an odd pair; the demon slayer was so heavily sedated she might as well have been comatose, while the miko's snores reverberated off the walls so loudly it made his head hurt, her awful chorus interrupted only by her occasional tossing-and-turning.

He dared a sniff at his haori and decided that another bath was in order...or perhaps seven.

He found alcohol abhorrent, and seeing as it took a considerable of alcohol to have any affect whatsoever on a demon of his caliber, there was really no point in forming a habit. He had tried sake once: it tasted horrible and made his nose burn, and he had never tried it again. Unfortunately, it seemed Kagome had found it considerably more palatable, and was obviously considerably less immune to its affects.

Poor foolish miko.

Of course it was probably he, Sesshoumaru, who had driven her to seek such an uncharacteristic means of relaxing. She was the strongest woman he had ever met, but also the most easily flustered. And what he had done was most definitely flustering...for both of them.

How very accomplished you are, Sesshoumaru, he chided himself. You have driven the most innocent young woman in all of history to drinking.

"They have certainly had some fun tonight, don't you think?" Izanagi said wistfully, appearing from nowhere without warning.

Sesshoumaru nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Hn," was all he managed while attempting to curb the urge to melt the idiotic kami. Meanwhile, Izanagi lazily made his way to Kagome's bedside and leaned in close to inspect the young girls.

"It certainly isn't very lady like," he continued, a hand rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "And they smell awful." He pulled away with a look of disgust and took a few steps back for good measure.

"The miko is not a lady in any traditional sense of the word," the taiyoukai muttered.

"You would know, would you not?" He said crisply, his keen eyes snapping to Sesshoumaru's, a hint of condescension in his voice. "Considering the shenanigans you two have been up to lately."

The taiyoukai immediately decided he did not like where this was heading.

"I do not know what you tend to imply," he ground out, his teeth clenched, "but it is most disrespectful of two individuals who have gone through a great deal of trouble to right your wrongs."

Izanagi gave him a withering glare before deciding the situation was absolutely laugh worthy and chuckling heartily.

"My dear dog, I do not see why she fancies you," he laughed. "You are the most stiff creature I have ever created."

"She does not fancy this Sesshoumaru," he corrected, his voice laced with monotony and indifference.

"Ah, you do no think so, do you?" Izanagi smiled a devious grin, "but it is so obvious that you fancy her."

The little miko gave another loud snore and began drooling on the pillow her head had been so elegantly placed on. Both males wrinkled their noses just a bit.

Sesshoumaru did not answer. Sesshoumaru did not have an answer...

"It is good that you do not deny it," Izanagi added, clapping him on the back, which was comparable to slapping a large boulder. A large boulder that gave out death glares. "but now we must discuss your intentions, dog."

"My intentions are to fulfill this foolish quest and return to a pleasant existence without interference," he stated mechanically.

In a sing-song voice the kami rang out, "li-ar."

"This Sesshoumaru does not lie," he hissed, his composure slipping.

"Perhaps you do not realize it, but I do not believe those to be your intentions at all," Izanagi said, his tone suddenly serious. "Do you wish to tell me that once this quest is over, you and our lovely miko will part ways and you will think not of her again? You will not ache for her conversation, ache for her company, ache for her lips…"

The taiyoukai remind as silent and still as a statue, the god's words having a note of truth to them that he could not completely deny. He had always dealt with verbal attacks such as these with violence, the sound of steel upon steel speaking louder than his words ever could. He had never placed much value on the simple art of articulation, but it did not seem so simple as of late. Now...oh how he wished he was gifted with a silver tongue.

"You are a tough egg to crack, Lord Sesshoumaru, but she has cracked you," he nodded. "You are cracked and broken all over the floor for all to see and it is all her fault."

Izanagi, smiling wickedly, as though this were the most devilishly wonderful game he had ever played, leaned close to the great demon's ear.

"And you love her for it," he whispered. Chuckling a deep hearty chuckle that was somewhere between jovial and malicious, Izanagi took a step back and spoke once more. "The great and distant Lord Sesshoumaru, in love. Your mother was right, eh? That one day you would find a female whom you would die for if only she asked? Would you die for her, dog? Would you fall upon a blade simply to see her happy and safe?"

"Do not patronize me," Sesshoumaru growled, his hand nearly shaking.

"Oh, I would not dare. I am simply here to warn you," the god spoke lightly, as if their conversation were nothing more than simple small talk.

Sesshoumaru was barely keeping his temper in check. "Warn me of what?"

"That you will not let your enormous ego break this poor girl's heart or there will be consequences," Izanagi shrugged. "Whether you would like to believe it or not there is a place in her heart for you, one that grows bigger each day, whether she has realized it is there I know not, but it is there. And if you should turn from her, it will break her."

Izanagi was beginning to fade, the gleam of his eyes and teeth the only things still visible in the dark room. "And then, I will break you, dog."

Oh my god why is there an elephant sitting on my skull? Kagome moaned to herself as she slowly reentered the world of the waking. Well, it felt like there was an elephant sitting on her skull, but she had the sneaking suspicion that this was the sake's fault. Not hers, no. In no way was this her fault.

Obviously the sake had magicked itself down her throat.

"I hate booze," she groaned into her pillow.

"As you should," Sesshoumaru's deep voice boomed in her ears, making her cringe.

Giving a pathetic sort of yelp, the miko fixed him with large, bloodshot eyes, her frightened gaze wavering as her heart beat settled. At which point she rolled said eyes and collapsed face-first back onto her pillow.

He did not know what had gotten into the daft girl, but he was not going to let her sleep all day. As it was the morning had already come and gone and she had just been sleeping; dead to the world and stinking like a liquor ridden corpse to boot.

"Miko," Sesshoumaru growled lightly. "You smell foul, I suggest you bathe."

Kagome had the most childish urge to yell back, your mom smells foul! But resisted, settling instead on whining, the much more mature solution.

"Ohhhh, I hate you!" She moaned like an injured cat, yanking the pillow out from under her head and stuffing it over her exposed ear. "Why do you always have to be such a jerk and why do you have to speak so loud?"

Sesshoumaru lifted a puzzled brow; he had not been speaking any louder than usual.

"She has a hangover, my lord," Miroku chuckled. "Humans tend to suffer from an unbearable headache after a night of uncontrolled drinking."

"He's here too!" Kagome's muffled voice cried out in dismay. Oh, how can this morning be any more painful? Wait...on second thought, I don't want to know how the answer to that question.

"Lady Kagome, you hurt me at my very core," Miroku gasped in indignation, the amused edge to his voice giving him away.

"He will not leave," Sesshoumaru said flatly, obviously insinuating that he would like to make the monk leave whether he wanted to or not.

"Threat of dismemberment would not pull me from this room, Lord Sesshoumaru," Miroku said seriously. "Not with two of my favorite women in bed together."

Sesshoumaru sneered, intending to put the monk in his place, but he was beaten to it.

"Pervert," Sango groaned from beside Kagome and rolled over.

"They're both perverts," Kagome groused, "watching us while we sleep, humph!"

I will kill her. I will kill her and I will like it. Sesshoumaru told himself, desperately trying to keep himself from overturning the mattress upon which they slept.

"Miko," the taiyoukai whispered, deciding to be done with this foolishness. "If you had the intention of departing today, I believe you have inadequately prepared yourself."

"What?" Kagome questioned, having no idea what he was...oh wait. Now she remembered. The whole 'save Izanami and avoid being wed to a crazy kami'. That's right. "Oh...yeah."

"Indeed."

Kagome reluctantly sat up, tossing her pillow aside, and immediately felt her stomach churn. "I feel like my insides died. I am never drinking again."

"Are you going to be ill?" The taiyoukai asked, taking a step back and looking as though she had suddenly sprouted an extra head and perhaps a few tentacles.

"No, but thanks for the concern," she said blandly. Sickness? Red alert, red alert! Abandon ship!

"Good, do not do that," he ordered.

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Would you two be quiet!" Sango groaned, adding a "Shhhhhh" for good measure.

Sesshoumaru did not know how to handle the indignity of being 'shushed,' so he simply ignored it. "I will accompany you to the wash room now," he announced and went to go stand by the door with his back to the room.

Stupid dog demons and their stupid dog noses, Kagome grumbled to herself as she stumbled out of bed and threw Miroku a glare as he laughed heartily at her expense. And stupid minks and their...stupid-ness.

Kagome Higurashi had a way with words.

"Coming?" Sesshoumaru said with a certain tone of indifference that she recognized as impatient. When she had learned to decipher emotional meaning from his many forms of indifference she had no idea, but she assumed it was sometime right after she had gone completely off the deep end.

Well, good, I can be an official haughty dog demon translator, she thought to herself giddily. Prerequisites include: patience, good work ethic, and being completely bat-shit nuts.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she sighed, stopping a few steps behind him and motioning for him to lead the way.

She fell in step just slightly behind them and concentrated very hard on anything and everything but the pounding of her head. She really, REALLY hated sake.

As they walked in silence that reminded him so very much of their time in the forest, Sesshoumaru couldn't help but feel as though everything had gone back to normal. What he had done the day before had definitely crossed a boundary that he had never meant to break, and he knew that she was just as startled by it as he had been. Yet she acted as though it had never happened...perhaps she did not remember? How he wished the memory would be so simple to erase, but unfortunately he did not think that was the case. Yet, was that what he truly wanted? Did he want things to continue as they had been before the other day, as if it had never happened?

He did not know, all that he did know was that he vehemently wished that he could forget Izanagi's words. The ridiculous god danced upon his shoulder, taunting him with words like 'love'. Demons did not love, least of all Sesshoumaru. Love was a distraction, a frivolity he could not afford, a weakness he had always been so sure he would never succumb to.

But as they walked side-by-side, in companionable silence, he could not be sure. He hated her, he hated the way she turned his thoughts to dust, the way she caused his reason to crumble and his resolve to slip away. And yet...he reveled in it. It was like a drug, the unsureness, the chaos she inspired within him. No one had ever been able to unsettle him as she did and he was sure that no one ever would again.

He feared it, the idea of her, the way she dominated his thoughts, making him uncertain of everything he thought he had known. He had never been allowed to fear, for fear was weakness and weakness was death in his world. But fear, he realized, was the most forbidden fruit of all; why else would he want her so much?

And he did want her. He wanted her so bad it hurt even though he knew he shouldn't, even though he knew to take the forbidden fruit was to meet your end. He would gladly meet his end for her, he realized, and that was the most terrifying revelation of all.

Giving Kagome a sidelong glance, he couldn't help but think that it was a lot easier to face your downfall than he had thought it would be.

"How are you feeling?" Sesshoumaru asked in an overly interested way that was very unlike him.

"Uh...like someone took a baseball bat to my temples...why?" Kagome asked suspiciously, choosing to ignore the fact that he had no idea what a baseball bat was.

The inu youkai shrugged vaguely. "Alcohol seems to have disastrous effects for humans."

"Good observation," she said sarcastically as they stopped, mid-hallway, in front of a door so similar to the walls around it that Kagome was sure she would have missed it on her own.

He did not know how he had wronged her, but she was being uncharacteristically snippy.

"May I attribute your irritability to the alcohol as well," he said flatly, observing her with narrowed eyes.

Kagome resisted the temptation to slap him.

"No, that can be attributed to you," she growled. "I mean, what the hell, Sesshoumaru? Remember yesterday? You-you don't just kiss someone like that and then run away!"

Ah, so she does remember, he sighed inwardly.

"I apologize, Kagome," he said sincerely, bowing his head slightly. And he was sorry, not for the kiss, but for after.

"Oh, no way, you don't get off that easy!" She said irritably. "I need some answers."

Sesshoumaru felt like he had been asked to give a great many 'answers' as of late, yet he knew none.

"Miko," he sighed. "This is not the time, nor is it the place."

"Yes, it is. Right now, in the hallway outside of the bathroom sounds like the perfect time and place to me."

"You are insufferable," he spat.

"Then why did you kiss me!" she countered, her hands on her hips.

And that was when the mental dam Sesshoumaru had placed around his thoughts broke and all of them came rushing out through his mouth.

"BECAUSE I WISHED TO!" He roared, his composure flying out the window to some faraway land. Kagome wished it would come back, Sesshoumaru was sort of terrifying without it. "It pleased me, miko. I do not know why, I do not know when, but you have become…"

Sesshoumaru sighed, furrowing his brow as if the very fate of the world depended on his ability to put his feelings into words. He did not want to say anything, he wanted to take it all back, but it was too late now. He couldn't turn back, she had made it impossible, she was impossible.

"You don't have to say anymore⎯

And he was impossibly attached to her.

"I would lay down my life for you," he murmured earnestly. "I would give my life for you, Kagome. That is all I know, though, I do not know what it means."

And now she knew it too.

"I…" Kagome looked stunned. She supposed this had been a long time coming. Perhaps she was just the master of denial, but until he had said those words, she would not have believed them. But now that he had, now that he had put into words everything she had been fighting so hard to keep vague and intangible, she realized that she had know this for a very long time.

"I know," she said simply, blushing prettily.

Sesshoumaru loved her, and she knew it. Though, she had no idea why...perhaps neither did he.

And then, came the world's most awkward silence. Sesshoumaru, never being one for words, either did not know what to say, or felt as though he needed to make up for his brief period of uncharacteristic chattiness by going completely mute for an indefinite amount of time. Kagome was simply a deer caught in the headlights. Yup, she was just a poor magical deer from the future and Sesshoumaru, the biggest, most shiny car in all of feudal Japan, was about to run her over and she couldn't move…except that there were no cars in feudal Japan, which made her metaphor sort of pointless. Whatever.

"Sooooo," Kagome ventured, staring at her feet, her toenails, the floor, the nails in the floor boards, the very atoms of the floorboards ⎯ anything but Sesshoumaru. "What happens now?"

The demon lord, apparently being brought out of his silent reverie, spoke steadily, "we finish what we started, little miko, and then...i do not know."

And with that he turned on his heal and started walking away. "I will retrieve you when you are done, simply call for me when you are ready."

"Oh...ok," Kagome stammered stupidly, forgetting exactly what she was supposed to do for a moment before remembering that, apparently, she was so smelly that it had warranted an escort to the bathroom.

She didn't remember pushing open the door, undressing, or climbing into the magical basin of water that was more like a small indoor lake than a tub. But apparently she did because that was the only explanation she could think of for why she was naked and neck deep in water.

Hey, hey you, Kagome started. Who, me?

Yeah, you! The miko sighed. What?

Sesshoumaru loves you. He told you so. Just a second ago. Remember that? Kagome rolled her eyes. Of course I remember that! Now would you kindly shut up, so I can forget about it? I can't think about this right now! I'm supposed to go to hell and fight scary...things and I can't do that if you're gonna remind me about how someone told me he would die for me, and how it means that someone probably loves me, and how I'm terrified and thrilled and a lot of other things that I can't quite understand at the moment. So PLEASE, just shut up.

...You do realize you're talking to yourself, right? And therefore just told yourself to shut up, right? Kagome huffed. Well, duh.

Kagome Higurashi, certifiably insane, talking to voices in her head kind of crazy, decided that she needed a distraction. A distraction which manifested itself into an obsession to be the cleanest miko this side of the Prime Meridian. So, she scrubbed and scrubbed, and washed and washed, until her skin was red and sore like someone had slapped her all over her body for ten minutes straight.

"But at least I don't smell like an alcoholic!" Kagome sang, doing a little victory dance over her dead, smelly skin cells. And it was then that her belly did that unpleasant churn again.

Only, she realized, it wasn't really a 'you drank me into oblivion and now I'm going to throw up just to spite you' kind of churn. It was lower…

"Seriously?" She shouted to no one in particular. "SERIOUSLY!"

Why can't I just be a man? Kagome grumbled to herself as she stomped out of the tub and grabbed the closest towel. If I had a penis, everything would be perfect. I wouldn't have any boy drama, I could let my underarms be as hairy as I want, and my aunt flow would not come to visit at the most inopportune moments.

It was then that Kagome realized that she, to a certain extent, was wishing for a penis. Which, she decided, was not the strangest thing she had ever done.

Kagome dried off, wrapping her hair in the towel on top of her head and really wishing she had some nice, ugly sweatpants instead of the sheer, skimpy yukata that had been left out for her...or just appeared out of nowhere, as things in this palace had a tendency to do. Kagome put on her unmentionables, muttering an apology to her panties for having only one spare tampon, the only tampon in all of feudal Japan, and then pulled on the yukata.

It was cold, and short, and awful, and black, which was a very seductive color and Kagome did not want to be seductive. She wanted to be the opposite of seductive, she wanted to be...un-seductive! She should be wearing puke green, not sexy black because sexy black might attract the attention of some sexy demon lord and that would make it very hard to not think about said demon lord...and how sexy he was...and how he loved her.

Damn it.

"Sesshoumaru!" She called in desperation.

Of course he appeared immediately and of course he looked her up and down ⎯ ever so subtly, but she saw! ⎯ and lingered at her cleavage...which was rude, she decided, but she had more pressing matters to address, and other matters to attempt to forget about.

"You smell of blood" Sesshoumaru stated blandly, looking mildly worried, but obviously trying to exude the air of indifference. "Why?"

Kagome cursed the heavens. Why did every man she had ever been interested in have a nose able to smell anything and everything? Even having a human nose had left her with enough experience to know that most humans and their functions smelled pretty disgusting.

"Because I hate being a woman, that's why," she grumbled, tugging at the hem of her yukata in hopes that it would miraculously make it longer.

"I do not…" Sesshoumaru's eyes widened, his thoughts going to a time so very long ago when his mother had smelled of blood for days on end, nearly a month. He had asked her about it of course, and she had in turn explained the 'joys of being a woman', which he then spent the next 800 years trying is hardest to forget.

"Yeah, now you get it," she sighed, her eyes rolling as she gave up on trying to make her yukata grow.

"You are in estrus?" He said, sounding mildly horrified.

"In what?" Kagome's eyebrows rose so high that there were in jeopardy of disappearing into her hair. "It's my time of the month, if that's what you mean."

"The…month?" He used the word as though it were a foreign language, one that he had never heard spoken.

"Yes, there are twelve of them, you know," she said slowly, as if he were daft. "And for one week of every twelve of those months human females get a special visitor, and that week of this particular month happens to start today. Hurrah."

Kagome gave him a look that so elegantly said, 'duh'.

"...visitor," Sesshoumaru repeated the word, being so typically male that it was almost funny. ALMOST, but not quite.

"We bleed. Down there. You know for...procreation and stuff," she blushed so fiercely she thought she might make an excellent stop light.

"Hn." Sesshoumaru then decided that he had a great deal yet to learn about human females, and that the prospect of being so elaborately tied to one was becoming ever more frightening. He also discovered that Kagome talking about procreation made him want to do the strangest of things...like run into the ocean and swim as far and as fast as he could. Either that or take her to bed with him.

Neither of which were particularly...productive options.

"It is my understanding that this particular...phenomenon occurs only once every century for youkai women," he stated, his eyes refusing to meet hers. He did not know why he was continuing this extremely delicate topic, but it seemed as though he could not stop.

"Well, good for them," Kagome said flatly. "But I need to get back to my room or I am going to be even less of the chipper delight I am now."

Thankful for the excuse to put this conversation to rest, Sesshoumaru led Kagome out of the bathroom, NOT letting her go in front of him because he liked to watch the sway of her hips ⎯ because he didn't, not at all ⎯ but simply because he was a gentleman. And gentlemen never had to resist the urge to rip garments off of certain scandalously clad mikos. Not ever.

Chapter Notes:

Sesshoumaru and Kagome, sitting in a tree

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Kagome is a wacko, she's crazier than me

And Sesshoumaru learned about the birds and the bees

:D