Chapter 5
Kagome had been having a wonderful dream about udon and a certain silver haired demon lord when she felt very rude, strong fingers prodding at her tender shoulder and hip. Groaning, she attempted to roll slightly away from the fingers, but was rewarded with a soft growl of annoyance and a firm hand keeping her in place.
"Just five more minutes, InuYasha," she mumbled attempting to move away again. An odd tingling and scraping sensation started at her neck, right above her collarbone and moments later a sharp acrid smell reached her nose.
"Call me that again, wench, and you'll lose your head permanently," as if there were another non-permanent way to lose your head. Blue eyes snapped open and it took a few moments for her sleep muddled brain to comprehend that the tingling feeling and the smell was from Sesshomaru's poison claws pressed against the soft skin of her neck and not InuYasha at all.
"Eep! I'm sorry! I'm not a very good morning person!" she said wiggling more in an attempt to edge away from him. Another soft growl emitted from deep within the demon's chest showed his annoyance. The taiyoukai didn't seem to be a morning person either.
"Hold still. I am examining your shoulder," instantly Kagome stopped moving, though because she's Kagome, after a few moments off stillness she began to get restless and curious. Sesshomaru was tempted to hit her on the head hard and knock her out, she was wiggling so much. What in Kami was the girl doing?
Apparently Kagome wanted to see the wound on her shoulder for herself, though it being on her shoulder in the vicinity of her shoulder blade, she couldn't twist herself quite far enough to see it, so her body did some interesting contortions in her attempt to maneuver her head far enough to look.
Her twisting and such put her head very close to his chest, his one good hand remained on her ribs from when he had tried to still her so he could finish checking the almost healed wound. His own head was bent closer to her so he could see the soft, new tissue better, his silver hair formed a curtain around his shoulder that spilled behind the two of them and onto the bed.
This is how Kagome's mother found them
"Someone approaches," the demon lord stated.
"Wh-what?" She had barely gotten the stuttered question out when the door to her room suddenly swung open and her mother stepped in with a large pile of clean and neatly folded laundry. Kami, that's right! She doesn't know I'm home yet.
Finally Mrs. Higurashi looked up and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight that met her bewildered eyes. Her daughter was in her bed, mostly naked in only a bra and panties and a towel which had fallen down around her slender hips and a very large, odd looking man was on her bed with her and in a very intimate position. Covered in blood. Dried blood.
She almost dropped the pile of clothes right there on the floor, but she regained her composure quickly enough to deposit the clothes on the desk. Turning she gave her daughter and her… friend a shaky smile.
"Kagome, dearest! I didn't know you were home. If you and your friend would like to clean up and come down to breakfast I have some questions I'd like to ask you both," with a polite bow to Sesshomaru, she turned and exited the room, closing the door behind her.
Sesshomaru stared at the door for a moment before looking back down at the girl half underneath him on the bed. Rudely, he shoved her by the middle of her back onto the bed and held her there while he finished looking and poking at her shoulder. Kagome hit the bed with an 'oof' and waited patiently while he finished looking her over, now ok with the fact that all he was doing was looking out for her best interest.
"Your mother was very polite," he said as he rose. Kagome sat up stiffly as she still ached quite a bit, though the wound had closed and swung her legs off the side of the bed with a sigh.
"That means she's very angry," she ran fingers through the tangled mess of her bangs and went to get up when she heard her mother's startled exclamation from down the hall. Jumping to her feet, Kagome grabbed a bathrobe from the back of her door and hurried to the bathroom where the sound of her mother had come from.
Nearly colliding with her mother as the woman exited the bathroom, Mrs. Higurashi grabbed her daughter's shoulders in a tight grip.
"Kagome! There's bloody water in the bathtub and all over the bathmat! Are you alright? Have you been hurt at all? What happened?" Kagome looked past her mother into the bathroom and cringed at how it looked. Although Sesshomaru may be good at cleaning and healing wounds, he wasn't good at bathroom hygiene. The bathtub was still full of red tinged water and dried blood and bloody water spattered the floor and bathmat as well. Generally it looked like someone had been murdered in their bathroom.
"No, Mom, I'm alright. I did have an injury, but Sesshomaru-sama has mostly healed it and I'm fast on the way to being back to normal. There's no need to worry." Her mother visibly relaxed, having seen for herself that her daughter was fine and hearing her assurances. She glanced at the demon lord who now filled the doorway to the girl's room, standing there like a statue cut of pure white marble, stains on his clothes notwithstanding. Her first glance at him was brief and she didn't get much detail, but looking at him now, she could see how his hakama was fairly destroyed and his clothes were covered in more dried blood than there was in the bathroom.
"Kagome, you and Sesshomaru-sama please clean up and I will get some clothing for him to wear since those hakamas look like they need to be cleaned and mended. He would also stand out like a sore thumb if you took him around wearing them."
Sesshomaru inclined his head in only the slightest manner, but Mrs. Higurashi caught it and returned a bow. Turning to her daughter, she smiled lightly before retreating downstairs to begin breakfast and make sure Souta got out the door to school on time.
Kagome slumped against the door of the bathroom and ran a hand over her face. This was one hell of a morning already. She looked up to find Sesshomaru staring at her with those golden eyes that seemed to have a light of their own. The sight unnerved her.
"Lets get you cleaned up first, my mom will have clothes up for you soon," she turned and went into the bathroom, cleaning up the blood from the night before and letting out the water, rinsing the bathtub down as she did so. Sesshomaru had come to the bathroom door and stood there staring at everything within now in the daylight.
The switch on the wall made the odd shaped glass things above the mirror light up, though there was no flame. He grabbed the switch and flipped it himself, making the light switch off. Flipping it several times, he just stared at the bulbs and Kagome forced herself to remain calm and not snap at the demon who had never seen lights before. InuYasha had done the same thing though she would never tell him that.
"It would have been useful to have known about that last night," he stated more to the room than to anyone in particular, Kagome got the distinct feeling he was accusing the lights of betraying him by not letting him know of their useful properties before, but she ignored that and moved on to other things.
"Would you like to take a shower or a bath?" she asked him as she looked up from placing a clean bath mat on the floor. His silver head cocked to the side slightly as he studied her, obviously not knowing what she was asking, his eyes had the barest hint of a question in them.
"Shower?" he knew what a bath was, but shower was a new term to him and he was loath to ask.
"Oh!" Kagome jumped up and moved to the bathtub to show him.
"A shower is like a waterfall that you can turn off and can be as hot or as cold as you desire it to be." She twisted the knobs to start the water and pulled the switch that turned the shower on, making sure the curtain partially closed so that the water didn't get everywhere. Moments later, water began to spray from the shower head and Kagome adjusted the knobs so it was warm before turning back to the demon lord. Sesshomaru had watched her every movement intently so that he would remember how to do these things himself and he moved to the shower to examine it closer.
"How does the water come when you want it to?" he asked and Kagome knew he was not happy about the fact that there were things out there that he didn't know. She had a feeling he was not accustomed to being the person in the dark.
"It's called plumbing. These knobs are connected to pipes that are behind the wall. A tank in the basement of the house holds the water and keeps it pressurized in the pipes. That way, when the knobs are turned, the shower or bathtub spigot open up and water sprays out. Heat coils along some of the pipes heat up the water to the temperature you turn the dial to before it reaches here." Watching him, she was slightly surprised to see understanding behind his golden orbs. Apparently, her explanation had been clear enough that he understood the logistics of what was involved.
"Interesting," was all he said. Kagome cleared her throat.
"Alright, I'll leave you now, if you need anything, I'll be in my room," she gestured to the white bathrobe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, "this is the guest bathrobe, wrap yourself in that when you're done and just come back to my room. You can dress there while I'm taking my own shower." She pointed to the colorful bottles on the wall of the tub. "That blue bottle is called shampoo and it is used to lather your hair, the purple one is conditioner and that detangles it…" she glanced down at his still perfect hair, "though I don't think you need it." She was shocked to be rewarded with an actual smirk from the stoic demon lord. "The pink bar like thing on the shelf there is the soap. I think that's it, just let me know when you're done and I'll show you where mom left the clothes." With that, she left him to his own devices.