Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

"Is this poisoned?" Kagome gave the French toast a hesitant poke with her fork.

"Eat it and find out!" the cook, flaunting himself in a frilly peach apron and trousers and bare feet and bare arms and bare everything else, informed her with a careless flick of his spatula.

Kagome tried to choose between her rumbling tummy and her snarling common sense. Naraku took advantage of her preoccupation to drizzle warm honey all over her toast and set down a cup of thick hot chocolate at her elbow.

Kagome blinked at him, trying to see past all the golden-pale skin and the gleaming black curls, though that might just have been an effect of the morning sunshine.

"It'll get cold if you don't make your mind up soon – and I'm not reheating it," he said.

Kagome blinked again, voted in favour of rumbly tummy and took a teeny, tiny bite of honey-laden French toast.

And went still.

"Kagome?"

No response.

"Kagome?"

Nothing.

"Priestess with the nonsensical fashion sense that was not at all in line with feudal Japan?"

Utter silence.

"LEGS!"

Kagome jerked out of her trance and blinked around owlishly. "I'm alive," she stated with numb surprise.

Naraku resisted the urge – his very first such urge in both lifetimes – to slam his head against a wall. "You actually thought I poisoned it?!"

"…you were talking murder up and murder down and murder sideways last night, after all."

"I'm getting a headache. And you still ate it?!"

Kagome shrugged and popped half a toast into her mouth. "Oo ungee," she said around it.

Naraku decided that he didn't want to find out just how the woman was feeding herself on a daily basis. Muttering something about the laundry, he stalked off to the washing machine and left her to her gobbling. When he returned, he was fully dressed in yesterday's shirt and had managed to tame his curls somewhat. "I'm off," he said.

Kagome dropped the dishes she was washing with a clunk. "You can't go!"

"Why ever not?" he asked, his head cocked to one side, curls falling in his eyes.

She couldn't explain it, not when he looked so normal. Not after he had just spent the morning cooking her the best un-poisoned French toast she'd ever had, and wandering around mussed and shirtless from a good night's sleep and looked and acted and talked just like…just like…

Kagome didn't want to articulate it even it to herself. If she did, she would also have to acknowledge the awful loneliness of the life she led, as well as her physical and emotional frustration. Vibrators got boring after a while. Men – eligible and attractive men – did not want to waste time coaching a grown woman how to kiss and be a good screw.

Kagome knew that she was completely un-date-able; but she didn't want to admit that this morning with her once-and-sometimes-still-maybe enemy was the closest she was going to get to a domestic morning with a good-looking young man who looked like he was actually having a nice time with her.

But that wasn't why she couldn't let him leave just yet. The real reason now…she just shook her head. "You just can't."

"Kagome, my delicious little poppet-" he dodged the dishrag she flung at him "-much as I'd love to stay here and try to poison you with my culinary skills, you simply cannot afford to employ me as your personal chef."

"Huh?"

"I'm expensive," he explained.

"I'm getting a headache…"

"No," Naraku corrected, "that's my line."

"I'm stealing it!" she scowled at him and planted herself between him and the door.

He gave her an exasperated glare. "Priestess. What is your problem?"

There it was again, the sense of menace about him. Kagome grew even more determined to not let him out the door. She hesitated, then spit it out, "How do I know it's safe?" She looked at him steadily, with the eyes of a battle-hardened woman and not a soft morning airhead. "You were planning murder last night. How do I know that once I let you out of here, you won't do just that?"

"Take my word for it, I suppose," he snapped back. "How would I know!"

She gaped at him. "You…don't…know?"

"I am evil. I might also be a psychopath – I never had it tested," he said simply. "I can't predict the desire to do something nasty."

Kagome shook her head, feeling numb. "How have you managed to resist it all this time? You have, haven't you?"

Naraku shrugged and explained his system of procrastination and distraction. "…but it's working a little…well, it's sort of shaky these days," he finished.

Then, he added slowly, "You're the leash." Looking up, he saw her frame, thin and haggard, highlighted against the door. He felt almost sorry for her. "It's hard on you, isn't it?" he asked rather kindly.

Kagome didn't trust herself to speak. She didn't even trust herself to think.

"There just isn't another way." He turned away from her and sat down to tie his shoelaces. When he moved past her she didn't resist, and he had to be careful because she looked like the wall was the only thing holding her up. "Kagome?"

She looked up with tired eyes.

"I'll come back. That is, if I want to do something bad…it's really a question of when, but I'll come right back here."

Her eyes showed no trust. There was nothing he could do about that, so he gave her a reassuring smile – he tried to make it natural – and let himself out without further ado.

::sighs:: What a mess. Evil, preventing it…is such an unholy mess for everyone involved.

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