An Unlikely Mating
The Changing of the Tides
Getting Rin and Shippou to go to bed was a struggle; I had to keep convincing them that I was fine—that nothing was going to happen to me while InuYasha and Sesshomaru watched over me. After a lot of convincing, I finally managed to get them laid down and relaxed. Minutes after that, they were both sleeping soundly despite their earlier protests of not being tired.
I sat and admired their faces for a while, marveling at the children and their ability to fall asleep so quickly. They both looked to be having good dreams. Peaceful smiles stretched across their faces and they breathed easily. Before standing, I leaned down to give each of them a gentle kiss on the forehead and a whispered "goodnight."
I looked to InuYasha, who sat across the fire and refused to look anywhere near me. I probably imagined this next part, but I swear I saw a faint pink tinging his cheeks. If he was blushing I couldn't really blame him; at the thought of how close we were going to be, I could feel my own cheeks pooling with heat.
Gathering up my courage, I took a deep breath and walked over to InuYasha. I didn't have any delicate way of phrasing this, so I just dove into that awkwardness. Knowing that he couldn't really say no only made the situation a tiny bit better.
"How do you want to do this?" I asked quietly and shyly. I looked at my feet, not at InuYasha, so I couldn't see his reaction to my blazing red cheeks. This was already mortifying enough without him smirking or something stupid.
"You're the one that's gonna be sleeping," he replied gruffly, but somehow still managing to leave the usual harshness out of his voice.
"We could go up into a tree if that makes you more comfortable?" I suggested. I meant to sound sure but ended sounding as if I were questioning him. I knew InuYasha preferred trees at night, as if he were a cat demon instead of a dog demon, and I didn't really care where I slept. As long as Naraku didn't plague my dreams, I was fine with pretty much anything.
"Keh," he responded as he stood and looped his arm around my waist. "Going up," he announced before springing into the air and then landing gracefully on a lower branch of the tree.
He set me on the branch beside him, and I started to settle down for the night. I stopped when I noticed he was looking at me somewhat expectantly.
"What?" I questioned.
"Kagome, you're gonna have to sleep on my lap if we do this in a tree," he elaborated. I just stared at him in a blank sort of shock. I watched as he turned so that his body was lengthwise on the branch and his back rested against the trunk of the tree.
"Oh yea," I responded dumbly after a moment.
InuYasha opened his arms, welcoming me into the warm circle they made. Slowly, I crawled over to him and awkwardly maneuvered myself onto his lap. After a moment of careful adjusting, InuYasha relaxed his back fully against the bark of the tree and then wrapped his strong arms around me. I know I wasn't going to be falling out of the tree tonight.
The way we sat had me intimately pressed up against InuYasha, and I couldn't contain my nervousness. Through our clothes, I felt the hard muscles of his chest pressed against my back. As much as I tried, I couldn't deny that I was a girl with needs, and I once harbored feelings for this very person. My head rested on his chest, just by his left shoulder, and I could hear the quick beating of his heart. His strong arms circled my waist, and his hands rested under mine in my lap. We were practically spooning in a seated position—something my overactive imagination wouldn't let me forget.
"Relax, Kagome. It's just me," InuYasha chuckled into my ear. Apparently, my nervous shifting wasn't good for the relaxing. "I'm not going to let you fall," he said after my shifting didn't stop.
"I know that," I sighed and relaxed fully. My nervousness seemed ridiculous. InuYasha was one of my best friends after all; he wouldn't do anything to make me uncomfortable.
"Are you comfy enough?" he asked after a few moments, proving my very thoughts. He shifted a bit and repositioned me on his lap in an attempt to make me more comfortable.
"Are you?" I questioned. "I'm not the one that has to lean against a tree all night— I have a comfy pillow," I said as I gave a little wiggle to prove my point.
"I'm great," he chuckled. "Now stop doing that and get to sleep before you make both of us fall out of this tree."
"Yes sir!" I saluted. "Good night, InuYasha." Having said my goodnight, I settled in for some sleep.
"Good night, Kagome," I heard InuYasha mutter quietly as sleep claimed me with a drowsy finality. Within moments I was warm and comfortably drifting along the tides of sleep.
The next morning I woke up feeling warm and extremely light. I couldn't remember a night in the feudal era where I slept more soundly.
As I leaned forward and stretched, my surroundings came flooding back to me. I froze mid-stretch and opened my eyes as I realized where I was. Turning my head, I looked straight into the golden eyes of InuYasha. A smirk adorned his face, and I realized my extremely suggestive pose.
"Good morning to you too, sunshine," he said in an unusually cocky voice.
"Good morning, InuYasha," I muttered in return as I quickly arranged myself in a more innocent position. I didn't need anyone on the ground, especially Miroku, getting the wrong idea.
"What'd you dream about?" he asked suddenly, giving me a peculiar look.
"You want to know what I dreamt about?" I repeated dumbly. Why did InuYasha want to know—why did he even care? Horror dawned as I wondered if I said anything embarrassing in my sleep.
"Yea, that's what I asked." The look he then gave me seemed to question my mental facilities.
To appease him, I sifted through my mind and tried to remember the contents of last night's dreams. For a fleeting moment I remembered, but then the dream slipped out of my grasp. I had no idea what I dreamt about; I just knew that the dream was pleasant.
"I don't remember," I finally answered. "Why do you want to know?"
"It was just weird. You kept saying Sesshomaru, Shippou, and Rin. You were just freaking me out," he shrugged.
"Are you two coming down here or not?" Sango called from the base of the tree InuYasha and I still claimed. In our little world of branches, I had almost forgotten that everyone else was down there.
"We're coming! Don't get your panties in a bunch!" InuYasha yelled back, adopting a phrase he heard in my time. "Let's get going before someone starts shrieking." He grabbed me and jumped from the branch before landing softly and setting me on my feet.
"What were you two doing up there?" Miroku asked with a lecherous smile. "Should we have allowed you more time to finish up?" he asked with a wink. This smirk quickly wiped itself off his face as Sango slapped him and the usual screams of "hentai!" rang out across the camp.
Routine took over and soon we were packing up the camp. As we were heading out, I caught Sesshomaru's eye from across the camp. As our eyes locked together, the gaze seemed impossible to break. What started out as a split second look up turned into a stare that caused a warm feeling to wash over me. The butterflies that had rested peacefully in my stomach decided to take up flight at that moment—but not before they set themselves on fire. My stomach felt warm and fluttery, and I could hear the loud sound of my heart thundering in my chest. A blush came to my cheeks from the intensity of the feeling, and I could tell something similar was happening to Sesshomaru. I saw a recognition dawn in his eyes—as if he actually saw me for the first time, and that he liked what he saw.
As he looked at me, I couldn't help but feel that this had something to do with the dream I couldn't remember.
"Are you coming or not?" InuYasha snapped, thankfully wrenching us both out of that stare.
Looking away from Sesshomaru, my previous thoughts seemed ludicrous. There was no way that anything had just happened with the icicle. We didn't share a moment, and he wasn't looking at me. The only reason I felt anything is because I felt off from the nightmare with Naraku. That had to be the only explanation.
"Yea, I'm coming!" I finally replied as I followed InuYasha. As I walked past the spot where Sesshomaru stood, I saw that he was still looking at me, something akin to curiosity burning in his eyes.
"After you, miko," he indicated with a hand when I stopped and gave him a questioning look. I walked past him and he fell in step behind me. I didn't say anything to him, because I was too busy getting my erratically beating heart under control.
A week passed and my strange feeling about Sesshomaru faded until I could almost believe that I imagined the whole staring weirdness in the first place. He reverted to his normal self, which meant he resumed his habitual practice of ignoring me and everyone else in the group, save for Rin and Shippou. The only reason I clung to the encounter was because every morning brought the same experience before we would move on and nothing more happened.
As the week progressed I continued to sleep on InuYasha's lap in various trees along the countryside. Just as we guessed, InuYasha's careful watch kept my nightmares away, and I was able to sleep easily and comfortably. I felt safer than ever, and everything would have been great if not for the fact that InuYasha wasn't getting any sleep himself.
As each day passed, InuYasha became more and more irritable. I could see the dark shadows under his eyes, and the fact he seemed so tired worried me to no end. After the seventh night of him keeping watch over me, I asked if he wanted to let Sesshomaru take over for a night. This ended up in a small argument that left everyone fairly irritated, and we still hadn't devised a solution. I decided to allow InuYasha to keep his pride and just sleep under his guard. Eventually, he would get so tired that he would volunteer to let Sesshomaru have one bloody night.
That morning, after the dust settled from our little dispute, found us traveling down a worn dirt path. I felt a tingling in the back of my mind, and after a few more minutes I knew for sure that a jewel shard was traveling in our general direction. From what I could sense, the demon carrying the jewel was a low level and would be easy to defeat.
"InuYasha, I sense a demon with a jewel shard heading our way." The rest of the little group stopped walking to wait and see what our hanyou friend chose to do.
"Is it Naraku?" he asked as he pulled out his sword and prepared himself for battle.
"No, just a lesser demon likely drawn by my chunk of the jewel," I answered before leaving to stand with Sango. "You will be able to handle this with no problem!"
As I predicted, a small demon revealed itself to us only moments later. The pathetically furry thing claimed to be here to steal the jewel fragment from us to become more powerful. I watched as the two went at each other with swords, and as I watched InuYasha, I started to worry about my friend.
Although InuYasha was clearly much faster than the demon, he was still moving slowly. His movements seemed lengthy and sluggish, as if he were walking through molasses. He fought quiet and withdrawn—a complete 180 from his routine hubris.
The fight didn't last long, and InuYasha vanquished the demon with no complications, but that didn't stop the worry from bubbling up in my stomach. Watching me at night was wearing on InuYasha and affecting his ability to fight. I could never live with myself if he got himself hurt because of his arrogant pride and refusal to let his brother take over for one measly night.
The fight ended and we continued on our trek. As we exchanged worried looks, I know that Sango and Miroku noticed the change in InuYasha as well. I brainstormed ways to bring up the subject as painlessly as possible, but each attempt fell short. With InuYasha there just was no delicate way to breach the subject. Miroku and I exchanged a meaningful look before I finally worked up the nerve to open my mouth and let the words tumble.
"InuYasha? Can we stop for a while and rest? I know that we all could use the break."
He turned and sent a deadly glare my way. I felt chilled to the bone at the force of his annoyance. "No, we're not stopping," he declared as he turned and kept walking. I couldn't find the words to argue, so we walked on a while longer.
A few hours later InuYasha continued to march in front of us. I still hadn't confronted InuYasha, and I knew that I'd have to do so soon. I was so lost in my conflicted thoughts that I didn't notice Rin until she was pulling on my skirt.
"Miss Kagome, Rin is starting to get hungry," the adorable little girl admitted to me in a whisper. Shippou came bounding up to me and added, "Me too, Kagome!"
"Well, I guess that we need to stop for lunch! I can't have my kids being hungry!" I said brightly. This was killing two birds with one stone! We could stop for lunch, and the group, InuYasha included, had the chance to get some much needed rest.
I ushered everyone to the side of the path and started unpacking the supplies I needed for lunch. I was the only one that didn't notice that InuYasha was still walking, not noticing that everyone was stopping.
"Half-breed," Sesshomaru called to him, the sound of his voice pulling me out of my gleeful sandwich making frenzy. I looked up to see InuYasha turn around, a murderous look residing on his face.
"Why the hell are we stopping again?" he screamed as he bounded back to us. He stomped his way to where I sat on the ground, spreading peanut butter on bread. "Explain this!"
"InuYasha, calm down. It's not a big deal; I just decided that we should stop for lunch. A number of us are hungry, and we could all use the break from walking. We have to be prepared and on our feet, not dead with exhaustion and hunger, if someone decides to attack us," I elaborated, hoping that this small argument would sway him in my favor. "Don't turn this into a big deal," I warned when I saw that he wasn't calming down at all. Apparently, he was too dense to understand my warning.
He crouched down so that he was right in my face.
"We are never going to find any shards if we keep stopping every hour and a half to rest! How the hell am I supposed to defeat Naraku if you always want to sit on your ass?" he screeched in my face.
I took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten in my head. Screaming probably wouldn't help in my situation. "I'm sorry you feel that way, but you're not the only one in this group that wants to defeat Naraku. You are not the only one with something at stake here, and we can't do anything if half of us are dead on our feet, and that includes you. I know that you're tired but—" I started.
"Shut up! I am not tired! I can't help that I get pissed off cuz the so called 'alpha' of our pack is some lazy bitch that never does anything to contribute except sit on her growing rear! You suck at being a pack mate, and you suck a being an alpha! You're the lazy bitch that's gonna end up getting us killed when I have to save your ass in battle! Kikyo would be a better alpha, mother, miko, or whatever than you could ever hope to be!" he screamed in my face.
Everything seemed silent for a moment as I realized that everyone else had stopped what they'd been doing to watch what would happen next. I felt like the air surrounding me had stilled in anticipation of how I would react.
I felt a thick, red rage rolling through my body, and I knew this was something that I needed to deal with now. I threw the butter knife I'd been using down to the ground in front us me and then stood so I towered over a terrified looking InuYasha. My entire body vibrated with tension, and my hands clenched in tight fists at my sides. I wanted to punch him out more than I had ever wanted to punch anyone in my life; I was livid. InuYasha really crossed the line this time, and I refused to let him get away with this sort of behavior any longer.
"InuYasha, I need to speak with you for a moment. In private," I gritted out between clenched teeth before I turned and started walking back down the road. When I finally stopped I could still see the others, but no one except Sesshomaru would be capable of hearing us. For some reason, I had the feeling that Sesshomaru wasn't into gossiping.
"Ugh!" I screamed to the sky as I finally let out my pent up rage. InuYasha's ears flatted to his skull, and I knew he was starting to regret his past decisions. "You stupid. Freaking. Jerk!" I shrieked. "I cannot believe that you seriously said that to me in front of everyone! It's awful enough when you call me a lazy bitch when we're alone, but in front of my son and all of my friends? I can't believe you!"
"Kago-"
"Nope, I'm not done talking yet! You don't have the right to freak out when the group wants to take a break. I'm so sorry that we measly humans need to stop for food and rest! Maybe you need to stop for a moment and consider the fact that half of our group consists of humans and children. I know that it's my fault you are so damn cranky, but that doesn't mean you get to act like a complete ass about it!
"Also, you need to shut the heck up about my skills as an alpha! I might not be a demon, but I am a miko! Don't you dare think that I won't zap some freaking manners into you! I may not be one hundred percent sure about my skills as a leader, but I'm doing the best job that I can. So far, you're the only one with any complaints, so I'm betting that I'm not butchering this too much.
"And that brings up another thing: stop comparing me to Kikyo! I'm not her and I never will be, so I'm done with the stupid competition. I don't care if I am her reincarnation or what the hell ever! That doesn't mean that I am the same person. She doesn't even accept you for who you are, so stop telling me that I need to act like her. You want me to be a closed-minded bigot, and I just won't do that!
"If you think your beloved Kikyo would do a better job at being your alpha and pack mate, then by all means, leave! You can take anyone that agrees with you, but good luck trying to convince them! If you want to be with Kikyo so bad that you take your frustrations out on me because I look like her, then just leave. Nothing is keeping you here, and I certainly won't stop you if you really want to leave. I'm warning you now; if you leave for good and don't like what you end up getting, don't come crawling back to me begging for forgiveness. I'm done. I can't put up with this any longer," I finished, feeling utterly defeated.
I stood there and tried to catch my breath. InuYasha looked stricken as he stepped forward, probably trying to come to me. I shook my head, putting my hand up and shielding myself from him. When he took another step toward me, I backed away from him.
"Don't try to make me forgive you right now, because that is not going to happen this time. If you didn't mean what you said on some level, you wouldn't have said such hurtful things in the first place. All I know is that your words hurt me too much to let you keep doing this. This cycle needs to stop now."
"Kagome, I had no idea that I made you feel this way. I never meant…"
I laughed without humor. The sound seemed so sad and desolate that InuYasha flinched away from me as if I had hit him.
"You honestly can't expect me to believe that after all this time, InuYasha. I loved you for two years, and don't say that you didn't know. Everyone knew. Hell, even Kikyo knew. I loved you, but you keep hurting me, and I don't know if I can continue loving you—I don't know if I even should. You keep comparing me to Kikyo, and I see that you want me to be her. I just cannot do that. I refuse to. There's no room in your heart for me when she is still there. Even if someday there was, I don't know if I could love you as more than a friend after everything you've put me through."
"Kagome, I made her a promise," he groaned. He sounded hurt, and normally that would make me come crawling back, but not today. Not with the hurt coursing through my system.
"And I made you a promise; I promised to stay by your side, but I don't know if I can keep doing that." As I released the words, hurt boiled over in the salty form of tears. "I don't know what to do anymore, and I'm sorry for that, InuYasha."
"Kagome, I'm so sorry. I wish I knew how to take everything back."
"That's the thing InuYasha, you can't take this back. Do you know much loving someone hurts—especially when he doesn't love you back? I tortured myself to be with you, and if I keep doing this I'll end up hating you. I don't want to hate you. The only way I can ever be your friend again is for me to stop loving you. I just need some time and then things can go back to how they used to be. I just need the time to get over you."
InuYasha said something then, but I didn't hear him. I was already walking back to the comfort of my friends. They all gave me worried looks as I returned, and I gave them a watery smile.
"Who's ready to eat?" I asked as I started passing out sandwiches someone finished in my absence. Wordlessly my friends took their food and withdrew to eat in silence. No one asked if InuYasha was coming back, and from the way they refused to look me in the eyes, I knew Sesshomaru filled them in on something. Traitor.
A few minutes after we finished eating and packed up camp, InuYasha joined us and my somber group resumed our march down the worn path.
"Kagome, are you okay?" Sango asked after we had traveled for a bit.
"Sango, for the first time in a long time, I'm not actually sure," I replied as I continued down the road.
A/N: Yay! I updated! This chapter took forever for me to write, and I apologize for that! I hope to get back into the swing of things!
Big thanks to my wifey, Weregirl96 for looking this over for me! You all should definitely go check her out!
Leave me a review and let me know what you think!