Quiet and homey and cozy, flames popping and crackling, sending little embers into the dark star-studded sky.

He and his friends hunched around the warm orange fire, letting their catch for the day slowly roast, the wind carrying in its currents a delicious charred aroma.

It was the first time anyone had traveled with him. Because they wanted to. Because they liked him. They laughed and bickered and Kagome would pass around her weird future food and he and Shippo would always battle for the potato chips and cup noodles.

Fire was warmth and home and friends and Kagome.

He thought it would always be that way. Should always be that way.

He didn't know when that had changed.

Because right now, Kagome was hunched in front of a fire, slow-roasting wild mushrooms, and a gust of smoke wafted right into his face. His hypersensitive nose twitched.

The familiar, nostalgic sight failed to soothe him.

The wind was black and putrid. Smoke and flames danced across the temple, taking huge bites out of the wood and fusing night with day.

Shippo's terrified sobs were like sharpened knives in his skull and diamond-hard drills in his stomach.

Kagome wasn't moving, Kagome wasn't breathing, Kagome was gonna die and it was his fault for going after Jakotsu instead of staying with her –

"Inuyasha? Dinner's ready." Miroku passed him a skewer of roasted mushrooms, thankfully oblivious to Inuyasha's inner turmoil.

He bit into the mushroom's blackened flesh and tried not to gag at the taste of ash.

"Inuyasha! I'm gonna take your seconds if you don't want any!" Shippo gloated, waving around a chunk of roasted food and taking a loud, crunchy, exaggerated chomp, shooting a confident, secure glance at Kagome, seated to his right and chattering away with Sango, her fingers combing through Kirara's fur.

Inuyasha didn't respond for a while, staring straight ahead at the blue base of the flickering flames. He blinked golden, blinding sunbursts out of the darkness of his eyelids.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, kid. Here."

He thrust his own roasted skewer into Shippo's flabbergasted face.

"Uh...? Are you sure?"

"Yes." Inuyasha cupped his chin in his hands and surreptitiously let his long fingers clamp over his nose. A casual gesture. Now he couldn't smell it, and no one would notice.

"Well, if you say so! Finders, keepers!"

"Shippo-chan," Kagome scolded, fixing the fox kit with a firm glare. "Inuyasha needs to eat too. Give it back to him."

"Nah, it's fine," he said. "I don't wanna eat. Not hungry today." He crossed his arms and tossed his silver hair, letting out a huff that would hopefully fool them.

Now it was Kagome's turn to look flabbergasted. "Really? You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." He turned his back to his friends and leapt onto a high-up tree branch. "Good night."

Sango had just gotten kindling, heaving a load of firewood from Kirara's back onto the thick grassy ground.

Kagome leapt up with a beam, using those matchsticks from the future to start a fire –

Fire.

Flames.

Black, suffocating smoke.

He could see scorch marks lining her palms already –

The world was tilting sideways, Kagome was going to get hurt, she would be smothered in smoke and burned to ash, she didn't even have his Fire-Rat Robe on her, he couldn't –

He had to act fast.

He rose to his feet, striding towards the girls, towards that damned matchbox in Kagome's hands, a bomb packed in a tiny container, one that could take away everyone he loved.

"Inuyasha? What are you doing? Inuyasha?"

Kagome and Sango were both staring at him, and with a start, he calmed his breath and glanced down at the matchbox he'd snatched from Kagome's – thank goodness – unscathed fingers.

His hands were shaking like the ground after an earthquake, like a leaf in a hurricane, like water in a whirlpool.

"S-sorry," he muttered, shoving it back at her and turning away so that she couldn't see his reddening eyes.

She found him later that night. Of course she did. Climbing all that way to join him on his perch upon the tree.

He turned his face away from her and to the blistering wind. She didn't need to see him this way, when he was being such a weak little loser. He was supposed to protect her.

She entwined her unburnt fingers with his. He squinted even harder into the windchill.

"Hi."

"What is it?" He had been effortlessly gruff to her before, in those early days they'd been traveling together, but now his throat tasted as saline as ocean water, and he couldn't muster even an inch of bravado.

She swung their hands together, and his hold on her fingers tightened so much that they turned purple.

He paled. There he went again, hurting her with his negligence.

He tried loosening his death grip on her hand, but she didn't seem to want to let go for some reason.

"Inuyasha? You know that our injuries from Renkotsu weren't your fault, right?"

"Tch." A lump in his throat was expanding rapidly and his eyes blurred into a crystal mess. "Y'know that ain't true, Kagome. You don't have to sugarcoat things."

He would have forced his face to weather the cold air yet more as suitable punishment for his incompetence, but Kagome cupped his chin and nudged him to meet her gaze.

He could see only a dark-haired blob through his sticky eyelashes, and she finally let go of his hand.

Good. He squinted his eyes shut.

She rubbed his ears in small, light circles. So that was why she had let go of his hand.

How did she not find his failure to protect repulsive?

"If anything, I'm downplaying things, not sugarcoating them."

He sniffled mucus back into his sinus, hurting his nose even more. He was not going to cry after he failed her.

"W...what...d-do y-you mean?"

It wasn't working.

Her warm hand was back on his face, tracing his eyes, brushing the tears away.

"If you weren't there, we would have choked to death in the smoke."

He let out a shallow, jagged breath. She was damning him with profuse praise, trying to make him feel better when he deserved none of it –

"It wasn't your fault, Inuyasha. You're the reason we lived."

"No, that was..." He sniffled again. Stupid snot. "Myoga-jii – "

"And you. Especially you. You've saved us so many times, and you did it again last week."

Kagome laid one kiss on his right ear, then another on his left ear.

He did not deserve this praise.

"Yes, you do." Her voice was stern. Damn, he'd said that aloud, hadn't he?

"Don't beat yourself up. We wouldn't be anywhere without you. Okay?"

"..."

"Okay?"

Persistent lady. He exhaled another jagged breath.

"O...okay."

She still believed in him. For some inexplicable reason.

He couldn't let her down.

"Good." She hauled him down from the tree. "Come on, even Shippo-chan's been worried about you. He saved you some food."

Inuyasha finally managed a watery snort. "That brat did?"

His eyes cleared just in time to see Kagome shoot him a mischievous smile.

"Just for tonight."

A/N: I firmly believe that Inuyasha was very traumatized after almost losing Kagome and the others while fighting the Band of Seven. It's my headcanon that he was especially edgy and nervous around fire after Renkotsu.

Let me know what you think! :)