When he pulled away, he kept as close to her as possible so he could feel her breath now coming shallow against his skin. With half-lidded eyes, he touched his thumb to her chin and kissed her forehead, her hair.
"What were you doing with that guy, anyway?" he murmured, still fostering a low burn of anger over the thought of Hojo daring to lay one finger on her, regardless of intent. If only he had come sooner…
He immediately regretted bringing it up again as the scent of tears filling her eyes bloomed into the air.
Before he could beg her not to cry because of him, thinking already he had messed it all up, she shook her head.
"It wasn't like that, Inuyasha. He drugged me." Noting the confused reaction he flashed her, she corrected herself in a way he would understand, "He, er, well, poisoned me."
Never had she seen a face darken so quickly, and so deeply, as her words unravelled, lips curling back to show clenched teeth.
"Goddamnit, I should have killed him!" the threat was more a growl than a statement; Kagome could see he was thinking back to what had happened and growing more furious as he did.
"No..." She wrapped her fingers around his, calming him, muting the blood red that began to glitch in and out of his eyes. "You did the right thing. I want to kill him too, but it doesn't work like that here."
Inuyasha silently fumed for a moment before she spoke again,
"I can't believe it's you. That you're here."
"Honestly, me neither." His scowl softened as he looked at her face again, though it took a while for a light smile to begin overriding his furious expression. She was glad to see him smile, something he had done so little of when they'd first met.
This was a totally different first meeting. The thought made her heart race.
"What's the matter, Kagome? Are you feeling sick? Is it the poison?" He rubbed her back, listening intently with his white dog ears twitching. Damnit, she had forgotten how good his ears were. There was no keeping anything from him.
"Maybe we should go to Kaede." She weakly suggested, excited at the thought despite how she felt from the previous night – maybe she could also-
He flinched away from her, but regained himself immediately as he turned to make sure he had her full attention.
"Don't even think about it. We don't go near the well."
"Inu-"
"No." his hand laid rest on her shoulder, but he couldn't keep from stroking her cheek, leaning to breath in her scent. He couldn't stop assuring himself she was real. "I'm not separating from you, not ever again. If only one of us can get through… Kagome, I can't live like that again."
He touched the back of her neck, made sure she looked him in the eye as he repeated,
"We don't go near the well,"
And she promised, "Okay, for now." Resting her head on his shoulder, wishing the moment could freeze. "We don't go near the well."
Despite Inuyasha's attempts to have Kagome lay still and rest, neither could believe the situation and neither could stop looking at the other, sure they would wake up from yet another dream at any moment. In a previous time, the closeness between them – physically or emotionally – may have sent either one running, embarrassed and red faced, unsure of how to proceed. Now it was different. Inuyasha held her hand still to his heart, when he wasn't running his hands through her hair, or wrapping his arms around her again. Kagome leaned into him effortlessly, feeling safe, but more than that- for the first time in a very long time, feeling happy and at peace. He was here. It was over. They were together again – and he had promised he wouldn't even attempt to leave.
Though they hadn't discussed the more difficult and pressing of issues, none of which she wanted to entertain at the moment, she did have other questions for him, like,
"What were you doing before you came running up the stairs?"
Inuyasha's expression suddenly dropped from one of loving nirvana to completely frazzled humiliation.
"What… did… you…"
"It's not that bad!"
Kagome sighed, shaking her head. "You'd better just tell me. Or better yet, show me."
She threw back the blanket that had been obscuring her body, only upon looking down at herself realizing that she still wore the now ripped and half-devastated red dress from the party the night before – Inuyasha's robe had been set aside, she realized, and her wounds cleaned.
What am I going to tell Eri? She thought miserably, having hoped she would avoid the truth all together if she could. She touched the broken strap on one side, tried to pull together the skirt where it tore straight up to her waist.
"Maybe… you should get changed first."
She looked up and saw that Inuyasha was finally looking away from her – pointedly away, staring with a red face toward the ceiling. Looking down at herself again, she realized she was closer to being unclothed than not, and quickly scrambled to get out of bed. She remembered this time that she was still wearing off from whatever Hojo had put in her drink, and slowly pulled over her computer chair to use that and wheel herself to the closet. She quickly dug out some sleeping shorts and a tee-shirt, yanking them on and pulling the dress off through the head hole of the shirt. There wasn't much left to it, so the task wasn't completely impossible. She threw it in the direction of her wastebasket and clapped her hands together.
"Okay! Done."
The hanyou finally let his gaze lower back down and cleared his throat. He caught sight of the red dress hanging out of her wastebasket and seethed under his breath, closing his eyes briefly as he imagined scenting out that fucking kid and ripping his throat out from the inside; Kagome interrupted his thought with a light press of her hand, wheeling over to be next to him.
"Hey."
He opened his eyes and caught hers, melting in them right away. Taking her hand, he sighed.
"Sorry, Kagome."
He lovingly touched her cheek, then stood, taking her effortlessly into his arms as he did so. Cradling her to his chest, he headed down to the kitchen to show her what he had been doing earlier –
Trying his damn best, as it was, to understand her modern kitchen. Across the counter tops lay several noodle cups, some open, some shut, and a kettle mysteriously standing alone in the center of the oven, burners mercifully off.
"Er, no, I see what you did." She surveyed the scene with amusement, "This is an electric kettle, Inuyasha." She giggled as he set her down and helped her over to the counter. "Let me show you… why don't you go ahead and pick out a few flavours. You can have as many as you want."
He beamed, eyeing all of them. A few moments later, the kitchen was warm with the scent of seven separate ramen flavours spread between them and the sound of their voices as they filled each other in on the years behind.