A.N.

To steal the lines from a song, Help I'm alive. In the last two days alone, my sister was taken to the hospital with something potentially fatal (She should be fine now though), and my husband nearly crushed himself under our car that has recently decided that it needs to audition for Stephen King's Christine. And these are not even the most serious things to happen in the past few months.

But! I am moving forward, I will have by ReverseBang fic up this weekend, and the next chapter of The Art of Falling in Tandem SHOULD be out by Christmas.

If the invading squirrels do not kill me first.

To D_Chelyst; HAPPY BIRTHDAY! You were one of the first people to reach out to me, and you've been so supportive this past year-thank you! This is our year. We made it, even when we thought we wouldn't get this far. We are strong! Independent! We have our mental health out of Code Red range! We are going to overcome all obstacles and-

We are going to curl up under a pile of blankets and pets and read fanfiction, which isn't a bad place to be.

Have a good day, and give Q and B an extra smooch from me!

A sweaty sock was tossed across the room to make way for the arcane symbol being scribbled in burnt orange pastel. It wasn't exactly the called-for white chalk, but it had been left on a desk for a week, and Inuyasha wasn't about to spend his money on something he was only going to use once.

He squinted at the battered book, wanting to make sure he got the curl at the end to point the right way. He'd never tried summoning a demon before, but he knew enough from movies that if he wasn't careful, he was likely to turn himself inside out before coating the walls of his room in his guts.

Becoming some kind of urban legend was not on his top five list of ways to die.

The circle was a little wobbly, but how did they expect a guy to draw a perfect circle, especially one far larger than a contractor could manage? It would be fine. As long as the ends connected, it shouldn't really matter. It was like cooking; a pinch, a dash-who cared if it wasn't exact?

He sat back on his heels, shoving the silver hair that had fallen around his face back over his shoulders. His heart was thumping erratically, and he knew he should get it under control before it was taken as a sign of weakness. He was already at a disadvantage being a hanyou, and he couldn't afford to be blown off-even if it would technically be a lower-level youkai that he was summoning.

Maybe it would have helped if he had set the mood better; a dorm room covered in posters, empty pizza boxes, and laundry (clean and otherwise) scattered across the landscape didn't really lend itself to the right atmosphere. A black hooded cloak definitely would have been more suitable than the red hoodie and ripped faded jeans that he currently wore.

On the other hand, maybe it could be seen as a power play. After all, why should he go to the effort of dressing up for a youkai weak enough to be summoned? If all went according to the spell he'd been given, he would quickly absorb the youkai into himself anyway.

And then he would no longer be a hanyou.

After a lifetime of people sneering and looking down their collective noses at him, he could finally be a full youkai—which, oddly enough, would make him less feared by humans, who were made nervous by the possibility of a hanyou losing control as their natures warred inside of them.

He frowned down at the last portion he'd written, not entirely satisfied. He licked his thumb and rubbed it out before trying again, pressing down harder so it would be clear against the smudge he had left behind. A glance at the window told him he was cutting it close; if he didn't hurry, the moon would move out of position.

Careful not to step on the circle, Inuyasha crossed the room to his bed, where he had left the paper with the incantation typed out. It was a little blurry in the book, so to prevent mistakes, he had copied it out phonetically, which was a stroke of genius in his opinion.

Snatching up the paper, he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath to settle himself before checking the window again. Was the moon right? It looked right. It's not like it was something that could be judged exactly. Channeling his youki, he began to read, feeling more confident as he went along. The air began to take on the faint yet somehow sharp sting of ozone, and the circle gave a few fluttering shimmers. Encouraged, he put out more energy and was rewarded with the circle bursting into a flare of blue-white light. Something began to form in the center. It was smaller than he expected and had an odd shape, but he shrugged it off as no big deal. As long as it served his purpose, the appearance was unimportant.

As the light began to fade, he was able to make out the details more clearly.

He had to do a double take.

Then a triple.

Because there, sitting in the summoning circle of his crappy dorm, was Kagome Higurashi. The same Kagome Higurashi he shared two classes with. Priestess Kagome Higurashi.

And she was completely, undeniably, buck-ass naked.

Slack-jawed and bug-eyed, his fried gray matter could only come up with, 'It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno,' a thought he would have smacked himself for if not for being distracted by the way her panicked blue eyes darted around the room before finally landing on him. As they narrowed, power began to crackle around her, and he gulped, his ears attempting to burrow themselves into his skull.

He probably would have been safer with the youkai.