Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Chapter 63: Easier The First Time...
“For the absolute last time, Kagome, no.”

“Just once? I promise I won’t hurt you this time.”

“Of course you won’t, cause you’re not fucking doing that again!”

Shippou snickered when Kagome made her eyes as big and liquid as she possibly could and threw in an applaudable pout before whining, “Pleeeease?”

Inuyasha looked remarkably put out before averting his face in a hurry and folding his arms over his chest, “No.”

“I’ll be your best friend,” she added in a singsong voice.

“Bitch, you already are,” he snorted and gave her a good scowl as best he could while still refusing to look directly at her. “There is no way in hell I’m getting on your back OR letting you carry me. I don’t care how much blood switched over, it’s not happening,” he enunciated the last three words deliberately.

“But I’m strong enough!” Kagome pointed out. “You said we could talk!”

“I said talk, I didn’t say anything about letting you experiment,” he finally turned back to give her the full weight of his disapproval. “Especially with what happened last time.”

She blushed slightly but lifted her chin in a defensive motion, “I’m sure I’ll be better at it this time.”

“You fell,” he shook his head and then corrected. “Actually, that’s being too nice, you sent us both slamming into the ground from a pretty good height.” And now you’re carrying my pups… “Absolutely not, Kagome,” he reiterated again.

She stuck her tongue out at him, folding her arms over her chest before she started to drop to the ground, “You’re no fun.”

Inuyasha’s hands snapped out, catching her under the arms before she completed the potentially jarring motion. Ignoring her confused look, he covered the reason for that by lifting her up against his chest, “You wanted to talk in private. Kaede-baba’s hut is hardly the place for it, even if Sango’s off bathing and Miroku’s trying to get himself maimed.”

“Oi! You can’t leave me by myself!” Shippou hopped to his feet from where he’d been sprawled out on Kagome’s unrolled sleeping bag, lazily watching Inuyasha trying to resist Kagome’s “cute face.”

Inuyasha frowned in exasperation at the little kit tugging at his leg insistently, “This is one of those adult conversations, runt. Besides, the old hag’s around somewhere and she’ll be back soon enough to keep an eye on you.”

Kagome blushed at the insinuation, but Shippou looked at him disbelievingly, “Is that all you think about? You were doing that for two weeks. Aren’t you tired of it yet?”

Inuyasha could feel Kagome’s shoulders starting to shake as she buried her face against his throat, trying her hardest not to laugh at the little kitsune. Inuyasha, however, was grinning broadly as he balanced her with one arm to crouch and pat Shippou on the head, “I think you’ll have to wait until you’re old enough to mate before you understand, runt.”

Shippou gave him a dry glare, “That’s such a bullshit answer.”

“And it’s all you get,” he ruffled the kit’s hair and rose back to his feet, resituating Kagome more securely in his arms. “Keep an eye on things for me here, Shippou. Kagome and I do need to have a serious talk about what that sonofabitch said to her.”

Shippou looked torn between pride that Inuyasha would assign him something so important and irritation that he couldn’t go too. He finally sighed and turned his back, folding his arms over his chest, “You’d better be back by the time I wake up.”

Inuyasha’s lips twitched in amusement, but he nodded, “We’ll be back after the sun rises.”

Before the kitsune could make a rejoinder to that, the hanyou had turned and left the hut, tightening his hold on Kagome enough that she looked up in slight confusion, “Inuyasha?”

“Let’s see what you can do,” he smirked, the muscles in his legs bunching as he sprang forward towards the woods.

“That’s not fair!” Kagome gasped out sharply, tangling her hands in his sleeves and glaring up at him in supreme annoyance. “Why can you see what you can do with my blood and I can’t play with yours?”

“Because I’m your mate and I’m the male,” he responded with distracted arrogance, the matter-of-fact tone revealing just how deeply ingrained that annoying instinct was. ‘Besides, I’m not the one breeding, and this is the perfect way for me to test out just what your limits are, bitch.’

“You’re an ass.”

“That may be, but I’m an ass with a mate whose healthy, strong, and staying that way,” he chided, giving her an affectionate squeeze before frowning in concentration as he meticulously tested her speed and endurance. Smirking in satisfaction at feeling her blood respond, not nearly as fast or strong as his own blood, but still impressive and more than enough for his chest to puff out proudly. When he was certain he’d adequately tested that physical side of the blood, he moved his focus deeper to check her senses, ‘What other youkai has the chance to know first hand what their bitch is capable of? And even if I can’t feel her the right way, I’ll still know if she’s pushing herself too hard.’

Kagome snorted, reaching up to yank on his hair when she sensed his attention wandering away from her, “Inuyasha, it’s hardly entirely up to you whether I’m healthy or not.”

He glanced down at her, jumping up into the nearest tree and coming to a halt, “Of course it is.”

She rolled her eyes and squirmed to be set down, “Whatever… I’m letting this slide for now, because I’m not in the mood to argue with you over this tonight. We have better things to talk about.”

Inuyasha’s brows rose at that, his complete attention returning to her once he was fully satisfied and certain he knew her blood’s abilities inside and out, “Better things? That’s not exactly the feeling I get after those fuck-ups have been having fun racing around in your head.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Inuyasha, I still intend to beat the shit out of whoever it is, but… well, this time it was different,” she chewed on her lip, her ears flattening back in her uncertainty over how to vocalize it.

“It was that cocky fucking bastard, wasn’t it? The one who’ll let you feel part of him?” he made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, dropping down to sit with his back against the trunk before sitting her carefully in his lap facing him. His hands flexed on her waist, stroking lightly as his eyes searched hers for any anger, “What… did he say?”

Kagome squirmed a little to settle herself comfortably, wrapping her legs around his waist and taking a deep breath to try and prepare for the hanyou’s potential reaction, “Try to stay calm, Inuyasha… you’re, ah… probably not going to be happy.”

Inuyasha’s eyes widened fractionally, his hands looping around her and clasping his hands at the small of her back to make sure she was tight against him before he repeated with slow deliberation, “What did he say to you, Kagome?” ‘Dear gods, don’t let there still be something he can still do about the connection! We fucking fixed it and she’s mine! He said there was a time limit and it’s long since past…’

She reached up and started stroking her hands through his hair soothingly, a low rumbling purr starting in her chest in a further effort to calm him, “He wanted to talk to me about you. And about the spell.”

“About me?” his brows lowered in confusion.

Kagome squeezed her eyes shut and hurried out before she could think too much about his possible reaction, “He lied about the spell.”

There was a very long, very thick moment of silence while Kagome could feel the slow tightening of Inuyasha’s muscles everywhere they touched, and his heartbeat gaining speed long before he finally gritted out, “What?”

Her ears flattened again and she shifted forward to hide her face against his throat, wrapping her arms around his neck and trying to soothe his twitching back, “We haven’t been able to be disconnected for a long time, Inuyasha… He told me that if they tried, it would have killed me. He never intended to even attempt it.”

Inuyasha’s arms wrapped around her, flattening her up against his chest as he struggled back and forth between an unimaginable wave of relief that she never would have been taken away and a sweeping sense of rage that he’d been made to think she would be, “He lied. He fucking lied?! Is this a goddamn game to them? What the fuck was he thinking?!”

Kagome felt a helpless smile teasing her lips as Inuyasha continued to fume and ramble, but at the same time held her tucked up into him gently and was alternately stroking her hair, her back, and along her thighs. It was a moment that was just so singularly Inuyasha; the gruff, angry frustration clear in everything he said and the way he held his body, but contradicting that with protective and sweet in the way he touched her as he voiced his temper.

She sighed and pressed her palms flat to his chest to lever herself up and stop the angry muttering by closing her mouth over his. Kagome could practically taste his surprise, but the sudden stiffness melted instantly as he pulled her close and turned his head to take full advantage of the impromptu kiss.

When she finally drew back, she murmured against his mouth, “I’m angry too… but would you rather it have been true?”

Inuyasha sighed, giving her another quick kiss before he admitted, “No, but still-!”

Kagome giggled, pressing a finger to his lips and sitting back to look into those azure eyes, her eyes reflected in him during the swap, “Do you want to know what else he had to say?”

He huffed and nipped at her finger, “Am I going to get pissed off?”

“Highly possible,” she chewed on her lip and admitted reluctantly.

Inuyasha reached up and lightly touched her lip to urge her away from doing even minor damage to herself and flashing her an arrogant grin, “Are you going to distract me the same way if I do?”

Kagome blinked and couldn’t help but laugh, smacking him in the chest and shaking her head, “Mou… Shippou’s right, you don’t think about anything else but sex. Is that why you were always so grumpy before?”

He shrugged and leaned back against the tree, his eyes roaming over her face leisurely, “I wasn’t grumpy. It hasn’t even been a month since we mated, and especially with everything that’s happened, I think I should be allowed to be thinking about what it feels like to be inside you.”

Her cheeks turned pink, and this time her ears flattened back for an entirely different reason as she scolded half-heartedly, “Inuyasha.”

Inuyasha chuckled, feeling supremely proud of himself when he caught the shift in her scent and much more relaxed as he urged, “What else did that asshole say? Why did he lie about the spell like that?”

She made a face, “He said he was testing you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Inuyasha grumbled sourly.

Kagome sighed, fidgeting with the strands of his hair that had fallen over his shoulder to pool in his lap, “It was confusing... He said that he knew how I felt, that I preferred being like this, but he was never sure about you, if you cared whether I wanted to be this way or not. He thought you would take it for granted if he didn’t make you think it could go back to what it was like before.”

Inuyasha wasn’t looking particularly happy with that explanation, his eyes showing the offense he felt while he set his jaw and tried not to let it carry into his expression, “Anything else?”

She lifted a hand to stroke his cheek, a low rumble starting in her chest as she instinctively sought to soothe him, “Inuyasha, he even had questions… He said that he did it to settle his mind about if I would have become human again.”

“You just said he knew you preferred being a youkai,” he pointed out in confusion.

Kagome shrugged, “Preferring it and living it are different. Everything… everything has to be different now.”

When her ears flattened back and her voice filled with that uncertain, almost “little girl” quality, Inuyasha pushed aside his agitation with the youkai to reach out and pull her down against his chest. He tucked her head under his chin, folding his legs around her, and stroking her hair, “Oi… You don’t have to worry about that, Kagome. It’s different, but I’ll be right here the whole time.” We’ll take care of you… the pups and me… It won’t be a bad life, Kagome; we’ll be a family.

Kagome closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, but making a face at the scent that was off under the moon’s influence, That’s the only bad thing about this damn swapping… I can’t smell him the way I want to. She pushed that thought out of her mind, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting him calm her doubts, “He didn’t think you’d tell me about what he’d said. His excuse was that he ‘handled’ the question before it had a chance to turn into an issue… well, that and satisfying his own curiosity.”

Inuyasha blinked, his hands pausing on her as what she’d just said actually clicked, Before it became… Good gods, he was right… As much as it galled him to admit it, even in his own mind, that soft remark had sent his imagination off on a wild run with what could have happened. They were both sure now, knowing that the spells were just how they wanted, but would either of them had stopped to think it over without the interference?

He looked down at her and couldn’t prevent the slight smile, Okay, so maybe Kagome hasn’t settled in to the barrier spell, but she’ll understand once she gets over thinking I just did it to annoy her. She didn’t hear what Naraku said to me when he had her mind…

Kagome cuddled closer, and he lifted her slightly, helping her fit her body snugly against him, Would it have hurt us? In the future? He slid his hands down her sides, discreetly squeezing when he reached her stomach and nearly jolting when that action sent the faintest glimmer of an impression in the back of his mind. Something amused…

“Kagome, did you-?” he started, only to cut himself off when her confused gaze lifted to him. It wasn’t her emotion… but that means…

Kagome blinked and slid her hands into his hair in what she hoped was a comforting manner when his hands tightened on her waist, his eyes filled with something she couldn’t quite place, “I’m okay, Inuyasha, really… It’s a lot to take in and, well, it hasn’t even been two months, but I’m not sorry it happened.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, sliding his arms around her and hauling her back up against his chest in an odd mix of force and care, I just felt my fucking pups… “I forget sometimes that it’s happened so fast,” he covered the shock that had sent warmth coursing through his entire soul, keeping her face against his throat to keep her from seeing the way his eyes had gone so impossibly soft.

“Would it cheer you up if I told you we’ve been connected since that day I first blew up at those youkai?” her ears perked against his chin, the soft fur tickling his skin.

Inuyasha’s brows shot up, his attention divided between searching for the impressions again and finding out just what Kagome meant, “What?”

She leaned back to look at his face, giving a faint growl and a nip when it seemed like he would try to keep her from sitting up. She wrinkled her nose and pressed her palm flat over his heart before she expounded on her earlier answer, “You were already in me. That’s what the voice forgot to look for that first time they got inside my head to fight. It wasn’t me they pissed off and got out of control, it was your blood already in me.”

Inuyasha’s eyes searched hers, his surprise and even confusion clearly displayed as he murmured out, “That long ago…? Wait, what do you mean it was my blood?”

“Apparently you have more resourceful blood than I do,” she reached up and yanked on his pointed ear. “And it wasn’t happy being inside me when it couldn’t sense a ‘claim,’ but it could feel other males in my mind,” she stuck her tongue out at him.

He couldn’t even begin to describe his relief at hearing what -to him, was a perfectly logical explanation for what had until now had always concerned him as a more sinister circumstance. The youkai had told him that he had possessive blood; hell, he didn’t bother to deny that, but this new snippet of information was remarkably good news, “You were always mine, Kagome, and you know how stubborn I am.”

Kagome made a noncommittal grunt of agreement before her lips twitched and she averted her profile to hide the wicked grin, “Must be a draw-back of old age, Inuyasha-jiji.”

“What the fuck did you just call me?!” his spine straightened as though someone had just run a steel pole through it, baring smaller fangs instinctively as his eyes blazed.

She couldn’t help but snicker, “I got a crash course in youkai aging… and the shock of my life at hearing what your blood did to mine to ‘catch up.’” She couldn’t resist lifting a hand to hide her mouth and muttering under her breath “cradle-robber.”

Inuyasha’s eyebrow started to twitch, “You disrespectful bitch. I ought to turn you over my knee until you-“

Kagome cut of his growling a second time, leaning up and brushing her lips across his, It worked once, after all… And by the way he relaxed into her, his hands again moving over her in long, slow strokes, she was feeling particularly smug when she moved back to give him a sultry smirk, “You have to be nice until I get better. That means no spanking.”

That comment distracted him from the first response that sprang to mind, instead sending a shiver of renewed fear through his stomach as he demanded, “Get better? Bitch, when the fuck did you get sick?!”

Now she looked confused, her head tilting to one side as her ears perked in a way he found impossibly adorable, “You already know, don’t you? The youkai said I would be sleeping more now that the spell’s closing off and he said with my ‘condition.’ That’s why you’ve been so bitchy about what I’m eating, isn’t it?”

“The spell’s closing off?” his eyes brightened even as his mind worked furiously to figure out how to keep her from getting suspicious. Why the youkai had kept her pregnancy secret when he seemed to take great delight in revealing everything else was completely beyond him, however, he couldn’t say he was complaining. He was still trying to figure out the best way to inform Kagome before she realized where the fluttering impressions were coming from… or the more physical indications, he thought with a quick glance at her breasts.

“Your blood didn’t like that being wide open,” she reached up to tug on her own ear with an annoyed expression. “He said the other time we swapped it started to close, but this time it knows what to look for. None of the voices will be able to get back in after the next new moon.”

“It’s about fucking time,” he gently took her hand away when she yanked and rubbed the abused appendage with expert strokes. “What about your little leech impression? That’s going away too, right?”

Kagome fidgeted slightly, “Not… exactly…”

One eyebrow quirked up in suppressed annoyance, “Kagome…”

“It won’t be as bad though,” she had no idea why she felt the sudden need to reassure him, but it was there all the same. “And it’s not like you intend to let me out of this thing… I don’t lose control the same way,” she made a face that clearly displayed her annoyance, but ducked her head to keep him from seeing the way the corners of her lips kicked up.

She wouldn’t admit it to him out loud if her life depended on it just yet, but she had come up with a plan… Actually, she couldn’t really take all the credit; it had more or less just popped in there when her head had finally cleared after that embarrassing week of attacking Inuyasha. But it had still been more than enough to soothe her ruffled instincts. Now she simply had to bide her time for the perfect opportunity, Don’t get rid of it yet, Inuyasha… Not until I’m done with it.

“Damn right,” Inuyasha was muttering, lifting his finger to trace over the red line. “I’m not risking you getting too far away when you can still draw off youkai.”

Kagome couldn’t resist ducking her head and chomping down on his finger at the arrogance in his voice, “You’re being an ass again.”

He yelped and gave her a swat on the backside, a scolding growl starting in his throat even as his eyes lit with amusement, “I hope you don’t have any more to hang on me about that fucking voice, koi…”

She blinked, distracted from the way he’d ignored her earlier “no spanking” remark by the look in his eyes and the way his touch suddenly changed from secure and comforting to possessive and languid. She couldn’t stop the pink that touched her cheeks or the slight shiver that went through her as the tattoo pulsed and warmed, “I… think that’s all… Why?”

Inuyasha slid his hand into the back of her hair and pulled her down closer, “See… there’s this thing I’ve wanted to do to you… since the last new moon.”

Kagome sucked in a breath, her heartbeat accelerating as her fingers tangled in the ends of his hair as her eyes darted around to the slowly lightening sky, “But the night’s almost over.”

His lips kicked up as he scooted back more securely against the trunk of the tree, the hand not in her hair skimming down to the hem of the plain sleeping kimono he’d dressed her in at Kaede’s, “That’s just about right then.”

Her hands snapped down to catch his wrist, swallowing as her ears flattened back, “Just right for what?”

Inuyasha’s smirk was hopelessly arrogant as he moved both hands down to grip her hips, “I have the perfect idea for what we should be doing when the sun comes up.”

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