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That first night together could best be described as awkward.

Inuyasha led Kagome off of the dusty road and into the thick foliage around it. He knew exactly where he was going as he headed for the clearing he’d been resting in before he had heard the girls call. Of course he didn’t mention any of this to Kagome. Instead, he just turned off the road suddenly and walked quickly through the trees, and if that made the little priestess think twice about following a demon into dense and unfamiliar woods, and she decided to turn back, all the better for him.

He was to be disappointed. Kagome didn’t spare a second thought about following Inuyasha. She might have just met him, but, half demon or not, any good priestess could tell evil when she looked at it. Inuyasha was definitely not evil. Although it seemed his emotions were a bit too complicated to read easily, and she knew she would need time to sort him out, there was no obvious darkness in him. Mostly what she sensed was severe annoyance, although she didn’t need to be a priestess to tell when that hanyou was annoyed. In fact, all she needed to do was be there, whenever or wherever, as he was always annoyed.

Still, irritated is not evil, and so Kagome followed after the half demon completely blindly, not even keeping track of where he was leading her, and trusting that he wouldn’t steer her wrong.

Sure enough, the pair only walked for a few minutes before the undergrowth parted to reveal a wide clearing, complete with a small stream, and a log which served as a bench. Kagome sat herself on it immediately, glad to be somewhere where she wasn’t being snagged by shrubbery or set upon by bandits. It was only then she noticed a red rumple on the ground near her feet. Picking it up, she realized it was a red haori, which just happened to match exactly with the red hakama her rescuer was wearing. He must have known the clearing was there, because he had been there before.

The hanyou, Inuyasha, was determinedly looking everywhere but at her, so determinedly in fact that he had yet to notice that she was clutching his own forgotten clothing. Kagome could feel uneasiness in the air around him, between them, and it was making her very uncomfortable.

Shifting awkwardly on her log, haori still in hand, she decided to try to make conversation with the would-be hero.

Toying restlessly with a damp spot on the garment, she finally spoke up.

“Is this thing yours?” she asked him, only then recognizing the stupidity of the question, and hoping he hadn’t caught on to it.

Inuyasha finally looked at her. Well, he quirked an eyebrow in her general direction.

“No, wench, it fell off a haori tree, and it just happens to match me,” he growled, snatching it back.

“Right,” she muttered quietly, looking down at her hands that the wet spot on the cloth had dampened.

They were stained red with blood.

A sharp intake of breath caught the half demon’s attention, and he, finally, looked his companion in the face. Her expression, though a vain attempt at calm, was tinged with nerves.

“Something wrong?” Inuyasha asked automatically, quickly adding a “not that I really care or nuthin’,” at the end.

“There’s…um…some blood on your haori,” the priestess answered meekly. She tried to keep her face and voice blank as she wondered why a supposed good guy would be wearing clothes covered in blood. He laughed bitterly, and though it was not a threatening sound, she swallowed impulsively anyway.

“And you’re wondering why there’s blood on my clothes, right? Did you ever think I may have killed a demon or something?”

Kagome swallowed again. She still sensed no evil in the boy before her, but he had yet to belie her suspicions, and when she responded, it was with more courage then she felt at the moment. “If there had been a demon around here, I would have been able to sense it, and the only one I felt today was a centipede demon a few hours ago, and they don’t bleed red, and that blood is fresh.”

“Well, centipedes may not bleed red, wench, but I do,” he answered gruffly, no longer looking at her. It was only then that she noticed the tear in his kimono sleeve, and the blood on the underside of it. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed it earlier.

“Oh,” she practically whispered, embarrassed by her implication.

“Yeah, oh,” Inuyasha snarled back.

“I didn’t mean too say…”

He snorted. “Of course you didn’t.”

They both fell silent, Kagome watching as he dipped the offended sleeve into the water of the stream, trying to get the blood off of it. It was several minutes before Kagome could come up with anything to say.

“Can I see it?” she asked Inuyasha, who shot her a confused and hesitant look in return.

“See what?” he asked suspiciously.

“See your wound? The one that bled all over your clothes.”

“What, still don’t believe me, wench?” he growled.

“I do so believe you!” Kagome argued. “I just thought I could help you with it. I am a priestess, after all, and I know a thing or two about treating injuries.”

Inuyasha snorted bitterly. “I don’t need any help from you, priestess!” spitting the last word like it was an obscenity.

Said priestess wasn’t bothered by that. “Oh, c’mon, just let me look at it. I want to help.”

“I don’t care what you want.”

“But it must hurt.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Just let me see it for a minute.”

“No.”

“Oh, stop being such a baby.”

“I am not being a baby!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“AM NOT!”

“Don’t yell at me, I’m just trying to help,” Kagome said, getting up and dusting herself off. “Oh, and ARE TOO!” And with that, the priestess lunged at him before he could avoid it from his position on the ground.

It didn’t work out quite like she planned. First, he tried to get up out of her way, but slipped on the damp grass and fell back into a sitting position. Before she could even laugh, Kagome found the same slippery, wet grass patch, and ended up sprawling right on top of Inuyasha. Before he could so much as open his mouth, however, Kagome had straddled his waist and, hands planted firmly on his chest to hold him down.

“Get off me, wench.”

“Sure…as soon as I see that wound.”

“No way! Now get off.”

“No!”

“Get your ass off of me!”

“Nope.”

“Get off or I’ll throw you off.”

“Sorry, pal, not gonna happen.”

Inuyasha opened his mouth to retaliate, but he was interrupted mid breath by a startled little gasp, and a tiny “Lord Inuyasha, what has gotten into you?”

Both priestess and hanyou froze, and turned their heads as one to see the source of the noise, although Inuyasha had a pretty good guess what it was.

Naturally, there on the ground beside the squabbling youths was a flea demon.

“MYOGA!” shouted Inuyasha, just as Kagome screamed “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKK, BUGGGGG!”

Before Inuyasha could stop her (Although he wasn’t completely sure he was going to try), Kagome had swatted her hand down on Inuyasha’s tiny vassal, squishing him and receiving a little “oomph” in return.

Only then did she turn to Inuyasha, whom she still had pinned to the ground.

“What’s a Myoga?” she asked him.

“That was Myoga. He’s a flea demon, and harmless, by the way.”

“Oh,” Kagome flushed. “Woopsy.”

“Yeah, I think you killed him,” Inuyasha added conversationally. “And get the hell off of me.”

Pointedly ignoring the last part, Kagome turned to the paper thin flea just in time to see him pop himself back into shape.

“No, My Lord, I’m still alive.”

“Damn,” said the hanyou.

“I’m sorry…Myga, was it?”

“Myoga, Lady priestess, and don’t think of it. Such is the life of a flea,” answered the bug, bowing gracefully. Kagome giggled, noticing that the flea demon had on tiny little clothes as well as an itsy bitsy beard, and seemed to be losing his hair, and unable to keep herself from grinning childishly at him.

“Was I…uh…interrupting something…private?” queried Myoga suggestively, bouncing his tiny brows at Inuyasha.

There went the grin.

“What do you mean?” asked Inuyasha, momentarily missing the small demon snickers emanating from his vassal.

“If you would like a little more time to…get acquainted, as it were, I would be more than happy to leave you to…it”

Inyuasha didn’t say anything, he did, however, bring his closed fist down on the flea, squashing him once again to the width of rice paper. After popping back into shape, the flea fled for his life without another word.

“Now will you get off of me?” growled Inuyasha, feeling his patience begin to stretch rather thin over his unusually short fuse.

“Only if you show me the wound,” Kagome huffed, crossing her arms with resolve. Inuyasha growled, but he couldn’t throw her off and risk actually hurting her. As much as he disliked her, he simply didn’t have it in him to attack a helpless girl. He raised his right arm and held the back of his hand to his chest so that she could see the wound winding down his fore arm. Without another word, Kagome slid to the ground, allowing him to sit up, and grabbed the arm, gently but firmly, looking extremely pleased with herself.

Once she had hold of Inuyasha’s arm and trusted that he wouldn’t pull it back the second she let him go, Kagome looked more closely at the wound and grimaced. The cut was longer than his hand, starting at the underside of his wrist and snaking up almost to his elbow.

“Ow,” she said sympathetically. Inuyasha only snorted, but he didn’t pull his arm back for fear of getting trampled all over again. “Why didn’t you bandage that?”

“And where do you propose I should have gotten the bandages from?”

“Oh, right. Well, I can fix this up for you easily enough.”

“Feh, no thanks. I told you I don’t need your help.”

“Well, fine, we can just stay like this until you change your mind. It’s fine by me. I can wait.” With that she climbed back on top of him before he could stop her, and sat there with her arms crossed over her chest.

Inuyasha shot her his severest, scariest glare, which she met with equal resolve, until, defeated, he sighed and nodded.

Trying to hide her immense self satisfaction, Kagome once again freed the agitated youth, and took hold of the bloodied arm. She ran her fingers gently down the side of the injury, brushing the wound slightly and catching Inuyasha’s wince as she did so.

“Sorry,” she grimaced hastily, her touch lightened by sympathy. Without another word, Kagome stuck her hands into her pack, feeling around the bottom for a couple of jars of ointment and a roll of bandages, and extricating the items from her bag.

The first jar she opened was full of a gel-like purple substance, which stung brutally as she applied it. Inuyasha drew breath sharply through his teeth in a hiss, and Kagome grimaced.

“I know, I know, it stings. I hate it too, but it’ll help clean the wound and speed the healing process. Sorry it hurts.”

“Ha,” snapped Inuyasha in response. “Its nuthin’, just caught me by surprise is all. And I don’t need any help with the healing, thanks. Half demons heal fast on their own, I won’t even have a scar,” he added smugly.

“That’s good then,” said Kagome distractedly, as she capped the first jar and pried the lid of the other. The second jar contained a salve the general consistency of paste and a sickly green color. This one she spread over the wound gently.

The sensation was immediate. It started as a gentle and comfortable cooling, and then the pain in Inuyasha’s arm simply faded away into no more than a dull ache. “What is that stuff?” he asked her trying to mask his awe.

“Just an herb salve. It’s supposed to help with pain. Is it working?”

“Um…yeah, it’s working, but it didn’t really hurt so much to begin with.”

“Well, you still don’t need to feel it if it hurts, do you?” she answered as she began to wrap the cloth bandages around his arm with as much care as she possibly could, which was a considerable amount. Her ministrations didn’t seem to cause the boy any pain, though, as he simply watched with mild interest as she ripped an end in the bandages and tucked it firmly into an older layer.

“There, that should do it.”

“You know, I didn’t really need this. You should save this stuff for yourself. Unlike you, I’m not a weakling human.”

Kagome shrugged as she replaced the items in her bag. “Well, the salves are easy enough to make, and I’m sure we can get more bandages without too much trouble. Besides, you seem human enough to me.”

“Oh, I do, do I?” Inuyasha retorted, raising his hackles again. “Well, wench, I’m not human.”

“You’re half human, I thought,” answered Kagome curiously.

“Yeah, but I’m also half demon. You’d do well not to forget that.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s very important,” said Kagome with another shrug of her shoulder. “You’re human where it counts.”

“And where is that?” Inuyasha snarled.

“Maybe I’ll tell you later. Now, I think we ought to eat something, 'cause it’s getting late.”

With that last comment, Kagome rose to her feet and walked around the clearing grabbing sticks and low branches, it took Inuyasha a moment to see what she was doing, but he soon realized that she was planning to make a fire to cook over. A glance at the heavens, which, in the western sky had begun to take on varying hues of pinks and oranges, he could see that the girl had been right about the growing hour. Rising to his feet, he wandered over to her to help, absently picking at the bandages around his arm.

“Stop picking them,” said Kagome with a quick glance at him.

“I wasn’t picking,” he snapped back, quickly removing his hand from the seam of the cloth wrapping.

“Sure, you weren’t,” muttered Kagome quietly, smiling to herself. The hanyou, clearly having heard her but determined to pretend he hadn’t, scoffed and stomped off into the woods. Kagome wasn’t worried, and sure enough, he came back with a dead rabbit in one hand, grumbling even more loudly than he had before.

He might think that being stuck with her for two weeks was just about the worst thing that could’ve happened, and judging from his expression, he was thinking just that, Kagome, however, could imagine far worse fates than being trapped with the handsome, though admittedly irritable young man who sat across from her, his back resting against the tree. Difficult as Inuyasha seemed, she couldn’t shake the strong feeling that having met him was a good thing.

* * *

Many miles from there, a woman by the name of Midoriko sat in a room, staring avidly into what appeared to be a simple water basin, a smile curling her lips upwards. Everything was going exactly as it should. Sure the two youths were sniping at each other, but they had weeks ahead of them to learn to get along, and she had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be so big a problem as she had assumed.

Erasing the image, Midoriko set down the basin and lay back on the mattress with a sigh, hands supporting her head. She knew that if the two ever found out how she had played with them, they would be furious with her, and she knew that them finding out was inevitable. All she could do was hope that, by that time, they had already fallen so deeply in love with one another that they didn’t care.

The woman smiled to herself, repeating her justifying line in her head.

All is fair in love and war. And this happens to be a little of both.