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He hadn’t meant to find it. He really hadn’t.
What ever it was.
He’d been looking in her bag for some ramen; that was all. He’d just wanted a little lunch; that was all he wanted—he swore it was.
So why was he sitting with Kagome, who was currently holding that thing that he’d found in her bag (that he also hadn’t really meant to open, but he was curious, okay?), the color of her face so red he wondered if it was going to stay that way, the embarrassment radiating off her in waves.
All because she was holding what looked like a little towel—like, a pretty tiny fucking towel—wrapped around a string that dangled from her fingertips?
“And—just exactly how did you find this again, Inuyasha?” Kagome asked, a tremble in her voice.
“I—I—” Inuyasha felt like shit that she felt like shit, but whatever it was, he didn’t know that it would make her so nervous. “I was looking for ramen, and I found that box, and I didn’t know the word on it, so I thought it was food,” he explained, the hesitation clear in his voice. “And it was all these wrapped little things, and I thought it was like those...those lollipops? That you get for Shippō. So I opened it. And then it was in this case, and I thought it pushed up? Because you’ve gotten those for Shippō before, too. And...and then that popped out. And I realized that it wasn’t food...so, yeah,” he finished. “What...what is it, ‘Gome?”
Kagome let out a long, shuddering sigh, like she was preparing herself for a big, deep conversation, one that was going to freak Inuyasha out. His eyes grew big, and they both looked down at the thing Kagome was holding her in her hand, still hanging by its string.
Adorable artwork by kalcia
“Inuyasha,” she said slowly, drawing out the syllables of his name, “this? This is a tampon.”
“A... tam-pon?” He tried out the word; it felt strange rolling over his tongue. “And what the fuck is a tam-pon?”
“Well,” she said, her voice quavering, “promise not to freak out?”
Oh, now he was absolutely gonna freak out.
“So…” Kagome began, looking for all the world like she actually didn’t know how to begin, “when a girl gets to a...certain age...maybe around 12 or 13 or so...her body tells her it’s time to start practicing making a baby.”
“Wait, what?” Inuyasha was aghast. Kagome was 18; she said "12 or 13". So did that mean that…
“I said practice, Inuyasha,” Kagome sighed, “not actually make a baby...well, hopefully not, anyway.”
“Now I’m confused,” he replied.
“Do you know how babies are made?” she asked him.
“Well, kind of?” he said, flashing back to what the bouzu had told him about how babies were made. “I mean, a man puts his…”
“Okay, yeah, you know that part,” she said hurriedly. “But from the woman’s side, every month, her body prepares to make a baby, and if a man doesn’t...you know…” she said, blushing again, “then her body stops preparing, and waits to start again the next month.”
“So then how does she ‘prepare’ to make a baby?” he asked.
“A woman has what are called eggs in her body,” Kagome explained, “here—” she pointed about to where her right ovary would be “—and here—” now she pointed to the left one. “And once a month, her body releases one egg. It goes into her lower stomach, into something called her uterus. And her uterus is where the baby will be made. The uterus builds up a lining to prepare to carry the baby. And if the woman doesn’t...you know...with a man, then her body gets rid of the egg, and the lining.”
“How does it do that?” Inuyasha asked. “Does it come out her…”
“Oh god, no!” Kagome shouted, afraid of what he was going to say. “It comes out down there, yes, but from another...place.”
“How many ‘places’ does a woman got down there?” Inuyasha asked interestedly, forgetting to be embarrassed.
“Technically three,” Kagome murmured, her face crimson again.
Fuck. He was making her nervous.
“So tell me about the thing,” he said, nodding towards the tam-pon.
Kagome sighed, glad to change the subject. “We call getting rid of the egg and the lining menstruation. We also call it getting our period, Aunt Flo coming to visit, surfing the crimson wave…”
“I got it; lots of names.” He didn’t have time to hear them all.
“Right,” she said. “So when women menstruate, they use something to catch the blood and the tissue flow.”
“Wait, you bleed?” And now he was starting to freak out. Kagome bled, regularly? Once a month? What the fuck? How had he not known?
Okay, so he had totally detected that she smelled delicious at certain times of the month, but he also noticed that she was gone at other times of the month, as well. She always seemed to leave, and come back, around the same time, but he had never noticed the scent of blood on her. Kagome always smelled clean, like vanilla and fresh sakura—and sometimes that scent was heightened, to the point where it made him dizzy.
But blood? Never blood.
“Yes,” she said quickly, “and it is nothing to freak out about. It’s totally natural, and it means that my body is doing what it’s supposed to do, okay?"
“O—okay,” he said, looking for all the world like it was not okay.
“Inuyasha,” Kagome sighed, reaching forward and taking his hand in her free one. He shivered at her touch. “This is all natural, okay? I’ve been going home so that you didn’t worry when I menstruated, but I can’t keep doing that forever. At some point, I will be here when my cycle starts, and I need you to understand that I am okay. I will use tampons, and I have pads to catch the blood at night, but you are gonna smell it. But remember: I am okay.”
“Kagome.” His golden eyes caught her brown ones, and she blushed. “So this...menstruation...thing...it means that you can have babies?”
She blushed harder. “Yes,” she whispered, “it does.”
He didn’t know how he felt about that information—weird, and tingly, like maybe Kagome being able to have babies wasn’t such a bad thing—that maybe it was a good thing. He suddenly saw her, a baby cradled to her breast: a baby with dark hair and dog ears and golden eyes, and just as quickly as that thought came into his mind, he immediately pushed it out. Instead, he focused on the feelings of protectiveness washing over him—protectiveness, and also, a little bit of jealousy—he suddenly really hated Kōga, and the bouzu wasn’t looking too great either. And that Hobo kid, when she went home? Fuck.
“And if you’re bleeding…” One more question; he couldn’t help it. “Does that mean that it hurts?”
“That it...that it hurts?” Her face twisted slightly.
“Ye—yeah,” he whispered.
To his surprise (and insane relief), Kagome smiled. “Sometimes, yes, Inuyasha,” she said softly. “Sometimes it hurts a lot. My back will hurt, so will my stomach, and I get tired easily. Sometimes, I really feel like I am sick. So that’s another reason I go home: I rest, lay down, take a hot bath...whatever I can do to ease the pain and help myself feel better.”
“So this thing that means that you can have babies,” he said, trying to understand, “you’ve been leaving and going home because it hurts, and you didn’t want me to see you hurting, or smell your blood?”
“Yes.” Her voice was very small.
Before he knew what he was doing, Inuyasha had pulled Kagome into his lap, and was circling her with his arms. His face was buried in her hair; all he could smell, all he could feel, was her.
“Then,” he vowed, “if you get this...menstruation...thing when you’re with me, I’ll be the one to take care of you. Okay? Me. I’ll look out for you.”
Kagome snuggled into him, but giggled quietly. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll probably just have Kirara take me to Kaede’s until it passes. This way I’m not a distraction or anything.”
“Does Sango have this happen to her, too?” Inuyasha asked suddenly.
“Yes, Inuyasha,” Kagome replied, “Sango does.”
“How come I never smell it?” he asked.
“Are you smelling Sango?” she replied teasingly.
“Fuck no!” he shouted, then hugged her close when she winced a little. “I mean, fuck no,” he said in a quieter voice. “You—you’re the only woman whose scent I want to know.” Now his voice was quiet, soft, reserved.
Kagome wiggled around in his lap so she was facing him. She reached up and massaged his ears; his chest rumbled pleasantly as he leaned into her sweet touch. Their foreheads touched, and Kagome could see the care and concern reflected in his eyes.
“Thank you,” Kagome breathed, dropping his ears and cupping his cheeks, “thank you for understanding, and for wanting to protect me and take care of me.”
“Of course,” he said immediately, “how could I not want to do those things?”
Kagome couldn’t help it; she leaned forward and gently pressed his lips to hers. Inuyasha growled appreciatively as her lips, soft and sweet and serene, brushed his. His heart sang, and leapt, and nearly burst with the joy of finally feeling her against him. He pulled her to him, deepening the kiss, and vowing once again that, no matter what, he would protect her with his life.
He could smell her before she even awoke.
The others had gone in search of some breakfast; Miroku and Inuyasha had been teaching Shippō how to hunt, and they were taking turns. It was supposed to be Inuyasha’s morning to do it, but the night before, he’d begged the monk to take the kitsune, because he knew that something wasn’t right with Kagome, and that he wasn’t going to be able to tear himself away from her for even a second. Sango had offered to sit with her, but he’d growled loudly at her too, so he wasn’t surprised to see that she had left with Miroku and Shippō, and taken Kirara with her. And Inuyasha was damn fucking glad that he had decided to stay behind.
Because, yes, he could scent her blood; but, even more than that: he could scent her discomfort, her pain, her exhaustion, like she hadn’t just slept a solid eight hours. Kagome had complained of being tired the night before, which she never did, and so Inuyasha’s instincts had gone into full “protect Kagome” mode. He rolled out her sleeping bag, close to the fire, and made her lay down early. He shooed Shippō away from her, telling the kitsune that Kagome was tired, and he didn’t want the damn runt kicking her or trying to disturb her sleep in any way. Shippō had huffed, and puffed, but eventually went to sleep with Kirara when he saw that Kagome was having trouble keeping her eyes open.
Kagome had insisted that Inuyasha didn’t need to watch over her, but like he would ever listen to her. Instead, he sat beside her all night, running his claws through her hair, making her feel safe, and warm, and comforted. Because he could already detect that something wasn’t right with her, that something wasn’t Kagome. And he was worried.
Somewhere during the night, he’d fallen asleep. Somewhere during the night, he’d drifted off, shirked his duty—he was supposed to be watching her, for fuck’s sake, not sleeping on the job. So when the scent of her blood, of her pain, assuaged his nose, his eyes shot open, and immediately he began checking her over—carefully, of course, because she was asleep —and with a start he’d realized that she was bleeding, that she was in pain, but also, in the same moment, he realized:
Kagome was menstruating. The thing that she had told him about.
This meant that Kagome could have a baby.
But it also meant that...Kagome was in pain.
Frantically, Inuyasha searched his brain, trying to think about what she had told him the day before. She was bleeding, yes, discharging the tissue her body had stored to make a baby. That was all the body shit he didn’t really care about at the moment...not unless they decided to make a baby, of course (and fuck, they’d only kissed a few times...babies were nowhere near on the horizon...yet). What else had she told him?
Back pain. Stomach pain. Sickness.
Laying down. Hot baths.
Got it.
“Inu—Inuyasha?” said Kagome wearily, rolling onto her back to see him looking down at her anxiously, his ears wiggling at her as he took in her heartbeat, her breathing, her soft grunts and sighs as she struggled to get comfortable. Her breathing sounded labored; not like its usual self. His instincts were again screaming that she needed to be protected, to be cared for—that she was sick, hurt—but he repeated the word menstruation, over and over, in his mind, until he calmed down.
“Ya need to rest, ‘Gome,” he said, gently tucking the sleeping bag up around her and pushing her back down when she tried to get up. “You’re...you’re...doin’ that thing right now.”
“How—how did you know?” she asked, but then her face flushed (so adorably, he thought). “Oh,” she added, her voice no more than a whisper.
“It’s okay!” he said frantically. “You’re hurting, and you don’t feel well. You need to lay down. You—you told me that when you...menstruate...you have back pain, and your stomach hurts, and that you like to rest.”
“I do,” Kagome said, “but I also have things that I need to do.”
“Like—like what?” he asked, confused.
“Like remember the thing you found in my backpack?” she asked. “The tampon?”
Like he could fucking forget that.
“Well,” she continued, “I need to go and put one in, so that it soaks up the blood, and I need to clean up my clothes, because I bled through them.”
“You...you what?” How horrifying was this menstruation thing?
“If I don’t catch it in time—” Kagome’s voice was getting testy, and Inuyasha had to bite back a growl (she doesn’t feel well, he reminded himself) “—then I bleed through my clothes, and they need to be washed.”
“Holy fuck!” He couldn’t believe it. Was there that much blood? He got to his knees, unzipped the sleeping bag, then lifted her up into his arms.
“Inuyasha!” she protested. “You can put me down!”
“Not a chance in all the hells, woman,” he growled. “We gotta get you cleaned up, before everyone else comes back.” He grabbed her backpack, Kagome still protesting in his hold. He paused, and sniffed the air.
“Ya said that a hot bath makes you feel better, right?” he asked her. When she nodded, he growled. “There’s a hot spring not too far from here, okay? You’re gonna soak, while I clean ya up.”
“Oh, Inuyasha,” Kagome said weakly, wincing and clutching at her stomach, “I don’t want you to have to do that.”
“But you need me right now, ‘Gome,” he told her, “and I want to take care of you. So that means taking care of you. Doing the things that you need, to help you feel better. And you told me: hot baths, laying down, resting. So, that’s what we’re gonna do.”
He saw her open her mouth to protest, but she apparently thought better of it, because she closed her mouth again and rested her head against her chest. He could hear her breath catching, could feel her body tightening with the pain, and his heart clenched.
He...he needed to get her comfortable. And fast.
Inuyasha grabbed her backpack, and took off for the hot spring, telling her not to worry, that Miroku and Sango would be back soon and would take care of everything, including her sleeping bag. When Kagome protested again, he ignored her, and raced through the woods, in the direction of the sulfuric watery scents, looking to get Kagome to safety and security as soon as possible.
The hot spring was, fortunately, only a short distance away, and Inuyasha set Kagome down at the edge. He held out her backpack to her and stood there, expectantly, waiting for her to...well, for her to get undressed and get in the spring, dammit!
“Inuyasha.” Her voice was tinged with pain, and he caught her around the waist as she wavered where she stood. “I—I need to get undressed, you know.”
“Of course I fucking know that.” He wasn’t stupid. But he also wasn’t going to leave her alone while she was bleeding and in pain.
“Then you have to also know that I need privacy.” There was that testy edge to her voice, rounding out the pain to make a tone that caused him to whine and his ears to lay back flat against his head. What the fuck was wrong with her? Didn’t she realize that he was trying to help?
“I—I just don’t want you to be alone, is all.” His ears drooped; he was sure that his face had fallen.
Kagome’s eyes immediately became soft and tender. “Oh, Inuyasha,” she sighed, reaching up and massaging one ear, “I’ll be all right for a minute. I promise. And you can come back when I’m in the spring, okay?”
“O—okay.” He didn’t like it. But he would do it.
He stepped behind a rock and allowed Kagome to undress. He could hear her wincing as she removed her skirt, but he bit back a growl and let her have her privacy. When at last he heard her slide into the water, a sigh escaped her lips, and only then did he allow himself to relax.
“I’m okay!” she called, and he stepped out from behind the rock, and saw her, leaning back against the edge of the pool, a look of relief crossing her face. He allowed himself to momentarily relax as the scent of her blood and her pain was masked by the hot spring...or was it... no.
No...her clothes...her clothes smelled like blood.
Inuyasha rushed over to the pile of clothes that Kagome had left next to the spring. Kagome opened her eyes, and turned her head to look at him. “Those are my dirty clothes,” she said, her face flushed—from the heat of the spring or from embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. “Please...please don’t touch them. I’ll...I clean them up later.”
“Not a chance in all the hells,” he told her, reaching out and cupping her cheek; when she closed her eyes and nuzzled him, he felt his heart beat out of rhythm. It felt...so fucking good...taking care of her when she felt like this. Why had she wanted to hide her menstruation from him? Was she afraid to seem weak? Was she afraid of the smell? Because the smell was Kagome, and as long as she wasn’t bleeding because she was wounded...as long as she was bleeding because she could have babies…he was kind of okay with that.
Besides, it also meant that he got to take care of her, and for once, Kagome would let him take care of her. He liked that.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed, gathering up the clothes and going to the opposite end of the spring, “I’ll take care of them for you.” And he did. While Kagome soaked in the spring, Inuyasha scrubbed at her underwear and her skirt. The water from the spring got the blood out surprisingly quickly, and Inuyasha soon had all her clothes washed, and spread out on rocks to dry as she rested. He kept one eye and one ear fixed on her at all times, his other eye watching the washing, his other ear listening for any rogue youkai (or worse yet, Kōga ), so that if need be, he could get Kagome out of there, fast.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, Kagome called out to him, and in an instant he was back by her side. “What do you need, ‘Gome?” he asked, dropping down to his knees and smoothing her hair back.
“I think I feel a little bit better,” she sighed. “I think I’m ready to get out.”
“Got it.” He went back to the backpack, dug out a change of clothes and a towel, and brought them back to her. He set them on the ledge next to her, and crouched down on his haunches, watching her expectantly. When she seemed hesitant, his ears wiggled at her, and she giggled a bit in response.
“Thank you,” she said, “but I also need—I need a—a—” Her face was definitely red this time.
“What else do you need?” Anything. I’ll get you anything.
“A—a tampon,” she choked out at last. “And I have some very thin pads in the same box. One of each, please, Inuyasha.”
He rifled through her bag and found what she wanted, and placed them on the ledge beside her, then squatted down and picked up the towel.
“I promise not to look,” he said, “but I wanna help you out. Is that okay?” He was so fucking worried she might slip and fall because she was hurting. He prayed she would agree.
“O—okay,” she replied. “But yeah, no peeking, okay?” She paused. “This isn’t...this isn’t what I imagined when I pictured you helping me out of a hot spring, I’ll be honest.”
“No?” There it was again; his heart was doing that weird pitter-pattery thing. “What did you expect?”
Kagome was quiet, and wouldn’t answer him. Inuyasha felt a rush of panic in his chest. “‘Gome?” he asked.
“I just—I thought maybe—maybe we’d be in here together,” she said in a rush. “And that maybe...maybe you would...you know...be...kissing me...and...and stuff.”
Inuyasha’s heart swelled, and he couldn’t help it; he leaned over, tilted her chin up, and captured her lips in a soft, tender kiss. “I promise,” he whispered, “when you’re better, I will bring you back here, and we’ll do everything that you want. Everything you dreamed about. Okay?”
Because, truth be told? He wanted all of that, too.
Her small nod was all he needed. He grabbed the towel, placed it right beside her, and turned his head. He held out his hand, and held her steady as she climbed out of the spring. He heard her wrap the towel around herself, then she said, “Okay.” He turned back around, and gasped at the luminous woman beside him: her dark hair piled high on her head; her brown eyes; shining with love for him; her beautiful, plush lips, curved beautifully upwards; the sumptuousness of her figure. All of her.
Inuyasha loved all of her.
“I—I need to get dressed,” she said softly, and he realized he had been staring at her, because of course, how could he not? She was so fucking beautiful. And she was his.
“Okay,” he said softly, sadly, because he had to leave her for even one second. “I’ll give ya a little space.” He turned to walk away, but a soft “Inuyasha?” caused him to pause in his movements. When he looked back, Kagome was standing close to him; she stood on tiptoe and kissed him again, pulling him close to her as she deepened the kiss. He felt a rush of electricity course through his body, and when she broke away, he was left gasping, and panting, and oh, fuck, wanting more.
But her soft voice brought his own feelings back to her in an instant. “Thank you,” she whispered, “for taking such good care of me today, when I’m not...when I’m not feeling like myself.”
Instantly he was by her side again, holding her close, stroking her hair lovingly. “Don’t you know, ‘Gome?” he said to her. “I fucking love you, and I don’t give a fuck about menstruation, or anything the fuck else. I just give a fuck about you. Because you’re my heart, my soul...you’re my everything. And I’ll do anything if it makes you safe, and happy. Anything.”
Kagome giggled and snuggled in closer to his chest. “I guess things really are changing for us, aren’t they?” she sighed, and tilted her head up for one more kiss.
“Yeah,” he said, dropping his head down to brush her lips with his, “I guess they really are.”