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It had been strange to Inuyasha, way back when, that his human mother didn’t remember any of the smells from her dreams. That was half of what his dreams were, as a dog hanyou — he’d dream he was running through his father’s gardens, or something, and know where he was ‘cause of the smell of ornate glittering pond water, with all those clinging weeds and coin-bright fish inside. The smell of his mother’s sleeves; the smell of polished floors with dirt beneath. Worms and sky, yokai nobles and steel. The world folded around him even in his sleep, with smells to draw him in and stuff to ignore.
But plenty of humans dreamt differently, Inuyasha’d heard. Mostly pictures or voices or words; mostly knowings that didn’t need the senses he knew best. Inuyasha hadn’t been able to imagine his mother’s dreams: even on human nights, he was still his own self, with his own memories, after all. His mother couldn’t even smell the blood through her own skin! Heh. Inuyasha’d laughed, when she told him about it. She could see his face in her dreams, and remember he was her little boy, but they were so different. Knowing they were different didn’t used to make Inuyasha feel far away from his mother, though. He’d been young and stupid and trusting, the way he saw things now — he’d fallen asleep slumped against his mother’s chest, feet twitching like he was running in his sleep. They were in the same pack, back then, and he hadn’t thought to imagine what it would be like alone.
Not for long.
Inuyasha’s mom had been dead for decades, now, whatever nasty mother-torturing illusions his brother Sesshoumaru tried to throw at him. It was possible Inuyasha’s dreams weren’t even completely like Sesshoumaru’s, either — he was a full yokai, without any of that messy human emotion clinging to him like mud on his feet. It was possible Inuyasha would never really be able to imagine anyone else’s dreams, and when his human traveling companions half-screamed in their sleep he could never know what they were living. Kagome. Inuyasha had been traveling with the human Kagome for months, but he felt impossibly distant from her, sometimes. What did she see, looking at him, if she couldn’t smell how eager he was to please her, how nervous and confused he got as they spoke? It was painfully obvious to Inuyasha, like there was a big sign over his head spelling it out. Like Shippo the fox spirit kid had drawn another picture book explaining it all with crayon drawings.
But Kagome didn’t seem to know. She didn’t read him, even when Inuyasha thought he was an open book. What human clues was he missing, looking at her? Maybe that was why Sango the slayer and Miroku the monk rolled their eyes and tsk-ed at him so often. Even Shippo the fox with the best crayons set in Warring States-era Japan seemed to have an easier time with Kagome’s moods than Inuyasha did. Did Kagome dream like his mother, or would he have an even harder time understanding her dreams?
Nobody needed to remind Inuyasha that he wasn’t like Kagome. She was from the future, you know, and so many of the new-fangled words she used like “bicycle” and “reality TV” and “Disneyland” hadn’t made a lick of sense until recently. Inuyasha listened, trying to keep up, but so often he found himself making mistakes. Snapping at Kagome when he remembered how far apart they were — how far apart they had to be. Misunderstanding her, offending her, tangling up his words... sometimes he thought it’d be easier on Kagome if he just gave up. But he couldn’t — but they were a pack together, weren’t they? Kagome held Inuyasha so tightly when she was worried about him. She smoothed his hair out of his face, and she tried to clean off his wounds with human herbs even if it wasn’t gonna do any good, and he smelled her tears on his own face sometimes when she thought she’d almost lost him.
Inuyasha could understand that well enough, even if he had trouble with the other stuff. He’d claw his way back close as he could to Kagome as long as she kept calling his name. The rest of it didn’t have to matter. Probably. Hopefully. Aw, shit.
Inuyasha’d been alone a long time, after his mother went. Inuyasha’d had so many dreams that were all screaming and blood, pinned to the sacred tree by Kikyo’s arrow after they were tricked by that damn Naraku. He dreamt about those vines crawling around his ankles and the smell of rot even now; dreams about dust in his hair and uncanny stillness. Inuyasha hadn’t thought he could ever have a pack again.
That night, when Kagome woke up shaking, breath too fast and eyes darting around the room, Inuyasha jolted awake too if only ‘cause he heard her voice. ‘Cause she sounded scared. Inuyasha barked, “Kagome? What the h — what’s wrong?” and Kagome took a second to gather herself back together. She said, “Oh. Nothing, I guess. A nightmare,” like part of her was still drifting around in her human subconscious. Sorting out reality from the mess of her dream, like sifting rice from sand. Rubbing sleep out of her eye, and twitching a shaky lip to offer Inuyasha a smile.
“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Kagome said, voice still blurry and a little too soft.
Inuyasha craned his neck to peek at the moon out the window; he’d been sitting cross-legged, the Tessaiga balanced on his arm like usual. “Sango’ll turn up pretty soon to trade out with me for guard shifts anyway,” Inuyasha grumbled. Surely Kagome could tell he was worried, right? In the way he watched her, even if she couldn’t smell it. “Wanna tell me — uh. Wanna tell me what happened? In your nightmare?”
Kagome frowned. Her eyes flicked away, down to her hands, over to Shippo and Miroku where they were lying asleep. Then she scooted her way to Inuyasha’s place by the wall, dragging a blanket with her. She folded herself up in it like a cloak, and murmured, “Ow, oh geez,” to herself when she almost tripped, moving around on her knees. It was... you know. It was sort of cute. Inuyasha wondered if Kagome’d consider propping her cheek on his arm and trying to fall asleep leaning against him, just then.
If Inuyasha were a different guy — like Miroku or that cocky wolf Koga, maybe — he could just fold his arm around Kagome’s shoulder, here. Pull her in close and rub her back. Show her the gentleness and comfort he wanted to give, even if it would’ve been horrible trying to explain it out loud. But of course he didn’t do anything like that. Inuyasha and Kagome sat in silence for a long moment, and then Kagome said, “I dreamt Naraku was at my school — you know, in my time? — and he was changing everything. Sometimes it was the school and sometimes it was that awful castle of his. You know? Like, the hallways were two things at once.”
“Naraku can’t go through the well to your time,” Inuyasha said, like he thought that would fix things. He hoped his voice didn’t sound too blunt. The monstrous yokai they’d been battling for Shikon Jewel shards could do a lot of ridiculous gory things, but he sure as hell couldn’t follow Kagome to school.
“I know, but the well didn’t exist in this dream. Or. I never thought of it. Sango was... well, Sango and I had to turn in this homework assignment before she bled out, but things kept chasing us and the homework didn’t make any sense. There was a whole pile of it that I’d forgotten to do, and we were running... I...” Kagome stopped. Looked at Inuyasha carefully. “I was running out of time, and the whole dream felt like a really sour green. You know? It felt sick, and claustrophobic, and I tried to bind up Sango’s wounds with the actual homework papers even knowing we still had to fill them out... I kept telling myself ‘You’ve had a dream just like this, so why did you let it come true? How could you let,’” Kagome swallowed, “‘how could you leave Inuyasha behind again?’”
“I’m not left behind,” Inuyasha said. He thought he had an idea what green and sickness and claustrophobia might smell like, even if he wasn’t exactly sure his hanyou eyes saw the same “green” that Kagome saw. He’d been to Kagome’s school, too — he could do this. He could be here with her. “I’d never let Naraku kill you or Sango, either, are you kidding? Not in your school, not anywhere.”
“Inuyasha...”
Oh, was he missing the point? Shit. Inuyasha tried again. “You didn’t forget any homework, either. Not like it’d be a big deal if you did: Sango’s fine, and we’ve got way better bandages around than some dumb paper.” Was that the issue? There. If it wasn’t a real threat, then it didn’t have to hurt Kagome. Problem solved!
Kagome sighed — which usually meant Inuyasha had said the wrong thing, somehow? — but then she chuckled, softly. “I’ve forgotten so much homework, you have no idea. I’m not sure if I’m gonna be able to make it all up, at this rate... I’m not sure I can get back to sleep, even. I feel all queasy.” Kagome propped her chin on her knees, curling into herself. Looking exhausted and small. If Inuyasha had been someone else... Miroku or Koga, for example... then maybe he could’ve reached out to her easily. Maybe he could smooth down her hair, this time. If he were smarter, he could offer to help her catch up with that future-y homework. If his hands were better at being soft and tender, then he could rub the knots out of her back.
Inuyasha held onto the edge of Kagome’s blanket and pulled her just a little bit closer to him. He cleared his throat, but couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes.
“I want...” Inuyasha started. I want you to be okay. I want to comfort you. I want to help. “Hmm. It’ll be morning soon. If you wanna hang out with me during my watch for a while, I’m not gonna say no. We could, I dunno. Talk, or something.”
Kagome snorted a tiny laugh through her nose. She folded her hand over Inuyasha’s claws for just a second, holding the edge of her blanket, too. She was so warm and breakable. So human. And then her hand was gone. “I’ve been illustrating a picture book with Shippo... I’m behind on that, too, like everything else in my life. Maybe you could help me color in backgrounds?”
“What, like fluffy clouds and smiling trees and all that?”
Kagome smirked. Inuyasha could feel her eyes on his face, studying him. Daring him to look at her properly. “Yes, exactly,” she said. “And maybe you could tell me what you dreamt about, too... Shippo says you probably have a lot of different smells in your dreams. I’ve been wondering what that might be like.”
“I didn’t have any dreams tonight,” Inuyasha said, because it was easier than telling her he’d dreamt about the smell of dust in his hair, again — the smell of the sacred tree at his back, the smell of waking up again after fifty years of furious sleep had passed. Kikyo’s arrow, and Kikyo’s hate. He’d had that dream just so, so many times. “But yeah, uh. Shippo’s right. I didn’t think you cared about stuff like that, Kagome.”
“And why wouldn’t I care?”
Oh, dammit. No. Inuyasha hadn’t meant that to come out aggressive. He mumbled some half-hearted explanation, wondering if this was gonna mean Kagome wouldn’t want to color in cutesy backgrounds with him anymore. But when Sango came to switch places with him — Inuyasha’s turn guarding the hallway, sniffing the nighttime air for threats, all that — Kagome came too. She grabbed some work-in-progress drawings and Shippo’s crayons. She offered to fold the blanket across both of their laps, but of course Inuyasha would have to get up sometimes to check around the building to do his guard shift right. It would’ve been cozy under the blanket, though. If he had let himself sit that way for even just a second.
Inuyasha wondered about Kagome’s dreams often enough, but it was still a bit of a revelation that she’d been wondering about his, too. It was sort of like how Inuyasha had watched Shippo play with this crayon set for weeks, but he hadn’t realized how satisfying it could be to color in a mountain range until he did it himself. His claws made it a little hard to hold the damn crayons, but Kagome didn’t tease him when he messed up. It was like they were safe, for a while. It was like they really were a pack, and Inuyasha didn’t have to understand everything completely to understand enough.
Kagome wondered about Inuyasha’s dreams, you know? Kagome woke up frazzled and shivery, after dreaming about him missing at her school back in the future. Even just the vague idea of leaving him behind. If she fell asleep while traveling the next day, Inuyasha hoped she knew he’d be happy to carry her. He thought about saying it with actual words, but, well... in the end, he just hoped she knew.
It got a little cold before the sun rose. Good thing Kagome had that blanket, right?