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The gang was walking through a village peacefully, Miroku and Sango chatting happily with Shippo up front while Kagome and Inuyasha bickered in the back. They had been walking all day, and Inuyasha was saying that they needed to stop and find a place to stay soon. Kagome kept telling him they could walk a little while longer and still have time, but he was having none of it.
Sango was monitoring the situation halfheartedly, knowing that an explosive argument could erupt at any moment between the two but also knew that nothing would really come of it. She was convinced that half of the time the two just argued because they had no other way of communicating.
A commotion had her turning her head, however. A village boy seemed to have tackled to Kagome to the ground, a second man coming to his aid with a sword drawn. They were shouting, and Sango caught Miroku ready his hand at the prospect of a fight. They were never ending these days.
Inuyasha was throwing the boy into the trees and batting the man with the sword away angrily. “Demon!” He kept screaming, becoming increasingly frustrated that things weren’t going as planned. Kagome, seeming to have finally regained her wits, leapt in between the two and got cut by the aimless sword.
Which meant…
“Miroku,” Sango muttered urgently, Inuyasha’s pupils shrinking noticeably from even this distance. Miroku rushed forward almost before she spoke, understanding the situation as well as she did. Kagome, also seeming to recognize the look in her teammate’s eyes, tackled him backwards.
Sango watched as Kagome soothed her half-demon and Miroku talked the angry villager down. Seeing the situation had diffused, Sango took her hand off her giant boomerang and walked over to Kagome. “Are you alright?” she asked, checking but only seeing a small slice on her friend’s hand. Confirming her suspicions, Kagome only nodded.
“I’m fine, it’s just a little cut. That kid came out of nowhere—“
Almost as if summoned, the boy, who seemed to have recovered from Inuyasha’s lengthy throw of his body, was running toward them armed with an impressive stick. Kagome stepped in front of Inuyasha fully, stopping the child’s stampede. He blinked up at her in confusion.
“What are you doing?” he asked her. Kagome blinked, and Sango suddenly understood what this was about. At Inuyasha’s eye roll, she realized with a heavy heart that he had understood the entire time. ‘But why wouldn’t he have?’
Kagome, however, as kind as she was, didn’t get it. “Um, stopping you?”
Inuyasha tugged on her sleeve. “Come on, ‘gome,” he muttered under his breath. She turned to look at him, the tone of his voice surely cluing her in. But no.
“What's going on?” she asked, noting her friends’ faces.
The man with the sword yelled, “What’s going on is you brought a damn demon into our village! A filthy half-demon, from the looks of him— mangy beast.”
Inuyasha, for all his bluster and snark, flinched. Sango shared a cringe with Miroku— this was the hardest part about traveling with Inuyasha. Their little group was used to him, but getting a place to stay was always hit or miss. Which was likely why he had been trying to get them to start finding a place to stay early— so that they could.
But Kagome didn’t understand that about their time. Inuyasha was not as loved by any other person in this time as much as he was by her. Even Sango still found herself having dreams where Inuyasha killed them all— it was in his blood, it was what she had grown up believing. It had taken her a long time to trust the half demon, and that trust was still new. Inuyasha knew this, and was sure to never tease her or mess with her as he was so comfortable to do with the others. He respected her, and she appreciated it more than he knew.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Kagome retorted, her hands on her hips defiantly. Inuyasha sighed, bending down and slinging her over his shoulder before she got in an argument with the man. Kagome squealed indignantly, pounding her fists on his back to put her down, but he ignored her. Sango and Miroku also turned to continue walking, knowing it was best to just follow him.
But the man with the sword just couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Argh!” he screamed as he charged— straight at Kagome. He was probably aiming to take them both out at once— to be a hero in the eyes of his village, if she had to guess. Sango’s voice stuck in her throat, Miroku’s hand already too slow, she knew. Shippo screamed, but the blade was already swinging down—
Tetsusaiga exploded out of its sheath, Inuyasha still facing the other way. The sword was positioned just in front of Kagome’s face, Inuyasha’s sword arm’s sleeve covering her like armor.
His voice was ice cold. “If you hurt her,” he said, his voice deadly calm. “I’ll give you a reason to be afraid of me.
Sango shivered. The man looked about ready to piss himself and scurried away, dropping his sword in the dirt. The village had cleared out, doors and windows slamming closed.
Inuyasha sheathed his sword and continued walking without another word. Kagome, for her part, hung silently down his back, surely feeling the anger coming off of him in waves. Miroku and Sango followed suit, Shippo hopping on Miroku’s shoulder, and they continued on in silence.
Sango crept back to the campfire quietly, trying not to wake any of her resting friends up. Kirara cooed at her sleepily, and she patted her head as she got settled.
She felt eyes on her, and turned to see Inuyasha watching her. She smiled apologetically. “Sorry,” she whispered softly, knowing he could hear her. “Did I wake you?”
He shook his head. “Nah, I’m always awake.” He shifted his arm slightly and Sango caught his robe fall over Kagome’s ear, her head resting on his thigh as she slept. When they had made camp, Kagome and Inuyasha had disappeared somewhere, him probably explaining to her what had happened in the village. They had come back much later, Kagome’s eyes red and Inuyasha immediately leaping up into a tree for some time. He had only come down when Kagome had yawned, as he had taken to being her personal guard as she slept.
Sango nodded at his answer and curled up on the ground, and the silence swelled around her. She swallowed and rolled over, Inuyasha’s golden stare focusing on her. Those eyes scared her, she would be the first to admit it. No human had those eyes.
“I’m sorry about what happened today.” Her quiet words felt heavy in the silence. “I don’t think I ever said that.”
The golden stare went to the trees, “Keh. It’s no big deal.”
Silence swelled around them. Sango looked down at the sleeping girl in his lap, the words sticking in her throat. “I’m sorry we can’t love you like she does.”
It got quiet again. Sango, feeling the conversation had ended, rolled back over. But Inuyasha’s soft voice floated through the air.
“It’s okay.”
And suddenly, Sango felt the bubbling rage she had seen in Kagome every time someone shied away from Inuyasha. When they were denied a night’s stay because of his appearance, the fearful glances they would get as they walked through town after town. How he ignored all of it, because that’s just how things were.
“No it’s not,” Sango responded, trying to keep her voice down but finding it difficult. “You don’t deserve any of it.”
She could hear him shake his head. “You only realized that recently. It’s just how things are. I’m used to it, Sango. There’s nothing any of us can do about it.”
“Kagome can,” Sango returned hotly, feeling the truth of it in her bones. Every time it happened, Kagome was there to fight back. She went forward even as Miroku and Sango hung back. Because it had never occurred to her to treat him any different.
“Was it strange, when you met her? When she treated you like she does?”
Inuyasha’s voice was confused. “Like what?”
“Like a person,” Sango said before she could stop herself. She cringed, her childhood prejudices coming out before she could censor them. But it was too late now.
Inuyasha hummed, taking her words in stride. She wondered how often he'd though the same thing. “Yeah. I don’t think she has ever thought I was dangerous. I murdered countless demons and almost her the first day we met, but she would just smack me and keep going like I didn’t bother her. And I hated her for it, I really did. It was almost like she was making fun of me.
“But then she would fight all of the villagers, ask me why they would give us funny looks. I would tell her it was her weird clothes, because I didn’t want her to realize what I am. That she shouldn't be anywhere near me." He swallowed thickly. "But then when they asked her why she did, she just asked why not. Like it was the simplest thing in the world.” His voice sounded wistful, and it was in the moment Sango knew that, as rude and brash and mean as he was to her, he loved her more than anything else.
“Because to her, it is,” Sango said softly. She wondered what it would be like, to look at Inuyasha and notice, before his fangs and ears and burning gold eyes, how handsome he was, how he blushed when they teased him, how his muscles would tense when you got too close. To not have to look past those things, to see them in spite of his demonic features. To look at him like Kagome did.
“I’m sorry it’s so hard for me,” she repeated, feeling the apology needed to be said even if she knew she couldn’t change the fact that it was hard for her. Demons had murdered her whole family. But it wasn’t fair to—
“It’s fine. You have your reasons. I get that. Walking around with that boomerang, you’re not my favorite person here either,” he said. Sango giggled despite herself.
“Really? The girl in your lap could sneeze wrong and purify your ass. And I’m not your favorite?” she laughed, glad that the mood between them had shifted.
He scoffed. “If she ever learns to purify anything, I’ll worry about it then.”
Sango giggled again. Kagome’s frustration with her progress on her priestess powers was a common fact in the group, and Inuyasha gave her constant hell for it. Miroku was a patient teacher, but he had complained to Sango on more than one occasion how her temper with herself made her a difficult student.
Their laughter died down, and they both sighed. The need for sleep was starting to catch up to Sango, and she tried to hide a yawn.
“Thank you, though.” Inuyasha’s voice was soft again. She smiled despite herself and rolled over once more.
“You’re welcome, Inuyasha.”