Chapter Text
Inuyasha backed into the side of the well, ready to indulge in the meal he stole from a nearby village. It's instance of unattendedance being its original owners' downfall. His thudding heart roared in his ears from getting away successfully.
Which is why he didn't notice the girl until her butt smacked the back of his head.
“Owww,” she whined upon falling ungracefully to the ground off his back. She wore a small kimono with no folds, light blue with white flowers, and a white bow tying back her hair in a half ponytail.
Inuyasha scrambled away, his stick of meat forgotten as a growl rumbled up his tiny chest. An intimidating sound, diminished by his child sized body.
The girl rubbed her bottom, her cheeks stained with tears. She sniffled, looking at him only a second before the darkness and woods surrounding them became plainly clear.
“Where are we?” She whimpered pathetically.
Inuyasha noticed his stick of food, partially under her bent leg and lunged for it, ready to claw her if she decided to fight.
She merely watched him move, lifting her leg a little when she realized what he was going for.
Inuyasha clutched the food protectively, backing away with a not-so-grand show of his pup fangs to announce that he meant business before darting away.
“Wait!” She called. It didn't stop him. “Please don't go!” Still didn't stop him.
Once he decided he was far enough, he devoured the meat. He didn't know he could live three days without food, but he didn't want to find out if four was an option.
“Mommy!” The girl cried.
Is she insane!?
Even he knows you don't make a sound in the forest unless you want trouble to hear.
“Mommy, where are you!?”
Inuyasha stared at the ground. That girl lost her mom. Lost as in misplaced since she's calling for her, not lost like... like three days ago lost.
Inuyasha scrubbed harshly at his eyes.
“Shut up, you idiot!” He berated her in a whisper when he returned.
“You came back!” She cheered anyway.
And then the strangest thing happened. Something more bizarre than the fact that the sun always came up, or the wind kept existing, or life kept going despite everything telling him that all that should’ve stopped.
She smiled.
Tottering up to him like she wasn't sure how to walk in a straight line, her head kept a careful watch on what was around them.
“Can you help me get home?” She clutched his sleeve, scared he would disappear again. “I don't know where we are.”
Thinking his silence stemmed from discomfort, she let go and tugged his sleeve to straighten what she crinkled. “I'm sorry. I'm- I'm scared.” The crying that never really stopped, started again with heavy drops. “I didn't listen. Mommy told me not to play at the well, and I fell in. I didn't mean to fall in.” She keened.
“I can help,” Inuyasha murmured, a hundred percent confident that he could not help. But he knew from his mother that confidence made small people feel bigger. And he wanted this weird kind girl to feel bigger for thinking he had the ability to do anything at all. “I'll take you home.”
No one's ever looked at him like that before. And when her smile broadened, he caught an embrace— and he knows no one has ever done that before either. She was warm. Warm like a flame that lit up the night. Warm like a thick blanket on a cold floor. Warm in all the ways he knew were only allowed to exist in his life temporarily.
She let go, only to take his sleeve once more, staring expectantly for him to take the lead. He did. But nothing brilliant came to mind answer wise. That didn't mean he would announce his empty thoughts. She needed to feel as big as she made him feel.
“What's your name?”
“Inuyasha.” He blinked rapid fire at the ground. Has he ever introduced himself before? “What's your name?”
“Kagome.”
Oh. That's a pretty name, he thought. Then said, “that's a pretty name.”
Her voice was still sheepish from crying, “Thank you.”
All he did was lead her back to the well. As far as intelligence goes, he knows you don't get anywhere without starting somewhere. And all her story had was the well.
And that is one steep drop...
He fell off a cliff a day ago, running from demons. He didn't know he could survive the fall, but hitting the ground was not pleasant. It snapped something that took half a day of lying there, waiting for it to fix. And after running for so long, being forced to be stranded was possibly the weakest and most terrified he'd ever felt in his entire five years of life.
She looked like she was five too. And human. Would the fall kill her?
It didn't go beyond him that she already fell in once.
“No! Mommy said not to!” Kagome protested when he shoved her towards the well.
“You said you fell in,” he argued. “And now you're here. My mother said magic comes in strange places when people need it, so maybe you need to go back to get to her.”
She pushed against him before going limp to escape. “I'm scared.”
He grumbled down at her. How's he going to help if she won't let him?
Then, of all things, she began crying again. “Mommy...”
He yanked her cheek, knowing it hurt from the amount of times his mother's done it. “You don't get to cry until you try jumping in the well.”
“But I'm already crying,” she blubbered. “You said you'd help me.”
“I am helping you!”
“Then where's my mommy!?”
That familiar longing struck a cord and continued until her sad song sounded too similar to his own.
“Listen,” he urged her, calmer. “I'll jump in with you, and if it doesn't work, then you can cry all you want.”
He knows he wanted to. After he tried any and everything that would get him in trouble and sent straight back to his mom. Only to find out that acting up when she was no longer there, sent him somewhere he'd never been.
Alone.
He grew up in a village. He never thought he wouldn't get older in one.
“Promise?” She looked up then, her wide pleading eyes glittering in the moonlight. “Promise you'll come with me?”
Every promise he ever made faded three days ago.
Inuyasha scoffed and grabbed her hand. “Come on.”
Once she was on the edge of the well with him, they jumped in.
He’s never seen magic up close. The blue pools of it they swam through had him soaking in this new heartstopping freefall. White lights gathered at their feet, as if guiding their steps through this great unknown. His chest swooped when they touched the solid ground once more.
They were still in the well.
The vines disappeared.
Could he make that jump back up? With the girl?
True to her word, she began crying.
“What good are tears if they can’t bring your mother back!?” Inuyasha barked at her. She began crying harder, and he couldn’t stand how much his failure disappointed her. “Stop crying! Tears don’t do anything!”
A beam of light blinded them.
“Ka-Kagome!?” A woman’s voice shouted overhead.
“Mommy!!!” Kagome cheered, immediately flinging her body against the well wall like she could climb it.
He knew this moment was a possibility. Even if he had no reason to believe it. Pride wanted to take over for his accomplishment. He told her he’d help, and he did.
A ladder rolled down, and the woman descended into the well with them. Inuyasha watched this little girl reunite with her mother. Laughter and relief pattering down like a spring rain.
Inuyasha did good.
His mother would be proud.
But why...
“Why does it work for you?” Inuyasha asked, his own eyes watering. “Why does crying work for you?” He roughly scraped the sleeves of his red kimono to his face. “Why won’t crying bring my mother back?” His ears twitched and folded, but he didn’t care, because it’s not fair.
Kagome shoved out of her mothers arms to come closer.
“We... we can find your mommy too,” she offered, reaching a hand for him.
“You can’t find her!” He smacked her hand, that bit of impulse incidentally scratching her palm. “She’s dead!” He clenched the bit of her blood on his claws. His mother would’ve yelled at him for that. “Why did the magic come to you and not me!?”
Kagome held her injured hand a second before she threw her arms over his shoulders, pulling him down till they collapsed to their knees. His head tucked against her chest. His sensitive ears caught her thundering heart and those gentle rains hit him like a storm.
Not because he wanted his mother back, he's always going to want what he's lost, but because he knew she was never going to praise him, scold him, or hold him ever again.
His tears won't work like hers.
But she held him, when no one else in the world cared that he was alone, so he didn't have to hold back anymore while he cried.
“Hm, how many people can lose one kid and come back with two?” The man who pulled them out of the well mused. Kagome's father, he learned.
They had to get out of the well at some point, but Inuyasha refused to let go of Kagome, so that meant her pregnant mother couldn't carry them both out. Ergo, Kagome's father had to climb down and bundle them together into one sturdy hold and hoist them up the ladder with him.
Inuyasha knew they were Kagome's parents, and Kagome was nice. But he's never met an adult he could trust that wasn't his mother, and growled anytime they touched him.
When they were brought into a brightly lit home, Kagome gasped, “are those your real ears?”
Said ears folded down to be spoken directly into. Then she touched them, and he kinda had to accept it because wherever they were taken was loud and smelly. Not scary. Just too much. He held her tighter.
The triangular puppy appendage atop his head flicked out of her fingers then pivoted away.
She giggled.
Inuyasha was lifted by the waist— growling decidedly louder than ever, clutching tighter, he lifted Kagome with him into the air.
“Can't get one looksee at him...” her father chuckled. “Hey, you're going to have to let my daughter go at some point.”
“Daddy leave him alone,” Kagome batted away the man's hold. “He helped me. If Inuyasha wants hugs, he can have hugs.”
“Inuyasha?” Kagome's mother said from above. “What a peculiar name...”
“It's not pecu... pecu... it's not that,” Kagome rebutted. “Inuyasha’s a perfect name.”
“Maybe we'll see something in the missing children's report...” Kagome's mother spoke distantly with her father.
“In the morning. For now, it wouldn't hurt to let him stay awhile. He obviously ran away for a reason...”
“But honey...”
He made a disagreeable noise then chuckled. “It'll be fine.” Coming closer, he set a hand to Kagome's head. “You've been gone awhile, Sweetie. Ready for dinner?”
She swayed slightly with the boy in her arms. “Can Inuyasha eat with us?”
“Of course.”
“Okay.” She then patted Inuyasha. “You hear that? My Daddy says you can come to dinner.”
They shared one chair, having been placed there together. Inuyasha turned curiously to smell food. One meat stick couldn’t cover days of nothing— he caught her mothers smile and turned quickly back into Kagome's chest. Hidden. His tiny growl resumed.
Unaffected, Kagome reached her unhindered right arm above him, and grabbed from the table. She arched her head back to look at him, patting his back with her pinned left arm.
“Look, it's tasty.”
He pulled back enough to see a long wet strand of something pinched between her fingers. It didn't look like food, but it smelled good.
His confusion was plain, unaware of how to clear it, Kagome caught one end of the noodle in her mouth.
“Eat like this.”
She sucked in the noodle, humming in exaggerated delight in an effort to encourage him to try.
He grabbed the other end of the noodle that caught on her sleeve below, nibbling. Experimenting. His golden eyes lit up. Starvation triggered, he mimicked Kagome’s earlier action greedily— smacking into her lips.
Noodle unbroken, they stared at one another. As if someone would gain the sense enough to pull away first.
“I’m torn between being a father, and grabbing a camera...” her father murmured. “Hey!” He laughed. Broken. No authority. “I will separate you two. Knock it off.”
Kagome, thankfully, bit off her share of the noodle to end it. “I think he kissed me,” Kagome told her parents like he tripped, and she blamed his shoes. Not accusing.
Kagome's mother giggled too much to respond.
Her father shook his head. “I don’t suppose it’s kosher for your parents to be there for your first kiss, but yeah. That was a kiss, Sweetie.”
Inuyasha returned to hiding. Uncomfortably warm as his lips buzzed from the contact.