In the dark of the night, a child clothed in red is barely aware of being alive. He weeps miserably in the arms of his young mother, an embrace that is usually comforting and reassuring, but that now feels distant and cold.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha clings desperately to his mother, and he can't hear her words heavy with love and concern, he can't smell her sweet and soothing scent. He can barely even see her through the fog of his tears, and he cries, and cries, and cries.
He's young and afraid and no more than a pup, and he's not yet used to losing all of his youkai senses at once. This isn't the first time the event of his body becoming human occurs, but the child can't help the fear that he won't change back this time, that he will stay like this, weak, deaf, blind, alone and afraid despite the thin hands of his mother gently stroking his hair.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha cries instead of sleeping, without noticing how his mother's sorrow mirrors his own, not seeing nor smelling her silent tears, without hearing the faint I'm sorry she whispers with a thick voice that soon breaks, while she holds her son tighter because that's all she can do.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha's breath is uneven and his muscles ache; he looks down the tree he hastily climbed when he noticed the sun slowly setting.
He holds back his tears when his eyes fall on his hand, on his weak and harmless human nails, because his cries would attract youkai that he wouldn't be able to hear or see soon enough to escape. He doesn't dare thinking about how useless any attempt at defending himself against them would be, because that'd make holding back tears so much harder.
He's terrified, and he's not used to this fear yet. He wishes he didn't have to get used to it. He misses his mother. He misses her embrace and her kind words despite how useless they felt on nights like these. When she was there to hold him, he could find the strength in himself to hope everything would be alright in the morning.
As alright as it could ever be for a hanyou to be alive, anyway.
His human body is exhausted, but he does not sleep. He barely blinks. He'd be too much of an easy prey if he let his guard down.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha is a lonely and bruised human child in the woods.
He hurts himself with a splinter from the tree and he curses for the first time in his life. He's ashamed at first, but nobody is there to reprimand him for it.
He meets a flea youkai the next morning. Inuyasha-sama is what the flea calls him. The child squashes him between his strong hanyou fingers for not showing up sooner.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha waits until every bone in his body is completely human before he enters the village he's been silently observing from afar since yesterday. He's never done this before and he's afraid, but he cannot stand his hunger anymore and Myouga is no help whatsoever. The old fart has this habit of fleeing everytime he meets a speck of discomfort.
A woman sees him and takes pity on the lost, scared, wounded child. Inuyasha lets her hold him and now that he's used to his human ears, he can hear her talk to him about how everything will be alright, and he almost believes her.
She leads him to her house; a man is there. The child hesitates, for no man has ever done anything but look down on him, insult him or outright beat the shit out of him. (He reminds himself not to curse in front of the human adults.) But he's not a filthy hanyou now, not as far as this man knows, and he accepts the food that is offered to him.
Stay, the couple suggests. Have some sleep.
Inuyasha's sense of safety shatters in a million pieces. He shakes his head. You'll hurt me, he says, and the truth of it clutches at his heart and drowns him in fear and in the pain he already feels. He thinks nothing of it. He's used to it now.
The woman looks horrified. Don't be silly, the man says, We would never hurt a human child!
Exactly, the boy thinks but doesn't say.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha pretends to sleep and sneaks out of the house and into the forest before dawn has the chance to break his illusion of humanity. Well fed and well rested for the first time in years, he runs through the trees with cold tears in his eyes.
He does it again a few times. The fourth time he does, a man catches him in the middle of his morning transformation and he barely survives the beating he gets. It takes him hours to wash out the terrifying scent of his own blood. He doesn't come near villages again.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha groans loudly as he untangles spider webs from his hair. Black. He stifles a growl. It's been fifty years, yes; however, they were years of slumber and he cannot feel the gap at all. His grip tightens around Tessaiga, his transformation irritating him even more now that it affects not only himself but the sword too. Or his ability to use it, to be precise.
He looks at Kagome. Then at Shippou, then at Myouga. No one has ever seen him in this state ever since his mother died, and he's angry that he got discovered, and he's terrified.
He settles his eyes on the girl as he tells her not to count on his protection tonight. She seems to ignore him as she responds with questions that he reluctantly answers. He flicks Myouga for being his usual untrustworthy self and eyes Kagome again.
Couldn't you have trusted me a little, she demands, her brows knotted in a disapproving frown.
He can't contain his anger as he yells at her that he doesn't trust anyone ever. He regrets it for a moment when her voice breaks and she looks on the edge of tears. But then she's yelling at him in return exactly like she always does, and the feeling of guilt is quickly gone.
It's the night of the new moon.
It all happens in a flash, and Inuyasha's head is now lying on top of Kagome's naked legs as his weak human body fights the poison of that damned spider youkai. (He has a feeling he will always hate those.) He thinks about what she said to him no longer than a moment ago.
She cried. He asked for a reason why. I thought you were going to die, she explained softly.
He's surprised that he heard that so loudly without his youkai hearing. He also doesn't understand how he can so clearly feel the warmth of her skin, the smell of her hair… He hears himself confessing to her that he lov-likes her scent. Her skin feels suddenly warmer.
She seems to have forgotten about it in the morning. He's kind of grateful that she did, and glares at her as she rolls her eyes at him.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha curses inwardly for the fourth time in a row. Tonight's really not a good night to be human. He helplessy watches as Kagome takes aim, her fingers steadily gripping on the hermit-turned-bow. His dark grey eyes shiver in anger and he feels pathetic.
He's supposed to protect her. He's supposed to shelter her, to be able to do something more for her than giving her his bloodstained haori to cover herself, no matter how grateful she looked for that. He's supposed to be able to do something other than bleeding and letting himself be punched around by a pretentious bastard like Toukajin.
Kagome's arrows hit the cannibal sage right where the Shikon fragments are and a moment later Inuyasha can breathe again, because the enraged monster isn't sitting on him anymore, lunging towards the raven haired girl instead.
The hanyou has little time to think so he just doesn't, and only lunges after him.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha watches helplessly as Kagome's face twists in horror. Her shaking eyes meet his as he falls, and she's quickly out of his sight. He can't exactly place what he feels in his stomach; he's glad she's safe, he's afraid of the ground beneath him, he's wondering if his slowly returning youkai strength will save him in time, and if not he's content that the last thing he saw was Kagome, that he managed to protect her even as a pathetic human.
And before he knows it it's morning and he's alive, and his heart aches when he realizes that Kagome's crying for his sake, for him, because she was scared for his life, because she was just as concerned about his well-being as he was about hers. He doesn't deserve to be this happy, does he?
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha frowns as the monk taunts him about his lack of sleep. He teases him, asks him if he's too scared to even blink. I am, he replies, I'm terrified, he admits, because it is the truth and for once he is too tired to deny the obvious, and Miroku compliments him for that without letting go of his annoying know-it-all tone.
Wouldn't you be, Inuyasha wants to ask, wouldn't you be afraid if your life was costantly on the brink of being torn away from you because you're just too weak, but he doesn't, he doesn't because he knows perfectly that the monk can understand that more than anybody else in the world and fuck Kagome for teaching him to be nice about this kind of things.
All of his fears come true when Goshinki's fangs are coming after him with a vengeance in the shape of a sword.
They stand in front of him in the hands of Kaijimbo, glowing with the youkai's evil aura and trembling with thirst for Inuyasha's blood. The hanyou furrows his thick brows as much as he can; if he doesn't, he knows his eyes will widen in fear. He's scared. He's terrified.
Images of a human child running for his life in a dark forest flutter in his mind. He should've hidden better. He should've climbed a tree and hid like he used to do as a child. He—
"Get back, Inuyasha!" a voice shouts, and Sango comes into his view.
Miroku is next to her, and they both stand in front of him, gesturing him to leave with a twin mixture of determination and worry on their faces.
"Wha-" the hanyou tries to say, but the weight of Shippou on his shoulder and the grip of Kagome's hands on his arm interrupt him.
"Stay back, Inuyasha!"
"You have no chance of winning as you are now! It's too dangerous!"
He stares at four faces in front of him, four pairs of eyes that are begging him to let them protect him.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha is human, he's bruised, he's weak and pathetic and helpless. And he's not alone.
He ignores his friends' protests when he attacks Kaijimbo before the break of dawn. They've done enough for today, and it's his turn now to be strong.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha remembers the moonless nights he spent on his own, hiding up on trees, scared and alone. He remembers his skin crawling with dread, the defeaning silence that surrounded him, the anticipation of danger so big that a falling leaf could make him jump on his feet.
He looks at the mess around him now (his friends, fretting over the possibility of Naraku finding out about his weakness, Kagome, tending Kouga's wounds that the idiot got from a reckless fight with Kagura, and of course, the mangy wolf himself, in all of his annoying-jerk mangy-piece-of-crap glory) and he really has no time to worry about his human ears and lack of fangs, because fuck, Kouga is so annoying, and Kagome should really leave him be and he should really just leave and let them get those shards back from Kagura.
Inuyasha remembers the long, endless waits for the sun to come up, something he'd got so accustomed to in his younger years, and he can't help but wonder at how different those were from the wait now; instead of dread, there's annoyance, instead of the frustration of being defenseless, there's the frustration of not being able to fight alongside his comrades.
Or at least, he would wonder at it, if he wasn't so busy thinking that his friends are human all the time, and they never use that as an excuse to back out of a fight. So why should he, really? For some reason, he isn't as shocked by the realization as he thought he'd be.
It's morning.
Inuyasha stares Kagura down with a grin on his face. He knows what he's just done. He knows Kagura saw him, black hair and all. He also knows that Kouga is now safe behind him, that the sun is up and that having his claws again feels incredibly satisfying.
"Inuyasha... so you lose all your powers on a moonless night." Kagura says, a vicious grin on her face, like the sentence alone should be enough to rattle Inuyasha's bones.
And mere months ago, it would've.
He scoffs. "And what if I do? I'm back, so who cares?" he says, sword in hand and ready to go.
It seems to take everyone by surprise, how unafraid he appears of the possibility of Naraku finding out about his human night. He would be lying if he said it didn't surprise him, too, just a little bit. Kagome has her own theory about it. I think he really depends on every single one of us, she says, beaming up at him.
He can spend all the time he wants denying something so mushy (and he will), but his friends have this awful habit of tormenting him to no end about anything that he bothers to deny.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha sits cross-legged against the wooden wall of the house, and looks down at his lap when he feels something climb up on it.
"You should sleep." says his four-year-old daughter, looking up at him with wide golden eyes, comfortable in her new spot, her head tilted to the side. Her expression is serious, the same as her mother's when she tells her not to stray too far from the house without supervision.
"That's my line." he replies, looking at the futon, on the other side of the hut, where Kagome is now sleeping alone. "Go back to sleep. Your mother will be lonely if you don't."
Her expression doesn't falter even a bit. "You come, too!"
"Maybe later, pup." he says, and pokes the child on the forehead with a clawless finger.
"Liar!" she calls him out immediately, "You never sleep with us when you're human." She doesn't give him time to retort. "But you don't have to do that!" she adds, "I'll protect you if anything happens!"
Well, that was unexpected. "Huh?"
"See, Mom says that you don't sleep when you're human, 'cause it's scary, right?" the child explains, small dog ears moving enthusiastically on her head as she does so, "But see, you always take care of me when I'm human, so now that you're human, I will take care of you!"
He smirks. "Will you, now."
"Of course! I'll definitely protect you!" she beams. Then, after a moment of hesitation, "So, will you come sleep with us?"
And he can't really say no when she's practically begging him.
It's the night of the new moon.
Inuyasha slips under the covers, next to his wife and their beautiful little sneak of a daughter, and if Kagome thinks he hasn't noticed her smiling 'in her sleep', she's very wrong.
A/N: This was written over the span of a few months and I really don't know if that's a good thing or not. Anyways it has been sitting in my files for a while now and tonight i decided to finish it and post it before i get insecure about it, aah. Please do tell me if you find any grammar/language mistakes, I'm not native speaker English and errors might happen (everything seems fine to me, but I'm tired. so maybe I'm wrong.)
I wrote a section that I kinda liked and wanted to add depicting that one scene in episode 147/148 where human!Inuyasha meets Kikyou but she doesn't really see him, but I ended up scrapping it together with a couple other human!Inu scenes I didn't even write down because they didn't fit the "growing to not be scared of being human" thing, but I don't know if I really should've. Oh well.