A/N: just a little something interesting. just kidding about the sonnet part. needed a title name, haha. funsies is all. enjoy!

A Sonnet for Scents

Sometimes, when Kagome wasn't looking, Inuyasha gave her a good sniff. Real casual, like. Easy. So smooth there was no way she'd notice it. Lean over her when she's bent to her task, doing homework or making ramen, and let his nose take a long, heady drink of her.

Oh, gawd.

Like the bedroom, like something warm and sticky and sensual—he sensed it wasn't that weird floral stuff—shampoo?—that she kept bringing from the future. No, this was the real deal. Kagome's body's smell, the smell that clung to her skin, in her hair, in the beads of sweat that ran down her back and legs and arms and—

Oh, gawd. He thought he'd go nuts if he had to keep getting faint whiffs of that perfume, wafting inevitably to his oh so sensitive demonic canine nose. Needless to say, he lost control a lot.

You're my fine wine.

.

.

Hot days were the worst. The humidity aggravated his noise, making everyone perspire, become drenched in their own body's smells. He managed to ignore Miroku's weird man-smell, and Sango's odd scent, but hers? The smell literally dripped off of her in waves.

"Kagome, dammit, put some of that smelly stuff on, deo-dor-ant!" he'd cry crudely, suddenly exasperated with his physical need for her.

She'd look quite hurt, then angry, with hot, salty waterworks springing to her eyes. "SIT BOY!"

And just before his nose met dirt, her smell was marred, all tears.

Please don't cry. Crying seals you away from me.

.

.

Flight.

When they flitted through the forest, one thigh on either side of his lower back. Her chest pressed to his upper back. Her mouth by his ear, calling, "Yes! We're going to catch him, Inuyasha!"—words of encouragement and friendship. And she'd flush with the exhilaration, with the adventure of the moment. And her smell enveloping him, making the forest swim before his eyes, till he could not tell who he was or where he was going anymore.

He kept wanting to turn his head and bury his nose in her neck.

I would crawl inside of you and stay there.

.

.

"I know what your problem is," Miroku murmured one night, with a sly raise of his brow.

Inuyasha was sitting with his hands in his enormous red sleeves, eyes closed as if meditating. He merely hmphed. "What d'ya mean, lech?"

"Your Kagome problem," he whispered loudly back.

His ears perked up, but he kept his eyes closed. "Don't be an idiot. We're getting along fine."

"Yes, you are," and the way the monk said it sounded nasty.

"Don't get any ideas, you pervert," Inuyasha growled, opening his eyes now. "Don't complicate matters."

"I'm just referring to your over-sensitivity to Kagome's scent." Miroku took on an evaluative tone. "Though it's natural, considering your more than Platonic relationship, your canine roots, and the fact that you are male and she is female and that you are painfully aware of that—"

"Shutup," came the gruff reply. "Stop bathering on and on and get to the point."

"I suggest you just go ahead and seduce her and get it over with—"

Inuyasha beat Miroku over the head. "Shut the hell up if that's all you've got to say!"

"No, no, hear me out," Miroku said patiently. "Your sensitivity is partly because Kagome is the object of your affection and because she is a virgin."

The last word made an interesting click in Inuyasha's brain. Virgin? He'd never thought about it before, particularly—Kagome, wild, affectionate, strong—also untouched. It was alluring, tempting. It made her smell that much more interesting.

"—hence, you should deflower her immediately, and hopefully her smell will go away and stop tormenting you—"

The monk promptly received another blow to the head. "You're an idiot, Miroku, if you think I want that smell to go away, or if you think it has anything to do with Kagome's virginity."

Miroku looked a little surprised at the turn of his friend's thoughts. "What do you think it is, then?"

The half-demon's ears wilted a little, as if bashful. He stared at the fire as he spoke, a low rumble that Miroku could not catch. "It's her that tempts me, that's all."

That's all? Hardly.

.

.

It didn't help matters that that disgusting mutt dog rat monster thing smelled her without even attempting subtlety.

Inuyasha saw Koga lean in appreciatively, too close to Kagome's hair, and grin wolfishly with delight. "God, Kagome, you smell so good!" he'd say, all natural. And she'd only laugh a little and flush with pleasure, unaware at how the half-demon at her side glowered.

"Kagome, you can't let that guy hang all over you," he muttered at her over the campfire.

She was brushing her hair, letting the sticky wonderful smell leak out of her being and find its way back to him. "What do you mean?" she asked, completely clueless.

"Koga," he snarled.

"Oh, don't mind him, he's quite harmless." She smiled at him, tossed her hair back over her shoulder, where it coiled and rested in a dark curl down her back.

"He's a perv, Kagome, he'll take advantage of you. Kidnap you again if he wants."

"Well, that's why you're going to protect me, right?" She batted her eyelashes at him a little, teasing his bad mood.

"Maybe I should just let him take you, if you're going to be so cool with it!" he finally burst, standing, turning, to march off and find himself a comfy tree branch.

"Oh, Inuyasha, calm down! I was only kidding!" she laughed, trying to make peace.

He whirled around. "Then smack that goddam loser next time he comes around!"

"There's no need for that." She sounded exasperated now. "It's no crime to compliment me, y'know."

"It is around here!" he thundered.

She stared at him now, as if unable to believe his foolishness. Suddenly he felt very foolish, but he was too stubborn to let the point slide.

"Kagome, just quit flirting with him, it's disgusting." He turned away, trying to make a dramatic exit to prove his point.

Her smell shifted. He tensed immediately, sensing it, as if the purest air that had been sustaining his life all this time was suddenly spoiled. Inuyasha glanced over his shoulder in mild alarm, only to see Kagome's face in a wild flush of indignation, staring straight at him as if she hated him at that moment. He felt her stare, as if from her eyes came two beams of white-hot light that wounded him, cut him straight to the core. There was a flare of the feral in that glare—as if she were suddenly more than human too. He realized he had made a grave mistake by insulting her honor.

Virgin: the word was back. Kagome was wild, and untouched.

"I-I'm sorry—"

"No. Don't speak." And she turned promptly on her heel to go to bed.

No. Don't. Please.

.

.

Oh, he missed her smell when she was away. He wouldn't say he sat all day at the well, waiting for the first drift of her skin's scent to kiss his senses, but—Miroku, Sanga, and Shippo would. Endless days, with beautiful Japanese blue skies, the greenest of green grass—but she was elsewhere, in a city of cement and noise. Her scent blurred by the smog, the cafes, the millions of other people.

He hated going over there. He was clearly out of place, and he felt his alienness. How she could stand the remoteness of medieval Japan, he did not know. What he did know was his feeling of being absolutely lost. Inuyasha could not find her in the city, if he ventured further than her school or her home. Her smell slipped in amongst the people moving, moving, moving everywhere and nowhere, anywhere, and she became just another back on the street. It terrified him when she was away. She could be lost to him forever.

You have to come back. You have to bring it back.

.

.

There were the times when he was human, and not demon. Cool moonless evenings, when her smell dimmed a little because he was merely mortal, and he could stand to be around her without losing it in his frustration. When he was sure she was already asleep, he'd creep down from his place in the trees and crouch next to her sleeping bag. At these times, it was merely a faint scent on the breeze, a pleasing aroma to decorate his palate amongst the smells of the forest and the soil. For that's how she was: as natural and real and right as the earth.

Inuyasha bent slowly, so slowly as to be imperceptible, over her, feeling his shoulder blades stand out from his skin, his nails digging into the dirt to control his movements. Inuyasha slid closer and closer, finally tucking himself into her, the side of his face on the ground next to her sleeping bag, his nose level with her own, his arm cradling his head as he watched her with half-lidded eyes. She was a peaceful sleeper, with quiet, easy, breaths that escape her mouth and occasional flutters of her eyelashes, as if she were waking.

And her smell.

Oh, it was like first, blushing, hesitant sex; like experienced, slow, loving sex; like sex between new honeymooners and sex between a couple who've been together for years. And still, more: like the morning after, lying in a glow of love and light and lingering breaths.

It was these times that he remembered he loved her. Because in the midst of their journey, day in and day out, arguing, planning, fleeing, chasing, living together as partners—he forgot that he was her lover, in the purest sense of the word. He loved her. It rang true, so true, truer than anything, when he was able to lie by her side like this, and just feel.

I'd stay here forever.

.

.

"Inuyasha! Lemme touch 'em."

"What? No."

"Please?" She made huge puppy-dog eyes.

He glared, then rolled his own. "Fine, but just a second."

With a little cry of delight, like a little girl, she raced over, fell into his lap, and threw her arms around him, as if to give him a hug. Then she reached her dainty hands up to his head and tweaked at his little dog years, giggling again.

Though he glared at first, and frowned the entire time, he couldn't deny her a chance to climb into his arms, or himself a chance to have his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder: the source of her intoxicating smell.

You aren't even aware of it, are you?

.

.

Rare times, when they were alone: he indulged.

Gathered her, stammering and fretful, into his arms, unable to hear her sounds of alarm.

"W-what are you doing, Inuyasha?" and her voice was so small against the loud siren of her smell.

He had her right where he wanted her, two small palms flat against his chest, with one of his hands on her back and another in her hair.

He combed through the curls with his long, sharp fingers, feeling how they fell like silk between them—releasing the smell from the confines of her tresses into the air. He kept himself bound to her, his arm always shielding her body from the world around: youkai for miles could have sniffed the charm off her.

"Don't move." His voice was a deep rumble, coming out of his chest and straight to her ear.

He pressed his nose to the small sweet spot below her ear, just where her hair grew, his chin resting easily on her shoulder. Inhaled. She shivered, like a delicious piece of fresh fruit. Inhaled again, deep, satisfying, as if he were taking in the entire force of her in one breath. Her hands tightened a little bit on his chest, and he felt that she was clutching at his heart in her small hands.

When he pulled away, he locked her eyes with his own, the golden demon eyes set in a rowdy face, mouth in a hard line. But there was no harshness in his gaze: rather, persistent. Intentional. Saying,

I want to claim you for my own.

.

.

"Inuyasha, d'you think I smell bad or something?" she made a face, half-teasing, half-serious.

"Why d'ya ask me that?" He looked over his shoulder at her. They were gathering firewood to help make breakfast.

"Well, you always wrinkle your nose a little at me, and frown." She was afraid to meet his eyes in her embarrassment. Her face was a little hot, and it was apple-cheeked adorable.

He laughed, a full, free laugh. Inuyasha raced to her, grabbed her in a great bear-hug, like a child running to his mother. She yelped a bit at his abrupt behavior, her blush reaching now to her ears.

"Kagome, you have the prettiest smell I've ever smelled!" he declared, and the words felt like freedom after so many unspoken wishes.

A/N: i think i wrote this because it was hot today and i was wondering if i smelled bad at school. whoops!

A/N: so, review guys, i'd appreciate it :D