InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A First Time For Everything ❯ "Papaoutai" ( Chapter 44 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

So not pregnant! Whoop Whoop! Found a couple of other unfinished Rin/Sesshomaru stories hiding on my laptop and I’ve been switching back and forth between them trying to finish them and work on one or two other ideas floating around in my brain. One of those being a ‘sequel’ to this one.

 

Thank my youngest son Thorin for this gem (eighteen months old and youngest of four) he decided mommy needed a head-butt and kid doesn’t pull his punches (my poor forehead is still pretty tender). Kid knocked some sense into me I guess.

 

 

“Papaoutai” Stromae

 

 

It was just another annoying Monday. He’d woken up at five like he did every morning, drank his coffee, read his paper and after getting dressed, headed off to work to begin the new day. There was nothing unordinary about the day, he didn’t have any new clients coming in for consultations, no appointments or phone calls and it would leave his day consisting of paperwork. 

 

The paperwork spread out over his wooden desk would have been overwhelming to anyone else who was not used to seeing the seemingly endless stack, and even hard to understand by someone who was assaulted with it due to its complexity; however, for Sesshomaru it was an everyday occurrence and was expected. Life for him was routine, organized, and lacking chaos and he found it almost funny how his work habits had become so messy. 

 

Now, that didn’t mean that he did not take pride in his work, because he still had the same fire for it as he always had, but it was more time-consuming, needier and he had thrown himself in it to tame it. On days like this, he felt it was only his work that was left for him to acknowledge, everything else having left him years before. On days like this, he felt the paperwork was the only thing he could fix without damaging his pride or without compromising anything. Paperwork was something he knew he could never fuck up, even if he wanted to. 

 

Normally he would skip breakfast, he usually came into the office early in the morning to get himself caught up and as he drowned himself in carbon copy and white papers the time would fly by and no one would dare to bother him, his secretary especially. How many had he gone through in the last four years, six-seven, maybe eight, he wondered to himself as he scratched his signature onto a paper and flipping it over to view the next page. 

 

He was never one to discriminate against a person and he had all types of people hired and yet none of them seemed to stay long. It could have been that lately, he had been having more bad days than relatively good one s and that one mistake could and sometimes did make his employees wind up in the unemployment offices, but he only wanted perfection from his employees or close to it and none of them measured up.

 

The newest addition to his rather small office was an elderly woman in her early sixties and so far he had run into no problems with her to warrant firing. She was a short woman, her long salt and pepper hair usually pinned up in elaborate buns or a long braid, and had a vaguely familiar smile. She never did follow the dress code he had set up and that he did not mind too much as she was more old fashioned than the women parading around in the busy streets of the downtown business central and he was fine with her wares. 

 

Sesshomaru did not like to admit it, but he was oddly comfortable around this older woman, her smiles were always genuine, her work ethic hard, but she still felt like the grandparent he had been denied growing up. She still chastised him when she believed he worked too hard or spoke too coldly to clients and even on rare occasions gave out dating advice. 

 

Though they both knew it was not her place to decide who was a good match or who was worthy of his time, he let her make her point, he did, after all, find it amusing the way she had immediately taken to annoying Kagura whenever she tried to pop into the office for a “casual visit”. It was certain to say that the ruby-eyed woman attempted to “ignore” him for a week and though one could call what they had become as an item, it had given him a breath of fresh air he hadn’t known he needed. 

 

Rin, he found himself thinking about her more lately than he tried to allow himself and on a few occasions he forced his hand off the phone on his desk as he subconsciously wanted to hear her voice again. How long had it been since he had seen her last? Four-five, maybe six and a half years? A pang in his chest reminded him that he had work still left to be done and tiredly he shook his head and focused his attention on the document in front of him. He would not dwell on something that could not be changed. Rin had been the one to leave him and he had let her, in fact, he had made the transition rather easily and left her with everything that they had built together and simply disappeared. No one had to know that on the inside he was hurting, hurting bad at that, and he did the only thing he could do at the time, he pushed all of it from his mind and moved on. 

 

Did he regret letting it end so badly, yes--yes he did, but would he ever admit being at fault for the outcome? No, he wouldn’t. He did not like the compromising who he was for anyone, even after the time he had spent with Rin and she plucked at his pride and let the relationship he had come to care about crumbling in his fingers like a dirt clog. InuYasha attacked Sesshomaru like a rabid dog, throwing curses and yelling at him for his selfishness and callousness. InuYasha spat harsh words at Sesshomaru that he himself was already saying to himself and though it did not break him down further, it added weight to his shoulders that on days he couldn’t stand himself almost sent him crashing to the floor (figuratively speaking of course). 

 

Sesshomaru did not keep tabs on Rin, didn’t accidentally run into her on the street. He didn’t even drop by the home they had shared for years unannounced with the spare key he had forgotten to give her when he moved out. Instead, he tried to carry on as if she had never existed in his life, and to everyone else around him, he had done it without a bat of an eyelash. At first, he drank, his glass had never been empty of scotch or brandy and on a few occasions, tequila. Not surprisingly, that immediately stopped when he had continuously come into the office with a hangover from hell and an annoying flamboyant secretary that had been a little too loud and too annoying and begrudgingly Sesshomaru sobered up. 

 

These days, if he had to have a drink, it was only enough to relax him and that was usually only a drink, maybe two, and then he could go on pretending that everything was okay. Scratching his signature with his pen on another document, Sesshomaru tilted his head back and rested it on the back of his chair, his eyes staring bored at the ceiling as he tried to decide whether or not to come into work had even been worth the effort. He already knew that with his mind continuing down the road he was on none of his work would get done and despite knowing he could force himself to complete the tasks he wanted to, doing things halfway was never his style.

 

A knock on his door brought him from his thoughts as it opened and a small salt and pepper head popped in, a hesitant smile on a wrinkled and pale face. “Sesshomaru?” 

 

“Yes Sophie?” He lifted his head to glance at her, his eyes darting across to the digital clock on his desk, it was already three-thirty in the afternoon.

 

“Your brother InuYasha called earlier to cancel your plans for dinner. Apparently, there had been a family emergency,” his ears perked at ‘emergency’ and like usual, he opted to look uncaring. “I took the liberty of ordering your lunch since you seem like you don’t want to be disturbed and Kagura called as well several times, and I took another liberty as well as not writing down her messages as you’ve had me do in the past.”

 

“Anything else?” He couldn’t help but return her Cheshire grin at Kagura’s expense, which would prove to be amusing later. 

 

“Just wondering how late you are planning to stay tonight,” Sophie gently placed his lunch at the corner of his desk that was clean along with a cup of hot chocolate she always made him around this time claiming it would ease his mind. “If it’s not a problem I would like to stay until you’re ready to leave.”

 

The both of them already knew that it was her subtle hint at him not to stay at the office too late and that she would in fact, out of pure stubbornness, not leave until he did and it forced him to leave at a reasonable time. He did not mind it, as he still would be able to leave around eight or nine since Sophie did not come in until one anyway and he appreciated the silent gesture that someone still cared enough to make demands. It was selfishness he harbored away from prying eyes, the need to have people make demands, though he only cared to hear them from people he considered worthy. 

 

“I’m not sure yet,” he told her rubbing the bridge of his nose. He could already feel a headache brewing and maybe if he rubbed it, it would not turn into a migraine later. “Maybe seven or eight. Remind me if it gets too late for you.” 

 

Her smile was soft and genuine, her small hand patted him and he sighed heavily when she left his office, the door closing quietly behind her. The two of them already knew that he would not be progressing with any work today, it was apparent by the disarray of his desk and how tense his muscles were feeling, and without hesitation, he picked up the drink she brought for him and took a sip, the sweet warmth filling his stomach and easing away some of the stress he hadn’t realized he was feeling. Leaning back in his chair he closed his eyes and tried to relax further, only his mind fought against him at every turn, his thoughts turning back to a place he deemed ‘hazardous’ and he lost himself in his memories.

 

 

“Hey,” Rin had been curled around a large body pillow on the couch, her hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail. she had been watching a recording of InuYasha’s wedding. “Do you think we would ever have something like that?” 

 

Sesshomaru had been at the kitchen table working on a few files and he glanced up watching Rin over the frames of his reading glasses. “Something like what?” 

 

“A wedding as beautiful as InuYasha’s and Kagome’s?” There was a certain look in her eyes that begged not to be ignored, one that he should have been listening to in the first place, but he wasn’t the type to spare people’s feelings. 

 

“No,” he said bluntly. It had been a rough last couple of weeks, crying clients, mountains of paperwork, idiotic secretaries, and suspicious behavior from everyone he knew, Rin included.

 

“Why not?” She had turned to face him, her arms hanging over the back of the couch and her eyes curious, stray strands of her midnight-colored hair falling into her face. 

 

“I will never marry you,” it hadn’t come out the way he wanted it to, and even to him it sounded too cold, but he would not take it back because it had been honest. Sesshomaru didn’t believe in marriage and he never planned on doing so. 

 

He missed the look that she gave him, the quiet gasp barely catching his attention and he continued to read through the work in front of him. Rin sat quietly on the couch staring at him, he could feel her questioning gaze on him, prodding him, poking him and to a point annoying him. Didn’t she have anything better to do than stare at him? Sesshomaru flipped to the next page as the television set turned off and the sound of Rin getting off the couch alerted him and caught his attention. He didn’t have time to deal with her mood swings today, not when they were becoming more frequent and bi-polar like and he forced himself to concentrate on what was in front of him instead of what was going on around him.  

 

“Do you even love me Sesshomaru?” Her voice was closer to him, he could feel the warmth from her body next to his arms. His mind was already flinging out alarms at him, warning him that the pitch of her whispered voice was dangerous and he pushed it from his mind. Did he love her? He couldn’t say for sure whether or not he did because love wasn’t something he honestly could believe in. It was a lie poor people told themselves, a fantasy that kept weaker people from slipping off the edge, and not once had he thought Rin was weak. Maybe a female so prone to overreaction, but not weak like the rest of the people he dealt with.

 

“No Rin,” the words slipping past his lips felt wrong, horribly wrong and when he glanced up to meet her gaze she flinched away from him, moisture pooling in her eyes and threatening to fall. He felt his blood freeze at the confused lost look she gave him, the way her hand clutched her chest as if she were in pain, excruciating pain. He had immediately regretted saying it, something that he was unaccustomed to feeling but he wouldn’t take it back. 

 

“I-I,” he could hear the trembling in her voice, the sobs that she was holding back, and guilt flooded him, another thing he was not used to feeling, that and shame, yet none of it showed on his face. “I’m going to go to InuYasha’s and Kagome’s for a w-while… I-I’ll be back later.”

 

She didn’t give him the custom kiss on the forehead or hug, she turned and practically bolted away from him, grabbing her keys and walking out the front door, not bothering to close it behind her. He didn’t chase after her, didn’t call her on her cellular phone, he merely turned his attention back to the work in front of him and drudged forward. Rin didn’t come home that night or the next night and it took an angry call from InuYasha the following night to find out that Rin wasn’t coming back and that everything they had built together had crashed and burned. 

 

 

Laughter from outside his office brought him back to his desk, his tired eyes glancing down at the digital clock and mentally groaning; five-thirty had come and gone and it was going on six in the afternoon and he still had yet to complete anything. Rolling his neck to remove the kinks, he rose from his chair and stretched out the stiff muscles in his legs and lower back, listening to his joints protest as they cracked. He was long overdue for a ‘coffee break’ and he would find out what was going outside of his office on his way to the break room. 

 

Sophie’s small desk was off to the side of his office door and was the source of the noise. Pulling his gaze to her he was surprised to see a small child sitting on the older woman’s lap, dark curls and a smiling face, the child’s small fingers pointing at pages in a book, fast chatter high pitched and excited and he wondered where this child materialized from. The laughter stopped as the small child spotted him, her ridiculously light hazel eyes widening to large saucers and a small blush floated onto her face. Her cheeks were still chubby with baby fat, but the way her hair curled around her like some high-priced styled-do struck him as familiar and it stopped him in his tracks. 

 

The similarities were uncanny, the way the child’s head cocked to the side, the long midnight hair reminding him of Rin and for a moment he forgot how to breathe. Was this child related to Rin? Was this her daughter? Sesshomaru had been shocked before when Rin had somehow wandered into his life and it had become almost a constant state of living while he had been with her; however, this time he was speechless. It was as if someone dumped buckets of ice water on him during a heatwave and expected him to still run a marathon in five layers of clothing. 

 

The small child smiled up at him, her lips stretching across her face and threatening to break it in half, she was a surprise he would have never thought up in a million years. There was a torrent of questions bouncing off the walls of his mind, most still circulating around Rin and now the small creature with his secretary. How old was this child? Why was she in his office? Where was her mother? 

Who all knew about this child to begin with and why didn't they tell him? How could this have happened?

 

 "Sophie," He snapped coldly glancing from the older woman to the child and back. "Where did this child come from and how did she get here?"

 

He felt the urgent tugging on his pants and for a moment he wanted to ignore the small child, but the tugging only came harder. 

 

 "Excuse me," her tugging was pulling his shirt from being tucked into his slacks, and giving up, he fixed his gaze on her. "Excuse me! My uncle dropped me off because my mommy had to be taken to the hostible."

 

“Sophie?” He could hear his voice cracking and the older woman looked momentarily stunned. 

 

“InuYasha dropped her off,” she spoke quickly, almost uncharacteristically as she reached for the child and pried the small hands from his person. Her aging hands patted the small girl’s head and “He wasn’t making any sense at first, just said that her father would take her. He said it had to do with the family emergency and would call you later.”

 

“Whose child is this?” His heart began beating fast in his chest, he could feel a chill running up his spine and something told Sesshomaru he did not want to hear the answer. 

 

“I-I,” stuttering was never a good sign, “I think she’s yours.”

 

He had to sit down, he told himself before he passed out. Sesshomaru dropped his body into the nearest chair and stared horrified at the little girl in front of him. She’d gone back to demanding his secretary's attention, her laughter ringing in his ears and dumping stones into his stomach. Could this child be his? Who was her mother and what in the hell was going on? One of his hands absently rubbed at his chest in a desperate attempt to calm his racing heart. How was this possible?

 

“How is this possible?” He whispered softly to himself.

 

“Sesshomaru,” Sophie would give a sarcastic remark, he could hear it in her voice. “I think we both know how these things happen.”

 

His gaze met with the elderly woman’s and he glared at her. They both knew his question had been rhetorical, but then again, he reminded himself, her responses were something he had learned to treasure over time. Something’s just needed to be said and not once was the woman in front of him dishonest. God, everything she did was beginning to remind him of someone else. How had he been so blind not to see it before?

 

“Who is her mother?” He couldn’t find it in him to speak to the child directly and he watched as Sophie’s eyebrow rose slightly in challenge, the wrinkles on her forehead creasing together before her expressive eyes rolled.

 

“Honey,” she spoke softly to the child, her wrinkled hands gently resting on the child’s shoulders. Sesshomaru guessed Sophie was already a grandmother, so the action didn’t seem forced. “Can you tell me your mother’s name?”

 

“Uh-Huh,” the child nodded her head in an exaggerated way and went silent. Sesshomaru could feel the need to make the hand gestures for ‘aaaaannnd?’ to hurry the child’s response, but he held it at bay, just barely. 

 

“What is it dear?” 

 

“Her name is Mommy,”

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Sesshomaru threw himself out of the chair and into his office grabbing the previously ignored cell phone from his desk and selecting his brother’s contact information while trying not to crack the screen from the pressure of his fingers. 

 

The phone rang for several long seconds and Sesshomaru paced in front of his desk as the line clicked over to voicemail. He cursed again under his breath and changed his tactics, this time calling Kagome and hoping for the best. It rang, and rang again, and feeling the panic welling up in him, Sesshomaru almost flung the cell phone when finally someone answered.

 

“Sesshomaru?” Kagome’s voice sounded out of breath, but worried and he stopped pacing.

 

“Where is InuYasha?” He didn’t waste time with greetings and he pinched the bridge of his nose with his free fingers. 

 

There was hushed whispering on the other line, muffled and Sesshomaru guessed Kagome had put her hand over the speaker. He waited for a response as patiently as he could, but after a moment or two, he began pacing the room again, ignoring the voices coming from outside his office door. 

 

“What do you want Sesshomaru,” InuYasha sounded annoyed, and Sesshomaru bit back the urge to growl.

 

“You dropped a child off at my office this afternoon.” 

 

“And?”

 

“Whose child is she and why is she here?” His own voice was low and felt dangerous. He would strangle InuYasha the next time he saw him.

“Congratulations Sesshomaru, you’re a father.” 

 

“W-what?” Had the world gone mad? Sesshomaru couldn’t be a father, not with a child that big. It just wasn’t possible.

 

“Look Sesshomaru,” InuYasha’s voice softened a little bit and Sesshomaru rested his weight against the front of his desk too afraid that his legs would give way. “Rin got into an accident today and had to go to the hospital. Normally I’m cool with watching my favorite niece, but you know what I’m tired of keeping everyone’s secrets. You helped make her and until Rin gets out of surgery and release, the kid’s your responsibility. You and Rin are both adults, so you two can keep me and Kagome out of the middle of your problems.”

 

“B-but?” 

 

“I’m hanging up now Sesshomaru,” his brother sounded too cocky and Sesshomaru couldn’t breathe. “Bye.”

 

Sesshomaru pulled the cell phone away from his ear and stared blankly at it for several minutes trying to understand what was going on. His brain was taking on more information than it could process and it needed to restart from the system errors it was throwing. He took deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth over and over again, and still, things were not making sense.

 

“Sesshomaru are you alright?” Sophie peered curiously at him from the doorway, cautious with her movements as if she startled him he would run away. He was feeling more flight than fight at the moment.

 

“What do I do?” He asked her, his fingers running through his long hair and tugging at the strands. This was not how he behaved, he was more put together than this, he had to get his thoughts more organized.

 

“Well,” She said matter of factly. “Take her home, feed her and keep her overnight and deal with everything tomorrow.”

 

“Okay,” Sesshomaru gave himself several mental pep talks and nodded at Sophie’s suggestion. “I can do that. Tomorrow, tomorrow.”

 

Quickly Sesshomaru gathered the few things he needed from his office and shut off the lights. He waited as the elderly secretary did the same and the small child followed them curiously like a tiny puppy. He couldn’t focus his attention on the words that came out of her mouth, just that it all came out a mile a minute, not all of it actual words and some of them enunciated incorrectly. The three of them left the office and as Sesshomaru turned off the lights and locked the entrance doors Sophie said her farewell and headed towards her vehicle. 

 

How did one take care of a small child? Sesshomaru asked himself as he faced the small creature. Her smile was toothy and white and he swallowed the lump in his throat as she reached out a small hand and slipped it into his own. There was a jolt of electricity that shocked him and the little girl giggled loudly. 

 

It dawned on him as the two of them walked to his car and he unlocked the doors and carefully buckled her in the back seat, this was his child. It was not something he had ever expected and warmth spread into his chest as he closed the door and slid into his own seat. He did not have anything for a child and if he was going to be responsible for her, there were things that he would need to get. A car seat being on the top of the list.

 

“Call father,” Sesshomaru spoke clearly as he navigated the car onto the road and began driving home. The car’s computer system repeated his command and he listened to the ringing through the speakers until his father’s voice filled the small vehicle.

 

“Sesshomaru,” his father sounded curious and Sesshomaru frowned.

 

“Papa-Tashio!!” the girl in the back seat started shrieking loudly, tiny feet kicking the back of Sesshomaru’s seat.

 

“Akane?” the shrieks went up a few octaves higher and Sesshomaru thought his eardrums would rupture. 

 

“Father,” Sesshomaru didn’t like the situation he found himself in and it hurt his pride that it seemed everyone knew he had a child and had kept it from him. “How long have you known?”

 

“Since the beginning,” 

 

Sesshomaru scoffed bitterly, keeping his eyes on the road in front of him. “Of course you did. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

 

“Rin begged me not to,” his father was unapologetic “It wasn’t like you would have listened to what I had to say back then.”

 

“Someone should have told me.”

 

“Maybe…”

 

“Father,” Sesshomaru snapped angrily. “I had a right to know before.”

 

InuTashio sighed heavily, “Well there’s no use in crying over spilled milk.”

 

“This is hardly the time for levity father,” Sesshomaru did not think he was being unreasonable. His having a child was important and he should have been told and not have the child thrown into his care without any forewarning. Rin and his family had decided to keep him ignorant and he would have to rectify that at a later date. “Please, I don’t have the faintest clue what I need to do.”

 

“I know,” he could hear the shame in his father’s voice and it struck him as odd. “I’ll meet you at your place and I’ll help you get through this.”

 

“Okay,”

 

“I’m not saying that I agreed with her raising Akane on her own,” InuTashio was not one to make excuses and Sesshomaru took what his father was saying to heart. “But it wasn’t my decision to make and I couldn’t let her walk away Sesshomaru. I know this is a lot to take in at the moment but you will get through this and now that you know you and Rin will just have to figure out how to co-parent together.”

 

“Thank you,”

 

-TBC-