InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 11: Volition ❯ The Norm ( Chapter 1 )

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

The sound of even breathing was punctuated only by the faraway cooing of an infant.  She wasn’t crying—it was more a sound made just to let her parents know that she was awake.  That cooing, however, could very easily escalate into something far, far worse, though, if left to her own devices for too long . . .

Beside him in the warmth of the bed, Izayoi Meara nudged her mate, Morio, pretending like she was simply shifting in her sleep, but he knew better.  It was a scenario that had played out all too often, almost like a sick and twisted kind of ritual, really.  Too bad he knew.  If he gave in now, then all would be lost, right?

‘Right.’

‘It’s your daughter, baka.  You’re not really going to make her resort to crying, are you?’

Snorting inwardly at the overly-annoying sound of his youkai-voice, Morio still refused to open his eyes.  ‘Except that Meara’s awake, too,’ he reasoned.  ‘Besides, what if she just . . . goes back to sleep . . .?  I mean, it could happen . . .’

The first part of that was true enough—he knew damn well that Meara was, in fact, awake—and pretending not to be, just like he was.  The second part?  Well, that wasn’t likely to happen and was more wishful thinking than anything else.  ‘Besides . . . the baby wants something in particular—something that I didn’t come equipped with.’

‘You’re going straight to hell, Izayoi, just so you know,’ his youkai insisted.

In retaliation, Morio opened his mouth, let out a succession of obnoxiously loud snores as he tried to convince Meara that he was still sleeping.

Her response to that was a dull thump as she made a show of rolling over in bed and whacking him ‘accidentally’ in the middle of his chest.

The smile that surfaced on his features drew a soft chuckle from him, and he sighed, giving up the pretense that he wasn’t awake.  “Your daughter’s calling you, Meara.”

“Mm,” she intoned, rolling toward him, letting her fingers tangle in the length of the long, silver hair that spilled over his shoulder.  “No, she’s definitely saying, ‘Da . . . Da . . .’”

“But you’re closer to the door,” Morio insisted, wrapping his arms around her and rolling to the side, dragging Meara with him so that she was on the other side of the bed and therefore closer to the door.

Meara giggled, wrapping a fistful of his hair around her hand and giving a little tug.  “Cheater.”

“Are you really going to let your daughter cry?” he scolded with a mock scowl.

Undaunted, Meara rolled her eyes.  “She’s not crying, and you woke up first, so you should go get her.”

“Baby’s waked up,” two-year-old Yuriko mumbled as she shuffled into the room, the rubbery soles of her pink fluffy bunny slippers, whispering on the floor.  Rubbing her right eye with a balled-up fist, she held her free arm up for her father to scoop her onto the bed, just like he did every morning.

Morio picked her up and set her between them.  “Where’s my morning lovins?” Morio grouched when Yuriko scooted away from him to snuggle against Meara’s side.

In response, Yuriko kissed her palm and waved her hand in his general direction without moving away from her mama.

Morio snorted.  “One of these days, I’ll get those kisses,” he remarked as he tossed the blankets back and rolled out of bed.  The two were paying him absolutely no attention as they cuddled and giggled, and Morio heaved a longsuffering sigh to hide his grin as he strode out of the bedroom and across the hallway to the nursery.

Nariko kicked her feet, opening and closing her mouth as she waited patiently inside the white crib with the hand-painted flowers, and when she spotted her father, she managed a happy little gurgle.  She smiled at him—he swore she did—even if Meara had said more than once that it was just gas.

“Hey, little girl,” he said in a much higher tone than he usually used as he scooped the infant up and moved over to the diaper changing table, sticking the pastel pink pacifier into her mouth to tide her over.  “I know; you want your mama . . .”

But she waited calmly enough, spitting out the pacifier in favor of cooing softly since she’d discovered her voice a couple days ago while Morio made quick work of changing her.

That done, he scooped her up once more and headed out of the room and across the hall again but decided instead to veer off to the left, down the hallway, down the stairs, and over to the front door.

The plastic wrapped flower lay on the welcome mat just outside, and he carefully stooped to retrieve it without exposing the infant to the chilly, early March air.  In the spring and summertime, Morio tended to pick flowers that he’d learned to grow in the yard behind the house, but there wasn’t much he could do about winter, and early March was still too early in the year, so he paid one of the local florists to drop off a flower every morning.  After all, keeping promises to Meara wasn’t a chore in the least, and while he’d rather select the flower himself, it was more important to him that she got her flower every morning, instead, and since they’d had children, well . . . finding the time to get everything done wasn’t always as simple as it once was . . .

Grasping the plastic covering between his teeth, Morio yanked it loose and grinned at the off-white chrysanthemum he found inside.  “Fink Mama weew wike it?” he asked just before leaning over to let the plastic fall into the small trash can he kept next to the small table beside the door.

Nariko stared at him with those large gray eyes—eyes so much like her mama’s.  She wasn’t cooing anymore, and Morio nodded as he hurried back toward the stairs once more.  She had been very patient so far, but it wouldn’t be long before she let the world know that she was still hungry, he was certain . . .

Meara and Yuriko were still busy, though now they were rubbing their noses together—Eskimo kisses—when he stepped into the bedroom a few seconds later.  Sparing a moment to smile as he watched them, he hesitated before wandering back toward the bed once more, holding out his daily offering.  Meara smiled and took it, burying her nose deep in the bloom.  “Thank you,” she said.

He leaned down to kiss her as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“How about we just stay here like this all day?” Meara asked, kissing Yuriko’s forehead.  The expression on her face was so happy, so content, that Morio couldn’t help but smile.

“But I want to play with Hannah-chan!” Yuriko complained, sitting up quickly and casting her mother an anxious glance.

Meara laughed and set the flower on her nightstand before drawing Yuriko into a quick hug.  “Then you’d better go get dressed, huh?”

“Okay!” Yuriko exclaimed, scooting butt-first off the bed and hitting the floor at a run.

“You’d better wear pants if you want to play outside,” Meara called after her as she held out her arms for Nariko.

“Now about that morning feeding,” Morio drawled when Yuriko was out of earshot.

Meara blushed prettily and shoved him back when he tried to lean down to latch onto one of her breasts as she unbuttoned her nightgown and slipped it off her shoulders.  “Ach, mon!  Away with ye!  Your daughter’ll be needing both of those nae, ye ken?”

Grinning rather stupidly—he loved it when he managed to fluster Meara enough that her Scottish brogue emerged—he heaved a sigh designed to let her know exactly what he thought of her rebuff.  “You’re a harsh woman, Meara,” he complained.

She rolled her eyes though her blush darkened slightly.  “Just be glad that I let you stay here,” she chided.  “Now come here and help me get comfortable.”

Morio handed over the infant and waited while Meara scooted forward far enough for him to slip in behind her.  She settled back against his chest with Nariko cuddled against her.  The greedy sounds of the infant’s nursing were the only sounds to be heard in the comfortable silence.  “She looks just like you,” he murmured, folding his arms around the two of them.

Meara sighed and let her head fall back against Morio’s shoulder, a little smile toying with the corners of her lips.  “She doesn’t.  She looks like her own self.”

“Her-own-self that looks like a mini version of her mama,” Morio contended.  “She’s going to break some hearts one day.”

“Of course, she will,” Meara agreed, turning her face so that she could kiss her mate’s cheek.  “Her and Yuriko, both, I wouldn’t wonder.”

“Yeah, well, they can take their time in breaking those hearts,” Morio grumbled, not at all pleased with the gentle reminder that his girls were very likely going to grow up to be women one day.

Meara laughed and craned her neck to kiss Morio’s cheek.  Slowly, though, the contented smile on her face faltered then disappeared, only to be replaced by a sense of melancholy that Morio knew a little too well.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he prompted, knowing full well what was on her mind but figuring that she’d rather say it out loud since she was beating around the bush with it.

“It’s the fourth, isn’t it?” Meara finally murmured at length.

Scowling over her head, Morio rubbed her arms in an attempt to offer her a measure of comfort.  He’d forgotten the date, sure, but it wasn’t the first time that they’d talked about this, either.  “So it is,” he agreed quietly.

Meara sighed, and though he could tell that she was trying to remain calm, he could sense the tension just below her carefully constructed façade.  “She’s twenty-one today.”

“Don’t be so worried,” Morio chided, jiggling his shoulder that Meara was leaning against.  He sounded a lot more positive than he actually felt, not that she needed to know that.  To be honest, as the years had passed, as letters and gifts had been returned unopened, he’d started to feel as though Meara’s dream of being reunited with her baby sister was exactly that: a dream—a bittersweet and beautiful dream, sure, but still just a dream, after all . . . “I’ve got a good feeling about it,” he lied though to his credit, the doubt that lingered in the back of his head didn’t come through in his tone.  “It’s just a matter of time, you know.  She’ll show up one day when we’re least expecting it, right?”

Meara uttered a sharp half-laugh that he supposed was meant to fool him.  It didn’t.  “Yeah,” she allowed, inflicting a measure of brightness into her tone that was somewhat abrasive.  “Probably the next time you make coffee.”

Morio snorted indignantly.  “I make good coffee,” he grumbled.

“Compared to mud, maybe,” she agreed.

Morio tried to look offended but ended up chuckling instead as he wrapped his arms tighter around her.  “And here I was trying to cheer you up,” he complained.

Meara sighed but finally relaxed.  “You did,” she told him, turning her face to offer him a little smile.  “Thank you.”

“This is my favorite time of day,” he confessed quietly, savoring the warmth, the sense of well-being, that he couldn’t contain.  Okay, so he couldn’t nurse the infant, but sitting here like this while Meara did was still just as nice, he figured.  It was the same thing that he’d always done when Yuriko was an infant, too—one of the few things that he absolutely insisted upon, no matter what his schedule for the day looked like.

Unfortunately, it never lasted quite long enough, either, and when the infant drew away from her mother’s breast, content to coo at Meara as her tiny mouth rounded in a puckered little ‘oh’, he sighed.

“You want to get your shower first?” Meara asked, breaking gently through his idyll.

“Nah, you go ahead and get yours,” Morio insisted.  “I’ll even make the coffee.”

Meara paused as she started to turn to hand the baby over and made a face.  “You don’t really have to,” she blurted quickly—too quickly—as she tried to blank her expression before he could see the abject panic that his words had inspired.  “I’ll be more than happy to do that.  Really, you shouldn’t trouble yourself.”

“It’s no trouble,” Morio remarked with a grin as he took Nariko from Meara’s arms.  “Don’t worry, Meara.  My father gave me a lesson on the proper way to make coffee, you know.  Piece of cake!”

She didn’t look convinced, but the idea of having her shower first seemed to appeal to her.  “All right,” she finally agreed.  “Why do I think that I’m going to regret this . . .?”

His grin widened.

She heaved a dubious sigh.


“S o, I’ll see you at noon?”

Meara nodded as she downed a tepid cup of coffee, grimacing at the bitterness of the brew.  Morio had never been good at making the stuff, but she’d given in and let him make it since he’d said that he’d gotten lessons—lessons that hadn’t done a damn bit of good, apparently—he’d volunteered to make a pot while she was taking a shower.  Holding their infant daughter to her breast with one hand—Nariko had decided that she was hungry again just after Meara had gotten dressed for the day—she set the empty cup aside and stretched out her legs, using her toes to snag her house shoes, and popped open the small compact with her free hand and checked her appearance before snapping it closed and dropping it on the table.

“You left this upstairs,” he said, gently laying the flower onto the table before her.

“Thank you.  Would you mind sticking it into the vase with the others?” she mused, abandoning her tasks long enough to pick up the flower and bury her nose in the petals in much the same fashion that she had when he’d first presented it to her earlier.

“There,” he said, trimming the end of the stem and carefully sticking it into the vase that Meara kept on the table with all the fresh flowers that she collected daily.  Sparing a moment to arrange the blooms, he frowned at his task with a critical eye before finally stepping back, satisfied that they looked good.  “I missed my calling,” he quipped, casting her a grin as he scooped up the trash stem and tossed it into the trash can.  “I should’ve been a flower arranger, right?”

“You have many talents, Morio,” she allowed with a giggle.  “One of the many reasons I love you,” she quipped.

“Yeah, we all know that the real reason you love me is because of the size of my—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence in the vicinity of such tender little ears,” Meara interrupted, a pretty flush suffusing her skin as she leaned the other way to swat Morio’s rear.

Morio grinned unrepentantly, kissing Meara’s forehead as he nabbed her cup before refilling it and setting it down again.  “You love me that way,” he went on airily, waving a hand to dismiss her protests.  “’Course, you also love me, flat on my back so you can take advantage of me . . .”

“Morio,” she began in a warning tone despite the grin and the deepening flush staining her cheeks.

“Come to think of it, I rather like me that way, too,” he mused, scratching his chin in a thoughtful kind of way.

“You’re a sick man,” she muttered, ducking her chin as though she were trying to hide her blush from his perusal.

With a chuckle, he relented.  Meara had been raised in a far too proper household, and if he kept it up, there was a good chance that she’d spend the rest of the day with a completely red face, not that he would mind, but . . . “Anyway, I was thinking—” Cutting himself off with a wince as a loud crash followed by a little growl of frustration echoed through the house, Morio heaved a melodramatic sigh and held out his hands in a ‘what-can-you-do’ sort of way.  “I’ll check on her,” he volunteered, striding away as Meara smashed her feet into her shoes, wiggling them from side to side to force them on.

“I don’t think we need to know what your sister’s into, do we, Nari?” Meara asked, lifting her eyebrows at the two-week-old baby.

Nariko stopped sucking long enough to blink at her mother before turning her attention back to her meal.

“Yuriko don’t like it, Papa!” the nearly three-year-old child whined as she trailed after Morio into the kitchen.

Morio shook his head and caught his mate’s amused glance.  “It’s ‘doesn’t’, Yuri, and I’m sorry you don’t like it.  You still have to wear it.”

Yuriko tugged at the sweater that Morio had obviously just forced over his daughter’s head.  “Mama . . .” she began in a plaintive little voice.

“Your father’s spoken, munchkin, and he’s right.  It’s cold out today—cold enough for your real coat.  What do you think, Morio?”

He winked at her.  “Maybe even a snowsuit.”

Yuriko’s mouth dropped open in objection.  “But—”

Meara sighed but smiled indulgently.  “Well, if you don’t want to play outside with Hannah-chan, then I suppose . . .”

Yuriko scrunched up her face in a thoughtful scowl.  “I have to wear a coat to play with Hannah-chan?”

Meara nodded as Yuriko’s shoulders drooped and her hands dropped away.  “Okay . . .”

Morio chuckled and kissed his wife’s forehead.  “You’re so good at that.”

“I’ve told you; I’m a woman of many talents.”

“Absolutely.”

“Do I want to ask what that crash was?”

He grimaced.  “Probably not.”

“Hmm,” she nodded.  “So, what was it?”

Morio shook his head, sucking down the last of his coffee and making face at the taste.  Little white hanyou ears twitching almost nervously, he set the mug in the sink and made a choking sound.  “Yeah, that was bad,” he grumbled.  “I should tell the old man that I want a refund for the cooking lesson fee . . .”

Meara laughed since she knew well enough that there wasn’t a chance in the world that Ryomaru had actually charged his son anything for any kind of lesson—especially when Ryomaru also knew that ‘Morio’ and ‘coffee’ didn’t play nicely together.  “Thank you for making the coffee.”

That earned her a dubious glance.  “Yeah, yeah . . . You thought it tasted like ass, too.”

“Morio . . .” she said, meaningfully shifting her eyes to the overly-interested Yuriko.

Morio grimaced again but shot her a cheesy grin as his eldest daughter erupted in a fit of giggles.  “Sorry.  I meant to say that it tasted like a whole lot of ass crammed into one little coffee mug.”

Meara giggled then rolled her eyes, giving up on her efforts to get Morio to be serious for once.  “The noise?” she reminded him, lifting Nariko to her shoulder and gently patting the infant’s back.

Morio knelt down to straighten Meara’s nursing bra and blouse, brushing a light kiss over the still-damp nipple before carefully pulling the bra cup into place, much to Meara’s amusement.

“Saru-ko was trying to get her new doll down to take with her,” he said, using the nickname he only used when Yuriko happened to crash the shelf in her closet.  Since ‘saru’ meant ‘monkey’ in Japanese, it was entirely apropos, as far as Meara was concerned.  One might have thought that Yuriko would learn not to climb up in her closet since she inevitably brought down that shelf on a weekly basis at least, but she hadn’t.

Meara winced.  “I thought as much.”

“And what’s Saru-ko going to do when she gets home this afternoon?” he asked over his shoulder as he took the baby so that Meara could finish getting ready.

Yuriko made a face, shuffling her feet on the tile floor with her hands behind her back.  “Yuriko put ‘way.”  Her little face brightened, and she ran over to hug her father’s legs.  “But Papa bigger . . . Papa put ‘way?” she asked hopefully.

Morio chuckled and ruffled his daughter’s shiny brown hair.  “Absolutely not.  You climbed up in your closet when you were told not to, so you get to put it all away . . . chibi.”

Yuriko shot her mother a pleading glance.  Meara laughed and bent down to kiss her daughter’s cheek.  “You have to listen to the big dog.  Them’s the rules.”

Yuriko sighed, shoulders slumping, and she shuffled out of the kitchen once more.  Meara laughed, and Morio caught her hand.  “And don’t even think about doing it for her, wench.”

Meara smiled sweetly.  “She had a good point.”

“Oh?”

“You are bigger.”

Morio wasn’t impressed.  “Forget it.  I’m not doing it, and if you clean up her mess, and you’ll be sorry.”

“How so?” she asked, slipping her arms around his waist and pushing herself up on her toes to kiss Morio’s cheek.  He caught her with his free arm and held her close, the intention of a quick kiss fading fast as he captured her lips with his.

“Clean it up, and I’ll show you later,” he murmured, fangs grazing over her mouth.  “Careful, Meara, or we won’t be leaving the house for awhile.”  She nipped his lower lip, and he shuddered.  “I’ll miss work . . . get fired . . . we’ll have to live in Goshinboku . . .”

“I like trees,” she agreed.

He chuckled as she leaned against him.  “Don’t wear yourself out, running around today.”

“Hmm . . . have anything special in mind?”

He sucked on her lip for a moment.  “You . . . me . . . sleeping girls . . .”

“Sounds nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“And I could see what I can do about making your favorite dinner.”

“Oh?”

She smiled.  “I promise.”

“It’s a date.”

“Come on, Papa . . . the clock said so.”

Meara took Nariko and stepped back with a giggle as Yuriko, doll flopped over her arm, grabbed Morio’s hand and tugged as the last chimes of the grandfather clock in the foyer died away.

“I’ll see you at noon,” he yelled over his shoulder, already halfway to the door.

“Bye, Mama!”

“Okay,” she called back before glancing down at the baby in her arms.   Moments later, she heard the door close, and she grinned.  “All right, Nari.  We have just enough time to stop at the grocery store before we hit your doctor appointment, and then we’ll meet Papa for lunch.”

She settled Nariko in the bouncer seat on the table and fastened her in.  Pausing long enough to look at the strategically placed flyer that Yuriko had left behind, she smiled.  ‘Baby Be Born’ was circled in red crayon—a simplistic doll that was touted to look and feel just like a real baby that drank, cried, and wet her pants.  They hadn’t mentioned it in front of Yuriko, but after lunch, the plan was that Morio and she were going to go birthday shopping for their oldest daughter.  True, her birthday wasn’t for another month, but Meara refused to take the chance that they wouldn’t be able to find the doll that Yuriko wanted if they waited until the last minute.

Taking a moment to shrug on her coat and stuff the picture into her purse, Meara slung the diaper bag over one shoulder, her purse over the other, and finally hefted the bouncer seat as she headed for the door, too.