InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sesshoumaru's Baby ❯ Chapter Three: ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Sesshoumaru's Baby

Three: Arguments about Living Space 1

Nobody actually felt they could enlighten Inu-Yasha. They all went to bed, Miroku still trying to puzzle out the mechanics of male pregnancy, Sango shaking her head in a bemused way as if Naraku had started a river dance in front of her in a pink tutu, and Kagome with an expressionless composure worthy of Sesshoumaru himself that hid how hurt she was by what she had learned. That left Shippo, Kaede and Inu-Yasha sitting in the middle room, his friends on one side behind a screen, his lover on the other.

“This is a joke, right?” Shippo said, looking from one face to the other. “I really hope somebody's gonna shout this is all some crazy set-up because it's not funny. And I don't like it, actually.”

“Neither do I, Shippo,” Kaede said. “I like not the implications this may have for poor Kagome. She's suffered enough for you, Inu-Yasha, without you putting her through this.”

“I didn't mean it to happen, OK,” Inu-Yasha grumped.

Shippo snorted. “What, you just happened to end up doing the wild thing with him? That's a little hard to believe, dog-boy, even for open-minded little me.”

Inu-Yasha lunged for the kit but missed; he landed hard on his stomach, succeeding in jarring the whole house with the force of the thud of his landing. He also woke up his brother, who jerked awake in the next door room and sat up blearily, pushing his long pale hair out of his face.

“What is going on?”

“Inu-Yasha is just trying to kill Shippo,” Kaede said calmly, returning to stirring a small pot of boiling water full of strange herbs. “Never mind it.”

Sesshoumaru scowled, then lay down on his belly and pulled the covers over his head. “I am trying,” came the muffled reply. “He's a little hard to ignore, being loud, stupid and heinously obnoxious…I'm leaving tomorrow morning, as fast as I can in the opposite direction.”

“Oh no you're not!” Inu-Yasha shouted, leaping up like some kooky pantomime performer, and stood there for a moment as if he was waiting for a chorus of `oh yes he is'. “Like hell you are! That's my baby too and you're staying right here where I can keep an eye on you!”

Sesshoumaru emerged, a little ruffled, from under the covers. “What baby?”

Kaede explained.

“I'm definitely leaving,” Sesshoumaru declared, when the whole tale had finally been related, with an expression on his face that was a mix of queasiness and horror. “This is absolutely crazy. First off, human, you're not a sufficiently qualified healer for I, Sesshoumaru, to even take you seriously. Should I lose my mind and believe you, I will still be leaving; there are definitely places I'd rather be than here with you.”

“It's my baby!” Inu-Yasha snapped back, seemingly grateful to for once have some leverage in an argument. “That means you do what I say.”

Sesshoumaru gave him a haughty look, and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. “Like hell it does,” he retorted. “If it's true, then I'm the one who will be lumbered with actually carrying and birthing the child, so it's actually my choice what I do with myself during the pregnancy. I have a kingdom to run, people to rule, an army to lead; not to mention a life and companions of my own.”

The steely look in his eyes absolutely dared Inu-Yasha to argue with him. Shippo didn't miss the slight movement as Sesshoumaru's claws slid out a further centimetre or two, in readiness to spring on his half-brother and rip out his oesophagus or something.

This is gonna be a long night, Shippo thought.

* * *

Sesshoumaru ended up sleeping in, too exhausted by far to make much of an effort about escaping Inu-Yasha, who he ignored when the hanyou tried to wake him up. Sango went to practice in a nearby field, Miroku went to barter for goods in the village market, Shippo went into Kagome's bag for candy, and Inu-Yasha went reluctantly off to look for shards, exhorting the others with threats not to let his brother leave. That left Kagome, who volunteered to do the group's laundry so she could cry in private.

“It's not fair,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes with her rolled-up sleeves as she washed bloodstains off Sango's kimono in the cold water. “I've put up with so much from Inu-Yasha, and now he goes and does this to me…”

Kikyo dies, Inu-Yasha gets pinned to a tree, Kagome frees him, and they should have been happy. Then that stupid ogress woke Kikyo up again, and everything went pear-shaped. So life became a series of squabbling adventures in which she grew to love Inu-Yasha more - despairing in the interludes when Kikyo appeared and stole his attentions completely - and in which they dealt with Naraku/Jewel and Sesshoumaru/Tessaiga. It was an easy way to categorise everybody by what they did when they showed up in her life, and an easy way to view them. Only now, it wasn't so easy anymore.

Sesshoumaru and Inu-Yasha - share the same father, different mothers, each have one of their father's swords, the former totally unsatisfied by what he received. Sesshoumaru tries to kill Inu-Yasha, always fails, disappears again. Occasionally showed up to save their asses - Mukotsu comes to mind, Kagome thought ruefully - and to offer cryptic advice or smile mysteriously at some trivial bit of news. Who knew what went on in his head?

“And I can't even bring myself to hate them both. It's like Kikyo all over again, only worse, because I knew he loved Kikyo before - and this hit me like a hammer out of the blue.” Was it her that he wasn't satisfied with? What had she done wrong?

Maybe it was Kikyo - perhaps he'd got bored of her. What was a worse thing to believe?

A brief sound passed by her, and she turned in time to watch Sesshoumaru being violently sick into the long grasses nearby. Kagome wished she could just watch and hate him, but she found herself getting up and going to hold his hair back from his face. “Do you want some water?” she said when he was done. “I could fetch some from the stream, it's clean enough.”

He shook his head, wiping his mouth. “I can't begin to understand you. You have extraordinary patience for a human. Even Izayoi would have broken father's nose if he did something like this to her.”

“Izayoi is Inu-Yasha's mother, right?”

He nodded, clutching his stomach as if it pained him.

“Perhaps she just had more guts than me.”

“What I don't understand is…” He stopped mid-sentence to retch again, coughing as if he'd spit out his own lungs in a foamy clump, and wiped his mouth. “I don't understand why you aren't more angry. The typical response - even the intelligent one - would be to be angry. To rage, and shout, and scream; at him, at me, at everybody.”

“Why don't I just bottle it up like you?” Kagome said bitterly.

He glared at her with dark, unreadable eyes. “Believe me, my dear, if you knew the horrors in my past you would want to forget them. You wouldn't want to talk about them and keep them fresh in your memory. That's the problem with mortals - they're too stupid to understand.”

Kagome let go of his hair, then, on impulse, scooped up a handful of very cold water and threw it in his face. She enjoyed watching him splutter, dripping with icy river water, but she liked the murderous look on his face less. “Inu-Yasha may have slept with you but he won't like it if you kill his shard-detector!” she said angrily, all her hurt and bitterness bubbling to the surface.

“I'm not going to kill you, cretin,” Sesshoumaru snarled. “I'm leaving. My head can't take all this noise.”

“Inu-Yasha said you couldn't go,” Kagome countered.

He gave her the finger. “As if I give a damn about what he wants.”

Kagome stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “You're not going anywhere,” she said. “You said let it out, so I am. Explain. What the hell is going on here?”

He gave her an exasperated look. “I don't know. How would I know? This is coils within coils. I can't give you a proper explanation because I don't have one for myself. All I can say is that this was not what I intended.”

“And I am to believe you.”

“You'll have to. I try not to say things that I don't mean.” He went pale again. “Bugger this. I must have picked up some bug from somewhere - perhaps when I was in the city, I was warned that those fleshpots breed disease during the summer months…”

Kagome rested her hands on her hips. “I don't like this, you know. But at least I can believe what's happening. Here you are telling me not to hide what I think, and you're pretending it's not going on! What kind of delusion is that?”

Sesshoumaru gave her a dark look. “Pray tell me, what is going on?”

“Well…” Kagome hesitated. “Kaede says you're pregnant. With Inu-Yasha's child.”

“You're a woman,” Sesshoumaru pointed out, “tell me how that's possible.”

She bit her lip. “I don't know.”

“I don't bleed once a month, I don't have a womb - men can't have babies. There is no place in my body that one could rest and grow, and be supported. So what conclusions can you draw about this ridiculous claim?”

“You tell me.”

“It's bullshit,” he said patiently. “The old woman made it up to scare Inu-Yasha so he'd wake up and realize he was being a fool.”

“No realizations for you?”

“Ah, I already knew that. But I don't have any other ongoing, stable relationships, I'm allowed to be foolish if I wish.”

“That's selfish of you.” Kagome twisted the shirt in her hands as if she would rip it in half. “I think it's bloody selfish of you to just screw with the rest of us for your own amusement, and then we all end up in this mess and it's your fault.”

“Quite possibly; but if I could have predicted this situation arising, I would have avoided it entirely.” He stood up, massaging his lower back. “I have nothing more to say until I get to a healer and confirm this ridiculous story, and then visit a temple to demand an explanation from my gods, who are no doubt behind this charade.”

There was an almost conciliatory look in his eyes. “I don't like you, and you hate me, but for the love of the gods, can we please just attempt to get on. If and when I can explain myself, I will. Till then, this will have to do.”

“And who am I supposed to get angry with, as you suggested?”

“I'm sure my brother would appreciate some home-truths.”

“And you?”

“If you believe the old woman, I'm hardly going anywhere.”

A/N: And so ends the new chapter three. New dialogue added and amendments made. Chapter four, new and shiny, will be with you soon. I'll be at university in a fortnight so I won't be updating this or any others for a while, though.