Forged Dreams by Aimee Blue

A Sense of Normalcy

Disclaimer: I don’t own Inuyasha.

A Sense of Normalcy

A certain sense of normalcy settled on the household after the initially bumpy first fortnight of Sesshoumaru’s stay. Shippo and Sesshoumaru had been... pointed with each other, to the point where dokkasu and foxfire were summoned, but never used, thanks to Kagome’s stubborn interventions. But that had somehow calmed down after Chouko had told them if they didn’t stop she’d cut off their ponytails whilst they were sleeping. It hadn’t been the absurd threat, per say, that had made them yield on their prickly debates, more the frustrated tears that they couldn’t ‘shake hands and play nice like sensei said she had to’.

Sesshoumaru had moved into the room in between Kagome’s and Shippo’s, claiming it because the sun shone directly into it in the mornings and he liked to wake up at dawn. Kagome had been deeply apologetic about the room being extremely leaky – the leakiest room in the house – and Shippo had needled Sesshoumaru about being a neko afraid of water. Sesshoumaru had sniffed in disdain, bartered a ladder of their old lady next door neighbour who was obviously quite smitten by him and fixed the roof himself. He’d drawn quite a crowd in the process.  

After all, who didn’t stop whatever they were doing to gawk at the veritable shirtless Adonis fixing a roof? Kagome was quite perturbed when old man Kamenosuke was determined to be the source of the wolf whistling but Sesshoumaru’s only problem was that he needed to use a ladder and couldn’t just use his cloud. Kagome had vetoed that idea when he’d proposed it, telling him very gently that people couldn’t fly on their own unless they were a bird. He’d patted her head then, and Kagome was a little miffed to realise he’d been teasing her. Of course he knew he had to abide by human rules, he’d lived this long hadn’t he?

The household had accommodated his daily kendo practises by loaning him an old room full of junk that Totosai had accumulated over the many years he’d been alive. God knows what the old buffoon was doing with all of the really strange junk. It wasn’t the sort of stuff that one expected to find preserved. Mostly it was an accumulation of old rocks, piles upon piles of shoji boards and many other odds and ends. Once Sesshoumaru had cleared it out – with the sort of relish that perturbed Kagome slightly – he claimed it as his makeshift dojo and could often be found in there in the mornings, where he would practise until the others came down for breakfast.

Sesshoumaru had also reverted to a more traditional garb whilst residing with them. Apparently he had decided that if everyone else in the household was going to do it he might as well do the same. His hankering to don his old garb had been rejected by both Kagome and Shippo, for the reasoning that if he wore priceless white demon silks, Chouko, with her grass stained knees, mud stained feet and paint stained hands wouldn’t be able to use him as a demon climbing frame as she seemed to enjoy doing. So instead he had donned a rather demure yet soft navy blue hakama and haori.

Living in their home meant he wasn’t except from his share of the housework and Chouko and Kagome too great delight in tying a bandana in his hair and a pink apron around his middle on Saturdays when they all had to clean. Sesshoumaru had demanded that Shippo tell him how he got out of wearing a pink apron and a bandana, Shippo told him smugly that it was simply because he went shopping instead. Sesshoumaru had since tried to switch jobs with the cunning fox, but to no avail. Shippo said he would be all too happy to swap, if Sesshoumaru would only say please.

Sesshoumaru resigned himself to the apron.

But, on the third week of living together, Kagome and Shippo became far too curious for their own good.

“I don’t know!” Kagome threw at the Kitsune lounging against the kitchen counter, turning her back on him to stir their meal briskly.

“But it’s really annoying not knowing,” Shippo whined as if he was a kit again, green eyes narrowing sulkily.

“If he wanted us to know then he’d tell us!” Kagome exclaimed exasperatedly as she began to fill the dishes with their evening meal, “Lay the table please Shippo-kun.”

Dutifully acquiescing to her demands Shippo helped her lay out their dinner on the table before poking his head around the sliding door out into their garden, “Chouko-chan, food!”

Kagome took her seat and watched as Shippo took his opposite her. He leant on his elbows and glanced upwards. “I’ll ask him, then.”

“No!” Kagome shrieked panicked at the notion, “If he wanted us to know he’d tell us!” she insisted.

Shippo shook his head at her apathetically. “I think Sesshoumaru is the type of person who wouldn’t tell us unless we asked him,” he opined as Chouko came in the backdoor, slipped off her sandals and donned her slippers.

“Smells good, Mama. I found you flowers!”

“Thank you,” Kagome smiled at her, taking the assorted pretty weeds and wildflowers and carefully fitting them into the peony covered vase that sat in the middle of the table. She turned to Shippo once more, “I don’t think so, he’s a very private person.”

Shippo groaned, slumping in his seiza unhappily. “But I need to know.”

“You are really too curious for your own good,” Kagome cajoled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You are too, Kagome-chan!”

“Not as recklessly as you,” Kagome pointed out as she handed Chouko her bowl piled high with rice.

Sesshoumaru chose this moment to enter the kitchen silently and take his assigned seat next to Kagome and opposite Chouko in silence.

“Itadakimasu,” Kagome, Shippo and Chouko chorused, Sesshoumaru managing to mumble an approximation of it, before they all tucked in to Kagome’s food. Not an excellent cook by any means, Kagome had long ago decided that to ensure no one ever died from her food she’d only make simple dishes that she knew very well, as a result all of the food she made nowadays was palatable at the very least.

Kagome and Sesshoumaru chewed in silence, Chouko sung a soft song under her breath that Kagome recognised as the song the old lady next door sung when she hung her laundry out and Shippo sat regarding Sesshoumaru shrewdly. Kagome wished he wouldn’t, but she knew Shippo well enough to know that he would. Definitely.

“So, Sesshoumaru-san,” Shippo began, tone laced with a politeness that was as brittle as his casual smile, “What do you do for work?”

Kagome rolled her eyes. “Pass the soy sauce, please, Chouko-chan.”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes were cool as they regarded the meddling fox demon. “What is it to you, Kitsune?”

Shippo frowned at not getting his answer, green eyes narrowing, he replied, “You’ve been here for a while and Kagome and I were wondering.”

“Don’t bring me into this,” Kagome mumbled, pushing more vegetables onto the protesting Chouko’s plate. “They’re good for you, Chouko-chan.”

“They’re disgusting,” Chouko pouted.

“I see no reason to answer,” Sesshoumaru sniffed.

Shippo growled low in his chest. “Stop being such a difficult basta— idiot and answer the question!” he ordered, casting a hasty glance at Chouko to see if she’d caught his language. Kagome glowered at him and he smiled sheepishly.

“Sesshoumaru-oniichan has a nice car,” Chouko commented as she slurped her noodles, “so he must have a really good job, right?”

“Don’t talk with your mouthful, Chouko-chan,” Kagome cajoled.

“Sorry.”

Sesshoumaru blinked blandly at the little girl who sat there swinging her legs and slurping her noodles as she patiently waited for his answer. “I am a... mangaka.”

Shippo nearly fell out of his chair in shock. “You?”

Kagome, who had discretely choked at this startling proclamation, cleared her throat. “What kind?”

He named a few names and this time it was Kagome’s turn to nearly fall out of her seat in shock. “Those are some of the most popular manga in existence!”

He gave her a look as if to say ‘so what?’ and continued to steadily feed rice into his mouth.

“Well, that’s kind of a letdown,” Shippo grouched, leaning back on his chair nonchalantly, “I expected you to say assassin or something.”

Sesshoumaru’s lip curled. “And you? Do you actually do anything?”

Shippo’s chair crashed back down onto four legs and he had the decency to look very sheepish. “I dabble.”

“Which is a roundabout way of saying you do nothing of worth,” Sesshoumaru sniped disparagingly, eyes slanting mockingly at the Kitsune.

Shippo fumed silently, unable to retort not only due to the fact that the only comebacks he could come up with were foolish but also due to the glare he was receiving from Kagome, not to mention the swift kick under the table that she blessed him with.

“Shippo taught me to fish,” Chouko interjected blithely, holding a piece of broccoli with her chopsticks and eyeing it distastefully, as if it had done her a disservice. “And he taught me to juggle,” she added as an afterthought.

“A kitten clown,” Sesshoumaru grumbled disdainfully. Shippo growled and tossed a handful of rice at the uptight Taiyokai, who dodged the sticky missile and narrowed his eyes dangerously.

Kagome glowered at the rice as it slid down the wall gloopily and Chouko’s mouth popped open audibly in amazement.

“Shippo-oniichan threw his food!” she carolled in a sing-song voice, clapping her hands together ecstatically.

Shippo’s lips curved mockingly at the Inu. “What’s the matter, too scared to retaliate?”

“Oh, no, Sesshoumaru! Don’t you dare retaliate!” Kagome interjected querulously, but her pleading fell on deaf ears as Sesshoumaru hefted an onigiri.

Soon, what had once been a tranquil dinner scene devolved into something resembling a food hurricane. Due to the speed in which the two full blooded demons commenced their food fight, Kagome and Chouko could only hold up trays as makeshift shields and pray that it would be over soon. Onigiri whizzed overhead, noodles were tossed and vegetables were flung in a steadily increasing haze of food.

But, as the peony vase was hit by an errant onigiri and tumbled from the table, Kagome’s temper, which had been steadily fraying the longer the fight had continued, snapped. Throwing herself across the table, she unfortunately only managed to catch it on its first bounce as it smashed into two distinct halves. Gathering the two shards to her chest, she straightened slowly.

Climbing to her feet, she smiled creepily, her purification powers crackling across her skin like pink electricity. The maelstrom of food stopped at once, Sesshoumaru and Shippo halting as one and turning slowly, to face her.

“Chouko-chan,” Kagome called out sweetly to the little girl who peered up at her mother from under her tray-shield with a huge grin on her face, “go to your room and play.”

“But, Mama, I want to see them be told off!”

“Please.”

“Okay!” Chouko shrugged indifferently, with a parting shot of, “you two are so dead.”

The two she was referring to were soon under the brunt of Kagome’s wrath. Shippo, who had begun to attempt an escape and who was also the one responsible for initiating the entire fight got the lecture first.

“And,” she finished up, still clutching the halves of the vase to her chest, “you will be the one who will singlehandedly clean this entire room.”

Shippo, who had prostrated himself in front of her in a necessary defence against her raise raised his head to respond but the manic glint in her eyes made him bite his tongue.

Turning to face Sesshoumaru, who had, up until now, leant against the wall and taken a perverse delight in Shippo’s scolding, Kagome sighed.

The fight drained from her, shoulders slumping, head hanging, eyes drooping. “Sesshoumaru...”

Sesshoumaru wasn’t sure what on earth he was supposed to do here, he’d been ready for her to read him the riot act as she had Shippo, knowing full well that he’s be able to dismiss it as the inane ramblings of a lunatic human woman. But this... he didn’t know how to deal with this.

“Enough,” she mumbled sadly, putting the halves of the vase down on the food-slathered surface of the table morosely.

Sesshoumaru was left stood there, perplexed and perturbed.

“Wow,” Shippo muttered, “tough break.”

“She is incomprehensible.”

“Nah,” Shippo waved Sesshoumaru’s comment off, “she’s a mother. She knows exactly how to deal with a kid like me; with punishment like cleaning. And, she also knows that the only way to deal with a kid like you is to be disappointed in you, therefore taking away your powers of dismissal. You can’t belittle her by ignoring her angry lecture, because she didn’t give you one. Instead she gave you a nice dose of guilt.”

“I am not a child,” Sesshoumaru sniffed disdainfully.

Shippo snorted. “Dude, we just had a food fight.”

Sesshoumaru blinked. The Kitsune had a point. Sighing in chagrin at the fact that the strange woman had actually managed to make him feel guilty, he picked up the two halves of the vase, frowning when he noticed blood.

She cut her hands, he realised, strangely upset at the notion.

“Kitsune,” Sesshoumaru levelled Shippo with a look, as he held up the halves of the vase, “What is the significance of this?”

0-0-0

Kagome raised her bleeding hand above her head whimsically, laying out as she was flat on her back on the roof, the gesture made it seem as though she could catch the stars. The roof of their house was easily accessible from her bedroom’s window, provided one knew that the third tile from the left was wobbly and provided that one was willing to tie their sleeves back in sageo and tuck their kimono hem into their obi.

The cut on her hand smarted and she lamented the fact that in comic books, when one became immortal they healed faster, but not in her life. Oh no. Instead, not only would she live forever alone she would also live in pain. If it was life threatening, it tended to heal pretty damn fast actually, she’d once fallen off of Totosai’s mountain – which had actually really hurt without being able to die – and gotten back up within minutes, but small ailments were ignored. Yet, some days, when she pricked herself on a knife in the kitchen or on one of Totosai’s katana she was fascinated by the pooling of her blood. Even as an immortal she would still bleed, still feel pain and she clung to those fragments of humanity.

When Sesshoumaru floated up next to the roof on his youki-cloud, Kagome sat bolt upright and hastily reached for him, dragging him by his haori sleeves onto the roof.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, prodding him angrily in the chest, “What if the neighbours had seen you?”

“Inconsequential,” Sesshoumaru decided, “they would have told themselves it was a figment of their imagination.”

“Gah!” she threw her hands up into the air in exasperation, “You’re impossible!”

“Hn, quite,” Sesshoumaru murmured, handing her the newly repaired vase, “here.”

She took it, a little bemused by the offering and clasped it to her chest tenderly.

Sesshoumaru looked away and Kagome wondered if he might be embarrassed, the thought brought a soft smile to her face. “Thank you.”

“The Kitsune told me it was your mother’s,” he murmured, gazing moonward stoically.

“Yeah,” Kagome smiled.

“Why did you not return to your family?”

Sinking down to lie back on the roof, she motioned for Sesshoumaru to join her, both pleased and surprised that he acquiesced.

“I love them,” she admitted a sad, nostalgic look in her eyes, “But I live here and I don’t want to go back and live with them for them to pass me off as Souta’s younger sister, then a distant cousin and so on. It’s easier for me to visit every now and then, easier on all of us.”

“Hn,” Sesshoumaru flicked a glance in her direction and took her hand unexpectedly. Kagome blushed at the sudden action and watched as Sesshoumaru scowled at the cut across her palm.

“I don’t have superpowers of regeneration like you,” she expounded, “unless it’s life threatening.”

“How... irksome.”

“Pretty much.”

Sesshoumaru brought her hand to her mouth and, almost curiously, tasted the blood. Kagome shivered as she felt his rough tongue over the abrasion and winced at the sting his actions conjured. Belatedly, she realised she’d just allowed Sesshoumaru to lick her.

Wait... wasn’t he poisonous?

She snatched her hand back and looked at him, blue eyes wide.

“Why did you do that?” she demanded, one blush blending into the other.

Sesshoumaru looked at her from under his lashes, lips curving into a devious smirk. “To see what Miko tastes like.”

Kagome’s blush darkened, if that was possible and she blinked at him. “You’re acting weird, Sesshoumaru.”

Sesshoumaru inclined his head, conceding that point. “Mayhap it is because I detest being treated as a child.”

Kagome rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “You were the one acting like a child.”

“Indeed,” Sesshoumaru rumbled, bending his head to inhale her scent at her pale throat, noticing with a primal satisfaction that she didn’t push away this time.

“You’re acting out of character tonight, then,” she murmured.

 “It’s the full moon,” he pointed out, “when primal desires are stronger.”

“I don’t understand,” she tilted her head to one side bemusedly.

Sesshoumaru leaned in slowly and Kagome rocked backwards uncertainly, unnerved as he reached a hand out to cup her cheek.

What is he going to do? Those lips were getting closer and closer... Is he going to kiss me?

Shippo’s head peeked up from over the edge of the roof. “What are you two doing?”

And the pair of them sprung apart like teenagers caught doing something illicit. Shippo’s eyes grew round and knowing.

“Oh!” he murmured, inflecting in a way that made Kagome’s blush blinding.

A/N: This was written for Nisou Tenshi’s Fourteen symbol challenge for the prompt peony. Hope you enjoyed it!