A/N: Beta'd by doroniasobi.
"Lawyers should never marry lawyers. This is known as inbreeding, from which comes idiot children and more lawyers." -- Adam's Rib
--
Of Repercussions, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Accept the (Pseudo-)Incest
It was meant to be a happy day. Birds sang in the trees up above -- clouds partly just slightly to let through a lustrous clear sky, and there was a gentle breeze that whisked through the air.
Up beyond the padding was a house, a house that looked so majestic and grand that it was fit for a king, (and actually, Haruhi sometimes said, in correction, "It could probably fit two kings, or the whole world for that matter,") but it proved to be a picturesque background against the pretty day.
Inside the house, or mansion, which would be a more apt word, was another story.
It was stone quiet.
Servants had long since blended into the background, Tamaki had long since shut his mouth, and Kyouya and Haruhi had long since retreated to separate quarters.
"Why didn't anyone tell me," he whined, on the verge of chewing off his nails, "that they argued like this?"
Hunny, a fork hovering by his mouth, exclaimed, for he was not afraid of any consequence, "They always do, Tama-chan. Look: there's the sign." And with his fork, he pointed to a piece of paper that served its purpose, and, hanging on the wall in as majestic a manner as paper can be, read: "DO NOT DISCUSS POLITICS IN THIS HOUSE. OR LAW, WORK (WHICH IS THE SAME THING AS LAW), RELIGION, CHILDREN, MEN, WOMEN, OR ANYTHING ELSE FOR THAT MATTER."
"I suppose it's because this is your first time up here, Milord," said Kaoru, who was lounging on a sofa. "It's about that time again."
"Time for what?"
"The trial's tomorrow," put in Hikaru. "Haruhi's defending. Kyouya's prosecuting. Even though they say it's completely by accident that they got assigned to the same case, I think it's pretty obvious that they both get a kick out of facing each other. And I wouldn't put it past them to do it on purpose either."
"My daughter?" cried Tamaki. "Oh, this cannot be! It must be a mistake. Who would be cruel enough to put husband and wife on opposite sides of a courtroom?" He brought his arms close to his chest. "Has no one thought of their sacred vows of matrimony? Their harmonial and balanced existence that is surely to be disrupted by this . . . this case?"
"This is what he gets for being in France too long," Kaoru whispered to his brother, who nodded back. Then to Tamaki: "Really, it's not that big of a deal. If we badger Haruhi today enough too, she'll let us sit in the front of the courtroom. She even brings us commoner popcorn to keep us quiet."
"It's 'cause you shouted out, 'Objection!' that one time, like the game."
"I only said it because she didn't."
"Anyway, the front's where all the action is," Hikaru told him.
"Let's go to court!" agreed Hunny, who was quickly pacified with a particularly scrumptious-looking piece of strawberry.
"But -- but," protested Tamaki, and the argument seemed to be a lost one. "I must talk Haruhi out of it," he said, "I must convince her that this course of action is simply disastrous. It will not not do. I must talk to her at once!"
"Leave them," said Mori, laying a comforting hand on Tamaki's troubled shoulders. "Look," he said, and pointed up.
"Mori-senpai's right," said Kaoru, "the sound of crashing objects and legal threats have already stopped."
"Does this happen often?" Tamaki dared to ask.
"Only come trial time," Hikaru shrugged.
"And Haru-chan really shouldn't be in trial in the first place. Didn't the doctor say that her due date was coming any day now?"
"Something like that."
"Oh, how horrifying!" Tamaki pressed a hand to his delicate forehead. "To think, a child being born amidst paperwork and yelling and coarse words! Haruhi, the poor woman, should be in bed, listening to Mozart tapes and eating all the ootoro she could possibly imagine. But, instead, she is walking around in circles, agitating herself, making claims and arguments for other people. But how noble she is! How self-sacrificing! As to be expected of my little cherub of a daughter."
A voice came up behind him. "Is Tamaki done with his monologue yet?"
Tamaki whirled around. "Haruhi -- oh, it can only be you!"
"I'll apologize if you had wished for otherwise," said Kyouya, who calmly adjusted the bridge of his glasses amidst the snickering of the twins behind him, "but I sincerely doubt the good it'd do. Haruhi is tired, though she has not explicitly said so, and she's currently being restrained by a few servants." Few, meaning an army of servants with an order to 'keep Haruhi-sama in bed by any and all means necessary within the bounds of the good Law'. Had Tamaki known this, he might have wished her dead.
"That's good to hear," said Hunny, "but Kyou-chan, can we come to court with you tomorrow?"
"What is this," Hikaru muttered under his breath, "take your kids to work day?"
"If I'm not mistaken," Kyouya addressed him, "you're one of my kids, too. And also, if I'm remembering correctly, you were the one who sat on the whoopee cushion after commencing court one time. The DA still mentions it every now and then: it amuses him extremely. And since I'm your mother, I'll say to you now: stop drinking all that bourbon, or you'll start hiccuping."
"That was Kaoru!" he cried, much to the amusement of his twin. Promptly, he tackled him, and the two disappeared in a scuffle on the floor. Hunny, as always, was the commentator, and he was an observant one, using his fork as a microphone before being pulled off the couch by Mori, who merely said, "You're going to fall."
"I wasn't going to fall!"
"Or you'll skewer yourself with that fork."
"I wasn't going to skewer myself!"
The arguments fell short. Mori scooped up his cousin and plopped him on the safe floor where he would skewer no one and eat cake happily.
Kyouya briefly wondered if these people could be considered good, productive members of society, but quickly decided that it was a waste of time for him to even be thinking about it.
"It's incest!" Tamaki suddenly cried out in a desperate banshee of a voice. Haruhi could probably hear him up in her room, even with the door closed.
"What incest, Milord?"
"You!" he said, pointing at Kyouya with an accusing finger.
"Me," said Kyouya, trying very hard not to snort.
"Yes, you who put that diamond ring on her finger, you who promised to love her from here to eternity lest either of you decided to end life prematurely. Yes," said Tamaki, nodding his head as if he'd suddenly discovered an enlightening truth, "it has been proven time and time again that lawyers are not supposed to marry lawyers. That's against the law. That's inbreeding. Thus, incest." While the logic was oddly endearing, it nevertheless did not stop the others from ganging up on him.
"What if a doctor married a doctor?" suggested Kaoru. "And don't dentists always marry dentists?"
"Incest," said Tamaki, quite sure of his revelation.
"Or a movie star married a movie star?" said Hikaru, starting to see a trend.
"A fashion designer and a fashion designer."
"A construction worker and a construction worker."
Hunny, not wanting to be left out, added, "A baker and a baker!"
"An athlete and an athlete!"
"A cake baker and a cake baker!"
"A journalist and a journalist!"
It was starting to go out of hand. At this rate, Haruhi was going to wake up with all this yelling going on. Kyouya interrupted, "Why don't we ask Tamaki to explain his reasoning behind all this incest?"
The twins and Hunny stopped. "Ah, yes, Milord," said Hikaru, who now curled up against a pillow, "care to explain?"
"It's incest," Tamaki started out strong, "because, well, a brother and sister would never marry each other, after all, right?"
"But a brother and sister aren't even the same thing, technically speaking," Kaoru argued, "you could have at least said," and here he raised a suggestive eyebrow to his brother across the coffee table, "a brother and a brother."
Hikaru burst out laughing. "Give up, Milord, you've flat out lost." He clutched at his sides, and Hunny, who had been eating cake at the moment, raised his head in concern as he heard the sound of Hikaru crashing onto the floor in a fit a few feet away.
"Incest," Tamaki began again, albeit weaker than his previous statement, "leads to children with not-so-very-good . . . problems." He seemed and looked uncomfortable. It was quite easy to see why: they prodded him on just the same.
"Do carry on, Tamaki," said Kyouya. "It would be a shame to stop there."
"Yeah, you can't just leave us hanging," Hikaru said.
"It would be such a loss to not hear the end," Kaoru added as the final touch.
Hunny nodded his head adamantly, fork in mouth.
He was trapped in a corner, and had no choice but to face the enemy head-on. He would accept the challenge. "Children with problems that are . . . too horrific to even describe," he said, thinking that perhaps he had dodged the question in a way that would be deemed acceptable.
He had not.
"I'm a bit confused," said Kaoru, "could you go into more detail?"
"After all, what sort of problems are you talking about?"
Incorrigible, incorrigible twins. Tamaki bit his lip.
"It leads to idiot children," he blurt out, then covered his mouth.
The air in the room was sucked dry. Somewhere, a thermometer cracked.
"You're calling Kyouya-senpai an idiot? And Haruhi?" said Hikaru, scratching his head, thinking that boy was Tamaki in for it, and enjoying it all very much.
"No. No -- no, of course not. But the incest," he was mumbling now, "the whole genetic makeup will be perturbed by this . . . inter-mingling. It's just not right."
Kyouya raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's a bit too late now," he wryly said.
"Oh, but Kyouya, I'll still love your child very much so. Even if he, or she, is defected by a result of his parent's mistakes. You're so young: you didn't know. How could you know? It was all an impulse of love." Tamaki paused. "And, hopefully, your child might even somehow, miraculously, turn out to be smart. And he'll realize that being a lawyer isn't such a good thing after all. It might carry on the defects, after all."
There was a pause in the room. They all pondered over what had been said.
"So what you're saying," said Kyouya, who was beginning to question his friend's mental stability -- not that he hadn't questioned it before, but didn't they say that every day started over a new slate? He was being too kind, really. "You think that when lawyers marry another, they'll have children who are idiots."
Tamaki nodded along happily, much like the child who is thrilled to hear an adult agree to his impossibly preposterous plan.
"And these idiot children, as you so put it, will become detestable, unscrupulous lawyers, like myself and Haruhi."
Tamaki nodded enthusiastically once again, but corrected him: "No, just you."
"Thank you."
Hunny hiccuped. Mori instinctively patted him on the back.
"Perhaps I shouldn't tell you then, Tamaki, that Haruhi is going to be having twins. Two boys, actually." It was possible that Kyouya was smirking right now.
Tamaki gaped. "No." And it was as if everything he had held for true in the world had been lost and replaced by a cheaper, commoner-version of it. He looked at the twins for some sort of expression, some comment, something. They helpfully stared back and put their arms around each other. It was possible that they now shared a sinister smile that even the Devil would be proud of.
"Well," said Kaoru, "we've known for while now, after all."
"You were in France for an awfully long time, too," Hikaru added.
"Scandal," breathed Tamaki, genuinely shocked. He felt as if the ground beneath him had suddenly disappeared, and he was grasping for something, anything, for support. He was about to be sucked into the black hole of utter despair and lost hope, and he was desperately in want of help, any help.
"Have some cake," offered Hunny.