What A Lynx Saw in This Sesshomaru
-I-
When Sesshomaru first met him –he had been as fooled as InuYasha had. The Lord had honestly thought he was a human. He looked, moved like one, spoke like one, and smelled like one. He'd had no reason to believe that Makato was anything special.
It had been a long day of traveling, and Jaken wouldn't shut up. On top of it all, he had still yet to secure the Tessaiga from his weakling little brother, and he was beginning to doubt that he even wanted it. He hated second guessing himself. So understandably, he was in a horrid mood when he ran into the little group that InuYasha led around.
It was one member larger than usual. Joining them was a young human boy. Sesshomaru didn't know how young, he was no expert on human growth rates, but he wasn't an adult quite yet, that much the Inu Daiyokai could tell. He could also tell that, for some reason, he looked out of place in the common clothing he was wearing, as if he should be wearing something else. The new boy was odd in a couple of ways, one being his hair and the other his eyes.
His hair was a dark brown streaked here and there with black, gold, and lighter brown. His eyes were an odd yellowish green. He looked back at his brother after assessing the threat the boy presented as nothing. "Well, little brother, it would seem you enjoy collection humans."
"Don't look at me, this one wasn't my idea." He groused.
That was odd. Usually InuYasha would have drawn his sword and attacked by now.
"You're just still being a baby 'cause I beat you." The new human snorted, "Maybe now you'll assess someone's strength before attacking them."
"Who the hell asked for your input, Tsukino?"
"InuYasha don't be so mean to Makato, you did just attack him for no reason." The human woman InuYasha called Kagome chided.
"He had a jewel shard!"
"Which he gave us after he'd defeated you." The Monk dismissed his excuse.
"Shut up!"
Sesshomaru re-evaluated this 'Makato'. He was small framed, but looked to have some glimmer of intelligence. He also looked very disinterested in what was going on. "You were beaten by a human?"
"Shut up Sesshomaru!" Finally he drew the Tessaiga.
"Hey, Kagome, I'm going to go look for dinner."
"What? But InuYasha's going to fight!"
He gave a snort, "I'm here to make sure you are safe, and given the conditions under which InuYasha and I met, I couldn't care less if he wants to get his ass kicked."
"Makato! What makes you think he'll loose?"
"I didn't say he'd loose, I said he'd get his ass kicked. Those are two very different things. As for what makes me thing he's going to get hurt," he looked at Sesshomaru with calm eyes, then back to the human woman, "well, duh."
Sesshomaru almost smiled at that. Almost. "Hn. A human with a brain. You should listen to him, InuYasha, and save yourself the pain. Give me the sword."
"Not going to happen."
The human left the clearing.
{Two Hours Later}
Possibly the thing that annoyed him most about these fights was that they were always so close. He'd very nearly had the sword in his grasp, but had been forced to retreat or loose the arm he had left. There was nothing to do but to recover and try again. Now where was that worthless servant of his, he'd left him somewhere around here with Rin. Of course, he wouldn't admit it, but when the scent of wolves reached his keen nose, and blood followed suit, his demon heart skipped a beat. It wasn't Rin's blood-scent, but if he didn't find her there was no way that stupid imp would stick around to save her.
He needn't have worried though, for, as he got closer to that blood-scent, Rin's scent came through happy and healthy, and in the next clearing he found her pressing a healing herb to the bleeding arm of –what was his name –Makato.
Rin looked up as he came into sight, and abandoned the arm she was tending to come cling to the leg of his hakama and smile up at him, "Lord Sesshomaru! The wolves came and attacked me, but this Makato saved me! All he did was tell them to go away, and they did!"
"How did he injure his arm?"
"Oh, that was when he stopped the wolf that was jumping at me. It bit his arm."
He looked to the young man who had a sword on his hip. He seemed to understand the question in his gaze, or one of them at least. "There wasn't anytime to draw my sword, and as you can see, my sword arm is rather useless at the moment. You done with Inu-baka?"
He nodded, "For saving Rin's life I shall let you live… this time."
"Thank you." He replied, sounding honestly grateful, if not a little relieved.
"Rin, where's Jaken?"
Makato answered for the girl, "You mean that little green squeaky-toy? He was being annoying so I punted him somewhere."
"I am not a squeaky-toy, whatever that is!" Jaken came into the clearing with a branch sticking out of his jo-e (jacket).
"Well let's see: I'm injured, can't use my weapon, but I still managed to put you into a tree, and you squeaked when I kicked you. You aren't a demon; you're a squeaky-toy."
Sesshomaru did allow himself a small chuckle as Makato left the clearing, thanking the lord again.
-II-
The two did not meet again for some time. He left InuYasha's group sometime between that first encounter and the next, and wasn't Kaede's village where he had allowed Rin to live. Naraku and the Jewel were gone, and while visiting the little girl, Sesshomaru had heard Kagome voicing her concerns.
"He hasn't been back to school either, but no ones looking for him. I mean, everyone knew he had started living with my family, but no one's asked where he was. And we can't find his mother or father. They don't live where he told us they did."
"Ah who the heck cares?"
"InuYasha, sit."
"Ow! I'm just saying that Naraku probably got him and there ain't no use crying over spilt milk!"
"He would have bragged about it!"
"Yeah, that's true."
It had been enough to pique the great demons interest. What did that human have to hide? That, combined with Rin's request that he find him, fueled the journey he took into the south, a place he never went for lack of reason. But he could smell the boy from hundreds of miles away, even after only that one encounter with his blood-scent. It wasn't very difficult to find him.
He was staying in a village of cat demons, not the tribe his father had fought, but almost as hostile. They simply didn't seem to like Inu Youkai, it the spear that narrowly missed his pointed ear was any indication.
"Miyu! Drop that spear!" The voice of the boy he was looking for snapped as another guard-cat aimed a weapon at him, "Unless you want to die."
"B-but Maka, it's a dog!"
"This one's okay, don't worry. I won't bring him into the village."
"B-but what if he-"
"He won't hurt me Miyu." Bravely, he left the gate and came up to the Lord of the Western Lands. He gave him a large, slightly disconcerting smile. "Lord Sesshomaru, it's nice to see you again."
"Rin asked after you."
"Well then I better go see her and tell her I'm alright, ne?"
The other guards had huddled with Miyu not too far away and they all started whining that he couldn't go. Sesshomaru looked down, about to tell him that he could just inform the girl of his safety but found a serious look in his eyes, despite the large smile still in place. He didn't want to be here. So the Inu just nodded.
"Sorry girls, but I have to go."
"Will you come back?"
"Maybe!"
Sesshomaru took flight, allowing Makato to sit on the cloud and sigh in relief.
"If you didn't want to be there, why did you stay? Surely even a human could have escaped those cats."
"Until a while ago there was a barrier around the village, Naraku's doing probably. And I'm not human. Or- well- I am now but I won't be when the sun comes up. I'm human on full moons."
"You're a hanyou?" his nose wrinkled but, he thought, his voice didn't carry the disgust that is should have. Then he remembered, "Last time we met, it wasn't a full moon, and you were human."
"No, I appeared human. An old friend of my mothers –she was a priestess –taught me how to bend my energy to make myself look and smell like a human. Less bullying that way, he said."
"He was incorrect?"
"Oh, I suppose that there was less than there would have been had the other kids known I wasn't human. But I'm not talented enough with my energy to hide my hair and eye color. But the people who did know what I was… well Mom knew."
There was a sadness in his voice when he said that. "She is dead?"
"Oh, no, she's alive." He gave a bitter chuckle. "She just isn't like InuYasha's or Jinenji's."
He looked at him briefly, before looking back. Well he was curious. But he didn't care, so he wouldn't ask.
"When…" his voice was slow, and a little choked, "just after I was born, my mother tossed me in a sack, tied it off, and dropped me into an icy lake. The man who saved me took me to the shrine my mother had worked at. They didn't like me either, but they weren't going to let my mother drown me like an unwanted kitten."
"I take it then your father took you in?"
"Oh Kami, no. My mother was a priestess, remember, she didn't love him or anything. She was sleeping when he seal that had been imprisoning my father broke loose. He had a thing for pretty women. Luckily he was very, very old by then –even for a Daiyokai –and she killed him, but the damage was done."
"So to put it simply, unlike InuYasha, you never had a human mother to dote on you or cuddle you, human's abused you, and still you saved Rin?"
"Yup." He yawned. "Everyone is afraid of what they don't understand. Some of those fears we grow out of, and some stay, like our survival instincts. All the humans were doing was coping with those fears. It may have been painful for me, but they had to be pretty scared the whole time. As for my mother… I wouldn't want to look at someone who resembled the man who'd raped me, either."
He was learning new things every day, it seemed. Sesshomaru that all human mothers loved their pups unconditionally. That's what his experience had told him anyway. InuYasha's mother had, as he'd found out near the beginning of the whole Naraku mess, loved him like that. Had held him, and comforted him when the human children picked on him. But Makato's mother had tried to kill him in a callous way very worthy of some demons.
"So you are a cat?" he tried to change the subject, uncomfortable with the anger his thoughts summoned.
"Hn…"
He looked down and found the boy asleep, his face relaxed, mouth slightly parted. The sun cracked over the horizon and he watched two ears, dark brown like the majority of his hair, unfurl form nowhere and a triangular black mark below his left eye. The tell tail sign of what he was though, were the tufts of fur at the tip of each ear. A Lynx? Those were very rare, hated by most anyone, human or demon, for their ability to see the truth. He sat down beside him, having quite a flight ahead of him.
They were nearly half-way there when he felt a pressure on his Mokomoko. Looking to the side, he found that Makato had found it in his sleep and was now hugging it, a slight frown on his face. His hand, of it's own accord, moved to stroke the frown lines between his brows until they disappeared. There was a time, not so very long ago, that he would have snapped his neck. Change was everywhere for this Sesshomaru.
But the warmth felt good –contrary to what he told anyone who asked, he could feel anything that his Mokomoko touched, even though it wasn't actually attached to him, it was part of his body –and he didn't really care, so long as he didn't start biting it or something. He was… sort of cute.
-III-
Much like when Rin joined him, it wasn't so much that they'd discussed it, but rather, Makato just… followed him when he left the village. And everywhere else he went too, much to Jaken's horror. He spent a lot of time up in trees. Time passes slower –and somehow much faster –when you are a demon. He lost track of it, somehow. Before he knew it, Rin was a grown woman, married to Kohaku, that other human child who was in some way related to one of InuYasha's companions.
Makato had rarely ever left his side, and as of late, the Lord was grateful. His empire had come together much faster than he'd thought, many villages all united under his rule, fairly taxed based on their income. But for some reason, he was depressed. This Sesshomaru hadn't really ever felt that before. Rin didn't really need him now. His little brother, while he didn't hate him with a burning passion anymore, would never be his best friend. He had been alone before, enjoyed it. But now that he knew what it felt like to be needed –wanted even –it was very hard to readjust. He shouldn't care. He was an Inu Daiyokai, Lord of the Western Lands, and desired by many a demon female. But they wanted his power. Not him. And he did care –damn those humans for changing him.
He stayed in bed longer than usual one morning. It had been a late night, and he didn't have the will to get up. A knock came at the door of the chamber and he let out a quiet 'enter'.
The door slid open to reveal Makato, looking a little sleepy, with his- now quite long- hair mussed from sleep. Rather than speak, he stepped in, closed the door, and crawled onto Sesshomaru's futon. He settled beneath the blankets, his head beside the elder Youkai's on Mokomoko. Cuddling closer, he nuzzled the skin beneath Sesshomaru's chin and nipped it a little in a submissive manner.
How did he-? Of course, the eyes. The eyes of a Lynx that saw everything.
"What do you see in me, Makato?"
"I see a powerful man with a heavily guarded heat who I love. The same thing I've seen all these years."
"Love?"
"Of course. You didn't think I was following you around this whole time because I was plotting your downfall, did you?"
"No." He was glad that the boy's face as buried in his neck, because he felt a flush rising to his cheeks. He hadn't even know he could blush. "I…"
"You don't have to say it unless you want to, Sesshomaru." He said quietly, "I can see it."
"I love you, too." He finally bit out. It wasn't fair for him to give a confession like that and not receive one if the feelings were there. "There was a time when I would rather have cut my own tongue out than speak those words to anyone."
"People grow up." Makato snuggled into him even further, "I could see who you would be, and I was willing to wait. You turned out really well."
"Thank you." He pulled Makato's face from his neck, to see those eyes all clouded over half with sleep, and half with the arousal Sesshomaru could smell. He stole his lips, and then couldn't seem to stop taking.
But, Makato didn't seem to mind giving.
"Ma-ah –Sesshomaru-sama!"