Disclaimer: I do not own the Inuyasha series or any of the characters.

Summary: While Souta is home sick from school, he and Inuyasha have a talk about fathers. January 30, 2008.

Collected Works of a One-Shot Junkie

Lines of Descent

"Ha! I got you again!"

Scowling at the boy beside him, Inuyasha flung away the device in his hands. "This game's crap!" he announced irritably, as Souta performed a gloating victory dance. "When's Kagome coming home, anyway?"

"It's still morning, Inu-no-nii-chan," Souta said with a smirk, kneeling on the floor in front of the "teevee" box to gather up the controllers for his game. "What's the matter? Do you miss Kagome that much, that you can't go a couple of hours without seeing her?"

Inuyasha levelled a glare at him. "Remind me why yer at home instead of at school?"

"I'm sick!"

"Yeh don't seem very sick to me," Inuyasha commented with narrowed eyes, but the little red spots peppering the kid's face and arms said otherwise. They were supposed to be highly contagious, and Kagome was afraid she and Inuyasha would carry it back to the Feudal Era, even if Kagome was immune and Inuyasha was very unlikely to catch the sickness. Inuyasha had been quite vocal about his protests when she'd told him they couldn't go back yet, but that didn't mean he didn't understand her concerns. She said kids usually got mild cases like Souta, but when adults caught it they could be much worse.

"You're just sore because you lost," Souta remarked. "And 'cause you miss Kagome sooo much."

Souta started to back away, grinning wickedly and making kissy noises. Starting to growl, Inuyasha made a lunge for him, and Souta turned and ran for it, taunting, "You must loooove her!"

Inuyasha nearly snagged him, but Souta careened through the door shrieking, and when Inuyasha turned the corner he had to skid to a stop about two inches from a very surprised Mrs. Higurashi. For a moment they just stared at each other.

"Uhhh," Inuyasha said intelligently.

"Inuyasha loves Kagome!" shouted Souta from a different part of the house. More mocking kissy noises followed.

Inuyasha felt his face turn red as the corners of Mrs. Higurashi's mouth started to twitch upwards. Taking the path of least resistance, he sidestepped her and resumed his chase, trying to ignore the sound of her chuckles.

He caught up with Souta on the stairs to the second floor, and a well-aimed leap put him directly in the kid's path at the top of the staircase.

"I'm gonna hang you out the window by your heels!"

Shrieking again, Souta turned tail and headed back downstairs, sliding down the railing to gain speed (Inuyasha made a note to try this later, when no one was watching; it looked like fun, but he'd have to remember to jump off where Souta just did, unless he wanted to run into that knobbly wooden thing at the bottom. That didn't look like fun at all). Inuyasha was annoyed with this house, because there wasn't enough room to put his speed to good use. This gave Souta a fighting chance to escape, but in the end the kid was doomed.

Inuyasha intercepted Souta back in the room where the "teevee" box was and put him in a headlock. Souta struggled helplessly.

"I take it back!" the boy shouted, all four limbs flailing. "I'm sorry!"

Inuyasha just smirked and turned him upside down, holding him around the middle. Souta's legs waved in the air and his hands scrabbled at Inuyasha's arm, trying to loosen his grasp. Inuyasha pretended to drop him on his head, only to tighten his hold again.

"What should I do with ya? Tie you up and leave yeh in the well house? Put you in Goshinboku and let ya find yer own way down? Toss you out the window and see if ya bounce?"

"No no no! Let me down!"

Inuyasha flung him over his shoulder instead and started spinning in circles. He could do this all day, but he didn't want Souta to be sick all down his back, so after a minute he stopped and set the kid down to watch him stagger around dizzily, knocking into furniture. As the boy tried to catch his balance against a small table, the items on top of it went sliding over the edge.

"The picture!" Souta cried, his good humour suddenly gone as he snatched at it.

Inuyasha caught the picture by the frame a few inches above the floor, and Souta breathed a sigh of relief, reaching out to take it from him. With reverent care, Souta placed it back on the table top. The image of a man smiled up from behind the glass.

"Who's that?" Inuyasha asked, as Souta scooped up the other objects off the floor and placed them back on the table with much less concern than he had shown for the portrait.

Souta went still for a moment, and then put the last item down. He looked at the picture for a minute. "It's my otou-san," he said quietly.

Kagome had spoken of her otou-san a few times, but never in any great detail. She always seemed keen to change the subject, and Inuyasha wasn't eager to push a topic that might start her crying. All he really knew was that their otou-san had died in some sort of accident while Kagome was fairly young.

Souta wandered away and picked up the "teevee" wand absently, flipping from one moving picture to the next as though he just wanted something to occupy his hands with. Inuyasha kept quiet and still, trying to figure out what he was supposed to say. He so often stuck his foot in his mouth...

"People say I'm like him," Souta suddenly spoke up, "but I don't remember. Everyone remembers what he was like except me. I was only two years old when he died."

"How did it happen?" Inuyasha couldn't resist asking. Kagome had never explained.

"He left some papers at work one night, and he went to get them," Souta said, picking at a button on the "teevee" control with his fingernail. His voice had the deceptively detached tone of someone reciting a story they've memorized since infancy. "The roads were wet, and the temperature dropped pretty low. It's called black ice, when the water freezes in a thin layer on the road. It's almost invisible, especially at night. His car slid through a stop light right into the side of a big truck. No one was at fault. They say he died instantly."

Inuyasha stared down at the picture again. The man's face stared back, frozen in a grin that looked just like Kagome's and Souta's.

"I don't remember him at all," Souta added, and now there was a note of barely contained frustration in his voice, "But I remember waking up to the sounds of lots of crying." The frustration grew stronger. "Why do I remember that, and nothing about him?"

Inuyasha didn't have any answers for the kid. Why was it that everyone he knew had gotten a raw deal in life? He couldn't think of a single person he knew who hadn't experienced some sort of tragedy.

A moment passed in silence.

"If it helps," Inuyasha offered tentatively, "I don't remember my oyaji either."

Souta kept his eyes on the "teevee", but Inuyasha didn't think he was really watching it.

"How'd he die?" Souta asked finally, without turning his head.

Inuyasha wished he hadn't brought it up. But then another part of him wanted to say something, even if he wasn't too sure why or what or how much. He picked the picture back up and turned it over in his hands restlessly.

"Well, I only know what haha-ue and Myoga-jijii told me," he hedged.

"Myoga's the flea, right?" For all his feigned disinterest, Souta was listening intently.

"Yeah." Inuyasha studied the picture behind the glass. "Oyaji died the night I was born, protecting haha-ue and me. He only saw me long enough to give me my name. The house he was fighting inside was on fire, and he was already in pretty bad shape from another battle. When the house collapsed… well, even a taiyoukai can only survive so much." Kagome and Souta's otou-san smiled up from the picture. "I don't even know what he looked like."

"He must have looked something like you," Souta said, and Inuyasha glanced up to see that the boy was no longer staring at the "teevee". "I mean, I know it's not the same as seeing his face, but…"

"No, yer right," Inuyasha admitted. "Everyone who knew him says I look a lot like him. Even my brother said so once, and he hates me. Seemed pretty offended by it, as I recall." Inuyasha smirked, then let the expression fade again. Souta was looking at him with… understanding, maybe?

Suddenly uncomfortable, Inuyasha waved the picture at the boy before setting it down. "Ya look like yer oyaji," he said. "His grin, and his nose. Kagome got his eyes."

"You think?" Souta asked hopefully.

"Keh!" Inuyasha replied with a shrug, casting about for some distraction.

The distraction came in the form of Mrs. Higurashi, who appeared in the doorway. "Lunch is ready, boys," was all she said, but she was smiling at them both with misty eyes, and Inuyasha had a strong suspicion that she'd been listening.

He pretended not to notice and trailed after her to the kitchen with Souta beside him.

"Is it ramen?"

::Owari::

Translations:

Inu-no-nii-chan – older dog brother

Goshinboku – the God Tree

Otou-san – father

Oyaji – rude term for father, "my old man"

Haha-ue – archaic word for mother

Jijii – rude term for an old man