Chapter 14: The Birds and the Bees

"Inuyasha."

"What?"

"Either come in or go away. I'm tired of your hovering."

Inuyasha slumped through the doorway of his least-favorite room of the school-his brother's office. Sesshomaru sat behind his desk typing on a silver laptop. Miroku grinned warmly at Inuyasha from where he sat at a conference table, poring over financial reports. Inuyasha looked a little warily at him.

"Uh…."

"What is it, brother?" Sesshomaru said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a clawed hand (he rarely bothered with concealment spells once he was safely in his office).

"I need to talk to you."

"Apparently."

"About something."

"Clearly."

"Shit, Sesshomaru...can we have some privacy?"

Miroku, who had been following the exchange amiably, affected a harassed look.

"I'm so offended!" He said with mock indignation. "What would you try to hide from me?"

"Just go away." Inuyasha said grumpily. Miroku gathered up his things and left, slamming the door a little as he went. Sesshomaru sighed and looked up at his brother, who was clearly very uncomfortable.

"What is it?"

"I wanted to ask you about something kind of..personal."

"Oh god. Did father never tell you where babies come from?" Sesshomaru drawled. "Perhaps you shouldn't have asked the monk to leave. He's an expert in that matter."

"Shut the fuck up."

"That would be hard to do if you actually came here to ask me something."

"Okay, okay….this is for a friend, got it? So there's no reason to get mad and bite my head off."

"Inuyasha, what are you talking about?"

"I want to ask you about girls."

There was a long pause while Sesshomaru stared at his younger brother. When he spoke, his voice was like ice.

"I have already told you not to touch the girl. You cannot-"

"Fuck, Sess," Inuyasha groaned and planted himself in a chair, holding his head in his hands. "Can you ever just….forget about being my boss or the Lord of the Western Lands and just be a guy? Just be my brother?"

Another long pause. Sesshomaru considered the possibility, then decided. Nodding his head slightly, he spoke simply.

"You have a friend with girl problems?"

It was all the opening Inuyasha needed. He leaned forward slightly.

"Yeah, I've got a friend….he met this girl, you see?"

"Yes."

"And at first he wasn't too impressed with her. I mean, she's hot, but she seemed kind of strange at first. But now that he knows her better, he's really...erm….attracted to her."

"Your friend should know about attraction. What's the mystery there?"

"It's not the attraction that's confusing. He's been attracted to girls before. But this girl makes him….makes him want to do things."

"God. Dare I ask what things he wants to do to her?"

"Not like that!" Inuyasha protested quickly, then stopped to think. "Well, yeah, like that, but also like other things."

"Let me guess. He's taken with an overwhelming urge to cook for her and feed her?"

"Yes! And I...he's noticed that she has gotten a little fuller and it makes him feel…."

"Proud? Satisfied?"

"Yeah. Definitely. What the hell is that about?"

"Does he also have trouble staying away from her physically?"

"Yeah he tends to crawl into her bed at night."

Sesshomaru felt that he may have made a mistake in agreeing to advise as merely a "guy". Surely Inuyasha wasn't physically assaulting Kagome on a nightly basis?

"What your friend is experiencing is normal for yukai males. I wasn't entirely sure if you would experience it, though, so I never explained it fully to you."

"Why didn't you think I would experience it?"
"Well, because I don't recall any of this behavior on your part when you were seeing Kikyou."

Inuyasha drooped a little bit.

"We never really saw each other. You know, she was a priestess. Plus I was a lot younger then."

"Indeed. Well I can say that the behavior you are describing is typical for an inuyukai male who has found a female he wants to mate. He wants to prove to her that he can provide, he wants her to be strong and well-fed to bear his pups, and he wants other males to stay away from her, thus the impulse to be as close as possible at all times."

"Oh. Shit." Inuyasha looked stunned.

"Yes. Shit. Are you telling me that you have been feeling this way about Ms. Higurashi?"

Inuyasha shrugged. At this point, why lie? "Yeah. Big time."

"Does she return the feelings?"

Inuyasha thought to himself, then answered.

"If her scent is anything to go by, she's not totally disgusted by me...but then I don't know what human females do when they find a mate."

"I confess neither do I. Although television suggests that they wear more makeup and less clothing."

A minute of silence passed. Sesshomaru wanted to go back to his computer but Inuyasha remained in his chair. Finally the hanyou spoke.

"You're saying I can't have her?"

"I'm saying a union between the two of you would be immensely irritating to me."

"But don't you want to get with her roommate?"

"Unlike you, Inuyasha, I can control myself. What I want and what I plan to do are two different things."

"You literally growled at me the last time I touched Rin! So you're saying you're not going to get her? You're happy for some human man to have her?"

"I'm saying," Sesshomaru said, voice rising, "That I will not endanger her life any more by including myself unnecessarily in it! And I suggest you take the same path. Human women are fragile, you should know this more than most."

"What are you not telling me?" Inuyasha said hotly. "We're as safe here as we've been in years. Sure, we have to make sure those human wackos don't find the kids and try to exterminate them, but we've been dealing with that for centuries. What's got you so scared?"

"Naraku has been spotted."

Inuyasha stared at his brother with wide golden eyes.

"FUCK! Where?"

"Near enough to be a problem."

"I thought he wouldn't make it here."

"You were wrong. My sources tell me he's on the continent. He's passing as a human, apparently."

"That sick fuck."

"So you understand, he is coming after us?"

"Yeah."

"And you may want to keep your woman out of it."

"Well apparently she can't be my woman." Inuyasha said churlishly. Then he sat up straighter, eyeing his brother. "Wait a minute, how can Kagome stay out of it? Didn't you hire her as a line of defense?"

"No, I hired her to keep her close. She is still too volatile to be of any use to us."

Inuyasha knew that Kagome's control was impressive after months of training, but he didn't vocalize that. He was only too happy to keep her away from harm.

"So, you're saying I can't have her." He said, circling back to the point of his meeting to begin with.

"I can't tell you what to do, brother." Sesshomaru said, suddenly sounding very tired. "But if you do mate with her, she will only be in more danger than she was before. You would be painting a target on her back."

Inuyasha left the office, feeling hollow.