Just Another Day in the Life


A/N: So I just watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and am sort of obsessing over the whole "baby on doorstep" plot. I know, I know. The movie's like 3 hours long yet I can't get past the beginning -_-; I have two ideas currently swimming around my head right now, but this one is the first. The second one can be incorporated with another (incomplete) drabble for this series, actually. So maybe I'll just do that. But anyway, here's my take on "baby on doorstep" with MJ&F! Enjoy!

PS: For the sake of this turning into a massive chapter, I'll be chopping this sucker up like I did with my "Ants, Bees, and Honey" chapter (17). Needless to say, it will be still be longer than my past few chapters, but not as long as it could have been.

PPS: The title comes from a trope, as I am an avid – no, rabid – tvtropes(dot)com follower. The trope has to do with cute happy endings that involve the love interests getting married, finding their perfect white picket fence, and popping out a few babies. Because that's what a happy life is made of, right? …Right? O_O


Babies Ever After…


Jin watched as his wife bounced their infant son in her arms, gently cooing tender words to calm his cries. Their faces were obscured by the cool moonlight that filtered through the window but he smiled nonetheless; just in time for her face to take on a livid glare and his son's mouth to open wide with a ferocious wail.

"Jin! Wake up! Wake up!" He felt a kick to his side and startled awake, clutching his sword. Mugen stared groggily down at him, his foot prone to his side and at the ready as Fuu glared down at him with a bundle in her arms.

How much saké had he downed tonight if he wasn't awake at a pin drop like usual?

"This is bad, guys." Fuu said, bouncing the wailing bundle in her arms unsuccessfully. The moon was nowhere in sight, obscured by clouds on this dark night. "How the hell did you not hear whoever did this?"

Mugen scoffed, jamming his fingers in his ears. "Me? You were sawin' logs when it happened, too bitch!"

"Don't yell!" Fuu shouted. "Are you a moron? You're scaring him!"

"Put it back where you found it! I don't want it."

"It's not an old umbrella!"

"Who cares – it's not ours!" He growled. "It's kidnappin'!"

Fuu rolled her eyes. "He was abandoned, can't you see that?" She took the child's arms and attempted to play with him. "His mother is probably miles away crying over her inability to care for him herself."

Mugen arched a brow and unplugged his ears, wiping them clean on his shirt. "I think I heard you wrong. If I was her, I'd be celebratin' gettin' rid of a pain in the ass like this."

Fuu's cheek puffed in anger but she stifled her voice in favor of the boy. His cries had finally begun to settle.

"We need to think." Jin's voice interrupted the boy's babbles. He sat calmly, staring intently in front of him. "The mother can't have gotten too far. It's only been a few minutes since his cries woke us up."

Mugen and Fuu gave each other arched brows before turning their gazes back to the ronin.

"Actually…we've sort of had him for a while now." Fuu said, looking anywhere but his eyes.

Mugen nodded. "We only woke your ass up when it wouldn't stop cryin'."

Jin waited several moments for a "Psyche!" to follow each of their statements, and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation when none came. "And just why would you wait this long to try and remedy this situation?" He fought to keep his composure.

Fuu brandished the tyke Jin's way. "He's kinda cute, isn't he?"

The bespectacled samurai's glasses slid down his nose in disbelief for a second before turning to his only other comrade.

Mugen shrugged uselessly. "Just look at these cheeks!" He pinched the face of the child hard enough to be annoying but soft enough to avoid tears. "He's a porker! It's a frickin' riot watchin' him try and walk his fatass around!"

Clearly, Jin was alone in this one.

So. Very. Alone.


"We should name him."

"Porky."

"Shut your mouth."

"It fits."

"We're not naming him Porky."

"Shibō*, then."

"That's just as bad as Porky." A pause. "Hey, Jin! What do you think?"

Jin walked much further ahead of his two companions, grumbling to himself. "I think we should get rid of him…"

"I got a good one – Koji*!"

"You jackass!"


"I got it! Let's flip a coin!" Fuu snapped her fingers upon the genius idea. She fished around her sleeve until the trick coin was safely in her grasp. "Tails and I don't have to do it."

"Say what, that's no fair!" Mugen barked. "Call it in the air." He snatched the coin and flung it up, up, and away before neither Jin nor Fuu could protest. "Tails, bitch!"

Fuu bit her lip nervously, eyeing the clear sky and then the wailing baby in the middle of their group. His diaper needed a change but she'd be damned if she was the one to do it. But no sweat, she'd just call tails again when it was between her and –

"Tails." Jin murmured, as Mugen tossed her coin into the air again.

"No fair! I wasn't ready!"

"Not our problem if you can't pay attention, girly." Mugen waved her off, strolling leisurely toward the river they were following.

Changing this kid's diaper while her bodyguards took a relaxing dip? No way in Hell she'd stand for such chauvinism!

"Dammit."

Her gaze hit the dirt as she searched for the cause of Jin's dismay. It didn't take her long to find it – the coin landed heads up. She breathed a sigh of relief and hauled ass to join Mugen by the river. The flustered samurai peered down at the repugnant-smelling child and sighed as he heard his comrades' sniggering from the water.


"My arms are tired. Here, take him, Mugen."

"I don't want him."

"C'mon, I've been holding him all day."

"Bastard weighs a ton."

"You've carried me before."

"He's got bigger tits than you do."

"Mugen, you ass! Just take him before I drop him!"

"Make 'em walk. He could use the exercise."

"Jiiiiiiiiiiin!"

Jin cringed at the girl's whine but reluctantly took the child from her weary arms anyway. The last thing he needed was two babies crying.


"Phew, I'm stuffed!" Fuu laid back and rubbed her belly in a way Jin never wished to see again after this day. "Where's the baby?"

Jin didn't know and couldn't say he cared.

"Playin' by the river." Mugen supplied, tearing another fish off his stick.

Fuu's eyes widened enough to make her entire iris visible.

"Relax. I stabbed his shirt into the ground. He ain't goin' anywhere."

She bolted to her feet. "You let him be alone by the river with your sword?.!" Four leaping bounds and she was gone, leaving the two men in momentary silence. "I can't get it from the ground – you stabbed it too hard, moron!"

Jin watched Mugen heave a sigh and use his arms to push himself off the ground. "Pain in my ass the both of 'em. Can't even eat in peace…" He grumbled, leaving Jin in momentary silence.

"For the love of – be careful!" Fuu shrieked from beyond the bushes.

The sound of a quick but smooth swish wafted Jin's way, followed by footsteps as his companions returned.

"I wonder if he's hungry." Fuu plopped down and sat the child atop her folded knees.

Mugen held his half-eaten stick of fish in front of the boy's face, only to be swatted by the waitress. "He can't eat solid food, moron."

"Check his mouth for teeth, dumbass." Mugen rebuked, chowing the fish himself. "He sure as hell ain't gettin' milk from anywhere I know."

Fuu scowled at him from beneath a violent blush but pried open the child's mouth anyway. "His top and bottoms are in." She sounded a bit surprised. "How old does that make him?"

Jin shrugged when he felt her eyes on him. How should he know?

"A year." Mugen supplied, chomping away. He swallowed. "At least."

Fuu couldn't resist asking. "How the hell would you know something like that?"

He breathed, but Jin knew better. That was a sigh. "Not much to do on Ryukyu 'sides fight or fuck. That said, there was always a lotta babies wanderin' around."

She hesitated. "So can he eat solid food?"

Mugen shoved the stick in front of the boy's face again, allowing the child to speak for himself. After a moment, Fuu got her answer when he grabbed for it and she fed him a piece. It was quickly spat out and Mugen laughed.

"Just 'cause he can, don't mean he will."


"You know…" Fuu scurried up behind Jin and peered over his shoulder. "He looks like he could be yours, Jin."

The ronin didn't like the inflection of her voice.

"I mean it." She continued, on tip-toe now that he had stiffened his shoulders in irritation. "I mean, his face is a bit chubbier but other than that he's a dead ringer."

Mugen chuckled from a few steps behind. "Just slap some glasses on 'em and we got a mini-Four-Eyes!"

"Hn."

"You moron. You pissed him off!"


Headache. One long headache this day had been. But if he could just hold on a bit longer, it would all be over soon. Village lights just over the horizon gave the bespectacled ronin hope, and with hope he was able to keep moving forward. The cause of his discontent was mercifully asleep in his arms, but the pirate's words had planted a seed he'd been regretfully sowing all day.


"Stay here with him." Fuu escorted him to a bench underneath another building's roof. Jin felt silly – like a weak pregnant woman or a feeble scatterbrained widower – being henpecked by the tiny waitress like this. "If we bring him in, he might wake up. Plus there's smoke – that can't be good for him."

"Hurry yer ass up!" Mugen beckoned from the threshold.

With a final cautious look at the slumbering child in Jin's arms, Fuu turned and followed the red pirate into the restaurant opposite the bench. The small building was bustling with business and Mugen's lanky frame was consequently forced to linger around the threshold as Fuu squeezed her way through the crowd.

The child stirred in Jin's arms for a moment before his obsidian orbs came to stare at him blearily. Jin watched carefully as it started moving its face muscles around. He cracked an amused smile that registered more in his eyes than anything, and watched in entertainment as the child copied the expression.

The samurai held the boy in front of him and lowered his brows in a look of concentration. It was like staring into an infantile mirror as the baby struggled before succeeding in lowering his own eyebrows.

Jin's eyes widened in honest surprise and watched eagerly as his living looking glass did the same. A chuckle escaped his lips as the child reached for his glasses. Recalling the pirate's offhand remark, Jin allowed the child to wear them.

"Infants are known to mock facial expressions."

Jin turned.

"Is he yours?"

He was unsure of how to answer the weary-looking woman who had just sat down next to him.

She nodded sagely. "I understand. I recently lost my family, too. It's nice to have at least one traveling companion, eh?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"How did it happen?" She questioned, a distant look in her eye as she caressed the child's chubby cheek. "If you don't mind my asking, of course."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Your wife."

Jin nodded, aware of how he and the child must have appeared to outsiders. "This child is neither mine nor my wife's. I have no wife to speak of."

The woman retracted her hand in a moment of confused shock at his words. She took a long moment to find her words. "…Are you watching him for his family, then?"

He shook his head negatively. "He was left by an unknown mother."

Her brow wrinkled in pity. "Abandoned? Poor thing." She took to the child's rosy cheeks again.

"What happened to your family – if you don't mind my asking?"

She sighed. "My husband left me after we discovered I'm unable to bear children." She refused to meet Jin's eye as she chuckled darkly. "A woman unable to conceive can barely be called a woman, after all."

Jin watched the way the child grabbed at the woman's fingers and leaned her way. Cautiously, he allowed the woman to hold him and noted the way both their expressions seemed to brighten.

"What would you name him?"

She paused in bouncing the child on her knee. "He has no name?"

"None that he's told us."

She smiled. "Taro*."

The samurai nodded just in time for Fuu and Mugen to shimmy out of the packed restaurant. She carried a full tray in her arms, which the pirate eyed hungrily. Both halted in their tracks when they spotted the woman holding their source of entertainment since dawn that day.

"Jin –"

The samurai stood, retrieving his glasses and replacing them atop his nose. "This is the sister of the boy's mother." He ignored the woman's gaping stare.

Fuu scowled. "How can you be sure?"

"There is a birthmark under his diaper that she recognized." He replied without skipping a beat.

The waitress' lips quivered into a dreadful pout as she took in the sight of the baby's gleeful expression, caused by another woman's hands. Mugen wisely swiped the tray from her seconds before she dropped her arms in defeat. She approached the child's new mother as he sat next to the samurai and began picking at the food.

"She ain't happy."

Jin nodded and watched him clean off a stick of dango. "Perhaps all she needs is another stray to look after."


A/N: Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Jin is a master of subtlety, ne? Anywho, I apologize for this one's length but I gave you ample warning in the beginning. But I still feel bad, it's 2,172 words for crying out loud! This is my first real attempt to sort of get into Jin's head since he's the hardest character for me to write. My intention wasn't to make him the bad guy, but more less the only sane person not under the "ZOMG CUTE BABY!" spell. I made Mugen less mean, Jin less silent, and Fuu less helpless. I hope you enjoyed in spite of it's length! See you next update!

Oh, by the way:

*Shibō means "fat, blubber, or grease"

*Koji means "orphan"

*Taro means "first born son, or Big Boy" – it was too fitting not to use!