Pregnancy hadn't looked so bad when it was Kagome. She waddled around like a cute little penguin, enjoying her maternity leave and simply living. Birth had looked hard, but her daughter was dark haired beauty, nothing was bright blue eyes and charm.
Sesshomaru insisted that half demons were bad enough without them being wolves, but he'd also held the child, peering at her curiously.
Until she stuck her fingers up his nose.
He'd taken to calling her a bastard child and Sango had taken to aiding Kagome in beating him mercilessly. Now that she was built like a panda, munching on fried lotus, she found she didn't do much fighting.
"If you move away from the fire again I will tie you to my thigh." Sesshomaru grabbed her snack and moved it closer to the fireplace that he was feeding for her sole benefit.
"I'm down if you are."
He held her lotus captive until she shuffled over, "being horny got you into this situation," but when she sat down he leaned forward to kiss the hump.
She shrugged, returning to dipping the root in ground up peanuts. It was the most vile combination she'd come up with to date, but she seemed happy. That was all that truly mattered.
"Will you rub my ankles?"
If he was being honest, he'd admit that he wasn't entirely sure where he shin ended and her ankle began. However, that was how InuYasha got his eye blacked last week. So he decided against honesty.
"I don't know how they're swollen when no one lets me walk," but she leaned back on her hands, sighing happily when he obliged her. She rarely had problems with Sesshomaru or Miroku. They were delicate with her volatile emotions and spoiled her rotten.
She could ask for the flesh of a deity and their only question would be how she wanted it cooked.
InuYasha, on the other hand, didn't understand pregnancy as well as he should have. He was constantly making crass comments about her waist line or calling her Leaky.
"Those things look like sausages," InuYasha snorted, a careful claw jabbing at her ankle. She felt one of the hands set her free and watched it pound InuYasha over the head.
Before they'd known each other she'd thought that InuYasha was the strongest man around. It had always amazed her how he carried boulders or ran for hours without getting tired.
She'd never considered how much stronger his older, larger, purebred brother may be. Now, as she watched InuYasha drool on the stone, she realized that she should have. Yet, his hands on her ankle were just as gentle as butterfly wings.
"Enjoying your disgusting snack?" He asked her, the firelight bathing him in its glow.
"It's not disgusting." She offered him a bit, making sure it was laden with ground peanut paste, "here try it."
"I am begging you not to do this."
She didn't listen, making a show of struggling to get up. Realizing there was no way out, he leaned forwards and bit the edge of her putrid combination.
He felt his stomach roll when he swallowed, "that is vile. That is-," he liberated his tongue from his mouth, understanding if it wanted to be anywhere else. He was exhaling through his nose, shaking his head and searching for smells of any sort.
"That's the most doggish thing I've ever seen you do."
There was no shame in her eyes as she nibbled her snack, "you're also being dramatic."
"You're insane. You're disgusting." Sesshomaru was dangerously close to sticking his fingers down his throat, because surely bile tasted better than whatever it was that she'd force fed him.
The fiend. Ignoring her cries of protest he swiped a bit of the peanut paste and popped his finger in his mouth.
She rolled her eyes at him, insisting once again that, "You're being dramatic."
Miroku looked up from his book, remembering his similar reaction from earlier that week, "when you're not pregnant anymore this will be your first meal. We'll see if you still think so."
XxXxXxXxXx
Sango watched emotionlessly as InuYasha ran screaming towards the bath. He'd deserved everything he'd gotten.
Kagome was with Miroku, both of them doubled over, wheezing with bone deep amusement at his echoing cries.
"He deserved it." Sesshomaru kissed her temple, even he looked about ready to topple over with laughter- even if he kept his smile locked behind his usual flat expression, "let's get you cleaned up?"
He led her into the bathing room sending InuYasha out with a bucket of water and a rag, "lavender or vanilla?" Vanilla was more of a winter scent, but she was unhappy right now and so she chose vanilla anyways.
When her body had been rinsed of urine and he'd put her in the tub, the tears she'd bitten back came spilling down her cheeks. She couldn't help it. She wasn't a baby. She wasn't ancient or decrepit.
The baby pressed on her bladder so sneezing or laughing was risky business and she knew she was being sensitive. InuYasha being insensitive was nothing new, but she couldn't stop crying into the water and so she turned her head away, trying to hide the evidence from Sesshomaru's murderous gaze.
"We're going to have a nice talk with InuYasha about maturity." He kissed her cheek, a few tendrils of his silver hair slipping into the fragrant water.
"Who is we?"
He grinned at her and held up his fists, "let's see how well he holds his piss when my fist is in his bladder. I'll send in your favorite kimono."
And then he was gone before she could tell him not to beat his brother into the stone. Sighing, she wiped her tears and sank deeper into the water.
She could only just make out Sesshomaru's whispering growls, "didn't I tell you that you would not treat her like some common broad?" And there was a shattering of glass that made her splash water over the lip of the tub.
Kagome popped her head inside, "your husband threw InuYasha out the window."
"Good riddance. He's such a jerk some days. I don't know why I bother with him, sometimes."
Kagome came in the rest of the way, "InuYasha has
Always been a jerk." She was holding Sango's favorite yellow kimono, "and men don't understand sometimes. Koga teased me a bunch, but then I tried to stab a sacred arrow through his crotch and he got the message."
"It wouldn't matter normally." Sango stared at her massive stomach, feeling -for the first time in her life- ugly. Afterall, InuYasha often insisted that she looked like she was growing the entire watermelon patch and Sesshomaru- for all his poetic words wouldn't lay a finger on her.
"You're insanely gorgeous Sango," Kagome was still holding the silk, calmed by the richness of the threads, "but even if you weren't...you're not obligated to be desirable and perfect all of the time. You're making a person- a demon- from a couple of spare cells."
That was true. Her child would be a powerful half demon from birth, but unlike InuYasha they'd be surrounded by family and raised with kindness. She was creating something so precious and so loving and there was no reason for her to worry about the ill mannered shit.
In the end, it didn't matter.
As the revolution struck so did a terrible pain in her abdomen.
XxXxXxXxXx
Sesshomaru hadn't wasted much time beating InuYasha. Once he'd explained that Sango was sensitive in this state, delicate even, InuYasha had hung his head.
"She's been almost bedridden for weeks now. She's got to be bored."
But boredom's cure was not rage and so he counted being flung out of a window as punishment enough and went on about his way.
He watched, quizzically, as the elderly priestess and Rin were carried past in a brilliant, blurring flurry. It was moments afterwards that he realized what he'd seen and smelled. They'd been moving at breakneck speeds and he hardly expected the old woman to be a fan of riding his men as if they were race horses instead of guards. He didn't know her much, if he were being honest, maybe some of her childish joys had followed her into old age.
To be fair, he was hundreds of years old and still enjoyed the feeling of wind in his hair. The burning of his lungs when he flew too high too quickly always inspired the smallest of smiles to break across his lips.
Yet. They hadn't returned.
And then his stupid senses caught up to his stupid brain and he was moving his stupid legs down the stupid hall.
The unmistakable smell of Sango was rushing him and his instincts told him plainly that he needed to get back to her, he needed to see her.
He crashed into the monk when the door opened unexpectedly and they both skidded into Rin- who was balancing a large bowl of water.
But he couldn't care.
He pulled the humans from the ground, far too frazzled to bother checking on them, and made a beeline to the object of his affections.
"Are you alright? I- the bond felt weird."
Her skin was coated in sweat, but for the most part she seemed to be fine, "I'm alright. Turns out? It wasn't pee." What did that even mean, but then there was a wicked pain in his fingers, "holy shit that hurts." Her eyes were squeezed shut as she made a point of rendering his fingers crooked and red.
He was freaking out. He was man enough to admit it. Sango was about to push out a baby, his baby, their baby. All at once, their time as foolish youth had ended and now they would raise another generation.
Kaede felt the slightest sting of regret as she put her hand upon his shoulder, "no men in the birthing room, Sesshomaru. You and Miroku will have to leave." She was pinned beneath his fearful gaze, but there was nothing he could protect her from in this case. He would need to wait outside, she couldn't have him in the way if things went amiss.
A moment was the difference between life and death.
"I will not leave and you will not attempt to force me, human."
She felt no fear. He was hardly cold and calculating, hardly more than a man like this. Without a moment's hesitation she slid her worn hand beneath the blanket of hair and poured her spiritual energy into him.
He collapsed in a heap, twitching a bit from the nasty shock, his hair had fallen around him and she was sure she'd pay for that later.
"Get him out of here, Miroku. We need to get started."
XxXxXxXxXx
InuYasha found himself faced with an unusual sight, Sesshomaru was hanging over Miroku's shoulder, his legs dragging behind the two. His brother had always been lanky and unfortunate looking and Miroku was just another person that the pesky lord towered over.
"Sango is in labor," Miroku informed him curtly, "Sesshomaru wouldn't cooperate and so he was put to sleep, now I'm stuck lugging him into the hall."
"Labor?" He helped Miroku ease his brother to the ground, "that's…" that was unsettling. They'd hardly discussed names. How would a kid distinguish between three fathers? And how could InuYasha ever be good enough?
Until recently he'd had nothing of his own father. His death had hung over InuYasha's head, like a dark cloud, a constant reminder that it had all been his fault.
A year ago he had no brother, no hope, no future and now he was sitting beside the love of his life, watching him thumb the sharp, pink stripes on the pale cheeks of a demon lord.
And now he was a part of something so much bigger than himself, some poor child would look at him and feel safe and he was crushed beneath that realization. He was no longer some lost half breed. He was a husband and a lover, a secondary Lord to a clan he hadn't known existed, and one of three fathers to a child that was unabashedly theirs.
The donator of the sperm was hardly relevant at this point. It was Miroku who held her hair back when the morning sickness overwhelmed her, it was Sesshomaru who rubbed her swollen ankles and sang her poetry, it was InuYasha who kept her sane.
She hated being coddled and he knew it better than anyone else.
"Boy or girl?" Miroku asked suddenly. His violet eyes were introspective, as if he'd entertained thoughts similar to InuYasha's.
InuYasha shrugged, "boy. Sango is too masculine to produce a girl." He watched his husband chuckle.
"Are you afraid? Our lives are about to change forever."
"Keh," InuYasha jutted his nose in the air, "what would I be scared for?"
But Miroku ignored his bravado, "I am. My father died when I was young. Master Mushin did his best, of course, but no one can replace that hole." He was staring down at Sesshomaru, "when I'm gone...will they be alright? They'll always have Sesshomaru and Sango. And, it may not be forever, but they'll have you as well."
"Regretting your mortality is hardly helpful, Monk." Sesshomaru's eyes hadn't opened yet, but his irritation with the old woman was doubling as the moments passed by, "they'll deal with your passing just as human children will and they will not forget you, just how InuYasha never forgot his horrid mother."
They were quiet for a moment as Sesshomaru shook off the last vestiges of his disorientation, but then Miroku asked again, "boy or girl, Sesshomaru?"
"Girl."
He was already moving back towards the door, his face drawn as he listened to Sango's terrible cries of agony. There was nothing he wanted more than to be with her. She hadn't gotten herself into the situation on her own and yet now she was stuck in that bedroom with those terrible priestesses and Rin, screaming her head off.
"Lady Kaede likely sealed the doors." Miroku warned him, "it's for her own good."
But Sesshomaru wouldn't hear it. Miroku watched as fur sprouted along his jaw, his body transforming until it was far too big for the corridor.
The spiritual seals made the canine whimper, but the heavy, wooden door gave way all the same.
"Sesshomaru has never taken no for an answer." InuYasha muttered to himself. He was worried too, but he wasn't willing to risk being purified by Kaede or Kagome, not when he was willing to trust them with his own life.
"I'll stay out of the way." He strolled into the bathing room to wash his hands, "but I will not sit in the hallways while she gives birth and I will kill the next person who suggests it."
With the door knocked down, Miroku and InuYasha eased inside, never leaving the comfort of the wall while Sesshomaru sat just behind Sango. She looked happy to be propped up against him, his chest beneath her head and his hands in hers.
"You're so dramatic," she was between contractions, her eyes glossy and her face twisted with pain's phantom touch.
"I don't much care. I could not bear to let you cry alone." Even as he spoke, he was drawing her pain into him, trying to shield her from the contractions that made him want to dig his fingertips into the stone.
It was time for her to push, but already her muscles were begging for a break. She gripped his fingers, shoving in a way he couldn't comprehend, but he kept drawing in the pain.
Their marking allowed him to shield her from bearing the worst of any pain. It was his duty to protect her and he would- even if it felt like he were being torn from his taint to his ass.
How women did this multiple times was beyond him. There was nothing worth this kind of torment.
He found himself eating his words when those first infantile cries hit the Spring air. Sango was slumping against him, her skin slick with sweat and her arms limp, but she wasn't quite finished. There was one more and- despite the pain, he drew in more.
Sesshomaru took and he took until the next child was born and Sango was delirious with the loss of sensation.
"This one is a girl," Rin said proudly, carefully placing the child within Sango's trembling arms. He could see a tuft of white hair, from behind the blanket, and two pink stripes on her cheeks.
Only full blooded demons bore their markings without reason, but he wasn't in a state to ponder it. Hotaru's magic had affected more than Sango's life span and he had no further questions regarding it. So when a dark hair pup was placed in her arms, just as healthy and rosy as her sister he wasn't surprised.
The first was of his seed, there was no doubt about it and he entertained that she would be his mother's double. The second was ambiguous. It was clearly a half demon, the rounded ears and dark hair pointed to the monk, but it was the eyes that sealed the deal.
Wide violet eyes landed on Sango, easy going and curious.
"Ew, they look just like y'all." InuYasha snorted. That earned him a hard whack over the skull with some unnamed fool's golden staff. Still, he settled next to Sango in the pit peering at the one with silver hair.
"I've never seen twins with different fathers." Miroku ran his thumb along the dark hair child's cheek. He didn't register the tears that dropped down his cheeks as he took in the sisters. "By the grace of Buddha why are they so perfect?"
"Because their mother is perfect." InuYasha said. It was without hesitation and without thought and she found herself smiling despite her fatigue.
"Do you want to hold them?" Sango was staring back at the man who'd defied tradition to be at her side, the man who'd stolen her pain and born it himself.
But he shook his head, "they're so small." She supposed that it was natural for him to be nervous. He was massive compared to them, his muscles could bend steel, yet she could only remember the times when his fingers were as soft as feathers.
He'd never truly hurt her and while she was much tougher than a newborn babe, she knew that he would never hurt them.
"Yes, but, that's because they're newborns." She scooted out of his embrace, wincing when pain shot through her. Despite his best efforts, he could not rid her of the aches that plagued her.
Kaede has offered her the briefest reprieve as she'd gone to collect hot water and thread. The tearing had been…monumental.
"I will hold them when they are less fragile." When he didn't give in, he added, "let Miroku and InuYasha have a go."
InuYasha was just as hesitant and had gone so far as to backpedal away from the child in her left arm.
So Miroku held them both, staring with wide eyed amazement. Their daughters were carbon copies of Sesshomaru and him, their eyes were made of violets and amber, their hair shining like ebony and opal.
He was well aware that this was karma. He'd done nothing but chase women in his time as a traveling monk, the retribution would be vicious, but he was willing to face it for them. They would sass him and wring him about their tiny fingers and he would allow it.
"Hisui?" Sesshomaru was running through names for the dark haired daughter, "Chikako?"
He liked Chikako and told them so, "a daughter of wisdom? For a child that is my copy? I find that fitting." InuYasha shrugged.
"Chikako?" Sango stretched to see her second daughter, "sounds fitting. Besides, she hasn't stopped looking around. Look at the other? Sleeping like the dead. Completely unconcerned with us."
And so they continued their hunt for a second name, "father named us based on his expectations, right?" InuYasha was facing Sesshomaru as he asked this, when the elder man nodded he continued, "what about Daitan? Any child raised by the four of us is bound to be bold no matter what we name her."
Sango held her arms out for the silver bundle of aggressive calm, "Daitan?" She placed a kiss to the waning indigo moon upon her daughter's forehead.
She turned back to Sesshomaru, forcing the babe into his unexpecting grip, "what do you think?" He was stock still, his chest frozen as his breath stayed trapped in his lungs.
"You're not hurting her." Sango whispered, "she looks to be the happiest girl in the world."
Sesshomaru nodded, but didn't move an iota. It wasn't until her cries rang out through the room, his unease sending her into a frenzy, that something clicked in his brain.
She watched him bounce the gentle bundle, whispering sweet nothings as she whimpered with indignation. Apparently Daitan didn't like being held by those that weren't confident in their abilities.
What a snooty pup.
He'd relaxed and the tenderness in his expression, the smile, it was all too much and Sango felt the need to crush him in her arms. Miroku has come to InuYasha's side, urging him to follow in his brother's footsteps.
"You won't hurt her."
"Why is she so small?"
"She's a newborn."
"Yeah, but," InuYasha's voice cracked and he tried to clear it, "but why is she so tiny? She can't even hold a little sword. I'm gonna- I'm gonna protect her so hard. I'm gonna carry all of her books and teach her Tessaiga and-," Miroku patted him on the back, using his kimono sleeves to wipe the tears free of his tanned cheeks.
"And I'm gonna teach her that dumb song. It can be their song." He was careful as he held the bundle close, "I'll swim and sail on savage seas. With ne'er a fear of drowning and gladly ride the waves of life if you would be with me."
Miroku placed the softest kiss to the dark tuft of hair, "no scorching sun nor freezing cold will stop me on my journey. If you can promise me your heart and love me for eternity." His voice was deeper than InuYasha's, scratchy -like wool- and cozy. He was hardly a singer, hardly creative in any way, but if this song would be theirs then he would practice it. Every night and every morning until his voice was velvet.
"My dearest one, my darling dear. Your mighty words astound me, but I've no need for mighty deeds when I feel your arms around me." Sango was leaning on Sesshomaru, exhausted and sweaty, but not willing to fall asleep. Not when such precious souls surrounded her. Daitan hardly stirred, but when Sesshomaru sang to her, all but humming the last chords of the song, she cooed.
"I would keep you from all harm, if you would stay beside me. I'll swim and sail on savage seas with ne'er a fear of drowning and gladly ride the waves of life. If you will stand by me."
A.N./ that's a wrap my good people, but Ima be real. I already got an idea using this established family. I'm such a fan of my large, awkward family.
But hey. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Lemme know.
