When Sango heard nothing from Sesshomaru come Sunday morning, she called him.
As expected, he answered the phone with, "what," and she had to take a calming breath to keep from losing her temper with Rin in the room. She hadn't forgiven herself for last week's display and wanted to set a good example for the girl.
"Are you coming to get Rin today? She has school in the morning."
She could hear someone screaming in the background- "you'd better not be talking to that fucking whore again."
"Does it sound like I can come get her?" She supposed it didn't, "I sent her with you to ensure her safety for the weekend. Yuna gets insane whenever I try and break up with her and the last time she almost hurt Rin in one of those psychotic fits. So, if it's about money, I'll pay you tomorrow."
"It's not about money," she watched Rin watch television, trying not to wonder what kind of people Sesshomaru was involving himself with if he felt the need to hide Rin away for her own safety. "Nevermind. I'll come by and get her uniform."
"Your funeral."
His address popped up on her screen a few moments after he hung up with no goodbye.
She didn't know what she'd be walking into, but she left anyway, using her work account to order a car to take her to her destination. Technically it wasn't a work trip, but she couldn't imagine Sesshomaru giving her shit for needing a ride to the farthest edge of society.
"Are you going to be alright going alone?" Kagome had insisted that she come for backup, but Sango hadn't wanted to leave Rin alone, so now she was on standby.
It was an hour drive from the city to bum fuck wherever and Sango's anxiety was mounting. He hadn't answered another text since the very last one he'd sent and -from the way Yuna'd been screaming- she didn't know what to expect.
His home was just as large and sprawling as she expected. Although, she would say it's boxy, modern design went directly against the sword collection he seemed to hold so dear.
He hadn't answered her texts and the call had gone to voicemail and so… she rang the doorbell.
"Are you fucking serious?"
Sango flinched when the door swung open, but -lucky for her- it was just Sesshomaru, "I will take you to Rin's room." His face was drawn, somehow displaying severe discontent and unbelievable boredom.
"Are you… alright?" She hesitated to ask as he led her to the second floor and far away from the banshee woman that swore to rid the world of home wrecking whores.
"Fine. Annoyed."
He didn't seem willing to talk about it, which -naturally- only worried her more.
"I'm starting to think your little 'joke' wasn't worth all of this."
"I assure you, it is." His dark mood seemed to lift a bit as he considered it, "your doe-caught-in-a-bear-trap expression was well worth the headache I must endure."
He picked up a stuffed animal and placed it back on the unmade bed Rin had left behind and his amusement dampened.
"She'll need to stay with you for a few more days, just to be sure."
"If this is her home then she should be allowed to be here and be safe. She's already homesick," Sango could imagine how a dark living room would struggle to compare to an orange-cream paradise. Lights were strung up along her walls to keep the room from falling into complete darkness and her shelves were packed with books, dolls, and drawings.
"And she misses you something fierce."
Sesshomaru turned towards the closet, "her clothes are in here."
"I can't imagine how you've let one woman take over your life this way. You've always seemed so unbothered by people and -I supposed everyone needs someone- but do you really love her so much that you're okay with being held hostage this way?"
It seemed unwise to push, but she couldn't let Rin suffer for his bad decisions -not if she could help it.
"You're handsome enough to get any woman you want."
His fingers twitched- as if her words struck a terrible nerve. "Is my face the only thing you could think to compliment?"
"Everyone likes to be called beautiful." She muttered, "I didn't know it'd be a sore spot."
"It's a sore spot when it's one of the only two good things about me." He shook his head, trying to free himself of whatever seemed to be possessing him. "It has been made clear that everything else about me is utterly intolerable."
Finally, she sighed, "I don't know you well enough to say if it's true or not. But I do know that you can be cheeky and mischievous and everything you do isn't for the greater good. You don't live your life for other people or their satisfaction and there are people who enjoy you either way."
He rolled his eyes, "and you're one of those deluded fools?"
"What's it matter if I am? You've got Rin and she loves you like crazy."
"Can't fuck Rin."
"You can't fuck me either."
He shrugged, "wouldn't want to, but since we're talking about the opinions of potential romantic partners… your opinion would be most useful. More so than Rin's at least."
Sango finished packing up Rin's uniform and shouldered her bag, "I just don't know why you need to know what I think."
"I don't know why you're so afraid to admit that you hate me. It should be easy, shouldn't it? You've reminded me every day, so refresh my memory-."
"Shut up," she really, truly hated the idea of being nice to him, "I'm afraid your head will over inflate and explode. I was doing you a service."
He waited patiently for her answer.
"Against my better judgment, I do find myself occasionally enjoying your company when you're not actively attacking me."
"I do find myself occasionally- why don't you give," Yuna swung a jelly coated katana at Sango with little regard for the deadliness of the sharp end, "it," she only just managed to stagger out of the way when she stumbled forwards, "up!"
"Why don't you stop being psychotic!"
"I heard everything."
"Okay?"
Sango rolled out of her path and headed for the door.
That exit strategy was blocked by Yuna's violent, unhinged swinging, "you think he deserves better? Why don't we acknowledge the real victim here? Thirty years of constant apathy. Thirty years of fighting him for the barest token of affection." The sword must have been heavy, because she took a moment to breathe.
"Have you ever had to fight a man to touch you? To want you?"
"So this is your solution? Forcing him to stay by your side?"
"I'm not forcing anyone!"
She lunged forwards and shoved the heel of her palm up and into the demoness' nose. Her plan had been to disarm her before she could gain her footing, but then she was rolling across the hard, wooden floor, trying to breathe through her crumpled lungs.
Metal clattered against the floor and Sango couldn't help feeling miffed that he was hugging her attacker.
It was only when she noticed the splattering of blood along the wood that she realized he'd protected her. His knees gave from under him and Sango scrambled forwards, shoving Yuna away from him in one swift movement.
"Why did you interfere?" Yuna cried, "that's not- oh, you have to calm down or it will spread faster."
His eyes were glowing red and his markings had gone jagged and weird as he snarled at nothing.
"We've got to call an ambulance or- something. What did you put on that blade?"
Sheepishly, she said, "I mixed rat poison and aloe."
"You really are insane, call an ambulance and I'll try and rinse the poison from the wound."
"Are you dense? An ambulance doesn't service people like us."
"Then bring me some water, before this shit kills him."
"Who are you-."
Sango picked up the sword and pressed the bloodied edge to the other woman's throat, preening inwardly at her busted, concave nose, "I meant now. Am I understood?"
She nodded once before scampering away.
"Don't… trust her," his shaking hands came up to his chest, as if they could stop the bleeding by sheer force of will. "Call… father."
His phone was in his pocket, but he seemed unwilling to reach for it.
"1104."
She could only assume that was the code
Touga warned her that his wives, Kimi and Izayoi, were on the way while he promised to hunt down a priestess. "They are our best bet at drawing out poisons- costly as they may be."
Something about the way they blessed the herbs.
"Kagome grew up in a shrine. She's well trained and I think Rin's presence would do us all some good."
She turned back to Sesshomaru once the call had ended and tried to coax him down and into her embrace. Anything had to be more comfortable than balancing with his entrails threatening to abandon him, but he mistook her kindness for pity and accused her of thinking him weak between gasping breaths.
"You can't be comfortable like that. Just… let me hold you." When he hesitated, she added, "please. You'll be more comfortable propped up."
He grunted at her, but didn't fight back when she collected him in her arms and began stroking his fine, fur like hair.
"This is humiliating."
"So was admitting to tolerating you. You know, that cute guitarist you work with? He actually texted me back and I was babysitting. That's humiliating."
"He's terrible anyways."
She snorted at him, pressing her cheek to his hair.
"I'm a grown woman with grown needs. The way he folds his socks was literally the last thing on my mind."
"Sounds like I kept you out of trouble."
"If the only trouble I was going to face was having my guts realigned then I'd have preferred it to holding a dying man."
He blew a raspberry into her chest, "crude."
She wouldn't point out that lying down had done wonders for the gasping.
"Just being honest. You'd better not have another 'emergency' next weekend or I will tell the entire office that you're cockblocking me because you're secretly in love with me."
He grunted at her, but said nothing else for a long while. When he did speak again, maybe ten minutes later, it was absolute nonsense, "you'll watch after Rin."
"I mean… sometimes, but not all the time, obviously."
"I meant indefinitely. I trust you to give her the childhood she deserves."
At this point, Sango was willing to stick her hands into whatever weird acid water Yuna brought. He'd basically painted her in blood and poison, and she couldn't imagine he had too much more to give.
"Don't start with the death speeches. I refuse to adopt your gremlin- she told me that my eyeshadow didn't match my shoes yesterday."
His laugh was more of a breath that time, "she's got an eye for color. Don't blame her."
"I'm not going to be her victim! So you'd better live or else she's going to terrorize your mother."
"No. You."
"Even if I did allow you to die, you can't entrust your daughter to me. You hardly know me."
His head slid along the slope of her chest, "doesn't matter," and his fingers, still slick with blood, squeezed her bare thigh. What a day to wear shorts. "Twice now… you've set me free."
"You'd better not be dead," his eyes had fluttered closed and whatever stiffness that lived in his muscles went along with his consciousness. She patted his face, shaking his shoulder- anything at all to rouse him from his ill timed nap.
"Don't worry dear," two women came into the room, bags of herbs in their arms. It was his double that assured her, "he's only unconscious."
"He really knows how to freak someone out!" Sango was quick to offer him up to his mother, but the woman waved her off.
She settled nearby and began grinding herbs in her little stone bowl while the other woman flounced off to bring the water Yuna never did.
"He looks content in your arms," she said by way of explanation, "besides, I'm the only one out of the two of us with a working understanding of herbs. So it's for the best."
Sango held tight to his body, reassured by her calming tone and even way of speaking.
"I thought demons could regenerate. If he fought against the state you'd think he'd be better at dodging." She was frantic as she ran her fingers along his arm.
"He's great at dodging," his mother insisted, "now that they're unsealed you should sit in on some of their practices. He's phenomenal in almost every aspect, really. Of course the one place where he struggles is deescalation."
Naturally.
"If he can't punch his target then he gets clumsy."
Sango couldn't help muttering, "meathead. How are you a lawyer with no deescalation skills?"
"Are you trying to insult him awake?"
Sango hummed in shaky affirmation.
The demoness gave her some sticky herbs and ordered her to start packing the wound, "you do that. It's what he deserves."