A/N: Part two of the "Sesshoumaru has no idea what's going on" series. Read Bedding Virgins: 101 first, otherwise the universe will no doubt seem very strange to you. We are aware that they may seem OOC, but it goes well with our universe. Plus, being pregnant can do things to you, as Yasha would no doubt point out to us.
Remember, above all, that this is meant in fun. If you want angst, you should check out our individual works. Really. It abounds.
Two stories in one week! Rejoice in the times when the Dragon visits Blackmour!
Enjoy!
Second Trimester 101
Brought to you by:
The BlackmourDragon
Inuyasha glanced around the bedroom, satisfied that he had arranged everything perfectly. The candles were lit, the good sake was chilled, the rice balls and sushi were set out in an artistic pattern...
And the chocolate body paint was set on top of the futon.
The objects surrounding him were the results of careful weeks of planning. It had been more than a year since he and Kagome had taken any time for themselves, but they had finally managed to squeeze in a weekend in the Sengoku Jidai. Alone. Just the two of them. With the children at his mother-in-law's, and all of their friends safely secured in their own huts, he was guaranteed a blissful forty-eight hours with his lovely wife.
Who, at the moment, was also in the process of preparing for their romantic evening. Even with his human ears, he could discern the soft whispers of cotton being exchanged for silk. She had spent quite some time shopping earlier in the week, and had explicitly told him to stay away from the heavily perfumed bags.
Which, of course, had done little to keep him from peeking at them. Although he hadn't seen much before Kagome caught him, his hopes had risen considerably when he had recognized that there hadn't been much to see.
"Inuyasha?"
Shaken out of his thoughts, he turned from the small, low dining table to greet his wife.
He froze. Oh…my…
Kagome chuckled. "You like that, eh? Put your eyes back in your head, Inuyasha."
He gulped. She was dressed in a silk robe of a deep blue colour, which seemed to reflect in the pitch black of her hair. Underneath the folds at the front, he could make out what looked like lace across her chest. His mouth watered.
Kagome wasn't doing too bad herself. Her husband had removed his shirt while she had been away, and now wore only a pair of jeans…which fit him…very nicely. His chest was bare, the muscles highlighted by the fire set in the pit in the middle of the hut. They kept the hut for these visits to the Sengoku Jidai, but this was the first time they had ever used it…alone. There were times when Kagome missed her husband's silver hair and white dog ears, which he had shed in favour of being a human and with her…but tonight…his impossibly long black hair hung across his shoulders in beautiful shining waves. Human was good…
He was gesturing her to sit with him on the futon. "C'mere, Kagome. We gotta make sure you eat well."
She smirked, shedding the outer robe as she went and breaking into a full-out grin when she saw his reaction to the negligee she was wearing underneath. "Not so tough now, are we?" she teased, kneeling next to him. His hand slid up her thigh, pushing the hem of the nightgown up as it went. Looking down, he got a good peek of what she was…sort of…wearing underneath. He took a shaky breath.
"Well…" he said to her, "this just gets better and better. So, who needs food anyway?"
"We should work up an appetite first," she agreed, scooting forward on her knees to straddle his lap. They were just leaning in for a kiss when they were quite suddenly, and quite rudely, interrupted by voices just outside.
"You never listen to me! You don't give a damn about my feelings! That is it! I am not talking to you! I'm going to talk to Kagome! She understands me!"
"What the fuck?" Inuyasha jerked back.
"Rin…"
"Shut up! I can't believe I'm having your baby and you treat me like this!"
"No…" Inuyasha groaned, falling back on the futon with Kagome still sitting atop him. "No, no no no! Fuck! Fucksonofabitch! Anyone but him! Why now?"
"Rin?" Kagome repeated, bewildered. Then reality struck…Rin was coming to see her, and from the sound of it she wouldn't be asking before she entered. With a squeak, she flew off of her husband ("Ow!" he exclaimed his discomfort) and ran behind the screen in the corner just before her brother and sister-in-law came through the mat covering the door.
"Rin, you are being unreasonable."
The young, visibly pregnant woman stopped and turned on the inuyoukai, seething with rage. "Don't you tell me who's being unreasonable. You ... you ..." seeing something out of the corner of her eye, she stopped. Looked around. Took in the candles, the food, her half-naked brother in law ...
And proceeded to turn even redder.
Confused, Sesshoumaru gently took her elbow. "What is it?" he asked.
Seeing Kagome hiding behind the screen, Rin glanced at her mate before bursting into tears, hiding her face underneath his tail.
"I'm ... I'm so sorry!" she sobbed, grabbing Sesshoumaru's shirt and twisting her fingers in his gi.
Rolling off of the bed, Inuyasha could tell that his romantic evening had come to a premature end ("At least Kagome can't say it's my fault this time."). Pulling on a discarded t-shirt, he asked his brother, "So ... how's it goin'?"
Sesshoumaru glanced at the sushi and candles, and just gave his brother a bewildered look. "This Sesshoumaru is a bit ... unsure. Rin wanted to speak to Kagome, but perhaps it would be better if we left ..."
"NO!" Rin shouted, jumping back from Sesshoumaru. "Why do you DO that? Why can't I have friends? You're so overprotective! Kami-sama, will you do this to our child, too? Our baby will have friends, Sesshoumaru. Even you can't stop that!"
Sesshoumaru ducked behind a post, his eyes wary upon his mate. Luckily enough for him, Kagome had finished dressing, and came rushing back out into the room.
"Rin!" she exclaimed, taking a hold of her sister-in-law's hand. Rin turned and looked miserably at the young miko ... before yet again, bursting into tears.
"I'm so unhappy!" she wailed. "And I'm fat, and ugly, and Sesshoumaru doesn't want me anymore! He said so!"
"But, but, but, but I never," Sesshoumaru tried to interject before Rin dashed back to him, shaking her fist in his face.
"DON'T YOU DARE LIE TO THEM!"
Deciding that the current course of conversation was "fucking pointless," Inuyasha grabbed the chilled sake and gave Kagome a knowing look. She nodded to him, understanding his intentions, and wrapped her arm around Rin's shoulder. "Come on, Rin," she said as she led the lady to the table. "You should try some of our food. I think it will make you feel better."
Rin sniffed. "Do you have frog legs?"
Kagome paled slightly. "Uh, no ... but try this orange. It has folic acid; it'll help the baby."
His wife thus taking care of Rin, Inuyasha pointed towards the hut's doorway. "Out," he commanded. "If you talk to her now, she's just going to try to kill you again."
Casting his mate a forlorn look and receiving nothing more than a low glower in return, Sesshoumaru sighed and followed his brother.
Quickly reaching what Inuyasha had come to think of as the Designated Clearing for Discussion, Sesshoumaru flopped down in front of the fire-pit. This has got to be bad he thought to himself. Sesshoumaru never 'flops'. Knowing that his brother would want to sulk for a few minutes, Inuyasha busied himself with starting a fire.
"So," he finally said, when the silence had stretched long enough for him to get a cheery blaze going and to refill Sesshoumaru's sake cup not once, but twice. "Second trimester, huh?"
Sesshoumaru, who had been staring miserably down into his rice wine, blinked up at Inuyasha. "Second what?"
"Second trimester," he repeated, feeling very proud of his knowledge of women. "She's in the second trimester of her pregnancy. That's when things get real weird, ya know?"
Sesshoumaru stiffened. "If I knew, then I wouldn't be here, would I, baka?"
Inuyasha glared. "Hey, don't take it out on me just 'cause your mate's gone crazy."
Sesshoumaru stood up. "She has not gone crazy," he snarled. "And I will not allow you to speak of my Lady thus…"
"Oh, sit down," his brother interrupted him, completely unimpressed by the taiyoukai's supposedly impressive anger. "No, she hasn't gone crazy. She's just all outta whack…Will you let me finish?" he exclaimed when the demon made to interrupt him again. "Look, pregnancy is tough on a woman. I've been through it with Kagome twice. I know. Did you really say you didn't want her?"
"No!" Sesshoumaru cried, horrified at the thought. "I mean, I she…constantly…wants and I have to fulfill my duty to the Western Lands at some point…"
Inuyasha did his best to hold back a snicker. "I see," he said delicately.
Sesshoumaru sat down at this point, resting his head in his hands. "Perhaps ... this Sesshoumaru ... was too gruff with his Lady," he haltingly admitted, "But I did not know what else to do. She has been," he looked at Inuyasha uncertainly, "out of 'whack,' as you put it, for almost an entire moon cycle. The servants are frightened of her."
"Whaddya mean 'frightened?'" Inuyasha asked, refilling his own cup.
Sesshoumaru looked, well, embarrassed. "It is difficult to find servants who are willing to clean our quarters. Rin ... she cries, you see? Then she yells. Then ... she cries again. I tried the 'chocolate' food that Kagome gave us last month, but we have long been out of it."
Inuyasha furrowed his brow and sipped the rice wine thoughtfully. "It sounds like you have a tough break, Aniki. Some pregnancies are just harder than others. When we had Kanaye and Kisho, it was a lot easier than when Yukiko was born." He shook his head. "Man, Yukiko was really rough. Kagome was in the hospital for hours, and there was so much blood, and-" casting his gaze upward, he saw that his older brother was tightly gripping the cup.
"Blood?"
Inuyasha coughed. "Uh, from, me, of course. I bled everywhere. Knife wound. Or something. Anyway, so, yeah, it sounds like her hormones are going crazy."
"Her…what?"
"Um…it's like…" Inuyasha wracked his brain to remember what Kagome's explanation had been. "It's like…stuff that goes around her body and makes her feel weird. It can make her angry or sad real suddenly, and it can especially make her horny." He smirked. "I like the last bit. Kagome told me that it happens to every woman in the second trimester. She gets horny."
Images of antlers sprouting out of Rin's head severely added to Sesshoumaru's confusion. "Inuyasha," he sighed, "Can you not just speak plainly?"
Glancing at his third cup of sake, Inuyasha tossed him a watery grin. "Mebbe. Kay, it's like this, when bitches get pregnant –"
"Mates."
"Right, uh, when mates get pregnant, their bodies change and stuff."
Remembering just last month when he had first felt the movement of his pup inside of Rin's womb, Sesshoumaru couldn't help but smile. "I am aware of these changes," he said.
Inuyasha waved his hand. "Of course you are, you made them happen, after all." Ignoring the bug-eyed look his brother gave him, he continued: "They gain weight, start to swell up in weird ways, and their face gets all red."
Although Sesshoumaru would never openly admit to such changes, he had to concede that pregnancy made Rin blossom in ... unusual ways.
"Kagome says that for humans, their bodies are made so that when it gets the worst – when the female gets the meanest and almost the biggest, that they're supposed to want to, well... you know, more."
Sesshoumaru blinked. "Yes, like I said, Rin has appeared to, well she has ... what I mean is we –"
Inuyasha lost his patience and, slurring his words slightly, observed: "She wants your demon seed."
Such an observation could only drive the Lord of the Western Lands to down his entire cup of wine.
Feeling that there wasn't a further need to elaborate, Inuyasha was silent. Eventually, Sesshoumaru ventured, "Does ... does the Lady Kagome know why Rin wants ... whatever it is she wants?"
Seeing that the sake flask was empty, Inuyasha tossed it aside and leaned back, resting his head in his hands. "She says it's so that the mates stick around. I guess human females have a problem keeping their men with them."
Offended on behalf of the female species, Sesshoumaru glowered into the fire. "I would never leave Rin," he affirmed.
"Well, no duh." Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "But her instincts don't know that. Believe me, Aniki," he continued, seeing his brother's skeptical look, "I never gave humans much credit for having instincts either, before I married one. Before I became one. But they got 'em. Kagome's have almost been the death of me once or twice, I can tell you."
Sesshoumaru had finished the last of his sake, and looked to be mourning its loss very dearly. Sighing, Inuyasha decided to lay it on the line. "Look, my advice is to try to give her what she wants as much as possible. Sometimes it's just crazy, and there's no way to make her happy. So don't. Go hunt or something. But she's gonna want you around more often than not, right? Might as well make the best of it, right? Once you've got pups, there's no telling when you'll get any time alone again…" He looked mournfully back in the direction of his hut. "You have to be patient. Try not to take it personally. Love her…in more ways than one…and honor her process. After the fact, Kagome admitted to me that she was just as confused as I was."
Sesshoumaru had to keep himself from whimpering. "I don't know how I'm going to make it through this. Why do human pregnancies have to be so damned long?"
Inuyasha shrugged. "And you'd think with all the time they take to make the pups, they'd actually be able to do something when they show up. But, no. How humans became the dominant species, I'll never know."
Sesshoumaru nodded in agreement, glad to be on ground he could relate to: griping about humans. Unfortunately, before he could join in, he had an image in his mind of Rin, and was immediately forced to remain silent on the subject.
Placing his cup on the ground next to his brother's, Sesshoumaru enjoyed the silence for a few moments before turning to his brother and asking, "In what manner did you acquire a knife wound while your Lady was having your child?"
Rin sniffed, nibbling delicately on her rice ball. "Thank-you so much, Kagome," she said, her voice soft. "I must've been just awful when I first got here."
Kagome waved her hand dismissingly. "Don't worry about it. I went through the exact same thing that you did. It's totally normal, and you shouldn't be ashamed of it. Just try some of those meditation things I mentioned, and try to be a little nicer to Sesshoumaru." Kagome winced here. "If he's cleaning your quarters, he's probably already a little tense."
Rin blushed. "Perhaps I should try to make the servants feel more comfortable around me. It is not very becoming for Sesshoumaru to be doing their work for them." She smiled sheepishly. "And I suppose I should allow him to be productive at least once in a while."
The young miko chuckled. "It would probably be good for both of you." Remembering something that helped her through the later months of her pregnancies, Kagome asked: "Oh, by the way, do you still have that chocolate I gave you? That will help to balance out your hormones, too."
Rin shook her head sadly. "No," she said. "I finished the bag that you gave me. It was so good, and it helped me feel so ... so happy. Thank-you for giving it to me."
Kagome pursed her lips. She had meant to bring Rin another bag of Hershey's kisses, but their departure had been so rushed, that the bag was undoubtedly still on their kitchen counter back in the 20th century. Seeing the futon out of the corner of her eye, she grinned and stood up.
"This may be a little ... unusual ... for you," she said, picking up the golden bottle, "But I think that you and Sesshoumaru will like it. A lot."
Taking the item, Rin looked at Kagome quizzically. "What is it?"
Kagome had just finished explaining the virtues of the bottle as it pertained to the hormones of men and (pregnant) women when Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha returned, arms draped over each other for support.
Oh no, Kagome thought.
Not again, Rin echoed.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha giggled, leaving his brother to stumble towards his wife. A quick walk through the woods had done much to get his blood circulating, and along with it went the alcohol. As such ...
"Inuyasha! You're drooling on me!"
Rin looked shyly up at Sesshoumaru, hastening to hide the gift behind her back. "Are you well, My Lord?"
Sesshoumaru nodded to her, observing that she was still awfully red. Although, she wasn't crying and it looked as though she would speak civilly to him. "I am," he answered, glancing over at his brother. "This Sesshoumaru's otouto, however, will need the aid of a miko, it would seem." Nodding to Kagome, Sesshoumaru held out his hand to his mate, leading her out of the doorway once she had taken it.
Once they were outside and some ways from the village huts, Rin stopped and folded her hands in front of her. Sesshoumaru turned around, surprised that she was not still following him. Perhaps the conversation with Inuyasha's wife had not been as helpful as he had hoped?
"Sesshoumaru," his mate began slowly. "I…" she sniffled, and he stiffened, beginning to panic. No. No crying… "I'm so sorry…" She practically threw herself against him. "I've been so awful to you! I love you, really! I…sometimes I barely know myself…" she whimpered into his shirt front.
He sighed inaudibly, glancing heavenward for strength and praying that she wouldn't change her mind again. "It's all right, koishii. Inuyasha explained to me about your…hormones…I'll have to be more patient with you…and ..." he furrowed his brow in memory, "and honor your process."
She sniffled again. "You've been more than patient!" she cried. "But…well, Kagome gave me something that might help me…it will help with my…cravings as well."
Sesshoumaru blinked at her. "I am…always open to helping you with your…cravings."
Grinning, Rin began to discuss with her mate the merits of…body paint.
Later that evening, as Kagome and Inuyasha lay together, she had to laugh at the irony of the evening. They had intended for it to be romantic and seductive; instead, it had been a way to relive the trials and tribulations of childbearing.
"Kagome?" Inuyasha sleepily asked from beside her.
"Hmm?" she answered, gently running her hands through his hair and rubbing his rounded ears.
"You're not unhappy, are you? That Sesshoumaru interrupted us?"
Kagome smiled and shook her head. "Mad? No. I was a little disappointed," she admitted, "But he and Rin only come to us when things get really bad. I was happy to help them."
Inuyasha gave her a goofy smile. "I'm glad. I want them to be as happy as we are."
Kagome couldn't resist teasing him. "I don't think anyone else could be as happy as me, Inuyasha. What other wife has a husband that can drink three glasses of sake and still ... perform?"
Inuyasha puffed up a bit, unable to contain his pride. "Well, you know, it's my special skill."
She arched her eyebrow at him. "Oh, really?"
Tucking her under his arm, he revealed: "Yeah. You know, Kagome, I've been thinkin' about this a lot. Sesshoumaru keeps comin' to me for all this advice and stuff – maybe I should start some kind of counseling group for fathers or something. I know everything!"
"You do, do you?"
"Yeah," he continued, his eyes lighting up with excitement. "I know everything about human women. Look how much good my advice's done for my brother."
Kagome raised herself up on to her elbow. "I'm happy to hear you say that," she confessed. "Because, well, there's a special reason that I wanted tonight to be memorable."
Still grinning at her broadly, he took the bait. "What's that?"
Kagome leaned over and whispered into his ear, gently rubbing her abdomen.
Inuyasha's eyes grew wide.
He paled.
Oh no ...
Not again!
