Review responses and A/N:

I'm sooooooo sorry for the long wait (again!)… Please forgive!

Jimmy the Gothic Egg- So happy to get a review from you, incidentally, I love your stories.

Laughingstockstable- Pickled radish comes from the epilogue of the first IY movie… very funny.

Moonmagicks- sniff please forgive me for your long wait…

Inujoey- Thank you.

Inuyashafangirl007- I bet it is pretty gross, but apparently Inuyasha likes it, sooo…

Kuang- Yes, I sometimes get sick of all the Maru vs. Inuyasha fics… I mean, they are brothers, after all!

LadyRen- Thanks, and here's the update!

So it's a short update, but at least it's there. This is basically just to give you something to read until I get the next chapter done, which should be quite soon!
"Radish, radish, radish," Inuyasha said in a sing-song voice under his breath, serving himself some more. Sesshoumaru stifled a snicker as their father looked curiously on from the "adult table."

"Father must be confused," he whispered to his little brother. "You've never been so keen on your vegetables."

Inuyasha snickered.

"Radishes," Koga grumbled, serving himself a hunk of steak. "Sissy food."

Inuyasha stuck his tongue out at his cousin and helped himself to some steak as well. "Are you calling me sissy?" he hissed, so the adults wouldn't hear and come to stop the argument.

"Who else, sissy?" Koga retorted. A pea hit him between the eyes and rolled under the table. Etoyok's face was smug. Koga retaliated by flicking a grape at her.

"Stop it, you two…" Shalynn began, but there was no stopping a foodfight once it had begun…

Inuyasha flopped down onto his bed, patting his very full stomach with a satisfied sigh. Sesshoumaru sat down on the bed next to him, rubbing his eyes.

"All in all, that wasn't quite the worst family reunion I've had," he said sleepily. Inuyasha nodded with a yawn.

"Especially that foodfight."

"Father's furious, you know."

"Yeah… he'll be making us do extra chores for months."

The brothers sat in silence for a while.

"You know, Maru," Inuyasha said at last, "Not once did anyone call me a half-breed."

"That's right. Because if they had, they would have had to answer to me and get a plateful of pie down their backs."

"Really?" Inuyasha asked, sitting up.

"Sure," Sesshoumaru said with a shrug. "I'm your big brother, aren't I? Isn't that what big brothers are for?"

"Thanks, Maru," Inuyasha said, smothering his brother with an enormous hug.

There was another minute of silence, during which one of the servants came in to remind Sesshoumaru that he was confined to his room for a week for sticking a wet grape down Aunt Mabel's robes when she wasn't looking.

"Will you always do that, Maru?" Inuyasha asked, snuggling into his blankets.

"Do what?" Sesshoumaru replied, tucking his little brother in.

"Dump pie down people's shirts if they call me a half-breed?"

Sesshoumaru choked back a laugh.

"Maybe I'll advance from pie later on."

"But will you still defend me?"

"Sure, kid. That's what big brothers are for."

Inuyasha smiled happily as Sesshoumaru put out the torches.

"Hey, Maru?" he muttered, half-asleep already.

"What, twerp?"

"You'll always be my big brother, right?"

"Well, you can't very well change something like that, can you?" Sesshoumaru laughed, bopping his little brother over the head with a fluffy pillow.

"I mean like you are now! All laughing and having fun with me?"

Sesshoumaru opened the door, still chuckling, as Inuyasha flailed around trying to hit him.

"Of course I will."

"Is that a promise?" Inuyasha asked stubbornly, sitting up.

"Womb to tomb."

"Yesss!"

Inuyasha bounced up and down on the bed. Sesshoumaru eyed him critically.

"You won't ever grow up," he said with a sigh. "But I like you better this way anyway."

"G'night, Maru!"

"G'night, Inuyasha."

Sesshoumaru shut the door, leaving Inuyasha in the comfortable darkness of his room. The young half-demon buried himself in his warm bedsheets and was asleep in an instant, thumb in his mouth.