Chapter Three

House

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'I reach'd my home–my home no more, For all had flown who made it so. I pass'd from out its mossy door, And, tho' my tread was soft and low, A voice came from the threshold stone, of one whom I had earlier known-'

Tamerlane E.A. Poe

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The child walked home around six. After taking a long nap in the tree on the school grounds he had figured he should get going home, or he wouldn't be in time to make 'father' dinner. He sighed sadly to himself and continued on the long walk home. His feet were lagging behind him now, as it was a long day today. A good day, he supposed. The Kagome girl did seem nice in a strange way.

Kicking a large clod of dirt and rock along the sidewalk he was trailing on gave him some pleasure, and he pursued the brownish grey stone after each kick, kicking it farther and farther each time until he kicked itclear out of his path. He watched as the stone grew smaller and less apperent until his direction was averted by a distantnoise. His ears perked at the sound. 'What was that?'

He stopped and listened. It was some kind of animal and it was ... meowing? He followed the sound and it led him to a tree. He looked through the foliage and tried to listen and detect the source of theracket." 'Lo?" he called. He was greeted with a squeal of a meow. Ashe looked up again, he found where the noise was from. A kitten. An orange kitten stuck in a tree."Hm, I suppose you don't really want to be stuck there, do you?" Being the goodsamariatan he was, heclimbed up the tree and scoopedthe small creatureup in his arms. It was a small kitten, probably onlyeight weeks old at the most. It squirmed and wggled about in his arms, letting out scared exasperated mews.

"Hussshh ..." Inu Yasha cooes to the small animal and stroked under it's chin. "Quiet now kid." he muttered to thedefenseless thing." I guess you don't have a home, huh? Well you can live with me for now, kay? It's not much better than what you got now but it has a roof, so I guess that's better than nothing." He carried the creature home with him, after having finally subdued its frantic cries.and slid it into his room through the window while the man was watching television.

"I'm home" he yelled as he was walking through the front door. Yeah, some home.

He was greeted with the sound of someone spitting. 'Great, I'm probably gonna have to clean that up later too.' He sighed and carried his backpack to his room where he emptied it's contents and pat the kitten on the head.

In all honesty, his room was notmuck to see. It was no bigger than a large closet and the only furniture was a futon with a couple of raggedy bed sheets, and a wooden crate that had a half broken lamp on it. "We're a little cramped for space but we'll get by kay?" Normally he would have felt like a complete idiot for conversing with a kitten if he didn't have such a strong feeling that it understood him. It did, perhaps,but most likely, he took comfort in knowing that he was not alone: Itwas just as alone and abandoned as he felt.

He looked at the small creature that stumbled around on his bed. Once he took a closer look at it, he found it was actually had interesting coloring. Its fluffy down like coat wasa brillant orange with duller and more pastel strips of cremy orange color were in direct contrast to thebig emerald green eyes that blinked dumbly and the white haired boy that stared at it with such intense curiousity.

"Well you probably won't get a lot of food, but that's life." he told it. It mewed back at him and purred. It seemed happy enough, Inu Yasha supposed. Although he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. Butmaybe it was just optimistic, it was a cat after all. Inschool once, hehad read a story about a doctor that did surgery on a cat whose entrail were half spilling out of its body and as it lay on the operation table, being sowed up, it purred contently. "Oh well."

The kitten was clumsy. It stumbled and tripped as it padded its way across Inu Yasha's bed. Every once in a while it would jab its nose at one foreign object or another, inspecting every fold and ripple in the sheets for possible danger. Inu Yasha put his hand under a sheet and twitched his finger, watching, bemused, as the creature jumped around quickly, fluffy coat shaking and fur bristling, and stared intently on 'the enemy'. It stuck its rear in the air and knelt close to its forepaws as it quietly calculated and exacted 'the attack'. 'The attack' happened to be the small thing leaping into the lump of sheet, under which was Inu Yasha's hand and gnawing hopelessly.

It provided him with a laugh, the cute thing did. But he pat it and then got up out of his room and went to the kitchen when he heard someone yell for him.

"Hey, kid, get your ass over here." came the crude and rather (To him at least)disgusting voice that Inu Yasha had come to hate more than anything else in the world. With a heavy sigh he made his way over to the couch. "I feel like having burgers tonight." it told him. Inu Yasha stared back at him. "Well don't just stand there! Get your smelly demon ass to work!" he said clenching up the boys shirt collar in his giant rough hands. With a violent shove he hurled the boy backwards and took another sip of his beer. He managed to catch his step, and instead of landing on his rear, as was intended, he stumbled awkwardly across the path to the kitchen.

Inu Yasha looked inside the fridge. All he saw was the rotting meat from this morning and some alchohol (Plus a few useless items in the drawers below.).Now, Inu Yasha knewhis father's diet consisted of three things: sake, beer,alcohol. However, when he asked for a meal, he usualy intended it to mean that he actually wanted something substancial.This,thiscould be fun.

He took the rotting meat and slopped it onto the counter. It smelled putrid, nothing that a little seasoning and toppings couldn't fix. He cooked the meat thouroughly (Very thoroughlyand then put every possible topping and condiment on top of it to cover the taste of the rotting meat. Of course with his enhanced demon senses, he was the only one that could smell it. Taking it and putting it on a plate he served it with a happy grin crossing his face.

"Hey, this burger smells kinda funky, you sure it's okay?" the man looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. In this house hold, when Inu Yasha showed any sign of contentment it meant that he was scheming. His father had come to suspect and stopsuch things in the past: running away,replacingbeer with other substances.He was wary of te boy's mischief. Inu Yasha responded "Of course."

"Are you sure? Because if you're so satisfied with it, why don't you have some." he said holding out his burger and flaunting it in front of the boy. Red, appetizing looking juices dripped down and landed with small splats on the floor below. Normally this woould drive him mad with hunger, but he knew what kind of burger this was.

"Really?" he said with fake enthusiasm "You're really going to let me have some?" The boy slowly reached out for the burger and the man, seeing an oppurtunity to once again damage the child, pulled it back. "Of course not demon shit!" He snorted a laugh and quickly tore the burgerapart in a displayonlymatched by certain farm animals. Pigs ate nicer.All the while Inu Yasha watched happily through fake sad eyes. He had fallen right into his trap. Little did he know the consequences of his actions. But he would find out in a few hours.

Inu Yasha silently slipped out the door and sat on the old rugged patio furniture. He looked out into the backyard of the house and gave a sigh of relief. Being outside was nice.There was a pool which no one used. Not that anyone would want to. It hadn't been tended to in so long it started to turn green. He looked around at the dead and dying plants in the yard. His 'dad' never really cared about the life of anything except himself of course.

He looked around some more until an upturned patch of dirt caught his attention It was small, but nothing grew there. He knew why, though he never wanted or liked to think about what was beneath that up turned peice of earth. The only thing that sat there was a large flat stone.

A stone that said 'Sesshomaru'.

His half brother. Unlike him, Sesshomaru was human, born of his father and another woman. He knew why his half brother lay there. The man he hated, the man he wished dead every night and day, had killed him. He didn't much miss Sesshomaru though, because Sesshomaru had died before he was born. But he never felt happy when he looked at that stone in his yard knowing that his brother had lost to his father. The only thing that saved Inu Yasha from his brothers sad fate were two things. His youkai strength and his mother.

Somehow his mother had managed to calm his 'fathers' raging fury. His father and mother did something that Inu Yasha could never even imagine in his wildest dreams. They had fallen in love. Inu Yasha almost resented his mother for it. He knew that being in love makes people happy. But every time he saw his dad smile, every time he saw him anything other than miserable, itmade him fume with anger. How could she have done something as stupid and worthless as love his father? In his mind he didn't even deserve to live, how could he ever deserve to love?

He hadn't known his mother for long though. She lived with them until Inu Yasha was about five. Unfortunately, the clan she once was a part of were all against human youkai relationships and killed her once they found out what she had done. Ever since then his father changed. He wasn't as 'nice' as he once was. Hell, he wasn't nice at all. Something inside him broke when their mom died. Something that was filled with hate, and vengence. Something that would nearly kill even his own son. Something that probably should have, but his son was Inu Yasha. He refused to let himself die at the hands of some angry arse. He sighed again and made his way back inside the house.

'That kitten is probably thirsty or something' he thought. He filled a saucer with water and brought it to his room. He put the dish next to it and left. He heard his dad calling him. "What?" he asked.

"You -you, DEMON!" his dad yelled at him. Inu Yasha stood there happily, he understood what was wrong with the man. "You did something to that burger, didn't you!" he clenched at his stomach.

"No, of course not." Inu Yasha said, quite pleased with his work.

The man looked up at Inu Yasha who had a hint of a grin spread on his face. "You did this, didn't you." The man lowered his head as small laughs started coming from his throat, his body started to shake and he looked at Inu Yasha with a face that would send small children running in fear. "Im ... going ... to ... KILL YOU!"

Without warning, he lunged at Inu Yasha and sent his fist slamming into the boys stomach, and repeated this with his other fist, hitting him in the chest this time. He repeated this, time after time, sending new hurt into the boy's body. He winced in pain and sent out short yelps of pain every time he was hit. Every time, the ylps got shorter as more and more breath was knocked out of him until he felt he was going to suffocate

The man contined to beat him senseless as the child stood and took the hits, yelping in pain each time. Little did he know the small eyes watching him. Only peeking one of its emerald green eyes around the corner, the kitten watched the boy get beat. It let out a sad mew and retreated to its room. It knew that if it tried to do anything it might be the last thing it does.

The man threw his last punch and had gotten quite tired so he left to the couch to watch some TV probably, leaving the hurt child breathing heavily on floor. This was definitely going to leave a mark tomorrow. He scrambled to his feet and dragged his throbbing body to his room where he collapsed onto his bed. The orange kitten crawled over to him and licked his face. He lifted a hand slowly to the creature beside him, trying to comfort him but only sighed in desperation because it hurt so much to move. Well at least he wouldn't have to worry about another beating. His dad was usually a lot calmer after he had beat him.

He wrapped an arm around the kitten and closed his eyes as he let a needed sleep take him.

His room flooded with sunshine from the only reliable source in his room, a small window. Inu Yasha turned in his bed and stretched out his sore legs. Lazily opening his eyes he turned himself on his side to see a small boy wrapped in the bed sheets.'What in thehells!' Inu Yasha shook it to wake it up but instead resulted in it hugging his arm. "Hey, get off!" He flicked it off and sent it tumbling into the bedsheets. It wiggled around inside the sheets and poked its head through an opening in the sheets. Slowly it stood and the bedsheets fell off of its head. 'What the! The kids got ears! Cat ears too.'

The small boy looked no taller than two feet and had bright orange hair with piercing green eyes. "I- ...nu-...Ya-...sha!" it lunged itself and Inu Yasha and rubbed its cheek against his torso.

"Umm ... kid?" it sat on his lap and started purring like a kitten. "So a cat demon are you?" It looked up at him and smiled, nodding his head."No offense or anything but who the hell are you?" The kid took a seat on his lap.

"I'm acat demon!" it said, repeating Inu Yasha's former statement. "My name is Shippou and you are my new daddy!"

"What the? How the hell am I your dad?" Inu Yasha asked in shock.

"Because you saved me from the tree, remember?- and you brought me here, so you're my daddy now!" It smiled as it jumped up onto InuYasha's shoulders and laced itself around his neck.

"But...I-"

It looked at him with big watery eyes "Do... do you not like me?" it held back tears.

"No kid...I like you fine. But I don't want to be a dad. They're..." He trailed off. The kitten was cute, adorable really, but he was not exactly ready to take on the burdens of fatherhood. Perhaps, at first, he figured he would nursw it to health and then release it, but adoption was not a thought.

"Because if I can't stay here I don't have anywhere to go..." It started to sob and sniffle a bit.

"Why, dont'cha got parents of your own?"

"Well... I did... I suppose. But they didn't like me much. So I tried to run away because I... don't like it when people hate me. It's... not good. Not good at all." He wiped a couple tears away with his sleeve.

Even Inu Yasha, who was as tough as teflon when it came to people disliking him, found himself a bit unsettled by this remark. Maybe because it kind of reminded him of him when he was little. He didn't much care for his childhood. Nothing happy there. But he did take a great liking to Shippou. He grabbed Shippou off of his shoulders and sat him on his lap, scratching behind his ears.

Well, he could get used to this. He could use the company. Demons were cool on his list, he supposed. Well, most of them at least. And as far as kids go, this one was pretty cute. Although he'd die before he ever admitted that. The boy sat cat-style on Inu Yasha's lap, purring like a motor boat and Inu Yasha scratched its head as it rested.

As long as he was this kids 'dad' he would do the best he could to try and make him happy. Give him everything he never got. That might be fun. Anything could be worth saving him from the horrors he knew of.

Anything.

Author Notes

So this chapter introduces Shippou, Inu's little buddy, or at least he is now. I just love Shippou's character, he's like an adult at times, and then reverts to his immature childish self. So cute. And anyone here catch the Poe quote? I love him. Tamerlane is the sweetest poem. And that quote fit so well with the story.

Updates wont be as fast now, because I am really busy with my school work. Too much frigging homework... Argh. So updates will probably come twice a month. Sowwy!
Ja ne.

Review! If you do, the Trix rabbit will finally get his cereal fix. Damned horny rabbit.