Snippet: Penance

He peeked in at his children as they slept. Peaceful and quiet. Their minds untouched to the realities of the world. The only painful notion awoken by himself. He'd meant to keep them from the harsh things, after all the world had changed and it was possible to be anything.

So hard had he worked to give them that option. You can be anything. He had told them both many times. Whatever made them happy. Anything that made them happy.

That morning his son had caught him vomiting. His bald head covered in a sheen of sweat. His arms quivering as he fought to keep himself from dropping to the toilet as the violent retching continued.

Little hands placed a cool damp cloth over his head. "It'll be okay, Daddy." He said in his soft young voice. "When I get older, I'm going to be a doctor so I can fix you, and then you won't have to throw up anymore."

"Come here." Sesshomaru had pulled him close during a moment of reprieve. The warmth of his little boy, the life beating inside him. All his innocence. All his potential. "I'd rather you do something that would make you happy. Don't worry over your father."

"But Daddy," small hands, still chubby with the fat of a babe, captured both sides of his face. Large blue eyes stared into his very soul. All his attention captured, for nothing mattered more than these precious pieces of his life. "I'd be the happiest if you weren't sick anymore."

Sesshomaru clenched his eyes shut at the memory. Blocking the precious view. His claws scraped the paint off the molding as they curled into his palm.

Once he'd gone to bed, lying awake from both insomnia and pain, his mind lingered in a dark place it so often turned to these days.

The mattress shifted beside him. Fingers curled around his hand over his stomach. Long black hair fanned over his arm as his wife took the liberty of using his chest as a pillow.

Her fingers softly petted through his white shirt. "I love rolling over and having you beside me." Sleep had roughened her words with a rasp he had once found irresistible. "The sound of your heartbeat is much more soothing than thunderstorm sounds."

"I don't deserve this." He whispered. The tone of his own voice unknown to him as of late.

She didn't slow in the petting of her fingers. Simply touching, as if she feared he might disappear at any moment. As if she needed to remember he remained.

"You do deserve this." She always sounded so sure of herself. Unfaltering. He wondered when he'd lost that ability and she'd taken it over. "We've been over this before. You deserve to be happy with a family. With me." Her lips pressed above his heart.

He held her against him. Solid warm strength. "This sickness is my penance." He muttered into her hair.

"It's not, Sesshomaru."

"It is."

"Please don't say that. I hate it when you say that. You've saved tenfold over who you've killed..."

His claws ran through her hair, and he remained quiet. Thinking. Counting.

Quiet never suited his wife however, and she moved. Coming up to set him with a powerful and tired, yet determined, gaze. "You are everything to me and our children. There is no one better out there. I'd never choose anyone else." Somehow the tears only made her look stronger. "I'd never go back in time to choose anyone else."

Her kiss seared. Not with lust but with pain, and he gave in to the urge to answer it. Allowing her to comfort him even as the nagging voice told him he'd brought her only misery.

"I'm selfish," his words met her ear in the middle of the night, once he knew her to be deep in sleep, "I'd never choose anyone over you, even if it meant saving you and our children this fate..."