"I swear to god, Koga –"

"You do that every night."

"If there's another damn box –"

"Inuyasha…" Kagome frowned as her half demon boyfriend continued to glare at their demon boyfriend. All the while, Koga sat there, leaning against the ottoman behind him and grinning into his coffee mug. "You getting annoyed is what he wants. Koga clearly spent a lot of time wrapping our gifts –"

"That's the understatement of the fucking century."

"- and you could at least try to appreciate his efforts."

Koga snorted into his mug as he listened to the exchange. Kagome really had no idea just how long it took to acquire enough boxes that would nest within each other for one gift, let alone two. When the idea settled into his brain it had become a quest to find the boxes, store said boxes, and not look like a racoon hoarding supplies for a hard winter if he got caught. Which, he did. A couple of times. Ultimately he had to ask Ginta and Hakkaku to store them at their apartment until the time came that he needed them. Those two had "tested" the boxes, and if Koga could spend twenty minutes pulling box out of box on his day off from work, then Inuyasha could do the same.

Although getting a different pattern of wrapping paper for each box might have been overkill. Thank god that the dollar store down the road was on hand with tons of choices.

"Our little pound puppy makes it so easy," he replied. "I like trying to piss him off. makes the little hairs on his ears fluff up when he gets angry."

"You sure it ain't cause of the heat?" the half demon mumbled, running his claw under the fold of the wrapping paper that was littered with 8-bit gold coins. The chuckling that continued from the wolf demon only made him more annoyed.

It's not like he didn't know he was at fault. Yes, he could've been a little more polite to the repairman when he was talking to him on the phone the other day. It wasn't his fault that the man talked like he had a brain full of sawdust, and with it being so damn hot in the apartment because the thermostat glitched – and broke, but demon strength should be excusable – his tolerance for ignorance and bullshit were capped out and sitting with the thermostat knob on their kitchen table. Anyway, that shithead had gotten an attitude with him too, and where was his apology? All of a sudden that opening that the repairman had had for the twenty-third had turned into the thirtieth.

The snow falling outside was fitting for the season, even if the three of them were down to their boxers, or in Kagome's case, her tiniest tank and short set. She'd declared that she was not wearing a bra because it was Christmas dammit, and it'd just be the three of them anyway. Neither man had a complaint about that. Hair had been pulled up into messy buns. Drinks that should have been hot and decadent were traded in for cold ones filled with ice, resting on multiple napkins, absorbing the moisture that ran down the outside.

Kagome bit down on her lip as she watched Inuyasha rip back the tartan printed paper on this new box, already suspecting that there was another box within it. The packing tape was cut through and the flaps flipped back to reveal another box that was wrapped in the overly commercialized derpy snowman's face. The half demon gave Koga a clawed one-finger salute to show his opinion.

"Fucking Oolong? Really?"

"His name is Olaf," she corrected, waving her nail file around as she spoke. Unlike Inuyasha, she'd done her nails up for the occasion under the pretense that they were going to be dressed up, and she was not about to ruin them.

"He's a dumbass character from a dumbass movie, Kagome."

"I never said otherwise," she replied, slicing into the next round of her present. "But you were talking about tea." The box inside was wrapped the same as the one Inuyasha had just run up on to spawn this weird conversation. "How many different kinds of wrapping paper did you buy, Koga?"

"If you've both reached the Frozen layer, then there's not much more to it."

Inuyasha's eyes narrowed. "Define 'not much'."

"Like…ah…five or six? Maybe eight?" Koga scratched his chin in thought, pretending that he wasn't internally panicking because even he'd forgotten just how many boxes he'd managed to accrue."

"You're such an asshole –"

"Pillow princess –"

"Boys," Kagome warned, leveling both of them with a look. "I know it's hot, and the timing could really be better for the thermostat to screw up, but it's Christmas so I'd like to spend it without the petty arguments. And if we're going to be technical about it, Inuyasha's the pillow prince because I'm both of yours princess that's always stuck in the middle, so hush."

"I never heard any complaints," Koga muttered, swirling the last bit of his coffee in his mug.

"Never said I was, but you two are lucky I love you so much."

The room fell silent as Kagome tipped her Olaf-wrapped box out of the open one and tossed it across the room. There was shredded and balled up wrapping paper all over the floor. Ribbons were shred, getting tangled in everything, but the boxes… Boxes were taking up the remaining floor space as far as the eye could see. Inuyasha meanwhile made it a point of pulling said wrapping paper off of his box in strips and balling it up to toss at his boyfriend. When Koga presented them each with the box, he told them that he wanted both of them to open them together. As irritating as he could be, Inuyasha still couldn't bring himself to disappoint the wolf. As soon as Kagome tore across Olaf's face, Inuyasha pierced the packing tape on his box.

"Oh for fucks sake."

Kagome tipped the box slowly, revealing to the room that the next layer was Avengers themed. "At least it's not Frozen again."

"Yeah well I'm still salty over Endgame."

"Dude – you've been salty since Age of Ultron. Don't pull that with us!"

"Koga's got a point…"

All they heard was "yeah, yeah" as Inuyasha chucked the box behind him and started to tear across Hawkeye's gaudy purple uniform. Kagome was already peeling hers back and working the nail file through the tape. She had to wonder what it was that Koga had gone to all the effort for, because she had begun to notice that the boxes were getting smaller the further they went. It was like a weird game of nesting dolls, only with gifts. She even lifted the box that was inside the Avengers-wrapped one – this time buffalo check – and gave it a quick shake, pulling a face at Koga when he laughed at her.

"Did you really think I wouldn't think of that?" Koga grinned. "I know you, Kagome. You're as bad to shake gifts as Inuyasha is to poke them!"

"You can't blame a girl for trying," she huffed, shifting off of her heels to sit cross-legged instead. If she had had any idea just how involved Koga would make this gift, she wouldn't have sat on her knees for so long, even if it was more ladylike. To hell with sitting like a lady. It was too hot and there was no one that she had to impress today. Both her boyfriends had seen her do much, much worse from time to time.

The boxes were becoming even smaller now, and they both discovered what Koga had meant when he said he had taken every precaution to keep from ruining the surprise. He had resorted to packing around the boxes nested inside with varying colors and patterned tissue paper. So now there was an additional layer of chaos in their living room as tissue paper was thrown every which way. And then finally – finally – they had both reached the last box.

It was about three inches every way around and wrapped in gold foil paper. Inuyasha and Kagome knew something was about to happen when Koga sat his mug down and sat straighter. If that wasn't enough he even looked hopeful, which had to mean something. Maybe they really had hit the end of the gift madness? They shared a look and cut through the wrapping paper to reveal a plain white box taped with scotch tape. Another flick of the file and claw, and these boxes were opened to reveal…

Another box.

A smaller box.

A black box with a velvet-like finish.

A jewelry box.

"Koga..?" Kagome looked up at the wolf hesitantly.

"Open it." His words came out quieter than normal.

Both Inuyasha and Kagome grasped the lid of the box and lifted it up. Inuyasha swallowed thickly, and Kagome's free hand clapped over her mouth with a gasp. They were rings. Silver bands formed a braid that surrounded three polished stones, moonstones specifically. Inside the band was an engraving of each of their names.

"I wanted to make it special," Koga began, shifting in his seat nervously. "I've got one too. Been keeping it in my coat pocket for weeks."

"Why a moonstone?" Kagome asked curiously.

"You mean aside from all that witchy stuff about protection? I remember reading that it can release love of all kinds somewhere online." The wolf scratched his neck, trying to explain. He was hoping that this came out right. "The world ain't gonna legally recognize the three of us, and I know we agreed that if we all can't be official in print, then this would be as close as we got. I love you both too much to let the world say what we can or can't do. Maybe some day we'll get our chance, but right now, I want everyone to see that a loving relationship can have three people in it."

"Fucking wolf," Inuyasha mumbled, rubbing at his nose. "You done went and made Kagome cry."

"Your nose is turning red, Inuyasha," Kagome laughed, swiping at her cheeks. She wasn't going to deny that she was tearing up. As soon as she could compose herself, she had removed the ring from its box and slipped it on her finger.

Inuyasha let out a half-hearted "keh" as he slipped on his own ring. It wasn't overly feminine, which suited him just fine. The idea that Koga had been holding onto these rings for weeks – and god knows how long he'd spent planning even before he had them – with the intention that he did was indescribably. His heart felt full.

It had been something that they had discussed at length when the trio really began to see that this relationship was forming into something much deeper than they thought it could ever be. Even with all the progress that had been made for same-sex couples to legally marry, there wasn't much help for those that were more than a "matched set". It wasn't fair, and they knew it wouldn't be fair to the third person if two in the relationship were legally wed, when each of them loved the other two so strongly. They wanted to be together, and they were going to be together, no matter if the laws said that they could have it written in records or not.

As one, Inuyasha and Kagome crawled across the floor, shoving empty boxes and crumpled wrappings out of their way to get to Koga. Arms wrapped around the wolf demon from both sides and kisses were shared among the stray tears.

This was what he'd hoped for when he'd put in the order four months prior.