Work Text:
Daiyokai did not negotiate. Very few problems existed that couldn’t be solved with an overwhelming display of power; with a flash of fang or steel. Sesshomaru did as he was taught from infancy, meeting anything that dared to challenge him with a cool expression and claws prepared to rend until surrender was given unto him or unto death.
Fatherhood reminded him daily that just because something had always been this way didn’t mean it would remain that way forever.
Tentou stared his father down, little white ears panned forward and attentive. That, at least, was a good sign. Now, if he would only stop channeling his mother’s stubbornness, they could get somewhere. The daiyokai refused to admit that his and Kagome’s child was gifted from both sides of the family when it came to digging in his heels.
“You are hungry. I know this, as I can hear your stomach gurgling,” Sesshomaru said with as much patience as he could muster after attempting to reason with his seven month old son for a solid hour. “I understand you are not pleased with having to be weaned, yet the time has truly come. No amount of tears will dissuade us this time.”
The initial weaning attempts had ended disastrously with Kagome breaking down in tears at Tentou’s cries of hunger and Sesshomaru ripping through several doors in his rush to get to the two of them, sure that something horrible must have happened to cause such anguish. After this time, the fourth such incident in as many days, he had decided that teaching his rebellious son to eat solid food was now his sole mission in life. Nothing tore apart at his soul like seeing fat tears rolling down the faces of two of the most precious people in his life.
With an ever-steady hand, he brought the spoon full of mashed apples back towards his son’s lips, seeing that adorable little nose twitch as the sweet and tangy smell met it. For a moment Sesshomaru thought he saw something like consideration in Tentou’s blue eyes before it was chased away by a tightening of lips and flicked back ears.
“I told you. You need to pretend the spoon is a dragon,” Kagome said from where she was resting with her head in her husband’s lap, a cool cloth laid across her tear-swollen eyes.
“This one will do no such thing. The sustenance it provides should be reason enough for Tentou to desire his food,” the daiyokai replied, absentmindedly stroking through her hair.
“Think of it as teaching him battle strategies,” said his wife, who always seemed to know just what to say to make Sesshomaru consider even the silliest things.
“He will eat because it is necessary,” he replied, ignoring the irony presented by his own streak of stubbornness.
Pulling the spoon of apples away, Sesshomaru tried with a second utensil, this one laden with mushed rice. Perhaps the scent of the fruit was too strong and was off putting to the child’s sensitive nose. Something more neutral might be more palatable. Again Tentou’s ears flicked forward as the hanyo assessed this newest offering. Again, it was dismissed with a frown and the beginnings of a wail beginning to warble in his chest.
“You are beginning to teethe,” Sesshomaru attempted to reason with the child, “and your fangs are injuring your mother. Neither you nor I nor she desire that. This is the only solution.”
“It’s not so bad. He’s not really biting down, just chewing a little,” Kagome said, hand coming up to gently massage her right breast. A quick catching of her hand and interlacing of their fingers put an end to that nonsense; Sesshomaru couldn’t afford to be distracted at the moment. “I could keep going for a couple more weeks…”
“You will not,” he squeezed her hand gently before returning his attention to Tentou. “I am the only one allowed to use his teeth on you.”
He was rewarded with a soft laugh and, for a moment, Sesshomaru was reminded of just how lucky he was. The weather outside was near perfect, meaning all of the windows and doors that could be opened were. In the gardens nearby he could hear Rin playing with her visiting kitsune brother, no doubt the two of them getting up to something he would only discover later. They liked to practice Shippo’s newest tricks in the daiyokai’s study, somehow having decided that pulling a prank on him would be the greatest accomplishment of all. Despite knowing what would be attempted at his expense later, Sesshomaru felt nothing but love for the two children. Love for the woman in his lap and the child that was the product of their unity. In that moment of serenity he even extended some affection towards Jaken, who he could hear busily rushing around a few rooms over.
Never in his life would the daiyokai have thought that peace would bring him much more satisfaction than fighting ever could.
For it to be truly perfect, however, a certain little boy needed to learn to eat his solid foods.
“It is the rice first, or it is the apples,” Sesshomaru informed his son, meeting ocean-blue eyes with his own citrine-gold, “We do not waste food in this home. You will be eating both or neither of us will be leaving this spot.”
“Your negotiating tactics are brilliant, love,” piped up Kagome with another soft giggle.
Ignoring her, he switched spoons to bring up the apples again. Tentou watched closely as if expecting some sort of trick, but Sesshomaru refused to be that kind of father. In that regard his father had been the superior parent, always giving the young daiyokai news both good or bad with a truthful bluntness that had endeared Toga to his eldest child. Perhaps, at times, words could have been said softer or in another tone to better communicate them, yet it was still better than the mind games Yukime played. That wasn’t to say Sesshomaru’s father deserved forgiveness for his myriad of other failings or to say that his mother hadn’t had her moments, few and far between though they might have been. Being with Kagome, slowly opening up to her about his own upraising as they discussed how to best handle their own son, had taught Sesshomaru to better appreciate the nuances in how he had been raised, as well as how he wanted to be different from those who came before him.
Patience had been something both Toga and Yukime struggled with, passing along their failures to their son. It was the exact virtue he was currently warring with when, to his surprise, Tentou parted his lips to accept the spoonful of apples-- only to spit them out before they’d even had time to touch his tongue.
Sesshomaru felt his eyes narrow, rage rising in his chest at the blatant show of defiance. Upon seeing the expression, Tentou’s eyes widened and ears flattened as a terrified whimper escaped his little body.
Immediately the daiyokai snapped out of it, staring at his son in a mixture of horror and shock. He hadn’t meant to… Surely the child knew he would never--
“Hold him, Sesshomaru,” Kagome said softly from where she had removed the cloth over her eyes to see her husband’s expression. “Remind him you’re his dad and you’ll never harm him.”
He almost didn’t do it. Was almost afraid to cause greater harm to the child. Then Kagome reached up, pressed a hand over his heart as she so often had when they lay together as her stomach had swollen with the evidence of their shared love. In those quiet moments before the night became the dawn, Sesshomaru had confessed his fears to her: that he would be a horrible parent, worse than either of his own; that no child could love him; that Rin and Shippo’s love was a fluke; that he would be a failure.
She would lean in, feeling his heart beat beneath her palm, and whisper in his ear of her own fears, ones that sounded remarkably similar. Then, together, they would refute each item, point by point, over and over again until something like peace had settled over the new parents as the sun broached the horizon. He had lost track of how many times they had repeated that little ritual of sharing weakness in order to build each other up stronger than before.
Freeing both hands, Sesshomaru gathered up Tentou into his arms and held the boy close, running his claws through feather-soft white hair.
“I am sorry,” he said, the words coming far more easily now than they ever had the first time he had been forced to admit them. “I was angry, but I will never strike you nor hurt you intentionally, Tentou.”
Instantly his son found mokomoko, draped over his father’s shoulder, and buried his face in the plush fur with a satisfied sigh. Sesshomaru relaxed as the fear in Tentou’s scent was replaced with its usual sweet smell of infancy.
Sitting up, Kagome placed a kiss to her husband’s striped cheek as she wrapped her arms around both boy and father. “See? We all get a little touchy sometimes, but so long as we say we’re sorry, it’ll be okay in the end.”
“Are you speaking to me or to the child?” Sesshomaru asked with a wry smile.
“To both of my silly boys, especially since Shippo now thinks he’s outgrown my advice,” she huffed, tapping Sesshomaru gently on the nose as she watched Tentou nuzzle against his father’s tail. “Actually, I have an idea.”
Moments later found the daiyokai with his son in his lap wrapped in the warm embrace of mokomoko, Kagome kneeling before them, spoon in hand.
“Here comes the dragon~” she sang as she ‘flew’ the spoon in towards the hanyo’s mouth.
He squealed in delight and, to the shock of both of his parents, happily welcomed his first bite of proper food before opening his mouth to demand more.
“How did you do that?” Sesshomaru asked, watching in awe as a second spoonful of rice disappeared.
“I just thought, well... First of all, it’s gotta be kinda scary, going from being held while he eats to being fed in a chair, no matter how comfy we made it,” she reasoned, wiping up a bit of spittle with the back of the utensil. “Second, we always do our best problem solving as a team, so why not approach this one the same way? Remember how long it took us to figure out diapers?”
“He is a brave soul to have already survived so much foolishness on the part of his parents,” he agreed solemnly with a slight wince at the memory of their first attempts to properly swaddle their child.
“I think it’s something everyone goes through, even Sango and Miroku,” Kagome booped Tentou on the nose, getting a happy burble in response. “Though they’re pros by this point.”
“We will be proficient at it as well, soon enough,” Sesshomaru replied with just the barest hint of a smirk to his smile, revealing a singular fang as he knew his wife found devastatingly attractive.
“You know my rule. I can only have one man obsessed with my breasts at a time,” she arched an eyebrow, which she in turn knew her husband found wonderfully arousing.
“One of said males is currently happily learning that apples are not a bad substitute for breast milk.”
“The other of said males best be careful, or he’ll be sleeping in the doghouse tonight.”
Tentou growled impatiently as his meal was interrupted, his little body momentarily squished between his parents as they shared a lingering kiss amid laughter.
“Besides that,” Sesshomaru continued once they parted and his son was happily being fed again, “You do know that birthing single children among yokai is relatively rare, correct?”
“In humans it’s the norm. I doubt we have anything to worry about,” Kagome said with her usual confidence in the face of the oncoming uncertainty of the future.
The gods listening above shared their own laugh at that, though it would be many months before the reason why would make itself known to the happy trio below.