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“It’s hot,” Kagome complains, her head resting limply on Inuyasha’s shoulder.
Her yukata is the thinnest cotton; her fan flutters weakly at her face; her feet skim the surface of water in the basin.
“What do you want me to do about it, brat?”
“You’re a jerk,” she says without heat.
They sit together for a while more in silence. The summer sun beats down fierce enough that speaking feels like a chore. Kagome alternates between dipping her swollen feet in the cool water and entwining her ankles with her husband’s.
“It’d be cooler if you weren’t always draping yourself over me,” Inuyasha gripes.
Kagome hides her smile from him and scoots even closer to him on the edge of the porch. He’d secretly be crushed if she stopped all of her casual, affectionate touching. And, honestly, it’s not like they had much more to fill the time with. Though their lives used to be filled with adventure – fighting youkai and constantly traveling – now their days consist mostly of people-watching. And a little eavesdropping. And the occasional gossip.
“Sango’s pregnant again, did you see?” she asks idly.
“Hard not to see,” Inuyasha snorts. “She looks like she swallowed a pig whole.”
“Rude!” Kagome tells him, smacking his shoulder lightly.
“I mean, you look like you swallowed two whole pigs…” he continues wickedly.
She glowers at him. “And whose fault is that?”
“Better be mine.”
“I don’t know…Koga did visit a few months back…”
“Please,” Inuyasha smirks. “You know I don’t let you out of my sight when he’s around.”
Kagome laughs, silvery and tinkling, and then continues to rib him. “I guess that’s true. If you’re certain, I mean…”
They keep joking – about paternity, how the baby had better have white hair and fuzzy ears – until the heat overcomes the conversation once again. They return to idly watching the street and the slowly darkening sky.
They share a futon, all three of them. Kagome in the middle, sandwiched by Inuyasha and Shippo. Inuyasha thinks the brat should go sleep in Kaede’s house, share a futon with Rin or the old lady. It’s a miracle she ever got pregnant in the first place, considering Shippo pretends to vomit whenever they even kiss.
But whenever he says this – says “get him outta here” or “why’s he gotta live at our house” – Kagome gives him a complicated look.
“He’s getting older,” Kagome says. “He’s almost thirteen. He won’t want to sleep here soon enough, Inuyasha.”
And, yeah, that’s true. Then Inuyasha catches her when she’s wiping dirt off Shippo’s face and laughing at his crayon scribblings, looking almost the way Sango does with her brats. Warm. Kind. Maternal. And then he catches her while Shippo’s telling her about all the things he’ll have in his house one day, he sees her heart breaking but she looks so happy anyways. Kagome grabs the kid into a hug, careful not to squash him or the baby inside her belly too hard, holding him tight to her.
It’s a combination of hormones and genuine affection for the brat. Well, he can stay until the pups are born.
Then he’s getting kicked out.
He’s in the forest.
Kagome wanted him to get more wood while the weather was still good – forgetting that the cold hardly touched him – and so ostensibly he’s looking for wood. But his eyes are sharp, looking for those herbs Kaede has shown him or the berries Kagome likes or a few pesky youkai to keep his blade sharp.
“Your woman is whelping,” Sesshomaru says, appearing suddenly out of the ether. “Can you not smell it?”
Inuyasha sniffs the air: wet wood, sunflowers, sunshine, human oils and smoke. Once more: pheromones and blood. And Kagome. She’s early. Kaede said Kagome should birth in early winter, but it is still autumn. Late autumn, the season was slipping away, but still autumn.
“Rin sent you?” he asks. He buries any panic he feels deep inside of him.
His half-brother nods.
He drops the firewood to the ground with a clatter. It doesn’t matter anymore.
It sounds like it hurts. He can hear her labored breathing from outside the village, every groan and grunt. Every shallow huff. He’s running faster now than he’s ever run before, narrowly avoiding villagers and kicking up dirt as he flies around corners.
Kaede is inside, trying to soothe Kagome, and Shippo waits outside, uneasy.
Inuyasha barges in.
Kagome shrieks at the sight of him.
“What are you screamin’ at me for?” he barks out, surprised.
“’Oh, pups, they’re so cute, let’s have some of our own!’” she yells at him, “You could have told me your kid was going to be gigantic, jerk!”
“How am I supposed to know that?!” he shoots back.
“Inuyasha,” Kaede rebukes him fiercely. “Perhaps wait until after Kagome has finished bearing your child to yell at her.”
“She yelled at me first!” he yelps.
“I’m forcing an eight-pound baby out of a four-inch hole,” Kagome snaps back, “literally as we speak. Eight pounds! So excuse me for being a little short with you!”
“Fine, you’re forgiven,” he snaps. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Kagome wildly grasps his hand, squeezing it hard. “Oh no, you don’t,” she mutters. “You’re staying right here, mister.”
“You’re crazy,” Inuyasha grumbles, “if you think I want to be here while you’re pissed like this.”
“Yeah, but you’re going to stay here until your asshole child get out of me,” she tells him, eyes crackling. “Don’t even think about leaving me.”
“You know I won’t.”
“You just tried to!”
Eventually, though, their bickering dies off. Kagome is too busy breathing and pushing and really putting effort into breaking his damn hand.
It seems like hours have past before Kaede places the child in Kagome’s arms.
“A girl,” Kaede says softly.
He takes a few seconds to take in the scene before him: Kagome, hair sticking to her red face with sweat, looking blissed out and exhausted. Kaede, with worried eyes and wrinkly smile, checking up on the new mother. The baby, white-haired and warm, snuggling into her mother’s bosom.
“Isn’t she supposed to cry?” Kagome asks, perplexed. “Is it bad that she’s not?”
“She’s not a wimp,” Inuyasha says. His voice seems so different from its usual scratchy pitch. Gentler. “She’s a real tough guy.”
“Yeah.” Kagome rubs at her eyes – was she crying? Then her brows knit together; first confusion, and now pain. “Kaede –!”
The priestess’ eyes widen with disbelief. “A second child.”
Kagome wails, and her daughter (apparently irritated) joins in. Inuyasha's head is ringing - two children. And his screaming wife. And his screaming daughter. And his soon-to-be-screaming second child. He's not sure if his head is ringing from the volume or reality hitting so suddenly.
He's brought back into the real world by Kaede's voice as she hands him a damp rag. "Clean your daughter," the priestess tells him, "and I will take care of your wife."
He can only nod.
“What are we going to name them?” Kagome asks quietly, unwilling to disturb the two slumbering infants on her chest.
“No idea,” he says. He can’t look away from either of the children. A matched set. “We could call them Girl and Boy.”
“Those aren’t good names!”
“It’s not like mine is creative,” Inuyasha counters. “Son of a dog demon? Let’s name him ‘dog demon’.”
“Inuyasha,” Kagome warns him, “we are not naming them Girl and Boy.”
“Whatever, it was just an idea.”
Kagome mumbles something, so quiet that even his super-sensitive, super-sharp hearing couldn’t make the noise distinct.
“What was that? Couldn’t hear you.”
“We could name the girl after your mother,” she repeats, her face red, “if you wanted.”
He hadn’t even thought of that. He doesn’t answer, though; he just says, “What about Boy?”
She narrows her eyes at him teasingly. “The boy…I’m not sure. I don’t want to call him Souta,” she admits.
She leans into him, gently placing her head on the curve of his shoulder. “Inuyasha,” she says seriously, gently fanning herself. “It’s so hot.”
“What am I supposed to do about that?” he complains.
“Make it cold,” she says languidly.
Behind them, the children giggle. Nao’s sticky little fingers reach around to pull at his father’s jowls while Izayoi throws herself into her mother’s lap.
“You’re an idiot,” he mumbles. “And you’re teaching the brats to be idiots, too.”
“Yeah,” Izayoi says brightly, grinning at him from her perch. “But you love us anyways, don’t you, Papa?”
Nao pulls harder on Inuyasha’s cheek.
“Yeah, but keep it quiet,” he says. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”