You Can't Be Serious

Kagome giggled, stroking across Inuyasha's crown as he laid kisses along her shoulder. Something she had learned in rather short order was that although he probably didn't know it himself, the guy really craved affection. Reciprocating it too. Her hands slipped down through the long strands of his hair, which were freshly washed, dried, and combed through by Kagome herself.

It was during this quiet moment of affection in the late afternoon that Inuyasha sighed. The sound wasn't a happy one, and this mood seemed rather out of nowhere. Kagome made a noise of questioning which she knew that Inuyasha was bound to hear and waited patiently for his reply. At this point, they understood each other without actual words, and Kagome knew that if she waited long enough, Inuyasha would always end up opening to her. She just had to wait.

"You're..." He paused, turning his cheek against her bared shoulder and closing his eyes.

"Hm?"

"Y'ain't pregnant." Kagome blinked. What was Inuyasha on about?

"I, uh, am aware." They had only been trying for a little while, it was silly to expect her to become pregnant right away. Inuyasha lifted his head away from her shoulder, his eyes downcast. Inuyasha's brows weren't knit as they normally were. Something was...he was sad. Why was he sad? Why was he making that face? Kagome leaned in closer to Inuyasha, trying to meet his downcast gaze.

"Inuyasha?"

He growled, shaking the saddened expression from his face. He leaned a little further back, intentionally looking off somewhere to the side. It was a tactic he always used with Kagome, despite its pitiful success rate. The thought was somewhere along the lines that if he couldn't see the expression, the concern in her expressive brown eyes, then he wouldn't feel compelled to spill his guts. Again. Pathetic success rate. Kagome knew her husband too well, and Inuyasha cared for her too much. If something was on his mind, Kagome would know. And if she didn't know what it was, it would make her worry, and worried Kagome? Well, it twisted up his guts. He loved her so much and he was so screwed if he ever wanted to keep anything to himself ever again. At least that meant that they were an honest and open sort of relationship.

"What's...?" She started.

"It's stupid..."

Kagome raised a brow. Kagome knew him, so, so well. Too well.

"Hey, we're not playing this game, mister. What's going on in that head of yours?"

Inuyasha rolled his eyes and leaned back on his hands, effectively ending the tender moment they had been having seconds earlier.

"Just some stupid shit rollin' through. Like, what if you can't get pregnant? I remember you tellin' me about mules and shit. How 'hybrids' can't have foals? Well, I'm a hybrid, technically, ain't I? What if the reason it's been takin' so long is because it can't happen at all?"

Kagome groaned. Kagome knew her husband had been through a lot growing up. That he was still messed up from years of fighting for his life, and torment from just existing as he was, something he couldn't change or do anything about. She knew that he would probably always be this way due to his traumatic past but...the fact he kept dwelling on it, blaming himself for things he couldn't control, everything that didn't go quite so perfect...but, hiding it-poorly-behind a mask of either anger or apathy...well. It bothered her so much. The fact that he thought that his own existence was so wrong and such a harm to everyone who cared for him almost pissed Kagome off, but not quite. Because it was so embedded into him, despite him outwardly denying it, saying that it was others' problems, but thinking that he'd been the one to fuck things up. To deny Kagome a child which she so wanted just because he was broken. Because his entire existence was a broken construct.

She wanted him to listen when she held him and told him that everything was okay. Listen and not push her away or laugh it off. Every day was a step closer to him opening up his ears and relaxing into her arms, she knew. She would just have to love him as deeply as she always had. She couldn't fix him, per say, but she could offer him open arms.

"Inuyasha, it's only been a couple months that we've been 'trying' to have a baby," she began, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger. "I know people who tried for years before they managed to have a baby. It's not always an immediate thing. You know what they say where I'm from? A watched pot never boils, but if you forget about it, it'll boil over."

Inuyasha squinted.

"The fu...okay lay off the analogies, just speak a language I can understand."

"It means that when you're actively trying to make something happen, it will take forever. But if you take things casually, forget about it, then it'll come around."

"So..." Inuyasha scratched his chin, where a few more of those barely-there hairs had cropped up, "if we forget about havin' a kid...Kagome that's stupid. How'm I just s'posed to forget something like that?"

"Well, it really doesn't matter. We're both still super young, and if we have a baby now or five years from now, does it really matter, Inuyasha?"

"Weren't you the one who was tryna win me over in the baby department all that time, and now you're sayin' you're okay not havin' one?"

"Uh, that's not what I said? I said I still want to have children with you, but there's really no rush to have one right now? If a baby comes nine months from now, then so be it. If it's not for another nine years? Then that's fine too. I just don't wanna see you beating yourself up over it, or," she shrugged, "Thinking you're somehow less of a man just because...Oh, I dunno."

Inuyasha scoffed, crossing his arms. A smirk then fell on his face.

"I'm all the man you can handle."

Kagome blinked, tilting her head to the side, a warmth across her cheeks.

"I...I don't know what you mean by that, but maybe you've been spending too much time with Miroku."

"That's not what I meant."

Kagome was stuck inside with the rain as an unexpected rainstorm came passing through, but it gave her time to help Rin in making new baskets for the old Miko. Hers had become damaged recently, and she'd been picking up herbs using Kagome's as of late. Kagome was noticing that he older woman was losing a bit of dexterity in her fingers as of late. In addition to her eyesight, which was already halved, it made tasks with fine details more difficult for her. Kagome remembered back to her Grandma before she had passed away, who enjoyed embroidery. She'd sometimes call Kagome to thread a needle for her. Even with her glasses on, her vision just was never good enough to get it on the first try. Kagome knew that one of the issues with Kaede's dexterity was a slight tremor in her hands.

Kaede was relatively young, Kagome had thought. She was only about the same age as Grandpa Higurashi. Then, Kagome considered the times. While people stayed active and ate fresh foods, without preservatives and added fats, they also lived very hard lives. Kagome was a Miko, so her contribution to this village was mainly with her brain, in her knowledge of healing, and her spiritual powers, so her role was still somewhat easier than those who worked the fields. She never saw any sort of resentment for it. The community seemed to value her and Kaede greatly. Just as they valued those who tended the animals, and those who dyed fabrics, tanned hide, worked the fields. They all got along and supported each other in this sort of community, and they all worked hard at what they did. They worked hard even with the threat of disease, demons, bandits, wild animals, injury, etc. were always somewhere in the back of their minds. It aged people. It really did. Although Kaede was just into her senior years where Kagome was born, she lived in these treacherous times. For these times, she was well-lived, and it meant that her age could be measured by adding possibly another twenty by the time's standards.

She didn't want to think about it. People married young, worked hard, and died young.

Kagome sighed.

Inuyasha came to Kaede's hut just before lunchtime, promptly shaking water off everywhere, then sat to watch the rain fall from the dry step inside the hut. Hana had come to grab Rin by that point, the pair having hurried off to her own house, so it was just Kagome finishing up on the basket. She had also set aside a little bit of sewing she wanted to do for the older Miko. Just a few small patches where some of her bedding was threadbare.

"Man, it's soggy as hell out there."

"I thought Hell would be flames," Kaede joked dryly. Inuyasha snorted, but otherwise said nothing.

Kagome looked outside for herself. The rain showed no traces of stopping any time soon. She finished up with the basket, looking over her work. It looked just as good as the old one had, new.

"Not much of anything going on 'round here today. Nobody, man, beast, or demon wants to be out in the storm." Inuyasha stretched and laid down on Kaede's floor, looking as if he were about to take a nap, but Kagome knew he had smelled the food cooking, even through the rain. He always seemed to show up right before mealtimes.

"Hey, old lady, what'say you let Kagome off here real soon. I'm guessing ain't no one gonna fall down and hurt 'emselves, plus y'ain't got any rituals to do today, eh?"

Kaede lifted a brow as Kagome chuckled.

"You're bored? You can always go home by yourself, you know?" Kagome shook her head as she began stitching a patch onto Kaede's bedding.

"I'm tryna get you outta work, woman," Inuyasha said, rolling onto his side, jaw rested in his hand, a slight smile on his face.

"So we can go home and be bored there, instead?"

"Pretty much. You could at least nap in your own bed." Kagome rolled her eyes. Inuyasha wasn't exactly 'lazy' but he definitely enjoyed taking his time to kick back and relax. Kagome had cued into the fact that Inuyasha didn't seem to require as much sleep as her, but he definitely got in plenty of catnaps.

"After lunch, of course?" Kaede asked, a smile playing on her lips.

Inuyasha scoffed, but flashed the old Miko a grin nonetheless.

"After I'm finished with this," Kagome showed him the sewing job, "I guess we can head that way."

Inuyasha did his best to dodge raindrops as he carried his wife back to their house. He was right, it seemed. Not a cow or person to lead them were in sight as they passed by the pastures and fields. It looked like nobody was too keen to be out in the rain, today. Then again, that could also be that it was lunch time. Even though they made haste getting inside the pair still ended up getting soaked through. It was a little chillier than the days before, so it wasn't exactly a warm rain, either.

Inuyasha shook as much water off as he could as Kagome stripped down to her underwear and reached for her dry Yukata to change into. Before she could, Inuyasha grabbed her around the wrist.

"Hey, uh," Inuyasha started, pink coloring his cheeks.

"Really," Kagome smirked playfully. He didn't get like this every time he saw her naked, but...

"No, no, I uh," he stood up straighter, dropping his hand from her wrist to her hand. He twined their fingers together, giving her hand a little squeeze. Kagome felt heat come to her cheeks then, although the rest of her body was sort of cold.

"well I mean kinda...I have a...suggestion?" He finished.

"Okay, shoot."

Inuyasha's ears flattened against his head. His eyes drifted down from his wife's face as began to speak.

"I know I've been harpin' on this baby thing. 'an you're prolly sick of-well even if you ain't sick of it, I am-of me yappin' about having a kid, but I got to thinking about what you said? With the whole weird boiling pot thing."

Okay? Where the hell was this going, Kagome wondered. She was standing there in her soaking wet underwear, covered in goosebumps and about to start shivering, husband ogling her and wanting to talk before she had a chance to put dry clothes on.

"Well, I say lets 'try' one more time. Just give me three days and if you ain't pregnant after that, then I'll stop yappin' about it. From there, if it happens, it happens, but I don't wanna think about trying all the time."

"What?"

"Kagome…" He suddenly released her hand, and his face flushed darker. Kagome's cheeks flared with warmth, then, too.

"So you want us to…do it—" she trailed off, unable to finish.

"As much as possible," he added.

"For. Three days?" Her hands came up to cup her cheeks. Three days? He couldn't be serious. Yet, Kagome knew he was.

"Y-yeah? Just to make sure?" Oh boy this was weird.

"Inuyasha!"

Inuyasha slapped his hands over his ears on instinct and shut his eyes. Not that that had ever actually done him any good with how sensitive his hearing was. His face was going on the same color as his robes.

"I-I never really," she laughed, "took you for such a horndog!"

Inuyasha's eyes opened, Kagome was still blushing brightly, but she had a nervous sort of smile on her face as she awaited his reaction. He snorted, before letting out a short burst of laughter. He knew what he was suggesting, but boy, the whole idea of it sounded really, really perverted now that he said it out loud. Kagome wrapped her arms around her husband and they collapsed into each other, chuckling giddily.

...

Hey I'm alive. I'm currently working as a Tutor at my old Middle and High School. I forgot how to write these characters, I really do apologize. I'm mostly on AO3 if you wanna take a gander at my stories there. I'm in the process of getting all my work transferred there.