Old Dog, Old Tricks
“Your progress leaves much to be desired,” Inuyasha said sternly, looking up from the folder he held before him.
He sat along one side of the dining table, directly across from Sesshomaru, who looked for all the world as if he was attending a job interview – impressive and dignified, but hardly in a position of command and control.
The taiyoukai said nothing, so the half-demon continued: “Your attempts to grow a sense of humour have failed dismally despite your assurances to me in November that you would develop one. It’s spring now, and I see little improvement in your constitution.”
Sesshomaru glowered at being thus spoken to, but he was really in the doghouse, for Inuyasha had threatened again to move out of their home after their last spat some weeks ago. If there was one thing in his long life that Sesshomaru had learnt to treasure, it was his mate and brother’s constant companionship.
So he took a breath and said in as dignified a manner as he could: “It is difficult to develop a ready sense of humour after having lived so many hundreds of years with the need to present a stoic face to the world.”
“The world, yeah. But to me as well?” Inuyasha asked.
“I am trying, little brother.”
“Going full-dog and stuffing my entire head and neck into your jaws just because of my little joke with Koga did
not look like you were trying. By the way, your breath doesn’t smell too great when you’re a dog and I’m inside your mouth. You do still have that chicken-flavoured canine toothpaste, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” Sesshomaru replied, colouring again to be addressed like a naughty child. “And I
am trying. It may not look like it to you, but I am.”
“Oooo-kay,” Inuyasha said doubtfully. “So you promise not to lose your temper the next time I do anything that the stuffy old side of you would normally think of as ‘inane’, ‘juvenile’, ‘ridiculous’ or ‘stupid’?”
“I shall do my best. Although, as the head of our pack, I shall certainly put an immediate end to any stupid, inane or juvenile behaviour that endangers us, damages our reputation or humiliates us.”
“Uhm, were you doing the ‘royal we’ thing there?” the younger brother asked suspiciously. “Does ‘us’ just mean you?”
“No, it means you and me and our pack.”
“That takes us back to square one, because you consider everything an affront to your dignity.”
“Not ‘everything’ – I am never affronted when dogs and demons worship me.”
“You know what, Sesshomaru?” Inuyasha growled, snapping shut the file in which the taiyoukai’s spectacular attacks on him were listed. “You’re just a stuffy old pooch who refuses to learn new ways. It really is true what humans say, isn’t it, that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?”
“I am not old,” Sesshomaru declared indignantly. “At only one thousand and two hundred years of age, I am perfectly young for a taiyoukai.”
“Maybe we should match this to dog years, so we can determine whether you’re still capable of picking up new ways or not!” Inuyasha responded, getting to his feet and pushing the dining chair back. “Where’s that book on dog care I bought at Christmas? It had a chapter about geriatric canines.”
“I am not geriatric!” Sesshomaru rumbled.
Inuyasha, ignoring him, was already at the shelves, rifling through the hundreds of volumes of books they had accumulated over the years. “Ah-ha! Here it is!” As he flipped through the pages to get to the chart, Inuyasha murmured: “We’ve pretty much agreed that at your age – 1,200, you’re approximately equivalent to a 37-year-old human, right? So in dog years, according to this dog-human age-conversion chart, that would make you about four-and-a-half... wait a minute, that’s not right – you are way too stiff and stuffy to be at the same level as a four-and-a-half-year-old dog!”
“I beg your pardon?” Sesshomaru asked, standing up, a distinctly growly undertone in his voice.
Leaping backwards and pointing a finger at him, Inuyasha spluttered: “There you go – right there again – getting totally mad when you’re offended over the least little thing!”
“In what way is calling your alpha, elder and mate ‘stiff and stuffy’ the ‘least little thing’?” the taiyoukai demanded.
“It is when he IS stiff and stuffy!” Inuyasha fired back.
Swallowing his indignation, Sesshomaru calmly sat back down again and declared: “I do not consider myself stuffy.”
“No stuffy person ever does,” the half-demon muttered. “Anyway, the chart probably doesn’t work with triple conversions – we should draw up a demon-dog age-conversion table one of these days. If I had to guess, I’d put you at about 17 in dog years.”
“Most dogs are
dead before 17,” Sesshomaru stated icily.
“That is true. Maybe there’s something in that...”
“Are you suggesting that I am a walking corpse?”
“Well, I did say you were stiff... heh heh...” Inuyasha chuckled, bending his head back to the book but watching Sesshomaru out of the corner of one eye to note the tightening jawline and the rigidity of his fingers, which usually presaged a loss of temper to some degree.
But the jawline and knuckles gradually relaxed with some effort on the part of the demon they were attached to, so Inuyasha returned to the dining table and put the book down, leaving it open at the age-conversion chart. “Maybe we’ve been getting the human-demon age comparisons wrong all along, huh?” Inuyasha remarked lightly. “Maybe at 1,200 years old, you’re not 37 but actually much younger? Lots of humans in these modern times are still like teenagers at 30 or 40 anyway, refusing to grow up. Maybe you’ll outgrow your temper the way kids outgrow their acne.”
“I
am grown up,” said Sesshomaru with dignity. “I grew up a long time ago.”
“So you
are old, and you’re stuck this way,” Inuyasha sighed dramatically. “Oh dear.”
“You are deliberately trying to provoke me,” Sesshomaru observed.
“Clever dog. Now the question is, are you smart enough not to rise to the bait? Age shouldn’t have eroded your
intelligence, at least.”
Cool golden eyes gazed levelly back at him.
“Let’s have a look at this section of the book about old dogs, shall we?” Inuyasha forged ahead cheerfully. “Hmm... where’s the part about teaching new tricks... oh, here we are – umm... it says that old dogs may be slower to learn new routines and new tricks, but it is not impossible to teach them. It just takes more time and patience.”
“Why would an old dog need to learn new tricks, when he has survived very well for so long knowing exactly what he needs to know, no more and no less?” Sesshomaru asked calmly.
“Hey, this is a fast-changing world. If you don’t adapt, you turn into a dinosaur – and look where
they ended up,” the younger brother said, looking up briefly before returning to the book. “This part also says that trainers have to be understanding when trying to teach aged dogs new things. They may not only be less flexible mentally, but may be literally less flexible in body, so we shouldn’t expect tricks that will strain their old joints and muscles... ahhh, is
that why you found it so hard to catch your tail that time?”
Before Inuyasha could read on, he was knocked over backwards, right out of his chair, by a blinding white flash of sheer muscle power as Sesshomaru flew over the table and pinned him to the floor.
Inuyasha yelped, but the alpha dog had his wrists under his powerful hands, and his iron-like legs trapped his feet beneath them. The book had skidded away, face down, to somewhere under one of the armchairs.
“Look what you’re doing!” the half-demon yelled. “You’re losing it again, you humourless mutt! Can’t stand the least bit of teasing, can you?!?”
“On the contrary, little brother,” Sesshomaru said, smooth as warm honey. “I am very,
very calm, and have not lost my temper at all.”
“So why are you fucking sitting on me?” Inuyasha demanded angrily. “This is definitely going into your lack-of-progress report!!”
“How precisely does it fit into such a report when I am not losing my cool in any way?” the taiyoukai asked.
“It fits because you’re attacking me, dammit!”
“You think this is an attack?”
“If it’s not, then I don’t know what it is!” Inuyasha grunted, struggling against his brother, who had the advantage of greater height and weight, and gravity on his side to boot.
“Ah, Inuyasha,” said Sesshomaru with a knowing smile. “I see that it is time for the old dog to remind the young one of some things he ought to have learnt by now, but refuses to. You
do know how old dogs enjoy asserting their authority over young punks who think they can get away with anything, don’t you?”
Inuyasha gulped as his pack leader’s intentions made themselves clear from the manner in which he was now mounting him.
“HEY! Watch where you’re putting that massive
thing – are you bloody trying to punch a hole through my balls? I am SO starting a new report on your ridiculous testosterone levels! We’re getting your hormones checked by the vet tomorrow! You’re so fucking domineering there’s got to be something out of whack somewh–” was about all the half-demon managed to howl out furiously before he was smothered by the mokomoko.
“Don’t forget old dogs also have some very good
old tricks,” Sesshomaru purred.
Inuyasha squirmed and twisted his face away from mokomoko-sama to spit out: “I’m bloody trading you in for a younger mate, you horny, ancient quadruped... EWWWWW! If you have to put your tongue in my ear would you please not drool INTO it!?!”
“You’re not trading me in for
anything, Inuyasha,” Sesshomaru growled into the wet and furry flap with a smile, for he was long accustomed to the younger one’s spitfire threats which were much more bark than bite. “Not when you see what new tricks this old dog can teach you...”
“I am MOVING OUT FOR GOOD, I tell you! You’ll never see me again! Oooowwww!! You bastard!”
“Really, now? If you want to leave, you’ll first have to get away from me, and I don’t see how you’re going to manage that when I have no intention of getting
out of you for the next two weeks, if you know what I mean – I’m sure you know that old dogs are stiff in more ways than one, and I won’t be budging for a while until my old bones are nice and ready, puppy...” Sesshomaru promised.
Inuyasha yowled and groaned, as those old bones and the old boner seemed very happy to remain where they were for a long time to come.
Because if there was one thing the old dog certainly didn’t lack, it was stamina.
