Silence

So…continuing this a bit. If you are familiar with Claiming Kin, found here: http://inu.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600093236 co-written by myself and Salome Sensei, you will recognize some of the names of a few, supporting original characters. If not, we welcome you to join us and get to know them as this story continues.

This chapter of Silence was written by Talon and Salome Sensei. Expect more of the same to follow, as well as more Claiming Kin.

Warnings as always…you gotta watch out for me. I’ll sneak shota in while you’re not looking and make you like it. *smirk*

Calm

Big eyes stare up and up and up at his youkai brother. Pink trails along the floor, clutched in his hand, not unlike his brother's fur that sprouts from his shoulder. When Sesshoumaru leaves the room, to go to the library down the hall, he follows, silently.


The boy is following him again. Though he did so before the incident with the night nurse, Sesshoumaru can no longer see it as the same annoyance he used to. How long had the nurse been hurting his already broken brother? They had no way of knowing. And now, bare feet pad behind him. How can I not feel protective of a puppy who follows me everywhere and never asks anything of me except to just be in my presence??


That he need not turn to watch, just knows his brother follows, makes his chest rumble. This possessiveness is new and not unwelcome. "Hurry up," he says, because he can.


His bare feet trot quicker at the command. Sesshoumaru used to tell him to go away. Go away go away, stop following me, what are you doing here, go see Father, go see Mother...but she wasn't his mother, even if he liked her and had known her before the accident.

The rhythm of his pattering little feet say, "Sessh-ou-ma-ru Sessh-ou-ma-ru..."


Why does it please him more to demand he follow more quickly than to send him away now? Certainly, it had come since the night he had...dismissed that nurse. The image of her cruel, deceitful face in his mind makes him clench his fists. How easily he could take out the frustration of new responsibilities on his defenseless brother. It is the bastard's fault, after all, that he has that face stuck in his mind. "Pick up your feet when you walk," he barks.


That makes him pause and tilt his head. He doesn't understand except that he is not walking the way his brother wishes him to. Pick up my feet...how? He examines his hands, then his bare little feet. His house slippers had long since been abandoned even though Kini put his feet in them this morning as she did every morning when she helped him dress.


He groans. Should he pause to explain that we lift rather than scuff our feet like animals? Or simply ignore the boy and keep on his way. Is his brother family...or a family pet?


The groan makes him hide at once. He doesn't move, he pulls pink over his head. He is not frightened, but Sesshoumaru is not happy, so if he cannot see him he will be happy again.


He stands silently in the hallway, his ragged blankie over his head, waiting for Sesshoumaru to be happy again.


Sesshoumaru does not hear the little hard-calloused feet padding behind him anymore. He grits his teeth and turns. Is the boy mentally deficient, he ponders, and not for the first time. His mangy blanket is over his head and he is just standing there. With as absurd a reaction as bringing the boy into his bed nightly, he walks over, gets onto his knees, and puts his head under the blanket with his brother.


He does not flinch away as Sesshoumaru appears under pink. He blinks solemnly at him for a few seconds, then reaches out to gently touch his brother's mouth. Sesshoumaru didn't smile...but that wasn't what told him whether his eldest brother was happy or not. Still...a smile was the simplest way he knew of expressing happiness, though his own expression was somber and serious. And Sesshoumaru may not smile, but he would occasionally show his teeth if he was angry or frustrated...


How gentle the boy's touch is. Everything about him is so damned vulnerable. He reaches Sesshoumaru in a place he did not know existed. He is the proud son of his highborn parents. This one, by contrast... Well, he does not show his father's proudness though he certainly shows his mother's frailty. "Toughen up," he wants to shout. In truth, he does not know how the child has not. But then, he has suffered much and here he is, touching his dangerous elder brother's face with brave fingers. "Why do you touch me?" he asks, tonelessly.


He tilts his head to one side again and brings the fingertips that had just touched his brother's lips to his own. He doesn't speak, but his ears don't flat either. He pets his own lips thoughtfully. Why? He liked to touch Sesshoumaru. Carefully though, always carefully. His brother was strong. Big and strong. He touches him because he can't make words. And because Sesshoumaru didn’t make the pain and sad that Papa does. And because he lets him touch.


But he can't tell him that either, because his words don't work. The last time he had spoken had been in the hospital when he woke up with tubes and bandages and Papa crying. And he had whimpered and called out for Mama. And Papa had kissed a not burnt or broken part of him and told him that Mama was dead.


Sometimes now he wants to make words, to tell his brother what is inside him. But he can't. So he looks at him with sad eyes and holds his fingertips out to Sesshoumaru...but this time doesn't touch him.


Sesshoumaru takes the fingers in his own, then grips the hand more firmly. As the boy has no words, Sesshoumaru now uses none either. I will guide you , the grip says, as he carefully uses his other hand to push back the blanket so it rests on his brother's shoulders, then he turns and walks them to the library. He has an idea...


His little fingers wrap into the firm grip of his brother. Pink rides on his shoulders and flutters against his thigh as Sesshoumaru leads him to the library.


Sesshoumaru smells happy again. Or at least one of his happy smells. He is still learning them.


In the library he settles himself down at a large oaken desk and props his brother on his lap without thinking overmuch about the gesture. He moves the blanket to the child's lap so he can see over his shoulder. Grabbing paper and pen, he puts the implement in the child's hand. "You write?" he asks.


His grip is clumsy, and he puts the tip of the pen to the paper and makes a mark. It is black ink and he pulls it across the paper, watching the line appear. He rubs his finger across the line but the ink does not smear.


But Sesshoumaru asked if he writes. With his tongue clamped between his teeth he painstakingly makes the character for Mama's love name for him. He looks up at Sesshoumaru. It's easier to write than his real name.


Sesshoumaru leans over the little shoulder to read, his hair slipping down his shoulders and over the boy's frame. He can just make out the character for gold. Strange. He is certainly not likely to be one who would concern himself with wealth. Is it random? Sesshoumaru takes the pen gently from his fingers and make the symbol for silver ("Gin"). It is the baby nickname his mother gave him, for his white-silver hair and the flash in his eyes.


He cocks his head at the word...his fingers trace it, and he smiles a little and turns slightly and touches Sesshoumaru's hair. Silver. His hair is white. Not silver. He's not very good at reading or writing, but he knows that word. Carefully he makes the first part of his real name...part of his self. Like Sesshoumaru too. Like Papa.


Sesshoumaru guides his hand; helps make the lines clean and strong. Be proud, Inu, though your lineage is impure. I will not be silver to your gold, child, but there are things I can teach you. Our father's son, too, however tainted. "Our eyes are gold," he says.


He closes his eyes and touches one lid briefly. Then reaches toward Sesshoumaru's face. Eyes. Yes. He points to his messy character...Kin.


"The gold is your eyes," he says, plainly, guessing the child's meaning. "Did your mother call you Gold, then, as my mother called me Silver?" Troubling. But let it be. "Do you ache for her, my father's child?" He wonders what it must feel like to ache so.


His lip trembles. Then the tremble moves to the rest of him, but he does not cry. He never cries. He pulls pink up to his face and buries his head in the blankie and his ears fold neatly to his head.

Mama...


Turn to me, commands a voice within him that he pushes away, does not allow out of him. "I will not allow you to be harmed in my home," he says, too much like an elegant host for it not to ring false in his ears. "I will not," he says again, and hopes the head will emerge from the blanket and the ears raise. He has never truly been a pup. Not like this.


But he wasn't hurt at his home either. They lived in a flat nearby. Close enough for Papa to come and visit often enough to make Mama happy. And Papa happy too. Sometimes Papa took him and visited other brothers or sisters. Home wasn't big like this, but it was warm and soft and inviting.


It was the car that hurt. The car that killed Mama. Mama, and the nice driver who always gave him treats. Their car, Mama said Papa provided. Papa always took care of them. His breath hitches soundlessly in his chest, but his eyes remain dry. His face stays buried. But he also does not pull away from his brother's lap.


"Come out and I will read to you," he says, randomly but purposefully. He needs to get the image of the night nurse out of his head again. She hovers. His fingers trace the boy's back unbidden, looking for signs of injury he knows he will not find etched there. The child that was called Gold and is no longer has his secrets buried in his flesh and in the words he will not utter.


Slowly he lifts his head from pink, but keeps it clutched under his chin. He looks up at Sesshoumaru, his ears still flat, but his eyes raised. He loves Sesshoumaru's voice.

He leans back a little into his brother's light touch. Sesshoumaru's voice could be impatient, angry even at times...but his touch never hurt. He was never afraid with Sesshoumaru’s touch.


"Do you like stories, brother? Do you know the one from the west, I have it here, translated into our language, it is of the king who turned everything into gold. Would you like to hear it?" he asks. He would like to hear a story right now. Something to tell him where he is going right now, and why. He tips the little face up and presses his lips softly to his brother's.


His lips aren't exactly slack under Sesshoumaru's, but he does not kiss back. He does not draw away, and when Sesshoumaru pulls his face back, he keeps his where it was...tipped up and looking at Sesshoumaru.


Yes, he would like to hear a story. He scoots closer on his brother's lap.


Sesshoumaru rises, softly, putting the child down on the seat. He licks his lips. Forces his hand not to touch them, or the child. "Perhaps later," he says, as if the boy has asked for the story rather than his offering it. He turns away and strides quickly from the room, leaving the pup and his blanket sitting on the overlarge chair at the desk. He does not look back.


He watches Sesshoumaru go. His mouth does not open to call him back, or ask why, or beg him to stay. His eyes watch the door close behind his brother. He thinks about following him. But the big chair smells like Sesshoumaru, and in a moment, he is distracted from his thoughts by his day nurse, Kini. Now she is his only nurse. She used to be Sesshoumaru's nurse, Papa said. She was his nurse now, and she was gentle and kind and made milk like Mama had.


He remembers as Kini comes over to him and lifts him into her arms how Mama had worried to Sesshoumaru's mama that he didn't want to stop feeding from her. Aunt Karesonomaru had laughed, in a kind way and said something that made Mama smile and laugh too.


Kini carries him to the nursery, because it was time for his nap, and so she lay down on the bed with him and unfastenes her blouse and he scoots close to her at once, waiting.


He wouldn't eat at first. After the hospital, after the funeral. After. It was days before Papa remembered that Mama had still fed him, though he ate food too. Papa forgot, he said, that Kin was still little that way. Aunt Kare reminded him, Papa said. So Kini came. And Kini was soft and sweet and she encouraged him gently and before he knew it he was suckling, and hungry.


And now he suckles as she covers him with a light blanket and cuddles him and strokes his hair and sings to him. Pink nestles under his chin and his eyes slowly close. Gradually his milky mouth releases Kini's nipple, and still she stays, holding him as he sleeps. But he does not realize it. He's busy being comfortable and asleep and warm and full.