CLAIMING KIN by Salome and Talon

Intermission: Farewell to 2008!

By Salome and Talon

Warning: Shouta. Smut. Kinks of many varieties. Don’t read it if you don’t want to.

Authors' Note: With busy and crazy end-of-year nonsense filling our lives, we wanted to take a moment to share a little humorous chibi fluff with our wonderful and patient readers. After this chapter, we'll continue where we left off in the narrative (Sesshoumaru will make good on his promise to find a way to keep Kin safe) as 2009 begins. Meanwhile, enjoy this kawaii tidbit. Good Yule and Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and Peaceful Solstice from us to you! Your eyes on our fic is the best gift we could ask for.

Intermission!

Tai is grateful for the relative peace his young son is giving him at the moment. This damned message from a close tanuki tribe is giving him fits. He could hand it off to one of his scribes, but he'd be damned if their little "trick" ink is going to put him off the scent...so to speak. It isn't an attack, or even malicious...the cloying scent of the ink merely got stronger and stronger the longer the scroll stays open. Tai's eyes water, and his determination just intensifies. Damned tricksters. Since it isn't a hostile intention, he won't retaliate as such...but he'll have to come up with something suitable to respond to the subtle playful dig at his overly sensitive nose with. Damn all tanuki and their over-inflated balls...

Sesshoumaru wrinkles his nose at the stink coming from the scroll Papa is reading. He doesn't say anything because he already did say "Yuck" and got a scary glare in response and nothing else. If he says anything else, Papa will likely punish him, and his bottom is already sore from the spanking he got only an hour ago when he tried to climb the high bookcase again and instead pulled down a stack of books and fell hard on his bottom. So, now he is very quiet, his little tongue peeking out of his mouth as he sits on Papa's big desk and folds a little square parchment piece neatly and carefully. Lengthwise…then corners in…and in again…then turn it over and fold it back…now pull out at the edges…and there! A perfect origami hut! His fifteenth now. The puppy heir smiles at his handiwork, a little circle of neat huts along the side of Papa's desk where he isn't working. He is being good and staying where Papa can see him and not getting into mischief.

Tai glances up at Sesshoumaru, a cursory glance, but he is being quiet and clearly occupied, so he turns back to his carefully penned reply. His mate is...unavailable today as she deals with her own clan, and while Sesshoumaru does need to associate with the members of his own family from that side, and often does, this particular meeting is not appropriate for one who has not yet gained complete control over his toxins. And as it also involves matters of delicacy that the pup, at his age, is just not ready for yet... Tai pauses to redip and wipe his brush and to wish, foolishly, for his naughty, precious terror to never grow up. He likes the way the pup can sit on his desk and yet not be at all in his way.

Sesshoumaru carefully tears a few parchment pieces in half and folds them into rough approximations of miniature people. Humans. He scorns them as he makes them. Foolish, weak creatures that live their pitiful little lives. He stands them beside and around the huts and smiles at his handiwork.
Tai's eyes flick to his son's movement, but go back to his parchment. The pup is in no danger of falling...having fallen once today and been punished for his actions would be warning enough, he knows, but also his pup IS graceful beyond his what his youth would suggest. And if he falls, he'll bounce.

Sesshoumaru cocks his head. Something is missing. He strokes his little pointed chin, in obvious emulation of his father, and inspiration strikes. With nimble fingers, he folds an origami cow. And then another. And then something that might be a goat or a mutated cat. He gets up on his knees and looks down on his little village. He moves a hut a bit further to the left. He rights the cow that has tipped over and now won't stay up. He frowns and leans it against a hut. Good enough.

Tai frowns intensely at a phrasing he isn't sure of. There is no dispute, this is a long standing mutual agreement between neighboring tribes, but still, his own words are too...territorial. Damnit. That ink is getting to him. He rubs his forehead and his fur floofs itself and settles. He is going to have to do better than this.

Sesshoumaru slowly gets to his feet, rising smoothly and glaring down at the peaceful little world of folded paper before him. He stretches out his hands, claws extended but poison held back because if he eats another hole in Papa's desk he fears for his young life, and points down silently in accusation, his rage swelling. You have displeased your taiyoukai lord, his narrowed golden eyes and delicately arched brows seem to say. He bares his fangs and hisses softly as he raises a slippered foot and brings it crashing down on the huts and people alike. Then his other foot. And again. He stomps and crashes with glee, delight building as his eyes sparkle and his feet dance. Feel the wrath of Lord Sesshoumaru, the Toxic Terror!

Tai startles and not only blobs ink all over the parchment he was writing on but tears a long rip in it with his brush at the first stomp. Teeth already out he looks up at his pup, who is stomping around on the end of his desk for no apparent reason, and barks, "SESSHOUMARU, WHAT IN ALL HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

Sesshoumaru digs his graceful but forceful heel into an innocent bovine and grinds, then freezes in place at Papa's BIG-SCARY voice. His heart stops, then hammers so hard he dares not breathe. The smile drops from his face and his hands halt in mid-air. Oh no.

Tai takes a deep, slow breath. He is not going to lose control, he is the alpha here...he is in charge and entirely under control. Yes. "Sesshoumaru." He pauses, stands and looks at where his child is...was previously...stomping. Crushed paper...somethings...is that a monkey? "What on earth are you DOING?"

Sesshoumaru at last flops down onto the desk in a squatting position, letting his head drop. After a big sigh and in an utterly defeated, quiet little voice, he answers his lord father in a long string of toneless words: "I was destroying the worthless human village for daring to disobey the mighty and toxic Lord Sesshoumaru."

Tai reaches over and picks up the least smushed of the huts and examines it. And sighs. "Your origami has improved a great deal I see, O Mighty and Toxic Lord Sesshoumaru." He scruffs the pup and pulls him into his lap, sitting back in his big chair. "So...how did they disobey your might, my exceptionally toxic terror?"

Sesshoumaru smiles at Papa's indulgence. He bites his lip, thinking. "They pulled down bookshelves and used stinky ink," he says, and nuzzles under his father's chin. From his incomparably safe, happy position on Papa's big lap, he tips up his face and adds, "If I make some more and put them on the floor, we can crush the rebellion together."

Tai grins, and leans down to kiss that impish nose, even as one hand pushes the offending scroll away. "I think that is an excellent idea Sesshoumaru. None may stand against the might of Powerful and Mighty Dog Lords, yes?"

~ ~ ~ a generation or so later… ~ ~ ~

Sesshoumaru would like to tip the ink all over the damned treaty. He would ponder the unfairness of it all, wonder why his Lord Father forces him to handle the treaties of fools like the tanuki, but there is no need. The scent is hideous, cloying. It seems to stick inside his nostrils and under his eyelids. But Sesshoumaru refuses to submit. He unrolls further to the spaces in which his name must be inked to signify that he has read and understood the terms the tribe is proposing. Then he will pen his reply on a fresh scroll, as is the tradition between their peoples. He pauses to allow the poison in his tears to combat the tanuki musk in his eyes, then blinks a few times and looks down at his pup. Kin is quietly and contentedly playing as he sits on Sesshoumaru's enormous desk.

He sneezes occasionally from the smell of the scrolls, but he's used to it now. He rubs his little nose on his kimono sleeve, his tongue clamped between his teeth. The first three, he didn't fold right. This one he focuses everything on, his fingers folding, then drawing down the seam so it is tight, folding, turning...he knows the motions, it is making his chubby and often clumsy fingers do it RIGHT that is the challenge. But he knows he can do this, because he has made this before.

Sesshoumaru frowns imperceptibly at the way his boy dirties his clothes rather than using the little pieces of soft cloth he always has available for wiping everything from noses to behinds. He then returns to his document, writing the characters for his name with a flourish. He loves the way his name looks in ink and always has. From the first time he took up brush he had a flair for it. He contemplates dripping a little poison into the ink to pay the tanuki back for their "gift," but knows that would result only in the parchment having a big hole in it.

Kin turns it over and smiles happily. It looks exactly right. He sniffs and sneezes again and places his final effort a little bit away from the others. He shifts, squatting, feet together, hands on his knees as he prepares to test it.

Sesshoumaru blows on the ink to dry it and only succeeds in enhancing the tanuki scent. He grabs another piece of parchment and blots the document, much against his preferences as it blurs the edges of his perfect signature. Damned tanuki.

Very slowly he puts his finger out, pushes down on the back end and...it hops!! His origami frog hops just like it is supposed to!! He hops it again, and frog-hops after it. Frog hop...Kin hop...frog hop...Kin hop. He did it!!

Sesshoumaru looks up at Kin…bouncing on the table on his hands and feet, chasing a little rumpled wad of paper… What the hell?

He doesn't hear the crash as Sesshoumaru's seal hits the floor because he's busy pouncing and DEVOURING his prey!!! It doesn't matter that he spent almost an hour meticulously folding squares of paper to get this one just right to make a hopping frog...it is now his prey. Rawr. He shakes his head back and forth, ears flapping as he makes his gruesome kill.

"KIN," Sesshoumaru says in a commanding voice that is as close to a shout as the youkai ever allows himself to get. "WHAT IN ALL HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

He freezes, his ears flat, and then slowly turns his head towards Onii, now mangled, formerly perfect origami frog firmly in his teeth. "Ea-in ah roguh," he says around his mouthful in a small, muffled puppy voice.

Sesshoumaru groans and attempts to pull the mangled parchment clump from the boy's drooling jaws. Perhaps there is a sensible answer in the boy somewhere, but he doubts it.

Kin growls and clamps his teeth down, but it is a purely instinctual reaction, and he realizes his misbehavior and releases the frog before Onii has to do more than show disapproval in his scent.

Sesshoumaru enjoys the little moment of resistance more than he should. Of course, Kin must never be anything but obedient and submissive to him, but he does love that feral side. Still. The boy is wrestling paper. He holds it up by a soggy corner. "Well, it's dead now. What was it when it was 'alive'?"

His ears still down, and his head and eyes down as well, he says sadly, "Was a frog. A hopping frog Kin made. It hopped. And then Kin hopped. And the frog hopped. And Kin hopped after it. And then, and then..." he starts to get excited, but remembers he is in disgrace. "And then Kin hunted and eated the frog only he did not finish so there will be no hoppy in Kin's belly."

Sesshoumaru listens to the little broken narrative. His stern brow softens. Nodding gently, his free hand strokes Kin's shaggy head, then tips his chin up as he holds out the little moist "frog" to his boy. "Onii is sorry he stole Kin's prey. Do you still wish to eat it, or shall Onii make you a new, hoppier one?"

His ears come up a bit. "Onii makes hoppy frogs?" A frog made by Onii...anything for that matter that involved Onii...would automatically be better than one he made himself. He takes the formerly hoppy frog gently in his teeth and spits it into his hand then sets it aside.

"Oh yes, pup," Sesshoumaru says, scooping the little predator into his lap. He reaches around him to grab some of the cut sheets of parchment. "In fact, I know something even better than frog eating." His eyes sparkle as he turns Kin's face up to his. "How would my precious pup like to stomp a whole village?"

His delighted smile is HUGE as he bumps his head up under Onii's chin and says happily, "Onii must have what Onii wishes!"