DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN INUYASHA AND CO., NOR DO I MAKE MONEY OFF THIS.
This one shot is for Priestess Skye for MomoDesu's Holiday Exchange, Merry Christmas.
Thank you to Possessed for beta-ing.
Yum... Choc-o-late
This was not good.
Kagome had come from work to a house playing Christmas carols, a fire roaring in the hearth, and a husband sitting in a wingback chair drinking something from a mug.
'Please don't let it be cocoa. Please don't let it be cocoa,' was the mantra that played in her mind as she crossed the room to her wayward husband. She had not seen him in two months due to his expanding business.
The closer she got to the silver-haired inu-youkai, the more the air filled with the undisputable aroma of chocolate. His mug had the incriminating small white puffs floating in it. 'Marshmallows too? This cannot be good.'
Kagome had known her husband for over ten years and while that is a drop in a bucket to the length of a youkai's lifetime, she had devoted all of her available energy to studying the stoic being since their first meeting. The male quickly stole her heart and soul and she had intrigued the normally apathetic youkai.
So while Kagome by no means could claim to know what was going on positively behind the amber orbs, she knew the chocolate, the marshmallows, and the corny music added up to one upset tai-youkai. The question was; what was the source of his malcontent.
"Welcome home, Sesshoumaru."
"Hn."
The smile that Kagome had forced upon her face now faltered. It was she. She was the cause of his chocolate debauchery. He reminded her so much of his younger brother, wait... sorry, his moronic, idiotic, disgraceful, younger half-brother.
Well, if it had not been for Inuyasha, she and Mr. I-Am-Going-To-Get-Drunk-On-Cocoa would never have met. A small giggle escaped her throat as she remembered the silliness of her younger self.
Inuyasha had (and still did) run a comicbook store close to her high school. Kagome had thought that he constantly came to work in cosplay, and it had been the furry white puppy dog-ears on the top of his head that had launched Kagome into her first full-blown crush. She had pestered the hanyou and followed him nonstop, until he had given her a job within the store. He figured that she was there often enough (and neurotically organizing his shelves) that it made sense to pay her.
After the relationship of employer/employee had been established between the two, Kagome's crush morphed itself into a deep-rooted friendship. It had been that friendship that was the driving force behind her placing herself between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru the summer before she entered college.
Sesshoumaru had heard of his brother's antics of removing his illusionary spell at work and had come to confront him. Instead, what he got was a lecture from a raven-haired woman-child about how this was a free market and his moronic half-brother was allowed to use any legal promotional gimmick that he wanted to in order to increase revenue. Staring into the sapphire eyes of the 5'2" female, the Lord of the West was struck by the odd combination of naïveté and fire.
It was at that moment that Sesshoumaru decided that his half sibling did not deserve to have such a pleasant-smelling and loyal employee. To correct the cosmic mistake he offered the freshly graduated high school student an internship within his company. Imagine his surprise when he was turned down. Seriously, his internships were the equivalent of the holy grail within the up and coming business students. Needless to say, that is how Sesshoumaru found himself spending time within his half-brother's dank little shop with more frequency.
About two years after their first meeting, Kagome had begun dating some guy from her college after falling to the pressure of her girlfriends. When Sesshoumaru found out his reaction had been swift. He demanded that she break up with the "boy" for she was his and they would be married before the end of the week so that the rest of the world would know to whom she belonged.
Kagome had agreed to breaking up with the guy but she refused to marry a man who did not respect her enough to date her and then ask if she wanted to marry him. Yet again, the miko had refused an offer from the great Sesshoumaru-sama that anyone else would have sold their soul for him to ask them.
It was in their few years of dating that Sesshoumaru had discovered the miko's, born and raised on a Shinto Shrine no less, strange affinity for celebrating Christmas. She had stated that any holiday that encouraged giving gifts and gathering with family and friends was a good one and she would honor it. It was also during this time that both discovered how inebriated cocoa made Sesshoumaru.
Yes, the great and mighty tai-youkai of the West, Sesshoumaru master of emotions and control, Sesshoumaru master of poisons, could not master the effects that cocoa had on his body. Give the dog a cup of hot chocolate and he became no better than the Christmas party lush.
"How was your trip?" Kagome did not want to ask what she had done to upset him with in the first few hours of his arrival back home.
The male, none too gracefully, turned his head from the fire to her and then threw a red bow at her. Kagome had to strain to catch the wrapping accessory because her flawless husband's aim was off.
"Explain." He gestured towards the bow.
"Well, people usually put these," holding up the bow, "on wrapped gifts to make them look nicer." Really, where was he going with this?
"This Sesshoumaru found everyone else's 'gifts' neatly wrapped in the closet." His words were beginning to slur. "However, all you got for this Sesshoumaru was that... that frivolity with his name attached to it." He spilled some cocoa from the mug when he emphasized the insignificance of the bow.
Kagome sighed. He thought that she had gotten him nothing and was now sulking like a spoiled brat. "Your gift was not the bow, Sesshoumaru." He cocked an eyebrow while tilting his head. The look on the normally stoic face made Kagome half expect his tongue to come lolling out his mouth.
She responded to his unspoken question by placing the bow over her lower abdomen and said, "This is your present."
Sesshoumaru snorted, "You got this Sesshoumaru a used gift."
"Excuse me?!"
The still sulking tai-youkai paid no mind to the threat in his wife's voice. "You cannot deny that what you offer this Sesshoumaru has been used before."
"You are so in the dog house-"
"Yes, this is my house and I am a dog."
"Arg. Well, good luck being able to use your 'gift' any time soon." Kagome was so mad that she was tempted to not tell him that what he had assumed was the gift was wrong. "And, you know that you are the only one to ever use this 'gift.'"
"It is still used."
"You arrogant, self-centered, prissy dog. I was going to surprise you tomorrow morning with the news that I am pregnant. Do you have any idea how hard it was to find a safe spell to use to cover up the scent of it? The hours I spent within the dusty archives of your father. No, you do not care. You just wanted to act like a drunken fool call your wife 'used!'"
Kagome turned to leave, but was immediately spun around and a silver growth attached to her stomach. Sesshoumaru pressed his ear to her belly and could faintly hear the beating of his pup's heart. He turned his head up and gave his very angry wife a drunken smile. He moved before she could react to secure his lips to hers while releasing the thrum of a very contented growl.
As he began to remove her clothing, she pushed him back. "Have you forgotten that you called me 'used?'"
Sesshoumaru let out a whine. When that did not work, he moved onto other tactics. "Did this Sesshoumaru say used? Well...
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AN: I hope you enjoyed. I thought it would fun for everyone to imagine a drunken Sesshoumaru trying to talk his way out of this one on their own.
emmaren