you cleaned up, found jesus, things are good or so i hear

[phosphor]

The soup broth in the pot steams heavily as Rin turns down the temperature before adding the last few ingredients, the noodles that just need cooked through, and the fresh vegetables that just need wilted, more than anything. He gives it a few stirs, before checking the large digital clock magnet stuck to the door of the fridge. It smells perfect, which is just as well. It is, more or less, an offering to appease the other person in Rin's little apartment, though he's far from consciously realizing it.

It's just cold out, and InuYasha is just arrived, and he needs a good meal if he plans on sleeping outside, and for that matter, up a tree.

Rin doesn't really get it, but you can't really argue with InuYasha. He's already figured that one out.

He'd let him wander and do whatever he wanted in the apartment when they'd first arrived, and it's only now, when the food is just on the edge of being done, that he decides he can start asking the questions that are really on his mind. He doesn't really know how to cut in, or even what to ask first, so he just gets the bowls out of the cupboard and gives InuYasha a long, strangled look of insecurity. He wishes he could come up with any kind of reasonable gameplan.

"You really didn't like it when that train station attendant knew your name," he says, almost wincingly. He's pretty sure he'll get a sarcastic answer back, but it's the only place he knows to start with.

Comments

[distrustful]

His stomach twists, though InuYasha doesn't want to call attention to it. It's been a very long time since he's been in such a state where descending into his youkai form has been necessary, and he has no desire to revisit the experience, although he knows fully well that it's not something he can purge from himself, not with the demon blood in his heritage. The key is just being careful.

"Everyone is capable of evil. Everyone is capable of losing their minds. A full human has no smaller capacity for that than a hanyou, even if the way that it happens is different. Even if the way it looks is different. But would a human guardian not tear a threat to pieces for the sake of saving their child?" InuYasha raises a brow. "Would a human not drive a blade into another to keep from being killed? We try to be careful in different ways. We train ourselves so that we don't lose to the monster inside of each of us. I black out too. If I'm close to death and no seals hold me back... you wouldn't recognize me."

He nods his head back, pointing towards Tessaiga. "You can borrow my sword if you want to practice. It should suppress your demon energy when it gets to that level."

[phosphor]

"Oi, oi," Rin says rudely, suddenly focusing in on a specific part of the conversation, roused to standing on his own stool, bowl of soup in one hand and chopsticks pointing meaningfully at InuYasha's sword in the other.

"That rusty old katana has a name?" he asks, incredulous, before finding the salient point that InuYasha has made.

"It can suppress a demon's powers? I've never heard of a sword like that. That's amazing. All mine can do is release mine. They're totally the opposite!"

[distrustful]

"Sit down," InuYasha says, loud to try and pull Rin back to some level of attention. The kid gets carried away with his excitement, making him seem even younger than before — or maybe more importantly, less sensible.

"It has a name. And it has youki of its own," he adds, setting down his chopsticks and crossing his arms over his chest. "If a sword has its own energy, it makes sense to name it, right? It was made out of my oyaji's fang, and part of my own. Oyaji wanted to keep humans safe, so the sword only works when it's protecting humans. That's why it suppresses youki before it gets murderous. It goes against what the sword was forged for."

[phosphor]

Rin sits down immediately, dropping back into his seated crouch on the stool and putting his bowl on the table, He shoves it away from the edge before giving InuYasha his very best attentive student face. He usually reserves it for Bon.

His attention wavers slightly in the middle as he lifts a hand to press his thumb against the backward curve of his own long canine, giving it an experimental wiggle. Swords could be made out of a thing like that?

"Your dad wanted to keep humans safe?" he asks, still half-distracted as he slides from the stool to grab Kurikara from where he set it when he got in. He slips the red fabric off to hold the pretty thing on both hands, quickly unsheathing it from the saya. He takes a small breath at the feeling of it, like someone's just opened all the windows in a stuffy room.

"You see what I mean?" Rin asks.

[distrustful]

"He loved my mother," InuYasha says, hooking his feet on the rest of the stool and turning as he watches Rin dart off for his sword. He folds his arms neatly on top of his lap, narrowing his eyes to watch the blade get pulled from its sheath.

It releases a strong amount of youki, like a sudden wave passing through the room, causing the hair at the nape of InuYasha's neck to stand on end.

"It doesn't do anything for me," he points out, lifting his legs to cross them under him while seated on the stool. "I can feel it, and I can tell that it's alive, but it won't make me any stronger. Feels like you, though. Like a part of your body that got separated."

[phosphor]

Leaving the sword unsheathed for the moment, Rin rests it against his hip, considering InuYasha. It's a really tight spot. Even Rin, simple as he might be, knows that it isn't wise to tell someone, anyone, what he knows about the maken. It's Rin's greatest weakness. On the other hand, he's alsp clever enough to have figured something else out: that some day, someone might need to stop him in his tracks.

In Darrow, he can't count on that someone to be a classmate, or even Yukio. Rukia might be it, but even then, there's something about InuYasha that even Rukia doesn't quite touch.

Even though InuYasha himself warned Rin about making assumptions just because they're of a background, in part.

"It's my heart. My demon heart is in the sword. I don't really get it, but ... maybe this sword and that sword are kind of alike. But it's not the blade that keeps me from running wild. It's this sheathe."

He holds it up, before flipping it in his palm to point the end at InuYasha, so that he can take it. Maybe he can tell Rin something, anything, more than Rin himself understands. Maybe not.

It's worth a shot. He's never had a better one.

[distrustful]

"Tessaiga isn't my heart. It's forged out of part of me and my oyaji, but I don't need it to survive," InuYasha clarifies from the get-go. He doesn't want comparisons to be drawn too closely between the two of them, not because he doesn't want to be associated with Rin, but instead because the differences are key. He doesn't have to worry about someone taking Tessaiga and destroying him by snapping it, or something along those lines.

Which makes a world of a difference.

Staring briefly up at Rin, InuYasha takes the offered sheath and balances it in his hands. It's uncomfortable to touch, thrumming against his skin, the feel of it slightly nauseating. Most of the scent, however, has been covered by Rin's. And maybe another man besides him. There's blood in the wood, he knows that much.

"There's a seal on this thing. Your youki... it's trapped in the sword. It gets further suppressed by the sheath. It's like someone's keeping your power locked up deep inside and wants to make it hard to get out. I think you could extract your heart if you wanted." He holds the sheath back out, his skin slightly paler than before. "Do you know who put it in there? Do you trust that person?"

[phosphor]

"It was my dad," Rin admits, hand tightening around his sword's grip as he grinds his jaw together. "My real dad, the guy who raised me. Fujimoto Shiro. He was an exorcist. They called him the Paladin, the strongest exorcist in the church. He sealed my powers into that sword. The seal held completely for fifteen years, but then it started to wear down. He couldn't do anything to make it stronger. And he's dead now."

Rin breathes, relaxing his grip again. He stares down the length of himself, feeling weirdly standoutish all of a sudden, sort of surreal, standing in his apartment lit up like Christmas.

"I was never supposed to unsheathe the sword, I think. That wasn't part of my dad's plan. But I don't know what it was, and now the only one I can ask is my brother. And that's ... even if he were here, he wouldn't tell me. He doesn't think I'm ready to know half the shit I need to know."

[distrustful]

Relieved of the seal on the sheath, InuYasha turns slightly towards the counter again, listening intently even as he works on the remaining noodles, not wanting them to go cold. His habit with grief is to ignore it. Shove it violently to the side, lest it slow him down. But he's started to learn recently that not everyone is the same way, and given all that he's heard of Rin's background so far, he has to wonder if Rin's ever been given the type of attention that his personality so clearly demands.

Then again, Rin acts more or less human. And usually that's only the result of someone's nurturing.

Maybe that father he lost.

Licking the salt off his lips, InuYasha turns on the stool, bowl resting against the palm of his hand. "Life doesn't wait for people to be ready. You have to know, in case things like this happen. Your brother's not with you. He can't protect you all the time, he can't be with you all the time." He stares down into his bowl, picking out a remaining shred of pork. "But at least he wants to look out after you."

[phosphor]

Rin sheathes Kurikara again, setting the sword aside against the kitchen island before moving to put his bowl and chopsticks into the sink. He's already thinking about what's in the fridge that he can send with InuYasha as a bento, half out of genuine concern and half for the pure joy he gets out of arranging them.

"Of course I know all that," Rin snaps, before his voice softens again, an almost shy smile on his lips. "And of course he looks out for me. I look out for him, too. We're brothers, aren't we?"

[distrustful]

InuYasha shivers briefly at the swirl of energy in the room, tiny bluebell flames seeming to sink directly back into Rin's face as the sheath slides back over the blade. Sneezing, InuYasha raises the bowl and tilts it back, shoveling the rest of its contents into his mouth, only just managing to chew with his mouth closed before he leans over to place the bowl and chopsticks into Rin's sink.

After swallowing, InuYasha stands up from the stool, making his way over to Rin's couch and nestling himself in a corner, already slightly drowsy from all the food.

"I have an older brother. He spent well over a century trying to find and kill me. I suppose he is a demon, though."

[phosphor]

Rin follows slowly, lingering in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room with one hand gripped around the opposite elbow. He's not exactly expecting to hear such a gloomy and depressing story, but maybe he should've been. He only makes his way over once he's stamped down his desire to say something dumb. Some useless platitude, or something else too ill-advised and too compassionate for a guy like InuYasha probably wants.

"My brother's human," he decides on, perching himself on the arm of the opposite side of the couch, tail making agitated swishes behind him from where it lays along the seat of the couch.

"We're twins, but he didn't inherit any of the demonic energy. He's different from me."

[distrustful]

"My brother's a full youkai. He hates me because our father died trying to defend my mother, something that Sesshoumaru sees as beneath him," InuYasha shares, expression as relaxed now as it can be. He's had enough time to mourn the loss of his mother. Enough time to get used to being looked down upon by his brother. And he never had a father in the first place.

There are worse things, he thinks, than any of the above.

"But different, not different, does it really matter? So he can't do the same things you can. It's not that which matters most. A youkai can live as a human. A human can be as wretched as the worst youkai. If there's a difference, that's because you're living life like there is. Is that what you want to do?"

[phosphor]

Rin hangs his head a little in thought, hiding behind the black curtain of his bangs for a moment before trying to come up with some kind of coherent answer for InuYasha. It's not that talking about Yukio is hard.

No, it is, actually.

"I thought that we were the same, but then it turned out to be a lie. So maybe it's still a lie. We're different. Even if I don't want that to be true, we're different. Not because of what I am."

He gives a helpless shrug before remembering something else, at InuYasha's description of his brother, someone called Sesshoumaru. "But Yukio's not my only brother, actually," he realizes, only belatedly, with a slightly horrified expression. "I have two more. But they're full demons. The older one is Samael, he's our legal guardian. He works for the church, in a pretty high position. I don't know what his deal is. The other is ... Amaimon. The younger one. He just wants to beat the shit out of me. First, I think he did it for fun. Now he's just pissed I stomped him."

[distrustful]

"A youkai's pride can be easily stomped on," InuYasha says, unsurprised at the story that Rin shares, even though his shoulders tense with the desire of kicking a lesson into the asshole. He can't even keep track of all of the times a full youkai has come at InuYasha without pause, thinking that he could be stomped on.

And most who were defeated but released would come back for more.

"Having a blood relation doesn't mean much to me. Sometimes, humans tell me that I should care... but they don't know what it's like to be in my position," he adds, frowning down at his feet. "Sesshoumaru doesn't bother with me anymore, though. Decided I wasn't worth his effort anymore." Glancing up, he meets cool blue eyes with warm gold. "If Amaimon arrives here, you let me know. I can fend him off."

[phosphor]

Rin flatly doesn't care either; at least, he doesn't think he does, except in Yukio's case. He would just as soon forget Amaimon exists, and Satan, he only wants to have the justice of defeating him with his own two hands.

But InuYasha's offer turns him slightly red in the face, his hand on the arm of the couch gripping the fabric tightly as his tail lifts in surprise. He stares down the length of the couch at InuYasha, brows knit and expression contorted. He's a little confused about how to feel about it. On the one hand, Rin doesn't like the idea that he can't beat Amaimon back on his own. But realistically, Mephisto's already showed him exactly how poorly he stacks up to a real Ba'al. Instead, he's left with a weird, indescribable feeling of appreciation. InuYasha's offering something Rin's never really had a lot of people offer. It had really only been ... really only ever been his dad, and Yukio, and Shiemi. An offer to protect him.

"You're ... that strong, huh?" Rin asks, not disbelieving. He exuded a complete confidence, not the barking that Rin and Amaimon did, like he was on a whole other level.

[distrustful]

"I don't know," InuYasha returns flatly, wanting to be clear. The only facts that he knows about Amaimon don't help him gauge the demon's strength very well — an explosive temper, a tendency to hold a grudge, a love of violence, all things that can be enjoyed as much by a low-level demon as a daiyoukai. But he does know that Rin was able to best the demon once, which leaves InuYasha hopeful.

There are things that can take the demon by surprise.

"But I would want to try, anyway, and I'm stronger than I look. I'm stronger when I protect people, too." He shifts, finding a warmer position on the couch.

[phosphor]

Watching InuYasha shift on the sofa to press more of his body against the warm cushions somehow makes Rin feel a little groggy as well, maybe because InuYasha is finally looking comfortable, rather than a little standoffish. He tries to hide a lionish yawn behind the palm of his hand, blinking away the tired before standing on the couch to jump off, landing with a soft, boyish stumble.

"How do you get stronger ... when you protect people?" Rin wonders. It might be figurative, but he immediately takes it to a literal place "You can stay here for a while if you want to rest. I want to make you a meal to go before you leave. Just some rice and pickled vegetables and breaded chicken or something."

[distrustful]

When Rin yawns, InuYasha fights off the impulse to do the same in turn, frowning as he shifts yet again on the couch to keep his blood flowing. He watches, curiously, as Rin heads back towards the kitchen, presumably to make him yet another meal. It's an alarming amount of patience and care paid to someone who was a total stranger only hours ago.

InuYasha wonders what enables Rin to muster up such an effort.

"You've already made one meal for me," InuYasha says, wrinkling his nose as he rubs at the back of his neck. "You don't need to make another. I don't know what you're getting out of it. Unless you really like to cook."

Crossing his legs, InuYasha stifles another yawn, leaning heavily against the back of the couch.

"I get stronger when I protect people because... I'm not fighting for myself anymore. There's more at stake. If I let myself go, it sucks, but that's all there is. Losing other people or seeing them hurt, I'd have to live through it."

[phosphor]

Rin lingers in the doorway, studying InuYasha for a long minute before giving a gentle shrug, face blossoming into a smile like a pleased cat's.

"It's like I said, it makes me happy to know that people are somewhere enjoying the food I cooked. And anyway, I'm used to living alone with my little brother for months now The cafeteria where we were going to school was way overpriced because it was for those kinds of students, normally, so I bought all the groceries and cooked the meals at home I'm so used to making enough for two people that it just comes second nature ... and it ends up piling up in the fridge as uneaten leftovers if I don't pawn it off on someone."

He gives a nervous laugh, before waving the topic away sheepishly, tail waving gently for the fond thought of Yukio.

"But I think I know what you mean. It doesn't make me any stronger. Protecting people I care about, I mean. But it makes me more careful. Makes me able to do things more conscientiously than I would, otherwise. More gets done that way. When I use my strength," Rin says, fondly quoting his father's oft-repeated words to him. "For a gentler purpose."

He thinks he's finally getting the idea of it.

[distrustful]

The kid speaks with more thought and care than Shippou, but InuYasha still fails to see for certain that Rin's any more talented. If anything, his bold statements make InuYasha slightly nervous in the same way that a dog might its litter, trailing around after a rambunctious puppy to make sure it doesn't stumble across something or somewhere that's too much to handle.

He understands that Rin has high ambitious, but without enough of the instinct to drive his decisions, InuYasha wonders if the kid might be best keeping his sentimentality in the kitchen, where it seems to be put to good use. It's hard imagining that normally, there's even one more kid like him walking around, liable to stir twice the trouble.

His expression remains carefully neutral through all of his thoughts, eyes only focusing on Rin after noticing a fair amount of movement.

"Your tail gives away how you're feeling," InuYasha bluntly points out.

[phosphor]

"O-oi," Rin yelps, turning pink at the comment and staring behind himself to grasp at the sleek black wriggle of his own tail behind him, looking a little awkwardly like someone fishing for an eel. The look he gives it is enough to make it obvious that Rin is giving it a chastising; as if it's its own entity. It does certainly have a mind of its own.

"What's wrong with that?" he asks InuYasha, more defensive than upset or aggravated. He's had enough sideways comments about it all from Shura to last a lifetime. "It's a part of me. It's more comfortable when it hangs out however. Hiding it makes me feel awkward and weird and uncomfortable, and like I can't balance. It's just not happening. I don't know what else anyone wants from me."

[distrustful]

"I didn't say that you had to hide it," InuYasha points out, his eyes heavily lidded as he moves his ears, purposely calling attention to them. If he cared about things like appearance for appearance's sake, he'd surely be wearing a hat around everywhere in the city. He'd probably cut his hair. His nails. Blend in a little more with humans to avoid receiving an odd look every time he walks down the street.

But he'd rather avoid people more often than compromise the skin he's comfortable in.

"Just that it's giving away everything you're feeling. Like you can't control the damn thing. Your face does it, too, but the tail's more obvious. Like it's a monkey's tail or something."

[phosphor]

Rin gives an awkward look at InuYasha's ears, one that manages not to be a glare mostly because of a quiet curiosity. It's not like he's weirder. He has no room to be weird about something like that. It's just that InuYasha's is an attitude that he's really not been approached with before.

He drops his tail, which droops, before the end twitches in aggravation, just as InuYasha had said it would, easily broadcasting Rin's thoughts and moods. "Monkey, monkey, monkey!" he grouses. "Why is it always 'stupid monkey.' Do I look like a monkey to you? Why can't it ever be something fierce and scary, like a tiger. I'm a tiger," he decides, trying to make his point with a set of bared fangs. It might even have worked, maybe on someone not InuYasha, but Rin accompanies it with a pair of gentle hands with blunt fingernails, curled into paws, to emphasize the point.

[distrustful]

InuYasha watches distantly through Rin's complaints and attempts to make himself more fearsome, all of which only end up giving him the air of a yapping fox rather than a fearsome tiger.

"Have you ever met a tiger? They sleep most hours of the day," InuYasha says, yawning at Rin and more than a little ware that it might end up only aggravating the kid further. The prospect doesn't scare InuYasha, though; if anything, he finds the indignation amusing. For some level of amusing.

"They reserve their energy for when they really need it instead of expressing everything. Being able to hide how you're feeling can be helpful, you know. I'm not the best at it, but K—" He pauses, frowning. "But I know some people who were."

[phosphor]

"I sleep most of the day when I can get away with it, too," Rin admits a little bashfully. The longer he's been stuck with this body of his after the night their dad died, the more he's realizing he's just not totally human anymore, and demons are meant to be active at night, not during the day. It leaves him half-braindead in the mornings and full of restless energy when he ought to be in bed already for an early day at school. Part of him wonders if he's not just playing around and pretending at normal by going to school at all.

The other part of him knows those feelings are exactly why he has to keep going.

He stares blankly down at his open palms for a few seconds before mustering his concentration on stilling the movement of his tail, no matter what he's thinking. He's truly doubtful he'll be able to be the cool and aloof type like Yukio and Suguro. But it's worth practicing every once in a while.

"You stopped in the middle of saying a name," Rin observes, although he doesn't push the issue. "I should make you your bento. You should feel free to stop in any time you want, okay? And I'll get you some more and you can rest on the couch."

[distrustful]

InuYasha bristles at having his slip pointed out, though when Rin lets it go without any further pushing, he relaxes again with a disgruntled look.

More than anything, Rin confuses him. Truly, deeply. For all that InuYasha's suffered prejudice from surrounding parties longer than Rin has, Rin has something that InuYasha never had to deal with — a sharp change from one life to the other. Going from a comfortable and seemingly loving family life to suddenly pushed and pulled around by people who only see what he is rather than who. InuYasha knows that it'd piss him off. Probably trigger an unhealthy temper.

With Rin, there are little bursts of frustration, like puffs of smoke, before he calms down and becomes just a kid again.

Maybe that's it. Kids. Resilient.

"You want me to visit, don't you?" InuYasha asks, his ears twitching again. "It's not just an open door. You're practically waving me in."

[phosphor]

"What's wrong with that?" Rin asks, suddenly on the defensive, as he folds his arms across his chest and turns his face to the side, avoiding InuYasha's gold eyes. In the wake of their conversation, the complete stillness is pointed. He may as well not be trying to keep it that way at all.

"So what if I want you to visit? I'm just showing solidarity and goodwill and whatever. It's December, after all. It's gonna be Christmas soon. People shouldn't be all alone at this time of year."

[distrustful]

Back and forth, back and forth — Rin's emotions seem to volley in either direction, faster than InuYasha can follow. It's enough to exasperate someone with twice his patience, but with his stomach full of food and warmth in his bones, InuYasha can't muster the energy to mind. Knowing what Rin is, he'd be looking after the kid, anyway.

He's not sure the kid's smart enough to handle it on his own.

"I don't care about Christmas, or about winter," he clarifies first, not wanting the sentimentality, even as his expression softens. "But I'll come back to visit. Stop yapping about it."

[phosphor]

Rin's mood is as easily lifted as it was dropped, his face brightening again. Knowing that InuYasha might not mind coming back again, even without the bribe, is impossibly relieving for reasons Rin can't even identify, and is happy enough to let be without question.