Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Everybody Wants Her ❯ Chapter Fifteen - Wish Your Blankets Were Sky Blue ( Chapter 15 )

A/N: Oh lordy lordy lordy look at this. Fifteen chapters. I've never written a fanfic this long, though an original I'm busting out exceeds this thing by far. But it sucks, and I'm hoping that this ficcy doesn't. I'm certainly working hard. Anyway, I'm sorry it hasn't reached you in a very timely fashion, but it's here, rejoice in its hereness!

This chapter involves more made up stuff about the curse. The concept's tweaked a tad, but I have Raikune to thank for it, she's the one who came up with the fabulous summoning idea. But it was my idea to make it painful, so it's not a total rip-off! Anyway, all hail Raikune and her awesome ideas!

So yes, me shutting up and you reading on to the fic is probably in order. Enjoy!

 

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Everybody Wants Her

Chapter Fifteen - Wish Your Blankets Were Sky Blue

 

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Listen.

Hatori's head snaps up, neck smarting from the jarring way he's moved. The word comes at him like a song on full blast, some irritating chanting thing. It gets louder in his head, thrumming with a pulse that drowns out everything, the buzz of cicadas and the radiator's shaking are dead to him right now. It's intense, a burden in his brain and it commands him, listen.

Listen for what?

Screaming, primal in the night, trailing into choky tears, raspy agony and keening. He is calling for you.

Feel, the voice says, and Hari's right leg shatters, pain breathing through him as he grips the wall and walks. “This isn't me,” he mutters, “there is nothing wrong with me.” But the pain says otherwise, Hari's nerves and closed-off self all scream for safety, beg for him to seek relief. Feel! shrieks the voice, on and on in his ears and he's got everything, Akito's agony all in his hands. It kills him just to keep on moving, Hari feels like he's fallen apart, died in his office but it isn't him, it's Akito. This is how he knows that he is needed.

This kind of empathy doesn't strike him often. If it did he'd be a wreck, bedridden and bloated with morphine, totally unable to take on Aki as a patient. It's only when the situation's critical, when Akito is very close to death that Hari feels him, that the whole Sohma's rocking with his pain. Hari gets it the worse but as he staggers out and wills it's passing, he hears Yuki's high-pitched crying from another room. Tohru rushes out, baby in her arms and she's frantic, not a clue what's going on. “Is everything okay?” she asks, shifting Taeko as she twists and howls.

“F-fine…” gasps Hari, lungs flooding but it's fading, he'll be fine because he isn't stuck with this.

“I heard somebody scream though…it sounded like Yuki-kun…it wasn't um, Akito didn't go in and…well he and I got into a bit of a fight, I hope he didn't take it out on him…” Poor Tohru's eyes flick nervously, feeling guilty and deranged. She has no idea what Aki's capable of, she thinks she does and what she knows just scares her more. Tohru trembles, Tohru nearly breaks down at the very thought. But Hari stands up ramrod straight, grins at her as he feels the heat drain out of him, as Akito's fever leaves.

“It is Akito, in a way, but it's nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he says. “It's just an unfortunate detail of the curse. I should go take care of it.”

“Take care of what?” she asks, confused and clutching Taeko tighter, wondering if she should go and see to Yuki-kun, face the awkwardness of hanging out with someone relatively normal. Hari doesn't want to answer her, doesn't want to cause the girl concern. But she's sputtering, starting to spaz, and Hari thinks she'll just go nuts not knowing. Then it hits him, he hasn't anything to tell, or time. He's got a lead to follow though, a wispy chain of weakness pulling at him, tugging.

He is calling for you.

“I'm sorry Tohru,” he says, “but I really can't talk right now.”

And so he brushes past her, scrambles out the door to save his dear and dying god.

 

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Akito's unbroken leg struggles up to pull him fetal, limbs not getting that he's safe now, that the monster mutineer is gone. Even his brain can't seem to just accept it, every sound's Kyo coming back to cause him pain. Right now he can't quite process what's occurred, he's still not sure if he deserved it. Right now he can't consider if he wants to die, if it'd be better just to lay in wait for it. All that he can do is call for him, keep blaring out the Sohma signal with all the strength he has.

What he does is stretch his mental arms to find them, send his illness on a line to Hatori. He knows the pain's seeping out into the others, but that idea just gets him grinning, he likes for them to suffer same as him.

He lies there waiting, thinking idly that he ought to maybe move away from a massive patch of filth. But he's tired so he shuts his eyes, spaces out `til Hari comes in flying, arms outstretched to hold him tight. He lights up, struggles to sit so he can see his darling dragon, messing with the bars to break him out. “I'll have this open soon,” he swears, “but I don't think it's possible without a key.” And that's bad, that's horrid because they haven't got spares, Aki's never trusted any but himself alone to guard them. And Hari wants to tell him just how dumb he's been, how he'd have been free by now if he'd only given in. But he keeps his mouth shut, tries to think of a solution while Aki drags his way to the bars.

“The…m-monster has them…” he gasps, collapsing and he hits his head, shrieks pitifully into the puddle of who-knows-what that he's just landed in. “H-he, he locked me in here he, d-did this, he hurt me, I'm G-god…”

Hari shushes him, reaches through the cage to stroke his hair. This is just sad and he can't be angry, can't be cruel when his lord's life is in the balance, he's got a clock in his head ticking off the seconds of their lives. “I know,” he says, “I know you're God, and I'm sorry that Kyo's betrayed you. Do you have any idea where he is?”

Aki shakes his head, shrieks again when it kills him just to turn his neck. The screams set off a coughing fit, he's fetal again with blood running down his chin into his collarbones. “Aki Aki, shhhh…” says Hatori, “I know it hurts but you'll only make it worse with all that yelling. I'll go and get you some medicine, once you've taken it we can try and find a way to get you out. Just relax, alright? Everything's going to be fine.”

“N-no,” he gasps, fear-gripped by the very thought. “No Hari you can't, you can't leave me `cause you won't come back and—”—his words are killed by coughs again, followed soon by puking on his arms and hair, dirtying himself up even more. “I can't…I can't…die alone. You c-can't… you won't leave me…”

“Akito you're not going to die,” sighs Hatori, spewing the stock phrase he's had to bring up every time Akito's been in danger. But he's terrified now, the thought of losing God's unbearable, and it does not occur to him that he'll die too, not yet. “Not if I get your medication. I promise I'll come back, you just have to trust me alright?”

And Aki shakes his head again, says his kitty has betrayed him and he cannot trust a soul. “My Zodiac has…failed me…” he mutters, too weak to spit rage but he wants to, he'd do anything not be this blank sad canvas of impending doom. “After everything I've…d-done for them… they've t-turned on me. And T-tohru…Tohru too. N-not you though, Hatori…you gave up being happy…for me. I w-want you with me…when I die. D-don't…don't go.”

Hari's torn two different ways, on the one hand he wants to lie down on the crabgrass with Aki's hand in his, feel his death enter him and sap him of humanity, let his family go to ruin just so he can do the bidding of their lord. On the other he can't stand to see his dear god die, can't stand to set the stage for the end of all the others. And that side's winning over, he knows that he can save him if he just leaves now. “I'm sorry Akito,” he says, hand to his volcanic cheek to prove he really is. “But I can't let you throw your life away because you're scared.”

And Akito tries to explain that it isn't fear alone that's driving him, that he's angry and vengeful and he wants the Zodiac to die. But he wants Hari alive and he can hardly speak, all that comes when he tries is still more coughing. Finally, he gets the air to tell him that he'd better send for Tohru. All his anger's dissipating, all he wants is his honeybee to hold him as he's dying.

 

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Hatori sends Tohru sailing out, running against the protests of her screaming baby girl. It doesn't matter to her that he ran out mad and she was mad at him, irritated that the only happy answer in Akito's head was her rape and violation. It doesn't matter that she's scared of him, that she knows he'll lash out just as soon as he has strength. All that means a thing is seeing that he's safe, that she's there to play therapist and see him through whatever happens next.

Tohru darts past leaf-laden oak trees, trips a branch and tries to keep from dropping Taeko, she manages and doesn't even slow her pace. The baby's beating bruises on her mommy's breasts, but Tohru-kun's too focused now to really care. She can see the cage, the looming space of pain and filth and fury. “AKITO!” she screams, voice cracking over Taeko's cries. “AKITO I'M HERE FOR YOU, I'M COMING!”

“Fuck…you…” he whimpers, setting up a little test in hopes that she'll ignore it, not be deterred by anything he says or does. She's stronger with a baby on her hip and Aki's scared to death she'll leave him, blank out his last moments `til they're so meaningless he may as well just die right now. But Tohru-kun flies into him, jams her arms through the bars as she cradles his head, crying. Taeko's slithered to the floor, screaming to the beat of her mom and Tohru-kun looks down at her, scoops her baby up.

“I'm sorry,” she says, “I know I probably shouldn't have brought her but I didn't have time to get a sitter, I just heard that you were hurt and I had to be with you, I wasn't thinking I…” And she trails off, gives her ruined one a quick once-over. What she sees disturbs her, gets the tears flowing faster as she tries to stroke his hair. She doesn't ask him how this happened, why he's smashed to bits now. He shakes her off, flops over and he messes with a broken bone, bays in pain and Tohru yelps in fear for him. “Hatori will be here soon,” she swears, “he's a wonderful doctor and I'm sure that he'll make everything okay. You'll be fine.”

Aki sits up painfully, using his arms to maneuver since his shattered leg just screws him over, gets in the way with its awkward angle. “I c-can't…I can't believe you…c-came…” he warbles, fading in and out with every word. “I t-thought you'd be…to scared to come….or you'd think that I deserved this…”

“Oh no…” she coos, concerned and reaching for him yet again, he flinches. “Oh no Akito, nobody deserves what's happened to you…”

“But I hurt your baby,” he moans, head in his unbroken hand, the other lying oddly floppy in his lap. “How can you…be such a t-terrible…m-mother that you…that you'd l-let that…let me do that…?”

Way to place the blame on me, she thinks, but Aki's still talking and she doesn't interrupt, just sits listening with her baby in her lap, ignoring her. “A child should be protected,” Aki says, and what he means is that he should have been protected, kept safe from the life genetics lumped on him, kept safe from mutiny, upheaval. “Nobody should be allowed to do the things I've done…I need to, I need to apologize to Yuki…K-kisa, Hatori, m-my Zodiac but I h-hate them all…I'm their fault. I don't, I don't k-know what to do Honeybee…”

She sighs, pale hand sliding out his hair onto his molten face. Wishing he would come in closer so she could kiss him as she has the kitty through the bars. “I don't know baby, but for now I think you need to wait for Hatori.” And Aki flicks his eyes like it's an act of war, reminds her that he's God because if he does not believe it how can she, how can anybody know the only thing that makes him worth it? “I know,” she tells him, “and I don't care about the baby's hair, I am the Virgin Mary.”

And Aki just collapses then, crumples in with his broken limbs on the concrete floor. “T-thank you…” he says, coughing weakly through a bleeding throat. “B-but I…don't s-suppose it makes much…d-difference. Either way she's…got a rapist for a dad.”

“I'll ignore that,” Tohru says, “I don't want to know.”

 

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It takes some time for Kyo to process what he's done.

At first, he's simple speed, running on the little strength that hasn't left him in the cage. And that's not much, he's wrecked now, a lifetime of transformation from a body into art is gone. He's starved for months, stared blankly at the slab of cat food served to him, wondering how anyone expected him to eat it. Kyo gave in of course, gorged himself on kitty chow because he'd be dead by now if not for that. But except for vague escape attempts, Kyo had merely sat there, lain there when the filth made him ill and all he wished for was to join his mom. He's skeletal now, a shaking freak who thinks he's nearly sick as Akito, and any remorse he might feel has been muted. All he has to do is tune in to the vertigo, and he feels weak enough to fall down trembling to the ground.

Kyo's hands scour the surface, push him up with his nails scraping dirt. “I'm not him,” he tells himself, disgusted by the way he feels exhausted. He looks to the sky, prays for rain to explain this, but Kyo-kun knows he's irreparable. He may die. And he is, finally, a rapist.

It hits him hard, makes him shake his head, deny it, grit his teeth against the depravity of what he's done. Of course he doesn't want to see himself this way, of course he doesn't want to believe it. But Aki's sobbing fills his head, the king of pain filling every crevice in his brain. He's suffered much and Kyo made it happen, it doesn't feel like he's redeemed the Sohma. Or Tohru-kun, she'll be wrecked when she sees this, she'll despise him. She will not understand why Akito deserved this, all she'll see is her beloved baby broken, crying on the floor because of Kyo.

He may as well be dead. Everyone he loves will loathe him now.

There's a noise, a rustling stomp and his name singing out behind him. He turns his head and he sees Hatori, panting lightly at the pain of chasing him. Hari spends his life at a desk, he's not in shape and the dash was difficult, but Hari's driven. The fact that he can run and Aki can't has been enough to keep him going. It's been like that his whole life, this rule applying everywhere. And here's Kyo, here's Hatori having to confront him for his fragile God who can't. “Kyo,” he gasps, “Kyo what have you done?”
And the kitty cat's about to bolt, run screaming through the Sohma compound, kill himself on the spot but he can't, he can't because Hari's got a stare that snaps your soul in two. He's frozen. “N-nothing,” he stammers, “I just, I got out. I couldn't take being locked up anymore, so I escaped.” Hari keeps on standing, staring, hands playing with lint in his white coat pocket. “What, you don't believe me? You think I wanted to stay in that hellhole? I was standing in my own shit Hatori!”

“Yes,” he says, “and right now Akito's lying in it.”

Rationality, reality doesn't matter for a moment. Both Hari and Kyo flinch at the thought of their lord wrapped in feces, wounded and infected and fucked. Kyo-kun who has caused this, Hatori who's used to it, neither one can bear that awful thought. And Hatori can see Kyo shudder. “You feel it too,” he tells him, “and you can't stand it.”

“I don't give a shit about this curse crap, it doesn't matter to—oh god my head! AUGH!” He clutches it hard, staggers back with a fear in his eyes, his brain's like a boulder dragging down into the earth. “Goddamn it this is horrible!”

It recedes and Hari smiles, tells him that the pain is proof he's part of them. “That was from Akito,” he says, “he must be having a migraine, I guess he wanted you to know that. Imagine what else he's contending with, all those broken bones and bruises. I don't know if he'll survive it.”

“Well you're a doctor,” Kyo-kun snaps, eyes closed tight against departed pain. “Go and fix him.”

“I'd love to,” Hari says, fists clenching but he keeps them down, it's difficult. “But you have the keys I need to get to him.” The fists struggle open, fingers spreading like flower petals in the fall. Hari holds his hand out, demands them though he's positive he's wasted time, that it's too late for Akito.

There's something beautiful in saying no. Kyo-kun shakes his head, denies him in a rage. “Hell no,” he says, “I'm not doing anything that's gonna help that asshole, he's already got the whole damn world. I'll bet you anything he's fucking Tohru through the bars right now.”

“I don't think he's in any condition to `fuck' as you put it.” Hari grabs the kitty's wrists, holds tight and hopes he'll give it up. “The keys Kyo. If I don't get to him in time he'll die, and with him goes the entire family. Do you want to be responsible for the death of the Sohma? Do you want to die Kyo?”

He shakes his head, no, no now that he's free he can't stand the thought of throwing that away. But he'd rather leave life with an angry bang than slip silently away the way he would in the cage. And Kyo does not doubt that he'll be locked up again. He's proven that he's dangerous, he's proving it now as he struggles. Hari digs his feet into the floor. “The keys Kyo. Hand them over or I will take them from you, I will kill you for those keys!”

Kyo's eyes go wide and he backs off, wrenches wrists away. “Excuse me? Hari what did you just say to me? You'll kill me? Hari that's not, that's not like you, you wouldn't do that you…”

“For Akito,” he says, “I would.”

 

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He gets the keys, he doesn't kill Kyo but he gets the keys, scrabbles straight for Akito in the fading light. And in the dimness he sees Tohru's shadow, tragic Tohru with a baby in her lap, she's crying soft and Hari doesn't know how or why he sees her tears shine. It's far and he's half-blinded but he knows that she is crying. Because the memories he steals just overload him, he's clueless as to how his Kana cried, or even Sakurako, but he'll tell himself that Tohru cries like one of them. Like Kana, who meant much more, like Akito who means the world.

Akito is crying.

Hari kneels down, drags meds out of his graying leather bag. He feeds him Percocet from his open palm, doxycycline for the pneumonia that he knows he has. Antibiotics, lethal little pills because he's sure that he's infected, can't bear to take the chance that it's too late. “Swallow it Akito,” he says when Aki coughs it up, groans angrily because the Percocet is not enough to kill his pain. “I'll give you something stronger later, morphine, Dilaudid, whatever you want. Just please take these things for me.”

Tohru nods at him with pit-deep eyes, tells her dear to take his medicine. Then she turns to Hatori, asks him panicked for the keys as she ignores her crying kid. “I'll do it,” he says, “you need to handle Taeko. She's only young Tohru, she needs you more than Aki does.”

She shakes her head, says no one's needier than Akito, not even a brand new baby. But anyway she listens to him, he's the doctor and Taeko is her little girl, bawling with her bright red face against her breast. “She needs to eat,” she says, glancing terrified at Akito. “I can't do this is front of him…”

“So wait,” growls Hatori, fiddling with the key and Aki's dragging himself up the door by the bars, hands slipping on the slime and his own weakness. “Don't,” he tells him, “I'm not going to let you try and stand up on a broken leg.”

“B-but I can do it…” Aki quivers, coughing blood with every word. He can't and his legs fold under, bring him down into a heap that's soundless but for the shatter, even Taeko hears the breaking of another bone.

The door swings open, Hari's struggle with the warped lock won. Aki's gathered into Hari's arms, cuddled close and he can't care that he probably shouldn't move him. It's not like he can leave him here, lay his god alone on the cold filthy floor while he scrounges up some kind of stretcher. It's not like Akito would let him go.

Tohru strokes her child's rigid spine as they descend, slide down the hill in gentle steps. She's looking hungrily at the two of them, wishing she could be the one to hold him, fix him, and she resents her little girl, hates Hari heartlessly for thinking he can heal her Akito, her fallen angel she's supposed to save. Through the treetops Aki moans, sending screams of pain throughout the compound, wrecking worker's ears and hurting Hatori, hurting all the Sohma living here to serve their god. Even Kyo is hurting still.

But they don't know that, and Aki's wails are privatizing now, crumpling formless in his head. They do not know the deepest hurt, or why that violation is deserved. They do not know that Yuki's face is haunting him.

 

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Blankets. Bed. A glass of water and you're being bandaged, flushed out on the table before you can contemplate sleep. Dilaudid and lots of it, racing through your veins like faith healers on cocaine. Get those bones set and those shiny pills popped, get Hatori to run innocent hands on your ass to view the damage in the back. Shake and cough and deny the fact that there's no fight in you, you're over and you want your water, you wish your blankets were sky blue. Give it up and call for your victims to rock you to sleep, be there when you wake because now, you think, you know what it must have been like.

Yuki-kun, he is calling for you.

 

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Nana: And that my friends, was chapter fifteen. I apologize for not explaining the Yuki thing further, but as you can see by the ending, it should be coming soon. I just couldn't find a way to make it fit in here. But don't worry, it's coming, I try not to dangle red herrings like a jerk. Also, if nobody understood the blanket thing then I apologize. If anyone has any theories I'd be thrilled to hear `em! I mean I know what I mean, I just want to see what other people think…

So anyway, just think about how much the review button loves being clicked on, and how the little box is just tickled to be typed in, and how I'm going to frighten my kitties with my glee when I get your reviews in my inbox! And so with that in mind…do it! Thank you!