Anonymous Meme and Fanfiction

[saitaina]

Originally published at Memoirs of a Nobody. You can comment here or there.

Anonymous posting is on. IP logging will be ignored. So let me have
it. Something you always wanted to say to me or ask of me but you were
too afraid/polite to do so? It can be anything, or nothing. Marriage
proposals? Death threats? Two cents? This entry is the place to do it.

—

Title: Banquet Day
Fandom: Fruts Basket
Rating: Supposed to be R but it’s not there yet
Warnings: Spoilers for chapters 97/98 but not too major since I hate those chapters.
Summary: The curse is falling apart, Akito’s losing his mind and the twelve are left to wonder, what do they do now? Do they live, free of the life
they had known, or do they reenter a world of slavery to their animal spirits.
Note: Chapter One and Two together
Word Count: 1867

Banquet Day

Chapter One: Screams in the Night

“The day will come, sooner or later. We are the ones invited to the feast. The Zodiacs.”

It had been too long ago for anyone still alive to remember the day, in fact, it had been far too long for anyone who had ever lived to remember the day.

But it was a day buried in the souls of the family Sohma. A day that forever changed their lives.

Banquet Day.

Everyone knew the story, it was a fairy tale, a bed time story to tell to children. No meaning, no truth, just a pretty little fantasy.

Unless you were a Sohma. Then it was your curse.

But even to them, the truth was lost. The meanings, the history, nothing but myth and legend to what they knew.

And so, they lived, in the lies and mis-tellings of their own history.

–

It had been a clear, warm, depressing summer night when the screams rent the air of the Sohma complex. Screams were not unusual in such a location, nor were they unusual from the house they originated in. Madness often lead to screams from Akito’s residence.

But there was something in the air, inside the bodies of the cursed Sohma’s that made them turn, to raise up from bed, to stare at the frail figure on the balcony, screaming into the night.

It was Hatori who dared to move close to the house as the servants fled, who moved up the stairs, pausing long enough to make sure the crumpled form of Kureno was actually a living, if injured human instead of a cooling corpse.

Akito was still screaming, clutching at his chest, blood dripping from both his mouth and fingers, and Hatori was unsure which was the man’s and which was Kureno’s. He licked his lips, swallowing heavily, reaching out to touch the demented head of their family when suddenly the teenager crumbled, Hatori’s quick arms being the only thing saving Akito from falling completely off the balcony he had been leaning over.

Hatori gently brushed Akito’s long bangs from his face, feeling the inflamed skin from the boy’s latest fever, the fine trembling from pain and sorrow. Gently, ever so gently he stood, cradling Akito’s body, nodding towards Kureno’s body for his assistants to take care of as he carried the boy to his rooms.

He laid Akito gently on his futon, un-tying his kimono as he ordered the elderly servant to fetch ice, the woman giving him a dirty look for “touching’ the god before moving to do as he commanded.

He carefully pulled the kimono from him, laying it aside before just as carefully undoing the bandages from his chest, setting them aside, watching as Akito’s unconscious body took a full and complete breath, shaking his head. He took the ice from the servant, gently separating it into two parts, one he laid gently over Akito’s forehead, allowing a bit to slide down to the top of that messy black hair, contained within the bag so it didn’t slide away completely, the other portion he rested by Akito’s side, the cold slowly spreading across the boy’s torso.

He then shrugged off his jacket and pulled out a pack of fags, lighting one as he settled in for a long night of watching the child he had watched grow up, silently studying every tiny movement, ignoring the shards of broken glass and pottery that surrounded them.

–

It was days, nearly a week before anyone but Hatori and a servant say Akito again. The fit had sent the boy into a near coma, only rousing long enough to be fed. Hatori wasn’t even sure Akito knew what was going on around him during those brief moments of consciousness, but there wasn’t anything that could be done until he either completely went out or showed signs of lucidity. Until then…he waited.

And when Akito finally awoke, focused his eyes and hugged Hatori, he knew that the worst had passed.

Kureno was the first person Akito saw when he awoke. Weak, wrapped in a blanket over his Kimono clad body, curled in a wheelchair, he stared at his ‘right hand’. No words were spoken, no touches exchanged. Akito just stared at Kureno for half an hour before motioning to be taken away from his bedside, curling back up on his futon and blocking out the world with his blanket when he returned to his room.

It was a month before Akito spoke. Hatori had been kneeling, mixing a medicine for the boy when the words floated to him. He looked up at the man, the pestle falling from his hand as he stared at the figure in the window seat who was staring out over the Sohma complex, watching Momiji chase a butterfly.

“Ayame’s gone.”

Chapter Two: Ghost of You

“I never said I’d lie and wait forever”
- “Ghost of You”, MCR

Months.

Months of loss, months of scream, months of torture, months of pain.

Hatori had finally had to tie Akito down to keep the boy from clawing his skin from his flesh as he relived the pain of Ayame’s curse being lifted. As he relived the pain with each new curse that fell apart.

No one could explain it, no one could understand why. Why now? Why so close together? Why after all the tears, all the struggle, all the torture and terror did the Zodiac’s awaken free and unbound.

There were three left when Akito ordered a lock down. The three had to return.

Kyo, Yuki and Haru were forbidden from leaving the compound, hell, they were forbidden from leaving the cat’s room, locked away from sight, barley fed. They would not be lost.

Or at least, that was the idea.

It had been a cold, cold night, the three bodies trembling as they pressed together for warmth, when they were jerked out of a dead sleep to the sound of screaming and running. The door to the cage had been wretched open and a trembling, bloody, sobbing teen was standing, framed in the doorway, moonlight painting him in sickly shades of black and white.

“Akito,” Yuki whispered, trying to rise when Kyo jerked the rat back down, moving in front of his cousin, stronger then the sickly boy.

But Akito didn’t even see the pair, instead, he saw only the ox, HIS ox…that he couldn’t feel. Haru stood, nearly falling back over as his weak body tried to regain it’s balance. He strode slowly over to the boy who, only a few year older, had tried so desperately to destroy his life. Staring down into Akito’s teary, insanity swept eyes, he could feel none of the anger, none of the fear, none of the love or helplessness that used to reside in his body. Just pity, and a deep sense of sorrow.

He reached up, gently cupping Akito’s cheek, brushing his thumb over the sharp cheek, sweeping away the tears before shoving Akito, watching as the boy slammed into the door jamb of the cage. As Yuki started to shout, Haru bent and gently picked up his former god, starting for Hatori’s home, leaving the door open for the last two cursed zodiacs.

–
Haru gently laid Akito’s body on a futon, sighing as he rubbed a hand across his face before standing. He pulled his shirt off, the room too hot for him, wondering just how hot Hatori was trying to make his home before wondering into the kitchen. He grabbed a plate of food, not caring what it was as he pushed it into the microwave and set it to re heat the food.

As he waited he leaned against the counter, eyes on the living room where a tiny body rested. He had known when the curse had failed, even in sleep, just as he had known from the first moments he opened his eyes that it was attached to him.

It had been as if part of his soul had been ripped away.

He snorted softly at that, turning to collect his food, pausing to grab a beer and a bottle of water for Akita when those tormented eyes opened. He carried his items into the living room, kneeling next to the former god, digging hungrily into the food as he watched the closed lids for a moment of waking, wondering, as he had so many times in his life, what had happened to the boy he had known, the boy who helped him understand the world they lived in, who saved him from the darkness that eventually consumed the savior.

He reached out and tapped Akito’s nose lightly with his chopsticks. “One day, you’re going to have to awnser that question.”

He returned to his food, turning his attention from the boy next to him to the window, watching the rain that fell.

–

Yuki leaned heavily on his cousin, allowing the boy to almost literally drag him along as they made their way slowly, carefully, almost too slow from the Cat’s Room, out of the way to large for it’s own good Sohma Complex, past the ‘outsider’s’ and down towards the woods where their home lay.

They stopped frequently, the heavy rain making it harder and harder for Kyo to move his own body, let alone it and Yuki’s almost completely unconscious form. It was on one of these rest stops, as Yuki fell into Kyo’s lap that Kyo found himself with a handful of rat.

He paused long enough to have a brief mental freak out before simply stuffing the trembling rodent into his shirt pocket, dragging his own body to his feet before shuffling his way back down the path, seeing the welcoming lights of home in the distance.

–
Tohru turned at the very loud thud on the porch, before casting a glance at Ayame and Shigure who were currently raiding the refrigerator. Shigure blinked and moved for the door, beaten by Hatori who jerked it open and called out for Tohru to get blankets. Tohru ran upstairs, missing the sight of Ayame and Shigure carrying in an unconscious Kyo, who was more cat then man by the time they got him on the couch, while Hatori picked up a small shivering bundle, gently tucking Yuki into a box he filled with a hot water bottle and a blanket Ayame brought him.

Tohru screamed and dropped the blankets when she saw the two animals, causing Ayame to focus on her instead of worrying about his brother. Shigure grabbed the blankets and made a bed for Kyo, plugging in a cord that lead to a heating blanket, searching out the controls and turning them completely up before gently lifting the cat and nestling him into the pile.

Tohru and Ayame, once back in control of themselves busied themselves making tea and coffee, heating milk for the cat and rat to consume when they could, tears running down their faces, both of relief and fear. They had found the missing pair just when it looked like they might lose them.

TBC