Summary: Akito introspective fic What you see of me is an illusion. You see the façade, the bars of steel - but never the caged bird within.

Author's Note: I love Akito. And apparently you do, too, or you wouldn't be reading this (either that, or you want to flame me -;;). He's just…t3h k3wliz. I always love the evil ones :D And I love introspective. And I'm sure you'd love it if I shut up.

So…here ya go:

Caged Bird

Why are you singing, my little bird? What do you have to sing for, trapped there in your cage? There is no one to hear you, no one to sing back to you, no one to save you.

Yet you keep on singing.

Why do we cage the little birds? Only humanity would ever do that, put behind steel bars a thing meant to fly freely. Is it to protect them? I think they can protect themselves. They live long enough in the wild. And even if they do die, well, a death free is better than a life imprisoned.

You were never really mine anyway, little bird. You were a gift given me by love.

With a sigh, I lift myself up from my bed of grief and dying dreams, and walk to where you are singing. I swing back the tiny door to your cage and lift you in my hands, gently, carrying you to the window open to the spring day. Your wings arc like an angel's to the sky, and you take to the wind as though you were born to it, a breath from heaven.

Fly away for a little while, bird, if it makes you happy. For I know you, at least, will always return to me. You, the only reminder of the only one I ever loved.

And I remember. I remember the one who gave you to me; I remember that fateful morning I woke to find that hand-scrawled note and you, my little bird in its gilded cage, the only child of a love that never bore fruit, the final gift of my beloved before he left forever.

Ah, my love, my lover, why did you leave me? You were the springtime of my life. And you said that you loved me, too.

Is love a lie?

Well, apparently it is. As your little scribbled note said: You frighten me sometimes, Akito. Even when you're happy, even when you smile and laugh, there is a darkness in you that nothing can touch. And it frightens me.

Yes, I know. Sometimes I frighten myself. But you never saw that you were the light that kept this darkness in me at bay, and that your leaving would allow it to consume me.

It was then that I began to hurt. I have hurt those who loved me, and I have hurt those who hated me. Only my beautiful little bird, I have never hurt.

They hate me for it, all of them. My family, the Sohma clan. They will obey my orders, follow my madness, but I can see the hate forever smoldering in their eyes.

What you see of me, or think you see, is only an illusion. You see the steel of me, sparking like ice in the sunlight, or glinting coldly like the threat of death. You see the façade, the bars of the cage, but never what is really there.

You never see the caged bird within.

Then there is my curse, the secret that everyone knows: I am dying, my body disintegrating, decomposing, even as my spirit burns on within.

Oh, but the spirit finds its ways to survive. And I will survive in you, Yuki, in your fear, your suffering, in the nightmare shadows of your mind, long after I am dead. I will achieve my immortality in you. In your fear of me.

After hearing my story, little Yuki, perhaps you understand why I trust fear over love. You can only love someone like me for so long…but you can fear them forever.

This is why I keep you in your cage like a little bird, Yuki-chan, this is why I lock you in with your darkness. So that you will never leave me - or perhaps so that I will never leave you.

Ah, but I was caged in my turn, little one, and I am caged still. I was locked in the dark and tormented, too. The horror follows me down the spiral staircase of my years. I have never forgotten.

As I was hurt, how I am the one who hurts. Why do these things find their continuation by the hands of those who first suffered them? Why is the legacy of the abusers kept alive by their victims?

Perhaps that is the horror of it. That I should make you suffer as I had suffered, the victim become the abuser.

Do unto others what has been done unto you.

And what you do unto others will be done unto you. That is the part they don't tell you, that is the bitter truth. I suffer for what I do to you, Yuki-chan, I suffer in ways you cannot begin to imagine.

Now, Tohru Honda, you think that you can heal all this suffering, you think that you can steal Yuki and all the others away from me, you think you can save us?!

You cannot heal all our scars, Tohru. You cannot save us all.

Meanwhile, life goes on. Meanwhile, children play and flowers bloom, and the worlds spin 'round each other. A little bird nestles in my hand, and the wind whispers the truth in my ear:

The caged bird sings because it can do nothing else.

FINIS

Yeah, I kind of intended Akii's lover to be gay XD Akito just kind of strikes me as the gay type, but then, most anime guys do.

If you love gay bishounen and bisexual fan fiction writers, then review! :D