Summery: When Shin is badly beaten up, he turns up at kurosaki's house, desperate for help. Dramaverse, set after episode 9.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own imagination.
Don't Sleep It Away:1 Unfair Fighting.
It was raining, hard. The overly large droplets seemed to hit heavier then usual, each weighing a ton, as they soaked through Sawada Shin's clothing. He was staggering, leaning against the nearby wall for support, breath coming in as harsh gasps, and leaving as a rasping vapor through the chill of the rain.
"Damn it's hard to see." The battered figure chocked out as he squinted through the downpour. Never would he have thought his evening would end up like this, drunkenly searching for a safe place to hide from his attackers. He knew he had to get to help, and fast, he wasn't going to last much longer. 'And if I fall unconscious, and they find me, it's all over.' Shin was not naive enough to think that because he was out of it his followers would be any more merciful then when he was awake and it was too-many-to-count on one.
The evening had not begun differently, after eating at the nearby cafe with the others he had headed home. That was when it had happened, a phone call.
"We have your sister, want to see her alive then come to warehouse 17, come alone." then nothing but the flat, intruding noise signaling the end of the conversation. Of course, Shin had realized it could have been a trap, he realized it could have been a prank, a wrong call, a threat, a scare-tactic. He also realized however, that if he did not go and find out which of the above it was, he would never forgive himself. His sister's health, like his friend's, came well before his own well-being.
Shin took off at a run, breaking all of his previous records and practically tearing up the asphalt. He ran until his lungs would collapse if he run any further, but luckily he had arrived. The building was dark and run down, cables and discarded objects and metal scattered as far as his adjusting eyes could see. Realizing that possibly his current fatigue and blindness was a definite disadvantage as he continued ahead, he was startled, but not altogether surprised to feel a shove sending him to the floor, hard, followed by the maniac cackle of laughter.
"Look, he actually showed up!"
"Told ya he would, the little piece of crap!"
"Now now my friends, let us not scare the poor bunny, he may run away and cry." It was this voice, rather then any of the others before it, that chilled him to the bone. No one would be able to tell by looking at the stoic face, but inside his heart was pounding way too fast for someone who felt like they were frozen to the floor.
"What are you doing here?" Shin questioned calmly against his better nature.
"Why, I'm here to see you my little bunny." This time Shin outwardly cringed at the pet name he had received from his would-be abuser. It was one nickname he had never been sorry to loose.
"Awww, look, wittle wabbits scared!" Came the comment of a tall, lean figure with a pointed face. "Hey Hat-chan, can we sick im' now."
"ORUSAI! I told you not to call me that, shit face!" The figure through a bullet-like punch at the other, sending him flying into some disused cans. The rest of the group instantly became as still as death and drew back, giving their leader a respectfull space to work the victim in. At least until they were called.
Shin's heart raced, his pupils dilated and his eyes fractionally wider giving the only signs of his fear. Signs that his attacker knew only too well, as the man Shin knew as 'Hat-chan' slowly approached his prey.
"It's been too long my little bunny, too long since you ran away." The tall figure's voice betrayed only a slight hint of anger in its otherwise calm tirade as he stalked closer to Shin. Shin chose to say nothing. If this man was still the Hat-chan that he had known, it was never wise to interrupt.
"I've got me some new friends now. Ones that understand what I went through, what you put me through."
"I never put you through anything." Shin replied as calmly as he could, as if he were an outsider viewing his own fate someone on a backbench, as oppose to having a front row seat.
"Ha! You hear that!" The menacing man swung around to look at his cronies whilst beginning to circle Shin. "He says it wasn't his own fault. Isn't that what they all say." Sinister chuckling followed the comment, the looming gang seemed to form a tighter circle around predator and prey.
"Oh yes bunny," the man directed at Shin once again. "You see I have been good to my new friends. Their needs came first, much like how you treat your friends. But mine were more satisfied by the help I gave them. I wonder how many times you've been thanked by yours for coming to their 'rescue', a great lot of help I'm sure, must make you feel...taken for granted rather."
Shin felt himself grow cold at the realization that Hat-chan had been watching him without his knowledge. He couldn't run home if he escaped, they surely had already worked out where that was.
"I, on the other hand." Hat-chan continued as if conversing about the weather. "Am thanked on a daily basis for the help I give my friends." The sliver of curiosity that slipped into Shin's eyes was not missed by his circling captor.
"I help them get over all their little, problems. The ones like you who put them through hell. All those little rodents eating away at their souls, turning them into pathetic, whimpering forms of self-torture. But we got them, bunny. One by one we dealt with them, punished them, made them see the error of their ways. And my friends were satisfied."
Hat-chan swung around and crouched barely an inch from Shin, causing the later to jump against his will.
"But not me," Hat-chan growled, holding Shin's chin in his fingers as he tried to jerk away impulsively.
"I would never be satisfied, until I got you, bunny. You who made all those others seem like amateurs in their betrayal." He was positively hissing by now, his onlookers becoming increasingly awed by the second.
"And tell me." Shin spoke, voice shaking slightly, betraying his anger and fear, making his enemy smile. "How did I betray you?"
Shin partly hated himself for asking this. He was playing directly into Hat-chan's hands, and he knew it. The first answer he received was an awful, twisted smile, the second was words.
"You got yourself expelled bunny, you always were so bad at obeying orders. That's what made you so special, my little rabbit."
Shin cringed at the crooning voice that spoke the last sentence, and yet forced himself to voice an opinion. He had never been one to take things lying down.
"Even if I was so special as you put it." Shin glared at his captors smirk, he always did enjoy when people said his own words after he said them, if he liked you that is. Shin could barely stand the thought of what might happen if Hat-chan still liked him. "Why keep me if I was so badly behaved, I would never have made you happy."
Hat-chan laughed, a long, prolonged sound that melted eerily into the warehouse.
"Because you're my bunny, Bunny, and I will never let you go. My Bunny was always the most beautiful. You even make me happy now, when you've left me. But you also make me proud. My Bunny doesn't snivel and beg like the other rodents, you were always so gorgeous and defiant."
Shin felt sick, he had had enough of this at his last school that he had shared with this maniac, and he would not go through this again, not without a fight. He agreed with Hat-chan on one point, he was not as weak as those others.
"I am not that gorgeous, I am that defiant. And I will never give myself to you." His words of anger were punctuated by sending a sharp punch to Hat-chan's face. Causing him to crash to the floor, allowing Shin to get up and back away, at least temporarily.
Hat-chan did not even waste time getting up. "GET 'IM!" was all he bellowed at his gang, before smirking at Shin.
Shin meanwhile, had become preoccupied with the gang that had circled behind him unnoticed. He gave one last thought to the ever-decreasing odds of his escape, before plunging defiantly into one of the most desperate fights of his life.
It begun quite well; he sent one man to the floor, injured a few others, and prevented another from ever having children.
"Stop playing around you cretins and just get him!" Hat-chan shrieked "It doesn't matter if he gets bruised, but if he gets away and tells we're finished!" These words unfortunately seemed to conquer any doubts in Shin's assailant's hearts about beating up the boss' Bunny, and they attacked with full force.
Shin struggled as he was grabbed from behind and hit repeatedly in the stomach, causing him to double over, coughing desperately. He felt himself being dropped to the floor, and then the real pain began. At first he was aware of being kicked, punched, thrown around and hit with sticks. But all too soon the pain searing in the different parts of his body became all-consuming, and he could no longer differentiate them. Finding it increasingly hard to think with his head pounding violently, and breath when he felt he was taking in knives instead of oxygen, he was only aware of the twitching and flinching of his body when he was hit with an unknown object.
After what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more then minutes, the attack stopped. The only sound he could hear was his own harsh gasping for air, and the occasional scuffling sound as his body convulsed with the undistinguishable pain. His eyes saw swirling walls and shadows when he opened them, making him feel nauseous. He coughed sending his chest into a world of stabbing hurt, and his head spinning further due to lack of oxygen.
He was cold, his body shivering pathetically, yet parts of him had a sickeningly warm trickling sensation, the more focused part of his brain realized he must be bleeding.
Then, cutting through the surrounding silence, came the thud of slow footsteps, moving closer until he could see the offending boots in his poor range of vision.
The figure crouched, and Shin vaguely felt a hand on his shoulder, before he was pulled into a half slouching, half sitting position, causing him to cry out in pain against his will. He had always hated showing weakness to enemies, especially this one, ironically this was also the one he showed the most weakness around.
"Aw, there there Bunny, It will be alright, I can make the pain all better. Did you know I always wanted to be a doctor." Shin heard distorted laughter coming from one side of him, and realized with a dull flash of hope, that at least they were not circling him anymore. He felt some more warm blood trickle down his face from his forehead, but a hand he knew to be Hat-chan's wiped it away, almost lovingly.
"Come on Bunny, just say you'll stay with me and I'll help you. I'll even let you still go to that run down school of yours and be with your pathetic friends, just say your mine." Shin realized that Hat-chan must be desperate if he had begun to make deals with him, especially in the state he was in. But that changed nothing. One of the reasons he lived on his own was because of his father being so controlling, and Hat-chan knew it. That was probably the whole reason of asking him in this state. He wouldn't think strait and would say yes, or something similar. And then Hat-chan would be able to say that he had agreed to the whole thing.
"I'll, n-never be yours, Hatori." Shin managed to gasp out between breaths, and he did not miss the wave of anger that crossed Hat-chan's face as he said it.
"I told you to call me Hat-chan, only you can. ISN'T THAT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?" Shin hit the floor hard as Hat-chan threw him. "ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS LISTEN TO ME!" Shin instinctively flinched away, closing his eyes as Hat-chan raised his boot. Time seemed to pass slowly until Shin felt the blow connect with his right arm, the force of it made him yell and try to pull away belatedly, as he heard the sickening crack, felt the bone smash awkwardly, breaking his skin.
Shin bit his lip until it bled as he saw the foot rise again for another blow, he could picture his attacker's maniacal grin as he brought such rare, raw emotion to the usually calm figure, lying beneath him.
"Hey! what's goin' on here, don'cha know this is our territory? Sick 'em guys!" Shin recognized the voices of a gang from a nearby academy, and saw his escape.
"Get 'em!" Hat-chan yelled in response as he and his gang got lost in the fight.
Shin knew this was his only chance. Taking in great gulps of air he pushed himself up and clung to a nearby crate for support, his broken arm cradling his chest. He quickly checked he wasn't seen. Everyone was too immersed in fighting to notice him, it was dark and he was quite a way away from the brawl.
Trying to push past the pain and shaking he raked in a few more breaths, and ran for his life, adrenalin making him break his just newly formed record.
So that is where he was, leaning increasingly heavily against the seemingly never-ending wall. He was at the come down of his adrenalin, the shaking had increased as his legs struggled to support him through the numbing and searing pain.
Just as the end of the wall was finally in sight, the nausea returned ten-fold. Shin found himself crashing to his knees as he vomited on the pavement, the retching and dry heaving making it progressively harder to concentrate.
When he was once again able to regain his senses, he looked up dazedly to find a previously unnoticed street sign. The familiar name wakened Shin's higher brain ability.
It clicked, just on the street facing the end of this wall, lived Kurosaki, his recently re-made friend. He could have kissed the pavement had it been in a better state.
Dragging himself up he managed to avoid his re-emerged dinner, and once again cling to the wall to move, his concentration on reaching his goal temporarily outweighing his pain.
By the time he reached the end of the wall he was shaking from the effort. But just across the rundown street he could clearly see Kurosaki's house, nothing different from the other houses, but to Shin it could have been a palace.
Once again taking as deep a breath as his battered chest would allow, he pushed off from the wall, managing three steps before he plummeted to the ground, feeling increasingly weighed down by the rain.
Knowing that he had to reach the door, Shin crawled pathetically, broken arm trailing uselessly by his side, his hand being torn by the pavement.
After what seemed to be an age, he reached the gray door of his sanctuary and practically slammed himself against it. He knocked desperately whilst fighting unconsciousness. He could feel the edges of his mind slip away as he desperately knocked.
He could hear vague movement inside, as if suspicious. Leaning all his weight on the door he did the only thing he could think of, a thing that if he wasn't let in and his enemies were close enough, would surely spell his downfall. He took a deep breath, and screamed.
"KUUROOOO-" and fell further against the door, vision swirling and darkening.
Kuro had got back from his measly paying job hours ago, and since then had been watching some very un-thrilling TV. As it was now ten, he was beginning to think the evening wasted as he turned off the tele, only to hear the sound of something slamming his door. The slamming was followed by some insistent knocking.
Around these parts you could never be sure who was at your door, the houses didn't come with peepholes in the doors either. He stayed still until the knocking became increasingly persistent. Quietly he got up and moved to the door. The only friendly people that visited him were Shin, Uchi, his mother and very occasionally the guilty volleyball teacher, and all of them announced who they were at the door.
He moved to the door as the knocking stopped, followed by a desperate cry of his name.
"KUUROOOO-" Kuro jumped, although he recognized the voice as Shin's, it was very harsh, and Shin never allowed himself to sound desperate.
Coming out of his shock he wrenched the door open, only to desperately catch the falling figure of his friend in his arms.
Shin whimpered as Kuro grabbed him tighter and slammed the door shut, locking it. He acted quickly, half dragging half carrying his beaten friend to the couch and laying him there.
"Fuck Shin, you're a mess." He looked awful, school clothes torn and battered as if they had done the attacker a personal grief. Blood trailed sickeningly slowly down his face from a cut by his hairline, it was certainly going to bruise. Other then that his face seemed relatively undamaged, apart from a cut on his lip. Kuro could barely stand the fact that his friend had been in enough pain to bite that hard.
Continuing his inspection, he found a few patches of dark red on his friend's soaked torso where the skin had broken and blood seeped through.
"Shit." at this point Kuro decided to leave his friend in favor of retrieving the lacking and depleted first aid kit. Upon returning he found Shin looking at him with heavily lidded, glazed eyes.
"How you of all people got into this, I don't know. But you've certainly succeeded in getting some punishment." Kuro proceeded to tearing of Shin's jacket and T-shirt, carefully cutting down the sleeves so they could be easily removed. He was used to treating fight wounds, to an extent they all were.
However, when Shin hissed and flinched away as he moved to his right arm, he grew concerned, so far he had been a model patient. Going to touch it again, Shin flung his other arm out, slapping away Kuro's hand and looking at him pointedly.
"What, cat got your tongue Shin?" Kuro questioned mildly as he placed his other hand on Shin's other arm to remove it.
"My arms broken." Shin coughed out dryly. Kuro frowned, this would be harder to deal with then the other bruises and cuts.
"I still have to look at it, just bear with it for a bit okay." Shin nodded vaguely as he winced and clung to the sofa when Kuro once again touched the arm.
Carefully removing the sleeve, Kuro could see just why it had hurt. The bone had broken through the skin, forcing Shin's arm into an abnormal position and bleeding steadily, almost defiantly. The blood ran down shin's arm and joined with the trickles of blood coming through from the torn skin on his hand.
"Fuck. Shin I can't treat this, we have to get you to a hospital." Kuro saw his friend pale as he groaned, once again biting his lip.
"Don't call an ambulance, call Uchi, h-he can drive."
"Yeah he can drive, a scooter! How're you gonna get to a hospital in that?"
"You have to come too, otherwise they'll work it out."
"Who will work what out, Shin stop kidding around right now." Kuro couldn't believe that the usually sensible Shin had lost his wits.
"My attackers, they'll be looking for me. If you c-call an ambulance they'll know where you live."
"Fine! But I'm only doing this cos I know you wont budge, sometimes you should think of yourself you know, cos when you get hurt were the ones who have to take care of you."
Shin smiled weakly as Kuro kept ranting, searching for his phone and ringing Uchi. When the phone call reached Uchi, Shin noticed the room becoming fuzzier and swirling, as if his eyes couldn't focus. 'Crap, this aint good." He thought vaguely.
"Uchi, It's Kuro, I need your help. No I'm fine, It's Shin. Yeah he was attacked and his arms broken, we have to get him to hospital. I was going to but he said his attackers would still be looking for him. Yes I know It's a stupid idea, yes I know we aren't exactly going to fit on your bike. Well we have to try, you know he's stubborn-"
"K-Kuro"
"Hang on Uchi. Yes what is it Shin?" Kuro vaguely looked to the source of the voice, noticing Shin shifting uncomftably.
"I th-think I ha-have a f-fever..." Shin trailed off as his world turned black.
"Fuck!" Kuro exclaimed as he rushed towards the shaking figure, touching his forehead briefly before pulling away at the heat.
"Kuro, Kuro? What's going on? Kuro?" Came Uchi's confused voice over the phone.
"Uchi get here now!" Kuro ended the call before rushing to get cold water and a cloth.
"Just hang in there Shin, please." They had become friends again too recently for anything bad to happen. Kuro carefully dabbed his friend's bruised face and chest with the cold water, begging for Uchi to hurry up as Shin struggled and moaned.
It seemed like hours until Kuro heard the unhealthy noises of Uchi's scooter. He ran to the door and practically dragged Uchi inside as he knocked, much the same as he had done for his other friend that night.
"What took you, he's gotten worse." Uchi stood in shock for a moment as he saw Shin before running to his friend's side.
"Kuro what happened? He's a mess!"
"Here, help me, we've gotta get him into a jacket if he's gonna travel." Uchi lifted Shin up and lent him against himself as Kuro begun slipping Shin's broken arm into the sleeve of a trench coat. The movement of the limb caused Shin to yelp and flinch away as he came-to.
"W-what's, Uchi?" Shin asked dazedly as he noticed the blond hair through the fuzziness.
"It's me Shin, just hang on alright." Uchi shot a worried look at Kuro before gazing back at his incoherent friend.
"Huh ah!" Shin cried as the sleeve slipped past the break, leaning into Uchi as his friend gripped his shoulders.
"Be more careful wont you?" Hissed Uchi.
"You want to try? It's not that easy?" Shin breathed heavily, head swimming as the jacket went over his other arm and over his shoulders.
"Okay, done. Let's just get him to the hospital in one piece." 'Why do I always have to be the bad guy, Uchi and Shin always get to play the nice friend when the others hurt.' Kuro thought irritably as he picked up Shin, mindful of his injuries.
"Okay, put him on." Uchi commanded from the front of the bike. "Then it's your job to make sure he doesn't fall off."
"I know, you just concentrate on not crashing and sending us all to the hospital." The two fell easily back into their bickering to mask the tension as Uchi kicked the vehicle into gear and zoomed off as fast as the scooter would allow.
It was not a comfortable trip, and Kuro was sure that had they been going slow enough, they would be getting some very weird looks. What with the three of them being squashed together and Shin sandwiched between them, at any other time would surely have ad the three cracking up. However, Shin's uncontrolled shaking and occasional whimpers of pain brought them back to the harsh reality as they zoomed towards their goal.
:Please let me know ya thoughts, shadowtheo:
