My other fics are here
by the way.
Nakago rose earlier than usual that
morning, having been unable to sleep soundly throughout the night.
He told himself that this was because of the fact that he hadn't had Soi
to spend the night with and not because of the horrible nightmares of filthy
hands grabbing at him, pulling at his clothes and pinning him down that
had plagued him on and off ever since childhood and which had returned
upon his delivery of Amiboshi to the Emperor Shoukitei.
Amiboshi. He must go and see
to the boy. Make sure that he wasn't dead or anything though he was
quite positive that that wasn't the case. If it was, then Suboshi
should have been frantic and out of his mind by now. He guessed that
the boy had spent his whole night worrying about his beloved aniki.
Dressing himself quickly and ordering
a servant to run a bath, Nakago made his way to the Emperor's bedroom,
quite sure that he would be off at the daily morning court which he was
actually obliged to attend also. He decided to give it a miss that
morning though, thinking that it was more important for him to check on
the state that the younger seishi was in. He was still needed.
It wouldn't do for something untoward to happen to him.
Once he set foot in the bedroom though,
he found himself unable to move towards the canopied bed, so for a while,
he stood there by the doorway, staring at the small figure huddled under
the blankets. He didn't want to go in there, he realized, slightly
disgusted at himself and his weakness, but who else would? Not Tomo.
The man wouldn't know how to handle the situation, he'd probably make things
even worse. Nakago almost laughed at this thought. As if he
knew how to handle this any better than that painted freak! Suboshi
was completely out of the question, who knew what would happen if he saw
his brother like this and as for Soi, she'd probably want to castrate the
man that did this to her little pet right away, Emperor or not, because
though she appeared cold and detached, she was really quite fond of those
twins.
Finally deciding that he had to do
something
before the others, more specifically, Suboshi, woke up, Nakago resolutely
made his way to the bedside and looked down at the boy, who was sleeping
fitfully. He noticed coolly that the Emperor hadn't done much damage
to his face. There was only one small bruise that colored the boy's temple,
easily explainable and which wouldn't cause Amiboshi's brother any alarm.
Maybe things weren't so bad then...He
drew back the blanket to get a better look at the boy's body and despite
of his resolve, couldn't stop himself from flinching at the sight.
How was he supposed to explain that? Could the kid even walk?
" Damn him." Nakago cursed softly.
One of his seishi down just when it was most crucial that they be at full
strength. Still, it might not really be as bad as it looked. You
bleed an awful lot the first time. He should know. Bending
over the boy, he took hold of his shoulder and shook him gently.
" Amiboshi...Amiboshi..." He was startled when he let out a loud yell and
jerked away from him abruptly.
He sat there, his back pressed against
the wall, large blue eyes, though focused on Nakago, seemed wild and unseeing.
" Get away from me."
" He's gone."
" I know that but you're really just
as bad as him, aren't you?" Amiboshi snarled, pulling the blankets tighter
around him. He didn't want to have to face anybody right now.
Not even his brother. Especially not his brother. To
his horror, he was unable to keep himself from letting out several loud,
racking sobs. He thought he had been all cried out the night before
but obviously, he had been wrong. He couldn't ever remember feeling
this miserable in his life.
" You...you knew what he was going
to do ,you bastard, but you still brought me to him! You knew!"
He didn't care anymore what Nakago would do to him for calling him a bastard.
Nothing mattered any longer.
Nakago kept quiet listening to his
rather unintelligible babbling.
" You...you really have no soul,
no conscience, you know that? You're really the most vile, most disgusting
person I've ever met in my life! Right up there with...with the Emperor!
I know you couldn't care less what the hell happens to me or to anybody
else besides yourself but...but...You disgust me. Really." Tears
blurring his vision, Amiboshi threw his flute towards the general direction
of the shogun, who dodged it easily. " I wish I was dead. I
wish me and Shun had never met any of you people!"
" If you've quite finished?"
Sniffling, Amiboshi ran the back
of his hand over his eyes, surprised that Nakago hadn't done anything to
him for mouthing off like that and slightly unnerved by the uncanny composure
that the man displayed.
" First of all, wishing yourself
dead won't gain any results and I warn you against any steps to hasten
your demise. You are still needed. If you can really find no
reason to keep yourself alive, think of that idiot brother of yours and
of what will happen to him once you are gone. He just may step out
of line one of those days without your guidance and I may be forced to,
shall we say, get rid of the problem. After all, what will stop me
from doing that? What with you gone and all, what will the loss of
another seishi matter?" Amiboshi's eyes widened. It was strange
how threats of bodily harm never scared him though threats against his
twin always brought immediate results. " Second, I couldn't care
any less what you think of me, soulless bastard that I am, and third, expect
more nightly visits to the Emperor."
More? Gods, no. He couldn't
take any more.
" Though I don't like the thought
of one of my seishi being incapacitated by that man, there is really nothing
I can do about it. He has taken a liking to you and once he has his
attention set on somebody, it stays there until somebody else comes along."
Nakago shrugged carelessly,
" You'll just have to bear with
it until then." It was obvious that he wasn't making Amiboshi feel
any better but that had never been his goal anyways. He just wanted
to make sure that he wouldn't try anything stupid and try to kill himself.
It was also important for him know what was in store for him in the future.
" I...I won't be able to take anymore.
I don't think..."
" It doesn't matter what you think
or how you feel about this. You'll just have to cope. You're
not the first person to have to suffer through this. Some weren't
able to but others were. They survived, so you will too." How
miserable the boy looked, huddled in the bed like that, a pillow held tightly
onto his chest. Had he looked like that back then? He imagined
so but back then, he hadn't had anybody to talk to him, nobody to tell
him what to expect and to just get on with his life. He held a hand
out towards Amiboshi, " Now, can you get up? You don't want to stay
here until Emperor Shoukitei comes back from morning court, I don't think,
and you need to clean yourself up before your brother sees you in
this state. Get up. I have a bath ready for you."
Amiboshi pushed his hand away and
tried to stand up by himself, the silken sheets still wrapped tightly around
him. He didn't need the bastard's help, he didn't want it.
But he was right, he couldn't let Suboshi see him like this, he couldn't
let his brother know.
With a gasp of pain, he managed to
struggle to his feet. Feeling light headed, he found himself weaving
slightly as he tried to make his way towards the door and Nakago, seeing
that he was about to collapse at any moment, came up wordlessly beside
him and took hold of his forearm to steady him as he led the boy out of
the room, Amiboshi making no protests this time.
~**~
" Aniki! Come on!" Suboshi
gave his brother's arm a few good tugs, only managing to get him to crack
his eyes open. What was going on here? His brother had never
been one to stay in bed the whole day, as he was doing now. " You
told me yesterday that you would go for a swim with me and we couldn't
go 'cos you had to play for the Emperor so I thought we could go now.
We have nothing better to do." Still getting no reaction, he suddenly
remembered the feeling of dread that had suffused him the night before
but he shrugged it off as unimportant. After all, his brother would
have told him if something had happened to him.
Amiboshi pulled his arm away abruptly
and turned his back to his brother, not wanting to see him right now and
wishing that he would just go away. The last thing that he wanted
was for his brother to be made aware of what had been done to him.
No, Shun-chan won't find out, he resolved to himself, I'll make sure of
that. He had always shared everything with his brother before but
this...just not this. " I'm tired, Shun. I can't."
Plopping down onto the side of his
bed, Suboshi looked down at him, finally concerned. " Aniki, what
happened? Yesterday, I-"
" Nothing happened yesterday." Amiboshi
snapped suddenly, pushing away the hand that his younger brother had placed
on his back. " Why do you always have to meddle into the business
of other people, Shunkaku? That's why Tomo-sama is always annoyed
with you!"
" Kou-chan!" But this time,
his hurt and bewilderment had no effect on his elder brother.
" Go away, Shun. I want to
rest. Just go away..."
" But ani-"
" Do as your brother asked, Suboshi."
Why did Nakago always have appear
at the most inconvenient times and for that matter, why did he even have
to interfere in this anyway? Amiboshi was his brother. He had
a right to talk to him, if he wanted to, even though he didn't seem up
to it at that moment. " Nakago-sama..."
" If you still want to go for that
swim, Tomo here will go with you."
" What? I..." His words trailed
off as Nakago's eyes fixed on him. The shogun had told him about
what had happened to the boy and he sympathized, he really did, because
he could also recall somewhat similar experiences in his childhood but
he wasn't sorry enough for Amiboshi to actually spend the whole day keeping
his psychotic younger brother busy when there were so many more pleasanter
things that he could think of to do. " Fine. I don't see why
I have to baby sit though..." He grumbled.
" Baby sit?" Suboshi's eyes narrowed
dangerously, " Who are you calling a baby, you painted freak?"
" Watch your mouth, kid." Tomo hissed.
He was getting pissed off with him. Here he was trying to help his
elder brother out, albeit, a bit grudgingly, and this little bastard repaid
him by calling him a painted freak. Well, that was gratitude for
you! " Maybe you should be the one taken to Emperor Shoukitei
from now on! That should knock some sense into you!"
" Tomo!" Nakago snapped. "
Get out of here and take Suboshi with you."
" Forget it! I can take myself
out of here perfectly well on my own without any help from the fag."
Luckily, Tomo's comment about the Emperor hadn't sunk in and Suboshi ran
out of the room, Tomo hot on his heels in pursuit. " Feel better
soon, aniki!" He remembered to call out over his shoulder as he dashed
away.
~**~
Nakago was there again for him the
next morning and the next and the next. Amiboshi didn't understand
why he was being so attentive, why he thought he could glimpse a look of
pity in the shogun's blue eyes every morning whenever he came for him but
then, those were always so fleeting that he wasn't really sure if he had
truly seen them or whether they were just a figment of his imagination.
He found that with time, he was able
to let his mind drift onto other things as the Emperor Shoukitei made his
nightly attacks on his body and one day, much to his horror, he found himself
thinking about Nakago, of all people.
That had kept him up all night, tossing
and turning, pretty much forgetting the old man that lay on the bed beside
him as he wondered about his fellow seishi. Why was he so concerned?
Nakago had always seemed so heartless to him, so unconcerned with the lives
of other people and yet here he was, rising early every morning to check
on him and to help him to the warm bath that he always had ready for him,
every time, without fail. He even seemed to sense the fact that Amiboshi
didn't really feel like coping with his brother. He kept Suboshi
as busy as he could with chores and had even transferred Amiboshi to another
room, despite of his younger brother's pleadings and protests, insisting
that since he was the one tending to the Seiryuu no Miko, he should be
placed in a room that was somewhat closer to her. He was grateful
for that. The more he distanced himself from Shun-chan, the less
chance there was of him discovering what was going on. He knew that
his brother was hurt that he had been treating him so coldly lately but
he thought that this was the best thing to do under the situation.
When Nakago arrived the next morning,
he found a red eyed, blushing Amiboshi sitting up waiting for him.
" You look tired." He commented as he came to stand beside the bed, " I'm
guessing that you didn't sleep well."
" How can I?"
" Good point." Nakago agreed, stretching
out a hand to help him out as had become his habit.
Ignoring it, though not pushing it
away entirely as he had done before, Amiboshi rose to his feet, wrapping
the sheets around him and scrabbling around the floor for his clothes.
Retrieving his shirt, he slipped that on and then his pants. " You
don't need to come help me anymore, Nakago-sama. I can handle things
now on my own..."
The shogun watched him a skeptic
look on his face as he stumbled, though there had been nothing on the floor
before him. " For some reason, Amiboshi, I highly doubt that." He drawled,
as he caught hold of his arm despite of his protests. " Though it
is good to see that you still have enough spirit left in you to insist
on your independence, I still say that that isn't wise."
" Why do you care?"
Nakago down at him quizzically.
" What do you mean?"
" Why are you bothering to help me
at all?" He asked quietly, his face flushing. This had been the question
that had troubled him most throughout the night. " What's it to you?
Do do feel responsible because you were the one that brought me to him?"
" There's no reason for me to feel
responsible at all. I didn't bring you to him on a whim, you know.
I brought you to him at his request and I have nothing to do with this
affair whatsoever but if it makes you feel better to blame the 'soulless
bastard' then so be it."
Amiboshi surprised himself by saying,
" I don't blame you."
Nakago said nothing to this.
" I was just wondering why you were
being so helpful to me and all. I...I don't really think you're the
sort of person who would care about..." His words trailed off as he realized
that what he was about to say wasn't really flattering.
" You're a seishi. It's important
that you remain in top form." Was Nakago's abrupt answer and for some reason,
Amiboshi was disappointed because he had sort of thought that maybe his
fellow seishi cared for him even just a little bit.
