DISCLAIMER: Fruits Basket is not mine! (But I do have a very cute shirt with Yuki on it…)

Author: Gee, it's been a while. But I remembered this fanfic from a year ago! And I like it so much I'm writing more!

Tohru: Wow, that's so great!

Kyo and Yuki: Does that mean we actually have to sit through MORE of this?

Dark Flower

You're here next to me, clinging to my kimono again. I remember when you used to wet it every night with your tears, wondering if all of this was okay. I brush hair away from your face, and it falls away like a fragile cobweb. Gently, I place my arm around you, my heartbeat quickens at the warmth of your body, and the softness of your skin, and the way you nuzzle into me.

I change.

Four legs, a cold wet nose, and a tail beating gently against your leg. Sometimes you call me "Uncle" to distance yourself from me. But I know better.

It started out when you would tell me your problems. You thought they were problems at least. You thought your mind was tearing apart, and you thought you were an angel because you just couldn't understand what was going on around you. You told me that at night, you would try and pluck your wings.

I laughed at you. I don't know how to do anything else, really. Sometimes when I laugh a lot, and when I laugh really hard, I feel like I'm crying. But, laughing or not, I pushed you back to your room, and you looked at me the same way the next morning. The following night you did the same thing, and we sat together for a long while, you crying, I laughing. Finally I reached out, because I felt that the laughing in my stomach was disappearing. I touched you and I changed.

"This is the great irony, Tohru-chan. Whenever I reach out to comfort you is the moment that I also turn into a complete and utter animal."

The connotations made you laugh through your tears. But when I changed, you kept holding me. You felt my muscles contort, fur sprout, nose elongate. And, you even gathered me closer.

Tohru, you are a dark little flower. And the darkest part about you is that you lie about your happiness with Kyo and Yuki. There is an unspoken agreement in the way you act around them that you will marry one of them. But you know that in the end they live only for the fight. And you, my little Tohru, can come quietly into my bed, and hold your dog close. He will prowl and search for bitches in the daylight. But at night, his dark flower will always hold him. When I hold you, I change into something perfect. Though our love is not consummated, it is far from childish. You make me married.