A/N: I do not own Fruits Basket, but I do own Dr. Minekura. So there.
Late afternoon. Dusky shadows crawled across the porch, creeping and sliding over the prone figure sprawled across the wooden slates.
Akito shook, with sadness and exhaustion. He held his dull throbbing wrist to his chin and nibbled on his index finger in agitation. He was bewildered and hurt.
Why, Hatori?
Immediately after he sent his Dragon from the room, Akito had gone into one of his rages, bellowing and attempting to destroy various pieces of furniture in the room. The bedstead was the source of the cuts and bruises on his wrists and arms. Even his broken wrist had suffered more punishment. Exhaustion had made him stop and crawl out onto the porch like a dying animal to sob until fitful sleep overtook him.
Now he was awake again, and confused.
Hatori had never hurt him like that before. The doctor was gentle, if mechanical, and had never once touched Akito in harm. Hatori cupped his face when checking his temperature, ran solemn fingers over his body in pursuit of rashes or sores, massaged him when painkillers were not enough. He did NOT break bones.
He wondered what he must have done make the doctor act that way. What was the impetus to turn the Dragon against his God? And (his breath stumbled) he wondered if Hatori would turn the other Junnishi against him?
A seed of paranoia sprouted in his brain.
No one could touch Akito, unless he wanted them to. This was unwritten Zodiac law. He was a god, not to be touched by ordinary humans. Hatori had been above this because he was the doctor, and Akito his patient.
Now Hatori had hurt him. And Akito found suddenly that the tables were turned against him.
A Zodiac member had injured him…
"How dare he…" Akito whispered.
The other Juunishi might get ideas. It was no secret they loathed their leader. They might mutiny. They would.
Akito found himself sitting up.
"They won't get me….they won't…how dare you, Hatori!"
A sudden bout of coughing racked his lungs. He doubled over, clutching at the pain in his midriff. Every breath was snatched from him, the god found himself gasping for air.
"Ah…! Ah…!"
He coughed until he spat blood onto the wooden boards. Akito wiped his mouth with his yukata sleeve, and lay down until the world stopped wavering. His breath came in harsh jerks.
Hatori
He cursed himself. No, he would not call that traitor's name ever again.
Yet those soft syllables would not leave his mind. Akito turned on his side and fell into unconsciousness.
---
He awoke in the evening to find alien hands on him. They were gently probing his injured wrist. He reacted fast as a snake and strong male hands pushed him down.
"Lie still," spoke a soft voice. "Your body's exhausted. Lie still, Akito-sama, and let me bind your wrist."
Dr. Minekura was amused. When he arrived at the Sohma estate, to be briefly greeted by a pale, desperate Hatori and then led to the private room of the family head, he was expecting someone more intimidating. What he found was a small, pale, pretty Japanese ghost draped like a forgotten sock on the cold porch. He'd taken the lithe form in his arms – so light! – and laid him on his bed, covering him up snugly. The boy – he knew he was male now, but he was so pretty he could have been a girl – had not stirred once, until this instant.
The small pointed face staring dazedly up at him blinked its large, lightless eyes. Dr. Minekura recognised the shiny, pallid complexion of the chronically ill, saw the grey crescents underneath both eyes and felt a twinge of pity. There was no god here, just a sick child.
"I am Dr. Kiro Minekura," he said smoothly, without pause in his work. "Your…former doctor…hired me to be your caretaker, as par your orders, Akito-sama," he added, seeing the dark eyes flare, "And he was so worried about your health and so desperate to find a replacement doctor that he called me right away. I hope that I am to the standards you expect."
Introductions over, he reapplied himself to the task of bandaging Akito's wrist. Silence ticked on.
Akito watched him, taking in every inch of this stranger with his clinical coat.
He did not look Japanese. Minekura was tall, bronze-skinned and broad-shouldered, and the large, deft fingers upon Akito's wrist restrained a strength that could have certainly broken a whole arm. His dark hair was sleeked back above tawny, mellow eyes and a humorous mouth. His voice, Akito noted, was curiously deep and lowing, like a bull's, and his gaze kind.
He relaxed his body. Yes, I could trust this gentle giant. For now.
In the meantime, it was time assert his authority. He'd already noted the respectful 'Akito-sama.'
He cleared his throat, felt little pinpricks. "Dr. Minekura. I present my compliments for your punctuality and professionalism. You're staying here at the Sohma estate?"
A gentle nod.
"At the Main House?"
Another nod.
"Good." Akito winced, his voice was becoming hoarse. He coughed. "Then, as – as my former doctor might have explained, you're to be on call twenty four hours a day. To me. To be ready to aid me when I need you, because of my illness."
"Yes, Akito-sama."
He's too calm. Properly, he should fear me a little.
"You're an outsider. You're not a Sohma," Akito said sharply. "Do you…know of our position? Do you understand, properly, Dr. Minekura, the importance that is placed upon me?"
"I know of the Sohma curse," was the placid reply. "Hatori has told me the peculiarities. I know you are clan head, considered a god, but that's all I know about you…" His words drifted into a sudden, black silence.
Akito hurled his upper body free from the bedclothes and grabbed Minekura by the tie in his left hand, yanking it so the man was forced to meet him eye-to-eye.
"Do not," he snarled, "speak the name 'Hatori' in my presence again, do you understand? The man broke my wrist! He is a TRAITOR!"
Minekura looked into the boy's eyes. "Yes, Akito-sama."
Akito scowled. "Then, understand I am more then a simple clan-head. The Zodiac…my Zodiac…worship me. They would not live out their worthless lives unless I was here to die for them. I protect them. I guide them. Every action of their lives. All fear me. All revere me. I am their God.
"Everything is a reflection of my will."
Minekura watched silently. The adolescent was breathing heavily, eyes too bright.
"You are not a Sohma. I don't expect you to understand. All you need to do…" there it was, as he expected, a malicious purr, "is care for me. I am the center of your life, Minekura. Your only allegiance is to me."
"As you wish, Akito-sama." Mellow eyes stared back at him."Try not to exert yourself anymore. I suggest you rest for now, to conserve your strength."
Akito flopped back, fuming. Is he always so calm? Damn him! He's not afraid…
Bluegreen orbs chilled his eye-memory.
But then, you weren't afraid either.
---
Hatori paced in his room, smoking countless cigarettes, then cursing himself and fanning the smoke out the window. What he really, really felt like doing right now was rushing into Akito's room and healing his horrible, broken wrist, and then kneeling before the family head and begging for forgiveness. But he would not. He was stoic. And he did have some dignity left.
All he could do was wait for Kiro to be done, and report to him. Hatori exhaled loudly. Of his few friends in medical school, Kiro was the only one he stayed in contact with. Thank Kami for small miracles.
Minekura was born in the Year of the Ox. He was certainly as strong as one. Hatori fervently hoped his benign bovine manner would pacify Akito. A strong capable doctor was what Hatori needed right now…because right now he was nerveless wreck.
I can't believe…what happened. It was all… too fast.
In his mind's eye he saw Akito's shoulder muscles tensing, the blurred fist, his snap-instinct reaction…Akito was fighting back, turning and wrenching, Hatori was trying to hold him still-
Gripping that boy-wrist tighter and tighter
Until
CRACK.
"Goddammit!"
He slid into his office chair.
"Something wrong, Hari?"
The Dragon jerked in surprise. Kiro was leaning casually against the doorjamb, absently fiddling with his doctor's coat. He was smiling warmly.
Hatori stared. There's no way anyone can be smiling after spending time with Akito. No way.
"He's fine now," his friend continued, "He was drowsy when I left him. Very close to sleep."
"…What?"
"You were going to ask how Akito was, weren't you?"
"I…well…"
"It was a clean break," Kiro continued, shifting effortlessly into the medical monotone that Hatori recognised from his own voice, "There is bruising on the greater trochanter – or that's what I think. Akito refused to go to a hospital to be x-rayed."
Hatori groaned.
"It's probably for the best anyway. Like I said, it was a clean break and should heal in seven to nine days. I advise minor physical therapy afterwards, because of his weak condition…are you listening to me?"
"How are you standing there?" Hatori demanded. "How can you rattle off medical opinions at me when you just saw Akito Sohma, feared by all the Juunishi? Why didn't he throw something at you?"
Kiro's tawny eyes twinkled. "That's my little secret. How did you manage all these years, Haa-san?"
"I…" Hatori slumped. "I…detached myself."
"I can see why."
Silence.
"He's a very disturbed boy," Kiro continued softly.
"…"
"I can see it. He's not normal, by any means. He's aggressive, violent…controlling. And bitter, very bitter. Very…sad."
Hatori's silence continued.
"But," the other man continued, in his deep, lowing tones, "He's a boy. Still in adolescence. Akito is weak, sickly…and yet he keeps an entire family in his thrall."
"You're not a Sohma," Hatori snapped. "You wouldn't understand."
Kiro beamed. "Yes, that's exactly what he said."
The Dragon stood. "I've had enough of this conversation, Kiro. As long as Akito is taken care of, little else matters to me."
"What did he mean," Kiro overrode him, "when he said to me 'They would not live out their worthless lives unless I was here to die for them'?"
"It is his curse," was the flat reply. "This conversation is over, Kiro." Hatori turned his back on the man, dismissing him. He knew he was being unfair. The door clicked behind him, receding footsteps reached his ears. The doctor let out shaky breath.
What am I going to do?
---
Midnight.
Akito Sohma rolled and sweated under the pall of feverish dreams.
Boy-hands gripped and tugged at the sheets, as if the god feared his bed would overturn and deposit him into some unknown abyss. He coughed harshly, gaspingly, constantly. Darkness swaddled him in its familiar cocoon. And in the base of his sick mind, Akito knew this nightmare would never end.
A particularly loud cough from him made his eyes fly open. Akito breathed steadily, feeling damp sweat-soaked sheets beneath him, and closed his eyes briefly. Even the dark made his head spin.
His wrist throbbed.
"Hatori…" he whispered. Or he thought he did. Only the ghost of a breath made it past his lips.
Where was his Dragon?
He sat up, by inches, by as much as his drained strength would allow. His dark room whirled about him, he saw the floor tilting, listing through his hot eyes.
He tried to shout for Hatori. Nothing happened. His throat was sore, so sore.
At last his strength left him, he lurched backward, no longer able to keep himself upright, and he put his slight weight full on his injured wrist. The jarring pain seared him awake and he clamped the bandaged limb to his chest, his mouth in a grinning pain-rictus, eyes wide.
The god would not scream.
And then Akito remembered everything as pain crashed down his arm, he tried to keep his cries locked behind his teeth but they burst out, and he was screaming with anger sadness betrayal, yelling, no roared for Minekura, and there were footsteps, and light, and gentle tanned hands to hold his quaking body, a lowing, soothing voice. Akito dimly remembered swallowing painkillers and a sedative, before being washed away by gentle, dark waves.
Kiro looked at the lithe body nestled to his own, saw the tearstains and felt the sweat. Akito's sickness radiated from his body in hot, delirious heat. The doctor decided it wouldn't do to his leave his new patient alone for the night and settled back on the large bed. After fifteen minutes he was asleep as well.
Hatori watched them.
He'd been awake since he heard Akito's terrible cries, and was on his feet and out of bed, hand reaching for his medical bag before he realised. Slowly, stupidly, he'd sat back down, hearing Kiro's competent footsteps enter Akito's room. The cries soon stopped.
And then there was nothing but prickling silence.
The Dragon couldn't stand it. He had to see how Akito was.
He'd walked noiselessly down the corridor, then peered through the crack in door of the hot bedroom.
His stomach lurched.
Akito was curled against Kiro's side, almost dwarfed by the larger man. One of his hands was clutching Kiro's pajama shirt tightly. The other, his broken bandaged one was cuddled to his own chest. Kiro had one arm around Akito. The intimacy of their positions made the Dragon's blood curdle.
Hatori watched them for a long time.
And then he watched only him.
His God.
He watched Akito until dawn came, and left when the couple started to stir.
A/N: Heehee. I love AkitoxHatori. Other Zodiac members may turn up soon. Please review…I won't live unless you review…