[fic] VF Therapy short: Ghost Story / Omake: Zombie Invasion

[sunflower1343]

Title: Therapy side story: Ghost Story w/ Omake
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: just for Therapy
Warnings: An attempt at horror, so maybe it's a little gross. And God knows why I set this in the Therapy universe; it just came out that way. Don't look for a meaningful addition to the universe.
Disclaimer: The characters are all Yamane-sensei's.

Notes: This is my attempt at a good old-fashioned ghost story, told for a birthday girl who wishes her birthday to be anonymous, so I won't mention names. I will just say that the other night I had nightmares about dismembered corpses crawling out of wells thanks to our conversation dammit!!!

So in honor of Japanese scariness, I've tried to be a little scary too. I don't know if it worked, but it was fun to write. ^__^

As for the omake, well, I think you can blame a lack of sleep. ^^;

Therapy can be found here.

Happy Birthday Mystery Girl! YAY!!!!!!! XDDD



"Have you ever seen a ghost, Akihito?"

The young man being questioned looked up and toward one end of the study where Tao was sitting at Fei's ornate French-style desk. The young boy's laptop was open and it looked like he was writing something.

"I can't say that I have, Tao." Akihito turned to his left on the leather couch, where Fei sat absorbed in a book as usual. "What about you, Fei? Have you ever seen a ghost?"

The exquisite man partially closed his book, leaving a finger between the pages and glanced back and forth between the two of them. He shook his head, his eyes a little sad. "Not of the sort you're thinking. I'd lived with ghosts all my life though, you know, until this last year. I no longer heed them, as my thoughts have turned to the future instead." His hand stretched out to gently caress Akihito's cheek.

Akihito leaned into it a little and blushed, remembering the conversation. "I guess we're no help to you then Tao. Maybe try Wiki."

"What? You're not going to ask me?" The baritone voice from the other end of the room had them all turning in surprise. Asami had been working at his desk, ignoring them as usual. Although Akihito knew it was more like he was pretending to ignore them, because everything they did and said was somehow noted even as he analyzed his business reports.

"I figured there wasn't any point asking you. What ghost would be dumb enough to try to scare you?"

Fei laughed, a sound like the tinkling of bells in the wind. The melody of it made even Asami smile. "Ryuichi, you're far too practical to see ghosts. Should one appear before you, you'd walk right through it without acknowledgment. It would be the ultimate insult and the poor ghost would never live it down."

Tao's voice piped up, filled with curiosity. "So have you seen one, Dad?"

Akihito loved watching Asami's face when Tao called him that. It was like he was fighting a blush, though of course one never appeared.

Asami rose from behind his desk and walked to where they sat in the center of the room, two couches facing each other. He sank down upon the one opposite Akihito and Fei's and beckoned Tao over to sit beside him. "I have, actually. Though I wasn't sure that was what it was at the time. But it was." He slipped his arm around the boy and pulled him close. "I hadn't thought of it for a long time, but every so often something brings it back. I may as well tell you."

Fei set his book aside and Akihito moved close, curling up under the other's arm.

"This was long before I'd met any of you, back when I'd just graduated from high school. I'd been accepted into Todai-"

"You went to Todai?!" Akihito practically shouted the words.

Asami stared at him a second, clearly annoyed at the interruption. "I was accepted. I didn't say I went there. Fei, if he talks again, gag him."

"Perhaps. What's the magic word?"

Tao broke in. "I thought that was to get out of bondage, not into it."

Akihito and Fei stared at him aghast. Asami simply shook his head, amused. "You're thinking of a safe word. Akihito likes to use rutabaga."

"Oh!" Tao's eyes widened with comprehension. "I thought you were playing Pictionary with vegetables one night and I couldn't figure out why Akihito kept guessing the same word over and over!"

Fei sniggered. Akihito buried his face in his hands. "Ryu! Tao, you don't need to know anything about anything like that until you're at least twenty. Ryu, not another word or the safe word will be 'headache', as in 'not tonight dear', got it?"

Asami casually flicked his lighter open and lit a cigarette. "Like that would stop me."

"Ryu..." Akihito took a deep breath. "Weren't you telling us a story?"

A cloud of exhaled smoke blew into Akihito's face. "Until you interrupted."

"I'll be sure not to again."

Asami smirked, and Akihito realized that had been the plan all along. He opened his mouth to yell, but when Asami's eyebrow rose in challenge he just snapped his lips shut and glared.

Fei sat with his hand over his mouth, his eyes dancing. "Ryuichi, would you please continue? I, for one, would like to hear your tale."

Asami shrugged. "Of course. There's not much to it. I'd been accepted into university but I had no desire to jump right in, so I got a deferment to take a year off and work. I'd always wanted to travel so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and signed on as an apprentice seaman aboard a merchant ship that transported coal and other ores between Japan and China. It had a lot of ports of call throughout Southeast Asia so I thought it would be a good way to see more of the world on someone else's money."

He stretched his legs out in front of him, his gaze unfocused and on the past. "And it was, as well as being an education on the dregs of society. But the food was good, the pay was high, and I never stopped to question why the money was flowing freely. I thought it was like they said, that they only make a few runs every year so the trips had to pay well. To a degree, that was honest. How they made money was not.

"Of course, I couldn't have cared less that they were smuggling. One of the men I bunked with, a Swede named Carl, showed me the small hideaways they had underneath the massive holds that the ores would fill. No one ever checked them. I only saw one or two. It was impossible to get to them once the holds were loaded."

He paused and lit another cigarette, the other already smoked down to the butt. "Come to think of it, this really is a boring story. Wouldn't you all rather just watch a scary movie? I think The Remains of the Day is on." A visible shudder ran through him.

"No!" they all said loudly, then looked at each other sheepishly.

"Please do go on, Ryuichi," Fei encouraged.

Akihito felt a little uneasy as his lover took another long pull from his cigarette, like he was taking a deep breath. There weren't many things he hesitated to tell them. On the rare occasions when he was evading judgment he was glib. When it concerned his childhood he simply ignored the probes. But this, this almost felt like he was afraid.

As if hearing him, Asami's gaze found his and Akihito smiled in reassurance. Asami's eyes filled with amusement, and something that touched Akihito far more than most things between them, trust. Their eyes held each other's for a moment, then Asami again began to speak.

"Since I was lowest on the totem pole one of my jobs was cleaning and maintenance, and I had to spend time in the cargo holds when they were empty, one in particular." He tapped the ashes from his cigarette and grimaced. "Cargo hold four. All the others had been filled for the voyage south, but not that one. They all told me it was bad luck but wouldn't explain why. I thought something fairly bad must have happened in the past for them to give up a tenth of their possible profits so easily. They were greedy bastards. But when I asked their eyes shifted away. I assumed what I didn't know couldn't hurt me. I was a fool.

"Anyway, I hated the times I had to work down there. On those days I'd be stuck in that cavern with no light except the one on my helmet. There was always some old water in the bottom and it was like wading through the sewers after a while. There were rats all over the ship and the dead ones would be floating around rotting, and the live ones would swim up and try to bite you because they were so hungry.

"They gave me a club the first time I was sent down there so I could beat off any that were too aggressive. You'd hear the squeaking echo around, bouncing off the metal wall, but the swimming ones were always silent. Fucking rats. There were a lot fewer after I was down there, and they learned to leave me alone.

"It was like that the whole voyage south, through the ports where we were offloading our Japanese cargo and taking on the new. I'd work doing maintenance and cleaning, and once in a while there would be some trivial problem in that hold and I'd have to climb down in there and sort it out. No one else would go. I decided they were all superstitious. You know how seamen can be.

"So one day on the return trip, maybe only three or four days out from Japanese waters, I had to go down and fix a valve that had got stuck. If too much water leaked in they needed to pump it out, but the valve didn't open and once again I was the lucky one who had to deal with it. I strapped on my tool belt and helmet and climbed down into that pit.

"I'd been working down there about half an hour or so, cursing up a storm because the damned thing wouldn't budge, when I took a break to have a smoke. That was when I noticed. The rats' squeaking had stopped. Some sounds were still there, the thrum of the engines, water streaming in from above, but it all sounded distant, like the world had faded a little. It was practically silent, except for one thing. There was this swishing, like something walking through the water. It was coming from the center of the hold, behind me, and it was getting closer."

Asami lifted his cigarette and looked surprised to find he'd already sucked it down to the end. He shook out another as his audience impatiently watched.

"I thought I'd taken too long and one of the crew had actually come to give me a hand. I called out and asked for help pulling on the lever so the seal would crack. I didn't get an answer and I tried some Cantonese I'd picked up, since half the seamen were Chinese. Still no reply. Eventually the steps finally stopped, right behind me. I was glad because his walking had stirred up the water and it stunk like a road-kill that had been rotting in the sun for a few days. I was getting a little annoyed and told him that if we wanted to get out of there he'd have to do something besides stand there and watch.

"That's when it happened."

Asami fell silent, his lips slightly pursed as if unwilling to let the rest out.

"What?" yelled Akihito. "What freaking happened?"

Asami's eyes moved to stare at him, and holding Akihito's gaze, he continued.

"I heard this... sound. Like... sticky slices of raw meat being pulled apart. I couldn't place it into any real context, and was about to turn to see what the hell was going on, when there was this cold, fetid breath on the back of my neck. The first thing I thought was rape, but my mind threw that out immediately. One of the guys had tried it before and I'd beat the shit out of him. But it wasn't like this. That had been hot and sweaty. This, this was clammy, icy, like something that hadn't known warmth in years. That was when I knew it wasn't human.

"My hair stood on end and shivers started to run down my arms and legs, locking them in place. I froze. I fucking froze. It was like a nightmare where you're two steps from safety and suddenly your legs won't work. I didn't know what the fuck I was supposed to do except fight, but my muscles weren't listening. It was like someone else was in control and I was just a passenger in my own body.

"Even then, I did what I could to learn something, anything that would help. I watched the shadows, trying to get some kind of a clue as to what it was. But I had the only light in the room and it was pointed at the wall. There was nothing I could use, just those sounds that shouldn't exist in something that lived, that overpowering stench, and above all its touch.

He crushed the forgotten cigarette in his hand.

"Because I suddenly felt something in my hair by my neck, stroking it, playing with it. It felt like icy worms coated in slime writhing along my skin. I was fighting to turn my head, lift my hand, anything to get away from it but I was still held motionless by something. The touch had done one thing though, it had jolted my brain back into action. My body couldn't move but my thoughts were racing. I'd be damned if I'd submit to anything's touch. The light couldn't show me what I fought, but it showed me my weapon, the large meter-long wrench I'd brought to tackle the valve problem. It was only inches away from my grip.

"That was when it made a mistake. It slid those slimy fingers or tentacles or whatever the hell they were around my neck and began squeezing. I almost panicked. Almost. But I'd learned some judo growing up and knew some of the fundamentals of fighting a strong opponent. I knew that one way to make him fall was to give in. I relaxed.

"And then I could move.

"That was all it took. It was like the bands holding me had snapped and my hands flew forward to grab that big wrench and I swung it around like I was Ou fucking Sadaharu and I connected. But I couldn't tell what with, because right as I turned my hat fell into the sludge and the only light in the hold was underwater and pointing at the wall. I just felt the wrench sink into something like soft cream cheese and this... smell exploded around me...

"I almost vomited but I didn't have time. It was still fighting but now it was shrieking like a thousand nails on blackboards and it grabbed for my throat again. I wrestled it down into the water, but it was like wrestling... I don't know. It was strong, but every time I tried to grip it my fingers would sink into what felt and smelled like slippery rotting meat.

"We were rolling around on the bottom of the hold, sometimes I was under water, sometimes it was. But I had the advantage. I was fighting for my life."

Asami paused and turned his head to look out the window. Akihito couldn't be sure, but he thought he turned a little pale. He started to stand up but Fei's arm came across in front of him, holding him back. Fei shot him a look and shook his head. Asami kept speaking like he hadn't noticed, his demeanor calm, his voice slightly savage.

"I'm not sure what the thing was, or what it was expecting, but it wasn't expecting me. Nothing tries to kill me and survives. Nothing. That wrench was huge and heavy and I used it. I used it until it was quiet, until nothing was moving in that hold except me."

Asami's chest was rising and falling quickly. Akihito pushed against Fei's arm and this time it reluctantly moved aside. He sank to his knees at Asami's feet and falling forward, wrapped his arms around his lover's waist and lay his head in his lap. A hand hesitantly then gently caressed his head. The voice above him was calmer as it continued.

"I don't know how I stood up but I did, choking to get that foul water out of my mouth. My higher brain wasn't comprehending what had happened. It had been primal, a fight for survival of the lowest sort. Thinking had no part in it, and it took a moment before I could again. I finally started noticing sounds around me again, the rats starting up their concerto --because that's what it now sounded like to me. And the sound of water rushing through the valve. I turned back to it and to my shock it was wide open, as if there'd been no problem to begin with. I picked up my tools and helmet and got the hell out of there and didn't look back.

"It wasn't until I reached the deck and saw the crew's shocked and guilty faces that I realized they'd known what they were sending me down into. Carl later confessed, right before I killed him. It always took one of them, so they made a point of hiring on someone young and stupid for each trip, someone who wouldn't be missed. But after that day they never had to again."

Silence fell about the room. Akihito raised his head and asked hesitantly, "Because you'd put the ghost to rest, right?"

Asami looked down and stared at him, eyes completely flat. "Because that was the last voyage that ship and crew took."

Akihito sat back in shock. "You killed them?"

"Good," Fei said matter-of-factly. "Had you left any alive, I'd have killed them, slowly and painfully."

Asami's eyes softened slightly. "I know you would have."

If Tao was shaken by the story he didn't let it show. "Did you ever find out why Dad? Usually a ghost like that is mad, right?"

"Yeah, I found out why. The compartment under hold four used to be used for smuggling too. Humans. Slave trade. Only one time the valve got stuck and no one had wanted to bother to go down to fix it and the people all drowned. Cargo loss, they'd called it. Fucking filthy traders. They said you could see the scratch marks on the ceiling if you bothered looking, and that the bones of their fingers were worn down past their first knuckles from trying to pry the doors open."

"So that's why you won't traffic in slaves," Fei said softly.

"It's a filthy business Fei, and I won't stand for it or work with anyone who does. I swore it that day on the deck of that ship right before I sunk her."

"I'm glad you did." Tao looked a bit fierce.

"And so am I," Akihito added softly. Asami's eyes probed his, but there was nothing in him at that point but utter faith that Asami had done the right thing, and he felt the body under him relax. He should have known Asami wouldn't kill anyone unless they really deserved it. Still, it made him uncomfortable and he changed the subject. "Ryu, have you ever told anyone else that story?"

The reply was quiet. "You know I haven't."

"Well, I'm glad you told us, because I think it means that you feel like you can pretty much tell us anything. You know we believe in you. And we're always on your side, against gangsters or ghosts."

"Or vampires or aliens or slimy flesh-eating zombies!" Tao threw in for good measure.

"Thank you, Tao," Asami said dryly. "I'm sure that will be useful in the future."

"Well." Fei stood suddenly. "I don't know about the rest of you but I suddenly feel the need to watch some Bollywood." He held his hand out to Tao. "Come Tao, let's pick out a bright and sparkly movie."

"Twilight has bright and sparkly vampires."

Fei's brow furrowed in pain. "Can you not see how very wrong that is? It just doesn't make sense."

"And Bollywood does?"

"Bollywood has centuries of Indian tradition behind it. What's behind sparkly vampires? Elvis?" The argument continued as they headed down the hall toward the family room.

Akihito was smiling as he stood and started to follow, but when Asami didn't rise his smile faltered. He sat down straddling the man's lap, until the distant eyes came to a focus on him.

"You saw it, didn't you?" he asked.

The golden eyes shifted to his, slightly shocked. But after appraising him, they moved back to the window. "You mean, on the ship. I... think I did. The light, it was moving because we were thrashing around in the water. But it was just a glimpse. I can't be sure, especially after all this time, that I wasn't just imagining things."

Akihito tilted his head. "Want to talk about it?"

"No." Asami shook his head, looking a little tired. "No. All I'll say is that I hope it rests in peace. I can't blame it for wanting revenge. But if I ever face anything like that again," he continued, fire returning to his eyes, "I'll deal with it the same way."

Akihito attempted his best Arnold accent. "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

To his relief, that won him a quick grin.

"C'mon Ryu, let's go watch the movie."

Asami groaned. "Bollywood? I'd rather be bitten by rats."

"Well," Akihito teased, "I was kinda thinking along those lines, only we're the rats and Fei is the cheese. How long do you want to bet it takes us to get him away from the movie? After we give him, say, fifteen minutes to start to get into the film?"

The answer came swiftly. "One minute."

"One...?" he choked. "Not even you're that good."

Asami's eyebrow rose. "Want to bet?"

As they rose and walked to the door, arms around each other's waists, Akihito ventured one last question. "You did it for them, didn't you, the people who'd drowned?"

Asami shrugged and smiled slightly at his younger lover. "If you wish to believe that, you may."

"I know you well enough by now that I can see right through your fake indifference."

"Then there's no need for more questions, is there?"

The kiss they shared showed there was not.

---

A little while later Cook scowled as she was walking down the flagstone path behind the house. Someone had tracked some smelly mud outside the study window. She'd thought she'd seen a person out of the corner of her eye earlier, bowing toward someone inside. But when she'd turned to look, the path was empty so she'd thought no more of it.

After following the trail, she stopped in confusion when she saw that it ended some fifteen feet into the lawn, like the person had flow away. She considered what could have possibly caused that and could only come to one conclusion that made any sense.

It must be Master Tao playing one of his pranks. He'd make a fine young ninja.

She continued on her way, putting the incident from her mind. The lingering smell of the ocean was soon dispelled by the afternoon breeze.

~end~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK, I'm sorry for what follows. *runs like hell*

Omake: Zombie Invasion!

Kirishima and Yoh rushed into the house and slammed the door shut behind them, throwing all the bolts. "Asami-sama, Feilong-sama, we're under attack by brain-eating zombies!"

Fei sauntered from the sitting room while pulling a sheer silk robe around him that barely hid his nude body. Yoh promptly fainted.

"Well," said Kirishima looking down at his companion, "there's one less brain for them to eat."

Asami soon joined them, though he hadn't bothered with a robe. He was, however, wearing his gun. It was cocked and loaded. "What's the commotion?"

"Brains... I want brains..." Akihito appeared at the other end of the hall and shuffled up to them, eyes glazed and arms outstretched.

Fei absentmindedly patted his head. "Of course you do dear. You've always been a little short on them. And Ryuichi wants a heart."

Asami glared at his partner. "But you don't need nerve. You've got a lot of it."

"Brains......." Akihito reached for Asami.

Kirishima was confused. "But why's he reaching down, not up...?"

Fei started laughing.

Asami glared at them both and swung Akihito up into his arms. "And you're going to get them zombie-chan, though maybe not where you expected." He carried Akihito off into a room somewhere in the labyrinthine mansion.

Fei shook his head. "We're under attack by zombies and he goes off to fuck one?"

"Feilong-sama, if you think this is bad, don't even ask about the time we got trapped on Monkey Island."

Fei gave Kirishima a long stare that seemed to say "I wanna ask. I don't wanna ask. I wanna ask. I don't wanna ask." Luckily for everyone he ended on "don't wanna".

"So it's up to us to save humanity." Fei stepped over Yoh to reach the door. Unfortunately the poor man awakened and was looking up when this occurred, and he promptly lost a quart of blood.

"Ewww." Fei gingerly lifted his robe. Then he peeked out the security hole in the front door. "There are hundreds of them!! Look, it's all of Morning Musume, and they don't look any different!" He shuddered and stepped back over Yoh, who was thankfully still dead to the world, though not dead enough to be called a zombie.

Kirishima tilted his head. "Do you hear something? It sounds like..."

"Wagner!!" they both shouted, and they raced into the front parlor where the large bay window overlooked the lawn. A large military issue helicopter playing "Ride of the Valkyries" was coming in low from the northwest. Suoh was flying it, wearing sunglasses and some weird face paint that looked more like flower power than warrior's marks, and Cook was wrapped in black and hanging out the side screaming "YEEEHAW!" while tossing huge brains all over the place.

"What the fuck?" Yoh had woken and wandered in and was staring at the chaos. He promptly fell over onto the couch.

The zombies all made mad dashes, in a slow shuffling kind of way, to the brains and began gobbling them down. It was disgusting, for zombies have few table manners.

A few seconds later, there was a slight pop. Then another. Soon it sounded like dorks at a bubble wrap convention. Where zombies had stood, there were now cows, all wearing goofy Napoleon hats.

"What the fuck?? What. The. Fuck!?" They heard a thump. Yoh wasn't having a good day.

"Ditto," murmured Fei.

"You just have to follow the logic, Fei," Asami said as he strolled in, his personal zombie in tow. "They wanted brains, we delivered brains. The brains were all infected with a new strain of mad cow disease, transforming them all into, well, mad cows."

"So they all think they're Napoleon?" Fei's brain was hurting, and he was considering having it eaten.

Asami shrugged. "I thought I saw a Marie Antoinette or two as well. For some reason they stick with French historical characters. We're working on that."

"Why?" Yoh asked hysterically from where he was prone on the floor. "Why would you be working on that? Are mad Russians better? What the hell?"

"Yoh, you need some time off. Take the plane." Asami tossed him some keys. "Go to the South Seas. Get laid."

Yoh grabbed Kirishima and dragged him out the door. "Hey....!"

Asami smiled. "And all's well that ends well!"

"Except for poor Aki."

"No more brains..." Aki-zombie whimpered, hands over his ass.

"You say that but do you really mean it?" Asami said fondly, patting his behind. "I've got plenty left."

"I'm glad someone does," Fei muttered. "And who exactly is going to get those cows out of my roses?"

"Don't worry, it wears off in a few hours."

"What?? Then we get the zombies back?!"

"No, for some reason there's both parallel and cyclic transmogrification, and they revert back to some of the humans that they started out as, the ones with the strongest personalities."

"My God Ryuichi. What have you done?"

"What? What did I do?"

Despite having weathered invasions by the likes of Godzilla and Mothra, Tokyo finally fell that evening to the thousands of Morning Musume members roaming the streets singing inane songs.

---

Tao woke up with a start and wiped the sweat from his face. "Oh my god! I'm never, ever eating ramen right before bed again!!" And he promptly fell back asleep to dream of sweeter things.

~end~