A/N: Hi! This is the prologue to the DabiBaku (per your votes) story that I'll be uploading to AO3 as my first work there. I based this fic from a mix of an RP I did with a friend a while back and a movie I saw called The Wildling. Hope you like it. It's angsty and depressing.
Brother gifted him a mouse.
It's a tiny little thing, dark fur damp from the evening rain. Katsuki has never seen a wild animal before---not in person; only ever in books. He said he'd plucked him from a rose bush outside, the very one that Katsuki could see from his bedroom window. Brother had brought him flowers from the bush before, allowed Katsuki to indulge in the soft petals and the sweet scent of them. He didn't know that little critters like this lived in them.
"He's small and soft and fragile...just like you, little brother. I think he'd like to be your friend." Brother had said. The little mouse didn't seem very afraid, sitting comfortably in the wide palm of Brother's hand. Perhaps he was just happy to be somewhere warm and dry. Katsuki sometimes wished he could feel the rain on his skin---just so he could know what it felt like. Brother tells him often that he isn't missing anything but even so, Katsuki would like to experience outside for himself just once.
"You're ill, Katsuki. It isn't safe for you outside."
At least Brother tries to make it bearable for him. Teaches him things to make him smarter. Brings him plenty of toys and puzzles and books. And now, he's brought him a fuzzy little friend to keep him company during his long days, weeks, months, years in this personal quarantine.
He often wonders how Brother doesn't get sick outside, but Brother just tells him that his body is much stronger than Katsuki's own. But Katsuki is already six years old. Surely his body had grown stronger.
Brother's fingers card through Katsuki's unkempt hair and he offers him a smile. It's as much an answer as he'll ever receive.
"We'll have to give him a name, sweetheart. What would you like to call him?"
Katsuki decides that his new friend will be called Basil.
#
Today was supposed to be a special day. It's the only time of year that Katsuki tends to feel any real joy at all, even more so than when Brother makes his favorite meal for him. On days like today he'd wake up to Brother singing a soft song for him, face alight by the glow of candles in the dim morning light. Katsuki had counted twelve this time, all shoved down into the bare chocolate cake that was poised in Brother's hands.
He squeezes his eyes shut and makes his wish upon the end of Brother's song---though he knows very well that it won't come true. He's made the same wish every year and nothing ever changes but maybe---just maybe this time will be different. If he could just be stronger, then Brother could take him outside and he could be normal. Brother often tells him about other children in public schools and playgrounds; he only ever mentions them to call them cesspools for disease and filth. He says that Katsuki is different. That he is special, just like today is supposed to be.
But Basil didn't wake up today.
And today doesn't feel so special anymore.
He usually waited for Katsuki to feed him around this time, eager to receive his daily dose of affection in way of soft and gentle strokes to his furry little head but he's stiff and cold. Katsuki asks Brother if he's sick and if they can get him medicine but Brother just takes him from his pen to wrap in one of the cloth napkins from the table. He kneels down to eye level with Katsuki, an odd look of sympathy that Katsuki has never seen from him before.
"Basil isn't sick, sweetheart. He's just in a better place."
A better place? Katsuki doesn't understand. How could Basil have gone elsewhere if he's still there with them?
Brother leans forward to kiss his crown.
"Everything in life gives back to the Earth. The trees. The rain. Even Basil. You see, Basil left to go somewhere he'll have alllll the food he wants. He'll never be wet or cold or scared. He'll be happy. And he left his body behind to go to the better place. Now I can bury him near the rose bush and...pop!" The loud noise startles Katsuki a bit but Brother steadies him on his feet with a smile.
"A new rose bush will grow out of Basil, isn't that cool?" He continues.
Katsuki thinks so, but he'll still miss Basil very much.
#
Katsuki doesn't think the medicine is working.
Every waking moment feels like little more than a blur for him. He struggles to recall certain things---things that he'd never thought to be important until now. What time is it? What day is it?
He can't remember if he'd started to feel this way before Brother had begun to give him the medicine or if it had only just begun recently. Every moment before this one feels so far away; even yesterday feels like it was months ago. Brother doesn't visit him as frequently anymore. Katsuki can't help but feel lonely.
He's scared.
#
"Happy birthday, sweetheart."
Nineteen. Katsuki counts nineteen candles.
His body no longer does his bidding, heavy with fatigue and the pain in his joints. He can't remember the last time he was able to stomach much of anything that wasn't water, he can't fathom that he could eat even a tiny slice of cake. He lays still in his bed, sweat slicked skin glowing beneath the candles' flames. His eyes flicker from the cake---chocolate, like always---to look Brother in the eyes but even his presence there feels lukewarm. Brother looks like he's in pain, but it's a bit hard to tell in the pale glow of the moonlight.
"You wanna make a wish, baby?" He encourages him as he brings the cake closer to hover near Katsuki's dry and chapped lips, fingers going to comb through the tangled nest of hair matted to sickly pale skin. Try as they might, his twitching lips can no longer hold their smile when Katsuki ignores the cake altogether, eyes searching Brother's face for something he can't quite place his finger on. Brother simply nods solemnly and blows out the candles, setting the cake down on Katsuki's bedside table to take the blonde's shaking hand in his own. He presses his lips to Katsuki's knuckles as gently as he can.
He's trembling.
"How do you feel, sweetheart?"
Feel…
Katsuki doesn't feel much of anything these days.
"D-Do you think...that a rose bush is gonna grow out of me?" He croaks, voice rough and gravelly. Brother doesn't seem to understand so he laughs, though it doesn't sound very happy to Katsuki's ears.
"Why would a rose bush grow out of you, little brother?"
Katsuki's throat hurts so bad, it feels like he's swallowed sandpaper. It's dry and scratchy and almost makes it hard to breathe. It takes him a moment before he's able to find his voice again.
"Tomura...I want to go to the better place, please."
Brother's shoulders begin to sag, any trace of his smile completely shattered and falling to the floor right before Katsuki's eyes. The trembling in his hands intensifies and the next Katsuki knows, Brother is dropping Katsuki's hand back onto the sheets with a stuttering breath. His words seem to have caused Brother pain somehow, but Katsuki isn't sure he knows why. Shouldn't he want to go to the better place? The better place where he's never hungry or sick or weak? If Tomura is afraid of being lonely, then he should come to the better place with him. They'll be happy there together and Tomura won't have to waste his days taking care of Katsuki anymore.
They should have gone to the better place years ago.
Tomura stands to leave and Katsuki fears he may not see him again for the rest of the night. He's angered him somehow, he knows. He wants to beg him to stay. He doesn't want to be alone; he's so afraid.
But there's screaming.
It's not Brother screaming, loud and shrill and ended abruptly with a loud bang! Katsuki can hear his own blood pumping in his ears, ragged breathing heaving anxiously in his chest.
Brother comes back soon.
It worried Katsuki more than his sudden disappearance as the moonlight illuminates Brother's tear stained face. Or is he sweating? Katsuki doesn't know for sure. For a moment he just stands there, eyes glued to Katsuki's bedroom window. Katsuki is too afraid to speak. Has he angered him that much?
Brother comes to sit on the edge of Katsuki's bed and it is then that he notices the shiny kitchen blade in his hands, fingers turning it over and tracing over the edge. A cold feeling settles in Katsuki's gut when he turns to look him in the eyes.
Almost as if Brother isn't Brother anymore.
"First...you will feel doubt. Fear. And then you will feel nothing."
Brother raises the knife to the delicate skin of his own neck and Katsuki's twitching lips struggle to form the words that it would take to beg him not to do whatever it is he's meaning to---the unsettling feeling that it will take Tomura away from him sinks deep into his bones.
"That's the price of going to the better place."
It's the last thing he hears Brother say before his body falls back onto Katsuki's numb and bruising legs, staining the sweat soaked sheets a dark and gut wrenching red. The knife clatters to the ground.
Katsuki doesn't understand.
Why would Brother go to the better place without him?
A/N: Depending on how you guys like this, I may post the entire work here as well. Feel free to leave some feedback!