Love Letters - Chapter 6

Tomo lay there, salty tear tracks dried on his face and eyes red from crying. As he slept in restless fits, he was unaware that a little green snake was wandering into his bedroom with a tin of something tied to it. 

"Hey. Hey you, widda hair. Wake up," it said, slithering up one of the bedposts. "Ya ain't listenin' to what people're tellin ya, putz. Get up. I'm on Gad's orda's he'a." 

Tomo groggily opened one bloodshot eye and glared at the snake. "What the Hell do you--you're a snake." 

The snake rolled its eyes. "Hey, ya're right! Why didn't I thinka that? I always wonda'd why the fuck I gat scales!" it griped sarcastically. "Just gimme ya hand, will ya?" 

Tomo sat up and blinked. "No. You're a snake," he said, as if that was the stupidest request ever asked of him. 

The snake glared at him. "Gimme ya fuckin hand or I'm gonna tell Genbu ya bein' a brat and then he'll be all ova ya ass. You don't want that, buddy. He's nuts." 

"Genbu? What does Genbu have to do with anything?!" Tomo made a grab for his Shin and was about to torture the little serpent for information (mostly because being in a really, REALLY bad mood and being the second most powerful Seiryuu Seishi has its good points when you want to be eeeeevil) when the snake grinned, reared its head back, and roared at him. Not just a little snakey hiss, either; a full-blown ROAR, expanding the thing's head to about fifteen times its normal size. 

"Are you gonna listen now? And get offa the damn ceiling!" 

"O-o-o-o-okay...." Tomo took his nails out of the ceiling and let himself drop onto his bed again. 

"Good." The snake opened the tin behind him and pulled out a piece of paper. "Okay, this is what Genbu wanted me ta say,"- he cleared his throat, and began speaking in something like a proper British accent- "Seiryuu shichiseishi Tomo; Due to the fact that your God is an asshole and a neglectful parent, I would like to make you an honorary Genbu shichiseishi. It doesn't make up for the last unsuccessful let's-match-you-and-Nakago-up attempt, the failure of which, I might add, was Seiryuu's fault yet again. And it doesn't make up for the last twenty-one screwed up years of your life, either, and that was his fault too. He's just an asshole; we don't like him, Mom doesn't like him, nobody likes him. He's a brat. He's responsible for everything that happened to you seishi, but we like you best 'cause nobody likes you just because you got messed up. From, Genbu." 

"Honorary.... Genbu?" 

The snake smiled. "Yup. I'm s'poseda paint your symbol in green on ya hand. Wanna? Come on, think about it, no more Nakago bein a dick, no more Seiryuu fuckin' wit ya, just hang out wit....well they're dead, but hang out with 
Hikitsu an' Tomite!" 

I'm dreaming. That's it. I cried myself sick, and now I'm having a fever dream. Okay, good, let's have a dream where I get to be a Genbu instead. I can deal with this, this is NOT going to traumatize me. Tomo shrugged. "O-kay, why the Hell not?" and he offered the snake his left hand. 

The snake picked a paintbrush up in his mouth and a little jar of Genbu-green face-paint-makeup with his tail. He dipped the brush in the paint and drew a small, green version of Tomo's 'root' on his palm. "There ya go!" 

In Heaven: 

"H-hey, WAIT! WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?" Seiryuu bellowed from his position, which was with his tail around Suzaku's neck and both claws pinning him at the shoulders. "LEAVE MY SEISHI ALONE!" 

Genbu grinned with big, happy, I-did-something-and-you-know-it-but-you-can't-do-jack-shit-about-it teeth and pointed. "He's MY seishi! Hope you don't mind, Suzaku, I had to borrow some of that goo you put on your eyes. I didn't use much of the green kind and--" 

"YOU WHAT?! Genbu, didja get that outta my shelf in the medicine cabinet?" 

The tortoise looked up from his snake. "Yeah? Where else would I get it?" 

"IDIOT!" Suzaku threw Seiryuu off of him and into the wall, where the dragon made a nice, wet crunch upon impact. "YA DON"T GIVE THAT TA THE MORTALS!" 

Back In Kutou: 

"Thanks, snake!" Tomo bid the little serpent goodbye, waving and showing off his new symbol. The snake left quietly, dragging the tin behind him, saying "Yeah, yeah, don' mention it." It disappeared in a cloud of green smoke. 

"Well, this is cool. I'm a Genbu Seishi, I don't have to listen to Nakago anymore, and I can do pretty much whatever I w--whooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, check out all the COLORS!" Tomo squealed, his eyes lighting on the spilled makeup and broken glass all over the floor. "Wooo, lookit 'em go..." He watched them fly around the room and out the window. 

"Wait, colors, come back!" Tomo climbed out of his window to chase them down. He had scarcely gotten past his own room when Miboshi, dragging himself along by his pudgy baby fingers, hanging out of an asleep, drooling Ashitare's mouth, crawled past him. "T-omo...I'm....ooh, you're gonna pay for that..." 

Tomo squealed. "LOOK AT THE CUTE BABY! OHHHH, HE'S SO ADORABLE!" Tomo yanked the demonic infant out of Ashitare's mouth and hugged him. "Ohhh, you're so cute, yes you are! Koochi-koochi-koo! And such a big boy, taking your doggy for a walk all by yourself!" 

Miboshi, dog-slobber-soaked and exhausted, could do little else but say "What the FUCK, Tomo?!" 

"Such a potty mouth, at YOUR age?! That's it, I'm washing your mouth out with soap, young man!" Tomo grabbed some illusory soap and scrubbed out Miboshi's mouth with it. 

"I'm-- glub blub spit- tellin' Yui-sama!" Miboshi wailed, trying to rid himself of the offending soap. 

"Who?" 

Miboshi arched one eyebrow and tried to feel Tomo's forehead. 

"AAAAH! THERE THEY GO! GET BACK HERE, COLORS!" He dropped Miboshi and ran off to chase them across the yard, and toward Nakago's bedroom. 

In Heaven: 

"Genbu, what in the world coulda posessed ya ta give Tomo the special make-up?!" 

"Whaddya mean, 'special'? It never affected you that way!" Genbu whimpered. "It was an accident." 

Taiitsukun laughed so hard, she tipped her chair and pork rinds over. "You three are priceless! Oh, I wish I had a camera!" 

Author Interlude: 

Celleri grinned. "I ain't exactly a Polaroid, but I'm close enough to a camera." 

Aeanagwen. "I'm still waiting to see what you're going to do about that horrible angst-session up there." 

In Kutou: 

Tomo happily bounced around the palace, chasing the colors as they flew through the air in spidery little blobs. "Come back! Don't run away!" Tomo, not noticing that he was chasing things that no one else could see, ran straight into Soi. "Hi, Soi! Have you seen which way the colors went?" 

Soi's eyes got very, very wide. "Tomo? Tomo, dear, are you all right?" she asked gently. She really was concerned for Tomo's mental health, after the psychological trauma he had gone through last night. After all that, he may very well have gone off the deep end. 

"I'm wonderful, Soi! The sun is warm, the grass is green and LOOK!" He held his hand up. "See? I'm a GENBU shichiseishi now!" 

Soi went blink-blink. "How... nice." 

"Well, it was wonderful to see you today, Soi, but those colors need to be caught before they do any damage or get lost or something, so I'll see you later! Bye-bye!" He scooped Soi up in a big bear hug and dashed off the chase the colors down. 

Soi, having never received a real hug before, sat there and blinked. Then she smiled. 

Meanwhile, Tomo headed off to find the elusive colors. "Coooooolooooors, where aaaaaaaare yooooooooou?" He wandered around aimlessly until he came upon Suboshi, polishing his new camera, stolen from Suzaku no Miko rather than Yui this time, telling it that he would take better care of it this time. 

Suboshi's head jerked up, and he watched Tomo call out to the 'colors' and for them to 'come back' as he ran around the grounds. He suddenly had a glorious vision of money, and lots of it, falling from that long banner of hair flying behind Tomo's obviously drunken-or-otherwise-afflicted head.

"O-ka-ne... Okay, Otouto, time to win your spurs!" He loaded a roll of film into the camera with practiced ease and followed the brain-damaged illusionist. 

In Heaven: 

Seiryuu smacked his forehead. "Genbu, you're an idiot, and now your honorary idiot is screwing around with my seishi while he's drunk on Suzaku's special makeup." 

"It's not his fault, don't be an ass," Taiitsukun scolded. "Let your brothers play with your Seishi once in awhile. You don't take good care of them." She took another fistful of pork rinds and stuffed them in her mouth. 

"Ohhh, poor Tomo...." Genbu whimpered. "After all that and now you're going around making an idiot of yourself." 

Suzaku glared at him. "Ya don't just GIVE that stuff ta the mortals! Think about it, wouldya give some old mortal guy a shot of MY Viagra? NO, that's stupid. That's about as dumb as givin' Suboshi that camera, or my Miko a lifetime pass ta an all-ya-can-eat-buffet, or letting the Emperor of Kutou get his hands on an eleven-year-old Hin, SEIRYUU. Ya just DON'T DO some stuff, cause it's so stupid!" 

Seiryuu stuck his tongue out at them. 

"Suzaku, how long is he gonna be like that?" Genbu asked. 

"I dunno, could be three hours, could be three days, could be three weeks. Ask the authors." 

Author Interlude:

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" laughed the authors.