“ ‘Perfectly sensible’, he says, ‘Wrap up warm, he says.’ ” The boy muttered as he wound his way through the ocean-like woodland before him, “No one ever goes ‘should we send the impressionable teen into the world’s favourite place to commit suicide alone, in the dark, in winter?’, do they?”

He talked to himself as he walked the lightly snow-covered path carefully, remembering from daytime walks, always accompanied by an adult, never alone, like this, never in the dark.  The adults had gone before, alone, but that was different, they knew the forest like the back of their respective hands, that wasn’t like this.  He’d only been to the garden twice, and to be lost here –

The boy bit his lip to stop a gasp from coming out as he spotted the reaching hand, a few centimetres from the path, blue, brittle… frostbite, he told himself, too late for….  The fingers moved.  He squeezed his eyes shut, biting harder, and carried on walking.  He’d been given instructions.  Follow the path, don’t leave it for anything.  Do the job that has been given to you, nothing else.  Whatever you do, do not stop.

There was a low wail behind him, and he pulled the red coat tighter around himself, grateful in that moment for its oversized comfort, borrowed at Asahina’s insistence, telling him he’d need the warmth.  The bag on his back burnt through it in his mind, the grinning leers on the skulls turning into chattering teeth on a cold corpse, lying by the side of the path and he went to – NO, his mind supplied.  Never look back.  Never step off the path.  Do not stop.

But there was only so long he could stand it, the relentless press the spirits of the forest had, the oppressive feel of them all, so sad, so lonely, so… pathetic, he sneered internally, wishing there were someone else here.  With someone else, he could mutter bitterly, and they could ignore him, and it would all go the way it was supposed to.  Like this?  There was only one way it could go, and –

Again, the low wail, this time from above, and he looked up into the wide eyes of someone already well past the point where cutting him down would save him.  The noose had cut into the skin, and Yuki could see bruises, the hand, reaching out to touch him, to ask him to save…

No, whispered someone quietly in the back of his mind, no, you know that’s not true.  You can’t save these people, they didn’t want to be saved whilst there was still hope, after all.  Keep walking, keep moving.

He whirled around, looking for the source of the voice, and realised it, all too late. 

Do not look back.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Yuki arrived at the garden – garden, they called it, a pile of mouldering skulls under the ground, soon to have three new bedfellows, and shifted the trowel – no, Yuki, you can’t have a spade to get it over with faster, it’s not tradition – marching towards the loosest patch of earth, determined to get this over with as soon as possible.

Keep to the path, the voice whispered, mockingly, don’t forget to watch where your feet are.

Yuki looked carefully across the snow-dusted ground, checking for the paths which diverged from the main, and thought about it, carefully, before deliberately stepping.  He felt a shiver run through him as the wind seemed to get colder and he noticed other footprints in the snow near his.

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Riding Hood.”

Yuki swore quietly, under his breath, then steeled himself to look up into the green eyes of a blonde man, standing with what seemed like serene calm for someone in the middle of a deadly forest at night.

“Wrong name.  Out of my way, I have a duty.”

The man stalked closer, breathing in deeply as he pressed his face to Yuki’s neck, the boy too shocked to step back as he was scented.

“Didn’t mummy and daddy warn you?  About the three rules?”

Yes, Yuki thought, I know the rule of three, now get off me, pervert.

But what came out instead was:

“Y-yes.”

A warm tongue licked itself over his ear, curling around the shell and making him shiver more, pressing into the body before him.

“What’s your name, Miss Riding Hood?”

“Why should I tell you?” Yuki replied, shaking his head, hair going everywhere, “Who even are you?”

“My name, for you?  Is Shiki.”

There was a hand in his underwear, getting enthusiastically busy, wrapped around his cock like it was meant to be there, then a hot mouth on his, tongue pressing insistently into his own, and Yuki was so startled that he stepped backwards, away from that hand and –

“You’re not on the path.” The blonde said, eyes flashing green fire before he melted into the forest

What, but he was – Yuki looked down, and saw the border of the path, and his own foot, inches from it, and those blue fingers reaching towards him, too late, too late to do anything as they gripped his ankle.  He threw the trowel at the wrist, hearing it strike true, and ran.

Don’t step off the path.

He ran as fast as he could, thrashing at tree branches as they scratched him, hoping that’s all they were, hearing that enraged scream from behind him, the thud of footsteps too heavy to be human, and then – stopped.

“Ever been here before?” Shiki asked, and Yuki realised he hadn’t paid attention to where his feet were taking him.  He was lost.

Then he looked down.  His feet had stopped moving.

Do not stop.

He stared up in mute appeal to Shiki as the corpses crashed into the clearing, stopping in a ring around the two of them.  The blonde grabbed his wrist, ran at the nearest corpse, and they were flying along, Yuki at a pace he didn’t think was humanly possible, and he could hear the screams from behind, seemingly getting ever closer –

And there was the edge.  Yuki barrelled forward, propelling himself with all his might towards the familiar car park, where he could find himself a taxi, and get a train and…

Shiki wasn’t with him.

Yuki watched, wide eyed, as the blue bodies, spirits, he realised, not corpses, covered Shiki, and the blonde man vanished from sight.  He jumped when the taxi pulled up, getting into it, still staring at the place where the man and those blue figures had been, feeling a phantom kiss all the while.

Two weeks later, Yuki had been coerced into the Day side shift, because deaf old Dr Miyazaki liked them sweet and silent, and they were short-staffed anyway, apparently.

“Oh, and this is Yuki.  Yuki, this is the guy who keeps all those forest spirits off our backs, keeps us safe from harm whenever we enter the forest.  He shouldn’t really be able to leave, but we cheat and keep a chunk of wood around for him to haunt.”

Yuki turned from pouring the tea, and stared into inhumanly green eyes.

The teapot would cost him a week’s wages, at least.

• Demyx/Squid!Xigbar (WTF brain?)
• Transgender!Joshua/Neku (WTF brain?)
• Mr H/Joshua, keyword: trust
• Neku/Music, keyword: radio
• AU anything, keywords: giant fucking spider!