Title: Mourning
Series: Vampire Knight Guilty
Characters: Zero/Yuuki Cross
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Rating: T
Type: Multi-Chapter
[A/N: Because it was getting terribly long, I split this one into some chapters. (I didn't want it to just be one long incredibly drawn out One-Shot) I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please read and review! -ritzy]
Chapter 1: Will To Live
A few heavy hours passed and the pain had dwindled, but was still present every time he tried to open his eyes. Shakily, Zero stood, feeling against the wall. On slipery feet, he walked- or rather stumbled toward where he knew the railing to be. Progressing along the hall to the stairs, he stopped.
Damn that Vampire...
Zero knew he was good as dead now.
Though- he wanted to live.
Reaching to un-do his tie with one hand, he leaned against the railing, and tied the red fabric across his face, over his injured eyes. He didn't dare open them, due to the amount of pain that would blossom around the area in seconds. As he secured the knot, his head throbbed, and his teeth bit into his lip, hard enough to make it bleed. That pain would only be temporary, and the tie was a comfort over his dead eyes.
Step-by-step he took the stairs, and held fast to the railing every time he decended. Reaching the floor, he could faintly smell Kaname's blood, and he followed the trail to the door, leaning an arm against it to catch his breath. Turning the handle, he stepped outside.
It was still dark out, Zero could tell because of the sting his eyes were experiencing from the slight dampness in the air. Walking forward without sight, he stumbled forward a few times, but eventually was able to step flat.
He was able to get over, past the Moon Dorm grounds, and recalled where the Headmaster's office was from memory. Blood had saturated the tie, and was slipping down his face. His steps were a bit heavier than before, but his will was strong.
...
Pressing inside the building, he reached the main hallway where his old room was. Stopping at the door, he sighed, and opened it. Inside, it was still as bare as it had been when he'd stayed, but there was a scent that he couldn't quite place within the darkness...
That was, until he heard a voice. "Zero?" It was female; he could tell instantly, though...who could have been there? Other sounds in the quiet were the shift of the bed as the person moved to stand, the sound of shoes moving cautiously over worn carpet. "What happened...!?"
Hands grasped his jacket, the blood from his injuries staining the front. The voice was startled, and she was fighting to breathe properly. He felt her hair, beating against his person as she stood close, staring up at his masked face, closed off by the tie surrounding his eyes.
He could tell she was crying, her shoulders shook as the young woman bowed her head, resting it against his bloody chest. It finally registered when she shook against him- it was her.
His lips tightened, as he recalled the words he had said to her before. Forget about me, please. And after, how he had walked away into the depths of the place she didn't belong.
Wiping her eyes, the single member of the Disciplinary Committee stood back, to fully take in her...should she call him a friend? That was a question she struggled to answer, but he was before her now, so she felt like helping him.
...
Raking through short brown locks with a hand, Yuuki Cross had gotten mixed up in something made to hurt, and it was indeed doing just that. Every time she glanced at Zero, even before she removed the veil over his eyes- pangs of sadness filled her to the core. She wished to know how, and why, but Zero seemed to shut down.
It reminded her of back then, when they had first met- and it was slowly regressing to the state.
"Come in.." She said, sniffing back more tears. Zero stepped forward a few paces, and he heard the door close behind his back as Yuuki moved to turn on the light; it hadn't been on before as she had just been there thinking, in the dark.
He didn't have to wait for permission, but then again: It wasn't his room anymore. Sightless eyes stared nowhere as he went to sit on the bed, silent and stoic. Not wishing to feel any more pain than he wanted, Zero kept his back straight, not moving a muscle.
Yuuki had by then moved away from the switch, her hands about wanting to grab him in a hug, but she willed herself not to. Stepping in front of his seated form, she asked every sort of thing.
Permission. Like before, back when they were young, she wanted to be careful he didn't break.
Zero seemed like glass.
Fingers reached up to touch the tie, blodstained and crusted, her eyes watching Zero's face twitch, but never move away. It was clear that whatever was under that- had hurt him extensively. Pursing her lips, the question came. "Can I remove it...?" She spoke about the tie, but he never answered. Sitting now on her knees, she moved up and reached behind his head, Zero's breath short and warm against her neck.
Fumbling with the hasty knot he had made, the fabric gave, slipping down toward the male's mouth. Sitting back, she let the soiled tie go, and brought up a hand. Tears flooded her eyes once again, as she saw one of the things that Zero was dealing with.
His eyes...can he even see? Was her first thought, but it'd likely end sorely if she tried to open them herself. One had a deep cut all the way down the eye, and it looked like liquid and crust were forming - it was getting infected, very slowly.
The dry blood on his face appeared to be like tears - a morbid thought really, but she pushed it away, getting to her feet. Heading out the door, and to the bathroom; she grabbed a basin of warm water and a rag.
Returning to the room, Zero was as she left him, sitting on the bed. After asking him more questions and getting no answer, Yuuki carefully removed his Night Class uniform from his chest - as it was stained - but also so she could clean his neck and chest. As she began wiping away at his neck she had a sense of deja vu that rippled through her body like a cold shiver. Dismissing it with a shake of her head, she finished wiping his neck and collarbone, peering up at the final task: Zero's face and eyes.
She wasn't sure about it, her heart pounding fiercely in her chest. Taking a few shallow breaths, the damp and bloodied rag was raised to the left eye. Dabbing a little, the cloth did its job, but quickly became full and she had to stop and wring it out and plunge it back into the depths of the now murky water.
Returning the rag to the same spot, Yuuki gingerly wiped over the eye as the warm water helped to break up the mess of dried blood and cracked dead skin, as well as fluids from the eye itself that had layered in a film. Repeating the process was long, and she found herself yet again asking more questions.
"Does it hurt?"
"I'm sorry, how does it feel now?"
"Can I wipe your face?"
All with no reply from Zero. He was mute.
Sighing, she dropped the rag into the water, watching it cloud red with Zero's blood. She had finished cleaning all that she could see, but...she hadn't gotten to the real damage under the lids. She also didn't know about his back, till she stood to replace the water, catching the light reflecting off of something behind Zero.
Lurching around the side of the bed, she about screamed, dropping the basin of water and it spilled across the floor. His back, full of glass... She had never fully taken off his clothes, but...she didn't think to look him over completely. How had this happened?! She was truly sorry for Zero, and laid hands on his shoulders.
"I'm going to lay you down, on your stomach, okay?" Still no reaction or reply from the wounded party. Yuuki bit her lip, and carefully moved him as she had said, turning his head to allow his cheek to rest on a pillow. Then, fully, she could see the second area, covered in glass and blood staining the white of his uniform.
Worry dropped her stomach to her knees, and she steeled herself to sit next to Zero's body, and begin the painstaking task of removing the glass she could see. Cutting herself a few times, she kept on until there was no more to pluck, and his skin was partially visible under the now dark red colored shirt underneath the jacket and vest. None of it looked too bad, and as she peered into the skin, no slivers were shimmering just beyond the surface. She breathed another sigh, this time of relief.
"Zero..." She spoke his name softly, like she had when the door had first opened.
...
He couldn't think. He couldn't move. It was Dark.
Zero wasn't scared; he rarely got that way, but he was irritated.
Though, the fact that he couldn't think was surprising. Either he was dead, or somehow unconscious, but able to stay afloat in his mind...whatever the chance of that may be, it was one option. Another was that he was conscious, and not shrugging away the fact that it was Dark because Kaname had brutally stabbed his eyes.
And there was Pain.
The feeling of a cloth being rubbed against his face, on his eyes. It burned, just as it had when the act had been played out, and he could only stay silent. He couldn't move.
Every so often, he heard her voice, as if she were fading and growing louder at certain points. It was pretty confusing to figure out what she was saying, but he could catch the end of every bit, that tone that one used when asking a question.
It was Dark still, and he knew it was because he was blind. No way around it.
In his mind, he felt the sensations of being touched, and his body moved. Yuuki had pulled his body to lie on his stomach. It was obvious that she had found the wounds on his back.
Dammit. He didn't want this- not with her.
His situation was merely harder.
His body involuntarily rolled to the side.
He heard his name, spoken like a whisper.
Zero woke up.
