Summary: In Sanguinem the nights are chilly and the days full of rancor and fear. Children readily bear their necks to serve as delectable meals for their vampire hosts; dreams are constantly shattered; life extinguished, and yet… there are still those who refuse to let darkness overtake them.
Here With You
The air is rather warm, despite being hundreds of feet below the snowy surface. A concave ceiling and rocky walls provide better shelter from the elements outside than one would expect, for the climate fluctuates minimally. These accommodations go unnoticed by the city's residents however. Under the guise of hooded cloaks, their red-eyed patrons, like gargoyle sentries, survey the children who slug back into their homes, faint and fearful of what the night will bring. Every heart seizes under the vampires' icy gaze, fangs visible over bottom lips, strong arms hidden under cloaks.
Most afraid is a young boy, whose locks are pale as hay, matted hair hardly a reminder of the world upstairs and in the light: a world ravaged by countless plagues of disease and monsters alike. He leads the way for six other children – and one straggler – arms protectively shielding them from any harm their vampire hosts might bring.
Glancing back, the blond leader scowls at the obvious dissatisfaction in the other older Hyakuya boy's expression, the straggler, wishing there were something he could do. A chaste scolding is all he can offer. "Yuu, you better keep up! If you fall behind, one of the guards might –!"
"I know, I know," the raven-haired boy mumbles, swatting one arm to the side. Still queasy over the blood farming that morning, Yuichiro Hyakuya is in no mood to put up a fuss. He knows the other is right, though he would hate to admit it. "I'm just sick of it is all –"
"You say that every day," sighs the blond leader.
"Because it's the truth…"
The blond, Mikaela, gives an involuntary twitch of his lips at that, when suddenly the door to their shelter appears. He climbs the uneven stony steps and lets the others inside, but before closing the door, he notices Yuu still at the bottom. "Yuu, aren't you coming inside?" he inquires gently.
No answer, only silence as Yuichiro's hardened gaze remains fixated upon the cobblestones in the ground.
"What's the matter?" Mika presses.
When he still says nothing, Mika warns, "Yuu, I'm closing the door n –"
Yuu falls to his knees, topples forward. Mikaela cries out, leaping down the stairs to catch him in his arms, but by the time he makes it, Yuu is already out cold.
The other orphans poke their heads out of the shelter to see the commotion, shock widening the gaps in their faces as Mika can only hold onto Yuu, bury his face in his chest.
Why is he never strong enough to save those he loves most?
~Later that night~
The first thing he remembers is Mika's voice. It's always Mika's voice, soothing him. The quiet intones of his best friend's voice means that he is nowhere near his mother or father; nowhere near their violence and eternal despair. The vampire city is definitely not Yuu's utopia, but when put next to the real world… there were parts of his old life that he did not miss.
"Yuu… are you awake? Yuu?"
"I'm awake, I'm awake," he assures, attempting to sit up. His head swims and his vision swirls and seeing this, Mika pushes him back down promptly. Yuu groans with a hand to his head. Mika sighs.
"Yuu, how many times have I told you not to push yourself too hard?" Mika asks sternly.
Through gritted teeth and clenched eyes Yuu says, "I know, but –"
"This is the third time you've passed out in the past few weeks!" Mika cuts off. "Why won't you listen to me when I tell you to drink the nutrient replenishing pack?!"
Yuu peers through his fingers in the dim candlelight and sees the evident fear in Mikaela's face, though he endeavors to mask it. He sighs and turns the other way. "Where're the others?"
"Downstairs making dinner with Akane," Mika mutters. Yuu's avoidance of Mika's inquiry about the nutrient pack not gone unnoticed, Mika prods, "Well?"
"Alright, alright, I'll try to be better," Yuu grumbles as he tries to sit up again, pushing the blankets aside, but Mika holds him down once again, this time with more force.
"No, say it like you mean it!" Mika demands, glaring him in the eyes.
Hovering above Yuichiro with that overbearing determination in his blue eyes, Yuu can't stop his cheeks from lighting up. "I-I said it as best as I can!" He tries to shove Mika off.
"No you didn't, you liar!" shrieks Mika, shaking him by the shoulders.
"Yes I did!" insists Yuu, grabbing Mika's shoulders and shaking him too.
They start tumbling around the top bunk in a rush of breathy, giggly movement, when hearing them knocking around, Akane yells from the kitchen, "Hey, you two! Stop acting like the youngest and causing such a ruckus up there!" While she picks food particles out of her handcrafted stone knife, Kouta and Taichi try to shrink away to sneak up to see what's going on, but without looking up Akane calls sharply, "Don't you two join them!" Pointing the edge of her knife at them she says, "They'll hurt each other up there! Don't encourage it!"
Kouta and Taichi blow out a disappointed puff of air and remain below the bunk.
Out of breath, Mika has Yuu pinned securely underneath him by both shoulders again. "Gotcha!" He beams down at Yuu, who's red in the face.
"Geroff!" he orders, finally shoving him off.
Mika pounces immediately on him again. "Not until you say 'please!'"
"H-hey –!"
"You heard me!"
Once again Yuu finds his heart slowing while Mika stays above him, strong and overbearing as ever. In the dim light of the wax-dripping railing candles, his dirty uniform, blond hair, and cerulean eyes are more resplendent as ever. He looks away in embarrassment.
Mikaela's grin disappears, and he tries to follow Yuu's gaze to the side, thinking something's wrong. "Yuu, what's wrong?"
Yuu looks back at him, lips taut, face flushed and nervous and twitchy of all things. I'm just tired from the blood farming this morning, Yuu wants to say, but for some reason he can't get the words out.
"What?" Mika asks.
"I… I still don't feel good," Yuu manages to get out.
Mika leans off of him, allowing Yuu his space, yet somehow Yuu feels a certain loss at his strong hands no longer holding him down. "Sorry," says Mika. He tilts his head and that smile reappears. "But Yuu is always such a baby when it comes to the blood farming, isn't he~?"
Yuu tries to laugh with Mika as he finally sits up against the wall, but instead he's overtaken by a fit of coughs.
"Yuu?!"
"I'm – cough – fine!" says Yuu, waving Mika away.
"No you're not!" Mika insists, on his hands and knees. "I'm serious, you really need to start drinking that gross stuff the vampires give us or else you might –!" Mika doesn't finish, which makes Yuu look at him uncertainly.
"Or else I might what?" he asks. Yuu blinks those innocent green eyes of his, honestly wondering what Mika could possibly be afraid of.
Now it's Mika who looks away. "Nothing. I'm just sick of taking care of you…"
A pang of guilt stabs in Yuu's gut. He likes being taken care of by Mika, even if he won't say it out loud… he likes that Mika always has his back even if he pretends Yuu is the stronger one. To hear that he's a burden to Mika, who already has so much to worry about… "Oh, I'm sorry," he murmurs.
Seeing only candid remorse on Yuichiro's face as he crumbles into himself, – drawing his knees to his chest and resting his chin on top, – Mika immediately feels bad about what he said. "It's okay, Yuu, I was kidding!" he tries to amend, stretching his arms out on either side of him, touching Yuu lightly on one shoulder. "I don't mind taking care of you, it's just that it worries me!"
"Worries you?" Yuu asks, once again squinting at him.
Mika nods. "Yeah."
Both of them are avoiding addressing the most obvious, worst possible outcome. "…Why would it worry you?" Yuichiro wonders.
Yuu really doesn't know why it makes Mika so fearful, and Mika can't believe it. "…Don't you know…?"
You could die… and if that happened… I don't know what I would do…
Mika's expression is one Yuu can no longer comprehend. The fear and hurt, and terrible need to say something… but Mika remains quiet, and that's what bothers Yuichiro the most. He's going to reach for Mika when he breaks out into another fit of coughs, lurching forward, and Mika says, "I'll get you some water," rushing down the ladder and to the kitchen.
Unspoken words of the feelings between the two of them hang over their heads from fear of rejection or of not being thought of to the same extent, but what can either Yuu or Mika do other than hope for the best from this ruined world? What can either of them do but hope their prayers for the younger orphans and each other will be answered and one day they will all be able to live a life free of the vampires? Too much is at stake right now for such inexplicable feelings of evanescence to be explained, for dreams to become reality and then shattered once more…
Nothing can be gained without risk, but if this risk were taken, neither would know how to proceed…
So it's best to leave it be.
Mika returns with a glass of fresh water, a rare commodity in the underground city of Sanguinem, and Yuu takes it greedily. Slurping down the water and nearly choking himself, he downright spits it out when after all these thoughts, Mika suggests, "If you still aren't feeling better after that, I could give you a kiss~?"
Yuu stares at Mika, who yells at him, "Yuu! That was our only water and now you got it all over me! Yuck!"
Yuu isn't sure if what he heard was correct, and the sopping wet Mika realizes how imminent the threat of Yuu's entire face overheating truly is.
"Would a kiss on the cheek really be that embarrassing?!" he asks angrily, shaking his arms free of water.
Oh, Yuu echoes. On the cheek.
That changes things.
Drastically.
Yuu smacks himself out of it. "Oh… I mean, if you want to…"
Mika groans, wiping his arms off on the plasticky fabric of his livestock uniform pants. "Now that you've made it entirely weird…!" he complains, yet he doesn't hesitate to crawl toward Yuu, who stiffens at their sudden closeness, citrine eyes growing wider, cheeks growing redder, blushing from ear-to-ear. Mikaela wasn't thinking much of it at all, until he sees how embarrassed Yuu really is. He lingers back. "Yuu!" he whines, voice at a whisper and so close to Yuu's face.
"S-sorry!" Yuu stutters. "I'm just not –!" He stops, and Mika leans back, watches him with something close to concern – as well as a certain understanding – in those cerulean eyes. Yuu's bright green eyes of citrine continue to stare at Mika, waiting for him to move again, but Mika sits back even further on his hands, exhausting a nervous – and disappointed – sigh from himself and Yuichiro.
"Yuu, if you didn't want me to kiss you, you should have said so."
But I did want you to! Yuu wants to say. He can never seem to find the courage to do so however, and instead says nothing as Mika descends the ladder, mumbling, "I'll see how close dinner is to being ready."
Still with a light blush on his cheeks, Yuu curses under his breath at his own embarrassment, crossing his arms.
~Tomorrow~
Yuichiro still remembers last night, – though he pretends not to even as Mika dashes over to join him, – skulking down an abandoned alleyway of torn-up crates and curtains, a musty feeling in the unsettlingly warm air.
"Yuu~!" he calls. "What're you doing over here without everyone else~?"
That stupid, sunshiny smile is spread across Mika's face, irritating Yuu to no end by how he's begun to respond to it. "I need some alone time to –"
"You always need some alone time," Mikaela interrupts, walking jauntily beside him, playfully shuffling his steps, arms swinging at his sides. "Can't you let me come with you for once~?"
"No, Mika, I have –" Yuu's halted when he beelines into one of the infamous vampire hosts they so fear from around the corner. Those red eyes shift over to Yuichiro and Mikaela, painstakingly slow and all the more menacing under the dark shadow of their hood. Yuichiro steps away but an arm reaches out and takes hold of his livestock uniform, shaking him with rage as Mikaela pulls on the part of the vampire's cloak that he can grab ahold of.
"Watch where you're going, you head of livestock," she spits in Yuu's face.
Yuu's normal response to such a threat should have been, Go to Hell! yet somehow he can't get sound to come out. Clutching the hand holding him up, he tries only to kick her in the stomach, but to no avail.
In the sweetest voice he can muster, Mika pleas, "Please, miss, don't hurt him! He hasn't been feeling quite right in the head!"
"Aww, look at that, the livestock thinks I'm gonna show mercy to its friend for being a nuisance." Her sharp eyes lock onto Yuu again, who is terrified by the salacious grin she bears as she licks her pearly white fangs. "I guess you won't mind if you pay back a little price for what you deserve?!" She leans toward Yuu with her mouth open, fangs barred. Mika's consciousness revs into overdrive, and he stares in horror as the she vampire's fangs creep ever closer to Yuu's exposed neck. His mind races in every direction, trying to find an escape to the inevitable, because Yuu doesn't deserve it, especially not this time, it was merely an accident, but a voice rings out against the panic in his mind, saving Yuu.
"Rei, what do you think you're doing?"
Not letting go of Yuu, the vampire whisks him to one side as she whirls around, letting angular, sculpted eyebrows and bushy brown hair loose from her hood. "Whaaat this brat was causing trouble so I decided to teach him a little respect," she calls back. "Damn livestock should know who's in authority here." Bringing him back into the view of the other vampire, she shakes Yuu who still clutches her hand to keep air flowing to his lungs.
The vampire moves toward the three of them from the other end of the alleyway, Mika watching all the while. The vampire called Rei puffs a breath out her nose from the admonishment she is about to receive. "You know that drinking directly from the neck of a human is against the rules. What were you thinking?"
"C'mon now," says Rei, spreading the fingers of her free hand, "I'm not the only one who thinks that rule is utter bullshit, am I? This is our city! The vampire city of Sanguinem! As such we should be able to do as we wish to these filthy livestock, including taking the blood of whichever we please!" Again she holds up Yuu in her hand, who still squirms, eyes tightly shut and face turning slightly purple, unable to speak.
When Rei looks back at the other vampire, his expression was not one of jocularity, only disapproval. "Fine, fine," she relents. She drops Yuu and Mika latches onto him the moment he hits the ground, coughing. Mika whispers in his ear, "Yuu, Yuu, are you all right?"
Without waiting for an answer, Mika turns to Rei and the other vampire and bows. "Thank you for sparing my friend."
Rei scoffs repugnantly but the other vampire taps her shoulder to lead her away. Pulling up her hood, she mutters, "Better watch yourself." Then with one arm around his shoulder, Mika walks Yuu back in the direction they came.
Once out of sight, Mika turns to Yuu in fury. "Yuu, what were you thinking?! You almost got yourself killed back there!" he screams the moment the vampires are out of earshot.
Slumped on Mika's shoulder, Yuu doesn't look up. He doesn't even move. When he speaks, Mika can barely understand what he's saying.
"I'm sorry, Mika, thanks for not abandoning me…"
Mikaela blinks in surprise. "Yuu, what's gotten into you? Are you all right?!" Yuu had never acted so muted after being confronted by a vampire. Ever since he arrived at the orphanage, even while in the transfer vans of the vampires, brought to the vampire city, Yuu didn't allow his fear to appear so blatantly in his demeanor. He had always been a pillar of strength for Mikaela and the other children, even if he didn't know it. To see Yuu, strong and boastful, reckless and ill-mannered Yuu, barely able to say a word in the face of one of the fearsome vampires, it was just…
"Yuu, what's wrong with you?" Mikaela questions, his voice turning to stone. "You're not acting like yourself…"
"It's nothing, Mika…"
"It obviously is!" Mika persists. "Tell me what it is! It can't just be nothing!"
Three years had passed since they had first been trapped in Sanguinem. Three years and so… Yuu knew it was hopeless. There was nothing any of them could do to escape, being children. Being human. It was unlikely any of them would ever see the light of day again. The other orphans and Mika might try to deny it or pretend that life was normal and everything was fine, but Yuu knew the truth, and behind those sunny smiles of his, so did Mikaela. He knew Mika only did it to give the younger kids hope, which was why he idolized Yuu as their "strong daddy" would get them out of the vampire city and back under the blue sky. Yuu once genuinely believed that someone would come save them, but after the virus plaguing the outside for so long, there couldn't be anyone left in the real world anymore…
Before Yuu can allow these hopeless thoughts to consume him anymore, soft, puckered lips press against his cheek, slamming him back into reality. His face goes immediately beet-red and he whips around, neck snapping to Mikaela's face, hand shooting up to his cheek. He clambers away from Mika's hold and runs into the alley wall, falling on his rear end. "M-Mika?! Wh-what –?!"
"You said you were fine with me kissing you on the cheek," says Mika, standing over Yuu, whose hand remains glued to his cheek, wild-eyed. "Was that too much?"
"No, but…?!" Yuu can't find anything to say, focused only on his burning cheeks beneath his palm. He watches Mika with incredulity, except then he squints, seeing the stress in the way Mika holds his lips. Looking closely, Yuu sees that Mika's cheeks are slightly pink too. "You're embarrassed too!" he outbursts, pointing an accusing finger at him.
"Am not!" Mika counters.
Yuu scrambles up and takes hold of Mika's shoulders as he tries to turn around and run back down the alley. Yuu twirls Mika around and shakes him. "Don't be a liar!"
Eyes shut tightly, matted blond locks falling across his face with every shake, Mika denies, trying to push him away. "I am not! I just thought it would make you feel better!"
With Yuu pulling on him and Mika pushing him away, both of them lose their balance and end up falling to the ground, the back of Yuu's head hitting the wall again. "Ow!" he screeches, Mika falling face-first into his chest. He feels Mika struggling to get off of him. Opening his eyes, he finds Mika's face right in front of his.
They stare at each other for a moment before Mika recoils, sitting back and rubbing the side of his head with two dirty fingers, still with that light pink to his cheeks. "Ah, sorry, Yuu, I didn't mean to –"
But Yuu's hand catches Mika's wrist before he puts it back in his lap, and Mika's forced to stop and see, although Yuu's reluctant to look into his eyes, he doesn't mind it. In fact, he's inviting it. "Mika, I… I'm just wondering…" Yuu can't find the right words. "If there's still hope for us, even down here…"
There's a question on Yuu's lips, which Mika decides to answer. "Of course, Yuu, there always is…"
Those citrine eyes shoot to Mika's cerulean orbs with perplexity, but Mika's already closed them. Taking ahold of Yuu's other hand, Mika leans in and closes the gap between them. Thoroughly astonished, Yuu tenses at first at the sudden sensation of Mika's tongue venturing through his lips and mouth, against his teeth. Overtaken by Mikaela's scent and the pressure of their interlinked fingers, Yuu feels himself slipping and allows himself to be enveloped by the feeling spreading between them from within his chest, tiding all the way down to his fingers and toes – a new kind of warmth he's never experienced, different than what his parents and the other orphans give. Yuu's eyes flutter shut and he squeezes Mika's fingers tighter, opening his mouth so that his tongue softly probes Mika's in a daring and intimate sensation he cannot grasp.
He never wants this moment to end.
Mika leans a few centimeters back, their lips brushing against each other, the ghost of their kiss still there, both unsure whether or not to move forward or back. When they finally, slowly open their eyes, Mika quickly stumbles backward on his hands and knees, breathing a little hard, his cheeks as red as Yuu's. "Th-there," he stammers.
Yuu doesn't understand, now hyper-alert to his every move. "Wh-what?" His voice is surprisingly hoarse.
"Now you have a reason to hope," says Mika hurriedly, hesitating to look him in the face. When he regathers the strength, he watches Yuu shyly. "Because no matter what, I'll always be there for you, here with you. Do you understand now, Yuu? We need you…" I need you…
Yuu thinks he does. "Yeah… of course!"
Mika smiles. Then he winks, sticking his tongue out. "Good! And if you're ever feeling blue again, I'll help in any way I can~"
"Sh-shaddup!" barks Yuu, face flashing red to which Mika laughs. He takes Mika's hand to help him stand anyway, and as they walk back, it's side-by-side.
While the Hyakuya orphans each greet Yuu with worry, Mika watches, thinking quietly to himself. I can't let you lose hope, Yuu.
Yuichiro greets them back, grumbling. Then laughter escaping his lips, his bright eyes softening, and he looks back at Mika – with those happy, innocent eyes, – who walks toward them. Mika smiles his fake, sunny smile.
Not just for the other orphans, but for myself most of all.
I wrote Yuu somewhat timid in this one shot because I personally believe that's his natural personality, and he merely hides it with crass/arrogance/feigned stupidity, especially after his parents abandoned him, and even more so after the orphans were killed. A lot of this was pretty cryptic so as not to give it all away~
I've had this idea for a while (inspired by fanart), and I only just got to writing it. I hope you enjoyed and that you'll leave your thoughts and opinions below~