Dawn: Well, I've been reading a lot of Vampire Knight, and I thought it might be nice to start into this story, using one of my favorite pairings: ZeroKaname (the entire blood-drinking scene in the manga is what opened my eyes-the fact the bathroom is destroyed when you come back to them only reinforced it, never mind that it looks like they're making out...). Anyway, this story is a direct responce to the Challenge posed by I Change My Name To Often: Fuzzy Animals.

Zero: Oh god. I don't wanna be an animal!

Kaname: I don't either!

Takuma: And what am I doing here?

Dawn: I love you too much to let you get out of this unscathed, so you get a lovely OC to go have fun with! Now my only problem is whether to make it a girl or a boy...

Takuma: *sweatdrop* You're gonna leave it up to others, aren't you?

Dawn: YEP! Go check out the poll on my profile to vote! For now though, because I'm lazy, the character will be a girl.

Kaname: Maybe if we do the disclaimer, she'll shut up...

Zero: ImmortalDawn18 does not own Vampire Knight.

Chapter One: Meeting Experiment 426, Cat

Zero squirmed in the tight grip that held him, his loud panting echoing in his own ears just as loudly as he knew it did the other vampire's. "Kaname," he hissed, his hips wriggling against the pureblood's hand, "stop fucking teasing."

Said pureblood just smirked, slyly licking along Zero's ear and letting his tongue play with the silver piercings he found there, his hot breath sending goosebumps up the hunter's spine. "But it's so fun to watch your face when you just want to cum," he whispered teasingly. "Besides, I have to make sure you pay for biting Yuki all those weeks ago."

"I already said... I was sorry," he ground out, almost letting out a whine when those slender fingers tightly squeezed his erection.

"That's not good enough, Zero," the brunette hissed. "I want you to bite me until you can't remember what any one else tastes like, including yourself, and then I want your hot mouth around my cock as you suck me off and then lap up my juices like the dog you are." There was a loud bang of flesh against wood, almost like the sound of knocking, but Zero disregarded it as the wooden headboard knocking against the plaster wall as he threw his head back in a wanton moan because those fingers had finally allowed his hips to buck up into the lovely sensation.

Kaname opened his eyes in a panic, getting to his feet. He whined, ears drooping against the side of his head. Wait, ears! He spun around wildly, finally catching sight of himself in a water bowl in the small cage he was kept in. He had been turned into an adorable chocolate brown puppy, just the right size for being adopted. He let out a deep growl, the fur on his haunches and tail bristling as he tried to remember anything important, but he came up blank. He could remember his name and a few things, but not much else other than faces and names. Thinking that maybe voicing his thoughts out loud might help him remember, he quietly barked out the words aloud. "My name is Kaname Kuran. I'm a pureblood vampire and the original ancestor of the Kuran family. I am eighteen years old in vampire years for this body, and I attend the Cross Academy Night Class, which is full of other vampires. The person I love most is Yuki Cross, and the person who I hate the most is Zero Kiryu."

A loud clanging sound had him flinching away, his ears pressing close to his head to try to block out some of the harshness of the noise, but all he got was a small black cat thrown into his face. The cat blinked its big yellow eyes up at him, cocking its head to one side as it sat down before him. "So you're finally awake," it mewed softly, the voice quiet enough for him to feel confident identifying it as a she-cat. "I was beginning to think you were dead like all the others. The Master has never managed to get one right other than me before, but he had an advantage with me."

"Who are you?" Kaname asked warily, "and who is this Master you speak of?"

The little cat cleaned off one long claw lazily, almost as if to tell the dog to keep his distance. "I am Experiment 426," she stated, "and the Master is the one who made us this way. He's going to change to world with his discoveries."

"Do you know who he is?" he repeated slowly, resisting the urge to nip the cat on the side to assert his dominance.

"No."

"Do you know how to get out of here?"

"Not a clue."

"Well, you're useless then," he complained, glaring at her.

"Did I say that?" she purred in amusement. "No, what I'm good for is escape. I know how to survive as an animal outside these cages, and you don't. Plus, my claws are strong enough to pick locks, just not these ones because the Master knows I can pick locks."

He sighed. "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?" he asked irritably, the fur on his tail bristling.

"Why didn't you ask?" Her tail twitched from side to side as she got up, a little dismayed to see she only came up to his shoulders, Kaname couldn't help that he was quite a big dog for his approximate age, though she tried to hide it under her nonchalance. "But why are you so eager to escape here? Don't you want to help change the world?"

He shook his head, focusing his mind on the lock as he willed the molecules to vibrate until the metal gave under his focus. "Haven't you ever had someone you loved, someone you had to get back to?"

She sighed, nudging the door open with a single push of her muzzle. "No. Humans are nothing short of cruel, and vampires little better than beasts themselves."

Kaname paused for a moment, noticing that she was obviously not coming with him. "What if I could prove you wrong?" he asked quietly, his voice subdued with his awkwardness. "You just have to come with me."

Takuma sighed heavily, taking what he very well thought would be his last breath of air as he knocked on the seemingly-innocent wood of the door that held his death behind its white oak. "Zero Kiryu? Can I speak with you?" he asked quietly, knowing the exhunter would hear him no matter how loudly he spoke, that is if he hadn't heard him walking down the hallway first. "It's important."

The door opened and an irritable silver-haired boy glared at the impeccably-dressed Night Class student. "What do you want, leech?" he growled, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "You're keeping me from my sleep."

This was dangerous ground he was treading to begin with, never mind that a sleepy Zero was one much more prone to shooting moving objects that pissed him off, so he licked his lips, shifting his weight uncomfortably as his eyes sought to look at anything but the lavender eyes of the hunter, even taking in the white flannel pajama pants hanging low on the other's hips. "I just thought you might want to know Kaname hasn't come back yet from his meeting with the Senate."

Lilac eyes narrowed in suspicion and anger. "You say that as if you expect me to care about the damn pureblood," he stated darkly, his aura far scarier than it was when he glared down the Day Class girls during class change every day.

Takuma stumbled back slightly, glad that he could see the Bloody Rose on Zero's desk across the room, out of his lunge range. "I've seen the way you look at him, Zero. I may not be all that great at reading you, but even I can tell the difference between love and hate. You love him, Zero."

The hunter laughed sarcastically, throwing his head back as his body rocked with his mirth. "You must find it quite horrid," he said as he recovered, his sides heaving as his head fell back down, his hair covering his eyes, "A Level D, a creature just above insanity and worse than filth, loving a Level A, a god among your kind."

"Actually," the blond stated, "I find it refreshing." Lilac orbs skewered him in place, but the emerald conviction of his gaze never wavered. "Kaname has been held on a pedestal on his life, above critism... and away from other people. You were one of the first people to not care what he thought about you, mainly because you already thought he would hate you simply for being what you are. The truth is, I think it'd be good for him to have someone who speaks his mind, and I wouldn't be too surprised if he developed feelings for you. Yuki is a kind girl, but she's not suited for him. You are."

Zero stared at the noble for a long moment, then shook his head. "You're a strange one," he said, "but I don't think that's a bad thing." He shifted, hiding a yawn behind a hand. "Anyway, I know Kaname doesn't usually tarry when he has appointments to keep, but when he was younger he'd often be quite late to meeting Yuki, often in an attempt to teach her that she needed him. I'd give him until sunrise before I'd start getting worried about him."

Takuma had to ask. "And if he's not back by then?"

"Then there's a sale on fancy hardcover books, someone's bleeding to death out in the countryside somewhere, he found a long-lost cousin to fuck into the ground, he got buried in paperwork, or some serious shit has gone down."

"This is the place."

Kaname blinked at the sight of the large white door to the cozy little house a few miles outside the city, the garden filled with all types of greenery, though it was obvious the owner preferred trees. "This is the place you said we could stay at?" he spluttered, surprised.

"Yeah," the cat replied, leaping lightly onto the concrete step and yowling loudly at the door. "My friend Laertes lives here. He hid me here the last time I escaped." The door opened to a handsome young man with soft light green eyes and cropped brown hair, who bent down to caress her along the underside of her jaw.

"Hello again, Kat," he murmured softly. "I was beginning to think you'd gotten lost again." He looked up then to see Kaname standing awkwardly by the side of the small sidewalk. "And you brought a friend this time." He strode over to the dog, kneeling down to Kaname's level. "What's your name?"

"I'm Kaname, not that you would be able to understand me," the pureblood grouched.

To his surprise, the other male laughed, shaking the offered paw. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Kaname. May I invite you inside?"

Once they were inside the house, Kaname sitting formally on the couch while Kat lay splayed out across the glass surface of the coffee table beside the couch. "Why didn't you tell me Laertes speaks our language?" he growled in an undertone.

"Laertes is a naiad. I thought you vampires knew tree spirits can speak the animal tongue just as thoroughly as they can the humans'." She yawned lazily. "Now if you excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on. Unlike you dogs, daytime is a cat's sleeping time, and I do not intend to let it go to waste."

Kaname snorted, jumping down from the couch and walking over to the kitchen, where the scratching of his nails on the linoleum alerted the naiad to his presence. "Kaname! I was wondering if you were hungry. Would you like some food?" he asked without turning around.

"Maybe later," the dog admitted. "I was wondering if you could get me to Cross Academy. I need to get back to my home as soon as possible."

Laertes's hands stilled in their movements for a moment. "Cross Academy is a long ways away," he said softly. "Besides, no one there will recognize you as you. Isn't it better to stay here, where you have Kat? She would never agree to go to a place filled with so many humans, never mind that if you left her, she'd be heartbroken." He sighed heavily, his eyes turning to the window. "Kat has had a hard life. She doesn't remember anything from her life before, but I've seen the files from where they held her. She was a Level E vampire before. She was hunted down by her lover, who slashed her throat and left her for dead."

"I'm sorry," Kaname murmured softly, "but I have to get back to my friends. They'll be worried about me."

"I'm sorry too," Laertes muttered to himself, putting a piece of rare steak on a plate and lowering it to the floor for the vampire. After a few bites, Kaname felt woozy, his wine-red eyes coming up to watch as the naiad grabbed the sleeping cat and stuffed her into a cat carrier harshly, nearly shutting her tail in the door, before the black overtook his vision and he knew no more.

Kaname: Wow, I can't believe that worked...

Zero: I know.

Takuma: Well, anyway, please review so that Dawn knows how she's doing! After all, she won't know that she sucks (or otherwise) if you don't tell her so!

Dawn: Until next update, readers! *gives two-fingered salute*

Note: Edited for slight grammar problems 5/6