A/N: I started re-reading Vampire Knight, because apparently I like pain and heartbreak, and this was the result. Constructive criticism and advice is, as always, welcome. I haven't written a SI/OC fic quite like this one in a while so it'd be nice to hear what you guys liked, or didn't like, and help me offset any mistakes early on. Other than that, enjoy~
.
.
.
When Elliot woke up it was cold. Freezing cold.
Cold like ice solidifying in his veins and wet seeping into his clothes. His head felt heavy, like it was stuffed full of cotton and his throat ached.
In fact, everything ached.
His legs, his arms, his back and stomach. He felt like a human shaped bruise, a smudge of pain slowly sinking further into the mound of snow beneath him. Even his eyelashes felt heavy and sore.
He gingerly raised a hand to cradle his aching head, wondering how the hell he got so hungover in the middle of the week. He worked mid-week, one to eight Monday to Friday at The Forge, a pub not too far from his apartment in the city centre, and it wasn't exactly the sort of place you stayed back to have a drink in when your shift was over. (The manager was a bit too uptight for that, didn't think it looked classy to have his bartenders on the other side of the counter.)
So, unless someone spiked the glass water he kept behind the bar to refresh himself mid-shift, Elliot honestly didn't know why he was feeling as trashed as he was.
On front of him something blurred, a shiver of brown and pink against the white background that shook him out of his reverie.
Elliot squinted his eyes and a young girl gradually came into focus. She was probably about four years old, give or take, with long brown hair and a face that was slowly turning blue from the cold. Snow flakes swirled around her as she stared at him with wide, blank eyes.
"Uhn..."
He tried to speak but his throat convulsed around the words and Elliot ended up curled around himself in pain as a cough tore through his body. How long had he been lying here in the cold? Long enough to be in this condition?
Why the hell was he outside on a day like this? Okay so he was hardly a social butterfly but he doubted his neighbours hated him enough to let him freeze outside without at least attempting to wake him. Dublin was a bit of a shithole but it wasn't that bad.
He felt a gentle pressure on his back and forced himself to unfurl from the foetal position he'd scrunched himself up into.
The little girl was leaning over him with one tiny, mitten-clad hand patting his back with great care. There were snowflakes gathering along her eyelashes and settling in her hair and all of a sudden Elliot felt a surge of anger rush through him, temporarily banishing the cold. Whatever about abandoning the six foot seven adult out to the elements - Elliot knew that regardless of his rapport with his neighbours, few people would try and wake up a strange man lying out in the street - but who the hell leaves a little kid out alone in a blizzard?
That anger gave him the strength to lever himself up into a sitting position but the resulting blood rush to his head only made him feel worse. The girl's hand fell away as he reached up again to clutch at his pounding head. The ground felt too close and the sky too far away, even sitting up he felt barely any taller than when he'd been lying down. Was this what hypothermia did to a person?
He groaned as he ran his hands down his face. Elliot frowned. Since when was he wearing gloves?
An experimental wiggle of his fingers confirmed that he was indeed wearing a pair of finely embroidered, velvet mittens, now damp and completely unsuited for the weather around him.
Who the hell puts mittens on someone instead of just waking them up like a normal person?
Before he could explore the strange finding further another movement in the snow made both his and the little girl's heads whip around. Elliot hissed out slowly through his teeth as his head gave a sharp throb before slowly settling down and he made a firm resolution to not move quickly ever again.
The girl backed up until she was pressed against his side and Elliot felt a strange sensation come over him as he noticed that he only came up to her waist while sitting down. She hadn't seemed all that tall before but now...
He was torn away from his thoughts as the shape in the snow solidified into a man, one well dressed for the cold with an expensive looking coat buttoned up to his chin and a silk scarf tucked artfully underneath. It looked kind of old-fashioned but very, very warm and Elliot fought back a brief spike of jealousy.
Was he the kid's father? If so he should be ashamed of himself for leaving her out here for so long. The girl sunk farther against his side though, dismissing that theory, clearly not recognising the man and Elliot set his mouth into a thin line at the unhealthy gleam in the stranger's gaze. Something dark and insatiable brewing behind a thin veneer of civility.
('Hunger.' Elliot's hind-brain whispered to him 'Hunger. Predator')
"Are you lost? Little girls?" the man asked, lisping strangely around too-large teeth.
Elliot forced himself to his feet and put himself between the little girl and the stranger. He felt like he was in a dream and pursed his mouth in irritation when he had to crane his neck to meet the stranger's eyes.
It had been a long, long time since Elliot had ever had to stare up at a person and he decided immediately that he didn't like it. At all.
Elliot didn't even come past the man's shins but he should have been easily his height, at 6"ft7 there weren't many people that he wasn't eye to eye with and Elliot choked back a groan as his face began to ache from all the pressure in his skull. It made sense if this was a dream, the girl and the inexplicable snow and his apparent shrinking, but the pain in his body felt too real.
The man above him smiled at his lack of response, as though finding a lost child and an incapacitated man in the snow was the best thing to ever happen to him. Elliot felt his hackles rise at the sight of that grin and took a wavering step back, keeping the girl behind him.
"Well, in that case-" the man took a graceful half-step towards them, carelessly closing the gap "-do you mind if I drink your blood?"
Elliot barely had a second to even boggle at the weirdness of that statement before a strong hand had yanked his head to the side and he felt hot breath wash against his neck and the side of his face.
It smelled like blood, like decay and metal and death. This lunatic wanted to drink his blood like a goddamn vampire or some shit and he couldn't even do anything but stand there like a lemming as he felt the man's saliva drip wetly against his neck.
His eyes were still open.
(Hunger. Predator. Prey. We're prey . Run away run away runawayrunawayrunawa-)
Everything happened really quickly after that.
Elliot felt the prick of teeth against his skin, the hard scrape of the man's nails through his scalp, tearing out strands, before there was a sudden gust of icy air and he was pushed back off balance and onto his back.
Something warm splattered across Elliot's face and he automatically stuck out his tongue to swipe it off his lips. The resulting metallic tang was unmistakeable and he grimaced as every muscle in his body contracted in disgust at having just ingested what was undoubtedly blood.
"Disgraceful" there was a dull murmur and Elliot blinked through hazy eyes at the scene on front of him.
Standing right there, with his hand punched clear through Elliot's attacker's head, was a teenager who looked to be a little younger than him. Handsome in a pretty sort of way with dark hair and skin as pale as the snow around them, he maintained eye contact with Elliot as he pulled his hand free from the now-dead man's head and raised the blood soaked appendage to his face.
The girl behind him let out a gentle gasp as the body then crumbled into dust but Elliot could barely move to stand and cover her gaze before the man started to delicately lap the blood from his fingers, like a cat.
His gazed flickered between the two of them and Elliot shakily tried to place the kid behind him again. His vision swam, because clearly he was incapable of listening to his own advice and just stay still, but he managed to remain standing. Somehow.
"Are you two alright?" the teen asked, tongue curling around his index finger, and Elliot felt his throat close up in response. No he was emphatically not alright. He had just watched the boy punch a fiststraight though someone's skull and then tongue his fucking hands. In what world would he be alright?
The girl behind Elliot pressed close to his back and whimpered and he squared his shoulders at the reminder that there was more than just his own life to protect here, somehow him and this kid were caught in the middle of a shitty horror show together and he wasn't about to throw her to the wolves. Even though his hands were sweating up the insides of his mittens.
Everything about the beatific, sweet-faced monster on front of Elliot terrified him.
"Ngh." he tried to talk again but his voice just wasn't cooperating and all that emerged was a tiny groan. In the space of a second the teen was on front of him, placing the fingers of his unbloodied hands to Elliot's lips as though to silence him.
"Shh, it's going to be alright." he soothed and then he held out his other hand towards the girl at Elliot's back, shifting his gaze to smile kindly at her. "Come with me."
Like hell.
Elliot bit viciously at the fingers by his face and pulled the girl away from the teen's outstretched hand with as much strength as he could muster. His vision swam dangerously as he stumbled backwards, some part of him aware that there was no way he'd be able to escape but feeling the desperate need to try anyway.
Elliot felt a panic rise up in his chest as the teen did nothing but blink, looking curiously offended by Elliot's less-than-pleased reaction to having his face stroked by a bloodstained pschyo.
The boy didn't seem like he was angry, just puzzled, like he hadn't been expecting that kind of reaction.
"You're scared, that's okay. I promise I wont hurt you." he said gently, moving forward slowly with his hands outstretched as though he was trying to coax an injured animal out of hiding. Oh, he promised? Well, in that case... Elliot felt his eyes rolling against his will at the sheer absurdity of that statement coming from someone who still had brain matter clinging to his knuckles.
Elliot grunted at the teen again, this time in warning as the little fuck got a bit too close for his liking. The girl at his back had a death grip on his coat and was making retreat difficult, her feet had dug into the snow as fear took over and she was surprisingly strong for someone one third of his body weight. Well, supposed body weight, it hadn't skipped Elliot's notice that he was quite a bit smaller than he should be but for the sake of his sanity he was ignoring it.
"Little one, take my hand." the teen said and Elliot glanced from his outstretched hand to the girl behind him. She looked back at him with equally puzzled eyes but Elliot wasn't sure if that was because she didn't recognise the man or if she was just going into shock.
But if it wasn't her then who the fuck was the teen talking to? The longer he stared at Elliot the more it became clear that boy was referring to him and Elliot felt his stomach drop at the implication.
'Little one'? What the hell was going on?
"Take my hand." he said again, with steel behind his voice, and Elliot found himself reaching out automatically to take the outstretched appendage. Elliot stared at his mitten in shock. His own hand had betrayed him.
The teen curled his fingers around Elliot's and he frowned sharply at how familiar a sensation it was. He was wary because his mind knew to be wary of murderous strangers but his body was completely relaxed and it was freaking him the fuck out. Had he been drugged? That would certainly account for most of what was happening right now. The girl behind Elliot slowly unclenched her hands from his coat to peek shyly out at the teen.
"It's going to be okay, trust me." the teen said in that same gentle tone of voice that made Elliot's brain bristle but his shoulders droop. He tugged on Elliot's hand until he stumbled forward, feet dragging through the snow with uncomfortable stiffness, and then he reached out and snagged the girl's hand from where it's been hovering uncertainly in the spot Elliot's shoulder used to be and pulled her towards him as well.
"Come on, it'll be okay, I'm going to get you two somewhere safe." he crooned, fingers wrapping themselves more securely around Elliot's, making escape impossible.
Somehow, and he 100% blamed his weird dream-hangover for this, but the teenaged monster managed to get both of them through the snow and to a roadside that Elliot doubted he'd even have been able to find with a clear head and no blizzard on his own.
He whistled, or attempted to whistle, at the sight of the snazzy looking car on front of them that was slowly gathering a layer of fluffy white snow on the roadside. The teenager smiled down at Elliot and the girl's wide-eyed expressions and then opened the closest door to usher them into the back.
Everything in Elliot rebelled against getting into a strange car with a guy he knew to be a murderer but he didn't exactly have much choice. He didn't know where he was, how he got there, or whether he'd be able to find shelter before his body simply gave out in the cold and all these unknown factors were seriously beginning to piss him off. The fact that the teenager had yet to stop smiling at him being a prime example.
Elliot knew what his pissed-off face looked like, something between a slapped arse and a grizzly bear according to his mother, so he couldn't possibly understand why the teenager was looking at him so affectionately when he was pretty sure his own expression had drifted into 'grizzled trucker with a grudge' territory.
And that probably meant that he was an even bigger psychopath then Elliot had previously thought.
Which was just swell.
The teen attempted to place himself in-between Elliot and the girl in the back seat which really was not happening - he hadn't spent this long trying to protect the kid from harm only to have this psycho separate them. Elliot batted the boy's hands away from where he was helping the girl into the back of the car and scrambled in directly after her, shooting a glare over his shoulder and making the elective decision to ignore the long brown hair that flared behind him at the motion.
(Long brown hair that couldn't possibly be his hair because his hair was short and blond and so unrestrainedly curly that his friends always gave him shit for looking like a giant, grumpy cherub.)
He was so caught up in refuting reality that when the car lurched to life Elliot didn't quite manage to catch himself before he smacked his head against the seat on front of him and couldn't contain the yelp from the resulting head-pain that followed. Elliot then spent the following few minutes batting away the crazy teenager's questing hands and trying not to throw up all over the beautifully upholstered car's interior.
The girl beside him watched in solemn silence, her large doll-like eyes taking in everything like a sponge.
The rest of the car ride passed much the same with Elliot being reluctantly fussed over and the girl watching his and the teenager's non-verbal war of wills.
Then the car jerked to a sudden stop after an indeterminable amount of time and Elliot was only saved from reacquainting his face with the back of the seat on front of him by the teenager gently, yet with astounding quickness, catching him by the shoulders and acting as a human seat-belt. Elliot frowned derisively at the lack of actual seat belts in the car and then spared a moment to ask himself how it had been cleared for the road without them. The guy was obviously minted but it took a lot more than money to get a car out on the road without the proper requirements. It figured that the psychopath didn't care about braining himself on the wind-shield if the car got into an accident. Elliot allowed his lips to move back up into the sneer that was quickly becoming his default expression. The teen then began to remove his hands with aching slowness, fingers lingering on Elliot's shoulders almost unthinkingly, and he shuddered in disgust.
The teen stilled at the tremor and then ripped his hands away as though he'd been stung, Elliot ignored the flash of hurt in his kidnapper's eyes and just thanked God that the guy was silent as he aided the two of them out of the car and onto the snow-studded cobblestones of wherever the fuck the car had taken them.
Elliot's eyebrows shot up past his hairline as he turned around and caught sight of the veritable estate on front of him. And 'estate' really was the only word for it, vaguely Victorian in style and spreading out in expansive wings on either side, 'house' really didn't cut it. The building looked more like a college than a home, too big and impersonal from the outside with high, spiked gating and menacing looking statues perched on the edges of the roof, staring down at Elliot with shadowed eyes and wide, expectant grins.
He shuddered again but this time the teen didn't touch him, instead opting to usher the girl towards the lamp-lit front door, safe in the knowledge that Elliot wasn't about to let the little waif out of his sights.
He stumbled forwards, feet clumsy on the cobblestones, and once again attempted to place himself in-between the girl and the teen though he was slightly less successful this time around as he had barely reached them before the door was flung open and an older, blond man was staring down at the three of them in obvious surprise.
He didn't show any disgust at the blood splattered all over their clothing so he was probably in cahoots with their adolescent captor. Because of course he was. Elliot gave the man a filthy glare who just raised his eyebrows in response before turning his questioning gaze towards the teenager.
"I'll explain in a moment, may we come in?" the boy asked, something like exhaustion coming through in his youthful voice, and the man's expression softened as he wordlessly stepped aside and allowed the teenager to slowly herd Elliot and the girl into the hall and then down towards a fancy looking parlour with silk cushions and clawed sofa legs. Everything looked like something out of Downton goddamn Abbey and Elliot's headache certainly did not appreciate all the extra stimulus from the bright lamps shining from fixtures all around the room.
"Kaname." the man said, coming in to the room behind them and leaning against the door frame with a serious expression on his handsome face as the teenager helped the girl out of her coat with aching gentleness.
"Things... took an unexpected turn. Would you mind taking care of these two for me?" the teen, Kaname apparently, asked slowly as he slipped the girl's snow soaked shoes and socks off and bundled her onto the couch. "They were being attacked by a level-E when I found them, it seems to have done some... damage and I do not think my presence is helping."
The man hummed out a wordless question and Kaname took an explanatory step towards Elliot, making as though to take off his coat in the same way he'd taken off the girl's. Elliot bared his teeth in a snarl and narrowed his eyes at the blood still clinging to the edge of Kaname's otherwise immaculate cuff.
The blond man hummed again, this time in understanding and Elliot's frown deepened, drawing furrows down his cheeks with the intensity of it.
He wasn't a child and he could take off his own goddamn coat, thank you very much. He flicked the sodden mittens off his hands with a scowl, glanced down as he rubbed his damp palms on his coat and then stopped. Elliot stared at his hands. His tiny, tiny, soft little hands. His tiny, tiny, soft, little, unscarred child's hands. Hands that had never known labour, had never been roughened by a brawl or marked by toil. Hands that weren't his.
His mouth moved wordlessly as he wriggled his small fingers and Elliot felt his stomach sink like a stone, nausea once again rearing it's ugly head as the carefully constructed barriers he had built to keep the madness at bay collapsed all at once.
Tiny hands, long brown hair, suddenly shrinking down to less than half of his height overnight...
Elliot started to wheeze as his chest suddenly seized and he bent double at the pain of it. Kaname was there in the blink of an eye, hands soothing over his back and pushing back a swathe of thick, chocolate coloured hair that couldn't possible belong to Elliot because that would mean that he wasn't in his body and that just. wasn't. possible.
A hoarse scream filled the air and it took Elliot a moment to realise that it was coming from him and that just set off a fresh wave of hysterics. The voice was so shrill, so young. His stomach abruptly couldn't take it any more and he bent double in Kaname's arms and retched violently onto the fancy looking carpet beneath his feet, his stomach expelling all of it's contents as his head swam and bright spot of colour flared in his vision.
Faintly he could hear Kaname and the other man speaking, both of them sounding frantic, as his coat was ripped from him and his shoes were tugged off before he was bundled into a blessedly warm blanket. He groaned weakly, someone was rubbing his back and it was making him want to puke again. The smell of his own vomit, acrid and suddenly impossible to ignore, invaded his nose and Elliot threw up again, this time all over himself and his new blanket.
More muffled sounds, someone took the blanket away, the pain in Elliot's head reached a crescendo and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. After momentarily sparing a moment to feel regret over leaving the little girl alone in the clutches of two murdering freaks, Elliot gave into the darkness humming around the edges of his vision and slipped into unconsciousness.
The journey back to consciousness was not a kind one to Elliot.
Nausea, dizziness, nausea, aching limbs, nausea, piercing head pains and yet more nausea accompanied him as he slowly felt his mind piecing itself back together after it's earlier collapse.
Elliot gingerly patted the soft surface he was resting on and tried to stop the world from spinning. It felt distinctly 'bed-like' with soft sheets shifting under his questing fingers. He managed to crack open an eye after a few minutes spent ascertaining that, no, his head wouldn't explode from the stimulus, and gazed out blearily into what looked like a very expensive hotel room.
It looked Swanky. With a capital 's'. Warm earthy tones decorated the walls, complimenting the dark wooden floor and the cream coloured bed-linens that lay tangled around his body. It was a little old fashioned but very, very expensive looking and Elliot had a sudden, shameful flashback to the dreary box-room that served as his sleeping space back home.
Another few seconds spent studying the room revealed a small bedside table with a pitcher of water and a glass on it.
"Oh Christ, yes!" Elliot moaned as he grabbed the pitcher and tried to neck the entire thing, his throat feeling as dry as the Sahara. As he did so he caught sight of his own small, pale hands clutching the edges of the pitcher and abruptly dropped it in surprise.
Oh yeah. He'd forgotten about those.
Elliot cursed under his breath and scrambled to right the pitcher before it spilled it's entire contents into his lap. He was a little too late and groaned up at the hanging canopy as the dampness seeped through the bed covers and down to his legs.
Shaking off the covers and carefully placing the pitcher back on the bed-side table, Elliot then tentatively swung his legs around to sit at the edge of the mattress.
His legs, half-covered in what looked like an old-fashioned women's nightdress, were small and slender and, most disturbingly, entirely hairless. Elliot had always been a decently padded kind of guy, both in muscle and body-hair, and the sight of his tiny, bare legs were enough to have the bile rising once more in his throat.
He managed to choke it down after a moment and, after wiping his mouth and giving a full body shudder of disgust, he hopped down from the bed. He had to steady himself with the bed-side table as he misjudged the distance and his weird, bony knees buckled in surprise.
"Shit..."
Elliot looked irritably around for any witnesses to his sudden weakness and, seeing none, slumped his shoulders and made his way out of the room. The door wasn't locked, which was both reassuring and worrying.
What kind of kidnappers didn't lock the godddamn doors?
High strung and still feeling faintly dizzy, Elliot tip-toed down the corridor, taking in the fancy oil lamps lighting the way and the soft, fuzzy carpet beneath his bare feet.
He managed to make it all the way down the halfway and half-way down the staircase at the end before a pair of deft hands plucked him up off his feet like he weighed fucking nothing. Elliot hissed like a startled cat as he was rested against a strong chest and looked up to see the blond man from earlier beaming down at him.
"There you are! I step out for a second and you run off! Haha, what a little minx." the man exclaimed, looking delighted in the face of Elliot's open hostility. There were glasses on his face now and Elliot could see part of his own reflection in them. All he got was a flash of brown hair and pale skin before he abruptly looked away and shut his eyes with a wince.
Whatever was going on with his body was not something that Elliot wanted to deal with just this minute. He'd probably end up screaming again. And throwing up. Or throwing up and then screaming. Or both at once. The point was that it wouldn't be pleasant.
"Oh dear, you're really not feeling well, are you sweetheart?" the man asked, gently patting Elliot's back. "Poor Yuki was out of her little mind with worry but I suppose it was best to let you sleep the worst of it off, ne?"
Yuki? Elliot opened his eyes to glare irritably at the blond man's nose.
"Who, or what, the hell is a 'Yuki'?" he asked, throat rasping uncomfortably. The blond man clucked disapprovingly and jostled Elliot a little bit as he descended the staircase and out into a large foyer below.
"Language!" the man huffed before settling Elliot down onto his feet and ushering him along and into another fancy looking room – this one Elliot vaguely remembered from earlier. He eyed the sofa that he was pretty sure he'd thrown up on and noticed that it had a new beige blanket draped over one of the arms to replace the one he'd covered in vomit.
Elliot motioned as though to make for the sofa and then grunted as he was once again accosted mid-step. This time by a tiny child missile. She plowed into him, almost knocking him off balance, and wrapped her wiry, little arms around his neck, squeezing so tightly that Elliot thought he'd genuinely die from the lack of oxygen going to his brain.
"Urk! St-stop hugging me, demon child!" he hissed, tiny, baby hands batting ineffectually at the girl who's grip only tightened as she began to sob on his shoulder. He looked up at the man for help but was instead momentarily blinded by a bright, white flashing light followed by a mechanical clicking sound.
Elliot blinked stars out of his eyes and then gaped at the archaic looking camera clutched giddily in the man's hands.
"Oh woah, you two are so cute! Look at this!" The man cooed, plucking the photo from the camera slot and shaking it out with a grin. He then shoved it in Elliot's face who took one look at the picture and then froze.
There, right slap-bang in the middle of the photo, was a girl of about four or five. She was kind of adorable, with long dark, brown hair that framed a pale, little face with a set of icy, blue eyes glaring up beseechingly at him from the glossy photo surface. It would have been enough to make Elliot's expression soften except for the fact that the girl in the photo was wearing a sodden looking white nightdress and had another little girl wrapped around her in a desperate hug.
It would have been a cute photo if Elliot wasn't suddenly and horrifyingly aware that the girl in the photo was supposed to be him.
He tried not to throw up on the kid on front of him and just barely succeeded. His poor stomach was definitely not up to dealing with this supernatural fuckery.
"What... what the hell is going on? Who are you!" he demanded, noticing how high and squeaky his voice sounded, how young.
The man sighed and took back the photo with a wounded look on his face,
"Language, Kishi!" the man scolded, wagging a finger in his face and Elliot fought the urge to bite it.
"Just come on, sit up here sweetheart. I'll explain everything over breakfast." the man said, a little softer, as he leaned down and untangled the child's arms from around Elliot's neck and ushered them both towards a small table set up in the corner displaying a plethora of breakfast foods.
Or breakfast-ish foods. Elliot didn't recognise a lot of it but it was a strange spread of cereal, meat, rice and what looked like soup, of all things. He wrinked his nose but obediently hopped up onto one of the chairs after helping the child up on to the one next to him.
The man clapped his hands delightedly and sat down opposite them.
"First things first, my name is Kaien Cross but you can call me Papa if you want!" the man, Kaien, cooed, reaching out to ruffle the girl's hair and then Elliot's. He snatched his hand back before Elliot could smack him and looked completely unruffled at the filthy look he had levelled at him in response.
"No." Elliot bit out, crossing his arms across his chest in what was usually an intimidating gesture but what he was sure now just looked defensive and frightened.
Well fuck it, he was defensive and frightened!
"Ooh don't be like that, Kishi! You and little Yuki here are going to be staying with me, it's only natural that you call me Papa!" Kaien exclaimed and Elliot blanched.
"You want us to call you daddy?" he asked dryly with a raised eyebrow and then it was Kaien's turn to blanch.
"Uwah, don't say it like that! What a terrible mind you have!" he barked, waving his hands around as if to dispel the very notion. Elliot opened his mouth to say something else when a faint, quivering voice cut through the air.
"Stay..." the child who's name was probably 'Yuki' said as she looked up at Kaien with big, wide eyes. She was actually ridiculously cute and Elliot bit back a smile. Kaien had no such compunctions and plucked her up out of her seat and swung her around in a looping circle-hug.
"Yes, Yuki! Stay with Papa~" he sang.
Elliot felt his hackles rise at the sight of Yuki caught in Kaien's arms with a deer-in-the-headlights look on her little face. Two seconds later he was up out of his seat and kicking Kaien in the leg before his thoughts managed to catch up with him. Kaien gave a little 'Ooh' of surprise before loosening his arms enough for Yuki to worm out of his hold.
Elliot hurriedly tucked the girl behind his back and scowled furously up at Kaien... who looked like he was near tears, his mouth giving a comical wobble.
"So mean..." the man muttered, reaching down to rub at his abused shin.
"Stay away from her. And me. The both of us just... just sit over there!" Elliot ordered, unmoved, pointing rigidly at the seat at the far end of the table.
"Mou, so bossy Kishi, you'll make Papa sad!" Kaien scolded but he sat down at the indicated chair with the longsuffering expression of put-upon parents everywhere. Elliot didn't appreciate the impication that he was being childish and shook with the effort of keeping his rising fury in check.
A questioning murmur from behind him had his expression softening and he turned to give Yuki a quick smile.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to leave you alone with this creep." he promised and, even though he wasn't sure if she could even understand him or not, her face split into a wide, sunny smile that took him completely off balance.
Elliot couldn't hold back an answering grin as he gently helped her onto a chair – the one farthest away from Kaien – and then scrambled up to the table himself.
Kaien looked, of all things, pleased with Elliot's apparent protectiveness and was also smiling.
Except his smile had the effect of making Elliot lose his.
"What are we doing here, why have you kidnapped us?" he demanded, absently reaching out to stop Yuki from poking one of the fish pieces with her fingers. Kaein looked offended.
"Kidnapped? You're too cute to wear such a suspicious face! I've agreed to take you in as a favour to Kaname – he's the boy who found you out in the snow and brought you here. Do you-" and here Kaien's eyes sharpened slightly "-do you remember anything?"
Elliot frowned.
"I remember waking up in the middle of a blizzard and being attacked by a goddamn monster!" he said with a full body shudder in remeberence of that things hands in his hair. Kaein's face twisted in sympathy and he reached out to pat Elliot's hand.
"Yuki doesn't seem to remember much either, though you're certainly adjusting better. Truth be told she's barely spoken a word since you both arrived." Kaien said brightly, as though Yuki being near mute was a wonderful thing rather than probably being the result of trauma.
"And where's this 'Kaname' now?" Elliot asked. If there was only Kaien here then they might be able to escape and get to a police station or something. He, at least, seemed to be human.
"Kaname has a lot on his plate at the moment but he will no doubt return to see how you two little ducks are getting on." Kaien assured, as though he thought Elliot wanted to see the creep again.
"Swell." he said darkly. "Just... swell."
"Mm hm, don't you worry your pretty, little head about him, Kishi. He'll be back before you know it!" Kaien continued, unaware or just uncaring about his blatant use of sarcasm. Elliot , personally, was leaning towards the former, the man was clearly an idiot, but something in his gut niggled that if may actually be the later.
Next to him Yuki succeeded in picking up one of the fish while he was distracted and was now licking at it curiously.
"Stop that, it's not a lolly pop. Here-" Elliot muttered, taking the fish off her and cutting it up properly into bite-sized chunks. "-eat it this way, small bites or you'll choke."
"Ahhh, sisterly love! So pure~" Kaien said with a bit of a swoon, flipping the end of his oversized scarf around in a dramatic fashion.
'Sister love'. Riiiight. Elliot was not ready to touch that topic with a ten foot pole.
And yet...
... and yet the similarities to the body he was aparantly inhabiting and Yuki's were undeinable. They were basically the same person, if you ignored the differences in eye and hair colour. Twins? This body was undeniably female which was disturbing on so many levels that Elliot couldn't even begin to start untangling how he felt about it... but...
"Do you want me to cut up your fish too, Kishi?" Kaien asked cheerily, snapping Elliot out of his reverie. And that was another thing.
"Why do you keep calling me Kishi?" he demanded, feeling pushed off kilter and more nervous than he could ever remember being in his life. This wasn't a dream, everything was too vivid and too real and the pain he felt was too visceral to be anything other than genuine, but if that was the case then he was... he'd been...
"That's your name, Kishi. It mean's 'knight', the kind that guards princesses like little Yuki here." Kaien explained with a kind smile that Elliot kind of wanted to punch off his face. "Yuki means 'princess' so you two are a matching pair, ne?"
Elliot looked over at Yuki who, with her long hair and doe-eyes, did look a lot like a disney character. He then recalled the icy eyes of the body he was inhabiting and frowned contemplatively. Knight. He could work with that.
"Just call me Knight then. Kishi... I don't like it." he said. It felt too much like a real name, too much like accepting his situation to just take this new body and sister and father without putting up an inch of a fight. Knight felt like a title, a mask that he could put on and hide Elliot underneath. Knight wasn't something he'd stolen along with this small body.
"Hm, Knight? It's such a manly name! Kishi is so cute, are you sure?" Kaien asked with a pout and Elliot nodded decisively.
"Completely. Please, call me Knight." Elliot said firmly, meeting Kaien's eyes without blinking.
"Awh, very well. Knight it is." the man huffed but there was something like a smile playing around the corners of his mouth and Elliot scowled down at his plate at the pleased feeling he got in his stomach at the unspoken approval. He'd never been much for caring what other people thought but this body was still that of a child's and it reacted without his consent, suffusing his cheeks with warmth.
A gentle pat on his clenched fists caused him to look up and Yuki stared down at him with an intent look in her eyes.
"Nnn... nn... Knight." she said softly, trying out the word as though for the first time, and Elliot felt his chest swell from something akin to adoration as those big brown eyes bored into his and her tiny hand unclenched his fingers one-by-one.
"Knight!" she chirped again, looking incredibly pleased with herself and Elliot couldn't contain the dopy smile that spread across his face in response. Knight. He guessed that that was who he'd have to be for the time being, just until he figured out a way to get them both to safety. He wasn't quite sure when Yuki managed to worm her way into his heart but he was fucked if he was going to leave her behind.
"Yuki." Knight replied solemnly, turning his palm over to lace their fingers together. They were in this together now, for better or for worse.
Yuki beamed at him, tightening her fingers around his, and, just like that, he was done for. Elliot Larkin's life was over. And the life of Knight Cross was about to begin.