this pairing screamed at me all through volume four. i'm sure my timeline is a little scewered and there may e a few minor inaccuracies towards the manga. i ask you to forgive them, as this is my first attempt at vampire knight.
Ichiru is a fragile little boy of eight- frail and sickly and oh so easily breakable
Ichiru is a fragile little boy of eight- frail and sickly and oh so easily breakable. The type of little boy Zero must protect. As a hunter. As a brother.
"You'll get a cold." The air is frigid, snow blanketing the ground with soft white. Zero holds his identical baby brother in his arms (so much weaker and smaller then he). Their breath, cloudy and translucent, mingles between their close faces.
Ichiru grasps the thick sleeve of his coat vicelike, shudder-y breaths against his ear. "Do you think I could ever be a great vampire hunter?"
"Of course," he replies, quick as lightning, and pulls his brother flush in an attempt to absorb the sickness and doubt within him. "We'll both be."
By night sickness has claimed poor, little Ichiru, face bright with fever and frame shuddering with chills. Zero awakens to a body much warmer then his beside him, small hands curled around his own. Zero, small boy of eight that he is, does not look scornfully or distastefully upon his twin. He holds his brother close (for they were always so close, were they not?) and wills the fever away in his sleep.
Darkness grows in Ichiru. Such a weak boy as he can not hope to be a great vampire hunter such as his mother or father or brother, and the self loathing festers underneath his skin like something foreign pulsing through his blood.
How fair is it, for him to be so sickly and lacking of ability while his twin rises to prodigy in the field he is supposed to master?
Self loathing turns to loathing turns to darkness, growing and spreading from heart and on through him.
Zero sees the darkness frittering away at his brother's insides and mistakes it for more sickness, more sadness. Boy of ten still does not feel awkward with the closeness and the love, much unlike his brother.
He holds his brother close in the darkness of his (their) room, Ichiru's frame shivering with the cold air out the window and hands clenching at his arms with anger (with loathing with blackness).
"Do you think we'll always be together?" Ichiru's voice is tight with some emotion Zero cannot place.
"Of course. Always," Zero answers, but his words are unsure and his voice has the slightest crack at the end. He wants to take away his brother's pain, but a boy such as he has no idea how even in darkness, when they already are so close.
Two twelve-year-olds are so used to keeping from their parents, however good little boys they are. As Ichiru's darkness grew, Zero's feelings quavered 'till the two melded and twisted into something perverse and strange.
When sadness festers in Ichiru in the form of messy tears and angry words, Zero does not comfort with words, but with sloppy touches beneath the sheets.
In darkness, pale, sick Ichiru grows cold and his touches are sure and kisses are harsh. Boys such as they have no concept of right and wrong when not applied to their practice of justice and vampires and killing. There is only want, smoldering in their eyes and spurring their hands while their parents slumber down the hall.
"You'll never leave me, will you?" Ichiru asks, voice hushed at the shell of his ear.
"Never."
Zero thinks of vampire eyes (beckoning him so silently) and sleeps fitfully, fingers twining tightly in his brother's angel hair.
xxx