Here we go, a Loveless fanfiction... this is long overdue. :) I hope you enjoy, and please leave coments and critique! I need to get better. by how much? ill let you judge.

--

He could feel the immense brightness of the room through his closed eyelids, burning colorful blots into his vision. He could feel the heat of it, too. It painted his cheeks and shoulders in a kind of restless warmth, the kind that forced you to wake up, to feel energetic. But, thankfully, his master hadn't commanded him to get up as of thus, and so he allowed himself to lay still, enjoying the summer morning, ignoring it's alluring perkiness. He was lost on the brink of sleep and consciousness, a sort of hazy, deeply enjoyable state, when something shifted by his side.

Kyo? Impossible – or at least he hoped it was. The tabby from the neighbors house? Also, hopefully impossible. The… 'thing' shifted once more, and this time, what suspiciously resembled two feline ears brushed against his chest. 'Not the tabby, not the tabby, please not the tabby….' Then the haziness vanished in a snap;

'Ritsuka,' He understood.

He forced the little brain-power currently at his command to recall the night before. Well, while that was happening – or trying to happen – a quick physical check was in order. For starters, he seemed to be fully clothed. Good; For Ritsuka, in any case. Although… why did everything hurt so much? He half-heartedly forced the tips of his fingers into action, sending immediate pain shooting down his arms and through his torso. Reflexively, he stilled his muscles and waited for the searing pain to subside before releasing a breath he hadn't known he was holding. Slowly, slowly, he dragged himself from the state of lazy sleep he had been so enjoyably immersed in. By now, his memory had began to float languidly into place. Spells, chains, Ritsuka, more spells… more Ritsuka… From this striking recollection he managed to conclude that the soreness, the lack of sleep, and, apparently, the Ritsuka next to him, were the result of a spell battle the night before. This deciphered, he felt entirely contempt; so much so, in fact, that sleep was sounding pretty damn good again. Maybe for just a minute or two…

There was something heavy on his hip, Ritsuka realized, as he toyed with the idea of waking up.

'Nope.' He concluded a split-second later.

He attempted to shake the bothersome weight off of himself with as little movement as possible; '….urg, go away…' He though, aggravated. Alright, alright…this called for desperate measures; he would have to open his eyes. His entire body protested as he propped himself up on one elbow, to squint against the mornings' sunshine.

'Oh god no….'

'Wake up, wake up, wake up, this can't be happening…!' His mind screached, a dark shade of red already spilling across his cheeks.

Soubi lay next to him, his hair falling about his shoulders, set to golden flames by the brightness of the room. A spider wed of thin strands framed his face, covered the pillow and shadowed his closed eyes…. He seemed to have fallen asleep in full attire; shoes, jeans, jacket and all. So, Ritsuka realized, had he. The difference remained, though, that the older man's shirt was unbuttoned nearly the entire way down, revealing a couple of dark-rimmed bruises. One hand he had laid his head on, the other, was sprawled rakishly over Ritsuka's waist.

'Soubi…' Images of the evening prior raced through his head; screaming at Soubi for not calling him to the fight, screaming at him for acting as though he was alright… screaming at him because he had felt so helpless, watching the man smile so earnestly, with blood running down his chin….

He forced the thoughts away quickly, feeling the helplessness he had felt then sweep over him again. Instead, he let his fingers dance over Soubi's hand, scrapping away a drop of dried blood as he did, and carefully pushed it off of himself. 'Quiet,' he told himself as he hoisted himself up from the mattress.

'Soubi's apartment' his mind had already registered.

He traced an all-too-well-known route to the medicine cabinet. Ah, antiseptic. By now, that was the one thing at Soubi's place he could find in the dead of night, blind folded.

He twisted the cap off, rummaged around for a cotton ball, and walked back over to the bed. Soubi lay still where he left him, looking unusually… normal. Sleep had robbed him of his free-flowing, sly manner, his easy smile. He looked human; tired, content, but human. Yet as normal as he appeared, it only took Ritsuka one more long, hard look to be able to peal that false front away; there was something gracefully mystifying about that man. The way his words seemed to linger in the air, the way he never walked, but glided, the way the more of himself he tried to conceal, the more Ritsuka earned to tear it all away. Like a butterfly's cocoon, Soubi's world was distant and disconnected from his own…

Ritsuka let those ever-reoccurring thoughts slip away for the moment, realizing that the cap was long separated from the bottle, and he was twisting it uselessly about it's neck. Shaking his head, he leaned over Soubi's sleeping figure, and carefully pulled the remaining buttons of his shirt apart; many were undone, others simply torn off. He shuddered at the sigh – cuts, angry marks and dark bruises littered his skin. Ritsuka recalled how apathetic Soubi had always been to his own well-being the night before; Ritsuka himself had not a scratch on his body, thanks to this idiots lack of self-preservation. He grunted, annoyed, and tilted the antiseptic fluid onto the cotton ball.

Then he set to work.