"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Servamps couldn't die. He knew the cruel fact all too painfully well as he took in a shuddering breath and cast his gaze downward, stared into the seemingly endless abyss below. He didn't know where he was, and really didn't care, as he'd been wandering aimlessly for quite a while now, devoured by his own melancholy thoughts and incessant loneliness.
Misery had been slowly eating away at him his entire life. Or what meaningless life he could remember.
Would this finally kill him? Unlikely. But it was so high up he couldn't make out the bottom. Would his body splatter like a cracked egg, would he be squashed like a pancake? Maybe there were dangerous rocks waiting for him at the bottom and he'd be skewered, most importantly, his head, and that might do the job. Picturing himself in either form was amusing. Then he'd be free of the cold shackles of reality, free from the sadness, free from the constant, unshakable grief that stalked him like a shadow, a prowling predator and he, it's prey.
He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see anymore, feel anymore, be anymore. Sick, so very sick and disgusted with this damn cursed immortal life, he felt the breeze tussle his hair and sighed. Let it go, let everything go, and maybe, just maybe, he would dissolve into a quiet puddle of rain…
Stepping off, he wondered if anyone would remember him. His subclass would probably forget over time, and his Servamp siblings never cared to begin with. He was born alone and with nothing. He would die alone and with nothing.
Just as the indescribable feeling of falling overcame his senses, something warm, like a small campfire, enveloped him in a hard embrace and his eyes shot open to see he was on the ground, someone's arms wrapped securely around his chest as his lay inside the gap between folded legs.
"How mean, making such a cute cat come all the way out here."
A bewildered Tsubaki jumped away at Sleepy Ash's lazy drawl. He wiped at his sunglasses with the hem of his yukata and after a series of puzzled blinks, accepted that the person who had stopped his fall was Kuro, who was now slumped against a tree and yawning drowsily.
"Nii-san? Now you come to save me? Now? When I needed to be saved centuries ago, when I need you the most, when I was going through so much… and you, and all my other siblings, didn't even know," he erupted into maniacal laughter, "that I even existed! Ahaha-ahahaha-ahahaha-ahaha…ah. How boring." Streams of tears began to trickle from his eyesi
A pained look crossed Kuro's face. "If you'd come to us sooner I'm sure we- or at least I- would've welcomed you."
Tsubaki materialized his katana and directed the blade at Kuro's chest, crimson eyes flashing like a feral fox caught in a vehicle's headlights. His voice wavered as he spoke, "But you wouldn't have understood me. No one can understand me. Ah, so uninteresting- such a joke of existence!" he darted forward and impaled the blade through Kuro's torso and into the tree. A sloshy squelching sound as he twisted the blade, relished the bafflement and anguish that constricted his brother's face. Blood spurted from his mouth, scarlet blooming upon his jacket like an unfolding Camilla.
Kuro's hands scrabbled for the katana, the steel biting into his palms as he held it in him tight. With a sigh, he rolled his eyes widening in pain up to Tsubaki. "I never asked to live this long," he started with a groan. "I had lost my will entirely, wanted to die, almost died, but THEY had to come and meddle with me. Turn me into a monster," his voice softened even more, eyes narrowed. "Ah, I won't say everything. Too much explaining. As the first Servamp, I've lived much, much longer than you, OK? I was alone for decades, and after I killed THEM, I secluded myself because I couldn't deal…with my decision. I've been alive so long, I don't even know how long now. So don't gripe at me about being lonely," he averted his eyes, the golden bell at his throat jingling with the slight snap of his neck. He just couldn't bring himself to look directly into Tsubaki's, glistening, bloody rubies. So dark in the slivers of the moonlight they took on a luminescent blackened pitch.
The 8th Servamp growled, "Then why did you save me just now? If you know what it's like to want to die, who are you to deny me that?"
Kuro mumbled tiredly, "You wouldn't have died anyway. No point in going through more pain. If you want to know why I saved you, it's cuz I just wouldn't be able to deal with the guilt of not doing anything.," he scratched his nose. "It would be such a pain."
"Oh, yes, how could I forget? My death would just be a pain to you- just another drop to add into your bucket of sins. I thought maybe, just maybe we could get along, but I know it's impossible. Your justice doesn't match mine. I want to kill and kill ad kill and dance atop my throne of corpses, laughing as the blood spills like rain, and ruin this world, mess it up, crush it, crush IT, CRUSH IT!"
Kuro's voice empathetically lilted slightly, as much as he could with how stressful the situation was buzzing in his bones. "Why?"
Tsubaki sneered, "Why? Why? Why! Because it's fun. Because this world is boring. Because…" his tone digressed, softened, "it's cruel." He slumped forward, shades slipping from his nose. "How can you keep on living? It doesn't matter who betrays me I will never betray them, even if I know for a fact that when it happens I'll just get hurt," he slammed a fist on the sleek ground, "again, and again, and again!" His knuckles were raw, tinged with scarlet streaks and flushed white.
"I've seen your subclass," Kuro said. "I think they adore you. You shouldn't be so greedy and miserable alone. You have friends waiting for you… and even if they all do betray you and there's no one left- I'll always be here... for you."
Tsubaki chuckled so violently his entire body convulsed. "You? Sleepy Ash, Nii-san, you expect me to believe that you'll be by my side?" he tore the blade from Kuro's chest, flicked the blood off, and let it vanish as he crouched, a tiger striking its prey, and both his hands, the right still concealed by the purposefully over- flared sleeve, pinned Kuro's above his head. He shoved one knee between the older Servamp's thighs, and in the twilight Kuro thought he truly was a monster- a maniacal puppet controlled by the darkness, haughty grin, wild, unkempt hair and head cocked to the side, all black, his entire being shrouded in darkness, dark as ink except for the one feature all Servamps shared in common- those bewitching, dangerous, scarlet jewels.
Kuro moaned impatiently. "What a pain…Just accept it for now. Go home, take a hot shower, and order a pizza or something. You can leave the thinking to tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever."
Tsubaki blinked as if he'd been an enclosed room and suddenly a single bulb had crackled to life. "But you can't understand, Nii-san, The misery, the suffering, the fear. Do you know how it felt to be trapped in C3's basement, chained like a dog, kept from the light, all alone, confused, insane, as they kept poking and prodding, experimenting, laughing in your face as they kept breaking you and breaking you and breaking and breaking you just because you were their toy, their plaything, a thing, a monster to be treated as one. Plain and simple." His fingernails buried into Kuro's hands. "I've been broken, Nii-san. Broken so so so many times, that it doesn't matter how much glue and sewing and taping it takes to put me back together, I'll always be broken. They've broken me, Nii-san! Broken! What would anyone, especially you, want with a worthless broken toy?"
"Stop saying such complicated things," Kuro replied coolly. "You're broken because you let them break you. You can always be whole again, be forgiven, start new," an image of a smiling Mahiru flashed in his mind and he smirked. "You have to try first and then see the results, not the other way around…I guess?"
"You! You! You- "Tsubaki trembled, his throat couldn't get the right words out, so he pressed Kuro's battered body more against the tree, licked the smear of blood marring Kuro's cheek, breath hot, like steam from an espresso mug in the early morning, and he continued to roll and swipe along Kuro's face, to that delicious dip between his neck and shoulder, and bit down roughly.
Kuro gasped and clutched harder at Tsubaki's now interlaced fingers. The younger brother savored the hot, metallic liquid that flooded inside him, a forbidden candy he decided right then and there would forever be his- and his alone. He pulled from Kuro's flesh, panted, and brought his lips to his ear, where he nibbled at the end playfully, a kitten, a fox-cub teasing his kin, every exhalation whispering, ghosting tantalizingly against Kuro's skin that made him shudder and squirm and hunger for more. So. Much. More. Tsubaki loved the raw desire that emanated off his brother in an exotic perfume of pheromones and want and need. He crushed his lips against Kuro's, forced his tongue in, slid it slowly, maddeningly against his fangs, fisted one hand into his striking blue hair and yanked. He broke the kiss and stared dreamily into his brother's beaten, tired, but oh so incomparably beautiful face.
Kuro was utterly and completely drunk on the love and passion of the moment, a small trickle of saliva escaping the corner of his mouth. Tsubaki plunged his tongue into his mouth again, and Kuro used his own to tease and feel the delicate smoothness of Tsubaki's teeth. He could taste himself, salty, coppery, tangy in Tsubaki, and after having searched for hours on end for his newly discovered little brother, had to give an inspirational speech to his newly discovered little brother, and become implicitly intimate- and enjoyed it!- with his newly discovered little brother, did the Servamp of Sloth pass out on Tsubaki's lap, wounds already closing.
Tsubaki looked to the moon, then to Kuro, and gingerly stroked his hand across the wet, now matted, blue spikes.
Instead of thinking, of mulling over what to do now, commence the usual grim stewing in his head, Tsubaki stared at the few stars winking in the sky and soon joined Kuro into a quiet sleep.