Zero looked over at Kaname tiredly, his eyes moving sluggishly, colours indiscernible behind a curtain of multi-coloured dots. The man's eyelashes twitched in REM, light lines beneath them revealing how tired he really was. Over the past few months, his schedule had been hectic with riot after riot; reclaiming his power as king was proving to be a hard, dirty fight, and every mud-slinging senator he'd come into contact with, he'd gunned down in his, or Zero's, ways. Needless to say, his stream of opponents had lightly dwindled because of the alleged 'disappearances'. As his friend had put one morning after a hot shower, "'Disappearing has nothing to do with it. Everybody up in the fucking sticks knows where they are." As a pacifist, Kaien had discouraged their nightly, though often daily attempts at removing their obstacles, but as a hunter and caring guardian, gave them the tips on new tech and the old burial sites. Though, often enough, a stack of green was just as inveigling. That or a threat, and they handled threats very well, if not on a Godfather level, a fact in which Kaien revelled.
But as the day wore on and their grim business was slowly finished, the dread of the coming days bit at them, and the amount of blood on their hands saturated their skin, turning their palms a lucid, congealing crimson visible only on the more difficult days. Through their trials, they had come to points at which they thought themselves unfit to be near Yuki, and certainly forbade themselves from touching her, so a light phone call from halfway around the world every two days or so often fought off their urge to rush home and baby her again. Kaname was a ruthless and charming lobbyist: an irresistible force with a gloomy, scrubby youth at his side as a modest show of his 'friendly relations' with the modern [hu]man. Each new base foreshadowed unfamiliar challenges, and their newfound acceptance of each other sprung from a bizarre and sometimes gruesome kinship, every second they spent together fuelling it through witty talk, grim, straightforward analyses, and an almost suicidal bravery and sense of protection. Several occasions set the stage for assassination, one or the other rushing in to back his 'bro'. Four years at it and all they'd gained were some bad scars and an unheard-of tolerance for hard liquor. Disturbingly enough, even though Kaname could heal from anything, at the side of his head had grown a thin streak of white. No matter how many times he'd tried to rip it out, its mesmerizing translucence continued to allude to his suffering, weeks at a time becoming unbearable as he reached a level of maturity and knowledge no man his age should have gotten his gritty fingers on.
Zero's eyes had lost the shimmer of his more meaningful youth, shedding the amethyst chrysalis for a deep violet, a metallic sheen of toxic mercury suggesting his apathy toward horror; his growing savage love of dissonance and the hot, bloated barrel of a smoking gun. Kaname, personally, shivered at the sensation of shorn flesh growing dry on his fingernails, and the sudden evaporation of his history as his instinctual desire for conquer and the illustrious 'chase' overrode whatever morals hadn't yet dripped off of him. More often than not, they'd slough their scars and torment on someone else; Zero would press that round, calescent barrel into the already blistering flesh of his target, the woven metal like magma on their newly branded skin, a smoking design left emblazoned on the stomach or neck like a demonic vigil on cracked leather. Sometimes the putrid rind simply slipped off, in that case calling for a brief, uninterested shrug, followed by a firm, slow walk away, or the introduction of a much more painful side of life, via Kaname's own increasingly practiced skills. The inebriation they faced from the wall of fear and scents of blood forced them to drunkenly embark, and the poor son of a bitch left quaking in their path might run for his life or lay there like a stone.
But now, it was quiet, and as Zero continued to watch his companion sleep in their two-person bag, he noticed how pronounced the streak had become, and surveyed it with a careful, humane doubt that left him barren of his darker inhibitions and usual disinterested demeanour. He had become frightened for this man, having been saved by him, and, on occasion, saving. Never had he become so attached to someone on such a strange level; walk inside a mausoleum and down through the catacombs, and you might find where they would vacation, at this point; a pleasant, pre-dead package for a change. Their bloody talent alone set them apart from everyone else, not taking into account the fact that they were the other's predator, and for their own sake pretty much past the fighting point, bickering not having left the picture just for the bitter fun of it.
Long had they been austere in the eyes of the vampire community; widely distrusted by both it and the Hunter's Association. Altogether, they were regarded as a mismatch made in heaven for their brutality and sparking chemistry, along the road having taken on several characteristics Yuki, at this point, would never have permitted in her husband or friend. And Zero could smell on Kaname's and his breaths the no longer isolated product of the wealth of their practised skill in being unconcerned with the lives of the lemmings and sparse foxes they weekly gutted. Huddled in the scrub of some godforsaken tundra on their latest trail, the vein-constricting glamour of hard alcohol had been hard to pass up. In the end, the fire they'd tried to hard to keep going in their intoxicated resolve to quell the frostbite teasing their toes had died quickly without proper tending, their inseparable mass a mesh of heavily scarred tan and liquid porcelain. Kaname's pressured veins bulged fluidly against his skin as his body struggled to keep them warm, the pulsing rivets turning pearl into opal, and their bodies into a recognisable bundle of flesh and an eager, bloodthirsty desire to live.
Zero squirmed on their mat, pushing his body closer to his companion's, shivering in his thermal underwear against to onslaught of an Arctic chill, Kaname's body heat like a furnace positively belching with heat. They were literally at the end of the road, high on the Dalton and stopped outside of Deadhorse. The last days of September seeped away to reveal lessening light and truly Alaskan temperatures, and even Kaname's powers couldn't match up against the glamorous show the coming winter seemed intent on putting up.
Kaname wiggled as Zero twined their legs, feeling smothered not only by the body beside him, but the immense amount of heat that was pouring out of him. His body was capable of doing amazing things, but it was more than struggle to keep such a high core temperature, especially when a purple-eyed parasite was snuggling uncommonly close, the ice surrounding them leeching off of their wavering heat. Not only was he exhausted from this gentleman's courtesy, but he had far underestimated the strength of the alcohol he'd brought, and so his blood boiled thinly beneath the frantically charged surface of his skin, the heat in his face sweltering to such the extent that he removed himself from Zero's grasp, unfortunately ultimately awaking the 'sleeping' man.
"What are you doing?" He asked hoarsely, his voice a dirty croak as the cold seemed to reach even his delicate vocal chords. Kaname, naked, looked behind him at his groggy counterpart, and sullenly slurred,
"M'too hot; need a break. T'seconds, 'kay?" Zero stared at him as his body slowly leaned back and forth, the blood so incredibly thinned, the younger wondered how it was possible the man could keep any temperature.
"I'll join you. Not tired, anyway," he scrambled, tongue loose and swollen dryly in his mouth, for a pair of filthy socks to don his quickly cooling feet. Kaname walked out into a dead night, the stones he stepped on steaming under his unearthly heat. The lichen that had encroached upon the rocks sizzled and contracted from its voluptuous quantity when he neared, becoming destitute piles of scorched, dry weed. Zero fumbled with his clothing and tripped out of the tent to see the whole of his companion, the jutting bones refracting light and turning that celestial body into a true pearl, the gleam of moonlight almost overkill in trying to assist in his prefabricated, divine perfection. His hair was spotted with small droplets of water, the thicker sweat causing his body to shimmer more-so. Zero stood a few appreciative feet behind the nude man, transfixed by the rare sight of the complete, sylphlike form, stripped and lovely in a sense intimated by his soft, lonesome appearance in the daunting vastness of the sunless tundra. The sight was ineffably illuminating.
He began walking from their site, treading toward mountains invisible in the dark horizon, his head thrumming with an immeasurable heat, lips dry and eyes watering from the sweat that wet his onyx brow. Unperturbed by the familiar man so closely inspecting him in his nakedness, he remained at a steady pace, skin hugging his hips and cheekbones in a worrisomely tight fashion. His breaths were like columns of steam in the cold, locomotive body moving effortlessly until the fever grew to a hazardous level, and his vision became clouded by those same dots that had obscured Zero's. They shifted as he moved his eyes and their colour intensified thrillingly, the surrounding light growing faint as Zero came to his side, unknowledgeable of his precarious temperature. Nocturnally, they had left the tent in search of absolutely nothing, a moment that occurred only once in a great while, and often celebrated with heavy drinking, and occasionally, stronger stuffs.
"Zero," Kaname said in dreamy, half-inquiry. He gazed at the nightscape in climactic exhaustion, apathy channelling lethargically through overburdened veins. As his eyes grew quieter of his previous rage, his body suddenly stilled and tensed, then a scintillating aureole grew in his irises, brightening them to the strange scarlet a regrettable, but explicable, many had had known. The umbrageous scene was witness to a vindicating act of dehumanisation, as in seconds, Kaname leapt from Zero's side and bowled over the cold plain, within seconds his companion shadowed him. A lattice of coarse shrubs confined what he knew to be a more terrifying scene than that of their more lucid cases, Kaname's uncharacteristically inelegant bacchanalia further discomposing his state. A brief shriek, followed in suit by a grisly cracking sound, pulled the younger man, of no choice, into the bushes. There, his friend, front slathered with streaks of blood, squat gnawing ravenously on a putrid chuck of traitorous meat, his prey convulsing soundlessly as he was devoured. He looked toward the stunned silhouette with an uncanny hopefulness, until it pulled out a gun and caught him in the temple. The corpse stilled, Zero yanked Kaname off it, and the direful pureblood further losing himself as a dum-dum was loaded into the gun. He fired it with a hardened, but disgusted look on his face, the brunette beside him coming into a stunned reverie at the sound and spray. He looked toward his companion in childish awe as the red faded from his eyes and his mind fulfilled itself. Again, he was sober.
Collecting the pureblood from the ground, the hunter began the brisk walk to camp, but paused in-step to open his pouch. From it, he retrieved a small shell, the façade of an almond hiding explosive intent. Turning a round, he pitched it at the corpse and grabbed his dazed companion's arm, yanking him close to his body and covering delicate ears with his muffs, grinding his palms against his as the brunette tried to keep his curious gaze focused on the small, flying shell. Without a word, Zero tucked the troublesome head into his coat, the shell hitting the body before he could recover and hide his ears from the sound.
Kaname heard it well through the hunting-grade materials from which the muffs had been fabricated. He cried out in pain; the sound of a steel girder crashing to concrete echoing in his head, numbed fingertips shaking wildly. He felt Zero still, and hugged the other man's body in his incalculable fear and dolour. And though he could not see the blaze in the sky, like a great orange nimbus encircling the chasm of Hell, the heat enwrapped their comparably small bodies, their pride quaking piteously before the lambent coruscation, frames frail and tiny against the powerful inferno that was concentrated on such a small deed. Within seconds, it ended.
When the heat left his legs, Kaname unfurled the coat and threw the muffs to the ground staring at Zero frightfully, anger and inquiry growing rapidly. But the man only smiled, and patted his shoulder, "Sun Caps: leaves no bloody evidence, eh?" The very rocks had been incinerated. As the brunette heard the other man talk, though, he noticed the slurred words and uncertain stops, and so, tentatively, said as he stood behind him,
"I don't suppose you have any more of those?" To which the light-haired man did not respond, only continued walking the path, somewhat uneasy on his feet.
Zero couldn't hear.