A/N: Gift-fic for Crazycuddles on tumblr

Characters: Bel and Rasiel

Warnings: I don't write happy gift fics. Apparently, I am incapable of this. Themes and content, trigger warning:death

Disclaimer:I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

Between Brothers

Sweden had always been a favorite vacationing spot for the royal family.

They had all always been partial to frigid, subarctic weather, and the two six-year old princes had more of a time pelting each other with rock-filled snow balls than anything else. Their cozy, wooden lodge in Riksgränsen was just one of several luxurious homes the Royal House of Werdenberg owned around the world, and it was also a personal favorite of both crowned Prince Rasiel and crowned Prince Belphegor.

The twin princes were still much too young for Alpine skiing, but they enjoyed watching the older, more experienced athletes tackle the high, snow-covered mountain ranges with practiced ease.

It was currently their third day on their month long stay in Riksgränsen, on one of the coldest days of the year.

It was a typical day for the royal twins, initially.

Like many a day before, Bel had provoked his brother, older by two minutes and forty-six seconds, into another 'competition' to see who was the better twin and who was more fit to rule their vast kingdom one day. And like a hungry shark, Rasiel was quick to bite and accepted his brother's challenge, and, before they even finished their breakfast, the two were out in the snow-glossed courtyard, slamming each other with snow, ice, rocks, tiny fists, and a plethora of creative insults.

"If you can't even dodge one puny boulder, there's no freaking way you could ever hope to be king!"

"I'll show you puny, you dick!" Bel snapped back in language not fit for a six-year old prince as he adjusted the small crown on his head, which had gone slightly askew from dodging the rather large (and sharp) boulder that nearly took one of his eyes out, to its rightful position. He could hear Rasiel's cackling from the other end of the courtyard, at the border of the forest. Rasiel gave him a smart little hand gesture certainly not fit for a royal child and turned and ran into the woods to hide.

Bel smirked.

Rasiel may have been stronger, but Bel had a much better sense of direction, not to mention he was much more rugged than Rasiel was. It would only be a matter of minutes before he found his brother crying in a dirt crevice somewhere. The young prince dashed into the thick, snow-covered foliage.

They both knew they were forbidden to venture outside the perimeter of the lodge, but truthfully, neither prince gave much worry to their personal safety, as long as they had fun. Besides, what their parents didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

"…Where are you..." Bel whispered to himself as he plowed silently through the heavy snow, crouching slightly to remain hidden. The prince vaguely noted that it would be time for lunch soon, and if they weren't back by then, their mother would have their heads.

"Rasiel!" Belphegor shouted into the woods, cupping his hands around his mouth and repeating his brother's name as he ran further into the forest.

After a while, he spotted his twin in the distance, standing near a precarious-looking ledge. "Rasiel, you stupid, we have to get back or mother will get mad at us again." Bel snapped. But Rasiel made no movement to acknowledge that he'd heard.

"Rasiel!" Bel shouted again, a bit more urgently. The older twin looked up slowly, as if coming out of a trance. "…Bel…" He said in a quiet, careful voice. Bel's head tilted slightly in confusion as he cautiously took a step toward his brother. Rasiel raised a finger to his lips and shushed him, pointing downward over the ledge.

"There's someone down there. I think he's hurt pretty bad." The older prince said when Bel finally reached him. Bel took the cue from his brother and peaked over the side of the ledge, keeping a weary eye on his twin just in case Rasiel was joking and really planned to push him over the ledge into the snow.

But to his shock, there was a man laying some twenty to thirty feet below them, flat on his back and one of his skiis laying several feet away. The other was still attached to his booted foot, that leg a mangled mess. He appeared to be unconscious.

"Is he…dead?" Bel asked uneasily as he took in the man's surroundings and tried to piece together what happened. The ledge was at the base of one of the tall mountains, a famous ski resort located at the top, if he remembered correctly.

A skiing accident.

Rasiel shrugged. "Dunno. He hasn't moved at all."

Bel suddenly walked forward and climbed down the side of the ledge, nearly falling several times.

"Bel, what are you doing!" Rasiel whispered heatedly as he clambered down after his brother.

"We have to see if he's okay." Bel said dutifully. The royal pair approached the injured skiier slowly, clutching nervously at each other's sleeves. Almost like caring siblings.

Now that they were closer, they could see that the man was covered in bloody gashes and bruises, aside from the obviously broken leg. Though his thick jumper was still surprisingly intact, an odd protrusion from the knee area of the broken leg told them that there was no way he'd be getting up and walking away any time soon.

"If he landed like that, his spine's probably broken too." Rasiel said in a hushed tone as they came to stand a few feet away, still weary of the body on the ground. Bel nodded in agreement.

"What should we do?" He asked, chewing on his thumb nervously. Rasiel walked up to the unconscious man warily, face aglow with a morbid sort of curiosity.

"Rasiel, get away from him!" Bel whispered anxiously. Rasiel looked at him briefly before turning back to the man and nudging one of his arms gingerly with the tip of his boot.

"Ras!" Bel snapped in a hushed but slightly imploring tone.

"I think…he's …dead…." Rasiel said quietly as he prodded the man's side once again with his boot before crouching down to listen for a heart beat.

The man's arm suddenly grabbed Rasiel's smaller one. "Help…me-me pl-please…" The man groaned agonizingly, coughing up a thick spatter of dark blood which soaked the entire front of Rasiel's white coat.

The two brothers shrieked in horror, their childish screams ringing through the woods as they both scrambled back up the ledge and out of the woods. They were both too shaken to even make up an excuse as to why Rasiel's coat was covered in blood when they returned home.

"Do you think he's still out there?" Bel asked later that night, in the privacy of their bedroom. Rasiel's head poked down from the top bunk.

"Duh, where the heck do you think he's gonna go with a broken leg, stupid." He snapped back. Belphegor rolled onto his side, curling into himself.

"We should've told someone." He murmured into his pillow.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Rasiel berated from the top bunk. "We weren't even supposed to be out there. If mother and father find out, we'll be in so much trouble."

"Yeah, but-"

"But nothing, Bel. We can't tell anyone okay? 'Sides," Rasiel began quietly as he too rolled over onto his stomach, "it's freezing out. He's probably dead by now anyway. Promise you won't say anything."

"…I…"

"You have to promise, Bel. We can't say a word about this. To anyone. Ever."

Bel sighed in both resignation and mild irritation as he curled even more into himself, trying to gather all of the covers over his small form. "Whatever." He muttered.

"We're royalty. It's not our place to worry about commoners anyway. What happened to him was his fault, and his alone. Now go to sleep or I'll punch you." Rasiel threatened from the top bunk, to which Bel promptly responded by kicking the mattress between the wooden support beams, nearly sending his twin flying off the bed.

Despite the temporary satisfaction of catching his brother of guard, the warmth of the large bedroom seemed to dissipate with the anxiety lingering in the back of his mind.

They left a man in the woods.

An injured man.

Alone. In the woods.

Out in the snow.

But what could they have done?

They were much too young to carry him or anything, and besides, Rasiel was right, as much as Bel hated admitting that fact. They were princes. What business did they have sullying their hands with the blood of a foolish adrenaline junkie whose reckless lifestyle finally caught up to him?

And their parents would level cities with their rage if they ever found out that their two sons, one of them the heir to the throne, were wandering out in the dangerous forest where wild animals and other potential perils lay.

This was a matter of self-preservation, Bel decided, if only to quell the sinking feeling in his stomach, but as he drifted off into a fitful sleep, he could only see the injured man reached out to him for help.

"He was still alive, just so you know." Rasiel said as he sipped his hot chocolate the next morning.

Belphegor nearly dropped his own mug at the sudden declaration. The two princes were sitting out on the expansive veranda that overlooked one of the smaller mountain ranges, basking in the faint warmth of the morning sun and the sharp chill of the mountain air.

"You went back?" Bel hissed from behind his mug, as their parents were sitting just out of hearing distance. Rasiel nodded. "Yeah. I went this morning while you were snoring like a fat baby."

Normally, Bel would've testily responded with something equally rude, or even more likely, he would've just outright dumped his piping hot cup of cocoa right onto Rasiel's unguarded head, but he was far more concerned with what his brother had to say.

"Well?"

Rasiel sighed vapidly before taking a sip from his mug. "He was alive. But barely. I think he's getting an infection. He has little sores around his mouth. It was really gross." He said as if discussing the weather.

"Did he…you know…say anything?" Bel pressed. Rasiel shrugged. "I think so. But it's not like I got close enough to hear him or anything. I was just curious to see if he was dead or not."

"I wanna go too."

Rasiel turned to look at his younger twin with a wicked little smile. "Really? Then let's go back later."

Belphegor looked behind him to where their parents were sitting, discussing something private. He cast a sideways glance at his brother, whose smile morphed into a scowl at the realization of what his brother was thinking.

"Um, mother?" Belphegor began. The beautiful blonde woman turned from her conversation with their father to look over her shoulder at her two sons.

"Yes Belphegor, what is it?"

"…Well…" He began awkwardly when he felt a sudden pain in his leg. He look down to see Rasiel's fingernails digging sharply into his heavily clothed skin, the older twin shaking his head threateningly.

"Don't. Say. Anything." He hissed, just low enough for only Bel to hear.

"Ah," Bel grunted slightly as Rasiel's fingers dug deeper. His mother gave him an odd look. "Belphegor, what is it?" She repeated. Belphegor quickly pinched his brother's exposed hand, forcing Rasiel to let go and cradle his hand to his chest agitatedly.

"Don't tell." He snapped quietly.

"Um…you, look …pretty today…." Bel said, finishly lamely. His mother gave him a small smile and patted his head, completely disregarding her son's odd behavior. "Thank you Belphegor. Now you and your brother go run along. And please, behave."

"I can't believe he was still alive…whoa..." Bel said in mild amazement as the two trekked down the familiar path they had followed home the day before.

"Well, it's like father says," Rasiel began, "The Human Will is an unshakable force of nature."

Belphegor responded by shoving the older twin into a pile of snow. "Yeah well, if the cold didn't kill him, the wolves or whatever probably did."

After a seemingly endless hike through the thick snow, the two boys finally arrived at their destination. They stood on the ledge, looking downward through the thick brush. The man was partially buried under a layer of snow, but still quite visible. He hadn't moved an inch from where they had last left him, and, true to what Rasiel had said earlier, he had large, unsightly yellowish blisters around his mouth, a sure sign of infection.

But despite everything, the man was still slightly conscious, but clearly in an indescribable amount of pain. Or maybe, Bel speculated, the man had already gone numb from the bitter cold.

Part of him sincerely hoped so.

Rasiel slid down the steep ledge first, beckoning for Bel to follow, but as silently as possible. After his twin reluctantly came to stand at his side, he turned to Bel, an odd look on the visible part of his face.

"You know Bel,"He began, "When I came to see him earlier, I lied. He did say something."

"He did?"

Rasiel nodded curiously as he crouched down on the ground several feet away from the man before taking a seat on the ground. Belphegor quickly planted himself next to his brother, as far away from the mangled man as possible.

"What did he say?" Bel pleaded.

Rasiel licked his slightly chapped lips as he stalled to answer his brother, instead glancing around them, almost as if he suspected they were being trailed.

"Ras!" Bel snapped. Rasiel sighed as he sat back with his arms outstretched behind him, supporting the weight of his upper body.

"He said that…he…he said to put him out of his misery."

"What?" Bel said in complete panic and disbelief. "Rasiel, I'm sure you heard wrong-"

"-No. I didn't. He asked to die. You can't really mistake that." The older twin said unflinchingly. Bel suppressed a shudder at the icy tone his brother's voice held. "You're not gonna, you know, do it…are you?"

"I've been thinking about it since last night." The older twin admitted. Belphegor shook his head in shock. "Rasiel, you can't be serious…it's…it's another person. He's hurt!"

"Yeah I know, that's why I've been thinking about it though. I mean, you even said it yourself yesterday. We should help him. But the fact of the matter is, we can't really do much for him now…except…"

Belphegor was horrified. "Rasiel…we can't, you can't…"

But his pleas went ignored as Rasiel stood up and walked over to the man, who was squirming and sputtering back into semi-consciousness. He prodded the man in the side again with the tip of his boot, not daring to get any closer. The man was gasping for breath, like Death himself was standing over his very body, sucking the life out of him second by second.

Perhaps, Belphegor thought, Death really was standing over him. In the form of a blonde six-year-old prince.

"Rasiel…you don't have to do that…" Belphegor said frightfully, not caring that he was making a sap of himself in front of his brother and rival for the throne. "There has to be another way!"

But it appeared Rasiel had made his choice long before their talk that morning.

"…Rasiel…?" Bel began timidly as he squeezed the warm bathwater out of the thick blue sponge, letting it trickle down over his brother's head. Ominous red rivulets trailed down Rasiel's back and down his neck and chest and into the equally red water that filled the large bathtub.

"…Wh-what is it…" He said, staring at the bloody water in a near catatonic stupor. Belphegor pulled plug out of the drain. All at once, the crimson tide drained lower and lower, until a thin river of red water circled around the edge of the drain, leaving the twins naked and vulnerable in the slight chill of the bathroom that only they seemed to notice.

Not that they really noticed, however.

"About what you…said earlier…"

"Hmm?"

"…The man…he didn't really say that…did he?"

Rasiel looked up at him for the first time since they arrived home.

They had spent hours just sitting silently by the corpse, their small booted feet lingering just on the corner of the large blood spatter. They clung to each other for what may have been the first time since their birth, the separate chills of winter and Death encompassing them in a frigid blanket.

Neither dared to move. Nor did they speak. They just…sat. In shock. In horror. In morbid fascination. Belphegor had thrown up right after the third strike, when the boulder finally crushed the man's skull, and the first of several spurts of blood coated both the freshly fallen snow and a good portion of Rasiel's hair.

He brought it down again and again, even as the man's head began to look more and more like a smashed fruit on a sidewalk, even as Bel screamed and cried and pleaded for him to stop in the background, even as horror-stricken tears coated his bloodied, cherubic face until finally, Belphegor pushed him down onto the ground and wrestled the boulder out of his brother's hands.

They crawled away, sniffling and horrified, up the steep ledge and back through the woods as the sun began to set, ducking into their home as silently as they could to avoid being seen.

Straight into the bathroom.

Their bloodied clothes piled in the farthest corner of the bathroom.

Belphegor had nearly vomited again when he saw just how much blood Rasiel had on him. The hot water quickly flowed red, again and again, now matter how many times Bel drained the tub and refilled it. When the caretakers came to check on them and found the twin prince's bathroom door locked, Belphegor snarled at them through the door, threatening to kill them if they dared come inside.

Rasiel just sat with his legs tucked against his chest, panting and shuddering.

"Rasiel." He prompted again. The older twin stared back at him silently, his blonde hair slicked back, leaving his dark eyes exposed to his brother, whose lighter eyes were also visible, and after several seconds, he shook his head.

"No. He didn't."

Belphegor's breathing hitched. "Then why?"

Rasiel looked away, face oddly blank despite the lone tear trailing down his left cheek. "I…I just…I really wanted to see how bad I could hurt him." He said, his voice thick with tears. "And…you know what…" He began, a sort of half-smile, half-grimace appearing on his face, even as the tears kept coming…

Belphegor covered his mouth in shock, a sudden wave of dizziness nearly overcoming him. He could just barely make out what Rasiel said as he the door to the bathroom unlocked, their mother and father storming into the bathroom, screaming and crying in fear of what may have happened to their two sons.

Even as Rasiel grabbed Belphegor's hand, and under the pretense of wiping him off with a towel, slashed up the entirety of his right forearm with a broken razor, growling a low 'Not a word,' Belphegor kept his mouth sealed. Even as his mother screamed at the amount of blood pouring into the tub-

-"Belphegor, what on Earth happened to you!"

"I…fell...in the woods…on a rock, I think…"-

This was theirs, and theirs alone. Their mother and father didn't need to know that their six year old son had just murdered a man. And enjoyed it.

"It was so much fun.. I've…I've never felt more…alive…"

It was something so unfit for royalty.

For twin princes.

But, Bel decided that night, neither of them would ever be fit to be royalty. It wasn't a façade that catered to their appetites.

Not at all.

Note: The Royal House of Werdenberg: I had to make up a last for their family, so I figured I'd stop floating in nationality limbo and finally went with a German background. Just because. Fight me.

I hope you enjoyed it, and Merry Christmas Crazycuddles 3