When Kaname sobered up a bit, he didn't talk much. He cleaned up his messes without Ichiru having to get him to, hair hanging over his eyes as he washed down the countertop and scrubbed off the dried mucus. The back door was open, and the two brothers were standing and lying around in the rain. Zero was too grim to want to talk to, and Ichiru was too deep in thought to uphold a point any conversation. All the while, over the light hush of the water, the constant, long rough strokes of the dish towel played in the background. The younger brother was surprised his twin could stand the silence, but it seemed to fit the moment, and he didn't want to push things the wrong way and have Zero intentionally ignore him.
"… He needs to go back to his wife and child."
"What do you expect him to do in this state?" the older man snapped, "he's barely standing; how the fuck is going to take care of Yuki and a baby?!" his growl had almost turned into shouting, and Ichiru came back,
"Then fucking command him to! If you don't, I am hopping in that fucking car right now." Zero twitched, but when Ichiru started walking, "You can mope all you want, but I want him out of my house!" Jumping up, the other shoved him to the side, pushing him against the brick wall and ready to call him out, when there was a large clatter in the kitchen. Zero immediately dropped his brother and ran to the door on the patio. Kaname had just slammed it shut. The lock clicked as he walked to the counter. His bare feet stepped through a sea of dish fragments, a trail of blood and skin leading to his heels. Standing idly for a few moments, head down, he scared Zero more than he had in his entire life.
"Ichi... Ichiru…" Ichiru was still rubbing his angry neck of his brother's firm grip. He walked over and froze when he saw Kaname standing in the kitchen. From the base of the steps, he saw the look in the man's eyes,
Dead and dreaming already…
His only regret was he'd have to clean up the mess. Zero started banging on the door, shouting, but the brunette couldn't hear him. When a pale hand reached for the drawer, the twin began thrusting his weight against the glass, shouting. Kaname stalled for a moment, looking down into the drawer and its rather lethal contents. He pulled out a cloudy plastic bottle, a rusty powder sloshing easily from side to side. He held it to eye-level, unknowingly looking straight at Ichiru. The twin stared back at him with apathetic boredom: kill yourself already and get it over with.
Zero was having a Hell of a time getting the door to break: he'd had designers from the Agency build it as a fortress, no vampires in; no bloody beasts out. He whirled around and caught Ichiru's collar again, throwing him against the glass.
"Open it." He said threateningly. His brother had collapsed at the base of the door, body hanging painfully over a few cement steps. The look in his eyes was hateful,
"No." He said quietly. Zero picked him up and tried to toss him again, but the man managed to get his hands around his brother's throat. They struggled uselessly against each other, until the elder finally landed a punch hard enough to send his counterpart sprawling. He ran to the door and started shouting for Kaname to open it, but looked in and saw him.
-
He hung his head in shame: the coward's way out. Welcoming death just because it was easier than dealing with what he'd been dished. He'd taken one of the substances from Zero's 'medicine' drawer, which was usually filled with all sorts of healing, burning, itching, rotting, and God-knew-what-else powders. It stood on the counter, top off, a glass of water resting near it. He brought the bottle close to his face, trying to inhale it. Zero watched several streaks of red rush into the man's nose. Kaname again placed it on the counter: scentless, tasteless; it had been called 'Revenge in a Bottle', being a substance so powerful and dangerous, it was rarely used in interrogation, even. The hunter had kept it on hand purely for home 'demonstrations'. 'Hold out your hand, please,' 'Bastard—AHHH,' sorts of things. All very chilling and professional and more sickening than one could imagine. It had originally been praised in its effectiveness in retracting answers even from high nobles and a pureblood or two, but over the years its implementations had become more for utter cruelty instead of interrogation, and its production had diminished to a few small bottles every couple of years for the more extreme cases.
The way it worked, Kaname remembered having been told, was by exhausting any healing abilities whatsoever. It was meant for destruction of the flesh, but also had a stimulant in it that would set healing abilities to an inexplicably high rate: in short, it healed a vampire while it slowly disintegrated it, a very tedious, extremely painful death, which could last anywhere from forty-five minutes to a couple of days. Those who had suffered 'demonstrations' had holes that went through even their bones, still working even after years of use, keeping the wound open for 'examination and study', which amounted to a few very painful sessions of reopening old scars and poking things into screaming bodies. To show them who owned them, of course.
His nostrils and sinuses were already burning and flaring at the medicine's touch. His throat and lungs had begun aching, too. Maybe a couple of particles were all it took; it had been pretty effective in getting high-ranking nobles to sign over property for investigation and information pertaining to conspiracies. Ichiou had probably looked into it for the use of the Senate against disobedient purebloods. A few of his memories from his incarceration were rather foggy, so the powder may have been the fault of the few scars that had managed to hold on through his power and the passing years. The torture and sex acts should have been enough, though… His head hung down further, body swaying lifelessly. Then he raised head up as far as he could, eyes closed, depression curling around him like a thick smoke. Zero and Ichiru could see the miasma slowly seeping out of the door. It tried to snap at them, and the younger scooted away, still watching the two men as one continued to stand at the glass, the blackish streaks beginning to curl around the bases of his legs. Ichiru gulped: that shit could swallow you up.
"Zero," Kaname whispered, bringing his head down again. He stared at the bottle as if it was a chess piece, calculations and plans running from his head as he tried to relax for one last time. Then, slowly, he reached for it, rimming the opening with his index finger, and then slowly sinking down until it touched the surface of the orange. He flinched, this time. It burned away his fingerprint slowly. He held that pose for a few minutes, beginning to sweat. The particles clinging in his chest case were making breathing laborious and painful, but he kept his eyes open and tried to stay strong. About three minutes later, he pulled the finger out. Zero retched.
Kaname stared at it interestedly: the nail had slowly burned down, the powder doing nothing to stop the scent, and the tip was almost completely burned off. A stub of bone sizzled and cracked, dust falling on the countertop. He unwittingly gripped his chest, breathing laborious and heavy. Narrowing his eyes, he fell against the counter, head cracking loudlyon the marble and the water crashing on the floor. He'd knocked over the bottle, the powder lingering in the air a few feet from him, some splashed across the floor and sink. His hand rested in a small pile of it.
Zero would forever remember that shriek of pain.
The brunette flew from the island and into the wall, breaking the surface as he thrashed against it, the skin slowly bubbling away, veins dying and healing, nerves twitching and giving out. An oozing red streak ran the length of his forearm and he screamed horrifically from the pain. The scientist had been right when they'd made the assumption that even a pureblood would succumb when it was used. They'd be proud to know it was so very effective on even strong pureblood like this one.
The miasma flared and reacted to Kaname's pain, making small shrieks of its own as it shrank in some areas and gurgled explosively in others. Ichiru stepped back warily, eyeing the mass as it thrust over the roof and clawed the gently swaying treetops, stilling them even though a breeze was going. Zero kept shouting,
"OPEN THE GODDAMNED DOOR NOW, KANAME!!!" He bashed against the glass fruitlessly, his lover crying and thrashing about inside.
Kaname started knocking things over: throwing frying pans so that they broke the walls and stone tiles on contact, the glasses of the cabinet shattering as his mind went haywire. Even the back door cracked under his raging power. Zero pounded on it as hard as he could, watching as the brunette tore through the kitchen, screaming. He knew not to pour water over something like this like a good little listener. It only caused it to spread. The best he could do at this rate was wait out the time it took to kill him from either pain or the blood loss. The twins stared on in horror, the glass finally cracking to the extent where it just crumbled under the pressure. Zero ran in immediately, the kitchen not looking much like a kitchen anymore.
Kaname was currently bashing the burning arm on the wall, spreading the dust around as a layer of muscle was burned off. He banged his head against the plaster and his brow split, having little trouble healing, this early on in the game. Zero rushed to his side, trying to grab him but seeing he could in no way force the man to still. He ran to the destroyed island, scrambling through the debris to find some medicine to at least stop the pain and kill him quickly, but Kaname had damn-near obliterated everything. He kept listening to the screams, the miasma biting him and desperately trying to slough off some of the pain. Near death, Kaname still clung to him, sharing the burn and the hatred and the sadness. He stumbled from the room, trying to get to the stairs while Kaname blasted through walls and curled iron railings. He ran up hem as fast as he could, all the whole having to listen to the bellows and wails, stumbling as side tables and paintings ripped themselves apart. He reached his room and went for the nightstand, grabbing the gun and shakily loading and cocking it. He ran downstairs and flew past Kaname, who trembled and the floor, vomiting the dust that had become his organs and blood, still blowing everything to Hell. Zero came out and shoved the gun in Ichiru's hand, looking at him fiercely. The man watched him disinterestedly, having learned to resist flinching at the shouts,
"What am I supposed to do with this?" he said with a cruel smile. Zero punched him again and carried him inside, tossing him to the floor and climbing on top of him, feet away from Kaname. He struggled to get his brother to point the gun at the brunette's temple, but Ichiru, through the pound of his bruised head, fought against him, losing. When the barrel was finally pointed at Kaname, the brunette stilled for a moment, and then Zero forced his brother to pull the trigger. There was a deafening bang, but Kaname kept thrashing.
A hand hovered between the brunette and the brothers.
Ichiru looked up into the smile of a bright, short, black-haired man. The man wagged his finger at them, "You're not allowed to go that far, Ichiru," he said patiently. Ichiru lowered his gaze respectfully, then wriggled beneath his brother. Kaname scratched the walls, a few nails coming loose in the process as he kept screaming.
"I know, Sir. I tried to resist him, but-" The man cut him off, looking quizzically at Zero, who stared at him dreadfully,
"I didn't cover very much with you." His posture was relaxed. He closed his eyes and sighed, turning around as Kaname's hoarse and painful voice rang out. Reaching down to shut the pureblood's eyelids, he stopped, eying the burning flesh, muscle seeping off bone like rotten stew. "… I never understood why you kept feeling the necessity to keep this thing around." He grabbed Kaname's chin and forced the man to look at him. The brunette writhed and tried to escape the hallucination,
"No, Kaname; look at me." And the brunette stopped. He stared at the other childishly, still convulsing automatically, but for the most part focusing on the strange person squatting over him. "You will die in 37 hours, at this rate." Kaname gurgled a little every now and then, choking on the dust inside of him and scratching at the floor with his evaporating claws. Death studied him for a moment, then turned to Ichiru, "Leave." He said, and the man did. Zero tumbled to the wrecked tiles as his brother pushed him off, "You," Death stated, "give me the gun," and Zero did so. The brunette immediately shot him in the kneecap, and he crumbled with a scream, "That's the beginning of your atonement," he began, a wicked smile crossing his face, "you had no right putting that damned seal on him…" As an afterthought, he added, "and you have no idea how long things like that can take to heal." Zero gripped his bleeding kneecap, rocking on the floor with his good leg as the man turned back to Kaname, a curtain of his long blackish hair hiding his face. His skin glowed luminously in the dim light, black shirt partially undone. That was how Zero saw Death.
Death leaned down and looked Kaname in the eye, seeing the brunette's pupils move back and forth rapidly. He was obviously in pain, but then again, everyone got a little weird when Death walked in the room. Or, at least weird compared to the faces they showed their friends.
"Kaname," he said kindly, "I know you're in pain, darling, but I need you to listen to me for a moment." Kaname's eyes had been streaming tears for the past twenty minutes or so, making it difficult to see, but he only cried harder when he did, the brown hair brushing his face just like it had all those years ago… the memories did nothing to stop his convulsions, and he cried harder as the other tried to calm him.
"You don't want to go this way. Bad things can happen to people who do, okay?" Death smiled warmly, and kissed Kaname's forehead, causing the man to flinch and grasp the fabric of the coat brushing softly against his body. "If you get through this right now, I promise I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Absolutely anything." Death couldn't directly interfere with anything, Zero remembered, but he used his neutrality to his own advantage, and could certainly get imaginative when desperate times called for desperate measures.
Kaname eyed the soft skin and brown eyes, still gripping the coat, pieces of his flesh getting caught in the dark wool. He closed his eyes and let out a long, low whine, breaths shaky as he tried to steady himself and staunch the tears. The brown hair mingled with his own as Death continued to kiss him, finally resting their foreheads together,
"I'm very glad you're being so strong, and I'm very sorry we had to meet when you were so young." Kaname struggled as he tried to reply, stumbling over words and stuttering worse than the time he'd gotten drunk with a fever and seasickness. Death caught on to what he was trying to do, and gently said, "Your wife and child will not know about this…" Zero saw him pause as Kaname looked at him imploringly, "Zero does." The scarred man's eyes closed and he shook a bit more, urgently trying to keep as much of himself together as possible. He opened them again and kept looking at Death and the light smile that crossed those pale lips, "… I'm afraid you can't." A few seconds later, Death looked back at Zero distastefully, "Do you still love him?" he asked simply. The dead man stared at him,
"W-What?" he gasped through his pain,
"Do you still love him? Think carefully, or you won't like your answer." Zero gulped through the pain in his knee,
"I n-never did. I did ha-all those things to him… Whywouldyoueven haah-ask that?" He grunted and groaned; pain aside, still very much his same old bitter, distrusting self. Death kept looking at him for a moment or two,
"…Good boy." He turned back to Kaname, "Yes," Zero stared at him angrily, about to say something, "from the bottom of his heart." There was another pause, "Zero, don't interrupt me. I doubt you know what he asked." And another, "…He would kill for you." The light-haired man stared at him speechlessly. It was very strange watching the two interact: bloodied brown hair resting against bloodied brown hair; ripped neck and reddened mouth comparing to burns and welts and cries of agony. If he were younger, he might have come in his pants. "They will live…" Death said wistfully, "they will live much, much longer than your parents did." Zero began to feel a little dizzy. He took his hands from the wound and looked down at it, palms slipping on the soiled floor from the blood. It felt gritty between his fingers, but it was definitely better than what he'd had on his death bed. The flow hadn't staunched in the slightest, keeping up a good pace, happy as could be as he fought the rare bouts of nausea that long ago would come and go when he finished a particularly gruesome job for the Agency. Not that he always felt like vomiting when bats started dropping because of A/C lead poisoning ('air-condition' acute lead poisoning—many bullet wounds): he didn't like gore, he was just a little desensitised by his work. But maybe it was the blood loss and seeing the man he used to fuck writhing in pain that made the first heave come. He fell to the floor and puked up the peperoncino, the lemonade, alcohol, and the last bit of strength he'd been carrying with him since he first saw Kaname reach for the drawer. Folding in on himself, soaked in blood and vomit, he passed out before the words he was speaking could reach his brain,
"I wanted you so much, I had you die with me," he couldn't see Death looking at him, "but I always did hate you, and I know Yuki deserves you so much more, so," He hacked a little more, the substance covering his lips as he treaded the last words, "so I don't want you quite yet." Death watched him as he fainted, somewhat used to this setting, but just a little disturbed by what the man had admitted.
"… Never mind what I said before, Kaname; no. He did, but he certainly doesn't anymore." Kaname's eyes widened a little, wheezing as the powder completely destroyed his lungs. He clawed at the coat a little more before finally passing out from the pain. Death got up and didn't bother brushing himself off, walking through the dust and the vomit and the blood to the back door. Ichiru stood, shaking painfully at the base of the tree, holding his knee as it bled profusely. He was crying. Death stepped over to him and picked him up, puffing as he held him, finding it a bit of a task, and took him inside. He placed him against the wall next to Kaname. Ichiru stared as his brother fearfully, the pain blocking any of the cool sarcasm he could have summoned up. Instead, he began crying even more, until Death walked over to him after having rummaged through the broken cabinets, handing him a bottle of clear liquid,
"Pour it over him." He stated simply. Ichiru looked at him, trembling greatly. Death huffed and puffed again as he picked up the shaking boy and placed him on top of Kaname's bent and burnt body. "Start pouring, little boy." He was a little uneasy, helping people so directly, and he wondered if he would get in trouble, but as he forced the boy to slosh the vinegar over the brunette, he found he felt no worse or frightful than if he had stumbled over words in front of a friend: it happened; mistakes happened, and it was perfectly alright if he 'misinterpreted the rules' a few times in his career. He shushed the boy as he sobbed in his arms, watching as the rotting died down and the regeneration slowly started up.
"You can go to sleep now, Ichiru." He stated as he set the weeping boy on the floor again. He looked a little nauseous, but he managed to keep it in, and collapsed on a couple of fragmented bricks from the oven. Death walked through the past them and into the yard, wiping his shoes on the outside mat and hurrying toward his next appointment. He walked through the tree and the berry bushes, wiping off a little of the miasma that had clung to his shirt.
The scene was constant: nobody forgot their fears or their pleasures, or what they thought was wrong in the world. They still complained about the same old shit they had in life, and though he couldn't ever tire of it, it was difficult to have so many different answers in the same conversation: 'Your family loves you,' 'your old flame is still burning,' 'yes, you'll meet them eventually.' It was completely generic, but in every situation came names, years, memories, and spites. Ichiru still loved his brother to the point of painful possession; Zero still loved Kaname to the point of painful rejection; and Kaname still felt guilty for every fucking thing wrong in his universe, his fault or not. Most likely, they would laugh and bicker and fuck just as much as they had in life, when the oldest one went. There were only about ten hours left until he woke up. About twenty hours after that, he'd walk into Zero's room and pull out the gun hidden under the bathroom sink. He might crouch in the shower, remembering being shoved brutally against the tile, and the few, tender instances in which Zero would wash and massage him and lather him with kisses like normal people might. Either way, it was they way they made love.
The twins would wake up in about thirteen hours, remain dazed and incapacitated for about another hour, and try to crawl to the living room and rest on the couch. They'd hear the bang and Zero's adrenaline would be pumping so fast, he'd run up the stairs without flinching, and watch as Kaname waited for the bullet in his heart to stop it, still not seeing his lover, still not quite ready.
Yuki would come in about thirty-five hours, concerned and bringing the baby with her. She'd take him with her into the destruction, keeping him close, walking up the staircase and into the bathroom, even though Ichiru could hear his brother's cries from the couch. She'd see the body of her husband and call the doctor, but she knew, and she knew why, and she tried to make sure Harue wouldn't. But the boy still saw Zero weeping into a dusty, ripped jacket, because he couldn't touch the body by himself. Harue would know, and for the rest of his life, he would see would see two very strange, solitary men follow him through adolescence. But he never saw his father or Zero again, but for the pictures his mother would keep in his bedroom as she sang him to sleep.
Death came to the intersection and saw a man sitting on a bench, a cup of tea in his hands. He could see Zero staring from a safe distance, leg just fine, watching the nearly-identical-to-him men sit and talk.
"… Does he really?" Kaname said hesitantly. Zero stepped out from the brush,
"He does, Mr. Kuran." Death sipped his tea and looked away for a moment while Zero wrapped his arms around Kaname's shoulders. The brunette immediately turned around and grasped him tightly. Death did not see them again.
