A/N- *dramatic entry* I AM ALIVE. And I suck anal but here's your latest chapter- the last one was pretty uneventful if you forgot about it xD

To anyone who reads False Insanity; the rewrite should be up this weekend, maybe even a bit sooner :3

~Chapter 10~

Yagari had left first thing the following morning with a smirk and an, "I trust you."

Well, it'd be hard letting Yagari down.

Damn idiot, Kaname thought as he flew after Zero, who was tearing through his house and knocking anything and everything in his path over. Another glance and Kaname realized Zero was going out of his way to knock anything extra over, too. Unfortunately, the objects didn't serve to hinder him despite the clumsy way he barreled through them.

"Goddammit, Zero!" he nearly screamed. He stopped in the middle of the upstairs hallway and kicking a flower stand out of the way while Zero disappeared around a corner. "Starve then, bastard! I don't care." An enraged scream was his only response.

Nonetheless, Kaname stood in the hallway with his arms crossed, waiting, and feigned disinterest. Zero was like a cat; when you wanted him, he'd fuck you over. When you didn't then every cell in his body just had to do something to get your attention.

He'd done this enough with Anci to know the drill, and even predicted (correctly) the exact moment the silverette shied out from the corner. His fingers, long, pale and slender, appeared first, then half of his head. One lilac eye glittered brilliantly behind his knotted curtain of hair.

Kaname had tried brushing it out and had the gashes to prove it.

He'd come to call them battle scars later.

"You don't...?" Zero whispered, his voice dry and hoarse from disuse.

Kaname snorted and shook his head. "Far from it, actually."

Zero edged closer, hesitant but clearly frustrated. He huffed and gestured to the broken flower stand, but Kaname noted he was off the mark quite a bit this time. "Then why..."

"Because you're a pain the the ass," Kaname sneered. A few more steps.

Kaname would enjoy the fight, at least. He'd been given explicit instructions to use brute force, if necessary, and based on the ruins of his furniture... It was necessary.

"You don't want blood, I don't want to give it," he reasoned, holding his hands out to his sides in a gesture that could have encouraged further "trust."

Three more steps and Kaname shot forward, tackling the suddenly enraged Hunter with reckless abandon. The slender body tensed beneath his, suddenly becoming rock hard, yet the fist flying for his jaw wasn't fast enough; Kaname had the pale arm pinned in a heartbeat.

The struggle lasted for about thirty seconds before Zero settled, paused, drew in a long and sharp breath, then screamed. Feral and raw, the sound hurt Kaname's ears but he held tight, and when Zero realized that wasn't working he began to thrash and buck. His eyes burned furiously, locked on the Pureblood's face and never wavering, but it was the fear behind them caused Kaname to stutter.

The hesitation was all Zero needed to bring his knee up, catching him in his gut. However, he didn't flee like the last several times. He hung on, snarled, then tore into Kaname's throat.

Pain, strong and searing, tore through Kaname as the Hunter shoved his rage and damage into the vicious bite. He held himself as still as possible, solid as a statue, and fought the rising desire to rip the other man to shreds; insulted and compromised. What Zero had done was fueled by the desire to make him suffer and submit, yet Kaname was unable to reestablish his position, his power, without compromising the entire plan.

So, suffer and submit he did. Every fiber in his being screamed at him, though, encouraging the desire to act. He was, after all, going against the vampiric hierarchy.

It wasn't until Zero sagged, releasing him, and let a content sigh escape him that Kaname snapped. Digging his fingers into the slender throat, he sneered, shoving Zero's head back to bare his neck. He met the dazed glare until Zero's eyelids fluttered shut.

"You'll politely take what I offer, when I offer, and never in any other way," he growled, lips drawing back against his teeth. His blood stained the other's sharp chin, renewing his anger and humility. "Do it again and I'll drag your dead body right back to Kaito."

Zero's mouth snapped shut and his eyes snapped open, the cold orbs sharp and intelligent. "Do it," he said, simple and soft.

"Would it make you happy?" Kaname met the calculating gaze evenly and swallowed his shock. It wouldn't do him any good to end up beaten and pinned by a blind Hunter.

He backed off when Zero nodded his head in agreement.

"He's a brat, Takuma," Kaname hissed into his phone, glaring at the unconscious silverette as he paced back and forth. Zero had passed out not long after the excitement had ceased, and Kaname had unfortunately found himself cleaning the man up an hour later.

With his hair brushed and tied out of his face, and the blood off of his chin, Zero almost looked relaxed and sane.

"On a scale from Aido to Alek- How bad?"

Kaname growled. "Like Shiki on a bad day bordering Alek on a good one."

Static crackled on the other end as Takuma snorted.

"Give him time, Kaname. Why not try taking him out?"

Kaname's grip nearly broke the phone. In the middle of the day? He had trouble enough staying awake, his body still clung to natural instincts despite how far technology had advanced to allow loopholes.

And Zero was much easier to lose in the dark, Kaname had come to realize that quickly the night before. As if he knew it were nighttime, the vampire moved much more fluidly than he did in the daytime. Kaname just assumed it was the predator in Zero; every vampire, no matter their Level, worked best between six pm and six am.

"He's elusive and fast, Takuma. Letting him out of the house would be like letting a mouse out of its cage. I'm afraid I'll be up for the next two days watching him," he sighed in resignation. Moving Zero's legs, he slumped onto the couch in their place and stared at the man. Touching Zero when he was conscious had proven to be fatal, but unaware and asleep Kaname could do just about anything to him.

Takuma's sigh crackled in his ear. "Where would he go, Kaname? He's blind and hardly familiar with the area."

"He knows my house like I know the back of my hand. And he has a death wish, Takuma- he could go anywhere and all he'd have to do is make a scene to draw a Hunter's attention," Kaname replied after a long moment of thought. Softly, as if he were afraid Zero would hear him, he added, "Zero's lacking something mentally and chemically. It's as if he's been reduced to a traumatized animal."

"Then treat him like one. It'll certainly be better for him than what you're doing now. Man up, as they say. Take responsibility."

Anger, strong and true, pounded through his veins so suddenly it left Kaname dizzy for a moment. "My responsibility? We both started that fight, Takuma. We both had knives, and we both used them, but I didn't-"

He stopped short when Zero began to stir. Years he had gone harboring this secret, he wasn't about to break it now. Better to be hated then pitied.

"I'll talk to you later. The princess is waking," he sneered before ending the call and flinging the phone onto the coffee table. Kaname spent a few moments glaring at the silverette until cold eyes shifted to him, unusually off the mark and unfocused.

"I'd like to go out..." Zero nearly whispered with obvious hesitation and caution.

"And get yourself killed?" Kaname sneered and rolled his eyes. "Do it on your own time, Kiryuu. I won't have your Hunter pet targeting me for your desires."

Zero frowned and became utterly absorbed in getting the hair tie out. He didn't seem to relax until the silvery curtain was hanging in his face once again, but a grimace distorted his visible features by then anyway.

"You keep hiding the scar," Kaname observed, yet again surprising himself by the thoughtless comment. He knew mentioning the ruined skin was beyond low, and a painfully horrendous subject to approach the other man with, but it was hard to keep quiet when he himself was so fascinated by it.

Sure enough, Zero stilled, locked where he lay almost.

"You've given me a fair amount, too, you know," he added almost tenderly, unable to stop himself. Kaname didn't like how he was trying to appease the former Hunter, but the pain in his chest eased when he reminded himself the man before him was no longer Zero Kiryuu.

He was a pathetic and crazed vampire with a death wish.

"Where?" Zero pressed. His voice was still hoarse and broken, but new, nearly sadistic, energy played in the sightless eyes.

Kaname forced himself to growl a simple, "You put them there," before he became too enamored with the other man's faint passion.

Zero was up one moment and had a cold, shaking, hand on Kaname's chest the next. The touch was fumbled and careless, and as his fingertips pressed against the fabric of his shirt, searching eagerly, it was Kaname's turn to freeze.

Kaname knew that if he made one wrong move, or even breathed funny, Zero would snap and be out of the house in a second.

"Rose..." the silverette whispered after successfully finding the cluster of bullet wounds just above the Pureblood's naval. The fingers were under his shirt a second later, glued to the knot of scarred skin, and their chill sent Kaname reeling.

So clearly could Kaname remember being shot with Rose. Several times, at that, because the other man had shot after Kaname had lashed out. If he had been blinded instantaneously, the Pureblood didn't know, but the blood and pain that had come from the wound would have easily ruined his aim.

Zero's hand went from the puckered skin to his side, though instead of fingertips it was his entire palm running along his flank. Searching again, though this time with a look of such utter concentration and wonder anything Kaname could have said or done would have been pointless.

"I did this..." the other man mumbled, clearly amazed as he felt out the deep scar tissue.

Each stroke, four in all, stretched from Kaname's ribs to his waist. He knew them by heart, how long they were exactly, and how it had felt to have the same fingers that were now just a feather light caress rip into his skin.

Kaname, however, had long since run out of night terrors to relive, and the once threatening touch did nothing to trigger a feral attack. He took the exploration with ease while wondering when exactly Zero would snap out of this trance.

It never happened. Zero continued to stare, for once totally unseeing, over Kaname's shoulder as he memorized the scars with his hand.

As soon as the mind numbing shock wore off, Kaname became aware of a multitude of things.

Zero smelled good- really good. The dark call of his blood nearly had Kaname's fangs exploding from his gums. And almost as if in response, Zero's own fangs slowly slid from their hiding place to press into his bottom lip, a full and unusually soft bottom lip that simply begged to be nipped.

And with the nearly soothing and definitely arousing way Zero's hand was running along his stomach and sides, Kaname nearly did. However, the cons outweighed the pros by one hundred to none; kissing the other man would be catastrophic at best.

All too soon Zero was withdrawing, though. Every movement was slow and unsteady, and Zero didn't stop moving until he was curled on his side again, staring at nothing and so obviously lost in his own head.

Kaname considered that a step in the right direction, but understood the silverette's need for space. Standing, he let his fingers brush against Zero's ankle before slipping out of the room. Zero hadn't reacted to the the fleeting touch, and Kaname firmly believed that had been the best reaction that he could have earned.