Zero didn't come back until late evening of the next day. A menacing air perforated the walls and filled the corridors with a distrustful gloom. He dumped the pelt in his room and fell back on the bed, eyeing the fractured plaster above the headboard and wondering why nobody had fixed it yet. The loneliness gave time for him to be wistful, and he reflected on his options while unconsciously elongating and retracting his nails, tapping them on the bed, thick, thin, thick, thin. When they caught the sheet, he looked down with inspective intent, but found he didn't really care what the Hell they looked like—jagged, yellowed, uneven. They were stronger that way. Made it easier to avoid clean cuts, that way. Kaname always did like some squirming.

He frowned.

The bastard was in a meeting, about now. Not that he cared much for what the dull suit did during their off-time, or if they talked when reunited. Their longstanding relationship provided for the lovely improvisation of a grunt in place of any conversational skills, on his part. Whatever Kaname said never sank in. Not since they were young.

He smiled.

When they were 'young', sex had been lovely. When they were young, they were volatile and always spoke against each other. What he missed most might have been that severe intimacy between them, which had never failed to spark a fight and lead to a couple of minutes of the pureblood genuinely lacking the ability to sit down.

He frowned.

When they were young, the fights had more meaning. They were for love or life or some grand plan for the future: their dreams were caught up in the storm of the age, and a world war which took place beneath the human imagination. Everything was glamorous and sudden, from death to battles and so on. They had been true kings in their youth! Always in some melee, keeping the red tide frothing forth; surging and always satisfying. They fought for their virtuous love and the idea that once this miserable little hunter was dead, Kaname and Yuki would finally have a happy, long life together. But it had gone to Hell the moment the Senate had been broken, and the only battles left were skirmishes and small-time feuds. The thrill and grandeur had dissipated, the blood dripping from their fingers coming from slaughters rather than honourable struggles. They had damned themselves with the middle-age they hadn't subconsciously accepted, and lived day-to-day as though their souls already burned in Hellfire, remorseless in their grungy labours and lustful when the working day closed.

If Yuki had known…

He closed his eyes.

If only he'd told her of their glorious animosity. Should he have allowed himself to become so wretched in her eye, the trine of their relationships might have survived past the point of grim acknowledgement and abysmal reverence. She was beautiful, untouchable, and he thought in his early twenties that Kaname satisfied the part of him which still yearned for her. He was a damned fool, and the only one laughing at him was himself.

He turned on his side, elbow supporting him. He stared intently at the wall, unmoving.

The plans were there. He had everything he needed. His youth and love were gone. Once he was sure everything would be safe, he'd set loose chaos on Kaname's entire goddamned world, and once he was executed, the bastard could start picking up the pieces. He just needed courage, elbow grease, and a bit of demonic charm. Then he would die.

He smiled,

"Maybe this is what love is?"

-

Kaname was terrified. His creamy skin had flushed of colour as if doused with lime, and his wide red eyes reflected his horror. Rido carried him gently, intently, down the halls. His footsteps were clear, echoed like drums in the corridor. Some windows were broken. There were dust piles every few yards. The air was sour with burning flesh and the great inferno of the southern wing. And the footsteps caused the entire place to move.

The little pureblood couldn't budge, and so sat limply in his uncle's arms, curled against a chest covered in his mother's blood, sweeter and heavier than wood smoke.

Rido finally came to an alcove, marked clearly by the influx of paintings and a little, undisturbed lock on the door. He kicked it in for effect, stomping on the memory of his siblings. Like the rest of their love nest, the room was unremarkable. It proved their royalty with lush carpets and overstuffed furniture, book thousands of years old lining well-dusted shelves. The armoire alone looked to be some centuries aged, and the vanity's deep Makassar frame was littered with dainty boxes and dozens of small bottles, mostly crystalline. The bed was magnificent and the sheets unmade. They had risen quickly. The slippers at its sides had been kicked beneath it in their haste. Hers were gold brocade, rabbit fur gushing from the insole. The eldest brother didn't bother with the other pair, but through the splendour and fascination regained his own intensely personal objective, and finally came to her side of the bed.

His nephew found some energy to struggle, and held onto his blood-splattered collar. He forced the boy to the bed and walked toward the vanity, amazed by her collection of scents, looking for the one she had worn the moment she'd died. He heard the boy crying in the background and grinned viciously. He looked at his beautiful face in the mirror and fiddled with her feminine things. Even as a carcass, she had been exquisite.

Kaname stared up at the ceiling, trying to twitch his fingers, to shake the chandelier, at least get off the bed! He prayed to move, and cursed his uncle before he cursed himself. His eyes were wide, pupils like specks, face hot and wetted with tears. The fury and fright were inescapable, and he clung to his last delusion of strength and managed to kick at the sheets before the man rounded on him faster than he could see. A bloodied hand gripped his throat and crushed it, relaxing and drawing back as the beast slowly smiled and calmed,

"It is left unspoken that a hostage be still while in captivity."

The boy couldn't speak, and as that gruesome smile widened and gained ferocity and intent, his mind shook and his body grew colder. Two arms like trunks fell around him, encaging him, the look the man was giving him nauseating him.

Rido flexed his claws and checked them for blemishes,

"Your mother was amazing, nephew, and I could never understand her." He gazed past his hand for a moment with a sick triumph dominating his expression. The boy nearly gagged. He turned back to him,

"Fortunately, she left behind something for me to remember her by. This pitiable little figure, so small, fragile. You're the mirror image of them, and yet so weak," he enjoyed emasculating the prideful boy more than even seeing his brother crumble. For here was the last vestibule of a rival empire, and he could crush it without effort.

"But you have her feistiness," he drew a finger up the length of the boy's britches, claw extending, lifting the shirt and jumper, "and his sense of self-righteousness." He spat. Again, he calmed himself, and that terrible smile bore into his nephew like a stone auger,

"Yet there are some things you do not know you have, sweet nephew, and they were negligible to the naked eye in your parents. But I can tell you truths about them you would never have discovered on your own. Truths about yourself, and what you're made of." He carefully had the sweater tug off, making sure it was folded neatly as he slowly had the buttons undo themselves, punctuated by the ticking clock so that Kaname knew absolutely how much time he had.

"You would do well to listen here, boy, because I am about to give you a very important lesson."

-

Yuki wore a blue sundress of a flimsy material. It flitted about her body nervously and wrenched in the wind until a powerful gust finally outlined the whole of her tiny, pretty frame. She laughed and tried to keep it below her thighs, but it whipped at her hands and Kaname found himself looking around for voyeurs. Zero unloaded the trunk of the jeep and slid his glasses down his nose, looking upon her at first with teasing intention, and then a familiar heat that rose from the pit of his belly up his throat until the only thing he could do was croak. He found himself selfishly thinking that nobody but he should be allowed to see such a thing, and grimaced when the empty ocean glared strongly over the plastic rims of the glasses. Kaname was looking at him carefully, understanding and defensive as the door to the high school warpath cracked open between them. It made him jealously anxious. His fingers twitched.

"Zero? Are you alright?" He asked, reeling in the leash. The man hesitated before looking up,

"Sunlight's just strong. And so is the goddamned—sorry, Yuki—wind." He began walking, and Yuki followed him, rambling. Her husband was shell-shocked. A gritty old fear and protectiveness rose in him, and he followed them with tight lips and squinty eyes; the sunlight was fairly strong. Suddenly, a green shade enveloped him. The hunter was trying to get the blanket on the ground.

"I think the last time I cooked was before we went to Alaska." The older male's anxiety turned into dark fear, and then an unjust hatred.

"Arizona should be easier." His younger paused, slowly wadding up the blanket,

"You didn't tell me anything about Arizona."

"You're a bachelor always on the go. I figured I wouldn't need to warn you much for anything. Not as if you have anyone to care for." Yuki stared at him angrily,

"Kaname! You've no right to speak to him like that!" Zero walked toward him, arm up, eyes slits and voice pleasurably deep. It shook Kaname to the core, and he looked down with expectance from his inch-high throne. The hunter moved in close, grabbing a dishevelled white collar, hoping she couldn't hear him over the wind.

"I'm a bachelor because you're too bloody envious to accept your kept boy might be flirting with some Mrs. Robinson, when the thing you should be worrying about is Mrs. Smith over there."

Zero shimmered. His eyes were dead and challenging. If he cared that he might be close to death, insulting a pureblood in such a way, it didn't show much.

The brunette didn't have an answer. He stood there, dumb and blanched in the wind, his wife looking on at them warily. Then, with youthful vigour and invidious rage, he grabbed his friend's arm and twisted it so that the man screamed. Shortly, a white pain engulfed him, and he was blinded and nauseous, collapsing to the ground as he heard his wife comfort the bastard. She hurt her husband before that cheating, hot-headed, malevolent bastard. Had she heard what the cunt said? His mind spun and his eyes were wide. He heard a body being dragged across the sand. He groped for a foot or a hand, and caught the fleece blanket, curling his fingers in it and trying to stand up.

A car door slammed loudly and an engine started up. More voices came. Yuki wouldn't forgive him: Zero didn't even like him. Somebody tried to hoist him up, but he batted them away. There was more screaming. His hands were wet and sandy. The blanket became heavy and he could only see the vaguest of colours, everything white, the beach an encompassing blizzard with vultures diving down the skyline. He was frightened; forsaken. He loved Yuki, deserved her. She was beautiful and pure, meant for him from her birth. He loved Zero, someone enigmatic and lonesome; a man like a hellhound, smelling of gunpowder and peppermint, tagging bodies with the efficiency of a mortician. If he didn't have them, if they didn't trust him, then what else was for him?

The car left and the screaming didn't stop. His stomach churned until everything turned into a tinnitus ring, the whiteness great and powerful. He was, in the most frightful sense, so very, very alone, and so very, very lost.

How's about all ya'll Rido fans out there give me some props?

(Me trying to be a proper American)

But really, I'd like to see more of things like that. Nothing screams "my uncle touched me" like a sad, insane man with some control issues. :D