"It's never going to work, you know," Mahiru says, her fangs digging into her lips with a disdain that she cannot hide. She hovers over the other side of the bed, the illusion of her lavender locks spilling over Shinya's sleeping shoulder as she peers down at him.
A possessiveness stirs in Guren's gut, urging him to close his mind, shut her out, let this moment remain his and Shinya's alone. But his desire for Shinya still lingers, hours after their coupling, and Mahiru feeds on that, her form growing more tangible and permanent.
"Why are you doing this to me, Guren?" Her voice affects a hurt that she does not feel, cannot in the corrupted form that she has taken. That gleam twinkles in her eyes, of mischief, of knowing. "The love of my life and my fiancé? You wish to hurt me that badly?"
"Don't flatter yourself. Not everything I do is for you."
The frown pinching her face tilts up into the smirk he knows. "For him, then?" Her dainty fingers reach toward Shinya, a pet to his hair that phases right through.
It earns her the rise that she is looking for. "Don't touch him."
Mahiru raises a brow at the bite of his tone, and Guren wonders when he last snapped at her. If he ever had, even as those hands ripped through his friends, stole Shinya's life. He can feel that fear building now, as claws hover over the only man that has remained at his side through it all, as an equal, a confidant, a true, loyal-to-his-marrow friend. Even as Guren lies. Kills. Betrays. Shinya is there, with a smile, a joke, a challenge, a kiss. He is everything that Guren doesn't deserve and he won't let Mahiru take him from him again.
"How are you going to stop me?" Mahiru challenges, but her eyes flick up, looking at something over the headboard. Her gaze sharpens. "That's not very nice, Byakko-chan."
Guren feels the chains around his wrists once more, the bindings that hold him still, a prisoner to fate and a puppet in Mahiru's plot.
Nothing. He can do nothing.
Anger pulses in his veins, draws adrenaline and rushes him with feelings that he can't contain. He can feel the darkness closing in, its fingers closing around his throat. His other half is devouring his emotions, nourishing itself with the twist of rage and possessiveness and hatred.
But Mahiru draws back, floats up and drifts to the end of the bed where she perches prettily. "Ah-ha, so amusing. As if I would harm our precious Shinya," she says, as if some part of him still belongs to her. Like he isn't Guren's friend, Guren's lover. Mahiru rescinded her claim long ago. "He's too important. They all are."
"Then why are you here?"
"I can't resist the lure of a naked Guren, of course."
Guren clicks his tongue, reclining against the headboard like his every atom isn't tensed to strike. "You see me naked all the time."
"Oops." Mahiru giggles, brushing back her hair from her shoulder. "Darn. And I thought I was being sneaky, too."
"Why," Guren demands, "are you here?"
Mahiru's expression deadens into a bland look of disinterest. Her gaze slides back over Shinya. "I have to say that I am quite jealous. He can embrace you whenever he pleases."
"You don't do things out of jealousy."
"That's not entirely accurate. His death may have been necessary for the experiment to work, but I can't say that I didn't take pleasure in snuffing out his light."
That statement straightens Guren's spine, makes an old nausea froth in his stomach as he remembers his anguish, holding Shinya and making a promise that he never wanted to keep.
"After all, I love you, Guren." She smooths her hands over her skirt, smiling like the princess that she once was. "I thought you loved me, too."
He does. It feels sick and twisted and wrong, this love that he harbors for her. This demonic, vampiric mass-murderer. But he cannot deny it.
She, in all of her sadistic, wicked glory, is who he deserves.
"I do. That's why I'm doing this."
"Banging my fiancé?" she asks, playing coy with a tilt of her head.
Guren doesn't miss a beat. "Destroying the world."
Mahiru brightens. She bounces up and comes up behind him, her arms encircling his neck. "Tell me, do you think of me when in his arms?"
"No."
"So steadfast!" Mahiru marvels. "But you must think of me. Even just the tiniest bit. I think of it. Our night together."
Guren tilts his head back, looking up at the girl that he once wanted to save and protect and have.
He has her now, as if his childhood wish festered into this curse that rots him from the inside out.
Shinya moves. He kicks out his foot in his sleep, sighing as he nuzzles his face down into his pillow. The moonlight glosses over him, making him glow like a haunting apparition. An illusion Guren conjured to sate his base desires and still his budding grief. Shinya's ankle rubs against Guren's leg, and Guren relishes the contact, his skin, his warmth. His trust - a precious, limited commodity in someone with Shinya's own blood-soaked background. Shinya sleeps soundly in the bed of the man who was responsible for the apocalypse.
The man who led him to his death.
The man who would kill him again.
If it meant saving him.
"It's never going to work," she remarks again. "This thing between you two."
Guren heaves a sigh. "Aren't you tired yet?"
"You both know it," Mahiru continues, her arms tightening around him, choking him. "Why do you do this to yourself, my tragic hero? Falling in love with the worst people. It's like you crave unhappiness."
Guren turns to Shinya, laying the flat of his hand on Shinya's back. His breaths move Guren's hand like it's caught on a wave that ripples quietly. His heart beats satisfaction into Guren's body. "He is my happiness."
Mahiru sneers, her form dispersing into the air as she vanishes back into his mind.
"He will be the end of you."