Warnings: this fic features canon typical blood and violence, as well as mature language (though I try to keep the vocabulary more in-line with canon standards). It also rapidly goes from canon to AU and I'm not going to apologize for that.
So! This is the rewrite. I can't really bear the thought of going through and editing the (in my opinion) monstrous original, which would involve me taking down the old chapters and just. A lot more work than I can stomach, lately. I have (and started with) a more clear idea on what I want(ed) to do with this fic, but I ended up rushing along in my writing, which was a disservice to me as the author, my writing, and you guys as readers. I'm going to try and do better in this, but that means that updates are probably going to be. Awful.
I'm very stressed and tired, but I'm going to try. For you guys.
The world seems full of good men, even if there are monsters in it.
- Bram Stoker, Dracula
Blinking woozily awake, she stares at the pale gray expanse above her, studying the popcorn ceiling with a distant confusion. Through the cotton muffling her senses, she feels her stomach turn in sea-sick circles, and her blood feels as though it's boiling in her veins. She blinks a few times as the ceiling swirls lazily around her point of focus, and then rolls her head aside to look around.
Her dizzy brain catalogs the machines next to her bed, the empty chairs and the doors some feet away, closed firmly and separating her from the rest of the world. It's quiet other than the surprisingly sedate beeping of the machines and a quiet, mechanical hum.
The plastic around her face tenses, going taut, and her head rolls sluggishly back upright, hands lifting heavily to press against her face and the mask upon it. Confusion continues to muddle any thoughts she might have had as she distantly tries to puzzle out what's happening. Mostly-numb fingers roam over the mask and she blinks again, trying to swallow and finding that she can't through the tube in her throat and her inability to close her mouth. She gags, digging her fingers frantically under the edges of the mask as instinct rears up through the fog in her head, levering her arms at the elbows and shoulders to brute-force the entire apparatus away. The heart rate monitor on her finger pops off and the IV in the back of her hand and inside her elbow twinges warningly as the plastic straps snap and the tube begins to make its way up from somewhere in her organs and further still up her throat, burningly rough and shockingly painful considering the drugs probably in her system.
Once it's out, she shoves the surprising length of plastic aside, letting it fall to the floor as she gags and does her best to try and breathe, feeling more awake than she'd expected in comparison to what she'd felt not minutes before. The pain in her throat lessens quickly, likely under the influence of the aforementioned drugs coming through her still intact IV lines. She swallows a few times, dry mouth unhelpful in the attempt as the tears in her lips catch on one another. The machines next to her are going crazy, no longer sedate, alerts and warnings shrieking loudly.
As she settles mostly upright, the tightness in her chest becomes more noticeable, her stomach twisting again with nausea and her entire body tingling. She presses her left hand against her stomach, her right bracing against the bed itself as she curls slightly around herself. Going still, heartbeat pulsing through her entire body with heavy throbs, she closes her eyes and continues to breathe as best as she can, feeling lightheaded. The blanket pools around her hips, letting a frigid breeze push against the hospital gown and her exposed skin.
When she opens her eyes, she studies the hand braced against the bed and the connecting arm, studying the chapped, yellow-tinted skin of this body she feels no connection to. She rotates the wrist to try and read the hospital bracelet around her wrist, but the letters are incomprehensible gibberish, her eyes aching with the effort.
Her head rolls on her shoulders, feeling her skull grating against her spine, looking away from the door and instead deeper into the room, eyeing the covered window a few feet from her bed. The thick gray-blue curtains block not only her view of the outside, but also most of the light coming in from the glass. It nonetheless comes through to a degree, and she wonders exactly how bright the light has to be to get through such thick cloth.
An age goes by while she passively waits for her intermittently flatlining and panickedly beeping machines to summon someone or her stomach to settle, though neither happens. She breathes deeply and decides to try and stretch her legs, feeling ready to just go to sleep at any time but not really being willing to do so.
When she looked back at her arms again, reaching out to brace them against the railings of the bed, she watched the yellowing flakes of skin brush off the surface of the blankets as they slid completely free. It's unsettling to see and not know why, but she shrugs it off and tightens mostly-limp figures around the cold plastic and shifts her hips, awkwardly scooting her way down the bed until she can slide her freezing feet over it's edge. It takes a while more of careful wiggling, mindful of the tubes in her hand and crook of her elbow, before her feet touch the tiles. A sharp tingling shoots up her legs from the contact and for an instant she thinks her legs will completely fold out from under her, but she remains upright. The room seems to turn and jolt around her.
Swallowing with her rough throat and pressing her lips into a wide flat line to stretch the skin with a slight discomfort, she reaches a hand out towards the wall as she takes a few steps, unsure about how far it actually is with her swaying depth perception. One hand sways back to grip her IV stand, pulling it behind her. She presses her palm against it and then walks until she rests her forearm across the painted surface, walking haltingly along it until she reaches the door.
As she gets closer, she begins to hear the noise of footsteps and chatter through the flatlining drone of the heart monitor and the surprisingly insulated walls.
Pushing away from the wall so she can reach the door handle, she wraps her fingers around it and pulls it open, carefully putting her body weight behind it when her arm strength turns out to not be enough. She hopes to maybe ask someone where she is or what happened.
Instead, there's a flood of overwhelming noise, the overhead lights in the hallway shockingly bright compared to the darkness of her room. Hospital staff hurry and shout back and forth to one another. The shocking cacophony sends her stumbling backwards woozily as her vision goes spotty, the hallway seeming to tremble and flash as she pushes the door closed behind her and sways dangerously. She almost sends the IV clattering to the ground when she hits it, but wraps both hands around the metal and pressing down, anchoring it and herself in place.
She continues to move backwards, shuffling the pole with her like a cane, until she comes to the bed, circling around it until it's between her and the door. The bags on the IV jerk back and forth on their precarious hooks, threatening to overbalance the whole thing if she hadn't had such a death grip on it. She moves until her back touches the wall near the corner of the room, trying to breathe through the residual panic that's already fading away, leaving behind stray adrenaline to crash what little of her mind is currently functioning.
The room shudders, her legs going weak, and suddenly the ceiling above her collapses down in a noise unlike anything she might have imagined. She hadn't been hallucinating the flashing lights and trembling floors and walls- there must have been an earthquake or something.
Snow blows wildly, turning her vision white, and she sees thick slabs of concrete and roof falling for her. She flinches.
She gasps, choking and confused, blinking as snowflakes settle on and weigh down her eyelashes. She's outside, no sign of that impersonal hospital room or the calamity that had been happening. Instead, it's only a wide field of snow and thick pine trees, a blizzard ongoing. The rapid throbbing of her heart is loud in her ears, the cold air burning in her aching lungs.
She lifts a hand, the fingertips tingling, trying to find that jaundiced skin, seeing only the gray mittens wrapped warmly around the limb. She flinches, bringing the hands closer to her chest, looking down. Gone is the hospital gown, in its place a whire coat with a thick furred lined collar, seeing the tips of boots on her feet beneath the end of the fluffy coat. Snow blows wildly, sending long, dark colored hair whipping into her face, stinging the skin and making her close her eyes, her calves and legs freezing.
There's a distant crunch carried over the sound of the wind but barely audible. She turns to the side, but sees nothing at first, the snow so thick in the air. The wind moves on and a coat flaps harshly in the wind, drawing her eye.
There's an incongruous figure approaching through the snow, hunched over itself against the wind. She doesn't know where they could have come from, as there doesn't seem to be anything around, but when she looks at the ground, she can see almost entirely faded, small, childish footprints in the white. It had to have been following her. As the figure continues to approach, she takes a step back, boot awkwardly pushing through the snow beneath her, legs feeling leaden.
Something about that figure… it's terrifying.
And then the figure is closer- did she lose time staring at it? Were they simply that fast?
"Are you lost, little girl?" The man rasps, his tone a discomforting register. She stares blankly, the words jumbling in her mind, both known and unknown, a strange disconnect between understanding and understanding. "If that's the case," lips peel away from teeth, the torso leans down, arms shifting at the sides. Razor sharp teeth are bared at her, the shadowed eyes lighting up into a livid red glow, "can I drink your blood?"
The hands reach out to her and she tries to step away, to get back, but he palms her face, fingers wrapping over the top of her skull as his other hand scratches and digs at the thick collar of the coat. Her body locks up, stomach dropping in a freefall and lungs constricting. The fingers tighten, making her see stars, and she's lifted slightly off the ground and closer to him.
Her head feels like it's filled with static. She wants to cry. To scream. Somehow escaping death only to fall right back into its arms? How pitiful. How tragic.
In the next second, she sees a second figure appear out of the corner of her eye, preceded by a sickening sound, the origin of which happening so quickly she can only see the aftermath. Something searing hot and wet splatters against her face and neck, the hands lifting her going limp and dropping her to the ground. She manages to stumble back a few steps before her legs give out, sending her collapsing down into the snow. Red sprays in a mist, the image in front of her terrifyingly clear.
There is a boy- young, maybe in his early teens. He wears a tan colored coat and long white scarf, turned mostly away from her and looking at the man. The scarf flaps, showing her the ends covered in tiny droplets of blood. His hair is long, curling beneath his chin and what of her nose she can see, a brown so dark it might be black.
Even if he isn't looking at her, she can see the shining red glow of his eyes, the light bright against the peak of his pale cheek.
He has one arm extended, shoved clear through the chest of the man who had been grabbing her, the limb soaked so thoroughly in deep crimson that she can't look away. Her head buzzes with unresolved static.
"You're a disgrace to all vampires," the boy says frigidly, voice a furious monotone.
"Vampires"? They're "vampires"? It's familiar to her, in a distant kind of way, but the information sifts through grasping mental fingers like so much sand. He yanks his hand free, then, bringing the limb to his face to lick his fingers as the body crumples to the ground. She doesn't look away from the boy as luminous red eyes turn to her, making her fall as still as she can manage, breath shallow and limbs tingling as her heart pounds frantically in her chest.
"Are you okay?" He asks distantly, weighty attention fixed on her despite not looking at her head on. When she doesn't answer or even twitch, his expression darkens slightly with a frown. He lowers his hand, turning fully towards her now, rather than looking at her from the side. "Hey, are you alright?"
She reaches up one oddly stable hand to her face, as though to check that the still warm liquid there hadn't somehow melted through the skin of her cheek. When she pulls the mitten away, blood stains the pale wool, but it hadn't hurt to touch it. She brings it closer to her face slightly, somewhat transfixed by the crimson stain, but a deep red hand enters her vision, still dripping with the liquid, gently pulling her hand away from her face.
"Don't touch that," he scolds gently, familiarly. She looks away from the smeared wool as, after a second, his other hand reaches up to swipe away at some of the blood still on her face. She watches his face as he releases her hand, studying the dying embers in his eyes. "Why are you alone in this sort of place?"
The question seems disingenuous, asked for the sake of asking, but as that glow fades away entirely, she can read some emotion in them. Wariness. Concern. It's a contrast to his previously inhuman, cold expression. She opens her mouth, thinks about answering in some way, but can't. She doesn't know.
"Come here," he calls, tugging lightly on the hand he continues to hold in his own. The fingers are warm around her own even through the thick material of the mittens, and she looks back down at their hands. The scent of blood is so thick in her nose that she can almost taste it. "I'm Kaname- do you know who you are?"
Me? I? Who… What? Her face heats up as all her thoughts hit roadblocks, tripping and falling over one another in her mind, frantic. Tears prick at the backs of her eyes. The boy makes a soft sound and she looks back up to see an expression of worry and something softer than that before he pulls her even closer, kneeling entirely in the snow and reaching out. His arms wrap around her, one hand going behind her to brace her beneath her thighs while the other hand moves to the back of her neck, pulling the hood of her coat up and then pressing gently against the back of her head to cradle her against his neck.
Over his shoulder, she watches as snow covers up what should have been a body and is instead only an imprint of where a body might have once been. The only lasting proof of what had happened being the blood she had so clearly seen on both herself and the boy.
"It's okay," the boy comforts. "You're afraid, right? It's alright now." She grips onto the collar of his coat, feeling somehow safe in his grasp, pressing her nose into the base of his neck and closing her eyes. Some tears escape at the pressure, searing hot against her frigid skin, and her knuckles tingle with how tightly she grips ahold of him.
He starts walking.
"I understand that," the man across from them says in a slightly louder, though still resigned, tone, continuing the conversation with Kaname that she hadn't really been listening to. She jolts a little at the increase of volume, looking back up at them both.
The man, introduced to her as Kaien Cross, has long, ash colored blonde hair and pale gold-toned eyes mostly hidden behind his oval shaped, wire-framed glasses. He's wearing what looks like at least four layers, including a scarf and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, despite the warmth of his home. When she had first been carried inside, Kaname had helped her free from her winter layers, revealing a light pink long sleeved dress beneath the coat and no socks on her feet, and even in the minimal clothing, she was very warm.
Kaname had only taken off his coat, disappearing for a short while to clean himself off and coming back with a damp cloth to wipe off her face and neck from blood.
She looks back down at her food as he and Kaname continue to talk, sitting on the floor at the latters feet at the coffee table, poking at the food she had been given with one of her fingers. It's golden colored, with a thin layer of what she thinks might be chocolate on top. She's hesitant to attempt to eat it- not because it doesn't look good, but because she isn't entirely sure what it is. When she shakes the plate with a little sharp jerk, the mass jiggles slightly. She leans closer to sniff at it.
"This child doesn't even seem to know that pudding can be eaten." She glances back up, eyes flicking between the men before looking back down. Pudding? She pokes it again, continuing to ignore the fancy, shining spoon set next to the plate on the table.
"Yes… Her memories seem to have disappeared completely," Kaname admits inna quiet, subdued tone before reaching out to her. She turns immediately upon seeing the movement in her peripherals, watching as he slides off the edge of the couch to rest on his knees. He takes the dish in front of her, lifting it and grasping for the spoon, then scooping up some of the pudding with it. "You should eat it, okay? Ahh," he coaxes, settling a bowl on a thigh and pushing the spoon towards her. He opens his mouth, as though to demonstrate.
Looking at his face, she's quickly transfixed by his gaze- his eyes are gentle, almost painfully so, and as she opens her mouth to eat the bite extended to her, she doesn't look away. He seems similarly captivated for a moment before pushing the bowl of pudding into her hands and standing abruptly.
She feels suddenly set adrift.
"Chairman Cross, I think I should get back," he says stiffly, turning away from her to look at the other.
"Back…? To that place?" She looks between them in concern as the other stands as well, voice concerned and simultaneously disgusted. "It mustn't have been easy for you to leave in the first place, and you want to go back so soon? Would it really be so bad to stay awhile?" Light eyes tick in her direction before turning away, and her nerves tingle with a suppressed jolt.
"I… No, I should go back," Kaname insists, face a stoic mask. She stands rapidly, suddenly understanding what's happening. She drops the bowl carelessly onto the table, reaching out to him as he turns in her direction. She grabs ahold of the bottom of his shirt with viselike fingers, her speeding heartbeat throbbing in the digits. He hesitates but then bends down, legs remaining straight, fingers carefully but firmly uncurling her fingers from his clothing and holding them in his own. "I have to go now, but Cross will take care of you. Bye bye," he bids, turning and leaving with long strides, not glancing back.
She's frozen in place as he leaves, and Cross follows him to the door to let him out with a hesitant glance at her. Cross tries to say something else, but Kaname doesn't listen, leaving even without a coat. Once he's gone, Cross dithers by the door for a moment before turning back and walking over to her. He crouches down, elbows resting on his knees and peering at her face with a soft expression on his face.
"Someone once told me," he begins in a fond tone, "that all girls are born princesses. And I thought about that for a long time, so, from now on, you can be 'Yuuki'. It means 'gentle princess'. Would that be okay?" He asks, reaching out to rest a palm on top of her head. When she flinches, that hand instead smoothly diverts to her shoulder, warm and solid.
She wants to cry, staring at the door over his shoulder. She doesn't.
Yuuki stares at herself in the mirror, feeling yet again that uncomfortable déjà vu. She's been dismissing the feeling- of course her reflection is familiar. Of course it would be- its her reflection. But the more she looks, the more it bothers her, that something just beneath the surface, just out of reach.
Long, dark brown hair tracing all the way down to her hips and even now piling on the ground next to her as she sat on the floor, pale skin and large rust colored eyes an almost exact shade match to her hair. She's maybe 5 or 6 at the oldest, 7 as a high estimate if she is an exceptionally small person, but she doubts the latter. Giving her head a swift shake, he turns away from the mirror, pretending that her reflection won't inevitably scare her again soon enough, looking instead at the pile of clothes she'd been given to change into.
Usually, Cross would insist on helping dress her, not that she exactly cared one way or another exactly, but today she'd left her to "try and get dressed by herself this time". She can hear him elsewhere in the house if she listens hard enough.
She pulls the towel from her recent bath more snugly around her shoulders, trying to keep her slightly damp hair from dripping too much, and reaches out to collect the nearest article of clothing. It's a sock.
… it's also neon purple.
She holds it up to the light, as though that will somehow change its color. It does not.
Not for the first time, she wonders if Cross is perhaps color blind. She's known him for all of a month, and in that time, she's seen nothing to prove the idea wrong.
"Yuuki, that goes on your foot, you know?" Cross' voice from the doorway is startling, but she doesn't outwardly react. She turns to him, arm holding the sock still outstretched in the air, and stares at him blankly before pointedly dropping it. She turns back to the pile after, keeping him in her peripherals out of habit. "Still no words from you?" Cross sighs as he leans against the doorway. Her mouth twists into a barely visible pout.
She has tried to talk, both to herself and to Cross, but it just… hasn't been happening. Elsewhere in the house, a door slams open. Yuuki, already familiar with the sound and all it implies about current events, dives forward towards the pile of clothing, scrambling maybe a little bit as Cross turns away with a little flap of the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
"Good evening, Kaname-kun! Why suddenly come here?" Cross inquires airily from the main room, as though he has no idea why Kaname would possibly be coming to his home in a panic. Yuuki continues to grasp at clothing, not particularly caring what or how she's wearing them, only that she is.
Kaname hasn't seen her again in her time here, avoiding her, but it wouldn't hurt to be prepared just in case.
"D-Didn't you send a telegram saying that the vampires that are tracking her had attacked?" Kaname's voice slowly goes from concerned and confused to resigned. "I was skeptical, but ran all the way here, anyway… but I see you were lying, again. One day, I won't be so gullible, you know," he finishes in a disappointed, scolding tone.
"Ah, but Kaname-kun, won't you see Yuuki?" Cross asks in a pleading tone, not for the first time. Yuuki hears him begin to walk down the hall again. "I'm sure she would be happy to see you!" He appears in her doorway once more and she freezes, as though that would make him not see her. She even holds her breath impulsively. "Kaname-kun! Kaname-kun, quickly! Something happened!"
Her eyes go wide in horror.
Kaname enters the doorway, expression loose in surprise upon seeing her. Yuuki is kneeling on the floor, a green flannel wrapped around her torso under one armpit and looping atop her head, one empty sleeve hanging limply next to an ear.
"She got dressed all by herself!" Cross coos, face flushed and eyes a little teary. One palm lifts to cup his cheek. "It's wrong, but…" Yuuki feels her face and ears getting hot as they continue to stare and gropes blindly for her towel, discarded down on the ground next to her. Once it's in hand, she yanks it over her head, throwing it over herself and curling up on the ground like a pillbug.
She feels a breeze on the back of her thighs, but stubbornly stays in place.
At least, until she hears a wheeze of air, wholly unfamiliar and surprising. She twitches reluctantly and then wiggles her head out from beneath the towel, peeking with a mixture of confusion and awe. Kaname's laughter is loud and earnest. He slaps his palm helplessly against the wall by the door, doubling over with his other hand bracing against one of his knees. From her low perspective, she can see the wide smile and eyes pressed closed, tears gathering in the corners, and flushed cheeks.
Suddenly, he looks years younger.
"K-Kaname-kun!?" Cross frets, staring at Kaname with a dumbfounded expression.
"I- No, No… now isn't the time to laugh," Kaname gasps between his laughter, eventually managing to rein himself in, straightening from where he had been crouched almost completely to the ground. "Ah," he wipes his face, still flushed and smiling until he looks at her. "I'm sorry if I… scared you," he says as his expression starts to rapidly sober. "I'll leave now."
The bubble of admiration, fondness and contentment that had been bubbling inside of her suddenly swells against her ribs and lodges itself thickly in her throat.
"Bye bye." She moves before she knows she's doing so, rushing to him and grabbing the back of his coat. He turns to her hesitantly, his face shut down, eyes shaded.
"No." Her voice is a surprise, prompting everyone to widen their eyes, herself included. "Kana-me." She morphs her expression into what she hopes is a smile, trying desperately to convey the warm feeling in her chest. "Kaname."