The air was filled with colored lights, pulsing, shifting, changing. It felt like the lights and the sound pierced through his soul, making him forget that he had just masturbated to Aya, twice, in the men's room. Now was the time to forget things, the time to lose himself in the lights and the music and the cheap, headache-inducing fountain coke.

And sometimes he saw another distraction here. He'd been seeing him every Friday night for what felt like months now. They pretended to be strangers, pretended not to know one another, even as they writhed together, the very vision of liquid, sinuous sex, drawing a crown, stunning those around them as they moved in perfect, lustful unison.

And maybe Mastermind was here to forget things too.

Yohji dodged the small figure of a younger skater, as he made his way out onto the rink. It wasn't always easy to move these days, with the fluid grace of an assassin, the raw sexuality only he possessed.

Maybe if Brad Crawford would stop raping him every time he walked out to his car, he'd be a little more flexible. And the upholstery was getting chafed.

Yohji squinted as he passed through the sharp beam of one of the lights. It was red. Red like Aya's hair, like blood, like a newborn rose, crushed between pale, thin fingers. Red like.blood.running in rivulets from a fresh kill, smelling of tangy copper and death, the cold hands of death, sin, sin at his fingertips, at the back of his throat, drowning him in guilt and pain and despair and-

"AAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Schuldig watched the Weiss kitty change course and struggle through the pressing crowd toward the snack counter, and that sweet, blissful relief of fountain soda. Him? He'd long progressed from that cheap, easy rush. In fact, tonight he sat, sprawled like a cat in heat across the carpeted benches on one side of the rink. His eyes were rimmed red, a little crazy- looking, wild with the sweet sugar rushing through his veins.

It was the only way to make the voices stop.

Pop rocks, or the rushing, sharp distraction of fear and secret burning, searing pleasure, drank like the sweetest honey as he serial raped one Weiss kitty after the next.

Except, lately they seemed to be getting used to it.or at least expecting it.

Scheisse. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Maybe if I turn into a vampire.