When the lights go out and we open our eyes

Out there in the silence, I'll be gone

I'll be gone.

Let the sun fade out and another one rise,

Climbing through tomorrow, I'll be gone

I'll be gone.

-Linkin Park

Zero was warm. For the first time since Kaname's death, he felt like he'd slept, really slept, like he was floating on a cloud, coming out of a deep, dreamless slumber. His dreams were normally nightmares, so he savored the feeling of not having dark shadows creeping about his subconscious. He enjoyed the process of waking slowly, of drifting gently back into his body.

His lids and limbs were heavy as stone, and for a few minutes he could lift neither. So instead he just floated, feeling pleasantly disembodied. At length he felt some strength returning to him, and he twitched his fingertips as a test. His left hand responded at once, but his right was slower. He became aware of dull waves of pain racing up and down his chest and arm, and a curious numbness just about everywhere else.

And then the memory of the last level E came back to him, and he opened his eyes, sitting bolt straight up and inhaling sharply when his shoulder flared, red-hot with pain. He didn't give it time to subside, frantically scanning his surroundings. No gun. No flask. No clothes, why the hell wasn't he wearing—

"…Well. That's highly unlikely."

Zero whipped his head upwards, and his eyes landed on a young man sitting in a chair nearby. One dark eyebrow was raised up into an equally dark fringe of hair, blue eyes set on Zero quizzically.

"Who the hell are you?" Zero demanded, unconsciously pulling the blankets up over his boxers in an attempt to hang onto some dignity. "Where am I?"

The man frowned, looking down at his watch. "You lost a liter of blood less than fourteen hours ago, by my estimates. Why are you awake?"

"Sturdy that way. Who are you?"

"I'm sturdy," the young man replied curtly, closing the book he'd had open in his lap and getting to his feet. "You're superhuman." He was dressed simply, shaped black slacks and a light blue dress shirt, open one button lower than Zero was quite comfortable with, revealing sharp collarbones and just the faintest, teasing look at the skin below.

Speaking of teasing. "Why don't I have any clothes on?"

"That wasn't my doing," the other answered, shrugging one shoulder and placing his book on the small table by his chair. It was then that Zero noticed the other object on the same table.

He felt himself grow hot under the collar, and he released a low growl. "Give me my gun."

"You're Zero Kiryu, right?" the man went on, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolding it, frowning as he mulled it over.

"Hey, asshole. Give me my gun and maybe I won't shove it up your ass."

"I'll take that as a yes, then. So, Zero Kiryu, any reason in particular that when I ran your name on an international database, there would be no record that you exist? Despite the fact that the identification card in your jacket very clearly gives your name, age, and ethnicity?"

Zero took a deep, steadying breath, trying to ease the pounding in his ears. He was thirsty, dammit, he didn't want to be close to anyone right now. He was craving Kaname's blood, and in the absence of that, the nearest beating human heart was singing its sweet siren song to the monster inside him. "Give me my gun and my clothes and let me out of here."

"Your clothes won't do you much good, they were torn to shreds. Did you walk torso-first into a woodchipper or what?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Kaiba," the other replied crisply, finally looking at Zero, finally making eye contact with him. Zero stilled, uncomfortable under the gaze. Sharp, hard, unfathomably blue. "And you're not answering my questions."

"Give me my gun."

"Why?"

"Are you an idiot? Because it's mine!"

"I would be an idiot if I gave an unknown stranger a gun in my own house," Kaiba replied flatly. "Is your name really Zero?"

"If I answer, will you give me my damn gun?"

"I'll consider it."

"Yes, my name is really Zero. But don't call me that." Only Kaname and Yuki had called him Zero, and they'd been the last to do so.

"I wouldn't be so pretentious as to call you by your first name, Kiryu. I'm Japanese, after all."

"The Japanese are polite. They'd give me my gun back without asking annoying questions."

Kaiba stared at him wordlessly for a moment—not speechless, it didn't seem, just considering him. Sizing him up, Zero realized, just like he was doing to him.

"It's illegal for you to carry a firearm in Japan," Kaiba said at length, watching Zero carefully.

"No more so for me than for you," Zero growled out. Kaiba had the decency to look surprised—if that was the emotion that quirked eyebrow signified, anyway. Zero spoke over the unasked question. "I've been around the block enough to know when someone's packing."

A short pause, and then Kaiba reached into his waistband at his back, pulling out his pistol and holding it sideways, letting Zero look at it and take a guess at its caliber before making a point of laying it on the table beside the Bloody Rose.

"I'm willing to answer your questions," Kaiba said pointedly, "if you'll answer mine."

"I can't guarantee I'll answer."

"Neither can I."

Zero scowled. "I play along, I get my gun back. Deal?"

"I told you I'm not just handing you a loaded weapon. What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

An idiotic one. Zero ground his teeth. "Why am I in your house?"

"Because I found you unconscious in an alley," Kaiba answered, smirking. Zero felt the immediate and overwhelming urge to hit him in the face. "And you told me not to call an ambulance, so I brought you here."

Oh. Zero vaguely remembered some of that—no, more specifically, he remembered seeing Kaname, and reminding Kaname that no human could save him now, and touching Kaname's hair…a hallucination, apparently, and an unfortunate one at that. How he could have mistaken this arrogant little prick for Kaname was entirely beyond him.

Thinking of Kaname only reminded him of his thirst, and he closed his eyes for a moment, repressing the need. His vampiric senses were keen, and all the keener when he was hungry. He could hear the beating of the other heart in the room, the pace a little quicker than was normal.

"Ask me," he said through grit teeth, "and make it fast."

"Why are you carrying a gun?"

"Because I needed to shoot something."

"Someone?"

"Something. You have ears, use them."

"What are you, a hitman?"

Zero snorted, nostrils flaring. "Something like that. I didn't kill anyone who's going to be missed. Next question—where's my flask?"

Kaiba frowned. "There wasn't a flask on you. Not that I saw."

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Had it fallen from his coat in the fight? Gotten kicked into a shadow in the alley, escaped the human's notice? Dammit! "Do you know the location of the alley? Where you found me."

"Of course I do." Kaiba looked over his shoulder, eyeing the Bloody Rose where it lay, deceptively innocent. "If I give you that gun, are you going to make me regret it?"

"You'll regret it if you don't give it to me." Because his hunger was getting the better of him. He'd feel better with the Bloody Rose in his hand. It would stabilize him, remind him of what he was—a hunter first, and Shizuka's abomination last. Only Kaname's blood would truly sate him, he knew that, and feeding from the human who had saved him would be a shame on Kaname's sacrifice.

"What happened to you?"

"Why does that matter?!" Zero snapped, frustrated. "Give me my gun. I'll leave. I'll even see myself out, so as not to bother your prissy ass."

Kaiba was quiet, and once more he looked away from Zero, his gaze wandering to the Rose, and suddenly Zero couldn't wait anymore. He coiled himself on the bed, every muscle drawn taut, and then he sprang, threw himself onto the other man before Kaiba could react. They went to the ground with a combined shout. Zero tried to grab the other's wrists, receiving a sharp knee in the gut for his efforts. Grunting, he changed his strategy, throwing a hard punch into Kaiba's midsection. That got him a fucking headbutt, and he tasted blood, felt his nose go numb.

They rolled, and Zero felt hands close on his throat. He scrabbled, his hair in his eyes, blinding him, but he grabbed hold of Kaiba's shirt collar. A brief tussle for control—and Zero lost all pretense of restraining himself, of holding back his strength so as not to badly hurt the other. He jerked his hands, throwing the other boy, and there was the sick sound of flesh on wood.

Motherfucker. Kaiba lay still, blinking rapidly, and then his right eye was blinded. Shit. He was bleeding. He saw stars, and dimly realized that he'd smashed his head on the table leg when the psychopath threw him over. His only thought was for Mokuba, who would be coming home from school soon, unaware that there was someone dangerous and unguarded in the spare bedroom, and then consciousness escaped him.

Zero sat up, panting, wiping his bleeding nose on the back of his hand and grimacing at the sight of the blood before looking down at the man he'd knocked out. He stilled at the sight of the other's blood—bright red, pouring freely down Kaiba's face from the gash in his hairline where he'd impacted the table. Zero's inner beast fairly roared its hunger, and he reached out mechanically, touching his fingertips to the red liquid and shivering.

He'd been fourteen hours with Kaname's blood, which he drank sparingly. He hadn't felt sated in weeks, and now the urge was overwhelming. The smell, the feel, the sight of it… he lifted his fingertips up in front of his face, his breath quickening. Against his better judgment, he brought his fingers to his lips.

It took only a breath for him to lose control entirely. He'd unleashed his inner monster, and he didn't care, not the slightest. Just a little. What was a taste? One swallow? Then he'd be gone, he'd return to the Society, and he could finally join Kaname…

He was swifter in his hunger. He pulled the unconscious man closer, opened his shirt, heedless of the buttons ripping free of the fabric. Thirsty. He grabbed a handful of dark hair and forced Kaiba's head back, exposing the pale skin of his neck. Zero groaned quietly, leaning down, hearing and smelling the blood rushing through the carotid artery. There'd be a sweet spot in its flow, different with everyone. He let his vampiric side take him there, found the calling to be loudest at the junction of jaw and neck, just below the ear. His tongue darted out, worrying the skin, and he groaned, hips shifting.

A tongue on the side of his neck, hungry, searching. Kaname purred darkly above him, heat pouring from his bare flesh, his eyes overbright in the dark. Zero shifted, panting, running a hand through the tumble of loose curls, licking his upper lip before bringing the pureblood in for a hot kiss. Their tongues mingled, fangs scraped, and then Kaname jerked his head back, tangling his hand painfully in Zero's hair so he could expose the sleek column of his throat. Fangs pierced him, almost tenderly, and Zero's vision went white. He lost himself to the pleasure of blood drink, while Kaname's hand fumbled at the front of his pants, teasing him, promising him with touch alone—

And then Kaname shifted, in body and face and scent, Zero felt the softness of clothes, saw a brightly colored scarf just in front of him, felt the cold of snow in his hair. And the blonde in front of him laughed, untangling their fingers to tug on Zero's scarf, and pulled him down to his height. They kissed, and Zero didn't care who saw, didn't care about anything but the warmth, the other's closeness melting the snow in his hair. It was Christmas and he was kissing his stupid idiot of a boyfriend in the falling snow, and it was cheesy and ridiculous and so utterly beneath him, but he didn't care, not in that moment. There was one person in the world, besides Mokuba, who loved him. He didn't want anything else. Nothing—

Zero drew back, panting, mouth and chin smeared with red, his heart a jackhammer in his chest. The rushing in his ears was gone. The roaring hunger that had been present since he'd last sunk his fangs into Kaname's neck was gone. He felt satisfied. Sated. He felt warm and content. Worse, he felt stable. The looming threat of a level E's mentality was gone from his suddenly clear mind.

"You'll have to find someone with blood potent enough to sustain you."

No.

When Zero felt conscious enough to think again, he was standing outside, the spring wind whipping through his hair. He'd found his clothes, apparently, and the Bloody Rose was safely tucked inside his torn, bloodied coat. He turned off the road his feet had carried him to robotically, hitting a side street. He didn't need senseless questions from passerby, didn't need the suspicion. He had to clean his face and get into some inconspicuous clothes, and then he needed to get the hell out of Domino City.

Why the fuck had the blood he'd illicitly taken carried Kaiba's memories with it? It had made sense when he drank from Yuki, and eventually from Kaname, but from someone he'd just met, someone he didn't care about and didn't know? No—

And why did he feel so calm? Calmer than he'd ever felt since that bitch bit him and stole his humanity away. Why had his hunger been abated, why hadn't he been able to stop drinking, why did he feel so…okay?

Mind whirling, anger and confusion biting at his gut, Zero walked, and he tried his best not to look back.

Mokuba got home tired. School was a bitch. He was in real danger of failing math. And English. And Japanese. And history. He was in real danger of flunking out of school entirely. It wasn't that he was dumb, he knew he wasn't dumb. He'd done more real-world stuff at twelve than most kids did their entire lives. The problem was that he was bored. After Duelist Kingdom and Battle City and the KC Grand Championship, how was he supposed to go back to school and learn his kanji and his equations like a good boy? He wanted back in the game.

He'd been mulling it over for some time, and decided he needed to just sit Seto down and tell him the truth. That he was bored out of his skull at school, that he didn't care about finishing, that he wanted to find something else, something outside the mainstream. Nii-san would be pissed, but at the same time, Mokuba knew he'd get it. Seto Kaiba had never been able to settle for normalcy either.

"Bro? I'm home," Mokuba called as he stepped inside, kicking his shoes off in the doorway. No answer. Eh, the mansion was big. The youth traipsed into the kitchen, ditching his bag on the table and opening up the fridge. He opened up a can of soda, checking the pile of mail on the counter. He had a letter from Leon von Schroeder, who was studying abroad in America. They had internet stateside, didn't they? Mokuba laughed as he read it. The kid was so out of date for the second heir of one of the biggest tech corporations in Europe.

The mansion was quiet today, and it bummed Mokuba out a little bit. Usually there were familiar faces popping in and out. Joey had been a constant presence—up until recently, Mokuba reminded himself with a grimace—and Yugi frequented the mansion often. He was the King of Games, and Kaiba Corp was the biggest manufacturer of DM tech in the world. He and Seto beat out some sort of grudging truce that allowed them to work together in relative peace.

Now that he thought about it, hadn't Ishizu Ishtar been by yesterday? That had surprised Mokuba. He hadn't seen her since the weirdness in Egypt, and suddenly she'd been at his house, running around looking harried and talking with Seto in urgent undertones. He hadn't even been bothered to see her, which struck Mokuba as even stranger. Seto hadn't seemed fond of the Ishtars, and Ishizu least of all, who kept telling him freaky shit about his past or whatever. But the woman had been there, and she and his brother got along like old friends. She'd even called him Seto.

Weird. Mokuba worked on his soda as he mounted the stairs, putting the strangeness of yesterday out of his head as he tried to formulate a viable argument to present to his brother. "Bro, I want to drop out of school." Yeah, no, that wasn't gonna fly. Seto had hated high school too, but he graduated. Of course. He did it without breaking a sweat. Dammit, Seto must have been bored out of his mind too. Gozaboro had slammed him with high school level academics the second they took the Kaiba name. Yeah, well, I'm not my brother. Not that Seto expected him to be. Thank God for small miracles.

"Nii-saaaaann. Can I talk to you for a minute?" Mokuba poked his head into the upstairs study. Nope. The laptop wasn't even on. Was his brother at the office? When Seto's bedroom turned up clean too, Mokuba tried his cell phone. He got the voicemail, and didn't hear it ring from anywhere upstairs. On vibrate, maybe?

Figuring his brother for out, Mokuba loitered upstairs, toying with the idea of starting his homework. Screw that, he'd need Seto's help anyway, and besides…he'd just discovered the network multiplayer of his favorite game, and that was all he'd been able to think about at school. Couldn't hurt to log a few hours and up his killstreak, right? He seemed to remember leaving his console in the upstairs guest room. Seto had been watching the news downstairs, and Mokuba demanded excellence when it came to the screen size he gamed on. The crappy flatscreen in his room wasn't good enough for online bloodbaths (sure, they had the money to get him the sexiest model on the market, but that didn't mean Seto was going to encourage his brother's addiction).

Mokuba all but skipped into the guest room, turning on the console and the television, waiting for both to hum to life before setting his drink down on the table. He turned to cross the room and grab an armchair from the corner—

And his heart just about stopped.

"What the—Seto?!"

There was nothing for it. He'd just go, make sure the idiot would pull through, and then he'd haul ass out of there. Why the hell was he even going?! Oh, yeah. Mokuba had called him, and the kid had sounded so shaken up that he wasn't even done asking when Joey was pulling on his coat and shoes and heading out the door.

"Which hospital?"

"Domino General. I just—I'm sorry, Joey, I know you're not the one I should be asking, but I—"

"Relax, kid. I know. I'm on my way."

The bus rattled and jumped its way down the poorly paved streets of Joey's neighborhood, jostling him and making him bang his head against the pole he was holding onto, but he ignored the pain. His mind felt curiously blank. He supposed he ought to be terrified, going to see the last person on the planet he wanted to see, or maybe excited, going to see the only person on the planet he ever wanted to see. Instead he just felt numb. And maybe a little freaked out that his ex had been found bloodied up and unconscious in his own house.

Not really badly hurt, Mokuba had assured him, but he was out of it and had hit his head, and the docs weren't taking chances. Besides—the neck injury had been weird. Mokuba hadn't given details on the phone, just said it was weird. Like, freaky weird. Joey was used to freaky weird, but that didn't really make it much easier to deal with when it afflicted someone he lo—knew. Someone he knew.

The bus ride across town normally took forever, but today of all days it didn't take long enough. Joey felt horribly ill-prepared for what was to come as he stepped off the bus in front of the hospital. Roland was hovering outside, looking out of place and uncomfortable, and he pointed Joey toward the right door when he saw him.

"Mr. Kaiba chased me out of the waiting room," he said anxiously, referring to Mokuba, wringing his hands as Joey passed him. "Please stay with him if you can."

"Yeah, sure." Joey didn't feel much like lingering in the presence of the other Mr. Kaiba, but he'd stick around for Mokuba's sake. The poor kid was probably a wreck.

He was the only one in the waiting room when Joey walked in, seated in the far corner, his head in his hands, looking haggard and worn out. He hadn't even changed out of his school uniform. Mokuba's head lifted when Joey approached, and he got to his feet, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

"Hey," he said awkwardly. "I mean, uh…hey."

"Hey," Joey answered, no more at ease with the situation. "Look, Moke, I, uh—shit. I dunno, man."

"Me either," Mokuba said, offering a rueful little smile. "Thanks for coming, Joey, it—it helps."

"No problem. I'da come as soon as I found out, anyway. Didja call anyone else?"

"I didn't know who to call," Mokuba said despairingly, sinking back into his chair. Joey took a seat beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I thought maybe Yugi, but then I couldn't do it, and then I thought Ishizu, but—"

"Ishizu? Ishtar? Why would you call her?"

Mokuba laughed helplessly, running a hand through his hair. "She was at the house yesterday, just, like, hanging out with Seto. Or something. I don't know."

Joey felt a strange swooping sensation in his stomach. "Are they seeing each other?"

"Nah, I don't think so. It wasn't like that. They seemed upset about something, like they were trying to figure something out." Mokuba glanced sideways at the blonde, mulling over his reaction. A little too interested in Seto's current love life, maybe? Or was that natural when two people who'd been in a relationship went their separate ways?

"Well, you called me, so I'll stick around until you're good," Joey said, patting the youth on the shoulder and offering what he hoped was a comforting smile. "No worries, kid, everything'll be fine. You eaten since you got outta school?"

An answering grumble from Mokuba's stomach. "Uh, no."

"Aight, well, hospitals normally got cafes downstairs, yeah? I'll getcha a bite while we wait on the docs. Everythin' seems better when there's food in your gut."

Short chapters are short.

Don't worry, Mokuba. I choose video games over school work too.

Puppyshipping (SetoxJou) is my new crack, so Joey won't be completely out of the picture romantically for a while to come.