The chapters seem to get longer and longer, don't they? This one is SUPER angsty, so get ready!! (laughs)

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that CLAMP owns in this fan fiction. It's a Fan fiction, okay? That's why it's on here.

Please review. Tell me anything I need to improve on… It really helps!!! Any pairings or characters you want put in also.

Iku-chan

After It All

Chapter Nine: Take My Hand

"Welcome," said a clear voice.

There was a man on a tall chair in the center of the room with straight black hair and green eyes, looking relaxed, with another main draped over him, balancing on the arm of the chair. He looked almost the same as the green-eyed one, except his eyes were blue and he had wavy hair. The strait-haired man had his hand over the wavy-haired (god… can't say who they are yet… this is getting tiring.) one's left arm, which was around his thin neck.

Fai couldn't breathe. The… aura that engulfed the room washed over him like a huge wave of sea water, choking him so he couldn't speak. The man closed the door with his foot as they all entered the room. It was barren of any furniture save the chair, but bookcases lined the walls, dusty as if they had never been read.

"You're names…" said the man on the right of the man seated on the chair.

"S-Syaoran," said Syaoran.

He obviously sensed the strong aura that engulfed the room, sweeping around their stiff bodies. The two people… they were so pale! And so alike… it was frightening in a way. But Fai was already feeling dizzy from being too close to them.

"Fai," choked out Fai finally, trying to be as far away as he could from the two, but he couldn't, for the strong man was holding him closer, along with Syaoran.

"I am Kamui," said the man seated in the chair. "And this is Subaru."

He motioned to the man next to him. Their voices were different, at least. Subaru's was higher pitched than Kamui's but other than that, they were the same. Kamui stood suddenly and motioned for the man to stop holding onto Fai. The man let go, and Fai stumbled a bit, careful not to knock into Kamui. Kamui reached out, his fingers almost touching Fai's face.

"Another one…" said Kamui quietly, so no one could hear.

He lightly brushed his hand against Fai's cold cheek. Fai froze. His hands were cold, almost as cold as Fai's and when he touched Fai's skin it felt as if Fai would collapse at any moment. It was unlike any other touch Fai had experienced, it somehow felt as if it was… someone non-living touching him. Like someone… dead.

"Kamui… That's enough," said Subaru, pulling Kamui back from Fai.

Fai's heart was pounding as he breathed in and out slowly. Subaru and Kamui eyed Fai curiously as he breathed painfully.

"Where are they?" Syaoran said bravely.

"You're companions?" asked Subaru. "They're…"

He turned to Kamui, hoping for some sort of help.

"Would you kindly escort Syaoran-kun to where the other prisoners are?" asked Kamui politely, motioning for Syaoran.

And so Fai was left alone… alone with the two that made his heart pound uncontrollably. Fai looked at them for a moment or two, he couldn't really tell, mostly looking at Kamui, because Subaru seemed relatively harmless….

"What is a vampire such as yourself doing here?" asked Subaru, his hands behind his back as he looked somewhere nowhere near Fai, as if in a daze.

"How did you know?" asked Fai.

"Your smell," said Kamui. "Both of us can sense it."

"But… How…?"

"We are also," said Subaru, looking to the walls again, although it looked as if he wasn't focused at all. "We are what you were to call 'Vampire twins'. Entirely codependent. One cannot live without the other. And when we sensed another vampire… we felt threatened. That you may try to attack us."

"But you are a new vampire," said Kamui. "So you are not as much as a threat."

Fai stared. So… their strange aura… that was why. But why were they here, running a whole country? And how did they get their supply of blood? Those were questions… Fai didn't want to know the answers to, let alone ask. Codependent Vampires, Fai had heard the term before. It was an ancient practice, one of the things Fai had studied when he was the head magician for Ashura in Celes.

That was a very, very long time ago.

"But how did you, ano… Subaru-sama, become king?" asked Fai nervously.

"We…" said Subaru, his hand brushing Kamui's. "They think of us as the heirs. Because… There was a legend that two twins that look like us… would someday rule the country. This country is very dependent on those legends and we took over."

"Then where were you before?" asked Fai.

Kamui looked at Subaru and Subaru didn't answer, as if he didn't see. Subaru slipped his hand into Kamui's and held out his hand, as if to offer it to Fai. Kamui slowly offered his also. Two identical hands, their palms the same. Clear and unmarked, pale as a ghost's.

"Take our hands," said Kamui. "We'll show you."

Fai felt himself losing consciousness and slipping into the depths of the twin's minds.

"Whatever you do, don't let go of each other's hands," their mother reminded the two boys urgently. "Promise me."

She was a thin woman, of about thirty, few wrinkles on her face and her fingers thin and long. She had the same pale skin and bright blue eyes like Kamui's. But her hair was long and straight like Subaru's. Her eyes had the air of knowing, the exact same as Kamui's and Subaru's, as if she had known too much. There was a picture of a man that looked also like Kamui and Subaru.

Fai wondered what happened to him.

Their mother was desperately looking into the two boy's eyes. They were only about ten, looking down at their mother in fear. She couldn't get up, kneeling in front of the two boys, tears in her eyes. She was bleeding from her left leg and both of her arms.

"But Oka-sa-" Kamui said, but was interrupted by his mother.

"No," said their mother sternly. "Go! Now!"

She let go of them as they heard the yelling. Subaru looked at his brother for a second, and then there was a harsh knocking on their doors. Their heartbeats quickened as their mother motioned for them to leave. Kamui bravely took Subaru's hand and they sprinted for the back door. It slammed before they heard their mother's screams…

"I-I can't run anymore…" Said Subaru, bending over, his breathing labored.

They had stopped in a desert, barely able to see the small city that they had left their mother in. They dropped to the ground, their breathing both difficult. All they could see was desert and the sand swept around them like a hurricane. All that was around them was shrubs and the occasional dead tree.

"Me neither," said Kamui, breathing just as heavily and pressing a hand to his heart. "Where are we going?"

"Dunno," said Subaru. "But it's getting dark…"

They spent a few more moments breathing heavily until they looked around for somewhere to stay. They fell asleep trying to look for a place underneath a dead tree in each other arms with the little warmth it offered them.

"Get up you little rats,"

They awoke to them, standing over the two like hawks over their pray. There were so many of them, all the same, wearing clothes of the royal guard. They showed no faces, and they didn't need to. Their aura's told it all. They grabbed Kamui and Subaru by the wrists roughly and pulled them up, taking them off to their prison…

"You…" The man paused, thinking of the word.

Fai could almost hear the thoughts voiced in his mind. Sinners. What shall I call sinners? There, of course, is no appropriate name for such a thing. Were his thoughts. It brought him back to everything. But the twins… the twins couldn't possibly have gone through such a thing as Fai and Yuui had. After all, they both were alive. After all, they both had each other.

"Children… have to be punished."

"But we didn't do anything!" yelled Kamui.

Subaru didn't say anything, only held Kamui back. The man with the knife didn't show his face, there was a mask covering everything but his smile. That horrible, horrible smile. It was dark, dirty, and frightening down there. In the depths of the dungeon, the depths of that prison.

"AH!" cried Subaru as his arm was sliced with the knife.

The blood spilled all over the floor, his white shirt cut, but it didn't matter because it was already filthy. Subaru couldn't cry…. He had to be strong…. For Kamui. But the next thing he knew he was being kicked in the face, his mouth quickly filling with warm blood. He was beginning to feel faint, curling himself up against the floor, hearing his brother's choking sounds at the sight of Subaru, weak and exposed and defenseless.

"Enjoy the time you're allowed to watch, little rat, cuz you're next," said the man, taking out his knife again.

Subaru cried out again as he was sliced against the stomach, his shirt falling apart. He couldn't take the pain at such a young age. After all, they were children. Sinners, of course. But children. Only small children with desires and hopes of their own.

Didn't the people see? Didn't they see that children were the same as adults? And that whatever you did to them would be nothing different than doing it to someone older. Kids thought of it as something simple, but if it was… then why did the adults not understand? Why were they so confused? Kamui was only allowed to watch as his brother fell apart. Subaru finally passed out, and by that time Kamui was screaming.

"Leave him alone," Kamui choked through his tears. "Leave him alone; just let him go, please! I'll take his place!"

But the man turned to Kamui, leaving Subaru in a bloody heap. Kamui felt pain, pain that almost blinded him, the sound of knife against flesh and his own screams mixed in with Subaru's. In spite of his condition he still thought, Subaru, don't cry for me. But they were both crying for each other. The only people who had kept their promises. The only people who had stayed by their sides forever.

By the end they were both bleeding, huddled against the stone ground, dying. The tears stopped eventually, and so did their grasp of reality. They didn't even have enough energy to grasp each other's hands as their consciousness drifted away.

And their hope drifted away like sand through your fingers.

"I can't see you! I can't see you, Kamui! I can't open my eyes!"

All through the night Kamui held the frightened and crying Subaru, his older brother. But it hurt him to do so.

When Kamui awoke Subaru was already awake, breathing heavily in the corner, pressing his fingers to the window so he could at least feel the cold on his fingertips, trying to visualize what was outside. But the outside was a bleak and hopeless sight, just as the dungeon was. Kamui touched his shoulder lightly and he turned around immediately. He felt Kamui's face slowly and threaded his fingers through his hair, just to make sure it was his brother.

"Kamui…."

"Subaru, I'm here," said Kamui, trying to give his brother just a bit of comfort.

It was amazing what just a sliver of comfort could do to people. It could be the thing between life and death, the line between sanity and insanity; it could make someone breathe again.

"There's a bit of food," said Kamui. "We can split it between the two of us, easy. Open your mouth."

Subaru did as he was told and Kamui lifted the spoon to Subaru's lips. The bit of soup for each of them was enough to keep them alive (if one was to call watery broth soup) and it was enough to keep them hopeful, at least for a while.

They fell asleep purely of exhaustion, only to be awoken by a man with a knife.

"Are you sure you two want this?" asked the vampire, eying the two boys on the floor, grasping each other's hands.

They had trouble breathing now, their eyes not opening, and their voices hoarse and raspy. The only thing they could cling to was each other.

"Yes," said Subaru. "It's the only way we'll be able to… to…"

The vampire nodded, knelt down to both of them and bit them on the necks one by one. They thrashed in pain, but didn't scream or cry. They had cried and screamed and called out far too many times. They were too strong for that now.

When they awoke they had an utter thirst for blood.

Years and years after they had both been turned into vampires, on a cold night, Subaru and Kamui lay huddled together in their bed. Subaru was looking up at the ceiling while Kamui was reading.

"Kamui?"

"Yes?"

"Do you really suppose we deserve all this?"

Subaru motioned to the castle, the bed, the books. They had a home, they had food (prey), and they had everything they could ever wish for. Their scars had faded long ago, except those which lined Subaru's milky green eyes. Those milky green eyes that would never see again. Those milky green eyes which had stared halfhazerdly at Kamui many times, not actually able to see his face. He hadn't been able to for years.

"We may," said Kamui, putting down his book. "Or we may not… Just… don't take it for granted, alright? At least we have something."

Subaru didn't answer only leaned his head on Kamui's shoulder.

When Subaru and Kamui let go of Fai's hands, Fai was choking on his own breath. He looked up at Subaru's eyes. They weren't green, they weren't green at all. They were a milky algae color. Subaru touched Kamui's hand for a second, having some sort of mental conversation.

"I'm sorry," said Fai finally, breaking the silence. "I'm so sorry, I-"

"You need not apologize," said Subaru. "Please, take a seat. We'll tell you the rest."

God this one was REALLY, REALLY long. I hope you guys like that…??? I liked all the stuff on Kamui and Subaru too. And ALSO please, please vote on my poll. Thanks, bye!!

(oh yeah, review please)