I'm the worst person on earth, I know that. I'm sorry! It's been a year, but at least it's before Christmas, right? right. To any who still remember this... thank you! Oh, and sorry for the double update. I needed to edit some stuff, but then I accidentally deleted the chapter-- hence, the update of a 'new' chapter.

Christmas Warmth

Warm breath suddenly crept around Krad's neck, and he froze as a low voice whispered dangerously in his ear, "You weren't supposed to see that."

His stomach lurched into his throat, and broad gold eyes whirled about to find a pair of amethysts that gazed blankly at him, even as the mouth was pressed into a shape that accused him, even as the room lost all warmth for a moment, plunging into a glacial chill, and the sky outside lost all light, bathing the room in darkness. Save for the one ray that penetrated the turbulent, silent air, illuminating the glossy paper picturing a violet-haired woman sinking slowly into the abyss of her blood, her mangled limbs crying out for redemption, her crimson-soaked hair streaking her upturned face.

Her blank, dead eyes were just like Dark's.

The blond's heart did stop beating, for a shrill moment his mind screamed against all that was wrong with the situation, with a morbid fear that what had happened to that woman— Dark's mother— would now happen to him. But it wasn't terror at the prospect of death, no, that was something he looked at almost sweetly. It was terror at the thought of betrayal.

And yet, even frozen in his spot, because there was no excuse for what he'd done —he'd trespassed Dark's privacy, and paid a heavy price, and there was a chance there would still be one heavier to pay, too shocked to do more than stare, gape, have fear clutching at his heart like he was twelve again, after he'd left, and the thought of life as a grim, grim, dark veil that only needed to be burned away had consumed him…

And yet, even as his mind imploded and his face fell into its habitual mask of indifference as his heart iced over, all he could really find in those violet eyes, underneath that layer of opaque wax, was a fear rivaling his own, but crying out with sorrow and solitude instead of desperate defiance.

They both beat their bloodied hands on the mirror of betrayal.

He was surprised when all Dark did was sigh, breath wavering as if he was about to commit himself to crucifixion, and bent down to pick up the picture, his eyes shying away from actually studying it, knuckles tight and white as they gripped the edge of the photo.

His voice was oddly calm as he said, "Do you want to know?"

The blonde's eyes took refuge in the dark corners of the room, speaking delicately, "I do not need to."

A hand pulled his chin up roughly, jerking his weak body into dangerous alarm. There was an odd reluctance of touch in the motion, and Krad smelled apprehension in the tempest of the silence.

"Oh, but I think you do," the violet-haired demon held the photo in the air, as a sort of testimony bathed in blood that let the window's light illuminate it into a blinding icon of purity.

"It is the moment of Judgment, and you are my jury. "

The dark-skinned hand that had clutched his chin now slid off wearily, reaching out instead for the stack of pictures on the angel's lap, leafing, as if by heart, through them to find the very earliest ones. His grim face loosened a bit as he lifted the picture slightly in a gesturing motion, "I remember this one. It was with my parents' camera. We were on vacation at the beach. I was actually trying to get the seagulls, but they flew away before I could get the shots. And this," he flipped over another one, "was my kindergarten classroom, when we displayed our clay figures."

It continued that way for a while, a pained aura of his looking on with nostalgia, sometimes a bittersweet smile, at the fragments of his childhood, and his comments, though aloud, seemed more like heavy musings that were being stirred in his melancholy heart.

Krad's eyes narrowed. He was confused at the situation— the danger he sensed from it no longer seemed of the physical kind, but nonetheless placed him at the utmost center of his carefully constructed guards. In his eyes there was now no leak of emotion, only a gaze that turned them into purest gold, cold, metallic and inanimate. The fright that had before assailed him— so uncharacteristically— he'd now easily buried with the practiced ease of a mind and heart used to being locked up. He'd learned early on that one only survived by closing oneself off from the world and emotions, because otherwise, the pain would stab you over and over again, each time breaking off a larger shell of your mind, until there was nothing left… he would not be like that, he'd told himself. Better to have no heart than to live with a broken one, he thought. And thus, there would be nothing here that could shock him, or hurt him. Not even if the dark-haired man in front of him were to…

"This is my mother," Dark said softly, holding the picture closely to himself for a moment, violet strands of hair hanging limply from his down-turned face. Krad did not take the picture when it was then reverently held out to him, and Dark hesitated, unsure, before shrugging dully and continuing, picking up a photo Krad had overlooked. His voice now had an edge of bitter harshness, tossing the picture on the ground. Torn in two, only haphazard tape held it together, as an afterthought to the obvious intent of destroying it.

"That," he crossed his long legs and tried to act nonchalant, while his deep voice seethed and his eyes were anything but, "is my father."

Krad supposed that there had been a reason, then, why he'd initially disliked the father, even from a photograph. But then, his intuition had always been particularly sharp. So this was it? Dark was going to tell him his life story?

Golden eyes said nothing, inwardly relaxing but unwilling to let it show as of yet, and allowed the indigo-eyed demon to interpret his silence as he wished. Whether he took it as permission to go on or just wanted to let out his coming story in full, Dark continued, looking out toward the gloomy, snow-laden window, his body melding with the darkness until his hands and face were the only things that showed in the dark. And that pinpoint of reflected window-light that shone in his mirror-like eyes, hiding the turmoil within. What demon was to be revealed from the darkness by that pinprick of light?

"I love Mother," he whispered fiercely and suddenly, as if he wanted there to be no mistake about it, his voice full of painful conviction, "And I know I loved my father at some point. But I can't remember what that was like— and never will," his index finger drew a nervous sketch on his forearm, the rest of him stone-rigid, "…We lived clear on the other side of the country. It was a nice place, pretty rural and fun. It snowed a lot there too, even the summers were cool. Our next door neighbors had an apple orchard I used to always play in and…" he broke off, and closed his eyes, his voice falling back from its dreamlike swell into a quiet confession, "Right, that has nothing to do with this. I live in the past a lot. That past, at least.

"In any case… my father and Mother were great… I can't complain of my early childhood. I never went without, and I had a lot of friends. Mother… I adored her, more than most children do even at that age, mainly, I think, because I spent so much time with her. I was home-schooled, and it was from her that I gained my love of photography, so she…" paused, and thickly swallowed, "taught me all of that."

Krad leaned back against the bed, his sharp eyes curiously studying what was being displayed to him, for Dark was not as in control of his emotion as the angel was, and his voice, though forcefully suppressed, nonetheless gave clear indication of his emotions in its low, pained rumble. His fingers now clutched some miscellaneous object from the floor, alternatively squeezing or fingering it, and the curve of his shoulders tensed in synchrony with the inflections in his voice. How would this story weave itself into the macabre ending Krad had seen?

"But my father's company went bankrupt. Or at least, that's all I was ever told. It took me a while to realize what was going on, but once it was obvious we'd fallen on hard times, I soon found out that it wasn't as homey of a town as it seemed after all. They were only interested in the superficial, and that's all they were in turn. A poor family with a homeless alcoholic at the head was not welcomed. He was an alcoholic before I was born, and when trouble came again, he turned again to the bottle. I despise him for it," Dark swallowed, his fisted hand loosening self-consciously, "…I didn't have much to look forward to during those next couple years. My only true outlet was my camera, but it was expensive to keep up, so I would shoplift the rolls from the stores. They never wised up, I suppose I was good. I never realized how sheltered a life I had led until then… I'd never seen robbery, and now I was committing it. I'd never seen abuse, and now it was my own father who was the perpetrator. Mother would tell me to run away when he got violent, and I was left to watch as he took out his frustrations on her, and couldn't do anything!" the pound of his fist on the floor startled Krad and shook the lamp, head bent low and body hunched, "Do you know what that's like? Watching the father you once looked up to and saw as a hero beating, smashing, kicking, spitting at, —hurting your mother? The one thing you love most in the world and you consider the goddess-like being of your life? She was everything to me, especially in those times. I couldn't take it, it broke me— it breaks me, to even think about it. I sat there, sniffling like a little kid and watching through the bars of the stairs and listen to the screams she tried to hold back for my sake."

His voice wavered and hitched pathetically, and all was silent for a snowfall of a second before his gust of a deadened sigh betokened his reigned emotions, "Sometimes though, it got to be too much, and I would fight back, especially as I got older and bigger," his hand rose, trembling, to rub his collarbone absently, and he turned to Krad, though his eyes were careful to never make contact, "You want to see? The results of fighting back?" he leaned close, alluringly in any other situation, pulling his collar down to reveal the taut expanse of richly-colored skin, where a thin scar ran down from the side of his neck to cup his collarbone. Krad found himself lifting his hand to let his fingers brush over the skin, his cold fingers making contact with the scalding flesh of his neck, and realized, belatedly, that his façade had begun falling apart, and he was now listening with grim expectation on his face.

"It was just a glass," he said with a feral, manic smirk on his face that embraced the shadows, and proclaimed him king of obscurity, "but I nearly bled to death. I was in the hospital for two weeks, and when I got home, found that he'd broken her foot as well. I never did get over that, watching her limp around for the rest of her life…" he drifted off, looking up at the ceiling, where a rainbow formed by a CD gleamed darkly, his voice vicious and regretful, haunted and reproaching at the same time, his body motions conflicting with each other as they sought to express his maelstrom of emotions, like unsynchronized machinery, "It was hard watching her take it all just because he was a good man when sober, and she loved him. Or at least, that's what she'd tell me."

Indigo eyes glanced sideways at Krad's still form, penetrating, his tone dropping into a monotone of desperate control, "You saw it. He killed her. I walked in the back door and…" his repulsion seemed to have finally caught up with him, because he turned away abruptly, making a strangled noise that sounded like he was almost going to vomit. Krad was impulsively tempted to reach out and pull him back gently by the shoulder and…

"There's… definitely something wrong… with standing in front of your mother's body and pressing down the shutter button. It took me several minutes of just staring to really understand what had happened, so… I-I guess it was just artistic instinct that came in at that point. But… I'll never treat anyone like he did… I'll never be like him…" his breathing was erratic, even from the blond's distance, "…I didn't last more than a year without her. I gathered my things, and left. I was fifteen, and just before I left… I snuck into his room where he was sleeping off his hangover and stabbed him. I don't know if he died or not, I left and never came back."

With that last confession, his strength seemed to ebb away completely, and he lay slumped there, defeated and haunted and waiting. Then, in one unsteady movement, he stood up, back turned to Krad, and muttered, his voice now devoid of all earlier emotions, "I don't feel like talking anymore."

Krad supposed that he felt sorry— indeed, that was the only name he could put to the clenching feeling in his chest, but he sat there, unfazed, watching Dark's form with a raised eyebrow.

"What do you think?" the hopeless, blank voice cut through the air, and without even waiting for a response, went on, "Just… turn off the lights before you leave. And… well, I guess I won't be seeing you anymore."

He burrowed then into the covers, silent, dreadful, Krad could feel it in the stagnant air, in the oppressing darkness that left all the shapes as vague, formless blobs, monsters in the dark waiting to devour them.

The blond sat immobile, watching the lump in the bed, before standing up on newborn legs and making his way out, not bothering to look back and turning off the living room lights with a pensive finger as he passed through.

He leaned against the darkened hallway wall, covering his mouth with his hand to muffle the bitter laughter that bubbled up. All this! He wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, though by no means did he belittle Dark's feelings, for to him this was obviously as tragic as tragedy came, and rightly so. Compared to the vast majority of people, Dark's life had been something out of a psychological thriller or horror story. To him, the pain and guilt that haunted him was reality, and as damning as a curse of isolation and endless torture.

But it did not so much as bother Krad. Not really. He knew it was a horrible story, and as he'd said, he did feel for Dark's pain, but it was hardly anything to take notice, not compared to what he'd seen, or been through. Or maybe he really had detached himself so much, that a tale as macabre as this one left little impression on him. In fact, it was rather amusing the shame and reluctance with which the other man spoken, as if afraid that Krad would be shocked, dismayed, repulsed. Though, yes, there was no denying that the initial shock, especially of his mother's death picture, had disgusted him, mostly though, it had merely perplexed him. But it didn't take long for those feelings to fade, and now Krad was simply left with a casually regretful shake of his head, as he thought that Dark's fear and unease had been in vain. It meant very little to the blond whether Dark had attempted murder, possibly gotten away with it, and the idea of beatings and near-death bleedings was to him what a child's bruise is to a surgeon.

Really, had Dark thought that Krad would give up what he'd found here— he wasn't positive as to what to call it, or whether he even wanted to put a name to it,— just because of a demon's faerie tale?

Fool, he thought softly, and almost smiled to himself.

He crept back in surreptitiously, eyeing the man who had taken up the furthest side of the bed, night-dark hair splayed over the pillow or tucked underneath the covers, which allowed for nothing else to be seen. Those same covers muffled the movement well, but Krad was sure he was shaking. He noted with some satisfaction, that the movement ceased abruptly as the blond sank his weight on the mattress, shifting in closer with confidence and draping the loose covers about his own body.

And yes, a few seconds later— as if for confirmation that it wasn't a trick— the body whirled around, wide, liquid eyes searching inquiringly, confusedly, into the blond's, reflecting the light that seemed to emanate from the golden hair and eyes. It shone off the damp marks running down Dark's face, making them startlingly obvious. Krad reached out to cup his face with the intention of wiping his cheeks, but Dark withdrew as soon as he'd lifted his hand.

"Woops," he murmured, smiling faintly as he scrubbed his face in the pillow, "You weren't supposed to see that either."

Krad offered nothing to the searching gaze he was regaled with, making himself comfortable as if being here, next to Dark, was the most natural thing in the world. Which, somehow, he was beginning to feel it was. The dark-haired man was apprehensive still, it was apparent in the rigidity of his body, how he still had an aura of an animal being approached by a human. Ironically, Krad realized, it was the way the blond had initially felt when Dark had rescued him. Wary, suspicious, afraid of being betrayed. Truly ironic, the way their positions had been juxtaposed.

"Krad," he suddenly began, "why did you—"

"Shh," he silenced him with a chastising finger on his lips, and without allowing himself to think on it— because if he did, he would have been alarmed at emotion behind his actions— he tilted his head forward until his lips breezed tantalizingly over Dark's own, ghosting his words in warm breaths over the moist lips, "The judgment you spoke of… was nonexistent."

Without bothering to see Dark's reaction — amethyst eyes widened and glittered wetly,— he pushed against those lips, drawing out a sweet kiss with which to dispel the darkness that reigned over them both.

So, boo, I hope that was satisfactory. It was hard getting back into the swing of it. Oh well. I do have more planned for this, especially on Dai and Sato's part, with several surprises in store that should make the wait worthwhile. So hang on please! And review! I'd like to see who still remembers this fic and enjoys it.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, good luck with life in general!