Bonsoir, Mesdames et Messieurs! Je mai Voyage à Paris! Il est regrettable que je ne parle pas le français. Ma prononciation est une insulte à la langue! Rude est la pauvre fou qui doit entendre ma voix!

... I got the chance for this trip and,

(hold on. For just a second, put my words into a very serious young Scottish man's voice. He has grabbed your shoulders, green eyes narrow, thin brow furrowed, teeth just visible behind tightened lips. Think of the "I need you to do this for me, man" look. That serious.)

... the first that popped into my head was, "I have to [date] a French man. Not even that. Just a kiss. Just have him check me out on the street. Unlikely, I know, but I could pull an act, oh I can dress like a woman! Ahh, Sebastion, your perfect shoulders and taut stomach are so close...!

After this, It's Antonio Banderas. Oh, and, this story is ending before Chapter 20.

A hot, blinding wind blew past him, sprays of sand pelting his legs and reaching up to his broad sunglasses. The sun shone with Saharan might, and its glare was mirrored on the white horizon, speckled with sunspots of brush. A guttural hum echoed from the dust-clogged engine behind him. Kaname was desperately, irritably ill, puking his guts out in the dirty rest stop lavatory. Zero closed his eyes and his fingers moved with the grace of a maestro; the bastard's retching was like music. His tank top fluttered too much at his waist, giving him a slender look against the wind, though he too perfectly fit his well-worn steel-toed boots. The wrinkles on his face suited his nasty smile to a tee, and it broadened as his ears again picked up that pitiable sound, which went on unsteadily for some minutes, until he realized with some repulsion just how bad the poor dog's sickness was.

He had turned to incredulously face the door to the lavatory, listening to the endless purging with growing revulsion, when a strong gust nearly blew him over. He spread his feet and tried to spin around, when the engine choked to a stop and the car died. The moment he took his attention from the bluster, it quieted and slowed, as if to accentuate the last ominous sputters of the only car in the desert.

"Shit..." His voice could echo, the place was so dead. Was the sand mocking him?

Silence became austere and unreal; a low, throbbing ringing permeated his ears and caused his fingers to twitch. They were deep, long; all-encompassing, as if to completely strip him of hearing. Already, the explosion had nearly deafened him irreversibly, and he'd wondered sometimes fearfully if his latest shortcoming might endanger him. Perhaps this ringing was the final step toward his dying on the job, something which he had early regarded with a grim presentiment, but about which he felt uneasy and nervous. He stared out at the plane with skittish feet, pants flecked with sand, making small cascades when he moved. At every angle of his vision was sand and endless waste, the slim road meandering away in crooked curves like a sidewinder. His breaths were cold against the heat and cooled his face as the dead wind derided him. Something moved in a brush section about twenty yards away, and he nearly sprinted toward it; animalistic; veins pulsing thickly and strongly against his exhausted skin. But it, if it really was an 'it', didn't move again, and if he couldn't find 'it', then he couldn't kill 'it'.

-

He gripped the toilet, face contorted in pain and soaked with sweat and a thick, bloody mixture, and waited for the last heaves to come. The blue shirt he wore was permanently stained, and he'd already puked on the roadside earlier, making a fine mess of his shoes and trousers. His eyes closed and his stomach churned. He grunted in pain, temples bulging and fingernails cracking the bowl. Fire was bursting through him, as if he were some dragon of another age, the scales on his belly molten and chipping before the fire they held. Upon the absence of the last purges, he looked at his hands, face pale as he watched them shake like those of a dying child's. Waiting a few more moments, he smoothly flushed the toilet and recoiled, falling back on the tile and feeling very small, though his legs had to bend alarmingly to fit around the commode, only to hit the wall some inches after it. He was a disgusting sight, and agonized thoughts, fearful thoughts; fear of persecution and abandonment swept through him.

These attacks, like Zero once had, were getting more and more intense. Before, he'd only feel some bother in his stomach, or a headache, but now his senses screamed in pain and revulsion, body eking out everything he ate hours, or less, after he'd consumed something. Because of this, he hadn't eaten much at all, or slept in case his weakness might increase when he gave in to exhaustion. It seemed absurd for him to have to deal with anything like this: he felt like a teenage girl staying with a boy. He couldn't trust his partner, he knew that, and from now on, Yuki would never trust him. He felt lonely, unaccomplished, useless, and all of these preyed upon him in visions and night terrors, usually in which Ichiou or Rido would come for him, slowly open the flap to their tent or open the car door and simply stand there, silence him with a terrible smile, and fuck him with Zero barely a foot away. It happened before, when he was a boy. He'd feel Ichiou sidle up behind him in the study, his little body bent over the desk, sometimes drugged, sometimes not. Chills caused him to shake as he envisioned the lamp, the silhouette of the chair, the bookcases and pen stands. Hands would massage little hips and draw him close, feigning tenderness as a knee nudged his skinny legs open. He would brace himself at this point, but in some fantasies, as in real life, Ichiou would wait, prey on him and play with his psyche until, at least the first time, he was convinced the man couldn't go much further. Then the nudges became a swift kick, knocking his feet from under him as he lost his balance and an unyielding hand pressed him into the desk. Ink pooled around his cheek, eyes slowly widening as the man unbuttoned himself and let his penis rest on the small of his back. He might lean down then and whisper something torturous in his ear, or play with soft brown hair and tell him he'd be gentle, or that he was tired and might be "unsatisfactory", as he put it. There was no such rest.

"You're so cold to me usually, I'd ne'er have thought you'd be so warm on the inside."

Taunting him,

"So dry, it almost hurts. I'm sure you'll be able to fix that yourself?"

Making him bleed,

"I was worried because you never hug me around others, yet here, we're alone and you embrace me so tightly!"

'Loving' his small body,

"Sir Kaname's hugs are so wonderful: I could drown in them. Perhaps I should alert Senate members of this wondrous feeling?"

Pimping him, on occasion.

There isn't an abuse in existence he hadn't suffered. Although, no matter how bad it got, memories about Ichiou were only memories. The bastard was dead, and he'd made sure that corpse couldn't rise again. Rido, on the other hand…

Rido was rotting inside of him, rather than in the ground. He had become an intangible metamorphism of all that his nephew feared and the consequential hate inside the boy's mind. He could rear his ugly head whenever he pleased when and make as many new memories with his beloved nephew as he wanted. And he would, until the day Kaname died.

Clearly, the kid was fucked up.

He grasped his head and, quivering, tried to stand. Like a stiff corpse, he rose, fumbling with the lock with a dazed expression and slowly made his way to the sink, only to look into the grimy mirror to see a despicable, illogical man hugging his filthy body as if cold in heat which could put Death Valley to shame. He shook more and reached for the faucet, trying to get the water going. The pipes clunked and a quickening babble began. At first, it spurted out in a dirty jet, wetting him and causing him to grow angry. Then, he felt nauseous, bent over the sink, and clutched his stomach like he'd had food poisoning. He looked in the mirror again, trying to see how pathetic he could become. No sound came from outside, so he assumed Zero was either asleep or listening in. He pushed his hair back, preparing to retch again. It didn't matter if he was heard at this point, did it? It wasn't as if the man's opinion of him was stark and Spartan of any offences. But the quiet was unnerving, real, almost anthropomorphic, and it seeped into the bathroom: he heard it stop at the doorway, and stood still as it waited, then crept in. He imagined it was a carnivorous beast sniffing the air. It was eerie and settled over everything like moss, travelling low over the ground as if a blanket of mist. He closed his eyes as he felt a wind he couldn't hear brush his hair forward prettily. The quiet made him think, almost as if it whispered ideas to him in a soft, toneless voice. Ichiou's lips were on his ear where the wind had been, and he whipped around as quickly as a sick man can, lost in the hallucination, only to feel the consequential, familiar hand run gently up his back, stilling him in terror. He dreaded what he thought would be the coming moments: would they take him right there? With Zero just outside? Then he felt something amazing happen, which made the silence recede and his visions disappear without fuss, almost respectful of the natural din which replaced them. Everything was normal, but he felt… safe. For once. He felt safe, and while not invulnerable, comfortable enough to stand as straight as he could. Cleaning his mouth, he ran the water and washed his face, then strode out the door.

-

Zero met him outside, looking a little off. His hunched shoulders and stiff stance spoke of some distrust, yet his expression was bemused,

"I hope you're not pregnant. It would be terrible for Yuki to find out she's not the mother." Kaname made to punch him, but his fist opened like a chrysanthemum and held his belly instead. The fire was lashing his insides again, taking whips to the bottom of his esophagus. His reddened skin was paling quickly, and he made for the car. The hunter looked after him in disbelief, and climbed in alongside him. He fidgeted with his seatbelt and checked the dash for smokes. The brunette continued to hold his stomach, and leaned back on the headrest to seek some comfort. His mouth was a thin line and his free hand nearly ripped through the leather, impatience building exponentially before he finally spat out,

"Must you light the cigarette before you drive?!" A thin paper tube was shoved between his lips and before he could protest, the smouldering tip of another met its end. A hand came to rest on his shoulder, and deep violet eyes were staring across at him, urging him to inhale. He did. Zero drew away and sat back, puffing on his cigarette quietly as the smoke drifted over the door. The sun was beginning to sink behind a rocky mound, and the sky had turned darker. They stared up at the last rays of light, blandly melding and fading into one sea of shading blue. Somehow, the smoke managed to shine like dust even when the light went away, and curled away from them in a stream going south. The silence was companionable, rather than frightening or stressful, and through the pain and paranoia, vexations and exhaustion, they managed to relax, if only for a little while. If their habits and indifferently dodgy lifestyle didn't kill them, then this intimacy might.

Kaname stared across the hood of the car at a couple of distant dunes. His ears picked up tiny claws scratching in the dirt, bodies sidling through holes, brush rustling in almost nonexistent breezes. The desert was perfectly peaceful, the mountains and cities and towns standing far ahead of them, distant, but waiting for them as they rested. Inordinately, he felt a sense of peace and belonging. Here, he sat in companionable silence with his partner: this man who had shot him and fucked him and protected his and his wife's life. Problems flitted only faintly on the horizon, far-off and only technically important. Pain, though always present, subsided a little while his thoughtfulness consumed him. As he remembered, he had only ever achieved this sort of moment with Yuki. Her final words to him before the trip were nonexistent. No 'goodbye's or 'come back soon's or 'I love you's. She had barely looked at him, kept her chin high, and told him in a delicate encounter on the patio just what level of Hell he was going to. Of course, he was heartbroken, downtrodden, but this seemed to have manifested itself in physical pain rather than mental self-torture. Had he garnered the courage to speak more than sappy, apologetic words to her (common and useless to the type of woman she'd become) he might have salvaged more of their relationship and eventually succumbed to the fact that this sort of thing does happen in vampire relationships. Regardless of the devotion and love two might have for each other, five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand years is an awfully long time to stay monogamous. Or, in what would hve been his case, celibate.

As he justified his actions with wholehearted attempts at gluing back together his masculine pride, Zero mused in the driver's seat, a frown on his face, more relaxed than the pureblood, less intense, and yet somehow more foreboding. He didn't really direct his thoughts so much as drifted. His calculations were hazy in his head, and distractions came easily. He lacked Kaname's determination in making himself feel better, and didn't even attempt redemption. Whatever penance he knew his friend must've been cooking up should only look desperate and stupid to an outside eye, and he mourned for a second or two in another distraction the fact that the brunette seemed to have lost his very dignity. Zero knew he'd fucked up. Pretty damn badly, if he could say so himself (without furthering the other man's quest for a medicine to their situation). He knew there was nothing he could do to save himself in Yuki's opinion, so he never intended to try. To do other than that could only prove he was a fool, and he'd damned three times over if he was going to lower himself any more in her eyes.

And, he didn't give it much thought, frankly because he felt so terribly hopeless after hurting her so carelessly, but just what he was doing could probably raise her opinion of him more than he would have imagined. Acknowledgement of his shortcomings, the fact that her resolve was beyond him, and that what he had done with her husband was completely unforgiveable, and then just stopping the train of thought before it sought penance was a wise thing to do. And here, he did think a little. Of how much respect he had for her, and how much he still loved her. How he would easily kill Kaname if it meant saving her, and the endless fantasies he'd had about that exact situation. One of which made him smile:

He and Kaname would be making love. The pureblood, in his possessiveness and cruelty, would have locked her away as Shizuka had been, and the only two with whom she'd communicate would be he and the hunter, himself. She'd have told him of her husband's cruelty and harshness: of the abuses she'd been put through and how, at the moment Zero stood over Rido's mangled, broken corpse, should have commanded him to run that pretty blade right through her brother's Grinch heart. He would follow her order there, in the bedroom, as Kaname claimed love for him. He'd bury the blade on the man's throat and dig into his chest case as if searching through a trunk for that tiny heart, and yank it out with triumph. And in the hours following, he would stare into those sorrowful, stricken eyes with contempt and conquest, and continue to 'make love' until that smirking son of a bitch finally breathed his last and sighed out whatever words had come to mind in that poisonous voice of his. It was an old fantasy, from when they'd first started fucking.

He looked at the dune his friend stared so purposefully at, and wondered at the beautiful, subtle curves, pinkish as the sun began to dip lower in the sky, falling behind a windswept mound. He felt mortality, and then déjà vu. Was this moment something significant? He couldn't tell. He wanted to ask questions suddenly. The approaching darkness seemed to fuel his desire, like that of the convict approaching the firing wall. He needed to speak.

"Did Aidou ever drop you any hints?" There was a chill. Kaname looked at him seriously,

"... Yes." For some reason, he felt surprised,

"Did you ever do anything about it?"

Silence shadowed him. The brunette took a drag on the cigarette, now mostly ash, hanging from his teeth. He held out his hand and looked at it as if it was mechanical: something to be explained rather than felt. The reaction told Zero there was something beyond his and Yuki's stake in the man, and this inflamed him.

"... He placed his hand... on the desk, near mine. We were talking about something that seemed important at the time. He kept... looking at it. I felt as though he wanted to touch me, so I was wary, but now that I think back on it, I should have let him." He had been sombre before, but time itself pained him, now, "His looks were different from the others'; different from Yuki's, even. There was no physical hunger, but craving. Whatever I wanted from Yuki, I had to coax out, but it all came so easily from him. Lust was inevitable, but I did consider, after my uncle, what we might have made of each other had I given in to him, rather than you."

"So I'm replaceable." Zero was sceptic. Not panicked, because he knew he certainly wasn't replaceable in Kaname's eyes, but of the speculative relationship between the dead man and the one left alive.

"No. You're the only one left I can talk to. Aidou is dead and Takuma has gone insane since I tried to help him." His tone became more subdued, until his wretchedness caused his head to lower, "That mistake reminds me that whatever I might have made of Aidou wouldn't have been good. At the very least, he managed to have a daughter to carry on his lineage, now that his sisters have left the house. With me there could only have been grief and this horrid lifestyle." Zero's eyebrows went up and he pouted a bit,

"It's not that bad. Better than staying in the office, I think you once said." The sun had sunken completely, and the earlier rays died before twilight. It wasn't too cold, but the roof, sitting in the trunk, was likely to come in handy.

"This life of ours I've made, I wonder when it'll kill us?" Zero threw his cig over the door and lit another one,

"I don't think you can rightfully take all credit," he puffed, "God knows, I've had more of a hand in the creation of this Hellhole of a life than you think."

Kaname looked at him, head laying depressed on the dash,

"Pray tell."