... I feel dissatisfied with this story at the moment. I won't stop without finishing, and I'm not getting writer's block, it's just that all outcomes involving death (a personal pastime) seem bland. I've been spoiled by my own designs. If this goes on, God forbid, I might end up with more optimistic inclinations. Somebody convince me that there is no way one or the other of them could possibly care for his counterpart. I'd die twice over if more than one of them ended up happy... one is difficult to start with, ah?

Anyway, don't let my Spring-fuelled cheer ruin your day. Be as cynical as you need to be. Sit on the sidelines laugh at people when they're maimed, or when a plane crashes into an institute for malnourished orphans hard of hearing. Punish children the old-fashioned Catholic way. Criticize religions without truly caring for the cause. Find your partner listless and cheat on them, and go home and have them wash the cologne out of your shirt.

Go ahead. Have a blast. I'll be sittin' here with some gin, just waitin' for you to stroll in with that precocious, self-satisfied smile on your face, and drink and bask in the pretense you've established. And then I'll tell you just what I think of what you had the balls to go out and bloody do.

... Sorry. Working on another story in my head, an original involving a largely 'old pals' type of a relationship.

His chest pounded and he choked on his breath. Covered in sweat, he lay twisted in the comforter, claws dug deeply into the mattress. Shaking fingers came to his forehead, patting it and brushing hair back nervously. His legs bent automatically, begging to go into the foetal position, but he closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply. The curtains stood dead still in front of the window, a crack of greyish light seeping through. The sound of a gale calmed him, and he tried to relax and forget the dream, but whenever he took his eyes from the lighted corner of the bedroom, the shadows seemed to sweep in and try to consume him. He finally shifted and swung his legs over the side, dragging a blanket up with him to watch the storm.

When he got to the window, he pressed his clammy forehead to the glass and breathed again, sighing and then holding breaths for sometimes a few minutes before letting them out. When his eyes closed, he could almost feel the eerie dark creep over his toes, ethereal and soft, like a thousand tarantulas crawling and pushing against each other. So he sat on the sill, lifted his feet, and pulled the sash to bring the drapes back, marvelling at the monstrous gusts pummelling the grounds and forest. He looked down at a walkway and spotted students trying to walk through the wind. Upon seeing Yuki off in the distance, he blanched, remembering the dream, but before he could pull the sash forward, saw Zero jogging to her side, and hallucinations hit him full blast.

His feet become planted on the floor. He is staring at a picture of his parents. They stand proudly with gentle smiles, cuddling his tiny sepia body in its long Baptismal gown. A hand comes over his shoulder as he's imagining them, and grabs him tightly, Rido's cocked sleeping shirt brushing against him. He can't move for fear, and feels the fingers relax and tap in a line as the man yawns, pulling back tangled, feather-laden hair. Alcohol permeates the very walls and that sweaty body stinks of testosterone. Kaname is surprised that the man can walk straight. Rido is surprised that Kaname can walk at all.

That deep voice curdles like warm milk in the suffocating musty air,

"You'll have plenty of time to mourn for someone else in a few hours." He forced the boy to turn with a nasty shove, grinning wickedly with a dry voice, "But right now, you should really focus on yourself."

Lean palms yank Kaname upward with a firm grip on his thighs, lengthy, bony fingers pressing into his flesh with unyielding stiffness and strength. His little hips wiggle, and his knees bend, legs kicking and fighting blindly as he forgets the true purpose of his uncle's treatment, and his mouth, open to shriek, is struck dumb with a powerful blow which sends him barrelling into a wall across from them. The man flexes his fingers and marvels at his inability to control himself, vainly thinking he is some Herculean remnant; truly part god and less pureblood, less controlled and more raw glory, when his nephew stands shakily from the debris, holding a crooked jaw. The sinewy flesh wraps anew, encasing his bared mandible and cracking fragments of bone as it seeks the other side of his face. He is too experienced with this pain already, and Rido knows his time is running too low for him to stall more than necessary.

The man's feet tread steadily over the floor, littered with porcelain and glass shards, some small enough that when he walks over them, a small powder kicks up and glitters in the air for a second or two before lodging inside his calves or crackling on the ground. Kaname pushes his shoulder blade back into its rightful place and looks toward the broken window, wondering if fleeing could work. Then, suddenly, in a daze, he crashes forward, seventeen again, into Rido's arms, only they feel broader, rougher, thicker. Almost like Zero's, but not quite as tense. He is taller than his uncle, as he is with Zero, but cannot for the life of him stand up properly, and slurs cuss after cuss as he tries to stabilise himself and kill the man holding him. Before he can, he is flipped around, and his eyes nearly pop out of his head as he feels fingers like trunks pry apart his cheeks, rougher and smelling of gunpowder.

"Stop it,"

He slurs forcefully, his decisive mind abandoning him as it short-circuits every couple of seconds and confuses Zero for Rido, and vice-versa. Warm, sticky flesh, drying quickly, pauses between his legs and travels up, slithering down the base of his penis, over his testicles, dragging leisurely in the gap between them and his anus before gliding between his buttocks. Teasingly, the man slowly grinds against him, seeming hesitant to enter for a change. He looks back and watches the heterochromatic demon, whose concentration defeats his smug smile. When Kaname attempts to bury his face in the pillow and wait out the inevitable (he can already feel the bastard gearing up to enter) his chin rests on gentle fingers, and he freezes as they delicately lift his face, and the hunter stares down at him, close, naked, eyes soft but determined. Having nearly forgotten the man behind him as he slowly lifts his hand to touch the boy's face, he receives a swift strike to his back before his arms are hastily gathered up and held vehemently behind him. Then, his uncle leans back and clumsily holds his buttocks apart with a free hand, pushing in aggressively. He immediately arches, and he is a child again, face wet with tears and mucus, gripping the pillow as hard as he can as the man starts thrusting more deeply, growing greedy and getting up on his haunches behind him. Kaname is terrified and grunts through his chokes and cries as the rhythm changes, always striking him hard, painfully. Every now and then, the angle or the speed changes, and he sobs more loudly, face red and knotted, until it finally becomes too intense, too dolorous, and he cannot help but scream.

Kind fingers again carry his chin upward, and he stares, eyes clogged by tears, at his naked father, whom he can somehow feel is still Zero. His father looks straight through him and wraps his arms around his huddled, miniscule body, embracing him as he remains planted on Rido's lap, getting perpetually fucked and embraced simultaneously. His father's arms are warm, bare, and then Rido is gone. He is nineteen, now, and much larger than the man holding him. He holds him back, and the body seems delicate, frail. He fears if he pulls away to look at this fragile man, the movements could shatter him, as if his dear father had become ashes again. Unbridled, thoughtless, he pushes forward, little by little, hoping to get him on his back so that he may look, and soon rests on top of him. As he withdraws carefully, the sight is traumatising, but mesmerising.

It is his father, and there is no trace of Zero, as if the boy had never existed. Those warm arms slip away from his back and land defensively on either side of a skinny chest. Kaname sees his father try to rise, and shrinks back, terrified by the image of Haruka, the great peacemaker, made so brittle and translucent. His father attempts to scramble back for fear of his son, not seeming to recognise him, (which may hurt the most) and appearing greatly pained. He holds his stomach and grits his teeth, throwing his head back as he continues to push himself further away. Kaname gets a better look at the rest of him, skin looking ghostly, as if drained of all blood. At the thought, he looks up again and sees a large gash in that white neck, which the man tries to stop up with his hand, every second boring into him with the most contemptuous, distrustful glare. The pain in his midsection finally conquers him, and he nearly collapses, arching his back and trying to screech, but too pained to let out more than strangled, tense sounds. His eyes and mouth are open wide, fingers dodging around, grabbing the bed, then his skin, the gash. As his legs fling about, his son catches a glimpse of the state he's in.

Kaname's mind freezes.

His father is... ravaged. Bloodied. Ripped, torn, mutilated, and inarguably drenched in others' semen.

Rido and Zero had his father as they had he.

The room seems to disappear; he stands, older, a man of about twenty-two, staring at his clothed father, who is held by Rido. The elder sibling keeps his brother's hips close, captive, Haruka looking shell-shocked and blanched. Rido laves his throat and bites down, and by then he starts to fight back. His claws come out, long and curved, but the other man says something as they separate. He stops for a moment, caught off guard. Then he looks angry. Shouting, he takes an offensive stance, infuriated, neck still bleeding.

Kaname is him. He is standing in a conference room, holding his neck, staring down Zero. The furniture is destroyed and somebody bangs on the door, but he keeps shouting. The hunter is taken aback, unaware of how to react. The pureblood's neck is on fire and gunshots line the walls. Empty gun magazines lay near the shattered table, a crowd growing in the foyer, and suddenly, he runs out of things to say. Aidou's yelling in the hall and Kain's hastily-delivered blows upon the door seem to wake him from a stupor.

In front of him is the hunter, trying to calm him down and speak through a wound in his cheek; it's difficult to assess how large it is through the blood flow and the fidgeting hand protecting it. Kaname's head hurts, then shifts to a tightening in his stomach. He inspects it, running his fingers down his side and finding multiple bullet wounds. They begin burning inside of him, feeling like a great pack of hellhounds tearing at his flesh from behind layers of convulsing muscle and snapping tendons, begging to get out and savagely consume the rest of him. Paling, he irrationally fears they might gnaw their way out of his chest cavity and go galloping after his girl. Then Zero's hands are on his shoulders, shaking him. He looks up to find a large, angry gash. Flesh hangs from the hunter's jaw and the brunette's mouth goes dry as he watches teeth clack while the red-eyed boy offers stale apologetic epithets in order to calm him. The bullets continue to fizzle, and his vision grows white. A brief, loud ringing greets him as he slumps into his junior's panicking arms, which struggle to muster the strength to yank him back up before he finally collapses, dragging the boy down with him.

-

There was darkness as he 'woke' from the hallucination with the lingering feeling of fire in his belly, and he wondered frightfully if he could ever be well again. He feared he might become used to this indignation for Yuki's sake: that she would always be asking for more of Zero, and he should therefore sacrifice more of himself for that bastard. He feared that before he could stop this, he might become so accustomed to giving himself to the boy that he would require it, end up craving it and essentially become his intended's whore. The hallucinations weren't done with him, and he felt the simulated soreness, alongside a cold dampness, all over his thighs, back, and stomach. Yuki, his usurer, and Zero and Rido, plunderers of his youth and life, seemed to conspire against whatever he tried to establish for himself.

Abruptly, there was truly nothing but darkness, and a chill which poured down from the window, circling his body indifferently. He'd fallen to the floor, and saw moonlight confined to a thin streak, felt the thick carpet warm his piqued neck. Ringing perforated his ear drums and blasted through his head before settling into a dull, grainy din. He looked around cautiously for a moment, prey-like, before he realised how stupid he was being, and surrendered for a few hours to the silence and emptiness.

And thus, uninterrupted, he slept without fits until the day class bell rung throughout the campus with the absolution of his hand-carved fate.