Disclaimer: Vampire Knight and all related characters, titles, and materials belong to Matsuri Hino. Not to me. I can not draw that well. Damn it all.

Awakening

"Zero-kun is hooooome!"

Yuuki Cross-Kuran glanced up from her calculus text just in time to see Chairman Cross glide behind her in his usual ecstatic manner. Right on cue, an insistent knock sounded from the entrance, and Yuuki's heart rose into her throat.

He's home.

It had been a good eight months since they had last seen each other, and Yuuki's palms sweated profusely as she stood to follow her adopted father. Mingled voices floated from the front door to chime in her ears. God, this was it. Zero was finally home.

Her heart slamming against her chest, she passed through the arch into the front, and there he was, towering a good foot above the chairman, as beautiful as she remembered. He exuded his typical air of tough kindness, a heavy shell that, once broken, revealed a heart as pure as the midnight sun. Tears filled her eyes as she watched his face transform at the sight of her, and she approached him slowly, feeling her cheeks go hot as they filled with blood.

"I've missed you, Zero." God, the pain has been awful. You don't even know…

In truth, Zero's heart hadn't completely been at ease, either. He had started college in the summer semester, and for the whole eight months he'd been away—unable to return for even one night—every minute she had not been with him had tormented him and ripped at his heart, and now that he was finally back, he was afraid of how he would handle his love for her. He was positive the distance had only made it grow exponentially—what if it got out of hand?

Despite his fears, he gazed into her rosy brown eyes for a moment and pulled her forcefully into his arms. Her body was warm and soft, and feeling it against his made him float into the heavens. "My God, Yuuki, I missed you too."

Embarrassed and overjoyed, Yuuki slid her arms around him slowly, wondering if this tension between them was what she hoped it was.

She hadn't even realized her feelings for him until he'd left for college. She'd broken up with Kaname not because she knew the person she really loved was Zero, but because their relationship simply wasn't what it had been anymore. So much had changed since she had become a vampire and realized Kaname was her brother, and although she still loved him more dearly than her own life, she just didn't feel the attraction anymore. She had dreaded his response to the break-up; she'd known how much he loved her and how long he'd waited for her, and it killed her to see him suffer so. But she was miserable, and secretly, she knew of another young woman who would love Kaname in every way she didn't. In every way she couldn't. She'd told him, but had given no more information than that the woman was in the night class with him.

No, the awakening of her feelings for Zero had occurred in response to his leaving; to him always being by her side for five years, and then suddenly disappearing for months at a time. She had missed him so dreadfully, and had always looked at the picture of the two of them on their first day of high school, and then one day she'd kissed it without thinking first, and that was when she knew.

That was when she knew they belonged together.

They held each other close for a long time, for what may have been an eternity, had the chairman not sung out about how he had just enough tea left for them to have a late-night catch-up before they turned in.

Chairman Cross skipped off to the kitchen to start the teawater. Zero glanced at Yuuki's calculus text lying open on the old rolltop desk in the corner and smirked.

"What's the great Kuran Yuuki doing studying over winter break?" he teased.

"Shut up, Zero." He knew perfectly well finals were in January. "Come on, sit down, you must be exhausted."

He shrugged a little and sat on the couch next to her. She smiled shyly and scooted her hand across the cushion to find his. He didn't utter a word of protest, even when she laced their fingers. After a few moments he slipped his hand away, slid his arm across her shoulders, and pulled her close into his side.

"Okay! Tea is brewing!" Cross sailed into the room and plopped into the armchair across the coffee table. "So, Zero-kun, how have things been going at school? We want to hear all about it!"

Even after the war, Zero was a man of few words when it came to people other than Yuuki, and most of the conversation consisted of Cross interrogating him about college and him giving short, concise answers—or no answers at all. Yuuki ignored the "conversation," if you could call it that, instead choosing to close her eyes and drown herself in Zero's delicious scent. Blood mingled with the natural aroma of his body…she'd never gotten over that. Her eyelids didn't flutter until her tea was placed in front of her, at which point she sat up quickly and sipped the tea nervously.

The second Spanish Inquisition continued for another ten minutes, during which time Yuuki alternated between staring at Zero's profile and the sparkles on the ceiling. How had those sparkles gotten there, anyway? Were they mixed in with the plaster, or were they glued on later? And why glitter? She'd never seen it in any other building.

Yuuki was about halfway though her tea when her skin detected strained vibes from her right. Concerned, she glanced at Zero nervously. He was more rigid than an ice sculpture; his hands were trembling; she recognized the painful glint in his eyes. She knew the problem immediately, and threw the rest of her tea down her throat in one huge gulp.

"Um, Chairman? Could you get me some more tea, please?"

Chairman Cross paused for a moment, glanced down at his cup. "That was the last tea bag," he said. "I could run down to the store real fast—"

"Oh, n-no—" Yuuki stammered, "That's really okay!" She would find another way to do this, to get a moment alone with Zero…

"Oh, no, this is one of Zero-kun's few times back! We should make the most of it—I'll go get some more tea." He leapt off the couch, shrugged on his coat, and dashed—"Be back sooooon!"—into the cold February evening.

Yuuki glanced at Zero nervously. "Do you…do you want to do it upstairs?"

Zero started. "What?"

"Come on, Zero, don't play with me. I know that you need it, and I want to give it to you."

Zero looked at his fists, clenched tightly on his knees. He really didn't want to do this.

"You need a friend who doesn't attack you every time he feels a little bloodlust," he growled.

"What I need is a friend who isn't suffering for me," Yuuki snapped, reaching over to take his hand. "Let's go. We should seek some privacy because he could be home before we're finished."

Zero sighed and stood with her. She led him upstairs and into the guest room where Zero was to stay. She pulled her hesitant friend onto the bed with her and let him take her into his arms. But instead of lowering his mouth to her neck, he held her hands gently, his thumbs massaging her palms.

"Are you sure about this, Yuuki?" Since his union with Ichiru before the war, Zero's bloodlust never spun out of control, and he could easily manage his drinking. This was something he could leave up to Yuuki now; no longer was it a life-or-death situation for him. Not unless he starved himself for too long.

"Y-yes, Zero. I like it when you drink my blood. It's…it's…" Stimulating. Tantalizing. Astounding. To feel her blood drawn into his mouth. To know she was becoming a part of him. A union. Perhaps the most beautiful union in the history of humanity.

Except for that one other thing…

She gasped as he put his lips to her throat. A singe of fear shot through her system; it had been so long since they had done this. What if the pain was worse than she remembered?

She almost let out a whimper, but Zero's soft, warm tongue slid gently over her skin, silencing her and forcing her body to convulse in an erotic shiver. With a tiny gasp at the slight sting of his fangs sinking into her flesh, she relaxed and let the soothing tingles wash through her body as he began to draw blood from her throat. As he fed more and more, a small thirst pricked the back of her throat, and it grew and grew until she could no longer tolerate it; the heat of his pulse radiating from his skin tortured her, and he gasped in pain as she bit into his neck a bit too hard.

Horrified that she'd hurt him, she forced her throbbing mouth away from the delicious fluid. "Oh Zero! I'm sorry…"

Of course, he thought. How could I forget she needs blood too?

"No, it's fine," he groaned. "Go ahead."

The feeling of her lips on his throat tormented his lust; letting rationality flee his mind, he drew his mouth from her neck, slowly pushed her down onto the bed, and let her wrap her arms tightly around his midsection. Could it be that she harbored the same secret feelings for him as he did her? He had felt strongly about her for six years now, and not knowing her feelings for him had slowly been pushing him toward the edge of his emotional ship's deck. In a last-ditch attempt to keep from crashing into an ocean of torment, he found her mouth and vigorously sought the truth.

For a moment, Yuuki was rigid, but the shock quickly passed and his passionate kiss made her body fall limp, give all control over to the man she loved more than anything in the world. All of her muscles liquefied and her eyes slid closed as his forceful yet kind lips touched her mouth and her cheeks and her jaw, her neck and her collarbone and the hollow of her throat. It was something he had been wanting to do since he'd met her, take her in his arms and cover her innocent body with love and make her his and only his, so that they belonged to no one but each other…

And now she was kissing him back. Her lips folded to match the steady dance of his, and his heart skipped a beat once, twice, three times.

Yuuki loved him too.

As his lips returned to the bite on her neck, his hands slipped under her shirt and caressed the tender skin on her back. Having lost herself, she managed to force her hand between their bodies and undo the first two buttons on her blouse, hoping against hope he would take the hint and follow up.

And, realizing with a jolt what she wanted and how much he wanted it too, he did. He slipped her shirt off and touched her affectionately, and God, she was by far the most beautiful thing in his world. He no longer knew what he was doing, and he no longer needed to—all he knew was a love pent up far too long exploding between them, and all the words that had wanted to be said, that had needed to be said over the years, finally coming out in the most passionate act that could happen between two people.

It wasn't like a one-night thing; although they'd never truly professed, they had been passionately and irrevocably in love for seven years—the moment they'd met, they were destined to each other. This was only a natural step, a footfall in a relationship that had grown monumentally intense as they'd confided secrets, shared blood, and protected each other at self-expense. Still, never in a million years would he have guessed that this is how it would all come together—and neither would she.

"Yuuki…" he whispered as he licked the blood trailing over her collarbone.

"Oh, Zero…" she sighed. Every line has been blurred. Nothing makes sense anymore.

Nothing but this.

The act itself wasn't something either of them really thought about; they just knew it was happening and that it felt so good, so right. Savoring every moment and grabbing desperately for more, they made it last until it couldn't possibly live any longer. And in the end, when it was all over and everything had calmed down, she, no longer the young virgin for whom he had so desperately pined, fell asleep in his arms, and the two of them spent the night enjoying the short time they had to each other.

--

Yaaay YuukixZero makes my heart soar.

So there's chapter one. This fic won't be short, but it isn't going to be unbearably long, either, because I don't want to risk abandoning it for other stories I'm working on. Hope you liked it ;) I'll try to get a new chapter up at least every week, and more frequently, if I can.