Inescapable

Part VI

"Our silly Founder won't stay asleep forever, I'm afraid."

. . .

He had grown some, Shizuka privately mused, studying Zero's face. He'd been a boy then, with looks to match. Now he'd physically gained a few years on him in the last couple thousands years she hadn't seen him. She'd felt his arrival long before he made it to her prison cell, but he'd wanted her to feel him coming, he was polite in that, despite himself.

"Have you missed me, Zero?"

There could be any number of reasons tacked onto his visit, none which had any relation to her teasing remark. It did beg the question of why he would make himself known to her. Risking exposure so soon after his hibernation wasn't like him. And 'exposure' was the word, for only a small fraction of the already small number of pureblood vampires knew he was 'free'. There was no need to mention the advantages that came with being able to get out of hibernating for thousands of years without a scratch. Most of the vampires who'd known Zero then were dead and the remaining few that weren't couldn't care less what Zero did with his freedom.

"Shizuka."

The way he called her name suggested he wasn't entirely here for leisure, but it wasn't all business either. And the kiss. She smiled. What nostalgia. Even most purebloods had foregone the tradition, deeming it too impractical when lips or any surface of the face was so much easier to reach. But those who did forego it were ignorant of the actual meaning behind the gesture. Kisses at ones throat as a greeting for a vampire meant trust – to trust another vampire close enough to an openly vulnerable part of their body. For purebloods, the sentiment naturally tended to extend towards family members; and the nobles, who had long since forgotten such tradition, simply misinterpreted it as another 'pureblood quirk shared exclusively for family'.

For Shizuka, allowing the kiss at her throat was a tribute to Zero and her sickeningly long history. Formality tended to take a back seat after knowing each other for thousands of years.

"No. You knew my sire well."

Shizuka snorted. His insensitive bluntness hadn't changed at all. "So nice of you to state the only reason you came to see me was to wax poetic about your Kaname. I knew him, but you know I hated him. He was the most unpleasant of us."

Zero's Kuran Kaname had been the happiest pureblood vampire Shizuka had ever met and probably ever will meet.

What with the 'fate' of most purebloods, Kaname's was an anomaly in comparison. There was never a time she'd seen him without an honest smile. What he could have to smile for so often she'd had no idea. He could rub humans and vampires alike in all the wrong ways without uttering a single word, especially for those who couldn't tell if his pleasant demeanor was feigned or not.

Because while people naturally gravitate towards those who are warm, who spread laughter and kindness, they are also wary of those who are perpetually happy, they start to think it might not be genuine at all.

Shizuka had known it was genuine (everything, everything) and was therefore all the more irritated with him. What right did he have, to be so unremarkable amongst their population, seemingly not a twisted bone in his body? Considering his older brother was just like any one of them, it was a wonder how he turned out the way he did.

Then he met and took in Zero as his child, and she began to see whom he really was. Selfish. Overprotective. Obsessive. Manic. He denied himself nothing and gave away what he wanted, dancing to his own incomprehensible rhythm, caring not a whit for whose toes he might crush or partners he might steal. There was a price others paid for his contentedness.

Even so, Kaname was a hateful little thing. She was sure every person he'd met had entertained the thought of slapping that smile off his face at least once.

Just remembering his expression was making her itch.

"You seem quite fine now, with your little lord. He's kept you busy." Too busy for reminiscence. "You wouldn't gain anything by dredging up the dead." She knew that too well.

Zero's eyes, uncannily similar to her own, turned speculative. "You've lost like I've lost." He suddenly murmured. His insight hadn't changed either, nor the timing of it.

"Haruhiko." She offered absently. The first human she had turned and loved. And lost. The rest after him, like the one idling away at the corner of her cell this very moment, were just there to fill the boredom.

Zero repeated the name after her, testing its sounds, its meaning, its depth, before giving her a look of such utter understanding, she wanted to claw his face off.

"And you," she asked, "What is it like, having to call your little lord by your sire's name?" She wouldn't be able to stand having to use Haruhiko's name on someone else. Haruhiko was Haruhiko. Though granted, little Kaname, aside from the shade of his hair and eyes, shared very few traits, physical or otherwise, with Zero's sire, who's charm came mostly from boyish handsomeness and infuriating self-indulgence rather than the delicate china doll looks little Kaname was saddled with.

"He isn't the same Kaname."

Quick to answer, but his voice was firm.

"Do you love him as you did your Kaname?" Obviously not, but she asked anyway. No one quite measured up the way Zero's sire did.

When he fell silent, she smiled. Finally, some hesitation. It'd do him well to be less certain.

He actually looked conflicted, how cute. "Regardless, isn't he a lucky little lord, with you as his knight." She cupped his cheek. "Would a child know how to use you?"

His eyes flashed red. "He isn't a child." He mildly scolded.

Ah. "You know about that, then." The empty coffin of the Founder sitting at the bottom of Kuran manor; empty for neigh on ten years. "Your little lord is nine." Almost ten. A surprising number of vampires couldn't tell little Kaname for who he really was. "Did you find out how?"

"...Rido."

"Yes, the only vampire your Kaname actively disliked." Shizuka said dryly.

There had seemingly been no explanation for Kaname's…rejection of Rido when he so adored Haruka and Juri until it was, as the stories say, too late. Most had (foolishly) attributed it to Haruka's far sweeter nature. Funny, how whimsy frivolous Kaname had seen everything (Rido, Haruka, Juri, the council, the hunters, the useless nobles) while people around him carried on like idiot drones. Kaname had prepared. Not for potentiality, but for inevitability.

"How do you think I ended up here?"

Zero looked around her prison for the first time since entering it. Sweeping his attention from side to side, up to down, it was a careless gesture. She didn't react when his eyes went right over the level D slouched in the corner, as though it didn't exist. Its presence didn't register as a sentient being. It might as well be an inanimate object to him. He was simply acting on what Kaname had taught him, but it still made her itch to see it.

Level D vampires... She inwardly sighed bitterly. She was perhaps just biased. Haruhiko was a level D, one she created, and she loved him. But he had no choice but to love her. Kaname, Zero's Kaname, had ignored the existence of level D vampires out of pity and disdain. Not human and not vampire, what were they really? He had said once. Unable to survive without a master, was that a life at all? As someone who naturally took the lead in any situation given to him, the idea of being lead around by the nose like some tamed animal must have been appalling.

"Shizuka, they don't turn into mad, savage beasts and die because they enjoy it. As it is with many of the things we Make, They are not meant to Be. It's why turning humans against their Will is forbidden."

He should have made himself out to be a liar by turning Zero, but he differed even in that. Zero wasn't a level D, wasn't going to go mad and die, was 'meant to Be' she quoted wryly (Kuran were prone to dramatics), and would carry on his legacy as an actual child of his blood.

And Zero had never been human, in the truest sense. Raised by a pureblood vampire, so distanced from mortal civilization, Zero had never counted himself as human. He referred to them as a separate species before and after he was turned. The amount of blood he continued to receive from Kaname as he'd grown could be another factor, but by the time vampire society was aware of Kaname's childe, turned or not, Zero couldn't be considered 'human'.

Everyone had felt it the instant they saw him. He was Kaname's. Zero must have consumed enough of Kaname's blood it'd saturated his body, every fiber of it, every cell, most had trouble discerning one from the other if not for their appearance. She hadn't even thought of how or why Zero's body was so receptive to Kaname's blood until Kaname had told her of Zero's origins in passing (all the while licking a ridiculous lollipop).

"Kaname needs him to go."

Shizuka started to smile, then stopped and stared. "Whom are you talking about?" She was surprised she needed to ask. She couldn't tell which Kaname Zero was referring to, and she was alarmed at how unsettled that made her.

"Does it matter?"

Did it? "...He still needs to go." She agreed. And that was what brought him here. He needed someone else to push the pieces he was forced to stay away from. "I won't be working for you." It was best to get that out of the way. Things with Zero went smoother if she repaid his honesty with bluntness herself. She wanted Rido gone, but she would get rid of him on her own time, on her terms, without any interference or others motives she couldn't care less for.

"What are you willing to take?"

She smirked and traced the line of his throat with her fingertip with all the subtlety of a rampaging bull.

Zero merely unbuttoned his shirt.

"Your Kaname would have pitched a fit." Zero's sire wouldn't stand for Zero giving or taking blood to and from someone else. Not while he was alive. As far as she knew, only little Kaname was given the privilege.

"I'll take whatever Kaname offers in his place." Zero said noncommittally. She vaguely wondered where his fearless stubbornness came from. After seeing the results of his sire's temper, there weren't a lot that could top his level of destruction, but little Kaname wasn't any less docile. He would know the moment he saw Zero's neck, and the last thing he was going to do was clap in congratulations.

"You do know your little lord is quite the sadist?" Shizuka chuckled before sinking her fangs in.

. . .

Kaname nearly kicked his uninvited bedmate off the bed when he woke to a face full of pale hair. He quickly pulled back and sat up, blinking.

"Zero-san?"

Curled atop his covers like a defensive child, Zero-san slept blissfully away.

"Zero-san..." He sighed. "Please wake up." It wouldn't do to have anyone find out he had another pureblood vampire in his rooms. Sleeping in his bed. With him in it.

When Zero-san refused to stir, he placed his hand at his arm and gently shook him, calling his name again.

What had brought him here, Kaname inwardly frowned. Zero-san usually left it to his extensions to announce his presence, to let Kaname know he was there. It was dangerous for him to come to Ichijou's manor in his original form, much less in person. And he could sense this was Zero-san himself, not an extended part of him.

"Zero-san."

"Nn...?" A sleepy grunt was better than nothing.

"Why are you here?"

Zero-san blinked slowly, like he'd suddenly forgotten how to lift his eyelids, and stared up at him for some time before sighing. "Uh. Little Kaname." There was no mistaking his disappointment.

It wasn't a reaction Kaname was willing to stand for after getting half of his bed hijacked without his permission. He smiled stiffly and repeated his question.

"I wanted to see Kaname."

...How sweet. Why was he not ringing the life out of this ball of irritation yet? It wasn't as though Zero-san would stay 'dead' for long. Perhaps a few minutes, if that, for him to spring back up good as new.

If a certain amount of his anger came from Zero-san expecting to see another Kuran Kaname as he woke, it was a small, near nonexistent percentage.

What did concern him was the likelihood of Zero-san seeing him as a second sire figure or even worse, as his sire himself.

"I'm not your sire, Zero-san," he barely kept from biting out.

The look he got was bemused.

"Please don't ever assume I can fill the role of your sire."

Zero-san's eyes widened before his lips pursed and twitched and he finally let out a soft snort.

Kaname's brows furrowed. "What?"

"I wouldn't insult my sire by replacing him with anyone, much less with you. You're barely suited to." Tugging him back down by the arm, Zero-san nudged Kaname's chin up with his nose and pressed a kiss to his throat.

"Kaname," he said quietly, "you'll always come second, and whatever priority I take to you, I'll never come first, either." Kaname felt Zero-san's head shift as well as the flutter of his eyelashes against his neck as he closed his eyes. "My sire is someone who gave me everything he owned. Promised them to me. He is to me what you are to Kuran Yuuki." His tone seemed to shrug. "It's impossible to see you as anything resembling my sire."

Kaname swallowed, recalling what Yuuki had said to him once regarding Artemis.

"He's the same as me."

Leaning back, Kaname allowed for a sharp glare. "You have no way of knowing how I would prioritize you. What if you do come first?" Never mind he had no intention of that happening. No one would come before Yuuki.

Zero-san smiled, small and quick. "You don't have to feel guilty. I'd like another biscuit."

Kaname's expression immediately blanked before turning flat. Biscuits? "I haven't any."

But apparently, he did now. Zero-san pointed to the plastic bag on his nightstand. Inside it was (of course, what else should it be) a container of cookies.

"...You sometimes make very little sense, I hope you realize."

"You know how I like them."

Unfortunately.

"Might I ask is this an acquired taste?" Kaname sat up to retrieve the container and opened it, inspecting the assortment of cookies. Deciding to go with white chocolate and almonds, he swiftly bit into his finger.

They had known each other long enough Kaname felt safe for some gentle prying. Zero-san could be rather open when it came to discussing his past or his sire depending on the subject. It was hard to completely withhold talking about a loved one, whether they were gone or not. Dead or alive, talking about them brought a measure of joy that was unlike anything else. And Zero-san adored his sire, he probably wasn't aware of just how often he tended to mention little details about his time with him. Kaname tried not to find that endearing.

It took Zero-san considerable time to murmur, "I can't eat without it."

He sounded sullen, as though it were an unwanted habit he couldn't quit. Intrigued, Kaname handed him the cookie. "How did your sire deal with your peculiarity?"

Zero-san scowled. "He's the one who got me used to it." He turned the cookie around in his hand. "He gave me his blood with my food. When I tried to eat without it..." He shrugged his left shoulder.

"...If that was what he wanted for you, the blood you consumed would have changed your...constitution to meet his desires." It was his blood, after all.

Nodding, Zero-san bit into the cookie with a light hum.

Kaname decided to take advantage of Zero-san's forthcoming mood to get more answers to long since unvoiced questions. "The first time you tasted my blood, you were surprised."

Turning on his back to look up at Kaname, Zero-san finished chewing before licking his lips clean and replied, "I didn't know you had someone you loved as much you did. You tasted like my sire. The familiarity was comforting."

So that was how he knew about 'priorities'. Just as Zero-san would think of his sire first, he knew Kaname would always think of Yuuki.

Then Zero-san casually turned his head away to gaze absently at the window, attention probably straying to the snowflakes outside, exposing the right side of his throat. Kaname froze.

"Where have you been."

Zero-san continued chewing on his cookie.

Kaname, holding in a sigh, reached out to place his fingers at a specific spot. There was nothing outwardly wrong with Zero-san's neck, the skin was smooth, unblemished, not a mark left, but he still felt it.

"With whom have you been?"

There was the slightest interruption in the rhythmic movement of his jaw before Zero-san said, "Shizuka." He turned back to look at Kaname. "She kept it gentle."

Hiou Shizuka.

Kaname's small hand came to wrap loosely around Zero-san's neck. He could only cover so much surface area, of course, and he wished, briefly, he weren't so physically young. His thumb rubbed deliberate circles on where twin puncture marks would have been had they not healed over.

Hiou Shizuka.

"She said you'd be angry…" Zero-san added; daring to look dumbfounded at the accuracy of her deductions, his pale eyes fractionally wider.

"Why would she lie?"

"…You are?" He did nothing to dislodge Kaname's hand from his throat.

"Don't be obtuse," Kaname snapped. "Do you go about offering your neck to whoever is interested?" Had he no sense of self-preservation? Was he still looking to waste his life?

"Shizuka is different."

Different is she?

Kaname's face must have spoken his thoughts for him; Zero-san lowered his eyes, petulant and contrite. Or he made a perfection imitation of it. He wasn't going to deny he'd let her take his blood, but he wasn't sorry about it.

The temperature in the room literally lowered a few degrees. Zero-san looked back up at him steadily.

"If your sire was anything like how I imagine him to be, he wouldn't have allowed for this."

Zero-san shook his head.

"I have difficulties understanding why you think I would."

Zero-san smiled. "What's my punishment to be?"

"Nothing if you're to enjoy whatever I assign you." How had his sire kept him in line?

Taking the last bite of his spiced treat, Zero-san swallowed it down, Kaname feeling the movement under his hand. He ran his fingertips down the side of Zero-san's white neck, the side untainted by Shizuka's fangs. He could see the blood pumping underneath his skin, hear it running in his veins.

"Are you forcing me into marking where you're not to be touched?" He intoned.

Zero-san hardly seemed to mind the threat. "Don't make it dull. No orchids."

Kaname paused and then smiled. "You've taken a liking to the sparrow I sent you." Zero-san obviously didn't mind having more reminders of Kaname placed on his person, he would hardly see any mark from Kaname as the show of ownership it was intended to be. He didn't have to keep the sparrow with him, but there it still was, nestled on the curve of his ear, its onyx color unchanged, standing out starkly against the pale strands of his hair.

"…It's yours." Zero-san said simply.

Because it was his.

Kaname closed his eyes and covered the left side of Zero-san's neck with his palm.

"No roses either."

He laughed softly. "You've found me out."

When he lifted his hand, Zero-san frowned. "Feels like an eight-petal flower." His tone implied just what he thought of flowers being anywhere on his body.

"You have an affinity for birds." Kaname murmured. "Fragile freedom." Wings. Protection. Choice. What Zero-san's sire had cultivated in him.

Curled in a circular form, the silhouette of a stylized bird kept vigilance over what Kaname couldn't. He hadn't mapped out how large the mark would be, but it nearly reached Zero-san's collarbone. Its pale lilac color, a deliberate, if faint resemblance to Zero-san's eyes, worked to mostly blend in with his skin.

"He'll have sharp feathers waiting to spread for whoever invites themselves to your neck." Kaname said, tracing the mark with his fingers.

Zero-san cupped the back of his head to pull him down for another kiss at his throat.

There were times Kaname wondered if there were any deeper meaning behind Zero-san's every kiss, and this was one of them. It was easy to discern whether one was out of gratitude, greeting, or farewell, but these, spontaneous and unhurried, left him uncertain. Zero-san couldn't be thanking him for the mark, it was completely unnecessary, and no pureblood would thank another for a mark so blatantly blazing with ownership. Kaname was dangerously possessive, but Zero-san no doubt was well aware of that. There had been no resistance from him, surprise or hesitance, just acceptance of terms in order to sate Kaname's tempestuous inner vampire.

He had also initially assumed Zero-san wasn't tactile – he was reserved and he only spoke when spoken to. But the kisses, those were frequent and naturally given, as though in place of tight hugs, loud laughter, and warm exclamations of affection. Having observed Takuma and Yuuki's doves and the way Zero-san himself interacted with Takuma on the few chances he had had the opportunity, Zero-san had several extremes when regarding another person. They were friend, no friend, or an enemy. Adoration, indifference, and open hostility.

"I can hear you thinking." Zero-san brushed stray locks out of Kaname's eyes, the back of his fingers tickling his cheek as he tucked them behind his ear. "It's annoyingly loud."

Kaname let out a breath that was half amused, half exasperated. "Is that your way of showing concern?"

"Yes." Zero-san pressed the pad of his thumb between Kaname's brows. "Whatever you're second-guessing, there's no need."

Kaname felt something in him soften even if Zero-san was offering reassurances on something he had no idea about. "…Thank you."

"Mm." Zero-san murmured before settling further into the bed, nuzzling the pillow he'd shared with Kaname as he closed his eyes.

Kaname blinked and opened his mouth before closing it, waving his hand at his door to place a generic ward that would alert him if anyone came near. It was seldom he had the chance to see Zero-san asleep, so close.

. . .

O.M.A.K.E.

More than used to waking to Zero-san's dove and its affectionate hair picking, Kaname let it be while he oriented himself from sleep. When the dove landed back on his chest, he absently ran a hand down its back, giving it a distracted smile.

"He does that every morning?" Voice heavy with sleep, Zero-san frowned at his extension.

"Yes." Kaname answered amusedly.

Zero-san's frown deepened. He reached over and poked the bird in its side, enough to make it toddle a few steps. The bird paid him no heed, settling back down as though it was right where it belonged. "Hey," Zero-san said softly. "I never told you to bother him like that. Every morning."

Kaname chuckled quietly. "It's fine."

The bird spared Zero-san a glance before going back to staring at Kaname. Zero-san scowled. "No you're not." He muttered.

"You have arguments with your extensions?" How mad was that?

"He's being an idiot."

"He's perfectly pleasant."

The dove preened.

Zero-san tried to poke it again, but the dove cooed and flew off, most likely back to Takuma.

"What was it telling you?"

"Lies."

Kaname huffed a laugh. "I don't think so."

"He said he was only doing what I would if I were actually here."

Kaname blinked then smiled. "If your extension says so, it must be true."

Zero-san leveled a disgruntled, but no less intense stare at him before averting his eyes, looking disconcerted. His lips tightened and he determinedly turned back, pushing himself up to lean over and press a kiss to Kaname's throat.

"Maybe."

. . .

Think that's it for now, thanks for reading guys! :D