Chapter Text
Zero has grown used to waking to darkness.
His eyes are better for the dark than they were before that woman changed him, but there's almost no light at all in the cellar he's been locked in for the past several weeks. At least, he thinks it's been weeks. He hasn't been able to measure time properly since...
Zero shakes his head, rattling the chains that lock his wrists to the wall above his head. He doesn't want to think about it. Not again. He's relived it too many times since he first woke in this cellar. The darkness and lonelieness lend themselves to reflection far too easily. Reflection on what he was going to become-
The hunger makes it hard to stop his thoughts from wandering to the dark places he doesn't want to look at again, but the only kind of food he's offered is something he doesn't want, will never want. He'll never be a monster like...like...
His parents thrown aside like nothing, like toys, and silvery hair almost the same shade as his own falling past his face as pain explodes through his neck and he screams...
Zero shakes his head, closing his eyes and trying to calm his breathing. The bite was already gone, already healed, without leaving so much as a scar. He wishes it was still there, on his neck, because the pain of it would be better than what it's abscence means. Better than becoming like them.
Once he's calmed a bit, he opens his eyes. It barely makes a difference to how much he can see, there's still only the dim glow from beneath the door he couldn't reach. He'd tried, of course, tried and tried and tried, but all he managed to accomplish was scrapping his wrists raw against the manacles. He shouldn't have been surprised. That woman was ancient and powerful, and Ichiru...
Zero shakes his head, refusing to think of his twin. There weren't a lot of things he wanted to think about. Even the escape he was detirmined to make would mean leaving the last of his family behind...
"They're dead." The woman had practically crooned the words against his neck. It had shocked him into stillness, his flailing limbs going ridgid as his mind blanked because they couldn't be, not his parents, not-
Fangs had sunk into his neck, and then there had been nothing but burning...
Too many flashbacks. Too many memories. Nothing to chase them away in the darkness.
He'd tried screaming at first. To make someone hear, to make them let him go, just so he wouldn't break in the oppressive stillness of the room...It had dried his throat until he choked on air and could barely croak out the simplest of words.
The drink he'd been given to soothe his pain made him sick. The thick, red fluid had smelled so deliciously sweet...But he'd forced himself to turn away, even as his throat throbbed. He didn't know where they had gotten it, and he didn't want to, but he wasn't going to drink blood like a monster.
Like her.
He remembered the first time he'd seen her, standing like an otherworldy creature beneath a cherry tree bursting with pink buds despite the cold.
He remembered the second time, staring up at her from the ground as darkness clouded his vision and blood gushed from his neck and his parents screamed.
He remembered the last time, her powerful voice whispering words of comfort against his skin, his own body too weak with hunger and bloodloss to retaliate.
Her visits were always full of pain and false kindness. But they were still better than Ichiru's.
Staring up at his younger brother, silently telling him to run, to flee this monster that had invaded their home. Ichiru's eyes softening as he smiles and kneels in front of Zero, brushing hair from his face and murmuring that it would all be alright even as he was begged to leave them and just go.
Zero rattles his chains, the noise of clanking metal freeing him from the memory. He hadn't understood then. Hadn't realized what Ichiru had done. Had thought his younger brother in shock, vulnerable, in neeed of protection...
How very wrong he'd been.
His mother's scream, high and shrill, and the crash of something breaking. He couldn't be sure what. He could barely see Ichiru anymore, but his brother's hand still stroked his face, and Zero thought that a faint smile played on the youngest Kiryu's lips
A loose board in the hallway creaks and Zero's head snaps up, watching the door. He's pretty sure they hit that board on purpose, so he'll know they're coming, although why they bother giving him that much warning he isn't sure. He prays that it will be Shizuka. Prays she's come to take his blood and offer hers. To throw another bleeding human at his feet. To offer another sip from a suspiciously opaque container. Or, even better, that it's a hunter come to save him from the darkness and pain. To put him down like the monster he knows he'll become. Anything.
He knows, of course, even before the creaking door swings open that it is none of those things. He knows Ichiru's scent too well to mistake it for another person's. Knows the lightness of his step and the feeling of his prescence.
His younger brother smiles at him, innocent and sweet, crossing to where he's chained to the floor and straddling his legs. Zero doesn't move. Shizuka he fights with all his might, but he won't hurt Ichiru, can't hurt Ichiru who's so vulnerable and prescious and dear to him.
Ichiru presses a chaste kiss to Zero's forehead. "How have you been, big brother?" Zero doesn't meet his eyes, doesn't respond at all, so Ichiru moves lower, kissing his nose. "Are you hungry?" Zero keeps his eyes averted, even though his stomach practically growls at him. Ichiru seems unperturbed, which is to be expected. They've done this many times now, and Zero doesn't flinch away like he used to when Ichiru presses their lips together.
He has no right to deny Ichiru anything. Not after failing him so badly.
Ichiru hums softly and gently runs a hand over Zero's bare chest "Your shirt just gets in the way, Zero." and breaks the kiss, moving instead to lick Zero's neck. "May I?"
Zero just nods, not trusting himself to speak. He feels the lightest prick of pain and then hears the strange sucking noise that goes along with drinking blood. His own fangs elongate at the scent of his own blood and he shudders. He does not want to be this creature, this monster, but he can't go back to what he was. Shizuka killed him as surely as his parents.
Ichiru finishes quickly. He never takes much, just enough to sate himself. Zero wishes he would take more, punish his older brother for failing, delay the next part that they both know will come...
The white shirt Ichiru had been wearing flutters to the ground as he tosses it aside, bearing his neck to Zero. He doesn't wait to see if Zero will break his skin first, instead digging a nail in until blood begins to flow.
Zero's tongue laps at the spilling blood and some part of him savors the flavor of his twin, his other half, his everything. Most of him is horrified, but the deeply buried vampiric instincts awaken and he jerks forwards, sinking his fangs into Ichiru's neck. His brother lets out a soft sigh, nearly collapsing against him as he begins to drain the blood that sustains him.
It is an eternity before Zero can bring himself to tear away, but at the same time it seems to pass in only an instant. Ichiru stands on unsteady legs, picking up his shirt before turning to leave.
"I'm sorry." Zero murmurs, his brother's blood still trickling down his chin.
"I know."
Ichiru leaves and Zero is once again left in darkness. For now, at least.
Zero always hopes for Shizuka. With Shizuka he can scream and cry and curse her name, do his best to kick and hit and knock her off of him. He can be angry at Shizuka.
He cannot be angry at Ichiru, at the younger brother he failed to save. He cannot harm the frail boy he's spent so many years watching over, protecting, loving.
Shizuka is easy. She forces him and he fights her every inch of the way.
But he has never been able to deny Ichiru anything.