[96. Ravenous time - "The Morning After The Dark"]
SDV's Obsession. Surprisingly, I am able to churn these out in a vaguely chronological manner! As always, for Ly-chan (dog_and_wolf), for all your hard work with SWV. :'D
Because, if anything, it was his brother’s blood that he tasted first, thus, it would always be the only one which would soothe him.
--
Yukina wakes from his slumber in degrees and increments of awareness-the stitch in his chest has gone, healed over, and breathing is no longer a mildly irritating chore; the tips of his fingers have a pulse, steady and content, in a way that would feel wrong to him when he finally realizes why; on the whole, he can pinpoint nothing that aches or throbs, and he wonders if this was how death was.
(But he’d seen others die and whatever they die from, the act itself always looked violent.)
There is a lingering taste on his tongue. It is bitter, like the taste of brass, and if he licked his lips, the taste is still there. The surprising thing is this: he likes it. Vaguely, he feels the thrum of his veins, as if in anticipation.
He can smell it in the air, he realizes next. It smells like-
(With the snap like a puzzle piece being pressed resolutely into place, completing the image of a sheer, scarlet plane-)
-blood.
And when Yukina opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is his brother’s pale, drawn face.
His skin was cold (under his fingertips), clammy (under his lips), and bloodless.
--
The first words he says to Tsumori, several silent, sneaking hours later, are: “How could you do this to me?”
The question makes no sense. Tsumori’s neck bleeds from two different pairs of puncture wounds, he bandages them himself and pulls on a clean turtle neck that hides but half of them, so he combs his hair decisively to that one side, hoping, perhaps, that no one would question his perversities.
Yukina does not give him the chance to explain, his vision of his perfect older brother, the only person he would die for without complaint (with one complaint, more likely: Will he be alright without me?), is shattered like the stained glass window of a cathedral upon which vampires had fallen.
(It is a matter of aesthetics, he has argued before, they didn’t ruin the northern windows, but everyone still thought that St. John and St. Mark were interchangeable and Yukina feels odd defending a religion that wasn’t his, so he chalks it up to aesthetics, and besides, he replaced them beautifully, anyway.)
But still the question makes no sense. He asks him, vehemently, betrayed and confused and a monster, why. And every time Tsumori opens his mouth to speak, Yukina fashions delusions of reasons, the one which always sets him off being ‘I was tired of you, and I wanted you to die’.
Anything was possible now, he thought, his lips pressed thinly together, as if anyone could see his fangs. Anything was possible when you were a monster made by your own brother.
And the last words he says to Tsumori, before pulling his turtle neck down and ripping the bandages off, exposing the barely-healed wounds, are: “You are no longer my brother.”
But, oh, his blood-
(This is mine, only mine, this is the price you pay for taking my life)
“Go on, Yuki.”
(It is the most exquisite payment)
--
Yukina is always hungry now, but he is only free to feed from Tsumori when the sun goes down, when the bleeding horizon allows his ravenous desires the freedom to run wild-for a time.
Because, if anything, it was his brother’s blood that he tasted first, thus, it would always be the only one which would soothe him.
--
Yukina wakes from his slumber in degrees and increments of awareness-the stitch in his chest has gone, healed over, and breathing is no longer a mildly irritating chore; the tips of his fingers have a pulse, steady and content, in a way that would feel wrong to him when he finally realizes why; on the whole, he can pinpoint nothing that aches or throbs, and he wonders if this was how death was.
(But he’d seen others die and whatever they die from, the act itself always looked violent.)
There is a lingering taste on his tongue. It is bitter, like the taste of brass, and if he licked his lips, the taste is still there. The surprising thing is this: he likes it. Vaguely, he feels the thrum of his veins, as if in anticipation.
He can smell it in the air, he realizes next. It smells like-
(With the snap like a puzzle piece being pressed resolutely into place, completing the image of a sheer, scarlet plane-)
-blood.
And when Yukina opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is his brother’s pale, drawn face.
His skin was cold (under his fingertips), clammy (under his lips), and bloodless.
--
The first words he says to Tsumori, several silent, sneaking hours later, are: “How could you do this to me?”
The question makes no sense. Tsumori’s neck bleeds from two different pairs of puncture wounds, he bandages them himself and pulls on a clean turtle neck that hides but half of them, so he combs his hair decisively to that one side, hoping, perhaps, that no one would question his perversities.
Yukina does not give him the chance to explain, his vision of his perfect older brother, the only person he would die for without complaint (with one complaint, more likely: Will he be alright without me?), is shattered like the stained glass window of a cathedral upon which vampires had fallen.
(It is a matter of aesthetics, he has argued before, they didn’t ruin the northern windows, but everyone still thought that St. John and St. Mark were interchangeable and Yukina feels odd defending a religion that wasn’t his, so he chalks it up to aesthetics, and besides, he replaced them beautifully, anyway.)
But still the question makes no sense. He asks him, vehemently, betrayed and confused and a monster, why. And every time Tsumori opens his mouth to speak, Yukina fashions delusions of reasons, the one which always sets him off being ‘I was tired of you, and I wanted you to die’.
Anything was possible now, he thought, his lips pressed thinly together, as if anyone could see his fangs. Anything was possible when you were a monster made by your own brother.
And the last words he says to Tsumori, before pulling his turtle neck down and ripping the bandages off, exposing the barely-healed wounds, are: “You are no longer my brother.”
But, oh, his blood-
(This is mine, only mine, this is the price you pay for taking my life)
“Go on, Yuki.”
(It is the most exquisite payment)
--
Yukina is always hungry now, but he is only free to feed from Tsumori when the sun goes down, when the bleeding horizon allows his ravenous desires the freedom to run wild-for a time.