Somewhere Between Midnight and Sunrise - Aoi/Uruha, Reita/Aoi, Ruki/Kai - 6/?
Title: Somewhere Between Midnight and Sunrise
Chapters: 6/?
Band: The Gazette
Pairings: Aoi/Uruha, Reita/Aoi, Ruki/Kai (bolded are present in this chapter)
Rating: R/Light NC-17
Genres: Drama, mystery, suspense, angst
Warnings: Sexual situations, Violence
Summary: Humanity is a vulnerable condition and only more so when emotional factors are thrown into an already delicate balance.
“Had to change? What forces a man to sin?”
I tipped my head downward and picked at the cracked surface of the table. There was a smile across my face and it only amused me more that the fat one still seemed irritated by me. “Have you ever been in love, detective?” My eyes flickered up swiftly to him, an eyebrow arched high on my forehead. “The sort of love where you don’t give a fuck about anyone but well…the person you’re fucking? That’s what it was like with them, only it wasn’t just about the carnal pleasure. No, no--everyone knew that if there was ever a relationship to envy, sexual or not, it was theirs. Aoi and Reita’s--if you wanted to find one, you were going to find both whether you liked it or not.
“But see, it was because of Aoi that Reita changed. And because of Reita that Aoi changed too. They were so attached that even the lives they took, they took together. If you can call ‘em lives, anyhow. They’re more monsters than anything else. But either way, they were trained to be the best. The best of the best even, to the point where Ruki was below them in strength.”
“Because there were two.” The skinner man commented and I shook my head, holding up a finger to stop him from continuing. It was the most serious I’d been since I arrived but I figured it was important for them to really get what I was talking about right then.
“Because they cared. Ruki cared, there is no doubt about that. But Reita and Aoi cared about the other person. Yeah, there were two and that made ‘em a hell of a team. Yet they adored each other to the point where they worked as one entity, as one fucking person. It was beautiful, it was…it was a slight against humanity when it was taken away from both of them. The day it happened was the day a little bit of each of them died inside….”
___________________
Reita was perched low to the ground, his knees pressed in against the tile beneath him as he was hidden behind the sill of the window. He had his blow gun between his fingers and his eyes were focused effortlessly forward. He was clearly engaged in what he was doing, having long ago learned how to shut out the rest of the world in order to focus on his mission. And this particular mission was perhaps the most important of their infamous career. Both of them had taken this job of their own volition - not because they were being paid and Reita thought there was a chance they might not come out alive. In fact, he figured there was a pretty good chance they wouldn’t exit the building once they went in.
Ruki had been a relentless trainer. The first day, he had placed Reita in the dense, pitch black forest with absolutely nothing to protect himself. In an instant, the sharp sting of wood hit his legs from a whipped stave--Reita had quickly learned that Ruki meant for him to move, he meant for him to learn how to function without his sense of sight. It took only a few days until Reita had the ability to dodge every one of Ruki’s smacks and, by the end of that week, he’d actually started to block them too. The blonde was a fast learner, fast enough that Ruki was in a sweat by a few weeks after having to extert himself as well in their training sessions.
In truth Reita enjoyed it. It was the first thing that had come so simply natural to him. Prior to his training he’d been rather average at life. Though he didn’t like the idea of hurting someone he took solace in knowing that it wasn’t people they hunted.
It was both Ruki and Reita that taught Aoi; he was much less apt to the physical activity as Reita was and it had proved to be harder to train Aoi. It also allowed Rieta to further enhance his skills. Instead, Aoi’s talents were in his precision--he wasn’t as quick as Reita in his rebuttal to each attack, but Aoi surpassed in his dodging. It didn’t take long before the both of them were up to par with Ruki, to the point where they were more peers than teacher and student. And the three of them worked in harmony for a time before Reita and Aoi broke off from their master.
That, however, was years ago. They had advanced their bodies and minds since then, learning more and more about not just their job and techniques, but about each other. What had been a young, budding romance had deepened as they were submerged fully in this lifestyle of murder and danger. They were there to ensure the other was okay with what they were doing, that they each understood what good they were actually accomplishing. Reita didn’t know how Ruki coped with the moral stigma of murder, but he relied on Aoi’s affection to keep his heart from withering away.
Reita’s eyes snapped to his left when he felt and saw fingers tug at the strip of fabric that was situated across his nose and cheeks. “It’s not even fully dark yet--relax.” Aoi’s voice cut through Reita’s concentration and he did relax, though only slightly; his eyes were still fixed ahead. Aoi’s fingers wrapped around the band and drew it entirely off of Reita’s face, letting it drop and rest around his neck. Reita stiffened slightly and didn’t draw his eyes away, though he let Aoi’s words wash over him to ease the sudden rigidness of his person because his safety net was stripped away. “You don’t need this yet, do you? It smells nice here and you’re missing it. You’ll end up hurting yourself if you keep sitting like that anyway.” Aoi spoke quietly, though taunt was still clear in his voice.
“That was my intent.” Reita answered calmly, responding to Aoi’s words out of order. His eyes flickered away swiftly and then back through the window at whatever his target was. Reita was quick to keep speaking. “It’s not dark yet, no. But if we wait until darkness comes, we will be at a disadvantage. If I hurt myself in the process, so be it. You will still heal me, won’t you?”
Aoi’s eyebrow had risen and he chuckled softly, sighing as he shifted from his spot seated on the hard floor. He moved so that he could kneel beside Reita and peak through the same spot that Reita set his post at. “Is that a gamble you’re willing to make, love? You feel comfortable betting your well being on how much I want to ensure your safety?” Aoi teased further as he ‘looked’ at the building Reita had been intently watching. “I’m flattered.” He added before he peaked over to Reita and press a swift, soft kiss to his lips before another quiet laugh escaped him.
Reita was taken aback by the playfulness of Aoi, though only to a certain degree as it was typical of the other man, and hadn’t much of a chance to react to his actions. Aoi moved to sit back down, leaning against the wall behind him as he scooted close to where Reita still knelt. “I’ll heal you, of course I will. Continue.” Aoi waved upwards towards the window, smiling up at Reita whose eye’s momentarily locked onto his. “Please.”
The blonde man hesitated for a second, his focus wavering between Aoi’s playfulness and the seriousness at hand. He fidgeted with the desire to pull the band back up over his nose; but he refrained from it as Aoi clearly wanted it off. It was how they worked; they relieved each other’s stress and pain just as much as they gave each other comfort and excitement when they needed it. The tingling feeling of his kiss, however quick it had been, was still against his lips and it was enough to distract Reita from his diligent focus previously. He was a good warrior - a good assassin - they were one of the best duos there was; but Aoi could turn him to putty if he wanted to.
Reita let out a low sigh before he dropped from his position and brought his lips to Aoi’s in return, engulfing him in a deeper kiss that seemed to seep into his soul. It lasted a moment or two before Aoi’s lips slipped from his and he started to speak, but certainly not before Reita was quick to respond. “Don’t consider this a victory.” The blonde mumbled in against Aoi’s lips, instigating a smile across the other man’s face before they were captured in a second kiss.
What intoxicating lips they were, too. Reita found himself pushing aside their purpose in lieu of the warmth of a lover. He was enthralled enough that the blow gun fell from his fingers, and he moved them through Aoi’s hair, captivated as Aoi’s lip ring ran across his lips and tongue. Wrapped up in each other, it was enough to distract Reita--and Aoi for that matter--from the distant crackling outside that penetrated the silence that had previously been a luxury.
A soft, orange glow had started to pour in through the window, washing over them as Reita was hovering above Aoi’s seated form. It was enough to catch Aoi’s attention and he broke away from the blonde in an instant, his eyes wide and surprised as he moved swiftly to look through the window. Reita sat up right too, both their eyes glued to the building that had previously stolen all of Reita’s attention. “It’s on fire.” Aoi spoke softly, in awe of what they were seeing. “Reita…” He spoke sharply this time as he scrambled up from his spot, grabbing hold of Reita’s forearm in order to get him from his seat too. “…it’s on fire”
_______________________
“What made him freeze up like that?” The skinnier one spoke before the fat one could. I could see it in his eyes; he was desperately wishing to question me. I smiled at him though my answer was directed at the more…receptive detective.
“Because it was the first time he screwed up--the first of many that night, actually.” I leaned back in my chair, my eyes never leaving the heavier man. “See the thing you have to realize is that Reita…he’s particular about what he does. Even more so after what he did meant the difference between life or death--his life, their death. To him, the only reason the building even caught fire was because he let it happen. Because he was sucking face when he should have been watching. That'd ruin anyone's night. Just wanna get off and then there's fire and screaming and shit.”
The thinner one had been scribbling against a pad of paper as if it was as effortless as I spoke of it. “We know, by your account, he didn’t actually cause the fire though--as you so eloquently put it -- he was busy. Who started it then?”
“Did I say that? Huh. Well…there are theories, right? Even the streets like gossip--only instead of petty shit, we talk about the stuff that’ll make your--” I pointed to the fat man, winking at him briefly.”--skin crawl. The one I’ve heard most is that it was some crazed bastard who wanted the things inside dead just as much as Reita and Aoi did. Killing them with fire, while a wise move, really only fucked Reita and Aoi over. I heard that kid was in a band or something retarded like that -- he ended up in the nut house, but it's all just stories, you know? The point is there was a fire, that much we're certain of.”
____________________
They were running before Reita could fully comprehend what was going on. The adjacent building they had been hiding in, while untouched by flame, was suffering from the heat that came from the fire next to it. By the time they broke out into the street, doors slamming behind them, Aoi and Reita were dripping in perspiration that had accumulated on the surface of their skin. Aoi’s hand was gripped tight in Reita’s and, at first, their goal was not only to get to the fire but to stay by one another’s side.
What they met was a frenzy of burning bodies, bodies that burned much too quickly to be natural, and high pitched screams as people--or creatures as it were--crawled out of whatever part of the building they could. However, it seemed as if when they caught fire was much too late for them to be saved; they went up faster than old, dry kindle. The walls were old and rotten enough that the flames had caught faster, covering the surface quickly and intensifying the size of the fire itself. It was messy and it was not at all what Aoi and Reita did; they took lives, they were assassins. But never did they create the mass hysteria that was circulating nor did either one want the attention of it. The fire was of an amateur, there was no doubt, and whoever had done it certainly didn’t realize exactly what they were exposing to the common people surrounding the street.
Aoi’s fingers slipped out of Reita’s hand before he had any chance to respond. Hands had gripped around Aoi’s ankles, tugging at him as a flame engulfed being tried to use Aoi as leverage to stand on charred legs. Reita, who had been working to get his blow gun loaded, moved swiftly to help Aoi and it took both of their strength to get rid of the creature, pushing it further into flames with a bone-wrenching scream. “Go--Reita!” Aoi hissed quickly, running the back of his hand across his brow to gather and remove sweat. “This will take forever if we don’t separate--go quickly, I can handle myself. Go! Before half of them escape.” Aoi told him, capturing his lips haphazardly and clumsily before he pushed Reita away from him and darted off in the opposite direction.
It was the push that shocked Reita more than anything and he stood dumbfounded for a few seconds before he felt the heat of flames pool behind him. His hand closed harder around the shaft of his weapon and he moved forward, in the direction Aoi had gone. His teeth gritted together and he ducked down under a beam that was fully aflame. “AOI!” He shouted after his lover. It was too late, the other was invisible beyond the flames and Reita felt an iron grip come down on his shoulder.
In one solid and smooth movement, Reita swung and with the force of both of his hands and the momentum, he nailed the creature in the middle. As the force disengaged him, the clawed hand that had been holding onto him ripped through Reita’s shirt and sliced easily through the soft flesh on his shoulder. Reita bit back a hiss and his head snapped to see the fresh blood smeared across his shoulder, running down his arm. “Fuck.” He hissed.
They were frenzied from the fire, even the one across from him, which would keep them from making rational decisions that Reita might be able to counter had the monsters logical thought - which they usually did. However, they wouldn’t even be in their current state of disarray had there not been a fire in the heart of where he and Aoi planned on striking. Reita took a step back, seeing the hungry look in the other’s eyes as it shone off the fire blazing around them.
The floor creaked under Reita’s feet and he was doing his best to keep calm even as he heard the building respond around him. They shouldn’t have come in, he thought. Had he not been so prone to act for his first mistake, then he might have rethought running into a burning building. Reita ducked as his opponent lunged for him and though he dodged the first attack, a second came almost immediately. Reita slammed into the wall with such force that he couldn’t really process much of anything, but the feel of a bite into the fresh wound on his shoulder.
He squirmed and started to fight back, just nearly disengaging the human looking monster from him, when he heard the ceiling over head give way and it smashed to the ground off behind him to where Aoi had to be. There were several shouts that rang out - one was the familiar tone and voice of that whom he loved. It died as quickly as it started, cut off sharply behind the rush of flames. Reita’s previously stiff muscles released as he heard Aoi’s howl turn faint and then die off. He momentarily gave in. Reita’s body was numb this time as the teeth sank back into the fresh meat of his shoulder.
___________________
“Wait…what?!” The fat one boomed and even the skinny one had stopped writing and looked at me with unblinking eyes. I sort of liked having their attention and, to prove my approval, I mimicked their expressions.
“Oh yeah - that’s right…it’s what I said. Vampires, they hunted fucking blood sucking vampires.” I nodded arching both of my eyebrows up before I leaned back in my seat triumphantly and folded my arms over my chest. I felt victorious in that moment. The skinny one tossed his pen over his shoulder and the fat one started to seethe. “What? You asked.” I shrugged.
Finally, he lunged over the table at me, clearly not happy with the direction of my story. He caught me by the front of my shirt and the chair beneath me rocked, having been shaken when he whipped me out it. “You have kept us here, listening to your God damn yapping, for this bullshit!?”
“Whoa hey!” I gasped, clapping my hands around his wrists and trying to tug them off of me. “You asked, I told you. And from the beginning I told you it was a creature that started them on this path. I also told you he never wanted to do it. Which is what I was getting to - what he never wanted to do, that is.”
“JUST FUCKING SAY IT!! What did he never want to do!!?”
I closed by eyes and ducked my head back to avoid the spit that shot my way when he barked at me. After the room went somewhat silent, I chuckled, unfazed by his attempt at intimidation. “To kill people.”
“Stop.” The skinny one told the angry, fat one, and I felt his grip loosen. “Lets hear the rest of it.” He told the other and I was almost immediately plopped back into my chair. The second I was, I smoothed out my shirt. With irritatingly diligence, might I add.
“Good man.” I told him with a wink. “I knew you liked this story.”
“I’m just trying to decipher the truth from the lies as you‘re so inclined to them. Tell it how you will and I’ll get from it what I need. So…for now…let’s say I believe you, that it was vampires - why were they all together like that?” He was testing me, but I could play his game. I knew I could - and I could do it better than him too. That was what kept me talking -- it didn’t hurt that I liked telling the story in the first place.
“A nest, a club if you will. Vampires like to have these nasty parties where they bleed humans and shit - it’s gross. That’s what that place was. Rumor has it the kid who torched the place had a friend inside, a human one being tortured and that’s why he did it. But it’s all stories right?” I winked again before I leaned back, finding the comfortable position I’d been in before. “Everyone who lives on the underside has lost someone, or known someone who lost someone to those sick places. Missing persons ain’t so missing sometimes - it‘d probably be better for them if they were, you know? That’s why Reita and Aoi went there in the first place. It’s why they wanted to stop as many of them as they could and it’s also why Reita stopped hunting vampires and turned to hunting people for vampires. They were his employer after that night - after he thought Aoi was dead.”
“How…?” The skinny one asked.
I grinned wide. “I thought you’d never ask!”
A/N: It seems being out of the country for so long made me prone to long chapters. This is significantly longer, but hopefully better for it. Thank you very much for reading and I do hope you continue to enjoy!
Previous: One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Next: Seven
Chapters: 6/?
Band: The Gazette
Pairings: Aoi/Uruha, Reita/Aoi, Ruki/Kai (bolded are present in this chapter)
Rating: R/Light NC-17
Genres: Drama, mystery, suspense, angst
Warnings: Sexual situations, Violence
Summary: Humanity is a vulnerable condition and only more so when emotional factors are thrown into an already delicate balance.
“Had to change? What forces a man to sin?”
I tipped my head downward and picked at the cracked surface of the table. There was a smile across my face and it only amused me more that the fat one still seemed irritated by me. “Have you ever been in love, detective?” My eyes flickered up swiftly to him, an eyebrow arched high on my forehead. “The sort of love where you don’t give a fuck about anyone but well…the person you’re fucking? That’s what it was like with them, only it wasn’t just about the carnal pleasure. No, no--everyone knew that if there was ever a relationship to envy, sexual or not, it was theirs. Aoi and Reita’s--if you wanted to find one, you were going to find both whether you liked it or not.
“But see, it was because of Aoi that Reita changed. And because of Reita that Aoi changed too. They were so attached that even the lives they took, they took together. If you can call ‘em lives, anyhow. They’re more monsters than anything else. But either way, they were trained to be the best. The best of the best even, to the point where Ruki was below them in strength.”
“Because there were two.” The skinner man commented and I shook my head, holding up a finger to stop him from continuing. It was the most serious I’d been since I arrived but I figured it was important for them to really get what I was talking about right then.
“Because they cared. Ruki cared, there is no doubt about that. But Reita and Aoi cared about the other person. Yeah, there were two and that made ‘em a hell of a team. Yet they adored each other to the point where they worked as one entity, as one fucking person. It was beautiful, it was…it was a slight against humanity when it was taken away from both of them. The day it happened was the day a little bit of each of them died inside….”
___________________
Reita was perched low to the ground, his knees pressed in against the tile beneath him as he was hidden behind the sill of the window. He had his blow gun between his fingers and his eyes were focused effortlessly forward. He was clearly engaged in what he was doing, having long ago learned how to shut out the rest of the world in order to focus on his mission. And this particular mission was perhaps the most important of their infamous career. Both of them had taken this job of their own volition - not because they were being paid and Reita thought there was a chance they might not come out alive. In fact, he figured there was a pretty good chance they wouldn’t exit the building once they went in.
Ruki had been a relentless trainer. The first day, he had placed Reita in the dense, pitch black forest with absolutely nothing to protect himself. In an instant, the sharp sting of wood hit his legs from a whipped stave--Reita had quickly learned that Ruki meant for him to move, he meant for him to learn how to function without his sense of sight. It took only a few days until Reita had the ability to dodge every one of Ruki’s smacks and, by the end of that week, he’d actually started to block them too. The blonde was a fast learner, fast enough that Ruki was in a sweat by a few weeks after having to extert himself as well in their training sessions.
In truth Reita enjoyed it. It was the first thing that had come so simply natural to him. Prior to his training he’d been rather average at life. Though he didn’t like the idea of hurting someone he took solace in knowing that it wasn’t people they hunted.
It was both Ruki and Reita that taught Aoi; he was much less apt to the physical activity as Reita was and it had proved to be harder to train Aoi. It also allowed Rieta to further enhance his skills. Instead, Aoi’s talents were in his precision--he wasn’t as quick as Reita in his rebuttal to each attack, but Aoi surpassed in his dodging. It didn’t take long before the both of them were up to par with Ruki, to the point where they were more peers than teacher and student. And the three of them worked in harmony for a time before Reita and Aoi broke off from their master.
That, however, was years ago. They had advanced their bodies and minds since then, learning more and more about not just their job and techniques, but about each other. What had been a young, budding romance had deepened as they were submerged fully in this lifestyle of murder and danger. They were there to ensure the other was okay with what they were doing, that they each understood what good they were actually accomplishing. Reita didn’t know how Ruki coped with the moral stigma of murder, but he relied on Aoi’s affection to keep his heart from withering away.
Reita’s eyes snapped to his left when he felt and saw fingers tug at the strip of fabric that was situated across his nose and cheeks. “It’s not even fully dark yet--relax.” Aoi’s voice cut through Reita’s concentration and he did relax, though only slightly; his eyes were still fixed ahead. Aoi’s fingers wrapped around the band and drew it entirely off of Reita’s face, letting it drop and rest around his neck. Reita stiffened slightly and didn’t draw his eyes away, though he let Aoi’s words wash over him to ease the sudden rigidness of his person because his safety net was stripped away. “You don’t need this yet, do you? It smells nice here and you’re missing it. You’ll end up hurting yourself if you keep sitting like that anyway.” Aoi spoke quietly, though taunt was still clear in his voice.
“That was my intent.” Reita answered calmly, responding to Aoi’s words out of order. His eyes flickered away swiftly and then back through the window at whatever his target was. Reita was quick to keep speaking. “It’s not dark yet, no. But if we wait until darkness comes, we will be at a disadvantage. If I hurt myself in the process, so be it. You will still heal me, won’t you?”
Aoi’s eyebrow had risen and he chuckled softly, sighing as he shifted from his spot seated on the hard floor. He moved so that he could kneel beside Reita and peak through the same spot that Reita set his post at. “Is that a gamble you’re willing to make, love? You feel comfortable betting your well being on how much I want to ensure your safety?” Aoi teased further as he ‘looked’ at the building Reita had been intently watching. “I’m flattered.” He added before he peaked over to Reita and press a swift, soft kiss to his lips before another quiet laugh escaped him.
Reita was taken aback by the playfulness of Aoi, though only to a certain degree as it was typical of the other man, and hadn’t much of a chance to react to his actions. Aoi moved to sit back down, leaning against the wall behind him as he scooted close to where Reita still knelt. “I’ll heal you, of course I will. Continue.” Aoi waved upwards towards the window, smiling up at Reita whose eye’s momentarily locked onto his. “Please.”
The blonde man hesitated for a second, his focus wavering between Aoi’s playfulness and the seriousness at hand. He fidgeted with the desire to pull the band back up over his nose; but he refrained from it as Aoi clearly wanted it off. It was how they worked; they relieved each other’s stress and pain just as much as they gave each other comfort and excitement when they needed it. The tingling feeling of his kiss, however quick it had been, was still against his lips and it was enough to distract Reita from his diligent focus previously. He was a good warrior - a good assassin - they were one of the best duos there was; but Aoi could turn him to putty if he wanted to.
Reita let out a low sigh before he dropped from his position and brought his lips to Aoi’s in return, engulfing him in a deeper kiss that seemed to seep into his soul. It lasted a moment or two before Aoi’s lips slipped from his and he started to speak, but certainly not before Reita was quick to respond. “Don’t consider this a victory.” The blonde mumbled in against Aoi’s lips, instigating a smile across the other man’s face before they were captured in a second kiss.
What intoxicating lips they were, too. Reita found himself pushing aside their purpose in lieu of the warmth of a lover. He was enthralled enough that the blow gun fell from his fingers, and he moved them through Aoi’s hair, captivated as Aoi’s lip ring ran across his lips and tongue. Wrapped up in each other, it was enough to distract Reita--and Aoi for that matter--from the distant crackling outside that penetrated the silence that had previously been a luxury.
A soft, orange glow had started to pour in through the window, washing over them as Reita was hovering above Aoi’s seated form. It was enough to catch Aoi’s attention and he broke away from the blonde in an instant, his eyes wide and surprised as he moved swiftly to look through the window. Reita sat up right too, both their eyes glued to the building that had previously stolen all of Reita’s attention. “It’s on fire.” Aoi spoke softly, in awe of what they were seeing. “Reita…” He spoke sharply this time as he scrambled up from his spot, grabbing hold of Reita’s forearm in order to get him from his seat too. “…it’s on fire”
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“What made him freeze up like that?” The skinnier one spoke before the fat one could. I could see it in his eyes; he was desperately wishing to question me. I smiled at him though my answer was directed at the more…receptive detective.
“Because it was the first time he screwed up--the first of many that night, actually.” I leaned back in my chair, my eyes never leaving the heavier man. “See the thing you have to realize is that Reita…he’s particular about what he does. Even more so after what he did meant the difference between life or death--his life, their death. To him, the only reason the building even caught fire was because he let it happen. Because he was sucking face when he should have been watching. That'd ruin anyone's night. Just wanna get off and then there's fire and screaming and shit.”
The thinner one had been scribbling against a pad of paper as if it was as effortless as I spoke of it. “We know, by your account, he didn’t actually cause the fire though--as you so eloquently put it -- he was busy. Who started it then?”
“Did I say that? Huh. Well…there are theories, right? Even the streets like gossip--only instead of petty shit, we talk about the stuff that’ll make your--” I pointed to the fat man, winking at him briefly.”--skin crawl. The one I’ve heard most is that it was some crazed bastard who wanted the things inside dead just as much as Reita and Aoi did. Killing them with fire, while a wise move, really only fucked Reita and Aoi over. I heard that kid was in a band or something retarded like that -- he ended up in the nut house, but it's all just stories, you know? The point is there was a fire, that much we're certain of.”
____________________
They were running before Reita could fully comprehend what was going on. The adjacent building they had been hiding in, while untouched by flame, was suffering from the heat that came from the fire next to it. By the time they broke out into the street, doors slamming behind them, Aoi and Reita were dripping in perspiration that had accumulated on the surface of their skin. Aoi’s hand was gripped tight in Reita’s and, at first, their goal was not only to get to the fire but to stay by one another’s side.
What they met was a frenzy of burning bodies, bodies that burned much too quickly to be natural, and high pitched screams as people--or creatures as it were--crawled out of whatever part of the building they could. However, it seemed as if when they caught fire was much too late for them to be saved; they went up faster than old, dry kindle. The walls were old and rotten enough that the flames had caught faster, covering the surface quickly and intensifying the size of the fire itself. It was messy and it was not at all what Aoi and Reita did; they took lives, they were assassins. But never did they create the mass hysteria that was circulating nor did either one want the attention of it. The fire was of an amateur, there was no doubt, and whoever had done it certainly didn’t realize exactly what they were exposing to the common people surrounding the street.
Aoi’s fingers slipped out of Reita’s hand before he had any chance to respond. Hands had gripped around Aoi’s ankles, tugging at him as a flame engulfed being tried to use Aoi as leverage to stand on charred legs. Reita, who had been working to get his blow gun loaded, moved swiftly to help Aoi and it took both of their strength to get rid of the creature, pushing it further into flames with a bone-wrenching scream. “Go--Reita!” Aoi hissed quickly, running the back of his hand across his brow to gather and remove sweat. “This will take forever if we don’t separate--go quickly, I can handle myself. Go! Before half of them escape.” Aoi told him, capturing his lips haphazardly and clumsily before he pushed Reita away from him and darted off in the opposite direction.
It was the push that shocked Reita more than anything and he stood dumbfounded for a few seconds before he felt the heat of flames pool behind him. His hand closed harder around the shaft of his weapon and he moved forward, in the direction Aoi had gone. His teeth gritted together and he ducked down under a beam that was fully aflame. “AOI!” He shouted after his lover. It was too late, the other was invisible beyond the flames and Reita felt an iron grip come down on his shoulder.
In one solid and smooth movement, Reita swung and with the force of both of his hands and the momentum, he nailed the creature in the middle. As the force disengaged him, the clawed hand that had been holding onto him ripped through Reita’s shirt and sliced easily through the soft flesh on his shoulder. Reita bit back a hiss and his head snapped to see the fresh blood smeared across his shoulder, running down his arm. “Fuck.” He hissed.
They were frenzied from the fire, even the one across from him, which would keep them from making rational decisions that Reita might be able to counter had the monsters logical thought - which they usually did. However, they wouldn’t even be in their current state of disarray had there not been a fire in the heart of where he and Aoi planned on striking. Reita took a step back, seeing the hungry look in the other’s eyes as it shone off the fire blazing around them.
The floor creaked under Reita’s feet and he was doing his best to keep calm even as he heard the building respond around him. They shouldn’t have come in, he thought. Had he not been so prone to act for his first mistake, then he might have rethought running into a burning building. Reita ducked as his opponent lunged for him and though he dodged the first attack, a second came almost immediately. Reita slammed into the wall with such force that he couldn’t really process much of anything, but the feel of a bite into the fresh wound on his shoulder.
He squirmed and started to fight back, just nearly disengaging the human looking monster from him, when he heard the ceiling over head give way and it smashed to the ground off behind him to where Aoi had to be. There were several shouts that rang out - one was the familiar tone and voice of that whom he loved. It died as quickly as it started, cut off sharply behind the rush of flames. Reita’s previously stiff muscles released as he heard Aoi’s howl turn faint and then die off. He momentarily gave in. Reita’s body was numb this time as the teeth sank back into the fresh meat of his shoulder.
___________________
“Wait…what?!” The fat one boomed and even the skinny one had stopped writing and looked at me with unblinking eyes. I sort of liked having their attention and, to prove my approval, I mimicked their expressions.
“Oh yeah - that’s right…it’s what I said. Vampires, they hunted fucking blood sucking vampires.” I nodded arching both of my eyebrows up before I leaned back in my seat triumphantly and folded my arms over my chest. I felt victorious in that moment. The skinny one tossed his pen over his shoulder and the fat one started to seethe. “What? You asked.” I shrugged.
Finally, he lunged over the table at me, clearly not happy with the direction of my story. He caught me by the front of my shirt and the chair beneath me rocked, having been shaken when he whipped me out it. “You have kept us here, listening to your God damn yapping, for this bullshit!?”
“Whoa hey!” I gasped, clapping my hands around his wrists and trying to tug them off of me. “You asked, I told you. And from the beginning I told you it was a creature that started them on this path. I also told you he never wanted to do it. Which is what I was getting to - what he never wanted to do, that is.”
“JUST FUCKING SAY IT!! What did he never want to do!!?”
I closed by eyes and ducked my head back to avoid the spit that shot my way when he barked at me. After the room went somewhat silent, I chuckled, unfazed by his attempt at intimidation. “To kill people.”
“Stop.” The skinny one told the angry, fat one, and I felt his grip loosen. “Lets hear the rest of it.” He told the other and I was almost immediately plopped back into my chair. The second I was, I smoothed out my shirt. With irritatingly diligence, might I add.
“Good man.” I told him with a wink. “I knew you liked this story.”
“I’m just trying to decipher the truth from the lies as you‘re so inclined to them. Tell it how you will and I’ll get from it what I need. So…for now…let’s say I believe you, that it was vampires - why were they all together like that?” He was testing me, but I could play his game. I knew I could - and I could do it better than him too. That was what kept me talking -- it didn’t hurt that I liked telling the story in the first place.
“A nest, a club if you will. Vampires like to have these nasty parties where they bleed humans and shit - it’s gross. That’s what that place was. Rumor has it the kid who torched the place had a friend inside, a human one being tortured and that’s why he did it. But it’s all stories right?” I winked again before I leaned back, finding the comfortable position I’d been in before. “Everyone who lives on the underside has lost someone, or known someone who lost someone to those sick places. Missing persons ain’t so missing sometimes - it‘d probably be better for them if they were, you know? That’s why Reita and Aoi went there in the first place. It’s why they wanted to stop as many of them as they could and it’s also why Reita stopped hunting vampires and turned to hunting people for vampires. They were his employer after that night - after he thought Aoi was dead.”
“How…?” The skinny one asked.
I grinned wide. “I thought you’d never ask!”
A/N: It seems being out of the country for so long made me prone to long chapters. This is significantly longer, but hopefully better for it. Thank you very much for reading and I do hope you continue to enjoy!
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