Author's Note: This is yet another add to my series of Loveless oneshots. It's Soubi-centric, featuring some insight into his thoughts and feelings on both Ritsuka and Seimei. I hope you like it! (Oh, and yes, I know the song isn't really a t.A.T.u. original-song but they did a cover of it and that's the version I was listening to when I wrote this.)

I have no claim to Loveless, though I'd love to.

Recommended Listening: "How Soon is Now?" by: t.A.T.u.//"Running Up That Hill" by: Placebo

[How Soon Is Now?]

There are times when Ritsuka presses for more information, pushes the limit and toes the line. Where another might have reprimanded him--or been hurt by his sometimes cold dismissals--Soubi overlooks his Sacrifice's attitudes. After all, he's only a child.

"I will tell you as soon as I am able." The things he wanted to explain, to expound upon--he couldn't. Seimei's word is absolute, above even Ritsuka's own.

There are ways to change that, though. Ritsuka needs to know things--many things--and Soubi aches to tell him everything.

But he cannot.

Not yet.

Seimei's word is law.

For now.

"How long will you lie to me, Soubi?"

"I do not lie to you, Ritsuka."

"A lie by omission is still a lie."

"Then I am a liar."

Ears that mark his innocence dip in disappointment; a tail that twitches with frustrated inquisitiveness droops behind him. Ritsuka sags in the passenger seat of the car and stares out the window for the rest of the trip. His hand drops away from the center console, where he'd been toying with the edge of the Fighter's sleeve.

His face, in profile, is still and serene; there's a distance in his eyes. Worse even then the silence is the distance between them; it is both the width of the car and the length of an ocean coast. Like the space between heartbeats and the separation of two heartless lovers.

Soubi flinches.

"We are Loveless."

It's the truth, maybe. Soubi's never quite sure. There are some days when he wakes up with the sun shining through his window and knows that Ritsuka is his life; that the small boy forced to grow too quickly into his role is his true pair.

But he's never seen Ritsuka's true name anywhere on that pale, petite form and Soubi knows of no name he himself might possess. He was blank, once; then Beloved, by Seimei's will and the sharp end of a pocket blade.

"Loveless." Ritsuka's hand is small in his larger one, but warm and steady; the boy does not quake where he stands, his eyes firmly ahead. Soubi is proud of him, no matter. Ritsuka does not shy away. He does not hide his eyes.

He does not hesitate to lap his soft, pink tongue against the blood that wells and drips steadily from the old, spelled scars pressed so deeply into Soubi's flesh.

If he's strictly honest with himself, there are days when he cannot conceive of aligning himself with such an innocent. There are days when he curses his inability to defy Seimei; curses his former partner for damning them all with this little game.

Because he knows it as surely as he knows that the sun will rise--Seimei intends for Ritsuka to love him, to want him wholly. And to lose him, when it is convenient for Seimei to return.

Soubi knows what is expected of him--to go quietly and quickly away.

There are days when Soubi can't bear to think of that.

The way Ritsuka stands firmly at his side in battle is touching; the way he allows Soubi to touch him behind his ears and to stroke his tail is intimately bonding.

The way Ritsuka's body shivers against his in the chaste cage of the cool hotel-room sheets, seeking comfort. Soubi alone is afforded that privilege; Soubi, among the many.

Seimei is not there, between them, in the night. He cannot be everywhere at once.

Seimei is not a god.

He tries to keep that in mind when the doubts come to plague him.

The truth is coated in blood. Ritsuka's blood. It was a foolish mistake--he allowed himself to be distracted, fooled--and his little Sacrifice bled for it. It's the one and only time a spell has ever split Ritsuka's skin before his eyes and Soubi is both frightened and angered, at once. His fury rises up in a torrent of bladed winds and a choir of electrified voices crying out. Their enemy is vanquished, but Soubi does not feel victorious.

Because Ritsuka is huddled by his feet, the skin of forearms, neck, thighs and chest exposed in the ribbons of cut fabric and lines of blood edging it all. And Soubi falls down beside him and removes the articles of useless clothing, despite the lack of privacy in the rapidly darkening evening. They're in a park.

Soubi doesn't care and Ritsuka is not aware enough of his own mind to complain. That, if nothing else, tells Soubi how wounded Ritsuka really is.

He strips the clothing off, pulling away the baggy t-shirt and the windbreaker. The shredded jeans he leaves on, for modesty's sake, but his fingertips trace the cut denim helplessly. Ritsuka shivers against him.

It's when he pulls away to check the boy's back that Soubi sees it. As if it were branded into his skin--the word 'Loveless' in jagged, unkind marks along the base of the boy's spine. His too-sharp inhale of breath burns the back of his throat.

Seimei is a monster. Soubi knows it.

The proof of it is there, on Seimei's body. The reason his former Sacrifice always wore turtlenecks, never baring his chest. It's there--carved over his collar bones.

'Loveless'.

It's a betrayal of a different kind. It leaves both Ritsuka and Soubi reeling. And Seimei only stands there, smiling. Where Nisei is, Soubi doesn't know--but at the moment he wishes fervently that Seimei's proper Fighter would appear.

Because Seimei--without word-spells or fatal tricks--has some how won this battle and stolen from Soubi the only thing worth holding onto anymore.

Ritsuka.

But Ritsuka doesn't move. He stands by Soubi's side, his small hand warm around Soubi's fingers. Ritsuka is holding him and he's not letting go.

The dark, displeased look in Seimei's eyes is obvious.

"I am Loveless," Ritsuka says, "And you are Beloved. We are not pair-bonded."

Seimei's smile is not kind. "We have always been bonded, Ritsuka. I made it so."

"Then I will un-make it." And Soubi can hardly believe that Ritsuka--little, sweet, innocent Sacrifice that he is--would dare challenge Seimei.

Seimei--colder than the arctic chill and crueler than the laws of natural survival. Harder than diamonds and sharper than any blade ever forged.

Ritsuka and Seimei, as different as day and night.

Soubi's back goes ram-rod straight. He adjusted his hand on Ristuka's, the resolve forming in his mind. He feels the skin along his throat and collar tightening--but he ignores it.

"We are bonded," he says aloud, his words ringing. "We are Loveless. We are not Beloved; you are not Loveless." His skin is dotted with his own blood, his scars bleeding denial of his words--but nothing has ever felt more true and he presses on, glad that pain has long ceased to be his enemy.

"We are Loveless, together, without end."

Ritsuka's hand in his is firm, unshaken. In his small, quiet voice, he finished...

"We are Loveless, together, forever. Our time is now."