Actually going to put in some AN's here as well! This is the second part to my weird cross over fic, more or less just because I can! 3

Its also a re-write of one I had posted up before, this one is -much- better however!

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Chapter Two.

There is always that horrible moment just after you wake up where your body desperately tries to cling to the sleep that slipping away from it

There is always that horrible moment just after you wake up where your body desperately tries to cling to the sleep that slipping away from it. Where you feel that if only that damn pulsing light against your eyes would go away that you'd be able to slip back into the soft realms of sleep once again, it was there that Milliardo found himself, his head aching from sleep that had been too deep for too few hours, wishing he'd remembered to close the curtains before collapsing into his bed the night before. The window was right across the fairly small room from his bed, and no matter which way he rolled, no matter how he tried to pile the covers up to block the irritating rays of the sun, he just couldn't find a method that worked well enough to allow him to drift back to sleep.

After about twenty minutes of desperately trying to deny his wakeful state it had to be conceded that daylight had won again. He was awake and no matter how dark he managed to make the room this time there was no chance of his actually dropping back to sleep. Slowly the young man pushed himself somewhat achingly up on his elbows, his almost white bangs flicking into his eyes for a moment, only to be brushed away as he shifted to look at the offensive window that had brought about his wakened state.
It was a beautiful day, the sky was a bright blue dusted by a small assortment of white candy floss looking clouds, the tree across from his window was a hive of avian activity this morning as well it seemed as sitting where he was with his window open he could pick out at least two or three different kinds of birdsong. He didn't have any idea what sort of bird the trills and chirrups came from, but they were birds and that was enough for him. In short, the day was almost disgustingly nice and Milli found that he was actually rather pleased that he'd woken up for it after all.

A glance to the alarm clock to his right told him it was about ten minutes before nine o'clock in the morning, a perfectly acceptable time to be waking up really, he thought. With a small smile over at the window the young man gave the covers that were still tucked most of the way up over his chest a push down and swung his legs, with a moment of tangled awkwardness out from under them, and over the edge of his bed. A light gust of wind wafted in from outside, flicking the open curtains slightly and catching Milli's eye and he once again found himself smiling at the wonderful blue sky, what on earth had he been so desperate to stay asleep for? It was a wonderful day… he must have been having some really weird dreams or something to have been tempted to miss it.

Pushing himself up off of the mattress he used the post at the end of his bed to steady himself as his legs were still in the state where they were refusing to be completely and utterly awake yet and found himself a little wide eyed… his hand… how hadn't he noticed that before…? He slowly let go of the wooden pole again, bringing his hand back nearer to his face to examine the marks on his skin, it was grey, and looked decidedly smeary… where on earth had that come from?

"Oh…" the sound passed his lips without him really noticing. The night of deep sleep he'd had had washed away for a time at least the horrors of the previous evenings. He felt himself sit down on, heavily, and on the floor. His legs had weakened by the torrent of memories that came rushing into the forefront of his mind.

Pale skin filled his vision as the room swam around him, rain hit his skin, freezing him again, the living nightmare returning, yellow eyes bore into his blue ones, sharp teeth, dripping blood, black hair… pale skin again, a red coat…a white gloved hand caught his… his vision was dark again. He felt himself falling again, falling and falling and falling… all around him there was red and black, falling rain and a white gloved hand, always just out of his reach…

When his eyes flickered open again the first thing that Milli registered was that his hair felt very unpleasant under his cheek where he was sprawled on the floor. Rainwater it seemed really didn't agree with it… and good lord that was one hell of a headache he had just now… gingerly he pushed himself up again, registering that the pain was mainly centred just a little way back from his left temple, and that there was a suspicious looking corner on his bedside table. That at least explained the headache… how pathetic though… he'd passed out. He'd never fainted before, never even come close, ugh… was he going to turn into some weakling now just because of a little scare? Really?

A little scare…

A living nightmare would certainly be more accurate, and he was definitely lucky to be alive…With a sigh he lifted up a hand, still grey streaked and rubbed it across his eyes, the day didn't seem quite so beautiful now that the memories were back. He still needed to push himself onwards though; he couldn't just hide away and cringe every time there was a knock on his door, no… that just wasn't going to get him anywhere. He was studying; he couldn't just drop out and waste the thousands of pounds he was paying for this educational experience…

Even if something out of a horror movie had made a damn good effort to send him to meet his maker the night before. Pushing himself up again, steadying legs that still felt like they might like to turn themselves to jelly again Milliardo resolved that making his way to the shower was probably the best plan of action here. Washing away the dirt might be the first step to repressing these horrific memories, not healthy, no indeed, but it would make life a little easier at least for the time being, and that was honestly what he was aiming for just now, working his way through his final set of exams for the year. He could deal with the emotional scars during the summer when he didn't have deadlines to meet. The clock now told him it was twenty minutes to ten; yes… he'd definitely wasted enough time for one day.

The shower was a slightly strange experience for him at first, the water pounding on his skin felt a little too much like rain, the steam in the air made it hard to see and it tugged at his memories forcing him to think back to his nightmare experience and also turn up the temperature of the water a little, rain wasn't hot after all. Finally though he was able to stop his mind obsessing, the minty smell of his shower gel helped to clear his thoughts and it felt good to wash away the grime from his hair and skin, almost like cleansing himself was somehow pushing the memories back a little once again, they were no less terrifying if he really thought about them, but they felt somewhat more distant, abstracted from him on some level.

It made sense to him.

Reaching out a hand after a few minutes with the aim of turning the water off Milliardo found himself pulling a face, he was supposed to be going out again tonight… not alone this time like he had been the night before, but with one of his friends from his course, a girl, a nice girl at that who he was fairly convinced thought she would do very well to end up dating him. He wasn't really that interested he had to admit, but her company was nice… the thought of going out again made him feel a little ill however… he'd pulled out of a couple of dates over the past few weeks and it looked like he was going to be doing so again, he couldn't help but feel a little bad for her… she always got so excited… started messaging him just before hand and that sort of thing… he hated letting her down as often as he did, and this time he wasn't even going to be able to give her a satisfactory explanation… I was saved from being eaten by a strange creature by a man in a red coat… a strange man with dark hair and… Milli shook his head, why on earth was he dwelling on the red clad stranger like that? Sure he was grateful but that was just a little too starry eyed…

Slight irritated at himself now Milli did reach out a hand again and shut off the water, grabbed his towel, wrapped it around his middle and made his way out of the bathroom again, his damp skin chilling slowly as the air ghosted over it, his now chilly hair clinging wetly to his back and shoulders. Ignoring the chilly hair he pushed some of the cool hair over his shoulder again and wandered over to his window. His room was on the second floor, so fairly high up and he had a good view over the university campus that stretched out around the dormitory block he lived in. It was self catered; each floor of five students had one kitchen and a shared living room area at the end of the hallway that their bedrooms were set on. Some had their own bathroom; Milli was one of those lucky ones.

Out of the corner of his eye as he was trying to work out just which of the birds hopping around in the large tree near his room was making the most noise, Milliardo saw something move down on the ground… at least he thought he did… flicking his eyes around he scanned the expanse of grass and pathway… but… there didn't seem to be anything there… no… there it was again, behind one of the larger shrubs in the large flower bed…

Milliardo stared for a moment with what can only be described as a somewhat dumb look on his face at the shrubbery; finally his attentions were rewarded in something of a rather anticlimactic way. Out from behind the thorn less rose bush slunk a rather scrawny looking dog. It was a lanky thing in Milli's opinion, with fairly long hair, especially on its ears and a floppy tail that was decidedly on the fluffy side. Slowly Milliardo quirked an eyebrow at the strange sight, the dog didn't look especially strange in itself he supposed, it was just a black dog… but what the hell was it doing on campus? The students weren't allowed to keep pets, and in the two years he'd been here so far he'd certainly never seen that one skulking around… he was sure it didn't belong to any of the staff, for as far as he knew only the head janitor had a dog, and he had a ridiculously overweight dachshund… this dog was neither of those things.

Leaning his elbow on the window sill, Milliardo continued to watch the dog slinking around the shrubbery, looking around at the windows as it did… wait… looking at the windows? What was he..? Crazy…? It was probably just sniffing the air, why would a dog be looking at windows… a moment later though there was little doubt left in his mind that that was exactly what the dog had been doing… and Milli also found him entertaining the bizarre thought that the dog had actually been looking for him… He was still watching it when the strange creature had looked up, right at him and… as bizarre as it sounded, had grinned at him… the dog had opened its mouth and lolled its tongue at him in what he could only call a doggie grin…

That wasn't as bizarre as things got however, Milli was just managing to shake off the strange feeling that the dog had grinned at him, when the creature suddenly blinked… and when it opened its eyes again it wasn't just the two he had seen before that were looking at him… there were eight eyes...! The Dog had eight fucking eyes!

Strangling a startled noise in his throat Milliardo pushed himself sharply back from the window. He must have been seeing things! It was concussion, he'd hit his head harder than he thought when he'd passed out earlier, that or he was just dehydrated or something… slowly these rational explanations for what he had just seen worked together to slow his pulse down again, though his eyes were still fixed on the window, he couldn't see the grounds any more, but he couldn't drag his eyes away either…

Finally, forcing himself to take a particularly deep breath he passed a hand over his eyes again, murmuring…

"It's only a dog… get a grip. You don't need to freak out over a harmless dog…" to try and calm himself again, when his pulse was skyrocketed once again, behind him a dark, silky voice queried…

"Do you think I'm harmless as well little human..? Do you really?" Milli froze, his heart in his throat. Who was in his room? How did they get in here? He knew he'd locked the door…

"Scared to look are we? How very amusing…" the voice certainly sounded amused, dryly, admittedly, but amused none the less.

"Do you think that what you can't see can't hurt you? That is a very funny notion…" Milli couldn't really help but notice the mocking humour that laced the words… he was being talked to like a child! For a moment irritation got the better of him for a moment and he turned around on the spot but the words he'd been planning to shout failed to pass his lips, drenching the room with a very tense silence during which the two men, one far taller than the other simply stared at each other, one wide eyed, the other grinning.

"How… how did you g-get in here..?" Finally Milli's throat loosened enough to let the words pass his lips, though his mouth felt dry and he was clenching his hands to stop them from shaking, wishing above anything else that he had had time to get dressed again before this incredibly tall stranger had broken into his room…

"Through the door... Didn't you see?" The other man stated, his strange eyes peering out at Milliardo from under the wide brim of the red hat.

"That's not possible…" Milli stated, finding strength now, he was no weakling, this was breaking and entering and he had every right to try and defend himself… he recognised the man as well… he'd been there last night… he was about to say something else when the other interrupted.

"Locked you say? Was it really..? I can't say I noticed…" the other stated, stepping backwards, not looking where he was going at all until he slipped, quite easily through the solid panel of the locked door, his lips drawn back in a wide grin.

Cussing loudly Milli ran across the room to the door, his mind numbed slightly by shock and disbelief. In hindsight it was probably the last thing he would have done, but at that moment the sheer impossibility of what he had just seen compelled him to make sure of it.

Tugging the chain from the latch and turning the key in the lock he practically wrenched the door open, leaning out to peer first to the left, then to the right end of the corridor. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing there. All the doors were shut, their occupants were probably still sleeping, and there was definitely no man in red anywhere to be seen.

He must have been seeing things… It had to be the bump to the head again, just like it had to have been with the dog… that was one hell of a hallucination though.

Shaking his head Milli stepped back into his room, pushing the door closed after he was back inside and turning the key once more to lock it. He shook his head, letting his eyes slip closed for a moment as he tried to take stock of the weird events so far. Just how mad was he actually going? Because these sort of things didn't just happen to normal people… strange dogs… men in red coats vanishing through doors… sighing once more he lifted his head again, turned around and fell back against the door with wide, scared eyes.

Mere millimetres away from his face was another much paler face. Yellow glasses were set low on a slanting nose and blood red eyes were fixed right on Milli's blue ones, ruby bored into sapphire and Milli felt his breath hitch in his throat, he held it, not meaning too, just unable to breathe out. As he stared a dark laugh slipped through the others lips, the grin widened as it had before he had vanished through the door and Milli let out a shaky breathe… he was terrified, how had the other man got back in?

He would have seen him…

"I know you…" he stated quietly after a moment, his eyes still fixed on the red ones…

"You do…?" Came the mocking reply,

"Now… Are you quite sure about that?"

"I…" Milliardo looked confused for a moment,

"Of course I am… You… last night, I saw you last night…"

"I…?" The was faux surprise in the others voice and face as he lifted a white gloved hand to point at himself,

"You saw me…?"

Milli felt himself getting irritated again...

"Yes…" he stated, gritting his teeth slightly, getting annoyed again that he had been so scared… this guy was just fooling about,

"Yes I did. And now I think you should get out… right now…" when the other man did nothing but laugh, Milli found himself raising his voice,

"I don't see anything amusing about it!" He stated heatedly,

"You are going to leave!" He lifted a hand, obviously aiming to push the other man away from him, but he didn't even come close…

Long fingers curled around his wrist holding his hand still, perfectly still… he was strong… and ruby red eyes fixed on his again, holding his gaze over the frames of those odd yellow glasses…

"…Right… now…" his words trailed off lamely as he looked into that pale smirking face. For a moment the other leaned slightly closer as if trying to read something in Milliardo's eyes before, with a wider grin than ever before he leant back, quite suddenly,

"As you wish…" he stated,

"Some games are just more fun when you stick to the rules…" And that said he was gone, he slipped past Milliardo and out through the wall beside him.

For the second time that day Milli felt his legs give out under him and he slumped down the door to the floor.

"You went…" me mumbled quietly, not really sure why he felt so shocked and unnerved by that… in fact… he just wasn't sure what he was feeling at all. As he sat, slumped against his door a voice drifted in through the window,

"Shoo! Get out you mangy mutt!" It was the janitor… yelling at the dog… the strange grinning dog with red eyes… no… there was no way…

And thats that for this chapter! 3
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