Disclaimer: I don't own.. Warnings: Bit o' gore, a few religious references.

As quietly as I can manage, I tug the handle sideways, somewhat surprised by its ease along the metal plate of its rail in result of the many times I've come through here soaking your floor.

There you are, Ritsuka. Aww, Ritsuka. Bundled in covers and sitting at your computer, oh how I wish I could have something to save this memory- a quick mental picture is all I can do at the moment.

You jump at the sudden feel of my head on yours, my arms surrounding your shoulders, and I laugh, already feeling your scowl build up. Tentatively you grab onto my shirt sleeve, pressing your head to the muscle there and rubbing your cold little nose against it. Cold? Only now does the lack of humanly temperature sink in. Why is it so cold in here? I move my hand off of his shoulder and hold his chin, lifting it up to face me. Ritsuka… Ritsuka… will you never know how lovely you are? How … how tempting and adorable you are? Those wiser-than-the-world eyes of yours, half-lidded with a sleep unrecieved by you, and those pink cheeks…such a small face, Ritsuka…I can hold it all in my hand, it's all too adorable… slowly, slowly as to not frighten you in your exhausted state, I turn the chair to face me as I kneel on both knees and wrap my arms once again around you. 'Ritsuka?' I call. He shivers, not by effect of me, but by effect of another severe, sudden drop in temperature.

'Ritsuka!' That woman. What is she doing now…

'Ritsuka! Ritsuka, come down here! It's winter, Ritsuka! You love the winter! Let's go outside and play!' What is she doing!? It infuriates me that I can't do anything to her, that the shaking boy whose face I now hold has forbade me to harm that… that…creature. How dare she hurt my Ritsuka! 'S-she's trying to freeze me out of the h-ha-house…' Ah. Well. If that's what she's trying to do…

I offer to steal you away, Ritsuka. In this matter, to steal you from this home, no…this house. This is no home for you. A home is where you should be loved. I offer to steal you from this house, and you look up at me- thinking I know, your brilliant little mind is always thinking; 'What's the best thing to do here?' 'Who is the best thing to do for?' 'What will happen?' 'What do I want?' 'How do I get it?' 'Who is going to have to get hurt?' 'Anyone?'

You shake your head after a short moment and decline with the explanations and excuses of that wretched woman downstairs to support it. Sighing with closed eyes, I lean in and kiss you - yes, there's that darkening pink I love - agreeing to stay with you for a while and warm you I pull you from your chair and into my chest (oh how wonderfully you fit there). Walking to the bed I hear you saying something, I can't quite catch it but I know you're saying something…what is it, Ritsuka, what? You've changed your mind? Yes? Come with me, Ritsuka. Please, please, PLEASE, say you'll come with me. 'S-Soubi…' Another decrease in temperature, and in the short time I've been here, it's already starting to affect me. That stupid thing downstairs screams up to your room, 'Come down, Ritsuka, let me harm you, let me kill you.' I can't breathe. That…the thought…the thought of you, Ritsuka… No…no, Ritsuka… Seimei… it's the same as if he was dead….was killed, I went though those emotions… the death of a loved one… I can't think of what I'd do if it was you, Ritsuka.

You look up at me, I can't see you, but I can feel your otherworldly gaze upon me, anxiousness building up. I lift you, such a light, cold, little thing, and hold you against me. That same cold, little nose is pressed against my neck, those same cold, little fingers clutch my shirt. Your hair is so nice…so soft and fluffy, and…messy, but it's a look of complete handsomeness that only you can pull off. Slowly I rub my cheek in small circles against your head; the small movement causing the slightest, no, smallest (do you catch my small unnoticable emphasis, Ritsuka?) sliver of warmth. I seat us in the chair you were in previously, barely any heat there, and cradle your head. 'Soubi…why'd you come?' To see you, Ritsuka, because I knew that you'd sit later, staring at your phone and wish that I would call, wish that I would end your mental torture of 'I should call him, but what if he's busy? What if he's asleep? What if he doesn't want me to call him right now? What if what if what if.' 'I came to see you, Ritsuka.' I say with a smile and a light touch to the tip of his slightly reddened nose. I know you need the reassurance, and this is your reprieve. 'S-Soubi.' He says softly, and I can tell that it means you're about to cry, Ritsuka, or sleep. 'Yes, Ritsuka?' 'W-Would you die, w-w…for me?' I wonder briefly on his sudden change of words but cast it off as one of Ritsuka's odd ways of speaking. Seimei had once asked me that. He asked me that countless times before I was marked, the last time- the day I was carved. 'Yes, Ritsuka. I would die for you anytime. I love you, Ritsuka.' I throw in for his benefit. I feel a slight movement at my shoulder and know he is smiling.

'Ritsuka! Ritsuka! Ritsuka, please! Open the door! Open the door for your mother! Come on, Ritsuka! Open the door! Now! Don't disobey me!' One day, I hope Ritsuka will let me hurt her. Not even kill her, but hurt her. She'd still be alive if I crippled her, Ritsuka…let me?

Her knocking, banging rather, gets louder, and it's apparent that she'll stay there all night if she has to. Ritsuka gives a final squeeze, and I do so back, for I know that he's about to tell me to leave, to tell me to sleep and he'll try and do the same. 'Soubi…Soubi I think you should go now…' How adorable…lowering his head as he stands, his despair obvious. 'If that's what you want.' I look down at him as I myself stand, knowing that he wants to shout out, 'No! That isn't what I want! You just…you just can't stay here. I'm frightened of sleeping in the same bed as you, but I want to hold on and never let go. I want to leave here, but I don't…I can't leave my mother.'

Reaching down I gently tug at his left virgin-ear, a sweet nickname I've adopted for his, perverse maybe, but I'm the only one who will ever hear it. He looks up: those eyes, those purple crystals, piercing and intelligent, reflecting the joyous sunlight and magnifying the ever-feared dark. 'Don't worry, Ritsuka. I'll come and see you tomorrow.' He nods slowly, those same puddles of grape gelatin falling to my hand, sadly looking at the circular scars left by Zero's nail. I put my hand on his head and kneel before him. Now equal height I pull him close, my right hand behind his head, my left, at his back. Again, ever so slowly at the pace that is Ritsuka, my right hand is removed and I look up. He's frowning at the mark and brings it to his lips. He kissed it. The most un-Ritsuka-like gesture I've seen so far… he carefully releases that hand, only to bring up the left one and kiss the scar there too. I look up at him now, reading the now wine-like viewful orbs. Sorrow. A look very much accustomed to Ritsuka. I smile, conveying my wordless dismissal of it. He smiles back, a small, ha-ha, small… smile, and I lean in to kiss him a final time before I depart- that wretched woman still banging away at his door with cries of 'Ritsuka, Ritsuka, open the door! Are you okay?!'

I make it back to my apartment, Kio still sleeping on the bed-n-couch( he bought that a while ago, telling me without my actual care, telling me without my actual care as to why he did so, that it was because he was at my apartment long enough, but my refusal to sleep in the same bed dehearted him I think…) with a ridiculously large human-sized pillow he claimed as his between his legs and hugged between his arms, drool and only God- myself and Kio- knows what else lower on the cloth.

I step into my room. Stopping in the spot I am after I close the door, and already just know that I'll not get any sleep tonight. Walking right back out the door I pause in the living room just long enough to grab Kio's motorbike keys out of the key bowl in the hallway before continuing on down to the ground floor parking lot.

Ah. Tonight's air is quite calm. It smells like mulberries…although I just passed a incents shop…so I can't say for sure that it's the night's smell.

The sky is cloudy, looks like it's going to rain soon…maybe that's what the night should smell like? Rain? I've stopped the bike already… leaning against it I think I'll light a smoke. Ritsuka's behavior was odd. He's never been that straightforward, although I'm not complaining…

Maybe I should stop by his house…once more, just to check on him…just to check. No, Soubi. Ritsuka doesn't need you spying on him as he sleeps…But maybe… I mean.. what if his mother got through the door? So what if she did…she wouldn't harm him any more than usual…I'll check on him on my way back just in case.

I spend a good bit of time there. A hill, the highest I could find in this town, a clear place to think…a clear place to paint…a good place for a picnic; maybe I'll bring Ritsuka here tomorrow. Yes, that would be a good idea, I'll bring him here tomorrow, then afterwards, I'll take him to the movies, or to the movies and then here? But he'll be tired surely, after the picnic, so it's better to have the picnic, and then to the park? Just to walk around…or the picnic and then the plaza, and then maybe a movie, or a movie and then a picnic, surely he'd be tired after a picnic though?

I find my thoughts repeating, and almost subconsciously I've mounted the bike, slowing down and speeding up, watching the world fly by me - or come crawling as if it was injured, raped, and needed saving – through Kio's tinted bike helmet.

The raped world is moving towards and past me at a slower rate than before as I approach Ritsuka's house, the only one around that has the curtain pulled back, a black rectangle – my entrance. I've climbed up, oh so many times I've done this, and now stand before that eerie darkness and peer inside.

No.

No. No. No. No. NO! NO! NO! NO!

Ritsuka! No, no, no! Ristuka no! What…WHAT?! I JUST LEFT FROM HERE!

There on the bed, oh how hard I'm hitting the damn window!, there is Ritsuka, his hands spread out to his side, and pinned there….by knives. By knives driven into his hands as if he were Christ being crucified, and he very well might be, that… that fucking woman standing above him is that same soldier that pierced his heart!

Finally I break the damn thing! And I run in, run in, run in, I have to save Ritsuka!

Throwing that heathen creature off of him I stand to the side in horror, hands over him, not able to think; shirtless, for one he is shirtless in this frozen hell, this frozen firey hell that been induced by the woman looking satanically up at me from the floor, gripping the long and pointed and already bloodied (by the stab wound in Ritsuka's bleeding stomach I see now, one of two!) kitchen knife. That same wound, I now have my hands over, one on each, trying to stop the bleeding. Thankfully…Oh Ritsuka…oh Ritsuka, no…. the attack wasn't too long ago. He splutters, he's been spluttering from the first moment he saw me, and blood oozes slowly - slowly is a good sign… not too much damage to his innards- from it… Oh Ritsuka… Now she's stood. 'Get away from him! He's no son of mine! He has to die so the real Ritsuka can come back! Move away! Move away or I'll… I'll…I'LL DO IT!' She holds that damning knife to her throat, and I laugh, a bitter thing, my eyes not leaving Ritsuka's, but relaying to my mind her position regardless. 'Ritsuka…Ritsuka, oh Ritsuka' I hear myself moan. No… what… what about tomorrow? What about our picnic? Our movie? All the things I have planned for us tomorrow and the tomorrow after that… and after that...And the one after that….

'Ritsuka…' I moan again, 'Ritsuka, if you can hear me, please…please… nod for me, okay? Nod for me, Ritsuka…' He does so with a gasp and a cough, and another cough and another and another gasp. 'Oh, Ritsuka…why didn't you call?...' I sob to myself.

'Get away from him! I have to stop his heart or my Ritsuka won't come back!' 'STUPID WOMAN! YOUR Ritsuka will never come back, never. He's dead. They killed him! He won't come back! He left you! He left you! He hated you so much that he chose death over you! Do it! Off yourself! Off yourself and go to your precious other Ritsuka!'

With a final scream I hear the sickly sound of blood being split, her pathetic gasping and know that she'll never hurt Ritsuka again. I lift up my hand and immediantly replace it, his dark essence flowing with a vengence when I did, I check the other - the the same. I near crying now…Ritsuka…no… what would I do without you?...NO!

I look around, and not spotting Ritsuka's phone anywhere, as quickly as I can, I reach into my own pocket and pull out mine, dialing 911. I look up into Ritsuka's eyes, what was once vibrant purple, was now dark lavender, and through his bloodstained face he smiles at me, a more torturous wound I could not think of. A smile at peace with his own death. No. Ritsuka you will not leave me in this violated world. You will not dare. This is a command that you will not defy. I hold the phone between my shoulder and ear and …and…oh... I look down again and he... and he just smiles… another cough.. another splurting of blood, then back to looking intentingly and smiling with the joint forces of his innocence and purity at me. I lean down and kiss him, his life force warm and penny-smelling against my lips. I feel him pressing into the touch with a weak ability, and I pull back, tears already forming…surprising me that they did not rush to the scene first. I close my eyes and try to block out the expected whimpers or screams, or yells of anguish, or hell, even moans of masochistic pleasure as I remove a hand again, this time, from the more shallow of the wounds, and pull out the two knives, no sound of pain, no sounds at all, and I fear I was too late...They fall with a muted thud onto the carpet. Those damn knives, the blades of sharpened metal that would have surely nearly killed my Ritsuka, the slants of steel that rejected the iron in his blood, the push-pins that were cruely stabbed into the beautiful, blue, butterfly's wings - those two nails…hammered into the hands of my savior-- bring back the words that had changed within their first syllable. 'W-Would you die, w-w…for me?', I knew now. 'Would you die with me?'

Breifly and almost subconciously I look back at the utensils upon the surface of the dark sea, waiting for someone to pick up the other line, and I hesitate not one bit. I would.

'9-1-1, what's your emergency?'

Hope any who read enjoyed, I went back and fixed a few things...so if you were on the alert list and got this...that'd be why. Will SOMEONE let me know if they'd like a sequel to this? PM me and I'll think about it. I had a lot of fun writing it, as I hope you did reading. Well...yes. ;) that's all.