Invulnerable
by Blackened Wing

Rating: T

Summary: Kaname and Yuki leave the Academy after the events in Ch. 47, but exhaustion and his injuries are beginning to get to the pureblood. Now it's Yuki's turn to take care of him.

Warnings: A little bit of blood / mentions of amputee type injury. Angst.

Pairings: Kaname x Yuki (although mostly in comforting / supportive kind of way in this particular fic).

Series: None. This story is not part of my other works and doesn't fit in to either of my other series.

Spoilers: Yes, major spoilers for recent chapters of the manga including 46 & 47.

A/N: This story takes place directly after the events in chapter 47 of the manga. You probably need to have read up to that point already for this to make sense. Since it's pulling straight off the manga, this story will of course, be AU as soon as chapter 48 comes out. This isn't so much a story, I suppose, as a little scene. So much has happened with Kaname recently that I felt it's inconceivable that it won't catch up with him a little... this is my small idea on a scenario where that happens. It's kinda angsty in a number of ways, but also hopefully a bit sweet.

My interest in writing this was focused on Kaname, LOL but somehow I actually ended up focusing a lot on Yuki too. My muse is completely unpredictable. ;P Oh, speaking of Yuki, I'm assuming she can drive in this fic. Even if she hasn't got a license yet, for the sake of the story I'm assuming she's at least had some lessons, and that now that she's her pureblood self again she'd have no problem with the car. May or may not be true, but it's necessary for the scene to work. ;)

Language Use: I use the word "Oniisan" in this fic, which is Japanese for "(older) brother".

Disclaimer: Vampire Knight and its characters do not belong to me. They belong to their inspired creator Matsuri Hino. I borrow them without permission, but with great affection. This story is for entertainment purposes only; no money is being made from it.

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Yuki didn't know where they were going as they drove down streets she had seen many times before, and yet now somehow seemed suddenly new and strange. It felt like the world had grown colder. Like so much that had been had passed away. She had asked no questions, following Kaname with silent trust as he led her away from what remained of Cross Academy, her home... but her home no longer. Everything had changed. She had changed, and the people she cared the most for there... they could no longer accept her. He could no longer accept her... Oh God, Zero...

Yuki skirted quickly away from those thoughts when the yawning, bleeding wound inside her chest threatened to open up again. That pain was much too raw and there was not a thing in the world that she could do about it. She was what she was. Better to focus on the present and keep both the pain and any fragile, foolish hopes for a better future locked away where reality could not break them under its weight.

Her gaze shifted to the young man in the driver's seat beside her. Kaname had hardly spoken to her since they got in the car, nor she to him, but it was not an uncomfortable silence. She didn't know where they were going, but she trusted him implicitly. She knew whatever he did, it would be for her safety. With her new vision and understanding, she realized that that had always been the case. It had always been about her for him. That was deeply touching, but Yuki couldn't help feeling guilty for some reason too.

"Are you all right, Oniisan?" Yuki asked quietly after a moment, concern starting to replace her other feelings as she studied her brother. Her brother... how weird it still felt to think that. Yet also, how incredibly natural...

Kaname's normally erect posture was a little off, his shoulders slightly hunched. He drove with his left hand, his right arm hugged across his chest, the stump of his wrist tucked under his left arm. Yuki wasn't sure if he was trying to hide it from her or if it was hurting him, but the ridged cast of his body was leading her to suspect the latter.

He smiled at her then, as he always did, soft, adoring... sad. Why did he always look so sad? She ached for him. "I'm fine, Yuki. Don't worry."

His body posture immediately changed, shoulders straightening, the tension disappearing as he exuded his normal aura of poise and control. It could fool anyone... but not her. Not anymore. Now, Yuki knew he was slipping the mask back on to hide his vulnerability. Because purebloods like the two of them could not be vulnerable. Only, Yuki knew, she had been vulnerable. Vulnerable and weak for ten years... but not unprotected. Cross and Zero would have defended her with their lives, she knew that, and Kaname too, he had always been there whenever he could be without giving her secret away. She had been protected, but Kaname had had to be invulnerable enough for both of them, hadn't he?

Yuki frowned slightly. Well, he didn't have to be anymore. She reached over and rested her hand on his knee. Kaname shot her a quick look, but his smile seemed a little less sad.

They drove on for a while longer in silence. Kaname's grip on the wheel tightened when the lines on the road started dividing and multiplying and the oncoming traffic began to sport multiple sets of headlights. He was so cold, and yet his skin felt like it was burning. The stump of the hand he'd lost to Zero's vines earlier was throbbing and sending shooting pains up his arm, making his heart race. He hadn't been feeling good for a while, but he had been keeping the pain at bay. Now, though, it was starting to overtake him.

It was not solely the injury, it was also everything leading up to it that was the problem. He had not slept since Rido showed up at Cross Academy in Shiki's body - that would have been too dangerous. He had recently given Yuki a lot of his blood upon her awakening and even had to give some to Rido to enable his as well. Confronting and taking out the Council earlier had drained him more than he let anyone see. They were, after all, all very powerful vampires in their own right and they had not succumbed easily to his will. Even though the battle had been brief, it had still been intense. Not to mention the emotional toll that he refused to even let himself acknowledge. If he'd not been so drained when he came back, maybe he wouldn't have let Kiriyu injure him like this... but maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. Kaname was under no illusions about how strong the young hunter was now. The fact that he had fulfilled his task and destroyed Rido, a pureblood vampire, was clearly indicative of that.

It had been according to plan for him to become that way... but it had not been according to plan for him to point his weapon at Yuki, even if Kaname inwardly doubted the hunter had been ready to pull the trigger. The pureblood hadn't thought Zero could go that far, but Zero had surprised him. Kaname had been counting on Zero's affection for Yuki to help him understand that not all vampires had to be evil, but apparently he had miscalculated. That stung, for many reasons. The boy was so strong, but so very much in pain. Kaname was ready to take him down - or try to - if he became a threat to Yuki, but it was not something he enjoyed the thought of at all. He'd used Zero for his own ends, for Yuki's sake, but he'd never meant to be cruel about it. What might I have done differently?

Kaname felt the weight of all his failures pressing down on him. Little ones, maybe, not effecting the overall outcome which was still going according to plan, but too many small slips along the way could undermine everything. The unexpected could jump up and slap you in the face and then you had to just react... whether that reaction was right or wrong.

Kaname felt a trickle of cold sweat slid down his neck under his collar. Shivers that he couldn't hold back were starting to make him tremble. He grit his teeth, loathing his weakness. All the stress he had been under lately was not improving his body's reaction to the injury he had taken. Zero's vines were somehow an extension of the Bloody Rose - any injury from them was an injury from an anti-vampire weapon. Kaname might as well have had his hand chopped off with a hunter sword. It would take time to re-grow, and right now, the pain and the damper it put on his healing abilities and everything else was wreaking havoc with his system.

He was trying to control it, but he couldn't. Damn! This was one of those nasty little surprises he'd just been thinking about that could pop up and jeopardize your entire game. He needed to get Yuki somewhere safe before word of what had happened to the Council and at the school spread too fast. But his body was begging for rest and driving was becoming difficult.

With her new senses, Yuki could hear Kaname's heart starting to become erratic. She felt him tremble under her hand on his leg, and she could see how deathly pale he had become. No matter what he said, something was obviously quite wrong.

"Kaname, you're not all right. Find some place to pull over," she said quietly, but with a note of gentle command that somewhat surprised herself.

Kaname shot her an uncertain look, seeming to hesitate. His knuckles were almost white on the steering wheel and his eyes were disturbingly dilated.

Yuki stroked her fingers softly through the hair above his ear. "Now," she added. The command was much more definite this time. It felt natural to be that way, but a few days ago she would certainly never have dared to speak to Kaname in that manner. Or just about anyone, actually. She knew this new, more confident side of herself was probably part of her reawaked pureblood nature.

Somewhat to her surprise, Kaname obeyed. He turned off onto a winding, deserted side-road that took them farther into the country before finally pulling over and stopping on the side of the road once he was fairly sure there wasn't going to be a lot of traffic going by.

Kaname leaned forward, resting his forehead against his good hand on top of the steering wheel for a moment, attempting to gather himself and unable to even pretend that he was fine anymore. A sick flush of humiliation at being so weak in front of the person whose opinion meant the most to him in the world colored Kaname's deathly pale cheeks. The wound he'd taken shouldn't be effecting him this much. Weakness was despised among purebloods, and Yuki was again a pureblood like himself. She should be disgusted with him. He was.

Head spinning, Kaname reached awkwardly for the door handle. "You drive, Yuki. I'll tell you where to go," he mumbled, the shame of failure evident in his voice and his averted eyes.

Yuki stopped him, her arms encircling his shoulders as she knelt on her seat, leaning in and placing a tender kiss on his worryingly feverish temple. Kaname froze, leaning into her gentle touch automatically, like a plant long kept in darkness leaning yearningly towards sunlight.

"In a few minutes," Yuki murmured, deeply worried by how much Kaname was trembling in her arms. "First I want to check your arm. Let's move to the back seat." It was awkward trying to reach him around the steering wheel and the gear column in the front seat.

"We shouldn't waste the time..." Kaname started to protest, hating himself for the mere possibility that he could be putting her in danger, or at least wasn't in the proper shape to protect her.

Yuki was having none of it. "Taking care of you is not a waste of time, Oniisan!" she said firmly, almost fiercely. "You've taken care of me my whole life. I'm not a frail little girl anymore. Let me do the same for you."

She cupped his cheek, feeling the unnatural heat radiating from his pale skin. Kaname's hand slid up over hers and he gave her a faint smile. He was so proud of her, so touched by her affection and he felt so unworthy. "I'm sorry," he murmured faintly. "You shouldn't have to."

"Of course I should, silly," Yuki returned, and her smile was more reminiscent of the playful exasperation she exhibited in her human life. "You don't have to be strong all the time. Nobody should have to be strong all the time," she added in a whisper.

They transferred to the back seat, Yuki helping to support Kaname as he got out of the car and then back in, much to his chagrin. They sat sideways in the rear seat, facing one another. At Yuki's insistence, Kaname carefully shrugged his right arm out of his coat sleeve, which was long enough that it hide his stump. The pureblood's face was tense with agony at the motion, but he made no sound. After that was done, he leaned his throbbing head sideways, letting the side of his face rest against the seat back as he allowed Yuki to take his painful right arm in her small, gentle hands.

At some point, perhaps while she had remained behind to speak to Zero, Kaname had wrapped his injured wrist in some kind of cloth binding, although the intent appeared to be more to keep it from making a mess and to minimize the smell of his blood than to protect the injury.

Yuki unwrapped the bloodied cloth gently, pushing back Kaname's stained white shirt sleeve as she did. She frowned in tender concern when his torn wrist was revealed. It was a proof of her reawakened vampire nature that the injury did not turn her stomach. She wasn't ready to fully consider the inborn appeal that blood and torn flesh now held, but at least in this instance it helped her not feel repulsed by her brother's mangled arm.

The stump had not healed over yet, although the bleeding was only a sluggish trickle here and there now that the wrappings had been removed. Yuki wasn't sure if it would actually heal over, or if it would have to stay raw like this until Kaname's body was able to finish re-growing the lost appendage. Yuki frowned suddenly, considering her assumptions. It would grow back, wouldn't it? There was so much she found she was unsure of, having lived the bulk of her life as a member of a different race.

"It's all right," Kaname whispered, watching her from where he leaned slumped against the seat and seeming to read her thoughts. "It will heal and re-grow with time." Normally, that should already have at least started to happen by now, but Kaname was obviously running at a very low ebb.

Yuki looked relieved. She tenderly licked the damaged limb again, gradually numbing the pain a bit and finally completely halting the bleeding.

Kaname shivered softly, but not from pain or weakness this time. Yuki's touch set him alight and her soft, gentle tending both provided relief from his agony and warmed his heart deeply. Content to trust her with his life and soul, Kaname silently surrendered to her care, watching in weak, hazy adoration as she cleaned his wound and finally redressed it afresh.

Yuki was worried about the dark, angry lines running up Kaname's arm and how inflamed the area around his torn wrist seemed to be, but she knew enough about vampires and anti-vampire weapons to know that Kaname was probably reacting badly to whatever hunter power or poison was a part of the Bloody Rose. He would heal, he just need time, rest, and...

Carefully, Yuki shrugged out of her coat turned back the collar of her shirt. It was a natural motion, one she was used to from having shared blood so many times with Zero... Yuki momentarily closed her eyes, gathering herself. No. Stop. Don't go there. You can't afford that pain right now. You have to be strong. Kaname needs you.

Kaname's eyes had slid shut, his breathing labored, lips slightly parted and unconsciously displaying a small glimpse of fangs, obviously aroused by his unspoken need for blood. Yuki touched his cheek and his eyes immediately sprang open again, glazed garnet orbs a little bleary but looking at her with such tenderness. Yuki smiled and caressed his flushed skin with one hand while tugging down her collar in obvious invitation with the other.

"You need blood to heal, Oniisan," she murmured. She saw the instinctive little flare of red in the depths of Kaname's eyes. He had always desired her blood. But years of denying himself were a hard habit to break. Concern quickly covered desire as Kaname forced the reaction back.

"No, Yuki. You've only just awoken. I'll be fine, I just need to rest," he promised.

Yuki wondered with fond resignation why she was cursed with so many incredibly stubborn and ridiculously over protective men in her life. It would be no danger to her to have Kaname drink her blood as long as he didn't overdo it, and somehow, she wasn't remotely worried about that possibility.

"Kaname, come on... a little bit isn't going to hurt me," she murmured, coaxing.

Kaname pressed his eyes shut with a different kind of pain. "No, you already gave recently, Yuki," he whispered. Kaname did not know how much of Yuki's blood Zero had drunk before they parted. He wasn't about to ask and he didn't want to think about it. He let his head rest heavily on the seat, inhaling her scent, so close to him. It helped him float above the pain. It was okay. She was here. She was safe. That was what mattered. He would have surrendered his life for that.

Yuki froze slightly. She realized she shouldn't have been surprised though. Of course... Kaname must have smelled her blood after he left her with Zero. Given how badly he'd reacted to Zero pointing his gun at her, she appreciated the restraint he had shown in giving them that time together and not rushing back when he had obviously guessed what was happening. Of course, considering his protectiveness, he might have been watching from a distance to be sure she was in no danger... although Yuki kind of hoped not, considering what else that meant he would have seen.

Yuki swallowed, her heart bleeding for so many reasons. She feared she'd hurt Kaname by what she had done, and she knew she'd hurt Zero by what she couldn't do, what she couldn't be. Why... why couldn't she move or breathe without hurting someone she cared about?

"Would you reject me because of that?" Yuki whispered softly, her fingers caressing gently through Kaname's damp, silky tresses. She blinked rapidly, battling the sting in her eyes.

Kaname's head came up quickly, his pain-dilated eyes fixing earnestly on her with startled horror. He hadn't meant it to sound like that at all. "No!" he said quickly, cupping her face with his good hand, his palm hot against her cool, smooth cheek. "No... I..." he shook his head, not finding the right words through the spinning in his head. "Your blood is yours to gift as you will, I just meant, I can't ask you to do that again so soon."

Yuki closed her eyes, her fingertips gliding over his hand. Of course. Dear, sweet Kaname. It was always about her. How unworthy he unintentionally made her feel. How touched and yet almost frightened that his happiness depended so heavily upon her.

"You're not asking, I am..." Yuki said quietly, sliding forward so she was practically sitting on Kaname's lap, pulling his head to her neck and feeling the burn of his fever against her sensitive skin. Her small fingers tangled protectively in his dark curls as she cradled his head to her. How could he think she would let him suffer when she held the power to ease his agony?

"You said it is mine to give... and I want to give it to you. Please Kaname, drink my blood..." she murmured. Her words were innocent and laced with care, although the offer was unintentionally seductive. Yuki stretched her neck a little in a way that she had learned it was hard for a vampire to resist.

Kaname groaned softly, yet it didn't sound exactly pained. Yuki had never heard him make a sound like that. The fingers of Kaname's good hand gripped the back of the seat tightly. Even now, Yuki was still a little unaware of what she did to him, of the power that she held over him. He was too weak, and too hungry for her to make himself pull away. With his face pressed against her throat and his body already begging for blood, he could not say no. Not when she offered and indeed pleaded so beautifully. He would do anything for her.

Kaname surrendered. With utmost tenderness, he licked and kissed her neck before he finally bit her, his fangs sliding in as sweet and sensual as a kiss. Yuki knew what to expect and was not afraid, holding his hair tightly and closing her eyes, her breathing speeding up slightly as her blood was drawn. She'd always found having her blood drunk disturbingly pleasant, and now perhaps she finally understood why. It was part of who and what she was. Since awakening she was even more sensitive to it.

Kaname drank slowly and very carefully, his arms curling around Yuki's waist and his breath brushing softly against her skin. She tasted like heaven and he reveled in the amazing ability to finally just do this. After all the years of having to keep so far away, of yearning for her, the comforting release was intense. Tears gathered in his eyes, thankfully hidden as they fell against the soft skin of her neck. Ah... Yuki.... It was like coming home. It was like discovering you still had a home when you thought all had been lost, sold and taken away long ago. Her closeness filled his heart, like a part of him that had been broken and lost for so long had finally been returned.

He remained very conscious of what he was doing though, careful to not take too much. He took only a little from her, but it was still enough to help significantly and his trembling had stopped by the time he finally slid his fangs free and licked the puncture wounds closed. He felt warm and sleepy, his body telling him it needed to shut down now for a while to repair.

He caressed Yuki's cheek tenderly. "I love you, Yuki," he whispered.

Yuki smiled deeply, a soft, attractive flush spreading across her cheeks. She squeezed his hand and kissed him on the forehead again. She stroked his fevered cheeks and his curly hair gently as she held him close. "Why don't you go on and rest back here? I can drive if you tell me where we're going."

Kaname didn't like that idea, but in the end they compromised with Yuki driving and Kaname curled up on his side on the fully reclined front passenger seat. He kept his right arm curled to his chest and his skin was still flushed, but the tension had bled out of his body. He gave Yuki complete directions, but intended to stay awake to continue directing as they went. He lasted for a while, but eventually his body won out and his eyes slid shut, long dark lashes brushing his cheeks in unconsciousness more than sleep.

Yuki glanced sideways at him while she drove. At the next stop light, she reached back and pulled her discarded coat from the back seat, draping it carefully over Kaname while he slept. The pureblood stirred, but proved how much he needed the rest by not waking fully. Instead he seemed comforted by having Yuki's scent wrapped around him. He curled into the coat and continued to sleep.

Yuki smiled tenderly as she fixed her gaze back on the road. She ached so badly to comfort and protect this sweet, lonely young man. This man who had been part of her life, protecting and cherishing her since her very first memories. She loved him. As a lover, or as a brother? She wasn't entirely sure yet, there were so many things she was trying to sort out within herself. But one thing she was certain of... she could never leave him. She would never let him be alone again.

He had borne the burden this long. She would share it now. She couldn't let him suffer for her ever again. Too many people had suffered for her. There had been far too much pain and she had been blind to it all. But no longer. It was her turn now, to try to be what others needed.

Kaname needed her beside him, needed to no longer have to walk alone. Zero needed her one step ahead of him, giving him a reason to never consider his task and his life finished. And Yuki...? What did Yuki need? She needed to figure out how Kaname had survived with this kind of responsibility hanging on him all the time. She needed to learn to be invulnerable.

THE END