DREW
I kneeled by Vee's head, stroking his hair and trying to comb the sleep knots out of his bangs with my fingers. Jessie laid down on the couch closest to Vee's and closed his eyes, his breathing slowing immediately. I couldn't help but feel sympathetic to them; You wake up in the middle of the night to someone ripping your home from the ground. I was surprised that Jessie had even let me help them at all. I could see the protective way he'd stayed right by Vee's side as soon as he entered the house and kept glancing apprehensively at the door.
   I never thought much about why Choronuses hid themselves from humans. Vee showed me and Summer what he was, and we didn't try to accuse them of taking over the world. But now that I think about it, they were hiding not only for protection, but in fear of us. We didn't know they even existed outside of fairy tales. But in every fairy tale that had a Choronus in it, the Choronus was like the Big Bad Wolf, trying to steal something from somebody else. Vee had explained to me that that was only the common depiction of the war-based breed of Choronus, whom are specially trained to be stealthy and quick from birth, then are sent into wars to fight on the front lines. His breed is also battle-focused, but they aren't trained from birth. If Choronuses had shown themselves earlier, the government would have had them killed.
    I glanced at the clock on the wall of the living room; the time read 12:30. Mom said that she'd be back before one o'clock. I glanced at Vee's face; his beautiful, pale features were calm, the same as he looked when he was asleep, which comforted me a little bit. At least I know he's not in too much pain. The scars covering his arms and the scars on the sides of his neck and chest were pink in the dimmed light, and his skin was ghostly pale in comparison. His back rose and fell with his steady breathing.
    He shifted a little bit, his face tightening suddenly. I put one hand on his shoulder and he put his hand over mine. His black fingernails had dirt stuck beneath them, probably from trying to dig his way out of the ground. His snow-white fingers intertwined with my fingers, and I could see just how much paler his skin was than mine. My skin looked a light shade of brown compared to his whiter-than-white complexion. I gently moved his hair out of his face with my free hand. His face had relaxed and went back to its usual angelic look again. Apparently that had been a short pain spasm.
    Suddenly the front door opened and Kilie came bounding into the room holding a little brown paper bag, shouting excitedly for me. Jessie's ears flicked back and he grunted, burying his face in the pillow when Kilie started shouting. Vee shifted a little bit towards me, our hands falling off of his shoulder still intertwined. She stopped dead in her tracks in the doorway, seeing me with Vee and Jessie on the other couch. I watched her and told her silently to stay quiet. Mom and Dad walked into the living room talking, but they stopped beside Kilie when they saw Vee and Jessie.
    "Oh, no," Mom sighed sympathetically. Mom came over to me and hugged me. Dad took Kilie to her room to see what was in the brown bag-- apparently it was a goodie bag-- while I relayed to Mom what had happened with the police.
    "They shot both of them, and Vee got these cuts," I lifted one of the damp towels off of my boyfriend's back to show Mom and she winced in sympathy.
    "I wish I had been there," I said. "I could have helped them get out."
    "Sweetie, I'm sorry," Mom said. "But if you had gone you could have ended up like this," she gestured at the gashes on Vee's back, "or worse. I knew that. Vee knew that, and he told you to stay here." She put her hand on my shoulder. "Imagine if you had gone to help and you were hurt, or killed. Imagine what he would have done to himself." I didn't answer.
    "I know what he would have done," Jessie said from his couch. He'd apparently woken up and was now sitting up with his back against the pillow. "He would have killed himself." Jessie watched my face for a reaction. "You're the only person he's ever loved. He'd be devastated if he was away from you."
   I stared at him in disbelief
  "You've never seen him when he's not with you," Jessie continued. "Just hearing your voice through the phone calms him down. I can tell when he misses you, it's obvious how unhappy he is." Jessie looked me in the eye. The look in his eyes said, 'Leave my brother, and I will personally make sure you stay as miserable as he is for the rest of eternity.' Vee shifted and grumbled something in French, pulling his arms under his chest and curling his head toward his shoulder.
   "Can you toss me that blanket?" I asked Jessie, indicating one of the two blankets draped over the back of his couch. He grabbed the blanket and tossed it to me. I draped it over Vee and he started purring quietly. I watched Vee's face, listening to his purrs, and felt a tidal wave of love for him wash over me.

JESSIE
I woke up at about three in the morning. Drew was asleep over by Vee's couch, their heads close and their hands intertwined. Both of their breathing was calm. I got up and found my way to the bathroom.
   When I came back out into the living room Vee was awake. He was stroking the back of Drew's hand with his thumb, watching his boyfriend's face fondly.
   "How're you feeling?" I asked my brother quietly so as not to wake Drew up.
   "Alright," he shifted and stretched out his legs over the end of the couch. I went over to him and lifted one of the towels off of his back; the cut was no longer bleeding, and looked just deep enough that it would scar over. I removed all of the towels and threw them away, seeing as they were all crusted with dried blood.
   "I'm gonna need to stitch these shut," I told Vee. "So that they don't get infected."
   "Okay," He said reluctantly. He hates getting stitches. Especially because I don't give him any pain killers for them. I went back into the bathroom and grabbed the First Aid kit, carrying it out to the living room with me. I opened it on the coffee table and pulled out some bandages and medical tape, along with a clean needle and stitch thread. I put the needle in cleaning alcohol for a minute anyway, just to kill any extra germs or bacteria, before putting the thread through the needle head. I got to work, stitching each arm part of the cut first then stitching an X shape in the middle and on the puncture wounds. Vee winced when I stitched the puncture wounds; I guess they hurt more than the rest of it. 
   Drew woke up as I was stitching the last puncture wound shut. He looked confused for a second as to what I was doing, then saw and squeezed his eyes shut.
   "Oh, ew." He said. "How can you do that?"
   I chuckled. "Sorta have to, really."
   "If it makes you feel better, I don't like stitching him up either." Vee said.
   "Aw c'mon you only had to give me stitches once."
   "But that doesn't mean I can't hate it."
   "Ugh Fine."
   Drew smirked at our arguing and untangled his fingers from Vee's, going into the kitchen to grab food. "You guys want something to eat? We've got some leftover steak."
   "No thanks, I'm gonna hunt." I started to say before I was interrupted.
   "No, don't go," Drew's mom appeared in the doorway. "The government will be searching the woods for your kind. It's not safe for either of you to leave yet."
   "Damn," I snarled under my breath, then proceeded to cuss out the government as I cut the thread off of the needle I was using to stitch Vee and grabbed the bandages.
   "Okay, can you kneel on the floor?" I asked my brother, and helped him off the couch slowly so that he didn't hurt himself. He made a dirty joke and I ignored it. I unwrapped part of the bandages and held the starting end to Vee's chest, wrapping it around his sternum so that it covered his stitched-up wound. The bandages went from just under his armpits to just a little bit under the waistband of his jeans, but I only wrapped one layer so that he still had some movement. The bandages were only there just in case the wounds bled because of the stitches.
   "Um, Jess?" Vee said quietly, and I looked up from medical taping the bandages in place. "Could you?" He held his wrists out to me, and I felt a pang of pain in my chest. I knew what he meant.
   "Yeah, of course." I nodded and wrapped several layers of bandage around his scar-covered wrists and upper forearms. He mumbled thanks to me after I medical taped them in place. I gave him a reassuring smile, and he returned it with a half-smile.
   We ate breakfast with Drew and his family. Vee took the bandages off his wrists after breakfast, which made me feel better. That was a signal to me that he didn't feel like cutting anymore.
   We spend two days with Drew and his family. Vee shared Drew's room while I slept in the guest room. I didn't mind it though; I knew Vee had trouble sleeping as it was, and was glad that he had Drew to share a bed with and comfort him if he needed it.
   Around midnight the second night I was shaken awake. I grumbled groggily and looked up through my half-opened eyes, but I couldn't make out more than shapes in the dark. I could, however, hear someone's ragged breathing.
   "J-Jess," Vee said quietly, giving me another gentle shake to make sure I was conscious. I opened my eyes completely and flicked on the dull lamp by the bed so that I could see him clearly. His face was tear-streaked and his hands were shaking. He looked miserable.
   "What's wrong?" I asked him, sitting up, but I already knew the answer to my question. He sat down on the edge of the bed and I pulled him into a hug as he started crying. I stroked his back gently so that I didn't hurt his cuts, whispering to him in French.
   "Tu est bien." 'You're okay.'
   "Il faire mal," he mutter/cried into my shoulder. 'It hurts.'
   "Tu est bien," I repeated to him.
   "Je volonté vouloir à dire s'arrêter à lui," he muttered. 'I want it to stop'

(If translated directly, 'I would like to put a stop to it'. Also don't run it through Google Translate, it will come out wrong, type the English phrase into WordReference and it will come up with each individual word.)

   "Je sais," I said. "Je sais." 'I know.' I gently took his wrists out from between us and looked at them to make sure he hadn't cut; they were rubbed raw, but no new cuts. I put my hands over them while he cried into my shoulder. 
   Eventually he stopped crying and held his wrists out to me. I grabbed bandages from the drawer of the nightstand and wrapped his wrists for him, then pulled him back into a hug. We sat on the bed like that for a while until Vee got tired and fell asleep against my shoulder. I lay him down next to me so that I could check on him every once in a while and turned the lamp off again.

DREW
I woke up near one o'clock in the morning and immediately registered the absence of a body pressed up against me, as there had been when I'd fallen asleep, and got up. Vee was nowhere to be seen. I went out into the hallway to see if he was in the kitchen; I walked past the guest room door where Jessie was staying and stopped. I could hear Vee crying softly and both of them talking quietly in French inside the room.
   Then I felt bad; I loved Vee, but the truth was I had no idea how to comfort him when he was feeling upset. Hugging him and telling him that it would be okay was just never enough. He'd still show up to school with freshly reopened cuts on his wrists. I was glad Jessie was here right now to comfort him; Vee has a good enough relationship with his brother that he can go to Jessie when he wants to cut. I just hope that some day he can go to me too.

Soo what do you think? Comment your opinions on this chapter!
-Snake Eyes