Dreams wash over me like ocean waves. Always sharp and vivid, I am forced to relive past events over and over again. Sometimes they are lucid and I can consciously control my actions. But the outcomes never change. I can't prevent my turning, and no matter what, Luka always abandons me for the sun.
Tonight, I dream of when I first met Sho. Laying near the window of an abandoned warehouse, I hear gravel crunch beneath hesitant feet as the orphan approaches. Too weak to struggle, I am pulled forward onto a dolly and taken to his hideout. His older brother Shinji sees me for what I am and runs off, refusing to be near "that monster". He takes their friend Toshi with him, effectively orphaning Sho all over again. I decide to stay and protect him since I am to blame. For the first few years, he sleeps against my side, skinny arm thrown across my chest. I sometimes look down at the small head of black hair laying on the crook of my shoulder, and just watch him breathe. I may be a monster, but I will never hurt him, and he either knows that, or doesn't care. Neither of us have anyone else.
The dream shifts. One morning I wake up to find a small, sticky patch on the side of my thigh. Over his lunch, I tell Sho it's time for us to sleep separately. The preteen fastens his eyes to the ground and shakily asks if I don't like him anymore. Forcing a laugh, I say of course I still like him, but he is old enough to sleep alone now. The following nights are awkward. Small, shaky breaths seep through the wall as he quietly cries. A normal human wouldn't be able to pick up on them, but I'm not human...which is why I decided to separate us. He had reminded me that he was aging, and would die, leaving me alone. I was only preparing for the future. It was better this way.
Time warps forward. Sho's lanky body shoots up and fills out, becoming the image of a man. His hair has grown long, and hangs in small blonde braids down his back. Ice blue contact lenses cover his dark brown eyes, and a deep voice flows over smooth, full lips. I watch strong fingers curl around gun hilts, as he charges recklessly at Taiwanese gang members...
A bolt of panic snaps me awake. Heart pounding, I blink my eyes in the humid darkness. Reaching up on my left, I pull the thick black window curtain open, bathing my room in silver moonlight. The bare, white walls shine bright, as black gun barrels glint on my glass end table. The rest of our small apartment is silent. Staring through the window at the night sky, I drape my right arm over the side of the futon. Idly running my fingers across the carpet, I encounter a small jagged object. Bringing it up, I find it to be the twisted remnants of my Zippo lighter. What the-oh... I scowl as a scene from earlier this evening floats across my mind.
The curtains were glowing with the last of the sun's rays, as I walked down the short hallway towards the living room. My chunky black boots echoed on the wooden floors, as I ran my fingertips along the walls. I stopped at the beginning of the carpet, dragging a slow breath in through my mouth at the sight in front of me. Sho was stretched across our black couch on his side, watching a small tv set on a stand by his feet. He cradled a pillow under his head, causing the tight black shirt he wore to ride up and expose the flat pane of his stomach. My eyes drifted down the dip of his waist, to rest on the sliver of shadow cast above the belt line of his black leather pants.
The sweet rush of blood pumping faster than normal, flooded my ears. Fighting against instinct, I locked onto Sho's eyes peering at me over his arm, a dark blush spread across his cheeks. Something about that look tugged at my groin. I dug my nails into my palms and shoved the urges down, feeling a hot flash of anger for reacting so foolishly. This human would die in a blink of my lifetime.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, forcing myself to look disinterestedly towards the tv screen. A battle raged in my mind as I pushed words out of a tight throat.
"I thought you were going out with Toshi tonight."
A startled pause. "I am, later...why?"
Still staring at the tv, "When is later?"
"I don't know...couple of hours maybe. Want to watch this movie with me? This guy and his girlfriend are serial killers, and they just started a prison revolt. It's pretty neat." Gunshots trickled out of the tiny speakers.
"No, I'm going to lay down."
"Didn't you just get up from sleeping all day?"
I made a dismissive gesture over my shoulder as I walked back down the hall. Closing my door behind me, I reached into a pants pocket and brought out my silver Zippo, smooth finish warmed by my body heat. Absentmindedly, I turned it over and over in my fingers as I stared into the murky darkness of the room.
A jolt of pain spiked up my arm, and I looked down to see my fist tightly curled around mangled shards of metal. The edges sliced through to the bones of my fingers as lighter fluid bit deliciously at the raw flesh. Walking over and sitting down on the futon, my breath hitched as I savored the intense burn of my tissues rapidly mending. The Zippo fell to the floor and my eyes squeezed shut as I felt the wounds close. Delirious, I raised the newly repaired fingers to my mouth, tongue flicking out to reclaim what had been spilled. Butane fumes flooded my senses as the sharply bitter fluid mingled with errant blood. Pulled between pleasure and self loathing, I sank down onto my side, begging the dreams to eat me alive.
Having been spat back out, I fight against the silence crushing me down. Get a hold of yourself. Linking my hands together on my chest, I stare up at the shadows lining the cracks in the ceiling.
The moonlight becomes a soft glow behind my eyelids, and I can feel my body floating. I must be asleep again. Savoring what I can of this peaceful hallucination, I prepare for the nightmares to resume. But I continue to drift for what seems like hours. No sound, no pain...
Oblivion recedes, as my canines push into my lower lip. Instantly I awake, the rich aroma of fresh blood making my head swim. A voice in the back of my mind screams, making me pause and violently shake my head. I'm at home, I shouldn't be smelling this. I roll off the bed and slip out of my boots to stalk silently over to the door, straining my ears for any sound of activity on the other side. Seconds pass, a shuddered breath drifts from down the hall. My eyes widen and I throw open the door, my bare feet slapping against wood as I swiftly cross the short distance to the line of light glowing under the bathroom door.
The acrid smell hits me like a blast of hot air, as I burst though the threshold into the glaring fluorescent light. A scream courses up through my body to die in my throat. Gripping the doorknob, I sink to my knees on the tile.
Bare legs splayed out in front of him, black shirt hitched up, Sho is slumped against the wall beside the sink, head resting against his shoulder. In his hand closest to me, lay a pair of wide open scissors, glistening with bright red blood. Forcing myself to be calm, I crawl up to him to analyze his wounds.
Rows of red lines surrounded by swollen pink skin, mark where he ran the blade across his thighs. I dismiss those, as they aren't actively bleeding. Leaning over his body, I quickly snatch up his other hand. Dark red liquid pumps steadily out of his mangled wrist, running down his arm. He hadn't just cut, he had hacked. Without thinking, I raise my free hand to my mouth, tearing open my own wrist and pressing it against his. The vampiric blood soaks into his skin, merging with his cells and accelerating the healing process. A faint heartbeat apart from my own, drifts like a whisper through my mind. I hesitantly separate our wrists as the gash begins to close, severing the link. Looking to the floor beside him, I am relieved to see only a small red puddle. It seems I got here in time.
A sharp gasp echoes in the tiny bathroom, and I look back up to see him staring at his smooth wrist, still gripped in my hand. The pace of his heart quickens, his blue eyes seeming to spark as they raise to meet my own. Wincing, he looks down at his legs, abandoning the scissors to scratch at the slits, as they too close. The full realization of what I had just done sinks in. His veins carried my blood throughout his body, healing more than just his wrist.
His voice is hardly a whisper as he stares at the rapidly fading scars. "Am I going to turn into a vampire, now?"
I shake my head. "It takes a lot more blood than that."
Pulling free of my grasp, he raises his hand up to dig fingernails into his scalp. Only then did I notice that the braids from all but the very back of his head were hacked off. Clumps of tangled hair hung haphazard in his eyes.
I bring a questioning hand up to touch what's left.
He wipes his other hand across a bloodied thigh, turning it up to examine the only evidence that anything had happened. "They were scratching my face."
Feeling sick, I force out the question. "Why this?"
The silence hangs heavy as he stares off into space. Finally he opens his mouth to speak, low voice cracking with emotion. "What's wrong with me that you always push me away?"
I sit back on my heels, mental armor crumbling as his lips quiver.
Fearing I am too little too late, I reach out and run the backs of my fingers down his cheek. Pleading, I breathe his name.
His glimmering eyes slide towards me.
Maintaining eye contact, I slowly rise and offer a hand to him. My heart skips as he hesitates before reaching up and accepting. Wordless, he follows me down the dark hallway, back into my room and down onto the futon. Laying against my left side, he drapes an arm over my rib cage and buries his face against my neck. I feel the swell of his chest as he breathes against me. Tucking my right hand under my head, I wrap my other arm around his shoulders. Silently I vow to him. I will always be here for you, and I will do anything you need. Until one or both of us is gone.
My thoughts dissolve as Sho's fingers lightly trail down my abdomen. "You don't need to-"
The words die in my throat when I feel his lips part against my neck. Hesitantly he whispers, "...I...I want to..."
Any mental barriers I might have had left, were blown apart. Braids scratch across my arm, as he raises to his hands and knees to crawl backwards down my body. I close my eyes as fingers dip under the waistband of my pants, dragging the smooth fabric across my hips and down my thighs. Full lips suck deliciously along the vein that throbs on the underside of my shaft. My mouth shoots open and I breathe in sharp, as my head is pushed up against the roof of his hot mouth by a soft, velvety tongue.
"Sh-nnnggh!" is all I can manage when the pressure increases, his mouth becoming a suction tunnel. My existence is pulled and flattened, electric currents lance down to my toes and back up to my chest. Breath ragged, my mouth hangs slack as a fire burns at the bottom of my abdomen and spreads across my thighs. My shoulders hunch forward from the pull of my stomach muscles, as I come into Sho's mouth.
Breath slowing, I lay still and limp, feeling as if someone has yanked out the strings connecting my bones.
Dimly, I register as Sho swallows and crawls back up to lay down against me. Willing my right shoulder up off of the futon, I turn onto my side and bring a hand up to cradle his face. I close my eyes and lean in, tasting myself on his warm, swollen lips. Our bodies press up against each other, and I feel a tremor run down his frame as I stroke his tongue with my own. Tracing his jaw line with my fingertips, I drag them lightly down his neck to his shoulder, gently pushing him onto his back and crawling on top. Sitting up, I press his firm muscles between my thighs, feeling his eyes on me as I hook my fingers under my tight, graffiti patterned top and peel it off. Casting the fabric aside, I reach down on my right to his hand gripping the side of the futon, lacing our fingers together and lifting them to my lips. His free hand drifts up my thigh to curl around my penis.
I shake my head and slide down his body, sucking on the skin revealed as I push the black shirt up over his head. When my mouth reaches his collar bone, I feel him tense.
"K-kei?"
Closing my eyes, I smile as my whisper flows across his skin. "Trust me." A pulse throbs sweetly under my lips, but the one between my legs drowns it out. Grinding my hips down, I suck hard on the skin of his neck, leaving a mark. A low moan escapes from the back of his throat, making my head swim with lust.
Forcing myself to calm down I sit back up, set on committing every detail to memory. He is gorgeous. Fit and lithe, the slight curves of his lean muscles glow in the moonlight. His pouty lips are still swollen, though from biting this time. He looks up at me through his hair, chest rising and falling unevenly.
"Keiii..." The soft whine sends a small pull through my heart.
I climb off and slide a hand under his side, urging him to roll over onto his stomach. His eyes widen, but he complies. Gently, I pull up on his hips to raise him to his hands and knees. Draping myself across his back, I kiss down the length of his spine.
His head hangs down as he clenches his hands and strains his hips forward. I lightly run my fingers up the insides of his thighs.
"Sho, trust me."
His back muscles relax...slightly. Parting his cheeks, I press my tongue against the puckered opening. He gasps and bucks forward. Caressing his smooth skin, I let him ease back. I try again, this time his hips arch up and back as I flick and tease with the tip of my tongue. I hear small, desperate sounds as he squirms. Wetting a finger, I slowly ease it in. When he pushes back hungrily, I reach around with my other hand, gripping and stroking his penis. We settle into a rhythm, Sho thrusting forward as I pull back. Turning my wrist up, I rub against the sweet spot inside, causing him to gasp and thrust faster. Rapid breathing fills the room, as inner muscles squeeze involuntarily. I hear a strangled cry as he comes into my hand. The clenching subsides and he sinks down onto the mattress.
I reach over to pull a braid from under his shoulder, before sitting back against the wall near his curled up form. Drawing my knee up, I lick the pearls left on my fingers. The pale blue light of pre-dawn washes over everything, turning my world the color of Sho's eyes. Tilting my head to the right, I see his hands laying together near slightly parted lips, as dark lashes rest on perfect cheek bones. My eyes follow the curve of his shoulder down to his side, over his hip and around the bottom of his thighs.
Skin beginning to tingle, I look over my shoulder to the lightening sky. The outlines of the clouds are glowing from the coming sun, turning to liquid metal that bores into my eyes. I pull the curtain closed, plunging the room into darkness.
Still holding onto the thick fabric, I look down towards Sho, the afterimage of the clouds burned into my vision.
fin