Sorry, sorry, SORRY for the extremely long wait for this chapter! I know that it didn't take as long as chapter two did to be posted, but I'm still sorry. I've just been focusing so much of my attention on finishing up "ILaH" lately that everything else has just sorta been shoved aside…cries… I'M SORRY!…
Following is the definition for dhampir…
dhampir: Gypsies believe that some vampires have an insatiable sexual appetite and will return from the grave to have sex with their widow or a young woman of their choosing. The vampire's continued visits could lead to the woman becoming pregnant… The product of such a union, usually a male, was called a dhampir. It was believed that the dhampir had unusual powers for detecting and destroying the vampire—and important ability. Some modern dhampirs among Gypsies of Eastern Europe place most of their value in their ability to locate the vampire, which was simply shot with a pistol if located outside its grave… Some individuals believed to be dhampirs supplemented their income by hiring themselves out as vampire hunters. The dhampir was otherwise a normal member of the Gypsy community, though some people believed that a true dhampir possessed a slippery, jelly-like body and lived only a short life—a belief derived from the understanding that vampires have no bones… The powers of the dhampir could be passed to male offspring, and ultimately through a family line. While vampire hunting abilities could be inherited, they could not be learned…
(Melton, J. Gordon. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999. p.296)
Voila…and there ya have it. And, yes, I do own The Vampire Book. It's huge and was on sale for eight bucks so I bought it. While it's mostly just about movies and books and all that stuff involving vampires, it's sections about vampire origins, Christianity and vampires, etc. have proven to be extremely useful…
Anyway…on with the chapter!…
Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, don't own Gravitation…
Chapter Three
The Nightmare…
Quiet tapping from somewhere in the boy's surroundings pulled him from his peaceful slumber. He slowly opened his amethyst eyes and yawned quietly, rubbing violently at his eyes in an attempt to rid the sleep from them. He stretched and yawned once more and sat up in the comfortable bed, taking time to enjoy the feel of the silk sheets as they slid against his bare skin.
The blonde vampire sat across the room, the pale moonlight shining across his equally pale face while he concentrated on something he typed on the computer before him. The boy smiled slightly at the sight and quietly crept out of the bed, wrapping a sheet around his body. He snuck up behind Eiri and wrapped his arms around his neck from behind after a planting a soft kiss on the back of it.
Eiri chuckled and a hand went up to gently clasp one of Shuichi's. The pink-haired boy sighed in content and nuzzled his face into the crook of the blonde's shoulder.
"Did you sleep well?" Eiri asked.
Shuichi nodded. "Yes, that was the first dreamless sleep I've had in a long time."
Although he couldn't see it, the boy knew that Eiri's face had tensed and his brow had furrowed. He sighed quietly to himself.
'Here come the questions,' he thought.
The blonde deftly untwined himself from Shuichi's arms and looked him over with a soft look in his usually cold amber eyes. "You have nightmares when you sleep?" he asked.
Shuichi dropped his eyes to the floor and nodded slowly. "You could call them that," he muttered. "They're more like bad memories that like to haunt me in my sleep."
Smooth fingers grasped his chin gently and forced him to look up into Eiri's eyes.
"You've been through more than a mortal should have to," Eiri whispered. "Your life was full of pain and sadness before you met your friend, wasn't it?"
Shuichi bowed his head in shame. "Yes. Hiro saved my life."
Eiri frowned and Shuichi found himself enveloped in warmth, and he couldn't hold back the flow of tears that spilled over. It had been so long since he'd last cried about the terrible things that he'd been put through as a child that he thought he had forgotten how to. The salty tears that fell were ripped from the bottomless well in the deep depths of his heart.
Shuichi's hands went up and encircled Eiri's shoulders. He clung to the man for the fear of being alone. He didn't want to be alone ever again.
"Shuichi," Eiri cooed and began to run his fingers gently through Shuichi's hair.
The boy's tears increased tenfold. It had been years since someone had held him like the blonde vampire was, so long since he'd loved someone and knew that it was true deep inside his heart. But, as badly as he wanted to be close to someone, he couldn't allow it. Even though Eiri was a preternatural being, he would never be able to accept what the boy hid beneath his skin. The things that he saw, the feelings that invaded his heart. He couldn't be near anyone for the fear that he would tear them apart.
"I won't leave you, Love," the vampire whispered. "You don't have to worry. I'll never leave your side."
Shuichi shook his head and tightened his grip around Eiri's shoulders. Was he lying? Was he telling the truth? He didn't know. Just the bare hint of emotion that showed in the blonde's voice should have convinced him that he was being honest, but he'd learned that he couldn't even trust honesty sometimes.
Eiri sighed and kissed the top of Shuichi's head gently. Slowly but surely, Shuichi's tears slowed to a stop and he pulled himself out of the blonde's arms. Eiri reached out to brush his tears away, but Shuichi turned his back to him, rubbing at his eyes violently with the palms of his hands.
"Please talk to me, Love," Eiri whispered, laying a hand on Shuichi's shoulder. "I want to help you."
Shuichi shook his head and shrugged Eiri's hand away. "You can't help me. No one can."
Eiri sighed. "I can help you more than you think," he said.
Shuichi's shoulders stiffened and he couldn't keep himself from turning around to face him. The conviction in the blonde's voice had caught him off guard.
"You can't change who I am!" Shuichi shouted. "You sit here, trying to give me some kind false hope, when you really don't know a thing about me or what I am."
The boy turned his back on Eiri and sprinted from the room. He ran through hallway after hallway, the long black silk sheet a streamer behind him, until he found the front door. He threw one of the large oak doors open and took off down the driveway. But someone caught hold of his wrist. He turned around and saw Eiri standing behind him.
"Let me go, Eiri!" he screamed. "Just let me go!"
The blonde shook his head. "I won't."
Shuichi broke out into hysterical laughter, his entire body trembling. Tears were once again rolling down his face and he collapsed onto his knees. Images of his master and the other cruel people from his past filled his head, slowly driving him to the edge.
Two hands gripped Shuichi's wrists and pulled his hands away from his eyes. The boy looked up and found himself drowning in the deep pools of amber that were Eiri's eyes.
"I know what you are, Love," Eiri whispered. "I know much more than you think I do. I may know more about you than you know about yourself."
"STOP LYING TO ME!" Shuichi screamed in agony. "I'm sick of lies. I'm sick of pain. Just let me go, Eiri!" He struggled against the hands that held him, but they refused to loosen.
Shuichi's tiny fists flew in front of him and began pounding ruthlessly against Eiri's chest, but his hands still refused to relinquish their grip. His mind was so clouded by memories and sadness that he could hardly see the real world beyond the pain. Eiri pulled him to his chest and Shuichi collapsed against him, burying his face in the blonde's silk shirt.
Eiri ran his fingers deftly through Shuichi's hair to calm him. The words that escaped through the boy's lips were only mumbled incoherencies. Eiri buried his face in Shuichi's pink locks and breathed in deeply.
"I'm here to help you, Love, not to hurt you," he whispered. "Never in my life would I ever think of hurting you."
Shuichi shook his head and moaned pitifully into the blonde's chest. "Please, stop. I can't handle it."
One of Eiri's hands moved up to embrace Shuichi's neck while the other buried itself in his shaggy hair, his fingers massaging his scalp gently.
"No, no, no," Shuichi cried, but he had long since stopped struggling in his exhaustion.
The next thing he knew, he was surrounded by the blissful nothingness of unconsciousness.
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He was running, always running. He was sick of running, but, once again, he found himself tearing through alleyways at what felt like mach speed while trying to ignore the footsteps behind him that seemed to grow ever closer.
Freedom. He could almost taste it. But, then again, he could always taste freedom when he ran from the Hell that was his home. The feeling that he'd finally escaped always gave him a false sense of security and caused him to drop his guard. Not this time. This time he was going to escape. This time he had to escape. That place was killing him.
The eerie darkness of the alleyway surrounding him grew heavier until it almost felt like it was suffocating him. But he couldn't stop now, not when he could see the light at the end. So what if it was just barely a pinprick of light? It was still a sign that he was getting closer and closer to his freedom. It was just a small sign of hope.
His name rang out behind him, the scream sounding manic in its anger and frustration. The panic that he'd tried to repress deep inside his heart resurfaced. Blindly, the boy turned his head around and looked behind him, but all he saw was darkness. He could feel the stream of tears falling from his eyes, melding with the sweat, but he didn't waste the time to wipe them away. There were more important things that he had to do.
The boy's foot caught in a pothole and he stumbled to the ground. A scream more out of anger than pain tore out of his throat as his ankle twisted.
"No!" he shouted and used the brick wall next to him to drag himself back up onto his feet before he took off running again.
The pain that shot up his let every time he stepped down on his injured ankle was excruciating, but he wouldn't let it get the best of him.
"Shuichi," the leader of the pack behind him sang. "Why don't you be a good boy and stop so we can take you back alive? You master will kill us if we have to do anything to hurt you."
"Burn in Hell," he shouted and locked his eyes on the growing light at the end of the tunnel.
'Almost there. Just a little further and you'll be free.'
Shuichi closed his eyes and wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. Freedom. Yes, he could taste it. Almost…
The light just beyond his grasp was darkened. He knew that he should stop before something went wrong, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Given the choice to face his hunters or whatever was blocking his path, he'd much rather face the thing blocking his path any day.
He collided with the thing painfully and fell backwards onto the ground.
"Where do you think you're going, little dhampir?" the roadblock asked.
"Dham…pir?" The familiar word rolled from Shuichi's tongue as he wracked the back of his mind to remember where he'd heard it before.
"Yes, dhampir. That's what you are," the person said and a hand was clamped around Shuichi's arm.
"No!" he screamed. "Let me go, dammit! Don't give me back to them! Please!"
The person picked him up and lifted him so he could put his mouth next to the boy's ear. "Don't worry, little one. You won't have to worry about them any longer."
'What?' The question had barely formed on the boy's lips before a solid object collided with the back of his skull and he lost consciousness.
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A scream echoed through the quiet room. Shuichi sat up in the large four-poster bed, sweat dripping down his face, before realizing the scream had been his own. He used a shaking hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and trailed it down his cheeks, not surprised to feel that he was crying, as well. His each breath was ragged and painful in his chest.
He closed his eyes and laid back in the bed, rubbing violently at his eyes with his fists.
'Damn dreams! Why won't you leave me alone? Why won't you let me forget?'
He stared blankly at the ceiling above him, recognizing the random popcorn designs somewhere in his mind but not knowing from where. His eyes grew wide and he shot back up in his bed again, his eyes surveying the room about him. He was back at his apartment! Eiri had brought him home? But, why? If he'd really wanted to help him, he would have let him stay with him.
"Stupid bastard and his God-complex," he muttered as he collapsed onto his mattress, curling onto his side. "Why do all vampires think that they know everything about anything just because they've lived for a century or more?"
Shuichi let his eyes drift closed again and gave into the drowsiness that clouded his mind. His sleep was restless, but void of anymore nightmares. When he awoke in the morning, he held no memory of what had woken him so violently or why he felt so paranoid. His anger at the blonde vampire who had abandoned him still lingered however.
"Eiri! Where are you, you bastard!' he demanded, sending his mind out to find the source of his anger and frustration.
When he didn't receive an answer, Shuichi growled in annoyance and shut his mind away from intruders. If he wasn't going to respond to him, then he didn't need to respond to Eiri either. He knew that the vampire was lost in the only sleep that could closely compare with death, but he didn't care. Any reason to be angry with Eiri at the moment was a valid reason.
The piercing shrill of his telephones stabbed through the morning silence of his apartment. Shuichi hefted himself out of bed with a quiet grumble of annoyance and grabbed the cordless phone that sat on his bedside table.
"Hello?" he mumbled.
"Where in the hell have you been?" Hiro shouted. "I've been trying to call you since last night!"
Shuichi winced at the pitch of his friend's voice and sighed. "I was out, apparently," he said.
A sigh echoed through the phone line and Shuichi couldn't help but kick himself. He hated it when Hiro worried about him because he tended to overdo it. It was a wonder that the man hadn't fallen to pieces yet.
"Sorry for the insolence, Hiro, but I'm really not feeling my best right now," he said.
Even though he couldn't see the man, he knew that Hiro had furrowed his brow and was digging through his mind to find something to say next.
"I was worried about you, Shu. You've been really reclusive lately and it's starting to worry me."
Shuichi sighed. "Don't worry about me, Hiro. You've got enough to worry about without me thrown onto your plate."
"No! Don't you even tell me that I shouldn't worry about you!" Hiro snapped. "You're my best friend and I care about you and I'm going to worry myself to pieces over you whether you like it or not."
Shuichi sighed again but didn't respond. After a few seconds of silence, Hiro spoke again.
"I wanna see you today," he said. "Is that okay?"
Shuichi rolled his eyes. "I guess. I have to work tonight."
"I know. So do I."
Silence fell and Shuichi couldn't repress the sarcastic comment that formed in the front of his head. "Well, Hiro. I know that I have freakish powers but I can't read your mind. Are you planning on telling me where you wanna meet?"
Hiro chuckled quietly and Shuichi could've sworn that he heard a mumbled "smart ass" somewhere in there before he answered his question. "How about in the café downtown?"
"Sounds good. I haven't been there in a while."
"Is one alright with you?"
"Whenever is alright with me."
Hiro chuckled again. "Alright. I'll see you at one."
"Alright. Bye."
Shuichi pressed the off button on the phone and replaced it in its cradle to charge. With a heavy sigh, he stretched his arms to the sky and checked the time. It was noon. He still had an hour before he had to meet Hiro and the café was a fifteen minute walk from his apartment. Shuichi shook his head and slouched to his bathroom to take a shower.
The warm water felt like heaven against his tense muscles. He threw his head back beneath the spray and let the water run down his face and plaster his bangs to his forehead. The feeling of paranoia that he'd felt when he'd first woken up still hadn't left him and he couldn't figure out why.
His shower was over in fifteen minutes and Shuichi wandered out into his bedroom with a towel draped around his waist. He stopped in front of his full length mirror and gazed at his naked reflection, disgust crawling beneath his skin. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled at the strands, wondering where he'd ever gotten the idea to color his it pink and why Hiro had even let him do it. It wasn't that it looked bad on him; it was because he alone knew what was hiding beneath the pink. Hiro knew his natural hair color, but he didn't now the memories that came with it.
Shuichi growled and tore his eyes away from his reflection. He crossed his room and threw open his closet doors, throwing a pair of boxers and jeans onto the floor before pulling a T-shirt from a hanger. He pulled his clothes on and ran a hand through his hair in a vain attempt to tame the disheveled locks.
When he checked the clock again, it was twelve-forty. Shuichi sighed and left his bedroom. The key to his apartment was lying on the kitchen counter with a note. He picked the paper up with halfhearted interest and read the words.
Shuichi,
Whenever you're ready, I'll listen.
Eiri
Shuichi dropped his hand to his side and balled it into a fist, crushing the paper in his grasp. That bastard thought he knew everything. He thought he knew how it felt to be born to kill. Unlike the vampire, he'd never been given the choice. He was born a murder and trained to be a murder by the one person who had understood him. However cruel the man had been never clouded the fact that he knew how it felt to be what Shuichi was.
"Why didn't I sense him in the park? I should have known!" he growled to himself. "Why did I have to let myself be conned into believing that he could help me?" He touched a pale finger to his lips. "Why did I have to kiss him?"
Shuichi closed his eyes and threw the note into the trash before grabbing his key and storming out the door. He was a vampire hunter for Christ's sake! Why hadn't he killed Eiri when he'd had the chance? He'd let his defenses collapse and gave himself over to the blonde as if it didn't matter. And it didn't. It didn't matter if the vampire had a soul or not, it was still his job to kill them. Eiri shouldn't be an exception.
The sidewalk outside his building was crowded with Saturday afternoon shoppers, some already weighted down with bags of purchases. He chuckled quietly to himself. His longing to be one of them had diminished as the years had passed and it had been replaced with a vicious determination that only he could marshal, but he still enjoyed living around them. The ignorant people who walked the streets everyday reminded him of why his job was so important.
Shuichi shoved his sunglasses over his eyes and started down the street. Some of the people he passed smiled and he smiled back. Others offered a small hello, to which he responded with a wave. The ones who felt that they didn't have time for anything or anyone but themselves walked with their noses in the air and their brains in their pocketbooks or wallets. People like them always managed to piss him off, but he stored it; he could put that anger to a much better use sometime down the road.
When the small corner café finally came into view, Shuichi couldn't repress the sigh that fell from his lips. Now that he was almost there, he was starting to regret ever agreeing to meet Hiro in the first place. The first thing the auburn-haired man would do would be to ask questions and his insatiable appetite for the truth would never be filled. Shuichi shook his head. As much as he wasn't looking forward to the meeting, he couldn't bring himself to blow Hiro off.
Shuichi crossed the street adjacent to the café and waved feebly at Hiro. The young man was sitting at one of the outdoor tables. Shuichi walked through the space in the fencing that surrounded the patio and took a seat across from his friend.
"Hey, Shu!" Hiro said. "How are ya?"
Shuichi shrugged and pulled his sunglasses off. "Okay, I guess."
Hiro furrowed his brow and lead his forearms on the table. "You're lying."
"And if I am?"
Hiro frowned and sighed in exasperation before collapsing back in his chair. "Why are you like this all of a sudden, Shuichi? You tell me that I shouldn't worry my ass off about you, but you won't tell me anything so I won't. I want to know what the fuck is going on."
Shuichi flinched against the tone of Hiro's voice and sighed. Hiro was right. There was no use in telling the man not to worry about him if he wasn't going to give him some kind of plausible reason for him not to worry about him. But he couldn't tell him the truth…refused to tell him the truth. Nothing good would come out of getting Hiro mixed up in the shit that he had found himself submersed in. But what to tell him?
He sighed again. "Look, Hiro. I'm sorry, okay?"
Hiro frowned at him but Shuichi could see the tense muscle relax in his jaw. "Okay. Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
Shuichi closed his eyes and rested his forehead in his left hand. "Remember that vision I had in the park about a week ago? Well, I met the man who I saw in it."
Hiro narrowed his eyes and frowned. "Why didn't you tell me this?"
Shuichi shook his head. "It doesn't matter. After you left me there, I passed out or something. When I woke up, I was in this room that I couldn't leave. All of the exits were sealed with magic. There was a mirror in the room and I saw that my aura was…different. He was in my mind. I passed out again. He was there when I woke up."
"Who is he?"
"His name is Eiri Uesugi and he's…" Shuichi sighed. 'How should I put this so it doesn't give him a heart attack?' "He's a…" He sighed again.
"Just spit it out, Shu," Hiro said, a twinge of annoyance in his voice.
"He's a vampire."
Hiro's jaw fell slack and he looked at Shuichi with eyes that said "Are you being serious?" before he fell in to a fit of laughter. He collapsed onto the table, his long hair fanned around his head. When he calmed, he looked up at Shuichi with drying tears running down his face. "A vampire?"
"Yes. A vampire. Nosferatu. A sucker of blood. A creature of the night. One of the undead. A real live folklore."
Hiro shook his head and looked at Shuichi as if he was mental, but didn't say anything.
Shuichi growled and stood up from the table. "I should've known that this would go nowhere," he muttered and walked away.
"Shuichi!" Hiro called and his hand clasped around Shuichi's wrist a few seconds later.
The boy turned around to shout at the young man, but Hiro's earlier humor was replaced with blatant solemnity.
"Tell me what happened," he said. "I want to know. And I want to know about you and how you now these things. I want to know about your life before I found you bleeding to death in that gutter. I want to know about Shindou Shuichi."
Shuichi sighed and closed his eyes, all the strength draining from his body. "And what will come of it when you find out?" he whispered. "Huh? You'll tell me that you'll stay, but you won't."
"Nothing can make me leave you, Shu. My blood is flowing through your veins. Whether you want me to or not, I'll always be there for you."
Shuichi shook his head and glanced at Hiro out of the corner of his eye. Nothing on his face said that he was lying and his aura was still its normal red-orange color with just a little more yellow-green sympathy splotches than there usually were. Shuichi sighed.
"Okay, but I won't tell you here. We've gotta go back to my place."
Hiro nodded and ran back to the table to grab his jacket and leave the money for the cup of coffee he'd ordered and barely drank half of. He returned to Shuichi's side and smiled at him softly.
"Let's go," Shuichi said and lead the way back to his home.
TBC…
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A/N: Mwuhahahahahahahahaha! Evil cliffhanger! dances Sorry, I'm gonna have to save Shu's past for another chapter and, if you've noticed how I write the chapters, that won't come until two chapters from now. He, he. I'm so mean…
This chapter's kinda different from the others since we finally know that Shuichi does know what he is. But it doesn't change anything…I've got some good ideas for the coming chapters…
Anyway…once again, I'm sorry that this took so long to get posted. I had it going good until my computer crashed and I lost it. Ugh… But, alas, I pulled through and, after only a short time of writer's block, finished the chapter. And I know it's short but I'll make up for it in chapter five…trust me…
Thank you, thank you to…
Dhampir: hugs I thought about you when I was naming that chapter, too. I started laughing and hoped that you would read it. Thankfully, you did. He, he… I'm glad that you like where I'm taking it…do you still like where I'm taking it? Anywho…no you're the superior writer. He, he. Don't ya just love pointless arguing? Love and huggles…
Hikaru Itsuko: I'm sorry that I took a while in updating again. I would have posted this sooner if all the crap with "ILaH" hadn't have happened. Ugh… Anyway…I hope you enjoyed this chapter too…
animegirl12182: I tried your Google game… It was fun. And it's rubbed off on my friend. She tries to Google everything now and then laughs hysterically even when it's not so funny. You still have to laugh, though, 'cause she's one of those people with a contagious laugh… Anywho…I hope you liked this chapter and that watching a guy squeeze poo out of baby chicks didn't scar you… LoL… Hugs…
Ashley Vulpix: I'm sorry that I took so long updating again. cries Do you forgive me? Please do. I hope you liked this chapter as well as you did all of the other ones…
Yami Chikara: Best Gravi vampire fic you've found so far? blushes Thank you. I'm glad that you like it…
GravityNeko: I hope you liked this chapter too…
DBZ luver2: Ditto to above. He, he. But I really hope that you liked it…
kuriqa: hugs Did I tell you what a dhampir was in my letter? I think I did. If I didn't then you know now… Damn…I hate having such a bad memory. He, he. Almost as much as I hate being short. Anywho…I love you and hope to hear from you soon, okies? glomps…
Honey: Thanks for your review and I hope you still like it…
I really am terribly sorry that it took me so long to post the last chapter, but now I know where I want this baby to go. WHOO-HOO! dances again Sorry you all had to see that… LoL…
Welp…I have the next chapter done and ready so be lookin' for that soon, okies?... Until then, adieu...