He should have seen it coming.

He should have known it all along.

Should have.

Could have.

"Artie?" he spoke, watching as his partner stalked out of the halls of Congress. There was something very wrong. The testimony must have gone badly. "Artie, what happened?"

"Fools," came the harsh whisper that only a vampire's ears could pick up. Then he roared into the chamber, "The world is going to end unless we do something! It's going to bloody end, the seas will rise, the earth will dry up and crack underneath our feet, no food, no water, no people, no nothing!"

Paranoia was a disease, just as much so as his blood addiction. More so in a madman who couldn't dream. Who couldn't wake up.

"Artie," he said and reached out to the Watcher. Arthur reared back as if burned, whirling and turning his green eyes to him. They were so dark. All hope gone, vanished, instead replaced by unconquerable terror.

"Just me," the Watcher said, his voice trembling. "It's just going to be me. Everyone else is going to die. I'm going to be all alone. I can't even kill myself."

Bile and dread pooled in his stomach and he reached out again, trying to take Arthur's hand. "Artie, please, don't talk like that. I'm immortal too, remember? I won't leave you alone. Please? Please, I love you. Don't talk like that. I'll be right here with you."

The dark eyes turned towards him, uncomprehending, as if seeing him for the first time. "You... you can die. You'll die without people, without blood."

"Artie..." he said, feeling for the first time a foreign sense of danger coming from the man.

"You're going to die. Unless I stop it," Arthur insisted, his hands reaching up to cup his cheeks. He resisted the urge to pull away from him, trying to ignore the threat emanating from the Watcher. "Don't worry," the Watcher said softly, his voice, his eyes gone manic. "I'll keep you safe. No matter what. Nothing will happen to you. I'll never let anything happen to you. You'll be with me forever."

The one who should have seen had been so blind, but it was only when he was shoved into a black room that he could see.

He howled in outrage as the faceless Watchers shackled him with enchanted silver and threw him into a cell with no windows. His suffering meant nothing to them. He was just a vampire pet, ordered into imprisonment. He rattled his runed chains, fighting to get free.

"Don't do this! Don't! How could you!" he screamed, "I've never done anything to any of you! Kiku! KIKU! TORIS! Please! Please tell them I'm here! They'd never let this happen to me! This is a mistake! Arthur - he's not well! He'll come around. Please!"

His captors said nothing, nothing but grey unfamiliar and unsympathetic faces. One of them stepped forward and with a start, he realized it was Arthur. His expression full of wild, repressed fear, so unfamiliar he couldn't even recognize him at first.

"Unfold your hands," Arthur commanded and the yoke upon his body burned him into submitting. He uncurled his fingers and the Watcher gently tugged at his bone ring.

"Artie. No, please," he begged, tears blurring his vision. "Please, don't do this. You don't need to do this." The ring slipped off, disappearing into Arthur's pocket. With it went the love in which it was given. He screamed, feeling his world turning into shadow.

"Shhh, shh," the Watcher hushed, cupping his cheek. But he couldn't stop screaming, the Watcher's touch like a cold tendril of fear. He screamed for his sun, his love, his freedom. All of them gone with his little white ring.

He didn't think it could possibly get any worse.

How could he have been so stupid?

The Watcher was growing impatient, unable to understand why he didn't see this as a necessary act. Grabbing his chin, Arthur slapped a hand over his mouth to silence him.

"Be a good boy," he hissed.

How did he not see this coming?

The Collar took over, silencing his voice. His body buckled, resistance chained by the yoke upon his soul. Every muscle, every bone turned against his will. Even his eyes betrayed him, growing dull and dry. His mind trapped in the worst prison imaginable.

Now only his soul screamed, even as he felt his lips twist into a smile.

"Yes, Arthur."

~o~

Alfred started awake from his nightmare, his breath seizing up with a bubble of panic that had snagged onto his mind like a spur. He blinked slowly, getting a sense for his bearings. The moon shone down from above, as bright and full as a drop of milk. The air was cool, still sickly summery sweet, filled with the chirp of crickets and buzzing dragonflies.

A small muffled noise sounded behind him, making the vampire nearly jump out of his skin. He turned around. A chill of horror crawled through him as he saw Arthur curled up on the blanket beside him, his face serene and content.

Holy shit, what had he done?

Bile rose up in Alfred's throat and he pushed himself away as quickly as he could without risking waking the other man. Arthur never even reacted to the movement, his mind lost to whatever abyss it had been banished to in sleep. Crouching around him, Alfred carefully picked his things up, especially making sure that his ring was still on his finger where it belonged.

It looked like Arthur hadn't done anything to him, but he trusted the Watcher just as much as he trusted a cat not to play with its food. Tugging his yukata back over his shoulders, he trembled not just from the cool air but the horrifying memories that still haunted him.

His sleeper's eye had exaggerated the details, but not by that much. That day, Arthur broke and became nothing but a manifestation of pure fear. But neither of them knew the effect the mispoken words would have on the chain on Alfred's soul.

Eventually, Arthur got better.

Alfred didn't.

Arthur let Alfred out of his cell with a thousand apologies. Never realizing that the Alfred he knew was still imprisoned. Never questioning why Alfred just smiled and forgave him so easily, like a good boy would.

Half a year he'd spent as Arthur's unwilling thrall and the man had never even noticed. Like it was a given that Alfred would be the perfect slave to him. Half a year he'd spent locked up in his own body, silently screaming, begging, crying for Arthur to see him. Of course, Arthur was horrified once finally he realized what he'd done. But he was six months too late.

"You're worse than Vlad," Alfred told him. The last words he'd ever spoken to him before he took off, never to see Arthur again. Until fifty years later. Even now, he could remember like it was yesterday how Arthur's face twisted with pain, as the words plunged into him like a knife. Right before Alfred ripped his throat out.

It felt good at the time, even though it took months for his burns to heal from Arthur's toxic blood.

But now...?

Alfred closed his eyes, feeling his stomach roil with a thousand regrets. If only- if only he had never agreed to the Collar in the first place. Yet it had seemed fair at the time. They thought it would help. It didn't. It was just another one of many of Arthur's misguided ideas.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Curled up on himself, Alfred wearily glanced over at the sleeping Watcher. He just... didn't understand how someone he loved could turn into someone so terrible. His chest ached, missing his fearless young writer, who had been the sun to his moon.

"Don't worry. I will never burn you..." spoke a long treasured memory that made his eyes prick with tears.

Where had he gone?

...and could he get him back?

Alfred stilled at the thought. Could he...? He looked over his shoulder, towards the guestroom where he knew the teak gilded passcon lay nestled in his bag. The nanites hadn't killed Arthur. Or made him disappear. But they did do something. More than anything he'd ever seen affect the Watcher's anti-nature before.

Maybe, just maybe, he could figure out a way to make Arthur the way he was. To be able to dream, to write, to do magic, to live without his fear and paranoia. To be happy again. Could he engineer nanites to interfere in that way? To make him almost human again? Was it too much to hope for?

Well, it had taken Kiku a century to get just this far. But Alfred had much more time than that, if he played his cards right. But then, Kiku also had the considerable resources of the Watchers at his disposal. Something that Alfred gave up when he left for good, joyriding hack attacks aside.

But if he went back...

Alfred's stomach roiled at the thought, rebelling against the very idea. Why should he even consider going back to that viper's nest? But if it was a chance to bring his Arthur back... The vampire looked back to his former lover, his gaze intense as two wills warred within him.

"Honor the memory of what you once were..."

The words floated back to him, soft and comforting like a squeeze of his shoulder. "...Damn it, Kiku," Alfred muttered under his breath as he shook his head. However, his stupid, stupid heart had already made its decision. "God, I'm such a masochist," the vampire sighed, as he went to get himself ready.

~o~

The air was warm, smelling of grass and cool streams, trilling with the morning cicadas. Slowly, the lithe man sleeping out in the sun began to rouse, mind pulled back to the land of the living. Arthur stretched languidly like a cat, feeling happy and sated, though his skin was tight in a way that indicated he might be sunburnt. He didn't care. That had been such a wonderful dream, being with Alfred, holding him, kissing him, hearing him cry out in passion. It was bliss.

Then he remembered with a sudden start. He didn't dream anymore.

"Arthur," he heard a voice call out and Arthur almost didn't dare turn over to look towards it. His heart thundering in his chest, he braved it and turned his eyes towards the inside of the house. There Alfred stood, looking incredibly uncomfortable in his red and black Watcher body armor. Arthur didn't even realize he kept his set. "We should get going."

Arthur stared blankly at him. "Where?" he asked, still not quite comprehending what was going on. Was he dreaming now?

"Back to base. I'm going back with you," Alfred said and put on a smile that looked incredibly forced. "I mean, can't exactly ignore what happened yesterday, now can we?"

"I..." the immortal started, swallowing thickly as he tried to find something of actual intelligence to say, when bells of elation were tolling in his mind. "R-really? Just like that?"

"...I'm going to have conditions," the vampire answered after a pause.

"Anything," Arthur agreed faster than he could think.

Nodding, Alfred went on and listed them off his fingers. "Alright, I want my own lab, off the network. I want unlimited resources. I want full access to all Watcher archives and databases. And I want my own room."

...Well, that certainly put a damper on Arthur's enthusiasm. Moreover, it did not take a genius to realize that the vampire had his own agenda. However, he was finding that he didn't particularly care. Not when it meant that Alfred would be back with him. It wasn't as if the vampire had gotten up to any (significant) mischief in the fifty years since he left.

"Very well..." Arthur agreed slowly, pushing himself up to a kneeling position.

"Oh, and one more thing. Anything between us," Alfred cut in, waving a hand to gesture between their two bodies. "Completely on my terms. You can't just come into my room and demand a booty call whenever you like."

"I assume that means I am not allowed to give you any orders whatsoever...?" Arthur added slowly. He winced as Alfred's expression turned so cold that his skin felt frosty.

"That goes without saying," he replied, his voice quiet, the threat laced in every word.

Arthur grit his teeth, unused to getting such a tone from anyone. However, he kept his mouth shut, determined not to ruin this chance to have Alfred back in his life. He knew that he needed to pay penance. ...Though one would think that fifty years of the cold shoulder and getting his throat torn out was penance enough.

Willing himself to be patient, Arthur turned a smile on the vampire. "Alright, no orders. Cross my heart and hope to die," he jested, expecting some sort of laugh or derisive snort. However, Alfred only looked at him with a sudden shade of wariness that made Arthur uneasy. Before he could ask about it, Alfred abruptly turned on his heel.

"I'm bringing Kiku with us. So don't open my bag or you'll get bones and ashes everywhere," he announced, heading back inside to get himself ready for departure.

Arthur stayed where he was for a moment longer, trying to process what had just happened. It wasn't exactly all his wishes come true, but it would have been entirely too suspicious if it was. No, this was better. It was a start. To something old, something new? Who knew. All that mattered was that Alfred would be back safe in the fold and soothe his ragged paranoia. Close enough to see, close enough to talk to. Close enough for something more.

In record time, Arthur was ready to go, nervous and excited as he waited for Alfred to get on his own bike. The house had been closed down and Arthur already made arrangements for the local Watchers to routinely maintain the property. Now all that remained was to go back home.

"Alfred," he called out, catching the vampire's attention. "I love you."

Caught off guard, Alfred looked at him with wide, surprised eyes that made Arthur's heart skip a beat. "L-love you too," he replied, stumbling over the words. It didn't sound as genuine as Arthur would have liked. But that was alright. They had eternity to fix that. "Come on, let's go," Alfred called out, revving his engine and tearing off down the mountainside to head into town.

Smiling, Arthur took one look back at the empty house and murmured softly, "Thank you, Kiku." Then he took off after the other, his heart filled with more hope than it had in years. He had a feeling that everything was going to turn out alright.

And if not...? He would make it turn out alright.