Welp…here I go on chapter six. About time, right? Hehe... ::sighs:: Wish me luck…
The sections in italics are Eiri's memories…
Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation…
Chapter Six:
The Past…
Eiri followed Touma through the hallways of the oversized house in silence, his heart pounding in his chest and his thoughts circling. As far as he knew, he had made it clear to Touma that their conversation had been over the moment Shuichi had woken from his slumber. He was curious to know what else Touma thought they needed to discuss, but was hesitant as well. Touma had a habit of reopening old wounds that Eiri had been trying to heal for years when they had one-on-one conversations. He wasn't looking forward to shedding any new blood, either in the mental or physical sense.
His thoughts were cut off as Touma made a sharp right turn through an open door. Eiri paused for a moment outside the room and sighed, running a hand back through his hair.
"I don't have all day, Eiri," Touma muttered from inside the room, hints of anger laced through his voice.
Eiri sighed and shook his head, and resigning to his fate, entered the room. Touma was already seated in one of the armchairs and had a fire roaring in the hearth. His kind eyes watched Eiri with a hint of annoyance, disappointment, and fury, but his lips held the same know-it-all grin that they always did. He barely gave his fellow vampire the time to get comfortable in his chair before he started in on him.
"How long?"
Eiri started and blinked a couple of times, his brow furrowed and a frown on his lips. "How long, what?"
"How long were you planning on hiding him from me?" Anger swelled in Touma's voice and it made Eiri's ears ring, even though it was barely above a whisper.
"I wasn't hiding him from you, Touma. I only just found him."
Touma laughed and scowled upon Eiri. "Don't play me for dumb, Eiri. You've had the dhampir in your possession for weeks now." He laughed again when he looked at Eiri. "Your sister is my wife. She tells me these kinds of things, whether you like it or not."
Eiri sighed and shook his head. It was the truth. He didn't know what part of his mind had thought that he could get away the lie, but it had been worth a try. But there was no way that he was going to give Shuichi over to Touma, even now that the blonde knew that he had him and would probably do everything in his power to get him. Eiri knew that Touma would kill him if it meant getting his hands on the dhampir.
"I know what you want, Touma, but you're not going to get him. I can't give him to you. Not without a fight."
Touma laughed and it was a cold sound from deep within his throat. The sound was so unlike him that Eiri had to double take to prove that it was indeed his brother-in-law who sat in front of him.
"You want to fight me? Over that damned boy?" He laughed again, wiping a tear from his cheek with a delicate finger. "You always were a jokester, weren't you, Eiri-kun."
Eiri narrowed his eyes and frowned. "I'm not lying, Touma. I refuse to just hand Shuichi over to you when you know nothing about him."
"Oh. And let me guess, you know everything about him, don't you?" Touma smiled and leaned forward in his chair. "Don't tell me that the two of you sit up late at night and share stories of your tragic pasts, crying on each others shoulder when it all becomes too much." He rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. "No. That's not it. I know you better than to think that you shared anything of your past with him. You're too locked up in your own poor, pitiful me mind to trust anyone."
Eiri growled quietly and Touma laughed heartily. To say that Eiri hated his brother-in-law would have been a lie because he really didn't and found it hard to believe that he would ever be able to. Touma had been the one to help him after he had been taken care of and had been the one who had kept Eiri pieced together for so long. But he couldn't deny that he disliked Touma. He was annoying and pompous, two things that Eiri hated the most.
"I want him, Eiri."
He shook his head. "No. I will not give Shuichi to you without fighting you first. The only reason you want him is so you can intimidate the other clans and get them to back off for a while. He'll be of no help against Mamoru and Nobu."
Touma chuckled quietly and shook his head, his brilliant green eyes shining with secrecy. "He will be Mamoru's downfall. I'll make sure of it!" There was a deep, feral tone in his voice that sent a shiver rippling down Eiri's spine.
"I won't allow it!" Eiri growled and stood from his seat. He gave Touma a sharp glare before storming toward the door.
The moment his hand touched the cool handle of the doorknob, an electric shockwave of pain shot down Eiri's spine. He screamed and collapsed to the ground, his hand still holding onto the handle in a death grip. His body writhed and convulsed on the floor, and sweat broke out across his brow. His mind faded in and out of darkness while old memories attempted to resurface.
"Fuck you, Touma!" he growled. "Go to hell."
The blonde stood above him with a soft smile on his face. "I'm already there."
With one more twitch of power, Eiri was carried off in the current of darkness, cursing Touma the entire way.
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Amber eyes opened slowly, immediately losing themselves in the honey brown of the person's in front of him. The boy squinted, trying to focus on the man's face and not just his eyes. When he finally retrieved enough strength to sit up, the other man just smiled and looked off toward the horizon.
"You did well for your first time, Eiri-kun," the man said, returning his gaze to the blonde boy. "You fought it much longer than I expected."
"And it would have been longer if you hadn't have increased the strength," the boy snapped, running a pale hand through his sweat slicked hair. "Why did you do that, sensei?"
"It was just a little test, Eiri. Nothing else. A test of strength. And you passed." The man smiled when he said this, obviously pleased with the boy's progress.
"But you could have killed me!"
The brunette's eyes widened for a moment then softened as the man reached out and brushed the boy's cheek with his knuckles. "Oh, no. I would never think of killing you, my Eiri." The possessive look in his eyes made Eiri melt inside.
'I'm his,' he thought, a small blush creeping up his cheeks. 'His…'
The man smiled and stood from under the tree they had taken shade under earlier that day for the lesson. The boy followed suit, brushing the dirt from the back of his pants before jogging to catch up with the brunette. The man didn't look up when the blonde caught up with him, just held out his hand, which the boy gratefully took.
The two walked in silence for a while—student and teacher, brother and brother, giver and taker—until the boy stopped. The brunette turned in annoyance but stopped when he saw the troubled look on the boy's furrowed brow.
"What is it, Eiri-kun?" the man asked, placing his hands on the boy's shoulders and kneeling so they were at eye level.
"What—" the boy stopped, his pained expression deepening before he continued. "Would you ever kill me?"
The question and cold look in the boy's eyes startled the tutor, but he recovered quickly, covering his surprise with kindness and compassion. "Of course not! Why would you ever think such a thing?"
"You mean, not purposely. What if you overexerted and that killed me?" The pain in the boy's voice startled the man once again, but, as before, he recovered quickly.
"The only reason I tried today was because I knew that you could handle it," he said reassuringly. "I stopped the moment you lost consciousness. I would never risk your life."
The boy smiled, relishing in the protectiveness that seemed to radiate from his teacher, and the man smiled back, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. They started walking again, the teacher making his daily rounds of walking his student home. But was it really home? Seguchi was nice enough, but offered love that the boy didn't return. No, the boy's home was in Japan.
Sighing as the apartment building came into view, the brunette squeezed Eiri's hand tightly and smiled down at the blushing boy. They reached the small set of stairs that lead up to the building's main lobby and stopped.
"Tomorrow?" the boy asked.
The tutor nodded. "Tomorrow."
The boy grinned brightly and slipped his hand from his tutor's, hugging him quickly, before running up the stairs and into the building, waving a goodbye over his shoulder.
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His eyes started to itch and burn as he drifted aimlessly through the darkness, his mind in harsh battle for freedom with his brother-in-law.
'Say Uncle…' Touma chuckled.
'Fuck you!' he growled.
'If you insist…'
Another burst of power made Eiri double over in pain. He held his hands over his stomach and clenched his eyes closed, biting his tongue to hold back the scream that threatened to tear out of his throat. The tears he'd fought to hold back after his first memory now spilled over and fell down his cheeks, dripping off to disappear into the endless darkness.
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A pain like wildfire spread across his senses. His body felt like it was on fire and he thought for sure that the pain was the feeling of his skin burning from his body, peeling back and disappearing to leave only blood and bone. He curled into the fetal position on the cold floor beneath him and screamed, clutching his head in his hands as a terrible screeching filled his ears.
His back arched and he threw his head back as another scream was ripped from his throat. Pain…so much pain. His chest ached and his head pounded. His mouth felt like he'd just gotten punched but there was no blood. He world beyond his open eyes wobbled and blurred, then became brighter. Every color, every shade, and every tone seemed to explode in a million flashes of light.
He saw movement in the corner of his eye and looked to see what it was. His teacher was there, his back pressed against the wall and a sick smile on his face, blood running down his chin and staining his clothes. His blood.
He reached out to his teacher with a shaking arm but the man's smile only grew. He shook his head and stood from the ground. Eiri watched him in terror as he went to the door and left, closing the wooden barrier behind him. No doubt the young man's cries couldn't be heard outside of the room.
"Why, Yuki-san? Why?" he screamed. "Yuki-san!!"
There was no reply, not even the smallest mental tap. Tears poured down the young man's face and blurred his bright new vision. Another pain shot through his head and made it feel like it was about to explode. He wanted to scream, but when he opened his mouth to do it nothing came out.
And then, as fast as it had happened, it stopped. The pain disappeared and his shaking stopped. Instead, his eyes flashed open and seemed to glow in the moonlight. The graffiti on the walls of the dilapidated apartment was blindingly bright, and the scent of mildew and death made him gag.
Slowly, Eiri pushed himself into the sitting position and then to his feet, surprised when he didn't wobble and almost fall to the ground. He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, he wasn't the same person he'd been when the night had started. There was nothing but blood lust and a want for revenge in his eyes. A power like nothing he had ever felt before surged through his veins.
Eiri held his hands up in front of him and examined them in the moonlight. It seemed to glow and with his new vision he could clearly see the blood pumping through the veins beneath the skin. He looked into the mirror across the room and furrowed his brow at his reflection. He looked exactly the same. Why hadn't he changed? Wasn't he supposed to have transformed into some hideous monster?
He opened his mouth and ran a finger over his two elongated and sharp incisors. He touched the tip of one of them and hissed as the gentle pressure pierced his flesh. The blood welled up in the wound and quickly spilled down his hand and to the floor.
Clapping. "Good job, my Eiri."
The young blonde growled and turned to the doorway. He hadn't even heard the door open. His tutor and friend stood against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest and a smile on his face. He pushed away from the door when he noticed Eiri's eyes on him and strolled into the room.
"I knew that you would be the perfect one. You're now your family's worst enemy. How does it feel?" he smirked as he stopped across from the blonde. "Are you angry?"
An audible growl slipped past Eiri's lips and Kitazawa's smile grew. For the first time, Eiri saw the flash of the vampire's fangs in the moonlight. It sent a shiver down his spine.
"There's no need for you to be angry with me, Eiri-kun. It is what you wanted, after all."
"What I wanted?" Eiri's anger grew inside his chest until he felt like he could explode. "What in your twisted mind made you think that I wanted this, Kitazawa?"
The man frowned at the sudden formality in his friend. "Does 'I want to stay with you forever' ring any bells in that little head of yours?" Eiri's eyes widened. "Yes, I see that it does. Well…now you have what you wanted. You can stay with me for eternity. There's no way for anyone to separate us." Kitazawa held out his hands and beckoned Eiri toward him.
The blonde closed his eyes and walked into the embrace, sighing when Kitazawa's arms closed around him. He rested his head on the crook of Kitazawa's shoulder and took a deep breath. The man laughed quietly.
"See, Eiri-kun. We can stay like this forever no…—"
He gagged loudly and blood spurted from his mouth, splattering into Eiri's hair and onto their shirts. Eiri stepped back and held his hand out for Kitazawa to see the still beating heart that sat perched in his palm. The brunet man looked back and forth between the heart and Eiri, disbelief on his face.
"What have you done?"
"Fuck you, Kitazawa. How could you do this to me? And without my consent! Fuck you!"
Eiri threw the heart onto the ground and dug around in his pants' pocket. He pulled out a book of matches and struck one against the flint. It lit with a loud scraping noise. Eiri glanced at Kitazawa and smiled.
"NO!" the brunet cried.
Eiri dropped the match and the flammable blood was ignited immediately. Kitazawa screeched in pain and fell to his knees, his hands clenched over the gaping hole in his chest. The scent of burning flesh quickly filled the room, but Eiri refused to turn away. He deserved to watch this man die more than anyone else in the world.
Kitazawa's body stopped writhing across the floor as the fire burned out. The heart was nothing but a dark smear of ashes on the floor. Eiri stared at the spot…and stared…and stared… He fell to his knees and ran a shaking finger through the black smear. He examined the stain on his finger and his entire body began to shake. A pain-filled scream tore out of his throat and echoed in the silent apartment. Red stained tears ran down his face and splattered across the hardwood floor.
He moved his attention from the black smear to the motionless body on the floor seven feet away from him. The man had fallen on his stomach, hiding the hole in his chest. The pain on his face made it look like he had died from a heart attack.
Footsteps echoed somewhere in the distance, but Eiri didn't pay attention to them. He kept his eyes locked on the body before him and the blood that had pooled on the floor, his blood tears still falling.
"Eiri…"
The blonde gasped and looked to the doorway. This time it was Touma standing there with a panicked look on his face. The man took a slow step toward Eiri before breaking into a run. He collapsed onto his knees at Eiri's side.
Eiri took the first comfort offered to him and fell into Touma's arms, sobbing painfully into the man's chest. Touma held him gently and whispered words of condolence into the boy's ear. Sometime in the cold New York night, Eiri's tears stopped, but by then he was already asleep.
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He awoke with a loud gasp, his body jumping into the upright position of its own accord. His eyes wildly searched the room around him for something—anything—familiar, something that would take away the reality of the hell he'd been forced to wander through. A familiar head of platinum blonde hair rose above the back of a chair, though the person hadn't moved.
Eiri blinked and pushed himself up from the couch in silence. He walked up behind Touma with a vicious frown on his face.
"Don't try anything, Eiri."
He froze and let his clawed hands fall limply to his sides. Touma sighed and turned to look at the other vampire with a frown on his face and pain in his eyes. Eiri frowned and furrowed his brow.
"What happened? Why did you set me free?"
Touma sighed again and returned his gaze to the flames that danced in the hearth. "Shuichi ran away, or rather, was kidnapped. We didn't realize until it was too late. We can't find him. His scent has faded."
Eiri's eyes widened and he followed his first instinct and ran toward the open door. The heavy oak slammed in his face just as he got to it and not even his most powerful mental attacks would get it to open again.
"Goddamn you, Touma! What is your problem? If anyone can find him, it's me. Now, let me go!" He futilely shook the knob and pounded on the door.
"I can't let you go, Eiri. You're acting on impulse. You need to calm down and think rationally. Then I'll let you out of the room."
The younger vampire growled loudly and glared at his superior. Touma sighed and shook his head, running a pale hand back through his equally pale hair.
"Shindou-kun wasn't taken by force. We think that it was his kin took him away."
Eiri threw a glass decanter full of whiskey across the room. It shattered against the wall and the brown liquid inside fell in rivulets down the wood paneling.
"You see? Calm down." Touma settled down into his armchair and kept his eyes on Eiri. "And it's no good to go rushing after Shindou-kun, anyway. I know as well as you do that he needs to be with people of his own kind, those who can tell him about the past he can't remember. You know that he needs this."
Eiri closed his eyes and took several deep stabilizing breaths, not opening his eyes until he felt his blood cool and his anger disappear. He sighed and fell down into the nearest chair, resting his forehead in his hands. Touma chuckled, but Eiri didn't look up.
"You really do care for him, don't you?"
He nodded. "He's reminds me of myself at that age."
Touma chuckled again. "Only you were much more stupid." Eiri jerked his eyes up and glared at his brother-in-law, but he just smiled. "He doesn't look like it, but he's much stronger than you ever were. You know that. And you also know that he won't hesitate to kill you if he's faced with it, no matter how much he claims to care for you."
"I know…" Eiri ran a hand back through his hair and slouched back into the chair. "How long?"
Touma laughed, and Eiri knew that it had been because of his choice of words. What a better way to end a conversation than with how they had begun?
"Wait at least an hour, maybe two. We don't know when he was taken or when he woke up, if he even has yet. You need to give them time to tell at least some of his story in case something small triggers his memories. Can you sit still for that long?"
Eiri rolled his eyes. "Yes. I'm going to try and contact him mentally, though. I want to know where he is."
Touma nodded, and Eiri closed his eyes, focusing all of his attention on the signature he'd had memorized for what felt like his entire life.
'Where are you, Love? Are you alright?'
The words traveled through the mental link, but bounced off an invisible barrier Shuichi had erected around his mind. No. Shuichi hadn't built it up. Eiri growled and opened his eyes. It had to have one of the boy's lackeys.
'Hold on, Shuichi. I'll come for you soon.'
TBC…
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A/N: An eternity later and here's chapter six…::sighs:: Sorry it took so long, but I had to prioritize and "ILaH" was more important. But now it's finished and now I can continue on this. HURRAH!!! I've decided on 15 chapters for this story, with a possible sequel if you all want one when the time comes. And, unlike with "ILaH," I have the rest of this fic planned out so I know what I want to happen and where I want to end…no surprises for myself…Hehe…
Anyway, thank you to you guy who reviewed. You all know who you are. I'm sorry I can't think of your names at the moment. ::sighs:: But you're all great and all that totally awesome jazz… ::hugs you all::…
Alrighty…until next chapter, adieu…
