A/n: Ookay...this is where we go from the Moon Child movie-verse down the slide to Sou's AU Moon Child world. Enjoy the ride?
DREAM OF FOREVER
soumanyon
Chapter 11
The next morning dawned brilliant and sunny. It was a beautiful day, birds singing, blue skies and everything.
It hurt.
"How is it?" I asked, returning to my old habit of chewing on my fingertips to ease the hunger.
For the fifth time that hour, Sho peeked out one of the heavy black curtains then replaced it, shaking his head. It was hopeless, of course. All the weather reports, all the indications pointed to a beautiful day, perfect for Yi-Che's unveiling.
The clock in the kitchen chimed. Twelve. If Cinderella didn't leave soon, he'd be late.
"You should go." I said, not looking up, "Go without me."
I tried to reassure him even as I felt something of his unease trickle down my spine. Had I been superstitious, I would have reconsidered my urging. But I ignored it, instead reassuring myself at the same time, ignoring his melodrama and pouting as I pressed a kiss to the top of his head, pulling him close to me. The hug lasted too long and was too close to be platonic. When we finally broke apart, Sho tried to pull me down for a kiss but I pushed him away, sending him into his familiar juvenile pouting.
I felt the elder again. I was in control and Sho depended on me for that control. I used that responsibility to push aside the nagging unease at the corner of my mind. I set my mind. He was going. At least one of us would have a life.
The poor boy was so indecisive. It was clear that he wanted to go but he didn't want to leave me all by myself while they were out but it wasn't like I couldn't handle it. I knew Sho had gone out plenty of times in the day when he thought I was sleeping.
I got up, inspired and walking over to the futon, reclining back.
"I think I'll take a nap." I said, eyes closed but it seemed that Sho wouldn't be so easily dismissed today. I guess our relationship did have somewhat of an effect on the ones between him, Son, and Yi-Che. I can't say whether I'm happy about that, it's complicated.
"You should go." I told him, voice careless and unaffected, a simple observer. "They're waiting for you." I nodded at the door before sighing and shifting into a more comfortable position for a nap, ignoring him.
Sure enough, five minutes later, he was out the door. With Sho, you need to make ultimatums or he'll dawdle in indecisiveness for the entire day.
Looking back, I'm not sure whether I made the right choice, to prod him into going. Maybe he sensed that thing that I had ignored, some ephemeral fateful stirring of unease. But I don't know. We don't talk about that day.
I wonder what would have happened if he didn't go. Then I wouldn't have followed him when the skies forebodingly clouded over a few hours later. That should've been a warning to me. None of the reports had predicted rain much less the huge storm that drenched the entire city. But I'd never believed in portents.
And so when the skies did cloud over, despite my growing weakness I made my way over to the park under the threat of the skies opening up at any minute and vaporizing me. At least no one was on the streets to notice a thin, pale figure clenching a red raincoat around himself and stumbling down the street. But I'd promised Yi-Che and I wouldn't lose face to Son. Damn that pride.
The gunshots first alerted me to something wrong. I was cutting through a grove when I saw the two thugs and Toshi stumbling between them. I don't know if it was mostly the hunger or mostly my years of protectiveness or my fear of abandonment or a combination of all three. Whatever the reasons, I snapped.
There have always been myths of people developing superhuman strengths in times of extreme stress so why shouldn't an immortal be able to do the same? I found some reserve that let me function enough to clumsily fly over to them. Actually, it felt more like I was throwing myself around.
Everything else was another one of those blurs when my vampiric instinct completely takes over. Instinctive need to protect myself and my mate was all it took before I was ready to kill again. I was eager to kill. Toshi's death was irrelevant to my vampire side. I only managed to rein in the monster enough to make it ignore his body and instead turn to the criminal's.
I hated that side, thinking back ashamedly to how close I was to simply throwing myself down at the easy prey Toshi had become, fatally injured. To my vampire side, it was a pity letting all of that delicious blood seep into the earth. Why not drink it? It didn't matter that I'd known him for more than a decade and that he was a friend. Vampires didn't have friends, much less human ones.
It's frightening how close to the surface that side of my lingers, always ready to take away when my all too human determination weakens.
The thug was easy enough prey, completely unsuspecting as I headed straight towards him and tackled him to the muddy ground. I was gentle enough when my fangs first pierced his pulsing neck, he was still able to kick and scream, at least. And he kicked up a hell of a racket with his terrified screams even if the adrenaline did pump his blood faster and added a particular spice to it.
I think I broke his neck when I tugged his head back. I'm not sure whether that was intentional. I knew I wanted to have easier access to the jugular but maybe his squirming was getting on my nerves too much. Sometimes I can even fool myself into thinking that I was being merciful but those illusions are dissipated each time I feed and realize all over again that vampires care nothing for mercy. We're quite literally cold-blooded.
I lost myself in feeding, trying to lap up as much blood as I could before his heart died along with the blood. The flow was already slowing.
I think I heard something, some tinny little voice in the back of my head somewhere, or maybe it was real. I don't know. It was irrelevant with this dead body under me and another nearby fresh for the taking. I was hungry enough for the both of them.
The tinny little voice pestered me for quite some while before its presence filtered away sometime after I got up and calmly headed over to the other body, licking my lips of the splattered blood as I went. But there was too much to lick up; I think I made quite a mess.
This time I was left to feed in peace but I only drank about half of the second one's blood; it was already getting that bitter, dead taste to it. I could easily find better.
I think it was then that I woke up out of my zombie, vampire nightmare. It was night again and I was soaked. I should've been chilled to the bone but I felt like I was glowing warmly. I woke to myself in the shelter of some bushes. It seemed that I at least had the presence of mind to hide but nothing could hide the fact that I was covered in blood.
All down my front, dripped down from my chin. There was dried blood on my neck and face and it wasn't mine. It didn't take a genius to figure out what I'd done.
For the next few hours, I sat there under those bushes, hugging my legs to my chest and shivering, not with cold but with bitter self-hatred. It had seemed so distant and passed like a blur when I was doing it but the memories came back crystal clear and I wished they didn't. I could remember every little detail of what I'd done.
It was too much to take too soon. Only a day after returning, I ran off again, but this time I had no intention of returning.
I drifted along the streets hearing occasional snippets of the news of the strange double homicide at the park and shivered each time that I did. It was another blur. I don't know how I found clothes or washed myself clean of most of the blood. Not all of it is gone yet, I don't think it ever will be. I was dirtier than the scum that had killed Toshi.
I didn't allow myself any time to mourn my friend, the kid that I had known since childhood. I was already numb, I couldn't get much more numb.
I completely let loose. I don't know how long it was that I drifted around. It could have been a few days or a few weeks. I had nothing by which to tell the time and I only slept when I was too tired to stay awake. My life was a nightmare that didn't release me, even in sleep.
After that first period of total numbness, I was filled with some sort of dark determination. What day was it? A Tuesday? Some random day that I'd picked out to suddenly develop a will.
I went to the bank. While Sho still insisted on keeping all of his money in tins, I had grown out of that a long time ago. Interest can be pleasant from the right side. Of course, by the time it was dark enough for me to head out, all the banks were closed. Thank god for automated banking.
Under my usual fake IDs, I withdrew everything from my account, having the presence of mind to deposit most of it in Sho's rarely used account and keeping the rest, still a substantial amount, to blow on what I had deemed my last day on earth. I didn't have much but it'd be enough to go out with a bang like I intended on doing.
I'd join Luka at dawn.
It was a little after sunset when I finished with the strangely domestic task, almost surreal in its normalcy after weeks of nothing. With my nice, thick roll of bills, I bought myself a decent outfit that I wouldn't mind dying in, something that would make a nice first impression when I saw Luka again.
He'd like it. An almost translucent, flowy white shirt like the ones I always wear only much better quality. There were also sexy leather pants that although he might not approve of, I couldn't resist. It seems Sho has had some influence on me after all.
My mind quickly changed from that topic. I decided to get wonderfully drunk. I'm not sure that I wasn't already. I wonder if I went temporarily insane or if I was finally returning to my true self after so long. I wonder if my true self is insane.
Anyway, I headed out for drinks after a short stay at a seedy motel where I got cleaned up and dressed up in my new clothes. The ones I'd had on earlier had been salvaged after I threw my bloody things away. Even stuff thrown away in the trash was preferable to walking around Mallepa covered in blood.
It was nice to be clean again after taking a shower, shaving and combing my hair. Clean clothes were nice, too. Damn but I really wanted to look nice for Luka.
I think I was insane.
By the time I finished all of that, it was night and I found myself wanting to enjoy a thoroughly self-destructive last few hours on Earth. So, like any idiot drunk on life, I decided to get even more smashed, this time with alcohol.
I stumbled into a dark bar on the edge of town. It would've been quiet had the music not been earth-shakingly loud. Lucky me, my clothes let me fit right in. No one took much notice of the short blond weaving through the crowds to the bar.
After taking a seat towards the corner of the bar, I promptly motioned the bartender over, ordering myself a nice spicy sake. It was somewhat of a cool night and the drink would warm me up.
So I sat in my dark little corner, sipping at my cup. After the first few drinks, the kid behind the counter had realized that my sole interest was to drink myself to oblivion and wisely left me alone after setting an entire bottle of my sake at my elbow.
I thought I was doing a pretty decent job of appearing unapproachable until a dark-haired woman sat down next to me, borrowing my bottle of sake to refill her cup. I wanted to reproach her for taking my alcohol; there wouldn't be enough let to get me sufficiently drunk. But the only sound that came out of my lips was a strangled, "Gahh…"
She looked up at me, large brown eyes twinkling mischievously. With a wink, she refilled my cup too as if she was doing me a favor. I did my best to ignore her.
After she finished off her second cup and was reaching to refill a third, I promptly drained off my sake, finally ready to talk some sense into this bitch that was stealing my alcohol when she turned to me, lips curving up in a delicious smirk.
"Care to dance?" she asked, voice low enough that I could barely hear her. I blinked dumbly at the change of pace and it was enough of a pause that she had dragged me off my stool and onto the dance floor before I really knew what was going on. Maybe I was a little drunk by then.
She pulled me close to her and I was too distracted to push away. Her hair tickled my nose and I sneezed, stumbling with the force of it. Somehow I heard her tinkling laugh over the music and other noise in the club,
"You're so cute, Haido." She grinned and I was sober enough to stop in my tracks. I knew I wasn't a rambler on the few instances that I had gotten drunk. And I wasn't smashed enough to have any memory loss and I knew I didn't say anything to her…didn't tell her my name, didn't even mumble a greeting.
"How…" I stuttered, "H-how do y-you…?"
I gaped at the stutter in my voice. Since when was that there? And why were my hands shaking uncontrollably? And the cold feeling draining through my body.
I tried to concentrate on her face to see who she really was but the darkness of her hair distracted me. Or was it just shadowed? It seemed to be getting darker and darker…
And then completely,
black.
tbc...
Ahem. Well then.
Hehe, wouldn't it be sweet if I turned this into a Mary Sue? I'm kidding, of course.
Anyway, trust me. Go with it. It'll all work out, I promise.
Essenity, fujipuri, Okiitako, Tixxana, Emiri-chan, IceMaiden7, .ReinMagick-Yami no Kage, Sidhelady
