AN: I'm back everyone! I swear I did not abandon you. I know I said I would be back on June 25th and today is July 17th and there was no news of my whereabouts of my updates but in all honesty, life got in the way. My two week vacation in Wisconsin was so busy I did not have time to sit down and write. When I came back late afternoon on the 25th it was to find out my husband's grandfather had passed away and we had to leave to travel to his mom's place the very next day. We spent almost a week coming and going without stopping so no chance to write then either. Then we left for a family vacation on the 5th and got back on the 12th. After that it all came down to trying to get in the swing of things and muster some inspiration for this chapter update, inspiration which did not come until yesterday afternoon.

I had originally wanted this chapter to be around 3k words and to have some action in it but after my little bout of inspiration ran out this afternoon I decided to call it quits for now instead of forcing the chapter to go on and deliver a crap story. So in the end this chapter ended up being not only short but mainly narrative and to top it all doesn't add to story progression since it happens on the same night as the last chapter.

I would like for you guys to keep in mind that this story is a Horror/Thriller, so don't go off on me because of the first portion of the chapter or any subsequent horror/gore/etc related scenes. Also, I did work a bit on Video-calls and have about 1k for it. I could polish that 1k and post it which would result in the fic ending in 2 to 4 relatively shorter chapters or I could just keep working on it until the end (however long it might take) and post it all in one VERY long chapter. It's up to you so let me know your preferences.

Speaking of updates and such, I would also like to remind you that I will only be working on Secret Admirer, Video-calls, and Wildlife. I know you guys miss my other updates but I honestly can't concentrate on more stuff right now and as much as I don't like to disappoint you I won't be going to my other updates until I finish these ones regardless of how many times people PM me asking me to.

Thanks to fifteenfeb for betaing and I still don't own anything. Enjoy the chapter and pardon the long AN.

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Secret Admirer Chapter 12 – Nightmares and Dreamscapes

He lay prone upon the floor. His arms and legs shackled to the smooth surface as they spread him like a lamb ready for sacrifice, ready to be consumed. His body heated and sweating profusely regardless of the chilling cold rising from the floor and seeping into his body, freezing him to the marrow within his bones.

A trembling of sorts begun in his fingers and rose through his body until he shook violently in fear and apprehension of what was to come. Eyes watched him, glinting possessively from within the darkness, and a maniacal smile spread upon a face shrouded in shades of inky terror.

He could not move, save from his violent shaking, and the shadows formed long-fingered hands all around him. Some with knife-like nails, glinting with some non-existent light, but from where? He doesn't even know where and is in no position to try and figure it out.

Other hands held actual knives on their grasps; those too, glinted with that strange light. The shackles separated his limbs more, spreading him more open than he had ever been and making him feel more exposed, vulnerable, and scared.

Blood dripped slowly from somewhere above him, it fell in slow drops onto his chest with a marked tick, tick, tick that was slowly driving him mad. The worse was that somehow, at the back of his mind, he registered that the blood was still warm and smelled faintly of Kou's cologne.

Those eyes took him in, drank his visage like a dehydrated man would look upon a fount of clear flowing water. An impossibly long tongue sneaked out of the wide mouth, he swore it was forked like the depictions of the Western's idea of the devil, and it licked the thin white lips as if savoring his taste upon them before diving to the main dish and sinking pointed teeth upon his flesh. The room was so cold it allowed the pants to form puffs of fog before the forked tongue and it reminded him of long hours of passionate embraces with Asami in the limo during cold nights, how the glass would fog up and he could see his own needy breaths form a cloud between them. It soiled the memories of those moments and he was sure if he ever made it out of this place, he would never want to see those puffs again.

As it was, the face closed in more and more and he was quickly losing hope of ever escaping. Intangible walls were also closing in, bringing the inky darkness surrounding him closer and further trapping him in his prone state. There was no escape, no way out; this disgustingly frightening man-creature was going to exert his will upon his unwilling body. For the first time in his short life, he wished for death's embrace if only to save himself from what this… thing… might do to him for gods only know how long before he granted him the mercy of breathing his last breath.

The floor he laid upon shifted in consistency yet still remained somewhat solid and retained its icy chill. He turned his face to the side and was horrified to realize he was laying upon a bed of worms, maggots… and most disturbingly, semen. He felt the need to throw up as his stomach clenched painfully. His abdominal muscles began to spasm with dry heaves and his body shook with even more violence yet the acrid-bitter taste that rose from his bowels never went pass his mouth. It centered there, in his mouth all the way down his throat, that bitter taste filled him with disgust and cemented his loathing for the figure before him even more firmly.

Hands larger than the ones made out of the darkness surrounding him, shot forward without warning from somewhere near the face. They were larger than any hands he had ever seen before and colder than the coldest winter night. They gripped him without a care for his fragile flesh as they groped his body. Until this point, he had not questioned why he had yet to scream at the horror he found himself in.

He let it out, his mouth open so far it hurt his jaw, the scream tore out of him, taking all the air in his lungs with it and he thrashed like a fish in a net within his confines. Wildly trying one last time to break free.

He screamed.

Begged.

Pleaded.

Still, strong hands held him down and yet he continued to fight.

A voice in the distance called his name again and again, it was almost masked by the crazed laughter loud in his ears, but slowly, it made itself more discernable.

Asami.

Asami was calling his name and with the knowledge of not being alone, that Asami would always be there to keep him safe, he opened his eyes.

'It was a dream.' He told himself.

Akihito's body was sweaty and clammy as Asami held him tight to his chest in their bedroom where he had been asleep on their bed, plagued by nightmares he would not forget for a long time.

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After laying down with his lover for a few minutes, he got up to take a much needed hot shower, hoping it would help him release some of the tension and stress his body was currently on. Even with the tightened security, he didn't feel like leaving his gun too far from reaching distance, so after a short moment of hesitation, he took it into the bathroom and hid it under a hand towel next to the sink. Asami was convinced Akihito's recently fragile state of mind and emotional stability was soon reaching its breaking point. His lover was tethering at the very sharp edge of mental breakdown and he had no idea how to keep him from going into a meltdown. He rinsed the soap off his body as his mind went through possible ways to help Akihito feel better, any good the scalding water had done for his body and mind was completely undone by Akihito's screaming.

When he had heard the very loud and haunting scream, he ran, gun in hand, to his distressed lover's aid. That scream, he was sure he would hear that terror-filled scream every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life. If he had not been sure before, he was now, nothing was more important than securing Akihito's wellbeing, in all senses of the word. That man had to go, preferably in a painfully long and slow bloody way.

He hoped that his meeting the following morning yielded some favorable results or he was going to tear Tokyo apart again if he had to, in order to find that man. Asami did not know how much longer Akihito's mind could take this situation before the boy snapped.

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He was waiting, through the binoculars as he watched from a building across the street from Asami's. It was a smaller building compared to the impressive thirty floors of height Asami's building possessed, but it was still a high-end building of twenty-floor height. The building had been easier to break into than he thought, people tend to open their doors to receive packages easily enough, and it was far enough from Asami's building for the man not to suspect being watched yet close enough that his high-end binoculars afforded a good look into the balcony and the windows on that side. He only wished the curtains would be open more often, so he could see into the condo. Sadly, he had learned early enough that Asami Ryuichi was a man who valued his privacy.

The maid and her boss trembled, tied to the chairs in front of the round table. Dinner was set before them and he watched as the lights went off in Asami's condo. They would not be up until six the following morning, so he supposed he could take a small break and dine with the ladies. After all, he should start practicing having a formal meal with someone. That way when Akihito was able to finally come with him, they could have lovely meals together. Having three people on the table made him think of having a family with Akihito, he was so beautiful he would bear the loveliest children. He was convinced, would swear on it even, that his love for Akihito was so great the gods themselves would see fit to bend the rules of nature and allow him to have children. Briefly, he wondered if he would have to construct the appropriate openings for such a feat on the boy, he could get some surgical equipment and give it a try regardless of his very limited knowledge of surgery.

He would figure that out once he was safely away with his love and if it did not work, he could always take a child that looked enough like his lover to make it work. There were plenty of women out there and if there was not one with a child close enough to his Akihito's looks he would just manually take the necessary 'ingredients' from Akihito and put them inside a suitable woman to serve as a breeder for his purposes.

After those thoughts, he turned his attention to the food, serving himself and then the women before beginning to eat, not caring that he had not untied the women enough to allow them to eat.

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Setsuna's geekdom 101: If you were wondering about the title for this chapter or found it familiar somehow but could not point out from where. Nightmares and Dreamscapes is the title of a collection of short stories by Stephen King (one of my favorite authors ever) and it was published in 1993, some of the stories were adapter to film and TV.

About the nightmare: In case you missed it Aki's nightmare is manifesting his guilt over Kou's attack, hence the knives but I felt it was lacking something to make it clearer so I decided to add the part about Kou's blood which was not in the original draft of the section. There are several things that add up to this nightmare. The incident at Kou's apartment where he woke up covered in cum, the feelings he had of bugs crawling on him as he looked at the stalker's pictures of his violation, Kou's attack, him knowing he was trapped and unable to move as his body was drugged and at the stalker's mercy during the time the man was touching him in the condo which he was not aware of until he saw the pictures. the face in darkness because he doesn't really know what the man really looks like, possessiveness in the eyes brought by the things he had read on the notes that came with all the gifts and him unconsciously comparing the man with a demon. There are other subtleties that I'm too lazy to explain.

I hope you liked the chapter despite how short it was and continue to give me and my stories your support.

Setsuna