Chapter Title: Conflict of Thought

Rating: PG-15/R

Chapter: 19/possibly 30-ish

Warnings: swearing, kissing and obscure/blatant reference to sex/ual things, arguments, euthanasia

Disclaimer: Gackt owns Moon Child. (Doesn't that mean he owns Kei too?)

Pairings: Kei/Sho, Lindsay/David

Jaded's fore-words: Late! I realize this. Many interesting things have been going on for me recently. Including me actually liking school, enough to get there on time for, like, the first time in my life. My first class of the day is Life Sports. First thing we did was a kayaking unit. In a lake. And then people signed up for the kayaking down the river. And I flipped my kayak. First time flipping in a river, first time wearing a skirt. It was thrilling. Especially when my shoes became stuck and I was half in the kayak, half out, floating down the rapids, underwater. :) It was awesome. And then I've become really interested in my ceramics class. If you ask about seeing my work, I'll link you to my mandatory blog on bloodspot. I'm really happy about all my classes except one. This year I joined yearbook so I could learn to use a camera and do graphic designing. Now I'm terrified of the class. I'm going to write a letter to the advisor/my teacher. AND I've been painting my room. Looks awesome. I'll take pictures and load it onto my blog if people want. It's considered art. I don't think my teacher will mind, especially since me and a few others in his three classes seem to be the only ones actually doing it. Anywayyyyy… I've also had some serious writers block…. soooooooo- Whew this thing has gotten long. Enough with my rambling excuses.

Satchi and Soubi, you both inspired me the other day just by existing. :) Annnnn~d a special thanks to vampluvr'96 for reminding how long I had been dragging this out and motivating me to start actively burning my writers block in a fire-pit. Without further ado, enjoy what I have for you at this moment in time.

After a pause in which nobody moved - stunned and shocked, sitting and standing, watching, kissing, and being kissed - Sho pulled back as quickly as he had swooped in. He stared at Kei, mouth opening like a fish, words suddenly nonexistent as only action existed. Then, without even exchanging a breath, he flew from the couch and out the door, leaving Kei to raise a hand and touch his lips unconsciously with his fingertips.

"What are you doing? You doofus, go after him," David exclaimed, throwing his hands out in pleading and gesturing wildly to the front door. Kei looked at him, completely out of it before registering David in his head. It was a moment longer before he understood what David had shouted at him.

His usual, angry-apathetic expression returned and David's excitement fizzled and died, falling like lead into his stomach.

"I'm not going after him," Kei stated flatly with a note of finality.

"Why not? He. Kissed! You." David pressed and gesticulatedly wildly with his arms, eyes wide and incredulous.

"Because he obviously didn't know what he was fucking doing and I'm not going to date my friend no matter how much you seem to want me to," Kei said angrily and David's shock at him cussing was overridden by his anger and frustration with his father.

"You two are fucking hopeless," he growled and Kei's eyes narrowed dangerously. David ignored it and continued.

"You fucking love him; You're fucking in love with him. And he kisses you, obviously showing interest, and you're probably not even going to confront him about it when he gets back. I know you, Kei, you'll just pretend it didn't-"

"David," Kei interrupted firmly and dangerously, effectively cutting him off. "We're not going to get into this again."

"You're fucking ridiculous," David snarled and Kei's eyes flashed and hardened.

"Room. Now," Kei ordered and David paused, breathing heavily.

A tense silence fell between them and a battle of wills ensued, entirely within David. Kei watched it happen in his son's eyes, and in the way he moved not an inch. For thirty seconds he readied for either the argument to continue or for David to listen to him.

He knew the exact moment it happened that the part of David on Kei's side had won. David exhaled slowly, his once sharp, angry eyes dulled, and his shoulders dropped, nearly in a defeated way. It was almost sad, yet at the same time his jaw locked and his hands curled into fists. The next second he was turning, his gaze hard, and he stomped back to his room. The door slammed behind him and a loud thud was heard against the wall a second later. Kei could only guess what it had been.

Taking a deep breath he relaxed back into the couch, wondering at his first argument-fight with David. He refused to think about Sho - the subject that started it - and the kiss they had "accidentally" shared.

Lindsay was on his feet in an instant, springing from the bed and wrapping his arms around David before his lover could potentially punch the wall again. David growled and twisted, instead trying to kick it. Lindsay stepped backward in the same moment, hauling David off his feet. The short teen twisted violently and kicked out angrily with both feet and Lindsay gripped him tighter.

This was how it always was when David became angry. But not just annoyed or irked or simply just a little angry. David was pissed when he lashed out like that. He would hit things, or kick things - things that usually didn't break easily and would actually end up injuring him more than he would injure them. And when David injured himself, Lindsay would intervene. It would only piss David off more because the colorful teen hated people touching him when he was angry. Gabe was the only one who wouldn't get wounded attempting to calm David down.

So Lindsay stumbled back and sat on the bed, pulling David securely against his body between his legs.

David fumed, panting and twisting, not wanting to be restrained or touched. Only Gabe was allowed to hold him, hug him, hold him back. Gabe was the only person he would let subdue him. Everyone else got a fight.

Already angry, but quickly become more and more vexed, David glared at Lindsay's arms locked around him - pinning his arms to his sides - and ruled out hitting or biting the blonde. But his legs were still free.

Swiftly, so as to not be stopped, David lifted his leg and slammed his heel back into Lindsay's shin. He was hoping that either it would piss Lindsay off and he would be freed, or Lindsay would get pissed off and let him fight his anger out.

Instead, Lindsay hissed and wrapped one of his legs across David's, trapping them with little wiggle room. David jerked frustratedly and Lindsay bit the side of his neck, applying a constant pressure to force David to calm. David tried to twist away from Lindsay without luck.

Lindsay continued biting him until David sagged against his chest in defeat. Seeing that his lover had stopped fighting against him, Lindsay loosened his jaw and pulled back, leaving blue indentations of his teeth in David's neck. Without warning David wrenched his whole body around and jerked his arm back in a last ditch attempt at elbowing the blonde in the ribs.

Lindsay squeezed his arms tighter and forced David's arm back to his side. Then, lightening quick, his hand flew up and his fingers wrapped around his lover's slim throat.

David froze, not even breathing. The fingers on his throat slid up just enough to force him to tilt his head back and with that motion he was also forced to lean back against Lindsay's bare chest.

He took a deep, shuddering breath.

A second later David's head felt as though it were filled with helium and his whole body was suddenly boneless, and he slumped, Lindsay's arms around him being the only thing keeping him sitting upright. Lindsay released David's legs and gently pulled the shorter male more firmly back against him.

David wasn't afraid or threatened. In fact, he wasn't even barely angry anymore as his whole body relaxed in an annoyed submission. Although, if anyone else besides Lindsay had tried to pull that, he would have seriously hurt them. Because just as Gabe was the only one allowed to subdue him when he was angry, Lindsay was the only one who could touch his neck. Except the back of it. Other people could touch that.

Something a bit peculiar, yes, but he always told people it was a trust problem and that people touching his neck, especially his throat, had him freaked out because he believed that a slit across the throat would be the worst way to die. And so it freaked him out when people touched his throat.

At least, that was what he told people.

"Are you calm now?" Lindsay quietly asked right into David's ear and an irked, short, quiet noise escaped him as he wiggled slightly. Lindsay gently stroked a small patch of skin under his middle finger and David's eyelids fluttered. A shiver passed through his body.

Then he nodded minutely.

"Will you stay calm?" Lindsay questioned next, his voice practically rolling into David's ear, carrying authority and something that just made David want to obey. He whined wordlessly, a small frown creasing his brow.

Then he nodded again.

Lindsay relaxed, his other arm dropping to rest around David's abdomen and David carefully shimmied his arms free to rest one over Lindsay's thigh and let the other cover Lindsay's arm. And yet the hand on his throat stayed.

A long moment of comfortable silence passed and David breathed, slowly and steadily, forgetting everything but Lindsay and breathing and that warm hand wrapped around his neck.

"I wonder how-" David started, his voice rough from his wordless forms of communication. He cleared his throat.

"I wonder how Kei and Sho would react if they saw this."

Lindsay chuckled breathily, obviously finding amusement in entertaining the idea.

"I'm being serious," David murmured. "Sho would probably kill you on sight. So I guess it's a good thing he's not even in the house. But Kei's reaction-"

The door swinging open to reveal Kei on the other side cut off what he was going to say next. An expression similar to being hit in the face with a frying pan was how he stared in shock at the two. A horrified kind of shock really.

"What the hell?" He exclaimed and David blinked away the haze in his mind, belatedly noting Kei was shaking and angry, but in a different way he was before. Now he had a tinge of murder in his eyes... Which were locked onto Lindsay's hand around David's throat.

"Uh..." David stalled, sitting up straight and letting Lindsay's hand slide from his neck. Kei glanced dangerously at the younger blonde before making eye contact with his son.

David had a brief moment of panic then when he realized he would probably have to tell Kei what was going on, exactly. That meant he would have to reveal the real reason he didn't like having his neck touched. Only two people knew the real reason: Gabe, because she knows everything, and Lindsay, because he's David's lover and a sneaky bastard. Telling Kei, his recently discovered dad, would be beyond humiliating. (God, it's still weird to think of Kei as his dad. Weird in a good way.)

"If someone doesn't tell me what is going on in two minutes then I'm going to rip Lindsay's arm off and put it in a meat grinder," Kei hissed and David jumped to his feet to explain.

"He was just trying to calm me down because I was pissed of and I punched the wall and kicked him and would've kept trying break things, like my hand, when he was trying to keep me from hurting myself or himself and I wouldn't quit so-"

"So he grabbed your throat in a threat to choke you if you didn't stop?" Kei said lowly, his voice eerily even. Which just scared David more, fearing Lindsay's life being in jeopardy.

"No," David drawled lowly and directed his gaze to the floor, the tips of his ears burning bright red. "My... uh... My neck is extremely sensitive, and normally I hate people touching it because..." David trailed off, realizing he had said too much and now Kei was expecting to know why he hated having his neck touched. He could have smashed his head against the wall from his stupidity. Oh well. There was absolutely no way around it now, not with Kei leaning so casually in the doorway, exuding an aura of murder with the way his arms were crossed and his usually warm brown eyes were hard and threatening. He figured he should just tell Kei and try to not be so embarrassed.

"Because my neck is extremely sensitive, I don't like people... Touching it. Lindsay's the only one... B-but uh, I don't know exactly why he did it that way to... to calm me down."

David looked at Lindsay then with a frown as if to ask "Why did you grab my neck?"

"Touching his neck when he has been upset has always calmed him," Lindsay told Kei, examining David as the younger teen began to fidget with his shirt hem. "Like the 'tickling' thing. Recently David has been interested in something a little... unconventional and I just used the idea to get his attention."

David's entire face was bright red and his shoulders were creeping toward his ears. He stared incredulously at Lindsay, all too aware of Kei staring at him.

"H-How exactly do you know about that? I don't recall you being around when Gabe an-" David started, feigning a sense of casual he obviously didn't feel. But he stopped mid-sentence when his mind stuttered on the thought of Gabe. Lindsay raised an amused, mocking eyebrow at him.

"I'm going to murderize her," David muttered darkly and Kei cleared his throat to get the attention back to him.

"Still here," he said, the corner of his mouth quirked, even as the rest of his expression remained unamused. David coughed once.

"Just thought I'd let you know. Also, I've changed my mind. I don't want to know what exactly that was. As long as nobody's getting hurt and Sho never finds out... I'm fine with it. Just not ever in front of me or I won't be responsible for what happens to Lindsay afterward." Kei told them, his gaze drifting from one to the other and then back as he spoke.

"Aye-aye, cappy-tan," David said with a half-assed mock salute in Kei's direction.

Kei nodded, accepting that and leaving, making sure to close the door behind him.

"And just be glad Sho hadn't been the one to walk in on that," he called amiably through the door. "If he had, Lindsay would have been dead, no questions asked."

David glanced solemnly at Lindsay before sighing in relief with a bit of a laugh.

"Well, that was a bit humiliating," he murmured before dropping back down onto the bed only to have Lindsay scoot against the wall and drag him back against his chest. David yawned and settled back, resting his head on Lindsay's shoulder. Lindsay briefly nuzzled David's hair as he leisurely picked up David's hand, his right, and examined the back of it.

"Jesus, David," Lindsay muttered, swiping his thumb over the short teen's knuckles.

"Huh?" David drawled lazily, the adrenaline from everything wearing off. He looked at his hand and flinched in shock. The second to last knuckle was purple almost all the way down the first bone of his ring finger. The last and middle knuckles around it were blue, and the one for his index finger was scabbed over from a scrape.

"Ouch," David breathed and Lindsay flicked him in the side of the head.

"Yeah, ouch, you dumbass," he admonished unhappily. David's face scrunched in a display of his annoyance at being flicked.

He jerked his hand from Lindsay's and turned his attention instead to the wall, where there was a small smear of blood where he had punched. He huffed, mildly amused, not having known that his hand had slid along the wall after he punched it.

Lindsay directed his attention there too and was significantly less amused. He flicked David again for good measure.

"Would you stop that?" David grumbled as he rubbed the side of his head. In response Lindsay scooped up David's hand and shook it a bit.

"Yeah, when you stop doing this," he said and dropped David's hand again.

"You're SOL then," David stated flatly. "I'll not stop that. And you know it."

"I guess we're both shit outta luck then," Lindsay said and dropped his forehead onto David's shoulder.

After a moment David turned his head and blew into Lindsay's exposed ear. Lindsay grunted in annoyance. David smiled smugly and turned back to staring into space, through the wall. Lindsay took the chance as payback and attacked David's neck with his lips.

David inhaled deeply, head tilting just the slightest. As Lindsay's lips passed over a particularly sensitive spot he quietly groaned on a sigh, enjoying the turn of events. Lindsay took full advantage and for several minutes the only sounds in the room were soft breaths and the wet smacking of lips tasting skin. David's hand resting on Lindsay's thigh spasmed when Lindsay's open mouth closed on the area behind his ear and he sucked.

"What were you so angry about before, anyway?" Lindsay asked as he pulled away, brushing his lips over the earring in the cartilage of David's ear.

David sighed.

"Sho kissed Kei," he said dully.

"So... You're plan worked?" Lindsay asked, not understanding why that would piss David off so much.

"Kei refused to even acknowledge that it had happened," David groused.

"So it didn't work?"

"No, it did. The point was to get Sho to kiss Kei. And I'm currently ignoring the fact that you even knew my plan when you said you'd stay out of it. Moving on. It worked but Kei's just being an ass and Sho ran away. ...Oh damn, Sho!"

Why did he do it? Why? Besides the fact that he had been dreaming about it for the past couple weeks and that it seemed like a good distraction idea at the time... Why? That was not an excuse to go ahead and do it anyway!

It should not have happened. He was not so impulsive that he would actually go and kiss Kei like that, for no other reason than it had seemed like a good idea at the time. There had to be more than just random impulse and a couple awkward dreams behind that.

But then again, there really shouldn't because that would imply that he was gay. And he wasn't. Experimentation doesn't count. But it wasn't as though he had a problem with being gay. Kei was his mentor-slash-best-friend. That made it weird.

So by all means he shouldn't have kissed the vampire. At all. Never.

But he did.

Why?

Whywhywhy!

Sho inhaled long and slow as he leaned forward onto the concrete wall in front of him. His forehead pressed against the smoothened, cool surface, noticing that there were billions of people all around him. Then he realized he was in a nice, more unfamiliar part of Mallepa. A place he didn't know well, if at all.

He disregarded that for the time being in favor of returning to more pressing matters.

Kissing Kei, for example.

What to do about it? Maybe...

Sho shuddered.

Why he had done it perhaps?

He carefully thought about it, rewinding time in his head to place himself back in close proximity to Kei, trying to remember correctly.

What had he been doing right before the kiss?

That was easy.

Starting enamoredly at Kei.

Which was the problem.

Why was he enamored with Kei?

The dreams...

Well, actually, come to think of it, he had always kinda had a little bit of a completely straight man-crush on Kei. Or... That's what he used to explain the completely inappropriate dream he had of Kei as a teenager where...

And was it really so straight?

Whoa, hey, whoa. Stop right there. Thoughts like that were what got him into this mess.

Was it really a mess though?

Yes, yes it was. You don't go around kissing your older, vampire, best friend. Who also happened to be male. Not that Sho was homophobic or anything. He had no problem with David and Lindsay dating.

Or well, he had no problem with the fact that they were both male and dating, or together, or were lovers...whatever. Sho though David could have definitely ended up with someone better.

Come to think of it, would Sho approve of any boyfriend David ended up with, Lindsay or no-Lindsay.

Probably not.

He didn't get how Kei was just so casually okay with it.

Which brought him back to Kei.

The blonde, male, vampire-friend Sho had kissed.

Had he enjoyed it? He unconsciously touched his lips, feeling them tingle just the slightest.

Okay, he had.

Was he... Was he possibly attracted to Kei?

Pink lips, soft skin, gorgeous body, silky hair, dark eyes Sho could end up trapped in...

Okay, it was possible Sho was a little bit attracted to Kei.

The vampire didn't help matters by acting so oddly recently. Not wearing a shirt, sitting weirdly close, looking at him in that way that always made Sho uncomfortable...

Sho jerked into a straighter standing position.

Was it possible Kei was trying to seduce him?

He immediately thought of the dream where Kei had crawled into his bed and kissed him.

Ha.

Funny thought, that was. Kei? Seduction? Didn't mix.

Sho's head thunked against concrete again.

Kei was comfort and strength and stability and no-nonsense. Kei didn't seduce. He was the most asexual vampire Sho had ever known of.

Except for that Eddie guy who sparkled. But he wasn't asexual. He was just a pussy.

Sho chuckled, finally getting David's glittery t-shirt.

Someone stumbled into his back at that moment, pulling Sho from his ponderings. The guy hastily apologized and distractedly went on his way.

This made Sho aware that the sun had gotten remarkably close to setting. And the thought of facing Kei made his stomach twist and his throat clenched against rising bile.

He would have to stay somewhere else. Son might let him stay with him and Yi-Che for the night, if he promised to sleep on the couch and keep his hands to himself. But remembering David and Lindsay, Sho decided that might not be the best of ideas, them being the prime example of what might happen. Not to mention, with what he had recently discovered about himself, he wasn't really in the mood to even look at the woman he had previously thought to be the most beautiful being he had ever seen.

He wasn't so sure about that now.

His brother would be out of the equation automatically. Shinji would ask all kinds of questions.

Toshi it was.

Having made his decision Sho turned back the way he barely remembered coming from, hoping to make it to Toshi's little illegal loft housing before the sky became entirely black.

He didn't notice the two men in long coats with spiky hair following him.

The sky got darker, night fell, Sho didn't return.

Kei was laying in bed when David got a call from Toshi telling them that Sho was at his house. Out of it and tired, but at his flat and making a bed on his couch.

After that Kei didn't exactly want to lay down anymore.

So he slipped on his boots, called a "see you later" to David, and left.

He was gone for about two hours, just walking around without thinking, before he finally returned.

And when he did, it was to quiet apartment. The TV was on with The Lost Boys playing but no on was watching it. And Kei almost thought the flat was empty until he heard Lindsay start speaking from the kitchen.

"David-"

"No," David's voice interrupted tersely. "Lindsay, I'm comfortable here, now. In the future, probably. But right now, I'm okay with this."

From the tone of his voice, Kei believed he might have come back near the end of an argument. Or the beginning. Most likely the end though.

"Five months ago, you said you were bored of living on the streets," Lindsay stated almost angrily.

"Five months ago I wasn't here. Five months ago, I still didn't have any parents," David pushed in to what Lindsay was saying. "I'm not going to stop you or say you can't. If you don't like it here, go for it. I'll drop by. But I've found another piece of home here. And I'm not ready to leave it."

Lindsay sighed.

"I don't want to leave you. Renting it now would be pointless because I'd still spend most of my time here," he said and David chuckled briefly.

"We're street children. If you want a place to call your own, don't let me stop you," David said softly and Kei could almost picture the loving, encouraging expression on David's face as he would probably brush his fingers over Lindsay's.

Kei had half a mind to just back out the door but another part wanted to keep listening.

David..." Lindsay said in a way that could almost be chastising. "If you won't move in with me then I won't rent it."

"Alright. Fine. We'll drop it then," David said placatingly as he exited the kitchen. "…Since we seem to be at an impasse."

He glanced at Kei before calling over his shoulder as he walked to the couch.

"Kei's home."

"Hey, Kei," Lindsay greeted as he followed David's lead and joined the younger teen on the couch.

"Vampires? Really?" Was all Kei had to say, not wanting to think about what he might (or might not have - they didn't know) just overheard.

David shrugged.

"What can I say? We rock."

Dishes clinked together gently, the sound muffled only by the soapy water they rested in. Quiet splashing accompanied it along with the scritch-scritch of bristles being repeatedly brushed over a smooth surface.

At the kitchen sink David stood in a pair of dark-colored cotton pants and a tanktop, his arms wet to the elbows. Sunlight lit the room a dark gold, afternoon heat held only at bay by the curtain drawn over the window.

The house was silent as he worked. Lindsay was at his job and Kei was asleep. Sho had still not returned and evening was slowly creeping closer.

And after the mess he and Lindsay had made the night before when Kei was out, David thought cleaning it all up while Kei was asleep and Sho was gone would be in his best interest.

It was in this quiet, relaxed environment that Kei woke slowly with a deep sigh. He was awake but he wasn't sure he wanted to be, so he kept his eyes shut. Maybe he had been dreaming something amazing and that was why he wasn't ready to be awake? Maybe he just shouldn't be awake yet.

A deep breath.

He was too hot. Way too hot. His skin felt prickly and the rise of his breathing felt too heavy. And his clothes were damp. Which they shouldn't be.

No, his clothes definitely shouldn't be damp because vampires don't sweat. Because they don't get too hot. They don't overheat like humans do. A particularly good thing when living in a hot climate, like the sweltering heat of Mallepa.

Kei had always thought of that as a wonderful advantage of vampirism, even if he didn't quite like the thought of killing people for blood, for food.

He grunted quietly and lethargically raised his arm to drop the back of his hand onto his slick forehead.

What the hell?

His hair was even damp and sticking to his skin.

He tried to remember why he might be feeling like this. Why any vampire might get like this.

What exactly was this?

He was too hot.

Was he near sunlight? Sometimes if he wasn't in direct sunlight but extremely near, he would start feeling like this. But to feel as horribly drained and burning as he did he would have be laying there for a long, long time. And he would feel pain. Stinging, burning, ice-prick pain that would nauseate him, is what he should be feeling, if he were near sunlight.

And he did feel pain. But not the pain of burning alive. Not the burning, stinging, ice-prick pain that accompanies his flesh being seared to a crisp and peeled from his bones.

This pain was more of a bone-deep ache. An ache in every cell, emanating from his bones, making him lethargic and tired and sick and sweaty. And ache that, now that he was aware of it, he wanted nothing more than to get rid of it. It was like an itch in a muscle, a gnawing in his brain.

But why?

He had been a vampire so long he couldn't remember pain like this.

Pain for him was burning skin, stinging bullets, twisting cramps in his stomach, and sharp shooting pain in the top of his mouth, traveling down his throat.

This new pain was the ache of sore, worn muscles, of sickness, and of a severe beating all in one.

What was it? Why did he feel it?

He trembled.

Soft, breathy whistling floated from the kitchen, dancing through Kei's haze and reaching his ears, causing a slight panic to jolt him before he remembered David was in the house with him.

David was the only one he could hear, now that he was focused beyond the pain. Lindsay wasn't anywhere. No extra breathing or shuffling from him. And no harassing David too. Sho wasn't around either; the lack of extra breathing, tv, or conversation alerted Kei to this.

Sho had left the night before and apparently he hadn't come back.

Hadn't come back because he had kissed Kei.

Kissed... Him.

On the lips.

And-

Kei inhaled sharply as a fire exploded to life inside him, like a match thrown into spilled gunpowder. His body arched upward and he made not a sound, not even a single breath escaping from him, as he writhed from the sudden inferno that was burning him from the inside out.

Then he collapse panting with his eyes screwed shut. The pain was nothing like he had ever felt before. It had his fingers curled and clawing at his bed, his toes doing the same without him realizing. This pain... It was like burning in the sunlight inside out, mixed with every sore muscle in his body cramping at once and being stabbed with a thousand poisoned needles.

He howled when the agony ratched up several notches.

David jumped, the dish in his hand slipping from it and plunking right back into the water to settle over the silverware in the bottom. For a minute he was extremely confused and freaked out.

Then he was in motion, flying from the kitchen and swinging a sharp right around the corner, feet losing traction for an entire half second. He came to an abrupt stop in Kei's area when he saw the vampire curled on his side, fingers digging holes through the leather of his daybed. His skin was slick with sweat and his entire body was tensed in agony. Muscles trembled and twitched.

David inhaled sharply after forgetting to breathe nearly an entire minute. His pupils dilated and every instinct in him told him to run the other direction as fast as possible to get as far away as possible. Unconsciously his arm lifted to act as some sort of bar between him and Kei as if it would protect him from the vampire should something bad happen. And as his arm raised his left foot slid back a step and he placed all of his weight on it, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

Kei reeked of pain, sweat, and a predatory arousal that chilled him in his very core with every shuddering breath he took. Dangerous to be near the blonde, David's brain screamed at him. Run, his instincts demanded. He absolutely recognized what was happening.

The smell, the pheromones, the fear. He had experienced it all before. When the same thing had happened to another blonde he knew. It was in every vampire's genetic make-up to react like this when another vampire was in heat. Because a vampire in heat was dangerous.

And Kei had just collided with it head on and rolled (in car accident terms).

The only thing keeping David from running at this point was a whisper in his mind, reminding him that Kei's pheromones hadn't changed yet. So far he only smelled of a vampire in heat. When they changed then he was prowling for his mate. Searching, seducing, luring whoever it was closer. That was the warpath to avoid.

Kei was easing into it compared to Lindsay though.

With Lindsay, everything had happened in flashes, moments, breaths, heartbeats.

The four of them - him, Gabe, Max, and Lindsay - had been playing cards on the beach at sunset when Lindsay went rigid and his suddenly glazed eyes bled into a swimming gold. Then the three of them froze in place, each having scented the same thing. Run, run, run, a deep terror told them. Lindsay's scent changed the next breath, a flash of smiling teeth, and then they were all on their feet, tearing up the sand as they sprinted in different directions.

David heard Lindsay gaining on him and icy fear trickled from his chest to his stomach in a heartbeat. He was grabbed then, jerked back, colliding painfully into what nearly felt like rock, and they were falling. He landed with a grunt in Lindsay's lap as the older teen fell to his knees, spraying sand. His shirt was ripped in a violent jerk before he could even think to (impossibly) twist himself free, his brain not able to keep up with the fact he was caught. Teeth sunk into the flesh of his shoulder area near the nape of his neck. Fire exploded outward from it.

He had screamed, fear, fire, shock, and a sudden, strong, overwhelming magnetism toward something he couldn't grasp in that moment all created a violent, confusing vortex inside him.

Kei might have thought it funny, like some special initiation or something, but he had no fucking idea how terrifying and embarrassing it really was.

But now he would know.

From the other side anyway.

David sighed as he dipped the washcloth in his left hand back into the large bowl of ice cold water next to where he had pulled up a kitchen chair at Kei's bedside. The freezing water numbed David's fingers nearly to the bone as he squeezed the cloth with one hand. Then he returned it to Kei's forehead where he dabbed sweat away and attempted to cool the overheated vampire off.

Kei barely reacted to his touch at all but David liked to think maybe he was helping ever just a little. Even if he was only really helping by providing his right hand for serious squeezing. When he first took Kei's hand into his he had thought all the bones in it would be broken by the end. Nope. Still intact. Just completely numb to about the wrist. And his fingertips were dark red, nearly purple. And Kei's fingernails had cut pretty deep into his skin a couple times. Drawing blood deep.

But as long as nothing was broken, David was fine with this.

It'd been about an hour since he had discovered Kei was in heat and for about forty minutes of that David had been sitting next to him. Thirty of those forty he had been sending out a mental distress call to Gabe, which apparently she was ignoring since Kei was in heat.

Kei growled in pain, breaking the near silence of the apartment and causing David to flinch. He had just barely repressed the urge to flee in the opposite direction. After taking five minutes to even make himself move and another ten to force his body closer to the blonde vampire, David refused to let himself be terrified off by his instincts.

'You rang?' Gabe's voice finally echoed in his head and he sighed in relief.

'Yeah for like half an hour,' David said unhappily with a scowl as he put the cloth back into the cold water.

'How's that working for ya? ….You are extremely close to him…' Gabe teased before her voice became suddenly very uncomfortable. David rolled his eyes mentally.

'You gotta help me out. I'm thinking something impenetrable with a one-way entrance and a complicated lock. Sho is seriously not ready for this.'

'Yeah. I know. And I'm way ahead of you,' Gabe said factually and David felt she was smiling almost evilly.

'Whatever you did, I feel that it's devious.'

'Nah. Just a tad illegal.'

David smiled and shook his head.

'Oh, by the way, Sho's on his way.'

'Crap.'

The mental connection between them severed on that last note of panic and David was left to frantically wrack his brain for a way to divert Sho, aka what to do with him until either A, Kei somehow was able to control himself or went out of heat by some freak happenstance, or B, Sho just realized his goddamn feeling for Kei.

Yeah, like that would ever happen. And there was no way David would be able to make Sho realize his feelings. What would he do? Say something stupid like, "Admit you want him and fuck him… Or leave until you will."

Ha.

So, what, then?

Kei's trembling stopped and David watched him carefully. A deep breath had Kei's chest rising under David's sharp gaze, and David's heart seemed to skip a beat anxiously before speeding up. Something told him that very soon something very exciting was going to happen.

Kei's eyes snapped open, startling David and kicking his flee instinct back into hyperdrive. Their molten gold color was the cause of that as David remembered another time he saw eyes like that. But after calming his nerves and upon closer inspection he discovered Kei's eyes had a darker, more lava-like effect and color to them.

As David watched, Kei took another deep breath and relaxed. And for another ten seconds David was confused.

What he realized in the next moment had him on his feet, kitchen chair knocked over behind him, and Kei's hand was dropped.

There is only one reason Kei would be acting like that, and it was Sho. Kei could smell him now, which meant that Sho was too damn close for comfort.

'In your room, under your bed,' Gabe whispered into his mind and he bolted without a thought about.

Under his bed he found a box of random things he liked to have just to have and in that box he found a pair of official police handcuffs that he had swiped off an officer just to say he owned a pair.

With the handcuffs in hand he hurried back to where Kei was laying and scanned the area for an idea of what he could use them for.

There was nothing sturdy enough to hold Kei if he really wanted to get at Sho. Nothing! The only thing bulky enough and heavy enough to be a nuisance even was the daybed.

David clicked a cuff around Kei's wrist as the distracted vampire stared anticipatingly off into the general direction of the front door. The other cuff he slipped around the frame of the bed near the middle and brought Kei's other hand across the vampire's chest to click the cuff around it. He finished this task just in time to hear the quiet snick of the front doorknob being turned.

As if in slow motion, the front door swung open to reveal Sho, in the clothes he was wearing the day before, every bit oblivious as he should be.

Kei's reaction was instant and David's entire body locked, his mind slipping into a terrified-horrified state as the smell Kei was giving off changed.

Kei sprang to his feet, mid-lunge at Sho. The bed scraped along the floor behind him, and he fell to his knees, not expecting the bed to move with him.

"Sho!" He called out, excitement and desperation commingling in his voice.

Sho immediately raised his gaze to look at Kei, mouth open, ready to say something back to him. But David intervened without thinking, his plan forming in a split second as he fought to override his instincts.

"Sho, go pack essentials for two weeks time and meet me outside. I'll explain everything there," David burst out, keeping one eye on Sho and one on Kei.

Sho blinked at him confusedly, as if contemplating his words.

"Go, Sho!" David yelled frantically, a slight tremble revealing itself in his hands.

That had the older man moving, running past him and Kei, down the hall to his bedroom. There he grabbed a duffle bag from his closet and threw in a few pairs of pants, some shirts and underwear, a handful of socks, ammo, his guns, and his wallet. He stopped in the bathroom for a comb and his toothbrush before he was racing past David who was sitting on Kei's back, holding one of the vampire's arms twisted behind his back, not that it was really "helping" much beyond being annoying enough to split Kei's focus.

Once Sho was out the front door, zipping his bag as he went, David was flying after him in a sprint, slamming the door behind him. Beyond the wood, Kei was calling out Sho's name, pleading him to return with just the man's name.

David grabbed Sho's arm and pulled him down the street to the end of the block.

"You can't stay there," David said solemnly, laying on a dramatic air effectively thick. He needed to play this all right if he wanted the two to have a quick happy ending.

"What? Why?" Sho questioned with just the right amount of alarm and anger to tell David what he was doing was working.

"Kei's in heat," David dropped with scary-serious eyes. Sho lurched back in shock.

"Huh? …He-… He's in heat?" Sho asked, not comprehending this turn of events.

"Yes. And you can't be in the flat. A vampire is dangerous when in heat," David said, looking Sho in the eye to press how important everything he was saying was. "Vampires in heat are so dangerous, it flips an instinctual switch in other vampires telling them to get away as fast as possible."

"If he's so dangerous, why are you staying?" Sho retorted and David could see the anger of frustration and confusion bubbling in the man.

"I'm hard to kill. You are human. And not only that, but his intended," David hissed, stepping closer to Sho and using his darkest stare to press into Sho the situation.

"I'm his what?" Sho breathed, appearing to be confused, shocked, and fearful of what that implied.

His intended," David said flatly, cranking up the menace in his face. "The one who is the reason he's in heat. Do you understand now? You can't go in there unless you want to be eternally bound to Kei as his lover, best friend and pet. If you go in there and give yourself up to Kei, you are giving yourself up to possession. You will be his, and he - yours. This isn't marriage, Sho."

David took a measured step closer, his dark eyes capturing Sho with their severe intensity. The people around them paid no heed to the two and according to the man and boy, other people did not exist in that moment.

"If you enter your apartment even a second before I give the okay, there is no 'death do us part.' He is a vampire. And you will become one too in time. You have to be sure - completely, entirely, and absolutely positive - before you give up to Kei.

"So leave. Hopefully in a bit he'll be back to normal, out of heat, and you can return."

David backed up, staring Sho deeply in the eye - gaze like a needle piercing Sho's mind - before he turned and began slowly sauntering purposefully toward their apartment.

"Call me when you've found a place to stay," he called casually over his shoulder, leaving Sho speechless and jostled by passersby.

By the time Sho called that evening to tell David he was staying with Toshi, the teen was exhausted. The conversation was brief and David was the one to end it, since Sho had questions and David was tired. He had right to be too, since after Sho had left, Kei threw a serious fit. Then Gabe had shown up driving a flatbed with some serious metal walls loaded onto it.

David asked no questions and with the help of Max and Lindsay they assembled in Kei's cleared out area what seemed to be a safe of some sort. A large, room-like safe.

Again, nobody asked questions.

Then Kei was uncured from the toilet and his dead-weight self was hauled into it and he was locked away with his daybed for sleeping and a camping lantern/flashlight for lighting.

And David was extremely glad that Kei slipping into heat was a slower process than what Lindsay's had been.

Using the car analogy again, Lindsay's crash into heat was a head-on collision and subsequent explosion, whereas Kai was a crash and roll. kei had tried to lure Sho closer by pleading.

So, now that Kei was in the full swing of things, David was immensely glad that Kei's start was slower. And that Gabe had acquired something sturdy and basically soundproof.

Kei was not happy now that he had been denied his mate.

A loud bang on the safe door had David flinching. Lindsay's hand automatically appeared on his back as a sort of reassurance.

"I really wish he would stop," David muttered tensely. "It keeps sending my body in 'flee' mode and the surges of adrenaline are fucking with my head. Seriously dizzy, no joke."

"I feel really jumpy," Lindsay said quietly as they both stared at the partial wall and door of the safe.

"It's the pheromones in the air," David stated, glancing sideways at Lindsay. "When one vampire smells that from another, instinct is to run. You're just smelling what's left in the air. When you got here before and your heart pounding like you were running a marathon with the world watching… That's what it was."

"It wasn't just that. I was nearly too terrified to even come in and I had no idea why," Lindsay murmured, taking a step back as the muffled, quitted version of an angry shriek reached them. "Knowing you were in here was the only thing that had me even entering the apartment."

"It took me twenty minutes to even get close to Kei when it first happened."

David stopped breathing when another loud bang was heard. He, too stepped back, his shoulder brushing against Lindsay's.

"Think it will actually hold him?" Lindsay wondered aloud, eyes fixated on the door still.

"Yeah…" David breathed uncertainly. "It should. I hope, anyway."

Lindsay nodded.

"How pissed do you think he is?"

"Very," David whispered. "I think… that maybe… we should go… to… my room."

"Sounds like a good idea."

They both jumped at the next bang on the wall of the safe. Their eyes met and they laughed nervously before hurrying off into David's room.

It was two days later that Kei finally calmed down. Most of the morning had been full of screams, growls, shrieks, howls, and loud banging and stomping but by noon they all stopped. Like a snap of the fingers it all quit. And David was glad they lived in Mallepa, where your business was your own and people didn't ask questions. Because explaining their situation to police would have been awkward.

"Yes, officer, there's a person in that stolen safe. No, we can't let him out. No, we can't return the safe either. Why? Because he's a vampire and he's raging with sexual desire. Thank you for understanding officer. I'm glad you stopped by."

Yeah. Right.

"I bet you are wishing you would have rented that apartment now," David was saying to Lindsay as they ate lunch around one that afternoon.

"Nah," Lindsay said as he used a fork to stab around at the coleslaw on his plate. They were eating the kind of food usually found at American barbecues. It was easy food, and neither one of them liked to cook that much. Store bought is always easier.

"If it were really that bad, I'd just kidnap you away to a motel and let the pieces fall where they may without your meddling," Lindsay told him with a devious, teasing smile, his green eyes sparkling.

David used his fork to launch some sticky blue jello at him.

Lindsay grabbed a napkin and wiped the blue gelatin from his collarbone where it had landed with a splatter. He crumpled the napkin and tossed it carelessly onto the table.

"Do you think we should check on him? He's been scarily quiet for a while now," Lindsay said, glancing at David, whose eyes were averted down on the picked apart chicken they'd been eating.

"Honestly, I've been thinking about it for the last hour. I just couldn't force myself to even get close to thinking about going near the safe," David said and chugged a glass of strawberry soda. He set down the glass and burped loudly before leaning forward on the table and sticking his finger into a lumpy, creamy, fruity mush.

"Grow a pair," Lindsay said to him teasingly and David licked his finger clean with a smirk.

"I have a pair. You've played with them," he said and Lindsay gave him an unamused look.

"That's messed up, David," Lindsay stated flatly and David smirked wider.

"You started it."

David flicked another forkful of jello at him. This time it landed dead center on Lindsay's bare chest. Lindsay scowled an wiped it up with a finger, sucking it off with a scowl.

"I should make you clean this up," he muttered and David choked on his soda.

After getting back under control he glared at Lindsay.

"Don't tempt me," he deadpanned and Lindsay smiled evilly.

"Why not? Kei's locked in what I'm pretty sure is a bank safe and Sho's kicked out for two weeks," Lindsay stated, almost conversationally.

"It wouldn't be fair to Kei and… Don't tempt me," David said with a warning look at Lindsay.

Then he stood up and started walking away.

"I'm going to check on him now," he threw over his shoulder as he turned out of the kitchen.

Lindsay smiled with a shake of his head.

In the living room, David stood five feet away from the door of the safe, staring at it with a frown. He was trying to figure out what to do since he didn't want to risk opening the door and having Kei attempt a break in his desperate delirium.

He stepped forward.

Opening the door just enough to hear or smell or see really quick was even a hazard. Kei might grab him and seriously hurt him or fling the door fully open and bolt. And it was pertinent to the plan that Kei's heat recede.

David took another step forward.

His heart was fluttering wildly in his chest.

He stepped toward the safe again, expecting a loud bang or explosion any second. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he leaned forward and pressed his ear against the cool metal. For a long moment he heard nothing but the whoosh of his blood and his beating heart and then a muffled sob reached his inner ear. The breath he had been holding left in a way that was similar to being punched in the stomach.

As he continued to listen, breathing silently and slowly to hear, he caught the sound of a quite whimper and a sharp inhale. Another extra muffled sob.

He pulled away in confusion and stared at the metal wall in front of him like he had x-ray vision and could see through it. Then he stepped back, feeling nearly horrible with guilt and sadness, and he returned to the kitchen with a saddened, pouty frown.

"So… How is he?" Lindsay asked slowly, wondering why his lover looked so upset.

"He's crying," David stated and blinked away his guilt and empathetic pain toward Kei. If he was going to meddle around, he had to accept the consequences.

Lindsay's eyes narrowed wonderingly but David just sat down again, continuing to eat normally. So he decided to let it go and he returned to his own food.

"I think I'll check on him again later, and tomorrow I'll go in to see him, if he isn't raging again," David said and Lindsay glanced up at him.

"Only if I'm nearby. I don't want his switch to flip back to pissed while you're in there with him alone," he said and David muttered and "okay" right before another glob of blue jello splattered on Lindsay's shoulder.

He set down his fork as if preparing to pay close attention to whatever happened next and he slowly looked up at David, who was poking at his leftovers in mocking innocence. This time Lindsay didn't bother to wipe it away, instead going back to his food while carefully watching David in his peripheries.

David discreetly loaded another glob on his fork and pulled the end back while holding the handle.

A second later it was landing on Lindsay's stomach as he stood up. In the next moment Lindsay's fingers were gripping David's shorter locks of hair and their faces were inches apart. Their eyes were locked, and David was smiling excitedly while Lindsay's expression was more "dead serious."

"Clean it up," Lindsay ordered and David's teeth were showing now as he grinned.

"And if I don't?" He asked cockily.

Lindsay pulled harder on his hair, forcing his head back and exposing his neck. One of David's hand instinctively went to Lindsay's hip where he gripped the blonde's pants for stability as a thrilling anticipation zipped through him.

"Do you really want to find out?" Lindsay murmured dangerously.

David shuddered and licked his lips, suppressing the whimper tickling his vocal chords.

After a minute without a response where they examined one another for a reaction, waiting, Lindsay's fingers loosened. David surged forward, mouth attacking the blue goo melting on Lindsay's hot skin. David's other hand slid up an grabbed the back of Lindsay's thigh and Lindsay's moved his hand to David's shoulder.

Once all traces of blue were gone from Lindsay's stomach he leaned back licking his lips. As much as he liked attention from Lindsay of this kind of nature, he enjoyed giving it nearly equally.

"Fuck, let's go to my bedroom," David said as he pushed Lindsay back so he could stand.

"Why?" Lindsay asked lowly, a tad breathlessly, and David steered him toward the kitchen doorway.

"Because, okay? Just fucking get there," David snapped and Lindsay chuckled.

Then they were on David's bed, sitting, Lindsay with his lap being straddled by David, and their lips glued together. Hands were grabbing and tugging, pulling their shirtless bodies closer. Feeling, touching, and then tasting.

Lindsay somehow wound up on his back, breathing heavily as David's lips nipped their way to the sticky, melted jello on his shoulder, where he got to work licking it away, sucking at the skin to thoroughly clean it all up.

"Kei's going to hate me tomorrow," David muttered against Lindsay's skin. "The smell of sex is going to drive him nuts."

And then they were both groaning as he ground their groins together.

The next day David dragged himself out of bed at nine in the morning to check on Kei. At the door he heard nothing so he went to the kitchen and filled a glass with cool water. Outside the safe he paused, water in hand, and looked down the hallway at his bedroom door where Lindsay was sleeping beyond.

He yawned and unlocked the safe, pulling open the door.

Light from filtered sunlight and the lamp in the corner filled the entirely dark space beyond, creating a David-shaped shadow on the floor.

David stepped into it and looked around in what little light his body wasn't blocking.

The frame of Kei's daybed was bent, and twisted even, in some places. And it was turned on its side to the left of the door, missing the mattress.

That would explain some of the banging, David sleepily thought to himself.

Another sweep of the tiny room revealed no Kei but the camping light, on its side also, was three steps in front of him. So he walked over to it, set down the glass, and twisted it from flashlight to lantern before turning it on. The sudden light made him squint in pain.

But in the extra light he could clearly see Kei laying on his ripped mattress to the daybed. His eyes were closed and one hand rested on his chest while the other was flung out to the side. One leg was bent, the other was straight. Kei's hair looked like it severely needed to be brushed and his clothes seemed more like something a hobo or homeless man would wear at this point.

David exchanged lantern for water and approached Kei, mentally noting that he didn't have the pressing urge to run anymore.

Kei's eyelids slowly slid open and he turned those golden orbs on David. Orange ringed the irises in thick bands, the teen happened to notice as he crouched down next to the blonde vampire. Kei's eyes closed again when he recognized the person intruding upon his solitude.

"Here, sit up and drink this," David commanded softly, holding out the water.

Kei groaned, the sound crackling like a broken radio, but pushed himself up onto an elbow with a bit of a struggle. He accepted the glass and downed it quickly before returning the empty container to David.

"How do you feel?" David asked him as he collapsed back on to the mattress.

"Like shit," Kei muttered and David cracked a smile.

"Specifics, please," he requested and Kei growled in response.

"I'm tired. I'm thirsty as Hell. Everything hurts, and I mean everything. And I'm pissed off beyond reason," Kei said shortly and tossed an arm over his eyes.

"Welcome to being in heat, Kei," David said and sat back, smirking as Kei groaned.

"What the fuck am I in?" Kei asked. "And how long have I been in it?"

"I'm pretty sure it's a bank safe and you've been in it roughly… three days."

Kei grunted.

"What are you even trying to do?" Kei questioned, annoyance finally creeping into his dead tone.

"Force you out of heat or keep you here until you can control yourself around Sho," David explained as he rose to his feet. He wasn't surprised when Kei sucked in a sharp breath at the mention of Sho's name.

He straightened his pajama pants and turned around to leave.

"David," Kei called out and the teen paused by the door. "Where is he?"

"Sho?"

Kei grunted.

"He's staying at Toshi's while you're like this," David said and exited.

"David," Kei called again.

"What?" David asked as he grabbed the handle on the door.

"I can smell it you know. In the air, on you. And I don't appreciate it. Not now and not while I'm in the next room," Kei told him and David nodded, his cheeks coloring, before he closed the door and locked it.

When David woke next it was to Lindsay's lips moving slowly over his claim mark near the nape of David's neck. David sighed deeply from the wonderful tingling and resisted the urge to hum in pleasure. He shifted away from Lindsay, not wanting something to start up again.

"I thought I told you I wanted to be around when you went in to check on Kei," Lindsay mumbled against David's shoulder.

"You were around," David muttered into his pillow. "Down the hall and around the corner."

"Ha. Ha," Lindsay said as he rolled David onto his back. The sleepy teen blinked blearily, trying to focus on the blonde's face.

"How are you this witty this early after waking up?" Lindsay sarcastically questioned and David grinned tiredly up at him.

"My genius knows no bounds," David replied.

Lindsay pressed his forehead against David's collar and sighed in mock-exasperation.

"So what's the plan now?" He asked after a minute of silence.

David yawned.

"Right now, get out of bed-"

"Difficult for you, eh?"

"With you here? So difficult," David teased and rolled his eyes for effect. "Anyway, get out of bed, eat… hunt… catch Kei something and give it to him… And maybe whatever the fuck after that?"

"You always were so good at planning," Lindsay poked and David physically poked him, right where his teeth were permanently branded in Lindsay's skin.

Lindsay jerked and David grinned.

"Up," he ordered, pushing at his lover's chest. "Rise and shine! Good morning, starshine, the earth says 'hello' and all that crap."

It was late evening when Kei's cell door next opened and Lindsay entered with a small, tall table which he placed in the corner before setting the camping lantern on it. He exited for half a second before returning with some of Kei's clothes.

"David thought you might want to change," he said as he held them out to Kei, who was laying where he'd been all day. He had been curiously watching the younger blonde since the door had opened to reveal him.

Kei sat up and took the clothes, setting them down next to him without taking his eyes off Lindsay.

"Where's David?" He asked as Lindsay turned toward the door.

"Hunting. He thought you might be hungry," Lindsay said, watching Kei carefully. "You seem… subdued."

Kei raised an eyebrow.

"You've been pretty angry the past couple days," Lindsay clarified.

"I'm still angry. Pissed even," Kei said tiredly. "I'm just too drained to do anything about it. And part of me doesn't want to do anything about it."

Lindsay shifted awkwardly.

"Because it's Sho, right?" Lindsay said, knowing that that was exactly what it was about. David had told him of course.

"It's fucked up, Lindsay," Kei muttered. "I'm centuries older that him. I practically raised him. He's barely an adult as it is… It's just wrong."

"You know what David would have to say to all that?" Lindsay questioned as he leaned against the wall of the safe next to the door. He didn't expect an answer and just plowed on without waiting for one. "He'd tell you that old men having relationships with younger people is only disgusting and wrong because the men are old physically. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and …Bruce Willis were having women fall all over them into their sixties. Because they looked good for their ages.

"He would also tell you children often first love a parent and sometimes even compete with the other parent for attention. Also, people fall in love with mentors and best friends all the time. There are billions of movies with it and about it.

"And so what if Sho's 'barely' an adult? David is… Technically seven and a half years younger than me. I'm nineteen strictly in vampire aging, for kids like us. And I haven't been nineteen for very long."

"So, your real age is what then?" Kei asked after a short silence and Lindsay crossed his arms, calculatingly staring at Kei. He didn't like the look in kei's eyes, and with Kei in heat and extra volatile, this was like playing with gasoline and matches.

"I don't think I wan to tell you," Lindsay told him.

"Oh, so you're that old then," Kei said bitingly in an attempt to goad Lindsay.

"How old would that be?" Lindsay asked lowly.

"Too old to be with a fourteen-year-old," Kei said and his golden eyes were shadowed.

"If you're going to think about my age in terms of how long I've been alive you have to think of David that way too," Lindsay said, glaring intently at Kei.

"Fine. So David's sixteen and you are…?" Kei said, eyeing Lindsay carefully.

"Twenty-three."

Silence fell heavy on the two, like a curtain dropped prematurely on a bad act. They faced off against one another, neither moving with gazes locked for seconds that stretched to moments that rolled on to minutes. The silence became so stifling, Lindsay's ears actually began to ring as they tried to pick up even the slightest sound. And what felt like a small eternity expanded itself between the space of minutes.

"You know," Kai said as he laid back, propped against the wall, his body relaxing but his eyes still dangerous. "David loves you."

A pause.

"I know. He's told me a few times," Lindsay said cautiously, wondering where Kei was taking the conversation.

"He loves you. Before I knew he was my son, I thought of him as such. I know about mating in vampires; the bond, the bites, I know about it. More so now that I'm experiencing it. That is the only reason I haven't been acting more like Sho about you two."

Kei set a deathly serious stare on Lindsay, and the younger blonde felt a chill pass over him.

"As long as I don't think about it, I'm okay with it. Keep it away from my senses. I don't want to see it. I don't want to hear it. And I don't want to smell it. Clear?"

Lindsay understood now, and he nodded. Protective instinct, coupled with being in heat, throw in the new information Kei had just received; the just wasn't in the mood to deal with it any other way.

"No sex in the apartment. And if you are out somewhere else to do it, don't come back until you don't reek of it," Kei said, laying down conditions in a way that protest was impossible.

Lindsay nodded again.

"That it?" He asked casually but in a tone that assured he was taking everything very seriously.

"Yeah, that's it," Kei sighed, slouching just the tiniest amount.

"Alright. Then I'm going to leave and close the door until David gets back," Lindsay said as he straightened and began backing out.

"There's no need," David's voice called and as he got closer Kei picked up another's unfamiliar scent. And blood. He smelled blood pumping through the person's veins, tainted by something unnamable but familiar.

Then David appeared around Lindsay, carrying cradled in his arms a thin girl of about twelve, dressed in stained, ratty clothing. She was unconscious and Kei eyed her apprehensively.

"David…" He drawled questioningly.

David knelt down in the cell and carefully laid her on the floor.

"She's sick. She smells it. Gabe tells me she's terminal. A cancer of some kind. Her parents are dead. Her little brother is too. She has no other family. I offered her drugged food because she was starving and in pain from the cancer," David told them quietly as he brusher her knotted, tangled black hair away from her face.

He lifted his gaze to Kei's and they locked.

"Think of it as euthanasia," David said and he stood up, leaving. "Reunite her with her family before she suffers the entire way there."

Then the door was closed on Kei, trapping him with the tiny girl. He watched her chest rise and all steadily as he hopefully dreamed pleasantly. The hunger pains began as an ache in the roof of his mouth that stretched back into his throat. He felt it in the bone, his teeth, their very cores. His stomach twisted and his throat spasmed, creating a similar feeling to suffocating. And then his esophagus clenched painfully, as though he had bit off more than he could chew and his stomach wanted none of it.

This hunger, thirst, had hit him quick and hard. And without the extra scents to dilute it, he could clearly smell the rotting, sweet sickness in her small body. It filled the safe from corner to corner and nagged Kei's mind. He swallowed the venomed saliva pooling around his tongue. His stomach flipped guiltily, adding to the pain he felt, amplifying it in his jaw, in the muscles around it, on the underside.

His whole body shuddered and a drop of water dripped down his cheek to his chin.

Ten minutes later a knock rang on the door of the safe from the inside. David opened the door to see Kei walking back to his bed in clean clothes. He looked at the girl on the floor and knew she was dead. He couldn't hear her breathing or smell her blood.

"Get her out of here," Kei ordered in a croaking voice.

David told him it had been five days since he had gone into heat.

Five agonizing, hated days.

So far, in Kei life, being in heat and denied was possibly the second worse thing ever. Right under losing David to child prostitution for nearly fourteen (or was it fifteen now?) years, of course.

At first, Kei had just wanted and desired, and when he was denied he sulked and tantrumed. But then he had been pissed. Severely pissed off, in nearly debilitating amounts of pain, and so aroused he thought his body might explode if he didn't find a way to release the pressure. So he raged. And just like when David was sugar-high, he crashed.

Then he had killed a tiny, sad, sick little girl for sustenance.

The thought now, made him want to puke.

After that it was a winding stair he was slowly slipping down headfirst, attaining bruises, bumps, scrapes, and cuts every stair of the way.

His bones felt brittle and drilled into a million times. Each. Pain emanating from every tiny hole. His joints were achy and his nerves felt pinched everywhere. And since he had been basically on fire at the beginning he now felt hypothermic. His jaw ached too, from clenching, thirsty for something he couldn't figure out. The muscles in his body were so sore and cramped he felt like he had run laps around the world for five days.

To top off Kei's triple-fudge, peanutty cluster-fucked, crap-cream cake, he was salivating a weird venom or anesthesia or something that left him constantly tasting what he guessed the inside of an old lady's pocket might taste like. It was a mixture of change, stale hard-candy, and lipstick, because whatever he was tasting was sweet, tangy, coppery, stale, and left his mouth feeling filmy.

It was disgusting shit.

Kei was done with being in heat.

So, very, done.

It made sense then, when he became seriously homicidal after David flung open the door and tossed in one of Sho's bed pillows on the sixth day.

Of course, Kei didn't become really homicidal. He just truly considered it… After going into the most intense fantasy about Sho ever and fruitlessly dry humping the pillow (as his body wouldn't let him release unless he was claiming his mate).

Fuck everything.

…Literally.

Jaded's after-words: Soooooooooo…. What's in your wallet? )