The Vampire Heero
Part Fourteen
By Lady AngelFiren

When I came around the first thing I felt was pain in my chest, and nausea. I was laying an damp concrete, and through all the smells of mold and urine, there was blood, which made me forget all about the pain in my chest. I carefully sat up, cringing at the sight of a knife handle sticking out of my chest. I was afraid that if I pulled the knife out, then I would bleed to death or something. Its hard to get used to the idea of being immortal.

The man who stabbed me was currently in Heero's clutches. When he saw that I was awake he leaned the man against a crumbling wall and came over to me, pulling the serrated blade quickly out of my chest. I gasped and doubled over, but I could feel the wound healing even as I bled.

I lurched forward and seized the greasy, filthy killer in one hand, dragging him into my arms and covering a space of his skin with my mouth. It didn't matter how dirty he was, hid blood was still sweet and delicious, and I fell into a stupor after he was dead, full on more blood than I had had alone in one sitting to date. My eyes glazed over and I lay motionless on the concrete staring up at nothing as warmth seeped through my normally cold form and I felt alive for a little while.

Heero was shaking my shoulder. "Duo, come on, snap out of it. I can hear sirens, there are police in the area. We should go."

I looked up at Heero through glassy eyes and slowly sat up, my head feeling light, but in a good way. Heero helped me stand and led me out of the little basement room, up the rickety, steep stairwell, and out into the cool night. There were sirens, but they weren't too close to where we were. I staggered a little as I tried to follow Heero along the dark streets and alleys. It was hard to stay focussed when I felt so good.

By the time we crossed the highway and re-entered the trees, I was pretty much back to normal, the warm, alive feeling already leaving me. Heero pulled me into his arms and looked into my eyes once we were away from the sound of cars.

"You have to be more careful Duo, that guy stabbed youhad you been human you would be dead."

"I'm ok now, don't worry so much."

"But I do" Heero's face came closer to mine and I realized that he was kissing me. His lips were cold, but so were mine, so the temperature didn't really matter. I wrapped my arms around him and opened my mouth to let his tongue in as I slipped my hands under his shirt to touch his cool hard back. I could feel the muscles in his shoulders and lower back, Heero felt very good to my hands. He buried his fingers in my hair, stroking and caressing my back even as he drew his hands through my loose locks. Heero's mouth tasted good when I pushed my way into it. What I didn't expect was for his teeth to close down on my tonguehe bit me to draw my blood into the kiss. I was unsure of what to do, I knew he wasn't hurting me or anything, but did vampires share each other's blood?

One of Heero's hands pulled me tighter against his chest as he sucked at my mouth, my tongue, and my lips, biting here and there so that there was always at least one small wound that hadn't managed to heal yet. I eventually pushed him away from me, looking into his eyes in confusion.

Heero stared back at me, appearing hungry and full of lust. His eyes had an animal gleam, replacing the calculating humanized look he usually wore. I cupped his chin and drew my fingers along his face. He was very soft, and paler than I remembered. Extremely beautiful, dancing on the line of looking male or female. Long dark eyelashes, full, kiss-swollen lips, and silvery eyes, which caught what moonlight had managed to sink down through the trees, and made it sparkle. I touched his lips with two fingers. He opened his mouth and sucked on them, then bit me, and sucked the blood from my finger. I withdrew from his embrace and pulled my fingers out of his mouth.

"Duo?" he asked, wondering why I had stepped away from him.

"You keep biting me like I'm a piece of meat. Food. Is that what I am Heero?" I sat down on a convenient log and looked up at him.

"No, Duonot at all" Heero sat down beside me, keeping eyes contact. He stroked my face and my lips and slipped a pair of fingers into my mouth. I looked at him skeptically. "Bite me." He said, and wiggled his fingers to encourage me.

I bit him. A bit of his blood came into my mouth and I swallowed. There was something about doing thisit made me feel close to him. I pulled his fingers out of my mouth and held the inside if his wrist to me, looking to him for approval. He nodded and I bit down, tasting the thick flow of his blood into my mouth. He was deliciousbut there was something more to it than that. I didn't feel like I was being nourished, I felt like I was getting closer to Heero I could swear I was feeling what he feltalmost hearing his thoughts. He pulled me against him and bit my neck even as I sucked at his wrist.

It was like stepping inside his head. I was part of himI could feel him thinking, moving, I heard what he heard, felt what he felt, and tasted myself through his mouth. It was something utterly stronger than what I imagined sex to beI knew how much he loved me, and how guilty he felt when he killed, I could see his memories as he had them, flashes of people from his past, and people from the present. He was a lonely soul, his life was sort of like a time lapse video, except he was moving at a normal pace, and everything else was speeding. I licked his wounds shut and looked at him in surprise. He was staring right back at me.

"You're not a piece of meat Duoyou understand now, don't you?"

"Ah" I didn't much feel like talking at the moment, I just wanted to be close to him. We stood up in silence and made our way through the trees to the school, scurrying over the quiet soccer field and easily climbing into our dorm room window. There was blood all over my clothes, so I peeled them off and stepped into the shower to get warm and clean. I was still thinking about Heero's blood and his mind when I got out of the shower, but he was gone from the dorm room. He left me a one word note. 'Hunting.'

I crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the trash, frowning slightly that he was gone, but seeing a good window of opportunity to look at the book I had picked up the night before. I pulled it out from its safe place under my bed and opened to the last page I had been on, removing my paper bookmark and re-reading the previous page to get back into it.

Out of body experiences. Astral travel. There were about ten pages on out of body travel, some were a journal of personal experiences, but there was also a method guide and warnings, and some other useful stuff. Moon phases, stone and herb correspondences that went well with these thingsit looked interesting. You could train yourself to travel out of your own body to different places, and different times if you were really good at it. This lady had been goodshe went back to her own handfasting to watch herself be wed to her now dead husband periodically, just to keep the memories fresh in mind.

I marked that section in the book, maybe I could return to the past somedaymaybe I could see all the people who were now dead just one more time, even if they didn't know I was there. I stopped looking through the book for a little while so that I could look out the window at the twinkling stars. Could they see me now? Were they wondering why I was suspended like thisimmortal. Stopped from ever moving forward, but still affecting things, and changing and causing hurt. Would the people I love from my past forgive me for existing in this way?

I had no idea. My stomach turned uncomfortably, that was not a line of thought I wanted to be on right now I turned back to the book and flipped past the rest of the information on astral travel and dream theories/experiences/methods, and ended up finding myself at an explanation of the tarot cards. This seemed awfully complicated for a card gamebut then again I had never tried anything like this before, so I didn't blame myself for not getting it the first few times I read through it.

The deck had 78 cards, and each card had a different meaning. There was no way I was going to be able to remember this all in one night. There were meanings for each of the cards written down in the book, and little notes about how this deck in particular had its own personality, and how the meaning of turning each card differed in this deck, when compared to other, less used tarot decks. It was all very fascinating, but it was really confusing too. The book explained different ways to draw the cads, and the meaning behind each method. There were 21 cards called the Major Arcana, and the rest of the cards were divided into four suits, and together they were called the Minor Arcana. It seemed like a lot of fancy names and meanings and pictures for some cards that supposedly told the future and answered questions. I grinned at the deck as looked through it, wondering what I would find if I tried to read my own cards.

I was trying to learn the meanings of all the Major Arcana when Heero came back into the room, looking completely unruffled. Obviously he hadn't been attacked or stabbed like I had when I was hungry. Damn experiencehn. He smelled faintly like human blood, it was on his breath. He came over to me and sat down on the bed beside me. I could smell fire on him too, gasoline, charred things, burnt plasticI didn't say anything.

"What are you doing?"

"These are the cards you found at that lady's houseI'm going to learn how to use them."

"Why?"

"So I can tell the future and stuff."

"You know that's not real, don't you? Its bullshit. Superstition and such."

"Then can you explain how she knew all about us?"

"Well it wasn't these cards Duoshe had pictures of us. Sketches. Information about us that only we knowcards don't draw pictures, and they don't tell you that people are almost two hundred years oldor that they are going to be turned into a vampirethis lady had something else on usI don't know how she knew all this, but I'm telling you it wasn't some stupid cards that told her."

"I'm, going to find out how she knew everythingI supposed you found a way to destroy that shrine"

"Everything's gone. I went back and made sure that her house burnt down with her in it. No-one had found her yet, the she was still sitting in the chair where we left her. I made it look like the fire started in the shrine roomfrom the candles. I took this."

Heero pulled two things out of his pocket. One of them I recognized, the other I didn't. There was what looked like a self-destruct button from a gundam, although I knew it wasn't from my gundam. I had no idea what the significance of that was. There was also a small silver cross, dangling from a silver chain made of very small, fine little links. That I recognized. I picked it up carefully, not wanting to hurt it, and I examined it closely, twirling it between my fingers so I could see the back of the cross. Scratched into the soft pure silver was an S. I took the cross with me and locked myself in the bathroom, the Tarot deck that was spread over my bed completely forgotten.

I clutched the little cross in my hand and turned the shower on cold, not bothering to remove my clothes as I curled up in the bottom of the shower stall. The cold water didn't sting my skin or make me feel sick inside like I wanted it toit just made my body really cold. I stayed in the shower anyway, turning the cross over and over in my hands and thinking about what it meant. I didn't notice when the water going down the drain was mixed with red from my tears, I was just thinking about the little cross.

Solo. That's what the S meant. This cross had belonged to the very first person who ever showed me that I was worth anything at all. Orphaned, cold, and living on the streets of a degenerated old colony, Solo found me and taught me how to survive. We were poor, but he kept the little cross said it showed we were worth having around. He wouldn't sell it, not only because the vendors on the streets and in the pawn shops wouldn't give him a good deal for it, but because it had been given to him by his mother before she died of cancer when he was four. His father had left long before that, and Solo was left to roam the streets alone. He kept the cross as a symbol. When he found me and fed me some stale bread and mushy fruit I was terrified of being all by myself, and I was so little I didn't even know my own name. We teamed up with other orphans and tried to make a living for ourselves by stealing what we absolutely needed, and running from the officials when they chased us.

But then they found a new way to flush the colony free of orphansa virus. The antidote barely cost a thing, but they made it unavailable to us, and made sure that we were infected. I never got sick, I never caught the virus. But Solo didand he died in my arms after telling me to keep his cross in memory of him. It was my fault he diedI went to steal the antidote, and I wasn't fast enough. I know that if it had been the other way around Solo would have managed to get me the antidote on timebut I couldn't do it. I let him die because I was too slow to save him, and instead of being scared or sad like any other ten year old kid would be, he told me to take care of myself and the others, and that he loved me and he would never leave me. I cried, he told me not to, because he wasn't going anywhere. Of course I just cried more then, but his fingers were there to wipe away the tears. And then his fingers were pushing his silver cross into my little fist and telling me to keep it safe. He took one last weak breath and his body was still. Dishwater blonde hair that was dirty and greasy from lack of washing was between my fingers, and the little cross was around my neck. Solo was deadhe couldn't be, but he was. I cried over him and slept beside his body until the officials found me. They ripped the cross off of me and kept it.I never got it back. I was shoveled off to an orphanage, where I eventually gained other friends, and my braid, and a gold cross from Father Maxwell but none of it could fill he gap left in me where Solo was supposed to be.

So looking at the little cross dangling between my fingers I understood that the woman who had known we were coming really didn't hold us against itand I knew that she really could travel between times and places, and I knew that the deck of cards that was splayed over my bed in the other room was definitely more powerful than it appeared to be.

But I wondered if Solo was somehow still with meI wondered if I would ever find him again. Now I had eternity to search for him if that's what I wanted to do, although there was still Heero to learn fromand I did love him, so there was no way I was going to just pick up and leave him. But I couldn't stay with him forever, could I? I really didn't know.

I turned off the water and peeled off my soggy clothes, putting the cross around my neck and wrapping a towel around my waist. I left the bathroom. Heero was flipping through the Book of Shadows, carefully scanning each page and frowning at it before turning to the next page. I didn't feel like talking. I knew he would understand at least that I didn't want to say anything. He was holding the button tightly in one hand and looking at it every so often as if it would disappear when he wasn't watching. I got dressed in some loose boxers and a plain black T-shirt, then went to sit on the windowsill and look at the graying sky. I was tired. I had cried too much and thought too much for one night, and I needed to sleep. However I knew that I couldn't simply keep living here and not attending class, Heero and I would both be kicked out of the school.

"Heero, what about our classes?"

"I called the school from a payphonetold them we were both away on vacation and we won't be back for a week. You don't have to worry about classes until then."

"Ahwhat's the point of going to schoolits not like we need to keep jobs later in life"

"That's your decision. You're never going to look any older than you do nowthere are only so many things you can do when you look sixteen."

"So I should go to school forever?"

"No, its just a good place to blend in, people tend to ignore the pale quiet kids."

"But I can't even stay awake during the day"

"I don't know if its possible for you yetI was too scared that I would be burnt to nothing for about ten years, so I always hid away from the sun well before the day ever came, and I woke late by nature, usually around nine or ten pm. I never saw so much as a bit of twilight for a very long time. You're different from me, you wake early. You'll have to find what works best for you through experience. I promise you you're not going to spontaneously combust if you get caught in sunlight, but you will probably burn some. You'll heal."

I nodded to Heero and started to clean up the Tarot cards, putting them carefully back in their box and tucking it away in a locked drawer beside my bed. Now that I believed they were actually worth something, I really didn't want to hurt them. Heero changed into a pair of boxers and came up behind me, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my neck.

"We can share a bed if you want Duo," he said, implying that it was what he would like to do.

I turned around in his arms so I was facing him, and kissed his cheeks, loving how soft his skin was beneath my lips. I liked these chaste kisses, no tongues, no blood, just lips and skin and strong arms wrapping about one another. I took him with me and we went through the room closing the curtains, and then we slipped into Heero's bed.

I wrapped both arms around Heero and he snuggled into me. My eyes drifted shut as the sun rose outside our windows.

~~~~~~~~~~

I dreamt that Solo was dying again. But instead of handing me a cross before he died, he handed me a bunch of Tarot cards, and instead of dying, he got up and walked away, then evaporated as he got further from me. He had been saying thingsI couldn't really remember whathe had been telling me that it was all in the cards. He was carrying The Fool and the 4 of Swords as he walked away, a smile on his face. He had handed me the Queen of Cupsbut when I looked at it I couldn't tell if it was right-side up or upside down. Maybe it was supposed to be both? I had also ended up with The High Priestess and The Tower. I frowned at the cards in my hands and stood, wondering where my cross was. I looked around on the ground for itSolo had not given it to me. This was wrong. What was going on?

I sat up in bed very suddenly, Heero curled up beside me. The sun was so brightI had kicked the covers off of us bothI was sweating blood on the bed, it soaked through the sheets and my clothes, and it was even on Heero's clothes. I panted and tried to look around. Searing bright sunlight filtered in through the tiny cracks in the blinds. I cringed and staggered out of the bed, darting to the bathroom to cool off in the cold recess of the shower. I didn't bother with the lights.

However, before I actually turned the water on, my eyes caught sight of something sitting on the countercards. Three of them. Despite the darkness, I could see that it was the three from my dream, and the Queen of Cups was turned sideways, as if it wasn't sure whether it was right-side or reversed. I stared down at the three little cards, feeling sick and light-headed, and crawled to the shower, turning on the cold water and trying to fall back asleep.