On to the next! Thanks to those who reviewed. I really, really, really appreciate it! The next chapter is going to be after Christmas, though, unless a fit of inspiration strikes me. Excuse any spelling mistakes; I barely ever proof read. I really like this chapter! Hehehe.

--

Taking Over Me

You don't remember me but I

Remember you

I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you

But who can decide what they dream

And dream I do...

He was standing in the dark and he knew that it was a dream. Usually he didn't, and at some point that vague thought made its way into his mind, but he dismissed it. He was familiar with this particular dream, this nightmare, this life.

"Uncle Tori?" a younger Suguru knocked on the door to his uncle's study timidly, messy green-black hair falling over eyes that held a shy look in them. Since his parents had died, he had gone to live with his uncle. Normally, he would have gone to his cousin Tohma, but Tohma was just so busy that he hadn't been able to take Suguru.

"Come in."

His uncle's voice was disgruntled, but after a moment of thought Suguru decided to ignore it and come into the study. What happened after was something that would remain in Suguru's mind for years to come. Done watching, the older Suguru turned away from the sight.

--

I believe in you

I'll give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you to live, to breathe

You're taking over me

The trembling notes from the keyboard filled the room, slowly melding into a fierce and passionate melody that wound the entire room in fierce pain and glory. Suguru smiled as the final notes faded away from the keyboard. The melody still vibrated in the walls, haunting them like a beauty that couldn't be seen.

Shuichi was scowling, a pout on his pretty face. "Why do you have to be so much better at it than me?" he asked grumpily. "Not fair."

Suguru laughed. "It comes with playing the piano since you were four. If you'd like to start now, maybe you could..."

The pink-haired singer cut him off with frantically waving arms. "No! No! That's fine, Suguru-kun! Don't worry about me. I'm good!"

No one had ever seen him play like this except as Tenshi; no one but Seti. It was kind of strange for someone besides immediate family to be hearing him do this, pour his heart and soul into the keys until everything faded. He needed the practice, though. He was trying to work out the music for some of his songs.

"You might want to leave now, Shindou," Suguru warned, tilting his head with a slight grin. "Taki is coming."

Yelping, Shuichi jumped to his feet and yelled, "I'm outta here!" before blazing out of the apartment. To tell the truth, Suguru felt a bit bad. He knew what Taki had put Suguru through, knew that he shouldn't have asked Taki to join his band for Shuichi alone. The question to be true to Fallen Angel or to be true to Shuichi held no comparison, though. And Shuichi didn't hold grudges. He didn't want to run into Taki, but if he did he wouldn't run him down.

"Fujisaki?" Taki knocked on the door briefly before coming in. There was something about how he walked-- slightly hunched over with hands shoved into his pockets, black hair in his eyes-- that still seemed a bit off-kilter. Suguru knew that even though Taki was a bit messed up, he wasn't going to be doing anything like he had before.

"Hello, Taki," he said smoothly, a smirk curling on his lips. "If you didn't bring your guitar you can grab any one except the one in the corner. I want you to try Going Under with me."

--

The man was back in the café again, which didn't usually happen this soon after he had already visited. He was sitting in the corner with a lost look on his face, making the waitress pout. He was Mei's favorite customer, so she desperately wished that he would be happier.

'Why does he always have to be so sad?' she thought. He was making her sad, too. She stopped in front of his table to serve him. "Uesugi Tatsuha! You need caffeine!" she told him, stamping her foot.

He smiled at her; he usually did, for her. She had the feeling that she amused him, but considering the amount of coffee she had every day, she amused even herself. "I'll take a mocha swirl iced latté, Mei," Tatsuha said.

"Good choice!" the bouncy waitress replied, flashing him a smile. "It's so hot out today! It's a good thing it's air conditioned in here." She plopped herself down on the bench next to him. "Now tell me what's got you so upset."

He seemed to consider glaring at her for a moment, then let it pass him by and just sighed. She waited patiently except for the twitching foot, studying his shadowed face intently as the sun blared down on them from the nearby window. He gave in.

"Someone kissed me."

She blinked at him. That sounded nice; why was he so upset about it? "So why's that got you upset?"

Tatsuha pouted slightly, full lips twisting into a grimace. "Because they're still completely and totally hung up over their old boyfriend, and didn't tell me what the hell it meant. Just ran away."

She frowned. That did present a problem. "Well... ask what they meant by it. It's really the only thing you can do. You can't beat yourself up over it, especially if you don't know the answer." She stood. "I'll get your latté now."

He sighed heavily as she turned.

--

Have you forgotten all I know?

And all we had?

You saw me mourning my love for you

And touched my hand

I knew you loved me then

"You're trying to contact him?" Tohma's words came out furious and short, but Suguru didn't flinch. He was one of the very few that could look his cousin straight in the eyes and tell him exactly what he thought.

"What did you expect me to do?" he asked quietly. He looked calmly into Tohma's eyes. "He's Seti, cousin. And I'm going to kill him for leaving me." The last he muttered under his breath, but Tohma still caught it.

The Nittle Grasper was honestly worried. He liked Akuma too, in moderation, and despite all disagreements between Suguru and Akuma in the past, everyone made mistakes. He definitely wasn't exempt from that. Akuma was completely, totally, and obsessively in love with Suguru. He probably wouldn't take kindly to being dragged back into the light when he was trying to protect Suguru. 'Protect him from Akuma himself.'

Tohma remembered the arrogant young man well, despite having maybe only three real conversations with him. Akuma was the kind of guy that made an instant, everlasting impression on someone. His eyes had been completely feral, body moving with an almost deadly grace, and his blue-black long and unkempt.

There was the way he looked at people almost shyly out the corner of his eye before he said something completely rude and uncalled for that somehow Suguru managed to understand and interpret for the rest of the world. How nervous he got in big crowds yet managed to hide it with a confidant swagger. That grin that seemed to stretch from ear to ear in wicked amusement.

So yes, Tohma remembered Akuma.

"I can't forget him, Tohma. I can't let him get away again," Suguru said fervently, leaning over the desk to look at Tohma better. "I can't."

They had been so obsessively, possessively in love, and so young. Tohma couldn't understand, but he didn't pretend to. "Have you gotten an answer back yet?" he asked instead of trying to explain what he felt.

Suguru backed off and sat down. "Not yet. In a couple of weeks, they said. I'm not asking you to help; just don't stop them from looking. I need him."

That much had always been obvious, ever since Tohma had first met the then-fourteen Akuma, defiant glare aimed directly at Tohma. However, Tohma was nothing if not a businessman and an extremely skilled manipulator. "If I let you look for him without hindering you..." he began slowly, tilting his head to run fingers through his blonde hair, "I want you to see a psychiatrist."

Suguru scowled. "I've told you before. I don't need your help."

Tohma stood. "Everyone needs help sometimes, Suguru. Even you." He stopped himself from saying 'especially you'. "I need to go. I have a meeting in Kyoto." He paused, and carefully patted the keyboardist's head. "Think about it, Tenshi."

He walked out the the room, leaving Suguru there with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew that he had problems, more so than most people. When he had first started living with his cousin, Tohma had tried to make him see a counseler, but Suguru had refused to talk. He had always wanted to stand on his own two feet.

He had panic attacks that ranged from mild to severe, dreamed the past as terrifying as it had been really been. He had minor hallucinations and tended to lose touch with reality, though that had been happening less and less since he was so busy. He probably had more than that, things he didn't even realize. "I'm just so... messed up," he whispered under his breath. He leaned back in the chair, content to think for a few moments before he left. Then he laughed, short and unpleasant. "Maybe I should think about it."

--

I believe in you

I'll give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you to live, to breathe

You're taking over me

The first words that Tatsuha spoke to Suguru after that kiss were ones that Suguru didn't particularly want to hear. They were said in a voice of steel, determined eyes resting on Suguru's downturned face. "We need to talk."

Suguru didn't like this at all. "I really don't want to," he told Tatsuha firmly. "I'm busy. Taki and I still aren't quite in sync and--"

The dark-haired monk cut him off with an abrupt shake of his head. Standing in the dark in front of Suguru's apartment, street lamps too many feet away, they faced off. Suguru spared a wry thought in thanks towards the fact his neighborhood was a fairly safe one. "I need to know why. I know you're still in love with him."

Suguru wasn't even going to pretend he didn't understand, but he didn't want to answer. He was starting to panic, a deep sense of unease knotting in the pit of his stomach. And, before all else, he knew that Tatsuha could tell. The monk sighed and grabbed Suguru's chin, forcing him to meet his eyes. "Stop it," he commanded, tones quiet enough to soften the words. Suguru leaned against him, trying to breathe, then stepped back.

'Honesty, right? That's what he wants?' "I like you." He was good at this, facing people down without blinking. Refusing to bend. "There's something about you that-- I don't know!" He shook his head furiously. "No one else even notices me, but you can see me, and you don't even have the slightest clue what that means!" He looked up at Tatsuha through lowered eyelashes, too close for either of their comfort. "And I can't promise you that if you get involved with me that if Akuma shows up I won't leave. I can't say that if he doesn't show up tomorrow I won't go straight back to him." He stepped closer, skin just a bare inch from Tatsuha's. Heat radiated off the both of them, inexorably drawing them closer together. "And I'm really messed up. You don't even have the slightest clue how much. But I think... I think that I could love you."

There was shock in those onyx eyes that even the ebony hair falling over them couldn't obscure. "We don't even know each other." Suguru was still speaking, this time with a slight laugh in his voice. "Didn't Shuichi mention something like this? Pulled together by nothing else but sheer gravitation." There was an utterly vulnerable look in those deep brown eyes, somewhere behind all of those defenses that Suguru thought he had.

"You're not going to be easy, are you?" Tatsuha asked him. Then he kissed him.

It was like liquor. Strong and heady, completely forbidden and totally wrong. Tatsuha knew perfectly well that he was probably going to get his heart broken. Yet that look in those eyes, that wry twist to a sly smile, the way he hid behind long strands of hair... Fujisaki Suguru was worth it.

He rested his head against Suguru's and tried to start breathing again. "Like gravitation, right?"

Starting to smile, Suguru threaded his fingers through Tatsuha's hair. "Right. Feel the pull?"

This time, he was the one that kissed Tatsuha.

--

Suguru was watching Tatsuha sleep. Lying entangled in the dark angel's arms, watching the face that was so innocent in sleep. Just watching, trying to absorb the fact that this was happening. They hadn't slept together. Suguru didn't want to, and somehow he thought that although Tatsuha wouldn't mind, he didn't particularly care either. They were just... sleeping. And Suguru felt safe. Safe from nightmares, safe from whatever else lurked in his mind.

'Would Seti mind?' It froze him for a second and he want pale instantly. Warmth surrounded him, though. Blanketed in Tatsuha's arms and a light cotton sheet, somehow he didn't think so. Akuma had been possessive of Suguru in the past, but he loved Suguru. He would want him like this, something resembling happy and safe.

This couldn't be like him and Akuma. He couldn't repeat this cycle over again and destroy someone else. No matter how much he was alike and different than Akuma, he couldn't let that become who he was, because even for him two Akumas were just too much.

Suguru carefully reached over Tatsuha and quickly wrote down the words that were on his mind before he forgot them, wanting so save this feeling even if he didn't want to feel it.

I look in the mirror and see your face

If I look deep enough

So many things inside that are just like you are

Taking over

"I have to find him," he whispered under his breath. He traced a finger over the curve of Tatsuha's cheek, softly stroking the older man's mouth. "And yet..." He closed his eyes and snuggled into Tatsuha's arms, the last words mumbled against his chest. "I think I love you."

'I can't lose you either.'

(taking over me)

You're taking over me

(taking over me)

Taking over me

--

Cut choruses and stuff. Four more chapters (there's going to be another chapter that doesn't have an Evanescence song in it; I need it to bridge some stuff.) Please review and I might give you and update before Christmas!