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Her hands as they wrapped around my neck were too big to be a woman's.

What….

"Nick… It's all right… I'm here, you can let go..." he whispered. "Just let go, I won't let anything hurt you."

"What's happening to me?" I whispered, my body still in autopilot, still glutting itself on all Vash's heat.

Confused I looked down at him, somehow having managed to roll myself on top. He knew I loved being on top. He had known all those years ago, the first time we had reached out to each other. The insurance girls had long since been ditched, and we had just stared at each other across the canyon of floorboards between the two twin beds in that lousy hotel, one in a string of dozens. I had known then, all I had to do was cross the gulf and he would pull me down on top of him, let me take the lead. He wanted it to be a gift, somehow knowing every man before him hadn't given me the choice, all thinking I had to break before I could be trusted.

But to cross that gulf would to be to cross the brother that was hunting him down beyond that room, striking out at whatever strongholds Vash managed to build up for himself. And as his servant, albeit unwilling to begin with, I knew I would be struck down. I was nothing but a filthy human. Even to the rest of the human race I had been too dirty for words. My hands stained with the blood I had drawn simply to keep myself alive. I had hated myself for allowing myself to continue to live. I hated myself for using the kids as an excuse to keep going on.

But he loved me anyway.

He loved me even with the fear that because we were both men I could reject him. He loved me despite of my past and current bonds. Loved me in a way I had never been treasured before by any living creature, including myself. Loved me because in spite of the lies, or perhaps because our similar masks.

Even if I hadn't already felt the same way I couldn't have helped but respond.

And as I stood over him then, watching his arms reach up to pull me down I was praying to a God I suddenly wanted to exist more than life itself. I just wanted this. I wanted to show him that I loved him with everything of myself that I had left to give. I wanted him to have the last good in me before I had to strike at him to survive. I longed for somewhere else, anywhere where we could have been together. I hoped that we would survive to make that somewhere else, even as I knew I was signing my death warrant.

He was far more confident now than he had been then. Barely experienced with women, he hadn't even taken off his clothes that first time for fear that his scars somehow drive me off. He had been scared of the way his flesh reacted to mine. It was only after nights and nights together that he gained the confidence he showed now. It made me worry about him practicing with someone else.

How long had he and I been apart, really? At least a hundred years since Augusta had been destroyed, and I remembered how red the sky had been afterwards. There must have been someone else. It was a lifetime, more than one. Would Vash have really waited?

How many lifetimes had I gone through to get back here?

"Vash…" I gasped, feeling back in my body again. The memories were still pulling like a taunt string against the back of my skull. They were a leash that could tighten and choke at any moment.

"Shh…. You think too much." He murmured against my cheek.

"Help me." I said, trying to find enough liquid in my mouth to manage to a swallow. "Vash, help me. I want… Oh God, I want…"

I wanted this, but I needed him to take control.

"Are you sure?"

Something was telling me that there was a time limit... that I wouldn't get a second chance to be with Vash. But I couldn't do it alone, knew I couldn't control myself.

Just being with Vash was setting something off.

I'd barely started and I was shaking at the foreign memories were coming back like gangbusters. It scared me to thing of what images I would see during the actual act.

"Please."

I felt suddenly and strangely secure when he rolled on top of me without further protest.

He started manipulating my body with his mouth and hands in ways I had never thought of and enjoyed instantly. Then I realized I had taught him each and every trick all those years ago. I could remember how he reacted to each one. He fiercely enjoyed every inch of my body until I was whimpering, on the verge of screaming. Out of ways to drive me nuts, he climbed on top of me and we undulated against one another, until we were ready to start crying or laughing.

Then, very gently, he pushed one finger inside of me, as I was trying to catch my breath.

The memories came hard and I felt like I had hit a brick wall.

At first I remembered a farm house I had never seen, and a man who I had never met, who grabbed his crotch, quite visibly at my shortened height, and told me I had one more chore to do. I told him that I was his ward, not his whore and he drew back his fist to answer.

I didn't feel the punch, but the abrupt shift into another vision.

I was surrounded by a gang of men, the leader screaming slurs at me, inches away from my face. I'd been instructed not to kill anyone, but take whatever they dished out as a test. It was dawning on me that for all the leaders talk, hunger was blooming in the back of his eyes, and if I wouldn't fight, they'd do everything to break me.

Nick…

I came back into my body and realized I was panting hard and sweating harder. Vash's hands had pulled out and were pushing down my shoulders. I begged him to keep going, even as the images kept coming.

Middy, now in an entirely in male form, grabbing my ass telling me we weren't worth enough to act like we didn't give it away.

A strange man in a white coat and blue hair smiling in the distance as pain built and overtook me.

And there was a man who looked like Vash when he smirked, tracing a gloved hand down my abdomen as I lay spent and bleeding. I knew his name, but my mind would not let me remember it.

Vash stopped when he saw that. He would have backed off if I hadn't pulled him back.

"Finish it." I murmured, shaking and scared.

He leaned down, tears forming at the corners of his eyes…

…and he kissed me chastely on the lips…

…and that changed everything.

I remembered him… all the times we had together.

Every friendly spat. Every street-side wrestling for the local children.

His nerves the first time I had let him take the lead.

My growing needs to keep him safe, killing everyone who hurt him.

The pain I was in as the life was slipping from my body, and the determination NOT to show it so Vash wouldn't keep crying.

My hopes, the ones that grew faster than I could cut them down.

The silly plans I had made with myself about taking Vash back to the orphanage after all this was over with and having us live out our lives, or mine at least, with as much quiet as I could find.

All the little hopes and dreams that I had kept silent, not knowing that he heard them anyway.

I found myself in the midst of screaming orgasm far too soon.

I wasn't surprised when I saw his eyes glowing or the wings. He looked dead sexy when it was obvious he was an angel.