AN: Sooo, Aro has been pretty stressed... bad times, and worse times to come.

Desperation

Sulpicia passed Felix in the hallway to her children's bed chambers. Poor lamb looks exhausted, she thought, totally crestfallen, too. Felix couldn't meet her eye as she wished him goodnight. He quietly slunk into his bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. Demetri, as usual, was waiting to hear what had happened to his big brother and share his own tale of woe in facing their mother. Felix didn't respond to his brothers questioning. Instead, he changed his clothes and got into bed without word.

Sulpicia joined Aro in the living room where he lightly paced the room. "Is Felix grounded?" She asked, forcing Aro to stand still and draping her arms around his neck.

Aro returned the embrace and kissed her deeply. He knew she wanted him to take her right there, but he felt to agitated to have sex… with his mate at least. "Yes, though there was probably no need to ground him." He eventually replied. "Something tells me Felix won't want to go out for a while."

Sulpicia was concerned for Felix, naturally, but she mainly wanted the whole ugly episode to be over - they, as a coven, had achieved great things with the treaty and she wanted to celebrate her mate's mastery with him alone.

Aro, however, had other ideas. He had been watching Caius closely through the covens' visit and could smell the dungeon blood on his breath when they spoke - Aro was gagging for his drug of choice but he'd had to stay off it for the time the covens were with them as Atia and Basileus were both inside his head. He couldn't risk either of them finding out that he had continued taking it after Atia had caught him and punished him for it. Aro knew Basileus wouldn't be so kind a second time. It's been a stressful few days, I deserve to escape reality for a while. I will be calmer, better to be around… I should do it for everyone else's sake really. He reasoned, badly, choosing to ignore the nagging doubt in his mind about what the hell he would do if either of his parents found out.

Sulpicia alternated between kissing and sucking on Aro's neck, and he really wanted to melt into her embrace, as he would usually have done. But he felt so damn agitated that standing still felt like torture.

"I should deal with the other three," he said, pulling away from his mate. "Felix wasn't the only idiot last night."

"They are all asleep, my love. They have been awake for days. Can it wait for tomorrow?" Sulpicia replied, pulling Aro towards their bed chamber.

I can't do this now! Aro thought, as he disentangled himself from his mate's grasp. I just need a shot of dungeon blood, I will be fine after that, I will be able to relax, he told himself.

Sulpicia looked to him with a confused expression, "are you seriously turning me down?"

"I could do with going through things with Caius." Aro lied, forcing a loving smile to his mate as he rejected her.

Sulpicia's confused expression changed to hurt. "Can Caius not wait?" she asked, feeling particularly unloved.

"He could…" Aro replied, cupping Sully's face in his hands and kissing her forehead lightly. "But if I tie up things with Caius I will have the rest of the night here with you."

Sulpicia pulled away, she knew he was lying though she couldn't work out why. Never in a million years would she suspect dungeon blood, not after all the years that had passed since Aro had last taken it… that she knew of.

"Oh. Okay." She said as Aro left her side and headed straight to the door.

Aro looked to Sulpicia one last time before he left. You look so sad, so rejected. I am sorry my queen. It will be better for both of us if I do this now, I promise you. Aro squared away in his own mind that he was taking dungeon blood for the good of his family.

"I won't be long." He called.

"Be as long as you like." Sulpicia told him plainly, slamming the bedchamber door behind her.

"I love you, my queen." He called before closing the door behind him.

Caius broke away from his embrace with Athenodora when he heard Aro banging on his door. He knew it was Aro, and he knew what he would want. He had noticed, even if no one else had, that his coven mate had been desperate to join him when he took Henri to the dungeons.

With a deep sigh, Caius opened his door. "I am busy." He said, wearing only undergarments.

"Come on." Aro drawled with a glint in his eye. His excitement was palpable!

"Seriously Aro. I have hardly seen Athenodora with chaperoning Henri - I have some serious making up to do."

Athenodora had told Caius only moments before that Sulpicia had sent her away and he was understandably annoyed about the coven queen. He wasn't in a position to do anything about Sulpicia's slight, which only added to his annoyance. All he wanted to do was wrap up with his wife and reconnect after their short, but stressful time apart.

Aro scoffed. Since when do you care about Athenodora? He wondered. "Fuck her, come with me."

"I intend to fuck her, thanks. You're on your own." Caius replied as he tried to close the door.

Aro put his foot in the way. "You're changing, Caius." He derided his coven mate.

"Yeah, for the better, I hope." Caius replied proudly.

Still, Aro refused to move.

"I think you should lay off the dungeon blood for a while, brother." Caius spoke quietly. He didn't want any passing guards to hear their conversation.

"What are you talking about? I haven't had any for months and I'm fine." Aro lied.

"You are shaking Aro!" Caius blurted out, you look like a fucking human bar fly! He thought.

"You are always on it!" Aro attempted to deflect.

Caius laughed lightly to himself, rolling his eyes to the heavens. "Not half as much as you think, and I only have the odd shot - you drink it like wine."

"If I wanted to be nagged at I would have stayed at home." Aro sounded like a sulking child who wasn't getting their own way. "Give me your keys." He demanded with an outstretched hand.

Caius shook his head.

"Caius, I want the keys." Aro demanded forcefully.

Caius considered giving Aro the keys to his playroom so he would bugger off and leave him to enjoy the rest of his evening in peace. "I'm cutting you off, it's for your own good."

Aro felt his throat burning. It didn't make sense for him to feel the need to feed - he had drank his fill of bloodwine and that should have quenched his thirst for a month at least. He needed dungeon blood, he believed, but it was psychosomatic really. Aro wasn't physically addicted to the drug - such a thing would be an impossibility to a vampire. It was Aro's mind that needed the drug's effects and that was stronger than any physical addiction.

"I think you are forgetting the hierarchy around here." He ground out in reply to Caius.

Caius wasn't standing for that. "And I think you are forgetting that your old man is watching me like a fucking hawk and giving his little addict unfettered access to the very drug of which he is banned will result in him removing my head from my body."

"Addict?!" Aro questioned in faux confusion. "You wasn't so concerned when we were down there together, brother!"

"I thought it was a one off… especially as we were caught, make that humiliatingly caught - by your mother!"

Caius didn't know that Aro had been sneaking the odd glass from his playroom every time he had visited his coven mate. Aro felt a pang of shame as he realised that mentioning that now would prove Caius' claim that he was an addict. He pushed the thoughts aside - they were too unpalatable for him to give them much head space. Most of his mental energy was being spent on trying to stop his hands from shaking, or his eyes from darting about.

"Give me the keys Caius, or I will rip your fucking throat out!" Aro growled a final time.

Caius shoved Aro hard in the chest and slammed his door, dropping the timber beam cross bar to seal himself in from the outside world. "Fuck off, Aro." He said to himself, before returning to his mate in peace.

"That was quick." Sulpicia exclaimed happily seeing Aro return. She had questioned Aro's motivations for leaving their quarters whilst he was out - her mind had wondered from simply being stressed from brokering the treaty to bedding another woman, and a good many things in between.

"Yeah." He sneered, mainly to himself. "Have we got anything to drink?" he asked gruffly.

"Haven't you drank enough these last few day?" Sulpicia replied, setting down her book on the open page. "I don't think anyone is going to need to feed for a year."

"Have we got anything or not?" Aro demanded, sounding dark and dangerous.

Sully's relief at her husband returning now changed back to her other explanations for him leaving in the first place. "Erm… no, my love." She answered, warily. What is going on with you?

Aro started to pace around his quarters, the agitated energy coursing through his veins felt hot and uncomfortable. "Where's Felix?" he asked his mate, he had an idea!

"He's in bed." Sulpicia replied, "he's asleep!" she added as Aro headed towards their children's rooms.

"I haven't finished with him yet." Aro ground out, flinging his sons' bedroom door open.

"Aro they have been awake for days…" Sulpicia tried to pull him out but Aro easily shook her off turning jet black eyes on his mate. How can your eyes be black? You have drunk gallons of bloodwine, your eyes shouldn't be black!

Sulpicia hung in the doorway as she watched Aro storm towards their eldest boy.

"Get up." He commanded, looming over Felix.

It was taking a moment or two for Felix to come round. Aro didn't want to wait and shook him roughly, calling out his name.

"Why?" Felix whined, he was shattered.

Aro pulled him so hard that Felix fell out of his bed, landing on the floor with an almighty boom.

"Ow!" he exclaimed. Felix was only on the floor for a second before Aro had him on his feet and started dragging him out of his room.

Demetri sat bolt upright in his bed having woken with the commotion. He watched his father in trepidation.

"Go back to sleep." Aro ordered his younger son.

"What's going on?" Demetri asked hazily.

Aro grabbed his boy around the throat and glared into Demetri's eyes. "Sleep and face me tomorrow, or keep pissing me off and face me now?" he ground out to his frightened boy.

Sulpicia gasped, Aro didn't even sound like her husband anymore.

"Where are you taking him, Aro?" she asked, following her mate dragging Felix along in his nightshirt.

"For some father-son time." Aro replied with an evil smirk

"He's half dressed!" Sulpicia complained, but it was too late, the door slammed in her face as Aro and Felix left her home.

"Down there?" Felix asked, looking down the dungeon stairwell.

He felt a flash of fear looking down those stairs as he thought of Aro's regular threat of turning him over to Caius and his dungeon playroom. Aro pushed his son to begin their descent. "But why are you bringing me down here? You have punished me already!" Felix whined.

"I have a job for you." Aro replied, "now move!" with that he shoved Felix so hard that the boy nearly fell down the steps. Not that Aro quit forcing him down the dark, dank stairwell.

As soon as Aro's foot hit the bottom step, he knew they weren't alone in the lower levels of the castle. He checked out the dungeon cells until he found one occupied.

"Why are you in here, Corin?" he asked, formulating a plan for the beautiful young guard.

"Master Magnus put me here for the night, Master, I knew about the young ones drinking bloodwine and I didn't come forward." She replied shyly, sounding a little nervous about her admission to Aro of all people - it was his kids that were getting pissed with her knowledge!

"It's your lucky night." Aro decreed. "Felix bend the bars."

Felix looked askance to his father. Are you trying to get me killed? He wondered. "Caius will go nuts - its breaking and entering."

"What are you breaking? Its bending and entering. Do it." Aro replied, still smiling at Corin.

It had been a long time since Aro had looked at her like that, like any of the guards like that actually, and it made her nervous. She knew what that look meant. He would be having her soon. Felix made short work of bending the bars apart to allow Corin to escape her holding cell.

"Wonderful." Aro sang out happily before telling Corin to stay put until he called her.

Aro directed his son to the panelled door at the end of the dungeons.

"I'm not going in there." Felix stated boldly, refusing to get too close to the entrance to Caius torture chamber.

"You don't have to go in, you just have to open it."

"How without the key?" Felix asked genuinely.

Aro rolled his eyes. "Smash it." He instructed, "obviously."

Felix shook his head. "That's definitely breaking and entering. Caius WILL kill me!"

Aro slammed his boy face first into the door. On hearing heard the outer wood splinter with the impact, he wondered for a moment if he could just use his super strong son as a battering ram? Felix was starting to panic, he hated the room behind that door, it was the stuff if his nightmares and had been since Aro had taken him to see Caius mid-torture of the rogues they had captured years before.

"You shouldn't worry about Caius - I will kill you if you don't open it." Aro ground out, bringing Felix from his thoughts.

"What's in there that you need so bad?" Felix asked breathlessly as Aro increased the pressure on his back, forcing the air from his lungs.

Aro roared ferociously and put a hand on the back of his boys head, pushing Felix' face into the wood.

"Felix, open the fucking door!" he growled. "I need blood."

Felix felt sick, when he realised the type of blood Aro wanted. He didn't want to say it out loud, and he wanted so badly to be wrong. But Aro wasn't careless, he wasn't cruel… at least not with his children… one thing made him that way, though.

"The bloodwine is in the brewery, not in Caius' playroom." Felix grunted out, bravely.

"If you don't open that door I will be drinking your fucking blood!"

Felix heard Corin squeak in fear from somewhere behind him. He wasn't sure whether she was watching or just listening in, but either way he was in an uncompromising position. He couldn't blurt out about the dungeon blood now - Aro would unleash hell on him if the guards found out he wasn't supposed to be taking it.

He whispered, as quietly as he could: "Are you on dungeon blood."

Aro breathed deeply, "Obviously fucking not, stood this side of the fucking door."

Felix' heart sank. "You don't want to do this dad!" He was flooded with the memories of his father's last dungeon blood bout. Though of course, Aro wasn't his father then, in word. Aro had battered the boy and Sulpicia before Basileus had taken charge and stopped his son's filthy habit.

Aro's emotions were sparking in every direction. He had convinced himself that he was only going to take dungeon blood for his family's benefit so he could be more relaxed at home with them. Felix begging him not to take it laughed in the face of his earlier reasoning. He didn't care though, he wanted it, he needed it, and Felix's bitching wasn't going to change that.

"I'm not asking you for moral guidance, boy. Open the fucking door or I'll do it myself - with your head!"

"You promised you wouldn't take dungeon blood again." Felix replied flatly, pushing back on Aro's hold to remind his father that he was stronger than him.

Aro stopped pushing, instead he put one arm around his boys neck in a choke hold and with his other hand, lifted his son's nightwear to expose his ass.

"I am going to give you one more chance to as you are told," he warned threateningly into Felix' ear. "If you don't, I will be having you submit to me in front of Corin."

"You wouldn't do that." Felix returned quietly, lip quivery and tears rolling down his cheeks.

Aro slammed his (thankfully, covered) crotch into his son. Felix gasped at the gesture whilst Aro cruelly laughed at his boys distress. "You have no idea what I am capable of."

Felix panicked, he was moments from Aro calling for his submission and he knew it. With his father's arm still wrapped around his throat he began pummelling the panelled door with his fists until all that remained were splinters and dust.

"Good boy." Aro said proudly. He could have done the job himself, he thought, but seeing the effort it took from Felix to crush Caius' double thick door told him he'd made the right decision bringing Felix down to the dungeons. He didn't for one second question what he had done to his boy in his efforts to get hold of his drug.

Aro turned to his son. "If you say a word to anyone about this…"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll insert the random threat myself." Felix spat in reply, cutting Aro off before he could embarrass either of them further.

Aro called Corin out of her cell to join him. She looked desperately to Felix as she passed him, hoping for his help. Felix couldn't meet her eye, he knew he couldn't save her from Aro's clutches and that only increased his current hatred for his father.

"Run along, son." Aro called, as he went to follow Corin into Caius' torture chamber.

Felix grabbed Aro's arm and held him in place for a moment. "If you lay one finger on Sulpicia, I will be going straight to Basileus and I couldn't give a fuck what you do to me." He said darkly. He might not risk his neck for Corin, but he would for his mother.

Aro smirked "Very gallant of you, son." He said, shaking off his boy and stepping over the wooden rubble.

"I hope you rot on it." Felix called, before flashing back to the safety of his home.

…

Caius hadn't been prepared for the sight that would greet him when he started work that morning.

"Oh. My. God!" he peered into his playroom.

It looked like a band of thugs had brawled in there - his equipment lay scattered around the room with Aro unconscious, splayed out on the floor. Corin sat on the circular wall around the unlit central fireplace, dressed in torn clothes and wearing a hollow expression. Caius stepped through his disassembled doorway and quietly seethed as he took in the scene.

Stalking over to his brother in arms, he gave the layabout a good boot in his side. Aro heaved and brought up the contents of his stomach from the blow. "What have you done to my fucking door?" Caius asked through gritted teeth.

Aro continued to bring up pile after pile of the nearly black tar-like substance he had consumed in great quantities through the night.

"Useless prick!" Caius growled, kicking him again.

Corin gasped at the violence between the masters, reminding Caius of her presence.

"Why are you here?" Caius asked. Aro wouldn't have chosen Corin if he had the choice of the guards - everyone knows about her relationship with Felix, surely Aro wouldn't go there? Caius thought. It was clear from the girl's sunken stature that Aro had done just that – and viciously so.

"Master Magnus put me in the cells last night…" Caius held up his hand to silence the young guard.

"Go back to the guard hall, tell Magnus I released you as I needed some privacy down here."

"Yes, Master." Corin agreed readily.

Caius blocked her path. "You will tell no one what has occurred here. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Master." Corin agreed again. She wanted to wipe the whole event from memory, truth be known.

Caius waited until Corin was clear of the dungeons and he was alone with his idiot co master before he tried to wake him up. "ARO!" he bellowed, inches from his ear. "You fucked up animal, wake up!" he growled, shaking him roughly.

Aro's eyes rolled around his head but he eventually focused on Caius. "What happened?" he asked, cupping his aching head.

"You happened, you drugged up prick!" Caius bellowed, hoping the noise level would hurt.

Aro paled. "Oh no, it's all coming back to me."

The images flashed though his mind, goading him cruelly. I rejected Sully, why would I do that? She was offering herself on a silver platter for god sake! Oh fuck! Felix. Felix knows! And I was a bastard to him. FUCK! I fucked Corin? No? Not her! She's with Felix… kind of… oh fuck Felix knows I fucked Corin! What the hell have I done?

"Feel like a prick?" Caius asked, enjoying Aro's obvious self-loathing.

"That's putting it mildly." Aro whined, still sitting on the floor and holding his head between his knees.

"I was being polite." Caius told him, carrying a bucket over to where Aro sat. "Drink this." He said, offering the bucket to Aro.

Aro peered into the bucket – that's not blood. He thought disappointedly. "What is it?"

Caius smiled. "It's water, genius! Drink it, throw it up, repeat until you have washed away whatever is left in your stomach."

Aro grimaced but he didn't have the energy to argue. He took the second bucket to contain his up-chuck with a sad smile. He did as he was instructed. It took the whole bucket of water, and nearly an hour for the vomited liquid to come back up clean. Aro felt exhausted by the time he had finished.

Caius hadn't spoken whilst Aro was purging his guts, but when he saw Aro was finished, Caius handed him a mop. "If you think I am cleaning this up on my own, you are clearly still drugged up, brother. I am assuming you don't want me bringing a guard down here to do it?"

Aro sighed. He felt like he could sleep for a week - the idea of scrubbing the dungeons wasn't high on his to do list. But Caius was right, he did not want a guard down there to see his self-destruction. It was bad enough that Corin had been party to it, though he felt fairly confident that she wouldn't speak of his depravity.

Aro continued to dry retch but he cleaned up his own vomit whilst Caius set his equipment straight. When they were finished, the pair of them took a seat on the fire's ringed wall. Aro felt the weight of the world on his shoulders - a far cry from the relaxed state that he had convinced himself would be coming his way when he started his drug binge the night before.

"Years ago I made a promise, and in the last three months I have broken that promise a hundred times over." He admitted, baring his soul and thinking of the destruction he had caused on dungeon blood before Eleazar had joined their coven.

He had put his mate through hell… their young ones too. Basileus had been close to killing him with the whipping he'd laid on his errant son and it was only Aro's firm promise of never, ever touching a drop again that had stopped him going too far.

Caius only knew Aro had taken dungeon blood once, when Atia had caught them with Heidi, so hearing Aro admit to 'a hundred times over' came as a surprise. He doesn't need a bollocking right now, he thought, looking to his coven mate, and I'm not the one to give it anyway.

"Promises are nasty little things, I try to steer clear of them." He breezed.

"But you never break them, Caius." Aro stated flatly. "It's not a question, I know you don't break them. You are one hundred percent as good as your word. I'm not." Aro sounded like he was sinking into a pit of despair.

"You're just on a come down, Aro." Caius tried to lift his friends spirits.

Aro shook his head. Only if reality is a come down, he thought. "I brought Felix down here to smash the door open… I was vile to him." He admitted.

Caius cringed, he could imagine how Aro had been with the boy based on his own experience of Aro's demeanour at his door the night before. "Felix is a tough kid, he will get over it." He offered, hoping Aro might take some comfort from his son's remarkable ability to bounce back from adversity.

Aro silently castigated himself until the very last effects of his over consumption of dungeon blood left his system… once he was back to his own level head, he began to reassure himself that he could put everything right again.

"You know this has to stop, Aro. Before you go too far." Caius interrupted Aro's thoughts.

"I agree." Aro replied, I will need to be more careful, failing to realise how hooked he was again on escaping reality. "We will keep the dungeon blood just for social occasions."

Caius whipped his head to the side to see if Aro was joking. He wasn't. "I was thinking more like you should just stop taking dungeon blood completely." Caius said forcefully.

Aro laughed and slapped a hand on Caius shoulder. "Let's not be hasty." He sang out easily, squashing all reason down deep into his psyche.

Caius narrowed his eyes. "I could always tell Basileus."

"You do that, brother, and he will tip all your supplies down the drain." Aro smirked, he knew that would change Caius' stance.

Caius enjoyed regular shot of his dirty creation and he used it, privately, to get through torturing his victims. He would never be able to do the frankly evil things he did to vampires in his torture chamber without a shot of dungeon blood in his system to make it okay. Caius was different to Aro, however, and he didn't abuse the drug like Aro did. It served a purpose for Caius and he could take it or leave it at other times.

"Do you think you can pull it back to just social occasions?" Caius eventually asked.

Aro's eyes lit up. "Yes, definitely."

"Fine, but if I think you are going too far I will be paying your old man a visit."

The smile fell from Aro's face, he knew what Basileus would have to say about him taking a drop, let alone 'going too far'. As his eyes dropped to his lap, Aro realised what a state he was in. - his clothes were torn, covered in dust and vomit.

Caius caught on to his brothers thinking. He left Aro where he sat, hoping he was stewing on the thought of facing the creator, and collected his own cape from the work bench. "Here, put this on. I will send a guard to your chambers to collect the laundry."

Aro sighed in relief. "Thank you brother."

Caius nodded, wondering if they would all be better off if Aro had to face his family in the state he was? He just couldn't risk losing his supplies of dungeon blood and having to face working without it. Especially now he was planning on cleaning up his act and behaving better generally.

"Make your peace with Felix, I can only imagine what an ass you were last night if my experience with you was anything to go by."

Aro muttered his agreement, but as he bounced out the door, he was already formulating plans to arrange a private party with Caius and dungeon blood for the next weekend.