A/n: Kei protects his innocent Sho from the man in the snakeskin pants.
DREAM OF FOREVER
soumanyon
Chapter 5
I was still a bundle of nerves as I leaned back against the sofa to hide my trembling. It was cold in just a towel and as soon as I'd settled down enough to walk, I headed over to grab my clothes that I had chosen and slipped them on right in the living room. Sho had disappeared, probably to the kitchen if his loud cursing and banging of pans indicated anything.
Finally comfortable in leather pants and a clingy tank top that I believe was dark red, I sank back down onto the couch. I was still trembling a little.
Aside from the cold…Sho had touched on a fresh, sensitive wound for me. I don't quite remember when my protective tendencies towards the cute little kid changed into something more. I guess it's the fatal kid-next-door syndrome. Your normal, natural, even boring friendship disguises the other feelings that sneak up behind you to hit below the belt.
It was a contradicting thing. It felt like my new eyes towards Sho had developed overnight, so to speak. Somehow a night's sleep must have had a super-speed cocoon effect on him and his adorable curious kid stare turned into a completely adult come-hither tease. But at the same time, it also felt like my feelings for him developed subtly, slowing inching into me and it was only my noticing that had been sudden.
Whenever the feelings had developed, they were there and now that they were, for all practical purposes, out in the open, I finally had to deal with them. There was no rug corner in the world big enough to sweep this mess under. All I could hope for was that Sho didn't notice…and even he can't be that dense. Despite his cloud-headedness most of the time, Sho was, to say the least, extremely capable in the subject of romance.
The feel of fire tickling at my fingertips finally brought me out of my musings. Damned cigarette had burned all the way to the filter in the time that I had spent introverted. Muttering a curse about cheap cigarettes under my breath, I stabbed it vengefully into the ash tray on the coffee table, also taking the time to grab the remote while I was bent over.
When I went to change the channel, I finally realized what I was watching and my eyes must have been completely round.
"What the hell?" I muttered, quickly changing the channel even as I felt the blush spreading up into my face. I prayed to God that Sho hadn't seen that…and that he didn't think I was watching that, that, whatever the hell it was.
I guess God doesn't much like vampires…
"Wait, wait, go back!" Sho protested, slurping up his mouthful of ramen as he set the Styrofoam cup down and headed over, I suppose, intent on grabbing the remote from me. Did I say Sho seemed more adult? Maybe that's only when he speaks with his eyes and not his mouth.
"You want to watch that?" I gaped in disbelief, all the awkwardness between us forgotten for now, as Sho obviously had. When had he made the ramen? Was I really out of it that long?
"Hell yeah!" Sho exclaimed, dropping onto the sofa next to me and lifting the remote from my grasp. He was still holding his chopsticks in his other hand as he hit the 'recall' button and went back to that channel. My gape increased as I realized that he knew exactly what channel to go to.
Rolling my eyes subtly, I picked the chopsticks out of his hands and slapped them on the coffee table so we wouldn't forget about them. I was trying my hardest not to look at the TV screen but when Sho began to hum along with whatever they were singing, I couldn't deny my curiosity any longer.
On the screen was an incredibly feminine man. The only thing that prevented me from making a crack about him was that I'd been mistaken as…slightly feminine and I guess I sympathized with him a little. His pants were the gaudiest things I've seen, even compared with the horrors contained in Sho's wardrobe. They were, to my trying-not-to-look eyes, some kind of snake skin.
Focusing on his outfit and the man himself helped take a little of my attention off of what he was actually doing on stage, other than singing. It was...indescribable.
I turned my attention back to Sho only to see that his eyes were following the man's movements across the stage with glee. Combined with Sho's childishness and my stubborn denial of whatever the hell I felt towards him, my protective streak kicked in a little.
I ripped the power cord out of the wall.
Instantly the room was plunged into darkness. Fuck. I guess the wiring in these older buildings suck. I just killed off all the electricity in our apartment and, judging from the sudden angry yells from nearby, the nearby apartments, too. Fuck.
My eyes adjusted quickly enough to tell that Sho was seething on the couch, pouting after his gay porn fix had been abruptly interupted. Better distract him before he gets on a tantrum.
Pulling back some curtains to glance outside, I judged by the moon that it was about time to take that job that Sho had mentioned earlier. Something about the toy car people. I'd call Toshi at the first pay phone to get the details.
"Rest up tonight," I told him, walking over to the door where I grabbed his white leather jacket.
He protested but I made him repeat himself after he swallowed his mouthful of ramen so that I could make out that he was asking me where I was going and with his jacket. Apparently his night vision is better than I thought.
I pulled the jacket on over my red shirt, it was a little big but I could deal with baggy. Unlike Sho, I do wear things that don't cling to my skin. Twirling a gun in my hand, I nodded to the bullet hole in his jacket and he understood.
"I'll come with you." He volunteered, even setting down his ramen but I turned him down,
"I'll go myself, rest up." I said, grabbing another gun and tucking it in the back of my belt just to reassure him. Not like I actually needed the damn things and hell of a lot of good they'd do for me if I got myself in a situation where I couldn't do anything else. But I guess they comforted Sho because he nodded, dropping back onto the sofa to sip at his ramen broth.
Time to get my own dinner.
"Don't wait up for me, I'll be gone until morning." I tossed over my shoulder, opening the door to the refreshing night air.
"I'll probably be gone by then?" Sho asked, a questioning tone in his voice that I didn't understand.
"Hm?" I arched an eyebrow curiously, inviting him to explain. Exasperatedly, he set down his empty ramen cup and met my eyes. "Yi-che's gallery, remember?"
Ah. Sho had mentioned it weeks ago, as nervously as a preteen talking about their secret crush. He always tiptoed around the Yiche issue with me, knowing that I was the object of her interests. The whole triangle confused the poor boy so much. He didn't want a girl to come between us but he couldn't kill his jealously of me for unwilling taking his desired spot in her eyes.
Yi-che's art was to be displayed at a local gallery and the opening was going to be a deal. Finally she'd start to get recognition and Sho and Son were pleased as hell about it. The whole thing didn't matter much to me, but I indulged Sho.
"I might come." I said, and we both understood this to mean that it depended on the weather. In reality, it didn't, as I'd checked the forecast for the next day and it was scheduled to be brilliant sunshine all day. But the offer satisfied Sho, in some inane way. He was happy that I could come as a kid is happy to get someone older to do their bidding but he was nervous that Yiche's attention would be focused on me. For all I cared, she could like who she wanted...as long as it wasn't Sho. And while her eyes were on me, they weren't on Sho.
I stepped outside, closing the door behind me softly. It was better than I'd planned. With this distraction, Sho would think that I took this job by myself to let him rest up for tomorrow and Yi-che's gallery reveal. He wouldn't suspect that my hunger was getting so bad that images of sugarblood fairies were dancing in my head. God, staring in the mirror after the shower, I forgot for a moment that the image was my reflection and not potential prey.
The blood lost from my wounds compounded my hunger from before and I was starving. I needed blood badly and once I had it, it wouldn't be pretty. Sho didn't need to see it.
I stopped at the second pay phone from the apartment to call up Toshi. He was psyched to go again and do things right this time. I only needed a few directions. Turned out that he was already there, staked out a block or two from the place so that by the time I got to the building, my victims would already be knocked out from his pizza.
It went according to plan this time. The entire gang was stupid, it seemed, and none of them remembered the idiotic pizza boy from their previous meeting. None of them became suspicious of the pizza and the gluttons had all eaten enough that they'd be out even without drugs in the food.
I gathered a nice chunk of cash, divvying it up between myself and Toshi then and there so he could get going. The rest of the much larger chunck I tucked into one of the handy zipper pockets on Sho's jacket. And then I cursed as I noticed a spot of blood on the zipper. But as it hadn't yet dried, it was relatively easy to dab off.
Staring down at my selected victim, I took off the jacket and set it behind me. Didn't want it to get dirty.
The person I'd chosen was pretty young, early twenties or so. I remembered him from our last encounter. I guess Sho had only scratched him with his bullets, must have missed all of his vital organs. He seemed good enough, and without any ceremony, I grabbed his collar and the hair on the top of his head to tilt his head back and expose his neck.
God damn pizza boy must have miscalculated again because as soon as my fangs pierced his neck, the boy flinched and started coming to. I ignored him, already too caught up in the taste of his blood to care. It was hot, straight from a living body and I didn't have to work at all. His heart was still beating healthily, unknowingly pumping his blood around his body and out the punctures in his neck.
Once the drugs cleared a little, I think he started struggling because I had to tighten my grip on him. I don't know if he yelled. All I could hear was the thumping of his heart as it beated louder and faster to circulate a decreasing amount of blood through a terrified boy. I guess he just didn't eat as much pizza as the others, because he got no help. Everyone else in his gang remained knocked out.
His struggling stopped as the decreasing supply of oxygen to his brain made him light-headed and he realized that his fate was inevitable. But as his perception began to fade over, mine sharpened and I could suddenly hear my own heartbeat over his, which was slowing down as less blood was available to keep feeding his heart. He was dying.
I dropped him and he rolled off my lap where I guess I had dragged him in order to keep him still. He was still breathing but shallowly and his eyes were closed. In that moment of peace, where all of the fight had disappeared from his face and his bangs were tousled over his pale face, he seemed to lose years and looked so young.
And then reality flooded back to me.
He was just a kid, a twenty something kid that was slowly dying on the ground of a dirty building littered with the comatose but otherwise living bodies of his gang. Why did I pick him? Why not any of the obviously more decorated criminals all around me. Why him, why, when he looked so innocent?
I barely had the presence of mind to grab Sho's jacket as I ran out of the building at vampire speed. I ducked into the landscaping next to the wall but even with my head between my knees, I forced myself to stop the gag reflex that I could feel building up in the pit of my stomach as my self-disgust welled. If I threw up, it'd make taking his life all the more worthless and cruel.
In the end, I recovered, but I couldn't make myself go back into the building. I slipped Sho's jacket around my shoulders, the warm night suddenly felt so much colder.
tbc...
I didn't want to end it yet but it was getting too long...XD It was so much fun writing prudish Kei as he gaped at, can you guess? Vanilla live. Which I had to rewatch just to write this chapter. Reference material, you know? Right, Kei?
Tixxana, Essenity, Lady-Willowish, Bea