I'm sorry it took so long to post this chapter, I had it done for a while but I wanted to get a bit further ahead in the story before I put it up. The next chapter will not take this long, I hope. Thanks for all the reviews! That's why writers post their work. :3 This chapter is rated M or NC 17. By reading it you assert that you are old enough and mature enough to read it. - oh, and apparently this site has been erasing my markers, which I had used to designate the shift in narration. Now that I am aware of this I shall see to it this does not happen again, and when I get the time I'll fix the older chapters. Thanks for putting up with it. XD

A man, around the age of sixty, woke to banging on his front door at three in the morning. Grumbling about the time of night, he tied a red and yellow plaid bathrobe around his aged body and stepped slowly down the stairs. He waited until his left foot joined his right on each platform before taking the next, holding onto the railing for fear of falling and breaking his hip. That had happened to his cousin Constance in Tuscany - nearly killed the woman.

The banging got louder, and someone young started you yell. "Edmond! S…Yous sbastard! Open the door!"

William Finnagin, for that was the man's name, had never tolerated bullying in his life, and no way - no how - was some kid going yell drunken insults at his door, in his neighborhood, at this time of night. He tore the wood panels back; hands now holding the shotgun he kept in the umbrella stand.

The young man (no older than twenty-three) swayed on the cement steps. His white collared shirt, half tucked in, and black dress pants almost looked respectable, but his hair went eight different directions and dark rings circled both eyes. He took a swig from a brown bag in his hand, which nearly made him fall over, and looked back up with a daft expression. One of his cuff links fell into a dirt flowerbed and he wobbled after it, seeming not to have registered that the door had opened. William had plenty of time to get a sense, literally a smell, of what the boy had been doing all night, and Vodka was one of his least favorite odors.

Cheeks flushed and nose rosy, the boy leaned in to get a better look, lifting the bag and giving it an accusing glare, "Edmond?"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Where'sz Sedmond?"

William growled and pointed his weapon forward. "There's no Edmond here."

Staggering back, turning the wrong way twice before finding the house numbers, the younger man gave them the same look he had the bag. Then he wound his way back up to the door. "Sorry sir…s'liar goes by And…Adnet Jacques."

"Hell," His voice was anything but friendly. "You've got the completely wrong side of the street you drunken idiot!"

"Sthank you thir." He made a clumsy salute and somehow, pathetically, found his way to the right house.

Edmond hid behind the shutters of his upstairs bedroom, squeezing his sinuses in utter humiliation. The same banging and yelling, which had disrupted the whole neighborhood only moments before, began again on his door.

"Edmonds scount!"

He'd pretend not to be home. There weren't any lights on, maybe he could get away with it?

"SNADNET! FUCKER!"

Glass shattered, and something (he presumed the bottle) hit the side of his house. Then, thankfully, there was silence. It unnerved him, and he ventured to arch his back and peer up over his shoulder from where he had been couched below the window. He couldn't see anything. Eventually, in silence, he made his way to the door, crouching beneath windows and peered out the peephole.

Nothing.

With some measure of caution he turned the lock and pulled the handle back. Albert lay unconscious, spread out in a ridiculous way, one foot up on the cobble stone steps.

Mr. Finnagin still stood across the street, holding his shotgun at the ready. "Everything okay over there, Jacques?"

There were several other people who had poked their head out at the noise, his landlady among them.

"Fine." He coughed, "just fine. Sorry about this."

"What's wrong with him?" Finnigin's wife called over his shoulder.

"Think quickly" Gankutsuou laughed in his ear. "I've got nothing."

"He's just….a friend of mine. He's been having a few problems…I didn't know he drank. Sorry."

"Yeah, well, he can't go around banging on doors at all hours of the night and waking up decent folk." William shook the black barrel in his hands for good measure, "problems or not."

"Yes of course." Edmond winced, "I most certainly agree. Thank you so much, I'll drag him in now so we can all get back to sleep. Trust me, I'll take care of this. It won't happen again."

The smell of crisp cotton and clean sheets, coupling with the warm spring sun and pollen-filled flower buds created a remarkable environment to wake to. Down comforters and pillows on a barely used mattress, cozy and soft, welcomed Albert in a strange but safe feeling room. He grudgingly pushed back the burnt umber cloth as the hush of the nearby ocean called him lazily from sleep.

It was a tidy room, handsome, worn, and every bit as charming as one would expect in a humble seaside village. The oak wardrobe, bordered in black metal, beside a matching desk and chair, reminded him of the furniture in the antique shops in Paris. However, the elegantly carved wood and weaving Anglo-Saxon knots had certainly not embellished his hotel room yesterday, and he wondered at them.

He had, of course, no idea about his location. The last thing Albert remembered from the night before was meeting that book-keeper, the one who worked in the mayor's office. They had spent an hour or so complaining about love affairs. After commiserating, and several shots, everything had gone black. Hoping he would not find himself in that man's bedroom he looked down, and (relieved) found all of his clothing on his body except for his missing shoes.

Let it never be said Albert could not hold his drink. Even after a roaring night of swimming senses, he felt no hangover and no dehydration - although he desperately wanted a toothbrush.

In the hallway he found a bathroom, towel, and unopened toiletries laid out on the counter, which he immediately made us of, and assumed he had stayed a night in the inn where he had drank with the book-keeper, or found his way to a small bed and breakfast. After showering and grooming he set down the stairs and wandered into the smells of breakfast cooking and the sweet sounds of a young woman singing an aria.

Edmond looked up from his seat at the round kitchen table, a book and apple in his hands, the high and swelling melodies issuing from an old-timey record player behind him. The sizzling food and fresh buttermilk biscuits, which had commanded Albert's attention only a moment before, suddenly vanished from his focus, and he desperately wished he'd spent a little more time freshening up.

A self conscious hand smoothed his hair and he straightened his posture ever so slightly, mouth hanging a little ways open.

Edmond couldn't help himself; upon seeing the flustered boy loose his breath, he smiled. "Are you hungry?" It was an awkward way to say good morning to someone you attempted to leave behind only twenty-four hours ago, but it was better than a rude nothing. He reached over his shoulder and turned down the music.

Albert felt dizzy, suddenly ill. He twisted his wrinkled cuff and didn't take the offered seat. "How, how did I get here?"

"Honestly," Edmond laughed, his lips spreading into a half smile, bearing only one tasteful fang, "I have no idea." He looked so perfect, so inviting with his fascinating lips and imposing frame, long legs crossed and ashen hair pulled back. It was too much of a surprise.

The town house's main floor had multiple levels; one step led down into the kitchen from the hallway where he stood. Albert sank onto it, blind to the flowering window seal and the blue sky beyond it, to the mosaic of stars and moons on the flooring of the room, and to the strange potted flowers sitting just outside of the opened backdoor. It was at Edmond he looked, worried, and too cautious to do anything else.

And yet, the latter remained that passive, calm, seemingly reposed man, so obviously unaffected by their past.

"To be perfectly honest," his rich voice was provocative, easy, relaxed and deep. "You visited me during the night, and woke up the whole neighborhood."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm afraid I'm not… Do you make a habit of drinking?"

"Only when someone breaks my heart." He glared up willfully.

Edmond tilted his head, biting into his apple, watching the boy. He swallowed, taking a painfully long time to answer. "What else did you expect?"

Bewildered hurt quickly joined anger. What did he expect him to do? Was Albert meant to roll over and take it, like this was normal, to be expected? All the things Edmond had done since they'd met, all the things he'd been feeling, he just should have accepted? No way, not this time, not again. "Where the fuck do you get off?" He was done begging.

"You show up in Paris, let me fall in love with you, pine after you, make a fool of myself, only to tear apart everything and everyone that I cared about just to leave me broken and alone! You killed my best friend, and then, instead of killing me, you let me love you all over again! In your dying breath you told me to remember you, to remember your name!"

He was slowly standing now, stalking forwards. "What did you say, when I asked if everything was a lie? 'Edmond Dantes" was a dead man? Then, when you died, you took it all back! Only apparently you didn't really, you were just somewhere out there in the world playing with my head all over again!"

Edmond was too intimidating, he couldn't make it all the way across the room, and stopped halfway to the table, shaking in balled up rage.

"Now here you are, seven years later, after I finally stop thinking about you every single lonely night, and you don't even look me in the eye and acknowledge me? Back in Paris, I never tried to dismiss your pain, not when I found out about it! I never tried to justify what those people did to you! You'd have hated me if I'd even tried to defend my father's actions, and I'd never dream of it, so how can you just pretend that everything you did to me never happened?"

Edmond's face stayed neutral, betraying nothing of his churning thoughts. He leaned onto the table; its dark cherry coloring and deep rivulets reminded him of cracking stone. When he finally spoke, his voice was even, "Is that what you want? Revenge? You're entitled to it, you know, for whatever that's worth."

"No." he wanted to collapse again, but managed to stand firm. "Of course not. I'd never repeat that cycle."

"Hm, you might - given the right circumstances. Then what do you want, Albert? Contrition? Apologies?" He put the apple onto a napkin; the cool green of its skin complimented the breaking red, like a painting in oils.

"No! No, that's not it! But, god, don't you think I deserve one? I mean, fuck, I…how can you fucking pretend you don't know me? How can you expect me to go on like nothing happened?"

"Then answer the question." Edmond rose, his calm presence easily overpowering even the enormous emotions within the boy. "What do you want? What was the point of following me to le Val?"

"I" his eyes burned, "I was in love with you!"

The quiet aria silenced with a snap as the taller man's long and pointed claws tripped the machine's power switch to off. He crossed to the window and shut it tightly, doing the same to back door, rounding with a stern and sincere expression. "Seven years have passed, and I am old enough to be your father."

"But I still…" Albert's shoulders tensed, bracing for the rejection he completely expected. "…want to love you."

It took a long time for those intoxicating lips to answer. "You want to be in love with the count, Albert, because he made you feel worthless…he and I are not the same person."

It took a few panicking seconds to counter. "but, I spent all this time in Marseille trying to figure out who the real Edmond Dantes was!"

"Perhaps you did, perhaps now you know him, but that man is not who I am either."

Out of the corner of his eyes Albert watched to set of black trousers cross the space between them and stop merely a reach away. "Are you saying," His voice shook, but he steadied it, older and wiser than he had been that fateful summer, "you don't love me?"

- 0 - 0 - 0 -

My heart hurts, literally, like someone's strangling it in my chest. It's like there's a strange deadened lump where it ought to be. The feeling spreads into my throat, and I want to cough, but can't.

He's standing close to me now, I can hear him breathing a little bit faster than he was before, I think.

God, he's taking his time about this, but I can't look up.

He's hesitating, and probably going to throw me out.

What am I thinking? What am I doing here? Edmond's been trying to tell me to leave him alone, and I get drunk and stalk him? What's wrong with me? Why can't I walk away?

'I still want to love you.' God, it must have sounded like I'm a pathetic desperate kid.

- 0 - 0 - 0 -

Edmond felt every single nerve in his body straining. He wanted to take him, claim him, throw him onto his bed and show him the true weight of his actions seven years ago; what man he had released in his garden below the chateau.

The things he could do to this boy; make him mewl in desperate want, cry out in heated passion, and break him. His keen senses allowed him to smell the physical reactions behind that thin layer of skin, the way his noradrenergic system responded to his anxiety, pumping his heart faster; how his quick shallow breaths pumped sweet smelling blood to his amygdale, all the electrical reactions rendering him fearful and helpless.

The weakness in his heart, together with the weakness of his vampire hunger did not silence the reaction his own body had to such awareness, and though his sense of morality told him not to, knowing he would regret it, Edmond reached out one hesitant finger. It slid along Albert's jaw, taking time to feel every soft and flawless centimeter. His nail brushed the shuddering skin, and made the passionate youth afraid to move.

It slid over that famed spot on the neck, the one that made him salivate, "Albert…" his voice sounded sad, almost, "I died for you, didn't I? How can you question what I felt?" It took all his will, but he pulled back so they were no longer touching, "Unfortunately, life is not so easy." He smiled, and closed his eyes momentarily (his favorite action for covering how he felt.)

"Why not? If you loved me once, maybe you could again?" Albert knew the suggestion sounded frantic, but didn't care. He was in the presence of the one person he'd wanted more than anything else for almost a decade, the oxygen to his drowning worth.

"…I didn't say…" Edmond almost bit the words back, doing his best to ignore the monstrous proclivities of his kind, "that I had ever stopped." The admission had been small, but potent.

"Then why are you doing this? Why have you behaved this way?"

Explaining one's demons is never an easy task, particularly when that demon is a very real entity thumping away at your conscious mind.

The boy searched him, waiting, desperate for an answer. It did not come.

- 0 - 0 - 0 -

I will not let it end this way. Deceit killed everything, the Count's lies, and my father's.

At least, I'll try. I made a promise to myself – to Franz! I will never be afraid again. I won't let fear stop me now.

- 0 - 0 - 0 -

It was a startling kiss, no matter how soft and shy. Albert had stood with such determination, grabbed him fiercely, but then shirked. His lips gave only the touches he had learned, tender and innocent. They were soft, and addicting.

Edmond's response was less mundane. He'd held back too many times now, and lust of more than one kind tore at his resolve.

That was not the only thing that tore. Albert's shirt, twisted mercilessly by clawed fingers, soon shredded as he was pulled harshly forward and into groping, possessive bites.

Hands wandered about his body, down his thighs, pressing them together as a mouth moved injuriously against his own.

An appropriate amount of fear, it was a sudden change after all, made Albert swoon and quake. He whimpered and tried to draw back, to catch his breath and thoughts, but a clawed hand at his neck -straying up into his hair- and another at his waste held him in place.

His hands came between them out of instinct, trying to win just a little distance, and he trembled.

A deep, seductive, and intoxicating chuckle passed by his ear. The sensation of breath over sensitive skin made Albert want to moan, and the tongue he had been so fascinated with ran over a marvelous spot on his neck.

"Edmond?"

He seemed to come back to himself, a little, and his reply was a much needed, softer, and aching kiss.

The moan from Edmond's mouth was of melting wax, or butter, as he held back a fair amount of aggression. He reached for Albert, ground on him, keeping the pressure kind rather than injurious out of shier determination.

It was not unpleasant, but difficult to match, and Albert sensed that responding at all in kind would undue what small amount of control that remained. Something wasn't right, something he could not identify. The count's eyes were clouded, distant, and far away. They were starving, furious, dangerous, but his hands and kisses, while bruising, were tentative, pleasuring, and clever. They did marvelous things to his back and ass, cupping his balls between rigorous grinding thrusts.

There was no cautious care, no exploration, no waiting to see how his touches would be received, and utterly nothing at all gentlemanly. However, the sensations and the sudden flood of self worth, validation, and relief quite dissolved any insight Albert might have drawn about that.

His shirt was gone. Edmond pulled back, looking down at pale skin on a slender body, soft, warm, and alive. He could feel Albert's arousal gaining foot over his fear, his heart rate slowed from agitation to an erotic pace, steady and quickened. His mind literally perceived the body's responses beneath him, how the scrotum tensed and blood rushed through other areas, which would soon grow hard.

"Do you want this?" Albert asked, trying to push Edmond back enough to look into him.

The dark hair, framing a beautiful angular face, off set by eyes of light amber…his goatee, his long lean figure and ample frame…Albert had always wanted to touch and kiss this man.

Fangs grazed over now his bare shoulder, and he moaned. The sound encouraged Edmond, and he slowly started pushing him back, towards the stairs, towards his bed – the only affirmation he offered.

Despite the veracious want quivering in his mind and soul, Edmond's will was strong. He would not pulverize Albert. No, he would somehow remain civilized, and control himself enough to be accommodating.

Their mouths found one another once more. Edmond licked the edge of Albert's bottom lip and bit down softly. The boy almost lost his footing, but he was small and light, easy to pluck him from the ground. Eyes glazed over, the reactions in glands and testosterone causing a flutter from within. It gave his features a lovely sort of fuzzy expression.

Edmond wanted to touch him, to feel him, to run his fingers over every part Albert. He wanted to slide his nails over his skin, watch him tremble and squirm in a sensation of a millions flickering nerves.

They made it up the oak staircase without scratching the paint, Edmond held him off the ground and up against the wall at the top so he could once again ravage the brunette youth.

When Edmond kissed his neck, almost biting, breathing deeply, Albert looked blankly around. He saw the hall closet, the decorative paintings, the banister, yet registered none of it. A hand on his groin made the surroundings fade completely from sight. He closed his eyes tight and gasped at the feel of a large and long fingered hand outlining his groin through his tightening pants.

But he didn't want to be out done. He pulled up on the bigger man's cream shirt, insistently, but with considerably more gentility than his own had received. Edmond complied, helping Albert remove it. His arms stretched, reaching above his head. His chest flexed and skin stretched easily over his abdomen and ribs.

Before the former count could pin him again he flipped about, having been released during the removal of the shirt, and pushed him backwards, biting down and sucking on his nipple, rubbing the other, and finding the impressive length behind Edmond's own trousers with his boyish hips.

The vampire's skull thumped back against the wall in a mess of long wavy hair, and his hands wound round and clawed at Albert's back, leaving little red streaks, probably bruises later, but not actually breaking the skin.

For a while they both doubted they would make it to the actual bed, but Edmond soon lost his patience, grabbing him, literally lifting him again, and (finding the plush and fluffy comforter) immediately tossed him down.

He stripped Albert of his pants, treating them almost as roughly as the shirt, and discarded his own before the youth could think what do in response. Neither of them had much sex these days, and so both were ill prepared. Due to the lack of lube the agile boy suddenly found himself moaning, squirming, and howling, face down, to the administrations of a quick tongue over his entrance. One hand steadied him Albert at his thigh, the other pumped his dick intuitively. Quick, then slower. Tighter, only to tease him by again changing pace.

When he was wet enough he found himself flipped, almost rudely, back around to look up at a sight he couldn't really believe. Only moments ago they had been arguing in the kitchen, right? Yesterday Edmond wouldn't even admit to knowing him, yet here they were, gloriously naked, and gorgeous.

Edmond's was definitely the more muscular of the two, his body hardened from a hard life, from manual labor, and probably (undisclosed to the boy) a little help from Gankutsuo. Albert had the body of a young man, lithe, slender, defined like a swimmer, and smooth.

However, he had only a moment to examine him, for the former count soon leaned forward and wrapped his mouth around a nicely sized and well shaped head. His hand coiled around the small of his back, lifting him slightly, and sucking him deeply.

The boy threw his head back and gripped he sheets, whimpering. Despite the presence of two very sharp fangs, he was not nicked nor damaged. Edmond held his body firmly in place to keep his squirming minimal, and flipped his tongue in circles, playing with Albert's balls as he did so – tugging gently. They were hairy, but in a fine and managed layer. Edmond made sure to run his teeth along the base of Albert's penis, disturbing the hairs, grinning at the reaction - that of a startled cry.

Honestly, he'd never done this with a man before, but a timid lack of confidence was not his style. He'd had more than enough women to know what felt good, and fucked more than enough of them to get the logistics of what was coming next.

Albert cried out, gripping at Edmond's hair to pull him down harder and faster onto his cock.

Luckily the former count was able to relax his throat, a natural at anything he set his mind to, but the smell of blood pumping nearly made him bite down, and instead he pulled back, quickly, panting.

There was a small sound of disappointment, but it was muffled when the count shifted underneath him, raising his hips again, moving a hand to guide his penis to Albert's puckered entrance.

It took a few attempts, a little patience, and slow pushes, but when he finally filled him, neither could do much more than gasp, mouths held open in surprised little oh's. They made eye contact, in that moment of complete connection, and Albert stroked the tan angular cheek, pulling Edmond down into a kiss, which pushed the bigger man's penis further into him.

He gasped as it put pressure on his prostate. It was a sensation similar to, but different from the explosive edge in his dick. It sent tremors into him, rather than the ones that wanted to jump out. His eyes closed tight for a moment and he didn't move, holding his whimpering breath.

"God Edmond." He managed. "I didn't think it would feel this good." He arched his head back and moaned, initiating the thrusts by gently rolling his hips.