Beta: EternalAngel

A/N: It has been a long time since I updated, but this spring has been very busy. I apologize to anyone who has been waiting.
Comments and critique much appreciated.

"Thank you, and goodbye Echizen-san. Please call us if you think of something or have any trouble at all. We will be happy to help in any way we can," Oishi said and bowed to Ryoma's mother, who stared at Oishi as if she couldn't believe his nerve to present her with such an offer, when it was likely they were the last people on earth she would call if she ever needed help.

When she'd slammed the door on his face and Oishi stood up from his bow, rubbing his nose even though it hadn't been hit, he thought to himself that he couldn't blame her for thinking the way she did. After all he and Inui had hardly proved themselves as qualified police officers, having lost track of a teenage boy twice now. And it didn't help Oishi's mood that if they didn't soon get some proof that the boy was in danger, they'd have to end their investigation.

All they had to back up their theory that two murders had occurred and that the murderer was now after the Echizen boy were Inui's speculations, and their superiors weren't as ready to trust Inui's theories as Oishi was. But Oishi didn't blame them. They hadn't been around to see almost every single one of Inui's predictions come true.

If Oishi hadn't known Inui, he might have been just as willing to believe that there was no case here, other than a severe case of a teenager acting up after a traumatizing event.

"I think we should go to the boy's school tomorrow," Inui said, and Oishi turned around to look at his partner. "I do not trust this Fuji-san whose appearance was far too accidental to be an accident."

"I thought he seemed pleasant," Oishi mumbled and glanced over his shoulder at the Echizen house, wondering what was going on inside. The mother had sent the boy up to his room almost immediately after they'd stepped inside, and the father had been babbling something about tennis.

"If you remember, Echizen-san is a senior," Inui said and started walking towards the gate.

"That doesn't mean anything!" Oishi shouted, and had to run after Inui, who with his longer legs moved faster than him. "You just didn't like his smile!"

"Ah, so you found it creepy as well," Inui said and grinned.

"No! I mean yes! No, the smile was creepy but that doesn't mean anything!" Oishi knew his voice had just turned whiny, but with Inui as a partner he just couldn't help it. "Just because Echizen-san is a senior, doesn't mean Fuji-san can't be his sempai that's graduated."

Inui closed the gate after Oishi had passed it and when he spoke, he was frowning, and even though Oishi couldn't see behind the thick glasses he knew there was an absent look in Inui's eyes, and the other man was lost in his thoughts. "I think we should still check with Echizen-san's teachers. We will go to Seigaku tomorrow morning."

Oishi smiled fondly when he heard the school's name. "Maybe we could visit Ryuzaki-sensei," he suggested.

Inui's face smoothed and his voice was soft when he said, "If you wish."

"It has been years, Inui, and we weren't in school anymore when …" Oishi turned away, struggling with a sudden tightness around his chest.

"I know," Inui said and grasped Oishi's shoulder in what he hoped to be a comforting grasp.

"Would you like me to call a taxi to take you home?" Inui asked.

"No, I think I'll walk," Oishi said. "There's nothing like a stroll in the dark and dangerous streets of the city in the middle of the night to cheer you up."

Inui frowned, not sure if he wanted to let Oishi venture on by himself in the state of mind he was. "I'll walk you," he finally decided.

"Thank you Inui, but you really don't have to-"

"It will do us both good. I have observed a seven percent decrease in your physical condition," Inui interrupted him.

"But I-"

"Since I wish to be home before the sun rises, I suggest we jog."

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Fuji stood a few houses away from the Echizen residence, waiting, and when a light turned on upstairs, he relaxed, and then chuckled softly at himself. Here he was, determined to protect a boy he had wanted to kill only yesterday.

He'd never intended to get so attached to the boy, but he couldn't help it. A part of it was that the boy reminded him so much of Yuuta when they were still both growing up. He had the same stubbornness and short temper. Yuuta had never liked it either when he'd wanted to hold hands.

Fuji sensed Atobe long before the man embraced him from behind, pulling him tightly against his chest and pressing his mouth against Fuji's ear. "What do you think you are doing?" Atobe asked with a voice that anyone would have mistaken as pleasant and light, even Fuji if he hadn't heard Atobe speak like that when he was angry. "He is not yours to play house with. I though I made that clear."

Fuji shuddered, turned his head so their cheeks were pressed together, and wondered was it really possible to miss fear this much. "I only wanted to make sure he got home safely, since you were busy reminiscing the past with Sanada." He couldn't mask the tremble in his voice, and knew Atobe had guessed the reason for it when he felt the crooked smile against his cheek.

Atobe's fingers tangled in his hair, and the growing fear made Fuji almost giddy. "It didn't go as well as you wished, then?" he asked, not able to stop himself from prodding Atobe a little more. "Your meeting with Sanada."

Atobe pulled on Fuji's hair, bending his head backwards and placed a dry kiss on Fuji's exposed neck. "I don't think I told you," Atobe spoke slowly, his nose rubbing against the skin under Fuji's jaw. "How the other of Tezuka's little fledglings died."

"Does it make a difference how they died?" Fuji asked, not sure where Atobe was going with this.

"Oh yes." Atobe laughed against his neck. "It does."

Fuji licked his lips anxiously and waited for Atobe to speak. But when the silence continued, the fear he felt wasn't as thrilling as it had been first, and he began to worry. Atobe had threatened him before, promised to make an end of Fuji and his games, but this was the first time Fuji thought he might mean it. "Atobe," he finally spoke the others name, panic forcing him to speak and fill the nearly choking silence with sound, even if it was only the sound of his own voice.

"I drank him dry." Atobe's teeth nipped at his throat. "Used him to sate my lust for blood, and it tasted sweet, sweeter than any I've had for some time. And I wonder now, how much of the sweetness I tasted was from you."

"Tezuka's blood flows between him and me," Fuji said. "And there hasn't been a sweeter taste in anyone's blood than there was in Tezuka's."

Atobe laughed and then his fingers were around Fuji's throat, his other hand still tangled in Fuji's hair. "When will you learn," he asked. "That it isn't always wise to push me?" What Fuji felt next was searing pain when Atobe sank his teeth to his flesh, tore open the vein in his neck and drank the blood that no creature had ever before taken from him against his will. Nothing he had not granted permission to had ever pierced his immortal skin, and never had Fuji felt this vulnerable and weak in anyone's arms.

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Ryoma closed the door to his room once Karupin was inside.

He walked over to his bed, turned, and sat on it with a thump, the strings of his mattress making him bounce up and down. Opposite him, leaning against the wall was his racquet bag.

Tennis really shouldn't have still meant so much to him, not after everything that had happened. Sakuno at least should have been more important to him than tennis. But she wasn't.

While everything in his life was changing, shifting from normal to surreal or just plain depressing, tennis was the one thing he could count on that would stay the same. And no one, not even Atobe could take tennis away from him, like he'd taken Sakuno.

Ryoma heard the front door downstairs close with a bang and cringed, not wanting to think about how mad his mom was. Her face had been strained, her expression furious, but she hadn't yelled. She'd spoken calmly and quietly, and ordered Ryoma to go up to his room. Only when she thanked the two people that had come with Ryoma did the boy hear the quiver in her voice, a slight tremble that told him she was trying not to pull her hand back and slap Ryoma. He thought the only thing stopping her were the two men that had come inside with Ryoma.

She'd sent him up with one finger pointing at the stairs, and feeling weak and drained, Ryoma hadn't argued.

Fuji hadn't come inside. When they reached the gate he'd untangled his fingers from Ryoma's, smiled and told him they'd see each other tomorrow. The words didn't make Ryoma feel nice, like they'd been meant to. He would've been much happier if Fuji had said he was leaving and taking Sanada with him.

He didn't like Sanada, Fuji, Kirihara, Yanagi, any of them. Atobe, he… didn't like him either. But he didn't want Atobe to leave, either, which was just twisted. He wanted Atobe to not talk to Sanada, or even Fuji. If Ryoma couldn't see Sakuno, Atobe had no right to disappear with Sanada. Especially when Fuji talked about them like they were past lovers, or something.

Karupin jumped on the bed and bucked his head against Ryoma's thigh.

"So, what am I?" he asked Karupin who just kept staring at him, wanting to be scratched behind his ears. "Gay? Or into necrophilia?" Karupin jumped on his lap and relenting, Ryoma started petting the cat. "Or just plain insane?"

Ryoma lifted his eyes to the door when it opened, and saw his dad standing in the doorway, frowning. "You really did it this time, kid," Nanjiroh said, stepped inside and closed the door. "That's two nights in a row you've gone missing. Where the hell were you?"

Nanjiroh didn't yell, he sounded like this was just another night among others, and Ryoma hadn't done anything really bad. It was a striking contrast to the frosty anger his mom had shown.

"Come on kid, you can tell me," Nanjiroh said, looking at the boy sitting on the bed, petting his cat. "Is it a girl? She get you into trouble? Because I can understand that, and we can talk about it with your mom and I'll explain it to her."

"It's not a girl," Ryoma mumbled and pushed Karupin off his lap, despite the cat's protesting mewls.

"Then what is it?" Nanjiroh's voice finally rose and there was a pleading tone in it. "You can't expect either of us to understand if you don't tell us what's wrong."

"There's nothing wrong," Ryoma muttered.

Nanjiroh snorted. "You can't expect us to believe that. People don't run away just because of nothing. You're in some kind of trouble, and you need to tell us what it is so we can get you out of it."

"I wasn't running away!" Ryoma yelled.

"That's what it looked like!" Nanjiroh yelled back. "And who the hell is this Fuji kid they mentioned? You've never told us about him."

"He's…" Ryoma shrugged, and tried to think of an explanation for Fuji. "He plays tennis," he finally said.

"Really?" Nanjiroh asked. "Where?"

"At a club," Ryoma muttered.

"What club?"

"At a…" Ryoma tried to remember the names of tennis clubs in the area, but none came to his mind fast enough.

"Is his name even Fuji?" Nanjiroh asked.

"Yes!" Ryoma yelled, but then frowned, looked at the floor and mumbled, "I think."

"You think?" Nanjiroh asked, his eyebrows skyrocketing. "How can you not be sure?"

"It's not like we're close, I only met him yesterday," Ryoma said.

Nanjiroh blinked and stared at his son for a long time, trying to process what he'd just heard. "Are you telling me he's why you stood up the Ryuzaki girl? Is there something you want to tell me kid?"

Ryoma stared, mouth hanging open, trying to figure out how the hell his dad had gotten so close to the truth with his guess.

"That's it, isn't it?" Nanjiroh said, sure he'd guessed right.

"No!" Ryoma yelled. "He had nothing to do with it, it was-" Ryoma cut himself off before he mentioned Atobe's name.

"It was what?" Nanjiroh yelled the question, but Ryoma remained stubbornly silent, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Tomorrow," Nanjiroh finally said. "Tomorrow's your last chance kid. Come home straight after tennis practice, and we'll talk."

"About what?"

"About what you're going to do," Nanjiroh said. "If you're going to finish high school here, or in the States."

"In the States?" Ryoma yelled and stood up.

"What ever trouble you're in, I doubt it could follow you across the ocean," Nanjiroh said with finality. "If you don't get your act together, we're moving."

"That's overreacting, even for mom! I've been out late for two days!" Ryoma screamed, and hardly noticed when Karupin scampered under the bed to get away from the noise.

"Why are you so shocked?" Nanjiroh asked. "We were going to move anyway after you graduated. The only reason we didn't move when you finished junior high was because of your silly little thing about airports."

"It's not a silly little thing," Ryoma growled at his dad, who just waved his arms.

"A guy grins and propositions you in an airport and two years later you still won't step inside one. What would you call it?" Nanjiroh rolled his eyes. "I bet that happens to every kid. I could tell you stories that are a lot-"

"I don't want to know!" Ryoma screamed.

"I remember this one time, I was like twelve, and-"

"Shut up old man!" Ryoma raised his hands to cover his ears. He'd seen enough horrors to last a lifetime, he didn't need any more material for his nightmares. "I don't want to hear your perverted tales!"

"Perverted?! You call the tales of my glorious youth perverted!" Nanjiroh raised his face up, as if pleading the heavens to explain why his son could not understand the wisdom he could share by relating the stories of his youth. "If you had only listened to me before, then maybe your mother wouldn't be surfing the net, looking for schools in the States."

"She's looking at schools already?" Ryoma asked. "It's not that private school in New York she's always raving about, is it?"

"Oh no, no New York for you, kid!" Nanjiroh shouted, tearing his gaze from the ceiling. "She mentioned a farm. A farm, brat. With pigs. And chickens."

"What?!"

"I don't want to live on a farm," Nanjiroh's voice had lowered dangerously, and his face was stern and serious, like the time Ryoma had come near beating him in tennis. "There aren't any cute girls in school uniforms on farms! So you better come straight home from practice, or else..."

"Or else what?" Ryoma sneered, not threatened at all.

Nanjiroh leaned closer, lowered his voice even more, and whispered, "Or I'm telling your mother about the underwear."

Ryoma gasped, shocked. This was the first time his dad had threatened him with something so humiliating. Well, actually it was the first time his dad knew anything really humiliating about him, and he really should have expected this from his dad. It was still shocking to find out how far his dad would go so he could see high school girls in school uniforms.

"Actually, just so there are no chances of you ruining everything, I should come pick you up from practice tomorrow," Nanjiroh said, and tapped his forefinger against his jaw.

"No, way," Ryoma said, grinding his teeth together.

Nanjiroh grinned. "I think I should come a little early, in fact. The girls' team practices right next to you, right?" He turned, and opened the door. "Yeah, that's what I'll do."

"You're not coming to practice!" Ryoma screamed when Nanjiroh was already in the corridor.

"We'll see!" Nanjiroh answered with a cheerful shout.

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"You can get up now," Fuji heard Atobe say when he came to, face pressed against the cold ground. "I didn't mean to take that much."

"Liar," Fuji murmured, still lying on the asphalt.

"You're right, sorry," Atobe's voice was closer, and then he was beside Fuji, brushing his hair. "I didn't mean to take any."

Fuji opened his eyes to look at the man, and was surprised to see that Atobe looked truly penitent. "Then why did you?" he asked, partly because he was curious, and partly because he was pissed off. Atobe had no right to bleed him so dry that his vision went blank, and the next thing he was conscious of was the cold ground beneath him and the comfort of the strong arms, holding him tightly gone. He would have liked it better, to wake in Atobe's arms. A more sincere apology would have been nice.

"I could go get you a cookie," Atobe suggested, amused. No doubt he'd been eavesdropping on Fuji's thoughts, and that annoyed Fuji even more.

"Why a cookie?" he asked, despite his annoyance.

"I hear that's what they give to people who participate in blood drives." Atobe chuckled after his words.

"You didn't answer," Fuji reminded, instead of replying to Atobe's ridiculous suggestion.

"Sanada made me edgy," Atobe answered, shrugging. "And then you made me angry. What did you think would happen after I saw the two of you hold hands?"

"I didn't know you were watching," Fuji said, and then realized it probably wouldn't have made a difference even if he had known. "What did Sanada tell you?"

"The same thing he always speaks of," Atobe answered. "His delusions. But the dead do not return, and you can't breathe life into a pile of ash."

Fuji had his own opinions about that, especially after the way he'd seen Yanagi act. After all, one pile of ash looked very much like any other pile of ash.

"Are you going to lie there until the sun gets up?" Atobe asked him.

"For some strange reason I feel very weak. Almost like someone had drained me," Fuji replied and when Atobe laughed, there was true amusement in the sound.

"I could just leave you here," Atobe smirked, but despite his words picked Fuji into his arms and stood up. "I have no interest in finding out where you've decided to nest, so I'm taking you with me to my hotel," he said.

"Will you tuck me in and read me a bedtime story?" Fuji asked, fisting his hand on Atobe's coat.

"If you don't behave, I'll give you a goodnight kiss." The way Atobe said it, told Fuji clearly that it wasn't a peck on the forehead Atobe meant.

"I'll be good," Fuji promised with a grin, closed his eyes and rested his head on Atobe's shoulder.