(Ok this is how this is going to work. If you don't mind reading about sex and potentially slashy sex at that then this entire unedited chapter will be in the M section under Companion - the M rated sections. If you prefer to read without then this chapter is here and has all the plot point stuff just minus a page or so of sex. Please review and let me know what you think. I hope this will keep most readers happy. I don't like the idea of moving the entire 26 chapters across to the M section for the sake of a few sections. I hope the transition that is happening make sense. Please review even if it is to just let me know that you are reading. There is some humorous stuff coming up and Gibbs insists on meeting our favourite vampie. Thanks for your support Precious)

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"No!" Tim screamed panicked and afraid into the night.

Tim sat bolt upright in his bed and panted heavily into the darkness, his heart pounding in alarm and dripping with sweat. He wiped his hand across his brow as he sat naked on his bed surrounded in a tangle of white sheets. The bright moonlight made his familiar apartment bedroom dance with angular shadows as he forced himself to calm down.

It was only a dream. It was only a dream.

Tim repeated it to himself as he tried to slow the drumming of his heartbeat and an instant later he felt a soothing wash of cool air as his window opened soundlessly to the night air.

"Timothy?"

Tim sighed and bowed his head as Dante reached for him. The immortal sensed his Companions distress and didn't question further. Instead he stripped himself of his clothes and joined him in the bed pulling his companion into his strong cool arms.

Tim rested his head on Dante's chest and shuddered trying to free himself of the last vestiges of the horror which had overtaken him. It was soothing to surrender his overheated body to Dante's cool embrace and soft murmured endearments. It was his second night back since his stay in the hospital and the second night that he had had nightmares.

It wasn't the unprovoked attack of the four men that scared him most although that was how the dreams always started. It wasn't the surge of strength and purpose that had come with the swell of rage he had felt. It was the pain and the helplessness of his own body's healing which had terrorized him the most. He was completely out of control and he was doing it to himself. There was no one else to blame, no shadowy perpetrator forcing him to endue the unnatural harsh repairing of his bodily tissue. Just the screams of pain that he had to muffle and the panicked anguish that he had to endure.

This was Tim's fear. He was a man of science. He used his mind to understand problems and figure out a solution but he was suddenly playing a game where no one least of all him knew the rules. Where would it end? Had he set in motion something marvelous or something terrible in its creation?

Dante simply ran a hand up and down Timothy's back and listened to his heart beat slowly calm itself. Dante tried not to look at the yellowing ugly bruises and angry red scratches which still covered Tim's tender body. The fact that someone hurt his beloved angered him and that he hadn't been there this time to help him enraged him. Timothy didn't need his anger now so Dante studied the white ceiling as he slowly soothed the man in his arms.

"What's happening to me?" whispered up through the silence and Tim leaned up and looked at Dante with despairing eyes.

Dante burned to have the answers that would give Timothy the rest he so desperately needed but he had none.

"I am sorry Beloved but I do not know. All I can offer you is that I will be here to help you through this. To be changed slightly by being my Companion is one thing. It is inevitable that a mortal will change somewhat when linked to one so different to itself. As you have changed me in the time we have been together my Timothy. But what you have described to me…..what I felt in you when it happened is something I do not understand."

Tim sank down again knowing that Dante had no more answers for him than he had the previous evening.

"Tell me about your…hunting tonight"

Dante stilled beneath his companion. This was something they generally avoided discussing as no matter what the situation Timothy knew that people died at the end of it.

When Dante didn't respond Tim pleaded.

"Please……I don't want to think about …….everything else that's going on. Every time I close my eyes I start dreaming again. I'm exhausted and to be honest a bit scared. I know we have spoken of it but never in detail and I think I need to know. I do not know what is happening to me and I need to know everything I can…in case it does one day affect me. Please Dante."

Still Dante hesitated and he felt Timothy reach for him through their connection which seemed to glisten gold in the darkness between them.

Please Dante. It will not change what I think about you. I will not consider you a monster or a fiend. Dante I love you.

Dante smiled sadly and reached down and gently kissed the top of Tim's head.

"You know I can never refuse you anything Little One"

Tim smiled softly into the darkness at the endearment and stilled to allow Dante tell his story.

"As you know I am very old Timothy. The older I get the stronger I become. My need for blood also lessons. Once when I was young I was like that young vampire that came after you. I was blood thirsty, territorial and savage. I didn't care where I found my victims and I was careless and over confident in my strength. There are few vampires in the world compared to humans but many vampires do not survive their own foolishness and arrogance. I did and as I got stronger I was able to decide and plan who my victims would be, free of the overwhelming bloodlust that controlled me. At first I used my powers to pick off the stupid and the weak…"

Tim squirmed in his arms at this admission from him and Dante hesitated unsure whether he should go on. Tim took in a deep breath and wrapped Dante's arm around him tighter. Dante took this as a sign to continue.

"But then I found more challenge, more fun" Dante paused again before continuing "in pursuing those of a criminal bent. They would often be up to their own plans, attempting concealment, creating diversions and mischief. I found it amused me to take the lives of those who planned such destruction. To end the lives of those who planned to kill others. Eventually I figured out that it wasn't just the challenge of the hunt but the satisfaction that in some way I was saving someone else. Someone who knew nothing about the sharp blade that had been waiting for them at the end of the alley."

Here Dante paused and Tim felt himself waiting curiously.

"It was quite a surprise to feel something after so long. I found that I liked it. So I continued in this way for some time. Getting older and stronger and using my gifts to find those that meant harm to others. Eventually through I felt any feeling slipping away again and I continued this moral crusade out of habit and ease more than anything else. Time passed I do not know how long. It becomes more irrelevant as the centuries pass. Then I discovered that I was strong enough I could hear people calling to me. Crying out to me to end their lives. Begging me endlessly with desperate wails. I went first out of curiosity I think or it could have been boredom I do not know.

There was a man and when I appeared at the end of his bed he wept out of sheer joy. I did not understand it. He blessed me and called me his Dark Angel. He had prayed for me to come these many long nights."

"Dark Angel?" Tim smiled softly and Dante smoothed his sweat dried hair with a grin.

"Strange isn't it. All those long years a terror and a curse on mankind and he calls me his Angel. He was dying slowly and painfully and no one knew a cure. It was a form of cancer I believe his own body turning against him. His wife has passed on the year earlier and his young children had died of influenza before that. He was alone, in pain and he prayed every night to his God that he might die in the night and not be a burden to those that still cared for him."

Tim's voice was hesitant "So you killed him…didn't you?"

Dante looked up at the ceiling remembering the mans face and how hope had spread across his face when Dante in all his fierceness appeared before him.

"Yes Timothy I did. I was quick and it was painless for him. He whispered Thank you to me as he died. When I returned the next night there was no uproar about a murder no scandal or pursuit. His body was laid out ready for burial and his neighbors were grateful that his pain was finally over."

The silence stretched out between the mortal and the vampire for some minutes as Tim absorbed Dante's story. Then Dante stirred from his stillness and continued.

"From then on that was how I hunted. I had even less need of blood than I ever had before and I simply waited until I was called. Those in pain, those already dying in one form or the other. At first it gave me a sense of purpose and I felt reinvigorated to continue existing. Eventually this too faded and I found I continued from convenience. With a suicide note already written who would notice a few less liters of blood from a slashed wrist down the drain? I am careful and there are no fingerprints, DNA or any sign of me ever being there. I don't have to worry about disposing of a body or witnesses or being hunted. Essentially they are going to kill themselves one way or the other. It could be a rope or pills or a sharp blade. I just ensure that it is painless for them and some of them see my arrival as confirmation that there is more to life than what they know. They die in peace hoping for another chance on the other side."

"Dark Angel" Tim whispered again fascinated with this vision of the creature in whose arms he was wrapped.

Dante smiled "It also means less risk of discovery than simply snatching people off the street. Times and technology have changed and it becomes more difficult with people like you around investigating missing people and violent crimes. Not impossible but more difficult." Dante teased Timothy and ruffled his hair.

Tim found himself grinning and felt the weight in his heart ease slightly. Yes Dante still took life but faced with the same situation many people made the same decision everyday. They killed those they cared about to end their suffering.

Admittedly they didn't eat them afterward though.

Dante squeezed Timothy tight in his arms.

"Do you know what it is like for me to have you in my life? I had become so old I felt nothing and couldn't be touched by anything. I was slowly slipping away into unbecoming that was why I set out to search for a Companion. Entire centuries slipped through my fingers without me noticing. And now? Do you know what I did yesterday?"

Tim turned himself in Dante's arms to look down at him and couldn't help smiling at the Vampires enthusiasm.

"I brought a Watch"

Tim smiled but didn't really understand the significance and Dante laughed.

"Don't you see my beloved one? With you in my life I don't just count the centuries. I count the days. I count the hours. The minutes until I can be by your side. I find myself wondering when you will be finished with work. When will you have returned home from your movie? Even the weather interests me because it affects you. Are you cold? Did you get wet today? Everything has become precious to me. Everything has meaning for me because of you."

Dante placed his hands on either side of his face and drew him into a passionate kiss filled with longing and love. Tim eventually had to pull back panting grinning in spite of himself.

"Ok breathing may be optional for you but I'm still pretty fond of it" Tim panted.

Dante suddenly looked hesitant and Tim cocked his head.

"What is it?"

Dante icy blue eyes stared into Tim's gentle green ones. His voice was softer than Tim had heard it for a long time.

"Would you let me drink from you? I long to taste you but I know that you are scared that the changes you feel ….will become worse if you do. I am here holding you in my arms but it is another that I taste after my earlier ……hunting. I know you understand but it seems wrong to me, a betrayal. I long for it to be your blood that I taste on my tongue."

Tim stilled in Dante's arms and considered his question. Could he ask Dante to never drink from him again? Is that even what was causing the changes? Dante's magic? Or was it something deep inside himself? Did he want to never experience that deep connection again?

Tim thought about how he felt when he tried to stay away from Dante for a few weeks. How he tried to push him away even as his own heart broke. How he felt empty and distant from everyone around him as if he was sealed behind glass walls barely participating in his own life.

Tim turned to Dante lying completely still beneath him trying to give him the chance to answer honestly. Tim stroked Dante's perfect and impossibly beautiful cheek as the vampire looked longingly at him.

Tim bowed his own head regretfully and tried to hide his smirk. How could Dante possibly think he would deny him that?

Dante suddenly hissed and grabbed Tim's wrists and rolled on top of him. Tim felt the laughter bubbling up inside of him as he feebly wrestled with the immortal. Dante growled angrily and Tim might have been afraid if it wasn't for the hope that shone in the vampires eyes.

"Oh you think to trick me do you? Think you are the clever little mortal boy who has me twisted around his finger do you?"

Tim laughed and wriggled as Dante teased him pinning him to the bed. Dante grinned delighted. It was good to have his playful companion back again. For two days he had watched Timothy's beautiful worried eyes fill with anguish and remembered pain. It had been devastating to once again realize how helpless he was when it came to helping his Companion.

Dante's eyes flashed in the darkness and Tim's laughter died away as Dante buried his fangs into his neck.

With a moaning cry Tim felt himself buck beneath Dante as they joined together and Dante's magic flowed through his blood. Tim's eyes flew open at the intensity of it and he felt as if his blood has turned to molten quicksilver flowing not red but silver and gold. The floodgates opened and he was awash in images. His sisters first Christmas day, Abby's laugh, the rejection letters for his book, Erin Kendall lying dead on the floor, Gibbs in a hospital bed burned, his published book on a shelf in a book store, Tony patting him on the back for a job well done, Ziva's dark hair………….

It was too much! Dante swallowed and thirsted and drank desperately before wrenching himself away with a keening cry. He gathered Timothy up in his arms and shuddered as his blood burned its way through his limbs. Pleasure so intense it was almost pain gripped them and they trembled through the aftermath.

The mortal and the immortal stared at each other in the darkness and as their eyes met there was an almost audible snap and they felt the connection between them flare gold. What had felt tremulous and hesitant like spiders gossamer silk between them was now a steel cable made up of gold thread.

Dante reached for Tim through the connection and he could not just sense him but he could feel him. He could feel his heart beat and the rush of blood through his veins. He could feel the expansion and contraction of Timothy lungs as he sucked in great gasps of air. Timothy started at Dante his eyes made huge with wonder as he felt the vampire's strength and unchangability. His cells didn't die, didn't recreate, while his own body was a riot of chaos Dante's body felt calm and ordered.

Your blood has changed. It is somehow…MORE than it was?

Dante's voice full of uncertainty echoed in Tim's head and he nodded.

Do not be afraid Timothy. Please.

Tim could hear the almost begging tone in Dante's voice and he tried to smile to ease the vampire's fears.

Dante gently pushed Tim down onto the bed and Tim could feel his wonder as he explored his body with his hands feeling the sensation of the warm blood moving through his veins, the muscles contracting under his touch, the hitch in Tim's breathing as he found a sensitive spot.

I can feel you. And what you feel.

Tim smiled genuinely as he felt Dante's wonder and desire and love wash over him through the connection.

And I can feel you.

Dante smiled his eyes fully of mischief.

Slowly he slid down to the end of the bed and began placing kisses up both sides of Tim's bare legs. Tim felt his heart rate pick up and he began to breathe quicker as Dante got closer to….

Dante grinned as he felt his companion's excitement and nervousness through the new found depth of connection between them. This was something they had never tried before. They had been tender and intimate in other ways but vampires by nature were unchanging and unfeeling making physical sex rather one sided between them. They found a sort of physical connection and release when Dante shared of Tim's blood and that had seemed to be enough to keep them both satisfied.

Until now.

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Edited Section

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Abby sat bolt upright at the echo of a cry she heard in her mind. It was disconcerting as it was two voices crying out as one. She searched through it then smirked as she felt the familiarity in it.

She lay back down in bed and pulled the covers up laughing to herself.

Yeah right they didn't have sex. That one was enough to wake her up on the other side of town!

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(Please review and let me know what you think!)