Chapter Title: Learning More: David's arc
Rating: PG-15/R (chapter/story)
Chapter: 12.3/?
Warnings: mentions of rape/abuse/sex, language, embarrassing conversation subject matter for David
Disclaimer: Gackt owns Moon Child. (Doesn't that mean he owns Kei too?)
Pairings: Lindsay/David
Jaded's fore-words: So since I'm getting this out quick and not waiting for Soubi to comment I'll be expecting two comments from her. And I'd like to thank my wifey Cynda for reading and dropping some reviews. :D Satchi, I love your comments. Really I do. And I love your dislike of Lindsay. It makes me smile a lot.
This is the last in a David arc but not the last of David's past. There's more. Because there is. And then we get to focus on Sho and Kei getting unfy with each other.
Lindsay only grunted and nudged not-yet-David toward the door in front of them.
"Later I found out about what had happened after we left. The house leader was tortured, his skin carved up and peeled away in some places, some fingers cut off and et cetera. Then gang members had flocked into the house as Akio, Jewel, and Shizuka made their escape out the kitchen via the backdoor of a bar across the alley. The house was set ablaze from the outside in, gasoline having been poured all over the walls and dumped on the roof. Any exits were blown up with small explosives so the people inside were trapped and left to burn.
"When the police showed up with the firefighters it was a mad scramble to catch all witnesses, almost all being wanted gang members who were trying to get away, as the fire department rushed to put out the house. Gabe told me it burned for thirty minutes before being extinguished entirely. Everyone inside died and all the bodies were found, charred and unrecognizable. The man on the table was found though, burned how he'd been laying with his muscles and ribs and- …showing and everything cut up and the message definitely got to the gangs. After a first couple tries that were dead-end disasters for them, they stopped trying to get revenge on the people who'd killed a large group of their men and brought down their brothels. They stopped trying to recapture us whenever we went out."
David snubbed out his last cigarette, staring at it dazedly with reddened eyes. He rubbed under his nose with a sniff, staring at the table and refusing to look at either Sho or Kei. The sky outside the kitchen window had transformed into the glowing dark blue just after the sun sets.
"Most of us stayed at the base for almost a month, groups banding together and all of learning and relearning the world. How it works, how to interact with people, how to be our own people. I stayed with Gabe and Max, sharing a room with them and living at the base for the full month with them and Shizuka and Raei and Akio and Jewel and Lindsay and a couple others that kept to themselves. Some kids were out as quick as they came in, running off to find their families and old lives or just wanting freedom. Others stuck around for a couple weeks and talked it over in groups before leaving with their friends or in small packs. All of them just trickling out.
"We stayed the longest out of them all. Not leaving until Shizuka and Raei left, Jewel following them and Akio chasing after the three of them. Gabe muttered something about some fucked up love rectangle going on when they were gone.
"Lindsay stayed behind with us though. I think he probably felt responsible for us, me especially since I kept having breakdowns after that day we were all rescued. And I'm not talking about breakdowns from living in the brothel and having a horribly shitty life, like everyone else seemed to have. I mean, I had plenty breakdowns because of that but they were easier to cope with somehow, easier to work through and get over. But whenever Lindsay was around me I would just kinda collapse and for a long time I didn't know why. He actually tried his hardest to avoid me, feeling bad for being the reason I kept breaking down.
"It was the killing that day though. It was killing that got me. It was seeing someone inflict torture on someone else and not stopping it like I would have tried to do for any of the kids in the brothel. It was me killing. I realized it when I had a flashback of when I shot the man in the eye after Akio told me to."
David stopped speaking abruptly, drumming his fingers on the table in a tense, antsy way. Sho leaned closer, bumping against the table. Kei mulled over what David had said about killing and compared it to the one-sided conversation they'd had weeks ago, when David had mentioned that Kei loved Sho (which the vampire still didn't believe).
"How did you end up with Lindsay if he kept making you have nervous breakdowns?" Sho whispered, intent on everything the teen said.
"Because in less than a week he'd seen me bloody, bruised, and weak. He witnessed me kill like a maniac. He was there as I hyperventilated and cried and pulled out my hair during breakdowns. He helped me, held me during those times. He was familiar, almost in a way that Gabe never was then, in a way Max never could be. He stayed with us just because he wanted to, instead of following after the other four who he'd known longer," David explained, smoothing his hands over the table, a thoughtful expression in his eyes. "We just kinda fell together. He was the first person I was attracted to after leaving the brothel. It- It bothered me for a while, that I was attracted to a man after- after being abused by them and raped by them for most of my life. But like everything else I just kinda accepted it about myself. I didn't talk to him about it though. That would have been stupid, the way I saw it.
"It was shortly after that I realized I had absolutely no interest in females as anything but friends. I'd delved into psychology around that time, wanting to know everything I could about everything I could at the time - like a knowledge binge, and I came to the conclusion that it was to be expected since I had been living around girls as siblingy-friend-like figures for my whole life. So I just accepted I was gay and that was the end of it.
"I didn't exactly broadcast it or really tell anyone. Gabe already knew because she knew everything. But Lindsay and I just kept drifting closer somehow and when I was halfway through thirteen - in my head - we kissed. The four of us were camping on the beach under a pier during low tide and it just kinda happened. From there things just snowballed. I mean, why the fuck not? It was just us four and not one of us cared. We had sex for the first time when I was fourteen and that was almost two and a …third of year? Yeah, about two years three months ago.-"
"Really, David, we did not need to know that little bit of information," Sho interrupted, briefly glaring at the hickey on David's neck. Then his face lit up as though he just remembered something. "Wait, if you heal quickly, why is that still there?"
"Vampires are possessive so any possessive marks made by them on their… lover's body stays. But that only happens when …certain things have happened between the two," David said, blushing faintly as he spoke. Sho's eyes narrowed as he stared down the dark red mark on David's neck before a devious smile suddenly peeled away to show his teeth.
"And what are these 'certain things' that have to happen?" Sho asked with teasing.
"A uh, special connection has to be… establish between vampire and uh… their lover," David mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck and the juncture of his shoulder and neck. Sho took note of this action with interest. Kei did too, just not outright staring like Sho was.
"Name one thing that makes this connection," Sho said, deviously prying and David's gaze snapped onto him, looking at the man with a mixture of confusion, shock, and embarrassment.
"Uh okay, uhm… well… Sharing blood," David said, obviously saying the least embarrassing one. Then his cheeks lit up and he mumbled, "but that can only happen in a moment of arousal and can only be done with two vampires …or part vampires."
Kei crossed his arms and placed them on the table with a smile, enjoying the change in atmosphere. He rested his chin on them and stared at the blushing teen avoiding his and Sho's inquisitive gazes.
"And you two did this?" He asked, starting to remember some of the things that could create the connection between a vampire and their… - using the technical term - mate. Like sharing other body fluids. Or a special bite a vampire can give to establish the connection.
"We uh, yeah we did that but…" David said, forcing the words out and scratching the back of his neck in discomfort again. "It… wasn't what made the connection."
"What did then?" Sho prodded playfully, staring more intently if it were possible. David ducked his head and hunched his shoulders up embarrassedly.
"He bit me," he uttered quietly.
A laugh burst from Kei, rolling around in the air as he cackled as though David had said the funniest thing ever. David blushed so hard he appeared sunburned from the tips of his ears to his glittery black shirt.
"Shut up, Kei," he snapped, his voice whiny. "It's not funny! He was in heat and it just happened. It was an accident!"
"What?" Sho asked, glancing between the roaring vampire and the increasingly uncomfortable teen. "I don't get it? He bit you on accident and suddenly you had this vampire connection? Why doesn't everyone he bites have it?"
Kei gasped in a couple times, calming down haltingly. With a tried-but-not-succeeding-suppressed smile Kei turned to Sho and began explaining, since David was obviously unwilling to say anything more.
"The bite David's talking about it a vampire's marking love-bite, a specific type of bite that they give their mates to claim them, thus creating the connection between them," Kei said with Sho nodding slowly, paying rapt attention to Kei. David was silently banging his head on the tabletop. "And this bite, wherever it is, remains extremely an erogenous zone after it's healed until the mated pair split - which few vampires ever do because of the pain inflicted by the snap of their connection. And- And-"
Giggles interrupted Kei as he fought to remain in control of himself but soon loud chortling filled the air again as he attempted to continue. It was extremely difficult for both listener and speaker at this time.
"And these bites are- are usually created when the vampire- vampire that does it… Is in heat!" Kei was finally able to gasp out.
"In heat? What does that mean? Like a cat?" Sho questioned, still confused, if not more. (But he thought he might be getting why Kei found this funny.)
"Yes, heat," David finally said, his voice words mumbled into the table. "The embarrassing time when a vampire is raging with sexual desire and pure, unadulterated arousal, only occurring when it is time for the vampire and their mate to be mated via the connection. It is one of the few still obscure, unexplainable happenings of a vampire. Sharing blood and things like that force the connection to be made but the bite only occurs between two compatible individuals that would - this is going to sound cheesy - be destined to be together for eternity."
Kei's chuckles had died down but he still wore a shit-eating grin when David raised his head back up, a big red mark on his forehead.
"So Lindsay bit you…" Kei said, obviously enjoying stating the obvious, teasing him.
"It wasn't funny. I suddenly had to worry about hickeys and shit and yet he always fucking healed," David muttered angrily. Kei's grin dropped and he stared at David incredulously.
"You rejected the connection?" Kei asked, surprised. The way David had spoken of Lindsay was as though he believed they were meant to be together.
"Yeah, for almost two weeks. By then it was impossible to not do something about it," David said and Sho appeared to be (still) very confused as he was suddenly not in on the conversation.
"Reject the connection?" He repeated, trying to understand what they were talking about. "You mean like, refusing to be Lindsay's mate?"
'Should have kept resisting,' Sho thought to himself, still not fond of the blonde lover of the teen he'd come to start viewing as a little brother.
"Refusing to be his mate, resisting the will to connect with him. Basically it was like trying to sever the invisible bond that we'd created," David explained. "It sucked because for two weeks we were a one-way street. He could mark me, and read me better than a children's book, and I could do nothing to him. Like give him hickeys. I couldn't understand the changes in his voice or his body language. It was like being deaf and blind and it sucked.
"After the drama with that I ended up accepting the connection and returning it - and the bite. Now I have two vampire love bites, since Lindsay wanted to do one right or something like that. I think he was just being possessive, making sure or something."
"Can the bite be anywhere?" Sho asked after a second of thought and David nodded.
"Basically. Mine's on the back of my neck right... here," he said and pulled his shirt over his head, turning to expose his back.
Sho's eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly in shock when he saw the mark on the back of David's neck and shoulder area. There were twin puncture wounds as dark and red as if they had just been created. Connecting them was an arc of a slightly less red color. Underneath that was another arc with little points seeming like an imprint of the tops of four front teeth, the same red as the arc of the top of the bite. What was really odd, and a little disconcerting, was the spiraling, cloudy-appearing red marks expanding out from the bite in varying shades of red and pink. It almost looked like a hypertrophic burn scar, except his skin was perfectly smooth over the mark. He probably could pass it off as a tattoo if Sho and Kei didn't know any better. It wasn't much bigger than Sho's hand.
Kei stared at it with a confused frown, trying to figure out if he had seen it that first day David had lived with them and gotten stuck in the shower. And when he realized he hadn't seen it before, he wondered why he hadn't noticed it.
"Why does it look like that?" Sho asked and David sighed, slipping his glittery shirt back on.
"Because I ignored it," he said. "It stopped growing once I returned the bite."
"But why is it so red?" Sho clarified. "It looks a little scary. I would think it'd be pink or barely seen or something."
"The one on my thigh is like that," David said casually and then blushed six different reds when he realized what he'd said. "I mean uh, it's red?"
"Really dark red," Kei said, frowning at David - who was seeming a bit pale as he himself frowned too. Kei tried to remember if he knew why a claim-bite would turn red. His mind was blank. He frowned some more, hoping maybe, that it would help him recall a memory or a scrap of info about it.
"Hmm, I don't know. The darkest I've ever known it be is a hot pink. Usually it's barely able to be seen," David said offhandedly with a shrug and Kei stopped frowning for a moment. That would explain why he didn't notice it before.
"This is definitely not normal," David uttered.
"Should we be worried?" Kei asked, still trying to remember any information he could about a mate's bite.
"Worried about what?" An unexpected voice interjected in their conversation as David shook his head in answer to Kei's question.
Kei and Sho both glanced at the doorway where Lindsay had just entered the kitchen from. The blonde in turn gazed at them cautiously, trying to pick up hints from their body language.
"The bite on my neck is just really dark," David explained, tilting his head in Lindsay's direction. "Nothing to worry about."
"Mmm," Lindsay uttered. "Does that mean your uh, 'talk' is over?"
Sho and Kei studied one another briefly as though communicating in entire silence, their eyes meeting for less than three seconds before Kei turned to the blonde.
"We're good," he said and Sho nodded in agreement. David got the feeling that as soon as they left the room he was going to be a topic of hushed conversation between the two.
"Alright, then I'll just be stealing him away for a bit," Lindsay said and reached out for David's hand.
David took it and let himself be yanked to his feet, stumbling after Lindsay who nearly dragged him out of the kitchen and to his room, ignoring the rule they'd broken earlier that morning when David had his nightmare. After such a long, difficult conversation that seemed forever ago. David's bedroom unintentionally slammed shut after them and Sho glared at the wall separating the kitchen from the teen's room.
"I still don't like him," Sho announced and Kei snorted, lighting a cigarette, surreptitiously glancing at the wall also.
Jaded's after-words: blearg I'm so glad this part is done... the only thing that sucks is that there's more bouncing around in my head and not leaving me alone! GAH. I really don't like muses sometimes. I'm so doomed. :)