Title: The Night Walks With Us- Pt. 4 Author: phobosgirl (phobosgirl@hotmail.com) Date: 9/25/05 Rating: NC-17 Authors notes: Feedback is more than welcome and can be sent to phobosgirl@hotmail.com Disclaimer: I don’t own them, never will, never wanted to. Warnings: none Complete: no Parts 1-3  Part 4  Part 5 The Night Walks With Us The next week passed in a haze of fevers and chills, and Justin didn't return. You dragged yourself through the days, moving carefully around the loft only when you had to. Nightmares began taking over your sleeping hours, much as they had your waking ones. In them, you were helpless to stop the atrocity befalling your partner, or unable to run from it when it finally descended upon you. You waited for the change to take place in you, as it had in Justin, but you still seemed to be holding on, by a mere thread, to who and what you were. When the bodies began turning up all around Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas, you knew without reading any of the details that every corpse had been drained of blood. He was hunting his home territory and, by the looks of it, not taking many precautions in doing so- all the victims had been found in very public places, sometimes two and three at a time. Even still, police were said to be baffled, left with no leads. The usual signatures of any murderer- hair follicles, textile fragments, blood trails- were all missing, here. The killer was able to commit his crimes in total anonymity, something that would have made even a half-assed forensic investigator scratch his head in bewilderment. It didn't take long for an intrepid reporter to draw the connection amongst the victims. All were known or suspected criminals of the worst kind. Most had been, at one time or another, arrested for and even convicted of murder, themselves. There were high profile drug dealers, cold-blooded gang members, known sex offenders, one very elusive mob boss and, in a story that made national headlines, a second serial killer, found dead near a hand written list of his own victims, the dates of their murders, their names, cities of abduction- a goldmine of cases going back almost 15 years. The press began to call Justin The Vigilante, and in bars and coffee shops around the city, he was being praised in hushed whispers for "cleaning up the streets." You saw no particular nobility in what was happening, but the predatory businessman in you understood. Justin needed to feed in order to survive. That, apparently, meant he had to kill. He was compromising by culling the city of its worst element, and in doing so, fulfilling his own mandate. When you read one afternoon that Chris Hobbes was found dead, his body drained of blood and with a trace of semen on his lips, you had to fight to keep down your recently consumed lunch. Your own physical condition continued to deteriorate, each day leaving you weaker and feeling more ill than the day before. Sleep, when it came, was a miasma of tormented images of blood and destruction. Justin's face took on a starring role in your dreams, sometimes giving you heartbreaking glimpses of the fresh, young, healthy teen you'd once known, but more often than not, it was the pale, drawn, hardened Justin you saw. You became crazily convinced that he was somehow directing your dreams, and your belief was proved when, one night before turning out the light, you pleaded in your heart for him to send you perfect images of the two of you, locked together, fucking. You woke several hours later with a raging hard on, your heart beating triple-time, memories of the taste of his skin freshly implanted in your mind. You reached your hand between your legs and brought yourself off quickly, his name a breath on your lips. You fell asleep again knowing that, in the last second before drifting off, it was his voice you heard nearby, whispering that he loved you. You began to drop weight at an alarming rate, and showering and shaving, both having previously been sacred rituals in your life, became a crap shoot. Cynthia, Mikey and Ted made regular appearances at your door bearing food you couldn't eat and work you couldn't concentrate on, clucking their tongues worriedly at your declining state. You sent them away with irritated growls intended to keep them from revisiting, but they were unfazed by your attempts, and determined to nurse you back to health. In less than three weeks, Justin's absence became a serious concern to those who loved him most. Jennifer was the first to call you, trying hard to keep her voice light and make excuses that would let her sleep at night for why he might have suddenly fallen so silent. You agreed with all of her reasoning- yes, artists kept strange hours; absolutely, they could get carried away in projects and lose track of time and family; certainly, he was a young man in the big city and was no doubt taking full advantage of his surroundings- anything that would keep her looking in other directions for her son. Hurricane Debbie was next, blowing into your loft with a casserole and a demand that you go to New York and search for him. Seeing your condition, however, she relented, admonishing you to take better care of yourself. She patted and cooed, attributing your pale complexion and the dark circles under your eyes to concern over his disappearance, and you didn't correct her when she kissed your forehead gently and told you not to worry, that he would turn up sooner or later. You smiled tiredly to her and nodded. Linds began to call everyday, and Mikey took to making unannounced visits nearly once a day. Their worried frowns and soft words of compassion only added to the burden of your grief. Eventually, after almost a full month with no word from Justin, the police were brought in. Authorities in New York were contacted, and while they said all the right things, the general consensus in the family was that they simply didn't care. Justin was of legal adult age and New York City had its share of missing persons- they were too focused on policing the streets and catching killers to expend valuable manpower hours and tax dollars looking for one gay kid who had probably taken up with a sugar daddy in Vegas and blown town. Carl did his best to light fires under them, but the simple fact was, it was a huge city and Justin was merely one face in it. You were questioned by some well-intentioned but harried detectives, and while you could discern no note of homophobia in their attitudes, you had little doubt that back home in their precinct, no one was going out of their way to find Justin. Only you knew that if Justin didn't want to be found, he had the ability to remain a missing person forever. Despite your continuing illness and your infirmed state, you finally began to take on some work again, though Cynthia and Ted were still handling the lion's share of it. Talk began to circulate that your cancer was back, and you fielded almost constant stares, whispers and outright inquiries from your adopted family and employees. No amount of assurances would convince them, and you began to feel the consequence of being a close-mouthed bastard all those years- no one trusted you to tell them the truth. Your nights became long, painful waiting games. You ached to see Justin again, and to know what was happening to him. You often found yourself pacing weakly back and forth across the dimmed loft, immersed in memories of Justin as a vital, breathtakingly beautiful man. You even began to speak out loud to him in the hopes that he would be listening, somehow, and you detailed the search efforts, begged him to appear, or just whispered into the still air that you loved him. By month 5 of Justin's disappearance, it became clear to you that some of your little family was already letting go of him, that they probably even believed he was dead, the victim, perhaps, of random violence. Mikey tried in vain to convince you that maybe it was time for you to let go, as well, but you sent him away with kisses to the forehead and assurances that you were fine. It was getting harder to dodge his questions about your failing health, and creases of worry began to deepen on his forehead. You lied to him repeatedly, telling him that you'd been to your oncologist and numerous doctors and had been told only that you had a rare strain of mono that would clear up in time. Jennifer visited often, and she was the only one you never tried to send scurrying away. She was pale and drawn, and had clearly lost weight. Her physical condition began to mirror yours, and you wondered how many nights she, too, had paced, and how many combined miles you had both clocked in the last five months. You didn't expect to love her the way you did, but despite the fact that you and Justin had never officially tired the knot, you still thought of her as your mother-in-law. Your heart broke to see the ashen panic under her fading calm, and lying to her was harder than lying to any of the others. You were sure, day after day, that she would see right through you, burst in on you, and demand to know everything you knew about Justin's disappearance. You never believed it was possible to be so exhausted and so filled with sorrow. Justin may have been the immortal, but you were becoming a ghost in your own life.  *~O~* He returned to you on a warm night in the middle of summer. You'd been standing by an open window in the living room, smoking and gazing out at the darkening sky, when you sensed his presence behind you. For the first time in many months, you felt yourself relax marginally, your breath coming easier in your chest. "Half the state of Pennsylvania and most of New York is combing the streets, looking for you," you informed him without turning. "Bullshit," he replied, and all you could do was nod your head in agreement. You heard his soft laugh moments before his hand landed on your shoulder, urging you to look at him. You resisted for a second more, afraid of what you might see, but your need to wrap yourself up in him was too great, and you rounded on him, hiding the relief and hurt churning inside you. He hadn't changed in the least. His hair was the same length, his skin the same smooth, bloodless white, his eyes still filled with color and movement. You let out the breath you'd been holding, sagging a little towards him, and when his arms wound tightly around you, you pulled him to you, pressing yourself into his hard, cold body. "Where the fuck have you been," you murmured into his hair. You stroked his back and neck, learning all of his new textures, needing to understand this Justin, needing to find something of the man you loved in him. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and he sounded as desperate to be near you as you were to crawl inside of him. "I had to be sure I could control myself, I had to learn how so I wouldn't hurt you, because I want-" He stiffened in your arms but you pulled him closer, showing him with your body that you were ready to hear anything he had to tell you, now. "Tell me what you want." Your lips, as if by muscle memory, found his neck, traced the hard new lines there, making him arch into you. "Tell me, Justin, what do you want?" Your voice was seductive, needy, and he responded to it as he always had, with long, ardent kisses and your name repeated until it sounded like a prayer. "Tell me," you urged again. He began rutting against your thigh, his cock rigid and demanding, and you were morbidly drawn to know what it looked like, how it tasted, now that this thing had been done to him. "Brian." His hands were everywhere, moving so quickly from your hair, to your chest, to your back, that it felt like being caught in a whirlwind. You moaned into his mouth, wondering vaguely if you had ever wanted him as much as you did right now, and when he began nipping at your skin, raising small beads of blood that he licked away with the rough lapping of his tongue, you thought you might come before ever sinking your dick into him. You clothes were shredded like tissue paper by his powerful fingers and for the first time in your relationship, you felt truly outmatched by him. You fought him for dominance, stripping him in return, your struggles bringing you closer and closer to the orgasm you'd been waiting to unleash since the night he'd left you, feverish and needing. When he knocked you to the floor with a growl that was only partly human, covering your body with his, you rolled him over, showing him that you would not be subdued by what he'd become. He bucked into you, peppering your chest, arms and neck with bloody kisses, grunting with hunger. Your fingers finally found his hair, yanking hard on it to expose his neck. Your bites lacked the finesse of his and breaking the skin of his porcelain, hardened flesh was out of the question, but he cried out in pain that was really pleasure, nonetheless. "Tell me!" you demanded into his ear. "I can't!" You took a hard bite out of his earlobe, causing him to writhe beneath you. "Tell me, Justin!" "I want-" More bites down his neck, while your skin was dotted with small punctures that burned, and oozed precious fluid. "What?" "I want to-" You pulled back, glaring down at him. You would slam his head into the floor until he told you, if you had to, ignoring the danger of his unearthly strength and unpredictable behavior. You had to make him say it, because you were too afraid to ask for it, yourself. "I want to take you with me!" His face crumbled into a sob. "I want you with me, I'm so lonely, but it's so wrong, Brian, it's so wrong to want to make you what I am, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Terror and relief shot through you like bullets, tearing you apart, making you whole, and he watched in awe as you wiped his bloody tears away, licking your fingers after catching each one. You leaned in to kiss him, all your ferociousness drained out of you by the sight of his misery and an overwhelming need to comfort him. Your exploration of his mouth, all sharp teeth and soft, cool lips, was slow, languid, and as you felt his body gradually relax under yours, you stretched out on top of him, both of you falling into the comfortable way you fit one another, even now. As his grief subsided, his sexual appetite returned, building in him like a flame turned higher and higher. Your response was instinctive, surprising you with its power. You didn't understand how you could still want him, knowing what he was, what he'd done, how chillingly dangerous he was to you, but you realized that he'd always had this power over you. Giving in to it was simply accepting the inevitable. You peeled yourself away from him, standing and holding out your hand to him. He smiled when he took it, lifting himself off the floor with a flicker of movement, and followed you to the bedroom. Like a panther, menace and silk embodied, he stretched across your bed, digging his fingers into the deep weight of the comforter, grinning at the pure sensual pleasure of spreading himself out for you, once again. His glimmering eyes danced between your cock, standing straight out from your pelvis, and your face. You recognized the love and hopefulness of his previous self even through the oddly stilled expression of this Justin. It was enough for you. You'd take him as he was, the way you had always done, and yes, it would be enough. Reading your thoughts effortlessly, his smile widened and he nodded, understanding that he still belonged to you. He spread his legs, giving you a show like he used to do, and you moved slowly towards the bed, watching, appreciating. His palms stroked up the insides of his thighs as his knees fell open, and one white hand slipped under his balls, rolling them between his fingers. His lips parted in pleasure, his tongue darting out to moisten them. Hollywood had one thing wrong. They had always portrayed these creatures as sensual but sexless, but Justin's wanton display put paid to that idea. You climbed between his legs, watching his face, his hypnotic eyes, your gaze dropping to the progress of his hand. He pushed his hips forward and took his cock in his fist, stroking up and down its length. You were right, it did look different. No longer the deep red that had once indicated his heavy urgency, it was nonetheless still rigid, smooth, impressive. You dipped down and took the head in your mouth, sucking softly. His legs twitched and a moan escaped him, his hand steadily jacking. The texture was almost that of the rest of his skin- smooth, poreless, slick and shiny. Something inside you cramped hard in need and you shoved his hand away, swallowing him to the root. His back arched, and though you knew he could overpower you with little more than a thought, you gripped his hips, pressing him into the mattress, warning him with your gouging fingers to stay still. His hand clutched at the back of your head and somehow, the knowledge that he could snap your neck with a single twist settled in your dick, making it weep more for him. You worked him hard, spurred on by his steadily increasing moans and gasps and the twisting of his hips as he tried not to fuck your mouth, until you knew from long experience that he was close, almost too close to stop, and then you pulled off. His grip on your head tightened painfully, fingers digging into your scalp, and the thrill you felt at the risk you were taking made sweat break out along your back and forehead. "Brian, fuck, don't you stop!" That uneven, grating tone had returned to his voice, causing you to wonder briefly why you were courting such danger, but you refused to continue, a predatory grin stretching your face. He finally leaned up, looking at you, his eyes flashing threateningly, but when he saw your smile, the part of him that loved you desperately surfaced and he began laughing, calling you a motherfucker and a bastard under his breath. You crawled up the length of his pale body, licking and kissing as you went, his hands roaming your back and threading through your hair, until you reached his deadly mouth. He kissed you breathless, then, and for the first time, you actually felt him inside your mind, caressing your fears, igniting your love, soothing the long months of worry and pain. The impact of his thoughts joining with yours sent you into something like a swoon and when he spoke, your entire body shuddered with longing. "You can be inside me without a condom, now, Brian. There's no disease I can give you or get, anymore. I've found the perfect immunity." You couldn't even be sure if the words came out of his mouth or simply appeared in your head, but it didn't matter. You had his legs over your shoulders and your dick at his hole within seconds. He nodded sharply to you, an almost violent movement for him, and you shoved once, hard, burying yourself to the hilt in a way you never had when he'd been human. "Jus-" Your heart stuttered, and for a moment you wondered if it would stop beating altogether. He was icy cold inside, but as hot as an incinerator, too. The sensation short-circuited your faculties for long minutes, and you held your position, barely breathing, your eyes squeezed shut against the intensity. His patience sustained you both. When you believed that you were in control once more, you opened your eyes to look at him. Blood-tinged sweat had broken out across his forehead and adoration marked every line of his face. At another nod from him, you began to move. Every long, deep thrust was excruciating and threatened to shatter you into a million tiny pieces. It seemed to go on forever, him inside your head even as you were buried in his ass. You felt your awareness stretch and expand in what could have only been the way he saw the world around him, the two of you merging as you never could have, before. Finally, when he contracted his muscles, squeezing down on you, once and then once more, you climaxed explosively, feeling, for the first time in your life, what it really meant to coat him inside. His own orgasm, on the heels of yours, was almost painful to you, his ass clenching on your softening cock hard enough to make you groan out loud. His body bowed into yours, nearly knocking you off him, and you held onto him, trying to ground him until he finished. When it was over, you collapsed onto him in an boneless heap, his hand stroking your face. "Ok, Justin, I'm ready to go with you. Make me what you are."  *~O~* Title: The Night Walks With Us- Pt. 5 Author: phobosgirl (phobosgirl@hotmail.com) Date: 9/25/05 Rating: NC-17 Authors notes: Feedback is more than welcome and can be sent to phobosgirl@hotmail.com Disclaimer: I don’t own them, never will, never wanted to. Warnings: none Complete: yes, finally! The Night Walks With Us You felt his body stiffen and his hand, tangled in the fine strands of your hair, stopped mid-stroke. "Under no circumstances." His voice was icy. You raised your head and gazed at him steadily. "I'm not asking. I'm telling you. Take me with you." His eyes flashed dangerously and he tumbled you off him so swiftly that you had to catch the edge of the platform to keep from crashing to the floor. "Fuck. You," he ground out. "It's not for you to demand. And I refuse. I'm not your teenaged twink anymore, Brian, you can't just order me around and expect me to fall over myself to please you." You got angry, suddenly. "No, Justin," you shouted, "fuck you! You're the one who made me the way I am right now. You're the one who made me drink your blood, and my life has been shit ever since. Fuck you, Justin, for thinking that you could play with me and fuck me up and then not take responsibility for my condition." He seemed shocked, even chagrined, but you rushed on before he could respond. "Did you think you could turn me into your little toy, Justin?" Your fury was building and you didn't care anymore if expressing it meant your death at his hands. Anything had to be better than the hell on earth you'd been living through every day. "Did you think that because some asshole freak stole your life that it was okay to steal mine and then leave me here to waste away?" He was shaking his head in negation, now, afraid to defend himself and afraid not to. "LOOK at me, Justin," you roared, indicating your sickly complexion and the ribs clearly showing in your chest. "Look at the circles under my eyes! Do you know why I have them? It's not from pining away for you, blond boy, not by a long fucking shot. I can't sleep anymore because you fucking poisoned me and now all I have when I close my eyes are nightmares." You were apoplectic. You placed your hands into the middle of his chest and shoved him as hard as you could, ignoring the fact that it had no effect on him. It felt good to you to do it, to finally fight back against this disease he had given you. "You did this to me, Justin. No one else. You! And now you have to do something to make it stop! Take it away, kill me, or finish the job, but don't you dare fucking leave me in this condition for even another day!" "Brian," he was stunned, horrified, his eyes wide, his face set in a grimace. "I can't. I won't. You don't know what you're asking, what it's like." You shoved him again. "Then tell me, motherfucker!" you yelled into his face, making him recoil. He moved off the bed slowly, like a restless spirit, and began pacing back and forth in front of you as you sat on the edge of the platform. He was silent for long minutes, considering his words carefully. "You know I've killed." He started softly, glancing at you to see your reaction. You merely nodded. You knew. "You don't know, Brian! You can't even begin to understand what it does to me, how much I hate it." "I want to," you answered, longing for him to believe you, and as repulsed as you were to hear his words, you leaned forward towards him. He studied you and then nodded, satisfied. "It's how I survive," his eyes took on a detached veil, as if separating himself from his actions was the only way he could deal with what he'd become. "I have to feed. When the hunger takes over- and it's always there, Brian, it never truly goes away- when it takes over, I barely know who I am. I don't feel human anymore. In fact, I'm sure I'm not human. My mind is clouded with this horrible need that I can't control." You nod. You'd seen some evidence of that state of mind in him, not once, but twice. It was horrific to witness- you could only guess what it must be like to live through. "So I hit the streets and I search. And when I find the right one, I take him. Or her." "Criminals," you supplied. "Always the bad guys." "Yes." "How do you find them? How do you always know where they are?" "I read them, the same way I do you. I see their crimes, the way they devalue life, if they consider it at all. They're easier to take." "Even now, you can't hurt an innocent, can you?" His eyes sharpened on you. "Could you?" "If it meant I lived another day, maybe." But you weren't sure. Before you'd met him, there would have been little moral uncertainty in the act- you would have done what was required to keep going one more night- and then hated yourself for it, later. But you would have done it. And then he came into your life and changed so much about it. Your moral code was almost completely intact from your pre-Justin days, but it had been refined and, even to a large extent, had matured. And the influence was nearly all his. "Then again, maybe not." He nodded. "Right. So I do this bloody, terrible thing," he said quietly, pain reflected in his voice, "and I live another day and I die inside a little more. And as awful as that is, it's not nearly the worst." You felt a shiver touch you. What could be worse? He smiled sadly, not needing telepathy to read the expression of disbelief on your face. "There are Others, Brian. They're hunting me." You went cold. "Others? Hunting?" He stood absolutely still, only his eyes showing any signs of life as they traced the lines of your face, settling finally on the frown you wore. "The one who made me was very strong, very old." He shifted marginally and turned his face away from yours, looking out into the darkened loft. "He was one of the first. He'd never made another vampire, before me." He'd finally said the word, and you nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity of it, except that here he was, pale, deadly, ferociously strong, with an unpredictable temperament and an uncanny ability to read your mind. Vampire. You rolled the word in your mind, letting it fill all the spaces of all your uncertainties. He went silent, watching you, waiting for you to absorb his revelations, and didn't continue his story until you looked back at him and nodded shortly. "He was undiluted, see?" You shook your head, not understanding. "He'd gotten stronger and stronger as the millennia passed. His powers were unimaginable… I think I must have just a fraction of what he had. When he made me, because he'd never done it before, his blood was undiluted. He passed his power on to me, or as much as he could. I'm stronger than all the others now, just as he was stronger than they are. So they hate me, fear me, although I don't mean them any harm. They want me dead because they know I can destroy them with a thought. They hunt me nightly. It's taken me almost this long to learn how to hide myself from them, and now I have to hide you from them, too, or they'll come for you. They'll use you against me, to draw me out." You were appalled for him. "I would never allow that, Justin. I'd let them kill me," you declared boldly, but your throat tightened and you couldn't contemplate the things they could do to you to force Justin to reveal himself. "They wouldn't make it that easy for you." You blanched, feeling the truth of his words. "All the more reason to take me with you, Justin. Make me strong, like you. We'll fight the motherfuckers together." He smiled at this and you suddenly knew without being told that he'd considered the possibility, himself, many times. "Of course I have," he confirmed, "but it's a poor fucking reason for me to do such a terrible thing to you. I love you, Brian, even now. In fact, I guess I love you more now than I ever have. There's never been a time when I didn't know I could come back to you and be taken in by you- until now. It's the loneliest feeling in the world." You stood, finally, drawn to him by the vulnerability in him, as you'd always been. He was stronger than you could ever imagine being, he could snap you in two and end your life without the slightest effort. And yet he was still Justin. Still hardly out of adolescence, afraid, lonely. You ached for him. But there was more. A part of you began to crave his power, just a little bit. To be young forever, beautiful, invulnerable, deadly. You were unquestionably drawn to the notion, and to be able to spend it with him was incredibly appealing. Eternity. You could barely encompass it. "What other powers, Justin?" He grinned, then, understanding what motivated you better than anyone could. "I should have known you'd like the sound of that." You shrugged your shoulders, neither admitting nor denying it. "Well," he said, "you've probably noticed the way I move?" You nodded. "You're fast, so fast I can't see you, sometimes. But languid, also, like you're moving through molasses." "Right," he responded, but now he was across the room, making you crane your neck to locate him. "How-" your mouth had gone dry and you cleared your throat, covering your shock. "How do you do that?" "No differently than you do, but for some reason, I can just do it a lot faster. And silently." It would certainly make it easy to advance on his victims, unawares. "Yeah, it does. They never see me coming." You swallowed hard. "What else, Justin?" "You remember the first night I came to you?" You remembered, all right. "I woke up confused. I thought I had gone home with some rich twink." "You did, sort of," he laughed. "I told you we were at the home of my benefactor. Well, it's my home now, I suppose, since he's gone. Do you remember?" "Yeah," you answered, the strangeness of that night creeping over you again. "Where the fuck was that? It was warm, wasn't it? And I heard waves!" "It's this big sprawling place on the beach of the Emerald Coast." "Florida?" You were nonplussed. "We were in fucking Florida?" He nodded his head, smiling happily, like a kid showing off his new bike. "I flew you there." "Huh?" "Yeah," he was still grinning, and despite the razor-sharp points he revealed, it was a contagious smile. "What, vampirism comes with its own pilot's license?" He laughed again. "No, Brian. It's so fucking cool, you wouldn't believe it. It's like superhero shit, Michael would love it!" "Do you get to wear tights that show off your package?" You arched your eyebrow and cupped his dick. You couldn't believe how good it felt to just be bantering with him, again, or how much you'd missed it. He pressed himself into your hand, shaking his head at you, his golden hair flopping into his eyes and reminding you of the kid he'd once been. "It's not like that," he slipped his arms around your neck, pulling you closer. "It's like… I don't know how to describe it, exactly. It's like blinking. I think of a place I want to be, and I move in that direction and then within seconds or minutes, I'm there. It's this rushing, sorta cold feeling, but it's really cool!" He could have been describing a new painting technique he'd just discovered, for the glee you saw written in his eyes. "I'd like to try it, myself," you murmured. You touched his face, tilting his chin upwards with the gentle pressure of your thumb. You let him look into you, knowing that he was reading your thoughts, and you opened yourself to him in a way you'd only been able to do back when you'd proposed to him, and during the days afterwards while you'd planned your futures together. You let him see your need for him, your protective impulse to help him, save him. You let him feel your desire to be what he was and you didn't hide from the truth of it, the avarice. You let him see the ugliness of that, and the purity of your craving to be with him, again. You let him see your love. For a moment, you thought you'd won. His face changed, became so excruciatingly Justin, and you knew that he wanted to take you, in that moment, and turn you. You stepped closer to him, ready to bare your neck, wrapping your arms around his slim waist. He settled his head in the crook of your neck, sinking comfortably into you. You held him tightly, trying to show him that without a doubt you weren't afraid anymore. You felt him breath heavily, perhaps taking in your scent, though his exhale never reached your flesh. His nose brushed your jaw, nuzzling, and then he pressed his lips to the pulse in your neck in a chaste kiss. You shivered when his tongue slid over your skin, and you waited to feel the stinging bite. His mouth opened wide, and he sucked blood to the surface of your skin painfully, his teeth sharp, but not breaking the flesh. You closed your eyes, wondering if becoming what he was would hurt. Your dick was rigid against his hard stomach. Suddenly, your arms were empty. You blinked, and stumbled forward, opening your eyes. He was standing across the room from you, glaring at you resentfully. "No, I won't be seduced into doing this, Brian," he breathed. "I won't do it." Then he was gone, as if he'd vanished into air.  *~O~* You spent weeks searching for him. Every night, you'd prowl the streets, imagining him watching you from a rooftop, or slipping around a corner into the shadows, just ahead of you. You read every newspaper account of his crimes, studying them closely for any detail that might lead you to him. Sleeping became a luxury and eating a nuisance. More weight dropped off of you, and your usual carefully honed and polished appearance became meaningless to you. Your clothes draped on you and your hair became longer, hanging into your eyes, covering a creeping madness that you feared was taking you over. You were sick of being sick. That thought played over and over in your mind, sick of being sick, sick of being sick. Cancer would almost have been better than this constant malaise, the never ending nausea, the thumping in your head that drove you insane with the need for relief, even for one full minute. You had become more and more sensitive to light, and you found it ironic that an old club boy like yourself, a creature of darkened back rooms and nights filled with drugs and sex, would begin to crave the daylight while hating it, too. Your skin felt stiff and old, having lost its former elasticity. You knew you were caught in a abyss somewhere between Justin's world and yours, never able to be part of one or the other. You stopped working, barking over the phone at Ted and Cynthia to handle things for you, not really caring if they did. During the daylight hours, you paced the loft, railing aloud against him, pleading for him to return, cursing having ever met him, shouting vehemently that you'd never loved him and then feeling crushing guilt because nothing was further from the truth. You stopped answering your cell or the door and, with shouts and thrown objects, sent running anyone who breeched your home. Michael, Ted, Lindsay, Cynthia, Debbie, all left pleading messages on your voice mail, your answering machine and in your email box, begging you to seek help, call a family member, see a doctor. You deleted all of them, unanswered. Every day you fashioned plans for finding Justin, and every night you implemented them. You ignored each failure and moved on, shambling through your life, minute by minute, day by day. The blood he had infected you with made the erosion of the strong, healthy person you'd been into the raving thing you'd become, almost too easy. You refused to think of your past and the kind of man you'd been, because doing so filled you with loathing for what you were, now. You despised Justin as much as you adored him. Slowly, very slowly as the months dragged by, a plan began to form in your mind, taking hold of your thoughts in a vicegrip. You began to understand what you'd need to do to force him to take you, to turn you. You were terrified by the possibility that he would merely ignore this gambit as he had all the others, but were willing to take any risk. Very quietly, you began to put your affairs in order. You saw to the legalities of your businesses, your personal fortune, your home. You filed reams of paperwork through highly skilled lawyers, setting up trusts and anonymous high-yield accounts with venerable banking agencies, assuring your future wealth. You provided for Gus, his mothers and your extended family, knowing that if Justin came to take you, you could never see any of them again. Finally, when everything was in place, you prepared yourself, quietly, with dignity. You behaved as if you were going out clubbing, taking great care to look your best. You took a long, hot shower, remembering the hours spent in the small enclosure with Justin's wet body pressed against yours, kissing and touching and fucking. You gave yourself a methodical, close shave, trimmed your hair and nails, slapped Justin's favorite cologne across your hollowed, gray cheeks. Your clubbing clothes nearly fell off you now, your thin frame hardly able to hold them up, but you dressed carefully, choosing all of his favorites. A black wife beater, faded jeans with the top button undone, no shoes, a simple but elegant watch. You looked at your reflection in the mirror, ruffling your fingers through your hair, and nodded, satisfied. You pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels down from a kitchen cupboard, broke the seal, and tipped it to your lips, grimacing at the burn sliding down your throat. A slow, lazy walk through the dimmed loft showed you that everything was in place, so you stepped up into the bedroom and moved to the bathroom, some of the grace of your better days returning. You took the razor from it's little metal case in the medicine cabinet and studied its evil glint a long time before crouching down to sit on the cold, tile floor. Leaning against the wall, you spent the next thirty minutes draining half the bottle of Jack, memories of you and him crowding your mind, creating a warm, sexy buzz in your limbs, your groin, your head. When you were certain you were ready, you held your right arm out and sharply drew the blade of the razor upwards, clenching your jaw against the sting as it bit deeply into your flesh. You cut yourself from wrist to elbow, and then quickly turned the razor and cut your other arm in the same fashion. The blood flowed freely, soaking into your jeans, darkening them with spreading stains, and within just a few minutes, your sight began to dim. Holding the love you felt for him close as you began to die, you whispered to him one more time. "Justin, hurry." You were barely aware of his answer, moments later, when he strode into the bathroom and glared down at your lifeless body. "You fucking asshole," he said, simply. You were unconscious when he lifted you, your head rolling limply off his shoulder.  *~O~* Epilogue 18 months later… You'd been tracking their movements for weeks. This particular cell was rabidly circumspect and far too clever in covering their tracks for local and federal authorities to catch, but of course, they couldn't hope to escape you and Justin. You were almost ready to make your move on them; tonight they'd meet Allah and collect their virgins. It had been Justin's idea to move on from the individual criminals to the larger terror cells and organized crime families. You'd given the New Jersey mob a run for their money, enjoying their attempts to find you and deal out their own brand of due process. The French mafia had been even more amusing, although Justin rarely found pleasure in his work. He was still all about justice, and you fucking loved him for it, even now. You had finally made an uneasy truce with the Others but it had taken months and was messy as fuck. One night, you'd almost been killed by them, but Justin, badly injured and bleeding from multiple wounds, had dragged you out of harms way, batting aside several young ones, their bones snapping sickeningly. Together, as the sun began to rise, you'd fled them, but running had usually been their last resort. For so many years, you were Justin's hero. More and more, though, he was becoming yours. You watched him now, crouched next to you on the rooftop, staring steadily into the window of the building across the alley. His luminous skin, glowing softly, seemed to breathe of its own accord, your sharpened senses now detecting minute changes in him that your human eyes had never seen. He looked like an archangel- arrogant, deadly and magnificent, almost too beautiful to comprehend. You had never loved him more. You made quite a pair. It wasn't vanity to admit that you were equally as beautiful as he. The long months of privation and lack of care had vanished when he'd turned you, giving you a solid, powerful body, filling in the weight you'd lost that had made of you little more than a walking skeleton. Your eyes, which he seemed almost unable to stop gazing into, flickered and shone with browns, golds and greens to rival any artist's palette. You turned out to be an efficient and ruthless killer, as anyone who'd come against you in the ad world could have predicted. You swung your attention back to your task, to those who were just settling in for a long discussion of murder and revenge across the alley. Tonight, for the first time since you'd begun following this particular group, there were more than ten of them gathered together at once. Previously, they'd never met in groups larger than two, so you had bided your time, knowing that as their deadline approached, they'd come together for one last planning and prayer meeting. On their agenda tonight was the destruction of the House Of Parliament, The London Stock Exchange and The Bank Of England. They would never make their appointments. Their bodies, and all the evidence you could gather implicating them and their compadres, would be found on the steps of Scotland Yard- your gift to the British people. Slipping your hand silently to his shoulder, drawing his attention, you felt a wash of excitement when he smiled at you. You leaned in, your movements spare and elegant, and kissed his cold lips softly. When you drew away from him, you used the easy telepathy between you to let him know how much you wanted him, planting wicked images in his mind of your sharp, dangerous teeth scraping along his formidable cock. His chuckled response was enough of an answer for you- he wanted you, too, but that would have to wait; there was work to do. "Ready, JT?" "Ready, Rage." He grinned at the joke. "Then let's do this thing. I'd like to be buried in your tight little ass before midnight." He nodded once, all business now, and together you stepped off the edge of the roof, your lithe bodies disappearing into the shadows until you had become them. The End