Disclaimer: Characters belong to their respective copyright owners, like Sunrise/Sotsu/Bandai. Plot, if you can call it that, belongs to me.

Pairing: 1xR, 1x2x1, Prior 5x1
Warning: [R] 1xR now 1x2x1. Yaoi. AU. Vampirism. Heero POV. With death guaranteed by Wufei's hands in three months, or by a mysterious violet eyed Hunter, Heero is trapped in a Catch-22. (Ch. 4: Unable to feed off Relena, Heero is left vulnerable by his hunger.)


Son of a Sable Night
by Ponderosa
Chapter 4: Embracing Clouds in Vain


It was time to try and play dumb. "How's she feeling?"

"Fuck you."

I let the insult slide off me.

"Get out." The slim blonde thrust her arm out and pointed at the stairs; I slapped her arm away. I was too hungry to play these games.

"I'm going to see Relena, move aside."

For a second, Dorothy looked as if she would back down, then she shoved me. Determined girl.

"If you won't let me deliver this to Relena, then fine," I said and dropped the bag on the floor. The bag exploded and thick, green, split pea soup splattered over our shoes.

She was staring at the carpet stunned as I stepped in and tipped her chin up, "Will you offer yourself?"

Dorothy made no sign that she had even heard me, then whispered, "You brought soup?" Her eyes remained downcast for a moment before they lifted and met my own. "I thought you were bringing her more drugs."

I fought down my hunger and recognized, with relief, that the girl had misunderstood my role in Relena's deteriorating health.

"I brought her Vitamin C caplets the last time I was here," I said, dropping my hand from Dorothy's chin. "She's been complaining about feeling under the weather the past couple weeks."

"Heero, I'm sorry. I just thought you," she stammered and a faint blush stained her cheeks. "I mean, Relena, she's been feeling weak and sleeping a lot lately. Sometimes she doesn't even get up in the morning and misses half her classes."

"It just seems like she feels worse after you come by... Let me clean this up," she said, crouching down. She picked up the Styrofoam bowl in one hand and used its thin plastic lid to scoop as much of the spilled soup back into it.

"It's probably because she wastes a lot of energy trying to fool me into believing that she's feeling alright," I said.

"Heero?" Relena's door creaked open and she stepped out into the hall. She had one hand keeping the front of a white bathrobe closed and the other pressed against the wall to help her stand. Her voice wavered and she looked between me and her friend, "Dorothy? What's going on?"

"Oh Relena, please forgive me. I was just saying hello to Heero and clumsy me, I spilled the soup he brought you," Dorothy said, continuing to clean up the mess.

"I'm not hungry anyway," Relena said. "Thank you for thinking of me though, Heero." She smiled at me.

I stepped past Dorothy and gathered Relena into a gentle hug to support her weight and pressed a kiss into her hair. This would be the last time I could feed off her. I'd need a new host.

"Feeling any better?" I asked as I led her back into her bedroom and closed the door.

"A little. I've been sleeping almost all day," she pulled away from me, arousal giving her a boost of vitality. "I'd feel better if you joined me in my bed."

She let go of the robe and it split to reveal the creamy flawless curves of her body. I pushed it off her shoulders and lowered her to the bed, whispering soft promises and nonsense before I took as much of her energy as I could without killing her.

-=*=-

Relena didn't have enough strength for me to do more than take the very edge off the dizzying need that swirled around my head and when I stepped out on the street, everything felt slow and thick.

The lack of focus persisted as I walked to the nearest bus stop and caught a late run in to one of the less reputable parts of town. By the time I stepped off the bus, I had control of my senses again and I prowled the darkened streets in search of a suitable target.

None of the whores I passed were desirable in the least. When I crossed into the territory spotted with hustlers, a few promising men caught my eye.

I shrugged off the few that approached me and arrowed towards a thickly muscled Hispanic man who didn't look the sort that tricked purely for cash. The tip of the cigarette hanging on his lips glowed red as he took a deep drag and he checked me out as it became obvious that he was the one I wanted.

"Have a place nearby?" I asked. I put my hand in my pocket and eased out the corners of a few twenties to show that, although I was on foot, I wasn't broke.

"I don't bottom," he warned as he jerked a thumb towards the neon sign of a motel that blinked off and on a block away.

I nodded and smiled slightly, "That's fine. Over there looks good."

The man dropped his cigarette and ground the butt into the pavement. He fell into step beside me and asked, "You have a name?"

"Not important," I said.

He tucked his hands into his pockets and didn't say another word until we got to the motel, and then, only to ask the clerk at the desk for a specific room and repeat the amount quoted, as if I hadn't heard the clerk just fine on my own.

I paid and the clerk snapped a key down on the counter. The hustler took it and led me down the row of rooms to number 13. I wondered idly if the superstition about building floors held true for rooms as well.

"I'm not looking for anything special," I said as he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Gotcha," the man said and locked the door once we were inside.

The place was cheap, but at least the linen looked clean. The walls were papered with the same shade of green, as the soup I had gotten for Relena, and the carpet was threadbare, orange shag. A slightly curved, diamond shaped piece of smoked glass covered the bulb in the center of the ceiling and completed the vintage porn set look of the place. I toed my sneakers off and the hustler sat down on the edge of the double bed to watch me as he began undressing as well.

"Make sure you enjoy yourself," I said as I peeled my shirt off.

"No problem. You've got a tight little body," he grinned and swept his dark eyes across my chest. A look of nervousness wiped his smile away, "Hey, you're legal right?"

"Trust me. I'm older than I look," I said and looked him straight in the eye as I unbuttoned the fly of my jeans.

"Alright," he said and licked his lips.

The Hispanic man leaned forward to resume unlacing his boots and I could feel the waves of arousal coming from him; I drank them in greedily.

I was pushing my jeans down my hips, when the door splintered inward and a tall figure burst in. I backpedaled automatically and the denim around my knees unbalanced me. I fell heavily, but managed to land in a roll.

If the hustler hadn't snatched his boots off the floor and held them from the laces, ready to swing them in defense, I would've thought that perhaps he was working with someone and planning to rob me.

"I've been looking for you," the tall intruder said casually. His eyes were fixed on me and ignored the other man as he grabbed up his shirt and fled.

Just as with the small amount of strength I had leeched from Relena, the taste I had gotten from the hustler only left me dizzy and wanting more. I managed to get one leg free from my jeans and scrambled to put the bed between us as the tall man reached over his shoulder and drew a gleaming longsword from behind his back.

"Forsaken no longer," he intoned. The dim light, from the single overhead fixture in the room, gleamed along the edge of his sword and I could see the blade reflected in the pure emerald of his eyes.

"Heero!"

The shout startled me, but the swordsman showed no emotion; he simply swung around, coolly ignoring me, and concentrated on the new threat. He was the epitome of cold professionalism.

The haze of hunger darkened my vision, but I swiftly realized it was Maxwell's lean frame that was silhouetted in the doorway. He held a matte black pistol aimed at the Hunter and his mouth was set in a grim line.

"Duo," the Hunter said.

"Trowa."

"Keep out of this," the Hunter replied flatly. He lifted his blade before him as if it had a chance at deflecting a bullet.

Maxwell's finger tightened on the trigger and the same mocking smile that haunted my dreams replaced the dark look on his face, "You know I can't do that."

The tall Hunter had his back to me, but by the slight change in his posture, I wondered if he wasn't a bit saddened by the other man's words. Then the muscles in his neck corded and, as he leapt forward with a graceful lunge aimed at Maxwell's chest, he said, "We do what we must."

Two shots rang out. The first bullet sparked off the Hunter's blade, knocking the thrust wide and the second hit him in the shoulder. He staggered back from the force and his sword fell from nerveless fingers.

"Give my regards to Quatre," Maxwell said quietly as he fired another round.

The Hunter's head whipped back as the bullet pierced his skull.

My vision was beginning to swim and even if I wanted to, I didn't have the strength to try and flee. I blinked furiously to focus and saw the Hunter's body crumple in slow motion, then disappear in a bright flash of light before it hit the ground.

That was unexpected.

"Heero," Maxwell holstered his gun at the small of his back and rushed over to me. "Can you move? We've got to get out of here, the cops will be here soon."

I was confused. Wasn't he going to kill me? Why wasn't he taking advantage of my weakness?

The braided man slipped an arm under me and cursed when he saw my state of undress. He let me slide back down to the floor and grabbed my calf, lifting my foot and shoving it into the leg of my jeans.

"Pull them up if you can," said Maxwell. "I'll grab your shoes. Hurry, before Trowa gets a chance to tell them he didn't do the job."

"What's going on?" I asked as I wrestled with my hunger and my clothing.

"We're getting out of here before we get arrested or killed," he replied, grabbing my foot roughly and shoving it into my shoe. My heel wasn't all the way in and he tied it uncomfortably tight, but I didn't complain. I lay down on the worn carpet and jerked my hips up to pull my jeans up the rest of the way and fastened them with shaky fingers as Maxwell hastily tied the knot on my other shoe.

He put his arm under me again and pulled me to my feet. I stumbled as my heel settled into my shoe and he half drug me out of the motel room. Sirens sounded in the distance and he muttered a curse.

"Why did you leave the girl alive?" he asked as he steered us towards the passenger door of a black trans-am. The engine was purring and the driver's side was open. He had left it running in his rush to...save me?

"I don't kill," I said.

Maxwell jerked the passenger side open and used one hand to guide my head as he bent his knees and eased me inside the car. The hunger roared in my ears, but there was nothing I could do to sate it; the only thing Maxwell radiated was concern. The last thing I heard before I blacked out, was the door slamming shut at my elbow and the last thing I thought of, was the way the man's fingers had felt, against the bare skin of my leg.

-=*=-

I returned to consciousness slowly and wondered at the miracle of it.

"Welcome back," a very smooth, very pleasant, very familiar, tenor voice murmured near my ear.

"Maxwell," I gasped.

"Duo," he said and scraped his teeth against my throat. "Call me Duo."

I had so many questions, but the only thing to escape my lips was his name. It was a wanton plea to coax more than the bare whisper of carnal desire that radiated from him. We were lying on a soft surface, a bed of some sort, I couldn't concentrate enough to pick out anymore details beyond the naked body that was pressed flush against my bare flesh.

"I can give you more," Duo purred. He placed one long finger on my chin and trailed it down the center of my chest. My body jerked of its own accord as he licked the curve of my jaw and tugged at the fine hairs that trailed down below my navel.

"Please..." I looked at him pleadingly and I knew my eyes must have been dark with hunger.

He smiled and picked up my hand, then guided it to the peak of his thighs. I coaxed his member to full arousal and the resulting flood of passion that washed over me was almost more than I could handle.

I felt like a man who had been crawling through the desert for days, only to make it to the ocean. It was a boundless supply of what I craved... what I needed to survive... the temptation was too much and I drank deeply, knowing even as I did, that I was indebting myself even more to a man that Wufei had prophesied would kill me.

on to chapter five

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