The night air would have been cold for any other creature, but Fuji paid it no mind. He concentrated on the bundle in his arms, angry at himself for giving into the constant probing, pushing and cajoling. Without really thinking about it, he pushed at the doors of the old hotel with his mind, sending them slamming against the walls. He didn't care how the others looked at him, he didn't have time to. Ryou wouldn't die, it wasn't in a vampire's nature, but regeneration was going to take a hell of a lot longer if Fuji didn't help.

No one got in his way as he entered the lift. The scowl on his usually passive face probably helped with that. Getting off at his own floor, he could feel the activity of the entire clan thanks to his own shields. He wouldn't have much time before he was interrupted, so he took quick steps towards his own suite and laid Ryou on the bed. Settle, he needed to settle and stop being so pissed off at his own lack of control, and he didn't feel like mollifying himself with the fact that he'd been goaded into it and had never lost it before.

Blue eyes opened, resolve evident. "Ryou, Ryou," he murmured. "Is this what you wanted?" Someone was coming, but Fuji ignored it, and concentrated on centering his powers to heal instead of maim.

The door sailed open, the hinges making a harsh sound of admittance as it ricocheted, stopping short of bouncing back as it framed the doorway. Frozen in tableaux, a snapshot stolen from a single moment and immortalized: Yukimura, with snow dusting his hair and shoulders, eyes filled with power's silver cast coloring them brightly, one hand on the doorframe and the other half-stretched over the threshold.

He moved, the crystal moment shattering in his wake, long and purposeful strides eating the distance between entry and Fuji. Yukimura looked briefly down at the sheet-wrapped bundle of torn flesh, making a silent assessment without comment. This would require more than even their individual limits; perhaps not only in the attempt to heal one who wasn't their own.

He held out his hand, palm up, to Fuji. "Take my power, Syusuke." It left everything in their separation unspoken, an issue to be resolved later when time was not critical. I have what you need, the balance and the anchor. Take it, it is yours.

Fuji was known to be stubborn, but he was never stupid. He'd take the power and return it tenfold if he had to. Right then, he felt the need to not owe Yukimura anything quite keenly. It was an alien feeling. But right then, it was going to take a hell of a lot more than he had to make sure the damage healed relatively quickly.

Of course, the wounds would have been fatal on a human, and that wasn't the case with Ryou. Still, Fuji shuddered at the knowledge that he'd caused it. Holding his hands scant centimetres from the ravaged skin, Fuji exerted power in concentrated strands. It would take some time. "Don't expect anything from this." He murmured under his breath knowing it could be mistaken as to whom he'd meant the statement for. As it was, he knew who he'd meant.

The undercurrents between them crackled, visible to vampire senses, electric shocks across a disharmonic chasm. The gulf was wider than it seemed, and standing on one side it seemed to have no bottom and stretch into eternity.

No, Yukimura told his disbelief, the sick and empty feeling when he looked at the breach and not at the beloved. I will not lose you. Yukimura nodded a simple acknowledgment and cracked open the seals on his power, the conduit it created between him and Syusuke.

Yin and yang, addition and subtraction, dark and light, where one lacked the other was strong. Eternal, primal balance. It had always been so, dating back even to Fuji's infancy as a vampire. The air around them rumbled, the link snapping into place with an earthquake's violence.

Then, as quickly and as violently, utter, still calm. The power to harm transformed and gentled, channeled into the power to heal, buoyed up in ancient strength that was Fuji's for the directing, flooding the chasm and spanning, just for a moment, the great, grave distance.

Yukimura chanted across the connection, encouragement in that peculiar language without modern translations, seeking both Syusuke and the ravaged creature he sought to make whole.

Fuji stood there for what felt like hours, pouring the power tendrils into place in order to sew the wounds shut and help the regeneration process. It wasn't something he'd have done for just anyone, but the flighty gypsy's strange offer had touched him.

Natural light winked through the blinds before he finished. He'd refused to acknowledge Yukimura the entire time, knowing that it wasn't the right moment. As he tied off the ends, and handed back the power given to him, Fuji closed his eyes and sighed softly. The gypsy in his bed looked peaceful. His skin swollen and tender, but it would take only a few days for that to go away.

Gathering what little strength he could, he crossed his arms and turned to face the other vampire in the room; his sire. "Some things are better said out loud." The statement had a double meaning, like a sword edge of its own. Right then, Fuji wasn't feeling overly charitable.

When the connection tied and broke, the stray ends of power floating loose and free between them until psychic winds blew them gently away, Yukimura stood, brushing off the knees of his pants and loosening his tie. The band of silk made the lone splash of color in his outfit, the rest of him the varying shades of grey of an elegant photograph come to life.

"Yes." His reply was soft, still carrying across the room. "Many things need to be said." Unlike Fuji, Yukimura's hands slid into his pockets, while luminous eyes watched with care every movement Fuji made. The vampire nestled in the bed between them smelled of three things: blood, Syusuke, and Other, the scent that marked him as not under Yukimura's protection but one in opposition. The ramifications of that would fall where they may, and be dealt with in due course following other, more important things.

"The first is, I'm sorry."

Fuji's gaze hardened. "If you knew what it was you were apologising for, I might even be tempted to believe it." His stance was too confining, so he settled for bringing his hands to rest on his hips, eyes fiery when he looked up. "Sorry is a word some lazy schmuck made up because he couldn't be fucked doing anything to show that he meant it."

Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself. "This time, sorry isn't enough." He didn't add that he wasn't sure anything would be. Yukimura would be able to figure out that part by himself.

The anger in the room kindled the answering knot inside Yukimura, but he held both his ground and his temper. "Would that I could tempt you, then. Please, say what is on your mind, Syusuke," the same mild tone of voice, cool oasis in Fuji's heat. His face was impassive as Fuji spoke, only a small flicker in the surface of his placid mental pool betraying any anxiety.

"What would you have me say, Seiichi?" He didn't try to hide the distaste he felt right then. "Do you want me to soothe your ego? Do you want me to fall at your feet and fawn over you so that you'll give a fuck?" He was slowly losing the grip he had on himself. The day had barely begun and already he was ragged.

Fuji took a step closer, eyes never leaving that almost impassive face. "Would you really notice if I was gone?"

The sound of his name, his intimate name given only to one person, being spit with such derision from Syusuke, stung soul-deep. It ached, and it cried out to hurt back, to bare teeth and battle and wound until they both bled. The hands in his pockets tightened, holding to the control they represented.

"Don't be absurd. I've never sought your fawning and..." The air in the room had dropped sharply in temperature, frost gathering inside the windows as a physical representation of the clan leader’s cold anger. "...and you know I'd notice if you were gone." Through the clouds his breath made, Yukimura peered sharply back at Fuji. "You do know that," he repeated, tasting the words, which had turned to a strange, unknown mixture on his tongue, "don't you?"

"Know it? "There's apparently a whole wealth of things I know nothing about." Fuji's glare didn't lessen in intensity and his temper frayed dangerously. Voice dropping to a whisper, it still managed to carry, like a chill on the air. "Your actions and words are even more contradictory than normal. I'm sick of putting the puzzle together and hoping I'm right."

How can you not know? Yukimura wanted to demand. How can you even think that...? It was not that he failed to recognize the strain their relationship was under, but...nothing changed his feelings for Syusuke. Nothing. To him, it was a constant, an unbreakable law of this universe in which they had long lived. "What don't you know about, Syusuke? I'm difficult, I know that, but you know me, better than anyone. What do you see when you put the puzzle together?" Frustration crackled under the cool words, the blaze of emotion making a slow leak into the elder vampire's normally inscrutable expression.

Fuji's eyes flashed through red before settling back to a dark, turbulent blue. "I see a walking contradiction who doesn't need anything but his own whims fulfilled." The words were cutting, almost aimed to hurt, filled with bitterness. He made an exaggerated look at the clock. "Are you sure you have time to be here? I wouldn't want to keep you from your adoring masses." The intensity in his eyes never wavered. The sarcasm in the words dripped.

The room grew colder yet again, Yukimura's eyes darkening nearly to solid grey. "Don't be juvenile, Syusuke. It's beneath you." Part of what his chylde said stung like a whip's lash, the other bled with hypocrisy, and both kindled his anger. "I am an arrogant, contradictory bastard; that's hardly debatable. But, how do they say it? It takes one to know one. You certainly seem to pride yourself on not needing anything." Including me.

Not needing anything? Fuji almost spat his next words, and that control slipped another fraction. "I require that which is needed to accomplish my duties. Anything else is unnecessary." His eyes distanced himself and his feelings, trying in vain to maintain some form of grip on himself. "You are my sire. I enforce your will. You should have made the barriers clearer earlier."

His teeth clenched, but he wasn't quite finished. "Don't worry yourself. I understand now." He didn't need it, not the pain, or the drama, didn't need it at all. He refused to think on needing Yukimura.

Liar. Vehemence was thick in Yukimura's thought, threaded with a near-panic. Fuji had to be lying, he had to. Too much of himself was tied up in Syusuke for it all to be a millennia-long lie. "That's all it is to you, a duty to be accomplished?" The underlying emotion in the mildly-spoken words taunted Fuji to contradict him, needed his denial. "Anything else is unnecessary and my relationship to you is only that of sire to chylde?" Say it, Syusuke, say it so I know none of this is true.

"If that is what you understand, then you understand nothing."

Fuji suppressed the flinch he felt. He didn't want to hear emotion. Emotion would undo him, and he'd be caught once again. For once, he didn't want the feeling that everything ended in sex for them. He wanted more of Seiichi than that, he wanted everything. And he hadn't had that for a very long time, if ever.

"I perform my duties in all ways, shapes and forms." His words left little to the imagination and all of the connotations they could carry. "Or, have you been dissatisfied, sire?" Those words were a challenge, a chill, and even a faint plea.

The elder vampire blanched, paling until he seemed to be merely phantom eyes and shockingly dark hair against a colorless backdrop. He looked away, the shadows of curls sheltering his profile from view. The shake of his head made them rustle, brushing the wool suit coat with a message. "No," Yukimura whispered, a hollow sound, "not with you. Never with you."

It was all Fuji could do to keep from snarling. Instead, he smiled, a cold, heartless smile and almost laughed at the irony of it. He stepped away from the bed, his chest feeling more hollow that it had a right to. The words fell easily from his lips, the meaning as empty as he felt. "Then I am glad to have been of service to you, sire, but I regret the lack of ability I now have to service you in all ways you may need."

He just couldn't do it anymore. Maybe it was time to remove himself from the equation completely.

"I see." In that moment, Yukimura hated the red of Fuji's room, hated the million memories it tormented him with, beginning with the cast of crimson on a dying throat and a whispered promise of eternity. Together. "Then I won't intrude upon you further," he heard himself saying, the words falling as if years away, barely cognizant of speaking them. He kept seeing blue eyes before him--bitter, determined even in the face of impending death, dying to humanity and reborn as perfectly, perfectly his--and things such as words felt unimportant. More of them rained like glass, something about drawing up a list of those ways in which Fuji would and would not serve, as he walked towards the door, the knob cold even in his grave-kissed hand as he opened it.

No!

The hinges shrieked as Yukimura slammed the door shut again, echoing the cry in his mind. The chill had fled from the room, anger changing to something very different. Hot. Fierce. "No. I won't walk away, not until I know a few things for certain."

He stalked after Fuji as their kind would prey, deliberately, leaving no bed and no helpless gypsy vampire between them as he approached, a dark avenging angel refusing to be swayed from his goal. "I want you, Syusuke. Not your talented cock or the way you make me scream in bed. Not your power, your sweet ass, your ironic disdain. You. I want you."

"What happened to us, Syusuke? Where did I go so wrong?"

Fuji blinked slowly, taking in every word before digesting it. Was that what everything boiled down to? Maybe it was, and he'd just have to resign himself to it. Resign himself to it perhaps, but he couldn't just accept it and live like that. He moved closer to Yukimura, a sad tinge to his smile and let the whispered words fall from his lips like the tears he refused to shed from his eyes, as he made his way to the door.

"Want me as much as you like, as much as you want so many. But you don't need me, and I can't settle for less."

Steely arms caught Fuji from behind before he could quit the room, wrapping around and holding tight to his waist with a desperate edge, Yukimura's forehead buried in the back of Fuji's neck. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, foolish man," the clan leader murmured against him, the words far more directed at himself than at Fuji. "I need you, and I'm not going to let you walk out just because..."

He drew a sharp breath against Fuji's skin, his hold intensifying. "Because I haven't said it plainly enough or shown it to you every day." The words had a leaden weight of their own, yet a strange buoyancy for being spoken. "Syusuke, caro mio, ma raison d'etre, perdoe-me por favor." My heart, my reason to be, please forgive me. "I didn't realize I'd hurt you so deeply, or that you would ever believe I don't need you."

Fuji could feel the ache in his own chest, and wondered if it was echoing from Yukimura. Words were so easy to speak, to say, but to actually feel what it was you were trying to get across was a whole different thing. The grip on him was tight, but not impossible to break. Still, he felt an urge to keep the contact just that little bit longer.

Closing his eyes for a second, he let his head fall back and focused his eyes on the ceiling when he opened them again. The only thing he wasn't impervious to was Yukimura. He was the only one whose opinion carried any weight with Fuji, and right then Fuji was finding it difficult to deal. "You have strength and purpose. What I do for you, you've grown too used to, and the times you need me are when your whims lead you to something you know." He turned to look at the vampire holding him, a saddened light in his eyes. "There was never a need to say anything plainly, because your actions speak. And lately, they've been silent."

The rest of the world could burn around him; it wouldn't matter if this slipped through his fingers. Yukimura leaned forward, resting his forehead against Fuji's, dropping layer after layer of shields and pretense, inviting him inside. Yukimura reached up, taking Fuji's face in his hands, emotion brimming liquid in his exotic eyes. "I've let you down; I haven't spent enough time with you, telling you with word and deed, just how vital you are to my life, how desperately I need you. Syusuke..." the name was less word and more hitching breath, "I love you. Only you."

The proximity would be so easy to just give into and Fuji was tempted, damn tempted, but there were some things he couldn't let go just because he might want to. The words were soft and he couldn't keep the bitterness from them. "Is it truly me that you love, or the familiarity?

"Familiarity is always a comfort, there's no denying that, but don't they also say it breeds contempt?" Yukimura clung tighter to Fuji's face, memorizing him anew with his eyes. "But that's not what I love, and it grieves me to think I have not delineated the difference. Forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" Fuji tasted the words on his tongue, ignoring the touch of his sire for the moment. "There's nothing to forgive. You're the way you are and I've never meant to change it." and Fuji finally let out some of his anger. "Everyone adores you, worships you, loves you. You appear just and yet serene and no one seems to realise that sometimes you can be the most inconsiderate fucking prick!"

Forgive? Fuji wasn't sure he could do that. He wasn't even sure why everything just seemed such a big deal. They'd always had an open relationship so to speak, and it wasn't exactly that that bugged him. It was more to do with the being taken for granted. And how in the hell could Yukimura guarantee he wouldn't do it again when things blew over, or simply keep doing it. Hell, he'd done it before, just never this bad. His head swam a little. The outpouring of power still lingered in his veins and the strength he felt inside was like fire through his blood.

Yukimura's hands moved, threading gently through Fuji's hair, as if luring out the ire. "Only you would dare to say such a thing to me." He laughed, softly; they were finally hitting the crux of the matter, it seemed. "And you're right, I am an inconsiderate prick. I may be what I am, but that does not mean my actions toward you do not require forgiveness. I am as imperfect as I am powerful; I think I am able to show you more of those imperfections because you know them and can love me in spite of them. There's no question to your loyalty or your commitment."

His face, his features never lost the ageless sparkle they always had, but Yukimura's eyes showed, just for a fraction of a moment, the weight of age. "But I cannot make assumptions, things must change. Resentment left to simmer can have a heavy cost when it boils over." He glanced past Fuji to the gypsy in his bed, clamping down the discordant emotions. His presence here, wounded and ravaged, could mean the long-stirring storm would break at last, putting all of that adoration and worship and love of Yukimura's people to the test.

"I can't apologize for cultivating and caring for them. This ragtag group of hangers-on we've had has settled at last and built something...I suppose you could call it 'family'. It has been my focus, uniting everyone here as best I can. Where I've failed is in drawing you to the center of that circle, because I always believed you would be there with me." An ironic, wan smile curved his mouth. "Because I'm an inconsiderate fucking prick who arrogantly thinks he knows what's best for everyone, and doesn't always ask them what they think."

Pulling away, Fuji scowled, resigned words falling from his lips as he hugged himself. "I can't be in the middle. I'm what they fear." He didn't add that that was the way Yukimura could stand in the middle with such impunity. Instead, he turned to stare at the drawn curtains, as if wishing them open to see past. "You're set in your ways. Millennia have seen to that." For a brief moment, he turned to study his long time partner with a sigh. "Your ways are words, and you've always molded them to your advantage. But in more ways than one, I've heard it all before."

He flexed the power encasing him for a second, more of an impatient gesture than he'd usually give away and wasn't even sure he repeated himself out loud. "Yeah, I've heard it all before."

Yukimura shook his head gently, willing his partner to understand. "Not all of them fear you, and most who do don't fear you personally but what you represent to them, what your strength could do to them if it turned their direction." It differed, of course, from person to person as to just what Fuji represented to them, but the underlying theme Yukimura found in his people's minds was universal. Power, without kindness or remorse. An impression that Fuji, knowingly or not, reinforced with his actions. "But they don't know you, and people, even vampires, for we were all once human, fear what they don't know."

The elder vampire wanted badly to draw Fuji back into his arms and find some form of comfort to give him. Syusuke was so rarely vulnerable, physically, emotionally, it hurt to see him that way. "I'm set in my ways, that is true. But as a species vampires adapt as the world around them changes, or they die. I'm not ready to die yet, so that means adapting. Changing. Giving you what come behind my words."

He smiled then, the particular serene curve of lips that was for Fuji alone. Fingers curled against his palm, hungry to soothe that restless rolling of power with touch and deed. Innamorato, I will win your heart again, and I will cherish it. "Don't take my words, then. Take the feeling directly from my mind. If you can't believe in what I say, find the truth inside me. I am yours, Syusuke," he added softly, holding out one hand, palm up, as he had done earlier when he offered his power to Fuji.

It was a tactic Fuji hadn't been expecting, and one he knew he should have. He could feel the tug of Yukimura's mind against his own and he found himself not wanting to resist. This was the creature who gave him life when it had been all but taken from him. This was the man who stood by his side while he took the vengeance that had enabled him to take that step towards being what he'd now become. And this was the person who Fuji loved, more than loved, in a thousand different little ways.

So he took that step towards Yukimura, his eyes not leaving the others, and he placed his palm against his lover's, closed his eyes, and got swept away. The whirltide of emotion pouring through Yukimura's thoughts shocked him. He'd never even dreamed of so much emotion to be directed at him. It was a shock, and he had to be so careful not to get ripped along in its wake. Maybe Seiichi wasn't just twisting words for once, maybe he really meant it.

Dropping his hand, he stepped back, and opened his eyes. "Not again, just don't do this again." It was all he said in that soft lyrical tone, and he hoped it was all he needed to say.

Every bit of it, Syusuke. Every bit. It staggered Yukimura sometimes, how deeply and how passionately his heart revolved around Fuji. No beginning, no end. Part of him cried out with profound loss when Syusuke's hand slipped from his, the intimate conduit between them of thought and soul longing for its companion.

Drawing breath, Yukimura shrugged out of his suit jacket, stepping towards Fuji and sliding it over his shoulders. Ancient eyes met Fuji's in soft understanding. "Not again," he repeated, his hand reaching towards Fuji's face. It hesitated, a butterfly not certain whether to land or flit away, and then one knuckle made a whisper-gentle stroke against a high, proud cheekbone.

That simple yet innocent touch sparked a fire in Fuji that he'd been desperately trying to ignore. His own power knew that of Yukimura's and it answered it; as if being called by it. He felt a need for something he'd never completely realised was as much a part of him as his own flesh and blood. And Yukimura was that part.

Leaning slightly into the touch, he refused to break their eye contact. He didn't want to alienate, just to push the point home that little bit stronger. "I mean it." he said softly, but he didn't pull away because he yearned for that touch more than he needed blood.

He didn't push him away, and a second finger joined the first, turning over to press the pads of fingertips against the angles of Fuji's face, as if trying to forever leave behind Yukimura's fingerprints. The same need singing in Fuji harmonized through him, clouded away any other wants or concerns beside Syusuke.

"I know." Simple words, but their undercurrent was anything but simple. Yukimura's thumb dragged through the hollow of Fuji's cheek, memorizing him with touch. "I need you, Syusuke. Always."

Always. The word sounded so good in theory, and Fuji wanted, right then, to believe in its reality too. He needed Yukimura more than he liked to admit, and right then, his power needed him even more. Moving into the touch, he placed a hand lightly on Yukimura's waist. "Last chance, only chance..." Because he couldn't do it again. He hoped it wasn't pushing it too much.

"It's the only chance I'll need." Yukimura's other hand curved around Fuji's face, cradling it between his palms. So vital and so precious, this close Yukimura's mind envisioned the moment when he made Fuji his. How kohl-rimmed eyes slowly lost their light, dying...and brilliantly reborn, carrying his blood, the first of his line, first ever in his heart. That sort of connection was irreplaceable, as was Fuji. He couldn't let him ever believe again that he wasn't needed. "I love you," Yukimura breathed, welcoming Fuji's hand and moving closer to him.

Fuji's other hand strayed to Yukimura's soft wavy strands and he moved his body close so as to lightly touch the other's. He smiled softly, letting those words sink in as well as the emotion behind them. Fuji would never have given anyone else in the world that chance, but Yukimura wasn't just anyone; he was everything.

Letting his lips brush against Yukimura's own, he kissed one cheek and then the other. "Then I'm yours..."

Yukimura's fingers drifted from Fuji's face back into his hair, meeting one another at the nape of his lover's neck. "As I am yours, geliefd. Then, now, and forever." The clan leader stepped closer, inviting Fuji's hand on his hip to rest on his back, and simply held him tightly, savoring the intimate distance and the warm, fiery crackles of power answering power and welcoming the other home.

It was an intimacy that didn't need to touch, and yet the fact that they were was so much more intense. Resting his forehead against Yukimura's, Fuji smiled softly, feeling a weight lift from him. He was tired, but not spent. Power roiled restlessly just below breaking point, and right then he wanted to do nothing with it. Simply being close would do him, because he wanted nothing more for now.

"Stay with me," he whispered with a vulnerability no one else had ever been shown in over four millennia. But then again, Yukimura was definitely not just anyone.

Mind to mind, heart to heart, the connection hummed like a living thing birthed from the touch of foreheads. Yukimura kept his gentle hold on Syusuke, his beloved, drinking his presence deeply as blood. His own aura whispered along Syusuke's power, stroking it, gentling its restless bend.

"Yes," Yukimura replied, just as softly. His partner seemed made of glass, just for a moment, transparent and fragile, and he cradled his face in his hands. This small part of Syusuke was Seiichi's alone, and he guarded it jealously. Arms slid around Fuji, gathering him close, holding him tight like the precious person he was. Yes, Syusuke. I will stay with you.