O.K. Here's the next bit. Help out with some C&C if you feel like it.

Enjoy!

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	Blood had loved this dragon with all her heart and it had brought
her nothing but pain. She was terrified that it would happen again if she
let herself fall under the spell of his love once more. The Gyushu ruled
the Earth and the Heavens still and so far she and Remy had managed to keep
themselves hidden. Like before. Hidden and safe until the Dragon came. Remy
didn't understand. He thought Blood had been granted the same mercy Dust
had when the Kings had been sent into exile. He didn't know that Blood had
spent another ten years in the Gyushu court as a plaything until they had
finally abused her enough that she had died. And he would never know. She
scowled at the Dragon in the portrait and turned her back on it, telling
herself once more that this flutter in her chest was caused by a memory of
another time and belonged to a different person. She was not Blood. She
wasn't!

* * *


	Tsuzuku looked down at the journal he held in his lap, then over at
Remy who was concentrating on guiding the sleek Jag through the slower
traffic. It had been a very informative evening. And after he had managed
to coax Tannis into laughter halfway through dinner, very enjoyable. She
had seemed much more relaxed around him after that. Then the two of them
had then taken turns giving him fast synopses of their early backgrounds as
they lingered at the table over coffee.

	Remy told him he had been born to an unwed mother who refused to
speak of his father to her family. She had died bringing him into the world
and he had been raised by his 'touched' Grandmother in New Orleans. She was
the only one who would take him, the rest of the family having disowned his
mother and 'the bastard' she carried. Tannis was also apparently an
unwanted child. She had been adopted as a newborn into an upper-class
Boston family and raised with all of the perks of money and prestige. She
had never been able to find out about her birth parents. She had tried, but
the lawyer who had arranged the adoption had been very tight-lipped about
the whole subject. Finally she had threatened to take him to court and he
told her that he had never met the people who had given her up. He had just
been contacted by a third party who had a healthy baby who needed a good
home with no questions asked.

	They had moved into the living room then and ended up on the sofa,
Tsuzuku between them as they showed him their photo album. There were a few
of them as children, but most were from the time they had met each other at
fifteen. They had both been sent to a private boarding school in New
Hampshire, Remy obviously being the 'odd man out' in a school full of
Eastern blue-bloods in both of their recollections.

	He smiled as he remember Remy accusing her of being a terribly
spoiled, stuck-up snob when he had first met her. She had stuck her tongue
out at him and drawled back with a heavily inflected imitation of his
accent which made her words almost unrecognizable, "Cher, at least I be
speakin' a language the rest of the world understand, neh?"

	Remy told him how he had seen a few of Tannis' watercolors hung in
the art room to dry and nearly had a heart attack when the places and the
boy he'd been dreaming about forever was there on those papers. Remy had
sent Tannis to get them for him to see as he finished telling how he had
tried repeatedly to talk to her and been rebuffed again and again and
finally had just shoved his opened journal into her hands one day in study
hall with a whispered, "I be dreamin' bout Tsuzuku too!"

	The two of them had been inseparable since then, bound together by
their dreams and something more...he could feel it. There was a deeper
connection between the two of them. One that he was outside of, one that he
wanted very much to become part of. He wondered just how much into their
lives he was going to be allowed as the feeling of the heat of them both
pressing close against his sides as they pointed out things and events in
the album on his lap came back to him.  He was very glad for the darkness.
He knew he was blushing again. A small cynical smile touched his mouth. He
was acting just like a school girl in the presence of her first crush. He
turned his head and looked out the side window at the city growing more
shabbier as they started into the 'bad' side of town.

	A first crush...he realized suddenly that was what he was
experiencing. At least he thought it was what he was experiencing. Except
he had two 'crushes' at the same time. Tannis he could understand but
Remy...why Remy? He had never been drawn to men, yet he was terribly
attracted to this Cajun. He had been since that first time he saw him
glowing pale in that spotlight. Tsuzuku swallowed hard as his mind echoed
that swirling whirlwind of pleasure.

	Gods, he had to stop thinking this way! He was going to end up
working himself back into that 'state' that had made Remy had to...do what
he did. He had no right to even expect anything more from either of them
than the offer of friendship and acceptance that both of them had extended.
He wondered if he would be as generous if he had been forced to experience
their lives in his dreams. And as they had talked, he had discovered that
they had 'experienced' his life. Their description of the first time he had
Changed, the shared knowledge of how much it had...hurt...had tied his
stomach into knots.

	That thought brought him back to the question he had been trying to
figure out how to ask without embarrassing himself and Remy too much. He
wrestled with it few more seconds as his fingers tightened on the book,
then just asked.

	"Remy, how did you know what was wrong with me and how to fix it?"

	Remy caught his lower lip with his front teeth as he debated on how
to answer that. His and Tannis' leading questions during the evening had
shown that Their Dragon had retained no memories of the time when he had
ruled the Go with his brothers. That he had no memories of them. Of what
they had shared, how they had loved. Back then Their Dragon had been just
that. A dragon without the cultural morays that Tsuzuku as a human being
had been raised with. He knew that Tsuzuku was deeply embarrassed that it
had been himself that had answered the demands of the dragons lust and not
Tannis.

	And he was afraid now that if Tsuzuku found out just how close Dust
and the Dragon had been he would run from them. His heart jumped at that
thought and the familiar pain tightened around his lungs without it's usual
warning, clamping down, making him struggle for breath. He hid it, forced
his face not to show his distress as he willed it to pass quickly, glad
that the night hid his white knuckled grip on the steering wheel from
Tsuzuku's sight.

	"Remy-san?" Tsuzuku had his whole focus on him, a questioning look
of concern on his handsome features.

	Remy made himself smile, took in another small sip of air and used
all his vocal training to force it to make his voice it's normal, even self
and winked.

	"I been there before, Cher. First time I blew up my room. Scare all
the black left right out of Grandmother's hair," ...not a lie, but not all
of the truth, neither.

	Tsuzuku's eyes widened slightly, then he lowered them.

	"Sa." What else could he say? A simple and very obvious reason for
Remy to know.

	"Cher, you need to tell me how to go from here. Dreamin' strange in
that you know places, but not necessarily how to be gettin' to them," Remy
asked to distract Tsuzuku and give him the time he needed to get past this
attack.

	Another five minutes brought them to their destination, and
thankfully, past his episode. This had been a short one, one that would
heal on it' s own and not force him to dip into the power that slept in his
soul to repair the damage it left in it's wake. Remy guided the car to the
curb and put it in park, then turned toward Tsuzuku.

	"You sure you don' want to be comin' with me and Tannis tomorrow?"

	Tsuzuku shook his head no again. Though he would like to, he had to
work and the show was going to be a 'high class' affair that would have all
kinds of well known people attending it. He couldn't take the risk of being
seen, of being recognized.

	Remy kept his hands still on his lap, fighting his desire to reach
out and touch. It would do nothing but freak Tsuzuku out.

	"Well, you have our number an' know where we be, Cher."

	Tsuzuku nodded, couldn't breathe for a moment as he froze, caught
by the glow of the silver flecks in Remy's eyes. He wasn't sure what to do!
He had come to the conclusion that Remy had been left with no choice but to
offer him the relief he had so desperately needed. He had asked for nothing
back and it wouldn't have happened if Tannis had been available. A part of
him said to lean and take the kiss he wanted, or at least touch his hand
while the rest of him just said 'get out before you embarrass yourself and
him!'. That part won. He hurried to open the door and got out. Once he was
on the sidewalk he felt a bit...safer and turned to lean back down.

	"Tell Tannis again for me that I hope her show is a resounding
success...and...," he straightened and offered a formal bow and another
blush that he hoped was not too obvious in the weak light from the street
lamp, "thank-you, Remy-san."

	Remy gave him a gentle smile and bit back all of the possible
responses that danced on the tip of his tongue. They were all laced with
too much innuendo. He settled on, "Don't be a stranger, neh?"

	Tsuzuku nodded as he stepped back and shut the door, lifted his
hand in response to Remy's parting wave and watched the car until it went
around a corner, out of his sight. He took a deep breath and realized he
was clutching Remy's journal against his chest as if it was the man
himself. He shook his head and chided himself once more with a harsh mental
laugh to stop this nonsense as he glanced up at the building where his
brother waited for an explanation.

	He still wasn't sure how much he was going to tell Hajime as he
plodded slowly up the last flight of stairs. He still didn't know as he
reached the door to their apartment. He tucked Remy's Book under his arm
then he let himself in.

	Hajime was putting a bookmark into the book he had been reading as
he opened the door. He could hear Matsuri moving around in the kitchen as
he toed off his shoes.

	"Tsuzuku-kun," Hajime greeted, his tone neutral but his eyes were
full of concern and worry as he looked his second brother over.

	"I'm all right, Elder Brother," Tsuzuku offered a reassuring smile
as he went and settled across the table from his brother.

	"What happened? Matsuri said that you were running a terrible
fever," Hajime asked bluntly.

	He watched as Tsuzuku shifted uneasily, one hand going to rest on
the book he had brought and put on the table in front of him.

	"I..." Tsuzuku hesitated as his eyes darted toward the kitchen,
then to the closed door that his youngest brothers slept behind. "I'm not
sure."

	Hajime gave him 'that look' which meant he wasn't going to settle
for glib half-explanations. He rubbed at the center of his forehead and
closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts.

	"It started at that concert I went to the other night. There were
two people there that I found myself very attracted to. I...dreamt about
them..." he twitched mentally as both of Hajime's eyebrows went up in
surprise.

	"It was a very erotic dream," his eyes went back to the kitchen
entrance, checking, then he leaned over the table and said in a very soft
but intense voice, "I was so aroused it made me sick, Hajime! Did you know
that could happen?"

	Hajime blinked back and shook his head, startled by that bit of
information. His eyes went to the closed door and Tsuzuku knew what he was
thinking. At least Amaru was too young and Owaru hadn't shown the slightest
bit of interest in girls yet so they shouldn't have to worry about a repeat
of this for a while.

	"These two people, who are they, Tsuzuku?"

	Tsuzuku let out a mental breath of relief. He knew Hajime would
have figured out what had happened and was grateful that his oldest brother
had enough respect for his privacy not to pry for details.

	"Tannis Lee and Remy Lebeau," Tsuzuku opened the book and prepared
to drop the next bombshell on his brother, "they have been dreaming about
me since they were children."

	He slid the three pictures that he had asked Tannis if he could
borrow across the table to his brother. She had come back with some of her
later works along with the watercolors Remy had sent her for.

	Hajime's eyes narrowed as he picked up the first one. It was a line
drawing in pencil of Tsuzuku at six, standing on his tip-toes and gazing
over the edge of a bassinet with wide-eyed wonder at the tiny perfection of
Amaru. The next was in pen and of a day Hajime remembered well. Tsuzuku had
been thirteen and fallen out of the high branches of the big maple in the
back yard and broken his arm. He had had to hold him still while their
father set it. The picture was of their father carrying Tsuzuku back to the
house in the strong cradle of his arms. The third one was in colored
pencil. He knew it was his brother even though the figure was in a huddle
on the floor, a pool of blood forming around him as tongues of flame closed
in.

	Matsuri peeked around the edge of the kitchen opening as Hajime
studied the pictures and decided it was time to make her entrance. She
wanted to see what was on those papers, what was creating that startled
expression on Hajime's face.

	Hajime glanced up at Tsuzuku, shocked. Tsuzuku regarded him evenly
back and shrugged, then looked up with a smile as Matsuri came in with a
tray and a "Good evening, Tsuzuku-kun!"

	Tsuzuku reached for the coffee pot and poured for himself as he
said, "Tannis is the artist. Remy keeps a journal."

	"May I?" Matsuri and Hajime asked at the same time, Matsuri
indicating the drawings, Hajime the journal under his hand.

	He nodded at Matsuri then tipped his head at his brother with an
amused smile.

	"I would like to read it first, Brother, if you wouldn't mind?"

	Hajime smiled back and bowed his head in unspoken apology.

	"I would like to meet these people, Brother."

	"Maybe you could invite them over for dinner on Monday," Matsuri
suggested as she smiled at the picture of Tsuzuku and Amaru.

	It was the day that both she and Tsuzuku had off, the restaurant
not needing six servers for the sparse Monday business. Tsuzuku favored her
with an unreadable expression but nodded agreement.


* * *

to be continued...