"What in God's name are you doing here?!" Ludwig demanded to know from the blond vampire, who was sitting on his couch. Half an hour ago, he had left to pick up the emergency delivery of blood bags for Caden, stored inside a cooler, just to find Julius sitting in his living room and his husband nowhere to be found. He was about to roast his former lover for what he had done to the redhead, when the latter suddenly came out of the bathroom. 

Before he had the time to even ask him if he was alright, the young vampire had already snatched the cooler with the bags from his hand and returned back to the bathroom. Even though Ludwig knew from his own experience that this twitchy, moody behavior and the insatiable hunger for blood would only last for the first few months, he still worried about his husband. How can I help him if I don't even know what I'm doing? Ludwig thought when suddenly, almost as if he had read his mind, Julius spoke up. 

"Sam told me yesterday that you came to ask for my help with this, while I was gone." The older vampire explained and then added with a hand gesture toward the door Caden had disappeared behind, "May we speak in private?"

"I must admit you seem to do your job as his maker quite well." Julius said in an attempt to cheer up his disciple, once they had reached the beach and he was sure the sound of the waves would make it impossible for the redhead to hear them. 

"I wouldn't know, you weren't there for me when I was in this state." 

Ludwig’s words, though they were true, still hurt Julius. Nervously, he bit his bottom lip and tried to come up with any excuse as to why he hadn't been there when the dark-haired man needed him the most, without revealing the true reason, but he just couldn't. He just couldn't lie and deceive his former lover any longer. "I thought you were dead…" Julius hesitantly explained, finding himself unable to even look at the beautiful man beside him.

"Why?"

It was only a couple of seconds, but to the older vampire, it felt like hours had passed until he finally managed to build up the courage to tell Ludwig what he truly had done in that godforsaken night over a thousand years ago. "Because, I was the one who killed you. I strangled you to death after you tried to break up with me."

Julius expected the other man to scream at him, maybe even to kill him out of revenge, but to his surprise he did nothing alike. Instead, the dark-haired vampire just shook his head and said, "I wish I could say that I'm surprised." 

The exasperated words of his once so beloved stung his heart more than anything else he could have ever imagined. Did his old lover really think so little of him? Was he truly such a monster that Ludwig wasn't even surprised by his confession? 

"Ludwig, ich bereue zutiefst, was ich getan habe." Julius told the other man, hoping that using the former king's native tongue would convince him that he really meant what he was saying. But when the blond glanced over at his old companion, a knot started to form in his throat. 

Minutes went by as both men just stared off into the distance, too hung up in their own thoughts to even attempt to say anything. Julius was already considering outright leaving, and to just close this chapter of his long life when Ludwig suddenly spoke up, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "Do you really?" 

"Yes of course. I regret all that I have done to you! Well… maybe not exactly everything, because I don't give a damn that I killed your whore. But everything else, yes, definitely." Julius assured his former lover, who immediately corrected him on the technicality of his relationship with the red-haired human. "He isn't my whore, he is my husband!"

"Fine, your husband. Like I give a shit what you call him." The blond grumbled and rolled his eyes. "Anyway, what do you need help with, my…friend?" 

"Too soon for that, way too soon, Julius."