Chapter Seven:
Khaz

 

Noah was getting better about the disappearing without warning thing, but he also had a bad habit of forgetting he had a cell phone. As many times as Khaz had grouched at him and harped because he hadn’t even sent a damn text, Noah still kept forgetting to even keep the thing charged.

Which meant that until he returned home, Khaz had only a vague idea of where his childe was.

It had been a good ten or eleven hours since he’d seen Noah, which meant it had been a good ten or eleven hours since he’d dosed him with his touch.

Fear welled up in the pit of his stomach. Khaz didn’t know what he’d be dealing with when Noah came home. He hadn’t touched anyone this much or this often, not even Mikail. He knew there could be consequences, but he’d never warned Noah.

If he did, he’d have to admit what he was doing, and he was terrified he’d lose all the good will he’d built up with his childe. It had taken so long to earn Noah’s trust. If he was affected by the lack of touch, all of that was going to come crashing down…

Unless Khaz lied. Again.

He didn’t know what to do.

It was early, approaching dawn, when Noah finally returned to the apartment — and he looked like shit.

Khaz flinched inwardly, knowing it was his fault but not having any idea how to tell his childe he was the reason. How could he? But how many times had he tried to call Noah that night, only to reach the default voicemail on the phone? He’d tried to get him home before things got bad.

“Where have you been?” Khaz asked, a little more sharply than he’d meant to speak as Noah stepped inside and closed the door.

“Hello to you too,” Noah croaked, his voice sounding strained and rough. “You know, I didn’t even know vampires could get sick.”

Khaz couldn’t exactly tell him that they couldn’t, not when sweat was dripping down Noah’s brow even as he shivered, as his cheeks burned with fever and…

And who knew what else? Khaz didn’t have a clue.

“I feel like I have the flu,” Noah said, flopping down onto the couch with a groan.

Khaz said nothing, but he sagged down next to him and used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his childe’s forehead, like a concerned mother. Once he’d dabbed most of the sweat off, he placed a hand on Noah’s forehead, feeling the heat of an otherworldly fever radiate off of him. The body might be dead, but the dependency still raged through it, withdrawal symptoms and all.

“You’re burning up,” he said, but he didn’t ask him about it.

“I know. I feel like shit,” Noah mumbled.

Khaz tried to be covert as he touched Noah’s hot skin, feeling no small measure of relief that his childe hadn’t immediately tried to rip the skin off of his body to get the fix he didn’t even know he craved.

Maybe… maybe it was better if he didn’t know. Maybe it would be safer for both of them, but especially for Khaz himself. Men and women had lost their shit over his ability. Who was to say it wasn’t just that Noah was oblivious that stopped him from trying to force what he needed out of Khaz?

“Your hand feels amazing there,” Noah said, resting a larger, callused hand atop Khaz’s.

Khaz had to fight to stop himself from freaking out, wondering if Noah would even let go of him if he tried to pull away. “I haven’t fed. I’m cold,” he lied. He jerked his hand away regardless of how good it apparently felt for his childe. It was hard enough not to freak out about all of this without Noah holding on to him.

How could he have let it get this far?

Noah looked at him, letting out a sound of protest, but he didn’t stop Khaz from drawing away. “I guess it’s pretty selfish to say that’s probably why it feels so good, huh? Sorry. I don’t know if I’m… contagious, or something. Just felt really good…”

There was yearning in his voice, but Khaz wasn’t willing to touch him again yet — even if touching him was the only way he would feel better… and there was no way he and Noah would never touch again.

Selfishly, Khaz would prefer him addicted and sweet over angry and distant.

“I’m sorry,” Khaz said softly, knowing he should offer blood, offer love and affection and all of those things. They would make Noah better, but if Noah found out why he was so miserable—

“S’okay,” Noah said, leaning in to snuggle closer to him.

Khaz froze.

“Just cuddle me until I fall asleep?”

Any other time, it would’ve been cute for his larger, much more broad-shouldered lover to be asking for cuddles. Tonight, it was just downright terrifying.

“Just cuddling…?” he asked, trying to keep a lid on his fears. “You sure that’s all you need?”

Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. I fed, but it doesn’t feel like I did. Right now, I just want to be close to you.”

“Okay,” Khaz said, aware he sounded weird but not sure how to fix it. He hadn’t even put an arm around Noah, but he cautiously did then. Perhaps once the worst of the withdrawal eased, he could tell him the truth. Or maybe then he wouldn’t have to at all anymore.

If it wasn’t hurting Noah, did he really need to know?

“I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to…” Noah said, looking at him, those stormy grey eyes troubled. “You don’t really seem to want to touch me.”

There was hurt there that he’d never really imagined he’d see from Noah — Noah, who had once wanted to be worlds away from him.

“I do!” Khaz said quickly, briefly tightening the arm around his childe. “I do. I’m just… worried,” he said slowly.

“Does this happen?” Noah asked, snuggling closer to Khaz. “I mean, often, the whole sick thing? It can’t be too common,” he said a bit doubtfully.

Khaz’s anxiety spiked.

“Depends…” he said, purposely vague. He didn’t want to tell Noah, but he wasn’t sure he could avoid it with that line of questioning. He didn’t want to lie either. Keeping it from his childe was painful enough. “You shouldn’t be gone so long…” he said. “I missed you.”

Noah offered a smile, some of the strain starting to slowly leave his features and the sweat drying on his forehead. “I missed you too. I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d be gone nearly that long. Just feeding, and—” He interrupted himself, squirming a little. “Stuff.”

Noah was such a bad liar that he didn’t even try anymore.

“I called you like a hundred times… What stuff…?”

“Yeah, my phone died. I sort of forgot to charge it again. I’ll try to get better about it,” Noah promised, but he still sounded miserable.

It weighed on Khaz’s conscience. He was the reason Noah was feeling like this. Sure, his childe should stay close, but not this close.

“It’s okay. I love you,” Khaz said, worry gnawing at him anew. But this time, it wasn’t for his childe — not like that, anyway.

Noah would be so angry if he realized. Would it even matter that Khaz loved him more than anything?

“I know,” Noah said, pausing before he amended himself to say the words Khaz knew were still foreign to his childe’s tongue, “I love you too.”

Even with everything going on, those words still warmed his cold, dead, lying little heart, but the guilt descended again immediately after. He had to change the subject, but nothing came to mind except where the hell Noah had been for so long that he was now in withdrawal!

“Where did you go?” he asked. “I was so worried… Feeding shouldn’t take all night. What if you’d got caught out in the sun?”

Noah squirmed, the guilty feeling overwhelming his other emotions. Khaz wasn’t the only one struggling with guilt, which explained why Noah hadn’t picked up on it yet — and why Khaz had taken that long to read his childe on it.

Oh, he’d done something Khaz wasn’t going to like.

“Noah?” Khaz prompted.

“Ashton asked me to go somewhere with him,” Noah said, though the feelings of guilt and unease didn’t fade on either end of their bond. “It took longer than I thought. And I did get back before the sun, so everything’s okay.” He paused, grimacing then amending, “Mostly everything’s okay.”

“Then why do you feel so guilty?” Khaz asked, a little sharper than intended — mostly because it was entirely possible that Noah was mirroring his own guilt, and he was still somewhat lying to his childe.

“Because…” Noah hesitated a little, obviously trying to find a way to lie but not finding one. “So, he wanted to go talk to this vampire lady. And I don’t think he was supposed to go there. He wouldn’t really tell me much of anything…”

Khaz felt the earth tilt all of a sudden. “Wait, you went with a human to see some vampire?”

Noah winced. “Um…”

“Noah…!” Khaz exclaimed, exasperated. “You’re a vampire, but you’re not invincible, and—” He paused before carefully hedging, “You don’t… want to die, do you?”

“No!” Noah said, almost before he’d finished speaking. “No. Ashton didn’t want me to go to like… protect him or anything,” he said defensively, casting a quick look at Khaz. “He just wanted me there to play master in case an enforcer stopped him so Reese wouldn’t know he’d gone out.”

“…How is that any better?” Khaz asked shortly.

“Because I owe him,” Noah said, his voice suddenly going harsh and cold. “And you know that.”

Khaz flinched. There was that familiar reminder that Noah had hated him for it once, for getting him to walk away from Ashton’s gang rape because he wasn’t invincible. Neither of them were.

“The least I could do was walk him somewhere so no one would pay attention to some lone human,” Noah muttered, pulling away from him. “It was no big deal. She was just some crazy vampire. She didn’t do anything for Ash, and it was all pointless anyway. Nothing happened.”

Somehow Noah pulling away from him was so much worse than Noah not being able to keep his hands off of him. It was terrifying that he could still just leave even with the addiction raging through him.

“I’m sorry,” Khaz said quickly, too quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m— I’m sorry. I love you.” At a loss for words, he just wanted to say whatever it was he needed to say to undo the last five minutes of conversation.

Noah roughly ran his hand through his hair, and though his features were returning to their normal color, he still didn’t look like he felt very good. “Can we just…” His shoulders slumped. “Can we just not do this right now? My head is pounding. It’s been a really long night. I can handle myself, okay? I can be gone for a night without the world ending.”

Khaz bit his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood, and he winced. “Why—” he started, but his voice broke. “Why do you think you’re… feeling sick?” he asked.

Noah flashed him another irritated look. “I don’t know. We were talking about that before. You didn’t seem to know, and I sure as hell don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t even know vampires could get sick.”

“They don’t,” Khaz said, his voice growing quieter. He was already regretting bringing this up. He should’ve just come clean when Noah was miserable but affectionate instead of waiting to piss him off and—

His anxiety took the upper hand immediately, but there was no going back now. Noah would ask, and he would find out, and he would likely go back to hating him.

“It’s me. I’m— I’m the reason you’re feeling like shit.” Khaz nearly choked on the words. “And I can’t stop it, and I’m sorry, but that’s part of the reason I’m so worried about you all the time, and why I’m so fucking alone, because everyone who gets close to me—” He broke off, hunching down onto himself.

Noah blinked at him. “What are you talking about?” At least his anger was devolving into confusion, though Khaz expected it to ramp back up any second now.

“Come here,” he said, holding out a hand for his childe.

“That doesn’t explain…” Noah sighed, shaking his head, but he reached out to take Khaz’s hand anyway.

He probably thought Khaz just wasn’t going to tell him, and there was still a chance he didn’t have to… but he was already so close now.

His fingers closed around Noah’s, his thumb casually stroking the scarred knuckles.

“You said my hand felt really good on your forehead, right? It wasn’t because I’m cold. It’s… It’s because it’s me. My touch… It—” He drew in a deep breath and held it. “It’s just my touch,” he said, not wanting to say the words that made it sound as awful as it was.

Noah wasn’t following, at least not yet. He stared at Khaz for a long moment. “You’re saying… that if I touch you… I’ll feel better?” he asked, frowning at him.

That was a lot nicer way of putting it. Khaz gladly took the way out, nodding quickly and tightening his grip on Noah’s hand.

“I didn’t ask for this…” Khaz said slowly, not really wanting to face the fact that despite not wanting it, he’d made good use of the ability to tie people to him — most notably Noah, who had wanted to be rid of him so badly!

Noah breathed in deep and let it out, obviously still trying to put the pieces together. He clutched Khaz’s hand, just… looking at him, and all Khaz could feel from the bond between them was confusion.

“So you’re saying this is always going to happen if I’m away from you too long,” Noah finally said. “Is it…” He looked down at their joined hands. “Is it going to get worse?”

“To a degree, yes…” he admitted, feeling a flood of relief at just the mere fact that Noah wasn’t kicking and screaming and trying to get as far away from him as possible. “I don’t know. It could get worse. People have been worse,” he said. Despite his best intentions, there was still a quiver to his words.

“So it might get… what, shorter? Until I can’t be away from you at all?” There was a little bit of wariness in those words.

Khaz was terrified they were going to go the route he’d worried about so much. If Noah felt trapped…

“Or is it just going to get more intense?”

He swallowed hard and looked up hopelessly at his childe. “It’s not really an exact science, Noah, and I’m so sorry… I don’t want you to be trapped here, with me. If… if you want to go, then—” He couldn’t finish that sentence.

Noah’s fingers tightened around Khaz’s, and he quickly shook his head. “No, it’s… I just don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “Does this happen with other vampires? I mean, the vampire we went to see could do things to people’s bodies or something, and now this…”

“I don’t know that either. Some vampires can do things. They have a gift, or an ability… Mine is more a curse,” Khaz answered, a touch bitterly, definitely not wanting to think about what vampire Noah was talking about. “I’m a good whore, really. People only want my body, and they want it more the more they get it. It was good for business.”

“You used it against me,” Noah said quietly but matter-of-factly, meeting Khaz’s eyes. He was trembling a little, but he didn’t look away.

More importantly, he didn’t sound angry, which felt impossible somehow.

“I kept… wanting you to touch me more and more, but I didn’t know why,” Noah said.

“I should’ve told you,” Khaz said, his voice thick. “I wanted to, but I was a coward. I wanted to keep you with me, even when you hated me.” Especially when Noah had hated him.

Noah squeezed his eyes closed, but he didn’t let go of Khaz’s hand. “It’s not what did it, you know,” he said after several tense moments of silence. “I mean, maybe it gave you an opening. I don’t know. But it wasn’t what made me love you.”

It was more generosity than Khaz could’ve hoped for, and he felt a burn of tears behind his eyes as surely as the snap of something beautifully painful in his chest. He wanted to believe those words, more than anything, but he couldn’t be sure they were true.

“How can you know that…?” he asked.

“Because I knew I was screwed the first time you were nice to me,” Noah said, not looking back at him. “I just… didn’t expect it to be so literal.”

Khaz’s lying dead little heart grew about four times in size at that, and he tugged on Noah’s hand to pull him closer. “You mean that?” he asked. “You don’t… hate me?” He couldn’t help but ask. He had to ask, or it would drive him insane.

Noah sighed, resting his head on Khaz’s shoulder. Khaz wanted to urge him up so he could look at his face, because he was too scared to actually delve into what Noah was feeling through their bond.

Noah finally shook his head. “I tried,” he admitted. “For a long time.”

Khaz dared to sink a little into their bond, feeling the familiar confusion along with the echo of something that might’ve been his own feelings returned.

“I know what you did, with Mays. For me. What you did with other people, and I tried to hate you for that, too.” Noah finally looked back up at him. “But I don’t think I ever did, and I… I don’t think I ever could.”

Khaz swallowed thickly. How could he even respond to that? Not with words.

Instead, he leaned in and held Noah close, kissing him as he gave his childe everything he had.

Just like he always would.