Bloodlines

by Alex Kidwell

  “Yes, fine,” Randall sighed heavily, nudging his shoulder against Anthony’s. “You are still able to kick my butt if you so choose. Point taken.” He glanced over, smiling slightly at Anthony. “You know I’m just doing this because I love you, right?” And he was worried. God, he was just so worried, all the time. Telling Anthony something that obvious, though, would be like pointing out he had brown hair. “I’m going to do whatever I can to get you well again. It really is going to be okay.” Randall had to believe that. He just had to keep telling himself that, telling everyone that, and working as hard as he possibly could to make it true.

  “I know. And thank you.” Anthony had a corner of the blanket between his hands, twisting it in his fingers, apparently unconcerned at getting the paste all over it. “For your help, I mean. I just don’t want you doing things for me because you think I can’t.” He smiled ruefully.

  There were a lot of things Randall wanted to say to that. To point out the fact that Anthony shouldn’t have to do things that were painful, that were hard, just because he could. To beg his brother to slow down, to not push himself, and the disease, past this point. Because that was what was going to happen. If the treatment didn’t work, this day was going to be the best one he had left. And then the next day, he’d be a little worse, and that day would turn into the new best. And so on, further down, until the ability to walk, to run, to shift, were all forgotten. Until the new best, the new normal, was one of twisted, unmoving pain.

  Until there were no more good days at all.

  He just wanted Anthony to never see that day. To not have to feel pain that wasn’t necessary. But Randall looked over at Anthony’s face, the grim determination, the pride—God, so much pride, like Anthony was only asking to keep his identity, to keep the one thing that defined him. All Anthony had ever done, all he’d worked for, was to take care of him and Edwin. Randall couldn’t take that away, even a little. He couldn’t imply that there’d ever be a moment when Anthony couldn’t be the man he’d wanted to be, because that would break Anthony faster than the disease ever could.

  “Okay, big brother,” Randall sighed, giving him a little smile. “No more mama wolf.”

  “Good.” Anthony looked satisfied with the answer. He shuffled himself farther down on the bed, sighing as he got comfortable. “If I nap, you won’t get too bored, I hope?”

  “Nah.” Randall had to resist the urge to smooth the blankets. “I think I’m going to go for a walk. See some of these woods Edwin is so enamored with.”

  Anthony sounded halfway to sleep already when he answered. “Make sure he doesn’t start chomping on squirrels again. We all remember the time he couldn’t eat for three hours because he had a squirrel tail stuck in his throat.”

  “He nearly starved,” Randall agreed somberly, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. “I’ll warn the squirrels away. Sleep well, Ant.” He left, closing the door as silently as possible behind him.

  The wind had picked up, rattling branches, rubbing leaves off into desperate whirls of scattered color. Randall started walking in his pressed sweater, in his tie, in his muddy shoes. He was neat, he was contained, glasses firmly on, every inch a man. Every inch civilized.

  He didn’t want to be that. Right then, it felt as though if he stayed contained he would go mad. Without thinking, Randall kicked off his shoes. He shucked off the sweater and his perfectly creased slacks. He dropped them all into a pile, and he changed.

  It was like the whole world came alive. He could smell leftovers from breakfast, the scent of the rain in the air, oranges and tea and parchment. There were wolves everywhere, and he smelled them too. He felt them like a hum in the back of his mind, an awareness of them that seemed so much more immediate now. Randall took off running, darting around trees, ears back, body sleek and low to the ground. He didn’t think, didn’t worry, didn’t feel. He just ran.

  The first raindrop that hit him was ignored. Randall was pounding through the woods, breath a harsh pant, senses alight. Then there were two raindrops. Then a dozen. A mist turned into a downpour, and the world cut off into a curtain of gray rain as the skies opened.

  Skidding to a halt, Randall gave a start, a jolt running through him, ears twitching. Slowly, he came out of the run-haze to realize he had absolutely no idea where he was. The late morning sun was long gone, hidden behind black clouds and a downpour. It was dark, the trees around him creaking, shaking, shadows darting around him. A crack of lightning made him jump, jerking backward, whining in fear.

  Randall didn’t much like the dark these days.

  He turned tail and started to run, desperately hoping he’d picked the right direction. The thunder chased him. Randall’s ears were flat against his head, his tail between his legs, as he raced back toward camp. Finally, he could smell it. He could pick out the twinkle of lights from cabins through the dark. Heart racing, he threw himself onto the porch of their cabin, shivering and soaked.

  Anthony was still sleeping. Randall hesitated, paws on the windowsill, looking in. The last thing he wanted to do was wake his brother up from a rare decent sleep. Randall glanced around, eyes landing on the cabin next door. Redford’s cabin. Redford, who was out with Jed. That would do nicely.

  Randall jumped off the porch and ran across the short distance to the other cabin, shifting back on the porch so he could work the latch. Shivering, soaked, and naked, he ducked inside.

  Only to find Victor sitting on the bed, reading a book.

  Ah.

  For a few long moments, neither of them said anything. Victor just blinked at Randall, and Randall didn’t miss the way Victor’s gaze dipped decisively downward. If anyone else might have flushed or looked away or apologized for the blatant staring, Victor simply lifted his eyebrows in appreciation. Which was somehow so much worse. Flushing a deep red, Randall tried to not lunge for the nearest blanket, instead attempting a calm he certainly did not feel.

  Gratefully wrapping the fabric around himself, he stammered an explanation. “I didn’t realize you’d be here. I’m so sorry. I was running, and it began to storm.” And he’d gotten scared like some stupid child, lost in the woods. “I’ll go,” he managed with the remaining tattered shreds of his dignity. “Again, I apologize.”

  “You’re quite welcome to stay,” Victor offered. He took off his glasses, cleaning them on his sweater. “I was caught briefly in it too. It’s horrid out there. You’ll catch your death.” A brief tone of amusement touched Victor’s words. “I am only borrowing the cabin, myself. The, ah, watch cat was very gracious.” Randall caught sight of Knievel under the bed, curled up on what looked like a T-shirt, sleeping through the storm.

  Ducking his head, Randall stared at his bare feet, at the little darkening spots from the water he was dripping. He felt so exposed, in a way he hadn’t during the full moon. But that was exactly the difference, wasn’t it? During the moons he was confident; he couldn’t help but be. Now it was just him, none of the adrenaline flush buoying him up.

  And all at once, Randall realized that Victor was able to see his scars. The horrible knotted mess of them in the lower crook of his neck, the jagged white jumble of them in his elbows and up his arms, and the long, stretched ones on his ribs, where the vampires in Cairo had decided that knives were fun to play with. He’d hidden them away for so long, under long sleeves and collared shirts, that he almost didn’t know what to do with them so vividly on display. The full moon, once again, was not there to make him feel so wolfish that he forgot, to hide them in a softer light.

  Jaw tight, Randall tied the blanket off around his waist, finding another on the bed to wrap tightly around his shoulders, until it was just his head poking out from a mound of fluffy pink covers. He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, willing Victor to not say anything about what he might have noticed.

  Apparently luck wasn’t on his side.

  “Cairo?” Victor said softly, his tone neither disturbed nor overly curious, but sympathetic nonetheless. “I did
n’t see those when I visited you in the hospital.”

  “I had a lot of bandages,” Randall said flatly, not looking up. “And I was under the covers. It’s not a big deal.” A terrible parody of a smile touched his lips. “I’m one of the fortunate ones, after all, aren’t I?” Mimicking the words that had been said to him over and over, by his brothers, by the doctors. He was lucky. He wasn’t dead. He should focus on that. So he had. It was just so much easier when no one talked about it, when no one could see what had been left behind.

  “In a manner of speaking.” Victor was absently rubbing his own scar, a lot neater than Randall’s, placed much higher up on his neck, though his attention was firmly on Randall. “Everybody seems to forget the lasting impact of those kinds of scars.”

  “Ah.” Randall’s eyes followed Victor’s hand, again feeling that little drop of jealousy in his gut for the one who had put them there. For the man who made Victor’s voice go so sad and so fond whenever he spoke of him. “But were you a willing participant in yours?” One corner of Randall’s mouth edged upward in a vain attempt at a smile. “I imagine that would make quite a difference.”

  “That is a good question, isn’t it?” Victor mirrored the same smile that Randall attempted. He didn’t get very far with the effort either. “But I speak of aftereffects. Do either of your brothers know how it feels when the scars are touched?”

  Startled, Randall’s head jerked up, and he stared intently at Victor. He’d never told anyone. Not his brothers, not the doctors, not anyone. “How did you know about that?” he asked, voice hoarse. How could Victor possibly know? And then it hit him. Everything he knew, Victor would know. Every dark, secret part of his life had been gift-wrapped and handed to Victor, topped with a migraine bow. Of course Victor knew. Randall had no more secrets from him.

  For a moment, Randall understood completely why the medusa had been run out of ancient towns as heretics and witches. How terrible, to be so utterly exposed.

  After a beat, he slowly slid his arm out of the blanket cocoon he’d constructed. “It’s like they’re here,” he muttered, eyes searching Victor’s face. “Like it’s happening all over again, if I touch them. I thought….” Randall breathed out a helpless laugh. “Well, I thought I was crazy.”

  Victor made a noise that Randall couldn’t quite identify, something between sympathy and agreement. He was sitting on one of the single beds, his back against the wall, and as Randall watched, Victor tipped his head back against the windowsill, eyes focused on the ceiling, deep in thought. “I don’t want to use the word imprinting, but it’s somewhat the case,” Victor said. “The science isn’t exact. If you’re bitten for pleasure, the pleasure remains. If you’re bitten for pain, well, the example follows as is logical.”

  He tipped his head back down to look at Randall. “It must feel like the knives all over again,” he continued in a murmur. “I almost want to congratulate you on your apparent extraordinary skills of concealment, if your brothers never noticed.”

  “Their teeth,” Randall corrected softly. “It feels like they’re ripping me apart all over again, like they’re eating me. The ones on my sides don’t hurt. Just….” He gestured toward his neck, his elbows, shaking his head. “Of course they haven’t noticed. There’s no reason for them to notice. It’s just a bunch of scars, and there’s no need for anyone to know.”

  “Randall.” Victor’s voice was a quiet protest. “There is every need for your brothers to know. The healing process is hardly one that can be done in isolation. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life studiously avoiding touch, do you?”

  “It’s not a bad plan,” Randall shot back, feeling that damn heat hitting his cheeks again. “No one needs to touch them. I’ve become quite adept at avoiding it, and if my brothers do by accident, I can control my reactions.”

  “It’s a terrible plan,” Victor corrected, “if you ever want to have a normal relationship. Don’t understate the effect of things like those scars. Before you know it, they could start poisoning more aspects of your life than you want them to.”

  He was tracing his fingers over his own scars again. Instead of watching his fingers this time, though, Randall studied his face, his expression. He wondered if Victor was speaking every bit as much to his own scars as to Randall’s. They were two sides of the coin, perhaps. The different ways that vampires could leave their marks.

  Or, from the way Victor’s long fingers were still lovingly outlining the neat, pale scars, maybe not.

  “What relationships?” he snorted, trying to swerve away from the topic. “It’s fine, Victor. They are just scars. I don’t know what kind of poison you’re speaking of, but clearly you haven’t dealt with yours and you’re fine. I need to focus on Anthony right now, on taking care of Edwin. I don’t have time for silly nightmares about things that go bump in the night.”

  “Then apparently my powers of deception are just as extraordinary as yours.” Victor gave an odd laugh, a near-silent huff of air. “A word of caution, Randall, nightmares only grow stronger as you ignore them.”

  Randall curled his fingers into a fist to hide their shaking, his head bowed, hair uncharacteristically messy as it dried, falling in his face. His blankets had slipped as they spoke, his shoulders bare and his skin prickling with a chill left over from the rain. “I was weak in Cairo,” he finally said, so quietly he didn’t even know if Victor’s nonwolf ears could hear him over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. “I’m a wolf. Vampires shouldn’t have been able to get a jump on me.” He snorted softly. “You can smell them from a block away. I was distracted and weak and they caught me. They tied me up. They called me good dog as they fed from me. I want to ignore them.” The snap of his voice cracked just as loudly as the thunder. There was rage under his calm expression. There was frustration and guilt hiding just beneath the tense line of his body. “I don’t want to be weak again. This is my fault, and I’ll handle it. Alone.”

  Victor didn’t reply right away. A flash of lightning, followed by a crash of thunder, rattled the cabin. Then Victor was putting his book down and crossing the room to tentatively sit next to Randall. He smelled like rain, his hair still damp with it.

  “That,” Victor said carefully, his voice more gentle and kind than Randall had ever heard it, “is nothing to be ashamed of. You were never trained to expect such things would happen to you.”

  “Bad things happen.” Randall found himself staring at Victor’s hands, the slim strength of them, at the way the man held himself just a little bit apart from the world. Studying him, like if he looked deep enough he’d find the magic answer that would make Victor see him. “That is the one thing I have learned to expect. No matter what, bad things always happen.”

  The thunder rumbled again, and Randall shivered. He drew his legs up to his chest, still wrapped in the blanket, resting his chin on his knees. Dropping his eyes away from Victor, he ignored the ache in his throat, the way he wanted nothing more than to lean closer to Victor. He knew Victor didn’t feel the same way he did, that his crush was one-sided. It was rude to want more. It was unfair to think that any of this was anything more than Victor being kind.

  But then Victor, the man who consistently kept at least two feet of distance between himself and anybody else, reached out and touched Randall’s arm. His fingertips pressed lightly on the skin just below a ragged scar at the inside of Randall’s elbow.

  “Bad things may always happen, but that does not mean you should simply roll over and never move past them,” Victor said.

  Under Victor’s hand, Randall’s arm jumped, and he found he was shaking, tiny tremors working their way through him. His eyes were locked on Victor’s fingers, waiting for them to move. Waiting for the pain to start. “What are you doing?” Randall whispered, fear threading through his voice.

  “I’m showing you that this could cripple you, Randall,” Victor said lowly. “I’m not even touching the scars, yet I’d hazard a guess that you can barely think rig
ht now.”

  But in counterpoint to his words, Victor’s hand was far from a threatening presence. Instead, he seemed to be curiously shifting his fingertips in fractional movements, as if he were more interested in feeling Randall’s skin. Drawing in a shaky breath, Randall found that his muscles were tightening under the touch for a very different reason. Not in fear, but in anticipation.

  “I can’t ever think when you’re around,” Randall admitted throatily. “That’s hardly a fair example.”

  Victor hadn’t flushed when he’d seen Randall naked; he did color slightly then. “Well, I suppose my point just missed the mark,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound upset about it.

  Randall hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Truly, Victor being this close, touching him, threw off his thinking into fanciful circles and a logic-barren flight. He never should have admitted such a thing to a man who had no interest, who had clearly and quite politely shown exactly that. But Victor didn’t move away, as Randall expected. His hand didn’t leave Randall’s arm. In fact, Victor’s thumb made a soft arc against his skin, sending a shiver down Randall’s spine.

  “What would you do?” Randall asked, leaning closer until his breath stirred Victor’s hair, until he could feel the warmth of Victor’s arm pressed against his side. “If you were me?” Not just about the scars. Not just about the nightmares.

  Victor looked startled at the question, his mouth opening and closing a few times as if he had no idea what to say. Not exactly typical for a man who, at the drop of a hat, gave lectures about the bi-gendered deities of the Norse pantheon. “I’m not sure I’m the person you should be asking for that sort of advice,” Victor admitted. “I don’t know.”

  At that, Randall gave him a very soft smile. There was a warmth in his gaze as he studied Victor that he struggled so hard to hide most of the time. “Not words you or I are fond of,” he acknowledged. But it was fair. Perhaps no one could tell him how to proceed—after all, there was hardly a support group for vampire torture. “You don’t want to move on from yours. And I wish, sometimes, I could cut mine out of my skin. So we’re quite the pair.”