~Xander~
I opened my eyes, seeing that I was in a room I didn't recognize and it was crowded. Both my parents were there, along with Elle, her wife, Achilles' mom Lily, Harrison, and then Achilles, looking like I'd never seen him before. He looked smaller somehow, hunched in on himself and his face was splotchy and red, like he'd been crying. Achilles was still wearing his dress shirt stained with soy sauce. There seemed to be some kind of argument going on.
The room was a series of whites and blues and looking down at my arm and seeing an Iv attached. So, I was in a hospital, on a hospital bed. I looked at the monitor alongside me, seeing my heart beating away. Vampires in their resting state had extremely slow heartbeats. I would be dead if I were a human, but my heart rate was a bit fast, even now. Probably because of how freaked out I was.
My father's voice was the loudest in the room. "Don't tell me to calm down, Amma. This would never have happened if not for him!"He pointed at Achilles with a shaking finger.
I expected Achilles to stick up for himself, but if anything he only further slouched, mumbling quietly. "I'm sorry."
"I saw Xander just today and he was perfectly fine. Hours later and he's...like this." My father's pale skin was drawn tight over his features and I'd never heard him sound afraid before. He normally looked confident, blond hair always kept a bit long as the fashions changed but now resting in an elegant top knot. He had the tendency to stroke his thick beard absently when in thought. But, now his voice was shaking and he was holding my mother's hand like it was the only thing keeping him stable.
I cleared my throat. "C'mon Papa, don't bully my boyfriend." My voice sounded rusty but it was still me.
Every eye shot to me and there was a rush of voices all addressing me at once. I put a hand up to my face, trying to shush the cacophony of noise. "Please. Let's all just calm down." I looked at Achilles, who was looking at me like I was a ghost, eyes wide and his lower lip trembling. "What happened to me and where am I?"
I scooted over on the bed, tapping the side so Achilles could get the hint. He ignored me, rubbing hard at the silver bracelet on his wrist.
A tanned woman in scrubs moved into the middle of the semi circle of people crowding around my bed. Her name tag said 'Kiara' on it. She clasped her hands together. "Okay, family only. I'll update the rest of you later."
Elle came up to my bed, kissing me quickly on the cheek and ruffling my hair before she squeezed my shoulder and left. Audrey gripped my hand before following Elle. Harrison and Achilles' mom waved, and then left. Eventually, it was just my parents and Achilles. He looked torn as to whether or not he should go but I saw the doctor gesture for him to sit in a chair beside the bed.
"Will someone tell me what's going on here?" I said in a loud voice, getting more and more annoyed by the second.
My parents sat down in two chairs beside Achilles, my mom sitting between him and my father. My mom patted my knee, her lips trembling slightly but she didn't say anything. It was weird seeing my mom and dad clearly leaning on one another for comfort.
The doctor held up a clipboard, and tapped on it a few times before she started speaking. "So, Alexander was admitted here because of a code red. My colleagues and I originally thought it was a code red: blood rejection. But, when we looked at his blood we realized it was more complicated than that."
I shivered, suddenly afraid. I'd had blood rejections before, every vamp did. It was just the way things were when using blood banks. It was the equivalent of indigestion or food poinsioning for humans. Rare, but it happened. But, nothing like this. I'd never passed out before. "It's not like I can get sick. I only feed from the hearth blood bank and from my boyfriend, and Achilles is just fine." I said in a hard voice.
"Sometimes blood rejection takes time, and when we analyzed both yours and his blood, it seems like the unique quality of shifter blood is the problem here. Normally, when blood rejection in the human body occurs it's the human body reacting against the foreign agents. But it seems like the shifter blood is attacking the native agents."
"Is that even possible?" I said. "Achiilles' blood tastes just fine. It can't be him."
The woman was shaking her head. "We checked your last order from the blood bank and all the sources check out. It's just the way shifter blood exists in a vampire body when it interacts with human blood. The shifter blood is dominant, and it's antibodies attack whatever isn't shifter blood. It's not that your body is rejecting blood but the shifter blood is rejecting you."
I twirled around my necklace, my mind spinning in every which direction.
"So, what can we do?" Achilles' soft low voice interjected. He was worrying the bracelet and looking between me and the doctor. "Can you get the shifter blood out?"
Kiara shook her head. "No, at this point, it's too interwoven with Xander's regular blood."
I raised myself up from my position, sitting up somewhat. "So what are you saying? Am I just going to keep passing out? I'm a professor. I'm a musician! I have a life that doesn't involve taking up space in a hospital bed."
She still continued speaking in that frustratingly cool voice, ignoring my panicked tone. "We need to put more of his blood into your system. The shifter blood is less likely to attack your body if the majority of the blood in your bloodstream is shifter blood." She was talking, but it just wasn't making any sense to me.
"I love Achilles but I don't want to be a werewolf." I snapped. "And, how in the world can I be allergic to my boyfriend? God, this isn't making any sense at all." I twirled my fingers around my necklace.
Kiara's brows knitted together as she watched me play with my necklace. She opened her mouth but my father interrupted.
"You can't seriously be suggesting to put more of that poison into my son's body? Do you even know if that will work?"
The doctor frowned, speaking in a cloying tone as she let her fangs drop. "It's the only option you have right now if you don't want his body to attempt to regeneration or...Worse."
My father rose to his feet. "What do you mean...Worse?" His eyes narrowed into slits as his voice dripped acid. He took a threatening step forward.
"Vampires can die from things like this." Kiara's voice was hard and uncompromising.
"Fuck." I said, looking down at my arm for the first time and seeing my skin rippling like insects were skittering under my flesh. My body ran cold and I yelped. What the hell was happening to my body?
Kiara spoke faster. "If we take too long to decide on a course of action then the next time you pass out, I don't know if you'll wake up. Your body could go into regeneration mode, or worse." Regeneration mode for vampires was essentially an unconscious self healing state. A regenerative coma that didn't always work. A vampire could be asleep for days, weeks, years and some still never woke up. But, were those really my two options, death or eternal sleep?
I touched my neck, turning the charm around my fingers. "That's not going to happen. Achilles will give me the blood and I'll be fine."
The doctor was still shaking her head. "You need more than he can give you. He'll need to give you about fifty percent of the blood in his body so that you can recover. We don't have enough blood on hand to replenish what he'll lose. Shifters can't be replenished by human blood, it's only their own blood and a close familial match at that."
"I don't care." Achilles said, staring at me. "Just do whatever you have to do. I can't lose him." He was pulling at his hands in an agitated way, but still twisting his hand around his silver bracelet. It seemed like it was bothering him.
I frowned. "Don't be ridiculous, Achilles. I'll be fine." I yawned, and everyone looked tense. "Achilles, come sit beside me."
Reluctantly, he came towards me and perched on the bed.
I touched his face, tracing my fingers across the crease between his brows. "It's okay." I whispered. He closed his eyes and I smoothed my fingers over the lids. "Whatever happens. It'll be okay." I threaded my fingers through Achilles' hair, pulling his head towards mine so I could kiss his cheek. "I love you."
Achilles swallowed loudly, nodding. He opened his eyes. "I'm going to fix this." He filed his fingers through my hair, before standing. Taking a deep breath he seemed more composed than earlier.
"Okay." Achilles said quietly. "I'll give him the blood. If I can get someone to donate blood to me, then I can donate to him right?"
The doctor nodded slowly. "Do you have any siblings?"
Achilles' face fell and his response was stunted. "Do I just need one person?"
"I'm not confident in signing off on the procedure unless there are at least two people who can give to you and even then it'll be risky."
"I'll get my brothers." Achilles mumbled. He looked over at me and I gave him a smile but it was like seeing me in a hospital bed was physically paining him.
"The likelihood of Anders giving you blood...for me?" I admitted quietly. "Maybe regeneration won't be so bad. I'll just be asleep, right?"
The room filled with silence and it was my father who broke it. "No one really knows if that's what will happen. Please, Xander. You need to fight this, with every ounce in your body." He hesitated. "I know we argued today but I want you to know I love you and you've always made me proud even if I didn't always know how to show it." He inhaled roughly. "You know that right?"
"Henry, don't talk like that. Xander will be fine." My mom didn't sound very confident when she said it. She was still patting my knee awkwardly.
I sighed. "Okay. Let's talk numbers. Achilles gets blood from his brothers, he donates to me. Then what? What are my chances?"
Kiara looked somewhere beside my eyes instead of making direct eye contact with me. "Five, maybe ten."
"Days to recover?" I said, "That's not too bad."
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "No. Chances of recovering at all. If you can get the blood today? Ten percent chance of the shifter blood not taking over your body and shutting down your organs. Tomorrow? A five percent chance and that's if you don't go into regeneration. If you go into regeneration, then you'd probably be asleep for years."
My stomach felt like it dropped out from under me and my vision blurred. It was suddenly hitting me that this was serious as a heart attack. I could die.
"I—" I lost my voice and swallowed thickly, trying to find it. "I don't want to die. And I have a plan. Me and Achilles were obviously going to get serious over the next year, plan the wedding, start looking into surrogacy and adoption, read parenting books, take parenting classes, get Achilles to finally try one of my kale shakes." I felt like I wasn't making any sense but everything suddenly felt equally important. "If I'm asleep for years how exactly am I supposed to do any of that?"
"Xander—" my mom said, rubbing my knee. "It's okay."
I shook my head, already feeling the tears fall. "No, it's not okay. It is not okay. I can't do this." I moved around on the hospital bed, throwing my legs off the side. My feet hit the ground awkwardly and my knees wobbled. I ripped out the IV in my arm and held onto the bedrail. "I'm fine. I'm going to go home and redo the kale shake since Achilles never got to try it and everything will be fine." Suddenly, it was nearly impossible to keep standing and I sat down hard against the bed. I felt winded, my hair stuck to my damp forehead. "Okay." I said. "I just need to sit down for a bit, and then I'm leaving. For real." I laid back down on the bed, pushing my hands through my hair and closing my eyes. "I just—need a break."
Achilles came over to the bed. "God, please, don't close your eyes again, Xander. I'm going to fix everything. And I'm going to get Anders and Harrison over here. And everything will go back to normal. I'll—I'll try that kale shake, and it'll be fine." Achilles stroked my hair a few times with a torn expression on his face. He looked like he had to make a hard choice. "I'm going to go, and when I come back, you'll be okay. Okay?"
I nodded even though I felt like I was lying to him. "I'll be okay." I said.
Achilles gave me one last torn look before backing away. He had already started walking out of the room before I called him back.
"Can I have a hug?" I whispered, feeling somewhere deep down like I was never going to see him again.
Achilles came rushing back, giving me a bone crushing hug. He kissed the side of my neck, whispering, "I love you," and left for real that time.
After the door closed, Kiara said she would check on if Achilles' donors would pan out and left me with my parents.
My dad started crying, his green eyes bright and too clear. "I'm two hundred and seven, I can't believe I might outlive my son." He scooted his seat over to my bed, stroking my hair. "Remember, when you came with me to Germany for the first time? Everyone said I had the sweetest little boy, they were surprised your German was so good even though you weren't born there. You were seven and the whole trip you complained about how you wanted ketchup on your fries not mayonnaise." His voice thickened. "I'm sorry for not being a better father but from now on I will make up for it. I want to be a part of your life. I can't make up for before but I want you to know things will be different."
"I don't forgive you." I said softly, watching my father's face fall. "But maybe one day, I can."
"Xander—" my dad said.
"Henry, that's enough." My mother said sharply. "Just because he's sick, this isn't the time to seek forgiveness."
"Amma," My dad said, rising in his seat. "When exactly am I supposed to ask him? When it's too late?"
My mother screwed her mouth to the side in irritation, standing up as well. "When Xander is feeling better you can ask him things like that. You're always making things about yourself, Henry. Our son is here, in a hospital bed and you're asking for forgiveness?!"
I groaned. "Can you guys not argue?"
"Sorry." They both said together, my mom looking a lot more guilty than my dad.
"Can one of you get my lawyer on the phone? I guess I need to make some amendments to my will." I said quietly. "And, Where's Klara?"
"Klara's on her way." My mom said, "She's on a plane and...Your will Xander? You have a will?"
"Yes, and I need to get it changed." I pushed my hands through my hair. "I'm tired, Mama. I just—I'm really tired." Before I knew it my eyes were closing and my dad kept telling me to keep my eyes open but I just couldn't manage it.
#
Overall thoughts?
Do you think Anders will consent to donating blood?
What do you think Achilles will do?