Chapter Four #3
He looked from Karim to Julien. They’d saved him last night from a fate he couldn’t even think about. In the last year they’d never been anything but kind and respectful. Even Karim, who he sniped with, had never made him feel unsafe.
His mother would kill him if she knew what he was about to do.
But he was just so tired. So sick. Everything was so hard all the time and he just–he did want to stay in this comfortable bed a while longer and not have to deal with anything. He wanted help, needed it.
Luis took a deep breath. Was he really going to do this?
“I need medical supplies at my house,” Luis said. “I have a condition I have to treat on a schedule. I was supposed to Friday night and–and it’s urgent that I get my supplies and my medication.” He was saying it without being specific, and that was okay, right?
“Oh, you have medication!” Julien leaned forward, eyes wide. “We didn’t know, yes, of course. Should we—?” Julien turned to look at Karim.
“What do you need from your apartment? I can go and get it,” Karim said at once.
Luis blinked at him. It couldn’t really be that easy, could it?
“You need stuff from your house, right?” Karim said at his blank stare. “Instead of you going because you can barely walk, I’ll do it. I’ll bring you whatever you need.”
“You will?” Luis asked incredulously. A lightness bloomed in his chest.
Karim stared at him like he was being purposefully obtuse. “You don’t live that far. I’ll take your keys. Just tell me what to get.”
“A simple solution,” Julien said with a smile. “Then you don’t have to strain yourself trying to travel. We’d both feel a lot better if you stayed.”
There were a lot of problems with that, but Luis was exhausted by the conversation. What he needed was his kit, and everything else he could deal with later.
“Okay. I guess, yeah,” he said.
“If you’re… uncomfortable staying here, I understand,” Julien said gently at his reticence. “Is there someone else we could call for you, I don’t want you to be alone right now.”
A sudden, bitter laugh almost escaped his throat. Someone to call? Cassie was hours away, and calling her would only make her worry needlessly. And his mother?
Abso-fucking-lutely-not.
“No,” Luis said, and then realized the conclusion Julien had drawn from his hesitancy. “I’m not uncomfortable with you,” he said, because it felt important to say after what they’d done for him. “I just don’t want to be a bother.”
Karim scoffed. “You’re not a bother, idiot. What do you need from your house?”
Luis looked at him, and Karim stared right back. He had his angry face back on again, his eyes dark. It was stupid to find that such a comfort.
Then Luis got a flash of a memory–Karim in the car, reaching back to pet Luis's hair while he’d been sobbing. Trying to help.
It had been Karim who’d first listened to Luis’s pleas not to go to the hospital. He’d convinced Julien not to take him.
Luis didn’t know how to feel about that. Karim was pricklier than a cactus, but he sure knew how to step up when it counted.
Luis leaned heavily back against the pillows, rubbing a hand over his face.
Maybe this was a bad decision, maybe he was fucking his life up by allowing a pair of vampires a glimpse into his personal life, but he wasn’t sure he cared anymore.
It was hard all the time, and Luis just wanted it to stop being hard for one second.
He wanted to trust them, let them know him.
“Everything I need is in my medical kit in my bathroom in the closet,” Luis said.
“Alright,” Karim said, his shoulders relaxing. “Your house keys are on your keyring?” Karim snatched the keys off the bedside table.
“Yeah, it’s the one with the music notes.”
Karim nodded. “Address?”
They had his address already somewhere on an employment document, but he rattled it off for Karim to put into his phone.
“The kit is big and blue, looks like a lunchbox, you can’t miss it,” Luis said.
Karim nodded. “Got it. If you need anything else while I’m there, text me. Or have Julien text me. Back soon,” he said, and then left.
Luis’s fingers traced the design on the comforter, trying not to think about what he’d just set in motion.
Karim wasn’t likely to miss the hoard of medical supplies he had in his bathroom.
He’d be unlikely to know what it was all for, because Luis had tons of stuff from hospital stays and doctor visits over the years, but he was definitely going to know that something serious was wrong with him.
And Karim wasn’t known for letting sleeping dogs lie.
“Don’t worry,” Julien said, taking his silence for a worry of a different kind. “Karim will be quick. While he’s gone, is there anything I can get you?”
“No, I’m okay,” Luis said absently. Julien eased his way off the bed to give Luis space, for which he was grateful. “Actually,” he said a moment later, turning over his phone to see the critical battery percentage. “Do you have a phone charger?”
“I do, let me go get you one,” Julien said.
Luis unlocked his phone. Besides the reminders, Luis had five missed calls and a handful of texts from his mother.
He scrolled through the messages despairingly.
They started normal, inquiring if he was okay, and quickly escalated into all capitalized shouting, calling him a slew of things in Spanish for not responding.
She’d be a nightmare when he finally called her back. Just the thought of it made him tired down to his bones.
Was this what he got for trying something different?
Maybe never leaving his house actually was the better choice.