14
Lathan
He is a monster.
Much like the dying man across the auditorium—just wearing a different skin. A skin with horrific features, and even worse instincts. To hunt. To kill. To slaughter. Anyone who threatens his own prey.
Is that what Kylo is? He doesn’t know right now. His body reacted as if yes , predatory and historic in its transformation, mirroring the fables of nightly demons thirsting for blood. Only vampires know the truth, though: those fables are stories of their ancestors, of how they naturally looked and felt and behaved. Many millennia have stripped those characteristics, hidden by evolutionary camouflage to blend into the world.
No one is supposed to see this.
When Trevor gained the upper hand by baring the claws of their truth against Kylo’s throat, Lathan’s body reacted, shedding away into what he didn’t know it could on a whim, never having experienced the change. It feels so foreign like this, hard to look at, yet somehow so natural—because it’s always a part of him, of all of them, just under the surface. A reality they suppress constantly, for their bodies haven’t altered over time, just adapted to survive.
Lathan looks down at the petrified boy in his arms—his wings , rubbery, bloodied, and new—and his feelings clash. He wants to be there for Kylo, he wants to rock him as he cries, try to be a comfort, wants to offer something even with the way he looks now. But the way he sobbed, the way he hid from Lathan’s wrath, shatters him. Because he’s scared of himself too right now. Will this break us? We only just started.
A voice calls out in the distance, outside the building. He can hear the crackle of gravel as a vehicle pulls up to the building, his lengthened ears intaking even more than they do already. Kylo tries to get closer to him still; he’d probably dig a cave in Lathan’s stomach to hide if he could, with the desperate way he presses into him. Lathan hesitates, and then kisses the top of his head. If I hadn’t taken up his offer at the party last spring, he wouldn’t have sought it out. Wouldn’t have met Trevor and Alanna. I’m the reason this happened. I’m the reason he keeps getting hurt.
Because Trevor’s trying to punish me.
Three bodies appear in the broken doorway, and Lathan’s shrunken, sharpened pupils size them up; all vampires, as requested. A medical kit hangs between them, off the shoulder of the man in the middle, as all three pause, shock on their faces, ingesting the scene before them.
But you were never anything to me.
The middle-aged woman on the left is the first to adjust. She instructs the two others to tend to Trevor, drowning in a shallow crimson pool around his neck. As they hurry down the steps toward him, the woman eyes Lathan and the wolf, starting toward them. Lathan tenses as she nears, curling over Kylo even more, though her approach is calm, cautious. His gaze darts from her to the medics attempting to seal Trevor’s throat wounds with gels and bandages and pressure before inevitably sliding him onto a stretcher.
Never anything more than a quick fuck.
The woman, with silver strands strewn throughout her shoulder-length hair, stops well before them, offering a safe distance—mostly for herself as she stares at Lathan’s attributes. She keeps her voice unwaveringly stable. “What happened?”
You don’t get to take him from me because you’re jealous.
“He was attacked. Lured here.” Lathan flicks his nose toward the man the medics are trying to save. She looks back at Trevor, then down at Kylo with unsheltered worry. “I was just trying to protect him,” Lathan breathes, ashamed of what’s become of him—what he knew he was doing.
You don’t get to do anything anymore.
The woman kneels down to their level, making herself small in front of Kylo. “Is that what happened?” she asks him gently, to confirm, or deny, if what the animalistic vampire holding him is telling the truth. Lathan knows she’ll take whatever Kylo says with a grain of salt—with how badly Trevor is hurt, and Lathan’s condition, he’ll be assumed the villain of this tale.
And he basically is.
But he still has the fake flyer in his pocket. Folded it and brought it with him, figuring he could sneak into the workshop to sit with Kylo, even if he couldn’t get the credits. Sent him a text that went unread—that was still on his lock screen when Kylo lifted his phone to call for assistance. He can’t reach for it right now, but he’ll make sure the counsellors see it before they put together a case against him.
Kylo nods into the wet spot on Lathan’s shirt. Shakily, he takes a hand off Lathan’s chest to rub his eyes, wiping the tears from his vision. “H-he tricked me… Attacked me…” Lathan watches the wolf’s eyes dart, how he’s trying to keep himself from glancing at his attacker’s mauled body. “He’s tried before…” He shuts his eyes tight, tears slipping past the cage of his long lashes, and he pulls his lips in as to stagger a breath through his nose. “I would’ve died without Lathan,” he says, quieter, and sinks back into his boyfriend’s chest. Lathan knows he must feel his heart, furious in its rhythm, pounding with guilt and shame and nausea.
The woman looks from Kylo to the species secrets unleashed across Lathan’s new body. “I understand. We need to get you cleaned up now, hm? Let’s just move over to the side here.”
As her words leave her mouth, Kylo clings tighter to Lathan as if he’s the last person on earth, who bores his predatory stare into her, unshifting.
“Okay,” the woman says in surrender. Forcing a smile, she takes out a smaller med kit clipped around her waist. “Here is fine. Is it alright if I take a look at your neck?”
Lathan doesn’t loosen his protective grip until Kylo nods again for her. He monitors her every movement, every apparatus pulled from the little pack, only allowing what he deems safe. Apart from the blood, the wounds Trevor made are sloppy and torn, just like they were at the welcome party, and the bruise has spread out much further than any time Lathan has bitten him.
The woman warns him before pressing her fingers or alcohol swabs onto his skin, each time, so as to not surprise him with unexpected contact. She disinfects around the wounds before applying a thick ointment—what he assumes is the same substance he saw the other medics applying to Trevor’s bites. Then, she covers half his neck with a large pad of white bandage, which self-adheres around its edges to his skin. She peeks up at Lathan enough times that he knows she’s aware she’s being scrutinized.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Kylo and Lathan share a glance, a silent conversation—if he wants Lathan to say it for him. But Kylo readjusts his posture, nearly hiding his face, and shakes his head. He is hurt, quite deeply, but not with another physical wound that she can just patch up. Lathan doesn’t know if this can ever be patched up.
“Okay. Give me a minute.” She steps away to check on the other medics, helping them lift the stretcher. The two of them disappear with their patient out the door, still warped and swinging open on its broken hinges. The silver-haired woman follows them to the open frame and then watches from there, clearly to keep a watchful eye on the boys entangled together on the floor, as she pulls out her phone, glancing back at Kylo and Lathan as she talks. Lathan’s ears twitch, and he listens as her voice bounces minutely.
“I can’t separate them. He’s attached himself to him, and he’s in too fragile a state to break that attachment. I know. I know, no one can see him. They’re heading back now with the other. Send me a shuttle, then. Yes.”
If only you knew , Lathan thinks, what we’ve been through. Maybe you wouldn’t look at me like that. Look at us like that. Maybe you’d change, too, into a monster of the night, ripping apart every predator that dares to look at the ones you love.
When she slides her phone into her back pocket and rejoins them across the room, it’s difficult to read her expression, a mix of many things, but it does not comfort Lathan. “As you know,” she says to him carefully, sternly, “we can’t allow people to see you like this. So you can’t go back to your room tonight.”
Kylo reacts to her words, whipping his head to look at Lathan—but he’s already snarling a curled lip defensively.
“You two can stay together,” she adds quickly, “but we need to move you. A shuttle is on its way to take you to W Block for the night. Does that sound alright?”
Lathan looks down at Kylo, meeting his eyes and brushing the soft pad of his thumb across his cheek. W Block. Wolf Block. Though Lathan’s never seen the area where the wolves stay overnight, he knows it’s safe, keeps the threats in—which he is now one. He can only assume they’ll lock him in a cell like the full moon beasts. But it’s also familiar for Kylo, and he can stay on the other side of the reinforced glass until he’s ready to leave Lathan—or until he’s made to leave.
Lathan nods his silent permission at the woman, who then offers both a smile, eerily like the trained faces of customer service staff, and moves away to wait for word on their shuttle’s arrival.
“I thought they were going to take you from me…,” Kylo murmurs. A single tear rolls down his cheek, onto Lathan’s thumb, which he wipes away, massaging the water into his skin.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Lathan says, his wings blanketing Kylo as he’s held. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Trevor tried to turn me against you. Convince me that you were just like him.”
“What did he tell you?”
Kylo takes a breath. “That vampires wouldn’t want anything else from a werewolf, but their blood. That you drank my blood while we…slept together…because you heard him say how good it felt.”
The hook of Lathan’s ears downturn. This may have broken him. He might not ever want to be touched again. Especially by a vampire. He’ll only think of this, of Trevor. Will being with me just hurt him more?
He tries not to think about it too hard, because every possible outcome is painful. This situation is painful. And he wants to give Kylo the chance to decide for himself what comes next. And I won’t hate you for whatever you choose.
“Kylo,” he starts, keeping his voice down so the woman nearby doesn’t hear—though she may anyways as a vampire, “if I never tasted your blood again, I wouldn’t care. I only ever wanted you to feel good. I knew how this worked before Trevor said anything.” He wonders if, with his head pressed against his chest, Kylo can hear his heart shudder sadly. “I promise you I’ll never do anything you don’t want.”
“I know. I fought him because of what he said, because I know your heart.” He rubs a hand lovingly over Lathan’s chest, next to where his face rests. “And I trust you.”
Lathan doesn’t know what to say. ‘Thank you for trusting me’? ‘I’m so proud of you’? Nothing feels right, because it’s his very trust that’s fucked him over again and again. So he concedes and says, once again, “I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t stop this from happening. Again. I’m failing you.
A soft rumble alerts Lathan to the arrival of another vehicle. “Time to go,” the woman says.
“Can you walk?” Lathan asks quietly, slowly moving to stand, holding Kylo with his winged arm and gently pulling him up. He squeaks a small, “Yeah,” finding his footing, and together they move, following the woman up the stairs, through the metal door—which looks even more disfigured from Lathan’s strength up close—across the lobby, and out the entrance, where the shuttle is idling with its back doors open for them. Kylo uses Lathan as a crutch the whole way, and hobbles past the woman’s open arms, offering to help. She moves to block Lathan, as much as her short stature can, from the potential of onlookers. Though, the parking lot is still abandoned, and the closest buildings have gone dark with unuse.
The woman opens a door for them and joins the driver in the front once the boys are secured inside. Another vampire is in the driver’s seat of the shuttle, peering back at them—at Lathan—through the reflection of the mirror.
The ride is rather silent. They cruise past students walking about and hanging in the courtyard as they get closer to the heart of campus. Most of them look to the shuttle, churning Lathan’s stomach with each set of eyes, but they can’t see inside; tinted windows hide Kylo and Lathan in the backseat.
The shuttle parks inside a small garage attached to a building Lathan’s never explored in his years at Obscura, because he’s never had to, so they don’t have to make any sort of walk of shame where others will see them. The halls to W Block are cleared preemptively, and they’re shown to the joined holding cells that werewolves are kept during a full moon. Its concrete floors and outer walls are cold, sterile, dungeon-like, and Lathan’s gut sinks thinking of how often Kylo’s been locked in here with his classmates.
He’s cautiously whisked into a cell, though they don’t chain him. He wants to argue that he isn’t dangerous, but he is. They know he is. What he did to Trevor. What he could do to anyone else; he doesn’t know what might trigger him again so violently.
Kylo is allowed to remain on the other side of the wall, where they can see and hear each other. The same woman brings blankets, a warm drink—Lathan can see the steam—and some crackers to comfort Kylo, promising to check in periodically. She wants to speak with him properly when he’s ready, and tells him this. He isn’t to leave alone, until that happens, because they need to take an account of everything, and enact safety protocols for the victim.
Lathan isn’t offered the same comforts, no blanket or food, as this sort of transformation is so taboo that little is known about it, how to deal with it. They don’t want to give him anything that might enact his instincts or prevent his body from shifting back to normalcy. So he sits on the floor in torn clothing, wrapping his arms around himself, using his wings as warmth. Staring at the ground, trying not to dwell on his fear. Trying to stay stoic and grounded for Kylo, curled up in his thin-as-paper blanket and pressed tightly against the glass wall, hugging his cup of warmth.
Lathan’s beginning to go numb. It’s too much—all of this is too much. He could have never expected any of it: Trevor’s predatory scheming, Kylo being lured and assaulted, and losing so much control himself that his body turned inside out with his protective instincts. For the first time, despite his parents’ constant reminder of shame, he is ashamed of himself. He was hoping, deep down, that he’d get more support from the vampires on staff, but that was naive to think. Regardless of having a secret code for this sort of thing, it doesn’t actually happen. They don’t know what to do either.
He lifts his gaze slightly, enough to stare at the blanket’s hem. He hasn’t asked anything, he thinks. I don’t know how to do this. How to comfort him when I’m like this. I don’t know how to comfort him at all after what’s happened. The realization makes him ever more sad, and he stays quiet.
“Kylo?”
They both look up to an HR representative hugging a clipboard to his sweater vest. The same rep Lathan spoke to after the first incident. He locks eyes with Lathan, and he swears there’s a knowing look behind his glasses, as if to say, ‘I knew I’d see you again.’
“Hi.” He leans toward where he’s seated on the floor. “I’m Corey. If you’ll come with me, I’ll be taking your statement.”
Kylo flinches with his closeness. He looks at Lathan in a pleading way that fires his soul, makes him lurch forward, unabashedly leering at the rep.
“It’ll be quick,” he says, feigning friendliness, which Lathan sees right through. If they had any fucking common sense they wouldn’t send a male vampire to question him, after what he just went through at the hand of one. He almost barks his thoughts out loud, demanding someone else tend to his boyfriend’s fragile state, but he presses his lips—he is also a male vampire, and he is also part of Kylo’s trauma.
Kylo takes a deep breath in before letting the blanket slide off his shoulders and placing his mug down. “I’ll be right back,” he says to Lathan quietly. Once he meets his eyes, he tilts his head encouragingly. “I love you.”
Lathan watches the blanket fall to the ground, and how its cocoon is now empty. He hears the footsteps leave, not looking back up to follow them out of his sight. He heard Kylo, but he can’t make himself talk anymore. His arms ache where his wings have lurched out from, and the new bones twitch with the uncontrollable desire to follow, to go with Kylo and protect him. But he can’t, so he doesn’t move, continuing to hold himself numbly.
Is Trevor dead?
What happens if he dies?
What happens if he doesn’t ?
My parents are going to find out. Oh, gods. My parents are going to find out everything…
◆◆◆
Lathan perks up when Kylo returns. He searches his face, desperate to know he’s okay. But he can tell he’s been crying again, his eyes swollen and his cheeks red.
Lathan leans forward, almost pressed to the cell wall. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Kylo returns to his spot, shimmying the blanket back over him. He sniffles and rubs his eyes. “I told them everything,” he says lowly, avoiding Lathan’s stare, “about me and Trevor…and Alanna…but I told him we were having a threesome. I don’t want to be expelled.”
Lathan watches him, watches his pain. It makes him want to scream. It makes him want to hurt someone—and that scares him, because he already has. He tries to calm himself, grazing the inside of his cheek with his double fangs, sharp enough to make himself bleed without pushing venom into his system. But the taste of his blood bubbles the contents of his stomach—it disgusts him.
He doesn’t want to drink blood ever again.
“Ky,” he eventually says, trying to find his words, trying so damn hard to formulate his guilty thoughts. “This…this is my fault. All of it. Since the party last term. I should have said no. I should have told you why it was so dangerous, why you shouldn’t just approach vampires and—” His voice is still contorted by his true vampiric form, still demonic and layered, but it’s also flat. He’s hiding his feelings. Trying to stick just to the facts. And the fact is: had Lathan been more responsible and gave a shit about anyone but himself at that original party, this wouldn’t have ended this way. “It’s because of me that you sought it out, and Trevor’s been targeting you since. I did this to you.”
“What?” Kylo gawks at him, and his hands pop out of the hug of his blanket to press his palms to the glass. “No, I did this to you . I didn’t know a lot about vampires, but I knew enough, and I offered myself to you because I wanted to help. But I’m the one that sought it out again. I knew it was dangerous, but I did it anyways for selfish reasons. I dragged you into this. If it wasn’t for my choices, you wouldn’t be in this position.” He motions to Lathan, at nothing in particular, but everything at once, finally acknowledging what he’s become to some degree. “This is my fault.”
Lathan shakes his head minutely, exasperated. “You’re too good,” he says sadly. “You’re too good of a person to be messed up in this. Even after what just happened, you’re thinking of me ?”
He glances down at his changed body guiltily. He wishes this wasn’t something Kylo could see. That he could stay blissfully unaware of what a monster he truly is. What horrible monsters vampires can be. Maybe my parents were right…
“I don’t know what to do now,” he murmurs.
“We’ll wait until you change back, then we’ll go back to how things were, like this morning,” Kylo says confidently, hopefully, naively. Lathan can’t decide which one. He wants that, the chance to be a normal couple with Kylo, to explore what that’d look like for them. But he’s so scared that doesn’t exist, and will never exist.
“ Can we?”
And for the first time, Kylo sinks away from him, dropping his hands and looking down at the broken crackers in the unopened packet. He doesn’t answer, like he normally would, with chipper and sureness. Because he must have the same question himself, and just doesn’t want to admit it.
They stay near each other, though. Kylo has nothing further to say about it, about them, but he doesn’t leave. And neither does Lathan—doesn’t inch away. No matter what happens, what Kylo comes to the conclusion of, Lathan won’t leave him until he’s told to.
They’re checked on every once in a while, mostly to see if Kylo needs anything, and to document any reversal changes in Lathan. Nothing yet.
Kylo falls asleep within his cocoon, snuggled up against the wall separating him from Lathan. And Lathan doesn’t sleep. His body is so exhausted, but his mind can’t stop pirouetting with thoughts.
The night passes and they aren’t updated on anything; whether Trevor is still alive or not. Come Sunday morning, Lathan is pacing his cell with nothing else to do. He hasn’t been given food—another thing they don’t want to offer in case it prevents his reversal. Overnight, his eyes relaxed back to a normal pupillary size, and his ears have softened into a much more humanoid shape. He hasn’t even noticed, been too busy with his unnerving thoughts, skin crawling with self-loathing and guilt and fear.
Kylo wakes with drowsy eyes that slowly blink open. He groans as he extends his arms and legs and arches his back, stretching out of what must have been an uncomfortable night.
“Did you get any sleep?” he asks, his voice taking on classic morning gruffness, watching Lathan pace back and forth.
“No.” He stops to look at Kylo. By habit, he wants to cross his arms, but he can’t with his wings; he’s jabbed in the rib when he tries. He’d fiddled with them in the night, tugging and scratching at the new flesh and cartilage, hurting himself to try and get them to shrink, to disappear, but nothing worked, and now there are marks on the skin. “I’m glad you did though.” I wish he had a bed to sleep in. He looks so uncomfortable. Tonight he should go back to our room.
Kylo’s eyes are brighter today; they move over Lathan body, his face. “You look better.”
Focused on only what he can see, and feel in his mouth, and with no reflective surfaces to check his other features in, he hasn’t noticed any difference. His hands reach up to touch both ears, and a wave of relief visibly washes over him when he feels they aren’t pointed anymore. “Hm.” He drops his hands and moves to the wall where Kylo is, crouching down to be closer to him. “How, uh, are you feeling?”
“Better,” he says, a bit too fast, but dawning a small smile. “Think I’m back to normal.”
Lathan tries to soften his face, but he knows the truth. No you aren’t, he thinks, because how could anyone be back to themselves so quickly after the trauma of last night? How could anyone ever be who they were again? But I’m going to be here for you. Whatever you need.
His stomach twists, grumbling with emptiness. He stands again and continues to pace as a distraction, breathing out through the pangs of hunger through pursed lips.
“If you were an inanimate object, what would you be, and why?”
Lathan stops on the other end of the cell, his back to Kylo. “What?”
“If you were an inanimate object, what would you be?” he repeats. “See, I think I’d either be one of those ‘hang in there’ cat posters, or a drum set. Ask me why.”
Lathan slowly turns, looking at Kylo from over his shoulder. “Okay. Why?”
A mischievous grin grows over his lips, now cross-legged, facing the glass. “If I were a drum set, you could bang me with your stick all night, and I’d sing until the neighbours complain.”
Lathan blinks, staring deadpan at the little folded wolf, until, after a moment, he exhales, turning to face Kylo fully and slinking back to the wall. “What is wrong with you?” he says, but he’s smirking; finally a look on his face that isn’t numb or blank.
Kylo giggles at his success, leaning closer to the glass. “Probably too many things to count.”
Lathan’s shoulders relax, hearing Kylo’s sweet laugh, seeing his charming grin with those cute canines. I want you to be okay. I don’t want you to change. But I’m not going anywhere. “I guess I’d be that godsdamned drumstick then,” he says teasingly, then tilts his head, softening his voice, “or that blanket on your shoulders.”
Lathan’s comment makes him pull the blanket in tighter, closing his eyes and exhaling with content.
As cute as Kylo is, Lathan’s smirk fades and he looks down at his wings and feels his double fangs with his tongue. He hates that this is part of him, always festering. It’s grotesque, terrifying—even the vampire staff themselves don’t want to be too close to him, regardless of the wall. He expected Kylo to be more scared in the aftermath of what happened, but he clearly isn’t, or he’s hiding that he is. It’s bizarre to Lathan, but he’s grateful to feel like he still has someone despite his flaws and wrongdoings. He’s never had that before. He’s never been allowed to show any flaws without repercussions.
The two chat lightheartedly the rest of the day. It doesn’t sit right with Lathan, but he doesn’t want to discourage Kylo if this is what makes him feel better in the moment. And he admits to himself that it makes him feel better, too, to be given this sliver of hope that maybe they aren’t ruined after all.
Staff encourages Kylo to leave, go for a walk, get some food, but he still refuses to leave Lathan. So they bring him some from the cafeteria. Kylo tries to be polite, setting it aside, out of view, but Lathan insists he eat, despite not being given food himself. He’s much bigger than Kylo, much stronger, and he knows he can handle a few days without food, but doesn’t want Kylo to go through the same.
By the evening, Lathan is also gently encouraging Kylo to go back to their room. Maybe take a shower—he wishes he could have one himself—get some quality sleep, and try to go to his classes if he’s feeling up for it. The routine might help. Lathan doesn’t know.
But it’s when the staff return once again, echoing Lathan’s claims, that Kylo sighs and gives in. He abandons the blanket, the mug, the crackers, and although he assures his boyfriend that he’ll be back the second his classes end, he abandons Lathan too.
That’s how it ends up feeling. Lathan’s overwhelmed by an immense loneliness in Kylo’s absence. He doesn’t want to admit it, though, because he’s spent his whole life isolating himself. But the wolf is changing him.
Someone slides him some food through the feeding slot—used to satiate full moon wolves’ hunger—a few hours later. He’s surprised, but thankful, until he learns that it was his parents’ doing.
They called his emergency contacts.
His mom must have threatened legal action if she discovered he was being withheld food. So now he gets to eat. But he can’t, not now, with the heavy knowledge that his parents know , and they’re on their way.