Chapter Eighteen | Pushing Boundaries

Warren's behaviour hadn't vastly improved. He was still quiet and stuck to his routine religiously, but at least he hadn't gotten any worse. 

Karou had started eating breakfast again, and a few mornings a week, he'd joined her at the kitchen island. While she ate her toast, he ate a light lunch. There was usually a newspaper between them, but she supposed he was making an effort.

Their evenings were the same as always. Warren would sit in one corner of the couch, drinking scotch, smoking cigarettes, and pretending to watch the TV, while Karou would sit in the other, curled up with a cushion, pretending that she didn't know he was watching her.

One evening, Warren wouldn't find Karou snuggled up in her usual spot, and seeing as he was trying to be friendlier, he thought that ought to concern him.

Stepping out into the courtyard, Warren put his nose into the air to track her. Karou's scent was unique enough not to muddle in with the cacophony of others around the Compound. It hung in the air, and closing his eyes, he could envisage it—a fluorescent plume of twinkly golden sunlight floating some feet above the ground. To an ordinary nose, he suspected her honeyed scent smelled pleasant and invited friendliness and warmth, but to predators like him, the pull was like the moon and the sea. Perhaps that was why he tracked her so easily, without putting his nose down to the dirt. As far as any onlookers were concerned, he was taking an evening stroll, but Warren struggled to fight the exhilaration of the hunt. The nostalgia of tracking her through trees wasn't lost on him, only this time, her trail led him to a familiar place: The Brass Lantern.

Warren checked his wristwatch; it was nearly ten-thirty. Karou was out much later than usual, but it made sense why when he found her amidst friends. Warren knew what a good time looked like, even if he didn't stray from his work to indulge. He smiled to himself upon seeing Karou enjoying herself—watching her contently go about her life after her last tantrum confirmed that he'd done the right thing by allowing her to continue living with him. He envied her Mortality, but as long as he got to watch her exist happily, healthily, and mundanely, then he had no desire to take her life. Afterall, she was living his dream.

Now that he knew where she was, he considered turning around and returning to the unit. A thought popped into his head: Why not stay for a drink? With a beverage acquired, Warren took a table and quietly enjoyed his whiskey. It was a refreshing break from sitting at his desk, but supposed it wasn't quite as comfortable as the evening routine he'd gotten used to.

Discreetly, he stole glances in Karou's direction, but it wasn't long until the Fae girl—almost constantly hung on Karou's arm—noticed him and met his eyes. Keeping her moss-green eyes locked on him, her nose wrinkled in displeasure as she whispered into Karou's ear, altering her to his whereabouts. Raising her hand, Karou beckoned him over to the table where she and her friends congregated, but Warren merely shook his head in refusal. He didn't want to sour her evening with his inadequate social skills. Or worse, embarrass her in front of her peers. They didn't keep the fact that they didn't like him a secret. Stubborn to a fault, Karou wasn't taking no for an answer, so with a wine glass in hand, she came to his table instead. A toothy smile spread across her face when she sat down, uninvited. "Hello, you." The vivid peachy colour in her cheeks was clearly a side effect of the wine. Still, it suited her otherwise porcelain complexion, especially in the tavern's dim and cosy lighting.

Warren's eyes smiled upon her arrival. "Good evening,"

"Have you come to take me home because I've stayed out too late?" Karou giggled, sipping at the remnants in her glass. Her tone revealed she was giddy, if not slightly drunk.

"No, I'm not your father, Karou. I tracked you here to check you weren't up to mischief."

"Oh, I haven't been misbehaving much."

"I think your Fae friend would like you to go back to their table." Warren tried to ignore her comment's insinuation and nodded across the room at the group she'd abandoned. They were all looking her way, one more so than the others. Warren knew the boy, a member of one of the Elemental families that had taken asylum at the Compound a couple of years ago. Since then, he'd hit puberty and his stride with women. He seemed interested in Karou.

"They'll all be heading back home soon, so there's no point." Karou wafted her hand, finished her wine, and lounged back in the bench seat with a contented sigh.

"Not quite yet." Warren peripherally saw the Elemental walking toward their table. "One of them is heading this way..."

"Uhm, hey Karou... Everyone's gonna head back home now, but d'you wanna have one more drink with me? Uh, alone?" The boy put forth his proposal with a level of confidence that Warren found commendable. Respectfully, Warren didn't look at him to avoid putting him off.

"Actually, I think that was probably my last drink., Ebon" Karou started, only to be interrupted.

"One more drink wouldn't hurt, right? Or maybe I can walk you home? And we can chat, just the two of us?" Warren looked between the two youngsters, unsure if a situation was unfolding, but it was amusingly clear that he wasn't invited.

"No, I'm fine. I don't want another drink, but I would like to go home now. Warren, should we go?" Karou stood from the table and smiled at the boy in false sympathy. "Another time, though, yeah?" Before anything else could be said, Karou was skipping out of the tavern, leaving the would-be Romeo looking crestfallen. Warren raised his eyebrows and sucked his teeth by way of apologising for Karou's let-down and followed her outside.

Karou staggered into the woods out in the open air—the wine and fresh air made her lightheaded. Rested against a tree trunk, she pressed her fingertips to her lips, giggled and confessed, "Ooo, I think I've had a little bit too much."

Warren rolled his eyes and dryly remarked, "It would appear that way, yes. You, at least, need to find something to enjoy drinking if you're going to continue." He didn't stop to aid her and walked right on past, with his hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks.

Trotting up to Warren's side, she whined, "I don't know what else to try instead, and I couldn't imagine sampling everything." Trying to keep up with his long stride because she wanted to get back to the unit as soon as possible and flake out on the couch.

"Then I guess you're stuck drinking vino." Warren quipped. He held open the door for her and together, they strolled through the Compound's main lounge. A corridor later, he said, "Karou, you have figured out that that boy, back at the tavern, has a crush on you, right?"

"Yeah. I have." Karou nodded indifferently. While waiting for him to open their front door, she leaned against the outer wall and grinned up at him, mulling over what to say next. She continued with her explanation, "I guess it's nice to be noticed, but he's a few years younger than me and, apparently, not a great kisser."

"And you're an expert on kissing now, are you?" Warren goaded and crouched in the hallway to unlace his brown Derby's.

"No, I'm not, but I at least want to practise with someone good at it," Karou replied distractedly. 

Warren watched Karou fumble to remove her shoes and simultaneously fight to escape her jacket. She met his expectations and disappointed him when she left her things strewn about. "Tsk, so untidy." He tutted. 

Humming to herself, Karou moseyed off to her room sooner than he'd expected. She re-emerged, though, and changed into pyjamas. Or rather, she was in the process of pulling a camisole over her head when she padded barefoot towards the couch, meaning that Warren got an eye full of her lacy underwear. Hmm, that's nice. His demons leered. Now that she was clambering onto the couch, she looked at him expectantly, and he realised he'd been staring. 

"Am I a bad kisser?" Karou's head tipped to the side as she gathered her hair over one shoulder.

"What? I… Don't think I ought to be the judge of that." Warren blew out a slow breath and tugged his tie loose, hoping against the odds that she wouldn't become a handful before bed. "What is it with you? You always ask these kinds of questions when either of us has had too much to drink." 

"Duh! I'm not brave enough to ask you for another kiss without a little help from the 'ol' liquid courage.'" Karou giggled and sat back on her heels. The way her eyes were gleaming in the dim glow of the lounge's lamp was almost cat-like. Her poise promised she'd pounce on him if he gave so much as a flicker of a green light.

"Is that what you're doing right now?"

"Yeah." Unashamedly, Karou nodded, "I'd really—" set onto all fours, "—really like," and crawled over the leather, "—another kiss, Warren." 

"You already know the answer."

"You said I had no idea what you could do to me. I said we could find out." 

"I meant I'd try and be your friend..." Apprehensively, Warren's palm rubbed over the lower half of his face, subconsciously shielding his lips from her as he tried to think of a way to disarm the situation.

Instead, Karou disarmed him and came to a stop, closer than she'd ventured before. She confidently called him out on his lie, "No, you didn't." 

"Karou! Don't make me put you back in that cell. You're intoxicated an' you're testing my patience."

"Hmph, fine. I'll go to bed, then. I guess if you are going to kiss me, I should be sober enough to remember it." Karou quit so quickly it felt like she'd just been trying to get a rise out of him. She climbed off the couch and resigned to her bedroom.

"It's not happening, sober or not," Warren grumbled, having to have the last word.

Liar. His inner devil whispered, 'he' had the last word.

Warren huffed, his heart pounding as he slumped into the couch. His slacks felt tight… "Fu–uck. He groaned, shame simmering in his stomach. "What. A. Thursday..." 

✷✷✷

Around four in the morning, Karou was awakened by a sharp stabbing pain emanating from her between her shoulder blades. It spread down her spine, made her muscles quiver, and brought tears to her eyes. Laying down to relax was impossible; loosening her muscles brought a fresh stab of agony. Sitting up wasn't much better. The torment came if she moved so much as an inch. Each sting was both breathtaking and paralysing, zapping down her spine and bolting through to her sternum. Between the involuntary groans and grumbles that rumbled past her lips, she'd yelp when jousted by the pain. Holy crap, it's never been this bad before. The pain wasn't easing, and pacing her small bedroom until she felt the confines suffocating, so she flicked on the bathroom light and paced the length of the wet room across the hall and into her room in tireless circles. She hoped that the movement would distract her or ease her discomfort, but it didn't. 

Warren's sleep was interrupted when he sensed light coming from the hallway. There didn't seem to be any immediate crisis, so he took his time coming around and even when he heard a painful groan from the bathroom, he figured Karou had woken up feeling ill from all the alcohol she'd drunk. When he found her pacing and not hunched over the toilet bowl, he squinted into the light at her as she passed before him. "What's wrong?"

"My back. Hurts." She managed to stutter past her quivering lips. Crying as she paced, Karou had her arms wrapped around her chest, trying to hold herself together to no avail. She was no longer tipsy; the pain had sobered her right up. "It hurts so much—" her breath caught, "—worse than usual. I—I'm sorry I woke you up."

Warren nodded, acknowledging her predicament; he recognised the look on her face as panic and pain. "Right," He said before turning around and disappearing back into his bedroom. When Warren seemingly dismissed her crisis, she wanted to cry harder. She felt hopeless in the face of whatever was happening, but it wasn't many moments until he came back into the hallway with his cell phone in hand and suggested, "Maybe I should call the doctor to come and take a look at you?" Karou felt a twinge of guilt for assuming he'd brushed her aside.

"I hate doctors." She grumbled, "They only ever find more things wrong with me..."

"You can't spend the rest of your days in this much pain Karou. I know what it's like to live like this. You're positive I shouldn't call him?"

"Yes. It's so late that it's early now."

"Then what do you want?" Warren ran a hand back through his hair at a loss.

"I just want it to stop!" She whined and continued pacing while her eyes streamed fresh tears.

"Are you going to let me give you something?" Warren had no choice but to resort to the only solution he had at hand—it was the same way he'd helped her before—drugs.

"Fine. Anything! Hit me. Knock me out. I don't care. I can't take this anymore." Karou wailed, pacing faster, impatient for the agony to end.

"Karou, just... Stop pacing. It's not going to help." Gingerly, Warren took hold of her shoulders to steady her and found her skin hot, more so than usual. "I'm not going to hit you to knock you out;.I meant pills. I can sedate you so you can sleep through it." Warren explained and turned her about to coax her into his bedroom, where he kept his medication. 

Stopped dead when she felt his cold hands touch her, Karou sighed, "Oh, that might help..." 

"What might help?"

"Your hands. They're cold. Feels nice." Karou pressed back into his hands, wanting him to soothe the painful places around her shoulder blades, but he let go and reached for the medicine bottles in his nightstand drawer. Soon enough, he touched her again, but only to take her hand and place three pills in her palm. Karou knew the drill and threw them back, supposing she could ask what they were later.

"Hmm, I'm always cold. Everywhere. At least to Mortals," Warren explained gloomily. "The painkillers and sleeping aid shouldn't take long to kick in. You should lie down."

"Okay, but can you put your hands on my back? Just for a little while? I liked it, I liked the cold. It helped." Karou turned about and pulled her hair over one shoulder, hoping he would oblige.

Warren touched her, but not how she wanted. Instead, he ushered her down onto his bed, insisting, "Just lay down. You'll feel better soon." 

The adrenaline rush the pain left behind rendered her too awake to consider sleep, but she did as Warren suggested and slunk down into the sheets. Then, patting the mattress, she invited him to sit with her. "Come on, just like you did when I got sunburned that time," Karou insisted as she turned her back, sent her hands into her hair and gathered it over one shoulder.

Warren sighed, defeated by Karou's tenacity. It seemed that even when she was in agony, she was stubborn. Sat cross-legged behind her on the mattress, he reminded her, "You're going to have to sleep eventually. I have to get to work soon," and tentatively set his hands on her shoulders, the heat from her skin burned into his palm, goosebumps covered the skin of her upper arms as his skin chilled hers. Yet what his gentle touch did to Karou convinced him to continue. An involuntary, contented sigh hummed from her lips as her head lulled forward. It wasn't enough. She needed more. Out of the blue, she peeled her camisole off, tossed it aside, pulled up his cotton bedsheet to cover her chest and settled back down to wait for Warren to resume without saying a thing, but it took him a minute. Frozen, with his hands in the air like he'd been caught red-handed and all too aware of how quickly things could go awry now that she'd undressed, he tensed his entire body to fortify himself against his basal inclinations. 

It didn't take many moments of caressing Karou's skin to relax them both. Soon, he was enjoying the contact as much as when he'd aided her in administering the sunburn ointment. Touching her so intimately while she trusted him so blindly might've been flattering to his ego, but it was also as much a salve to his infliction of solitude as it was her pain. He couldn't remember another time when he'd done anything like this with anyone else. 

"Is the pain going away? The pills should've kicked in by now." Warren's whispered words were met with silence. 

The rapid pace of her heartbeat had given way to a steadier rhythm, and she'd begun to slump sideways. Now seemed like a good time to shift her into a sleeping position, but the moment his hands weren't there to prop her up, she collapsed backwards and collided with his bare chest. Many alarming things comprised the situation he found them in, and the innocence of soothing her pain was slipping away. She was a drugged, half-naked young woman in his bed, and now she was close enough to have discovered that he really was cold everywhere… Frozen again, Warren couldn't help being distracted by the display of skin over Karou's neck and shoulders. His thirsty eyes examined the way her tendons stretched out beneath her flesh, how her collar bones sat pronounced through her pale skin, and the delicate texture of that skin pleaded to be touched or, worse, kissed. He ached, agonised even, and that tightness was back. How am I supposed to resist you when you look like this?

Content with her newfound sleeping position, Karou sighed, and her sleeping face gave a smile. Still, from somewhere deep within, Warren gathered enough resilience to pull her further into his arms and lay her down to sleep.

With his forehead in his hand, hunched over on the side of the bed, Warren dozed—he wasn't ready to get up but didn't dare lie down either. Every so often, he'd glance at the time. Patiently, he waited, timing it right for when his alarm was about to sound and hitting the off button. It would've been unfair to wake Karou barely an hour after falling asleep. Somewhere between the excuse of 'just resting his eyes' and 'five more minutes', Warren fell asleep, stretched down a slither of the bed beside Karou.

Around eight o'clock, Karou's eyes fluttered open. While adjusting to the bright morning sunlight, she saw Warren sleeping peacefully, not too far away. Just behind him, she glimpsed the face of his alarm clock long enough to decipher that he was late for work. It felt wrong to wake him.

Long moments stretched into minutes as she watched him sleep. He was so still, barely breathing, but by no means dead-looking. Karou quickly discovered that real-life Vampires weren't like the creatures featured in mythological lore. As he proved right then, he didn't sleep in a coffin or hang upside down like a bat. Although Warren hid away during daylight hours, he didn't necessarily avoid sunlight. While out in the sun, he hadn't combusted into flames, at least. He ate food daily and took blood only once in a while; he also didn't seem to have any nasty reactions to garlic or religious paraphernalia. Sure, he was a little colder-blooded than the average person, and he'd ceased to age years ago, but he was a 'normal' person in so many ways that it was easy to forget that he was 'a Mythical' at all.

Still, Karou was curious about one thing… So far, she hadn't gotten close enough to discover if that tiny detail of Myth was true. Did he have a heartbeat? She couldn't see why he wouldn't—seeing as he was fast asleep, the opportunity to assuage her curiosity. Keeping a close eye on his face, to check he hadn't roused, she wiggled closer. Karou gently laid her cheek against Warren's chest. For good measure, she held her breath and remained completely still. She'd never done anything like this before, but she instantly understood why people liked it so much. Although Warren's skin was cold, it was pleasant and refreshing, like the cool side of a flipped pillow on a hot summer night. How nice it felt to do something akin to cuddling distracted her from her main goal. That's when she absentmindedly did something to escalate the interaction; she placed her hand on the vacant side of Warren's chest. Wide-eyed, Karou glared at her own hand as if it were a traitor. Afraid that her sudden movement might've disturbed Warren, she peeked at his face  Thankfully, he hadn't been, but before she could sigh in relief, her back bolted straight; Warren moved. His arm curled close to her back, barricading her escape route. Unless she was going to levitate out of the position, she figured she was stuck. 

Recommitting to her mission, Karou closed her eyes, pricked her ears, and listened. Sure enough, there it was his heartbeat. It sounded normal… and like the steady… soothing… ticking of a metronome, it lulled her back to sleep.