Chapter Thirteen | Sunburned

Summer had arrived. On sunny days, Karou lounged around in the shade of the Compound's wooded area. With her back hugged by the trunk of a Ponderosa pine, she sometimes drew, sometimes read. Similarly to how she'd sneak out to Boston Lot Lake, her solitude amongst the trees had become a habit in her new life, too. Replicating the most pleasant part of her past made going back to the unit every night more bearable.

Since April, when she'd first broached the idea of ending her Mortal life through Vampiric transformation, Warren had been guarded. Their conversations between the recurring arguments were often short-lived and impersonal. Yet, making Karou feel more alone wasn't a tactic working in Warren's favour. Though he'd voiced, no, shouted, objections when she'd bravely brought up the subject again, she wasn't dissuaded; she was more determined. The appeal of controlling her life's path grew the more Warren paraded his authority. But, to his mind, she was just a kid who didn't understand the gravity of her request. He could see why the idea of being physically stronger seemed attractive. She'd never age. Her allergies would disappear. She would never suffer or die of illness. Amongst the pros, the prospect of joining a new community and belonging was logically desirable to a girl who had always lacked familial love. For that, he could forgive her persistence because despite telling him she wasn't lost when they'd first met, she was, perhaps not in the woods but certainly in life. She'd never belonged anywhere. The Compound was a safe place to dream, but the truth was that it wasn't likely to remain that way forever. Who knew what would happen in the future, far or near? The war was still raging and wasn't getting better in the news, just worse. Maybe Mythicals wouldn't exist much longer? Maybe mortals would win and wipe them out? The fact remained that transformation came at such a high price. Warren couldn't, in good conscience, turn her into a creature that was being passionately hunted to extinction.

Sleep had found Karou curled up in the grass beneath a pine on that sunny day. As the sun had panned the sky, the shade inevitably disappeared, and Karou woke from her nap to find her skin sore and burnt. Being pale was such a curse! Still, the damage had been done, and being that it was sundown, there was no point in her cussing at the sky. 

That afternoon, Warren had also fallen asleep. He'd abandoned work and left his laptop on the coffee table to snooze lengthways on the couch. His slumber was disturbed by the sweet burst of fragrance that left the bathroom along with Karou once she'd showered some of the sting out of her burn. Coming to his senses, he groaned into wakefulness and rubbed his fingers into the pits of his eyes. Upon opening them, he discovered Karou leant over him—she had been poking at his arm and calling his name to wake him. Her proximity and the state and colour of her skin around her shoulders was jarring to Warren, but it was how he examined her so thoroughly that sent chills up her spine. When he propped himself up on an elbow and continued to eye her, she instinctually flinched backwards, wary of his intentions. Yet, equally caught off guard and still sleepy, he innocently inquired, "What happened?"

"Uh, just sunburn," Karou explained timidly, clutching the towel to her chest tighter. "I... I can't reach to put this on my back." She made her predicament and reason for waking him clear and held out a bottle of ointment to Warren with a disgruntled crease between her brows. "Would you maybe—" I can't believe I'm asking him to do this. She thought, trying to look anywhere else but his face. "help me?"

Warren didn't say a word and took the bottle in a simple gesture of agreement. Next, he invited Karou to sit by tapping the couch. Seated in tandem, Karou grabbed the TV remote and decided to watch something as a distraction. When he didn't begin as quickly as she'd expected, she glanced over her shoulder and smirked when she saw what the hold-up was. "What're you reading the label for?

"To check you're not allergic to anything in this..." He mumbled distractedly.

Karou found some of his habits amusingly endearing. "I've already put it on everywhere I could reach, so it's fine. I'm not allergic to aloe vera, Warren. Besides, I got it from the pharmacist at the clinic, and he knows about all my allergies." Karou explained as she picked out a movie. Replying with a grunt of resignation, Warren uncapped the bottle and began rubbing the lotion over his palms. In reaction to him tugging her towel further down her back, Karou's posture straightened.

The smooth porcelain landscape of Karou's back laid before him; although it wasn't only decorated by a smattering of freckles, there was something else—the raised, ruddy, and jagged scar that bisected her spine. Warren knew how she came by it, but this was the first time he'd seen it in the flesh. From time to time, Karou complained of backache and sometimes it broke her sleep. Since he was also accustomed to bouts of restlessness due to pain, he'd given her some of the medication he was prescribed for his muscular ailment and sent her back to bed. Aloud, he wondered, "Is the scar the cause of your back pain?" in an undramatic, somewhat flat tone.

Karou hung her head, and her shoulders sunk in shame. "You're looking at it?"

"It's hard to ignore," Warren admitted, equally blasé as before.

"Right, a'course it is… Uhm, well, my back used to hurt even before they did that, so who knows? Maybe they were trying to fix me. Maybe they could've fixed me."

"I doubt it." He muttered dismissively. Within a mere second, Karou imagined several ways she could take offence to what he'd said, but distraction came quickly when Warren finally set to his task and placed his hands on her shoulders. Beneath his palms, Karou's skin was hot to the touch and felt tight, but most of all, its texture was smooth and delicate, like silk. Although, at first, she'd flinched under his hands, the pleasured sigh she suddenly made caught him off guard, "Ahem—" he cleared his throat, "this stuff really works, huh?"

"Mhmm—" she hummed, relief had relaxed her, "your hands are cold too."

"That isn't always a good thing," Warren had always been particularly aggrieved by that aspect of his nature. Everything else about his vampirism was easily concealable, but his cold touch was impossible to hide without making oneself conspicuous by permanently wearing gloves. Moreover, it was something inescapably inhuman about his body that caused people to retreat when they touched him.

"It is right now."

After that, silence fell between them. Once Karou's attention became consumed by the movie she was watching on low volume, her fingers, which had kept her towel wrapped tight to her chest, slackened and barely clung to the corners so that Warren could see to her tailbone, where the white towelling pooled. Maintaining an untainted focus on her was difficult when he was free to ogle over her bare skin and body's shape. As his fingers worked over her back, he was already taking liberties; applying ointment didn't need to take this long, but for now, Karou allowed it. It gratified his desire for physical contact, which he often denied and quelled some of his loneliness, which he also tried to refute. Ellis was the last person to be physical with him, and it had been almost six months since then.

"Warren?" Karou whispered under the television's murmurings when she realised how much time had elapsed.

"Hmm?" In a trance-like state, Warren continued tracing his fingers over her and even on parts of her back that weren't sun-scorched. Unless Karou called him out on that, he wouldn't stop, not in his current state of mindlessness, even though the ointment was depleting. Karou could hear how engrossed he was. If she were honest, she didn't want to interrupt him. In her short life, she hadn't experienced many gentle touches. Compassionate applications of medicine when sick or injured weren't a feature of her childhood. So, she was enjoying it, too, even if not for the same reasons. Actually, she had no idea why he seemed to be indulging her so much; he'd implied she was repulsive to him as easily as he'd admitted finding her "more attractive than he should". From that, she could only conclude that he thought she was appealing to others but not to him personally. Initially, she'd been a little put out but figured everyone had their preferences and tried not to take it to heart. Repositioning the towel tighter around herself, Karou turned to face him. Her expression was open, but she'd caught him unawares. With his hand hovering in the air, still reaching for her, Warren's eyes stared at where they had previously focused. It took him a moment to compose himself and look at her face. When their eyes met, Karou's expression changed—a little wonder, a little surprise, and a little prick of fear that made her wary because Warren's eyes were the colour of deep water, and his fangs peeped over his lower lip.

"Uh, is there any left?" Karou asked, trying to act natural. "You've been going for almost an hour."

"Time must've escaped me." Now that he spoke, he, too, noticed the presence of his fangs and the dryness of his mouth. Swallowing first and then flexing his jaw to make his fangs go back into dormancy, he continued to stare, still entranced. Now that the painful flush of a fresh burn had gone from her skin and its natural delicate-looking ivory tone had returned, Warren's eyes were drawn in. Over one shoulder, her hair had dried into lazy waves. The angle of her pronounced collarbones accentuated how slender her neck was. The freckles over her shoulders thinned, but there was one prominent beauty mark on the left-hand side of her neck, drawing his eyes to a spot just shy of her jugular. Karou exuded delicious youth. It would be so easy. His demons whispered. Imaginings flashed behind his eyes, showing how his hands could effortlessly disarm her, remove her towel, and—

"I guess that's okay when you have all the time in the world." Karou started, interrupting his devious train of thought. She might have carried on, but Warren cut her off, too.

"Not this again. Not tonight. I don't have the energy to fight about it." Warren whined in premature defeat and combed his fingers back through his hair.

"I don't want to fight about it either. You just need to say yes." Karou huffed exasperatedly. She swung her legs off the couch like she was about to stand when Warren reached out and grabbed her arm, bringing her to a halt. 

"Karou, I'm never going to say yes." His dark eyes pleaded she would finally see his version of sense.

"Is it because you don't want to bite me?" 

"You shouldn't ask me that. Not right now." How could he stall so that he didn't have to answer? He couldn't. It didn't matter where else he looked; he always betrayed himself and looked back at her. Battling the urge to drag her back down onto the couch, he made himself let go of her arm, but she lingered, looking confused. How was he supposed to keep fighting against his urges to close all space between them when she remained in his orbit so intentionally? "Considering my mood, I might not say no."  Karou's lips opened, about to reply, but he stood vanquishing the inches between their chests and held up his fingers before her lips and shushed her. "Karou. Just—Don't. Go put on your pyjamas. We'll watch the rest of this movie, then go to bed, okay?" Karou rolled her eyes, and, despite obediently making tracks toward her room, she was muttering a selection of sassy comebacks as she went. She wasn't halfway gone when Warren called out, "And I'm not talking about this anymore." Rounding the couch, he came to stand before his choice of remedy to his frustration. "Good God, I need a drink."