Sex & Mayhem 02 The Devil's Ride (18 page)

“Mine’s 0 negative. It’s so rare no one would want a
match with me.”

The nurse chuckled as she prepared the supplies. “If
you weren’t hemophobic, I’d suggest you donate. It’s the rarest
blood type.”

He swallowed
and looked up at Tooth with the most pleading puppy eyes in
the world. Right now he would much rather have the hookworm. With
the way his insides were spasming, maybe he did.

Tooth gave him a weak smile, but showed him the
chair nevertheless. The nurse put on a new pair of latex gloves
after making sure he wasn’t allergic, and waited. It was as if this
nightmare would only end if he submitted to the ordeal.

“Will you hold my hand?” he whispered to Tooth
despite the embarrassment the request caused him. Fainting would be
a lot worse.

Instead of answering, Tooth walked up to him and
reached out the hand he wasn’t folding at the elbow. Luci took a
deep breath and let their fingers entwine before getting up. His
legs were marshmallow before, but now he was approaching the fire,
and falling to his knees was becoming an all too real option. At
least he knew Tooth would try to catch him.

The nurse gave him an approving smile. “Can you
uncover your left arm?”

Lucifer swallowed and sat in the chair. He had to
let go of Tooth’s hand to pull his arm out of the sleeve, but as
soon as he showed it to the nurse, his cold fingers were back in
Tooth’s warm embrace.

“Use your other hand, honey,” said the nurse, and
Tooth immediately obliged, taking hold of Luci’s right hand,
leaving the other to be handled.

“What do you want to buy at the mall?” asked
Tooth.

Luci looked up at him with his heart pulsing in his
throat, even more so when the rubber cord was tightened above his
elbow and the nurse told him to squeeze his hand into a fist. “I
don’t know if I wanna go anymore.”

Tooth blinked. “Why not? You kept talking about how
little you now have.”

“You tricked me into coming here,” he said with his
temples pulsing. He didn’t even care anymore that the nurse was
listening.

Tooth’s hand squeezed his own, but its warmth wasn’t
enough to compensate for the cold disinfectant the nurse applied to
his elbow.

“Come on, we just stopped by on the way there.”

Luci looked into Tooth’s eyes, trying to focus on
the dark green irises instead of the blood that was to be taken out
of his arm. “I wanted this Macadamia Oil moisturizing mask for my
hair…”

Tooth’s expressionless face told Luci that he had no
idea what the mask was, but he nodded anyway. “That’s fine. What
else?”

“A new towel.” Luci squeezed Tooth’s hand in a steel
grip when the needle went under his skin, and he made it his job
not to look away from Tooth’s eyes. Not to even blink. “A T-shirt,
if I find any that aren’t shit.”

Tooth smirked. “Define ‘not shit’.”

“I don’t want stupid colors. Or sequins. I really
don’t like stuff that sparkles.”

Tooth’s laugh rumbled in his chest like a trapped
fly. “We just need to go to the men’s section then.”

“There’s shit T-shirts in the men’s section. I don’t
like these really plastic looking prints. I don’t like when the
print extends over the sleeves. I hate these pseudo-cute prints,
like fucking ducks or whatever. I mean, really, who wears
that?”

The last word changed into a high-pitched moan when
the needle went out of his vein, and the nurse pressed a ball of
cotton against the cut, telling Luci to hold his arm bent at the
elbow for the next five minutes.

Tooth grinned and patted Luci’s shoulder. “How about
some chocolate before we head off?”

Luci missed Tooth’s hand as soon as it left his
grip. He took a deep breath. All he now needed to do was not look
at the elbow as he stood up. “You really think I’m ten or
something?” He looked at the nurse. “I’m sorry for being such a
pain in the ass.”

“That’s all right, it’s part of my job,” she said,
and there it was, a whole vial of blood taken straight from Luci’s
vein. He felt dizzy, so he turned around and quickly put his face
against Tooth’s shoulder. Right away, Tooth’s thick, heavy arm
pulled him close.

“You okay? Are you fainting?” asked Tooth, but all
Luci could sense now was the rich scent of leather.

The chair moved over the floor, and Luci could feel
the nurse’s hands on him. “Do you want to lie down?”

Luci took a few deep breaths. “No, I’ll be fine, I
just don’t want to look at it.”

The nurse sighed. “I think chocolate isn’t such a
bad idea. It will raise your glucose levels. There’s a
café at the end of the corridor
if you go to the right.”

Tooth’s chest rose, and then Luci was pulled
closer, to rest his head against the muscle hidden beneath Tooth’s
shirt. Luci didn’t hesitate to hug him back, he was too exhausted
to fight it. Thanks to Tooth he
had gotten through it without Rick and without fainting as
well. Blood always made him think of the day he became alone in the
world. As useless as his mom tended to be, she used to be there,
and on good days, they would talk, and act as if life wasn’t a
downward spiral.

“I want a milkshake,” he muttered into the strong
chest.

Lucifer was slurping his massive peanut butter and
jelly milkshake. They went to one of the fast food joints at the
mall, one that Lucifer chose. The task of taking care of
Luci
fer was eating up a
lot more energy than Tooth imagined it would, but at the same time
he couldn’t just leave it be and let the kid rot.

Tooth’s own food was already gone, and he was
helping himself to some coffee. Today was turning into a disaster.
Luci
fer had hardly
spoken since they left the clinic, and Tooth wasn’t sure how to
approach this hedgehog of a boy. It felt almost like disturbing a
dog during its meal.

“So, where do we buy this shampoo you want?” he
eventually asked.

“
We’ll just need to try and go around all the
stores.” Lucifer slurped his shake and by the sound of it, the
drink was ending. “Do you think I have it?” he asked all of a
sudden, making Tooth almost choke on his coffee. He knew
all-too-well what Lucifer meant because he had been thinking about
it as well. What would he tell Luci
fer if any of the two tests they’d done came out
positive? He wasn’t a therapist. What would he do?

He cleared his throat, moving his fingers over the
warm cup. “I don’t know.”

“
But, like… do I look like I have it?”
Luci
fer squinted at
Tooth and leaned a bit closer over the table.

Tooth couldn’t help but smile. “No, you look very
healthy. The tests are the only way to know, and we’ll only do one
repeat to confirm it.”

“I’m gonna have to do it again?” Lucifer moaned and
slouched. The look of exasperation on his face was kinda cute, but
Tooth wouldn’t admit that.

“
Only once, and I’ll be tested again too. It’s good
to know where you stand because the earlier you’re diagnosed, the
more chance
you have to
live a completely normal life.” Tooth sipped more coffee, drilling
Lucifer with his eyes.

Luci
fer
put his hands over his ears. “Oh, my God, I don’t wanna think about
it. But I’m sorry I freaked out like that. I probably looked like a
total wuss.”

Tooth bit into the edge of the cardboard cup,
wondering what he should say. “Nah, I’ve seen guys much bigger than
you faint when they saw blood. Since when does it happen to
you?”

Lucifer bit his lip and looked into his empty cup.
“A few years. I used to live with my mom, but she was… she had
problems. I really tried to make her feel better, but she’d just be
so sad all the time. Nothing I did made her happy. Then one day I
came back home from school, and there she was in the bathtub,” he
seemed to speak about it casually, but his voice became monotonous.
“The whole bathroom was red with blood. I still remember the
stench. It got me so dizzy I barely stumbled out of there.”

Tooth swallowed and reached over the table to
squeeze Luci’s warm forearm. Poor, poor kid. “I’m sorry.”

“
Shit happens, right?” Luci
fer shrugged, but didn’t pull away. “I bet
you’ve seen worse. I just wish I would have come home earlier that
day.” His pale eyelashes covered the big blue eyes, so Tooth
couldn’t read much from them.

Tooth wanted to howl. This was way out of his
competences. “You couldn’t know.”

“I knew she wasn’t feeling well. But then again she
rarely felt well in that last year. Blah.” Lucifer began
disassembling the straw into bits of plastic.

“
Everyone has regrets, you know. But you can’t
change certain stuff.” Tooth leaned back, his mind offering him the
last image he had of Tracy. Dressed in tight jeans and an orange
longsleeve, with some big hippie necklace at the front. His full
mouth stretched into a smile. “I’ll be back in an hour,” was all
Tracy
had said back
then.

Luci
fer
shrugged. “I try not to dwell on it, but when I see blood it all
comes back. It’s like it got ingrained into my body in a physical
way. I get dizzy, weak, nauseated.”

Tooth cleared his throat and opened his wallet.
“Let’s make sure you don’t have to look at it very frequently.”

“
You’ll make sure I don’t have to visit the
dentist
?”
Lucifer laughed nervously, and Tooth wasn’t sure if it was a joke
or if the boy was actually scared he would hurt him.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said, just to assure him.
“I don’t hurt people so much weaker than I am.”

Lucifer looked up at him with his nose wrinkling.
“You make me sound like a pussy. I just have a low pain
threshold.”

Tooth snorted. “I was your age once too, you know. I
wasn’t always as strong as I am now.” He had some old scars on his
body to prove it.

Lucifer poked his arm. “You gonna train me up?”

Tooth laughed, looking at the slim finger against
his skin. “If you want to. I started when I was about sixteen.”

“
I bet you were never my size though.”
Luci
fer sighed. “I’ve
got some muscle, it’s just… you know.”

Tooth looked at Lucifer’s slender body, and no,
he
’d never looked like
that. Even as a kid, he was much more meaty, broader in the
shoulders. “I had to grow to stand up to my dad,” he said with a
slow sigh.

The complete attention Luci
fer gave him was so intense Tooth was
feeling his neck heat up. The boy was like a sponge, eager to soak
up any detail Tooth would throw him. “Was he in the
club?”

Tooth chuckled and put the money on the table. “Nah,
he was just a drunk jerk. He’s probably dead anyway.”

“Do you have any other family?”

Tooth shrugged. “Possibly, but no one I actually
knew well or wanted to keep in touch with.” He swallowed hard,
remembering the way Priest took care of him soon after they met.
There was no denying that he was a bit of a father figure for
Tooth. “The Nails are my family now.”

“
Was he that bad? That it was worth leaving your
family?” Luci
fer slowly
stood up, but never took his attentive eyes off Tooth.

Those memories weren’t painful anymore, and Tooth
had no problem talking about them. He slowly pulled off his leather
jacket and turned around in the chair. He quickly surveyed their
surroundings and pulled up the back of his shirt. He still had some
burns and ugly patches of skin that never healed. “His handiwork.
And since it was just me and him, I didn’t look back since.”

Luci’s fingers were on the sensitive skin before
Tooth could back off. “Oh, God… That’s horrible. You think that’s
what made you want to…” Lucifer lowered his voice to a whisper,
“hurt people?”

Tooth took pride in all his scars, but he didn’t
want to be touched like this in a public space, so he quickly
covered up, unsure what to make of Luci
fer’s question. Was the boy still afraid of the
dental chair underground? “I already told you I don’t randomly go
off hurting people.”

“
Yeah, but your… You know.
The box
.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Tooth blinked, and it took him a moment to realize
what Lucifer was talking about. “Why does everyone think people who
like BDSM are damaged?” he groaned, dragging his hand down his face
as they walked out of the restaurant.

Luci
fer
rolled his eyes and put his hands into his pockets as they began to
walk along the shop windows. “It just came to my mind.” A blush was
crawling up his pale cheeks.

“It’s like saying gay men like to suck cock because
they weren’t breastfed,” muttered Tooth.

Lucifer burst out laughing and slapped Tooth’s arm.
“Hey!”

Tooth smirked and poked Luci
fer in the ribs. “Isn’t it?”

“
Stop it, I don’t wanna think about tits in my
mouth.” Luci
fer kept
laughing and hid his face with his hands. It was nice to finally
see him cheer up, the day had been fucking ghastly. “But I suppose
you’re right, just like someone who got hurt could go the other
way, and err… fantasize about all sorts of dirty stuff.”

Tooth scratched his head. “I suppose.”

“
But not you, right? You like to do the hurting.”
Luci
fer snorted and
looked up at Tooth from behind his fingers.

Tooth shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t
hurt
people. I dominate them, if you
need to know.”