She did not, however, remain asleep for long. A sound awoke her, and her eyes snapped open in surprise. "Nick?" she murmured sleepily as she turned and reached out beside her, only to have her hands meet cold, silken sheets.
Hearing the strange sound again, she lazily opened her eyes and looked around the dark room. Everything was as it should be, except for the fact that Nick wasn't there. Sitting up, she glanced sidelong at the digital clock which read in blaring red numerals, '1:02 AM'.
"Nick?" she called out, louder this time, growing slightly nervous when she received no reply, or any indication that he was there. She stood up, wincing as her feet hit the shocking cold floor.
The sound came again, muffled as though it were underwater, and this time, Natalie was awake enough to identify the location of the source. She glanced around nervously, looking for some possible weapon she could use, fear rising in her chest. Something was wrong, and it was already a well-known fact that someone was gunning for Nick. What if...? She didn't even want to finish the thought. Not now.
Sighing, she realized there was absolutely nothing available that she could use, so she took a deep breath and found her resolve. She crept up to the door of the bathroom and poked it so lightly that she was surprised when it swung open with ease. So prepared was she for a crazed axe murderer to leap out from behind the shower curtain and shish-kebob her on the spot, that several moments passed before the sight before her registered in full.
Nick was curled over the toilet bowl like saran wrap, bare-chested and quivering, in a pair of old sweatpants that were at least a size too big for him. She could practically see his ribs ratcheting upwards, rippling under his pale, supple skin as he heaved ferociously. From the sound of it, he had lost his stomach contents a long while ago, and his innards were just refusing to calm down.
"Nick?" Nat whispered, rushing to his side. She'd never seen someone look so ill, and for the first time ever, she saw an individual take on a truly greenish cast.
"Nat, I'm fine... go back to bed..." Nick groaned, not looking up at her, and not once letting his white-knuckle grip of the white porcelain loosen.
Such an understatement, such a downright lie--Natalie would have smacked him if it were not for his current, and very poor, condition. "Nick, you're not fine!" Natalie exclaimed worriedly, massaging his quaking back. "You're anything but fine!"
He would have answered, but he was racked with a terrible bout of dry heaving, looking for all the world that he was suffering from the worst flu she had seen in her life. But she knew that he wasn't sick, and there was no way something like the flu could've hit him so fast, at least not that she knew of.
"Nick? What happened?" she asked, fearing that perhaps he had somehow ingested some poison or toxin, something--anything logical that would explain why he was suffering.
After several long moments, he sat back on his haunches and looked at her darkly, rocking on the balls of his feet like a buoy in a wind-swept lake. "Chicken..." he replied weakly, his voice barely above a whisper.
She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Chicken?" she asked incredulously.
"From the picnic," he added. "I haven't been able to keep much down since... since..." His sentence was interrupted when his stomach spasmed wildly, and he clawed his way back like a drowning man to his previous hunched position over the porcelain bowl.
Natalie's eyes widened, realizing for the first time that he looked a lot thinner than usual. She had attributed it to his injury, but if what he was saying were true, it was malnutrition... "Nick, why didn't you say anything?" she asked frantically. "You could lose too much weight, or become dehydrated, or, or worse! You have to think about those things now..." she cried, all the while wondering what on earth could have caused this anathema to solid food.
"I thought... thought it would go away..." he whispered pathetically, wisely not meeting her eyes as he put forth his weak excuse.
"Well, you still should've told me!" she remarked indignantly, but immediately softened when she saw his pained, nauseated look. Groaning inwardly, she shook her head. He was so prone to keeping things to himself that sometimes everything just got a bit out of hand...
Without another word of complaint, she settled herself down next to him and started rubbing his back, hoping that his stomach would finally calm down. As Nick's heaving slowly quieted, she thought about dragging him out shopping later and giving him an introductory tour of the drug store, only to find herself wishing fervently that she had done so sooner. She simply hadn't thought he would need anything like that so quickly after his release from the hospital.
She should have realized that such a major transition wasn't going to be a walk in the park. There was no quick fix--it just wasn't possible.
A heavy sigh perforated the newfound silence, and she was relieved to find that he was finally relaxing. As she leaned herself up against the cool glass of the shower stall, he let himself fall back into her embrace, and she found herself again in awe of the warmth that his skin generated--the feel of the light rise and fall of his chest within her arms as his lungs brought air to his body.
She ran her hand up the smooth skin of his abdomen and was gratified with a light shiver. Warm breath flowed softly over her arms as he groaned, although whether it was from pleasure or not, she could not tell. "Nat..." he said quietly, shifting lightly in her embrace. "What's wrong with me?" he asked, worriedly.
"Nick, your body has been put through some terrible stress. Not only is your heart working at about, gee, six-hundred times the rate it's been going at for the last eight centuries or so, but you've got systems coming back online that haven't been in use for just as long... I don't even want to get into the fact that an armor-piercing bullet decided to wreak havoc with you..." she explained, subconsciously gripping him tighter.
He remained silent, quivering slightly in her arms.
"Nick?" she asked softly, laying her chin to rest on his shoulder as he curled his lithe body like a cat.
"It's just," he paused, unable to find the words he needed to complete his thought. A small noise emanated from the back of his throat, like he was trying to say something but couldn't quite get it out. "Hard," he finally finished.
Natalie nodded. "I can imagine," she replied.
"No, Nat. I really don't think that you can," he responded darkly. The words that had been meant to console him had obviously been taken the wrong way, but he heaved a sigh and immediately apologized. "Sorry..." he said, realizing how biting his words must have seemed to her ears.
But she understood. Eight-hundred years of habit had to be erased, and she could imagine how difficult it was, but she doubted she could make an entirely accurate picture... She kissed his well-muscled shoulder lightly, gliding her lips across his bare skin, but she couldn't help noticing how much he began to shiver as she met the juncture between his neck and his shoulder.
Pausing a moment, she felt his breathing increase, and with a sly grin, she bit down lightly with her teeth, running her incisors along the pulsing bulge of his jugular. She stopped as a gasp emanated from his lips--a desperate cry of... pleasure? He flailed in her grasp, and she licked her lips, surprised that she could get such a reaction out of him from a simple playful nip.
Her own burning curiosity was simply too much to contain.
"Nick? Is that... area... still... good for you?" she finally managed to blurt, surprised at her own shyness about the subject. Usually, it was Nick who would avoid such intimate conversation.
She could almost feel the sheepish grin burning its way across his face, even though she couldn't see it. "Err... it would appear so," he replied softly, and she could see the pinkish flush of embarrassment spreading over his skin.
"Is that..." she began, managing to stop herself from marveling at the fact that he could blush now, "is that why you tried to... to bite me? When we... Well, earlier."
He stiffened, his muscles turning tense and rigid, and she could almost feel the air around them turn frigid. "What?" he asked, amazement flooding his voice. "I didn't..." he began, but when he wrenched his neck around and saw the angry red blotch on the skin above her jugular, he stopped cold and just looked at it in horror.
Nick stood roughly, not meeting her gaze as he mumbled a terse apology and exited, leaving Nat sitting on the cold floor alone and bewildered. She shook her head. What on Earth had just happened?
Steadily, she rose to her feet and walked back out into the bedroom. Nick was there, roughly pulling on a pair of jeans at the same time as trying to pull a sweater over his head, and truth be told, he just didn't have the coordination to manage it. He tripped and cursed lightly under his breath, but before she could even blink an eye, he had righted himself and was working on his socks.
"Nick? What did I say? I was just wondering..." she tried to explain, tried to tell him that it didn't matter.
His eyes darted to her sharply, and she felt strangely like a bird caught in the stare of a snake. She heard a low, strange noise emanating from his throat, almost as if he were trying to growl, but couldn't quite muster the vocal agility to do so, another strange remnant from his recent conversion.
"Nat, do you have any idea, how long I've dreamed of biting you?" he snapped as he yanked on his wristwatch.
Natalie felt as though she had been slapped across the face, the biting sting of his words bringing a flush of hurt to her cheeks. "No," she replied tersely, unable to see where he was going with this conversation.
He stared a moment, his gaze hard and cold, but something in his eyes was telling her that this was a front. Pain lingered in the cool blue depths of his eyes like a silk-screen curtain. "I did--a lot. I used to dream about it," he said, his voice suddenly breaking.
"Nick, that's nothing to be ashamed of..." Natalie whispered in reply. She was well aware of the sexual nature of the bite, Hell, she had seen the effects of the blood on him, the state of arousal it put him in...
"Yes. It IS," he practically growled. "You're not some sacrificial lamb. You're a person," he stressed.
She sighed, attempting to approach him, but he shied away. "And so are you..." she tried to reason with him.
"Then why did I try to bite you?" he asked coldly, and she remained silent, unable to come up with an answer.
"I'm stuck, Nat. I'm obviously not a vampire anymore, but I still think I am one. Nat, I still have those dreams, I still have those desires. I can't..." he muttered, but didn't finish his sentence, spinning on his heels suddenly and stalking out of the room as his temper finally won the battle.
Natalie watched him go, wanted desperately to chase after him, but knew it would not be of any use. He needed to blow off steam. He needed... help.
And she wasn't so sure that she was the one who could give it.
