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Souls of the Night – Vol 3
14.
If you get half your family's stone splinters shot down your throat when you open your mouth after waking up, it's a sure sign that you're standing too close to everyone. That's why most of us coughed when we woke up. Before we looked down to the floor where Nathaniel was crouching with his head down. His shoulders were shaking and he was gasping for air but he didn't say anything and didn't look up. I wasn't the only one who wanted to express my concern when Tachi brusquely pushed Nash aside and shoved the bucket under Nathaniel's head, into which he vomited loudly not a second later. The splattering of his puke of liquid and half-digested rat parts including their little bones on the tin sounded horrible, the sounds he made even more so, but the sour smell was what all the Gargoyles - well, me too - were most distressed by.
Although most of us came from the Middle Ages and we were no strangers to the stench of the 21st century as well, we all had to catch ourselves first. Heather - sympathetic to the core - although she was no longer clutched but had crawled to Angela and Broadway, immediately began to gag and after Angela put a hand to her mouth, too, Broadway led his girls away. The rest of us held up better but our glances at each other wordlessly asked if our newest clan member was really better again (apart from throwing up). Tachi- who had already thought three steps ahead last night was the only one with enough wit to stand behind Nate, pulling the elastic out of her own hair and tying my friend's dreadlocks at the back of his neck so his hair wouldn't get caught in the rapidly filling bucket. Then she began to rub his neck - unusually soothingly warm.
Gargoyles usually vomited even less often than they went to the toilet. It had only happened to me twice, but I also thought it would do Nate good if we reassured him that it was "okay". So I stroked his bony back, vibrating with exertion and misery, and started crooning silly inanities just to show that I was there for him while his guts turned inside out, he choked and coughed.
"It's okay. It's okay. It's all been a lot. You're doing good. Don't leave anything in."
"As if he had a choice to leave anything inside," Nashville said, then grinned.
"Only Hercules with all the trimmings can puke so fervently. Welcome back, rat killer," said the gruff youngster, patting Nathaniel on the back as another gush splashed into the bucket. My friend nodded tensely and clutched the tin bucket as if it were his lifeline. He held his head so close over it that I was sure the smell alone would make him vomit longer, but when I asked him to lift his head, he refused with a breathless shake of his head.
"Are you really ... um. Are you back with us?" Goliath asked solicitously but just as clueless as I was about what we could do.
Nate nodded again without saying anything, making himself even smaller over his bucket and shielding himself from the others' view with his wings. I caught a glimpse of his face, sweat, saliva, snot and tears dripping from every hole and pore. Smoke rose from his naked back, still dirty even after waking up, although it wasn't scorching hot. He turned his head away, whimpering, when he noticed my gaze.
I probably realized it at the same time as the others because at that moment, Brooklyn ordered very firmly. "We're all going in now and ... do stuff. Lex, go with Nate to his room. He's relieved of all duty today. Take care of him."
I nodded. He didn't have to say that last part anyway. Nate immediately rose and stumbled away, and I steadied him. Although he was still choking, he couldn't get out of sight of the others any more quickly. It wasn't so much the physical ordeal Nathaniel had been through that was shaking him. It was the mental one. If everyone made a fuss about him now, it wouldn't help him. He would just want to drop dead out of shame. He remembered. He remembered everything. And that was the worst thing for him.
.
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"Here, Nate." I lifted the blanket a little and slid the mug of tea underneath. Finally, Nathaniel's room smelled more like scented candle "Forest Air" and tea than vomit and stress. My vitreous prince took the cup and I heard him quietly slurping. Fortunately, he had stopped crying. He almost infected me with it.
"Shall I tip the bucket out again?" I asked, stroking the blanket where Nathaniel's back was after he lowered his curtain again. The sad imitation of a sheet ghost shook his head.
"I - just some more bile came. It ... is over. I think."
"That's good. Very good." I sat down next to him on the stone tiles. Nathaniel hadn't wanted to go to bed. He was too literally covered in sewer filth - even in the middle of a vomiting fit and completely traumatized, he was somehow neat and "clean".
"You don't have to stay with me," came from under the sheet he was still hiding from me with. Then I heard him pull a tissue out of the Kleenex box that I had pushed into his "cave" right at the beginning and blow his nose. Then he breathed a little easier. I stroked his lower leg, which was sticking out from under the blanket.
"I want to stay with you. Let someone take care of you."
"I'm so incredibly ashamed," he repeated for the umpteenth time. At least he wasn't stuttering anymore.
"Nate. Almost all of us have been exposed to the patches for too long. Gargoyles tend to push the limits of their resilience."
"But I AM not a gargoyle!" whimpered Nate defensively. "I'm a human. I'm such a stupid idiot but ... Jussuf's message."
"I know, I know. It was disgusting." By now, I had unlocked Nate's phone (with his permission) and had read through the messages. Even those of his "mother" and his sister. But Jussuf Masoud's last message would have made anyone who had any sense of responsibility and empathy left for his family (for his brother) react as irrationally as Nate had.
"Jussuf Massoud pushed your buttons. He's certainly not doing to Hassan what he did to you. You said only after years of manipulation did it come to the extreme and direct physical and sexual violence. Jussuf only wanted to lure you out of hiding or torture you with his words. He kicks you even when he thinks you're 7,000 miles away ... We'll discuss what happened with the doc on Thursday, okay?"
Nathaniel took a deep breath. Finally, his claws slid out from under the thin blanket and lifted it. It wrinkled at his horns and he let it gather at his head, not yet ready to be completely without "cover" and not yet ready to look at me. He wiped his face again with the damp washcloth I had given him, even though it was by now dirtier than his skin. He lifted the bucket, in which only a little liquid swam, from his lap with a grimace.
"I need to discuss my cooping mechanisms after my changing back with the doctor, it's been weeks in the pipeline."
"The events of last night are just as important," I said, reaching for his hand.
He moved it away and wrapped his arms around his torso in a helplessly forlorn gesture. "I'm so dirty. Please, please don't touch me."
I felt tears in my own eyes because I knew he didn't just mean his body. I hooked my arm in his and rested my cheek against his shoulder.
"Nathaniel. NOTHING that happened is your fault."
He laughed mirthlessly.
"You liar. I went off on my own like a lunkhead with no help. I didn't listen to Tachi AND Heather. Not even a seven-year-old could babysit me in my stupidity. And I almost blew away the Gargoyles' secret that they can turn into humans. If it hadn't been for Michael, I would have made a whole train of humans burst into flames when I turned back. God I still hear the cracking of my bones and the twisting of my cartilage and body tissue in my head." He put both hands over his ears as he sobbed. I forced his hand into mine and squeezed it.
"It all ended well. You're back home. No one was hurt."
He looked up, crying, his lower lip trembling. "I basically took a hatchling hostage! I growled at my clan leader and you! I almost attacked Broadway's clone!"
I cracked a smile. "He even forgot almost all his verbs again, he was so pissed off. Well, Hol probably would have snapped you like a twig," I pointed out, but though Nate smirked, he shook his head, which was just now turning even redder than it had been the whole time. "And I almost fucked you there in front of everyone. I- you're the active part!"
"I was thinking exactly the same thing at that moment! And yet ... I would have ... I wouldn't have been completely averse if we hadn't had any spectators. Have we unlocked a new kink that I should know about? Because then we could-"
"No jokes, please, Lex. I almost would've - In front of the kids! In front of Brooklyn, Tachi, Heather, EVERYONE! I was so disgusting."
"You weren't in control of yourself, Nathaniel! Stop chiseling yourself. Despite Talon's stupid sayings- he knows you had no control over it. No one is angry with you."
"I'm angry with myself."
"That's a character coloration Davis needs to break."
"And the worst thing is-," he admitted after taking a shaky breath and lowering his head. "The worst part is that everything felt so good and right. I wanted you sexually because you're my partner. I wanted Vincent because... in my head he was my brother and my hatchling. I WANTED to hunt and eat those rats and the worst of the worst is how they tasted." He put his hands over his eyes and when he opened his mouth to breathe because his nose was blocked again, a long string of saliva ran out of his mouth.
"They were so delicious," he whispered. "I hate him. I hate him so much."
"Jussuf," I whispered, feeling how utterly intimate these moments were.
Nate shook his head.
"This body. I hate this gargoyle body. That it makes me feel these things. That I want to fuck all the time - As a human, I barely thought about "it"... and when I did think about it, I didn't HAVE to give in to that urge. Then those powers that I always have to keep in check. And those rats were so delicious. And that I feel like I'm not me anymore. You know that movie- "he lifted his head and looked at me with a wry smile and I just barely managed to wipe the aghast stare off my face at his words. "Do you know the movie Hook?"
"Hook?"
"Some Peter Pan movie from the nineties with Robin Williams. It's just been remade. But..." he took a new handkerchief and blew his nose in a hurry. "-but in the 1991 version - the children in Neverland gradually forget where they came from. The lost boys. And I ... I feel kind of similar."
"You forget who you were?" I asked quietly.
"No ... not really - but ... somehow ... it pushes itself more and more into the background. As if my human life ... was just a strange dream. And I - and this body now - are real. But they are not real. So this body isn't real. I want to be me again. I want to be Nathaniel Sharif the human again. Someone who doesn't drool over raw meat and who doesn't push his nose into my boyfriend's bollocks when everyone is watching! I want to keep my sanity even if something ... well - something like that would never have happened to me as a human."
I licked my lips, my mind racing at 180 miles an hour. Oh, I would have had a lot to say about his words. I saw a lot of it differently. No doubt something like last night would never have happened to him as a human. But his body now WAS real. As real as mine. We were real, our relationship, his life here and in a clan that loved him. But ... he had opened up to me. Something he still found hard to do out of shame and insecurity. And if I were to start arguing with him now, if I were to talk smart or belittle any of this in an attempt to convince him that he shouldn't let the events of last night overshadow everything he loved about being a gargoyle, like his strength and gliding - then he would regret confiding in me. And so I had no choice - even though it caused me so much grief to support him.
I smiled and stroked his cheek, caressing the horns of his jaw.
"Alexander will be back soon. We'll work on your coping mechanisms. You'll be human again and you'll be yourself again. I'll stay with you and you'll stay part of the clan. We're both too stubborn not to work it out."
He chuckled, weakly. But he nestled his cheek in my hand. When he pulled away, his skin (and mine) made a sticky sucking sound.
"God, I need a shower!" he said shrilly with a look on his face that made me smile.
"Me too, by the dragon." I got up and helped him stand. He dug out new underwear, jogging pants and a T-shirt from his chest of drawers while I ran the water in his bathroom and took off my clothes. I checked the steaming stream of water from his generous walk in shower with my hand and turned the tap to make it a little cooler when I saw him standing in his doorway. He was biting his lower lip so hard his fangs were digging in, his uncertain gaze on me. My smile faded a little and I felt my ears droop.
"Oh, me, I guess I'd better go shower in my room," I said, rubbing my wet hand against my chest.
"No. No, it's okay. We- so- it's just showering right?"
"Yes! Exactly. We also- heck, we don't use EVERY opportunity as foreplay or for sex, do we?"
"Exactly. This-," he stripped off his boxers and threw them in his laundry basket before stepping past me under the water. "This isn't sexual just because I'm showering with my boyfriend."
"Exactly, you're not at the mercy of this body all the time. Just as I'm not at the mercy of mine. We're not horny teenagers," I said, grinning broadly as I joined him. We both grinned at each other.
But as soon as I saw the redness creep over his cheeks again, I felt the embarrassment creep over me too. I struggled to keep my eyes up as he did but it helped to remember why we were both suddenly wet and nude. I took his shampoo and gave it to him. He started to lather his dreadlocks while I took his shower gel and worked it over my head, torso and flying skins. God, I felt sticky. How must Nate feel then? I suppressed a surprised gasp as Nathaniel's wings brushed my back when he opened them.
He probably hadn't noticed because he started talking at the same time.
"I thought," he said accompanied by the squeaking and squishing sounds it made as he kneaded his hair to get soap everywhere.
"What did you think?" I asked, looking at him. He had his eyes shut tight out of concern that lather was running into them.
"I was thinking about a new hairstyle. I've been thinking about doing something different with my hair for weeks."
"Ah, cool," I said, watching as a big glob of foam dripped from his hair onto his chest and ran down it, across his ribcage, down his slim stomach, past his Gargoyleuntypical belly button and over his penis, which showed only tiny traces of an erection. Something that somehow upset my own feral side. Because I was with him and we were both naked and he wasn't completely hard even though I was with him.
"What were you thinking about?" I mumbled absently without taking my eyes off his member as the water and more foam ran over it.
"I don't know. I - well, I only had them to annoy him - you know who - because he once said dreadlocks were disgusting."
"They're not, I like you with dreadlocks," I mumbled and licked my lips even though I wanted to get down on my knees and make that wet blue cock stand and come with my tongue.
"Oh... yeah? Um. Should I keep dreadlocks then?" Nate asked and I looked up as he rubbed his eyes. Before he opened them, I had already turned around and reached for the shower gel again.
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"That's not what I meant," said Lexington, who had been standing with his back to me the whole time, soaping himself up. He just took some more gel and handed it to me with a smile so I could take some for myself. I squeezed a big dollop into the palm of my hand and put the bottle on the floor. Which was a lousy decision because at that second Lex leaned forward - his back still to me - to lather his lower wings, legs and feet. I did the same with my legs and feet but stared mesmerized at his seductively round butt and how his testicles and, from my perspective, his penis behind them dangled between his thighs as he spoke.
"I like you with dreadlocks," he said. "But I'd like you with any hairstyle. Even bald. You can choose to wear anything and I want you to be comfortable with your hair and not wear one style just because you think others like it better. I didn't pick you for your hair," he chuckled and the little tremor that went through his body made everything that dangled shake.
"Thank you," I said absently, unsure of what I was even thanking him for and wanting nothing more than to bury my face between his buttocks and lick his hole.
"So you haven't thought about style yet? We have a hairdresser coming to the castle or we can arrange a session at Fox's coiffeur. The man has worked wonders with hair and can certainly advise you. Or you could just leave the dreadlocks undone and see how you feel with your hair loose. I could braid you a nice plait on a regular basis."
"I thought you didn't braid," I said huskily, admiring how his hands reached back and he lathered up his tail, which bent towards him as if it was wild to be lathered up itself. Gosh - I was wild to be lathered by those gentle hands. I jumped up as he shifted his stance to turn his torso, and his charming smile didn't indicate that he'd realized how I'd just ravished him in my mind, or had him ravish me. I folded my wings to hide my half-grown erection - apparently so we'd both have more room - and Lex reached up to the showerhead and adjusted it to point more at me. I stepped forward with thanks, closing my eyes and turning my back to him as he spoke.
"I don't braid Heather's hair. Because she has no patience and I refuse to let her bite me again for my efforts. I trust you to hold back on the frustration bites and therefore you would enjoy regular Lexington Wywern braids. If that's what you want."
I laughed softly. "That sounds really tempting ... I'll think about it," I said, and for a few seconds I just enjoyed the water and foam running over me as I let the New York sewer filth disappear down the drain where it belonged. When I dared to turn around, my friend was already out of the shower and drying himself off. My hard-on was as good as gone and I was too happy to wrap myself in the big warm towel he was holding out to me.
Together we scurried into bed under the remaining two blankets and I wrapped my hair in a smaller towel, made myself a little turban and then snuggled up to my boyfriend, who grabbed the remote control and switched on the TV. There - I had made it. Despite its falseness, this body was not superior to my mind. I had managed not to jump on my boyfriend. Just a few more days ... then I would be me again. Quite content with myself in this moment, just between him and me, I relaxed, forgot about my human family, Jussuf, my shame about everything and everyone for a few hours. If only it could always be like this, I thought, sighing and grumbling a gargoyle purr as my boyfriend stroked my back and I held him while we binge-watched Stranger Things.
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But as always, neither I nor Nathaniel could shut out the rest of the world forever. It was approaching summer with its short nights and so breakfast slipped into the hours that humans usually call "night" and less often "morning". My cell phone rang around 4:30. I typed a message to Broadway and Nathaniel looked at me unhappily as I slipped out of bed.
I pinched his nose teasingly. "Don't make that face. Broadway made you something really stomach-friendly for dinner."
"I threw up half the night, I don't think I can eat anything."
"I've heard your stomach growling for hours. You're going to eat with us."
"You want me to eat with the clan?" he asked, his face reminding me of his very first night as a Gargoyle when he'd also been embarrassed and alienated with everyone including himself.
"Nathaniel," I exhorted, "no one will laugh at you. No one will tease you."
"But-"
"No one! Not even Nash would be that stupid if he knows what's good for him." I wrapped the clammy towel around my waist for the short walk to my room. Yes, everyone in my clan had seen me naked like I'd seen everyone naked but there were still people living in the castle and Fox or David's smarmy grins and looks or comments made even us Gargoyles more demure.
"Get dressed. We're leaving in five minutes," I said, leaning over to him again as he lay there sulking in bed wrapped in the blanket, giving him another kiss and a devilish smile. "If you're not dressed in five minutes ... I'll help you get dressed. And you know where that will end and everyone will know where that ended because we'll be late." He squeaked as I tweaked his tail, which was hanging over the edge of the bed.
.
.
He took another deep breath and rubbed his palms over his cheeks, trying to contain the stress fumes rising from his body. I could hear cutlery and plates clattering in the kitchen and clan members chatting with each other (not about him or us). Still, Nathaniel was burdened and I hoped he would be able to keep the "light" dinner inside. I didn't want to have to work on his eating disorder again. I reached my hand out to him and he took it, smiling insecurely. His eyes begged me not to expose him to that. But I had to. We both had to force ourselves. If you fell off your horse, you had to get right back on, otherwise you would never learn to ride and would always be ruled by fear. I gently pulled him along the corridor and into the kitchen. Where everyone was already seated. I thanked everyone in my mind because neither Elisa and Goliath nor Katana and Angela interrupted their conversations but continued chattering about whatever after a general hello.
I placed Nathaniel in his chair where he looked around among the clan members with droopy ears and shoulders before Heather leaned forward and demanded Nate with outstretched arms. He leaned into "his" hatchling without taking his hands out of his lap but the kid wrapped her arms around his neck and they both started nuzzling each other, bumping their brows together and messing up each other's hair a bit and whispering things to each other.
I sat down myself and tried not to take in these displays of affection so obviously by blissful ogling. I had often thought Nathaniel would have made a fantastic father. Not the strict kind. Probably one who would have had his children dancing all over his nose. But also one who would never have been stingy with love. A father who the children knew loved and respected them and would do anything for them. That night had only made that much clearer. It made me a little melancholy because I knew that he would never have children of his own. Not without me and never with me, of course.
But if he stayed with me and remained part of the clan (which I expected and would fight for) Nathaniel would always be able to be a rookery keeper. A father of the clan, of Heather (maybe Tachi too) and of the three eggs from the rookery. I would always make sure he had a home, a loving family and children. And at some point when everything felt "normal" again ... there was also adoption. If Elisa and "Andrei" could make it work (with a little help from Xanatos), then yes, Nate and I could too ... at some point ... maybe.
Everyone who wasn't talking to each other was busy pouring drinks, opening large jars of homemade apple sauce or distributing soup. A plate of soup (vegetable broth with bits of carrot, celery and leek floating in it) was placed in front of Nathaniel and he smiled humbly at Broadway. There were also two large pans on the table and when Broadway lifted the lids, Nate and I saw that they were German Schupfnudeln (a kind of thick, short potato noodles).
Nothing even remotely resembled meat, neither in smell nor taste, and that was something special for Gargoyles, who were actually carnivores (omnivores - alright, but with a strong tendency towards meat). This food selection - that Broadway and everyone went out their way tonight was love. And I could tell from Nathaniel's grateful smile that he knew it.
But before everyone started eating, Nathaniel cleared his throat, broke away from Heather, and lowered his shame-filled gaze.
"I- I just wanted to say. About yesterday ... and everything. I'm really, deeply so-"
"Stop!" Brooklyn commanded with a raised hand and his sternest clan leader look. "Before you start, we all have something to say to you." Nathaniel looked at him with wide eyes, which immediately began to water again. He nodded, flushed and with his head down.
But before I could intervene, my clan members smiled at each other and suddenly almost everyone had notes in their hands. With gestures, they agreed who would start and Goliath cleared his throat and read while his hand was in Elisa's.
"February 2010: almost collapsed during the final evaluation of the adoption process due to a time overrun of almost 8 hours. Had to excuse myself from the reviewing official citing "food poisoning". Forced reversion happened so suddenly that I threw Xanatos, who happened to be there, off with my popping wing and broke his arm. He made me tie his shoes every morning for four weeks afterwards and replace every pair of laces I tore."
He grinned reservedly while other clan members huffed and giggled softly.
Elisa patted his hand comfortingly. "No one ties shoes as well as a gargoyle as you do, Big Guy."
Nathaniel had lifted his puzzled gaze and watched, frowning, as Katana unfolded her paper and began to read.
"September 2017, as a human inadvertently staring at the full moon for too long," she said curtly, folding the piece of paper back up as if that short sentence was explanation enough. For Brooklyn, it was, as he grinned frighteningly wide at the beautiful memory and rubbed his mate's arm.
"That was a great night! I felt like I'd been in a battle with the Vikings afterwards - ow! Don't pinch me, babe!" The clan leader continued, still grinning but with less detail. "And so we learned that the events of 2009 had messed up the clan's cycles."
Nathaniel still looked confused.
"September is Autumn Equinox. Start of the Gargoyle reproduction cycle. Hence the eggs in the breeding den now in the wrong decade," I helped him get his head on straight.
"Ohh," he said, blushing with a little smile.
"And our fourth egg too! For once, magic has given us something really good. Jackpot!" Brooklyn said enthusiastically and kissed his warrior female on the cheek.
Broadway raised his half-crumpled piece of paper in front of his eyes with a grin.
"Mai ... or June 2011. Patch poisoning after a street food festival. I turned back in one of the portable toilets there, tipped the whole thing over and was so delirious that I flew back to the castle full of excrement where I started naming every single spice in the kitchen."
Everyone in the clan burst out laughing while Nathaniel slowly realized what was going on and looked at me with eyes that were also watering but for a completely different reason.
"He still calls the pepper Justin today!" Angela laughed as enthusiastically as Nate had probably ever seen her before she lifted her paper herself and began to read, giggling.
"December 2007, used one of the old transformation tools at the police Christmas party at the station where I was supposed to do my training and wanted to have a look at it as a human. Back then, they weren't plasters but peppermint strips for under the tongue. One of the drunken employees from the evidence room suddenly stuck his tongue down my throat, which broke the effect. I just managed to drag him into a storeroom before I turned back and scared him to death, causing him to pass out and crack his skull. By the time I was able to get out of the chamber and away from the precinct an hour later after reapplying a strip, he had bled all over my dress, not that I would have been able to wear it afterwards. I had blown up the matching shoes."
"The scar the guy still has today is well deserved," growled Broadway, but the others smirked.
"We were lucky he couldn't remember anything because of the concussion," Elisa warned.
"More HIS luck than ours," said Nashville, lifting his own note with a rather disgruntled look. "June 2009 - after patch overdose, I threw up all over Sonny. No questions, no comments."
The others grinned and huffed in amusement while Nash tore up the note and gave Nathaniel a friendly pat on the back, reminding him not to probe for details. "What we're saying, Nate. We've all had stupid experiences with the patches. Don't get any ideas, you're special. You just got a little feral for a few hours. We're cool," mumbled Nashville, shoveling a mountain of applesauce onto his plate.
Nathaniel sniffled and wiped away a tear with a smile as the clan began to fill their plates before everything got cold.
"Thank you. I-thank you for the stories. I love you guys. You know that, right? I- really do."
"We know Uncle Nate. You are clan. And we're your clan," Heather said and couldn't help but climb back onto his lap where he cuddled and rocked her.
"Doesn't anyone want to hear my special patch story?" asked Tachi, picking up her note. I jumped up and grabbed it.
"NO! We don't want to! Nate is feeling better. Thanks, guys."
I gave Tachi a threatening look which she returned with one of her smarmy smiles that, despite her beak, looked so much like Xanatos it could make you uncomfortable. I tore up the note and pocketed the scraps, wishing I could have eaten the note so Brooklyn would never see it and never know what had happened in 2019. Accepting me and Nathaniel was one thing - but if he found out what Tachi (his daughter, who was absolutely underage from Gargoyle's point of view but absolutely precocious and mentally developed due to the events of 2009) had been up to there, his stomach ulcer would burst.
Will we learn what Tachi's special patch story is? YES we will! Just not now ... and not soon.
Will Jussuf Masoud get his comeuppance? YES he will! Just not now ... and not soon.
Will I give the readers what they want and will Lex and Nate have sex in the shower? Yes, they will. Just not now ... and not in the next chapter.
Will Nathaniel have babies with Lex one day? Stay tuned to find out if this is going to be a kinky mpreg story! xDDDDD
(That would be a surprise if someone else got knocked up and not always Brooklyn like with Dondena -..-).
Thanks for reading, Q.T.