Deliberate Encounters - 7. Ch. 6 ~ Full Disclosure

Simon stood at the door and studied Richard as he grilled up steaks on the outer grill. It had been a good couple of months, but his mind had been in turmoil ever since Richard had mentioned changing him. He’d seen the despair in Richard’s eyes whenever he thought he was unobserved and it tore at his heart. It had never been brought up again, but he knew that neither of them had forgotten, it just wasn’t talked about.

“Why are you looking so serious?” Richard asked as he flipped Simon’s steak on the grill. He had heard his lover come to the doorway and had waited for him to say anything. When he hadn’t, Richard had finally looked up to see a thoughtful expression on Simon’s face.

“Just thinking about some things,” Simon answered noncommittally, walking over to wrap an arm around Richard’s waist.

“Anything you care to share?”

“Not just yet,” Simon answered with a smile. “I want to mull over it a little bit more first. Maybe later.”

“Well,” Richard started, hoping his disappointment didn’t show in his voice, “whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here to listen.” It wasn’t that he expected Simon to just tell him everything, it would be nice, but was also unrealistic. It was just, he’d noticed Simon was preoccupied lately and worried that something bothered his mate.

“I know, and I’ll tell you about it soon. I just need to get things figured out before I say anything,” Simon told him, his thoughts already drifting off again. He knew that Richard noticed his preoccupation but was grateful that it wasn’t brought up again. He really wanted to talk about it, but until he had made a solid choice, he figured he needed to keep it to himself. He didn’t want to get Richard’s hopes up only to waver later on.

It wasn’t until after they’d cleaned up from dinner and were snuggled together on the couch that Simon came to a realization. Despite the fact that in the end it was his choice to make, he needed to know more before he could fully make up his mind. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend however long he could with Richard, he did, he just didn’t want to end up regretting his decision. It wasn’t as though he could change it once he’d gone through with it. Not discussing it with Richard was no longer an option. If he was seriously considering being turned, he needed answers and the man who held him close was the only one who could provide them.

“How does it work?” Simon asked quietly, forgetting that Richard had no idea what was on his mind.

“How does what work?” Richard asked as he muted the television. He hadn’t really been watching it anyways and if Simon was ready to talk he didn’t want anything that could distract him.He could hear the trepidation in Simon’s voice and questioned whether or not he really wanted to know.

“The change,” Simon whispered.

If it hadn’t been for his superior hearing, Richard never would have heard him. He was silent for a few minutes while he thought about the best way to answer. He wasn’t exactly sure what Simon wanted to know or why. It could just be curiosity or even research for a story and until he knew more, he wasn’t going to get his hopes up only to find out that he was wrong.

“Why exactly are you asking?” Richard asked cautiously. He felt Simon tense a bit and tightened his hold, afraid that Simon was preparing to flee.

“I’ve thought a lot about it ever since you mentioned it,” Simon admitted, only to be interrupted.

“I should never have mentioned it in the first place. Especially not this early in our relationship,” Richard told him quietly. Like Simon, he had given it a lot of thought. He pushed down the hope that welled up in him as he thought over the situation. He had begun to understand that he wanted to change Simon for purely selfish reasons. When he first brought it up, he hadn’t really thought about how it would eventually affect the man he loved. All he knew was that he never wanted to have to face the reality that in the distant future he would be forced to live without the man he loved by his side. It was a hard pill to swallow, but he managed to, just barely. He had no right to ask Simon to leave his existence as he knew it behind.

“Maybe you're right, maybe you're not,” Simon answered. “I had never given it any thought until you mentioned it, but I’m glad that you did.”

“How can you be glad that I mentioned changing you into what I am?” Richard asked. His voice betrayed the shock he was feeling when he continued, “Don’t you understand what I asked of you? You would be leaving everything you know behind and beginning an entirely different existence. No more of the friends that you have now, possibly moving every five or ten years, not to mention that I have no idea how long we would both live.”

“I know all of that, but you gave me the choice,” Simon argued. “You could have easily just done it, but you didn’t.”

“I would never have done that.” Richard sounded almost insulted that Simon would have even momentarily thought that he would have.

“That’s just my point,” Simon told him. “You could have, but you didn’t, because that’s the kind of guy you are.” He turned in Richard’s arms until he could look him in the face.

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” Richard asked, surprise coating his voice and flaring to life in his eyes.

“Yeah, I am, but I need to know more. I don’t understand what exactly it would entail,” Simon admitted.

“So do you just have questions or do you just want me to tell you what I know?” Richard asked, looking at him as though he wasn't sure he was hearing right.

“I know you told me about when you were changed, but is that how you think it would be for me? I mean, to use the term I use in my writing, you had two different creators, but I’d only have one,” Simon told him. “How would that work, would I basically be exactly like you?”

“I think so, but I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Richard admitted. “I’ve done a lot of research on vampires and werewolves, but there’s really not much out there about werevamps. From everything I’ve read, if a vamp tries to turn a full werewolf, the werewolf’s white blood cells are able to fight off the white blood cells of a vamp.”

“So, why didn’t yours?” Simon asked. “I mean, you were attacked by the werewolf before the vamp, so shouldn’t the werewolf part have fought off the vampire part?”

“No, because my blood hadn’t turned to full wereblood yet. About thirty years ago I started doing some experiments. I managed to get samples of some saliva and blood from a werewolf and the blood of a vampire. I also managed to get some human blood from a blood bank,” Richard started to explain before wondering if it was too much. “Do you really want to know all of this?”

“Yes, I want to know whatever you know about it,” Simon answered. He leaned up and planted a fleeting kiss on Richard’s lips before pulling back. “Go on.”

“Okay, so let’s start with the werewolf. They’re also called Lycans. When a lycan bites it’s victim, it’s saliva is injected into the blood stream. Werewolves have both extra platelets which give them their advanced healing and extra white blood cells to stave off infection. The saliva mutates the white blood cells in the human blood and causes them to multiply rapidly,” Richard stated. He was still having a hard time believing that he was really having this conversation with Simon.

“Okay, so what about a vamp?”

“Well, vamps are a bit different, but not by much. There are two ways for a vamp to turn a human. One in rapid and very painful, the other is through multiple exchanges of blood. Typically, for an entirely safe change, the vamp and the human would exchange blood at least four times, sometimes five. The vampire would take approximately a fifth of the human’s blood each time. It could be done with an IV transfusion or by biting into a main artery. The saliva in a vamps bite will repair the holes in the artery if the vampire is careful and doesn’t just rip into the human.” Richard was trying to remain as detached as possible as he spelled everything out, being careful not to leave any information out.

“If they’re not careful?” Simon asked worriedly.

“Then the human would bleed out,” Richard answered sadly before continuing, “after taking the human’s blood, the vampire would then become a donor and transfer that approximate amount of blood back into the human, but it would be tainted blood. By doing it in intervals, it helps to keep the hypotension to a minimum and it alleviates the risk of the vampire taking too much blood and killing the human.”

“Okay, that makes sense I guess. If they don’t do it in intervals, what happens?” Simon tried to keep the fear out of his voice but knew he hadn’t been successful when Richard tightened his hold on him.

“It’s very painful. The human body experiences hypotension, or low blood pressure. Their vision becomes blurry, their temperature skyrockets, and in some cases they may even pass out or go into convulsions. Vamp blood attacks human blood, mutating any remaining white blood cells in the same way a lycan’s does. It’s a massive shock to the human’s system. From what I can understand, not all changes done this way are successful. Almost a third of humans changed all at once die before the vamp blood can change them, the blood loss is too severe.” Richard could feel Simon trembling and decided it was enough. He couldn’t let Simon become what he was, there were too many unknowns and too many things that could go wrong.

“Why’d you stop?” Simon asked after Richard had been silent for a couple of minutes.

“This is all moot,” Richard answered honestly. “It’s too big of a risk and I’m not willing to lose you before I have to.”

“You wouldn’t do it all at once though,” Simon pointed out. “You’d do what you were talking about, the interval thing, right?”

“Of course, but there’s still a risk. Not as big of one, but it’s still there. I’d go insane if anything happened to you,” Richard choked out, squeezing Simon tightly to him as though afraid of what might happen to him.

“Richard, we never know what tomorrow is going to bring. Anything could happen to me now and you wouldn’t be able to stop it. I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but are you saying that if I decide to, you won’t change me?”

“I honestly don’t think I could deny you anything you truly wanted, but I can’t let you do this for me,” Richard told him wearily.

“If I do it, it’s not just for you, it’s for me too. Do you think I like knowing that as it stands, one day I’ll die and leave you? I don’t want to be apart from you anymore than you want to be apart from me. Since it affects our lives together, you definitely have a say, but in the end it is ultimately my decision,” Simon said passionately, reaching up to cup Richard’s cheek in his palm. “Now please, tell me what I need to know to make that decision.”

“Okay,” Richard whispered, his voice barely audible. He cleared his throat before continuing, “I tried a lot of experiments. I took the human blood and tainted it with the lycan saliva. I used a really strong microscope and could even watch how quickly the saliva caused the white blood cells to mutate. I let that sample sit for a couple of days and then added the vampire blood to it. The tainted human blood was able to fight off the vampire blood. Then I did what had been done to me. I tainted the human blood with the saliva and then immediately introduced the vampire blood. It went differently. The two types of white blood cells kind of merged together. They didn’t fight each other off at all. Then I did the same thing using the vampire blood as the tainting agent and essentially duplicated the results.”

“So that explains how you became a Werevamp. The white blood cells merged together rather than repelling each other,” Simon answered. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t fascinated by everything that Richard was saying, even if it did scare him a bit. Okay, it terrified him, but it was still doable.

“Yeah, but that’s just my experiments and I didn’t do any more,” Richard confessed.

“So what about the actual change?” Simon was intrigued.

“What I can remember of mine was pretty painful. It felt like my whole body was under attack, but I was also changed all at once. I don’t know exactly how yours would go,” Richard told him tenderly. “It could be excruciating, but it could also be relatively painless. I’m just not sure. Since my blood already contains both infections, for lack of a better word, if you decided to go through this then we would do it the way vampires do. Probably in five blood exchanges.”

“Theoretically, I would be like you. Be able to go out in sunlight, not have to drink blood to survive, but I’d also have more strength, better hearing and eyesight, and better healing?” Simon asked.

“Theoretically, since your blood would be the same as mine. If you decide to do this, we’d go away for a little while. There’s a cave on the same property as the cabin that would be safe enough. It goes pretty deep into the mountainside and no sun penetrates the bowels of the cave. When it was all said and done we’d introduce you to sunlight slowly. I’d want to make absolutely sure that sunlight wouldn’t hurt you in any way.” Richard could feel the battle going on in his heart. As much as he wanted Simon with him always, he just wasn’t sure if the risk was worth it. He knew though, that if Simon asked him to change him he’d do it, despite his own misgivings.

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” Simon asked. He watched multiple emotions flick through Richard’s eyes. He’d seen them all before, but not in such rapid succession. First there was disbelief, followed by love, then by fear, only to be followed with despair, happiness, and then back to disbelief.

“Yeah, I have. I’ve tried not to, because I didn’t want to force the decision on you, but I can’t help but think about what it would be like. To know that I didn’t have to worry about you dying on me, at least, not for a long time. To finally know that there was a definite end to the loneliness,” Richard said and gave his lover a slight smile. “I don’t want to influence you though, whatever decision you make, I’ll stand behind you completely. It’s a lot to ask of anyone and I’ll understand if it’s not something you can do.”

Without saying anything Simon turned and nestled his back against Richard’s chest as he gave everything he’d been told some thought. In the end, it was the simple fact that Richard wouldn’t force anything on him that made up his mind. He’d never had anyone that was willing to give up what they wanted to keep him safe and happy. His mind made up he stood up so that he could turn around and straddle Richard’s lap. Reaching out he cupped his lover’s face in his hands and smiled.

“I want to do it,” Simon told him, staring directly into Richard’s eyes so that he could see the sincerity in them. “I want you to change me.”

“There’s no going back once it’s done,” Richard reminded him, barely daring to believe he could be so lucky.

“I’m not saying there won’t be rough times, but I know that you’ll be there to help me through them. This is what I want,” Simon told him earnestly.

“I need you to be sure,” Richard answered. “If this is really what you want then I’ll do it, but I want you to agree to wait until after our first anniversary. If you’re as sure as you say, then your decision won’t change between now and then. If you’re absolutely sure at that point, we’ll go ahead with it, if you have any doubt, we wait.”

“I don’t and won’t have any doubts.” Simon seemed determined and it brought a slight smile to Richard’s lips.

“Then on our first anniversary we’ll start the exchanges,” Richard told him.

“No,” Simon contradicted. “I want the change to be complete on our anniversary. If you’re making me wait, I want the last exchange to be the night before our anniversary.”

“Agreed,” Richard answered. No longer able to suppress his happiness he pulled Simon as close as he could and captured his lover’s lips with his own. The kiss grew hungrier until Richard was unable to stand it any longer. Without a word he stood up, being careful to keep Simon wrapped around him and made his way to their bedroom. Finally, he had someone who would never leave him.