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A Paler Shade of Green	By : Rina76 Category: Angel the Series > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3532 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Angel fandom or any of the characters from the show. I am not making money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
A/N: Big thanks to Kuragari for the sweet review!
.........
Part 9. Poison.
From their hidden position, crouched behind an overflowing dumpster crawling with cockroaches, Connor points. “There. Vampires.”
“How can you tell?” Kylar peers at the three young women standing in the dim alley smoking cigarettes – a small one with long red hair and two blondes, all dressed in provocative evening wear. “They just look like all the other human females we’ve seen tonight. Are you certain they are not prostitutes?”
“No. These are different. They don’t have any heartbeats.” Knowing that Kylar can’t possibly detect that with his underdeveloped hearing, Connor instead urges, “Use your senses, Kylar. What can you feel coming from them? Can you read their minds?”
Reaching out with his empathic powers, Kylar tries to touch their spirits and divine the nature of their thoughts but only finds a vacuum of empty, emotionless nothingness that chills him to the bone.
“You are right. They are completely lacking souls.” As he peeks over the dumpster with widened crimson eyes, the demon teen is whispering anxiously, a small slice of fear knifing through his guts. “I am secreting quite a lot of adrenaline right now.”
Connor grins. “That’s normal. Means you’re getting ready for the fight.”
“But there are three of them and only two of us. The numbers are uneven!”
“Who says?” Angel’s son motions to the pale-skinned redhead wearing a short skirt and black lace-up corset. “You take her and I’ll take the other two. Sounds even to me.”
Kylar still sounds dubious. “Are you sure we can kill all of them?”
“Totally,” Connor breezes. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
Wondering what cake has to do with slaying vampires, Kylar nevertheless places his faith in Connor’s ability and prepares to do battle by his best friend’s side. He gets handed a weapon and Kylar wraps his slightly trembling fingers around it, feeling chiselled, sharpened pine and smelling its woody scent. It reminds him of the forest he used to search for berries in and for a moment he wishes he was back there, in familiar territory, instead of in a dark, smelly alley with three blood-drinking killers disguised in human form.
“Just remember where their hearts are.” Connor places the point of own stake over his chest, to the left, showing Kylar where to aim. “You gotta get it dead on, dude. If you miss, those sluts will rip your throat out.”
Clenching his jaw, Kylar nods determinedly, forcing his fear back and allowing the fury he feels at being betrayed to take over again. He’ll show Lorne that he’s not some poor, pitiful victim who can’t stand up for himself. He’ll show Lorne that’s he’s not afraid of anything or anyone. He’ll show Lorne that he’s not weak, that he can be a warrior too. He came here to kill something, to prove his demonhood, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do.
“Don’t miss the heart,” he repeats grimly. “I got it.”
“Good,” Connor mutters, narrowing his eyes and gripping his own stake. “Let’s go.”
They both stand up and saunter into the alley, Connor with much more confidence than Kylar feels.
“Hello, ladies,” the sarcastic teen says in a taunting tone. “Having a slumber party?”
Upon seeing him the girls’ faces immediately turn vampiric, changing them from pretty to ugly. Their irises change to an unnatural yellowish hue that glows in the dark and their eyebrows disappear, replaced with a bald lumpy forehead much like Fredelia’s bat-brow. Their teeth lengthen. The trio flick their smokes away and hiss at Connor, recognising him as the boy-slayer who’s killed many of their friends. The redhead barks an order at the other two.
“Get him!”
The blondes instantly fly at Connor with their claws outstretched, hissing and attacking him both at once. Not caring that they’re girls, the experienced male hunter fights them off with power-packed punches and body-kicks, knocking them to the ground but the vampires keep coming back with a vengeance, determined to dispose of their number one enemy.
Meanwhile, the one with the red hair walks right up to Kylar, who for some reason has frozen on the spot, stake held tightly in his white-knuckled hand. Her skin is as smooth and waxen as old china dolls, her chin-length bob as scarlet as freshly-spilled blood, matching the colour of her lips. Her breasts are pushed up enticingly by the tightness of her leather corset, nipples almost peeping out the top. Her eyes gleam like those of wildcats and she runs a pink tongue over the ivory points of her canine teeth. Kylar’s common sense is telling him to move, to stab her in the chest which is completely exposed and vulnerable, but his body won’t co-operate. He can barely even breathe.
Reaching him, the vampire stops and gazes at this slender, long-haired creature with its golden lip-jewellery, unsure if the ruby-eyed beauty before her is a girl or a boy.
“What ARE you?” The woman-vamp questions in wonder, looking at Kylar’s olive complexion and delicate russet horns. “I’ve never seen a demon like you before. Where did you come from?”
Kylar can’t reply. Those glowing yellow eyes almost have him hypnotised. It’s the first time he’s stared into the unmasked face of a true Van-tal and it’s both terrible and mesmerizing. He cannot look away.
“Kill her!” Connor yells, wanting to help Kylar but unable to just yet, still battling the other two cold-blooded chicks trying to tear his face off with their fingernails. “The heart! Go for the HEART!”
Connor is yelling at him in a rather impatient manner but it’s as though Kylar can’t even hear the other boy. All he’s focused on are those unholy eyes blazing into his, burning like fire but cold as arctic ice. The vampire-queen smiles with razor-sharp canines, speaking in a mockingly patronising tone.
“You won’t kill me. I bet a pretty little thing like you couldn’t hurt anybody, could you?” She leans in close and sniffs his hair, his neck, while Kylar stares frozenly straight ahead, as if caught in some kind of nightmarish bad dream that he can’t wake up from.
“You smell sweet,” the nocturnal night-dweller muses to herself. “I wonder if you taste sweet too…”
There are two pinpricks on the side of his throat and Kylar realises with absolute horror that she’s biting him, sinking her unclean teeth into his soft green skin and letting his blood fill her hungry mouth. She moans in bliss and takes a few gulping swallows but then abruptly pulls away. Now it’s her turn to stare at Kylar, her expression growing increasingly bewildered.
Unexpectedly, the vampire vomits all over the front of Kylar, soaking his chest and the clothes he’s wearing. Most of it is Kylar’s blood, bright red and fresh, but there are a few blackened chunks of older fluid – putrid and clotted. He feels droplets of it spraying onto his face and blinks reflexively but he still can’t budge. As if she’s been poisoned, the vampire girl violently heaves again, bent over double, another wave of foul-looking puke pouring from her mouth and splashing onto the ground near her feet. She is clawing at her belly, her face twisted into a mask of agony, too occupied retching up the fetid contents of her stomach to notice anything else going on around her.
“STAKE HER!” Connor roars furiously as he fends off the other two hell-bitches snarling and clawing at him. “JUST FUCKING STAKE HER, KYLAR!!”
Hearing Connor screaming at the top of his lungs jolts Kylar and kick-starts him out of his hypnotic state. His brain is still in shut-down mode but after so many sessions of training with Angel and the rest of the gang, Kylar doesn’t really have to think about what to do. His body remembers the moves and without a second thought, he lifts the sharpened stake above the vamp’s bent back, bringing it down in both hands and jamming it as hard as he can between her left shoulder blade and her spine. The wooden spike carves though the layers of her skin, bones and muscles, deep into her dead flesh and lifeless heart.
She looks up in astonishment, yellow eyes surprised, her fanged mouth open. Before the redheaded vampire can even scream, she has exploded into a fine cloud of falling grey dust. There is an eerie, unearthly howling noise as her body swiftly decomposes, like the wail of rushing wind from a distant dimension. For a moment Kylar can clearly see the outline of her intact skeleton and skull, complete with fangs, and then it too crumbles and falls. The dust swirls away in the night breeze, leaving behind nothing of the bat-faced killer but puddles of bloody vomit on the ground.
She must have been the leader of the pack. Her demise distracts the other two vampires long enough for Connor to take them out, viciously staking the blondes between the breasts, one after the other and watching with grim gratification as their shrieking bodies dissolve into ash. Now that they’re gone, he sheaths his weapon and rushes over to where Kylar is standing, the other boy looking utterly stunned, the stake still held in his clenched fist. Glistening gore soaks the entire front of his long-sleeved top and his neck is bleeding, red rivulets running down the side of his throat and into the hollow of his collarbone. Connor grabs him on the shoulder, trying to check out the wound but there’s too much blood and hair sticking to it to assess the damage clearly.
“Shit, are you okay? You all right?”
Touching his punctured throat and then looking at the scarlet smears on his own fingertips, Kylar swallows nauseously.
“Now I know how my master felt when he was bitten by the viper.”
Suddenly woozy, he drops the stake with a clatter and staggers sideways, on the verge of toppling over. Connor catches the shocked boy before he hits the pavement, carefully lowering his friend’s slim frame to the ground. Resting Kylar’s head in his lap, Connor swipes away sticky strands of wavy mulberry hair, peering anxiously down at the other young male. His golden lip-ring is stained scarlet. There are blood-splatters on Kylar’s face and chin, as well as a river of it all down his chest. The Pylean teenager’s complexion is deathly ashen and his eyes are dull and unfocused, beginning to roll back and show the whites. He’s going to pass out.
“Kylar! Stay with me, man,” Connor urges, ripping a sleeve off his own shirt and pressing it against the two round holes in the side of Kylar’s neck.
Having witnessed exactly what carnage vampire fangs can do to flesh and veins, Connor’s main concern is that the bite will keep spurting everywhere like it does on a normal person but when he lifts the cloth and wipes around the wound he sees that the bleeding from the two puncture marks has turned thick and sluggish, as if it’s already clotting. With his enhanced senses, Connor detects the sound of Kylar’s heartbeat altering. It’s not weakening but slowing down, which in turns slows the blood flow around the teen demon’s body. It’s most likely a common survival trait of the Pylean race, something that helps the horned species endure the complete removal of limbs and enables them to live to a ripe old age far beyond that of humans.
Lifting Kylar’s head up and moving his blood-soaked hair aside, Connor wraps the piece of fabric right around the other boy’s throat a couple of times, fashioning it into a makeshift bandage. As the ends are tied securely and tightly, Kylar groans in pain, stirring in Connor’s lap, his lashes fluttering as he squints up at his concerned blue-eyed friend.
“Am I…am I dying?”
“No. The bleeding is already starting to stop. You’ll be fine,” Connor assures him, attempting to wipe the gory mess off Kylar’s face.
Tasting something awful and rotten in his mouth, Kylar rolls his head to the side and spits onto the ground, noticing a pink tinge to his saliva.
“I think I swallowed some of its blood.” Realising what this could mean, Kylar’s eyes grow large and scared. “Oh Gods. What if I turn into a Van-tal? What if I change and become evil? Will that happen to me?”
At the panicked query, Connor draws his brows together. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I…don’t know,” the son of Angel finally has to admit. When it comes to humans, he knows exactly how the whole undead transformation takes place, regularly waiting by fresh gravesides for corpses to claw through the earth at dusk and rise again, but he’s never seen a demon get bitten before and has no idea if they can actually be turned or not. Connor can’t predict how Kylar’s demonic system will react to the bite of a vampire, or its blood. He only has a vague notion that vamp blood and demon blood doesn’t mix well and that must be why the yellow-eyed hell-bitch threw it up all over Kylar’s clothes. If Kylar accidentally ingested some of the regurgitated fluid, it might have an adverse effect on him. Even if it doesn’t turn him into one of them, it could still possibly poison the kid and make him very ill.
“My dad will know,” Connor confidently announces. “If you are at risk of changing, he’ll know how to stop it before the next sunset. There’s probably a spell or magic potion or something you can take. Come on. Let’s go home and get you fixed.”
He helps Kylar to stand but the second youth’s wobbly legs collapse underneath him. “I…I can’t walk,” he whimpers, clutching at Connor’s arm.
“It’s okay. I got you,” Connor replies, quickly scooping the injured teen into his arms and beginning to carry Kylar in the direction of their hotel home, the sparse weight of the other boy barely even noticeable with Connor’s supernatural strength.
“This is my punishment,” Kylar mutters weakly, his head rolling limply against Connor’s shoulder. “I took my master’s life and now mine is being taken as retribution.”
“You’re NOT dying,” Connor grits out. “And your ‘master’ deserved what he got for treating you that way. Don’t you dare feel sorry for him!”
“This is my punishment,” Kylar repeats, mumbling absently. “My punishment…”
By the delirious sound of his voice, Connor suspects that Kylar won’t even remember any of this conversation when he recovers. He’s looking alarmingly ashen, like he might faint from shock at any second.
Aiming to keep the kid talking and conscious, Connor asks, “So, what did Lorne do?”
Dazed and disoriented, Kylar blinks at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Before. What’d he do to piss you off so much? I know you’re mad at him.”
“Oh…that.” The pretty boy-demon scowls unpleasantly as he remembers. “He had sexual intercourse. With twins.”
“Twin sisters?” Slightly impressed, Connor raises his brow, wondering what that was like.
“No. Brothers.” Kylar pouts. “Demons with raven hair, moonlight skin and eyes as black as sin. Lorne was supposed to come home and spend time with me last night and he didn’t. He was with them. Mating.”
At the news, Connor starts to frown. “Really? How do you know?”
“I went to Lorne’s club earlier this evening, even though he told me not to, and the twins were there. They talked about what Lorne did with them, right in front of me, and they weren’t even ashamed about it. It’s like they wanted me to know, to brag so openly.” Kylar’s brow creases in disapproval. “They weren’t very nice.”
“Ouch. I’m sorry,” Connor sympathises. “Finding out like that had to hurt.”
“It did.” In an indignant tone of betrayal, the wounded teenager questions, “Why would he do that, Connor? Why would he go to other demons when he could have had me? They must have been prettier than I am.”
“I sincerely doubt that, Kylar. I’ve never seen any demons prettier than you.”
“Or maybe it was their tongues. They had very long black tongues. One of them licked me on the face. It was slimy.” Kylar screws his nose up at the memory. “I think they did things to Lorne with their tongues, too.”
Also wrinkling his nose, Connor mutters, “Gross.”
“Lorne said he had fallen asleep on his dressing room couch and that’s not true at all.” Being let down by his beloved guardian causes the teen’s crimson eyes to well up with tears of disappointment. “He lied to me, Connor. I believed him and he…he lied.”
All of a sudden, Kylar is crying into Connor’s shoulder, his already unstable emotions enhanced by being attacked. As he carries Kylar’s frail figure down the street, Connor tries to soothe his traumatised friend the best way he can, whispering words of comfort that Kylar probably doesn’t even hear, the boy’s sobbing raw and grief-stricken. Connor understands why Kylar is so distressed about Lorne’s infidelity and it pisses him off that Lorne would do such a thing, but on the other hand, Lorne probably has no idea that Kylar feels this way about him. For an Empath, Lorne’s actually not that perceptive. Connor has encouraged the other boy to tell Lorne of his feelings, to go kiss the guy or something but shy Kylar evidently hasn’t done that or he wouldn’t be bawling his eyes out right now.
Of course, being bitten and then thrown up on wouldn’t make Kylar feel any better either.
“Dirty, stinking vampire whores,” Connor swears to himself, feeling a mixture of disgust, rage and guilt. Kylar said he was ready to do this, to hunt, but Connor should have been more cautious. Kylar had spoken with emotion, not logic. Even with all his training, Kylar was unable to stop the attack before it happened. Even if he’d used his empathic abilities he wouldn’t have succeeded. Vampires aren’t animals. They can’t be charmed. Only killed.
“My neck hurts,” Kylar sobs miserably, starting to tremble in Connor’s arms. “I want to go home. I want Lorne…”
“Hold on, Kylar,” Connor coaches, speeding up his pace to almost-sprinting. “I’ll get you there.”
His heart pounding with adrenalized fear, Connor takes the semi-conscious teen through the shortcuts of back streets and alleys, cursing that they’d travelled so far from the hotel in their quest for a hunting ground. He has a feeling that most of Kylar’s distress stems from being away from Lorne, that the shocked youth needs Lorne’s familiar and calming presence. If anyone can soothe Kylar and calm him down, it’d be the other Empath.
Carrying his fragile cargo, Connor comes around a corner and nearly runs into two Goths exiting an underground bar, Connor having to pull up hard to avoid a collision.
“Get out of the goddamn way,” he growls at the black-clad couple before roughly shoving past, Kylar’s purple-red hair hanging over his arm in bloodied tangles.
“Look, brother! It’s the spawn,” a silken voice exclaims from behind. “The Lorne-spawn! I am sure of it.”
Hearing Lorne’s name, Connor stops still, his quick brain putting all the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Hey, boy,” a deeper voice calls out, a strong hand grasping Connor’s arm. “Who do you carry?”
In no mood to be touched, Connor turns his head and glares at the owner of the hand, a tall, long-haired demon twice the size of him, all muscled marble-white flesh and glittery black eyes.
“I’m no boy,” Connor warns lowly, not afraid of the Ho’kio in the least. “Now, take your filthy hand off me before I rip your arm out of its socket.”
“Apologies,” the larger of the two demons concedes, removing his touch. “We are simply concerned about the child you are carrying. We know of him.”
The couple that Connor almost knocked over are now at his sides, gazing down at the wounded youth in his arms. The demon that noticed Kylar first is slimmer and prettier but has the exact same crow-black hair and ebony eyes as his bigger companion.
“By the Powers…” The more feminine one breathes in dismay, staring at all the blood on Kylar’s face and clothing. “What happened?”
“YOU happened,” Connor returns accusingly. “You’re those twins from Lorne’s club, aren’t you? Kylar told me about you two freaks.”
“His name is Kylar?”
“Yeah, and he nearly got killed because of you. I hope you’re fucking happy.”
Normally he’d rip these guys apart for the trouble they caused but Kylar’s rapidly deteriorating health is more important to him at the moment and so Connor starts striding away again, breathing hard through his nose in an effort to control his murderous impulses.
The semi-identical siblings glance at each other in confusion before starting to follow the furious auburn-haired teen. “We did this? How?”
“I don’t have time to talk,” Connor snaps without turning around. “He’s gone into shock and if I don’t get him back to Lorne soon, he could die. If that happens, you’re both dead meat!”
Though they still don’t understand how they caused this, the two brothers are alarmed by the green-skinned boy’s unconscious, clammy-faced condition and feel compelled to do something.
“Wait – let us help. We know where Lorne lives and can give you a ride. It’ll be much faster than walking.”
Connor halts. “You have a car?”
“We have something better.”
Turning around, Connor is just in time to witness the twins’ secret mode of transport. They don’t drive.
They fly.
The parchment-pale skin on each of their backs splits beside the shoulder blades and black membranes appear, glisteningly wet at first but rapidly drying in the night air. The spaced-apart strips of their leather outfits are placed in such a way so that their extra limbs can emerge freely without getting caught. They are like bat wings, veiny and thin, but are very flexible and wide, stretching in length as far as the demons stand tall.
“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
Ignoring that taunt, Connor demands, “You know where the Hyperion Hotel is?”
“Yes,” the pretty demon says. “We fly over it nearly every night. How do you know Lorne?”
“I live there too.”
“Ah, you are the son of Angel, the vampire champion.” The elegant twin’s voice displays admiration. “We have heard of you. You are a vicious hunter.”
“Well, then you know not to fuck with me,” Connor returns flatly. “You – big one. Take him.”
As instructed, the larger, stronger-looking Ho’kio steps forward and takes Kylar out of Connor’s arms, cradling the wounded child to his broad, leather-crossed chest. He stretches his wings, preparing for flight.
“Be careful with him,” is Connor’s warning. “You hurt Kylar in any way, I’ll rip your pointy ears off and wear them on a necklace.”
The bigger male bows his head respectfully, not wanting to get on the savage slayer’s bad side. He has heard stories of what this ordinary-looking boy has done and they’re all gruesome and horrifying.
The prettier demon prepares to pick Connor up too but the half-human youth backs away in indignity. “No. You’re not carrying ME like that. Like a girl.”
Appearing irritated, the tall Ho’kio shifts the heel of his knee-high boot and cocks a hip, impatiently resting a long-nailed hand on it. “Look, I’m just trying to help you here, vampire-spawn. You wanna get home fast or not?”
Gaze narrowed, Connor eyes off those impressive-looking wings, debating how long it would take to fly back to the hotel, as opposed to running.
“Fine,” he finally grants, stiffly standing there and allowing the other male to scoop him up, preparing to be humiliated. But instead of being picked up like a damsel in distress, the elf-eared demon just moves around behind him, slipping a pair of leather-wrapped arms around Connor’s middle, lifting up off the sidewalk and flying away with him in a few powerful flaps, the bigger brother closely following with Kylar.
Connor tenses in alarm as he’s rapidly brought up into the night sky with miles of empty air beneath him and the city lights below but it seems the effeminate demon has more than enough strength not to drop him, not unless it wanted to. Just to be safe, Connor hangs on tight anyway, digging his fingers into the pale pair of forearms around him. Though he is not being carried in a girly, emasculating way – rather, facing forward with his legs freely dangling down towards the ground - he’s still held right against the pretty twin’s flat chest, almost like a lover’s embrace, and Connor can’t help noticing how supple and strong that body behind him is. He can feel lithe muscles flexing with each flap of those widespread black wings, can feel strands of ebony hair whispering silkily across his cheek. The white flesh that his palms connect with is soft and smooth, a sensual contrast to the toughened animal hide banded around it. Most of all, Connor notices that the brunette twin smells really, really good – like sweet musk - and for the first time he understands how hard it would have been for Lorne to resist all this dark sexiness.
Maybe he’d even get turned on himself by being this close to such an androgynously seductive creature, if he wasn’t so awfully afraid for Kylar and what the vamp’s contaminated fang-bite might do to him. The Pylean teenager still hasn’t regained consciousness, Kylar’s head lolling loosely against the bigger twin’s shoulder as he’s carried through the air.
Following Connor’s worried glance, the pretty demon remarks sympathetically, “You care about him a lot, don’t you?”
“He’s my best friend. Probably my only friend.” Connor’s answer is quiet and painfully honest. “I don’t want to lose him.”
“Tell me what happened, handsome Hunter,” the raven-haired Ho’kio coerces softly next to Connor’s ear, giving him an unwanted spine-chill. “Why are you so angry at us?”
“You slept with Lorne. That wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t told Kylar about it. You upset him and he was so mad he wanted to go out and kill a vampire. Only he wasn’t ready for it and he got bitten.”
“Why did it upset him?” The more muscular demon asks, overhearing the conversation and turning to frown at Connor. “Lorne said they weren’t lovers.”
“They’re not. Yet. They probably would have been if Lorne wasn’t busy having sex with you guys.”
Comprehension dawns in the feminine twin’s black-diamond eyes. “We stopped them from being together.”
“Yeah.” Connor stiffly gestures to Kylar’s injury. “See how it’s your fault now?”
“We are very sorry.” The bulkier brother offers his apology in a low, deep tone. “We did not want this to happen to your friend.”
“Well, it did. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before opening your mouths and being assholes.”
Suitably scolded, the twins are silent for the rest of the flight back, only occasionally glancing to each other in sombre, unspoken regret.
When they reach the hotel’s courtyard, the Ho’kios descend and land on the front steps of the Hyperion, one carrying Connor and one carrying Kylar.
“Thanks,” Connor mutters grudgingly as the pretty one lets him go. “That saved a lot of time.”
Depositing Kylar back into Connor’s arms, the bigger brother queries, “Is there anything else we can do to help?”
Connor glares ice-blue daggers at both of them. “Yeah, you can get the fuck out of here and never come back.”
“We really are sorry,” the girlish twin insists but Connor is already taking Kylar’s passed-out figure inside the hotel’s glass doors. The young slayer lays his friend down on the lobby lounge and yells urgently for help.
It takes exactly one minute for all hell to break loose inside the hotel, especially when Lorne appears and sees his beloved Kylar covered in blood. His cocktail goes crashing to the floor while everyone else rushes out of their rooms in panic, Fred and Cordelia still in their pyjamas. There’s a lot of shouting and screaming, most of it from a near-hysterical Lorne and the rest from an angry Angel, Connor’s defensive answers and protests interspersed between the two. He hastily explains what happens, insisting to his father and the older Empath that he wasn’t trying to get Kylar killed, that Kylar actually asked to go hunting himself. Roaring, Lorne lunges at Connor and attempts to strangle him. Connor shoves Lorne into the front of a cabinet, smashing the glass doors. Angel, Wesley and Gunn try to separate the two and diffuse the volatile situation before someone gets killed while the girls administer first aid to Kylar, checking his wound and trying to make him respond. He’s breathing but not conscious.
“Guys, we need help here!” Fred shrieks. On the lounge, Kylar’s slim body has started cramping with uncontrollable seizures, his breaths coming in rapid, shallow pants. His eyes have rolled back and his skin shines with icy sweat. The site of the injury has worsened and festered, dark green veins spreading out from it and crawling over Kylar’s throat like a network of poisonous ivy. Never having seen a reaction to a vampire bite like this before, everybody stops fighting and pulls together, doing anything they can to help save the former slave-boy that they’ve all grown to love. Placing his mouth over the ugly wound, Angel tries to suck the vampiric venom from the puncture marks, knowing it won’t affect him in any way, spitting out any bad blood he can taste. Although, it all tastes bad to him. Wesley frantically searches old books for possible treatments and cures while Gunn firmly holds the convulsing youth down on the couch, trying to control Kylar’s violent spasms. As the others are working to stabilise his condition, Lorne is holding Kylar’s hand, unwilling to let go. Every time Kylar is stuck with a spine-twisting seizure, his small fingers clamp tightly around Lorne’s, nails digging in hard, but it is just an involuntary muscular contraction.
Seeing his beautiful boy in such pain, Lorne feels utterly, utterly helpless.
The demon doctor who previously visited Kylar is summoned once again and with the help of a transporting spell he appears in instants, authoritatively instructing the others in what to do while he jabs Kylar’s neck with various drugs and potions, many of them probably not legal. He gives Kylar something that makes him throw up, purging any undead blood that may be in his gut. If demon blood can poison vampires, then perhaps vampire blood can poison demons too. Even after he vomits, Kylar doesn’t improve. They try to make him drink warmed milk to counteract any toxins lingering in his stomach-lining but his throat is too tight to swallow. He just grows colder and colder, his pulse weakening.
They carry him upstairs and put him fully-clothed in a hot bath, needing to increase his chilled temperature. Kylar is shivering so badly that his teeth are chattering and water splashes out onto the floor. Tapping into the Divine, Cordelia uses her glowing power in an attempt to cleanse the ill child of contamination, both physical and spiritual. Kneeling by the tub, Fred keeps sponging Kylar’s face and washing his neck with salt water, trying to clean out the wound, her dark eyes huge with worry.
Through it all, Lorne never leaves Kylar’s side and keeps the boy’s limp hand held in his own, the elder Pylean mentally attempting to connect with Kylar and assure him that everything will be all right.
“I’m here, Kylar-cakes,” he telepathically sends, over and over, desperately trying to stay strong for the kid. “I’m right here beside you, baby. Don’t you leave me!”
Lorne can’t see or hear anything in Kylar’s mind except for an agonised haze of fever and shock but he hopes Kylar can somehow sense him there.
Connor is outside. Knowing that he can’t do anything right now to help, the distraught young hunter sits in the corridor, back to the wall, hugging his knees and letting the tears flow silently down his face.
Kylar can’t die. He just can’t. Connor’s not sure if there are gods in this dimension or any other but he prays to one anyway, wanting and needing his best friend to live.
.........
A/N: Sorry for the evil cliffy! >.< I had to end it there... But on a good note, I has super-cool-awesome fanart from my wonderful friend Lauren who created Kylar in a sexy shirtless 3D image! If you love Kylar, then you HAVE to see this! Go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosey_faith/6808333871/
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A Paler Shade of Green