Iggy felt a massive shudder pass through him and he squeezed his abdomen tight. He thought about the pain in his stomach. It was manageable after the quick attack on Emi, but it held a strong presence still. He remembered the look in her black eyes as he gnawed into her soft wrist. That was all that he could recall. He was afraid of doing that again, to anyone, and for that reason was why the tears returned with a vengeance. He covered his face with his hands, hiding his shame as best as he could, but even that wouldn't help. "I don't want to…" he swallowed, finding out that telling the truth was much harder than to lie. "I can't… I can't live like this. I can't drink it." Through his fingers, he looked at Nansen with the naive hope that he would know how to solve his problem.
Nansen's lips covered his teeth. His smile was no more and his golden eyes turned back to the artwork. "It seems like you are in quite the predicament," he responded. Iggy exhaled and turned his cheek away as if Nansen had told him to go to hell, but he hadn't. "Hey, listen," he sought his attention. "I understand you. We all have a problem with drinking blood in the beginning. At first, I also had the same stupid idea. I thought that I was stronger than everyone else, that I could handle the pain. But the truth is that the virus doesn't give a shit about all of that, and especially not about what you want. It won't show you any mercy. That's something that I learned the hard way."
"Really?" Iggy met his eyes. "What happened?"
Nansen leant back and he giggled. His laugh brought a light back into the room that had been temporarily flooded with despair. "I really shouldn't tell you this… But I will, because you're my favorite brother. It was a long time ago, before the separation of the infected and uninfected. Baine and I were living on the Old Continent at Revpora with our father. We drank from blood bags and this awesome stuff called vital fluid." He moaned and licked his lips. "Oh, I miss that stuff! I'd go home just to have it again. Back then, it was a new thing. Now, the people over there solely live on it.
"Anyways, Baine took me to a nearby village to pick something up. I don't even remember what it was. When we got there, I wasn't even that hungry, but I phased out anyway. I ripped the entire group of traders to shreds and had to bury their stuff under five feet of snow so that it would take them a long time to be found." He laughed again and there was a twinkle glistening in his eye. Though the memory was surely gruesome, he got a warm feeling when thinking about it. "All of them," he reminded himself with a smile. "Even Baine couldn't have stopped me. I was so drenched in blood that I made a blood trail through the snow for at least a mile. When we came home, they made me enter through the underground level so that no one else would phase out at the sight and smell of me. Funny thing is, I last heard that all of Revpora is locked down. Like, apparently there is only one entrance and it is locked for years at a time. Anyway, I regress."
Iggy felt Nansen's hand land on the base of his neck and he hunched his shoulders.
"It's hard to hear early on," Nansen continued, "but you'll accept that it's a part of your life now. Just like the leaves and grass are a part of life outside. You have to forget the voice in your head that is telling you that it's wrong, and start following your true voice." The corners of his eyes smoothed and his mouth narrowed flat. His voice became brittle. "My advice; do it willingly, or else you will be forced to."
"Forced?"
"Yep. Forced. Not by me, and not by Baine… but by yourself." His arm reached away and pulled back the other sleeve. He lifted his wrist and tilted his hand back so that his veins bulged against his flushed skin. The blood pulsed easily, calmly, rhythmically. It seemed hot, as if it were meat, begging to be bit into.
The intrusive thoughts were relentless.
"Just between you and I?" Nansen proceeded. "Go ahead, give it another try."
As Iggy glared, tempted, Nansen lifted his arm closer. Emi's face flashed across Iggy's mind and all in a second, he wanted to cry, again. He shut his eyes and gently pushed Nansen's hand away. "I can't do that to you," he whimpered, tearlessly. "Nansen. You're my brother, and I love you. I won't do that to you."
Nansen's hand landed on the top of Iggy's head and he playfully whipped his short hair side to side. "Ha!" he cackled. "If you loved me, then you'd do it! Oh, shucks. This reminds me of potty training… it was like having a rampant puppy shit and piss all over the house."
Iggy rolled his eyes and groaned. "Are you still going to throw old childhood stories in my face? I thought we were far past this."
"No, no. I'll never be past that! It was the longest, most frustrating two weeks of my life!" He slapped the bed right behind Iggy's rear and leaned back, stretching his torso long. His laughter died down and he sighed, smiling. "You'll come around, and you'll be just fine. I'm going to go now. If you need anything, find me or Baine."
Iggy nodded, however the invitation was only heard, yet to be followed up on as well as unlikely.
Nansen sighed. "Seriously, don't hesitate," he urged him. "Especially if you're in pain. Trust me, the thirst can become unbearable too quickly. One moment you're fine and the next you're lying on the floor like a rug, or worse." He stood to his feet and strode toward the door, but then, he halted and looked over his shoulder. "As a side note, that's a big reason why we maintain lifelong partnerships and we don't ever abandon our newly infected. That way, if one of us gets so thirsty that we become paralyzed, our buddy can help us find nourishment before we die…" He paused. A sneaky grin played across his face. "You're lucky," he added, "you've landed on the Silgria Heiress."
He walked out of the room leaving the door open. Iggy could hear all of the voices, footsteps, music, and other various noises playing through the halls. He didn't mind. He had already pretty much lost his life, so what did he need to be afraid of now besides himself?
He rolled over onto his bed and nestled his face into the pillow. The salty smell of him, much like ocean water, was abundant in the fabric of his old black comforter. His stomach was twisting back into a knot, but even so, he became comfortable and shortly fell back to sleep.