back of his neck between his fingers and tugged gently. “Be serious.”
“What? I want you to take it into consideration if you’re going to use the results of this little quiz when deciding what to do with me.” Alex laid his head back down, ear right where Noah’s heart was beating out an erratic rhythm. “Okay, let’s see, blood types. There’s four—A, B, AB, and O—and those are either positive or negative, so that basically means there are actually eight blood groups. Oh, and if you get a transfusion of blood and it’s the wrong type, you could die.” Alex pursed his lips. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“That’s about what you’d expect an average person to know, yeah,” Noah confirmed. “The thing is, it’s a very simplified version. Those eight types themselves can be divided into all these different varieties. The blood type depends on antigens, and you can’t receive blood that has antigens that your own blood lacks because there’s a high likelihood that it’ll all turn into a shitshow instead of a lifesaving miracle.”
Noah started tapping a rhythm on Alex’s back to have something to do with his jittery hands. He could recite this lecture in his sleep. He’d certainly heard it enough over the years, be it while sitting at the dinner table or at one of the numerous appointments with specialists and scientists over the years or even while he and his mom were simply stopping by the lab where his dad had worked to drop off his keys or something.
“The thing with antigens is that there are a lot of them. We’re talking, like, hundreds, so it gets a bit more complicated from there. I’m not going to get into details because it’s way too scientific, and it doesn’t really matter right now. The point is, some blood types are really rare, and I have one of those.”
Noah took a deep breath. He expected to feel relieved that he’d laid all his cards out there. What did people always say, like a weight had been lifted? Yeah, nothing like that happened. He just felt tired, like he always did when he so much as thought about his blood and the impact it had on his life.
Noah could feel Alex blinking against his chest, his eyelashes moving softly over Noah’s skin.
“What does that mean exactly?” he finally asked.
“I have… it’s known as the Rhnull blood. Your blood has a long list of antigens. Mine has none of the antigens in the Rh system. It’s… pretty damn rare. As in, there are less than fifty people with that blood type in the world. It’s called golden blood.” Noah rolled his eyes. He’d never liked that name. It made him seem special, even though he hadn’t earned it in any way. Like being a gold medalist because all the other contestants dropped dead before the finish line.
Alex lifted his head and stared at Noah. “That’s… like unicorn territory,” he said, and Noah snorted.
“That’s me. A gay unicorn,” he said.
Alex laughed too as he kissed Noah. He turned serious again way too quickly for Noah’s liking as Alex positioned himself so that he was still lying on Noah’s chest, but he was now looking straight at Noah, chin propped on his forearms that were placed on Noah’s chest.
“So you have super-rare blood,” Alex prompted.
Noah tried to think of the best way to explain everything that having such a rare blood type meant. “Blood without Rh antigens is… it’s important for science. Donating blood is supposed to be anonymous, but my dad was pretty well-known in the medical field. He was a cancer researcher, and he was well aware of the knowledge researchers can glean when studying my blood, so the moment they discovered how rare mine was, it’s been kind of an open secret,” Noah admitted. “I get phone calls all the time where I get asked for blood.”
Alex frowned. “That sounds like an invasion of privacy.”
Noah shrugged. “Kind of, but let’s face it, I don’t really have much else going on in my life, so I help when I can.”
Alex’s gaze was sharp and so, so intense as he studied Noah, but he didn’t comment any further, choosing instead to let Noah finish his story.
“And then there are blood donations, of course,” Noah said quietly. He looked away from Alex. It was easier if he went into lecturer mode with this one. “There are eight most common blood types, but there are actually more than thirty blood groups that