Archive of Our Own

Kayn first meets the guy on the rooftop.

The rooftop, he’s long since found, is quickly becoming the only bearable place in the entire apartment complex. Free of cockroaches, peeling wallpaper on cheap plaster, and the cracks and filth that litter the place, it's a literal breath of fresh air. Up there, he can see the entirety of the city spread out below him, a muted grey smudge on the world.

Technically, he's not allowed to be there, but, well. If they wanted to keep people out, they should have made it harder to get up there. All he needs to do is duck underneath the boiler and scale the wall to get up to the staircase, past the off-limits back room. 

He's up there one day, stepping through the doors and onto the grey tile, when he freezes.

There's someone else up there.

They're looking out over the city, but they seem to notice the moment Kayn steps onto the roof. They turn to face him, gaze finding his.

He's a guy, well built and with a knife hooked to his belt. He lifts a cigarette away from his lips and grins humorlessly at Kayn, all teeth. Smoke curls away from his open mouth, feathering out into the crisp air.

His eyes are strange; red against the deadened grey of the sky behind him. They burn with a steady rage, unchanging even as his expression shifts. Kayn looks into them and gets the sense that he is unfathomably, incredibly angry, rage held back and burning low as it waits for its chance to strike out. The kind of rage that never leaves, the kind that isn't caused, only there.

Kayn can understand that kind of expression. He sees it every time he looks in the mirror.

Kayn lifts his head and scowls. He steps click quietly on the tile before he stops several feet away. The proximity lights a nervous apprehension in his body, cells thrumming with a strange energy.

Fuck this guy. If he wants to start shit, Kayn will punch him right in his obnoxiously square jaw.

There's a fly buzzing around them, turning lazy loops in the air. The stranger's head tilts, eyes drifting away from Kayn towards the exit.

He says nothing. The only sound is the steady buzz of the bug circling around them. Then, when he's only a foot away from Kayn, his hand darts out, stopping inches from his nose. Kayn flinches minutely, shoulders stiffening and fists clenching.

The buzz abruptly dies, caught cleanly by the guy's outstretched hand. He flicks the corpse away with a casual, smooth motion as he continues on his way. 

“Hey—” Kayn snaps, pivoting on his heel to follow the guy’s path. “You asshole—”

However, he's already gone, leaving behind the faint scent of cigarette smoke.

"I'm not leaving."

The footsteps stop several yards behind him. They continue again, finally stopping for good a decent distance away from him. There's the rustle of clothes as the guy sits, then the click of a lighter and the smell of tobacco. "I wasn't asking you to."

His voice is deep, and Kayn feels the rumble travel through the rooftop, settling in his bones. 

Kayn says nothing else, and neither does the other guy. They sit in silence, cigarette smoke curling around them. The acrid smell burns his eyes and leaves them stinging. At least it wasn't alcohol.

"Your dad is loud."

Kayn bristles, whipping around to glare at the guy. "Well, you can get him to shut up yourself, or you can stop complaining about it," he snarls. The guy stares back, lips quirked in an amused smile. The sight of it sets off a creeping irritation under his skin, a rage skittering around and roaring to be let out. 

"You're pretty loud, too," the guy continues. His eyes are as hard and angry as they were the last time, despite the lightness of his tone. Cigarette dangling limply from his fingers, he leans forward. The embers burn along with his eyes; both a steady, glowing red. They're intent with a manic sort of anticipation, a flickering hunger.  "I can't sleep. It's all 'shut the fuck up,' or 'you demon child,' 'the fuck is wrong with you,' 'I'll kill you'—"

Kayn's fist flies out and collides with the guy's jaw.

His head snaps back with a satisfying crack, stumbling back from the force. He rallies fast, picking himself back up to lunge at Kayn. Kayn catches a glimpse of his face, the grin skittering wide across his mouth. His eyes glitter with satisfaction, unhinged glee twisting his expression.

"You look like a fucking maniac," Kayn spits, stumbling back from the returning blow. The pain radiates through his shoulder pleasantly, spurring an exhilarating rush of adrenaline. He drives his elbows straight into the guy's stomach, darting forward to land an uppercut to his chin.

It's not so much a fight as it is a mad scramble to lash out and get hit. They tear at each other, not quite caring if blows land on their exposed openings, just trying to hurt with brutal inefficiency. When they're both too tired to stand, Kayn's heart is racing, blood singing with excitement and roaring for violence. Blood drips from his stinging knuckles, muscles urging him to lunge again despite his heaving chest.

The guy licks blood off his lips. The wild grin hasn’t left it once since they’ve started fighting, and the sight of it sends a shiver down Kayn’s spine. The cigarette has long been trampled underfoot, but his eyes seem to glow brighter than the fire did. Stained with blood and bruises, grinning through red-streaked teeth, he looks feral. He looks unhinged. Violence is a good look on him; it makes him look positively inhuman.

Kayn spits blood on the floor, before baring his teeth at the other. "I'm Kayn," he offers.

The guy says, "Rhaast," and it feels like the start of something.

They fight more, on the odd days where they run into each other on the rooftop. Sometimes, they simply sit in silence, not speaking, not acknowledging that the other is there at all. Along the way, they start to make jabs at each other, a banter that’s a sort of combat all on its own. It's a strange companionship, but it works. It's the simplest, most gloriously uncomplicated relationship Kayn has. 

"What are you doing?"

Kayn locks eyes with Rhaast in the dim lighting. He doesn't get up, instead knocking the back of his head against the closed apartment door behind him. "Got kicked out."

It's late. Kayn's father will let him back in in the morning, and he'll be able to grab his wallet and scrounge up breakfast from the leftovers in the fridge. He doesn't plan on falling asleep.

Rhaast looks at him, then the door behind him, eyebrow raised. He unlocks the door to his apartment (he lives across the hall, Kayn notes with faint surprise), then jerks his head in the direction of the door. "You can crash here."

Kayn stares. He looks at Rhaast, then tries to peer into the door behind him. He debates the possibility of Rhaast being an axe murderer and killing him in his apartment. Very high, he decides, running through what little he knows about him.

A cockroach scuttles around his foot. The ground is cold and hard, the chill seeping in through his clothes. Kayn squints and looks at Rhaast. "You got food?"

Rhaast raises his eyebrows again. "Sure." He pushes open the door and makes his way inside. Kayn decides fuck it, then gets up and follows him.

Rhaast's apartment is even more of a dump than his. It smells overwhelmingly of tobacco and smoke, garbage littered in every corner. Kayn steps around crumpled wrappers and clothes, wrinkling his nose. He makes his way past Rhaast to the kitchen, past walls bare of decorations and sparse furniture. The pantry is as underwhelming as the rest of the apartment, and Kayn grabs the first thing he sees before tearing into it.

"Make yourself at home, then," Rhaast says, amusement seeping into his tone.

Kayn shrugs, shoveling a handful of chips into his mouth. "Shouldn't have invited me in," he snipes. He grabs a handful of granola bars and a box of cereal, before marching over to the ratty couch. Mouth twisting in disgust, he shoves a precarious pile of clothes onto the floor, then crashes onto the newly vacated space. He rifles through the pile before he finds a remote, then flicks the TV on.

Rhaast watches him with quiet amusement. He seems oddly unconcerned for having let a near-stranger into his apartment. Kayn ignores him, surfing through channels to try and find anything that's not mind-numbingly boring. 

"Don't steal anything," Rhaast drawls in a tone that implies he couldn't care less. 

Kayn lifts his eyes from the screen to sneer. "As if you could stop me."

Rhaast laughs at that, a low, deep rumble that shakes the ground. "Alright."

With that, he turns and leaves, lifting his hand behind him in a lazy wave. He slips into the doorway at the end of the room. It shuts behind him, but not before Kayn catches sight of something red and sharp, metal edge glinting.

He's not stupid enough to fall asleep, so he surfs through channels, never staying on one for long. He eats through his stash and leaves the wrappers on the floor—Rhaast certainly won't care, what with the mess that he calls his apartment—before simply letting the sound of the TV filter from one ear to the other. He doesn't quite hear it, only vaguely registering the noise. He catches brief snippets of each channel before he skips it, each one passing from recollection like dreams. In the strange state between lucidity and sleep, fighting to keep his eyes open, the noise melds with the static of his head, mind creating images along with the ones playing in front of his eyes. It all melds together into one incoherent, hazy nonsense plot.

In the morning, Kayn leaves before Rhaast wakes. The only thing he remembers are images of a village burning, people screaming and children crying, all overlaid with the ever-present smell of smoke.

The next months pass like a dream. Everything feels so distant and far away, as if Kayn were seeing everything through a deep haze. Nothing feels real.

He screams at his father. He winds through dark alleys and gets in fights, dragging home split lips and bleeding knuckles. He sits on the rooftop and looks out across the broken city, staring at people and cars that look so small he could crush them with his thumb. He visits the dojo and fights in a place that's meant for sparring, he plays through an astounding number of cheaply made phone games, and he scarfs down revolting food under his father's heavy gaze.

It's all so boring.

Kayn feels trapped in his own skin. It's like the walls of the city, of the apartment, of his life, are pressing down on him, trapping his chest and making it hard to breathe. Slowly closing in, cutting off escape routes or ways to move.

He dreams, sometimes, of smoke so heavy he can taste it, blood and tears staining the air. Of stumbling through ruined cities, levelled by some otherworldly force, wiped clean of life.

It's three months later when Kayn sees Rhaast again.

He's on the floor again, bleary eyed and tired, clinging to consciousness by a thread. He startles when he sees Rhaast, squinting and wondering if this, too, is another dream of ash and blood.

"Kayn." It's Rhaast that speaks first, startling Kayn into wakefulness.

"Oh," he says, blinking to try and stop his vision from blurring, "It's you again. Where did you go?"

Rhaast stares at him. Kayn had almost forgotten how strange his eyes were, how fascinating they are. Can humans have naturally red eyes? Rhaast doesn't seem like an albino. His skin is dark, hair black. Kayn can't tear his eyes away. They're startling; like they're the only real thing among the smog, cutting through it with anger and spite.

Rhaast cracks his door open and sighs. He jerks his head toward the door, a wordless invitation. Kayn scrambles to his feet and stumbles inside, blinking disorientation from his eyes.

It seems, impossibly, to have gotten even messier. Kayn is reminded forcefully of a desert landscape, the skyline roiling and ever-changing, sand dunes blown over by the wind. 

This time, Rhaast heads to the TV. He clicks it on and shuffles through channels before finally settling on one. Kayn squints at it as he grabs a box of crackers, before joining him. 

It's some cooking show; a competition where the losers get voted off to loud shaming and humiliation from the judges. It's boring, but at least it's entertaining seeing people get roasted on their shitty cooking. Kayn sinks onto the couch and leans his head against the back, not bothering to clear away the assortment of clothes that's been carelessly strewn onto it. 

They smell like Rhaast. Smoke and something else, something sharp and neutral. Kayn sinks into them, watching the TV through half-lidded eyes. His mind drifts like last time, images flickering and distorting, strange sounds starting and stopping.

"Please—" the woman gasps, looking up at him with terror-stricken eyes. "Not my children—not my family, please—"

Kayn moves. He towers over her. She's so small under his hulking frame. There's something in his hands—a weapon? He can see the sharp edge in his shadow.

"No," the woman gasps, scrambling away, before skidding to a stop. She's hit a wall. Nowhere to run. To her chest she clutches two small children, huddling close and looking up at Kayn with equally fearful eyes. One of them is crying, tears running down his cheeks. "You monster! You're a monster. How could you do this? Don't you feel anything at all—"

Smoke. Blood. Kayn snuffs out the last three lives in the village.

Time to move on.

Kayn blinks.

Did he fall asleep? He looks at the TV, still adamantly detailing the mind-numbing exploits of the cooking competition. He doesn't remember falling asleep. Just for a brief moment, he must have closed his eyes— 

Kayn looks over to the other side of the couch, before freezing.

Rhaast's eyes are two bright pinpricks in the darkness.

He holds the stare, breath hitching. Every one of his muscles locks, holding his stillness. His heart hammers, pulse fluttering like a trapped bird.

Embers. Blood. Cigarette butts. Coals that burn slow, the flicker of fire trapped within.

Rhaast blinks, slow and simple. He's looking, staring, at Kayn, Kayn staring back. What does he see, he wonders? When he looks into Kayn's eyes, what is he looking for?

After that, Kayn's mind blurs the world again. One of them breaks the stare. Three more peppy white contestants get voted off. The sky slowly brightens outside the single, dingy window, hours slipping by. When Kayn leaves, it's behind Rhaast, with the other man locking the door behind them both. They part ways wordlessly.

It's strange, he realizes as he's let into his apartment by his scowling father. When he was looking into Rhaast's eyes—he wasn't scared. His heart wasn't racing so fast out of fear.

It was excitement.

It's raining.

Kayn is on the roof anyway, letting himself get soaked to the skin. The rain isn't bad, really. There's something therapeutic about it, hearing the steady downpour on concrete, feeling drops hit his skin with all the force of the gravity pulling them down.

The city is lit today, windows all filled with dingy yellow light as people flock to escape the rain. Cars splash through puddles, headlights cutting through the downpour. The streets are otherwise empty, save stray pedestrians under raincoats and umbrellas.

The sound of the door opening breaks his musings. Kayn whips around, eyes wide.

"The fuck?" he calls. "Did you see how hard it's raining?"

"I could say the same to you," Rhaast snipes. He stops next to Kayn and glowers up at the heavy rain clouds above them. He stands there, rain steadily hammering down on him, hair and clothes slowly drooping as the water soaks it through. Coupled with his strange sulkiness, he looks like a dejected puppy. Kayn can't help it—he laughs.

Rhaast turns his glare to him. He looks absolutely miserable, shoulders hunched, mouth twisted in displeasure.

"Not a fan of the rain?" Kayn calls, delighted. He stands, shaking himself like a dog. Stray droplets fly through the air. Kayn grins as Rhaast hisses, recoiling as water sprays onto him.

"You're terrible," Rhaast snaps. "An insolent, terrible creature. Truly horrible."

Kayn laughs, slinging a sopping arm around Rhaast's shoulders. There's a certain kind of delight in the way Rhaast squawks, glaring balefully at him.

"Either kill me or shut up," Kayn crows, poking Rhaast in the cheek. "Why the fuck are you out here anyway?"

"Maybe I will," Rhaast grumbles, miserably turning his glare to the downpour. Despite his distaste, he huddles under Kayn's arm, maybe seeking warmth or maybe just too fed up to move. "You might finally be quiet when you're dead."

"I knew you were a serial killer," Kayn says, nodding thoughtfully. "It makes too much sense."

"You caught me," Rhaast deadpans. "This is all an elaborate plot to lure you back to my apartment—oh wait."

Kayn nods again, a grin stealing across his face. "It's a good thing I'm too smart and dashing to fall for your tricks," he says, tossing his head. "Or not, 'cause you'd never be able to kill me anyway."

Rhaast snorts. "In your dreams," he sneers. "I could crush you like a fly."

"How full of yourself," Kayn says, shaking his head in faux dismay. "Your punches don't even hurt, you know."

Rhaast laughs, grin sharp. "You wanna test that thought?" he taunts, leaning forward. As he does, he presses into Kayn's side, unerringly warm despite the rain. His eyes are bright with the promise of violence.

Kayn matches his grin, excitement beginning to thrum in his chest. Faintly, he realizes that he's drifting closer as well, tugging Rhaast closer to his side. "Of course."

He knees Rhaast in the stomach and shoves his head toward the concrete.

There’s a certain thing about the thrill of violence that makes him feel alive, especially with Rhaast. He doesn't need to hold back, and neither does Rhaast. Violence is so simple, so easy.

And just like that, their strange coexistence continues. Their meetings are still spaced out among weeks, and sometimes months, but they always run into each other in the end.

Kayn tries the door to Rhaast’s apartment. To his surprise, it swings open easily, and he scowls. Rhaast really was the kind of person to not give two fucks about weird people in his apartment, huh? If they tried anything, he’d probably be excited to beat them up. Asshole.

“Rhaast!” he calls, forcing the door open wider and trampling through a pile of chip bags. In the distance, he hears a groan, trapped behind the door to Rhaast’s bedroom. 

“The fuck do you want?”

Kayn bites back a laugh, wading over to Rhaast’s room. Once he’s there, he shoves it open with little fanfare. “Wakey wakey,” he calls, striding into the room and pausing as he takes it in. “Huh.”

He’s never actually been in Rhaast’s room before. They’ve always fucked around in the kitchen and living room. Now that he’s here, it’s largely the same as the rest of the apartment, in a similar state of natural disaster. What’s new, though, is the giant scythe propped up on the wall, wickedly sharp and gleaming.

Well, if Rhaast didn’t want people in here, he should have locked his door like a sensible person. Kayn stares at the scythe for several seconds, before making his way over to Rhaast’s bed (a single mattress on the floor) and standing over him. A grin spreads over his face as he looks down at him. Rhaast glares back at him balefully, eyes bleary and hair mussed.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Kayn sings, poking his forehead. “It’s time to become a functional human being.”

“Why are you here,” Rhaast says, still glaring.

“I was bored.” Kayn grins, then strides over to the windows and pulls the curtains open. Rhaast hisses—actually hisses, like a particularly large, grumpy cat—and rolls over.

“Are you actually a vampire?” Kayn snickers. He makes his way over to Rhaast again as he speaks. “You can’t be in the sunlight, or else you’ll burn. Are you too dark and edgy to be in the light?”

Just to be annoying, Kayn fishes his phone out of his pocket and shines the flashlight into Rhaast’s eyes. Rhaast lets out a short, frustrated breath, rolling over to face Kayn.

“Get out,” he growls. “Go wait in the kitchen or something. Make yourself some disgusting healthy concoction.”

Kayn laughs. He ruffles Rhaast’s hair before he leaves, to the other’s growl.

“What do you want?” Rhaast grumbles when he finally emerges from his room, glowering with his eyebrows pulled low in annoyance. “Or did you just come over to bother me?”

“I told you, I was bored,” Kayn says, distractedly licking ice cream off a spoon. “The dojo’s closed today.”

“So you’re just here to bother me,” Rhaast sighs, covering his eyes with his hand as if trying to summon strength. He removes it and squints at Kayn. “You really can’t live without your precious dojo, can you?”

“What?” Kayn squawks. “No, I hate that place. All the people there are cowards. Dumb bastards that are too scared to do anything."

Rhaast stares at him incredulously. "You’re always there,” he says slowly. “You practically live there. Everytime I see you, it’s all ‘ I was just at the dojo,’ or ‘ I’m heading out to the dojo.’ Why the fuck are you there all the time, then?”

Kayn pauses. A memory flits through his head before he forces it away. "None of your fucking business."

Rhaast hums, taking a sip of his coffee. Kayn almost thinks he’s dropped the matter, before he says, “I bet you’re in love with an instructor.”

Kayn squeaks, feeling his face heat. “No!” he cries, jumping up from his seat. “What the fuck? I just—I like—exercise.”

Rhaast stares. “Exercise.”

Kayn feels his flush deepen. “Shut up!” he cries, shoving the last of his ice cream into his mouth before spinning away with a scowl. “Anyway, meet me outside. I’m not spending all of today just playing Genshin Impact.”

“Isn’t the point of shoplifting,” Rhaast complains, slightly out of breath, “To not get caught?”

Kayn stares at him, aghast. “Oh, Rhaast,” he cackles. “It’s only fun if they catch us.”

Rhaast scoffs. “Or maybe you’re just incapable of subtlety.”

“I’m hurt, Rhaast,” Kayn calls mockingly, hefting their haul in his arms to jab the buttons on the elevator. An eternity later, the doors creak shut, the elevator rattling as it travels up. “Do you really doubt me?”

“Do you really need to ask that question?”

Kayn scowls at that. He sniffs, tossing his head. “Well, anyway, this trip was important. Now you won’t have garbage and nothing else in your kitchen. When I stay over I can eat something besides junk.”

“Food is food,” Rhaast complains. “I don’t get what there is to be so picky about.”

“You live a sad life, Rhaast. One day we’re going to find the worst food in the world and you’ll eat your words.”

The elevator grinds to a stop. The doors, notably, do not open. Kayn frowns and jabs the open door button. Nothing happens. He hits it again, then a third time, then several more times for good measure. Each attempt is met with the grand result of nothing. Kayn groans, kicking the doors.

“We’re stuck?”

Kayn glares at the doors with personal affront. “We might be stuck,” he admits. He turns to Rhaast. “Pry it open with your vampire strength,” he throws out, leaning against the wall. 

Rhaast wrinkles his nose, muffling a yawn and settling down on the floor. “Can’t you call someone?”

“My phone died,” Kayn grumbles. “The battery life is shit. What about yours?”

“I didn’t bring it,” Rhaast admits. “I don’t use it very much, anyway.”

Kayn wrinkles his nose at that. He resigns himself to his fate and settles on the floor next to Rhaast. Two seconds pass, and he’s already bored. “After we eat through the food we’re gonna have to fight to death,” he says, for lack of anything better to do. “And then the winner will have to cannibalize the loser.”

“Well, looks like it’s the end for you,” Rhaast shoots back.

“Oh yeah?” Kayn taunts, smirk tugging at his lips. He leans his head back to look at the ceiling. The dim lights flicker above them. The corner of one of the tiles is peeling, grimy edges coming apart. He grimaces, then groans loudly. “I can’t believe we got stuck,” he complains. He grabs a tomato, stares at it, then bites into it like an apple. “What the fuck is there to do?”

Rhaast shrugs. Several moments of complete silence pass, and then…

“Truth or dare?”

Kayn giggles. He immediately straightens, mortified. “Truth or dare? What are you, twelve?”

“You wanted something to do.”

Kayn concedes, staring at the ceiling and tracing the path of the tiles with his eyes. “...Dare.”

“...I dare you to lick the elevator buttons.”

Kayn sits up, aghast. “Gross,” he whispers. “Do you know how old this building is? Do you know how many people touch those things? I bet they haven’t cleaned it in at least five years.”

“Are you too much of a coward to do it?” Rhaast taunts, a challenging smile crossing his lips. “Backing out on the first dare?”

Kayn scowls, indignance bursting to life on his chest. He rolls forward to sit on his haunches, then licks a long line across several of the buttons. Surprisingly, they don’t taste like anything, but he can only imagine the germs on them. Grimacing, he sits back and tips his chin up challengingly at Rhaast. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth?”

“Seriously?” Kayn complains. “And you called me a coward. Come on—”

“We’re stuck in an elevator,” Rhaast reminds him. “There’s not much we can really do.”

“...Fine,” Kayn admits. He doesn’t really mind, anyway. Rhaast is mysterious like that. “Who do you hate the most out of your coworkers?” Rhaast is weird around them; all placid and fake. He’s only seen it briefly once, but it was surreal.

“I hate all of them,” Rhaast dismisses. “They’re all infuriating.”

“But who do you hate the most,” Kayn wheedles. “C’mon. You have to think that one of them is worse than all the rest, or something.”

Rhaast pauses. “...My boss,” he admits. “...She flirts with me.”

Kayn gapes. Then he laughs. “She flirts with you?” he repeats, delighted. “That’s like, probably horribly against company policy. And you’re so flustered! Are you—”

“Truth or dare,” Rhaast interrupts loudly. Kayn scowls, before deciding to spare Rhaast this once.

“Dare,” Kayn says, just to be contrary. Rhaast glares at him halfheartedly.

“Pretend to be a cat for a minute,” he shoots at him, sullen. Kayn squawks.

“What the fuck?” he exclaims, face red as he stares at Rhaast. Rhaast only blinks back expectantly, like get on with it. Kayn coughs and looks at his hands. “How—”

Deadpan, Rhaast brings his hands to the top of his head to simulate cat ears. “Meow.”

Kayn gapes at him, appalled. Slowly, he brings his hands to the top of his head. “M-meow.”

“You have to get on all fours now,” Rhaast says, like a dick. “Lick the back of your hand.”

“You’re a fucking weirdo,” Kayn says accusatorily, betrayed. “Rhaast, what the fuck.”

“That’s not what a cat says.”

I hate you, Kayn thinks. Reluctantly, he gets on all fours. Making direct eye contact with Rhaast and trying to convey with his face exactly how pissed he is, he licks the back of his hand.

“And you also—”

“Shut up!” Kayn cries, chucking an apple at him. It bounces off his shoulder and rolls to a stop by his foot. Rhaast ducks his head, grinning lazily. “It’s your turn, fucker.”

“Truth.”

Kayn sits down again, trying to recover and bring his face back to a normal shade. “...What’s your most embarrassing moment?”

Rhaast pauses. Impossibly, a tinge of red breaks out on his face. Kayn stares. He’s never seen Rhaast blush before. It’s bizarre. He wishes his phone weren’t dead right now, if only just so he could take a picture.

“...My brother recorded me when I got my wisdom teeth out and played the video to the whole school.”

“You have a brother?” Kayn blurts, startled.

Rhaast sends him a weird look. “I have a whole family, Kayn,” he says slowly.

Kayn flushes. “I know that!” he exclaims, though he’s never thought about it. Part of him had always assumed that Rhaast had materialized fully formed and with complete knowledge of the Ionian language in the dirt outside the apartment like a weird bloodthirsty plant. “You just—don’t seem like the type to have siblings.”

Rhaast squints at him. “Huh,” is all he says. “Well, your turn.”

“...Truth,” he decides reluctantly.

“Why do you go to the dojo so often?”

“You’re still on that?” Kayn complains, flicking lint off his jacket. He pauses to mull it over for a bit. “Well, it’s—it’s not anything weird,” he hastens to say first. “It's just.” Kayn takes a long lock of hair and winds it around his finger, watching as it goes around. “It reminds me of someone I used to know. I feel like I owe it to them.”

He looks up, hair unspooling from his finger. “Yeah. I guess that’s it.” It was decidedly not it. But there was a lot there, and he wasn’t going to answer more than he had to.

Rhaast nods, not pressing. His eyes burn in the dim lighting. Kayn exhales noisily, suddenly feeling trapped. He stands up, shaking hair out of his eyes. “It’s been so long,” he complains. “How much longer are we going to be stuck here? I’m so bored.”

Rhaast shrugs. “Well, if you're bored, ask me a more interesting question,” he throws out, inspecting his fingernails. “The one’s you’ve asked have all been boring.”

Kayn scowls. “Oh, yeah,” he mutters sarcastically under his breath. He flops down to sit again, releasing a breath, and looks at Rhaast. Really looks. Rhaast is—well, he’s fucking weird. There’s something off about him. When they fight he looks absolutely insane, far too delighted and far too gleeful. Kayn has no idea what the hell’s up with him.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" Kayn asks, taking a wild stab in the dark.

Rhaast barks out a short, mirthless laugh. “That’s what you want to ask?” he taunts. “Yes. What else?”

Kayn scowls. “What happened?”

“I stabbed them. They died.”

“You’re shit at answering questions,” Kayn complains. “Give me more details, dude. How’d you feel? What’d they do? Who was it?”

Rhaast exhales slowly, leaning his head back. He looks tired, suddenly. “I don’t really know,” he admits. “I don’t remember. I just remember… Blood. A lot of it. And I didn’t think it was possible, what happened, but—I knew it was me.”

Kayn falls silent. Rhaast does as well, gaze far away. “Truth,” Kayn says, just to break the strange mood that’s fallen over Rhaast.

Rhaast startles, looking up. “What?”

“It’s my turn,” Kayn says. “Truth.”

Rhaast looks at Kayn. His expression is unreadable, simply studying him. He looks a thousand years old. “Who does your dojo remind you of?”

“Really?” Kayn huffs, annoyed. “You’re really obsessed with this dojo thing.”

“Humor me.” Rhaast’s tone is dry.

Kayn sighs, looking at the ceiling. He guesses it’s only fair that he tell Rhaast, cause he’d told Kayn so much. Especially if he’s weirdly insistent on it. 

"Zed," he says. "The old owner. He…"

Where to start, here? Kayn had so many thoughts about Zed, all unresolved and screaming, a rough mess of conflicting emotion with no real beginning or end. With a sigh, he presses forward.

"He took me in, kind of," he says. "Let me sleep at the dojo whenever I wanted, so I didn't have to live with the shitstain. He…"

Kayn trails off. He's not sure what he sees—saw Zed as. A friend? A father figure? A mentor?

He's even less sure what Zed thought of him. Did he care for him at all? Was he merely a stray charity case to be abandoned when he was no longer convenient? Kayn scowls, rolling his shoulders.

"He was kind," he settles on. "In his own way. He never really showed affection, but…"

It all feels so flimsy, now. Everything that he had counted on, the hopes that Zed saw him as more than just a problem child. The way his expression softened, just slightly, when he saw Kayn; the rare times he praised his form; the pride he could swear he'd seen sometimes when Kayn was training. It made Kayn feel like he could be worth something. It made Kayn want to claw to the top, just to prove he was worthy.

It was nothing concrete. Blurred by time, it all seemed so foolish, so inconsequential. Evidently, it wasn't enough to stop Zed in the end.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Kayn says, voice rough. "He left. Fucked off one day and never came back."

Kayn has theories. Kayn knows that Zed had enemies, that he never took the same route to the dojo, that he always carried a knife and gun on him. That one day he had seen a group of foreigners with thick accents, all dressed up in fancy suits with badges for a certain company that Kayn had been too slow to catch the name of, and had gone pale. Had ducked down into an alleyway and dragged Kayn with him, hunching down and hissing that Kayn be still, be quiet.

Maybe—Kayn wonders sometimes. Maybe Zed was some top-secret spy. A wanted criminal in Noxus somewhere. A deserter, a soldier, a traitor.

Maybe those guys had got to him, and Zed was lying six feet under right now, or maybe he had fled when they'd caught his trail. Maybe, even—maybe he had left to protect him—protect the dojo and keep it away from the scrutiny of those people he had feared so much. Maybe he just left them to pursue his criminal lifestyle or to steal expensive paintings or commit espionage against the state of Zaun or some other country overseas.

Well, Kayn doesn't know. Zed never told him anything. All he can do is guess, because Zed isn't here.

"I don't care," Kayn snaps. "I don't care about him. He's got his life, and I've got mine. He decided himself he didn't want to see me anymore."

Sometime next week, he and Rhaast are up at some ungodly hour of the night, choking down the food at some small 24-hour diner. On a quest of sorts to visit as many questionable restaurants as humanly possible, this one is just another in their line of conquests.

At any rate, Kayn thinks as he cackles, reaching across the table to drown Rhaast’s pancakes in syrup, maybe they should have stayed at Rhaast’s apartment.

“Fuck off,” Rhaast snaps, trying to shove his arm away. “The food’s terrible even without an ungodly amount of sugar on top.”

“Make me,” Kayn counters with a smirk. He sits back anyway, regarding his own pancakes for a couple moments before dumping the rest on them. He scarfs them down, then shudders. “I didn’t think we could find food that was worse than your cooking.”

“Shut up,” Rhaast mumbles halfheartedly, eyeing his pancakes with disgust. “I think this might take the cake.”

Kayn nods solemnly, taking another painful bite. He’s not sure if the syrup makes it better or worse. On the bright side, it actually tastes like something now. On the flip side, it’s horrible. “You know what that means,” he says. “We gotta take it over.”

That forces a laugh out of Rhaast, and he grins conspiratorially. “You track down the owner of this terrible establishment and I’ll put down their miserable life,” he agrees.

“And then we take it over and rule with an iron fist,” Kayn laughs, deciding his pancakes are a lost cause and flopping back against the seat. “We’ll make the worst pancakes in the world. The world will tremble at our name.”

“Rule through fear,” Rhaast deadpans. “More efficient than simply executing all dissenters. I see now.”

“There you are, Rhaasty boy,” Kayn cheers, stretching his arms above his head with a yawn. “You and me, we’re destined for greatness. But mostly me. Infamy by pancake.”

Later, he’s doubling back without Rhaast, looking for his phone. The single employee manning the place blinks and hands it to him. “Thank you,” she says blandly. There are truly impressive levels of apathy in her voice. “Come back soon with your friend.”

Kayn blinks. “He’s not my friend.”

The waitress looks at him dubiously. She turns her gaze to the window, where Rhaast had disappeared into the night. “Your boyfriend?”

Kayn balks. “No!” he exclaims. “Look, we’re just—neighbors.”

The waitress’ blank stare turns back to him. “Okay,” she says, clearly humoring him. “Have a good night, sir.”

Kayn scowls at her as he leaves. She simply waves.

He and Rhaast aren’t— friends, are they? He’s never thought about it before. 

He’s never really had friends before. All the other kids his age had all been scared of him. Too angry, too arrogant, too quick to lash out. Zed was maybe the closest thing he could call to a friend, but he’d never really been open with him. He’d never been able to talk with him as easily and casually as he did with Rhaast.

He doesn’t like the idea that he and Rhaast are friends. They just fight every so often. He’s not— close to anyone. He’s never been. 

It’s a weakness. A vulnerability. A commitment that makes his skin crawl.

That night, in Rhaast’s apartment, Kayn jolts awake from another dream. He can still taste blood, sharp and metallic on his tongue. Even though he was deep asleep moments before, he's wide awake now, heart beating out of his chest. His wide eyes scan the darkness futilely, searching for an unknown threat.

Beside him, Rhaast is similarly alert, breathing quiet with the volume of someone who is listening carefully for threats in the dark. Both of them, simultaneously woken by the same unseen, unheard disturbance.

"Did you hear anything?" Kayn says, voice rough, still feeling the wet crumble of flesh as it gives way under his nails, the wet warmth of gore that soaks all the way up his forearms. For a moment he sways under the feeling, heady and dizzying.

"No," Rhaast responds after a small pause. “Did anything happen?”

“I…” Kayn croaks, closing his eyes to deal with the sudden disorientation. “No… No. I just—”

Kayn blinks his eyes open to meet Rhaast’s, a sudden urge gripping him. “I have dreams,” he blurts.

“...Congrats,” Rhaast offers. Kayn scowls.

Kayn’s noticed a faint pattern between the dreams. It’s hard not to notice, really: they start and end with Rhaast. They grow more vivid, more numerous, when Rhaast is on his mind, and fade away when nothing is happening with him. It all leads back to Rhaast. The dreams spiral around him, circling his presence like vultures around a corpse.

It doesn’t mean anything, not really. It could be chalked up to a coincidence or some sort of psychological quirk. He could simply be imagining it. But he still...

“No, you asshole,” he snaps. “They’re… strange. They don’t seem normal. Something’s different about them.”

He's never told anyone else. There's something about them that feels unreal, as if he's never had them at all. Yet, in the moment, the dreams feel like the only real thing in the world.

Rhaast sighs. “What kind of dreams?” he asks, clearly humoring him. Kayn twists to kick him in the shin before continuing anyway.

"Destruction," he says simply. "A monster levelling societies, one by one, until nothing remains, leaving only smoke behind him. Looking for his next target."

Rhaast is silent for a while. “So you’re what—scared?” he finally sneers, tone barbed with a hint of defensiveness. “Scared the big bad monster is going to kill you and everyone you know?”

"No," Kayn interrupts. There's a reason he hasn't told anyone else. Afraid, maybe. There's something strange he doesn't understand. "I'm the monster. And I'm always—ecstatic. Happy. The happiest I've ever been."

Some days later, Rhaast has been distant, and Kayn is bored.

"Is Rhaast here?" Kayn asks the woman working at the counter, flashing her his best Friendly and Nonthreatening smile.

The woman looks absolutely delighted. "Rhaast?" she asks, peering forward at Kayn with interest. "What do you need from him? Did he get in trouble again? Ooh, are you a secret admirer? A stalker?"

Kayn flushes, physically recoiling. "What? No!"

"Aren't you so cute," the woman purrs, leaning one hand on her chin as she peers up at him through heavy mascara and fake eyelashes. "So easily flustered. I could just eat you up. Oh, is that what Rhaast is into? Does he have a boytoy?"

"He's my neighbor," Kayn squeaks. He resists the urge to shrink away from her responding smirk and squares his shoulders. He’s Kayn. He'd trained under the legendary martial arts master, Zed. He wasn't afraid of this middle aged woman that shoved too much cleavage and wore too much makeup—

"His neighbor," the woman drawls, amusement dripping from her voice. "So what does—"

"Evelynn!" Rhaast roars, storming into view. Kayn's head snaps up.

"Rhaast!" he exclaims, incredibly relieved to not have to deal with the Weird Lady alone anymore. "There you are—"

"What are you doing here?"

Kayn scowls at him. “Don't be too excited to see me,” he sneers. Then, brightening, “Look at what I found!”

Grinning, Kayn splays his find between his fingers. He looks expectantly at Rhaast, chest puffed out.

Rhaast blinks. “A… spear?”

“A knife,” Kayn corrects smugly. “It’s a tri-dagger!”

Rhaast stares at it. He reaches out for it, and Kayn hands it over to him. Running a finger over the edge, he studies it carefully for several moments. “It looks useless.”

Kayn scowls, snatching it back. He looks at it, the contorted steel that twists together to form the dagger. “Maybe so,” he admits. “But it’s cool! It’s a weapon. You haven’t seen anything like it before, have you?”

Rhaast concedes, frowning thoughtfully. After a moment a strange light appears in his eyes; a suppressed excitement. “It would be painful,” he muses, a hint of relish in his voice. “And it would be harder to heal afterwards…”

Kayn grins. “Right?” he exclaims, leaning over the counter towards Rhaast. “It’s—”

The lady coughs pointedly from behind Rhaast. Startled, Kayn leaps back. In front of him, Rhaast jumps.

“Rhaast,” she snickers, amused, “Why don’t you go take a break? Spend time with your ‘neighbor.’”

“Evelynn,” Rhaast says, long suffering. “What did you—”

“Relax, beefcake,” Evelynn purrs. “I was just getting to know him. You do know how to pick them—he’s a precious one.”

Rhaast shifts, subtly blocking Kayn’s view of Evelynn. Kayn peers around him, annoyed. The whole conversation—and everything about this lady—puts him on edge. “Evelynn.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Evelynn laughs him off, eyes glittering. “Just having some fun. Now, shoo. Go mess around with your ‘neighbor.’”

He and Rhaast end up wandering the city, carving swears into alleyway walls and the sides of dumpsters, snickering at other passing pedestrians, and making their way through the winding alleys that they see so often from the rooftop. 

(It really hadn’t taken much for Rhaast to ditch work. The moment they left the building Kayn could practically see the life returning to his deadened eyes.

“She didn’t tell you to come back, necessarily. She just told you to go.”

“She told me to take a break, Kayn. That implies that I’m coming back at the end of it.”

“A break can be 20 hours.”

“...You know what, whatever. It’s not like she’d fire me anyway.”)

“Fuck that guy,” Kayn sulks, sipping on a cup of iced tea he’d bought with money he’d shamelessly stolen from his dad. “That prick. You can tell he was just looking for an excuse to kick us out.”

“Mm,” Rhaast agrees, a bit more alive and a bit more angry with coffee in him. “When he grabbed my arm I should have just snapped his wrist in two.”

Kayn laughs. “That’d be something,” he says. “Can you imagine his face? That asshole wouldn’t bother us again.”

Eventually they find their way to a wide intersection and stop to finish their drinks, watching cars swerve and honk at each other and generally display heinous crimes against traffic law. Pedestrians swarm around them, meandering or determinedly striding to their next destination, laughing and talking among each other.

It makes Kayn’s skin itch. There’s something unsettling about the sheer amount of people here, the way that they clearly have their own lives behind their faces. He prefers to see it all from a distance, when it’s all far away and insignificant.

“Come on,” Rhaast says, turning away and chucking his cup at a nearby trash can. Kayn downs the rest of his drink and does the same, glad to be moving.

They end up in the shadier parts of the city, where the buildings are closer together and falling apart, where the people eye them with a certain gleam in their eyes. Assessing if they’re easy prey, trying to find out if they’re gullible enough to be swindled or pickpocketed. Kayn sneers back at them, shoulders and chin raised in challenge. Just try it. 

It’s much more interesting here than in the cleaner parts. It makes his heart beat a little faster, makes giddy anticipation race in his veins.

“Hey, asshole!”

Kayn turns to the shout, a grin already stretching across his face. Beside him, Rhaast stops, simply watching.

There are three people lounging on the broken streets, eyeing them with hostility. One of them has gotten up and taken several steps towards them, face twisted in anger.

“You want something?” Kayn sneers.

“Yeah, I want something. I’m gonna kick your ass for what you and that freak did.”

Kayn’s starting to remember now, actually. This guy's a bit familiar.

“Oh, your friend?” he taunts. “Shouldn’t have gotten on Zed’s bad side. If you want, you can join him.”

The man snarls, hatred burning in his eyes. He makes a sharp gesture to the men behind him, who stand with similar malice in their eyes. Beside him, Rhaast shifts.

“Oh, this will be fun.”

He likes this place for one reason. Here, he doesn’t have to start the fights. They just come to him.

"I can walk," Kayn insists from where he’s leaning heavily against the wall. He narrows his eyes, shifting weight onto his bad leg as he tries to stand.

His vision goes white. Kayn hisses through his teeth as his leg crumples under him. Muscles trembling, he tries to prop himself up again.

Ten minutes afterwards, the men have all scattered, gone back home to lick their wounds, and Kayn’s leg is in agony. One of the men had been armed with a crowbar and an iron will to make Kayn’s life hell.

Kayn grits his teeth in frustration. He can walk. He is not weak. He won't fail—

"Are you certain," Rhaast drawls, looking down at him, mouth quirked in amusement. He offers his hand to Kayn mockingly. "Need help?"

Kayn feels himself flush from humiliation. "Shut it," he snaps. "I don't need anyone's help. I can—"

"I'm sure," Rhaast says, amusement clear in his voice, before leaning down to pick Kayn off the ground.

"Wh—Rhaast!" Kayn splutters, flailing in the other's grip. It’s as ineffective as beating at a brick wall; Rhaast simply shifts and lets the blows bounce off of him. Kayn fumes, face burning. "Put me down!" 

"Mm—no," Rhaast says, pretending to consider. Kayn can feel the hum as it travels through Rhaast's chest.

"You asshole," Kayn hisses. He jabs his elbow into Rhaast's ribs, taking vindictive pleasure in Rhaast's tiny flinch. "I'm fine. You can't just— carry me like—"

"I'm sure," Rhaast repeats, snickering. He shifts his grip on Kayn, and Kayn feels heat flare up in his face when he realizes he's being bridal carried. 

"You suck," Kayn grumbles, with another ineffective jab to Rhaast's side. Resigning himself to his fate, he burrows into Rhaast's arms, burying his face in his shoulder. He hopes he's fucking heavy.

Once he closes his eyes, all the exhaustion hits him at once. He sways, clutching Rhaast to avoid falling. He's tired. All the adrenaline had faded, taking with it the thrill of pain. Now, it just hurts in a dull, achy way, protesting whenever it’s jostled.

Rhaast is always warm. Kayn yawns around the smell of smoke. The heat seeps into his bones; like he’s standing near a hot furnace, feeling the proximity burn his skin.

He falls asleep like that, Rhaast's arms wrapped around him like a blanket, something steady and soothing.

They’re out in the city again when Kayn hears them.

It’s nothing on its own, but it’s enough to set his teeth on edge. Just a snippet of conversation in a deep accent. It’s one that Kayn is very familiar with, the one that his dad has; Noxian.

It’s also the one he’d heard from the people that Zed had been so scared of.

Kayn turns to look, bristling a little, and freezes.

It’s the same. The same black suits, the same harsh expressions. They each have little badges glinting on their chests, and Kayn remembers that logo— 

He whirls around, pivoting sharply and darting toward them. A swarm of people passes in front of him, and Kayn curses. He ducks and shoves through the crowd, but it’s no use. They’ve disappeared, lost in the wind.

“Kayn?”

Kayn ignores Rhaast, moving forward in quick pursuit. He casts his gaze around, searching for any hint of black— 

"Kayn." A hand catches him by the wrist, stopping him in his tracks. Kayn pauses, trying to yank his arm out of Rhaast's grip. Rhaast's grip tightens, and Kayn snarls, spinning around.

"What do you want? They're getting away—"

"Why are you chasing them?" Rhaast's voice is strange. "They're just—"

"What do you mean?" Kayn snaps. "They're Zed's old enemies. They must be—connected to his disappearance, or the reason he left—"

Rhaast looks at him, gaze high and disdainful. Kayn bristles under the weight of it. "Don't look down on me—"

"Pathetic."

Kayn stiffens, blood boiling. Hands balling into fists, he turns to Rhaast, voice low and angry. "Say that again."

"Pathetic," Rhaast spits. His grip has grown tight on Kayn's wrist, hard enough to bruise. Kayn yanks his hand back, only to have it jerked between them again. "You're blindly chasing after a man who abandoned you. Like a dog waiting for its master—"

"Zed cared about me," Kayn hisses, vision red. "Unlike you. He wouldn't have—he didn't—"

"Lying to yourself," Rhaast mocks. "You're just wagging your tail for the first thing that shows you any kind of affection—"

Kayn punches him.

The force of it is enough that Rhaast stumbles back. It's enough for Kayn to rip away his aching wrist and land another hit to his nose. It cracks as it connects, Rhaast's nose crumpling under the blow.

"You don't know anything," Kayn snarls as Rhaast clutches his bleeding nose, eyes burning. “Shut the fuck up, or I’ll make you. Get the hell away from me."

With that, he stomps away, hands clenched. His wrist throbs, knuckles stinging. He pushes through the crowd, keeping his angry gaze peeled for hints of black.

There’s a steady anger simmering under the surface when he returns to his own bleak apartment. It’s unrelenting, and even as he winds down to sleep he savagely wishes he gave Rhaast a couple more bruises.

Several days later, Kayn hardly pays his father's voice any attention as it rings faintly through the door. What he hears next, however, makes him bolt upright.

"Is Kayn here?"

Kayn was honestly expecting not to see Rhaast again for a while. Rhaast and apologizing seem to exist contrary to one another. 

If he is here to apologize… Well, Kayn's still pissed. That fucking asshole—after he'd wheedled the details out of Kayn, he just threw them back in his face and started taunting him with it. What a dick. Insulting Kayn—insulting Zed— 

"Oh, you're that delinquent my son is always running around with," he father sneers. "That fucking brat. What do you want?"

"Oh." Rhaast's voice has shifted into something high and angry. "And you're the father that's always screaming at him. Lovely."

"What is that supposed to mean?" his father hisses, voice low with rage. "Don't tell me how to raise my own son—"

"Leave," Kayn demands, shoving open the door to stare down the two people outside.

Rhaast turns to him, expression smoothing over. "Kayn—"

"You shut up," Kayn orders him, sneering. He jabs his thumb at his father. "And you piss off. This has nothing to do with you."

"I don't take orders from you," his dad grumbles. He slinks away anyway, with one last disgusted glare at Rhaast. 

They watch him go, before Rhaast shifts and clears his throat. "Kayn—"

"You be quiet," Kayn hisses at him. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Rhaast shifts again. He looks nervous. Incredibly out of depth, incredibly uncomfortable, at least by Rhaast's standards.

Good. Kayn hopes he's fucking uncomfortable.

"I don't understand," Rhaast bites out, crossing his arms. Anger replaces the traces of discomfort in his demeanor. "Why would you—"

"Zed was the only family I ever had," Kayn snaps. "I wasn't just going to let them get away."

"It's foolish to care for someone," Rhaast sneers. "Especially someone that's already betrayed you. You don't understand what kind of people you're dealing with—"

"If you came here just to shit on me more, get the fuck out," Kayn snarls. He stomps back into his apartment, hand on the door. "I don't want to fucking hear it."

Rhaast straightens, eyes widening. "Wait—"

Kayn slams the door in his face. 

Kayn's dad is home three days later. He's in a bad mood.

Kayn had walked over and taken a piece of fruit, and that had set him off. His dad never needs a reason, not really. 

Glass shatters by his head. Kayn startles, whipping around with a scowl.

"Worthless brat," his dad hisses, expression contorted in hatred. "Fucking freeloading kid. Eating food and taking up space without a care in the world… just eating up money."

"As if you do anything better with it," Kayn bites out. "All you buy is booze."

His father's face reddens in anger. "You telling me what to do with my money?" he bellows, stomping closer and grabbing Kayn by the collar. He looms over Kayn, face set in disgust. It smells like alcohol and sweat, winding through the air like poison.

Kayn glares back. Rage runs through his veins, filling his blood and making his face contort into something similarly ugly. "Since you're asking," he spits, "Anything is better than using it on your worthless life."

Pain bursts across his cheek. Kayn's head snaps back.

"Don't talk to me like that!" his father roars, shoving him roughly against the wall. "You don't have a right to look at me like that. I should have left you on the curb as a kid."

"You should have," Kayn snarls. He wrenches himself free and sends a punch flying at his father's chin. Vicious satisfaction courses through him as it connects, sending his father stumbling back. He recovers with a snarl, eyes wild with fury, leaping forward to shove him to the ground. "Then I wouldn't have to deal with your bullshit—"

"Something's fucking wrong with you—"

"Maybe there is, but guess what? I got it from you—"

Kayn is shoved out the door several minutes later, sporting a new collection of bruises and aching wounds. He scowls, sending his fist crashing into the door as it locks behind him.

"Piece of shit!" he screams through the door, before stalking away.

I'll kill him. I'll fucking kill him.

Wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze. Stab a knife hilt-deep in his gut. Shoot him full of lead, watch him suffer before he died. Kayn wants to stomp on his face and hear it crack under his heel. He wants to choke the life out of his body and watch as his face turns purple. He wants to snap all his fingers in two, hear his screams of agony as each one gives out.

He wants to see the fear and pain and desperation in his eyes as he realizes he's going to die; the slow horror as he looks up at Kayn; his disgusting, disgusting life finally stamped out. He needs to suffer. He needs to suffer— 

Kayn's hands are shaking. His breathing is ragged, jaw clenched even without him realizing. His feet, he realizes, looking up at the apartment number in front of him, have brought him to Rhaast's door.

Kayn exhales, short and angry, and pushes the door open. He better not be at work, he thinks, eyes narrowed.

The door opens, and Kayn stalks inside. "Let's fight," he says, short and clipped, the moment he sees Rhaast. "Let's fight. You can break an arm or two, I don't care."

"Kayn—" Rhaast says. Carefully. Slowly. Kayn bristles. Rhaast isn't supposed to be careful. He's not supposed to be measured or reasonable or think things through. He's supposed to be just as angry and bloodthirsty and as messed up as Kayn. That's why they both stay, because they're both fucked up the same way.

"C'mon," Kayn says loudly, stalking up to Rhaast. "C'mon. I'm going to tear down this shitty fucking apartment, brick by brick, and then I'm going to set it on fire. Then I'll burn the rest of this fucking city, too."

Rhaast sighs. He gets up, stretching and blinking at Kayn.

"Alright," he says.

They fight.

It's short and savage and brutal. Kayn breaks away when his anger is spent, collapsing onto Rhaast and just holding onto him.

With the anger gone, he just feels empty.

Rhaast sighs. He hums a little, a deep rumble in his chest, and pats Kayn on the back. 

"I don't forgive you," Kayn bites out. "I hate you too."

"I know," Rhaast says. There's a pause. Here is maybe where a normal person would apologize, if not because they thought they were wrong but maybe because at least they could see that they upset him. Instead, Rhaast just says, "...Tell me about Zed?"

It's not an apology. Kayn doesn't know if Rhaast even knows how to apologize. But he recognizes it for what it is; a peace offering. Half of an admission, maybe, that he might be wrong. That he might regret things.

It's not really enough, but he'll take it. Kayn… Kayn misses Rhaast, he thinks. He doesn’t know what to do with his time anymore. He exhales slowly.

He can't stop thinking about it. His mind can't let go of the moment Rhaast picked him up, of the moment Kayn had crumpled into his hold as exhaustion took over him. He can't forget the feeling of warm hands curled around him, feeling rather than seeing the rise and fall of Rhaast's breath, and he felt… safe. Protected.

When was the last time he felt that way?

"Fine," he says. "Zed… he wasn’t a good person. But he saved me."

He keeps talking, a steady stream of words connecting the two of them. As he speaks, a weight lifts from his shoulders. He’s never talked about Zed; there's never been anyone willing to listen. All along it's been living under his skin, twisting and contorting and festering until he was even more broken inside. He talks, he tries to explain what Zed was to him without saying it, and with each word Zed feels more real. More permanent, more of a person, than just the scattered memories that Kayn has.

When he's done, maybe Rhaast understands a little. He's so fucking mad at Zed, for doing this, for leaving him, but he can't just let go of him. 

Between excursions through the city, between choking down disgusting food and fights and fists and blood that all blur together, their not-friendship rekindles. They don’t mention it again. Kayn silently holds it against Rhaast, holding him a little farther, but nothing really changes. Kayn still ends up sleeping at Rhaast's more often than his own apartment.

He's taken to just showing up unannounced, and Rhaast, for whatever reason, always lets him in. From there Rhaast will either go off to his own room to sleep or do fuck-all, or he'll stay up with Kayn.

It's one such night today. Kayn can't sleep, gripped with racing thoughts that dart away the moment he tries to grasp at them; an ever-present anxiety that's less about any one thing and more just everything.

For some reason, whenever he's in Rhaast's apartment like this, everything feels so far away yet so much more real.

It's a strange feeling, to be in the shadows of the apartment of a guy he really knows almost nothing about, the darkness so thick he cannot tell if his eyes are open or shut. The only thing he can sense is the warmth of Rhaast pressed nearby and his steady, quiet breaths. 

He must drift off like that, surrounded by darkness and smoke, inexplicably soothed.

He wakes with a start.

Rhaast is gasping, thrashing on the couch. Fingers scrabble at ratty cushions, desperately trying to grab onto anything solid. 

"Rhaast?" Kayn tries, to no response. He leans closer, only to find that Rhaast's eyes are shut, screwed up in desperation. Tears shine on his face. His mouth is moving, whispering words and pleas to an unseen threat.

"I didn't mean to," he begs, words broken and disjointed. It’s jarring coming from Rhaast, who is always unshakeable. Who never lets himself be weak or show doubts or fear. "Why are you doing this? Come back—I didn't know—"

Kayn bites his lip. He leans forward more, tentatively reaching out to shake Rhaast on the shoulder. "Rhaast."

"I don’t—I can’t go back there!”

Rhaast’s voice breaks halfway through the sentence. He sounds small. Weak. Uncertain and afraid. It makes some sort of protective anger roar to life, makes him redouble his efforts.

"Rhaast!" He shakes Rhaast harder. One of Rhaast's hands lashes out, still desperately searching for something to hold onto, and Kayn impulsively reaches out to take it in his own. 

Rhaast wakes with a sob.

He bolts upright, cutting off a choked scream with a sharp intake of breath. His hand spasms around Kayn's. Kayn lets out an involuntary hiss as nails dig into his palm, tentatively patting Rhaast’s shoulder.

At the noise, Rhaast startles. He rushes forward, pressing forward until he’s flush with Kayn’s chest. His other hand darts out to clutch onto Kayn, fingers still straining as if trying to gouge out his flesh. He gasps, still sobbing between breaths, clearly lost somewhere between his dream and reality.

Kayn pats him on the back warily. The motion is unfamiliar, the feeling stiff and awkward. Still, Kayn tries. He strokes the other's back and makes a little hum in the back of his throat.

"It's okay," he tries, words clumsy in his mouth. "You're here. Nothing's wrong."

Rhaast exhales, a loud and messy sound. His thrashing stills as he calms, but Kayn can still hear his labored breaths. "Kayn?"

"It's me," Kayn affirms, moving from patting Rhaast's back to rubbing little circles in it. He wonders which one he's supposed to settle on. They're both a little awkward.

"Kayn," Rhaast says, slowly. Taking his care with the name, saying it gently. Kayn shivers. "And I'm—Rhaast.” It sounds almost like a question.

Who else would you be? Kayn almost blurts, biting his tongue to stop from saying it. What else would you be? What happened to you? "Yes," he says instead. "Rhaast.”

Rhaast exhales again. Kayn can feel the way that he shudders as he does, his whole frame shaking. "You're bleeding."

Is he? His hand still hurts where Rhaast's nails had torn into it. It’s strange that Rhaast can tell—it's dark. Kayn shrugs in reply. “S’okay.”

Rhaast shifts, and then it’s quiet. He can hear Rhaast’s ragged breathing as it slowly calms, he can feel his muscles tremble and his body shudder. 

He doesn’t like the silence. All he can think about is the way that Rhaast is shaking, the way that he begged and cried. He’s still holding onto Kayn, fingers tight with desperation. Leftover tension lingers in the air, and Kayn clears his throat half out of curiosity and half to dispel it.

“What happened to you?”

Rhaast is still now, his trembling shrinking down to the barest movement. He exhales slowly, and every part of him comes to a halt. Even his breath stops; growing somehow steadier, more grounded. 

"I would destroy this city," he says finally, a faraway longing laced through his voice. Kayn gets the sense that he’s not talking to him, not really, but rather something distant. "I could. I could destroy whatever I wanted." He speaks with complete, dead seriousness, not a trace of arrogance or boasting in his tone. There's something magnetic about it. "I could lay waste to everything. Level continents and reduce skeletons to ash."

Everything feels so far away. Is this a dream too? Kayn feels like he's falling; a free fall where he may as well be floating instead. He could do anything right now, and none of it would be real in the morning. In this strange mood, Kayn—believes him. He can't find it in him to doubt him. At night in Rhaast’s apartment, maybe the laws are different, but they stand as this: Rhaast is something otherworldly. Something powerful. 

There's silence. Only the quiet hum of the heating rings through the air. When Rhaast speaks again, Kayn has to strain to make out his words.

"Kayn," spoken softly, like a promise, "I could lay waste to the entire world."

Kayn says nothing, mind racing. He shifts to face Rhaast, but Rhaast isn't looking at him. He's looking at the floor, expression very far away, face feverish with a strange mix of excitement and wonder.

"If you can," Kayn breathes, caught in a strange feeling of giddy apprehension, the fascination of seeing something horrible and stopping to watch, "Then do it. The world's rotten anyway."

"I want to," Rhaast murmurs. "I should. It's what I was made to do."

Not for the first time, Kayn wonders. Where did Rhaast come from? Who was he? There was something wrong about him. Like he was a person as an afterthought. He moves strange, like his joints are built differently than normal, like each movement has a strange sort of purpose. Sometimes Kayn looks at him and thinks that he is far too perfect, far too flawless to be made of flesh.

"Rhaast," Kayn rasps, and Rhaast's gaze flicks to him. "Are you human?"

It's a long time before Rhaast answers, long enough that he almost falls asleep in the time between.

"No," he says, voice hazy and almost lost among Kayn's drowsiness. "Something far, far more dangerous."

A week later, his father is drunk again.

Kayn stiffens when he hears the apartment door creak open, followed by the loud steps of his father. He looks up from his phone, sitting up straight and squaring his shoulders.

His father walks into the room a moment layer, stumbling to try and keep himself upright. His gaze wanders over to Kayn, and he startles, eyes going wide.

"Oh, 's just you…" the man mumbles, stopping in his tracks. He pauses to consider Kayn drunkenly, expression conflicted. Kayn bristles, lips peeling back in a reflexive snarl.

"Shieda… Shieda." His father regards him a little longer, frowning. He makes his way closer and puts his hand on Kayn's arm. Kayn stiffens under the touch, watching him warily.

Suddenly, his father's face crumples, and he bursts into tears. Kayn jumps and flinches back, heart pounding. His father's grip goes tight on his shoulder, nails digging into his skin.

"Son," he weeps. "My son. Shieda, what happened to you? You used to be such a good child."

Kayn remains frozen, eyes pinned to his father's crying face. Anger is starting to steadily build in his chest, a rage roaring up inside him. He can’t bring himself to move. It’s as if he’s watching in slow motion, seeing pieces slowly fall apart with a detached horror.

"I'm sorry," his father continues, and Kayn stiffens. "I'm sorry. I don't mean it, you know. You're my son. I don't mean to hurt you, I really don't. Shieda—Shieda—I loved you. I love you."

Something breaks.

"You shut up!" Kayn screams, voice raw and broken. He leaps from his chair, shoving his father to the floor. His legs tremble as he steps over him. Rage, hurt, and desperation threaten to drown him, leaving his whole body shaking. He drags in a shuddering breath, torn between turning on his father or simply running. His eyes sting. His teeth grind against each other as he blinks, jaw aching.

"It's all that wench's fault," his father says blankly, pulling himself up to sit on the floor. His gaze is so far away. Just the sight of him makes the desperate urge to hurt rise up in Kayn's chest. He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to hurt him. "It's not mine. You made me do it—you forced me to—"

"Shut up," Kayn cries, stepping over his father's prone form. “Don’t you dare—you don’t get to say that—” 

His body thrums with a strange, miserable kind of energy, bottled up with emotion desperate to get out. He turns to look at his father one last time before he flees. A lamp clatters to the ground as he bumps into it.

The door slams shut behind him. Kayn leans his head against the wall, breathing heavy. He closes his eyes, trying to force down the sick feeling that's risen in his throat.

It's no use. He can still hear his father through the door, his broken sobs. The sound of it makes the feeling double, making his hands clench into fists.

Fuck this.

"Rhaast," he says, already making his way to the apartment across from his. He tries the door, but it's locked. "Rhaast!" he calls again, louder. He jiggles the doorknob in frustration, kicking the door before turning away with a frustrated breath.

His feet carry him blankly down the stairs and out the door of the apartment complex. Kayn isn't thinking, hardly feeling, when he stops in front of Rhaast's workplace and stares Evelynn down.

"Rhaast," he demands.

Evelynn raises an eyebrow at him. "My, my, someone's in a state."

"Shut up," Kayn tells her. "Where's Rhaast?"

"Fine, fine," Evelynn sighs, getting up from the counter. "You're no fun like this. I'll get your precious Rhaast. He's only terrorizing the customers, anyway."

Rhaast's gaze sharpens, intense and feral, when he sees Kayn. Kayn doesn't respond. He hardly sees it. He lets Rhaast drag him out to the deserted back parking lot, then swings at him.

Blood, pain, and bruises. That's what he knows. That's what the world should stick with giving him. 

Really—how dare he? How dare he pretend that he cares about Kayn? That the pale, hopeless imitation of what he said was anything even close to what other people had? He'd dangled those words at him like a taunt; a silent reminder of what Kayn would never know. He'd said I love you like it meant anything to either of them, like Kayn had any idea of how to quantify it. That asshole—that piece of garbage—Kayn would kill him one day. He would kill him.

But despite everything, a desperate want is lodged in his throat. All he feels is a tidal wave of loss; grief for something that he had never had in the first place.

"Kayn," Rhaast says, catching one of his punches. "You're crying."

"I'm not," Kayn mutters, wiping his cheeks. He looks down incomprehensibly. They're wet. His face is wet, eyes stinging. He is crying.

"I—" Kayn can't remember the last time he cried. He hasn't cried since he was a child. And now here he was— weak, pathetic, driven to tears because his father had said I love you and not meant it.

A touch of the curve of his cheek brings Kayn out of his thoughts. He looks up. Rhaast is watching him carefully, fingers gently brushing away tears.

Kayn's face crumples. He rushes toward Rhaast, wrapping his arms around the other's chest. It’s easy to burrow into him, greedily searching for his familiar warmth. Taking and taking and taking—

Rhaast holds him again. Gentle, somehow. Kayn is so used to Rhaast’s hands covered in blood or clutching knives. It’s strange that they’re not trying to hurt anything. 

"Sorry," Kayn hiccups, voice breaking as he tries to force words out. "Sorry for always bothering you. Sorry for making you fight me all the time. Sorry for dragging you away from work."

Rhaast sighs. Kayn feels it. Up, down, the steady rise and fall. "Rest, Kayn."

Rhaast isn’t human, but maybe Kayn isn’t either. Maybe he’s something rotten, something broken. 

He can hurt himself until he's spotted with bruises and has wounds that sting every time he moves; he can scream at his father and sling raging words at him; he can lurch through things and destroy endlessly until everything he's ever owned is in pieces around him, but it won't change the core of it. The fact that, after everything is burnt away, all the happiness and emptiness and sorrow, all that's left is hatred. 

And there is nothing he can do about it. There is nothing that can change the fact that the essence of who he is is anger. No matter what he destroys and how hard he tries to do anything about it, he's powerless. It will always be there, as long as there is something to hate. 

He can do horrible things. He can trip people and sneer at them or close doors on their fingers or chuck their phone off the bridge, and he can do even worse things. He can watch in a detached fascination the way that his own skin turns red when he puts enough pressure on it, then blue and green and brown as the days pass. It’s heady, the temptation that arises whenever he gets the chance to be horrible. He watches the sweet pull and whisper of something that can be broken, and he wants.

But it’s not really enough. It’s never enough. As long as there’s something else to break, Kayn will want to break it. 

Kayn is still angry. Kayn ruins everything he touches.

"You're bleeding," Rhaast says.

This is not new. Kayn and Rhaast both are always some form of bleeding. No, what's strange this time is how much he's bleeding. It's already beginning to drip down his arms, soaked up by his clothes or the cheap rug on the floor. Kayn frowns at the puddle that's forming beneath him.

"What are you doing," Rhaast hisses as he cracks open the door. His eyes widen when he sees the state Kayn is in, reaching out and yanking him inside. Kayn stumbles from the force, head swimming. He grimaces, trying to steady himself against the nearest object—which happens to be Rhaast. Kayn closes his eyes and leans against him, wrapped up in the smell of smoke.

"You fool," Rhaast is snarling, fingers trying to pry his arms up to look at the wounds. "What did you go and get yourself involved in—"

Kayn sways, then forces his eyes open. He has a goal. He peers at Rhaast, who is studying his wounds. His pupils are dilated, breathing heavy.

There's something that Kayn has noticed about Rhaast. Around blood, he always gets a little unhinged. A little manic, a little more uncontrolled. A little hungry.

It's true now. He's shaking, trembling like an addict on withdrawal, eyes fixed to the bright red welling from Kayn's arm. His grip is tight, hard enough to hurt. Kayn doesn't say anything. He's watching.

Rhaast’s eyes are dark, anger brought to the surface. But beyond that, there's want, held back by thin vestiges of self-restraint.

He looks so, so hungry. So close to snapping. A little shiver runs down Kayn's spine, and he presses closer, curious.

"Take it," he says, clumsily shoving his arm towards Rhaast's mouth. He watches the way that his lips part unconsciously, head drifting closer. "You want it, don't you?"

"What—" Rhaast's gaze snaps to Kayn. His eyes are blown wide with shock and rage. "You—"

"It's for you," Kayn coaxes, waving his arm and watching the way that Rhaast's eyes follow it. Like a moth to light. Already deep on the path of what is a Very Bad Decision, spurred onwards by god-knows-what, a mix of impulsivity and twisted curiosity, he leans forward.

"You want it," he repeats. "Blood and death and carnage." Then, heart hitching to beat faster, a sudden realization hits him like a shock of cold water. Before he can even fully process the thought, he's adding, "Do it. Take it. Kill me."

Rhaast's hand shoots out and grabs him by the throat.

Kayn just wanted to know what would happen, really. He hadn't planned to get this far, but when has he ever planned anything? He's wide awake now, watching with sharp interest, every bit of attention focused on Rhaast.

His neck seems so fragile in Rhaast's grip. Spine and muscle and cartilage, all built so delicately in order to speak and swallow and breathe, but it crumples easily under enough force. A squeeze, enough pressure, and the whole fragile column would collapse. His life in Rhaast's hands. A low thrill runs through him, an unbalanced excitement.

Maybe he’s about to die. Maybe he’s seconds away, maybe Rhaast will shatter his neck and spine and everything in between like a piece of glass, but the only thing he can feel is exhilaration. 

His heart's beating fast. He can feel the pulse of it in his throat, fluttering as if caught by Rhaast's grasp. 

Rhaast's expression is feverish. Lit with feral ecstasy, his mind far away and caught in a strange fantasy, another world. 

"You," he growls. His voice is lower, rough and ragged as it rips from his throat. The rumble of it sends a jolt through him, a heat that collects in his stomach. "You're a fool, willingly offering your life to me."

Do it, Kayn thinks, feeling awake for maybe the first time this week, this month, this year, every nerve alight. This, maybe, is what he’s meant for. He holds himself carefully still. Waiting. Watching. Do it. Do it.

Kayn's throat works, to say something or to try and struggle for breath, and something in Rhaast's expression breaks. Emerging from an impossible daydream, the coldness of reality rushing back in. Horror flashes across his face, and he rips his hand away, wrenching himself back. Kayn falls with nothing to hold him up.

Kayn gasps, lungs working as air rushes back to them. He sits up, trying to swallow. Rhaast huddles on the floor beside him, chest heaving as he struggles for breath. He looks—terrified, Kayn realizes with an odd pang.

Kayn reaches out tentatively. His voice rasps as it tries to work. "Hey—"

Rhaast whirls around. “You—” he snaps, cutting himself off. If he had ears like a cat, they would be pinned flat to his head. Kayn’s never seen Rhaast like this; pupils as terrified pinpricks, mouth twisted in a defensive snarl, all hunched in on himself to hide his vulnerable parts.

Kayn doesn’t know what he should be feeling, but it’s not this. A gaping emptiness, a slow, churning guilt that clings to him like nausea, rolling around and around his stomach. 

“I—” he begins.

“Leave,” Rhaast snaps, voice ragged. “Get out.”

Kayn stumbles to his feet. Something is wrong. Something went wrong here. He gets to the door and looks back at Rhaast, half-formed words on his tongue, not quite sure what he would say.

A lamp crashes into the wall beside him, shattering into porcelain shards with a loud crack. Kayn stumbles back.

“Get out!”

Kayn gets out.

Kayn debates what to do for all of one indecisive hour the next morning, before finally just knocking on Rhaast’s door. He’s never really been one for sensitivity.

Rhaast opens the door, looks at the new collection of bruises he has on his neck, and promptly shuts it.

“Rhaast!” Kayn calls, voice hoarse, slightly miffed. “Let me in!”

Rhaast does not respond. Kayn scowls. 

“You’re a coward!” he tries, trying to pitch his voice louder. It doesn’t really work; his words all come out as weak little wisps. “C’mon, let me in or I’ll break your door down!”

Still no response. Kayn glares at the door, more words on the tip of his tongue. He could wait here for Rhaast to come out. He’s gotten quite good at sitting at doors waiting for things to happen, though maybe he’s a bit out of practice.

But… Kayn hesitates. The guilt churning in his stomach hasn’t gone away, still kicking around. The image of Rhaast, terrified because of him, all scrunched up and trying to cower, flashes in his mind.

Maybe he shouldn’t be here. He’s no good at things like this. Maybe he should give it a couple more days, when his bruises and cuts have faded along with that haunted look in Rhaast’s eyes.

“I—” Kayn begins, voice failing him. He kicks the wall, scowling in frustration. “I’m sorry.”

There’s still nothing. Kayn sighs, then turns to leave.

There's something lonely about suffering.

Loneliness is hard to quantify, hard to define and hard to describe. But nothing exemplifies it quite like misery.

When you're crying in the dark and there's no one around to hear you and no one that would care if they could; when you're bleeding and you have to wind gauze and bandage around the wound all by yourself, trying to calm the trembling in your hands enough to dress the wound neatly. When, eventually, your crying fades away and all you're left with is yourself, because even though you screamed and begged and projected all your misery out to the world, there was no one that answered it. 

And now you have to deal with the aftermath yourself, you gotta wipe away the ugly tears and snot on your face with your own hands, you gotta take a deep breath and wash your face to try and hide the redness around your eyes, you gotta calm down the wild intensity of your breakdown and pick up your own broken pieces with no one to even see it. And eventually you've hidden all the evidence, you've collected yourself into a functional person again, and who's to say that anything bad happened at all? Who's to say that you really cried, you really bled? In the end you were the only one that cared. And when the future comes and it happens again, you have the bleakness of the same fate to look forward to.

And who's to say you were ever real at all? Who's to say you were ever a person, when no one has ever seen you and understood you? And who are you without the knowledge, tucked safe beside your heart, that someone else knows who you are? Without that to ground you, to hold together all the broken pieces, you might as well not be real at all.

Kayn is lonely.

Kayn has never quite realized what it was like to be lonely, before Rhaast. Before Rhaast it had always ever just been normal. Another reason he was angry without knowing why.

The dreams only grow more vivid, and his waking hours more hazy. Kayn tastes blood on his tongue when he wakes, a sharp metal tang that he can’t wash out no matter how hard he tries. He feels the rough handle of a weapon under his palms, feels the smoke curl around him like a blanket.

Kayn dreams. Kayn gets kicked out of their apartment to the disgusted sneer of his father, and he spends the nights in the hallway just like old times. Kayn tracks blood and bruises through the elevator after fights in the streets, still somehow jittery and antsy for more. Kayn visits the dojo and looks for someone who isn’t there anymore, Kayn redownloads old phone games, and Kayn watches the depressing skyline of the city completely alone.

Kayn is alive, but he doesn’t feel like it. Kayn is awake, but nothing feels real. It all feels like it is made of clouds, hazy and indistinct, breaking apart the moment he touches it.

He realizes, then—Rhaast is the first person he wants to tell new things to. When something happens, his thoughts loop back to wanting to share it with him. Does that make them friends?

He doesn’t really like that revelation. 

Rhaast finds him again when his bruises have faded, from purple to green to yellow, then finally gone as if they had never been there at all.

“Kayn,” he says.

Kayn startles from his perch on the rooftop, whipping around. “Rhaast!”

Rhaast makes his way over and sits beside him, not touching. There’s a strange distance that wasn’t there before, an unfamiliarity that had melted away somewhere in between late night TV binges, bickering about the food Rhaast buys, and trips to Denny’s at 4AM. Kayn hates it. 

“I’m sorry,” Kayn says. The words aren’t any easier to say than last time, sticking like grime to the roof of his mouth, but he forces them out anyway.

“I hate you,” Rhaast says. He’s frowning. He looks terrible; completely wrecked, a little miserable. “I hate you. I really do.”

“I’m sorry,” Kayn says again, fully turning around to face Rhaast. It’s easier to say this time. Kayn hates himself too, he thinks. But in the end Rhaast is back, and it seems that the both of them are stuck with him.

“Why’d you do that?” Rhaast demands abruptly. “I almost…”

Kayn pauses. “I wanted to know,” is all he can offer, and Rhaast releases an angry, short breath. He didn't think. Kayn never thinks. It's all arrogance, I'll deal with it if it's a problem. If he wants something, he takes it. 

Then, because it feels important, though it’s not really anything at all, “I didn’t think that would happen.”

“You didn’t think I’d almost kill you,” Rhaast snaps.

Kayn pauses. “No,” he says. Then, another thought occurring to him, he adds: "I didn't mean to. But still, if you wanted… I would let you."

He thinks of Rhaast's hand curled around his throat, heart beating against it. The odd trust in surrendering himself, the way that he felt, despite all odds, safe. Rhaast hovering around him, close by with him hands on him, warm and smelling like smoke and something else— 

Hungry. Ravenous. His expression; unhinged and manic and a little desperate. A monster. A demon. Inhuman. Brutal, feral, all sharp edges and burning fire.

There's that feeling again, the thrill of toeing the line of death. Kayn drifts closer. Look at me, he thinks, staring into Rhaast's eyes. Look at me.

Rhaast doesn't move. He's watching Kayn, with those bright pinpricks of eyes. Hungry. Manic, feral. Not meant to be here, not really, not meant to be boxed in by a place with four walls and stifling grays. A beautiful monster that is far too perfect to be human.

Rhaast's eyelashes flutter as he blinks. Hair curls around his jaw, grown out and choppy from botched haircuts. The line of his jaw is sharp, all harsh angles and sharp bone.

Kayn wants, he realizes. He wants with a pull deep in his stomach, an urge that's maybe been following him since the day they met.

"Why," Kayn asks, voice barely a whisper. "Did you stop? Why did you care?"

Rhaast flinches. His eyes still hold that eternal anger, still burning steadily. There’s an odd hesitance before he speaks, choosing his words carefully. When Kayn meets his eyes, he looks lost. Afraid, even. “I don’t know either.”

Kayn wants. He doesn't want to be away from him.

He steps closer, hand lingering on the collar of Rhaast's jacket, locking eyes with him.

And he kisses him.

They don't keep their hands off each other.

It's constant; leaning into the other's space, hands all over each other, pressing kisses and bites across the other's skin. They're locked together with a hungry fascination, hopelessly enamored and hopelessly intertwined. 

There's a certain hesitation that Rhaast treats him with, now. When he touches him, there's a light on in his eyes that is almost terrified, hands hovering and afraid to touch, as if he'd snap in half the moment Rhaast nudged him. Kayn rushes to fill the spaces left by Rhaast's newfound hesitance, pressing forward and insistent. I'm here. I'm here. You can't break me that easily.

They fight. They fuck. Rhaast grows bolder, until they're both trying to break each other again.

They get closer, drifting together, and all along Kayn feels a sort of apprehension. There's a building feeling in his gut that something has to give, them or the world. That they are incompatible with the world as it is, that something is going to happen.

Kayn waits, anticipation sparking for the moment the storm begins. Like watching a room full of gasoline, match struck and ready to be thrown. 

Rhaast goes to work, Kayn fights with his father, they watch from the rooftop a city teeming with life on the brink of an abyss, and— 

Something is building on the horizon. Inevitable, terrible, enough to level everything to the ground.

It happens one day when Kayn is wandering the city alone; he finds the black suits again. 

Like before, it’s not really an option when he follows them.

The crowd is much thinner this time, and Kayn is able to tail them, keeping his eyes trained on scraps of black. Hints of Noxian accented words slip through the noise of the city, raising a familiar hatred.

The Noxians turn the corner into an alleyway. Kayn narrows his eyes and sneaks after them, straining to keep them in sight.

He doesn't see his attacker until it's too late.

Pain bursts through his temple, the force of the blow sending him staggering back. Reflexive tears prick his eyes, and Kayn clutches his head as he tries to find his bearings. The world blurs. His head spins. He grits his teeth, trying to pull himself to stand.

Another sharp, metallic clang. Agony cracks through his jaw, and he coughs on blood that fills his mouth. The force unbalances him, sending him sprawling to the ground. Rough concrete meets his back as it hits the wall behind him.

I'm not weak, he thinks fiercely, trying to squint through hazy vision. I'm not.

"—Kill him—" his attacker is saying, as another man steps from the shadows. "—Zed’s student—"

Zed? Kayn thinks blearily as he grits his teeth and tries to force his limbs to work. His head hurts, loud ringing filling his ears. Throat working, trying to force words out, all he manages is, "...ed?"

He's spent so long looking. So long wondering why he left, why he took off one day as if he had never been there at all, why he had left Kayn. He had thought—he thought that maybe, maybe— 

"That's right," his attacker says mockingly, squatting down so they're eye level with him. A click, and then the touch of something cool to his forehead. A gun. "Your precious Master Zed isn't here to save you. He's gone."

Kayn blinks tears away from his watering eyes, resting his head against the concrete wall. His head hurts.

It's cold. He hates Zed, too. Why'd he have to leave him? If he needed to run, to get away from these freaks, then he could have taken Kayn with him. He would have followed. It's not like he had anything left for him in this city.

He doesn't want Zed. He wants…

"Rhaast," Kayn croaks.

He barely sees his attacker's eyes widen. "What—"

It smells like smoke. Only faintly, the scent carried by wind. It's comforting all the same, settling along his skin like an embrace. In the distance; a low rumble, the smell of blood, something sharp and iron and red.

"Rhaast," Kayn murmurs. It doesn't hurt anymore. He's not scared anymore. He sleeps.

Blood coats Kayn's arms. This isn't new. There's the scling, the slice of something metal cutting through flesh as easily as it does air. The weight of it is unfamiliar in his hands, and just the feel of it makes disgust well up in his throat. He wants to claw off his skin to erase the evidence of the slaughter on his skin. To scrub it raw and red until there's not even a trace of it on his fingernails.

Kayn brings his bloodsoaked hand to his mouth instead. He's shaking. Crying. Tears running down his cheeks and cutting tracks in the grime and gore on his face.

He drinks. He can't stop. It's good. It's so good, the taste of blood on his tongue, the slide of it down his throat. It's the best thing he's ever tasted, and he knows the moment it hits his lips that this is what he was meant to do. Destroy and kill and eat the bloody remains.

"Dad," he croaks, licking the remnants of blood off his hands and stumbling towards the crumpled body in the middle of the room. He kneels beside it and props it up with his hands, choking back a sob at the sight of the mutilated mess in front of him, the slashes that carve out entire chunks of flesh. His hands shake as they try to piece together torn skin, mauled beyond repair. And even still, he… "Dad."

He wants to feast. There's a meal in front of him that he isn't taking.

His father places his trembling hands on Kayn's shoulders. Still alive, despite everything. "Rhaast," he rasps. "Rhaast. You need to run."

Kayn looks into his eyes, trembling in their last moments, and knows what he means.

They’re going to find him. They’re going to kill him. They’re going to take him back to that place again.

He won’t let them. He won’t let them. He won’t let them. He’ll never go back.

Smoke and blood and gore. Carnage. Everything, wiped clean and reduced to atoms. Gone. Silent.

Dead.

"Kayn."

Kayn stirs, lifting his head. He tries to force his eyes open, tries to move. "Rhaast."

Fingers on his eyelids, a light weight resting on them. "Don't open your eyes."

Kayn shudders. He nods. "What did you do?"

It's quiet. Too quiet. The city, even the back alleys, are always rustling with movement, filled to each grimy brim with life. There is no laughter drifting out of open windows, no music spilling from seedy bars, no scurry of rats darting in the gutters. It's all silent.

It smells like smoke. The smell is so strong he can taste it. Each breath he draws brings with it the heavy smog-filled air, weighed down by an incredible amount of ash.

It smells like blood. It smells like fire. Like the dust of ruined buildings, like sand under the desert sun.

Rhaast's hands are wet when he picks him up. Kayn clings to him, scrambling to try and clutch onto something solid. To try and cling to Rhaast. Familiar. Safe. A comfort.

"You shouldn't worry about it."

What are you? Kayn thinks. "Where are you going?" he asks instead, because it's a much more important question. Rhaast has started to move beneath him, muscles shifting as he walks.

"Away," Rhaast responds. "There's nothing left for me in the city."

Kayn nods. He doesn't quite care where Rhaast goes so much as if he takes Kayn with him. He struggles to adjust his grip, and Rhaast's hands tighten on him. A silent answer.

Rhaast leaves behind the quiet, quiet city of depressing grays and smudged skylines where nothing is quite real. Off to a different one, perhaps, or maybe a village, a town, or someplace else altogether.

Rhaast goes, and he takes Kayn with him.