Work Text:
Bad habits are hard to remove, but Kartein tries with surgical precision. Picking the right words eases the way for a clean separation. Carbon-steel scalpel sharp. Indifference is a pair of forceps, grasping emotion, holding it at distance, and avoidance is anesthesia, dragging the habit under, preparing it for the cut.
Kayden's disappearance arrives from some nameless faceless patient. Forgettable, save for the news she delivered. Didn't you hear? she'd asked, as if in disappointment he wasn't fucking omniscient.
The news is unavoidable. No. Inevitable. With all the idiotic crap Kayden pulls when he tires of old thrills, each opponent more ridiculous than the last, inevitable is the fairer word.
Kartein forms a pantomime in his mind. It is dark. The breeze is brisk and sharp. Ms. Nameless Faceless lies on the ground, blood gushing out from a ruptured femoral artery. He waits, rather than treating her, calculating how much blood must be lost before healing is no longer feasible. Waiting for the second before that seesaw tip into death. Waiting for the pleasure of it. And when he tips her back from that edge, triggering his force control, the rush of satisfaction is bliss. He shakes his head. How foolish. How absurd. Aside from basic morals that block him from constructing these challenges, healing and the chase for ranker after ranker have no comparison. The struck-nerve bit-wire tang at the thought, however, tastes moreish.
Little deaths are slightly more interesting, but not by much. Descriptions with a spiritual nature lack weight compared to the grounded mechanisms of oxytocin release. Emptiness after, he understands. It fits in the dip of a mattress that hasn't yet risen to its original position. In lingering warmth that wraps around like a thin sheet. But the sensation is just some evolutionary reward, as base as the urge for sugar and fat. Nothing deeper. As intimate as hotel room sex when his home is within travel distance.
"Hey, did you die?"
Kartein wakes to an irritating voice, stiff muscles, and cold. The cold is from freezing water. As a bonus, his hands are pruney and need moisturizer, while his shoulders ache as he props himself higher in the tub. Staring at him from above is the owner of said voice: Kayden Break.
"Have we suddenly become close enough for you to interrupt me bathing?"
"I waited one whole fucking hour."
"In case it isn't painfully clear, I fell asleep. Are you admiring the view?"
"Is that a problem?"
"Well, it looks like you want to join, but the water has gone cold, so it wouldn't be very pleasant."
Taking this as an invitation to do whatever the hell he wants, Kayden twists the hot water tap, and the warmth diffuses through the bath like an embrace. "How about now?" Without waiting for a response, he climbs in fully clothed, shirt on, pants on, contaminating the water. Ugh. "The clothes are so I don't freeze to death. See how I listened to you?"
The fucking audacity. Kartein pulls his legs in so there's enough space for the both of them, glaring, and they sit face to face, knees bumping.
"It's not like I'll electrocute you. There was a guy who challenged me near a pier, ha. Guess how-"
"Yes, that's quite idiotic. Are you satisfied?"
"Nope. Not yet."
"Did you push him in?"
"The dumb fuck tripped." Kayden snorts.
"Really, I bet the water just happened to have a three hundred million volt current running through it?"
"Happy coincidence."
Sighing as if he could exhale all the nonsense he heard like carbon dioxide, Kartein starts scrubbing his hair with the hotel shampoo. Peppered with citrus fragrance, it's low quality compared to any products he keeps at home, but it works well enough. He shuts his eyes so the suds don't get in. When he opens them again, as expected, Kayden is still watching.
"Please keep staring. Did you want to help out as well?"
"What? Oh. I'd have to get out to wash your hair, though."
"That's the point of why I suggested it."
"Ah… sure. Okay." Kayden climbs out the tub. At minimum, he should look like a drowned rat. But soap suds may as well be seafoam on his clothes, now half-sheer, clinging to his form like an invitation to peel them off again. Like he's fresh from his fight at the pier. Still hungry after a too-brief battle, with darkened eyes and a smile that would have been arrogant if it weren't backed by his brute. That ability to force bright skies into storms with a finger snap.
He walks behind the bathtub, working his hands through Kartein's hair.
Kartein tilts his head back and closes his eyes to focus on the scratch of fingers around his scalp. It's too soft, as if Kayden's unsure. Working through the knots in his hair, Kayden's hands are slow and warm; almost too warm after sitting in the frigid water.
"Can't believe I'm doing this."
"It feels good. Can you keep going, please?"
"If you do me after."
"To clarify, do your hair, correct?"
"Wow. Mind out of the gutter. What did you think I meant?"
"You little- fine, I suppose you can do me whenever you'd like if you just mean hair."
"Touché."
Kayden brushes a clump of bubbles from Kartein's brow so it doesn't reach his eyes. This is too intimate. Too real. No. Not too real. Sometimes, he can only see Kayden within a funhouse. In one mirror he feigns squeamish at the water temperature, and in another he jokes about how he murdered his opponent. And now, is what Kartein sees just another distortion?
"Which is it?" he murmurs.
What are you, behind your fake weakness to me and fake cruelty to others?
The hands in his hair stop. "Hm?"
"How often do you take an opponent seriously? I mean, how often is it not a game?"
"It's… hard to separate."
"Do you mean, all of it is just a game?"
"It's more like… why would I fight if it's not fun?"
"Perhaps for accomplishment's sake."
"In the same package. Is healing fun?"
"Obviously not, do you know how much of a pain-"
"Be honest with me."
"Of course I enjoy healing. But that doesn't mean it's fun."
"You never get a rush out of it."
"No," Kartein says too quickly.
"You sure about that?"
"I was going to say, the reason why healing is not fun is because I have to deal with patients like you. I'm getting sick of your shitty personality, so you can leave now."
There isn't a witty retort in response. Nor a snap of anger. Just silence. Silence, then Kayden leaves the room.
Kartein slides under the surface, holding his breath until his lungs burn. He holds it some more. And some more. And some more. When he eventually leaves the bathroom, Kayden is gone. All that's left of his things are a pile of wet clothes in a laundry basket, and he was in such a rush to leave that the closet doors are left flung open, several coat hangers lying cluttered on the floor. The irony of Kartein having kicked someone out of their own hotel room is not lost on him. He composes a text message:
>> Apologies. I didn't mean that.
The response:
>> Are we close enough for apologies?
The only way to fight indifference, when it's wielded as a weapon, is with more indifference. The first to display emotion is the first to capitulate. As Kartein deletes the message he was midway through composing, he examines the facts again. On one side of the see-saw: a disappearance confirms that Kayden isn't dead. Who wouldn't make a spectacle out of his death? On the other: getting out of a battle with top rankers and remaining unscathed is the stuff of fairy tales. He's definitely injured.
None of his business. Kartein retypes the message, then deletes it again. None of his business.
Besides, Kayden can handle himself. He'd climb up a crumbling building, reach the top, and stay to watch it fall apart. His laughter would fuse with the rumble of debris hurtling down, cracking into pieces and bouncing off his force field like hail to rain to steam. Smoke and dust would obscure him, but not devour him; after it'd clear, he'd stand unscathed in the wreckage. Or perhaps this is just another of Kartein's distortions. An exaggeration of his savagery, as far-fetched as it may sound to the rest of the awakened world. Otherwise, how could Kartein understand the right moment of vulnerability, the right words, the right tone of voice (the wrong moment, wrong words, wrong tone) to drive him away?
Even if it is an exaggeration, to believe in his cruelty rather than his weakness, is to believe he will be okay. Thus Kartein chooses the version of Kayden who left simply because he tired of their game. When his doorbell rings but it's just another patient, when his phone rings at midnight but it's just a scam call; every time, he picks this version of Kayden.
Didn't you hear?
Kartein doesn't shy away from self-reflection, so he can confess his worst habit is this: the tendency to think of Kayden as his. Rather than a patient, an acquaintance, a friend; his patient, his acquaintance, his friend, his… his in whatever term they'd agreed upon.
If this thought was more than some bathwater reflection, he would have heard.
Maybe for the better, he hadn't. It will take two seconds to delete the contact. Hovering over the option, Kartein considers it, then shakes his head. Some habits are too tough to sever.