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Kian hooked his hands around Rolan’s arm, leaning into the man’s side for support as they delicately wove through the crowded Chicago streets. Kian nearly stumbled, tightening his grip and letting out a slow breath, trying to press himself as close as he could to Rolan’s side, practically melting into the other man. For once, he didn’t want to be noticed. There were too many people here, Kian felt too on edge with the occasional person brushing against his arm, the constant sensation of eyes trailing across his form. Watching him. Observing him.
Maybe it was due to how close he was clinging onto Rolan. How he was dressed in a long dress and makeup (though no one would be none the wiser with the way his hair fell down his shoulders), how he stumbled and limped when he walked because his legs didn’t want to cooperate and his knees kept popping out of sockets. It didn’t help that he wasn’t really wearing the best shoes for walking around, but he had gotten too cocky when getting dressed this morning. His hip wobbled and cracked and Kian used Rolan as an anchor just to walk upright.
Rand walked on Kian’s other side, doing his best to support him as well but ultimately letting Rolan do all the work. Rand hummed softly under his breath and kept his chin tilted up, eyes narrowed behind his tinted sunglasses. His expression was tense and his gaze would occasionally flick back over to Kian or Rolan with an unreadable look on his face. It was like he was constantly on guard, occasionally stepping a bit closer to Kian whenever someone tried to walk between them, getting a few glares as the person would be forced to walk around them.
They were really going to be those types of pricks on the sidewalk, huh? Especially considering Kian could not walk super fast and kept having to pause to catch his breath.
Rand glared suspiciously at every person walking by and Kian was too focused on keeping himself standing to try and decipher the way that Rand was looking at the world. He could do that later when they were in the safety of their (Rolan’s) apartment. Then he could bring up the issue and maybe pass on some advice that he had tucked into his pocket during therapy. Advice that both of them would probably disregard, but it was worth a shot anyway.
Rolan shifted his arm, elbow popping in and out of place and Kian tried to support himself while Rolan readjusted. They slowed their pace and Kian sucked in a deep breath, holding it in his lungs for a second before letting it out.
He shivered despite the summer air and nearly tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. He curled both hands around Rolan’s arm this time and bit down hard on the inside of his mouth.
Rolan didn’t seem to mind, or if he did, he didn’t say anything about it, politely nodding and allowing Kian to hang off of him. He didn’t show the initial disgust that Kian had expected upon seeing the outfit that Kian had chosen, and had even wrapped his arm around Kian’s shoulders at one point, keeping him sturdy and doing his best to support him.
He didn’t try and shove Kian off or pretend like they weren’t associated with each other. When Kian wasn’t clinging onto his arm, he wrapped Kian up against his side and held him gently. Kian didn’t even know how much that would have meant to him until it happened and he was nearly tearing up.
Kian’s skin practically pulsed with the beat of his heart and he shivered, taking another step and his left knee nearly gave out. A shooting pain radiated from his lower body and Kian sucked in a sharp breath. A low rumbling noise echoed in his chest and he did his best to swallow it down, knowing that people stared for those kinds of things as well.
His entire body hurt, and his limbs felt wrong like he couldn’t control them fully. His skin felt wrong, his arms felt wrong, and his legs felt wrong. Kian’s fingers spasmed and his grip unconsciously tightened around Rolan’s arm. His skin felt stretched too tight which made it difficult for him to bend his arms or to take each step. He was too stiff and yet his joints popped easily out of place. Somewhere between too flexible and not flexible at all.
Kian’s knee cracked again and he gasped at the sudden jolt of pain, a wave of dizziness causing the world around him to spin and tumble back and forth. The edges of his vision clouded in a ring of black and Kian blinked, breath heaving in his lungs as he was barely able to pull himself back onto his trembling ankles. He squeezed his eyes shut and let Rolan guide him for a few seconds, not watching where he was going.
When he opened his eyes again, Kian felt his vision tunnel, everything around him blurring for a few seconds as the sounds of people talking or cars honking merged together in one agglomeration. He could hear music filtering in from either a nearby shop or someone playing an instrument on the street and the sound went right through him. He squeezed Rolan’s arm tightly, unintentionally digging his nails into his skin.
Why did it suddenly get so loud? Everything around them seemed to have turned up the volume significantly and it was still so hard for Kian to walk. He could barely will his body to move one foot in front of the other, let alone keep himself balanced as well as making sure he was going in the right direction. His legs moved but he didn’t know if he was actually walking, or where they were walking to.
His recollection of their original reason for going out of the apartment faded, he didn’t remember why they were out here or where they were going. Kian could barely recognize their surroundings, knowing that they were somewhere in Chicago but unaware of where in the city or how far they had walked.
Kian’s legs trembled so hard he was afraid that they were going to give out, the pain in his knees and hips nearly unbearable, shooting up his spine with every step. They didn’t want to stay sturdy or allow him to easily balance and Kian nearly gagged at the sensation of his own joints clicking or popping into place.
How did Rolan do it every day? Every time he stood up from a position after too long he had to pop his joints back into place—the proper place that they should be for a human. It was like he was constantly adjusting, making sure his joints sat right or how they were supposed to be. Kian would be sick every time if he had to do that. And sometimes, he did.
He was supposed to still be human. But his body was frail and his joints even weaker, like they still wanted to take that horrible form. Kian let out a short puff of breath, chest tightening as he struggled to get each breath in, walking completely on autopilot with no recognition of where they were going. He wasn’t even paying attention to where they were going, fully relying on Rolan to keep him going.
It felt like he was wading through thick syrup, everything else hazy and uncoordinated in his vision. Details were impossible to see and faces that they passed by were unable to be recognized, even though Kian didn’t know anyone in this city. Kian could scarcely feel the arm that he had wrapped his fingers around, his palms on fire but unable to feel the sensations around him. He squeezed tighter, trying to shake some semblance of feeling and control back into his body.
The way he was moving felt wrong, it felt unnatural, like this wasn’t the way that his body was supposed to be moving (was he walking correctly? This was how people walked, right?). His skin felt wrong, the sound of Kian’s heartbeat thrumming loudly in his ears and making it hard for him to hear anything else besides his rapid breathing. Was it audible the way that Rolan’s was at night when they were laying next to each other in bed? The noises around him were loud, sure, but he could barely make out anything through the pandemonium.
He needed to sit down, his legs were going to give out or his body was going to give out.
Either that or Kian was going to faint.
“Rand—” Kian started, voice sounding far away in his throat, he swallowed thickly, no, he was holding onto Rolan at the moment, he was closer, “Ro-Rolan, hey…”
He had no idea if his voice was audible or comprehensible. His voice might be shaking too badly for either of them to understand, but Kian needed to stop, he couldn’t keep walking not knowing where he was going or where he was supposed to be. Kian didn’t like being disoriented. His eyes wouldn’t focus on the rest of the city around them, and it was hard to filter anything through the mess of his jumbled thoughts. It was like he was walking blindfolded with headphones on blaring the loudest song that he knew, every single sense being taken away from him.
Everything felt tangled, impossible to try and unravel from everything else. His thoughts were wound up in a mess of pieces of dialogue and memories, things that he didn’t even want to remember coming up to the surface before he could try and push them down. Things from this morning, from last night, from earlier in that day, things from Galloway, from when they were younger, from when he was in Hollywood. Too much, it was too much.
“Ki, you okay?”
Kian didn’t even know who had asked him that, he couldn’t tell the difference between Rand's and Rolan’s voices, it was just sound that was close enough to filter in through the mess of incomprehensible noise. It was one of them, he was sure that it was supposed to be them. No one else would choose to talk to Kian like that, no one was close enough at the moment for him to understand.
“I… Uh…” Kian slid his tongue over his lips, and he leaned against Rolan, barely pressing his face against his shoulder to try and hide from the rest of the society. He squeezed his eyes shut and could still feel the world spinning around him, and he was sure that he was swaying along with the disorientation. He tripped over his feet and barely managed to keep himself standing.
“Hey,” Another hand squeezed against Kian’s arm. They had stopped walking, or maybe Kian had stopped walking and they had stopped with him. Kian didn’t know the sequence of events that had led to them being stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He could hear voices of people filtering in like rushes of wind against his face, he wanted to shrink away into a corner, cover his ears and never come back out.
“Do you need to sit down?” one of them asked, barely whispering in his ear but loud enough that Kian would be able to hear. He flinched and felt his head twitch, a low rumble bubbling up from his chest. Kian couldn’t even swallow it down, his body shaking so badly it was hard to stand.
“Yes…” Kian barely gasped out, the word tearing from his throat like a desperate plea. The arm that Kian had wrapped himself around shifted, a hand curling around his wrist and then they were walking again. Kian followed blindly, vision blurring around the edges and black spots blocking his view of the rest of the city.
They walked for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes. The passage of time was difficult to tell through Kian’s hazy mind. He forced each breath in and out of his lungs, having to consciously remind himself that he still needed to breathe. He was human again. He needed to act like a human. His brain couldn’t supply the proper way to act like a human.
“Sit down, there’s a bench right next to you.”
The hand shifted around Kian’s wrist, another placed on his shoulder. He was guided to sit down on what definitely felt like a bench. Kian practically collapsed, a long breath spilling from his lips as what almost sounded like a whine tore out of his throat. Someone sat down next to him, keeping one arm wrapped around Kian’s shoulder as he tried to blink himself back into reality. He didn’t have to focus on trying to keep himself balanced, but it was hard to stay upright in general when his entire body felt wrong.
Kian was pulled into their side and he pressed his face into their shoulder, breathing in the familiar and comforting scent. Like fancy cologne, the same smell one would find at a fancy posh library.
Someone else sat down on Kian’s other side, taking hold of his hand and squeezing gently. Kian’s legs shook so hard that he was practically vibrating, still shivering despite the fact that he had managed to find a place to sit down. He coughed and forced himself to breathe, squeezing his eyes shut.
“You’re okay, Ki,” a gentle voice guided him, “We’re right here.”
Kian could barely think, he could barely breathe, he could barely come up with any comprehensible thing that he could possibly say. Every thought felt too jumbled to make sense of and Kian had a hard time processing what was actually going on around him. It was hard to comprehend, hard to understand, and everything was jumbled and messed up.
His thoughts were confusing strings of incomprehensible words and concepts, and Kian hated the way that he could barely see anything a foot in front of his face. He clenched his jaw and grit his teeth, trying to ignore the flashes of color and few moments of clarity that flickered in his head. He just wanted it to go away, wanted it to stop.
He squeezed the hand that was holding his and tried not to cry, hot tears already welling up in the corners of his eyes that soaked into the sleeve of the arm that he had buried his face into. He sniffled and tried not to make any noise, swallowing thickly and coughing just to keep himself from making that awful rumbling noise.
It hurt his throat, it hurt his mind, and it made him feel like a monster again.
Kian tried to focus on the smell of fancy cologne, the feeling of the person that he was holding onto, or the hand that he squeezed so tightly that his fingers spasmed and twitched. They squeezed back and Kian took that sensation like an anchor, shaking and trembling while trying to bring himself back down to reality.
He had to try and detangle the mess of thoughts that had gotten wound up in his head, to try and figure out what was going on around him and remember where they were and what they were supposed to be doing. Memories seemed out of order, something he was sure happened years ago felt like it was something that he did just yesterday, or things that he remembered that felt like they hadn’t happened yet.
Someone was gently petting his hair and Kian could practically hear his own rapid heartbeat. But along with that, he could feel a familiar, loud, and uneven heartbeat against his face where he was buried against someone’s arm.
Rolan.
Kian latched onto that so tightly it was the only thing that he could coherently string together. He was pressed against Rolan’s side, his face buried in his side. Rolan’s heartbeat was nowhere near steady, speeding up or slowing down with the loud, pounding rhythm. His skin pulsed in the same way that Kian’s did, fragmenting with heat and the occasional spasm or twitch. It was familiar. So, so familiar.
Kian curled closer, squeezing his hand around Rolan’s arm and scooting further against his side. He wanted to be closer. It would be safer, Rolan was safe.
Faintly, Kian could hear a soft chittering noise, and he was unsure if it was coming from him or Rolan. They both could make that noise, those chirps, those clicks. The chittering. Kian’s throat hurt, it burned and he was sure that the noises were coming from him. Rolan was shaking slightly, his heartbeat speeding up.
A voice nearby tried to speak to him, but it was lost to the haze of whatever void his thoughts had fallen into. The hand petting his hair stopped, but didn’t pull away. Kian struggled to focus, he tried to pull himself back from the endless void that he seemed to be wading through, to pull himself back down to Earth.
“Kian, hey,” it was a gentle but worried whisper in his ear, “can you stand? We need to get back to the apartment.”
Kian opened his mouth, closed it again, then tried to open it. He was way far past the ability to speak. Now he was sure that the rumbling noises were coming from him, unwillingly pulling from his throat and chest. He didn’t know how to stop it, he couldn’t help it.
Maybe he answered, maybe he didn’t. But the arm that Kian was clinging to shifted and he sucked in a sharp, panicked breath, trying to hold tighter before Rolan pulled away. Kian tried to blink, tried to focus his vision with panic twisting tightly around his chest before soft, gentle hands were wrapped around his shoulders again. He was pulled up to his feet, knees shaking and entire body wobbling like jelly with a few sticks thrown into the mix.
And then they were walking again. Kian stumbled like a drunken man and kept trying to refocus his eyes. Every time he did so, another wave of dizziness nearly sent him sprawling if not for the hands holding him up. He shook and trembled, one foot in front of the other. Now he had to focus on balancing and trying to keep himself upright. He trusted that Rolan wouldn’t let anything happen to him, but it didn’t make anything any easier.
They were walking for hours, for a few minutes, a few seconds, half an hour? They walked, and they walked, and they walked. And Kian felt like they were going to be walking forever. His head throbbed with all the sounds that seemed to swell as they approached. Louder and louder and louder. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He kept forgetting to inhale each breath in his lungs, holding it too long before it made him cough.
It had to have been hours, but maybe it had only been a little bit away. Kian didn’t know how long.
But the sounds suddenly quieted with a jarring thud. Kian blinked and flinched. It was quiet. There were no more loud sounds. Anything noise was far away and distant, muffled by some sort of barrier.
“Kian, we’re back at the apartment,” Rolan whispered in his ear, “the couch is right next to you, you can sit down.”
Kian was guided to sit by warm, gentle hands, and he clung on tightly until Rolan sat down next to him. It was hard to move on his own, but he grabbed onto Rolan tightly, practically crawling onto his lap. Rolan wrapped both arms around him and Kian pressed his face into his chest with a high-pitched whine tearing from his throat.
Something soft was placed around his shoulders and another person sat down next to them. Kian could feel the couch cushions dip and he tried to turn his head to look. It seemed so familiar, so gentle, so warm. He curled one hand around the front of Rolan’s shirt, inhaling the familiar scent of his cologne and reaching out with his other hand.
Rough hands met his and squeezed gently, warm, calloused, scarred. Kian traced his fingers over the back, feeling their knuckles and trying to absorb every ounce of feeling that he could grab, wanting to sort out his thoughts before they got tangled up in a ball too tight for him to comprehend. It hurt. His head hurt. His entire brain hurt. But the hand holding his was warm and squeezed just as intensely as Kian squeezed back. It was so familiar.
Rand?
Kian let out a slow, wheezing breath. He tried to tilt his head to the side to see but his vision was too blurry to make out anything comprehensible. He leaned his ear against Rolan’s chest and deflated, letting his eyes remain open but slowly drooping closed once more. Kian stared, not seeing, but trying to filter through the haze.
Rolan gave a small string of clicks and Kian practically melted with tears streaming down his face and his thoughts in a complete mess. The sounds went right through him, a sense of familiarity, something that he hadn’t known for a long time. Another click, a chitter, this time it seemed to come from his own throat, rumbling in his chest and making his voice ache.
Back and forth, a click and a chitter. A buzz that Kian couldn’t replicate and he wheezed, holding onto the front of Rolan’s shirt tighter. He squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed himself in, allowing Rolan to wrap both arms around him, one hand placed on the back of his head, the other curled delicately around his waist. It was comfortable, Rolan was warm and his heartbeat had become a familiar beat. It wasn’t a steady beat, but it was one that Kian could relax to.
He focused on that sound, the sound of clicking that Rolan would occasionally let out, or his breathing, or his heartbeat. All the sounds that were comforting in the world around him.
Kian tried so hard to latch onto them, ignoring the tangled mess of his own thoughts and focusing solely on what he could take the familiarity from. It made it just a bit easier.
Even if Kian could barely form a coherent thought, the only noises able to come out of his mouth were awkward chitters and clicks, and he felt significantly more relaxed than before. He buried his face against Rolan’s chest and felt the familiarity of it all, soaking it in and allowing Rolan’s clicking noises to wash over him. He clicked back and ducked his head, chest rising and falling gently with each breath.
Someone had begun petting his hair again, gently combing through the golden curls and pulling his bangs away from his face. Kian let out a slow wheeze. He just focused on Rolan’s heartbeat and the buzzing in his chest. That’s all he needed. It was familiar, it was comforting.
It was enough that Kian could feel somewhat sane again. To feel wanted, to feel part of something (part of a hive, part of a group). To feel that warm recognition, words that he no longer understood merely sliding over him, the tones gentle enough that Kian could understand it through any language.
Kian clicked back and Rolan responded with a bit more natural tones.
For a while, they sat like that, until the responses to Rolan’s soft noises became softer and softer until Kian eventually managed to fall asleep.