Work Text:
“Thank you for dropping me off,” Sky said as he shifted from foot to foot. Rain wasn’t as stupid as most people thought. He was good at noticing his friend’s strange, fluctuating moods and he had been aware of some massive secret Sky had been keeping from him and P’Pai for a while now.
Sky had his tells, though. Hunched shoulders to appear smaller, his hands either clasped or loosely held in front of his chest and the furrow between his brows. Something had put him on edge and the hole in Rain’s gut grew wider. It took about five seconds of thought before he realised that there was no way he could just let Sky go up by himself. The race and P’Phayu could wait, it seemed.
“Wait here,” Rain said simply, going to find somewhere to park before jogging to meet up with Sky who wore an expression he could only describe as befuddled. “I just texted P’Phayu where we are. They won’t worry.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back to your boyfriend?” Sky’s frown grew deeper. “I don’t want to hold you up.”
Rain smiled as he waved his concerns off, already heading up into the building. “There will be other races and something is bothering you. I don’t want you to be alone right now.”
He couldn’t see Sky as he followed behind but there was a silence that passed through them. In a small way, it was comforting to be quiet with a friend, but Sky seemed to be deep in thought. “Can I tell you what was bothering me?”
Oh. Rain stopped in his tracks entirely and turned. Sky looked dead serious and a little vulnerable with his wide eyes and parted mouth. As if he was surprised with the words that had come from his mouth. But the expression vanished as quickly it had appeared and Sky tilted his head at Rain, waiting for an answer. “Of course,” Rain said, hoping it didn’t sound too much like a stammer. Vulnerability was so rare for his friend who would rather work himself to the bone before admitting he was suffering. “If you want to, I’ll listen.”
He hesitated more. “I…I haven’t told P’Pai yet. I’ll tell him later, but something happened tonight and I need both of you to understand.”
Something happened? Rain had left him alone for barely five minutes that entire time. If it wasn’t Rain, it was either P’Phayu or P’Pai staying with him. Something had happened in those five minutes and, as a precaution, Rain scanned Sky’s body for anything that could have tipped him off. Nothing stood out. No injuries or rips in his clothes. He hadn’t been physically hurt but that didn’t narrow things down by much. “Okay. Let’s get into the room first.”
He bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything he’d regret but anticipation and curiosity was eating him up from the inside. Sky would be fine. He had to be. They’d be okay in P’Pai’s condo with its soft furniture and massive TV.
Sky pulled out the key card for the door and scanned, opening the door carefully and allowing Rain to slip into the dark room before he followed.
Instantly, the hairs on the back of Rain’s neck stood up at the slow, methodical click click coming from somewhere in front of him. Sky’s hand lashed out and grabbed onto Rain’s wrist, squeezing it like a vice while he searched the dark for the source of the noise.
“We’re meeting sooner than I thought, Sky,” a voice crowed from the couch. Rain could vaguely make out the shape of a man who slouched while he sat, totally calm and still. He could also see other people, barely discernible. “Did you bring someone else for us? Who’s this?”
Behind him, Rain could hear Sky scrambling with the door, his breathing coming in quick and shallow and to the side, there was the encroaching gaggle of hands from the darkness that grabbed onto Rain’s shirt and nearly pulled him clean of Sky’s grip. Something in his brain clicked into place then and there.
He’d just led Sky straight into an ambush.
Rain wasn’t thinking properly at all when he swung his fist, wincing when it made contact with something soft as he pressed back with his arms out wide and his eyes pealed open. “Open it!” Rain hissed.
Sky’s fingers fumbled and froze and he was shaking so hard Rain was afraid he’d just fall right over while Rain was pulled and thrown about. He couldn’t let them get to Sky, he couldn’t. Not when he brought them here.
“Rain,” Sky choked out and Rain knew, he knew that the door was never going to open. Not with the tears brimming in Sky’s eyes, the way his chest seemed to seize on every breath he took. There was no way that they would be getting out of this unharmed. But Rain didn’t care.
He kicked at someone’s legs and slapped someone’s cheek, grabbing a fistful of hair and tearing at it as hard as he could. Rain fought like a cornered animal while Sky shrunk in on himself, frozen in fear. It worked for a stupidly long time too. Long enough to make Rain think that they’d back off.
But then there was something that slammed into the side of his head and knocked him completely off kilter, wrenching him free of Sky’s grasp. He fell as a heap onto the floor and winced as the lights were turned on. Rain’s vision was blurry when he watched them drag Sky further inward. The low table in front of the couch had been moved to the side in order to make room for this.
“Sky! Let him go! Let him the fuck go!” Rain yelled, acting braver than he felt. Rough arms grabbed him and locked around his neck. They didn’t squeeze but the threat was there, even while Rain clawed and beat senselessly. “My boyfriend will kill you!”
He wasn’t sure if P’Phayu would actually go ahead and murder someone but it was a lie he was willing to tell if it would get them out of this. And he could see hesitation on some of their faces then, although the man on the couch only laughed lightly and stood to stroll over to Sky’s kneeling form, held down by two other people.
“Sky,” he sang. “Sky. Look at me.”
An acrid sort of defeat filled Rain’s mouth as Sky complied helplessly. “P’Gun,” he breathed, “please, let my friend go. He hasn’t done anything.”
It made no sense to Rain. Sky had done nothing to warrant any of this either, but he wasn’t exactly pleading for his own life. Rain’s hackles rose and he tried again to break away from the arms holding him. “Let me go!”
A laugh resonated against his ear. The arm around his throat grew tighter and pressed against his jugular. Any more, and he’d start suffocating but Rain was nothing if not stubborn and refused to back down, kicking and squirming so hard he felt his assailant’s grip slip for a split second. “Fucking-someone help me with him,” the voice behind him growled.
Rain doubled over with a groan as a fist slammed into his stomach. Spots danced in his vision and he gagged while willing himself not to throw up his lunch. For a moment, he made eye contact with the asshole that punched him and bared his teeth. Rage was something dangerous, and not a feeling he was necessarily used to but it was all that was left of Rain.
When the blood rushing past his ears had finally slowed, Sky’s voice faded back into the background. Pleading, whimpering, crying. Rain pressed his lips together to stop himself from vomiting. “Sky,” he choked out. “Sky, just-just look at me.” He was desperate and his energy was failing fast but it was all he could think of. If only he could just get to his fucking friend who was crying so hard into the floor that Rain was afraid he’d pass out. “Sky! Sky, please, just get up!”
There wasn’t anyone holding him but Sky had gone rigid with fear and Rain still had no clue who the fuck this was and what the fuck he was planning to do. Kill them? For what? What could Sky have possibly done to warrant dying? But that left Rain to consider other options. And Rain was observant. Sky would never let some guy run his hands over his face, his shoulders, his chest like this man was doing. Not while P’Pai loved him so much. Sky wasn’t a cheater, and that was a fact. Which only really left a single option over what they wanted to do with his friend.
This almost did make Rain throw up. He had to swallow bile back and let out a ragged gasp. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Did you want to tell your friend what you did then, or did you want me to share?” the man-Gun- simpered. He grabbed a fistful of Sky’s hair and roughly pulled him up so he was facing Rain, his cheeks streaked with tears and his eyes filled with silent anguish. Never had Rain seen Sky like this, so raw and vulnerable that his heart hurt.
“I don’t care what happened in the past!” Rain snarled. “Just let him go you son of a bitch!”
He continued, unbothered or perhaps uncaring of Rain. “You should’ve seen it. Maybe you will see it by the end of tonight. Wouldn’t that be fun, Sky? Just like old times, eh? He used to throw himself at all of my friends, the little slut. He begged for it, didn’t you,” Gun cooed, slipping a hand under Sky’s chin and tracing the curve of his throat. He shivered, a full body shudder, and gripped Gun’s wrist while he wrapped each finger around his neck systematically, before squeezing hard enough to have Sky gasp for air.
It was fucking sickening.
He met Gun’s eyes halfway and felt utterly feral, like an animal straining against the bars of its cage while Gun only smiled serenely and continued his slow assault on Sky’s near-catatonic form. “I hope that when P’Pai finds you, he lets me kick you until you bleed,” Rain said, fighting off the waves of anger. His voice trembled with the force it took to keep it steady. “I hope he kills you.”
Rain had never wished death upon anyone. Not really. He never knew he could want someone gone so viscerally but there was a first time for everything, including murdering someone with his bare fucking hands.
The hands and voices were loud and encroaching and Rain was panicking harder and harder with every breath because Sky wasn’t moving away. He seemed frozen to the spot and so, utterly defenceless that it hurt, that it meant Rain had to be the saviour now. If Sky didn’t make it out of this, he wasn’t sure what he would do.
Gun let his friend go and sauntered up to him slowly as Rain stumbled backwards while still trapped. They were at the kitchen bench and he started to reach around while keeping his eyes on Gun, all hate and fury. “Do you think your friend will learn his lesson as well as you did Sky? Or will it take him longer?”
A hand cupped his cheek. Rain’s fingers made contact with something smooth and cold, glass most likely, which he inched closer and closer to him. Gun smiled and leaned in close enough for Rain to smell sour breath.
At the last second, just as Gun’s lips parted, Rain slammed a glass jug into the side of his head.
The effect was instantaneous. The hands holding him let go and Gun fell to the side swearing loudly while Rain tripped over his own feet and crash landed next to Sky, completely at the mercy of adrenalin coursing through his body.
“Sky!” he called urgently, pulling his friend’s head into his lap and lightly slapping his cheek. “Sky! Hey, it’s me, it’s Rain! Can you hear me?”
A bruise was beginning to form around his throat and cheek but Sky was hanging on by a thread it seemed, still far too pale and sickly looking to stand or do much of anything. He reached out and gripped onto Rain’s shirt, hauling himself up. “Rain,” he mumbled, looking at him with unseeing eyes. “What did you…P’Gun?” He scanned the area around confusedly, even while Rain pushed himself to his feet and looped Sky’s arm around his shoulder. “Rain-Rain, I’m going to be sick.”
“Hold on,” he pleaded, facing a wall of people who wore sharp expressions. Gun had finally gotten to his feet and looked truly monstrous with blood running down the side of his head. A flicker of vindication came to life in Rain’s chest. He had done that. “I’ll get you out of this, okay?”
There was a coldness to Sky’s expression he didn’t like. His grip on Rain’s shirt loosened until his hand fell limply to its side. “Rain,” he said softly, straightening and pushing him away. “Rain, go to the bathroom. I’ll deal with this.”
It was as if his world had splintered and shattered for a moment. He stood stock still and watched Gun’s grinning, laughing face and felt his jaw drop open. When Sky tried to brush past him and limp toward the clear enemy, Rain dove forward and grabbed his wrist, dragging him back behind him roughly. “Aw. Sky, it looks as if your friend needs lessons too,” Gun cooed.
Rain said nothing, not trusting his voice enough to speak without wavering. Sky was trying to pull his hand off, was trying to give himself up to these monsters and for fucking what? “They’ll kill you,” Rain mumbled. He felt ready to pass out with pain finally digging its sharp claws into his body. “Please, Sky. Please don’t.”
“It’s okay,” Sky whispered even though it really wasn’t. “Go to the bathroom and lock the door.”
P’Phayu, Sky, all of his friends had always told him he was too stubborn and boneheaded for his own good. Maybe that was a good thing.
He dug his heels in and levelled a glare at Gun, one arm outstretched with Sky locked safely behind him. “No,” he said resolutely, refusing to look and see Sky’s face as he started crying once more. To Gun, he only scowled as he stalked forward leisurely.
Rain didn’t see the first hit coming. It clocked him across his jaw and left spots popping in and out of his vision as his head cracked to the side. A groan slipped from his lips but he gritted his teeth and allowed himself until the count of two before he straightened his back.
He didn’t even get his arms all the way up to defend himself as Gun slammed his fist into Rain’s stomach, right where he was punched before. Spit dribbled out of the corner of his mouth and Rain convulsed, dropping to his knees. “Stupid little whore.” That awful laugh raked up his spine. “Oh Sky, don’t worry. I’m going to make him a good boy.”
Sky.
Rain looked back, wincing, and found Sky’s eyes, wide and terrified. Minutely, he shook his head and let out a cry of pain while a foot slammed into his ribs and knocked him right down. “P’Gun! P’Gun, please don’t, please he-he won’t do anything,” Sky stammered, rushing forward and placing his shaking hands on Gun’s arm.
He was rewarded with a strike to his face which left him stumbling back, shock and fear and pain splashed across his features. “Are you going to beg for me, Sky? Do you promise to beg for all of us to finish you?’
“Don’t you dare—” Rain began, cut off when Gun shoved his foot against his throat and pressed down. A choking sound escaped him and hysterically, Rain thought this was it, this was where he would die.
Sky nodded although the look in his eyes suggested he was a million miles away. “I promise,” he said hollowly. “Just-just don’t hurt him. Let him go.”
Gun and Sky stared at each other for a while, a beat too long. Rain’s attempts to squirm were ignored but then the boot lifted and he took a long gasp for air, turning to his side with a pitiful cough. He braced himself against his elbow to start getting up, watching through watery eyes as Sky followed Gun, his head bowed and hands shaking, into the bedroom. “No one touch him. I’ll deal with him afterwards,” Gun called.
“No.” Rain scrambled to get up to his knees. “No! Sky! Sky!”
Laughter surrounded him on all sides and Rain slammed back into the ground the moment his arms failed him. He kept his face to the floor, tears dripping onto it, and listened to the muffled voices. First, they jeered and laughed and people circled him, nudged him with their feet, before they got bored and left him alone. He caught snatches of conversation.
And then the door opened. And the voices stopped before rising in volume and Rain would have been inclined to move his head to see what was happening but the despair was stronger than his motivation to exist so he continued to play dead and hoped no one would lay their hands on him again.
Of course, Rain was the unluckiest bastard in Thailand.
The moment he was touched, he jolted away and couldn’t register the words over his own panic as he searched wildly for the source of the voice.
“Rain, Rain, it’s just me, it’s your P’Phayu. Can you hear me Rain? Here, look at me.” A gentle palm pushed his face and tilted his chin upward so he could stare into kind eyes. Rain’s whole body went lax with relief, followed shortly by deep, wounding grief as he reached out and latched onto his boyfriend, breaking down into his shoulder. The gentle hand rubbing his back felt like such a luxury after this particular hell.
It felt good to just cry. It felt better to be pulled up and propped against the couch cushions as P’Phayu examined his many injuries with a resentful hiss. His boyfriend’s hand found his own and Rain clung on tight, swallowing his tears and forcing himself to breathe slower if only to speak for a little while.
“Where’s Sky?”
P’Phayu hesitated. He could see the consternation on his face, the way he looked toward the bedroom with reproachful eyes, but Rain was tired of people keeping him from his best friend and stood anyway on wobbly legs. “Rain!” he hissed.
He had no choice but to follow, hands hovering around Rain’s waist as to not let him fall as he limped step by agonising step to the bedroom.
Rain all but ignored P’Pai who talked quietly to the person bundled up in the sheets. He nearly pushed past him entirely and slumped into a kneel next to the bed. Sky’s hand found his without a word. His body was littered with cigarette burns and cuts and it took a herculean effort to not start crying once more as he shook and shivered.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It shouldn’t have been you.”
Sky gazed with soft eyes. “I’m glad it wasn’t you. Thank you for protecting me.”
Rain wasn’t sure if what he did could even constitute as protection but he nodded nonetheless. For Sky, he would do it all again. He’d do it even better, so not even a hair on his friend’s head would be harmed. “I love you,” was all he had the energy to say.
Sky managed a smile, a small, cracking thing that lit up the empty spaces in Rain’s heart. “I love you too.”