Chapter Text
Kyle is so very close to pulling his damn eyes out.
He's been working away at his computer since he got home from school, despite it being a Friday night. He only took a break to eat a quick dinner before coming right back to his room to keep working. He's finished his homework already, but he's still got more college applications to sort through and fill out. His family and teachers have already been telling him to work on them even if he's still only in his junior year. Something about how he's a bright kid (duh, he knows that) and he shouldn't waste any time if he has any dreams of getting into a fancy schmancy school one day.
But he cannot bear to sit here and stare at the screen anymore. One more he says, and then he's done for the night. The light is hurting his eyes and he's starting to feel a headache coming on. It doesn't help that he hasn't been sleeping well lately. He's got the weight of everyone's expectations of him weighing down on his shoulders and, as ungrateful as it might sound, he sometimes wishes that nobody ever expected anything of him. That he could live his life the way he wanted to, without worrying about getting into a good law school like his dad just to people please. But he's not really in any position to bite the hands that feed him so he'll suck it up and keep working himself to the bone if he must.
There's a small knock against his window and he nearly jumps out of his skin.
Kyle whips his head around to see a purple hood peeking into his room and he nearly trips over himself as he goes to open the window, cursing under his breath. He's been leaving it open lately in case Kenny needed to come in and ask him for help (he doesn't ever let Kyle go on missions with him but he will ask him to research for him when he's not too busy) but he was so distracted with the thought of getting started on his applications today that he never reopened the window after he'd locked it back up this morning.
"Jesus dude, you scared the shit out of me." Kyle says with a huff as he pops the window open. Whatever he's about to say next dies on his tongue because with the light of his room finally casting onto his friend, he sees a sight in front of him that's akin to a living nightmare.
Kenny, in his Mysterion garb, unceremoniously flops into his room with a groan. His suit is covered in blood, and Kyle can't exactly pinpoint where the origin for it is. It's all over his hands, his chest, his side, even smeared on his face. Based on the way he's hunched over himself and breathing heavily, it has to be his blood and not that of some bad guy he'd taken down. There's blood smeared all over his windowsill from when he climbed in and it's starting to pool under him at an alarming rate.
"Kenny! Holy shit, dude! What happened to you??" Kyle immediately crouches down to look him over, trying to assess the damage more clearly. He gasps when he sees a dark spot on his suit, likely the point of a bullet entry. Fuck, was the bullet still in him? No, with the way he's bleeding all over his floor, there's probably an exit wound on his back. Is there more than one wound??
Fuck, fuck.
Kenny slumps back against his wall, sitting up with whatever strength he can manage to muster up right now. "Got shot," he huffed out, no longer bothering to disguise his voice when he's clearly in a ton of pain. Not that he even bothers to hide it around Kyle anymore, anyway. There's really no point. "That guy I had you track down? I got him surrounded by the police. Got caught in the standoff though, hit by a stray bullet or two." Why the fuck is he saying that so casually?? He shifts a bit and he winces, screwing his eyes shut.
"Stop moving! Oh my god, okay. We need to get you help, like now." When Kyle thought he wanted a distraction from his computer, he didn't mean something as fucked up as this. He's feeling himself starting to panic, his hands shaking.
"No," Kenny grits out, grabbing one of Kyle's wrists. "I'll be fine. No hospitals." He's sure that most of the hospital staff and police force know his identity (he's pretty sure he had to strike up some sort of deal with them so he could work with them instead of getting into legal trouble) so then what? Maybe because he couldn't afford it? But that didn't matter right now! He is bleeding so fucking much and the sight and smell of it is starting to make Kyle feel a little woozy.
"I can't do anything if you won't let me take you to get help!"
"Kyle," Kenny coughs out, and oh god the action made a little bit of blood start to trickle out the side of his mouth. Oh god.
"I'll be fine, I promise. I do this shit all the time."
"What the hell are you even saying?!" Kyle's still frozen even as Kenny takes his hand and cradles it close to his chest, linking their pinkies together. He's breathing too slowly, too raggedly. It sounds wet and awful. How the fuck did he even scale the side of his house to get in here with injuries like that?
"I pinky promise, I'll be okay. I always come back, Ky."
Kyle scoffs dryly, a brief memory of the time they were playing as kids flashing through his mind. Mysterion, yelling at them. Accusing them of never remembering him dying. What the fuck did that even mean? He was speaking nonsense. Then, the click of a gun before it goes off, and then...and then what?
Then nothing. They went back to playing heroes, and for some reason Kenny had bailed on them. They had to go to his house and drag him out of bed. He remembers they had just been hanging out, but nobody could explain where he slipped off to. That "how could he be sleeping through the weekend when the world was in danger?" But he had been there, Kyle knows because he was yelling at them and then he'd just...dipped.
...Right?
Kenny coughs again and somehow he still has more blood in his body to spit up, his hand growing colder against Kyle's. There's no helping him now, but maybe...maybe he's right. If this happens all the time, then he should be fine, right?? It sounds impossible, but with tears starting to prick at Kyle's eyes, he can't do much else right now than to have a little hope. All he can do right now is pray that he's right and that he's going to be okay.
"Okay, okay," he says shakily, settling himself down more comfortably beside him. "You'd better not be fucking lying to me, Ken."
"Wouldn't dream of it, dude. Ah..." He sighed softly, leaning against Kyle's shoulder. He's looking vaguely at the opposite corner of the room, even though there's nothing there that could possibly be peaking his interest right now. Little does Kyle know, there is something. Or rather, someone, here for Kenny. Death is standing there, a reaper shrouded in black with a scythe in one of his bony hands. He's tapping his fingers along the handle and shaking his head at him disapprovingly. Kenny chuckles darkly. Like it's Kenny's fault that he keeps coming for him. Like it's Kenny's fault that he has to drop everything he's doing to scoop his soul up for the xth time this week. He tries to be so careful these days, he really does. But his curse loves to fuck with him and take him out whenever it damn well pleases. Like it's amusing somehow. It keeps things exciting, that's for sure.
"I'm...slipping," Kenny mutters, and Kyle wraps his arm around him to pull him close. He can feel Kenny's heart beating sluggishly under his hand and he's starting to get so cold now that he's startled by the stark contrast of feeling hot tears starting to run down his own cheeks.
"I'm here, Kenny," he chokes out softly, keeping him close even as his shoulders start to shake. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Good. Do me a favor, babe. You won't remember but you gotta remember long enough for this."
"Anything," Kyle whispers, not daring to raise his voice any higher as if that would somehow prolong the inevitable.
"'Kay. When I go, can you just..." He pauses just long enough that if Kyle didn't have his hand pressed to his chest, he might've thought he'd died already. "Can you push me back out the window?"
What.
"What?!" So much for keeping his voice down.
"Just do it," Kenny grumbles. "It won't matter anyway." He'll forget by morning.
Kyle lets out a shuddering sigh and he squeezes their pinkies like Kenny had. "Okay. Pinky promise." His voice cracked horribly, the sobs threatening to fight their way out of his throat.
Kenny nods weakly at that, letting his eyes flutter closed. "Thanks." Kyle moved his hand from his shoulder to reach up so he could pull Kenny's hood down, just enough that he could card his fingers through his hair. It's so soft, the one part of him that's not totally stained in blood. It practically glows in the light of his room, the blonde color being a stark contrast to the rest of him in his dark vigilante outfit. Angelic, almost. Like a halo.
When Kenny's last breath escapes him and he has to take Death's stupid bony fingers in his own to walk off with him, Kyle hugs his body tightly with both arms. He sobs into Kenny's shoulder, full body crying that overtakes him before he remembers his promise. He can't let him go, he just can't. But Kenny made him promise, and he wants to believe him so so badly. He hesitantly pulls back from Kenny to scoop him up, thankful that years of playing basketball has given him the physical strength to do so. Emotional strength, though? Not so much. Nothing could've prepared him for this.
(Except he's done this countless times before. Time and time again, making the same heartbreaking promise to Kenny that he never remembers the next day.)
The last thing he remembers after begrudgingly dropping Kenny's body out of his bedroom window is the sound of his own body hitting the carpet and his eyes closing, followed shortly by the sound of something thumping outside in the snow.