Work Text:
Ezreal knows it’s bad because he wakes and his head feels like it’s stuffed full of tissue paper. The semi-translucent kind, the kind you line gift bags with. He’d helped Yone pack gifts for a birthday party a couple days ago, and the paper had been pale blue and crinkly and thin enough to see your hand through it. His brother likes romance paperbacks and vintage alcohol, Yone explains, but he only buys him the paperbacks, and ooey-gooey graphic novels with two people almost kissing on the front. I’ve read that one, Ezreal says. And this one too. He doesn’t read much at the moment. He’s a little busy with his phone and the music, since they’re making so much music. And he’s busy helping Yone stuff the books and crinkled paper into the gift bags, that’s what’s in Ezreal’s head right now. Not the books, just the paper. Ezreal’s love life isn’t exactly a thoughtfully written romance. Kayn is snappy and loud and sometimes he doesn’t brush his teeth in the morning, or he’ll go to bed without showering, all sweaty, panting like a dog from too much “songwriting. ” Ezreal’s asked him to sleep in his own room if he’s not going to wash first, which is probably why he wakes up alone. On occasion Ezreal doesn’t mind waking up alone. This is not one of those days.
Most of the time when Ezreal sees Kayn he feels an inexplicable pull in his direction, like what he imagines it might be like to get caught in one of those whirlpools in a pirate movie, or when there’s a bug in Ezreal’s bathroom and Kayn needs to come in, smash it, and flush it down the toilet. Then Ezreal is next to him, watching the water swirl away down the pipe, carrying away the squished bug, and he shimmies a little closer, pressing his arm against Kayn’s arm, knowing what it’s like to be caught in the spin.
But anyway. The spin right now is Ezreal’s head when he stands up too fast. He sits back down. Ez hates being sick. It ruins everything. The worst is when his throat is sore and there’s not a single cough drop in existence that can help. The world punishes him for having such an angelic voice. Ezeral suffers from success. Now he clears his throat, testing the way he sounds.
“Am I sick?” he asks his otherwise empty room. His voice cracks, changes pitch like Aphelios messing with a modulation wheel. Ezreal winces. This totally sucks.
He showers and gets dressed. The hot water only kind of helps, and he plucks out a stray eyebrow hair that’s rebelled overnight. His hair is freshly dyed. For a moment he turns in the mirror, looking. He’d been reminded of the color wheel yesterday, talking about stage costumes with the band, and he’d noticed how green and purplish-pink were pretty much opposites. Both he and Kayn had dyed their hair without thinking about it. Or maybe Ezreal had done it subconsciously, since he remembers everything, and a year later they’d just clicked together like it was fate.
Ez goes two doors down the hall to Sett’s. He’s laying on his huge bed, already dressed and looking at his phone. He always gets up early to work out with K’Sante.
“Sett.” Ezreal says. “You should make me breakfast.”
And like usual, Sett says, without looking, “Make your own damn breakfast.” Except this time Ezreal has a trump card.
“I’m sick,” he says, voice cracking on cue.
Sett’s ears swivel at the sound. He finally looks at him, sighs, sits up. Ezreal wins again.
Kayn’s is next. Ezreal feels the pull from the doorway. He could float in orbit. Kayn is still asleep under the covers, blankets tangled and all over like he’d had a fistfight in his sleep. Ezreal stares at him for a hot minute, drinking in how mussed and vaguely sweaty he looks, bangs askew to the max, a red imprint across his face where he must have pressed against one of his pillows too hard. Ezreal has to take a photo, to put it with all his other photos of Kayn, which have added up to quite a lot. Kayn always frowns in his sleep, brow furrowed like he’s mildly disgusted by whatever he’s dreaming about. Couldn't be Ezreal.
He shakes Kayn awake but he doesn’t actually stir until Ez sneezes into his elbow.
“Wha—” is all he says, and then he’s blinking at Ezreal and scratching his head, and Ezreal thinks it’s too cute and takes another picture.
“You’d better not post that anywhere,” Kayn says, voice all choppy from sleep.
“I wasn’t gonna.” At least he wasn’t until Kayn put the idea into his head. Ezreal shakes his shoulder again, squishing his arm in his hand. “Get up. Food. C’mon c’mon.”
Kayn groans, rolls out of bed straight onto the floor. He was probably staying up super late again, which is why he hadn’t slept in Ez’s bed. Lately it’s kinda felt like they exist in this weird middle territory. When they’d first started dating it was fireworks and Kayn pulling his shirt off every night. It was, as Sett would put it, ‘Fool-around sex.’ It was feelings exploding like flash bulbs. It was great.
And now it’s still great but it also kinda feels like they’ve slipped backwards a step. Maybe it’s just his memory. Ezreal tries not to overthink anything, but he remembers it being different a few weeks ago, because he remembers most things. It’s the price he pays for having such a brilliant mind. Sometimes he’d rather not pay it.
He coughs, once. There’s an ominous tickle in his throat and his head’s still stuffed full. Kayn finally climbs to his feet next to him. He doesn’t know that Ezreal’s thoughts have flown by in an instant. He’s not like Kayn, who will root himself in place, eyes unfocused until someone says something or shakes him back to the present. “Had a moment,” he likes to say, even though it’s always several moments. Ezreal actually has a moment, as in just one, and all his thoughts flash by like lightning with no time for anyone to wonder what he’s thinking about, or even if he’d thought at all.
He clears his throat. He’s not fine. He’s sick.
K’Sante is reading at the kitchen table, some crusty autobiography. Ezreal’s always preferred fiction, books with plenty of adventures, something he can lose his mind in. Nothing too heavy. They’ve tried to start a band book club but it turns out their tastes are all too different. And Kayn doesn’t even read anyway. Ezreal’s seen him try before and he always zones out and never gets further than a page. To be fair, Ez isn’t reading much right now either, but not because he hates it, he’ll just get around to it eventually. That’s how he justifies all his purchases, even when Yone waves a printed list of all his Amazon transactions and forbids him from using the band’s credit card.
“Ezreal, when are you going to use all this?” he’d asked, flipping through the pages and pages of proof.
“I’ll use it all someday,” Ezreal had said. And he'd meant it, but he’d still lost spending privileges. It’s not the worst outcome, it just means that Ezreal has to pay with his own money, which is fine, he’ll just go shopping.
Sett has just skillfully folded an omelet in his frying pan. He grabs a dish from the cupboard. “I thought you were sick,” he says, with a special sort of doubt in his tone, like he’s wondering if he’s just been tricked into making Ez breakfast again.
“I am sick,” Ezreal clarifies. “I just wanna go anyway.” That last word fizzles into something hoarse. He clears his throat, turning to Kayn. “You’re coming with me right?”
Kayn is cramming his hand into a box of cereal. “To the—” he trails off.
“The outlets.”
“Oh,” Kayn says. “Yeah. Sure.”
K’Sante sets his book down, closing it on one finger. “You should rest, not go out.”
“Well Yone’s not here right now,” Ezreal says. “So I won’t get in trouble.”
***
On the way there Ezreal makes Kayn listen to pop hits and they talk about how awkward Yone must be feeling at his brother’s birthday party, and why Pentakill is one of the greatest bands of all time. That last topic is carried by Kayn, who sounds progressively more manic by the end of it, choking the steering wheel and spitting on the dashboard, but Ezreal doesn’t mind. The more he’s talked today the more his voice has continued to squeak, scratch, and fade, eroded by sickness. He’s listening to Kayn and looking at his phone at the same time, though he’s not doing much with it, just unlocking it, swiping across a couple home screens, then locking it again. He doesn’t think about how earlier, after breakfast, he’d been in Kayn’s room waiting for him to finish showering and he’d noticed how few pictures of himself are on Kayn’s wall, despite there being so many good ones to choose from. Ezreal’s not feeling so great. He hates being sick. He’d taken some Nyquil but he feels fuzzy on the inside. Not in a good way. Fuzzy like unboxing a sandwich you forgot about and discovering it’s grown hair.
The outlets are a big cluttered strip of stores and restaurants. They’ve got nearly anything you could ever want and not much you’d actually need so it’s perfect for Ezreal. And the one good thing about being popular but not too popular is that they can get away with sunglasses and hats, at least for a little while. They can pretend they’re no one and Ezreal can slip his hand into Kayn’s and Kayn will glance at him and his face will be red. He tries to be cool but he’s actually a little awkward, and sometimes Ezreal will look in the mirror and see that too—an ominous shimmer—and he has to avoid eye contact with himself until he’s perfect again. Kayn told him once that he’d never had a ‘real boyfriend.’ They’d been under the covers in bed, faces lit up by just their phones, and Ezreal had laughed and said, “You do now.” And he hadn’t thought about how he’d never had a ‘real boyfriend’ either. Because Ezreal’s memory is so good he can picture the way Kayn had gotten all flustered in loving detail. He’d blown a bang off his nose and smiled. And Ezreal had wanted a picture even though he’d known he wouldn’t need it. Some things will just burn into his memory and they will be there forever, for better and worse, slightly blurry but very real.
They both flirt with each other but Kayn’s never kept anyone and no one’s ever kept Ezreal. Not like they do in romance novels. He’d had a string of loose boyfriends, and a girl or two, but it’s not the same once it becomes clear they don’t actually like you.
Flirting with Kayn is as easy as hitting a high note. It’s like Ezreal singing in the studio and having to stop because he’s looking at Kayn and it’s making his smile too wide. They pass a lingerie store and Ezreal says, “We should totally buy you something here,” and Kayn laughs and says, “That’s your deal, not mine,” and Ezreal poses in front of the window, next to a scantily clad mannequin.
“You wanna see me so bad don’t you?”
Kayn looks down at him over his sunglasses. “Uh—” He gets away with saying nothing because Ezreal sneezes three times in a row. The third one makes his head hurt.
“Agh,” he groans, and rubs his nose, clears his throat a few times. His head is pounding now. He needs to sit down or have something sweet or both.
“You could’ve just stayed home,” Kayn says, as they wait in line for smoothies.
“No.” Ezreal sniffles, extra thick. “I need—things.” He unlocks his phone, swipes the home screen back and forth, locks it again. The idea of drinking something cold isn’t very appealing right now, but the sugar will probably make it worth it.
Kayn asks, “Do you really?” but Ezreal doesn’t hear him. There’s too many people around them and there are cars driving up and down the street, extra loud, and—yeah.
They hop from store to store and with each leap Ezreal feels progressively more muddy. He’d drank his whole smoothie and stolen several sips from Kayn’s but he doesn’t really feel any better. Like he hasn’t improved or gotten worse, he’s moved parallel—okay, maybe he’s gotten a little worse. They stop at a beauty store and he gets nail polish, compares a palette to Kayn’s face. They move on to look at sneakers together, avoid a few people staring. “A bucket hat!” Ezreal picks it off a rack. “No one will know it's you if you wear a bucket hat.”
“There’s no way I'm wearing that,” Kayn tells him.
Ezreal looks good in bucket hats, he has the photos to prove it but then again, he looks good in most things. He'd probably look great in Kayn’s jacket too, considering how much he’s shivering, but Kayn doesn’t offer it to him. He’s checked out, unfocused. Ezreal unlocks his phone, refreshes his Twitter, locks his phone again. Every time he looks at it he sees a picture of Kayn on his lock screen and there’s that pull again, like he’s being sucked down the drain, and that’s probably why he’s stuck to his phone so much.
(Wherever Ezreal looks over at Kayn he notices his lock screen is just Pentakill—and maybe this is just something that happens to Ezreal. He doesn’t think about it, buys a bucket hat.)
They wander into a bookstore and Kayn’s eyes start to glaze over, even though he’s not zoning out. “I fucking hate reading,” is what he’d told the band, then proceeded to go down to the basement studio and wreck the drumset for an hour. That’s why he makes a beeline between the shelves to an armchair instead, and he takes off his jacket but Ezreal watches him drape it on the chair.
“I need to go piss,” Kayn tells him, and wanders off to find the bathroom.
Ezreal sits in the empty arm chair across from Kayn’s. He digs through his bags looking at what he’d bought. Nail polish, a litter of new moisturizers, and a bucket hat. It’s really not much. He checks his phone for a second, takes a picture of his haul. The battery is very low. It feels good to stop moving for a second. He’s too stuffy and cold and he’d rather be in his pajamas. He’d rather be home, he’d rather Kayn sleep in his bed every night. Ezreal lifts his sunglasses and looks around at the bookstore, the colorful shelves, a girl peeking curiously at him from behind a display. They're right next to the romance section, funnily enough, and he gazes at the covers of cheesy serial paperbacks, covered with hot, mostly-naked and interchangeable dudes. He observes it all unfocused, in case he might remember this too clearly later, glances down at his bags again.
He reaches for Kayn’s jacket. Ezreal’s spent enough time being cold, and he finds his phone in his pocket. Kayn’s screen is always cracked and busted, no matter how careful he is. At this point he might be doing it on purpose. Karthus is screaming into a mic on the front of it. Ezreal punches in Kayn’s passcode. He's only ever seen him enter it once, but once is enough for Ezreal. When he unlocks Kayn’s phone he’s greeted by a wallpaper of—himself.
Ez looks down at the picture. He’s never seen it before. It’s of him sleeping next to Kayn on the tour bus, his head tipped right over Kayn’s shoulder. It’s not the most flattering picture. Ezreal’s mouth is half open, folded like a soda can against Kayn’s side, and his hair is all messed up and stiff from the concert, and Kayn is taking the selfie, equally disheveled, tongue sticking out and fiercely happy.
Ezreal locks the phone, smooths his fingers over the spiderweb of cracks in the glass, and slips it back into Kayn’s jacket. He slides his sunglasses down over his eyes and glances around. The room looks a little brighter, even with the tint. He still feels fuzzy, but now also in the same way a pillow is, the insides soft and feathery, Kayn’s damp hair on the silk case next to him.
“I’m too sick,” he admits when Kayn returns. He sounds really sick. His beautiful voice has withered away. Crumbled like an empire. He clears his throat.
“Yeah my feet hurt anyway,” Kayn says. “Was it even worth it?”
“It would’ve been if you’d worn that bucket hat.”
Kayn pulls him up out of the chair. His touch blooms a tender ache on Ezreal’s wrist. “That hat is fucking dorky. ” He reaches out to prod Ezreal on the side of his head with one finger. “No wonder you bought it.”
“Don’t poke me.” Ez rubs his temple. “I’m sick.”
“I don’t care if you’re sick,” Kayn snorts, leading him to the door.
“You have to do whatever I want when we get home.” Ezreal clears his throat again. “‘Cause like, I’m so diseased.”
“You’re such a brat sometimes.”
“Yeah but you love it,” Ezreal says to the back of his head. And Kayn spins around to give him stink-eye but he doesn’t argue, maybe since Ezreal sounds like he’s been chewing nails.
***
When they get home Ezreal goes straight upstairs. Kayn follows him, two steps behind, and Ez makes him fetch water, and the gummy worms that are stashed above the fridge. And once he’s in his pajamas, in bed with a box of tissues, he demands Kayn paint his nails with the shimmery new polish he’d bought. Kayn rolls his eyes at the color. He only likes reds and blacks and he purposefully lets his polish flake off because it looks cooler that way. Ezreal watches him try to paint his nails. He’s not thinking too hard but he distinctly knows that he’ll remember this moment for the rest of his life, specifically the way Kayn is focused on his hand, getting the stroke just right—or just wrong. He kinda sucks.
“Aw man you stink at this,” Ezreal tells him.
Kayn swipes polish on his finger. “I’m trying,” he grumbles. “I only ever paint my own nails.” The way he says it makes Ezreal giggle. He decides maybe Kayn just needs more practice with this kind of thing; having a boyfriend.
“What’s so funny?” asks Kayn, not looking up.
“Nothing,” he says, and this time his voice cracks so bad that it shocks him. It sounds so unlike him that he can’t help but laugh.
Kayn orders, “Stop moving,” but Ezreal can’t. He’s giggling too much, and watching Kayn paint a line across his hand makes it worse. And his laugh sounds like he’s been smoking twenty packs a day. He laughs and Kayn says, “Stop moving—” again but you can hear it in his voice too, he’s on the cusp of one of those wild, slightly unhinged grins that he gives Ezreal as they’re walking off stage at the end of the night, the kind he doesn’t give to fans.
Later Kayn sleeps in his bed, and instead of thinking about how sickly he feels, Ezreal examines just how awful his nail polish looks. Kayn is sleeping with his mouth open, and he rolls into Ezreal’s shoulder, reminding him of sixth grade when he’d learned all about magnets in science class. Ezreal remembers it very clearly. He’d been wearing his school uniform, mostly up to code, and he’d been leaning his elbow on the desk, totally bored and imagining how fun it might be if he could be a magnet, and if everyone around him was drawn into his orbit like iron fillings. And he hopes this memory lasts forever too.