Work Text:
Kim feels it every time he breathes, the weight of the Kevlar pressing in against his ribs.
Normally, this is exactly why he forgoes such equipment. It’s a hindrance. It slows him down. Kim has been bred with a unique sense of invincibility. He has been trained to have confidence in his actions. To be the biggest threat in any given room.
Kim isn’t likely to go down because is the kind of animal that always strikes first.
And failing that, there are plenty of people willing to step in front of a bullet for him.
If it had been up to him, then he wouldn’t have been wearing the damn thing at all. But his opinion on the matter had been squashed and trampled over. Dismissed; Kim had been dismissed, and he had let it happen.
Because in recent months, Kim has come across the only thing on this side of the hemisphere that is bigger and scarier than himself.
“I don’t care what your brothers let you get away with, Chay will kill me if you get filled full of bullet holes,” Porsche had said, far too gentle given the situation. “So stop squirming.”
Squirming.
Like Kim is a rowdy kitten and not a perfectly lethal killing machine.
Kim had obeyed. He had held himself perfectly still so Porsche could pull the vest over his head and tighten the straps at his sides. He had barely even taken a gasping breath. Barely let his eyes slide closed in a blink in case he somehow left himself vulnerable to more coddling.
He had let Porsche load a weapon and press it into his hands, and then awkwardly set a palm on the crown of his head. The wet of Porsche's gaze was matched only by the lump in Kim's throat.
Because the only thing more vicious than Kim himself is the idea that Porchay might come to any harm because of the choices Kim makes.
So Kim had let Porsche do whatever he needed to do, feeding or soothing his own anxiety in the process. Had let the big-brother-bear act be directed at him, knowing all the while he was merely a stand-in for the nong Porsche was sorely missing. Kim listened; he did not speak, he did not sass. He allowed himself to be checked up on and reassured and schooled like he isn't the kind of kid that has written his name on this city in other people's blood.
And when they left the compound in the direction of the address they’d found, Kim didn’t even complain about the number of bodyguards they were taking. It doesn’t matter that Kim could be quicker on his own; it doesn’t matter that he feels clunky and rigid in his tactical gear.
All that matters is Chay and bringing him home alive.
Porsche, being so very important to Chay, is being rescued by proxy. He likely isn't aware of it, but Kim is. Every interaction with the oldest Kittisawat is a lifeline offered. Every shared smile. Every pat on the arm or back, or the crown of his head.
Chay will kill me if you get filled with bullet holes, Porsche had said.
Chay will kill Kim if he lets Porsche fill himself with holes, too; the far more deadly kind that are hidden from plain sight and are fired from a weapon made entirely of guilt and self-loathing.
In this metaphor, Kim is Porsche's Kevlar.
When they arrive, there is nothing but stone-cold efficiency from everybody present.
Porsche and Kim quickly decide how best to divide and conquer the series of storage units and shipping containers in the dockyard. Kim is given a team of five, even though he is already bouncing on his toes to get moving on his own.
One of the only saving graces to this whole operation is that every guard on staff knows better than to assume they will be able to stick to Kim as closely as Porsche wants them to.
He has a habit of charging recklessly ahead, but at least he's self-aware of his flaws.
Porsche gives the go-ahead, and they all start to move. Kim has the good grace to wait until Porsche is out of his line of sight before completely breaking rank and heading to the furthest row of containers to the right.
To their credit, two guards manage to keep pace with him for the first few minutes. Arm and some newer recruit Kim hasn’t bothered to learn the name of, the crunch of their tactical boots against the grit and concrete is a steady soundtrack to Kim's mounting anxiety.
The others take a much slower and methodical approach, searching each room Kim deems empty with a more thorough eye than Kim is capable of right now.
After about five minutes, though, Kim loses even the quickest of the guards and is on his own.
He works his way down the line of containers, each door thrown open and hastily checked for signs of life and then discarded just as quickly. Kim’s weapon remains lifted and in front of him, gun in his right hand and a flashlight in his left. He has the weight of the light pressed against the barrel, giving him the best line of sight whenever he enters a room. It doubles as a stabiliser, holding the firearm steady enough that he won’t miss any shot he needs to take.
It’s behind the ninth door that Kim finds him.
The beam of his flashlight cuts a path through the dust motes, and Kim almost doesn't see him at first. Almost mistakes the crumpled shape as some old tarps discarded in the stale air of an empty container.
But then. A flash of pale skin. Blood red. The soft yellow of a worn sleep shirt.
Kim feels his stomach fall into his shoes, training his light on what he now recognises as a limp body.
Chay is still. Unmoving. Stained red from his temple, blood gone tacky from how long it's been sitting there, trickled down his cheek and into the divots of his exposed collarbones.
He'd been dressed in his favourite sleep shirt when they took him. The one that used to be Porsche’s, with the tear at the collar and the curry stain at the hem. A shade of mustard that Kim used to tease was hideous to look at, and Chay would smile like an unhinged gremlin and retaliate by threatening to paint every wall in Kim's house that same colour.
Kim remembers laughing when he’d first seen it, only the third time Chay had ever spent the night. He'd reminded Chay that he had money now, could buy proper sleep clothes, and Chay had responded by modelling it like he was on a runway and lecturing Kim on the importance of having one really old shirt that you wouldn’t dare throw out, no matter what.
“It has to be really ratty, P’Kim,” he’d said with so much gravity that Kim couldn’t have stopped himself from giggling like a schoolboy even if he wanted to. “It gives it character.”
It perhaps says a lot that one of Kim’s first thoughts is how upset Chay is going to be that his favourite comfort clothing item is completely ruined now. Dirty with blood and grime. Torn halfway down his chest from where he likely fought. Always a fighter. And now it’s unsalvageable.
The second thought is that Chay’s unusually pale. That he’s terrifyingly still. His hands are limp.
He hadn't reacted to Kim entering. The light on his face.
Kim hears a wretched scream, twisted and blood-curdling. Chay's name is torn from his throat with a copper-coated taste.
It sounds almost distant, though. Kim feels like he’s no longer inside his own body, but he is aware that there is a second cry, a plea, a petition for mercy from whoever may be listening, and it feels thick and weighty like the press of fingers against a numbed area.
Kim wails, and it comes from so deep in his gut that he can only liken it to the twist of a knife.
There is the clatter of a weapon on the floor, heavy and startling, and his own knees burst with pain before he realises he has dropped everything he was holding and has followed the items to the ground.
And Kim has seen hundreds of corpses in his lifetime, more than anyone at the relatively young age of twenty-two should have ever seen. None of them has ever made him flinch. Not even the ones he’d had a hand in making.
But as he crawls haltingly across the dingy concrete floor to Porchay’s body, he knows he will never forget the sight of this.
Will never forget that he wasn’t fast enough.
He doesn’t know where to touch first. Chay is so pale. And so still. He could almost be sleeping. Kim’s hands shake as they hover over his face, his chest, the cold shape of his bound hands. Maybe he should undo the knot at his wrists first; it must be hurting him. Or perhaps clear away the crust of blood on his face. Or pull him close and rub some warmth back into his body, to comfort him.
Chay’s been having anxiety attacks in the dark lately. Kim should find a light for him, his flashlight forgotten by the door.
Conceptually, he’s aware of the sound of footsteps following behind him. That he had a team on his heels, and a second team searching the other half of the lot. It doesn’t matter to him, though.
Not when his fingers brush through the remnants of tears and dirt caked into Chay’s cheek, and he’s so cold.
“Kim?” Porsche calls, right at the same time as several sets of feet come barreling into the room. “Chay!”
The twin thump of knees hit the ground beside him. Porsche doesn’t try to shoulder him out of the way, as he has every right to; instead, he presses up right at Kim’s side. They’re propping one another up as Porsche’s hands reach for Chay’s wrist with a brave kind of confidence that Kim himself hadn’t had.
Porsche slips his fingers against Chay’s pulse point, against the hollow of his jaw, too, and Kim looks away. He squeezes his eyes so tightly shut that it gives him a headache. Because he can’t watch Porsche come to the realisation that they failed to protect the most precious thing in either of their lives.
Kim can’t watch Chay be rolled onto a gurney and carried out to a grave that shouldn’t fit him just yet.
Porsche's bottom lip is wobbling. His fingers are frantic against Chay's jaw and wrists as he desperately searches for something Kim isn't sure he's going to find.
Nauseous, but unable to do anything but hold a vigil of grief, Kim waits for the inevitable.
But then...
“He’s alive.”
Kim can’t quite process the words, not until Porsche is yelling for people to help him, and Kim is unable to move. So frozen in his confused state of relief and fear and latent mourning, he can only watch as Porsche and a handful of guards carry Chay out of the room and to the medical crew on standby outside.
He wants to stand and help. He wants to be the one supporting Chay’s head, lolling about on his shoulders. He sees Chay's eyelashes start to flutter and his chapped lips smack as he no doubt seeks the water he has been deprived of for the past two days.
Kim wants to be close enough to press reassurances into his skin and let him know that he’s safe now.
But he doesn’t move. He remains kneeling in the dirt and grime, staring into the open doorway, watching dust motes dance in the air. He’s not sure he can feel his fingers anymore.
Eventually, someone comes back for him. Settling their hand tentatively on his tense shoulder and calling his name.
“He’s okay, Khun Kim, he’s going to be fine.”
Arm’s voice is gentle, placating, and Kim recognises the tone of it from when Khun is having one of his episodes. Those horrifying black moods when Arm, Pol and Pete are the only ones who can hope to get close to Kim's eldest brother. When the caged animal breaks free and is a threat to even the younger siblings that Khun claims to have had a hand in raising.
Kim wants to spit that he doesn’t need the same kind of careful soothing. That he’s not his brother. That he’s fine, he’s seen worse.
And he has. Seen worse. Comparatively. There is a level of desensitisation involved when Kim bears witness to corpses.
So he can't explain why his breath is suddenly coming far too quickly for his lungs to keep up with. Why can he feel the hot, stinging pressure of tears gathering at the corners of his eyes? Why is there a heavy, sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach like an oil spill on an otherwise serene ocean? His blood is running hot through his veins, rushing in his ears. Kim can hear the erratic thump of his heart, and there is a pressure in his temples that makes him feel dizzy.
He feels feverish. Overheated and chilled all at once. Body wracked with shivers, Kim doesn't know what else to do but to turn his wet gaze towards the one person that everyone in the family trusts to look after their most vulnerable. A confused whimper eeks out of his tight throat.
“It’s okay.” Arm uses gentle hands to guide Kim onto the floor properly, so he’s no longer kneeling and at risk of toppling over. “I think you’re having a panic attack, sir. It’s normal after such an intense shock. Try to focus on me if you can.”
Kim is trying, but every time he blinks, he sees Chay’s body, limp and pale, and he is trapped in a cycle of nearly lost him all your fault didn’t even check for a pulse could have killed him failed at your one job might still die-
“I–”
“It’s okay,” Arm repeats. Sure and certain, and when he smiles at Kim, nothing is patronising about it. There is nothing in that smile that is mocking. Nothing that indicates he somehow thinks Kim is lesser for having such a visceral reaction.
Nothing to suggest that Kim is soft or pathetic.
“Khun Nu likes it when we talk to him,” Arm says, almost conversationally, and he settles himself on the floor too. Folds himself gracefully into a cross-legged position as though he intends to remain dutifully at Kim's side for as long as it takes for him to get over himself. “But I can be quiet, if you’d like.”
Frankly, Kim doesn’t know which he prefers. In the silence, all he can hear is his own breath, his own body launching a vicious attack against itself, and there’s nothing Kim can do to stop it. But Arm’s voice is… well-meaning, kind, and foreign. It’s not what Kim is used to.
Kim doesn’t like the unknown. It unsettles him even more.
He flexes his fingers, bunching his hands into fists and tucking them between his own legs so he can squeeze his thighs shut around them, so he can hide himself from being observed too closely. Like he can stop this whole thing from feeling so horribly exposing, his soft underbelly on show for a predator to sink their teeth into. Arm’s smart, though, and Kim clumsy with misplaced grief and the rush of adrenaline still ebbing from him. Of course, Arm sees, but he doesn’t say anything about it.
In silence they sit, and Kim is ready to pass out here and be carried back to the compound- what a sight that would be- because he doesn’t know how to pick apart this thing, doesn’t know how to tame it and control it.
He definitely doesn’t know how to ask for help.
So Kim is ready to let this take him. For his own lungs to tire themselves out and his head to spin until he’s so dizzy he can’t tell which way is up, and his heart to maybe beat right out of his chest so it can chase Chay all the way to the hospital since his limbs won’t move to do it.
And then Porsche reappears in the doorway, frantic and wide-eyed and out of breath, a question on his lips like he can't believe Kim isn't already in the back of the car with Chay barking orders about how speed limits are optional.
Porsche takes one look at Kim and his expression crumples all over again.
“Oh, nong.”
Kim flinches because he hasn’t been called that in years. Not since he was eleven and wandering around the halls of the compound like a ghost because he’d had another nightmare. Kim flinches, and Arm, perhaps on some instinct trained into him from Khun’s more violent episodes, reaches out as if to restrain, and Kim only flinches harder.
He might even raise his arm back in preparation for a swing.
“Whoa, whoa.” Porsche is across the room and snatching Kim’s wrist out of the air in a heartbeat. Too quick. Kim starts to feel like he’s choking. Starts thrashing and snapping his teeth like an ensnared animal in his death throes, ready to chew off its own limb for freedom. “Okay, kid, alright. You’re okay.”
It’s not alright, but Kim can’t say that, because the second he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a broken, cracked whimper, or maybe a snarl. It's a brutal and twisted sound, and it makes Porsche wince in sympathy. Kim feels tears fighting from him, no matter how he tries to swallow them back down again.
“Arm,” Porsche says, with all that authority he has been practising since he inherited a title he has vocally deemed himself unfit for, “Go outside. Chay needs a hospital. Get him to one quickly, and we’ll follow soon.”
Despite a moment’s hesitation, Arm nods and takes off out of the door. Kim and Porsche are left alone, and Kim feels like his stomach is trying to claw its way up his throat. This much must be obvious for the way Kim reaches up and secures his own hand there, scratching like he might be able to rip the bad feelings free.
Still holding onto one wrist, Porsche stops him and instead reaches for the straps on Kim's Kevlar.
"Can you breathe?" Kim shakes his head violently, so hard he feels something pull in his neck, but it's a distant and fleeting kind of pain, and Porsche starts pulling at Kim's vest with both hands. "Okay, hold on for me, kid, we're going to get this off you."
They work it off together, Porsche pulling it over his head and tossing it aside, and when it's free, Kim wastes no time in reaching up to pull and knead at his own chest. Almost like he's trying to give himself CPR, but instead of restarting his heart, he wants it to stop beating so intensely. He wants his lungs to stop fluttering and spasming.
“He needs you,” Kim warbles, pathetic and wet, when he finally finds his words, “you need to go with him, he’s going to be scared and he needs his big brother, I'll be fine, I just–”
“You need a big brother too, and I'm really good at being one of those if you'll let me." Porsche reaches a hand out, palm up, as an offer, and Kim eyes it with suspicion. "I’ll be with Chay soon. We both will, as soon as you come down from this and I can be sure you're safe as well."
Which is hilarious. Kim being unsafe. He's never particularly felt that before, not when he is the type to regularly turn down body armour and run ahead of his guards.
Not when he has a penchant for bringing knives to gunfights.
And Kim isn't entirely sure anymore if that's confidence or a simple lack of care for whatever might happen to him.
He forgets the last time he put much thought into his own safety, now that Porsche mentions it.
"I'm..." Kim shudders, a full-bodied vibration that goes right down to the bones of him. He tucks his fingers into his armpits because, for the first time in a very long time, he isn't wholly in control of himself, and that does make him feel unsafe. "I don't know what to- has never- Porsche, I can't breathe. I can't think. I'm-"
Scared.
Porsche, with zero hesitation, folds himself onto the floor with Kim and pulls him into his lap. Kim tries to fight it because he feels like that's what he should do. He fights it because there's a part of him hardwired to believe that he doesn't deserve any of this. That he doesn't want it, even.
Kim tries to argue that he learned to stop needing his big brothers around the same time he learned how to hold a blade in his small hands and where to aim it to do the most damage possible. He tries to make Porsche understand that he isn't important, certainly not as important as Chay, and he is fine with his place in the hierarchy of things; Kim is useful at best, and at worst, he's a hindrance.
Like now, keeping Porsche here through some misguided sense of sympathy when he should be at Chay's side. So he doesn't wake up alone and scared and cold.
And through it all, Porsche just holds him. Steadfast and immovable, even as Kim's nails bite into his biceps and his fists thump his chest. As Kim babbles and talks himself in circles about what he should and shouldn't feel.
"I've got you, nong," Porsche says, his own voice thick with emotion. "You're important too."
Kim fights, and he squirms and he sobs, and eventually he gets too tired.
It feels like everything is slowly draining out of him, or being pulled, ripped from his insides like the tearing of stitches on a particularly grizzly wound.
“We’ll both be with him soon," Porsche keeps repeating. "I'll take you to him."
Later, Kim might feel embarrassed about the mess he makes of himself, as Porsche tucks Kim’s face into his neck and threads gangly arms around him, and squeezes him so tight that it should make it hard to breathe. But for the first time since Kim entered the room and saw Chay’s body, he begins to feel held together. The constant pressure supports him, rather than constricts him.
Kim wets Porsche’s shoulder with his tears, and he doesn’t say anything when he feels a cheek land on his head, and when he feels Porsche’s own breath hitch.
Kim isn’t good at comfort, but he thinks winding his own arms around Porsche is only fair.
After all, Kim doesn’t doubt that if Porsche were alone, this might have been him on the floor with Arm’s patient smiles keeping him grounded until more experienced help came along. But Porsche has always had a demonstrable ability to put his own needs aside for that of his ward.
It’s entirely unclear when Kim became one of Porsche’s wards, but he doesn’t altogether hate the feeling.
“We’ll both be with him soon,” Kim croaks, hoping the echoed words are as much of a comfort to Porsche as they are to him.
Porsche, despite the thick, wet sound of it, manages to laugh. "Yeah, kid. We will be."
Just as soon as they come down from this together.