Work Text:
The drone is stuck in a tree again, but it's totally not Ezreal's fault, really. He wasn't even the one controlling it this time, and it's just a coincidence that it manages to get stuck in a tree every time he's nearby because it's not like he's putting it in trees or anything... he's not even a big trees kind of guy.
How was he supposed to know that jabbing Kayn in the side when he was flying it was going to send it careening into the nearest clump of branches? It's a freak accident that could've happened to anyone!
“Yone is going to skin us alive,” Kayn groans, hands on his hips as he scowls up into the branches over their heads. “I promised him I wouldn't let you touch it.”
“I didn't touch it!” Ezreal insists, because he didn't – he touched Kayn, it's not his fault that Kayn couldn't control his spasms with a knuckle in his kidney.
“You touched it by proxy,” Kayn growls as he kicks his toe into the base of the tree, “and now you are going to get your scrawny ass up there and get it down.”
“Wha- me?” He gapes at Kayn, who is now grinning at him like a crazed lunatic. “But it's so high up!”
“What, is the little prince afraid of heights?”
“No, but it's pretty normal to not want to fall out of a damn tree!”
“C'mon, you're not gonna fall.” Kayn rolls his eyes and makes a grabbing motion at Ezreal's waist. “Get over here and I'll give you a boost.”
As much as he's usually down for Kayn's hands on his waist... how about No.
“Why can't you be the one to climb the tree?” he whines, swatting away Kayn's hands, “You were controlling it!”
“Can you boost me up to that branch?” Kayn asks him, eyebrow arched in that way he does when he thinks Ezreal has said something particularly stupid. “Or catch me if I fall?”
“Well, no, but... why can't we just get Sett? He can boost you-”
Kayn rolls his eyes and grabs out again, snagging Ezreal in close this time.
“Because Sett will rat us out to Yone. Now... up you go-”
“W-wait, Kayn!”
And then Ezreal is in a tree.
“Get your feet under you, idiot!” Kayn grunts while Ezreal scrabbles at the branch he finds himself belly-down against. “Don't let go of it until your weight is balanced.”
“You're the one that threw me into a tree!” Ezreal squawks back, teeth grit as he clutches the branch under him for dear life. “I'm telling Yone!”
“Oh yeah? Right after you tell him you got his drone stuck up there?” Kayn sneers, which looks extra stupid when he's still got his hands out, braced and ready to catch him like he thinks Ezreal is gonna fling himself to the ground. “Go right ahead.”
“You're the worst!” he growls down at Kayn as he slowly, slowly gets his knees under him and grabs at the sturdy trunk above his head. “And you suck!”
“I'm pretty sure you were the one sucking last night-”
“Shut up!”
The last thing he needs is to fall to his death because he was thinking about sucking dick while in a tree. He'd rather die on the toilet, or drown in a vat of chocolate, or anything else just to avoid giving Kayn the satisfaction.
Ideally he won't be dying at all. Definitely not in this tree, or any other, which he's never even been allowed to climb before. But honestly, now that he's been up here more than thirty seconds of panicking, he thinks he's kinda getting the hang of this whole tree thing.
It's kinda like the ropes and bars thingy at that one place Sett took them for bonding – the one that made him feel like a hamster getting his daily enrichment activities – except... naturey. It smells better at least, and the bark on the tree is rough in a way that makes him feel manly and tough when he grabs onto it and doesn't complain about it being scratchy.
In fact, it's even kinda fun. He scrabbles up to the next branch easily and finds himself grinning, then shuffles sideways until he can get up one more level, toes of one foot pushing off once he's got a good hold on the branch slightly above his knee. It's almost like nature wants him to climb this tree with all its handily placed branches. He makes it up about three times his own height from where he started and straddles a sturdy spot before pausing to survey his kingdom.
“Oh!”
He is... high up.
“Kayn?” he calls down, leaning to see where Kayn suddenly looks awfully small. “Are you still there?”
“Of course I'm still here-” Kayn yells back up to him, and it's kinda hard to tell with all the branches between them, but he looks a little worried... and stupid. “-did you get the drone?”
Oh right, the drone.
He scoots forward a little bit and looks around, finally spotting the red and black thing one set of branches beneath him, almost in range of his foot.
“Uuuh, just a sec!”
That branch isn't that far away, but getting down is somehow a lot scarier than getting up. But! He is brave.
Brave enough that he only shudders a little when he slowly scooches down until his feet are settled next to the drone, giving it a tiny nudge to see how stuck it is – which thankfully isn't very.
“I'm gonna knock it down now, okay?”
“Sure – hurry up!”
He huffs – ungrateful people clearly don't appreciate the precarity of this drone-getting business – and nudges it with his toe again, a little harder this time.
And the drone goes tumbling down-
“Got it!” Kayn crows, laughing like the maniac he is. “Alright, now get your ass back down here before you fall!”
Right. The getting down. The down getting. The... falling.
The ground that is awfully far away, and maybe seems a little spinny... a little scary.
“Um... Kayn?”
“...don't tell me you're stuck.”
Okay, so... he won't tell him. He'll just die up here instead. He'll just manfully sniffle up the snot in his nose and waste away until the tree falls over and takes Ezreal with it. He'll just-
He hears Kayn sigh and rustle around below him.
“Hey Yone... no, the drone is fine, listen, do you have a ladder? No he's... yeah... I know... a whole week? … fine. See you in ten, and thanks.”
He'll be just fine.