Work Text:
His fingers go slack on the hilt of the knife, and Rin is the one who pushes the blade inside her heart.
It could be a point of pride, to know that not even at the end of the line was he able to kill her.
It is a point of shame, to know that not even at the end of the line he was capable of doing what she needed from him.
Her hand leaves the knife and moves to Kitay’s cheek, drawing a character there in her own blood with her last breath. Kitay’s eyes go wide, but Nezha can not focus on him, not when Rin’s going lifeless in between his arms.
The dirigibles descend towards Speer and Rin is small, light, fragile, in Nezha’s arms and Kitay’s scream pierces the entire sky.
The Hesperians take Kitay.
Nezha goes home and mourns them both.
Whatever way Rin and Kitay were bonded- and Nezha is not stupid, he knows something was going on between them even if he knows nothing of the specifics- that bond is broken now and Kitay does not tell the Hesperians about it.
Nezha was terrified they were going to kill him in retaliation, even if they couldn’t find a drop of Chaos inside his body.
Eventually, they bring him back, haggard and pale, with golden circlets that almost fall off from how skinny his wrists are. It makes sense: the Hesperians are pragmatic, and you don't waste a mind like Kitay’s without a good reason.
Nezha takes him home.
Kitay gets to work without a minute to spare.
Nezha lets him be. He can understand having a void inside you that nothing can fill, but trying anyway.
They clash over the smallest details. One time, frustrated and heartbroken out of his mind, Nezha spats at him, “Why are you helping me, if you don’t believe in me?”
Kitay levels him with a glare that makes him look twice his age.
“Because she did.”
They go back to work.
It’s hard to look at Kitay and not see Rin.
Nezha wouldn’t be able to put it into words; they don’t look alike, they don’t speak the same way- Rin never completely lost her southern accent, no matter how hard she tried- and they don’t even think the same way.
But there is something intrinsic inside him that was hers too, something about the way they stand in front of the world, that’s one and the same.
Nezha can't decide if they mirror each other like siblings do or like lovers do.
Either way, it calls to him like a flame.
They don't talk about her.
Which means every conversation they have is about her.
She is everywhere, in her favorite buns that Nezha forbade from the kitchen, in the scars on Kitay’s body, in the halls of the palace that her small feet left scorched.
She is everything he can think about; if he is reviewing harvest numbers she is making snide comments over his shoulder; if he is meeting with Tarcquet she is in his desire to kick the General’s shins at every condescending comment; if Kitay is leaning his forehead against the cool glass of a window, her arms are around his waist, her nose nuzzling against his shoulder.
“We should take a break.”
He almost doesn’t recognize his own voice. Who is this man who can do something besides work and mourn?
Kitay looks at him for a long moment. The afternoon light makes his freckles look golden.
“We should.”
They are lying on the floor of his office, drunk out of their minds.
This is something they know how to do together.
They are fourteen and hiding from Kitay’s father. They are twenty and wrestling each other. They are twenty-one and holding hands after being on opposite sides of a battlefield.
They are twenty-two and with the same Rin-sized hole in their souls.
Kitay is lying on his back, his right arm in the air, rubbing at his wrist with his other hand. At first, Nezha thinks the Hesperian circlet is bothering him, until he realizes that Kitay is actually touching a white circular scar that is hiding under the golden bracelet.
“How did you get that scar?”
Kitay doesn’t respond for a long time. That has been happening a lot with him like he is still pondering how much he can safely tell Nezha, and the alcohol and the months spent in close quarters make it harder for him to make that decision.
“It’s from Rin’s amputation.” He doesn’t say her name often, and to hear it from outside the demons inside his own head makes Nezha shiver. Kitay keeps going without further prompting, “I was lucky I didn’t lose the hand when she did.”
Nezha breathes in and out. The ceiling is swirling around his eyes, but he is blaming the alcohol and not the tears.
“You really were close, weren’t you?”
“You can’t even begin to imagine it.”
He can’t. He shouldn't. Everyone who has gotten close to him has only found their demise. Mingzha. Venka. Rin. He should be strong enough to push Kitay away, for his own sake.
He is not.
“She broke it. Our bond. When she wrote on me.” It’s the first time Kitay talks about that day on Speer, and something is slithering up Nezha’s spine and it’s not the Dragon. “She forced me to live without her.”
Nezha turns on his belly and crawls closer until his head covers Kitay’s face in shadows.
“Kitay, it was a gift.” He does not understand exactly the story Kitay is telling, but he understands this.
Kitay shakes his head, his eyes focusing on a point over Nezha’s shoulder. “No. It was retaliation.”
Nezha doesn’t insist, but he knows he is right. It was a gift. Maybe not to Kitay, but to him.
They end up falling asleep on the floor, both of Nezha’s hands clasping one of Kitay’s.
The morning sunlight reaching his eyes wakes him up. He does not remember seeing Kitay this peaceful in years. Nezha picks him up, not without effort, and takes him to the cot in the backroom of his office.
The backroom becomes Kitay’s de facto bedroom. He says it’s just because it’s practical and convenient.
Nezha doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t argue.
What happens is that the backroom becomes an extension of the office, a place where Kitay spreads heavy books all over his bed, and screams himself raw calling Nezha an idiot.
Nezha is glad that they can argue from one room to the other because that means Kitay doesn’t see him smiling.
On the anniversary of Rin’s death, Nezha drinks himself stupid and Kitay doesn’t leave his bedroom.
The next morning finds him on Kitay’s cot, without any recollection of how he got there. On the nightstand, near Kitay's current pile of books, lies the knife that killed Rin. It’s squeaky clean, though Nezha remembers running it over his own skin yesterday.
His blood on the blade is as much gone as the wounds on his arms.
They don’t talk about it and Nezha, not for the first time, drops the knife in a drawer and promises himself that he won’t take it out again.
He breaks that promise, but he is trying.
Kitay drags him to his bedroom by the hand, talking a mile a minute about an irrigation system that could boost crop production, and Nezha is afraid he is going to walk in to find the walls covered in deranged scribbles.
Luckily, there are only papers scattered all over the floor, and Nezha sits down on the edge of the bed and lets Kitay spit out his entire idea before he starts asking questions.
They stay up discussing it until the sun goes down and comes up again, and Nezha does not remember falling asleep.
He wakes up with Kitay’s curls tickling his nose, his hands hovering over his waist.
It does not feel like it did when they were children and the two of them plus Venka would fall asleep whenever in weird configurations, and not only because the absence of Venka is a dark cloud of dread lodged inside his throat.
Nezha pretends he doesn’t feel any kind of way about it and goes back to sleep.
It happens again. And again.
And again.
Nezha almost doesn’t remember anymore how it feels to sleep in his own bed.
Sometimes it feels like his mother is still alive with how much he still lives under the “if you don’t speak about it then it doesn’t exist” motto.
“Come on, let’s go outside and train.”
“You want to leave your books to do physical exercise? Who are you and what have you done to Chen Kitay?”
“Don’t be obtuse, Nezha. We are soldiers.”
“Not anymore. We are statesmen now.”
“You are a statesman. I’m just your shitty shadow.”
“Whatever I am, we are the same.”
“Maybe I don’t want exercise. Maybe I just want to mess up your pretty face.”
“Please, like you could ever land a blow on me.”
“Try me.”
Nezha has the cot in the backroom changed for the larger bed that could fit in there without being a nuisance.
They also don’t talk about that.
“You should get married.”
“Maybe.”
“You are going to be stupidly stubborn about it and not do it, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you feel lonely?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not?”
“No one could replace her. For everything else, I got you.”
On the second anniversary of Rin’s death, Nezha pounds on the closed door, harder than needed. Maybe if his hands hurt enough, he can ignore the voices in his head calling for Rin’s knife.
There is anger simmering inside his chest- how do you dare, this is my bedroom too, what makes you think your grief is unique- but the moment Kitay finally opens the door, hollow eyes and trembling hands, Nezha’s ribcage bursts with a tide of warm water that erases any reproach.
He pounces on him, stretching him in a hug until they both fall on the bed, tangled together.
“I hid her knife,” Kitay blurts out, half-choked under Nezha’s arms.
A rush of emotions courses through Nezha’s body: rage, jealousy, relief.
“Are you going to stab me with it?” he asks, half-serious, half-joking.
Kitay is not laughing when he replies.
“No.”
“I deserve it.”
“Maybe.” He licks his lips and Nezha follows the movement of his tongue with his eyes. They have settled in the bed in a position similar to the one they usually wake up in, that’s not the one from when they fall asleep, when they pretend they are not there to touch each other. “You have suffered enough.”
Nezha leans closer and kisses him.
Kitay kisses him back. Until he doesn’t.
“I’m not her. I will never be her.”
“I know. I know.”
“She is in your mind.”
“Isn’t she in yours?”
“Always.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You don’t want me. You are just overcome by grief.”
“Two things can be true at the same time.”
“If you still want this tomorrow, we will talk. If not, we are going to pretend it has never happened.”
“Okay.”
Nezha waits till the sun comes out and leans closer to kiss him on the corner of his mouth.
It’s a luminous day and he is not healed, but broken is also not the only thing that he is.
“Kitay, it’s tomorrow.”