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Kabal stares at the ceiling as he lies on his bed, his nose wrinkled and his hands curled into tight fists. There is a level of anguish that is threatening to rise as he tries to find comfort in the arms that wrap around him, the hands that run up and down the scar tissue on his stomach, the steady rise and fall of the chest his head rests upon. It should be comfortable, really, but Kabal doesn’t know if he deserves this level of care and love. It makes his head dizzy.
In reality, Kabal doesn’t know if either of them deserve this. A moment of peace, of respite, of a life that could have been had they just made one right decision in their damn lives. Kabal tilts his head to look at Reiko’s visage, watching the way his unfocused eyes gloss over as his mouth moves to whatever thoughts he is having in that big head of his. His stubble is long past overdue a shave, and that just makes Kabal’s nose wrinkle further.
Maybe he deserves it more than Reiko, Kabal decides as he adjusts himself in the grip that wraps around him, feeling the arms shift to accommodate him. After all, all Kabal did was sell a few guns, take a hit on a few people. Hell, at some point he even tried to save the world, but that feels like a few lifetimes ago at this point. Kabal is a good person sometimes, so maybe he deserves this.
Reiko yawns and shifts slightly, one hand lifting up to rub at his face, smearing the remains of war paint that cling to his skin around his eyes. Perhaps in his mind, fighting for Shao Kahn’s complete domination is the good thing to do. Maybe it has something to do with his upbringing, or maybe Reiko is just oblivious to what would actually happen if Shao got his way with the realms.
Kabal does what he does knowingly - and that includes all the wrong things. He has done too many wrong things and just enough right things to really send his head spinning. He reformed, at one point, but that didn’t last very long. It never does. There’s always someone, something, luring him back the other way; be it the price tags set by the Black Dragon or the sort of twisted affection he gains from whatever Reiko is to him now.
“Do you think you’re a good person?” Kabal asks, shifting his gaze back to the ceiling. He half expects Reiko to laugh, or to push him away and curse him out. But all Reiko does is shrug, his hands still running soothing lines up and down Kabal’s torso. He yawns again, as if he had no care in the world to what Kabal was saying.
“Yes,” Reiko says as simply as the air, and Kabal just narrows his eyes at a crack in the ceiling before he sits up straight on the bed, the action causing Reiko to fall away from him with a huff. Kabal doesn’t have to look at him to see the frown etched into his features, he knows him well enough by now to know he wouldn’t be happy with the sudden departure.
Kabal looks at the door, and he has the notion that he wants to leave the room, then the apartment, then the building. Perhaps he’d be better at some sleazy bar somewhere, waiting for the inevitable call from his old boss to tempt him back into the business. He sneers at the scratched wood before he runs a hand through his hair, his movements agitated and bordering on too quick even for him.
Kabal turns to Reiko, and their eyes meet before he looks away from him again. This repeats a few times before Reiko just reaches out with both hands to grab Kabal’s face so that they are forced to look at one another. Reiko’s eyes flicker across Kabal’s face, as if trying to see what is happening in his head without Kabal saying a single word. After a while of Kabal’s silence, he drops the man’s face once again.
“Have you suddenly become bothered by the notion of morality?” Reiko asks, lightly shoving Kabal on his shoulder, and Kabal instinctively responds with a dismissive snort and a shake of his head.
“Shut up, man, am I not allowed to ask you questions?”
“Questions about whether I am a good person or not… it seems out of place for you.”
“Why? ‘Cause you think I don’t care about you?”
“No. It is merely… shocking that you just now you are posing these philosophies after so long of being with me.”
Kabal rolls his eyes. Always with the big words with him, he thinks as he adjusts himself on the bed. Reiko yawns, stretches, and rolls over fully onto his back, preparing to sleep. Then he gets a small, inoffensive kick to his stomach from Kabal, and his eyes shoot open fully before resting his gaze on the other man. There’s a long, stretched silence that seems to go on for hours.
“Good, bad, it has never bothered me. I fight for my emperor, and one day, I will take his place. If that makes me bad, then I do not care.”
“But I was good, once, you know. I helped save the world.”
Reiko sighs. Kabal looks away from him with an astounding amount of strength, resentment building in his gut. Towards Reiko? No. Perhaps not, perhaps never. There’s never been anyone to understand him like Reiko. The perpetual situation of being the underling and the second-in-command to a man as powerful as Shao Kahn or Kano is not the sort of common ground you can breach with just anybody.
No, there’s no resentment for him. If anything, there is a sort of love, maybe, but he doesn’t want to delve too far into that. Whatever Reiko is to Kabal, he doesn’t think he really cares if he’s good when he has his hands around his neck or his face in between his legs. But in moments like this, the here and the now, the moments of reprieve that barely bless them… he does care. Because Kabal used to be good.
Right?
His head hurts, and Kabal just groans as he falls back on the mattress, wincing at the slight sting to his singeing skin that never quite goes away no matter how hard he tries. Kabal lifts his hands up, staring at the burn scars that stretch even up his fingers, his heart aching over one thing or another. Reiko reaches out and grabs one of his hands in one of his own, his thumb brushing over the marred stretch of skin like it’s absolutely nothing. He holds it so normally, so casually, as if this intimacy with the damaged husk that was once close to being considered a hero came second nature to him. Reiko hums as he tilts Kabal’s hand around, gently inspecting the flesh.
“You have survived so much… you have so many scars… you must be honoured,” Reiko says, his voice quiet and borderline reverent. He brings Kabal’s hand up to his lips, kissing the top of it with softness that belies his brutal nature. The hands that have killed so many, that are rough from battles and weaponry - they hold onto Kabal so sweetly that he definitely does not deserve this.
“I used to uphold the law,” Kabal says almost lamely, his eyes flickering across his hand as Reiko holds it. He can only manage about five seconds before he has to look away, the memories of being burned still fresh in his head. Reiko makes a noncommittal hum as he squeezes Kabal’s hand.
“Did you look good in the uniform?”
“Shut up,” Kabal says with another snort, unable to help the way his mouth twitches into a smile as he squeezes Reiko’s hand back. He tilts his head to rest on Reiko’s shoulder as he stares up at the ceiling once again, his eyes landing on a damp spot that he has yet to get sorted. “I definitely looked better than I do now.”
Reiko shakes his head, and brings Kabal’s hand up to his lips once again, letting the kiss linger like he is trying to impart some sort of knowledge from his brain into Kabal’s very skin. Kabal risks looking at the burns on his hand just to look at the other man. His brows are furrowed.
“Were you a good man then, Kabal?” Reiko asks as he drops Kabal’s hand, letting it fall gently on his chest. Their eyes meet once again, the gravity of the question coming from Reiko’s lips make Kabal feel as though he is being pulled down out of the apartment by forces unknown to him.
“Yeah. I mean, I think I was. I saved some people during the invasion.”
“Outworld’s invasion.”
“Okay, right, not all that good for you, but… you know, it was better than being an arms dealer who sold guns to Tarkatans.”
“Yes, but you still worked for him.”
“I know! But I didn’t then! I helped people, I… I fought for them, and in that moment, I genuinely did feel like I was doing good for the first time in my life.”
Kabal covers his face with his hands, almost tired from the energy he put into telling Reiko about everything brewing under the surface. There’s another heavy silence as Reiko slowly wraps an arm around Kabal’s shoulder, pulling him close to the warm and heavy body that he has laid over so many times. He relaxes into Reiko automatically, still covering his face with his hands. In that moment, he feels like a petulant child, demanding that someone - anyone - acknowledges his make believe games as reality.
Is that what he wants? For Reiko to pat his head and tell him that he’s a good person? Because Reiko won’t do that. The man is blunt, simple, and rough around the edges. Just like Kabal, really, if you take away the moments of mental anguish that seem to plague him. It’s why he likes Reiko more than he’s liked anyone before. What you see is what you get, and after many years of working for and with men who had more secret agendas than they had breaths in their lungs… It's nice.
He doesn’t deserve nice, but maybe he’ll take it. He’s taken many things from many people without caring before, so this time might not be so different. Kabal lets his hands fall from his face as he rests his head on Reiko’s shoulder, tilting his head up to fix his gaze on his, not intending to look away this time. He stares into the bright blue eyes that have enraptured him for so long, even from afar, enjoying when he can catch the way they seem to flicker and glow in the right light.
There’s a lot of things he wants to tell Reiko right now. That, perhaps when he felt like he was doing good for the first time, he finally felt like a real person again - and not just an extension of a clan that cares for profit over their own members. Something that he knows Reiko knows far too well, far too intimately. They are one in the same, really. He reaches his hand around to rest his arm on Reiko’s abdomen.
The question has no easy answer, and neither men seem to want to discuss it any further. It’s getting late, and Kabal is sick of thinking in circles, and Reiko is yawning again. Kabal settles in against him, his nose wrinkled as he tries to dispel the lingering thoughts that he never had before he became whatever it is he is when he’s with Reiko.
“Kabal,” Reiko starts, his voice groggy with sleep as he sinks against the mattress, not even caring about the way the springs don’t quite support his weight right. He yawns again as he tugs Kabal closer to him, wanting to surround him with his limbs, seeming to like when he wraps the man up fully. “You think too much.”
“You’d rather me be stupid?”
“No,” Reiko says, as simple as he did when he answered Kabal’s first question of the night, holding him snugly against himself. “I would rather you be you.”
Kabal lifts his head up, looking at the tired, softened features of Reiko’s face with something unusual building in his gut. It’s the first time he’s heard someone say that to him in a long, long time. He is not enforcing the law, and by god is he definitely never working for Kano again. Right here, right now, Kabal is just… not good and not bad. He doesn’t particularly need to be, he thinks.
Kabal is Kabal, and Reiko is Reiko, even if the latter does want to lead one of the most deadly armies in all the realms. Maybe they don’t deserve what they have with each other, but they have it. After everything they’ve done, everyone they might have helped or hurt, they’re here. Maybe Kabal doesn’t need to ‘deserve’ this sort of comfort, this sort of connection that has formed against all odds. For the first time, there is no obligation to sway either way because of the job he’s doing, the person he works for, or the uniform he wears.
Kabal closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of iron and oak that clings to Reiko no matter what he does. Right here and now, he doesn’t care what he is, and maybe he’s alright with that.