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Kaiser hooks his nail on the metal wiring of the cage that keeps Ness’ mouth barred— who stares dully off at the ceiling in the dark of their room. Faint puffs of warm air tickle the pads of his fingers, slow and steady like the beating of his heart against Kaiser’s own— body still warm and humming and so very alive.
Despite the fingers lingering around his face, Ness makes no move to snap or bite. There's no jerk of the head or clack of the teeth the way creatures like him might usually behave, but there's also no confusion dawning on his face at Kaiser willingly getting so close, and no hands coming up to hold him in surprise. Instead is an inhuman stillness as he indulges in what Kaiser hopes for him is sleep, body limp despite the intrusive weight atop it.
Ness was not in any way dangerous. When he first turned he might've been, as all are, but he wasn't now. He'd mellowed out quickly, becoming used to their little corner of the world once more— and slowly it seemed as though Kaiser’s presence had begun to fade into the rest of the scenery, ultimately a part of that background noise. No longer does he see him as a meal, though at the price of eyes that no longer see him at all. Instead, he now stares off into the darkest corners of their room and out windows at the rolling green beyond the house alike, taking the same kind of interest in the birds that signal the coming of morning as he does in nothing at all, neither more fascinating nor boring than the other.
The muzzle which he's forced him to wear is not for Kaiser’s own safety. Ness does not try to bite him. Occasionally he’s experienced the dull press of its metal caging into bare skin, where Ness’ mouth opens and closes around nothing like the only way he knows how to show affection now is by fitting his mouth around him— perhaps the crossed wires in his brain still allowing for some semblance of devotion to persist, but with only the understanding of teeth and his need to tear into being left to display it— but never has he truly attempted to bite. To gnaw and chew on, maybe. But never in malice. The muzzle was not for Kaiser’s own protection, because there was no threat.
Instead, it was for Ness' sake. Because what if a wanderer were to happen upon their little property? What if a survivor were to pass them by and see one of the infected lingering about? Surely they would put an end to him then, whether it be a bullet through the head or by some other more grizzly means— justified rightfully so as an act of preemptive self-preservation.
Kaiser didn’t think he could handle that. So, he fastened a cage around where he's most dangerous— not at all cruel of course, the barring large enough to allow for the opening and closing of his mouth— so that one might see him and realize he poses no threat.
So that one might see him, and realize that he's someone's pet.
The same goes for the rope slung over his shoulders and looped around his waist, which wasn’t actually present to keep him on a “leash” as much as it was to make it appear to outsiders that he had Ness under control. Not that there were many outsiders. Or any. In fact, Kaiser can’t remember seeing another soul besides Ness since the world ended, and moreover; he finds that it truly does not bother him.
This was by his own design, of course. When the worst had come to pass and the world came to its close, Kaiser had whisked Ness off to the middle of nowhere; to a large and abandoned rural property outside of a tiny town. It was there he hid the both of them away, with faded white pasture fences to keep the world out, originally in the hopes that no one would come to trouble them. Now, it was to try and avoid the possibility of someone coming by and deciding to give Ness the ending Kaiser was too afraid of giving him himself.
But as of now, there was no such threat. The world was sleeping, and out in the middle of nowhere humanity had left behind, it truly was possible to hear the chirping of crickets, and the wind over the tall grass. This night was just as it was every other night before out there, where it was quiet enough to make out the creaking of old wood, and even the twinkling of the heavens above if one were to concentrate hard enough— the sort of dreamy things fairytales spoke of that Ness would love.
Still, Kaiser hears none of it. He hears none of it, because he’s slid down Ness’ body to gingerly rest his head against his chest— bare and deceptively warm just so he can better feel the pulse under his skin— because it’s most difficult to tell he’s still something alive at night as he rests. That way, he may listen to the lethargic thud of his beating heart and remind himself that Ness is still something living.
What that something is, though, he’ll never know. Was it the monstrosity that ate at his brain that was this nameless “something?” Be it a parasite or disease or some other intruder? Was it even human at all? Or is it still Ness even after everything— though off somewhere far, far away in a place where Kaiser often considers taking up his rifle so that he may meet him there.
Regardless of what it may be, he lets this something live just a little longer because there’s no true way to know its nature— and even though Ness has always been the one to believe in miracles and magic, he chooses not to act out of the tiny, miracle-esque possibility that it’s still him. Kaiser has always been a selfish man.
No, that didn't feel quite fitting. Not a man— Kaiser was no man. Kaiser was more of a dog than any sort of man. But not in the way Ness was a dog. Ness was the kind people loved— that Kaiser loved— unwavering in his loyalty, unconditionally loving, and stupidly quick to put himself in harm's way when, say, a straggling infected might find its way onto one's property.
Kaiser was something closer to the filthy, deplorable, selfish strays one would find on the street— hunger deep, but heart too mistrusting to accept food willingly offered by the loving hand. Stuck in that awful, self-sabotaging cycle of wanting but being unable to admit it.
And Kaiser does wish now that he’d been able to accept that “loving hand” while he had it, so that he may have fewer regrets. He’s had a lot of time to get to know himself lately. He acknowledges, now, what he is, and he knows what he wants. As Ness’ heart continues to beat steady under his ear and a strange constricting feeling swells in his throat, he knows that the depth of his sorrow can only have been made possible by the love he felt first.
A better man may feel more disgusting in admitting that than Kaiser does, but he’s never been a man to begin with. And with the state of the world he finds himself in a lawless land, so, naturally, those who might condemn him for this strange affliction have not the power any longer.
But he doesn’t know how Ness felt. He’s never going to know how Ness felt. And Kaiser may be a lot of horrible things, but even he’s man enough to respect that there’s always going to be a line between them that’s never going to move— not without Ness present to invite him across it and give him permission. He understands that.
Whether or not Ness had ever reciprocated these thoughts that defiled the contents of what should’ve been a respectable friendship remaining a mystery seems almost fair, though— for Kaiser knows that the same could be said for himself. He hadn’t quite recognised the nature of the hopes and convictions he’d placed upon Ness until he’d “passed,” and they’d gone not just unannounced, but unrealized until the end. That was no one’s fault but his own.
Kaiser realizes now. And because he no longer has any way of telling him, he’s made it his goal to make himself heard through the way he combs and trims his hair, the gentleness with which he cleans him off at the end of the day, and the time he spends making sure he eats.
And maybe it's this need to prove himself that keeps him from letting Ness go— this bitterness over the fact that he knows what he could've had if he'd just realized sooner. Maybe that’s the source of selfishness that has him gripping tight despite knowing the moral right. But he didn't, and he doesn't.
He had gotten a sort of taste at one point, though, and it only made him hunger more for what could've been.
When the world was ending, all those silly societal and social norms people were taught began to fall away. No more expected etiquette, no more manners, no more taboos— because the omnipresent fear of the world itself overwrote them all.
What went with them, was this idea that men should not be close, for as survival teaches: safety in numbers. Nighttime came with the very reasonable fear of sleeping alone, and Kaiser often found himself sharing the same sheets and pillows as Ness, his hand on Kaiser’s shoulder or over his torso as he slept, marking him as if he wanted to always be sure he was nearby.
It truly wasn't anything romantic or obscene or any of the other labels traditionally associated with the act of sleeping with another man— it’d just been born of the natural draw to be close during times of need. Ness had always kept his distance, and Kaiser faintly remembers the sensation of his forehead tipped against his back, the feeling of Ness’ breath light down his spine.
But he’d never dared get any closer than that. There was no meshing of bodies or arm curled tight around his waist. Just a hand placed to his shoulder or across his body, and a forehead between his shoulder blades. That’s how it was every night, and now, as he lay against that still-warm body, he wishes dearly that he knew what it might’ve felt like to be held back.
Ness’ arm now hangs limply off the side of the bed. Even as Kaiser crosses that unspoken line in the way he holds him close, hands gripping tight into the bare skin of the body once belonging to his best friend, there lacks any sort of reciprocation.
He hopes that if he ever finds the same kind of sleep he had with Ness’ reassuring touch to remind him he wasn’t alone, that he may dream of a life in which their closeness might spark a look of shock across those pretty features the way they should. In that faraway dream, Kaiser’s choice to settle atop Ness and share the warmth of one body would instead inspire warm cheeks and confusion. There, his hands might come up in surprise as he questions what Kaiser is doing— to which he might shush him and settle wordlessly into the crook of his neck.
And then, once Ness’ hands had come to rest upon his back— stiff and unsure of what could have possibly come over the man he knows to be anything but this— Kaiser would open his mouth and tell him all the things he wishes he could say now; starting with quiet ‘I’m sorry I never made it clear how much what you do means to me’s and ‘I think I feel certain things for you that I shouldn’t, and I just want you to know’s.
Or maybe— more likely— he would leave out that latter half for Ness’ sake. To save him from the discomfort of Kaiser’s inability to be a friend and nothing more, naturally— but this was his fantasy, and in it, Ness would laugh and tell him he felt the same. And somewhere at the end of the world where people no longer lingered and judgment no longer cast, Kaiser might get his first taste of this magical thing he’d read about in books and seen in movies, but never felt had been reserved for him.
They’d share a life then, here at the end of the world, and Kaiser might spend his mornings feeding the quails and ducks and other birds they’ve caught. Ness would take care of the garden, and Kaiser would go and check the property. Then, when he got back, there’d be food waiting for him on the table, Ness cheery despite it all and happy to share.
Come night, Kaiser might finally know what it’s like to be held beyond the marking of his shoulder, warm hands worming their way around his waist and pulling him close. Or maybe it’d be like this while they talked— with his heartbeat steady against Ness’ own as he listened to him murmur into the night— whether it be stories or thoughts or worries, Kaiser wouldn’t care— eyelids heavy and head at his shoulder.
This fantasy is broken, though, when the top of his head bumps against the cool metal barring over Ness’ mouth. His eyes snap open to find things are as dark as they were before, room still and quiet save for soft breath.
A sudden and deep bitterness wells up within him then, souring the blood in his veins and constricting his throat. He wishes painfully that he’d been more accepting of Ness’ affections when he had them, so that maybe they could’ve become some sort of habitual routine. Then, perhaps the sickest, loneliest part of him could allow himself the hope that some strange misfiring in what was left of his brain as his wires crossed would cause him to act on that habit, offering him the tiniest remnant of his devotions and reminding him for an instant what his version of love felt like— no matter the kind. For an instant he could pretend he was still there if he did, and experience the most fleeting moment of respite before his loneliness came back all the greater afterward.
Kaiser loves Ness. Actively, present tense, wholeheartedly. And as scary of a word as that is and as gross as it feels, and for how afraid he is of admitting it— that's why he uses it now. Alone with himself as he is, he hates himself more than ever— forced to linger somewhere at the end of the world with only himself and what's left of the best thing that ever happened to him— he figures there's no better way to punish himself than by raising his eyes and facing that awful word head on.
So, he lifts his head to peer at the face of someone he loves dearly— who now only exists somewhere far, far away where Kaiser knows he could reach if he wanted it badly enough, but is too much of a coward. Ness’ eyes are closed now, and it really does look as though he could be asleep. Kaiser hopes that’s the case.
So, with shaky hands, he slowly raises his arms to fish around the back of Ness' head to find the buckles that keep him restricted. A faint click sounds as the straps give way, and he gently sets the caging to the side. Ness does not stir, and Kaiser allows himself to momentarily marvel at how normal he looks.
He could almost trick himself into thinking this was the same man who cried when the world ended, lamenting the loss of a family who never loved him, and worried for their safety instead of focusing on his own. Kaiser had only harsh words for him then, but as he lays here now, he thinks he might understand.
He threads his fingers into Ness’ own then where they settle against the sheets, leaning his head back down into his shoulder. If Ness decides to bite him when he wakes, then so be it. It would give him the motivation to do the right thing, and with his last bit of cognizance, he would put an end to them both. The risk felt worth it for even a moment where he could pretend he’s back there, during a time where everything was just right.
With a deep and shaky breath, he focuses on the warmth below his cheek and closes his eyes in hopes of finding some sort of rest.