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Kaelix was screwed. He was so, so screwed, he thought as he looked at the group of thugs surrounding him. It had been a simple patrol, but somehow he ended up being ambushed by a group of thugs whose leader he had arrested recently. Expected, honestly, but still infuriating nonetheless. The thugs had knocked him over, and he was pretty sure his leg was broken.
“Finally, we can avenge our leader by ending the pretty, little cop who locked him up,” one of them snarled, stepping closer to Kaelix with a crowbar in his hands. Another one cackled, “I bet he screams as pretty as he bleeds.”
The third grinned manically, pulling a knife from his pocket, “Make sure to scream, okay pretty boy?”
Kaelix spat in the man’s face, making him stumble back for a moment before growing angrier. “You bitch! You fucking bitch! I’m going to end you, and it will hurt,” he growled, stepping forward, and grabbing Kaelix’s hair roughly.
He raised his knife, intending to strike, and Kaelix didn’t make it easy, thrashing and kicking. He refused to go down without a fight. Before the thug could bring down his knife, a gunshot rang in the air, and the man fell, his head exploding into a mess of blood and brain, splattering all over Kaelix. Gross.
His two friends whirled around, trying to find the shooter, but another, the one who had talked about him screaming, was taken down quickly, leaving only the first man behind.
“Touching what’s ours? You should die for that,” a familiar voice purred from above them. Yours? Since when was I yours!? Kaelix looked up to see Seible, a notorious serial killer, sitting on the fire escape above them. Seible grinned at Kaelix, waving his hands like there wasn’t the bodies of two people with their heads blown out lying right before him. “You– Who the hell are you?!” The thug asked, voice trembling with fear.
Seible’s gaze darkened as he looked at the thug like he was a pest. “Hm, you know me as ‘The Butcher’,” he said in a sing-song voice. The Butcher, a serial killer known for his brutal crime scenes. His trademark, a sign of his kills, was the way limbs of his victims would be strewn around the area like a sick game. He was one of the serial killers Kaelix had spent the last three years trying to hunt down.
“Don’t fuck with me! Butcher does shit brutally, not a one shot, one kill!” The thug spat, trying to regain some bravado, but he was failing miserably.
“True, because it wasn’t me who shot them,” Seible shrugged, “It was Gin-chan who did that.” Kaelix cursed internally, because of course Ginjoka was here too. Wherever Seible was, Ginjoka was, which meant that Freodore wasn’t far behind. “‘Gin-chan’?” The thug snorted.
“Shadow,” Kaelix spoke up, still sitting against the wall with blood all over him. Damnit, he just got that shirt cleaned and now it was all dirty again. “He’s talking about Shadow.”
Shadow, or Zeal Ginjoka, was another one of the killers Kaelix was trying to find. Shadow was more a mercenary than a serial killer, typically hired to take out people’s enemies. And he did his job well, taking out his targets with practiced precision. Kaelix, against his own morals, admired the other’s sharp shooting skills. At Seible’s words, Ginjoka jumped down from whichever ledge he had been hiding on, blocking off one of the two exits of the alleyway they were in. As usual, he wore all black, his expression one of calm superiority, gun in his hand loaded and ready to shoot. “Kaelix,” Zeal’s voice rang, his purple eyes fixed on Kaelix’s bloody form.
“Don’t worry, the blood isn’t mine, though I’m sure you already knew that,” Kaelix said. The thug looked between them, as if now realising that he was severely outmatched. “H-How?! You’re a cop and they’re the most wanted! Why are you so familiar with them?!”
Kaelix shrugged, unsure of it fully himself. Being the cop sent to chase after them for three years had made some strange bond form between them. They joked while he hunted them down, the three never truly injuring him. It was strange.
“Since the both of you are here, then he must be here too,” Kaelix said, glancing at the last entrance to the alleyway. True to his thoughts, a figure appeared there. Eloquently dressed and holding himself with confidence, Freodore looked impeccable as usual, a stark contrast to the run down alley. The thug recognised him, the most well known of the three. “‘Artisan’... that’s you, right?” The thug looked so much smaller in the face of the three big shot criminals before him, and they weren’t on his side.
Artisan, the serial killer who typically turned his victims into grotesque works of ‘art’. For many people, despite the cruel nature of his kills, none could deny the technique and horrifying beauty.
“Turns out scum like you can have a brain after all,” Freodore scoffed, walking forward, his heels clicking against the concrete ground. “Why?! Why are you defending this cop bastard?!” The thug yelled, pulling out a weapon, but Ginjoka shot his arm in a flash, making the thug drop the knife to the ground.
“He may be a cop, but he’s ours,” Seible smiled sweetly, but his eyes remained cold and furious. “He’s ours to play with, ours to kill. A no-name, good-for-nothing scum bag like you has no right to even look at him, much less touch him.”
Seible leapt down from the fire escape, slinking forward with a predatory grace. Ginjoka moved forward, walking right past the injured thug to pull Kaelix up. “You’ve really gotten yourself into a mess, haven’t you, Kaelix?” He spoke, voice tinged with amusement. Kaelix opened his mouth to reply with something snarky, but could only let out a hiss of pain as pressure was put on his leg. Yep, definitely broken. Ginjoka frowned, putting aside his gun and sweeping Kaelix into a princess carry. “Woah! Put me down!” Kaelix demanded. This wasn’t right at all. Being saved by the very criminals he was supposed to arrest? If they didn’t kill him, he would probably lose his job!
“And let you wander around with that leg? Looking all vulnerable and pretty? Darling, you’re just asking for trouble,” Ginjoka chuckled, simply tightening his grip on Kaelix. Kaelix’s cheeks flushed red at the term of endearment. Seible pouted from where he stood, “No fair, Gin-chan! I wanna make Kae-chan go red too!”
The thug, who Kaelix had almost forgotten about, groaned in pain as Freodore kicked him hard. “Tch, a filthy thing like you laying a hand on him? Death would be too good for you.”
“Ooh! Maybe we should torture him! And let Kae-chan watch!” Seible suggested cheerfully, grabbing the thug by his hair. “I bet it would be a fun bonding experience!” The thug grew paler, though Kaelix wasn’t sure if it was from blood loss or fear. “Ginjoka– Zeal. Let me down. I can just go to a hospital–”
Freodore cut him off, “No. You’re coming with us. We’ve let you run around long enough, and clearly, you can’t take care of yourself.” Kaelix felt his heart drop to his stomach. What did that mean? Were they kidnapping him? It definitely sounded like a kidnapping.
“Don’t worry your pretty head about a thing,” Ginjoka said placatingly. “Freo, get the sedative.” Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Kaelix started to struggle more, he needed to get away, he needed to get out of here. Ginjoka moved faster, grabbing the syringe from Freodore’s hands and jabbing the needle straight into Kaelix’s arm. Whatever he had injected in him worked fast, and soon Kaelix was fast asleep.
“Now, for this trash,” Seible grinned manically at the thug, who began to tremble under the combined glares of the three men.
~
They didn’t know how was it they fell in love with Kaelix. It just happened, honestly. The first to fall was Seible. He saw Kaelix as a beautiful doll that he wanted to keep, to tear apart and sew back together. Over time, his obsession spiralled. He didn’t just want Kaelix’s beauty, he simply wanted Kaelix.
With his sudden interest brought Zeal and Freo’s interest. After all, Seible’s attention was usually fleeting, before Kaelix, his interest had only ever stayed constant for the two of them. Naturally, they would be curious.
Zeal fell next. His obsession came not with Kaelix’s good looks, though those certainly played a part, but rather it was Kaelix’s heart. The desire for justice was ironically a rare trait for cops, and Zeal had seen many who claimed to desire justice, but only did so for their own gains. Kaelix was different. He genuinely wanted peace for all, his heart was pure and kind and totally unsuited for the job he had chosen. Zeal wanted to preserve that innocence, that strange naivety that could only come from being too optimistic.
Freo took the longest to fall, as the most guarded of the three, it was obvious he would be wary of the man who had managed to capture his two lovers’ hearts. He would admit, he was a jealous and possessive lover, he wanted to hate Kaelix. He wanted to despise the other for garnering Zeal and Seible’s attention, but he simply couldn’t. Even though each of their meetings ended with Kaelix trying to arrest him, Freo found that Kaelix was a lovable idiot. He watched from afar, trying to find out just what was it about this man that was so special, and he realised that what made Kaelix special was that he wasn’t special. He was simply a regular guy who wanted to do well, and he was an idiot. Freo watched as the cop that managed to track them down so many times before fumble at simply going grocery shopping, and the day his heart clenched at the mere sight of Kaelix falling over, he knew he was in deep.
The three of them had talked it over and they knew they wanted to keep their precious officer locked away, only for their eyes to see. While they detested those filthy thugs for harming Kaelix, they couldn’t deny the opportunity presented to them.
Now, looking at their darling who lay in Zeal’s arms unconscious, completely vulnerable to the world, they couldn’t help but sigh. Kaelix was finally theirs, and it didn’t matter if he resisted at first. He would learn to love them, just like they had learned to love each other.
Love was a funny thing, wasn’t it?