<< Come Up For Air - Skylar Grey >>
Ely Seraphall made a show of reluctantly accepting their new temporary lodger, but Kai had seen the way his face lit up when Uriel demolished his second helping amongst a swarm of compliments to his culinary skills.
Kai sat back, barely containing the smug expression that threatened to creep over his face.
Yet, just as he was about to take his first bite, Aida shot him a disgruntled look.
"Get Rami first. I'm not eating without him. He can take mum's seat."
Kai flinched internally, his eyes flicking over to the empty chair beside his father, who had made no move to object to this.
Uriel gave them an innocent smile, "Oh! Is that the woman from the photograph?" He asked, gesturing towards the framed photo that his father had taken for her with a runic camera after their first date.
Malaika Seraphall was smiling brightly in the, now faded, photo; her hazel eyes, the same shape and shade of Kai's. He also shared the same golden blonde hue of her hair, which fell to her waist in soft waves. Everything about the image that they kept on the mantlepiece in their family sitting room was bright and cheerful - and absolutely nothing like the memories that so often plagued Kai's nightmares.
He nodded in acknowledgment, already steeling himself for the inevitable follow up question before it even fell from Uriel's lips:
"Where is she?"
Kai answered in a flat voice, "She died."
Uriel paused, his default, jocular demeanour fading away when he caught the way Kai's face had fallen into that blank, empty mask as though he were indifferent to the topic.
He tilted his head to the side, innocently, "Oh...I'm sorry. How did she die?" He asked.
For a moment, Kai wanted to answer truthfully, and not the partial truth that he told everyone else, the same line his father had repeated over and over again, 'She took her own life, she wasn't well.'
But the words stuck in his throat, and before he knew it, the lie fell from his lips before he could even ask himself why he was not choosing to just be truthful, "It was an accident. She didn't mean to."
The atmosphere shifted as soon as his words landed, Aida stiffening in her seat and dropping her food down onto her plate with a blank expression, his father's eyes widening in shock.
He had never heard Kai say that before and the strange wording had stirred something uneasy inside him. He knew that their mother's death had been difficult for them - for all of them. But Ely had always assumed that it was a simple, if painful, share of grief.
Something easily explained and categorised. But was there something he had missed?
Uriel stared back at him in clear surprise. If Kai wasn't sure if he could detect when he was being lied to before, he certainly did now, as from the moment the lie had left him, he felt the Angel's gaze piercing through his skin.
He waited for him to challenge it, but instead Uriel simply caught his father's eyes who shook his head imperceptibly as if to say, 'Let it be'.
So instead, Uriel smiled at him sadly and got up from the table.
"I am sorry to hear that." He uttered, with such warm and clear sincerity that Kai outwardly flinched, "You look a lot like her. She was beautiful."
He felt his eyes burning at the corners and looked down at the table, glaring at the wood grain as though it had been the table's fault that he had just lied to an Angel.
"Your friend can take my place, I'll wait here instead." He flopped down onto a comfortable chair in their small family room, behind the kitchen table and said nothing more, humming quietly under his breath and rolling another coin back and forth over his knuckles as though it were supremely fascinating.
Kai lifted his head and watched him for a moment before letting out a quiet sigh and getting up from the table, "I'll get Rami. I think he's taking a shower." He mumbled.
He stepped outside through the front door and into the cool evening air, breathing in deeply in the hopes that the air that filled his lungs would soothe the aching pain in his chest.
When he opened his eyes and turned around, he jumped a little in surprise when he noted that he was not alone.
Their neighbour, Mrs Amin, a kindly older woman with dark greying hair and kind brown eyes was sitting on her front porch.
The moment he turned towards her she raised her hand to give him a friendly wave.
Kai returned it with a small smile.
The woman's husband had died twenty years ago; she had never remarried.
When they were young and his father had been away for extended periods of time, there were multiple occasions when his mother had fallen into one of her strange states of quiet. The ones that made Kai shudder to remember.
It was as though something dark had its claws in her, pulling her down until she seemed small and frightened.
Too frightened to get out of bed, to care for herself, or for her children.
During these times, their neighbour would contact Ely and until he was able to rush back home to break her out of this strange state, their neighbour would take both Kai and Aida into her home.
Aida was likely too young to remember these times, but Kai could recall it clearly.
The way that she had tried to distract him from his concern for his mother with silly games and too many sweets, accompanied by warmth and that same, kind smile she was giving him now.
A heavy weight pulled at his heart.
He hated that he knew what would happen to her.
In three years time, just like his first life, Mrs Amin was going to die.
Not from old age, she was still too young for that. And not from an accident.
One day, she'll simply be sitting on her porch, just like today, and without warning, she will slump over and lose consciousness when an aneurysm in her brain ruptures.
Not even Artifact healers can stop something so sudden.
And yet -
'Wait! What if I can do something? Surely if they find it before it ruptures the healers can save her. Maybe I can finally do something good with this!'
Kai approached the low fence that separated their properties, fighting desperately to sound nonchalant as he called out to the older woman, "Hey, Mrs Amin."
She cocked her head to the side with another smile, "Hello, Kai. How's your father doing?"
He waved his hand in the air, "Oh fine, fine. As active as ever and still a terrible cook." He grinned, pulling back his eagerness as the hope bubbled dangerously in his chest.
Mrs Amin chuckled in amusement, "I did offer to teach him, I swear."
"Don't worry about it, we haven't been poisoned yet." Kai added, "But listen...I was just - concerned, about you."
A light frown creased her brows for a moment before she let out another low chuckle, "Me? Gods, there's no need for you to concern yourself with me, Kai. I may be old but there's plenty of life in me yet." She winked.
Kai smiled back, "I know, you're tougher than my old man, but...well, maybe you should go and get yourself checked out soon, just to be on the safe side. There's no harm in that, right? You just look a little pale lately."
She waved away his concerns with kind gratitude, but before Kai turned to the garage extension he felt a modicum of the weight in his chest releasing. At least it was a start.
He would start to plant doubt now and then if she began to feel any twinge of pain, any increase in fatigue, maybe she would look back on his words and think: 'Why don't I just go and get myself checked, what's the harm in that?'
And so, with an almost good deed tucked under his metaphorical belt, Kai was in a far lighter mood when he pulled back the heavy fabric curtain without knocking against the metal post beside it.
"Rami? Are you done cleaning up? Dinner's...err -"
Rameses was stepping out from behind the painted screen that covered his bathroom, one hand scrubbing at the back of his soaking wet hair with a small towel, whilst another hung low on his hips, barely covering the lower half of his body.
Kai's mouth snapped shut and he froze in his tracks.
He was not proud of the pause.
He was also not proud of where his eyes landed.
First at his broad chest, that, he told himself, he had already seen countless times before; so why was the colour of his skin so much prettier when it was damp and illuminated by the soft orange glow of the light rune beside his bed? Why did his wet hair look so much sexier when his curls were dripping with water, so black they almost absorbed the light that touched them?
Rameses had frozen too, his hand still up in the air against the back of his head as though movement would break whatever moment Kai was having between himself and his abs.
Because his eyes moved there next, trailing down to the deep v that disappeared into the top of his towel, and suddenly, just for a moment, with a fleeting thought that stirred a rush of heat to his face, Kai wished that stupid, flimsy towel would just drop for fuck's sake. Why was it clinging so stubbornly to his hips?
'Wait...what is that?'
Kai's eyes widened in shock when they found it.
The bruise covering his left hip.
Had he truly been ogling his muscles so much that he'd missed that?
He recalled the way that Rami had been moving as though he were favouring his right side when he found them in the forest and wondered what on Zenin he had done to get it. It seemed to cover almost his entire left side from just above his knee to the centre of his ribs in deep angry shades of dark blood red and spots of purple so vivid, they were black in parts.
Kaius looked at him then, and not in the way that had made his mouth water just a few seconds before. Even standing still, it was obvious that he was hurt. The slight protective cant of his left arm, the careful distribution of his weight, even the way he breathed; like taking a breath too deep would cost him something.
"Rami. What the ever loving fuck? What did you do?" He asked.
But Kai heard an edge of panic to his own voice that alarmed him. It was coming from somewhere outside of his careful, controlled, filed-away system. Despite everything he felt and everything that he wanted to feel; hatred, anger, spite - it wasn't there. In its place was something else.
A raw, unbridled fear at seeing Rameses hurt with no knowledge of how or why.
Anything could have happened, what if he had broken something?
'Is that why he's breathing so slowly? Did he break his rib? Or maybe multiple. No, wait, that's not the bad part, it's that darker bruise around the side of his waist! What if he has internal injuries? He could be bleeding out and not even know it!'
Rami, meanwhile, simply looked down at his body and back up again with the blank expression of someone who had been caught in possession of something entirely reasonable and unconcerning, "A bruise." He commented, dryly.
But in the next moment, his eyes widened when Kai crossed the room as though his legs were moving against his own command, stopping at a distance so close that Rami could smell the mint scented soap he used to wash his hair.
He stilled, allowing his arm to drop down to his side and willing it not to reach out and touch him.
But Kai had already crossed that line, his fingers brushing against the edges of the bruise and trailing against the side of his abs and down to the top of his pelvis.
Rameses flinched back.
"Shit. Sorry, did that hurt?" Kai asked, lifting his bright hazel eyes up to meet his gaze.
A muscle in his jaw flickered and Rami shook his head, no.
"I'm fine." He answered, and even he could hear the break in his husky voice.
Kai swallowed heavily, looking down and jolting back as if he had only now realised that his hand had been dangerously close to the edge of that loose, flimsy towel.
A deep blush crept back over his face and he mumbled another awkward apology before taking a breath to try again.
"What did you do?" He pressed, "That's more than just a bruise Rami. What happened?"
Rami attempted to give him a sheepish grin that immediately gave way under the intensity of Kai's gaze.
He sighed quietly, holding back a wince when his ribs throbbed in response, "We found your tent, as well as the tracks the Demon left when it chased after you. The others decided that you must have ended up in the marsh or - or not." Rami swallowed, unable to voice what he had felt in that moment, only that something cold had crept under his skin and a dark empty nothing had slid behind his eyes - just like before.
He shook his head slowly and continued, "They went towards the marsh and I broke off. I wanted to find the Demon. I didn't think you were really gone, but...just in case, I wasn't about to let it go free." He finished, holding Kai's eyes with a pointed, heavy gaze that didn't require words.
Kai let out a shaky laugh and ran his hand through his hair, unable to process the strange mix of emotions that were fighting inside of him for supremacy, 'Idiot...stupid, stupid man.'
"Did you kill it?" He asked, already knowing the answer. Rameses was here after all, injured but alive and seemingly pleased with himself.
Rami nodded, "Of course." He glanced down at the bruise again, "Bastard managed to get a hit in when I stabbed it though. Launched me into a damn tree."
He looked back at Kai with a quiet, careful expression then, attempting once again to read him in the way that he always did; his pale blue eyes tracing the lines of his face, the shape of his eyes, the slight crease between his brows, searching for the correct interpretation.
"Are you angry?" Rami asked him.
Kai blinked up at him in surprise, "No." He answered immediately, "No, I'm not angry. I just -"
He raised his hand again, and slowly, hesitantly placed it on Rami's damp, warm skin just below his chest, away from the bruise on his left side, "I was worried for a moment. It looks bad."
Rameses suppressed a groan catching Kai's wrist and holding it away from him, "It's ok, nothing is broken. Besides, I'm a native Zenian, we heal faster than you puny invaders." He teased, forcing his facial muscles into the practiced smirk.
But Kai wasn't paying attention to his words.
'What is this? Make Kai Feel Like Shit, day? First my family and now this confusing arsehole. Why did he do that? He could have died, and for what? I wasn't dead. I was fine. He didn't need to do that!'
The fact that he had acted alone, without telling anybody and then attempted to hide it as though his life were of little concern or importance, irked Kai in strange and confusing ways.
And he was still holding his wrist.
Holding it in that strong, unyielding grip that was never painful but instead was firm and dominant in a way that sent a strange thrill through his body at how glaringly opposite it felt to Rami's usually cool and aloof demeanour.
Kai looked up at him for a long moment, watching the quiet confusion pass over his handsome face.
"You killed it." He said, again.
Rami cocked his head to the side, "...yes." He answered, hesitantly.
"For me." Kai added.
Rameses paused.
For a few seconds he just stood there, holding Kai's wrist, watching some strange, utterly indecipherable emotion stirring behind his pretty, hazel eyes.
The blush had faded, the frown was gone, and was it his imagination or were his eyes flickering down to Rami's lips and back again?
"I did."
Kai leant forwards, breaking the distance between them, and kissed him.
**