The water’s cold on his face as he washes himself with it. Splashes it on his newly dyed hair. Golden. Colour of the sun. Light. Cheerful. The colour makes him look like a different person. Someone younger. Thinner. The hollow of his cheeks stand out. So do the freckles. The hair swoops down on both sides of his forehead. He brushes the locks back with wet fingers. The person that looks back at him in the mirror is definitely stronger than the one he was staring at before.
Tala closes his eyes and sighs through his nose.
Anxiety creeps underneath his skin like ants. Making him restless, agitated. His heart feels sick. He thinks about Kai.
Thinks about seeing him. Meeting his crimson flecked eyes. Thinks about being seen. Observed. Acknowledged. Judged. Then he thinks about sinking into his arms and the anxiety quietens. His heart slows down. Tala thinks about the feel of Kai’s lips on his neck and his worries turn into excitement. Anticipation. Thrill.
He opens his eyes and bites his lip. He can’t wait to see Kai again.
Tala pulls on whatever he thinks Kai would like to see him in. Red. He likes red on him. Stuff that brings out the colour of his skin. The pink of his nailbeds. He laces up black boots that reach halfway up his shin with a small smile on his face. When he’s done he looks in the mirror and he wonders if he should take a bag with him. Some clothes for a few days. May be he could share Kai’s. May be they could get one of the staff to get something for him. Clothes aren’t an issue. He doesn’t like lugging things around anyway. Phone, wallet, keys. Toiletries….
He’ll worry about toiletries when he needs them.
He grabs his jacket and heads to the elevator.
On the drive there his anxiety racks up again for some reason. Stomach turning rancid. The meal that Kai left for him in the fridge stewing in exacerbated stomach acids.
Tala parks on the curb and walks the rest of the way there. The guard slumbers next to the gates. He lets himself in through one of the many, many doors to the estate, picking through the locks easily. When he enters the halls are silent. But it’s always been that way. The house has always been…big and quiet.
Too many rooms. Too many hallways. Too many studies and libraries and hideaways. Kai can hide here forever if he wanted to. No one would know.
It feels a bit like old times. Back when they would play hide and seek here. Tala avoids the rooms and areas wherever he hears any noises. Noises that don’t sound like Kai. The rooms look the same as they did fifteen years ago.
He ventures upstairs. Climbs to the first floor. Looks around. Climbs to the second. Looks around and finds him in the room farthest from the staircase. Kai lies sprawled across the bed inside, staring unmoving at the ceiling.
Tala walks in without creating noise. Not wanting to ruin the peace he’d made for himself. He smells alcohol. And he smells pills. And on the bed he smells perfume. Perfumes that don’t belong to Kai. When he sits down next to him Kai’s head jerks toward him. His eyes falling upon his face. They crinkle up with joy and surprise and Tala can’t help but smile back.
“You’re here” breathes Kai and his voice sounds like he hadn’t used it in a while. All broken and dry. Same goes for his mouth. His lips lack moisture as they stretch to smile.
His arm reaches for him, toward his hair. His fingers fall just short of touching it. “You look like the old you,” he says.
Tala sucks his lips in. Doesn’t answer to that.
Kai’s staring with fondness. “Are you real?” he asks.
“I think so,” answers Tala.
Kai’s smile spreads into a grin. He sits up just to grab him and drag him into the mattress with him.
“I like the hair,” he says, brushing it back from his forehead.
“Thank you” he says. Kai kisses his mouth.
Tala thinks about Granger. He wonders how much it’d hurt if he knew. He wonders if he already knows. How could he know? Kai wouldn’t tell him. Would he?
Kai’s watching his face. Closely. “What are you thinking about?” he asks with a smile.
“Does Tyson know?” he breathes. “That you’re…sleeping…”
Around? Suddenly he recalls the other perfumes he smelled on the bed earlier. The ones he can still smell faintly if he concentrates on them.
Kai makes an amused sound. A snort and a close mouthed chuckle. “What do you think?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Did you tell him?”
For a second he looks like he’s going to answer but then he exhales and rests his head on his shoulder. Sneaks his hand up his stomach and draws a ring around his belly button, making goosebumps spread up his chest. Then he starts kissing, up his shoulder, his neck, up the side of his face. “I missed you,” he says breathing against his skin.
Tala, feeling unarmed, decides to drop the subject for now since he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. His worries about Granger scatter away from his mind when Kai’s lips trace over his right eye, down his nose and stop over his mouth.
“I want to see Ahmya,” he says against his lips.
“Hmm. She’s in Dubai. At Palm Jumeirah. I think she’s living there.” He drops a kiss on his mouth and pulls away. “Do you remember her?”
“Why do you want to see her?”
Kai shrugs. “Because I haven’t. In a long time.”
Tala runs a hand through Kai’s hair. Tries to comb it sideways. It flops back down. Unruly just like him.
“Do you want to come with me?”
“Did you see him when you were coming up here?”
“No, of course not. I made sure to stay away from staff. Does he know you’re here?”
Tala slaps a hand across his own mouth. “He does?”
He nods, gaze on the ceiling. “I passed out in a pool of liquor yesterday. Or may be that was two days ago?” He frowns, unsure. “Anyway it was at the bottom of the stairs. He saw me.”
He can’t help it. He laughs. Forehead touching the pillow.
Kai joins in but his laughter has less strength behind it. It’s weak and light. Thoughtful. “I tried to set this damn thing on fire again.”
“You…tried?” Someone stopped him? But who can stop Kai if not himself?
“Mhm. I’d turned the dials of all the stoves. Was getting to the cylinders when the staff came into the kitchen. I’d knocked down a bunch of shit earlier so they knew I was in the house. The noise scared them and…they wouldn’t leave and I couldn’t burn it down with them inside so...”
“Was this before or after Soichiro found you?”
“How many days has it been?”
“I don’t fucking know.” He presses his fingers against his eyes and yawns. “You should ask Tyson. He knows. Baby knows everything.”
He exhales after saying it. And for once it's the most obvious sigh in the world. Longing. He’s longing for Tyson.
Granger knows? So if he knows then does that mean that they’re not together anymore? Kai had shown up at his apartment nearly a month ago and then he’d dropped off the face of the planet before making that drunken call yesterday.
“Are you not with him anymore?” Tala asks him at the club.
Kai slides his sunglasses up his head to look at him. “With who?”
He rolls his eyes. “Tyson”
“Of course” he says, like it should be obvious. “We’re in love.” Then he drops the glasses back over his eyes and goes back to vibing to the beat. A little while later he grins at someone and he makes out with them for a minute before going outside and throwing up.
Tala rubs his back then Kai sits on the curb and cries with his head in his hands.
It makes his heart bleed.
He cries inconsolably even as Tala sits next to him and offers affection.
“I’m sorry” he says, turning to look at him with teary eyes and wet cheeks.
“For…for Bryan. I could have-“
“It’s not your fault,” he says automatically, rubbing his shoulder. “There was nothing you could have done to-“
“There was. I could have saved him. I- I- I knew and I didn’t stop it.”
“Stop…stop what?” he asks. His hand stilling on him.
“I-I-I….There was another way,” he says sniffling. Wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “There was another way to do it but I didn’t. I didn’t choose that.” He shakes his head, chin on his hands that are folded atop his knees.
There’s pain in his eyes. Trauma.
Tala takes his hand off his shoulder. Sets it in his own lap and he tries. He tries to stay grounded. To stay with Kai. But his hands and feet go cold. His heart shrivels in his chest like a flower in winter.
When he looks at Kai he’s looking at him and he’s so fucking beautiful it hurts. He’s never been prettier than he is now. With his eyes and mouth full of apologies. A sorry in every pore of his face. His lips wobble and Tala doesn’t know what to do or say but he speaks anyway. He says something that he can’t hear. Lost to his own ears.
“I didn’t want to save him,” says Kai. “He was stupid. He killed himself. Why should I- I didn’t want to save him.”
“You think he deserved it?” asks Tala, trembling from head to toe. Shaking like a leaf in a storm. “He was your best friend.”
Kai shakes his head. “No. He never got me.”
Anger floods into him at that moment. Slams into his bloodstream so hard he jolts. “You let him die because he didn’t understand you?”
“No. He killed himself. I just chose not to save him.”
“You’re a piece of shit.”
He stands up and walks away, unable to stand to look at him for a minute longer.
But the more he walks the more his blood flows. He can hear footsteps behind him. And then he hears him breaking down again. “Yuriy” he calls. “Yuriy please.”
“What the fuck,” he says to himself. “What the fuck.”
Tala turns around. “I hate you. I fucking hate you. You’re literally the worst fucking person on earth. I have never met someone worse.”
A tear breaks free of Kai’s right eyelid and rolls down his cheek.
“Why did you do that?” he asks him in a whisper.
“I hope you’re miserable forever. I hope you’re never happy.”
“It should have been you instead.”
“Then you wouldn’t have me anymore,” says Kai.
Kai stares at him with wet eyes. “You don’t mean that.”
Tala turns around and starts walking again.
“I never want to see you again.”
“You’re coming to Dubai with me,” he says.
He stops. Pivots. “What? No.”
“You’re dreaming if you think I’m coming with you.”
“Well you have to or I’d pin everything on you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Kai pulls up something on his phone and hands it to him.
He looks at it. It’s a pdf of a police report.
“We have to go in for questioning.”
He feels cold. His whole body feels cold.
“If you come with me I’ll talk us out of it. If you don’t I’ll pin it all on you. Bryan’s dead. Sergei was missed by the cameras. And they’ll find out Ian’s clueless upon interrogation. I’ll talk my way out of it like I always do and that leaves you. You’re so smart, Yuriy, and people hate you on sight. I won’t save you if you don’t come with me.”
Tala can’t believe his eyes or ears. Kai’s tears have all dried up. It’s like he wasn’t crying just a few minutes ago. “How the fuck does Granger love you?”
His gaze softens upon the mention of his name. The reminder of Tyson bringing a smile to his lips. “I ask myself the same question everyday,” he says, and the smile on his face grows. His eyes shine with joy and barely contained excitement.
“You’re in love,” says Tala.
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