// A Different Kind of Battle
The evening was quiet and cool.
The sound of footsteps
seemed to fill the silence from end to end. The occasional breeze whistled its
tortuous way round weary ankles and the branches whispered secrets back and
forth.
In the shadows cradling
the bridge, something stirred.
The footsteps stopped.
"You do know what
your teammate's up to while you're out here strolling, don't you?"
Sharp eyes narrowed,
slivers of aquamarine.
"And what about
yours?" he retorted, crossing his arms triumphantly in the stained glass
wash of the streetlamp. "Kai."
A flash of burning
sienna in the darkness, then a sardonic chuckle as the shadows shifted, flowing
and ebbing about the one who emerged.
"Think you're so
clever, do you?" Stormcloud hair waved softly as he strode easily forward,
challenging. "I'm sorry, I can't seem to remember your name."
He ignored the snide
tone, holding out his hand. "I'm Kane."
Kai surveyed the
proffered hand dubiously, then reluctantly grasped it, and promptly dropped it
again. He turned his back on his companion and walked to the railing of the
bridge. "Sure. Whatever."
"Hey, don't be like
that." Turquoise brushed cloud as Kane came to stand by his side. The
hollow rush of river water colored the night beyond.
Kai was silent, gazing
out at something across the water.
Kane followed his gaze.
"Oh," he said simply. His hands tightened on the biting ice of the
rail.
On the distant shore,
fire and midnight swayed in the grass side by side, blossoms twain dancing.
"Do you know what
they're talking about?" Kai's question took Kane by surprise, and it took
him quite a bit of staring to digest it.
His faintly comical
confusion slipped away easily as water through a sieve, and he turned back to
the water, speaking to the wind, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"Fools," Kai
spat, startling his companion once again. He spoke not with contempt, but
exasperation. His hands clenched into fists around the rail. "What are
they thinking? If it were that easy... But Rei," he paused, burning dark
eyes darting to Kane before turning back to the panorama, "he's always
been a hopeless idealist."
"Yeah," Kane
murmured. He was staring down into the lost depths of the river below.
"Salima too. She's always hoping, y'know? Hoping for a way that's best for
everyone."
"You care for
her." Kane went rigid. Slowly, aquamarine slid up to meet amused sienna.
Kai just smirked knowingly.
"So what if I
do?" Kane countered hotly. "I don't see why it's any of your
concern."
"True." Kai
turned away, seemingly nonchalant, but waiting.
"But," came
the whisper, "she... I... I'm too monochromatic."
Self-deprecating laughter tore at his throat. He was on his knees, his chin
resting on the freezing rail, eyes sad. Suddenly, he whirled, pleading,
desperate, turning to the only person he could. Kai.
"How do you do
it?" The despair in his voice startled even the stoic captain of the
Bladebreakers. "How can you be leader and still hold on to yourself,
Kai?" The rawness of emotion behind the question made it clear that this
was something that had been eating at the young captain for a very long time.
Too long.
A ringing silence
followed his words. Kai stood stiff and unresponsive as a leaden statue.
"Answer me,
Kai!" Kane stared down at his shaking fists, gripping at thin air. "Answer
me!"
"You're
pathetic," came the low growl from the cold, immovable figure before him.
Kai crossed his arms, but did not even turn around.
Kane froze, myriad
emotions flying through the glittering blue eyes. One stood out: hurt.
Terrible, broken hurt. He should have expected it; in fact, he had. But
he couldn't stop himself; stop it from spilling forth, "Kai... wha- what-"
He swallowed and closed his eyes against the image of that uncaring back.
"I said, you're pathetic!"
In a flash, Kai had finally turned around- and he had slammed Kane against the
lamppost, hands mercilessly twisting into the other's collar. He ignored the
wide, uncomprehending eyes. He ignored the pale, haggard face. Blood red bore
furiously into splintered cyanite, close enough to touch. "What kind of
team captain are you, crumbling so easily, and for one of your own teammates,
no less? Listen to me. No, listen to me," Kai said fiercely,
jerking at the collar as Kane looked away. "Every team captain,
every good team captain who gives a damn about anything will start
taking on some of the characteristics of their teammates, and vice
versa. Believe me, you idiot, I've had more than my share of experience. So
either you get over yourself, or you forget about being a team captain, because
you're just too damn pathetic to make the cut." Kai released him,
or rather tossed him off, and began to walk away, hands in pockets, as though
nothing had happened.
"You
shouldn't talk," came a low voice behind him, "when you're so
hung up over Rei you can barely talk to him, let alone tell
him."
Kai stopped. He stopped.
"What did you
say?" His voice was quiet, toneless and definitely dangerous. Kane frankly
couldn't care less. He'd seen all of the slender boy's muscles go taut the
moment he spoke that name, and he felt a morbid sense of satisfaction in doing
that to the seeming ice prince.
"You're in love
with Rei." A quiet laugh. "It's so painfully obvious. Guess we're both
losers, huh?"
A blur of purple, and
Kane winced as he was once again crushed against the lamppost. Kai looked down
on him though they were about the same height, a glint of cruelty surfacing in
those bottomless red eyes. Kane shivered, truly afraid for the first time
during the entire encounter. Kai's entire demeanor had changed in a split
second, with no apparent shift in expression.
"Hey, what're
you-" Kane would never finish that sentence. Kai's lips crashed down on
his with bruising force, and Kane was suddenly drowning in a stormy sea of
blood-tinted clouds. Kai took advantage of his stunned lack of response to
snake a ravaging tongue between the trembling lips he had claimed. That first
kiss was furious, feverish, desperate and somehow compassionate, all at the
same time. Kane could barely gather enough of his senses to move, and he felt
his knees buckling under the sheer shattering power of the kiss, but he
wasn't about to stay docile and take it. Once he'd figured out what was
happening, he promptly returned the favor, savagely attacking Kai's mouth with
tongue, teeth and the two combined.
At that, Kai abruptly
pulled away, and everything stopped.
Silence. A complete,
utter silence that seemed to encompass the whole world and all of time as they
stared at each other in disbelief, one dazed, the other shocked beyond all
measure. They had slid down the lamppost and ended up in a tangled heap of
clothing and boy on the ground.
Kane made a move to get
up, but Kai was immovable, sprawled on top of him. The cruel light suddenly
returned to Kai's eye, and he smirked, predatory. Kane merely glared back from
under a ridiculously disheveled mass of turquoise hair. It was enough.
They growled like wild
animals, grasping at each other, their lips colliding again and again and again
and then once more... They rolled across the bridge, locked in a very different
kind of battle.
At last they came to a
stop once more at the foot of the lamppost, dripping blood and sweat.
Kane stared up at Kai
with glazed eyes that suddenly snapped into focus under the blinding glare of
the streetlamp. Aquamarine widened briefly, then threw sparks as he shoved Kai
off with surprising strength considering what they had just gone through.
"Shit."
Kane hissed as he wiped his mouth, smearing fresh blood across his cheek.
"You bastard."
But Kai was already
walking away, leaving a thin dark trail on the concrete. He paused. "Still
think this is a game? There's no losing... there is no winning... and there
are no ties." He vanished into the shadows, speaking so quietly only
they and the wind caught his words, "So I can barely talk to Rei,
huh?" His twisted grin slipped into oblivion.
Kane gazed after him for
a long time, a strange new light gleaming like a knife's edge amid shards of
lapis lazuli. His tone, when he spoke, was subdued, "No. It isn't a game
anymore, Kai..."
It changed with
frightening suddenness with his next words, as he too turned and walked from
the bridge, "So... I'm not strong enough for you, am I..."
-
Fwee... so it ended up
being Kai/Kane with Kai/Rei and Kane/Salima on the side. Neither of which are
pairings I support, which is very odd.
Keep in mind that Kane
thought he only liked girls... Kai just confused the crap outta him. X3
This is what you get
after about 2-3 hours of scribbling unrelentingly in my notebook.
And I know the title is clichéd. Oh, well.
I blame my posting this raw on JuliTina and LBx. =P Shame on you guys.
Oh, yeah, also… Review.