THERE'S A WORRYING LACK OF RESISTANCE when they take Reid's wrists and bind them with Kiernan's belt. Reid's not doll-like; his muscles are tense and his breathing is shallow. He's biding his time, waiting to pounce.
Kiernan whispers, "Gabriel's here." He rises, and if Kane didn't know better, he'd think Kiernan was shaken. "Your girlfriend is keeping him in the kitchen."
Girlfriend? Kane isn't used to the label and usually is adverse to such, but finds he likes it a lot. Without Hannah, he's not sure he would have made it through tonight.
Yes, Lucas has been invaluable, the man keeping Kane breathing easier knowing that he's guarding the farmhouse beyond the fallen wards. But Hannah is Kane's strength—a comforting touch, a squeeze over his shaking fingers, a whisper against his ear, a cheek pressed against his.
When this is all over, he's going to make up for their lost time thoroughly.
Kane grips the edge of the tub, trying to ignore Reid for the time being, but it's difficult; there's so much blood, and the unnerving aura coming from the idiot is unfamiliar. It's making Kane's honed instincts more than uneasy.
"What are they saying?" Kane hears himself ask his enemy.
"I think..." Kiernan walks towards the door and presses his ear against the door. It's an off gesture for the prissy vampire.
Then Kane thinks, perhaps it's not. He's never hung around Kiernan willingly for extended periods. Their only interaction was when the vampire would chauffeur Reid around, and they never spoke, glaring mostly.
Kiernan says, "She's offering him tea. No. Wait, yes. She's just asked him if he'd like tea or a knock on the jaw. Her words. Ah, of course, he's refused both. The tea especially."
The deadpan tone in which the vampire utters the absurdity has Kane snorting back an almost laugh.
Ear still pressed to the dead wood of the bathroom's door, Kiernan says, "He's agitated and asking about his son. He'll be demanding soon."
Kiernan presses his forehead against the wood of the door. He begins muttering to himself, sharp and breathy, and Kane is reminded that he's standing in his blood-soaked bathroom with a century-old creature of the night that's presumably half-mad like all the others.
Suddenly, Kiernan lifts his head sharply. "I'll go, explain, and make sure everything remains civil." He's already grabbing for the knob when Kane perks up at the words, his heart hastening with spiking outrage.
Kane sputters, "You said he'd try and kill me."
Reid sits forward, hunting Kane's voice, and Kane flinches back, slipping on the wet tile, but his grip on the tub keeps him from falling on his ass. He thinks this might be a problem. He can't be trying for a weapon every time Reid glances his way.
Kiernan looks over his shoulder, frowning. "He has paltry human strength and will for many years. I can stay and pull him off you, or I can leave you to your fate, Rainer. I think you can handle one newly-turned vampire, can't you?"
There's the Kiernan that Kane knows. At Kane's hateful glare, the vampire flashes his fangs with a beaming smile.
Kane holds back his curses because, not long ago, he'd contemplated a similar fate for the bastard. Though there's a determined spark in Kiernan's dark gaze, one that Kane has seen many times in battles fought, by a partner on the other side of bloodshed.
Gabriel is listening, goes unsaid, his presence in the room like smog.
Kane would bet that Gabriel wants him out of the picture, and Kiernan helping would be a nail in his coffin of betrayal.
Still, fuck him.
"Leave," Kane growls, furious, only to lose his luster when a cold hand grasps his forearm, and he once again flinches like a coward. His heart beats rapidly, yearning for the tight line of Reid's bloody lips to part and begin spewing achingly familiar bullshit.
The door clicks closed, and when Kane looks up, Kiernan is gone.
Kane rises, and Reid's clutch follows until it can't, slipping away. The bloody fingers hitting the edge of the tub with a thud must be painful. Reid doesn't react beyond hunting Kane's footsteps with a turn of his head. Kane flips the lock on the door.
Slowly, tiny hinges creaking, Kane opens the lower cupboard of the vanity. He reaches under the sink and past the piping. He implores his training to calm his heartbeat into a heavy thud that no longer rings his ears and leaves him shaking.
"Remember when you used to run away and come tapping on my window?" Kane pointedly doesn't look at the bathtub and focuses on unfastening the pistol from the strapping keeping it in place. He holds the weight in his palm. "I'd call you a pest."
Kane clicks the safety of the gun. Milton's voice is in his mind, telling him to follow his head, not his heart, but fuck, his heart is so loud, deafening, beating faster and faster at the sight of Reid slumped in the tub, blindfold blinding him. The idiot's looking, just without eyes. The shiver up Kane's spine tells him so.
From the shaky knowledge Kane has about vampires, he knows their hearing is annoyingly good. Reid can probably hear Kane's rapid breathing, hear his shoes scruff on the tile as he nears, and might even pick up Kane's deep swallow as he readies himself.
"You'd take up my bed, bitch and complain about everything."
Kane takes in a deep breath and steps over the edge of the tub. He shoves Reid's legs, and they go easy, bending, giving Kane room to lower himself and settle his back against the freezing porcelain.
He slides the gun against his lower back, so the feeling of its presence can be a constant contingency to calm Kane's fighter instincts.
"You'd complain about everything, but never the real torture you were enduring. Why didn't you ever talk about Gabriel? Fawnhill? Why didn't you confide in me? I would have helped you. I would have...protected you."
Kane's not simple. He knew Gabriel beat Reid's ass when he did something the vampire saw as untoward. But in Kane's mind, even seeing death and being taught by Milton from a young age how to kill, he could never fathom the depravity of what Reid was suffering in Fawnhill.
More than a beating, gaslighting, and such deep manipulation, only someone truly evil could concoct.
Then, Reid's mother had left, taking the idiot with her, and after an evening of indulging in too much wine while Milton was assisting her with something for her auction business, Kane had eavesdropped—not on purpose; Reid had fallen asleep half-sprawled in an armchair, and Kane was trying to find the bathroom with no knowledge of the original auction house's layout; the building has since changed.
Imogen had revealed the regrets she had for not leaving sooner and the truth of what had been happening.
Milton had tried to remain polite with comforting words, probably knowing she'd probably not recall her slurring in the morning. She'd asked Milton to keep Reid safe, and Kane was a young man of eighteen who thought he was a fucking knight and took the wordless pledge he'd made that night very seriously.
He'd known Reid for almost a decade already, but something clicked that night, like a switch, and he knew he'd die to protect Reid without a thought.
When Imogen was murdered, Kane forced Reid to move in that very evening. Milton didn't question the decision. He already knew.
The old man always knew.
Kane has blamed himself for not seeing the severity of Reid's trauma. If he had, he might have stopped Reid from finding comfort in those smoky clubs and those pills.
Reid doesn't answer. For a selfish moment, Kane's glad for Reid's delirium, not ready to reveal that regret.
Suddenly, Reid lurches forward and reminds Kane that the idiot may look light, but he has the body weight of an adult man.
The back of Kane's head knocks against the tub. Reid's bound hands have the idiot relying on his elbows, digging into Kane's chest and stomach. The slickness of the tub makes it difficult for Reid to reach where he wants so determinedly: Kane's neck.
Laying a palm against Reid's nape and grabbing both the idiot's flailing wrists with one hand, Kane drags him up. They're both soaked. Now that they're pressed close, the cold has begun to settle, and Kane's trembling.
When Reid finally reaches the place he'd been endeavoring, he lays his cheek against Kane's shoulder, panting. The hot breath that grazes Kane's throat is startling over his shivering skin.
Kane lays his palm against the back of Reid's head and applies coaxing pressure. Even in Reid's fogginess, the idiot has enough coherency to hesitate. That's all well and good, a great sight, really, badass, but fuck Kane would rather not draw this weirdness out, and every second of anticipation that passes where nothing happens has his heart beating so fast his world is blurring.
"I said you could," Kane says sternly. "Do it, idiot."
There's no answer, but there is a subtle shift from the wet form, half-crushing Kane against the cold porcelain. There's a shaky exhale that rustles the hair near Kane's ear, tickling. Then finally, Reid takes what's offered, and there's a sharp pain that has Kane flinching despite his tenseness.
Kane tries to breathe through it, his lips held tight, his cheeks puffing, and his nostrils flaring. He's no wimp; he's been shot, punched, broken bones. He was bitten by a vampire deep enough to leave thick scarring over his palm, but the deliberate slowness of the fangs sliding into his throat is torture in itself. He feels every subtle inch they delve deeper.
Kane will punch the idiot later for daring to draw out the act.
After what feels like an eternity, the pain settles into a deep throb, and if Kane could speak, he'd curse how gnarly Reid's fangs feel when they should be short and pathetic like the idiot that adorns them.
Fingers twist in Kane's soaked shirt, Reid shifts, crushing Kane's leg in their tangled sprawl, and then there's a pulling sensation that isn't pleasant at all.
Unable to keep from doing something, Kane's breath escapes in a loud gasping exhale. His hands slap the rim of the tub, shaking fingers curling to stop him from hurting Reid. Taut tension shakes through his bunched muscles.
He barely resists grabbing for the gun, apprehension growing, telling him to act, because he knows what's coming. He's sweating despite the chill shivering his skin.
The pain blooms into a tidal wave of intense pleasure.
Abs clenching with a full-body shudder, Kane's fingers are fisted in the back of Reid's hair before Kane's even aware of moving his hand, dragging the cold body closer, giving in entirely, his body falling limp.
For the first time in his life, he's entirely lost the will to fight. The pleasure isn't a liquid heat that pools in his stomach; this is a thick syrupy caress that's both subduing and overwhelming.
There's static in his ears. His grip on the rim of the tub loosens, his arm falls limp, and his vision blurs. His dangling fingers are hazy, slipping from Kane's vision mesmerizingly, like the rosy water sliding down the side of the porcelain to slicken the drenched tile further.
"Reid," Kane hears himself rasp, his stupidly whiny voice echoing off the tile. He groans, and his fingers tighten in Reid's wet hair reflexively.
Kane's hyperaware of every sensation, nerves an electric wire, pulsing uncomfortably; forearms against Kane's chest, fingers holding his shirt, a heaving chest flush against his, a knee pressed against Kane's inner thigh.
It's a lot. Kane's more aroused than he's ever been in his entire life. He's going to kill Reid so he can never repeat the raw sounds Kane can hear his traitorous mouth making.
Then it stops.
Kane's numb fingers fall from Reid's hair, and his head lulls, the rim of the bathtub digging against his nape. His focus is slowly returning, but not quickly enough. He blinks rapidly to clear the blur in his vision.
Reid reaches to pull the blindfold off, but Kane stops him with shaking fingers clutching Reid's cold wrists. The leather of the belt dangling between them drips water.
The heat of the bite is gone; they're back to freezing and trembling.
Reid's arm tenses, but it's not to try for the blindfold again, it's to lift his hand to his mouth. Kane catches his first glimpse of Reid's new dental work, dripping with blood. With the contrast of the black blindfold, the sharp fangs look even more disturbing.
Reid stills, a bead of blood drips down his arm from where he's scratched his hand. Then, without warning, he pounces with cold, sticky hands that grab at Kane's bruised jaw, blunt nails scratching flesh.
Due to the wetness of the tub and their bodies, the igniting struggle is a lot of slipping and falling where they may, hard and painful.
Ending up flat on the bottom of the tub, the cold water sloshing up Kane's back and striking his nape frigidly is a sharp awakening that sharpens his vision. He expects Reid to try for his neck again, not for those fucking fingers to claw for his mouth, like Reid's a feral dog and Kane has a tasty morsel that he's selfishly intent on not sharing.
It's instinct to grab for the gun that's slipped behind Kane's back, and thank fuck it didn't go off during the struggle. The exact moment Reid's scratching fingers invade Kane's tight lips, and he's tasting stale skin and watery blood, the barrel of the gun is shoved beneath Reid's chin, forcing his head up.
Either the feel of the metal or the telltale click has Reid rousing enough logic to still beneath the threat.
Kane breathes heavily. He doesn't move to wipe the blood from his lips. He hadn't thought, only reacted. The gun shakes. His finger poised on the trigger twitches.
"Talk to me," Kane pleads softly. He doesn't lower the weapon. He loathes the weak tremble that overtakes his voice: "Please, Reid, say something stupid. Piss me off. You're still in there, aren't you?"
Reid's chest rises and falls quickly. His throat bobs. Silence, and then, raspy, "The time?"
"I don't fucking know," Kane whispers breathlessly. "It's..." He keeps the gun held tight, the barrel trembling underneath Reid's chin. Kane doesn't lower the weapon, keeping it firm even though it's breaking his heart. "I don't—around seven in the morning."
"It's Saturday," Reid says, voice quavering. He seems to shift in an attempt to keep his weight from crushing Kane's gut with his knee, but his attempt makes everything way more uncomfortable.
They're too fucking close for how frazzled Kane's nerves have been since the bite.
Reid says, "I missed Daring Deceptions an hour ago." He grips the edge of the tub, unaware that his fingers are atop the smeared bloodstain Kiernan had left not long ago.
Kane laughs sharply, and the gun shakes roughly.
Reid nods too fast, head lulling. "It ended on a cliffhanger." He pouts. "And now I'll never know what happened next."
"You can see it again," Kane says, lowering the gun and flicking the safety.
"They don't do reruns."
Dropping the gun to slip against the wet porcelain near Kane's hip, he drags Reid down by his shirt. He doesn't care that he's smushed or that his shin has to rest on the rim of the bathtub so they can even fit in their strange tangle of limps and blood-smeared, freezing water.
"I'll buy you the episodes," Kane says after a silent moment. "Then you don't have to wake up at six in the morning to watch them."
The chest against his rises with a deep, rattling breath, and Reid whispers, "Okay." And then, "There's thirteen seasons."
Shit. Kane laughs. "Doesn't matter. I'll get them."
"There's a spinoff."
"That too."
"The movie?"
"There's a fucking movie?"
"Three. A trilogy."
Laughing, genuine, and breathless, Kane lays a shaking palm over his eyes. He places his hand against Reid's upper back. The nightmare has ended. They survived tonight somehow, and now they're lying in a bathtub, more or less fine, talking about a stupid soap opera. It's a dream come true.
Cold and trembling, Reid asks, "Can I take the blindfold off?"
"In a minute," Kane grunts. He rubs at his burning eyes with a thumb and forefinger. His breath quickens. He might be crying like a wimp, but his pride keeps his mouth firmly shut. His nostrils flare. He blinks at the white light fixture above the vanity, which blurs as tears overtake his vision.
"Kenneth?"
The sound of his name uttered in worry has reality crashing down. Kane hides his face in the seam of his elbow. Beyond his attempts to remain silent, his chest rises and falls with heaving, silent sobs.
There's a shift of Reid's hands, the tail of the belt grazing Kane's aching throat, the slight tickle draws Kane from the sanctity of his elbow. Fingers gingerly touch his tear-damp cheeks.
"Fuck off," Kane says wetly. "Don't say...anything."
Reid laughs, the sound breaking at the end, and then he's crying loudly, his face pressed against Kane's chest. He doesn't protest when Kane's arm tightens around the back of his neck, holding him so tight it must hurt.
They don't need to speak because the settling despair at what their future holds is stifling; nothing is certain, but they're breathing, and that relief transcends anything Kane's felt in a long, long time.
"Let..." Reid whispers after they are both quiet and their breathing calms. He shifts, and his bony knee digs into Kane's inner thigh. "Let me give you my blood, just a little."
Kane's heart hastens. "Why?" He's not going to turn unless he drinks a bucket-full, but still: "That's fucking gross."
Against Kane's chest, Reid mumbles, "Please."
Despite the urge to shout, Fuck no, Kane hears himself whisper, "Fine."