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Ness is crying.
It’s a shamelessly open display of emotion, of humanity, really. If Kaiser didn’t know better, he’d almost think he’s doing it to rub it into his face. To piss him off on purpose.
But he does, of course, know better. Unfortunately. It was easier before; easier to take everything as an affront to him personally, everything a trap set out for him, him, him. But it’s not, and Ness is crying, and he’s not even particularly loud about it, really. He’s not sobbing. There are sniffles, yes, little hitches of breaths, some hiccups, but mostly, he’s just… well, crying.
Kaiser has never really known what to do with it. If this were… if this were before, he could just yank Ness’ hair until he pulls himself together again, but right now, Kaiser is, well, a little lost.
How would someone like him even begin to comfort anyone? How does anyone do that? Does he care enough to try to do that? It’s gross, a little, the concept.
He stands there, entirely still in the doorway of their living room, whatever he came here for completely lost in the wind, for a few moments. Holding his breath, too. It really is quite ridiculous. What the hell is he expecting, that the apartment blows up if he is too loud? If he gets noticed? If—
Ness turns his head and looks directly at him.
With those huge, berry-colored, crystal-glittering eyes. Teary and wet, lashes clumping together with it, eyes red-rimmed and nose flushed, too.
He’s ugly like this, Kaiser thinks. It tugs and tugs and tugs inside of his chest. At his sternum. Like there’s a rope tied around it and looped around Ness’ hand; like there always has been. For a moment, Kaiser resents it so much that he wants to yell, that he wants to grab Ness by the shoulders and shake him, that he wants to yank at Ness’ hair to get him to get his fucking shit together, after all. What the fuck is he crying for again, anyway?
“Sorry,” Ness says, then, wiping at his eyes, wet and pitiful, snapping Kaiser out of it. “I didn’t—didn’t hear you. Um.”
Stupid.
Kaiser stalks across the room. There is something of old still lingering sanguine in the air: Ness’ eyes track his every movement. He’s wary, just a little bit, with a tension to his shoulders Kaiser can’t fault him for, even if he wishes he could. And still, there’s the rope around Kaiser’s sternum, and still, there’s the rope looped around Ness’ hand.
(A… a fucking leash, perhaps. Kaiser almost laughs. Kaiser thinks he wants to throw something against the wall until it breaks.)
Then he plops down onto the couch next to Ness, lifting one socked foot onto the cushion, and all tension bleeds from Ness’ body in a wave that nearly makes Kaiser’s breath hitch, that nearly makes him nauseous with how it rushes over him. That makes Kaiser have to look away; staring somewhere at the turned off TV, or perhaps the potted plant next to it, the one Ness got because Kaiser killed their old one by not giving it enough water (and how dare that thing be so needy, anyhow; safe to say, watering the plants is Ness’ job now). Just somewhere that isn’t Ness, that isn’t those crystal-clear, teary eyes.
Terribly, awfully, Ness’ balance seems to tip, and his head comes down to rest against Kaiser’s shoulder. “Is this okay?” he asks, and Kaiser can still hear the bitten back Sorry, but this time, it’s not actually vibrating in the air, not actually carrying any weight.
He shrugs. This does not manage to deter Ness. Pity.
Fuck are you crying about? bubbles at the very back of Kaiser’s throat, scratchy. He has however been forced to admit (at least in the privacy of his own head) that this isn’t really the best way to go about things like that. Right now, what’s distracting him most of all, is the fact that he has always so liked the sight. Of Ness crying, that is.
Ness is quiet even now, sniffles just a little, wiping at his face, Kaiser can see the movement in his periphery. Can see Ness’ vague silhouette reflected in the TV screen across from them. Can’t see Ness’ face, not in detail, not since he sat down here, but that is probably for the better, was, in fact, the whole purpose of turning away. It’s true, of course, that Ness’ face looks stupidly endearing when it’s all red from crying, and it’s true, too, that tears make his eyes sparkle like crystals, his face dewy with it until he looks like he glitters, like he’s made out of satin. Puffy, swollen eyes. It’s such a sight; makes him want to dig into whatever bruise or wound ails Ness now. Makes him want to push and bully and yank. Makes him want to do all sorts of things, really; pooling hot in the pit of his belly and the back of his throat like bile.
So he doesn’t look. So he stays just like that, holding his breath, with Ness’ head on his shoulder.
Ness shifts a little. Turns his head, and like this, Kaiser can feel the soak of tears through his shirt, just faintly. Can feel Ness’ lips brushing over his skin, just slightly, at the very edges. The touch still manages to raise goosebumps in its wake, until Kaiser is prickling all over.
“Sorry,” murmurs Ness, after all. Sentimental, maudlin, wistful Alexis Ness. Sometimes, Kaiser wishes he was better at understanding human emotions. Sometimes, Kaiser wonders what it is that goes on in Ness’ head every day, all the time. He’s never cared much about things like that before. Doesn’t, now, most of the time. But sometimes, he does wonder. “I’m getting your shirt all wet.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Ness doesn’t say anything and Kaiser wonders if he said the wrong thing. If he should care if he did. If Ness—the new Ness, the one with the steady gaze and the warm hands and the firm pushes, the Ness Kaiser doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to, the one he’s sitting next to right now, despite the fact that he’s crying, despite everything—would. Probably, right?
Then he doesn’t wonder anything at all anymore, because the weight of Ness’ head disappears ever so sudden, and, like an idiot, Kaiser turns to look.
It’s… something. There’s Ness: eyelashes tangled together and dewy with tears, glittering like little stars. Nose red, eyes puffy, lips ever so slightly parted. Right now, he tilts his head like a curious animal, blinking against tears and the irritation from having wiped at his face so much.
Kaiser can’t help it. He leans in and in and in, and Ness—out of naiveté or so repulsive a concept as trust, Kaiser truly doesn’t know anymore—doesn’t move at all, doesn’t lean away, doesn’t even twitch. Lets Kaiser press close, until their breathing spaces intermingle, lets Kaiser…
And what is Kaiser doing, anyway? There’s the tear-cooled skin of Ness’ cheek against Kaiser’s lips, and then the salt taste of it on Kaiser’s tongue. He’s licking Ness, drying those stupid tears somehow, and it manages to feel like licking a wound. Tastes of it, too, just a little: the iron is missing, of course, but all the salt and all the hurt is right there, in his mouth, until he swallows it down. Ness makes an aborted noise at the back of his throat, startled and animal, and Kaiser claws into Ness’ soft, curly hair to pull him closer, closer, closer. Sucks at the very corner of Ness’ eyes.
Leans away a little. To move over to the other side of Ness’ face or to get out of Ness’ space entirely, he’s not quite sure, actually, but he pauses, anyway, because Ness keeps looking at him like that. Breathing through his mouth, panting like a dog, though his nose is very likely just congealed from crying. And isn’t that just disgusting?
Ness, looking at him like he can see right through him, Ness, with the blood-smear eyes, the blown out pupils and the steady, broad shoulders and the maiden’s heart, turns his head just a little, so the other side of his face is, indeed, facing Kaiser. Kaiser’s mouth goes all dry.
He leans back in, anyhow. It feels like licking a wound, dragging his tongue over Ness’ cheek, feels like…
Feels entirely animal. And perhaps that is human, too—Ness certainly spends so much time telling him so, until Kaiser is rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth and drumming his fingers, until Kaiser leans into Ness, anyway—perhaps human are also, in the end, animals, but still, it does. Feels visceral like carnage in Kaiser’s mouth, on Kaiser’s tongue. Makes his insides heat up.
Feels nearly dutiful, licking up tear tracks on this side of Ness’ face, too. Sucking dewdrops off Ness’ lashes, Ness’ face blurring up close like this. There’s Ness’ panted breath on Kaiser’s face, Kaiser’s hand clawed into Ness’ hair, and Kaiser’s tongue on Ness’ skin. Pressing, twitching, closer, closer, closer.
Kaiser is panting, too, when he leans back. Swallows hard, frowns, but even then, he doesn’t quite manage to pull himself out of Ness’ orbit, to… to get up, or something. Sit back entirely, to stare at the TV again, or something.
Ness doesn’t smile, not exactly, and even if he did, Kaiser knows what Ness’ condescending smile looks like—knows and loathes it, but he supposes Ness cannot help it, either; it’s just their nature, is it not, two dogs who know nothing but to bite?—and it’s nothing like that. Ness doesn’t smile, not exactly, and he doesn’t cup Kaiser’s face in his hands, either, doesn’t lean in fully to press a kiss to Kaiser’s mouth—to push his tongue between Kaiser’s lips and teeth to taste himself inside of Kaiser, to taste them both, together, or something stupid like that, and right now, right this moment, Kaiser can’t help but think Well, do I even taste of anything in the first place? startled and small—to bite at his bottom lip, or any such thing, and still, Kaiser thinks he feels it. Kaiser thinks he tastes it in the air. Kaiser thinks he can see the intent in Ness’ crystal-eyes and the way he holds his body.
“What the hell were you crying about,” startles out of Kaiser, in one breath, and his voice doesn’t really go up any at the end to mark it as a question. His heart is racing in his throat, for some reason.
Ness isn’t crying anymore, though, so this should be fine to ask, right? Right?
Doesn’t seem like Ness is much inclined to answer him at the moment, however. No, he just keeps staring at Kaiser like that, until Kaiser is well and truly creeped out, and he’s the one out of the two of them who was just licking the other’s face. Ness’ eyes crinkle ever so slightly, ever so minutely—so minuscule a movement Kaiser isn’t quite sure it actually exists, it actually happened—and this manages to startle Kaiser back into movement; manages to make him slap his hand over Ness’ face and push him away, away, away. Ness laughs, a wet sniffle in the living room they share.
Terrible. Awful. Horrifying.
“Alright,” Kaiser sneers, hissing, “don’t tell me, then. See if I fucking care.”
“Michael!” says Ness, delighted. Which is terrible, too. Nauseating, terrible, awful, and bad. Gross, disgusting, wretched. “You’re almost mellow these days, you know? Sometimes, at least.”
Terrible, terrible, terrible. Ness squirms out of the grasp on his face and Kaiser sticks out his tongue, making Ness laugh, it seems. For a moment, or two, or three, they wrestle there on the couch, loosely, with Ness slipping and twisting and Kaiser pushing and grabbing. It’s really stupid. It fizzes in Kaiser’s chest.
“It was stupid,” Ness admits, finally, sheepish. “My mom called. But it doesn’t matter, I’m okay.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Fuck her,” Kaiser says. Ness laughs again. Kaiser swallows and settles back down, turns back for the stupid TV, and this time, he lifts both his feet onto the couch cushion to wrap his arms around his knees. He’s prickling all over, still. And Ness—
Ness doesn’t lean against him again, but he’s still right there. “You don’t even know her,” he says, quietly, but not unkindly, like he’s defending his mother, or some bullshit like that. Kaiser rolls his eyes. But he’s right, of course: Kaiser has never met any of Ness’ family, and doesn’t care to, either. Barely knows anything about them except for what he discerned from the moment he first saw Ness, crumpled on the football field: unloved, discarded, needy. He didn’t care about the rest then, and he can’t really say he does, now.
But it is different, isn’t it? Terrible.
After a few more breaths—Ness is still sniffing like that, and it’s really pissing Kaiser off—it’s Kaiser’s head that tips over, Kaiser’s cheekbone that’s digging into Ness’ shoulder. It’s really rather uncomfortable. He doesn’t understand why people do this. He doesn’t understand why people like this, or want this, or even crave it. It’s so… weak.
He closes his eyes. Ness doesn’t say anything at all.