everymonstrousthing

In the days after she goes, he's Dirtyhands more often than not. He stalks Darrow, sharp enough to cut. So little soft left in him. It's worse, because he'd let himself soften. He'd let too much of Kaz Reitvald come back and now reminding himself how to be the man he was in Ketterdam is hard work. It hurts.

Still. There's rough work to be done. So here he is.

The air in the club is close with tobacco, the smell of bodies. Kaz's mouth makes a moue of distaste as he slips up to the bar and orders gin, neat. He leans his back against polished wood, looks up at the stage. He's in time to catch the tail end of the performance.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

everymonstrousthing

Kaz lifts the glass in a lazy toast and knocks back a lush, green swallow of gin. He watches Rat drink, head tilted slightly to the side.

"You don't perform again tonight?"

From:

plaguedrat

"No," Rat carefully thumbs water away from his lips, careful no to smear the delicate gloss. He might be off the clock but that doesn't change that he enjoys playing the part. "I've been here since noon. I'm done for the night."

He can go home, should go home, but he doesn't like dealing with the empty spaces. The places full of past tense.

From:

everymonstrousthing

Kaz finds himself distracted by the delicate way that Rat touches his lips. He finds that he's not listening when Rat talks, that he only catches the tail end.

"I should walk you home."

From:

plaguedrat

"Afraid I'll get to stab someone without you there? I'd hate for you to miss out on the fun." Rat asks it with a deadpan expression, alluding to the last time they met on his way home from work. "Definitely wouldn't do it for my company."

From:

everymonstrousthing

"Because I sought you out by accident," points out Kaz, taking another sip from his drink, rolling his eyes a little. "Because I always have. Because you're absolutely not worth knowing." He makes a soft, dismissive noise. "Fine. I'll go somewhere else."

From:

plaguedrat

Rat doesn't like to admit it then, but a spike of loneliness hits him at the thought of going home alone. He doesn't like letting it show, likes to pretend that nothing hurts him, even loneliness, even loss. So he raises his water bottle at Kaz in a mocking toast. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it for your company, just that mine's terrible."

They've both been in gray moods lately.

From:

everymonstrousthing

Kaz echoes the toast with his glass, knocking back the rest of his gin before he sets the glass down.

"So maybe we deserve each other," he says. "I'm offering to walk you home, not proposing marriage."

From:

plaguedrat

"We'd be a terrible married couple. I never clean. We bicker." Rat lounges back in his seat, still feigning dainty femininity, and lolls his head back to gaze at Kaz. "Better close out your tab, then."

From:

everymonstrousthing

It's distracting, Kaz realises, whenever Rat lapses into femininity like that. It sits against the memory of him fighting, graceful and frightening. Ka finds himself unbalanced.

"Right," he says, pushing to his feet, speaking to the bartender. He returns to the table and raises an eyebrow. "Ready?"

From:

plaguedrat

As he stands and zips up his jacket, Rat steps fully into himself. Even with the makeup, he's unmistakably Rat, the kind of hardbitten boy coughed up from his equivalent of Kaz's Barrel. It makes them even.

"Ready," he agrees. It's not terribly cold, but it's cold enough that Rat tugs on his own leather gloves.

From:

everymonstrousthing

And just like that it's his friend standing in front of him, familiar but not necessarily safe. A little tension leaves Kaz's shoulders. He finds himself almost disappointed.

He steps out of the club in silence. He knows the way to Rat's apartment well enough.

From:

plaguedrat

Rat gestures in front of him and walks until he and Kaz are abreast but not touching. The reason behind it escapes Rat but he's still noticed how Kaz keeps himself away from contact with others. He has his guesses, his own experience to rely on, but Rat doesn't actually ask.

"Surprised you still come visit me when you have your own roost now."

From:

everymonstrousthing

"What can I say?" Says Kaz, glancing across at Rat, leaning his weight on his cane. "There's something about you."

From:

plaguedrat

He laughs then, a careful fragment of humor. "And this after you've seen me without makeup too. I had no idea you were under such a spell," he jokes. Cutting Kaz a smirk, he turns the corner on the way out of the warehouse district and up toward Dimera.

From:

everymonstrousthing

"Proximity," says Kaz, smirking again, shaking his head. "You live on a lower floor than me. Can't stand the thought of all of those stairs."

From:

plaguedrat

"They invented elevators for that," Rat tosses back. They both know why Kaz doesn't want to go back and why Rat doesn't want to go home alone but they're not the type to say it.

For Rat, able-bodied as he is, the walk is an easy brisk one. He pretends not to slow down for Kaz, putting on the show of checking his phone and getting distracted.

From:

everymonstrousthing

He knows that but sometimes he climbs the stairs anyway because it reminds him of Per Haskell's place, of home.

"Tell me you'd prefer me to go home and I'll go."

From:

plaguedrat

"Your home or mine?" He asks it carefully, letting some of the seriousness shine through."Because no, I don't prefer you go. I make a good distraction."

From:

everymonstrousthing

And there it is. A thing they've both been dancing around.

"Yours is closer to the ground."

From:

plaguedrat

"So it is," Rat agrees. And he supposes that's that as he makes his way home. He walks close to Kaz, but never close enough to impede, to raise the questions that neither of them really want to answer.

From:

everymonstrousthing

He's not drunk enough to not know that, maybe, this is a bad idea but he's had enough not to care. Sometimes, he just wants to take the risk.

From:

plaguedrat

Even walking from the warehouse district, Dimera looms into sight soon enough and Rat nods at Kaz, taking out his keys. "I hope you don't mind cats," he says, mouth quirking. He already imagines they'll have to be shooed into another room.

From:

everymonstrousthing

"I've never minded cats," says Kaz, and he recognises it as Rat feeling out boundaries, and he ducks his head against an uncharacteristic flutter, like wings against his ribs. "In so much as crows and cats coexist."

It's meant as a joke.

From:

plaguedrat

"Better or worse than rats and crows?" In deference to Kaz's pride, Rat takes them up the stairs rather than the elevator, keys flipped already into his palm. He doesn't want to admit it out loud but he's privately relieved not to be alone tonight. First Grey and then Marius had made Rat into someone accustomed to company. To love. At least tonight he might have the former.

From:

everymonstrousthing

"Find both on battlefields, don't you?" Kaz limps, a little, up the stairs, but he's used to compensating and he knows better than to try and hide it from someone as shrewd as Rat. It's not necessarily a weakness, anyway.