AU - Rat

[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.

Comments

[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."

[everymonstrousthing]

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

"Yours is closer to the ground."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[plaguedrat]

He nods, smiling even. There's a certain level to which he enjoys escalating games of hide and reveal, crouching the truth in metaphor and symbolism. In that, he and Kaz are a match.

The key turns in the lock with a click and a chorus of meowing starts up behind the door. Rat nods with a look that reminds Kaz of his earlier flippancy.

[everymonstrousthing]

Kaz raises an eyebrow at the veritable cacophony of noise from the other sid eof the door.

"Are you sure you need me?" he asks, smirking. "Sounds like you might have company enough."

[plaguedrat]

"I'm very sure." It dances toward being an admission of need and Rat turns his attention to opening the door, blocking the three cats from making it out.

"Wine?" He asks mildly.

[everymonstrousthing]

"Yes," says Kaz, stepping into the apartment and immediately starting to shrug out of his overcoat. Underneath, it's familiar tailoring - waistcoat, shirt, watch-chain, tie. He leans his cane against the wall. "Please."

[plaguedrat]

There's a gravitas to how Kaz carries himself, made only more severe in his layers and sharp lines. Rat can understand, even if he wraps himself into a different disguise than that. It also makes him want to needle and Rat shrugs out of his coat and the sweats beneath it, draping both indolently over the back of a chair before he retrieves glasses and a bottle of red wine. Once again, his appearance is somewhere Between. Sharp shoulders and collar bones are visible in the wide scoop of his shirt and his hair hangs loose in pieces, falling into eyes made gentler and rounder with makeup.

"Help yourself," he says, uncorking the bottle. "I'm going to wash my face."

[everymonstrousthing]

"Pity," says Kaz, which is an admission of something that neither of them have mentioned, that might not even be happening here. He doesn't elaborate further, reaching for the bottle and pouring them both a glass.

[plaguedrat]

"And here you struck me as a man who doesn't like being deceived," Rat says. He moves backward to his bathroom, pulling his shirt over his head and it exposes a smooth, flat chest, marked with faint scars and the bullet scar in his shoulder.

He is not a convincing substitute for Inej.

[everymonstrousthing]

"Is it a deception if I know it's happening?" he asks, lowering himself down onto a sofa. "If I can appreciate the art in it?"

[plaguedrat]

"Only if you lie to yourself too." Rat shrugs and leans against the doorframe, keeping the scars on his back well out of sight. "Do you plan to do something about it?"

[everymonstrousthing]

"I make a habit of never lying to myself," says Kaz, sipping his wine, tilting his head to look up at Rat. He fakes indolence, eyebrow raised. "About what?"

[plaguedrat]

"Liar." He says it partly to be contrary and partly because everyone lies to himself. It's as certain as breathing and bullets.

"You're the one who seems to like my pretty face. Don't be disappointed with the rest of it."

[everymonstrousthing]

"It's a very pretty face," concedes Kaz, ignoring how off balance he suddenly feels. He takes another sip of his wine. "Can't comment on the rest, can I?" His eyes do dart downwards, though.

[plaguedrat]

"Can't comment on the rest if you don't do anything about it," he says, reminding Kaz of their original impasse. Rat is too careful anymore, cautiously aloof of the potential of tonight and protective of his own feelings.

[everymonstrousthing]

"But the wine's here," reasons Kaz, lifting his glass in a lazy toast. He's still wearing his gloves. "So, surely, you should come to me."

[plaguedrat]

Rat raises a brow again, expressing at least a dozen different remarks, most of them at least faintly challenging. "So it is," he says at last, slithering forward and crossing over to the couch.

[everymonstrousthing]

Still wearing his gloves, Kaz leans forward and picks up the second glass of wine, holding it out to Rat with an expectant look. There is a touch of challenge to the tilt of his chin.

[plaguedrat]

They both live in those challenges, each expecting a new move from the other and the frustrated with the careful non-action. Moving closer, his hand darts forward but past the glass toward Kaz's cheek, just short of actually caressing it.