AU - Locked to Alec

[everymonstrousthing]

It's probably almost as bad as it looks. His cane lost, rolled into a gutter, stepped on, snapped, Kaz has no choice but to limp. He doesn't have a clear idea of where he's going. He turns his head and spits blood onto concrete for what feels like the thousanth time. He's not sure how far he's walked; he glances back but can't tell which direction he came from.

He recognises his surroundings, though. He knows more or less where he's headed.

He makes it to Alec's door. He's got no idea how late it is. He knocks with a curl first, blood smeared on leather, and then his knees give out and he slides down to sit on the floor with his back against Alec's door. He closes his eyes. Darkness comes flooding in. He fights it, as much as he can.

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[deflectere]

Alec hadn't been sleeping. He kept late nights almost all week save for the very, very infrequent night where he didn't go out with his bow strapped to his back and his sensor in his hand.

Tonight had been a quiet night, easy night. The demons had been lower level, stinky and annoying but never a threat. He'd gotten home early enough and washed up. He'd just settled down with a book when the sloppy knock sounded.

Frowning, Alec picked up the dagger that had been laying quietly nearby and padded to the door. He put his ear to the door and listened. Someone was out there, breathing raggedly. Someone was hurt.

He yanked the door open and found Kaz flopping over onto his feet. Blood was all over the place and Kaz looked grey.

"Kaz? What happened?" he asked, sliding the knife into the back of his pants and crouching down to make sure Kaz hadn't just died on his doorstep.

[everymonstrousthing]

Dimly, like it's coming to him over a long distance, Kaz hears Alec's voice. He struggles to lift his head, can barely manage it. His eyes keep closing. There's pain that's large and wet and terrible, but it doesn't have edges like a stab wound, nothing as neat as that. It feels like he's falling apart.

"Shit," he mumbles. "Alec." He's not sure whether he meant to come here at all.

[deflectere]

"Yes, Alec," he said, reaching down to find the collar of Kaz's shirt so he could bodily pull him inside. He didn't need someone peeking out and seeing a bleeding man at his doorstep while Alec himself stood over him like some guilty party.

He pulled until Kaz was fully inside and then he shut the door. He'd clean up the blood later.

"What happened?" he demanded hotly.

[everymonstrousthing]

Alec drags him and, instinctively, Kaz fights against that, heel of his boot slamming against the floor. Once Alec has gotten into the apartment, Kaz sags backwards, lying flat on the floor. His ribs feel too tight, like they're bruised.

"Wrong place, wrong time," he says, coughing. He can't clear the taste of blood out of his mind.

[deflectere]

Alec crouched down, knees hitting the hard wood of the floor and his hands hover above Kaz, not touching but asking for permission since he'd need to do some touching if Kaz wanted to stay alive.

"What did they get you with? Knife? Sword? Your ineptitude to stay out of trouble?"

[everymonstrousthing]

His aware of Alec's hands hovering over him, of the heat of them, even though his close. Dark spots dance at the corners of his eyes, but he's holding on by his fingernails. He nods, giving Alec whatever permission he needs.

"Knife," he says, "I think. And...." He drags in a ragged breath. "I don't know what you mean."

[deflectere]

Alec settled his hands on Kaz's body, trying to find where the entrance wounds were, where the blood was leaking from the worst. He found one spot and put his hand over it, pressing down and trying to staunch it.

"You do," he said, shaking his head. "You need to go to a hospital. You're losing blood, Kaz."

[everymonstrousthing]

Alec's hand on him comes with a wave of dizziness that's nothing to do with blood-loss. Kaz grits his teeth and bears it, grateful for the layers of clothing between them. "It's not that bad," he says. "It's...not deep." He drags in a hissing breath between his teeth at the pressure. "Just hurts like bloody hell."

[deflectere]

The slippery blood flowed over his hand, coating his fingers and seeping under his nails. Alec thinned his lips and watched Kaz squirm and wince in pain.

"What do you want me to do, then?" he asked him, prepared to ignore any of Kaz's suggestions.

[everymonstrousthing]

"Something," says Kaz, dragging in another breath, trying not to squirm too much between the floor and the press of Alec's hand. "Just...just not hospitals. Promise."

[deflectere]

"There's only so much I can do, mundane," Alec told him, keeping one hand on Kaz's wound and looking around his apartment. His stele was on a nearby table and Alec wished he could use that.

It would make things so much easier. "Do you expect me to put you back together with duct tape?"

[everymonstrousthing]

"Maybe," says Kaz, and he actually manages a laugh, though it comes out more like a huff of breath. "You're...fuck...you're so much better than me, you figure it out."

[deflectere]

"Shut up," Alec snapped, refusing to hear those words. He didn't deserve those words, not from anyone. His hand was starting to slip through the blood that had oozed through his fingers.

"Why won't you go to the hospital?" Alec asked, once against eyeing the stele on the table. "They'll help you."

[everymonstrousthing]

"I don't want to be on record anywhere," he rasps, and his head spins dizzily. He leans into Alec's touch, a little, presses into the pressure of his hand to keep himself awake. "Old habits die hard."

[deflectere]

"You're so -- " Alec made a sound of frustration and shook his head, knowing he wasn't angry but worried. Worried that this was one thing Kaz couldn't come back from.

"The only thing I have that isn't a hospital or duct tape is Marks and I can't do that to you," Alec told him, shaking his head. "You'll die. Every mundane does."

[everymonstrousthing]

"You think I'm going to die anyway." He's starting to think that Alec might have a point; he's starting to lose the edges of everything in darkness. "What's the worst that could happen?"

[deflectere]

"Before you die you become Forsaken," Alec told him, voice hard as flint. "If that happens, then I'll have to kill you because you'll try and kill me. Do you want that?"

[everymonstrousthing]

Forsaken sounds familiar, but probably not in the way that Alec means. Kaz isn't sure that it matters; any will he's got to argue is rushing it of him with the blood seeping through Alec's fingers.

"Do it." He barely bites back a groan. "What's the worst that could happen?"

[deflectere]

"You're an idiot," Alec said, shaking his head, resisting the urge to try this. He'd seen the Forsaken, knew that they might live a little longer but they'd go out of their minds and then they'd die.

"I do this and I might buy you a day or so at the most," Alec said, swiping a forearm across his forehead which was beaded with sweat. "That's the worst that can happen."

[everymonstrousthing]

"If you take me to a hospital," he says, through gritted teeth, and every word is a little war, something hard-won. "They're going to do things like..." He grits his teeth. "Taking my gloves and cutting clothes and I can't have that." He shakes his head. "I...I can barely stand it when it's you, so...whatever the fuck you're going to do, Alec, just do it. I don't care."

He's been ready for death since he fought his way back from it. Everything else has been borrowed time.

[deflectere]

Alec wanted to punch him in the face for making him make this choice. He was a leader, he knew how to lead but hard decisions when it came to people he knew, people he cared about twisted his stomach into knots.

Alec finally pushed himself up to his feet and grabbed his stele, the metal staining immediately with Kaz's blood. He came back and knelt down again, jaw tight and lips thin.

[everymonstrousthing]

Kaz is swimming in and out of consciousness; the dark has claws and they're digging into him, drawing yet more blood. He holds on with his fingernails. He pulled himself out of the gutter once before. He can do it again.

"C'mon, Alec," he says, voice raw. "You don't even like me that much."

[deflectere]

"Shut up," Alec snapped, reaching for the hem of the bloody shirt and yanking it up. He needed skin if he was going to do this, if he was going to doom Kaz to becoming a Forsaken.

"This is going to hurt. A lot," Alec warned and let his stele hover over Kaz's skin. "Bite down on your lip or something. Keep as quiet as you can."

[everymonstrousthing]

A wave of nausea hits Kaz hard when Alec yanks his shirt up, reveals pale skin smeared with blood. He fights it, though, nods and bites down on his lip, looking up at Alec with watchful eyes that slip in and out of focus. He trusts him. And what's the worst that can happen? He's on the verge of being dead anyway.

[deflectere]

This is not something that Alec wanted to do. He could lose everything for this. If the Clave found out, he could be stripped of his Marks and lose everything.

He set his jaw and pressed the stele to Kaz's skin, watching the iratze burn itself into his stomach near the wounds. He tried to be quick about it but it was a first Mark and it wasn't easy when the skin was so new and the burning so intense.