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chaotic-orphan · 2 months ago

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Intoxicating Fear (XXVI)

A Fool’s Bargain

Read part one // masterpost // Continued from here

This part is dedicated to @neongalaxiie who always reminds me to link the posts, so you don’t have to go looking XD

*~*~*~*~*

Kit grabbed the keys from Jude’s body as Tides helped Sawyer to his feet. Kit gave her the keys and she gasped, retracting her hand quickly.

“Shit, ow!” She said, shaking her hand and Kit frowned, glancing down at the keys in his hand. Small sparks still flying from his hand and arm. Sparks he couldn’t feel.

Sawyer’s dark eyes found Kit’s and said: “you open the door, Tides and I can get up the stairs together.”

“But—” Kit protested, and fell back a step, his temple throbbing with a gasping pulse. So much power, so much energy, why stop now? Release, release, release, release, release.

Tides widened her eyes. “Kit?”

He shook his head, every component of his body thrumming with power that was begging like a child, keening like a dog, singing like a siren for Kit to give into the temptation. Stop trying so hard to fight it. Sawyer’s so weak, give him a jolt, a little hit. A pick me up. Come on—

“M’fine,” Kit mumbled, walking towards the stairs so he could ignore the looks of concern painted plainly across Tides and Sawyer’s faces. His heart was in his throat, blocking his oxygen and pulsing the thrumming blood around his body from there. What the fuck was happening to him?

He was happy to be standing, though his butt was numb from the constant sitting as he climbed the stairs and went through the keys one by one, sliding them into the lock and turning until one actually fit and opened the heavy door.

Kit frowned as the door opened.

They were in a house. Somebody’s home. Jude’s? Supervillain’s? He held the door open, eyes scanning the dark wooden floors and picture frames hanging on the walls for clues as to where the fuck they were. Tides helped Sawyer up the stairs, standing behind him so he wouldn’t fall and there to catch him if he did.

Kit frowned at the mirror directly across from the door, and glanced back at Sawyer. He was only halfway up. Kit let the door go and grabbed the mirror off the wall, glancing quickly around for a place to hide it. A small table with sticky notes and pens was on the other side of the door, blocked, so Kit stuck the mirror upside down under it and went back to the door, grabbing the handle and pulling it open again.

Sawyer grinned at him as he got to the top. “I thought you were abandoning us, Mallory.”

“Not until we’re free of here, and then maybe you two can get a room,” he said, closing the door after Tides had cleared the stairs. Tides laughed, shaking her head at Kit. “We need to move a little faster though, who knows when Supervillain will be back.”

Sawyer and Tides nodded. Tides went to support Sawyer again but he put a gentle hand on her wrist and told her he was fine. Kit walked ahead of them, giving them a little privacy as he peeked down a hallway. It was an old house, he realised, something passed down the family for generations. The hallway they were in seemed to be at one end of the house, tucked away into a little nook.

They was nobody else in the house, nobody Kit could feel anyways, but he didn’t exactly trust his abilities at the moment so he sent out a small pulse through the house under his feet.

Nothing. He straightened. They were on their own.

“There’s nobody else here,” Kit said, standing in the hall. “I can’t feel any other pulses except Jude’s in the basement. I think we’re good.”

“So we can actually get out of here,” Tides said with a wide smile. Kit could see the hope blossom in her face like relief washing over her. Kit nodded.

“I’ll find the door,” Kit said, his blood felt like fizz in his veins and he just wanted to go. To move, he couldn’t stand still.

“No,” Sawyer said with a breath. “We’ll stay together.”

Kit clenched his jaw. If he just zapped Sawyer unconscious then he could carry him the rest of the way and not have to wait for his—

Kit slapped a hand over his temple, groaning. Sawyer’s eyes hardened. “Kit? Why are you able to use your powers? And why aren’t they blue?”

Kit opened his eyes, which he didn’t remember closing, but as soon as he did he regretted it. A raging headache thumped behind his eyelids with every pulse of his heart. No, not his heart. That other thing inside him, the well of magic. It felt like a rabid dog, eating him from the inside out, and wilder too. Unpredictable.

“Kit!”

Sawyer’s words felt like bullets, bouncing off his inner ear canals and pin-balling around his skull.

“Kit!” A hand on his arm and Kit opened his eyes again, the world swaying a little in front of him. Kit stepped back, the hand fell away and he shook his head, leaning a hand against the wall for support.

Tides looked between the two boys, one was practically a walking safety hazard and the other winced with every word he spoke, his wounds congealed with dark, jelly like crimson glueing in the cracks.

“Okay,” she said. “New plan. The two of you will go sit down, rest on the stairs,” she told them, pointing two feet down the hall. “I’ll find a phone and we can call Superhero.”

Kit groaned. “No… there… Supervillain destroyed the city. I don’t know if Superhero’s alive, or any of the heroes for that matter.”

“What?” Tides asked, breathless.

“What do you mean Supervillain destroyed the city Kit?” Sawyer demanded, grabbing a fistful of Kit’s shirt and slamming him back against the lip of the wall.

“I— when Supervillain lured me to the clock tower,” Kit said, his memory scratching like nails on a chalkboard but he continued. “You were unconscious,” he said to Sawyer, “so you wouldn’t remember. But I thought—”

“Thought what?” Sawyer demanded.

Kit raised his head, catching Tides’s eyes in his unnatural glowing red. Brows furrowed over his sockets casting them in shadows. “You were there, Tides.”

Tides frowned in reply. Sawyer looked at her now too. “I don’t—” Tides sputtered, scrambling to find words that wouldn’t come.

Sawyer let out a grunt, tightening his grip in Kit’s shirt. “That doesn’t matter right now. Tides, go find a phone.”

“We should get out of here!” Kit protested, glaring at Sawyer again.

“How? Call an uber? Oh wait, we need a phone to do that!” Sawyer snapped as Tides walked past the pair and went searching the house, their voices dimming the further she walked away.

“You didn’t answer my question, Mallory, why can you use your powers and Tides and I can’t?”

Kit ran a hand through his hair, sighing. He felt the static charge from his hand ignite his hair and set it standing on end. “It’s a long story,” Kit said. “One we don’t have time to tell. Just know that I can.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to trust you?” Sawyer demanded. “How do I know you’re not working with them?!”

The words were like a slap in the face. Kit felt his emotions stirring inside and he wrestled to keep them down. “Sawyer, I’d advise you let go of me if you don’t want to be fried in the next three seconds.”

Sawyer’s hard eyes searched Kit’s face, scoffed and stepped back, running a hand through his own hair and letting out a breath, turning away from Kit.

“Fuck. I need to sit down,” he mumbled, walking to the staircase and planting his arse on the third wooden step.

Kit stared as he gingerly touched a bad gash on his face and winced, shuddering slightly. They were all stressed and tired, Sawyer and Tides more so than Kit, but here Kit was, throwing a tantrum and letting his powers consume him.

“I’m not one of them,” he said quietly. Sawyer raised his head, but Kit didn’t meet his gaze. “And I’m sorry for… acting out. I’m antsy. I’m gonna have a look around. See if I can find out any information.”

Before Sawyer could reply, Kit turned away in the opposite direction that Tides went, back towards the cellar and around the small wall to the other hallway. The house was oval like a continuous loop so you could explore every room and reach every place without having to walk through a rigid set of rooms. It was also massive.

Out one of the lattice patterned windows he could see an expanse of a garden, no, not garden— gardens. A three tier design with mixes of stone and perfectly cut grass and hedges, flowers of every colour. Kit frowned. This wasn’t Ambrose level rich, this was something else entirely. Would you even call it rich or wealth?

Kit continued walking. There was a second staircase, more rigid with creaking floorboards as he walked up to the first floor and stepped out. The floor was carpeted in a rich burgundy between two strips of dark wood, so deeply brown it would have looked black if not for the beam of light shedding the gleam of brown from it.

Portraits hung on the walls.

Actual painted portraits of women and men in old timey dress, starting from around two hundred years ago if Kit had to guess. It was so strange. He felt like he was walking through a museum, the walls thick and dense, seemed to close in on him a little. Sparks zipped out at his feet, the fibres from the carpet charging static in him.

It was so annoying.

He sent out another pulse through the house, just to make sure. Nothing.

It unsettled a sixth sense within him. Shouldn’t Supervillain have thought of this? That leaving them with just Jude was a bad idea? Did he honestly think they wouldn’t escape? And why the fuck were they looking for a phone, they should be looking for keys to a car, or even better a car. Kit could make it run.

Maybe.

He hadn’t tested the bounds of his new red lightning before, maybe it could do other things that Kit never ever considered.

Right. Decision made, Kit nodded. He would do a quick search of the upstairs, see if anything stood out and if it didn’t then they got to leave sooner. Lingering would just lead to problems later on, and they were in no shape to fight.

Kit’s feet moved through the upstairs. Some of the walls had small balconies in them that overlooked the ground floor, and at one he saw Sawyer on the steps of the staircase. “Hey, Sawyer?”

Sawyer looked up to see Kit leaning over the railings and scoffed. “Jesus, what kind of fucking hogwarts castle is this place?”

“I was thinking more great gatsby,” Kit said. “Wait til i find a wardrobe and I’ll shower you with clothes.”

“Have you found any clues?”

Kit shook his head. “Nope. It’s like mausoleum. Quiet as the grave.”

“Clearly it’s bringing out the romantic in you,” Sawyer said with a smirk then winced, oil like blood leaking from a split in his lip. The motion pulled at Kit’s heartstrings. They needed to get Sawyer to a hospital, ASAP.

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

Kit went straight, knowing the hall would loop around to the stairs eventually and just when he got to the mouth of the steps he saw it from across the way. His feet stopped suddenly, frozen on the step as his heart thumped in his chest once and then stopped altogether.

His mouth lost all moisture, his tongue scraping like sandpaper out over his chapped lips. His legs were moving as his mind stuttered along, trying to make itself comprehend what he was seeing.

On the wall were a collection of framed photographs and diplomas, degrees, awards. There’s a picture outside the Hero Academy, Mentor with his arm around a young Ambrose, beaming at the camera. Another on the same day, Mentor stood with his arm around a younger Ambrose who smiled genuinely at the camera, so unreserved and unfiltered. He had dimples in his cheeks that Kit had never seen on the real version of him, rather than this snapshot of him frozen in time.

The boy on the other side of Mentor, was a little taller than Ambrose, his hair a chestnut brown and his grin just as wide as Ambrose’s and Mentor’s, but his eyes… he had the same silver eyes as Mr Silver. Kit frowned. Were they brothers? Did Mr Silver have a brother that Kit didn’t know about? He must’ve, Kit… he would’ve known— or would he?

Mr Silver was more family friend than professional acquaintance. They had dinner together, surely it would’ve come up, but then again… he was a very private person. And Kit didn’t like sharing his past either so he couldn’t exactly berate him for it.

Kit stepped back, searching the photos. And sure enough, there was a younger Mr Silver shaking Mentor’s hand on the day they established the link between the Hero agency and the government.

He stepped back again, a picture of an older Ambrose with Mr Silver’s brother, a lazy arm wrapped around Ambrose’s shoulders and a cigarette dangling from his teeth. Ambrose looked more gaunt in that one, his eyes unsmiling, his expression stoic. So unlike younger Ambrose.

Did Ambrose go to the Academy? Was he in one of the older years? How had Kit missed him? Kit knew everyone older than him unless Ambrose was already gone by the time Kit joined.

A degree in Pure Mathematics with a minor in theoretical physics from the best college in the country attributed to Nathan T. Scarrow.

Kit’s eyes went back to the picture of Mentor and Ambrose, zooming in on the third, Nathan.

Why the fuck was Ambrose in the pictures of Supervillain’s house? Kit felt the anger surge in him before he could check in, before he could rein it in, it roared with a beast’s fury and Kit’s feet no longer touched the ground. Sparks erupted from every part of him, every inch of his body as he snarled, cracking the pictures, revelling in watching the glass shatter into pieces, falling from their hooks to the ground.

Mr Silver. Ambrose. Mentor.

They all knew Nathan, they had to be complicit in covering up the fact that he was Supervillain, right?! RIGHT?!

“Kit!”

But Kit didn’t answer. He could only hear the warning voice so very far away from him as he clenched his hands into fists and shattered the windows behind him, letting the breeze blow through the house and still it wasn’t enough.

He wanted to destroy everything.

Everybody.

How could he be so stupid?! To think Ambrose would actually— that Mentor had ever— that Mr Silver was a friend?!

“KIT!”

Terrified blue eyes found his and reached for him. Kit dropped his head to his chest, collapsing to his knees on the shattered glass crunching beneath his combats but he didn’t care as they pierced his skin. A sob wracked it’s way up his throat and caught in his throat, causing him to tip forward onto his elbows on the jagged glass staring at the smiling, happy photo of Mentor and Ambrose and wailing like a child.

“Kit,” Tides said, reaching an arm out to him despite the currents rushing through him but he knew, somehow he knew, he wouldn’t hurt her as she tried to comfort him.

“He lied…” Kit mewled, his back arching as fat tears splattered down onto the old photograph, staining it. “He lied about everything. Everything.”

Tides gathered Kit in her arms, gently picking him back away from the shards of glass and held him as he cried like a chief mourner to a funeral that wasn’t real.

None of it. None of his life, his happiness, his connections, his career— none of it was his, he could only ever contribute it to other people. Even now, when he should be focusing on escaping here he was, curled up like a child and sobbing into Tides shirt.

A hand plucked at a piece of glass on his legs and tugged lightly to remove it. Sawyer. He could see him from the corner of his eyes, tentatively working to remove the shards.

Kit didn’t care, he couldn’t feel it. The cold presence of betrayal felt like an overwhelming absence of all else, every good thing, even his friends who silently waited and tried to help him, hold him, be there for him. He couldn’t feel any of it except for the twisting knotting of guilt like a double barrel buckshot in his chest.

He shouldn’t have gone looking. He should’ve left well enough alone and escaped. They should have escaped.

Tides stiffened under Kit, and Sawyer paused in his movements. Kit blinked, staring at nothing, his mind and body numb.

It was Sawyer who spoke. “Kit?” He said, his voice a whisper. Kit’s heavy eyes turned to Sawyer. The weight of them too great to function. He was exhausted. He wanted to go home and forget everything.

No. He wanted to get Ambrose to make him forget everything. Everything about his life. He didn’t want to be a hero anymore. He didn’t want to do anything other than sleep, but his eyes met Sawyer’s and he sensed the urgency in them.

“Can you sense anyone outside?”

The question washed over Kit like alarm bells in a prison because yes, when he pushed his powers out along the ground he could sense a car that had just stopped and two heartbeats outside the front door, down and to the right of the staircase.

“Kit!”

Then a slap in the face. Kit blinked, eyes wide at Sawyer who had leaned over Kit’s legs and grabbed his face in his hands. It was like a spring uncoiled suddenly, releasing and launched itself forwards. Kit stared, eyes dazed at Sawyer.

“You’re bleeding,” he said. Kit reached a hand up to his face where Sawyer slapped him, dumbly fumbling for the blood. Before his fingers found it it dribbled over Kit’s lips and he blinked lazily, withdrawing his fingers as the warmth went over his lips to his chin.

“Oh,” was all Kit said, feeling so, so very far away from his body. Time seemed to be moving in slow motion as Sawyer helped Tides grab Kit and snuck into one of the bedrooms, closing the door. They put Kit against the bed, his bloody fingers staining the soft white carpet as Sawyer and Tides danced in a swirl of colours in front of him, pushing something heavy and wooden across the door’s threshold.

A barricade.

Kit blinked dumbly at them. He felt like he was going to throw up.

Kit?

Kit stiffened on the ground, hands fisting the carpet to keep himself steady.

Are you here?

Kit looked up at Tides and Sawyer who were huddled in the corner, speaking lowly. “We need to get out of here.”

“We know,” Sawyer said, his voice hard. “But we need to be smart about it.”

“No,” Kit said, shaking his head. Oh, fuck that was a bad idea. “No, you don’t understand,” he protested, shifting his weight to the side so he could push himself to his hands and knees. He grabbed the fabric of the duvet and pulled himself up on shaky feet. A pair of hands grabbed him and steadied him but Kit didn’t really notice it other than the fact that he didn’t face plant the floor.

“Kit!” Tides hissed. “Be quiet.”

Kit kept his eyes trained on the broken windows of the room. They were only up one flight. They could make it. Kit reached a hand up to the window frame and felt solid wall.

“Fuck,” he said with a slightly hysterical breath. “Can one of you find the window? I think I’m seeing double.”

“Kit,” Sawyer said closer to him. “You just spent an unprecedented amount of power blowing every window in this house to bits, you can’t take jumping out of one.”

“He’s right, Kit.”

Kit?

Kit swallowed, turning in Sawyer’s hands a lopsided grin on his face, eyelids drooping as if he was drunk or drugged, but he fixed them on Sawyer’s swirling face. His nose drifting up to his forehead like a unicorn.

“WHO THE FUCK BROKE MY WINDOWS?!” A voice boomed from below.

“Omen’s here,” Kit told him. “Omen’s here,” he said again. “He’s the reason my powers are fucked. He’s the reason I don’t have a family anymore. He’s the reason for everything wrong in my life and he’s downstairs, Sawyer. So you can stay here and be his new little toy to break, I’m fucking done with him. I’m done. Now show me the fucking window.”

He didn’t know what Sawyer looked like. He didn’t know if he was happy or sad or effected by anything Kit just said but it didn’t matter because gently, Sawyer took Kit’s hand and placed it on the windowsill.

“There. Just hold on, we’re going together. Tides?”

Tides was by their side in a second. “Hold him, I’ll go out first. Send him after so I can catch him, and then you come. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Kit couldn’t see but Sawyer was concerned by his confession. But they could deal with that later. Right now they had to get out of here.

Sawyer put a foot on the bed, grabbing the window frame and swung his leg over, and, “what?” He breathed.

Kit frowned, but it made him nauseous to do so. “What?”

“I can’t— I can’t get through.”

“Jus’ open the window,” Kit said, slurring his words.

“There is no window, Kit. There’s no glass. There’s like— a barrier. I can’t fucking get through.”

Tides moved then and pressed her hand to the window, where Sawyer’s leg was perched in mid air. “What?!”

Kit sensed someone by the door, but by the time he processed that he should tell Tides and Sawyer the doorway exploded in on them. Wooden lats and splinters shot towards the trio, a wayward board hitting Kit over the head and he fell like a log.

His vision zoomed in and out, like a camera trying to focus on a subject but failing to find the proper balance. His ears were ringing violently, muting all other sounds except his wheezing breaths and his heartbeat that thumped thunderous in his skull and slow.

Kit got his elbows under him and pushed himself on shaky hands up to try and see what was happening. Tides and Sawyer were fighting, struggling beside him, Tides further away than Sawyer was. When did that happen?

But all cognitive skills died when he met two black eyes fixed on him. They were drawn down in concern, and Kit must be so fucking out of it because for a second— he could’ve mistaken them for worry. But that’s ridiculous.

“Kit?” Ambrose asked, grabbing his face in his cold hands. Kit blinked slowly like a cat. “Kit!” Ambrose said again, his voice muted and too far away for him to hear, but he could see his red lips moving. He couldn’t hear anything as if a bomb had gone off right beside his head.

He wished he would pass out but he remained stubbornly conscious the entire time, his brain pulsing in his skull. Ambrose shifted Kit to sit with his back against the wall, Kit groaning the whole time. Ambrose was still speaking, clicking his fingers in Kit’s face.

Across the bed he saw flashes of yellow and blue that he knew were Tides and Sawyer, on their knees in front of Nathan.

Supervillain?

He wasn’t wearing a mask, but the only logical explanation was that Nathan was Supervillain, right?

He didn’t remember. It seemed important at the time but now the thought melted into a puddle to join the pooling sludge in Kit’s head.

“Stop,” Kit said, leaning forward until he was stopped by Ambrose’s hand, his own reaching for Tides and Sawyer. “Don’t touch ‘em.”

Nathan laughed, or looked like he was about to laugh, gesturing to Kit but speaking to Ambrose.

“Get off me,” Kit said, slamming his hands down on Ambrose’s as he pitched forward again. “Don’t— hurt me instead, please. Please. Let them go.”

“Kit,” Ambrose said beside him, pushing him back again. It felt like he was submerged in water and Ambrose was speaking at him from above the surface. Muted, but he could make out the words now. “You have a concussion. You need to sit still.”

“We couldn’t get out,” Kit whined, red eyes meeting black. “We tried to get away. We tried to get out. And then— and then—”

Kit narrowed his eyes into a glare at Nathan. “You piece of shit! How do you think your brother would feel about you being a fucking Villain?! Supervillain of all people.”

“Kit, shut up,” Ambrose said, pushing him back against the wall. “For once in your life, just be quiet.”

“And you!” Kit said, tears welling up behind his eyes as he turned his attention to Ambrose. “You knew the whole time!”

“I didn’t, Kit. I swear. Don’t you think I would’ve told you?” Kit shook his head, slapping at Ambrose’s arms, his face, his shoulders. He grabbed the edges of Ambrose’s jacket and pulled him in, his lips curling back into a snarl that Ambrose almost recoiled at.

“No, no, no. Cause you’re a fucking liar,” Kit spat.

“You’re a monster, and you… you—” Kit said, but he couldn’t get the words out without crying, and so the tears fell over his cheeks, his eyes widening slightly as he stared at Ambrose, the realisation crushing everything in his chest, making it feel like his ribs were caving in on his heart and lungs. “I trusted you.”

Ambrose didn’t answer. Black eyes wide and hurt, and worried and it made Kit sick.

“I trusted you,” he said again, his voice coming out as barely more than a whisper through short, fretful breaths. “And look at what you’ve done to me. Look at what you did… I can’t— I can’t see straight, my powers are fucked, I lost my only family and now you’re going to make me lose my friends too? The only two in the world? How could you?”

Silence.

Hurt turned to anger and Kit launched himself off the wall, pushing Ambrose down and landing on top of him haphazardly, pushing himself to his knees straddling Ambrose on either side.

“HOW COULD YOU?!” He raged, spittle flying over Ambrose’s face, his blue eyes turning a startling red again and Ambrose thought that was it. He’d die there and then.

But just before the sparks erupted from Kit, an invisible hand grabbed him and slammed him against the wall, slamming the wind from his body. White hot stars burst behind his eyes as a crack sounded. Kit cried out as he fell like a rag-doll, his head and ribs taking the blow and burning. Kit howled, curling in on himself.

Fuck. Fuck, that was a rib.

Every breath was agony, but Kit still tried to push himself up, screaming and crying and raging all the while. Ambrose was on his feet, shouting at Nathan about something, his hand on Nathan’s wrist pulling it down.

Kit’s shaking arms faltered and he fell again with a startled breath onto his forearms, his screams dying to spine shuddering sobs, staring at the soft carpet below him. Twin streams of tears and snot and spit falling open as Kit wailed, pain seizing his mind and body but still he remained awake.

“I told you to leave him to me,” Ambrose snarled, shoving Nathan’s wrist away. Nathan inclined his head, smirking down at Ambrose.

“I think what you mean to say is thank you for not letting that kid fry my body to char, Nathan” Nathan said. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Ambrose turned his head to Kit who was openly sobbing now, babbling incoherently to himself and slamming his fists down against the floor every once in a while. It pulled at Ambrose’s heartstrings in a way it shouldn’t have. Kit was nothing to him, nothing. He was just some fucking dime a dozen Hero who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A warm hand on his cheek turned Ambrose’s attention back to Nathan, something hungry in his gaze, a muscle clenched in his jaw. “Thank you, Nate, you’d say, and I’d say anytime love, but it costs a kiss.”

Ambrose grabbed at Nathan’s wrist to push him off but Nathan’s grip tightened on Ambrose’s face, cupping his jaw in one hand, the other stretched towards Kit. Ambrose’s eyes widened as Kit’s screams increased in pitch until they were piercing and then another sudden crack broke through the air and Ambrose flinched, his heart hammering against his chest.

Nathan’s silver eyes didn’t leave Ambrose’s black the entire time, a smirk still present on his face though sinister now. A threat and a warning, and a knowing that he had Ambrose back where he wanted, at his mercy.

“Okay!” Ambrose hissed as Kit screamed again. “Okay! Just stop hurting him!”

Nathan lowered his hand and put it on Ambrose’s other cheek. “There. Was that so hard?”

Ambrose didn’t answer. Nathan ran his thumb along Ambrose’s bottom lip, his eyes flicking lazily to it, then to Ambrose’s eyes again, want shining desperately.

Ambrose swallowed hard. He didn’t… he swore he would never do this again, that he would never be under Nathan’s spell again. Max’s warning of not letting Nathan into his head again, under his skin, ready to do with him what he pleased because he knows Ambrose would go along with it.

Especially now, with Kit.

His weak point. And Nathan knew. How did he know? How did he know before even Ambrose knew?!

When did that happen? When did he start to think of Kit like he wasn’t just some hero to torture? Like he was something worth protecting, someone he cared for like an annoying little brother? When did his mind change from revelling in Kit’s misery, to doing the ONE THING he promised himself he would never do again, to make Kit’s misery stop?

Sure, he can torture Kit all he wants, but anyone else doing it was wrong. It felt wrong, and if his father— if his mother knew Kit, he knew she’d take him in like a second son too. Maybe, just maybe, in another world Kit and Ambrose could have been family. They could have been brothers.

The notion pulled ridiculously at Ambrose’s chest, and he was back staring at those horrible silver eyes. The enchanting twin pools of every vile thing imaginable.

“A kiss, Oskar,” Nathan whispered, leaning down to press one to Ambrose’s forehead, then his temple, his lips going to Ambrose’s ear. “A convincing kiss and I’ll stop hurting your little hero, hmm?”

Ambrose tightened his hands into fists. “I already said yes.”

“Oh, baby, no. You want something from it, you’re kissing me, not the other way around. I want to see just how much you’re willing to give for this kid.”

Ambrose hesitated, his index finger twitching as he waited, his heart slamming against his ribs. He couldn’t— he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t— fuck!

Nathan pulled back, his breath leaving Ambrose’s face, brows quirking. “No? Do you need some more convincing?” Nathan asked, raising his hand towards Kit again.

Ambrose didn’t think. He grabbed Nathan and turned them, shoving Nathan down onto the bed because Ambrose wasn’t leaning up on his toes to kiss the fucker. Nathan gasped, grinning like an idiot as Ambrose climbed on top of him, hands around his throat that he longed to squeeze.

“You look so hot when you want to murd—”

Ambrose captured Nathan’s lips in his before he could finish the sentence, swallowing it along with his pride, and the small part of him that died inside at kissing the most dangerous man he had ever known. Nathan smiled against the kiss, one hand on Ambrose’s waist while the other went to the back of Ambrose’s neck, pulling him closer.

Nathan lightly tugged at Ambrose’s hair, pulling his head back so he could tilt his head and deepen the kiss, which Ambrose allowed. It all came back so easy to him, remembering what Nathan liked and what he didn’t. The things he raved about, that drove him crazy when Ambrose did it to him.

Ambrose ground his hips into Nathan’s waist, eliciting a moan, which he swallowed, not allowing the bastard any space for breath, hoping to suffocate him. He drew back, biting at Nathan’s bottom lip and teasing it between his teeth as he drew back, planting kisses across Nathan’s jaw and down his neck.

Nathan laughed, his breath hitching when Ambrose found the spot he liked. Then the hand in his hair tightened again and pulled him back like a mother cat to a kitten, silver eyes meeting smouldering black.

Nathan’s fingers pinched Ambrose’s waist but he didn’t react. Nathan chuckled, his voice a little darker, coated with a amusing knowing. His hand trailed up Ambrose’s side, eliciting shivers as he went before cupping Ambrose’s cheek again. A long thumb smoothed across Ambrose’s cheek, just under his eye and pulled his eyelid down a little.

“Oh, Oskar. Haven’t you learned anything in my absence? What did we always say about showing people your hand, hmm? You care for this boy, for whatever reason, and I want to find out why.”

Ambrose stiffened above Nathan as he leaned up and pecked Ambrose’s lips again.

“I’ve missed you, Oskar,” Nathan said, softly as if it were a confession or a prayer. Everything about him; his voice, his smile, his dimples, his hair, his fashion, every except those eyes could make you forsake God for the sin that was the man laying under Ambrose.

“And I know you won’t just tell me why he’s struck a chord within you, so I think I’ll have to keep you both around to find out why.”

Ambrose’s expression hardened. “You can’t—” he began, retracting his hands from Nathan’s neck but Nathan didn’t let him, catching his wrists in his strong grip and holding them hostage.

“I think you know I can,” Nathan cooed. It had the opposite effect of reassurance, causing shivers down Ambrose’s spine.

“I don’t want this,” Ambrose spat, yanking his hands free from Nathan’s. He made to get off the bed but Nathan grabbed him by the waist, drawing his reluctant attention.

“We were made for each other, Oskar. There’s nobody in the world like us,” he said, voice almost pleading, yet still low and sultry, masking the desperation underneath. “I know you still feel this.”

Ambrose inclined his head stoically, cold black eyes running over Nathan’s face, searching for something that wasn’t there.

“I don’t.”

Ambrose pried Nathan’s fingers from his waist and lifted a leg up and over Nathan’s waist so he was just kneeling on the bed instead, moving towards Kit. Kit was motionless on the ground, his breathing shallowly inflating his back and hissing out again.

An anger rose in Ambrose, a helpless kind of anger that aroused when you witnessed something so horrific like a car accident, or hear of a young person’s death on the news. Anger at the world. Anger at Nathan. Anger at himself for not helping Kit sooner. Anger at Mentor. Anger at Kit for getting caught by Nathan. Anger at himself for getting pulled back into his ex’s web.

Ambrose felt a presence behind him, hands snaking around his waist, a breath against his ear. “You may not want me now, but you want Kit alive, don’t you?”

Ambrose tried not to let the words effect him, he really tried, but when Nathan pressed his lips to Ambrose’s throat he froze. Nathan smiled against his neck.

“See?” He murmured. “This is a mutually beneficial arrangement I’m offering Ambrose.”

Ambrose’s hands tightened into fists. “You can’t just make me love you.”

“Oh, darling.” The arms tightened around his waist, locking him in place. “You have no idea what I can do anymore. Besides, I have a hunch it was your hero who broke all of my windows, and I have killed people for less.”

“It’s not like you can’t just replace them, the windows don’t mean anything to you!” Ambrose huffed.

“Still,” Nathan teased, nipping at the side of Ambrose’s neck. “He destroyed something that was mine. A slight is a slight after all, Oskar.”

Nathan went back to kissing Ambrose’s neck again, trailing kisses up his jaw and over the side of his face, his cheeks, his cheekbone, the corner of his eye, his temple while Ambrose hesitated, considering any other way out of this situation.

He couldn’t compel Nate, but Nate couldn’t compel him either. Nate could compel Kit though, and who knows what kind of fucked up things ran through his mind.

“I missed your silence,” Nathan said. “It was always so profound, but it is taking a hair too long, darling, so I’ll sweeten the pot. I will keep you and Kit, and I will let his friends go free. Wipe their memories, make them forget, and when Kit wakes up you’ll be his hero.”

A knot tied itself at the base of Ambrose’s throat. What was he thinking?! Sacrificing himself for some kid he didn’t fucking know? His sanity?!

All tension left Ambrose’s body. Nathan smirked behind Ambrose. “Okay. Fine,” he replied, the words hard and thick in his throat.

“Wonderful,” Nate cooed, squeezing Ambrose tighter. “Oh, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say those words.”

Ambrose didn’t want to know how long Nathan was waiting, so he just hummed, his eyes never leaving Kit’s back, watching his breaths rise and fall. Still alive.

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

*~*~*~*~* A.N *~*~*~*~*

Hello, hello!! A little A.N. from me, I will not be continuing the weekly updates of this fic going forward, and it’s because the quality of the writing has rapidly declined and I don’t like what I’m putting out into the story — it’s not doing the story justice, because it feels like it’s floundering like a fish on a hook — it will be part of my regular uploads, but maybe every 1-2 weeks!!! I also feel like I can't edit it enough to have it up to scratch and it is slowly eating away at my brain and my motivation to write. The support for this story has been crazy, and I love that you guys like it so much, but I think for the story to be as good as it can be, this is what is best going forward - It also is draining me of creative flow that I want to put into my other fiction stories here! I hope you’re not too upset at this, but I think it is what is best for this story, the characters and myself — so thank you for reading :) enjoy!! this means I will be able to go back to regularly updating all my other fics that need to be dusted for cobwebs atm, like Heroic Betrayal, Defiant Leader, Vendetta (my beloved), etc.

TLDR; no longer weekly updates of this story, but it is still part of the regular update schedule - Which will give me more time to focus on my other stories here XD

*~*~*~*~*

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@whumpasaurus101 @0eggdealer @rejectedbytheempty @sleepy-pearl @n3rv0usn0v4 @whumpatize-me-captain @sunshiline-writes @burningkittypoet @honeyed-euphrates @sacredwrath @theonewithallthefixations @blood-enthusiast t @tippytappytyping @shinokoro @bedtimescenarios @whatwhump @acer-whumpstuff @fa1rie @jesterrinobutter @xxgalgurlxx @princess-bubble-blossom @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @dutifullykrispyland @memepsychowhowantsuperpower-blog @ehobep

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