#you are fadel's primary foil

[fadelbison]

I think the story actually does so well in its juxtaposition of fadelstyle and kantbison going through essentially the same stages of their relationship simultaneously to highlight how majorly unfair this whole scenario is for Kant.

Kant likes Bison, there are these rare moments where he forgets what he's doing and what their relationship is like where first gets to bring out the full force of his signature kanawhipped style of romance

but these moments are not just rare they are short because he's never allowed to forget the mission

In many ways he's stuck in the same way that Fadel is stuck. Their handlers keep lying about how it's the last job for them and they have almost no reason to believe them and yet clinging onto this hope is also their only choice in ever seeing an end to this shitshow that is their lives

It's not until you see just how sad Kant looks versus Style's reaction:

that it starts becoming clear that Style has the luxury of feeling conflicted and being worried about Fadel while Kant just can't even go there. He can't bring himself to open up any part of himself to Bison whereas Style didn't know about Fadel and that allowed for some space for some genuine feelings to grow.

Everything we see from Kantbison that feels like at best a negotiation and at worst a threat we get to see Fadel and Style experience genuinely.

Kink and power negotiation? Fadel roleplays garage sex and gets his nipples teased while Bison is roofied and unintentionally dubcons Kant.

Staying over for the night? Fadelstyle buttgrabbing during bowling while Bison had pulled a gun on Kant 0.5s before asking (which he doesn't put away immediately).

Tell me about your past? Terse conversation where Bison is hiding a knife meanwhile FadelStyle gets a tenderhorny conversation about loss and grief.

And oh the tattoo kisses!!! I nearly cried.

Because Style gets to kiss Fadel's tattoo and experience him fighting the impulse to be vulnerable with him

But Kant?

He has a beautiful boy telling him he loves every part of his body and the sheer grief of it - any of it - not being real 😭 😭 😭

Save my beautiful car thief he is so doomed by the narrative; the same narrative he's driving I just want to *tears all my hair out*