straysinspace | Some meme threads

Kai doesn't like playing the part of the damsel in distress, partly because he's way happier counting on himself, and partly because relying on someone else's rescue has a high risk of leaving him disappointed and still in danger. So despite the fact that Kai should really keep pressure on that wound on his side and maybe just sit and recover a moment, he's staggering to his feet, leaning against the building.

He is grateful for the burst of clarity, not sure what's caused it at first, as Marco comes in range. It's not enough to do anything about the wound and there's still a monster out there, but Kai feels a sudden sense he'll make it through this. He just needs to get off a few good shots.

Even that doesn't quite explain the burst of relief that crashes through him or the way he answers quickly. "Over here." He tells himself that it's because he wants Marco near him, so Kai doesn't have to worry about accidentally shooting him.

Marco follows his voice with a sense of relief and moves to Kai, rushing to be at his side when he clampers up. He can smell the blood on him, mixed with that same spice and oranges that usually lingers around him.

"You're hurt," he says first of all, reaching over to steady the man with a hand on his arm. "Let me look at it. Orion will take care of the thing." Whatever it may be. Marco has faith in his ability to keep the beast occupied.

"It'll be fine," he says, and there's something about the way that Marco says Orion will take care of it that threatens Kai's pride, makes him want to get up and deal with the problem himself. Marco's hand on him brings a cool wash of relief that gets rid of those thoughts and lets him focus enough to hear the creature, Orion's careful stalking of it.

"Shouldn't let ourselves stay cornered." That's just thinking strategically, right?

There's a frown on the blonde's brows and he slides that hand down to Kai's side, looking for the injury. That relief washes over Marco as well, his head clearing, the dizziness and ache becoming something closer and easier to handle, pain and a sense of weakness, blood loss.

"It will be fine," he agrees. "And sure, we'll move out of the way but then you need to let me patch you up before you keel over."

He tucks himself close to Kai's side, reaching over to wrap one of his arms around his shoulders and takes a gentle hold of his waist to haul him back towards the mouth of the alley. "If you won't think of yourself, think of me," he says with a strained voice. "I feel everything you do."

Kai has hopes that his wound'll start clotting soon. But the fact that Marco agrees they can move does something, puts some points in his favor. It's just a pity that there are so many against him to start with, most of which have little enough to do with Marco at all.

"You can patch me up," he says, though his fingers curl at his side, at the idea of letting anyone touch him when he's already injured.

"But feeling what I do is a poor idea." He assumes it's some kind of magic, something Marco is choosing to do. At least now he'll see the folly of his choices.

"Not something I can exactly change," Marco says quietly, without heat. He simply focuses on getting them out of the dark alley and into the light. Behind them a bang as something big slams against a trash pin, a growl and a shout. Then quiet. Another burst of action, and gunfire, the darkness flashing with it, illuminated in bursts.

Marco helps Kai to rest against a rusty hanging of fire escape. He gives a muttered curse as he starts pulling up the man's shirt, scent of blood flooding his senses. Serpent, this is not just a flesh wound.

"Why would you--" he says before his teeth clip tight shut and he glovers at Kai before reaching in with both hands, his left one sliding around Kai's waist, holding him tight as he fishes out two pearls from his hair and slips them between his fingers, this hand presses against the wound directly.

"Shush now," he says tightly, and starts reversing energy right from himself, pouring it in with liberal hand.

There's iron dust in old wounds, in Kai's blood, and he thinks to warn Marco about it, that trying to do magic with it might actually hurt Marco too. But then he tells him to hush, and Kai frowns instead, ready to fuss about that. He's not a child, to be put into his place.

Instead he thinks back to Marco saying he can't change how he reacts to Kai, and the way that even under these circumstances there's a certain calmness that takes him over when Marco touches him.

He fights that, too, because Kai is used to fighting. "Be careful," he says instead. "Don't need you incapacitating yourself." He's pretty sure Marco's guard wouldn't take kindly to that.

Marco is not a healer, he's barely capable of turning magic into this sort of energy. He's never been good at it but he knows how to do it in theory and a little bit in practise.

His eyes close as his brows furrow and--

The direct skin contact blows him open like a wound, he takes a deep breath, eyes flaring open, pupils blown wide and his gaze helplessly skinless, vulnerable but so open. He can sense everything about Kai. The iron dusting, every old wound, every drop of blood, every movement of his emotions, so very very clear and so liberating. It's like breathing again after struggling for breath for weeks, months, maybe years, his whole life...

"You--" he manages but that's all, flesh is knitting together under his fingers, skin scabbing over. It's like manoeuvring in a steam that is so much slower than him, knowing exactly where to touch and where not, avoiding iron. He stares at Kai, helplessly distracted by the pure sensation that is flooding through him.

Kai is nervous, jumpy, hostile to the touch. But his paranoid worry can't survive contact with Marco, the sudden depth of that concern, the genuine emotion behind it.

He's panting at the force of it, the pain of his own forgotten as he finds Marco's presence soothing, as he relaxes into the touch instead of rejecting it.

He tells himself he can recover his senses, figure out what the fuck is going on, once he's not at risk of bleeding out.

"I what?" he manages instead.

"I don't know," Marco admits with a small burst of laughter, distracted, feeling Kai's soothed feelings, his emotions so close to the surface, everything that bleeds through the touch that he can't seem to terminate even if it isn't strictly speaking necessary anymore.

"You're distracting," he admits with a small smile that plays on his lips. He rolls his lip between his teeth and then pockets the pearls between his fingers, reaching down for the hem of his own shirt. "Let me get this..." he murmurs, reaching up to wipe away the blood from Kai's side that is completely whole again.

"How do you feel?" he asks quietly while he works, voice gone from sharp to warm and quiet.

Kai considers it, but as much as he wants to argue the touch he can't really deny that he feels substantially better, that Marco had touched him with the intent and action to soothe rather than to hurt.

"Fine," he says, but there's something there, almost a question in it.

"Tell me what's happening. You know something I don't."

"You haven't heard about it?" Marco asks quietly, his brows quirking in question. Kai is definitely a lot less eager to push him away now, a lot less eager to snap about everything he says and generally just... more yielding. It's probably due to the skin to skin contact that has left Marco reeling as well.

"Or well, I'm assuming this is... it. What they call Ceangal, a connection between two people that are sort of... two halves of a one." It's a little awkward to explain it because it means exactly that, and he didn't want to be the one bringing the news to Kai. "It's rare and has to do with fate, not about compatibility or anything like that, just magic. Well, not even magic but forces that are not made to be understood."

He shrugs mildly. "You've never really heard of it?"

Kai would expect he's being mocked, except that they have this bond, except that he can feel a certain genuineness coming from Marco through the connection that they have, and he can feel that the connection does exist.

"I was raised by humans," he says, which is both true and not, since he's too old for that, and the elfin don't give up their children easily. "Don't figure this is the sort of thing you let them know about." So Kai doesn't know, like he doesn't know so much about his people. Usually that's fine by him. Usually he'd rather they not be his people.

"Alright, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound--" he starts and realises that he's responding to something Kai might have felt for a moment there and then snorts softly. "I mean, I was just surprised."

He draws in a breath and tries to focus. "It's a part of our culture that sort of belongs to it as solidly as one could say marriage or friendship. It's just a unique relationship the way love is different from friendship, the Ceangal is different from both of those. It comes with some expectations, I suppose, those are more mythological in nature and definitely not believed by all. If you're bonded with someone, the mythology says that you're destined for great things. However, there's also the more down to earth view on it as just a mental link that two people will share."

Marco straightens gently the hem of Kai's shirt, he's not really eager to step away from him. He feels suddenly clearheaded in a way that he hasn't felt for a long, long time.

"I will find some literature for you. But in short, we're supposed to stick together and it seems I will be acting as your shield. So whenever this extra awareness that has been forced upon you gets too much, you'll find some quiet and calm around me. Once I figure out how this is supposed to work, we probably can expand the distance between us."

Kai's expression is flat, but there's a certain rage simmering under his surface at this whole situation, at the fact that this is something that he's just finding out about now, that he doesn't want to be tied to any of the elfin, let alone an unsidhe.

But there's that competing calmness, sense of belonging. There's the fact that despite himself, despite everything, Kai finds himself wanting to trust Marco.

"Guess you're going to find out how you like living in San Diego," Kai says, and he expects Marco to overrule him, but there's a stubborn set to his expression. There may be logical reasons Marco needs his security, his presumed trapping of luxury, but Kai's not going to acquiesce easily on this.

Marco opens his mouth to argue, but then closes it after a moment of thinking about it. He looks at Kai with a small shrug. It should be obvious to Kai that his feelings aren't exactly pleased by the tone of his voice or the anger that simmers beneath there. It hurts him in ways that he didn't calculate.

"I see," he says finally. "This is not ideal for either of us. And I definitely didn't ask this, you know."

"You didn't," Kai says, and it's not that he doesn't believe it, exactly, so much that he doesn't think this would be down to a random accident of fate. He can't see Marco choosing someone like Kai for much of anything at all, except maybe a target for some scheme.

Then again, Marco doesn't seem the type for that.

Kai's thoughts flare suddenly with a bright certainty of alarm, and he reaches out to grip tight to Marco's arm. "You need to consider that this may be a plot of my father's." He's definitely not above controlling Kai somehow, and Marco seems more likely to end up a victim of such a plot than the perpetrator of one.

"No one could force this upon you," Marco says as he watches Kai with open, surprised eyes. His concern seems real, his worry and obvious discomfort.

"Hey, listen," he starts, shifting the arm that Kai is holding a little so he can reach up to cup the man's cheek within his palm. He aims for a calming tone. "This is not something that your father or anyone, not my father either, could have bestowed upon either of us. It happens like blue eyes happen or freckles, or having bowed legs or head for mathematics."

At that Kai starts laughing. It's hysterical and it's uncomfortable but Kai can't seem to stop himself. It takes a moment before he calms enough to say anything, and when he does it's a matter of going, "Oh, oh. You are in trouble."

And then he's going to bring his hands up to his head, try to bury it in them.

Some meme threads

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