Chapter Text
Damon wakes up in Kai’s bed again. He might as well call it his own bed at this point, he spends about as much time there as the original resident does, anyway. Damon gets out of bed and makes his way to the bathroom. Kai follows suit not long after. After nearly a week sleeping there, the two men have fallen into a comfortable morning routine, usually completed in silence. Well, ever since the deaths. It was like all the energy they would normally put into talking was being used just trying to stand upright. This morning though, while they stand side by side brushing their teeth in the bathroom, Kai breaks tradition.
“Do you miss them, at all?” Kai mumbles into his toothbrush.
“Hm?” Damon brushes a little faster, white minty foam filling his mouth.
“Wolfgang and Eva, do you miss them?”
Up until now, Damon had been doing his best not to remember, but upon hearing their names, graphic memories flood his mind: Wolfgang’s pale, horror-stricken face, still twisted in terror from his final moments. Eva’s defiant last words, laced with pure hatred, the torturous expression plastered across her face as she struggled to survive, her screams as the flames turned her milky skin to a dark ash, her screams, her screams, her screams…
Damon snaps back into reality to see his reflection in the bathroom mirror dripping toothpaste from the corners of his mouth. Luckily, Kai hasn’t seemed to notice yet, too preoccupied with his own reflection. Damon quickly swishes, spits, and composes himself. He chooses his next words very carefully.
“I can’t afford to miss them,” he says, after a considerable amount of time.
Kai gives what looks like a knowing nod, but Damon doubts that man could ever understand the complexity of emotions he’s feeling right now, after everything he went through personally with the deceased. Still, he appreciates the sentiment, if only a little bit.
They don’t speak again for another 10 minutes. Kai is styling his hair, caking layers of mousse and hairspray to achieve that perfect just-got-out-of-bed look. Damon is assembling his suit, having more trouble this morning with his tie than usual.
“I do. Miss them, I mean.”
Damon looks up from his chest.
“Well, I think about them. Like, a lot. I guess that counts as missing them.” Not breaking eye contact with his reflection, Kai continues, as if he was just talking about the weather, not the deaths of two peers. “I try not to think about them, I really do. But it’s like, every time a room goes quiet, I can hear Eva’s screams in the distance. Like she’s still in that room, suffering. And every time I close my eyes I see Wolfgang’s creepy ass burnt veins.” He runs a hand through his hair, shaking out the tangled strands at the end, but Damon notices how he stares at the back of his hands for a moment before moving on. “And I know we’re all saying we’re never gonna let it happen again, but…” he pauses, and looks up from the mirror to find Damon staring back at him.
Damon wants to respond. He wants to reassure Kai, to tell him he is not alone, to tell him that he hears Eva in every sink faucet and squeaky hinge. He wants to tell Kai how he can’t enter the underground floor without seeing Wolfgang’s pale, lifeless face behind every door. He wants to say that he’s scared too, that every night he goes to sleep wondering if he’ll wake up. Instead he says “Why are you telling me this?” with a blank stare.
Damon notices how Kai’s face falls for a moment, seeming genuinely hurt by his response, before sticking his tongue out.
“...Jeez, remind me to never tell you anything ever again.” He returns to his mirror, carefully positioning two golden hair clips. Damon returns to his tie.
“Why are you telling me this,” Kai mutters under his breath in a mocking tone.
He feels a twinge of guilt at Kai’s reaction, sensing that a new wall might have just been built between them. This is for the best, he reminds himself. Damon trusted Eva, and it left him with nothing but regret and unrelenting nightmares. He will not make that mistake again.
It’s just past the night-time alarm now. Kai is laying belly-down on the bed while Damon reclines on the couch, the two men not quite ready to go to sleep but not wanting to leave the room. Damon likes to spend this time thinking. Today he is thinking, well trying to think–usually his thoughts end up tracing back to the image of Eva’s bleeding, bruised body, just before she was burned alive– of the motive Tozu plans to give tomorrow. A new motive means someone will surely die in the next few days, and Damon knows it will be up to him again to find and execute the culprit.
“Damon, can I ask you a question?” Kai rolls over on the bed until he is facing the man at the other end of the room.
“Hm?” Damon does not break eye contact with the floor.
“Why are you such a bitch?”
This gets Damon’s attention. He turns towards Kai, and his expression turns to a scowl. “Excuse me?”
“Kidding, kidding! Don’t get so worked up over it.” Kai giggles before continuing. “I actually do have a question: why do you wear a mask?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Ok fair, that was kind of cryptic.” Kai thinks for a moment, choosing his words before he speaks again.
“So when I’m on social media and stuff, I’m not completely myself. I mean obviously, most of my personality is there, otherwise people wouldn’t like me for being inauthentic, but there are things I keep masked. Not just physically, with like, filters and junk, but mental stuff too. Kai Monteago the influencer is like, a flatter version of the real me. But that makes sense, because it’s my job to entertain, and choose the interesting parts of myself to show my audience.
But I feel like you always have a mask on. Like, I've only seen the real you for a couple seconds when you’re caught off guard before you go back to carefully composed, broody, doesn’t-care-about-anything Damon. Why do you do that?”
Damon was taken aback. First because he didn’t expect Kai to express this concept so clearly. He’s begun to notice this whenever Kai talks about something related to his ultimate talent. He suddenly becomes so much more calm, collected, and focused. The whiny, sobbing, screaming influencer he’s come to know disappears.
He is surprised, secondly, that Kai has the audacity to ask him such a question.
“Kai, this is a killing game. In what universe would being open and honest with everyone about all my flaws and vulnerabilities be helpful?”
“See, but I feel like you were like this before the academy. And besides, you’d be surprised how nice it is to open up to people sometimes. You’re a weird guy, Damon, but I think you’d be a lot happier if you just were honest about yourself for once.”
Damon barely considers what he says. He tried being honest once.
“I have a question for you too, Kai: why do you tell me any of this? It’s weird. I can handle the stupid small talk if you just need to fill the silence, but trying to have deep conversations with you gets me nowhere.”
Kai’s expression becomes one of pain and disgust, a face Damon has seen him make many times. But this time, it doesn’t look exaggerated. Damon can see the hurt shine through his yellow eyes.
“Dude." He turns away. "I’m trying to be your friend here. And it’s not like you have people lined up for that position.” Kai gets up from the bed and heads to the shower. “You should try not being such a dick all the time,” he shoots over his shoulder before closing the bathroom door.
When Kai returns, Damon has changed into his sleepwear. The two get ready for bed in complete silence, but not the comfortable silence Damon was used to. This is the silence that accompanies a hospital room. Kai gets under the covers, facing his back to Damon, and turns the lights off.
It’s here, in the safety of darkness, of facing back-to-back, that Damon finally opens his mouth.
“I think about them every second I’m awake. And sleep isn’t even an escape, because every night they’re in my dreams. I am never not feeling the weight of their deaths. And if I’m somehow not thinking about them, I’m thinking about who will die next. And it’s awful to say, but I’ll try to determine who is most likely to kill, and who is weak enough to die, and try to prepare for the nightmares that will follow their corpses... I’m scared. I don’t know if I can handle another body. I hide my feelings because I can’t afford to feel them. If I feel too hard I’m worried I’ll never recover. It’s too dangerous.”
Kai can’t see it, but despite his best efforts, a few disobedient tears fall out of Damon’s eyes.
Silence from Kai. Then, a lamp turns on. Damon has just managed to wipe his cheeks before Kai pulls him into a strong embrace. Just like Kai, the hug is warm, soft, and full of love. For just a moment, Damon is three years old again, crying in his mothers arms after a nightmare.
Kai pulls away after a considerable amount of time, and turns the lamp back off. No more words are spoken that night, but the comfortable silence is back.