Kane Owen (sellingsouls) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2021-12-30 08:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | #june 2018, adrian, adrian x kane, kane |
Who: Adrian and Kane
When: late night, Saturday, June 23
Where: Mercy, to start
Warning: blood, turns NSFW
Status: complete, Part 1
It was all Adrian Moretti’s fault. As Kane stumbled out of Blackwater Woods back to his vehicle, hot blood running down his back, he blamed Adrian to the depths of his soul. He’d been distracted almost to the point of madness for days now, ever since that asshole idiot had kissed him. He’d hardly been able to do anything but fantasize about it and jerk off, unbelievably restless. Kane had been drinking too much to try and quiet it down, but that hadn’t really helped. Even his sleep was plagued by those luscious lips and dark brown eyes, his dreams graphic enough that he’d woken up to sticky sheets that morning.
Kane hated it. He hadn’t had anyone under his skin like this in years, and it was making his life impossible. He’d promised Bailey that he would leave Adrian alone, they’d come to some sort of truce, but then the wendigo had gone and kissed him ... He hated feeling so stupid and childish, with so many of his thoughts spiraling around one person. He was a grown ass man, he’d been to war, for fuck’s sake, and this crush was driving him insane.
At some point on Saturday afternoon, he’d decided to get out of the house, do something productive to try and take his mind off of things. Kane had visited his mother, run some errands, and once it got late, he’d gone hunting, hoping it would help focus him. He’d known going in that it might not be the best idea, but he hadn’t realized just how off his game he was until something in the woods got the drop on him. The fight had happened fast, and Kane had come out on top, but not without injury. There were two deep, long scratches down his back that burned like fire. He tried to assess the damage once he made it back to the SUV, but the wounds were in a spot he couldn’t see well, and definitely couldn’t reach to stitch up himself. He would have to go to the hospital.
Kane drove himself to Mercy, leaning back against his bunched up jacket to try and staunch the bleeding. He could’ve called Bailey, he supposed, but he didn’t want any more earfuls from her about being careful. This had just been a fuck up, they happened, and he was dealing with it on his own. He walked into the emergency room, a small trail of blood following him in, and was shown to a room fairly quickly. As he sat on the hospital bed with its dumb crinkly paper, Kane peeled his shirt off, biting the inside of his cheek against the pain as the fabric pulled at the drying blood all over the wound.
Mercy wasn't too busy that night, but it was understaffed and the doctor who came to assess his wounds was only in there with him for a brief moment, pressing gauze to the cuts and informing him he was going to need these cleaned and stitched and that someone would be with him shortly. A nurse dropped in a few minutes later just to make sure he was still there and not bleeding too profusely and then Kane got to sit there for another ten minutes before it was finally his turn to get taken care of. It wasn't purely a coincidence that it was Adrian who walked into the room, although Adrian very much wanted Kane to think so. He'd seen him come in and after insisting to himself that he should avoid the hell out of him, he'd still offered to take on the 'cut case in room 3'. He wouldn't be able to explain why, the wise thing would have been to stay out of sight and let Kane keep his promise to stay away. But Kane wasn't the only one who'd been suffering after that kiss.
Adrian's suffering was in part shame and self loathing. He did have the excuse of having been drunk which Kane had not been and yet he'd kissed him back and God had he Kissed him back. Adrian couldn't stop thinking about that damn kiss because of course it had been great, Kane couldn't even give him the grace of being a terrible kisser to help him get over whatever the hell this was. Adrian hated him, he knew he hated him and he feared him for good reason but despite that, he also wanted him and that hadn't gone away when he got sober, no matter how much he chided himself for it.
He cleaned up after taking care of a very drunk teen who needed hydrating, then steeled himself and grabbed the assigned file for Kane. Kane Owen. So 'Owen' hadn't been a completely false name - unless this was an alias as well. Adrian should have left him to someone else, he'd felt good tonight, useful for a change and a little nostalgic about wearing scrubs again. It had been so nice while it lasted but now he felt like his insides were on fire, electricity sparking through his limbs, bees buzzing in his head - the works. He didn't expect Kane to be happy to see him and maybe that was the point. Or maybe he wanted him to look... something. Not happy. Hungry?
"Can't keep out of trouble can you?" he said as he entered the room and put Kane's file down before pulling on a pair of latex gloves and god damn it if his cock didn't twitch at the sight of Kane shirtless. The blood only made him look hotter because that was apparently just what Adrian was like now.
Kane was barely tolerating the wait, eager to get this over with so he could go home and lie down. His head lifted when the door opened, and a weird wave of something ran through his body when Adrian walked through it. It was some jumbled mix of cynical amusement and immediate attraction and aggravation all at once. For a second he didn’t understand how it was possible, but then the scrubs registered and he remembered Adrian saying he was a nurse. “Of-fucking-course it’s you,” Kane muttered, his heart picking up speed. Great, now he was just going to bleed faster. He was briefly tempted to just get up and leave, but he knew he needed these stitches, and he wasn’t going to ask Bailey to play field hospital for him. Even besides that, he couldn’t completely deny that it was exciting to see Adrian again, as much as he hated himself for that.
"I'm not haunting you on purpose," Adrian murmured and for a split second he expected Kane to ask for someone else. He wasn't sure how he'd feel about it if he had, relieved, disappointed, rejected. It would have been a good thing, just like if Kane said something so phenomenally stupid that it would completely kill Adrian's weird and inappropriate crush on him, but so far he had no such luck. Instead, Kane was sitting there shirtless and bloody, looking tired but hot as hell. Fucker.
Adrian grabbed what he needed from the cabinet and moved over to where Kane was sitting. He could swear he felt his body heat up with the proximity so that wasn't disturbing at all. "What did this?" he asked as he cautiously peeled off the gauze, frowning at the ugly gashes in Kane's back. They were bigger than he was expecting and while some sadistic part of him thought Kane deserved all the pain he got, the professional part of him said he'd need a local anesthetic before he started stitching this up.
Kane supposed he could ask for someone else, tell Adrian to fuck off and get another nurse ... but he didn’t really want to. If he was being totally honest with himself, he wanted Adrian to do it, to put hands on him even if they were encased in latex, maybe hurt him a little. He deserved more than a little pain, probably, but he was sure the other man adhered to that whole ‘do no harm’ thing, and he was technically a patient right now. Kane closed his eyes and sat up a bit straighter as Adrian peeled the bandage off, determined not to wince no matter what happened. “I don’t really know what it was,” he muttered. “It dropped down out of a tree. Looked kinda ... like a giant stick bug. Blackwater’s full’a unidentifiable shit.” Maybe someone could identify it, but not him, especially not in the dark and with the way its head had exploded when he’d killed it. Kane’s eyes cracked open and he glanced sideways at Adrian. “Don’t say shit about my hunting skills either, I won.”
It was insane to think about being surrounded by dangerous things and how they didn't have to go far to put their lives in danger, but Adrian already knew that now so Kane wasn't telling him anything new. He almost cracked a smile when Kane spoke again, because he'd been thinking about ribbing him again. "Good or bad, maybe going out there alone is not the best idea," he said instead as he readied the small needle. "You'll feel a few small stings, I'm giving you an anesthetic, these look like they hurt." That was what he was trying to focus on instead of all the expanse of scarred skin, strange tattoos and the way Kane's jawline was asking to be nibbled on. He probably should be asking someone else to take over in case he was too damn distracted but he wanted to be there in that stupid way teenagers wanted to do dangerous and forbidden things, it was a pull he couldn't resist and he was itching to take his time with it to keep Kane there longer than he needed to be.
That bit of unsolicited advice made Kane snort softly. Don’t go alone. Who was going to go with him? There was Bailey, who seemed to want to hunt with him, but Kane wasn’t eager to put her in the line of fire again. They’d already had a pretty close call that he didn’t want to repeat. She wouldn’t be happy about that, but it hadn’t come up again yet. Kane nodded vaguely to the anesthetic, and the fact that yes, the cuts hurt. Not as badly as some wounds he’d had -- specifically one that Adrian himself had inflicted -- so he wasn’t going to whine about it, but some painkiller would be nice. “You gonna come protect me next time, Moretti?” he murmured, a faint smirk crossing his face. “Be my field medic?” Kane didn’t even know how to get a hold of him if he wanted to -- Adrian hadn’t called or texted him, in spite of Kane’s stupid hope that he would.
Adrian snorted derisively in response, which wasn't an answer but he wasn't about to give one anyway because there was a part of him saying yes. If he could summon up that raw power inside of him he would love to go out there into the woods and kill something again - something that deserved to die because it was worse than he was. That part was easier to understand at least, it wasn't all about Kane and how he'd love to play field medic and keep the stupid son of a bitch alive. That was what he should have done with Cruz instead of snapping his neck in a rage; hunt down the monster that killed his friends. Could it even be killed? Could he even find it again? He didn't want to think about that, but he also didn't want to think about how that little smirk made his stomach do a dumb loopy feeling like he was on a plane going down. He focused on the injections as best he could, busied himself with that and finding everything he needed to get Kane's wounds cleaned up enough to be stitched. "Man you got a lot of ink back here, could have used you on my break." He kind of wanted to just stare at it all, clean it up better so he could see it better, not just stitch, but he still tried to make it sound like an insult because this dumb crush was irritating him. "Something to read."
Hunting with a semi-wendigo actually sounded kind of fun to Kane. As long as all that power and strength and hunger didn’t turn on him ... well, maybe some of it could and he wouldn’t mind. The lines between violence and sex were so blurred between them, it was hard to parse out what made him afraid of Adrian and what made him want him so badly he could taste it. But hunting with him, both of them focused on a single goal, definitely appealed to him in ways he didn’t want to reveal. Kane had never wanted a partner before, and he didn’t now, but watching Adrian really tear into something wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, maybe. Kane tried to put it out of his mind because it would never happen. “You’re smarter than you look, if you can read Arabic,” he countered, shooting Adrian a glance again. He looked good in scrubs, especially his ass as he moved around the small room, getting stuff out of the cabinets. Kane thought they wouldn’t hide a boner very well either, and his palms itched to start feeling him up.
"S'that what that is?" Adrian muttered with a little smirk as he returned and took a better look. He kind of wished he could just tranq Kane again, give himself time to look him over, to really look at him in ways that were definitely creepy and rape adjacent. What had Kane said before he left? You fuck me up over and over? Adrian sometimes wondered if he'd imagined that part where Kane responded to the kiss and held onto him so tightly, it felt like a fantasy now, so far away and blurred by the alcohol. "Do you know what it means?" he asked and caught himself before he could run his finger over one of the old scars underneath the tattoos. He did touch him, but it was to clean him, methodical and professional, and not in the way he really wanted to touch. This was obviously not Kane's first rodeo, so many scars and Adrian just wanted to count them. It made him feel a lot better about his own scars and it was hard not to think about how Kane wouldn't be flustered or ask him questions about them like most other people would.
Having been stone cold sober, Kane remembered every fucking detail of that kiss. It haunted him, drove him to distraction. He thought about telling Adrian that this injury was his fault, but he didn’t want to expose himself like that. Maybe Adrian had just been too wasted, out of control, and he’d been kicking himself for it since then. Or maybe he didn’t even remember it. Kane wasn’t sure how he would feel about that one, so he tried not to think about it. The anesthetic Adrian had injected in him was working, numbing out the area and easing the pain, but it also meant he couldn’t really feel Adrian’s fingers, just some vague sense of pressure, so he kind of wished they’d skipped that part. “Fuck no, not the words,” Kane admitted with a chuckle. “I just know what it all does for me. They’re full’a magic. Protection. Some shit just slips through sometimes.”
"Guess I'm not the first monster who lets you live and texts your sister to come pick you up?" Adrian murmured with a little smirk. "That's some mighty specific magic right there." He knew the magic hadn't compelled him to get Kane to safety, that was a personal thing because he didn't want to be a killer or a monster, he could choose not to let that violence within him win. "Could be a kebab recipe for all you know. Witches are kind of dicks." It was beautiful, whatever it meant, the wording and the symbols and he wondered what the scars that came after the tattoos might do to affect them. "Do you think you'll need to have them renewed? You kinda cut up a good portion here."
You’re not a monster was on the tip of Kane’s tongue to say, but he swallowed it. Adrian may have been infected by a monster, but Kane knew now that he wasn’t one deep down. He was one of those gray areas, still full of humanity. He’d proven that already, in spite of the bad blood between them. Kane just wasn’t going to tell him that in so many words. “Hell if I know,” he grunted. “I got ‘em in Iraq, and I sure as hell ain’t going back there for anything.” Nor was he going to ask any local witch to fuck around with it. Getting the tattoos done in the first place had been an ordeal -- he’d been stripped naked, pumped full of mushrooms and opium and god knew what else, tripping balls while magic went on around him. It had hurt, a lot, and he felt like he both barely recalled that night and had every detail seared into his brain at the same time. He didn’t think it was a repeatable experience. “They’ve kept me alive this far, so ... we’ll see if it’s all fucked now.”
There it was again, that stupid urge to touch, to trace those tattoos with his fingers and, if he was honest with himself, his tongue. Adrian swallowed dryly and focused on his job because he was at work and he didn't even like Kane. "Yeah, you seem to dodge bullets left and right," he muttered as he focused and tried to do a better than decent job of stitching the wounds up. It felt important to try to get them to heal exactly right, if he didn't want to feel responsible for Kane kicking the bucket. And what a stupid thing that was to think about, Kane was nothing to him, not his responsibility or anything else, he was just stupidly drawn to him in ways that he couldn't explain. It was tempting to blame the tattoos for that too, that Kane was just another bit of magic Adrian was powerless to challenge. "You know, you're the only one in this town who's seen how bad I can get," he said before he had time to think it through. And you still kissed me back. "My little sister knows I'm strong and hungry, that's about it."
Kane mentally chewed on that for a moment while Adrian poked holes in him. He could barely feel anything, just small tugs here and there. Thinking back, he didn’t actually think Adrian had been that bad. He’d been kind of scary in the cabin, but he’d been defending himself. The deer eating thing was kind of gross, but definitely not the worst thing Kane had ever seen. Damned if he wanted to say that out loud, though. “I won’t tell nobody,” he murmured instead, then gave another crooked little smile. “Hell, I could say the same.” He’d definitely never kidnapped a person the way he’d nabbed Adrian before, or strangled an innocent man to death, for that matter. This town kept bringing the worst out of him, and Adrian kept witnessing it firsthand. Kane paused, then glanced at his hot nurse again. “Does she know you kiss men when you’re drunk?”
Adrian's stomach did another drop and this time it was a lot worse. He'd been thinking about it non-stop so the question didn't exactly catch him by surprise, but there it was and yet it did. "She does not," he replied and he was having a hard time figuring out Kane's tone, if he was teasing, if he was using this against him, if he was fishing for something more. "Does yours? Know you kiss drunk guys?" Because Kane had kissed him back, not just for a second but for a while and his hands had done plenty of roaming that had nothing to do with being caught unaware by a kiss and feeling flustered by it. Adrian remembered the feel of those hands too well and he felt warmer suddenly and a bit like he was in freefall.
He wasn’t going to deny that he’d been all in on kissing Adrian. The moment had been electric, and in spite of what was going on with his back, Kane thought he could feel some sparking tension again. He found it interesting that Adrian was in the closet to this sister he was so close to, but he had no intentions on outing him. Kane had done enough damage already, he genuinely didn’t want to do any more. “She knows I do what I want,” he answered, one corner of his mouth quirked up. “That’s all she wants to know.” He and Bailey didn’t talk about stuff like that. At least they never had before -- they were talking more now than ever, but the lines were still pretty clear.
That sounded about right, Kane doing whatever he wanted to do, whether it was kidnapping people or kissing whoever he wanted. Adrian almost felt jealous but he knew he could do the same if he wanted to. He remembered how carefree he'd felt the night when Kane let his monster out of its cage. It might have been leashed but it had been powerful and Adrian hadn't really cared about all the things he cared about too deeply on the regular. He could lean into it, leave his family behind and enjoy that exact freedom he was so jealous of Kane for having, the only thing stopping him was his conscience. "It doesn't mean I like you," he muttered, trying to focus on what he was doing with his hands but even after all these years, stitching up wounds came naturally, he was pretty sure he could do it with his eyes closed even if he wasn't about to test that theory. "I was just drunk, lonely and I was surrounded by happy couples that night." That was only true in part, he might not like Kane, but God was he drawn to him anyway.
Kane almost laughed. “You don’t gotta make excuses man, not to me,” he murmured. “And you don’t gotta like me. I don’t like you either, you’re a giant pain in my ass.” He knew he was one to talk, considering he’d been the aggressor every time they’d clashed, but he couldn’t help the way he’d gotten fixated on Adrian. He’d tried really hard to purge whatever this was out of himself, but it was clinging on like a bastard. Adrian had just gone and made it all ten times worse with that kiss, and now he was making mistakes and getting injured and acting like a giant idiot. Maybe he did need to talk to Bailey more, so she could smack him around and set him straight. Damn if he couldn’t feel the heat from Adrian’s body being so close, though, and he wanted to lean into it so badly. Kane wondered if Adrian only felt lonely around happy couples, or if it was constant, like it was for him.
Adrian lived with a happy couple so that hadn't been new but the hard part about Toby's party was the gay couples, those gorgeous men making moony eyes at each other. It had made him want to come out of the closet right there and then and just yell it out at the world. But then he thought of his parents and even the slightest possibility Mila would be weird about it shoved him right back in where he felt like he belonged. "You wish I was a giant pain in your ass," he muttered with a faint smirk, a juvenile answer for sure but he didn't really want to have this conversation with Kane. It was hard to believe Kane of all people had any sort of bisexual - or gay - tendencies, he looked like the kind of guy Adrian wouldn't have dreamed of even jokingly flirting with back in the day, the type he was sure would have knocked him out cold for looking at him wrong but there was no doubt now, not after the way he'd kissed him back, not after he'd told him how much Adrian fucked him up. Over and over. That hunger in his eyes had been unmistakable and it had fuelled far too many jerk-off sessions already.
Juvenile or not, it earned a snort out of Kane, and he didn’t try to deny it. What would be the point? Not only had they kissed, Kane had been groping and grinding on Adrian, who had seemed like he loved every second of it. They could hate each other all they wanted, they still obviously had some magnetic chemistry. Adrian couldn’t pretend the attraction wasn’t mutual, no matter how fucked up it was. Coincidence kept bringing them into the same space, too. Kane wasn’t a big believer in fate, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something kept drawing them together. Kane fell silent while Adrian kept working on his stitches, letting his head bow a bit and closing his eyes. He let himself picture them in bed together, having skipped all of this talking bullshit and gotten down to their baser instincts, groping and tasting. And why shouldn’t they have it, if they both wanted it? They could mute each other’s loneliness for a little while -- company you hated was still company.
When Kane didn't comment, Adrian smirked again and let the quiet stretch out between them. It was better, he thought, he could finish up the stitches and put some bandages on without a distraction. Of course the biggest distraction was in his head - and his dick - so just being this close to Kane didn't help but he muddled through the work and tried not to stare too hard at all the spots he wanted to bite down on. "You obviously know how to take care of these," he said as he threw the rest of the bloody gauze and tissue in the bin and peeled his latex gloves off. Kane's body said he was used to big cuts and Adrian wouldn't be surprised to find he took care of most of them himself - these had just been out of reach. He wanted to offer to take out the stitches himself when the time came, a terrible idea that would put him in Kane's apartment or room or wherever the hell he lived. A terrible idea that he really, really wanted to act on. "Did anyone drive you here?"
Kane found himself disappointed as he felt Adrian tape the bandage down over the stitches. It was over, and he would have to sign out and go home. Alone. He picked up his shirt and turned it over to look at the back of it, quickly deciding it was ruined. “No, I drove myself,” he answered, bunching the shirt up in one hand. He had a jacket that was also fucked up, but would at least be easier to put on and zip up to leave the building. Kane didn’t reach for it quite yet though, moving to stand up first. The size of the exam room made it easy to crowd in closer to Adrian, and he found himself doing so before he could really think better of it. Kane wanted to ask him when he got off work, wanted to see if Adrian would give him an answer. “Why, you worried about me?” he murmured, that lowkey tease back in his tone.
Adrian didn't back up, he told himself he was standing his ground and being stubborn but really, he liked having Kane this close. Close enough to kiss. "Just wondering if someone's waiting for you out there," he said rather than go for some snarky line about how no, he was the opposite of worried. That would have been a lie anyway, he was at least concerned and it wasn't just because he was a healthcare worker looking at a mangled patient. Maybe because Kane still owed him and it was good to know he had someone in his corner if it came to that. He had enough enemies, or people that worried him in some way, Kane was one of them but... that had changed. Slightly. It was hard to think straight when Kane was standing this close, reason and logic seemed to just drain out of him and he stared up at Kane's face, his gaze darting between those narrow eyes and that perfect fucking cupid's bow on his lips.
He shook his head slowly. There was nobody waiting, he had nowhere to be, and suddenly it felt very possible for them to get a quickie in before Adrian was missed at the nurse’s desk or whatever. The door had a lock on it, the hospital couldn’t be that busy, right? He couldn’t miss the way Adrian kept looking at his mouth, and it gave Kane a tingle in the pit of his stomach. He leaned in a bit closer and wet his lips. “You work all night?” he asked in a murmur, his gaze steady on Adrian’s eyes. Those lovely dark eyes that he could just fall right into, like some chocolate abyss. He kind of wished they still shone in the dark, but they were still beautiful. Now that there wasn’t disinfectant in the air and he wasn’t distracted by pain, Kane could smell Adrian, and it made him want to get closer, nibble on his neck, breathe him in.
"I worked all day," Adrian said quietly and that small part of him that was tugging on him and trying to tell him to step back and leave was so much weaker than the pull Kane had on him. He was looking at his lips and that brief flicker of his tongue sent a rush straight through him and he wanted to taste it again. "I'm done at eleven." That was only about twenty minutes away, maybe thirty, he had no idea what time it was now but it was late. "You gonna wait around?" he asked and while he intended it to sound joking and a little dismissive, it came out more like a challenge. He knew he wasn't going to be good for anything for the rest of his shift and really, he was only here to help, not even officially registered yet, he could probably ditch out early. He wanted to lock the door and kiss Kane again, not have to think about whatever might happen outside the hospital, not have to walk anywhere with him and have time to think. They probably couldn't even do anything really, Kane was hurt. That was a good thing, he shouldn't want to do anything with him but his loathing came with an unhealthy dose of longing and Kane's lips were just begging to be kissed.
That was the answer that Kane wanted, and something in his eyes gleamed. He wasn’t positive of the exact time either, but he knew eleven wasn’t too far off. The tension in his body told him he would’ve waited for a couple of hours if that’s what it took, so thirty minutes was nothing. Instead of answering right away, Kane lifted one hand and put it on the side of Adrian’s face, thumb under his jaw to tilt him upward. He didn’t quite kiss him, something that took a firm flex of willpower, but Kane brushed their lips together and let their breath mingle, feeling like his heart was trying to beat out of his chest. “I’ll park near you,” he murmured, deep and quiet. “You decide, your car or mine.” Kane didn’t know yet where he would take them, or how far it could or would or should go, but he could figure all that shit out on the fly. He wanted the first decision of Yes or No to be Adrian’s -- a decision made sober. Kane had taken that choice from him too many times now, he had to give it back. He wanted him so bad it burned like a fire in his gut, but it couldn’t be just up to him.
Adrian almost flinched because Kane's hand was all too close to his throat and that made his stomach coil unpleasantly but it was quickly overpowered by Kane's lips on his, the tease of it enough to make his cock start hardening. "My car," he said quietly and he didn't kiss Kane either, maybe because he was on the job, or maybe he just liked torturing himself with the wait. He didn't think Kane should be driving tonight but he also liked the security that came with being the driver, being able to leave whenever he wanted to. Plus, there were no guns in his car - no memories of violence, the only real downside was that it wasn't really his car and he didn't really want to do anything untoward in his mother's sedan. Right now though, that was his decision. He'd drive, even if he had no idea where they could even go. Maybe they'd just talk, but no, fat chance. He was already aching to touch Kane, all but clenching his fists to keep them at his sides. "I'll be there soon."
It wasn’t Kane’s preference, he was always more comfortable in his own vehicle, but he supposed he could understand why Adrian wouldn’t be. He didn’t want to insist and risk the other man changing his mind from that roundabout Yes. Kane pulled back enough to meet Adrian’s eyes, his thumb stroking his jaw for a second. “I’ll see you soon then,” he said quietly, and let his hand fall away. He stepped back and pulled his jacket on, his gaze still on Adrian, ticking up and down his body a couple of times with open hunger. Kane told himself he would give him an hour, and if he didn’t come out after that long, it was really a No and he would leave. Anything more would probably be pathetic, and god, this whole situation was making him feel like enough of an idiot. Without another word, Kane went to the door and pulled it open to walk out.
Adrian was almost sure Kane would leave before his shift was up, that he'd come out to the parking lot all riled up to find only empty cars. Maybe a small, reasonable part of him hoped that would happen, it'd be like a cold shower mentally to shake him out of this stupor. He didn't get to finish early, like he'd foolishly thought he might, but nobody could force him to stay longer and he all but plugged his ears as he headed for the changing room, only narrowly avoiding giving into the temptation to leave in his scrubs. He recognized Kane's car immediately and it was easy to spot since it was indeed parked right next to his and he could see the smoke gliding out from the open window. He waited. Adrian's stomach did that weird recoil thing that felt both good and bad, like bungee jumping only he wasn't so sure the rope would hold. He'd said they should take his car but right now he just wanted to park somewhere isolated and not have to worry about driving so he headed for Kane's passenger door and got in. "I don't have anywhere for us to go," he said, not really feeling up to chatting, like saying the wrong words might break the spell and he wasn't ready for that. "Do you?"
Once the task of moving his SUV was complete, every minute Kane sat there idling and smoking seemed to take an hour. His heart hadn’t really slowed down, and he felt almost twitchy with anticipation. He thought hard about where they could go, and by the time he spotted Adrian walking toward him, he thought he’d made up his mind. Kane’s stomach gave a jolt as Adrian headed for the passenger side, and he watched him climb in. He finished his cigarette and let it drop out of the cracked window, warmth already rushing into his groin. There was always the chance this could end in bloodshed again, but Kane thought it was less likely than it had ever been before. “Yeah, I do,” he murmured as he put the car into gear. Kane pulled out and headed out of the hospital parking lot, glancing briefly over at Adrian’s profile. He didn’t much want to talk either, but he was dying to know what was going through his head.
Adrian hadn't really expected him to go, they could still switch cars, he hadn't even asked if Kane was good for driving, but he didn't protest when they started moving. He had the dumb thought that he was gonna be cool and not fasten his seat belt, like he was a seventeen year old trying to impress someone. It was so stupid it almost made him laugh and he grudgingly pulled on the belt and clicked it into place. "How's your back?" he asked and even if he knew it was bad, he also knew people had differing pain thresholds and Kane had obviously been through the wringer before. With Kane driving, he had time to watch him without being watched back, studying his profile with a sidelong glance. God his feelings were mixed about this, most of all he felt stupid, but then he didn't really care about that. There was a new kind of hunger inside of him and while it wasn't as horrible as the starvation he'd felt before the ritual, it was intense enough to drive him in the same, wreckless way.
“Still pretty numb,” Kane answered. “I’ve had worse.” He’d been through a lot of pain in his life, and while he still had human limits, he had a pretty high tolerance. As long as those gashes didn’t get infected, he would be fine, and the pain would pass eventually. For now, Kane didn’t feel like it would hinder him much. Pleasure was a good counter for pain, after all. And if things went well, there was going to be a lot of pleasure between them tonight. Maybe it could do something for the other kinds of pain that they’d caused each other. It was hard to know what he wanted with all of this, Kane’s feelings were jumbled and tangled up when it came to Adrian, all he knew was that it felt impossible to stay away now. They had to see where this went. He took a turn to head toward Castle View. His place was more private than Juniper and nicer than the fleabag motel out by Cherries ... and for some reason Kane wanted to take him home.
Adrian pulled out his phone and thumbed in a quick text for Mila that he was working later than he thought and it was typical enough of work as a nurse he knew she wouldn't question it - if she was even awake still. He hoped she wouldn't even see it until he was actually home and then he had that stupid thought that he hoped he would make it home. This jumble of fear, anger and arousal Kane caused in him was confusing and exciting and he didn't care how stupid he felt about it all, he just wanted to act on it. He kept his hands to himself for now, even if every fiber of his being was screaming at him to lean over and touch, taste, maybe even climb up on Kane's lap, just make him park somewhere, everything was so dangerous already he didn't even care if someone saw them. That was the kind of stupid he was not down for and it was pretty insane that he was less worried about Kane hurting him than he was about someone ratting him out to his parents.
Kane wanted to touch him too, his palms itching on the wheel to reach over and caress Adrian’s thigh, slide in further to cup his junk. Kane wanted to feel Adrian get hard and know that it was because of him. He stayed focused on driving though, there would be time enough for all that later, as long as Adrian didn’t balk at walking into Kane’s apartment. If their positions were reversed, Kane would be paranoid about it being a trap, but he truly meant no harm tonight. He was compromised in so many ways, tired and injured and mentally a hot mess, there was no way he would win a fight anyway. Kane stayed quiet, finally turning into the parking lot in front of his building. He pulled into his usual spot and put the SUV in park, then half-turned to look at Adrian. “Now you know where I live,” he said quietly. That was only fair, right? Kane knew so much about Adrian and his life, maybe evening the playing field a bit would function as a small peace offering. “You wanna come in? No bullshit, I promise.”
Part 2