The awakening is worse than all the other times. Lungs bereft of air for however long he's been wading through the thick darkness of limbo have left a deep ache. Sound ebbs. Touch returns. Someone slaps him. He knows who's dainty hit that was immediately. Pathetic. His thoughts, sluggish, decide that when they aren't running for their lives, he'll force the idiot to lift something, anything; that smack was embarrassingly wimpy.

There's a moment that he expects to hear a rumbling growl, the beast having pursued him through the vastness and into the land of living, but there's nothing but the distant echo of a car locking. He made it.

Lashes fluttering, Kane's vision sharpens, and he's staring into familiar blue eyes, made bluer by their wateriness. He rasps gruffly, "What's wrong?"

His hands are rising without consulting his mushy brain. He weakly pats Reid's face, fingers grazing purpling bruises and smearing blood. Reid looks like shit, really bad and beaten, and Kane says so angrily because he is very angry.

Reid laughs wetly and holds up his phone. The screen timer is counting the seconds, and the glaring 19 minutes is stomach plummeting.

"Fuck." That's the longest yet. Last time, it was nine minutes. Next time, he might actually die. He pats Reid's bloody cheek again because the idiot's expression is withering in the way it does before he breaks down. "I'm good."

He means to say, it's okay, but his stupid mouth has yet to learn how to comfort. So instead, Kane rasps, "We're good. I'm good. Okay? I'm alive—where are we?"

There's a bumper of an olive-green van he's never seen in his life inches from his hazy peripheral. A high concrete ceiling with similar cold walls, and there's an echo of a breeze that howls faintly in the distance.

They're underground.

Reid gives Kane room to breathe by half-falling against the wall not far away. He grasps his hair, fairness stained red, and his gaze falls half-lidded. "The mall." He sounds drained.

Kane is quick to capture the ankle of the leg that drops onto his stomach without gentleness. "The mall? Parking lot?

Reid nods.

Kane doesn't care that his fingers slip beneath the cuff of Reid's pants and clutch skin, because the need to be close in his vulnerability leaves no room for his ordinary abrasiveness. He's barely holding back loads of cheesy shit, like he's drunk but not on booze but on life; the invigoration of dying and returning has him wanting to hold his precious things close.

"Lucas and Hannah displaced us. She's a fast learner, thankfully. The Bureau showed up, and we had to leave quickly." Reid's foot twitches, and a faint smile ghosts his lips. Kane's touch is obviously tickling, even if it's not on purpose. Reid doesn't pull his leg away. Kane wouldn't have let him anyway. "Hannah was hysterical. She wouldn't leave you."

Kane's heart hastens. "Where is she?"

He needs to look into her eyes and make sure that it's her. He wants to hold her and protect her, despite the fact that she just stabbed him to death. He blames himself for not seeing what she'd be fighting for. There were so many signs—so many little things she said and did that could have tipped him off. This is his fault. He was told to protect her. Milton knew. Milton saw the darkness shrouding Hannah.

That entity knew Kane. Somehow. Deep. Like a scar on his soul. He's never felt more connected, more strangely intimate, or more bloodthirsty to kill someone in his lifetime.

Reid nudges Kane with the foot not held hostage. "She's with Lucas. She wasn't...we thought it best she get some space from you until...don't look so anxious! She doesn't have a scratch. Well, actually a few, but nothing she won't recover from. " He smiles tiredly. "You saved us."

Gradually, his strength is returning. Kane thinks of this part of the undying process as glueing his soul back to his body. When he dies, his soul is sucked out, and then whatever the fuck is so adamant about keeping him alive yanks it back and shoves it down his very limp gullet before he can fully succumb to the darkness.

Kane rasps, "No, I didn't save shit; look at you. I tried to get to you. I couldn't..." His gaze lingers on the dark bruises curling around Reid's neck and the gnarly bite marks that can only be from a vampire that was less than gentle. Kane grips the ankle in his hold tighter. "What happened?"

"Vampire. She had Henrik's daughter, and she got the jump on me. You'd have been pissed. I was quite the coward."

Reid tries to smile, but it falls short when he gnaws the side of his lower lip. He only does that when he's lying, and Kane's stomach twists and dances a nauseating tune of worry. Reid never outright lies; he'll skirt the truth, yes, but never lie because he's smart enough to know he'll be found out. The last time Reid lied to Kane's face, it was only a few hours later, when he'd ended up passing out in the bathtub. Thank fuck Kane had followed his instincts to check on the idiot, or Reid could have drowned, slumped like he was.

Reid grins, and it has none of its usual mirth. "She's dead; Lucas made sure of it, so don't worry." His expression falters, and his brows pinch when Kane merely holds their gazes and absently rubs at Reid's leg while trying to decipher the flatness in Reid's tone. "Are you okay? That was longer... I was worried that you wouldn't..."

"I'm alive," Kane says coldly. "I made it back." He doesn't have time to think about that shit. There are two idiots who need him sharp. But Kane needs a minute, a breath, or two, and then he'll be good. "I'm good..."

Deciding he has enough strength to sit up, he pushes the leg away, gentler than he normally would, because he's feeling gentle. Rising is an endeavour made more manageable by Reid playing caregiver and helping Kane scoot and lean his back flush against the concrete wall.

They're shoulder-to-shoulder.

After a stretch of silence, Reid lays the back of his head against the wall and shifts his gaze to Kane, gazing through tired eyes. "Remember when we met and I'd wear those horrid shirts that would tuck in, and my hair, it was always so..." He laughs. "You called me a rube."

"You were," Kane says, smiling faintly. He bends his knee so it bumps Reid's thigh, which is deliberate but could be seen as heedless. "You looked like a moron all dressed up, like some doll. We were kids, and I don't think you ever wore a pair of jeans in your life." He snorts. "You creeped me out."

"Look at us now," Reid says, smiling softly.

Lulling his head, Kane's gaze sweeps Reid's form; his once rosy shirt is crisp and a shade darker from the stains of blood and drying after the fire sprinklers had drenched them. His blonde hair is flat. Face bruised in various shades of purple. Kane reaches out and, with the back of his fingers, swipes some glass from Reid's purplish cheek.

Reid winces.

Despite everything, Kane smiles. "Look how far we've fallen, you mean?"

"Yeah, but this is a lot more exciting."

Because Kane just died, he's feeling disgustingly emotional and blames that for saying, "I never thought you were a rube. Not really. I thought... you weren't yourself, and it bothered me." He swallows. "You looked like Gabriel."

Recognition softens Reid's gaze. "What about now?"

"You're not yourself," Kane says softly. He doesn't mean the bruises.

Reid frowns. "Why?"

"Your eyes."

Reid absently touches the slight swelling that's overtaken his left eye.

"They're..." Kane looks away, and Reid whispers his name in worry. They're dark and hungry. They're not you. Kane wants that to be true, but he's begun to question it.

There's a burn to Kane's eyes that he blames on his exhaustion. He whispers to the dark-green car parked not far away. "I'm sorry. I'm..."

"I thought we weren't supposed to apologize anymore."

When Kane looks, he isn't surprised to find Reid's eyes are watching him intensely, open, hanging on Kane's words like they'll answer every problem and fix their crumbling world. They won't, but it gives Kane enough courage to say, "I looked in books, for spells, in even darker magics, but I couldn't find any way to reverse—after it's begun, there's no way to stop the change."

"Yes. It's inevitable." Reid's smile widens. "And you're sorry, for what exactly?"

"That I couldn't stop—"

"Stop blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong," Reid huffs.

Suddenly, Kane's the one hanging on Reid's words and waiting for his tilting world to be fixed, feeling uncomfortably unarmored.

And with a hand on Kane's arm, squeezing slightly, Reid says gently, "I don't blame you. I never do. I know that if you could, you'd do anything and give up anything. You're a good guy. A really good guy." He swallows, his throat bobbing. "You shouldn't be apologizing." He hesitates and then says, "There's something I need to—"

Kane catches the lukewarm water bottle flung his way.

With scruffs of shoes against asphalt, Lucas looks down at them with an amused grin. "Back to the land of the living. Glad to see you; I ain't gonna hug you or nothin' though."

Lucas has changed into inconspicuous clothing: black sneakers, jeans, and beneath a brown jacket, a t-shirt that could be red but is more of an off-pink. Probably bought from the mall above, while Kane was still trying to wade through the darkness. There's a nasty blackening bruise on Lucas's forehead and a deep cut above his right eyebrow.

Snorting, Kane gratefully drinks the water and downs half the bottle before taking a breath. "I needed that. Thanks."

"No problem." Lucas nods. He glances over his shoulder and gives Kane a look and nudge of his head that's not hard to decipher.

Hannah. She must be staying behind the vehicle, out of sight.

Lucas sighs. "Well, mate, you're looking good and alive and well. I'm glad for that, really." He inhales. "Okay. The plan. Our magic has fizzled, and we've got no vehicles. There's a motel down the street. It's not secure, but it's our best bet. A night or two. Until we're back to one hundred percent."

"I'm hungry," Kane says without thinking, just feeling, and he can't wait until he's back to his closed-off, cold self; this is giving him a headache.

From his vantage point on the ground, he can see the sliver of space beneath the vehicle, and the polished ebony combat boots can be no one else but Hannah's.

Reid laughs. "That we can do."

Lucas smiles. "Yeah, but first, you two have to change."

Reid shifts his sprawled legs so Lucas can set bags with logos Kane doesn't care to know on his lap. Fingering through one with a red bird depicted on the thick plastic, Reid's lips twitch as if he hasn't decided on frowning or smiling. And Lucas is smirking from above, and Kane feels as if he's missing something important, which pisses him off.

Kane's heart hastens; the idiot's flushing is deep enough to make his neck and forehead splotch pink. Even after snatching the bag and looking for himself, Kane can't see what's so shocking about a pair of jeans. The only weird coincidence is that he's sure Reid actually owns this pair. Kane's the one that washes the laundry and has for years; it's that or Reid would keep buying new clothing so he never has to touch a machine.

Soon after, Kane has enough strength to stand. He tries to capture Hannah's gaze, but she's looking everywhere else, her brown eyes glistening and worrying her fingers with an unsurity that wrenches his heart. She looks really good in her tight black pants and a white t-shirt with a band logo, Kane doesn't know. The set of drums with flames is badass, so he approves.

Hannah's chocolate-brown eyes glisten with tears. She mouths, 'I'm sorry.'

"Don't be. I'm good," Kane says gently. The car is between them, or he might do something dumb like gather her in his arms and stop the tremble in her lips by kissing her breathless. "I'm alive. We all are. That's what matters."

His heart aches when Hannah looks away, wiping at her teary eyes, her body rigid, closing herself off.

Kane permits Lucas to usher them into an unlocked maintenance closet while giving them orders to hurry. Kane permits this play at authority because he's starving and reverently agrees that the faster they go, the faster he can eat.

When they're alone, the door closed, Reid is in his boxers when he decides to ask, "What do you think about Lucas?" His discarded clothes are in a pile at his feet.

"I told you already. Why? Do you want me to kill him?" Lucas is a friend, and Kane would mourn him, but there's no question Reid is much more important.

He peels off his wet trousers, and the relief is something to bask in. He begins unfastening his drenched shirt, stained with blood and ripped from where the knife pierced so close to his heart.

"No," Reid says with a laugh. He hops on his jeans, the price tag he's yet to pull flapping. "I think he likes me. Like, likes."

Kane rolls his eyes. He has an awful memory of dragging Reid away from two naked women in a shady club when he'd been on the worst of the pills, and here the idiot is, blushing like a schoolboy. He drags his ruined shirt down his arms angrily. "I know what he likes, and he better keep his grubby hands to himself. I told him that already." He takes a black t-shirt from one of the bags and yanks off the tag. "Why?"

"No reason."

Kane narrows his eyes at Reid's high tone. But Reid busies himself with fastening the button of his jeans and seems to refuse to meet gazes.

Kane's anger surges. "Why? Did he say—do something to you?"

Reid grabs a similar black t-shirt in his size from the bags. In doing so, he shifts, and the sight of the scars on Reid's back has Kane's anger dissipating instantly. They're thin and raised; a few are thicker. His shoulders have many marks that match Kane's healing palm.

Frowning, Reid puts on the t-shirt without yanking the tag. "He, um, asked me out."

Kane puts on his shirt at record speed. He's tugging down the hem when he growls, "On a date? What the fuck?"

"I said no."

"Better have."

Reid gives him a gentle smile. "I don't think he's a bad guy."

"No," Kane agrees. He's still in his boxers, and his bare feet are cold against the concrete. He moves closer to Reid. "He's not bad. He protected you when it all went to shit. I know that."

Kane yanks the tag from where it dangles near Reid's armpit. "But he's not trustworthy."

Reid turns at Kane's nudging and lifts his arms. The gesture isn't necessary to reach the tag of the jeans, but Kane, in his mushiness, can't help thinking the utter trustworthiness is endearing.

With a fearful pitch to his voice, Reid whispers, "Do you think his girlfriend is going to kill me with her psychic powers?"

At that, Kane rips the tag angrily. He tosses both into an open bag before snatching up Reid's discarded shirt. "I don't think they're exclusive."

"Oh."

Tensing, Kane asks tightly, "Do you like him?"

"No."

Kane relaxes. With a soft exhale, he draws the shirt's arms the wrong way and gently nudges Reid to turn and face him. The idiot's cheeks are pink, and he looks pained, like he ate something bad.

Reid blurts, "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Kane articulates carefully so every letter can be heard and understood by the utter moron daring to redden with shame.

He decides he doesn't want to hear what Reid's lips are parting to say, so Kane uses the shirt to clean the blood on Reid's face harshly. He dismisses the whines and complaints but does let up after a minute or so, and, instead of scrubbing, starts to wipe more gently.

"I—" Reid inhales sharply. He doesn't try to move away, to his credit, even though it must hurt like hell if the watering of his eyes is a sign. "Maybe. I don't know....I want to be touched."

"I'm touching you," Kane says bitterly. He eyes the unnatural angle of Reid's nose. Kane has reset his own many times. It'll be easier to do now, without warning, because if given the chance, the idiot will scurry and hide.

Reid laughs. "Yes, and it's making me feel happy even though you're hurting me."

Kane pauses, his fingers grazing Reid's nose. "That's..." Concerning.

"I know," Reid says despondently, wincing. "It's pathetic."

"Not what I was going to say," Kane grumbles, taking hold of Reid's busted nose more firmly.

Slow as molasses, Kane can see the recognition and fear flicker behind Reid's blue eyes, but it's too late, and Kane is already applying pressure and shifting his hand.

With a muffled shout, Reid yanks himself back too late and clutches at his bloody nose, sobbing dryly.

"You're welcome," Kane grumbles. He sighs. "Stop whining like a baby. You've had worse."

He crowds Reid in the corner between some metal piping. The idiot is now acting skittish and untrusting. He cleans the blood from Reid's face adequately enough that they won't have the police called on them the moment they step into public.

After tossing the bloody shirt, turned rag, into the pile of ruined clothing, Kane says, "I can touch you."

Reid looks horrified. He's so red, a tomato would pale in comparison.

"No," Kane says hastily. He's flushing. "Not like that."

Like that? He's getting really sick of their vocabulary being repressed back to high school.

Taking in a deep breath, Kane makes a show of slowly laying his hand on Reid's head; he's petted dogs before, so he mimics the motion. And he's pleased when it garners the reaction he'd been looking for. Reid's brows are pinched, but the tension in his body loosens with a faint smile playing on his lips.

Kane takes the relaxed opportunity to say, "You need to start working out."

"What?" Reid chokes, laughing.

Reid's lashes flutter, his head lulling at the blunt fingernails scratching behind his ear, and a jealousy Kane has always had crops—the way Reid can show emotion so openly and unabashedly while Kane is always floundering.

"You're weak. Really weak. Do you even eat meat?"

Reid snorts. "Sometimes."

Kane stills his hand. "Is this what you meant?"

"Sure, yeah..." Reid whispers, "You're acting weird."

"Bad weird?"

"No, just weird."

"Azrael tonight..." Kane resumes his head scratching, and the touch gradually smooths the twist that overtakes Reid's features at the uttering of that asshole's name, but even with all his gentleness, Kane can't fix the dim blue of Reid's eyes; that spark of life is gone and has been for years. "It's not the last we've seen of him. I won't let what he said happen."

"I know."

Kane doesn't like the dismalness in Reid's tone. "He made a mistake leaving tonight. He might have been able to overpower us, but now I have time to prepare. I'll kill him, I promise." He grasps Reid's chin, levelling their gazes. "You believe me, don't you?" 

Reid smiles gently. "Yes." And then, after a second of hesitation, he whispers hoarsely, "I've imagined taking revenge for years, before I knew her killer's identity. He was right there. So close. I felt so much hate, but also fear. I was scared." Reid clicks his tongue as if chastising himself for feeling what anyone with a semblance of sanity would feel while facing such a monster. 

Kane is going to say this, but then Reid continues, "He was a monster in my head, in my nightmares; that's what he was. But when I saw him in the flesh, without that mask, he looked like any other man. How did he become so twisted? How can someone hurt their brother? The things he claimed to have done to Gabriel...I hate my father, but knowing what Azrael's capable of..."

"I know," Kane says softly, laying his hand on Reid's shoulder and squeezing comfortingly.

Reid's shoulder shakes slightly. "He didn't scare me. I know at your prime you'd beat him. There's a reason he scurried off before the battle began." He exhales a trembling breath. "What he is scares me. I can hear—" He hits the side of his head with a fist, hard.

Instinctively, Kane seizes Reid's wrist with a harsh curl of his fingers. The captive arm tenses, fighting. "Stop that." Slowly, the fisted hand unflexes, the fingers falling limp. With his heart beating rapidly, Kane keeps his hold tight. "What is this really about? Talk to me."

Reid's shoulders slump. "You know."

"What? You're hearing voices?"

"No. Me. What I am. What I'm becoming. It's loud." Reid's expression twists with despair. "So loud, Kenneth. Twisted. Sometimes louder than rational thought. I'm scared when I—that I'll become..."

Kane snorts. "You won't." He'd never voice it, but he's been terrified of the same terrible future. 

Reid frowns. "How do you know?"

"Because I'm here to keep you from falling." Kane smiles sadly, and the bruises on Reid's face seem so much worse suddenly, reminding him of his failures. "I succeeded before, didn't I?"

"I guess you did," Reid says softly.

They finish getting dressed. Reid's suspiciously gentle cleaning the blood from Kane's face, and Kane has an indication as to why: the idiot is smiling dopily, and his mouth is firmly shut. He's not filling the space with irritating quips, which would normally be worrying, but Reid looks happy.

To test the change of behaviour, Kane needlessly lays a palm on Reid's upper back to steer him out of the maintenance room. Lucas and Hannah linger not far away, near a doorway that has a sign for the street beyond.

Kane is intrigued when Reid takes the bags of bloody clothing and refuses Kane's snatch for the handles, offering to toss them in the first garbage can they cross. Not a smidge of the idiot's usual adverseness to work. Huh. This could be useful.

He doesn't particularly enjoy off-behaviour when it comes to Reid; it's usually a lead-up to chaos, but this could be a good turn.

So, instead of grunting and nodding like he normally would, he gives Reid's wrist a gentle squeeze. The pulse beneath his fingertips quickens. Suddenly, a lightbulb flickers in his brain, and an idea forms. "I just thought of something," Kane says impulsively.

He wants to smack himself for not thinking of it before.

"This will work. Just hold off a little longer. You won't have to take blood from a vampire—fuck, that's not true; you will have to, but not from a vampire."

Reid's brows pinch in confusion. "What?" He's blinking rapidly. "Did you hit your head?"

The idiot flinches when Kane pats his bruised cheek—not hard. It's a dramatic reaction.

A little desperate, Reid whispers, "Kenneth. You're making me nauseous."

Unable to hold back a smile because that's absurd when Reid had been whining about needing touch moments ago. Kane laughs softly; the sound is somewhat odd to his ears because he doesn't do it often. He ruffles Reid's hair, and the moron looks significantly paler.

Reid's breathing stutters. "Bad weird!"

Kane's eyes widen.

"Bad weird, Kenneth," Reid wheezes, and the tips of his ears are pink.

When Reid swivels on his heels, fleeing, Kane gets to witness another of the idiot's rarities: speed walking. For someone who walks with the vigour of an elderly woman, that's a sight.

Kane calls after him, but he only gets a middle finger flung over a hunched shoulder. He smiles fondly, yet the roaring of that shadow beast has never stopped nagging at his thoughts.