Chapter Two: Forgotten Wheel

Their first encounter was when they were barely a few months old. Of course Kyle had no memory of it, but even if he did, he wouldn't call a mere brush of the feet, as they lied in the arms of their mothers walking past in the street, an "encounter". Their proper meeting was a few years later in preschool, yet still Kyle's memory was fuzzy for that. In fact, Kyle didn't remember at all how they started their friendship that lasted until high school. Until Kyle's life was preparing to crumble.

But that was even years ago. Even the memories that he still had of his childhood, the time he spent in his mountain hometown pushed deep into the unused part of his brain, were insignificant to him now. The laughter and tears that they had once shared as children held no meaning to him now.

So their friendship lasted for ten years, from preschool to high school. They were definitely not best friends, but for ten years, they were always together. It was a strange thought, since for the past seven years that they were not together his name didn't even bother to cross Kyle's mind. Yet there it was, for the first time in seven years, in Kyle's mind. In Kyle's mind as he looked at the information in the thin file in his hand, the information of Kenneth McCormick, the man who will soon be dead.

.

It was a pleasant atmosphere, for a bar at least. The counter was nicely separated from the groups of drunks drinking cheep beer and playing pool, leaving it quiet enough for the counter so that you could hear the bartender's tender cleaning of the glasses and mixing of the drinks.

A small ringing echoed through the bar, subtly announcing the arrival of a new customer. He immediately leaned his elbow into the wood of the counter as he called out to the bartender.

'Two beers.'

A habitual smile rested on his lips, and he lightly scanned his icy-blue eyes through the bar as he waited for his two drinks. But his aimless eyes quickly stopped on the figure sitting alone on the stool a few feet away.

A kid? No, the drink in his hand was clearly alcoholic. A woman? It was hard to tell. Her coat was clearly a man's, way too big for her frail body (she was tall though, for a woman at least), the large hood rested on her head to let the fluff cover her whole face. Her boyfriend's? It didn't matter. With his instinctual smile slightly growing on the man's lips he leaned over and took the empty stool next to the lonely drinker.

'What are you drinking there?' He asked casually, but with a flirtatious scent subtle in his voice. He leaned in a little further, wanting a glimpse of the face hiding behind the heavy hood. But just as he thought he could see clear-white skin, the figure flung her head around, slicing the air, to look straight into his flirtatious face.

Emerald eyes met icy-blue orbs.

Startled, the man's flirtatious smile slowly dropped and his eyes began to widen. An uncontrollable sensation, something that he had never experienced before in his life, rushed through his mind and body. The face that he stared into made him forgot the mortal world spinning around him.

Blood-red hair fell into natural curls under the hood, the vibrant colour almost daunting beside the perfect white, icy skin of the neck and face. Long eyelashes, red, but full, almost like the legs of a spider, curled to show the deep rich eyes shining in every shade of green imaginable. His features weren't all perfect, but he held beauty, such… such beauty. He had never seen such a thing before. Beauty, that was almost angelic.

And then, as he continued to stare, the person's small, pointy lips parted softly to draw out a voice…

'Gin and tonic,' Kyle answered flatly. The blond blinked once, and continued to stare at the redhead dumbly, ruining his own handsome features. Kyle tensed his lips in slight irritation and said again, 'You know? Gin and tonic? The drink that has "saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire"?' But the blond still only blinked, making Kyle ogle him disbelievingly. 'Churchill?'

'Who is he, your friend?' The words that finally came out of the blond's mouth made Kyle freeze, then suddenly burst out into a cackle. The blond watched him, amusement slowly colouring his face as he listened to Kyle's ringing laughter.

God. He was more of an idiot than he last remembered— Kyle chuckled to himself, taking another sip of his drink. The blond sipped his own beer, eyes not moving away from the redhead.

'What?' Kyle asked, eyes now annoyed at the burning attention his face was getting.

'Nothing, it's just…' the blond chuckled softly, 'I thought you were a chick for a second. Before you opened your mouth, I mean.'

'Is that why you talked to me?' Kyle smiled, yet with a contrasting bitterness rolling in his stomach. 'You were going to hit on me?'

'Don't be silly, I'm going to hit on you anyway.' The blond watched as Kyle laughed again, then shook his head softly as he drew the gin and tonic up to his lips. He watched intently at those lips as they pressed against the glass.

'What's your name?' Kyle froze at the question, before he could sip his alcohol. 'I'm Kenny by the way.'

'Kenny,' Kyle greeted, as if saying the name for the first time. And then he blurted the first thing that came to his mind: 'I'm Scar.'

'Scar?' Kenny raised his eyebrow.

'Yep. Short for Scarlet, but way too many people say Scarlett.' Kyle dragged on the "lett", instead of "scar". He sometimes amazed himself with the lies that naturally rolled off his tongue.

'Could never imagine why,' Kenny chuckled softly, taking another sip of his beer. Kyle took that chance to quickly scan his eyes over the blond. Tall, about five foot eleven. Skinny, but not frail. Thin muscle, but strong enough to throw a good punch or two. Not armed. Posture loose and light, relaxed. Alone—

'Who is that drink for?' Kyle asked, his eyes landing on the extra beer placed next to Kenny.

'Huh? Oh, yeah that's—'

'Hey dude,' a slightly deeper voice interfered Kenny's words, and a long arm was flung around the blond's shoulders, making him sink under the weight.

Kyle stared at the hand dangling from Kenny's shoulder, identifying the long edginess of each finger, and then traced his eyes up the wrist and through the arm, built, but not as trained as Christophe… but then again, who would be? Kyle's eyes continued to scan through the body, up and up, past the neck, the strong jaw, and then…

Their eyes met. Kyle was looking into the deep sapphire blue, thinned under the lowed black eyebrows. But as he stared, the sapphire eyes slowly widened, from slits to circles. His arm slipped off Kenny's shoulder as he unconsciously began to lean in to Kyle and he reached out to press his hand onto the coat-clad shoulder—

'Kyle?' The raven-haired exclaimed, pushing hard into the frail shoulder. 'Kyle?' He said again accusingly, louder this time as he continued to lean into the redhead.

Stan… A voice gasped in Kyle's ear. His eyes widened in shock, and almost, ungraspable fear. Stan Marsh…

A loud laugh echoed through the frozen two, making them come back to reality to stare at the cackling blond.

'Not quite, Stan!' Kenny chuckled, patting the raven on the back. 'This is Scarlett. Scarlett, this slightly obtuse friend of mine, is Stan.'

'Scarlett?' Stan gaped, blank in the face as he stared at Kyle.

'It's Scar,' Kyle corrected, extending his hand out in a civil manner. Stan stared at the hand, then back to Kyle's face. Slowly, his round eyes began to thin again and tension returned to his lips. Without a word, and certainly without shaking Kyle's hand, Stan drew back and dropped himself onto the stool beside Kenny, drinking his beer and pretending that the redhead didn't exist.

Stan Marsh… Kyle repeated the name in his head. His open hand unconsciously gripped into a tight fist as he dropped it back to his gin and tonic.

Stan Marsh… So he was the "best friend" Kenny was living with. He came all the way down from our old mountain town to live with Kenny in the city. Or was it the other way around? But just as different scenarios entered Kyle's brain, he suddenly stopped. Because he realised, that he just. Didn't. Care.

Kyle gave Stan a quick glance as he lifted his glass to his lips. The man was glaring at his bottle of beer, occasionally swinging the alcohol down his throat angrily. Kyle watched Stan's Adam's apple rise and sink as the liquid entered him, and then the way Stan tensed his nose frustratingly as he let out an angry breath after.

A man, Kyle thought to himself.

If there were an encounter Kyle remembered it would have been with him, almost twenty years ago. The fact was, he didn't. He only remembered how his mother explained their first encounter.

'I almost shrieked!' She said one day with her brain-numbing voice, 'It was the first day of preschool and you two weren't old enough to even walk on your own feet! There you were, playing alone nicely with the alphabet blocks, my smart little bubbe, and then there goes Stan Marsh on all fours crawling towards you. I thought he was going to play with you nicely, but then a second later you were screaming and crying your head off! He was pulling at your beautiful red curls with his fierce baby-grip! You were crying and crying and oh! Lord knows how you two became inseparable!'

Yes. For the twelve years Kyle spent in his mountain town Kenny wasn't Kyle's best friend, because Stan was. But that was almost ten years ago, when they were still boys. This man, no, these two men sitting next to him now, were not the two boys Kyle once loved. They were two completely different people Kyle didn't know.

And one of them was a man who he would have to kill.

'Sorry about him,' Kenny whispered, indicating Stan. He leaned into the redhead to let their shoulders subtly touch. 'He just has a thing with this Kyle… his best friend.'

Kyle raised his eyebrows amusingly, yet inside he was still unmoving. 'I thought you would have been his best friend?'

'Me? Yeah… maybe. But I think I'm more like—' He paused, stopping all his words as he stared into Kyle's curious emerald eyes.

What? Kyle thought as he waited for Kenny's words. You're more like his lover? Was that why Stan was so possessive over you when he saw you supposedly "hitting" on a lonely "chick"?

But instead of finishing his sentence, Kenny took a long swig of his beer, finishing with a loud breath. He ordered another one.

'Do you want another one of those?' Kenny asked Kyle with a testing smile. 'It'll be on me.'

Kyle let a smirk rest on his lips as he leaned his arm into the table to look into the melting eyes in Kenny's heating blue eyes.

'Why not?'

By the time their new drinks came the raven-haired man was already on his third bottle, trying his best to ignore the supposedly romantic atmosphere growing between the other two beside him.

'So, what are you doing here?' Kenny asked, eyeing Kyle through the corner of his eye. 'Drinking alone, I mean. You don't seem the type to enjoy drinking alone in a bar.'

'Yeah?' Kyle grinned amusingly, 'And what type of person do I look like?'

'The type that doesn't enjoy drinking at all…' Kenny murmured staring into his drink, 'Doesn't enjoy it, but does it anyway, just because it's a "normal" thing to do…' And he took another swig.

Kyle's eyes slightly thinned. He stared at the blond with narrowed eyes, trying so hard not to glare. Kyle didn't know why, but the assumption Kenny had for this "Scar", the somewhat accurate assumption he had for the person he supposedly just met, infuriated him like no other.

But oblivious to the fact, Kenny continued to drink his beer, rising the base into the air, sending the burning liquid down his throat. He finished the bottle with another deep, long, and contented breath.

How to stop it… Kyle thought. How to stop that breath… The knife? Or should he just slip a pill into his drink now? Let the poison do the job for him, no, that would be too quick; he needed a new variety. Or he could give him one of his sleeping pills, kill him easily enough while he slept to not leave a trace…

For a short moment Kyle's eyes were burning, and then they opened again blankly, to fall back into a thinness much more relaxed and even seductive this time.

Sex. That was always what it came down to.

'Hey Kenny?' Kyle murmured, eyeing the blond with a hot glint in his eye as he pressed his gin and tonic to his lips temptingly. 'Is it just me, or did it suddenly get a little hot in here?' Kyle wanted to slice his knife through his own skin as he said those words. He seriously didn't know how to flirt.

'You know…' But Kenny played along, leaning in to Kyle again. His eyelids were drooped, his breath heavy, and he didn't even try to hide it as he slipped his hand around Kyle's thin neck and pressed his lips against Kyle's ear, making the redhead's eyes widen. 'I was just thinking the same thing.'

Kyle's eyes narrowed as Kenny's voice seemed to echo in his ear, but his lips curled into a mischievous grin as he slid his hand up the blond's thigh to push himself up onto his feet. A shiver rushed through Kenny's thigh straight to his crotch, and his smile grew satisfyingly as he followed suit and pushed himself off his stool.

Stan didn't call to the two as Kenny and Kyle walked past the drunk, but through the corner of his eye he took a secret glance of Kyle leading Kenny's way as he finished his forth bottle.

The subtle sound of the bell echoed through the bar as Kyle opened the door, but it slammed to a sharp silence as Kenny closed it behind him.

'So, where do you want to go?' The blond asked with a heavy voice. He might as well just have asked, 'Where do you want to fuck? Your place or mine?'

A high school dropout living with his best friend-slash-lover. The occasional one-night standards that he was obviously used to wouldn't make the neighbours suspicious of any new faces Kenny took home. Furthermore, working at a local restaurant wouldn't give him much money, so he wouldn't be able to afford much of a place. A place with much of a security system that is, and oh how easier it was without security.

'Why don't you show me what kind of a place you live in?' The allurement was sinking well into Kyle's voice. But his suggestion was only met with a subtle frown.

'I don't think you'll like my place that much.' Kenny said quietly, but before he could sink too deep, Kyle took his cheeks into his hands and brought their gazes together.

'I couldn't fucking care.'

His breath was so soft, and warm, making Kenny shudder in blissful pleasure from that small whisper. It was strange, yet wonderful at the same time, to have such a beautiful, angelic creature whisper darkly seductive words into his ear, making his penis twitch. But Kenny didn't stop to think that the beautiful redhead in front of him was not such a holy creature at all, but a fallen one ripped of its wings. The unholy creature Kyle knew himself to be.

Their footsteps echoed around the dark alleys of the city, occasionally dying under the cars rushing by. A hollow tap tap tap echoed around, bouncing off the bricks like a small and eerie cry.

I could just do it here… Kyle thought as he looked around the dark passage. There was hardly a shadow close by that resembled human existence and Kenny, not suspecting a thing from his blinding hormones and intoxicated mind, was completely and utterly off guard. Kyle wouldn't have to wait to get to Kenny's house, to seduce the man into clean and easy kill. He could do it here, in the middle of the isolated alleyway, without the need to whore himself in exchange for Kenny's vulnerability.

Gradually slowing his pace, Kyle crouched down onto his knee to slide his fingers along his shoe.

'Did your shoelace come undone?' Kenny asked looking down onto the man kneeling behind him.

'Yeah, just go ahead. I'll catch up.'

Tensing his lips impatiently, Kenny did as he was told. His shoes turned around on the stoned ground and slowly took their steps away from Kyle. The redhead watched intently at the distance growing in between them through his fringe, the seductive glint in his eye freezing into a cold stone.

His fingers slowly swayed from his shoelaces to the hem of his jeans, sliding up his ankle to feel the firm leather clenched around his skin. The index finger continued to flow up along the sheath of his small hunting knife, until it touched the cool surface of the wooden grip.

Kyle carefully rose back up onto his feet, fingers gripped onto the knife pulling the blade out of its sleep as he did so. The steel surface glimmered silently as Kyle pulled his wrist back, arm crossing against his chest, eyes unmercifully tearing through the back of Kenny's unsuspected neck, right at the cervical spine where he could tear through all the crucial nerves and kill him in an instant.

The muscles in Kyle's arm and fingers tensed in concentration, and he took his last breath before throwing the knife to kill…

'Watch out!' A sudden gasp echoed through the alleyway, freezing Kyle's hand beside his chest before knife was set free. His emerald eyes opened wide, a cold rush of panic attacking his body in that one moment, until a violent CRASH tore through his eardrums.

'OH my GOD!' The voice screeched from above, hitting off the brick walls down and down until it was echoing around Kyle.

Bits of clay was scattered along the ground along with handfuls of rich soil spread lifelessly on the stone road. The scattered dirt and broken clay little by little gathered up towards one area, ending up as a pile of soil in the remains of a broken flowerpot. In the centre of that pile of soil, it was only the one flower that survived as its beautiful self remained in tact. It bloomed in the survived dirt, mixed in strands of blond hair, swaying gently in the scent of blood.

A loud scream flashed a light through Kyle's head and the redhead quickly slid the knife up the sleave of his jacket, hiding it as he ran to the body lying on the ground. He gently flicked the dirt off the still head of the blond and turned his unresponsive body around until his icy-blue eyes were staring up at him in his hold. They were lifeless.

Everything was quiet, his breath, his movements, and the screams didn't reach his ears, making the violent sound of his heartbeat tear through his mind. Trying to ignore the sound, Kyle pressed his fingers against the jaw of the still body. Breathing heavily, he then took the heavy wrist out and slid his fingers against the thin skin for equal measure.

His eyes opened wide, but the light didn't shine in his emerald orbs: they were too empty.

'Holy shit! Is he dead?'

The gathering voices shot life back into Kyle's eyes with a flick. Without a second thought, the redhead jumped onto his feet, leaving the bloody blond on the cold ground as he tore his body through the dark alleyway before an eye could catch him.

His breath was heavy. His heart was racing.

He just couldn't believe it.

Kyle could still feel the blond's skin on his fingers, the tender softness of it. He could still see the lifeless blue eyes looking up at him from behind the dirty blond hair. He could hear the ugly silence leaking out of Kenny's nose and slightly parted lips.

No pulse. No breath.

Kenny was dead. Instantly.

'Bastard!' Kyle spat angrily into the air as he pumped his thin legs through the dark, lifeless streets. He didn't stop to take a single breath, to let him mind comprehend, or to even blink. He ran in obey of his instincts, until he finally reached bright, artificial light, and the deafening sound of city life drowning down his aggressive breaths.

What was that? A voice yelled inside Kyle's head. One second Kenny was walking as he waited for Kyle to do up his shoelaces. And just as Kyle rose up, a knife in hand to throw it straight through Kenny's neck, a flowerpot fell from a window above, miraculously hitting Kenny right on the head. It killed him with its force, before Kyle could do a thing.

Miraculous? Was that it? Was it just a miraculous coincidence? Of course it was. What else could it have been? But even still, the happening tore through Kyle's heart sardonically. He couldn't bring himself to feel joyous about the fact that he didn't have to have killed him himself. That nature did it for him. It was just too queer.

Kyle took his hood up just above his eyes and drew out a deep breath as he made his way through the lively people on the streets.

The redhead bashed the door shut behind him, locked it unskilfully, and quickly ran up the stairs of his flat to slam the office door open. No one. The room was dark and lifeless, yet somehow the lonely sight made Kyle relax into his feet. He breathed and he blinked, and he combed his thin fingers through his bright red hair as if to tame his thoughts.

One last, long breath shook the air of the office and Kyle could hear that his heartbeat completely slowed back to normal again. It's okay. Kenny was dead. What a lovely coincidence.

Sighing the knots in his brain out his nose, Kyle slowly pondered his feet to the door of his bedroom. He powerlessly shut the door behind him and let his body fall into the softness of the bed the second his foot hit the mattress.

What a night… Kyle had met not just one, but two of his childhood best friends. That wasn't a coincidence though, since Kyle was only in the bar knowing that the blond went there every three days. If anything, it was Stan's appearance that was not expected.

But that didn't matter anymore. Kenny was dead. Kyle would never see either of them ever again.

Finally sinking into relaxation, Kyle brought the blanket to his chin, hands gripping onto the comforter. In the distance he could hear his bedroom door open, and heavy footsteps echo until a heavy body sank into the empty spot beside him. But Kyle didn't care. He ignored the rough hands of his partner slide against his skin, touch him and grasp him selfishly. He was too tired. He just wanted to sleep. And he did, even as Christophe's hands and lips caressed his skin, he was able to fall into a deep, black sleep.

.

'Good morning, Kyle. God, your hair's a mess this morning,' the posh English accent greeted him with a smirk as the redhead dribbled his legs into the office with nothing but Christophe's trousers hanging from his slim hips.

'It is, is it?' Kyle mumbled with thin eyes, ruffling his red curls into a further cry for help as he dragged himself towards the dim-lit windows. 'Fuck, is it raining?'

'Raining flowerpots apparently,' Gregory answered sipping on his morning coffee. Kyle looked at him confusedly for a second, until a sudden pain shot through his head, shocking his mind wide awake.

'Was that on the news?' Kyle asked, voice a tone deeper. But his seriousness was dismissed with a sarcastic grunt.

'Yeah, right. No, I heard it on the radio this morning.'

'What, did someone just casually ring up to say that someone died from being hit by a falling flowerpot?' The redhead asked just as sarcastically. He waited for a clever remark back from the blond, but he only looked at Kyle with his cold silver eyes, taken aback.

'Who died?'

'What?'

'Who, died Kyle— nobody died.'

The sarcasm slowly disappeared from Kyle's emerald eyes as they widened from disbelief.

'No… Because didn't the flowerpot hit someone?'

'No,' Gregory mocked, 'They just said, "Careful about having sex with the window open you might accidently knock a flowerpot off the ledge".'

Blinking dumbly, once, twice— Kyle slowly leaned back into the window behind him, pressing his palm to his forehead, moaning slightly.

'That's weird… I swear someone got hit last night…'

'It's probably that hangover you have,' Gregory dismissed, taking another sip of his coffee. 'I've never actually seen you with a hangover before. Did you drink to blend in with the environment or did you drink for some comfort after you killed him?'

'Killed?' Kyle's palm slowly drew away from his forehead as he glanced at Gregory. 'Killed who?'

'Kenny, of course. Your childhood friend? I thought you went to the pub last night to do your job. Or are you saying that you couldn't do it at the last minute—'

'No I did it!' Kyle spat, pressing his palm to his head again.

'Oh, good.' The blond nodded approvingly with a wide gaze. 'How did you do it then?'

Kyle blinked. A deep blankness swept across his face as he looked into his thoughts, but jolted back to reality as a sharp pain attacked his head.

'Threw the knife through his cervical spine!' He exclaimed. 'Probably— I don't know…'

'What do you mean, "I don't know"?'

'Shut up! I just— I don't know, okay? I can't remember…' His head was throbbing now, and Gregory's stupid mumbling wasn't doing anything to help.

'You can't remember? What do you mean by that? Are you saying you drank so much that you can't even remember how you killed your childhood friend?

'I said, shut the fuck up!' Kyle yelled, grasping onto his curls and pulling desperately. It wasn't the pain in his head that was excruciating, but something was pulsing inside like his brain was tied into one agonising knot.

What an unfortunate sight… Gregory thought to himself as he stared at Kyle through the corner of his eye, still sipping on his coffee.

'This is why I suggested Christophe for the job—'

A sudden fire ignited in emerald eyes. A fierce hand grasped onto the collar of Gregory's shirt, sinking the man deep into his chair as Kyle locked the blond under all fours. Sharp, hot breaths hit against Gregory's cheeks as deep green eyes glared into him.

'Don't you say that—' his simmering voice whispered. Gregory could feel the heat of Kyle's lips as they moved. 'Don't you say that. You promised you'd never give him a job again, you promised!'

Amusement swept across silver-blue eyes. It was as if the skinny boy pinning him down to his chair, staring into him with such a cold flame in his eyes, was actually threatening to kill his life. And Gregory found that amusing like no other. Amusing. Interesting. Beautiful…

So this was what all those people saw as they took their last breath…

Gregory leaned up half an inch, just enough so that their lips connected. Just for a taste.

'I did promise.' The blond smiled, cool and still.

Grunting, Kyle let the man slip out of his murderous grip and hopped off his chair.

'I hope you left some fucking coffee for me too, asshole,' Kyle mumbled as he wobbled his way out the office, making the blond smirk lightly with a shrug.

Gently, Gregory rested his cup onto a coaster and slid out the desk draw. His fingers shuffled through the limited files until he finally reached the one he was looking for. He slid it out, took the first paper out of the file, and placed it upon his table. He stared at it, intently at the blond smiling in the photograph clipped to the corner as a pen twirled around skilfully between his index finger and thumb.

Smiling still, Gregory dropped the pen onto the table to replace it with a stamp. With a firm grip, he pressed the label across the photograph, inking the image with a bright red tag.

Kenneth McCormick: deceased.

A.N- Thank you so much for reading, and love you for reviewing! Hope you're enjoying the story so far…

I'm leaving the country for a month so I am not sure when I'll update next. Maybe next week, maybe not (I didn't update T&R last year while I was in Japan). But I will be so happy for reviews if you want to motivate me… he he.