Chapter Warnings:

Bullying, harassment, hate crime, violence, and language.


Kai

Thursdays were a tricky sort, but Lann was as stubborn as a mule whenever he decided to do something – especially if it concerned his friends. Right on time, like any other day on the week, he waited on the other side of the gates of Rocheste Preparatory in his customary hoodie despite the sweltering heat.

His routine for Thursdays was relatively simple: he was going to walk with Kai over to the small library situated downtown and study for a few hours before walking the other boy home afterwards. He would then return to the shelter to watch over Ellis and finish up leftover homework. At first the older boy had protested, grumbling that he didn't need a scruffy-looking underclassman following him around because that was just too damn creepy but sometime later Evie and Fiona pulled him aside and talked at him for a good half hour.

After that talk, Kai had simply sighed in resignation and let Lann add him to his 'routine.' Everything ran so much smoother once he agreed, of course.

Lann nodded absently at some of the nicer students (he could vaguely pick out Marrec and Ceara from the group) that waved at him while passing by. The lightheadedness and dizzy spells were becoming more frequent, but he sucked up the aches and shoved the feelings into a corner of his mind. He'd rather have the sudden chills and creeping nausea than the dreaded numbness of everything. The medication had a habit of doing all of that, and so much more.

He hated his medication. He hated that he wasn't mentally sound enough to be able to file for emancipation and take care of Ellis on his own. But, despite it all, he couldn't bring himself to hate the shelter. It wasn't home, but it was better than being on the streets; the streets were infinitely more dangerous than a few pills he had to take daily, courtesy of the government and for the safety of everyone around him at any given moment.

His routine was more important than some damn pills that shoved his static-y brain into the cross section between stone-stupid and the-fuck-are-emotions, but he needed Ellis and Ellis needed him so he took his medication like a good boy.

Lann blinked dazedly as a hand worriedly waved over his face. He had stopped by outer space again and forgot to haul his ass back to Earth.

Kai was here. Time to go.

The boys walked to the library in two very different silences. Lann was spacing out too often and several times Kai had to drag him back on the curb before a car would run him over (jackasses, all of them). Kai brooded, he always did, but his friend's stranger than normal behavior was setting up alarms in his head that something was wrong.

When the other boy wasn't paying attention (which seemed like most of the time), Kai studied Lann's features. There was the beginning of a flush on his pale cheeks and he looked unhealthily thin, as if he couldn't keep down food long enough. The dark circles under his unusually-bright eyes attested to a lack of sleep or inability to stay asleep.

Kai wasn't a doctor or anything, but just from looking at him he knew that if Lann kept pushing himself past his limits like he was doing now for whatever fucked up reason he had in his head, he'd have either a psychotic breakdown or crack his head open from a fall. Lann was never built to bend too far, or he'd break into pieces like a glass cannon.

"Hey guys, it's that pansy from archery." Kai ignored the jabs from his peers as he walked past them, one hand on Lann's elbow to guide the absent-minded boy through the everyday perils of city life.

Evie once tried to rationalize that they were just jealous rich-kid pricks that hated the fact that he got into Rocheste Prep on a rare scholarship and ranked so much higher than them in practically everything. Kai didn't really give two shits about those assholes.

"Hey, he's even brought his boyfriend along! Fucking faggots!" That wasn't a new insult at all, but to drag Lann into this was absolutely horrifying. Lann turned his head slightly to the side, but Kai ushered him along. It was best to get as far away from the dumbfucks as possible before he snapped and kicked their brains out.

He took a lesson from Karok and flipped the other kids off with his free hand.

Kai narrowly avoided getting hit with a rock aimed at his head, but Lann jerked to the side, his eyes wide in panic as he stumbled against the wall with a hand pressed against the side of his head; one of the kids had thrown a fucking glass bottle at him!

"Faggots! Suck my dick!" The blood was trailing down Lann's face and coated his hand in a sticky film. Lann turned around slowly, brought into full awareness but there was a confused look on his face before it melted away into an unsettling blankness.

Kai was extremely worried, now. Through the matted mess of his friend's hair, he thought he glimpsed a slit of white bone. Not to mention the trauma-

Lann looked each one of the four boys in the eyes before grinning, baring all of his teeth in a grotesque parody of a smile, some of his teeth smeared with his blood, before charging straight at the boys.

It was quite amazing to see that Lann wasn't just fast, he was really fucking fast, but this kind of attention was calling for some serious trouble. Police-level trouble, if Kai couldn't calm his crazy and slightly insane friend down right this fucking moment.

Lann delivered a violent collision between his fist and a boy's gut. The kid didn't even last another second before collapsing to the cement and throwing up his lunch. Another kid got painful kick at the knee, the leg almost snapping back the wrong way, and he bawled as he fell over.

Lann cracked his knuckles. The other two boys prepared to flee, but Kai tackled them (a move that Karok would have undoubtedly applauded) and smashed their faces to the floor hard enough that a few teeth may have come loose.

The four boys groaned and moaned from where they laid on the sidewalk. Lann staggered over to lean against the brick wall and spat some blood in their direction. He let out a ragged breath, and his eyes kept trying to roll back in his sockets. "F-f-f-fuckers."

"Forget them. Hospital, now." Kai wasted no time in throwing Lann's arm around his shoulder and began to drag his friend to the clinic that was three blocks down from the alley where they had just fought for their lives holy fuck.

One block away from the clinic, Kai jostled Lann with every other step so that the other boy would hold his head up. The tiny Evie-voice screaming in the back of Kai's mind told him to keep Lann from passing out, but he wasn't sure that he could after how much blood (fuck it was too much) Lann had lost. Hell, his skull could've caved in and Kai wouldn't be able to tell jack shit.

"The fuck were you thinking? You get smashed with a bottle and the first thing you do is run back?" Kai never swore out loud as much as he did today, but having his (stupid, crazy, insane, take your pick) friend bleeding out from the head was as good as any other reason.

"M'hurts…"

"OF FUCKING COURSE IT HURTS." Kai was panicking. He never panicked. Well, he was panicking right this very moment.

"Nooo… d'hurtyou…" Kai angrily hauled Lann through the sliding doors.

"Shut up! Stop talking!" Two calm nurses tried to pry a sluggishly frantic Lann off Kai.

"No…t Ssorr…y."

"Get your head stitched up and then you can say you're fucking sorry!" The combined efforts of the nurses finally got Lann strapped down to a gurney and he was wheeled off somewhere to close up that hole in his head.

Kai allowed a nurse to direct him to a plastic chair so the scrapes on his knuckles and arms could be cleaned. He glared intensely at a magazine rack on the other side of the otherwise waiting room, but he could feel himself relax a little on the inside now that Lann was getting treatment. Kai's head thumped against the wall behind him.

Hurt you? Not sorry?

That cheeky bastard.