Up until now, there was only one time in his entire life that Kane had had a moment of true panic. The first time was when he was trapped inside his family's burning home as a child. The heat had been unbearable, making his heart pound in his chest. The smoke had been thick, making it difficult to breathe. His attempts at escape seemed futile and it felt like he was going around in circles, unable to recognize the layout of his own house through the smoke and crumbling. He was sure he was going to die right then and there.
Right now, there was no fire surrounding him and no thick smoke invading his lungs, and yet his heart was beating just as hard and he found it just as hard to breathe. He wasn't sure how long he'd sat on the edge of the bed frozen like a deer caught in headlights, staring at Taker's unmoving form. Then, as if suddenly struck by emergency of the situation, he hastily roused himself from the bed, nearly tripping and falling face-first onto the floor when the bedsheets that were entangled around his legs impeded his movements.
"Taker?" He called out the name slowly, his voice coming out as a whispered rasp, as he stumbled the few steps over. There was no answer, no sign of movement to indicate that Taker had heard him. Kane crouched down and gingerly reached out to touch the burn marks on Taker's chest, snatching his hand back quickly with a hiss at the intense heat that still lingered there.
He dashed into the bathroom to grab some bath towels, soaking one thoroughly with ice cold water. Returning back into the room, he laid the wet towel over the burns on Taker's chest, and carefully lifted his head to place a folded towel underneath to stop the bleeding. Kane then righted himself and stood there, again unsure of what to do. Should he try to rouse Taker again? Should he call for help? Should he run for the hills? Indecision weighed down on him like a thousand cinderblocks, rendering him motionless for several minutes.
Finally, Kane reached down and shook Taker gently by the shoulder. No response. He went over to the phone, intending to call for an ambulance. He had just dialed nine and was about to dial the next two digits that would connect the call when a thought struck him. How would he explain the burn marks? If he told them that his hands had miraculously ignited into a fire of their own accord while he shoved his brother away, they'd think he was crazy. They might even have him locked up in a asylum for uttering such nonsense.
And what if Taker died? Would he be accused of murder? There was nobody else around for miles, as Taker like the privacy of living in a secluded area. Kane was the only other person around who could have done it. Oh god, what if Taker died? What if he'd just killed his half-brother? Taker was the only real family he had left. If Taker died, he'd be all alone, isolated just like when Bearer kept him locked in that tiny, frigid cold room in the basement when he used to live with him. Just thinking about it made Kane shiver. That bastard Bearer. This was all his fault. Kane wasn't sure exactly why it was Bearer's fault but it was a lot easier to blame him than blame himself.
He let the phone drop onto the nightstand with a clatter and threaded his hands in his hair. Clenching his fists hard and ignoring the subsequent pain in his scalp, he squeezed his eyes shut with a growl and willed his thoughts to stop racing inside his mind. He couldn't think straight anymore. He went back over to Taker and shook him by the shoulders again, desperately willing him to awaken. "Get up!"
Again, no response. Kane raised Taker's eyelids with his thumbs to find that his eyes were rolled back into his head. Eyes. Maybe he should call Mideon. It wasn't until he got back over to the phone, that he realized he didn't know Mideon's phone number. With an aggravated yell, he began to hurry over to Taker's room to retrieve it when Taker groaned.
"Taker?" Kane immediately fell to his knees in front of him, helping Taker prop himself up into a sitting position against the wall.
"Fuckin' hell," Taker wheezed and brought a hand to rub the back of his head in an attempt to stop the throbbing pain. His head felt like he had just taken a hundred chairshots in rapid succession, and his chest didn't feel any better. He grabbed the wet towel away from his chest and stared in confusion at the burnt mess that was his skin. "'The fuck?"
"Are you--I don't--Fire." The words tumbled out of Kane's mouth haltingly and in a garbled mess, but Taker got the gist of what Kane was trying to convey.
"You burned me." It wasn't a question but a statement.
"I didn't mean to," Kane said quietly, slightly confused by Taker's calm demeanor. There was no anger or hurt in his expression. In fact, he seemed almost nonchalant about the whole situation. Kane reached out a hand hesitantly to touch Taker's chest, barely grazing the charred flesh before letting his hand fall into his lap. Unable to look Taker in the eye, he kept his eyes locked onto Taker's chest instead and remained silent. He was never one to talk much in the first place--Bearer had made sure to tell him time and time again that nobody wanted to hear him speak--but at this moment he was truly at a loss for words.
He kept staring for several minutes until something happened that made him think his eyes were playing tricks on him. The flesh on Taker's chest was moving. Kane's eyes flew to Taker's only to find that they were rolled back into his head, displaying only the white parts. Kane looked back down to see that the burns were slowly disappearing before his very eyes until not a single mark remained. He lifted one hand and then the other to brush over the skin, utterly confused by what had just occurred. Taker's chest was smooth and completely devoid of any evidence of what had been there just a few minutes ago. Kane glanced upwards at Taker's face and saw that his eyes had returned to normal and he was now regarding Kane with an amused look.