Title: This is How We Fall Apart

Author: PandaPjays

Beta-Reader: Just An Inkling

Warnings: See Chapter 1

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Author's Note: Posting early this week because tomorrow is my 21st birthday! This means that I can officially drink and gamble everywhere in the world! Woot! Life is good.

And with this chapter I've finally admitted to myself that I need to up the rating.

I ran for the second time since this whole thing had started. At least this time I wasn't running away from something without a goal or destination in mind. This time I was running towards Brooklyn. I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I got to the hotel but I knew I needed to see him.

I kept seeing Kai's scars, red lines twisting their ugly path through once-unmarked skin. Seeing them and then looking back up at Kai's face with his red eyes that had long forgotten how to see beauty in the world had frightened me more than That Man ever could.

Kai and I had never been friends. If I had to pick a word for what we were I would have called us comrades. Comrades in arms. When our paths crossed we didn't work together but we did work harmoniously and I hadtrusted him with my life.

But now the boy I had known had turned into a man that was more dead than alive. A man more driven by determination than by a will to live. Once Kai achieved his goal of destroying Brooklyn so he couldn't hurt anyone else, I had a feeling that Kai would disappear as well. There was nothing else keeping him going but determination and pain.

So now I ran to Brooklyn.

When Yamaguchi answered the door I pushed past him, my eyes already searching out Brooklyn. "Where?" I demanded.

I'm unsure whether it was my tone of voice or my slightly-too-wide eyes that made him answer me straight away, pointing wordlessly toward the closed door of Brooklyn's bedroom suite.

It was only then that I realised how late it was. I mentally shrugged, I needed answers now.

I opened the door and closed it firmly behind me, reaching out beside me and feeling for the light switch.

Brooklyn beat me to it, clicking his bedside lamp on and looking at me through sleepy eyes. He was in a loose T-shirt and the bedclothes were still neat around him, like he'd only just gone to bed. "Bryan?" he asked, running his hand through his hair to get it out of his face. "Why are you here?" He blinked a few times as his eyes focussed, a hint of their regular keenness coming back into them. "What's wrong?"

"I just spoke with Kai."

Brooklyn blinked. "Oh," he said simply

"Oh? Oh? Is that all you have to say?" I demanded, walking toward the redhead until I stood next to his impossibly large bed. "What happened to him? What did you do to him?"

A look of what might have been shame crossed his features as he looked down at the hotel blankets. He moved his hand over them slowly, tracing out the horrible floral pattern. "What did he tell you?" He asked quietly before looking up at me with expectant but sad eyes.

"He showed me his scars," I said slowly, sitting down on the bed. Brooklyn's hands paused in their movements before resuming once my weight had settled. "He said that you'd done that to him."

"Do you believe him?" Brooklyn asked, looking up at me through eyelashes I now realised were ridiculously long. "Do you think I could do that to a person?"

"I—" I started before forcing myself to look away from those eyes. "I don't know, Brooklyn. I genuinely don't know." I knew that in Brooklyn's heart, at the very centre of his being, there was something dark and twisted but I didn't know if that thing had the ability to not only subdue Kai but to do that to him. To take away all the happiness in his world and leave him as a shell of something that used to be human. I didn't know if anyone was capable of that.

I felt Brooklyn move before his arms wrapped around my shoulders, the redhead leaning against my back with his head resting gently on my shoulder. "Kai was..." He began before trailing off, burying his face in my back. After a few seconds he took a deep breath and tried again, "Kai was the first person I loved. I craved him like a man in a desert craves water. I needed him in a way that he never needed me."

"He didn't give me that impression."I said, leaning back against him, enjoying his solidity despite our conversation topic.

I felt him smile, his lips curving against my shoulder, "Kai never needed anybody. So I made him need me."

"How?"

"Everyone has secrets. If you know them you can unlock people's hearts and understand them. Once you do that they will follow you into hell if that's what you want them to do." Brooklyn said with an air of detachment. "I found Kai's secrets and he needed me."

"That doesn't explain why he hates you so much, or his scars." I said, slightly chilled at the candid way Brooklyn described breaking Kai down until all he could do was do as Brooklyn desired. It was like he was talking about working out how a new toy worked. Like Kai wasn't a complex human being.

"I didn't do that to Kai." Brooklyn said very definitely. "He did that to himself."

I thought of those angry red lines, some livid and others faded, some denting the skin and others in raised welts covering his skin in patterns of desperation. I felt sick. I'd seen many terrible things in the Abbey because of That Man. I'd even been the cause of some of those things. But this was different. This was worse. "How? Why?" I asked.

Brooklyn's hand touched the side of my face and slowly turned my head so he could kiss me gently. I returned the kissed briefly before pulling away. "Why would he do that to himself?" I asked.

A small glint of that darkness surfaced in Brooklyn's eyes before he masked it with a shrug. "I don't know, Bryan. I know that once Kai needed me, I found I didn't need him anymore. For a while he hurt himself so I wouldn't walk away with his secrets. But..." He sighed and dropped his head so his eyes were buried in his shoulder and his lips brushed my back when he spoke, "I couldn't do it anymore. Kai wasn't the same person I'd fallen for. So I left him."

He sat up and pushed my shoulder so I turned to face him. I still didn't know how I was supposed to meet his eyes without looking away. "Bry, I—" He bit his lip, thinking about his next words. "What happened to Kai was my fault. I was the one who reduced him to the point where that became his only option."He looked away from me, his eyes bright with tears he refused to shed. "Kai would have been happy if it wasn't for me but—" here he met my eyes again, his face set, "—I wasn't the one who gave him those scars. I could never do that to anyone."

I sighed and nodded, still unsure about what to do. Kai was... he wasn't the person I had known since I was very young. He was the person Brooklyn had made him.

And now he was coming to destroy the only person I'd met who also nursed that dark demon of violence, the only person who could understand me.

"You're just like me"

Despite Kai's pain and despite his reasons for embarking on his quest I would stop him. I had to. I had to if I was going to protect Brooklyn. And I had to protect Brooklyn not only as a professional thing but also because I already couldn't imagine my world without him. Brooklyn had spoken of finding secrets to unlock people's hearts. Even without knowing my secrets Brooklyn held mine.

I reached for him, pulling him towards me and covering his mouth with my own in a kiss that I hoped conveyed what I was thinking.

Brooklyn sighed contentedly, running his hands through my hair and returning my kiss. My hands began to play with the shirt that left far too much to the imagination for my liking. I slipped one hand underneath it to slide up his back, loving the way his skin jumped at the feel of my cold hand. I felt Brooklyn's lips quirk into a smile against mine as I took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, earning myself a quiet moan from the redhead.

I pushed him down on to the bed, my lips never leaving his as I tried to memorise everything there was to remember about that moment. The exact taste of Brooklyn's lips, the exact contours of his mouth, the exact way his body moulded against mine in a way that was both demanding and compliant.

A small sound of complaint and a supple body pressing against mine reminded me that I wasn't allowed to stop. I smirked and allowed my hands to continue wandering, moving to his front. Brooklyn's chosen career meant that he always had to be in peak physical condition which, on him, translated into tight muscles stretched over his slender frame. Brooklyn was no one's definition of muscular but his body was well-toned. A fact that my hands discovered in their explorations, encouraged by small sounds from Brooklyn whenever I discovered a particularly sensitive or ticklish part.

I left Brooklyn's mouth to trail a line of kisses down his jawline until I reached the smooth column of his neck. He gasped when I attached myself to one point of his neck, right above his pulse. I smirked as I felt that tiny vibration flutter erratically as I licked, nibbled and sucked that point, leaving my mark on his otherwise flawless skin.

Skin covered with angry red lines. All self-inflicted.

I froze as the image of Kai's ruined skin overlapped with my admiration of Brooklyn's perfect porcelain skin. Brooklyn wriggled underneath me, not knowing why I'd stopped. "Bryan?" He asked, one hand still gripped in my hair while the other had begun exploring. Currently, it rested against my tailbone with fingers splayed, dipping slightly under the waistband of my pants.

I shook my head, ridding myself of the image. Now I was with Brooklyn. Nothing else mattered. Not Kai. Not anything. "It's nothing."

Brooklyn smirked as he brought both arms to wrap comfortably around my neck, lifting his hips to grind them slowly but roughly against mine. His smirk softened into a smile at the low moan that forced its way out of my throat. "That's not nothing." He whispered into my ear, tongue darting out to trace the outline of the shell of my ear.

"You're wearing too many clothes" I growled back, my hands once again grabbing at the flimsy material that separately me from appreciating at least Brooklyn's top half.

Brooklyn laughed quietly, obligingly letting go of my neck and helping me to take off his shirt. "Better?" he asked, his teal eyes sparkling over flushed cheeks.

I opted to answer him through action, pausing at his neck to give my mark one last possessive lick before kissing my way down his collarbone and down his chest, detouring to nip and suck at one of his nipples.

"Bry—" He gasped breathlessly as my hand ghosted up his chest to tweak and play with the other nipple. My other hand traced ever lowering patterns down his side, delighted to find that he had only been wearing boxers underneath that wholly unnecessary shirt.

My fingers danced along the waistband of the boxers before continuing over the material. They skimmed over the obvious bulge in his pants and continued their journey down his inner thigh. I smirked as I felt a shudder of pleasure run through his body. I left his nipple with one last kiss before continuing to trail my way down his body until my lips reached the waistband of his boxers.

"B-Bry—" He whispered with his eyes half closed, their teal depths darkened with lust.

I slid up his body to give his lips one more searing kiss before sitting back to remove my own clothes. I felt Brooklyn's hands bat mine away as I tried to undo the buttons on my shirt. Brooklyn smirked at me as he began undoing each button, pausing after each one to give the newly revealed skin a kiss that made my eyes flutter closed.

He removed my shirt after what felt like a delicious forever, a small smile on his face as he studied me. He leaned forward to press his lips against mine as his hands fumbled with my belt, taking longer than I thought I could hold on to unbuckle the thing and fling it off the side of the bed. My pants followed quickly after that.

I pushed Brooklyn down on to the bed again, loving the feeling of his smooth, unblemished skin against mine. I kissed him as I ground my hips against his, earning myself a thick, lust-filled moan from him. One of his legs wrapped around my own to pull me closer, increasing the friction. I bit my lip to keep from crying out loud, instead opting to lean down and claim his lips again. This was mine. This moment of perfection with Brooklyn.

As I pulled down his boxers, smiling at his soft whimper, my suspicions were confirmed. As his hands, still firmly tangled in my hair, began to guide my head downwards I heard him whisper so softly I wouldn't have heard it if I wasn't waiting for it.

"Mine. You are mine."

"You're just like me"

-o-

A low groan from Brooklyn woke me up. I opened my eyes slowly to look down at the mass of orange hair that was comfortably snuggled into my chest. I blinked a few times as a soft but constant beeping entered my consciousness.

"What's that?" I asked, turning my head to find the source. It wasn't a loud beep but now I was aware of it I couldn't stop hearing it.

Brooklyn sighed, an arm snaking out to hit something on his bedside table. "Alarm," he moaned, bringing his arm back and burying his head further into my chest. "We have to get up," he said. The feel of his lips moving against my skin making me smile.

"Why?" I asked, running my hand absently through his hair. "Can't we just sleep?"

Brooklyn moved to look at me, his chin still resting on my chest as he bit his lip in thought. "The last time I tried that, Ken literally kicked me out of bed." His nose wrinkled at the thought. "It wasn't pleasant."

"So we should get up then."

"...Yeah." His eyes dimmed for a second before brightening, a small grin on his face. "Kiss me first?" He asked, shimmying up my body until his face was level with mine.

I pretended to consider it before taking hold of his shoulders and rolling us so I lay on top of him. I smirked as his eyes widened in surprise. "Okay." I finally agreed, claiming his lips as my own.

Brooklyn pulled away, making a face. "Ugh! Morning breath!"

I smirked. "Oh! I'm soh-rry!" I said, making sure he received the full force of the dreaded breath.

He giggled and batted me away from him. "Come on, we need to wake up."

I sighed and rested my forehead on his shoulder. "Do we get a shower before Yamaguchi tries to join in on the party?"

That was a mental image I wouldn't be able to get rid of for a while.

"Might be an idea." Brooklyn said, wrinkling his nose at te musky scent our... activities had caused the night before. "If you're really good I'll even let you join me."

I kissed the side of his jaw, smirking when his eyes fluttered shut for just a second. "I'm always good."

"I don't doubt it."

-o-

When I emerged from the bathroom, half-heartedly drying my hair and feeling particularly pleased with myself that Brooklyn hadn't quite worked out how to walk again, I was greeted with a full-force glare from Yamaguchi.

I blinked, glad I'd had the forethought to put on pants while I was in the bathroom. "...Yes?" I asked cautiously.

He pointed to the clock beside Brooklyn's decidedly rumpled bed. It glared at the world with its angry red lights telling us that Brooklyn and I had been in the shower for almost an hour.

"Brooklyn has an interview in an hour. He will be out of this room in five minutes and he will be ready to work." Yamaguchi said quietly, no anger in his voice, just command.

Out of long-ingrained habit, I ducked my head. "Yes, Sir."

His eyes swept over my half-clothed body, his upper lip curling into a sneer. "And get some clothes on. You'll be there in your professional capacity." He paused, "assuming you're still capable of that."

I nodded again, self-consciously folding my arms across my bare chest. "Yes, Sir."

Yamaguchi nodded once before turning on his heel and stalking out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

"What was that about?" Brooklyn asked, poking his head out of the bathroom his cheeks were flushed for a reason not related to the steaming hot temperature of his shower.

"Get dressed," I said, finishing drying my hair and searching for my shirt. "You've got an interview to get to and Yamaguchi's given us five minutes."

Brooklyn swore as he ducked back into the bathroom, emerging a minute later completely dry and looking fresher than I have ever looked in my life. Also, naked. Can't forget naked.

He smiled at my half-buttoned shirt and swiftly finished the job, his hands moving faster than I could see. He tried to smooth out the wrinkles in my shirt before shrugging, giving it up as a lost cause. He walked to his cupboard and produced a black tie, throwing it at me without looking; He was too busy selecting clothes for himself with the practised eye of a professional.

"That jacket you were wearing yesterday is too informal. We'll ask around when we get out there if anyone has a suit jacket that might be your size." He paused to look at me with an appraising eye. "Ken might have something. He's ridiculously short but that's only his legs. His torso is about your size. Maybe a little narrower around the waist," he mused as he pull on underwear and found a pair of white pants that clung to his legs in all the right places. "Either that or one of the other ones will have something."

I nodded as I finished tying the tie Brooklyn had thrown at me. He'd given me one that was thicker than normal, drawing the eye away from the wrinkled shirt and my overall rumpled appearance.

When I looked up at Brooklyn again he had already thrown on a singlet and a shirt and was hunting through his cupboard to find a long white jacket with a high collar, similar to the one he had worn in the world championships. He shrugged it on and quickly did up the buttons, ignoring the various buckles and letting them hang free, swaying against his body whenever he moved. He appraised himself in the mirror as he did up the high collar, nodding in satisfaction when he saw that it only just hid the deep red mark I'd left on his neck.

He ran a hand through his hair, contemplating himself for a few more seconds before shrugging and

digging into his pocket to pull out a pair of gloves. He pulled them on to complete the ensemble. He looked at me, mischief and intelligence in his eyes. "Are you ready?"

I blinked. I don't think I'd ever seen someone move so fast. I glanced over at the clock; It had been exactly four minutes since Yamaguchi had given his orders. In that time Brooklyn had gone from naked and flushed Sex God to fully-clothed and prepared to face the day Sex God.

Brooklyn smirked and nodded at my stunned look. "I'll take that as a yes." He opened up the door with a flourish, a bright smile on his face. "Does anyone have a black formal jacket that would fit Bryan?" He asked the group of people milling around the room.

There was a brief flurry of activity before a jacket was dutifully produced. Brooklyn smiled and thanked the lender before turning to me and helping me put the jacket on. It was a little tight around the shoulders but it gave me enough movement to do my job effectively. Brooklyn nodded to himself as he did up the buttons, leaving the ones at the bottom undone. "That's better. You look all official now."

He bit his lip for a second, looking sideways at the people in the room before coming to a decision. He darted up to give me a brief peck on the corner of my mouth. He smiled a satisfied smile as he turned to face Yamaguchi.

"Time!" The little man said, turning to face the rest of Brooklyn's entourage. "Annd we're leaving!"

I stared as Brooklyn and the rest of the people around him all calmly filed out of the room, like the madness I'd just witnessed was a normal everyday occurrence.

"You might need this." I felt the familiar weight of a gun being pushed into me hand. I blinked and looked over at Jelena who was smiling knowingly. "I'm guessing that you weren't thinking about weaponry when you came over here last night."

I smirked as I accepted the holster she passed me as we made our way after the group of people led my Yamaguchi. "Not so much, how's Sven?"

"Demanding jelly from the nursing staff constantly so he can amuse himself by watching it wibble." Jelena said, rolling her eyes. "He's having a great time."

"I'm glad to hear it." I said with a smile, holstering the gun underneath my jacket. I accepted the two spare magazines she gave me and tucked them into my borrowed jacket as well. I debated whether or not to tell her about my encounter with Kai.

"Now I've scouted out the location of this interview. I'll be hanging out with the rest of the hanger-ons while Brooklyn does that then his schedule's free for the rest of the day." She gathered her hair in her hands and pulled it into a loose pony tail, smiling at me. "Can I count on you to do your job properly? Especially given whatever happened last night?"

"And what would that be?" I asked innocently as we raced down the stairs having missed catching the elevator with everyone else.

"Keep it that way, Mr Secrets." She said with a nod. "If anything goes down at the interview I'll be running strategy. I need you on your game. Whoever this guy is, he took out Sven." A glint of anger showed in her eyes before being replaced by a cool professionalism. "Sven says that he thinks he's lost a little bit of feeling in his hands. Nothing serious, he doesn't think, but the break may have damaged some nerves." She looked over at me, "If that's true he might not be able to do this anymore."

I decided then that I wouldn't tell her about Kai. As much as I wanted to stop him I couldn't let Jelena kill him in the way her eyes were promising.

-o-

"So are you taking back what you said about the modelling industry's effects on children?" A different reporter regarded Brooklyn with shrewd green eyes that were partially obscured by her thick-framed glasses. She was from a more serious publication than the last reporter. Provided that Brooklyn behaved himself, any opinions expressed in this magazine would immediately usurp the previous article's. Yamaguchi had chosen well.

Brooklyn looked surprised. "What?" He asked innocently, "No! Of course not. But my comments were taken severely out of context in that interview."

"So you don't dismiss the negative effects of the unattainable image we're presenting our children with?"

Brooklyn smiled, looking down at himself. "I wouldn't call the image I represent unattainable- I mean, I'm sitting in front of you, aren't I? What I meant was that I believe there are much more harmful things out there. I wouldn't be in this industry if I thought I was hurting people... or myself, for that matter."

"Ever the good Samaritan, I see," she said with an indulgent, insincere smile.

That flash of intelligence crossed Brooklyn's face as he considered the woman in front of you. "Tell me, how did you get where you are today?"

She paused, considering the question. "Lots of school. Lots of sleepless nights. A bit of luck and a lot of effort, why?"

"Are there people who you've met in your field who you think have taken it too far? Who pursue their goals with such relentless fervour that they will only ever achieve mediocrity?"

She looked down, a small smirk on her face before it was once again replaced with her cool façade of a reporter hunting for answers. Brooklyn had found the key he needed. "Of course- that's one of the traps you have to avoid for success."

"It's the same in my job. Those emaciated models aren't beautiful by anyone's standards except their own. They're caught in that mediocrity because they haven't learned that being healthy and keeping things in perspective are the two most important aspects of success. It's not my profession that portrays this unhealthy image, the same way those people trying too hard and struggling to achieve what they can never hope to achieve do not represent your profession very well. Most successful models are healthy people who know that if they don't look after themselves their body will fail them and they will be trapped in that mediocrity we all hope to avoid."

She smiled and nodded, making a few notes on her pad and checking to make sure her recorder was still on. "Of course—but you can see how those comments might have been taken out of context?"

Brooklyn closed his eyes and nodded, a look of regret on his face. "I know. And I'm sorry for that. I just don't understand the negative image we're always painted with. We're not bad people, you know."

"You just happen to be more attractive than the rest of us?"

"Or I just decided to capitalise on something I was born with. Just like you capitalise on your ability to write well and your analytical mind. I read your article on the state of the Russian prison system, by the way. It was insightful. I've always wondered, how do you get such access to the prisoners? Surely the guards know you're not there to write a fluff piece."

And he had her.

I sighed and stopped concentrating on what Brooklyn was saying to do another sweep of the room. Everyone was simply milling around, trying to give the reporter enough space to do her job while still very definitely being there. I made a mental note to talk to Yamaguchi about the number of people Brooklyn brought with him. It was wholly unnecessary and only opened him up to threats. And with Kai one could never be too cautious.

-o-

Brooklyn grinned as we walked out of the building. "Ken tells me that I'm free for the rest of the day! Free!" He spread his arms wide and looked upwards, enjoying the feeling of the cold winter sun on his face. "So, Bodyguard of mine," he said, giving me an approving look and brushing some imaginary snow off my shoulders, "What shall we do with the rest of our time?"

I smirked as I looked into those teal depths, pulling him toward me so my body pressed against his. "I think we should—"

A glint in the corner of my eye made me look up. Kai, his face set in a mask of calm and determination as he pointed a dark, metallic object in our direction.

"Get down!" I shouted, throwing myself on top of Brooklyn as a loud crack shattered the peace of the moment.

Sexytime AND a cliffhanger! I'm just too kind, too kind.

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