AN: Welcome to another chapter of Abel Walks Somewhere And Has Feelings.
Abel
Deimos led them through the winding maintenance passages of the ship, empty dark service corridors Abel had never even thought about. Cramped, barely tall enough to stand in, wiring and pipes going everywhere and hanging down so they had to duck every few feet or walk hunched over, Deimos walking fast but not hurrying.
Abel might have been alone for all the sound Deimos made, visible in the dim service light but disappearing without a sound, black into black, if Abel didn't hurry to keep up with him. He wondered if this was another set up, another of Deimos' jokes on Cain and Abel both, but it was too late to find his way back alone now anyway.
Nothing to do but trust Deimos, whether he wanted to or not. After everything, no choice but trust Deimos.
Deimos' steps were silent and gliding, confident in a way Abel couldn't manage any more. Abel glanced behind them and shuddered at the closing dark, hurrying to keep up with Deimos and the dubious comfort he gave.
The service passage ended in a door, finally opening up onto a catwalk over one of the unused hanger bays, one where the techs stored the broken and crashed ships to strip for parts. Deimos held the door open as Abel stepped through, straining to see or hear anything besides the dim outlines of broken ships in the faint starlight of the hanger mouth, none of the usual harsh fluorescents lit. Deimos closed the service hatch behind them with a whisper, the only sound in the cavernous space.
Abel tensed as Deimos moved behind him, sure now that this was some kind of cruel joke and not sure how to get out of it. If he could get away from Deimos and down from the catwalk, all the maintenance bays connected in a chain. But the door might as well have been miles away, past the gauntlet of all the dark ships and no straight path to run.
He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, glancing down at his empty hands and white uniform. He'd stand out like a target in the dark between the ships, a bright moving spot with Deimos able to disappear into the dark. The thought of being hunted and chased down alone here in the dark was worse even than the fear of being trapped in a tiny room alone with five fighters.
Deimos came up beside Abel, though, and pointed out over the dark, mangled wrecks. Not touching, not pressing into Abel's space, just standing there pointing past him at something. Abel squinted, trying to make anything out, but then there was a sharp grunt and a cruel laugh from the far corner, and he didn't need to see. Cain and Laius. Abel startled at the sound of someone being thrown into sharp, clattering metal, turning to see if Deimos would lead them down to stop this.
But Deimos was gone already, leaving Abel alone. Disappeared black into black, or gone back down the service access, as if Abel could confront either Cain or Laius by himself.
As if Abel had ever been able to protect anyone.
Deimos had gotten what he wanted from Cain and Abel both, and now he was gone, uninterested in risking himself if he got nothing from it. Abel swallowed at the sound of Cain's voice, distorted with pain and the echo against metal, whatever he was saying lost. Then there was another grunt and silence. Footsteps on metal, slow and deliberate, too heavy to be Cain or Deimos.
Abel could just leave, try to follow Deimos back out the service access, the thought selfishly appealing. Cain had done this to himself, going after Laius when he should have known better, trying to fix something by getting himself as badly hurt physically as he'd hurt Abel emotionally, trying to push them back to a normal they couldn't have anymore. Cain had only pushed and pushed and pushed, every kind thing he'd ever done ultimately about sex and control.
Abel could just leave him, let Cain take the consequences of everything he'd done to them both. Even if he managed to somehow get Cain out of here alive, nothing would change between them, Cain finding something horrible to do again, suspicious and controlling and angry now that he knew about Deimos. Abel hadn't even realized until now that he'd been hoping for Cain to change, holding out for something that would never happen because Cain either didn't want to or didn't know how.
But worse again than the thought of Cain twisting all the promises he'd made was the thought of just leaving Cain here alone and what Laius would do to him. Cain's main fault was stubbornness, thinking that getting himself killed would make Abel happy. As if he cared what Abel thought of him, as if he was trying to make things right and couldn't see how to do it without killing himself.
Abel cringed away from the echoing sound of laughter and wet, bloody snarling, his knuckles white on the railing of the catwalk.
He started to ease himself down the ladder to the floor of the maintenance bay. Not sure what he would or could do, but he couldn't just stand there and listen to Cain's voice in the dark without doing something.
More wet, sick crunches, the sound of someone being punched repeatedly and Cain's muted snarl bouncing through the damaged ships as Abel tried to hurry quietly. The sound of it reassured him that Cain was at least still alive, but the echo disoriented him, made it hard to tell exactly where Cain and Laius were. Like the walk to the lift, Abel dragged himself toward it, unable to live with himself if he didn't go through with it.
If he managed to keep quiet, he might be able to surprise Laius from behind, give Cain enough time to catch a breath. Bullies like Cain and Laius didn't expect anyone to stand up to them; he might not be able to do much, but he might be able to do enough to let Cain get them out of this.
Abel tried not to think about the last time he'd stood up to Laius for slapping Athos, and the consequences of that.
"What's the matter, Cain? Not so tough without that little bitch Deimos to back you up, are you?" The low sound of Laius' voice taunting Cain made Abel flinch back, so loud he might have been right there. Abel peered around the closest ships, wary, but there was no one there, only darkness.
Cain snarled something incoherent, and there was the sound of Laius' broken grunt as Cain finally landed a punch. Abel hurried toward the sound, over near the door to the next maintenance bay, stumbling over something that clattered away. A knife. A straight blade, not the one Deimos had given Abel, something Cain had dropped. Abel picked it up and tried to keep his ragged breath from betraying him.
"Just keep fighting, you little gypsy cocksucker, it'll make it better when I teach you that lesson I promised," Laius laughed. "Maybe if you didn't spend all your time bending over for your navigator you'd remember how to throw a punch."
Cain must have launched himself at Laius then; Abel could hear the footsteps and their grunts as they tried to throw each other off. He ran towards the sound of it stupidly. If he could just get there in time, if he could just distract Laius long enough to get Cain his knife, maybe they could get out of this—
That thought was cut off by the cracking sound of Cain being thrown against something, Abel faltering as he heard Cain fall to the ground and not get up. Silence except for Laius' breathing and Abel's as he stopped and tried to creep closer without being heard, unsure now where they were with no sound to follow.
Abel rounded a crumpled and collapsed ship, stepping out into the open between two wrecks to finally find Cain.
He lay out on the floor face down, twisted and boneless where he'd been thrown. Blood all over, his eyes closed and his face a mass of bruises, barely breathing. Abel stared, too shocked to do anything but stand there, too horrified to see anything else until the sound of Laius' laugh snapped him out of it.
The big fighter smiled lazily at Abel, Cain's prone figure the only thing between them. Laius didn't have a mark on him except for a bruising lip where Cain had managed to punch him in the jaw, and he didn't even look tired. Abel swallowed down panic. The wall and closed bay door hemmed them in on one side, the twisting piles of wreckage and darkness looming up on the other.
Abel took a step backwards without meaning to, dropping Cain's knife out of jittery hands, shaken and alone. Cain had called him a coward, and it was true.
Laius' smile widened. "Hello again, cutie," he said, taking a step to follow Abel into the dark. "Come to rescue your sleeping princess? Give him a kiss and see if you can wake him up." Cain groaned on the floor between them.