A/N: Can a fic be a songfic if you use one line? Anyway it's from "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash
The sunlight was a blinding knife piercing his eyes. They were beginning to water. How pathetic, a man crying over his own death.
The air was still hazy with smoke from the explosion of the underground cathedral. From his vantage slumped against a tree, Kenny could just barely see the columns and the places where the earth had caved in. His squad was dead. The king had ballooned into a monstrosity. The world might be collapsing all around him, for all he cared, and he just wanted to feel the sun on what remained of his burned, bludgeoned face.
He closed his eyes. Even though he couldn't remember how long it'd been since he'd last crawled out from the Underground, his eyes never seemed able to adjust. He was used to scuttling around in the darkness. It was fitting, dying in the light with nowhere to hide.
"Kenny."
That voice. That raspy voice immediately brought him back twenty years to a dark room that stank of death and decay but held his sister's last flicker of life. Even more fitting for that face to be the last he saw. If there was a God, He sure had a sense of humor.
He cracked open one eye. A figure stood before him, light blurring his dark edges like an apparition, clad in Survey Corps green and gripping a rifle so tightly Kenny was certain that if he so much as twitched he'd get his head blown clean off. Who would've guessed the little runt would grow up to become the pride of the Scouts? He hadn't even been sure the kid would live. Still so short, though. Who the hell'd Kuchel fuck to curse him with that? Hope the bastard paid well.
"You're blocking my sun, kid," Kenny said.
Levi didn't budge. "Can't say I'm surprised you found a way to survive that."
"Found my way out of nastier scrapes. You and me, we're cockroaches. We don't die so easy."
Levi shook his head. "You're about as crispy as a fried rabbit. You're not seeing tomorrow."
Fried rabbit. The charred, mealy taste returned to Kenny's mouth. They'd go together to the butcher every Sunday if Levi had done well with his drills. It wasn't necessary, since Levi was never motivated by rewards. He had something in him that thirsted for strength and would do anything to get it. Just like Kenny.
"Didn't I teach you a man's his most dangerous when he's in a corner? I might have something up my sleeve."
Levi raised his chin slightly, his eyes narrowing. Suddenly Kenny was a boy again, defeated at the hands of his little sister, because whenever she gave him that look, it meant she'd won.
Kenny laughed. All he could do was laugh. "You look just like your mother when you do that."
Kuchel was beautiful, and saw the world as beautiful. He resented her for it.
Kenny's little sister had long, sleek black hair, and eyes as blue as the single sapphire earring Grigory once found half-buried in the muck below the storm drain. Her plump cheeks were flushed pink and lips always curved in a little smile, like she was keeping a secret. That face got her a wink from the baker and a scorched loaf for free, while Kenny only got a suspicious glare. Up above, fancy people in their fancy houses stuffed their mouths with fancy food, while they considered themselves lucky when they mopped up their soup with that scorched bread. The knowledge simmered beneath Kenny's skin, while Kuchel thought that one day someone up there would realize their great mistake and retrieve her from the trash where she didn't belong. She still believed that unicorns were real and girls married handsome princes and the hearts of men were good.
"I'm still hungry," Kuchel complained, rocking their chipped table back and forth on the one leg that was a half inch too short. Her spoon rattled in her empty bowl.
Kenny scowled into own half-finished dinner. The slop tasted awful, since he was no cook, but it had meat in it for the first time that month. It was the mystery special from the butcher, but he didn't care. Not knowing what to expect was half the fun. "Fuck off," he mumbled, mouth still full. Nearly thirteen, he certainly needed more than his seven-year-old sister.
"Father says not to swear," she said matter-of-factly. Father peppered every other sentence with a foul word, so she'd have to forgive Kenny for not giving a shit.
"You tell and I'll cut that pretty hair of yours clean off and sell it to the Yvette." Yvette, the crone who slept in a box at the corner of the street, lost all her hair and was well on her way to losing her teeth from some disease. Everyone knew it was the venereal kind.
Kuchel's lower lip wobbled. A fat tear appeared at the corner of her eye. Kenny clenched his jaw. If it fell, he'd be in for a world of pain - screaming so loud all the neighbors would hear and if Father came home right that second he'd probably lose his own teeth, too.
"Fine!" Kenny shoved the bowl towards her, satisfied when a bit of soup slopped over the side and onto Kuchel's dress. It was the light blue one, her favorite, not yet torn or faded into a dull gray.
"Hey!" He heard her chair scrape back, but his back was turned and he was nearly out the door before she could throw him an icy glare that would prick his guilt.
Outside stank like shit. The cripple, missing one leg and with enough sores on the other it was a miracle it still hung on, lay snoring beneath his tatty green blanket. Kenny stepped over him and a puddle of some mysterious brown liquid. He couldn't afford to ruin his boots, not when he'd already patched them this year. He reached the end of his street and had his choice of left or right, to one street with more ramshackle houses crammed on top of each other, or the other path with the exact same thing. Despite its sprawl, all the neighborhoods in the Underground looked, and smelled, the same.
Kenny hated it. He hated everything. He hated the bums slouched over on the crumbling steps, bottles balanced precariously around them. He hated the cats that yowled outside his window and pissed on everything. He hated the man who stood at the bridge and wailed that today was the day he'd jump, drowning himself in the slow-running sludge below, but always lost his courage the same time every night and regained it each morning. Kenny cast his eyes up to the roof of the cavern, a black abyss that would look like the gate to Hell itself if only there weren't the cracks of light, the only hint that a better world was up there.
Father claimed he'd lived there before, and from what he said, it really did sound perfect. He only told those stories when he was in a good mood, when he'd just been paid and had food in his belly and a new bottle of whiskey. The tales made Kuchel giggle and sigh, eyes wide and full of hope, and she begged for Father to tell her about the king and queen and carriages drawn by eight white horses. It was risky, though, because then he might go too far and remember Mother, and that made him cross. They never talked about Mother. No, because Mother and her filthy race of people forced them all to the squalid Underground where they belonged.
But Kenny thought about them constantly. He wanted whatever they had up there. Here, people just waited to die. If he strained his ears hard enough, he swore he could hear them laughing.
Kenny hadn't wanted a sister. But Mother had handed him the squalling, red-faced little thing, because no one in their right mind would trust Father to hold a baby, and she when fell back into her pillows she smiled like the thing was in the safest place in the whole world.
"She's your little sister, Kenny," Mother had said. "And the luckiest little girls are those who have big brothers."
Then Mother had gone and died and left him with a drunk for a father and an idealistic fool of a sister. And it was easier to protect a drunk.
Kenny reached the clock tower and scowled. It'd been at least an hour, despite the fact that the broken clock claimed otherwise. Kuchel didn't like being left alone for long. It was his job to chase away the cockroaches and tell her stories to drown out the yowling and moaning that came in through the windows, even if he got the plotlines mixed up and never did female voices right. Nothing better to do, anyway, he thought as he turned around and headed back home.
Kenny returned to find Father slumped in the chair he'd sat in not long ago, hands dangling at his sides but one securely gripping his bottle. The table was tipped over on one side like it too was drunk. Both bowls lay shattered on the floor, along with Kuchel. A severe red mark marred that plump cheek, three distinct lines from Father's hand.
Father's head snapped up. The old coot'd been waiting.
"Ken-nyy," he drawled, hoisting himself out of the chair. He smiled, swaying slightly, like he was listening to a song no one else could hear. "You didn't give me last week's pay! Forgetful, aren't ya?"
Kenny's eyes darted to his sister. She lay still, eyes cracked into slits. Playing dead, just like he'd taught her.
"I did, Father. It's in the sock in your dresser." He hadn't forgotten, just like he hadn't forgotten to stash away a single coin as he did every month he was paid. His stash waited safe and sound for him, tucked in a crevice in the back wall of the house next door. Twenty-eight of them, singing his name, the ringing in his ears louder than the laughter and screaming in the streets at three in the morning.
"Then why," Father said in his quiet, deadly tone, "did I only find two when my bottle costs three?"
Because you spent it all yesterday, you stupid shit.
Father rose from his chair, the floorboards groaning beneath him. "You didn't spend it on things you didn't need, right?"
Sure, things they didn't need including food and medicine for the cough Kuchel couldn't seem to shake. "No, sir."
Suddenly Father's arms shot up above his head. A few drops of whiskey flew out the bottle and onto his face. "It's a mystery! Wherever could it be, Kenny?" He brushed the alcohol off with one finger and shoved it into his mouth. He always had a penchant for drama when he was drunk.
"Someone at the factory must've stolen from me." It was a lie. Kenny would've never given them the opportunity.
Father raised an eyebrow. "Really, now?"
"Really."
As soon as he uttered the word Father's hand snapped out and struck him across the face. Pain exploded behind his eyes and the metallic taste of blood bloomed across his tongue. Now instead of Father's flushed face he was looking at Kuchel, still curled up on the floor, one small hand covering her mouth and her eyes squeezed shut.
"Idiot. I didn't raise you to be stupid."
Kenny didn't respond. He knew better than to risk saying the wrong thing.
"You go back there tomorrow and figure out who it was, and you teach them what happens when they steal from us."
Us? Father could barely hold down a job. But Kenny swallowed the blood collecting in his mouth. "Yes, sir."
Father nodded sagely. "Soon you'll have to get up off your pretty ass and get to work," he spat at Kuchel. She said nothing, but curled further into herself.
Kenny didn't like the idea of Kuchel washing laundry for hours until her fingers cracked, or digging in the mud for lost coins or forgotten jewelry. It wasn't any better cutting off her hair for wigs for wealthy ladies up above. Kuchel thought that one day, someone up above would realize a mistake had been made and the beautiful raven-haired girl languishing below really was a princess. But princesses didn't get struck by their fathers.
Princesses also had people to protect them from being slapped in the face, Kenny thought bitterly. Mother must be rolling in her grave.
"Tell me how you knew my mother," Levi said. His words were measured. But there was a tremor behind them, unnoticed by the normal observer but something predators like Kenny seized upon. It was weakness. Levi hadn't killed it yet. He was that little boy again, tears running silently down his face and biting his hand because Kenny couldn't stand the sniffling.
"You mean did I know her, or did I know her?" Kenny winked, grinning slowly, sure the blood in his mouth had stained his teeth red.
The butt of the rifle smashed into the tree bark inches from Kenny's ear, but he didn't flinch. Levi's eyes flashed with barely restrained rage. For a moment Kenny considered the fact that Levi would make a better brother than he ever did.
"Calm down. I'm only kidding. Get that thing out of my face." He tilted his head towards the rifle. Levi set his jaw and pulled the gun away, but twisted it around so his finger was at the trigger again. He wasn't sloppy. Kenny had taught him that.
"Didn't know your father. Shame." He sighed. "Would've loved to meet him. He must've been three feet tall."
Levi didn't react. Kenny was almost disappointed. Guess he'd finally learned not to throw a fit whenever anyone mentioned his paltry stature. It was a fact, after all. You couldn't get angry when someone pointed out a fact.
"You know, I had a late growth spurt. Maybe there's still hope for you."
One hundred and forty coins and Kenny was still trapped.
He was eighteen and grown so tall that he had to duck through doorways and his pants stopped just above his ankles. He towered over everyone else, so the usual carousers lumbering down the street made way and the baker handed him his purchases with lowered eyes. The ache in his muscles was painful, muscles stretching to cover bones. But it was worth it to see Father's neck bend backwards just to look him in the face.
Even so, Kenny's hatred had swollen, and he was still not big enough to contain it.
Kuchel was thirteen, and her childish face did not match her developing body. He'd had to dip into his stash to find her a dress that didn't cling to her, but they still gawked at her anyway. Kenny didn't like that she walked alone to work sewing nightgowns for rich ladies, but she wouldn't wait for him to go with her. She could be stubborn like that.
One Sunday, Father sat at the table sorting the coins before him. Kenny earned more working as a coderoin manufacturer's hired thug, and with Kuchel working, there was more than enough to feed them and Father's thirst. But Father was a greedy man, the type who counted his coins and imagined how pretty the stack would look doubled.
"Did you see the butcher raised his prices?" Father called out to Kuchel, bent over a cutting board chopping meat in the kitchen. "Straight thievery. They're going to dig our graves, now that your old man's out of a job." He'd lost it four years ago but still spoke as if it were yesterday; he'd broken his hand and it had healed crooked. He seemed to think he couldn't slap them as hard with it, so he'd taken to other tools. "You come out here," he said after he finished counting the coins.
Kuchel walked in, wiping her hands on a rag. "Yes, Father?"
"My beautiful daughter. Fresh as a daisy." He leaned back in his chair. "I see how they look at you."
"Who?" Kuchel shot an anxious look at Kenny, who leaned against the wall picking the dirt from underneath his nails with a knife. He pressed his lips together and slowly shook his head.
"Everyone." For a moment the only sound was the chair creaking under Father's weight. "You know, up above, people pay to look at pretty things."
Kuchel twisted the rag in her hands. "Father, I… I don't understand."
"Go see Madame Hartt." Madame Hartt, the fattest woman in the Underground, ran the Opera. Kenny imagined Kuchel dressed in silks slipping off her shoulders perched on the brothel steps with the other girls, calling out that she could make anyone sing with pleasure, a smile painted on her face and powder covering her bruises.
"But-"
Father sprang up and his chair tumbled backwards, his twisted hand raised. The other slammed down on the rickety table and the coins fell out of their neat stacks. "You're mine and you'll do as I say!"
"Father," Kenny said, hoping the warning in his tone and the knife in his hand would deter him. It didn't.
"Just as headstrong as that mother of yours, and look where she ended up! Dead and useless." Father spat on the floor. "But I'll have you useful while you're young."
Tears beaded at Kuchel's eyes. Kenny's mind flashed to her broken and bruised, used up and empty. She's your little sister, Mother said, voice still alive though she was long gone.
"Don't touch her," Kenny said.
Father's gaze darted to him. "Oh?" He ambled around the table, good hand unbuckling his belt, daring Kenny to make the first move. "You speak for your sister now? She's old enough, she can decide for herself." He grinned at her. "What'cha gonna do, Kuchel? You gonna do what I say? You know, your father always knows best."
The room was silent. Even the noises outside had quieted. Father swayed, red eyes shining. Kenny waited, tensed and knife ready, for her answer.
"No," she whispered.
Father roared just as Kenny extended his arm, catching his fist and twisting it around his back. Father squirmed and shouted curses at Kuchel while grasping at his belt buckle with his maimed hand. Kenny grabbed that hand, for the first time feeling the misaligned bones and withered muscles and how weak Father really was, and felt no sympathy. He twisted his wrist and it snapped.
Father's knees gave way. He was subdued. But it wasn't enough. Kenny's hatred bubbled to the surface and sent waves of power surging through his muscles. He twitched with the newfound energy and pressed Father's twisted arm harder. He heard bone cracking and Father howling, along with Kuchel's screams, but the noise was muffled and distant.
He threw Father to the ground, the force causing the floorboards to splinter, and he drove his knee into his throat. Blood gurgled and spilled out Father's mouth. Kenny didn't care if he was trying to say something. He'd never felt such strength before, not when he broke the ankles of underperforming manufacturers or clubbed the kneecaps of dealers trying to cut the product. He felt like he could take on ten men and kill them all in seconds.
"Stop, Kenny, please!" But Kenny barely heard her. Only the whooshing of blood filled his ears, drowning out the laughter from up above.
Kenny grasped Father's throat, aiming to squeeze the life out of him slowly, but he crushed his windpipe and bones splintered the soft white skin and cut into his hand. Father's half-opened eyes were no longer alight with terror but dull and gray. It was over.
He fell back into the broken wood and flicked the blood off his hand, spattering the white walls Kuchel had cleaned only yesterday. His heart pounded, but he wasn't tired. He was alive, every inch of him screaming with power! Why had this strength deigned to make itself known only now? He could have done so much more than just killing his pathetic father! Kenny studied his hand, seemingly the same as it had been yesterday and every day before then, but now brimming with unlimited possibilities. He laughed. What a turn of events!
Kuchel whimpered and broke him from his trance. She trembled, pressing the rag against her face as if she could hide behind it, but he could still see those blue eyes, glassy with fear.
The heat of his adrenaline faded and numbing cold replaced it. Kenny hadn't protected her. He'd just murdered her father right in front of her. She'd see Father's shattered body and Kenny's demented grin every time she closed her eyes. She'd think Father's blood stained her hands too, and remember it every time she saw Kenny's face. Patricide was an ugly crime, apt for a broken family.
He rose to his feet and his heart twisted when Kuchel flinched. The best way to protect her, he thought, was to stay far away from her. "Clean up the blood. I'll get rid of him."
"Kenny." Her voice shook, like she was five years old again and scared of a monster lurking beneath the floorboards. "Please-"
"Don't you dare follow." Kuchel nodded dumbly. Her eyes were wide and cheeks streaked with tears.
Kenny picked up Father's body. It was as easy as hoisting a sack of flour. He'd dump him in the trash somewhere. Just another body with no one to care why he ended up looking more like rotted meat than a human.
And then, after that, he wasn't returning. It was time. Kenny was going to Mitras.
"So, you're not going to kill me?" Kenny knew he was going to die soon, but the manner had yet to be determined. By exposure, blood loss, or his protege? He'd wondered for years when Levi was finally going to find him and kill him. Maybe it was a rite of passage for their cursed family.
Levi shrugged. "Waste of effort. You're already gone."
"Oof! That stings." Levi was always practical. Or was he scared to sever the last tie he had to his mother?
"You'll feel so much better, Levi! Trust me, I know. I killed my father."
"It'd be a waste of a bullet." Levi cocked his head, unfazed by the revelation. "Imminent death is sure making you nostalgic."
"Oh? It's not the end for me just yet." Straining to move his arm, Kenny dragged the small metal case from where it was hiding behind his back. Slowly, as not to startle Levi into shooting him, he opened the latch, revealing the syringe inside. "Swiped this from Mr. Reiss when he wasn't looking." The fool. Uri's brother was nothing compared to his predecessor.
For a moment, Levi looked surprised. Kenny could see the calculations flashing behind those blue eyes, darker than Kuchel's but just as sharp. He said nothing, the only noise the rustling of trees and Kenny's ragged breathing. But then Levi's gaze turned steely again. "If you wanted to use it, you would've by now."
Who was he trying to fool? The boy wasn't stupid. He hadn't raised him to be stupid.
"I think I'll end up like him if I inject it," Kenny said. Rod Reiss, a behemoth of a Titan, too large to hold himself up in the end. He'd died as he lived, fat and stupid and drunk on a dream. Kenny didn't want to die crawling along with his face shoved in the dirt.
But, there was nowhere left to go. All that was left of him was a burned husk, a shell with no hatred left to fill it. His power was gone, but the sun would still set and rise the next day and leave him behind.
"Don't you have a better excuse than that?" Levi asked.
"I…" He didn't. He didn't have an excuse for anything, not for abandoning both of them, not for all his horrors. He deserved his death, but Kenny was always one to demand more than he deserved. "I don't want to die," he rasped. "Not just yet."
Mitras stank, just like the Underground. It reeked of food rotting because everyone was too full to eat it, of wine-soaked breath and vases filled with piss when the wealthy couldn't be bothered to find a washroom. The fumes of women doused in perfumes choked him, cloying and nauseating, made of flowers and spices he'd never heard of before and couldn't dream of pronouncing.
Kuchel would have loved it all. She would have drank every glass of wine handed to her, walked with a cloud of roses trailing behind her, and laughed and laughed. She was meant to live there. Kenny wasn't. He was foul, a worm-infested apple mixed in with the barrel. He decided he was not going to enjoy Mitras and its luxuries, and found his fun another way.
Compared to Father, killing people in Mitras was child's play. First it was the fat middle-aged bankers in too-tight suits, stumbling through alleyways as a shortcut home to their wives, where he waited, knife in hand. It was like cutting through butter, their screams curdling into gurgles as he sliced their throats. Then he preyed on the younger ones, brash and confident, some taller than he was. Still too easy. Occasionally the members of the Military Police gave him a challenge, but even then he always won.
The papers screamed in abject horror, describing the numerous slashes and pools of blood surrounding the corpses. Once he scrawled his name above a body in blood, the K backwards, just to see what happened. Overnight he became Kenny the Ripper, a phantom killer who vanished into the fog. He could be in two places at once. He was a scorned lover, seeking revenge; he was a Priest of the Walls, spilling blood to appease the Three Sisters; he was a vampire, a werewolf, a living shadow.
Kenny was none of that. He was only trash trying to run away from his own scent.
He'd ran away from Kuchel, too, abandoned her to rot in his memories. He never allowed himself to think of her, but her face filled his mind when he passed by a dark-haired woman with the same delicate features or heard a laugh that sounded like hers, and then instead of letting himself feel guilty or nostalgic or anything at all, he skulked in the shadows until night fell and he removed his knife from its sheath.
One night, Kenny cornered a man in an alleyway. He was dressed in a fine suit with a tall, ostentatious hat, and Kenny was curious as to what he was hiding under that hat. The man crumpled with one slash and the hat flew off and into the gutter. All it was covering was a bald, shiny head. How disappointing.
"Wilhelm! No!" Kenny whirled at the screech behind him and his knife met flesh again. But this time instead of another faceless victim he was staring into Kuchel's eyes. Wide, dark blue, and accusing. Kenny's hand slipped from the knife.
"Why?" she whispered. Blood spurted from her lips and stained her porcelain skin. Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me all alone to die? For the first time since Father died, Kenny felt his heart hammering in his chest, trying to punch its way out of his ribs.
"Kuchel," the man behind him gurgled.
Kuchel fell to her knees, her eyes raised to the heavens. She pressed her hands to the knife in her chest, the fabric of her blue dress soaked in blood, like she was praying. She looked so small, so vulnerable, a kitten mewling in the dark for its mother.
It took ages for her to hit the ground and Kenny could not find the strength to reach out and catch her. Her head bounced on the cobblestones and her hair fell off her head and into a puddle, revealing tufts of blonde hair. An odd groan escaped Kenny's throat. It was a wig; lice must have made the woman cut her hair. Maybe Kuchel had finally cut hers and sold it to rest on the head of a painted doll.
It wasn't her. It was never her. He hadn't even done her the mercy of killing her.
Kenny yanked the knife out of the woman's body and screamed so loudly he was certain all of Mitras could hear him. Maybe she could hear him Underground, too, or from her grave.
He vanished into the shadows just as he heard the shouts from the police. He needed something so audacious, so grand, so challenging it would make him forget the fact that he'd ruined Kuchel the day she was born with the curse of being his sister. It had to be bigger than his hatred of both himself and everything around him. He was going to kill a king.
"Bit late for that," Levi said dismissively.
Kenny sighed. Still a brat. But he was right. There was a dull pain emanating from his ribs that he hadn't noticed before, and a singed smell reached his nose that he realized with embarrassment was coming from his scorched flesh. He let his head loll to the side. It was too much effort to hold it up. "Your observation skills are sharp as ever."
Levi jammed the barrel of the rifle under his chin, forcing Kenny to face him. The cool metal was oddly soothing against his burns. "Why did the First King not want humanity to survive? And why were they hiding it from us?"
"Is that really what you want to ask me? As I lay here dying?" The sun glinted off the barrel, just like it did off Kenny's knife the day he decided not to kill Uri but become his servant. "Who told you to ask me that? Are you a loyal dog, too?"
The barrel dug further into his flesh. "I want to know how someone like you ended up working for them."
How could he explain it without sounding like an idealistic fool, when he'd taught Levi to be realistic? How could he describe to Levi that once Uri gained his inheritance, he didn't see the world in increments of gains and losses like common men, but as a utopia he could build? And in seeing this, Kenny thought he might be able to achieve it the same and protect the world, even though he'd failed to protect his own sister.
"I think I understand now," Kenny said. "Why Uri did it."
Uri wanted the world to be peaceful. And even though Kenny knew it was impossible, as every second of his life had proven that peace was impossible, he'd followed him anyway, blinded by a fantasy. It made living easier, pretending like Kuchel that something better was going to save him.
And just like he did, Uri failed. A king and gutter trash, the same!
Kenny laughed so hard he started wheezing, so loud he was sure everyone Underground could hear him.
Uri told him to visit his sister, so Kenny went to find his sister. As the king's guard dog, he did what he was ordered.
It really wasn't an order; Uri never ordered anything. He spoke in calm tones to everyone. It infuriated Rod, but Uri treated his family and hired hands exactly the same. They were all people, he said, only divided by the circumstances of their births.
"It will bring you peace, to make amends with your sister." Kenny had never thought he could ever achieve peace, not in this world and not in his own heart. But the glimmering in Uri's eyes made him wonder if it really was possible.
Kenny was surprised to see his old house still standing. The front stoop was still tilted, the chipping yellow paint the color of vomit. It was like it remained frozen in time while he was galavanting in Mitras. He rose his fist to the door. If he knocked, would Kuchel answer the door, her cheeks still flushed pink and hair a mess? Or would she be thin and sallow-faced? Or even alive at all?
He knocked.
A man opened the door, only in his underwear. A bulging stomach protruded over bowed knees and his scowl revealed a missing canine. Shit. Hope this ain't her husband.
"Who the hell are you?" Kenny asked.
"Who the hell're you?" The man squinted and scratched his balding head. "What-"
Before he could finish Kenny backhanded him, sending him sprawling. The old creaky floor groaned beneath him, the same scream as when he'd killed Father.
He stepped into the house and scanned the room. There was no furniture anymore, no crooked table, but the hole in the floor the shape of Father's corpse had been fixed. Guess it hadn't waited for him. "Where's Kuchel?"
"Wh-who?"
"Kuchel! The girl who used to live here." Woman, he corrected himself. She had to be in her mid-twenties by now. But he always remembered her as tiny, smiling that grin full of crooked teeth, blue eyes glimmering.
"You mean the black-haired girl? The pretty one?" Kenny nodded. "She don't live here anymore! I swear! I paid, I-"
"Don't care about that. Where'd she go?"
"The Yellow Rose. But that's just what I heard! Please, sir, I don't-"
Kenny turned on his heel and stalked down the street and over the bridge to the Yellow Rose, muttering curses under his breath the whole time. Father was right all along, about both him and Kuchel, though he'd overestimated. The Yellow Rose was shitter than the Opera.
He threw open the door to the Yellow Rose and demanded to see Kuchel, throwing a few coins at the overseer for good measure, and was directed up the stairs and to the right. There, he found himself at yet another door, the only thing separating him and his sister, who he'd been too scared and ashamed to find himself but had to be ordered to do it.
He knocked.
"Yes?" His heart jumped. Though lower now, it was her voice. He opened the door before he could think to bolt.
The room was tiny, just big enough for a bed and armoire. Kuchel sat at the edge of the bed, facing her window, a book in one hand and the other resting on an obviously pregnant belly. Long, dark hair hung loose down her back. She looked up at him, her face smooth and untroubled. Her expression reminded him of Uri's.
"Kenny," she said, mildly surprised. It was as if the overseer had come in instead of her long-lost brother.
"Kuchel." He hadn't spoken her name aloud in years. It felt like he was mispronouncing it.
She put the book down next to her. "It's...good to see you again."
Kenny snorted. "No need for formalities."
Kuchel smiled, but it was guarded. "Why are you here?"
Why was he here? For forgiveness? No matter that he was too afraid to find her for years, and he could only be convinced to do it by someone else, someone much better than he? "I was around. Thought I'd check up on my baby sister."
She nodded, but he knew she didn't believe it. "What are you doing with yourself now?"
"I'm the king's bodyguard."
Kuchel laughed. The sound was beautiful. "I'm glad you haven't lost your sense of humor."
Kenny's gaze dropped to her belly. She still had one hand on it and the little smile hadn't disappeared from her face. He'd never seen anyone in the Underground look so happy.
"So," he said, pointing. "You're not going to do anything about that?"
Kuchel looked down. "No. Why would I?" At least she wasn't going to play dumb.
"No one could possibly be pleased about this."
"I am."
Silence fell over them. Kenny heard the faint sounds of squeaking bedframes and guttural moans from the next room. Kuchel turned her face to her window and sat still, as if she didn't hear anything. Maybe she liked to pretend that her window looked out upon beds of flowers instead of an alleyway strewn with litter.
"I think it's going to be a boy," she said.
Kenny tutted. "Boys are trouble. And if he ends up like dear old Dad?" Or like me?
Both her hands covered her stomach, as if shielding the baby. "I'll make sure he grows up kind and strong."
"Who's the father?"
She shrugged. "Doesn't work like that around here."
"You got an idea?"
"Of course I do. But it doesn't matter."
"Kids need fathers," he lied.
"He doesn't need one. He has me." Kuchel smoothed her hands over her belly. "I think all you need is just one person in this world who loves you."
Kenny said nothing. He couldn't think of one other person who loved him. Uri had more important things to think about, and Father had only seen him as a tool. Did Kuchel still love him, after all these years? He'd never ask. It was a stupid, needy question to ask. Kenny didn't need anyone, when he had his power.
He nodded curtly. "Glad you're satisfied," he said, and turned to leave.
"Kenny, wait-"
He shut the door and was down the stairs in an instant, long legs carrying him out the Yellow Rose quicker than she could follow. Whatever it was she wanted to know, he had no answer.
Kenny could go back to his life in Mitras and leave his guilt behind with her. She didn't need him. Maybe she never had. Unlike Kenny, she was an easy person to love, and someone else could do it.
That must've been the reason why he and Levi turned out so shitty. Once Kuchel died, not even one person had chosen to love them. He'd been arrogant, thinking he hadn't needed it, but now that his power was gone there was nothing left for him to hold on to. Luckily, he'd picked a good time to die.
Kenny took a deep, haggard breath. "You know what I've learned about people, kid? And it's not just us sewer rats. The farmers and the kings and the whores, they're all the same. They can't keep living without their fix." He coughed, a splatter of blood landing in the grass in front of him. "Money, sex, God, power, dreams…" He thought of Kuchel's little smile, her protective hands. "Family."
Levi's expression was unmoved. "What's with the philosophical bullshit, old man?"
"Everyone's a slave to something. To whatever makes them get out of bed in the morning. Who knows if there's a point to living, so we decided to make our own reasons, and then we got drunk on them." He nodded at the ruined chapel. "Helps us ignore the bad shit."
Levi snorted derisively.
Kenny turned his gaze back to Levi. "What about you? You drunk on being a hero? I bet the women just throw themselves at you. They must love you."
He raised one eyebrow, refusing to take the bait. There was one difference between the two of them. Kuchel always took the bait.
Kenny sighed. "I hope you're not just good at killing. One day, your fix'll be gone and then-"
Levi lunged forward and grabbed Kenny's shoulders, rattling his head back. Pain shot down his spine and he gasped at the strength of it. Suddenly Levi filled Kenny's entire field of vision, forcing him to stare into the face of his sister again. There were her dark blue eyes, the inky hair, the questioning expression that Kenny had no answers to satisfy. Fear flickered in his stomach. He'd forgotten how it felt.
"Tell me," Levi said, his voice low, "how you knew my mother."
Uri died surrounded by family, while Kuchel died next to one dirty little rat.
Kenny wasn't allowed to be there, but before the ceremony Uri grasped his hand and demanded that he promise to visit his sister again. Now that he was dead and Kenny no longer in his service, he didn't have to go, he told himself as he descended the crumbling passageway to the Underground. But Uri held sway even beyond the grave.
He made his way to the Yellow Rose without seeing the streets and the half-dead creatures that roamed them, pushed past the faceless customers up the stairs and found her door. There was a chip at the bottom that wasn't there before, and the wooden knob was worn smooth with use.
He knocked. There was no answer.
She doesn't want to see you, you useless trash, she doesn't need you. Not like you were any use to begin with-
He slammed open the door, only to make the voice in his head shut up.
The first thing he noticed was the smell. The room, dark and dusty, was filled with the acrid stench of decay. The window she'd looked out before was covered with a sheet. Father's battered face flashed in his mind, even though he hadn't thought of him in years and his death had smelled of blood and booze.
Kuchel lay in bed, graying hair fanned out around her gaunt face. Her eyes were closed, swallowed up in shadows, and even from his place at the door Kenny knew if he rested his hand against her cheek it would be icy. Her expression wasn't right. This wasn't Kuchel. This was just her shell, the abandoned cocoon of a butterfly flown off to find something better. It was terrible, dying a slow death and wasting away in her own filth. Worse than all the deaths he'd handed out.
"You've...lost a lot of weight," he muttered. Now the only person in the world who loved him was dead. What did that make him?
"She's dead."
Kenny jumped, thinking the voice in his head had come to life, until he noticed a huddled figure hidden in between the armoire and the corner of the walls.
"She's dead," the weak voice repeated. A face emerged from the bundle of rags and matted black hair and it was Kuchel staring back at him, still with gaunt cheekbones and sallow skin but she was alive again. Her eyes, blue like sapphires, forgotten in the muck and nearly swallowed whole, living in someone else.
Kenny swallowed. "What about you? You still alive?"
The kid only lifted his head. He didn't answer, like he hadn't decided if living was worth the effort.
"You got a name?"
"Levi." He blinked slowly. "Just Levi."
No last name. Kenny turned away from Kuchel and leaned against the wall, suddenly weary. He couldn't blame Kuchel for refusing to saddle her son with the weight of their name. Maybe she wanted to start all over, clear her mind of him and Father and the rest of their cursed ancestors. But Kenny kept the name and still abandoned his family.
"I'm Kenny," he said, sliding to the floor. "Just Kenny."
They sat in silence, tired eyes drifting to the bed, a requiem for the woman they'd both failed.
The years passed without Kenny noticing. He'd forgotten the taste of fine wine, the smell of meat roasted in spices and the heady smoke of cigars. He'd been too enthralled watching the tiny version of Kuchel emerge before his very eyes.
Of course, Levi was not a clone of his mother. He didn't have the same idealistic fantasies or the cherubic face that got Kuchel smiles and pats on the head. Kid's father must've been ugly. No matter how much food Kenny shoved at him, he refused to grow, and he constantly scowled like he'd just caught a whiff of something rancid. But flashes of Kuchel appeared without warning, constricting his throat with fresh waves of guilt. They both refused to eat onions, and perched on the windowsill drinking tea even when it was sweltering. They had a soft spot for the cats prowling outside and smuggled them dinner, despite Kenny's protests that they were going to die anyway. And they narrowed their eyes in the same way when they knew Kenny was bullshitting them.
Kenny never told Levi he was his uncle. He wasn't going to be the kid's father, either. But he couldn't let the last piece of Kuchel drown in the mud.
As Levi grew older, Kuchel seemed to recede. He used knives like they were extensions of his hands, could figure out how to turn innocent objects into weapons, and was just as deadly unarmed. Kuchel herself was harmless. He must've gotten it somewhere else.
One day Kenny stumbled upon a boisterous crowd. It was common for people to entertain themselves with cockfights or wrestling, but this was livelier than usual for their kind. He shoved his way through, peering over unwashed heads to find a man his height and twice his weight bowed over and bleeding at the hands of a dark-haired child. Kenny grimaced. Levi didn't have a scratch on him, his hands and knife covered in blood that wasn't his own. He kicked the man in the face with such force that he toppled to the ground, a few teeth clattering on the cobblestones.
Kenny didn't know what the man had done. He probably deserved it. But Levi moved with such rage, eyes hardened and the knife gripped tightly in his hand, his teeth glinting and sharp like a rabid animal. There was no trace of Kuchel in Levi. All Kenny saw was himself.
I made him into a killer. If Kuchel saw him now, would she wear that same expression of horror she had when she'd watched him kill Father?
Kenny stepped back onto someone's foot but barely heard the protests. Had Levi gotten his power from their cursed ancestry? Or had Kenny given it to Levi himself? What would he be like if they'd never met? Something better. Not the trash that Kenny molded him into.
Kenny pushed his way out of the crowd, gasping for breath. He'd made a mistake. He should have never come back, never visited Kuchel in the first place, just focused on Uri's vision and stolen that power for himself. He could wield power. He couldn't be a father, and he'd been a fool to play at one for so long.
Tipping the brim of his hat over his eyes, he turned back. And then he saw Levi staring back at him through the crowd, a stupid lost look on his face like he was a child again and Kenny was leading him by the hand out of the Yellow Rose because he couldn't walk without stumbling. Kuchel's face returned, pleading with him to stay, asking why he didn't love her.
But if he did, leaving was how he showed it. If he stayed, he'd ruin Levi. And he couldn't ruin Kuchel again.
He didn't look back again, because he never made the same mistake twice, and abandoned his sister for the last time.
"Kuchel," Kenny whispered. Levi's grip on his shoulders tightened. Kenny heard his sharp inhale. His lips curled though he wanted to cry. "You dumbass. I'm just her big brother."
In his life he'd been Kenny the Ripper, Uri's dog, Captain of the Anti-Personnel Control Squad. But this was the only title that mattered now, and he was completely undeserving of it. It was growing harder to breathe and his fingers were turning numb, but he forced himself to keep going. "And...I loved my sister."
Levi's hands dropped from his shoulders. His expression seemed to soften, though it might have been the fact that Kenny's vision was turning foggy. "But why…" His voice trailed off, but he cleared his throat and shook his head. "Why did you leave?"
"Because…" Because he was a selfish bastard? Because his mere presence was cancerous? Because he kept making the same mistake, over and over? "I'm just not cut out to be anyone's dad."
Levi said nothing. He sat back on his heels. He probably had that stupid lost look on his face again, because maybe he'd realized the last trace of his mother was dying. Did Levi see her face in him, too? The thought made him smile.
"Kenny, don't…" Don't die? Don't leave me again? Levi was going to be disappointed once more because Kenny could do neither.
With the last of his strength Kenny took the syringe case and pressed it to Levi's chest. "It's all yours." He laughed, a raspy sound that felt like sandpaper on his throat. "My empire of dirt."
Levi grabbed it, his fingers curling around Kenny's cold, calloused hand. "Wait!"
Kenny felt lighter. He'd always loved his sister, despite all his attempts to kill it, and even if that stubborn love made him fuck up everything. Maybe it prevented him from ruining Levi, made her son become something good rather than selfish and hateful. It didn't matter that she was dead; having one person love him was enough. And even when Levi threatened his dream, Kenny couldn't kill what Kuchel loved.
Kuchel was stubborn too, loving Kenny when he didn't deserve it and finding a way to grow in a place that was determined to step on her. She'd made something from the sad little life they'd shared, while Kenny once had what should have been everything. And now, finally, it was time to see her, without running away, and he wanted to ask how she'd done it.
Levi shook his shoulders again. Kenny barely felt it. "Kenny, wait!"
Stupid kid, thinking he could stop the inevitable. Kenny laughed weakly. "You really are just like your mother."