Rian dragged his upper body up over the edge of a rock, his foot scraping at loose pebbles until he found a foothold and threw his lower half over.
He flopped onto his back, chest heaving, and automatically threw up a hand to protect his eyes, squinting up, not knowing what to expect from daytime but brightness and heat, and stopped.
Because it wasn't daytime.
His hands ached and his feet were bleeding, but he made himself stand anyway.
He craned his neck back to look at the hole in his sky of earth and stalagmites and saw navy blue.
It was nighttime.
The world up there was topside. It was, what do you think the weather's like right now, up there, and, rotation changes soon, be good to be back in the sun again.
He could barely see it from his shelf near the bottom of the mountain of collapsed earth and boulders, but it didn't deter his stare or his awe at the slow-moving haze of heavy clouds that soaked up all the blue and light from the sky until it looked completely black.
"And this one? How long have we been feeding him? How long has he been here?"
"Dunno. I don't even know what he did. All I know is that he's someone one of the higher-ups don't want talking on trial, and it's easier not to ask questions."
"You don't seem to understand our situation. You lot have been living good down here, eating and drinking your fill like the Military Police has an endless surplus. I'm here to tell you we don't."
He watched the sky, open-mouthed, until he heard a soft pitter-pater, like water splashing onto the ground, and it took him a second to realize it was rain.
The pitter-pater rose to an abrupt, crashing roar, making him flinch as it splattered against the boulders, and he instinctively twisted away to protect his head as he was near-instantly doused in cold rain.
"Empty that cell. This isn't an inn."
"I—I can't. I told you, sir, it's the higher-ups who need to approve of—"
"Oh? How generous of you to begin fasting so this one can eat your portions for the next week."
"..."
"Playtime is over. Starve yourself or throw him out to die. Make a choice."
He was soaked, his thin shirt and shorts clung to him, and still, he felt awed.
It wasn't what he wanted to see, but he was still glad he'd come here first.
If he was going to die, there was one other thing he had to do first.
Rian made himself look at the sky again, rain pounding him, and raised a finger gun at the hole.
"Bang," he said, miming pulling the trigger.
-p-
Levi drove his heel into a man's nose once, twice, and three times, deaf to the whispers of the small crowd around him and their stares, his heart pounding in his ears as he could only think one thing, over and over, hating that he kept tasting blood from his nose.
Stay down, stay down, stay down.
He didn't care if the only family he'd ever known had set him up, or let his stalker attack Levi as a lesson, or if the man he was kicking lived or died as long as he paid for hitting him ten, no, twenty times over.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a brown overcoat turn away, and a part of himself he'd thought he'd gotten rid of a long time ago sprung to life.
When he and Kenny first met, he'd been hyperaware of Kenny's presence. He still didn't know if it was because he'd been afraid of being abandoned again or losing his food source.
He stopped suddenly, his heel on the man's head, forgetting him as that part of him made him turn his head to watch Kenny leave.
The crowd parted quickly for him, because everyone knew who Kenny the Ripper was.
If he wanted Levi to come with, he would've waited for him to finish.
Fine, he thought.
It was only a few seconds before he disappeared from view, but the moment felt like it stretched on forever.
Fine. I'm almost twelve. I don't need him anymore.
It was better that he left when he was alive, than because he was dead.
It wasn't like they'd spent that much time together anyway. Outside of teaching him to survive, he only saw Kenny long enough for him to drop off enough food to keep him going for a few days until he came back.
The only change would be him having to find his own food—
His head snapped to the side.
If there was one thing he hated more than being punched, it was being sucker punched.
Levi landed hard on his back, scraping his elbows open on the unforgiving ground as he tried, and failed, to break his fall.
He'd need to find water to scrub the dirt out of the wound—
Levi threw an arm up over his face as they got on top of him, squinting through the black spots in his eyes, feeling pulling on said arm as they tried to get at his face again and hearing them grunt when he refused to let them.
A hand clamped down on his other wrist, still gripping his knife, fingers digging in so hard to keep him still his bones hurt.
It was a bad position to be in, for anyone else.
Levi's eyes blazed with anger, a feeling like fire in his limbs as he shoved back against him, lifting his arm enough to wedge a burning elbow into the dirt and heave him off.
He surged at him before the other boy could recover from the shock, fisting a hand in his ratty shirt and shoving him down as he raised his knife and—
—and saw wide, ashy eyes.
They narrowed into slits as his knife stopped all on its own right above his chest.
A foot to the chest sent Levi backwards, leaving him sprawled on his side in the dirt next to the blood the guy he'd kicked near unconscious left behind.
The murmuring stopped, and there was only silence as another punch sent his head to the right, dizzying him. Levi opened and closed his hand, but his knife was gone.
He'd dropped it in surprise. No one had ever kicked him hard enough to throw him back before.
Rian raised his fist again and Levi saw, but didn't hear, his wild, enraged yell through the ringing in his ears.
Instead, he heard Kenny say, Top or bottom, being seen as weak is the same as being dead.
Levi's own fists clenched. Rian was good, but he was better. He was always better.
But then against his will he thought of a bloody shard of glass, and didn't do anything as Rian's knuckles sloppily hit the side of his nose on the right side.
It hurt more than his cheeks did.
The crowd wasn't looking at him anymore, but at Rian, asking who he was and where'd he suddenly come from.
The strong stand at the top of the food chain. Nothin' else matters.
"I hate you," Rian said in a furious whisper.
Levi swiped blood from his nose and only said, "I didn't know you were still alive."
Rian stared at him, his eyes inky pools of hatred, and dived for his knife, but barely moved before a long blade tapped the side of his neck.
It was a MP blade.
Levi stopped.
"Show's over," Kenny said coldly, his overcoat parted open to show the second blade he had hidden underneath. "Go find something else to do with your miserable lives."
The crowd looked away from him or glared at his back, but all quietly dispersed.
"What do you think you're doing, Levi?" Kenny asked, just as cold. "I almost should thank you, Rian, because I didn't know if it was still possible for me to feel disappointment in someone else. But I guess a kid's gotta start sometime. I was just hoping I wouldn't be around to see it."
"You know him?" Levi couldn't help but ask, ignoring that small, suddenly hurt part of him.
As if he didn't know Kenny only came back because he saw something he didn't like.
Rian was still under the blade, but he looked defiant.
"Trouble recognizes trouble, and it makes one stand out. He doesn't know how to listen to save his life, but I'll spare you the details. Better question is, why are you letting him beat you up? What I just saw was an embarrassment," Kenny said. "What did I tell you about friends, Levi?"
"It's done. We're even," Levi said dismissively, wiping his nose again.
"We're not," Rian spat at him, nicking himself as he turned his head. A line of blood slid through his reflection on the blade.
"Doesn't matter to me what you call it. What matters is what I saw. You keep him around, and he'll be the death of you. You're still young, so maybe you don't see it. Maybe you think ole' Kenny was wrong to teach you to abandon the weak and the normal. But you're still growing. You have plenty of time to learn the harsh truths of life on your own."
"But I didn't raise you this long to watch you throw your life away before you learn that lesson," Kenny continued, Rian's blood sliding down to his fingers. "You'll have plenty of time to keep disappointing me later, but not so soon. If you can't cut that connection, I will."
Kenny raised his arm, completely expressionless, as Levi realized what he was going to do.
Rian jerked, moving to run, but not fast enough.
A split second and Kenny brought the blade down in a deadly arc, a swipe meant to cut Rian's neck open so deeply no one could save him.
Levi thought of a bed in a small, dark room.
His hand was around the end of the blade before he knew it, stopping it in place. His arm shook as he pushed back against Kenny. Pain flared down his hand and blood made his fingers slippery, but he held on.
Rian stared at him in wide-eyed shock.
Kenny's arm didn't shake at all. His unsurprised gaze slid to Levi's cut hand. "You really do disappoint me, kid. Now let go, Levi."
He didn't, and the blade made a cracking sound beneath his hand as he tightened his hold. "I won't die."
"It's enough to make a man cry," Kenny drawled. "Fine, have it your way."
The blade broke in his hand and Levi flinched back in surprise, staring down at the small shards of metal stinging his palm.
When he looked up again, Kenny was gone.
-p-
"What do you know about him? Kenny?" Levi asked.
It was loud, but most places to buy food were. The quiet ones never stayed quiet for very long. If they didn't resort to selling drinks on the side for cheap, they usually went out of business. Or were looted.
Rian, on the other side of the bench, stopped in the middle of tearing apart half of a stale loaf of bread. He left crumbs all over the table, and Levi looked away instead of commenting on it, because his side wasn't much better.
He didn't have a cloth or a rag on him, so he could only drop the small shards he pulled out of his hand on the table. It was as clean as he could make it with his dirty sleeve, but that didn't matter now.
The table, and part of the bench, was rust red with splatters of his blood. He'd gotten most of the shards out, but was taking a break because it hurt.
Rian swallowed loudly and looked away. "He's Military Police, even if they say he's not."
Levi tried not to show his surprise, or interest, and only asked, "They?"
"Don't you dare call him a MP. He's not one of us, and never will be," Rian answered, making his voice gruff and angry, and Levi had to lean on the table to hear him.
Levi looked down at his bloody hand, his legs on either side of the bench. What did he care, anyway? He'd never see Kenny again.
"Here," Levi said, pushing his half of the loaf towards him.
Rian looked at the half, then at him.
Levi was hungry, but it wasn't like he wouldn't be again. He was giving it to Rian because...
He refocused on his hand.
...because he didn't need to know why he was doing something to do it.
He used his nail to dig out the last, smallest piece and tried his hardest not to shudder, flicking the piece on the table without looking.
He stopped when he heard something ripping amidst all the noise and looked up as Rian finished tearing the bottom of his shirt. "Here," he said in the same forceful way Levi had, holding out the long strip. "For your hand."
It was brown with dirt and grime and Levi didn't want to put it on his hand.
"So I don't owe you," Rian said, looking away again, like that was why he didn't take it.
Levi glanced at the blood steadily dripping onto the bench. He probably wouldn't find anything cleaner than it.
He took it, wordlessly began wrapping his hand, and Rian grabbed the loaf.
