Prelude to the deluge

by no_tengo_porque

Summary:

Uri Reiss - rich heir, amateur poet, professional disappointment - finds himself inspired by a chance encounter with a thief whose smirk feels too familiar to ignore.

Or: In which Uri meets Kenny for the first time, once again.

Chapter 1: Part 1: Light/Darkness

“The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.”

- J.D Salinger

 

1974 - 1975

Uri dreams. 

He dreams of beasts and endless forests, of enchanted princesses ailed by some terrible curse. He dreams of castles and walls, and sometimes these things seem to blend into one, intricate works of stone keeping him from reaching (from being reachable).

Uri dreams when he is a child and he dreams when he is a man. Sometimes he feels like he’s always a child. Other times he feels like he’s always been a man.

Uri dreams of monsters. Sometimes Uri dreams that he is the monster. He dreams of death and he dreams of resurrection. But mostly he dreams of death.

Uri dreams in pain and in glory. He dreams in technicolor, in blood splatters and violence, in dull grays and brimming burgundy. He dreams as if he was not dreaming.

He dreams of being devoured. He dreams of a man that looks like he wants to devour him, his eyes so animal-like Uri fears he might just do it (Uri wishes he’d just do it).

Uri dreams of beautiful things. Uri dreams of terrible things.

Uri dreams.

 

*****************

 

It’s a cold day, perhaps the coldest it’s been so far, but he is roaming the streets as if in a trance, disappearing beneath a coat far too large for his frame. He has gone beyond shivering – his body is convulsing, hiccuping like a broken down machine, his cogs bumping against each other pathetically.

When Uri breathes out he makes a cloud of vapor that mimics the smoke coming out from the tip of a cigarette. In fact, he wishes he had a cigarette right now. He left his apartment in such a rush he didn’t even pause to consider he might be needing them, which he does. He needs , it feels imperative to him at the moment. That is how he handles himself. Every time he wants something he needs it. Most times he gets it. It’s the thoroughbred in him, richness makes it hard for him not to get, own or possess.

It bores them, of course. Rod is already so tired of this life they’ve been granted that Uri’s begun to resent him a bit. Because he is not like him in that way. He’s been blessed with a head full of ghosts to talk to, an unraveling labyrinth of dreams to chase and taste and never quite grasp.

Uri makes his life interesting, that’s what this is. He chases things he cannot have to avoid becoming gluttonous. Like this stupid book, the Chaucer incunabulum that’s probably made its way across the Atlantic through some dreadful history, some bloodshed, some crusades, some thieving. Uri enjoys a bit of dreadfulness and he’d been promised by the antique seller that he’d get him the book (which, yes, fine, the money helped here. The money always helps, but Uri sought it all out on his own. He built this fun, little adventure for himself, so he could traverse Canal street in a coat that is very chic but not very warm at all).

He huffs, feeling lost. He’s not good with directions, addresses, birthdates, phone numbers, important information, etc.

He is a man of prose and words and useless beauty. He likes flowers and French macarons and the unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters, but he’s stuck running around like a headless chicken, pretending like he doesn’t notice the shadow of a man that’s been staring at him – following him – for a couple of blocks now.

Or maybe he’s made this one up too. He daydreams sometimes, brings things from the night into the daylight, examines them so carefully he starts to believe he might carry royal blood and royal sins. When he turns very fast, the shadow disappears. When he turns very slow, the shadow becomes just a man, smoking his cigarettes placidly (should he ask him to bum him one, perhaps?)

Uri laughs a bit at himself, feels hysterical and paranoid. His trembling fingers try to grasp the piece of paper in his pocket, but his eyes are watering too much to read the address in it. He blames his father for this. For being raised in French boarding schools and spending summers being paraded around events across the continent to show off one of the future Reiss heir (and what a waste of time that has been, it’s almost laughable how he’s managed to avoid having the crown of destiny placed on his head when he had been ever so diligent accepting the weight of it in that past life of his).

He pauses at an alleyway and amuses himself a bit thinking of what an obvious scenario should take place here if he was really being chased around by some dark figure looking to rob him. Then he feels the cold metal against his slim throat.

He laughs at the absurdity of it all.

“What’s so funny, boy?” the shadow asks, now manifested into a man so real and so warm that Uri can’t help but press himself just a bit closer to his threatening body.

“Boy? I’m afraid I’m too old to be called a boy,” Uri replies and he can feel the shadow tense at Uri’s bravado, the unpredictable predictability of it all making it seem more like a scene from some bad comedy or one of Hitchcock’s least impressive works.

A hand grabs onto his hair, pulls at it until his head hits the wall and that is not pleasing but it is also not enough to change Uri’s mood. He was bored. He’s no longer bored. That is as far as his brain has made it.

“Are you touched? What’s your fucking deal, I’m trying to fucking rob you…”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t been robbed before, so I’m not very experienced in…”

Uri gets spun around so fast it all becomes a blur. He is a marionette and his master cares little for his integrity. He is knocked so hard against the wall this time around he makes a noise of pain, something soft and almost sensual in any other context. It makes him blush.

When he manages to get his bearings, he finally gets to see the man-shadow, now face-to-face.

He does not recognize the face though. He is not aware of the face properly. What he sees is just a man. A young man, because despite the sternness on his face and the facial hair, there is a shyness permeating from him that comes from the awkwardness of youth. Uri thinks he’s discarded it himself, now almost 28, but it catches him by surprise at times – he finds himself mocked by it.

There is not enough light to make out the details, but Uri captures enough of this face to write about it if he ever wished to (he finds himself wishing to). It’s a good face, an interesting face, all weathered, tanned skin despite of the cold, a nose that is slightly crooked in a way that seems accidental, the dark hair gelled back, long and slick and debonair in a way, sharp cheekbones and a sharper jawline and the sharpest of eyes. His eyes are more of a threat than the knife he is now holding right below Uri’s chin, looking bored, but not really because Uri is an anomaly to him. They’re entertaining each other and that matters more than anything else in the world right now.

“Why the fuck are you so short?” the man asks, a hint of an accent there that Uri cannot make out but feels correct. An accessory that goes along with his outfit, with the aged, cracked leathers and the entire character of this man. Because he is a character. That is how Uri thinks of people, how he processes them. As characters in stories, in books, as heroes or villains or something in-between; as handsome, dark outlaws that smirk too charmingly for you not to root for them just a bit.

“Genetics?”

“Bad genetics.”

“Very bad,” Uri agrees, and he can feel the trickle of blood forming beneath his chin now, the tip of the knife having buried itself just enough to enter the most superficial layer of his skin.

“But good inheritance, yeah?” the man counters and yes, that’s the smirk Uri was envisioning, a bit crooked and a lot feral, cruel in a way that is inviting.

“Yes?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve seen the way you’ve been walking up and down the street with that expensive little coat that you’re probably freezing your ass in,” the man continues, bending down to inspect Uri more closely (and boy does he need to bend down, he is so tall Uri feels his lack of height in ways he usually chooses to ignore). “You’re not from here, are you?”

Uri swallows down his pride at that, smiles up at the man and regales in the way in which he becomes his inverse, letting his own smirk die off.

“Are you? You have an interesting accent…”

Wrong thing to say, Uri realizes the second he gets slammed against the wall, yet again, his brains rattling inside his skull like clothes tumbling around a washing machine.

“Alright, shut that clever mouth of yours and start emptying your pockets unless you want to get some stitches, you rich little cunt.”

Uri laughs at the insults, the severity in this man’s voice. It feels so awfully gauche, so trite, so camp. The robber cornering him in an alley, the naive heir in the scary city having his life ended by some low-life with a knife. It’s fitting, Uri likes the thought of it, he likes the thought of his large hands throttling his neck, perhaps.

“I have money,” he admits, trying very hard not to lose his mind at this whole situation. “I was meant to buy something, but I never made it to my destination.”

“Not just the money. I want your coat. And the watch,” the man points out, his eyes moving up and down Uri’s body in search of new things to grab. “And the jewelry.”

“All of that, yes. But I do need to request that you let me keep this ring. It’s important to me, you see,” Uri tells him, twists his wrist in a way he fears comes across as vaguely fey, shows off the ring that the man has been centering on since he laid his eyes on it (dark eyes, gray like storm clouds and terrible and hungry ). “It was my mother’s.”

“And it fits you?”

“Thin fingers. She used to wear it on her index, it only fits on my little finger, but still…”

“I didn’t ask for your sad little life story, rich boy. I just want all your shit, not bits and pieces. That includes the ring.”

“I can give it to you for now,” Uri surrenders. “But I’ll have it in my hands again. I promise you this.”

The man chuckles, genuinely amused by the threat or the attempt of a threat.

“Sure thing,” he says. “I’ll be waiting.”

Uri breathes out a little puff of air, watches it float and collapse. The man smells like leather and cigarettes and sandalwood, heady and warm and contrasting with the fresh cold. A part of him aches for him, some part he drowns down and some other part that is far too ingrained in him to ignore. Too chimerical, too tied with the world of dreams and memories.

His heart pangs painfully for the man and once again for knowing he cannot comprehend why he feels so compelled towards him. He simply lifts his arms, allowing the man to reach into his pockets before realizing he might as well just take the entire coat, his hands reaching and grasping in a way that might look almost tender under any other given context.

“Do you do this often?” Uri asks, watches him pause, but only for a moment. “The stealing thing, I mean. I feel like you don’t. Not like this at least.”

He expects his head to bounce against the wall again, so much so that he flinches preemptively when the man looks him in the eyes. The man notices this. He laughs, not some ruthless laugh Uri expects, but something almost boyish. He squints his eyes and smiles with all his face before becoming self-conscious of his actions and growing stern again.

“I’m more of a pickpocket,” he admits, so awfully casual that Uri can’t help but smile too, that they are seemingly in tune with the ridiculousness of the entire thing. “But you had your eyes on me. Can’t pickpocket like that.”

“I figured you were trying to rob me,” Uri nods, shaking his head, “Don’t get me wrong, you are doing a fine job of it, but let’s be honest here, I’m an easy target.”

The man huffs, brutish, animalistic.

“I didn’t fucking ask for reviews,” he grunts, clearly more embarrassed than annoyed. He pauses in his onslaught to check everything he’s taken from Uri, to look to the side and ensure no one is coming to help. As if Uri would ever ask for help. “Seriously,” he says, “are you off? I don’t want to be stealing someone’s that’s not all fine up there.”

Uri turns his head to the side, examining him. Trying to gauge whether this sudden moral turn is honest at all.

“Really? You’d give me the ring back if I told you I was troubled?”

The man laughs again, dry and loud, unnecessarily loud when he’s meant to be inconspicuous, but it’s clear he isn’t used to this. That even if he had robbed a million men he wouldn’t be used to this.

“No, not really. But I might feel bad about it,” he admits, rewarding Uri with a smile that is just a bit crooked. Just a bit, just the right amount of crooked to be more endearing than it needs to be.

Uri doesn’t give him the ring, but the man takes it anyway. He grabs Uri’s arm forcefully (it’ll bruise, if he’s lucky) and then he takes the ring off his finger with such gentleness that Uri shivers. Or perhaps he shivers because he’s far too cold now, almost to the point where he’s no longer cold at all.

He watches the man examine the ring, muttering some words in a foreign language that is not all that foreign to Uri.

“Which temple do you go to?” he asks, and the man turns to look at him, confused.

“What?”

“You speak Yiddish.”

The man pauses, unsure. A fox trying to decide whether the kitchen coop is open because the farmer’s been careless or because it’s an obvious trap.

“The one on 68th,” he mumbles, looks away from Uri in a gesture that comes across as so youthful that Uri finds it inspiring.

“And what?” he presses, but the man snarls, back to his animal shape.

“Mind your fucking business,” he tells him, looking at Uri again (Uri likes when his dark eyes are on him) before pausing, as if recognizing something unexpected in Uri. “You’ve got purple eyes,” he says, his voice suddenly filled with some sort of wonder.

“Lavender. Ice blue,” Uri agrees, smiling at him. “I really do want to keep the ring.”

The man snorts out a laugh, placing Uri’s expensive coat beneath his armpit, trying to fit the ring to the tip of his little finger before giving up and just placing it in his pocket instead.

“Too bad,” he mocks him. “Think of it as a life lesson.”

“I’m not a good learner, unfortunately.”

The man doesn’t laugh, but he looks a bit like he could if he allowed himself to do so.

“You’re kind of funny,” he warns him. “Just not as funny as you think you are.”

Uri laughs for him, his teeth chattering. He’s so cold he feels like he might freeze right here, become a wonderful little statue for this man to take home with him too (if he has a home, that is. Men like him never seem to have one).

“That’s fair,” Uri admits, smiling at him again because he really can’t help himself. He cannot recognize him, not yet, but he already feels like he might and that itself is wonderful enough.

The man watches him so carefully that Uri is unsure of his next move – he’s too animal to be predictable. Still, he doesn’t flinch when he feels a finger press to his chin, withdrawing with Uri’s blood on the pad of his thumb. Uri would love for him to lick at it, but instead he watches as he cleans the drop of blood against his leather jacket, searching in one pocket before handing Uri a wrinkled ball of dollar bills.

“Here. Take a fucking cab before you get pneumonia,” he grumbles, already grabbing onto Uri and directing him towards the road, trying to get him a taxi himself. He clearly doubts Uri’s capabilities and he’s not wrong to do so.

“Thank you,” Uri says sweetly, as if he hadn’t just been mugged by this very same man that is just so gallantly trying to get him back home. “I’m Uri, by the way,” he adds, and he does not say the last name – not because he’s attempting to hide it, but rather because he’s always forgotten to add it. He’s never had the need for the clarification before.

“I didn’t ask,” the man spits out, managing to get a taxi with one quick gesture, his height and his persona so imposing.

“You should. It’s polite,” Uri counters.

The man doesn’t reply. He waits until the taxi reaches them, opens the door for Uri in a perfect display of chivalry before practically pushing him inside. He almost closes the door behind him, reconsidering before opening it again.

“Kenny. Ackerman,” he says, his tone stilted, before closing the door and sending Uri off.

 

*****************

 

Kenny’s fatal mistake is thinking Uri to be too much of a rich brat to go seek him out with whatever morsels of information he’s given away freely. Uri has a name and part of an address and a head full of dreams of a tall man with a grin that looks sharp enough to cut.

It’s not that he goes looking for him because he knows him. Uri does not know Kenny – not yet. Not in any way that matters. But he thinks he might. He thinks there’s a chance he might because the press of his body against Uri’s felt familiar, and the meanness in his stare coupled with the softness of his touches felt intimate in ways two strangers can never be. Nostalgia permeated all his movements.

Mostly, Uri goes looking for Kenny because he’s been entertained by him. Because he feels like a perfect anti-hero, Byronic almost. Uri can already envision him leaving a lover behind, being sent to some tragic death that’s been predicted from the start of his story.

Uri should be at home writing, focusing on that one love poem to add to his book like he’d promised his editor he would (people do not like to read poetry if there isn’t some love poem thrown in there, or so he says), but he’s too busy chasing his muse to sit down and do anything with all this sudden bout of inspiration he’s been blessed with.

It takes him about a month to finally meet him again, or rather, to finally catch him. 

He’s bought a new coat (warmer but decidedly less fabulous, although Uri appreciates its reliability) and he’s spent so much time walking up and down the same street that he feels comfortable now, almost a part of the city landscape. A commoner, not a prince. A man, not an envoy of God. A person, not a creature – for the most part.

It is still mostly a chance encounter. Mostly destiny. The meeting place had already been scouted by Uri, but the time and the date were all Kenny, unwittingly. There was, Uri knew, the possibility of never meeting him again. But he’s not a man of numbers or probability. He knows of dreams and stories and no story would end like this and no dream would not be prophetic in a way.

Like just about every Saturday since he’s met Kenny, he goes to the temple. Which is unexpected, because he used to hate going to Emanu-El as a child. He’d cry desperately to his parents about it, make a real scene. As an adult, he’s come to enjoy the service for what it is – so much so, in fact, that he forgets why he’s come here to begin with at times. To seek God. Some other God.

It’s Kenny that sees him first, his panther eyes seeking even when there’s nothing to look at, his hunger too palpable to ignore the chance of a meal. He sees Uri, even though he’s small and sickly and could easily melt into the walls, and he looks away. Afraid, perhaps? He recognizes him, but not in the way he expected to recognize him. He sees him and he thinks he’ll see him again and again and again, no matter what he chooses to do.

Perhaps this is why he doesn’t run off or attempt to escape through some backdoor. He stays still, gazes at Uri every now and then, memorizes his profile and the way his eyes go soft when he’s moved (and he’s moved ever so easily, life is so beautiful to Uri he’s saddened by the fact he’ll never be able to trap and repeat this amount of beauty in his own work).

When Uri does turn, he doesn’t see Kenny at first. He sees a man looking at him but he doesn’t see him. He turns back, closes his eyes to focus on the rabbi’s words before pausing, looking at the man looking at him again.

Kenny gives himself away. His discomfort is clear and his want to be perceived is even clearer. He huffs, pretends like he’s focused on something else once he’s managed to capture Uri’s attention. Uri laughs, he finds all of it very endearing, but he does want his ring back and this game is fun but only if he wins it in the end.

He’s small enough that he can move around without causing too much of a disturbance. Most people confuse him for some obnoxious child, probably. It’s not a bad assumption.

He makes his way to Kenny so fast in fact that Kenny looks mildly startled by his closeness, looks down at him annoyed and confused.

“What is this?” he whispers, his voice attempting to be a growl but it breaks a bit there at the end, revealing his youth in the most embarrassing of ways. “What are you doing here?” he tries again, and does a much better job of sounding threatening.

“You did tell me where to find you…” Uri argues, tries to keep his voice low but still receives looks from the people around.

“I did not. How the f… How did you find me?”

“I have a lot of free time.”

“Must be nice. Being rich enough to be free.”

“To a degree. After a certain point, you stop being free,” Uri argues, turning to smile up at Kenny who is staring at him as if wondering whether he could stomp him. “This is lovely though, I’m glad you’ve brought me here…”

“Did not bring you here.”

“In a way you did. And I’m glad. I am very grateful. I haven’t connected with my religious roots in this way in a rather long time. This is wonderful, Kenny,” Uri nods, feeling a bit guilty about his chattiness in such a sacrosanct space. “But I do need to ask you for my ring back.”

Kenny makes some strangled noise, the fox stepping into the trap, getting its leg shut up in it. Should he gnaw at it? He shakes his head, as if Uri’s request was simply unthinkable before turning around as if to leave.

Uri tries to chase him but he realizes he doesn’t need to. Kenny reaches to grab him and he pulls him along, holding him so hard you’d think he was afraid to lose him (again. Perhaps).

They race out of the building and Uri is vaguely reminded of himself as a schoolboy, rushing away from grandiose, white buildings at the end of the day, always alone.

The cold air hits him like a slap, makes his cheeks ruddy, but he doesn’t have time to take it all in. Kenny continues to drag him until they reach an alley (he does like his alleys, doesn’t he? It fits the character), pushes him against the wall, trapping him by pinning him by the shoulders.

“You trying to get me in trouble, is that it? Fucking… You trying to threaten me?” he spits at Uri, looking frantic, rabid.

Uri laughs at the notion.

“Do I look threatening to you?”

“You lil rich fucks are the most threatening to me…” Kenny points out. “The most heinous fuckers. Playing fucking victim when it’s you and your people that have us all pinned down beneath their Italian leather shoes…”

Kenny pauses then, starts cursing in Yiddish, then in English again. He loses the thread of what he’s saying, walks away and comes back like some thespian interpreting Macbeth superbly.

“I don’t intend to harm you,” Uri says, watching Kenny coming back and forth, mildly fascinated. “I just want my ring back. I told you, it’s very precious to me…”

“I sold it,” Kenny replies bluntly, finally recovering his sanity, becoming suddenly listless.

Uri cocks his head to the side.

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“You didn’t, I can tell.”

“You can…” Kenny starts incredulously. “You can fucking tell ? You can’t fucking tell.”

“I can, actually. It’s not some random piece of jewelry. I’d know if you tried to sell it. I’m well connected.”

Kenny blinks at that. He seems to have only now realized that Uri cannot, in fact, read his mind.

“If I give it back, will you leave me the fuck alone? Or are you gonna get the pigs on my ass? Cause I did spend a good amount of your money, you ain’t getting that back...”

“That’s fine,” Uri shrugs. “You’ve probably put it to better use than I would’ve.”

“So I give you the ring and you fuck off? Or do I have to swap synagogues?”

“I’ll fuck off,” Uri agrees, and the cuss feels foreign in his tongue, heavy and metallic. “So?”

“So? So I don’t have it here,” Kenny replies, looking awfully brattish in the way in which he shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets, almost like a child that knows it’s been found misbehaving. “You have to come back next week.”

“I do?” Uri asks, oddly thrilled by the proposition. By the repetition. He thinks of Kenny’s words like a plea. Come back next week . And if he forgets the ring again? Next week. And the next one. Every week. Someday he might just hand it back to you, but you doubt it.

“Yeah,” Kenny confirms, taking his hat off to brush his hair back with one hand. “Next week.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Kenny pauses, uncertain. It’s strange to see him uncertain.

“You think I’m a fucking liar?”

“I think you’re a thief, Kenny.”

“But not a liar.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Uri bluffs. “I don’t really know you.”

Kenny stares at Uri for so long that Uri’s sure he’ll hurt him – lunge himself forward like a python, poised to attack until the bite.

When he finally moves, Uri flinches, but Kenny moves slower, more cautiously – as if afraid of frightening Uri off. He searches inside his pocket, pulling out his knife, taking the blade out, turning it around. It glimmers in the day, cuts across the cold air with a slash of light. He hides the blade again, turning the hilt towards Uri and offering it to him.

Uri hesitates, stares at it before grabbing it. Kenny is quick, he pulls away before Uri even manages to touch the knife. He grabs Uri by the wrist, pulls him close enough to feel the warmth of his body radiating.

“Listen here,” Kenny says carefully, his voice soft and sibilant, practically hypnotic. “This is important to me, yeah? I’m only giving it to you because I’m an honest man. And I don’t appreciate the way you’re acting like I’m not.”

Uri swallows, the heat traveling down his body like a shot of vodka. He nods slowly, tries not to fixate in the way in which Kenny’s large hand is encircling his wrist.

“I’ll take care of it,” he promises, but Kenny shakes his head.

“You’re rich. You people don’t know how to take care of things. But I’ll trust you with it regardless. Like you’ll trust me to bring you your ring back.”

He lets go of Uri then, pushing him away before handing the knife to him, closing Uri’s fist around it. His hand is titanic next to Uri’s own and Uri appreciates the feeling of his smallness for the first time in his life.

“Next week,” Kenny promises, rewards Uri with a smirk before turning to strut off. “And next time don’t fucking interrupt in the middle of shul. You stay fucking quiet in the house of God, yeah?”

Uri snorts out an inelegant laugh, watching the shape of Kenny so large and noticeable somehow disappear down the street.

 

*****************

 

Kenny forgets the ring next time they attend service. It’s a coincidence, he says. An accident. Next week he’ll bring it, he promises, and in the meantime, Uri could spare to lend him some cash. Or at least buy him dinner.

Uri pretends to believe him and they end up at some diner with that awful, watery coffee that makes Uri daydream of winters in Milan.

At first it seems awkward, neither of them are too certain of the other’s intentions. But Uri catches a man putting enough sugar in his coffee to feed a small colony of ants and the second he points this out to Kenny they share a quick smirk and that seems to be enough to thaw them somewhat.

And the thing is, Kenny is actually a talker. He likes to talk, even if most things that come out of his mouth are cusses and tall-tales and dreadful, dark jokes Uri feels bad for laughing at. Nothing he says gives away anything. After an hour of monologuing, Uri is still uncertain of where he came from, what family he has or what he does for a living. He can make assumptions, but everything about Kenny is mutable. His accent dips and shakes, uncertain of itself. He looks too cynical to be family-oriented but Uri catches him sticking his tongue at some random kid who repeats the gesture before giggling. He seems to be knowledgeable about a myriad of practical subjects – he speaks of spending days in the woods, of hot-wiring cars, of working with concrete, of milking cows. He’s memorized bible passages and he repeats them while he plays with his knife that Uri has graciously handed back temporarily.

He is a mystery that wishes to be solved. He talks with his hands, he gestures and places emphasis on just about every syllable. He laughs at his own jokes before he’s even done telling them and then he smirks, pleased, whenever Uri laughs too.

He’s charming. He knows he’s charming, even if he’s unsure of whether his charm is always appreciated. He likes being listened to, but he’s afraid of saying too much.

“I’m talking too much,” he acknowledges, somewhere in between his third cup of coffee and his second cigarette, but Uri shakes his head effusively.

“You talk enough. You talk the right amount.”

“You don’t say shit…”

“I like listening to you. You’re more interesting than me.”

“I am not,” Kenny argues, looking down as if suddenly coy when complimented.

“You are. You are like a character from a Victorian novel. The cruel but secretly sweet rogue. It’s extremely appealing.”

“M’not sweet…” Kenny mumbles under his breath, shaking his head. Uri smiles at that. At the fact he takes more offense at being perceived as lovely than being perceived as brutish.

“Do people not tell you you’re good company?”

“I’m not one to spend a lot of time around people. I have no interest in all that…”

“All that? Socializing?”

Kenny shrugs, looking down at his coffee – so black it’s like an obsidian mirror, reflecting his features a lot softer than they are.

“I’m not good at that. As long as I’m quiet people are threatened by me. And I like that. That I’m a threat.”

“You haven’t been quiet today,” Uri points out, and before Kenny can take offense to that, he’s quick to add: “I’ve very much enjoyed hearing your speak so ardently about God and pickpocketing down Fifth Avenue.”

Kenny laughs, his eyes downcast, unsure of how to react to being praised.

“I’m not like this usually.”

“No?”

“I told you. I like to be quiet.”

“Perhaps the coffee has warmed you up,” Uri suggests, trying to catch Kenny’s stare again, trying to look at his eyes when he’s in this much gentler mood. “Or perhaps you enjoy my company.”

Kenny’s brow furrows at the suggestion.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s just you got those like… big, soulful, purple eyes. Kind of like… they make me want to talk when I look at them.”

He closes his own eyes then, as if regretting saying that. Uri attempts not to interpret that the wrong way. He’s good at keeping his guard up, at least. That’s all he’s got to protect himself now he can no longer metamorphosed into a monster.

“I’m running late for something,” Kenny lies, getting up before Uri has a moment to reply, and Uri leaves some bills on the table before chasing after Kenny who seems to have perturbed himself with his own frankness.

“I’ll hand you the ring next week,” Kenny tells him, walking and walking as if running away, trying to light up his cigarette. “You don’t need to be doing all this.”

“What’s all this?”

“Acting like… like you wanna hang out with me or some shit.”

“But I do enjoy spending time with you,” Uri argues and he slams against Kenny’s back, so preoccupied with keeping up with his larger steps that he doesn’t realize he’s stopped in his tracks.

“Now why would you enjoy that?” Kenny murmurs under his breath, spinning around to meet Uri’s stare. “What are you getting out of this?”

“What are you getting out of this?”

“Dinner,” Kenny says simply, smiles boyishly at that, his snaggleteeth almost fang-like. He’s not admitted his age yet, but Uri has pegged him to be in his early twenties, even if he plays the part of an older, more experienced man.

“And some company…” Uri gambles, anxious to see Kenny’s reaction, but he’s pleased to see him soften even if it’s just for a second.

“Sure. Some rich boy getting off on hearing the proletariat’s day to day…”

“I like hearing you , Kenny,” Uri assures him. “You’re a bit of a snake oil salesman, I think. But you’re very good at it. You know you’re charming.”

“I’m not,” Kenny says but Uri can tell this is purposeful. He’s looking to be reassured and for whatever reason, Uri feels like coddling him a bit.

“You are. I could spend hours hearing you talk. You make the mundane sound interesting, but nothing about you is mundane.”

“What’s the matter with you?” Kenny questions him, accepting Uri’s help to light his cigarette, his own hands shaking badly. Uri steals a cigarette for himself, even if he finds Kenny’s Marlboro’s too strong to his taste. “I fucking robbed you. Why are you being all nice to me?”

“Because I enjoy you,” Uri admits, but he doesn’t say what he means to say – he can’t envision how to possibly say what he wants to say, how to admit he thinks he might’ve dreamt of Kenny before he even knew him. “But I’ll admit there’s something else.”

Kenny blows smoke distractedly, squinting his eyes at Uri’s admission.

“What’s that then?”

“I do have a proposition.”

“You want me to off someone for you, that it?” Kenny asks, seems awfully nonchalant about the concept and Uri wonders whether he’s done that before. Killed. Or perhaps he’s only ever dreamt of it. Sometimes that’s as good as true.

“No. It’s a more… artistic proposition.”

Kenny’s face switches immediately, it falls and builds itself up so quickly that Uri cannot comprehend the emotions present there even if he tries to take mental photograms of each quirk of his mouth to make out what’s going on in his mind.

He moves away again, wrinkling his nose, spitting to the side, the disgust evident.

“You one of those? You want to take artistic pictures of me, yeah? Naked and shit?” Kenny questions him, squinting his eyes at Uri and Uri does his best not to react to that. “I don’t care how much you’ve got to offer, you freak. I’m not doing that shit.”

“Bold assumption,” Uri says, his tone just a bit colder just in case. “No, I have no interest in seeing you nude, although I do require you as a source of inspiration in a way…”

“Spit it out then. Whatever the hell it is you want from me.”

“I told you, inspiration,” Uri insists, but he reconsiders his answer when Kenny looks a bit like he might punch him. “I’m a writer.”

“ A writer .”

“A poet.”

“That’s why you speak all fancy like that,” Kenny assumes, moving back towards Uri but maintaining his caution, skittish. “What could you possibly get out of me? I don’t speak all pretty like you…”

“I think there’s a lot of beauty in your speech, actually. It’s got some chutzpah to it…”

“You mocking me?”

“I’m not,” Uri says, feeling a bit deranged every time he assures Kenny, a bit wild in the most wonderful of ways. “You said it yourself. I’m a gullible rich boy. Admittedly, there’s a lot I haven’t experienced and to be a writer without any experience… It’s a sad state of affairs, Kenny.”

“And?”

“And I think you’ve led a fascinating – albeit still short – life,” Uri continues, emboldened. “I think you’re such a character. A pirate or a thief or a desperado. It’s inspiring. You inspire me.”

Kenny cocks his head to the side, moves around Uri like a panther deciding when to pounce.

“You are fucking weird, aren’t you?” he says after his examination is apparently done. Uri half-smiles, shrugs and Kenny almost half-smiles back. “You want me to tell you how to write?”

“I’m in a creative rut. Blank page syndrome. Everything I write feels insipid. Weightless,” Uri replies, is bold enough to punch Kenny on the shoulder in a way that feels fraternal and masculine to him. “You’ve got grit. You could help me sharpen if you rubbed onto me a bit.”

“You gonna call the cops on me unless I hand you back the ring and hang out with you? You that lonely?”

“I’m not calling the cops regardless.”

“But you are lonely,” Kenny insists, his dark eyes curious.

“Yes,” Uri admits calmly, frantically. “Isn’t everyone?”

“I like being lonely.”

“I doubt that…”

“I do. It doesn’t do me any good to not be lonely. It’d ruin me to love someone,” Kenny shrugs, rolling his eyes at Uri or at himself, even Kenny doesn’t seem clear on that. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“I’d like to get it,” Uri replies. “See? You’re a bit of a poet too. It’d ruin me to love someone . That’s pretty, yes?”

“It’s maudlin,” Kenny waves him off, smirking when he notices Uri’s expression. “I know some clever words too, rich boy.”

“Uri.”

“I know your name, rich boy.”

“Then say it.”

Kenny pauses. He swallows, uncertain.

“ Uri ,” he repeats and his face twists for a second, indecipherable. Uri wonders if he likes the taste of his name. “What does it mean?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Aren’t you a man of words and shit?”

“Not very much into etymology, I’m afraid.”

“You should know what your name means. That stuff matters,” Kenny says seriously. So seriously that Uri finds it all incredibly endearing, to see his sternness when it’s not put-upon or meant to be perceived as threatening.

“What does your name mean, then?” Uri asks and Kenny smirks again, his smile slightly more quirked to the left.

“Handsome,” he replies, puffing out his chest like a rooster before flicking Uri on the face and laughing.

 

*****************

 

Uri dreams of beautiful things. Uri dreams of terrible things.

Uri dreams of Kenny, always. The Kenny he thinks he knew before this Kenny. He dreams of his glare, of his blade going through Uri’s hand. He dreams of his hand on Uri’s frail shoulder, of both their faces too wrinkled for their age, of watching the sunset together.

Uri dreams of being devoured and he dreams of devouring Kenny. Uri dreams of his mouth desperately tasting him, of his lips pressed tightly together, as if afraid he might bite. Uri dreams of Kenny around him, above him, below him, inside him.

Uri dreams.

 

*****************

 

Kenny wrinkles his nose when he reads, and Uri knows this because he watches him. Because everything that Kenny does is worthy of a space inside his brain. He refuses to admit it (he dreads to admit it).

Kenny sticks the tip of his tongue out when he’s thinking and Uri knows this because he thinks he’s falling a bit in love with him. He refuses to admit it (he dreads to admit it).

Uri is not afraid of his desire, but he is afraid of the objects of his desire. Uri is afraid of men, of their callous ways, of their violence, of their harshness. His fear keeps him away from longing, wanting or touching. He knows it makes his poetry dull, or at the very least, too godly. He knows he comes across as priestly, untouchable. The truth is he’s made himself untouchable.

He knows others know it too. His father won’t admit to it (he dreads it), but it’s there, in the eternal disappointment of his stare. It was there in that previous life too. Perhaps this is why he made himself sacrificial lamb, to try and please him for a change.

His companions know it too. Uri does not have friends – he is unsure of how one is meant to have them. But he has comrades, intellectual equals, other effete men that idolize Proust and Oscar Wilde and scoff at lesser pursuits as if they all wouldn’t give away all their expensive degrees away just to be touched tenderly by one man, one night.

Somehow, they perceive Uri’s reticence. His frigidness, the way in which he avoids the subject whenever it is brought up (and they might dress it up with metaphors and winks and references to Catallus, speak in Latin or frame it as the love between Alexander and Hephaestion, but they speak of it as much as anyone else. They want it as much as anyone else). They know what he is even though they only whisper about it when he’s not around. Uri the ice queen. The vestal. The boring bitch.

He doesn’t care. He has his dreams to accompany him at night, the dreams of strong arms, of shadowy figures pressing him down on a mattress, teasing him, their little prince.

Except now he does not dream of shadows. Now he dreams of faces (a face), of a sharp smirk and dark hair and gray eyes. Now when he dreams of sex he dreams of Kenny and this thought disturbs him. It makes him feel treacherous, impure, disloyal.

He watches Kenny read his poems and he feels an immense guilt bloom inside him, building itself up into something wretched he wants to retch out.

“It’s a bit stilted,” Kenny says, unknowing of Uri’s desires (but how? They’re loud enough to spill out of his mind without a warning). “What sort of music are you into?”

“Tchaikovsky, Satie, Saint-Saëns… the sort.”

“... Heard of them, yeah…” Kenny says dismissively, waving his cigarette around. “You need something with some more rhythm,” he assures him, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “You into jazz?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Rock? Soul?”

“I studied the classics, Kenny. They didn’t play Elvis at the lycée.”

“They should’ve. Then you’d have some rhythm,” Kenny insists, moving around as if his body wanted to dance but he refused its desires. “I’ll get you good music. That’ll help you be less stilted.”

“How am I stilted?”

“It’s in the,” Kenny continues, snapping his fingers again, shaking his head along. “It’s in the rhythm of it, Uri.”

“Alright.”

“You’ve gotta have rhythm, Uri,” he says, and he grabs Uri’s hand with his own free hand, spinning him around abruptly, “The words have to dance, Uri.”

“Got it,” Uri replies dryly, snatching his hand back, the searing seal of Kenny’s touch hot enough for the heat to course all over him. He’s grateful at least that it’s no longer as cold as it was when they met. It makes him crave for Kenny’s warmness just a bit less.

Kenny pauses, noticing the way the mood has shifted. He sits back down on Uri’s favorite seat, shaking his head one way and the other.

“S’not bad,” he says, attempting to cheer Uri up, unable to perceive the reason for his discomfort. “It’s like proper pretty. I like what you say about the violets and the… the thing about the sea. You paint it very pretty, it’s just stilted, is all.”

“No rhythm,” Uri agrees dryly and Kenny looks almost flustered for a moment. He turns away from Uri’s stare, looking out the window. Uri envies his jawline. He looks so much younger than Kenny despite being older by half a decade. Uri forgets this fact until he hurts him, until he makes him feel stupid or useless or lesser than. Kenny used to lash out at him back then in the first month of getting to know each other – always biting when feeling attacked, always feeling attacked.

But now that he’s grown accustomed to Uri’s praise, now that he’s grown used to having Uri seek him out, to his affections and his little gifts, to being inside Uri’s bachelor apartment and sometimes even staying over for the night, now he’s changed. Now when Uri hurts him he goes timid, he looks a bit like a dog that’s been kicked and isn’t too certain as to why its master has been cruel to him. He fumbles his words, he looks lost and endlessly childish.

Uri wonders briefly whether he’d be so fond of Uri if he knew what he’s been dreaming of.

“You know I don’t know about this stuff,” Kenny replies, twirling his thumbs in a nervous gesture, the manuscript long forgotten. “I don’t know why you keep making me read’em. I’m not like your fancy, poet friends.”

He’s staring pointedly at the ground and Uri would take years off his (probably short) lifespan just to reach out and pet his head tenderly, assure him he values his opinion more than anyone else's.

But he knows Kenny will not take his kindness kindly.

“I hate my fancy, poet friends,” Uri admits, feeling a bit blasphemous saying such a thing despite it being true. He does not like them. He can speak to them. They’ve all read the same books, they all have similar interests. But therein lies the problem, in knowing their brand of deviant desire and pompous intentions is only agreeable to people like them. They’re friends solely because no one else would choose them. They’re trapped by these friendships.

Kenny’s friendship is liberating. Kenny’s smirk is seemingly cruel, but hides no malice behind it. Even now, when he grins because he enjoys hearing Uri cussing someone out, it feels more mischievous than truly evil.

“Do you really?” Kenny asks, trying to rile Uri up, settling back more comfortably on the couch, legs spread apart and one arm carelessly thrown back, looking so handsomely disheveled Uri wants to jump from the balcony.

“Yes. They think they are better than everyone. Even people that are just like them. It annoys me terribly. It’s all too gauche, being a snotty intellectual.”

“It’s boring,” Kenny agrees. “Stereotypical. Rich people too preoccupied with their operas about poor, bohemian artists to turn around and see the actual starving masses fucking starving.”

“They are communists.”

Kenny snorts out a laugh at that.

“They are not.”

“They are. But they don’t mean it. They like the image of it, but they turn their noses up at anything popular. They step over the homeless men sleeping in Central Park. They call the cops for noise complaints.”

“Phonies,” Kenny snickers. Uri smiles at that, settling on the seat in front of him.

“They don’t like me either. They thought I’d be more interesting. But I’m not.”

“You the richest out of all of them?”

“Yes.”

“People know you…”

“Do they?”

Kenny pauses here, unsure. He’s still unaware of Uri’s family name. He does not know he’s richer than he could figure him out to be, despite having seen some of the luxury he possesses in this very apartment. He doesn’t know Uri is Reiss. That he is cursed.

“I heard them, whispering about you,” Kenny admits and Uri smiles even if there’s no joy behind it.

“When?”

“When we went out for dinner last week. I heard some waitresses whispering.”

“What did they say?”

“I don’t know. But I could tell it was about you,” Kenny says, now a bit more defiant, more certain that he is correct. “You famous?”

“I’m rich.”

“I know that.”

“I mean, I’m rich .”

“Ah,” Kenny says, smiling in a way that does not reach his eyes. “That’s it then. This is fun, isn’t it? Little rich boy playing with the convict.”

“We’re playing?”

“It’s a game to you.”

“I enjoy your company, Kenny. I’ve told you a million times before,” Uri assures him tiredly. “I like the way you think of things.”

“That it?”

“Yes.”

Kenny laughs, looking off to the side.

“Fuck off.”

“You don’t believe me...”

“You’re mocking me,” Kenny replies, his certainty making him sound just a bit hurt at such a notion. It ails Uri’s heart to hear even just the smallest of whimpers from him.

“I’m not.”

“You are,” Kenny insists, looking perceptively more angered even though he’s riling himself up. He stops, breathing out loudly before getting up, doing that thing he likes to do – walking around as if that could help control his emotions. As if emotions like the ones he feels could ever be tempered. “I didn’t even fucking finish high school,” he says, and his tone is considerably softer now.

“So?”

“So? I’m dumb as a fucking rock. I’m fucking uncultured.”

“I have a PhD and I still get lost a few blocks away from my apartment,” Uri counters and blissfully, that makes Kenny laugh. His authentic laugh, not the hyena laugh he throws out when he feels threatened, the scoffing and the cruel eyes. It’s the sort of laugh that makes him look his age, buoyant and lovely.

“You’re a fucking doctor of literature. That shit don’t count.”

“It’s in French Literature.”

“Fucking useless.”

“A bit, yes.”

“Say something in French,” Kenny asks and Uri smiles at him, getting up too.

“ Non .”

Kenny laughs again, pushing Uri away only to grab him and pull him back in.

“Asshole,” Kenny accuses him and Uri does coddle him a bit there. He recites Baudelaire to him, only because he knows Kenny won’t understand a word of it. Kenny just laughs, staring at Uri with his eyes squinting with fondness for him and Uri feels like the most vile of creatures.

“Speak in Yiddish,” Uri counters once he’s done with his poem and Kenny complies too. He always complies. It’s odd how he seems to be so eager to please Uri despite seeming so outwardly rebellious. A lone wolf that wishes to be a domesticated dog. It’s sad, but not as sad as Uri’s own brand of loneliness.

Kenny comes back the next day just to play some Marvin Gaye for Uri, brings over a vinyl Uri’s certain he’s either robbed or borrowed with no intention to return. He plays a song, forcing Uri to get up and try to find the rhythm in it.

Uri is humiliated by the exercise, he feels decrepit watching Kenny’s own swagger and the slow roll of his hip in beat with the song. Uri’s certain that if he attempted that he wouldn’t look as effortlessly appealing.

“You look constipated,” Kenny assures him and before Uri can even find the words to defend himself, he’s trapped by Kenny, who latches onto his shoulders and forces him to move one way or the other. “Why are your hips so still? You’re always swishing ’em around when you’re walking and now you keep ‘em all locked and shit…”

“I am geriatric,” Uri excuses himself, but Kenny doesn’t buy it, he turns Uri around and presses himself almost too closely to Uri, grabs him by the waist and forces him to rotate from one hip to the other. He has to bend down to grab Uri that low, his face is resting on Uri’s shoulder as they sway and Uri is doing everything in his power not to surrender right now. Simply go to his knees and request his forgiveness, for tainting such a precious thing he’s been given. To sully the name of their friendship because each night he dreams of Kenny and each night he dreams of Kenny’s mouth on him.

His dreams, which have usually been thrilling little affairs, have become a minefield of turbulent emotions and lawless desires. He’s grown fond of calling those dreams his past lives, of pretending like they were real (to an extent, he does believe them to be real). But the dreams of Kenny feel too close. Sometimes he forgets himself and he reaches out for him because he’s certain he’s allowed this much. He’s certain that if he’d ever touched Kenny it’d feel familiar, that the taste of Kenny’s mouth would be smokey and the taste of his skin salty and that his calloused fingers would feel rough and warm against Uri’s abdomen.

He has to pull away from Kenny before it’s too late. Kenny seems only vaguely befuddled by Uri’s coyness, ever vigilant of having disappointed him. But Uri laughs it all off, says he’s not built for all that.

“No girl has ever complained this much when dancing with me,” Kenny teases him and Uri swallows his words up just to be able to purge them later in his bed, examine each letter in that sentence, wonder of how many women Kenny has dance with, how many he’s taken to bed, how many he’s loved properly. Wonder if there’s any woman in his life right now, whether he goes to meet her after spending the day with Uri, smelling like Uri’s house, like the frankincense he’s brought from Morocco or the jasmine flowers he’ll start buying again when the weather gets warmer.

Maddeningly, he hopes Kenny always carries a bit of Uri with him.

 

*****************

 

They meet in bars and in diners, at the temple and at parks. They drink wine together, share cigarettes. Uri teaches Kenny how to play chess and Kenny teaches Uri how to unlock a door with a safety pin and a nail cutter.

Sometimes they try to speak only in Hebrew. They speak about God a lot, especially Kenny. About the concept of him. Kenny is always reverent, Uri decidedly less so, but both connected to it in their way.

One time, Uri accidentally paraphrases something Kenny told him once in a meeting with his posh acquaintances. They immediately notice the roughness of his speech, the fact he’s started cussing and mispronouncing words. The fact he’s become suddenly aware of Jim Morrison’s existence.

They question him, perhaps suspecting Uri’s gotten himself some blue-collar lover. They surely find that scandalous, they make crass jokes about construction workers and Uri tries very hard not to let his resentment for their careless ways bother him. The way they speak of other people has always annoyed him, but now every sly joke or half-cooked insult feels like a direct attack towards Kenny now.

He starts spending less time with his troop of pseudo-intellectuals because he cannot stand the innuendos coupled with the sneers towards Uri’s sudden predilection of the lower class. This only means he has more time to spare, which means he has more time for Kenny.

Which means Kenny becomes a fixture of his life very rapidly. So much so he sometimes forgets he isn’t there when he’s home alone. He calls out to him only to feel lonelier than ever when no one replies.

His poetry is either getting better or worse. He’s either at the prime of his career or on a downward descent. He is uncertain. Kenny likes everything he does, but he seems to like it even better now and Uri can’t tell if that’s a good sign or his appreciation for Uri has started to blind him.

He still hasn’t handed a single salvageable page to his editor. He’s asked to start all over, considering just giving up on literature entirely and following his father’s footstep like he was meant to do. But he knows no one wants him to do anything like that. They know him as incapable of running a company, much less an empire. It’s Rod’s turn in this life to be primed for the killing, and Uri is grateful for that at least. The single respite in his life: he’s too much of a disappointment to have people expect anything of him anymore.

Perhaps this is why he’s so drawn to Kenny. He’s the only person that seems to find Uri better than promised. His dad expected an heir and he got a black sheep. His friends expected extravagance and they got a meek mouse. His editor expected something passable enough (his name would do most of the work there, after all) and he’s given him blank pages.

Kenny has asked nothing out of him, has gotten even less than that and still he smiles his crooked grin whenever Uri says his name or laughs at one of his terrible jokes.

He doesn’t know how not to be in love with him. He wishes he did. He thinks he owes him that; the respect to avoid his noxious emotions, his abstract desires. He knows Kenny would not understand them, even though he can’t imagine him being entirely unkind towards them.

But sometimes he confuses Uri. Not always, but sometimes. When he reaches down to brush his fingers through Uri’s ash blond hair, when he stares into Uri’s eyes as if hypnotized by them, when Uri catches him looking while he’s writing something down.

Sometimes he feels as if Kenny’s gaze mimics Uri’s own wanting.

Sometimes, but not always, he catches Kenny smiling when he says his name out loud, turning his head to the side to say something like: “I looked it up. I know what your name means.”

And before Uri will be able to reply, he’ll bend down, his lips next to Uri’s ear, and he’ll whisper: “Uri. My light.”

 

*****************

 

“Reiss,” Kenny says the second he walks into Uri’s apartment, throwing his leather jacket on the table, settling snuggly on his favorite seat like he own the place (which has some truth to it, because Uri own the place and Kenny owns Uri even if he’s unaware of this fact).

He says it like an accusation or a tease, like he’s solved a riddle or like he’s framing Uri for a murder. He looks both angry and amused by the knowledge he possesses now and Uri understands this to be hurt. Kenny is hurt that Uri hasn’t been honest with him, but Uri argues he’s not been dishonest.

Kenny’s never asked for a last name, he’s never asked for heritage even though he’s obsessed with it all, even though he finds meaning in every little thing, even though he’s kept Uri’s ring and tied it with a piece of leather string to his neck as if it was his own heirloom.

Uri is struck with the revelation that they know very little of each other. As far as they are aware they’re both orphaned, their childhoods are non-existent, their fears and their secrets are impenetrable.

Uri is disquieted by the fact he’s managed to fall so deeply for a bond that is merely superficial, late night jokes and furtive glances and discussions of religion and poetry and society at large. Both are afraid to let the other know more than they do. To be vulnerable.

He thinks a bit that being loved is being perceived and he fears he might not be loving Kenny in the way he intends to.

“Reiss,” Uri repeats, laughing at the taste of his own name in his mouth, somehow foreign. “What about it?”

“Real Reiss or just some random Fritz?” Kenny asks, pointing a finger towards Uri accusingly. Uri is unsure of which reply would bother him more.

“Full-blooded Reiss. Heir of the Reiss family,” Uri admits, half-smiles at that. “I figure you’ve heard about us…”

“Fucking idiot,” Kenny mumbles, putting his feet up on the table with his leather boots still on despite the fact Uri’s asked him a million times before not to do so. He knows it pisses him off and he’s looking to piss him off. “Fucking Reiss…”

“We’re rather famous, yes.”

“Rich.”

“You knew about that.”

“Cursed,” Kenny adds then, nodding towards Uri cautiously. “Your family is cursed, isn’t it? Like the Kennedys. Like the Rockefellers. You’ve heard about that kid? The one that got eaten up by crocodiles in Indonesia?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of it,” Uri admits. “You’ve heard about my grandfather, and my great grandfather, and all the many ones before me.”

“All died young, yeah?”

“Tragically so.”

“Maybe they deserved it,” Kenny counters, smirking at Uri ferociously. “Fucked up family. Lots of blood in your hands.”

“I have a new poem,” Uri interrupts him, moving across the room into his bedroom, unsure if Kenny will stalk him there, take whatever he pleases from him now he knows of Uri’s true nature. He scrambles around in his discarded pile of poems until he finds the one he’s seeking. It’s crumpled up, but he doesn’t care. He hands it over to Kenny – throws it at him really, careless with it.

Kenny makes a face at him, clearly preferring to continue to argue with him. He does that sometimes, pushes Uri’s limits as if seeking for a fight, an excuse to disappear on him, probably. But he grabs the piece of paper instead and he reads.

He frowns almost immediately.

“You don’t like it?” Uri asks, taunts, watching Kenny carefully.

Kenny looks up at him as if he knew this was a trap of sorts. He probably does, he’s instinctual like that.

“It makes no fucking sense.”

“It’s different…”

“It’s violent and bloody. You don’t write like this,” Kenny replies, almost offended by it. “It’s very fucking graphic.”

“It’s honest. It’s meant to be a nightmare,” Uri counters. “I’ve dreamt of it.”

“You have no idea about real violence, rich boy.”

“I’ve dreamt of it.”

“That means nothing,” Kenny snarls at him, snaps his mouth shut like a crocodile trapping its prey in some Indonesian river, dragging it down with him to the cold, salty depths. “You dream . Dreams mean nothing. This is what matters. And you don’t know any of this this time around.”

Uri bites the tip of his snake tongue to prevent himself from pointing out Kenny’s slip. This time around . Whatever that might mean to him. It certainly means something to Uri.

“Then show me,” Uri replies instead. “We had a deal, you’re meant to be my inspiration. My character. Show me what violence looks like up-close.”

Kenny gets up, stalking around Uri, pausing when he’s behind him and Uri braces for impact.

But the hit never comes. Kenny places a hand on Uri’s shoulder to turn him around, inspect him from up close before smirking.

“Uri Reiss,” he says slowly, like he’s savoring the name in his mouth. He smiles. “I’ll teach you then,” he says, and before Uri can react, he jumps out the window, falling right onto the fire escape platform.

Uri hesitates, unsure if he’s meant to follow or take the elevator like any normal person would. But Kenny is not a normal person (and he isn’t either, he’s cursed after all), so he follows, trying not to appear scared.

Kenny can tell regardless. He closes the window behind Uri, going down the stairs first and grabbing Uri’s waist when he follows closely behind. They make it down at a snail pace and Uri’s certain Kenny would’ve made his way in a matter of seconds if he wasn’t helping Uri down, but he’s glad that he’s willing to wait for him. He likes when Kenny has the chance to be gentle to him and he takes it.

He gets dragged down to SoHo in a taxi (which he pays, of course), Kenny’s hand always gripping his wrist as they traverse through the piers, uncertain of where he’ll end up but somehow never doubting for a second he’s in the safest place to be: right next to Kenny Ackerman.

They end up underground, in some bar that looks more like an Alcatraz prison cell than an actual bar, the ambient so turbulent Uri expects for it all to blow up into smithereens any second now. He wants it, almost.

There’s a band playing in the corner, but they can’t seem to decide which song they’re doing, they sound discordant and messy and it all adds to the dreadful, little atmosphere. All the women there look forlorn. All the men there look like convicts. They look like Kenny or at least they share the brimming violence beneath the tension of their skin.

Uri thinks of Shakespeare, of Cassius, of the ‘ lean and hungry look ’ and the danger that lies within that hunger. He thinks he’s a bit hungry too.

“Lovely place,” Uri assesses sarcastically and Kenny grins at him, coming so close to him that the sandalwood and leather smell overpower everything in Uri’s senses.

“You’ll like it,” he promises, and then he’s gone, disappearing into a crowd of people attempting to dance to the strident sounds of the drunken musicians. Uri panics for a second, feeling so out of place. Kenny could tell he was rich just by the way he walked and he’s certain these people can tell too. That they smell the privilege on him.

He manages his way to the bar where he orders plain vodka. It’s cheap and it tastes like ethyl alcohol. It burns bad all the way down. Kenny is still amiss, so he orders another one.

He looks across the bar in search of him, but everyone’s eyes are downcast. Except for one man. One man wearing a blue suede suit; he stares at him and Uri can read that stare, even though he’s never responded to it before. There’s a mutual recognition hanging in the air between them. The man smiles, cocking his head to the side like an invitation. Uri averts his gaze. He has no interest in any of these. What he wants is what he cannot have. What he dreams of in the nights in which he allows himself the pleasure to dream.

He closes his eyes and he pictures Kenny standing above him, one thumb hooked to his bottom lip, opening Uri’s mouth like he knows he’s starving.

“Daydreamer,” Kenny calls him out, appearing next to him, smiling like a freshly fed coyote. “A friend of mine asked about you. She’s into short men.”

“I could be shorter,” Uri argues, because he used to be shorter. By an inch only, but still. An inch is a lot when you don’t have many of them. “What are you doing?”

“I’m waiting for it to build up before it releases,” Kenny replies sagely, smirks at Uri before ordering a whiskey and having Uri pay for him. “Until then you can roam around, rich boy. Immerse yourself into some depravity.”

“I’d rather stick by you.”

“Well that’s too bad. I’m busy,” Kenny admits, shrugging. Doing what, Uri would rather not know. He can already picture Kenny sitting with his legs sprawled, a pretty girl on his lap, his creature eyes all dilated pupils. “Some of these fuckers are friendly. Make a friend for a change,” he continues, bending down very close to Uri’s ear to share a secret with him. “Stay away from that man. You know what he wants from you?”

Uri feigns ignorance, he turns towards Kenny and shrugs.

“What man?”

Kenny’s stare on him is almost amused, he smiles like a benevolent God that’s caught his child misbehaving.

“You know you’re pretty. Lots of weirdos are roaming around here. Better protect your dignity and all that, yeah?”

Uri cannot reply. He’s been frozen by the suggestion that Kenny finds him pretty. Worse, that he thinks of Uri’s beauty as an obviousness, a part of the natural world as trees are. Uri is pretty and this is a fact. Kenny’s words are biblical, canonical.

“I’ll try,” Uri manages to choke out, but Kenny’s already gone, back to the dancing masses, to his girl, to the woman Uri’s made up to feel less insane.

He waits for him by the bar for what feels like hours before the offensiveness of the situation becomes clear to him. Kenny brings him down here, to the third circle of Dante’s inferno, only to ditch him for some woman. Call him pretty just to shake him off, keep him submissive to him while he uses Uri’s money to get drunk and pleased.

Uri feels idiotic, pathetic. He starts to make his way out of the bar like Orpheus, although he does not look back. The air outside is cold and fresh and it doesn’t smell of mildew, which is all very pleasing to Uri, but there’s a strangeness in the air that makes him pause.

He turns to find Kenny standing outside, shaking hands with some man, the exchange of objects obvious, barely even hidden. The man leaves rapidly and Kenny rolls his eyes at him, at the entire interaction which is practiced and fluid to him.

Uri considers asking him what has just transpired. It’s obvious to him, as sheltered as he might be, but he’s unsure whether Kenny’s ended up with the money by the end of the transaction. He’s too sharp, Uri reasons, to fall into something like this. Too certain, too focused on his survival.

“Can I borrow that?” Uri asks, startling Kenny but just a bit, which amuses Uri somewhat. Kenny’s barely ever startled, he’s too ready for it all to be startled. That’s how he keeps himself alive. “Your cigarette, I mean.”

“It’s dope,” Kenny admits and Uri stares at him, unimpressed.

“That’s great, Kenny.”

“Fuck off, it’s not like I’m doing coke or some shit.”

“No, you’re just selling it,” Uri replies and he smiles when Kenny turns to stare at him. “Is it good money?”

“Good enough,” Kenny acknowledges. “Helps to keep the apartment warm. Make sure my sister gets fed.”

“It kills people too,” Uri says, brushing over the fact Kenny’s just given to him, the existence of a sister.

“You’d know about that sort of business, right Reiss?”

Uri huffs. He wants to counter that he is not his family. That he simply benefits from their crimes, their terribleness. That he’s always been like this, even back then. Excusing the bloodshed their family caused with his guiltiness, as if his conscience could ever be enough to wash it all away.

“Besides,” Kenny continues. “I only sell it to rich fucks like you. I make sure the world’s better off if someone gets killed.”

“I thought you were with a woman,” Uri says, and he’s unsure as to why he says that. Perhaps because this is what’s bothering him the most, Kenny’s secretiveness. His viciousness when caught within a lie.

Kenny’s face does something strange, mutates into disbelief, as if insulted by Uri’s suggestion before laughing.

“You think I ditched you for a woman, Reiss? You’re prettier than any girl in there.”

Uri has nothing to say to that. He reaches out to snatch the joint from him, taking a drag and doing his best not to choke on it. His eyes water, but he doesn’t cough on the rancid taste and he figures that’s decent enough.

“It’s horrid,” he admits, and Kenny laughs at that, the tension between them suddenly disperses, both clearly ignoring the fact they resent each other a bit at times.

“It’s bad shit. Your precious Reiss’ lungs aren’t built for all that,” Kenny says, but then he bends down to snatch the joint back and place it on Uri’s lips himself. “Swallow down the smoke,” he instructs and Uri does as told, the heat from the flame and Kenny’s fingers burning his mouth. “Now exhale, pretty boy.”

“I’m older than you, you brat.”

“You’re still pretty though, aren’t you?”

Uri doesn’t reply. He shares the joint with Kenny until they’re both mellow and giggly. Kenny looks down at Uri with such softness that Uri wishes he could blind him. He does not know how to deal with this love he’s offering, it’s too close to what he wants from him and too far to be anything like what he needs.

He wants to kiss him. He hasn’t kissed in ages, in a decade or so, and this fact feels pathetic to him. He wonders if Kenny would scoff at him if he knew he was a virgin, but he immediately has the certainty that he would not. Kenny has never scoffed at him for his truths when he’s given them himself freely. He appreciates them too much.

Still, would a kiss be too much to ask for right now?

Kenny hums and Uri wonders whether he can hear him, hear his thoughts churning and running wildly through his brain like horses escaping a wildfire.

“I don’t mind that you’re cursed,” Kenny says suddenly, touching the side of Uri’s face gingerly before withdrawing. “I’m cursed too, you know? All Ackermans are. We’re just not as famous as your bunch. Not half as rich. But cursed nonetheless.”

“That’s too bad.”

“S’not all that bad. It’s nice knowing someone else that’s cursed, actually.”

“Yeah? Lots of tragic deaths and all that?”

Kenny laughs, shivering slightly in the cold air. Uri is reminded that he’s human for just a moment.

“Worse. Lots of tragic romances,” he says and before he can even start expanding on that (if he ever planned to give Uri anything more than crumbs) they hear the sound of a glass hitting a wall, the ruckus of conflict.

“It’s time,” Kenny says, excited at the prospect of chaos. He grabs Uri like he’s keen on doing and he drags him back into the underworld.

There’s a fight taking place between a bunch of men, a woman sometimes approaching to dump a glass of water or hit them with her bag as if attempting to separate mating dogs. Kenny looks around, asking for details about the altercation while Uri silently watches punches erring, kicks hitting their target, a tooth or two flying away, bloody.

“I need a favor,” Kenny tells Uri and Uri drags his eyes off from the scene back to Kenny, the only thing that could possibly captivate his attention more than this glorious mess.

“You need help?”

“No, I mean, like a maiden’s favor. You know when knight’s went off to joust and some pretty princess would give them a handkerchief or some shit?”

Uri pauses, uncertain.

“You already have my ring.”

“Give me something else.”

“I have nothing left to give you,” Uri admits, and it’s true. He’s given him everything, every single thing that is his, including himself. Kenny stares silently, his eyes moving furtively across Uri’s face.

“Then I’ll take it myself,” he says, and he bends down to press a quick kiss to Uri’s lip, more of a phantom than anything corporeal, the tingling sensation after it lasting longer than the pressure of his mouth or the scratchiness of his facial hair.

Then he sinks into the fight, disappears into the crowd of drunken men and reappears with one of them on the floor, turns around just in time to avoid getting slammed and punches back in retribution. Uri watches him, half enthralled, half terrified, but there’s no reason to be scared for Kenny. He’s big and strong and too fast to be so big and strong, he packs power in every gram of his body but he manages to be fluid, quicksilver. Every man that attempts to get him collapses on the floor in a matter of seconds.

People hoot and holler as if entertained, a modern day coliseum spectacle. Kenny manages to dissipate the fight until only half of the men are left standing, looking stunned and sweaty. Kenny spits out blood, looks around to make sure no one will risk coming for him before turning towards the woman, exchanging a few words and finally helping one of the men off the floor.

He’s the worst off of all of them, battered and bruised and bloody, barely able to stand on his own. The woman presses him close to her, uses Kenny’s support to guide him towards a table while the crowd grows bored and goes back to their incessant dancing, stepping over the rest of the fallen men.

Uri is too in shock to process any of it, his hand is limply touching his bottom lip as if attempting to extract the wonderful nectar of Kenny’s touch, the buzzing feeling of bees batting the wings in unison. He wants to scream out his name, have him turn back to face him. He wants to be kissed again (he’s greedy), he wants Kenny to be more thorough this time, leave him panting and open and slick.

He doesn’t get any of that.

Kenny comes back to him like a hound done with the hunt, holding prey in his mouth victoriously. He acts like the kiss never happened at all.

“You see that?” he asks, expecting praise, but Uri is too lost to reply. “Assholes were going off on that poor sod just cause he tried to defend that girl over there. They were getting too touchy with her and all that,” Kenny explains, as if afraid Uri would deem him too violent if he hadn’t had an excuse to display all that strength in him. All that horrible, horrible beauty.

“Do you do this often?” Uri asks instead and Kenny knits his eyebrows together, seemingly concerned by Uri’s reaction. He wanted to impress you , Uri realizes. He’s playing the part just to please you . He clears his throat, uncertain. Kenny’s body posture is making him look smaller than he is, as if deflated. He reaches out to touch his chest gingerly. “That was… You’re a fucking beast, Kenny.”

Kenny’s demeanor changes, he puffs up his chest like a proud pigeon, smiles with his crooked teeth all pretty.

“Look at you cussing, Reiss,” he says, snickering a bit. “Might be a bad influence on you after all.”

“One can only hope,” Uri submits and he regales in the noise of Kenny’s manic laughter, the sound of his violence.

 

*****************

 

He’s bleeding on the carpet and all Uri can think is that’s an expensive carpet, you moron .

You truant, you vandal, you vagrant, you thug, you animal, you killer, you. With the face bloody and the eye so bruised it’s nothing but a thin slit, purple blooming across his sharp cheekbones.

“Sit down,” Uri commands him, and Kenny hesitates for just a second before doing as instructed, looking annoyed and displeased. Almost haughty in the posture.

Uri’s sure he’d roll his eyes at him if he could, but he can’t because it’s swollen shut.

He goes to fetch gauzes and disinfectant, cotton and tape. He gets to work meticulously, using tweezers to remove pieces of glass from the cut on his eyebrow. Kenny doesn’t hiss in pain, he doesn’t cringe or twist around. He’s quiet and taciturn, checked out entirely. He smells of weed and alcohol and he looks terrible, with dark circles under his eyes and his facial hair unkempt.

He disappeared for weeks and then he came back to Uri like this. All broken up.

Uri isn’t even sure why he left. He isn’t even sure that he left at all, just stopped frequenting any spot he could potentially meet Uri in. Avoided him.

But now when he’s wounded, now he comes searching for him, to have Uri kiss his bruises all better. Or not kiss them, no, that would frighten him, wouldn’t it? Even though he’s the one that pressed his lips to Uri that one night, even though Uri has contained all his desire for him cautiously inside him, has never faltered in allowing Kenny to see the affection he has for him.

Kenny kissed Uri and then he acted like nothing happened, laughing all the way back to Uri’s place like their brotherly bond was unbreakable – but the next day he was gone.

Uri digs the tweezers deeper into Kenny’s face and now he gets a reaction, his face twists and he inches away from Uri.

“Careful,” Kenny practically hisses at him and Uri laughs.

“Man up.”

“Look who’s fucking talking…”

Uri pauses, glaring at Kenny with as much rage as he can manage (which isn’t much at all, but still, he’s not aiming for intimidating here).

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Kenny looks away, mumbling something in Yiddish even though Uri’s catching onto him. He’s learned some of the words himself by now. He knows enough Hebrew and German to figure out the rest.

“Do you want my help or not?” Uri insists and Kenny scoffs at that, as if he had any place to be acting so demanding.

“I didn’t come for you to coddle me and shit. I just came by to say ‘hi’, that’s all…”

“You disappeared.”

“I was busy…”

“You disappeared .”

Kenny laughs heartily at that, a cruel thing that makes Uri’s heart all twisted with its spite. It’s poisonous, it makes Uri’s resolve wobble when faced with his own patheticness.

“I’m sorry, love, I didn't know you were so eagerly waiting for me back home,” Kenny teases, knowing exactly where to hit Uri to hurt him the worst because he’s a fighter. Kenny is a killer – in this life, in all his lives. “Is my little wife discontent? Is she gonna fuck the milkman to get back at me?”

“Stop that,” Uri chastises him, but it sounds too much like a plea. He moves away from Kenny, feeling hurt and dejected. He wants to bring up the kiss very badly, confront him with it, but he knows Kenny does not cower. No, he fights. He’d fight his way out of that one, somehow. Make Uri feel foolish for assuming a kiss could be anything more than that – chaste affection from a friend, misunderstood.

“I was busy ,” Kenny insists and Uri shakes his head, smiling so bitterly he feels like he’s tasting medicine on the tip of his tongue.

“Busy getting broken up like that.”

“Busy doing my fucking job . We can’t all just dally around our expensive apartments daddy’s got us and play pretend at being poets like you’d published a single fucking thing.”

Uri turns to stare at Kenny. He realizes he’s very tired. His father has gotten sicker lately and he knows he’ll be gone any moment now. That’s how it usually goes for them. He’ll be an orphan soon enough. He’ll have to attend his funeral and be photographed standing next to Rod, unable to shed a tear lest they look unmasculine, unable to smile lest people figure he hated his father. He can only look at the cameras like he’s looking at Kenny now. Vaguely saddened, but too tired to feel anything much at all.

“You should go home, Kenny,” Uri suggests and Kenny looks regretful then, which is strange to see. Kenny doesn’t really do regret or apologies, he’s a bulldozer tearing down anything in its way. If he ever turns back it’s to confirm he’s done a proper job of breaking it all.

“You know what I mean, Uri,” Kenny argues, but Uri waves him off, going back to his bathroom. He locks himself in there and he almost cries. Almost. The only thing that stops him is knowing Kenny will hear him, the sad little whimpers he knows himself capable of. He looks in the mirror instead, puts his hand under a constant stream of cold water until he feels less overwhelmed.

When he comes back out, Kenny is still there, blinking with his one eye, staring down at a piece of paper. There’s a lot of papers in front of him, a lot of Uri’s poems dispersed on the coffee table precariously, but Kenny is holding onto one in particular as if he couldn’t interpret it. As if it was some foreign language.

“This is about me,” he says dryly, suddenly seemingly sober, and he takes a moment to turn his head to gauge Uri’s reaction.

Uri remains unmovable.

“I don’t know which one you’re reading…”

“I think you do,” Kenny counters, his hand twitching as if he wanted to tear the paper in two. “I think you know exactly what I’m reading, Uri.”

“How could you possibly know…”

“ It’d ruin me to love someone ,” Kenny repeats, his one open eye on Uri. “I said that to you. And this about the dreams. And the way you describe… Are you in love with me?”

Uri doesn’t reply, and perhaps that’s enough of a reply. It dooms him, his hesitation. Kenny looks immediately dispossessed and errant, jumping up and walking around the apartment like a jaguar seeking shelter from the rain.

“Are you? Are you in love with me, Uri? Is that why you write little love poems about me? You a queer, s’that it?”

“You know what I am, Kenny,” Uri submits, too much of a coward to deny it or name it properly.

“Well, that’s just lovely, Uri. No wonder you were spending all these days in vigil, waiting for me to climb up your window and… what? You want me to fuck you, is that it?” Kenny spits out at him, so seemingly high on his own anger he doesn’t notice the fact he’s started to bleed again. “You do, don’t you? That’s why you chased me down in the first place. You thought I’d submit to you, is that it? Did enough favors for me that I’d give back to you, suck your prick and all that like you’re…”

“You kissed me,” Uri says – finally – and everything seems to stand still for a second. Kenny’s one eye opens wide as an owl’s, his mouth shut close.

“No I didn’t,” he murmurs, turning his back towards Uri.

Uri laughs, but his throat is getting dry from all the laughing he’s doing. It’s too forced, it hurts him to do it at all.

“Yes, you did. At the bar. You asked for my favor and you kissed me, Kenny. You did that.”

“I didn’t mean to…”

“To kiss me? But you did,” Uri says, emboldened by Kenny’s reticence, the sudden change in his demeanor. “Maybe you already knew I wanted you to. Maybe you always knew and you just spent time with me because you knew you could take advantage of me. Because I’m the pathetic, rich, little fop that lusts after you, ignoring the futility of it.”

Kenny blinks, unsure. He turns to the side as if looking for an argument, anything that will give him an upper hand here. He tsks, laughs a bit but grows immediately stern after that.

“You wouldn’t fucking get it…” he says, shaking his head, driving Uri mad.

“Get what ?”

Kenny doesn’t reply. He walks towards Uri’s window, opening it like an afterthought and climbs down his fire escape, scurrying off into the dark.

Uri stands there, watching as his figure disappears down the streets, his hands covered in his blood.

 

*****************

 

The next time he sees Kenny is after he visits his editor, hands him pieces of paper in no particular order, splatters of blood on the margins. He fingers through them, unsure.

“Just read them,” Uri urges him. “It’s the best I’ve come up with, It’s as good as it gets with me,” he promises. All poems he’s written after meeting Kenny. All poems about him, in a way.

He comes home tired. Summer is hinting its arrival, but the weather is still mostly wet. Uri finds himself missing him every time he sees a new flower bloom or a tree grow fragile, yellow-green leaves. He feels romantic, which is terrible for a man with no romance in his life. If it was up to him, he’d chase Kenny around the city until he found him, drag him back to his apartment and just sit him there, perhaps nude, write madly until his hands cramped or his pen gave out.

But he has no such choice. Kenny is a feral animal. One cannot domesticate a man like him, especially not when he doesn’t wish to be domesticated.

He feels bad about it, deep inside. He knows he shouldn’t have allowed himself to fall for him, that it’s unfair on Kenny to have to bear his twisted affection for him. No common man would ever be half as kind as Kenny was to finding out about it.

But Kenny is not a common man. And he did kiss him, didn't he? He didn’t make that up while high on Kenny’s drugs and his smile. He felt it, it seared him.

When he arrives at his apartment it’s dark, but the streetlights illuminate just enough so that he sees the shadow and he pauses. The silhouette is perfectly cut-out against a brick-wall. He tells himself he’s daydreaming again, wishful thinking at best.

Still, his heart beats madly as he climbs into the elevator, each passing floor accelerating its pace. He pauses again at the threshold, taking a deep breath before going to his window.

There’s no one there. For some reason, Uri doesn’t expect to see him. Not until he invites him in, as if he was dealing with some vampire. Which makes sense, doesn’t it? Kenny has sucked everything vital out of him, bit into him with his snaggleteeth and left him bleeding on the expensive mahogany floor.

He opens the window and he waits. But not for long. Kenny appears there, looking slightly unhinged. Uri wonders if he’s come to kill him. He doesn’t find himself being afraid of the concept.

“How much?” he asks, his voice practically a hum, a growl, all animalistic.

“What?”

“You want me, yeah? How much for that?”

Uri blanches.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m just asking how much you are willing to pay to let you suck my prick, Reiss,” Kenny tells him, smirking a bit like he finds all this very funny. It’s a prank, a jest, but it’s also a real offer.

“You’re drunk,” Uri accuses him and Kenny scoffs at him.

“I need to be.”

Uri steps away from the window, but Kenny doesn’t follow. He stays on the ledge, his dark eyes centered on Uri’s figure.

“I don’t… I don’t know…”

“You’ve never done this before?”

“Of course not.”

Kenny laughs at the way Uri’s offended by his suggestion, his head thrown to the side. He shakes his head, almost slipping from the ledge but catching himself just in time.

“Don’t act so sanctimonious. You rich fucks love taking advantage of the desperate. It turns you on, don’t it?”

Uri extends his hand, trying to get Kenny inside. He interprets this wrong, he grabs onto Uri and pulls him towards him, holding him closely by the waist. He looks down at Uri with slightly glazed eyes, one hand touching Uri’s cheek gingerly.

Uri untangles himself, using some strength he did not know he possessed. He feels marred, he’s sure he’d taint Kenny if he was close enough.

“I don’t want this, Kenny,” he says forcefully and Kenny looks distraught. Confused, but only for a second.

“Yes you do. I know you do,” he assures him.

“Not like this.”

“It’s the only way to do it.”

“I don’t care for it.”

Kenny hangs his head. He bites his bottom lip nervously, hard enough to make it bleed, but he doesn’t seem to notice this.

He looks so desolate for a moment that Uri wants to reach for him again, keep him warm and safe inside his apartment. He knows Kenny would hate him for it, for the imprisonment and the kindness both, but he doesn’t care anymore. He just wants to take care of him.

“Can you just… fucking say any number?” he murmurs, unable to meet Uri’s stare. “Any number, Uri. I need a reason… I can’t just do it without a reason.”

Uri pauses. Kenny is shivering really badly now, looks a bit like a wet fledgling kicked out of his nest. It takes him a moment (too long) but he gets it now. He understands Kenny’s presence, his desperate request. He needs plausible deniability. He cannot desire Uri on his own terms, he needs it to be a task to accomplish. Affection makes no sense to him, but money does. Power does.

He cannot comprehend doing this just because he loves Uri, because love to him is the most terrifying concept there is.

“Five,” Uri says, regrets it immediately but at least he gets Kenny to look up at him again.

“Hundred?”

“Thousand.”

“Seriously? For one night?”

“Yes,” Uri assures him, finally getting Kenny off the ledge. “You’re worth it.”

Kenny half-smiles, coming inside the apartment, still shivering but Uri is quick to hold him in his arms to warm him up. Kenny accepts this for a second, closing his eyes, but then he pushes Uri away, walking around with his hands in his pocket as if he had no control over them.

“That’s a lot of money, Uri…” he says, and Uri feels bad for thinking it’s not all that much by the end of the day.

“It is.”

“I can’t say no to that money…”

“You can,” Uri assures him, but he’s not playing along right. Kenny pauses, turning towards him and shaking his head.

“No, Uri. I can’t.”

Uri nods slowly, trying to even his breath. Kenny looks bestial like this, pacing around, a raven creature with its wings cut off, an apex predator without teeth. He’s so handsome it makes Uri dizzy to stare at him for too long, his fallen angel with a grudge against the world. He has every reason to be angry, to be befuddled, melancholic. No life has been good to him, and Uri just wants to be good to him.

At that moment, he’s finally certain that this Kenny is his past Kenny. All his Kennys, each and every single one of them reflected ad infinitum , mirrors stuck together all slightly disfigured depending on how light hits them, but always returning the same image: dark silver eyes and a crooked smirk.

“Okay,” Uri agrees. “You can’t. You have to accept me.”

Kenny lets out a loud sigh. He seems to crumble for a second, rebuilding himself before he hits the floor.

“Tell me what you want from me,” he begs. Uri swallows, but his throat is too parched. It hurts.

“Take your clothes off.”

Kenny blinks. He looks away, uncharacteristically coy, before doing as Uri’s requested. He discards each piece of cloth at a glacial pace, first his hat, then his coat, then he bends down to get his boots. He hesitates at his belt, looking up at Uri again.

Uri doesn’t reply. He doesn’t know how to reply. He has no words left, he’s said everything he could’ve said and it’s not enough. Kenny is beautiful and Uri has no words to describe this, whatever it is.

He stands there, looking at him and Kenny swallows.

He undoes his pants, takes off his underwear. Somehow he seems to gain confidence once he’s fully nude, the necklace with Uri’s ring the only thing he’s left wearing.

“You just gonna stare?” he asks, trying to play up the bravado, but Uri knows him too well by now.

“I’ve never done this before,” Uri admits. He hasn’t moved a muscle since Kenny came in through the window. He’s forgotten how he’s meant to move. He lets his eyes roam, but he avoids staring at his pubic area, as if it was some limit he should not pass.

“You’ve said that.”

“I mean… I’ve never done this before.”

“You never been with a man?” Kenny asks, as if he was suddenly an expert on the subject, but he squints his eyes when Uri still doesn’t reply. “You’ve never been with anyone,” he says, and it’s not a question but Uri still replies.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It just never happened.”

“I doubt that,” Kenny says, finally moving towards Uri. “I doubt no one ever tried it with you.”

“Maybe I was waiting for you,” Uri murmurs and he knows it’s not the correct thing to say but he can’t help it. He’s dreamt of him. So many times he’s dreamt of him that he still feels a bit like he’s dreaming.

Kenny grabs him, presses one of Uri’s hands to his chest, an invitation to explore him but Uri doesn’t move an inch. He feels the tense muscles beneath the palm of his hand, but he doesn’t press against them to test the tautness, he doesn’t brush his fingers through the hair on his chest, he doesn’t even breathe.

Kenny huffs, seemingly impatient. He lifts Uri’s face up, pressing two fingers beneath his chin. The same spot where his knife cut him all those months ago. He stares down at it, examining Uri’s expression before bending down to kiss him. Uri barely reacts. He stands on the tip of his toes to reach him halfway there, he accepts the press of Kenny’s lips but it’s all chaste.

Uri’s heart is pure brontide, he feels himself tremble even though he feels hot, almost feverish. He recognizes the shape of Kenny’s mouth immediately, the chapped bottom lip. He lets the tip of the tongue touch his hesitantly and Kenny presses forward, encouraged.

But it all feels a bit distorted, like Uri’s moving through a mirror world. Gazing at the wrong reflection.

Kenny pushes Uri backwards until his back hits a counter, trapping him there. One of his hand snakes beneath Uri’s shirt, so certain that Uri doesn’t question it until it goes down, presses to the front of Uri’s pants.

Uri moves his face away, breathing like a drowning man. He grips Kenny’s wrist so hard he knows he’s hurting him but he doesn’t care.

“I can’t,” Uri mumbles, clearing his throat. “Kenny, I can’t…”

“I’ll go slow,” he explains, murmuring against Uri’s neck but Uri shakes his head as if possessed.

“That’s not… I can’t do it like this.”

“We’ll turn off the lights.”

“I’m not paying you to fuck me, God,” Uri replies, pushing Kenny off him. He wipes the saliva off his mouth as some unthought gesture, but he knows how Kenny interprets it. He steps away, flinching slightly. Looking like a battered dog. His eyes are the color of sleet on the street, so sad that Uri can’t even bear to look at him. “If you want the money you can have it, but I’m not…”

“I don’t want your fucking money ,” Kenny spits out, the venom in his words bitter enough for Uri to taste it in his mouth. “I don’t want anything from you…”

“Then why are you here?” Uri asks, suddenly angered, trying to maintain an ounce of dignity when he’s as flustered as he is, when his eyes burn because he has to keep them away from Kenny’s body. “I’m not the one that keeps showing up at your doorstep, am I? You’re the hunter, Kenny. Don’t kid yourself.”

Kenny’s stare, so soft mere moments ago, has gone cold and dead like a shark’s, little black sesame seeds of unadulterated hatred. He tsks, laughs like any of this is funny but he knows he has nothing to say. Uri’s broken the spell, he’s turned the lights on and they’ve found themselves to be pathetic and terrible when fully naked.

Kenny rushes to pick his clothes back up, grumbling in Yiddish, trying very hard to appear unbothered by all this but it’s impossible to maintain any gravitas when you’re struggling to put your pants on as quickly as possible. At least Uri is kind enough to look away, spare him in a way.

He expects (he hopes) that Kenny will be done with that and be gone but when he looks back up, he sees him standing by the window, unsure. He doesn’t just run away or lash out, he doesn’t insult Uri or steal something on his way out. He pauses, looking at Uri, expectantly waiting for Uri to re-acknowledge him, as if he could not exist unless his eyes were on him. His existence depends on Uri’s attention.

“If you were so concerned when I disappeared,” Kenny says, his voice just a bit hoarse, “why did you never come looking for me?”

Uri opens his mouth, but Kenny jumps out the window before he gets a chance to respond. He’s glad though. He has no idea how to respond. He rushes to his balcony, expecting to see his shape walking down the street, but Kenny is nowhere to be found.

 

*****************

 

The way Uri sees it, he’s been given a quest. It’s what he wanted, isn’t it? An adventure. Something to get him out of the house.

Perhaps if he wasn’t so afraid of failing he’d have fun, even. But the concept of never seeing Kenny again petrifies him. Of having to wait on some other life so he can cross paths with him again.

He’s a hard man to find, after all. He’s made himself that way, building his armor carefully so as to prevent anything from getting to him. But there’s chinks in it. He’s left enough crumbs for Uri to tread a path towards him.

He knows of the places he frequents, he knows where he spends some nights (the dirty motels, an acquaintance’s couch, a bar where he works part-time as security if they take pity on him, Uri’s apartment). He can’t find him in any of those places, but he gets fed more information about him, clues and riddles for him to solve. He knows of his sister (vaguely), of the streets where he spent most of his adolescence.

He knows not to go looking for him during the day. Kenny does not exist during the day, he exists in the liminal space between dusk and dawn, in the midnight sky and the empty alleyways.

It takes him a while, but he catches him one day – he sees Kenny walking down a street, fresh bruises on his face and one arm around a grocery paper bag. He looks tired, smoking a cigarette half-heartedly as if he was only doing so out of force of habit rather than for pleasure.

Uri isn’t subtle. He’s no Kenny, he is a terrible hunter, too accustomed to his role as perfect prey. But he tries, he chases him down the street, always staying one block away from him, hiding behind walls and trash bins any time he thinks he might turn around.

He feels pathetic, he does not understand how Kenny manages to do this without looking as clownish as Uri probably does. He’s an elegant shadow, treading through space like a sharp blade. Uri is clumsy and frail and he scrapes one of his knees hard enough to have it bleed.

Kenny pauses at the entrance of a dilapidated building. Only then does Uri realize he has not been careening through the nicest of streets, his mind too focused on his daydreams and fantasies to recognize he might not be making the best of choices.

“You’re really fucking bad at this,” Kenny calls out into the void, somehow staring right at Uri’s soul. Uri considers revealing himself now, sparing himself the humiliation, but he doesn’t. He’s supposed to be hunting him down. A hunter does not submit to its prey. “It’s 7C,” Kenny adds, but Uri does not reply.

He hears Kenny laugh and he waits for him to enter the building before following behind. He makes his way to the fire escape, spends at least ten minutes attempting to climb up, cursing at himself for not practicing any sports. He almost falls off the rail and he prays this is not the way he ends. It’d be too embarrassing to be found as a splatter in an alleyway, his romantic gesture having the most tragic and pathetic of ends.

He makes it to the seventh floor. The window is unlocked and it leads him to a hallway. The carpet smells damp and there’s spots in it that look vaguely like blood, but Uri pretends he does not see them. The one light illuminating the hallway flickers, makes the shadows play and shapeshift in odd ways.

When Uri makes it to 7C he hesitates. Only when he’s at the end of his journey, he hesitates. He lifts his hand to knock on the door, uncertain. But the door opens before he has a chance to make his hand into a fist and he’s there, standing resolute. He looks less like he’s been caught and more like he’s the one doing the catching.

“Took you a while,” he says casually, his hip resting against the doorframe. Uri snorts out an inelegant little laugh at that.

“I am not an efficient bloodhound.”

Kenny hums, nodding to the side before going back inside his apartment. He leaves the door open for Uri.

Uri walks in, closing the door behind him, ignoring all the clothes on the floor. The mattress tossed carelessly against a wall. It’s cold in the room. Colder than it is outside.

Kenny waits for him in the center of it, staring at Uri expectantly. Uri breathes in and exhales before approaching, trying to keep his hands from shaking. The closer he comes to Kenny, the harder it is to stop the tremors.

He closes his hands into fists before launching forward. Kenny expects to be hit. Uri knows this by his expression, the anticipatory smirk, the angles of his body relaxed and ready.

But at the last moment Uri opens his hands to grab Kenny’s face, pulling him down to kiss him. He holds onto his face tightly before hooking his arms around his neck, opening his mouth to kiss him more thoroughly.

For a second, Kenny forgets himself. He opens his mouth too, accepting Uri. He grips onto him, desperate. Ravenous.

But Kenny’s unrestrained for a moment only. He comes to his senses, pushing Uri away rather gently, covering his mouth as if afraid Uri might kiss him again. He’s breathing hard as if he’d fought the toughest of battles, his eyes avoiding Uri’s own.

“Kenny,” Uri says, trying to catch his attention. “Please… Can’t you look at me at least?”

“I don’t know how…”

“Why not?” Uri insists, feeling a bit desperate now, clutching the sleeve of Kenny’s shirt.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Kenny mumbles, taking a step back but Uri walks with him, as if they were dancing a tango.

“I’m not some maiden princess waiting for the rogue to enter through the tower’s window whenever he pleases,” Uri replies, emboldened by Kenny’s own shyness. “You don’t get to decide when you want to pop back in and then disappear on me,” he says, even if he knows he’s being possessive. He cannot comprehend how he’s not meant to be possessive.

“You came looking for me…” Kenny says, finally meeting Uri’s stare. Uri smiles.

“No, Kenny. I’m hunting you down.”

“How scary…” Kenny replies sarcastically, shaking his head. Uri grabs it, forcing him to face him again. Kenny looks only mildly surprised by this. He’s not entirely aware of it, but Uri can tell he’s surrendered already. He feels it too, his entire body is weightless for a second. It’s dizzying. He can understand why Kenny would be so afraid of this sensation. It’s all-consuming. It blazes through him and brands him internally, for forever. For longer than forever. What’s more than an infinite? Uri finds himself wishing he’d paid attention in mathematics just to answer that question.

“Are you not an Ackerman?” he asks Kenny gently and Kenny’s brow remains furrowed, but his eyes soften.

“What does that have to do..?”

“You know what I’m speaking of. I know you recognized me, even if you couldn’t comprehend that recognition,” Uri urges him, knowing he sounds insane. Incapable of not being anything but a madman when it comes to Kenny. “Do you dream too?”

“Barely…”

“You dream enough.”

“I dream of you,” Kenny admits. Uri smiles at that, petting the side of Kenny’s face carefully. He pictures him pulling away, but he doesn’t. He curls into the touch, closing his eyes to accept it.

“Yes.”

“You want me to submit to you, is that it?” Kenny asks.

“No. But all knights bend their knees for the kings, do they not?”

“I’m no knight.”

“And I’m no king, and still…” Uri shrugs. Kenny is still hesitant, his body taut as if it might break any second now. Uri takes pity on him in this state. He can’t help but want to fix him even when he’s more broken than Kenny is. “You took care of me,” he says kindly, tracing the shape of Kenny’s cheekbone softly.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t…” Kenny tries, but he fumbles his words. “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand my dreams.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No. I’m afraid of myself.”

Uri takes a deep breath. There’s no place to settle in this small room. No sofa and no chairs, just the mattress on the floor looking desolate. Uri pulls Kenny towards it, sits him down there with barely any strength needed – because Kenny allows him this. He is only ever feeble under Uri’s touch.

“If you request it, I’ll never see you again. I’ll leave forever,” Uri explains, kneeling in front of Kenny’s crumpled figure. “I won’t bother you ever again. It’s your choice. It’s always been your choice.”

“I’ll see you everywhere,” Kenny counters. “You’re a Reiss.”

“I promise I’ll try my hardest to disappear. But you need to ask for it. Not run off like a child. I am not a monster, Kenny.”

“You were once.”

Uri swallows, closing his eyes to picture himself like that. Like the monster he was.

“Yes,” he submits, feeling Kenny’s feather-light touch on the side of his neck.

“I wasn’t afraid of you back then either,” he says, tsking before grinning. Looking very glad about his surrender. “I can’t ask you to leave.”

“Why not?”

“You know why. It’s already been done. I have no control over these things.”

Uri smiles empathetically, letting Kenny pull him onto his lap as if they’d done this a thousand times before (they’ve done this a thousand times before).

“No one does,” he says but Kenny shakes his head.

“You know it’s worse for my people. Even in this life.” He pauses then, uncertain. “ Two lives, Uri?”

“More,” he says, and he’s certain of it even if he has no reason to be.

“Am I in all of them?”

“They wouldn’t be worth living otherwise.”

Kenny laughs, looking away from Uri. He grabs one of Uri’s hands, placing a kiss to the back of it.

“How can you say that with a straight face?” he asks softly. Uri brushes Kenny’s hair back, the scent of his pomade intoxicating.

“I want to take care of you,” he says and Kenny laughs again.

“That’s not how this works. We’re the ones meant to care for you lot.”

“I think it’s mutual,” Uri admits. “Don’t you think it’s mutual?”

“Maybe,” Kenny agrees, unsure. He wraps his arms around Uri’s waist, pulling him closer. “I don’t understand any of that past lives mess, you know? I don’t care for it one bit.”

“You don’t need to care for it. You just need to care for this.”

Kenny looks at Uri, his eyes roaming every inch of his body and his face. He kisses Uri so softly it feels like a whisper. But then he kisses him harder. He lets his tongue slither into Uri’s mouth to taste him properly, make a dinner out of him.

Uri is awkward about it. He has no practice, he’s an amateur at love or passion but he tries to recollect his past selves, the way they’ve kissed Kenny. He finds his footing, he thinks, but Kenny moves his mouth towards Uri’s neck, his facial hair tickling the area before biting down.

Uri exhales, all of his body pulsating. He was foolish for thinking his dreams would prepare him for this. He didn’t anticipate how dulled down this experience was beneath the oneiric gauze.

“You’ll keep me hidden,” Kenny murmurs against Uri’s sensitive neck. “Don’t argue with me, even if I wasn’t a man you wouldn’t be seen around with someone of my ilk.”

“No. I have my duties too.”

Kenny hums in understanding.

“Your father’s dead,” he says and Uri hides himself in the crook of Kenny’s neck.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. We were expecting it,” he tells him, as if that could ever temper the pain.

“I wanted to… when I saw your picture in the papers, I wanted to go looking for you very badly,” Kenny confesses. “I can’t bear to see you like that, trying to hide your sadness like those big eyes of yours don’t give it all away.”

Uri nods. He feels so impossibly seen it frightens him. But he thinks he’s willing to be exposed for him.

“Are you in love with me, Kenny?” he asks, teasing. He knows the answer but it feels good to see Kenny look away, smile shyly.

“You know I am,” he says. “Don’t be cruel to a man in love.”

Uri laughs, kissing Kenny’s cheek.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits and he feels very full and warm uttering such a confession, watching Kenny smile softly at him like the concept of being missed is foreign but lovely.

“It’s only been a month or so.”

“No, it’s been years of waiting,” Uri assures him hungrily and Kenny kisses him again, mouths open, noses bumping because they’re getting used to these new bodies of theirs, of each other. They’re so the same and so different – Uri craves to know of each similitude, each difference.

Kenny’s grip is still as strong as usual but there’s a newfound gentleness to explore in him now. Perhaps it’s because he was lucky to find him before the world fully broke him and he had to build himself up with the scattered remnants. This Kenny is sweeter than the previous one but Uri finds them all to be lovely; this one is just the loveliest because it is his.

“You could tell?” Kenny asks, breaking the kiss for just a moment. “When we met?”

“No. Not at first,” Uri admits, feeling almost embarrassed by that fact. That it wasn’t instantaneous, even though in some ways it was. “And I was unsure for a long time. But I’m certain now.”

Kenny smirks, rubbing his hands up and down Uri’s back, tracing the shape of his spine. Uri shivers and Kenny’s smirk grows more satisfied.

But he pauses. He looks beyond Uri and he’s quick to push Uri off him; gentle but forceful, the dichotomy of his being.

“Kuchel, go back to bed,” he says sternly. Uri turns to see the girl standing there, her black hair pooling down to her lower back. She’s beautiful in that dreadful way young girls are; the threat of her future beauty threatening to start burgeoning any second now, the destruction of said beauty even more imminent. She can’t be older than ten or so and there’s already a terrible sadness possessing her. “This is a friend of mine,” Kenny is quick to explain, and Kuchel stands wordlessly, rubbing her hands together.

“I heard noises,” she explains, something in her stare almost feline. “I thought mommy had come back.”

“Not yet,” Kenny grumbles. “She’ll be back soon enough.”

“Can you come tell me another story?” she says and Kenny flinches at the request as if it hurts him to hear it.

“You don’t like my stories. You always complain about them.”

“They always end bad, that’s why,” she replies defensively. “You make them all sad, Kenny.”

“I make’em realistic.”

“I can tell you a story,” Uri offers and Kuchel turns to register him again, unsure.

“You’ll make it sad?”

“No,” Uri promises. “There’ll be princesses and knights and it’ll have a happy ending for everyone.”

Kenny scoffs at that but Uri pays him no mind. He pats the spot next to them on the mattress and Kuchel stares at Kenny for his permission before taking that place.

He makes the tale up as he goes, watching Kuchel’s reactions to add details he thinks she’ll like. She’s a romantic (what Ackerman isn’t?) but she seems to be particularly keen on animals. So Uri adds plenty of those, he tells her about the magic unicorns and the maidens they carry on their backs, about the talking foxes with golden eyes aiding kind travelers and tricking cruel ones, about the golden winged lions protecting a floating city.

She hears all of Uri’s story with her eyes wide, curled up against her brother. Kenny pets her hair, staring at Uri just as intently.

She keeps asking for more bits and pieces, for Uri to add another chapter, but her requests start to become drowsy and soon enough she’s fallen asleep in the middle of a new tale.

Kenny stands up wordlessly, grabbing his little sister in his arms and carrying her to bed.

“You’ve been taking care of her,” Uri murmurs when Kenny returns, looking very tired and very young.

“Until her mother comes back. Then I’ll leave,” he says resolutely, and his tone indicates he does not wish to speak of this. He throws himself on the mattress and Uri joins him, allowing Kenny to place his head on his chest. He brushes his hair with his fingers, lets him settle there for as long as he needs it.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he awakens Kenny is standing, his face stern. There’s another woman there and the only thing she shares with Kenny is the ravenous shape of her face, but Uri recognizes the kinship nonetheless.

“There’s no need for that look,” Kenny says, lighting up a cigarette, letting the ashes drop on the floor. “I was leaving already.”

“I asked you to stop coming,” the woman tells him. She looks too young to be Kenny’s mom, still almost child-like in her mannerisms. “This is not your house.”

“Was I meant to leave her all on her own?”

“I was gone for a day or so.”

“Three days,” Kenny corrects her. “She’s eight .”

His mom flinches, turning towards Uri instead – perhaps trying to pick up a fight she knows she’ll win.

“And to think you used to judge me for this…” she murmurs. She scoffs at both of them and Uri is quick to get up too, feeling a bit like Eve after biting the apple.

“I judged you for bringing them back home like your daughter wasn’t sleeping in the room next to you,” Kenny assures her. “And this has nothing to do with that .”

“It doesn’t?” she asks, surprised. “You two looked awfully close just a moment ago..”

“We are close.”

“Ah,” she says, and she smiles but her eyes remain cruel. “Didn’t figure you to be a romantic like that.”

Kenny smirks at her. His eyes have not turned to Uri once and Uri’s starting to think he might disappear into the tattered wallpaper. But Kenny looks at him then.

“You should get going,” he suggests and Uri opens his mouth, closing it again because there’s nothing he could possibly say here that wouldn’t make everything worse.

He moves past Kenny’s mother, trying to keep his head high but failing miserably. The shame in him is palpable, even if he’s unsure of what he feels so shameful about. The brutality in her stare has made him self-conscious of every single move and gesture he makes as he escapes the apartment.

He’s saddened by the fact he doesn’t get to say good-bye to Kuchel. He considers waiting for Kenny outside but he’s certain he will not want to see him now.

He goes back home and he waits for him there instead. He doesn’t consider Kenny will not come to him, but as the hours pass he starts to feel his concern grow.

When he hears the knock at his window he’s so quick to run towards it he almost trips and falls embarrassingly. Kenny is there, a cigarette hanging limply from his lips. Uri steals it, placing it on his own.

“You know, we have this wonderful new invention called doors nowadays,” Uri suggests and Kenny laughs, but he’s not really in it. He looks so impossibly exhausted Uri wishes he could transform into a titan again just to hold him in his arms.

But he’s small and frail in this life. He’d promised he’d care for Kenny but he’s already feeling like an oath-breaker.

“Come inside,” Uri says softly, brushing a strand of hair off his face. Kenny sighs, doing as told. He throws himself on his usual seat but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t remove his coat. He doesn’t even move a single muscle.

Uri goes to the kitchen to make him some coffee. He figures he’s hungry too so he stands there, gravitating between just feeding him a bagel or making him a roast with mashed potatoes and gratin asparagus.

But when he comes back to the living room, Kenny’s fallen asleep, his snores almost like a cat’s purrs (and he would never dream of making this comparison in front of him, he can already envision Kenny’s utter disgust at being called a kitten).

He covers him in a blanket and he watches him as he sleeps, a strange feeling of remembrance coursing through him.

He wakes up some hours later, blinking in confusion for a moment and then immediately alert when he notices his surroundings.

Uri calms him down, brushing the hair off his face, but he cannot remove the distress from his features.

“She doesn’t want me anywhere near her,” he murmurs, so desolate that it breaks Uri’s heart a bit. “She doesn’t want me to ruin Kuchel like I’ve ruined myself.”

“You’re very good to her, Kenny,” Uri assures him, clasping his hand. Kenny laughs, and for the first time since he’s met him, Uri wonders if he’ll see him cry.

“I’m a terrible influence.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m a thief and a drunk and a drug dealer and a queer and worse.”

“You’re not a drunkard, Kenny. You just enjoy the occasional drink…” Uri jokes, and he’s pleased to see him smile sincerely at that at least.

“Asshole,” Kenny says, staring at Uri with so much love it changes him in ways he cannot explain. “I am bad. But she’s no good for her either,” he decides. He inhales and exhales, breaks down and rebuilds his armor. “It’s for the best. I’m dangerous to be around.”

“Are you?” Uri questions him, kneeling in front of him, resting his face on Kenny’s lap. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer…”

“I’ve killed a man before.”

“I know.”

“No. In this life,” Kenny corrects him. Uri doesn’t reply and somehow Kenny interprets that incorrectly. “Are you afraid of me?”

“You would never hurt me. You’d sooner cut your hand off than strike me with it,” Uri says, his confidence never wavering. Kenny clucks his tongue, looking away.

“I did before,” he murmurs, touching the tip of Uri’s chin. But Uri just laughs.

“You scraped me with your little knife,” he teases, feeling Kenny’s hand resting on his head, petting it softly. “Why did you kill a man?”

Kenny is silent for a long moment then. When Uri dares to look up at him, he notices his indecision. He gets up, sitting on his lap and grabbing his face gently between his hands.

“I won’t judge you,” he promises, and because he’s dreadful and because he’s in love, he knows he means it.

Kenny sighs.

“I wasn’t born here…” he starts and then he’s stuck there, incapable of proceeding.

“Would've never guessed,” Uri teases, attempting to lighten the mood. “That Brooklyn accent is pitch perfect…”

“Funny,” Kenny murmurs, rolling his eyes at him. “I was born in the middle of nowhere. Rural area. Born in a fucking corn maze, basically. Just my mother and me and this little house that was practically falling apart.” He swallows, closing his eyes. “I was happy there despite being so fucking… lacking. But then she started bringing the men over. All fucking losers far as I’m concerned.”

Uri closes his eyes too. He can see it, Kenny young and thin as a sprig, his face tanned and covered in dust. Walking through stalks of corn, his hunger already starting to gestate like a parasite.

“I think she was desperately trying to find the one for her. We have that necessity bred in us, after all,” he continues. “She thought she’d found him, I guess.”

“Did he hurt her?” Uri asks, already envisioning where this is going but not wanting to rush Kenny now he’s being so uncharacteristically open.

“Of course he did,” Kenny says, laughing a bit like he knows his story seems predictable. “I was only fourteen. I used to turn a blind-eye to her bruises. I guess I was scared of him too. But one day I thought he was gonna kill her, you know?” He pauses. Uri thinks it’s the regret perhaps catching up to him, but when he looks at Kenny he sees his stare is resolute. He’s remembering that day, but he is not wallowing in remorse. If anything, he looks awfully proud of himself and, secretly (terribly), Uri’s pleased to see this. “It wasn’t even… I was instinctual. He kept whaling on her and I couldn’t take it. Stabbed him in the back with a kitchen knife. Wish I’d seen his fucking face when I got him.”

“How did you get away with it?”

“Where I was from, no one gave a damn. Husbands beat their wives like it was nothing. Wives got rid of them like it was nothing. We were all nothing. S’not like anyone would miss the bastard,” Kenny concludes. He stops again, looking at Uri carefully, pressing him closer still. “We moved here shortly after.”

“Did you ever tell anyone before?”

“Of course not,” Kenny admits. “Never talked about it with my mother either. We just pretended like it never happened. Like it didn’t have to drag the bastard out and bury him in some empty lot all on my own.” Kenny stares at Uri, awaiting a reaction. He presses Uri closer to him, as if afraid he might escape now he’s given him this truth. “You must think I’m a fucking monster.”

“You were a child. You were scared,” Uri counters, keeping his voice low. “You saved your mother’s life.”

“And my sister,” Kenny corrects him. “He was Kuchel’s dad. She was pregnant with her at the time. Thought the fucker was the love of her fucking life.” Kenny shakes his head. “She never forgave me that.”

“I’m sorry,” Uri says, following the bridge of Kenny’s nose with the tip of his finger. “You should’ve never been through that. You deserved to have an easier life.”

Kenny smiles, grabbing Uri’s chin to pull him in for a kiss. Uri accepts it eagerly. He kisses back timidly but Kenny won’t allow him that. He bites his bottom lip, sucking on it before pulling away again. One of his hands rests carelessly between Uri’s legs, caressing his inner thigh, and the expectation of what could happen is building heat all throughout Uri’s body.

“I don’t get you,” Kenny says. “How the hell are you even still here? I tell you I’ve killed a man and you’re just sitting pretty on top of me.”

“I don’t think anyone would begrudge you for what you did.”

“Maybe they should. Maybe I deserve to be punished,” he says, and the implication is clear there. Uri can see he is in pain, that perhaps it’s not the right time to distract him with these physical pursuits when his soul is aching so badly it’s hurting Uri’s own. But he also thinks Kenny is in need of this.

It will not solve anything. All his problems will still be there in the morning, waiting to ambush him like errant ghosts hidden in the corners of each room. But for as long as Uri’s in his lap – for as long as they share a bed – Uri’s certain he can make him forget it all. Return to their primal state, before all the burden of many lives fell down on them. They’ve never had the privilege of tabula rasa , but they can pretend well enough.

“If you ever deserve to be punished,” Uri says carefully, each word precise and sharp because each word matters. “I’ll make sure to be the one to punish you appropriately.”

Kenny raises an eyebrow at that, smirking at the suggestion there.

“You acting awfully haughty. You think you’re still a royal or something?”

“To you I am.”

“Oh. Alright…”

“Do you dig it?” Uri asks and Kenny laughs.

“Aren’t you cool? Using slang and shit,” Kenny teases, his hand pressing the front of Uri’s pants, squeezing gently. Uri’s spine tenses up immediately, he stretches like a cat in heat, his head pulled back. But Kenny doesn’t move his hand, he watches Uri’s throat, swallows at the same time as he does.

“Kenny…”

“I knew you’d look pretty like this, see? All eager to get fucked,” Kenny says, ignoring the plea evident in Uri’s voice. “All flushed and your cock hard against the palm of my hand.”

“Jesus Christ…”

“Now, don’t go all Catholic on me, pretty boy,” Kenny warns him, his voice dropping down to a whisper, his eyes trained on Uri, every part of him, every movement and gesture. “You gonna move or what?”

“What?”

Kenny laughs again, like he finds Uri’s lack of expertise wonderfully endearing.

“Rub yourself against me. Get yourself off.”

Uri opens his mouth to complain, closes it again when he realizes he’s got nothing to complain about. Kenny is testing him, deriving pleasure from watching Uri take his own pleasure. It makes Uri feel a bit insane.

He shifts his position slightly, covering his face in the crook of Kenny’s neck before testingly rolling his hips. Kenny squeezes again, encouraging him and Uri allows himself to make a noise – something throaty and perhaps vaguely effeminate. He’s trying very hard not to be humiliated about the fact he knows he could easily get off just like this – the friction against Kenny’s almost static hand, the hold he has on Uri’s waist wonderfully possessive.

It’s an adolescent way of getting off. Kenny knows it. Uri knows it too. That’s part of it. Allowing Uri to come without it being too much too fast. Letting him get enough confidence to know he can be sexual but reminding him of his place. It’s lovely really, that he’s put so much thought into pleasing Uri.

Uri rolls his hips again and again and again and Kenny just hums knowingly, allowing Uri to make all the noises he needs to make – the breathy moans, the little gasps, the frustrated exhales.

“Stop,” Kenny says. “Slow down, little prince.”

Uri does as he says, stops gyrating his hips, still keeping his face hidden, his arms around Kenny’s necks as if he might drown if he let go. He’ll probably drown if he lets go.

Kenny pats Uri’s back, has him stand up just so he can head towards the bar cabinet. He leaves Uri standing there while he makes himself a drink, pours whiskey and ice in the wrong type of glass. He turns towards Uri, raising the glass as if to toast him.

“Do you want anything?” he says and Uri just sits on the chair, curling into himself.

“Yes,” he replies feebly and Kenny laughs.

“I meant a drink, love.”

“No.”

Kenny smirks, walking back towards Uri, his steps slow and measured. Half man half panther. Half man half jackal. Half man all killer.

Uri gets back up and sits back down on Kenny’s lap, watches the drink travel down his throat. He feels thirsty for something too.

“Where were we?” he asks and Uri lets out a long-suffering, high-pitched sigh that makes Kenny laugh louder than he’s ever heard him laugh before. He undoes his belt with one hand, puts his hand inside his pants to touch himself a bit. Uri watches him, pays careful attention to the pace he prefers and the grip and the pauses. Kenny watches Uri back, keeps his eyes on Uri’s face to capture his reactions. “You wanna touch me?”

“I’m deciding…”

Kenny laughs, withdrawing his hand from his pants and drinking a sip of whiskey.

“You wanna take a look at it? Properly, I mean. Not avert your eyes like the last time, like you’re some southern belle all coquette and shit.”

“I’m deciding on that too…”

“It’s nice, Uri,” Kenny says, unable to hide his amusement even though he’s very obviously trying not to scare Uri away by saying or doing the wrong thing.

“I’m sure you have a lovely cock, Kenny…”

“Sounds weird when you say it.”

“Cock? I have one too,” Uri assures him, dramatically pausing for effect. “Ah, I hope that doesn’t frighten you away again.”

“Funny,” Kenny deadpans, but there’s a streak of anxiousness there, isn’t there? “I’m inexperienced too… in these types of affairs.”

“I could’ve never guessed…”

“Stop being a smartass. Not all of us went to a French boarding school full of boys eager to touch each other under the bedsheets…”

“Is that how you pictured it?” Uri teases. “Perhaps you should be a writer too. You’re creative , Kenny.”

Kenny snorts out a derisive laugh. He starts rubbing the front of Uri’s pants again, but when Uri makes it as if to hide his face, Kenny pushes him gently off.

“I wanna see your face,” he explains, wolf-eyes settled on Uri’s mouth. “You liking this, my liege?”

“Yes,” Uri replies, perhaps too eagerly – or perhaps not eagerly enough because Kenny’s pet name has shaken every cell in his body, awakened them in new ways. “Don’t stop.”

Kenny doesn’t stop. He’s obedient like that, he aims to please him. His liege . His eyes capture every one of Uri’s expressions, every shift, every turn. His hunger makes it so that he can never become full of them.

“I have a book,” Uri says, trying to hide a gasp. Kenny’s brows furrow but his movement’s don’t stop, he undoes Uri’s belt one-handedly, downs his whiskey before spitting on the palm of his hand and grabbing him.

“A book?” he asks.

“With photographs. With… drawings.”

“Of what?”

“Of men. With men.”

“Ah,” Kenny says, finally understanding. “In color?”

“Yes.”

“You get off to it?”

“Yes.”

“You think we could look at it together? For inspiration?” Kenny continues, his pace now ruthless even if his expression remains the same. “You poets like your inspiration, don’t you?”

“Ye.. fuck .”

“Uri Reiss cussing…” Kenny says, marveling. “Uri Reiss cussing while rubbing himself against some low-life scum to get off. Getting off thinking of sucking some low-life scum’s cock. Can you imagine if they found out about this? It’d be a scandal.”

“It could be…”

Uri gets cut off. He forgets words entirely. He bends and reshapes himself, becomes boneless in Kenny’s arms. It feels a bit like being born again, perhaps.

“Sorry, what was that?” Kenny asks, withdrawing his hand silently, wiping it on Uri’s pants as if they were a discarded dish cloth.

Uri winces, allowing the humiliation to settle in a bit before facing Kenny. Nothing about his expression could possibly give away the events that have just transpired. If anything, he looks calmer than Uri’s ever seen him, a bit somnolent and pleased in that way one can only achieve through absolute fulfillment.

“These are Saint Laurent,” Uri murmurs, looking directly at the spot on his pants. “He tailored them himself just for me.”

“That a friend of yours?”

Uri turns to face Kenny again, grabbing his face with one hand and kissing him so hard he thinks he’s chipped a tooth and he also thinks he doesn’t care if he has.

He buries his hands in Kenny’s denim pants, the metallic zipper biting onto his skin – it’ll brand him if he’s lucky – before finally taking hold of him. He doesn’t stop kissing him even as he grips him as if he was confident in his actions. There’s too much friction to move his hand properly, the position is too awkward but still, he tries. And Kenny seems to appreciate it enough to hum against his lips as he licks his way to Uri’s mouth.

“Hey now,” he says, managing to pull Uri away. “There’s no need for that. I can handle myself. You don’t need to… Uri, stop.”

Uri does stop, his lips wet and pressed to the side of Kenny’s face. He likes the rough texture of his beard, it grounds him for a moment.

“Why?”

“I’m gonna finish in your hand.”

“I don’t mind,” Uri replies, “I really don’t think I’d mind at all.”

Kenny hesitates, muttering curses under his breath before gently pushing Uri off his lap. He leaves him stranded there, heading to the guest’s bathroom.

A coldness settles inside Uri almost immediately, congealing all the heat he felt just a moment ago.

But something breaks inside him too. For some strange reason, he cannot shake the feeling that the order of things has been disturbed in a way. He feels like he is owed better than this, even though he knows he isn’t. He follows Kenny to the bathroom, watching him from the threshold as he jerks himself off with his eyes closed.

At least look at me , Uri thinks, but he only voices half of that thought.

“Look at me,” he says, not forcefully, but authoritative. A command and not a request or a plea. Kenny’s eyes open and he turns his head to see him. He pauses his movements, as if awaiting instruction.

Uri is unprepared for this type of attention, for the devotion in that stare. But he embraces it, somehow. He starts undressing before he knows why he’s doing it. He feels like being instinctual for a change, discard his cerebral ways. He thinks it makes sense that their first time being intimate would be such a jumbled mess – something chaotic and wonderful regardless.

He stands stark naked, avoiding his reflection in the mirror, watching Kenny watch him. Watching Kenny swallow, letting his eyes travel down his body, then up again, then down again.

“Touch yourself,” Uri instructs him and Kenny does as told, licking his lips unconsciously. He finishes quickly, which is a merciful occurrence since Uri feels exposed under his stare. He enjoys the sensation as much as he fears it.

Kenny makes a strangled noise, but besides that he remains silent. Uri allows him a moment to fix himself up before requesting his attention again by calling his name.

“Clean me up, please,” he says and Kenny’s quick to grab at the beautiful, hand-embroidered towel he bought on that one trip to Barcelona and clean Uri so gently he forgets to be mad.

“Was that good then, your highness?” Kenny asks, back to his self-assured self, the wolfish grin playing on his lips. Uri squints at him and Kenny’s grin falters for a moment there.

“Do you like me, Kenny?”

Kenny stares, befuddled.

“You dumb?” he asks eloquently.

“Be nice to me,” Uri requests. “I’m asking if you like my body.”

Kenny laughs nervously, the corner of his mouth jittery, incapable of deciding on a smile or a look of utter confusion.

“Yeah, you look aristocratic and shit.”

“Try again.”

“What?”

“You can do better than that, I reckon.”

Kenny blinks, his eyes still unraveling each joint of Uri’s body but suddenly timid about this wanting of his.

“I’m not the poet here, Uri…” he says, but Uri remains unmovable and unchanged. He waits until Kenny looks to the side and sighs, insolent as ever. “I think like… you’re like a porcelain doll, all pale and petite and pretty.”

“That’s sweet,” Uri replies encouragingly, trying very hard to ignore the fact he’s nude and perhaps growing hard again having all this attention on him. “Keep going.”

“You’re just a very precious thing. I’m scared to touch you and break you.”

“I don’t break that easily…”

“Ah. But I have an ease when it comes to breaking things…”

Uri smiles at him, gripping him by his shirt and bringing him close. He reaches up to Kenny’s chest only, but he thinks he looks beautiful from this angle. It’s much easier to appreciate the strength of his jawline and the way his cheekbones are cut-out. Even as he stands on the tip of his toes he has to wait for Kenny to look down at him to reach his lips.

Thankfully, Kenny’s always looking at him.

He drags him to bed (Kenny allows himself to be dragged), undressing him as he goes. He has Kenny naked and under his covers in less than two minutes and he considers this is perhaps the greatest achievement of his entire life.

He kisses him, his body pressed closely to Kenny’s, his hands in his long, dark hair. Kenny looks overindulged, as if he cannot comprehend how he’s gotten himself to this place. As if afraid he might be casted out any second now.

Uri unlatches himself from him, getting out of bed. Kenny attempts to follow, but he presses him back against the mattress, grabbing his silk smoking jacket and dressing himself up in it before giving Kenny a warning stare to stay in place.

He returns to him with a cup of black coffee and a toasted bagel placed on a tray. Kenny stares at it as if he was given a foreign object, uncomprehendingly. Uri practically has to bring the cup of coffee to his lips to have him drink from it.

“You look nice,” Kenny murmurs, picking the bagel apart with his index fingers. “With your little robe.”

Uri laughs, caressing Kenny’s leg gently. On the inside, his mind is racing – plotting for ways to trap the both of them in this room forever. Pretend like the world outside is no longer present, that this is all there’s ever been and all that’s ever mattered.

It’s a futile little fantasy, but Uri likes it just the same. It allows him to open himself more fully to him, to not overthink whether he’ll be here in the morning.

All he wants in this world is for him to be here in the morning.

 

*****************

 

Both his books are published by the end of the month.

First comes the one under his pseudonym – which is really more of a favor. Uri wants to see how much traction he can get without his name attached to all he does, but mostly he wants to publish the unpublishable. As his editor puts it, he loves all the work he’s given him very much, but there’s a risk having his family in any way connected to the racier of his works. Which is a lovely euphemism, really. The poems aren’t racy, they’re unabashedly sexual and unequivocally a product of deriving inspiration from a particularly muscular muse.

It does not do exceedingly well commercially – Uri does not intend it to do so. But it becomes a bit of an underground hit and it receives praise within the circles Uri frequents. He likes the idea of it being passed around knowing hands, earmarked and underlined in different colors. He’s proud of it, even if it’s a piece entirely disconnected from him, a secret between his editor and himself (and Kenny, of course, he’s the first to read anything he puts on paper).

His second book comes later, when enough time has passed to have it separated from his father’s death. He doesn’t wish to be seen as opportunistic. He already feels alienated enough from whatever scattered remains of his family there are left. It does well. Perhaps too well. It makes Uri regret having it published to begin with. It brings too much attention to him which in turns means he has to make a bigger effort to hide himself (to hide Kenny). And because the world is a comedian of sorts, Uri’s newfound reclusive tendencies grant him the status of eccentric hermit. Fabulous heir becomes artist becomes performance art. Uri has to begrudgingly admit that there’s a certain elegance to the entire concept.

His editor is thrilled, of course. His family less so. Rod is asked about his book in an interview and he’s quick to dismiss Uri as the more ‘whimsical’ member of the family.

Kenny takes more offense to the term than Uri does. He seems to think there's a degrading connotation to it. Uri catches him pacing around the apartment, murmuring the word whimsical under his breath followed by a bilingual litany of curses and threats.

“That’s my beloved brother you’re cussing out,” Uri warns him, following Kenny around as he takes his panther steps, somehow impossibly quiet despite his size while Uri’s own steps resound in a delightful staccato.

“Your brother’s a fucking moron,” Kenny assures him. “In this life and in the previous one. Must be a matter of the soul. His defining trait or something.”

“Is that how you think of it? Do we carry our personalities throughout each life inside our souls like one would carry their favorite lipstick in all their purses?”

“Don’t try to distract me with esoteric religious discussions, I am focused on wishing ill-will to your brother.”

“Oh, don’t Kenny,” Uri says, reaching out to grab his arm and stop him from prowling around. “I don’t like it when you try to do your evil eye thing. It distresses me. You know it’ll come back to you eventually.”

Kenny rolls his eyes, but he still accepts Uri’s attempt to trap him within his arms, turning to hug him to his chest.

“You and that karma bullshit. I blame it on meeting up with your bohemian fairy friends. They spout the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard each time they take their little trips to some other country. They’d romanticize child labor if I told them it’s some ancient Hindu practice.”

“I barely ever see them. I see your mean, brutish, muscular friends much more often, don’t I?” Uri teases, taking great pleasure in seeing Kenny’s frown somehow deepen. “And you should be more respectful of others' religious concepts considering reincarnation is a proven fact.”

“Is it? Maybe we’re just both insane in the exact same way,” Kenny replies. “And my friends are not that muscular.”

“Well, not as muscular as you, darling,” Uri reassures him, forcing Kenny to bend down just so he can kiss the tip of his nose. “You know, there’s a term for that very concept.”

“Possessiveness?”

“I meant the shared insanity,” Uri corrects him with an airy laugh. “ Folie à deux .”

“I guess if one has to be crazy they might as well have company…” Kenny replies sagely, abruptly lifting Uri in his arms. “Do you think we’re crazy then?”

Uri smiles, wrapping his legs around Kenny, allowing a sigh to escape his lips.

“No.”

“Well that’s exactly what a crazy person would say, little prince.”

“You got me there,” Uri admits and he bites the lobe of one of Kenny’s ears as lovingly as he can.

Kenny spins them around with ease. An ease Uri finds terribly attractive. They kiss and Uri can tell Kenny hasn’t shaved this morning just because of the unfamiliar scratchiness. He shivers – half because one of Kenny’s hands has snaked its way underneath Uri’s shirt, half because there’s something about the fact he has managed to memorize Kenny’s habits. Because he’s begun to know him again, and getting to know Kenny is the most thrilling adventure he could’ve ever envisioned for himself.

Kenny drops him delicately on the sofa, opening up Uri’s shirt with a lot less softness. At least one button flies away in Kenny’s race to strip Uri as rapidly as he can. He’s on his knees before Uri can process it properly, his face rubbing up against Uri’s thighs. It’ll leave a red rash on the sensitive skin there, but Uri doesn’t mind. Feeling Kenny’s almost-beard tickles his entire nervous system.

Kenny rests his face on Uri’s lap, looking up at Uri. He’s waiting for his permission. Uri’s words are sacred text as far as Kenny is aware and he’s a religious man, isn’t he?

Uri pets his hair. It’s gotten very long lately, it reaches just past Kenny’s shoulders. It’s silk in between Uri’s fingers. Kenny has grumbled before about cutting it but Uri has done his best to delay such a terrible act. He fears he’ll lose something vital if he cuts it too short, as if he was Samson himself. A lot of his wilderness is trapped there, in his dark brown locks of hair hiding his face as he disappears into the dark.

“Touch me,” Uri murmurs, and Kenny’s quick to follow through with it. He takes Uri in his mouth as if he’d been waiting for ages to do so. It gives Kenny whiplash to think some months ago he’d been so afraid to touch him he could only conceive of doing something like this under false pretenses. Offering himself for money, as if he didn’t want this as badly as Uri does.

There was, admittedly, an awkwardness there at first. Kenny’s reticence is still present at times. Uri’s inexperience is practically palpable. But they both possess enough instinct and enough memories to recollect themselves. It’s not a dance, but it’s never been that way before either. From what Uri recalls, they’ve always been messy and uninterested in being anything else but that.

And Kenny is sweet, but he’s intense. He’s never forceful, but he does it all as if his life depended on it. Even now when doing something as crude as dragging Uri’s orgasm with his tongue, enveloping him in the heat of his mouth, his face remains focused and impenetrable.

Uri watches him feeling a bit like a god or a king, Kenny praying in front of him, offering himself up just for Uri’s delight. Uri pulls him gently away, almost finishes from the noise Kenny makes when he’s separated from Uri’s cock – indignant.

“Hold on now,” Uri warns him. “I’m close.”

“So? I’ll just spit you out.”

Uri opens his mouth as if to find an excuse as to why he couldn’t possibly do that, but all of them are just childish; wrought from his overgrown innocence and the absence of touch in his life.

He cradles Kenny’s face. He is amazed by the fact the entire world can fit so snuggly in the palm of his hand.

“Do as you wish,” he says and Kenny takes a second to look at Uri before getting back to his task, bobbing his head up and down, gripping onto Uri’s thighs to pull them apart. Uri lets his head drop back to stare at the gold leaf ceiling.

When he finishes he does so with a soft moan, scratching the back of Kenny’s head to compliment him in some way since his words have failed him entirely.

Kenny just stands up, places himself on Uri’s lap before kissing him, letting Uri taste himself against his tongue.

“I thought you’d spit,” Uri says breathlessly, receiving kisses from Kenny’s lips hungrily.

“I don’t mind,” he replies, already taking his shirt off, undoing his belt. “I’ve gotten used to it. Might even taken a liking to it.”

“Oh, alright,” Uri says, gasping when Kenny bites his neck like he’s common prey. “Careful with that.”

“It’s cold enough for a turtleneck sweater.”

“It’ll be my birthday soon.”

“It’ll be one year since we met,” Kenny points out, watching Uri’s hand travel up and down his chest, his belly, his thighs. Little white doves floating around a land both foreign and known.

“You used to have more scars…”

“You used to have sadder eyes.”

Uri looks at Kenny then. He touches the side of his face and Kenny rubs his cheek against his palm. Uri sometimes feels like he’s managed to domesticate a panther.

He wants to tell Kenny these things he thinks. But he thinks too much. He’s afraid he’ll open his mouth and blurt out all these emotions – purge on him all of his affections.

He doesn’t get to say anything at all. There’s a knock at the door and both of them stand alert, unused to visitors of any kind.

“Your doorman is fucking terrible at his job,” Kenny mumbles under his breath, but Uri is too busy dressing himself up as quickly as he can to pay him any mind. He pauses, turning to see Kenny still shirtless, his erection still present.

He wants to scream his head off, but his delirium melts down into a laugh.

“Hide in the bathroom,” he requests. Kenny blinks, putting his hands inside the pockets of his pants.

“Who’d you invite?”

“No one. He’s inviting himself,” Uri replies, the knocks on the door now more insistent. “That’s my brother out there.”

Kenny's eyes travel to the door, a sense of alarm invading his posture.

“You think I manifested him?”

Uri laughs, shaking his head, but the concept is left hanging there. He pushes Kenny away, pressing a quick kiss to his hand before closing the door on him. He checks himself in a mirror, combing his hair with his fingers. He hopes the frankincense is enough to hide the smell of sex, somehow purify the air and remove the vibrating remnants of pleasure still keeping Uri hazy.

“Rod,” he says when opening the door, as if he was expecting anyone else. “You look alarmed,” he adds, seeing the expression on his brother’s face.

“You look well rested. Lucky you,” he replies, pushing past Uri into his apartment. “Perhaps I should’ve been a poet too.”

“No. You lack the whimsy .”

Rod pauses, turning to stare at Uri.

“My words were misconstrued…” he starts, but Uri waves him off

“I know what you meant,” he assures him, and he does know what he meant. He imagines the word he was actually thinking would not have been publishable. “What’s the deal with you then? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Rod sighs, sitting on the same sofa where Uri was sitting just mere minutes ago and he tries very hard not to think too hard about it. He recalls, suddenly, that the last time he actually saw his brother face to face was during their father’s funeral and he immediately feels even more shameful than he previously did.

“I’ve been busy,” Rod replies, which is rather charitable of him. “I guess you’ve been busy too.”

“You’ve read my book?” Uri asks curiously, even though he can imagine the answer to that. “I’ll make you some coffee.”

“I haven’t had the time…”

Uri hums, a habit he’s gotten from Kenny who happens to be incredibly melodious as he’s come to discover. He likes his hums and his whistling and sometimes, when Uri is lucky, he’ll even catch him singing – his voice husky and rich.

“It’s alright, it’s not as good as the critics suggest.”

Uri can’t help but think of Kenny as he brews coffee for his brother. Probably sitting on the toilet or perhaps laying in the bath, figuring Rod will be staying for a while because that’s how he imagines fraternal relationships. Loving and warm.

And there is love shared between them. Uri’s certain that he loves his brother and that his brother, though reluctant, loves him. But that does not mean that they have to like each other, much less understand each other. As far as Rod is aware, Uri is just an enigma of a person – more labyrinth than human, complex for the sake of being complex.

And Uri thinks sometimes that Rod is too plain. Too focused on being a perfect fit to mold himself into anything longstanding. He has to be a blank canvas to allow others to project what they need to project on him.

Perhaps that makes him smarter than Uri. But the more time he spends with Kenny - wild, limitless, unbridled, brutal, all-consuming, indomitable - the less he cares about others’ perception of him.

He places the cup in front of Rod, sitting on the seat Kenny usually takes as he waits for him to open up. Rod grabs a sugar cube, stares at it with a level of interest Uri would only expect from a horse, before dropping it into his coffee.

“I’m getting married,” he announces after a sip.

“Congratulations!” Uri exclaims, but he realizes his excitement is too put-upon the second he catches Rod cringing slightly.

“I need you to be at the wedding…”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You haven’t been to any other event I’ve requested you at,” Rod points out. “No birthdays, not bar mitzvahs, no balls, no dinners. You didn’t even come to our Fourth of July event. You know who did come though? Mr. Ford. The damn president , Uri.”

“Well, he’s a bit of a farce, isn’t he? It’s not like he was elected…”

“ Uri ,” Rod says, as patiently as he can manage. “You are not more important than the president.”

“I kind of am, Rod,” Uri jokes much to his brother’s chagrin. “I have told you before that I will not indulge in all that fluff and nonsense, but your wedding is a different event altogether, is it not?”

“It’s fluff and nonsense too, Uri,” Rod replies. “And what’s the matter with you? You love fluff and nonsense. You love the dresses and the petit fours and the decorations. You’re practically a woman.”

There’s a loud bang coming from Uri’s bathroom that Uri pretends not to notice but Rod jumps slightly off his seat, whipping his head around in search of its source. Uri thinks he should’ve had Kenny jump out the window, go hide somewhere where Rod’s condescension could not reach him.

“Will you be keeping the mustache?” Uri inquires, trying to distract his brother and being rather successful. Rod turns back towards him, gingerly touching his sad, little attempt at growing facial hair.

“What’s wrong with the mustache?”

“Oh, no, it’s lovely. I was only wondering… When did you say the wedding would take place?”

“May.”

“And the dress? Who’ll design it?”

“How the hell would I know that, Uri?”

“Dad would’ve loved to see you getting married…”

“He would’ve gotten drunk and flirted with the bridesmaids.”

“Ha, that’s true,” Uri admits, genuinely laughing at the thought of it. “Mom would’ve been a good guest, though.”

“Don’t be morbid,” Rod accuses him. “I only came to get your confirmation. It would not look good if my only living family member didn’t attend my wedding.”

“I promise I’ll be at all of your weddings.”

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a bit funny,” Uri insists, watching his brother sigh and get up. “Where are you going? Did you really come all the way here just to invite me to your wedding in person?”

“Yes, you haven’t been answering my calls,” he grumbles, but he doesn’t head towards the door. “And I need to use your toilet.”

“Use the guest’s bathroom,” Uri replies, following him, imagining Kenny rabid and expectantly waiting for Rod behind the door with his knife in hand.

Rod pauses, turning towards him. He looks very annoyed by Uri’s proposition.

“I’m your brother .”

“You’re still a guest.”

Rod huffs, grabbing the door handle and attempting to turn it, trying a bit harder when it doesn’t give. He starts jiggling it furiously, turning back towards Uri.

“It’s locked.”

“Ah, yes, it tends to do that,” Uri lies apathetically, grabbing his brother by his shoulders and trying to twist him away. A noise of something dropping echoes inside the bathroom, louder than needed.

Uri has no doubt in his mind that this is purposeful. Kenny is too much in control of his entirety to make himself easily detectable. He’s only found if he wishes it so. Uri’s certain he could’ve been pickpocketed that first day they met had he been more careful. He just didn’t feel like being careful.

“Is there someone in there?” Rod asks and Uri considers this.

“A ghost, perhaps.”

“You’re hiding someone in the bathroom, aren’t you?”

“Mmm. Maybe.”

“A woman?” Rod questions him, pausing at his own words. “No, why would I even ask that….” He turns, frustrated, starts knocking on the door as if it owed him something. “Open up,” he orders indignantly and Uri just slinks back and rests his back to the wall, watching.

“He won’t respond to you,” he says calmly and Rod turns for a second, very much lacking the patience for the situation at hand.

He should’ve seen this coming though. Visiting his whimsical brother. Some whimsy was bound to happen.

“Open the door right now,” Rod says more forcefully, puffs his chest in an attempt to appear larger and make his voice deeper but there is no response on the other end. Finally, he sighs towards Uri. “Uri, have him open the door.”

Uri watches him blankly. He does not wish to mix his worlds like this. He’s neat like that. He separates things in categories. Even his past lives – which seem to separate like fractals into more specified yet similar structures – have been carefully categorized.

“Kenny, you can come out if you wish to come out and deal with my brother,” he commands, moving aside to try and not be part of the spectacle.

But the door doesn’t open with a bang. No, there’s a pause and then some shuffling.

“Do you want me to come out and deal with your brother?” Kenny asks, his voice muffled behind the wood. Rod turns towards Uri, the disappointment in his face clear as day. He looks too much like their father at times.

“That’s your choice,” Uri replies, blatantly ignoring his brother.

“I’m choosing to do as you wish.”

Uri sighs, throwing his head back dramatically. In reality, he finds it all a bit amusing. A bit fun, almost. It makes for a good story at the very least. That’s how Uri sees his tragedies sometimes. They’ll make good stories, someday .

“Yes, Kenny. I want you to come out. Just don’t…” he starts but he doesn’t get to finish because now Kenny does burst out of the bathroom, grabbing Rod by the collar of his shirt and slamming him against the opposite wall. “Kenny, no,” Uri chastises him, not unlike one would tell off their cat after they threw a vase off a desk.

“No?” Kenny asks, cocking his head to the side questioningly, his grip on Rod still strong. Rod’s face is almost absurdist from the shock of the situation – his mouth agape, his eyes unfocused, his eyebrows shot up, his mustache… the mustache is ridiculous on its own, actually.

“No, I meant you could deal with him verbally .”

“Ah,” Kenny nods, letting go of Rod, his glare still present. “You want me to break that nasty pug face of yours or are you gonna start respecting your fucking brother?”

“What?” Rod says, trying to make out anything out of the situation. Uri turns to the side to cast a little laugh out of his system. He grabs at Kenny, pulling him towards him.

“Don't threaten him either...”

“I’m not following,” Kenny admits, clearly displeased by the concept of failing Uri in any way. “How am I meant to deal with him if I can’t hit him?”

“I meant like… put up with him for a moment. In a social sense, we’re not the mafia here…”

“Uri, who the hell is this?” Rod asks, clutching at his neck in a way Uri thinks is a bit overdramatic. Kenny barely even choked him as far as he could see. 

“This is Kenny Ackerman, I didn’t tell you about him?” Uri asks, feigning dementia for a second, trying to ignore Kenny standing behind him like a black bull about to rampage. 

“He’s a thug .”

“Well, that’s not nice, Rod. You just startled him, that’s all.”

“I don’t get startled ,” Kenny scoffs, ever proud. “I’m always focused. Even when I sleep.”

“Why was he in the bathroom?” Rod asks, eyeing Kenny carefully. Uri sighs, but he wishes he could simply scream instead. The shams of polite society weigh him down at times.

“Listen, I just thought you’d misinterpret the situation…”

“Are you seriously sleeping with this man?”

“... Alright, no, that’s an excellent grasp of the situation, actually,” Uri admits, but Rod doesn’t seem to find any of this very funny at all. He swallows, still grasping his throat, nodding towards Kenny in an apparent momentary bout of boldness.

“You there. Whatever my brother is paying, I’ll pay you triple to fuck off.”

Kenny tsks at that, smirking a bit, but Uri doesn’t take it all as carelessly as he seems to do. He finds himself strangely offended by the notion, as if his brother would find him incapable of… what exactly? Finding love by his own means? Being found attractive without his money involved somewhere in the equation?

A part of him wants to explain to him that Kenny’s chosen him many times before. That this isn’t some anomaly, on the contrary – it is something they’ve carried in every life. Uri’s certain of this. His soul is branded with Kenny’s name, a string tied tightly to it to ensure it never floats too far from Kenny’s own soul.

“I am not paying him…” Uri assures his brother listlessly, but he feels Kenny’s hand on his shoulder and his attention is diverted immediately.

“Alright, sure,” Kenny intercedes. “You’ll pay right now?”

Rod balks at that, his bravado falling off like a leaf in autumn, leaving him practically bare.

“... I don’t have all that much with me at the moment, I’ve only…”

“How much’s your wristwatch?” Kenny asks, pointing towards it. “I’ll fuck off right now for it.”

Rod stares at his wrist then as if it was foreign and not attached to him. He’s uncertain now, it seems. Trying to figure out whether Uri is worth saving from this mess he seems to think he’s in. He could simply disown him, Uri guesses, trying to find a way to connect his brother’s actions with his fraternal love for him. Perhaps he’s delusional, but he thinks his brother does care, to an extent.

“Fine,” Rod says dryly, struggling to take his wristwatch off for a moment before throwing it towards Kenny as if it was some random trinket. Kenny’s smile is as sharp as Uri’s ever seen it, all jackal. He winks at him, pressing a quick kiss to Uri’s forehead (probably to reassure him of his return), before heading straight for the window.

He pauses when he’s got his body halfway out, turning towards the brothers but pointing an accusatory finger at Rod.

“You’re a lot uglier than I recalled,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Uri laughs, unfortunately. Not because he finds his brother ugly, he simply thinks Kenny’s eternal resentment towards him is rather amusing for whatever reason. He enjoys the little changes in each life, but he finds the immutable properties rather charming as well.

“What the hell are you doing, Uri?” Rod calls him out but Uri simply waves a hand dismissively.

“Don’t lecture me, I beg…”

“Sleeping with some… gigolo thug, are you stupid?” he continues, chasing Uri around his apartment as if they were children again. “Do you think he won’t sell you out if he gets the chance? What if he went to the papers and…”

“And told them I’m whimsy ?”

Rod scoffs at him, turning his head to the side.

“Will you let that go already?”

“Kenny wouldn’t betray me…”

“He just did.”

“No, Rod, he just robbed you. He’ll come back in an hour or so,” Uri promises. “He’s my lover, not a rentboy.”

A thief, sure. A thug, certainly. A pusher, apparently , Uri thinks. But he loves me for free at least.

“... Why did you let me give him my watch then..?” Rod asks, staring befuddled at his naked wrist. Uri touches his shoulder to catch his attention, trying to pull his mind away from all that stealing business.

“Listen, I know it’s unconventional…”

“ Unconventional ? This isn’t just unconventional,” Rod gasps. “I am incredibly open-minded, Uri. I’ve known of your… tendencies for a while now but you could’ve at least become involved with someone a bit more… like us.”

“Like us ?”

“Aristocratic.”

“Oh, Rod, those men gossip more than anyone,” Uri cautions him. “In a way, I think it’s smart. He’s wholly separated from that aspect of my life. From us.”

“ Uri .”

“Rod, please, you’re cheating on your wife and you haven’t even married her yet. Don’t give me a harangue on interpersonal relationships.”

Rod has the decency to pause at that, and the indecency to continue after a moment.

“With a woman , Uri…”

“Well good for you, Rod,” Uri replies, and perhaps he does so more bitterly than he intended. He sighs, the sudden lack of Kenny’s presence making itself felt very deeply. Uri wishes he had someone to catch him when he drops back, but the only support he has is a wall. “I don’t really wish to deal with you at the moment.”

“That’s not up to you. Not everything is up to you , Uri."

"And here I thought I was the sun," Uri jokes, but the truth is being with Kenny does make you think that at times. Maybe his brother is right, maybe Kenny's made him more selfish than he'd figured he could be.

He finds himself not really caring regardless.

"You should really go, Rod. I don't know in what mood he'll be when he comes back…"

"Are you threatening me?"

"I'm saying I think it'd be best if you leave. We'll talk of this tomorrow, on the phone," Uri urges him, practically pushing him out the door. Rod allows him this, though, he lets himself be carried off like he was weightless. Uri senses he must not wish to speak of this either, he only thinks he should because he craves control. Uri wonders briefly if a part of him remembers, although vaguely, that he was not always the one meant to be chosen.

"I still need you at my wedding…"

"I'll be at your wedding," Uri promises for the umpteenth time. And then he closes the door on him, locks it just to ensure he doesn't try to come back inside. He looks around the room, somehow entirely unperturbed despite the events that have just taken place. It feels a bit like an exorcism was performed but whatever malignant entity was left still decided to linger around, lazily lounging on every piece of furniture.

Kenny shows up about two hours later, the tip of his nose so cold that Uri wants to kiss it till it warms up but desists on the idea out of sheer anger.

“Weren’t you supposed to fuck off?” he asks him as he climbs back into Uri’s apartment, never one to use an elevator or a door.

Kenny shrugs, smirking a bit.

“I did. Now I’m back," he says brightly. Uri – usually enthralled by Kenny's marvelous need to cause as much chaos as possible – finds himself rather put-off by his casual attitude.

“That wasn’t nice, Kenny,” he supplies, feeling both ancient and impossibly childish; trying to chastise a grown man but doing so in a way that demonstrates his hurt too clearly.

Only then does Kenny hesitate but Uri finds this even more obnoxious somehow, as if having his feelings so clearly seen was worse than having them maimed to begin with.

He goes to his room wordlessly, closing the door behind him. He doesn’t lock it, but he knows Kenny won’t come in. He’ll just stand there like a dog in the rain until instructed otherwise. And hell, Uri isn’t any better. He spends perhaps half an hour moping in bed before he starts to feel bad about casting Kenny away knowing how roughly he takes everything. It’s funny to think how sensitive he can be about such insignificant things when he works ever so hard to come across as stoic and cocksure. Impenetrable.

Kenny’s predictably sitting on the floor, back against the wall, perking up the second Uri opens the door. Uri rolls his eyes, sighing deeply before nodding for him to come join him in bed. Kenny’s quick to take the offer.

“You’re not allowed to rob my brother,” Uri says seriously and he can see by Kenny’s expression that he’s trying incredibly hard not to laugh at him right now. “And you’re not allowed to threaten him either.”

Kenny hums, taking off his clothes as if his nudity was more comfortable to him. He doesn’t bother to fix each piece as he takes it off, he builds a small pile at his feet and leaves it on the floor.

“Pick that up,” Uri tells him sharply – orders him really – and Kenny becomes tensed up almost immediately.

“Are you seriously still angry at me?”

Uri scoffs at that, staring at Kenny until he starts doing as told, even if he does so in a very haughty fashion.

“I disliked the fact that you left like that…”

“You put me inside the bathroom, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Kenny argues, just a bit of hurt escaping into his tone, no matter how hard he tries to swallow it down. “You’re angry I treated you like a john as if you hadn’t treated me like a whore.”

Uri blinks, watching the silhouette of Kenny’s shadow against the wall. Impossibly large and blurred, a bit like how he sees everything in his dreams.

Kenny throws himself on the bed, aggressively sitting down on the edge of the mattress. He faces away from Uri.

Uri stares at the scars on his back, slowly traveling the path each of them forms with his eyes before sighing and allowing himself to join Kenny on the bed.

“I am sorry about that. That wasn’t right of me,” he admits, now trailing a scar with his index finger. He feels Kenny shiver under his touch. He manages to get him to turn his head towards him and he considers that a victory. “I panicked, but that’s no excuse. I just hope you know I’m not ashamed of you. Ashamed of myself, perhaps. But never of you.”

He presses a quick kiss to Kenny’s nape, feeling strangely virginal as he pulls away.

A boy with a crush. That’s all he’s ever really been in the end.

Kenny makes a sweet little noise at that, finally turning fully towards Uri.

“I’m not giving your brother his wristwatch back,” he says slowly, touching the side of Uri’s face very gently. “And I don’t give a fuck if I offended him. But I am sorry if I upset you.”

“I didn’t know you were capable of apologies,” Uri teases. “Did the word feel strange in your mouth?”

“I had to spit it out,” Kenny admits, one hand already snaking towards the front of Uri’s pants, undoing his belt so deftly Uri craves to have those hands touching every inch of him. “But you know I aim to please you, your highness.”

“Behave, now,” Uri replies but he hopes this time around Kenny chooses to rebel.

Kenny smirks, pushing Uri against the mattress and grabbing at him in one motion that Uri’s mind cannot even begin to comprehend – especially not in this state.

“Wait,” Uri sighs, throwing his head back just to expose his neck, give Kenny somewhere to press his teeth against. “I never reciprocated.”

“What?”

Uri pushes Kenny off him, twists them around so that he’s on top. He grabs Kenny’s hands, interlocking their fingers. Kenny looks unconfident, not used to these indulgences: the submission, the caresses, the forgiveness and the asking for forgiveness.

Uri enjoys being the one to grant him these things. He enjoys knowing he holds this power over him just like how he enjoys the power Kenny holds over him. He enjoys knowing he’d never use that power to destroy him; not unless Uri requested it.

He kisses him so thoroughly it feels almost invasive, as if they were becoming one symbiotic entity incapable of being separated. He licks at Kenny’s tongue, bites his bottom lip and his chin and then he pauses to watch him. But only for a moment. He knows if he doesn’t stop moving that Kenny will try to grapple the control from him. He cannot allow him this until he’s punished him.

He has Kenny in his mouth before he’s fully erect. He likes feeling his cock as it hardens against the inside of his cheek.

Kenny never speaks when he’s being pleasured, he just gazes at Uri with those vicious eyes of his – they are so dark now that they’ve become an abyss in which Uri cannot help but be drawn into.

It wasn’t always easy for them to be like this. Kenny’s cautious of touch and Uri’s unaccustomed to it. Uri communicates too much, makes too many noises that contradict each other and twists around like a freshly captured eel. Kenny does none of these things and sometimes it’s impossible to understand him unless one pays attention.

He feels the weight of Kenny in his mouth, the taste of his skin on his tongue and he moves as he thinks he’d want him to move, changing his pace until Kenny’s hand starts patting the top of his head ever so softly.

Kenny’s a big man and Uri’s jaw aches after a while, but he finds himself not caring all that much about it. In fact, he finds himself enjoying the dull hurt of it, desiring for the pain to persist just to remember this even when he’s out sharing a coffee with a friend or taking a taxi. He wants Kenny to mark him physically sometimes, just like he’s managed to put his brand on Uri’s soul.

Uri swallows him down when Kenny finishes, barely making any noise – just a grunt that becomes lost in the static that fills Uri’s brain. He rests his head against Kenny’s hip, the black hair shooting up from his pubic area tickling his nose. 

They both stay silent. At some point, Uri thinks Kenny might’ve fallen asleep, and he lifts his head up to check. But Kenny’s been looking at him this entire time, he eyes now softer after the hunt has been successful.

“The first time I saw you all I could think of was those big, purple eyes of yours and your long, pale eyelashes batting like butterfly wings. I’d close my own eyes and I’d see them, even in my sleep,” Kenny tells him, his voice so low Uri has to come closer to him to hear him properly. “It was like, fucking hypnotic.”

Uri exhales a quick laugh, placing his head on Kenny’s chest.

“You’re always saying such lovely things about me. I don’t feel like I praise you half as much...”

“You write poems about me,” Kenny points out, his toothsome grin giving him a wolfish appeal that forces Uri to kiss him again.

“But it’s all cloaked in metaphors. I’ve never just called you pretty to your face...”

“ Pretty ?” Kenny scoffs, seemingly offended at such a concept. “I ain’t pretty.”

“Fine. Handsome. Striking. Beautiful?”

“You’re making shit up.”

“Well, I think you’re beautiful. I think your nose is beautiful, and your lips, and your eyes.” Uri touches each spot he names, trailing his index finger down the slope of Kenny’s slightly crooked nose and traveling the curve of his top lip. “I think your body is beautiful. I dream of the strength of your arms and the solidness of your chest. I think you have the most wonderful smile I’ve ever seen. I like that it’s quirked to the left. And I love your hands. I love them around my wrists and my waist and gripping my thighs to keep my legs apart.” He stops, staring at Kenny expectantly. “You look constipated.”

“It’s a lot , Uri,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Well, yes. It’s everything. Because it’s you,” Uri points out. “You’re my everything.”

Kenny laughs, looking away to spare himself the embarrassment of accepting he’s enjoying this. Uri enjoys it too. He likes coddling Kenny more than anything else in this world.

“You’re so odd...”

“I’m whimsical , Kenny.”

Kenny laughs again, gravely and lovely. He sighs, stretching his arm (always keeping Uri on his chest, one arm around him) to grab his cigarettes. He lights one up, placing it against Uri’s lips to allow him a drag before taking it back.

“I hope when I die it’s just like this,” he murmurs, his eyes trained on the ashes at the tip of his cigarette, “in your arms and with your stupid jokes filling my ears.”

It won’t be like this at all , Uri thinks – or rather, the thought intrudes itself into Uri’s brain, unprompted.

“Why are you so morbid?” Uri scolds him.

“I’m an Ackerman,” Kenny points out obviously, shaking Uri around a bit. “Keep going.”

“Greedy,” Uri tsks, flicking him on the forehead. “But that’s alright. You deserve it.”

“You like my scars? I noticed you touchin’ them.”

“Yes. Because they’re yours. They’re inherently a part of you in a way no one else has the same scars you do. Even the ‘ you ’ before had different, wonderful scars. And I also like the way you hold me. In every life. I like how gentle you are with me. I like the way you look when I call you beautiful, shy and sweet like a boy.”

“No, no, go back to praising my manly scars, not that soft stuff. Say something about my cock or my beard or some shit.”

“You have a nice cock,” Uri deadpans, shrugging that off. “Sometimes when you’re sleeping you make these soft noises like a kitten purring, it’s extremely endearing.”

“You like that I’m so much bigger than you? That I can lift you up like it’s nothing? That if I fucked you I’d probably break you in half?”

Uri trembles at the thought of being fucked by Kenny, but he doesn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Yes. And I like that despite that you still curl into my lap at night so I can pet your hair and read you a book. You look precious like that, practically begging for caresses and sweet nothings and...”

“ Stop . You’re making me sound fucking lame…”

Uri laughs, delighted. He kisses Kenny’s grimace into a smile. He buries them both under the covers and considers for a second staying there forever.

For as long as forever last them this time around at least.

 

*****************

 

Uri dreams. On his own, in Kenny’s arms. It does not matter. Uri always dreams.