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Kace had woken twice in the night, disoriented at first by the feel of another body against his, but then settling back in against Cassie. She was warm, her skin soft as he trailed his fingers up the shallow crease between her belly button and breastbone that he’d mapped with his mouth the night before. Both times he’d drifted off again eventually, once his body felt like it’d adjusted back to those new boundaries – the ones Kit was trying to govern.

This thing wasn’t easy for any of them. Cassie had pulled off a miracle, dragging him back from that place where he’d only grow more isolated, more pissed off, more vindictive with each passing day, but it didn’t mean slotting nice and neat exactly back where he’d been. Dying had added corners to a soft life, splintered badly enough at the edges to catch on everything and everyone around him as he tried to ease back into the round hole of his life as a torn up square peg.

Frank was trying to help – he was grateful for the room, even if it had meant trying to negotiate the limitations of a narrow sofa bed last night – but this was him muscling in on the life they had built here and Kit wasn’t exactly letting him forget it. The club wasn’t his place to work, it was stepping over a line, shoving a walking, talking reminder of what had happened to leave him here. Last thing he probably wanted was a melt down behind the bar at the club, the bite of PTSD worse with witnesses and there’d been plenty there last night to see him get kicked out by his boss.

Huffing out a breath, eyes still heavy from sleep, Kace flipped further onto his stomach. With one cheek burrowed into the thin pillow and the dandelion fluff halo of Cassie’s hair filling most of the rest of his vision the low, blocky lines of Frank’s desk and the bookcases that ran along one wall, filled with stuff that had knocked him out on other nights, were barely visible. It was still early, they probably had hours before Kit would crawl out of bed to read the second act of his treatise on why the hell he wasn’t stepping foot behind the bar again. By then Cassie would probably be bouncing off to her job at the pawn-slash-weird-ass-magic-shop on the square, clear of the backlash that was bound to come about her too.

Kace huffed again, slipping his arm back around Cassie’s waist as he shut his eyes. He might as well try for an hour’s more sleep before it all kicked off. The rap on the door couldn’t have come more than five minutes later. Maybe Kit’d had manners once, but any reluctance he might’ve had to get a glimpse of something he didn’t want to see seemed to have vanished with his resurrection. Fuck.

He pressed his face into the pillow, cursing into the fabric as Cassie sat up, the covers going with her to reveal a stretch of his bare back, not covered back up with his t-shirt after they were done last night. ”Really?” Kace shot back as the offer of coffee cut off into a bitchy little complaint.

The door swung shut after him. Kace propped himself up on his elbows, hanging his head for a moment before he glanced sideways at Cassie. ”That wasn’t aimed at you,” he promised. This had been all about him, them, whatever you could call the tattered remains of his relationship with his big brother. She’d just got caught in the middle of it, the victim of Kit’s newfound puritan ways – as though he hadn’t done a thousand times worse after his release from prison. Apparently only one of them was allowed on that slippery slope at a time. ”Sorry you got caught up in it. I’ll come by the store later, after he’s finished groundin’ me.” He studied her face for a moment, not pulling out the ‘are you alright?’, he’d done enough double-checking last night, in those breathless pauses, to make he wasn’t storming over that line Kit had tried to draw in the sand for him.

Sliding out of bed, Kace tugged on a pair of sweat shorts, a t-shirt, aiming a half smile at Cassie as she scrambled to get dressed and get out of there. He hooked an arm around her shoulders as she went to scramble out, trying to slap the last band aid on this with that quick, friendly brush of his lips against hers. ”If he growls on your way out, ignore him, it’s all bark and no bite.” With anybody but him.

Dragging his hand over his mouth, Kace hovered as Cassie’s footsteps rushed towards the door and it slammed shut behind her. Was he chickenshit? Maybe. It wasn’t like Kit was gonna hover out there til he found the balls for this anyway. He was gonna barge back in that half open door, all righteous indignation and a cluster-fucking-f-bomb littering his speech like it’d somehow make him more likely to put his hands up and go ‘you know what man, you were right, I fucked up by doing nothing wrong’.

He dropped back onto the sofa bed, planting his forearms on his knees as he stared up at his brother. ”You wanna back the fuck up on the accusations? Maybe you can kick me out of your club, you’re the boss there, but this has got nothin’ to do with you.” Kace swirled his finger above the tangled sheets on the bed – not exactly selling a story of I didn’t bang her last night. Protesting that she was just a kid and he wasn’t that big a dick wasn’t gonna do his case of Cassie being old enough any good. ”After what she did to get me back here, for you to chew my ass out right now, you think she’s still a kid? Fuck you man. Don’t start lecturin’ me about who I did or didn’t sleep with.” Kit didn’t have a damn leg to stand on. He’d stuck himself on the other side of that veil, left himself in a position where his only way to keep watching out for his brother was to see him slowly kill himself with sex and whatever he could get up his nose or down his throat.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 1068

Fuck no, the intention hadn’t been to hook up with Cassie at the club last night. He’d be damned if he’d tell Kit that, though. He’d gone in there, already damp in the pits, worried about showing his brother that he could get back out there, proud that it was gonna be the fucking Clarke brothers ruling shit there. Maybe he’d been touched for thinking it when his presence in Kit’s life from the moment he’d actually been able to pull back the curtain here and show his brother he was still here had been nothing but a trigger.

Kace planted his elbows on his thighs, ground the heels of his hands against his eyes. If Cassie had stuck it out the whole night, sinking her worries with enough liquor to have her falling off her stool, he woulda bought her back here, as a good friend. Maybe if the sad over not catching that dude’s eye the way she thought Hannya was hadn’t worn off he’d have found some way to prove to her that, yeah, she was definitely attractive enough that she didn’t have to worry about nobody ever looking her way. ”You tearin’ me a new one didn’t make me go ‘hey wait, I’ve got nothin’ else to do tonight, lemme just take some chick home and sleep with her. You’re giving yourself too much fuckin’ credit.” And maybe there was just enough of a lie to that to have his throat feeling thick.

He cleared it, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth, wishing Kit could’ve at least brought a second cup of coffee with him. There was a chance it woulda gone straight in his face, but it woulda washed the lie and the taste of last night out of his mouth, so maybe he wouldn’t have thrown one of those verbal slaps back. It was self-defence, on his part and Cassie’s - she had been through too much shit to be considered a kid anymore, and that was shitty as it was.

Kit wasn’t half as shy about swinging back, bringing more fucking guilt on than either of their parents had ever been able to. Grown-ass man, AKA you’re too old to be pulling this shit, grow the fuck up. He’d had a dozen different variations of it after Kit had enlisted and suddenly all attention was on how he was still floating adrift instead of looking to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Bodhi’s had given him that purpose, now cut off from what had been his he’d felt fucking rudderless. The job was meant to change that, but all it’d done was still to hollow him out again, leaving him vulnerable for Kit’s sucker punch.

Cassie would’ve argued it too if she’d still been here – he wasn’t some sleezy fifty-year old hitting on every girl at the club, hoping he could take advantage of some kid who didn’t know better than to tell him to go and fuck himself. He hadn’t taken advantage of her last night. He’d pulled his Henry Higgins act to help. Kit had him feeling fucking sick about it now though, was he just trying to convince himself he hadn’t done wrong?

Scowling, he Kace to swallow back the thought and just got that thick feeling right back in his throat. ”You worried that she’s gonna break my heart when she goes runnin’ back to him – if he doesn’t fall under the spell of Hannya’s rack first, which she’s worried’s gonna happen by the way – or that I’m gonna get locked up for bein’ some kinda creeper over some jail bait?” Or was Kit just trying to hypocritically coax his little brother into making the sorta decisions that would give him the sort of apple pie life that wouldn’t have happened for him even if that knife hadn’t slid between his ribs. Kamilla had made sure that he wasn’t fucking built for it. Kit maybe, but he’d always been way more like their dad than he had been – solid, dependable, the kinda guy that wanted to do his duty and have white picket fences, a happy marriage and maybe three little kids running around in it all one day.

His being back here, that never ending reminder of everything that’d been fucked up in his life, meant that maybe Kit wasn’t getting it. He stepped in and Kace tipped his head back, lips pressed together like he was expecting another swing. ”Seriously, fuck you.” The self-doubt popped like Kit had jabbed that knife into him again. Kace pushed to his feet, ready to shove Kit on his ass before that faint smile appeared. ”I didn’t take anythin’ out on her, I was helpin’ out a friend who was feelin’ pretty fuckin’ shitty too.”

The frown remained etched deep, eyes that were still crusted with sleep glaring at his brother. ”I’m not dumb enough to fall for anythin’ she wanted to try. I spent enough time in that place...” Before. He swallowed hard and carried on. ”I’m not blind to any of the shit that goes down there. Just like you ain’t. You’re too smart, too good to be workin’ there, but you put yourself in danger doin’ it anyway. You’re a hypocrite.” Why bother seeing how your behaviour got everybody else all clotted up with fear when you could act like you were falling on your sword to make sure nobody else had to go through all of that?

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 912