Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It’s because I trust you.”

Damon plucks the black feather out of his pocket, strokes a finger along an edge, nearly seizes at the pain that grips him and refuses to allow any reprieve. It had fluttered in front of him after she—he doesn’t know if he can say her name anymore—had fallen into the unforgiving flames, a little burnt at the edges, the same shade as her hair. She had tried to frame him, use him for her own escape, completely content on letting him die, get cremated, and have his ashes used as seasoning for the sick bastards who organized this game.

Blatantly put: he was a hypocrite. He told others how naive they were for believing that their peers were tame enough to refrain from such horrible acts, and yet he had trusted that damned mathlete. His vision blurs as he continues to study the feather. So ordinary, and yet so …

The announcement was near white noise as the goat-man’s jovial voice rang out from the speaker, ironically bidding the students a good night. He hangs his head back against the wall, drawing out a long, long sigh. He needs to go to bed, or he might just pull one of those all-nighters Ulysses always talks of.

The hallways were the same, plain walls with wallpaper so old it looked like it was beginning to rot, paintings hung up as if to cover the obvious certitude. Their name tags remained on their doors, and yet they would never be able to return to look for them.

Damon’s breathing is a little labored as he enters Kai’s room, eyes narrowed and squinting in his physical exhaustion. The lights are amped down to their lowest setting, the fairy-lights casting a warm hue on the figure perched on his pink, eye-sore of a frilly bed. Even in the semi darkness the room was glaringly pink. If Damon didn’t know any better, he would have assumed this room belonged to a spoiled little girl's.

Kai’s gaze strays from where he picks a stray strand of the blanket, to the ceiling, to the floor, and to the bed again. Was he waiting for him?

It takes a little longer than Damon wants to admit for Kai to realize he lingers just in front of the door, his body a tense bundle of sizzling energy that threatens to burst out of the horrifyingly restricting state of inertia it’s stuck in. His breaths come in short bursts.

He can’t trust anyone again. He couldn’t even trust her, let alone anyone else.

Kai's head perks, and Damon can practically see his puppy ears lift. “... Damon?” Kai softly calls, a meek attempt at beckoning the shadow in. Damon flinches. Kai’s voice lilts with a concerned uncertainty. Not the uncertainty of whether that’s actually him. No, Kai may act like a bumbling, anxiety-ridden teenager who doesn’t quite know how and when to work the fluctuation of his presence, but he wasn’t stupid.

It’s the uncertainty in his question that makes Damon pause: are you staying the night?

Damon seizes as if he wasn’t supposed to be there—in some ways, that was true, he thought with wry humor—as if there had been salt layered within and out of the room to banish his unwanted, disgusting presence, which had been condemned the day he had spoken his truth in front of the fourteen piercing eyes which continue to bear into every vulnerable crevice he can’t help but accidentally reveal. He’s only human, after all.

Only human, and that means he can die just as easily as them. The smartest people he knew here.

Kai’s saffron eyes are glazed with unshed tears, threatening to spill under dark, wavering lashes. “Damon?” he tries again, louder, embarrassingly young and boyish in the way it sounds like he’s starved of assurance and validation.

Who are you without your fans, who don’t exist here?

Damon grunts, hard and unbidden where it releases from his chest. His hands tingle, his exhale a beat too sharp so that he feels the urge to cough the bile that rises in his throat out. Out.

He needs to get out.

Damon pivots, sharp, the motion a blur that he hardly registers, and reaches a hand out to grip the door knob, a silhouette as frightening as the silence that threatens to drive him face-first into the floor.

A burden knocks into him before he can even acknowledge it. Kai tackles him from behind, arms immediately wrapping around him to grip him tight. His hands shake where they are balled in his black sweater, knuckles white and shaking despite the lack of strength that refuses to let go, a juxtaposition that reminds him of her again. The thought makes him light-headed.

“W-wait, please, please wait,” Kai pleads airily. “I-I can’t sleep alone. I’ll—I’ll go crazy. Not after that—that awful fucking execution.” He trembles against him.

Damon scrambles for the hands that hold him, hovering indecisively before they wrap around Kai’s wrists. They don’t pry, they don’t tug—they just stay there, overlapping them. Convection soothes the searing cold of his palms.

“Please, Damon,” Kai croaks, his volume dimming on his name. Damon knew Kai had always acted like this in the short time he had known him—a little pretentious, someone who couldn’t be denied his wants, and yet completely powerless when refused. He wonders why it was now that it bothered him so much. Was it the setting of the Killing Game? Or was it that he had felt the same before he had gained his ultimate title, when he was still deemed a nobody unworthy of any valuable appraisal?

It's only when Kai grips tighter that Damon knows he can't leave.

Damon shudders, has to clear his throat a few times before he feels the bile give way to the frightened, uncertain boy beneath his cold, unshakable veneer, “I’ll stay.” He squares his shoulders. “I’ll stay,” he states again, almost as if to convince himself, forcing his voice to come out steady despite the gnawing anxiety that brews a storm in his head.

He decides not to scrutinize his disappointment when Kai lifts his head where it had been slightly tucked beneath his jaw. “Really? Oh, thank God. Thank you,” he breathes, knocking his forehead in the space between his shoulder blades, heaving in relief.

“Mhm,” Damon voices in lieu of a response. Damon’s ears flush, his body tipping forward with a sort of reserved indication that he needed space from the burning ember of heat that pressed behind. And he would never so much as admit the interest that cultivated in front, even if Tozu demanded he did, holding him by the throat over the gateway of hell.

Kai, seeming to understand, draws away, although lingers in close proximity. “... Are you okay?” he whispers. The realization that something deeper was rooted in Damon’s unseen, pained countenance had begun to dawn on him.

Damon lifts his head, and gradually shifts to face him. Kai’s eyes dart over his features, brows furrowed with vigorous upset. “... I’m fine.” Damon hopes the dark will conceal the weariness that threatens to consume him. And conceal that something else. “We can go to bed now,” he murmurs, eyes flitting to Kai’s own. For once, he finds he can’t hold eye contact.

Kai’s face, even in the dimness of the fairy lights, brightens, a corner of his mouth lifting. “Okay.” As if tasked with making sure he made curfew like a nagging babysitter, he reaches out to take his arm by the elbow and guide him forward. Damon went easily, his mind too frayed to conjure any sort of physical rebuttal.

Kai crawls onto the bed, laying down on the right side of it, tugging the pink comforter over him. He glances at Damon expectantly.

Damon huffs through his nose, drawing a hand through the shawl of his blonde head, and slowly settles next to him. The events of the past few days settles deep into his bones, anchoring him.

Kai sighs, hardly louder than the ring in Damon’s ears, kitten-soft. “I’m sorry, if I’m um … annoying, or, anything.” He buries his next words into the brunt of his pillow as he shifts sideways to face the wall, “I’m glad you're here.”

Damon watches him in his peripheral, before turning to look at him, eyes burning holes in the back of his head. This sentiment ... strangely touched him, judging by the way his heart felt like it had flipped. Kai's pink hair, usually so well-kept, was, per contra, matted and messy where it stuck against the pillow. Kai curls in on himself a little more, tucking his arms around his knees. They were so close that Damon almost felt as if he could hear Kai's heartbeat through his pillow.

Kai startles at the sound of a quiet chuckle. “H-huh?” He abruptly shifts back over to find Damon breathing the rest of his laugh into the palm of his hand. “W-what’s so funny!?” he demands.

“Just how you act like a lost puppy when you’re trying to thank people.” Damon's mouth was lopsided in a loose semblance of a smile.

Kai gapes, eyes wide as saucers before promptly plucking his pillow from beneath his head and throwing it at Damon’s face, who catches it. “Asshole,” he mutters into his sleeve, glaring at him with half-lidded eyes. “You’ll never be hearing anything nice from me again.” He sticks his tongue out petulantly.

Damon’s smile morphs wider. “No pillow privileges?” he lowly coos, wielding Kai’s pillow. Kai is bewildered at the flush that rises to his face.

“Wha—no, give that back!” he whines, attempting to snatch the pillow from Damon until he eventually relents with a quiet huff.

“Mm, you’re so annoying,” Damon murmurs groggily, eyes closing.

Kai arches a brow. “And you look like death. Go to sleep already, grim reaper of fun,” he grouses, watching him intently.

“I sure hope that’s not foreshadowing …” Damon croaks, quieter than before.

Kai laughs, unbridled and genuine. “I’ll have to hand it to you, that one was funny.”

“Never been much of a comedian …”

Kai stirs restlessly for a moment, shoving his legs underneath the comforter. “Everything in this place feels like a joke, anyway,” Kai whispers to the sleeping presence before he fully lays down, hesitates before drawing close, and lets sleep take him under, too.

Chapter Text

Damon blinks the sleep from his eyes as he wakes, half-mumbles incoherent words. A clammy hand reaches over pale eyes, rubs away the burden on his lids, the ache in his temple. The world’s curtains flay as he shifts, and tugs the comforter closer … before he knits his eyebrows close, and trails his eyes to the pressing warmth next to him.

Kai lies next to him, and he can only think that he seems unrestful even in his sleep. Pink waves hood his eyes, rest against the hard line of his cheekbone. His arms are hugged close to his chest, hands cupped to protect nothing, as if in silent prayer. Damon, in his sluggish state, wearily reaches a hand to smooth the creases in his rigid limbs—thinks better of it, and wretches it away.

The clock sports 7:30 AM. He had thought he would sleep well after the morning announcement, but he supposes that this result is more reasonable. Damon leaves ripples in the sheets as he draws himself upright, before dipping his head miserably—the scratches on the floorboard a sudden, highly invigorating interest—before willing his legs to hold and slugging to the bathroom.

Like the room originally had been, the bathroom is divided; Kai’s stuff lays on the right, a variety of cosmetics and skincare that Damon can’t name or pronounce—along with the basic toiletries. He humors the question whether Kai genuinely likes makeup, or it’s just become force of habit from all that the media attention demands. Damon’s stuff lies on the left, painfully ordinary as it consists of simply a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, deodorant, and a few other items.

He takes a good look at himself in the mirror, outlined by LED light bulbs. He still looks the same, but there’s a weariness engraved in his features that can’t be missed, one that he knows would be noticed and scolded by his parents.

The pad of his pointer finger traces an eye bag. A little deeper. A crude thought asks him how long it will take until his skin starts falling off. Using a hand that doesn’t feel like his own, he draws some toothpaste on his brush and scrubs. His eyes are a little bloodshot. His frown lines are more prominent—which is saying something. The burn on his tongue doesn’t compare to the scratchy feeling in his eyes.

“Eva.”

Eva turns, a slight shift of her direction, and the hint of a smile ghosts her face. Her hair is still beautifully long, black cascading down to white curls, eyes brilliantly alert. Her glasses tip as she leans forward and inclines her head, his name buzzing on the tip of her tongue.

“Damon. How are you?”

His gag is horrifyingly close to a puke as he spits into the sink, turns one of the faucets completely off and cascades ice-cold water on his face. Any drowsiness that clung to him has all but disappeared with the sudden disturbance of this memory he thought had left with her. Panting quietly over the sink for a few heartbeats, he turns the water off. He feels around for a towel before roughly drawing it down his face.

They’d only known each other for a few days. He wants to reprimand himself, grab his consciousness and ask what right did it have to think so much about her when his hand didn’t so much as reach out to offer her one last condolence. In previous years, he had shown indifference, never so much as lingered on a thought about anyone outside of his own, private, personal circle that held less capacity than half of what that rickety elevator did.

Resolve modified to keep Eva in his prayers but not his thoughts, Damon doesn’t take another look in the mirror as he pads across the floor to the large, overbearing wooden closet in the corner of the room. He grabs a change of his clothes—this time, he only has a third of the closet—and looks at the clock.

Right on time. Tozu, chirp as ever, delivers the morning announcement with such bravado it sounds as if he were awarding a gold medal and not foreboding the fourteen corpses—soon to drop at his tyrannical feet—a blessed day. The sound of it makes Damon’s fist clench.

Sensing the beginnings of Kai’s consciousness return to him based on the quiet rustling he hears, Damon tenses, and his eyes dart to the floor.

“... Damon?” Kai mumbles. His eyes crack open and peer at him through where they’re partially hidden behind his bangs.

Damon resigns to his fate with an inward sigh. “Good morning.” He crosses his arms and stills where he’s positioned in front of the closet.

Kai blinks owlishly as he continues to watch him. “You sleep well?”

Damon huffs a harsh hm, a little petulant. “I suppose.”

Silence hangs thick in the air, permeating any rational thought. A few awkward moments are shared before Kai says, quietly, “You can be honest.”

Damon finally shifts to take a good look at Kai, doesn’t bother conjuring up a false image of him with just his unobtrusive little glances. He’s on an elbow, more or less coherent by the quick flitting of his eyes around the room. His hair is as disheveled as it was last night, his clothes wrinkled. Damon’s eyes trace the sleep lines on his face. It’s almost a little intimate watching him in one of the most vulnerable states he can be found in.

“I, well—” Damon starts, clearing his throat, questioning whether to follow his request. “No,” and he immediately feels the urge to stamp on his own foot.

Kai’s mouth edges upward, sly as it is apologetic. His eyes narrow coyly. “Hm,” he hums.

Damon’s ears heat. He vaguely feels like an animal in an enclosure. “Anxiety is no melatonin,” he argues.

Kai's eyes scrunch, and he yawns. “You don’t hafta tell me twice,” he half-mutters, his sentence fading into a grunt as he stretches his arms over his head, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. His face contorts into one that suggests he’s handling his next words carefully, as if ready to face rejection, “You wanna go out and get some breakfast?”

Hunger is an overbearing, numbing thought that Damon has long pushed into the back of his mind. Not that the bland cereal really quells that ache, either. “I don’t know,” he settles, whether it’s the simplest and most accurate thing to say, or because he’s still holding on to the disinterest that comes with his carefully crafted image. His input wasn’t very helpful anyway, and that fact had shook him a little, a wake-up call cruder than Tozu’s.

Kai tips his head, sighing, desperation clawing through the confines of his patience. “Come on. I know you’re hungry. It’s not good for you to stay holed up in this room,” he says, inflection a tad anxious. Damon briefly acknowledges that Kai isn’t having it any easier than he is, but he won’t just tack the pang he felt in his chest up to guilt.

Damon flexes his fingers, briefly tests his weight, a slight teeter of his feet back and forth. He hears tinnitus in his left ear, his own breathing in the other, and feels a sensation akin to an ache in both, like he’s tugged his lobes too long, or toweled them off too hard. “Hunger is the last thing on my mind in a killing game,” he protests again, but his words are weak, his resolve weaker—like he hopes to be convinced, and ultimately resorts to crossing his arms and turning his head.

“Point made,” Kai half-heartedly snarks, props an elbow on a knee as he draws himself into a criss-cross, leans cheek to palm. He scrutinizes Damon a little longer, and Damon feels his face go hot as he sees his eyes rove over his form in his peripheral. There’s an awkward tension settled in both of their chests.

Finally, he shifts back around to see Kai muster a hollow smile that doesn’t quite reach the creases of his eyes and prompt, “Soooo … yes?” Damon finally spots his eye bags, hyper focused on them—stark crescents against the backdrop of his polished skin.

Unconsciously, he taps his own. Kai arches his brows. “Huh?” He blinks, bewildered, a kid reaching into an empty candy bowl on Halloween night. It pleases Damon, he knows, to see that physical remnants are left on others, too. His preach to being a solitary individual is selfish, arbitrary even—it only applies to the type of situation where he’s able to choose whether he wants to work alone or with others for a kitschy school project, not for something like the mischance of finding himself on the floor of a boiler room, unbeknownst to him the strings protruding from his limbs.

Damon slouches forward. “I guess a bed isn’t the only thing we share, huh?” he muses, tapping his eyebags again. Fifty different thoughts arise and they’re all telling him he’s finally lost it.

Damon can see when Kai realizes what he means, when the lightbulb above his head glows—his mouth forms an oh, and he bites his inner cheek, eyes wide. “Ah.” He clears his throat, and then chuckles in a delirious sort of way, touching his face. “Yeah, I guess so,” he says, a little bit of a slur to his words. Damon can almost see the red on his face where he's half-hidden it behind an arm.

Damon watches Kai’s stupor, mildly amused, rubs the back of his neck, and then begrudgingly spits, “Let’s go, then.”

The dining hall is fairly empty—people are either still asleep or refuse to relinquish the safety of their unlocked rooms. He supposes he can thank Mother Luck for pairing him with Kai, who’s the only thing that’s preventing him from contently spending the rest of his days rotting in his bed until he can see his bones contort in tune with the satisfying crack of his knuckles. The only exception to this is Diana. Of course.

The sight of her makes his breath seize, and it’s definitely not the same kind of reaction Eva had evoked in him. Hands behind her back, she sports an agonizingly elated smile that seems to make the makeup she dutifully dabbed on glow.

“Damon!” she calls, voice high as it is exuberant. She begins to walk toward him, but he quickly avoids her, walking in the direction of the pantry, footsteps parallel to her own. “Ah?” Her rhythm is interrupted, but quickly picked up when her eyes find Kai. “Oh, Kai, hello!”

Kai manages a sheepish, shaky smile for a moment. “Hi.” His hand raises to wave, before it digs into the back of his pink hair. His shoulders are tense where they’re huddled close to his jaw.

He ignores whatever one-sided conversation occurs behind him, and draws one of the kitchen cupboards open. Damon digs around, and takes out the first cereal box his fingertips touch. Without looking at the label, he takes out a bowl and pours the contents in. He doesn’t care what he eats anymore. If he finds he puts poison in his mouth, he’ll relish the fact knowing it’s something that’ll actually make him feel differently, pleasant or not.

“Damon?” Diana starts, and she’s right next to him before he can realize it as he’s taking the milk out of the fridge. Her voice lilts in a pitch that suggests she’s soft-spoken, and he hates it, loathes it. It reminds him of his peers’ cajoling, of gentle-parenting, of tentative steps and caution and—anger briefly takes grip of his chest, before he attempts to dispel it with a deep intake of air. “Why don’t you come sit down with us?”

Damon yanks open a drawer, and hopes the utensil he’s just haphazardly splashed into his bowl is a spoon. Diana’s hands twine nervously, and her form visibly droops.

“What cereal is that, Damon?” Kai questions over his shoulder, and the storm in his head dissipates.

Damon blinks, uncomfortably silent before he finds his voice: “Definitely not cocoa flavor,” he deadpans, remembering Kai had brought it up once when they were conversing.

Kai groans. “Ughhh, boooring. Where’s the flavor?” he emphasizes with a raise of his hand. “Whatever. Lemme get some.” He slightly nudges him aside to reach for the carton.

Diana’s smile bores just behind Damon like an alarm. “You two seem close! You’re roommates,” he sees the way her eyes lower on this particular word, “aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Damon says, devoid of any intonation. Diana hums, and nods, hard. She seems a bit taken aback by his lack of a response, and he relishes the look on her face. He decides to push her: “Why, are you planning to lure one of us out so you can get to the other?” he says with faux-innocence, eyes wide.

Diana’s shock forces her to retreat a step. “What?” The shock on her face is practically comical. “No, no, no, no never! I would never do something like that!” She grasps her own arm defensively, right over where the wound is plastered with foundation. He eyes it.

Damon grimaces, eyes slanting, questions what this reaction means for Eva. Bobbing his head mockingly, he snaps, “Everyone at the trial sure didn’t seem convinced. You know they were ready to vote you out in a heartbeat, right?”

Kai’s eyes turn on them, apprehension tangible. He looks between the two of them where he’s stationed just behind. His arms are slightly raised, hovering in the air as if wielding the concrete ability to cease their argument. “Guys, we shouldn’t be doing this—”

Kai’s words are only white noise to the boiling ember in Damon’s chest, nothing but the sound of a pin dropping in a crowded room. His placation, an attempt at fizzling the awful thoughts that scream at Damon to do something, that have crawled to the forefront of his mind, only brings the end of the rope closer to the ticking time bomb. The molded mask of neutrality and half-assed optimism, stuck on by what he imagines is the cheap glue of validation, threatens to fall completely, well-worn beyond effective use.

Diana’s stature withers under Damon’s strict, calculating glare, a poppy stripped of its fertilizer and sun. “Why are you so convinced there’s good in everyone? Two people have died already, haven’t they? So why are you acting like it didn’t happen?” Damon’s voice rises high like his temper, arms thrown wide and gesticulating like a madman. “Do you really believe that you won’t submit to the same act she did?” The sudden thought that Diana might believe that Eva resorted to what she did because that was who she was made the room tip. “What makes you think you’re better than her?”

Diana studies his face with care. The telltale sign of tears glints in her muggy, squinting eyes under the cheap, fluorescent lights. Her inhale is sharp, and her voice releases in a hushed quiver, “Damon, please, listen. I promise we all acknowledge what happened to them. I know Eva was particularly special to you—”

“Special?” he grits through his teeth, sharp and harsh, like he can’t get enough air in his lungs.

Damon briefly wonders just how she was so sure that she would save everyone despite everything—anything that had occurred, even as simple as the act of their kidnapping. He knows, horribly well, that her dream can never be fulfilled, because the dead cannot be saved, no matter how deep you plow your hands into the dirt.

His breathing is heavy and slow. “You don’t know anything about her, or me,” he begins, eyes feral around their red-rimmed edges, “and that’s why her death doesn’t mean jack shit to you!”

The warm atmosphere of the dining room has turned frigid, a withering flame carefully cultivated snuffed out by a hurricane. Damon doesn’t know what he’s seeing, can only feel the rapt contractions of his chest—it’s as if his eyes are closed, lids trapping whatever gray, abstract splotches they can fit within his sight. He blinks, and after a few silent heartbeats, his eyes gradually draw to the pair at the door who have likely entered just moments ago.

Ulysses has taken to gripping his notebook tightly to his sternum, the corner of a page wrinkled under the weight of an erect hand, glasses crooked where they’re under horribly wide, wavering eyes, mouth slightly agape. He’s upright and rigid in fearful attention, eyeing them like they’re prowling tigers in a cage who’s door has been carelessly forgotten and left askew.

Jean watches in excruciating, silent study of them, as if beat over the head with the knowledge that his sole duty was observing them. His eyes are as wide as Ulysses’s, and he holds the dignified, detached air of a disappointed parent who’d seen their unfortunate children fight despite incessantly chiding them to stop arguing, make up, and hold hands to happily-ever-after any misfortunes.

Whatever it may be, word of mouth will let everyone know that Damon had yelled at poor silver-spoon-in-mouth Diana, who’s only ever tried to support others and unite them.

Speaking of. His eyes draw back and land on her. Her bottom lip is trembling where she’s wedged it under her teeth, her complexity unnaturally paler, and tear tracks are halfway to drying, paths drawn onto her skin by the drops that spill from her chin. He feels the urge to both run and spout something to save whatever dignity he retains, but getting caught in making a decision stills him again.

A hand wraps around his bicep. Damon flinches, pivoting. Yellow eyes bore into his own, and the hand on his arm forces him to move to the door. He’s pushed out long before he registers he’s even left, hears Kai talking to them in words he can't make out, pushed past Diana, past Ulysses and Jean, and eventually into the hallway.

The door shuts loud behind him, a grating sound that jolts him. A blurry mellowness clings to the edges of his tunnel vision—he can’t seem to focus on one thing, eyes darting around the hall until he’s sure the only place they haven’t reached is the back of his head. He doesn’t realize he’s gripping his own sweater painfully hard and leaning against the wall until Kai’s hand delicately nudges his shoulder, his voice a distant, anxious teeter, “Hey, hey. Are you okay?”

Damon can already tell Kai isn’t used to this—comforting others. His hand doesn’t seem to know where to land, and it takes him a few tries before it finally grounds itself on his shoulder. His voice falls between soothing and demanding when he tries to tell him to look at him, but ultimately the angle of his head follows the tips of the fingers that urge it to look forward and into Kai’s eyes.

“Damon. Are you okay?” he asks again. “You—I didn’t want things to get any more heated, so I, uhm, took you out of the dining hall. Sorry. But I think you needed that. Right? Oh, geez, you don’t look so good. Ah, sorry, that isn’t the right thing to say, is it? Here, just, sit down …”

Damon wants to groan, cringe, and squeeze his eyes shut all at once. If anyone had overheard them they would have thought Kai was the one bodying the wall and on the verge of collapse.

“Kai, I’m fine,” he heaves despite himself, matching the grip on his shoulder on Kai’s own.

Kai’s gaze hardens, a sheen of determination overtaking the soft lines of his features. He pulls a tense face as he gently asserts, “No, you’re clearly not. Come on, just sit down for a minute.”

A drowsy sort of tipsiness to his tone, Damon mutters, “God, who taught you to be so persistent …” He lets the hand burdening his shoulder win, and he slides down the wall to sit on the floor. He pictures a slick path of blood following in its wake.

Kai places another hand on his other shoulder. It seems like it’s to ground himself more than Damon, judging by the way his crouched body sways. “You’ll be okay,” he says in a way that seems like he hopes comes off as reassuring, regardless of the way he chews on his bottom lip. "If we can get through the class trial, we can get through this, haha!" he jokes, laughing with the vigor of a dying man.

Damon frowns. He suspects that Kai needs a companion more than he does, judging by his near-sporadic, clingy actions—certain of Kai’s responses had sincerely sparked concern in his otherwise impassive, walled-up veneer that he refused to allow close proximity with anyone.

Damon leans a little closer to Kai, voice soft. He doesn’t know where to place the information, what form for it to take—potential blackmail? A reason that Kai trusts him? An alliance?

“Kai, are you okay?” Damon can’t find any disingenuity in his question, and for once he believes it actually shows, if the long-suffering face he’s just made, one that lets Kai in more than he wants to, has anything to do with it.

Kai stiffens and then goes limp, a taut string released. “I'm okay, it’s okay …” He drags a hand through his hair, throat bobbing. “Here, let’s just both uh, calm down for a moment.” He unceremoniously plops himself against the wall next to him, criss-crossing his legs like he did on the bed, lolling his head forward and scrunching his hair with his fingers. There’s a bit of a rock to his body.

Damon watches him wearily, and this time the invisible barrier isn’t there when he reaches out a hand and clasps Kai’s shoulder. Kai’s eyes peep up behind his elbow, daintily large.

“Do you wanna just …” In lieu of a response he motions with his head in the direction of the dormitories.

Kai’s only response is a nod.

Without another word, they trail through the hallways, feeling like ghosts who’ve left the husks of their bodies in the waking world, turn the lights off, and close their eyes, again.