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You hadn’t meant to pseduo-adopt a frat guy, but life never really went the way you expected it to. Kyle had shown up a few days after he died, hanging on Zoe’s arm and grunting nonsense that pretty clearly conveyed his distress. For Miss Robichaux’s, the undead weren’t anything new, but Kyle’s mental state was. Resurrection didn’t usually strip the person of their speech capabilities and motor skills, just their emotional depth. That seemed to be the one thing Kyle hadn’t lost: his pain.
For the first few days, you’d kept to the sidelines, spectating helplessly on the situation. Kyle, at least through your eyes, was unequipped to handle a lot of what was thrown at him now. Zoe, despite her gentle words and hands, was growing frustrated at his non-progression. Madison was, well...Madison. You think she’d feel a little bad for killing the guy, especially after he tried to help her, but no. Either she was too blind to the nuances of that night (you couldn’t exactly blame her) or reducing a kind, promising college student to a desperate, miserable man trapped inside a body with all the physical faculty of a toddler didn’t bother her.
It bothered you. Especially once you caught wind of what they were doing.
After getting up in the middle of the night to pee, you’d been making your way back to your room, eyes bleary and slippers squeaking against the hardwood, when you heard commotion in Madison and Zoe’s shared bedroom. You probably should have left it alone, but trouble in a finishing school for adolescent witches, particularly when it involved the queen of pissing people off, Madison Montgomery, shouldn’t be left to resolve itself.
So you’d padded over to their door and pushed it open. Bad mistake.
All three of them were on Madison’s bed, naked, twisted up with eachother. Kyle was flat on his back, eyes closed but awake, golden hair splayed on Madison’s pillow. Zoe had her thighs on either side of his head, fingers gripped tightly around the headboard. Madison, on the other hand, had a monopoly on the rest of him.
You’d felt your heart clench painfully and you took a step forward almost against your will, fingertips lingering on the brass doorknob. It wasn’t that you thought he was a child—he was a frat brother, he’d probably had more than his fair share of sexual experiences—but that was before he’d died. Now, he couldn’t speak properly. He didn’t understand some things. Even though you got the feeling that it was mostly a motor thing—that Kyle’s mind was trapped inside a body that didn’t remember how to function, it still made you a little sick to think about doing what they were.
Especially considering what you knew.
You hadn’t meant to find him, bloody and shaking on the bathroom floor, but you had. Finding the door open that day, you and Zoe had decided to split up. She’d made laps around the area, and you ventured inside. And there he was, his eyes wide but distant, hair mussed, congealed blood on his face, on his neck, making his shirt stiff and sticky.
Your name passed his lips over and over, hands reaching for you, even as he bumped his head against the cool ceramic of the toilet bowl. You’d knelt, taken inventory of his body, made sure he wasn’t injured.
“What’s wrong?” you’d asked. “What happened?”
A frustrated sound tore from his throat, and you’d caught wind of the tears in his eyes. “Bad,” he’d choked out. “Here’s bad. Her.”
“Her? Who?” you’d asked, pulling away for a brief moment to wet a washcloth and begin to clean his face. Magic tingled in your chest, but you tried to tamp it down. You could use that later, when you were somewhere safer.
He’d just shaken his head, jerking away from your touch before finally allowing you to wipe away some of the blood.
“Who’s blood is this?”
He’d said nothing, gaze wandering to the ceiling, like he could barely stand to look at you, knowing you expected an answer.
“I’m going to find you some new clothes.” You’d given him a worried look and slipped out of the room, sucking in a deep breath.
He’d made a pained noise, but let you go.
And then you’d been alone. Well, alone-ish. Left to wander through his house in search of his childhood bedroom. The house was cluttered and messy, dishes piled in the sink, windows grimy, every seat in the living room covered by stacks of newspaper. You didn’t know whether or not this was a new development, but you could guess. After Kyle left for college, there was nobody around to keep his house clean. Not when his mother was the person she was, after all.
His bedroom door had been open, swinging on its hinges, like the last time it was opened had been violently. Lying in front of his dresser was the corpse of his mother. Her head was bashed in, blood splattered up the walls. A trophy sat in the hollow of her skull.
Your heart had pounded in your chest, blood rushing to your fingertips, your breathing fast. You’d stepped over her body, legs feeling weak as you rummaged through his dresser, searching for something comfortable that might still fit his adult (or close to adult) frame. After a few tense moments, you’d retrieved a worn plaid pajama shirt and a plain gray t-shirt and promptly got the fuck out of that room.
When you’d returned to the bathroom, you’d noticed that Kyle’s jeans were unbuttoned and his shirt was undone. Something painful clicked in your chest, but you hadn’t said anything. Kyle didn’t need that right now.
So watching Madison, Zoe, and Kyle like that…well, it made something hot and angry flare in your chest. Then again, it wasn’t your job to protect him. He could take care of himself, couldn’t he? But…
“Stop,” you’d said.
That word shattered the whole scene, and whatever friendship you’d built with the girls. Zoe, later, was apologetic. She told you that she felt bad about doing what she had, that she’d managed to justify it to herself, but that she regretted it. If Madison felt remorse, she didn’t say anything.
You were sitting in the dining room, across from Kyle, cards strewn on the table between you.
“Go fish,” you said, after shuffling through your hand.
Light streamed in through the windows, making the white kitchen glow golden. Kyle stared at you for a moment before his gaze drifted to the pool of cards. He blinked, then looked to you like he was asking for permission.
“Yeah,” you said. “You take a card. They’re blue on the back so that it looks like water. Fishing.”
He nodded. When he leaned forward to pull a card, the sun filtered through his blond hair. He looked young. You always thought that, but it was especially apparent in moments like these.
You hummed, glancing over your cards, before looking back up at him. “Hammerhead.”
He handed the card over, and you set the pair down on the table in front of you. “S…Seahorse,” he said.
You grinned at him and gave him the card. “Damnnit, you’re gonna win.”
He smiled back and you felt your heart clench. He set his final cards down, counting out his pairs before smiling wider and announcing, “Eleven.”
“Nine! Come on! How’m I ever supposed to beat you?”
Kyle shrugged. He didn’t have his full range of motion back yet, but he had enough for more minute, micro movements. You leaned across the table to plant a kiss on his cheek, and you watched as his face flushed. “Not fair,” he muttered, glancing away from you.
“Fair and square,” you retorted, leaning back and crossing your arms over your chest.
“You have...mm…magic.”
“I can cook emotion into food. And you’re not eating anything, are you?”
He grouched for a bit before his face softened, brows lowering along with his shoulders. “Fine.”
“But I can make something if you’re hungry.”
“Brownies?”
You stood, rounding the table, fingers brushing through his hair briefly. He melted into the touch, eyes closing, head leaning back. When you pulled away, he let out a noise of complaint, but shook it off and moved to tidy the cards.
He liked doing things like that now that he could. He had a lot of motor function back, which he was excited to show everybody.
And you were excited to watch. It felt nice, watching him get better. Watching the scars fade, sink deeper into his skin.
Even if his skin wasn’t his. Even if he was built out of parts that belonged to people who hurt somebody so badly, in the exact way he’d been hurt. Even if somehow, still, he seemed to attract people who wanted to hurt him in that way. Because he was getting stronger, and he had you, now. And you’d help. Or step back, if that was what he wanted.
Really, you just wanted to make sure you’d never have to find him in another bathroom.