KEREN

Ow...

Lights pulsed in the dark. Voices mingled and he shifted against the mattress which cocooned him in a warm embrace. He tore himself back into the world, in a darkened room with only little lamps on either side of his bed. In a chair against the corner, Ethan. His big brother. Ethan lifted his head in one quick motion from his staredown with the door, where the voices continued to mix. Keren moved his hand off the side of the bed when Ethan hurried over to him.

"Sellzora," he said and put a hand on his wrapped forearm, with bracing straps at his elbow. "How are you feeling?"

Keren scrunched his brow free of tension, then gazed at him, a sense of security wrapping him in a tighter blanket. "I couldn't think of any restaurants I wanted to go to. Sorry."

Ethan sighed and rested an arm against his shoulder. "Don't worry about it." He tapped his brow, then an empty smile stretched against his cheeks. "Dr. Evelion fixed up your arm, and I'll be taking you back home later for more rest. We just need to make sure it's safe to move you," he explained, leaning over him. "You've been in and out over the past few hours."

"Anything happen?" Keren found his neck stiff, so kept it against the pillow.

Ethan's gaze dropped to the blankets, and he shook his head. "Not much since I grabbed you and brought you here."

"Ethanius," a suit came in, an Associate, but not close enough to Father. "Boss gave his okay, so what do you want to do?"

Keren frowned when Ethan's entire body stiffened, a predator among the grass. His gaze slid over to the Associate without a single word. His exhale left through his nose, quiet and tense. His lips parted, and he whispered, "I want it handled, so handle it."

The Associate nodded and closed the door.

"Handle it?" Keren mused with a frown, causing Ethan to twist back to him with the familiar smile.

"Don't you worry about it." Ethan shuffled with a pocket in his jacket. "I swung by an edevic store to grab you something on the off chance a situation like this happened, but I was too late to catch this one, I suppose." He unfurled a package, and Keren blinked at the four flares which tangled off the edges of his fingers when he held them out. "These are edevium flares. Bright as a star. I want you to have them." Ethan pushed the four flares into his hands, and Keren stared at him. "If you're ever in danger, light one of them up and send it flying. I'll come when I see it — I'll take care of you."

Keren dragged himself upwards on his good elbow, and winced when Ethan set a hand on his back before pushing his fingers between the four flares. "What if you don't see it?"

"I'll find a way."

Keren put them to the side and rubbed his bandaged arm at a curdling itch through his skin, but pulled his hand back when Ethan swiped it. "All you needed was a stitchpen," Ethan explained. "You're to not overexert it, and when I take you home Dr. Evelion will swing by every so often to check on the progress."

His energy ebbed out into a sluggish flow when Ethan's compearl rang. It stung barbs through his heart when Ethan left his side to step out of the room, but kept the door inched open. Ethan spoke under his breath to whoever talked on the other end, swaying on his knees as if poised to spring into action. Keren set his arm across his lap and gathered the strength almost stolen from him. I didn't die... Ethan came for me. He propped up the pillow to set his back against it when Ethan stiffened once more, then hung up the compearl. On his heel, he swung back into the room with his shoulder against the door to open it.

"Okay, so," Ethan said and sat on the edge of his bed beside him. "We're going to move now. I'm going to take you back home and we can go out and talk some other time."

"But—"

His argument went rejected when Ethan shook his head in finality, helping him stand. His legs quaked from a lack of use, and grappled onto his only support in life when Ethan guided him out of the room and out of Dr. Evelion's residence through the backdoor. Associates loitered on the corners of the streets, with one or two sitting on Dr. Evelion's porch having a smoke. Keren shivered when one elbowed the other, causing the suit to stand up and head to a different car parked along the street.

"Ethan? What's happening?" Keren whispered when Ethan nudged him into the passenger's seat of the cobra.

"Nothing yet." Ethan shut the door when Keren tugged his leg inside, rushing around the front to leap into his seat.

Why won't you talk to me?

Keren chewed on his lower lip at the flash of pain in his head, carried on the river of grief, pressing his arm against his stomach. Ethan checked on him twice when he started the car, then drove along the street, turning a corner where the casino shone bright. "What did you mean by handle it back there?"

Ethan ignored him.

"Ethan."

Instead of words, his response was Ethan pressing his face into his knuckle with a quiet, but no less tempered sigh. "Just don't worry about it," he said, voice taut with a shake of his hand at him, and Keren flinched. "I just want you to get some rest when we get home. I've got some pain medis from Dr. Evelion." The topic changed at the flip of a card along the winch, and Keren winced at the cold anger overtaking his brother once more.

Keren breathed deep of the odd anger swallowing his own chest, but he pushed it down. "Was it another targeted attack, then?"

Ethan stretched his fingers over his wheel with a soft scoff. "I can't say much right now, but what I can say is that it's a lot like what happened when..." He drew out a longer scoff. "Look, Keren, there's a sort of boundary between us and them. Usually, no one likes to mess with that boundary, it's not good for business. We stay in our lane. They stay in theirs, except they've stopped doing that since North Park, and time and time again they've pushed our buttons," he said, tighter. "North Park. The Construction Site that we were supposed to use for our business. Keren, we are being targeted, that much is obvious. You knew that back then."

"Why?"

Ethan shook his head against his shoulders. "No idea, Father isn't inclined to share more than he already has - but I'm done sitting on my ass while they talk and talk. They can talk all they like. I'm done talking." He choked the wheel, and Keren drowned on the spiteful malice trickling down his skin when Ethan narrowed his eyes. "One more excuse, I don't want to hear it."

What are you talking about? Keren shifted in his seat. "Ethan... I just wasn't careful."

"It didn't matter how careful you were, Keren," Ethan pointed out. "You think it mattered in the past? You think it matters to them?" He pointed out the window, eyes widening, but not in the same terror from before. In focused hate. "Not in this life, Keren. Once you step over that boundary you know the consequences."

"Ethan..." Keren stared at him, the mirror of a falsehood cracking in his ear.

Ethan's entire body relaxed, and he huffed. "Just don't worry about it. Ignore me." He rested his brow in his hand when he lifted it off the wheel.

I'm not worried about it, Ethan.

I'm worried about you. I'm scared.

I don't think you ever left North Park.

Keren's voice failed him, and he sank into the seat as Ethan drove the rest of the way in eerie, screaming silence. He shoved his uninjured arm between himself and the armrest beside him. Bones cracked underneath the asphalt they drove over, and Keren sucked in his lips and checked on Ethan, whose gaze emptied out of all emotion, leaving only a black hole. A plea fell on the edge of his lips, but never left in his voice.

Once home, Ethan guided him up the steps to his room. "Don't overexert that arm," he instructed, cold.

"Ethan, come on..."

"I'll come talk to you later," Ethan insisted. "Look, Keren, I'm just..." He raised his hands and pushed them through the air with a smile of agony, but his sentence went unfinished when he closed Keren's bedroom door on him. Another wall. Another, larger wall strangling the galaxy's core.

Confusion danced on his brow when he stared at the door, piecing together the unsaid words Ethan refused to speak out. Though when he tried to drag himself out of bed, to grab onto his brother before he slipped out of his grasp, stolen by suits, a prickle of nauseating numbness struck his spine, and he slumped deeper into his bed.

"He never talks about what he's feeling," Mother admitted and cupped her stomach. "Ethan doesn't tend to concern himself with his own wellbeing."

Miama, I know, and you knew... At what point does this end? What parts of it are so against Ethan to not give him any sense of relaxation — and what other parts is it him doing it to himself? He's ready to jump. Stars. Stars, I can't make him happy. I don't know what I could do. I want to help him. Keren squirmed in his restless doze, wincing when he squished his arm underneath him. If I don't help him it'll be my fault. It always was my fault.

It was me.

Keren dragged himself out of the darkness when a second night crawled through the gaps of the clouds. Ugh... He pressed the heel of his palm over his brow, but lowered it at the sound of argumentative voices once more. A memory of when he refused to see the truth of Ethan's reluctance, with him paying the price for Keren's stupidity again and again. Arm loose at his side, he stretched out his fingers then peeked out of his room. Down the corridor, dim light flickered from the small opening in Father's door.

The argument hadn't raised its voice, so he crept closer to investigate the commotion.

"I have told you time and time again, Ethanius, to keep your head down," Father growled as he stood beside his desk, arms folded while Ethan shifted in place. "You, Urto, and Jestirian threw yourselves at a problem you couldn't let go and let people with more experience than you handle it, and look what's happened."

"They're the ones that broke this," Ethan snapped, louder. "They're the ones that attacked North Park. They're the ones that have the Sanctum buzzing about. Blame me all you want but this was a long time coming because the rest of you didn't want to take that first step. What is it going to take, huh?" He threw his arms out. "What? Business, not personal? You're the one that gave the okay."

"It was to send a message," Father bit.

"Then you need to send a stronger message," Ethan snapped, hotter than solar fires as Keren tucked himself against the corner. Listening. Watching. "They won't get it until we deliver what they've done tenfold." He pointed at the ground. "What will it take for you to move? First, Mom, then Jestirian, who you basically shrugged off. 'Business, not personal'. Give me a break. It has always been personal."

"Personal to you," Father said, cold as space against his brother's raging fire. "You always take things personal, Ethanius. It is the one thing you've refused to grow up from. Keren is a weakness—"

"You leave Keren out of this," Ethan hissed. "You leave him out of this. Don't give me that bullshit. Since I was fifteen I was the one who took care of him. You were too busy with the business. Mom could just barely take care of herself! You were the one who dragged him into this in the first place. I'm one thing, he is another—"

"—And that mouth is going to be the death of you," Father interrupted, ignoring Ethan's pleading. "So you better damn well listen when I tell you something."

You're going to be the death of him.

Keren tucked his arm closer to his side, a representation of weakness.

In the silence, he checked on the father and the son.

"You need me," Ethan drew out through the chains. "What? You think they're going to care about one guy? You didn't. What will it take?"

"You're not seeking to finish business, you're looking for revenge. We're going to settle this properly so we can come out on top," Father said. "We come out on top as we have before. We have gone to war with rivaling families long before you were born, Ethanius. This is not the first time." He glared at Ethan. "You're young. You think you know better, but you don't. You don't know anything except what's right in front of your nose. I didn't raise my son to be a hot-headed idiot."

"They'd deserve it after what they've pulled time and time again," Ethan growled. "Your generation is content to sit on its ass harking about old glory days—"

It happened too fast.

Sluggish agony.

Keren widened his eyes when Ethan lunged the moment Father took a step for him. In the scuffle, Father pressed Ethan against the wall, a hand around his neck with his fingers dug deep. Seconds extended into murderous millenia when Ethan squirmed, then went silent.

"You're too much of a loose cannon, Ethanius. The first time, with Jesti, it was a formality, the second time was a message." He tightened his grip, and Ethan trembled with rage dying into empty terror.

Except his own.

Keren dug his fingers into the carpet beneath him as malice entered his heart instead of his spine. Father stepped closer to Ethan, who winced and no longer fought back.

He can't breathe...

His hand rested where his holster would've been, if he hadn't been so weak.

Solar rage dug into his tongue, but he bit on it to stifle the dangerous malcontent. It pulsed in his ears, with anger, spite, and a taste of furious blood when Father studied Ethan, who raised his hands, unable to take a breath when Father kept his hands to block Ethan's ability to live.

"The third time, and it won't be a message they send," he warned. "Understand me?"

Ethan said nothing.

Useless when it mattered the most, Keren stifled a raging sob.

Ethan gave a small nod in the too long silence without breathing.

Father let him go.

He stumbled with a quiet choke, clinging onto the wall with his body quaking. Father returned to his desk without a second glance at Ethan. Back turned. One shot. One river of intent. Keren thumbed his empty holster, biting down on his jaw.

"Get out of my sight," Father said. "I won't hear anything more of this. You'll let the other Associates handle this."

Keren dragged himself off the floor to get out of the way of the door when Ethan's shadow closed in and drowned out the dim light of cruelty. He went to stop Ethan when he left the office, the door slamming behind him as he pressed the heel of his palm against the bridge of his nose.

"Kellzoro," he whispered, and jolted when Ethan choked his shoulder and pushed himself into his bedroom. "Ethan. Ethan, hold on."

Ethan tangled his hand in the air, as if trying to find something to grip onto, settling on his dresser when his fingers twitched. He raised his free hand to his neck as he took another dragged step into the room. Keren closed the bedroom door, finding himself zoning in on Ethan's chain blaster tucked in its holder. Malice. A cascade. He jolted into action when Ethan hit his hip off his desk, wrapping his arms around him to stop his descent. His arm screamed in pain, but he ignored it.

"Kellzoro, you need to sit down."

"I'm fine," Ethan's Tersilian came out a soft wheeze. "You can let go of me."

"No, you need to sit down," Keren argued when Ethan vibrated. He adjusted his arms and interlocked his hands, though bit through the pain when Ethan tried to release himself from his grip. "You need to catch your breath, or something. Just sit down." Keren dug in his heels and dragged Ethan away from his desk. Away from work and pressure. "Ethan, I'm still here you need to stop—"

Supernova flames strangled him when Ethan took deeper and deeper breaths. "Keren..."

Keren went to adjust his hold, trying to find a comfortable spot for his bandaged arm, but he gasped when Ethan's entire weight slacked at once. His back hit the frame of Ethan's wall-unit. Stinging nettles swept up his entire spine as he hissed, "Ow, ow..."

Ethan held his arms loose at his sides. "I'm sorry..."

"What? Why?" Keren leaned around at the lack of a response. "Ethan? Hey?"

Ethan had closed his eyes, limp.

No fucking way.

Keren slavered against the current of rage when he trembled and tightened his arms around Ethan. His fingers curled back into his palms when he slipped his tongue between his teeth and found himself smiling on the wings of agony, eyeing Ethan's chain blaster, a test of luck and danger. Blood tore through his mouth when he chewed on it the way all others did around him.

Why do we need to worry about the danger out there? Fuck.

Fuck. It's right here.

Keren braced himself on his knees, to gun for freedom.

He stopped.

Why did I stop?

He released the tension and returned his attention to Ethan, whose breathing slowed into a doze. Heavy shadows rested under his eyes, and Keren held on tighter to him instead of the call of blood screaming at him, not to run, but to deliver Ethan's rage.

Instead of action, he hugged Ethan close.

"I'm still here," he whispered.

He sat there all night.