I can't feel a thing

[Kenneth Branagh]

They couldn't be whole anymore, Ken realized it early on--maybe as soon as he caught sight of Niall in the diner, dressed in flimsy clothes with eyes rimmed in black--but... they could still be happy. The fractured selves that formed from an unusual life of exterminating life--one of the greatest sins that the bible preached--could never be healed. There were wounds in both of them, cracks that not even time could fully heal.

But there was happiness to be found in each other. Ken believed that with all his heart. He believed it when they were like this, kissing each other, needing each other, and he believed in it when they were at their lowest moments, feeling naked and vulnerable and broken.

He had always been the careful one--the mindful one, the one with all the answers. A little more time was what they needed, he was sure. A little more care and love and everything that once made them giddy in each other's arms. A little more happiness to balance out all of the sadness that had fallen over their lives.

"Careful," he murmured as they navigated the small space from would-be kitchen to couch bed. But he didn't mean that Niall should watch that the carpet didn't snag under his foot, or that he should be aware that the couch bed was looming close. He meant... He didn't know. That they needed to be careful with each other. That acting in haste now might reopen old wounds, even as his arm throbbed and bled again as he curled the injured arm around Niall's waist.

Carefully, softly, gently, he fell with Niall as he had fallen for him so abruptly long ago. Ken stood no chance then; he didn't stand a chance now. The kisses came deeper now, more amorous and as the excitement mounted and the friction between them built up and up and up, even the voice of caution inside of Ken paused--just to let him feel. Just to let him feel happy and alive and free.

"Niall... we... " shouldn't... His lips were barely a hair's breadth away; he couldn't bear to be apart for very long. Ken's hand cupped Niall's face, the thumb sweeping under his eye as if to wipe away the trails of tears already shed.

[Niall Gallagher]

Again, careful wasn't in his lexicon. Niall was about as subtle as a dump truck and he knew it; subtlety was never one of his... attributes. Why bother being subtle when he could just say and do whatever he wanted? That was what he thought of being an adult, what he believed was maturity. Being able to do what he wanted without anybody standing in his way. No parents, no brothers, no society. Just himself, making decisions for himself.

Like right now. This was a decision he was making, albeit without much thought. But did something like this even require much thought? Not so, Niall thought. This was exactly when a person didn't need to think, only feel, only go with the body's instincts, desires, cravings. Yearnings. And Ken could keep pushing him out and telling him no all he wanted but instinctually, his body heard Ken's body. It wanted him--he wanted him, more than he was saying, more than he was letting on.

And Niall? Niall was so tired of conventions and he was so exhausted with being told to be careful. His hand was in Ken's hair, light and soft, dandelion fluff. He drew him in for another kiss. Whatever Ken wanted to say could be said later. As he kissed him, Niall rolled them over, so that Ken was on his back and Niall straddled him, not unlike earlier. The hand attached to the injured wrist caressed the side of Ken's face but the other slid between them to unbutton, to unzip, to slide down.

"Stop fighting it, Kenny..." he whispered softly against his temple before turning to kiss him again, a long and lingering kiss that ended with Ken's lower lip gently captured between Niall's teeth. And then another kiss, a softer kiss as he gently stroked Ken's hair with one hand and his cock with the other. His voice grew low and husky with need. "Please. Just let me have you. It won't hurt."

[Kenneth Branagh]

Ken would have given anything to be forgiven for past sins--anything, anything at all--but not this. Not to engage in a rushed decision made with their bodies more than with their minds. Not like this, when they were both so fractured that he could almost see the holes in them.

His body reacted favorably, though. It yearned for Niall and it arched and reached for him like a sun-starved plant in need of the warmth that only his sun could give him. Niall had always been the brightest star in the sky, the warmest sun, the most colorful and loudest and outspoken. No one ever stood in doubt about how Niall felt about them--he told them in the most unfailing terms.

Ken groaned as a hand found him through his trousers and he bucked sharply into Niall. Words whispered by his temple promised pleasure, like a siren's call. He was used to pain. He could handle anything that Niall did to him. It was only his heart that hurt while his body throbbed in pleasurable agony.

"...no, Niall," he whispered back at last, reaching down to stay Niall's hand. "We shouldn't. We can't--not right now." The voice of reason spoke strongly inside of him. Oh, how he hated it in that moment. How he hated being careful, prudent, cautious Ken.

But that was who he was.

[Niall Gallagher]

His fingertips stilled for a moment against the side of Ken's face. To those fingertips, Ken felt warm and flushed. Surely this was what he wanted. How did he go from saying he loved him and he wanted only him, that he only wanted Niall to look at him when he kept denying him every time he made so much as a move on him? Ken was the one who kissed him first. Breath hitching, he stroked Ken's face again, bidding him to look him in the eyes and say it. His hazel eyes locked onto blue as he tilted his head slightly.

"Please," he implored, grasping at Ken beneath his clothes, which was easier said than done with Ken's hand stopping movement on top of the clothing. "You mouth keeps saying no, but the rest of you says yes."

Which was not a lie, thank you very much. He could tell when a man was revved up and ready to go. And... this was Ken. Like, Ken and Niall. Niall and Ken. He couldn't even pretend to understand why Ken was playing these games with him. He didn't get off on it like some people did, with their edging, bringing people to the brink only to leave them unsatisfied at the end. Ken didn't even do anything sexual, now that he thought about it. Just... affectionate. 

"What are you waiting for, Mother Theresa? Don't you have me right where you want me? You want me, I know you do, you know you do, you know I know you do." The evidence was right there in his hand. His voice softened, his gaze softened, fingertips moved from cheek to lips, stroking warm, kiss-swollen lips. "You kissed me first."

[Kenneth Branagh]

Desperately, desperately, Ken wanted Niall. He wanted him any way that he could have him, in all the ways spanning the range from physical to emotional. He wanted Niall with his head, with his heart, with his soul and with all the cells in his body screaming out for him. It frightened Ken a little, truth be told, to care so deeply for one person. To have his entire life hinge on one person was a kind of madness.

He only realized it after he lost Niall. Careful, cautious Ken who, in one moment of indiscretion, lost everything dear to his heart. Even now, having Niall with him, tempting him, he was so afraid. He clutched at the wrist caught in his hand like a lifeline, and even as his lips said no... his body said yes. His body's reactions were honest and sincere.

"I..." Ken couldn't begin to deny what Niall already knew. This was no game. This was in deadly earnest. Ken swallowed as his mouth ran dry and the man who had all the answers... didn't. He didn't know why he was so afraid. Why it was so important for them to go slowly, to take it easy, so that they didn't repeat the crimes of the past. It just was.

Niall's heart wasn't the only one that fractured. Ken's did too. And he was one who felt everything but said nothing, in stark contrast to Niall whose mouth could run a hundred miles a minute. Niall pulled the courage out of him back then, but there was still so much more that Ken never said and never found the words to communicate to him.

He nuzzled against the gentle hand at his face, closing his eyes for a moment to breathe and gather his thoughts. When he opened his eyes, Niall was there. So many nights... Niall wasn't there. When he opened his eyes, there was only darkness and cold and emptiness. That loneliness bore holes into his heart; the jagged edges were only beginning to heal but even now, every morning that he woke up, he was afraid that Niall wouldn't be there. Ken opened his lips and the words caught in his throat. No. Stop. Don't. Shouldn't, couldn't.

"If we rush, we'll only end up like before." His voice sounded so pathetically small, so lost even to his own ears. He did kiss Niall first, because he was weak—weaker than Niall realized. Weaker than anyone realized. Ken let go of Niall's wrist only to catch the other one, the one at Ken's face. He pressed it close, to his lips, as if that might stem the words. "I'm afraid, Niall."

[Niall Gallagher]

Now was his chance. He could go at it. Ken's hand moved away, almost as if giving him permission to keep going, to stroke until Ken no longer worried or cared about whatever tortures and agonies filled his head. He could have gone at it but it was difficult to keep trying to sex up a man whose body was saying yes, yes, yes--but whose expression said no, no, no. It wasn't just his lips. Ken seemed to be imploring him now.

Now why did this remind him of something? Of dance clubs? Of a song. Niall removed his hand from around Ken's cock, releasing him from the bodily torment, he supposed. Ken wanted him but he didn't. It was complicated. For Niall, it really wasn't. He just wanted physical comfort to go with everything else. He wanted to resume where they'd left off. But that didn't seem possible. Whatever happened while they were separated took its toll on Ken. That much was clear.

"Why?" he asked and the question encompassed more than just what Ken said now. It meant everything. Why? Why did Ken turn away? Why did Ken come back? Why did it take so long for him to come after him? Why did he show up and act like Jem's dog and then denounce that idea? But then whenever Niall tried to get close, Ken inched back--again, again. So why? Ken admitted to being afraid. But what was he so afraid of?

Slowly, Niall curled up against Ken, giving up (for now) on trying to get any sexual gratification from him.

"Do you think I'm going to run away from you? Do you think that's why I ran the first time? Because... I don't blame you if you do. Maybe it's partly true, yeah? I... just couldn't do it anymore, you understand. You were the last little thread holding me there and when you--when even you couldn't look me in the eye anymore..."

He rolled over onto his back, letting Ken keep hold of his hand but staring up at the ceiling. Far away. That place in the past they could no longer touch.

"There was nothing left for me there. I thought if I was wrong, you'd follow me." He swallowed hard, his damned eyes prickling at the back. "...you didn't."

He didn't have to say that. Ken knew he didn't. At least, not until it was too late.

"...and I know. I should never have expected you to. How young and naive and stupid were we, really? If you ran after me, your life would be in ruins right now. I don't even think we'd be together. Do you? Because... I would've dragged you down. Like I'm dragging you down now. But it was so much worse then, Ken. You weren't there so you don't know..."

He closed his eyes. Tight. Tighter.

"But we never would have made it out together. And you wouldn't be like this anymore. Like a shining beacon. A knight on his white steed. Full of ideals and optimism. You're such a careful man, Ken. You know why you're afraid?" He turned his head to look at Ken. "You see it in me. What could have been. Me. Dragging you. Hell."

He finally fell silent, his monologue finished, his thoughts laid out. His soft gaze searched Ken's for a long moment before he gently gave his hand a squeeze. Then a moment of clarity. "You're the genie in the bottle."

[Kenneth Branagh]

Silence.

It stretched on and on and on, the only sound in Ken's ears their soft breathing, the vague creak of a badly joined board as the wind outside slipped through a crack. It stretched on far past the time for a response and it was achingly heavy, pregnant with all of the feelings that Niall let spill. There were no accusations—though some were implied. He wasn't trying to cast blame; it was only Niall being Niall, laying his thoughts and feelings bare.

Ken's jaw was tight, the pain rippling through him, raking cruelly across his already battered heart. He stared at the ceiling. Stared at a crack that started off as a tiny chip in one corner which spidered and broke away into tiny slivers that ran down the length of one wall. One small crack weakened the integrity of an entire expanse.

"...I wasn't strong enough for both of us to lean on."

Ken was only a child then, same as Niall. He had barely come into himself; he wasn't the self-assured man that he was today. And Niall kept leaning, leaning, pushing, pushing him for things that he wasn't capable of giving, desperation in every word and action and glance driving Ken further away.

Niall wanted—needed—the Ken of today, yesterday.

Nobody was born strong, though. Strength came from mistakes. From falling and getting back up, picking up the pieces and fitting them back together. That was Ken. He wasn't perfect. He failed and he fell and he got back up and put himself back in the saddle. That was his strength—the strength he didn't know he had until he fell so hard that every piece of him splintered.

"I didn't know where to turn. What to do. Who to be." Ken turned into Niall despite the discomfort in his arm, looking at him with serious eyes. He knew how Niall felt because he felt it too. Everything Niall endured, Ken endured, so he knew the pain and he knew what it was like to reach out and find nothing. It felt a whole lot like drowning, grasping for the sunlight only to sink deeper, deeper, deeper into the dark and the cold.

He wondered if Niall could ever know how he felt back then. How the pressure was so intense that Ken sometimes wished he could go to bed and not wake up again. How even that—that strain of weakness exposed in those terrible thoughts—tore Ken apart even more. Everyone was pulling him in different directions, wanting him to be their version of Perfect Ken, and Ken just... couldn't.

In the end, he was nothing to nobody. Niall left. His parents and the hunters shunned him. In the end, there was nothing left and nobody for him to lean on. Who did Ken have to comfort him? Who did Ken count on to put him back together? Himself. He only ever had himself.

Slowly, he closed his eyes. Behind the lids, there was a slow burn. "I don't see... hell when I look at you. I see my own mistakes. I see what used to be, that isn't anymore, because I was weak. And I'm afraid that you'll never forgive those mistakes. That weakness. That when you think of me, all you'll remember is how I wasn't there when you needed me. That no matter what I do now, no matter how hard I try to be your strength, all I'll ever be to you is... that one mistake. That you'll never fully understand how sorry I am that I was weak when you needed me to be strong.  I can't make another mistake. That's what I'm most afraid of. "

The fact that Niall still held on to that hurt, after so long, spoke volumes to Ken. He heard it in Niall's voice, saw it in the hollowness of his gaze some days. It confirmed all of those fears, all the insecurities that he'd been holding on to and it made it hard for him to lay himself bare to Niall. Love wasn't enough to fill in all of the cracks in their souls. It wasn't enough for a couple of young fools to use as a shield against the world. Their suffering left too many holes in them to be filled by one man's desperation.

"I've always needed you more than you needed me, Niall. Did you know that?"

[Niall Gallagher]

"...no."

He didn't know that and he didn't know that he believed it, either. Maybe Ken did but it seemed absurd that Ken would need Niall more than Niall needed Ken. But just as Ken didn't know because he wasn't there, Niall also didn't know because he wasn't there for Ken, either. They were so young and dumb that all they could do was try and protect themselves the only ways they knew how at that age.

Niall sighed and slowly sat up, drawing his knees up and lowering his head. Funny how one minute he could go from begging for sex to pushing back tears. Hah. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and rested his chin on his arm.

"You're not that one mistake." Niall could see why Ken thought it, though. Niall did bring it up a lot. He did hold onto it for a long time, that disappointment and sadness and even anger. But Ken was saying it now. He couldn't do it. He couldn't hold Niall together any better than Niall could on his own. And Niall, the more he thought about it, only saw their self destruction, had Ken come along with him. They would have both succumbed, would they not? Or Ken wouldn't know what to do when he saw what Niall was doing.

"I didn't know what to do, either. I always had family before, even if I thought they hated me. But it's different, when you're young and facing the world alone. Nobody gives you a... a manual for it. Who do you trust? By the time you realize you picked the wrong people, you're too far in to do anything about it."

He looked over his shoulder at Ken. "And I know... I know..." His voice fell to an almost inaudible whisper. "It was unfair of me to think you had all the answers." He lowered his gaze. "I just thought... needed... somebody to idealize and hold onto or I..."

[Kenneth Branagh]

Silence fell again, a shroud over their pain. Neither of them were strong back then, neither able to face the dawning horror of their new reality. Forced to choose between family, the people who formed the backbone of their lives, and the person who formed the other half of their souls, it wasn't an easy decision. There was no way to predict the future then, whether Ken choosing Niall would have led them down a bitter path or one of salvation.

He reached for Niall again, sliding a hand over his arm, laying on his side and looking up at him with softness in both gaze and expression. The fear of being that one mistake was still there. It would always be there, no matter how much reassurance he was given, just in the same way that Niall would always be faced with Ken's choice of family over him. They couldn't erase their shared past. The holes that formed in Ken's absence--in Niall's absence--might never close completely.

"I couldn't be what you needed back then. But I can be now. Just... give me some time. All of this is new to me too, Niall. I don't always know what to do or what to say to you but I'm learning."

They were apart longer than they had been together, after all. Familiarity didn't happen overnight. The bonds that fractured didn't repair themselves magically. And sex, as much as Ken's body was hating him for even thinking it, wasn't a priority. (But it didn't stop his lower body from throbbing painfully, left unattended to from Niall's earlier ministrations.)

[Niall Gallagher]

He needed that idealized version of Ken in his mind. Even if he never came for him, as idealized, and he never showed up during Niall's darkest moments, the promise that he might was sometimes enough to get him through a bad day. But the roughest times... not so much. Those were the nights when he elected to feel nothing, when the numbing was better than having to deal with the pain.

There was no manual for any of it. When Niall left, he didn't know how to do a lot of adult things. He still thought adulthood meant doing things for oneself and not being held under the thumb of oppression. But now that he saw Ken in a different light, he started to see himself in a different light, too. And truthfully, he didn't like what he was seeing.

Niall ran a hand over his face, then pressed his knuckles up against his lips, thinking. Ken would hate himself so much more if he knew all the things that had transpired since their separation. There was no point in telling him about all that. Besides, Niall had thrown it all in the past and behind the wall of sedation, beneath drugs and alcohol and supernatural sex. He thought of the bite mark on his throat even now, serving as a reminder that he still had problems--real problems--that he wasn't so sure even his idealized version of Ken could take care of, let alone this broken human version of him.

Leaning back slightly, he looked back at Ken and just soaked him in for a long, long moment. Then he slowly laid back down, propped up on his elbow. He reached for the opening in Ken's trousers and he closed them very deliberately.

"Just say you still love me."

[Kenneth Branagh]

It... it felt worse, honestly, with the zip done up on his trousers--now it felt too tight and too constricted, but Ken appreciated the gesture. He squirmed a little in what he hoped was an inconspicuous way to relieve some of the pressure. Maybe Niall didn't see it, or didn't feel the jiggle of the bed when he did it...

The point was, Niall acquiesced and wasn't pushing for sex, which was equal parts a relief and disappointing (in purely the physical sense).

After he had gotten settled, somewhat, Ken shifted closer. His hand drifted up to Niall's face, tracing the outline from temple to jaw, chin, jaw again, then the other temple. "I've always loved you. Always. When it... seemed hopeless... it helped me to be strong. You helped me to be strong."

At his lowest moments, he clung to his version of Niall, too--not an ideal, not a fantasy, but the memories of what they had. Ken drew strength from that, if from nothing else.

His fingertips traced Niall's brows, then the bridge of his nose. He tipped his head forward, closer, and the tip of his nose nuzzled the tip of Niall's. "I love you," he whispered against Niall's lips, plying him with another tender kiss. "I love you, Niall. Poodles. Wooly wooly wooly sheep."

[Niall Gallagher]

He closed his eyes. Love was a difficult concept to wrap his head around some days. Love was so important but it was really lacking in the cold world he'd buried himself in. When he was numb, it was bearable to get through to the next day. When he was at his lowest points, though, Niall had no idea how to save himself. When he was drowning in the past, in regrets, in mental anguish, in heartbreak, it was all he could do to just breathe in, breathe out.

Ever since Ken showed up, he felt like he was in some kind of dream world, some fantasy that he'd concocted in his last overdose. This was it, this was death. This was what he thought death was. Sweet release. Comfort. The ability to simply lie in bed with Ken and know that he was there and to hear him say those words and those pet names that made him both smile and cringe. But he loved those stupid pet names. He hadn't heard them in so long and then Ken was here.

When he opened his eyes after Ken's kiss, he reached over to touch Ken's face, too so that they were lying there together with their hands on each other's faces.

"I love you too." He drew an arm around Ken's waist to cuddle up against him, nuzzling Ken, cheek to cheek, as he did.

[Kenneth Branagh]

This was heaven, pure and simple. Their love was pure, too, though Ken could no longer claim that it was simple. There was so much history there, in good ways and in bad, but it wasn't going to stop them from being together. The way that their bodies twined, they fit just right. Nothing could be wrong about this.

Ken laid with Niall in silence, content to be with him, to have and hold and kiss and touch—innocent kisses, innocent touches. He didn't know how long they stayed like that until his phone went off and the light of the screen illuminated the bedside area.

"It might be Jem," he sighed as he reached for it. "I'll let him know I'm staying with you. For good." Jem meant well and he probably saved Ken's arm, but this was where Ken needed to be.

To his surprise, it wasn't Jem. It was Gregg. Asking to double date. "Niall... am I seeing this right?" He showed Niall the phone. "This does say he wants to double date... with us... right?"

[Niall Gallagher]

Niall was content with lying there forever and ever but eventually, the real world came knocking. Or rather, it came in the form of Ken's phone. Niall watched Ken go for it, then tilted his head when the screen was shown to him.

"Who? Jem?" Niall asked, confused. JEM was asking them on a double date? "I mean, that's what it says." The contact didn't say Jem, though. It was somebody named Gregg. Probably a peripheral hunter that came around when Niall... well, when Niall wasn't around to do the hunting thing anymore.

"Why does this guy want to go on a double date with us?"

[Kenneth Branagh]

"No, Gregg. He's a friend of mine. He's with Jem's group but went upstate to hunt vampires with his new partner. But I... I don't know. Gregg doesn't seem like the type to go on double dates. Or dates."

Ken frowned, puzzled, as he exchanged a few more messages with his friend. Gregg was one of the better ones, he thought. Serious and dependable, Gregg kept mostly to himself but he wasn't unlikable at all. In fact, Ken considered him not merely an acquaintance, but a friend as well.

"We went on a few hunts together but I didn't know he felt this way." Ken laughed softly, but it was a puzzled laugh. He glanced at Niall. "Should we? I've never been on a double date before. And... that's what couples do, isn't it?"