Chapter Fourteen Kion #2
Well, fuck James Ridgeshaw IV.
In the corner of his eye, he catches a flash of red hair.
Kion turns, a brow already arching. He bites back a sigh as he sees that Isla has crept from her room, and is knocking softly on Bronte’s door, which is right across from her own.
Kion stands still, knowing that Isla hasn’t seen him yet.
He waits four, five, ten, twenty seconds, watching as Bronte never answers, and as Isla’s head bows in a mixture of disappointment and frustration.
“Isla,” he says softly. She jumps, whirling around to face him with wide, light-brown eyes. Her cheeks are pink. “Looks like we’re in the same boat, then.” Kion gestures to James’s door and stomps down the hurt again. Anger. He’s angry.
That’s all. That’s it. End of fucking story.
Isla swallows hard, shifting in her worn, oversized flannel. Her freckles make her look so young. “Y-yeah.”
Kion holds back a sigh, eyeing Bronte’s door and then Isla’s crestfallen face. Not everybody holds on to anger as well as he does. “You all right?”
He watches as she tries to smile, and clears her throat. “I’m…Yes. Yes, I’m okay.”
Bullshit. “I haven’t seen much of you lately,” Kion prods gently.
Usually, the little redhead would stop by his flat—and everyone else’s—with small gifts: boxes of new tea flavors she thought they’d like, fun snacks she found in the shop, and other odds and ends she hoped they could use.
A dramatic poetry book for Knox. A new scarf for James after he lost his old one.
A gentle lotion for óríon, whose skin became red and irritated after he’d gotten a new tattoo on his left arm’s dark sleeve.
Once, she brought Kion an entire bag of throat lozenges, a bottle of cough syrup, a stack of tissues, and a huge vat of chicken noodle soup from the best deli around…All this after he’d complained, literally once during practice, that there was a bit of a tickle in his throat.
He knows that Isla is saved in Knox’s phone as Mum #2.
But lately, after everything with Bronte, Isla’s hardly been out of her flat at all save for practice.
Her trip with Knox into the stable to watch Taissa choose her stymph was one of the only times, recently, that she ventured out.
It had been good to see her. Good to think that maybe Taissa’s presence was helping bring her former fan out of her shell again.
Isla’s smile is wobbly. “I’ve been sort of, um, busy.”
“Yeah?” Kion’s voice is gentle. Everybody on the team has a soft spot for Isla Adaway. Even óríon.
Everyone except Bronte. At least, not like she used to. She’s still fond of Isla, everybody is, but over a few drinks, the other girl had confessed to feeling “tied down” and “clung onto.” Kion won’t ever tell that to Isla. Their breakup had been bad enough.
Largely because, to Bronte, it wasn’t a breakup.
But to Isla, it was.
Very much so.
“You want to come in?” Kion asks, walking to his own door. “You want to talk about it?”
Isla hesitates, shifting on her feet. “You’re probably tired,” she murmurs, “and today was…It was…”
Bad. Monstrously fucking bad. And he’s dead on his feet. All he wants to do is raid his fridge for the containers of takeaway they didn’t eat at the restaurant, then collapse into bed and sleep, dreamlessly, for eons.
But Kion holds his door open for her.
“Come on, kid,” he says gruffly. “I’ve got a bottle of Scotch and some takeaway.”
The next morning, his head feels like it’s about to split in half. The pain only worsens when, at seven on the dot, Niamh calls him—summoning him to Bill’s office. Fuckkk, Kion thinks as he drags himself to his door, only somewhat presentable.
To his surprise, James is in the hallway, locking the door to his own flat.
He’s dressed to probably pop down to his favorite café in a crisp, white-collared shirt and jeans that Kion knows he gets professionally pressed.
He blinks blearily, mind foggy, as James casts him a cool look.
“Morning, mate,” says Kion, and for a moment he doesn’t remember why James’s eyes go hard and cold.
But then he does.
James brushes past him without a word, and Kion grinds his teeth together, not bothering to lock his own door as he stalks after his friend.
“Oi!” he half shouts, not caring who he wakes. James’s shoulders stiffen, but he doesn’t slow down. Kion catches up in only a few strides, his long legs eating up the distance. “James. Can we talk?”
This is why he fucking hates lies. Why he can’t bloody stand them.
No matter what, they always end up hurting somebody.
Last night, he’d come clean in fear of this. Their friendship, swirling down the drain. He could see it happening as James began to believe in their fake relationship; he thought that coming clean would stop it. Did it only make it worse?
Panic buzzes in Kion’s chest as James slams his palm against the triangular Down button next to the lift. It’s the only indication that the other man is upset; angry, even. His expression is cold and smooth, giving nothing away.
Infuriated, Kion’s fists clench at his sides.
Everything is bubbling up in him like he’s some sort of volcano.
His mouth works; nothing comes out. Rationally, he knows that there’s more going on with James than just the lie about Taissa.
Yesterday’s disaster hangs heavy around them.
But he still feels like he’s drowning in a loveless sea. James has been his anchor for years.
The lift chimes, sliding open. James steps in, and Kion’s throat is tight as he stays frozen in place, helplessly staring as the metal doors close shut, swallowing his friend from view.
By the time he reaches Bill’s office, his knuckles are aching from resisting the urge to punch a hole in the wall.
As Niamh rises from her desk to let him into the office, her smile doesn’t seem as chipper as it usually does, and there’s a bandage on her forehead from the Dust Bite.
Elves heal quicker than lackers, but slower than witches and warlocks: They can’t tolerate Panaceas.
Niamh had been injured yesterday, Kion remembers.
Some flying debris. If his morning hadn’t already made him want to commit murder, he would have asked how she was doing.
He hates himself as he doesn’t, stalking past her into Bill’s office, where the man paces before the huge glass panes of the window before the pitch.
“Sit,” says Bill. The skin underneath his close-shaven white beard is red, like he’s been rubbing his chin for too long. Kion bites the inside of his cheek and rigidly takes a seat on one of the chairs before his desk. Bill joins him a moment later, sighing as one of his knees pops.
“Of course it would take a catastrophe for your team to avoid dissolution,” Bill says a moment later. “But it did. At least for now.”
Kion says nothing, staring hard at a spot on his polished desk.
“The Cilbrith Pegases match next week is still on. A home game, you’ll remember. Same stakes.” He gets the impression that Bill is staring at him in exasperation. “Do you need,” the owner says, “to see Dr. Harowitz?”
Kion’s reaction is physical—he jerks in his chair like he’s been electrocuted. Dr. Harowitz is the team’s psychologist. “No,” he bites out immediately, “why the bleeding fuck would I need to do that?”
Bill looks unimpressed. “A few of your teammates have already been in to see her after the events of yesterday. I see you’re your usual self, though.”
His heart rate slows a little. For a moment, he’d thought Bill knew…
Kion’s throat feels tight again. James has been trying to make him go to her—to any psychologist, any therapist, really—for years.
Every time, Kion refuses. They’ll make him talk about it.
That’s the last thing he wants to do. His vision blurs in the corners.
He hears Quaid’s smug voice, echoing in the corners of his mind.
“Who are you going to tell, devil-boy? Who are you going to tell?”
“Nobody! I promise, I promise!”
“Good.” Quaid’s smile was a nasty thing. “Because if you do, we’ll kill you.”
Kion slams back into his body, blinking rapidly as Bill—who hasn’t noticed, thank Merlin—drones on about how reporters will probably be coming to poke and prod into yesterday’s events, and how he and Taissa should—with the rest of the team—present a united front.
But especially with Taissa; the mags will eat it up.
Niamh, apparently, wants to position Kion and Taissa as the romantic survivors of a terrible accident, capitalizing on the momentum of the current Dust Bite story to maximize exposure.
It’s disgusting. Kion glares at Bill as he waves him away in dismissal.
For the second time this morning, he wants to punch a wall.
He settles for slamming Bill’s door on the way out.