61. Kyle

CHAPTER 61

Kyle

P erhaps the stars were listening to the curse-filled prayers Kyle screamed relentlessly in that destroyed room, for after a long minute Akira heaved in a glorious breath, coughed, and rolled onto his stomach to heave and cough some more.

"Kyle," he croaked, attempting to lift his head. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Brown eyes filled with a concern Akira did not get to have for him.

Kyle fumbled for the handcuff key he'd stuffed into his pocket earlier. With shaky fingers, he unlocked the metal from Akira's bleeding wrists in what felt like chilling déjà vu of what had happened upstairs in the office, only this time it wasn't his mind that was damaged, but his body.

Kyle heaved him to his feet. "No time," he said shortly. "We need to get out of the House before the rest of the roof comes down on us. Can you walk?"

He didn't give Akira chance to respond before hefting him up into his arms and cradling him against his chest. The man had been tortured and beaten, and his breathing was raggedly shallow: he may have insisted he could walk – and probably would have tried – but Kyle was tired of his boss' lies. From now on, Kyle would do things Kyle's way.

He carried him into the foyer, stumbling over the loose debris on the floor.

"The House," Kyle exclaimed in dismay, sadness seeping through him. The roof had given way in here too, with rubble heaped across the floor. How far did the devastation spread?

Akira gave a hacking cough. With his arms supporting his knees and back, Kyle could feel how weakly the other man's body writhed under the forcefulness of the involuntary movement.

In ironic sympathy, Xerxes offered another pained shudder. Fresh sections of concrete dislodged from the ceiling and Kyle cried out as a large piece slammed down onto his shoulder, numbing the nerves and almost making him drop Akira. A slab the size of two men landed heavily against the front door, blocking their exit.

It was only luck that neither of them had been brained by the rubble so far. It could all come down on their heads at any moment.

Kyle spun frantically on the spot, searching for somewhere to take shelter.

"The front desk," Akira gasped out.

Kyle stumbled towards the curved desk and tucked Akira into the relative safety of the space beneath its broad, sturdy surface, before crawling under himself.

"Fuck," breathed the other man, closing his eyes with a grimace and leaning his head back against the solid side of the desk. Blood and dust caked every inch of his battered, wheezing body. "I hope all the staff are safe. And your cats."

Kyle swallowed. Akira being worried for his cats was not helping him ask what he needed to ask. Because he refused to be the asshole who made assumptions or believed Theta's word without giving his Master a proper chance to explain.

He waited until Akira had opened his eyes again before voicing the question. Kyle told himself it was to give the man the dignity of answering him face to face, but if it was the night for exposing lies, then that was one.

He was desperate for every second that he could get to pretend nothing had changed between them. To feel their legs pressed together in the small space and seek simple comfort in the warmth of Akira's skin that reminded him they were both still alive. To watch the strain in the other man's face and how his throat and chest moved as he breathed, when he hadn't been breathing at all a minute ago.

But as the city continued to shake and heave as much as Akira was doing himself, Kyle knew that if he didn't ask now, he never would.

They'd both proven capable of avoiding the obvious and the unspoken. Perhaps they'd continue to live their lives like this, dancing around each other. Neither willing to acknowledge what had been revealed, nor delving into the painful conversation they needed to have.

For a moment, Kyle considered it.

But they'd never be anything more than careful acquaintances. They could never get close to each other, always held apart by what they both knew but hadn't said, and was Kyle really up for the masochism that would require? Could he work for another five years alongside the man who had stolen his heart?

"What...what Theta said back there," Kyle began tentatively. "Not the stalking, I don't give a shit about that." The muscles in Akira's cheek twitched. "The other stuff, the stuff about your family? Is it true?"

Akira rubbed his injured wrists before answering. Maybe he was also trying to hold onto those precious last moments of them as they were.

"It's true," he admitted quietly. The words stomped over Kyle's forlorn hope that it had been nothing more than Theta's manipulations.

Talk about being shot through the heart.

"But you're...you're separated from your wife, right?"

The Master set his jaw and glanced away. Kyle let out a pained breath.

"The sex is one thing, Akira. Stars, it's our fucking job! But telling me you care for me, letting me think you..."

Love me. You said you loved me.

"I do."

Kyle felt the words like a physical blow.

Akira wet his lips. "Sarah, my wife, is..."

Say totally imaginary. Or long dead.

Anything, anything , but what actually came out of his mouth.

"...terminally ill."

"Oh, you bastard!" Kyle snarled, practically spitting the words. Horror, fury, and betrayal surged in him, causing bile to gather in his throat. "You absolute fucking prick of a bastard!" He wanted to hit him, to split his knuckles right across Akira's already-ruined face, but the thought of hurting him for anything other than Akira's own pleasure was too abhorrent. Kyle yanked his knees back to his chest, but the underside of the desk was too small to avoid him entirely.

Their bodies still touched; the other man's thigh pressed against Kyle's foot, and it burned .

"Kyle," Akira pleaded. His eyes were drenched in pain, and not just that which physically ailed him. "It's not…we may not be separated, but I'm not in love with her. Not like... I wanted to tell you, I just..."

"Didn't," Kyle finished for him. The emotion sluiced away, leaving a cold and empty dullness in its wake. "You told Master Theta, but not me."

Akira deflated, sinking further into himself. "He already knew about Sarah and Robby."

Robby. So it wasn't just a lie of omission…he'd actively kept their existence from Kyle. Akira had said Robby was no one important.

He should have known it was more fucking lies.

Kyle gave a hollow, unamused laugh. "You'll say shit like I love you , but hide your whole life from me?"

Akira wasn't the man Kyle had thought he was. Wasn't the man who could be as sweet as he was ruthless, who'd taken Kyle and his cats in without a second thought, who'd memorised the lyrics to hundreds of old rock songs just because Kyle liked them.

It wasn't about a pledge of monogamy that neither of them had made to the other, but it was about choosing to enter a relationship without bringing truth to it.

Before we do this, Kyle, you should know something about me. That's all it would have taken.

Wham! and George Michael had gotten it right when they'd said there was no comfort in the truth. He'd only found pain, just as they'd promised.

Kyle shuffled to the side, needing to put more distance between him and Akira. There was nowhere to go except out from the shelter of the desk, but the tremors had settled, there were no more explosions, and he had no more reasons to stay.

"I'm used to men cheating on their partners with me on the justification that I'm nothing but a whore," Kyle said bitterly. "Just a body to be enjoyed, a pleasure to be taken, while telling themselves that their love for their wife or husband remains whole and pure. But that's bullshit, Akira, we both know that. I'd hoped...I'd hoped I meant more to you."

"You do! Kyle, fuck , you mean everything to me."

"Clearly." His voice was cold.

That shut Akira up, his mouth gaping helplessly and his eyes squeezing shut.

"And I would hope," Kyle said dully, "that someone you'd thought special enough to marry would mean more to you, too."

Akira ground the heels of both palms into his closed eyelids. "I'm not cheating on my wife," he groaned. "Sarah knows all about you."

Oh, for…

"Then you were cheating on me! " yelled Kyle. The accusation echoed in the small space.

"I...was?"

"I don't know!" he snapped. "It's all too complicated and it makes my head hurt." He pushed to his feet and backed away, ignoring how the other man winced and made a lost noise in the back of his throat. "All I know is that I'm angry, Akira, somewhat with you but also with myself. I feel like I'm the subject of some huge fucking joke that everyone else was in on but me."

"Kyle, it's not safe out there. Please come back under here."

Akira reached out from the desk, but he moved slowly and with uncharacteristic frailty, and Kyle was easily able to avoid his weak attempts. "Please?"

Kyle turned away, stopped, and then spun back to face him. He had more to say, and while it soured his tongue, he couldn't hold onto it. It would only fester and grow.

"I don't know what I can't understand more," Kyle spat. "That you'd so easily betray someone you claim to care about, or that you thought you'd get away with it. How long did you imagine you'd string me along, keeping me at arms' length and feeding me pitiful scraps of information about yourself to make me so grateful for any attention that I'd never realise how much I was missing? I know I'm not as smart as you, Akira, but you...you would really have done that to me?"

Akira was silent, and that was enough of an answer for Kyle.

"I'm going to find someone who can help," he mumbled, gesturing vaguely at the Master's broken body.

This time, when Kyle turned away, he didn't stop. Didn't look back. Just kept walking, stumbling over rubble, with blurry tears washing his vision into the same soggy, desolate mess as his heart.

Bare footsteps and soft, pained grunts sounded from behind him. The obstinate bastard was trying to follow.

Kyle scowled, slowing, and opened his mouth to yell at him some more.

And then Xerxes stole the floor beneath Kyle's feet without any warning.

The linoleum gave way to concrete, which collapsed into the gaping, hungry maw of the level below. Darkness rushed up, seductive in its promise of painless oblivion, and Kyle lost himself to it with the shout of his name echoing in his ears.