Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Love all, trust a few,

Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy

Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend

Under thy own life's key."

~All's Well That Ends Well

“This is for Porchay.” 

Chay tossed his phone away and clapped the heels of his hands against his damp cheeks. Rain pattered the window and the city streets below. 

He wanted to grab his phone again, unblock the number, call. He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. 

As if on cue, the phone buzzed. Chay lunged for it, flipping it over half-expecting to see a new number he didn’t recognize that was Kim at a new number and all the while knowing that was ridiculous, that Kim wouldn’t try that hard because guilt couldn’t really push what was dead back to life—only form a phantom imitation of it. 

It was Yok. Chay answered, gulping and hoping she couldn’t hear that he had been crying. She said something about coming to see her at the bar, and he could only give noncommittal yeses. 

He wondered if Kim’s responses to his declarations of love were just as noncommittal, and Chay just hadn’t noticed because he was truly that stupid. 

It couldn’t hurt to visit Yok, and it would at least get him out of this house. Once so full of meaning—less for Chay and more so because he knew it meant so much to Porsche—it now felt like a casket, a place where he could be shut up with no dreams, no future thanks to him not going to that interview, and a mother who was so very alive but could not recognize him. If he stayed in the house another moment, he might fade into its walls, becoming an inanimate part of it. 

As he headed out, he paused in the bathroom. His blue hair still looked good, if Chay did say so himself. The problem was that for all his nights out with friends, for all the moves they made, he couldn’t quite replicate the race of his heart when Kim had so much as glanced at him. Never mind when he had kissed him, and spent the night. 

He glanced at the test he’d left here and almost forgotten about with Kim’s latest video. 

He did a double-take. 

To his credit, Chay didn’t throw up again. He’d been doing so much of that the past few days. A virus, he’d convinced himself, or else he had not properly cooked some eggs and the bacteria needed to run through his system. 

Not bacteria.

Not run through, unless it was a long hike through the entire continent.

Chay clutched the countertop. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t—

I always bring bad luck.

All my good luck was used to bring me to you. 

Or to bring bad luck, the worst kind of bad luck, the imploding kind. 

He felt like he should cry. His throat burned. He swung himself back, holding himself up against the counter, waiting for a scream to break from him, a sob, something.

It just stayed, burning. 

No! 

God, no. 

It had to be wrong, right? A mistake? Bacteria. A virus. Not this. 

Chay shoved the test into the pocket of his jeans and headed out. He could stop and get a test at the pharmacy near Yok’s, and take it where no one would notice. And surely that one would be negative. 

The sun was gasping its dying breaths, golden light dribbling through the clouds and sweeping the rain away. The air felt like it was steaming everything that had the misfortune of being outside. Trash frittered on the sidewalk, trees and their leaves wilted, and Chay felt like he had been stuffed inside a dumpling and left to boil. 

What was he going to do if it wasn’t a mistake? 

He couldn’t possibly keep it. Well. He could, he supposed. Considering Porsche was the new head of the minor family and shagging Kinn to boot, he’d have more than enough money to do so. 

But if he kept it, Kim would find out. 

His stomach lurched. Bile burned his throat. He doubled over, retching into some bushes. Sweat stung his eyes, or was it tears? 

God, the idea of Kim finding out. Even if he wrote those songs, even if he seemed to regret—he hadn’t chosen Chay. Not even a simple “we can’t be together because x y and z.” No, instead he’d simply pushed Chay’s hand away and walked off. 

Even now, it was guilt, wasn’t it? Realizing he’d fucked up family dynamics now that Porsche wasn’t a spy and was, for all intents and purposes, his brother-in-law. He wanted to make peace, maybe even make Chay happy.

But it would all be a lie. There would be no feeling in it, no actual love. And Chay wasn’t one to be satisfied with gleaming words, no matter how the hole inside him was shaped with those precise words. No, they had to be meant, real, to satisfy, and they wouldn’t be. He’d seen it in the coldness of Kim’s face when he watched Chay cry. He knew it in how Kim hadn’t even had the decency to tell him himself. 

Did he think Chay would rat him out to his brothers? He had no intention of doing that. But if he revealed this, then… 

The thought that sent shivered through him, made him press his palm against a nearby tree to stay upright, wasn’t that Kim would recoil in disgust or curse him out for being so, so fucking stupid. No, instead it was that Kim would assure him with those gleaming words that he wanted him, that he was happy really, when he wasn’t. Obligation. Guilt. 

Chay tried to imagine growing up under guilted love. Porsche had never once made him feel like a burden. The thought of anyone doing such a thing to—to this— 

I have to get rid of it. 

At the same time, the thought stabbed into him, red-hot and angry: why? Why did he have to mold his life around Kim’s? He’d already molded too much of his life around Wik’s, applying to the same school his idol went to, only for him to get the chance he never imagined he’d get to confess his love and to find out that it was all a big, fat lie. 

He wiped his mouth, squinting against the sun as he straightened up. 

“Hey, I know you, don’t I?” 

Great. Was he about to get dragged back to the Theerapanyakul compound and lectured for running away? Why couldn’t everyone just leave him alone already? 

Why couldn’t he control the slightest aspect of his own damn life, dammit? 

Chay turned, shoving his hands into his front pockets. The boy heading towards him looked no older than him, maybe even younger. He wore a green jacket that had to be purely for statement purposes, considering it looked expensive and it was hotter than satan’s bowels. He did look familiar, though.

“It is you, right? Cousin! Well, foster cousin, sort of, I don’t know how this works.” He grinned, and his name—Macau—came to Chay. “My brother kidnapped you once! Or, had you kidnapped. Yeah, but I guess that’s all behind us now, since my uncle—” 

Chay’s thoughts felt like they were swimming against a really strong current. The oppressive humidity didn’t help; it felt like a plastic bag had been soaked in a hot tub and plastered against his face. It was so hard to breathe .  

“Porchay, that’s your name, right? Listen—Porchay? Porchay?” 

Don’t worry about me. I need some time to myself. I’ll come back soon. Chay.

Porsche was not buying it. Not this time, not after the last time he bought an excuse from a missing loved one Pete had been chained up in Vegas’s sex dungeon or whatever vampire bat chic lair Vegas kept his paraphernalia in. 

He dialed his little brother immediately. Unsurprisingly, it went straight to voicemail. Again. And again.

Kinn’s gaze flickered to him from where he sat on a couch across the room, flipping through paperwork of a shipment Korn wanted him to work out logistics on. “What is it?”

“Look.” Porsche tossed his phone at him. Kinn caught it with a curse. The curse grew even fouler when he read the message. 

“I’ll get the bodyguards on it,” Kinn promised. 

“Doesn’t it read like Pete’s text about his grandma or whatever it was when he was really fucking Vegas?” 

Kinn arched his brows as he got to his feet. “You think Vegas is holding Chay hostage? He’s still kind of convalescent, according to Pete. And for what aim?” 

Porsche threw his hands in the air. “To what aim does Vegas do any of the things he does?”

“To impress his dad, who’s dead. To win love, which he has. To—”

Fine. Porsche grabbed his phone back and dialed Pete, who answered on the first ring. “Porsche?”

“Pete, is Vegas holding my brother hostage?” 

“What?” Pete sounded completely baffled. “Porsche, I’m with Vegas at the doctor’s. They’re discharging him from the hospital today, so I’m taking him home.”

Kinn, close enough to overhear, arched his brows as if to say I told you so. 

“Is Chay missing?” Pete asked. 

Porsche heaved a sigh, turning away from Kinn to pace up and down the room. “I don’t know.” His voice came tighter than he wished it would have. “He sent me a bizarre text that he needs time and not to worry.” 

“That is odd,” Pete agreed instantly. “Oh, Vegas—” A muffled voice was saying something, but Porsche couldn’t decipher it. “Vegas says he’ll have some of his men, who are now Korn’s men, looking for him.”

“Tell him thanks,” Porsche said, unable to keep some pointless bitterness out of it. It wasn’t aimed at Vegas, or Pete. Or at Kinn.

He hung up and stared at his reflection on the phone’s blank, dark screen. They were supposed to have dinner with their mother tonight. Or to try to, and Kinn was going to join. 

He lifted his gaze and found Kinn standing with his back towards the window overlooking Bangkok, sunset filtering red and gold over his face. 

“What?” Porsche asked.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re so worried?” 

Porsche sputtered. “Well. Let’s see. First, he got kidnapped at our house before. Second, a—”

“Not that,” Kinn interrupted, waving his hands as if he could wave away Porsche’s clear deflective bullshit. “Besides that.”

Porsche swallowed hard. He slipped his phone into his pocket for a moment, and then slid it back out to study just in case Chay had reached out. “I got a call from the school, after I sent the fees. This morning. They said he dropped out. Didn’t even complete the interview.” 

At that, Kinn’s face grayed. He took a step, and then another and another until he clutched Porsche’s arms. “Why? The interviews weer—that had to have been—”

“He’s been different lately,” Porsche said. “The hair, going out with friends, but with everything—with this, with us, with our mother—it all seemed a normal reaction, right?”

“Yeah,” Kinn said. “But—”

“But, this isn’t normal,” Porsche finished. “He’s dreamed of studying music there since—for years now.” Honestly he’d dreamed of music longer, probably. Porsche used to sing him lullabies to go to sleep when he was a kid, when their uncle would be out ostensibly working but really gambling. He would lie down next to his brother instead of doing his homework or assignments for school, and make up a stupid song for Chay to fall asleep to. 

He’d decided so young that whether or not he succeeded in life didn’t matter. He was happy with little. He’d survived a car crash that took his parents, after all. What mattered was Chay succeeding. 

Now he knew so much of that was a lie. He’d hidden in a cabinet as they were shot, and he couldn’t even properly remember who shot them. 

But not Chay’s passion for music, the way his eyes lit up and he stayed awake for new releases from idols he liked. 

No, Porsche might not know very much about his own life, but he knew this much. Chay was not a mystery to him. He was his brother, his baby brother, and he would do anything to find him.

“Macau?” Vegas called as Pete followed him into the minor family’s house. His house, now, he supposed. 

“You’re free!” hollered Macau’s voice from elsewhere in the house. He came running as Pete put blue bags of fruits that they had picked up on the way home from the rehab hospital on the counter. He burst into the kitchen and threw his arms around his brother.

Vegas snorted. His hand rested on the back of his little brother’s head. Pete smiled to himself. He reached into the bag to put the groceries away.

“Oh shit,” said Macau. “Don’t open that!”

“Don’t open what?” Vegas winced as he leaned against the counter. 

“That!” Macau screeched, and too late Pete realized he was talking to him, not Vegas. His hands, by that point, had already reached into the blue plastic bag and withdrawn—

Pete blinked. It took him a moment to realize what the small pink box was. Not food, that was for sure.

“Macau,” said Vegas, a dangerous tone to his voice. “What the fuck do you have a pregnancy test for?” 

Pete’s mind raced. Vegas had used a condom with Pete, and they hadn’t actually been able to be together during Vegas’s recovery. They still probably should wait, even if—

“Do not tell me that you are—” Vegas started.

Holy shit! Pete dropped the test onto the counter. His eyes bulged. Macau was—an adult, sure, but barely, so young, and—

“Not for me!” screeched Macau. “Really, it’s not! Good God, Vegas!”

Vegas’s knuckles whitened as he clutched the counter, as if to keep himself upright. Pete took a discreet step backwards, quick enough to be there to grab Vegas’s hand if he was about to collapse, but subtle enough so that Vegas wouldn’t feel weakened. Vegas’s face was the color of a bleached skull, and his mouth was open like a fish gasping for water. 

“It’s really not mine!” Macau continued, waving his hands wildly. “It’s for a friend. Vegas, I promise—”

Macau’s tone was almost pleading now, the type of tone Pete was familiar with, the tone Pete himself had used with his dad and Vegas had used with Gun. Judging from the tremble of Vegas’s lips, he recognized it too. Something like fear and shame sank into him. 

“Okay,” Vegas said, letting out his breath. “Macau, I—” His gaze darted around the room, as if searching for a distraction. 

“Have you seen Porchay?” Pete interrupted, changing the subject. “You know, Porsche’s little brother. Apparently he’s run—”

“Oh.” Macau rubbed the back of his neck. “Actually, he’s in my room.” 

At that, Pete knocked the papaya off the counter. He and Vegas exchanged incredulous looks. Pete was already reaching for his phone to text Porsche the good news when Macau lunged. “You can’t tell anyone!”

“Why on earth not?” Vegas demanded, pushing himself upright despite a wince. “The main family is looking for him. Macau, we barely—we barely have Korn’s protection, and I know that’s—” He gritted his teeth. 

“Your fault,” Macau shot back. “Not mine.”

Shit. Macau wasn’t wrong, but Pete wasn’t about to help him kick his boyfriend when Vegas was already down. 

“Why is he here? ” Vegas eked out. 

“Where is he?” Pete asked. 

“He’s asleep.” Macau rubbed his chin. “I think the fact that I found this in his pocket kind of sums it up.” He withdrew another pregnancy test. This one had clearly been used, and even from a distance Pete could see that it was positive. 

Fuck. 

“Macau, if you knocked him up, that’s really not any better than—” Vegas started. 

“I didn’t! For God’s sake!” Macau put his hands on his hips and glared at his brother. “Trust me, we’re not—I literally ran into him on the street and he passed out so I brought him here, found the test, he woke up, he cried, he asked me to get another test when I asked him about it, so I got back from the store with that and you came home. That’s what happened! Oh, and he asked me not to tell his brother or the main family, so I promised him I wouldn’t!” 

“That’s all true,” came another voice. 

Pete and Vegas both peered past Macau. Porsche’s little brother, blue-haired and small, stepped in the room with his shoulders hunched like he was expecting to get punished by Big and Ken, or like someone experienced with being beat up by creditors. Pete remembered Porsche saying their uncle and Porsche got the worst of it, never Chay, but somehow Pete suspected Chay was better at hiding than Porsche thought. 

“It’s really not—he has nothing at all to do with this,” Porchay continued. He was positively wringing his fists. “I just—passed out. I’ll be going, now.”

Vegas exhaled.

“Your brother’s worried,” Pete said. “He texted me about school, and—”

Chay stiffened. “Can you—not tell him I was here?”

Pete frowned. “I’m sure he has guards watching your house, or if you go to the main family’s—”

“I’m not going there,” Chay declared.

Pete blinked, exchanging a befuddled look with Vegas. “Then where—”

“I don’t know,” Chay said. “I don’t know about anything. I’m just—I’ve got to figure this out. On my own. And my brother cannot know about it.”

But your brother loves you, Pete thought. It was obvious from seeing the way Porsche talked about Porchay, how his entire face lit up like the sun coming out after rain.

“Please don’t tell him? Or any of them. The main family.” Chay swallowed hard. 

Macau lasered his gaze on Vegas. 

“Are you trying to get me killed?” Vegas managed, hoarse. “You know that—”

“I know, I know,” Chay interrupted. “I’m going. Just—if you have to tell them I was here, don’t tell them about—the test. Please .” His voice cracked.

And Pete was reminded of another plea, that time made by himself as he sat in a bathtub getting his wounds bandaged by Porsche. 

I went home. Please believe me. 

And he knew Porsche didn’t, but he accepted it anyways because prying the truth out of Pete—that he had slept with Vegas despite being held captive by him, that he loved Vegas—would only have flayed the wounds Pete already bore. 

“We won’t,” Pete said softly.

Vegas’s eyes widened, but he didn’t contradict Pete. Pete squeezed his hand reassuringly. 

Vegas exhaled. “Where will you go?” 

“I’ll figure it out.” Chay turned.

Vegas looked as if he was biting back the filthiest curse he could imagine. “We have a safe house. Macau can take you there. The main family doesn’t know where it is.” He glanced at Pete as if checking to make sure those words were still true. Pete nodded. He hadn’t told the main family where the house was. If he had, they would have stormed it. 

“Can I really?” Macau’s eyes lit up as if excited to be involved in mischief. Even if this was hardly childhood frivolity and more adult things Pete couldn’t even imagine dealing with at his age, never mind Chay’s. God, he was still a teenager. 

“Yes,” said Vegas. 

“Wait, you’re really—helping me?” Chay gaped at him. “What do you want from me?” 

“When you get caught, tell the truth and don’t say I held you hostage,” Vegas said. “That’s it.” 

Huh. Pete bit back a smile.

A few hours later and he found himself in Vegas’s bedroom with its bed that was probably three times the size of Pete’s cot in the bodyguard room he shared with Porsche. And it was so soft. Pete had given Vegas his pain medication for the evening and checked his phone.

“Anything from Porsche?” asked Vegas. “Or Kinn?”

“Korn is sending more people to look,” Pete read. He gulped, turning the phone’s screen off with a click. “That’s—not good.”

Vegas said nothing.

“You’re really putting yourself in the line of fire for a kid you don’t even know?” Or was it for Macau? 

“I have debts, too,” Vegas said finally, shifting closer to Pete. His hand rested on Pete’s abdomen, massaging gently.

Vegas’s fingertips traced the tattoo scrawled over Pete’s inner hip. No legacy so rich as honesty. 

What a load of bullshit, Vegas had said when he first discovered it. Pete still couldn’t quite explain it, nor could the obvious irony that he was now acting in a way that, even if not technically lying, was certainly not honest with Porsche. 

Vegas leaned over and placed a kiss on the word honesty. He worked his way down the line, as if reading backwards and drinking from Pete’s ink-stained skin. 

How do you live in this filthy world? Vegas had asked. 

If he was going to be stained, then he wanted to decide what those stains were. He wanted to make a pattern from them, make meaning from them, even if there was no way he could always live up to it. Even the worst messes, something could be made from it. He believed that.

Pete’s fingers tightened on Vegas’s hair as his mouth delved lower between his thighs. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Even this thing with Porsche’s little brother—something would work out with it. Something good. 

Tankhun marched into Yok’s bar with his chin up and his feathered coat suffocating him from the heat, but oh well. Arm and Pol had the nerve to suggest he stay in and watch his dramas, but he couldn’t focus. Not until he knew his newest littlest brother was home safe.

“You here for the same reason your brother was?” asked Yok, a crease in her brow. “Chay’s not here. I haven’t heard from him, and I’ve been calling.” She bit her lip. 

Dammit. Tankhun pressed his fingers to his eyes. Also, damn that Kinn, getting here first—they needed to coordinate better to not overlap! 

“Has he ever done anything like this before?” asked Pol.

“Of course not. He’s a good kid,” Tankhun snapped. 

Yok leaned closer. “If you want my take on it, he’s definitely run away.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! His mom just came back! He’s got money now! He loves his brother!” Tankhun waved his hands. He couldn’t imagine if his mom or brothers had run away when he finally got rescued from the kidnappers. 

“He dropped out of school,” Arm pointed out. 

“So maybe he doesn’t like it.”

Yok sighed, patting his arm. “Tankhun, any boy who suddenly dyes his hair, starts going out, and drops out of school has had his heart broken so badly that he doesn’t want to be himself anymore.”

Heart… broken? Like—

Well, it wasn’t as if Tankhun would know. He didn’t have to go to school. He had tutors after he got kidnapped from school. And it wasn’t as if he understood, because he dyed his hair all the time for shits and giggles. And he suddenly started going out, but that was because Porsche dragged him and it was fun. And not wanting to be himself?

Maybe when he was very young. Maybe, in those locked rooms, the basement one that he still had nightmares about, where spiders and centipedes crawled over him and he was so hungry he couldn’t muster the energy to brush them off but also couldn’t bring himself to eat them. 

Sorry kid, one had told him. It’s your dad that’s the problem, not you. Just sucks that you’re the eldest son. He was a nicer kidnapper, compared to the others who beat him. 

They tried to make Tankhun not be himself. Dress in all black, dress in rags, be unnoticeable. It hadn’t worked. He was still Tankhun Theerapanyakul, son of Korn Theerapanyakul, older brother of Anakinn Theerapanyakul and Kimhant Theerapanyakul. 

He was still a target, so he might as well enjoy being Tankhun Theerapanyakul. As for being the eldest son, oh well, at least that meant Kinn and Kim would never be targeted like he was. 

He didn’t like that Chay wanted to change himself. He was good as he was. Anyone spending three minutes with him could tell. 

Whoever could have looked at such a pure, innocent kid and fucked him up so badly—Tankhun briefly considered investing in piranhas to replace his lost carp. 

“I know he had supposedly gone to another bar recently,” Yok said. 

He thanked Yok and got to his feet. Arm and Pol followed.  

“Finding Chay is the priority,” said Tankhun with a sniff. He straightened his sunglasses. “And after that I’ll focus on finding the person who broke his heart. Arm, you can hack his phone, right?”

“And then what?” asked Arm.

“And then, those carp costumes will have some use.” Tankhun humphed. “Or, we’ll kill the bastard.” 

Missing .

Kim had spent the afternoon and evening pacing, hoping every buzz of the phone or knock on the door would be Chay unblocking him, forgiving him. But nothing of the sort. No, worse—the opposite. 

Kinn said he was missing. 

Kim had a sinking feeling that he knew precisely where Chay was, and he didn’t want to go and see if he was correct. 

From now on, whatever you do with your life, it’s your decision, he’d said, finger pointing at Chay’s face after slapping the drugs out of his hand. The unspoken— I won’t come save you.

But he had. 

And Chay hadn’t cried or begged like he thought he might. He’d told Kim to leave him alone. But Kim still had all those handwritten notes, the guitar pick, the—memories. 

Kim lingered outside the same bar he’d found Chay at that time, keeping an eye on all the sleazy patrons sliding inside. The sky vacillated between silver gauze and thick black tufts of clouds, no more easily able to make up its mind about whether it wanted to be clear or rain than it had during the day. Puddles lingered in the pavement cracks and potholes, evidence of earlier rain. Despite the lack of sun, the complete lack of air left Kim as drenched as if he had jumped into a pool. 

“You seem too pretty to be lingering outside,” a voice said behind him. A hand landed on his shoulder.

Kim reacted on instinct and slapped the woman away. Oops. 

She stumbled back, clearly drunk. “Okay, okay.” She raised her hands.

Clearly not a threat. Kim tried to regain his breathing. He straightened his shoulders and strode into the club. 

Bass beats from knock-off EDM music reverberated through the floor. His damp shoes squeaked, probably, but it wasn’t as if anyone could hear it. The pungent scents of rum and whiskey mingled around him. He scanned the room, lit in purples and blues. The same booth where Chay had been that night—he wasn’t there. Nor were any—

There. Kim spotted the same turd who had tried to get Chay to take drugs by the bar, lifting a cheap beer, the kind that was more a vehicle to get to a destination than something to actually enjoy. 

The boy turned to walk away from the bar. Kim grabbed his arm. The beer sloshed all over the kid’s shirt. He swore at Kim, jerking back.

Kim didn’t let him escape his grasp. The kid spluttered and squinted. “Wait.” He was definitely on something judging by the lilt in his voice. “You—you’re the one who—”

“Yeah, I am, dipshit,” said Kim, hauling him. “Let’s talk.” 

“No way! I’m not letting you beat—” The kid went silent as he realized that Kim was pointing a gun into the small of his back. “Are you for real?”

“Sure am.” Kim didn’t relent as he dragged the boy towards a back room. He could hear the sounds of pants and groans, smell the sweat. The kid trembled as if he wasn’t sure of Kim’s intentions. 

Kim shoved him back against a wall. “You’re not my type. Just makes a good cover.” He leaned over the man, using his leather jacket to conceal his gun, which he kept aimed, this time at the heart. Hell, this kid still had acne. He had to be younger than Chay. “Where the fuck is Porchay?”

“How should I know?” The kid’s eyes bulged. “I’m not his boyfriend! I haven’t seen him since—”

Kim shoved the gun into his skin. The boy’s voice cut off with a high-pitched whimper. 

“I don’t know! I can’t—tell you because I don’t know, I haven’t seen him, I—”

Telling the truth, Kim guessed. But if it wasn’t this kid, then—

He had no leads.

He felt as if he was trying to keep his grip on a pipe soaked in grease. He gritted his teeth and pressed even closer. “What about your trash friends?”

The kid shook his head. Behind them, someone was positively shrieking in ecstasy. “I don’t—”

“Their numbers. Names. And addresses. Now.” 

“Time to go!” Hands landed on Kim’s shoulders, shoving him back. Or, trying to. He wasn’t about to budge. He jerked back, elbows flying, colliding with a nasal bone with a satisfying crack, to see—

“Pol?”

“Khun Kim?” exclaimed another person besides the one whose nose he just made bleed. 

“Arm?”

“Khun Kim?” Arm gaped at him. 

The little loser made to run. Kim’s leg swept out, knocking him back into Arm’s arms. 

“Tankhun sent us here for this boy,” stammered Arm. “He’s supposed to be friends with Porsche’s brother—”

“I know,” Kim cut in. Great, so was Tankhun here? 

Yes, the answer turned out to be, once Arm and Pol helped Kim wrestle the little rat outside. Tankhun found out what he’d told Kim, helped get the addresses, and contemplated locking the kid in the basement to interrogate further before Arm pointed out that there was little point, and besides, it might be better to just keep him under surveillance, and Tankhun agreed.

Then, Tankhun turned on Kim. 

“I didn’t know whether or not you read your text messages,” Tankhun complained. “You’re impossible to sus out.”

Kim shrugged, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. 

“Did he tell you that he’d gone here before?”

Fuck! Kim screamed internally. Externally, he glanced off towards an alleyway crowded with rusted motorcycles and trash bins. “When would we have talked,” he said flatly. His heart pounded. He fought to keep from swallowing, from giving himself away.

“When you saved him at Yok’s bar?” Tankhun pressed. “Duh, Kim. I raised you to be—” 

“We didn’t even talk then. He played video games the whole time.” Because I didn’t want him to see it. 

To see Kim killing for him. Not that killing made Kim squeamish; it hadn’t for years. He just—he—

I love you, Chay had said that first morning. Too soon, way too soon, almost laughably cringe. And yet, he’d still had the innocence to ask do you love me? 

“I talked to Yok earlier,” Kim said.

Understanding dawned on Tankhun’s face. “Oh. I thought she meant Kinn when she said my brother’d been by.” He slapped Kim’s shoulder. “You really should communicate better, baby brother! So we don’t cross wires or—”

Kim just gave a complacent snort, the kind that would placate Tankhun. 

It didn’t work. “You realize you could go missing and I would have no idea?” Tankhun said, horror spreading over his face as if he was just realizing this himself. “Kim! You need to respond when you get texts, and—”

“Check in every hour?” Kim arched his brows, a wry smile settling on his lips before he remembered Chay was missing and he could not smile at all. “I’m just—busy, that’s all.” 

Busy fucking up, he thought. If Chay were here right now, would he throttle him and yell for worrying him? Or would he fall to his knees and beg forgiveness? 

He’d probably do neither. Just stand here, clad in his persona. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure himself where Wik ended and Kim began, or where his mafia self became his idol self became his personal self, or if he even had the latter. 

A horrible thought hit Kim like an icicle stabbing straight through his skull and plunging down his spine. Is it because of me? 

What if it was? Chay might want his space, he’d said as much, he just—Kim had hoped that if he knew that Kim still wanted him to stay, still wanted—still—hoped Chay loved—then he—

It wasn’t love, clearly. It was childish infatuation. Kim knew that all along. He still remembered the day his childish mirror shattered, when Tankhun was kidnapped again and he and Kinn clutched each other and cried, and all Kim could think was, I should have done something, I could have saved him, even though they were kids. He could still hear their mother sobbing and felt the stab of knowing that he and Kinn weren’t enough, that they weren’t Tankhun, and it wasn’t that they were deficient, but purely that a human being could never be replaced. 

Why did it feel like he’d lost something, then, if Chay had never really loved him? He should be happy to be right. 

But if Chay really had seen his video, his song, and thought that Kim would never let him go, that Kim was just trying to control him, trying to make peace for the sake of the family, maybe on order of his father even, then—he might well run away. 

It’s my fault.

A lump swallowed in Kim’s throat. He was grateful for the clouds above now. The only light came from the fizzling tangerine streetlamps. 

He had to find Chay. For the last time, to tell him that he was—not going to bother him anymore. To leave him alone. Wik would take a world tour. Chay could stay with Porsche and Kinn and Tankhun and go back to school. 

I’ll leave you alone, like you wanted.

I just—

I have to—

Make sure you’re safe, first. 

Chapter Text

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie

Which we ascribe to heaven."

~All's Well That Ends Well

“Did you say drugs?” demanded Porsche.

“Er…” Tankhun swung about from side to side, fiddling with his glasses. “Yes? That’s what he said, anyways. Except he said he didn’t take any. So.” He glanced at Pol and Arm as if to get back up. Both bodyguards gave solemn nods, but no further information. Pol bore a rather nasty looking bruise on his nose. 

Kinn pressed his lips together. Judging from the shock on Porsche’s face, he had no idea his little brother was messing around with that shit. Or almost messing with it. 

“Kinn, Kim was also there,” Tankhun said. 

“He broke Pol’s nose,” Arm put in helpfully. 

Kinn blinked. That was Kim’s handiwork? 

He was almost impressed. It was Kinn who helped teach Kim how to fight hand-to-hand. It was during one of Tankhun’s longer kidnappings, the one where he was tortured most brutally, or so Kinn had overheard his father saying once after Tankhun was back home. 

Kim had slipped into Kinn’s room late at night and climbed into bed with him. Kinn already knew, even back then, that if he had any chance of hearing what Kim was thinking, he’d have to wait for Kim to say it. 

“Kinn, will they be coming for us next?” Kim had finally whispered. 

Me more likely than you, Kinn had thought, but he hadn’t said it. “We’re not the heir. No.”

Silence. Kinn could hear his little brother breathing. Then: “what if they do anyway?” And Kinn knew the unspoken part of that question was what if we become heirs, because Tankhun doesn’t come back this time, and then you don’t come back? 

“They won’t,” Kinn said that night, a vow. “We’ll learn how to fight.”

And so he had taught Kim, practicing with his little brother day in and day out. And Tankhun came home, eventually. That time, Tankhun hadn’t spoken for a month, and Kinn and Kim had planned so many ways to try to draw their older brother back out of this shell. 

The only thing that finally drew him out was the two carp fish they’d bought Tankhun on a whim.

“Yes, he apparently wants to help us find Chay.” Tankhun waved his hand and sent Kinn’s own memories away with it. 

“We’ll find him,” Kinn assured his boyfriend. “And then, we’ll teach Chay how to fight.” 

Porsche lifted his head from his hands, looking weary. “And what if it isn’t a mafioso, Kinn? What if he just—drank too much, or someone drugged him?” Porsche’s head went back into his hands.

Kinn’s stomach lurched. A familiar feeling, guilt with its jagged nails, prickled against his skin as it gripped his neck. Of course, Porsche had been a bartender—he’d probably heard many a story, not to mention experienced—

“No,” Kinn said. “That cannot happen to Chay.” A vow again, one he was helpless to keep, one someone like him probably had no business in making. 

Sometimes he felt like Sisyphus, rolling the rock up and up and up and up and up and up again. What if it never ended?

It had to, and Chay could not be that end. 

Kinn gestured for Arm and Pol to escort Tankhun out. His older brother squeezed Kinn with a hug and reassurances that were as well-meaning and empty as the ones Kinn kept spilling onto Porsche.

Did Porsche want to be left alone? Or—could he call Nampheung? No, no, this wouldn’t help her fragile mental state. She didn’t even remember Chay, much less—

Kinn had no idea what to do. He stood there in his glass room towering above Bangkok and he felt so, so small. 

Was his presence making it worse for Porsche, reminding him?

“I haven’t been there for him,” Porsche whispered.

Kinn swallowed hard. He took a step closer, hand hovering above Porsche’s shoulder. He wanted to settle it, anchor himself, but he didn’t dare. “You have. He’s—” He struggled. “He might not have wanted you to know.” He thought of Kim. 

Sometimes it feels like I don’t have a younger brother.

He listened to Wik’s music for hours at a time, sometimes, just to hear his little brother’s voice, the voice he had always admired. Even if Kinn couldn’t have the singing career he’d always wanted, at least Kim could. 

Porsche shook his head. His hand snaked up, grabbing Kinn’s, pulling him down onto the couch beside him. 

Kinn lowered his head, resting it against Porsche’s shoulder. He didn’t trust himself to speak here. 

“It’s always been the two of us,” Porsche said. “Now it’s—not, and it’s good, but—” His breaths came heavy and damp. “I forget how young he is. And how old.” 

Kinn tightened his grip on Porsche’s hand. “You’re not going to lose him. You’ll have the chance to have that conversation with him. To ground him for drugs. We can arrange a testing system, if he’s really been messing around with it. And—”

Porsche looked at him, the same bloody, raw look in his eyes Kinn recognized from the look in his mother’s eyes years ago, when she demanded to know how many times she’d have to lose her son and lose him again. She’d even said she wished Tankhun had died, so she could mourn and move on, and Kinn had screamed at her that day, burst right into the room and not cared that he was eavesdropping as he yelled. 

“You’re not going to lose him,” Kinn repeated. No matter what he had to do. No matter what he had to become. 

Porsche drew in a shaky breath. He pressed his forehead against Kinn’s. 

At some point they drifted off, and Kinn woke at five in the morning with an aching neck and hauled a half-asleep Porsche to bed. He needed to rest. In the meantime, Kinn sent multiple messages to his father and to contacts. Send a message to every gang in this city if need be . 

When Kinn woke again, it was lighter outside and to a loud screech that was either a pig being slaughtered or a rooster that had decided to mate with a dragon and take over the world. He 

“Kinn!” wailed Tankhun. He threw himself onto the foot of Kinn’s bed. Porsche jerked his legs up to his chest. And then the color completely drained from Porsche’s face, and Kinn began to feel like he was in a fog.

This can’t be happening.

He can’t—

He just got his mother back—

Not Porsche. Not Porchay. Not—

“Our own little brother!” sobbed Tankhun.

Kinn was generally patient with Tankhun, but right now he wanted to grab his older brother by his shoulders, shake him, and demand he tell him everything, logically, in perfect detail, right this very second. Porsche looked as if he was about to vomit or faint, and Kinn felt as if the skin was sloughing from his bones, puddling on the floor around him and leaving him a vulnerable sack of nerves and vessels and bone. 

“Khun Kinn, it’s not what you think!” interjected Arm’s voice. The bodyguard panted as he broke into the room, Pol behind him and still bearing a bruise on his face from Kim’s elbow. “It’s not Porchay!”

What the— Kim gaped. Not Porchay. Then—

Oh God, what had happened to Kim? Had whoever got Chay gone for Kim next? Was— 

Porsche immediately leaped out of bed, not caring that he was clad only in underwear, to grab Kinn’s bicep. 

Kinn tried to wring the words out of his throat. Asking wouldn’t make it any more real than it already was. His mind already raced ahead—stupid Kim, his stupid side hustle as a pop star and his vanishing acts, of course he got himself kidnapped, and that’s my baby brother —

“What happened to Kim?” demanded Porsche, finding the words Kinn could not.

“He’s not harmed, Khun Kim,” Arm said tiredly. 

What.

“You might’ve led with that!” Kinn exploded. The fuck was—

“Really, if he was, wouldn’t Khun Korn be here?” Pol put in helpfully, voice still somewhat flattened from his nose injury. 

Screw logic when every emotion was running so high it was practically turning into plasma! Kinn made a gesture with his hands that he imagined was throwing Tankhun and these bodyguards out the windows and down onto the streets of Bangkok. 

“It’s terrible, Kinn,” sniffed Tankhun, sitting up and wiping at genuinely bloodshot eyes. Snot dripped from his nose, and Kinn couldn’t help it. He grabbed some napkins leftover from the dinner they’d eaten here last night and wiped his brother’s face for him.

Tankhun wasn’t grateful. No, instead he ripped the napkins away and glared up at Kinn. “Kim,” he said, voice full of venom. “Kim—after all we’ve done, after all I—I practically raised him, and he’s—he—”

“Did he punch another bodyguard?” Porsche sounded as if he were making an attempt to sound amused, when he really wanted to scream and run looking for Chay. 

Right. This was valuable time they did not have, not if Chay was really in danger!

“He doesn’t trust me!” wailed Tankhun, falling forward and clutching Kinn’s arm as he sobbed. “He’s been lying! Our own baby brother, Kinn! He doesn’t trust me, or you, or any of us! I knew he was a nosy one, but he forgot to trust me!” 

Kinn’s head was still spinning. Still, he held out his hand, and Porsche instantly seemed to realize what he wanted and placed his phone in it, number already dialed. 

“Kim,” Kinn greeted his younger brother. “What the fuck did you do to Tankhun?” 

Kim had never in his life heard Kinn sound so truly, truly pissed with him. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get your ass over here right now.” And then Kinn hung up on Kim, not even giving him another chance to ask what the fuck was going on, why he could hear Tankhun screaming in the background, why—

Was it Chay? 

Kim gripped the edge of his balcony, fighting the urge to vomit and splatter God knew how many people down below. 

If something had happened to Chay—if he didn’t even get to apologize—

From now on, whatever you do, it’s your decision!

When Kim first left the mafia, he told himself it was his decision. He was in charge of his own life, the Theerapanyakul family legacy be damned. Even though he knew his father definitely paid off people to help him gain his music career, just like he had with Kinn back in the day, he stuck it out. He was certain some of his fans liked his music for him. And then he had a hit, and another, and it was organic and his and his alone. Sure enough, when he’d checked his father’s accounts, he couldn’t find records of the man paying people off anymore. 

He told himself he made it. 

Now Kim felt, for the first time in years, like he was awake and was only just realizing that he’d had no idea where he was going or who was driving the whole time. 

Did any of them have any choice about anything? Did he have the right to tell Chay such a thing when he knew, better than Chay did, that if you fired a gun, even if aimed perfectly, the environment could change and tilt and it could hit what was most precious to you? Did he even have the right to tell Chay it was Chay’s fault, when he was the one who pressured Chay into confessing his love, kissed him, spent the night, and then broke it off? 

But he’d known that all along, hadn’t he? If he got involved with Chay, there would be danger. Better to break it off than risk it. 

He had to go back to that house. He had to find out what happened to Chay. And— I’ll leave . But he’d at least make sure Chay knew that it wasn’t his fault, that Kim didn’t leave him because he was too innocent or stupid or childish.

It’s me.

Kim’s leg juddered the entire ride over to his father’s compound. He gnawed his lip. The car barely slowed before he leaped out and went running past the bodyguards and up to—

Kinn hadn’t said where to meet them. Tankhun’s room? Kinn’s? 

Dad’s? 

Kim turned around, feeling lost in his own house.

“Khun Kim!” hollered Pol from down the hallway. He hurried towards him from Kinn’s room. “Your brothers are in there.”

Kim nodded, swallowing hard. “Sorry about your nose.”

Pol’s brows rose. He touched it. “I’ve had worse.”

That he had, Kim had no doubt. He could hear the sobs and cries coming from Kinn’s room and froze, feeling as if he’d stepped on frozen nails that shot terror straight up each leg. 

If he entered that room and Chay was—was—

“Khun Kim’s here!” called Pol, opening the door ahead of him. And then Kim was pulled into the room. He felt as if he were underwater. He couldn’t breathe. 

Tankhun lay flopped across an unmade bed, like a fish out of water. Arm was patting his head, consoling him. Kinn had his arms folded and a filthy glare on his face that he immediately set on Kim. 

Porsche was next to Kinn, and he was—anxious? Eyes red, lips turned down, but not hysterical. Wouldn’t he be hysterical, if something happened to Chay? 

“Is there any news?” Kim’s voice sounded like it was coming from someone else, hoarse and bloated. 

“You tell me,” Kinn said icily. And despite the coldness in his voice, Kim felt as if he’d been turned into a fried fish by the sharp rage. “Tankhun says it has to do with Porchay, but he won’t—” 

“You don’t trust me!” wailed Tankhun, sitting up and bawling. He jabbed his finger at Kim. “I—we ran into you last night, and you didn’t even say—anything—Kim! I raised you! You—” 

What the what? Any semblance of control Kim had over the situation, even over himself, felt like pebbles tumbling down a hillside. “What did I do?” 

Tankhun gestured to Arm, who sighed and adjusted his glasses. “Khun Kim…”

“We hacked his phone!” Tankhun burst out. “Chay’s phone! And he had your number!”

Oh shit.

Tankhun wasn’t done. “And your number was blocked !” 

Oh shit shit.

Porsche turned to Kim in a way that suggested this was, in fact, entirely new to him. “How did my little brother have—”

“Your phone, Kim.” Kinn held out his hand, the weight of “no nonsense” so heavy in his tone that Kim almost just fucking handed it over. 

Wait. No. Chay might not want anyone to know! Kim jerked back. “It’s because of Wik!” 

“Wik?” echoed Porsche. “What the fuck is a Wik?”

Good God. 

“His pop star act. Hannah Montana to his Kim.” Tankhun waved his hand. 

Porsche’s face changed all of a sudden. “The one—”

“Yes, the one who was tutoring Chay,” Kim cut in, heart pounding. “He was—studying to enter the same music program I went to. He won a contest. I signed his shirt. I gave him some lessons.” 

“Wait, you’re Wik?” Porsche spluttered. 

“How did you not know?” Tankhun gestured to Kim. “He doesn’t wear a blonde wig.”

“Do I look like I pay attention to pop stars?” Porsche exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Arm. 

“So you were being nosy and spying on him?” Tankhun scowled. His nose was swollen from crying. 

“And you neglected to mention this, why?” Kinn cut in. “Not to mention you’re blocked because… why?” Something dangerous glinted in Kinn’s eyes. 

“This is important information, Kim!” Tankhun pointed at him again. “If you’re hiding—”

Fuck! Kim screamed in his head, accompanied by the voices of a thousand angels in chorus. “I went to the warehouse to save him. He realized I was part of the mafia and cut me off.” He tightened his grip on his own phone, praying that Kinn didn’t demand to see it again. “He’s a sweet kid.” 

Porsche and Kinn exchanged a glance. 

“But you should have told me!” Tankhun persisted. “Anything relevant, even the smallest detail, can help find someone who’s been kidnapped! I would know, Kim!” 

Again Kim felt as if he’d been doused in ice. He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.” 

“I thought you wanted to be the singer,” Porsche muttered to Kinn. 

“We used to have contests,” Kinn replied. “Tankhun judged them.” 

Tankhun sniffled. “That I did.” He glared at Kim, hurt still etched into his face.

“I’m sorry,” Kim said again. “Can we please just—focus on finding Chay?” 

Porsche met Kim’s gaze, and Porsche’s softened. He nodded. If it were anyone else Kim might wonder if he was onto Kim, but since it was Porsche, he didn’t worry at all. 

“Well, that’s rude,” Tankhun muttered. “Blocking you just because you were in the mafia. I’m not blocked.”

You’re you and I’m me, Kim wanted to say. He also wanted to ask if Tankhun had watched the song he sent to Chay, if he had figured it out, but no, if he had, Kim felt fairly certain Porsche would have already killed him. 

“So, what do you like to do?” Macau was all bright smiles and laughs. He could have been any other kid at school, except he had grown up in the mafia, which did not compute. 

Well, after Wik, Chay really shouldn’t be surprised that he didn’t understand anyone’s personality. His judge of character could hardly be worse. 

The safe house was tranquil, despite the fact that Chay was pretty sure people must have died here. It was a mafia house, after all. But there was a small lake in front of it, a pond really, and lush grass. The smog was much thinner here, and the air smelled clean. Probably better for the baby.

The baby. 

“I don’t know,” Chay said, turning back to Macau. He shrugged. “Video games. I guess.”

“Music too, right? Weren’t you studying it?”

Was Macau a stalker? Chay almost laughed. “Sometimes. I dropped out, though.”

“Why?” Macau had the nerve to ask.

Chay gestured to himself. 

“But that was recent and you dropped out before this,” Macau said, leaning closer. “I read up on you.”

Well, at least he was honest about it. Chay shrugged again.

“Did you know our cousin is a pop star?” Macau reached for his laptop. “One of your brothers-in-law, yeah, for real. He’s—”

Oh God. Did he know? Did he know everything? Chay gaped.

“Here’s my favorite song by him. Don’t tell anyone, but Vegas likes his music, too. Our dad, not so much, though. He used to say that at least Korn had one son who wasn’t bothering him, that it must’ve been nice—” Macau stopped. “What’s wrong?”

One son who wasn’t bothering him? At least Chay’s parents were—dead, and an amnesiac kept hostage, apparently. But—

Your dad just didn’t want you? 

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Chay said. 

Macau shrugged. “Vegas protected me from the worst of it. He took most of the slaps. Me, I just kinda hung back.” He shoved the laptop towards Chay. “Anyways. The song.”

Across from them, sunlight sparkled on the water. Chay gulped. 

Hearing Kim’s voice again, the voice he’d clung too so many nights alone while Porsche was out bartending and then bodyguarding and his fake uncle was out gambling away their safety, so many night their uncle, to his credit, kicked Chay out so that he wouldn’t get beaten up by creditors, he’d taken solace in the poetic words, the declarations of love, of loneliness, of being lost. 

Me too, he’d thought. 

But it was all fake. A mirage, Chay himself staring at water expecting to see Kim looking back at him. 

His eyes stung. 

“I thought this song might encourage you, since—” Macau cut himself off. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m going to throw up,” Chay managed, jolting to his feet and almost toppling the laptop. Macau caught it, and Chay made it to the edge of the veranda before vomiting into the water. 

“I don’t think anyone’s ever had that reaction to Wik’s music before,” Macau commented. “You okay, man?”

Absolutely not. Chay squeezed his eyes shut, clutching the wood so tightly he was sure he was getting splinters in his palms. 

“I could ask him to come here. I mean, I know you don’t want the main family finding out, but Kim’s kinda a prodigal son in a sense. He’s like the coldest mofo I know, but he doesn’t talk to people much, and—”

Chay shook his head. 

“Right, you might’ve met, and—”

“Macau,” Chay managed. “Stop talking.”

Macau instantly shut up, but Chay didn’t even have to see his face to know that he was hurt. 

Fuck.

“Please don’t—talk about P’Kim anymore,” Chay whispered. 

“Huh?” Macau came closer then, frowning. “I really only meant to comfort, not to upset—”

“Don’t talk about P’Kim anymore,” Chay repeated, meeting Macau’s gaze.

Something shifted on Macau’s face. His mouth dropped. “No way.” 

Chay cringed. “You can’t—not even your brother—” 

“Are you serious?” Macau shoved his laptop back onto the chair and sat down next to Chay. “You and Kim—”

“ Please .”

Macau shut his mouth. 

Chay wiped at his eyes. A koel bird let out its call. It echoed. 

“What are you gonna do?” Macau asked finally. “I mean, I can take you to see a doctor. Or, Pete can. He’s nicer than the other guys Vegas has dated, by a lot. You wouldn’t even have to tell him whose it is.”

Whose.

There was a literal part of Kim still inside him. Chay pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “Yeah. I should—get rid of it.” His voice sounded hollow. “That way I can—get back there sooner. To everyone.”

“I mean, yeah, but is that what you want?” Macau grabbed a stray pebble that God knew where it came from and tossed it out onto the water. It skipped, multiple ripples spreading across the surface. 

“Does it matter what I want?” His voice came tight.

“I think so,” Macau said. “Like, whoever’s it is, it’s yours too. Maybe even more, since you’re the one who’s like puking and all.”

Chay turned his head to look at Macau.

“It’s your choice,” Macau said. 

“I don’t know what I should choose.” He wanted—not quite for others to make it for him. He just—he—

“Whatever you want,” Macau said. “Hey, no one even knows you’re here. You can do whatever you want, be whoever you want. You can have a kid, if you want.” He leaned back on his hands, staring up at the hazy sky. “But it’s stupid to live your life trying to make everyone else happy. Vegas was always trying to impress my dad, and he failed, so I didn’t even try. Because I didn’t want to try. What you want matters too, even if no one else acknowledges it.” 

Chay dangled his feet into the water. He drew in his breath. “You know he made a song for me?”

The days ticked by, and Pete wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this secret. 

He rehearsed what he’d say in his mind. Hello Porsche. Oh yes, I let you worry needlessly while your pregnant brother hid at the same safe house I was held hostage in previously. Don’t worry; he’s not a hostage, though. 

He hoped Vegas still loved him even if he was missing teeth, because he felt pretty certain there was no way he was coming out of that conversation fully intact. 

When Macau called and asked for obstetrician information, Vegas rubbed his head like it ached. 

“Do you think he’s keeping it?” Pete asked.

Vegas shrugged. “I have not met this kid besides when Tawan held a gun to his unconscious body, so no idea.” 

“Do you think the other father knows?”

Vegas looked at Pete like he couldn’t decide whether to be bemused or annoyed. 

“What if it was Macau?” Pete asked. “What would you do? Or encourage him to do?” 

Vegas’s brows shot all the way up his forehead like some kind of cartoon. Pete almost laughed despite the seriousness of the situation. He instead dropped next to Vegas and leaned against him.

“Well, when I gave Macau the talk, I told him that if he ever didn’t use condoms I’d personally twist his balls off, so I think that was handled,” Vegas said.

“You can tell a kid to do something. Doesn’t mean they’ll listen.”

Vegas scowled. “It’s his life. His choice. I guess.” 

Chay or Macau? Pete sighed. “I can take him to the doctor’s.” 

Vegas furrowed his brow. “Are you sure?”

“Mm.”

A few days later and Pete drove to the compound he’d once escaped from to take Porsche’s brother to see an obstetrician. Vegas had given him, without Pete even needing to request it, the car with the darkest tinted windows. Even so, the entire drive over Pete felt like he was being watched. The pedestrians with their coffees, the men smoking, the women hawking fruits and wares. 

He was so bad at this.

“Did you text your brother again?” Pete asked at last, since Chay didn’t seem particularly talkative. He slowed for a red light. 

“Yes.” Chay swallowed. “And then turned the phone off, so they can’t track me.”

All right, the kid was decently smart. Pete nodded. 

“He’s still really worried though, isn’t he?” Chay asked, voice soft.

Pete didn’t know what to say. “He texts me a dozen times a day. About you.”

“Sorry.” 

Oh. Pete hadn’t expected Chay to acknowledge the uncomfortable position he was putting Pete in. “I know it’s not my place, Porchay,” he began, stomach tightening as the light turned green and he drove ahead. “But, I think he’d support you. No matter what. No matter what you wanted, no matter what you chose. He was always so proud of you.”

At that, Chay flinched. Maybe he’d said something wrong. Right, hadn’t he dropped out of school? Shit, maybe— 

“I know he would,” Chay whispered. “But I don’t know if I would be okay with that.” 

“Huh?”

“I just wish—someone would see me as Chay. Not as Porsche’s little brother. And it’s so unfair of me, that he’s sacrificed so much, but—when I thought I found someone who did, whom I loved, he didn’t. Not really.” 

Oh. Pete blinked.

“Or, he said he didn’t. And he then started showing up around me, sending me songs, like he regrets it—but he lied to me, and he—I thought he’d chosen me for me, but it was only for my brother.”

For his brother? The list of suspects was getting smaller by the minute. Pete gulped. 

“I love him, but I can’t—forgive him,” Chay managed. “I know it sounds—nonsensical, but—”

“It doesn’t sound nonsensical,” Pete said. “It sounds realistic.” He thought of coming face to face with Vegas in that parking garage, about the moment upstairs when he and Kinn whipped behind a pillar and he knew it was Vegas shooting at—well, not at him. 

I can’t forgive you. 

“I’m sorry,” Vegas had said. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s not that even—that he doesn’t love me. It’s that—he didn’t choose me. And he said as much.”

Please, please don’t leave me, Vegas had begged him. 

“Vegas asked me not to leave him,” Pete said. “I did. I had to. But, we still found our way back.”

Chay blinked at him. “Why did you stick around?” 

Pete thought of Gun slapping Vegas again, of the bruises on his face, of the desperation leaking from his voice as he cradled his hedgehog. They always leave me.

“He was a human being,” Pete said honestly. “And he was in pain. Even if he had inflicted it on me, I didn’t—I couldn’t feel nothing for him.” And the glimpses of Vegas he’d seen under his turbulent mask—those were so bright and beautiful. 

He just wanted love. 

It was so, ironically, pure. 

“But if I have it, I want—I want him to want me for me. Not because he’s guilty or feels like he needs to take responsibility or whatever that means, not because he wants peace in the family, not because any of that.” 

Okay, Chay was narrowing the pool to the point where Pete had a pretty good idea who was the other partner, but he didn’t exactly trust himself to guess considering he had completely missed that Kinn was fucking Porsche. “People often say things without words.” He parked across from a noodle shop adjacent to the clinic. “Isn’t that what music is?” 

Well. Songs had words, but Pete still hoped Chay got what he meant. Judging from his small frown, he did. 

“This,” Vegas said. “Is not sustainable.”

And at the same time, what else could he do? There was something about seeing Macau happy, about seeing him have an honest to goodness friend, that made Vegas very reluctant to pull the plug. Even though common sense told him that he was circling the drain and sooner rather than later Porsche and Kinn would find out, and maybe listen to Chay before shooting them dead, and maybe shoot them dead and ask questions later. 

He didn’t want Pete to die. Or Macau. Himself, he was generally on the fence about, but he’d never had an anchor pulling him one way or the other before. Pete definitely pulled him towards living.

“I know,” Pete said glumly from where he sat between Vegas’s thighs. His head lolled back against Vegas’s chest, covering his scars.

It had been several weeks now, and it seemed clear to Vegas, as much as he tried to leave Macau and Porchay alone, that the kid 1) wanted to keep the kid and 2) had no idea how he was going to do that besides going to his brother and begging for funding, which he also knew that Porsche would gladly provide, except 3) he didn’t want to rely on his brother. 

Vegas didn’t entirely understand why not, but he supposed he did get the whole wanting to prove myself or whatever thing. He just didn’t know who Chay wanted to prove it too. 

“My uncle wants to see me in the next few days,” Vegas said. 

Pete stiffened. 

“He can’t know. They’d be here if they did.”

“I know,” Pete said. “But—are you okay with that?” He turned to see Vegas’s face.

Ah, damn. Vegas turned his face away towards the shadows, knowing even as he did so that Pete was noticing the swallow, the way his veins moved in his throat. “I know his support is conditional.”

“On not killing his offspring.” Pete brushed hair back from Vegas’s forehead, his fingers light as birds’ feathers. 

“Ha, ha,” Vegas said irritably. “But, Pete, think—if I fuck up again, or if he even thinks he has, who’s leverage against me?”

“Macau,” Pete said. “And, I guess, me.”

“Exactly.” Vegas shifted. 

“He doesn’t suspect anything, and he trusts me,” Pete reasoned.

“Korn trusts no one. That’s how he’s survived so long in this fucked up world.” Vegas snorted. “I still don’t know whether to believe him or my father about Nampheung.”

Pete was quiet. “Are you worried?”

It was a part of not being alone he hadn’t anticipated well. Like with Tawan, he always knew he would drop the man when he stopped being useful. But he couldn’t imagine dropping Pete, much less doing to him what he’d done to Tawan. There was a part of Vegas that had wondered, out by that pool when he was trying to work up the nerve to shoot himself, if Tawan had had to work up the nerve before he did it. Tawan had always been a coward, craving safety above all else, but he managed to do it in the end. 

No , Vegas thought, Pete leaning against him, warm. Love isn’t safe.  

It had been weeks. A month, if he was honest, but month sounded longer and Kim was not going to say it. 

Where are you?

If he were kidnapped, there would probably have been a demand by now. Or a body, but Kim only acknowledged that in his nightmares. 

Chay had sent a few more texts. He once even sent a photo of his face and a thumbs up, but it could have been old or photoshopped. He always turned his phone off once he had messaged Porsche, so despite Arm’s best efforts, they couldn’t track him beyond “still in Thailand.” If he got any of Kim’s messages, Kim wouldn’t know. Most likely he still had him blocked.  

“Why wouldn’t he want to be found?” Porsche wondered one night, when Kim finally dragged himself back to the main compound to check in and got roped into being in the same room with Kinn and Tankhun. Macau was also there, because apparently his cousin was meeting with Korn and Pete was—not, and now they were stuck babysitting Macau who might be Chay’s age but had none of his maturity. 

“He might be ashamed of something,” Tankhun said, slightly drunk as he lifted a finger in the air. 

Please. Chay never had anything to be ashamed of. Besides the one attempt at drugs, unless there were more, and if there were—

Kim’s stomach churned. He thought of all the shipments his own father brought into the country. He lowered his gaze.

“Well, if we want to talk to someone who has willingly gone AWOL on family, then he’s right here,” Tankhun added, finger lowering to point at Kim.

For fuck’s sake. Kim scowled. 

“What?” Tankhun pressed. “Am I wrong?”

“Very.” Kim peeled himself off the wall. He was unable to stand the raw agony in Porsche’s eyes, much less stand the man looking at Kim like he might hold some kind of answer. 

Kim had no answers. He had only questions, and if Chay really had gotten himself mixed up in something larger than himself, then it was Kim’s fault. 

He pushed him away, and he still got wrapped up in stuff.

Why even try, when he was constantly trying to fly against a cyclone? 

Kim pushed past Kinn, planning to head home. 

“Your idol persona is more important than this?” demanded Macau. 

Kim exhaled. Of course Macau would try to push his buttons. Pretty bold for someone so firmly minor even within the minor family. 

“No, really,” persisted Macau. “You want to what, do an interview? Make another chart topping song?”

“We’re in danger every day of our lives, Macau,” Kim said. “Purely for being born.” He did not want to see the look on Tankhun’s face to those words, so he turned again. “We’re stuck.” 

“Stuck what?” Macau mocked. “Living forever inside someone’s eyes? Whose, your dad’s? Is that really the only way to live—in how they see you? What a load of bullshit.” 

Kim’s eyes popped. Macau rolled his eyes and stomped away. 

Kim wanted to reach after him, call for him, demand—he—

Stay?

Kim turned and stomped off. He made it home and cursed, fighting the urge to punch a table like Kinn always did. He just—he—

He swept his belongings off his dresser. A box clattered to the ground.

Chay’s box. The one that held the guitar pick he’d made for Kim, the one Kim used to play that very song Macau taunted him with. He crouched down and opening it. The pick was still inside, not jostled even from its unceremonious tumble. 

He’d had those lyrics swirling in his head for awhile, and then once he met Chay, when he opened his eyes that morning after they’d slept together on that pullout couch, he’d thought how he didn’t want Chay to wake up, how he wanted him to keep his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to see Kim, to really see him. Even when he knew Chay was awake and feigning sleep, it took awhile to call him on it. 

Don’t fake anything. 

When he saw himself in Chay’s eyes after Chay blatantly told him he loved him and asked if Kim loved him, and he couldn’t answer, couldn’t dare say what he knew couldn’t be true because he was the one spying on Chay (even if he definitely didn’t need to kiss him, or sleep with him, or—), he still saw no doubt. He saw a fake in Chay’s eyes, and a boy who had absolutely no suspicion of what Kim was, what he’d been born to be. 

If this was Chay getting out of this life, then good. But— 

Kim bit down on his fingers, feeling the skin split over his knuckles. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. 

It was selfish, really, to send him that song asking him to stay. Except—

Wait. Had Tankhun shown Macau that song? From the hacking he’d done? Of course not. Tankhun despised Macau and Vegas. For good reason, too. 

He hadn’t released that song publicly. 

Or.

Oh, how could Kim have been so fucking stupid? 

Kim stumbled back from his balcony, resisting the self-destructive urge to chuck his phone off it. Instead he dialed—wrong, because his fingers were shaking and he accidentally called the wrong person. He hung up and hit the right button this time. 

“Kinn,” he said when his brother answered. “I think I might know where Chay is.” 

Chapter Text

“Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead

Excessive grief the enemy to the living.”

~All's Well That Ends Well

Kinn saw red. 

Vegas. That fucking bastard. He should have known. He should have fucking known! 

“We searched his house,” Arm whispered.

“Not his safe house,” groused Pol. 

“I don’t believe it,” Tankhun said, flapping his hands. “Pete would never allow any of this.” He pursed his lips, fists coming to rest on his hips. 

“Pete didn’t realize Kinn and Porsche were together until we told him,” Arm pointed out. 

“Yeah, what if Khun Vegas is deceiving him?” chimed in Pol. “Hiding—”

“Pete is not stupid ,” Tankhun said, glowering. “That would make him stupid.”

“Porsche?” Arm appealed. 

Porsche already had his hand on a gun. “I don’t know who knew what when or how,” he said. “And frankly, I don’t give a damn. I just want to see if my brother is there.” His nostrils flared like he was trying to contain his breathing, reign in how utterly panicked he was. 

Kinn remembered Porsche describing Pete’s injuries to him, after he’d escaped. The idea that a kid as sweet as Chay could be—

“I’m coming,” Kim said, stuffing a gun into the back of his jeans.

“You know if Papa gets wind of this,” Kinn started, and then stopped. 

Kim rolled his eyes as if he didn’t give a whit about it. He strode towards the door.

Kinn glanced behind him. Tankhun pressed his fingertips against his forehead. “Kim, are you really sure that this is precisely where—"

Their little brother had asked them to trust him, hadn’t he? Right here and now. Kim’s spying, his nosiness, as Tankhun called it—if he really was able to find Chay—

Was he really risking coming back to the mafia for Chay? Because he tutored him? Because—

Are you doing it for me and Porsche? Kinn wondered. He knew Kim loved him. Ostensibly, anyways. He just didn’t know what love was to Kim, if he was honest with himself. Kim rarely stopped by, and when he did, he always wanted to poke his nose into business that he would shove at someone else to manage, all while he pulled strings from behind the scenes.

But he clearly cared. Why else would he help rescue Porsche from Tawan at the warehouse, or vet Chay to make sure Porsche wasn’t a spy when Papa hired him? Hell, Kim was the first one to suspect something was off with Papa’s insistence on hiring him. 

Really, if any of them were to be the heir, Kim was made of the most suitable stuff. Kinn reached out, grasping his brother’s shoulder.

Kim glanced back.

“Thank you,” Kinn said quietly. He looked ahead at Porsche. “Thank you, Kim.” 

Kim swallowed hard. He said nothing, just shrugged out of Kinn’s grasp like he was still a moody teenager who slunk off to his room to write poetry and taught himself guitar, who called Kinn a coward for dropping out of music because Papa was buying the rivals. 

It’s your dream! Kim had protested. 

If you think it’s that important, go do it yourself, Kinn had told his brother. Don’t tell me how to live my life. Who the hell are you? 

So Kim had. He had the chutzpah and the drive to keep going and make it real. 

God, Kinn had really missed him. 

“Apparently Vegas went to the guest house today,” said Arm. “Someone might have tipped them off.” 

More spies? Kinn shook his head. Fuck it. For now— “Just drive.” He swallowed. “Rescuing Porchay alive is the priority here. He comes out of this alive, you hear me?” He reached back for Porsche’s hand.

Porsche squeezed it. 

Even if we can’t live the lives we want, our little brothers can, Kinn thought. 

Pete had just settled down with Vegas at the outside veranda when gunshots rang out. 

So much for the quiet cadence of evening birds and the distant twinkling of stars. 

What he didn’t expect, even as he reached for his own gun, was for Porsche, Kinn, Kim, and several of his old colleagues to stop at the end of the veranda, guns aimed, and all yelling “Vegas!” 

“Hey!” Pete jumped to his feet and threw himself in front of Vegas. It was almost automatic, the way his feet carried him to a position he’d assumed so many times before with Tankhun and even Kinn. Protection. Their life over his. 

This time, though, Pete had a slight inkling that Porsche would at least hesitate to shoot him, while he might not hesitate to shoot Vegas. 

“Pete, get—” Vegas grabbed his arm, trying to yank Pete behind him. “You’re not my bodyguard!”

No, but I love you, Pete thought sourly. He could hear the echoing gunshots by the pool, see Vegas fall again, shot in the back by someone who thought they were doing the right thing right as Vegas finally, finally began to see that he didn’t need to die, that he could live just because he existed, and that he could make someone happy. 

Pete gulped, gun in hand. He should—he—

It trembled, and he forced himself to lower it, bit by bit, if only to diffuse the situation. “Porsche, tell me what’s going on. Tell both of us.” Even though he figured it was obvious that the jig was up. 

“Pete,” Porsche said, gulping air. Sweat glistened on his face. “This bastard has—my brother’s here, isn’t he? Where is my brother?” 

Vegas let out a sigh that sounded more irritated than anything else. Probably thinking, I knew it. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Porsche added, voice cracking. Kinn took a step closer, gun trying to find the best aim to hit Vegas behind Pete. Meanwhile Vegas was acting like a cat kept in tight arms, trying to squirm out behind Pete, and Pete wished he had a taser. 

“I won’t lie to you, Porsche,” Pete said. He lowered his gun completely. “It’s not what you think.”

“Stop bullshitting!” Kim yelled, stalking to the side like a cat stalking prey. 

“Yes, Porchay is here,” Pete said, keeping his gaze locked on Porsche’s. “But not because he’s been kidnapped. He wants to be here. He asked—”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Porsche yelled, gun steadying as if Pete’s words were only making it worse. 

“Pete!” Vegas tried to yank him behind him again, but for all his mafia training, Pete’s bodyguard training wouldn’t allow him to be budged. 

“ Wants to be here like you wanted to be here?” Kinn pressed. 

Vegas went still behind him. Pete felt something like anger curdled inside him, like milk boiling away. Kinn—he had no idea what he was talking about! “No. Not at all. He—”

“I asked them to let me stay!” a voice burst out.

Thank God. Pete turned his head.

Chay had run out from the house, hands up and with Macau behind him. Both of them raced towards the edge of the group. Chay’s blue hair was growing out, black roots visible and unable to be touched up because he’d read that it wasn’t a good idea when pregnant. But other than that, he was clearly unchained, alive, and healthy, clad in sweatpants and one of Macau’s old t-shirts. 

“Chay!” screamed Porsche, running towards him. The gun fell to the grass. 

Chay pushed him back when Porsche tried to hug him. Porsche stumbled. “I asked him to,” he repeated, looking from Vegas to Pete to Kinn to Arm to all the others. But not, Pete noticed, to Kim. “I asked them to let me stay, and to not tell you. I made them promise. They did nothing besides help me, so don’t be angry at Macau or P’Vegas or P’Pete!” 

Porsche inhaled. Kinn blinked, shock settling onto his face. Kim stood silent, his lips slightly apart, a look Pete had only seen a few times in his life in his eyes: that of something crumbling completely, of grief. 

“I’ll sweep the premises,” Arm put in, holstering his gun. Clearly, he believed Chay. Clearly, everyone did. 

“Are you for real?” Porsche managed. “We were—Chay, I haven’t been able to sleep , thinking of what—” His voice cracked. 

“I sent you texts!” Chay folded his arms across his chest and then thought better of it, probably because it reduced the bagginess of his shirt. He didn’t seem to be showing yet, but in a tight outfit, he might, Pete realized. 

“Texts aren’t enough to placate your brother,” Kinn said. “Not in our world.” 

Chay balled his hands into fists, deliberately turning his head so as to not see Kim.  “I’m an adult, hia. I’m not—if I say I need time, why couldn’t you trust me?”

“Because you’ve never done this before,” Porsche managed. “Because there’s a lot of chaos happening, and you—you suddenly changed, and it’s like—” 

“I don’t want to do this here,” Chay said, swallowing hard and taking a step back. “Vegas, Macau, and Pete have been nothing but kind. Don’t be mad at them. Be mad at me, okay, hia, P’Kinn?” 

Porsche glanced helplessly at Kinn. He sighed. Pete finally let out his own breath. 

A koel bird called again, the sound echoing and echoing. Kim focused on Chay, the entire time. Macau stood behind Chay and glared at Kim. 

“Pete?” exclaimed Tankhun’s voice from the house. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Pete started. Tankhun came, too? What was he, sweeping the premises with the bodyguards? 

“I asked him to keep—” Chay started again.

Tankhun grabbed Pete in a crushing embrace. He could barely breathe. What the—

Tankhun pulled back, holding something in the air. “Pete’s having a baby!”

Oh for fuck’s sake! Vegas’s jaw dropped. Pete felt as if he were floating from lack of oxygen. Tankhun—

“Congratulations!” Tankhun yelled, finally pulling back enough for Pete to regain his breath. “It better take after you, and not after Vegas. I wish you’d picked a better partner for your genes, but oh well, either way, they’re going to be part of you so I will be their uncle. Are you eating well? Did you see a—” 

“It’s not mine!” Pete protested, seeing Porsche’s and Kinn’s face change from shock to confusion. 

“Why does everyone assume I’m not safe?” Vegas muttered. “I’m the most careful of all of you lot!”

“It’s not?” Tankhun gaped at him.

Pete suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything. No, he had to, he couldn’t let Tankhun think such things, but—he shook his head mutely. 

“Did you knock Vegas up?” Pol asked.

“That would still be mine!” Pete yelled back even as Vegas threw his hands in the air. 

Macau was laughing in the background. Pete made a note to tell Vegas to scold him later. 

“We should all just—take a deep breath and step back,” Vegas said, using his most winning tone. “Let’s talk things out when—” 

“It’s mine.” 

Chay spoke quietly enough that the bodyguards at the back would have missed it, but stern enough that anyone nearby couldn’t have. Macau instantly stopped laughing. 

Kim froze. Porsche did a double take. Kinn’s mouth hung open. 

Vegas’s brows shot up again. He rubbed his forehead. Pete cringed. 

“And yours?” Kim’s voice came low and dangerous. It took Pete a second before he realized he spoke to Macau, who was standing next to Chay. 

“I taught my brother to wrap it up,” Vegas snapped, glaring at Kinn with an unspoken unlike you. But Kinn just frowned as if he didn’t get it. 

God, Kim must be really good at masking. Right now, Kim looked as if he were a statue. Pete only could tell he was breathing because he hadn’t collapsed. 

“Chay,” whispered Porsche. 

Chay’s larynx bobbed like he was trying desperately not to cry. He wrung his hands as he took a step back. “I’m sorry, hia.”

“Chay—” Porsche moved towards him.

Chay held his hand out, making his brother keep his distance. He shook his head, actually crying now. “This is why they were—helping me, okay? I’ll—I—I’m not ready to talk to—” 

“We have the best doctors, Porchay,” Kinn said. “I’ll call them, okay? You—you’re not in trouble, or—” 

“How far along are you?” Kim asked quietly.

“What do you care?” Macau tossed back, directing his vitriol to Kim. 

Oh shit. Pete felt as if he were sweating out chili. He shivered despite the prickly night heat. 

Kim made a move as if to grab Macau, or maybe to punch him. Vegas moved to block. Kim stopped, looking past them, past all of them, to Chay with a look of complete, raw vulnerability on his face. Pete had certainly never seen that look on Kim’s face before, and in that moment everything Pete had strongly suspected was confirmed. 

“Huh?” Tankhun said. 

Pete wished he could shield Chay right now. If he lied— 

“How far along do you think, P’Kim?” Chay asked, with surprising steel to his voice. 

Damn. Pete was impressed. 

Vegas gaped. Porsche’s brow furrowed. Kinn’s gaze darted between his brother and Chay, baffled. 

“It’s mine?” Kim whispered. His hands hung limp by his side.

Vegas and Kinn both swore at the same time. 

“Yes,” Chay said, finally meeting Kim’s eyes. 

Kim turned white. 

Porsche whirled on Kim as if to pummel him. Arm and Pol jumped between them. Kinn grabbed Porsche with one arm and Kim with the other, holding them apart. 

“Stop fighting!” screamed Chay. “All of you, stop fighting—stress isn’t good for me!” He doubled over, trying to contain his breathing like he was panicking, or crying. 

Pete hurried to Chay, grasping his arm. Macau put his hand on Chay’s other shoulder. 

For a moment no one spoke. 

“I’m going to have a nephew?” mused Tankhun then. “Or a niece?” He threw his head back, and despite the situation, let out the biggest, deepest, most gleeful laugh Pete had ever heard in his life, and he clapped his hands. 

“One punch,” Kinn said. “One punch, you have my blessing, go for it, Porsche.” He stepped back from Kim. 

“Why are we all fighting over this?” Tankhun complained. They were all inside now, in Vegas’s safe house, the minor family’s safe house which he supposed really made it Porsche’s now, which made it Chay’s, which meant he hadn’t even run away, but oh well. 

Vegas and Pete sat on a couch together, Vegas looking amused and Pete concerned. Macau sat on the arm of a chair that Chay sat on, his head hung low like he was ashamed. Kim sat across the room from him on a bench, looking dazed. If Porsche stormed over and punched him now, Tankhun doubted Kim would even raise a hand. In fact, he might turn the other cheek and ask for another, and that was the worst time to punch someone. 

“It’s not sad,” Tankhun continued. He stood next to Kim, while Porsche and Kinn stood next to Chay “It’s a baby, Kinn. A baby!” He would have to ask Arm and Pol to order catalogs for the latest designers. He’d seen a cute Gucci collection recently, or was it Versace? 

Kim gulped. A flicker of jealousy went through his eyes as Macau slung his arm around Chay’s shoulders. 

Wait. Was this what was wrong? Had Chay replaced Kim so easily? That wasn’t fair! 

“Though, really,” Tankhun said. “Your brother should have told Kim, Porsche. It’s really rather unfair to have left him out—”

Chay huddled in on himself. Good. Discipline was part of raising children, and—

“He didn’t fuck up,” said Kim, clutching his knees and lifting his head with such a look of wretchedness Tankhun would have thought he was a villain in a drama, or Vegas. “I’m the one that—did. Fuck up.”

At that, Chay’s head lifted. Tankhun processed those words and slowly, slowly, slid his head to the side. 

“I’ll say you did,” muttered Porsche, knuckles still white from how tightly he was clenching them. 

“I tricked him,” Kim said. “I made him fall in love, just to investigate Porsche. I broke up with him. He had no reason to trust me with this.” He swallowed hard. “With anything.” 

“I’d feel better if you put some emotion into your words,” Kinn said, for once harping on the same thing that was bothering Tankhun: Kim’s complete lack of any kind of sadness, remorse, or hope. He was just saying words like he was reading from the dictionary, even despite his expression. What did he really mean, and what was a performance? 

But… “So it really was your fault,” concluded Tankhun. Chay, so innocent, and Kim had—what, seduced and knocked him up, and— 

Kim nodded. He didn’t even have the decency to meet Tankhun’s eyes. 

Tankhun slapped his brother upside the head. “I did not raise you to be a mannerless sea cucumber!” 

“But you apparently raised him not to wrap it,” muttered Vegas. 

“You shut up!” Tankhun pointed a finger at Vegas. 

“It’s not like that,” Kim managed, finally looking up at Tankhun. Dark strands of hair hung over his face. “It’s—” He clapped his hand over his mouth.

“I’m going to be sick,” Chay said then, though whether he really meant it or was just having mercy on Kim, mercy Kim, frankly, did not deserve in this moment, Tankhun didn’t know.

Porsche grabbed his brother’s arm, pulling him up. The two of them left the room.

“Vegas, can you and Pete and Macau go—elsewhere?” Kinn managed. “I think we need to talk to our brother.” 

Kim hung his head again. 

Vegas didn’t protest, to Tankhun’s surprise. He gestured for Macau to follow. Pete slipped his hand in Vegas’s, a gesture of comfort Tankhun would have found sweet but since it was Vegas, he had to at least pretend it was nauseating. 

The room emptied out, and the three of them were left alone. It had been so long since the three of them were alone together. Years, really. 

“Kimhant,” said Tankhun. “You—”

“You’re right,” Kim said, voice empty. “You’ve been right all along, Tankhun.” 

Tankhun stopped. He hadn’t been expecting—

“I don’t trust anyone,” Kim admitted, and his voice sounded like the agonal breathing of a man bleeding out, a sound Tankhun had heard so many times in his life and hated, hated, hated. 

He wanted to poke Kim until he turned red again, until he breathed, until he was alive again because he was Tankhun’s baby brother, he should always live. But there was something about the glassiness to his eyes, the plastic casing of his voice, that told Tankhun that Kim hadn’t been alive, not really, for a long, long time. 

So all that light, those performances as Wik where Tankhun saw how much Kim sparkled—was that all a costume, too? 

“I really fucked up,” Kim eked out, knuckles whitening against his knees like it was physically painful for him to say this, gaze darting between both Tankhun’s and Kinn’s, and despite the mask flickering over his face, he finally let it drop, and Tankhun, despite his rage with this spineless jellyfish, felt like he was seeing the same little brother who climbed into bed with him when he was rescued, when Tankhun couldn’t even talk, and just stayed cuddling with him for hours and hours so Tankhun wouldn’t be alone, and then in the morning when Kinn found them told Kinn that he just had to make sure that Tankhun was really there and not a ghost. 

“We can see that,” Kinn said dryly.

“Yeah,” said Tankhun. “And I’m here." Still. "We’re here. Now.” 

Vegas was only slightly disappointed that Porsche had not punched Kim. The little brat deserved it. If someone had knocked Macau up and then vanished, he would have broken their teeth.

Still, he would not have picked Kim to be the person. 

Out of all of his cousins, Kim was the most enigma-ish. He seldom spoke, but was always watching, and Vegas got the feeling sometimes that he could pick up on the most minute of details that would give him the most gargantuan facts. He was sneaky and smart, and that was a combination Vegas did not have for all his attempts at doing both. He was too—

Vegas wanted to be acknowledged too much, too badly. 

“You knew?” he asked Macau when they’d retreated to his room. Vegas let Porsche and Chay have his and Pete’s to chat.

“He told me.” Macau lifted his chin as if proud to have someone who told him things. Vegas wasn’t sure if he was being paranoid or realistic to wonder if that was a dig.

I didn’t tell you things to protect you. 

“He still loves him, you know,” Macau said. “Chay. He loves Kim. Kim even wrote a song for him, so he loves him too, it’s just—”

Pete arched his brows. 

“He treated him so badly,” Macau finished. “That’s not how you treat someone you love. But our uncle fucked him up.”

Not wrong. Still, that Chay had the backbone to tell Kim off—maybe Vegas was wrong when he thought Porsche was the brother made of tougher stuff. 

Macau seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Vegas squirmed from where he sat at the foot of his little brother’s bed. Macau leaned against the window, Pete against the door, listening for any disruptions that might require intervention. Once a bodyguard, always a bodyguard. 

“Like our papa fucked us up?” Vegas finally asked. 

Pete looked surprised he’d actually said it to Macau. Macau swallowed and glanced down at his scuffed sneakers, the ones that were ridiculously expensive but Vegas bought him anyways. 

Macau shuddered. 

Silence. 

“He didn’t love us, did he?” Macau whispered. 

Never, Vegas wanted to say. And it hurt, too, realizing that he’d failed to protect Macau as much as he’d tried to deflect Papa’s anger, sop it up to keep it from scalding his brother. 

You and Macau are not worthy of being my sons!

How could Vegas have protected him, really, when it oozed out of every action their father did, every statement to them, every punch? The time he said that, Macau hadn’t even done anything to get Papa riled up, and yet he still found a way to curse out Macau when cursing Vegas, when beating him up. 

“I’m going to the bathroom.” Macau stomped off. 

Vegas said nothing. He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Pete came over and put his arms around him.

“Porsche is probably mad at you,” Vegas mumbled, leaning against Pete’s chest, right where his ribcage parted over his soft abdomen.

“Well, I’m mad he ran in here and pointed a gun at you without asking,” Pete said. “Though, I understand why.” 

“You are?” Vegas lifted his face. 

Pete cupped his chin. A smile toyed with his lips. “Mm.” 

He wanted to deserve to exist, and not until Pete chose him did he feel any semblance of that. 

“He would not like me,” Pete said. “Your father. A lowly bodyguard.”

“No,” Vegas agreed. “He wouldn’t.” But he would be wrong. Pete was—he was—

My most precious person. 

“Did you ever think that he insulted Macau whenever you were around to make it worse for you? Since you were raising him even more so than he was,” Pete said. 

Fuck. Vegas’s heart skipped a beat. “Probably.” 

It hurt. He could still feel the punches, hear the words. Macau—

He heard a cracking sound and jumped to his feet. Pete jerked back. Vegas ran towards the adjacent bathroom and flung open the door to see Macau kicking the bucket for their showers. He’d already punched the wall, judging from his bloody knuckles.

Fuck!

“Macau!” Vegas lunged for him. 

“Don’t—” Macau stepped back, raising his hands. “I’m—it’s fine, I’m just—” He gulped. 

“Upset about Chay?” Pete supplied.

Did Macau like Chay? Or— 

“He’s going to leave and go and be happy, and I’m—” Macau stopped. 

“Gonna be alone again,” Vegas finished for him. 

Macau shrugged. “You don’t count.” 

Pete scowled. Vegas sighed. Not worth getting upset about. He’d said as much about Macau before, too. They were—cellmates, locked up in their father’s mafia background, prosecuted by his own demons, chained by his own rage. 

“You’re not going to be alone,” said Vegas. “He’s your friend.” 

Macau scoffed. “You don’t believe that.”

“Maybe not,” said Vegas. “But I think it’s possible. I guess.” He felt Pete’s hand warm against his. Yes, it was possible. 

Macau turned his gaze away. His shoulders trembled. 

“Macau,” Vegas said. 

His brother ignored him.

Fuck. Vegas moved closer. “Macau.” 

“Don’t.”

But Vegas approached anyways. Sure enough, he saw tear tracks sliding like silver ribbons down Macau’s cheeks, lit by the moon from the bathroom's tiny window and nothing else. Macau squeezed his eyes shut. 

Vegas tentatively put his hand on Macau’s shoulder. He gave Pete a helpless glance over his shoulder. Pete shrugged. 

Thanks a lot . What was he supposed to say? Do? “Macau?” All he could say was his brother’s name, hope that he— 

“I’m so—fucking lonely,” Macau choked out. “You have—Pete, but no one—chooses me, or—”

“I—”

“Don’t say that! I know you tried to—kill yourself at the pool—you were going to leave me the same way Papa left—he wanted to win this damn empire more than he wanted—” Macau’s sobs were heavy now. He wrapped his arms around himself, and Vegas wanted to grab him, but he—he didn’t know if he would— 

I’m hungry, Pete had said. Please . 

Fuck it. Macau wasn’t even armed. What could he do, punch Vegas? 

Vegas grabbed his little brother in his arms. Macau, unsurprisingly, lashed back out like a feral animal, struggling and even kicking. “Get away from—”

“I did,” Vegas said. “I was going to leave you. Yes.” He looked over his shoulder at Pete again, but it was so dark he couldn’t make out Pete’s face. “But I didn’t. I’m here. And I’m choosing you now, so don’t—don’t say that you’re alone, that you don’t—deserve to exist. Don’t say that. No matter what Papa said. I’m glad you exist. I’m glad you’re my brother.” He tightened his grip. 

Macau’s struggles slowed. He was still weeping, though, sobs breaking through his lips like the dam had finally burst. 

“Please don’t leave me,” Vegas managed. “Please, God, Macau—our father was a liar. He was trash. He sucked, and he beat us because he sucked, and we—we don’t.” 

“I know,” Macau said, breaths hitching. “B-But, I still miss him.” He said it like he thought Vegas would hit him for wording something so confusing, yet so sensical at the same time. 

Vegas closed his eyes and felt Pete’s arms around both him and Macau. “Me, too,” he confessed, and felt Macau sag. “Me, too. I'm not leaving you, Macau." He squeezed harder. "No matter what." 

Chapter Text

“Even so it was with me when I was young.
If we are nature’s, these are ours. This thorn
Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong.
Our blood to us, this to our blood is born:
It is the show and seal of nature’s truth,
Where love’s strong passion is impressed in youth.
By our remembrances of days foregone,
Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.”

~All's Well That Ends Well

Kim had not felt like this in years, and he didn’t particularly relish feeling this way at all. He’d gotten used to the measured vulnerability he showed as Wik in his videos and fan interactions, his smiles and the slight tilts of his head, the inflections and softenings of his voice. 

All armor still, just invisible. Even when he took off his shirt, he stayed clothed. No one knew his true identity. Those who knew him as Kim didn’t understand Wik, and those who knew Wik didn’t know Kimhant Theerayankapul. 

Even with Chay, he’d thought—he’d thought—

Maybe that was why he fled. 

Now, again, he felt as if someone had taken peelers to his skin and peeled it all away,. And there wasn’t blood or muscle or a beating heart. There was just—nothing. Emptiness. 

He wanted to cry, and he couldn’t even pull up tears. 

Chay is pregnant.

With my child.

I’ve poisoned him. Not to mention tied him to this fucking filthy family forever. And Chay was so pure, so—

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, wishing he could wring them dry, but again, there was nothing to wring. He should cry, and he didn’t even know how to. 

“Kim,” said Kinn, crouching across from him while Tankhun lingered above them. “What happened?”

Kim shook his head, halfway hoping that would jostle words from his throat. Nope. He was going to have to pluck them out one by one. “He—doesn’t—deserve this. Chay. He’s—not—not like Porsche, or like—me—or you—or—”

“I mean, have you asked him? Hardy little brat hid out with Macau and Vegas for over a month; he’s got to be made of some kind of strong stuff,” Tankhun said with a sniff. “I don’t even want to imagine what kind of stuff Vegas has lying around here. It’d curdle your blood, Kim, Kinn.” He shivered.

Kim shook his head, shame sinking even deeper into him, so far down he wasn’t sure he could ever extract it. It felt hopeless, utterly hopeless. Why even try? 

He thought back to when he first picked the lock and entered Chay’s room expecting to find some sort of—he didn’t know, secret, nefarious spy materials, something Vegas probably had. Instead he found a shrine to Wik. 

He kept looking for something dark, and all he found was himself. 

It was cute, that Chay loved Wik. Kim could use that. Except, he never expected Chay to actually have the spine to say as much, and then to have the guts to ask Kim what he thought about it. 

It was the oh fuck, he’s not a coward that spurred Kim to kiss him in the studio. He still hadn’t—hadn’t fully— 

Just as Wik, he’d told himself when they went back to Chay’s place. Just fulfilling a wish. A dream. 

Except, when Chay clung to him that night, looked at him with such trust, Kim had thought oh, fuck fuck. 

Are you okay? Chay had asked as Kim looked down at him, and he thought maybe he could be Wik, be his preferred side, completely, even if just for those moments. He could bury Kimhant Theerapanyakul and be there for Chay not because he wanted to investigate him, but because—

I really like you.

Chay wasn’t the only one who wanted to pretend to be asleep that morning, stay in an oasis where he was just a normal kid following his dream, a dream to just be—Wik, or Kim, or himself as a being regardless of his name. 

But it was never so simple, and he didn’t even know where or how to start peeling back his layers. So he settled for the physical, the easiest, and yet still real. 

It wasn’t fake, Chay. I—I really—

Did it matter, when he had never expressed that to Chay? “I hurt him,” Kim croaked. “And I just—walked away.” God, he wanted to vanish into a stain on the floor.

“What do you mean?” Kinn asked. His hand brushed Kim’s knee.

Kim tried to lift his gaze, look at his brother. It took several tries before he could focus on Kinn. “I—he found out who I was—after the warehouse. I didn’t even—he confronted me and asked me—why I was—and I told him—he asked me if I only sought him out because he was Porsche’s brother.” He clamped his lips together, jaw spasming.

“And you said yes,” said Tankhun from above him. 

He knew, somehow. Of course he did. Kim really had learned how to read people from Tankhun.

Kim nodded. 

Kinn groaned. “Really, Kim?”

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. “It’s true. I—did. But—” He bit his lip. “Then, I—we—I—I told him why else would I tutor you?”  

Silence, while his words sank in. 

Kinn was silent. Tankhun slapped his shoulder. “Bad Kim!” 

“I don’t know why I said that,” Kim whispered, pressing his fingertips together and the sides of his hands against his face. “I’m an idiot.”

“You are,” Tankhun agreed. 

He had to keep going, keep digging, even if it was hopeless. He had to—he couldn’t stand this loneliness anymore, not one more second. “He asked me if—I loved him, and I said I’m sorry, and I left.” But he’d been too much of a coward to stick with it. “I pushed him away. He grabbed my hand, and I—pushed him away.”

“Kimhant!” wailed Tankhun, like his brother was breaking his heart as well. 

“Then I—I missed him,” Kim insisted. His chest felt tight, too tight to breathe. He couldn’t stop shaking. “I went to protect him, and I—I fucked up his life, which I always knew I’d do, right from the start. He—deserves better.” 

“Have you had any sort of conversation with him?” Kinn asked. “Since then.”

“Only at the club, and it wasn’t much of one,” Kim admitted. “The drug club. I—I—” 

“Dumbass!” Tankhun exclaimed, but even as he insulted Kim he reached out and brushed Kim’s hair, tucking strands behind his ear. 

Not wrong, Kim knew. He wanted to learn everything about everyone else, and no one to learn anything about himself. How ridiculous. 

Chay had seen a lie. A mirage. And— 

“I made him a song,” Kim said, almost begging. “Based on one he’d started. I—I hoped that—he would forgive me eventually, but I had no idea that he was—when he went missing, I panicked. And I—we only—he was taken to the warehouse the morning after we—had sex, and—then he found out, and I—”

“You knocked him up after one night?” Tankhun whistled.

“I don’t want to know this,” Kinn muttered.

Kim’s eyes started to sting. “Even if he never forgives me, I—I want him to—I don’t want him to suffer. I just—”

“But what do you want?” Kinn asked, peering up at him.

Shit. Could he actually say it, exhume these words, this truth, that he kept so carefully hidden behind a framed photo of himself, behind a wall, locked to a bulletin board and tacked up casually, like it didn’t even matter? 

His jaw worked. His breaths came quick, too quick. 

“Kim.” Tankhun crouched across from him, next to Kinn. Both of his brothers looked at him, and he remembered being a child and watching as Tankhun had panic attack after panic attack, screaming at his parents when they tried to help, and how he and Kinn used to stand in the doorway, wishing they could fix it. He remembered Kinn reaching down and taking his hand, that day, as Kim watched without being able to say anything because it was all too messy and broken, and his words would only make things worse. 

He’d made songs, then. For Tankhun. For Kinn, after his brother found Kim watching gay porn as a teen and just told him, me, too and ruffled Kim’s hair. 

“I love him,” Kim managed. He rubbed at his eyes. His hands came away wet. “And I’ve ruined everything.”

He makes me feel human again. 

“Kim,” said Kinn. “I don’t think you’ve ruined everything.”

Doubtful. Still, when Kinn took his hand, Kim lifted his gaze. 

Tankhun huffed, rolling his eyes. “Kinn messed up worse and Porsche is still with him, so.”

Kinn scowled at Tankhun.

“You did,” Tankhun reminded him, examining his nails. 

“I’m very aware,” Kinn hissed. 

Kim gazed quizzically at his brother. 

“And you dug your grave deeper, too,” Tankhun added. “Even after the initial incident. He punished Porsche for his own fuck-ups, Kim. I heard Pete talk about it.” He nodded as if for emphasis. 

Kinn exhaled, looking as if he wanted to kick Tankhun. Still—

“I’m honestly surprised Mr. Nosy doesn’t know much about it,” Tankhun said, tapping Kim’s nose. “Tell him, Kinn.” 

“He may not want to know,” Kinn retorted.

“Well, he didn’t keep Porsche chained in a sex dungeon,” said Tankhun. “Unlike Vegas and Pete. But he—”

“Okay, okay,” Kinn said, drawing in his breath. “I’m—” He cringed. “I’m more ashamed of this than anything else—in my entire life—Kim. So—”

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” Kim said. “Big did say a few things before he died.” Because Kim had not wanted to wait to run in and rescue Porchay and Porsche. If they had waited— 

Would Chay have died? Would Porsche have? Or would Big be alive? “How did—he forgive you? How did you get him to—”

“I didn’t,” Kinn said. “I let him go. He had to make that decision to—come back for me. On his own.” He cringed as if remembering something agonizing. “And it sucked.”

Not the same. The opposite, even. “I’ve let him go too much,” Kim whispered. “I didn’t—even fight for him. Not where he’d see it.” Of course Chay hadn’t told him when he found out he was pregnant. 

How lonely and how terrifying. 

“Then you need to show him what you want,” said Tankhun. “But no chains or sex dungeons allowed.” 

Kinn smacked Tankhun’s thigh. Kim rolled his eyes. There was still—

“But it’s—if we stay together—even now, even if we don’t, there’s a kid. And they’ll be—a target,” Kim pointed out. His breath hitched. “I don’t want that for them.”

“Because they might get kidnapped and turn out like me?” Tankhun asked, sighing in dramatic fashion.

Kinn froze. Kim did too. Horror slammed into him. No—no, that wasn’t— 

“Listen,” Tankhun said. “I wouldn’t trade being part of this family even for a world where—” He waved his hand. “Things never happened. You two make it worth it.”

Kinn gaped at their brother. Kim didn’t understand. But—

Tankhun meant it. Even if Kim couldn’t understand why, or how. He believed his brother. 

Chay shrugged Porsche off when he vomited, and Porsche was relegated to standing in the doorway and waiting instead of holding his hair or massaging his shoulders, like he always had when Chay got sick growing up. 

When Chay finished rinsing his mouth out and turned back around to see Porsche standing there, Porsche didn’t even try to disguise the fact that he was crying. What would be the point? 

Chay, what happened to you? 

Chay, who are you? 

“Hia—” Chay cringed, stopping himself right when he started to move forward. “I—look.” He sighed and looked down at his feet. “I know—you must be disappointed in me.”

What? “Who’s disappointed?” Porsche asked, baffled. “I was—you’re alive, Chay, for the past weeks I didn’t even know that, and I—if you’re alive, then—” 

It didn’t matter how big the fuck up or how messy the clean up. He was alive, so Porsche could fix it. He—

“I really didn’t mean to worry you,” Chay said quietly. “Although, I must have known it—would. I’m sorry. I don’t know—whether that was fair of me.” He stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom that belonged to Vegas and Pete and that Porsche did not want to think about what went on inside. 

“Okay,” Porsche said. “Okay. I—” He stopped. He didn’t even know where to begin. Kim? The baby? These few weeks? 

“I dropped out of school before—I knew,” Chay said, moving over to sit at the foot of the bed, which Porsche wanted to yell at him for, but whatever. He came and sat next to Chay. “And I passed out on the street when Macau—found me. He took me in to help me. Really, he and Vegas and Pete have done nothing but help me, hia.” 

Porsche nodded. He was glad to hear it, but at the same time, a voice that sounded remarkably like himself as a child welled up inside him, screaming: what about me? 

I missed you.

“Hia, can you say something?” Chay requested. “I can’t—this silence. I’ve been working out what to say to you, but I—I haven’t gotten anywhere with it, and now—”

Shit. Porsche gulped. He wasn’t good with words in these situations, and he didn’t want Chay thinking he was angry, or push him away, or—

But I’m hurt, too. “Why—didn’t you let me help you?”

“I didn’t want you to know about P’Kim.”

Ah. Well. “I’ll kill him if you want.” 

“You won’t. You wouldn’t hurt Kinn like that. And besides—” Chay bit his lip. “I don’t want you to hurt P’Kim. I—love him.” 

Well then. Porsche was not so sure about that. He clenched his fists. “Does he love you?” 

Chay shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

How could anyone not love Chay? Porsche went from wanting to beat Kim up to stay away from Chay to wanting to beat him up for not loving him.  

“I don’t—know.” Chay dragged his hands through his hair. “He said he didn’t, and then—he kept trying to protect me, I know, but I—don’t know if it’s out of guilt, or just—wanting us to get along because of you and Kinn, or—because he actually—” 

“Because of me and Kinn?” Porsche asked in horror. “Chay! You don’t need to worry about that kind of thing! Kinn and I will work it out; you’re our little brother—brothers, we’re supposed to take care of you!”

Chay dropped his head, heaving a sigh. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

Porsche stiffened. The levity vanished from the room. 

“I’m not a baby anymore, hia,” Chay said, lifting his head but not facing Porsche. He looked straight ahead at a blank wall. “You’ve given up—so much for me. Even your own—the mafia, and everything. I can’t ask you to give up more. And you would, because you—I know you love me, and I—” His voice cracked. “I fucked up, and I don’t want that to be—aren’t you angry with me?”

“ No . I’m—”

“Well, be angry with me! You should be! I let you worry, I’m knocked up at eighteen, and I’m—”

“Stop!” Porsche begged. “Stop, Chay, I—” 

“I almost tried drugs,” Chay continued.

“Yes, I heard about that. But—” 

“Aren’t you upset? Shouldn’t you be? Because I didn’t trust you enough to—” 

“What do you want me to say, Porchay?” Porsche demanded. His head ached. He didn’t understand . “Just—tell me what it is—I’m—”

“Aren’t you mad?”

For fuck’s sake! “Fine, I’ll say I’m mad! Are you happy now? I don’t even know who you are, but I—” He stopped himself. 

Then who even was he , if he didn’t even—if he knew so little about his little brother? 

It’s not about me. It was about Chay. 

“Good,” said Chay. “You should. Because you matter too, hia, and I’m tired of you pretending it doesn’t matter just because you feel responsible for—” 

Oh, fuck it. “But I love you,” he cut in. “Chay, I love you. There is nothing—nothing at all that you could do, could be—to make me stop. If you want it to stop, then tough, you’re shit out of luck. Even if you fucked up, even if you hurt me—even if I’m still trying to understand this—even if I’m hurt you didn’t trust me—I forgive you, then, okay? Because having you around and in my life is something I want more than being angry.” He thought back to Kinn, and what Kinn had done to him, and how he came back anyways. 

It wasn’t a chain, or damaged self-worth. Porsche realized he could forgive, and that doing so—didn’t teach him about how little he was worth. No, instead it taught him more about his limits, about what he could do, about his own power to make decisions unimpeded by the past, if only because he loved that person despite what he’d done to him. 

Forgiveness wasn’t weakness. Neither was revenge, of course, but here— 

“I don’t resent you,” Porsche managed, eyes welling up and making Chay’s features blur. “I couldn’t ever. I don’t care what that makes me. I—and whatever you want to do, with this baby, if you want to keep it, or adopt, or—get a termination—I’m going to help you, okay? If you tell me you don’t want me to hold your hand, then I’ll be outside the door. You can’t stop me. Because I—because you’re my brother, and you’re one of—the best parts of my life.” 

Chay gaped at him. He gulped. His shoulders trembled, and then—

He fell into Porsche’s arms. 

Porsche wrapped his arms around his little brother, holding him so close he wished he could swallow him up, protect him. But he couldn’t, of course. 

This close, he could feel a slight bulge in Chay’s abdomen. 

“I love you, too,” Chay said, voice muffled. “If I—I have no idea how to be a parent, but you—you’re the only example I have, so—”

“Aw fuck,” said Porsche, and Chay laughed. 

Chay pulled back, and Porsche tried to get himself together. “So you want to keep it?” 

Chay glanced down, towards the silver moonlight creeping across the floor. “I still need to—talk to P’Kim, figure out what he wants to do. I don’t want to—saddle him with anything, but I—” He inhaled. “I want it.”

“Okay,” Porsche said, smoothing his little brother’s hair. He planted a kiss on the top of his head. “Okay, then.”

“Don’t be mad at P’Kim,” Chay said. 

“Er…” That might be too much for Porsche to promise. Way too much. 

“I don’t know if he’ll forgive me for not telling him.”

“He’s the one that should be begging you,” Porsche said sourly. 

Chay looked at him, his eyes swimming. “I love him, Porsche. Even if—he doesn’t love me, I don’t want him to be hurt.”  

Good grief. Why was Chay so good?

He pulled Chay in again. “You really are grown up,” he said, voice muffled against Chay’s shoulder. And teaching me how to grow. 

Chay held him tighter.

All right, fine. Fine . “You don’t have to hate him,” Porsche added, letting the bitterness go from his voice. “To maintain your self-respect. It’s up to you. It’s your choice.” He exhaled. “Regardless, I’ll support you, Porchay.” 

“Go,” urged Kinn.

“Go or I’ll kick your ass,” muttered Tankhun. “I will tolerate no dissension among my little brothers.” 

Kim’s eyes ached from crying, and it was hard to breathe through his nose. He was so not used to this. 

He went to the door and drew in his breath. He was so tired, and—

He knocked.

A pause, and then Porsche opened it. His gaze narrowed when he saw Kim, and he situated himself to block the door.

Not off to a great start. Not that Kim could blame Porsche. “Hello,” he said, folding his hands politely. “Can I—speak to Porchay?” 

Porsche glanced over his shoulder. Chay didn’t say anything, but he must have nodded, because Porsche exhaled loudly and painfully. “All right,” he said, lasering his gaze on Kim as if to say if you fuck up again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. 

Porsche stepped into the living area, and Kim slipped into the bedroom. He heard the door shut behind him and was slightly surprised Porsche had the ability to trust him enough to shut the door. Not that Kim would put it past all of them to be eavesdropping, or maybe Vegas had some sort of surveillance here to record his sexcapades that they’d all be watching. 

Chay sat on the bed, legs crossed. He looked wary, breaths coming fast and strained. 

How to begin? He swallowed. “Can I turn on the light?” I want to see you. Clearly. 

Chay nodded. 

Kim flicked the switch. Shadows evaporated. Unfortunately the light felt like salt against his raw eyes. Chay’s, too, were red-rimmed.

“Listen to me,” Chay said, voice rushed. He held out his hands, fingers spread. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to baby-trap you, or anything like that, P’Kim.”

What? “That never even crossed my mind,” Kim managed. He wanted to go and sit next to Chay, hold his hand, ruffle his hair like he used to—but—  “I’m supposed to be the suspicious one.” 

Chay shrugged. 

He had to say it. Kim cringed, gaze darting towards the window, at the water glittering in the distance. The golden lamplight reflected a hologram of himself over the glass. “I’m sorry.” 

No, no, Chay deserved eye contact. Kim faced him. “I’m sorry.” And, his voice and face cracked again. Kim sank to his knees in front of the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for—all of it.” He had to get control over himself. He didn’t want to guilt Chay into feeling sorry for him. “I—I—I was wrong. Not just for—not wearing a condom, or—I was wrong to—to deceive you, I was wrong to lie to you, I was wrong to—lie to you. I lied to you about a lot of things. Starting with—I tutored you because you were Porsche’s brother, yes, that’s what made me seek you out, but that isn’t what made me invest so much in you, Chay. You have talent. You have so much talent. You’re kind, and you’re braver than I am, and I—when I told you I’m sorry and walked away—you deserved so much better than that because I—” 

I love you. I do love you. 

“Then why did you do it?” Chay asked. 

“Because—” Kim licked his lips. God, he was regretting turning on the light now. Chay leaned over him, black roots bleeding into blue. “It’s a long story.”

“Then start.”

Damn. He was still so—admirable. Kim almost smiled, but where to start? “You—you remember what you said to me, that morning after—about how all your life, you were afraid you brought bad luck, but that it was really just that your good luck was being saved to help you meet me?” 

Chay nodded.

“You’re not bad luck,” Kim said, voice trembling. “I am.”

Chay’s jaw dropped.

“I’m dangerous for you,” Kim said. “Look what happened. You got—kidnapped, right after. You—I’d lied to you. I’m bad luck, Chay. You don’t want to be a part of the mafia. You have too much good in you to even want Porsche to be a part of the mafia. But I—I am. Even if I change my name, even if I change my identity, I can’t escape it. I’ll never escape it, because my family—there’s too much history. Everyone I love is in constant danger. They get kidnapped. They get killed.” His throat clogged as he thought of Big. “I have to live with that every day of my life, and I—anyone associated with me gets dragged into it.” 

Chay inhaled.

“This child,” Kim added, wiping at his eyes, but it was pointless. More tears were coming and coming and coming. “They’ll have to deal with a target on them, even if I send you out of the country, Chay. It’s—a curse. Those bodies that you found, at Hum Bar that day—”

“I figured out that it was you,” Chay said. 

Of course he had. “I know,” Kim said. “But those bodies—they are who I am. I killed most of them with my bare hands.”

“They were there to take me, weren’t they?” 

“Yes,” Kim admitted. “And I’d do it again. And I will, probably, have to. I’m not—I’m more vicious than either of my brothers. I know our father thinks I’m best to take over, because of that cruelty. But I—can’t. Not because I couldn’t do it, but because if I do, I’ll lose everything.” The music. The balconies. His brothers. Chay. “Everything worth living for.” 

Chay gaped at him. 

“I told you, the first day I tutored you, that Wik was—the side of me I preferred,” Kim added. “The other side of me—Kim, Kimhant Theerapanyakul—is that person. Those bodies. Lives taken instead of—saved, encouraged with sweet promises of dreams like my music—like—”

If he couldn’t have that life, he hoped others could. 

“You were so honest, and earnest, and—I always could tell that you wanted me to like you for you, as you were. You put on no fronts. I—knew that. I could tell. So I hurt you exactly there, to get you to—leave me.” 

I can’t even imagine living like you. 

And he had the feeling that Chay already knew that.

“I’m a coward,” he confessed. “That morning when we woke up and you said you loved me, I knew that I—couldn’t be what you wanted, even if I tried, so it was easier not to try.”

“You said,” Chay said, voice trembling. “That whatever I did from then on—that day in the bar—it was my own damn decision.”

Kim swallowed.

“Why won’t you let me make those decisions, then?” 

Kim gaped now. 

Chay eased himself off the bed and crouched on the floor across from him. “If you keep information from me, how am I supposed to—” He faced Kim, so close, much closer than he had been in months. 

“I can’t even—” Kim cringed. “I kept sending you messages because I’m selfish. Because I regretted it. Because I—when you confronted me that day, I panicked too, so I went back to what I told myself I’d do, but I—I regretted it so much. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was. And that—” 

Chay waited. Kim could see the fullness of his lips, feel his breath. 

“I’m not very good with words,” Kim said. “Only with songs. I don’t even know—to what extent I can love. But, if it feels like being willing to do anything at all to protect people—like my brothers, like you—then, I do. I love you.” 

How was it so hard to say those three words? They sounded like pebbles falling from his mouth, plinking against the air. 

“The only thing I couldn’t stand more than you being with me because I’m Porsche’s brother is you—being with me because you feel guilty,” Chay said, voice gritty. “Don’t.”

Kim shook his head. “You fell in love with a persona of an idol and it turned out to be a bloody nightmare.”

“Don’t call yourself a nightmare,” Chay said sharply.

Kim wiped at his eyes. 

“That’s also not true,” Chay said. “Not entirely. I fell in love with you . Isn’t that what you said—the first time you tutored me? That Wik was a part of you?” 

Kim lifted his head again. His heart pounded. 

“I don’t hate you,” Chay said. “I don’t even—blame you. I just—wish you’d told me this earlier.” He rubbed his chin.

“I’m telling you now.” It was all he could offer, and so small.

“I know,” Chay said. “But, P’Kim, why didn’t you try at first? Was it because you didn’t think I was worth it, or—”

Kim was already shaking his head.

“Because you didn’t think you were worth it?” Chay asked.  

God, he felt lame. He shrugged. 

“You’re right, I don’t—know that I would have responded particularly well,” Chay said, giving him an out. “But what if I wanted to get to know those other sides of you?”

Kim couldn’t speak. 

“But I—I still love you. It’s not always—conditional. Sometimes, some parts, but—I’ve seen Pete and Vegas, despite what Vegas did to him, and—sometimes it’s just—you see another person, and you understand them, and what you don’t understand you want to, and—” He stopped. “I guess I don’t know how to describe it, either. But I—”

“Do you still love me?” Kim whispered. 

Chay looked at him like he had grown a second and a third head. He swallowed hard. “I do.”

Kim felt as if he were freefalling. He really—still? But did that mean Chay wanted to be with him, or—

“Before you say anything else,” Chay rushed to say. “I need to—tell you. I didn’t run away to hurt you. I just—didn’t want you to feel obligated. I couldn’t stand that. And you’re still not—you don’t have to do anything. I want to have this kid, but you should also know—when I drank in that bar you confronted me in, when I dyed my hair—those are all things you’re not supposed to do, you know? I haven’t since I found out, but I still don’t—know how it’ll affect—them, if it does, and—you still have Wik to think about, and—” 

Kim cut him off with a kiss. Chay went pliant in his grip, just like he had that first time, their first kiss in the studio. 

Kim broke away, panting a bit. “I don’t care,” Kim said, forehead resting against Chay’s. “Whether—whatever it takes, or costs. You—both of you—I want to be here for you. I want to be with you.”

Chay gripped his hand and brought it to his abdomen. It felt a bit firmer than before, slightly distended. Kim sucked in his breath. 

He bent and kissed Chay there. 

Chay winced. “What are the chances we have an audience out there?”

“High enough so that we shouldn’t do anything they can hear,” Kim mumbled, pulling Chay’s head closer anyways. 

“Ugh,” complained Tankhun. “I can’t believe we have to do this.”

Kinn rolled his eyes. “Better do it before Kim finds out.”

“I’d rather be watching my series.” Tankhun played with his sunglasses, which he was wearing at two in the morning, inside, because reasons. 

Kim and Chay were staying at Vegas, Pete, and Macau’s for the night. Porsche, too. When he heard what Kinn planned to do, he asked if he wanted backup.

“No, that’s a job for Arm and Pol,” Kinn told him. Arm had moaned. 

Now the four of them walked through the house and up to their father’s study. Papa’s own bodyguards scowled.

“Wake him up,” Kinn said. “It’s—important.”

“I still say we should feign an emergency ,” Tankhun muttered. “I could faint.” He put his hand to his forehead and let out an elaborate sigh. “Arm, catch me as I swoon.”

Arm immediately moved his arms but Tankhun didn’t actually fall backwards. Instead he straightened and waved his hand at Arm. “Fooled you.” 

The door swung open, and they were admitted into their father’s study. Korn sat in his bathrobe, a casual way of dress that Kinn hadn’t seen him in since he was very, very young, maybe before Kim was walking and talking. 

“Good morning,” Tankhun said. “Fake morning.” He huffed and leaned against the wall. Kinn took the chair to his father’s left. 

“What is it?” Papa asked. “You said to wake me up.” 

Kinn and Tankhun exchanged a glance. Their father could deal with a small bit of anxiety. 

“Is it Porchay?”

“Of sorts,” Kinn said. “He’s alive. We found him. He’s—safe.” Maybe ease their father into the knowledge of Vegas and Pete and Macau’s involvement. 

“And—”

“He’s pregnant,” Kinn said. 

Their father frowned. He rubbed his chin and exhaled as he absorbed the news. “He’s alive.”

“Mm.” 

“And, do you want the good news or the bad news?” Tankhun asked, fiddling with his glasses. “I’ll get the good news out of the way. Because I want to. The good news is, you’re going to have a grandchild soon. The bad news is, it’s not Porsche and Kinn, and it isn’t me, so. Our little brother is showing us up, Kinn! You and Porsche better get cracking or else—” 

This was not the plan! Kinn glared. 

“Kim,” stated their father, leaning so far forward he almost knocked his chess set over. “Kimhant and—”

“Porchay,” Kinn supplied. “They’re young, but they’re—in love, and—it’s complicated, but no more so than me and Porsche, and both Tankhun and I have—already offered them our full support. So have Vegas and Macau, and Pete, by the way.” 

“I also slapped Kim upside the head,” Tankhun put in, proud. “So there’s no need to get pissed at him, Papa. We handled it.”

Their father clutched his knees, face pale. He let out his breath. 

“Kim’s—dealing with a lot,” Kinn said. “Just, you should not scold him so much now, Papa. Please. And please don’t make your support conditional on him doing what you want, returning and living here. Khun and I will pick up the slack if you need, but—please just—” 

“All right,” their father said, surprising Kinn. He’d really expected more of a fight. 

“I’ll also be needing another credit card,” Tankhun put in with a yawn. He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers expectantly. 

Kinn tossed him a quizzical look.

Tankhun shrugged. “I’m going to go through Moncler Enfant’s catalog when I wake up and max out the one I already have.” 

“Not until they’re born!” Kinn protested. “It’s bad luck—”

“The hell with luck, Kinn; fashion is more important!” 

Chapter Text

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn,

Good and ill together. Our virtues would be proud

If our faults whipped them not, and our crimes

Would despair if they were not cherished by our

Virtues.

~All's Well That Ends Well

Chay opened his eyes to see the sunlight spilling over them. His head rested against Kim’s chest, which rose and fell in a regular rhythm.

Chay lifted his head. Kim didn’t stir. Was he still asleep? 

He loves me. 

He had really said it. And meant it. 

Was this real? 

Kim stirred then, twisting his head to look down. “You’re not pretending to still be asleep?” he asked, voice thick and groggy. 

Chay shook his head. “I’m not afraid that you’re going to fade away this time.”

Kim’s eyes widened. He swallowed, combing Chay’s hair behind his ear. “Do you want to—” He inhaled. “Live at my place? If you want to stay here, I—” 

“No,” said Chay. “I mean, yes.” He rested his head against Kim’s chest, listening to his heart beat again and again, steady. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“If your brother doesn’t kill me.” Kim sounded like he was only half-joking, worry still entangling his words. 

Chay lifted his head. “He won’t. He wouldn’t want to hurt me.” A snort emerged. “Hey, I can protect you for once.”

Kim’s eyes widened. He swallowed visibly, reaching out to comb his fingers through Chay’s hair. 

A knock came at the door. Chay jerked. 

“Chay,” came Porsche’s voice, because of course it was him. “Vegas made eggs. And Pete taste-tested so they aren’t poisoned. So if you’re not—” 

“You can come in, hia,” Chay called back. Kim jerked in alarm, but Chay rolled his eyes. They were both fully dressed, so what—

Porsche marched in, exhaling in relief when he saw Chay. Probably he was worried Chay would vanish in the night. Chay got to his feet and allowed Porsche to hug him, prove he was real and solid and there. He then peered past Chay to Kim, who was slowly getting up himself. “You and I are gonna talk later.” 

Kim winced, trying to smooth his own hair.

“Hia, about that,” said Chay. “Please don’t—I made my own choices. So don’t blame Kim, unless you’re going to blame me for things as well, okay?”

Porsche huffed. “Kinn gave me an allowance for one punch.”

“No,” said Chay instantly, even as Kim nodded and stepped forward as if to agree.

“So I’ll settle on a verbal warning,” Porsche said. “I reserve the right to utilize said punch if you ever break my little brother’s heart again. There. That’s it.” He put his hands on his hips. “Satisfied?” 

“I can live with that,” Chay said. 

“Fair,” Kim said, shrugging his shoulders. “I—don’t ever want to hurt your brother again.” He met Porsche’s gaze. 

Porsche exhaled, nodding as if he accepted Kim’s words. 

“Joke’s on you,” said Chay. God, Kim was being stupid. “We’re going to hurt each other sometimes. Isn’t that how relationships work?”

Porsche gaped at him. “Damn, I did a good job raising you.”

Kim snorted. 

A knock came against the wall. Macau stuck his head in. “Chay, do you have a moment?”

“Sure,” said Kim quickly. “See you at breakfast.” He moved towards the door. Porsche hesitated, and then followed. 

“I guess you’re moving back with the main family now,” Macau said, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking everywhere, everywhere but Chay. 

“Yeah,” Chay said. “I mean, Kim asked me to go—”

“If he fucks up, you can come back here, you know that, right?” Macau blurted out. “Not that he probably will, I don’t know, but—” His lip trembled.

Oh shit. Chay’s eyes widened. 

“You don’t have to feel like you’d be an imposition,” Macau rushed to say. “I—” 

“Macau, we’re friends,” Chay said. “Why would that change?”

Macau spluttered. 

Of course he thought it would. Macau probably—had not had many friends, Chay realized. And probably just like Kim, thought people were better off without him. And unlike Kim, his own dad didn’t even love him. 

Did he think he brought bad luck? 

Chay wrapped Macau into an embrace, squeezing tightly. Macau wilted. “Thank you,” Chay said. “For everything. You—you—running into you that day was the best of luck.” 

Macau snorted. His arms rose and encircled Chay as well. 

“You need to be around to be a good uncle,” Chay added. 

A shout came from outside the room that sounded like you did WHAT? 

“Thank you,” Macau whispered. “You’re too good for this world, you know.” He pulled back. “The mafia and all.”

Chay shrugged. “But you all haven’t had a choice.” And he wasn’t going to leave—

“You’re having the heir,” Macau pointed out. “It’s going to be—a lot.” 

He knew that. And yet— 

It was too late to leave. Not in terms of logistics, not just because of this baby, but because—

I love all of you. 

The door swung open again. Kim was there, panting as if he’d just run to the room and looking panicked. “Chay—Macau—Kinn and Khun told my dad.”

“Oh shit,” said Chay. “Is he mad?”

“He says he’s not, but he absolutely is,” Kim said. “He—”

“Would you chill out?” hollered Tankhun. “I extracted a promise on our mother’s grave to keep his cool, Kim! I’m the one who raised you!” 

“Porsche!” Kinn’s arm rose to wrap around his shoulders when he sat down at the leather booth across from Tay and Time in Hum Bar. “How did it go?”

“Good,” Porsche said, sliding closer to Kinn. “We’re gonna have a niece.” 

“A girl?” Kinn’s eyes popped. The music thumped in the background. “Wow.”

“A girl?” exclaimed Yok.

“Yeah, you’ll have to help provide the motherly charms,” Porsche teased. Their own mother definitely couldn’t. She still didn’t recognize them, but there was a sort of peace to just sitting in her presence, watching her paint. Sometimes Porsche wondered if the abstract shapes and colors she painted were her memories, were even Porsche and Chay themselves, only he was the one who couldn’t recognize them as she saw them.

Yok laughed. “Give me a call anytime. That boy treating him well?”

“They’re happy,” Kinn said. 

That was an understatement. Kim and Chay were almost too cute, and Kim had arranged for Chay to be able to redo his college interview for the next year. The baby would be born by then, and they had the resources to provide care. 

Porsche narrowed his eyes at the green cocktails in front of them. Tay caught Porsche’s gaze and reached for the green cocktail and pushed it away from him. “Did you put chili in this?”

“No,” Kinn said. “I swear.” He held his hands up. “That’s your territory.” 

Porsche snorted, finally lifting it up. 

“A toast?” Kinn suggested. “To my niece!” 

Taty and Time raised their glasses, the four clinking. Porsche sipped cautiously. Much better without the chili, he had to say. 

“Well, Time and I have news,” said Tay, setting his glass down—untouched. 

Porsche’s gaze went back to the cocktail. His brows rose. Tay flushed. 

“Hm?” Kinn frowned. In the background, another bartender shook up a drink.

“Your niece might have a built-in playmate,” Tay said. “Because we’re expecting.” He ducked his head. 

Kinn’s jaw dropped. Porsche laughed, high-fiving Time. He’d better have gotten his shit together and started treating Tay right and stopped fucking around on him, or else he might pay Yok to have a word with him.

But judging from the way Time looked at Tay, the way he slid his hand over his belly, Porsche might not need to. You really do love him. 

In a broken way that cut him, that threatened his very livelihood, maybe. With a ton of self-sabotage to boot, not unlike Kim, though Kim at least had never cheated on Chay. 

Maybe Tay was weak for sticking around. Maybe he was strong. Porsche had no way to judge, and he wouldn’t. All he knew was that his friends seemed to be happy, and they deserved to be. 

“Your dad’s gonna start putting pressure on you soon, Kinn,” Time said. 

Kinn just laughed. Something squirmed inside Porsche at that, but Tay caught his glance and gave him a small nod, as if to assure him that things were going well.

“I did give Time a talking to,” Kinn admitted later, back when they were alone in Kinn’s room overlooking Bangkok and Porsche was lifting Kinn’s shirt over his head. “Told him he was going to lose Tay if he didn’t stop, and he said that was more or less the point—that he didn’t deserve him, so Tay should leave.”

“And you told him to man up?” Porsche tossed the shirt to the side and admired Kinn’s abs. He slid his hands up to his nipples. 

Kinn snorted. “Yeah.” 

“Do you think he can really change?” 

“Vegas did.” 

Porsche evaluated. “Fair point.” He pulled Kinn over towards the bed, lying back and dragging Kinn atop him. His heart hammered. 

Was it even Tay and Time he wanted to bring up? As Kinn went to kiss his throat. Porsche contemplating biting the bullet. He swallowed hard.

Kinn did for him. He pulled back, propping himself up on his elbow and looking down at Porsche. His fingers traced the hickey he had given Porsche. “Were you bothered by what Time said?”

Porsche decided to be stupid and self-sabotage. “About what?”

“About—us,” said Kinn, looking exasperated. “And my dad. I mean, I can handle him.” 

He thought for a moment. The answer was clear.

“No,” Porsche said, pulling Kinn down for another kiss. 

“No, but I mean—I did wonder,” Kinn said, nipping at Porsche’s ear. “If—I don’t know—” He sounded hesitant, but he was sure Porsche would shut him down right away.

Honestly, a few months ago he would have. 100%. He was not into getting pregnant or seeing what people had to go through. But seeing Chay smile a lot, glow—not to mention the thought of a little gremlin with Kinn’s nose and Porsche’s own chin—

“Someday,” Porsche said. “Maybe. Someday.”

Kinn pulled back, a look of total shock on his face. He propped himself up on his elbow again, mouth open, brows pinched, but didn’t seem as if he could find words. 

“Someday,” Porsche repeated. “I’m not—not now. Not even close. But. Someday.” He reached behind Kinn’s head, pulling him closer. “I would make you do night duty, though.” 

Kinn laughed. He pulled back again, stroking the side of Porsche’s cheek and just staring. 

“What?” Porsche asked. “Are you gonna fuck me already, or—”

“I just love you,” Kinn said. 

Porsche rolled his eyes. At the same time, his cheeks heated up. “You’re a sap.”

Kinn smirked. 

The moment Kim’s giant wall painting of himself pulled back to reveal a bulletin board straight out of a meme, complete with ropes tying different photographs together, Chay doubled over laughing. 

Kim rolled his eyes. 

“And my brother claims P’Khun is the crazy one,” said Chay. “You’re insane, P’Kim.”

Kim shrugged, tossing him a small smile. “Yep. I am.” 

“But, it’s kinda fitting,” Chay said, studying it. He spotted his own picture next to Porsche’s.

“Hm?” 

“Oh, you know. Behind a mysterious picture of you is your family connections and their world. You won’t live with them, but you’ll make damn sure they’re fine.” 

Kim wouldn’t look at him when he heard that. Of course he was embarrassed. Chay didn’t care. It was nice, being able to tease Kim and not worry about him leaving.

He went towards the board and glanced at his and Porsche’s images. “You need to add more arrows. To—”

“I didn’t actually know, you know,” Kim blurted out. 

“Huh?”

“When we first met. And I signed your shirt. Not until—after, that same day, actually. I got the information on Porsche’s little brother. And I was shocked that I—recognized you.” Kim shook his head as if still in disbelief. 

“Oh,” said Chay, massaging his back. “Fate, then? Destiny?”

“An obsessive fan crush?” Kim teased back. 

Chay shoved him. “You could have defended yourself, you know. Said—” 

“You lied to me, too,” Kim pointed out. . 

Chay blinked. 

“You told me your brother couldn’t keep the house clean when he wasn't even living there anymore,” Kim continued. 

“Ach!” Chay’s hands flew up to his face, mortified at the memory. “You just showed up outside like a stalker! I’m the fan! I’m supposed to stalk!” 

“It was cute. I mean, I knew you were lying from the start about that. And also about the electricity. And—” Kim paused. “What?” 

“Nothing,” Chay said, leaning against the wall and grinning. “I just like seeing you smile.” 

Kim’s face turned red.

“Are you blushing?” Chay exclaimed.

Kim cupped Chay’s face, sliding his thumbs up and down the space between his ears and jaw. He bent in, covering his mouth. 

“Now you’re just trying to shut me up,” Chay managed.

“Mm.” Kim pulled back, brushing Chay’s hair off his forehead. “My pa wants to see me at the main house this afternoon. Do you want to come and see P’Porsche and your mom, or—”

“Yeah,” Chay said. “Is he—giving you business, or—”

Kim shook his head. “Some reporters have gotten wind of Wik having a—pregnant partner. My manager’s handling it. My father is going to stay out of it, and this meeting is to ensure that he does precisely that.”

Shit. Chay swallowed hard. “P’Kim—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Kim cut in. “I don’t—I’m going to use it to release a lullaby. I think.”

“The one we’ve been working on?”

Kim nodded. “You’ll be credited.”

Chay smiled.

When they pulled up at the main house, Khun Korn greeted them. Chay was still not entirely comfortable around the mafia boss, and Kim didn’t seem to blame him. Chay made his excuses and then went to go see his mother.

He found her in her painting studio. She glanced at him when he came in, and looked back at the painting on the easel in front of her. 

Chay dragged over a stool—it was harder now that he was so far along—and sat next to her. She kept painting, but she didn’t seem to mind his presence. 

“I don’t know how to do this, Mom,” Chay managed. “I’m scared, and I—I wish you—I wish you recognized me.” 

How unfair to say that to his mom. It wasn’t as if she could help her brain injury, whether or not she had taken those pills willingly or been poisoned by Vegas and Macau’s father. 

He pressed his fingertips into his eyes,, feeling his own child do what felt like a somersault. “I miss you.”

Kim had told him about his own mother when Chay asked. When she died, I felt almost numb. I was so used to—the anxiety, the not knowing, about Tankhun. When she fell ill and then died within the same day—it was almost a relief. No fear. 

I didn’t even remember her face, Chay had admitted. Besides the photos Porsche kept. 

A hand landed on his shoulder. Chay jumped.

His mother peered at him, eyes wide. She didn’t look as if she recognized him, but—

Her hand rose even as her eyes darted all about the room. She wiped his tears, her fingers and palms callused from her painting.

“Mom?” he managed.

She gave a hazy smile.

“Do you know me?” he croaked.

She just kept smiling, no change.

No. But—

Chay threw his arms around her, hugging her close. She continued to pat his shoulder. 

She knew he was a person and he was sad, and was wiping his tears, and for now, that was enough.

Vegas arrived home just as Chay and Kim were leaving. He was not sure he liked Macau hanging out with Kim, but at least he had friends to hang out with. He did not want Macau ever feeling alone again. And, Kim’s main family aura was at least offset by Chay’s. Baby and taste in partners aside, Chay was a good kid. 

“How are you feeling, Chay?” Vegas asked. 

Chay smiled up at him, without the hesitance of everyone else. Vegas wondered if everyone came into the world with so much—trust.

Chay had reason to have it broken, he knew now. But still, he held it. 

“I’m okay,” Chay said. “Tired a lot. Kind of ready for this to be over, but—” He glanced at Kim and shrugged. “Not entirely ready for what comes next.” 

Made sense, Vegas supposed. He nodded. “Kim treating you well?”

Kim rolled his eyes. Chay laughed, wrapping his arm around Kim’s shoulders. 

“Macau was looking forward to seeing you,” Chay added as Kim pulled him away. For some reason the two of them were laughing together, as if they had some inside joke.

He was? Vegas headed inside. 

“Hey, bro,” Macau called. Pete sat in a chair, somewhat slumped as if exhausted. But he still beamed when Vegas came into the room. 

“Hey.” Vegas kissed Macau’s forehead and then went over to Pete, who raised his arm to take Vegas’s hand as Vegas positioned himself behind the chair. “How was your visit with Chay and Kim?” 

“Good,” Macau said. “They asked me about whether I thought the baby would somehow know he wasn’t certain he wanted her at first.” 

Psychic babies sounded like a horror premise. “They did?”

“Well, Chay,” Macau amended. He straightened, facing Vegas. 

“What did you tell them?” 

“I think—” Macau stopped. “It’s wanting them now, that counts. It wouldn’t have mattered when my father started wanting me, if only he did.” He sniffled. 

Vegas swallowed. “That’s very mature of you.” 

Macau huffed as if he was annoyed by what Vegas said. Vegas did not understand. 

“Pete, he needs to get his eyes checked. I really think he’s going blind.” 

Vegas tossed Macau a scowl. “Don’t push it.” 

Macau shrugged. A chuckle broke from Pete’s lips, warm and rumbling through the room.

It was Pete’s laugh that made Vegas finally get that Macau was trying to nudge him into seeing—something, apparently. He scanned Pete up and down, and then the room. “What did you do, Macau?” 

Macau shrugged again. But this time he made a face as he did, a face that let Vegas know he was very much making fun of him. 

“I told you he wouldn’t notice,” Pete said, amused as he grinned up at Vegas. 

“Shut up, Pete! I know my brother better! He’ll get there!” Macau shrugged for a third time and reached up to adjust his t-shirt, black with letters on it.

Wait. Vegas squinted, scanning. World’s greatest uncle . “Did Chay and Kim get you that?” 

At that, Pete laughed harder. That was when Vegas noticed the tiny 2 in the corner. World’s greatest uncle… squared . 

It sank into him. He whirled to face Pete, who was smiling up at him. They had been—not trying exactly, but being less careful, more open, doing away with condoms after Vegas got tested for everything under the sun and Pete pointed out he had been a virgin so it didn’t matter for him. 

Holy shit.

“For real?” he eked out.

“I’ve been throwing up for the past three days,” Pete said. “Don’t make me stand; I don’t think I can.” But he didn’t stop grinning the entire time. 

Vegas sank to his knees in front of Pete. He rested his head in his lap, arms around Pete’s waist.

Macau was still laughing, and when he reached out to take Vegas’s shoulder, Vegas pulled him into their embrace.

Of course, Kim was out with Porsche, Pete, and Tankhun when he got the call. His father had asked him to visit a potential new business partner just outside of Bangkok, and he had not wanted to go or take part in any of this mafia shit, thank you, but since his father was paying for medical expenses he figured could acquiesce this once. Especially since Tankhun would be there. 

But of course it was that day. Kim fumbled to answer his phone, stepping into the garden and inhaling the scent of jasmine. 

“Kim?” came Chay’s voice. He sounded strained.

“Yeah?” Kim watched as a bee buzzed around some pink flowers. Porsche appeared at the garden’s entryway, frowning. “Do you want me to pick up something specific for dinner?” Chay had been having craving after craving lately, and Kim had only realized when Chay started crying at the image of pretzels. 

“Er—no,” Chay said. “That’s not it. It’s—” He inhaled.

Someone said something in the background. 

“Chay?” Kim asked. He squinted, shielding his eyes from the sun. 

“It’s me, cuz,” said Macau’s voice. “Chay gave me the phone. Kim, his water broke.” 

“What?” Kim yelled so loudly that Tankhun and Pete immediately burst into the garden with Pete’s gun drawn, while Porsche, who had somehow sidled up behind him, tried to grab the phone. Kim batted him away. “Are you sure? Is he—” 

“Kim, put me on speaker if Porsche is there and trying to rip the phone out of your hands,” said Kinn’s voice. “Macau’s helping him.”

Fine. Kim hit speaker. 

“He’s in labor,” Kinn said. “Not too bad, yet, but he called Macau and Vegas drove him over here, and Vegas called me to get the doctor to come to our place. So, I don’t know how far out you went, but—” 

“We’re on our way, P’Kinn,” said Pete immediately. He grabbed the keys from his pocket, yelling excuses. Tankhun was clapping his hands and hooting already. 

Kim struggled to hold the phone as he yanked the car door open and lunged into the seat. Porsche took the backseat next to him. 

“Porsche,” Kinn was saying, trying to calm him down. Kim wanted to scream the hell with your boyfriend, I’m the one who’s about to lose it! “Porsche—and Kim—” Kim felt bad. “I’ll stay with Chay until you get here, okay? I won’t leave him alone, not for a second.” A muffled conversation, and then Kinn added: “Vegas says to tell you that these things take time, as well, and if you didn’t read a book already, then you deserve the anxiety.” 

Porsche let out a growl, mimicking exactly what Kim felt. 

Kim had his head in his hands by the time Kinn hung up. He didn’t dare put the phone away. 

“Calm down,” Pete said as he drove. “You’ll make it. Vegas is not exaggerating.”

“He’s not,” Tankhun added, flicking his hair. “It can take up to eighteen hours. I read it. Sometimes worse, but then that means something’s wrong, so—”

“Could you not bring up things going wrong?” Kim eked out.

Porsche shot him a grateful look. 

“I shouldn’t have left him,” Kim whispered. He thought of earlier that day, before he left Chay with a quick kiss on the lips. 

You’re not going to talk about music business, are you? Chay asked.

No, Kim had admitted, dropping his gaze. I’m sorry. 

Don’t be sorry, Chay had told him. You’re just a person. He settled back, arms around Kim. And that’s all you need to be. 

“It was only for a day , Kim,” Tankhun said in ridicule. “A few hours, even.”

“Well,” said Pete, swallowing hard. “I hate you tell you but—with Bangkok traffic—”

Both Porsche and Kim swore at the same time. Kim contemplated the wisdom of ripping open the car door and trying to Spider-Man his way through the city. 

“I can’t believe my littlest brother is about to be a papa,” Tankhun mused as the car sat gridlocked in hell. “My god, Kim.” 

Pete snorted. 

Kim’s hands were shaking. It felt like he was atop a rollercoaster, and it was too late to get off, but he desperately, desperately felt like he should. 

Here we go. 

“I just want them to be okay,” Kim managed. “Both of them.” 

A hand landed on his knee, squeezing. Surprised, Kim turned and blinked. Porsche, comforting him.

“All right,” Porsche said, lips curving. “You have the next one, then.”

Kim stared back. He wanted to—could he—

He laughed, and Porsche smiled.

“Chay!” Kim burst into the room, flying to his side. Chay couldn’t muster the energy for a smile, but he squeezed Kim’s hand. Maybe a little too hard, because Kim winced. 

“Oh, thank God,” said Porsche. “You’re okay.” 

Kinn got to his feet from where he had been sitting next to Chay, helping him breathe his way through contractions. Never mind that he had been googling how to breathe during labor on his phone, which Chay had seen him doing. At least he was trying. 

“I’m—not okay,” Chay managed. This fucking pain! “But I’m about to be.”

“Because Kim’s here,” Kinn put in.

“No,” said Chay, voice strained. “Because I’m about to get a fucking epidural.”

Kim threw his head back and laughed. 

“Chay, I’ll—we’ll wait outside,” Porsche said. “Right outside the door, okay? I love you.” 

Wait, he was leaving? 

“Hia,” Chay managed, reaching his other hand out. “Don’t—go. Can you—stay in the room, at least?”

Porsche hesitated. “Are you sure?”

Chay nodded. 

“Actually,” said the doctor, an attractive man who looked a bit too young to be a doctor, but what did Chay know. He stood next to another man who was apparently the anesthesiologist. “I’m going to have to ask all of you to leave. Just for a moment,” he added hastily, when Kim’s face turned into a grenade of rage. “It’s standard procedure for placing an epidural.”

“Why?” sniffed Tankhun. And then his eyes caught sight of the needle in the anesthesiologist’s hand.

The doctor caught Tankhun before he collapsed onto the floor. Kinn lunged to grab his brother. Vegas ushered Macau out, with Macau giving Chay a thumbs up.

“I’ll take care of him,” Kinn said.

“This is why we ask even partners to leave,” said the doctor. “On top of sterility, it’s also because this is not an uncommon reaction.” 

Chay wished he could laugh, but his abdomen felt like it had been grasped in a vice grip. “If you’re done chit-chatting, could I get some pain relief?” 

Kim’s eyes popped at Chay actually being irritated. But Porsche ushered everyone out, the doctor put a needle in his spine, and then Chay could breathe again and Kim and Porsche came back. 

“I was so scared I wouldn’t make it back in time,” Kim managed, settling next to Chay and stroking his hand. 

“It’s going to be hours yet,” Chay pointed out. “You’re silly.” 

Kim made a face. “I know. But I—didn’t want to leave you to do anything by yourself.”

He really does love me. 

The doctor actually encouraged them to rest, so Chay drifted off to sleep while he could, Kim’s arms around him. Porsche slouched in the nearby chair. 

When Chay woke, his head was cradled against Kim’s shoulder. He stirred.

Kim was already awake, peering down at him. Judging from the outside, it was the middle of the night. “How are you feeling?”

“I can’t feel anything, to be honest,” Chay said. “It’s great.”

Kim chuckled. 

“I’m scared, though,” he said. 

Kim nodded, letting out his breath. “Me, too.” He cupped Chay’s chin. “But you’re going to be fine, and so is she, and you’re going to be—a great dad. Trust me.”

Chay kissed him. 

“I can see you,” came Porsche’s voice, groggy. 

“Oh well,” Chay replied. “We’re having a baby, where do you think those come from, hia?”

Porsche leaned over and slapped Chay’s shoulder. “Hey!” 

When the doctor finally told them it was time to push, it didn’t matter that Chay had dozed for a few hours. This was by far the most exhausting part, and he did not relish it even with Kim and Porsche helping him bear down, wiping his brow, encouraging him. 

“You can do this,” Porsche told him. “I know you can.” 

When Porsche finally emerged around dawn with a huge smile on his face, Tankhun had never been so relieved. He almost collapsed again, Arm and Pol lunging as if ready.

“They’re okay?” Kinn exclaimed, leaping to his feet. Pete lifted his head from where he had fallen asleep on a couch, head on Vegas’s lap. Macau clasped his hands.

Porsche nodded. “I have a niece.” 

Kinn grabbed Porsche in a hug as if he’d had anything to do with it. Tankhun scrambled for the door.

“He said you can go in,” Porsche added. “For a bit. And then he needs to rest—”

Tankhun had already flung the door open. The handsome doctor who’d caught him when he’d fainted was there, looking dapper despite having been up all night. Tankhun needed his secrets, or else whatever elixir of life was keeping his hair so perfectly coiffed despite exhaustion. He’d settled for his name. 

“Why hello,” Tankhun said, gaping at the doctor with his hand plastered over his heart. “I’m the eldest uncle. And I’m not going to faint this time.”  

“I am aware,” said the doctor, fighting a smile. “I’m Dr. Top. Would you like to meet your niece?” 

Kim was still holding her and—crying?

Tankhun wanted to squeal, so he did. He clapped his hands in glee. “She’s alive! You’re crying, Kim!”

Kim tossed him a withering look, but he still couldn’t stop crying, and he wasn’t sad either. Tankhun knew what it was like to cry when you were sad, and this time, Kim was—

Looking at his daughter like he had never seen anything so beautiful.