Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Kai touches Burton is to free him. 

He’s been in the basement before, but never for so long. It’s dark, and it’s cold. He’s dizzy from dehydration and blood loss, the wounds on his back sticky with congealed blood. He almost thinks he’s hallucinating when another man appears. Fair-haired, handsome under his split lip and disheveled appearance. An angel with a razorblade. The man talks to him, though Burton doesn’t talk back. Nobody has spoken to him in days, except for when they punish him, detailing his infractions over and over as they tear into the skin of his back. Inconceivably, the man asks how he is, as though they’re meeting at the grocery store or church instead of as captives. Burton shies from his reach, not having been touched with kindness in years. When the man leaves to go upstairs, Burton stands up for the first time in days. It’s as painful as it is relieving after so many days chained up. The man comes back downstairs, gun in one hand, the other coming to rest on an unmarred section of Burton’s lower back to support him. It’s a flash of warmth, physically and emotionally, that almost overwhelms him.  

“Let’s go. I saved one for you.”

The second time Kai touches Burton is to wash the blood off his hands.

Burton is trembling violently. The man from the basement offered him a gun, but Burton needed to use his hands. Needed to feel the electricity flowing through his own body. He didn’t know it before, but he needed to feel the life as it faded out of the man whose throat was under his hands. It was as though it flowed directly out of him and into Burton himself, filling him with an energy he’d never felt before. He’d never killed anybody, though he’d thought about it many times. Thought about it each time he was punished, each time he was touched, each time he was reminded that he was less than a man, that he was nothing, nothing in the eyes of God or in the eyes of his peers. He barely registers when the man from the basement touches his shoulders, guiding him away from the acolyte he just strangled to death and into a corner. He doesn’t try to make Burton sit, understanding without asking that he's too keyed up to relax. Burton surveys the carnage, his captors, his superiors, some of his peers, all dead in front of him. The man appears in front of him with a wet rag, reaching out to grab hold of Burton’s bloody hands with surprising gentleness. For once, Burton doesn’t flinch when touched. He’s barely feeling, still alive with adrenaline, everything in his vision in sharp focus while his body feels strangely far away. The sunlight illuminates the man’s pale lashes, and when he looks up into Burton’s eyes and softly grabs ahold of his jaw, Burton doesn’t look away. 

The third time Kai touches Burton is to heal him.

The man from the basement introduced himself as Kai. He asked Burton if he had anywhere to go. Burton had shaken his head no. So now he's in a tiled shower in a guest suite larger than any room he has ever lived in. The pressure from the shower head stings as it hits the fresh wounds on his back, blood and dirt muddying the water splashing at his feet. When he gets out, he wraps an absurdly soft towel around his waist and sits on the edge of the queen sized bed. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting there when Kai knocks. Burton looks up at the door, nodding when Kai pokes his head around the corner, asking if he can come in. Burton hasn't said a word since the basement. He hasn't spoken to anyone in days. So when Kai offers to attend to his flayed back, he just nods again. Kai doesn't talk much, only to tell Burton what he's doing, gently warning him before he touches him. Still, Burton flinches the first few times Kai's fingers brush his back to apply antibacterial salve. Kai doesn't ask questions. To be another man who ended up in that basement, he must already know the answers. By the time he's finished covering the last gash with a bandage, Burton is almost relaxed. He feels the muscles in his mouth twitch into something that might be the slightest beginning of a smile when Kai leaves him, telling him to rest for as long as he likes.