for a pretty long time now it's been cold [cal/teva]

Teva Seraphim

Murder was the worst part of his job.

You can’t glorify murder, not when you actually do it. Teva learned that a long time ago. It was necessary to kill here and there, mainly just for self-defense. He cared about his own life and his family’s lives than the life of some scum bag, so whenever he slit someone’s throat or plunged his favorite knife into somebody’s ribcage and listened to the blood bubble up in their lungs, he always thought this guy was an idiot, he did this to himself, I had to so there’s nothing wrong with it. It helped. Teva was known for his steel core and diamond exterior – nothing could crack him. That wasn’t true, of course, it was merely a reputation, but it was one he liked to uphold, even if the gore often made him second guess his past decisions.

Murder definitely wasn’t the worst thing in the world, he could see that now.

He was not made of diamond or steel. He had soft spots like every human being, and all of those soft spots were for his family and Cal. That was all he wanted them to be – soft spots, nothing more. Just microscopic dents in his defense that one could find only if they searched hard enough, and then all they would have to do is probe, and Teva would flinch. But that was it. After his mama’s death – after all that blood and gore and her practically unrecognizable corpse laying in a pool of blood on the stage – he had erected the strongest possible defense because he never wanted to feel his heart break again.

All of it was for naught. Injustice had torn it in half again.

The cold had abandoned his body, replaced by heat instead, yet somehow his face had turned a few shades paler. One expression flashed to the next in a matter of seconds – disbelief, realization, disgust, sorrow, pity, agony, fury. The word fucking was hardly a powerful word when Teva used it, but somehow when Cal said it he felt it like a blow to the gut. It startled him. It slapped him across the face because he could picture that, he could see Cal in the dark corners of some sweaty nightclub with some sick bastard behind him, bending him over a table and –

Three times. Three fucking times?

Teva stepped away, aimed two feet in front of him and cracked his fist against the wooden fence with enough force to unseal the scabs in his knuckles. He dragged his fist down like he wanted to spark a fire with friction, and his knuckles bled to paint red stripes across the wood. It was old and splintery, it felt like fire in his fist and that was what he needed right now, a burn. He’d like to burn that place to the fucking ground, along with every asshole that demanded its services.

Since he was fifteen, since he was fucking fifteen. Teddy’s age. He tried to picture Teddy in a place like that and couldn’t, it would burn a little too hard, until he was crisp and dehydrated. Cal had been fifteen two years ago.

Hundreds, that was hundreds of men. His kill count wasn’t even that high.

”Why?” He marched in front of Cal and focused on the burning in his hand rather than the burning that tried to infiltrate his eyes. Always channel pain into anger, it was easier that way. Simpler. ”Why the fuck would you do that to yourself? Why didn’t you fucking tell us? That’s worse than what we fucking do! What the fuck are you doing, Cal?”

What the fuck are we doing?

Teva Seraphim

His knuckles were bleeding and burning, but it still didn’t hurt as much as everything else. The old, innocent Cal he once knew and always pictured was now a distant illusion, replaced by something tortured. His life was not supposed to be unraveling this way; he was supposed to finish school, work part-time at some nice place that would pay for his family’s food in the meantime, and then become a successful businessman. He was supposed to be safe, because the Seraphims had tried their hardest to keep him from discovering and mingling with the gang. They hadn’t wanted to endanger his family any further. They were supposed to live in peace. They would have their financial problems, but they were supposed to pull through – not like this, not with something that was obviously breaking Cal. He bet Cal’s mama didn’t even know about this.

The last time he had seen Cal anywhere near this distraught had been the times following his father’s arrest and punishment. The sight slowly chewed at the edges of his anger, but if it dissipated Teva’s condition would plummet into the earth and sink to the core. Cal was a heartbreaking storm of tears, and he didn’t know how to comfort someone who had suffered like this. He didn’t know if it was possible, but he let Cal fall against his chest and listened to his muffled gasps with eyes locked on the stars. They were faint and few. ”How else am I supposed to look at you when you’re crying like this?” he muttered, and his voice was gentler than he had intended. It was difficult to fuel his anger when Cal was crumpled against him like this, bawling like there was not a shred of happiness left in his life. Perhaps there wasn’t.

There was a hesitant pull of gravity against his arms, and the slight tremor of his bleeding hand, but this time he wrapped his arms around Cal and allowed him to settle himself against his chest for as long as he pleased. Whether he was shit at affection or not, he wasn’t going to let Cal break down without some form of support. He wasn’t going to abandon him, and he definitely wasn’t going to let Cal slip away. The ”I never want to talk to you again,” was a lie that he had fallen for, and he refused to let Cal change his mind about it.

”You could’ve told us that your job fucking sucks, and that you needed help with money,” he said, because we would’ve helped. They could easily pitch in, and if that meant spilling the secret so fucking what? Cal deserved better. He was getting the shit end of the stick, selling himself and his freedom just to feed him and his mama. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

The world wasn’t fucking fair, he knew that. But it should’ve been for Cal.

”Fuck’s sake, Cal,” he sighed, not out of contempt or sorrow, just exhaustion with a sprinkle of disappointment. He understood that Cal had been afraid, but couldn’t he give Teva some credit? ”I’m not that kind of person. I wouldn’t abandon you just because of what you do. You’re our only friend outside the gang. Tate thinks of you like a brother.” There were no lies this time. The secret was out, so why lie about anything anymore? There was one thing, but it was best left buried for the rest of his life. ”You’d have us, always. Even if your job is dirty and fucking awful.”

Teva Seraphim

Cal was sinking further and further into him. He tightened his hold and adjusted his stance to accommodate, and found that this was the most he could offer. Affection was Tate’s thing – he had this maternal air to him when he wasn’t working, and if he were here he would be smothering Cal, perhaps pecking his forehead for good measure. He could be such a goddamn mom. Teva, meanwhile, kept his distance. He was cautious around Cal because he didn’t want to be exactly like Tate and Tripp. He didn’t want Cal to see him as a brother, because he wouldn’t see Cal as a brother either. It was too fucking weird. Even now, he felt like he couldn’t provide the warmth he wanted to because instincts tempted him to form a solid boundary. The boundary was wavering a bit at the moment, however, because he didn’t want Cal to be left to the pavement or the blank wooden fence.

His body remained stabilized against Cal’s quivers. He wasn’t furious enough to quake under its wrath – he simply felt defeated, and the white hot burning behind his eyes was the most physical anger he could sense. Some of it channeled into his bloody knuckles, which were leaking with small bloody beads. Clean was such a foreign term to the Seraphims, but that was how they pictured Cal. He was the untainted one, the innocent student. Apparently, nobody could escape the district’s filth. They were all stained or corrupted one way or another. The Seraphims probably had their names written in blood somewhere in the depths of Hell. Reservations just for them.

Cal was something else entirely, not a punisher but a receiver. Still unclean, but he wasn’t deserving of anymore suffering.

”You need to quit this fucking job,” he muttered into his hair. If he felt like he was dying he needed to escape so he could live. Teva always tried to appreciate life, his job forced him to. When he took some asshole’s life he would sometimes contemplate where their shitty “soul” would go, if souls existed, and then he pondered the odds of this life being the only chance they got. On the worst days, he would stop by the market and pick up a nice dessert for home so they could all spend a few extra minutes at the dinner table or on the sofa, sitting together shoving forkfuls of cake or pie into their greedy mouths. His family made him feel alive. His job made him feel alive.

Cal should feel alive, too.

”Find a better one. I can spare you money until you do. Nobody should be this fucking miserable, okay?”

It was an impulsive decision to offer such a promising amount of money. When the atmosphere thinned out and pressed a little more lightly against his head, he would be able to think straight and calculate just how much he was attempting to offer. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was doable. How he would manage it behind his brothers’ backs was still yet to be solved – or considered at all, given his occupied thoughts – but that was for a later time. He just wanted to get Cal out of that shithole. He just wanted Cal to be okay.

Teva Seraphim

Teva gritted his teeth. Shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen. A fucking contract, like slave work.

The gang functioned in a similar fashion, except only through initiation and rites of passage and earning respect did someone become integrated. With their mothers’ previous status, it had been relatively simpler for them in comparison to most newbies. They were already trained for it, they just had to gain real-life experience to earn the trust of its members. Once they were in, it was like a contract had been signed in blood; you were bound forever, and if you made any attempt to betray or abandon there would be consequences. Threats could be made to the individuals and the families involved, and all of them would be executed in due time.

The Seraphims possessed a majority of the power and respect, but that didn’t make them all-powerful. There were adults still grounded deep within the core, those who rarely showed their faces and functioned to make decisions only in the best interests of the gang. Biases and families meant nothing to them. This wasn’t just a gang of young ruffians, like a lot of people assumed. It was a lifelong commitment, an organized structure of crime, profit, and pride.

Teva never thought of it as slave work. It had been his choice to bind his blood and submit his loyalties, and now this was his career. He had adjusted to its brutality, and now it was his greatest talent. There was only suffering if he didn’t perform correctly. It could be grueling and dirty and violent, but it had already shaped him into the type of person he was now. There was no reverting back from that. Its mark was permanent.

Cal, however, was a goddamn sex slave. If he had to sign some contract on paper, then that shithole had a legal tie to him. He was practically chained to it with a metal collar wrapped tight around his neck, and for four years? Why would he agree to something like that?

”Fucking hell,” he hissed bitterly. What a bunch of bullshit. There was nothing they could do but wait it out and let him suffer?

When Cal withdrew, he planned to hide his hands in his pockets where the opened scabs could bleed freely, but they wouldn’t budge. Teva followed his eyes and inspected his own self-induced injury, somewhat disappointed by his own stupid impulsivity. Every time he hoped that the scabs would heal over completely and recover the full strength of his hand he found some way to open them again. Whether it was from punching a man in the jaw or scraping it against the cement as he grappled with someone, his knuckles always ended up bruised or scabbed in some grotesque manner. This time it was pretty bad, he could tell. There were splinters jutting out every which way. Plucking those out would be really fucking fun later on.

As the corner of his lip twitched into a half-assed grimace, he came to a conclusion: he needed to burn that place to the fucking ground and piss on the ashes.

Cal’s water stung like frostbite. The two different burns mingled and irritated his nerves even further, but at least the blood was washing away. ”Fuck the fucking contract,” he started, ”I’ll burn it in a goddamn fire right in front of them.” He relished at the thought.

Teva Seraphim

Apparently there was no winning with these people. They were too damn prepared. They must’ve known that they were scumbags, and that what they were doing was so immoral and fucked up that they felt the need to seal their paper contracts away in a safe to keep them from suffering employees who wanted an early escape. Safes were impossible to open without a code. The gang had a safe somewhere too, but that had very little to do with Teva. His money was always in his possession. It was either quickly spent or stashed away in his room for savings. Fuck them and their safes. Maybe he could burn the shithole to the ground, they wouldn’t get any customers then. They would probably rebuild, of course, and fires didn’t burn safes, so it wouldn’t be a permanent solution.

Maybe after he turned it to ash, he could kidnap Cal’s manager and torture him for the code. Then the contract could join that beautiful pile of ash and he would slit his throat anyway.

It was a comforting thought, but too imaginative. He couldn’t pull off something like that, it was too risky and thorough. A man can dream.

He chewed his tongue and decided not to comment further. He wanted to suggest murdering Cal’s boss, or maybe robbing him in that back alley. That would be fucking priceless. But Cal was finally calming down, and he didn’t want to upset him again. He was fatigued, that much was certain. Perhaps the crying had depleted his energy. Yet here he still was, plucking splinters out of Teva’s self-inflicted wound instead of walking home and sleeping. He didn’t know what this gesture meant; why waste time with it? Teva was perfectly capable of removing them himself. Cal shouldn’t care so much about a few minor scrapes, not when he was sleep deprived.

He didn’t voice his concerns. Instead, he let Cal do as he pleased, lip twitching into a half-wince whenever one of the punctures burned too hot. The freezing water now functioned as a relief, clearing away the final droplets of blood that had been squeezed through damaged pores. It hurt like a bitch. He would have to apply antiseptic and bandages later – he had a whole bundle of those in his bathroom in case of emergency. He replaced them often, but Cal didn’t need to know that. Let him think that this was something rare and abnormally painful. Then again, his scars would make it obvious that it wasn’t.

How could somebody survive on an hour of sleep? He would never understand. All of this bullshit on top of school and homework – it was chaos. How could someone live like that? ”What kind of homework is it?” he asked, slipping both hands back into his pockets. Water dripped from his right knuckles and soaked into the fabric of his coat. He could feel weariness setting in, sinking like sand in a pond until his limbs grew heavy. Five in the fucking morning and I’ve got nothing to show for it. Whatever. He could make up for it later; his priority right now was making sure Cal got home safely. He refused to leave Cal to the savage streets, no matter how many times he had walked them before. He didn’t even want to abandon Cal at his house; he wanted to stay with him, help him if he could. Make sure he earned that precious hour of sleep.

”Maybe I can help,” he said. It was a pathetic stretch. He had dropped school years ago, there was no way he would comprehend any of the shit Cal was studying, even if he was pretty talented at calculations. It was just an excuse to stay with him.

Teva Seraphim

He grinned, and that was the old Cal he wanted to see. Whenever he visited, Teva had always made it his goal to turn that bored, neutral expression into a smile. He would say ridiculous things and poke fun at his brothers just to provoke laughter, and it had taken him quite a while to realize why that smile was such a reward. It had taken him a while to realize a lot of things, all of which related back to his hopeless harbored crush. When Cal wasn’t around, it was easier to suppress – not forgotten, but cast aside in favor of focus and realistic goals. When Cal made an unexpected visit, he remembered everything all over again and forced himself to carefully monitor his own actions; how close he would sit, when it was appropriate to slap him on the back or ruffle his hair. It was ridiculous shit like that he was constantly thinking about. He always tried to tell himself that nobody should exist to make him second guess himself and become self-conscious, but evidently there was no avoiding it.

He didn’t know shit about physics, but he was grateful that Cal had accepted the invitation. He squeezed in a grin of his own before he stood back up, hand still throbbing in his pocket – yet at least all of the splinters were out, and he could clench his fists freely without risk. He waited for Cal and watched him topple over like a domino when he rose. Instinct pressed Teva forward and helped him catch the boy before he collapsed. ”Oi, you okay?” He tilted his head and tried to get a close-up view of Cal’s eyes to see if they were dazed, but he had closed them. He wasn’t unconscious, that much was certain. He would be dead weight if he was, but there was still some resistance there, like Cal’s body wanted to stand upright but couldn’t. Was he disoriented from the lack of sleep?

”You’re not gonna get sick again, are you?” he asked, remembering that vomit-show in the alley. Sadly, he could forgive Cal for vomiting all over him, but he really liked this coat. He would rather not have it ruined after owning it for only a week.

He hooked his arms around Cal’s torso and legs, and hoisted him off of the ground, grunting mid-lift. ”Change of plan,” he said, voice strained. He didn’t remember Cal being this heavy, but despite the struggle he managed to hoist him up bridal style with his head rested against his shoulder. ”We’re going to my house. It’s safer.” Safer for Cal, because they had medical supplies stashed away in cupboards and cabinets. He didn’t know if there was a remedy for dizziness or nausea or whatever Cal was experiencing, but he would search if he had to.