Chapter Text
It is said that, once a certain threshold of pain is reached, the body simply cannot keep record of it anymore. Had Pete been asked about it, he would’ve said that emotional pain counted too, because there was no other explanation for what was happening.
Pete had felt the pain rising: it plucked away at his heart, mushing the morsels together but never consuming it. It sliced him deeper than the knife he was holding, chipping away at him as he tightened his hold around the handcuffs and by the time the impact came there was nothing left.
Would he have stopped, if there had been a pain to give himself to? Would he have given in and let Vegas keep molding him? But there was no pain to subdue him, so Pete left. He left only because he let his survival instinct take over, because he purposefully and systematically stopped thinking.
Instead he felt numb and he found his way back to the main family compound, to faces that lit up in a mixture of joy, fear and disbelief upon seeing him.
The issue with this survival mechanism, with the numbness, was that eventually the pain would go down. Eventually one would heal or the body would adapt or the shock would wear off and the pain would go back below that threshold. The pain was almost too much to be bearable, numbness just beyond reach, and the body had to find ways to adapt.
The first few days were the easiest to handle: Pete could focus on taking care of his wounds and dissipating everyone else’s worries.
Porsche was stubborn in not accepting that Pete was just fine and he was dead set on taking care of him, but he’d opted to be more subtle about it. He’d decided to act like he believed Pete’s lie after being begged to. He prepared hot tea and did Pete’s laundry for him.
After he’d started to settle, that’s when the pain really spiked.
He felt empty most of the time, like his life had ended when he walked out of the house by the lake. This wasn’t the comfortable numbness of survival, it was the let down of a heart. Every second he’d been in that house carried an intensity Pete knew he would never experience again. Anger, pain, lust, pitty, they were all marked with the unique flavor only Vegas carried. Without it, the feelings felt flat and dull.
It was like drinking bubble tea with poorly cooked tapioca pearls; still too hard to be sticky or to chew on. It was like biting into a chili without feeling any burn. He knew what they were supposed to feel and taste like, his heart anticipated the satisfaction that would make it beat, the chemical rush in his brain that would make him feel alive.
And then there was nothing.
Even when he tried to recreate those moments, to lay new memories over what Vegas had burned into him, it wasn’t enough. Pete was almost thankful for the sudden bursts of sadness that would take him. At least he got to feel something deep in his bones, and got close to what Vegas had been for him.
Even in his absence, Vegas managed to make him feel more than most people in his life ever had.
Pete had been almost proud of the coping mechanism he’d chosen for himself. Maybe he lingered too long on memories and fantasies of touch, but at least he didn’t turn to alcohol or something else that could hurt him. He was allowing himself to cry, for the most part. To try and act like things could go back to normal.
Maybe he was repressing his feelings more than he himself thought.
Maybe, if he’d allowed himself to be a bit more unhealthy, his brain wouldn’t have felt the need to lash out.
Pete was alone in the room, when he went to sleep. Porsche had found a comfortable new space for himself in Kinn’s bed, and no-one had bothered to find Pete a new roommate. The room had been warm, it never got cold in the house.
So why did Pete wake up shivering?
The cold feeling was what first cut through his brain, bringing consciousness. Pete had curled in on himself, trying to preserve his body heat. He felt for his blanket with a hand and when he couldn’t find it, he reluctantly opened an eye.
If he didn’t scream, if he immediately sat up ready to engage, it was only thanks to his years of training. Still, his heart was pounding in his chest, a drumming beat so loud he was certain the other could hear it too.
In front of Pete, crouching by his bed, was a wide eyed Vegas.
He blinked at Pete.
“How’d you get here?”
Vegas furrowed his brows at him.
Pete was supposed to scream, call in whatever other bodyguard was awake. Together they could outmaneuver Vegas. But he was still a person of interest, Khun Kinn would have his head if he caught him. Especially because he’d snuck into the house- had he hurt a member of the family?
“How the fuck did you get in?!”
“You can see me?”
Vegas lunged forward. He put his hands on the mattress and got close, too close to Pete’s face. Pete backed away and off the bed, which moved as the weight lifted from it.
“You can!” Vegas sounded ecstatic.
Pete started moving. He would need to walk around the bed and get closer to Vegas if he wanted to leave the bedroom, and he would do it all without showing Vegas his back, keeping his eyes on him. If Pete called for other guards Vegas would be done for, but Pete wasn’t supposed to care about that, right? This was Vegas and Vegas had hurt him, so Pete wasn’t supposed to care about him. He was supposed to want to see Vegas reap what he’d sawn.
So why was Pete hesitating?
“You shouldn’t be here, Vegas.”
“I know. Wait, you can’t call anyone.”
Vegas stood up in a fluid motion, quickly getting between Pete and the door.
“Pete, listen to me,” He said.
He lifted his hands, maybe to grab Pete by the shoulders, but he didn’t give him the chance. He took a step back, arms lifted and fists closed so he’d be ready to respond to anything Vegas would throw at him.
“Why would I?”
“I’m sorry, okay?”
Pete puffed out a breath. It probably sounded like laughter, but Pete was just exhausted, he felt himself going crazy.
“Sorry?!”
Vegas kept trying to get in his space, kept trying to get close to Pete. As if, if he could only get close enough, if he could touch Pete, then he could talk his way back into whatever he wanted.
The scary thing was that he could be right. Pete felt like a caged animal, but he still craved that touch. There was a twisted, bleeding part of him that told him he could start feeling again, if he let Vegas touch him.
“Pete-”
Vegas extended an arm Pete’s way, maybe trying to lower his hand.
“No!” Pete screamed, slapping the hand away.
Only, he didn’t slap it away.
His palm passed clean through Vega’s hand. There was silence, a chill running up Pete’s spine and making him want to throw up. Vegas simply looked down at his hand.
“Pete,” he lifted his head.
Even in high stakes situations, when adrenaline was pumping through his system, Pete knew how to take in and catalog information. During a fight, he was supposed to observe, take note of anything peculiar and send the information to his instinct. Then his reaction would be automatic, his body would know what to do before his mind and he’d get to keep the upper hand in speed.
So he couldn’t tell himself he’d missed the hand.
“You can’t call anyone.”
He knew he’d hit exactly the space where Vegas’ hand was, he knew it should’ve hit. When it didn’t, his instinct had no idea how to respond. Because there was no drill for something like this, no muscle memory to build for something impossible.
“They won’t believe you.”
Vegas lowered his hands. Pete mirrored him, a slow and awkward motion. It was done mostly because his body was trying to find a logical next step.
He immediately lifted one hand again, because he didn’t have to do what Vegas showed him, and also because he still didn't quite believe it. He got closer to Vegas, hand lifted as if trying to calm down a feral animal. He moved slowly and pressed his hand into his chest.
At first, he felt some tension, if he was careful, if he was delicate, if he was more precise than a person could ever be without meaning to. It was like feeling the surface tension in a bowl of water, but more easily broken. Pete wasn’t even aware of moving, when his hand dug deeper, below where Vegas’ skin and flesh should’ve been.
It was like dunking his hand in freezing water. It was pinpricks of cold sharp needles entering him from all sides. He felt cold again, a shiver running up his spine, clutching at his stomach. Would he throw up? He could feel his own heartbeat in his eardrums, but it was wrong, it was wrong, it beat in double time.
He tore back his hand, pressed it to his own chest and held onto it with his other hand. He stared at Vegas, at his chest. He stared at where his hand had disappeared and yet the chest remained whole, the shirt didn’t even wrinkle.
“I’m insane.”
“No.”
“You made me go crazy!”