the pup and the hounds

Kaël doesn’t stir when he’s gently lifted from the car’s backseat. His unconscious body merely responds on instinct, limbs curling inward again like a kitten seeking warmth—something small and soft trying to disappear into itself. His hands remain bound, wrists chafed and limp, fingers twitching slightly in his sleep as if reaching for something that isn’t there. His cheek, smeared with grime, brushes against Arran’s chest with the kind of closeness he wouldn’t dare if he were awake. Because if Kaël were conscious, he would be apologizing.

He would apologize for all of it.

For the disheveled state of his clothes—his shirt clinging to him like wet gauze, soiled with sweat, blood, and something worse. For being too weak to walk. For needing to be carried like a child. Even now, even in this deep, dreamless slumber, his body feels tense in strange ways, bracing itself against imagined judgment, shame blooming from some place deeper than reason. But none of that matters. Not yet.

Arran cradles him in his arms, adjusting the boy’s slight weight with ease and unconscious tenderness. It unsettles him how little resistance Kaël offers. How malleable he is, like clay left too long in the sun—cracking, hollow, easy to break. Each step toward the porch causes Kaël to jostle slightly, his body bouncing gently with the rhythm of Arran’s stride, but he doesn’t wake. Just makes a soft, breathy sound and curls closer.

The wooden door looms ahead, its surface weathered, the frame slightly bowed from years of storms and seasonal warping. Arran reaches for the handle, turning it slowly. The door swings open with a creak—high and narrow and drawn out, as if the house itself is groaning at the late intrusion. The sound slices through the silence like a trope made manifest—an obligatory atmospheric punctuation in the stillness of midnight.

Inside, the house is shrouded in darkness. Not empty—just sleeping. The kind of stillness that feels like it’s holding its breath. Arran steps through the threshold cautiously, his arms tightening around the boy. Behind him, the door eases shut, and the silence returns.

Only a few steps in, the world explodes.

A light snaps on above them with a click and a harsh, immediate brightness that cuts through the gloom like a blade. Arran flinches back instinctively, shoulders rising as the glow sears his vision, temporarily blinding him.

“Fucking hell, Euan!” he hisses through gritted teeth, voice sharp but devoid of true anger. It's the tone one uses when chastising a younger sibling for climbing onto the kitchen counter rather than doing their homework. “Would it kill you to give me a little warning next time?”

“Yeah, yeah, fuckhead,” comes the muttered reply, casual and amused. Light footsteps follow—bare soles padding across cold kitchen tile, muffled by a thin scattering of towels laid out to dry.

Arran’s squinting eyes adjust slowly to the kitchen light, now harsh and sterile above them. The room is spotless. Immaculate, even. The black marble countertops gleam like obsidian, and the faint scent of citrus cleaner hangs in the air, just enough to sting the back of the throat. A few dishes sit in the drying rack by the sink—mostly mugs and old plates. One in particular catches his attention: a faded plastic Spider-Man plate with a peeling design, the cartoon hero's eye half-gone, worn smooth from years of scrubbing. They’d had it since they were kids. No one had the heart to throw it out.

It feels absurd, seeing it now—something so bright and juvenile in a moment like this, with Kaël’s broken body slumped against his chest like a bloodstained secret.

“What the hell did you do to smell like that?” Euan asks as he steps fully into view, nose wrinkling in exaggerated offense.

Arran scowls. “It’s not me,” he mutters. “It’s this little fucker that reeks.”

Euan’s eyes flick downward. The smirk fades.

He stops dead when he sees what’s cradled in Arran’s arms.

His gaze sharpens, pupils narrowing, the poison-green of his irises going suddenly flat. For a moment he says nothing, just watches—watching the fragile rise and fall of Kaël’s chest, the faint tremble of a too-cold body locked in fevered sleep.

“Don’t give him the fault for your hygiene,” Euan says finally, though his voice is quieter. The familiar smirk returns, but it’s thinner now. More practiced. Less natural.

Arran groans. He’s tired. He’s confused. He’s beginning to regret this whole thing, and the fact that Euan is responding to this situation with jokes is not helping.

“Euan,” he warns, “if you don’t shut the fuck up, I will rip your tongue out through your goddamn nose.”

“Yeah, yeah, real scary,” Euan says, waving a dismissive hand. “But pass him here first. Before your stink rubs off on him.”

With a weary sigh, Arran relents. He carefully transfers Kaël into Euan’s outstretched arms, and the moment the boy is in his grasp, Euan’s demeanor shifts again—just slightly. His arms adjust instinctively, holding Kaël not like a burden, but like something delicate. Something valuable.

His brow furrows faintly as he takes in Kaël’s weight—or more accurately, his lack thereof. He runs a hand over the boy’s side, feeling how the shirt hangs loose over sharp bone. Underneath the layers, there is nothing but angles: ribs that press like bars, a sunken stomach, the unmistakable jut of pelvic bones beneath too-thin fabric.

Euan’s fingers curl slightly.

He could crush him, if he wanted to. Snap him like a dried-out branch. But instead, he shifts his grip and pulls Kaël closer to his chest.

He’s quiet for a beat.

“You’re still the one who stinks,” he murmurs with a grin, looking back up at Arran, trying to reclaim his usual tone. Trying to make this normal.

Arran stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “Are you serious right now?” he hisses, exasperated. “You’re holding a fucking serial killer. Confirmed body count of fifteen, and you want to talk about who smells worse?!”

Euan shrugs like he’s heard worse. “He doesn’t look like much,” he says.

Kaël stirs again. His head shifts slightly, one cheek brushing against Euan’s collarbone. His hair, matted with old sweat and filth, clings to his forehead in wilted strands, a sickly chestnut color now darkened to almost black. His skin is a deathly pale—not luminous, but sallow, tinged with grey. Dust clings to his lashes. Beneath his eyes, the shadows are so deep they look bruised. His lips are chapped and broken, the faintest trace of blood crusting at the corners.

Euan’s gaze lingers.

“Why did you bring him here?” he asks at last. The playfulness is gone now. His voice is curious, not accusatory. He wants to understand. “You know what we do. You know. And by the look of him, he wouldn’t have lasted much longer if you’d left him wherever you found him.”

Arran bites the inside of his cheek. There’s no easy answer to that. He should’ve left him. He meant to. He said it aloud, even—told Kaël he would rot there. That he deserved to. That the maggots should come and eat him alive, just like the dogs had done to his victims.

But when the moment came...

He didn’t walk away.

He carried him out instead.

Euan doesn’t push for an answer. He shifts Kaël’s weight in his arms and turns toward the stairs, moving with a confidence that suggests this isn’t unusual. That carrying fragile, broken boys up staircases is just another Tuesday night.

“Where the hell are you going?” Arran calls after him, watching him disappear up the first few steps.

Euan doesn’t reply. Not at first. The wooden planks creak beneath his feet, each one letting out a tired groan as he climbs. The noise trails behind him like an old lullaby—worn, soft, haunted.

Upstairs, the house feels more alive. Warmer. The walls are a pale blue, painted years ago during some half-hearted renovation. There’s a small seating area to the right, with a couch that looks inviting but hides cushions as hard as granite. Euan had once smacked Arran in the head with one of them, and both still swear it could’ve caused a concussion.

“Relax,” Euan calls back lazily. “I’m not going to gut him. Jesus.”

He reaches the top of the stairs—and then Kaël moves.

A flutter. A weak, instinctual twitch. His lashes lift just enough to reveal glassy, unfocused eyes. His breath hitches. Hands still bound, he tries to reach for something—but freezes when he realizes his situation has changed. This is not the car. This is something new. And worse—someone else is holding him.

Euan looks down and meets his gaze.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty thing,” he murmurs, voice dropping to something gentler. Almost affectionate. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.”

Not yet.

He doesn’t say it. But it’s there, in the curl of his lips. In the way his eyes linger just a little too long. Searching. Cataloguing every wound, every bruise. Every place Kaël might break.

“I won’t drown you,” he adds, whispering the words like a secret into the boy’s ear. “Not tonight.”

He shifts him again, holding Kaël against him like something sacred—something fragile and flinching. Kaël doesn’t resist. Can’t.

“You don’t smell that bad, really,” Euan says softly, as he moves toward the bathroom. “Let’s go take a bath, yeah?"

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