[AU?]
Ravel never found out why Ky had been there that night, if it was by chance meeting in the same bar or if the taller boy had followed him in out of curiosity. Ravel, who was not a particularly strong drinker, had gone to drown himself in alcohol, sex and self-inflicted misery. He was sitting in some stranger's lap, straddling the older man while kissing a second man, not really caring what was happening or was bound to happen eventually. Cayden had told his brother once with dead serious eyes that his habits were going to seriously hurt him one day. He couldn't bear to explain that he secretly wished that someone would just kill him one day- or he would wish it so if it didn't mean that he would have to leave Cayden, and the thought of his brother's face if he ever found out he was dead still had enough hold on him to make himself feel ashamed for wishing to die like this.
A hand had grabbed roughly at his forearm, pulling him clumsily off the brunette that had been feeling him up, still not quite believing he wasn't a girl. Stumbling dizzily on his feet, he'd leaned against the bar top, trying to focus as he watched the men that he'd just been dislodged from raise their voices and fists in protest. Something quick happened and before Ravel could put more details together, Ky had grabbed him by the arm and was pulling him outside the bar.
He stumbled, having drunken so much he was having trouble staying straight on the path and Ky gave up by the time they'd arrived within sight of the dorms, stopping long enough to bend over and scoop the much smaller Ravel up. They arrived at their floor and Ravel suddenly started to protest, hands hitting against Ky's chest.
"Not Cay. Not Cay room." Ky looked down at him, his mouth moving as if to say something but he stopped and just opened the door to Ravel's room, fishing the key easily out of Ravel's pocket. They wound up in the room, Ravel sitting slumped on the bed, Ky leaning against the bed frame next to him. Neither of them spoke for a good while, Ravel's face embarrassed, sad, and forlorn. Ky's was indecipherable. Possibly even he did not know why he'd interrupted his roommate's brother's whoring. But when he'd watched silently as Ravel let himself be plied with drink after drink, groped and handled as he smiled and giggled with eyes that did not meet, something had made him get up to intervene.
"Get some sleep." He said flatly, not looking at Ravel and turning to leave. The silent boy on the bed suddenly flung himself around Ky's shoulders, pressing himself against him. His lips met Ky's almost desperately, begging him not to leave, not to let him face his demons alone. Ky stood still, caught off-guard with the suddenness and intensity of Ravel's desperation.
Pressed up against Ky, Ravel's alcohol muddled brain picked up bits and pieces.
A woman's hand holding a book, her fingers covering the title as she offered it. A boy with big eyes and a funny haircut smiling and saying something about races and old friendships. A cold garage and an ashtray overfilling with cigarette butts. Ravel's fingers clamped down on Ky's shirt, pulling him in closer, willing the visions to stop. Ky's hands went to his waist and pushed him back slowly but firmly.
"I'm not Cayden." He said simply, coldly, plainly. Ravel's eyes starred back at him with something, speaking without words. His hands clenched at Ky's shirt and tugged on them, inviting, asking, begging. The soft lips, as soft as any girl's he'd ever kissed, met his again. Ky didn't pull back this time.
Later, as Ravel slept curled up against his hip, Ky lit up a cigarette, careful not to let the ash fall on himself or the half-naked boy slumbering against him, hand wrapped around his waist. He took a long drag on the cigarette, eyes looking out into the shadow draped room, expressionless.
It was a long time before Ky could stop seeing Ravel's eyes, begging for an absolution that he knew neither he, nor any one else the boy sought out could give. And yet he could not help himself but try, if only to stop having to look at those eyes that reminded himself of his own, asking, begging, hopeless in the knowledge of what he knew and yet could not change.
"We're all fucked up goods. Every one of us." The words were as bitter as the smoke he blew out that drifted away into nothing.