2.1 | renegade effect (on hold until 2024)

06 | arcane

a r c a n e : secretive and understood only by a select few

***

COHEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN GOOD WITH UNDERSTANDING. It comes and goes like the tide, with a push and pull of something beyond his wired instinct that sometimes, he feels like he can't breathe. This is where the pain hits the most, slices the deepest—in a place filled with his nightmares right before they edge their way through his doors. It is: dark, dark, dark. It is: humanity.

Its presence is searing, burning. A shattering supernova flaring in the center of his chest. Cohen pushes his hand against the top of his thigh and focuses on how it runs its full course, starting at the balls of his feet and then traveling up to his chest, a natural disaster in its own right begging him to stop. It's an ugly thing, a cruel thing, and his vision is stained with bits of chromatic colors, of ivory and ash. Blood rushes just underneath his skin.

The usual franticness that arrives with Christmas and the new year is over; noises of drunken celebration and holiday gossip have long been silenced. But even still, Jimin tilts his head, listening. Always listening. "You've got that look on your face again," he says, and Cohen frowns, because he doesn't. It's rude of his friend to think so. "You know, like, the one where you actually look like a top tier asshole? If I were a baby, I'd cry."

Silver hair appears at the corner of his vision in a succession of quick flashes, the roots a bit darker than the rest. "Don't be a bitch," Cohen mumbles, cracking his right thumb, which always seems to cramp up at different points throughout the day. "I look fine."

Jimin blinks. It's an expression that has caused millionaires to flee with nothing but their watches dangling off of their wrists, but instead of fear, Cohen feels—bored. "What was that?" his friend asks, leaning against the sofa cushions as the western sun begins to set in a bold spectacle. "Didn't catch it."

"Hyung," Cohen amends, noting the pleased look on Jimin's face. "Hyung, don't be a bitch. I don't have the time or the fuckin' energy to deal with bitchy people today, so—"

His friend gasps. "Who the fuck are you calling a bitch, you—"

Lance smoothly jumps over the couch, and Cohen watches his long legs dangle off of the cushions in muted curiosity. He's back fresh from a mission, smelling of fresh wind and scarlet adrenaline and sour curiosity. But Cohen has always been good at understanding—and so. And so, he doesn't ask questions.

(He's always been good at that, too. Not talking.)

"Sounds kinky," Lance comments lightly, leaning into the delicate curve of Jimin's shoulder and revelling in the warmth it provides. His hyung has a slender build, one of beauty instead of deadliness, too many bones and cords of lean muscle to ever be considered comfortable. But Cohen watches as his partner's eyes flutter shut for the barest of seconds: closed, open, open. Lance doesn't seem to mind. "I like kinky. Kinky is good."

Jimin's mouth falls open. "What," he exclaims, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. "Lance, what. I don't—I can't—fuck off."

"If you two accidentally heard me verbalize what I think a threesome would be like, please remove it from your goddamn memories. Or—wait, wait, wait."

Cohen waits. Jimin looks like he's going to be sick.

"It could work," his partner continues, a finger lightly resting in the center of his chin. "We'd all just have to get really drunk. Like, drunk to the point where Jimin almost flashed the old grandmother in the grocery store last year and cried about how dicks shouldn't be compared to bananas because that's—um, unfair. Bananas are better."