34 The Past

(A.N. Before you get into this chapter, I would just like to point out that it is quite dark, and I am in fact, not insane. You can take it with a grain of salt, or you can skip to the end.)

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(17 years earlier: Modern Day Earth)

In a small cabin out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, a 7 year old Kane was laying in his bed to go to sleep, only it was proving a bit harder tonight than it usually did.

There could have been many different reasons why he couldn't sleep, like him being alone in an unfamiliar dark room, or it could have been the weird smell of the old cabin he was in.

The hardness of his mattress could have played a part as well, but he could usually fall asleep on a pile of rocks if he was tired enough. More likely than not, it was probably the muffled crying of the two children in the next room.

Riley and Carl were the children of some poor schmucks who had been suckered into coming on a camping trip with his parents, Greg and Ashley Archeros.

His parents seemed kind enough, but the Archeros were anything but. It was all an act so they could get their rocks off, regardless of how much it annoyed Kane.

He had found out about his parents' sick fetish when he was 5, having ignored the rules about going into the basement so he could find something to entertain himself with.

The man's corpse that was strapped to a table should have been a dead giveaway that something was wrong, but Kane had been too busy trying to find out where he recognized him from.

It wasn't until he went into an adjoining room before it all clicked to him as to who the man was. A little girl he had been forced to spend time with, Dina, was trussed up like a pig ready to be barbecued, and the corpse in the next room was her father.

The man had seemed kind enough whenever he came over to get his daughter from their playdates, but that was pretty much the only time Kane had interacted with him. Dina wasn't that bad to be around, but she was such a crybaby, Kane often dreaded their playdates.

Seeing them as they were surprised Kane, given how his mom told him they moved away last week. Before he had time to think about everything that was going on, he was scooped up into his father's arms and hauled out of the room, while his mother closed up the basement doors before following them upstairs.

His father gave him some excuse about the man being a 'bad guy' and how they were the 'good guys'. When he asked about Dina, they had told told him something stupid about her being bad too.

Kane wasn't sure someone who was as whiny as her could be as bad as his parents described, but they were his parents. He didn't think they would actually lie to him.

Anyway, over the course of the next 2 years they moved around a lot between the properties his family owned, his parents always trying to get him to be friends with certain children.

Sometimes he was told to get close to them and then the next day he was told to stay away from said child, while other times he was told to continue being friends with whoever the fuck it was they had picked out.

Those ones always ended up 'moving away' after about 4-6 months, but he knew what was happening. After what he saw with Dina and her father, Kane had been more curious than he cared to let on.

They didn't know it, but Kane could always hear them walking downstairs on some nights, and it was always those nights that he could hear muffled noises coming from the basement.

Despite the warnings from the last time, Kane snuck into the basement, finding a similar scene as the last time, only this time there was a woman hanging from the ceiling next to the man's corpse.

He recognized them right away as being the parents of Tommy, the most recent kid he had been forced to hang out with.

Before opening the door to the adjoining room, Kane already had a guess about what he would find. Sure enough, Tommy was in almost the same position as Dina had been in.

Kane had left quickly back upstairs to his room after finding all of this out, and it was about that time he thought back to the other kids who 'moved away'.

Still, there wasn't anything he could do about it, at least not that he knew of anyway. Things continued like always, which brought him back to where he was now.

The cabin they were staying in belonged to friends of his parents, which surprised Kane the first time he met the man and his wife. He thought it was a great achievement that his parents had any friends at all, given how his friendships usually ended, but it turned out they shared the same creepy fucked up hobby.

This wasn't the first time Kane had been dragged to this cabin with his so-called 'friends!'

Honestly he never got to hang out with them enough to actually call them friends, and they were never around long enough for him to get attached to any of them, so calling them friends was just stupid.

Riley and Carl were definitely not people he would have picked to willingly get close to, both of them acting a little snobby in his opinion. They were some of the few he actually didn't care what his parents did with, only he wished they would shut the hell up so he could get some sleep.

They had been crying ever since dinner, when their parents suddenly collapsed onto the floor. At first they didn't seem all that worried, but that wasn't how it worked in these situations.

His parents could have just fed them some bullshit lie and sent them off to bed to await their executions in blissful ignorance, but the sick fucks got off on the fear of others.

The two kids had been told exactly what was going to happen to their parents, then what would happen to them. There had been some screaming on Riley's part, him taking charge over Carl, him being 4 years older than his little brother.

All it had taken was injecting him with a sedative before putting them in their room before the resistance was over, which brought Kane back to his current predicament.

Kane figured he could just wait for whatever was going to happen to the two kids in the next room to happen before he could finally sleep, or he could do something to speed up the process.

Being in a foul mood, Kane kicked off the blanket covering him, then walked quickly to his parents room. Digging into the side pocket of his mother's suitcase, Kane grabbed a bottle of pills, then a cup of water from the bathroom sink.

Marching to the door the two kids were being held inside of, Kane turned the key that was hanging from the doorknob and walked inside.

Riley was still pretty out of it due to the sedatives, but Carl wasn't. The second Kane opened the door the kid started screaming his lungs out.

"Shut up, Carl!!" Kane barked out, wanting nothing more than to go to sleep. The kid seemed surprised that he was the one to come in and not one of the adults, stopping his shouting and going back to his crying.

Doing his best to ignore him, Kane walked over to Riley, who didn't look quite all there. Opening the bottle, Kane poured half of the pills it contained into Riley's mouth, then did the same with the water.

Riley looked as though he was struggling to swallow them, and it was only then that Kane realized he shouldn't have done it all at once. Some pills fell out of his mouth, but most of them did go down his throat.

Picking up the ones that fell, Kane put them back inside and poured the water once more, forcing the kid to down what was left of that half of the pills.

Done with that, Kane turned to Carl, who had completely missed what the fuck just happened as he had his face burried into his arms as he cried on the bed.

"Do you want some candy?" Kane asked, hoping Carl would just do what he wanted. In response to his question, Carl began to cry even harder, which got a frown from Kane.

He already didn't like Carl, and listening to him hurt his head. Getting annoyed, Kane placed the cup of water on the dresser beside the bed before he climbed up and jumped on Carl.

Pulling him so he was laying on his back, Kane pinned the struggling boy's arms beneath his knees before grabbing at his mouth with his right hand, while the left hand poured what was left of the pills.

Grabbing at the water, Kane poured it in without any care, most of it splashing about onto Carl's face and into his nose. Still, Carl managed to choke the pills down before Kane finally got off of him, much to the kids' relief.

"What were those?" Carl asked after a minute of coughing, sounding as though a little bit of life had come back to him. Too bad it wouldn't be there for long.

"Something to make so you won't feel any more pain." Kane answered plainly. He actually had no idea just how right his words were.

He had been sitting at the kitchen table before they left when his father asked his mother if she had grabbed the pills, which she told him she had and that they were in her suitcase.

"Good! Just one of those could knock out an elephant for hours!" His father had said before laughing.

Kane wasn't sure what effect the pills would have on Riley and Carl, but if just one could knock out an elephant for a few hours, half a bottle should keep them asleep for a few weeks.

Kane didn't know it yet, but the pills would put the two kids asleep for the rest of their lives.

Kane watched Carl for a few seconds, and he had to admit that it was a little weird. Carl blinked his eyes twice, and then he never opened them again. Taking a glance at Riley, Kane noticed he was as still as a board.

Leaning down, Kane poked both kids, taking note that neither of them budged an inch. With that, he let out a sigh of relief before making his way back to his room, feeling rather pleased with himself.

Within seconds he was out like a candle in a hurricane.

It wasn't until about five hours later that he heard shouting coming from the room Riley and Carl were sleeping in.

At first he wanted to strangle his dad for lying about the pills, but after he woke up a bit more, he realized the shouting was very feminine.

Listening in on what was happening, Kane learned very quickly that the two kids were dead, supposedly dying of overdose, whatever that was.

A bunch of cursing followed from his parents and their friends, both couples obviously looking forward to whatever they had planned for the children.

Kane didn't care one way or the other if they got to have their fun, he just wished they'd let him go back to sleep.

It was that sort of thinking that led him to wondering if he could get them to shut up if he forced them into taking pills. It was too bad they were so much bigger than he was.

It was noon the next day when he was outside throwing rocks into the lake that his mother came out to talk with him.

"Sweetie, did you go into my room last night? Tell the truth and I won't be mad." She asked kindly. Had he not known what she liked to do for fun, he would have thought she was a saint.

"Yeah." He answered, not all that worried about her freaking out at him. It had actually never crossed his mind that he might have to fear his parents, after all they were his parents, and other than their creepy fetish, they had mostly been honest with him as far as he knew.

"Why did you go into my room?" She asked, though judging by her expression, she already knew the answer.

"Carl was making a bunch of noise and I couldn't sleep. I remembered how dad said those pills could knock out an elephant for a few hours, so I thought maybe it would get them to be quiet... so I took them." Kane answered, not bothering to apologize for his actions, after all he wasn't sorry. His plan had worked.

"Oh, sweetie! I wish you would have asked first. Please come talk to me or your father before you touch anything like that. If you had taken them, you might have died." She said, showing some bit of affection for him. She didn't do it often, but she wasn't a terrible mother.

After that, she explained what overdose meant, and how that's how Riley and Carl had died. They had explained the concept of death to him a bit ago, so that didn't need explaining again.

When he realized he had been responsible for their deaths, Kane didn't feel the least bit guilty about what he had done. Even on the drive home, his mother had asked him how he felt about it, and he could only shrug his shoulders, getting a laugh from his father.

"Hehe, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to let you in on the family traditions!" His father said, getting another shoulder shrug from Kane.

People his own age were annoying on a good day to him, and he didn't see how being around them could possibly be fun, but he wouldn't outright reject the words.

"You're going to be just like your old man!!" His father added, going on to explain how similar they were to each other. That actually made him want to say something, but he bit his tongue.

It wouldn't do any good to start something with his father. Still, he didn't want to be like him, and despite the similarities the man listed off, Kane could list off a hundred differences.

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The next 3 years went on about the same as they always had for Kane, with the odd time that his parents would show him certain things about what they did for fun.

How they got so much enjoyment out of what they did was beyond him, as it just looked pointless to him.

They tried to teach him some techniques on how best to get to a man's heart, and though most people would say it was through his stomach, Kane figured the chest was by far faster.

Over the years he learned a few useful things, though he wasn't sure how useful they'd be to him in the future. His parents taught him how to screen people, make sure that he didn't pick someone that he couldn't handle.

This was actually one of the reasons why he would have to stop trying to be friends with certain children in the past. It was because their parents were just too risky to try and take care of, so they were dropped for someone more attainable.

Kane would have thought it was the physical difference that was the deciding factor, but with drugs and weapons, a child could kill an adult no problem, which his father was thankful for.

The man was 5 feet 3 inches tall, and that was while wearing heels. He wasn't skinny by any means, but he wouldn't be winning any awards for his muscles anytime soon, unless it was for being sickly looking.

His mother was 5 feet 11 inches tall, and actually had some looks to her. Kane thanked his lucky stars he inherited more from her than he did his father, as it was clear he filled out a lot better.

Plus he was around the same height as the man at only 10, and he was probably going to get bigger. He hoped anyway.

Kane figured one of the reasons his father got off on this sort of thing was because he was a small man all his life, and it somehow made him feel bigger and stronger to have some control over others.

It was idiotic to Kane, but it made the most sense to him. Why his mother did was still a mystery to him, but he wasn't about to go and ask her about it.

If there was one thing he learned over the last 3 years, it was that he didn't like the family tradition.

He was 10 years old now, and didn't have a single friend, not that he complained too much on that front, but he would like to at least hang out with someone for a day and not worry that they were going to end up in his parents basement as their next cadaver.

It was that line of thinking that led him to convincing his parents to let him participate in sports, which is how he got enrolled in soccer.

He wasn't terrible at the game, but he certainly wasn't the best. He had speed, but he had little to no stamina whatsoever, so he couldn't really run all that long.

Thankfully the coach's son, Aaron volunteered to help him out. It mostly involved coming out on the field on weekends and running around and doing drills, but Aaron didn't just come out to make him run, he challenged him in everything.

Aaron was 3 years older than him, but they were very close to the same height, and no matter how Kane tried, Aaron beat him at every game they ever played.

Still, no matter what they were doing, Kane loved every second of it. For the first time in his life, it was his choice to make a friend, and it was a friend he could actually stand.

For a year and a half he hung out with Aaron whenever he wasn't in school or doing something with his parents.

There was the odd time that Aaron came over to visit, and though he was hesitant to let Aaron meet his parents at first, things had gone quite well so far.

Sure he did have to beg them to leave him alone for a whole week straight, but when they promised to leave the boy alone, he was satisfied, and for the first year and a half they kept their word.

Things changed however one day when Kane was at the park. Aaron was supposed to meet him hours earlier to hang out, but he hadn't shown up.

Kane of course waited for him, thinking his friend probably just got held back at his house doing something and would be along any minute. Those thoughts changed however when Aaron's father showed up at the park.

"Hey, Kane! Where's Aaron?" Aaron's father, Frank asked.

"I don't know. I've been waiting all day for him to show up, but he never did." Kane answered tiredly, thinking maybe Aaron went off to hang out with Tara, the girl that lived up the road a ways.

It was the only reason he could think of as to why he would ditch him, though this would be the first time he never told him he had other plans.

Clearly confused at Kane's answer, Frank asked, "You've been waiting here? In the park? He said your mom called and that you were meeting at your place."

Those words sent a chill down Kane's back, and for a moment he thought the worst, but he shook his head to get rid of them.

'They promised!' He thought, knowing his parents wouldn't break a promise.

"He might have just gone over to Tara's." Kane said, sounding as though he didn't quite believe his own words, but he at least looked confident enough.

Frank knew full well who Tara was, and he also knew his son was smitten with the little girl. Any occasion where he could, Aaron was always inviting her over to the house. He even used Kane as a wingman of sorts, using him to keep Tara's little sister busy while the two teenagers hung out alone.

"Haha! I bet he is!" Frank said happily, almost proud even as he began to walk back up the road towards his house.

"If you see him, tell him to head home for dinner, okay?" Frank added, getting a "Yes, sir!" From Kane.

Frank was barely 10 feet up the road before Kane ran out of the park and was running towards his own house, a sickly feeling in his stomach.

When he walked through the door and into the kitchen, the first thing Kane noticed was a glass of iced tea sitting on the table. Neither of his parents liked iced tea, both of them being health nuts.

The only reason there was even sugar in this house was because of him, and he hadn't made himself a glass in over 4 days. Just seeing the glass made his stomach sink, and the feeling of dread only solidified.

Running to the basement door, Kane leapt down to the bottom of the stairs and almost took the door off its hinges as he burst through it.

Upon entering the room, Kane's heart sank, and his jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth. He had seen this same scene dozens of times and never so much as batted an eye or showed a hint of emotion. Now though, it felt like his world was turning upside down.

Aaron's lifeless, mutilated body lay strapped to the table, and all Kane could think of was, 'They promised...'

He was so lost in thought that he didn't even register the footsteps coming down the stairs, and it wasn't until a hand landed on his shoulder that he was brought back to reality.

Spinning around, Kane glared at his father as he shouted, "YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T TOUCH HIM!!! YOU FUCKING PROMISED!!"

Never in his life had he ever shouted at his parents like this, nor had he ever actually cursed in front of them, which might explain one of the reasons for his father's look of surprise.

"Now calm down, son! You're overreacting!" His father-! No, Gregg said, trying to calm him down.

"You were getting too close to him." His mother chimed in, trying to give some bullshit excuse for why they did it, but Kane didn't care. He wasn't even listening to them anymore, and it must have shown because they told him to go to his room to calm down.

Before he left however, Kane turned towards Gregg before swinging hard at him, hitting the man square in the nose. Blood erupted from the man as he stumbled backwards, mostly out of surprise than anything.

Without waiting for a reaction from either of them, Kane marched past Ashley and went upstairs to his bedroom, slamming the door hard behind him.

These were new emotions to Kane, and he found out rather quickly that he didn't like them at all.

For all of the other victims of Gregg and Ashley, Kane hadn't so much as batted an eye, but it was mostly because he didn't care about them, and the same could not be said about Aaron.

As he smashed up his room, Kane cursed Gregg and Ashley with every bad word he knew of for a good hour before he finally dropped to the floor and buried his face in his knees.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, but he was pulled back to reality when his door creaked open. "It's going to be okay, sweetie!" Ashley said kindly, and a second later Kane could feel her rubbing his back as she tried to comfort him.

He couldn't help but want to hit her for touching him, but he was too sad to even think about it. She talked soothing words to him for a little over a minute before she stopped and made her way to the door.

"Your father's not mad at you, sweetie. He knows you were just surprised." She said from the doorway, sounding as if he was the one who needed forgiveness which only seemed to make him angrier.

Before she left, she told him that there would be some dinner in the fridge waiting for him when he decided he was hungry, then closed the door behind her.

Kane stayed where he was on the floor for a few more hours, only he was no longer sad. All that was left of him was anger, and it was in this anger that certain ideas came to mind.

When he finally got to his feet, Kane wasn't quite the same as he was before. If one compared the person that he was now to the one from this morning, they would notice that his eyes had a much colder look to them.

Kane had been thinking about what he was going to do for the last few hours, and it didn't take much to actually convince himself to do what he had thought of.

With a blank expression on his face, Kane left his room and made his way down the hall and into the kitchen kitchen pantry. There were a bunch of syringes stored in a cooler hidden behind a panel on the left hand side of the door.

Kane grabbed 6 of them, then checked to make sure they were all full before he moved to the junk drawer and grabbed a hammer then turned and made his way down the hall towards his parent's bedroom.

When he was standing outside their door, Kane took off the caps for all of the syringes, then took a deep breath before he slowly opened the door.

Glancing inside, Kane could see Gregg and Asheley both sleeping soundly, not having heard him enter the room.

Dividing up the syringes so he had 3 in each hand, Kane crept over to the left-hand side of the bed where Gregg was sleeping, with the hammer hanging out of his pocket. The man was sleeping with his back to Kane, which was just what he was hoping for.

Without an ounce of hesitation, Kane stabbed three of the syringes into Gregg's neck at the same time. The man reacted quickly to the sudden pain, but not before Kane had pushed the plungers and injected the contents of the syringes into his neck.

Gregg's sudden bout of movement startled Ashley awake, but Kane was already running around to her side of the bed with the hammer in hand before she could even turn towards her husband.

She didn't even have time to react before the hammer struck her in the side of the head, knocking her into the wooden bedframe. Kane didn't wait to see if she was coherent or not, choosing instead to stab the last 3 syringes into Ashley's left shoulder.

Whether it was the blow to the head or the drugs he just injected into her, Asheley didn't move a muscle to try and get up, which was okay for Kane. He would rather not have anything more to do with the woman.

With the hard part over and done with, Kane walked back over to Gregg's side of the bed. The man was breathing raggedly, and it was clear that he was struggling to breath, let alone move.

When Kane was standing next to him, the man looked up at him, though rather than fear or hate, the man was smiling at him. Not a happy smile by any means, but a smile nonetheless.

"T-That's m-m-*cough*-y boy! Just li-ike your old man!" Gregg choked out, his words having the negative effect of making Kane mad.

He didn't want to be anything like these disease filled scumbags.

Reaching into his pocket, Kane brought out a little knife Asheley had given him for his 11th birthday. Looking at the knife in his hand back down to Gregg, Kane flicked it open before he sunk the blade into the man's neck.

Gregg's eyes widened right before the blade sank in, and Kane noted the man actually looked scared. He didn't get pleasure from it like he thought he would, but there was some relief to knowing the man was finally going to die.

He tried to do a quick slice to slit his throat open, but it wasn't nearly as easy as they made it look in the movies. The blade got caught a few times, and he had to pull it out and stab it in again repeatedly before he was finally done.

Grumbling to himself, Kane walked back over to Asheley and did the same thing to her, though he got way less of a reaction.

Done with what he wanted to do, Kane went into Gregg and Ashley's closet and pulled some things away from the far corner of the small room. With everything cleared away, Kane pulled the carpet back to reveal a floor safe.

He knew the code from when he had been shown the damn thing, having watched Gregg type in Ashley's name. 'How original!' Kane thought sarcastically, knowing he would have tried their names first if he hadn't already known what it was.

Inside the safe was a large bag of cash, some gold and jewels, his passport, 3 guns, 2 boxes of bullets, and a thick folder. Kane grabbed everything from inside the safe, though he wasn't sure if he would need the guns, he still took them.

The folder contained pictures of every person Gregg and Ashley ever killed, the pictures being some sort of trophy or whatnot. On the back of each picture it had a name and date of the victim and the day they were killed.

Kane had been dumbfounded by the number of pictures in the folder when they showed it to him, and it was only then that he realized they had been doing this sort of thing for years before he ever came into the picture.

Knowing that he couldn't stay at his house anymore, Kane grabbed a few sets of clothes and some other belongings before setting out into the night.

The first place he went to was the police station, though rather than go inside or talk to anyone, Kane pushed the folder through a mail slot, along with a note.

The note was something he wrote down explaining what the folder was, and how he had killed his parents after what they did. The note explained where he lived and where he could find all of the remaining evidence.

Aaron was the only reason he actually did that. He didn't want his only friend to remain in that basement, and he certainly didn't want people thinking that his parents were good people. Because they weren't. With that done, Kane washed his hands of the situation.

Years went by quite well for him, though he remained somewhat of a loner. It hurt too much with Aaron, and he just couldn't bring himself to get that close to someone again.

He still met people all over the continent, and before he even knew it, he was killing people for a living. Funny enough, one of the first jobs he was ever hired for was to kill Gregg and Ashley's friends that owned the cabin. Kane would have been lying if he said he didn't feel better after that job, despite not getting any pleasure from 99% of the jobs he did.

It was more contract kills, and he never actually got to know anyone he set out to kill personally, so he liked to think that he was quite different from his parents, but he still couldn't help but note the similarities between what he did and what they did.

Gregg's last words hung around his head for the first year or two that he killed people, but he eventually shut them out.

He didn't kill for pleasure, and he didn't get his rocks off on torturing people, he was just happier when most people he set out to kill died.

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(Back to present time: Borderlands Universe)

Thinking about his past was never something Kane enjoyed, though he couldn't quite help himself at the moment.

Despite trying his damnedest, he turned out more like his parents than he ever wanted, and that's what had him so worried.

Would his child be a monster like him, or would they act like a regular person? And not a person from Pandora, but someone from somewhere like Eden-5.

They were still fucked up, but the planet was closer to people from his old world than anywhere else in the galaxy, just with more outgoing children. (Mechromancer!!)

He couldn't quite say he was the best father-figure either, considering how Luna was turning out. He put her on the path of a killer, and helped her obtain a power that would lead to billions of people wanting nothing more than to kill her.

'Is that what's going to happen?' He asked himself, not having the slightest clue what kind of child would come from two Sirens, let alone one as fucked up as he was.

It was on that line of thought that he remembered he wasn't the only parent in this situation. Angel was nothing like him, and was actually a light in the darkness, so to speak.

If the child had even 1% of Angel's personality, Kane would be happy.

'Only time will tell...' Kane thought, knowing that it was just stupid to worry about this sort of thing now. Looking over to the sleeping form of the woman carrying his child, Kane could only smile as he ran a hand up her thigh to her ass.

'Luckiest man in the world...' He thought, and that was including any little hellions he happened to create in the future.

Angel stirred awake from his touch, giving him a warm smile as she let her own hands wander beneath the blankets.

Maya must have felt them moving around, because only a few seconds after Angel woke up, she leaned over and pulled Angel's lips to her own, pausing long enough to lean over to Kane and do the same before she went back to Angel.

The scene only cemented Kane's thoughts as he climbed under the covers.

'So lucky!'