sorriest | [For Kavinsky]

Kavinsky let his shoulders flex and relax, a continuous cycle, under Al's palms on his shoulders. He didn't want him to touch him, his size and strength and this confused reassurance like he could mend this somehow. Newt had made it plenty clear that there was no mending this; Kavinsky had known, trudging from the Bramford to where they'd parked on New Years Eve so he could get his stupid car, that there was no mending this.

This wasn't something he could just dream a patch for. He couldn't smooth this over. So what the hell was Al here, trying to prove?

Kavinsky shook his head. "So what if I did?" His was thick and terrible in his ears, tarry black ichor. The scratches on his wrist itched intensely, and moreso, the building of more black, tarry teeth that he would probably dream out of himself.

"I didn't mess up, Al. Messing up is when you don't take a calculation into account and you miss a turn and roll your car. This?" His smile was dangerous, not even really a smile, just teeth in a skull. Dangerous. "I'm a bomb. I was bound to go off at some point."

Laughter bubbled out of him then, thick and terrible as his voice was, disarming. He brought up his hands to grip Al's forearms. His shirt sleeves slid back, and the scratches were more visible--on both arms, long, angry furrows, like claws, six or seven tracks on each forearm. His grip was not nearly as strong as Al's, but his fingers dug into the thick muscle of his arms and he leaned in, until he was nearly breathing Al's air. They were not so different in height, even if Al was a lot bigger.

"What were you hoping to do here, huh? What were you hoping I'd say? He told me he didn't want me to touch him, that he didn't want to see me, that he wanted me to go, so. He's all yours now." His eyes darted over Al's face, sharp, shark-like grin in place. "Don't act like I haven't seen how uncomfortable having me around makes you. Mazel tov, motherfucker. I'm out of your fucking lives."

I don't want to hurt Kavinsky, but my fingers are digging into his shoulders like his fingers are digging into my arms. His muscles tense up under my hands. Somehow, this Kavinsky is the same guy who hummed songs and kissed us awake; we haven't landed in the other Darrow again. The smile twisting his lips is just bared teeth, wrong and painful when I've seen the way he smiles at Newt. Smiled.

I don't want to hurt Kavinsky, but I've got my hands fisted in his collar -- to do what? Drag him home with me? Sit him down in a corner until he comes to his senses?

I don't know what I was hoping to do, to hear. Not all this. Something that would fix the cracks in Newt's heart.

"He loves you," I say again, grinding it out, surprising myself with a burst of anger as I lock eyes with Kavinsky. "He still loves you. You're not a bomb -- you're an idiot. You're just like me."

Kavinsky doesn't know what that means, that it's the worst thing he could be. It's my turn to be honest with him.

"Yeah, I was uncomfortable, but it wasn't because of you. You were... I thought you were everything I wanted to be, for Newt." I loosen my grip. "I never wanted you gone."

Al's hands tightened, for just a moment, his fists shifting into Kavinsky's collar, and Kavinsky had a flash of his fights with Ronan--in Henrietta and since he'd arrived--with Alec, with Baz, with the people at the fight club. He wondered if Al was going to fit him.

He had a flash of Prokopenko's disgusted face. Just like me--but that wasn't right. Al was good and kind and strong, his hands weren't covered in blood, with the reality of what death was like. The sharp, deadly smile sank off Kavinsky's face, his emotions a rapid back and forth, rip-tides through him, trying to drag him back out to sea.

As soon as Al's hands loosened, even a little, Kavinsky pulled back.

"You don't want to be me. To Newt. To anybody. You don't. Don't fuckin' say that shit, okay?"

My hands drop from Kavinsky's arms, hitting my legs with a soft thump. "He was happy, with you. You did everything right all the time." Kavinsky seemed perfect, everything Newt could want and deserved to have. He even didn't mind keeping me around, like Newt wanted.

I thought he didn't.

Maybe that's what makes everything falling apart hurt so much worse. The truth hurts.

"You should have said something sooner," I mumble, looking away. I still see Newt's anguish, and now it's mixed with Kavinsky's bitter pain. My chest squeezes tight around the air in my lungs. "We could have set you straight before..."

Before it got to this point.

"Was is kind of the key there, fuckin' isn't it?" Kavinsky bit. He just shook his head at that idea that he'd done anything right. All he'd done, from the moment he'd wandered into Newt's life, had been one vague mess after another, one cautionary uncertainty of what the hell he was doing as he looked at how gently Al and Newt fit together, once he saw them together, and tried to not wonder what the hell he was bringing to the table.

He spread his hands expansively. The one he'd slammed into Newt's wall still hurt, the fingers still stiff, but he'd taped up the knuckles neatly, used to that sort of thing from years of it.

"What was I gonna say, Newt? I've been trying to keep this even keel since the fuckin' start, okay, I know I'm side dish--don't you fuckin' act like I'm not, don't--just don't--"

He rubbed his temple aggressively, trying to stay angry rather than hurt, trying to keep up all his thorns, but it was so exhausting. His eyes stung.

"Stop saying that--" My head whips up and around so I'm looking Kavinsky in the eye. What he's saying amounts to calling us liars. "Nobody thinks that except you, Kavinsky, Newt doesn't think that!"

How many times do I have to repeat it to get it through his skull, if being around Newt wasn't enough to open his eyes? Grabbing for his wrist again, my fingers close around it.

"Just come with me. I'm not leaving you here."

Even if we aren't friends after all, let alone anything else, I can't walk away.

"Well that's a pretty radical turn around from him telling me to get out of his life," Kavinsky hissed harshly, refusing to meet Al's gaze while he looked so intent and so upset and so broken all at once.

"I'm where I need to be--where I should be." His fingers clenched hard into his palms, nails pricking into his palms. "You can tell him that if he wants to see me, he can come and talk to me himself, but I'm not going back there so he can tell me how disappointed he is in me, again. So I can worry about when I might kill him, or you."

Kavinsky isn't looking at me, but he hasn't pulled away, either. I keep my hand wrapped around his wrist, take a breath, and decide that I'm not done being honest yet.

"You hurt--" Us? "Newt, but you didn't sit down and plan it out. You didn't want this. You're not going to kill us."

Why would he worry about something so impossible to imagine? Him, killing Newt?

"I'm..." I have to swallow and take another breath, in and out, before I continue. "I've done worse things than what you did, Kavinsky. Newt knows. But you... You're really important to him. That's why it hurt him, because we thought what we had meant more, I guess."

"Didn't I?" Kavinsky let out some noise, some bitter, awful noise, like a bone breaking. "This was the second time the guy fucked me. I let him fuck me twice, I sought him out, I went the fuck home with him and it was good and I liked it, so what the fuck wasn't planned about it? Newt was right, I just thought I was going to keep getting away with it."

His injured hand hurt, ached, the bones shifted until it was painful to hold his fist so tight. It was a good point of distraction.

Acidically, he growled, "Really? You got blood on your hands, Albert? You're gonna tell me how bad you've done?" The smile was back, sharp and small and furious. "I'm doing you both a fucking favor. The last person I fell in love with I beat to death with a baseball bat."

I think I get why Newt kept making excuses for me when I told him about Tris. Even as I stare at Kavinsky, speechless, my eyes wide, I can't stop rummaging for reasons why he might have done it, why that other guy, why the person he killed. Mistaken identity, an argument that got out of hand, jealousy, all kinds of explanations race through my head.

I'm only half aware that I'm probably holding Kavinsky's wrist too tight.

"Why?" I whisper. "But you and Newt... You wouldn't."

There's no way that could ever happen. Even this didn't push them into beating each other up.

There's something I have to ask, a thought that suddenly takes over and won't leave me alone.

"If it had been just you and Newt... would you have done it?"

Kavinsky tried to pull his hand back from Al's grip, the combination of forces--Al's grip and his own fist--making the injury, the memory of punching the wall to keep from hitting Newt flashing through his head. He could feel something like the nightmare brewing under his skin again, furious and all consuming and dark.

If it wasn't him, if it wasn't his own hands slipping, it would be a nightmare. It didn't matter if they tore at him like angry things. If it wasn't him, his unpredictable moods and emotions, it would be a nightmare made of ichor and gossamer and ferality.

He ignored the doubt in Al's face, met it with his own confidence. He knew exactly what he was capable of, but he didn't owe Al the story of Prokopenko.

"Yes," he said, inexplicably honest. The word tasted like sawdust and poison in the back of his throat. He wasn't high enough for this.

He uncurled his injured fist, let out another one of those bitter, broken-bone laughs that wasn't really a laugh. "C'mon, Al. That's a stupid question. Newt likes me one of two ways: when I get him drunk and fucked up, or when I'm on my knees. Nothing for a faggot reverting to type."

"That's not true--" I think of Christmas morning again, and the warmth in Newt's eyes when he looks at Kavinsky, in his voice when he says Joe. None of that is what Kavinsky's twisting Newt into at all.

I think of how worried Newt was when the hours went by and still no Kavinsky, how pale and small he looked the next time I saw him, shadows like bruises under his eyes. And then there were the tears sliding down his cheeks and the brittleness to his voice.

"If that's what you think, you don't know Newt." My free hand makes a fist, trembling. "He loves you. You're acting like he just uses you!"

Al still hadn't let go of Kavinsky's wrist, and it was, genuinely, starting to ache, starting to really hurt. Kavinsky relished it, relished that point of reality, knowing there would be light bruises and soreness later.

"Yeah, I feel real loved right now," he hissed. All of Connor's bruises had faded, the memory of it shoved aside, and all Al was giving him right now was fuel for a fire of self-loathing. Newt hadn't even bothered to come himself, hadn't bothered to confront him a second time. He'd sent Al, with his confused eyes and large hands and a strength that Kavinsky couldn't easily fend off without something in hand to defend himself.

"You still haven't told me what the fuck you want, Al. Yeah, you wanna take me back to Newt's--why? So he can lay me in a second riot act on what a fucking disappointment I am? So I can get a fucking third degree on how he probably thinks I was fucking around while he's been moping? What the fuck ever, I don't have to--."

He tried to yank his arm back from Al's grip. He sneered a little. "You want the play by play too? Sorry, I deleted the fucking pictures Connor took off my phone."

I want a tangle of things. Out of them, I settle on one thing to tell Kavinsky, the one thing that doesn't seem as messy and complicated as the rest.

"I want to make sure you're okay." He's not, right now, that's obvious. I feel him give his arm a tug, and I don't want to hurt him -- I wonder if it's too late for that.

We're all hurting each other.

"You don't have to go back to Newt's..." Not yet. "You can stay at my place."

"I'm fine." Kavinsky couldn't remember the last time that he told such a bald lie, but he needed that one, needed it loud and clear and sharp. The memory of having headed over to Al's place and coming across Connor in the hall, half-clad and damp and instantly presumptuous--and Kavinsky had let him, had encouraged it, had left from there to go and sprawl on Al's couch and watch television and just hang out with him like he hadn't just--

He felt sick, suddenly.

"I can fucking take care of myself." He tried, again, to yank his arm back, more insistent this time. "I don't need you fucking babysitting me.

Another stab of hurt pierces my chest, and this time, I let Kavinsky have his arm back.

He's not fine. You don't have to be Candor to see through that lie. He's nowhere near fine, and it's as bad as watching Newt talk about him and cry, and maybe Kavinsky and I aren't so alike that he'd take getting out of Newt's life as literally as I took staying away from Tris, but I'm not willing to take that chance.

"It's not about babysitting you..." I nod at his warehouse. "You want to stay here? It's winter."

Then again, he's got Connor, right?

"I'll stay wherever the fuck I want," Kavinsky snapped, crossing his arms now that he had them both back. He could make himself neither as tall nor as broad as Al, even when Al was so deflated and withdrawn.

His stomach was roiling, tight; his heart fluttering in his chest.

"Why the fuck do you and Newt keep acting like I don't know people in this fucking shit hole city, anyway, like I don't have friends or something? Like, I fucking get it, I'm a miserable piss of a human being, but I fucking know people, who aren't you, okay?!"

It was limited, dwindling because most of the people he knew didn't like him and those that liked him were also friends with Al and Newt. The people he knew that tolerated him that didn't know Al and Newt was a very small group of people. He didn't know how much he appreciated that.

"I know that..." In fact, all this time I'd thought that Kavinsky wasn't anything like me; of course making friends would be a breeze for him, of course he'd have tons of them. There wasn't any reason why he shouldn't.

Wanting to keep an eye on him is treating him like I don't trust him to take care of himself, he's right.

"But you're not staying with any of them yet." I shrug, and my gaze lands on the ground. "I just want you and Newt to be okay. It didn't have to be like this."

Kavinsky went around behind our backs, Kavinsky's actually killed someone, Kavinsky's practically making Newt into the bad guy who drove him into someone else's bed. It's all bleeding together with the Kavinsky we saw, into a jumbled, clashing picture.

But like Newt, I still can't hate him.

"So worry about him, then," Kavinsky said, the heat and the malice sliding out of his voice, out of his body. He was left exhausted, as exhausted as he'd been on the first when he left Newt's apartment and had to figure out what to do with himself in the aftermath.

"Just--" He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then managed to lift his chin and look at Al. "Just go home, Al."

He wanted nothing more than for everything to just go back to the way it had been at Christmas, before Christmas. But he'd punched all the holes in it, and there was no putting patches over those holes. It was better like this.

"Just take care of him."

I'm trying to be there for Newt, but it's not enough. I can't replace Kavinsky, and I don't want to; I couldn't do that to him and Newt.

I don't budge. I can't.

"He's got friends who aren't us, too." Good people, people you can depend on, like Thomas and Noah and Tris. "He didn't want me there at first, after you left."

It didn't take him long to change his mind, but I'm grasping at any straws I can find to prove to Kavinsky that Newt cares what happens to him. Then I'll go.

The difference, and Kavinsky couldn't say it, was that Newt's friends actually wanted him to be there. They liked him, because Newt was good and likable without having to give them something. They wanted him to get through this, because he deserved to get through this. Kavinsky wanted him to get through this, because he loved him, and he deserved to get through this.

Al was the only one who was around, who gave a shit whether or not Kavinsky got through this. And that was because Newt needed to get through this.

"But you have been, since," Kavinsky pointed out. "Or you wouldn't know what was going on. He told you. He wouldn't have told you through a text or something. He told you what happened."

Kavinsky's gone quiet compared to all our arguing before, but I can't take it as a good sign. He looks tired and lost, like Newt did when he asked me if the two of us would be easier, better.

"Yeah... And that's when he said he loves you." Loves, not loved. Doesn't that say everything that Kavinsky needs to know?

When I move, it's to take another step toward Kavinsky, not away.

"Stop it."

Kavinsky froze, holding his ground. His shoulders stiffened radically. He raised his chin, stubborn and forward to face Al's misguided idea that he could fix something that was unfixable.

"It doesn't matter if he loves me or loved me or whatever. I know what I did--does he fucking get that what he did was shitty too? I know what I fucking did, and I know why I did it. So why do I have to keep fucking defending myself when he's the one that can't decide how he's gonna fucking deal with it?"

The bitterness is back, but it's not as sharp as it was. We're standing close without touching, just looking at each other, stuck. Nothing I say is getting through. Or whatever, Kavinsky spits at me, like he's clinging to any excuse to twist Newt's feelings for him into something less than what they are.

I can't work out why. Because it lets him pretend that Newt won't miss him? That Newt has spares all lined up to take his place?

"What did he do?" Newt regrets what he said to Kavinsky. "You mean him wanting both of us?"

"I don't give two shits who he wants," Kavinsky snapped, twisting his fingers into his shirt sleeves. The scratches on his arms were aching, one of the scabs snapping and leaving blood pooling on his wrist. He let out a single, embittered laugh, focusing on the ache of his scratches, the pain of his hand, anything but breaking down right now.

"He can want you and anyone else he wants, and that's fine. I don't give a shit." He couldn't give a shit. It hurt too much. Having Al here, watching his confusion and hurt and knowing he had some piece of what was going on but realizing, more and more, that it was just that--some piece--was only making it worse.

"Did he even fucking tell you what happened?" He narrowed his eyes. "Fuck, he didn't, did he? You got one side of the story, and you didn't even get all of it. You don't even know why the fuck I'm out here except that I let someone else fuck me, because that's all he probably told you, and now he's gonna act like that's it, that's the whole fucking deal here."

[For Kavinsky]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)