sorriest | [For Kavinsky]

Kavinsky looked up when he heard his phone buzz, rolling to his feet and scooping the phone off the ground. He stared at the message for a moment, wondering what those four words were supposed to mean. After all, it had been--however long. What day was it, anyway? It didn't matter. Newt would have told him what happened. There wasn't anything to talk about.

He headed toward the nearest door and stepped out. Dumpster alley. He rounded the warehouse toward the street, shoving his phone into his jeans as he went.

For the first time, he didn't offer Al a high-five when he spotted him. "Hey."

I don't have to wait long for an answer, not on the phone but Kavinsky himself, coming out of an alley toward me. It hits me that we're back to awkward greetings, barely even that. He was big on his high-fives, and for a moment, I think back to him as a mouse, and then my thoughts turn into one giant why. I just want to understand. If I deserve a second chance, Kavinsky does.

I remember Christmas. It hasn't been two weeks, but nothing is the same; Newt's heartbroken face flashes through my mind again, jarring me out of before. I want to understand, but I can't grasp throwing Newt away.

The new year wasn't supposed to start on a horrible note.

"Newt told me everything," I get straight to the point. "I don't..." Frowning, I shake my head. "You love him, too, right?"

Kavinsky made a noise, not quite a groan, somewhere in his chest as Al went straight for the gut of it. He didn't know what else he'd been expecting. Maybe for Al to be carrying a box of his things. Maybe he had brought a box, and just left it somewhere else, for the moment--by one of the other doors, on the corner of the building. Who knew.

"Well, shit, kid. He send you all the way out here for that?" He tucked his hands, hard into his pockets. "If he told you everything, don't know what you want me to say."

Maybe, if he pushed hard enough, they'd settle like they ought to. Pendulums working toward equilibrium.

He's avoiding the question. I was sure that I knew the answer without asking, but I'm not in Kavinsky's head. Newt isn't, either, even though he knows Kavinsky better than I do.

"He didn't send me." I take a step closer, then another. "We weren't there with you, the other night, J--" My voice trips over the name, and I don't finish it. "I wanted to hear your side of the story."

Newt asked me if Kavinsky's worth it. Newt is. If there's a chance that he won't have to keep hurting, of course trying to understand what happened is worth it.

Kavinsky was too exhausted--emotionally, physically, every way he possibly could be--to do anything but pet out a noise that might have been a laugh a month and a half ago. Now, it was a choked noise. He took a hand out of his pocket, waved it in distaste.

"You've already got the side that matters, right?" He rubbed his eyes. "It's over. Congrats on remaining the main dish, as always."

That was cruel, to both Newt and Al. Kavinsky dropped his hand from his eyes and looked as evenly as he could at Al, smoothing his sleeve up and down his arm. There were scratches, long and new, on his forearm. He tried to keep them covered up.

"What?"

I flinch back as if Kavinsky gave me a shove, staring at him. Something else that Newt told me comes to mind, something he said about Kavinsky's own trouble getting his head around Newt wanting him, but Kavinsky's been living with Newt. I'm the tag-along, the third wheel.

It looks like he only put up with me for Newt after all.

"You actually think that? That's why you did it?" I don't remember doing anything different, anything wrong that night. Newt was Newt, the same as always, with both of us. My eyebrows draw together and stay that way as I notice Kavinsky's arm.

Newt mentioned bruises, which those injuries aren't. Did that guy...?

My hand reaches for Kavinsky's wrist.

"You didn't ask why I did it, you asked for my side of the story. Whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean," Kavinsky said, voice sharp and acidic, because pushing was easier, was safer. He'd been left with the abundant clarity of his situation, and all this was doing was driving home, again, how he'd cut himself out of this picture.

"Newt already told you what happened, so you already know what happened."

Al was reaching for him, and it took Kavinsky a second to realize he'd seen the scratches. He tucked his arm back behind him, frowning.

"What do you want, Al?"

This is a Kavinsky I haven't seen before, just like I'd never seen the Newt I found after he asked me to come over. Right now, though, the first thing I want is to ask what happened to Kavinsky's arm.

"Did he hurt you? The guy you met." I let Kavinsky take his arm and hide it from view, bringing my gaze back up to meet his. "Did he..." It's a sickening thought, and worry creeps into my voice, in spite of what I heard from Newt.

"Did he force you to go with him?"

Kavinsky stared for a second, eyebrows coming together in confusion. For a moment, he wasn't sure what Al even meant. His bruises were faded from his skin, he knew, they never lasted very long; and he knew that Al had seen him with bruises from Newt.

And then it struck him, with the way that Al was looking at him, that he thought--that maybe Newt had said, to justify what had happened--.

He couldn't sneer. He just gaped for a second.

"Wh-what, you think he raped me?"

I didn't think that far -- I didn't want to think it -- so I answer with a slight shake of my head. Still, it's a relief to know for sure that it wasn't anything like that. "No... But maybe if you had second thoughts or something, he got angry?" Those marks don't look like a good time to me.

"Anyway, it's only my business because of Newt. It doesn't matter if you don't like me, but you should have seen him, Kavinsky."

I'm lying. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Besides, when we didn't hear a thing that night, I thought something bad had happened myself.

Kavinsky fidgeted with his sleeve, behind his back this time. The scratches itched and burned, especially with the added knowledge that he was thinking about them intently now. His stomach and chest was tight.

"They're from a nightmare," he blurted, then frowned. He didn't owe Al an explanation of where the scratches had come from, didn't owe him an explanation of what he was--not now, not ever, if he didn't want to. If Newt hadn't told Al what he was, what he was capable of doing--

But Newt didn't know he was capable of the nightmares.

"I did see him," Kavinsky hissed instead. His fingers curled in his pockets, unduly offended that Al thought he didn't like him. "I got to see the whole thing. Great. Yes. I'm a shit heel, and a liar, and a slut. Anything else you're here to add to the list?"

I know nightmares. Newt has them, I have them. Afterward, they still crawl around under my skin, but I don't wake up bleeding. "You did it yourself?" I manage to ask before Kavinsky sounds genuinely mad at me. Only, there's a kind of hurt note underneath it.

My eyes widen. Newt said all that? To Kavinsky? It's hard to picture it, but it's even harder to forget Newt crying, calling himself cruel.

"I just don't get it." I shake my head again. "Newt loves you."

Maybe if he'd talked to Newt before disappearing on us, we wouldn't be standing here today.

"No," Kavinsky said, and a laugh bubbled out of him, something dark and hysterical like every other awful thing he'd felt since he'd done this to himself. "A nightmare did it to me. It had no one else to turn on, so it turned on me."

He grit his teeth a little, pain stabbing through his lungs as Al said that. Why was he standing here.

"What's to get? I know I hurt him, okay? I get it. But he'll get over it, and he--he's got you, he doesn't fucking need me." He shook his head, angry with himself for the sting of tears in his eyes. "I've been distraction since the start. Distraction when you were gone. Distraction when he needed someone to be rough with..."

He shook his head. "You two've got each other. What do you need a spare for?"

The way he's talking, it's like he's describing a monster, a nightmare that somehow came to life and attacked him. Since when does that happen in the regular Darrow? But Kavinsky keeps going, and I feel like I'm looking into a mirror, one that echoes all the doubts I've had about Newt and me and my place in his life.

Kavinsky's hurting, too.

Taking another step forward, I put my hand on his shoulder. "You seriously think that?" I repeat, probably more frustrated and incredulous than helpful, even though the answer is right there in front of me. "That you're just-- Newt wouldn't do that to anyone. Least of all someone he cares about."

But this, what I'm hearing now, I get that. It turns out that Kavinsky and I aren't so different, except for the fact that I can see how much he means to Newt.

"He's not a liar."

"No, he's not," Kavinsky agreed, but it was with a bitter taste in his mouth. Newt wasn't a liar, he had never learned the sharp safety of that in the years he had memories of. Al wasn't a liar either, for whatever reason. An idiot, right now; too blind and stubborn about something to realize how much Newt needed him, how well they fit together. Something wretched and dark, bilious, boiled in Kavinsky's chest.

Al's hands were big enough to press over his whole shoulders. Kavinsky looked into his eyes, even and sharp, trying to wrangle all his pain and frustration and every ounce of self loathing down into a single cystal to focus himself. It was harder than he thought it was going to be.

"He has you," he hissed again. "He's had you, friend or boyfriend or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, longer than me. So you're gonna come at me, telling me I did the wrong thing, setting him straight on this? He'll be glad I'm gone. You both will." He gave a sharp, bitter noise, like a laugh, like a snort; it was all thorns and sharp, broken glass edges. "Everybody's better off with me out of their life. Hell of a lot safer, too."

There's that mirror again. My hand grips Kavinsky's shoulder tighter, close to giving him a shake as if that could snap him out of this, all of it. We've both done the same thing to Newt, convincing ourselves that we were doing the right thing by getting out of his life, when all we did was the complete opposite. We hurt him.

"We're not glad." What does he think that Newt's been doing? Throwing good riddance parties? "Newt mentioned you before we met, you know. He said he wanted to make it work between all three of us."

He didn't have that conversation with Kavinsky yet, back then.

"I've seen Newt with you around," I add, "and Newt without you, and he's not better off with you gone."

"He will be," Kavinsky said, firm and vicious, eyes shining with tears now. It didn't matter what Newt had said, what ideas he'd made for himself of how this all fit together. How many times had Newt deferred his attention from Al because of him? How many times had Newt called him a liar, even before this?

"Everybody's better off with me gone," he said, and there was that hysterical, sharp noise again, like a laugh or a snort or something darker, laced with the tears that were pricking his eyes but refusing to come otherwise.

"Go home, Al." He sneered, as best he could, and for once it felt like a painful expression. "I think I broke the baby doll."

Go home? To Newt, even though we don't live together and he's got Thomas to stay with? Even though nothing I try can make this whole mess stop hurting?

Go home, as if Newt's apartment was our home, Newt's and Kavinsky's and mine.

I'm frowning hard enough to feel the tension in my forehead. "Newt isn't a doll," is all I get out at first, shaking my head slowly this time, in disbelief. I don't take my hand away and I don't go anywhere. I'm not going to leave Kavinsky alone while he's acting like this.

His self-loathing is too familiar.

"What are you talking about, anyway? You messed up, but you're not a bad person... I know you didn't do it because you wanted to hurt Newt."

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."

[For Kavinsky]

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