A Refugee's Face

Distance from the event didn't, exactly, make things easier to bear, but it did make the day to day easier to tolerate. Three months on, and Kavinsky was feeling a little bit more like he could breathe. The studio continued on, he kept going to the club, and his life was, for all intents and purposes, a mechanical repetition of life.

Tonight was a slow one, but that was alright. It was just noisy and lively enough that he could stop feeling for a second, and that was good enough for him. While they were between songs, he sat in the back, incapable of working up the energy to people please and far too worried that he'd end up lashing out instead. He had his eyes on Alex up on the stage at the moment, just at the doorway to the back room. There was a group of youngish guys in front of her, probably about their age or just a little bit older, all egging each other one.

He strode out, taking to the stage. Alex's music was winding down, and the next song was queuing up, so Kavinsky just slotted in against her. The young men just sort of stared for a second, seeming startled that Kavinsky was there. So he winked at them, and said against Alex's ear, "Last song, beautiful. Let's make it worth while."

Rather than telling Charlie to get out of the house for a few hours or overnight or anything like that, Kavinsky, instead, contrived that their younger ward could have the house to himself as long as he put it back together the way it ought to be by the time they got back on Monday. Kavinsky was settled into a long-weekend sort of idea. His birthday on a Friday, Valentines Day on Sunday? It was perfect.

And, after all, he still had the luxurious studio flat that he owned downtown. There was no sense in not putting it to good use every now and then.

"Like a honeymoon," he said with a grin, pulling Newt inside the door of the apartment that he'd once kept for a delineation between his marriage and his extramarital relationships and that he now kept just because it was a nice place to dream without concerns to anyone's safety. He had going-out-plans for the evening of his birthday and a nice lunch, at least, on Valentines, but other than that?

"Like that first weekend we got together. Ice cream, pizza and weed the whole time, if we want."

The start of the sixth year, for both of them, seemed like a weird benchmark but it was what it was. Here they were, having made it this far: older than they ever thought either of them would be, further along, more themselves. A house and home, a little family of the two of them and their ward who didn't need to stay at home anymore but still did until he got his feet under himself, the cats, the memories of those they'd lost a constant presence in their lives. Six years starting wasn't the same as six years ending, but sometimes it felt like it.

Holidays were always a slightly strange time, but at least with Charlie at home, it was a bit more like knowing what he was doing. Thanksgiving wasn't quite as big a deal to Kavinsky as Christmas was, but it was still a big deal, especially when it meant an excuse to drag people into his home, to make them suffer his presence and familiarity, the closeness of built family.

He'd come a long way in the last five years, and the sixth with another year of it.

So, it wasn't Thanksgiving yet, but making food for Thanksgiving meant getting ready for it. It meant planning. And it was unseasonably warm, so right now that meant looking at recipes on his phone in the backyard with Newt nearby contemplating how to winterize or whatever when the weather seemed to have missed the memo that it was November and they needed to think about getting ready for winter already.

"Do you think I'd get my American card revoked if I refused to do turkey?"

Addiction was a weird thing for Kavinsky to work through, a word he didn't like to use. Sobriety, too. Sober implied that there was non-sobriety, and addiction implied that he was out of control of his behavior. He was better than he had been, and that was something. No more days or weeks long benders. No more substance parties. No more reckless, maddening behavior. But there was alcohol in the house, there were pills in his altoids tin and spliffs in his little case always on his person. There were days when he woke up and ached and shook and hid it with a little powder and a lot of caffeine.

Was it really hiding? If it was hiding, that implied there was a problem, probably, and Kavinsky had never had a problem.

Today was a weirdly bad day. Kavinsky couldn't peg it. He'd woken with chills and shakes and a bloody nose that he might have attributed to a dream if he'd dreamt anything up. But he hadn't in days--weeks, probably.

The blood was stickier than it should have been, darker. Kavinsky cleaned himself up, did two bumps, and headed into the kitchen to get breakfast started while Newt kept sleeping. No point waking him up over something that wasn't worth fussing about.

A little more than two years ago, wearing a slightly different face and more tattoos and a hysterical moment of nineteen-going on-thirty-something stupidity, Kavinsky had gone down on Party Poison in the back of the trans am, a brutal lapse in judgment just months after his and Newt's marriage that had led to the clean break of his and Peter's relationship, and the less clean break of his and Jack's. He'd quit dancing, a decision of his own--as quitting going to Fight Club had been, mostly, though that had been more heavily influenced by Newt's disapproving frustration, staring at his face after he'd come home with the busted eye socket, the one that was still a little strange.

It was hard to believe it had been two years. Things had mended, gotten better, soothed. And now, Jack and Poison weren't here at all. And now, Kavinsky was more sober than he'd been since he was, frankly, thirteen years old. It was a strange place to be. The occasional drink. A habitual habit of his black-paper, sweet smelling clove marijuana-tobacco cigarettes. Rare pills with Newt when they went out.

The record label was quiet but not dead. People still used it, he still produced, but without Party Poison, it was a quieter place these days. Kavinsky wasn't hurting for money. But he was bored, and boredom was a dangerous thing for Joseph Kavinsky. So when he prospected the idea of returning to dance to Newt, Newt had smiled and teased a little bit, and then given him a kiss and sent him on his way.

He went right back to the club he'd danced at two years ago. It was the same manager-bouncer that it had been two years ago, and he smiled amiably as he came in. It was early. He'd have to audition again, because it had been so long, and if he was out of practice, they would make him work on amateur nights. So Kavinsky had some time to kill.

He was sitting at the bar drinking a gin and juice, listening to the shitty music playing on the tinny speakers over the bar--quiet, not loud enough to compete with the stage music, but nobody was dancing right now, so it was just bad.

He didn't go out much anymore, but when he did, it was with two purposes in mind: one was a sale, because he was still a dealer from time to time, and second was for people watching. Tonight was a twofer. He'd done the deal in the alley behind the bar, and now he was in, at the bar, watching people. Someone had bought him a drink, because he was married and not dead, and Kavinsky had taken it and immediately moved away from the guy that did it.

Now, he was circling. He'd seen Gabriel Harkin when he'd walked in the door, but swooping in like a hawk seemed unkind. So he waited until Gabriel seemed settled, was obviously alone, and then he settled himself beside him at the bar, grinning like a fiend.

"Hey stranger," he said. "You come here often?"