Hold your breath when the blackbird flies [for Newt]

[mitsubishievo]

For a long time, Kavinsky sat in the garage. The door of it was shut behind him, and he'd turned the Evo off, but there's a terrified, sick part of him that whispered to him. He ignored it. But he sat there, staring at the steering wheel, and the wall beyond. It was late, he thought. Or dark at least.

What the fuck had he just done?

Nothing he was proud of. This wasn't like figuring things out with Jack and Peter, the little caveats that went into those functioning. This wasn't even really like what he'd done with Connor. This was just--it was the nastier parts of what he'd been back in Henrietta. Distraction and use and messing the whole thing up. But there was no hiding it, not like in the halls at Aglionby. There wasn't even anything to hide, physically at least.

Kavinsky sat behind the wheel of the car and wept. How stupid, to be upset over something so small. It wasn't, though. The act itself had been, but not the implications. Not what it could do to all this delicate balance. He felt like a heel. He felt worse than that.

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[mitsubishievo]

A deep relief opened up in Kavinsky, but he only exhaled slowly. He wanted to work on this, wanted to work it out and make it better. He'd go, stay somewhere else for a little bit, if he needed to. Newt deserved better than this.

"Um," he breathed, and scrubbed at his scalp. "Yeah, I mean. He kissed me. We--we kissed a bit, but. But yeah, it was just me going down."

His gaze dropped a little. "Don't be mad with him, okay? He was--he was really fucked up and. And I was the one that did something wrong, so."

[thebloodyglue]

"Unless you held him down and took it, that's clunk and you know it," says Newt. "He's got enough shucking rules for you and Jack."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky shrugged. He was pretty sure he was just digging a bigger hole, but he didn't know what else to do, to say, and he wanted to be honest about everything.

He breathed a helpless, slightly hysterical laugh. "Can we sit down, maybe? I--I don't have to touch you, if you don't want, I just. I'd like to sit down together?"

[thebloodyglue]

Newt hesitates for a moment but then he pads over and sits at the opposite end of the sofa.

"Is it always going to be like this?"

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky returned to the couch as well and curled himself up, as small as he could make himself, into that corner. He watched Newt, just tried to breathe.

"No," Kavinsky promised. "No--I'm sorry. I'll be better. I--I don't know, maybe I've got a...a problem, or something. I'll talk to someone. I just..."

He heaved a huge sigh and closed his arms around his knees. "I want to fix this. You mean everything to me, Newt. I wouldn't have married you if that wasn't true. I wouldn't have told you what I did. I know it hurts, but you deserve me being honest."

[thebloodyglue]

"You've said that you me before," points out Newt. "Almost that exact same thing. At what point do i just stop shucking believing you?"

[mitsubishievo]

Now, the bitterness snapped in him, a cord drawn too tight. Kavinsky screwed up his face and slumped into the corner, arms crossed tight over his chest.

"You--you can't have that both ways," he said, more petulant than firm. "You can't tell me I can be here and try to figure out how to fix this, and tell me that I'm just going to keep fucking up."

Getting the words out didn't make him feel any better.

[thebloodyglue]

"I can want you to be better without seeing how it's going to shucking happen," he says, ruffling his fingers through his hair, tugging lightly at the root to give him something else to focus on. "I want to be able to trust you. But I can't, can I?"

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky kept his arms crossed tight over his chest, let the hurt of those words burn in him. He'd done this to himself, but that didn't soothe the ache of it at all. His mind swarmed with things to say, but they all sounded very hollow, or very stupid, even in his own head. Excuses and deflections and a hundred things that couldn't make any of this better.

"I would trust you," he finally said, curling his knees up to his chest. "If you had done something like this. I would still trust you."

[thebloodyglue]

But Newt hadn't. He never had. He worries his teeth with his lips for a moment.

"I can't do this," he says, looking down at his wedding ring. "Not like this."

[mitsubishievo]

Dread pumped through Kavinsky. He became very still for a moment, lifting his gaze and watching Newt, waiting for him to move or explain what he meant. Here was the other shoe dropping. Things couldn't be good forever.

But he'd done that, hadn't he?

"Can't do what?" he asked, his voice soft and small.

[thebloodyglue]

"This," says Newt. "I can't...I want to trust you so shucking badly." He covers his face with his long fingered hands. "I can't...All of it, Joe. All of it. Either it's...me. Or the rest of it. But I don't think you can have both anymore."

[mitsubishievo]

"Yeah," Kavinsky says, a breath of relief and understanding. Slowly, he edged across the couch. He brushed his fingers on the back of Newt's knuckles, not asking for him to look, but wanting to let him know that he understood what this meant.

"Yeah, of course," he said. "Newt, it's you. It's--it's been you for over a year. It's always going to be you, no matter what else."

There was a soft pain in his chest, a quiet loss, but it was nothing next to the quiet relief that he could, maybe, fix what he'd done. "I'll tell Peter. I doubt Jack's gonna want to talk to me anyway. I can stop dancing, too, if...? I just wanna do right with you, Newt."

[thebloodyglue]

"You don't have to stop dancing," says Newt, shaking his head. "But you always come home to me, every single night. No more. I know you're....I know you're in love with them, but..."

A tear rolls down his cheek.

[mitsubishievo]

"Maybe I should, though," Kavinsky said, comfortably settled on that idea as well. He tried to smile. "I can just dance for you."

He didn't address his love for Peter or Jack, because that didn't matter just then. Maybe it would again, some day. But it was a far distant feeling future, and one that was dependent on earning back the truth of someone he loved more than life itself.

"I," Kavinsky started, then paused, chewing his lip for a moment. Slowly, he started again. "I think it'd be good if you kept going out when you wanted to? I'll come home, of course, but. But if you need or want to go out, I'm behind that for you. Okay?"

[thebloodyglue]

Newt frowns and shakes his head.

"I...why? Why something shucking different for me?"

[mitsubishievo]

"Because I want you to be happy," Kavinsky said, as simple as that. He sat there, having returned his hands to the lap, not quite touching Newt. The inch or two between them felt like a mile. "Me being out, being with other people, that doesn't make you happy. But people--finding those connections, being with people--that does."

He shrugged one shoulder. "You were practically glowing after you fucked that one guy, and you've always got this big smile on when you hang out with Jillie. So why would I want to change that?"

[thebloodyglue]

"You make me happy, slinthead," says Newt, miserably, sniffing and rubbing the end of his nose. "I don't need to fuck around with other people to...I know that. I don't need anybody else."

[mitsubishievo]

"No, I--I know that," Kavinsky said, and ached to hold Newt, to find some physical way to assure him that he was here and he was trying and he would keep trying because this was worth it. "Just. If you want to."

Kavinsky heaved out a huge, explosive breath. "Should, uh. Should I stay on the couch or day bed, or..."

[thebloodyglue]

"I don't know," says Newt, frowning, worrying the hem of his jeans for a moment. "I don't...I'm so..." He looks at Kavinsky. "I don't even know how I feel about you...right now. I mean. I love you. But I don't know if I like you very much."

[mitsubishievo]

"That's, uh." Kavinsky sniffled once and nodded. "That's fair. I can stay at the apartment, if you--if you need space. You'll know where I am."

But, he was pretty sure, Newt would want to keep an eye on him, even if he was mad. Putting himself somewhere else offered up too much risk to the fragile situation.

[thebloodyglue]

Newt shakes his head.

"Don't go," he says. He looks up. "What were you even thinking, Joe? You got so twisty at the thought of me fucking him."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky uttered a noise that, in any other situation, might have qualified as a laugh. He scrubbed the back of his neck and tried to think how to phrase what had gone through his head without making things out poorly.

"Um. I thought if I got him off, I could--I could get his keys off him, and drive him home." This time, the laughter was real, short, breathy bursts of hysterics. "How stupid does that sound? God. Who--who the fuck does that?"

He did. He had, now, and a few times in Henrietta. He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling.

[thebloodyglue]

"You're right," says Newt, his tone flat, his voice quiet. "That does sound shucking stupid."

[mitsubishievo]

Any of the hysterical mirth of the situation bled right out of Kavinsky. He sat there, silently, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment. His chest ached. He couldn't breathe right.

"I know he's better than me," he whispered. "Like, a better person. That's why I got weird about the idea of you and him--that's stupid too, forget it."