mitsubishievo | Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline [Jan 1]

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Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline [Jan 1]

Everything hurt except for Kavinsky's head. That was perfectly, annoyingly clear. Not white-noise clear. It was buzzing and noisy and loud with thoughts clattering around. But there was no alcohol or drugs in his system, from so far that day or left over from his few drinks the night before, and he was left with the suspicion that he wouldn't hurt so much if he'd just taken a few hits at some point. If he'd been riding a hide. If he were hung over and loose.

They'd driven to the party in the Ferrari, Newt in the passenger seat and Al piled uncomfortably into the tiny suicide back, and so the long walk back to the Bramford felt even longer for being chilly and his hair being wet and his clothes being day-old stiff. It wasn't the first time he'd warn day old clothing, but this felt different. Maybe it was the scratches on his skin, the bite marks on his neck and shoulders, the aching feeling in his legs. Maybe it was the clawing nightmare under his skin, the smell of a near stranger under his fingernails that he hadn't managed to wash away.

He fished his keys out of his jacket pocket, turning them around his finger as he let himself into the building, as he walked up the stairs. Every step was a limp, slow and steady. He could feel his cheeks going hot with memory of why he was so stiff and sore.

Everything hurt, from the waist down. Everything.

He slid his key into Newt's door, unlocked it, and stepped into the apartment.

"Sugar?"

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He's been up for hours. He's been sitting curled in the armchair he always ends up in when he's in the apartment on his own. There's a cup of tea cradled in his hands. When Kavinsky lets himself into the apartment, Newt doesn't even look up.

"I was about to start ringing hospitals."

"Hey," Kavinsky murmured. He looked at Newt across the space of the apartment, looked at the Christmas tree, then back again. He put a smile on, and it felt normal and natural. He wished he had his sunglasses to hide his tired eyes behind.

Slowly, he eased out of his leather jacket from the night before, toeing off his boots. "You look like you've been up all fuckin' night."

"I slept. A bit." He takes a sip of his tea, makes a face when it's cooler than he'd like. He rests it against his knee, scrubs one finger back through his hair and leaves it standing in fingered furrows.

"Did you lose your phone?"

"It died," Kavinsky said. Lying was an easy thing, safe and insular, calm like a harbor. There was no harsh water in lies.

He stayed by the door still, unsure if he should cross the room though he wanted to. He wanted to comb Newt's hair flat and freshen his tea and kiss the space above his eyebrow. He was frozen.

Everything hurt.

"You should have slept. Al here?"

"Yeah?" One eyebrow twitches slightly. He goes to sip his tea again, force of habit, remembers it's gone cold and set it down on the table next to him. He rubs his eyes with his knuckles for a moment. "He went back to his place to get changed and stuff." He looks up at Kavinsky, head tilted. He studies him for a long moment. "Did you get a shower?"

Kavinsky looked at the cup and settled a little. That was safe, a ground he could cover. They'd been in this space long enough now, a couple weeks, and he'd learned how Newt liked his tea. Kavinsky's smile softened a little bit, even around the bitter taste of the question, tannin on the back of his tongue.

"You still got a pot of that stuff? I'll freshen you up, sugar. Must've been waiting up for me or something."

"Stop, Joe," says Newt, getting up from his chair and then just...standing there. Not sure how to move forward or back. He just stands there, staring at his sock feet for a second. "Stop." He looks up. "Why have you showered if you're still wearing the same clothes? Where did you shower that you didn't have fresh stuff to put on. All your stuff isn't here. I know it isn't."

"Am I only allowed to shower here now? I didn't swing by the warehouse to grab a change of clothes, so sue me."

He kicked himself for it, though. Something so stupid, so simple, as his clothing. How many times had he snuck out all night back home just to have his rumpled day old clothing be the thing that gave him away when he came home after class?

He headed into the kitchen, regardless of Newt's request for him to stop, too exhausted and aching to eat but knowing he needed it.

"I get that," says Newt, following him into the kitchen, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe as he watches him. He's known him for long enough, knows him well enough, to know fake from real, and everything about Kavinsky right now is sharp, is edges, and every single thing about him is pretend. "But that doesn't answer the question - where did you go to shower? Al was here, so it can't have been his place."

"For Christ's sake, Newt, I know people in this town besides you and Al!"

There was sharpness, edges, but it wasn't pretend, it wasn't fake at the moment. He didn't see the point in the questions. He'd come home. What the hell else was there to worry about?

He ducked into the fridge to put a barrier between himself and Newt.

He tips his cold tea away and starts fixing a new one. There's this horrible, painful sinking feeling in his stomach that he can't ignore, no matter how he tries. You know what he was. He has no idea where that voice is coming from. But he can't stop hearing it. His hands are shaking. He holds onto the counter hard to stop it.

"I know that," he says, quietly, trying to modulate his voice. "So where did you bloody shower, Joe?" Just answer the shucking question. Prove me wrong. Come on, shuckface. Do it.

On 14 December 2015 at 22:05, mitsubishievo - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

Kavinsky grabbed an apple out of the fridge, glaring at it as if it had personally offended him. Who even kept apples in the fucking fridge? He hadn't put it in there. He slammed the fridge door shut. It wasn't nearly as satisfying as he wanted it to be.

"Somewhere with a goddamn shower," he said, sneering at the apple. He slumped against the counter, posture and stance all aggression and ease, lines all angles and sharpness. "What's it even matter?"

"It matters because you weren't here and you didn't bloody call," snaps Newt, rubbing one hand over his face, his back still Kavinsy. He turns, his jaw set, studying his boyfriend for a moment. "It matters because you disappeared, because you ignored my calls." He steps in, tugging at the collar of Kavinsky's shirt, revealing a lurid bruise on his collarbone. Newt's expression doesn't change. He shakes his head ever so slightly.

"Where the fuck were you?"

Kavinsky was still a moment, not because of the word, but because of the touch. Newt's fingers were warm, familiar, against his collar, but their gesture were like talons. Kavinsky understood, then, why Ronan dreamt of bird-like beasts, as he stared at Newt's impassive face staring at the mark of infidelity on his skin, fingers turned to claws in his shirt.

"Sugar," he said softly. He reached for Newt's hip. "It didn't mean anything. Listen..."

"Don't bloody touch me," snaps Newt, and he steps back at the same time as he pushes Kavinsky back with a hand against his shoulder, palm overlapping that bruise. Sick, he wonders how many more clothes are hiding. "I don't...why the shucking hell would I want to listen to anything you've got to say, shank?" He swallows. "Did you shower at his place? Is that it? Showered before you came here so, what? I wouldn't know? I wouldn't smell it on you?"

Kavinsky let himself be knocked back. He set down the apple he had still been holding in his opposite hand, holding both up, but mostly that was because he was reaching for Newt's fingertips, trying to draw him in.

"Sugar," he tried again, soft, cajoling. "Hey, c'mon, it's not like that. I mean--yeah, I showered at his place. So what? It didn't mean anything."

"Stop saying that."

Kavinsky reaches for him and Newt wraps both arms around himself, making himself as narrow and inaccessible as possible. He twists his fingers into the fabric of his shirt. "So what is it like? You left me and Al at a party, I couldn't get hold of you all night and now..." He juts his chin. "This? What the shuck did we do to you?"

Watching Newt close in on himself made Kavinsky's stomach clench. He picked up his apple again, threw it in the air. Caught it. Clutched it until he felt the cold flesh crunch and bruise under his fingers.

"Don't bring Al into this like he's got some fucking baring on a dick I stick in my mouth or something, baby doll. You're the one that's dating him. Sorry I gave you a moment's goddamn piece with your fucking main dish."

"Oh, fuck you," snaps Newt, his voice low and miserable, face turned to the side so he doesn't have to look at Kavinsky right then. "Don't you dare blame this on me. Don't you dare act like that is because you think you're second fucking choice." He shakes his head. "I don't know why you even bothered coming back. I'm sure he'd have let you stay there longer if you just got down on your knees again."

The whole back of Kavinsky's neck went hot with anger and shame, the implication and the memories of the night before and the morning spent being treated like a disposable thing catching up with him in rapid succession. Everything hurt except his head, which was clear, clear, clear. He turned and hurled his half-squeezed apple into the sink, but it just bounced right back out, rolling onto the floor between him and Newt. Unsatisfactory in its lack of destruction. Why hadn't he shattered apart into a million pieces.

He threw up an arm in distaste. "Whatever, right. You can do whatever you want, but if I so much as look at someone else, it's a huge fuckin' disaster, call the goddamn press, right?"

"When did I lie to you?" he snaps and he does look at Kavinsky then, pale except for the spots of hot, angry colour burning in his cheeks. "When did I slink off from a part without telling you where I was going? When did I act like fucking him -" He can't bring himself to say Al's name right then - "When did I act like that didn't matter?" He shakes his head. "You can compare this, if you like, but it's not the shucking same." He bends, picks up the apple, turns it over in his hand. "You even know his name?"

"I figured out you were dating the guy because I ran into him while I was on a bender, Newt!" Kavinsky's hands were shaking and he wasn't sure if he was trying to defend himself or explain this clawing darkness under his skin or the warmth gone suddenly wrapped in chill. "Because I looked at his face while he looked like I'd stabbed him. Because I was the other fucking guy, Newt."

Then the chill went over him entirely, a calm washing over his face to replace the vaguely hysterical, vaguely supplicant expression he'd been making. He swallowed tightly.

"Yes, I know his name."

Which...Kavinsky has a point and Newt feels himself shrink in the face of it. He takes a breath, huffs it out through his nose and shakes his head.

"I told you," he says, miserably. "Both of you. The minute I figured out what...you...were. What you were going to be." He's clenching his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt. " Easier to focus on Kavinsky then, to focus on the seething, oily feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Was he good?"

"That gonna make you feel better or something?" He knew it wouldn't, not with how wrecked Newt looked, not with how wrecked he felt. He hadn't even said anything about being fucked. It could have been necking. The idea that Newt thought he'd stoop that low, just on principle...

But he had, and that was the worst of it.

"Whatever, I don't have to listen to this," he grumbled. He stepped away from the counter, heading out of the kitchen.

"Why did you even come back here?"

Newt can't help it, he follows him and, this time, it's him reaching for Kavinsky, grabbing him by the wrist to haul him back. "If you're so ashamed of it that you can't even tell me, why did you even shucking bother coming back?"

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