mitsubishievo | the rain falls, the summer ends [for Newt]

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.

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Newt wakes up to the sound of Kavinsky in the kitchen and, eventually, it's that direction that he pads in, dressed in soft plaid and one of Al's old sweaters pulled on over bare skin. He stands in the doorway, watching him for a long moment.

"There's blood on the sheets," he says, finally. "You okay, sweetheart?"

Kavinsky heard Newt coming in, but his quiet was almost palpable. In return, Kavinsky remained focused on the stove until his husband spoke, and even then, he remained focused like he hadn't heard him at all. Or at least not the first part.

"Probably just the weather getting drier," he said, which was shit and they knew it. He shrugged and turned toward Newt. The hint of dark, black blood around his nose was still there. "Things'll shape up, you know me."

"I do know you," says Newt, his tone suggesting that that's not as comforting as Kavinsky seems to think it is. He grabs a dishcloth off the side and moves to the sink, dampening the corner. "Come here to me, love."

There was a bright, flashing sort of thing in him, something sharp and old, that wanted to be standoffish about it. He didn't need coddling about whatever it was. So he'd had a messy, bloody nose; so what? It wasn't the first and it wouldn't the last.

But that passed through him like a roll of thunder and then he was leaving the stove to come closer, tilting his head so that Newt could see the messy edge of his nostril, black and red, and powdery white where he'd snorted that bump before he'd come out here to start breakfast.

"It's really fine."

Newt doesn't dignify that with a response, just cleaning the blood and coke off Kavinsky's nose and then balling the dishcloth up in his hand because it can't go back onto the counter.

"Feels like it's been a minute since we had one of these mornings, Joe."

He hardly ever uses Kavinsky's given name; he tends to save it for mornings like this.

Kavinsky took the cloth from Newt, though maybe it would have been better to let him hold onto it. It needed to go into a hamper, or straight into the laundry, but leaving felt like avoidance, and Kavinsky wasn't doing that.

He uncrumpled the towel and then folded it neatly, then wrung it in his hands.

"Christ, don't make it a thing," he said with a sigh. "I don't know. It's nothing. I mean, it's probably nothing. Anyway, it's just a little coke, so that's fine."

"It's not the coke that I'm worried about, and you shucking know it," says Newt, shifting behind Kavinsky so that he can lean against his husband, his head resting between his shoulderblades again. "It's just...been a while since it was bad."

Kavinsky was quiet for a second. He didn't like worrying Newt, but he knew that these weird moments did. But he also didn't know how to explain what was going on. It just was, and he had to deal with it until there was nothing else to deal with.

He reached down to find Newt's arm and dragged it around his waist.

"I don't really know what's up," he finally said. "So it'll just have to figure itself out."

Newt wraps himself easily around Kavinsky, leaning against his back with his arms tight around his waist, his cheek against the soft cotton of his t-shirt.

"What do you want to do today?"

He wanted to say he didn't know, but that weird not-rightness that came with the bloody nose, the tarry extra viscous quality of his blood at the moment, was already calling for something specific.

He didn't know what, but at least he sort of knew where.

"I need to go out to the forest for a little while," he said. He gestured with the cloth in hand at his face. "See if I can figure this out. Come with me. It always likes you more."

Even now. Even still.

Newt's loved Cabeswater since the first time that Kavinsky took him there, when the air was balmy and warm and the birds flew down to meet him. He nods, his cheek still pressed against Kavinsky's back.

"Let's go," he says.

For a moment, they were still, just the two of them and the way that Newt was pressed against his back like that. Then, slowly, Kavinsky unfurled from him and turned to kiss Newt's jaw so he could head back to the bedroom and get some real clothes on.

Breakfast could wait. Everything else could wait. The tremble in his hands from the cocaine was setting in, but that would pass in a moment, the energy redirected into something more fruitful than worrying about a thickness in the back of his throat.

When he's ready, except for his shoes, he wanders back out and wraps around Newt again.

"You wanna take a thermos of tea to go?"

"One step ahead of you, sweetheart," says Newt, the kettle already boiling, the thermos open and ready to be filled. He pushes his hand through his hair. "Do you think I need a haircut."

Kavinsky added his own fingers to Newt's hair, tugging gently, pinning it back a little bit as he considered. It wasn't the longest it had ever been, but it was certainly getting to that length where they always had this conversation.

"Maybe a trim," he conceded. But he always sort of liked the floppy, unmanageable mop of his husband's hair. "Bet you could rock an undercut or something. Fuckin' hipster."

"I think there's only room for one ridiculous shucking haircut in this marriage," he says, leaning in to press a kiss against the corner of Kavinsky's mouth. "So maybe just a trim, yeah."

"Wow, excuse you," Kavinsky said, everything else gently aside in favor of that teasing and that kiss and a smile, however small and tender. He caught Newt and kept him close, kept him near, like he could breathe him in. Like he could just inhale and consume him, holding onto him gently for a moment.

"My haircut is totally better than it was when I first got here. I use way less gel these days."

"You're right," says Newt, twisting a little so that he can push one hand into Kavinsky's hair, combing it back from his face. "Less crispy."

the rain falls, the summer ends [for Newt]

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