mitsubishievo | Lowlife, yo' life, boy we livin' it up [Jan 6]

Since the city he now calls home has seemed to return to a state of relative normality, Peter's back to work. A surprising amount of people want to buy upscale clothing in the wake of some really strange animal behavior (maybe there's some kind of Capitalist switch that flipped when the animals took control and people felt the need to wear more animal products, Peter isn't sure) and he ends up staying a bit later than intended. Thankfully, the buses are running, again, and in another stroke of pure post-tragedy fortune, they're even running on time. So, it's only just past 4:15 when Peter sees a guy that could well be J. Kavinsky hovering near the building. For a second, Peter pauses. Exactly how had he planned on proceeding with this? Was there some kind of etiquette to meeting a stranger to smoke? Even the question "what would Lucas do" doesn't really seem to produce any sort of answer, so Peter decides that he'll go for it, even if his cheeks are the tiniest bit pink in his discomfort.

"Hi, I think you're waiting for me," Peter decides on, and it's about 30 shades smoother than he'd thought himself capable of. Still, though, he can almost hear the way Tanya and Lucas would bark laughter at this entire setup. Though he remembers that there wasn't a lot of laughter left after that fateful production of Romeo and Juliet, especially not for Lucas and definitely not for Peter.

"I'm Peter." He smiles and extends a hand to shake. He's somewhat rigid, uncomfortable just a little and cold a whole lot.

The kid that showed up is of a sort that Kavinsky was used to dealing with, back in Henrietta. Not quite uptight, but definitely uncertain, and Kavinsky wasn't sure if that was the novelty of the situation or the presentation he provided--dark clothes, slightly bundled for the cold, bruises and scrapes visible, somewhere between grunge and frat boy--or if he'd just never scored like this before. There was an innocence there that, on a good day, Kavinsky would have picked his nails into.

Instead, he shook hands. Brisk, almost friendly. He smiled, and hoped it didn't look too wolfish.

"Yeah, that'd me. Kavinsky. Just Kavinsky, before you ask." He laughed a little, turning his phone over between his thumb and first two fingers. "When you weren't already here, I was sort of hoping you'd be a couple more minutes late, for the joke."

"Hmm?" Even after letting this sentence bounce around his head a few times, Peter still doesn't get it. It takes a look at his phone to see the time for him to understand. "Oh! Yeah, I'm not that smooth or lucky." Though Peter's time living with Lucas had been short, Peter could set a clock by Lucas and Tanya's later afternoon sessions. There call and response of 4:20 -- blaze it! was powerful and contagious and it will never leave Peter's mind.

That being said, he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about weed; well, not really. He spends a lot of time thinking about Lucas, though, and how he wishes he could let his friend know that Jason is okay. He deserves it.

"Nice to meet you," Peter says, tucking his hands back into his jacket pockets to keep them from freezing. "I left my stuff in there. I've got to grab it, it'll just be a second." He starts to go before stopping to add, "do you have a pipe? Or should I find... something?" Like what, Peter wonders, but he hopes that Kavinsky has it covered. If not, he knows there's a smoke shop not too far from there. "Maybe I should have planned better." To his credit, he has the good sense to sound sheepish.

Kavinsky laughed a little bit and nodded, waving Peter on a little bit. It was chilly out, but not too bad at least. Not as bad as it could have been. The cold had a settling quality to it, something distracting.

He didn't ask to be invited in. That seemed strangely forward, somehow. Under different circumstances, he probably would have insisted. It had been a strange week, and he didn't really know how to handle that, so he just didn't handle it at all.

"No, I've got papers and a pipe," he said with a shrug. He waved Peter off gently, putting his gloved hands into his pockets. "Your planning's fine, no sweat. I tend to overplan this stuff anyway, don't worry about it. Go on, newbie, I'll be here."

Peter wrinkles his nose at the word "newbie," but he doesn't refute it. Truly, even at St. Cecilia's, Peter had been the one who partook of substance the least, save for maybe Jason's sister, and rarely weed. Like many of the kids he grew up with, that step got skipped by strange Catholic school logic and peer-pressure-related justifications. Peter has no regrets about his rave experience, save for one really, really big one.

"Okay, I'll be right back." He smiles again and keys open the front door. As he climbs the steps to his own (frequently empty) apartment, he thinks about Kavinsky. Jason had definitely side-eyed Peter when he mentioned his post-work plans with a stranger and while Peter had done a pretty good job of explaining away his boyfriend's reservations, Peter can't help but think that if Jason knew what Kavinsky looked like, he may have been given further pause. Like anyone else in that city, he's cute and Peter can extrapolate that a person who agrees to random smoke dates with strangers is probably somewhat lonely, too. Peter's met precious few people that aren't.

A pre-planner from birth, Peter's left the little bag with weed in the drawer right by his door to expedite the process. He's headed back down the stairs in a matter of seconds, this time zipping up his coat to keep out the cold.

"Here," Peter says as he approaches, handing the weed over to Kavinsky. "I think it's clear I have no idea what I'm doing, so deliver me." Once there, he's content to lean against the wall next to Kavinsky, jamming his slender, pale hands back into his pockets for warmth.

"How long have you been in Darrow?" It seems a good place to start, since Peter's not sure he's met anyone that's actually from Darrow.

Kavinsky waited, quietly, for Peter outside the building until he returned. He'd snooped around the complex just a little bit while he'd been waiting for Peter earlier, maybe more than he should have. Had a sort of visceral reaction when he'd noticed a name he knew on one of the post boxes. Now, he stuck near the wall where Peter had left him, fidgeting with his phone a little bit.

When Peter came back out, he put his casual smile back on, taking the baggie from him. He hummed a little, going through the motions of preparing the nug he'd delivered in the first place. He was half tempted to suggest they use the bit that he'd brought along with him--he hadn't brought a grinder along--but after a little bit of initial work and some ingenuity, he got it going pretty well.

"A few months now," he said casually. "You? You sure you wanna do this out here? Don't want you getting caught or something."

"I showed up in October," he confirms, passively watching Kavisnky as he manipulates the substance with a kind of ease that only comes with time and repetition. It's amazing, though, how someone with the same deftness as Peter's wayward dealer and friend could be so completely different. Though a job, he supposes, doesn't actually define the content of a person's character.

"Yeah, it's fine. It's legal here, first, and even if it wasn't, I've done way stupider things than this and I haven't been caught yet." He can't help it: he's a little proud. In Catholic boarding school, the only way they knew how to pass the time was to get away with things. Here, he can get away with pretty much anything. Thankfully, the kinds of mischievous deeds in Peter's heart are limited to reasonable amounts of substance abuse, maybe a tiny bit of vandalism when gently coerced, and mostly an extremely forbidden love. The latter isn't an issue, so maybe Peter's just gotten a little too comfortable being away from the world he once knew: a world where he'd been pretty bold and had paid a fairly hefty price.

"How's this place treating you?" Very recently, Peter's discovered that Darrow can be cruel. Now, whenever he meets a new person, he can't help but wonder what their experience has been.

Kavinsky nodded in agreement; it had been October for him too, early in the month, though he'd sort of lost track of things. October through March tended to all bleed together back home, and the same was, so far, holding true here as well, though for very different reasons.

"Is it?" He blinked a little, honestly surprised. He hummed vaguely. "Can't say I sought out any pigs to ask. 'Hey, officer, can I ask you a question? Hypothetically, I've got a gram on me, is that gonna get me busted? What about the dime of cocaine? The molly? The acid? Nah? Cool, thanks'." He laughed a little at the very idea. He and the Henrietta sheriffs hadn't been on the best terms, but as long as they didn't smell the weed smoke or actually see anyone drinking, they couldn't bust him for anything. It got to be a game of sorts.

He pulled out his pipe, then reconsidered and pulled out the papers instead. There was more than enough weed for them each to have a joint, and then he could make his a little stronger. He felt like he needed it, at the moment.

The question gave him pause for a second. He wasn't high enough for this. Finally, he shrugged, going through the motions of rolling the joints. "Well, the people who hate me are about the same as the ones that hated me back home, and I have my very first job. This place smacks like a cheap version of Jersey--which is, frankly, impressive, because Jersey is a cheap version of Jersey. I would know. I lived there from seven to thirteen. You?"

It seems like a lot of people that Peter has met showed up around the same time. Peter wonders if there's something to that. Some kind of lottery, maybe, where you never know when your number is up? Maybe people that just up and go missing end up here or places like this one. There are these and other crazy sci-fi thoughts that make Peter wonder what the hell is real anymore. He remembered when he thought religion might be the answer. He wishes he could feel like that again.

"Yeah, a client told me," Peter said with a fond sort of eyeroll. He's amazed how many adult people partake of this thing Peter had been led to believe was some stupid kid thing to do; something to pass the time rather than study or deal with the confession-related guilt. There are so many things that are more normal than the Fathers and Sisters at school had led them to believe. Maybe knowing that could have rescued Jason.

Then, there's the litany of drugs that Peter knows, could even probably point out in a line-up, and Kavinsky seems proud of his wares. Why not, Peter thinks? Lucas used to make deliveries to surrounding schools in the form of cleverly-concealed "care packages" and shady meetings in alleyways. Peter himself had never done anything but some E and the occasional bowl. The surprise that tints his features for a moment is gone quickly, though, and he laughs a bit. By way of explanation, he adds, "you remind me of someone from home. It's a good thing."

As Kavinsky answers Peter's question with a mix of truth and clever side-stepping, Peter follows along curiously. He begins with the tension and ends with the geographical equivalent of talking about the weather, but Peter's along for the ride and has no interest in beginning to judge the citizens of Darrow now, so he goes along. "It's been pretty good to me, actually." That's an understatement; Darrow has been great to him. "I'm from Arizona but I'd been away at school for 6 years in upstate New York. This place is way better than either of those.

"I have my first real job, too," he continues, still watching Kavinsky's deft fingers; a muscle memory not totally unlike playing an instrument, Peter thinks. "At The Dressing Room. Where do you work? It's near here, right?" There's plenty more he wants to ask, but they have time, Peter thinks. Especially because he's probably about to be knocked on his ass by what's in that joint.

The way Peter said client made Kavinsky give him a sideways glance, just for a moment. He was a pretty kid, in a somewhat unconventional way--long limbed and fine boned and pious featured, like an icon in the old Bulgarian church that his mother's mother had attended outside of Sofia. But Darrow was small, and Kavinsky didn't think it would be able to support that kind of industry; not in the long term, at least. Peter probably meant something else entirely. Then again, there were things that Kavinsky hadn't known that were holding true, like that he wouldn't at least have to worry about a drug bust any time soon.

"I have that effect, from time to time," Kavinsky said with a little bit of a laugh. Though Peter was the first to say so, Kavinsky was sort of used to reminding people of people they knew. It wasn't usually used as a glowing endorsement of his character. Peter said it with the kind of warmth that suggested it might be, the caveat that it definitely was meant well.

"Anywhere is better than upstate, man," Kavinsky said, tucking the heavier blunt behind his ear before he rolled a lighter one for Peter. "The hell did you move from Hell-on-earth testament-to-man's-pride Arizona to upstate New York?"

When the second blunt was rolled, he handed it over to Peter. His fingers were cold, but that wasn't particularly new; they often were, and at least it wasn't the miserable, tingling ache of dreaming, just the vague numbness of the chill. He didn't know what the Dressing Room was, or where, though he could guess from Peter's overall put togetherness that it was some sort of boutique shop or something. "Arch Studios, down the road a little. I'm the whipping boy."

Maybe "client" had been a weird word choice, Peter will concede. Just about the time he finishes hoping that his present company doesn't catch onto this, he does. Peter has no choice but to huff a laugh of acknowledgement.

"Funny, that's what they say about Jersey upstate," Peter responds, winking away the light from the sun. A step back puts Peter in the shade of a tree. His shoulder hits the wall as he continues, "My mom lives in Arizona. I spent 6 years upstate at school. And I liked New York waaay better than I liked Arizona." Mostly. For every giant that he and Jason bested, two more rose up in its place, both shouting the same simplifications of scripture as Divine Law. The same Law Peter remembers following to the letter, save for this one thing about him. He's been told it's the reason he won't feel God's grace. In a way, he still believes it.

None of these things are on Peter's mind when he takes the joint. He wonders if Tanya would comment on how well-rolled it is, or if she'd get all OG stoner on it and nitpick like she rolled the first one ever. Lucas would probably say, "it doesn't matter if it does the job."

"Could I borrow your lighter, please?" Peter asks, reaching for it with his free hand. Something in him asks once more if he's sure this is a good idea, and Peter once again drowns out that little voice in a push of an exhale. "What do you mean? Like getting coffee and stuff? What kind of studio?" Peter hasn't seen a lot of Darrow-centered art of any kind, save for Beth busking in the park. Well. And when he'd sang to Jason too, he supposed, but Peter wants to be where art is being made -- he feels like his heart needs it.

"I never said I was from Upstate," Kavinsky said, but he slipped an accent that was all Jersey City, all practically Manhattan at that point, that East Coast timbre of delis and Italians and Jews, rather than the small Orthodox community on the coast that in central that he'd lived in for a few years before his parents' separation.

He listened to Peter talk about the difference between Arizona and New York, but it was oblique, left him wondering if there was something more there. Were his parents separated, like Kavinsky's own, or was Peter's mom single? What had brought him out from Arizona to New York? Why would you give up the sun, even if it was in Arizona, for upstate New York or all places?

It didn't matter really. Kavinsky took out his Bic--the novelty he carried with him, the one Prokopenko had gotten for him, with the pretty art of the flirty girl that Proko had found funny but that Kavinsky only kept because it was a gift from him, and not for the art itself--and handed it over without any fuss.

"Recording studio? Like, CDs and shit, I guess. I dunno, I'm the front desk jockey. I make coffee, clean, pretend like I am capable of basic human interactions. It pays. Boss isn't half bad." Beca was pretty good, actually, even if she was a little strange.

Peter can't help it; he reacts to the lighter with a quirk of his brows. Peter thinks he may have just met his first straight guy in Darrow. As he lights the joint (gracelessly and with a tell-tale lack of muscle memory), he reminds himself that he of all people shouldn't be quick to judge.

His first pull on the joint is careful and cautious; he's not even coughing when he returns the lighter to Kavinsky's hand, save for a sputter or two at the burnt taste. Peter thinks about the way it feels in his hand, how the smell takes him back to that last month at St. Cecilia's -- being Lucas' roommate instead of Jason's. The smell calls back loneliness and a certain amount of strength in honesty. He takes another drag off of the joint and definitely comes up coughing, this time. Lucas would say, hey, you don't cough, you don't get off, and being armed with this platitude makes Peter grateful once again.

Peter tries to say "cool" of Kavinsky's position at a recording studio, but the word is obscured. He takes a few breaths and tries again. "That's gotta be pretty cool, right?" He laughs in good-natured, self-effacing sort of way. "That's probably not something you would have found at home? In not-upstate, right?"

Kavinsky saw Peter's reaction to the lighter and there was a moment, a split second, a breath, where he thought he might explain its origins or meanings to him. It past, as brief and fleeting as the flicker of the flame that lit the paper itself. He took the lighter back after Peter had lit the joint and lit his own.

He let Peter work on his breathing, mostly ignoring him as he sputtered--tried not to think about shotgunning with Newt and with Al, and the way they had both coughed the first few times the smoke had been in their mouths, unfamiliar and startled--while he lit his own. Muscle memory, basic practice, years of experience with cigarettes and various ways of smoking weed made him versed in controlling himself. Even though his was more densely packed, he didn't falter.

"Virginia," he corrected, and now he did a drawl, all coal mines and dirt farms and the Blue Ridge Mountains. "Jersey was the youths. Ol' Virginy was the last four years and change. But no, there weren't any recording studios in the towns I was in, they were both pretty small. Henrietta was way smaller than Brick, though."

Peter smiles at the change from dipthong to drawl and finds himself wondering what role it is that Kavinsky plays, why he feels the need to keep up a facade. Peter's done it for years -- in a way, he's still doing it. Calling Jason his boyfriend isn't hard but saying what he is, what he's always known, those words have never come out. He feels like he's tried. Yet, every time he gets close, he remembers that phone call to his mother where she wouldn't let him say it. Even though she was there for him at Jason's funeral, even though she held his hand and told him she loved him, he still can't say it. What does he have left to run from?

"Which did you like better?" Peter asks, pausing to take another hit and concentrating on not sputtering through the exhale. He is only moderately successful. "I didn't really want to leave Arizona, but I'm glad I did. My parents sent me away to Catholic boarding school from 12 to 18." And it was supposed to be Notre Dame after that, but plans change.

"I didn't really like either of them," Kavinsky said simply, and shrugged his shoulders. His voice had dropped back into the neutrality of the voice he normally used, something completely innocuous, devoid of accent but also laced with layers of it. He took a hit, then another, leaning against the tree with Peter as well, and was quiet for a long time.

"I'm an ESL kid with a years expired green card living illegally in the US. I didn't speak English well enough in Jersey to have anyone hang around me. When we moved to Virginia, mom enrolled me in a private school. Been there for years. Made associations through having whatever anyone could ever need."

He wiggled the joint significantly, and then shrugged vaguely. That was more he'd admitted to his history to someone than he'd done in a long time. Maybe it was because he was unlikely to run into Peter again; maybe it was because he had an innocent, trustworthy face (boys with that face tended to be the least trustworthy, in Kavinsky's experience). Either way, the words were out. There was no rectifying that.

The shift in proximity seems to herald a tonal shift and receptive, empathetic Peter follows along for the ride. Not that Peter had held much tension at the beginning of the conversation, but life's every day wear-and-tear seems a little further off to Peter, suddenly. A fourth hit on the joint coxes his further into his calm where he forgets how cold his fingers are. He feels fine, actually. Great. He's not even in too deep to start questioning it.

"I'd never have known you weren't a native speaker," Peter offers; he's content just to let the joint smolder lazily for a while. "Did you like it? Private school?" He considers the question for a moment before offering some of his own thoughts as a form of conversational currency. "I think I did. For a while. They always told us we were better than the others -- like they didn't say that, but we all knew they thought so. And we were on a straight track for Notre Dame. They really made us believe we were a cut above the rest." His regret isn't as troublesome to him as what it took to place it there. "I didn't like that very much. And I hated being away from my Mom." He pauses, before confessing, "at the beginning." The never-spoken truth of this tugs at the corners of Peter's mouth in a contained sort of half-smile.

"I'm good with accents." He'd had to get good with accents, and fairly quickly, when he'd been young so that he could avoid ridicule in school. The other kids were much less likely to pick on his syntax and lack of knowledge of words if he at least sounded like them.

They stood close, under the tree, with their shoulders nearly touching but not quite, and Kavinsky listened to Peter's oblique story of upstate New York and Catholic school and a stream line to Notre Dame. Picturesque. Not quite unlike Aglionby, but not totally similar either.

"Ours was mostly old money secularist," he said. He'd been new money, like the rest of his group. All immigrants, first or second generation, strange scowling outcasts with enough faked confidence and eerie imposition to have a cult following. "All boys school. Politicians sons and soon-to-be CEOs and up-and-coming entrepreneurs and all that kind of horse shit. Townies hated us. Faculty hated us. Best and the brightest. We're all expected to get into Ivies or Southern Ivies or transplant to the West for, you know, Stanford or some shit?"

Kavinsky was quiet a second, then snorted, before taking a drag. Around his held breath, he grumbled, "All boys school part wasn't so bad. Except for,"--he exhaled, shaking his head dramatically--"Except for the whole rural Virginia part of the equation."

As it turns out, Peter's quickly drawn-and-dismissed judgement had been wrong, anyway. Swirling in lazy little circles around his head (with many other feelings, most of them pleasant) is a smug sort of satisfaction from the instant gratification of practicing what he preaches. This lack of hypocrisy is part of what has driven him so far away from the Catholic church -- a loss that makes him feel no lighter.

"All-boys and secularist. Sounds like a dream." The second part is only said in bitterness and the first is very well-meant. Peter's feeling just loose enough to thing that not having Ivy around may have improved circumstances, not taking into account how asinine a notion that is. In their Parable, there is usually an Ivy.

"I was going to go to Notre Dame, like I said, but--" Fuck, there's so much to say. And he feels like he wants to say it all, like if he gets it out, his heart may feel light again, even thought he's tried and failed before. For the sake of this unsuspecting dude that just wanted to share a bowl, Peter goes for simple. "I withdrew. I was on a train to appeal the decision to waitlist me for Berkeley and the train stopped here."

He feels good. Really good. He's enjoying the company and the weed. This could be the first time Peter has ever enjoyed being high. He takes another slow, deliberate hit to celebrate this victory.

"What was planned for you? If you got out? Or did you already get out before getting here?"

Kavinsky laughed a little and, probably for the first time in a long time, he didn't offer any sort of token protestation. It didn't matter what he was or wasn't, really, when it came to who he found attractive. Anything was going to wind up a disaster.

"Big difference," he said mildly, "from what I understand. Knew a guy from Cali. Never asked why his folks brought him out to Virginia. Aglionby was good, but it wasn't that good, ya know? There were plenty of other places to go. Whatever, I guess. Mysterious circumstances, coincidence, blah blah..."

He considered his joint for a second, and took a couple of quickly successive hits as he tried to think about what to say. How much truth was worth it? How much truth was he willing to expunge from under his skin? Sometimes, it was nice to go through the rites, he supposed. It had been a long time since he'd felt unburdened; the Orthodox didn't have confession like Catholics.

"It was summer, when I left, but fall when I got here." He laughed, a bit bright for the first time in days. "What a fuckin' trip, man. Balmy ass Virginia morning in July, and I show up to some October shit. Break between my junior and senior year."

Here it was. Here was the line to tow. He physically brushed it into the dirt, tapped his shoe against it, warmed his fingers with smoke and breath. "Biggest plan I had was how to manage to kill myself without anyone getting to own my death after I was gone. No loose ends. Still haven't figured that one out. So. One more year's coming up in February."

All it takes is Kavinsky's laughter for Peter to settle against him, shoulder-to-shoulder, now, and maybe Peter is anticipating needing the anchor. He's now coughing from hit five, the joint isn't even halfway smoked and the headchange is undeniable. Several seconds pass before Peter wonders how long he's been watching the smoke swirl and dissipate into the late afternoon air. His eyes snap to Kavinsky.

"What kind of mysterious circumstances?" Could they be like the mysterious circumstances that landed Peter across the country with the unspoken intention of praying the gay away? The irony of that fiasco is definitely not lost on Peter.

Once that line that Kavinsky flirts with for a few moments has been crossed, Peter's brows tell the tale of his slowly-dawning understanding before his mouth does. It takes him a moment to process this conversational whiplash.

"What?" It's all he can manage to ask, really. There's no judgement in it, but rather a healthy dose of empathetic curiosity. Jason won't talk about his suicide. For all intents and purposes, they live their lives like it never happened. That doesn't mean Peter's forgotten, though. The dreams he has won't let him.

"Mysterious circumstances like me," Kavinsky said with that same sort of deadpan laughter. "Bulgarian kid, no reason to wind up in dirt farm coal country Virginia, except my parents split up and, bam, mom says 'Henrietta seems nice'. What the hell? Ain't shit in Henrietta. Ain't shit for fifty goddamn miles, at least. The only thing there is Aglionby and repression."

There was more to it than that. Cosmic energy, the dream place, his father's death and rebirth at Kavinsky's hands. Maybe the spirit of Ronan Lynch had unwittingly called to him across time and space, kindred spirits only not. It didn't matter.

Peter's concern or confusion or empathy, God forbid, gutted Kavinsky for a moment. He felt shell like, fragile, around his eyes and refused to let it settle under his skin. He'd spent the whole last week feeling like tender, over-ripe fruit. It was exhausting. So he shrugged, took another drag on the joint, held it until his lungs burned for fresh air and then held it a moment longer. He exhaled through his nose, a bilious dragon.

"Which part is that what for?"

"You know which part," Peter says, still soft with compassion and patient in a way that most teenagers simply cannot commit to. Peter knows what it is to wait: he waited for Jason for six years. In a way, he's still waiting, since Jason won't actually be his boyfriend in public. Their circumference of his sphere of comfort has grown, but it stops at friends' parties and one kiss in front of their complex, and to earn that, Peter'd actually had to serenade him.

What he's running out of patience with, though, is standing. His body is starting to feel dense lethargy, pleasant but insistent. So, he slides down to sit and tugs Kavinsky down by the hand to come with him. They've started down this road and Peter wants to see it through.

"What do you mean 'own' it?" Peter asks, not totally able to say the word, since he's still pretty markedly not dealing with Jason's. He wonders if he should say something about why he cares -- to mention to Kavinsky that this isn't the morbid curiosity of a doe-eyed schoolboy, but Peter also figures that Kavinsky likely knows that. Peter doesn't bother hiding too much now that he doesn't have to.

Kavinsky rolled his eyes--or was half way through rolling his eyes when Peter decided to sit down, and pull him along with it. He made a slightly undignified noise, though he managed to not burst into complete laughter. He was not nearly as graceful in sitting himself down as Peter had been, half-crashing onto his ass, but he managed to keep his joint lit, and that was the most important part.

He hummed a little bit, trying to figure out how to explain his particular brand of suicidal, his particular brand of broken. The deep seated hysteria, the manic and depressive tendencies that were only made worse by his erratic drug use, the noisy brain. How much of it was his parents and how much of it was just home? He didn't know any more. It didn't reaally matter.

"I didn't want anyone to be able to look at me, to look at my death, and go, 'Oh, that was because of me' or 'I had a hand in that' or something, you know, unless someone killed me. And, like, that was a real possibility, man. Shit. Just some faggot beaten to death with a tire iron on the side of the road--wouldn't have been hard, I was running with four other guys, and they were all a bunch of--like, none of them knew I was--"

He scrubbed his hand through his hair. "I didn't want people to keep having power over me even after I was fucking dead. That's shitty. That's fucking bullshit, man. But I'd almost been killed--people killed, man, like," he held the joint between his lips and pounded a hand into his fist with a significant look, "seriously, twice by the summer I was fifteen."

When Kavinsky cracks, so does Peter, a breathy laugh that bubbles over the seriousness of the topic. The ease with which the moment is able to thrive is comforting to Peter, though, and another weak pull at the joint culminates in an exhale Peter can relax into. Now he feels like he may be better equipped for this journey.

Peter knows the power of a word. That word in particular. He'd seen it carved into lockers, scribbled onto paper, and heard it hurled like a weapon, sing-songed like a joke. From classmates about priests, celebrities, other classmates -- himself. And Jason. Before. And most likely after. He knows all that, and still the word has a percussive effect; it nearly makes him jump. What it does is wind his shoulders. He wonders how many times his new friend has been the subject of this particularly violent word that he could spit it back the way he had.

Peter remembers the fear of violence. A few times he'd been railed on by some of the older kids when he was younger, before Peter really knew what it was that made him feel so different from the other kids. Meeting Jason had stopped the loneliness but it took Jason's straight-acting bullshit to make the actual hurt stop; a lie to stop the hurt was the lie that started everything else and effectively ended Jason's life. Because of a word. That fucking word.

Peter's shoulder finds Kavinsky's again, this time in solidarity. His sentences are getting shorter, more disjointed, and while Peter doesn't think the guy is coming totally unhinged, just hearing these things makes Peter want to feel comfort, so he offers his to the person who has the burden of remembering them.

"That's... fucked," Peter concludes, and while it's not a word that frequents Peter's vocabulary, this seems like a particularly appropriate time. He's also aware how painfully lacking that word is for just how terrible it all is. The fucking South. "But here? It's different here, right?" Jason is alive here, so Peter hopes that this place has been as kind to Kavinsky as it has to him.

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