mitsubishievo | Raise a glass to freedom, something they can never take away [post-GAPS]

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Raise a glass to freedom, something they can never take away [post-GAPS]

Kavinsky was glad that he'd had a couple of days to rebound, following getting home. Al had made sure that Beca knew he was back, but there'd been no reason to go in over the weekend. So he got days and days to lay in with the boys, to enjoy the quiet comfort and closeness, to make sure he still had his job at the club--he didn't dance, but they were glad to know he was alright--before he went back to Arch Studios.

He drove. It was nice to do that again. His car had been at the club, right where he'd left it when he'd been picked up, and after he'd dreamed up new house and car keys, it had been easy, at least, to deal with that. He couldn't bring himself to dream up any of the rest of it: the fob for the Mitsubishi or his dumb keychain or the locker key or the key for the Studio. Some of it was nostalgia that hurt too much; he could have, but it all hurt too much. The others, the keys, were because it was a responsibility thing. People had trusted him, like he'd never been trusted before, and he'd betrayed that by getting his sorry ass kidnapped and losing his keys somewhere and there was nothing for it.

So he picked up coffees and treats and drove to work. Monday was bright and sunny like the world hadn't been a disaster for almost three weeks. He showed up early, knowing he'd be there before Beca, and waited with the coffees on the hood of the Ferrari.

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Al had told her that Kavinsky was back but that doesn't take the edge off the shock when she actually sees him. She'd been walking and text him and, when she looks up and sees him sitting there on the hood of the bar, she spontaneously bursts into tears. Completely immediate - from a standing start to full on ugly, snotty sobbing.

"Oh, Jesus," she manages to get out. "Not again. Fuck."

"Hey," Kavinsky mumbled, and pushed off from his car, stepping toward Beca. He managed to laugh, just like he would any other time Beca burst into tears over absolutely nothing, just like he hadn't been missing for weeks.

"God, that kid's got your hormones all out of whack, boss lady. Jesus Christ. C'mon."

"Shut up," she says, walking into him, her face pressing against his chest, her arms slipping around his skinny waist and locking in the small of his back. She doesn't even care if he hugs her back. She pushes her face into his shirt and she sobs because, honestly, in the back of her head, even after Al texted her, she never expected to see him again.

Kavinsky rocked on his heels for a second, letting Beca cling to him. He wrapped an arm around her after a brief, uncertain moment, rubbing her back, shushing her gently. He said all the quiet, right things; all the it's okays and I'm heres that needed to be said right then, that he knew needed to be said.

He squeezed the back of her head gently. "C'mon, Bec, you're covering my shirt in snot here. And it's a decent one, I look like a respectable adult shaped thing here."

It takes her another minute or two but, eventually, she does manage to pull back, wiping her face with both hands as she looks up at him. "Shit," she says, sniffing, shaking her head and half turning away from him, digging in her purse for her keys. "Jesus. That's so freaking embarrassing."

"Hey, no more embarrassing than Al practically smothering me when he finally crawled into bed the first night I was home. You're just not tall enough to do that."

He turned back to the car and grabbed the coffees, then ducked into the passenger seat for the bag of pastries. "So, how much are you gonna kick my ass when I tell you I might have lost my copy of the Studio key?"

Right then, she's pretty sure he could confess to anything and she'd still forgive him. She opens the door to the studio and steps inside.

"If I don't have another one around here somewhere, I'll get you a copy cut."

He followed her in, quiet for a moment. The front desk of the studio seemed as it had all those months back when he'd first walked in and said he'd heard she was looking for help, and she'd sat him down and given him an impromptu interview. Everything was exactly where it ought to have been. He didn't know why he expected any different.

He set the coffees down and then pulled one out. "Medium single shot vanilla breve for my favorite knocked up boss lady who is still letting me work for her even though I was gone for almost three weeks. And I got rugelach."

"It's not your fault you were gone," she says, quietly. Now that she's calmed down, now the tears are gone, she just feels sort of bruised and raw. Her chest hurts a little. She sniffs and rubs the end of her nose and then sits down in the chair behind the front desk, starting to dig through the bottom draw. She knows there's a spare key in their somewhere.

"Hey," Kavinsky said. He put the coffee down on the desk, on top of the schedule ledger with a quiet, authoritative thump. He didn't wait for her to look up. "I didn't say it was my fault, because, for one, I hate taking responsibility for shit, so even if it was, I'd find some way of wiggling out of it. I was just--thank you."

He was quiet a second, then rolled his eyes. "Don't worry about the key right now, okay? I'll look for it later. Go drink your coffee and pretend like you actually do anything around this joint."

When she'd heard he was back, it hadn't even occurred to her that he wouldn't come back to work and him saying thank you just makes her feel weird and unnecessary. Frowning, she nods. She doesn't stop looking for the key. She's felt like she was in flux for weeks. This at least she can control.

"Yeah," she says, distracted. "I mean, obviously."

Kavinsky continued to stare at her, quiet as she kept rummaging around. Something twisted up in his chest, but he carefully kept it there, off his face or his shoulder, just letting it live between his ribs like an ivy vine. He pulled back a little pulling his own coffee off the carrier and taking a sip. It was still piping hot.

"Okay, preggo, the silent treatment is officially weirder than the crying. I do the magical appearing shit, not the mind ready shit."

"I didn't..." She pauses, staring down at the mess of a drawer in front of her. "I was so...." She looks up at him, and she's not going to cry again, she really is not. "I don't know when I started caring so much about you but..." She shrugs. "Here we are. I'm not great at it."

"...yeah, me neither," Kavinsky said, soft and honest for a moment. It left them on an even keel for a moment. They both knew that this had not been a strictly professional arrangement since the beginning; he'd gotten the job through Al's friendship with her, the grapevine of nepotism. But this was different. They'd worked out their own space for each other, not just here in the office but in how they affected each other.

"I don't have a lot of friends, so." He shrugged. "And, there we go, I was the first one to make it weird."

She's never really heard him say anything in that tone of voice before. She gives him a smile. It's shaky, but it's definitely there. She draws in a shuddering breath.

"I'm just glad you're back," she says.

He was glad she didn't agree that he'd made it weird, or call him out on it since he'd called it out first. He matched her little smile with one of his own, nodding a little bit.

"Yeah, I'm glad to be back."

"Aha." Beca pulls a key out of the drawer and offers it to him. "There you go, dude. You're official again." She holds out her hands expectantly, waiting for him to haul her up off the floor; she might have a long way to go yet, but she's starting to feel unwieldy.

Kavinsky came around to the other side of the desk, grabbing Beca's wrist gently and helping her to her feet. He knew she didn't really need it, she was only just starting to really show, but he didn't begrudge her the assistance. It was the least he could do. He took the key from her and put it onto his diminished key ring, tucking all of them back into his pocket as soon as it was on there.

"Now I can sneak in on your days off and rearrange the furniture to fuck with your pregnancy brain."

"Don't you dare," says Beca, wrapping his belly with the backs of her fingers, a fond tap more than anything. "You're supposed to facilitate my life being easier, not just turn up and be an asshole."

She reaches for the coffee and takes a sip. "This is really good."

"I'll make sure I follow the feng shui flow or some shit when I rearrange the furniture, then. Also, when did I ever promise not to be an asshole?" He sat on the edge of the front desk and picked up his own coffee again, grabbing the pastry bag and digging in to pull out one of the little rugelach.

"That's because it's made with half and half. I got chocolate ones because I figure everyone likes chocolate."

"I do like chocolate, and I don't like anything anymore," says Beca, hopping up to sit next to him, leaning in to peer into the bag. "Hey. You know what we should do this afternoon?"

There's no books. She hasn't opened the studio properly in a week.

He angled the bag toward her, even as he set it down between them. He wasn't surprised with the implication of a slow day. With a good part of the city holed up--kidnapped or just hiding for fear of retribution, it seemed like--there probably hadn't been a lot of people coming through the studio.

"If it starts with 'record' and ends with 'Kavinsky', you're getting Bulgarian rap." He only meant that half seriously. He smiled a little bit, sipping his coffee quietly as he munched his pastry.

"You could sing for me once," she says, taking a bit of her pastry. "Because you love me and you want me to be happy." She glances up at him, eyebrow raised. "Come on."

"You hear me singing around the studio all the time, I don't know why we need a hard copy of any of that shit," Kavinsky said with a gusty sigh. It still wasn't a no, not like any other no he'd given her before when she'd needled him about it since she'd discovered that he had a voice on him.

"I don't even know what you'd want me to sing."

"Because I can't sample you singing around the studio all of the time," says Beca, reaching for her coffee. "And you can sing whatever you want and I'll make it work."

"Bulgarian rap," he said, mostly teasing now, grinning wide. He slid off the desk and sipped his coffee, then grabbed the pastry bag off the desk as well. "Show tunes. Old school Orthodox hymnals. Primordial Lovecraftian Eldritch chants. C'mon, boss lady, we doin' this or what?"

"Asshole,"says Beca, but there's real fondness in the tone of her voice as she picks up her coffee and trails towards the smaller studio, which the both know is her favourite.

Kavinsky hadn't actually been on the microphone side of the studio before, except to clean and reset between clients while Beca was finishing things up. It was different to step into a booth by himself. He tried to ignore that it was soft and quiet, that he could hear himself, a bit--not the way he had in that damnable room, but similarly discomfiting in a way.

He put the headphones on. "I better sound fuckin' dope, okay."

"Fuck you. Don't question the quality of my work," says Beca, sliding into her seat in the booth. "Have you picked what you're going to sing yet?" She glances up at him as she starts to get her board up and running.

"That was more my quality of singing. Do I have to tell you what I'm singing, or can I surprise you?" He grinned at her through the glass, the facade of confidence firmly in place now that he'd told himself it had to be there. He'd performed in front of his congregation, in front of people that came to see the choir. He could perform in a box for a microphone.

"You can sing whatever you want," says Beca, slipping her headphones into place, not really looking at him because she's not entirely sure whether focused scrutiny is going to help him. "Whatever. I'll make it sound good. Just try and make it something that won't sound ridiculous as a sample."

"I make no promises it won't sound ridiculous," Kavinsky said with a laugh. It had been years since he'd sung a capella for anything other than casual enjoyment, and he was pretty sure this was going to be pitchy and awful. But he'd settled for English, so there he was.

"Wake up, say good morning to
That sleepy person lying next to you
And if there's no one there
Then there's no one there
But at least the war is over..."

It definitely doesn't sound ridiculous. He's got a beautiful voice, a little throaty, a little nasal, but not too much of either. He can hold a tune; his pitch is good. The look on his face when he sings is something Beca hasn't seen on him before.

She just sits back and listens to him singing.

Getting toward the end of the song, he glanced over to the booth, to Beca watching him. Without backing music, this was going to be a strange transition, but he held up a finger to let her know that he was going to do a transition.

He was quiet a few beats, making sure he had the pace right in his head, before he start.

"Hey yo
I sit back with this pack of Zig Zags
And this bag of this weed,
It gives me the shit needed to be the most meanest MC on this,
On this earth, 'cause since birth I've been cursed this curse to just curse..."

The part of Beca that thought that No Diggity was a good choice in the Riff off appreciates his choice. She smiles a little, adjusting the levels accordingly, miming applause through the glass of the booth.

He smiled, managing to keep his pace and rhythm with the rhymes even as he mimed tipping a hat at her. It wasn't the most complicated rap he could have gone for, but it was one of the ones he knew the best, and it had felt right, in the moment. So he was glad it came across well.

When he'd finished, he pulled back from the microphone, taking off the headphones and making a face as he lifted his hands in silent question.

Beca applauds again and then gestures for him to come out of the booth. She tugs her headphones off and hits play-back. Kavinsky's voice fills the booth.

"Not too shabby, huh?"

Kavinsky slipped out of the sound booth and into the recording booth with Beca, sliding into the other chair beside her. He cringed a little at his pitchy warble, the way that he tried to carry along the tune as best he could. It was the best he could, he suppose. When it got to the rap, it was considerably better.

"I'm so out of fucking practice, man."

"Shut up. You sound good," she says, smiling. "If I play this for Jesse, even without doing anything to it, he's going to try and recruit you."

"You are definitely not allowed to enlist me in his boy band after I disparaged boy bands at his after party," Kavinsky said. He smirked though, just a little it felt like normalcy, like acting like nothing had happened or like everything was okay. He could live with that, if he had to. He was used to acting like the world wasn't a fucking catastrophe, what was doing it here as well.

Without any intention behind it though, he said, "I saw someone who looked sort of like you, while I was--gone."

"Jesse would be Doug the enlisting. Not me." She smiles, shaking her head. When he says the next part, she takes her hands away from her board altogether.

"Jess. You met Jess."

"It would be your dastardly deed causing the whole fiasco, Beca. Don't throw me to the harmonizing man-wolves like that." He nudged her, gently, and gave her a smile. He liked Jesse, had no problems spending time with the guy, but his days of singing like that were definitely behind him if he had any say in the matter.

He nodded when she acknowledged who he was talking about. The exchange he'd had in that place had been a bit blurry, was still a little bit. But her face had stuck out. "Yeah, Jessica. She was being some real touch shit when I saw her and stuff. I haven't looked her up since I got out yet."

"It's weird, right?" says Beca, leaning back in her chair, combing her fingers through her hair. "I think of her like a sister, kind of? But you've got one too, right? Thuggy looking kid. Limp. He's..." Beca flexes her biceps. "Bigger than you."

"Way to rub it in," Kavinsky said, rolling his eyes a little bit. His weird doppelganger guy was just--well, weird was about all that covered it. He'd been getting a little bigger lately, thanks to dancing, but it wasn't much, really, not much at all. He was never going to be someone big like Al or anything, but it was interesting to see what could be with his body type, he supposed.

"She seemed like a good kid," continued Kavinsky, steering back to Jessica, because that seemed a better topic than his own doppelganger. Safer, anyway. "A little straight laced, kinda black-and-white on the details. But good."

"I think I freak her out a little bit," she says, putting her foot on the edge of his chair to push hers back and forwards as they talk. "Or I did at first. But, like, I never had any siblings? So it's kind of nice having her around." She glances at him. "You too, loser."

"Having a doppelganger is kinda freaky, man," Kavinsky pointed out with a shrug. He'd had siblings--sibling, singular--but that was different than looking at someone who wore your face but was nothing like you at all. He was eternally grateful that there only seemed to be one person, each, wearing Newt and Al's faces. They were good faces.

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Raise a glass to freedom, something they can never take away [post-GAPS]

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