A Refugee's Face

It's not really that there are more kids now than there were before, or that he's around them especially more. Ripley was two now, and he still saw her a lot. Magnus and Alec had a kid, and she was fucking fantastic and he'd loved meeting her. There always seemed like there were kids, and sometimes Kavinsky was in mind of his sister more than others, how he'd had more hand in raising her than his mom did. It was just the way that it was, he supposed.

The house was not empty, by a long shot. There were the two of them, and the cats, and sometimes Kavinsky thought about just coming home with a big, square-headed, mean-looking dog that would fit who he had been three years ago when he showed up here but also who he was now, sweet and loving and stupid. All of it was nesting in this house, this home, that they'd made theirs. He wondered when he'd started getting this way, but not really. He knew when. They'd gained and lost, and lost, and Kavinsky hated losing people.

But they had each other, and the house was more than big enough for the two of them, and their cats, and sometimes--sometimes Kavinsky's heart was really big and really full. But you couldn't just come home with a dog without your husband doing more than rolling his eyes.

He set a bottle of beer on the porch railing as he watched Newt in the garden, and leaned a little. No time like the present. "What do you think about kids?"

It was such a little thing, in the grand scheme of things. They'd been working on refurnishing the house since they got out of the hospital, basically, and things were just about back to rights, and now things were decorated too for the season. That was nice, and as it should be. Kavinsky had pulled out of savings, substantially, to make things happen, but when it got down to it the house was paid, and they lived rather comfortably with their stipends and their jobs, so it was alright. Buying a replacement truck for Newt's landscaping business had put a dent in things, but it had been a comfortable purchase, and Kavinsky had felt okay with that.

Purchasing a car for himself had felt strangely daunting. He'd never actually done that before. His car had always been a dream, had always been that Mitsubishi Evolution, except when it had been the Ferrari he'd won in a bet when he first got here. There weren't a lot of dealerships in Darrow. There wasn't a lot of need for them. He had very limited choices, and he was picky.

So when he saw it, the car, his heart stopped a little bit. He was worried a little bit that it was a dream. Bone white and terrifying for a second, heart stopping, gloriously boyish even with that stupid hatchback. No, it didn't feel like a dream. And besides, Kavinsky hadn't dreamt in almost a month.

He drove it home, and the VW Golf sang under him, and he could have wept for it. It was almost the same model year that Prokopenko's would have been, because Darrow was terrible and wonderful like that. Newt was going to give him a look for that, probably, if he mentioned it, somewhere between sympathetic and stern. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd just laugh that Kavinsky was driving a hatchback.

He parked in the driveway, next to the truck, and breathed in the smell of new car.

Kavinsky had never been bothered by wasps or bees or other insects like that, so the first time he dreamed of the giant black wasp he wasn't afraid of it, or particularly invited by it. As with all things that could sting you, he gave it a wide berth in the dream. In Virginia, you had to learn how to coexist amidst the things, living under each others skins in the oppressive summer heat, and Kavinsky had been stung enough times to know how to avoid that. But he was not afraid of it.

The moths though.

Kavinsky could not explain his fear of moths. Butterflies were colorful, skittish, a thing that was rare and beautiful and dreamt of smoke. Moths were a flurry of half-rotten odor in a closet of a pungent house full of stale air, truth or dare in the dark and little flashes of light in the torch light dare, dare, dare. They were all the sad memories of his mother's moth-eaten wedding dress in the back of her closet and her screaming at him in a drunken stupor. Little flutters on his skin in the dark on the edge of a substance party, too fucked up to say no. Kavinsky couldn't say why he was so scared of moths but they made his skin crawl.

The first night he dreamed of moths they were in his mouth. He could feel them beating their wings against his teeth and his tongue but his lips were sewn shut, and then, in the dream, the moths climbed through the stitching, one by one, and onto his face. He wanted to claw his own skin off.

But it was the next night that was worse. He dreamt of the forest, which he had not dreamed of in ages. It felt different. And he felt, as he wandered, a strange hollowness under his skin. He itched at it. There were bumps on his forearms. That happened from time to time, and Kavinsky--impulsive as he was--had a terrible habit of picking at them. He did. He gouged at the bumps with his thumb nail as he walked and the strange feeling of hollowness under his skin changed a little bit because, as he picked, he suddenly felt crawling.

He looked down.

There was a moth, wriggling out of the hole he'd made from the bump in his arm.

Kavinsky woke up slapping at his arms, violently and viscerally awake.

Summer was in the works, and Kavinsky was grateful for it. He'd been busy, running around like a mad thing to get the concert put together in time for the Fourth, and it was exhausting. No wonder Beca had ended up needing an assistant.

But today was just for them. It was balmy out in the garden, and Kavinsky had all the windows open for a cross breeze. He was refusing to put on anything more than soft, light cotton lounge pants, migrating in and out of the house to enjoy the sunshine and nibble food sporadically. His freckles were starting to really come in dark, smatterings of constellations across his arms and chest.

On one of his crosses he caught Newt around the middle and pressed a kiss against his ear. "Hey, I love you."

In the aftermath of poor decisions, Kavinsky was trying to be better. He didn't really know what better looked like. At the moment, it looked like the studio and his house, his husband and the cats, and giving two of the people that meant the most in the world to him the space they deserved to deal with what he had done.

Peter was a nebulous concept to him at this point. He didn't know what to do about that whole situation, and so he wasn't thinking about it. But after the botched attempt at reaching out to Jack, he'd been giving everything the space and quiet that it needed.

He couldn't fix this by trying. All he had to give right now was his patience, and since he'd been in Darrow, that patience had become infinite.

So, he worked. He spent time with Newt in the last planning stages of their party to celebrate their marriage. He went to church on Sundays, but it felt raw and unreal.

And, today, he was meeting with Jack. Kavinsky didn't think he'd been this anxious about seeing him for months. But there it was: fingers jittering with his keys, knee bouncing sporadically as he waited for him. Part of him thought that maybe Jack would blow him off, decide he wasn't worth it. Kavinsky would understand. He felt, largely, the same way.

He was upset, and well fucking aware that he had no right to be. He'd made this for himself. It didn't stop the aching hurt in his lungs, the burning misery behind his eyes. It didn't stop him from feeling wounded and cut loose. He tried to just accept it. He'd never been good at rejection.

So he was going to drown it out. Liquor and smoking and pills and being numbed to the bone seemed like a good way to deal with the feeling of wanting to lay down in a ditch and let the roots of the world grow over him.

He had no right to be this upset.

He put his headphones in his phone, turned up his music until his ears ached a little bit. The tequila bottle was heavy with liquid, but that would change. The reefer in his hand would burn down to his fingers, and he'd be fine with it. He opened all the windows so the smell wouldn't clutter or effect the cats.

He just didn't want to feel right now. He had a right to that, at least.

They weren't far from the apartment, because Kavinsky had only just been coming from there in the first place. He kept close to Jack, sort of thrilled, because it was months since they'd done something like this, something that wasn't just hanging out together in places where they could be held accountable to their actions.

They went up to the penthouse, and almost as soon as they were in the door, Kavinsky hauled Jack in and kissed him hungrily. He'd been thinking about it every time Jack looked at his mouth in the cafe, and now that they were alone, he finally could.

"Strip," he growled against Jack's mouth, hand coming up to cup his throat gently.

It was lazy, and early enough that the crowd wasn't very big, and Kavinsky was jittery with nerves. Newt hadn't actually said when he was coming, just that he was, and that was half of the appeal of this. At the same time, Kavinsky wished he had a little bit of something to go off of, a little foundation so he could quite fidgeting between sets.

He checked his phone. Nothing since he'd told Newt that he was heading into work.

All he could do was do his job, he supposed. And it was his turn to get up there, to be consumable, to be desirable. Kavinsky liked doing this. He knew it kept him good and honest. The attention boiled under his skin pleasantly, the control he had of when and how he showed himself off. And, if he was honest, he liked this variety of showing off.

His music started. He let the anxiety of not knowing if and when Newt was coming wash away as he started to dance.