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ashintheairlikesnow · 8 months

Text

Everything Good

CW: Self-hatred, victim-blaming, referenced past noncon, Kauri does so love to get drunk when he’s sad doesn’t he, some big old angst

Follows directly after Antoni and Kauri’s fight here, happens before/concurrently with Who You Are Looking For

“I told Jameson in confidence,” Antoni is saying, the words finding their way through the white noise slowly overtaking Kauri’s mind. His hard jaw and hard eyes and hard voice all combine to give away what he’s really saying, underneath the words. I didn’t trust you enough to tell you. Kauri opens his mouth with some retort but it falls apart, nothing comes out but air. Antoni speaks over the silence. “I did not tell you, or Jasha, and that was my choice not to tell.” Antoni’s voice is hard as granite, and Kauri can’t breathe as he feels the inhuman stone shove itself down his throat. Unfeeling. Uncaring. “I am sorry it hurt you that you did not know.”

No, you’re not.

Everyone says they’re sorry, no one ever means it.

It always happens again-

“Do not ask me again.”

Kauri isn’t sure if he even remembers how to blink. His heart pounds in his chest, so loud that it beats inside his ears, and he can’t say anything. He realizes with start that he is terrified of Antoni’s anger, that he understands that Antoni is the most dangerous person living in this house and Kauri has said and done all the wrong things for the last time. He manages a thin, stammered, “Ant-”

“I am ashamed of what was done to me,” Antoni snaps, a look on his face like a sneer. Loathing. Kauri is shit on his shoe, needing scraped off or dissolved with bleach. They’re supposed to be partners, but then again, when has Kauri been loved without pain?

Jake loves you.

The thought doesn’t land. None of them do, not with that look on Antoni’s face.

Antoni turns away from him, and it’s like slamming a door in his face. Like when Derrick would grab him by the arm and shake him for being so fucking stupid, why the fuck did you do that and Kauri never had a good reason. He doesn’t have a good reason now.

Antoni could hurt him for this. Antoni and Jake and Chris are never, ever supposed to hurt him. They’re the ones he can trust not to.

Antoni, a man carved of marble and painted in shades of furious anger, has a stare that burns holes through Kauri’s thin armor. “Is that not enough? Must you make it worse?”

Kauri swallows the rocks in his throat and lets them come to rest somewhere in his chest, behind his heart, a weight of guilt he can’t carry alone, but alone is what he is right now. Antoni looks at him like he’s been wounded by Kauri knowing this, when Kauri should be the first person people know will understand. Of course he understands. It’s the one thing he’s a goddamn expert in.

“... I-... I didn’t mean-” His voice catches in his throat, thin and reedy, and Kauri winces and tries again. He takes a step back. Antoni doesn’t notice him putting space between them. Even Kauri is barely aware of it, the instinctive self-protection. Please don’t hurt me for making you angry. “You don’t have to be ashamed of-”

“Yes, I do!” Antoni smacks his hand down on the countertop and Kauri flinches, but Antoni wasn’t looking at him. He doesn’t see it. Kauri takes another step back. “It was shameful!”

Blood rushes to Kauri’s face, a sudden burst of heat. His fingers, though, are freezing. His lungs feel cold. Granite has become a glacier, a weight of ice he can’t possibly resist or dig his way out of. His mind scrapes against ice walls as thick as canyons are deep. “Don’t say that.”

His voice is a whisper.

Antoni turns to look at him and it’s an expression Owen has shown him so many times Kauri could draw it with his eyes closed even now. A look that Kauri can hear, the words spit at him with Owen’s righteous anger, his judgement, the way he could hate Kauri and love him all at once. You stupid slut.

If Antoni hates him for it, too, then what was the point of ever leaving?

“... I, I don’t have to be ashamed-” His voice is a thin whimper, and Antoni smacks the countertop again. This time Kauri stumbles back against the wall, his eyes locked on Antoni’s hand where it lays, fingers splayed, on the laminate made to look like stone. Just a thin layer of imaginary strength over wood so easily broken.

“Stop it!” Antoni stops. Takes in a breath. “Stop. This is not about you. Not everything on earth is about you. This conversation ends now.”

Kauri has never, ever dreamed that Antoni could look at him like this. Disgusted with him. Loathing him. God, he must hate Kauri for what he’s done, for what he is, if he can hate himself for having to live with it. Hating himself because he ever, for even a second, had to have the same life Kauri did. He swallows, thinking he can apologize, he can be good, he can talk his way out of this. If he can just be sorry enough, they can make this go away, like it never happened. “Antoni-”

“I said it ends.”

Antoni walks away.

Kauri’s mouth is still open, but all he sees is Antoni’s back as he disappears down the hall. The room isn’t empty, though. It’s full of the weight of Kauri standing, once again, alone. This time he isn’t fleeing Owen’s rage and the hands around his neck, the realization that he can’t survive it if it keeps getting worse.

Instead, he’s standing here alone because Antoni doesn’t want him.

“Makes sense,” He whispers to himself. Guilt rages, tears him apart from the inside. He’s just skin stretched over self-loathing. Kauri takes a deep breath, steadying himself, closing his eyes. Then he pulls his phone from his pocket and dials a number he meant to block a long time ago, but never could quite bring himself to. Just in case.

He’s honestly surprised when Westin answers. “Kauri! Long time no fuck around! How are you?”

“Shit. It’s all shit.” Kauri’s voice still won’t rise above a hoarse whisper.

“Oh, damn. What’s wrong? I thought you were all married and settled and shit now.”

“I-... I am-” I think I am, he says, but then tries to shove that thought away. Even if Antoni doesn’t want him, even if he’s ruined everything by not knowing how or when to shut his fucking mouth, Jake will still love him.

Won’t he?

God. He can’t make Jake choose between them. Antoni’s objectively the better choice, anyway. He’s better with the rescues, he’s a good cook, he never makes demands on anyone for anything at all. There’s no choice to be made, Antoni is always going to be the one who wins out. If Kauri gets picked it’d be out of pity.

Wouldn’t it?

“Then what’s up?”

“Uh, my. My, um-... Look, tonight sucks. You got anything?”

“Kauri. Gorgeous. Light of my… fucked-up early twenties. I always have something. You want to come over?”

Westin’s nice. He has an apartment he pays for in cash because you don’t pay taxes on the kind of money he makes, the way he makes it. Kauri hesitates, because he shouldn’t. He hasn’t, not in years. He had thought he’d grown out of running for something to wipe out his mind when it’s overwhelmed by fear.

But he’s never been afraid like this.

“... Uh-”

Chris peeks into the kitchen. His wide green eyes meet Kauri’s, below the shock of lavender hair with copper roots starting to show. He’s wearing a gray hoodie that drowns him and black pants with holes at the knees that Kauri honestly can’t tell if they’re jeans or leggings. Or both. He realizes Chris has shoes on. “Kauri? Is, is, is everything-”

Kauri grabs his arm, not so much thinking as just acting on impulse, the way he always does. “Come on. We’re going out.”

“Wh-what? We are?”

“Yeah.” Kauri puts the phone back to his ear. “Westin? You still there?”

“Yeah, eavesdropping shamelessly. You coming over?”

“Nah. Can I meet you outside of the Dolph? You know the place?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. I love that place. You slept with the bartender, didn’t you?”

“That was like a decade ago, Wes. He’s probably not the bartender anymore.” Kauri heads down the steps, Chris’s arm still in his hand, the younger man stumbling after him confused and uncertain, but willing to go wherever Kauri takes him. Chris, at least, won’t ever look at him the way Antoni did. He isn’t fucking physically capable of it. No matter what Kauri says, or does, or thinks, or feels.

“I mean, I know, but just-”

“I did. I think his name was Jerome. Or Jared?”

“Jerome. Definitely Jerome. Jesus, that guy was stacked like a fucking…” Westin trails off, lost in thoughts. Or memories. “I don’t know. He definitely didn’t wear the right size t-shirt though.”

“You get bigger tips that way.”

Kauri half-shoves Chris into the car and gets himself into the driver’s seat. Jake’s metal music blares at first, but Kauri smacks at the volume button until the sound is silenced. “We’ll be there in half an hour. Can you bring me something chill?”

“Some, something chill?” Chris’s eyes widen, then he looks… unaccountably sad. “Kauri-”

“It’s fine,” Kauri says, waving a hand in Chris’s face without looking at him. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, I can do that.” Westin’s voice goes soft. “You going to be up for some real fun tonight?”

“God, no.” Kauri still loves the way the word ‘no’ sounds in his own voice. He went so long without remembering how to say it and not fall apart. “Had a shit night. Just… half an hour, the Dolph, something good.”

“Got it. Hey, I always wondered… is the Dolph named about dolphins, or Dolph Lundgren?”

“... yes.” Kauri hangs up before Westin can say anything else, hitting the gas hard enough that the car jerks forwards and Chris grabs, a little panicked, at his seatbelt. “Whoops, sorry. Haven’t driven in a while.”

“It’s, um. It’s fine.” Chris’s phone vibrates and he checks it, wincing as if what he sees hurts him. “Uh, Jake, um, Jake wants to, to to to know, um, what, what happened, uh-”

“Tell him we’re going out.” Kauri takes a left turn too sharply, throwing Chris against the door. It occurs to him he probably shouldn’t drive when he feels like this, but fuck it, he doesn’t care anymore. Why not? He can drive the way he feels, and maybe it’ll help unstick the ice in his chest. “To dinner. To talk.”

Chris swallows. “... are, are we going out to, to, to dinner?”

“Well, the Dolph is kind of a dive-y bar and serves some pretty fucking awesome fried food, plus a real shitty take on a garden salad, so… sure. I’m buying.”

“And… and, and and and, we, um, will we… talk? About-... about what, what happened-”

“Once I am high off my ass and don’t care anymore,” Kauri says, taking another turn. He can see the blue sign marking that the interstate is coming up, now. Merge there, drive a few miles, get right back off. Head into an unassuming up-and-coming neighborhood where cute little boutiques vie with murals spray-painted on walls twenty years ago and left to fade with time and weather. Find the bright blue door with a light over the top. Go inside. Order drinks, swallow pills, and breathe.

He’s done it a thousand times before.

He can do it again.

It always helps. Or at least, it always holds off the pain long enough for Kauri to find a way to run from it.

“Kauri, please, how, how, how how how can I get home, if, um, if you get… high, again, you, you you you haven’t done that in a while, are-... can, can we talk before, um-”

Kauri glances sideways, and feels a brand new wash of self-loathing when he sees that Chris looks worried, even a little scared. Of him.

He merges too hard and nearly sideswipes a semi. The guy blares his horn and Kauri flips him off and speeds past, changing lanes. It’s begging for something to go horribly wrong, flirting with an accident or injury or death. But fuck it, what does it matter?

“I think Antoni stopped loving me tonight,” Kauri says, voice flat. He’s proud of the way it doesn’t shake. “I think I deserve to get high again tonight. You get me home safe. Everyone goddamn wins, right?”

Chris clutches his phone like it could save his life. “Antoni could-... could never st, stop-”

“Yeah, maybe not with other people. But I have that very special talent, Chris, I can make anybody fall out of love with me just by being myself. Just by being who I am. Just by being… being what I was. What we were. Right? We don’t change. Once a stupid selfish slut, always a stupid selfish slut, right?”

He realizes he’s accidentally included Chris in that estimation a moment too late, when he glances to the side and sees the look of profound hurt on his sort-of little brother’s face.

Great work, Kaur-Bore, you did it again.

“Oh, shit, Chris. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s, it’s okay,” Chris whispers. He’s rocking forward and back, his fingers scratching at his jeans, running along the seams. “It’s okay. I, I, I think it sometimes, too. Once, um, once a, once a-”

“No. Not you, Chris. Never you.” Kauri holds a hand out, and Chris takes it, even though he can’t stop rocking, keeps his other hand moving. “That was a shitty thing to say, and I shouldn’t have said it. What if I promise I’ll eat something before I start drinking, and I won’t have more than three drinks and one of whatever Westin brings? How’s that sound?”

Chris squeezes his hand. Someone honks - not even at him - but it reminds Kauri that his exit is right there and he has to take a hard swerve not to miss it. Chris lets go to put his hands in his hair and lean over, eyes closing tightly, breathing in gasps. “Kauri!”

“It’s fine, it’s okay.” Kauri soothes, both hands back on the wheel, hitting the brakes so they come to a sudden jerking stop at the light, waiting for it to turn green. “See? Look? I can’t even go very fast on this road. We’re almost there, I swear.”

“Okay.” Chris rocks forwards and back, forwards and back. His hands slip under his hoodie, and Kauri knows without having to see that he’s tapping, soothing himself with sensation that settles his fraying nerves, just like always. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“Okay.” Kauri nods, and as he forces himself to ease down the road instead of flying, he rubs at Chris’s back with one hand. “I’m sorry. I’m scaring you, aren’t I? I don’t-... I don’t handle this shit well, but I bounce back, I promise.” He lets out a bitter brittle laugh, startling himself a little. He hasn’t laughed like that in years. “Enough people tell you you’re a piece of shit and make it clear they can’t love you after, you get real good at letting it roll off your back.”

Chris hesitates. Kauri can see that he’s thinking. The quiet draws out between them as Kauri spots the telltale blue door and pulls into the parking lot, easing around the grass growing through the asphalt cracks, stubborn weeds that refuse to be destroyed by the conditions they have to grow in.

“... did he, he, he say that?” Chris asks, softly. The bass from the music is echoing out of the bar, and Kauri closes his eyes, letting his forehead rest against the steering wheel. “Kauri? Did, did, did Antoni say that, uh that he he he doesn’t… love you? Anymore?”

Kauri keeps his eyes closed.

“He didn’t have to,” Kauri whispers. It’s funny. He’d thought his voice would shake more, saying it, but he finds that all his fear is draining away. Falling down into the white light that lives so far back inside his mind, but always finds its way back out. “I know the way he looked at me. I’ve seen that look so many fucking times. And if Antoni can’t love me, who can?”

“I can.” Chris whispers it back, and Kauri turns his head without lifting it, watching Chris looking back at him, half-smiling. “Jake can.”

“... nah. Even he’s gotta give up the ghost eventually, right?”

Chris looks too solemn, too serious. It shatters Kauri’s heart. “You, you, you aren’t a ghost.”

Kauri could laugh. He could laugh until he ran out of air and blacked out right here, laugh until all the pain is hidden deeply enough that no one remembers he ever felt it but him. “Aren’t I? I’m not handling the love affairs of the guy who used to own my body super well, am I? Just keep fuckin’ it up. Jesus Christ. I’m such a piece of shit.”

Oh, good. The tears are back.

His voice gets thick and wet with them, and he has to hitch in breaths to say anything around a closing throat.

“I’m such shit. Antoni didn’t want me to fucking know because he knows I’ll just make it about me, and I did! I made it all about me and my problems and my bullshit. He lied to me because he knew I can’t take knowing that my life is something other people would rather die than admit to having lived, so I make it about me and I’m awful and I don’t even goddamn blame him for hating me now. I’m a piece of shit and a bad partner, and Saint Jake can’t keep swooping in to save me. Eventually the goddamn martyr’s going to realize he doesn’t have to die for my stupid fucking sins, and then he’ll tell me to get my ass out of the house and give him his ring back so he can give it to somebody else better than me."

Chris is silent. Doesn’t matter.

It isn’t really him Kauri’s talking to anymore.

“I ruin it. It's like my biggest fucking talent! I ruin everything good. I get a good thing and I fuck it up, I always have. All the way back to the man who I used to be, I bet he sucked at relationships, too. Bet he did. That’s why I’m like this now, it was already there, and my shitty fucking life has only made me worse. I thought I was getting better. Therapy, and not drinking so much… but I never got any better. Jesus. Who’s going to want me, huh? Who’s going to want a washed up whore who can’t keep a relationship together with the two most patient men on the entire fucking planet? Why can’t I stop myself from doing things I know are just going to make it worse? Why can’t I ever stop it before I fuck it all up again?”

There’s a pause.

"Why can't I ever remember I don't want to until I've already done it and it's too late to stop?"

Chris’s hand is warm against his back, suddenly, rubbing up and down. Offering him the same comfort he had given a minute ago, and Kauri shudders, forcing back a sob - or a scream - trying to find its way out.

“I love you,” Chris whispers. “As, as, as your brother. Your, um, your friend. I, I I I love you, and you, I, I mean it.”

“Love you too.” Kauri’s voice is wry, so thin it’s a single human hair stretched nearly to snapping. “I’m sorry I dragged you out with me, Chris. You probably had other plans, huh?”

“Not, not, not important ones.” His voice is a shrug. “I, I, I know how you, you, you feel.”

Kauri huffs. Is it laughter? He can’t even tell. “Do you?”

“Yeah.” Chris’s voice is low and sincere. “I, I, I think that a, um, a lot. That, that, that I’m only going to to to to… mess it up. That, that, that I always… I always do. Because I, I, I can’t-... have, um. With them. And I can’t… sometimes I get so, so scared of, of, of… of-...” He trails off. “Of it all. Of me. Come, come on, Kauri.”

Kauri looks at him, and Chris offers him a soft, sweet smile, leaning close. He smells like his shampoo, and laundry soap, and beneath all of that, the simple specific human Chris smell. “What?”

“Let’s, let’s, let’s go inside.” Chris leans over, impulsive and quick. Kauri feels his lips against his hair, warmth making its way down through the wild black curls, before he pulls back again. “Jake texted and, and, and said he’ll talk to, to, to to to Antoni. We, we, we can stay out for a, um, a while. You always, uh, always feel better… dancing.”

Well… he isn’t wrong.

“I guess you know me pretty well,” Kauri says, shifting back, rubbing at his eyes to get the last of the tears out, glancing at himself in the rearview mirror. In the dark, his eyes being reddened won’t be so obvious. He tries on his best, most glittering aren’t I the most gorgeous fucking thing and so humble too smile. Still looks good.

He always looks his best when he’s ready to shatter, after all.

Nobody looks as good getting torn apart as you do, Kaur-Bore.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. Banishes Owen’s voice from his mind. “Okay. Let’s do this.” He steps out of the car, and Chris gets out on the other side. They pause, for a second, looking at the blue door. The light above it. An unobtrusive rainbow sticker pressed against the brick beside it.

“Three, um, three drinks,” Chris reminds him, leaning sideways to bump his shoulder into Kauri’s. “And one, um, pill or… snort? Or whatever?”

“I don’t snort,” Kauri says wryly. “Anymore.”

“You, you, you weren’t doing pills either, though?”

“... Fair point. You win. Fine. One pill or snort or whatever. Three drinks. That is all. And I’ll eat some dinner first so it doesn’t hit me so hard.”

“Then, then, then we’ll… figure it out. Yeah?” His head leans on Kauri’s shoulder, lavender hair halfway up his nose when he turns and has to sneeze and then they both laugh. For a second Kauri thinks maybe he doesn’t need the pill, anyway.

But it’d be rude, if Westin drives all the way out here…

“... Yeah,” Kauri says, softly. “Yeah, we’ll figure it out.”

The blue door opens, and Kauri winces when he hears what’s playing inside. Tell all the English boys you meet, about the American boy back in the States - the American boy you used to date, who would do anything you say…

“Shit. Forgot that it’s Wednesday.”

“Um. Why?”

“Wednesday is a slow night. They let the guy who manages the bar control the music, and he’s… well. He plays shit like this.”

If you say you ever missed me then don’t say you never lied-

I’m without you-

“It’s, it’s, it’s not bad, though?” Chris follows him as Kauri heads for the door. Inside, there’s not exactly a crush of bodies, but there’s a good few dozen men of varying ages, trending older than they do on Fridays and Saturdays. Chris is one of the youngest guys here.

“Oh, it’s not that bad now,” Kauri says, winding his way towards the bar, Chris’s hand in his. A few people still remember Kauri and waves or call out, and he waves back. Lots of Kauri! Haven’t seen you! How’ve you been! You good, man? Oh hey, you’re here! He doesn’t stop to flirt. “Just wait, though. Just wait until he gets super drunk later and starts playing Taking Back Sunday.”

“Starts, um, starts playing… is, is, is that… church music?”

“Oh my God. I love you so much, you sweet tiny baby child.” Kauri throws his head back with real, genuine, open laughter for the first time all night. He orders something candy-colored for himself, plus a burger and fries. Chris gets a vodka and soda and cheese fries.

Chris looks baffled, but Kauri can’t stop laughing, and when he pulls Chris close for a hug, the younger man never hesitates.

Kauri holds him tight, and thinks to himself that even if Antoni never wants to look at him again, he can survive the loss. This time, there’s someone who will hold him while he figures out what to do next. Someone who will stand next to him and listen as the music changes. The crowd, such as it is, takes it as a sign to go order more drinks. Just a few couples stay dancing.

Oh, you're silent but strong Yeah, I'm playing that card And you're noticing nothing again

Now I'm lying on the table with everything you said Keep that in mind, the way that it felt When the most I could do was to just blame myself

Kauri laughs again. He can’t stop, until his laughter is nearly a sob itself. His cheeks are wet, when did that happen? His knees nearly give out with the hilarity and the hurt swelling inside of him. “Oh my God. It’s goddamn Taking Back Sunday. Dan’s drunk and sad early tonight. Join the fucking club, I guess."

Well, I know you know everything I know you didn't mean it I know you didn't mean it Kauri hums along for a while. "Wow, this music is way better when you fucking hate yourself.”

“What?”

Now I'm lying on the table with everything you said It will all catch up eventually

Kauri shakes his head. “Never mind. Just… don’t let go. Don’t let go, Chris, please.”

Well, it caught up and honestly The weight of my decisions were impossible to hold But they were never yours

“I won’t.”

They were never yours

They rock to no beat in particular and nobody’s hands wander, no one whispers filthy things in anyone else’s ear. He doesn’t even want the drink that bad when it comes.

He will, in a minute.

But right now, it can sit on the bar sweating condensation while they move, side to side.

Stop everything Start it all over Remember more than you'd like to forget

Kauri is crying, but his head is buried against Chris’s neck, and Chris only tightens his arms. Kauri is drowning, his head dips below the water.

Chris’s arms are strong, though.

When Kauri gasps for air, he finds it.

If Antoni can’t forgive him, he’ll keep going. Kauri always keeps going. He’s always going to be fine, in the end, because he’s never had a choice. And if Jake hates him too and he has to be fine alone, well, he can do that.

Although Chris makes him think maybe he won’t have to.

Drop everything Start it all over...

----

As always, @autophagay, this is for you

@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlin-always-writing @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @whumpyourdamnpears @cubeswhump @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @outofangband @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

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ashintheairlikesnow · 11 months

Note

You don’t have to write this if you don’t want to, but there’s an idea that has been on my mind lately and I just need to get it out there and share it with someone. Lately I’ve been thinking about a whumpee sitting in the passenger seat of caretaker’s car, being driven home after caretaker picked them up from the bar. Under the influence of alcohol, whumpee starts casually rambling about the fucked up shit that whumper did to them, all of which caretaker was completely unaware of. Whumpee wasn’t normally the type to open up to them. Caretaker is horrified, while whumpee is too drunk to even notice caretaker’s stunned reaction.

CW: References to domestic violence, drug use, derogatory self-talk, Kauri being a Drunk Mess. Takes place early after Kauri starts coming to the safehouse.

"I said, 'Oh my God, look at that face,'" Kauri sings, voice husky and cracking, boneless against the passenger seat. "You look like my next mistake-"

"Annnnnnd we're not listening to this," Jake interrupts, leaning forward to switch from the random dance-pop playlist to his own personal one. Kauri's glimmering smile fades into an overwrought pout in response.

"Boo. You have the worst taste in music."

"I do not. I just don't want to listen to you drunk-sing Taylor Swift, that's all. Not again. Last time you cried."

"Excuse me, Jakob Stanton, that was a private performance and you should be glad I didn't make you pay for the concert of the century." Kauri kicks his dirty Vans up on Jake's clean dash, crossing his legs at the ankles. He drops his right hand down to pull the little lever on the side of his seat, the back falling backwards until he's nearly lying down. "Not my fault I get carried away with emotions."

"Ever tried not doing that?"

"Yeah." Kauri smiles again. Jake pretends not to glance sidelong to watch his eyes move, like he can see the stars right through the roof of Jake's car. There's a hickey on Kauri's neck, bruising in the shape of teeth and tongue. Might be lipstick smudged on an earlobe. Kauri's own mouth seems too red in the dark, yellowed under the occasional streetlight.

It isn't the answer Jake expects. "What?"

"Course I tried. You think I let this pretty face be ruined by all those ugly tears before? It's in my training, you know. No tears unless he wants them, no screams he doesn't demand, nothing left that he didn't pay for. He wants a gorgeous face, not some asshole who feels things and has opinions."

Jake falls quiet. His music seems incongruous now, clashing with Kauri's soft voice. He takes a turn, driving out of downtown where he'd found Kauri giggling outside yet another bar, dancing with a group of people who looked just as wounded as he does.

He isn't as good as Kauri is at knowing, but he thought at least two of them probably had barcodes hidden underneath jewelry and long sleeves, too.

Romantics run away often, it's in Jake's literature. But they struggle once they're out. They don't know how to make a living. They tend to shoplift because no one showed them how to pay, they can't get a job anyway even when they know what to do. They get treated like shit and taken advantage of... and they go back. They're bad at hiding, at blending in. They get caught, or they go back.

"There's a lot in you that nobody made but you." Jake wishes he was better at this. He's still kind of new at it, and Kauri hasn't been coming around that long. He still has some bandages under his shirt, covering the fresh scar on his collarbone.

"Therein, Jakob, lies the problem." Kauri intones the sentence like a professor delivering a lecture. "Mr. Owen hated all those parts, because none of them were in the person I was supposed to be."

Jake tries not to grind his teeth too obviously. Mr. Owen. Fucking asshole.

"I tried not to feel things that I wasn't supposed to. I was great it, too, for a while. Even better at lying once the feelings showed up anyway. But that wasn't enough, because it was a lie and we both knew it. Love is just lying, for us. To ourselves. To the owners. To everyone. We don't really mean it. We don't know how."

Jake licks at his lips. They sit at a stoplight, and he wishes he'd told Nat to get Kauri instead. Or had told Kauri no, figure it out, it's late and Jake doesn't want to be doing this.

But Kauri called, and he came.

It's a bad habit he can't let himself get into, or he'll be who Kauri always calls on nights like this.

He hopes so, anyway.

"We lie." Kauri's voice is a haze, fog rolling in off the bay. Kauri sounds the way someone looks when they're far enough away that every edge has softened. "We manipulate, we steal, we plead and flatter and fuck like rabbits. And there's absolutely nothing underneath."

"Kaur, you know that isn't true-"

"Every time there was," Kauri continues, as if Jake hadn't spoken, "He hurt me, and then he put me back in my box."

The light finally turns green, and Jake presses down on the gas. "Your box?"

"My delivery box. He kept it, set it up against the wall. When I couldn't be empty enough for him, when he remembered it was all just the two of us lying to each other, he would put me back in it. In the dark... all by myself." Kauri blinks rapidly, and Jake sees streetlight gleam, dim and yellow, off the tears escaping the corner of his eye to soak saltwater into his hair, just above his ear. "Can't feel anything. Can't see anything. Can't hear anything. He'd leave me for hours. One time for-... for over a day. Once he even moved it around like he was sending me b-back."

"Holy fuck."

Jake thinks about that.

He thinks about the way Kauri flinches away from small spaces, sleeps outside because the doors don't lock when there aren't any.

"Jesus," He whispers.

Kauri doesn't seem to notice.

"I just got so tired of pretending I didn't feel it when he hit me," Kauri says, holding his hands up, looking at his own palms. The leather bracelet that hides his barcode looks like handcuffs at this angle, in what passes for light at midnight under nothing but tree canopies lining residential streets. "I couldn't keep it up and he couldn't keep remembering I'm not ever going to suddenly become Vincent fucking Shield, even if he killed me. And... and he was gonna kill me sooner or later, right? After the choking started, the..." He touches his collarbone over his shirt. "He was going to, soon. And nobody would care."

Jake swallows, hard. "That's not-"

"I almost didn't even care anymore, either."

There's no way to respond to that.

He just listens.

"I got so tired of being empty. I couldn't lie to him any longer. Couldn't keep lying to me, either. I'm a failure, a broken pet. I wanted to tell the truth. Just the one time, I wanted to tell the truth without being put in the box, Jake. I wanted to say that I could hate him more than I loved him. I wanted to get to hate him at all. But there's... there's a problem with that."

"Is there?"

What the fuck else can he say?

"Yeah." Kauri digs a hand into his pocket. He swallows something before Jake can stop him. Maybe it's just Tylenol to hold off the hangover. Maybe. Probably not. Kauri'd smile swims, uneasy and seeming oddly seasick. "The problem... is that the truth isn't what I want it to be."

"Kauri-"

"I am empty, Jake. I got away from him and there isn't anything in here. They're right. I'm not even a person. Just a face and a cock. Just the cold and the walls and... and the box."

"That's not true-"

"It's okay." Kauri, absurdly, lays a hand on his arm to soothe him. "It's okay. I don't even mean it. I'm just rambling, Jake. None of it means anything. I am so drunk, just ignore me, yeah? Just talking shit, that's all." He suddenly smiles, bright as any star, and jerks his seat back upright. "Hey, can we go to Burger King? I want some fries."

The sudden swerve of mood feels like driving right off a cliff but finding yourself suddenly flying a plane.

"What? It's twelve-thirty in the morning-"

"Drive-thru is open til one. Come on, Jake, please?" Kauri's eyes are absurdly wide, too blue.

Jake groans. "Yeah, fine."

Kauri claps his hands together with glee, half-lunging to grab Jake's mp3 player. "You're my favorite person on earth, Jake. Now, where is the list with the pretty orangey looking background color..."

Kauri keeps his eyes carefully unfocused so he won't read the letters. The guitar starts up for the first song in the list, and Kauri grins. Whatever he swallowed is already starting to work on him, pupils wide, wiping out so much of the gorgeous blue.

This time, Jake doesn't stop him from singing along.

@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlin-always-writing @thefancydoughnut @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @autophagay @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

#whump #kauri's poor life choices #writing #bbu #box boy universe #box boy #trauma recovery tw #recovering whumpee #runaway whumpee #escaped whumpee #caretaker and whumpee #erase to control #jake the shelter guy #drug use tw #alcohol tw #drunk whumpee

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