(no subject)

[thebloodyglue]

Something isn't right here.

Something's missing. Lately, it isn't unusual for Kavinsky to not come home (though he always texts, always checks in, always makes sure that he's got permission). Al, though. Al doesn't stay out. Al comes home.

Except he didn't come home last night and Newt wakes up hollow, wakes up sure that something's wrong. He does the dishes, tidies up, picks up his phone and checks that he's got no messages. He calls Beca, just to be sure, then realises that there isn't really anyone else to call. There isn't really anywhere else that Al would go. He texts Tris anyway. He doesn't hear anything back.

His heart feels like a shucking wound in his chest.

He pads back into the bedroom and sits down on the edge of the bed, which seems impossibly huge with just one boy sleeping in.

"Kavinsky?" he says softly. "Joe? Can you wake up a little, love?"

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[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky had woke up intermittently throughout the night, not sleeping well. He tended to be like that after the gigs that Poison put on, he was realizing, the sort of jittery he used to get after a substance party. But this was different, somehow.

When he'd finally gotten to sleep entirely, he'd slept like the dead, troubled only by dreams of water. So it was with a little bit of a start that he heard Newt's soft, concerned voice cutting through, waking him. He didn't come awake all at once, not physically, but his mind was alert.

He reached out a hand, searching for Newt's fingers on the mattress. "'m up."

[thebloodyglue]

He threads his fingers with Kavinsky's, squeezing gently, reassuring. He pauses for a moment before he speaks, gently stroking his thumb against Kavinsky's sleep-warm skin.

"Al didn't come home."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky let his eyes slide open at that, more instantly wakeful than his sleepy voice had let on. He looked at Newt only, didn't roll over to confirm. Al had a lot of work he did, and he was sometimes gone in the mornings. But there was something about that statement.

His stomach lurched a little.

"Did he even go out last night?"

[thebloodyglue]

"He never made it to the gig, but I figured he'd just been caught up somewhere else," says Newt, his voice quiet, bruised. "But he's not here this morning and I've called Beca and Tris and everyone else I can think of..."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky's stomach lurched again. He sat up on his elbows, twisting to look at the bed like maybe--

What was he expecting? There were the rumpled sheets, but they were not so rumpled to suggest anything more than their own two bodies in the bed. Newt had slept on his side rather than the middle, and when the two of them had climbed in last night, grappling to each other, had he just assumed that Al's familiar warmth was there?

There wasn't exactly a laundry list of people to call. Al didn't make friends very easily. Beca and Tris, maybe Noah, but in the end, the two of them were most of what Al had.

[thebloodyglue]

Newt's been holding it together since he realised, since the truth presented itself, but, when Kavinsky looks like that, something in his chest catches. He drops his head.

"He's gone, isn't he?"

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky breathed out, trying to rationalize the reality of this moment. Trying to come up with some explanation, some excuse, some thing that would explain.

"You--you called everyone? You got a hold of them? Maybe he just was out until after we got back and--and then he went to work?" Kavinsky's heart, his lungs, already knew the truth though. Al did not go out, stay out, unless he was with them.

"Maybe," he floundered, "Maybe it's like last year? Like...people were poppin' off, disappearin', but they--they all came back, right?"

[thebloodyglue]

"I called everyone," he says, quietly, taking his hand away from Kavinsky, but only so that he can pull his legs up, wrapping his arms around his knees. "I spoke to his job."

He nods. "Maybe. Maybe it got him again."

[mitsubishievo]

Newt made himself as small as when he'd remembered his sister's face. Kavinsky watched him. They were both telling themselves lies, trying to find the comfort in this moment but, ultimately, there was only one possible answer.

Kavinsky felt a little sick. He shifted, grabbed Newt's arms gently and drew him close.

[thebloodyglue]

He resists for a moment but then he folds in against Kavinsky, curling up against his side. He presses his face against his bare shoulder.

"Shucking hell."

[mitsubishievo]

He didn't want to say it. Newt had, but saying it again felt like putting it into the universe, felt like making it real. So he held onto Newt and rubbed his back, his arms, the curl of his legs, gently. He tried to work a life after this moment into every inch of him. They had each other. They didn't need much more than that, did they?