(no subject)

[thebloodyglue]

The days blur into each other. He spends hours sprawled on the sofa or curled up in bed, sleeping as much as he's awake. He doesn't shower as often as he should; he forgets to change his clothes. He gets drunk more than is sensible, too, going out to bars without telling Kavinsky that he's leaving, coming home without fanfare.

His mood is a weight on his chest that he can't shake so, instead, he sinks.

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[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky had dealt with depression. With his own, which was a violent monster, and with Newt's, which tended to be quieter. They'd dealt with it together and separately, and got through in the end. In this case, Kavinsky was prone to let Newt (and Charlie, who was dealing with his own shit after everything too) do whatever he wanted to do, because gentleness was good.

It was the third night that Newt had come home from some drunken bender or another, and that wasn't like him so much. Kavinsky didn't often bend to resentment or jealousy these days, but it did happen from time to time.

He let Newt sleep until there was some light up, and then tore open the curtains in there room, making an insufferable amount of noise going about.

[thebloodyglue]

Newt opens his eyes, squinting up at Kavinsky as he opens the curtains, draping one arm across his eyes.

"I'm going to remind you of this later," he says. "Don't think I'll forget."

[mitsubishievo]

"Well good, you'll be doing something," Kavinsky said, a tight-voiced grumble as he went around the room, picking up clothes that Newt had discarded at some point or another over the past days. It was cruel to pick, and he knew that. He wasn't feeling spectacularly sympathetic at the moment.

Which was, in and of itself, unnecessary cruelty.

He threw a pair of jeans at Newt. "Get up."

[thebloodyglue]

"What's the point?" asks Newt, fielding the jeans but making no actual effort to put them on. "I don't have to work today. Charlie's over at that Nick kid's place." He shrugs. "I'm comfortable here."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky knew that Newt was comfortable but there was still something frustrating about the whole thing. They'd done this song and dance. More than once now. And Kavinsky knew that part of his frustration was internal, that he hadn't been with Newt, or kept him safe, or figured out how to come for him. But that just made him feel more sharp and vicious.

"Yeah, well, you can be comfortable in the fucking car, too." He threw a shirt at Newt's head.

[thebloodyglue]

"You're a real shucking pain in the arse, you know that?" says Newt, groaning as he sits up and pulls the clean shirt over his head. It takes a minute or two to wriggle into the jeans. "You really can't just leave me be?"

[mitsubishievo]

"No, I can't," Kavinsky said, and stood there with his arms folded as he waited for Newt to put his clothes on. "You're getting your hungover ass out of bed, and we're going out."

[thebloodyglue]

Newt groans loudly, but he finishes getting dressed and shuffles off in the direction of the bathroom to at least brush his teeth and splash water on his face. He appears a few minutes later with his damp hair pushed back from his face.

"I'm going to need sunglasses," he says.

[mitsubishievo]

"Yeah, because you're fucking hungover." Kavinsky felt mean, and he didn't want to. It was born of a helplessness that he didn't like. They didn't often quarrel--though when they did, it was vicious--and Kavinsky didn't even want to quarrel, which was the worst part about it.

He stepped out of the bedroom like that would help. Forcing Newt to put up with his bad mood when he was already suffering wasn't a good way to go about things. He hoped the drive would help. He hoped a lot of things.

[thebloodyglue]

"Whatever," says Newt, rolling his eyes. He grabs a set of sunglasses, pushing them over his eyes, ruffling his hair back from his face. "Where are we even going so fucking early?"

[mitsubishievo]

"It's almost fucking noon, Newt," Kavinsky griped. The normal order of things ought to have been some kindness, some understanding. Newt was patient with him all the time. But Kavinsky didn't handle his emotions very well on the best of days, and this was far from the best. Several weeks feeling helpless and hopeless, this nervous inability to do anything, had turned itself into a black knot of anger that he couldn't point at fucking goblins any more.

He knew, a part of him knew, he shouldn't point it at Newt. The truth of his nightmares was they always went for other people first.

To shut himself up, he stomped out to the car.

[thebloodyglue]

Suitably chastened, Newt shuffles out to the car after Kavinsky, pulling a pair of shades over his eyes and pushing his hair back from his face. He gets into the passenger seat, slouching down low.

[mitsubishievo]

For a moment, they merely sat there. It took Kavinsky a moment to get back into the mindset. He didn't want to fight, but everything in him was seizing and miserable, and he never handled that very well.

It was a brief moment. He started the car and pulled out of their driveway, prepared for an aimless drive until he really did figure out what he could do to pull Newt even an inch out of all this.

[thebloodyglue]

Newt stares listlessly out of the window for a while, idly playing with the frayed edge of a tear in his jeans.

"I am trying, you know," he says, finally, his voice quiet and raw. "It's not enough, but...I am trying."

[mitsubishievo]

"I know that. I know." Because he did. Kavinsky roiled with frustration not because it wasn't enough or Newt wasn't getting better, but because he couldn't do anything about this. What was he supposed to do?

Be patient. Be kind. Love. The road scoped endlessly in front of them, and Kavinsky missed the backroads and the highways and all the long drives he could do.

"It's not--no." Kavinsky swore and pushed the Golf harder, faster. "I know you're trying."

[thebloodyglue]

"You need to talk to me." Newt clears his throat, his voice raw in a way that's painful, rough. "I can't...if I don't...We need to..." He lets out a long breath through his nose. "We're better than this, love."

[mitsubishievo]

"I'm trying," Kavinsky said. It was more of a snap, biting out over the end of Newt's words. He settled, slightly chastened at his own behavior.

"You don't need to deal with my shit right now," Kavinsky said. It was quieter, more docile. Their path, toward the forest, was more clear now, the road being chewed up before and behind them. "But I--you're always kinder than me. I don't know what I'm doing except just trying to get you back."

[thebloodyglue]

"I'm coming," says Newt, his voice still raw. Without looking, he reaches out and squeezes Kavinsky's thigh. "I really am, love. It's just...taking longer than I'd shucking like. But...I'm trying."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky shifted his hand to cover Newt's. He squeezed, tucking his fingers in tightly.

"I just want to be there," he said, softer, more gently. "I couldn't do anything, and this--it's shit, babe. It's really fucking shit. And that's not you, that's just..." He sighed. "The whole thing is fucking shit."

[thebloodyglue]

"You're right," says Newt. "It is. It's really fucking shit. And I hate..." He draws in a breath through his nose. "I hate feeling this helpless. I haven't felt this helpless in years. But...You're the light, Joe. You've got to know that."

He rarely uses Kavinsky's given name. He knows that his husband will recognise the relevance of that.

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky didn't feel like the light. He felt like a burden. He was trying, desperately, to keep this about Newt--what he needed, how he was parsing through everything that happened. It didn't matter if he was suffering too, because Newt was the one with the experience and all that.

They'd come a long way. Kavinsky was aching to make this whole mess about what he was going through.

He moved his hand off Newt's to cup the back of his head instead, giving him a gentle squeeze. They were almost out to the forest now, the edges looming in the distance. Being in there would help them both, maybe. Hopefully. "Almost there," he said softly.

[thebloodyglue]

"Where are we actually going?" he asks, leaning into the touch on the back of his head for a moment. "Cabeswater? Or just regular forest?"

[mitsubishievo]

"Cabeswater," he said. He hated calling it that, a word from another time and another place, but what else could he call it? The dream place. The forest. He supposed it didn't matter, in the long run, because it wasn't the forest it had been before the demon came for him and Ronan. It was something else now.

He stopped in a gravel pull-off, not far from where the edge of the normal forest blurred into the edges of Cabeswater.

[thebloodyglue]

"Are we doing our first date again?" he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He's not even sure if that was their first date, not really, because he gets the timeline of those first few months mixed up - at some point, he just stopped thinking of himself as separate from Kavinsky.

[mitsubishievo]

"No, but weed, ice cream, and fisting you is definitely the next attempt on my list," Kavinsky admitted with a sort of glib smile. That wasn't the first date either--more like a combination of their first meeting and the end of his first nervous bender after he realized he felt something.

He pulled Newt close to him, when they were both out of the car, and leaned their foreheads together like he could just absorb the terror and trauma of his weeks in captivity. Like he could impart of Newt how lost and terrified he'd been.

"Come on," he murmured. "I'll dream you some birds."