pillz | ic contact for maskormenace

Yeah. Strongest they got.

[ it's sure an idea for a club. his eyes lift to the ceiling, taking a heavy seat while. his eyes are on the water, getting lost in it for just a moment.

shit, he should answer. ]

Um... About a year, I think. [ yeah, you know what, he's just going to watch the fish. ] I ran away from the school when it happened, went totally off the grid. It got kinda hard to keep track of the days.

[kavinsky plants the golden boy on the couch. then he removes the smartwatch from his own wrist. just in case the sedating angle this custom e doesn't kick in, he's going to attach this thing to josh's wrist. there seems a low chance josh could go wandering with any real difficulty, but kavinsky knows something about

...stalking people? ...and he's using his powers for good this time, okay.] Sit here, [he says.] I'm gonna be right back.

[by now, the associations are probably getting a little loose. no doubt, josh remembers he was on about scott, about the darkest times in his life. but his body buzzes and his mind nips at funny little tangents. scott. scott's face smears into another, and a swimmer passes overhead, biceps jiggling. it's dreamy and far away. the connective tissue of one negative thought to another seems harder to follow than the fluid geometry of the swimmer's hands cutting through above.]

You okay?

[there's a vodka and orange juice hovering in front of josh. more vodka than anything, judging by the looks of it, barely a cloudy yellow.]

[ this is what he wanted and never got back home. a release from the chaos of his mind, staving off what could have been a truly awful explosion. he's supposed to be better, trying so hard to be better, but what is progress without a little backslide right? right. his eyes are on the bodies above him, the water, the bright gold flashes of little fish. ]

Yeah'm good.

[ just push it aside. let the dark go for a while. don't think -- can't think, taking the glass with a smile. ]

[strange, bad shit tugs at josh's gut, but the pill competes. it argues that the light is beautiful and scott is just a sound. that the story behind him, no matter how awful, is just a small thing compared to

to.

to what? this soft couch. to the cold glass in his fingers, the tasty drink inside, the ice bumping against his lips. the nice people talking to each other around him, leaving him his peace. to the tattooed fingers that suddenly grasp josh's ears.

kavinsky pulls josh's head until josh is turning to face him. he clunks their foreheads together. not hard, definitely not hard enough for josh to experience any type of pain, between his own superpowers and the druggles courseing through his veins. kavinsky's left eye peers deep into josh's right eye. his left eye peers deep into josh's left eye.]

Repeat after me, [kavinsky says.] 'Josh Foley is not ruined.'

[ he wants to argue. joseph didn't know him how he used to be, before he'd felt death. before he'd taken a man's life. before he'd taken a boy's. his powers were meant for healing, that's what laurie had told him, they never should have been used the way he used them.

the way he still immediately jumps to using them.

but kavinsky says that. and it's hard to focus on anything but the shape of the words as he says them, the color of kavinsky's eyes and how certain he sounds. he's not thinking of anything beyond this moment. his takes a steadying breath. ]

Josh Foley is not ruined.

Josh Foley is not ruined.

[kavinsky says it again. the drug does most of the heavy-lifting. the reality is, that the average day in pre-ruination joshua's life didn't actually feel this simple, this easy. serotonin races circles around in josh's skull. bad's just a word, like ruined; it doesn't stick. words words words.]

Josh Foley is not ruined.

[it's not entirely a lie. the way kavinsky knows it, the only way to be ruined is to be dead, and that's one thing that no import, especially not josh foley, can do.]

[ maybe. maybe not. who can say? he can't think beyond this closeness. keenly attuned to the workings of kavinsky's body. the pump of his heart, the push-pull of air in his lungs.
the ebb and flow of blood in his veins. he doesn't repeat it the second time, he just thinks.

then he huffs a little laugh. ]

You're, like, one of my favorite people here, you know that?

[why isn't joshua foley following instructions. maybe that's why he got sent to the death squad? no, kavinsky isn't going to say that. not that it would probably really bother josh, under the circumstances. bad vibes that would fade in a moment.]

You don't know anybody else at this club. No, I know what you saying.

[kavinsky releases josh's uncooperative ears and knocks the cocktail in his hand with his knuckles, urging josh to have another sip. (if josh were a normal person, he'd need a gallon of water.)]

That's a nice thing to say, Foley. You're pretty cool too.

[ that's an easy enough instruction to follow. no bad vibes here, go away misery. kavinsky said this stuff helps with like ptsd and stuff, shit, does he have ptsd? ah, nevermind, he takes another sip.

a thougtful sip. and then very belatedly: ]

And I'm not ruined.

[ but he is different. wasn't that what xorn always told him? different not wrong, not ruined. something new with the possibility to give that gift to other people. scott had said other things too. good things. like, he wasn't alone anymore, he had a team of people who had his back. total strangers, sure, but a team. and they were bringing back everyone.

his eyes drop to his hands. the bright shiny gold of them. the free one skims along the fabric of the couch. ]

... I'm not ruined.

[kavinsky can't follow the progress that josh's mind is going through, but he's saying the words, so... either this is obligation or some kind of phantasmic process is ongoing beside that shiny golden noggin. kavinsky downs half his own drink in one go.]

'Ruined' was just your emotion talking, man. When you're happy, you'll say you changed. When you're unsatsified, you'll say you didn't change enough. We try to say what we feel is true, [unless we're me, in which case we lie compulsively, but whatever,] but what ends up happening is we buy into what we say, sometimes, too. You can't go up your mommy's vagina again, Foley. [kavinsky props a skinny shoulder against josh's.

this would be a somewhat complicated concept to execute even with a companion who was sober. but it's fine. he knows the contact is important, the slow-changing ambient lights of this room.

josh is full-on tingles, by now. whoooossh, the cosmic highway. scott's still a bad vibe, but he's just a bad vibe, really. an 'urgh.']

What's words you like for people? What's things you like about 'em. [it's sort of fishing for compliments, but lbr, even kavinsky knows they don't super count from a person who's rolling.]

Gross, dude.

[ he doesn't want to think about his mom either. whoo boy, why is it ever parental figure (he remembers) let him down in such a spectacular way. But he feels good, this feels good, and Scott Summers can go fuck himself.

He leans comfortably against him. Biokinetic senses focused on all the signs Kavinsky is alive and well, and probably trying to heal whatever doesn't line up with their idea of "well". You ain't getting the flu any time soon, buddy. ]

Mm. I dunno... Cool? Put-together? Brave, uh, sharp dressers? Good with people... Good with words. Oh, man, and charming. I like so many charismatic assholes

[kavinsky laughs easily at that. he isn't laughing at josh, he's laughing with him. he feels pretty good right now. physiologically. you should always roll with a biokinetic, apparently. free healings, to go with the silly things that people say.]

What if, [kavinsky says.] What if you're describing yourself, huh?

[he touches the tip of josh's nose. boop! then grasps his chin, giving the golden boy's head a wiggle. he is himself not very brave. excruciatingly terrible with people. sporadically good with words, at best. mostly just offensive, at best, a good liar. but he does have nice clothes. that is a fact.]

You know what takes real courage, bruh.

Nah.

[ well. maybe. kind of. but in the way that he absorbs the best and worst traits of his friends like a sponge, because he's a follower and david alleyne can attest to seeing the dramatic wardrobe shifts he goes through, depending on who's calling his shots. ]

I am a charming asshole.

[ but he's laughing, not putting any resistance into the manhandling. ]

What's that?

[kavinsky lets go of josh's head. it's like flinging around a golden retriever. gold-plated retriever.]

Refusing to do shit out of guilt.

[kavinsky steals josh's drink out of his hand to take a sip, then pushes it back into the biokinetic's fingers.] Yo.

And I ain't saying that like you fucked up before. I'm saying it like it was too hard then. [and there might never be a next time. for better and not for worse, that shit doesn't really happen here, in this world. he takes a mouthful of his own drink.]

[ he considers it. leaning back against the couch again now that he's free from the reach of his hands, bringing the glass to his lips. ]

It wasn't...

[ that. yes it was. it's hard to hold onto the negative when he feels like this. he brings his glass back up to his lips, takes a long drink. guilt has a lot to do with it, but it wasn't that.

and then: ]

Life and death are two sides of the same coin. I can create and I can destroy... there's not really anything I can't do, other than die. What do you do when someone like that decides they're done playing by the rules? I could wipe humanity out in an instant by getting a little creative.

[ he swishes the glass. ]

I didn't want to join the X-Force because I didn't want to feed the part of me that showed up that day. I didn't want to know because I knew if I did... [ he gives a weak laugh. ] Who could stop me?

[whats an ex-force. kavinsky doesn't ask. 'death squad hit team thing, related to dude named scott,' he presumes. does it only have people who dated each other in it, or is it 'x,' like the 'x-men,' and also, is the x just a reaction to 'a-team?' what's wrong with 'a team.' x sounds algebraic. or xenophobic.

but that's neither here nor there.]

Very noble, Foley, [kavinsky says. there's no overt mockery in his voice. it is noble, for all that that matters in this world or any other.] So did you join because dude guilt-tripped you, or you secretly wanted to feed the beast after all?

[whatever it was, it feels terrible now. abstracted and fizzy, a prism containing a half-dozen rainbows projecting at different angles.]

[ god. he blows out a breath. ]

I saw some stuff I shouldn't have because they brought me in to heal my ex. Like... yanked me out of bed at school, took me to this creepy mansion, and then kept me there just in case. Rahne'd been overdosed with heroin - which you should never do, by the way - and she needed me. But she was... she was super messed up when she came to. Totally out of control. So they didn't let me go home.

[ he scrubs his forehead, like he's trying to remember. ]

Wouldn't let me leave or contact my friends. And Laura -- a friend of mine -- was like, yeah they'll probably waste you because you've seen too much. So I called in a favor with these psychic triplets I was, uh, friendly with. And they were all good to erase my memory, but...

[ but... ]

This dude was paid to steal something called the Legacy Virus. Its a plague that targets mutants. The next thing I know we're kidnapping this guy, and they're like, it's cool Josh you're on standby. And they were like, no, actually, give this guy brain cancer so he'll do what we want him to. So I gave the guy brain cancer.

Then when we were actually on the mission to get the virus back, Laura -- she got infected, and she was going to kill herself to make sure it didn't spread, and I... She tried to jump into molten metal and I grabbed her and burned the virus out of her.

[ ... ]

It wasn't a guilt trip. I just saw that if I wasn't there, Laura'd end up dying because nobody gave a shit or looked after us. Somebody had to watch her back... just kinda sucks that she didn't watch mine back.

[a server floats by, and kavinsky requests a blanket. they get him one. it's a big silvery fuzzy thing, like a soft boneless animal that wraps itself friendly around josh's shoulders. cuddles is good when you're rolling. blankets, yourself. other people is best, of course, but kavinsky isn't a terribly cuddly person and

he suspects he's not supposed to call laurie. not just yet, anyway.

kavinsky picks up a corner of the big hazy blanket. then he picks up josh's hand with his other, and meticulously wraps the little gold extremity up, until it's a nub like a baby seal's li'l flipper. he does this with the other one too. he holds josh's drink for him, but pauses before feeding him some.]

That chick, [kavinsky observes.] was a raging bitch.

[they all sound like raging bitches, really.

mdma doesn't usually fuck with a person's pronunciation. he really hopes that he's not mixing laurie and laura up, to some horrific effect. he squeezes josh's seal nub hand and then gives him a bit of vodka.] I dunno, man. Sounds like you guilt-tripped yourself, but what do I know, I don't got real friends. [he flashes teeth, nudges josh with his arm.] What was it, if it weren't guilt?

Don't say 'love,' Foley, [he adds, his eyes laughing.] I'll believe it's just the drugs talking.

Edited (I SHALL MAKE HIM SAY IT OUT LOUD) 2020-01-15 06:04 (UTC)

I just want to protect the people I care about.

[ oh dude. dude? dude. dude this blanket. we're going to pause the heavy emotional talk to pet this fucking blanket and not think about laura. distractedly petting the bits his fingers can touch. ]

We're real friends. [ he says, nudging back when he has the sense to. ] If you were in a bind? I'd do the same thing.

[ and the kicker: he'd known laura for less time than he's known joseph kavinsky. he barely registers how flat he is about all of this. partly because of the high, but mostly because mutants are all old souls who are numb to this bullshit. ]

[kavinsky carefully moves to insert the cup of alcohol in between josh's seal nub mitts. hopefully it will stay there and not end up all down josh's front. maybe?]

What, so I can be another sad footnote in your long-ass medical drama? [kavinsky asks, poking fun, gently, because it seems safe enough to do that right now.] 'I had Kavinsky's back. Sucks he didn't have mine.'

[that sounds like the tagline to every friendship he had in henrietta. even the ones that didn't end with a corpse laying facedown in a puddle of vom. but he's smiling; he doesn't mean it. not really.]

Conclusion: protecting the people you care about ain't worth it. But not doing it is even worse. I can live with that if you can, Foley.

[ he'll take baby sips like a toddler and we'll all hope for the best. he's kinda got this. ]

Not to get, like, extra depressing? But you've had my back more than most people ever have.

[ his life has been a series of disappointments, really. ]

I get why people don't act, or why things had to go down the way they do. Just, after, when they act like nothing happened? That pisses me off. Don't just act like it's chill. It's not chill.

[kavinsky suspects that most of the above-mentioned people would have given josh more if it were so easy to do so. kavinsky's material resources are functionally endless. would he be here if it weren't easy? if he hadn't come to realize that it was necessary, in some obscure way, for long-term happiness, a lasting satisfaction, beyond the short-term gratifications he were used to seeing.

one of those things he doesn't particularly want to find out. he doesn't look worried about it right now, studying josh's face.]

Okay. But right now it's chill, [he says.] Right? Look, you can kind of see that dude's dong through his-- wait, you're in a relationship. Don't look. [he reaches over to plant his hand over josh's face, his other one moving to shield the drink from falling.]

Edited (words) 2020-01-15 07:37 (UTC)

[ he laughs. maybe it's the drugs (probably) but being able to vent this shit to someone not directly involved in it is kind of liberating. ]

Dude! I'm a doctor. I see people's junk all day. [ it's slightly different at a sexy club when he's high as hell but you know. ] You don't need to protect my virgin eyes.

You're dating your dead ex, [kavinsky says.] If anybody's got a chance at rehymenating their eye virginity, it's you.

[but he drops his hand from josh's eyes, so that he can retrieve his own drink. half of it disappears almost immediately. he leans back on the slanting lounger, letting his knees skew apart. tips his head back to look up at the lights, fish, swimmers.]

I don't like it either. When people pretend nothing happened.

I'm gonna be rehymenating a lot more than just my eyes.

[ which is a ridiculous fucking sentence but, uh, regrowing people's bodies is in his future? so many people are gonna be revirginated. his brain to mouth filter is a little off right now.

said eyes are doing their best not to wander. but it's easy for him to focus on the fish and the patterns of light through the waves. but he pulls his gaze away to look at his friend. ]

You got that problem too?

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tw cancer, body horror, suicide

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