ｕｎｔｅｔｈｅｒｅｄ

“And yet you’re still here, I knew there was a reason we were friends.” 

“Family doesn’t get tossed aside?” Kevin repeated, “so me growing up in an orphanage, that was what? Not getting tossed aside? Or just not being worth having a name? A family?” Ezri and Carter had both been kept by the woman who ran their orphanage but people had wanted them. No-one had wanted him. Not with the medical issues he’d had. “family always does that until they need something. That’s how it works. That’s why I speak to my parents now, that’s why Carter came back, why Ezri stayed. I never wanted to be my parents son but the second I needed their connections, I became that. Family is always about need. That’s the only way it works.” He knew it was a vile thing to think but given his life, there wasn’t much flexibility on the subject. Especially not after he had lost the family that he had built. “I’m not a vampire! I’m a person, I’m a person whose family had no problem with my feelings or me collecting baggage when they needed me to.” He was angry but that in itself was a sharp diversion from him not caring about his feelings at all. “I know this is my fault, okay? I made my choices. I loved the people I did enough to protect them even from that. I was fine with all that self sacrificing, I wasn’t angry--I wasn’t anything. Okay?” He didn’t know why he wanted her to understand, why he was desperate to make it clear that his anger wasn’t just who he was, “I was supposed to die in the hospital when I was born. I was that sick. I came that close. I only got named because I had to have one so I could be baptized before I died. Anything that came after that, I wasn’t supposed to have and no-one ever let me forget it.” Least of all himself. How people had treated him, how they looked at him--how Ezri had acted around him, all of that was fine so long as he didn’t have any self worth. “I believed them. I let that happen. How am I not supposed to be angry about that?” he questioned. Kevin had done terrible things, but there had always been something in his core that let him push on. That gave him something close to hope. “I am always going to have baggage. This is never going to go away,” he said pointing at his chest, where his worst sins were etched into his skin. “it’s a part of who I am,” he continued, “it was all for them, all for the people I loved--” he didn’t want to continue but the words wouldn’t stop, “I helped Ezri become what she is today,” he said, dropping down hard onto the couch, “I protected her and now she’s this--this selfish, blind person who can come up with every reason why something isn’t her fault but can’t see who she’s hurt.” And there it was, the awful truth. He and Ezri were kids and somehow they were a mash up of children and the closest thing that either of them ever had to a parent, a position none of them should have been in. He forced himself to look over at Evelyn who was putting as much distance between them as she could. Not that he blamed her for it. “I didn’t think I was going to need to move on,” he admitted, “not from this. I don’t know how to. Even though I want to.”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I don’t want to take it day by day, I want it to be over,” he said. Patience had never been his strong suit and all the conversations with Ezri, they just hurt. “it is my fault, she--” he shook his head, “I did everything and it feels like I enabled her to become this person.” Maybe that was what felt like his greatest sin. He’d been kindling, he’d fed this fire--how could he be surprised that she’d burned everything to the ground and couldn’t see her own hand in it. “I don’t need to hope about that.” he said with a shake of his head, “I know I’m mad at her and hurt and whatever,” he continued, “her being back has just made everything feel heightened. It’s bad,” he touched the back of her hand, “and the only person I want to admit that to is you.” He hated thinking about Ezri around Evelyn, it had never been such an issue. But he never really hated thinking about Evelyn around, well, anyone. “I really wish we didn’t have all of this big stuff happen right after we hooked up, you know?” They had sex and everything had spiraled in ways he couldn’t have fathomed. It had left Evelyn broken in ways he hadn’t ever thought he’d see and he felt like he was still reeling. “I’m not saying I would have been fun, but, I was going to try.” He had made his choice when they had hooked up, maybe he just hadn’t fully comprehended it back then. “instead we had all this stuff happen and--” he sighed, “I wish it hadn’t. I know I sound like an idiot--” he looked at her, “what I'm trying to say is I wish we hadn’t been tested when we were just starting out like this, but I’m really glad you’re here.” He felt oddly nervous about what he was trying to spit out, “I know I look like I prefer doing things alone--but it turns out I don’t. And I don’t think I would know that without you.” 

“Did you really not get why I didn’t show up in Africa?” The words tore out of his mouth before he could stop them. Ezri was the only person Kevin had ever been truly sure he loved. The one person he wanted to protect. It was supposed to be an instinct. Kevin’s body had betrayed him before, there were instincts he had to relearn. But never one like this. Some cowardly part of him was yelling to get away from the edge, to go back to the home he had treasured for so much of his life. The thing that he was sure would always be there. He felt himself teetering on the cliff edge again. “Was the fantasy really more important than anything else?” Whatever fantasy she held, he had enabled it. He had played into it. He would still be playing into it, probably. If something in him hadn’t woken up and seen the twisted, toxic thing they were for what it was. “I stopped playing this game, I should have listened to you the first time you left and I’m sorry that I didn’t.” He was, because now instead of finding out that they weren’t a good couple but good friends, all that surrounded them was pain. Maybe that was what hurt, more than anything else. “All we did was hurt each other for years. Whatever part of me loves you--I won’t be a part of that again.” Even with the disgust he felt looking at her, the pain of betrayal he felt, he knew she deserved better. He had always known that. The difference was that now he knew he deserved better as well. “none of that changes the fact that I can’t even look at you right now. You want a fantasy so badly you don’t see the truth, even when it’s right in front of you. That hasn’t changed.” Nothing would ever change the fact that he had led a double life for seven years without her knowing. That being normal, having her job and her friends and Axel had all mattered more. Or her running away or her lying. Or what had happened during those miserable, painful eight months. “my girlfriend was inside when you were giving your speech. After you ran away I had to go inside and explain. Have you ever tried to explain us to someone?” he questioned, “now I can’t be around her without wondering if you’re going to show up again. You put me in this position--” he cut himself off. He was off the cliff edge, he was falling but being outright cruel was something he couldn’t do. Not after knowing how that felt. “You should have told me you were coming. After two years, if you wanted to be friends, you should have called me.” 

“Not for lack of trying though, right? Maybe they just wise up too soon to date you. Preteens, though, that’s rich coming from the only guy acting like he’s in middle school around here.”

“Aren’t you the guy whose dating two girls and a married dude?”

The moment she invited him in, his posture relaxed. He knew it was unfair to push his issues onto her, that she’d been nothing but explicit about what she wanted and how she saw them. But he felt like he could breathe again when she invited him in. “Better now,” he said handing over the food. Fully prepared for one of her usual responses to statements like that, “it sucked,” he said, “it feels like I’m going insane out there.” He sighed, not liking dwelling on everything that was spiraling out of control. Though he knew that he couldn’t use the guarded way Evelyn was looking at him as an excuse for not explaining. “this whole situation sucks. Look, if I didn’t apologize for it last time--I’m really sorry about all of this.” 

“No. For the last time, I told you, I don’t do that anymore.”

Ezri going from a waitress to a nurse in record time wasn’t exactly surprising. Kevin had always been the practical one, she had always been the brilliant one. If she had done anything else, anything at all, he would have been able to commend her. But looking at her made all the words in his mouth dry up to something cruel and brittle. Dust that he swallowed down, since no matter what changed the instinct to protect her was just that. An instinct. “I’m doing a favor for the head pharmacist, he’s out sick and I still have my credentials.” He wondered if she realized he’d worked here for longer, knew people better--but he didn’t want her to know. Somehow she had shifted from someone he wanted desperately to tell everything to, to someone he viewed like family. Like the less they knew the better. Kevin was exceptionally good at tying himself up into knots so he could blame himself for everything, but in the case of them, he only saw her selfishness. Her cruelty. Maybe he deserved that but it didn’t make what she had done any more excusable. “you’re running low on a few things. But he didn’t want anyone to get the flu.” Kevin had dropped soup off for him too, his own supernatural abilities making him fairly confident that he wasn’t going to get the death flu. But the old man had still refused to let him inside.