cody didnât answer right away.  just blinked at @forev3r,  the words hanging there like smoke in the airâfamiliar,  amused,  biting.  â you can't go 24 hours without having some kind of accident,  huh? â  and damn if it didnât land.  his jaw ticked,  not out of anger,  but becauseâwell,  he couldnât even deny it.  he had knocked over the lighting rig.  and the coffee spill in catering?  absolutely his fault.  the pyro?  okay,  maybe partially him.  but it wasnât like he meant for any of it to happen.  itâs just that things tended to fall apart around him when he wasnât looking.  maybe when he was looking too.
he didnât mean to be a walking disaster.  it just kind of...  followed him.  like a shadow he couldnât shake.
his fingers curled at his sides.  part of him wanted to defend himself.  explain.  joke it off.  but another partâthe quieter,  more tired oneâjust sighed.  because punk wasnât wrong.  he never was,  and that made it worse.  he glanced at him.  all smug smirks and arms crossed and that knowing look that always managed to dig under his skin.  'you donât hate it,'  cody thought.  'you love having something to roll your eyes at.  something to fix.'
the silence stretched between them for a beat too long,  so cody just shrugged,  lips twitching like he wasnât sure if he wanted to laugh or punch a wall.  â yeah,  well...  at least i'm consistent. â  truth was,  it scared him sometimesâhow easy it was to mess things up.  how no matter how hard he tried to hold it all together,  something always slipped.  always cracked.  always burned.  he looked down at his hands,  scuffed and bandaged from a fall he pretended didnât hurt.  some people leave legacy.  others leave wreckage.  and maybeâjust maybeâhe was both.
