9 (I don’t want to talk about it) for Vince and Kauri?👀 pretty please, if you’re up for it and it won’t like, mess with any plots
CW: Referenced past noncon and torture, victim-blaming language
They have to sit with something between them, and it’s fucking ridiculous, but Vince wants to have this conversation more than he cares about how absolutely stupid it is that he can’t even look the younger man in the eyes when he says it.
“Look, I know that you blame me-”
“I don’t blame you,” Kauri says on the other side of the large piece of posterboard, a science-fair trifold, like one of them is a priest and the other is confessing their sins. Only neither of them is pure enough to preach anything to the other.
Kauri’s voice is flat, and empty. Vince closes his eyes and wishes he had a drink in his hand. It’d be easier to do this that way.
“Yeah, you do. Because I left.”
“You ran,” Kauri says, a little softer. “I talked to... to Nat about it, a little. She says you didn’t leave, you ran away... too. Like I did.”
Vince licks at his lips - they feel so weirdly dry - and leans slowly forward, putting his head in his hands. “Yeah, kid. I ran.”
“I... I loved him,” Kauri whispers. “They made me love him. Because you didn’t.”
Vince feels the words like needles under his skin. “... I know that.”
“Why-”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Vince snaps, and Kauri flinches - he can hear the sound of his sudden movement on the other side of the board. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s just. I’ve never talked to anyone about what he did to me, not really, other than my therapist...”
“Did he... did he tell you that you were too stupid for anyone else to love you?” Kauri asks, and his voice is small.
Vince is caught in the memory, all at once. It washes over him like a wave pulling him to the riptide, ripping him under the surface where there’s no more air to breathe. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Not... not just like that, but when we were friends, he would say things... that always made me, made me think-”
“That you were stupid.”
“Yeah.”
There’s silence, from either side of the board, for a second.
“Did he tell you that you were so lucky-”
“That he loved me?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Vince laughs, bitterly. There are tears lacing his voice. “He used to tell me I was so fucking lucky he was my friend. Kauri, listen, I know nothing I can say can fix what he did to you, but... but I’m so fucking sorry. If I had just stayed-”
“You’d be dead.”Â
Another silence.
“Yeah... but you - the other you - wouldn’t be.”
