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The door opened and Ellis tensed visibly where he was standing in the kitchen.

s**t, he mentally kicked himself, trying to ease the tension knotting the muscles between his shoulder blades, he's going to know I know.

The bright blue eyes had been staring down at a letter he'd gotten at his mother's house that afternoon, addressed to his best friend's legal guardian. On paper, it was his own mother, but in reality -

"Nothing," he lied, then frowned immediately. It was a tell, he knew it was a tell - in the end he sighed and pressed his palm flat against the letter beneath it on the counter top. "That's not true." Maybe he would have tired to fool someone else with his poor attempt at lying, but never Pie. That's what made this whole letter troubling. He picked it up and waved it slightly at his friend where he stood just inside the door. Even from such a distance, he would recognized Hillworth's letterhead stamped across the top of the page.

"What's going on? Why haven't you said anything?"

There was a very obvious stitch in his brow but his expression was accusing, it was simply worried. There were a thousand things running through his mind at that moment - everything that might be causing this problem and everything this problem might cause. Ellis had been concerned about how well his best friend would cope with school after he graduated, but he had been hopeful that it wasn't going to be as bad as it seemed now.

Ellie.

The sigh of his name on Kavinsky's lips made him frown, but he let him grab the paper and toss it away. It didn't matter - Ellis had already seen what was written on the page, looking at it over and over was unnecessary and obsessive. It was better that they got rid of it for his own sanity but he had really hoped that his friend wasn't going to be as dismissive of it as he was being.

"You always have a solid place to live," he broke the eye contact with the stormy eyes staring back at him, dropping his gaze to the floor for a moment uncertainly, and then finally staring out the balcony doors of his top story apartment. It wasn't that he could even blame him for the way he felt - he understood the fear of being homeless, of not knowing if there was a clean place to lay your head. But then why was he being so stupid about something so important?

"I can't help being worried when it's something I know you're smart enough to do, Pie." The young man shook his head, sending the rusty curls tumbling around his shoulders, and then he settled his icy blue gaze back on his best friend. He really didn't want to argue - it was written in the frown on his face and the sadness knit into his eyebrows. "This could be a problem, later, if you don't.."

Uncertain of himself, suddenly, he just sighed and stepped away from the counter. He really did hate to argue with him, of all people, especially when they seemed to have less time together now that he worked so much. In the living room beyond the kitchen, he could hear Poe running restless circles in his cage.

Ellis wracked his knuckles slightly against the edge of the counter, then traced his fingers along the edge as he rounded the curve. Those same fingers caught the journal and pen he had left next to the mail, curling them into his chest. With a sigh, he looked up at Kavinsky, then started walking toward him slowly.

"I'm not being an a*****e, you know. And I do trust you." There was a weak smile on his lips as he stopped beside his best friend and turned his own troubled eyes on the tense face. He did hate whenever Pie got upset - he didn't want their time to be spent quarreling over something that he would just dig his heels in over. Instead, his free arm slid around Kavinsky's shoulders and tugged him to the living room and his plush, if warn, sofa.

It was bright teal, and he loved it. It was inspiring.

He let Kavinsky go and dropped onto the cushions before he leaned down to unlatch the clasp on Poe's cage, letting the dark ball of fluff hop out at his leisure.

"I just worry, that's what I do. You're smart, I worry." The smile on his lips was honest and happy - he really didn't want to fuss - and he punctuated his words with a small slap of his journal against his thigh.

"Then let's not fight about it."

A shrug rolled Ellis' shoulder before he reached up and pulled his long, rusty locks into the hairband he'd kept around his wrist. One fussy manbun later and he leaned his head back into the plush, if frayed couch back. A long, skinny finger slid between the pages of his journal and cracked it open, even as his eyes looked sidelong as Kavinsky.

"Did you say something about a car, before?"

A distraction, because he wasn't going to stop worrying and Pie wasn't going to stop being upset about it. But he did care and he was listening - he'd heard the excitement in the other man's voice when he walked in the door. Ellis loved to hear about his best friend's adventures in the mechanical world nearly as much as he'd loved to hear about his father's.

His pen was in his hand and his eyes dropped, staring at the page beneath the tip of ballpoint. Staring down at the blank sheet made him realize he was actually pretty tired - between back-to-back shifts over the last four days, he hadn't managed to sleep very much. What was new? He closed the journal around his pen and leaned his head back again, rolling it to the side to give Kavinsky his full attention.

"I hate our schedules, Pie." It was a sleepy mumble just before his lips cracked around a yawn.

Ellis seemed content to take the things that Kavinsky said at face value. It wasn't in his nature to second guess what someone was telling him - least of all the man he had known since they were children, who shared every burden and every heartbreak together. It was odd to think that he had even tried to hide this truth from him at all, but it would have betrayed the trust between them to continue second guessing Pie.

"Work is always a good thing," he mumbled softly, letting the couch back cradle his head while he watched the silver-haired man. Kavinsky was retreating in on himself like he always did when he was troubled and it made Ellis' heart heavy to watch. He wanted him to know that he was here to support him, no matter what, even if this school stuff was kind of alarming.

A hand reached out and nudged him lightly in the shoulder with his knuckles, making his body rock a little where he was seated. The smile on his face was encouraging and light, purposefully infectious.

"Don't worry about it right now, okay? I'm doing good here. By the time you're ready to leave school I'll have enough money saved that we can do whatever we want, Pie. You know I'm just waiting on you, right? We can move out of this place and leave it all behind or we can stay and prove them all wrong right under their faces." He leaned forward a little and brought his free hand up to rub the palm against his forehead. He needed coffee. "But right now, don't worry about it."

As his hand dropped between his knees, he stared off toward the kitchen.

"Want some joe?"

"Oh, alright."

Ellis' smile faltered a little but he tried to maintain it. He wasn't so good an actor as his friend and had never been good at lying or hiding his true feelings. Kavinsky had only had a short time to spend with him and they had spent the whole time arguing about something?

He would have sighed, had his friend not still been sitting at his side.

The redhead swallowed around a lump in his throat and stood, dropping his journal and pen back down to the seat he had just vacated. There was nothing else he had to do after his best friend left unless Fiona decided to stop by to check on how he had settled in since the move. The night promised to be a long one with nothing but paper and ink, with the exception of his favorite ball of fluff.

Instinctively, Ellis leaned down and gathered Poe into his arms, taking a small comfort from the easy way he relaxed against his chest.

"Are you going to come stay this weekend?" It was small talk, but the only thing he could think of that wouldn't bring the situation right back to the disagreement. His head raised from where he had been watching Poe and settled on Kavinsky's light eyes instead, waiting for him to get up and move to the door.

He should have just thrown that letter away.

Every moment of silence that ticked by knotted the tension between Ellis' shoulders even more tightly, until Poe butted his head against his chest in protest of the grip. It made him frown and resettle the fluffball in his arms, but too, it brought him back from his stewing.

He didn't want Pie leaving thinking that he was mad at him - especially since he clearly wasn't going to be able to drop by again soon. Every since Ellis had started working two jobs they had grown more apart, but he'd always held out hope that things would go back to normal as soon as Pietro finished school. The idea that he might be at risk of having to take another year, though, that was unsettling. Sometimes it felt like his best friend was all he had in the world and he didn't want the younger man to waste another year of his life in school - he wanted them to take on the world, together, now.

"Make up exams are always harder," he offered with a weak smile, trying to lighten the mood with a silly joke. He didn't want to ask why the guy needed to take a make-up exam in the first place, not after their last tiff, so he simply started to walk backwards toward the kitchen - no doubt he was intending to drink an entire pot of coffee after his friend left.

"Let me know when you've got a weekend free and I'll take it off, okay? We can get out of this damn town or something. Forget about school and work."