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 Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2017 6:39 pm
Going home was an exhausting task, he noted. Lately he found that most basic functions grew draining from his week spent on Scholomance, which he attributed to the thoroughness with which Blaine tried to kill him. Since becoming a Knight, his body bounced back from injury and overexertion quite quickly, so he could find no other explanation. That one would simply have to do.
But such a declaration sat ill with him. Isaiah wanted to know why he felt so tired of late, why his temper remained perpetually short where it was once quite long, and why he found himself so discouraged to return to normal life. None of these questions felt adequately answered with Blaine's attempt to kill him. Still, he could determine no proper answer for them. Was it due to the poison like he initially thought? Isaiah doubted it; toxins often left the system fully within a few days to a week. Maybe a juice detox would take care of any remaining problems should he prove healthy enough to undertake it. Perhaps he could convince a Negaverse agent to rip his starseed out and check it for corruption, then somehow put it back without getting greedy and corrupting him regardless.
The thought alone gave him a chuckle as he unlocked his flat door, and stepped inside at the asinine hour of five in the morning. Perhaps sleep deprivation was at greater fault for all these perceived wrongs in him.
When he shut the door behind him, the closing sound signified two things: one, that the door was unconscionably loud; and two, that the whole apartment laid open to him with no walls to obscure sound or permit privacy. If Kavinsky was home, the man would likely hear him the moment the loud lock decided to latch. He thought about following with an apology, but found the solution silly if the other man elected to go back to his own apartment while Isaiah vanished into the ether. After all, Isaiah left him enough of a heads-up to suggest a four-day vacation out on his lonesome, but not one that lasted nearly two weeks. If K was the type to worry, Ice never pegged how that manifested.
Instead of slipping into bed, Ice deviated toward the kitchen space that stood partially guarded by its own reclaimed table. With the coffee maker already sitting out, he didn't have to worry about the noise of pulling the machine from beneath the counter; Ice simply set about the morning routine as best he could without filling the still-half-empty apartment with echoing noise. Tasty joined him shortly, and meowed for her breakfast despite his best wishes to keep quiet; he sighed at the cat. "You're going to wake the entire ******** floor, you know," he responded with irritation.nuxaz lmk if this works! derp forgot to say this happens on the tenth if that's okay?
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 7:41 pm
While a normal person would have considered the extended absence of their pseudo-roommate worrisome, Kavinsky had not, in truth, thought much of it at all. It had been made very plain and clear to the young russian that their lives were unpredictable and that while they 'lived' together, in the barest sense of the words with how often K was out, there was still quite the barrier of privacy that pervaded their relationship. Besides, it was too easy to assume that perhaps Isaiah had returned at some point, but that he was just continually missing him.
The unanswered texts should have bothered him, as they had back when Isaiah had been injured, but there had been other things on the teen's mind that left him without the forethought to properly look into whatever the man was doing.
Besides, a trip could have meant that there was a lack of reception, even if it was generally unlikely with the way the world was obsessed with technology. He had been awake, because he hardly slept any more, when the lock cracked open and the sounds of someone shuffling into the building and shutting the door reverberated throughout the entire space. There was a groan, the creak of the bed beneath him, and Kavinsky had rolled off of it, stretching his limbs before descending down the stairs.
"Where the hell have you been?" He asked, arms crossed over his bare chest as he leaned against whatever the closet wall was to him where he could still see Isaiah.
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Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2017 7:03 am
Isaiah glanced up from his coffee machinations when K stirred and made his presence known. "Oh, you know," he answered dryly, "I was just on a trip to India to rekindle my Buddhism and study the Kama Sutra." Filter, ground beans, and mugs were gathered. He supposed he should brew for two since Kavinsky rose with a ruckus.
With the drip started, Isaiah turned his attention to the Meowing Meower who followed his every move with expectation. Tasty's tail rose high in one part greeting, one part need. He offered her a few pets, which she returned with heavy bunting, and he searched the cupboards for one of her many cans of trashy cat food. Finding one, he tossed it to Kavinsky to open. Unforutnately, Tastykake switched targets so long as K held the food. The cat learned rather quickly that she could suck up to anyone.
"My trip got delayed a few extra days." Straightening, he leaned against one of the frosted glass pantry doors. "Terrorist attack at the airport. No one was allowed to leave." Inwardly he hoped that Kavinsky was too busy to read the newspaper with any regularity.
"How've you been? How's work?" Any job that got him up at the misbegotten hour of 5AM sounded much too demanding for the pay it provided.
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Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2017 11:39 am
It was too early in the morning, with too little sleep, for Isaiah's jokes and Kavinsky scowled in response. His jaw was set as he watched the man move about his kitchen, making note of the second mug and then, the teen was debating if he was going to have a cup or not. "That's one hell of a trip to take in your state," K pointed out, making a point to continue to meet Isaiah's gaze instead of letting his own drift across the missing limbs.
"If that's the story you wanna try and sell, fine," he retorted, irritation clear in his voice just as it was clear from the way he held himself that he didn't believe the excuse.
"What you do with your time is none of my business." He said, even if his posturing said otherwise. It wasn't so much what Isaiah had been doing that rubbed him the wrong way, but the thought that he was being lied to. K didn't lie and hated when people lied to him. The absence of the truth was just as much of a lie in his opinion.
"Work's fine." He grunted, feeling no inclination to give any more information that. There wasn't really anything to say anyway. He got up, work three or four piss jobs for piss money, sometimes he stopped by the other apartment to see Ellis, other times he came back to this apartment and passed out for the few glorious hours of sleep he was able to have.
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Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:43 am
Isaiah halted in his work to look Kavinsky in the eye. "I wasn't paying you to question my choices or pry into affairs, K. If you think that's what your job entails, you're free to leave."
As the coffee percolated, Isaiah reclined again. Dealing with Kavinsky's fiery streak on such short notice threatened to ignite his own. The thought that he even sported a short temper in the first place disturbed him. "You wouldn't believe the real story anyway." With K's several jobs jut to make ends meet, Isaiah doubted that the man even had time to take on any alternate persona. And if he was indeed Negaverse, Isaiah didn't care anymore. For some time now he reached his peak with the war, and often wished for it to end neatly and efficiently for him. Whether it did for anyone else wasn't his concern.
"So." After the drip offered enough coffee for both cups, he poured K's in the manner that Isaiah learned he liked and offered the cup to the brooding teen. Tell me about work. What are you doing today? Roofing a house? Changing all the tires on a sixteen-wheeler?" Anger still burned beneath the surface, but he tried to swallow it down in his usual mannerisms. It wasn't working terribly well.
Isaiah chose not to remain too near the other man; in the past, when tempers flared, Ice took it as opportunity to push the aggressions in the bedroom territory - to invite the other party to vent their frustrations with him in a much more carnal manner. This time, however, his irritations eluded such practices, and the thought left Isaiah doubly frustrated. Now, not only did he face an uncomfortable conversation, but there wouldn't be sex at the end as a reward for getting through the affairs. Some karma this is.
When Isaiah settled again, he did so against the counter with a prepared mug of coffee in hand.
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Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:02 am
Kavinsky didn't wilt beneath the weight of Isaiah's stare, nor did he bat an eye at the comment that followed.
"Could surprise you," he muttered more under his breath than to the man in the room. Afterwards, he seemed content enough to drop it, because he didn't see the point in trying to coax any more information out of his housemate. Like he had said before, it was none of his business. Their relationship worked because they knew so little about each other outside of small habits, minor details. Anything that mattered was kept under lock and key.
Don't ask, don't tell seemed to work pretty well for them.
Still, it did little for his sour mood even as he accepted the mug from Isaiah, large hands wrapping around the handle before fingers slid in and he held the cup carefully, considering Isaiah over the top of it. "Why does it matter? You've never cared what I do when I'm not with you before." Kavinsky's hostility was unwarranted and he knew it, but his stubbornness prevented him from backing down or redirecting it.
Irritation crawled like a parasite beneath his skin.
"There's an old lady who needs help with a leaky sink who can't afford a proper plumber." He said finally.
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Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:28 am
Isaiah sighed, exasperated. He rubbed his eyes with fingers and thumb,and tried to suppress the desperate urge to use two hands in the matter. "Look, K. It was either fight about the same damn thing and get nowhere or change the subject. So I changed the subject. If this one isn't good enough, we can talk about how much I want to smack the s**t out of you sometimes." A modicum of grief remained in his tone.
At least Kavinsky capitulated somewhat.
"Leaky sink. Great. That's a start." Isaiah wasn't certain what they started beyond possibly another fight. Part of him wanted another fight, and urged him to pry into sore affairs. Part of him dismissed Kavinsky altogether as a charity case and urged that there wasn't anything to lose. He knew this proved a misconception - beyond the physical assistance K offered, having another individual in or around the house provided a modicum of safety. They got on fine on a physical level, they tolerated each other well, and didn't ask too many questions of the other party. Prying into K's affairs could lead to just as much trouble in the return fire.
But damn if he didn't want to do it.
"Fixing her leaky sink sounds like a euphemism. I didn't know you were into old ladies, K. I hear they get quite kinky sometimes." He tried for mirth, but managed none of it in his tone.
Finally he pressed his hand to his face. "Sorry, I shouldn't snap. I just can't stop being pissed off and I don't know why."
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Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 2:45 pm
Stormy eyes narrowed at the exclamation and it took more of Kavinsky's willpower to bite back his harsh response. "невероятно," he hissed instead, feeling the comforting shape and form of his parent's language on his tongue. The mug looked like it would crack if he gripped it any tighter than he was already. As far as he had been concerned, the conversation had ended without a fight and it was only Isaiah's biting words that risked turning it into something else.
What did he care if the man didn't want to share?
"Unlike you, I don't have an interest in ******** my clients." The words were out of his mouth before he could think twice about them, but the Russian didn't even bat an eye in the aftermath, welcoming whatever nastiness spewed from the other man's mouth. Isaiah and Kavinsky had settled into an odd but functional level of companionship that he hadn't been able to explain.
Though, Kavinsky didn't really do relationships of any kind, maybe that was why he was a little more jagged than usual. Something about the way he held his shoulders softened at the apology that caught him off guard. He hated when things caught him unexpectedly. "Have you made too many decisions that weigh too heavily?" He asked, thinking about the last time they'd had a proper conversation that didn't involve something job related.
"Guilt does wonders for the mood."
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 7:26 am
"Oh, slut-shaming me now? You didn't seem too broken up about my interests when you first came by to fix the washer." His hand curled about the mug. "Or are you jealous? Looking for a little monogamy in the lover department, hmm?" The words were spoken with more spice than his usual banter, but he cared little. He already explained to K that he now possessed a perpetual fiery streak for reasons unknown. Taking a sip of his coffee, he hoped to quell some of the flame.
The coffee tasted too bitter, however, and Isaiah found it soured his mood further. It soured his stomach, too, for the bile that rose around his tongue. He abandoned the beverage near the sink. "I don't know what it is. Now everything seems like an attack - like I have to defend myself from the whole world. Maybe I do. Maybe I always have. I don't know. When I actually practiced Buddhism, I had a much better handle on it. And I was never particularly aggressive, either, so mostly that was for… Well, other things." In vacating the kitchen area, Isaiah approached one of the long windows marking the southern end of the apartment nearer to Kavinsky. "Now I'm a half-step from pulling a Mike Tyson on the nearest person that looks at me funny." He pressed the switch embedded in the corner, and the blinds rose to the peering, diffuse light.
"But the decisions I've been making… Weren't really decisions." With the blinds retracted, the full view of the overcast day met them. In the distance, a blackened smoke rose. "I didn't have much choice in any of it. Usually I've been pretty good about not taking responsibilities for choices that are out of my hands. And I'm only 27 - that's not exactly prime territory for an angry mid-life crisis." He considered Schörl's antics and the festering shame over it as a cause, and perhaps it contributed, but what would lead to such a vitriolic reaction with such immediacy? Was it the added backstabbing from Blaine?
He sighed through his nose when he felt Tasty bunt his leg again. "It's probably just another case of people being assholes. There's been a lot of it recently." Leaning over, he gave the cat a few strokes.
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2017 10:53 pm
If Kavinsky were capable of feeling bad about something he said, then he might have reacted more freely to the comment that spilled from Isaiah's lips, as it were, he hardly blinked, that hard and stony expression that he wore too often hardly moving. There might have been a slight narrowing of stormy eyes or maybe a tighter press of chapped lips together or the downward twitch of eyebrows, but for the most part it was all indistinguishable.
"Wasn't your ex a testimony to your inability to keep it in your pants?" That wasn't what he had meant to say and yet he said it anyway. "Jealousy is not a factor," he added, plainly because it wasn't. He didn't give two shits who the older man was ******** as long as he was safe and clean and the idea of monogamy, especially with Isaiah, was almost laughable. You had to be invested in someone to want be exclusively with them and he couldn't see that happening for him.
Not even for arguably the only person who ever stuck around for him.
For once, he bit his tongue and waited for Isaiah to finish before saying, "who gives a ******** what the world thinks?" It had never cared about him and he sure as s**t didn't care about it. Kavinsky didn't move from his spot, but he did shift so that he continued to face Isaiah as the man moved about the apartment.
Even though the Russian put on a very good air of not giving a s**t, he could pick up on the slight crisis his housemate was having and had a rare moment of wondering what he might be able to do to ease the strain. The urge was fleeting and passed like the coffee against his lips that slid across his tongue and down his throat. Cup half drained, K abandoned it on the counter to fold his arms across his chest. "If you only live to be 54, 27 is a perfect time to have a mid-life crisis."
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:21 pm
Isaiah pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. Kavinsky liked to dig at sore points, and life ground the shopkeeper down far enough that he lacked the thicker skin to take the insult in stride. He half-wanted to fall apart over the matter, but roiling rage wouldn't have it. Still, shame proved temperingand Isaiah swallowed down the need to retaliate. Kavinsky already demonstrated adequate self-protection through thick skin and an inclination toward privacy; there would be no point.
"You can be a real a*****e sometimes." He dropped his hand against his pants unceremoniously. I wonder. Is it worse to kick him out for being a shitbrick and cancel the agreement, or keep him here and wait until the Negaverse inevitably breaks into my house again and burns it down with him in it? They won't get much information out of him, and it's not exactly the type of spit roasting I would've liked to do with Kavinsky, but damn if it wouldn't be cathartic.
Though who knows - with my luck, it'll be that Kavinsky was the Negaverse agent supplanted on suspicion of my being a knight. And ******** me proves to be the quickest and easiest way to pry that information out.
No, that's giving the Negaverse too much credit. Insidiousness is a longer path to payoff than straight violence.
When he turned to regard K, he looked more exhausted than any manner of aggravated. But heavy lids often belied a disdain, if only built into his facial structure. "Get out," he urged with a hollow neutrality. "Go do your job. Or jobs. Just… Get out." A flick of the wrist finished the statement. He waited not for Kavinsky to retaliate, whether with verbal or physical violence, and simply walked past him toward his own bed. He needed to sleep if he wanted to salvage part of the day; napping often reset the grueling mental state in which he found himself. And he wasn't about to get any sleep with a grumpy russian slinging teenage angst at him. He already held enough of that just from his own wars with the world.
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:16 pm
The insult didn't even scratch the Russian as he stared back, unimpressed and unbothered. K knew he was an a*****e and he wasn't about to apologize for being himself. If anything his demeanor gave a so like response, because Isaiah wasn't saying anything he didn't already know or didn't already accept.
Get out.
Kavinsky didn't look surprised at the demand, even if he should have, though his jaw did tick as Isaiah moved past him. At least the man wasn't shouting him or throwing things at him like some might. In the end, he shrugged. "If that's what you want," he answered, regarding the tiredness in the way the other man held himself with mild curiosity.
Pushing himself away from his spot, he went the opposite direction, probably to get his things and make his exit because only a few minutes later he was standing at the door with keys in hand and his boots laced. "Do you want me to leave the key, or is this a get out of my face until I'm bored or less pissy sort of thing?" He didn't care either way, but he wasn't interested in returning if he wasn't wanted.
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Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 6:55 pm
"Just go to work," he replied with a sweep of his hand. "I'll figure it out later." Now wasn't the time to make permanent decisions, he knew, but he wanted Kavinsky's sour attitude out of his life for the next few hours. He needed time to collect himself, and found none of it. After returning from Scholomance, he survived off Jada's good will and crawled his way back into the collapsing shell of a life he used to lead. Now he faced off against his rental housemate, who he used to get along with swimmingly before his unfettered anger crept into his interactions. What choice did he have but to isolate?
"Take the key." After combing a hand through his hair, Isaiah turned his back to Kavinsky and started toward the bed. The day was still young, and he wanted a few hours of sleep to reset the brunt of it.
As he laid against his bed, he spoke aloud, and spared little care for if Kavinsky heard him. "I suppose this is 'get out of my face until I'm horny', since we're so interested in harping on my evening pasttimes…" Lamely he tossed his arm over his eyes.
How in the hell was he supposed to survive this without killing someone?
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