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Kevin and Josh, this afternoon
Josh tries to help Kevin out with his powers, and Kevin ends up being a mega dick in return.
Rather than doing up some notes and working with some of the lab animals for his studying today, Josh was setting up a couple of other experiments to work with on the lab bench. He didn't want to practice on anything that would fall under the area of cruelty, so instead of live animals, he'd gathered up a few plants and a couple of the frozen mice they kept in the freezer as part of the snakes' diets.
Today Kevin had actually agreed to come down and do some extra training with him to work on his powers, and Josh was going through some ideas in his head that would not only give Kevin something to practice on, but would allow for Josh the practice to rebuild things that Kevin may wither away.
Win-win for them both!
So once the different 'stations' were set up, Josh pulled out his notebook and wrote down what he'd done and waited for Kevin to come down and join him.
Kevin wasn't good at practicing with his powers. He did try sometimes, he really did, but he ended up getting frustrated and hating himself. He got thinking that he was a cold blooded murderer who didn't deserve any sort of control over this type of 'gift'. He wasn't worth it, and sometimes he wished Josh would just give up on him. Maybe not having control was his punishment. He had killed someone, after all, and most people went to jail for that.
However, today he was at least trying to be positive. He'd try this shit for long as he could, so he made it down to the lab to go and see Josh. Not that being positive usually helped, but he had good intentions.
"Uh, hi," he greeted, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. He looked over the stations, seeing that Josh had nothing that could feel pain if he touched it. That was good, at least. "So what...I wither this stuff away, and then you heal it back?"
Josh snorted at the suggestion, but smiled nonetheless. "I wasn't thinking something that easy. I was thinking more along the lines of you trying a couple of different things by adjusting your focus."
There were a couple of stools at the lab bench since Josh normally did his work there everyday. He pulled one out for Kevin and gestured for him to sit, and then moved around the table to sit on the opposite side of him. "I know you can't touch stuff without withering it in some way, but I was thinking maybe you can start off by trying to control how much you wither rather than 100% control right away. Learn some restraint first, you know?"
Josh pointed to one of the plants, which had pretty white lily flowers and lots of green leaves growing from the stems. "Like...maybe by the end of the session we'll have gotten you closer to just withering certain leaves without damaging the flower itself."
"Maybe," Kevin said, and slowly took his gloves off. His powers wanted to be used, and it kind of hurt, so Kevin didn't know if he'd be able to do that. Whenever he used them, it was very hard to let go or stop until everything was all gone. It was this strange kind of hunger, and Kevin had to fight it every single day.
This was going to be hard, and now he wasn't sure if he could do it.
"I'll try it," he said, then let his fingers brush against one of the leaves. Instantly it shriveled up to dust, but he pulled his hand back before it could spread further. "But my power just wants to take over everything and make it die. Even pulling my hand away is hard, you know?"
"What else do you feel, though? Can you feel it dying? Is it as a whole, is it cellular?" Josh questioned, and gently slid his hand forward to touch where Kevin had been touching previously. After a couple of seconds, the leaves returned back to where they used to be. "If you think about it really hard, can you feel exactly what it is that you're doing aside from...it just wanting to take over?"
That was kind of freaky, but Josh didn't let that show.
Watching Josh heal that flower really, really sucked. It made Kevin feel really jealous, and he couldn't take his eyes off the spot. Josh had these awesome powers that couldn't hurt people, and it wasn't fair.
"I feel every inch of it dying," he explained, obviously uncomfortable as he did so. "Cellular, I think. For such a little leaf, I felt a lot of shit dying."
He frowned. "I don't feel it as strongly as I do the other thing, though. That is fucked up."
That made Josh frown because it looked like it bothered Kevin a lot just to admit that, and the intention wasn't to make Kevin anymore upset than he already tended to get. There were no judgments here; Josh only wanted to help him, so he would try to show Kevin he wanted to do just that. "It's all right...everyone feels different things with their powers, right? So we just have to try and either work with it or work around it."
Josh gestured for Kevin to touch the leaves again. "So why don't you try and just shift the focus from the urges to what's going on? Never mind what the outcome is for the leaf right now, just see if you feel any different by just concentrating solely on exactly what your power is doing to the leaf and how that energy is coming out of you. Not the urges, no trying to hold back, just focus all of your attention."
Kevin nodded, and reached out to touch the flower again. He could feel it start to die, so he tried to focus on that. He could feel the cells withering away, but this really loud part of him wanted him to keep killing the leaf as much as he possibly could. It was a struggle to try and ignore that, and Kevin's death vision switched on without him trying to use it, He had this overwhelming urge to keep withering things, and it was so loud that he could barely focus on how the dying flower felt. It seemed like even if he tried to focus on something else, that hunger was still there. He couldn't ignore it.
For now, anyways.
The whole flower fell to dust that time, and Kevin pulled away to place his hands over his eyes as he willed away his death vision. Why was it so easy to do, but hard for the skin part of his powers? "Fuck! I can't ignore it, Josh. I can feel it dying, and I can focus on that, but I can't ignore the other part."
"I didn't say you had to ignore it, Kevin, I just said don't ignore the feel of it dying and the exact part of what you're doing," Josh reasoned. When he healed the flower back to life that time, he pushed the lilies out of the way and pulled over a dead rat.
Kevin was still covering his eyes, though. Josh lifted his clean hand up to try and move them gently. "Does it hurt to do that? You can tell me."
"A little," he muttered, and let Josh lower his hands. It was too bad that he couldn't use his powers on himself, because that would solve everyone's fucking problem, now wouldn't it? He hadn't told too many people about his death vision, but he didn't want to admit it just flashed on right there. That part of his powers was dumb and Kevin thought it could fuck off. "I don't think I'll ever be able to use my powers without fighting them at the same time."
He looked to the dead rat, and sighed. "What should I do now? Try to wither just the fur, or something?
It was hard to believe that Kevin would have to always fight and struggle with his powers for as long as he lived. Just because some people took a long time to get control didn't mean they'd never get it, right? A lot of people sucked at their powers when they first got here but then progressed---then again, a lot of those people that had progressed a lot were probably the ones who practiced everyday. Some kids spent all of their time outside or in the gym or the lab...wherever they needed to be.
"Maybe try just the tail? It's long enough that you should be able to give yourself some time to stop, if you need it."
Maybe Kevin needed to incorporate some of his studies, too, like Josh had to. It wasn't like Josh needed to know anatomy to heal things, but knowing it helped him heal more effectively and it also allowed him to use other manipulations. If Kevin was more familiar with cellular biology, rates of decay, and the decomposition of cells, maybe it would be easier to focus on what his powers worked at.
Kevin sighed, and he placed his finger on the end of the tail, feeling it decompose into dust. What was the point of this? He knew he wasn't going to get control ever, so he didn't know why he bothered. It was hopeless, just like every other time he'd tried this. Moira always insisted that it wasn't, whenever Kevin did try to work with her, but he'd decided that she didn't even know him or his life. Nobody did! It was so easy to say you need to learn control of your powers, but it was impossible. Every time he tried this, all he thought of was his dad's body on the floor in their house. Even when he tried to picture other things, the image stuck.
He thought of it no matter what he did. He knew he didn't deserve control like everyone else. No, what he actually deserved was to be a pile of dust on the floor, just like his dad had been.
Though the tail withered up, only a small section of the rat's behind did after he pulled his hand back. "It spreads like a disease," he commented quietly. "I can't even wither away only the tail...it just keeps going."
God, he hated himself so much. He was a diseased piece of garbage and he needed to fucking die already. The rat was the lucky one in this situation, and he felt more jealous of it than he did of Josh.
Kevin let out a frustrated sigh. "Can you fix it so I can try it again?"
Josh closed his eyes and thought about the structure of the tail he'd become so familiar with these past few months---bone, tendon, ventral artery, dorsal and lateral veins, smaller veins, skin. When he opened his eyes again, everything was there right down to the tiny hairs on the surface of the tissue. However, he didn't pull his hand away.
"I'm keeping my power on. Use your power and try to force it to fight against mine; I'm thinking if I keep healing the cells you'll feel them there a lot more and you'll have to focus on them harder. Go ahead."
Josh's voice was calm and steady, trying not to let Kevin's frustration get the better of them.
Josh not getting annoyed with him did make this a little easier, but still. Josh was all fucking expert, and Kevin pretty much failed at everything. He knew Josh was better because of how much he practiced, but Kevin still couldn't help the jealousy that formed from it. Out of all the powers to have, why did have to get such a horrible one?
Kevin touched the tail like Josh said, and tried to wither it away. Except in this instance, he couldn't, because Josh was using his powers this time, too. Basically, Kevin needed a fucking set of training wheels to not completely destroy something he touched.
"I can't wither it," he pointed out, and tried to feel out the cells a bit more. Every time he withered one tiny cell, it would just heal it right back. "My powers are trying to, but yours are way stronger than they are. I can feel the cells, I can feel myself killing them, but they're not dead for long."
He couldn't keep up with how fast Josh was healing right then.
Josh wasn't putting very much effort behind his healing at all, to be honest. He thought that maybe Kevin would be able to get further with it than he was, but apparently he'd given him too much credit. That was okay; Josh had to remind himself that he practiced a lot more than Kevin did and one of the reasons he did was so that he could be more powerful and better at his control than Kevin! If he hadn't, they wouldn't have even been able to touch like they could right now.
So he slowed it some more. "Think about killing them again, then. Force it more. If you can kill it faster than I can keep it alive then you have some degree of control. Just keep trying."
Kevin tried again, this time he put his death vision on purposely, and stared at the rat. He was trying to imagine it dead and dying, so maybe looking at it that way would help him? Visualization and shit! So he kept his hand still, and tried to force his powers. This time, his powers withered the tail, but went up and withered the rat into a husk of a creature, but not complete dust. It all happened so fast, and it annoyed him. He was such a fucking failure! What happened to just withering the tail? Everything, apparently.
He had killed it faster than Josh could keep it alive, but he couldn't really see that right now.
"Well, that sucked," he sulked. "I killed the whole stupid thing!"
"Yeah, but you still ended up overpowering me...which is what you were trying to do?" Josh offered with a smile. "That's something! Little progress is way better than no progress. You didn't slow your power but you increased it. If you can increase it then the potential to decrease it is there, too. Think about it; you just have to tilt the scale in the opposite direction."
But increasing it was bad! It wasn't decreasing it. Maybe he was just going to get more powerful until nothing at all was able to touch him, and he wouldn't even be able to kill himself properly. "But increasing it is still bad, Josh. I shouldn't be trying to increase it to that amount. I should be trying to decrease it so I can turn these powers off so I never have to use them ever again. Ever. I should have just withered the stupid tail, but no, I had to kill the whole rat instead because I fucking suck."
He should have just withered the tail away, and he was obsessing about that fact right now.
"What if my powers just get worse?" he asked.
Josh's eyes widened. "Kev...there isn't just one kind of control and it doesn't all come at once. It doesn't work that way for me, anyway; I'm fucking all over the place with mine! But you gotta start somewhere and work your way from there, right?"
Sure increasing the power was scary but, again, if Kevin was able to increase the rate of his power, then wasn't it likely he could eventually do the same to decrease it?
"All you need is some more practice. Practice isn't a bad thing--"
"Maybe for you it's not. You get to heal shit, and be awesome," Kevin interrupted, glaring down at that stupid fucking rat dust. He should obviously just stop because he was never going to get better. He was always, always going to be locked in his skin like this."Everything you do is awesome! You can bring things back to life, you can help people, and your practice helps with that. My powers are nothing but a punishment."
He had the power to bring death, but he couldn't kill himself.
"I wish someone could rip my stupid powers right out of my body and be done with it," he grumbled, then reached out to touch the flower again, withering every part of the flower away, save for one petal. He didn't care that he was able to control what he withered in some small way--what mattered was that he withered something when he touched it. "This is hopeless and stupid."
As alarming as the outburst was, Josh was still going to hold onto that shred of hope. "But look at the flower! You were able to leave something behind, so why can't you just have some more faith in yourself? You can do this, I know you can!"
"I don't know why you have to have so much faith in me," Kevin sulked, and reached over to put his gloves back on. "I might have left one petal, but it's one and that's not good enough."
This time Josh looked taken aback. "Why do you think I have faith in you? Aside from the obvious, I just refuse to believe this is impossible, Kevin. I honestly think you're the only thing holding you back. I'm sorry to say it, but it's true. If you'd just work at it a little more--"
"In case you forgot, I killed my dad! Every fucking time I use my powers, that's all I think about," Kevin said as he pulled his last glove on. He didn't even know why he was ranting like this, but he was frustrated, and when he was frustrated, he liked to kick the shit out of himself. Kevin hated himself so much right now. "Actually, I don't think I should try to get control at all. I don't deserve it, and trying to get it is an insult to my dad's memory."
"What!? How does that even make any sense?" Josh demanded, on the verge of losing his cool now as well. "Do you think your dad would have wanted you to suffer inside yourself? To be miserable the rest of your life?"
It was hard to put himself in Kevin's shoes and understand what it felt like to be responsible for not only taking someone's life, but taking the life of a parent. The person you loved the most. Josh had no fucking idea how that felt, and he'd never pretend to know what that was like. However, he cared about Kevin a lot---maybe was even starting to love him. Josh didn't want him to be miserable and feel alone, and had done everything in his power since the day they met to try and help him in some way.
Now Kevin was angry because of it, and Josh couldn't help but get defensive. "Kevin, I'm trying to help you. That's all I've ever wanted to do, I'm not trying to force you to think about him, I..."
Was at a loss for words right now, really.
"I don't know how he'd feel! I'm just guessing because he's dead and everything because of me," Kevin continued on. He didn't know why he was mad. He didn't know why he couldn't stop talking. He knew none of this was Josh's fault, but he couldn't stop himself. Months after months of having these powers had taken a toll on him. He got discouraged way too easily, and though part of him knew he needed to try harder, the other seemed hopeless. "Look, just forget it. You tried to help me, I fucking sucked at it, so let's forget it. I'll never get control of my powers, so I'm just going to accept that. Don't worry about it anymore."
The feeling in Josh's chest right then could only be described as crushing. It felt like an elephant was standing on him and not letting him up for air. It hurt a lot to see Kevin this angry and upset. It hurt a lot to know that after all this time he was still no closer to feeling better. Admittedly, and maybe even selfishly, it also hurt a lot to know that Kevin didn't even want Josh trying to help him. The thing was, Josh had made Kevin a promise way back in August that he would get better at his own powers so that he could help him improve some day too.
Since August, Josh had been working with Moira, with Simon, and with lab animals everyday.
Then in December Kevin and Josh had hooked up after several weeks of Josh struggling through his feelings to be with Kevin. So that night, Josh promised that he'd work harder to get better at his powers so Kevin would never have to be scared of hurting him and so they could touch longer than ten to fifteen minutes at a time. Josh practiced everyday, but longer than he'd been previously working. All Josh tried to get Kevin to do was one day of small, tiny exercises with him to try and see if they could start improving somewhere, and Kevin got livid with him and quit. That hurt a lot and Josh not only took it as Kevin not caring enough to try, but he took it as a sort of rejection. All of this effort Josh had put forward for Kevin over eight months and Kevin couldn't even give him five minutes in return.
So Josh got up and started putting all the plants away and tossed what was left of the rats into the garbage. Kevin would be able to tell by the look on his face that Josh was about one second away from losing his shit on him.
Kevin usually did appreciate what Josh was doing for him, he really did. Josh had tried to help him more than anyone else, but to be honest? Kevin wasn't worth it. He didn't have the confidence to this, or the mindset. What he needed to be doing was talking to a counselor to get his issues dealt with, but he wasn't, and that was a huge reason why he had just lost it over something so small. Kevin had a lot to deal with when it came to his dad's death still, and he wasn't meaning to take it out on Josh, but he was, and he couldn't help it. He wasn't dealing with his trauma properly, and it was effecting other parts of his life. But right now, he didn't see any of that. He didn't see that he was being hurtful and upsetting. All he saw was that Josh didn't have to waste his time on a useless piece of garbage person who didn't deserve control in the first place.
Then Kevin saw that look on Josh's face, and Kevin didn't want to be here anymore. Kevin cared about Josh a lot, and he didn't want him to pulled down with Kevin's dramatic bullshit. Kevin didn't want Josh to waste his time on someone who obviously couldn't do shit. So, just as always when he didn't want to deal with something anymore, he quietly got up and left. Running away was always a good plan, in his opinion.
At least Josh would have a better day without Kevin around to wreck and ruin it.
When Kevin got up and headed toward the door, Josh snapped. "Fuck you, you selfish little prick! The only thing that makes you fail, Kevin, is your shitty attitude about everything and the fact that you diss, like, everyone who wants to help you. So go ahead and run away. All that fucking matters to you is you and your sad, miserable little world you make for yourself. For once, I'm not fucking chasing after you so don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!"
Kevin frowned when he heard that, but said nothing in response. He just left.
Rather than doing up some notes and working with some of the lab animals for his studying today, Josh was setting up a couple of other experiments to work with on the lab bench. He didn't want to practice on anything that would fall under the area of cruelty, so instead of live animals, he'd gathered up a few plants and a couple of the frozen mice they kept in the freezer as part of the snakes' diets.
Today Kevin had actually agreed to come down and do some extra training with him to work on his powers, and Josh was going through some ideas in his head that would not only give Kevin something to practice on, but would allow for Josh the practice to rebuild things that Kevin may wither away.
Win-win for them both!
So once the different 'stations' were set up, Josh pulled out his notebook and wrote down what he'd done and waited for Kevin to come down and join him.
Kevin wasn't good at practicing with his powers. He did try sometimes, he really did, but he ended up getting frustrated and hating himself. He got thinking that he was a cold blooded murderer who didn't deserve any sort of control over this type of 'gift'. He wasn't worth it, and sometimes he wished Josh would just give up on him. Maybe not having control was his punishment. He had killed someone, after all, and most people went to jail for that.
However, today he was at least trying to be positive. He'd try this shit for long as he could, so he made it down to the lab to go and see Josh. Not that being positive usually helped, but he had good intentions.
"Uh, hi," he greeted, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. He looked over the stations, seeing that Josh had nothing that could feel pain if he touched it. That was good, at least. "So what...I wither this stuff away, and then you heal it back?"
Josh snorted at the suggestion, but smiled nonetheless. "I wasn't thinking something that easy. I was thinking more along the lines of you trying a couple of different things by adjusting your focus."
There were a couple of stools at the lab bench since Josh normally did his work there everyday. He pulled one out for Kevin and gestured for him to sit, and then moved around the table to sit on the opposite side of him. "I know you can't touch stuff without withering it in some way, but I was thinking maybe you can start off by trying to control how much you wither rather than 100% control right away. Learn some restraint first, you know?"
Josh pointed to one of the plants, which had pretty white lily flowers and lots of green leaves growing from the stems. "Like...maybe by the end of the session we'll have gotten you closer to just withering certain leaves without damaging the flower itself."
"Maybe," Kevin said, and slowly took his gloves off. His powers wanted to be used, and it kind of hurt, so Kevin didn't know if he'd be able to do that. Whenever he used them, it was very hard to let go or stop until everything was all gone. It was this strange kind of hunger, and Kevin had to fight it every single day.
This was going to be hard, and now he wasn't sure if he could do it.
"I'll try it," he said, then let his fingers brush against one of the leaves. Instantly it shriveled up to dust, but he pulled his hand back before it could spread further. "But my power just wants to take over everything and make it die. Even pulling my hand away is hard, you know?"
"What else do you feel, though? Can you feel it dying? Is it as a whole, is it cellular?" Josh questioned, and gently slid his hand forward to touch where Kevin had been touching previously. After a couple of seconds, the leaves returned back to where they used to be. "If you think about it really hard, can you feel exactly what it is that you're doing aside from...it just wanting to take over?"
That was kind of freaky, but Josh didn't let that show.
Watching Josh heal that flower really, really sucked. It made Kevin feel really jealous, and he couldn't take his eyes off the spot. Josh had these awesome powers that couldn't hurt people, and it wasn't fair.
"I feel every inch of it dying," he explained, obviously uncomfortable as he did so. "Cellular, I think. For such a little leaf, I felt a lot of shit dying."
He frowned. "I don't feel it as strongly as I do the other thing, though. That is fucked up."
That made Josh frown because it looked like it bothered Kevin a lot just to admit that, and the intention wasn't to make Kevin anymore upset than he already tended to get. There were no judgments here; Josh only wanted to help him, so he would try to show Kevin he wanted to do just that. "It's all right...everyone feels different things with their powers, right? So we just have to try and either work with it or work around it."
Josh gestured for Kevin to touch the leaves again. "So why don't you try and just shift the focus from the urges to what's going on? Never mind what the outcome is for the leaf right now, just see if you feel any different by just concentrating solely on exactly what your power is doing to the leaf and how that energy is coming out of you. Not the urges, no trying to hold back, just focus all of your attention."
Kevin nodded, and reached out to touch the flower again. He could feel it start to die, so he tried to focus on that. He could feel the cells withering away, but this really loud part of him wanted him to keep killing the leaf as much as he possibly could. It was a struggle to try and ignore that, and Kevin's death vision switched on without him trying to use it, He had this overwhelming urge to keep withering things, and it was so loud that he could barely focus on how the dying flower felt. It seemed like even if he tried to focus on something else, that hunger was still there. He couldn't ignore it.
For now, anyways.
The whole flower fell to dust that time, and Kevin pulled away to place his hands over his eyes as he willed away his death vision. Why was it so easy to do, but hard for the skin part of his powers? "Fuck! I can't ignore it, Josh. I can feel it dying, and I can focus on that, but I can't ignore the other part."
"I didn't say you had to ignore it, Kevin, I just said don't ignore the feel of it dying and the exact part of what you're doing," Josh reasoned. When he healed the flower back to life that time, he pushed the lilies out of the way and pulled over a dead rat.
Kevin was still covering his eyes, though. Josh lifted his clean hand up to try and move them gently. "Does it hurt to do that? You can tell me."
"A little," he muttered, and let Josh lower his hands. It was too bad that he couldn't use his powers on himself, because that would solve everyone's fucking problem, now wouldn't it? He hadn't told too many people about his death vision, but he didn't want to admit it just flashed on right there. That part of his powers was dumb and Kevin thought it could fuck off. "I don't think I'll ever be able to use my powers without fighting them at the same time."
He looked to the dead rat, and sighed. "What should I do now? Try to wither just the fur, or something?
It was hard to believe that Kevin would have to always fight and struggle with his powers for as long as he lived. Just because some people took a long time to get control didn't mean they'd never get it, right? A lot of people sucked at their powers when they first got here but then progressed---then again, a lot of those people that had progressed a lot were probably the ones who practiced everyday. Some kids spent all of their time outside or in the gym or the lab...wherever they needed to be.
"Maybe try just the tail? It's long enough that you should be able to give yourself some time to stop, if you need it."
Maybe Kevin needed to incorporate some of his studies, too, like Josh had to. It wasn't like Josh needed to know anatomy to heal things, but knowing it helped him heal more effectively and it also allowed him to use other manipulations. If Kevin was more familiar with cellular biology, rates of decay, and the decomposition of cells, maybe it would be easier to focus on what his powers worked at.
Kevin sighed, and he placed his finger on the end of the tail, feeling it decompose into dust. What was the point of this? He knew he wasn't going to get control ever, so he didn't know why he bothered. It was hopeless, just like every other time he'd tried this. Moira always insisted that it wasn't, whenever Kevin did try to work with her, but he'd decided that she didn't even know him or his life. Nobody did! It was so easy to say you need to learn control of your powers, but it was impossible. Every time he tried this, all he thought of was his dad's body on the floor in their house. Even when he tried to picture other things, the image stuck.
He thought of it no matter what he did. He knew he didn't deserve control like everyone else. No, what he actually deserved was to be a pile of dust on the floor, just like his dad had been.
Though the tail withered up, only a small section of the rat's behind did after he pulled his hand back. "It spreads like a disease," he commented quietly. "I can't even wither away only the tail...it just keeps going."
God, he hated himself so much. He was a diseased piece of garbage and he needed to fucking die already. The rat was the lucky one in this situation, and he felt more jealous of it than he did of Josh.
Kevin let out a frustrated sigh. "Can you fix it so I can try it again?"
Josh closed his eyes and thought about the structure of the tail he'd become so familiar with these past few months---bone, tendon, ventral artery, dorsal and lateral veins, smaller veins, skin. When he opened his eyes again, everything was there right down to the tiny hairs on the surface of the tissue. However, he didn't pull his hand away.
"I'm keeping my power on. Use your power and try to force it to fight against mine; I'm thinking if I keep healing the cells you'll feel them there a lot more and you'll have to focus on them harder. Go ahead."
Josh's voice was calm and steady, trying not to let Kevin's frustration get the better of them.
Josh not getting annoyed with him did make this a little easier, but still. Josh was all fucking expert, and Kevin pretty much failed at everything. He knew Josh was better because of how much he practiced, but Kevin still couldn't help the jealousy that formed from it. Out of all the powers to have, why did have to get such a horrible one?
Kevin touched the tail like Josh said, and tried to wither it away. Except in this instance, he couldn't, because Josh was using his powers this time, too. Basically, Kevin needed a fucking set of training wheels to not completely destroy something he touched.
"I can't wither it," he pointed out, and tried to feel out the cells a bit more. Every time he withered one tiny cell, it would just heal it right back. "My powers are trying to, but yours are way stronger than they are. I can feel the cells, I can feel myself killing them, but they're not dead for long."
He couldn't keep up with how fast Josh was healing right then.
Josh wasn't putting very much effort behind his healing at all, to be honest. He thought that maybe Kevin would be able to get further with it than he was, but apparently he'd given him too much credit. That was okay; Josh had to remind himself that he practiced a lot more than Kevin did and one of the reasons he did was so that he could be more powerful and better at his control than Kevin! If he hadn't, they wouldn't have even been able to touch like they could right now.
So he slowed it some more. "Think about killing them again, then. Force it more. If you can kill it faster than I can keep it alive then you have some degree of control. Just keep trying."
Kevin tried again, this time he put his death vision on purposely, and stared at the rat. He was trying to imagine it dead and dying, so maybe looking at it that way would help him? Visualization and shit! So he kept his hand still, and tried to force his powers. This time, his powers withered the tail, but went up and withered the rat into a husk of a creature, but not complete dust. It all happened so fast, and it annoyed him. He was such a fucking failure! What happened to just withering the tail? Everything, apparently.
He had killed it faster than Josh could keep it alive, but he couldn't really see that right now.
"Well, that sucked," he sulked. "I killed the whole stupid thing!"
"Yeah, but you still ended up overpowering me...which is what you were trying to do?" Josh offered with a smile. "That's something! Little progress is way better than no progress. You didn't slow your power but you increased it. If you can increase it then the potential to decrease it is there, too. Think about it; you just have to tilt the scale in the opposite direction."
But increasing it was bad! It wasn't decreasing it. Maybe he was just going to get more powerful until nothing at all was able to touch him, and he wouldn't even be able to kill himself properly. "But increasing it is still bad, Josh. I shouldn't be trying to increase it to that amount. I should be trying to decrease it so I can turn these powers off so I never have to use them ever again. Ever. I should have just withered the stupid tail, but no, I had to kill the whole rat instead because I fucking suck."
He should have just withered the tail away, and he was obsessing about that fact right now.
"What if my powers just get worse?" he asked.
Josh's eyes widened. "Kev...there isn't just one kind of control and it doesn't all come at once. It doesn't work that way for me, anyway; I'm fucking all over the place with mine! But you gotta start somewhere and work your way from there, right?"
Sure increasing the power was scary but, again, if Kevin was able to increase the rate of his power, then wasn't it likely he could eventually do the same to decrease it?
"All you need is some more practice. Practice isn't a bad thing--"
"Maybe for you it's not. You get to heal shit, and be awesome," Kevin interrupted, glaring down at that stupid fucking rat dust. He should obviously just stop because he was never going to get better. He was always, always going to be locked in his skin like this."Everything you do is awesome! You can bring things back to life, you can help people, and your practice helps with that. My powers are nothing but a punishment."
He had the power to bring death, but he couldn't kill himself.
"I wish someone could rip my stupid powers right out of my body and be done with it," he grumbled, then reached out to touch the flower again, withering every part of the flower away, save for one petal. He didn't care that he was able to control what he withered in some small way--what mattered was that he withered something when he touched it. "This is hopeless and stupid."
As alarming as the outburst was, Josh was still going to hold onto that shred of hope. "But look at the flower! You were able to leave something behind, so why can't you just have some more faith in yourself? You can do this, I know you can!"
"I don't know why you have to have so much faith in me," Kevin sulked, and reached over to put his gloves back on. "I might have left one petal, but it's one and that's not good enough."
This time Josh looked taken aback. "Why do you think I have faith in you? Aside from the obvious, I just refuse to believe this is impossible, Kevin. I honestly think you're the only thing holding you back. I'm sorry to say it, but it's true. If you'd just work at it a little more--"
"In case you forgot, I killed my dad! Every fucking time I use my powers, that's all I think about," Kevin said as he pulled his last glove on. He didn't even know why he was ranting like this, but he was frustrated, and when he was frustrated, he liked to kick the shit out of himself. Kevin hated himself so much right now. "Actually, I don't think I should try to get control at all. I don't deserve it, and trying to get it is an insult to my dad's memory."
"What!? How does that even make any sense?" Josh demanded, on the verge of losing his cool now as well. "Do you think your dad would have wanted you to suffer inside yourself? To be miserable the rest of your life?"
It was hard to put himself in Kevin's shoes and understand what it felt like to be responsible for not only taking someone's life, but taking the life of a parent. The person you loved the most. Josh had no fucking idea how that felt, and he'd never pretend to know what that was like. However, he cared about Kevin a lot---maybe was even starting to love him. Josh didn't want him to be miserable and feel alone, and had done everything in his power since the day they met to try and help him in some way.
Now Kevin was angry because of it, and Josh couldn't help but get defensive. "Kevin, I'm trying to help you. That's all I've ever wanted to do, I'm not trying to force you to think about him, I..."
Was at a loss for words right now, really.
"I don't know how he'd feel! I'm just guessing because he's dead and everything because of me," Kevin continued on. He didn't know why he was mad. He didn't know why he couldn't stop talking. He knew none of this was Josh's fault, but he couldn't stop himself. Months after months of having these powers had taken a toll on him. He got discouraged way too easily, and though part of him knew he needed to try harder, the other seemed hopeless. "Look, just forget it. You tried to help me, I fucking sucked at it, so let's forget it. I'll never get control of my powers, so I'm just going to accept that. Don't worry about it anymore."
The feeling in Josh's chest right then could only be described as crushing. It felt like an elephant was standing on him and not letting him up for air. It hurt a lot to see Kevin this angry and upset. It hurt a lot to know that after all this time he was still no closer to feeling better. Admittedly, and maybe even selfishly, it also hurt a lot to know that Kevin didn't even want Josh trying to help him. The thing was, Josh had made Kevin a promise way back in August that he would get better at his own powers so that he could help him improve some day too.
Since August, Josh had been working with Moira, with Simon, and with lab animals everyday.
Then in December Kevin and Josh had hooked up after several weeks of Josh struggling through his feelings to be with Kevin. So that night, Josh promised that he'd work harder to get better at his powers so Kevin would never have to be scared of hurting him and so they could touch longer than ten to fifteen minutes at a time. Josh practiced everyday, but longer than he'd been previously working. All Josh tried to get Kevin to do was one day of small, tiny exercises with him to try and see if they could start improving somewhere, and Kevin got livid with him and quit. That hurt a lot and Josh not only took it as Kevin not caring enough to try, but he took it as a sort of rejection. All of this effort Josh had put forward for Kevin over eight months and Kevin couldn't even give him five minutes in return.
So Josh got up and started putting all the plants away and tossed what was left of the rats into the garbage. Kevin would be able to tell by the look on his face that Josh was about one second away from losing his shit on him.
Kevin usually did appreciate what Josh was doing for him, he really did. Josh had tried to help him more than anyone else, but to be honest? Kevin wasn't worth it. He didn't have the confidence to this, or the mindset. What he needed to be doing was talking to a counselor to get his issues dealt with, but he wasn't, and that was a huge reason why he had just lost it over something so small. Kevin had a lot to deal with when it came to his dad's death still, and he wasn't meaning to take it out on Josh, but he was, and he couldn't help it. He wasn't dealing with his trauma properly, and it was effecting other parts of his life. But right now, he didn't see any of that. He didn't see that he was being hurtful and upsetting. All he saw was that Josh didn't have to waste his time on a useless piece of garbage person who didn't deserve control in the first place.
Then Kevin saw that look on Josh's face, and Kevin didn't want to be here anymore. Kevin cared about Josh a lot, and he didn't want him to pulled down with Kevin's dramatic bullshit. Kevin didn't want Josh to waste his time on someone who obviously couldn't do shit. So, just as always when he didn't want to deal with something anymore, he quietly got up and left. Running away was always a good plan, in his opinion.
At least Josh would have a better day without Kevin around to wreck and ruin it.
When Kevin got up and headed toward the door, Josh snapped. "Fuck you, you selfish little prick! The only thing that makes you fail, Kevin, is your shitty attitude about everything and the fact that you diss, like, everyone who wants to help you. So go ahead and run away. All that fucking matters to you is you and your sad, miserable little world you make for yourself. For once, I'm not fucking chasing after you so don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!"
Kevin frowned when he heard that, but said nothing in response. He just left.