hurt.— [jason/killua]

Face to face with Jason Navarre was not how Killua wanted to start his afternoon with his boyfriend. His face brought pure rage to Killua, the remnants of his scarred knuckles from punching the drywall still scabbed. Something was different though, Killua noticed. The way he opened the door was deliberate and smooth, he didn't slur his words, and he didn't reek of bourbon and whisky like the day they had interacted before.

Jason apologized to him, and he was taken aback. Adrian's father had been completely replaced by a sober clone, and Killua realized why a woman like Adrian's mother could have ever loved him. He understood why Adrian was so reluctant to talk poorly of his father, why he seemed so attached to a man that seemed to care so little for him.

"It's fine," Killua muttered as he entered their home, taking off his shoes and leaving them at the front door. He wanted to get any and all interaction with Jason over as soon as possible with as few casualties as possible - he was not in the mood to deal with Jason today. Especially with the events of Adrian's health scare prior. "I should've been a little less hostile towards you, too."

"How're you today, sir?" He followed with, throwing his fakest voice possible on.

The scent of Everclear filled the air, filling Killua's senses full of botanicals and fermented wheat. Alcohol was not something Killua was all too familiar with - he was never the type to go to a party, nor was his teenage curiosity piqued by his mother's liquor cabinet. Dust collected on the wine bottles on the oaken wine rack, lest be touched unless his family had important guests over.

Weed calmed him down - it tamed the whirring thoughts in his head, it made the world around him stop spinning as fast as it did, allowing him to catch up with the thoughts and events that collided with his brain at lightning speed. It made him the carefree and relaxed person that he was known to be.

But when Jason Navarre offered him a drink, he accepted. He figured that a light alcohol buzz would be the nearest substitute to the high he was used to.

"He hasn't mentioned anything to me about volunteering," he said, as he grabbed the bottle of Everclear and poured himself perhaps too large of a glass. The stench of vodka sent his stomach south, and he dreaded taking a sip. But it was just like the first time he had smoked weed - you just had to get the first high over with, the one where you think you're in another universe, the one that filled your lungs so deeply with smoke that you had to gasp for air.

Come to think of it - he wasn't sure that Adrian had ever intended on volunteering. Annoyingly enough, Adrian was a career, but his desire to be one never seemed to go beyond pleasing his father.

He held his breath and took a sip, the taste of pure alcohol instantly rotting his tastebuds and sent him gagging for air. How embarrassing, he thought, as he choked on the strength of the liquid. But he still took another sip, and although the dastardly awful taste went away, it seemed to go down easier.

Playing it cool, Killua turned to Jason, "How come you never volunteered, sir?"

So Jason Navarre was a has-been. Interesting. It was something about other people's failures that made Killua feel better about himself.

Killua smiled internally, but his exterior still remained the same; cool and collected, especially as he brought the crystal glass to his lips. The world around him started becoming hazy as he cleared the initial drink as Jason spoke. It was just enough alcohol for him to still be coherent - but his judgment was hazy, crumbling the walls that his filter was held behind. This was why he preferred weed - he never worried about saying the wrong thing while he was high.

So when Jason asked why Adrian was found limping the other day, Killua couldn't help but laugh. Because I'm fucking your son, that's why, he wanted to say, just to rub everything he knew Jason wouldn't want to hear in his face.

But Killua knew the words he truly did not want to hear. It was that Adrian was dating someone like Killua - someone who did not care for appearances, someone who wasn't a Career, someone that could corrupt the image Jason had in mind for his son. A boy who punched holes in walls to deal with his anger, a boy who dealt with his jealousy by manipulating his competition into believing Adrian didn't want him around. The boy who sipped Everclear out of a glass standing in front of Jason - that was the kind of boy Jason Navarre didn't want his son to be with.

Killua was never one for being impressionable, though.

He cleared his throat. "Adrian and I - we're dating. Did he not tell you?" He asked Jason, despite knowing that Adrian probably did not tell him - knowing him, Adrian was probably afraid to.

Killua thought he was simply doing him a favour. Call it doing the dirty work.

He took another sip of vodka. Now it washed down like water. 

Yes, yes. Killua flashed Jason a snarky smile and moved closer to him. This is exactly what I want. He had found the words that would make Jason Navarre crack, make his anger truly shine through of his tough exterior, revealing the horrible thoughts and disappointment he held within himself, pouring out like a tsunami crashing on the shore.

The liquor held Killua hostage, taking every inch of his body and manipulating it, his vision, his slurred words, the walls and filters he usually hid behind closed doors. All of those were tossed to the side, forgotten. The feeling of wanting peace with Jason had subsided. Killua had one motive and one motive only - make Jason feel pain, the only way he knew how. With his words.

"Sure did," he said, the words trickling off of his tongue in an alcohol induced frenzy. Watching Jason break gave him a newfound power over him - he was in control, he was the dominant personality. Jason could intimidate him all he wanted - but as long as Killua could hold Adrian's infatuation for him over his head, he was the winner. "We are full on homosexuals. Homos, if you will. Dating. Gay. Kissing, holding hands. The whole works."

The two men held each other's gazes, the resentment between the two rising with every second that passed. Killua thought for a second that maybe he should've let Adrian tell his father about the two - maybe he should've waited, played the long game with Jason. Watch him quiver and squirm with discomfort each time KIllua was around.

But he was having too much fun. And he spoke the words that would shatter Jason once and for all.

"You're not the only man Adrian calls daddy."