For weeks, he shows up every Saturday, eight a.m. sharp. Things seem normal. He socializes. He makes beautifully human connections. He tries a different drink every week and things are wonderful. He feels content, balanced, at peace.

And then he has a dream that would make Salvidor Dali salivate, and when he wakes, everything is wrong.

It's Saturday and eight o' five and nothing is right. He wakes by smacking his head off the floor on the left side of his bed, opens his eyes and sees nothing but bedsprings and echos of melting faces and tilting hallways and funhouse mirrors. He wakes and he regrets it, because he's stuck here in the reality of absolute chaos and he can't wake from this.

Dear Death make it stop.

He squeezes his eyes shut, but it does him no good. The contents of his mind have been scattered, shredded, whipped into a cataclysmic mess of noise that buzzes in his skull like a beaten hive of bees.

He squeezes his eyes shut so hard that everything is black and mottled with tie dye splotches. He wonders why he can see without seeing, why there's this wreckage, this clutter, even when he dares not look upon the world. It laughs at his pain in all its chromatic glory, and when he forces himself to wrench his eyelids open, he finds no relief.

The ceiling offers him no solitude. All his senses are on overdrive. He's a God tripping over an adrenaline rush, eyesight beyond impeccable and incredibly aware of the imperfect divots in the plaster, the twisting tones of white, eggshell, and the ever unwelcome cream, despicable excuse for a paint colour-

He rearranges all the paintings in the manor eight times each.

He runs the hot and cold water, suffers through his shower with chattering teeth; being a God only gives so many freedoms.

He's unpleasantly aware of just how human he still is, has always been. So flawed, so incapable of coping.

So tired.

So very tired.

He doesn't look at his reflection when he dresses, his movement merely muscle memory. It isn't until he sees an empty coffee cup on one of his dressers, so ragged and out of place, stained with cheap ink and jagged handwriting, that he realizes why it is that he's bothering to dress.

It's Saturday.

And he has somewhere to be.

It takes far too long to reach the front doorstep, long enough that his pride is hardly hanging on a flimsy limb. One step, then the next, then the next. First goal is to reach the corner without incident. Then the intersection.

He ignores the absurd lack of traffic lights at the crossroads, keeps his head down and continues. Using Beelzebub is an option, but the notion makes him vaguely sick to his stomach. The cowardice of it would be unbearable, to simply fly above all that irks him, all that twists his insides and crawls into his throat in heavy, tense panic.

If he can't do this, why should anyone bother to care for him? Who would sink to being the friend of an incomplete, lopsided, feeble excuse for a God? Who would waste their time on a boy who can't handle walking down a street without being struck with vertigo and grief at once?

He knows that they all know, and they humour him. He wishes they wouldn't. This little bit of hope for human, healthy connections that he has is heavy and hurtful. Why not just turn around, go home and try to center himself-

"Hey Kid!"

It's Maka, hand in hand with Soul, and she's holding open the door for Kid, the air of the coffee shop rushing to greet them with a sharp snap of cold and the scent of fresh grounds.

The sight of them together, two total opposites coexisting in such simplistic harmony- It calms him.

His lips twitch upward into a weak, but genuine smile, and he thanks her as he walks into the coffee shop, his resolve strengthened by the magnitude of the bond just on his heels, pushing him forward to his booth. They don't follow him, but they do invite him to join them anytime, and he's thankful.

It's just after one. The lunch rush has died down a bit, and his booth in the center in the back waits for him, seemingly surrounded by an intangible force field. He's sweating despite the air conditioning chilling the place to a cool 65, and when he sits, it's much more like he's collapsed into place, burnt out but proud. He closes his eyes and relaxes into the vinyl cushion he's become so shamefully possessive of, breathing slowing with every moment.

Hardly two minutes pass before the atmosphere shifts. Kid's eyes open to find Kilik across from him, his work apron slung over a shoulder, and a tall, sweating mug clutched in his hands.

"Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"

Kid runs through all of the events of the morning, of the chaos and absurdity and torment.

And he bursts into a fit of laughter that hitches his ribs, flushes his cheeks and makes them pleasantly tender. Through watering eyes, he can see the wavering image of his companion, Kilik's grin wide though his brows crinkle, amused, or incredulous, or a strange mixture of both. It only makes Kid laugh harder, his hands coming up to cover his warm face, a last ditch effort to preserve some semblance of dignity. Silently, he admits to himself that he's grateful to Kilik for letting him get this out, for waiting patiently while Kid catches the edge of hysterics that creep up his throat and drags them back into a warehouse of unwarranted worries in the depths of his soul.

"Oh, you have no idea, " he snorts, the noise inelegant and perfect for the moment at hand.

"So, you ever gonna use that number I gave you? Or is it just going to collect dust on your dresser as your favourite paper weight?"

"Who- Elizabeth."

"Yeahhh she's pretty invested in your social life I think. It's kinda sweet, in a strange, overbearing older sister kinda way. I'll probably be the same way with the twins when they start getting all weird and pubescent on me."

"Twins? Are they your brother and sister?"

"My weapons, actually, but they're more like family than any family I've ever had. I'll introduce you to them sometime. You'd all probably get along."

"Oh for fuck's saaaaaake, just text him already! You're so socially lame, it's almost hard to comprehend." He scowls at Liz, but he knows that she's not far off. Kilik had made it clear on multiple occasions in multiple ways now that Kid was more than welcome to text him, call him, skype him, whatever, and yet Kid still finds himself staring longingly at his sharpie stained cup.

He memorized the number weeks ago. It rattles in his head sometimes, harmonized with a catchy jingle that's positively insidious. He's dialed it multiple times, and he's typed out long, overly polite texts that seem so awkwardly formal when he rereads them, it borders on painful. It doesn't make sense for him to be so incapable of making such a simple decision. He's chosen to end lives before, why the hell is this causing him so much conflict?

Patti slaps him on his back, hard, unaware as ever of just how freakishly strong she is (or perhaps more aware than she'll ever let on). "You're totally a sucker for Kilik, Kiddo," she casually mentions, taking each of his shoulders in her hands and shaking him gently (for her, at least). "Just come to terms with it and getchur head outta your ass. He's obviously into you, what have you got to lose?"

And she just doesn't get it, damn it. He's finally started to make more friends, something he wasn't aware that he needed so intensely, something that his life had been devoid of, that he's almost positive he can no longer do without. The people he's met, that he's gotten to know, they give him perspective. He no longer looks at things in such blunt terms as morally black and white, abstract or symmetrical, even or uneven. He's been given all the shades of grey, given every colour on the spectrum, given different points of view and different ideals and different kinds of beauty, and he's hooked.

A misstep feels like a catastrophic failure. A breeze could topple this house of cards.

But as he starts to sweat, twitch, curl inward upon himself, Liz takes one of his hands, and Patti retrieves a cold washrag for him before taking his other hand. They breathe slowly, their souls curling together and then wrapping protectively around his, their calm wavelengths dragging his panicked one into their peace.

It's now that he's reminded of the kind of power that true bonds can have, and it seems so absurd that he ever thought that he could ruin a friendship with an awkwardly written text.

With closed eyes and an open soul, he inhales deeply, slowly, exhaling his anxiety in a satisfying whoosh of breath. Liz's soul wriggles in poorly contained smugness and pride, and Patti's pulses with joy. When his eyes open, the younger girl already has his phone ready for him, and Liz nudges his shoulder with hers.

"Go get 'im tiger. Even if all you want is to be friends with him, he'd be thankful for it. Your friendship is a goddamn gift, ya dweeb, so stop acting like people who give you the time of day are doing you a favour. It's not like you're hard to love."

"Hard to deal with when you're having a hissy fit, totally!" Patti chimes in, "but that's only what you sometimes do, not who you are. So go on and make someone's day, Kiddo."

I don't mean to intrude, you may be busy, and if so please don't feel obligated to-

No, no, no, that's insulting, Kilik isn't the type to feel obligated to give anyone pity or attention, he's straightforward, and he told Kid to text him.

You said I could text you, so I'm-

No.

Hey, it's Kid. Sorry it took so long.

His thumb hovers over the 'send' key, and he stares at the draft long enough to go a little crosseyed before he sends it. He immediately stuffs his phone in his pocket, doing his best to not seem too eager for a reply (at which he fails, he's turned the volume all the way up).

The seconds tick by, silently deafening him, ricocheting around in his skull and crowding together more and more as each passes.

One hundred twenty eight seconds.

The chime pierces through the silence, drains the conglomeration of moments from his hazy brain. His hands shake, none too subtle about informing him of his nerves, but he manages to retrieve his device from his pocket without dropping and shattering his EyePhone. Knotted stomach flip flopping is the strangest sensation, and his pulse thunders uncomfortably in his neck and fingers. He can feel his heart beat in the pad of the digit he opens the message with, and he imagines the force of it being so strong that he accidentally clicks the screen twice, calling Kilik with only the excuse of 'my finger made me do it'. A feeble explanation to say the least.

Luckily, though, things go much more smoothly than the catastrophes he tends to play out in his mind.

Hey yourself. I'm really glad you texted me, I was just finishing making dinner for the twins and thought of you and how I was gonna kick your ass next time I saw you if you didn't text :p

Kid isn't positive, but he's pretty sure this is what Liz and Patti call flirting.

As if on cue, Patti points out matter of factly, "He is totally flirting. What are you gonna say, Kiddo? Didn't your momma ever teach you howta snag yourself a man?" she chortles, poking his sides as he wriggles out of her reach, a smile cementing itself on his face. He feels like an absolute fool. Never has he wished for any sort of romance or flirtation, nor has he really ever understood or experienced it, but this particular aspect? The teasing banter?

He likes this so far.

"I'm a bit lacking in the mother department, care to share any wisdom your own mother taught you?"

"Well," she says with a filthy grin, and he regrets asking immediately as she continues, "she told me the way to a man's heart is through his dick, and as far as I know she ain't wrong."

He suppresses a gag, trying to think happy thoughts, thoughts of a world in which he was very much so unaware of his dear weapon's way of spending her free time. Surely there's a witch somewhere in the world with the power to erase this information from his memory…

"Remind me to never ask you for advice again."

"Ask him to cream your coffee, c'mon you've gotta."

"Patricia!"

"Me!"

The undiluted glee radiating off her, mixed with the second chime of his phone and the hysterical laughter coming from Liz half a room away, whips him into a fit of chuckles that leaves his abdomen sore. The second message reads-

I'm jk though I wouldn't try to kick your ass coz the pistol sisters would probs murder me. You free on Sunday? I'm bringing the twins to the park and IsCream shop if you wanna come along.

Well.

That was fast.

His answer is immediate and nothing but truth.

I would love to. What time?

Not even a minute passes, another chime.

How does 8 sound? ;p

"Ohmigod he's sending the wink face LIZ HE SENT THE WINK FACE THIS IS SERIOUS BIZNESS!" Liz whistles lowly, strolling over to Kid with a sly smile.

"Patti's right. We gotta find you something to wear."

His eyes roll, but his cheeks ache, and he types out a quick,

Sounds perfect :)

To be continued...