Don’t Trust A Matchmaker With A Zippo In His Pocket

📅 April ➝ May 2014

【ᴛᴡ ғᴏʀ ʙʀɪᴇғ ᴀʟʟᴜsɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ʙᴜʟʟʏɪɴɢ ᴀɴᴅ sᴇxᴜᴀʟ ᴀʙᴜsᴇ】

Anarchy was frustrated.
No, that was wrong. Kato was frustrating. 

There was nothing that would change the fact that Kato had been instrumental in Anarchy’s rescue and recovery; the fact that they’d spent nearly every waking hour together for essentially the first full year after Anarchy’d been rescued, maybe longer, and still spent far more time within earshot of each other than out—even with Anarchy trying to find more work these days. They were close, and when they had disagreements they’d always work them out. Anarchy had put effort into being better as a person after they’d had a physical fight a while back and their friendship had somehow seemed stronger, after.

But Kato could be fucking frustrating.

Anarchy couldn’t consistently parse quite why, but his friend seemed to have times where he just needed to push buttons. Sometimes there would turn out to be an explanation, like he’d felt slighted and was fight-picking; sometimes it would be as obviously performative as it had been out on the streets when kids were jockeying for a place in the hierarchy. But sometimes it just seemed like he would because he could. Or maybe old wounds still stung sometimes so he found ways to share the sore spot.

This time they were hanging out at Eocene, post-show, letting the music crowd drain out and the nightclub crowd drain in. Kato respected Astra enough to not argue with her when she’d informed him that her bartenders would be alerted to the fact that he was under 21, just like they had been with Gabe and Ian, but he had no issue finding and using a loophole; he’d gotten plenty of practice in being “the twink who never buys his own drink” as he put it, and was sipping liquor he’d flirted out of some guy when he sauntered back over to Anarchy that evening. He didn’t miss the unimpressed expression.

“Is it still the gay part about this that turns you off, ‘Key? ‘Cause I’m getting doubtful,” Kato said, smirking.
Anarchy tried to wave away the bait. “It’s all of it, man, c’mon. You know Astra wouldn’t be cool with it. How old was the guy who bought you the drink, anyway? What’s he look like?” Anarchy frowned; how Kato described some of his previous bar encounters had made his hook-up partners sound patently predatory, and Anarchy wanted to be aware if there was some creep looking for where the kid he wanted to grope had slipped off to.
Kato just chuckled.
“Young for me, honestly, probably twenties. He wasn’t very good looking, but he was sweet. Maybe I’ll find him again if I’m bored. Why? You worried you have some competition?” Kato abruptly leaned into Anarchy’s space, with coy eyes and a smarmy curl to his lips. Anarchy shoved him back into his own barstool.
“I’m not gay, dude, fuck off with that.”
Kato laughed again instead of apologizing.
“Okay, right. Who’s the hottest chick in here, then?” he asked.

It was said like a ‘gotcha’ and Anarchy curled his lip, but the idea of not engaging made his stomach turn, in case Kato took it as not moral high ground, but proof of his supposed secret homosexual tendencies. He scanned the room and gestured casually to a curvy blonde girl a little ways down the bar, talking to her friends: Her long, goldilocks-coloured hair and short pink skirt made her look the part of a 2000’s TV-show love interest anyway.

“Her,” Anarchy said.
Kato turned and seemed to scrutinize the girl for a moment, making an indecipherable expression but slowly nodding.
“...Yeah, she’s cute,” he said slowly. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, you, in the pink skirt? My friend thinks you’re a knock-out!” he called, gesturing to Anarchy as soon as the girl turned to look. 
“Oh my fuckin’ god,” Anarchy mumbled, only barely resisting the urge to hide his face in his hands and instead shooting a glare at Kato and what he hoped was an apologetic smile at the girl. She looked less irate than he expected, though, and gave him a swift look-over as her two smiling friends tittered into her ear. She sauntered over and gave Anarchy another up-and-down, pursing her lips and briefly pressing the rim of her drink against them as if in thought.
“Like, for actual?” she asked him, a valley-girl type accent apparent in her voice. She was easily over a foot shorter than him, doll-faced and cute, with big eyes and a ‘soft’ figure; the type of California-looking girl Anarchy could easily have imagined ending up with if he’d never left the West Coast.

“Uh, yeah, like, he’s puttin’ me on the spot like an ass but he told me to point out the hottest girl in the room, and...seems like it’s you, right?” Anarchy offered, casually hooking a thumb in his pocket, smiling, and trying his best not to betray how awkward the situation felt. He appeared to be succeeding; a self-conscious sort of smile bloomed across the girl’s face and her shoulders shimmied with the compliment. 
“Seems like it’s me!” she said happily, stepping into his space and batting her eyes. “Well, what’s your name, then, handsome? I’m Angela. You can call me Angie though.”
“Angie, alright. I’m Anarchy. My friends call me ‘Key, though.”

“Well, this is working out great,” Kato said, clapping his hands together. “I’ll let you two chill, then. Ask him what it’s like to be in a band, huh, Angela?” 
Angela blinked up at Anarchy, undeniably more taken; “You’re in a band? Do you play the guitar? Do you sing?”
Kato grinned like the Cheshire cat and vanished into the crowd, leaving Anarchy to acknowledge as humbly as he could, that yes, he played bass guitar, and sure, he sang a bit, but mostly he did unclean vocals, and that yeah, it “was, like, a screamo band or something.”

Fortunately Angela didn’t seem turned off by that, despite her admitted music taste leaning more towards pop. She just seemed delighted by his guitar playing and his height and the fact that he had a workout routine. 
She took him over to say hi to her girlfriends, both of whose names immediately fell out of Anarchy’s head but who clearly had Angie’s best interests at heart and launched into inquiries about what he did for a living and how old he was, while casting glances at his scar but thankfully not outright interrogating him over it.
Gig work; and 19, a month away from 20, he answered their questions honestly; Which is the only reason I haven’t offered to buy you a drink yet, Angie, other than you already having one. After tittering over his age for a moment but apparently finding it acceptable, they’d asked if he was there for the music instead of the bar, then—and he’d said yes, in a way, through a half-self-conscious smile: His band had just played an opening set a couple hours ago.

“So, it’s like, a real band?!” Angela had squeaked, rather delightedly; “I’ll have to come and see you next time!”
“Kinda thinking we could see each other again sooner than that,” Anarchy said, crossing his fingers that he sounded smoother than he felt; “I gotta pack my equipment home tonight, but maybe...I could get your number?”

She readily added her number to his phone with a lipstick mark emoji beside her contact name and texted herself a winky face while casting him a flirtatious smile that felt like a shot of adrenaline straight to the ego; he hung around with a grin on his face for as long as he could, answering questions about music and his tattoos and listening to sorority drama he couldn’t parse until Kato texted him asking him where the fuck he was, at which point he shot Angela a departing smile and gave her a quick, one-armed hug.
 “Gotta run,” he said apologetically, “Band’s impatient. Great meeting you tonight, though, Ang. I’ll text you.”
As he left, he overheard one of her friends fail to whisper, “Not gonna lie, I wouldn't mind helping him ‘pack his equipment’ home,” followed by a bunch of giggling. 

There was a spring in his step when he walked through the band room door and he swung to shoulder-check Kato as he passed him, getting a playful shove in return.
“Took you long enough, asshole,” Kato said; “Seth’s been the one helping Athena with her drumset.” 
“Yeah, well, I was talking to a girl,” Anarchy shrugged. “Got Angie’s number. Might see her again, who knows?”
“For real? You’re gonna try for it?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Oh, and—Thanks for being my wingman.” Anarchy clapped Kato on the back. 

It wasn’t often he managed to leave his uncannily quick friend wordless, but he’d finally done it. He relished the chance to soak it in.

—

He ended up seeing Angela again the next day. He went out to her campus and they got coffee and walked and talked about her classes, and her friends, and he supplied some funny anecdotes from conversations within his social circle but mostly just listened. It was nice, it felt like something else to be walking around with a girl on his arm. So he asked her out again, and she started inviting him over, and one day she introduced him as her boyfriend and hey—! It was happening. 

It was cool to end up with a girlfriend. Like, it was new, and Anarchy kept not quite knowing what he was doing or what to talk about, but women were supposed to be complicated, right? He was gonna fumble a bit. But it was neat! It felt good, whether it was taking her to the movies or standing with her while she window-shopped or mindlessly agreeing that whichever zoo animal she was looking at absolutely was either “the cutest thing” or “totally creepy looking.” 
They didn’t have too much in common, really, but Anarchy figured that was just what ‘opposites attract’ meant and let it be enough that she wanted him around and it felt excellent to finally have a girl. 

Angela—well, they weren’t a match made in heaven or anything, there was some spark missing for that label, but she was fine; she was sweet! Rather like how Valentines sweethearts were sweet; in a way that not everyone quite took to. Kato, for one, had already formed the opinion that she was a bit airheaded, but that hadn’t meant much of anything until one post-date afternoon where Anarchy invited her up to his apartment to chill. 

She eagerly agreed and plastered herself to his side on the elevator ride up, seeming a little disappointed when they walked in the door and found Athena and Kato in the living area.
“Sup? Got Angie with me,” Anarchy greeted, squeezing Angela’s shoulders affirmingly.
“Dope, I was just thinking about trying to do some split-screen Halo but K-O’s being lazy. You wanna do a level with me, Angela?” Athena offered, holding a controller out from the sofa, ready to toss it.
“Oh! No, I wouldn’t know how,” Angela declined; Anarchy held out his hands. 
“I’ll take it then, ‘Thena.”

They settled on the couch, the four of them shooting the shit while Anarchy and Athena worked their way through Reach levels with varying degrees of successful cooperation and minor, playful bickering. During the quieter moments where Athena and Anarchy had to concentrate a bit harder, Angela stiltedly attempted to foster a conversation with Kato, who had draped himself in the chair across from the sofa like a Jarl on a throne, lazily observing the TV screen through half-interested eyes and occasionally offering rather critique-laden commentary.

“So, um, Kato! What do you do for fun?” Angela ventured.
“Self-destruct and read, mostly,” he drawled, turning his attention to her and tucking one leg up so that he was no longer in contact with the floor.
“Oh.” Angela awkwardly shifted her weight; “...What are you reading?” 
“Right now?” He laughed. “Quora questions that piss me the fuck off. Was bitching to Athena about it at lunch today, what’d I say? ‘Napoleon could never live up to Caesar and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fucken manlet too.’”
“You’re biased,” Athena said in a tone of boredom, not even taking her eyes off the screen.
“Sure am, but ha! It’s fucking true.”
“...What’s in a Napoleon?” Angela asked. 
“What?” Kato responded; Anarchy could see his confused expression in his periphery.
“Caesar?” Angela prompted innocently; “Like the salad? It's not as good?”  

Kato stared at her for a solid couple beats before saying, wide-eyed, in more disbelief than outright venom but still profoundly rude: “Oh holy shit, you’re really not fucking with me? You’re actually that dumb?” 
Athena snapped a “Shut the fuck up, K-O,” in the same instant Angela let out a wounded “Wow, what the fuck,” and got up to stalk out.
“...Er...I’ll be right back,” Anarchy said, and followed his girlfriend out into the hall, where he did his best to reassure her that that was just how Kato was, not anything personal;
“He calls me a fucktard, like, twice a week,” Anarchy soothed, “Don’t let it get to you. C’mon, really, he didn’t mean anything.”

Athena was glaring at Kato when they walked back in, and he immediately raised his open palms as a mea culpa gesture and offered Angela a brief dip of his head.
“Sorry, I’m a shit; sometimes I forget what acceptable human interaction is like,” he said, with a lopsided smile that could have passed for either a smirk or a wince; “Years of getting beaten the fuck down in the school system and being treated like it’s all fine will really mess up your barometer reading on what the rest of the human race thinks is okay, turns out. Shouldn’t have been rude. My bad.”

Angela kindly ignored the weakness of his apology and the fact that the entire thing was a woe-is-me excuse, and instead pivoted the conversation straight into his hands with, “Oh, I’m sorry. You were, like, bullied, or something?”
“He got smacked around a lot,” Athena interjected to prevent Kato expounding on his trials, tribulations, and attempted atrocity; “Our school didn’t give a shit. Just let him go through it. Not that that’s justification for being an asshole.”
“Oooh, that sucks,” Angela said; “I was lucky, I went to a private school and I don’t think there was any bullying...Like, some people were mean there a bit, but that’s normal, right? It wasn’t like actual bullying.”
Kato’s expression closed off too quickly to even allow him to sneer.
“Oh, I guarantee you it was,” he said stiffly. “It’s just easier to be fucking blind when you’re not the target.”
He was the one to sweep off that time, leaving Angela to stare uncomprehendingly up at Anarchy.
“I’m literally just talking! Does he have a problem or something?” she asked.
“Several,” both Anarchy and Athena replied, rather tiredly.

—

Despite having set Anarchy up with her, Kato’s opinion of Angela seemed to sink through the floor: He took to making snide comments within earshot when she was over, or deliberately talking over her head if he could, or eye-rolling when she did speak. 
He bitched about her wanting Anarchy over so often, and how she was taking up all his time, now, and what was so great about her anyway?

“She has to ask him over to her place because you’re a raging dickhead every time she’s here,” Athena snapped, having been the one to jump to Angela’s defense more than once, when Anarchy found the situation too uncomfortable; “Just leave him and his girlfriend alone!”
“It’s not my fault she’s insufferably airheaded,” Kato retorted. “I only have one nerve, ya know, and she gets all the fuck over it. Looks and talks exactly like the dimwits who just stood around and watched their meathead boyfriends kick the shit out of me in high school! You know, the type who don’t realize that they’re the stupid bitch from Mean Girls?”
“Do you realize you’re being the bitch-bitch from Mean Girls, then?” Athena had fired back, and the two of them had gotten into an argument that Anarchy stayed out of as best he could.

—

In all honesty Anarchy didn’t quite see what Kato was talking about, and it seemed built mostly on assumptions; Angela mentioned to him how she was failing some of her college classes and was “feeling, like, so dumb about it;” and sure, her speaking mannerisms fell on the superficial-blonde-stereotype side—but she wasn’t mean, and Anarchy knew he himself wasn’t exactly educated, so it wasn’t like he had an intellectual high horse—and she’d seemed pleased when he told her as much and that he’d never even gone to high school. 
But maybe that had gotten in his way; he’d never felt “like, so dumb” about his own education level, and when Kato got fed up with him for whatever reason, and called him braindead, or an idiot, or a dumb bitch, it just kind of bounced off of him. So when he invited Angela over to hang out—as he often did, finding group settings to be a little less pressure—and Kato was rude, Anarchy generally grimaced and told her again, “Don’t worry about it, that’s just K-O,” failing to notice that that was far from satisfactory.

He still tried to make it all work in the rest of their relationship, but it just seemed like he was missing a necessary puzzle piece or two. He’d buy her flowers sometimes, and take her out to lunch or dinner or coffee; and she appreciated it, clearly! But flowers and dates turned out to not be all of a relationship and she kept seeming to want more out of Anarchy than he could really give her. 

He was just never in the mood when they were chilling together, not really; he didn’t know why, and he’d try to have them be going out places or hanging with other people so that the topic wouldn’t come up—but eventually she got so fed up she asked if he didn’t have a medical issue of some kind. He wondered, but figured it was probably just his past fucking with him. Trauma and shit; he’d just spent too long in his adolescence with ‘sex’ being gay and coerced and intermittently violent. Of course it was hard for him now to actually do it with someone.
Not that he really talked to Angie much about that. That was the other thing she wanted from him.

 “Closeness,” she said emphatically, trying to have a heart-to-heart with him in her kitchen one afternoon, nearly two months after they’d first met. “We’re dating! I wanna feel like you talk to me! Aren’t boyfriends and girlfriends supposed to be, like, best friends to each other?”
“Are they?” he asked. Angela huffed.
“Yeah, duh! That’s why all the cutest marriage stories have that line in there about how you’re supposed to marry your best friend!” 
“God, and I can’t do that, that would be fuckin’ K-O,” Anarchy almost laughed, missing the point so hard it had to seem like he was dodging it. 
Angela pursed her lips; a sour expression, not the thoughtful one of their first meeting. “He’s still your best friend to you then? Even though he’s a bully to me all the time?”
“Ah, don’t cast him like that—he’s been through some shit, yanno, that’s just how he deals. It’s not real, don’t let it get to you.”
“Uh, it feels pretty effin’ real when he’s saying nasty things about me!” Angela spat back.
“He doesn’t really mean it, though.”
“You’re always making excuses for him!” Angela snapped; “I’m your girlfriend but you always take his side! What even am I to you?! We’ve had sex, like, once, you only kiss me when I ask, you don’t talk to me about your feelings, and you clearly prefer your friends over me! Is that all I am to you?? An extra friend?? I don’t feel special!”
“It’s not like it’s personal, I’ve just known them longer so we’re closer,” Anarchy said appeasingly.

Angela had been drinking an iced tea that Anarchy abruptly found himself drenched in.

“You are an inconsiderate DOUCHEBAG, Anarchy Keystone!” Angela yelled, slamming her empty glass back down on the counter; “If you just want arm candy then let a girl know that before she wastes her time with you! I was never just looking to be your pretty little acquaintance!”

—

“You’re home early...What the fuck happened to you?” Kato asked when Anarchy walked through the door, downtrodden and still sticky with iced tea.
“...I’m single. Ang and I had a fight, I guess. She said I didn’t treat her like my girlfriend,” Anarchy replied, unzipping his hoodie for the laundry. “Apparently I made her feel like my ‘pretty little acquaintance.’”
“Wow. ‘Acquaintance’ is a pretty big word for her, isn’t it?” Kato smirked.
Anarchy frowned and, after a beat, threw his sugar-soaked jacket at him.
“Ya know what? Fuck off, K.”