#this wasn't meant to be at all I swore I would never write KP fic

[auseyre]

Prompt 12 -Identity

In the aftermath, the weeks and months that follow that day, they,all of them, form a strange, precarious detente. Porsche is Pete’s best friend and they talk every damn day. And it proves impossible to completely disentangle himself from the minor family business. They are still family, no matter how much Vegas wishes he could drain the blood from his veins, from Macau’s and replace it with something new and untainted. And Korn doesn’t let go of family -- not unless they’re in a coffin. The evil fuck kept his sister locked in a secret room for years. Vegas is still a little smug about that when he looks at Kinn. Sure his Pa sucked but not quite that much. 

Sometimes though, sometimes, Vegas looks at Porsche and he remembers that the first time his Pa looked at him like he was nothing, the first time he hit him was the day after Porsche “died”. And no matter how almost friendly they are now, he hates and hates. His mind is a red haze, filled with all the ways he could have/should have/would have tortured Porsche. And he has to leave. He goes to the lakehouse, takes a stack of books and waits. Pete always comes for him. 

But those days grow fewer as time passes. Vegas will never trust Korn, but turns out the bastard really is sick. And when he’s gone, things ease a lot. Vegas doesn’t even realize the slow turn from tenuous contentment to happiness, doesn’t notice when he stops expecting everything to fall apart, to be taken from him like always. He just knows that one day, he looks at Porsche and something dark and knotted inside him breaks apart and disappears. He looks at Porsche and he knows that it was never, ever about Vegas. There was nothing wrong, or broken about him. Pete’s lesson finally settles deep inside him. He could have never made his father happy, because he was the wrong son.