Ronan wakes up gasping, but it’s too late for surprise: he knows what he dreamed. Conviction nailguns his stomach to his throat. He falls out of bed.
Kavinsky is on the floor.
He’s covered in blue. White skin shows rubbery, cyanotic where the slime thins. Cabeswater had vomited the other boy out on him, not the gift -and-giving of Pig, or the violent thefts before. Cabeswater hadn’t wanted Kavinsky.
Ronan scrapes the membrane off Kavinsky’s blind face, and feels the first breath whistle wetly through his fingers. “You couldn’tve made me better, stronger, faster,” Kavinsky croaks; he doesn’t sound surprised.
Ronan looks scared and frustrated and angry, which is newish, but familiar.
Kavinsky personally doesn’t feel much, which is normal for him. No feeling except for the physical, Ronan’s chest drumming his shoulder hotly, hard right arm pinching under his back. When Ronan puts him down, the bathtub squeaks on his ass. Monmouth Manufacturing sounds empty.
His memories are indistinct, unsequenced, vague, but he remembers Ronan screaming from below. “If it’s too much trouble, you could just kill me and bury me out back,” he offers, but Ronan doesn’t smile; gives him a look that’s as raw as a wound.
Edited (grammatical error, boring, no one else noticed (maybe)) 2015-09-13 15:31 (UTC)
It’s not until Kavinsky is eating his sandwich that Ronan recognizes the smell: gasoline. The shower and the sweet-sour mayonnaise smell have cut it now, but Ronan still looks around. No open flames in Monmouth.
Not yet, anyway.
But Kavinsky is different in as many ways as he’s the same. It could be the trauma of rebirth or just… fucking sobriety. He’s fighting Chainsaw over a rind edge of sliced ham. She doesn’t bite him, and his fingers flex short of her eyes.
Abruptly, they both look at him. Dream creatures, one black and one chalk-white, greying in the dawn.
“Maybe,” Blue interrupts, irritation edging into her voice, “we should ask him.”
Gansey stumbles on the combination of female annoyance and All-American Heroism. Noah fades. Adam hasn’t spoken since Ronan yanked Kavinsky to sit against to him instead of wandering every three minutes. Kavinsky went still; Adam became a salt pillar.
“Right.” Gansey clears his throat. He’s—bad with death. “How’re you—psychologically.”
“No kidnapping, suicide, or dragon plans.” Kavinsky’s smile stretches like taffy.
Gansey nods. “Can you still steal dreams?”
“Ehh. Haven’t slept, but I doubt Lynch could picture me without.”
Borrowing the BMW is easy—everyone’s exhausted. It’s a ninety minutes to Ohio, going ten over.
Ronan shows up in an hour.
He cleaves through the nightclub like a tiger, shirt skewed, one cut-ice hipbone exposed, the hauteur of his buzzed profile lambent by throbbing blacklights. Kavinsky has two seconds to wonder if Ronan could’ve found him on gut alone, before Ronan’s on him, snarling—
But he falters when Kavinsky pulls him in, matches groin to groin, mouth to throat. Sets the rhythm, hips rolling and shoving against the bass-line. Ronan doesn’t fucking dream anything meant for cages.
Eventually, they spill back outside the nightclub. Ronan’s throat and palms tingle from contact, but he keeps hold of Kavinsky in case of unscheduled disaster. He hates being socially responsible cop; he belongs in the fucking lineup. Downward comparisons with Gansey do not apply here.
“Hey, fags!” Two frat guys stumble up; one throws beer at him.
Ronan beats the shit out of them. A bloody nose is enough to scare one guy off. The other one lasts a couple uppercuts, splits Ronan’s lip. Afterward, Kavinsky gives him a cigarette. Like the rest of this strange night, it hurts well.
six
Apparently the whole fucking band came to Athens, searching. The motel room is theirs for thirty minutes max.
Ronan lies beside him, texting.
Kavinsky wonders if Ronan knows how easy it would be. He'd barely have to touch him; one finger on his hip, and Kavinsky would open up his mouth and his legs for him; there's a lot you can do in half an hour. But he won't. Maybe that's what he liked about Ronan. Sordid Catholic rage bullshit aside, he's a good guy. Before, the thrill was to wreck that.
Now, this is enough. Kavinsky's heart drums, fast.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
random halsey drabble [1/?]
Kavinsky is on the floor.
He’s covered in blue. White skin shows rubbery, cyanotic where the slime thins. Cabeswater had vomited the other boy out on him, not the gift -and-giving of Pig, or the violent thefts before. Cabeswater hadn’t wanted Kavinsky.
Ronan scrapes the membrane off Kavinsky’s blind face, and feels the first breath whistle wetly through his fingers. “You couldn’tve made me better, stronger, faster,” Kavinsky croaks; he doesn’t sound surprised.
[2/?]
Kavinsky personally doesn’t feel much, which is normal for him. No feeling except for the physical, Ronan’s chest drumming his shoulder hotly, hard right arm pinching under his back. When Ronan puts him down, the bathtub squeaks on his ass. Monmouth Manufacturing sounds empty.
His memories are indistinct, unsequenced, vague, but he remembers Ronan screaming from below. “If it’s too much trouble, you could just kill me and bury me out back,” he offers, but Ronan doesn’t smile; gives him a look that’s as raw as a wound.
[3/?]
Not yet, anyway.
But Kavinsky is different in as many ways as he’s the same. It could be the trauma of rebirth or just… fucking sobriety. He’s fighting Chainsaw over a rind edge of sliced ham. She doesn’t bite him, and his fingers flex short of her eyes.
Abruptly, they both look at him. Dream creatures, one black and one chalk-white, greying in the dawn.
[4/?] cuz youre a hero
Gansey stumbles on the combination of female annoyance and All-American Heroism. Noah fades. Adam hasn’t spoken since Ronan yanked Kavinsky to sit against to him instead of wandering every three minutes. Kavinsky went still; Adam became a salt pillar.
“Right.” Gansey clears his throat. He’s—bad with death. “How’re you—psychologically.”
“No kidnapping, suicide, or dragon plans.” Kavinsky’s smile stretches like taffy.
Gansey nods. “Can you still steal dreams?”
“Ehh. Haven’t slept, but I doubt Lynch could picture me without.”
Ronan’s glares at him, furious because it’s true.
[5/?] aaagoodnight
Ronan shows up in an hour.
He cleaves through the nightclub like a tiger, shirt skewed, one cut-ice hipbone exposed, the hauteur of his buzzed profile lambent by throbbing blacklights. Kavinsky has two seconds to wonder if Ronan could’ve found him on gut alone, before Ronan’s on him, snarling—
But he falters when Kavinsky pulls him in, matches groin to groin, mouth to throat. Sets the rhythm, hips rolling and shoving against the bass-line. Ronan doesn’t fucking dream anything meant for cages.
[5 & 6/?]