thisavrou_log | o2 🔥 HELL ON THE SHORE WITH THE WIDOWS OF LOVE

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o2 🔥 HELL ON THE SHORE WITH THE WIDOWS OF LOVE

Who: Joseph Kavinsky & you
When: Throughout November [2016 or your local star-date]
Where: The Moira, Midway Hub pending mod information
What: Open catch-all for November! Kavinsky noodles around being reckless and problematic and young, despite the fact that we were all aliens a couple days ago and now our spaceship is getting peculiarly spongy and exhausting.
Warnings: Offensive language (e.g., racism, misogyny, etc.), underage drinking, drug use (i.e., cocaine), some indications of mental illness

November 1 | maleficus @ sanitation

[for another peculiar day, he's a maleficus and deeply uncomfortable with small spaces.

by then, he's abandoned even trying to sleep in the crowded four-man quarters assigned to them. instead, he has retreated to sanitation-- technically, his workplace. there aren't a lot of dry stretches on the floor, but he found one and claimed it by the wall. he takes up in an odd, childish little pile of scavenged bedclothes, over by the wall and below the eerie creak of piping. far enough from the door to keep an eye on it.

he plays with a lighter, enraptured by the flames. he's always liked fire, but these weird few weeks have been the only time he's preferred it to the company of people to pester. nonetheless, when you walk in, his eyes focus like a laserlight. no point pretending what he's doing is normal.]

Yo.

2-5 | hoverboard

[the next day, he wakes up himself again, pale and spiky and sociable in the worst possible ways. a dream thief who fears nothing in particular.

and by the afternoon, he's barreling down the hallway drunk on a hoverboard.

the machine is an untested concept for him, based on half-assed theory and dubious execution, something out of a movie or a video game that reminded him of the moira's overall aesthetic. it stretches a little longer than a skateboard, with toe grips, blue light shooting out of the back, aerodynamic at first glance but nnnnot very science. and so it stands to reason, he has to shout a warning when he goes around the corners, something brief and universally understood, like:] OUTTA MY FUCKING WAY, BITCH.

[but he manages to crash into you anyway, just like the dave matthews song, all elbows and twittering space-age electronics.]

3 | j austen's secret bar

[whether it's by rumor or following the notorious reek of cigarettes on a certain blonde, the teenager turns up in the bar space (space bar) (hahaha) one evening. other people are occupied with solving the mysteries of the ingress, but he gives approximately zero fucks about that. the research had seemed, at best, a sobering kind of activity and who needs that.

he's half-expecting to be turned away. despite the the general ne'er-do-well quality to his hangdog slouch, too-skinny shoulders, and the kind of face that promises not to age well into his twenties, he does look like an underage fiend trying to sneak in places on the power of a clever bribe and bombastic overconfidence. which he is. minus the bribe, maybe. who has anything to bribe with in space? if anybody does, he's (bombastically) confident that it's him.]

Whatever's on tap. Yo, do you have a fucking tap?

5+ | your cat is either dead or asleep, but mostly, he's in the way

[the war against sleep is one kavinsky has spent many years of his life fighting. cocaine helps. adrenalized fun times, adventures in deep space, the excitement of plotting revenge. historically, his sleep cycle has been a carefully controlled sequence of uppers and downers, some of which come in powderform that he likes to snort up his nose. he understands it pretty well, in that he knows how he likes to feel, and what nightmares he'd prefer to avoid. he knows his body, how well it tolerates abuse and at what point he has to bury his head under a pillow and pass out.

none of it equips him for the catastrophic fatigue that kicks in that day. it's absurd. the extra line doesn't do much, and the sleep that pulls him feels oddly black, dreamless in a way that would be terrifying if he weren't a monster himself.

and that's when you find him lying in the hallway. fast asleep on the floor, head on his arms. as entitled as a cat.]

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Fifty-fifty, [says kavinsky, with zero scientific or medical basis on this matter, because they're talking about magical fucking superpowers. but he says it with confidence. all the confidence of his considerable experience, and pretty decent intuition besides. don't ask him about love, friendship, the meaning of life.

dream powers, drugs, murdering nightmares, he can do.] If you don't, and I'm stuck dreaming by myself, [he shrugs. and then, tired of waiting around for the vodka bottle cap, he pushes ronan's arm up with his fist, feels around on the blanket for the little round piece of metal.] Gonna draw a cock on your face. Least you owe me.

Long as you draw it with ink.

[Because if he wakes up with any kind of body fluid on him, he'll murder Kavinsky with his bare hands. But that doesn't need to be said. It's surely understood.

Rolling his head back, Ronan sighs and shuts his eyes. At least he can't feel the dread anymore. If this does nothing else, it's removed him from that.]

[kavinsky puckers up his round pink mouth into an even rounder pinker kissy face. it lasts for the brief duration of time required to make fun of ronan's puritanical life values, and then he rolls over in the bed. below them, the pillowtop mattress is so fucking good, that there's scarcely any shaking or bouncing or movement transfer at all.

he's either genuinely unconcerned by the promise of dream monsters or he's sleepy, too, from drugs, or he has a gun under his pillow. scratch that: he is definitely chemically drowsy and touching a weapon hidden right under his head. but the first thing is harder to know. kavinsky sticks his face in the pillow, a sigh riding up through the knobs of his spine.]

Last time I had a sleepover, [kavinsky says, muffledly,] I was nine fucking years old. How old you gotta be before you grow out of this shit, Lynch?

That's a lie.

[The last time Kavinsky had a sleepover was a couple weeks before the Fourth of July. Ronan knows because he was there. Or does it not count because he'd been in a car accident and passed out while drinking?

He wonders for the hundredth time what he's doing here.

Ronan starts to say something else, maybe, but the words escape in an unintelligible mumble as he succumbs to sleep.]

[it's not a sleepover if there's no bed. roof. television. frozen pizza dinner.

it's not a sleepover if sleep took place five, ten minutes at a time, drug-induced, broken up by cocaine.

it's not a sleepover if the jackass fucks off and ignores you days after.

it's not a sleepover if you kill yourself and then say, with all the authority of the one with the bigger problems, that it wasn't a sleepover.]

Sure, [he says, because it's easier to admit to lying than anything else. even for kavinsky. especially for kavinsky. he closes his eyes and lets himself drift.]

[The dream is a wasteland, as it always is these days. When he'd first arrived on the ship, some of the forest was still standing. But every time Ronan returned to it, more of it was gone. Now everything is dead, cracked dirt stretched infinitely in every direction, broken up with piles of ash and bones and thorny-looking things resembling bushes made of barbed wire. Black oil runs through the cracks in the ground, pooling where the land dips, where bodies of water once stood.

Kavinsky's pill hasn't changed any of this. Ronan sighs, turning to scan the landscape. There is one difference, as far as he can tell: It's silent. Usually he can hear the buzzing, a swarm of wasps that starts in the distance and gets louder and closer until the nightmare begins to attack Ronan. Tonight, he can't hear the buzzing at all. It's so quiet, actually, he feels like he has cotton stuffed in his ears.]

K? Where the fuck are you?

[there's a brittle crack, then a thump. something-- not big, but carrying itself as if it's much bigger than its physical body would suggest, smashing around in the undergrowth, like a young buck showing off.

or kavinsky, who doesn't know much about wilderness, except that sometimes it gives him big tracts of empty green grass to fill with shitty rough draft mitsubishis.

he appears from around one of the wire bushes. kicks over a pile of bones, making his way over to ronan, but not looking at ronan. not for the first time, but more significantly than all the rest-- ronan isn't actually the singularly most interesting thing to look at. kavinsky shoves his thumbs in his pockets, forefingers pointing at his groin. he slows down as he gets closer.] You fucked Wal Mart, [he observes. he sounds impressed.]

Not me.

[Where is it, though? Where the fuck is it? Ronan rubs at his ears, but the muffled sound quality doesn't improve. Is that for the best, maybe? He did say he wanted quiet.

Ronan takes a step closer to Kavinsky, though his eyes are still on the horizon.]

Be careful what you touch if you don't want to lose a hand.

[He's been nearly disintegrated more than once.]

[kavinsky's eyes narrow thoughtfully. he looks left and right, across the desolate landscape. it's a far cry from the forest that he is accustomed to thieving out of. hard to imagine he could pull anything inspired out of this shithole.]

'Course it's you, princess.

[he finally picks a random direction and starts to walk. he doesn't look back at ronan, expecting the other boy to follow as much out of fear as out of inspiration. his shoes flatten the shape of his nike souls into finely ground substrate.] If it's in here, it's yours.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

[Though Ronan doesn't sound very confident of that as he catches up to Kavinsky. With creatures like them, literally anything is possible. Could he inadvertently create something that would disassemble his own soul? The answer's more likely yes than no. There's no telling if the demon followed him or if Ronan manifested it or if it planted an infected seed while destroying Cabeswater and this is simply the result of that infection.

He still can't hear it, which is somehow more unnerving. At least the buzzing always acted as a warning. Now he feels like he's stumbling blindly toward a danger lying in wait.]

We should take it slower. And watch your fucking step for sinkholes and shit.

[in response to the other dreamer's cautioning, kavinsky kind of takes a haphazard look around, swerving his spiky head left and right. it's definitely nobody else's idea of careful.

he thinks he knows what he's dealing with. or close enough. he himself entirely deliberately created something that ripped his soul from his body and left his flesh untouched, once upon a time. the self-appointed expert in the house isn't about to have much patience for differences of opinion.] Hey, [he says, slowing abruptly. he tips his chin down at the ashy ground.] Hey, check it, Lynch.

[there's nothing to 'check.' instead, the moment ronan's in reach, kavinsky slaps his hand up the the irish boy's face.] This is always the shit that fucks up your dreaming, Lynch. Always. Stop fucking thinking about it so much. Even the goofy-ass robot people had MIDs and bodies. You need to relax your fucking ovaries.

[nobody ever sat down with kavinsky and gave him the victim-blaming talk, okay.

i mean there isn't an official victim-blaming talk in their culture, but there should be.]

[Maybe Kavinsky has a point. Ronan might even have stopped to consider it, if not for the slap that precedes it, which sends irritation boiling over into pure anger. Kavinsky may be the authority on a lot of shit, but there's no way he knows more about demonic influence than Ronan, and to be condescended to about this topic so soon after he had the thing physically taking him apart... Ronan raises a fist, ready to hit Kavinsky right in the jaw -

The ground is sinking.

Ronan freezes, then drops his hand, turning his eyes toward the dirt. The black stuff has soaked it through, turning it to a muddy mess that's rapidly taking on the consistency of quicksand. Instinctively, Ronan reaches out to grab hold of Kavinsky, though neither of them is standing on solid ground anymore.]

Jesus - Fuck.

[kavinsky is a lot of things, but interested in drowning is not one of them. his shirt slips out of ronan's fingers the first time, but then his arm is there the second grab, as kavinsky stumbles back. his eyes are uncharacteristically wide, cutting to and fro for a split-second, like he's really thinking about this in terms of drowning and running.

it's hard not to. the place stinks of horror and misery. he doesn't know what this is, the black stuff under his feet.

but then he twists his head to stare at ronan.] Stop, [he says. there's no plea in it; not yet, anyhow. his voice is forceful, strident, the jersey accent nearly gutted out of it.] Lynch. Fuckin stop.

How many times do I have to fucking say it? This isn't me.

[His fingers close painfully around Kavinsky's arm, a claw-grip that won't be easy to shake. If Ronan goes down, he's not about to go down alone. At least it's still happening slow enough that they can sort of walk, shoes sticking in the oily mud but not entirely submerged. He stumbles a few steps along with Kavinsky, then turns his eyes to the ground.]

Be stone.

[The ground doesn't understand him, or maybe his voice sounds as muddled to it as all other noises seem to him. Dulling his senses may not have been the best approach.]

Be stone. Be rock. Be solid.

[kavinsky looks impatient. which is accurate. he's getting impatient. he likes fast cars. slow walking, over sinking goop, is literally the opposite of what he wants. he yanks a foot up and almost falls. somehow, ronan's clutching is both what's keeping him upright and what threatens to drag him down.]

It is you. It was you when you cut your own ass up with thorns. It's you trying to fucking kill us now.

I know why you hate me. [he should be scared, but he isn't quite. flashpaper aggravation. fire burning in a void. and it's not intentional, really, that he asks what cabeswater had asked ronan before, in another world, far away if not so long ago. when he asks:] Why do you hate you?

[Ronan's already alarmed, but doubly so when he throws a wide-eyed look at Kavinsky again. Is Kavinsky his fucking psychopomp now? Is that what's happening? Just how does he crawl in and creep around Ronan's psyche when Ronan himself only ever manages to make it to this surface level?]

Don't give me that shit. You're the last person I need playing headshrink.

[They aren't moving fast enough. Every step has him nearly ankle-deep in the gunk. Ronan looks away from Kavinsky and back at the ground, trying to muster up the kind of authority Gansey always seems to have loaded and ready.]

Make it stone. Amabo te.

[And just like that, the black stuff seeps back into the ground and the remaining mud flattens into solid rock. Ronan stomps and tugs at his boots until enough of the stone crumbles and he can break free. Not exactly a triumph, but... small victory. The dream finally listened.]

[kavinsky snaps back with characteristic bite:] I'm in your fucking head. Your head is trying to fucking kill me. The fuck else am I going to do.

[but even as the words come out of his mouth, there's latin leaving ronan's. kavinsky drops his eyes to the ground, and his eyebrows rise fractionally on his face as the mud begins to harden and dry up under ronan's command. his mind tracks back, tracks forward. latin. well, that is the stupid fucking language the native vegetation so likes to speak.

and the next instant, he starts to grin. madly. foolishly. a cat drunk on nip and fermented mice guts. he hoots, and throws an arm around ronan's neck, drags the (considerably) taller boy low enough to rub his knuckles into his hair. peachfuzz. whatever.]

Fuck yes, Priscilla! You did it!

[Ronan allows this exultant show of affection only because he's still stunned that it worked. After everything that happened during the timeslip, he was so sure the dream would be deaf to him - or worse, that it might turn on him with elevated malice. But...]

That was barely anything.

[And the dream had to labor too hard to grant it to him, when it should have obeyed him the first time. Ronan shrugs Kavinsky off of him, throwing a suspicious look around them.]

I know you don't believe me, but this place is corrupted, and I can't control the thing that's doing the corrupting. Usually I can hear it by now, but that shit you gave me... It's like I'm half-deaf. Or underwater. Do you hear anything?

That was you cutting through your own bullshit, man.

[after ronan shrugs him off, kavinsky punctuates his enthusiasm with a slap on the other boy's ass. he then steps away, his footfalls clicking, almost ringing faintly on the fresh stone underfoot. ranging ahead again, if only a little bit. still against ronan's advice, but not too badly this time.]

Look, man. I know Wal Mart is a whole other-- fucking corporate entity. Not just you or me. I know it kinda makes sense. There gonna be other entities. But Wal Mart's different since we came here. [kavinsky waves his arms at the desolate expanse.] Less Latin. Different trees. And I haven't seen that little blonde bitch with the goat feet. Thorns don't come at me, anymore. Even when I'm going for big shit.

Means the shit in here is the shit you remember. What you're scared of. Or pissed at. Or hate. [he twists his head back to look at ronan. kavinsky's eyes are as dead and unafraid as the earth below. also as alive and bright with interest as only a boy can be. if ronan guesses kavinsky wouldn'tve much been moved by the sight of aurora's melted pieces, he'd probably be right.] Fear itself, baby.

Edited (fix) 2016-12-20 04:36 (UTC)

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o2 🔥 HELL ON THE SHORE WITH THE WIDOWS OF LOVE

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powerpose! let me know if i should revise idm! also cw homophobia/misogyny/victim blaming!!

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