everyone leaves [dated to 10/29/2015]

[thedreamthief]

By the time Ronan goes looking, he realizes he has no idea how long Adam has actually been gone. Maybe only hours, maybe a day or two. Maybe nearly a week.

After Noah's visit the other night, Ronan had made a decision. And, as necessary a decision as it is, Ronan is being an absolute coward in going through with it. Still, after three days of successful avoidance and not so much as a text from Parrish, Ronan starts to wonder.

He tries the sporting goods store first where he learns Adam hasn't been in since his last shift, which was days ago. The garage gives him the same news: no sign of Adam since Sunday.

Adam Parrish doesn't skip work. Ever.

Gut twisted in knots, Ronan swung by Adam's apartment, then his own. He tried Gansey's and Blue's (no answer), then Noah's (also no answer). He tried the fucking factory they haven't even moved into yet, the cat cafe, the park and the beach. He's called Parrish's phone at least three dozen times and Gansey's almost as many until Gansey had finally replied to say he hadn't seen or heard anything in days either, the carefully concealed worry only making Ronan's own spike white-hot.

Ronan slams on the brakes, tires squealing.

The realization is a punch to the gut, nearly knocking Ronan to his knees before turning into white hot flame as he does a U-turn in the middle of the road, heading toward the first place he can think to find Kavinsky.

He jumps out of the Pig when he gets there, nearly bangs down the door to the warehouse with his bare hands, rage and fear and desperation vibrating off his skin.

"Kavinsky! Kavinsky, you fucking cuntrag. I'm gonna kill you, I swear to God. I'm gonna fucking cut your head off and stick it on a goddamn pole."

Comments

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky hummed We're Off to See The Wizard, and then looked down at the shitty gelato cup on the ground. He considered it for a moment, the familiar emblem and the unfamiliar contents on the floor. He squinted a little.

Then, he leaned back a little. With one hand--the one still dark from the ichor of his earlier cigarette retrieval--he scratched idly at his stomach. The other supported his weight on the desk, despite the aching, screaming burn on his palm. He wondered, briefly, how it would feel to run his hand across Ronan's skin, how his hands would protest the contact, how Ronan might protest the contact for an instant before he relented.

"You know what I could really go for right now?"

He picked up one of the green pills and popped it into his mouth with a smirk. "Ninos."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan's eyes track the smudge of black across Kavinsky's bare stomach, considers following it with a fingertip, but stays exactly as he is, lips pulling into a grin at the mention of Nino's. It's been so long now he can barely even remember how the pizza from there tastes, or even the sweet tea.

Kavinsky drops a green pill into his mouth and Ronan watches the wet of his lips and then the ease of his expression as he falls into sleep, every muscle in Kavinsky's body relaxing, melting into the wood of the desk and dark eyelashes fluttering.

Again, his eyes are drawn to the smear of black across Kavinsky's flat belly. He wonders what the black tastes like, if it tastes like anything at all.

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky dreamed of Nino's.

He dreamed of the waitresses, especially the spunky, sneering, little one with the sometimes spiky hair who always glared and slunk away from him but who he had seen drift toward Ronan and Dick and dusty Adam Parrish a handful of times. He dreamed of the squeaking vinyl. He dreamed of the dingy lights and the smell of grease that clung to the air and the squeal of the Beastie Boys on the PA speakers.

He dreamed of sweet tea and bread knots and a large custom pizza. He dreamed of the box it would come in, for a take away order--the way the Nino's emblem looked on the box, how the box was neatly folded, the exact pattern of grease, a single staple to hold a receipt for a pizza he had never paid for. He dreamed of the pizza itself--thin, chewy crust, with garlic and parmesan dust; an over abundance of red sauce, just a little strangely spicy and sweet; cheese spread out, thin at the edges; pepperoni, green peppers, mushrooms. A smaller, matching box held the bread knots--fifteen, on special. The sweet tea, never bottled, was available for him because he wanted it to be so in a nondescript two-liter bottle.

His belly felt warm with the weight of the food come to life because he wished it so. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling, then down.

Two boxes, marked with Nino's signature. One, small, with no ticket, containing fifteen bread knots. The other, large, with a ticket for an other of fifteen bread knots and one large custom pizza--$0.00 plus $0.00 tax for a total of $0.00, signed Joseph A Kavinsky--containing a large pepperoni, green pepper, mushroom pizza with light marinara. Beside him, a two liter bottle of sweet tea.

The office smelled, faintly, of the grease-smell of Nino's. Kavinsky thought he could still hear Intergalactic playing.

[thedreamthief]

This part, Ronan's never witnessed before, the creation. He's never seen it from the outside, never watched a thing melt into life right before his eyes. It's nothing he knows how to describe, nothing like he every could've imagined it if he'd ever thought to try.

It doesn't happen in a blink, isn't a matter of there after not-there. It's disconcerting, unnatural, but Ronan can't look away, piece building atop piece into a whole, the scent wafting into existence, before Kavinsky's eyes open.

"Better," Ronan remarks, refusing to come off as impressed. He moves the boxes off Kavinsky's stomach and grabs the two liter of sweet tea. As far as he can remember, Nino's has never delivered tea, and definitely not in two liters, but it still somehow feels authentic.

He twists the cap off and tips his head back for a drink as he props his thigh up on the desk, facing Kavinsky better. It tastes exactly like it should, exactly like Nino's sweet tea, the best in Henrietta. Flipping open the larger box with his free hand, Ronan nods down at the pizza. "This how you been eating since you got here? Could start your own pizzeria."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky was impressed that his hands don't come back inky-dark with ichor this time. It was the first time, since the substance party, that they hadn't. He supposed it was because he had dreamed of a place specific, rather than just a singular thing. He had thought of a thing and a place and a time, a memory. Like when he had dreamed Ronan's bracelets, instead of the time he had dreamed Ronan's drivers license.

He sat up slowly, grabbing the box with the bread knots and the bottle of sweet tea, after Ronan had taken a swig.

"Certainly cheaper that way," Kavinsky quipped, half drawling. He shrugged. "Gotta keep my girlish figure, though."

[thedreamthief]

"Like that's ever fucking mattered," Ronan remarks, grabbing one of the knots for himself and taking a bite. The taste is everything he can't believe he'd forgotten over the past six months, melted cheese and perfectly spiced bread dough. He doesn't hold back a quiet moan of satisfaction before washing it down with another swig of sweet tea, his eyes still on Kavinsky.

He doesn't look anymore tired than earlier, but Ronan figures that isn't saying much. His own blood is still humming, though not as manic. It feels different all around now.

Ronan takes another drink of tea and licks his lips.

"So you think of a place," he says, imagining how Kavinsky must've brought Nino's here. It doesn't seem difficult even though Ronan knows it is. Maybe not so difficult with the pills, though. "And then what you want from that place. And take it."

[mitsubishievo]

"With Nino's, yeah," Kavinsky said, nodding in agreement. "It's a place I know. That you know. I've got a rubric, you know? I've got standards it's gotta live up to."

He tried to think of other things. The Mitsubishis that Ronan had never seen and all the months of work to perfect it to his liking. Ronan's bracelets. Things he'd pulled out by accident and chance when he'd been growing up. Prokopenko.

He wasn't going to talk about Prokopenko.

"If I've never encountered the thing before, or I don't know it well enough, or only know part of it, I've gotta get it out of the dream place. It can make anything. Dreams themselves are only good for things that might actually really exist."

He looked down at the gelato cup on the floor. "And sometimes some real messed up shit, like technicolor ice cream."

[thedreamthief]

"Gelato," Ronan corrects again, following Kavinsy's gaze to the mess on the floor. He still doesn't think it was a bad start even if he can only wonder about the taste.

Tearing off another bite of the bread knot, Ronan looks over at Kavinsky again, chewing slowly. Considering. He swallows his bite, takes another drink of tea and then slips off the desk. He grabs a green pill from the box before kicking a chair closer and dropping into it, legs outstretched.

He tosses the pill into his mouth and rests back, hands on his stomach. Takes a few, slow, quiet breaths, watches Kavinsky watching him from the desk, and lets his eyes slip closed.

And then he's in Monmouth, stretched out on the pool table, headed propped on one edge and his legs crossed at the ankle. He's awake, grinning up at the ceiling while Noah pokes at him with a pool cue. He can hear Gansey a few yards away arguing about something with Blue. Noah somehow racks up with Ronan still on the table and when he breaks, the balls bounce off Ronan's thighs ands sides and hips. Adam comes in, gaze soft and scrutinizing at once. He picks up a ball, the solid six and settles it on Ronan's chest. Lets go.

It rolls to settle in the dip of Ronan's throat, sticks.

Ronan's eyes snap open, breath stuck. He lingers, outside his body for a few seconds, before dropping back in with a gasping inhale.

He's on the pool table, green felt beneath his skull and fingertips, blinking up at the ceiling.

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky had to move his legs out of the way as the pool table came into being, a magnificent replica. Even while Ronan is still getting his gasping breath and bearings, Kavinsky checked the pockets for the balls--none--and the sides for a cue--none. There was the solid six, which had caught on Ronan's throat and was now sitting lazily beside him.

Kavinsky crawled up onto the pool table, over top of Ronan's body, and grinned at him.

"Not bad," he said. He plucked up the ball. "Hell's in the details. Hard to play pool with just one ball and no cue."

Now he was here, he wasn't sure he wanted to move off Ronan. He licked his lips, vaguely chapped, and looked down at Ronan. "You gonna keep dreamin' up shit this big, we're gonna have to move this somewhere else. Office ain't big enough for any more furniture."

He set the ball of Ronan's chest. Lets go. It rolled toward Ronan's stomach into of his throat, down between their bodies.

[thedreamthief]

"So you dream them then," Ronan says, still mostly pleased with what he's been able to manage, his eyes catching on Kavinsky's cheekbones and sneering smile. There's a heat between them, a heat Ronan isn't sure whether to attribute to the warehouse or the dreaming or Kavinsky himself. It settles under his skin, simmering slow and steady, making his fingers itch.

He shifts slightly, uncrossing his ankles to set his booted feet on the felt, lifts his hands off to the tabletop but leaves them poised in mid-air. Not touching. Hovering.

Kavinsky echoes Adam's actions, settling the ball atop Ronan's chest, but the ball rolls downward instead of up, slipping onto the flat of Ronan's stomach, between them. Ronan grabs it before it can fall to the table and lifts his arm, setting the ball on the slope of Kavinsky's bare spine and letting go.

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky reached up, behind his back, as the pool ball cascaded down his back. In the same motion, he leaned down, his lips touching Ronan's. He closed his eyes, the hint of both the red and green pill still buzzing in his system, and he did not fall completely asleep, but he could reach, could stretch, toward the dream place. He could think, brief and fleeting, of other pool tables he had seen and been around and been on like this but not quite like this. Never quite like this because it had never been with Ronan Lynch.

He breathed life against Ronan's mouth, more than he kissed him, somewhere between dreams and not. He dreamt the pool balls into the pockets of Ronan's dream table, one hand splayed on the felt, the other supporting the solid six that had slid down his back like a waterfall.

Kavinsky could fit here, for just a moment. His body on top of Ronan's and Ronan's legs bent up, a warm near-pressure behind his thighs, and his hands almost not quite into the act.

[thedreamthief]

It's not a kiss. Ronan's been a willing participant in enough of them now to know the difference. Their lips are touching, but Kavinsky is merely breathing into him, holding himself up on one arm as he goes into a kind of trance.

Ronan spares a second to admire the strength it takes to balance as he is before he rests one hand on Kavinsky's side, taking some of the load. Kavinsky's skin is warm and smooth and too much like Adam's. Sucking a breath of his own, Ronan turns his head, eyes catching on two pool cues lying right next to him.

His lips curve into a grin and he brings his other hand up and around to wrap it around the solid six Kavinsky still holds at his back. Murmurs, "Cool party trick."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky laughed at that, soft and honest, and set his forehead against Ronan's chest for a moment. He sat back after a second, weight gently on Ronan's thighs, and stretched. The pizza was suddenly much too far away, and he had no party trick for bringing it closer except for dreaming them a whole other one.

He did nothing to dislodge Ronan's hand from his ribs, breathing slowly. For a moment, everything felt locked in, understood. Ronan and he were pieces of a puzzle, adjoining pieces, and it didn't matter if there was a greater picture because things fit. Things fit better than they had, for half a second, then they had in the field of Mitsubishis, and in a weekend of Ronan trying to win his life back.

Kavinsky shifted his fingers around the solid six and under Ronan's fingers and looked down at him and grinned. "Might not be able to dream our way out of here yet, but damned if we can't make ourselves comfy."

[thedreamthief]

It's only as Kavinsky's sitting up that Ronan realizes the intimate position they're in. He doesn't pull away though, his fingers still locked under Kavinsky's around the ball, his other hand pressed to Kavinsky's bare side. It feels intimate but not terrifying in that way it always has with Adam. He doesn't feel like Kavinsky will crack under his touch, doesn't feel like Kavinsky is here for any reason other than that he wants to be. And because they made a deal.

He feels like he should be drunk for this. Or maybe high.

He feels like maybe he already is, like those pills are more than for forcing him into a quick and deep sleep.

Letting go, Ronan pushes up onto his elbows, his gaze still locked on Kavinsky's. The pills are still over on the desk, too far away, and Ronan doesn't feel like pushing Kavinsky off him just yet. But he still asks, "What do you have in mind?"

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky grinned. This was the first step. Locked in. Even if this was only just a week, a few days, right now in the wake of Ronan being terrified and violent--Kavinsky was having a dawning, terrible realization, deep in his bones, that he had lost, he had lost already, and it was an infuriating feeling, boiling in his stomach and his chest--he had Ronan.

Kavinsky grinned and climbed off him, off the pool table and onto the floor. He threw open the office door and considered the space of the warehouse for a moment: the wide open space of it and the vaulting ceiling and the leaning flood lamps and half-hidden stereo system and other remnants that marked the remains of the substance party.

He looked back at Ronan, wild and electric now, even if the exhaustion still hung around him. They were going to need more pills, and it was going to have to be fucking Inception for them--layers and layers of dreams and memories to pull them out so he didn't taint them with the dream place's annoyance with him.

The actual stereo, for the whole sound system, was near the top of the stairs. Kavinsky tapped it on, letting the atrocious music fill the space.