TEXTS FROM LAST NIGHT

[sanjunipero]

TEXTS FROM LAST NIGHT

Have a little too much to drink last night and send that embarrassing text to your ex?

Did you party a little too hard and send pictures of the wild night... to all of your contacts?

Was 3am when you dusted off the number of that old flame and confessed how much you wanted them back?

Or simply catching up on the adventures that drunk you got into?

Just because heaven is a place on earth at San Junipero doesn't mean it's without any consequence. Be careful checking your phone in the morning, it might have some weird texts from last night.

MAY BE NSFW

Comments

[fucking_kavinsky]

do u even hear urself? ur a fucking joke, bitch.

one fucking weekend five years ago and i did more for u than most ppl in ur fucking life.
clearly u need to think about that, cuz u been in denial for 5 years.
u wanna erase the past, that's on u. ur the one who had to live with it all this time. u know what u did.
i give zero shits about u.

nah, u fuck off. this is my place now. u thought it was bad before, there's even less consequences for me now.
don't fuck with me, lynch. i will make this party town a living hell for u.

[corve]

you're not that damn important. get over yourself, shitbag
denial? you don't know what the hell i've been for 5 years. stop thinking that you fucking do.

if you give zero shits about me, then what the fuck are you still doing, kavinsky?

yeah. i'm really scared.

[fucking_kavinsky]

we'll see.

i'm doing whatever the fuck i want.

ur alone here. don't u fuckin forget that.

[corve]

then do whatever the fuck you want without me.

maybe you are, but i'm not.

[ At least, not everyday of the week. ]

[fucking_kavinsky]

[NSFW PIC MESSAGE]

[corve]

[ As much as he should have been expecting it, he nearly drops his phone at the message that arrives.

It's definitely been a while since he's seen that on the screen of his phone. ]

lose my fucking number, shitstain

[fucking_kavinsky]

see u soon, fucker.

[corve]

fuck off

[ It's sometime in the middle of the night, after hours and hours of tossing and turning in his bed, right on the border of dreaming but not quite there yet, when Ronan finally tosses all of his blankets off the bed, throws on a pair of fitted jeans and his typical black tanktop, and then leaves his home in silence. He walks along the beach for a while, his hands shoved into his pockets, the sound of the waves lapping at the sand acting as a soundtrack to his own thoughts.

Nights were the worst. Insomnia hadn't seemed to leave him in the afterlife and Ronan had yet to get enough sleep in the short time he'd been there to actually dream. So he stays up, he drinks, he walks on the beach, he thinks about Adam back in the "real world", about the accident and eventually about Kavinsky.

Which is, he assumes, what carries his feet all the way to the boy's house -- almost identical to his own save for a few minor details -- the white Mitsubishi from his memories parked out in front of it. Ronan stands there for a long time looking at the place, debating whether or not to just keep on walking by, turn around and head back to his own home, or trudge up the front steps and knock.

He feels like he's hit an all-time-low when Kavinsky is the one person he thinks might get him (but, somewhere, Ronan knows that he always has.) and after a heavy sigh of self-disappointment -- one that Richard Gansey III himself would have been proud of -- he climbs the few front steps and knocks at the door. ]

[fucking_kavinsky]

[ The rest of Kavinsky's day had gone to shit, the words in those texts churning in his brain, unwilling to let him forget. He's been dousing them with alcohol ever since, spending all of his time going from one bar to another, trying to get the image of Ronan's face out of his head in the back room of the Quagmire, but nothing works.

Nothing ever worked before either, so he doesn't know why he thought any of it would change.

He hates how much Ronan still gets to him. Those few simple words 'It was never going to be you and me', splitting him open, making him angry in a way that he knows is just pure misery.

Ronan is wrong. Kavinsky doesn't want him. Kavinsky hates him.

He ends up passing out on the couch, bottle in hand and the knock to the door startles him. He's not used to people coming around at all hours like he used to be. It's harder for a dreamer to be relevant when people already get most everything they want.

Kavinsky takes a long swig of vodka to help him wake up, then pads over to the door, all drowsy eyes and wild hair, in nothing but a pair of briefs, swinging the door open.

Seeing Ronan standing there at his door, it definitely wakes him the fuck up]

Aw shit. You've got to be shitting me. Guess you really took what I said to fucking heart, huh.

[corve]

[ In the time that it takes for Kavinsky to answer the door, Ronan's gone through about a thousand different alternatives to waiting around for him. He could leave, go back to his house and continue to drown his sorrows with whiskey until he eventually passed out. He could go find some afterhours bar and distract himself until they finally kicked him out. He could walk endless laps on the beach until exhaustion finally settled in likely sometime when the sun was finally peeking over the horizon.

Inwardly he often wonders if dreamers are even supposed to sleep at night. Or if the time when all others are off in their own dreamscapes is where they rule. It would have explained his insomnia all these years, if that were the case.

The door opens and immediately Ronan's stomach drops -- though his features stay as hardened and as sharp as ever. -- his eyes very briefly roaming over Kavinsky's frame. The darkness makes all of the hollows of his features seem even more sunken and somehow chiseled, his body pale and thin, not much more than skin, bones and sinewy muscles that are all the more accentuated by the little bit of light coming from somewhere inside of Kavinsky's house. His fingers twitch somewhere inside of his pocket, jaw briefly clenching as he tries to ignore the weird mixture of emotions turning inside of him.

He shouldn't be here, this was the last place that Ronan needed to be. But, just as it always does, history finds a way to repeat itself and there he is meeting Kavinsky in secret in the middle of the night. ]

Shut the fuck up. [ Ronan grunts out, his eyes eventually returning to Kavinsky's face. ] I couldn't sleep.

[fucking_kavinsky]

[ Ronan is probably right about dreamers and sleep. They were the rulers of the night. Were, being the operative word, because here, they are so much less. Maybe Ronan hasn't figured that out just yet, but it's been eating at Kavinsky for a while now. Just one more thing to add to the list.

It's like seeing a ghost, or a dream, or a drug fueled hallucination, Ronan lit up on his porch, only by the moonlight. The whole thing might seem so peaceful from afar, but Kavinsky knows they're anything but.

He wants to throw all of Ronan's words back in his face and tell him to fuck off, laugh at him and leave him out here with nothing and no one, just like Ronan did to him long ago, but when Ronan's gaze travels across almost every inch of him, then those fiery blue eyes find his again, something inside of him twists hard.

Ronan has this effect on him and Kavinsky loathes it with every fiber of his being. ]

And you thought this would be a good place to come for some fucking bedtime stories, or what?

[He intends for those words to hold so much more bite than they actually do, but he's so damn lonely and Ronan is right here, coming to him. He scowls, then opens the door wider]

Come in, shithead. Don't say I never fucking did anything for you.

[corve]

[ Ronan honestly doesn't know a single thing about dreaming when it comes to San Junipero -- the logical part of his brain (yeah, that does exist in there somewhere.) telling him that there shouldn't be any way for him to dream in the current state he's in. His consciousness is stored on some kind of hi-tech flash drive -- at least, that's how he thinks it works. He didn't really pay much attention to the explanation of it all. -- how the hell was he supposed to even get himself to any sort of dreamspace?

No body, no brain, no nothing. Just a bunch of fancy coding and technology that he doesn't even want to try and understand. It went against everything that he'd grown up knowing and believing in. Throws a wrench in everything that he thought he knew.

He doesn't have a good answer for Kavinsky because he honestly doesn't know why the hell he came here of all places. Why Kavinsky seemed like the perfect candidate to help battle his insomnia. He'd simply been walking, and then there he was: in front of the boy's door, feeling desperate and defeated but not letting any of it show outwardly.

He's always been good at that, after all. ]

I dunno. [ He mumbles with a shrug of his shoulders -- something a little uncharacteristic, some of those feelings worming their way to the surface. ] Just figured you'd be up, don't look too deep into it.

[ The door opens a little wider and Ronan hesitates for a moment, as though he's still debating going back home, as though crossing the threshold into Kavinsky's house would have had some life-altering consequences, as though he's preparing himself to enter the belly of the beast.

And after a few short seconds, he brushes by Kavinsky and slips silently inside. ]

Yeah. Thanks.

[ Which sounds about as sincere as it always does -- which is, to say, hardly at all. ]

[fucking_kavinsky]

[Kavinsky thought he had experienced all of the worst of feelings he could possibly feel throughout his life, but he was wrong. Realizing he could no longer dream here like he could in the living world, that was the worst by far. If he felt dead before, this was certainly like dying all over again. Simulated sleep isn't sleep and the things that appear when he wants them, they're not his creations, they're only a part of this fucked up system. It's a nightmare.

He discovered this far too early on and that's when the suicide attempts started up again, except he couldn't do that either, because he would just keep waking up. Over and over again. For a long time he wondered if this was hell. Now, he's pretty much sure of it.

Kavinsky feels the same, or worse than he felt back then, only far more defeated. Ronan looks the same in some ways, but he can tell that there's a lot of differences as well. Ones he has to relearn (Why does he have to? He hates this piece of shit, damn it). And yet he's letting Ronan in, shutting his door and taking a long swig of vodka before holding it out to Ronan.]

I told you you'd get lonely being the only other fucker here like me. Does this place feel like paradise, or what?

[He snorts, his tone dripping with sarcasm]

[corve]

[ Something deep inside of Ronan twists -- and from where the sensation comes from, he's not at all sure. He feels it all the way from the center of his chest down to the pit of his stomach -- he knows he shouldn't be here. He's always known that he shouldn't ever go to Kavinsky. It's what Gansey had kept telling him, it's what Declan had kept telling him, it's literally what every fucking person in the world kept telling him, but Ronan's never been one to listen.

Rebelling for the sake of rebellion, but somewhere he knows that's not what this is.

He and Kavinsky are too alike. That's what keeps them constantly orbiting one another. That's why despite how many times he's told the boy to fuck off, or never speak to him again, he still gives in. He still answers his phone, he still comes around eventually.

It was the worst habits that were always the hardest to break. ]

I've always been the only other fucker like you. [ Words he regrets the moment that they leave him, snatching the bottle from Kavinsky and trying to wash them away with a swing of vodka. ] Maybe it's not. [ Ronan eventually drops to take a seat on the couch. ]

Maybe we're stuck in hell. This is all some elaborate fucking game that satan is playing with us.

[ Truthfully, it didn't seem that unlikely to him. ]

[fucking_kavinsky]

[Maybe the truth of it is that Ronan did listen. He listened to those outside forces far too much and that's why he and Kavinsky are where they are today. It could have been different. Kavinsky always wanted it to be, but there were too many things tugging Ronan the other way.

Kavinsky, as angry as he is, wonders if things could be different here with none of that otherness around. But does he even want that anymore? He says he doesn't, he says he hates Ronan, but inviting him in says otherwise.

Or maybe Kavinsky is just bored and this is the only thing that has ever pushed that boredom away. ]

Been saying that for fucking years. Glad you've finally caught on. Guess the years have taught you well.

[He smirks, cause he sees how much Ronan hates to admit it, but there it is}

Guess we have the same thoughts on this shit as well. I mean, look at the fucking company.

[And yet, he flops down on the couch next to Ronan, turning just enough so he can stretch his legs out over the other boy's lap. Okay. So he fucking hates Ronan, but he makes a good leg rest. That, and wherever their skin touches, he can still feel all that shock through his system. It's a strange thing, seeing as they're not even alive anymore]

[corve]

[ Rather than say more, Ronan fills the silence with taking more large gulps from the bottle of vodka -- the taste is familiar and for a moment it takes him back to summers in Henrietta and the sticky humidity that hung around until the early hours of the morning, nights he'd spend on the streets racing the sleek white Evo.

A long stretch of time passes before Ronan speaks. And in the time that he's silent, he does nothing more than stare at Kavinsky, drag his gaze out the window and then return it to the boy when the other throws his legs across his lap. It's still strange to see him sitting there. Ronan remembers the last few meetings like they'd happened only yesterday -- the home theater in Kavinsky's mansion, the vague sensation of hands on his body, red pills flowing like waterfalls all filled his dreams and he couldn't even recount how many times he'd woken up with his hands clutched around something that was just so obviously Kavinsky.

(And then he wonders how many times Adam noticed over those years. No one talked about the loss of the boy, here one day and gone the next. So Ronan buried everything he felt, or lashed out against inanimate objects -- or some drunk idiot who called him 'faggot' one night at a party.)]

You've been here the whole time? Since....

[ His eyes drift to where he knows their skin touches, where he can feel the heat radiating like fire right underneath his skin. His fingers twitch briefly before he curls them into a fist and shoves his hand down into the couch cushion, trying to douse the flames he feels starting to burn inside of him with another swig of vodka. ]

[fucking_kavinsky]

You believe in that shit, right? Heaven and hell, all that junk? Doesn't really hold up here anymore, unless this really is hell. One person's paradise sure as fuck ain't all.

[He keeps talking to fill the silence, because that's what Kavinsky does. He doesn't like to let it linger, too many thoughts filling the spaces. But they've always worked out like that. Ronan, the quiet type and Kavinsky the one to keep things going. In the end he failed, but that was all Ronan's doing. They could have had it all.

When the silence does lapse on for a little while, he sits back and gets more comfortable, reaching out to snag the bottle of vodka so he can drink some down as well. Those memories are all things he's been trying to forget. They left him with the kind of ache that this place could never fix and now he can feel it all straining to get back out again. He wonders if Ronan ever mourned him, ever thought about him. He wonders if Ronan regrets leaving him the way he did, taking the last shred of hope he had to convince himself he could stay in that world. ]

Five fucking years. Feels more like ten.

[He snorts, taking another long drink before handing it back. None of it's funny of course, but he can't let anything else show. It's easier to just pretend he doesn't care. It's harder to ignore the way Ronan tenses under him, even if just slightly, so he moves his foot and presses it against Ronan's groin]

[corve]

[ Ronan's not sure what he believes in any more. Everything that he's learned growing up, the things that were drilled into his head Sunday after Sunday suddenly hold no weight. It didn't seem to matter how good or bad a person was, they ended up here.

Where ever here was. Some computer system somewhere? The cloud they called it, but Ronan didn't understand that shit.

Five years. It felt like an eternity. Kavinsky was nothing more than a late night thought in Ronan's head. The handsome boy with the dark fire in his eyes in Ronan's dreams. ]

Fuck.

[ And it's partially a reply to the amount of time that's passed, but also a response to Kavinsky's foot pressing against him, stealing his breath away. ]

I thought you would have loved it here. A party every night. [ Something to keep his mind off the pressure he feels building.. ]

[fucking_kavinsky]

[ If Kavinsky had to deal with all of that, on top of the dreaming that's been stripped away from them, he's not sure he'd be able to stand it. But he's never believed in anything but his drugs and having a good time. There was a while he believed in Ronan Lynch, but all of that belief burned down with him.

Five years has felt exactly like that. An eternity living a life he'd been desperately trying to end. ]

Fuck.

[Kavinsky repeats, his piercing gaze steady on Ronan now, despite how drunk he is. Ronan doesn't push his foot away, so he keeps at it, rubbing up and down more expertly than a dead seventeen year old has any right to. Back then, sitting in the Evo, drunk on dreams, there was too much at stake, but now there's nothing. ]

I was done partying, Lynch. I was done.

[corve]

[ There's literally a thousand different things that Ronan wants to say. Things that have been sitting inside of him for five years. Things that he's thought to only himself because he never thought he'd have to see Kavinsky again. Things he should have said before events got too out of his control. Things from then and things from now. Apologies. Curses. Confessions.

But he doesn't say any of it, he just stares at Kavinsky.

Or rather, he tries to. Looking at the boy while his foot presses harder against him proves a mistake and despite the growing shame he feels, Ronan's body still reacts, arousal making his breathing unsteady and his blood run hot in his veins. His fingers dig into his palms, nails pressing crescent shapes deep into his skin and for as much as he wants to beat the shit out of Kavinsky, he can't seem to do much more than shift on the couch and exhale heavily through his nose. ]

That's hard to believe.

[fucking_kavinsky]

[ Kavinsky wants to hear it all. As much as he hates himself for still caring about this shit, he still needs to know what Ronan has to say after all this time, good or bad, even though he might flip his shit if it's something along the lines of Ronan not having thought about him at all, which is the story they're both trying to hide behind for now.

But he knows it's not the truth and Ronan is a damn liar. Maybe he's a liar too, but he never claimed to be anything else. Ronan always has.

Ronan stares and Kavinsky watches him right back, the heat growing between them like it's never left. He can feel Ronan's arousal under his foot, but he doesn;t smirk, he doesn't goad Ronan with words, he just keeps moving his foot against the other boy's growing erection, wondering just how far he can get and if he even wants to (what a load of shit)]

You remember I killed myself, right? Don't know how much more fucking done I could get.

[ The words come out a mixture of angry and sad, mixed with this deep seated arousal that has only ever been Ronan. This is how it's always been with them, a mix of every emotion possible without ever acknowledging it. ]

[corve]

[ It's the strangest mixture of sensations that Ronan's ever had to experience -- there's the flood of hot arousal that's pooling from somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, clouding his thoughts and making his heart pound against his chest and echo loudly in his ears. There's the guilt he feels for some part of him enjoying this, for having to fight down the way he wants to groan and grind against the pressure (a week with nothing more than his own hand leaves him pretty worked up.). There's the familiar wave of shame that's always attached itself to the thought of Kavinsky. And then there's all the memories -- he'd killed himself, Ronan had been there and afterward none of them had said a fucking word.

Those days following he wasn't sure what he was more angry with; himself and the fact that he refused to acknowledge any kind of grieving feeling, or everyone else as they went about their lives as though Kavinsky hadn't meant anything.

And to them, he hadn't. Ronan knows they'd never understand, they'd never get it and so he never brings it up. It's his cross alone to bear. ]

I remember. [ Ronan's head falls back and he focuses on the ceiling, swallowing thickly and only getting harder in the front of his pants. ] I'm the only one who seems to fucking remember. [ The sentiment comes out whispered, not meant for Kavinsky to hear. ]

I thought you would have jumped right back in once you got here.

[fucking_kavinsky]

[ Kavinsky doesn't feel guilty anymore, he had crushed the feeling right out of himself long before he died. When he killed his father, and ran off to Henrietta with his mother, he had left the last of it behind. From then on, Kavinsky felt like guilt was only a thing that held a person back and he has no time for that, not even here.

The biggest thing he felt when he got here was regret. Had he made a mistake? Would Ronan have saved him if he had just waited a little bit longer? Should he have killed himself a lot sooner? If he had made more of a move on Ronan, would he had gone for it? The loneliness was unbearable and Kavinsky was left wondering if any of them had cared if he was gone, or he had left nothing of the legacy he was craving behind.

He's still too scared to ask Ronan that question, so he focuses on the here and now. ]

Then you know that I was done. I didn't fucking want this. [At least Ronan remembers. At least in his head, he didn't forget. In the quiet of the house, Kavinsky can vaguely hear those words, and his stomach does a flip, or maybe it's his heart. Everything inside of him suddenly feels uneven again. ]

I did. I didn't want to, and I didn't fucking love it, but what the fuck else was I supposed to do?

[ His foot makes some circles around Ronan's groin, pressing against his hardness and then he moves fluidly to straddle Ronan's lap, his bony ass pressing against his legs. He's replaced his foot with his hand now, palming at him, the other sliding up around Ronan's neck. He hates Ronan, and he hates this, but he won't be filled with more regret.]

You're not the only one who remembers. I remember, too.

[corve]

[ It's hard for Ronan to think about much of anything currently, while every single one of his thoughts seems to be Kavinsky, none of them are of the boy in the past. He can only think of the present. How much he both wants to push Kavinsky's foot away from his lap -- because as lonely as he may have been, he wouldn't sink to this level. -- and pull the boy in closer -- he's not without a sex drive, and Kavinsky's easily riled it up.

The room is silent enough that Ronan's ragged breathing sounds like it echoes through Kavinsky's house, a whine contained to the back of his throat. ]

Didn't think about turning over a new leaf? [ Ronan's words should sound sarcastic and biting, but there's a hint of desperation there, want where there should be anger.

His mouth opens to say more, but Kavinsky moves into his lap and the words are lost. He's close. (God, he's so fucking close.). He knows he is only moments from coming undone underneath Kavinsky. And while Ronan's fingers are itching to feel skin -- it'd been days without the warm expanses of Adam's were beneath his hands and Kavinsky's touch burns in a new and enticing way. -- he knows better. ]

Get off of me, K.

[ And maybe Ronan's hand slides just a little too slowly up Kavinsky's arm in its trail to the boy's shoulder -- and even when it reaches there he doesn't right away push the other off. ]

[fucking_kavinsky]

[The thing of it is, Ronan's had more than ample time to push his foot away, to get up, to make it all stop, but he hasn't and Kavinsky is almost positive he won't. (The same kind of positive where Kavinsky thought Ronan would end up with him, once upon a time)

Not only is Ronan not moving him away, but he's also letting Kavinsky rile him up and the way Ronan's starting to let out ragged breaths is all the inspiration Kavinsky needs to continue.]

A new leaf? And do what? Sit around this place and fucking crochet sweaters? What the fuck is a new leaf?

[He certainly has no idea. He's been this way for far too long now. He's been without for even longer, and Ronan feels so warm under him. He feels exactly like Kavinsky has always imagined he would and he wonders if that's programing as well, tapping into some sort of fantasy place in his head.

At those words, Kavinsky eyes go darker and he palms at Ronan a little harder, the hairs on his arm standing up as those long fingers travel up his arm, the fire inside of him growing stronger.]

Why? What's here, Ronan? Nothing. No one. Just us.