maskormenacelogs | 28 👶 HEARTBREAK MULTIPLIES [closed]

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28 👶 HEARTBREAK MULTIPLIES [closed]

WHO: Joseph Kavinsky & 'friends' ig
WHERE: De Chima, Maurtia Falls, etc.
WHEN: October 2019
WHAT: Catch-all for October, hmu on Plurk @

shramp if you would like to play!
WARNINGS: Possible violence, sexual content, offensive language (racism, sexism, etc.)

closed to kylo ren;

[it's breakfast at the meadows, for those of us who may periodically eat breakfast. and kavinsky is here. it's the first time anyone has seen him back at the meadows after the explosive encounter with murphy last month, but it was probably inevitable that that reprieve would end. kylo ren no doubt feels it in the force long before he makes his way down the steps.

the dream thief is sitting at the table, neglecting a cup of coffee by his hand.] We gotta stop meeting like this, [kavinsky says, almost as if nothing had happened. but this is actually just how he is after things have happened. there's a brief death threats phase, then a violent overreaction phase, then an eerie approximation of indifference phase, and not always in that order or single iteration. he scratches his neck, studying kylo ren out from under heavy eyelids.]

Hey. Hey, how you feel about chopping some wood topless today? Paparazzi would love it. Not gonna lie, I could use the cash.

closed to ronan;

[the joseph kavinsky apology tour of october 2019 starts how you'd expect. on the first day of october, the words,

my bad 😔
can be found spraypainted on the outside of the meadows house in lurid green paint, while smelling eerily like blood, yet fading away politely as the sun makes its way up and down the sky. on the second day of october, the icepack that had been rendered to k's use is replaced in the fridge, and there are irish mince pies too, as well as an automated robotic lawnmower swerving dangerously close to killing the family of voles in the yard outside. on the third day, kavinsky texts.]

come hang out 2day

closed to cassidy;

I wanted to say thanks for letting me stay. [kavinsky seems more normal now. i mean he's never been normal, and cassidy only met him after he began a life of crimes you can get the electric chair for, some parts of the world back home. but a couple weeks ago, when he slept on the couch with a face like an overripe melon attacked by a hacksaw, he'd seemed full of spiky, humming, hideous energy, a wasp hive in a human skinsuit.

but today, he's more like his usual self. healed, obviously. smug and slightly subhuman, cleaned up nicely outside that hints heavily as to the dirt in his soul. and grinning big, boyish when the vampire comes to the door. he seizes cassidy by the hand.] C'mon.

closed to rupert;

[2am at the club, maurtia falls. which club? a club. kavinsky generally just rolls up to the first place with valet and a long enough line out front to look intimidating, flashes his import id, and that's enough to get himself in, even in absence of a cis lady figure.

in reality, kavinsky drinks and does far fewer drugs than he used to, and being at the club is a new kind of high. well, an old one. one that actually predated the drinking and the drugging, but enhanced it. kavinsky actually likes being around people, much as he hates everything including people. he likes how people are hungry, needy, exploitable, fun. he likes the validation of his admirers, the pain of his critics, the rush of conquest any time he breaks someone to his will, even if it's something as stupid as bumping into someone on the sidealk without apologizing.

which he does now. but dr. chilton raised him better than that, and the next moment, he's setting his sights on the neon door at the end of the velvet ropes. he starts toward it, slinging the key fob for his black jaguar into the hands of the valet man along with a fat tip (also credit to: dr. c). he doesn't notice the other young import pausing by the roadside.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[In fact, feeling Kavinsky's presence through the Force is why Kylo Ren makes his way down the steps. It's also the reason he doesn't simply pick him up with an invisible grip around his neck and hurl him at the wall— Murphy might not have understood it, but for all Kylo's willingness to slip into role as bodyguard, he'd never really felt there was any threat at all.

Beyond the persistent and obvious, anyway. He watches Kavinsky from the doorway, then heads to the fridge to pour himself a nice tall glass of (blue) milk.]

But that is a lie. [He points out mildly, taking a sip. Mm.] You don't need money. Or if you did, you could simply dream yourself some.

You know, Lynch and I are paradoxical opposites in a lot of ways, [kavinsky says, leaning forward over the table. he no longer slouches like he used to, all piano key ribs and concave chest. but he does look hangdog and unkind, even in his preppy clothes and mew muscles, studying kylo ren curiously.] Your boy barely leaves home, but he wants the world to be there, for his home to be part of it.

Your boy would make himself anything he needs, including money, if he had to. Problem is, he doesn't understand shit like: inflation and economic collapse. Networks and systems, sweetheart. Can't tell if his heart is Catholic pure or he's a little dummy. [kavinsky smiles, a performance of warm affection behind that joke. (but the real joke is, that the affection isn't a joke.) (don't tell him that, kylo ren; even though you can probably feel it, in the eddying mud of kavinsky's make-pretends.)]

Or you could just do it for me. [by now, it's an informal habit. hitting on kylo ren, nothing coming from it. that'll change in a little while, but not yet.]

[Kylo's head tilts slightly as he listens— not to what Kavinsky's saying, really, but the composite image built from all the loosely linked concepts he introduces with his words. His posture. The space he occupies, relative to everything else.

And his lips twist, just briefly, as if he's considering puncturing the structure to see what it looks like as it collapses, but he takes another sip instead before responding:]

Why should any of us have to waste ourselves on understanding money. We already have all the power it would ever gain us.

[kavinsky can't not smile. the force master's blanket declarations of arrogance are familiar to him now, and strangely quaint, adorable, and to an extent believable; kavinsky knows that there's real power behind that ego.]

Close enough, [he offers, diplomatically. he doesn't see value, right now, in poking holes at kylo ren's simple sense of security, but then his relationship with wielding near-infinite power-- and the agonizing inadequacy of it-- tells a very different narrative, never mind his weird career experiences with running a billion-dollar drug industry. sometimes it's fun to be mean!

but other times, kavinsky is genuinely curious about other things.] What isn't a waste, when you got all the powers and tall Goth ass you could want?

[He frowns. There is something oddly vulnerable in his confusion, as if he genuinely doesn't understand the question— or, at least, the reason why anyone might need to ask it.]

I spend myself on what I need. What I want. What interests me. Anything else is a waste.

[Which... implies something about the amount of time Kylo seems willing to spend indulging Kavinsky, really, doesn't it? Not that Kylo seems to realise what he's said.]

I have no use for money. And even less for studying it.

[kavinsky's mouth twists humorlessly on his face. it's not that he doesn't understand. he does. the-- urge, anyway. once upon a time, he'd wanted ronan to go with him, leave everything else behind. he'd wanted ronan to dream a world for just them.

the paradox.]

There are a few billion other people on the planet. Most of them are too fucking boring for any of us to give a shit about. [yes, he heard that sideswipe of a compliment. which is why his mouth bends around a v-shaped, more vulpine smile the next moment.] They work their nine-to-fives until they die, picking up garbage, pushing pencils. You'll never know 'em, thank the fucking Lord.

But here's the catch: every single Fed nerd who designed and built the little robots floating around in our blood, was one of those people. Every Russian or American spook carrying a nullifier device, that could cut you off from the Force or Ronan from his dreams, is one of those people. Hell, even those OTO shitlords are those people.

The guys who built the first fucking nuclear warhead, early 1900s, thinking they might for fuckin' real, set the entire atmosphere on Earth on fire-- was gettin' paid to do it. [there's a detachment to kavinsky's spirit as he says this, something akin to apathy. but fascination too. he is himself everything that he hates about people, after all; it's why he's dangerous to those that kylo cares about.] And now they probably got tech that can actually ignite the Goddamn planet, at this point.

You're sharing a rock in space with six billion shitty little rabid cunts, Kyle. Money is information about 'em. But I ain't saying you should care. [he grins, then stands, picking up his cold coffee.] I care less about staying alive than anybody in this fucking house.

[Kylo is apparently patient or polite enough to listen to Kavinsky's explanation without interrupting him— and he gives no indication he's simply enduring the speech, tuning out or feigning interest. Nor does he respond instantly. Perhaps, he's considering.

Then again...]

If you think I require money to retrieve whatever information I might want. To frustrate the plans of my enemies. Or stay alive. [His eyes track Kavinsky's movements smoothly in the pause.] You have no idea what I am.

[That being said, he is finishing off his milk and observing Kavinsky with a largely agreeable expression. Rather like he might be about to suggest they go outside, if what Kavinsky needs is some footage of Kylo splitting firewood.]

What do you need it for? This cash you could use, if I would only help you acquire it.

[a smile flashes onto kavinsky's face, reflexively. he studies kylo ren with interest. a little skepticism, maybe. but it's a fun idea, that kylo ren could end the government if he saw fit. why not? the role of nanites has never made particular sense, even for kavinsky, who had suffered very directly when his powers were suppressed years ago.]

Thinking about starting a new show. Startup capital. Might even be two birds with one stone.

[kylo ren can feel the edges edges to kavinsky's sincerity about this. it's a fleeting thought. mostly, he wants to look at kylo ren; to play a little; to check if kylo ren is still mad after their last encounter. after all, what do you ahve left when you've melodramatically abandoned the concept of ever having again your true love? kavinsky dumps out his coffee, then gallantly holds open the door, grinning at kylo ren like they're about to go to the state fair.]

[Conveniently, Kavinsky's invitation lines up neatly with a conversation Kylo feels it important they have— and for what he has in mind? A large axe wouldn't be the worst addition to the mise-en-scene. It's a gracious gesture, isn't it, allowing himself to be escorted outside? A generous one, to indulge Kavinsky in his schemes.]

Are you. And what would it be about? My woodsmanship?

[It's mostly a joke, as evidenced with the twitching tug of his mouth. But he feels that particularly focused interest. He knows himself to be the subject of a study of some kind.]

[it's a good joke. kavinsky likes it. he grins brightly and makes the appropriate rejoinder:]

You do know your way around wood. That has an appeal to viewership.

[it's actually not a terrible business idea! as arbitrary as its conception had been. kavinsky pulls a pack of cigarettes out of the ass pocket of his jeans, keeping the door ajar with the bony point of his shoulder. he looks kylo ren up and down.]

You prefer tall trees or little trees? Trees like the ones you find in your dreams, or trees you see grown in space? [he cocks his head. not being particularly subtle.] Do you climb trees because you're trying to get away, or do you climb them because you're trying to go somewhere? I have to construct a narrative, see. About you and the wood.

Actually, [Kylo says smoothly, so very clearly playing along that he is, for once, permitted to lie:] I hate trees. All trees.

[His long, purposeful strides towards the stump with the axe still very much buried in it have more than a touch of performance, too. He's enjoying this.]

Couldn't you tell?

[kylo looks like a panther, a ripple of sinewy musculature walking through sunlight. it is quite the view.

kavinsky pulls out his phone. sits on a stump nearby.] In this instance, the trees was a metaphor for black-haired boys who have big noses, [he says.] But I'm not gonna push that one. I like 'I hate trees, all trees.' That's marketable melodrama, sweetheart.

Say it again, but make it haiku?

[there's a lopsided grin.]

Make it haiku.

[Kylo repeats the direction back as if simply hearing it again should be mockery enough. Seizes the handle of the axe with both broad, strong hands, and wrenches it free from the vicious bite it left in the stump with his own personal brand of oddly fluid brutality.
Then, after a measured moment of not-so-idly testing its weight and balance in his grip, he throws Kavinsky a flat stare over his shoulder so perfectly calibrated that it somehow is the wicked smirk it would form on any other face. It's just wearing a costume.]

Really. What exactly about me suggests I obey size limits.

[thank god they're filming. this is going to be the best trailer that kavinsky has ever produced. mind you, he generally produces garbage for television.

but it's incredible. the queers are going to eat it up. so are the girls, and quite a few of those who identify as neither gender in the traditional binary. kavinsky is plainly delighted. and kavinsky, in delight, is a strange thing to see. these days, he doesn't scream with primal laughter or rattle around coke-high anymore. instead, his happiness is more parts stillness than vibration. a smile, boyish and bright on the cusp of laughter. holding his breath, by some strange reflex.]

Make it rhyme?

Not that kind of poet.

[Well. He is. He loves a good rhyme, particularly if it comes as a surprise— but not in words. And he knows, on some level, that he is something of a rhyme himself. The repeated message, the cosmic joke, dramatic irony.

Poetic justice.

The most tedious part of splitting firewood is setting up the pieces. And so he cheats. His fingers flex, the first oversized lump sets itself up endwards, and Kylo looses himself on it. The swing of the axe is deadly smooth as it slices through the air, the split through the wood horribly and inevitably clean. The pieces fall apart.

It is, in miniature, precisely what makes Kylo a monster. He doesn't hate trees. He didn't hate the vast majority of the dead he leaves in his wake. He simply needed firewood.]

How much did you want.

[this is the best show on earth though. maybe kavinsky should make a show. look at those biceps, look at that mighty hew of blade through wood. splinters flying, light coloring the heavy cut of muscle in kylo ren's back. kavinsky grins like a fox.]

Think that's enough.

[boop! kavinsky touches his finger to the screen of his comm device, ending the video recording. he plays it back real quick, skipping through just to check that he caught the shining glory of hard kylo bod and dour kylo sass. wonderfully, the precious pixels are intact. he slides the phone into his pocket and looks at the huge pile of chopped wood. work done. trolling over?

nah.

kavinsky's eyes are hooded as he walks up to the force user. the energy around kavinsky has sharp edges. less grease than he did in his past life. he stops on the grass in front of kylo ren, his narrow hips slightly jutted, a boyish grin on his face, an easy monster behind his stare.] Can I kiss you?

[Whatever Kylo was expecting, this wasn't it— and later, he'll be irritated that any of that surprise slipped out before he could catch it. There isn't much that makes it past the border fence, but it doesn't matter. Does it. It only takes the slightest hint of blood in the water to encourage a creature like Kavinsky.

Kylo looms over him, his deliberately impassive expression a largely worthless disguise now.]

I don't think you could reach.

[it is very true. that's enough blood. the shark has sensed it, from miles' distance, and is closing in.

though to be fair, in real life, it's only a few feet and kylo ren is enormous, handsome, and under close inspection. there wasn't much kavinsky would have missed. and the little pause gets a smile, sudden and secretive and brilliant. it makes him look younger, less evil.]

Is that a no?

[Kylo considers. It's a slow, unhurried process, the mechanism turning visibly behind his dark, steady gaze. He leaves a broad hand steadying the handle of the axe while the other lifts, reaches, cradles the side of Kavinsky's pale face then tips it up by the chin for inspection.

His thumb could slide over the soft curve of his lips, from here. It doesn't. Yet.]

What kind of message would I be sending if I kissed you right now, Joseph?

[It's a low, deceptively mild murmur. Perhaps the most dangerous kind.]

[kavinsky has an excellent poker face. actually, the greatest weakness of his poker face is that it's -- too good, almost. sometimes he doesn't laugh soon enough, roll his eyes, sneer. he goes straight to an empty mask, unreadable except to sign to anyone who knows him that there's something to hide.

one that he's determined kylo ren's fingers will not unseat. of course, ronan lynch would pick a boyfriend who has to make it weird.]

You're not kissing me, Ren. I'm kissing you.

You don't even have to come down here, sweetheart. [and then his tattooed fingers are on the fastenings of kylo ren's trousers. deft -- as a thief's and just as intrusive. he only needs an inch, maybe two. kylo ren's actual dick still remains firmly on ronan's side of their uneasy truce.]

[Kylo's breath catches. His grip flashes tighter.

He is, for all the many and varied ways Ronan's willingly offered body has lead him into temptation and beyond, not so far removed from all those untouched years— and in the sharp, frozen instant of shock, it shows. No-one touches Kylo like this, brazen and uninvited. Maybe, no-one ever has.

The thrill of it flutters at the edge of his voice. Slams through his blood. His eyes tear themselves from the shape he knows Kavinsky's mouth would adopt if he pushed his thumb past his lips-- force, he wants to make him suck on it, wants those wicked, filthy fingers snatching at him like he knows none of this is his, none of it...]

I don't think you're kissing anything.

[It's slow, this time, the imposition of Kylo's will. A smooth swell of pressure to leave Kavinsky struggling, steadily drowning in molasses. The inevitable winding down of a stuttering music box, fighting to sound out the last remaining notes of the melody.]

[kavinsky's experience of existential panic tends to involve the complete inversion of the board he was playing on. he harms himself instead of the next person he hates so much, and his exacted vengeance lands his own ass in fucking jail. he is exactly the kind of sore loser who will tell himself, once the table is shattered and the pieces are flung on the floor, that this is was winning to him all along.

he can feel kylo pushing in his mind with something other than predictable violence. in a different life, he would have fucked up in an obvious way. what are you gonna do when adam parrish comes back? in a sneer. try and punch kylo ren in the dick, maybe. furious, that the force master is trying to turn this into something that it isn't.

but all he says is:]

Dunno what to tell you, buddy. You get used to being wrong.

[snik. the fabric of the trousers comes apart in kavinsky's hands. he goes down on one knee, his narrow chin slipping out of kylo ren's hand. in no rush, but there's something unmistakably defiant about it, as a knife defies ribs.

and his mouth finds that delectable crease at kylo ren's hip. the flexor muscle that runs oblique down to his groin. it's only that, which he runs his lips down, from the plane of kylo ren's waist down to the half-peeled hem of his clothes, and right at the very end, his tongue darts out small and pink as a cat's.]

[And that's where the amber solidifies.

Kylo, his breath ripped into rags. Fingers of one hand curled tight around the anchoring weight of the axe propped against his thigh, the other hanging in the air. They're so close, Kylo and the dream thief locked into defiant genuflection at his feet, that his every shuddering exhale has Kavinsky's mouth dragging against his bared skin.

In, out. In, and out again. He has him, entirely at his mercy. His pulse thuds, viciously hard.

And his fingers come to rest on Kavinsky's frozen shoulder. Slowly, horribly slowly, he slides down into a crouch, finding a level with his eyes and holding it. Kylo's face is too flushed for the steadiness of his expression.]

Do you know what forgiveness is.

[Rhetorical. Kavinsky can't answer it anyway. The question might even be more of a fixed point for Kylo to anchor himself to than anything else. But gradually, as he speaks, as he regains control over himself, his control over his captive begins to ease. ]

Ronan told me. In the chapel, over there. Long before he knew all the things I have done, all the things they did. To me. He said. Forgiveness, is choosing not to punish someone. Even when you have the right.

[kavinsky is stuck.

it's funny in one sense. he can't move for a couple of seconds, at all, and it should fucking terrify him probably-- he and kylo ren aren't exactly friends.

he doesn't know what they are. and kylo ren crouching down in front of him, looking him in the eye, telling him these things, confuses the matter further. enough so, that even when he can wiggle his fingers and stretch his jaw, he doesn't really know what he wants to do. all them trusty, violent impulses have momentarily deserted him. this is about their little game, probably. the one where ronan lynch is the stakes, the winnings, and the terms, all three of those simultaneously.

or maybe kylo ren just wants an audience to his own journey. kavinsky understands the urge. but he doesn't understand this.]

You know what that sounds like to me? [kavinsky hears himself ask.] That sounds like it's over. That sounds like leaving.

Edited (what's sounsdddd, that's not a word CHINA) 2019-11-12 20:11 (UTC)

[There's a strange pause following Kavinsky's words, as if Kylo is the one slowly recovering mastery of his nerves. His eyes search the dream thief's face, his expression shifting minutely in the direction of curiosity or confusion. Both.]

It would. Wouldn't it.

[Slow, as if the answer to an unspecified question is coming together in real time. There's a discovery Kylo is making as he speaks.]

If you thought they were all you are. Your sins.

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cw c-word, suicidal ideation

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