burnyoudown | Open RP Post

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🔥 General squick/trigger list.
🔥 m/m for anything shippy.
🔥 General headcanon for Kavinsky. If you've got different headcanon/ideas for a psl, hit me with 'em; I'm flexible.
🔥 Kavinsky's kink list.
🔥 This is open to everyone who wants to thread with me!

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[Kavinsky snorted. He was pretty sure a lot of people would breathe a sigh of relief if he wasn't around. The rich boys would get by just fine without him. The addicts would get by just fine. The people who looked down their noses at him would be happy. The number of people who actually wanted him around felt like it got smaller every day.

He listened quietly to Dimitri's explanation, rolling the joint back and forth between his fingers before sighing heavily. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. Something terrible, probably, for someone else to have another reason to be against him. After a moment, he lit the joint and held the lighter out to Dimitri.]

You're a flatterer. [Normally, he'd make a joke. 'Go on, don't stop now' or 'compliment me some more', but he wasn't in a joking mood. This didn't feel like a joking matter. And yet-] And you're a freak. Just like me.

[Did he really think of himself as a freak? It depended on the day. He was either a freak or a god; there was no in-between when it came to his moods. Right now was the former, where not even someone else like him had wanted to be around him once he was done being useful.

What did he say to someone who could feel dreams all the time? What had he wanted someone to say to him, once upon a time? He'd already blown that; he'd wanted to not be called a freak. To be accepted. To know he wasn't alone.

He had questions--of course, he did--but he hardly felt like asking any of them. He wanted to know more, to know if Dimitri had been born this way too, to know what else he could do except feel dreams.]

So, that explains the how you found me, but- [He made a frustrated noise.] What, does half of Henrietta already know Lynch left me high and dry?

[Or did he radiate some kind of sad dream energy bullshit or something? In a way, he was touched that Dimitri seemed to care, but it also felt almost too good to be true--having someone care.]

[He took the lighter back, lighting his cigarette and inhaling the smoke before he slipped the zippo back into his worn jeans. But he watches Kavinsky, looking to see how he takes it all. He's a Dreamer, so it's not disbelief, at least. The only time he'd ever told someone like this they'd been in a dream, so this felt like a different thing altogether. But he takes a drag off his cigarette and tries to look nonchalant about the whole thing, even if he isn't.]

Oh, c'mon. We're surrounded by cars you pulled from your dreams. It's not just flattery, Ioska.

[He thought there were probably exactly two people in Henrietta that would understand what he meant, but Kavinsky was one of them. It's the familiar version of the way you say Joseph in Russian, but easy enough to understand for most of the Slavic languages.

There's a slight tilt of his head, a twitch of his expression as he watches him. He's more accepting of the way that Kavinsky says you're a freak like me than he'd like to be- the way that it touches against his worst insecurities. He'd been alone for so long, struggling to fit into a world he wasn't made for any more than Kavinsky was. Before he met Elijah he hadn't known anyone else that could touch dreams like he could. And Elijah had known so little about dreams, and Dmitri had been so glad to show him.

But the rejection broke pieces of him- because it was a rejection of who he was, too. Those are things he doesn't say out loud, but they're there- the sharp parts he hides behind his green eyes.]

If you're gonna go there, might as well go all the way-- say we're monsters.

[There's a touch of vulgar innuendo to the way he says the words- reflexively coarse. His teeth flash white as he exhales the smoke of his cigarette, but it's a complicated thing. Something that speaks to brittle bitterness and suffering as much as it does to edges that cut like a weapon. A fight against the world.

They were strange, dangerous creatures. But they were similar: they were the same, in the ways that mattered. Boys tangled in dreams, in the crushing weight of the world around them. It's part of why he's here, if he's being honest. Selfishness. Because without Kavinsky, who does he have? Ronan and Eli? Boys who it seemed like were made for ruin? He might not have taken the risk of saying it before, but he'd known since he saw him. And it might not be good enough, but it was something to just know that someone else like him existed.]

Nah. It's just me, I think.

[He knows what Kavinsky is really asking, but he takes a breath off his cigarette, all acrid smoke. Through his eyes the world echoes with dreams- and right now it burns. But he doesn't really know how to explain that with his feet on solid ground, so he doesn't.]

Dreams are bad at keeping secrets. But I saw the way you looked at him for months.

[He almost says: I always knew he'd burn you, but he doesn't, because it sounds like jealousy. Instead his voice softens just a little, because it's empathy, not judgement. They might not have ever been close before, but he does care that Ronan doesn't break Kavinsky with carelessness.]

I thought you deserved better than being alone.

[Ioska. There was something about it that made him latch onto it. It felt... he wasn't sure, but there was something about it, something that made his pulse flare. People called him a variety of things, but usually nothing so simple and yet so almost-intimate. Out loud, he'd only ever fess up to being pleased with the compliment, though. He was good at what he did, and he took pride in it. Most of the time, anyway.]

You're not a monster. [He took a hit, pausing for a moment more to put thoughts together than to appreciate his joint.] I might be, but not because of what I am.

[But rather who he was. He wasn't ashamed of it, either. He was awful and he knew it and the only way to not be swallowed alive by guilt or depression or self-hatred was to own it. But he'd never think of anybody as a monster for what they were, especially not if they dealt in dreams.

He almost bristled when Dimitri said he'd seen the way Kavinsky'd been looking at Ronan. It wasn't like it was a secret, but clearly, it'd been a surprise to Lynch. Clearly, he'd missed the memo where Kavinsky was a complete and utter fool for him. He still didn't think he'd asked for much from Ronan, yet here he was, sitting in his dreaming field with Dimitri instead of the other boy.

There were a lot of things he could have said, snide comments he could have made, jokes, something to deflect, but he didn't say any of the things that initially came to mind. His brow furrowed and, very earnestly, asked-]

Why?

[Why did Dimitri care? Why did he think Kavinsky didn't deserve to be alone? Most people didn't care and he'd gotten used to that.]

[He can't entirely help being affected by it when Kavinsky says that he's not a monster. Dimitri laughs it off, his gaze sliding off to the side, a curve of his mouth in something that isn't quite a smile. There's something to how he holds himself that says he's heard it too often on other peoples' tongues. He's learned to own it too, but it's not as flawless as it is with Kavinsky. It's a sharper thing, still a little raw, still holds pieces of how cruel reality is to a boy that doesn't live in it.

Dimitri doesn't know what he's expecting Kavinsky to say, but it's not what he gets- that question of why, the way that he looks at him so earnest that he doesn't know how to misdirect or push the truth to the side. He'd stupidly thought he could do this without having to expose himself, to give away his own vulnerability.]

Selfishness, I guess. I mean-- even if I was too chickenshit to say something to you about it, I still needed you.

[He doesn't look at Kavinsky as he says it, just kicks his foot against the dirt, sighs through the smoke his cigarette leaves in the air. These are the sort of words they could cut each other with- but Dimitri at least doesn't seem inclined to use the vulnerability of the moment like a weapon. He lets his shoulders curl, and when he looks at the other boy it's a quiet thing. A look that's soft and genuine in a way he never lets most people see.

And sure, Ronan's a Dreamer too. But he has his brothers and his Gansey-- he's sure that his whole life, he's never felt what it's like to really be alone. And that's a different death than the one that ate at Dimitri. But then maybe that's why he's here and Ronan isn't.]

Without you, what am I? I'm just- alone again.

[Last time it had killed him, but he doesn't say that part out loud.]

[Kavinsky was well acquainted with thinking of yourself as a monster. No one deserved to be called one just because of what they were. Some things couldn't be changed or controlled, and what you were was one of them. Who you were was a different matter entirely, and he was much more willing to judge people based on it.]

You need me?

[He was about to ask 'why' again when Dimitri continued. Oh. Being alone and not wanting to be alone was something that resonated with him. It was--it was why he was so determined to bend Ronan to his side, why his rejection hurt so much. Maybe Ronan didn't need to be around another dreamer but Kavinsky did. He was a freak of nature, he didn't know where he came from, what had caused him to be born the way he was, and he just... he was so tired of being alone. So tired he could feel it in his bones.

He'd struggled for so many years with the feeling, grappled with depression that stemmed from it. He felt alone even when he was surrounded by people, in the middle of a party, in the middle of class. He only felt like he wasn't really alone in certain moments. Sharing a bed with Prokopenko or the rest of his boys, racing with Ronan, dreaming with Ronan...doing anything with the other dreamer, really. More than that, Ronan had made him feel alive. But Ronan wasn't here right now and Dimitri was.

There was something intimate about their vulnerability, the fact that either of them could easily ruin the moment with sharp words. Kavinsky didn't like feeling vulnerable, but he was already raw, almost to his core. Ronan had hurt him, left him feeling unbalanced.

Fuck it.]

Let's not be alone, then. You and me, we could be... fuck.

[He pushed a hand under his sunglasses, pressing his fingers against one eye while he sucked in a breath.]

Stick with me, you'll never have to be alone again.

[He didn't know exactly what he was suggesting. Some sort of friendship, some kind of bond. He wasn't sure if Dimitri needed to be pulled under his wing, if he was as damaged as the rest of Kavinsky's boys were, but... The offer was there, if Dimitri wanted to take it. There was only one drawback, besides the fact Kavinsky didn't handle rejection well; he didn't accept social breakups. If you were in, you were in for the long haul.]

[The truth is this: every fiber of him wants to say fuck it all and just tell Kavinsky yes, tell him just how much he needs it. But it's vulnerable in a way that makes it harder than it should be.

And Dimitri isn't a person particularly predisposed to the truth anyway, and this is a difficult thing. Eli had burned him in ways that he tried his best not to think about, not to focus on. He knows what it's like to love a boy like that and be left raw, cut apart in the aftermath -- because he still is. But he doesn't know how to put that into words, to prevent it from seeming like he's just giving Kavinsky the setup for something about how he doesn't know him.

He's not sure he could get his feet back after something like that.

The easy thing here, would be to just pounce on the sex joke implicit in how Kavinsky curses halfway through his line about how they could be something. But that would wreck the possibilities here, and Dimitri isn't willing to do that, even when it's tempting to just laugh it off. But it's in his eyes how much he wants it. Not that he hadn't had friends back in NYC, that he didn't have acquaintances at Aglionby that could be called friendly. But-- it wasn't the same. It wasn't enough.

He shifts, more overtly leaning in against the car's window so that he can look at Kavinsky properly, despite the other boy's sunglasses. Dimitri's body language becoming something less casual, not like halfway feigned disinterest. More honest, more something raw as he exhales, his breath a little rough. He was damaged, broken pieces held together with lies and a smile. But fuck, he was so alone. There was never a real possibility he'd say no.]

Never's a long time, Ioska. But yeah. If you want... fuck. If you're serious then I'm in. Might even be able to make your dreams less messy, unless you like playing rough.

I don't fuck around about this kind of shit.

[He'd made this offer only a handful of times, and only one person had ever rejected him. The other four...he might tease them and joke around and act careless, but he wouldn't give them up for the world. They were all he had and he needed them as much as they needed him. But there was always room for more, to expand the family a little. It was like the saying went; the more the merrier.

Dropping his hand away from his face, he took a deep breath. He wasn't sure his boys would be enough to pull him back from the edge this time, but maybe Dimitri could. He already knew his biggest secret, that he was a dreamer. His obsession with Lynch was only a secret if you were completely deaf and blind.

Everybody needed someone.]

Who says my dreams are messy?

[He didn't take his sunglasses off, but they'd slid down his nose far enough to let him look up at Dimitri above the rims.

He handled his dreams just fine, though he guessed keeping them on a leash wasn't always the solution to things. He controlled them to the best of his ability, made them his instead of the other way around. He had to, for his own safety and sanity. But, he wouldn't turn down ways to get better at handling his dreams, either. There'd just never been anyone who could teach him.

He couldn't stop himself from throwing in an innuendo though, smirking even if it didn't reach his eyes.]

But I always play rough.

Okay. Then I'll stay.

[He doesn't say it like it's an easy thing, but like he means it, a quiet sort of earnestness as he looks at the other boy like there's an always in there somewhere.

It's not like it's a hard choice for him to make, anyway. Not with Kavinsky of all people. And he really was lonely, had been always different, kept apart from most people by how he saw the world. Elijah had been the first time he'd really thought that someone might want him like that, but maybe he should have known better. The only person so far that seemed to be able to enjoy his company on a consistent basis was his younger sister, which didn't say much. But Kavinsky was- the first. When he'd still been figuring it out himself. Just once but he remembered him.

He doesn't blame him. Not for Ronan, and not for anything else. And Dimitri was mostly a dream these days, and he'd always spoken the language better than Elijah. He couldn't bring them back like a Dreamer could, but he understood how it worked, how things fit together in ways that the other boy hadn't seemed to understand until he'd started to show him. The things he brings back are the feeling of the dream itself.

He imagines its similar for Kavinsky-- although he's far better than Elijah had been when they'd met.

He can't help smiling, something that's almost suggestive, almost a tease that he doesn't actually say outloud when Kavinsky says that he always plays rough. It's the sort of banter that he enjoys, even if the mood isn't quite right. But more than that, he doesn't want to get pulled away from the question that he wants to ask.]

I can find you in your dreams, if you want me to. Do it together.

[He's learned to ask permission, even if he figures Kavinsky might be less worried about those sort of particulars than Elijah had been.]

Good.

[He couldn't say, exactly, what it meant to him, especially here and now, in the aftermath of Ronan's rejection. It meant more than he would have thought and it gave him someone to latch onto instead of the abyss of anger and loneliness in his chest. All he wanted-- all he'd ever wanted-- was to have someone like him at his side. He wanted to not feel alone no matter how many parties he went to. No matter how many boys slept in his bed with him.]

I'll make sure you don't regret it.

[Pushing his sunglasses back up, he regarded Dimitri for a moment. He'd never shared his dreams with anyone before. He wasn't even sure he could, but the idea alone was enough to spark his curiosity, to have him feeling something besides bitterness.]

You can do that?

[He hesitated for a moment. He wasn't worried about someone else in his head, seeing his darkest secrets or potentially endangering themselves so much as he was... he didn't know, actually. He felt some sort of way about it but couldn't quite pin it down.]

I've never been able to share this with anyone.

[Ronan was the first time he'd tried, and they both knew how that had gone.]

Yeah, I can. When it's you- I'll show you, if you want to let me in.

[He says it like it's not a big deal, a shrug of his shoulders. Like the question doesn't mean anything more than whether Kavinsky is going to let him into the Mitsubishi or leave him with his hip leaning against the body frame, watching Kavinsky through the window. But his voice is soft, and there's that bit where he trips on his words. This matters, but there's that hint that more than that, it matters that it's Kavinsky.

Dimitri understands that desire to have someone like you at your side, because it was a desire he'd had ever since he realized that he was different. That he was alone. And then he'd found a Dreamer in a dream accidentally, and he'd realized that there were others, people that might understand.

Elijah had seemed like everything he needed, but he was-- scared, angry, still fighting himself. Dimitri liked playing with fire enough to think they could work it out, but that had ended in one fucking carwreck after another.

But now he was here.

And Kavinsky-- he didn't know. Maybe it was that he sort of thought that neither of them could afford to push someone away like that again. They both wanted the same thing, didn't they? That K had already held his hand out and not flinched when he said yes.

And Dimitri wanted to show him that it could be better than Ronan. Prove to himself that the world wasn't totally fucked. That there was more than just the boy that had walked away from him, too.]

I can't bring things back. But in dreams- I can make worlds.

[Maybe it should sound like bragging, but instead it's almost tentative, more of a confession. A truth that says how painful reality can be.]

Let you in what, my head or my car?

[One option was a lot less daunting than the other. He knew his head could be a fucked up place, though he'd worked hard to make it as less dangerous as possible, so he could dream without being assaulted with the things that hated him. There was a reason his dreamscape before moving here was a neighborhood on fire. Before the forest had become his other dreamscape.

Speaking of cars and letting people in though, Kavinsky clocked what Dimitri said about making worlds, but also gestured for him to move before opening the car door. If he didn't move in time, he'd just have to deal with getting smacked. Kavinsky cared little about that as he slid out. The backseat would be more comfortable, more shadowed, too.

The cars were parked close enough together that he used that as an excuse to press Dimitri up against the side of the car as he reached for the back door handle. He wasn't even trying to make Dimitri uncomfortable; he was just gauging his reaction, how he handled Kavinsky in his personal space, nearly chest to chest.

Pulling the door open a little, he said-]

Get in. And then you can tell me more about making worlds.

Whichever you're comfortable with.

[Which he means honestly, even if his tone is just a touch teasing. Dimitri is still a shitty teenage boy and he doesn't know how to care about someone else's comfort without making it at least a little bit of a joke. But he knew that dreams weren't always pleasant, knew that nightmares didn't always follow the rules, so he wasn't going to push. Especially after the mess the other boy had been through with Ronan.

But then Kavinsky is stepping out of the car, and Dimitri manages to get out of the way of the car door- but only just barely. He grins sharply, but then he was pushing him up against the side of the car as he reached for the door to the backseat and the smooth assurance fractured, betrays his longing for a moment. He couldn't help it, not with the proximity, the way that they're almost chest to chest, and he leans into it just a touch. It's just a moment where his eyes linger on the way his collarbone shows under the collar of his shirt, on his mouth- then he gets his shit together and he smirks when Kavinsky tells him to get in.

Under normal circumstances he would probably have made a sly comment about the backseat of K's car. But since he'd just flustered and was pretty sure Kavinsky had caught it, Dimitri was pretty sure it would be at his own expense. So he just slides into the backseat without a snarky comment to say about it.

He's been trying to pretend he had better reasons for trying to catch him than jealousy. Which he did. But it didn't mean that he wasn't.]

[Oh. He saw how Dimitri reacted when he had him pressed up against the car. It was the kind of thing that made Kavinsky want to kiss him. He couldn't say he didn't usually kiss people he barely knew because he usually did, but... This probably had more to do with being lonely and recently rejected than anything else. Though Dimitri was easy on the eyes and he'd just told Kavinsky he could enter his dreams. He was just desperate not to be alone, to have someone he could really connect with.

After Dimitri was in the backseat, Kavinsky slid in with him, crowding against him a little, bumping his knee against the other boy's because he still had no concept of personal space. He left the door hanging open for now, slouching down and leaning his head back.]

So how do we do this? If I wanted to let you into my dreams?

[He hadn't shared a dreamspace with anyone before, and he was too relaxed and broken right now to get upset over admitting he didn't know something about dreaming. He imagined it was probably as easy as going to sleep and seeing what happened, but for a surprising change he figured it was better to ask first.]

[It runs a shiver down his spine when Kavinsky slides in after him, the other boy's body crowding in against him. Knees bumping together through the fabric of their jeans, but Dimitri isn't as obvious about it this time, at least. It wasn't quite as intimate as Kavinsky having him pressed between his body and his dreamt car, the way it made a riot of his nerves. Instead he just smiles, warm and easy as he looks him over in the contained space.]

Easy. We dream like usual, and I'll come find you.

[Really, even if Dimitri hadn't been biased toward Kavinsky in the first place, it wasn't like he was a difficult boy to be attracted to. He was gorgeous in that shadowed way that he had about him, but with something almost delicate in the line of his cheekbones that made him want to trace them with his fingertips. But those were not the sort of thoughts he wanted to bring into the dreams with them, so he tried to clear his thoughts.]

I'll show you how after.

That easy, huh?

[He shifted a bit, digging into one of his pockets for a few green pills. They didn't have anything to wash them down with, but it wouldn't be the first time he'd taken pills dry. It wouldn't be perfect and it wasn't exactly pleasant, but it would work. He eyed them for a moment, then tipped his hand towards Dimitri.]

You need a sleep aid?

[He didn't figure that everybody could fall asleep on command, but he didn't know what someone else who also dealt in dreams was capable of. He didn't want to make assumptions, just this once. He was making assumptions in other cases though, like assuming that Dimitri was attracted to him. Or maybe it was wishful thinking, after being rejected by Lynch.]

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