Open RP Post

[devilofaboy]

🖤 Hit me up on plurk or via PM if you have any questions/want to run an idea by me first/what-have-you.
🖤 General squick/trigger list.
🖤 m/m for anything shippy.
🖤 General headcanon for Ronan. If you've got different headcanon/ideas for a psl, hit me with 'em; I'm flexible.
🖤 Ronan's kink list.
🖤 This is open to everyone who wants to thread with me!

Comments

:3

[devilofaboy]

[Ronan did, indeed, hear Elijah's car as he arrived. Opening the front door, he padded out onto the porch, barefoot and comfortable. He didn't bother to pull on shoes before stepping off the porch, meeting Elijah halfway to take the bottle he held out.

Instead of answering right away, he took a moment to look around the yard, as if seeing the Barns for the first time himself. He loved this place so much the feeling could strangle him. There wasn't a single thing about it that didn't feel nostalgic or homey. And yet it wasn't enough to smother the gnawing hole of guilt inside of him.

Up on the roof, Chainsaw watched them and cawed.]

Home.

[He replied simply, turning to head back inside.]

No shoes indoors.

[He added over his shoulder as he crossed the porch.]

[richspoiledrotten]

Yeah.

[God, but there was something about that word. Home. How long had it been since he'd been back? He could, of course, just tell his parents he was coming home for the weekend, buy a plane ticket. Easy as anything.

Sure.

Except that he'd have to admit that he wasn't fine. And so he doesn't.

It makes the Barns hit a little deeper, curl closer to his heart -- or maybe he's just that rattled, that undone. Dimitri a hurt that he doesn't even know how to let himself mourn. He doesn't know for sure. He looks up at the roof and quirks a jaunty half-salute at the bird.

But there's something soft in his eyes, a complicated hurt, bleaker than he could put into words. He's half-tipsy off cheap beer already, so it's probably for everyone's good that Elijah ends up here, and not out on his own. But he unties his boots and toes them off to the side of the door without complaint, stepping inside after Ronan in soft black socks.

He hesitates a moment, and then shrugs his jacket off. Just a tank top underneath, ink up his arms.

Dreams on his skin.]

It's a nice place.

[The hush in his voice says it's more than nice, but Eli has never been good at putting that into words. Fuck. He needs a drink.]

[devilofaboy]

[Ronan shrugged his shoulders when Elijah said it was a nice place. It was more than nice, it was... he couldn't quite put it into words beyond 'home' but it was such an important place to him. He could be himself here without worrying about what other people thought. Or what they saw.

He passed through the living room and into the kitchen, putting the vodka down on the counter to get down a pair of glasses. Juggling all three things, he headed back to the living room, setting everything down and opening the vodka. Maybe he should get something to mix it with...but maybe they also didn't want to beat around the bush when it came to getting drunk.]

What you said about Dimitri...

[He was never good at being subtle. He didn't know the best way to broach the subject so crashing headfirst into it seemed like the only real option. He might not have pried if Elijah hadn't brought it up in the first place and piqued his curiosity. He knew what it was like to blame yourself for someone's death, and not just Kavinsky's, in his case.]

[richspoiledrotten]

[Elijah certainly isn't going to complain about not having a mixer to go with the vodka. He lets Ronan disappear into the kitchen to get the glasses- mostly so that he has a moment to try and pull himself back together. He finds a place to toss his coat, drags a hand down his face. It's probably a good thing he isn't racing tonight, if he's honest. But he doesn't know how to say that, so he doesn't.

Instead he just settles across from Ronan as he sets out the glasses and opens the bottle.

When the other boy mentions what he said before, shrugging his shoulders as he looks at him. He expects him to make some sort of joke about it. Because it's ridiculous, isn't it? But Ronan isn't laughing. He isn't saying anything. Just leaving the quiet there for Elijah to fill, and so he takes a breath and tries to figure out how to say it.

He doesn't know that he expects the other boy to believe him. But he's reckless, and between the hurt and the alcohol and just the weight of fucking everything he's careless enough to try.]

My dreams don't always stay in my dreams. I'm sort of-- I don't know. Like a bridge or something?

[In so far as he could be said to be good at this, he was good at the practical part. Dimitri could have explained it, but if Dimitri was here he wouldn't have to. So after stumbling over his next few words, he makes a sound of frustration, and steals one of the glasses; swords seem a bit over-dramatic right now.

It looks almost like slight of hand. Elijah shifts the glass between his hands a couple times, and when he sets the glass on the table, it isn't empty, but amber like whiskey. Normally it's to take the edge off his injuries, but it's not a bad drink in a pinch. Alcohol, but like what he thought that was when he was younger: sunsets and open fields, heat that warms all the way down.

But more than that, it tastes like a dream.

There's a thrill to it, not just the magic, but doing it like this. Doing it where someone can see. His green eyes are almost too bright, and he slides the glass to the other boy across the table, his heart racing in his chest. He doesn't say anything about it, because what the fuck does he say?]

[devilofaboy]

[A bridge. If Elijah was a bridge, what did that make Ronan? He had so many questions but he stayed quiet about them for now, watching the other boy quietly as he stumbled over words and as he took one of the glasses. His curiosity was piqued when he saw the glass was abruptly not empty.

That was different than what he could do. Elijah pulled dreams when he was awake, if Ronan wasn't mistaken, but he had to be asleep to do it. Wordlessly, he leaned forward to pick up the glass, sniffed at it, and after a questioning look, took a cautious sip. It was...not what he'd been expecting. It was like memories and nostalgia made physical more than the taste of actual alcohol.

Putting the glass back down, he nodded slowly. Elijah was different than he was but- how much? How much were they alike? Ronan wasn't so much impressed as he was in awe, though he wouldn't admit it. His world was ever-expanding, growing to include not just Kavinsky but now Elijah. There was so much more magic than he'd thought at first.]

What killed Kavinsky came out of his dreams.

[He said without looking at Elijah.]

I could've dreamed something better. I could have saved him.

[But he'd just stood there. He'd stood there and done nothing except dream a night horror and watch Kavinsky die and he couldn't help but feel responsible.]

You- You can take out dreams when you're awake.

[He wanted to know how it worked, he wanted to know everything, but he didn't want to pelt Elijah with questions, either.]

[richspoiledrotten]

[The words Ronan says have Elijah's world spinning, turned on its edge for reasons that have nothing to do with alcohol. He looks at him, quiet for a long moment as he tries to sort through his thoughts, his feelings. It makes sense, in a certain strange, fucked up way. Elijah's always drawn to people with magic in their veins, one way or another. And maybe his pool of reference for people that deal with dreams is very small, but it still seems to hold that Dreamers are more sharp edges than the rest of the world.

Reality always too much or not enough.

And fuck but his heart aches for Ronan, because it's different from Dimitri, but similar enough and he wouldn't wish this pain on anyone. He tries to focus on the dreaming, because that isn't so raw, doesn't make him want to fucking cry, and he loathes crying, especially where anyone can see. It makes him feel.. weak, and soft and ugly in the worst sort of ways.]

Sort of. I don't do it right, I guess -- at least according to Dimitri.

[He drags a hand down his arm, slow enough to let his thumb linger on each of his tattoos.]

These are all dreams. At first... well, when I was a kid, the first thing I really, truly wanted to bring out of my dreams was myself. But I could never pull that off. Instead I found that I could- I sort of...

[He trails off with an exhale, snagging the bottle and pouring the vodka as a way to buy himself time to figure out how to explain it. He drinks it empty, tilting his head back as he tries to find a way to explain it, toying with the glass in his fingertips. There's a hint there of something he doesn't quite say, but he looks away, dragging a hand through his hair.]

I pull them from my dreams on my body. But I keep them as concepts. As dreams. Doing what I did then is just ... turning that dream into something physical. But I don't always know what that is until afterwards. In order to hold a dream so I always know what thing it is, I have to make it- part of my identity, who I am. And that's apparently bad.

[He sighs in frustration, lips pressing into a thin line as the loss and the feeling that he should have done more feels almost inescapable. Emotions welling up from the hole in his chest.]

He said it was dangerous. He said it was making a bridge and not asking who you let across.

[devilofaboy]

[Every tattoo, a dream. Keeping dreams as concepts, things on your own body-- that sounded-- it made his head hurt a little thinking about it. He couldn't imagine doing that with his own dreams. It sounded dangerous and like it had so much potential for things to go wrong. His dreams were already dangerous enough, even without the night horrors around trying to kill him.]

It sounds self-destructive.

[There was a risk to others too, he guessed, but more than anything it sounded most dangerous to Elijah.

It sounded like it worked vastly differently than Ronan's dreaming. He couldn't begin to understand it enough to help. But- he felt the desire to help. He'd probably be bad at it, anyway. He didn't think he was cut out to be a hero or mentor. He couldn't even stop one boy from dying.]

Did he understand all of this stuff?

[It hurt to talk about someone in the past tense, even if he hadn't been especially close to Dimitri. He knew what it was like to lose people you cared about. It was eating him alive.]