Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/13250742. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Raven_Cycle_-_Maggie_Stiefvater Relationship: Joseph_Kavinsky/Ronan_Lynch, Implied_Unrequited_Ronan/Gansey Character: Ronan_Lynch, Joseph_Kavinsky, Richard_Gansey_III Additional Tags: Dubious_Consent, Canon-Typical_Violence, Canon-Typical_Drug_Use, Hand Jobs, Semi-Public_Sex, Blow_Jobs, Dirty_Talk, Gentle_Sex, Rough_Sex, Sexist_Language, Joseph_Kavinsky_is_his_own_warning Stats: Published: 2018-01-03 Words: 1740 ****** witness me ****** by brophigenia Summary I’m not anybody’s fucking bitch, he snarled back, and got to his feet before Kavinsky got any more ideas.   Yeah, Kavinsky snorted, looking him up and down, bruised and battered and obviously hard in his jeans, you sure about that, sweetheart? Notes Hey, so, this is pure straight filth. I’m mildly apologetic for it. See the end of the work for more notes if I thought it would help I would drive this car into the sea. *** Lynch, goddamn, Kavinsky growled the third dozenth time or so they fucked, knowing that Ronan hated the sound of both of those words out of his filthy fucking mouth. Godfuckingdamn, he panted, and punctuated the softer sound by pressing his fingers more harshly to the back of Ronan’s skull, dragging him closer. If you were my bitch, I’d make you grow that shit out, he commented after, meaning Ronan’s buzzed-short hair. Ronan had been kneeling in the dirt still, spitting out semen and blood from his punch-split lip, pretending like he wasn’t hard. That made it better, pretending like Kavinsky didn’t have that effect on him. Made it easier to snarl afterwards and pretend like he was above shit like that, like he didn’t jerk off in the shower when he got back to Monmouth with his free hand curled viciously around his own throat. I’m not anybody’s fucking bitch, he snarled back, and got to his feet before Kavinsky got any more ideas. Yeah, Kavinsky snorted, looking him up and down, bruised and battered and obviously hard in his jeans, you sure about that, sweetheart? *** you left, you left me on a Monday so now I’ll bury you on Sunday you are the devil in me   *** The first time they fucked, there were no drugs involved. He’d gone out looking for a street race, hands shaking, and circled around Henrietta three times looking for fucking Kavinsky. Kavinsky was parked in the lot of the closed-for-the-night Big Rico’s Pizza; he was draped across the hood of his own car, arms spread and head tipped back, staring up at the 3 a.m. stars. From a distance, he looked like a hit and run victim, like a crucified piece of roadkill. Ronan was furious at the sight of him, doing fucking nothing, looking so at fucking peace, and he’d slammed on his breaks, made them scream, turned the steering wheel with one-handed violence while his other hand was already working on the door handle. He was out of the car almost before it stopped moving, and threw his fist into Kavinsky’s stomach. Kavinsky had choked, heaved, eyes going suddenly wide behind his fucking sunglasses, and Ronan wanted to kill him. He wanted to kill him, fucking piece of Russian mobster shit drug dealing pill popping criminal. Kavinsky’s knees had come up, his chest had risen, and then he’d landed a kick squarely on Ronan’s solar plexus that knocked the breath out of him in a great, dizzying rush. Fuck, Lynch! Kavinsky had snarled, sunglasses falling from their perch on his beaklike nose, and then somehow they’d been grappling with each other, hands around each other’s throats, and Kavinsky was on some angry shit and it felt so good to see his face blackened with fury and his eyes dark in anger and not lit up with amusement. He couldn’t remember who had realized the other was hard, first, as they fought against Kavinsky’s ugly fucking car. All he remembered was the aftermath of that realization, remembered how they’d been out in the fucking open and both of their faces were bleeding and Kavinsky had spat blood into his hand for lube to jerk them both off with, cocks pressed hotly together. His hands were so skinny and bony and rough that it barely even felt good, but it was also the best thing that Ronan had ever fucking felt, made his eyes roll back in his head. Made him feel possessed and like he was fucking flying. No fucking drugs could compare to that shit. Shoulda known you were fuckin easy for it, huh, Lynch, like a goddamn cat in fuckin heat, Kavinsky had slurred, mouth pressed up against his cheek, and all Ronan could smell was the iron tinge of blood and the thickly acrid scent of gasoline. Kavinsky sniffled, coked out, swaying, but his grip was still firm and his words were still razor-sharp, savage. Why does Three Dicks let you fuckin get this bad, huh? He like it when his bitch gets some strange, comes back fuckin dripping with it? Shut the fuck up, Ronan had growled, thrashing, hating him but coming at that filthy fucking shit Kavinsky had come up with. Did he practice that shit, was he making some fucking study of it? Was it just what his fucked-up brain came up with on the fly? Fuck. Kavinsky was number, high and not-so-easy for it, and he shoved Ronan more firmly up against the side of the Mitsu, kneed his legs open so they were closer, dropped Ronan’s dick and snatched up his arm, licking over the still- healing scars from his ‘suicide attempt.’ Lynch, he said, teeth flashing white next to Ronan’s wrist, eyes dark and taking in Ronan, bloodied and half-naked and cum-splattered and pressed up against his car. Lynch, he said again, and came with a punched-out breath, like Ronan had hit him again. It striped across Ronan’s shirt, obvious against the black cotton, and Ronan took advantage of his sudden bonelessness to duck his hold, get back to the BMW. Back at Monmouth, Gansey was slumped over asleep at his desk, cheek pressed to his Glendower journal and lamp still on. He looked younger in the yellowish light, unbearably gorgeous with his Cupid’s bow mouth and bronzed skin and rumpled hair, one hand curled up next to his face, like a sleeping child. Ronan’s guts ached to look at him. He fell into bed fully dressed except for his semen-stained shirt. His phone buzzed. gonna have a lot of fun together lynch. *** I hear the birds on the summer breeze I drive fast, I am alone at midnight been trying hard not to get into trouble but I got a war in my mind.   *** The worst time had not been the time with the knife. The worst time had not been the time when he’d just come back from the Barns and had ended up crying in the middle of Kavinsky fucking him over the hood of the Mitsu. The worst time wasn’t any of the violently fucked up shit they’d done to each other and to themselves. The worst time had been early one morning, in a field on the side of some abandoned strip of road far out of the city limits they’d been using to race on. The grass was high and overgrown around them, like a cradle. It reminded him of the Barns. He was fucking exhausted, crashing hard at what must’ve been 5 a.m. after a few days of no sleep. Kavinsky was buzzing, wired, pupils blown. His last line of coke had been a hour before. His hands trembled finely. He shivered in the dewy early-morning chill. And he’d been so fucking gentle, had traced his shaking hands over Ronan’s half-asleep face, took advantage of the fact that Ronan was dozing to press himself close, closer. His sunglasses were discarded somewhere in the grass and his blinks were too slow and too far apart. He was fucked up, and he just wanted to fucking kiss, wet and lush like they were actual people who actually liked each other or some shit, and Ronan hated himself for going along with it, loathed Kavinsky for doing this shit to him. That was the worst time, because they didn’t fucking get off or hit each other or even use teeth. It wasn’t terrible. It was soft, and simple, and Ronan could get fucking used to it. He hated that he didn’t hate it, and the next time they were alone he punched Kavinsky in his fucking grinning-skull face for it. *** sleeping, like dying, delivers you from one world to the next— to rest in crypts and wake in gardens.   *** Goddamn it, Kavinsky, he snarls, scrubbing a hand over the prickly back of his head, feeling the ghost of a skeletal hand digging in there, dragging him closer. Always fucking closer. Ronan had always been the one pulling back, and for good fucking reason, but— could shit have been different? Fucking Kavinsky, that piece of shit, couldn’t leave him in peace even in death. He’d been crazy and self-destructive and so fucked up, but so was Ronan. So had Ronan been, and so he still was, and if Gansey hadn’t intervened when he did, Ronan could have gone as off his fucking rocker as Kavinsky did. If his dad had tried to kill him, if he’d been that kind of person, would Ronan have laid down and died, or would he have done something about it? If his mom had been constantly checked out, would he have resented her for it? Been poisoned to her by it? If he hadn’t of had his brothers to keep him company, would he have been as obviously-intensely-lonely as Kavinsky? He imagined a kid growing up in fear and in violence and in fucking drugs. He imagined that kid being all alone. He imagined that kid realizing he had the power to drag shit out of his own dreams. He imagined that kid becoming Kavinsky. He tried to shake off the pity, or whatever it was, thought to himself it wasn’t my job to fucking fix you, savage. Undone. I don’t fucking forgive you, he spat to the headstone, just to make it clear. I don’t. Fuck. And then he threw the bottle of vodka he’d brought, the only Bulgarian brand that Henrietta’s surprisingly-widely-stocked liquor store offered, straight at the thing. It shattered with a clash, too fucking sentimental by half, and Ronan didn’t even care that the shards flew onto his feet, stuck to the knotted laces of his boots. He tugged at the leather bands around his wrist reflexively and suddenly realized he couldn’t tell if they were the ones Kavinsky had given him or the ones he’d modeled the forgery after. He tore them off, and dropped them onto the fresh dirt in front of the stone. Left them there in a puddle of cheap but exotic liquor, on a bed of broken glass. It felt poetic, but Ronan knew it was all fucking empty. Kavinsky was gone, and shit was over and done with, and Ronan could feel his ghost in every dream, lurking unseen in the trees. His wrist felt bare without the bracelets. His body felt oddly light without the bruises. *** “never” means “forever.” ***   End Notes Quotes from title-mad max: fury road dark places - the gaslight anthem devil in me - gin wigmore ride - lana del rey shitty horoscopes - amrit brar alpha dog - fall out boy Comment and let me know how you feel about this pile of actual filth. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!