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"Bonus round," Kavinsky said, producing a warning-light red pill between his fingers. "Open."
It was meant both as an invitation and as an order, and Lynch levelled a heavy gaze on him as if he was going to oppose being bossed around. But then his eyelashes fluttered shut, and he obligingly opened his mouth, allowing Kavinsky to place the pill on his tongue. Kavinsky did so, and it felt like hand feeding a wolf - getting a wild animal to trust you enough to be able to put your fingers between its teeth without worrying about getting them bitten off.
That's what Lynch was, really. Not the hound Gansey seemed to believe he was ; not a creature you could tame, but one you had to convince it needed you.
Lynch needed Kavinsky, the same way Kavinsky needed Lynch. They were the same. Nobody else was as real as them. Real enough.
In front of him, Lynch swayed on his feet, blinking owlishly. Kavinsky followed the bob of his Adam’s apple as the pill was swallowed.
“What’s this one do?” Lynched asked, like an afterthought.
Kavinsky grinned. “Dying’s a boring side effect.”
Lynch looked like he might protest again, but the words died on his lips as soon as the drug hit his system. He shuddered, eyes wide open, chest rising and falling with every intake of air. Kavinsky drank in the sight of him, engraving in his memory every little detail. The mad pulse of a vein on his throat. His pupils, blown wide and black, sucking in the golden-pink light of the sun rising above the hills. The stark contrast of the tattoo creeping up his neck, dark ink against pale skin. The familiar sight of that angry crease between his eyebrows, tinted with confusion - or was it wonder?
Kavinsky thought, briefly - just between a heartbeat and the next - of making himself his very own Lynch. Dreaming a human being was ridiculously easy, as long as you knew what you wanted - and Kavinsky always did. He could make this new Lynch more reckless, more savage - more at his image. Not tied to Gansey anymore, but to Kavinsky alone.
But as he watched Lynch stumble, hands hitting the empty hood of the car he had ripped away from the dream place, he discarded the idea. He wanted the real thing, not an imperfect reflection from his own fantasies. The heat in Lynch’s eyes, burning like gasoline in a car crash, the promise of bared teeth behind pinched lips, the low growl of his voice; for once, Kavinsky wanted to earn it.
The incomplete car grated in protest as Lynch climbed onto it. He laid down onto the hood, face turned away from Kavinsky. The tattoos on his back shifted with each breath, morphing in the morning light. Kavinsky could see so much in the lines criss-crossing Lynch’s skin: beaks, thorns, wings outstretched. Unseeing eyes and gaping jaws. Half a dozen knives viciously arched - or maybe was those claws, curved around a sharp shoulder bone. The more Kavinsky looked at them, the more it seemed like the stripes of inked skin would leap out at him and tear apart the tattered remains of his soul.
Entranced, Kavinsky stepped toward. Before he knew it, he had crawled on the warming hood of the failed Chevy. His hand hovered over Lynch’s skin for a sliver of a second before he finally brought it down, trailing blunt nails across the inked shoulders. He could feel muscles tensing up under his touch, rebelling against the contact before instinct was smothered by apathy. Lynch barely twitched as Kavinsky’s fingers slid up his back and curled around his throat, too far gone to care about anything around him. Kavinsky gave an experimental squeeze; Lynch barely reacted, simply drawing in a deeper breath and relaxing, the last remnants of hostility leaving his body. Following a sudden instinct, Kavinsky leaned over, fitting his mouth over the bump in Lynch’s spine where his neck met his back - slowly, deliberately. Confident this wasn’t a one-time thing, but an action he could repeat over and over again, until he was satisfied.
Under his tongue, Lynch’s skin felt impossibly alive, vibrating with the racing of blood through his veins and set ablaze by the inferno he held inside. He tasted of sweat and wrath and everything Kavinsky couldn’t have dreamt of. Absentmindedly, he dragged his teeth at the base of Lynch’s skull, lightly biting at the flesh there. The other exhaled sharply - not quite a moan, but something sufficient to send Kavinsky’s proficient imagination running. He abruptly sat up, mouth dry. Next to him, Lynch looked asleep, eyeballs moving under their lids, his mouth forming silent, unspoken words.
Kavinsky wanted nothing more than to lay back down next to him and hope they could just dream their life away. That surely wouldn’t be the explosive and grandiose burst of flames he originally intended to go in, but that wouldn’t be so bad.
Instead he fished a plastic bag out of his pocket and pulled himself further up the hood, half-draping himself over the windshield. His movement were mechanics, born of habit and weariness, as he poured white powder over the warm metal in a practiced line.
Behind him, Lynch shuddered.