kill of the night

“Either do a shot with me or go fuck yourself.”

“Did you poison it?” The boy looked down at the glass in his hand with heavy suspicion. Ronan had always had more people dislike him than like him, but he doubted anybody hated him as strongly as the small blonde in front of him did. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how much do you trust me?” Oliver asked, glancing at the person next to him with a smirk falling into place on his face. “It might be a zero by the end of the night but I can guarantee it will be worth it.”

“It’s already a zero.” Ronan continued to doodle a UFO on his forearm, not bothering to pull his eyes from the dark blue lines on tanned skin. “What did you have in mind?” He sighed, trying to hide the fact that a small part of him was actually interested. 

Bradley: i'm clinging to your gutter, dangling from the roof like a bat in the wind right outside your window

Bradley: i just texted you for the thrill of the lie

Ronan: you're texting and clinging? that's impressive

Ronan: you should add it to your resume

Saskia: you're fucking dead pal

Saskia: sorry wrong number lmao

Ronan: it's fine

Bradley: can you give me a ride?

Bradley: not an innuendo btw

“Y’know, it’s weird, my boyfriend was saying the same thing to me earlier today,” Penny remarked to the man beside her at the bar, a vacant expression on her face, pointedly holding her rum and coke closer to her chest to avoid being roofied.  Quickly scanning her surroundings as if searching for an escape route, she noticed a familiar face walking in her general direction.  Bingo.  “Ronan, babe, there you are!” She smiled widely at him as he started to pass by, sticking out an arm to stop him.  “I was just talking about you,” she tilted her head towards the man, urging Ronan to play along with a quirk of her eyebrow.

@rxnanb

Hoovering at the blonde’s back, Ronan awkwardly pat the top of her head. “All good things, I hope.” He let out a chuckle that sounded fake even to his own ears. It didn’t take much to set the boy off, but seeing a man make a woman uncomfortable, especially one by herself, caused his short fuse to grow even shorter. “I’d like for you to fuck off now.” He gestured for the bartender to pour him a drink of his own. “I don’t mean just from this area. I want you to leave the building, because if I see anybody else guard their drink in fear while talking to you, I’m going to knock your teeth out and give them to my girl to make a necklace out of.” 

“What is your type?” Stella said, eyes tracing over the plum tinged skin. “Baseball bats?”

“Oh, this--” Ronan brushed an aching finger over the most prominent bruise on his battered face. “This was courtesy of a two hundred pound man named Thundarr. He’s actually alright once you get past the body odor and horns tattooed on his forehead.” 

onyx rolled her eyes playfully at the boys failed attempts at small talk, though she knew it must be paining him even more than the bruises he seemed to be covered in. “small talk?” she asked, eyebrows raised in amusement. “ronan participating in light, awkward conversation? a sight i never thought i’d live to see.” she smirked, tapping her fingernails against the table in almost nervousness. though she was somewhat of a succubus around campus, the thought of actually having to sit and speak openly to other guys without any influence or promises of casual sex was borderline nauseating. “i’m like, kinda nervous,” she admitted after a moment of silence. “i don’t, like, date. i mean, i know these aren’t real dates, but still. i’ve never been on a real one. this is weird.”

“Me either,” He grumbled, sending the event organizer, who was still staring at him, a little wave. “I’ve always believed that if you don’t have anything substantial to say, you should keep your mouth shut.” Ronan leaned forward, gritting his teeth as his sore ribs came into contact with the table. “You don’t date?” The boy’s head cocked to the side, eyes narrowing. “Somebody should fill Damon in on that. The last I heard, you were planning on spending Christmas with him. You don’t agree to spend the holidays with somebody you’re just fucking. In fact, that sounds almost as domestic as my girlfriend and I.” 

“Tell me why we thought coming to this party was a good idea?” Max mumbled. His glass of pop was looking painfully plain and more than anything, he just wanted to reach over and pluck a bottle from someone’s hands and chug it down. But he was trying to be better, trying to drink less if he could. Drugs? Cold turkey. When it came to alcohol, he was only drinking it if it was absolutely necessary. “Maybe we should hit up somewhere else. Somewhere more lively.” @rxnanb

“Because it seemed like a better option than sitting at home with only our thoughts as company,” He guessed from his spot on the kitchen counter. He had a beer in one hand and pretzels in the other, which should have been cause for a good time alone, but only fueled his boredom. What kind of party didn’t have hard liquor? “Good idea. I don’t think Jesus himself could resurrect this party.” Ronan stuffed the remaining pretzels into his mouth and was about to hop off the counter when a sudden spike in voices coming from the living room caught his attention. “Would you look at that? I’ve offend the almighty and he’s here to prove me wrong.” He leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse into the next room. 

Legs locked around his waist as her back pressed against the wall, the world suddenly so right again when she was in his arms, his lips on her neck, making her feel so vibrant, so colourful, so full of life and bursting with colour, and everything she hadn’t felt with her little head pumped with drugs and pockets full of stones. Arms fixed about his shoulders, her hands rooted in his hair, he became her anchor, compass point clicking only to him. “Of course we get tired! But that’s the fun part; we start again. Re-invent ourselves, perhaps. We become new characters, live in another story for a bit, until that one becomes a little too mundane for your reckless ways. Doesn’t change the fact that the you I love is the you here–” Tessa’s fingers strayed to the planes of his chest, slipping through the gaps between buttonholes, plucking the fabric open to trace the skin that sheathed his heart, his lips on her neck giving rise to a gasping moan as her thighs only clamped tighter around his hips. 

“Oh, there’s definitely things worth growing up, Ronan,” Tess began, her index finger tracing the chapped skin of his lower lip, split lip she had stitched haphazardly so many times, wishing she held the boldness to kiss it better. She’d always find a reason not to, convincing herself that Ronan saw her as a fragile little thing, not the kind he’d wanted the heated pleasure of a love affair with. Lips found his in an gasoline inferno, hard enough to bite, her hands tugging at the coarse raven of his curls as heat seemed to pump from every pore. The taste of his mouth was something she’d never grow bored of, still wrapped up in the way it felt the first time, the utter weightlessness of her body, the sinking feeling in her stomach always leaving her aching for love. She could feel the swell of it beating in her chest; everything she’d never been certain of with anyone before. Her heart was a ticking time bomb caged in egg shell. She was reckless with it, abundant with it, pulling the pin grenade for any boy who kissed her like she mattered, but in Ronan’s hands she felt like cast iron. “The rest of your life? That’s a long time, Ronan. Be careful what you wish for, and don’t promise me forever. But instead you can promise me the deepest and truest love your heart can offer. That doesn’t have a time stamp on it. It’s purer. Time grows tired, but the heart never does.” Spoken like a true poet, but somehow he brought out the beauty in her, the poetry in her, he made her magical by seeing her that way and allowing to see herself not as rotten, or wilting, but as a beautiful, mythic thing.

The feel of chilly winter air against the newly exposed skin of his upper chest caused goosebumps to break out on his arms. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered that they were still in public and that their classmates could see their wildly intimate position. To them it must have looked incredibly sexual; two people that craved each other so desperately that they couldn’t make it to a supply closet or a bathroom for privacy. He supposed it was partly true, he hadn’t had the patience or willpower to drag them off to a more secluded area of the boat. It wasn’t about sex, though, it was about having her as close as possible. It was about making sure the only person who could hear his words was the petite girl sandwiched between him and the wall. It seemed as time ticked on, Ronan only desired to be touched by her more and more. The night that they’d first spoken to each other, the night that she’d dragged him to her house to be patched up for the first time, it had taken everything in him not to pull away from her healing hands. It was astounding how much could change in a year. "Tessa.” Her name was groaned against her rose petal lips, his tongue then slipping between them to get a better taste of the flavor that was distinctly her’s. The tang that he was sure he’d long for for the rest of his days. Not just because he liked the taste itself, but because of the feelings that came with it. The way his heart sped up and adrenaline spiked at the briefest brush of her lips against his. 

The feeling of her thighs tightening around him and her hands pulling on his hair caused his lower half to involuntarily push closer to her’s. Since their night together under the starry Mexican sky, they’d had a difficult time keeping their hands off of each other, and now they were being reunited for the first time in nearly a month. “I could spend five lifetimes with you and never grow tired of our stories or bored with our life--” The boy’s battered hand moved between them to curl around her throat, pushing her head back against the wall. “I know because when I was pumping your chest, breathing air into your lungs, trying to recall basic air deprivation knowledge, I could feel myself getting heavier. It felt like, if you died, gravity would smash me face first into the ground and I would never be able to get back up.” His index and middle finger moved to the skin just beside her windpipe, relishing in the feel of her heart beating through her carotid artery. “Why would you do that?” He questioned in a daze, the agony he’d felt moments before rushing back and pulling him from the moment. For three weeks he’d asked himself over and over again: why? He’d thought she’d been satisfied. How could he have been so wrong? How could he have missed the warning signs? All the research he’d done said there usually were signs, even if they were subtle. How could he have not picked up on any of them with how much time they spent together? With him sleeping in her bed at night? “I’ll promise you both,” He affirmed once his head returned to Earth. “I’ll give you everything my heart has to offer-- the good and the bad.” With his hand still around her neck, he leaned forward and smashed their lips together in a hard kiss. “And I’ll always be there for you, in whatever way you want me. Time wont change my need for you in my life. I know it just like I know the brain uses twenty percent of the body’s oxygen and that brain cells begin to die after a minute without air.” 

Stella let out a small chuckle, shaking her head. He wasn’t exactly wrong… “No, no– not that ice cream doesn’t get me goin’, but I just didn’t want a repeat of the last guy. He must’ve thought he was really getting somewhere, I guess. Hurting feelings isn’t exactly thrilling to me, so clarity seemed like the best policy.”

“We definitely wouldn’t make a good pair even if you didn’t have a boyfriend, then. I’ve been known to hurt feelings without remorse.” He tilted his head slightly, the grin pulling at the heavily bruised skin of his cheekbone. “You can relax, though, you’re not my type.” 

“Yeah, you’re right — I think so many people at like 20 or something become self-aware of how pointless they are and just give up on them.” He grinned at the interest that peaked at the mention of a cat; how could it not interest him? Cats were wonderful creatures. “You and I need to get cats. How about that for a resolution? You can just tell yourself ‘I can’t NOT buy a cat, it was my resolution’. Very simple.”

“The millennials do, anyway. The older generations still think they’re hot shit. I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad thought he was the center of the universe.” The disgruntled scoff that often accompanied thoughts of his father fell from his lips.  “I suppose I could. I have thought about getting another pet since I moved into my own house. I’m always torn between a cat or a dog, though.” 

Ford: so do you think they'd notice if I just left

Ford: I have a girlfriend it's not like I'm actually getting anything out of listening to people try and hit on me for five minutes

Ronan: i'm willing to take the risk