#kavish

it’s not like he’s trying on purpose not to fit in, but he has enough things to worry about without adding trying to make friends to the list. between having to make enough money to cover his living expenses and keeping up with his scholarship, human interaction that isn’t strictly necessary to his survival gets promptly pushed at the bottom of his priority list. it doesn’t matter if after an entire year he still can’t tell which boy he vaguely recognises from which class, he only knows that he’s made it to the end of an entire year of consciously ignoring everyone and he’s still alive. he’s fine.

if he finds himself looking at some of the friendly interactions around him with longing, he tells himself it’s just because after handing in his last essay he has suddenly too much time to spare.

he has no problems admitting to himself that he’s the type of person that fits into stereotypes and plays the part they have dictated for him without much fuss. he knows that henry cheng is supposed to be just as carefree and good-natured as he wants others to think he is, and that richard gansey the third is supposed to be the golden boy of aglionby and even has perfectioned the right kind of handshake for it, and he also knows that adam parrish is just as anonymous as his tragic backstory suggests. they only thing that makes it bearable is the fact that his story is supposed to end on a good note. he is supposed to be the hard working white trash emblem that manages to get a place at yale and get the best paying jobs the market has to offer. he is content with not being much of anything, if not brittle bones tied together by a fierce survival instinct if that’s what his role requires in order to get there.

yet, the same principle doesn’t seem to apply to kavinsky and his lot. instead of following the general guidelines of what being the typical obnoxious immigrant rich kids entails, they seem intent on causing more trouble than they are worth. he sees their cars and their chains and their matching tattoos on their necks and thinks that’s going just a little too far. that’s playing their characters just a little too over the top for anybody’s liking.

some of the older students even try to point that out before getting the beating of their lives.

some professor try to tone it down before getting their tires slashed and their pets sliced open.

their principal tries to speak to their parents about it before getting threatened about their conspicuous donations coming to a halt.

there’s nothing to be done but patiently wait for them to graduate or finally end up in juvie. either way, that’s none of adam’s business. all he aims for it’s his piece of paper and that’s all he’s thinking of when he’s at school.

he tries to think only of that at home as well, but his father has other plans for him. it’s nothing that he specifically does or thinks or says, it’s just his existence alone that seems to get on his nerves enough to decide to put his hands on him. he had tried at first, tried to act and think and speak differently, but the end results were always the same.

he stops wasting energy on that pretty soon, though, his mind working on escaping the situation as soon as his father gets the look on his face that he knows will mean a rough night. his mind wanders away from his body at first, a trick he had discovered almost accidentally, just to end up drifting towards an ephemeral world of his own creation. it’s calm there, and clean and spacious. the trees surrounding him caress his cheeks and whisper nonsensical things so soothing he has troubles remembering where he comes from. he knows he has a life he has to return to at some point, but whatever time he can spend in his imaginary forest is his favourite time of the day. he has no responsibilities there, there’s no pain, no struggle, only whatever he wants to be there. only whatever he commands and allows and desires. his role there is to simply enjoy, and coming back to his real body is a self-inflicted violence as harsh as his father’s blows.

it seems like it’s not just pain he can control, then. he’s not sure when he began to be able to come and go as he wills, but now that he’s completely aware of it, he wonders for just how long he had been denying himself something that seems to be his by right. that’s probably what the trees have been whispering to him all this time, right? and he’s in enough agony to accept even something as absurd as that. even something like magic. and why shouldn’t he, after all? he’s desperate enough and the trees know it. and if sometimes he wakes up in places he doesn’t remember wandering to that’s such a small inconvenience compared to the things he gets to walk away from thanks to the forest’s influence that he forbids himself from being a coward about it.

when the white mitsubishi pulls up next to him, he’s strangely not surprised to see it there. he’s even less surprised about the fact that its driver is not alone, other cars stopping around them soon after to form a rudimental sort of circle around him. he’s so not getting away, so he braces himself for what it’s about to come. he doesn’t waste time trying to remember what he might have done to piss any of them off, he knows it’s useless. the pain is coming anyway, that’s what his father has taught him.

except, when the window gets rolled down, there’s no sneer on kavinsky’s face. his sunglasses firmly in place, he just seems to be looking at him in a contemplative sort of way, as if wondering exactly why he himself had decided to stop upon spotting him walking alongside the highway’s guardrail.

the door on the passenger’s side unlocks with a metallic sound, and the further he tries to search for answer in the reflection he sees on the lenses of the other’s sunglasses, the more he comes up empty. the inside of the car is way too dark for a july afternoon, another fact to add to the list of things that should make him want to run away, yet, he can’t prevent his right hand from reaching for the door’s handle. that’s when kavinsky finally cracks a smile, all teeth and hunger.

he has never seen a demon smile before but he’s pretty sure he should be feeling way more scared about it than he does right then.

—

the rest of the boys seem to be made of the same deceiving, double-edged material kavinsky is. despite not having the same kind of power as their leader, they take and demand and drain everything they touch, leaving a wasteland behind them. the words and numbers tattooed in white ink on their neck only contribute to making people avoid them even more. the locals know better than to oppose whatever transcendental force is aiding them. they are already used to having an entire house of clairvoyants to carefully avoid, adding a bunch of teenagers to that doesn’t really make much of a difference to them.

adam traces slowly the number XV on kavinsky’s neck and the letters below it. the raised lines that form the words the devil almost feel surreal under his fingertips and he has the sudden urge to press his nails down just to check.

the other must feel the slightest change in pressure even though he’s fast asleep, but he only stirs enough to pull him closer by the fistful of his shirt he has been holding onto since falling asleep the night before.  they hadn’t gone anywhere that night, taking the time to actually rest without visiting the forest. there will be time for that. all the time in the world, actually.

adam closes his eyes and lets himself fall further.

instead of feeling disappointed, once he learns exactly the source of kavinsky’s sudden interest in him and just what he’s capable of, he suddenly feels like everything starts making sense. of course something was missing, of course there was some way for the magic to do more than whisper nonsense to him. he had been a phone cord without a handset to connect to this whole time, and now that that he is finally complete he can start properly listening. he can stark speaking. asking, even.

there’s this girl from another school that has a certain aura to her. he sees her sometimes, when she comes to the school’s gates to meet up with richard gansey the third and another of the aglionby’s students he has never talked to in his life. he thinks there might be some sort of connection between them, something he unconsciously recognises and associates to her more than the multicoloured hair clips and the occult symbols hanging from his neck, something that goes beyond the simple fact that the light seems to always play so nicely with her features.

she has a memorable face, the kind that can’t exactly be described as a classical beauty but it’s equally just as ancient. he doesn’t know what his fascination is tied to exactly, he just knows that it’s there and that he’s drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

a hand curls around his forearm before he can take a step into her direction. kavinsky doesn’t let him burn.

there seems to be no limits to what kavinsky can ask for when they are together. one second they are lying side by side on the fur carpet in his bedroom, the tv stuck on a blacked out channel and the lights above them flickering, and the next they are in the forest, and they are running and finding and taking, taking so much, taking as much as their hands will fit, taking everything they can think of producing.

his room starts looking less like a bedroom and more like a storage room. there’s just so much impossible stuff at some point that they are forced to move to another one altogether. not like there’s a shortage of space in such a stereotypical reality tv show mansion, anyway.

he expects to get pressured into doing the same things they do. to ride in their cars and smoke their weed and dress their way but nobody ever says anything about it. he just comes along and watches, not saying or doing anything. he just sits on the mistubishi’s hood and watches, his lashes half lowered to shield himself from the beatings and the robbing and the snorting, his body and mind growing more and more numb.

the dragon tattooed on kavinsky’s back is too realistic for adam to feel comfortable looking at it. it curls and snarls under the coloured lights of the club, and he’s pretty sure that it’s somehow actually moving. he tries to reason with himself that’s just a trick, a combined effect of the lights and of every minute movement of the muscles under it, but as he follows kavinsky to their side of the VIP section he can’t tear his gaze away. the thin white wifebeater the other is wearing is not nearly enough to dull the effect of the vibrant ink and for a moment he wonders if it’ll actually claw its way of his skin and swallow him whole.

he keeps staring nonetheless.

kavinsky is king and whatever he decides turns into law even for those not under his rule. he never lets anyone else get too close to him now. it’s subtle, he has to admit that, but at the same time it becomes as clear as day that adam parrish is suddenly off limits. one of the boys is always waiting for him outside the door of his class once it’s finished to escort him to his next one. his lunch is already on a tray and paid for when he gets to the cafeteria. there’s a phone in the pocket of his jacket the next time he reaches into it, and, as soon as the last bell rings, the sound of the mitsubishi’s speakers is defeating enough that he makes it a point to slide into its passenger seat as soon as possible to avoid further embarrassment.

if his schoolmates look at him in various stage of disbelief, distaste and wonder, kavinsky acts as if it’s nothing. it doesn’t seem to be coming from the goodness of his heart, he doesn’t seem like the type to have any after all, or from the pity that adam’s life often inspires into others. he doesn’t mention the sudden change in treatment once, and adam doesn’t question it. why should he, when he’s finally got something nice for himself after all?

swan is looking beautiful and bored as usual, eyes lazily tracking the rhythmic movements of the bat skov is holding as it smashes against this guy’s ribs. it’s not the first time he’s seen something like this but he thinks he’ll never get used to the sound of bones breaking. he’s cradling his phone carefully between his cupped hands, thumb hovering over the green button that will connect him to 911. that’s what he does, that’s what he tells himself he’ll do if things will take a turn for the worst.

but his soul won’t cooperate and he’s left watching himself watch swan watch someone die and wishing he’d look like he does just once. it’s such a disturbing realisation he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

he knows others may think they’re fucking. he sees them drawing conclusions and filling in the blanks of their private lives with what’s most comforting to them. of course it would make sense for them to be fucking. of course adam is just another piece of trailer trash that will jump at any opportunity to get a taste of the good life. except, there’s no good life to be had and there’s equally no sex behind closed doors.

once he lies on his side on the king sized mattress, kavinsky only curls his fingers into the fabric of his shirt without a word before drifting off. he doesn’t dream and adam doesn’t dare to sleep.

he doesn’t want to make such generic assumptions, but it’s starting to become pretty clear to him that kavinsky is the devil. not in some jokingly, admonishing way, and not in some play-of-words sense that takes his tattoo into consideration either, but more in a literal-evil-energy type of way. he could suppose that, since magic seems to be pretty real, then things like evil forces or demons should also be very much a possibility. he has no other names for the bird-shaped monster that sometimes try to attack them when they’re not careful with their taking, after all.

he tries asking about it one night. all he gets in return, all he ever does when he gets too clever for his own good and asks questions that have an obvious answer to them, is a quirk of kavinsky’s mouth. when he smiles, the artificial lights make the platinum of his bottom grills look even tackier than usual and adam can’t help but roll his eyes at the sight. it just makes the other smile harder, his lips savage and his hands quick as he pulls him against his side so others can’t accidentally bump into him as they cross the dance-floor. he still doesn’t get the appeal of paying to be in a room with low lighting, blaring music and a mass of sweaty bodies just to pay some more to get away from all that but the cushioned seat of their sofa is not something he can complain about.

needles somehow are not that bad when it come to their association with pain. needles usually meant hospitals and sterilised places and feeling better and being taken care of so, even if it’s a completely different needle this time, he doesn’t flinch when it touches the tender skin of his neck. the roman numbers don’t take too long, but it’s when the artist starts filling in the lines of the letters that it actually gets to him. the white ink feels as if it’s melting the skin right off of him, and he has to ask for refuge to the forest in order not to cry.

once it’s over and there’s protective gauze over the skin, he expects to somehow feel different but nothing comes.

he’s probably already where he should have been all along.

the trees finally speak clearly instead of whispering, even if only when kavinsky is next to him, and it’s a thrill to finally recognise that it’s the same language he agonises over during his hours spent doing homework in the library. it’s latin, and his knowledge of it is enough to understand exactly the simple request that’s being made from seemingly every single sentient being in the forest. an exchange. something in return for everything they have taken so far and will continue to take in the future. an offering. a sacrifice.

the word per se doesn’t really scare him. he’s been sacrificing things his whole life, he was born a sacrifice himself when his mother could have decided to take the easy way out and cut off all possible connection to his father by cutting off his life in the process. yet, here he is. he’s here and he’s ready for one more sacrifice. the last one he’ll ever be able to make. it’s what his role entails, after all.

kavinsky is furious. he screams and pushes him away, his hands strangely soft and yielding against his chest even though his words could cut steel. there’s no way he could ever accept this. his father in exchange for freedom and the ability to create copies he could tolerate. losing adam and the possibility to create from zero he could never. it would mean losing everything again, and he has sworn to himself long ago that nobody would ever have the possibility to steal from him ever again. he was the one who took, he was the one in charge, the one running this town and the forces within it. nobody got to choose for him, not even the very source of his power, not even something so old he couldn’t even begin to fully comprehend. there had to be another way. he has to build one, to steal one, to make one.

he trashes his room until it’s too dangerous for anyone to enter it. he curls up between the broken furniture and the shards of glass and only lets adam hold his hand but not touch any other part of his body. he’s on fire from the inside out and he knows he’s going to burn everything to the ground with him.

he can’t tell which one of them comes up with the idea first. for kavinsky, it means nothing, just the reenactment of something he has already experienced once. for adam, it means everything, to turn his whole world and beliefs upside down.

nonetheless, it just builds and builds from little things piling up. from the zip ties in the mitsubishi’s glove compartment to the pack of disposable latex gloves on the back seat to the way kavinsky looks at him and at him only all night. he knows. of course he knows. they have been together long enough that they rarely have to speak anymore.

the forest does all the talking they could ever need.

he traces the lines of his own tattoo by memory. the straight line of the single roman number, the curve of the letters under it. I. the magician. it means power and action and taking matters into his own hands. it means not watching from the sidelines anymore. it means not freezing anymore at the first blow, it means not letting his mind run away, it means not lowering his lashes anymore. it means driving to his father’s house on a wednesday’s night, the only night of the week his mother has her church meeting and won’t be there to witness anything. to suffer uselessly. to look at his son in the eyes and recoil.

it takes almost all of them to carry his father’s unconscious body from the living room to the car parked right outside his house. the tied hands and feet make the process only slightly easier considering they have to move in complete silence since a trailer park doesn’t make for the most discreet neighbourhood, but they eventually manage to get the trunk to close and their asses as far away from there as they can.

the forest hadn’t specified whose blood the sacrifice had to consist of, after all. and they intend on taking advantage of that little misstep fully.

he should feel something, he supposes. pain, to the idea of getting rid of his own father, of the person that had generated him, but he had learned to control that a long time ago. remorse, for taking another’s life when it should have been his own, but he had seen none in kavinsky’s eyes when he had explained exactly why he was so familiar with patricide. hesitance, at least, to do something so out of character for him, to get so far from what his rag-to-riches story was supposed to be, but he’s been wandering so far from that path he has no means of getting back on that track. he doesn’t understand why he’s left in the first place. he doesn’t understand why it took him so long to leave it in the first place.

yet, when he stares into the depth of the forest, so far out he feels his gaze will eventually be able to reach exactly what hides in the heart of it, what exactly feeds on such things as blood sacrifices, he feels nothing but relief and accomplishment and freedom.

kavinsky rests his foot on his father’s body, the hand that curls around the handle of the athame he’s holding relaxed and casual. he’s done this before, after all. he doesn’t envy his casual stance anymore. he sees it mirrored in his own.

if somebody puts their hands on you, you cut them off. isn’t that what he had tried to teach him all this time, after all?

adam takes the knife from kavinsky’s hand and asks for the demon to show itself.

it’s late at night and they have nowhere to go. they’re just speeding on the highway because they can, windows rolled down and the other boys’ cars snarling around them, uncaring of the fact that they’re occupying the opposite direction’s lanes. there’s no one else around at that hour, for the simple fact that everybody knows that those are kavinsky’s streets only.

neither of them has said a single word all night, the music coming out of the speakers loud enough for the both of them. he watches the lights around them melt into one another, his cheek resting on the arm he has partially hanging out of the car. a hand is suddenly in his hair, pushing some of it aside before pressing hot like a branding iron to the side of his neck where his tattoo has now completely healed. the wind blows on his face and everything feels right in the world.