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anti-vinsky, an open post
leave me prompts or starters
or simply refer to this as an extremely important reference list
for our future adventures ◕‿◕✿
|
leave me prompts or starters
or simply refer to this as an extremely important reference list
for our future adventures ◕‿◕✿
clutches face :3
But Joseph doesn't think it worked that well. Despite that he is an optimistic kind of kid, he knows some things about bad habits, or at least he thinks he does-- drinking yourself to a stupor of sodden loathing every night for six months is a habit that he imagines will be hard to break. BUT IT'S OK. He has more ideas. In a spectacularly organized fashion, he even made a list of his ideas.
(He wrote it on his arm. About a third of them are smudgy now, but he can still read them.)
Some of his ideas left Ronan's hair (stubble) smokey-smelling earlier today. The fireworks. Mostly sparklers, though in the interest of cardio, he got a few rockets and Ronan had run back and forth with the lighter out, sometimes barely missing the launch into the night sky. The park had been very pretty; Joseph had thought about trying to see if Ronan would nap there, but he doesn't know Gansey and the others or even Ronan very well yet and he didn't want to be intrusive, you know, separating them, when he still feels slightly out of place visiting Monmouth now and then. Everybody is worried about Ronan's sleep. Everybody is worried about Ronan in general.
Irish boy's eyes flick open, and Joseph asks, "How you feeling?" He scoots his butt down so he can put his head on the near end of Ronan's pillow, balancing the book on his belly.
theY'RE SO CUTE AND GROSS i love it
They're on opposite sides of Ronan's friend spectrum. Gansey is stability, days filled with magic and searching, Monmouth and loyalty, the sort of brotherhood bonds that can't ever be broken. Joseph is excitement, a kind of recklessness that's pure and carefree, eerie and optimistic, something new and fragile and fun.
Both of these are things he needs. What he doesn't need, he thinks, is Gansey's quiet concerned gazes and Joseph's list of ideas to fix him. No amount of talking or fireworks or stress management is going to make him better. He just needs them to stick around. To not leave or give up. That helps him more than they'll ever know. He will get better; he's just not ready to yet.
"What are you, my fucking therapist? I'm feeling bored." He takes the book from Joseph's stomach, flips through the first few pages, scrutinizing and doubtful. It all sounds like a load of bullshit. "I liked the fireworks better."
The book is put back where it belongs, balanced carefully on Joseph's belly. Ronan does it gently, just to show he's not mad, despite his words and tone.
I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW >%O
He also seems content to lie there three inches from Ronan's skin and accept a book on his tummy. "We can do more of those tomorrow," he says. "Before like nine. That kind of stuff is activating and you gotta be winding down right now, man. Bored's probably good. I'm telling you, I used to have the worst insomnia." He is pretty good at not seeming pedantic when he gives advice and presses Ronan with help, more enthusiastic than anything. He raises his arm, holds it over Ronan's head so he can read the items. "Can we do like one more thing before you hit the bottle?"is the list. He got all the way up to the bend of his elbow, increasingly misshapen from the bad angle of the writing, and from smudges. It's not the longest list Ronan has ever seen Joe write, at this point; the Notes app in his phone is egregious, and the margins on all his school papers are cramped with tiny copperplate letters. Sometimes he remembers to put check boxes next to them, but he tends to forget to actually mark off anything.
*without gagging
uGH
Honestly, it's better if he just doesn't sleep. The insomnia is a blessing.
He reads through the list, squinting to see if he can make out the part Joseph scribbled out. He can't, though, so he continues.
"Engine noises are just gonna turn me on," he says helpfully. Some of them near the end are so smudged and slanted that he has to tilt his head to read them, and even then he can barely make them out. "What the fuck is heat yoga? You know-- never mind. I don't want to do it."
He lets go of Joe's wrist. There's ink on his fingers from where he further smudged the letters. "Let's do movies, I guess. Or Alice. Unless you wanted to play masseuse." He says 'play masseuse' like he actually meant to say 'play doctor', and he grins into the dim light of the room.
tiem to barf
And then Joe instantly begins to look distracted. Not in a sexy way, either. He has an idea! And Ronan can tell, it's like in his brain the gerbil's wheel accelerated faster than his little legs could have caught up. So he stops thinking about Ronan's handsomeness, sitting up. "I know you're hitting on me," he announces, already turning away from what was definitely about to be a moment, "but we could totally do all three. And maybe that'll work. Dude." He leans over, hoists his backpack off the bed, and in a moment there's a laptop up, out, open, on, screen up.
"Look. Boom." He pulls Ronan's -- head, his coarse fingers slipping over the shaven bowl of his skull. He has the Alice in Wonderland movie on his computer. The 2010 one, with Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp in it. It's not a great retelling, and probably more likely to rupture Ronan's mind with its inaccuracies than soothe him with its familiarity, but Joe is excited at the prospect of his own genius, so. "Boom." Well at least it appears he's about to get a backrub out of it.
what fucking nerds >:I
That Ronan is still alive, but buried so deep beneath so much shit that he's likely never coming back. He just has to learn how to move forward instead. Until then, he's stuck. Though Joe is trying valiantly to get him unstuck.
Joe gets that look, and Ronan knows what it means immediately. Another idea. The kid is fucking full of them, always making lists so he won't forget. At least it's probably a better use of his time than, say, drinking himself to death. Though, maybe, not better than allowing their moment and letting Ronan make a move.
He turns his head when Joe pulls at it, staring at the laptop screen. Naturally, the first words out of his mouth are, "Oh, come on. This is the shitty version." Though, to be fair, Ronan will always prefer to have it read out loud than watch any retelling of it.
no subject
This is actually inadvisable sleep hygiene, in case the audience is wondering. If you're trying to wind down for the night, you should not be watching movies in bed, never mind with jumpy boys who swing haphazardly between the urge to touch your beautiful body and try Eastern philosophical techniques. That really isn't going to condition the appropriate responses to bed and bedtime.
But now Ronan has a Joe leg on either side of him for am armrest, and a forefinger wandering up the back of his neck. The clouds above the Disney castle glow at him expectantly from the screen. "You're really heavy," he says, squeezing Ronan with his thighs; somehow manages not to sound like he's complaining. "On a scale of zero to ten where ten is you could pass out right now, how tired are you."
no subject
Not that he actually minds staring at Johnny Depp's face. He just prefers Captain Jack over the Mad Hatter.
He allows Joe to place the laptop in his lap, to rearrange the both of them into something more suitable for movie-watching-back-rubbing combos. It's not uncomfortable, despite how bony and angled Joe is, starkly opposite of Ronan's own lightly muscled frame.
"Everybody's really heavy compared to you," he says, settling back against Joe, frowning at the Disney opening on the screen. His arms rest lazily along the other's legs, fingers curling slightly around the underneath of his knees, thumbs brushing over bone through the fabric of his pants.
"I dunno, like--" He squints thoughtfully, his expression visible in the screen of the laptop when it dims to black briefly. "A four."
no subject
A hand on his leg, hooking underneath, broad fingers warming him through the denim. Maybe Joe should think about the logistics and fallout before he does things like, you know, offer to give a beautiful boy a backrub while they're in between his thighs. But logistics and fallout are really hard to think about when he's on the go.
The Disney castle glitters at them. The shooting star sparks over the steeple. Joe slides his fingers up the back of Ronan's neck slowly, thumbing around the subtle bump of vertebrates, trying to remember what he was thinking about. Umm. Sleepiness numbers. Yes-- a subjective rating scale. He feels for the tension he assumes is corded somewhere in Ronan's musculature. "You used to sleep good, right?"
no subject
Maybe he should, though. Or, at least, maybe he should start staying still long enough for Joe to do it. Even if he doesn't let anybody else.
He used to sleep well enough. Back when his life was more or less perfect, and he lived on a sprawling farm of cattle and barns, with a Disney Princess mother that cooked breakfast every morning and a father who came and went, but always returned with the most amazing gifts. Back before he found his father's broken body behind the BMW early one morning. Before his dreams were more nightmares than anything else.
He hates sleeping now. He really does.