Ronan: narrative
Who: Ronan X What: Narrative When: Thursday evening Where: Outside his work Warning: Violence
He was starting to get spoiled.
And greedy. Even though, technically, he was already greedy - had been greedy since the first time that Ben had picked him up from work and kissed him while they leaned up against the passenger side of Ben’s car. Like, they were at the point where they had to factor in an extra ten minutes on those days when Ben offered to give him a ride to his shifts at the diner, just so that he wouldn’t be late when they inevitably got distracted. Which was fine, because what was a few minutes of lost sleep or forgoing real breakfast for a hastily-scarfed burrito, if it meant getting to first base in the front seat of his boyfriend’s car before he had to spend ten hours sweating over a broiler? Nada. Less than nada.
So alright, he was getting spoiled. To the point where having to actually take the subway to his Thursday night shift on the line was enough to have him spamming Ben’s phone with pouting emoji’s, and (mostly) joking suggestions that Ben should get a cab from wherever he was and stop by on Ronan’s break for a conciliatory makeout sesh.
this sucks! he typed while he rounded a corner and slipped into the alley that ran behind the diner, heading for the staff entrance. I’m like some kind of peasant coming to work on the train. I demand my pumpkin Toyota carriage and a dozen white horses!! Was there a white horse emoji, or just a unicorn? A pegasus, that worked. Grinning to himself in the darkened alley just outside a door that led into the diner’s basement and staff area, he was about to head inside when a voice sounded from the other side of the dumpsters.
“Yo, man. Somethin’ funny?”
Starting slightly, Ronan squinted towards the cloud of smoke that was almost obscuring the place where one of the other line cooks stood a little ways down the alley, taking his cigarette break. He relaxed, shoving the phone into his back pocket and giving the guy a nod. “Hey, Mack. How’s it going?”
“I asked what’s so fuckin’ funny,” the man drawled in his rough-hewn Brooklyn accent, sliding out of the shadows in rumpled chef whites that were more stained than actually white. He flicked the glowing butt of his cigarette against the asphalt at Ronan’s feet, ambling slowly closer. “Lemme guess. You talkin’ to your faggot boyfriend?” Except that it sounded more like tawkin’, all exaggerated like that.
Ronan just smirked, lifting the middle finger of one hand in Mack’s direction as he kicked out to scrape the heel of his Converse over the cherry-red ember of the cigarette butt, putting it out against the ground. “Hey, since when does anyone in New York actually talk like that anymore? You sound like you’ve been watching too many shitty gangster movies.” He turned back to the door with a dismissive shake of his head, hiking the strap of his bag up higher on one shoulder. Except that one of Mack’s long, skinny arms had shot out to block his path, braced against the brick wall so that his dirty sleeve was on level with Ronan’s chest. And alright, seriously, fuck this guy for trying to start shit when he was in a good bloody mood, all eager to knock out this shift and go home to a couch that was crowded with the dogs and Ben and piles of Thanksgiving dinner in the form of Thai takeout.
This time, the look that he levelled in Mack’s direction was nothing less than a contemptuous sneer, and his words were more spat out than spoken. “Look, man - instead of going on about my boyfriend, why don’t you just try the crackheads on the next block? Since you’re so obviously in need of getting your dick sucked.” He punctuated this last with a hard shove against the inside of Mack’s forearm that was intended to clear his way to the door. And it worked. Unfortunately, he wasn’t prepared for the sucker punch to the back of his skull.
Stars. Wasn’t it BS, that thing about seeing stars after a blow to the head? He knew that sometimes it happened when he stood up too fast and got all dizzy, or after coming inside to a dark house from blinding sunlight, but the whirling-halo-of-twinkly-lights after someone punches you in the back of the head, that was supposed to be cartoon stuff. He was going to feel very confident about that fact, just as soon as the alleyway stopped spinning. Except that this guy apparently wasn’t very eager to give him that chance, was he?
As soon as he opened his eyes, Ronan caught a hard kick to the stomach that doubled him over where he lay sprawled on the ground, and the blurred vision made it seem like four different feet wearing four identical non-slip shoes were coming for him as the next kick was aimed at his chest. So he picked one at random and grabbed for it, managing to close both hands around Mack’s ankle and giving a desperate yank in an attempt to throw the man’s balance off, except that he felt like he was going to puke and he wasn’t sure how much strength there was to be found in the tingling-numbness of his arms. There was just enough time to realize that it wasn’t enough before that foot came stomping down on his left hand, grinding it down hard against the pavement.
His cry of pain and anger died in his mouth when Mack’s knuckles made a crunching impact against his nose, and loosed a torrent of hot blood that filled his mouth with the wet taste of rusting metal even when he spat out mouthful after mouthful against the ground. His hands scrabbled at the place where his attacker had been standing seconds ago, looking to close around a fistful of pant leg or to gouge at exposed skin with his short, blunt fingernails, not that he expected it to phase the asshole - just wanted to get close enough to grab him, yank his feet out from under him so that Ronan could roll on top of him (standing up was out of the question, yeah, not gonna happen if he didn’t want the throbbing pain in his head to empty out the contents of his stomach) and then -
Whatever he’d been planning, or hoping, in his nausea and his red-splattered rage, was cut short by a sharp squeal of hinges and the sudden impact of a metal door’s edge against his face.