adam parrish (_themagician) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-05-28 11:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | adam parrish, ronan lynch |
WHO: Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch
WHAT: Ronan swaps with Noah and "dies"
WHEN: May 12 (backdated)
WHERE: The Barns
WARNINGS: Mentions of death, cursing
Adam was enjoying watching the seasons change at the Barns. He had relaxed into being a part of life here. Some part of him really missed school and the promise of college that had been waiting for him so long at home. Part of him also enjoyed the slow-paced moments that occasionally came. Teaching Latin fulfilled his sense of purpose enough to slow his brain from becoming overanxious.
Sometimes, he thought they were unlikely to have another time in their lives that was as relaxed as this -- unfortunately, Tumbleweed too frequently threw their lives into utter disarray.
He was cutting up some vegetables for them to eat with their lunch when the atmosphere around him seemed to shift. Adam didn’t know what happened, his skin rose with goosebumps and his stomach dropped. Something was wrong. Something that was close to home -- something with the Barns.
Adam dropped what he was doing and ran outside to where Ronan had last been.
“Ronan!” he shouted, not trying to hide his fear.
…
One moment Ronan was there, the next he wasn’t.
Not tangibly, anyway. He was there, but he couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t see himself when he looked down. The hammer he’d been working with had fallen to the ground, and the board that he’d hammered in at only one end swung like a pendulum, scraping against the fence post. He tried to speak, to yell for someone, but no sound came out.
And then Adam was shouting his name and running towards him, but he clearly couldn’t see Ronan either. Adam, Ronan tried to say, I’m right here, but the only sound was the whisper of wind in the grass.
With great effort of will, he managed to reach out, he felt his invisible arm move, but it passed intangibly through Adam’s shoulder.
--
Adam felt a spike of cold energy that he didn’t exactly know what it was. His panic shifted inside of him, and that made it difficult to focus. He wasn’t accustomed to being so overwhelmed by his emotions like this, but he and Ronan had been through a lot together, and he was afraid to lose him now.
That just kept happening over and over again. Adam kept learning that this was the dark side of being loved: There was so much to lose.
He breathed and tried to focus his mind.
“Ronan?” he said again, more calmly.
…
“Adam,” Ronan said as forcefully as he could. It was barely a whisper, the sound of dry leaves rubbing together, but the sound made the shape of Adam’s name. It infuriated Ronan that it took so much effort just to make the barest of sounds. He made a frustrated noise that wasn’t actually a noise at all, and kicked out at the fence.
And his invisible foot connected with the loose board that was still hanging, lightly swinging. It swung up and around in a full circle just once, and then in a violent pendulum, back and forth.
--
Ronan was near. Adam could feel him in the same way that he could feel the thrum of Cabeswater. Something was off -- something was wrong, but Ronan was near. Adam watched the board swing and back forth.
“Ronan, focus,” Adam said, his mind funneling to the purpose of getting Ronan to the point of being able to communicate. “Funnel energy from me or the ley line.” He didn’t know if that would help, but that seemed to be a first step to try.
…
Right. Energy.
Ronan tried to concentrate. He reached for the ley line he had dreamed. He knew where it was, but he’d never been connected to it the way Adam had - but he could feel it now, energy running underneath the ground beneath their feet. It came to him willingly, and he flickered, visible for a moment and then gone. Then he managed to draw more, and flickered back into view, and stayed.
“What the fuck,” he said, annoyed. There was still a quiet, airy quality to his voice.
--
Adam’s heart picked up when Ronan appeared and disappeared. He didn’t know what was happening, and he didn’t know if he should be worried or relieved that they were doing was working. It was good that it was, but they had no idea why any of this was happening.
“Jesus,” Adam said. “Are you okay?”
…
“No,” Ronan said, with papery vehemence. “I just turned fucking incorporeal. What the hell?”
A horrible thought occurred to him, and his face reflected it for a moment before he flickered out again, and then came back. “Opal…” he breathed out. “And Chainsaw.”
--
“Ronan,” Adam said, his voice strained as he watched Ronan flicker again. “I need you to stay here and focus, okay? I will go check on Opal and Chainsaw.”
He understood Ronan’s worry over Chainsaw and Opal, because Adam loved them too. He knew that what Ronan shared with them was unlike anything else that Adam could compare to, but still. Adam wanted them to be safe and well, and his fear tightened inside of him at the idea that this could be hurting them.
…
“I’m coming with you,” Ronan said, even though he didn’t know if he had the ability to do that. When he tried to focus on moving, he lost corporeality again, but he did manage to move a few feet. He pulled on the ley line in order to come back into view, long enough to say, “Invisibly.”
And then he let go of the energy to keep himself visible, and focused on moving. He didn’t have legs to move, so he ended up just willing himself along after Adam.
--
Adam wasn’t surprised by Ronan’s response, but he was afraid that if Ronan wasn’t able to bring himself back into focus again, Adam wouldn’t be to find him. But before he could contest that, Ronan had already gone and disappeared.
Adam tried to swallow down his fear as he headed back toward the house, his pulse thrumming hard.
“Opal!” he called as he opened the door. “Chainsaw?”
…
“Kerah!” came the immediate answer, along with a flutter of wings. Chainsaw.
Ronan was flooded with so much relief that it actually made him visible for a moment, and he held out his hand to his bird, but when she tried to land on it, she went right through it. She flapped over and landed on Adam’s shoulder instead, tilting her head at him questioningly. “Kerah?”
“She’s okay,” Ronan managed to say, drawing on as much energy as he could to remain seen and heard. “How is she okay?”
--
She was okay, which was a relief, but didn’t do anything more to answer what was happening.
“Whatever’s happening to you isn’t affecting the ley line,” Adam said, trying to think through, “or anything else that you’ve dreamt into being. Your Greywaren abilities aren’t being affected. Just you.”
But what that meant, Adam still didn’t know.
“You’re behaving like Noah right now, but you can’t be dead,” Adam said. It was bizarre to even have to say those words out loud, and they made Adam’s chest tighten.
…
“I don’t have,” Ronan said, with effort, “Any power. If I did, it wouldn’t be so hard to stay solid.”
Yet there was still dream magic somewhere in the world, because the ley line was not enough to keep Chainsaw awake. And if Chainsaw was awake, that had to mean that Opal was still awake, and so were all his other animals. He didn’t want to consider any other possibility.
“But I can’t be dead. I didn’t fucking die,” he agreed. “There was no death or dying.”
--
“Let’s look on the network, okay?” Adam suggested. “There might be something weird going on. It might not just be you.”
He really hoped it wasn’t just Ronan. If something off was happening in Tumbleweed, it would likely reset itself in a few days. Otherwise, Adam wasn’t entirely sure what they would do to figure this out.
…
Using the network was difficult for Ronan, but he managed to send a few letters to Noah, and then Gansey saw it. And Gansey commanded him to be solid. Ronan didn’t hear him say it, but he saw that Gansey had written it, and either Gansey’s power of command had worked in writing or he had also said it aloud.
Ronan was suddenly, completely, solid. No flickering. His hands were properly touching the tablet, and it didn’t take a shit-ton of concentration to type on it. He put his hands to his own face, patted himself down to make sure he was all there. “Oh, thank Christ.”
--
They weren’t alone, which was good. It was even better to know that Noah and Ronan had just swapped, which meant that it would probably wear off. But for the time being, that meant that, in many regards, Ronan was dead.
When Ronan became solid again, Adam couldn’t help but step in to hug him tightly -- which ended up being more disorienting than helpful, because Ronan had no body heat. Adam so nearly drew away again.
…
Ronan was relieved to feel Adam’s arms around him, but he also felt the way Adam reacted to him. And he felt the differences in their temperatures, too; Adam felt warmer than usual, but Ronan’s skin seemed to leach the warmth out of him.
“Sorry,” he murmured, under his breath. He tried to focus on not pulling warmth from Adam, now that he didn’t need to focus on not pulling energy from anywhere, and he thought maybe he was succeeding, at least a little bit.
--
“It’s not your fault, Ronan,” Adam answered, just as quietly. He felt bad that Ronan had felt his reaction, but it had caught him off guard. He was used to the nearly burning heat of Ronan’s body, and that tactile feeling reinforced just how scared he was about what was happening.
...
“Yeah, but,” Ronan said, trying to inject lightness into the moment, “Not real fun to hug an icicle, is it?”
He was not as freaked out as he could have been, mainly because his dream beings were okay, and his power seemed to be in Noah’s hands, which was better than anyone else getting it. It also meant that Noah got to be alive and human for a bit.
But it also meant that Ronan was going to be a ghost for a little bit. Based on his history with this kind of thing, it would at least be for a few days. And that possibly meant he wasn’t going to be able to comfortably hold Adam, much less fuck him, until it was done.
--
Adam kissed Ronan’s shoulder.
“No, Lynch, I guess it’s not,” Adam said, although the words were hard for him to say. He only said them because he knew he should -- because that was the sort of smartmouthed banter they usually did. But that wasn’t how he felt at the moment. He wanted to hold Ronan however he was, but it was disconcerting to feel him like this -- and he didn’t want to make Ronan feel more uncomfortable than he already probably was.
…
Ronan lifted a hand and brushed his fingers along Adam’s forearm. He still liked the way it felt, to be held, to touch Adam, but he didn’t want to make Adam feel cold. He took it as a decent sign that Adam hadn’t let him go yet, though.
“It was more fun when I turned into a girl, wasn’t it?” he said, a little wistfully.
--
“To be fair, we haven’t rode this whole episode out yet,” Adam answered amicably. “Maybe it will take a sudden uptick in fun.”
He also remembered how miserable Ronan had been when he had first turned into a girl. He would have never wanted Ronan to go through that.
…
“True,” Ronan agreed. “Maybe I’ll find a way to have an adventure as an icicle.” He tilted his head, as something occurred to him. “Gansey just commanded me to be here as well as to be solid, so on the plus side, I probably won’t be disappearing on you for real anytime soon.”
He wondered if that command could actually prevent the portal from taking him home. Or to another world. Which - if it actually did that, that wasn’t a good thing. Ronan wanted to go home eventually. “We should maybe make him take that part back, actually.”
--
“I’m sure you’ll find some way to entertain yourself,” Adam answered -- if a bit dryly, it was because he was thinking of how Ronan would toss Noah out the window.
Adam’s first concern in truth wasn’t over the specifics of Gansey’s command, but he understood Ronan’s worry.
“Did you want to head over to be with Noah and Gansey?” Adam asked.
...
Ronan’s grin was nearly as shark-like as normal. “I’m sure I will.”
In retrospect, it might have been more fun to be a ghost if he didn’t have to be solid all the time. But then it occurred to him that being solid didn’t necessarily didn’t mean he had to be visible. He could sneak up on people.
He shrugged. “I guess. I should probably teach Noah about dreaming before he brings back something horrific.”
--
“That’s a good idea,” Adam agreed. He was grateful that Ronan was able to teach Noah, because he knew the sort of horrors that Ronan’s dreams had brought him. But it also, once again, made him feel sad for a young Ronan who could have had guidance and instead had been forced to survive on his own.
He paused.
“It’ll be weird scrying into dreams that aren’t yours,” he said.
…
Ronan smirked. “Much less chance of seeing yourself naked,” he said, and then paused. “Probably. Who knows what’s in that pervert’s head.”
--
“Ronan,” Adam groaned, because the last thing he wanted to be thinking about while scrying into Noah’s dreams was the possibility of himself being naked in one of them. Somehow, he very much doubted it. He was fairly certain that Ronan had full claim on that perversion.
…
“Maybe you’ll see me naked,” Ronan suggested. “That wouldn’t be so bad, right?”
--
“I’m sure you and Noah will be very happy together,” Adam answered dryly. “Please don’t let me stand in the way.”
…
“Shut the fuck up, Parrish,” Ronan said dismissively. He was joking about it only because it was so obviously a joke. He loved Noah, but he was in love with Adam. “I want you in the way.”
--