Ronan Lynch (alteridem) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-09-06 15:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, the raven cycle: richard campbell gansey, the raven cycle: ronan lynch |
He knew he was being dumb but he wasn’t entirely sure what he was even going to say. He just had that familiar twist in his gut that said talk to Gansey. It didn’t even matter that Gansey was apparently gung-ho in favor of Adam’s plan. Well, it did matter; it just didn’t stop him from needing Gansey’s annoyingly comforting words.
Eventually, Ronan blew out a breath and pushed into the room. He plopped down into the office chair near the door and let it roll obnoxiously across the floor with his momentum. “You know, I almost miss the days when you were constantly sticking your foot in it with Parrish because you thought you knew what was best for him.”
Gansey had heard someone outside the room, but assumed they’d been scared off by the annoyed cursing that came occasionally from his lips. Furniture instructions were the worst. He hadn’t been expecting Ronan to burst through the door, and was in the process of propping a leg up from the desk to screw into another piece.
“Jesus, Ronan.” Both to the interruption and to the comment, which earned his best friend a roll of the eyes. He didn’t miss those days, the anxiety that came with fighting with Adam and his stubbornness. They were both miserable each and every time, yet could never seem to dig themselves out of the hole as it was being dug. “That makes one of us.” He paused and leaned his head against the leg of the desk to look over at Ronan, rolling across the floor like an idiot. “I’m assuming this is about Cabeswater?”
Ronan didn’t say ‘duh’ out loud but it read clearly in the lift of his eyebrows and his blank stare as he spun the chair around in a very slow circle. It wasn’t a look with any heat behind it though. Mostly because he was more worried than mad. And because Gansey looked like an endearing goofball on the floor. Ronan’s eyes rolled towards the ceiling.
“I did say almost,” he conceded, lifting his wrist to chew at his leather straps. It was an old habit that had been seeing less use these days, but with uncertainty came fidgeting as far as Ronan Lynch was concerned. He stopped spinning but it was only so he could push back to his feet and stomp over to the window. The farm looked peaceful. Probably because he couldn’t see Cabeswater from here. “Are you seriously not even a little twitchy about this shit?”
Gansey laughed, a quiet sound that echoed through the half-empty room before he turned back to the desk. His normal anxieties were buried deep down, only surfacing when he couldn’t take it any longer. Adam’s plan made him nervous, to be sure, but it wasn’t on the radar half as much as some other things they’d gone through.
“I asked Adam a lot of questions and I’m satisfied with his answers.” It was a half-truth, which he knew probably wasn’t enough for Ronan’s appreciation of blunt honesty. He bolted in the leg he’d been working on and rested the half-assembled desk against the wall, trying to avoid just how much he should really say. “I don’t really think it’s necessary for Cabeswater as much as it is for Adam.” Thinking he could put Ronan on the defensive, just a little, he forged ahead. “Is it Adam’s safety that has you twitchy, or is it because he’s willingly choosing to bond himself to something so connected to you?”
With his back to Gansey, Ronan’s face was free to cycle through his emotions – annoyance, to reluctant agreement, and then back around to annoyance. His scowl reflected in the glass back at him, but even he could admit the wrinkle in his forehead was more about Gansey creeping too close to the truth than anything else. He scuffed the toe of his boot against the wood floor.
“Why is it one or the other? If you’re gonna try and shrink me, Gans, you should remember that I have layers,” he said imperiously as he turned around. The act didn’t hold for very long, though. His shoulders sagged and he looked anywhere but at his best friend. “I just—“ He showed his teeth and closed his eyes. “Cabeswater is like the living embodiment of all the…chaotic, unpredictable parts of me? The messiest fucking parts. The parts that could hurt him.”
There were more words, fighting to tumble free, but Ronan bit them back and rubbed a hand over his head instead.
Whereas Ronan was looking all around, Gansey had leveled a look onto him in return, something steady and there, in the moment. He was used to this sort of conversation with Ronan, they’d been few and far between more recently with the way things had settled nicely.
“Cabeswater loves Adam, even the messiest parts of it and you, I think that’s important to remember.” And even Ronan at his messiest was one of the most loyal people Gansey had ever known. It was one of the first things he loved about Ronan, and a feeling that had stayed true throughout their friendship. “You have layers and so does it. Besides,” he said that last word so casually, as if he was brushing off a speck of dust from his shoulder. As if his words were no big deal. “I’m practically half Cabeswater now and that hasn’t made me want to hurt anyone.”
Ronan could always trust Gansey to be painfully sincere. He couldn’t always admit that he counted on it - even needed it more often than not - but he could let a smile twist at his mouth in that way that Gansey would know better than most. It said you’re such a nerd.
It said please don’t ever change.
“You’re still you. It would take more than being resurrected by a wild forest to make you violent.” Ronan sank back down into the office chair, chewing on his lip. “I know...I know Cabeswater would never hurt him on purpose. But I didn’t give it the defenses it needed to fight off the demon and the magic here, it’s fucking alien. And I just…” He exhaled his frustration. “I don’t want him to think he needs to risk this shit just to be strong enough to protect Cabeswater. He never needed anybody else’s magic to be strong enough to do whatever the hell he wants.”
He matched Ronan’s smile with an easy one of his own. He could never pick between best friends - they were both his best friends - but Gansey knew Ronan better than he did Adam. Not in a knowledgeable sense, but Ronan, in all his wildness, was easier to predict for Gansey. Until recently, he hadn’t quite figured out exactly how Adam would react to something if he argued a point. Ronan was a known and loyal constant, where Adam was a puzzle Gansey wanted to solve.
“He wouldn’t be Adam Parrish if he wasn’t trying to tame and learn that alien forest, and you know it.” That had been a constant since they met. “And you know if any of us would be able to keep it and himself safe, it would be Adam. We’ll have his back, Ronan, always.”
Ronan closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair, resting his head against the back. The people in his life had a habit of getting kidnapped, getting possessed, dying - whether he had their back or not. His luck wasn’t stellar. He’d be zero percent surprised if he was sent home immediately following the ritual and Adam was stuck here without him.
There was still a tension in his shoulders he couldn’t release but he appreciated Gansey’s confidence. He tried to let it be enough.
“Right. Of course,” he said, eyes still shut. “I know it’s happening. Parrish is a fucking mack truck when he sets his mind to something.” He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “I need to--look into some things. Maybe Bonnie can help us with some extra magical protection shit, I don’t know.”
Gansey grabbed the instruction manual for the desk and found his next step, being one of the few people on the planet that actually studied it first before grabbing the pieces he needed next and laying them out. It gave him something to focus on while thinking out everything that could go wrong with Cabeswater after Ronan’s words.
Mentioning Bonnie made him look up again, and Gansey’s brow furrowed slightly. “Make sure Adam’s okay with that, I know we trust Bonnie but I’m not sure how he’ll feel about pulling her into this.” His stubborn brain might not appreciate bringing in different magic - Cabeswater might not appreciate it either, but Gansey didn’t know. “What kind of extra magical protection stuff? For just Adam? The Barns?”
“I’m not doing jack shit behind his back,” Ronan scowled. Even the thought left a sour taste in his mouth. He sat up straighter and toyed with the frayed edges of a hole in his jeans. “I just want to think about all our options here. It doesn’t have to be like at home, where we stumble into shit blindly and hope for the best. That was kind of the whole point of telling people what I can do.”
Well, part of the point anyway. Some of it had just been that Ronan was just so sick of secrets hanging onto his soul like sandbags. He’d carry Matthew’s to the grave, but his own were more likely to be cut loose now.
He lowered himself from the chair to the ground to stretch out next to all the desk pieces Gansey laid out. Maybe he’d help. Maybe he’d be a distracting shithead. Jury was still out. “I know Adam’s probably got most of it covered, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit around with my thumb up my ass.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean-” Gansey knew Ronan wouldn’t, that they were all better than that around each other, especially those two. His friend didn’t seem mad at the suggestion, though, so Gansey left well enough alone with a little shrug. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m all for more magical collaborations, it could end up being very useful.” Even if it made him feel a little more useless, Gansey still pushed to involve himself on a research level of things for that fact.
He did give Ronan a look when he settled in next to the stuff, and started methodically putting things together while trying his best to ignore Ronan. It only half worked, so he went the teasing route instead. “We appreciate that, it’d be awkward for everyone involved.”
Ronan waved off the half-formed apology. He knew Gansey meant well. Gansey always meant well. Sometimes it was fucking annoying but when it came to protecting Adam, Ronan couldn’t complain. Well, he could but it wouldn’t be very believable.
“Awkward for you, maybe. I’d be having a good time,” Ronan leered, before letting a laugh slip free. He reached over to move a few desk pieces around. As intense as he usually was, it was probably noticeable that he was back to avoiding looking at Gansey. “Collaboration or not…it’s just gonna be us out there, right? Us three?” Adam had made a point about that and Ronan was aware enough of psychic and supernatural shit now to know he meant it when he said three was a powerful number. “Sargent gonna get grumpy about that?”
Gansey skewed up his face and shook his head, regretting (like he always did) the direction the conversation took because he tried to joke and would always fail at dirty joke chicken with Ronan. Always. Maybe someday he would learn not to play it, but today wasn’t that day. “Ugh, Ronan, please.”
It was almost preferable to the avoidance, though, and Gansey reached out to push lightly at Ronan’s shoulder to try and get his attention. “Us three, that’s what Adam told me. Jane might get annoyed, but she knows the power of three even better than we do, so I don’t think we’ll get too much argument from her on it.” He smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe a little pouting, but that’s daily.”
Ronan swayed with the push, a looser smile curling his mouth. He had to laugh at Gansey’s muttered ugh anyway, but there was some relief in the sound as it huffed out of him.
“It’s not like she’s not welcome,” he admitted, careful to glance over his shoulder first. Never knew when that little gremlin might sneak into a room and hear him say something borderline nice about her. “I just—“ He sighed and crossed his legs underneath him. Better to spit it out than carry it around, he thought. But it still took a second for his gaze to drift to Gansey’s face. “I just keep thinking...you two might have found the most dramatic ass ways to bind yourself to a dreamer’s life force without actually being a dream. I’d rather not add anyone else to the fucking list.”
Oh. So there it was. Gansey leveled a look onto Ronan, meeting his gaze carefully, with more than a little concern in his eyes. He’d already suspected that on Adam’s end, but hadn’t really thought about it for himself. He knew his connection to Cabeswater was stronger than it had ever been before, but that wasn’t something he could bring himself to ever feel bad about.
“In our defense, both times we didn’t really know what we were getting into,” Gansey pointed out with an embarrassed little grin. “Now we do, so I guess we just don’t want to get rid of you? But I’ll do my level best to keep Jane out of that, especially given my own circumstances.”
Gansey’s words both lifted Ronan’s heart and made him want to dunk Gansey’s head in a toilet. He wouldn’t - he loved this stupid egghead too much - but he could daydream about it later when worrying about this shit made his insomnia kick in.
“That’s not a defense, dumbass,” he scowled. “You didn’t have a choice, that’s your defense. And it’s not like I’d prefer you dead.” The word cracked like his teeth tried to furiously snap it in half. He barreled on, but slowly started lifting desk pieces into place so he’d have something to do with his hands. “Adam has a choice. I don’t even know if he’s considered the possibility...And before you say anything, I’m going to ask, I just haven’t yet.”
He hadn’t had a choice on the resurrection, but he did have a choice on the death, though it was ultimately no real choice at all. Him or Ronan, and Gansey knew the answer to that each and every time. But it was an argument not meant to be hashed out, as there were no real winners to it and left both of them depressed.
So Gansey just pointed to one of the pieces that Ronan had. “Hand me that, please.” He held out his hand patiently, just as the rest of him was during this conversation. Gansey would have bet money that Adam had already considered the possibility, that he’d already considered every possibility. “I think you might have to brace yourself with the idea that he’s already considered it, and that may be one of his reasons.” He moved onto the next step of the desk, focusing and musing through the other possibilities. “You know and I know that he doesn’t need it to be powerful, but it’s always taken a lot more to convince him of that self-confidence.”
Ronan did as he was asked, partly because he was distracted and partly because when Gansey used that tone, Ronan tended to do the thing. Sure he’d curse about it or sometimes do it badly just to be a shit, but the please soothed his instinctive mule-kick. The rest of Gansey’s words not so much.
“Well no shit, but the possibility he might die if I die doesn’t make him more powerful.” That said, he couldn’t argue that it might be one of Adam’s fucked up reasons. Ronan had chosen the possibility of dying at Adam’s hands over hurting him, after all. Living without Adam wasn’t any more of an option than living without Gansey had been. That didn’t mean Ronan could stomach the thought of either of them dying because of him (again, in Gansey’s case).
But he’d had this argument with Gansey before. More than once. He snarled instead and reached out to return Gansey’s light shove from earlier. “It’s shitty feeling like half the people I love might drop on the spot if I get hit by a fucking car or something. You get that, right?”
Gansey’s stomach lurched with that darker thought, his face looking like a shadow was just cast over it. He hated this thought process, and that was where Ronan had gone with it, but he also couldn’t blame his best friend. The shadow that had gone over Gansey’s face was one that was over Ronan’s life, ever since they’d really figured out what happens to dreams when their dreamer dies. It wasn’t fair to him, or them, and if it hurt Gansey’s heart to think about, he couldn’t even imagine how it knocked Ronan on his ass.
There was still nothing straightforward about it, though. Complicated was how they “rolled”. He let his body rock back with the shove and gave Ronan a look that only bordered on pity - he knew Ronan wouldn’t want the full onslaught of it. “I hate that thought. That it even has to be thought. I don’t-- We already know I wouldn’t die if Cabeswater wasn’t here, we had six months without it. Adam isn’t offering his lifeforce.” He hoped it would be different. “We can look into confirmation from someone else, though.”
Ronan felt a little bad, causing that stormy cloud to blanket Gansey’s face, but also still a little frustrated that Gansey didn’t just say he got it. This was what Ronan got for being best friends with a guy who liked solving puzzles and couldn’t leave well enough alone, he guessed. He sighed through his nose and mustered up a resigned grimace of a smile.
“Yeah. Okay. Maybe Fox Way can tell.” He tapped two pieces to the desk together with an impatient lift of his eyebrows. “Whatever, let’s just do this. I need to get back to work.”
The same Fox Way that had told Gansey he was going to die how many times? He didn’t wince externally, but did let it play around in his head. “Well, they’re accurate, even if they are blunt. Like someone else I know.” He gave Ronan a pointed look as he grabbed the screwdriver and leaned in, glad for the assistance and happy to make Ronan’s life a little more difficult at the same time.
Ronan started to roll his eyes but only made it about half a revolution before he ended up watching Gansey work with a tender stare. He wouldn’t say thank you for any of this shit out loud. It wasn’t his style. But he could help put a desk together with careful hands and a minimum of trash talk. That would have to be enough.