Ronan Lynch (alteridem) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-10-15 19:50:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, the raven cycle: richard campbell gansey, the raven cycle: ronan lynch |
He didn’t bother turning on the light; he knew this room as well as every other room in this house and could have sketched every appliance and piece of furniture in it with his eyes closed. He ended up sitting on a counter with a bowl of cereal on one knee and Chainsaw on the other. Moonlight filtered through the curtains over the window, outlining the pair of them.
“No, shithead,” Ronan whispered, harsh words countered by the soft brush of his finger over the inky feathers on her head. “You can’t have fruity pebbles. Just eat your fucking cracker.”
“Kreker,” Chainsaw announced before trying to dip her beak back into the bowl again.
“She’s going to end up having a sugar high at three in the morning,” Gansey said softly, as he padded quietly into the kitchen. He’d been in the nearby office, having given up on sleep an hour before and had decided to do the same thing, only his quiet trip with insomnia involved a book and little lamp in the back room.
Like Ronan, Gansey’s insomnia was few and far between - not gone, entirely, but lessened. But it was quieter now, with Ronan having found the same sort of peace that Gansey had. He still missed it. Those sleepless nights and not wanting to close his eyes, because he might miss a conversation piece that would stick with him forever.
So it really hadn’t taken much to convince himself to quietly shuffle to the kitchen as soon as he’d heard Chainsaw. He went over to the fridge and opened the door, staring into it like it was a bright void. “What’s got you up?”
Gansey might’ve startled the shit out of Ronan if it weren’t for the slippery fabric sound of his socks across the wood floors. Fucking dork. Ronan watched him move through the kitchen out of the side of his eye. He’d been hyper aware of him all week, but trying not to act like it. Worrying about Gansey tended to make Gansey anxious or enocurage him to put on his fake face.
“A couple pebbles never hurt anyone, Dick.” Even with that said, he nudged Chainsaw beak away by breaking up the cracker in his cupped palm and pressing it up under her beak.
“It’s funny,” he deadpanned. “There’s nothing quite like a hotel full of nightmares to make a dreamer nervous about sleeping.” That wasn’t the full truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. It was enough of the problem, all wrapped up in a nicely vague package. He watched Gansey over Chainsaw’s bobbing head as she pecked at crumbs in his hand. “Have you been up this late all week?”
Gansey reached in and snagged a small container of his homemade yogurt - the one with the fruit in it, as opposed to Blue’s creations - and closed the refrigerator door behind him. As he got out a little bag of granola and went about the motions of adding it (and pouring in a little bowl for Chainsaw, as Gansey could be just as weak at times), he mused quietly. “I wonder if we should have trapped the doors to set off an alarm if anyone tries to sleep walk out of here.”
They hadn’t, yet, thankfully, and Gansey had been awake almost every night to hear if they had, but he didn’t want to fully admit to that. Even with Ronan’s question.
“On and off.” He pushed the little bowl of granola over near Chainsaw, wordlessly, before sitting down on a nearby chair with his yogurt. “It hasn’t been a hardship, I’m ahead of the course curriculum for most of my classes and I’ve gotten through a portion of my to-be-read pile.”
“How you can say it wasn’t a hardship and then rattle off a bunch of boring shit is beyond me,” Ronan teased. Moving Chainsaw to his shoulder, he hopped off the counter and carried his bowl over to the table to sprawl out in the chair next to Gansey.
He sat like he was very deliberately trying to take up space. At the table, in the room, in Gansey’s life. Worrying about his dreaming getting somebody hurt always screwed with his head; Worrying about his friends getting hurt by something out of his control was just the other side of the same damn coin. His counter used to be getting more out of control. Nowadays, he tried to be bigger, badder, and more fucking determined than his self doubt.
It was hit and miss.
“The alarm’s a good idea.” His knee knocked against Gansey’s and Chainsaw hopped off his shoulder to waddle across the table. “Do you feel like it wants to pull you back in?”
Gansey knocked his knee back to Ronan, a friendly hit. “It’s not my fault you don’t appreciate good books.” He teased back, watching Chainsaw as a distraction. He wouldn’t admit that it pleased him when Chainsaw headed straight for the granola and started making a mess of it they’d have to clean up later.
To give himself a second to figure out what he wanted to say ever so carefully, Gansey dove into his yogurt. “It’d be good if Matthew ever started sneaking out for dates.” Unlikely, but amusing to think about it. “But-- no.” He couldn’t meet Ronan’s gaze and just stared into the yogurt instead. It felt safer. “I think that place got everything it needed from me. Or it’s just been focused on others.”
Ronan made a childishly sour face at the mention of Matthew dating. He knew it was probably inevitable but he was incapable of thinking anyone was good enough for his brother, so it was going to be a long road to acceptance. He picked up some of the granola Chainsaw was scattering everywhere and held it in his palm so she’d be more inclined to eat instead of leaving her asshole bird was here stamp.
“Good. It better stay that way.” He sank into his chair, a little less tense with the confirmation that Gansey wasn’t fighting some kind of psychic pull. “I’ve kinda missed this. Our old insomniac bullshit.” A smile twitched at his mouth and he reached over to flick Gansey’s arm. “I might start waking you up on purpose just to ask you stupid shit like if you had to make one of your body parts detachable, what would you pick?
Gansey leaned back in his own chair and stretched out his legs, taking up some of Ronan’s space. In retaliation for the arm flick, he bumped against Ronan after taking a bite of his yogurt. “It’s what we get for having emotionally fulfilling and stable relationships, I suppose.” He missed it too, even if things were better know, he would always be the kind of person that enjoyed thinking back on the adventures they’d get up to when they had been younger and dumber. A year before.
He thought about the ridiculous question without second-guessing it, tilting his head to the side. “My hand, I think. Right. Ear could be interesting as well.” He always had a million of these dumb questions in his head, with a million more answers to throw out at any given point. Gansey grinned. “Can you ever actually stand backwards on a staircase?”
“It’s cute how you left out the part about regularly getting laid,” Ronan snorted. Chainsaw finished the last few crumbs and rolled her head into his palm until he gave her enough scritches to satisfy her. He shook his head in fond exasperation as she hopped back over to Gansey and scattered more granola to peck at on the tabletop.
“Go with the hand. You’d feel weird about the ear as soon as Parrish saw you pop that sucker off and then quietly agonize over it every day for the rest of your life.” Maybe that was a dramatic assessment, but Ronan stuck by it. He knew all too well that Gansey probably had thoughts about why the hand, why the ear, but got distracted picturing himself standing backwards on a staircase. He frowned, but in a ugh you’re making me think kind of way. “How deep are the steps? This is some equilibrium shit, though isn’t it?”
Gansey snorted and shook his head, silently telling Ronan that part didn’t need to be stated. No matter how true it might be. Though for him, it wasn’t about that when it came to sleeping - just being around Blue had always left him quieter, long before they were intimate, before Henry had even been involved. Just talking to her had helped, and that continued on into their relationship.
There were times it didn’t help, though, when the weight on his chest was too heavy or the thoughts just wanted to rattle around no matter what, much like this week. The times when talking over stupid ideas with Ronan became a lifeline of sorts.
No matter how ridiculous. “Probably. Hand is useful anyway. Less getting up for class lectures, closing curtains, turning a light on when you’re reading..” He still grinned at the staircase question, and shook his head while gathering more granola for Chainsaw. “You’re overthinking the staircase. Deep enough to walk?”
“Detachable doesn’t mean remote control. Now I’m just picturing you clamping your homework in your hand and throwing it across the room,” Ronan snickered. He slipped further down into his chair and propped his feet up on the opposite chair. He could see their own stairs through the kitchen entry and the pictures of his family on the wall.
The visual helped him realize his mistake and he groaned.
“Can you really stand backwards on a staircase or are you just going the opposite direction.” It wasn’t a question, more of a wow I’m a dumbass realization put into words. He rolled his eyes. “You’re such a dork.”
Gansey looked downright offended at a detachable hand not being remote controlled, and wrinkled his nose under the bridge of his glasses. “Well what’s the point of it then?” If he was going to remove his hand, it should at least be somewhat useful.
He did at least get distracted when Ronan caught on, and laughed, having to smother it to not wake anyone up. Gansey reached out to pat Ronan’s thigh, still grinning at him - usually those sorts of things were the opposite way around, Gansey taking a second to catch up to what Ronan was joking about, and then pulling a face that was as common around the Barns as snacks were. “At least you caught up. I’m not going to apologize for that one.”
Ronan fought off a smirk at Gansey’s blatant smugness. He didn’t get to see this Gansey as much as other Ganseys. It was fun. Even it was at his own expense. Or especially. There’d been a time that Gansey would’ve been too worried about Ronan’s mental state to being a smug shit. It didn’t stop Ronan from dishing some of that right back at him, though.
“I said if you had to make a limb detachable not if you could.” He took the spoon out of his cereal bowl and leaned over to steal some of Gansey’s yogurt. “Pretty sure it’s your privilege that had to instantly thinking of the ways that could benefit you,” he teased as he brought a spoonful of yogurt back to his mouth, grinning around the metal. It was even worth the risk of summoning the maggot just by voicing the word privilege in his own house. “I promise not to tell on you, though,” he swore, crossing his spoon over his heart.
“Uggh,” Gansey let the pained groan roll off of him, face flushing as he immediately thought about Blue suddenly appearing like a meerkat at the top of the stairs, head poked down as if she could just sense the word “privilege” being used.
He loved her for it. That image, that reminder. The course she kept him on, steered away from his upbringing in the way he needed. But it still terrified him everyday, even as he was blushing and kindly and soundly beat by Ronan’s words. Gansey squinted down at his yogurt and rushed to finish it off before Ronan could steal more, just on principle of the whole thing. “Adam’s right, you’re a shit.” He finished the yogurt in just another two bites and got up to take care of his and Ronan’s dishes without being asked.
Once at the sink, Gansey glanced over his shoulder at his best friend, “They added all of Cold Case Files to Netflix. That was my next step, if you were interested…?”
That earned a loose grin from Ronan, softer than the one it replaced. Getting Gansey to curse was always enjoyable, but getting him to do it fondly was better. Chainsaw gave an indignant squawk as he swept her up on his arm and climbed to his feet. Ronan squeezed the back of Gansey’s neck as he passed by. He’d always been a little easier with affection in the middle of the night, sleep-deprived and all his edges blunted.
And it grounded him, after this week, to reconnect with Gansey on even this level.
“Yeah, alright.” He turned to walk backwards the last few steps. “You want me to grab your notebook so you can jot down nerdy shit you wanna follow up on later?”
He knew Ronan was probably joking, but Gansey was feeling soft and a little sleepy, better than he’d felt all week just from this very ridiculous - but familiar - conversation. Charting out cold cases in the middle of the night on a comfy sofa with a ridiculous bird climbing around his head?
It sounded like a piece of heaven, in a way.
“Please? I have to keep track so that when it comes up with Adam, I’ll have an advantage in solving it first.” It was a little petty, a lot nerdy, and very them, competitively solving cold cases in a completely different world before the other could. Gansey flicked a soapy bubble at Ronan as his best friend retreated. “Meet you there.”