InsaneJournal

Bae stepped into the main barn at Ronan's place looking incredibly sour. Over his shoulder, he held a new over the shoulder pack that was already being weighed down by an enormous amount of books and supplies. It was Baelfire's first day at the school but it wasn't the actual first day. No, Baelfire had missed an entire week of his first year of college education. Thankfully, he was able to make up a rather elaborate lie about having been horrifically ill during the previous week and thus unable to do much of anything but sleep. But having to come up with that lie, and now feeling as though he were behind from his fellow students, was just another tick mark in the column of things that were upsetting the young man.

He'd been at Ronan's every night he was Neal, though he only knew this from context clues. He'd woke on Ronan's couch on Saturday to find a message from Emma asking him to come home. Emma had eventually confirmed to him that he'd been there the entire time as Neal. These were not memories that Baelfire had easy access to. It seems as though anyone who had gotten younger could remember their interactions but he was at a disadvantage from having briefly been older. And since Saturday, he hadn't been able to talk to Ronan.

Mostly because he'd slammed his bedroom door at Emma's house shut the moment he was told about Killian's departure and refused to talk to essentially anyone.

He was missing time. He'd missed school. Killian was gone. And Baelfire now was feeling guilt on top of it all because he was back to being himself instead of being Neal; which he felt Henry would have likely preferred.

Slouching off his bag, he reached down to his waist and gripped hold of his teeshirt, pulling it up over his head. Once it was off, he reached into his bag and grabbed the older, more worn shirt he opted to work in when tending to the crops. It got yanked over his head in an instant and he slipped his arms through the sleeves, before tossing his previous garment hard against his bag. As soon as his hands were free, he slipped both his hands up to cover his face, making an aggravated sound low in his throat as he did. And during all of this, he just kind of assumed no one else was around. Or maybe it was just that he was being ignorant of his surroundings.

--

For his part, Ronan was in the best mood he’d been in all week. He had woken up on Friday in his own body, and every second since, he’d felt more alive and aware of his own skin than he could remember being in a while, just by contrast to the way he’d felt when he’d been miniaturized and given female parts.

He’d spent a good portion of Friday with Adam, and as a result, had not gotten much work done. When Saturday came around, he was back at work by himself. He assumed that Baelfire (or Neal, whatever) was off spending time with his son as he’d been doing frequently the past week, and didn’t bother trying to get hold of him. He’d never given Baelfire any set-in-stone working hours, anyway; Ronan did not keep himself to any particular schedule either, and it made no sense for him to expect it from anyone else working on the farm. Thankfully, time at the Barns moved at a slow, lazy pace and there was always enough time to get everything done, even if Ronan was doing all the work on his own.

He had come into the barn to grab the ladder and a basket to pick fruit. The main part of the barn was where the animals were supposed to stay, but it was currently empty of everything but the mice hidden in the hay. The equipment was in the back, and Ronan was out of sight but within earshot of the door when Baelfire entered.

He had just grabbed the ladder, so it took him a moment to carry it back to the doorway, and poke his head around to see who’d joined him. “Oh, hey,” he said, by way of greeting. “You’re you again.”

--

Baelfire brought his hands down from his face, though his fingers had spread just enough to peek between them as he'd done so, and he glanced to Ronan. With his hands falling heavily by his side, he sucked in a breath, preparing to alter his composure. He wasn't going to act moody around Ronan or any of his friends if he could help it.

They didn't do anything wrong or deserve it, as far as Bae was concerned.

He tried to muster a smile but that was too much. He settled for just not scowling and instead lifted his hand in greeting. "Yeah. Since Saturday."

He paused. "Don't remember it," he then added. "Texts tell me you had stuff happen to you, too?"

--

Ronan had a habit of studying the people he cared about very closely, but the signs that Baelfire was in a bad mood weren’t even subtle. The absence of a smile was the biggest one; generally they managed to have fun on the job, because frankly, Ronan didn’t find any job worth doing unless it was enjoyable. He loved the Barns, and while he didn’t expect Baelfire to love it as much as he did, he didn’t want the job to be a chore.

He wasn’t sure if the work ahead of them had anything to do with Baelfire’s mood, though, or if he was coming here to try to work off his bad mood. It seemed likely that it was the latter, so Ronan decided not to remind him that he didn’t have to be here if he had somewhere else he’d prefer to be.

“Yeah,” he answered, “I turned into a girl.” His mouth quirked up. “A fucking tiny one, too. You really don’t remember any of it?”
--

Bae winced at the answer. He'd read, of course, but there was a difference between absorbing information that he had no memory of and having it confirmed verbally by Ronan. "That sucks," he commented and it was clear Bae meant it. He knew he wouldn't have wanted to go through that so he figured the same could be said for Ronan. Then, with a twinkle of his more usual self, he smirked. "How tiny?"

Then he sucked in a breath and shook his head in slight frustration. "No. None. And it's a big mess," he said, sighing as he did so. He wasn't sure if Ronan would want to hear about any of that though. He settled for just telling him one more thing. "Killian's gone," he said, shrugging his shoulders as if he didn't care.

Which was obviously not true. Bae had, a few months earlier, worked on the painting of the Jolly Roger at the Barns during his breaks. It'd been a Father's Day gift and it'd been the only one Baelfire had ever given in his entire life; since it wasn't something celebrated in the Enchanted Forest.


--

Ronan lifted his free hand - the one that wasn’t holding the ladder - and held it out at approximately the height he’d been for the last week. He was, possibly, exaggerating - just a little bit - and his smirk probably gave that away. But in fairness, he had felt really small, smaller than he actually was. He was happy all over again to be back in his own body.

His smirk disappeared, however, when Baelfire’s moodiness returned. Thankfully, the only ramifications of turning into a girl had been a few hours of awkwardness between him and Adam, before they’d figured out how to behave around each other. A big mess sounded like something else entirely.

“Shit,” Ronan said, a little gruffly. He didn’t do sympathy very well - he was only within the last year getting back into the habit of showing any emotion other than anger - but he also didn’t really like being on the receiving end of it, and he knew that other people often didn’t either. He was looking at Baelfire a little more intently, which conveyed better than words that he took his friend’s predicament seriously.

He didn’t keep his gaze there too long, though, not wanting to put any pressure on Baelfire to explain further. He started to head toward the door with the ladder. As he went, he added, “You don’t have to be here if you have other shit to take care of. Or if you’re avoiding shit, stay as long as you want.”

--

He'd had his eyes fixated on the area where Ronan lifted his hand and he'd tried not to laugh, though it was clear he was amused by the notion. It wasn't in any malicious sort of way, just an amused understanding of how much that must have sucked for Ronan. He'd have rather kept on that subject.

"Yeah," Bae said in agreement. There wasn't really much else to say. He'd had years of getting used to losing people, even before he'd been brought to the Mountain. It stung but it was just another brick in the wall he was continuously building so that he could press on. He glanced to Ronan and gave him a weak smile, hoping it conveyed that he was at least glad Ronan was still there, because he truly was.

Watching him move for the door, Bae shifted to make his way deeper into the barn to grab his own equipment, but came to a stop when he heard Ronan speak. He frowned, looking back to Ronan. "No," he firmly said to the first statement. Baelfire didn't want to go anywhere else. He wanted to be here, where he was almost always happy, and away from his house. It felt like there was a cloud hanging over it there. Emma and Henry were just as sad as Baelfire was about Killian's disappearance (Emma the most, of course); and he knew Henry was likely mourning the loss of Neal once again. And Baelfire didn't know how to react to that. Was he supposed to feel guilty? He did but was that even the appropriate response?

"I don't want to go home," he then added, still frowning. "And, besides, we've got work to do. And that's what I want to be doing." He paused. "But thank you."

--

“Then stay,” Ronan said simply, as if that resolved the matter. To his mind, it really was that simple: if Baelfire wanted to stay here, then he could stay. He knew there were other considerations, other people who would have opinions about that, but he didn’t really know them so well, and trusted that if their opinions mattered to Baelfire, he would take them into account. “Like I said - well, I guess you don’t remember - you can have your own barn if you want. We could fix it up for you.”

The Barns was emptier here than it was at home, but even so, even there they could have found a barn that wasn’t housing any sleeping animals. There were so many of them. And although Ronan was still figuring out what he wanted to do with the Barns, besides to restore its animals to their original liveliness, he knew he didn’t want to end up alone here. He especially wanted Adam here with him, but he would have been even happier to have all his friends here too: they were his family.

Baelfire had become his friend in much the same way as Gansey and Blue and Noah, and unlike them, he seemed almost at home at the Barns. It was obvious how much he liked being here, how much he wanted to take care of the place, how much he wanted to stay. That was more than enough to earn him a place here, so far as Ronan was concerned.

--

Baelfire gave a nod. He assumed that what Ronan meant was that he didn't have to leave work and that he could go ahead and stick around. It was a logical assumption. He gave a slight nod in agreement, just as Ronan began to speak again, and then he blinked.

Wait, what?

His head tilted to the side and he was gaping at Ronan with a confused look. He didn't recall this conversation but he did remember a moment previously when Ronan had told him he could stay whenever he wanted. He just hadn't thought he was serious. Baelfire felt like more of a burden than he liked to let on so it wasn't his first inclination to believe someone was being genuine when they offered him a place to stay.

"I...really?" He asked, but then knew better. Ronan was bringing it up again. That was clarification enough for Bae that he was serious. Immediately, his sense of gloom seemed to be temporarily lifted, as he grinned wide at Ronan.

"Yes." Then he paused as he remembered his family. Emma and Henry. HE had other family members, of course, namely Katniss; but he knew that Emma had enjoyed having him close by. He thought on that for a moment. "Can it be soon? Not immediately? I don't want to leave right after Killian's gone but maybe in a couple weeks? If you're sure?"

--

Ronan merely looked over his shoulder at Baelfire, raising an eyebrow. He was not the kind of person to do nice things for people unless he really meant it, unless they really mattered to him. He was, in fact, the type of person that most people did not expect kindness from at all, unless they knew him better. (He wasn’t quite as poisonous as he’d once been; the fact that he was happy had taken away a lot of his pretense. But still.)

That wide grin on Baelfire’s face told him that the offer was accepted, even if the words were hesitant. He grinned a little bit, too.

“It’ll take a while to fix a place up for you anyway,” he said. “At least a couple weeks before it’s livable, probably longer before it’s completely finished. We can work on it whenever we have time.”

--
Baelfire suddenly was filled with the desire to move forward and hug Ronan, but he kept himself from doing that. Instead, he kept the smile without any difficulty, and was nodding his head up and down. "Yeah, right, that makes sense," he commented. Of course it would take some time and that time would allow for him to get things in order. He'd talk to Emma and Henry. I mean, after all, his placement in Emma's home was initially supposed to be temporary. He'd never wanted to live on her charity. But this didn't feel like charity from Ronan.

No, this kind of felt like moving in with a friend, even if they weren't necessarily going to be in the same space.

"Thank you." Still grinning, he looked over his shoulder towards the equipment, but then back to Ronan. "You want to work in the same vicinity today?"

--

Ronan grinned back at him. It was stupid, maybe, but it meant a lot to him to have people at the Barns again. People who mattered, people who made this place feel like home. As much as Ronan loved having his home back, he was still unused to the quiet of it, the lack of activity in the sleeping animals - or in their current situation, the lack of his father’s animals entirely. His own dream creations were here, thankfully, and they were now so used to Baelfire’s presence that even as they stood here, the mice and other strange little dream creatures were starting to rustle in the hay around their feet.

“It’s what friends do,” he said, instead of saying you’re welcome. “You remember that big dormitory I had when I first got here, where my tattoo place was? My friend bought that, I helped him fix it up, and then when my dad died, I moved in with him.”

Thinking about that made him miss Gansey powerfully, so he was happy to accept the change in subject. “Nah, I finished that up yesterday while you were out. We’ll start on the other side.”

--

Baelfire's smile kept with Ronan's statement. He didn't doubt that Ronan was his friend but it was always nice to have a reminder, especially following how he'd felt this weekend. He needed to remind himself that while he was once again losing out on a continued relationship with Killian, he still had plenty of others to rely on here, and Ronan was one of them.

"I liked that place," he idly commented, even though he was pretty sure Ronan already knew that. Baelfire had been fascinated by the tattoo shop in those early days. He'd even begun to consider potentially getting a tattoo of his own, though he hadn't brought it up or made any plans in that direction. "I think I'd like that. Living in one big place with my friends." He paused then added. "I think I'll like that about being here."

He nodded his head in understanding. There was always something that could be done here he supposed so it didn't surprise him that Ronan had finished. "Sounds good. I'll grab my stuff and meet you there?"

--

“Good,” Ronan said. He picked up the ladder again, and nodded back. “See you out there. And when we’re done, we’ll pick out a barn for you. Maybe one big enough to have a room for your kid?”

He was eager to get started on this new project, even if he wasn’t in any rush to finish it. He liked having new things to do, so that he never got bored. Here, boredom was more of a concern than it was for him at home, because even with the Barns here, he couldn’t do the work he really wanted to do of waking his father’s animals. Well, technically he could try, but there were no sleeping dream animals to test it on and there was no Cabeswater to help him. He’d had to turn the Barns into something else entirely, something that wouldn’t suffer in his absence if he disappeared from this place (again).