The nightmare started much the way it had at home, all those years ago.
Ronan turned on the light and saw a mirror. The Ronan in the mirror said: Ronan! Ronan woke in his bed, coated in sweat and shaking, like he'd just survived a much more obvious nightmare. Something with claws and teeth. Something that might follow him out into the world. The room was quiet though, empty, save for Adam sleeping deeply at his side. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Splashed water on his face.
He looked into the mirror. The Ronan in the mirror said: Ronan!
Rinse and repeat. By the fourth cycle, he was racing out of the house, out into the driveway, barefoot and terrified. He catalogued every detail of the world around him; he used to be able to tell when he was dreaming. He thought he did anyway. Dreams were his canvas. He was the master here.
He felt like a prisoner in his own head.
He climbed into the BMW with a slam of the door. In the rearview mirror, Bryde stared back at him and he shouted: Ronan!
When he woke this time, he leaned over the side of the bed and dry heaved. A rush of new memories pounded through his skull. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, still feeling like the contents of his stomach would soon paint his floorboards. Normally, if a bad dream pushed him out of bed, he was grateful if he wasn't paralyzed and waiting to find out what he'd brought back. He might carefully tiptoe out of the room to get some water, start his day, try not to wake Adam in the process.
He made no concessions now. He scrambled out of bed and fled the room, running into the doorway on the way out.
"Fuck, what the fuck. God fucking damn it." His quiet, rabid cursing carried him to the end of the hall but he changed his mind and turned back. There was a window that led out onto the roof at the other end and he climbed out of it, still wearing nothing but his boxers.
He just needed air. Why was there no fucking air? He felt like he was drowning in nightwash but a swipe at his face came away clean. Once he made it out onto the first floor roof, he pulled his knees to his chest and clenched his eyes shut. He should've known it was all going to go wrong. How fucking naive he'd been. He started to bang a fist against the roof but resisted at the last second and buried his face in his hands instead.
Memory itself was a tricky thing. Many of Adam's memories were tied to emotion—a thought would bring with it happiness or sadness, loneliness or comfort, an array of tying people and places to feelings. Sometimes he wanted to take apart those memories, slot them with other emotions, see if it was possible. But instead sometimes all he could find was dread, and it saturated him now. A chill up his spine, the heat of an argument just played out, worry, overwhelming worry. This was much different than before.
He had the distinct sense that he was floating, free-falling, the same way he tried to avoid when scrying. A candle flickered, distant, and Adam was torn between going further or going toward the flame. But there was an answer out there at the end of the line, the line kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing. Ronan, Ronan, Ronan—
Adam was awake. Startled into consciousness, just enough to hear his boyfriend stumble out of their room and hear him clamor out the window at the end of the hallway.
There were two Adam's now. The before Adam, the one with a life here in Vallo. And there was an after Adam, the one who was shoved full of memories from home. Was that the real Adam? The one who would have continued down this path if they had never been brought here? They were the same person, because before and after Adam would have followed Ronan out onto the roof.
So that's what he did.
He was careful with his steps, nearly crawling out across the gently sloping plane. His whole body longed for Ronan like it had been weeks—had it been weeks?—and a thousand words nearly ripped out of him as Adam took his place beside him on the roof. He sat much further apart than he normally would have. Did not touch him like he normally would have. The feelings were too fresh, the thought of the weeks before a mess in his head. Adam didn't know which Adam, before or after, Ronan needed right now. Or worse, which one Ronan believed to be beside him.
Instead, he took the least important problem he could think of in that slew of memories, because everything else felt too big to voice, and said so quietly, "You hung up on me."
Ronan tensed as Adam crawled out onto the roof. It was instinctive. He felt poised to run even though there was nowhere safer - nowhere he'd rather be than with Adam - and those conflicting feelings left his eyes stinging. Adam's words made him drop his hands away with a huff.
"You colluded with Declan." The words were ground out between his teeth, disbelief in his voice. He didn't actually know for sure about Adam's involvement. He knew about Declan's. That was the real sting of these memories: Declan sold him out to murderers. The Ronan of here was stable enough to know there was likely more to the story. The Ronan of home was knee-deep in feelings of betrayal.
He'd known Declan resented him but he never thought it was this bad.
He inhaled sharply through his nose and out through his mouth. "Are you gonna say it's not true?"
"I didn't collude with Declan, I—" But the lie was already there, mixed between the truth of it. Adam knew what Declan was doing, but it wasn't supposed to end the way it had. The whole point was to get Ronan away from Bryde. But because things were never simple, because all Adam had was the possibility of a phone call to explain himself and get explanations for the weeks of radio silence, he had only a short few minutes between it all ended. He had more than that now, he had so much more.
"The Moderators weren't supposed to be involved. That's not what was agreed on," Adam said, a weak defense but no less true. He hadn't managed to get that out on the phone to Ronan. "But I wasn't going to let them, I would never—" He struggled, dragging a hand over his face. Ronan had to know that Adam wouldn't send people to kill him, right?
"I meant it when I said you could lay low but I didn't trust him. I never have, Ronan. I didn't think you were safe with him. Did you even know what you were doing?" Adam asked, his voice both sharp and hoarse. He couldn't seem to figure out if his body was screaming for a fight or wanted to back down. I don't want this, I want this. Adam's mind had never been so starkly divided.
"Did you know what was happening to the world while you were destroying server farms and shopping malls?"
It hadn't occurred to Ronan to doubt if they had the same memories; they always felt like they were too tangled up in each other to ever be very far apart again. And Adam's first words had definitely left little doubt. But hearing the rest of what Adam said cemented it. Made it more real somehow. Ronan kicked his legs out, down the slope of the roof.
"You didn't have to trust Bryde, you only had to trust me." The truth about Bryde was right there on the tip of his tongue but he barreled past it for now. He was still reeling from that revelation himself. A little real anger edged into his voice. Not necessarily aimed at Adam, but crackling with frustration and hurt. "I was giving dreams and dreamers a chance to really fucking live. None of this half-life bullshit where we have to make ourselves small and harmless and out of the way just to have the right to exist."
"I did trust you, I do trust you," Adam said, his own face flushing with the surprise of how adamantly he felt this, and how frustrating it was that Ronan didn't believe him. He turned his face away, a mix of shame and anger, everything misplaced in his head. And even worse, he hated the words coming out of Ronan's mouth—truth and bullshit all wrapped up into one. There was Ronan in there but there was something else sinister, an othering that Adam didn't like.
"But was that the only way? Or was it Bryde's way?" Adam asked, already assuming the answer. Adam remembered reading those texts, aware that it was already too late to stop him, and then feeling like it was purposeful. Adam would be able to convince him to stop, to hold back, to wait a little longer. Adam would know how, Adam knew how, because he knew Ronan. Or thought he did.
"You kept blocking me out." His voice turned desperate, and that was because both versions of himself were so in love with Ronan that it carved a deep wound inside of him to know he had been shuttered away. "I tried, Ronan, I tried so many times to reach you and it's like you didn't want me to see. I would have helped you. There could have been another way. You were waking up ley lines without thinking of what it was doing to everything else, everyone else. If you want to exist you can't ignore the rest of it."
Ronan didn't actually doubt Adam's trust - not in the here and now. The new memories felt a year old and right now at the same time though. He could feel how he was driving towards a cliff at home and he'd hit the gas when Adam hadn't texted back right away. Which, Jesus Mary. It wasn't particularly fair or sane, but that part of his mind felt too much self-doubt and cynicism to be either.
For someone who pushed people away so much, Ronan had never been very good at feeling alone.
"What other way was there?" he whispered harshly. "We were being hunted. Dreamers were suffering and being killed off. I can't even enter an area with nothing for a ley line without nightwashing all over the fucking place. I didn't have time to--to--" He broke off and reached blindly across the roof, trying to reach Adam's hand. "Fuck, I'm sorry. I feel like two different people and it's fucking me up. I--I kept you out because I was scared you were done with me and when you figured out what was going on you'd really be done with me."
"One I could have figured out with you, Ronan," Adam answered, grabbing Ronan's hand and meeting him halfway. Adam dragged his knuckles to his lips and just rested them there, a familiar contact that he needed desperately. This was his way of agreeing, commiserating with feeling like two different people.
He was wildly off-kilter with these memories but this was something, they were something good. A reminder that they had a life here, they would find their way back to it. Even if Adam's eyes were burning at words like dreamers being killed off and nightwashing without a leyline.
It made sense, knowing how dead the line had been in Boston, how slowly Adam could feel it thrum awake like a slow steady heartbeat. But by then, Ronan was out of reach. That was the reality of it. "I knew what was going on, I figured it out. I was reading government reports of your industrial espionage because that was the only way I could know where you were, piece it together. Let me be the one to say whether or not I'm done, not assume a choice that I never made."
And there was a pause, Adam's mind working in the background, double-triple-quadruple time. Noticing things between the lines before Adam even realized there were lines. A cold sensation settled in his gut. "Unless—there is something else. Is there something else?"
“There’s something else,” Gansey’s voice was probably unwelcome. It was definitely an intrusion, and almost certainly a surprise. But there was no such thing as “stealth” in the Barns, as he’d heard the swearing, muffled through walls, and he’d heard the window opening, and then some of the rooftop conversation, only the lowest of whispers not making it through to his insomniac form.
Okay, a good portion of the rooftop conversation. And it felt like eavesdropping for every single second of it, so Gansey finally made the decision to poke his head out of the window and towards his two best friends, and at least warn them that he might not be the only other person awake and listening. But he was more concerned about them, at this point, and stuck his head out the window to check on them rather than warning them off.
“I can go if you both want, but I have questions and will just make a list for later.” At least he was honest? Even if Gansey was already half climbing through the window, but slow enough to give them a chance to tell him to fuck off.
Adam taking his hand was enough to uncoil the spring of anxiety in Ronan's stomach. At least partly. He'd worked to build this life they had here; he'd earned it. He wasn't going to let the insecurity and alienation he felt at home poison everything.
He was going to try very fucking hard not to let it poison everything.
He pulled Adam's hand over to his chest but he kept his gaze out on the farm spread out around them. "Technically it was ecoterrorism. But look at you. Working those Harvard connections…" Admittedly, he sounded bitter. But Gansey sticking his head out startled the shit out of him anyway.
"Jesus Mary." The pit in Ronan's stomach opened up again, just enough to gnaw at him. He was both relieved and anxious to see Gansey's face. It felt like he hadn't seen him in months. "Just get out here, you fucking lurker."
Adam didn't elaborate, didn't even fight Ronan on the technically, ecoterrorism or the thread of acidity that ran through his boyfriend's voice at Harvard. It was a testament to how worn down Adam felt, the burden of memory too heavy, even for him. He wanted Ronan to know that what happened at home and what had happened here were distinguishable, workable. Adam would sit out on this roof for however long it took for Ronan to not look doubtful that somehow it was being taken away.
He startled briefly at Gansey's arrival, but he didn't move, only his fingers curled tighter in Ronan's hand. Adam wasn't ready for Gansey, hadn't gone through the motions of what to say and how to explain what had happened. Adam's own opinions and bias on the matter, most specifically Bryde, colored everything, and it was unfair to Ronan. But waiting was just prolonging the inevitable.
"There's more, at home, that we're missing," Adam said over his shoulder, in a way of a greeting to Gansey. "We know why Ronan nightwashes." That felt like an important addition, almost like a distraction from the question Ronan hadn't answered. Adam, even in the dark, levied a hard look at Ronan—not because he wanted to keep anything from Gansey, but how much and when were up to him, not Adam.
"You might need to sit for this, Gansey."
As soon as he got permission, Gansey climbed on through the window and followed Adam’s instructions. His hand went from Adam’s shoulder, and across Ronan’s back, before he settled in next to them, focused on not falling off the roof and also mind turning a million miles an hour at exactly what they both meant.
“Please never say ecoterrorism where Jane can hear you,” he requested politely, trying to not charge ahead and make questions and demands while they were both working through something. “I also wasn’t trying to lurk, sound just carries remarkably well in this hallway.” Anyone would have stopped to listen-- okay well, Gansey might have been more nosy than the rest. A little.
He looked Ronan over, as if to study him, concern inching into his eyebrows and forehead. No nightwash, no visible changes he could see (but then it was dark) just worry and the pain written across both of them, mirrored over each other. “Tell me.”
Ronan was reluctant to let go of Adam's hand, but he laid his own down against the roof and loosened his grip - as if to say, it's fine, you can let go. His gaze lingered for a moment on their hands there before he forced it to lock onto Gansey again.
"I seriously doubt Sargent would cry over pulp mills and data farms." He didn't sound cavalier about it, but there was defensiveness there already, bubbling up between the words. "Nobody was hurt." There was a sunbaked apple on the roof, from the tree nearby. Ronan felt a little like that apple. Left to rot out of sight. Stupid, he thought at himself. Get over yourself.
He swept the apple off the roof with a whack of his hand and sighed. "I dreamt Bryde."
Why did he let go? Adam regretted it, knowing it wasn't really going to be okay. It felt like Ronan was preemptively pushing him away again, like Adam wouldn't like what he was going to say next. He didn't, but all rational thought was careening away from his mind, much like the rotting apple Ronan flung off the roof. I dreamt Bryde.
Adam waited for everything to slot into place, the same way it did when Ronan said he had dreamt Cabeswater. He dreamt Matthew. But there wasn't that relief that came with figuring out a solution. This person, the one Adam didn't trust, the one Adam was wildly suspicious because something just felt off, who dragged Ronan up and down the Appalachian region in order to answer questions Adam frustratingly couldn't give was—was Ronan's?
He waited for more, but knew nothing else was coming. Not until he or Gansey said something first. Adam leaned away, his hands over his face to hide his natural immediate reactions: horror, confusion, the heavy pang of empathy for how messed up everything was, what the fuck. The wrongness of the truth made Adam a little sick.
Taking a deep breath, he slid a glance to Gansey, then back to Ronan. "When?"
Gansey sucked in a harsh breath and held it, not expecting that bombshell as it was dropped. “Jesus.” Adam, of course, would be the practical one asking questions and figuring things out, while Gansey struggled to catch up. Ecoterrorism. The Moderators. Bryde was dreamt by Ronan.
The fact that he hadn’t woken up with new memories of his own to align with theirs was another worry, one that came with a whole host of things Gansey would have to push to the side for now and bury deep. Now wasn’t the time.
“What did Bryde do, exactly? Is that where the ecoterrorism comes in?” He wasn’t sure he believed that, when they were both clearly working through things where it looked as if someone got hurt, even if it was only emotionally. “I heard the part about ley lines, and I know even where we were, there were some issues with lines and magic but--” He shrugged unhelpfully. “I don’t know how that’s changed recently.”
Ronan wasn't sure what he expected, but their responses were about right. Adam's brevity was like a well-aimed arrow and Ronan clasped his hands behind his head for a moment, squeezing his temples between his forearms.
"That's your question? Seriously? When? When what? When did I dream him? When did I know? You're gonna have to be more specific, Parrish." Ronan huffed out through his nose and dropped his arms. Gansey's questions at least gave him something to focus on that didn't make his stomach feel like it was dropping out. "Bryde figured out that certain industrial locations were strangling the ley lines. Get rid of the man-made interference, open up the ley line. He found other dreamers too. A bunch of kids and a...a lady."
Ronan closed his eyes. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "The mods got her though. While I was nightwashing cause her fucking house was on a dying line."
Adam didn't elaborate, his lips pressing into a thin harsh line. He could tell, just by the reaction Ronan gave him, that the answer to his question was both longer than I know and recently. Maybe after their phone call, maybe right before the ley line surged and the world started to—Adam couldn't think that far ahead. Not right now. Adam was thankful that Gansey was asking better questions, easier ones. Adam's sharpness wasn't appropriate for the vulnerability Ronan was giving.
His memories were a curse, forcing his hand instead of being that welcoming, safe support that Ronan needed. Losing other dreamers wasn't easy, and his thoughts flicked to Hennessy for a moment—where was she in all of this?
To Ronan, Adam said, softer than before, "You knew I'd figure it out." Whether that was Bryde or waking the leylines or any of it, it didn't matter. Adam had been locked out of Ronan's mind for a reason, and it was startlingly clear now.
To Gansey, Adam supplied, "It was like the leyline in Henrietta, but only Cabeswater was on that one. It was the only thing that could wake up. The line Ronan was saving was waking up everything." The beetled he had flashed to Declan came to mind. "That's what the Moderators were probably trying to stop," Adam said, feeling like he was siding with them. He wasn't, but Adam also knew that it wasn't so clear cut at three in the morning.
Gansey nodded, taking in their answers and their words with solemn severity. He reached out to squeeze Ronan’s arm in support. The topic of dreamers and moderators was a tough one, knowing Ronan could damn well be next. In his mind, if it came down to a Ronan versus the Moderators in an us or them situation, Gansey would always side with Ronan. But he knew it wasn’t as clear-cut as all of that.
“But at what cost.” It wasn’t really a question, and he didn’t need an answer, was just quietly murmuring the thought out to the cool night air. It went both ways - at what cost were the moderators stopping it. At what cost was Ronan waking it.
Gansey ran his hand over his face in frustration. “So you and Bryde and Hennessy were waking all of the magic, and the Moderators were even more scared. Adam mentioned what it was doing to others-- the fallout wasn’t great, I’m assuming?”
You knew I'd figure it out. Ronan dragged his gaze to Adam at those words, but it was with visible reluctance. He didn't really want to see how that realization looked on his face.
"I didn't realize what I was doing, not consciously. Not about Bryde." He felt exposed admitting that. Hi, I fucking dream people into reality and then convince myself I didn't, what of it? His gaze dropped to where Gansey had touched him and he blinked a few times in rapid succession. Why his anxious best friend hadn't run for the hills ages ago was a fucking mystery. "And I don't know what it was doing to others. All I know is that Declan set me up for the mods to find us. One of them was laying in wait and tried to kill Bryde, and Hennessy--"
Ronan growled his frustration and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes again. "Goddamn it! I don't want these memories. I don't fucking want them."
Arguing with Ronan would have been easier than watching him fight himself. As they exchanged looks, a not-so-small amount of anger rose up his throat, sticking to his tongue. Not at Ronan, at the situation, at the unfairness, at being right. One day, Adam wanted to be wrong about shit like this. Prove to himself that he didn't have to worst-case scenario everything.
"That's not what was supposed to happen," Adam said, when Ronan mentioned being set up. His hands grabbed for Ronan's, tenderly, prying them away from his face. Adam knew it was painful, the memories terrible and jarring, but they had to get through it, as much as they could. And he needed Gansey to help him, when Adam was too direct and blunt for the conversation.
He tried explaining his side to Gansey, while Ronan could also hear. "It was supposed to be one person, who defected from the Moderators, to get him away from Bryde, that's what Declan said, but—" It seemed stupid now, knowing that Bryde was one of Ronan's. Adam put so much blame on Bryde for pulling Ronan into a direction he didn't recognize, but that was inside Ronan all along, wasn't it?
His grip was tight, but not painfully so, as he asked, "What happened with Hennessy?"
Gansey’s own feelings as far as Declan were concerned rose to the top of everything. He was keenly aware that his own bias often clouded his judgement, with all of the arguments and fights and mud that had been waded through when Ronan had first moved into Monmouth. Those memories were not pleasant ones to sort through, and he could only imagine how it felt between the two brothers.
He’d firmly been on Ronan’s side, but what Gansey had wanted more than anything was peace between them. It had come, somewhat, with time, but these new memories and explanations made his eyebrows crease together in worry. Declan was the type to do what he thought needed to be done to protect his brothers and his family.
But was he the type to betray Ronan?
“Well-- I don’t like that.” Gansey didn’t say anything more, though, waiting to let Ronan continue. He did squeeze again, in some kind of gesture that almost felt empty at this point in its level of reassurance.
Something about Gansey's words made Ronan snort. The comfort of them, he supposed. The simplicity. He flashed a small smile at Gansey, somber but grateful. His gaze was sharper for Adam.
"I mean, sure. Cause handing me over to someone who used to kill dreamers is much better." A part of him knew it was unfair - that he'd left Adam in the dark and hadn't even called until it was all said and done. It was the part that kept his voice more tired than accusatory. The rest of him still felt wounded. "The brass must not have agreed to her resignation anyway, cause there were others there. Hennessy hung back with them and the next time I saw her, she was trapping me and Bryde in a dream. She had this orb…"
He mimicked holding it and felt a sharp sting behind his eyes. He wondered if he was already dying in a puddle of black back there.
"I could feel it. The absence of...everything. All that I am, all that Matthew is. It would turn out the lights on all of it." Ronan sniffed, dropped his hands, and stared down at his palms. "She outsmarted me. I don't know what happened after that."
"You don't have to like it, Gansey, but it's already happened. I can't change it," Adam said, feeling both regret and frustration rising up again. Adam was torn between defending himself and wanting to argue irrationally, that was the two sides of Adam—before and after—warring inside of him. He felt the sharpness Ronan directed at him, how Ronan went from smiling at their best friend to distrust at Adam. That was worse than the memories crowding inside his skull.
Adam went quiet, retreated into himself, as Ronan explained the rest. His eyes were watching Ronan's hands, mimicking the orb, then dropping with defeat. He could feel that doubt and hurt in those small gestures, and it was heavier doubt that Adam remembered seeing in Ronan. I'll kill her, the wild but unsurprising thought flitted into his brain then back out. He wasn't that person anymore, not really, but harm to Ronan was inexcusable.
Rubbing at his eyes, Adam felt drained. The soft tentative hum of Cabeswater in his chest was a welcome reminder that they weren't back in Boston, Ronan wasn't being abruptly cut off the ley line. His voice was hollow when he said, "We'll need to find out if she remembers and if there's any chance she'd bring that thing here again."
Gansey had a brief flash of regret for coming out here to interrupt this when he did, knowing Adam and Ronan still had a little more to hash out. But it was gone pretty quickly, as he was similarly glad he was here to provide a clueless buffer as needed. He wasn’t about to get in the middle of them, however, just--
“Jesus.” Gansey gnawed on his lower lip. He felt the surge of anger from Adam, and winced at it before shaking his head a little in Adam’s direction. “Things are different here. Can be different here, for everyone. Whatever anyone remembers, and sorting through that is probably going to take a little while, we will get through it.” It wasn’t his strongest pep-talk ever, Gansey’s voice wavering just slightly.
If ley lines were cut off at home, it meant a lot of bad things happening. Things he’d have to push to the side and avoid thinking about while he could, pulling his fake optimism to the front to be the support Ronan needed.
Ronan stayed quiet for a moment. He wasn’t wearing his bracelets or he’d have lifted them to his mouth to chew. He had to settled for gnawing on his lip and staring at nothing in particular. Now that the adrenaline of the nightmare was wearing off and he’d word-vomited at them both, he was pulling at threads in his head.
“She was desperate there. And I don’t know. Maybe the mods promised her something too.” He didn’t look at Adam when he said it. He looked at Gansey instead, as another thread in his head was pulled. “I don’t know what this means for you either, Gans,” he whispered. Deeply unsettled by the thought, he pushed to his feet. “I don’t know a whole fucking lot. But I do know I need to check on Matty.” He threaded his fingers lightly through Adam’s hair as he passed by, a lingering touch he couldn’t have resisted if he tried. “Don’t fall off the fucking roof.”
Adam wanted Ronan to stay and go, give him space to have whatever conversation was going to be broached with Matthew. His shoulders slumped, and he was back to pinching at his nose—exhaustion, memories, and the same terrifying thought about Gansey all fighting for priority in the front of his mind. Adam felt a headache encroaching, and it was momentarily placated by Ronan's fingers in his hair as he slipped back inside.
He hated how much worse he felt. As he lifted his head, Adam gave Gansey a weary look. "We need to start a pot of coffee. I don't intend on sleeping any time soon and I need to fill you in on the rest."