Ronan Lynch (alteridem) wrote in valloic, @ 2024-01-31 21:57:00 |
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If there had been a forest, anyway.
Even now, in a too clean alleyway, he felt exposed, and although retreating to the (relative) safety of the sewers and the underground community the rebels had built was an option, it wasn’t really one. Not for Matthew, who had a job to do. So he forced himself to stay, forced himself to wait until the sound of the racing hoofbeats of his heart pounding in his ears dulled, leaving behind only a slow and steady drip, drip, drip of water out of a pipe. Everything was calm, if not safe. Nothing was safe anymore.
Matthew unscrewed the top of a water bottle, releasing a plume of smoke. The smoke billowed out as soon as there was an entrance, becoming a massive black cloud that slowly took the shape of two towering wolves. Their eyes glowed like embers in ashes, almost too bright to look at. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, even as they shrunk in size to roughly the size of actual wolves. They surrounded Matthew in that black smoke, coiled around him tightly, a swirling wall of darkness. Matthew’s hand rested on the black as if they were real animals. They felt warm, and if he closed his eyes he could pretend that he felt the rise and fall of breathing.
“Go hunt,” he told them, giving the mass another pet when it didn’t immediately dissipate. “I’ll be okay.” The sundogs were looking for the same things that Matthew was, and it was ironic since what they were searching for was what they all were: dreamed things. Matthew had an innate sense of where a dreamed thing was, it felt like a tug in his middle, pulling like to like, one magnet drawn to the opposite pole. It helped to have the sundogs out on patrol with him because they could travel as fast as a sunbeam and turn his compass towards true north. Handy, especially when some of those dream things moved. When some of those dream things were perfect, impossible recreations of what was supposed to be there, but instead were traps.
The smoke disappeared, leaving Matthew alone in the alley once more. He shoved his hands into the front pocket of a worn hoodie. Errant blonde curls poked their way through a baggy knit hat. And then he felt a pull. Matthew had a responsibility, as a dreamed thing, to find other dreamed things and to report them or contain them if he could. So off he went, walking down streets that were mostly empty save for a few people hurrying along in an attempt to escape the thick sense of foreboding that permeated the air. And even with that those few people didn’t fail to smile at Matthew.
He ignored them all.
Ronan wasn't looking for Matthew precisely, but he was always on the lookout for Matthew. It was his baseline: always being aware of whether the one dream that had turned against him was lurking nearby to ruin his plans. Capturing Matthew, bringing Matthew to his side, was also in his plans, but some days his anger was too biting for anything but bitterness.
He felt his traitor brother's presence more these days than he ever had at home. Because Ronan's power was more here than it ever had been at home. He pulled on it now as he crouched with his eyes shut and his nails digging into the asphalt of the alley floor. Dreaming was as easy as meditation now. It still left him vulnerable, in this facsimile of sleep, but it only took a few minutes. Sometimes only even moments.
As the sundogs peeled off in different directions and his brother was left alone, Ronan reached out in dreams and made a very real downpour start on the street where Matthew stood. Rain fell like bullets. Thunder shook the windows along the street. The storm would draw Matthew to him a few alleys down. And if it didn't, Ronan would make the few people around regret staying too long outdoors.
Matthew felt the magic before he felt the drop in temperature, although the actual impact was similar. He sensed dreaming as soon as Ronan breached the veil between sleeping and awake, it was a surge in the very marrow of his bones. Everything felt clearer, came more into focus, the hair on his arms rose, he was holding an inhale without realizing it. Something had been created. Then the rain hit, sharp zaps of cold that had him burrowing further into his hoodie and Matthew knew.
Ronan was close. Lightning streaked across the sky and then a blinding bolt struck somewhere as if to add to the confirmation. He quickened his steps, stopping only at a store doorway where some poor native was trying to take temporary shelter. Matthew grabbed the person’s sleeve, muttering, “Go inside, stay inside, don’t come out until it’s all clear.”
But where was Matthew going to go? He didn’t want to face Ronan in the middle of the street like some sort of showdown–it wasn’t a showdown, Ronan was his brother even if Matthew didn’t recognize him in this world. The Ronan he knew dreamed beautiful things, and had been afraid of the nightmares instead of embracing them. Like a beacon, he followed the tug down the sidewalk, towards another alleyway. There, he stared into the shadows, jaw tight, lips pursed, raindrops falling off of his eyelashes.
“Hi, Ro.”
Ronan opened his eyes as Matthew came into the alleyway. While he had learned how to dream much faster, it wasn't easy, and it wasn't without drawbacks. It left him feeling drained for a moment. He hid it behind narrowed eyes and a sneer.
"Matty. What do they have you up to today? Turning your back on another brother?...Oh wait." He sounded petulant and childish, but that was what the last few years had done to him. Stripped him of all the growth he had as a complicated teenager. Now he was just an angry adult, determined to not be a victim and willing to do terrible things to stay in control. He stood, slowly, something about his movements more reminiscent of the thing he'd been before than the human he was now. "Sorry Declan still isn't here yet to stab in the back."
When Matthew had first come to Vallo, when he had first come across this Ronan and realized how corrupt he was–realized how wrong Ronan was, realized that for the first time the Brothers Lynch were standing on opposite sides of a chasm, he had experienced the deep emotional wound like a physical thing. One that festered, one that ached, one that never really healed because how could it ever? And he took all of Ronan’s sharp barbs personally, took them right into his too soft heart and it was so much.
But one day, Matthew had just…decided to stop. He loved Ronan, he missed Ronan, but in order to save himself, Matthew had to grow a backbone, put on armor, build a fortress around the parts of him that were tender and in pain. Since they wouldn’t heal, he just wouldn’t let them be poked and prodded.
He jerked his chin at Ronan. “You look like crap. Hard to sleep when you’ve betrayed everything you once believed in?”
Ronan nearly smirked, only it was a cruel shape to his mouth that had never been aimed at Matthew before this life.
"You would know betrayal better than I would." He stalked sideways across the alley, watching his brother with curious eyes. "Where are the dogs? I felt them but they're not here. Have you lost control of them? I warned you they were too wild and powerful to be let loose like you do." Of course, he'd warned Matthew as part of a play to get the sun dogs over to his own side, but even then, he hadn't tried nearly as hard as he could have. Even now, he could feel the line of energy to the dogs. If he wanted to bring them to him, he probably could.
Why didn't he try? Matthew would be unprotected. And even if he was a traitor, Ronan didn't want that. Not that he'd ever admit as much out loud.
"They're going to make you regret having such a loose hand one day. I hope I get to see it," he lied.
“You can’t tell? I think you’re slipping,” Matthew shot back. He kept his back to the entrance of the alley (Matthew only had to learn the mistake of cutting off his exit once) but as Ronan got closer Matthew wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of moving away from him. And he wanted to see Ronan up close, to see if there were any physical changes in Ronan to match his mental and emotional. And maybe to assess whether Ronan looked skinnier–was he eating, was he remembering that he was a human that had a body that needed to be taken care of and not some sort of supernatural entity that he believed himself to be?
Matthew’s hands flexed in the pocket of his hoodie. His entire body was a taut line, tension pulled his spine so straight it hurt. “And go figure you’d immediately jump to control. That’s what you mean when you say betrayal, isn’t it? You mean control.”
If Ronan were a more gracious person, he'd have patted Matthew on the back for that zing. As it was, he snarled and walked closer, like a dog on a chain deciding if it wanted to lunge.
He had never hurt Matthew physically. But emotional and psychological damage was something else. His fury got away from him. His grief got away from him. And he would never understand why Matthew chose strangers over him.
He didn't look in the mirror much anymore - figuratively or literally.
"I mean betrayal. You should've picked me. I'm your family. I'm the reason you exist. But here you are, looking for ways to undo what I've created." Ronan narrowed his eyes. "That's what you're up to, isn't it?"
Matthew paused, a long, heavy thing. “And there it is,” he said, finally, his breath coming out in white puffs because of the cold. “There it is. You think that because you dreamed me, that that automatically means I have to fall in line. That I have to pay you back for my existence with my obedience.” It was a bitter pill to swallow, but everything was bitter these days. He was tired all of the time, emotionally, mentally, and certainly physically. Matthew couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept well, not when he had Ronan in his dreams, or when he felt Ronan dreaming. Each day felt a little harder.
So maybe that was why Ronan’s words rubbed him in just the right way to break through the strong facade Matthew was trying so hard to keep up. “I’m trying to save you!” he exploded, throwing his arms up in the air. “That’s all I’ve ever done, that’s all I think about, is how I can save you! The things you create, they hurt people, Ronan! You’re the one trying to undo everything, not me.”
"I don't want to be saved!" Ronan yelled back. He was close enough now that it would be obvious to Matthew how gaunt he was and how shadowed his eyes were. While there was more magic than he knew what to do with here, Ronan's human body was not fed on magic. "I'm keeping our people safe. No one will dare try to hurt an Outlander or lock us away now. But you, you…idealistic idiots keep making this harder than it needs to be. You think these people will care about you? They care about themselves."
Whether that thought was fair or not didn't matter. It was what Ronan and the other Council had perceived early on. And having just come back from a version of death thanks to someone deciding his kind shouldn't exist, he was not about to let it happen again.
"I don't want your obedience, Matthew. I thought you would trust me."
Why don't you trust me when I say something? was on the tip of Matthew’s tongue, along with things like why are you punishing me and I can't trust you when you hurt me. But all that went out the window as Ronan got closer and Matthew could finally get a good look at him. He wiped at his eyes and covered his nose and mouth with his hands to catch his breath.
“Ronan. Ronan, please,” Matthew said, before crossing the distance between them and grabbing Ronan's shoulders, sharper than they should have ever been. All of Ronan was sharper than he should have been. Matthew didn't care about logic or what was the smart thing to do, he cared about his brother. “This isn’t healthy, this is killing you. When was the last time you ate something? When was the last time you slept, that you really slept without dreaming? Because I can't remember when it was.” The dark circles under Matthew's own eyes, like blue-black half moons, told that tale.
“We can put everything else aside, and we can go get you something to eat, and you can rest. You want me to trust you?” Matthew's eyes, Lynch blue, shone, even in the shadowed alley, all but burning with intensity. “Then you trust me.”
Ronan let Matthew ramble for a bit, watching the emotions on his face and the way Matthew's shadowed eyes watched him. He watched and he waited, and he let the silence fall as Matthew stopped talking.
He never took his gaze off Matthew's. He just jerked out of his grip and started walking backwards.
"No." The word was as brittle and sharp as broken glass. Ronan could've left it at that but he needed to say more. "You started the lack of trust shit, Matty. You don't get to demand mine in order to get yours. Besides…I've got work to do."
With that, his eyes rolled back into his head and lifted his face to the sky, calling to the storm that hovered just outside of the alley. It pushed into the space and drenched them in seconds, flooding the cement at their feet.
Ronan laughed and pulled his hood up over his shaved head. "Better check on your dogs. They've found themselves some trouble."
With an audible huff as if the air had been knocked clean out of him, Matthew’s face twisted into something pained. All of those walls he had worked so hard to put up had folded so easily, and Matthew was just as mad with himself for that as he was with Ronan. He was having a hard time remembering when everything wasn’t coated with that anger and sadness, when the world around him stopped being so vibrant and instead, turned shades of sepia.
He shoved his hands back into the pocket of his hoodie and turned to walk away, sparing his brother one last look over his shoulder.
“Bye, Ro.”