It felt like Harvard was a fucking year ago, with everything that had happened since. But the nightmare Ronan had there was actually only a few weeks ago. And it hadn’t started as a nightmare. He remembered that now, clearly, as he stood in a field in his dream and watched the storm clouds roll in. They were heavy and full of lightning. Probably some goddamn analogy about his barely contained dread. The more full the Barns got, the more he recognized that Declan and Opal and Hennessy weren’t here and Noah was.
What if they couldn’t bring him back with them?
Thunder rumbled.
What if he had to choose?
Lightning flashed and the clouds lit up with the shadow of a large creature, flapping its wings. His first instinct was a flash of terror - old wounds not yet healed. Normally, rational thought would kick in. He wasn’t afraid of his night horrors anymore.
Only the thing in the clouds flew closer and it became clear that its maw was more like an alligator. It cried out, deep and foreboding, and Ronan’s heartbeat picked up. He stumbled back a step in the grass, catching his hands and clothes on thorny bushes that suddenly existed around him. The trees crowded in. The creature dropped out of the clouds with scaled wings and four clawed legs, and blood dripped from its mouthful of teeth.
Ronan tripped. He couldn’t focus. Don’t make it real!
Existing in Ronan's dreams was always a conscious choice. Adam would scry deep and dark into the depths of Ronan's subconscious, and just like in Cabeswater, they could both stand on the same ground, watch the same skies, reach for each other like they did in reality. Accidentally slipping into Ronan's dreams was a new experience entirely, one that could be chalked up to his own exhaustion, his uncertainty to touch the bigger world through his psychic abilities, the general proximity to Ronan who dream fiercely beside him in their shared bed.
However it happened, he couldn't take it back now. One moment he was drifting slowly into subconsciousness, wrapped around Ronan who had managed to also fall asleep, and the next he was here, blinking open to a sky full of black clouds, thunder howling in his ears, and a monster dropping from the sky. The terror that lanced through Adam from one second to another was so harsh and visceral, his own breath stopped short, in both the dream and where he laid gripping Ronan's shirt in the waking world.
His own nightmares were less metaphorical, more a replaying of events that haunted him in the daylight hours. He knew instinctively this wasn't his. This was Ronan's, and then there was Ronan.
Adam was there to catch him when he tripped.
"Keep moving," Adam shouted over the roar of the beast. As long as they stayed away it couldn't touch Ronan, and as long as it didn't touch Ronan it couldn't be real. Adam's urgent grip on Ronan's arm was tugging him back and away through the bramble.
Adam wasn’t a psychopomp like Opal, he didn’t have his bargain with Cabeswater who would listen to what he wanted. Could he actually help? The monster made another inhuman noise, closer than before. Lightning flashed. Adam didn’t have time to overthink this. "Just focus, focus on my voice, anything but that. You can do this, you can do this."
Ronan was used to dreaming of Adam. He wasn’t surprised to see him. He was surprised when Adam’s touch made him realize this was Adam and not some complex figment of his imagination. Adam was complex, but in all the ways that Ronan understood. Even here, in a nightmare, with his heart in his throat and the hungry roar of the creature shoving him towards old despair, Ronan felt like a tuning fork under Adam’s grip. He’d been vibrating to his frequency for so long, the absence of it would have broken him.
“You don’t know that.” He scrambled to his feet but stumbled again after a few feet. A thorny bush left a scratch up his arm and he pressed a hand over it. “I can’t get us home. I can’t get Noah home.” In the way of dreams, Ronan’s worries spilled out of him without his say so. He grimaced and looked up at the sky. The creature swooped, claws catching on the treetops above and sending birds into panicked flight. Forest animals appeared around them as if they’d always been there, crying out and running for their lives. Ronan felt ill.
Hearing Ronan's unfettered fears was disarming in the middle of the dreamscape. They were both usually so careful, so aware of what the wrong thought could morph into. Ronan had gotten better, Adam knew this inherently from months living with him at the Barns where all they did was dream and scry and talk about the vast limitlessness of Lindenmere. But Adam also knew how such a small thing could start a domino effect of Ronan's emotions; Adam's were so tentatively the same.
His hand went to cover Ronan's on the scratch, a reminder that he wasn't going to leave him. Even if he tripped, even if he stumbled, even when he was down at his lowest.
"No, you can't. But we can, you and me and Gansey and Blue and Henry, we are going to find a way to go home and bring Noah with us. I swear, we will," Adam was pleading, his voice loose and far away in the dream. He winced at the sound of the monster hitting the trees, he closed his eyes against the cacophony of the animals fleeing through the brush. He heard it in both his ears, he felt it in his teeth.
When he dared to look up the monster, Adam knew they would never outrun it. It would never go away. The helplessness in Vallo was always going to be buzzing underneath their skin, manifesting in strange vicious ways. But Adam wouldn't let it consume Ronan. His eyes were wide when he turned to Ronan and said, "Just make it safe."
Ronan had gotten better. He knew better than to doubt himself here. He’d just fallen into an old trap of doubt and anxiety and a deep sense of responsibility for doing things right as the Greywaren, not just selfishly existing like this father had. Still, it took Adam saying just make it safe and the crash of the beast landing next to them for him to break free of his anxious thoughts.
He scrambled backwards, pulling Adam along with him. The dream was tearing. Any second now, they’d wake up in the real world and, if he didn’t work fast, this creature was coming with him.
“Just make it safe,” he echoed. He looked at Adam, using the sight of him to calm the riot in his chest. It wouldn’t be like the murder crabs this time. He wouldn’t let Adam be put at risk by him again. “Just make it safe.”
The creature opened its mouth to roar and its terrifying rows and rows of bloody alligator teeth became one set of barely dangerous cow’s teeth. It flapped its giant scaly wings and in a blink they were half the size and covered in feathers. The entire creature grew smaller as they watched, as Ronan focused. But he was out of time. The dream started to shatter apart around them.
He thought as hard as he could: please, be gentle. And then he woke up.
The dream was hitting critical mass, Adam could feel it. Layers of unconsciousness were being peeled away, and while the nightmare deteriorated, so did Adam's hold in the dreamscape. His own awareness was tugging him back toward reality—it was disorienting, watching the monster shrink and change under Ronan focus while also having the phantom sensation of his body somewhere else, pressed against Ronan's side, his head on a pillow, the soft weight of the blanket over them.
Adam kept his low mantra make it safe, make it safe going along with Ronan, all his trust filtering into what he knew Ronan could do, what he was more than capable of—
Everything around them fell apart and Adam was pushed out of the dream, pushed back into his mind. He gasped into the waking world.
Darkness shrouded the room. But the low ambient noise of the Barns at night was exaggerated three fold—Adam, Ronan, and it. The monster was here. And worse, Ronan was disturbingly still under Adam's hands with dream paralysis. That didn't stop the rustling of feathery wings, followed by the tapping of its claws against the hardwood, crawling closer to the bed. Adam did the only stupid thing his terrified brain could think of: he flung himself over Ronan's prone body for protection.
If anyone ever asked him what the worst part about dreaming was, Ronan would say this. Being frozen in place for a good minute or two after bringing something into the world was easily the most torturous part of being the greywaren. He’d watched murder crabs come for Adam, deaf ear to the world, and all he could do was wait. Like now. He mentally hovered over the scene and his mind cried out as Adam covered his unmoving body.
Be safe!
The creature couldn’t hear him, of course. But it did pause anyway, looking over the bed and its occupants for a long, frightening moment. As harmlessly odd as Ronan had tried to make it before it manifested, it was still eerie. And panic drummed through Ronan as it stretched its alligator head slowly towards the end of the bed.
When freedom finally flooded back into his limbs, Ronan only had time to grab Adam by the biceps and gasp his name a dream-rough voice. Then the creature’s large cow’s tongue whipped out of its mouth and licked Adam’s bare foot.
Adam thought his chest was going to burst, his breathing was hard and labored, every joint tense with the expectation of the unknown, but he refused to let go of Ronan. With his eyes closed, he waited excruciating seconds until he heard his name, and Ronan's hands on his arms and then—oh.
He flinched away, all that spun up anxiety causing both his surprise and fear to work against one another. He did not stretch his leg back toward the beast, but simply rolled off of Ronan to sit up and watch it pace at the end of the bed, tipping side-to-side with every shuffle.
His eyes adjusted to the dark and the creature, still weird and strange, became less horrific in the adjusted night. Adam's relief came out of him in one big burst of air, and he dropped his forehead to Ronan's shoulder. "We're safe, you made it safe," Adam said, still breathless from the emotional marathon.
The beast flapped its wings but there wasn't enough room for it to take flight. Adam didn't even know if it could fly now. That didn’t stop it from going for the corner of the blanket with its teeth in an attempt to drag it off the bed. Adam let out a reed-thin laugh, trying for humor to quiet the retreating panic, but it ultimately fell flat. “This is the weirdest one yet.”
“Jesus Christ.” Ronan exhaled, sagging to the bed. His hands were shaking. He kept the creature in the corner of his eye, too unsure of his own success to take Adam’s vote of confidence to heart. At the last second, he’d managed to turn the things claws into a hooves and it clomped cheerfully as it tugged on the blanket.
“Drop it, weirdo,” he growled, pulling on the blanket. The creature - part-cow, part-dragon, part-alligator – jerked its head but ultimately gave up and wandered off to chew on something Ronan had left on the ground. Probably a shoe. Damn it. Ronan rubbed an exhausted hand over his face.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Guess I was carrying around some shit.”
Adam watched the thing teeter off into the bedroom, finding the shoe much more interesting. He could still feel his pulse thrumming behind his eyes, his body unsteady as if it hadn't quite settled from the frantic drop from the dream or the accidental slip in. He could barely comprehend the amalgamation of real and imaginary creatures that was now existing in a space it hadn't moments ago, let alone finding a personal equilibrium.
He reached again for Ronan, scooping up his free hand, kissing his fingertips until Adam felt calmer, more solid; a direct mimicking of the way Ronan had held him after scrying. Ronan managed to always bring him back from the world's edge, but Adam wanted to be the one to settle them back into reality. He wanted to bring Ronan comfort that the here and now was okay.
"You don't have to apologize," Adam murmured against Ronan's hand, while trying to keep the beast in his peripherals. "I'm not going to be pissed at you for holding shit in." It would be hypocritical, but Adam didn't want to remind Ronan of that. He went silent, contemplating the next words out of his mouth.
"I'm worried," Adam said. "I'm worried that you're taking too much on by yourself and it's going to keep manifesting in dangerous ways." The nightmare was still fresh, what the dream creature could have been was still vivid in his mind. "And if you don't want to talk about it, that's your choice. But I'm never not going to be here to listen."
Adam’s touch was instantly soothing. Ronan rolled towards him and pressed his face into Adam’s neck. He trusted Adam to tell him if the creature changed its mood, but he could also sense it there, in the room. He had a feeling he’d know if it decided to come for them. Adam’s words snapped him out of mulling that over, though. He abruptly sat up and pulled his knees up to rest his arms across them.
“You don’t have to be here if you think I’ll lose control, Parrish,” Ronan growled. He knew it was defensive and unfair, but he couldn’t stop the words from forming. He exhaled and dropped his head to his forearms, draped over his knees. “Who am I fucking kidding? I did lose control. I thought I was past this. I thought I had the magic figured out here.”
As Ronan pulled away, Adam gave him room. His own burst of anger from rejection, from being misunderstood, for having his words turned back on him, was hot and feral inside his chest. He sucked in a sharp breath to keep it from spilling out. He wasn't that person anymore, and this was not a fight with each other.
"You know that's bullshit, I'm not going anywhere else," Adam said, scooting back into Ronan's space. He might have been folded up and closed off, but Adam didn't give a shit—he slipped his arms around Ronan's waist, pressed his head on Ronan's shoulder, tucked legs underneath Ronan's bent ones. Adam found those tiny physical cracks to wedge himself between.
"The thing over there," Adam cut in, but not unkindly. The creature lifted its head, but only for a moment before returning to the shoe. "Is evidence that you have control, not the lack of it. What it could have been—" Adam closed his eyes, and exhaled, slow. "There's too much here messing with us constantly, especially the magic. You can't take all the blame yourself, you would never let me."
Ronan sagged, the angry tension bleeding out of him from every point of contact Adam made. A part of him had wanted to start a fight just because it was easier to be an asshole than deal with his issues. Because it was familiar, making a target of himself. He was damn lucky Adam was too stubborn for that shit.
He blew out a long breath and then lifted an arm up over Adam’s head to wrap it around his shoulders. It was almost a loose headlock for a moment, as Ronan pressed a kiss into Adam’s hair, but then he relaxed his grip.
“I hate feeling like you might not be safe here.” He didn’t apologize again, but he did softly stroke a hand over Adam’s shoulder and make sure everywhere they were touching was a deliberate press of his own in return. “I’m scared,” he admitted. “If we do find a way home but we don’t find a way to bring Noah with us, then we’ll have to choose. Stay or go.” He rested his forehead on Adam and mumbled the rest. “How fucked is it that I actually miss Declan?”
"Oh, it's really fucked. But I won't tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me." The beast snorted in the corner in agreement or disagreement, it was hard to tell.
He felt the apologies in Ronan's touch, and Adam leaned each part of himself into it. Sometimes they worked better when it was all action and physical contact, forgoing words entirely. And now, tangled together Adam nodded against Ronan, as if to say I hate that I can't protect you, and I know you're scared, and I'm scared too.
"We don't have to figure it out now," Adam whispered, his hand coming up to cradle the back of Ronan's head. Adam kissed him once, gently, across his brow. The reality of staying circled his mind constantly—everything and almost everyone was here. Adam had to ask himself: did he truly feel trapped or was it freedom from what he thought he wanted?
It wasn't a matter of staying or going to Adam, it was a decision of what mattered most. When they found a way to go home, Adam would need to be sure. He felt sure right now, curled together with Ronan.
"When the time comes, and we have to choose, the answer is going to be obvious. We're going to know everything we can possibly know, planned out every route, thought through every scenario. It won't feel so impossible as it does now. You won’t doubt yourself, you’ll know what’s right."
Ronan smirked at Adam’s promise to keep his secret. It pleased him in a small, dumb way. His feelings about Declan were a complicated tangle, but here, in the middle of the night with nightmare sweat pooling at the base of his spine, the annoying emotion front and center was simply loss. It helped to know Adam understood him and didn’t press the issue. He took one of Adam’s hands in his and threaded their fingers together.
“Listen to you. With all your sh--stuff together,” he teased. Did God give Lent violation breaks for situations like this? He hoped so because he had no idea how many times he’d cussed in the last ten minutes. Lifting their joined hands, he pressed a kiss to Adam’s knuckles and sighed. “I hope you’re right. I mean, you usually are.”
The creature decided it was done with its chew toy and ambled over to the bed to plop its large head next to Ronan’s hip.
“God, you really are the weirdest one.” Ronan patted it on the head and its big goofy tongue slurped out to slobber on him. “Ugh.”
He hadn't called Ronan out for his slip on his religious promises, but he smiled in the dark at his self-correction. Adam mostly had his shit together. He didn't want Ronan to get disappointed if all of this came apart in the daylight hours, but right now secrets and promises and confidence had no inhibitions in this shared room. Adam kissed him quick, just below his ear. "I try to be right. No one likes to be wrong."
It was strange to watch the creature waddle over and think it had been terrifying. Adam made a mental note to stash a weapon by the bed though; not because he doubted Ronan, but because he didn't trust everything else in this world to not recreate the situation. He needed a better way to protect Ronan instead of sacrificing himself—it was a bad habit of his, but not one he ever regretted.
Adam reached across Ronan to smooth his index finger across its snout. "We have to figure out where you're going to keep it," Adam said. But he was already turning over ideas, his mind deciding to work overtime instead settling back down to return to sleep. Another bad habit.
"With the market during the week, and Sydney helping out, it's not something easily explained away if someone runs across it."
“I could build it a pen, out on the outer edge of the property, I guess,” Ronan frowned. “Don’t love the idea of it being alone out there all the time, though.” The creature snuffled at Adam’s fingers, looking for treats already. Ronan tried not to get distracted by Adam reaching over him but he was tired and emotionally fucking compromised. Even in the dark, he could appreciate Adam’s everything as close as it could get, and the way he was gently touching something Ronan brought into this world.
His thoughts skittered towards Opal and then away. The feeling of loss swelled before he could squash it. Lindenmere would protect her better than he could, but it was never meant to be a permanent situation.
“It needs a name.” He scratched his nails lightly down Adam’s back, a distraction for them both. “What do you think of…Sledgehammer? Sledge for short obviously.”
"Sledge for short. You had that one ready," Adam teased back at Ronan. His fingers curled around the underside of the scaly maw. Sledge's mouth parted, showing its row of cow teeth, and it shook out its feathery wings in what Adam could only describe as pleased. It made Adam smile. "It's stupidly perfect."
Adam made a soft noise at Ronan's nails on his back, followed by a thoughtful sleepy hm. "But maybe we can train it to be nocturnal—" Adam offered, knowing it was a half-formed plan, full of holes he'd need to sort out when he was more coherent. And also less distracted—he rolled his shoulders and leaned back into Ronan's touch. "That way when it's alone it's sleeping and away from anyone who is here, and then just let it roam at night."
He yawned. "Should probably tell everyone here though first about the new addition to the barns."
Ronan snickered and didn’t deny that he’d had a name ready for the next dream creature to come along. Instead he just smiled fondly when Adam yawned. “Maybe. We can worry about training it tomorrow. Right now, I’m gonna see if I can get it down the stairs and into the long barn without waking up the whole da...ng house.” He frowned, both at his stupidity for picking cursing for a Lent sacrifice and at the impossibility of getting the beast out of the house without a fuckton of noise.
“You should go back to sleep.” While he doubted the tactic would actually work, he tried for logic anyway, and dropped a kiss to Adam’s shoulder first for good measure. “No point in both of us being awake for this ridiculousness.”
Ronan caught him. Adam was already moving to help Ronan get Sledge outside, but stopped short when he suggested Adam go back to sleep. He frowned, as if his brain couldn't process doing something so innocuous without Ronan. Adam knew distantly it was not about his ability to help Ronan with Sledge in the middle of the night. And it definitely wasn't something to fight about, but there was still that thread of stubbornness that would permeate all things Adam.
"I'll wait until you get back," Adam said, a concession to Ronan's logic, as he sat back up. He pulled Ronan in for a proper kiss—short and sweet, the kind Adam often used to seal a promise between them. And then he pressed his lips to Ronan's forehead, for entirely different reasons. This one said, it's going to be okay. All of it. Because Adam had to believe it too.
He crawled back onto his side of the bed, knowing undoubtedly he would over-analyze the night until Ronan returned. It had been too chaotic, even now with this quiet lull, to allow Adam to settle his mind enough, despite being tired. He trailed his fingers along Ronan's side one more time. "I can't sleep without you. So if you're not back soon, I will come out there and wrestle Sledge to the long barn myself."
Adam said the last part to Sledge, who seemed very disinterested in the threat.
That brief kiss – and maybe even more so the forehead follow-up – made all the staggered puzzle pieces in Ronan’s heart quietly snap back into the place. He had to take a second, just to soak in the feeling before he finally squeezed a hand at Adam’s hip and rolled out of the bed. He snagged a hoodie from where it was draped over the dresser and tugged it over his head.
“Okay, bossy,” Ronan murmured warmly. Patting his leg, he led Sledge towards the door. On the plus side, the creature seemed dumb as rocks and followed with lumbering ease. “Oh. And thanks for creeping into my dreams, Parrish,” he smirked over his shoulder as he opened the door. “We can talk about that later too."