Ronan Lynch (alteridem) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-01-10 11:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, the raven cycle: adam parrish, the raven cycle: richard campbell gansey, the raven cycle: ronan lynch |
Birthdays were strange. Adam was not someone who particularly cared for the fanfare, an uncomfortable reminder of how often he had hid his existence. Gansey's birthday was stranger. The first year after his death, when they all gathered together, Adam had felt this uncanny sense of surprise. An abrupt realization that they almost didn't have this, that celebrating another year of Gansey's life really was monumental. Since then, Adam's take on this day held a different sort of meaning.
And they had decided to trap Gansey in a room and make him solve endless puzzles. That was one way to mark the occasion.
Except now, holding a trash bag, and staring around a mostly empty Monmouth, Adam realized Gansey (and Ronan) were nowhere to be found. He emptied his hands and wandered toward the entrance of the makeshift tomb in their Hamunaptra, shrugging off his suspenders—it had been part of his closet costume, with a button up shirt and khakis, for effect.
He found them both in the center of the room near the base of the statue of Horus, the replica of the Book of the Amun-Ra sitting on top of the pedestal. Both a prop and a gift for Gansey. Being cursed and trying to find the Book of Dead inside a room meant to escape seemed inappropriate for a birthday.
Adam nudged Gansey's shoulder. "You know you escaped the room. Twice, actually. You don't have to stay in here if you don't want to. You can even take that home with you."
It was the easiest thing in the world to conjure up a smile for Adam. He’d already been doing it for Ronan, standing in the room where he knew once they packed up the Book of Amun-Ra, it would be over, and Gansey would be expected to leave. He half suspected Blue’s surprise was just to lure him out.
And he couldn’t blame her for that one bit. He had time, even if he had let extra surprise excitement get the better of him to follow at her heels.
He should’ve wanted it to be over, Gansey’s adrenaline had worn off and his brain was tired, but that wasn’t the case here. He still had the flush of excitement on his cheeks, even as he bumped Adam back and teased. “Are we sure of that? If it’s Ronan-dreamed, it might be too authentic for any one person to hold the power.”
Ronan would never admit it out loud but he’d help design an escape room every year for the next fifty if Gansey’s dumb face looked like that every time, all lit up and content. Some of the pieces in the room looked a little cheesy to Ronan’s eye - he’d painted those few, he could think that - but he was mostly pretty proud they’d pulled it off. Nothing had fallen on anyone or trapped them in the secret room. Opal had only been off on her jump out cue by a few clues and it hardly mattered when she forgot what sound to make from inside her mummy costume and chose to bark in the end.
The Book of Amun-Ra glowed a dreamy gold in front of Gansey and Ronan was annoyed to realize he was also pretty damn content. Couldn’t wipe the smirk from his face at all. Damn nerds were contagious.
“Gansey, “ he said lazily, leaning against a wall. “If I were going to dream you a working book, it would’ve been the Book of the Dead.” The one that brought people back to life. The Book of Amun-Ra was the more sinister of the pair, but it looked more impressive under the spotlight when the last door opened. “That one might have a few tricks up its sleeve though,” he added.
This was good. Adam's initial worry had faded the moment he had seen Gansey's face light up, and the fact that it still looked just as vibrant hours later, settled inside his chest. He could feel it, the same way he always did when a strong emotion seemed to take over Gansey's person. A bonus of Cabeswater; Adam never regretted the connection for a second.
Adam made a hum of agreement about the working book, but his attention snapped up to Ronan from Gansey when he said there were a few more tricks up its sleeve. They had promised to keep clues from one another to make the whole experience interactive—it was no fun knowing all the answers, even if Adam was a frustrating completionist—but Adam supposed the dreamt gift had to have a secret too.
"If Gansey starts controlling re-animated mummies with it, I'm leaving," Adam said, his voice light with soft amusement, as he bent down to pick up a piece of paper that they had been using to scratch out the word puzzles. "Although, I don't think Gansey needs a book for that. You can do that all on your own."
Gansey would have normally played straight-man to this joke, reassuring Adam and shaking his head at Ronan, but today he barked out a laugh that was loud enough to even surprise him. Gansey snagged the book, and wrapped an arm around it protectively as he made his way to one of the prop coffins. With his free hand, he reached out to push on it a little to make sure it wasn’t authentic looking cardboard. The solid knock that rebounded back made him smile again and he hopped up to sit there, gold book still held as if it was a precious newborn.
“Lucky for all of you, I’m nice enough to not control the dead all on my own.” Mostly because it gave him the creeps. It was weird, unless desperate times called for desperate measures.
He let the book rest against the tops of his thighs, and stroked a hand over it, looking down at it and away from the two that had primarily put all of this together. “Thank you. I daresay this birthday even beats the one where my parents put up a giant waterslide and hired an actor to portray Richard the Lionheart for the entire day.”
Ronan met Adam’s glance with a smirking stare. The book wouldn’t control the dead or steal life, but that went without saying. Gansey would have to fiddle with it to discover its stupid little secrets. Because if he’d learned anything about his best friend over the years, it was that no mystery was too small and the best gift he could ever give Gansey was the opportunity to discover something surprising. Well that and maybe gross sentimentality.
“You’re welcome, nerd.” Ronan smiled and reached with a long leg to nudge Gansey’s knee with a boot. “You’re finally an adult. We had to mark the occasion,” he added with a snooty accent. “And it was fun.” After a beat, he narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”
All the stress of pulling off a successful party had left Adam exhausted. He held a new respect for event planning, especially for the people who were closest to them. But with the way Gansey seemed to still move around the room with genuine appreciation—and cling to the book that had, at the time, seemed maybe too much—going to sleep seemed impossible. He also wanted to stay in this room forever.
He turned a wicked conspiratorial grin at Ronan then to Gansey. "You heard him. He had fun doing nerd shit. That means we'll get Richard the Lionheart to make an appearance at Ronan's twenty-first," Adam said, coming to lean beside Gansey on the coffin-now-sarcophagus. His smile dimmed only momentarily, Ronan's comment about Gansey being finally an adult, catching up to him.
"Would you have come back to Henrietta for your birthday if we were home?" Adam asked suddenly. Between whatever had been going on with Ronan and Bryde, the demands of academia, and the cross-country roadtrip, Adam couldn't seem to find a spot where they all would have converged. Another strange hindsight benefit to Vallo. "It probably wouldn't have been an escape room if you did."
Gansey snorted at “finally” being an adult, and his mouth opened to protest but he knew it was pointless. He was in a good enough mood to let it fall, and the fun comment made it an even better one to snark right back. “What are we going to do when you eventually become one yourself, then? I suppose we have a long time to prepare.”
He bumped Ronan right back before looking over at Adam and the question that lingered in the air. Eventually, he gave a little half nod-shrug. It had been a year since they’d even been home, and that felt like a lifetime away. “The plan was that we’d come home for the holidays, so at the very least we would have been home through New Year’s? It--” he looked a little lost, staring over at Adam. “Things are weird and who knows what’s going on back home, but it wouldn’t have had to be an escape room for it to be a good birthday, if we’re all together.”
He didn’t want them to get too serious, too worried, and so Gansey let his grin come right back. “But this was pretty great. I have suggestions for the hieroglyphics next time.” He still had the compilation of dicks in his back pocket.
Ronan joyfully gave Adam the bird for the mocking. It didn’t stop him from making his way over to hop up onto the sarcophagus without caution, though. It creaked under his weight, but held. Ronan wasn’t excited for this conversation. He’d thought about it too much over Christmas - how their lives might be if they were still at home. How Declan and Hennessy and Jordan were.
How much he just wanted everything he loved to be here.
“We’ll take your suggestions under advisement,” Ronan said, unfolding to lay out on top of the sarcophagus, one hand behind his head and one knee propped. “I don’t know how shit would’ve been at home, even if we tried to do this. Some of this stuff is from Outlanders.” He snorted. “And Declan would’ve shit himself if he saw that book.”
Adam caught that briefly lost look in Gansey's face, and a pang of guilt ran through him at dimming the happiness of his birthday. Adam, constantly pragmatic and always overthinking, still found ways to bring down the mood. Maybe that could be his gift to Gansey: just be in the moment and stop thinking about what if. There was no what if about this—the three of them, together, like it was supposed to be.
"It wouldn't look as good," Adam said, as an unhealthy perfectionist, pleased by the authenticity of some of the objects in the room. He started to do a slow perusal, making sure nothing was damaged for when they inevitably had to return them. Was it really only hours before that he was stressing about if Gansey would notice anything out of place as they heaved the pedestal behind the secret door?
He shrugged, not worried about Declan. "There are so many prop shops, I would have lied for you." So Ronan wouldn't have had to. "I'd just tell him we had it commissioned. As long as it doesn't do anything obviously dream-like..." Adam raised a brow at Ronan, as if to ask now's a good time?, to share what was actually inside. Adam signaled toward Gansey with his chin. "You should probably check. With the key."
The key. Gansey dug into the pocket of his cargo pants - which Blue had told him he could wear just for the day. Now he understood why, at the time, he suspected maybe she was just humoring him or letting him have a favor for his birthday. But it had worked out well, being able to shove things like round keys into his pockets, and store his scratch paper for all of the puzzles.
“It probably wouldn’t, If we had the ability to, I’d almost say you two could go into the Escape Room business with this sort of thing.” He glanced up as he fished out the chunky piece of metal. “But, I’ll admit I like being special.” With that, he turned it over and popped the key open, each point cascading out like he could be used as a weapon. At the same time as he put it into the corresponding spot on the front of the book, Gansey leveled a very serious look on Ronan. “I trust you.” He turned it, slowly, the clicking noise echoing throughout the chamber. “If giant spiders pop out as revenge for last week, we’re having words.” “It wouldn’t look as good,” Ronan teased Adam in a judgmental voice followed quickly by a sharp grin. He swung his legs around to sit up as Gansey dug out the key. All of this was incredibly dorky, of course, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to see his handiwork in action. With Gansey between them, they could both get a good view of his nerdy face as the book opened, glowing brighter for a moment before it dimmed.
Inside were many carved hieroglyphics, reminiscent of the movie’s book, and the final page was suspiciously blank. Ronan leaned over to grab a page off a nearby desk with ancient Egyptian on it.
“You’re gonna need this.” He held it just over the book, so as not to ruin the discovery part for Gansey. “Don’t worry, I’m saving my revenge for your twenty-first birthday.”
Gansey's earnest eagerness was infectious. Adam wanted him to hurry up, unlock the book, uncover the secrets inside. Not just the tiny details that Ronan had dreamed into existence but the personal modifications that made it for Gansey. Adam was glad he wanted to continue to feel special, customized escape rooms for birthdays were only for the people in his immediate vicinity.
Adam leaned in, watching the book glow—a nice touch, and one he wasn't aware of—then fade. He had been so excited, so enraptured by the book's dream-magic, that he didn't even think to grab the paper to offer up. The glance he gave to Ronan was both a thank you and you clever asshole. Adam was always wildly proud and in awe of what Ronan could accomplish, housing a creativity inside himself that Adam could only wish for.
"Let's keep the revenge talk for when we're not surrounded by very real Egyptian artifacts that may or may not be cursed," Adam said, but not unkindly. He had double-triple-quadruple checked that the decorations for the escape room weren't going to turn on them. He was back to watching Gansey, with an encouraging smile. "You're going to have to bring this to the library, the next time we go."
Gansey took the page without hesitation, the eagerness still part of it all. Soon enough, he’d crash hard, but probably in a pile with all of his friends and back at the comfort of their house.
Not that he’d object to sleeping overnight in a renovated Monmouth. But no one else would be comfortable, and Gansey wasn’t selfish enough to suggest it or want to stay by himself.
He ran a finger down one of the first pages, over a small pattern of hieroglyphs, and his hand jumped in surprise as a quiet voice murmured the word to him. Life. Gansey sucked in a breath, stared down at it, and moved his finger to the next pattern, and once again heard Underworld. A grin blossomed on his face as Gansey started putting the pieces together, and flipped the large golden pages.
Gansey looked up at them both with the most thankful and soft expression. “I’m going to need a bigger bag to carry this with me everywhere, not just the library, you know.” He held up the piece of paper Ronan had handed him. “Where does this come in? Does the book translate anything?”
Ronan snorted. “If something actually dangerous snuck past Adam Parrish and his critical eye, I’ll eat one of my fucking boots.” He reached behind Gansey to ruffle Adam’s hair, grazing a thumb over his ear with stealth tenderness.
“As for you,” he squinted at Gansey, “what makes you think I’m going to just hand you all the answers? You’re smart. You’ll figure it out before you’re old, probably.” His shoulder pressed firmly into Gansey’s as he dropped his arm and he scowled around the room, but there was no heat in it. Just the shadow of a feeling that was too serious for this moment.
He spat it out anyway. “Don’t get weird about it, but I’m really fucking glad you’re alive, Dick.”
"You could just eat your boot, see if you could do it at all," Adam said softly, reaching up to half-heartedly fixing his ruffled hair but giving up because it didn't matter. There was no one to impress here, no one who needed Adam to be put together. He was literally wearing a costume, albeit one that could pass as normal, and hadn't once thought about feeling embarrassed about it. Because he would do anything for Gansey.
With a challenging smile to Ronan, Adam added, "If you can't figure it out by next week, I'll give you hints." It was a half-promise; Adam didn't think Gansey would take that long to discover what the book could do. Adam would spend most of the time attempting to find something inside the house that could carry the book.
When he glanced at Ronan again, he saw conflict brewing behind his eyes—that war of whether or not to say something. Adam had felt the same way, hadn't wanted to bring down the mood more than he already had just moments ago, but Adam didn't need to be psychic to share thoughts with Ronan.
"So am I," he added. "We say it a lot, because I don't want you to doubt it for a second, but things wouldn't be the same without you." What Adam really meant was I wouldn’t be the same without you.
Gansey frowned in return, not because of any malicious thoughts or being upset by their statement, but because Gansey was suddenly at a loss for words. Ronan didn’t want him to get weird about it but that was impossible at this stage, and the lump in his throat wouldn’t go away.
Even as he cleared it, and looked down at the golden book balanced on his thighs, simultaneously holding it firmly so it wouldn’t go anywhere and touching it softly like it was a precious, tangible thing keeping him grounded.
“I-” He swallowed the lump once, twice. “Wouldn’t be here without you guys. I know that. I know you don’t want me to say thank you again so-- I’m lucky to have you both. Very lucky.” Quickly, Gansey wiped away a tear forming at the very corner of his eye and then looked up at Ronan sharply. “And it’s not my fault this got weird. You both started it.”
Ronan had every intention of harassing his boyfriend for being soft and giving away hints but Gansey got all fucking choked up and Ronan had no defenses against that. He rolled eyes anyway - like that would stop the aching affection in his chest from growing.
“Ugh, fine. I’ll take the blame on this one . But!” He leapt off the sarcophagus and pointed a finger close to Gansey’s face, eventually thwapping the end of it. “I’m also ending it. If we give you back to Sargent soggy, we’ll never hear the end of it.” The words held conviction but Ronan was predictably unpredictable and he reached out to pull them both to their feet by their shoulders. “Now let’s fucking hug already so we can go see if there’s any cake left.”
There was no time to be sad, no time to think about how life would be without Gansey here as Ronan pulled all of them to their feet. That was the way to get through Adam's over-analytical, uber-critical, sometimes dangerously cynical mind—surprise him.
His body moved on autopilot, arms coming up to wrap around Gansey and Ronan without hesitation. Something like this would have made him balk two years ago, skitter away like a nervous animal, but physical contact and, more importantly, affection was a language Adam had become slowly, awkwardly in tune with. He could only do so much with words, and this—encircling himself around the two people that had inevitably changed him for the better on Gansey's birthday—was an easy way to communicate how he felt.
Adam didn't need to say to it, for once.
He did glance away at the mention of cake. "I may have set some aside in case we got hungry during clean up," Adam said, nonchalantly. He had clearly thought ahead, call it a psychic-gut feeling. "I directed everyone to the downstairs bathrooms, so no one figured out the fridge was by the toilet up here." He gave Gansey a look as if to say it's still weird.
Into Adam’s shoulder, where Gansey had pressed his face tightly as if to prevent more tears from dampening either of them, he gave a laugh. Blue would have protested if he came back weepy on his birthday.
He felt warm and safe, wrapped up in their hug, and squeezed back with no hesitation. When they pulled away, he still had that dumb smile on his face, but clapped a hand on Ronan’s shoulder before having to break away just to catch the Book from falling.
As he awkwardly pulled it back up, he gave Adam an almost withering-look. “Let’s go get cake, so I can tell Adam that at the time, it made the most amount of sense for the least amount of cost when it came to renovating Monmouth as dumbass fifteen year olds. I might even still have the early written budget somewhere behind a sarcophagus in here...”