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parrishh · 3 years

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i'm like, 90% sure all of the anons in my inbox right now are actually the same person so, if that's you, i'm just going to answer all of your mister impossible questions in this post since there are a lot of them and this is going to be really very extremely long

"Wait what why is Jordan awake?"/"Is the sweetmetal of declans picture helping jordan stay awake?"

i don't know why she's awake but i don't think it's the painting, because at the end of the book she's outside declan's apartment, not her own. i guess it's possible that she succeeded in making the painting a sweetmetal powerful enough to sustain her even there, but i feel like there's probably a different explanation. i've seen theories that she's inadvertently made herself into a sweetmetal by finally seeing herself as her own person rather than just a copy of hennessy, which is interesting

"And the things about the ley line Idgi? Hennessy wants to stop the power but for what"

i think hennessy thinks shutting down the ley line is the best (or even only) way to get rid of the lace. she hates herself for the lace to the extent that she doesn't even want to live anymore, so of course that's her primary motivation. she feels hopeless so long as the lace has power. she's desperate

"Why did he think adam was in on declans plan? I think the "oh" was more like oh you want to come with bryde of course...."

the "oh" is in response to ronan saying "i'm calling now. i need to see you", before there's even any mention of bryde. adam says "you're here? oh", not "you're here? why are you here?" the fact that he didn't ask why ronan was in town, the fact that he said an "oh" of realization instead, implied that he already knew why ronan was in town. and he could have only known by speaking to declan. i think it was a reasonable conclusion on ronan's part

"Ronan are you being serious????? Why should Adam/Declan drop everything and come fight with you - they didnt even know where you are, they don't know the plan. Then you accuse them of that Moderators plan without questioning them. And I mean, yes, Ronan is easily manipulated and he thinks everyone is against them and Bryde is the only one who cares but come on!!!!!!! Seriously, doesn't he get that he might be in the wrong????"

i mean, i think you hit the nail on the head when you said "he thinks everyone is against them." for a long time, he's been struggling with feeling alone, like he's a burden, like the people he loves don't really understand him. he's never had a healthy relationship with another dreamer, so it makes sense that he feels so isolated from literally everyone he cares about. and now he just found out two of the most important people in his life went behind his back to conspire against him (even if he doesn't have confirmation about adam, declan does admit to it over the phone) which is just...salt on a wound he's had since he was a kid. i'm not saying he's in the right, but i do understand why his immediate reaction was what it was. when you've been hurt like that, it takes some time before you can like, calm down and reconsider your own role in the situation

"Ronan basically dreamt Bryde in his worst dream right? Why does he still trust him"

i mean, i don't know how much we can believe what bryde says, but when he reveals himself as being ronan's dream he basically says that everything that he (bryde) wants, ronan already subconsciously wanted before he even dreamt him. that bryde wants it because ronan wanted it. to admit that bryde is in the wrong, ronan would have to admit he, himself, is in the wrong, too, and that's not easy. especially because a lot of his motivation is saving matthew and not wanting to live with the weight of matthew's life on his conscious anymore. especially because he's felt alone for so long, and now he just found out the first dreamer to truly make him feel less alone is his own creation. he's hurting. a lot. he will admit to being wrong in the third book, i think, but like i mentioned above, that kind of growth takes some time

"I think Ronan actually doubts Brydes plan too bc he thinks stuff like people built the dam, there are living things here, it cost a fortune..... and i personally never see a purpose in what they're doing bc bryde never tells them and ronan obviously doesn't know or he thinks he doesnt. I think he doesnt and he just trudts bryde blindly for now and his insecurities aka bryde take over and rule over ronan. Thoughts?"

i mean, i think ronan sees the purpose. here are his thoughts, directly quoted from chapter 17 when bryde is talking about restoring the ley lines:

"A world where Matthew could just live. A world where Ronan could just dream. A world where every dream was clear and crisp and easy to navigate, so there were never accidents or nightmares. He wanted it."

he wants, as i mentioned above, for matthew's life to not be reliant on his own (which i understand. that's a really heavy knowledge to live with.) he also just wants to be able to exist wherever he wants and with whomever he wants (thinking, for example, about how he wasn't able to get an apartment in boston in cdth), without constantly worrying that the nightwash is going to kill him. poor guy just wants a normal life

"Also did we ever actually see bryde get something out of a dream? Most work did Ronan"

this is interesting. now that you mention it, i don't think we do. supposedly he dreams the orbs, but i can't recall ever seeing that happen? i could be wrong, though

"And why is the nightwash mostly ronans problem? I mean hennessy and rhionna (?) had it very little and who knows if the other dreamers have it"

i think ronan is a much, much more powerful dreamer than any of the others. there's something...More about him. something special about being the greywaren. i don't know what it is, specifically, but i anticipate that's something we'll find out in the final book, and i expect it'll explain why the nightwash affects him more than it does the others

"Who the hell dreamt the mods"

i don't know! i think the most popular theory right now is that it was nathan farooq-lane. i'm not sure how that works, though, since they killed nathan and bryde took the sweetmetal off of lock pretty early in the book (unless nathan isn't actually dead, somehow) (or bryde is nathan, which is another popular theory). another theory is that it was ronan. like, he was feeling so alone and misunderstood that he accidentally dreamt his own persecutors? or it's possible that they were all just dreamt by random dreamers and that's why they felt strongly enough about the "cause" to become moderators, but that's kind of boring

"And why are R B and H so dangerous? Bc of what they're doing?"

yeah, and, i mean, according to liliana's visions, they have the power to end the world

"Can I point out that Idk what everyone is talking about, I dont get pynch possible breakup vibes at all from this book"/"Am I trippin or did I read another book? Because some fellas say there's no pynch"

i think when people say there's no pynch, they just mean that there's very minimal pynch interaction, specifically. because, yeah, even though they're both constantly thinking about each other, it is true that we only get one moment of them actually interacting (the phone call), and it's obviously not a positive interaction

i don't think anyone actually thinks they'll break up. at least, i haven't seen anyone say that and i've been feverishly reading everything under the mister impossible tag, so

"What struck me as really odd was that Adam bought this stupid 14$ waffle which he would have never done a few months back and I dont think he would do it now? 14$ is a lot of money esp for a waffle so why spend it on something as useless as this? And why do the others need Adams money? Are they all on scholarships? Was it just bc he had cash and the others didnt? And why is he treating them like his followers and they treat him as their guardian or whatever like he clearly needs to be honest with them"

okay, first off, i will say, as someone who grew up poor and, like adam, absolutely busted my ass in high school to get a good scholarship so i could go to college, the relief of actually getting that scholarship is...powerful. my financial anxiety definitely didn't disappear once that happened, but there was, at least in my experience, this feeling of "i made it, it's going to be okay now" that made it a little easier to spend money. i don't think it's that unrealistic that he, now having the security of a harvard education, would spend fourteen dollars on something he doesn't need every once in a while. it would be completely out of character for henrietta adam, yes, but it's a bit different now. plus, it wouldn't suit his faux Harvard Adam persona to refuse the waffle because of how much it costs

i think his friends are all a lot more well-off than he is. it was just that they didn't have any cash on them and the waffle truck didn't take card (also realistic, i never have cash on me so i always have to ask someone to spot me when a place turns out to be cash-only)

i think (a) they all look up to him because he has this really calm, cool and collected persona. more importantly, we can assume that they were all struggling with something when he met each of them, since they were all crying. now in swoops this guy who saw them upset and came to comfort and befriend them. of course they see him as something like a hero. and (b) i think he likes that. in high school, he was the one being rescued, not the one rescuing. i think he enjoys being the kind of person he used to wish he could be (ie. gansey. he's being gansey)

"I thought it a bit funny in a weird way that Declan talked about marrying Jordan…I can't imagine he was being too serious about it?"

no, i mean, i don't think he was literally proposing, not yet. he's just really happy for the first time in a long time (maybe ever) and, after a lifetime of pain and trauma and more responsibility than he ever signed up for, i don't blame him for wanting that feeling to last forever, even if he's not really thinking clearly

"Also I think it's amazing they make each other so happy but the ending makes me a bit sad or surprised bc shouldn't Matthew be his nr1 priority now?"

we only have jordan's perspective at the end, so when she thinks that it was clear declan had come out of his apartment looking for her, i don't think that necessarily means he wasn't also looking for matthew. i don't think it's fair to say that, in that moment, he should prioritize either matthew or jordan. he loves two dreams, so he can and should be concerned for both of them equally. i don't think one love is inherently more important than the other just because it's lasted longer or because it's family

#WHEW THIS TOOK FOREVER #thanks for the questions! sorry i don't know what i'm talking about half the time!#mister impossible #mister impossible spoilers #mi spoilers #w's mi asks #answered #anon

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happyandticklish · 3 years

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Never So Sweet A Dream As Laughter

Summary: Ronan keeps dreaming of feathers and he can only hide the reason for so long before Adam discovers why.

Ronan had been dreaming of feathers lately.

At first it was only one, barely noticed except that it was pure white, a color so opposite Chainsaw that it couldn’t possibly have come from her. Days went by, however, and the amount grew so that sometimes he woke up surrounded in a blanket of them, brushing them off irritably.

He always cleaned them up before anyone could notice.

As far as he could tell there was nothing special about these feathers, nothing significant about them that made them stand out as a dream thing. They were simply feathers, all different kinds after that first one, some stiff and velvety and other soft with frayed edges. Some had dots on them, freckled with color, and some were bright and exotic.

The only special quality they held was that Ronan couldn’t look at them without blushing.

He knew why they were there and that was the reason why he could never let anyone see them. He had been dreaming also, lately, of Adam. This wasn’t unusual in and of itself, only the manner in which he did. Adam, lying on his back, bare-chested, curls crushed against grass or a mattress or whatever else their setting was that dream. His head was thrown back in laughter, sweet, melodious laughter, caused by the simple touch of a feather drawn softly across his skin by none other than Ronan himself.

Fuck.

It was getting more and more difficult to be around Adam now, as the only thing he could think about when he saw him was the sight of his naked body writhing and laughing under Ronan’s soft touch. Adam joked and teased and kissed him like normal, unaware of this strange secret desire that Ronan harbored. Sometimes he spent the night. It was harder to explain the feathers then.

“Dreaming about pillows,” he explained when Adam woke up surrounded by feathers as well, one eyebrow raised at the mess. “Big ones. Big enough to suffocate you with. Haven’t quite got it down yet but I’m working on it.”

“Ha,” Adam said, a single consonant by itself that said Ronan was full of shit but he wasn’t going to pursue the issue if Ronan didn’t want to talk about it. So they didn’t. They cleaned up the feathers and stuffed them in the trash, and Adam joked that they really could make a pillow if they wanted. Ronan kissed him because he had learned recently that kissing was a very effective way to shut Adam up.

The dreams, however, their desire unfulfilled, began to grow more ambitious in their designs. One day he woke up with handcuffs. Handcuffs and feathers. He hadn’t known a way to explain it so he only shrugged when Adam asked him, throwing the handcuffs in the trash as well. Adam didn’t ask him again, but now his eyes remained on him, a piercing gaze that Ronan found himself unable to hold in return. They cleaned up the mess again and went about their day, refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation.

Eventually things grew to be too much and when Adam woke surrounded by feathers for the fifth time that week he turned to Ronan and demanded, “Talk to me.”

Ronan, groggily, sat up and shoved off a pile of feathers. “Fuck off.”

Adam circled his wrist with his fingers, not quite grabbing, a gentle insistent tug so that Ronan finally looked at him. “Hey,” he whispered, not pitying or demanding, just a quiet noise for Ronan to focus on. “Ronan.”

Ronan held his gaze a second longer before diverting it to a wall across from them, able to either look at him or talk but not both, not at the same time. “I’ve been dreaming about tickling you.”

Adam was silent. He was half-tempted to look back, and the desire grew to a needy itch that he forced himself not to scratch. Finally Adam said, “Oh.”

Neither of them moved or spoke. Ronan could feel energy, red-hot like molten iron running through his veins, and he wanted to bolt, to run, to blaze through a whole fucking marathon and never come back. He didn’t.

“I’m not going to,” Ronan assured him, a bit too quickly. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

He finally looked at him because if he didn’t he was going to explode. Adam was holding a feather between his fingers, staring at it and twirling it ruminatively. He grabbed Ronan’s hand, placing the feather there and closing his fingers around it. “Okay.”

It was like someone had knocked the feet out from under him. He snapped his gaze to Adam, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“I’m not forcing you to.”

“I know.”

“So if you don’t want to—”

“Ronan.”

He was blushing. Adam was blushing and it spread across his face like wildfire, tinging the ends of his ears. The sight made Ronan’s limbs tremble. “I want to. I mean, I want to try.”

Ronan looked down at the feather held in his hands, spinning it gently as Adam had done. “Okay.”

“Okay.” For a moment that was that and they sat in silence, both waiting for the other to make the first move. Then Adam spoke, hesitantly. “Should I…?” He indicated his t-shirt and with a stiff, jerky nod from Ronan he pulled it off, throwing it on the floor away from them. Ronan took a moment to appreciate his body, the stark lines and muscles that made him up, every part of him carved in perfect detail, like that of a statue. But he wasn’t a statue. He was soft and malleable, with bruises and moles and freckles that covered his skin like art. When Adam pulled his arms above his head, the skin stretched and arched with him.

“D-Do we start now or—mm!”

Adam’s sentence was cut off as Ronan drew a feather down the length of his arm, wanting to trace the contours. The feather was stiff and black, like those he often found lying around the house when Chainsaw was molting. He continued going up and down his arm for a while, content with the goosebumps prickling up and down Adam’s body like an invasion.

“Does it tickle?” he asked curiously, as Adam’s lips were pressed together in a tight line, having not spoken since the initial beginning. Now, though, he shakily opened them to reply.

“Not exactly,” he answered honestly, considering the question. “It’s more like… a soft itch, like when a bug crawls on your arm.” He paused. “It’s kind of pleasant, actually, in an unbearable kind of way. It’s hard to stay still, though.”

“Hmm.” Ronan moved the feather down quickly, now circling the outer edge of his armpit. Adam stiffened immediately, his mouth clamping shut as he focused on anything but the increasingly devastating feeling of that feather getting closer and closer to such a sensitive area. The edges of his lips were pulled into a reluctant smile that only grew wider when Ronan finally reached his destination.

“Does this tickle?” Ronan repeated, more sure of the answer this time. Adam gave a stiff, jerky nod, arms trembling. He looked like he wanted to say something, or laugh, or both, but he refused to open his mouth. Ronan found himself needing to hear what Adam’s laugh sounded like, genuine and helpless and carefree, a need that burrowed inside him and prompted him to pick up a second feather, quickly targeting his other side. Both armpits now being relentlessly assaulted by the feathers’ soft touch, Adam whimpered softly before a tiny giggle slipped out, followed by a second one and then a third one. Soon Adam was overcome by melodic giggles that seemed to almost trip out of him with each second that went by.

It was beautiful. It was everything Ronan had dreamed it would be, only better because this time it wasn’t his imagination conjuring up flickering images. This time it was Adam, real and alive with laughter that stumbled and fell in heart-stopping bursts.

Ronan never wanted it to end.

There was only so long that Adam could keep his arms up, however, with Ronan relentlessly tormenting the singular area. With a soft whine Adam drew his arms back down, clutching them across his chest protectively.

Ronan paused, worried he had overstepped a boundary. “Do you want me to stop?”

Adam blushed, shaking his head. “No, it just… it really tickles, okay? I can’t hold still for it. Maybe try somewhere else?”

Ronan nodded and Adam carefully placed his hands back above his head. For a while he merely swirled the feather along his shivering form, circling the soft, vulnerable skin of his stomach and dipping down across the V of his hips. Adam managed to contain his laughter at this, but he expressed its effect in the way his stomach jumped and contracted under the feather’s touch and the shuddering sound of his breath as he inhaled.

As he did so, Ronan considered his splayed out form for a moment, trying to think of a spot the feather would have the greatest effect on, aside from the obvious. He knew for a fact that harder tickles worked on Adam; the two had been friends for years beforehand and there were sparse moments when Gansey would dig his knuckles into his ribs affectionately or Ronan would goose his sides in passing.

It was not harsh, intensive tickling that he desired right then, however. At that moment, he wanted to see strong, prideful Adam fall to such a simple thing as the touch of a feather.

Glancing up at Adam to make sure this was okay, Ronan firmly gripped each of his thighs and pulled them apart. Having worn only a thin t-shirt, lying discarded on the floor, and boxers to bed, the entirety of his speckled, tan thighs was on display for the other boy to admire. Ronan traced a hand wonderingly over them, momentarily distracted from his mission. It was only when he saw Adam squirm beneath his touch that he was reminded once more. He picked up the feather and then, after considering for a moment, grabbed quite a few others as well. He traced the long plumage up his thighs, a thousand fluttery kisses that surprised a squeak from Adam.

“W-Wait!” he stuttered, grinning helplessly. “T-Thahahat’s nohot fahair!”

“You agreed to this,” Ronan reminded him, delighting in his reactions though his face remained stoic. “Remember?”

“B-Buhuhut—” Adam protested, but ultimately he could find no excuse for something he had asked for, and fell back on the bed in a pile of giggles. It was unfair, he held fast to that. It was unfair because there was no possible way Adam could have known he was that ticklish on his thighs or that a feather would tickle him as much as it did. He had hardly ever been touched there, and when he had it was usually by Ronan and usually in far more erotic scenes than their current one.

He would like to say that had he known how sensitive he was, he would have told Ronan no. However, as sparks of feeling scurried through his nervous system to his brain, filling him with a sensation not too far off from floating, he thought that maybe he wouldn’t have. Adam closed his eyes and surrendered himself to the feeling and to the idea that this was far from the last time that Ronan would take a feather, or other things, to his skin in that torturous way.

Adam couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

#the raven cycle #tickle fic #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #tickling #trc #fanfic #fanfiction

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the-ace-with-spades · 3 years

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(5/6) the best is yet to be

five times someone realized Ronan and Adam were basically married and one time they actually were

Part 1 │Part 2 │Part 3 │Part 4 │Part 6

Read on ao3

Declan wasn't surprised when Ronan told him he was gay, in fact, he didn't react at all, just shrugged and asked if Ronan would eat dinner with him and Matthew.

Declan wasn't surprised easily.

There was no big deal. Declan wasn't one of those Catholics and Ronan wasn't on the way to become a saint, if not for the obvious faith in God, Declan would say he was closer to becoming a satanist, really. If anything, this was less explicit and less worrying than picking him from the police station again or finding out he was dropping out to become a farmer. And it wasn't like Ronan was hiding it — Declan confirmed the suspicions the moment he moved in with Gansey but he suspected long before that.

He supposed this was what happened when your little brother leaves gay porn magazines just out in the open on his bed and you're the one hiding them from your homophobic father. Not that he would tell Ronan that, the experience would be equally traumatising and embarrassing to both of them and Declan didn't like to share the burden.

Adam Parrish was a fucking surprise.

Declan knew of Adam Parrish because of school, first. He was the quiet scholarship kid that didn't attract much attention except for his obvious poorness. Well, he was quiet until he was destroying Declan in the debate club. He still didn't talk much about himself, not like every Aglionby guy who thought he was the best thing since sliced bread, but Declan could understand that. He could understand that because he knew that sometimes you hide so many things that you no longer know who you are.

But that didn't make him less suspicious. Parrish joined the merry Gansey gang of traumatised misfits suddenly and without trying — so Declan did a background check on him.

His suspicion became deeper. He didn't like Ronan to think this was a friendship and not a transaction — Parrish had to have ulterior motives. He seemed to be a person that would definitely have less to give and more to take.

But then he didn't take anything.

The night Declan went to the police station with the knowledge that Ronan bit Robert Parrish, he thought it was the end, that this was the final charge that money won't be able to drop and that Ronan will have to be bailed out and smuggled out to Canada to not go to jail.

And then Declan came in and the police officer told him that Robert Parrish is being charged and they needed Ronan to testify to make the charge stick and he couldn't testify without a legal guardian present.

No one said anything about Ronan getting arrested because Adam Parrish admitted to his deepest secret.

And Declan was sure this was the end of niceties from Parrish, that he was going to use it as an excuse to move into that warehouse Ronan called home and sponge off on Gansey's kindness and Ronan's guilt.

And then he fucking didn't. So Declan gave him the pass.

And then, months later, Ronan told them he was gay.

The next Sunday, Parrish came to the Mass with him, wearing a secondhand suit and Ronan's tie.

"This is my fucking boyfriend," Ronan told him and Matthew on the steps to St. Agnes. "Deal with it."

Declan rolled his eyes. Adam rolled his eyes fondly. Declan frowned. Adam raised an eyebrow.

Matty asked if Adam was Catholic. Declan raised an eyebrow — he knew he wasn't.

"No," Adam answered. "I'm the emotional support."

True to his word, Parrish didn't pray, didn't kneel and didn't move during the sign of peace offering. Instead, whenever Ronan sat down next to him, his hand would wander to Ronan's on its own, like it was natural for him, and Ronan wouldn't oppose, just curl his fingers over his knuckles and caress it with his thumb.

There was, Declan found out over time, a huge amount of hands involving the two.

They walked out of the church holding hands too and held them together when Declan drove them all to the cheap diner Ronan insisted on. Parrish insisted on paying for his food an hour later and it became obvious why Ronan wanted to go to this exact place.

It was strange to see Ronan care about somebody and care enough to think about this kind of details — he knew Ronan did care, even if never about Declan, but it felt strange on another level. Like he had seen it before but didn't realize.

Declan tended to erasure Adam Parrish from his mind most of the time — if anything, he was safe for the Lynch family.

Parrish was a good influence if one compared being smitten to being influenced. Declan tended to use it to his own advantage — although Ronan would often refuse for the sake of refusing, he refused Parrish less than anyone else. He encouraged Ronan to modernise the farm — with a promise that he'll fix anything that breaks for him, or so Matty had heard — and actually, somehow convinced him to pay taxes, which was in itself a miracle — Declan felt like buying him a car just for that. He had to cover up enough tax fraud thanks to their dad and he wasn't going to do it again.

So Parrish was a good influence and when Declan didn't feel like dealing with Ronan's snark, he would text or call Parrish.

Not gonna be in church tomorrow, was a text Declan got one Saturday, waiting for Matty to get back from an outing with his lacrosse buddies.

He had to blink a couple of times because he hadn't had an unprompted text from Ronan in over two years. He wondered whether Parrish wrote it out of courtesy — or because he didn't want to deal with Declan either.

He called Parrish. He didn't pick up. He called Ronan. He didn't pick up. He called again.

A text came.

Fuck off

It was definitely Ronan.

The next day, Declan considered the option that Ronan was joking. Out of all the things, Ronan would never miss church, he couldn't recall even one time — Ronan would sooner come drunk or hangover to church than not come at all.

He didn't show up. So Declan left Matthew in a restaurant and drove to the Barns.

No one came out even when the Wolvo roared in front of the house. Declan left the car, ready for a disaster.

He hesitated before coming in.

He didn't visit the Barns that often but it was often enough that he had seen Ronan and Adam in enough compromising positions that made him wish he could burn a hole in place of those memories. He was never to see the kitchen counter the same and definitely never again prepare food on it. Knocking was safer.

He knocked. No one answered. He knocked louder.

There was a terribly loud screech behind him and Ronan's awful bird from hell landed on the balustrade of the porch, staring at him in the same way Ronan would if he was pissed. This was another reason why he never visited the Barns — everything, including his brother and his brother's boyfriend, crept him out.

He knocked again, louder and longer. No one opened.

He looked around, ignoring more screeching. Both Parrish's fugly car and Ronan's BMW are tucked behind the closest barn.

He banged on the door. Shouted, "Ronan, open up. For fuck's sake, I know you're inside," and banged again.

The door opened and Ronan, looking more pissed off than he had seen him in a long time.

"You fuckface," he said, which in Ronan-language meant a greeting. "Shut up."

Declan opened his mouth but articulated nothing before the cries came out from the inside of the kitchen. He frowned.

"What was that?"

Ronan groaned and went back inside, not bothering to close the door in Declan's face, which was a red flag in itself.

Declan went after him, straight to the living room.

The cries were Opal's. She was currently tucked into Parrish's arm, her head curled under his chin and bailing her eyes out. Parrish wasn't just holding her — he was making shushing noises and rocking her back and forth.

"It's alright, sugarplum," he was saying, in the sweetest tone that sounded so out of place on him. "It'll go away, I promise."

Ronan's whole body softened with every step he took towards Parrish. He reached out and brushed Opal's curls in a gesture that Declan often, as a child, would seek from their mom.

"Did you get it?" Adam asked over Opal's sniffling.

His eyes moved around Ronan's face and noticed Declan, standing a couple of feet away.

"No, got sidetracked," he said. When Parrish sent him a look, he added, "But I'm going to, right away."

"Grab the baby Tylenol while you are at it."

Ronan went without a word, disappearing behind the corner to the foyer and the stairs.

"How is your toothache, baby?" Adam asked. "Any better?"

Opal answered him with a sob and buried a snotty nose into his t-shirt.

Parrish looked up at him like he expected Declan to say something.

Kids weren't Declan's thing.

Parrish adjusted Opal in his arms, rocking back and forth again, until Ronan came back downstairs, holding a tube of tooth gum gel and liquid Tylenol.

Parrish adjusted Opal again, this time holding her under legs so she was sitting up more in his arms. Ronan didn't even stop, just unscrewed the Tylenol and gave her a spoonful — she opposed a little, hiding under Adam's chin, but gave in easily enough after he shushed her again.

Parrish rocked her some more when Ronan went to the sink and washed his hands and put some of the gel on his finger.

"Come on, you little gremlin," Ronan said, calm. "You know that's going to help."

Parrish caressed her hair but she still shook her head, whimpering.

"Open up, munchkin," Ronan added.

She did, after three or so tries, and Ronan actually managed to coat her gum in the gel.

As soon as he was done, she flattered in Parrish's arms and Ronan brushed her hair again.

Opal, for most of the time, wasn't exactly a normal child — she didn't need the constant attention, could eat a lot of weird stuff without a trip to ER or could be left alone for long periods of time. She wasn't a baby, so she couldn't be anyone's baby.

But for some of the time, she was an actual child, living with Ronan and his boyfriend, being partially dependant on them. She wasn't a baby but they were parenting her.

"You could give her some ice cubes," he said because nothing else came to mind. His common sense screamed, You're nineteen, you can't parent a child together, but he said instead, "That's what mom used to do."

Ronan went to the fridge immediately.

Opal fell asleep fifteen minutes later.

After Ronan took her from Adam's hands and carried upstairs, Adam, in shortly, explained.

Opal bit something, yesterday's evening, and ruined two of her teeth, which for a creature that hadn't felt any major pain yet was traumatising. Ronan went to get a baby Tylenol and tooth gel from the closest open pharmacy while Adam stayed with her. She just fell asleep when Declan came by.

"Ronan called every dentist within twenty miles but no one had any appointments left for today," he said. "So we're taking her to the dentist tomorrow morning."

We.

Declan probably should be protesting, should be intervening, should be doing something. But somehow, he just felt proud.

Ronan was impulsive, greedy and selfish. Probably shouldn't be trusted with himself, not to mention a kid.

But he wasn't screwing up, yet, and Declan hoped he would never screw this up. Whatever this was.

#pynch #pynch fic #the raven cycle #trc #TRC #declan lynch #outsider pov

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astudyinfreewill · 5 years

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Something Wicked This Way Comes: or, the Rising Dark in Ronan’s Arc

as some of you may know because i never shut up about witch!adam i’ve been convinced for a while now that adam would go darkside in the dreamer trilogy. what i did not predict however, was that ronan is probably headed down a dark path himself. i thought the basic premise of the trilogy would have ronan in danger from both the nightwash and the zed hunters (which obviously still applies; he is very much in danger from those things), and adam striking some sort of dark bargain in an attempt to protect him. but after reading cdth, i think things might be about to take a more sinister turn.

so here are some thoughts i’ve been poring over, under a cut for length. what can you expect? well, there’s rambling! there’s bullet points! there are lyrics-inspired section headings! (we have fun around here.)

let’s start with the obvious, shall we?

1. “The Sandman, He Comes”

so...bryde.

we don’t know much about bryde - who or what he is, how he’s able to infiltrate ronan’s dreams, whether he can do it to other dreamers too, why he didn’t want to reveal himself, what’s his agenda - but what we do know is that ronan trusted him very, very fast. suspiciously fast, in fact. fast enough that adam remarks on it in chapter 39: “earlier today you had a gun on me. i’m just asking you give him the same shake as me”.

to clarify: in the previous chapter, ronan was shaken enough to hold a gun to adam, the love of his life, and not lower it even when he feels reasonably sure it’s him; yet it never occurs to him in the book to question bryde or his motives. when adam says he wants scry to try and get more info on him, ronan seems almost annoyed by adam’s wariness (ronan narrowed his eyes. “don’t gimme that look, ronan”) to which adam replies, understandably, that it’s only fair ronan holds a complete stranger to the same safety standards as his own boyfriend, at least.

but why shouldn’t ronan trust bryde (apart from the fact that he has no information about him whatsoever)? well, bryde’s behaviour is pretty damn shady, and extremely reminiscent of the ways that a cult leader might try to recruit people to his cause. @deerlovelylily discussed it very eloquently in this post, but just to recap:

bryde is able to access ronan’s dreams at will, including interacting with objects from them: he had the hoverboard at the end, and he knew exactly what was on the stomach of the murder crabs. (@streghe had a very clever suggestion that there’s a nonzero chance bryde actually caused the crabs to manifest in the dorm, since ronan barely saw them in the dream; why would bryde do that? well, to make sure ronan was cut off from adam, his real life support system and, coincidentally, a psychic who doesn’t trust bryde)

there is considerable evidence that he can access ronan’s memories/other parts of his subconscious as well, since he knows a lot more about his waking life than he should, constantly referencing people and events from it (as well as obviously knowing where ronan is/what he’s up to, which is very stalkerish in itself)

bryde uses this knowledge to manipulate and influence ronan through the words of people in ronan’s life. in ch. 58 he asks ronan “are you going to be quiet?”, which we know from trk is what niall used to say to the brothers before telling them a story. in ch. 43, he talks about the “emotional costs” of saving someone’s life, mirroring almost exactly the words of warning adam had told ronan in ch. 33 (“there’s such thing as an emotional cost”). adam was warning ronan about trusting bryde too easily, and we know ronan values adam’s opinion; by repeating adam’s words to him bryde is pulling a see, i can’t possibly have shady motives, because i am acknowledging the same risk adam warned you about.

that’s far from the only manipulative thing bryde does. his behaviour constantly alternates between praising ronan, guilting him, taunting him, and ordering him about.

in ch. 43 he tells ronan he’s “the most expensive thing he’s ever saved”, reinforcing the idea that A) ronan is special, B) bryde cares about him, and C) it cost him a lot to save ronan so ronan should feel grateful/guilty/indebted to him. he does this knowing full well that ronan isn’t going to doubt his motives for saving him, because ronan himself - brave boy that he is - has just told him he would save a dreamer without any questions asked.

bryde never shows himself to ronan until the very end, which has the combined effects of keeping him in the dark/at a disadvantage, and making him more intrigued by bryde’s mystery; at the same time, he constantly asks ronan to prove himself and earn the dubious privilege of finally meeting him (“next box”)

bryde promises things that he knows ronan wants: first and foremost, understanding of his dreamer powers; second, a community, by hooking him up with other dreamers (ronan’s been asking what am i, why isn’t there anyone like me, am i the only one? for a long time); last but not least, he heavily hints that he can free dreams from their dreamers, something ronan is desperate to do in order to give matthew his freedom

on more than one occasion, bryde gives ronan direct orders: “scrub [the word ‘real’] from your vocabulary”; “i don’t want you to think this ever again: it was just a dream”. and ronan obeys him, or is at least very affected by it. where he at first questioned whether his dreams of bryde were real, now he questions reality (e.g. holding a gun to his very real boyfriend and asking himself what is real?); in ch. 24 he thinks about the words just a dream and how bryde “had forbidden him from ever saying them again”. since when does ronan follow orders? who is bryde to “forbid” him to do anything?

bryde constantly deploys examples Us VS Them rhetoric, creating a schism between dreamers and humanity, magic and humanity. we know (and bryde probably knows) ronan has always struggled with not feeling human and not knowing what he is; that he deeply wants to be able to fit into the real world. what bryde is effectively saying is no, you’re not human, in fact humans and magic are enemies, and the real world is not for you... unless you can shape it to your will.

to me, bryde’s spiels sound very... dreamer-supremacist, for lack of a better term. at the moment, dreamers are oppressed by the moderators, so they’re right to rebel; but there’s an emphasis on dreamers being more powerful than anyone else, and what they could do with that power. it kind of reminds me of magneto re: mutants in the marvel universe. and i think that is the direction he’s headed in: separate ronan from his human family and escalate the conflict between humans and dreamers much further than simple self-defense from the moderators.

there’s plenty of reasons to be mistrustful (if not outright skeeved the fuck out), right? so why does ronan trust bryde? well, several reasons.

2. “On The Right Side Of Rock Bottom”

ronan is at the lowest that he’s been since tdt. it’s better and worse at the same time -- in a way, it’s worse because it’s better. in tdt, ronan was deeply in denial about himself and the things he wanted; now he knows what he wants (a happy life with adam) and can’t go after it, trapped at the barns. in tdt, ronan was suicidal; now he wants to live, and so of course his life is threatened on all sides, internally by the nightwash, externally by the moderators.

through all of trc, one of ronan’s main goals was to return to the barns, feeling like his key to happiness was in his childhood home. but as it turns out (and as i suspected all along), being stuck alone and isolated on a dream farm surrounded by eerie sleeping things and a handful of incredibly traumatic memories of his dead parents isn’t as fulfilling as ronan imagined. to make things worse, he’s created a security system for the barns that causes him to relive his fears and traumas over and over (ronan for the love of God, why would you dream something like that). his brothers live in DC, which is close, but not that close -- and though he’s mending fences with declan, they still are somewhat at odds. his best friends, gansey and blue, are travelling the country with henry, and we know from the opal story ronan misses them and feels left behind. at the start of cdth he tries to escape by following adam to cambridge -- and that immediately goes pear-shaped, whether by accident or, as said above, by sabotage.

now ronan is truly alone, cut off from visiting adam, living with the guilt of wrecking his dorm and the self-loathing following the fact that adam had to tell people he’s, essentially, an unstable drunk (the place he actually was at in tdt). it feels like the progress has been erased. this is the first time since tdt ronan has hit rock bottom, and cdth tells us he sinks into depression, staying in bed for days, not showering or changing, eating expired food. he thinks of a life trapped at the barns alone doing nothing, and feels understandably suffocated. all the more so because it feels like everyone else is moving on - declan has his own life, gansey/blue/henry have their adventures, and adam... well, adam is growing up, which ronan feels he himself can’t do. this comes up at several points in the book: in ch. 5 ronan doesn’t recognize adam, noting he’s “growing from something beaten down into whoever he was supposed to be”, but finds it ridiculous that adam doesn’t recognize him because he’s still the same: “adam was changing; ronan couldn’t.” later, in ch.23, he notes that he often dreams of adam as older/more adult, while ronan himself is stuck in arrested development.

essentially: ronan is stuck. so of course, any lead that comes up - whether that’s mór ó corra, the new fenian, hennessy, or bryde, is going to make him reckless and ready to risk everything, because anything is better than being buried alive at the barns.

3. “Guilty, On the Run, And I Know What I Have Done”

remember how i said ronan hits rock bottom at the start of the book? well, it’s time to grab a shovel and keep digging, because then there’s the matthew thing.

so... we learn very early on in the book (in case we didn’t already know from trc) that ronan feels deeply torn about his dreaming. he loves to create, but feels guilty about creating life, because that feels like an act of hubris against God to him. and he feels especially guilty about creating matthew, because that means A) that matthew’s safety and life depend on ronan’s, and B) that matthew essentially has no free will, something that’s very important to catholic morals.

the moment matthew figures out he’s a dream-thing, and calls ronan out on lying to him, ronan is dropped into a fiery pit of shame, guilt, and self-loathing (and we already know that all of ronan’s emotions which are not happiness manifest as anger). he remains despondent even in dreams, and essentially, refuses to deal with matthew’s hurt and disappointment. which on one hand is justified, because he has ~Dramatic Dreamer Developments~ happening; but on the other hand, he’s essentially avoiding responsibility towards his brother, lashing out at declan in needlessly mean ways when declan tries to get him to be there for matthew (“dad’s working, sweetie”... really?). it’s a kind of pettiness that ronan hasn’t displayed in a while, and it speaks to me of his own restlessness and self-loathing more than anything.

we already know ronan feels alone, frustrated, isolated, scared, trapped -- now he also feels guilty on top of it all, and it just redoubles his determination to free matthew (something bryde has hinted he can do, knowing the power it would have on ronan). this is ronan at his worst, and we see it not just in how dismissive he is of declan, but in how he treats hennessy in chapter 67. he wants hennessy to dream up the lace, so he can show her how to stop dreaming of it (which in itself is dangerous, since lindenmere can manifest dreams, and in fact it ends up almost killing hennessy). but he gets absolutely furious when hennessy can’t dream properly -- because she’s, you know, kind of stuck on the slightly traumatic memory of witnessing her mom killing herself in front of her. it’s something you’d expect ronan to have sympathy for, seeing as he’s witnessed both of his parents’ violent deaths. instead, he’s impatient, snappy, insisting hennessy isn’t trying hard enough -- and downright cruel, shooting hennessy’s clone before her eyes, then trying to force her to shoot herself (especially relevant when you remember the church scene in bllb, and how shaken ronan was at having to kill a copy of himself).

this new ronan, it seems, has reached rock bottom and then some, and he’s got no time for empathy anymore. we see this in the metaphor of lindenmere, a darker, scarier, more dangerous version of cabeswater (i.e. trc ronan), because “dangerous things can protect themselves”. we see this once again at the end, when he assumes his sundogs have torn someone apart limb from limb and he feels absolutely no regret, only rage. yes, matthew was in danger... but kavinsky also tried to kill matthew in tdt, and ronan still didn’t feel like he could kill kavinsky in cold blood. this is a new, darker ronan, brought to this point by desperation. he reminds me a lot of anakin in the prequel star wars movies (i know, i know...) and how he let his fear lead him to the dark side by trusting a powerful, shady mentor that he should never have trusted. how does it go? “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to suffering.” and suffering leads to - or maybe is the dark side.

4.“Holding Out For A Hero”

still, you might say, why is ronan falling for bryde’s manipulation so easily? can he not see through it? how can he trust someone he doesn’t know, someone who refuses to be upfront with him? someone his psychic boyfriend with an uncanny character judging skills is understandably wary of?

in short... ronan needs a hero.

or well, he needs a father, and those things are the same to him. ronan idolised niall, and he’s missed him terribly ever since niall diad. he missed him badly enough that he wanted to die for a very long time. now he’s coming to terms with the fact niall isn’t coming back, and not just that, but it turns out that niall might not be everything ronan thought he was (ronan hasn’t fully realised it yet, but he’ll get there; he’s starting to put the pieces together, from what declan and other people tell him of niall).

but if he accepts that niall’s gone, and worse, that niall wasn’t the infallible hero ronan thought he was... who has he got left to guide him? niall wasn’t just his father, either, but he was the only dreamer ronan knew for the longest time (the only other one was kavinsky, who sexually assaulted him and tried to kill his brother, so... not a great example) and yet he didn’t give ronan any guidance. and ronan needs dreamer guidance right now, with the nightwash threatening to kill him at every step.

enter bryde, promising all that and more. bryde’s not only a dreamer, he comes across like the alpha dreamer, ancient and powerful and all-knowing. he promises ronan tantalising answers, and even more importantly than that, he promises him community -- other people like him, so he won’t feel alone, so he won’t feel like a freak or an abomination; it has not yet occurred to ronan that (as maggie said in her video explaining the art/creation metaphor of the series) not all dreamers are equal: they don’t share the same skills or motives.

ronan is desperate for what bryde is promising, for that kind of guidance in his life. all throughout the book, there is a lot of talk of heroes: ronan was raised on stories of the irish heroes of old, who accomplished amazing feats even though they were held back by geasa (magical weaknesses like his nightwash). ronan constantly thinks of these folk stories, while excluding himself from it (“ronan was no hero, but he knew fucking right from fucking wrong”). and how does he describe bryde when he finally sees him in ch. 79? yep, you guessed it:

“he looked like a man who didn’t have to posture, who knew his strength. he looked like a man who didn’t lose his temper very easily. he looked, ronan thought, like a hero.”

ronan -- who is always posturing, who doesn’t know his own strength, who loses his temper very easily, who doesn’t think he’s a hero -- sees bryde as everything he’s not. and he’s willing to show him the same faith and devotion he once showed niall, because he needs a hero, a father, a teacher.

but i don’t think bryde is going to be the hero. i think ronan is going to be. there’s some early foreshadowing of this with ronan being depicted as “a gallant irish hero of old” while he kills the crabs (more posturing, really) but actually, we’ve known this all the way since trk, with niall asking declan to make sure that “ronan was the name of the hero, not the spear”; dreamers are weapons, but they don’t have to be. being a hero, ultimately, is about knowing fucking right from fucking wrong. and i believe ronan does.

but before he gets to be the hero, he’ll have to be the spear. and right now? he’s a spear in bryde’s hand.

we know a dreamer is supposedly going to bring about the apocalypse through fire; we know ronan and fire have always been associated; we know bryde hates the modern world and would like to reboot it; we know bryde has selected ronan as his chosen one, for whatever reason.

when you connect the dots, they spell a whole lot of trouble.

#ronan lynch #bryde #cdth #cdth meta #dreamer trilogy meta #mp #i could go on and on and on (and i have)#but i gotta post this now bc i need to get back to work #what a trip this book is though #much to think about #hmmm #dt #meta #cdth spoilers #my meta #swtwc

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a-dandelion-dreamer · 4 years

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Word Wanderings Post #1 – The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

This is the beginning of a reread. I’ve loved this author for years and The Raven Cycle is a particular favourite of mine. Please note that if you haven’t read this book, this post will definitely contain spoilers!

The Raven Boys is the first book in a quartet and juggles a multitude of characters, including our four main characters (Gansey, Ronan, Adam and Blue) and our plus one (Noah). While it does have some external conflict, it is mainly driven by the characters and their relationships with one another. This book is complex and dense with detail, with a structure that is a little unusual. Most books or series have a driving hook that catches readers right at the beginning and is the selling tagline. For example, in the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, it’s Percy finding out he’s secretly a demigod, which directly turns into monsters attacking him and his mom disappearing. In the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, it’s the existence of a game that forces children to fight to the death and then subsequently Katniss volunteering to take her sister’s place at the Reaping. In Six of Crows, it’s a crew of six misfits embarking upon an impossible heist.

Ostensibly, the hook of this book is that Blue is destined to kill her true love with a kiss. That’s what it says on the back of the book, and it’s certainly an overarching threat present for the rest of the series. Tied in as well is Gansey’s search for Glendower, a sleeping king Gansey believes is buried somewhere on a ley line. This is another whole-series thread. The real heart of the story, however, is the boys and Blue and their friendship and their interactions with the other messy pieces of their lives and their search to find meaning and happiness. This type of storytelling is not for everyone, especially those who might enjoy more action-driven tales, but it’s the kind of storytelling I love.

(And in writing and other personal creative projects, I think it’s important to let what you love drive you forwards).

Here are three points I took away from reading this book:

Point #1: Keeping readers interested by embedding small mysteries

The trick is to make your readers want to know what happens next. This is something I have trouble with and therefore I’m particularly interested in seeing how other books handle it.

Each chapter in this book is written from a different character’s perspective. I’ll include the first and last lines (which I think are brilliantly done) in the form: (first line/last line). Following that, I’ll describe some mysteries that the chapter raises.

Prologue: Blue (“Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.”/”’You’re Maura’s daughter,’ Neeve said, and before Blue could answer, she added, “this is the year you’ll fall in love.’”) – pg. 1-4

We’re introduced to the idea that Blue will kill her true love if she kisses him

Which immediately raises the question: who is he? And how does she get from being determined not to fall in love to killing someone with a kiss?

We learn about Blue’s psychic family, which I think is super interesting

Blue’s half-aunt Neeve comes to town and really hits us with that: “This is the year you’ll fall in love.” Pay attention, that line says.

Chapter 1: Blue (“It was freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrived.”/“’There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve, Blue. Either you’re his true love,’ Neeve said, ‘or you killed him.’”) – pg. 5-16

Blue and Neeve watch for the future dead

Blue, the only non-psychic in her family, sees a spirit for the first time

The guy she’s destined to kill or fall in love with (or both)

His name is Gansey, and now we’re wondering who he is

Chapter 2: Gansey (“’It’s me,’ said Gansey.”/”’That seems obvious,’ he answered. ‘We find out who you were talking to.’”) – pg. 17-28

Brilliant cut to Gansey

This guy is very real and because of the previous scene, we want to know who he is

We learn about his quest, which adds another layer of mystery

Gansey also heard Blue, on his recorder, so now he’s wondering about her

We ask ourselves: how will these two meet?

Also, introduces Gansey’s friends Adam and Ronan

Ronan has a tumultuous relationship with his brother Declan

THEY HAVE A NUMBER FOR A PSYCHIC (guess who belongs to a psychic family)

Chapter 3: Blue (“Mornings at 300 Fox Way were fearful, jumbled things.”/”’Blue,’ Maura said finally. ‘I don’t have to tell you not to kiss anyone, right?’”) – pgs. 29-37

Introduces Blue’s house

Introduces Blue’s relationship with her mother Maura

Neeve scries and learns that something is strange about Henrietta

Again, we wonder how Blue and Gansey will meet. And also, is it possible to save Gansey from his fate?

Chapter 4: Adam (“Adam Parrish had been Gansey’s friend for eighteen months, and he knew that certain things came along with that friendship.”/”’Excelsior’, said Gansey, and shut the door behind them.”) – pg. 38-51

Introduces Monmouth Manufacturing

Delves further into Gansey’s quest (will Gansey find what he’s looking for?)

Adam is suspicious that someone is spying on their search

Develops tension between Ronan and Declan

Chapter 5: Whelk (“Barrington Whelk was feeling less than sprightly as he slouched down the hall of Whitman House, the Aglionby admin building.”/”It was possible that Czerny’s death wasn’t for nothing after all.”) – pg. 52-56

Adam was suspicious in the previous chapter and now here’s Whelk, being suspicious

What is this guy’s deal?

Whelk hears Gansey is researching ley lines and suddenly gets very interested

Who is Czerny and how did he die?

Chapter 6: Blue (“Blue wouldn’t really describe herself as a waitress.”/”Neeve had to be wrong. She’d never fall in love with one of them.”) – pg. 57-64

Blue goes to work at Nino’s, the same place Gansey and his crew are going

Blue’s mother calls: Gansey has scheduled a reading

THEY MEET! This is great. They meet and they both dislike each other. They immediately conflict and neither realizes the other is the person they’re looking for.

The dramatic irony is fantastic

Adam is interested in Blue and Blue is a little bit interested in him

How does Blue end up liking Gansey, who she currently hates?

Truly, a mystery

WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THE TWO MEET AGAIN AT THE PSYCHIC READING???

I could do this for the whole book, but you get the picture. There’s always something the reader is left wondering, even if it’s something small, or a future interaction they’re looking forwards to.

A note: this is particularly effective when it’s tied to personal agency. You want to see what your characters will do, and this means more if you have dynamic characters who make choices.

Point #2: Atmosphere and memorable locations

Another big strength of this book is the personality that it imbues its settings with. Take three examples: 300 Fox Way, Monmouth Manufacturing and Cabeswater.

300 Fox Way – the chaotic, full-to-the-brim house where Blue lives with her mom and her aunt and her mom’s two best friends Persephone and Calla and a multitude of other psychic women, all showcased through background details. I love this house and its aesthetic.

Quote: “Mornings at 300 Fox Way were fearful, jumbled things. Elbows in sides and lines for the bathroom and people snapping over tea bags placed into cups that already had tea bags in them. There was school for Blue and work for some of the more productive (or less intuitive) aunts. Toast got burned, cereal went soggy the refrigerator door hung open and expectant for minutes at a time. Keys jingled as car pools were hastily decided.” – pg 29

Monmouth Manufacturing – the abandoned factory that Gansey, Ronan and Noah have made their home. They live on the upper floor and the description of the space really doubles as a character portrait for Gansey. Use settings to reveal and further describe your characters!

Quote: “The high ceiling soared above them, exposed iron beams holding up the roof. Gansey’s invented apartment was a dreamer’s laboratory. The entire second floor, thousands of square feet, spread out before them. Two of the walls were made up of old windows—dozens of tiny, warped panes, except for a few clear ones Gansey had replaced—and the other two walls were covered with maps: the mountains of Virginia, of Wales, of Europe. Marker lines arced across each of them. Across the floor, a telescope peered at the Western sky; at its feet lay piles of arcane electronics meant to measure magnetic activity.

And everywhere, everywhere, there were books. Not the tidy stacks of an intellectual attempting to impress, but the slumping piles of a scholar obsessed. Some of the books weren’t in English. Some of the books were dictionaries for the languages that some of the other books were in. Some of the books were actually Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Editions.” – pg 41

Cabeswater — a magical, sentient forest. I love this forest so much. I love the overall portrayal of magic in this series and this forest is my favourite example of that. The trees speak Latin, time is fluid and sometimes the very air manifests your thoughts, so keep a watch on them.

Quote: “The stream trickled sluggishly out of the woods from between two diamond-barked dogwoods. With Gansey in the lead, they all followed the water into the trees. Immediately, the temperature dropped several degrees. Blue hadn’t realized how much insect noise there was in the field until it was replaced by occasional birdsong under the trees. This was a beautiful, old wood, all massive oak and ash trees finding footing among great slabs of cracked stone. Ferns sprang from rocks and verdant moss grew up the sides of the tree trunks. The air itself was scented with green and growing and water. The light was golden through the leaves. Everything was alive, alive.” – pg 219

What can I take away from this? Using small, specific details to make a setting unique and memorable can add atmosphere to your novel, showcase characters and make a reader fall in love with a particular place.

Point #3: Evolving arcs

This story contains a lot of interwoven plot threads. This can be hard to balance (I know from personal experience) but I think this novel pulls it off. It’s very, very good at doing many things at once. The important thing to think about is a beginning, middle and end for different story arcs that you introduce. Here’s one example (of many) from this book.

Example 1: Noah

Oh Noah. Noah is a brilliant example of an arc in this book and also one of my favourite demonstrations of the fact that sometimes you can hide things right in the open.

First mention (pg. 26). Noah goes out for pizza with the crew, but there is no mention of him going to school or otherwise having a life. This theme will continue: while Gansey, Adam, Ronan and Blue have conflict and fleshed-out internal worlds, Noah is a static character. The first time I read this book, I was like Gansey. I didn’t notice how much Noah was missing until it was explicitly called out.

First line of dialogue: “I’ve been dead for seven years,” Noah said. “That’s as warm as they get.” (pg. 47) (IT’S RIGHT THERE, but yet I didn’t pick up on it. Clever, clever.)

Noah’s room is also described as ‘meticulous’. As in, practically unused.

“Noah, we won’t make you eat,” says Gansey. “Need some more alone time?” says Ronan. More little hints.

The character descriptions are honestly so good, worth a study all in themselves.

Noah doesn’t come to the psychic’s reading or the helicopter trip, which the other boys do

Somehow, he has a canny knack for knowing things and sharing secrets.

“Don’t throw it away.” (pg. 165) (to Gansey)

Gansey calls for Noah but he’s not there (pg. 233)

“Blue permitted Noah to pet the crazy tufts of her hair” (pg. 238). Not particularly arc related but SUPER CUTE.

The gang visits Cabeswater again and finds Noah’s old abandoned car, a red Mustang (not that they realize it yet). In the trunk is a dowsing rod, a sign someone else is looking for ley lines. Noah throws up (from the trauma of his murder).

Blue and Gansey visit the old church and find a body. “The face on the driver’s license was Noah’s.” (pg. 274)

THE BIG SCENE IN WHICH NOAH IS REVEALED AS A GHOST (what a brilliant scene)

“Adam,” he demanded, “what is Noah’s last name?”

“Tell me,” Gansey said, “which classes you share with Noah.”

“When does he eat? Have you ever seen him eat?”

“Does he pay rent? When did he move in? Have you ever questioned it?”

These are all questions Gansey asks his friends, but are also questions we must ask ourselves. We have been fooled in the same way as they have.

“I told you,” Noah said. “I told everyone.” (pg. 278)

“The question is: Who killed you?” (pg. 279)

Noah acts like a real ghost (disappears, reappears, knocks objects off desks)

“Maybe moving it off the ley line had stolen his energy.” (pg. 298) (in regards to Noah’s body)

Noah appears, using Blue’s energy. “I want you to know,” Noah said, “I was…more…when I was alive.” (pg. 305)

“You were the sacrifice, weren’t you Noah? Someone killed you for this.” (pg. 307). It turns out Noah, the friend they didn’t realize was dead, was killed in a ritual similar to the one that is attempted at the end of the novel by their Latin teacher, and is the reason Gansey is alive.

Remember: “Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.” (pg. 271).

It’s all very circular and interwoven and very good plotting.

Noah said, “But you already know.” (pg. 309) (In regards to who killed him) JUMPCUTS to a scene with Whelk

“I’m going to fix Noah. Somehow.” (pg. 335) (says Gansey)

She allowed him to pet her hair with his icy fingers. “Not so spiky as usual,” he said sadly. (pg. 353)

“Don’t throw it away,” Noah whispered. (pg. 371) To Adam, this time.

Noah warns Gansey that Adam is gone (he is now 100% a spooky ghost boy)

THE MURDERED/REMEMBERED SCENE (breaks my heart). They’re all in Cabeswater again for the climax of the novel and Noah, who doesn’t exist in bodily form, traces words into the dust on his old car

Noah’s funeral: “Please say something to them.” / “Mrs. Czerny, he’s sorry for drinking your birthday schnapps.” (pg. 406-407) (ouch, my heart)

They dig up his bones and rebury them on the ley line

“Can we go home? This place is so creepy.” … ”Noah!” Gansey cried gladly. Blue hurled his arms around his neck. He looked alarmed, and then pleased, and then he pet the tufts of her hair. (pg 408)

Broadly, the arc looks like this (look how actions lead to consequences which lead to further actions):

The boys have a friend named Noah, who is sometimes there and sometimes not

LOTS OF FORESHADOWING

They find Noah’s dead body

They confront Noah and find out he’s a ghost

The police move his bones so he starts acting like a real ghost

They figure out he was used in an attempted ritual and also that their Latin teacher killed him

The dig up his bones and rebury them on the ley line

Noah comes back

Given what happens later in this series, it’s very important to me that we remember Noah.

In conclusion

What this book does well:

Keeping readers interested by embedding small mysteries

Atmosphere and memorable locations

Evolving arcs

These are just a few things I noticed on my read-through of The Raven Boys. Stay tuned for further Word Wanderings posts and feel free to give suggestions for books you’d like me to analyze!

Personal Challenge: Pick a book you’re currently reading or an old favorite and try to figure out what keeps you reading, whether it’s little mysteries, character dilemmas or rising tension.

#the raven cycle #trc #maggie stiefvater #the raven boys #writing #writing advice #writers on tumblr #blue sargent #noah czerny #gansey #adam parrish #ronan lynch #word wanderings #my post

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blueseyforthesoul · 5 years

Text

Just a Moment More

Written for @ganseyweek Day 2: Sleep/Insomnia/I feel peace at night

Gansey couldn’t sleep.

This was nothing new, of course. He had been an insomniac for most of his life. His parents told him that he had slept well as a young child but sometime in his adolescence, he stopped being able to fall so easily into unconsciousness.

Instead, he had begun to spend the time reading, researching, and thinking.

And now that he had a roommate: worrying.

(continue reading on ao3 or below)

Adam Parrish seemed to be able to sleep through anything. He was taking a heavy course load, working at the campus library, and seemed to be studying every moment he was home. They had been roommates for three weeks and, while Adam knew his roommate sometimes had insomnia, he hadn’t seemed to grasp the extent of it just yet.

This night, however, he was still awake when Adam’s alarm went off, paging through a book at his desk.

“Gansey?”

He looked up at his roommate as he swung his legs down from the lofted bed.

“Why’re you up so early?” Adam drawled. Gansey had noticed him softening his Virginia accent during the day but in the early morning, it was strong.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Gansey shrugged, nudging his glasses back up his nose.

“You didn’t sleep at all?” Adam’s eyebrows rose into his messy bangs.

Gansey shook his head.

“Do you need to be anywhere? Or can you get some sleep now?”

“If I couldn’t sleep all night, why would I be able to now?” Gansey smiled grimly.

“Change of location?”

“What?”

Adam’s cheeks pinkened under his freckles. “You can sleep in my bed instead. A change of location helps, I hear.”

Gansey huffed a small laugh. “How would you know? You can sleep through anything.”

Adam shrugged. “Just an offer. I don’t mind.”

Gansey watched him as he gathered his things for a shower and padded out of the room. He looked up at the rumpled blankets of Adam’s bed. It did look comfortable.

He was still staring at it when Adam came back from his shower, and he quickly pulled his gaze back to his book.

“Gansey,” Adam said to his right. “Just go sleep.”

Gansey hummed and shrugged, closing his book. He climbed up onto the bed and laid his head down on Adam’s pillow.

Oh, he thought. It smells like him.

And... of course it did. It was Adam’s bed. But Gansey hadn’t realized until that moment that he even knew what Adam smelled like.

“Sleep well, Gansey,” Adam whispered, shutting off the light and closing the door.

He woke to his alarm two hours later feeling unusually rested. That was odd. Maybe Adam had been right about a change of location. He put it from his mind and got ready for class.

When he saw Adam that evening, he thanked him.

“It helped?”

“Yeah. Don’t understand it, but it did help.”

“Good.” Adam smiled at him. Gansey smiled back and ignored the butterflies in his stomach.

~~~

The next time Adam offered his bed was the middle of the afternoon. They had been roommates for two months at that point and, like many of their friends, did a lot together. Adam had collapsed onto his bed after an exam and when Gansey went to do the same, found he had dumped laundry on it. He groaned.

Adam looked up at him.

“C’mere.” He patted the mattress.

“What?” Gansey asked, eloquently.

“Come on, you’re exhausted, I know you barely slept. Come nap with me.”

Gansey stared at him another moment. Sleeping in Adam’s bed while he was at class was a totally different thing than actually sharing a twin bed with him.

“I probably won’t even be able to sleep,” he countered. “I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Gansey,” Adam said, eyebrow raised.

Finally, Gansey gave in, kicking his shoes off and climbing up onto the bed with Adam.

“Just try to relax,” Adam said softly, plumping up his pillow so they could share it. Gansey leaned back into it and was once again surrounded by the scent of Adam. Just as it had before, it lulled him to sleep, all the faster because of the warmth of Adam beside him.

Twin beds were not made for two eighteen-year-old boys to share, though, and when he woke up from his nap, he was horrified to find that he had cuddled up around Adam in the small space.

He listened for a moment, trying to figure out if Adam was still asleep. His breathing seemed even and Gansey decided to try to remove himself before Adam awoke. But when he pulled his arm back, Adam held on.

Well, that was something.

Gansey pulled his arm again, loosening Adam’s grip, and extricated himself.

“Gans,” Adam mumbled. “Where’re you—?”

Gansey shut his eyes against the sudden rush of want coursing through his body. This little crush he’d developed on his roommate was proving less and less convenient. He slipped out of the bed and out of their room, suddenly desperate to put some space between them. He had to get control of this.

Adam found him later in the common area, half-heartedly reading a book.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Gansey shrugged. “Did for a bit.”

“Okay.” Adam sat beside him on the sofa. “You alright?”

He nodded, not meeting Adam’s eye.

“Gansey?” The worry in Adam’s voice finally got him to look at his roommate and friend.

“I’m fine, really. I’m just an insomniac.”

“I know. I just worry about you.”

Gansey shrugged again, trying to be nonchalant and feeling anything but.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Adam tried once more. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

Gansey looked at him carefully. What secrets did he think Gansey was keeping?

“No secrets, just insomnia. You sleep through anything, I know, but I just can’t sometimes.”

Adam laughed humorlessly. “I can’t sleep through anything.”

“What?” Gansey had only lived with Adam for two months, sure, but he’d seen the boy sleep through storms, Gansey’s light, dorm hall shenanigans and countless other middle of the night disturbances.

Now it was Adam’s turn to shrug. “I can sleep here because I feel safe here. I haven’t always felt safe.”

Gansey felt like a tool. “I’m so sorry, Adam, I didn’t mean—” He wasn’t sure what he didn’t mean, but Adam cut him off with a shake of the head.

“It’s alright, Gansey. I don’t exactly share details about my home life, do I?”

Gansey thought for a moment and realized he hadn’t met Adam’s parents on move-in day, had never heard Adam mention them or call them. He just shook his head.

“Come on, let’s go put away your laundry and then we can get dinner?” Adam offered, standing and offering Gansey his hand. Gansey clasped it and hauled himself up, tucking his book under his arm.

~~~

The third time Gansey found himself in Adam’s bed, it wasn’t due to insomnia at all. He was actually sleeping at a reasonable hour when he was shaken awake by a ragged cry from the bed across the room. He sprang from his bed and over to Adam’s, resting a hand on the other boy’s back.

“Adam?”

Adam’s eyes flew open and he reeled back from Gansey’s touch.

Gansey pulled his hand up, keeping both visible. “It’s just me,” he said quietly. “It’s alright. You’re safe.”

“Gansey,” Adam breathed, relaxing into the pillow again. “Sorry.”

“Bad dream?”

Adam nodded.

“Can I help?”

Adam looked at him in the dark for a long moment, then rolled to the side and lifted his blanket in invitation. Gansey felt his eyes go wide.

This was okay. This was fine. His friend needed comforting and Gansey could provide that. It was just a friendly cuddle. Nothing to overthink.

He climbed up the ladder and into the bed with Adam, tucking his body around him and focusing on letting Adam feel safe in his arms. Eventually, his breathing evened out and the tension faded from his frame as Adam slipped back into sleep.

Gansey lay awake for a long time, thinking about Adam and how to make sure he was always safe.

When he awoke, having fallen back asleep at some point, Adam was still tucked into his arms but he wasn’t asleep. He was looking up at Gansey.

“Morning,” Gansey mumbled.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Gansey was suddenly wide awake. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said again. “I shouldn’t have asked that of you, it’s too much, I’m —”

“Adam,” Gansey cut him off. “It’s alright.”

Adam stared at him for a moment, then tucked his face into Gansey’s chest. Gansey wrapped his arms tighter around Adam’s back and held him as he shook. He murmured soft words of reassurance and held his friend tightly.

“You must think I’m a mess,” Adam said into Gansey’s shirt.

“I think you’re wonderful,” Gansey said truthfully, feeling his cheeks heat with the confession. He pressed on. “I think you’re brave and strong and sincere and you work so damn hard and I am honored to be the one who gets to hold you when it gets to be too much.”

Adam lifted his head from Gansey’s chest. “Really?”

Gansey wiped a tear away from Adam’s cheek. “Really, Adam.”

Adam surged into him in the next moment, lips colliding with Gansey’s, and he froze, unsure what was happening. Adam pulled back.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I—”

Gansey kissed him back, silencing his apologies.

“Adam,” he mumbled between kisses.

“Gansey,” Adam murmured back.

They broke apart and Gansey smiled at Adam, getting a blinding grin in return. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yes,” Adam breathed.

#oh my god they were roommates #adansey #adam parrish #gansey #adam/gansey #gansey week #bed sharing

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gansey-just-gansey · 5 years

Text

Under the Needle part Six

The alarm went off at eleven, but Ronan had been awake for most of the night. He had difficulty sleeping even when he didn't have something to look forward to the next day. And he definitely had something to look forward to.

He had made it through his first week of classes, not having skipped a single one, despite the fact that most nights he was up with Gansey making a scale model of the William and Mary campus out of cereal boxes and glue. It took up a large portion of the floor in their dorm room, but it made Gansey happy and gave Ronan something to do when he couldn't sleep.

Now it was finally Saturday, the second Saturday after his last tattoo appointment. He hadn't gone to Cabeswater since the day of the fight, and he felt like he was going through withdrawal. The tattoo looked like it had mostly healed even after the fight ripped off his scabs. He hoped this meant Adam would tattoo the next part of it today instead of waiting another week. He didn't think he could wait that long.

Ronan threw off the blankets and got dressed, nearly tripping over the mini campus as he pulled on his jeans. Gansey woke up when Ronan swore and grabbed at the closet door for balance. “What time is it?” he asked groggily.

“Eleven,” Ronan said, pulling a tank top over his head.

Gansey sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Your appointment is in an hour, right?”

“Yeah. You coming with?”

“Yes, but I need something to eat first.”

“We can hit up the dining hall and get something to go.” Ronan was already pulling on his shoes.

Gansey scrambled to get his own clothes on. “We have an hour, there's no need to rush. It's ten minutes away walking.”

“It's impolite to be late,” Ronan said. In reality, he couldn't wait to get to see Adam, but he wouldn't admit that. In the many years he and Gansey had known each other, Ronan had never shown the slightest inclination to get anywhere on a schedule that wasn't his own. Which was further proved by Ronan's need to get to the shop as soon as was socially acceptable when you had an appointment.

They walked to the dining hall after Gansey finished getting dressed, Gansey grabbing a muffin and Ronan a single black coffee.

“You're getting tattooed today, you have to eat something,” Gansey protested. Ronan grabbed the muffin out of Gansey's hand and took a large bite. He handed it back to Gansey.

“Thanks,” Ronan said around a mouthful of muffin.

“Ronan,” Gansey sighed. He shoved the muffin back into Ronan's hands and went to get himself another one.

They made it to the shop half an hour before the appointment. Blue was in Noah's chair this time, one arm over her eyes and the other stretched out to give Noah access to her wrist. Noah leaned over her, totally engrossed in what he was doing. When Ronan and Gansey stepped through the door, she lifted her arm just enough to look at them before covering her eyes again. “He's in the back,” she said. Gansey to go watch her get tattooed as if he just naturally gravitated toward her at all times.

Ronan went to Adam's station to wait. On the desk that held all his tattoo supplies laid his sketchbook. Ronan picked it up and flicked through it. It became abundantly clear that Adam was behind most of the flash on the wall. Many of the designs were there in between what must have been specifically for clients. Ronan found the original drawing of his own tattoo and studied it. It would take another four sessions at minimum to finish all of it, they had only done half of the outlining so far. Ronan flipped to the next page after his tattoo. There was a drawing of two boys in an alley way, one slouching against a wall and another walking by. Ronan brought it closer to his face to see the details better when Adam came back from the back room.

“You're early,” Adam said, stepping back into the front room. He stopped suddenly. “What are you doing?”

“Just looking at some of your other designs,” Ronan said, flipping back to the page that had Ronan's tattoo on it. “They're really good.”

“Thanks,” Adam said, taking the notebook back, “but I don't allow clients to see other clients' tattoos unless I've been given permission.”

“Oh.” Ronan felt no shame at having looked through Adam's drawings, but he didn't want Adam to be upset with him. “I'm sorry.”

“What did you see?” Adam asked, starting to set up the supplies for Ronan's tattoo without looking at him.

“A lot of the flash you have up. A couple random designs. I was mostly looking at the finished version of my tattoo.” Ronan didn't mention the last drawing he had seen.

“I could've shown you the finished product,” Adam said, giving him a sideways glance.

“Can I see it then?”

“I thought that's what you were looking at already,” Adam raised an eyebrow at him.

“It was, but I didn't get to finish looking at it,” Ronan said glibly. Adam looked suspicious of him, but handed the book back. “It really looks...,” Ronan struggled for a word. “Perfect,” he said, looking back up at Adam.

The tips of Adam's ears turned pink. Ronan caught himself wishing he could whisper dirty things into his ears while they were that pink. He shook it off.

“Thanks,” Adam said. He took the book and went back to taking the supplies out of the cupboards.

Ronan rocked back on his heels, unsure of what to do. Eventually he just sat down in the tattoo chair to wait for Adam. Gansey left Blue's side to come see Ronan. “Your girlfriend done with her tattoo?” Ronan asked.

“She's not my girlfriend,” Gansey said, but he was blushing again. “But yes, she's done. They're wrapping it now.”

“You should just ask her out,” Ronan said.

“Shhhh shut up,” Gansey whisper-yelled. Ronan raised his eyebrows. “I'm going to okay? I just have to figure out how.”

“Just ask her to dinner.”

“It's not that simple.”

“It really is.” Ronan was quickly getting bored of this conversation. His eyes wandered back to Adam.

“If it's so easy then why don't you just ask Adam out?” Gansey was still whispering. Ronan whipped his around. Gansey looked self-satisfied.

“I will if you do,” Ronan issued the challenge. Gansey's smug look dropped. “That's what I thought.”

“No, I will. I'll ask her out,” he said. Then he marched over to where Blue was admiring her new tattoo. Shit. He hadn't thought Gansey would take the bait. Blue looked up at him and smiled. After some murmured words Ronan couldn't hear, her smile grew bigger. She nodded and pulled her phone from her back pocket to put Gansey's number in. Gansey turned slightly towards Ronan and gave him a thumbs up behind his side.

“Fuck,” Ronan muttered.

“What?” Adam brought over the ink and was starting to set up the gun.

“Nothing.” He thought about the picture of the boys in the alleyway that Adam had in his sketchbook. Maybe Adam was just as obsessed with Ronan as Ronan was with him. He decided to would ask Adam out after today's session so he could leave if Adam said no.

“You ready?” Adam asked, distracting him from his fantasy of Adam saying yes to more than dinner tomorrow night.

“Yeah.” Ronan took his shirt off and let Adam look at it before he placed the stencil.

“It looks like it healed quite nicely, even after the fight with the dickhead,” Adam said, poking at different parts of his back as if to test how well the skin had absorbed the ink. Shivers ran through Ronan's body. “Are you cold? We can turn down the AC if you need.”

“No, I'm fine,” Ronan said. He sat backwards in the chair again so Adam would have access to his back. Adam placed the stencil on the bottom half of Ronan's back.

“Do you want to check it in the mirror?”

“No, I trust you to get it straight.”

“The only thing I can get straight,” Adam said under his breath.

Ronan about had a heart attack. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Adam turned the tattoo machine on. “All right, let's get started then.”

Four hours later Ronan stood up again and stretched his arms and legs, working out the kinks in his joints. He had gone another session without asking for a break. His back was screaming, but he honestly hadn't wanted a break from Adam's hands.

“How much do I owe you this time?” Ronan asked, reaching in his pocket for his wallet.

“Eight,” Adam said, a little stiffer than he probably meant it to come out. Ronan knew it was most likely because what he had pulled the last time.

“Here,” he handed him a black card this time. Adam ran it and tilted the reader toward him so he could tip and sign. He tipped him another twenty five percent and took his card back. When do you want me back?”

“What days work for you?”

“It needs to be a weekend because I have a full class schedule this semester.”

“Let's say same time two weeks from now?” Adam started flipping through the agenda to mark Ronan down.

“Actually, I was thinking maybe tomorrow night at seven?” Ronan drummed his fingers on the front desk.

Adam sighed. “I thought I was clear that you need time to heal in between sessions.”

“I didn't mean for the tattoo,” Ronan said. “I was thinking that Italian place over down the block.”

“Oh.” Adam's eyes were wide. Then his mouth and eyebrows turned down. “Oh. I'm sorry. I can't.”

Ronan's heart sank. Of course this beautiful, delicate boy wouldn't be interested in someone as hard and difficult as Ronan. “No problem. I'll see you in two weeks.” He turned and beckoned Gansey to leave with him.

“Wait, Ronan.” Ronan stopped and pivoted back to Adam. “It's not like that. I mean, that is I just can't. It's just a bad idea.”

“I got it, Parrish, we're good.”

“No, I don't mean because of you. It's just a rule at the shop that we don't date clients,” Adam finally articulated.

“Oh, okay. Well maybe Noah can finish the tat instead-”

“Absolutely not, I'm your artist,” Adam said firmly. Ronan raised his eyebrows and Adam's sudden outburst seem to surprise even him. The confidence wilted away back to uncertain self-consciousness. “I just mean that I started it, I should finish it. But you could always try asking me again after we're done with your tattoo.”

“That's at least six weeks,” Ronan complained.

“You'll just have to wait.” Adam.

“Will you say yes?”

“I guess you'll know in six weeks.”

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hklnvgl · 3 years

Text

but for their voices (ii)

(for the first week of the Mister Impossible Countdown by @pynchpromptweek : Adam’s College Experience! tw: past child abuse)

2/4 | ao3 | from the beginning

Ronan and his lips were back in town.

Benjy kept telling everyone who cared to listen how wonderful this coffee shop was, so Adam had suggested it as a meeting place. It was cozy and full of plants, and even though it was quite busy they managed to get a quiet table.

The only problem was their menu was huge and full of options, and Ronan’s greeting hug had overwhelmed Adam enough to effectively leave him unable to choose anything from this long list of things he’d never tried before.

“I’ll just have a cup of coffee,” he eventually said, when Ronan had grown bored of pretending to read his own menu and had moved on to tearing paper napkins apart.

“No cake?”

“I had a big lunch,” Adam lied, because what was he supposed to say? I’ve never actually had red velvet nor carrot cake and these are all quite expensive anyway, so I’ll just make myself a sandwich when I get home and be done with it?

Ronan shrugged. He stood up to go order, allowing Adam a moment to take a deep breath.

This was going to work. He was going to make it work.

Ronan slid back into his chair. He brought a tray with two cups of coffee, no pastries in sight.

“They’re out of fucking donuts,” Ronan said. Adam hadn’t asked.

Adam should have prepared a list of conversation topics.

“So how’s the farm?” he asked, after a few silent moments, because most of the texts Ronan had sent him since they met were random facts about his animals and his crops and a surprising amount of information about garden power tools.

Ronan shrugged. “You know, it’s a farm. There’s always shit that needs fixing and stuff to buy and stuff to sell. You should come sometime.”

Adam stilled. “Where was it again?”

“Virginia. You’ll like it, I think. I’ll take you to watch the sunrise from the top of a barn and everything. Best shit there’s in the world.”

Adam nodded, dumbly, because Ronan had this little smile on his face when he talked about his farm. About Adam in his farm. He’d promised himself he’d never go back to Virginia, but he was used to breaking all kinds of promises by now. He’d also promised himself he’d be a new Adam once he started college, and here he was, freaking out because he’d been invited to a boy’s home.

“As long as your parents don’t mind—” he muttered, not really sure he wanted to make the commitment, feeling bold and daring at the same time because he actually longed to see the place that had raised Ronan Lynch.

Ronan’s laugh was sharp. “Nah, you don’t have to worry about that. At all, man.” His grin grew larger. Colder, too, matching his icy eyes. Adam tilted his head. “They’re both dead, so—”

Great. This was why Adam didn’t normally ask about other people’s families. There was all kinds of shit out there that people didn’t want to see brought up by strangers when trying to relax in front of an overpriced cup of coffee.

“Sorry,” Adam said. Why had he thought coming here was a good idea? He should leave the talking to Ronan, who probably knew how to speak to people without making a mess of himself.

“It’s alright. Well, it’s not, obviously, but it’s been some time, and I’m better now. Keeping myself busy helps, and all that.”

“Yeah.” Adam wanted Ronan to stop talking. He didn’t want Ronan to tell him more about his family or about what he’d lost. Those were things that were supposed to stay secret. You weren’t supposed to bring them up and wield them around like they were some kind of unescapable truth. You weren’t supposed to show strangers your pain. Because that’s what they both were, right? Strangers. You didn’t owe anything to strangers, and Adam wanted to keep it that way.

Because if Ronan trusted Adam with this, wouldn’t he also expect Adam to give something of himself in return?

“My dad was murdered,” Ronan said then. All trace of a smile had disappeared from his face. It made him look older.

Adam’s breath caught in his throat.

What was he doing? Why didn’t he stop Ronan?

It’d happened all over again—he kept manipulating people into thinking Adam was this kind soul, selfless and gentle, with a heart big enough to carry other people’s problems and sorrow and make it all better. He’d done it with all the friends he’d made since arriving at Harvard, and then he’d fed them all these stories about a wonderful Adam Parrish who was reliable and generous and very far from the true Adam, who was just sitting there at this diminutive table while Ronan poured his heart into the open for Adam to pick the pieces he liked and destroy the rest.

Ronan shouldn’t be telling all this to Adam.

He didn’t know where Adam came from and what he was capable of.

“I used to drink a lot, back then. It got pretty bad—I fucked a lot of things up.” Ronan’s fingers drummed against the table. Adam wondered if taking them into his hands would shut Ronan up.

“I’ve never actually been to a farm,” Adam said.

Ronan blinked, as if realizing he was still there, and all the things he’d said, and how he’d said them to the wrong person.

But then he smiled, because Adam was good at what he did, and he’d tricked Ronan, too.

“Fucking town boy. It’s settled, then. You have to come.”

Adam felt something warm pool in his stomach. Shame, probably, but also having Ronan’s eyes meet his.

When they finished their coffee, Ronan dropped Adam off at the dorms before heading to Gansey’s off-campus apartment.

Adam knew he should say something before Ronan left. Something equally important as what Ronan had so carelessly told him, or at least something more substantial than the bickering they were currently having about Ronan’s taste in music.

Ronan deserved Adam’s truth. As usual, Adam couldn’t afford to pay the price.

He leaned over the gearshift and cupped Ronan’s face with his hands. He waited one, two, three beats, but Ronan didn’t move. He didn’t shove Adam away or turned his face.

Adam kissing Ronan’s lips was Adam giving him the pieces of himself that he could part with. It wasn’t near enough, Adam knew. But Ronan’s cheeks were flushed when he left, so perhaps it could work for a while.

At least, until Ronan saw the real Adam beneath.

(next chapter)

#pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #trc #mister impossible #tdt #cdth #pynch fic #fic #cw child abuse #d #but for their voices

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overcompensate · 5 years

Text

home is just a room full of my safest sounds

It’s the third time this week that he’s found himself gripping the ceramic of the sink countertop in the bathroom/kitchen/laundry of Monmouth Manufacturing. It’s not morning yet and not really night anymore, and every breath he takes sends pain down his spine. Ronan Lynch is misshapen words and broken bones and anger meshed into a skin that doesn’t fit quite right.

Most days he fills the emptiness gaping in his chest with alcohol and pills and the squeal of rubber tires against asphalt. It’s the third time this week that he’s found himself retching into the toilet; the world outside him still, silent. Chainsaw pecks at the one of the metal bars of her cage and he can feel the sound ringing in his mind.

Third time this week, Gansey stands just outside the bathroom/ kitchen/ laundry, forever awake, forever standing one door away from Ronan, his hand the shape of a knock, his lips the shape of pity. Outside, Gansey leaves. Today, he will let Ronan fight his own demons. He will let Ronan drink himself to death if that’s what he wants to do. Inside, Ronan passes out on the floor.

***

Sixteen was the age that he went to too many parties. His mother was alive and worried. At sixteen he made out with girls he didn’t like and watched boys he liked from far away. At sixteen his mind was too loud and the lights in the room were too damn bright, and he had to get out, damn it.

He ended up on the roof. It was cold and the wet air whipped at his face. Ronan thought he might kill himself that very day, jump off the roof and let himself be carried far off. At sixteen he felt that kind of itch often, it was always easier to leave before things got too hard.

The priest had dedicated last week’s sermon to afterlife, and Ronan thought about the devil in his backyard and felt himself slipping further from heaven. And then, because he was scared and his ears were ringing, Ronan pulled out his phone and called Gansey.

It was Adam who picked up.

Ronan felt cold slide down his spine.

“Ronan? There better be good reason to this.”

“I- fuck.” Ronan checked the caller’s ID. He had accidentally called trailer-boy. Ronan thought sand eyelashes and freckles. He thought wrists and bruises and greased overalls. The devil smiled, Ronan slipped more. “I’m at Kavinsky’s place.” Silence. Ronan felt himself jumping off the roof. “Please.”

Adam arrived soon after. He was out of breath. Blue-green spread out from below his right eye to his nose. Downstairs the party raged. Now that Adam stood this close, Ronan felt stupid for calling him.

“Why’d you call me?”

Ronan grinned, wild. “Why’d you come?” The air whipped, wilder. Neither of them spoke. Adam shifted his weight from one foot to another, uncomfortable. That had shut him up.

It was Ronan who spoke next. “How long are you gonna let him do that?”

Adam’s fingers went to the bruise staining his face, Ronan watching closely. “However long it takes for me to graduate.”

“However long it takes for me to graduate.” He snickered. “However long it takes for him to kill you, more like.”

“If you called me here just to be a condescending brat, I’ll be on my way. I have work early.” Adam crossed his arms, a timid impersonation of anger.

Ronan leaned back at the railing. “Get your head out of your ass, trailer trash. If you must know, I called you here because I was contemplating jumping off. As in killing myself. As in not caring about your dickhead of a father and how you refuse to let yourself leave,” Ronan spits out. He said it more for the dramatics, because everything he says has to be one big ha-ha joke, a punch or a smirk. He says it before anyone can catch him caring, makes it a snide remark before it becomes serious.

Adam tensed and Ronan knew he had hit a nerve. Downstairs, the song changed to a slower one.

“Fuck you, Lynch,” Adam spat. He stormed past Ronan.

Ronan smiled wider.

***

“Lynch. Lynch. Ronan. Calm yourself, princess.”

The lights keep flashing. Blue. Red. Blue again. Fourth July can go fuck itself, Kavinsky was celebrating himself tonight.

Kavinsky with all the bravado of a drunk seventeen year old hit Ronan across the face. “You done being a fuckin’ pussy now?”

For about twenty seconds Ronan stared at his hands, which he noticed were shaking. Ronan shook his head. His cheek throbbed. “Not yet.” He brought his fist down on Kavinsky’s nose, smirked like he had done him a favor. “You can continue now,” he said, the picture of nonchalance, as if he hadn’t come stumbling and stuttering Joseph Kavinsky’s name like a prayer. His father’s brains painted the driveway to the Barns red. Ronan didn’t know what to do with himself at nights. He tried to remember why he came here.

“Goddamn. Goddamn.” Kavinsky put his fingers to his nose, licking the blood that had flown onto his lips. “Goddamnit Lynch, did daddy not give you your pills today? Damn, that hurts, goddamn it.” And then, like he only now realized that words other than various combinations of god and damn exist, he shoved Ronan by the shoulders. “I’m gonna put a fuckin’ ban on you man, why’re you coming to my parties and punching me in the goddamn face?”

Ronan merely shrugged.

“Yeah, Lynch, act like you didn’t come in here sobbing like a fuckin’ baby. Gansey, oh Gansey, wherefore art thou Dick? I wish to hop on it. Or is it trailer-boy you’re fucking these days?” He snorted unattractively. Yeah. That’s why he came here: Because Kavinsky simplified everything to a few incorrectly quoted lines and an innuendo, because Kavinksy was superficial and idiotic and. And.

And he had drugs.

“Ha- fucking- ha. Take a medal for you’re a-grade Shakespeare skills, Joseph.” Kavinsky flashed him a smile. “You know what I’m here for. Give me the stuff so I can leave.”

Ronan passed out that night with his clothes off on Kavinsky’s floor, his nose burning.

***

They lay in Ronan’s parents’ bed in the barns; skin sticky and hearts thudding, coming down from the high but not enough for the world to make sense yet. In these moments of unguarded love Ronan would admit he wants to kiss every freckle on Adam’s shoulder. Ronan would let himself look at Adam’s eyes, his lips, his hands, at Adam without red-hot shame running down his spine.

Here was Adam; skin glowing golden in the setting sun, head back, neck arched. Here was Adam; fingers running lazy spirals across his tattoo, eyelashes brushing cheekbones, mouth parted. Here was Adam unwary, Adam perfect and peaceful and—

“I don’t deserve you.” The words are out before Ronan can stop them. His neck goes red.

Adam laughs, slow and easy. “Yeah? Why d’you think that?”

“Just do.” The red travels to his shoulders. “You want a fucking essay?”

“I’m good. Just strange for you to say that, that’s all.” Strange of you to say that. Ronan toys with the words in his mind: strange as in Adam disagrees? Strange as in Adam might even say the same for him?

He shifts to press his mouth against Adam’s skin. “You’re just too damn perfect, that’s all.”

Adam lifts his head up just enough to look at Ronan through half-lidded eyes, his eyebrows raised. He laughs, quietly, and falls back with a thud. Ronan flushes three shades darker. “So are you, you know,” Adam says. “Like I can’t ever tell you properly, but you really are.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty dang great.”

Adam laughs again. Ronan crawls up till his head is on Adam’s shoulder and falls asleep like that; fingers buried in his hair, his cheek warm where it touches Adam’s skin.

***

They fall into patterns after the Second Death. There’s mornings in the barn where Adam would be gone to work or school before Ronan even had the time to blink the sleep out of his eyes. Some mornings Adam would stay back and they’d sit on the porch steps while Opal would run in the knee high grass of the fields. In the evenings those who went to school would do their homework on the floor of Monmouth. Ronan would sit in his bedroom and let it all wash over him.

He told himself it was comfort, this everyday normalcy. That it’s okay they weren’t talking, even if they were fucking traumatized, and that it’s okay Adam pulls away from him and wears seventy layers of clothing every day and that they all have the same ghost look in their eyes. They are fine. He chants it to himself like a mantra. Fine. Fine. Fine.

One night they’re lying there on the couch: Ronan on one end, Adam on the other. Adam’s doing that thing where he watches his hands for hours on end, flexing and unflexing them, turning them one way and the other, reminding himself that these are his hands, and Ronan’s doing that thing where he watches Adam for hours on end trying to remember when he got replaced by this skeleton.

The clock ticks from the hallway. Ronan snaps. “Can you fucking stop?” His voice comes out harsh. Adams backs away from his own hands, blinking.

“I’m—I’m sorry. Sorry.” He puts his hands on his lap, and then on second thoughts, he sits on them instead. “Sorry.” He looks small, pitiful. His eyes sunken into hollows, and from where Ronan sits he can count about three sweaters on him even though it's just the middle of September.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Goddammit, why can’t you just tell me what’s wrong?” He reaches forward and touches Adam on the shoulder, a ghost of a touch, but Adam snaps backwards like he’s been punched. “See what I mean? Why can’t I touch you anymore, Adam? Why don’t you just leave if you hate me so much?” Ronan’s voice is pleading and his eyes are wet.

“Because I almost killed you, that’s why. Don’t you remember? Or did you make yourself forget that part?” Adam’s words come out in heaving sobs and he’s rocking himself back and forth. “I almost killed you Ronan, I’m a monster, I almost killed you, I almost. Fucking. Killed. You.”

They’re both crying, and it’s all a mess and really, Ronan at any other point in time and history would have just gotten up and left, but he needs to fix this. He reminds himself he’s fine, and he breathes even though he’s still crying.

Ronan Lynch is a creature of great wonder and bad chosen words. He walks towards Adam and kneels to where he’s sitting, takes both his hands in his and places them on his neck. Adam’s fingers tremble against Ronan’s throat, and Ronan can barely get words out between all the tears but he keeps saying it again and again to Adam. “I’m not afraid, it wasn’t your fault. I love you. I love you. Iloveyou.”

#this is a mess #i am a mess #i love trc #crits appreciated but pls dont roast me #trc #the raven cycle #the raven boys #the raven king #blue lily lily blue #the dream thieves #ronan lynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch's hand kink #or at least if you squint #pynch #someone kill me before gcses #maggie stiefvater #trc fanfiction #fanfics

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nxah-czerny · 5 years

Text

my first ever pynch one shot! i hope ya like it

When Adam was growing up, the only thing he ever wanted was to leave Henrietta and never come back. He swore there was not a thing that could ever make him come back once he left. For years he worked as hard as he possibly could to get the grades and save up dismal amounts of money to get himself out, and he did it. Against all odds - and with no help from his parents - he did it. He got out. He got accepted to an ivy league college, received a full-ride scholarship, and had nothing holding him back.

They celebrated the day he got accepted. His friends all threw him a party and they celebrated the fact that Adam Parrish was getting out of Henrietta, just like he’d always dreamed of doing. His friends were all moving on, too. Gansey, Blue, and Henry were all prepared for their wild adventures for the next year, and Noah was, well...Adam didn’t like to think about where Noah might be. All his friends were leaving, too, so there was no reason Adam had to ever come back. Except Ronan.

Ronan would never hold Adam back. He would never once tell Adam to stay with him in Henrietta, because they both knew that was pointless; nothing could stop Adam from going. Ronan was also not that selfish; he knew Adam was meant for bigger things and he swore he would never be the person to stop him from the life he deserved. But no matter how badly Adam wanted to chase that dream he’d grown up with, he’d unexpectedly found a new dream - or dreamer - along the way, and he fell in love with it.

So Adam broke the promise he’d made to himself and he came back to Henrietta after he left. He came back at Christmas, summer break, the occasional long weekend. He came back because for the first time in his life, there was something worth coming back for. And after four years of hard work, Adam came back to Henrietta once more with a degree to prove just how hard he’d been working.

Now, Adam had been back in Henrietta for two months since graduating, and he had no immediate plans to leave. He had a job that he actually liked going to, he had Gansey and Blue from time to time, and most importantly he had Ronan. Adam still didn’t want to stay in Henrietta forever, but right now he wanted to be with Ronan for a while.

It was this thought - of being with Ronan for a while - that made Adam recall a conversation they’d had about a year and a half earlier. How he’d forgotten they’d had it in the first place, he wasn’t sure.

It was one random weekend when Ronan had driven up to see Adam and they’d been lying in his bed catching up on all the time they’d missed together when Ronan brought it up.

“How would you feel if we got married one day?”

The question probably should have caught Adam off guard. It had come out of nowhere, they’d never talked about it before, and he’d honestly been dozing off when Ronan asked. But for some reason it didn’t surprise him at all. He rolled over so he was facing Ronan. He could see that the question had been weighing on Ronan’s mind for a while and it had been somewhat difficult for him to ask. Adam smiled, hoping to put him at ease.

“One day, yeah,” Adam said. “I would really like that.”

“Yeah?” Ronan said, clearly relieved.

“Yeah. It wouldn’t be for a while, though. I don’t want to get married before I graduate.”

Ronan smiled. “That’s good, because I don’t want to be so far away from you when we get married.” Adam loved that neither of them seemed to bat an eyelash at the prospect of them still being together two years from then. Why wouldn’t they be?

And sure enough, not quite two years later, Adam was driving to the barns after work where Ronan was waiting for him. He smiled at the memory and wondered if Ronan remembered it, too.

Ronan was sitting on the porch talking on the phone when Adam pulled up. He glanced up at Adam and waved before saying something into the phone. Adam got out of his car and could immediately hear Ronan callously saying something to whoever was on the other line. When he got closer, it was clear that that person was Declan. He could always tell when it was Declan based on Ronan’s tense posture, the curt and careless tone in his voice, and the frequent eye rolling. While their relationship had improved in the past few years, they still weren’t the best of friends and never would be.

Adam sat down beside Ronan and waited for the conversation to find its inevitable exhaustive end. Ronan was saying much less than Declan so Adam couldn’t piece together any of it, but he made out a couple angry words on Declan’s side. A moment later, Ronan hung up without saying anything and let out a frustrated sigh.

“Declan?” Adam asked. Ronan nodded. “What did he want?”

“Matthew got into a little bit of trouble and Declan is making it a bigger deal than it needs to be.”

Adam had known the Lynch brothers for long enough that he knew Ronan was probably right; Declan probably was overreacting. However, Ronan brushing it off was probably not quite the correct response, either.

Ronan sighed again and slumped against Adam. He buried his face in his neck and Adam put a hand on his knee.

“How was your day?” Ronan asked, his lips moving against Adam’s neck. Adam sighed, but with a much different inflection than Ronan.

“Better now,” He closed his eyes and leaned into the feeling of Ronan’s mouth against his skin. “It was a long day and I just wanted to come back home.”

“Glad you’re here now.” Ronan muttered.

The next few minutes went by a lot like that before they dragged themselves inside and threw together a makeshift dinner. Later in the evening, after Ronan had informed Adam of what exactly Matthew had done - Adam had been right about Ronan’s and Declan’s reactions - and Adam told him all about his day, they sat on the couch with some random show on mostly for background noise.

Ronan had his head in Adam’s lap and Adam absentmindedly ran his fingers through the little bit of hair that Ronan had let grow out. It wasn’t long, by any means, but it was longer than it had been in a long time and Adam found he really liked it.

Somehow, since the events that had happened since coming home, Adam had forgotten about what he’d remembered earlier that day. He’d had full intentions of reminding Ronan of the conversation they’d had nearly two years ago, but somewhere along the way it had slipped his mind. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking about it.

Ronan sat up and faced Adam. “You’re graduated now.”

“So says the diploma they gave me.”

Ronan nodded, as though it were a conversation with no intent before saying, “So do you still want to get married?”

Despite Adam thinking about the same thing all day, the question still took him by surprise. Perhaps it was the casual nature in which he asked, or the fact that he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten again. He shook it off, though.

“Yes, of course.” Adam said. He considered the question again and even though his answer wasn’t going to change, he had to ask. “Was that a proposal?”

Ronan raised an eyebrow. “That would be the lamest proposal ever, don’t you think?” He said. “I don’t even have a ring.”

“Well, I didn’t think so,” Adam said. “But I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

Ronan smirked and leaned into Adam. “I think I can do better than that. Give me a little credit.”

Adam smiled, too. “Okay. So are you saying I should be expecting a proposal?”

Ronan closed the gap between them and kissed him. He pulled away just enough so he could say, “When you’re least expecting it, Parrish.”

Adam grinned and closed the distance between them once more.

It seemed to Adam that knowing any day now Ronan could be proposing should have ruined the surprise. That perhaps knowing should have made it less exciting. But it didn’t; not at all. If anything, the idea that any day now he and Ronan could be engaged made Adam more excited.

The problem was that he now expected it all the time. Over the course of the next two weeks, Adam was always ready for it. Whenever Ronan dug into his pocket only to pull out his phone, the time he stopped walking and knelt down to pick up a dollar on the sidewalk, when they were eating dinner, watching a movie, laying in bed. And the problem with expecting it all the time was that Ronan said it would happen when he least expected it. If that was the case, it would never happen.

As days went by and nothing happened, Adam wondered if somehow Ronan knew Adam was anticipating it, or if he actually had something planned. A few times he considered doing it himself, but if Ronan was planning something, he didn’t want to ruin that. So he waited. Excitedly, impatiently, he waited. And he always expected it. Until one night, he didn’t.

Adam was sure that when it did happen, it wouldn’t surprise him. He knew it was coming and it was really all he’d been thinking about; it would be hard to take him by surprise. But, when it finally happened, it did. And perhaps the only reason Adam wasn’t expecting to be asked when he was, was because Ronan hadn’t been planning on asking when he did.

It was shortly before 3am when Adam woke up to find Ronan gone. He didn’t think much of it and was about to fall back asleep when he realized it was the sound of the front door slamming shut that had woken him up. At this, he sat up in bed. He sat very still and remained very quiet in an attempt to see if he could hear Ronan. When he couldn’t, he threw on a shirt and wandered out of the room.

“Ronan?” He poked his head into a few rooms and walked into the kitchen. “Ronan?” He said again.

It was obvious Ronan was not in the house, but it took noticing the porch light turned on outside for Adam to confirm it. It wasn’t concerning that Ronan was outside this late. Usually when he couldn’t sleep or had a bad dream, that’s where he went and he was almost always fine to be alone. But on the off chance that something was wrong, or in case it was one of those times when he didn’t want to be alone, Adam always went to check on him.

Adam stepped outside, expecting to find Ronan sitting on the porch, but instead found lights on in the buildings across the yard. It was where Ronan did most of his dreaming and stored a lot of the things he dreamt that he had not yet found any use for. Knowing that’s where Ronan was, Adam decided to go back inside and back to sleep. Unless Ronan invited Adam, it was usually best to stay away when Ronan was dreaming. Just in case.

Before he could do anything, though, all the lights turned off. Including the porch light which was only a coincidence, but did leave Adam standing in the dark. A moment later, he could make out Ronan’s silhouette approaching the house. It was only when it was too late that Adam realized Ronan did not know he was standing out here, which meant no matter what he did, Ronan was about to get the shit scared out of him.

“Ronan.” Adam said.

Ronan, in spite of his tough exterior and a lifetime of trauma, screamed and jumped back. The movement caused the porch light to turn back on, illuminating the wide-eyed look on Ronan’s face.

“Sorry!” Adam shouted. He took a couple steps towards Ronan. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Jesus fuck, Parrish,” Ronan said. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

“I heard you come outside and wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Well, I was until you manifested on the porch.”

“I did not manifest on the porch. I was waiting for you to make sure you were okay.” He said again.

“Waiting for me in the middle of the night, in total darkness.”

“Sorry,” Adam took a step back.

Ronan smiled a little and shook his head. “It’s fine. You got me pretty good.” He took a few steps forward and kissed Adam on the forehead. “Sorry for waking you up.”

Adam brushed off his apology. “So what were you doing out here?”

Ronan glanced back into the darkness in the direction he’d just come from. “Um…” He said. “I had something I had to bring out.”

“Something new?” Ronan nodded. “What is it?”

They were standing close enough that Adam could see the way Ronan hesitated. Sometimes he did that. If it was something from a nightmare or had bad connotations, Ronan didn’t always want Adam to see. Not right away, at least. But now, that unease slid from his face and he offered his hand out to Adam with a slight smile.

“Come on,” He said. “I’ll show you.”

Ronan led Adam by the hand the whole way there. Adam could have found it by himself, even in the dark, but he wasn’t going to let go. Ronan pushed open a door and held it open for Adam. They stepped in together and Ronan flicked on the lights.

To any ordinary eye, the room wouldn’t appear to be anything special. Just a worn-down, larger-than-average shed filled wall to wall with junk. But Adam knew it was so much more than that. It wasn’t junk, but pieces of Ronan. The good, the bad, the weird. All things that couldn’t exist without Ronan, and shouldn’t be able to exist in the first place. It was a room full of magic and Adam loved every single time Ronan brought him inside. There were always new additions he hadn’t seen before and improved additions to things Ronan had been working on.

Ronan left Adam standing in the doorway to drink it all in like he always did, and walked to the far back corner where he began digging through a box. Adam left Ronan to find what he was looking for and began wandering around the room that literally held the contents of Ronan’s mind.

Adam distracted himself with some familiar items on the shelf in front of him and did not hear Ronan approach him until he was standing right behind him.

“Hey,” Ronan said, snaking an arm around Adam and placing something down on the counter.

It was an old model of a car. The exact model that he had found in Ronan’s childhood bedroom just moments before Ronan kissed him for the first time. Adam knew, however, that it was not the model, because that model was sitting on the dresser of the bedroom they now shared. It looked the exact same though, which meant either Ronan knew every single detail of that little car by heart or he had actively spent time trying to recreate it in his dreams.

“Wow,” Adam said, still staring at the car he now held in his hands. “Is this what you did tonight?” He asked.

“Among other things.” Ronan said from behind him. Adam turned around to ask him what he meant, but the words died in his throat before he could even form them.

Perhaps it was because it was 3 in the morning and he was still pretty tired, and that’s why Adam didn’t see it coming. Or maybe it was because Ronan successfully distracted him for long enough to make him forget all about it. Maybe it was because the magic of this room was even stronger than he thought, and it really did have the ability to make him forget about the only thing he’d been thinking of for two weeks. Whatever the reason was, Adam had truly not been expecting it.

Ronan was looking up at Adam from where he was kneeling and grinned. He glanced at the ring he was holding and back up at Adam who, more than anything, was wondering how he did not see this coming. It was obvious Ronan could tell what he was thinking based on his smug smile.

“I told you, Parrish,” He said. “When you least expect it.”

Adam looked away for just a second to set down the replica of the car so he wouldn’t drop it. He quickly turned back to Ronan, knowing he wasn’t hiding his shock at all.

Countless thoughts were running through his head. They all overlapped each other, making it impossible to form one coherent one which was why the first thing he said was probably not the right thing.

“Did you wake me up on purpose so you could do this?” He asked

Ronan laughed. “I promise you, I did not. I didn’t even plan on doing this tonight, which is probably the only reason you weren’t expecting it.”

“What do you mean?” Adam asked. He was pretty sure this was a conversation that should have waited until later and he should just let Ronan propose, but he was not exactly thinking straight. Ronan didn’t seem to mind.

“I have been dreaming up a ring every night for the past two weeks,” He said. “And not a single one of them turned out right. I snuck out here every night to see if it was good enough, and they never were. When you asked what I dreamt tonight, I was going to lie, but tonight it finally turned out how I wanted. I knew you weren’t expecting it so I thought, what better timing?”

Adam looked at the ring in Ronan’s hand. It was simple but eloquent and very Ronan. With a black strip threaded all the way around the middle and silver on either side, it was truly the perfect combination of Ronan’s personal dreamland and Adam’s elegant magic. There was something about it, though, that made it truly special and it had nothing to do with its physical appearance. It was the same thing that came with everything Ronan ever dreamt. An aura, perhaps, that made it feel like magic without even needing to see it. That unexplainable feeling was stronger with this than it was with anything else Ronan had ever brought back. This was Ronan Lynch down to the core.

It was hard to say exactly what about all of this made it happen, but Adam felt the sting of tears forming in his eyes. He wanted to blame it on the late hour, but he knew it had nothing to do with that. It was the magic of Ronan. Of his ability to surprise Adam when Adam didn’t think he could, all the effort he put into making the perfect ring, how there was a time when Adam didn’t think he deserved any of this but Ronan showed him why that was wrong time and time again. Adam blinked back the tears, but he could still feel them glazing over his eyes.

“Okay, I’m going to do this now.” Ronan said. Adam nodded, not trusting himself to speak. “Adam, I love you. I love you more than I thought I could and you loving me back is honestly the last thing I ever expected to happen. The fact that you do still blows my mind sometimes, but I’ve never been more grateful for it. You are the smartest and most incredible person I have ever met, and I know damn well that you have an incredible future ahead of you. I don’t know where that’s going to take you, but I would love for nothing more than to be apart of it. Adam Parrish, will you marry me?”

It was odd, Adam thought, that even though they both knew what he was going to say, Ronan was still clearly nervous. It was even more odd that even though Adam had known this was coming and should have been prepared, he was still crying. Adam smiled; Ronan did, too.

“Yes,” Was all he said.

Ronan stood up and pulled Adam into his arms. They kissed and Adam couldn’t help but think about their first kiss and how that one also started with Adam holding a little toy car in a room that was, in essence, Ronan’s. He hadn’t had any idea what he was in for back then and he never could have imagined this. He never would have imagined Ronan sliding a ring onto his finger that he’d pulled out of his dreams. He never would have imagined Ronan giving some heartfelt proposal about how much he loved him. He definitely never would have imagined walking back to their shared home to slow dance in their kitchen at 4am, kissing delicately, holding on tightly.

It was nice, Adam thought with his head resting against Ronan and Ronan holding him close, how truly wonderful surprises could be.

#pynch #the raven cycle #ronan lynch #adam parrish #trb #trc #the raven boys #my writing

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womantryingtoexist · 5 years

Note

57 for TRC (pynch)?

57, I`ll call in sick… again

(This is going to be some pre-canon, pre-pynch stuff, tw: child abuse)

Adam was not at work. Adam had also not been at school, but that was not unheard of. Work however? Parrish really had to be dead in a ditch.

And no, Ronan did not worry. He just wanted for Gansey to shut up, thank you very much. If Parrish was done with work, good for him. That fucker probably fucked up to wherever he went when he wasn`t with them or at work. The trailer, probably.

It was week 16 of Parrishs occupation of Gansey. Not that Ronan was counting, of course. Ronan could have bet that a straight-laced kid like Adam would fuck off the second Gansey started talking about his Glendower obsession, but no, he stuck around. And did it still. Just not today.

Which was weird, okay? They had something planned. And not that Ronan was memorizing shit or something, but Adam was never late - except for school on the bad days.

Ronan hated thinking of the bad days. Hated thinking of someone else shitting on Parrish and his bruised ego. That was his job.

Maybe that was why Ronan said goodbye to Gansey, who still looked lost in front of the Adam-less garage. But Ronan did not plan to participate in his usual after-school activities. Nah, he wanted to tell Parrish to bring his precious ass over to Monmouth so Gansey could stop complaining.

Against poplar believe, Ronan was no complete idiot. He parked the BMW far up the dirty road that led to Adam`s trailer. He even shed his leather jacket and opted for only his black tang. No need to make things harder than they already are.

Virginia heat is a special kind of heat, Ronan mused. It is fucked up hot, fucked up moist, and everybody knows that shit that can be described as moist is disgusting.

When he reached the trailer, sweat plastered his shirt to his body. The run down thing in front of him was silent in the way abandond buildings are silent. The same could not be said for his surroundings. A dog was barking, kids screaming - some of joy, some definitely not - and a woman yelled something in the distant.

Ronan knocked.

He had a bad feeling. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it would have been better to wait it the fuck out and to make fun of Parrish when he reappeared. What if his dad opened the door? Ronan didn`t trust himself enough not to throw hands.

Adam opened.

He looked like shit. There was no other way to describe it. The circles under his eyes were pronounced as fuck, a bruise colored almost all of his face. But that was not unusual. This would normally only mean a day or two of missed school. But something else had to be fucking wrong for Adam to also miss work.

But Ronan knew he had no way of figuring that out if Adam closed the door in his face. So, before Adam could really react besides a raised eyebrow, Ronan already pushed past him into the trailer.

“Shiiiit, Parrish”

Not the most eloquent, but what looked fucked up from the outside did certainly not improve on the inside - at least not with this double wide.

“No shit, Lynch. What do you want?”

There was defiance in Parrish`s eyes, not that Ronan had counted on anything else. But he also didn`t move, still leaning against the door frame. Ronan had the sinking suspicion, that the door did a better job at keeping Adam upright than Adam himself did.

“You didn`t show up for work, Pisser. Gansey has his panties in a twist, wanted to know where you are…”

It was not a lie. Just also not the whole truth. But Adam Parrish did not need to know that Ronan cared. Hell, he didn`t even want to know it himself.

Adam scoffed:

“I had better things to do, as you can see!”

There was so much bitterness in his voice. Adam reminded Ronan of himself. Which also meant that Ronan knew how to deal with this certain kind of asshole.

“Piss about all you want, but Gansey wants his tabs on you updated. Hell, if you don`t show up tomorrow here himself and your neighbors are sure not ready for Dick Three and the Return of The Fucking Republicans. So, are you going to be a little shit or can i tell Gansey you are back tomorrow?”

Ronan knew he was a bit loud. But he also knew that Adam would not have opened the door if his parents were here.

Parrish looked at him for a long time. When he finally sighted tension left his body like a fucking waterfall. With a few stilted steps Adam reached a kitchen chair. Sitting, he motioned for Ronan to take the other one.

“I am not gonna be back at school tomorrow, Lynch… or at work”

Something hitched inside Ronans chest - it might have been feelings.

“Then what are you going to do?”

There was honest concern in his voice. He had seen Adam beaten down many times before but today he looked defeated.

“I am going to call in sick… again”

In this moment Ronan was sure that Adam Parrish would die if he didn`t move out soon. And that thought terrified him.

“But what is so fucked up that you missed both school and work?”

This was probably nicer than anything Ronan had ever said to Adam and yet it did not come close to the questions he wanted to ask:

How can I help? What can I do? Should I drive you to the hospital? Will you let me help you?

Maybe he didn`t ask those questions because the answer would only be a fight.

“Nothing I can`t handle, Lynch. Are you happy now? I am not dead and you can say Gansey, I did not forget his thing, okay? I`ll be back in a few days…”

If Ronan could only believe him. His concern must have shown on his face, because what only moments before had been an exhausted Adam was suddenly a guarded Parrish again.

“And now piss of, before one of my neighbors steals your precious big shit car!”

“Fuck off!”

But Ronan did leave. With a bad taste in his mouth and the need to burn something down. Maybe Kavinsky was available.

_______________________________

Thank you for this Drabble Prompt!It did definitely turn out angstier than intended…. but then again, i cannot do Pynch without Angst!

Send me Prompts and I will wirte a Drabble

#ask #Anonymous #asks ask and answer ask me #trc #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #gansey #tw abuse mention #swearing

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swimmingwolf59 · 6 years

Text

I am He as You are He as You are Me

(A/N) Hey guys, sorry this took so long! My mental health took a turn for the worst yesterday so I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to, but I feel much better today and was able to crank this out for you all! I had a lot of fun writing it – body swapping is one of my absolute favorite tropes EVER!! I wanted to write more honestly, but it felt like it was already getting out of hand, and I wanted to focus on pynch since, you know, pynchweek xD Who knows though, maybe I’ll come back to this universe someday :P

Anyway, hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!! I know technically pynchweek is over soon, but I still have another two entries that’ll be coming your way hopefully soon!

P.S. Cabeswater is a prankster change my fucking mind

It all started when Gansey suggested they go camping.

Instead of wanting to camp in a national park of some kind like a normal person, Gansey wanted to camp in Cabeswater. His logic was that they always wanted to explore it and start trying to make a map, so why not spend a full two days there, submerged in the forest, learning its ways? At the time, everyone had been enthusiastic about the idea.

They might not have been if they’d known what was going to happen.

It started out fine. They spent the day wandering and mapping and getting lost in nature. At one point, Ronan found himself physically lost in nature with Adam; though they were the Greywaren and the Magician respectively, neither of them asked for Cabeswater to help guide them. There was a part of Ronan that enjoyed being lost in the woods with Adam, and it seemed like Adam might feel the same way.

They’d been skirting this…thing between them for some time now. Neither of them liked to mention it directly. They both knew it was happening, and they both played the game, but neither of them had tried to win it. Ronan no longer looked away when Adam caught him staring at him, but he didn’t do anything more either; he was afraid to, afraid that the teasing and smiles that Adam gave him would go away if he did.

But here, right now, in Cabeswater’s warm protection, it felt like anything could happen.

“Aha!” Adam exclaimed suddenly and hurried forward. Once he reached the tree, he slammed his palm on its trunk and turned to Ronan triumphantly. “See? I told you we’d eventually pass this tree more than five times.”

It was a strange tree, but that was what made it so wonderful: it was an oak tree, but somewhere along the way in its growth it had become twisted and convoluted until it grew every which way. One of the trunks had grown completely horizontal for a while before suddenly jarring upwards at a 45-degree angle and then straightening out again. The horizontal bit looked like it made a good bench to sit on, if one was willing to try and climb up to it.

Ronan had bet Adam they wouldn’t pass it more than five times on their lost adventures. The loser had to try and climb the tree.

“You just want to see me fall on my ass, don’t you Parrish?” Ronan scoffed but shirked off his shirt and began climbing the tree.

It was actually quite easy, considering how weird the angles were: there were ridges and cavities bored into the trunks by animals or insects, making perfect handholds for climbing. The only times Ronan got stuck was when the trunk turned in a really acute angle, which forced him to shimmy around to the other side of the trunk so he could climb more safely.

But he made it, and when he did he stood on the flat surface triumphantly. “Ha! Bet you can’t make it up here, Parrish!”

Adam was already at the base of the tree, his hands on the trunk and his eyes gleaming with challenge as he stared up at Ronan. “What do I get if I make it there?”

“…I’ll tell you my deepest, darkest secret,” Ronan said, because Adam looked gorgeous staring up at him like that in his natural forest element and it felt like anything could happen.

Adam hesitated for only a second before taking off his shirt and beginning to eagerly hoist himself up the tree. It wasn’t often that Ronan offered his secrets for such a cheap price, after all, and Adam was a sucker for bargains.

Ronan carelessly draped himself across the tree ledge as he watched Adam climb. This was a prize in itself, really – watching Adam’s muscles move with no clothes to block his imagination. He watched the sweat gleam off of his tan skin and imagined licking it off of him, imagined what it would taste like, imagined what kind of noise Adam would make as he did it, imagined how his breath would stutter under his tongue.

It was dangerous, letting himself think these thoughts when Adam was so close. There was no telling what he might do.

But then again, he knew Adam was an excellent climber. And he knew exactly what he was going to tell him when he made his way up here.

Adam didn’t make Ronan wait long. He dragged himself onto the ledge quicker than Ronan had, pushing Ronan’s legs aside to make room for himself to sit down. He was panting lightly and his skin gleamed even brighter under the light filtering in from the canopy now that he was closer to Ronan. And he smelled wonderful, too, like the crushed needles of a grand fir.

This was dangerous.

“Alright, Lynch,” Adam said when he caught his breath. “What’s the secret?”

He was looking at Ronan in a way that made it impossible to doubt how he felt. They’d been playing this game together all along, and yet neither of them had quite believed they were both playing the same game. Ronan believed it now; looking at Adam like this, so close to him, and smelling that citrusy scent, he could believe anything.

So he sat up, cupped Adam’s cheek in his hand, and kissed him.

When he pulled back, Adam had a small smile on his face. “Oh. That? That’s not a secret – I already knew about that.”

“Asshole,” Ronan growled through a laugh, but didn’t pull away when Adam leaned in to kiss him again.

Suddenly, the light disappeared. It was so abrupt that it made both of them jump and nearly fall backwards out of the tree. The stars started to break through the total darkness, much faster than they would normally, and eventually one burned so bright that it cast a dim light over Ronan and Adam.

Ronan straightened into a defensive posture. “Horror movie setting.”

“Romantic candlelight,” Adam corrected.

They stared at each other. And then they burst out laughing.

“Cabeswater, you little shit,” Ronan gasped. The trees shook around them and it felt like they were laughing, too.

“I feel like Cabeswater’s become more playful lately,” Adam said, leaning forward to kiss his way up Ronan’s jaw. He whispered into Ronan’s ear, “It really does take after you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan growled, a shiver slicing up his spine. He gingerly placed his hands on Adam’s chest, let his fingers splay out across his ribs. “But yeah, next thing we know it’s going to be playing practical jokes on us.”

“Oh God, I can’t even imagine what it’ll come up with,” Adam laughed, but they didn’t waste time on speculating.

Instead, they sat in that tree and kissed and kissed until they had utterly lost all track of time, not that time worked normally in Cabeswater anyway. They kissed until their lips were bruised and they had traced over almost every inch of their bodies with their fingers, touching and probing. In a way, they were doing their own kind of mapping; exploring and worshipping and finding out what touch and where made the other gasp.

And in the background, Cabeswater changed the ambience to fit their moods. It increased and decreased the light when it thought it was necessary, changed the colors around them, blew wind across their fevered skin when it felt like the heat was too much to bear. At one point it sounded like a song whistled through the trees, but Ronan couldn’t catch what song it was before Adam distracted him by biting down on his skin.

It was magical. It was perfect.

But eventually, they parted, knowing their friends would worry if they didn’t find their way back soon. Ronan could hardly breathe; he felt like he’d been underwater for hours.

“We should’ve done that months ago,” Adam said as they caught their breaths and carefully picked their way down from the tree.

Years, Ronan almost said, but he didn’t really want Adam to know just how long he’d been playing their game.

They put on their shirts and walked back to the campsite hand-in-hand, Cabeswater showing them the way now that they both wanted to head back. Ronan’s palm was entirely too sweaty—despite how long they’d spent making out, he was nervous about handholding of all things, Blue would never let him live it down if she found out—and he prayed that Adam couldn’t tell.

That night, they all roasted marshmallows and made s’mores, Ronan teaching Adam how to get it just right since he had never done anything like that before. Gansey told stories about Glendower and Henry told Korean horror stories and Blue talked about the endangered rainforests. Ronan made up stupidly hilarious stories about Declan and Adam made up hilariously stupid stories about Declan until they were all rolling around laughing.

But eventually everyone started to get tired, and they all retired to their tents. Gansey, Blue, and Henry were sharing a tent that was barely big enough to fit the three of them while Ronan and Adam had each brought their own. After the events of today, though, Ronan wondered if he really had to sleep alone.

Poking his head out, and watching Adam struggle to fix a shitty pole on his tent, he barked, “Your tent is actual garbage Parrish, just get the fuck in here.”

“It’s good enough,” Adam protested, like the stubborn asshole he was.

Ronan rolled his eyes. “I’ll make Cabeswater knock it down at night if you don’t get in here.”

Adam glared at him, but after a moment of a locked stare-down he must’ve realized what Ronan’s true reasons for wanting him in his tent were because he threw the poles onto the ground, stalked over to Ronan’s tent, and forced himself inside.

Ronan’s tent was humongous, so there was no reason to lay close to each other, but they pretended that wasn’t true and curled close together anyway. It was too hot to be in their sleeping bags so they slept on top of them, staring at each other in the faint light.

Adam moved first, tossing his leg up over Ronan’s.

It was more or less easy after that; they knocked limbs and shoved each other around until they settled into a comfortable, tangled position. Adam’s legs were hooked around Ronan’s knees and Ronan had his arm thrown around Adam’s waist and his face shoved into his neck. It was still too hot for this behavior, but they pretended that wasn’t true, either.

Instead, Ronan pressed closer to Adam.

This was how it should be.

II.

The next morning, Ronan woke up next to Gansey, not Adam.

Rearing back, he flailed, trying to wrench himself out of his sleeping bag. His body felt weird and disproportionate and he couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten into Gansey’s tent. And actually, why the hell was he in his sleeping bag?! It had been hot as hell when he’d gone to sleep!

But holy shit, had kissing Adam been a dream? Had he kissed Gansey in some fever-induced haze?!

In his panic, Ronan accidentally knocked Gansey in the knee with his foot, causing Gansey to sleepily blink his eyes open. “…Blue?”

…Blue?! He knew Gansey was blind without his glasses or contacts, but holy shit! Wait…Blue? Gansey almost never called Blue Blue.

“I’m not—!” Ronan shouted but stopped because that was not his voice. It had come out higher-pitched and…womanly.

Glancing down warily, things started to click into place: he was wearing some kind of weird nightgown that looked like it had started off its life as a sparkly blue bath curtain. His skin was dark and long hair drooped down into his face from where part of it was clipped up. The nails of the foot he’d kicked Gansey with were covered in neon yellow nail polish.

He was also about five feet tall.

…Oh fuck no.

“Blue, how did you get in my tent? Where’s Ronan?” Gansey asked, and Ronan suddenly realized with growing horror that Gansey wasn’t Gansey either. He had to be…

“…Parrish?” Ugh, he couldn’t get used to talking in Blue’s voice.

Gansey—no, Adam—scrunched his eyebrows together. “Why are you calling me—?”

And then it seemed to occur to him that something was off. He glanced down at himself, blanched, and glanced up at Ronan. “…What the fuck? Blue, I’m—”

“Yeah, I know, I am too. I’m not Sargent by the way,” Ronan growled.

Adam squinted at him. “Lynch?”

“Unfortunately.”

Adam squinted at him some more before he rolled onto his back and started hooting with laughter. It was unsettling watching Gansey’s body laugh so uproariously at someone else’s suffering.

“Shut the fuck up!” Ronan hissed and attempted to kick him. It felt like there was no power behind his tiny limbs. “You’re literally fucking Gansey right now.”

“Yeah, but—” Adam could barely speak through his laughter. “You’re Blue.”

Ronan growled and decided he’d had enough of this, so he threw himself out of the tent. As he stomped outside, he saw Adam climb out of Ronan’s tent. Except, it couldn’t really be Adam, because Adam was currently inside Gansey.

“Bluebird?” was the horrific thing that came out of Adam’s mouth.

Oh God it was Henry.

“…What in the world is going on…?” a familiar voice said as someone else climbed out behind Henry.

…Oh God that was his body climbing out of his tent over there.

Ronan didn’t know how to process any of this. It was unreal; it was somehow stranger than anything else they’d ever faced before. For a while he just stood there, stupefied, as he watched his body slowly approach him. “…Jane?”

“No, that’s Ronan,” Adam said as he finally joined everyone outside the tent. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I think we should figure out who’s in who’s body to avoid any more confusion. I’m Adam.”

“And I’m Henry,” Adam’s body said.

“I’m Gansey, but…” Ronan’s body said as he thumbed at his lip. Ronan decided that he hated watching Gansey’s habits manifesting on his body. “I’m sorry, but am I Ronan right now?”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Ronan snapped at him.

Gansey shook out his legs. “I’m not used to being this tall.”

Ugh, Ronan was getting a headache watching his own body do stuff.

“Cabeswater, what the fuck?!” Ronan shouted at the sky, already done with this nonsense. “Change us back!”

Nothing happened.

“Cabeswater!” Gansey—no, Adam, fuck this was confusing—shouted. “Change us back!”

Again, nothing happened.

“What the shit?!” Ronan hissed.

“Maybe it’s not listening because we’re not in the bodies of the Greywaren or the Magician,” Adam speculated.

“But it did this to us – shouldn’t it be the only one not confused?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t purposeful,” Gansey said. Ronan did not like looking at his own body talking like an old person. It was just wrong. “Here, I’ll try – Cabeswater, uhh…”

Ronan had to acidly supply him with the Latin. When Gansey stumbled over the pronunciations, but more or less said it, however, Cabeswater still did nothing.

“…We should ask Fox Way about this,” Adam said eventually.

“Great,” Ronan grumbled.

Gansey looked over at him, amused. “You may have to live there for a while, Ronan, considering you’re Jane right now.”

Ronan reared back. “Oh fuck no—”

Just then, Henry, presumably Blue, crawled out of the tent and glanced around at all of them. She stared for a good minute before saying eloquently, “Well this is fucked.”

III.

Of course, the women at 300 Fox Way had known immediately what was happening.

Maura opened the door in a fit of hysterics. “I must say you kids certainly get yourselves into a lot of strange situations!”

“How can you laugh about this?” Blue demanded. She pointed at Ronan. “Ronan’s in my body!!”

Adam snorted. “You have to admit that’s really funny.”

“I don’t think it’s very funny,” Calla hissed, appearing out of nowhere and latching onto Ronan’s shoulder, her hand like a claw. “How dare you inhabit Blue’s precious body, snake.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to fucking be here either,” Ronan growled, attempting to shove her off. A horrible thought occurred to him suddenly and he turned to Blue. “Oh God, you’re not on your period are you?”

Calla smacked him in the back of the head as she withdrew her hand. Blue glared at him, though most of the heat of it was lost in translation to Henry’s face. “No, God, why would you even ask that?”

“I don’t want to fucking deal with that! I already have to deal with having…woman parts.” Ronan shuddered at the thought.

“Oh, poor you,” Blue snapped as she crossed her arms. “I hope my period does start when you’re in my body, just to spite you; then you’d know how awful it is.”

Ronan bared his teeth at her but, before he could say anything, Gansey stepped forward. It went against all laws of nature that Ronan’s body was attempting to mediate conflict. “Ms. Sargent, do you have any ideas on why this has happened or how we can fix it?”

“How many times have I told you to call me Maura – none of that ‘Ms. Sargent’ crap,” Maura snapped. Ronan shuddered as Gansey made his face look remorseful. Fuck Gansey was going to ruin his reputation.

Maura sipped her dubious tea concoction as she settled down on their ratty couch. She seemed entirely unphased considering the situation. “Honestly, I think Cabeswater is just having a little fun. It sees you guys clowning around all the time and wants to seem more like its human companions, so it’s playing around.”

“So Cabeswater’s pulling a prank on us,” Henry said.

Ronan pointed at Adam. “I fucking told you it would!”

“Is there a way we can ask it to stop?” Gansey asked.

“We already tried that, remember?” Adam said. “It didn’t respond to me or Ronan.”

“Just let it have its fun, I’m sure it’ll return you all to normal soon enough,” Maura said, smirking around her tea cup.

Ronan glared at her. “You’re fucking enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“I’m mainly looking forward to forcing you to do things as my daughter,” Maura cackled, a gleam of something sinister in her eyes.

Ronan got out of there as fucking fast as he could.

IV.

It turned out that the worst thing Maura made him do was go to school. She insisted he go to school because Blue would and it turned out that Mountainview Shitty High was way worse than Aglionby. Mainly because Gansey and Adam weren’t there, but also because Blue was so short that he couldn’t intimidate people as easily as usual so people kept trying to…talk to him. He even had to go to a guidance counseling meeting that made him want to kill himself. (Honestly, by storming out of there and getting nothing accomplished he was doing Blue a favor.)

The whole experience was horrific.

But at least after it was over, Adam came to walk home with him because Gansey would’ve done that for Blue.

“Parrish, thank God,” Ronan said as he saw him lurking on the sidewalk outside of Mountainshit. “This place is giving me hives.”

“You’ve been here for six hours,” Adam said, a smirk on his face. He was truly doing a poor job of imitating Gansey.

Ronan shot him a horrified look. “God, don’t remind me.”

Adam laughed before glancing around suddenly. It was only then that Ronan realized people were staring at them, leaning their heads together to gossip quietly. He stared at Adam. “Fuck, how do Dick and Sargent usually act in public?”

Adam did a weird little half-shrug. “I don’t know, should we kiss or something? They’re always all over each other now that Blue’s no longer cursed.”

Ronan scoffed and glanced down at the ground. “Man, I can’t kiss you when you look like Gansey… I know short girls with weird outfits are your type, but—”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” Adam sighed. “Here, we can just hold hands or whatever – that should be fine, right?”

Ronan swallowed. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

Adam grabbed his hand and essentially started dragging him off down the sidewalk. And even though they’d just done this last night, it was weird because it was Gansey. Even though he knew Adam was currently occupying his body, it was disconcerting to glance over and see Gansey’s face instead of Adam’s.

Despite all that, though Ronan’s hand was still so fucking sweaty. How goddamn embarrassing.

“This is so fucking weird,” Ronan grumbled, kicking at stray pebbles along the side of the road. The one good thing about dressing like Blue was that she had some killer Doc Martins. “Did you know girls have to sit when they piss? Talk about inconvenient.”

Adam snorted. “Of course I knew that, Lynch, how did you not know that? Do you think everyone has a penis?”

“I wish everyone had a penis.”

Adam shoved him. “It is kind of weird becoming comfortable with someone else’s genitals, though…”

“Please don’t tell me you were admiring Dick’s dick in the bathroom.”

“I wasn’t!” Adam snarled, a blush on his face. “…Though that wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done to Gansey today…”

Ronan grinned, delighted and intrigued. “What the fuck did you do?”

-five hours earlier-

Adam thought that everyone must know something was off.

He couldn’t be a convincing Gansey. He had spent many nights agonizing and wishing he could be, but he couldn’t pull off the flawless politician’s smile or seeming genuinely interested when schmoozing with people. He was having trouble even pretending that he could do it. Just this morning, he’d lost his dignity because he’d had to dress himself in a hideously bright-colored polo underneath his uniform and put on those…boat shoes. When he’d walked out and Ronan had practically been rolling on the floor from his laughter, he’d sworn and flipped him off before stalking out, a decidedly non-Gansey action.

And his behavior hadn’t much improved once he got to school. Adam had had no idea really how many people Gansey knew and engaged in pleasant conversation with. It was exhausting. Every step he took someone was whooping at him or slapping a hand on his shoulder or asking him about something mundane. It was hard not to act like Adam Parrish—ignore them, flinch when they touched him—and it was even harder to act like Gansey—act interested, have something interesting to say back, know who the fuck these people even were and how Gansey knew them.

It was a disaster.

He at least took comfort from the fact that Gansey was doing no better of a job imitating Ronan. In fact, he was arguably doing worse – he was bad at permanently scowling, and more than once Adam had had to nudge him in the ribs because he’d been walking around with a goofy, utterly non-Ronan smile on his face. Every time he had to swear at someone, he stumbled on his words so much that it almost came out sounding polite. It was endlessly entertaining, and Adam almost hoped they stayed in each other’s bodies long enough just so he could show Ronan how bad of a job Gansey was doing.

He’d be mortified.

“This is incredibly difficult,” Gansey said to Adam as they walked to fourth period. (History, a class Ronan would never be caught dead in, but if Gansey was going to do anything with this opportunity he was going to make Ronan go to school.) He was thumbing his lip, which made Adam realize that maybe he should be doing that, too.

“I know what you mean. I don’t know how you talk to so many people,” Adam grumbled. “Who even are they all?”

Gansey smiled and shrugged. “Mainly people I know from old clubs.”

“You do too many things,” Adam said, and Gansey laughed.

“I feel that way sometimes too.”

“Hey, Lynch!” a disgusting voice sneered. Adam and Gansey looked up to see Kavinsky grinning at them down the hall. “Still following Richard III around like a dumb dog, huh?”

This time, Gansey had no trouble. He glared at Kavinsky, tilted his chin up threateningly, and spat with venom, “Fuck off, dumb shit.”

And it was actually so much like Ronan that Adam acted completely on instinct. He laughed, and then, when Kavinsky had flipped them off and moved on, leaned over to press a chaste kiss to Ronan’s lips.

Except it wasn’t Ronan.

It was Gansey.

Adam reared back, horror flooding his body. Not only had he just kissed Gansey but he had done it in the crowded halls of Aglionby, which meant that at least thirty people had watched him do it. Holy fuck, was he so desperate that he couldn’t help himself, even though he knew that Ronan wasn’t Ronan right now?!

Oh shit oh fuck.

“…I’m very confused,” Gansey said. He looked it, too. “Do you usually do this with Ronan? And did I just get kissed by myself?”

Adam gaped, flustered and at a complete loss for words. He tried to explain himself, but it just came out as a big jumble: “I—I mean, yeah, recently Ronan and I have been…But Gans, I didn’t mean—You just looked—Ronan—”

“…I think I’m going to go find Jane,” Gansey said, slowly inching away. He had on his politician’s smile, which looked like a nightmare on Ronan’s face. “I am happy for you and Ronan though, I truly am! I just don’t see you in that way, Adam, I’m sorry!”

Adam groaned and buried his face in his hands.

VI.

Declan stalled when he saw Ronan at the end of the hall. Declan often stalled in the hall because of his younger brother—either because he was beating someone’s face in or passed out drunk against a locker—but this time he stalled merely because he absolutely could not believe what he was seeing.

Ronan was laughing. Ronan was smiling. He wasn’t slouching or wearing his tie improperly and he honest to God looked like he was flirting. Or trying to. The other boy seemed both charmed and offended by whatever was coming out of Declan’s brother’s mouth, which honestly wasn’t that surprising. But this…this was surprising.

Declan didn’t mean the whole gay thing. He knew Ronan was gay—it had been obvious to him since the time he found a cut out picture of a shirtless Leonardo DiCaprio underneath Ronan’s bed—and it didn’t bother him. A lot of things bothered Declan about his younger brother, but being gay was not one of them. In fact, it was probably the least offensive thing about him.

But for the love of God, did the person of his younger brother’s obvious affections really have to be Henry goddamn Cheng?

VII.

-the present-

“I can’t believe you kissed Gansey because he actually managed to act like me,” Ronan gasped, struggling to breathe through his laughter. “And cursing out K of all people!”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Adam hissed, a blush on his cheeks.

They had made it back to Monmouth before anyone else and were thus lounging around in the main room. Ronan was lying in Main Street of Gansey’s model of Henrietta—Blue’s body was small enough to do it without crushing anything, and Ronan had always wanted to—and Adam was spread out across the couch.

“No, I can’t, you’re so fucking desperate,” Ronan cackled, kicking his legs in the air. “Holy shit.”

Adam threw a notebook at him and nearly took out the library. “I’m never kissing you again.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ronan snorted. “I think today proved that you need to kiss me every time I say ‘fuck’.”

“I hate you.”

Ronan sarcastically blew him a kiss.

Just then, Blue burst her way into Monmouth. “We need to go back to Cabeswater and make it fix us. Right. Now.”

“Not having a good time as Cheng, Sargent?” Ronan asked, amused.

“No, Henry’s fine! I love him dearly, and it’s kind of fun hanging out with the Vancouver crowd at school and actually getting something accomplished when I protest!” Henry shot her a thumbs-up as he slipped by behind her. “No, the problem is Gansey – he couldn’t control himself at school today and made me kiss. Ronan.”

To his credit, Ronan held it in for about one second. Then he burst out laughing, resuming his limb flailing with how little he could keep his shit together. “Holy fuck, Parrish just told me a similar story! What the fuck is wrong with you guys? Am I the only one who didn’t try to kiss someone today?”

“I haven’t kissed anyone either, though I think Tad Carruthers wanted to,” Henry said. Adam and Ronan both made a noise of disgust. “I also totally bombed that history test, sorry Parrish.”

Adam looked like the world had just ended. “You what?!”

“See what I mean?” Blue shouted, gesturing wildly. “We’re all a disaster! We need to get our own bodies back!”

“I agree,” Gansey said, placing a hand on Blue’s shoulder. “Being Ronan is too exhausting.”

Ronan’s grin was sharp. “Isn’t it hell?”

“Being you, Gans, is too exhausting,” Adam said, standing up from the couch. “Alright, let’s go back to Cabeswater.”

“Maybe if we camp again, Cabeswater will kindly switch us back while we’re sleeping,” Henry suggested.

Everyone mumbled their agreement and grabbed their camping gear that had been tossed haphazardly around Monmouth after the last excursion. When they headed down to the Pig to pack it all up, however, everyone realized there was a problem: Ronan—who was really Gansey—had automatically grabbed for the driver’s side door of the Pig.

“It’d be weird if someone saw anyone but Three driving the Pig,” Henry pointed out.

“Especially if the person driving was Ronan,” Adam added.

Gansey set his jaw but reluctantly handed the keys to Adam. “I dislike this plan.”

“Hey, at least I’m not the one in your body,” Ronan sniped back, but there was a part of him that really, really wished he was. “I call shotgun.”

Gansey’s mouth dropped open. “No.”

“Blue usually does occupy the passenger’s seat now,” Adam pointed out. Ronan pointed at him.

“Just because you’re dating now doesn’t mean you can gang up on me about my car,” Gansey chided, but folded himself into the backseat, smacking his head on the way in. “God, Ronan, how do you stand being so tall?”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Henry shouted. “Lynch and Parrish are an item?!”

“Since when?” Blue screeched. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It literally just happened yesterday,” Adam snapped as he plopped down into the driver’s seat. He was determinedly not looking at anyone.

“Then why does Gansey know?!” Blue demanded.

“Because Parrish fucking kissed him earlier!” Ronan shouted, falling into laughter again.

“God, shut the fuck up,” Adam hissed and jammed the keys in the ignition so hard that the Pig started up without protest.

They were all silent for a moment, and then Henry said, “Oh, because he looks like Lynch right now?”

“It was a confusing time for me,” Gansey said. “I wasn’t sure who Adam was trying to appeal to honestly.”

“Shut up!!” Adam shouted and revved the car forward.

Everyone laughed, but dropped the teasing for now.

As the backseat dissolved into some ridiculous debate, Ronan cranked the window down and leaned his arm out. Just because he could—and because he had the station saved on Gansey’s radio—he switched on his pounding EDM. For once, Adam didn’t turn it off.

Perhaps he was starting to realize how great it was to drive to. Especially in the fucking Pig.

Because he was sitting next to him, Ronan heard the little gasp that escaped Adam as he pushed the Pig onto the freeway. He must’ve been able to feel what gave Ronan chills whenever he thought about driving the Pig: the engine growling under his thighs, the squeal of the tires as he pushed the Camaro as fast as it could go. There was no high like it in the world; not even Kavinsky’s dreamed up drugs could do it.

“Parrish,” Ronan said.

It was all it took for Adam to slam his foot down on the gas. Ronan let out a whoop as Adam shot into the HOV lane and blasted down the freeway, easily pushing the car to 70, 75, 80.

“Adam!” Gansey shouted, but whatever else he was going to say was lost to the wind and the music.

Ronan glanced over at Adam, admired the satisfied grin across his face and the energy thrumming in his eyes. As he was watching, Adam turned and flashed him a grin, one full of wildness and adrenaline and gasoline.

God, how Ronan wished he didn’t look like Gansey right now, because he wanted to kiss him.

“Hey Gansey Boy!” someone shouted from the next lane over. Ronan glared out the window to see Kavinsky’s band of merry fucks all packed into the car next to them. Kavinsky was strangely absent, however—they were in some other shit car, rather than the Mitsubishi—and it was Prokopenko sneering the taunts. “You teaching Lynch how to drive?”

Ronan almost snarled back before he remembered that he had to let Gansey answer.

“Fuck you, you know?” Gansey shouted back.

“Fuck me,” Ronan groaned and put his head in his hands. Adam snickered. “Is that how he’s been all day?”

“Pretty much,” Adam replied. Ronan groaned again. To his surprise, however, Adam leaned over him to say to Kavinsky’s pack, “Lynch would be lucky to learn how to drive like this.”

And to Ronan’s utter delight, pushed the car up to 90 and zoomed past the other car.

“Parrish, I think I might love you,” Ronan said, grinning.

“Gross!” Blue shouted.

Ronan cheerfully sent her the middle finger.

“You heathens are going to wreck my car,” Gansey bemoaned.

Adam just grinned at Ronan and Ronan felt the weight of it in his chest.

Fuck, he was so far gone.

Despite Gansey’s worry, they all made it to Cabeswater in one piece, and in record time if Ronan did say so himself – he was so fucking proud of Adam. As before, they trekked into Cabeswater and set their tents up in the main clearing. No one was as eager to explore this time around—as it felt dangerous to do something vaguely unsafe when none of them could get used to the bodies they were in—so they set up the campfire right away. They roasted marshmallows and made fun of each other for all of the dumb things they’d done in each other’s bodies today and all around them Cabeswater hummed with amusement. Ronan could feel it in his skin, and seeing Cabeswater so happy almost made him willing to forgive it for this.

The outcomes of this adventure had been fucking hilarious, after all.

But they were all ready to go back to their own bodies.

So as the fire went out, they crawled into their respective bodies’ tents, Adam, Ronan, and Blue diving into Gansey’s tent and Gansey and Henry settling into Ronan’s tent. Around them, the forest quieted as Cabeswater created a safe and peaceful setting for their sleep.

“Gansey Boy, it’s a good thing we love each other or this would be very awkward,” Henry could be heard saying from Ronan’s and Adam’s tent.

“What the fuck are they doing in there?” Ronan hissed.

Adam shook his head. “Hopefully we’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Or hopefully not,” Blue joked.

But they were hopeful as they all fell asleep. Ronan was especially hopeful, as right before Adam drifted off, he reached across the small space between them and grabbed Ronan’s hand.

This time, Ronan’s hand was not sweaty.

VIII.

Ronan woke up to Adam’s face and hope shivered down his spine. “…Adam?”

Adam’s eyes slid open slowly. He didn’t seem to be processing anything, as he was always groggy when he first woke up. (Ronan knew this from his time spent at St. Agnes; one time he had witnessed Adam get up, shower, and then come back into the room and tell Ronan he had to take a shower. Ronan had had to tell him—making fun of him all the while, of course—that he had already taken it.) But then his eyes focused. “…Ronan?”

Ronan breathed out a sigh of relief. “Fuck, yes.”

“Oh thank God,” Adam said and pulled him into a searing kiss.

“I told you you wouldn’t be able to never kiss me again,” Ronan snarked when Adam let him pull back for a second to breathe.

“Shut the fuck. Up,” Adam growled.

Turned out that Ronan had a hard time disobeying Adam when he worked his mouth like that.

IX.

Declan approached Ronan on his way to first period the next day (he couldn’t believe he’d been forced to go to school twice in a row). Ronan was immediately defensive – a purposeful visit from Declan was almost never a good thing, and it usually ended in throwing punches. They’d been trying to be better lately, but Ronan was still too easily riled and Declan was still too easily an asshole.

However, this time, Declan completely threw him for a loop. “Ronan, I really must talk to you about your taste in boyfriends—”

Ronan reared back, startled but refusing to show it. “What the fuck do you have against Parrish? And how did you know about that, anyway? Are you spying on me?”

“You’re…dating Parrish?” Declan stammered before breaking into a huge grin, which Ronan honestly found disturbing. “Oh thank God, as long as it’s not Henry Cheng I really don’t care who the fuck you’re dating.”

Ronan reared back again, this time out of offense. “Why the fuck would you think I was dating Henry fucking Cheng?”

“I saw you flirting with him yesterday.” Declan said ‘flirting’ like he would say ‘debauching’.

At that, and to Declan’s obvious confusion, Ronan burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he bent over himself, clutching at his stomach. Holy fuck he couldn’t breathe…!

“Ronan, are you okay?” Declan asked. “You never laugh this much – are you dying?”

“Fucking yeah I am,” Ronan wheezed before sending his older brother a grin. “Don’t worry, Dec – that was just a mistake. Thought he was someone else.”

“What.” Declan seemed even more confused. “How could you mistake Henry Cheng for anyone but—”

“Oh God, would you look at the time? Bye, Dicklan!” Ronan shouted over his brother and ran off to find Adam, ignoring Declan cursing at his back.

Tad Carruthers was walking down the hall when he saw Adam Parrish.

Tad was always on the lookout for Adam Parrish, as he lived off of the occasional glances he could get and thrived off the conversations Adam allowed him to have with him. He had become a pro at scanning the crowd for him, so it was easy to spot his dirty-blonde, wind-blown hair and his freckled face. Looking for Adam had even become something to look forward to every day that Tad went to school.

Usually, Tad approached Adam immediately. But this time, he stopped right in the middle of the hallway and gawked.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

Sebastian had said he’d seen Ronan Lynch kissing Richard Gansey III yesterday. Atticus had said he’d seen Lynch kissing Henry Cheng yesterday, and apparently these events had taken place mere minutes after each other.

And now Lynch was kissing Adam Parrish?!

…Just how many boys had Ronan Lynch kissed at this school?!

(A/N) Let there be no doubt in your minds that immediately following this Tad went to confront Ronan and made a fool of himself. And probably got his ass kicked ;)

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withthewerewolves · 5 years

Text

A deaged Gansey fic, because EtoileGarden is killing me with her Gansey-centric fic and he needs a hug

Ronan nearly didn’t pick up the phone. An entire confluence of events led to him even being in the house when the call came in, and he was only close enough to see Gansey’s name on the caller ID because he’d left it on top of the fridge after Opal tried chewing on it and he happened to be getting a glass of water when it rang. Even knowing who was calling he might have ignored it, but Adam had just left for college and Blue, Gansey, and Henry had been gone long enough for him to start feeling lonely for the company of people who hadn’t come from his head.

“Dick,” he said, picking it up. Chainsaw and Opal were having a screaming contest nearby, but he made no attempt to move somewhere quieter.

“Hello, Old MacDonald,” said Henry, because he thought he was funny.

“Cheng,” Ronan replied, his tone shifting from friendly annoyance to something less welcoming.

“Now that the introductions have been made, on to the reason for my call,” Henry said. There was something happening in the background, but Ronan couldn’t hear it over his own cacophony.

“You have to have a reason to ruin my day?”

“I will ruin your day for free. However, in this case I do have a reason.” Henry’s usual cheerful voice was intact, but there was a hint of strain that set a pit of worry in Ronan’s stomach on to boil. Ronan waited, but he didn’t continue.

“Get on with it. Some of us have more to do than galivant around the country taking selfies.”

“I don’t know whether to be more impressed that you know the word ‘galivant’ or ‘selfie’.”

“Yes, my education was a waste. I’m hanging up on you.”

“Wait!” The spark of real panic in Henry’s voice stopped Ronan.

“You have two seconds,” Ronan growled.

“Gansey has – oh Blue Lily what do you call it in English? He has shrunk. No, he is young. No, that isn’t right either.” There was some muttering, Ronan couldn’t make out words but he recognized Blue’s voice. “That is a silly thing to call it. The Korean is much more elegant. He has gone prat.” The silence after the statement told Ronan that Henry was done, but it made no sense.

“He’s…being rude? Of course he is. Duct tape his mouth shut.” Ronan only recognized the British word at all from reading the Harry Potter books when he was young. Declan had disapproved, which was why he’d finished all seven. Something else niggled in his memory, but it escaped him.

“Gansey’s manners are second only to the quality of his hair. I thought you said it was a common term?” The second part was directed at Blue.

“I can’t believe I let you make the call. Give me the phone.” This was clearly unnecessary because, based on the clarity of her words, Blue had already taken the phone.

“For fuck’s sake. Cheng and the Maggot in the same day?” Ronan said, but he knew he didn’t sound irritated.

“Gansey is a child,” Blue said. “He looks maybe eight. We should have considered this might happen, he’s probably been under constant stress since the thing with the bees.” There was a noise on the other side of the line and she said, “Don’t worry, we know about your allergy. We won’t let any bees get you, and even if they did, I carry medicine for you. See? Don’t touch the orange side, there’s something sharp in it.” Her voice was a mix of gentle and bossy that he hadn’t heard from her since the first time he’d left her alone with Opal.

It was the voice that told him what had happened. It was a common enough condition to be taught in schools, common enough that most families developed procedures in case it happened in the future, but not common enough that anyone expected it would. It was called going prat, just as Blue had told Henry. Prat stood for Physiological Response to Acute Trauma, but that was neither descriptive nor did it roll off the tongue. Really, it was age regression, an attempt by a brain to heal after a traumatic event. The theory was that the mind and body reverted to an age before the trauma in order to rewrite the connections in the brain to better process it. His Health teacher said it was a positive sign, that the brain considered the trauma to be over and that healing could begin. He had wondered if he would ever wake up with eyes that hadn’t seen the shattered skull of his father.

“He’s how old?” Ronan knew he sounded strangled, but most people lost a few years at most. The kind of regression Blue was talking about mostly only happened to kids who’d been abused, a sustained trauma. Of everyone he knew, he’d thought only Adam –

There was more talking that he couldn’t make out. “He says he’s ten. It’s cool, I was a short kid too,” Blue said.

“You’re a short kid now,” Ronan muttered. Ten. It probably was the bees, then. Better than the alternative.

“We’re coming back,” Blue said. “We’ll drive though the night and be at the Barns around noon tomorrow.” She was quiet for a moment, but it was a heavy silence. “We aren’t taking him to his parents.”

“Fuck no,” Ronan snapped.

Blue breathed out hard.

“How long will he be like this?” Ronan said. He didn’t really expect Blue to know, but maybe she’d paid more attention to Health class than he had.

“It could be weeks,” she said. “We’ll stop at Fox Way and see if anyone can tell anything.”

Ronan thought this was a case for therapy rather than magic, but as he wasn’t a fan of either, he deferred to her judgement.

“Tell him – tell him there’s a new stag in my deer herd,” he said. “And that if he eats his vegetables he might get tall enough to pet it.”

“Vegetables?” he heard Blue say incredulously as he hung up. He needed to call Adam. If anything could get him to make a weekend visit, this might.

#the raven cycle #trc #Gansey

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tubwhumping · 5 years

Text

Adjustment Period

I'm just getting back into writing after going several years without writing anything other than research paper so bear with me if I'm a bit rusty.

Read it on AO3

Ronan was not the kind of guy who made plans. He never had been. So much of who he was came from trauma and fear, but impulsiveness was a part of his genetic code. He never understood the appeal of knowing every detail along the way. He didn’t live his life that way, and he couldn’t if he tried.

Gansey was another story. Blue was Gansey’s second love, always falling behind his longstanding quest for knowledge. Henry, though much less extreme than Gansey, was also a planner by nature. And while Blue loathed to be considered sensible, she too knew this was not the kind of trip meant for aimless wandering. The maps had begun appearing a few days after the near-end of the world. They were spread over the floor of the main living area of Monmouth, and displayed places and routes and the complex research Gansey had done on the history of each of their stops. Ronan had to step cautiously around the display to avoid ripping it because while he would miss them, he wasn’t mad enough to rip up their plans in a jealous rage. Yet.

He tucked his legs underneath him to sit next to Gansey on the floor behind the desk. Gansey’s face remained in its rightful place, smushed frantically in the pages of a book. It would be endearing if it weren't so annoying. He ripped several small pieces of paper from the edge of one of the maps and threw them, one by one, down the collar of his shirt.

Gansey finally flinched as large wad smack him across the cheekbone. He glanced up at Ronan. “Ronan, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Ronan snorted and threw one last piece of paper down his shirt for good measure. “How’s the research coming?” he said. “Any dead Italian kings to chase?”

Gansey opened his mouth, probably to explain the complicated Italian political system in the 19th century or some equally dreadful account of his adventures in Europe with Mallory, but the sound of the door squeaking open saved him from that particular fate.

Adam, covered in a layer of dust with coveralls thrown over his arm, shut the door behind him. His hair was ruffled and hanging loosely over his forehead, and he seemed to have grown even older and more world-weary since Ronan had seen him the night before.

“The fuck happened to you?”

Adam sighed, toeing his boots off in the doorway not to track anything too far into the room. He crept toward the center of the room but stopped before he reached the maps. “I’m covered in dust,” he said as if that wasn’t obvious. “I had to clear out some old boxes in the warehouse.”

“If you would like, you can shower here,” Gansey offered. It seemed like a safe enough offer, but Ronan knew small things could set Adam off when he was in a mood. “Do you work again tonight?”

Adam nodded slowly. “I have to be at Boyd’s in a couple hours,” he said. “I think I will get a shower.” He drifted back toward the bathroom.

When he returned, Adam looked a lot better, but not as much better as Ronan had expected. He had changed into his coveralls and came over to sit next to between them on the floor. Ronan reached over to grab his hand.

Gansey continued to read. Ronan continued throwing things at him, and Adam settled against his side warming parts of himself that Ronan hadn’t even realized were cold. He inspected one of Gansey’s books as well, but since he had yet to flip a page, Ronan guessed he was not actually reading.

It was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The three of them were almost never alone anymore. Usually, Blue or Henry, or both were there as well. Sometimes Adam was at work, or Ronan was with Opal at the Barns. Of course, it was never just the three of them before because Noah had been there, but anyone who knew Noah knew it was really always just the three of them.

A couple of harsh sneezes broke through the quiet trance of the afternoon. Adam sniffed pathetically. “Sorry, I must have missed some dust,” he said. Ronan caught Gansey's eyes from across the room as they both watched him in mutual concern. Adam coughed into his fist before asking hesitantly “Can I crash in N- in the other bedroom?” breaking the comfortable silence. A familiar pang of sadness rang through all them as it did whenever anything related to Noah came up. It was quiet grief they were all experiencing, and one they would most likely carry with them for many years. But Ronan was mostly concerned because Adam Parrish did not ask for favors, even ones as inconsequential as taking a nap in dead boy's bed.

“Of course, Adam,” Gansey said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just tired.” He rubbed childishly and uncharacteristically at his eyes. He was still a warm weight against Ronn’s side, too warm of a weight. Feeling his forehead like a goddamn mother hen felt far too intimate with Gansey watching so he grabbed underneath Adam’s jaw to turn his face towards him. “You have a fucking fever.”

Adam shrugged. “I think I’m getting a cold.”

“Do you want some Tylenol?” Gansey asked. Ronan was pretty sure there was no Tylenol in the building, but it seemed like Adam was more likely to take it if they already had it and he knew Gansey wasn’t above sneaking out to buy some.

“I’m alright,” he said. “I just need some more sleep.” He pushed himself up from the floor and dragged himself to the bedroom. Ronan let a few minutes pass before following him.

Adam was face-down on the bed, short, congested breaths panting dangerously into the blankets. He was somewhere between asleep and conscious, so Ronan turned his head so it fell to the side and pulled the pillow further down. He roused slightly at the movement, looking up at Ronan through bloodshot eyes. “Are you going to be shitty about this?” Ronan asked.

Adam shook his head and flopped it back onto the pillow. “I’ll try not to be,” he said. “But wake me up in an hour. I still have work tonight.” In the few months since their relationship had shifted to its current position, Ronan had learned a lot about Adam. And he was learning that he was much better off picking his battles. Adam was going to get some sleep and hopefully get a good night’s rest after work. This was a compromise he could live with. He pushed Adam’s hair back out of his face and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Gansey smiled a mischievous smile, so Ronan flipped him off to prove a point. Adam softened something within him, but he had a reputation to uphold. He stepped right in the center of one of the maps for good measure, leaving a large bootprint right in the middle of it. Gansey pulled it from beneath his foot and grumbled only slightly as he pulled his papers toward his chest protectively. “Is he okay?” he finally asked.

“He’s sick as hell.”

“Is he going to call in sick?”

Ronan scoffed and rolled his eyes. Gansey was learning to speak the language of Adam Parrish, but he would never be quite as fluent in it as Ronan. Gansey, a true genius in so many fields, was stupid sometimes when it came to people. He couldn’t help it. Gansey’s particular brand of stupid came from privilege and generations of Anglo-Saxon breeding. He would never truly understand what it was like to have nothing, but the truth was neither would Ronan.

“He can’t seriously think it’s a good idea to go in sick.”

“I’ll take him and pick him up,” Ronan said. “You know how he is. You gotta pick your fucking battles, man.”

Gansey’s mouth opened, a rebuttal already hanging off his lips, but he stopped. He nodded in concession. He turned his face back down to his research. “Did I tell you we’re spending a week in Ireland?” And with that, Gansey launched one of his lengthy musings on castles and grass and the beautiful sights they were going to see and adventures they were going to have.

Adam ’s subconscious fear of missing work ripped him from his dreams, just a couple of minutes before Ronan came to wake him. He spent those minutes staring up at the industrial ceiling tiles and wondering why he was incapable of calling in sick even when he felt terrible. Boyd wouldn’t mind. Adam had only called in sick one other time. He was a hard worker when he was there. He never showed up late or left early. There was no reason he couldn’t

What had been a steady drum against his temple earlier in the day had evolved (or devolved, from his perspective) into a harsh pounding all over his skull. His throat was raw, and he couldn’t get warm. He wanted to stay in one place. He didn’t ever want to move from underneath the blanket again.

The door crept open, whining as if it could feel Adam’s reluctance to get up. Ronan, sensing the tone, closed it quietly behind him and approached the bed, sitting gently beside Adam. As a cough tore through the little air left in his lungs, Ronan settled his hand on Adam’s back. This was not the Ronan Lynch who broke things and rage raced and pissed people off. This was the Ronan that kept a list by the fridge at the Barns of which foods Opal did and did not like. This was the Ronan that dreamt gifts for all of his friends that Christmas, each one unique and useful and magical in strange and curious ways. This was the Ronan that Adam couldn’t get enough of.

He raised one eyebrow in a questioning manner as if to say “Are you really this stupid?” Adam was afraid he might be, and it left him frustrated and confused. He reached up to grab a hand and squeezed it, suddenly craving Ronan’s skin against his. He needed touch more than he needed to breathe which was good because the mucus had settled into his sinuses, blocking his nose and making breathing a much more laborious task.

The door cracked open, and Gansey stuck his head in. “How are you feeling, Adam?”

He shrugged, too tired to think and too frustrated to speak.

“Are you sure you don’t want to call in sick to work?” Gansey asked. Adam wanted to cry or scream or vomit. Instead, he nodded his head.

“Would it make a difference if I told you that you should?” He shook his head once more.

A guttural groan pulled Adam’s attention back to Ronan. He grabbed Adam’s face, trapping it between his hands, and jerked it up to make eye contact with him. In the moment of complete vulnerability, Adam had no choice but to listen. “You’re gonna spread your fucking germs all over the damn garage. That’s going to piss Boyd off more than calling in.”

He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. It was true, of course. The last thing they needed was to pass around this virus for the rest of the winter. Everyone would be much better off if he stayed in and kept his germs to himself, or at least to him and Gansey and Ronan. He still wasn’t sure if he could, but he knew he should. He needed to. But he couldn’t.

He opened his eyes to see Ronan. He had let go of Adam’s face and was leaning against the wall, looking very much like wanted to look like he didn’t care which meant he cared a lot. He turned to see Gansey holding out his cell phone. The number for Boyd’s was already dialed. All he had to do was hit the call button and say the words.

Adam nodded once, then twice and met Gansey’s eyes across the room before looking back at Ronan. He grabbed the phone and took the plunge. Adam Parrish was calling in sick. And while this time it was because of Gansey and Ronan, maybe one day, he could do it for himself.

#whump #sickfic #the raven cycle #adam parrish #ronan lynch #trc #my fic

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