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Gansey’s hunched over a light manuscript on Welsh burial rites (although what Malory has decided is ‘light,’ Gansey’s decided is ‘incredibly dense with only a small portion of relevant information’) when Ronan’s phone chimes once, then twice. As Ronan never checks his phone (to everyone’s annoyance), Gansey grasps it from the coffee table, with the intent to either silence it or relay the message.
He half expects it to be an automated message from Ronan’s cell service provider, wondering if there could possibly be fraud on his account due to the suspicous nature of his phone activity (i.e. Ronan never using his phone).
The words that greet him instead grant him the all-encompassing, awful feeling akin to being dunked into an ice bath.
K: cum ovr.
K: Come*
It’s not that serious, he thinks, only Kavinsky messing around, but Ronan’s phone chimes again (and again, and again) and Gansey’s heart drops into his stomach as he keeps reading the incoming messages.
K: haha autocorrect sux. wish i could kill that bitch
‘K’ Started Sharing Location With You.
K: u coming or what?
K: i dont have all day
K: is Dick in your mouth or r u allergic 2 urphone.
K: defo the first
Gansey clears his throat uncomfortably and takes off his glasses. He’s all too familiar with what Kavinsky’s implying. He opens the messages on Ronan’s phone, intent to tell him off for spending time with someone like this. “Ronan,” he calls, his tone sharp, and sees Ronan poke his head out of his bedroom, headphones looped around his half-inked neck.
“What.” Ronan’s wearing his Don’t-Talk-To-Me expression, meaning he’s going to be angry no matter what. This has already made the conversation impossible.
Before Gansey can explain to him how far out of line Kavinsky is, he messages again.
K: don’t u want to see what my brains look like onthe pavement
K: Attachment: 3 Images
Gansey immediately pales. “Oh my god,” he says quietly, because what else is there to say when you’ve just seen several close-up photos of Joseph Kavinsky’s cranium spilt all over the ground, and one horrible selfie where a very much alive Kavinsky is posed next to his shot-up self?
K: sick right. we can dream all day if u want
“Was there something you needed?” Ronan’s voice is flat, and he’s poised in the doorway of his room, angling himself for a fight. Gansey wonders if Declan had just said something to piss him off. Probably.
Gansey opens his mouth to respond, but Kavinsky beats him to it.
K: seriously, quit jerking Dick. i hav a pack of pills that rnt going 2 swallow theselves
K: hahahahaha unless ur already swallowing sumn
“This-- Kavinsky--” Gansey stammers, aghast with the idea of pills? What pills? “This has to stop! You and Kavinsky-- whatever it is-- it’s not healthy, it’s-- God, Ronan, I mean, just look at how he talks--” Gansey gesticulates wildly, Ronan’s phone in hand. Ronan’s face hardens and he stalks over to Gansey, yanking it out of his grasp.
Gansey watches Ronan’s expression turn from angry to grim to angry again as he scrolls through the texts.
The images of Kavinsky’s brains splattered across the pavement cement themselves in Gansey’s head. He doesn’t know what’s more morbid: the fact that Kavinsky wanted to see what it looked like to kill himself, or the fact that he wanted Ronan to see it and try it with him.
Gansey’s oddly comforted by the realization that Kavinsky doesn’t know Ronan at all. If he did, he wouldn’t be sending Ronan pictures that are vividly reminiscent of Niall’s murder.
Or maybe he’s just trying to strike a nerve.
“See,” he says gently, placing a hand on Ronan’s wrist, “Kavinsky, he-- he doesn’t care about you, Ronan. He doesn’t even care about himself.”
Ronan jerks his wrist out of Gansey’s grasp and shoves his phone into Gansey’s open hands.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Ronan sneers, grabbing his keys from the coffee table.
“What-- don’t tell me you’re actually going to see him,” Gansey says, incredulous.
Ronan shrugs on his jacket and cracks his neck. “Why don’t you read my messages, since you love doing that so much.”
Gansey looks down at Ronan’s phone and his heart stops.
K: just a choke. i mean joke. hah
Ronan Lynch: I’m omw. Shut up already.
K: excellenttttt
K: no time for a quickie lynch i’ll start the party w/o u
K: that’s a “promise”
The door slams. Ronan’s gone. Gansey’s heart starts up again.
Kavinsky didn’t entirely know what he expected, but it wasn’t Lynch speeding over in his shark-nosed BMW, sliding out and stalking towards him in an elegant, dangerous move, and punching him once across the face before the two of them brawled over the hood of Kavinsky’s Mitsubishi.
“That’s some bullshit,” Kavinsky breathes heavily as they lay across his car.
“You’re bullshit.” Lynch wipes his bleeding nose with the back of his hand and smears it on Kavinsky’s white car.
Kavinsky grins, all teeth and no gums. “Yeah, and you love it.” He dips his fingers in the puddle of blood Lynch left on the car and paints his cheeks with it, like war paint. Lynch makes a face and Kavinsky laughs (then frowns, because Lynch socked his ribs in real good earlier).
It’s silent between them for a moment. Then: “Why’d you kill yourself, man.”
Kavinsky shakes his head. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
He jumps off of the hood of the car and into the driver’s seat. “Come on,” he yells through the closed window. “Got something I wanna show you.”
Kavinsky watches Lynch deliberate on his car for a moment before he joins him inside. Kavinsky passes Lynch a plastic baggie full of white pills. “Take one. Or two. But three, and you’re dead,” he warns. He gets a kick out of the detailing on the pills: if he looks close enough, there’s a black knife graphic in the center of each side.
Lynch shakes his head. “I’m good, man.”
Kavinsky laughs, taking the bag back. He drops the baggie in his lap, pops one in his mouth and offers his hand to Ronan. “Gimme your phone, Goody-Goody.”
“Don’t have it,” he says evenly, smacking Kavinsky’s hand away, and he scowls.
“You and your wack-ass ideas about technology. Stupid if I’ve ever heard it,” he snorts, although he doesn’t find it funny at all. He reaches into the bag of pills and takes one out. “Here,” he says, passing it to Lynch. “The price you pay for it.”
Kavinsky watches as Lynch clenches his jaw and then shoves the pill between his teeth and onto his tongue. He grins and passes him an open can of beer. “Wash it down,” he orders, a heady thrill rushing through his body as it’s seized out of his grasp; he watches Lynch’s throat bob and swallow what’s left of the drink.
“There might’ve been a few pills in that, man, I don’t know,” Kavinsky says, just to mess with Lynch and his buzzed head, and it’s worth it by the way he immediately grasps onto the collar of Kavinsky’s old white tank. “Just kidding,” he smirks, and watches Lynch relax-- too much. Perfect. “There was only one in it.”
“You fucker,” Lynch breathes, and Kavinsky watches how his body begins to sag with the effort of sitting up.
Kavinsky rolls his eyes. “Whatever, man.” He takes out one of his three identical phones from his jeans pocket (perks of being a dreamer, or whatever) and pulls up the video he wanted to show Lynch. “Loosen up.”
“What the fuck’s in this, K,” Lynch says angrily-- although by the way he’s slurring, it sounds more like a tired puppy wailing. Kavinsky laughs.
“Calm down and enjoy the ride. You look fucking tired, Lynch. Fuckin’ zero tolerance freshman bitchass. Kick back and let’s watch some TV.”
Kavinsky reaches across Lynch’s lap to recline his seat for him, and he falls back, almost horizontal with a quiet groan. The sight sets something stirring in Kavinsky, and he tries his best to ignore it. “Don’t insult me.”
“Ok, well, don’t die on me, babe, and we have a deal,” Kavinsky grins, patting Lynch’s cheek roughly. Lynch groans and Kavinsky does it again, just because he can. “Where’s your phone, seriously? In the car?”
“Gansey,” Lynch mumbles, and a surge of white-hot jealousy rushes through Kavinsky before his head clears momentarily.
“You mean your phone’s with Dick? Or you want his dick?”
“First,” Lynch mumbles, and Kavinsky grins.
“Alright. Okay. Let’s watch TV, Lynch. You’re gonna love this.”
Ronan does not, in fact, love it. Kavinsky’s breath is hot on his face and he’s shoved his stupid phone with it’s stupid snuff film right in Ronan’s line of vision. He can’t move his limbs and his heart feels like it’s going so fast it’s running right out of his body. His mouth is dry and he licks his lips in a futile effort to moisten them.
“See, this is the best part,” Kavinsky laughs, pointing at the screen, to where a man sits in a chair, holding a gun to his head. Finger on the trigger. Kavinsky’s voice sounds far away. Ronan closes his eyes. “Open your eyes, Lynch,” he says. Ronan can feel one of Kavinsky’s arms looped around his neck and he wishes he were anywhere else. “What, this too much for you? I’m trying to show you how I achieved such greatness this morning. Fuckin’ ungrateful.”
“Yes,” Ronan mumbles-- Yes, it’s too much-- and he’s surprised by the silence that greets him. He chances to open one eye, and then the other-- Kavinsky’s phone’s screen is black.
“Alright, well, we don’t have to see that then if you don’t want to, Lynch. I got another video that maybe you’ll like more.”
Ronan wants to shake his head and say that he’d rather piss up a rope, but he has no energy left in him. His eyes find Kavinsky’s face and lock onto his cheeks. Ronan’s blood paint them like some sort of trophy.
Kavinsky perches his phone in front of Ronan, and it’s as though he’s watching himself from a little room inside his head. Everything’s lagging. He watches his line of sight change: from Kavinsky to the phone, to what’s on the screen-- it takes him a second to realize it’s some sort of fucked-up porno, a guy and a girl in a car and if Ronan actually watches it he can see that she doesn’t want it, or at least she’s acting like she doesn’t.
He stares at the screen in a drugged-up haze until a bright flash arrests his senses. He turns to see Kavinsky baring another phone at him, an image of him watching the shit that’s on Kavinsky’s phone.
“This one’s for your owner,” Kavinsky smirks, typing away at his phone. “I’ll send it to you to make sure he gets the message.” Ronan looks down at Kavinsky’s lap to see a very obvious tenting in his pants.
God, he should have listened to Gansey.
“Fuck-ing hell, man,” Ronan says quickly, although it comes out slow, and his voice sounds miles away to his own ears, because the sounds of skin on skin and grunting from the video and a horrible, all-encompassing buzzing noise is attacking his brain, like when you’re about to pass out somewhere no one can help you and you can’t let anyone know and can’t do anything to stop it.
“Christ, Lynch, calm down,” Kavinsky says; laughs, as if something’s funny. As if he’s not about to try to do something irreparable.
“Get this fucking-- fuck-- fuck-- pill off, don’t want-- fuckyou,” Ronan gasps, trying his best to articulate how he’s feeling and also get Kavinsky’s arm the fuck off of him.
“So what I’m hearing is you don’t want the pill anymore?” How is it that Ronan can hear Kavinsky’s stupid eyebrow raise, but not the taste of fresh air?
“Please,” he begs, and he barely registers the sensation of Kavinsky’s fingers pushing a bright green pill past his lips.
“Swallow,” Kavinsky says, his fingers lingering on his lips, and Ronan does, because he’s already imagined the worst that could happen.
Gansey’s been rereading the same paragraph over and over for the past ten minutes. Before this, he’d run laps around the bottom floor of Monmouth, made himself a disgusting banana smoothie that he’d had to throw away, and smoked three entire shame-filled cigarettes while staring at the parking lot of Monmouth waiting for Ronan’s BMW to pull back into the lot. When that hadn’t worked, he’d tried to rewatch his favorite documentary. That failed and after much debate, he’d decided to not reread every single message that Kavinsky and Ronan had ever exchanged (sometimes it was better not to know). Then he’d phoned Helen, but she’d been busy with some sort of personal disaster that she avoided talking to him about in favor of her latest quest for the perfect couch. Since she’d gone through some sort of tunnel, he’d tried to pick up his Welsh burial rites manuscript.
Now he’s read the same paragraph over and over and hasn’t learned anything.
Gansey sighs and checks the time on Ronan’s phone. 4:27. He wishes Ronan had just taken it, at least, so if there was an emergency of any kind, he could call him-- but instead he’s stuck looking at Ronan’s homescreen (a generic image of a church that Noah had so gleefully crafted a praying Muppet with Ronan’s shaved head and back tattoo onto).
4:28. He sighs. Gansey’s about to put it down before an incoming message flashes across it.
K: Attachment: 1 Image
K: jealous yet, Dickie?
K: Attachment: 1 Video
K: how bout now.
Dread coils in Gansey’s gut, and he opens the chat to find something that turns his entire world on its axis.
The first picture is a selfie. Kavinsky has both his eyebrows raised, twin streaks of dried blood on his cheeks. His pale arm is hooked around the side of Ronan’s neck. Ronan’s eyes are half-open, pupils blown wide. His nose has blood smeared under it and his arms are in an unnatural position. He doesn’t seem to be seeing anything at all.
The next thing is somehow more horrible: an infintesimally short video of a terrifyingly still Ronan watching some sort of twisted pornography, and Kavinsky cackling in the background.
Gansey’s got the keys to the Pig in his hand and his foot out the door before he can even remember how to breathe.
Ronan wakes up-- when had he fallen asleep?-- and feels more present in his body than he’s ever been in his entire life. He jolts up out of his seat and wriggles the knob to the car door. It’s fucking locked. Of course.
“Where you goin’? The fuck’s your problem, Lynch?” Kavinsky’s hand closes around his wrist, and Ronan twists around, grabs it; moves in close, presses his forearm to Kavinsky’s windpipe. Everywhere his skin touches feels like pins and needles. Despite this, he tightens his grip.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you! Showing me that fucking-- assault video and popping a goddamn boner like some sort of sick fuck,” Ronan spits out, watching Kavinsky gasp for breath. Ronan loosens his hold, only slightly, in part to relieve his own pain. The word assault tastes sour in his mouth. He can’t bring himself to say much more. Like, maybe he’s overreacting and Kavinsky--
“--Christ, Lynch, we’re just two guys watching some porn. What, you and Dick don’t have any fuckin’ foreplay?”
Ronan laughs hollowly. He’s barely registered the implications of what Kavinsky’s saying before he responds. “Foreplay? I was-- I was messed up, man. That’s-- that would have been… rape,” he says, feeling his cheeks burn slightly. Part of him feels ashamed to even accuse Kavinsky of something like that. The other, rational part of him imagines how he’d feel if it had been anyone else in his position. A miniscule part of him is entirely devoted to the agony in his fingertips. The actual third part wonders what the hell Kavinsky thinks flirting is.
Kavinsky shoves Ronan’s arm off of him and elbows him roughly back into his seat. Ronan feels the force of the sun explode across his body like a bloodbath. “Fuckin’ freak. You even hear yourself? Taking everything so seriously. If you didn’t wanna fuck, you shouldn’t have come here in the first place. Fucking faggot.”
Ronan sits in the pain and wills it to ebb away. Unpleasantness swirls in his gut at the fact that Kavinsky can’t even tell the difference between rape and sex, and doesn’t care to. Ronan’s facial muscles feel like they’re spasming. He scoffs and lifts up the knob to unlock the car. “See you never, K.”
Kavinsky grabs his arm again and Ronan wastes no time in connecting his knuckles with Kavinsky’s face. Both of them let out twin gasps of pain-- Ronan stumbles out of the car, keys in hand, and almost collapses onto the pavement from the sheer force he’s hurled himself out of the Mistubishi.
A car door slams, someone shouts, and Ronan’s learning how to run again. Strong arms surround his middle and he whirls, on the offense, before a familiar scent invades his nostrils.
Impossibly-- mint and cigarettes and sweat and leather. Salvation.
“Gansey?” he whispers, pained, although it sounds more like a prayer.
“Ronan,” Gansey grips him tightly, voice quiet and familiar and relieved. “You’re okay.”
Somehow, it doesn’t hurt as much when Gansey touches him. Or maybe the pill’s just wearing off.
“Well, isn’t this a touching reunion,” Kavinsky calls out. “The dog and his master.”
Gansey turns to face Kavinsky then, in his portrait of dangerous youthful glory. He’s not the same Gansey that Ronan left in Monmouth this morning. He’s Gansey-on-fire. But he’s brimming with something more.
Something protective.
A thrill runs through Ronan despite his turmoil and his bloodied knuckles. Gansey’s hand is still on his waist and he has never been prouder.
“We’re leaving, Joseph. I suggest you stop trying to take advantage of good-natured young men like Ronan here. Speaking of, I might need to tighten my leash on him,” Gansey says thoughtfully, although Ronan can see the threatening glint in his eyes. His voice is cold when he says, “I don’t want him wandering off into packs of ill-mannered, hormonal, mangy brutes such as yourself.”
Ronan smirks then, all sharp eyes and sharper resolve. Together, they are judge, jury, and executioner.
Gansey leads him gently to the Pig-- he’d called a tow truck for the BMW-- and makes sure Ronan’s secure in the passenger’s side before depressing the clutch and brake and turning his key in the ignition. Ronan crosses his fingers and mumbles an incoherent prayer until finally, the engine catches.
They’re gone before Kavinsky’s drug-addled brain can even think of a good comeback.
The ride back had been silent, save for the initial line of questioning:
How much did you take?
Two and another. I think.
Anything broken?
Yeah.
What?!
His nose. Hah, man. Should’ve seen your face.
God, Ronan. Do you need to go to the hospital?
I’ll sleep it off.
Did you do anything else?
Here Ronan had hesitated, and that had worried Gansey more than he could even articulate.
I don’t think so.
Gansey had felt like he was choking.
You don’t think so?
I don’t fucking know, man. What time is it?
What-- it’s 4:47.
Okay. When’d K send you that message?
4:28.
Great. Then no, alright? Nothing happened.
Ronan--
Save it. Lecture me when I’ve had a fucking nap.
You know I will. But I was going to say I’m glad you’re okay.
Great. Thanks for coming to my rescue or whatever.
That had been two hours ago. Currently, Gansey’s seated on his bed with a bowl of cereal, watching over a sleeping Ronan. Gansey likes the way he looks curled up under his covers. He likes having all of his heart in one place-- Monmouth. Somewhere he can control. Earlier, he’d gently wiped away Ronan’s blood with a damp washcloth. Now, he tucks the edge of his blanket that had gotten rustled in sleep under Ronan’s chin so he won’t suffocate.
While Ronan’s been sleeping, Gansey has been thinking about what to say to him. He’d promised he would lecture him, but his desire to understand why Ronan would go to Kavinsky in the first place outweighs the carefully-crafted speech he’d been curating for the past few weeks about the various dangers of Joseph Kavinsky. Gansey thinks that this time was different than the others, though. His mind circles in on what Ronan had said in the Pig-- ‘I don’t think so. I don’t fucking know, man.’ It changes everything. He thinks that now, Ronan probably knows the dangers better than him.
Gansey absentmindedly eats a few spoonfuls of cereal. It’s just plain corn flakes-- not his favorite (secretly, he prefers the sugary brands), but the cartons are bigger and sturdier, and he’s been meaning to add a block to his mini Henrietta. He prefers to eat it with oat milk, to give it a bit of taste, but Noah had used it all up yesterday in some sort of “science experiment” that, frankly, Gansey wants to know nothing about. Once, Ronan had dared Gansey to eat his cereal with orange juice. He chuckles softly at the memory. Never again.
Ronan stirs and Gansey finishes up his bowl of cereal before placing it on the floor next to the bed.
“Hey,” Ronan mumbles, and Gansey tries not to smile at the sound of Ronan’s sleepy voice. He’s supposed to still be mad at him.
“You finally awake?” He teases lightly, although his heart’s not in it. He watches Ronan nod his head and sit up slowly. Gansey passes him a glass of water and watches Ronan take a few sips and try to hand it back to him. He shakes his head. “Drink it all,” he says, and Ronan groans, but does so.
“You really had me worried this time, Ronan,” Gansey starts. He places his hands in his lap and tries not to stare at them. “I mean-- I’d never seen you like this before. Whatever drugs Kavinsky gave you-- I mean, you were completely unresponsive--”
“You don’t have to tell me how I looked, Gansey, I was there. I know how it felt,” Ronan snaps, his bloody knuckles white from clutching the glass, and a part of Gansey shrivels.
“Ronan, that’s not what I meant,” Gansey says calmly, although his heart is beating steadily quicker with panic. His eyes alight on a spot of blood under Ronan’s nose that the washcloth had neglected to clean.
“Then what did you mean, Gansey?” Ronan mocks, although it looks like it’s taking him a lot of effort to do so. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re telling me that it’s my fault that Kavinsky tried--” Ronan stumbles over what he’s about to say and shakes his head. “That he’s so fucked in the head.”
“That he tried what?” Gansey asks, although his voice sounds far away to him. Part of him already knows what Kavinsky tried. The other part is praying he’s wrong.
Ronan rolls his eyes and shrugs. To the outsider, it means he doesn’t care. To Gansey, he knows he’s withdrawing. “Nah, I mean, nothing. He didn’t really try anything.”
“Ronan,” Gansey says quietly, intently, “tell me the truth,” and Ronan sighs irritably.
“What, man, you need me to spell it out for you?” Ronan explodes, and Gansey fights back his instinct to flinch. He watches Ronan’s eyes squeeze shut and then open, his hands releasing his firm grip on the glass. “He wanted to-- he wanted to have sex with me,” Ronan finishes lamely, going to take a sip of water. There’s nothing left in the glass.
Gansey feels cold all over, like someone’s poured a bucket of ice water over him. The idea of something so horrible happening to anyone, but especially someone he loved, someone so fiercely strong-- “Ronan,” he says, treading lightly, “that wouldn’t have been sex. The state you were in, that would have--”
“You don’t need to fucking say it, okay,” Ronan interjects, his eyes squeezed shut, and Gansey realizes he’s trembling. “I already know.”
“Okay,” Gansey says quietly, because if Ronan already knows, that means that-- Thank Christ!-- Gansey doesn’t have to yell at him, and he’d much rather be holding him or hearing him laugh. But now he doesn’t know what he can and can’t do. He reaches out a hand and retracts it immediately. “Could I hold your hand?”
This has the opposite than desired effect on Ronan, because he sets down the glass angrily and gesticulates wildly at Gansey.
“Jesus Mary fuck. You see? This is what’s the most fucked up about it. Now you’re gonna be-- you’re just gonna tiptoe around me like I’m some sort of invalid,” Ronan rants, and Gansey furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “It’s you, Gansey,” Ronan emphasizes clearly, and grasps both of Gansey’s hands in his own. “You don’t have to ask. You never do. It’s you and me, you know?” And Gansey does know, he’s sure of this truth more than anything else in his life.
Possibly even more than Glendower. “I hate that he made you think he could ruin this. Made me think he could ruin this,” he amends, and Gansey squeezes both of his hands tightly.
“He’s not that powerful,” Gansey jokes softly, and is rewarded by Ronan’s snort of laughter. “I know, though,” he says, just to make sure Ronan knows he knows. “It’s you and me.”
“Good,” Ronan smiles, and releases Gansey’s hands. He mourns the loss of contact, but one of Ronan’s knees knocks against his leg and he finds that he’s fine with that. “Now can we please order in some of those stupidly delicious pizzas from Nino’s, because I’m fucking starving and don’t want to see anyone else right now.”
Gansey grins. “You read my mind. Large deep dish, half sausage, half avocado and we finish watching that movie from last night?”
Ronan snorts and shoves him gently. “‘Movie.’ I’m not watching a fucking documentary right now, Gansey. Make that two pizzas. And I’ll find something better.”
They’ve settled in to watch reruns of ‘Tom & Jerry,’ halfway through demolishing the pizzas, when Gansey turns to Ronan on the couch.
“What were you so upset about earlier?”
Ronan frowns and licks tomato sauce off of his thumb. Gansey tracks the movement with a watchful eye and takes a bite of his pizza instead of dwelling on it.
“What do you mean?”
Gansey tries to swallow his food in time, but ends up just covering his mouth and talking around it. It’s a bit thrilling, actually. “You know, like before you went… out…”
“You can say his name,” Ronan shrugs, and Gansey nods, swallowing his food properly.
“Okay. Well, before you… saw Kavinsky, you were mad. Did something happen earlier?”
Ronan furrows his brow and crosses his arms. “Why is that important?”
Gansey doesn’t know why Ronan’s being so defensive, and it irritates him. He takes a deep breath. “Because,” he says slowly, “whatever made you mad, made you want to go see him.” Made you seek comfort in him over me, he doesn’t say. “I just-- I just want to know what makes you want to see him,” he confesses, and there’s still so much left unsaid. Because I care about you and don’t want to see you hurt. Because you’re everything to me. Because I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I lost you. I don’t know how to live without you.
“Made,” Ronan corrects. “I have no desire in seeing him anymore.”
“Okay,” Gansey says, far too quickly. Ronan’s gaze is fixed on Gansey’s, and Gansey takes another bite of his pizza. The silence envelops them-- like plastic wrap around a struggling, half-eaten piece of fruit.
“I went to see him because he blew his fucking brains out,” Ronan says quietly, “even if it was a dream copy of him. It would still-- I don’t know. It’s messed up.”
“Yeah,” Gansey agrees heavily. He couldn’t ever imagine doing that to himself. He’d like to think he couldn’t imagine Ronan doing that to himself.
On screen, Jerry’s hitting Tom repeatedly over the head with a hammer.
Gansey turns down the volume and watches Ronan’s mouth move as he speaks.
“He’s the only other dreamer I know, you know? Other than-- other than my dad,” Ronan says lightly, and Gansey understands.
“Oh,” he says softly, and Ronan nods.
“Yeah,” he laughs, although it’s bitter. “But Kavinsky doesn’t-- he doesn’t understand it. He thinks he does. But he steals from it. He’s a thief. He’s not a Greywaren. He’s not like me and I’m not like him. And I never will be,” he says firmly, and a surge of pride and wonder course through Gansey’s chest at the words. Ronan is magic, he thinks, and it’s a beautiful thing, every time Gansey’s reminded of it.
Gansey’s hands are full of tomato sauce, so he extends one of his feet over to Ronan’s and knocks his foot gently against his. Ronan smiles at it, then looks up into Gansey’s eyes. He waggles his eyebrows at him and then grabs another slice of pizza, clearing his throat.
“You are an incredible creature,” Gansey says to Ronan, because it’s the truth, and he can’t tell if Ronan’s cheeks are darkening at his comment, or if it’s just his overactive imagination.
Ronan’s staring at Gansey again, but it’s different-- his eyes are fixed lower on his face. For an earth-shattering instant, Gansey allows himself to think that Ronan’s staring at his lips because he wants to kiss him. Then he remembers and lets himself laugh.
“Do I have something on my face?”
Ronan startles and nods much too quickly, pointing to the left of his own mouth. “Actually, some tomato sauce, here,” he says, and Gansey pokes his tongue out at it. Ronan keeps shaking his head. Gansey then goes to wipe it off with his hands before he realizes they’re covered in sauce, and laughs helplessly.
Ronan sighs, humor evident in his tone when he mumbles, “--outta some fuckin’ rom-com” and leans forward, grasping Gansey’s chin with one impossibly immaculate hand and turning his head ever-so-slightly to the side. Gansey doesn’t dare breathe. With his other hand, he trails his finger deftly across Gansey’s cheek. Then Ronan sits back and actually licks his finger.
Gansey clears his throat loudly and gets off of the couch. “I’m going to go wash my hands,” he says, and doesn’t even wait to hear Ronan’s response before he’s going into the bathroom/kitchen/laundry room and turning on the water.
After breathing heavily next to the sink for three minutes, Gansey decides that maybe it’s about time he returned to Ronan and their pizzas.
When he gets back, Ronan’s tossed the pizza boxes on the floor and has stretched across the entire length of the couch. Gansey fails to suppress a snort of laughter at the sight of him, and Ronan’s head whips around to see him, a large grin overtaking his angular features.
“C’mere,” Ronan says, and Gansey places his hands on his hips and returns, “Only if you ask nicely.”
Ronan rolls his eyes and makes room for Gansey next to him. “Would you please come here, Mister Richard Campbell Gansey the Third.”
“Fine,” Gansey faux-pouts, attempting to sit down, but Ronan gasps, aghast, and holds out his hand in the motion for STOP!
“I’ve not yet finished!” Ronan says in the thickest Irish accent Gansey has ever heard, and he bursts out laughing. Ronan clears his throat and then attempts to mimic Gansey the Second’s old money drawl. “Thank you and with the greatest of sincerities, from Sir Ronan Niall Lynch.” Ronan looks incredibly proud of himself, and Gansey slides into the space he’s left for him on the couch, their arms crossing over each other.
“‘Sir Ronan Niall Lynch?’ Someone’s getting ahead of himself,” Gansey laughs, and Ronan props both of his legs across Gansey’s as a response.
Gansey frowns and moves one of his legs over Ronan’s, so they’re criss-crossed on each other. The two of them leg wrestle for a bit before they end up lying half-on, half-off of each other. Ronan’s knee is pressed into Gansey’s thigh and Gansey’s elbow’s buried deep into Ronan’s chest and Gansey likes to think that neither of them would have it any other way.
They lie still and listen to each other breathe.
“I’m tired,” Ronan whispers after awhile.
“Then sleep,” Gansey responds, knocking his head gently onto Ronan’s. “I’ll still be here.”