Chapter Text
Adam cracked eggs into the skillet as Gansey perched himself with the empty notebook, head tilted as he considered the blank page.
In the bathroom, Ronan showered, and took a shit, and did whatever else he needed to do, to wash away last night’s excesses and prepare for tonight’s extremes.
Not tonight’s, though, thought Gansey, still testing out the flavor of the idea Adam had planted in his mind.
It still felt right.
Ronan loved a rebellion.
With his father, it had been playful, threaded through with real joy.
He’d swear in front of old ladies, so that his father would frown and scold him.
He’d speed, so that his father would call him up and tell him to knock it off, tell him he didn’t want to get a phone call about the BMW- with Ronan inside- flung off a corner he didn’t have any business going around at that speed.
Before his father died, though, Ronan’s rebellions had been social and, well- funny.
Fun!
Gansey had been drawn to him, for the way he used the same set of social skills that had been poured into Gansey, to do the exact opposite of what they both knew he should be doing.
“You gonna, what, just start in?” asked Adam curiously.
“Maybe,” said Gansey, admitting that the dive-in-and-figure-it-out method did seem the likeliest to work.
Ronan preferred straightforward conflict to any sort of side-swiping, back-biting manipulation.
Adam plated up the omelettes- the one thing he made without a box or a can.
Gansey noted that he’d timed it well, as Ronan stepped out of the bathroom, a towel slung low on his hips.
Well, that would certainly make the rest of the conversation that needed to happen much easier, Gansey conceded, as Ronan ignored his open bedroom door and padded over to the makeshift kitchen.
“Here,” Adam said to Ronan shortly, pushing a plate into the man’s chest and tossing a fork on top of it.
“Thanks,” said Ronan shortly, clearly not expecting that they’d think of him.
“Sit,” invited Gansey, waving a hand at the battered barstool next to the rough plate of stainless steel that currently served as their kitchen counter.
Ronan sat, and after staring a second at his plate, dug in.
Gansey copied him, warily watching the other man and trying to gauge his mood, his reactions, where his head was at.
Ronan was as much a puzzle as Adam was a certainty. Gansey had to flip his thoughts upside down to predict what Ronan would do- but then flip them back around to understand why he’d done it.
Unlike easy Adam, who still wore his heart on his sleeve despite his time at Aglionby surrounded almost exclusively by people who used social tactics as everyday tools for survival.
They ate in near silence, Ronan muttering, “S’good,” at Adam the only thing that was said as they refueled.
“So,” said Gansey, as he ate his last bite and slid his plate to Adam. “We need to talk.”
Ronan eyed him up, abruptly wary. “About what?”
“This,” said Gansey, as uncomfortably straightforward as he could be.
Ronan hated weasel tactics, and he was very good at spotting them.
“What?” said Ronan, leaning back and crossing his arms.
Adam deposited the plates in the industrial sink, turning his back on them before turning on the water.
The coward, thought Gansey uncharitably.
Although that wasn’t right, either.
Adam wasn’t the person for Ronan. Not for this.
“You,” Gansey said in a sharp, clipped tone, feeling the adrenaline shoot through him as he stared at Ronan’s frowning face.
“What about me?” challenged Ronan, glowering.
“You’re about to become very poor,” Gansey informed him.
“Yeah, so?” scoffed Ronan. “If Adam can do it, so can I.”
“No, you can’t,” Adam said, giving a little half-turn and glaring at the man over his shoulder.
“He’s right,” said Gansey, as Ronan clearly tensed up, ready to fight Adam. Adam wasn’t the man for this job, he didn’t have the relationship with Ronan that Gansey did. “You haven’t the skills you need to survive. Poor people must be able to follow directions. They must obey laws- you won’t be able to pay for any of those tickets you’ve plastered your door with, without your family money, Ronan.”
“I’ll make money,” Ronan spat. “I’m not lazy.”
“You’ll try,” said Gansey. “You’ll try, right up until your first boss tells you to do something you don’t want to do, and then you’ll spout off at him, and then you’ll be fired.”
Adam snorted, nodding.
“I can work,” Ronan said. “I can even-”
“-bite your tongue?” It was Gansey’s turn to scoff at the suggestion. “No, you can’t, you’re fundamentally irascible and you always have been. Even… before.”
When Ronan had been bright and full of laughter.
“Fine, I have issues with authority,” mocked Ronan viciously. “What’re you going to do about it?”
“Help,” said Gansey simply.
“How the fuck do you think you can help me with my authority issues?” Ronan stated incredulously.
Gansey breathed in calm. “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about.”
“Talk with me about,” repeated Ronan, clearly confused.
“Yes,” said Gansey, chanting in his mind, straightforward, straightforward. If he were going to propose this- idea- this potential solution, it had to be straight ahead. It had to be Ronan’s choice, ultimately.
“Okay,” said Ronan eventually. “Whaddaya got?”
Like they were playing poker, and he was calling Gansey’s hand.
So very Ronan, to distrust Gansey to hold any cards out of sight.
“I don’t have a plan,” Gansey said honestly. “I have- things that need to happen, and ideas of what could happen if they don’t happen.”
“Things,” said Ronan, glaring at him. “Things like…”
“Homework and grades,” said Gansey firmly. “Maybe a curfew, to ensure you get up in the morning, go to class.”
“You want to be my new daddy?” mocked Ronan, and Gansey could see the anger simmering in the man’s eyes. “You need to marry Aurora for that, Gansey.”
“I don’t want to marry your mother,” Gansey told him honestly, openly, keeping his hands where the man could see them. “I want you to- graduate. Inherit the money you need to pay for all the tickets you’ll collect the rest of your life. Inherit the money you need to fuck off and do whatever it is you want to do, once we find Glendower.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” spat Ronan. “I’m doing what I need to do, Gansey.”
A snort from the sink.
“Like you’d know what I need,” snarled Ronan. “Shut up, Parrish.”
“You’re doing what you can, without help, unsupported,” said Gansey quietly.
“You support me fine,” said Ronan, thrown off-balance, eyes narrowed and confused as he met Gansey’s assessing gaze. “Don’t- whatever. Don’t say that.”
“I’m not doing everything I can,” Gansey told him, open and honest, letting the ache in his heart roughen his voice.
“You’re fine,” said Ronan with finality, chopping a hand through the air between them.
“You’re not,” countered Gansey. “And you’re going to- you’re going to fall down a hole, soon, and I can’t- just giving you someplace to crash isn’t enough, Ronan. I want you to- I want to stop you from falling down the hole.”
“You can’t,” muttered Ronan, swallowing hard and dropping his eyes to the makeshift countertop. He gave Adam’s back a darting glance and then said gruffly, “No one can.”
“We haven’t tried everything,” Gansey told him, wishing he could be delicate, but you couldn’t be, with Ronan. He distrusted it.
“Oh, God, what is this?” demanded Ronan, glaring up at him. “Is this- am I one of your new projects, Gansey, is that what this is? Fixing me, like finding Glendower?”
“Maybe,” said Gansey evenly. “You’re equally as important.”
“Nothing’s as important as your obsession,” snorted Ronan.
“You are,” said Gansey, and then he held still and let Ronan study him.
Ronan rolled his eyes, after a long minute, and glared at the plate of stainless steel, a finger coming up to trace the edge of it, pick at the little chip on the edge. “Fine, whatever,” he mumbled. “You… you want a project.”
“I do,” said Gansey, feeling it fill his chest. He did.
He did want to help Ronan. It was as important as Glendower.
Somehow, he’d let that happen. He’d let Adam and Ronan become people he cared about, deeply. People he could see beyond their impact on his search for Glendower. People he could see dragging over to Wales, next time he went, or Kentucky, or Saudi Arabia, if the search led there- people he’d want to take with him, wherever the search led him, next.
He hadn’t had any of those, ever.
But now he had two.
He’d fix Adam later- the bruises and welts from his father weren’t going to kill him, not the way Ronan was throwing matches at the gasoline-spill-accident of his life.
“So… homework, curfew, stuff like that,” sneered Ronan. “How do you-” and he emphasized the word with contempt, “-plan to make me,” he waved at his body, “behave for you?”
“That’s why I wanted to talk,” said Gansey, plunging ahead. “Because I need to do… things. There need to be consequences, things you’d hate- or, well, at least dislike. And things you’d like, you know? Carrots and sticks.”
Ronan’s lips parted as his jaw dropped, clearly stupified. “Carrots and sticks?” he spat angrily.
“Yes,” interrupted Gansey, before the man could get himself wound around the words and ignore the idea, “yes, Ronan. Carrots and sticks! Base, primal motivations- you’re not afraid of anything anymore, and you should be! You should feel the full range of human emotion so you can- so you can access the full range of human reasoning, Ronan!”
“I’ll give you some primal fucking behavior,” Ronan threatened.
Gansey ignored it. Ronan might very well punch him, but all behavior was communicative. He was on the right track, Ronan was responding to the idea! Simply proposing it was already having an impact- Ronan wasn’t laughing at him, as Gansey’d acknowledged could be a possibility.
He also hadn’t stalked off yet, grumbling about being too sober for this bullshit conversation.
“Exactly primal behavior,” said Gansey, leaning forward, leaning in towards Ronan. Willing him to pick up Gansey’s earnestness, his honesty. “You’re lost right now, Ronan. Well, I can’t get you unlost. That’s- it’s too big. You just have to- find that out, for yourself. But I can- I can do more, Ronan, to give you… boundaries. To keep you from losing… from losing the plot entirely, man!”
“Parrish put you up to this?” asked Ronan in a strange, tight voice, giving a darting glare at Adam’s back.
“No,” said Gansey simply, leaning back. “He pointed out I wasn’t doing enough, but I knew that. I just didn’t know what more I could offer you.”
He hadn’t wanted to see- really see- the path Ronan was on, and where it ended.
“What you can offer me,” mocked Ronan.
“Yes,” said Gansey, considering Ronan’s body language.
Ronan rubbed at the gouge in the stainless steel in front of him, face scowling, slumped on his stool so that he was barely sitting and looked an inch from sliding off and falling to the floor.
He did not look like he was rejecting the idea out of hand.
Incredible.
“So what’s on offer?” asked Ronan in a bored tone. He glanced at Adam’s back, and then quickly up to Gansey, and then back to his thumb, pressed against the tear in the metal, rubbing there like his thumb was covered in sandpaper and he was trying to smooth it out.
Maybe he could.
Maybe he could sit in that stool for years, and slowly rub the imperfection out of the metal surface. There were bronze statues that had indentions rubbed away over the years, smooth little divots where fingers had gently rubbed, day after day.
Gansey would suddenly give anything, to see that makeshift countertop rubbed smooth, in seven or seventeen or seventy years’ time.
He swallowed, feeling the enormity of those years stretched between them, feeling that if he said the wrong words, today, in this moment, the vision would never come to pass.
“What do you think will work? As a deterrent?” he countered, pushing it back on Ronan to decide.
It had to come from Ronan.
Ronan rolled his eyes. “What, like, I’m a bad boy and I get a spanking? Seems a little kinky for our friendship, Gansey.”
At the sink, Adam snorted and threw the dishtowel over his shoulder, reaching for the skillet on the stove.
“Suggestions from the peanut gallery?” sneered Ronan.
“Yeah, I think he should do a lot more than just spank you,” snapped Adam. “I think you’re too tough to even notice a spanking, Ronan. I think it’d take a horsewhip to get under your skin.”
“Somewhere in the middle,” said Gansey immediately. “I’m not buying a whip. I’m not flaying your skin from your bones over homework, Ronan.”
“You’re serious,” Ronan said, disbelieving.
“I’m serious about helping you, whatever it takes,” Gansey promised him. “Just- I don’t think whipping you is the answer.”
“But spanking might be?” demanded Ronan incredulously.
Gansey raised his hands and spread them. “You tell me,” he challenged. “What deterrent will work for you, do you think? What will make you go to bed at a reasonable hour? What will get those missing assignments completed, get you to at least pay attention, get the grades you need to graduate? What can I give you, Ronan?!”
“Fucking spanking,” scoffed Ronan, shaking his head. “That won’t work. Adam’s right, I wouldn’t- I’d- it’s not gonna be enough.”
“Well, I won’t whip you,” said Gansey, aware his vowels came out too rounded, posh, and prim.
“Belts, paddles,” called Adam from the sink, tension in his shoulders as he refused to turn and engage with them. “There’s well-established middle ground.”
“Maybe in your white trash rituals,” snapped Ronan. “We’ve evolved above those, in our tax bracket!”
“Yeah, sure,” said Adam, uncharacteristically snarky for him, and then he shocked Gansey by whirling on his heels to glare at Ronan, confrontational in a way Gansey didn’t expect. “Very evolved. So evolved you’ve forgotten how to do primal human behaviors like not fuck up your own life. Get real, Ronan. A belt across your ass, and you’d be jumping to his tune.” He lifted his chin at Gansey while glaring at Ronan.
“Maybe,” said Ronan, hunching forward, mumbling the admission under his breath.
Gansey stared between them, shocked.
Adam broke the spell by whirling back to the dishes in the sink, clattering them about as if annoyed.
“I mean, it might work for the, like, homework,” Ronan growled, glaring at Gansey. “Not the sleeping shit- I can’t- I need to drink or whatever, I sleep for shit these days without- without being exhausted, first. Worn out. Drunk. But yeah, if you want a stick, sure, belt me. Dad did it once, I never fucked around with the horses ever again.”
“He belted you?” asked Gansey, shocked. He tried to picture his own father getting physical and drew a blank. He’d assumed Ronan’s childhood had been as far from Adam’s as his own!
“Once,” said Ronan shortly. “When I was- I mean, if you’re looking for shit to try, try that, I don’t know, Gansey. I know what you’re like when you get a project going, okay? If I’m the newest Gansey obsession, then- try that. And like, food. This was- good,” he said, waving a hand at Adam. “I miss food, Gansey. Good food. Real food. And I know you can cook.”
“Home cooked meals,” said Adam softly.
“Yeah,” muttered Ronan, shooting the man’s back another glare.
“Okay,” promised Gansey, nodding solemnly. “I will. Home-cooked meals, if you go to class, and like, I’ll- I can- we can figure out belting, if you- if you fuck up.”
“And a curfew,” said Adam from the sink. “You don’t sleep, whatever, but you’re home by ten. You can stare at the walls or jerk off or whatever, but you’re back here, by ten.”
“Listen to the little mother hen,” teased Ronan, his tone biting and angry. “Cluck cluck, motherfucker.”
“No, he’s right,” said Gansey with confidence. “Honest effort at school- attendance, school work, enough to keep your grades up. Enough so you don’t get kicked out, so you can graduate, Ronan. This year, next year, and then you’re gone, okay? You’re free. Curfew, so you’re home, so we know where you are.”
“And if I don’t, you’re going to belt me,” said Ronan cautiously.
Gansey met it with full honesty, nodding. “Yeah, or- whatever else works.”
“Right,” said Ronan.
Gansey didn’t tense- he couldn’t.
Tensing up would mean he wasn’t ready to follow through. Ronan would take it the wrong way, if he tensed up. This had to just be a concept he was exploring- the same way they’d explored any number of weird, odd, off-the-wall experiments.
This had to just be another weird thing he was interested in doing, for this to work.
“Okay,” said Adam, emptying the sink and flouring the stopper at them. “Are you doing this now, and should I leave, or-?”
“Now?” asked Ronan, so Gansey clenched his jaw and didn’t repeat the question.
Adam stared at them. “Ronan, how many assignments are due on Monday and did you do a single one of them?”
“None,” said Ronan, lifting his chin.
Adam shrugged, and turned to Gansey. “Sound like he’s starting at a deficit. And you might as well find out if it works, or move on to something else.”
It’s your suggestion, Gansey wanted to hiss at him, as he stood, ready to pick up Adam’s gauntlet. Why do I have to be the one?
But he knew why.
Ronan stared up at him, with those piercing blue eyes, hidden doubts within them.
Hidden doubts, because he didn’t trust Gansey would do it.
Fuck that, thought Gansey viciously. There was very little he wouldn’t do for either friend.
Including, it seemed, engaging in corporal punishment to get Ronan to behave for him, and survive to adulthood.
“You gonna watch, you pervert?” demanded Ronan, also standing, shooting Adam a black glare.
Adam’s hands came up. “I’ll go hang with Noah,” he offered.
“Oh, yeah, Noah,” said Gansey, wondering why the teen hadn’t wandered out when they were eating omelettes. On the other hand, he seemed to have a sixth sense for conflict and was always eager to avoid a Ronan blow-up. “Would you mind- explaining…?”
Adam snickered. “Oh, I’ll enjoy it,” he assured them both, walking away quickly.
“Okay, Gansey, beat my ass,” challenged Ronan, lifting his chin.
Gansey sighed. “Come- you can grip the footboard of my bed.”
“I knew it was kinky,” teased Ronan.
Gansey sighed again. “Or my desk?”
“Extra kinky,” Ronan said in a condemning tone of voice.
“Over the back of the couch?” offered Gansey, casting around desperately for a location that wouldn’t have connotations.
“How ‘bout just hands on the wall,” said Ronan in a quelling voice.
“Yes, that will do,” said Gansey, shaking his head at the sheer ridiculousness of this moment, figuring out logistics for belting Ronan.
Only Adam would come up with such a bizarre ritual that must be performed.
Gansey had done weirder things, in the name of Glendower.
Ronan wasn’t wearing a belt, and it seemed rude, somehow, to ask him to go fetch one when Gansey could quickly unbuckle his, slide it from the loops, and double it over in his hand.
Ronan wasn’t wearing a belt, or anything else.
It did look kinky, when he slipped the towel off his hips and tossed it on the armchair, spreading his feet to shoulder-width and resting his hands on the wall.
It did look like something from some kind of porn magazine.
But Gansey felt nothing but the same fond exasperation he’d felt the last six months, mixed with a desperate urge to do anything to help.
Anything at all.
Whatever it took.
He wanted that gouge in the metal rubbed smooth by Ronan’s thumb, thirty years from now. Wanted the man’s laughter to be loud and to ring in his ears, wanted his impossibly stubborn chin to lift, his head to tilt, eyes narrowed in assessment. He wanted Ronan to stay Ronan, dammit!
It was awkward as hell, ensuring the first fall of the belt would crack crisply across flesh.
They both gasped, and waited to see what would happen next.
It might fail as an experiment for any number of reasons, first and foremost being that this was Ronan and he was merely Gansey.
What happened next, though, was that Ronan nodded, hanging his head down, and growled, “Do it.”
And then Gansey striped his ass and thighs with nine more fast blows, wincing in sympathy with each one.
They overlapped in places messily, and Gansey felt he could have made a better showing if he’d practiced his swing first. They were both breathing strangely when it was done and he lowered his arm, but it was done.
“Good?” demanded Gansey. “Enough, I mean? Good enough of an incentive to walk into your room and get started bringing your grades up?”
“Good enough,” croaked Ronan. “Gotta feed the bird first.”
“That works,” said Gansey, stepping back, passing Ronan the towel again.
He wanted desperately to check in, to search the man’s face.
They’d crossed a line, somewhere between this morning and this moment.
A line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
He had to be confident that it was for the best. In Ronan’s best interest. An experiment, to see what would happen, what Ronan could accomplish, if given a carrot and a stick.
“I’m making alfredo tonight,” he said, instead, grateful to their family chef’s indulgent nature and glee at his interest in food, five years back.
If a decent meal made from scratch was the carrot which would motivate Ronan, it was a carrot Gansey could provide, and he was grateful to her.
“Chicken or shrimp?” asked Ronan.
“Shrimp,” said Gansey, deciding on the spot.
Ronan grunted, walking around him, stomping slightly like he didn’t want to appear to be walking strangely.
Gansey’d had rope burn, once, from falling on a climb. He knew how much that had hurt, even before the damage had shown.
He hadn’t gone soft on Ronan. Ronan wouldn’t appreciate softness.
Noah’s door opened and both Noah and Adam peered out cautiously after Ronan slammed his door shut.
Gansey gave them a thumb’s up, announcing, “I’m going grocery shopping. Either of you want to ride along?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Adam, in a dumbfounded tone.
Inside Ronan’s bedroom, the bird began the strange screeching feeding cry that had become familiar.
Noah shook his head, clearly interested in retreating into the relative quiet and safety of his own room.
Gansey couldn’t blame him.
He began to compose the list of everything he’d need for dinner tonight, before thinking he might as well gather up everything else he’d need for the rest of the week, while he was at it.
He had his own studying and research to do, after all.
But he could manage it, around a daily expectation of a warm meal. It would be a strange balance at first, but worth the effort, if Ronan… improved. Held steady. Graduated.
In the end, it wasn’t much to ask, against the stark possibilities of Rona’s future.
If he wanted something done, and done well, he just had to see it done himself.
It was like the search for Glendower: no one could do it the way Gansey could. No one else had exactly the right knowledge, skills and drive.
The right level of obsession, to try the weird experiments with the same seriousness as the usual ones.
The same ability to believe that it would work, even in the face of complete lack of evidence to support the belief.
“Do you have any suggestions for the shopping list?” he asked Adam as they pulled into the store’s parking lot, before kicking himself.
Adam, predictably, took it the wrong way.
He’d meant snacks to keep around Monmouth, for Adam to munch on when he visited, like Gansey’d do for literally any regular guest who showed up.
But Adam, being Adam, turned it into a whole debate on the ethics of class dynamics, right there in the grocery store parking lot.
It drove Gansey nuts, as much as he admired Adam’s fierce independence and dedication to his strange goals.
Maybe he’d have a little talk with Adam, down the road, once the thing with Ronan had become an embedded routine.
See if he could spank sense into both of his best friends, whenever they needed it.
They one-hundred percent needed something more than the standard supports, both of them.
It was just a good thing Gansey had found them, in his travels, and tucked them both under his wing.
It made him feel a little proprietary, from time to time, but anything that was good for them, he’d try to make happen. They deserved it, after all.
They put up with him, didn’t they?