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It’s been a month since Niall passed away.
No.
Since Niall died –
No.
The words are too small, too simple, to describe the utter devastation that one man’s death had brought upon so many people.
It’s been a month since Niall’s face was smashed beyond recognition, since they put him in the ground; it’s been a month since Gansey met Ronan at the hospital and found two corpses waiting for him: Niall’s, and the Ronan that Used to Be.
Gansey isn’t sure he’ll ever get that Ronan back, a fact he’s been quietly coming to terms with between email exchanges with Helen, who always understands far more than he gives her credit for, and late night destinationless rides in the Pig.
It’s been a month since Gansey collected the pieces of Ronan Lynch and stacked them carefully in the small office-turned-bedroom at Monmouth, and every time Gansey comes home, he’s afraid he’ll find them scattered across the pavement outside.
Tonight, Gansey gets in late from a day trip home – his dad’s birthday, which couldn’t be missed, since “Dad, I’m a little afraid my grieving emotionally unstable roommate will burn the place down in my absence,” wasn’t a conversation that would go over well with the Ganseys. Gansey’s parents liked Ronan Lynch well enough on the basis that he was Gansey’s friend, but they hadn’t seen Ronan since Niall’s death. In the Gansey family, acceptable forms of grieving included noble tears at funerals, wearing dark colors, and being excused early from meals when absolutely necessary. They wouldn’t know what to do with Ronan Lynch’s violent and obvious distress; his utter lack of composure, harsh outbursts, grand theft auto, and eschewing of social norms concerning death. So when his parents ask after Ronan’s wellbeing, Gansey offers platitudes instead of the truth, and that’s that.
Gansey gets home a little after 11, and he’s initially relieved to hear music coming from Ronan’s bedroom. It’s the first time Gansey can remember Ronan actually listening to anything in the past month, and it’s been unsettlingly quiet. With a small pang, Gansey realizes it’s the lively trill of Irish fiddle; Niall’s music.
Knocking on Ronan’s closed door yields no results, so Gansey pushes it open slowly, ready to retreat if Ronan isn’t in the mood for visitors. Gansey has learned the hard way that Ronan fiercely detests crying in front of a witness; he’d nearly launched himself from the moving Camaro a few weeks prior to avoid Gansey seeing tears on his face. Gansey’s sure that this is an inherently unhealthy response, but he can hardly begrudge Ronan some boundaries at this point, when so much has gone to shit.
The room is dark, the only illumination the digital readout of Ronan’s stereo and the yellow glow of the streetlight filtering in the window. “Ronan? I’m back,” Gansey says unnecessarily, trying to pick out a Ronan-shaped shadow in the gloom. “Are you here?”
“Hey, man.” Ronan’s voice comes from the floor, more slur than actual words, and it takes Gansey a minute to make him out. He’s sitting with his back to the bed, legs sprawled in front of him. Gansey is at once relieved and concerned – Ronan’s drunk enough to sound talkative, which is a nice change from the surly destructive ghost he’s been living with for four weeks, but the drunkenness itself is less than ideal. Gansey hasn’t had the heart to put his foot down about it yet, but he can see a rapidly growing addiction in the making. He picks his way around a pile of still packed boxes and lowers himself onto the floor opposite Ronan.
“Careful, you’ll wrinkle your suit,” Ronan tells him, and then seems to find this idea hilarious, because he bursts into wild laughter. It’s not quite hysterical, but it’s close. The smell of whiskey is overpowering this close up, and as Gansey watches, Ronan takes another swig straight from the bottle.
Gansey snags the bottle from Ronan’s clumsy fingers. “I think you’re all set.”
“Hey, man!” Ronan protests, echoing his earlier words with more vitriol. “I don’t tell you when to piss, do I?” Gansey’s eyes have adjusted more now; Ronan looks surprisingly put together for this level of drunk. Maybe two out of three sheets to the wind. “So, how was daddy Gansey’s party? Did he get that island he’s been asking for for years?” Ronan pauses, staring at Gansey, and then adds accusatorily, “Quit bogarting the liquor!” As though they'd been sharing the bottle and Gansey had forgotten to pass it back.
Gansey ignores this. “It was fine. He kept up his tradition of getting everyone else presents despite it being his birthday, though.” Gansey holds up his wrist to demonstrate a new Girard-Perregaux that looks a bit more like a deep-sea diving gauge than an actual watch.
“Fine craftsmanship,” Ronan says dryly, reaching over to tap at the glass face. His hand shakes a little. Abruptly, he laughs again, once, more a pained noise than actual expression of humor. “My dad gave me this watch once, it was so fucked up, man.” His hand trailed in the air, index finger tracing a misshapen circle. “No numbers, just a bunch of moons and planets and shit. You could use it to go back in time, but only by five seconds.”
Gansey had gone completely still at Ronan’s mention of his father, and raises his eyebrows at the anecdote. It’s not like Ronan to get fanciful, even after most of a bottle of whiskey. Three sheets to the wind it is. “That sounds like it could come in handy,” Gansey says, and then reconsiders. “Actually, it sounds frustrating, more than anything else. Five seconds isn’t much.”
Ronan is scrambling to his feet now, single-minded, and Gansey rises quickly in time to steady him when he sways. “I gotta find it. Maybe if I could-“ Ronan drops to his knees beside one of the boxes and starts digging through it, flinging aside objects that get in his way. Gansey winces as something expensive-sounding crashes onto the floor. He presses a hand to Ronan’s bare shoulder, steering him back, keeping an eye out for a sharp elbow thrown in his direction. Ronan had nearly given Gansey a black eye last week, simply due to the fact that when he was drunk, his limbs tended to fly everywhere with less control and more manic velocity than usual.
“Let’s look for it in the morning,” Gansey coaxes. Surprisingly, Ronan only resists for a moment before allowing Gansey to pull him in the direction of the bed. He collapses onto the messy sheets sideways, muttering something that Gansey can’t hear. Gansey sits on the bed next to him, back against the wall. He should probably leave Ronan alone to pass out, but something about the movements of his hands, the tremor in his voice, suggests a level of vulnerability Gansey is afraid to leave Ronan alone with.
“It’s my dad’s birthday in August, you know? I was gonna tell him then.” Ronan rubs a hand over his face, and Gansey is quiet, not wanting to break this spell winding around them. This is the most Ronan’s talked about Niall since he died, and it feels sacred, dangerous. “He always gets blasted at his birthday party, and then we hang out in the barns and he shows me the things he’s made.” Ronan hesitates, and Gansey can sense him trying to move past something painful, like swimming against a current. Surprisingly, he continues. “I was gonna fucking tell him, and now I’ll never know how he’d be about it.”
Gansey wishes suddenly that there were enough light to see Ronan’s face, even though the dark, confessional atmosphere of the bedroom is likely the only thing facilitating this openness. This feels like something big, something that Gansey both had been expecting and hadn’t seen coming, and he’s aware that he needs to tread carefully. “You could still say it out loud, though. If it would help,” Gansey offers, keeping his voice low and even, as if Ronan’s an animal that could be spooked by anything larger.
Ronan rolls his head, and Gansey can see him staring up at the ceiling, eyes dark and dry. “I think he would’ve been – I think he would’ve understood. Unlike Declan.” The name is spit out like a curse. “But no, he’s always known things about me before I did. Major stuff, like –“ His voice gets quieter, losing the end of the sentence, and Gansey hopes desperately that these aren’t things Ronan will hate himself for saying in the morning. Gansey can’t cope with the thought of the two of them getting pushed farther apart. There’s already an ocean of grief between them, and it’s too much.
“Then again, maybe he would’ve shit a brick, called me a fag, and disowned me.” Ronan’s voice is deprecating, and he snorts, a humorless sound.
Gansey has to swallow. He feels the same way he’d felt driving on the highway in last year’s blizzard; that same sense of barreling forward into the unknown, being unable to see anywhere but directly beyond the headlights, hoping that he wasn’t about to discover a tree or a car or a body in his path. “That doesn’t sound like the Niall I knew, personally.” The sentence feels weighted with a thousand words, and Gansey hopes Ronan understands everything he’s not saying. Being too direct, Gansey knows, will only make Ronan angry and shameful and self-destructive.
Ronan rolls toward Gansey a little, head propped on an arm. Gansey can feel the weight of his eyes, sharp like a hawk watching a shrew in the grass hundreds of feet away. Gansey meets his gaze straight on, and Ronan’s face shifts again, like he’s realizing that this conversation is actually happening. Defensiveness makes his forehead into angry furrows. “And what do you say, Dick?” The “k” sound is sharp enough to wound, but Gansey holds his ground, steady, although he has to think for a moment before speaking.
“I say your father was a good man. I say he would’ve always been proud of everything Ronan Lynch, no caveats.” It helps that Gansey actually believes the words. Niall Lynch had many flaws, but his obvious love for his middle son was not one of them. “He would’ve understood, Ronan. I think you know that.”
The angry expression has melted away, replaced by something infinitely more complicated. Gansey can’t make it out in the dim light, but there’s a palpable shift in the presence on the bed next to him. The music from Ronan’s stereo is still playing softly, and the next song is contemplative rather than lively, suggesting grey skies over ancient green hills. Without much ceremony, Ronan leans closer to Gansey, all coiled intensity, live wire, the smell of ozone. Gansey sees his body language shift even before Ronan himself seems to register what’s happening, and so the kiss, while still unexpected, doesn’t catch him completely off-guard.
Ronan’s mouth is a glass of swirling amber liquid, his lips wet and firm. Beneath the whiskey, Gansey can taste salt. Gansey doesn’t pull away, but doesn’t relax into it, either. His mind is speeding forward, anxious to make sense of this moment, of the next few moments, but then Ronan’s hand rests against his neck, his touch so uncertain and anguished that Gansey could cry.
After only a few seconds, Ronan pulls back, eyes lowered. The tension in his muscles is seeping away and he looks more tired than Gansey has ever seen him. Gansey’s fingers move to meet Ronan’s where they rest on Gansey’s pulse, and the two of them are quiet, the air thick with questions and answers between them. “Sorry,” Ronan mutters finally, and his hand slides away from Gansey.
The loss of the touch feels monumental. The weight of the world rests on the words Gansey is trying to put together in his head, and he’s terrified they’re the wrong ones. “Ronan, I don’t –“
Ronan interrupts him, but thankfully, he doesn’t sound angry, or embarrassed, or hurt. “No, I don’t either. Not with you, I mean.” The relief that washes over Gansey is almost dizzying. Things aren’t ruined. “I just,” Ronan says, and lets out a long Jameson-soaked sigh through pursed lips, rolling onto his back once more.
Gansey nods, even though he’s not totally sure what Ronan means. “It’s okay.” And it is. One less thing to be curious about.
Ronan kicks at him then, foot connecting with Gansey’s thigh. “Sorry geezer, you’re not my type.”
The levity is unexpected and welcome, and Gansey lets out a breath too, trying to match it. “Your loss, babycakes.”
Ronan laughs for real this time, honest and grating. “What are you, a mobster from the forties? Fucker.”
Gansey shoves at his shoulder, and just like that, they're back on familiar ground. “Go to sleep. You’re delirious.”
Ronan flings an arm over his eyes, and Gansey gets up from the bed, pausing at the door. Right out here if you need anything, he doesn’t say, because Ronan knows.
After Gansey shuts the door, he stands on the other side of it for a long while. For the first time, his thoughts aren’t stuck on an agonizing loop of the past month, on Ronan’s pain and Gansey’s inability to fix it. Now, the future seems like a distinct possibility, a glimmer of bright blue beyond miles of clouds, because something of the Old Ronan is still alive.
Gansey runs a finger over his lower lip, still tasting Ronan’s mouth, and pulls a book from the stack on his desk. He won’t go to sleep yet. Just in case.