Chapter Text
1980 and fourteen year old Ronan Lynch had just bought his first electric guitar with birthday money, had to stand on his tiptoes to pay at the counter and walked out of the music shop without a case or anything, just a few guitar picks in his pocket and the beat up black guitar hanging from its strap, not yet adjusted, bigger than he was. His bike was locked up out back and it was a whole ordeal biking down country roads the whole way home with a heavy guitar sitting in his lap, and when people in town saw him they laughed and pointed and Ronan waved at them as he biked on by.
“Girls,” His older brother Declan told him, after seeing him bike up the drive wearing an electric guitar, “Can’t play guitar.”
“Fucking watch me.” Ronan strummed an awfully out of tune chord.
“So cool,” His younger brother Matthew breathed, running his fingers along the strings.
Declan was scowling at him, full of misgivings. “You’re terrible.”
“It’s just out of tune! Let me tune it! Besides, me and Noah are starting a band.” Noah Czerny was Ronan’s best friend although the term ‘best friend’ sounded more like girly middle school shit. Starting high school had admittedly made Ronan feel more powerful than he was for about one second, until the seniors started picking on him and instead of a puny middle schooler he was a puny freshman. People didn’t like Ronan very much except for Noah, who liked him a lot, and his parents disapproved of and Declan hated and Matthew, bless him, sort of idolized.
At first they’d hung out after school, pushing each other around in shopping carts and having silly string wars in public parks. They climbed on the roofs of local buildings, broke into abandoned spots around town, and took great pleasure in using Noah’s sister’s perfume as an accelerant in lighting fires (hand sanitizer was their next favorite option). Apparently Noah was a bad influence. Ronan’s parents drew the line at sleepovers citing that Ronan was a girl and Noah was a boy and so they couldn’t stay the night together, but somehow that law had weakened and broken when taking into account that Ronan didn’t really have any other friends.
Whatever his parents were worried about happening during a sleepover didn’t quite happen. Well, maybe it did. Because Noah and Ronan listened to Noah’s dad’s classic records all night long, turned down low once Noah’s family went to sleep, front to back until they could sing the songs word for word and by the time Noah got hold of one of his dad’s acoustic guitars, it was all over. Every night became a sleepover night. They’d pass the guitar back and forth, schooling their fingers into uncomfortable bent out of place chords and essentially breaking through to the other side, as Jim Morrison said, once discovering the joy of a bar chord and everything that meant for them in terms of musical prowess.
“You need some friends more like you,” Niall Lynch told Ronan over dinner one rare night that he was home (Noah was having dinner with his grandparents). “Other girls, like. Staying the night at that Czerny’s house doesn’t look good for us- only fourteen!- and god knows what you’re up to!”
“We’re playing music,” Ronan retorted defensively. “And I don’t want to hang out with girls. I like Noah.”
“If you can call that music,” Declan muttered, earning a swift kick from his brother under the table, which was returned in earnest, until they were having an all out war under the table that ended with their dad dragging Ronan’s chair around to the corner and leaving him there. Relations at home were fine, back then, for the most part, although Ronan knew that he was rude to his parents for no reason and somehow couldn’t stop. The smallest things set him off; it almost hurt having to deal with the way things made him feel, sometimes, and Ronan found himself understanding that the less time he spent at home generally the better.
In the winter, his dad would take Declan and Matthew out to the frozen lake down the road with hockey skates and sticks et cetera while Ronan was left at home because he wasn’t a boy, and hockey was for boys. At his first communion when forced into a dress he screamed and cried, howling at the misery of it, and his mother cried because she just wanted her daughter to look pretty and pure in that soft white dress that Ronan had torn up fighting against. Silver safety pins shining in the dress as he sat in the pew. He didn’t know why wearing dresses and being told to play tennis instead of hockey made him feel so bad, at least not when he was younger, but he knew his parents reinforced those bad feelings so he either fought with them or stayed away out of some self imposed isolation.
Things were hard except for the fun he had with Noah.
School was maybe the worst.
Middle school for its part had been fun- graffiting buildings, overflowing the toilets, going into utility closets and throwing the fuses so all the lights would go out- but in high school there was loads more homework, increasingly complicated social circles, and many more kids, which led to more bullying for Ronan. One night his dad had dragged him downstairs to come clean the chicken coop with him which Ronan supposed must’ve been punishment for skipping all of his classes after lunch that day, and while clearing shit out of the coop, neither of them breathing out of their mouths Niall asked:
“How was school today?”
Not sure if Niall knew about his truancy, Ronan just replied narrowly, “Fine.”
“Honest? What classes did you have?”
“Uh- history in the morning and we’re learning about the Silk Road. Then math, which… I don’t exactly know. Geometry? And in English we’re reading Pride and Prejudice… it’s stupid.”
“Hmph.”
They worked in silence for a while, loading hay back into the coop. “...dad?”
“Aye?”
“What does the word ‘dyke’ mean?” Niall straightened up in a way that made Ronan realize it must have been a bad thing. Then he turned, blue eyes flashing, and Ronan went still.
“What,” Niall breathed, “Did someone call you that?”
“No- I don’t- no. I’m only wondering.”
“Roan, did somebody call you that?”
Ronan looked away, his heart hurting, because he didn’t quite know what he’d done wrong. The older boys had shouted it at him obviously meaning something bad, but the only people around to hear had been other strangers and Ronan burned with strange shame as he unlocked his bike and went home. He didn’t want to fight about it that day. Had covered bruises with his mom's makeup too many times now and besides, he always seemed to be in more trouble for doing something so boyish, when the boys were doing what was only natural.
“Don’t be saying that word,” Niall was telling him, “It’s a bad word people use for girls who like other girls.”
“But I don’t like other girls! I like boys!”
“And god knows you dress like one! All I’m saying is that Czerny is a bad influence on you, Roan. You should try making friends with some other girls.” This was a suggestion that sounded fine on its own, if not for the fact that girls at Ronan’s school were really into things like roller skating, stealing their mothers’ makeup to practice with, and collaging photos made up of cut-out magazines. He knew that they liked music, too, but it wasn’t the music that he and Noah listened to and as far as Ronan knew, none of the other kids in their grade were playing rock music the way he and his best friend were.
This wasn’t exactly easy to explain to his father, who was clearly happier raising sons than his one grudging daughter, so Ronan didn’t try. And after all it wouldn’t come out in words.
There was just something about music that went deep into the bad, angry parts of Ronan and soothed them. Sometimes, late at night and listening to Noah’s dad’s records, Ronan would get goosebumps on his arms and a chill thrilling down his spine, and sometimes listening to old folk songs his eyes would even prick with tears. It was 1980 and the world was imperfect but it seemed to be improving, at least; when Ronan had started school at five years old, southern Virginia schools had still been segregated, and though his liberal parents had always taught him to be kind and fair to people of all types, the racial divide in his hometown was a clear cut and confusing divide for a young child to witness.
Now there were a few black students at his school but they received a load more shit than Ronan did for any reason at all. So sometimes late at night hearing Pete Seeger and tons of strangers in a crowd all singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ together still struck Ronan somewhere… We’ll walk hand in hand… we shall live in peace… someday.
—
Peace was good and fine as a concept until put into practice.
There was really no such thing as peace when you were a teenager and people kept telling you what to do and nobody understood you, not even yourself, which made things really and properly fucking complicated, and for some reason putting on a dress for church each Sunday made you feel like killing everybody. Maybe even yourself. And especially the priest. Because you liked his robes better than your own ridiculous outfit.
If anything was as bad as church, Ronan thought that gym class matched up in second place. Dressing in a too-small uniform and running laps in the hot sun for no fucking reason at all made him practically homicidal, and so at some point he just decided to stop attending class. It was easier than having a shouting match with his coach.
Typically Ronan would skip gym (last class of the day) and hang out nearby school smoking people’s cigarette butts. Sometimes he’d stop by Mike’s diner and buy a shake or a grilled cheese. People in town always gave him funny looks. Boyish girl skipping school by herself.
After the three o’clock bell rang, Ronan met up with Noah in a field by school to plan the rest of the afternoon.
“Why’d you skip again?” Noah plopped down next to him with a heavy sigh. “I hate being in that class alone. It’s all jocks and annoying girls. It would be so fun if you stayed.”
“Isn’t Linda in our class?” Linda was kind of weird and Noah’s face reflected that. Ronan only thought of her because she was weird; wore feathers strung through her hair and carried a cassette player through the halls with her.
“She’s weird- and a girl.” Sighed again, propping himself up on the backs of his arms as he lay out in the grass. Noah had grown taller over the summer and Ronan hadn’t; it seemed like his growing pains were never ending. Like he’d always be trailing behind everyone else, different, strange, unhappy. A lot of things felt unfair. Noah was going on about gym class, still, “...just show up and they’d give you points.”
“I hate dressing out.”
“You don’t need to dress out, you just need to show up.” Ronan shrugged at him because he wasn’t going to show up for gym no matter what Noah said. It had been bad enough in middle school in the girls’ changing room, hiding in a corner as he changed, no friends to talk to, then forcing himself to run laps until he felt like puking. Changing clothes in the girls’ locker room made him feel like puking.
A lot of things made him feel like puking.
Ronan lay down on his back and blocked the sun from his eyes with his arm. Grass rustled as Noah lay down, too, and they lay in silence for a while just soaking up the sun. The color red behind Ronan’s closed eyelids looked pulsing and like he could drown in it. Sunshine was okay, he thought. If he could lie here all day and for the rest of forever, unbothered, he wouldn’t complain.
—
Noah’s basement: after eleven p.m. (Curfew, of sorts.) They were trying to play a song through in the full.
“Okay- how about- you know The Clash, right? We can do something basic…” Noah played the messy opening bars of ‘Train in Vain’, which sounded altogether very cool. Tracking his friend’s finger movements, Ronan tried it out on his own guitar. “Okay but we can’t play the same part!”
“Ugh- what?”
“I’m playing lead,” Noah explained as though this was obvious.
“Well what else am I supposed to play? I don’t have a bass!”
“Just play a half step down and pretend it’s a bass- just use the same strings you would on a bass and play it lower.” It took Ronan about twenty minutes to figure out how to play low enough on his guitar to make it sound enough like a bass that it could pass, and they stuck the whole London Calling record on Noah’s turntable and spent about an hour playing along to every single song. Of course Ronan couldn’t play bass nearly well enough and just fell into doing chords while Noah half sang along, playing slapshot lead, slurring his words in a horrible impression of Joe Strummer.
To Ronan, they sounded pretty good, but to Noah’s sister they evidently didn’t; she came down into the basement screaming at them to shut up because she couldn’t focus on her math homework.
“We’re making music, Adele!” Noah shouted right back. “Do you not hear this? We’ll make history one day!”
“No you won’t! And mom doesn’t like you listening to that rock and roll, either!” At this, Ronan and Noah rolled their eyes in tandem. All of the amps and Noah’s guitar were provided by his father, who evidently did like listening to ‘that rock and roll’. “I’m gonna tell on you if you keep playing! The neighbors can probably hear you!”
“I sure hope they can! Everyone should be grateful to hear our band!”
“You pricks don’t even have a name,” Adele swore, stomping back upstairs. Realizing the truth in that, Ronan and Noah looked at each other over the hum of the amplifiers.
“We do need a name…”
Adele won that night, because they sat around a piece of paper brainstorming band names for the next half hour, eventually deciding on The Christening because Ronan appreciated the Catholic imagery and Noah said that the holy title would really contrast with the loud gritty music they played, and they were both happy with that. After eleven-thirty now, and Ronan would be very late coming home. He went out back to grab his bike and Noah followed, blonde hair glowing in the moonlight.
“Okay- bye, dude, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Noah’s voice was a whisper and he took Ronan’s hand, not in a gay way, just squeezing them together tightly as a form of goodbye, but he was grinning all the same and this was a step away from a hug they wouldn’t share. “This was really fun.”
“Yeah,” Ronan breathed. “I’ll see you.” He biked home through the darkness, standing up as he pumped the pedals, feeling all the energy from today flowing back through him. Started going faster and faster and faster until he was flying, just flying, wind cutting across his buzzed head, crickets chirping in the night, stars twinkling overhead and this was home, this was life, a dream, at least… Ronan whooped out loud as his bike swooped down a hill and his belly roiled like he was on a rollercoaster. He was laughing out loud into the night as he biked home, past their neighbors’ lake, past the horse barn, past the huge empty field where he and his brothers would go play baseball when they were younger and still all got along.
So many songs stuck in his head. The future, for once, felt like a real thing only because Ronan knew he had a guitar and a best friend and that was enough. It had to be.
At home, he stored his bike in the garage, legs aching. Gravel crunched under his sneakers as he came in. His mom was in the living room, reading, Declan beside her. Technically Ronan was supposed to have been home for dinner and effectively bypassed that by staying at Noah’s until far too late. He was really testing his chances as it was almost midnight and his curfew was eight, even though for Declan it was nine. His mom said it was because Ronan was a girl and had to be more careful being out at night. Ronan made a valiant attempt to sneak upstairs but from the couch, Declan must have spotted him, and said,
“Roan!” God. Ronan continued upstairs until his mom called after him, too, and then slunk back down feeling morally wounded and upset.
“What?” He snapped at them.
“Be polite,” His mom told him with a frown. “You’re home very late, and you didn’t call. I’m taking your bike away for the next week.”
“Oh, come on. I was just playing music with Noah.”
“I think he’s a bad influence on you, Roan. You need to be more responsible. And don’t talk back, alright? You didn’t obey my rules, so you’re being punished. It’s simple.” His mom eyed him seriously. “Did you have dinner?”
“Why do you care?” Ronan snapped at her. “You don’t want me hanging out with my friends, so why does it matter if I have dinner? You just don’t care about me. Jesus Christ. It’s not fair. ” No one responded to that except his mom and Declan raising their eyebrows in twin, infuriating expressions, and Ronan made an angry growling noise before stomping back upstairs, slamming the door to his room hard enough to hear something fall off the wall in the next room, and flopped down hard onto his bed.
God.
He buried his face in his pillow. Fucking Declan. Fuck his stupid fucking curfew. Fuck all of it. Anytime he felt good, it would always inevitably be torn apart by someone else putting him down. Ronan wondered if he was too sensitive or perhaps everyone else was just fucking annoying.
The whole entire essence of being fifteen felt like a particularly specific type of torture inflicted by a very angry God. Ronan’s brothers were both growing, but his dad would joke about it, saying that Declan and Matthew were growing like weeds, though when it came to Ronan it seemed like all of them were uncomfortable. He begged his mom not to take him shopping for new clothes even when his shirts and jeans were too tight, instead rummaging through Declan’s closet and wearing his hand-me-downs. Mom called him a tomboy.
Ronan thought that the word ‘boy’ felt more fitting for him than ‘girl’ ever had.
His body- grotesquely- was changing, bloating, swelling, stretching, bulging. He wished that it would stop, which was truly just wishful thinking seeing as by now it felt as though his body no longer belonged to him and would continue doing whatever it wanted with or without his acquiescence or permission. All of his problems in the world, for a period of time, seemed to fall into a pinpoint prick of agony: his physical body, and, by association, fucking gym class and the piece of shit locker rooms.
Girls in the changing rooms at school would brag about wearing more than training bras. Ronan, nauseous and ashamed and hot all over, would either change in a bathroom stall (which was not allowed), or skip class altogether. One day after he had cut his thighs with a razor in the shower the night before, Noah had dragged him to gym class because afterwards some of his older friends were going to the skate park, and he wanted to bring Ronan along.
In the locker room, Ronan took his uniform into the bathroom stall, had changed his shorts (glad they were baggy and went down to his knees), and was shirtless putting on a gym t-shirt when a loud bang came on the door-
“Roan Lynch, how many times have I told you that changing in the bathroom is NOT allowed?!!?” It was Coach Johnson who coached girls’ soccer and was a notorious hardass. Ronan pulled his shirt on over the ACE bandages he’d taped around his chest, feeling pissed off. “Roan, get your butt out here right now!”
“I’m using the bathroom!” Ronan shouted back, having to exert an effort when it came to not swearing.
“You are not!” She banged on the door and Ronan, growling with anger, flushed the toilet and opened the bathroom door hard enough to hit the coach. Johnson was up in his face in a moment- “You do not treat the faculty like that, Roan!”
“Leave me alone- can’t someone take a piss in peace?”
“You do NOT use that language with your TEACHERS, Roan!”
The sound of his name was grating, terrible. It made him want to hit someone. Ronan realized then that he’d rather go to the principal’s office than asphyxiate while running laps, so he looked Coach Johnson in the eye and said, “Fucking make me.”
First, Johnson took him to the boys’ coach, Coach Rich. He let people call him ‘Rich’, his first name, because he was nicer than the girls’ coach and technically he was the real gym teacher. Johnson was mostly there to supervise the girls’ changing rooms to prevent them from smoking cigarettes out the windows, skipping class altogether, or, apparently, changing in the bathroom stalls.
Coach Rich took Ronan into his little office. Over his shoulder Ronan saw Noah, outfitted in the grey uniform, watching him looking worried. In the office, Rich sat at one side of the desk and Ronan at the other. Records were consulted.
Rich looked at his attendance sheet and then at Ronan. “You’ve missed every class in the past week- why is that?”
“Been sick,” Ronan muttered, not making eye contact with the coach.
“Both of us know that’s not true because your attendance for other classes has been satisfactory. I know gym isn’t for everyone, but it’s a required credit for Virginia graduation requirements.” Ronan scuffed his shoe against the floor. It left a mark for how dirty it was. He began to scrub at the mark with the toe of his sneaker, only making it worse, and the coach sharply called him by his birth name. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”
Nah, fuck this.
“Fuck you,” Ronan said, hoping that God wasn’t listening, “And fuck your stupid fucking gym class- damn it all to hell. I’m not coming. Call my parents, call whoever, but take that Virginia graduation requirement and stick it right up-”
So the next day he and his parents got to go to the principal’s office. Sat slouched in a chair while everyone called him his birth name and said “ she’s been having behavioral problems”, and “ she might have ADHD,” and of course, “I just don’t know what the problem with her might be,” until Ronan felt so horrible and nauseous that he tried to leave and the principal stopped him- where do you think you’re going, miss?- and Ronan threw up all over the floor and some got on the toes of his dirty sneakers. It ended the conversation, at least, though he got a day’s worth of in school suspension and got beaten up afterwards by some kids who had heard Noah calling him by his new name, Ronan, and thought that something was wrong with it.
Came home with his lip split and a bruise under his eye. Matthew found him a bag of frozen peas and made him explain what happened, so Ronan made up something stupid. They sat on the porch drinking iced tea together until Declan came home with similar questions, which drove Ronan up to his room where he stewed for a while trying not to cry. He felt so abjectly miserable and couldn’t understand why he’d been here so long, dealing with things that didn’t make sense- why he was so confused, so sad, and why everyone seemed set to make things worse for him. Life was out to get him.
Declan came knocking on his door. “Ronan? Matthew said you started a fight after school. You’d better tell me what happened so mom and dad don’t get mad.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’ll be telling on you!”
“Stupid fucking tattletale piece of shit asshole!” Ronan shouted right back through the door. The handle jiggled as Declan tried to open it. “Just go away- I don’t want to talk to you!”
“Open this door!”
“Fuck off !” Ronan cried, pounding his fist against the door, knowing he’d surprised Declan by the force. “I’ll have enough to deal with from mom and dad- so not you, too! Just leave me alone! It’s not your problem!” Silence. Declan must have gone. Feeling even worse, Ronan flopped down on his bed, burying his face in his pillow, and screaming into it. He wished he could run away. He wished he would die. He wished he were somebody else with a whole different life.
He felt weak for lying in bed and crying when the sun was still out and there was so much fun to be had out there, but his parents had currently banned him from hanging out with Noah. So he cried for a while, and when that didn’t help, he used the sharp end of a safety pin to scratch himself until he bled, which really helped, and after that he climbed out his window, leapt onto the roof, lowered himself off of it somewhat ungracefully, and sprinted to the garage before anyone could see him.
As he was biking down the one-lane road that led to his house, Ronan whizzed past his parents in their car and picked up speed after they saw him. He heard the noise of brakes and glanced over his shoulder- seeing his dad turning around- and began to pump the pedals like mad. Of course they caught up to him, his dad laying on the horn, and Ronan kept biking until his dad nearly ran him over and he could hear his mom screaming inside.
“Where do you think you’re going?” His dad had leapt out of the car and grabbed Ronan by the shoulders (one was still stinging with fresh cuts), and Ronan tried to wriggle out of his grasp, which made his dad grab him even harder.
“Nowhere- just for a bike ride-”
“And what in the hell happened to your face?” Niall’s Irish accent sounded much thicker when he was angry. “Were you fighting, Roan?”
“No- dad- it was an accident…”
“Who did this? Did you get into a fight?”
“No- just- some kids, after school.”
“Did you fight back ?” Ronan could have cried; he didn’t know what he was supposed to do anymore. “Get in the car.”
“No.”
“ Now .”
Inside the car, his mom called out, “Roan, please.” Then his dad picked him up and Ronan screamed, punching at him, but Niall was strong and stuffed him into the backseat kicking and screaming. Crying, again. He kicked the back of his dad’s seat hard as his dad threw the bike into the trunk, and his mom turned around to fix him with a very hard look.
“You could put in an effort to behave yourself, Roan. You know that we love you. We’re trying. We just need you to try, too.” Her blue eyes matched his. Tears trickling down his face, hot and embarrassing. Ronan wiped his eyes and made a horrible, unintentional sobbing noise. His mom reached out to touch his shoulder and he flinched away, curling into the window of the backseat. “Roan, please.”
“Mom- I.” Wiped his face again, felt like he was going to puke again- again- “Mom, please- I just think something’s wrong with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to be… I don’t want to be me anymore. I can’t.” The door slammed as Niall got back in. He saw the expression on Aurora’s face and then turned around to see Ronan curled, crying, in the backseat.
“What’s going on?”
“Roan…”
“If you could just stop calling me that!” Ronan shouted, unable to help himself, so fucking sick of it all: “I’ve told Noah to call me Ro n an, and that I’m- that I’m a boy, I think I’m a boy… and everyone…” Sobbing, hiccuping over his words, “Everyone calls me by names I can’t stand- it makes me want to be sick- and I know it doesn’t make sense and I know it’s crazy, but please, please, please please please…” Face buried in his hands, shoulders shaking, just wishing he was with Noah. “I can’t be me anymore, I can’t do it…”
Parents exchanging glances in the front seat. Niall started driving again. Silence as they figured out what to say. Eventually, Aurora said,
“Ronan.”
“Ronan,” Ronan agreed, face red with tears and bruised eyes downcast. “It’s so easy.” She was nodding, he realized.
“And Irish,” Niall said in the front seat. “Ronan Lynch.” It felt like he’d been blessed. In the rearview mirror, they made faltering eye contact. “You mean that, then. That you want… that… you’d rather be our son.” Not trusting his voice, Ronan nodded. “I suppose we can try our best,” Niall murmured. He frowned as he navigated them down the driveway. Ronan hadn’t gotten very far at all.