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Ronan has been with Declan today. Not Matthew, though. That would make things easier. It’s not Sunday, either, or close to it - it’s a Friday night and Ronan would usually go out looking for trouble in the form of fast cars and faster words hurled through open windows, but instead he found Declan, or else Declan found him, and Ronan has a nasty bruise across his left cheek as a keepsake.
(It’s better, he tells Noah bitterly, than what happened to Declan, which apparently involves a penis being ripped off and shoved down the owner’s throat. Both Noah and Gansey doubt the validity of this story, but Ronan is still fuming, so they let it go.)
Ronan yelled for a little while when he got home, ranting about what a travesty of a human Declan was (using a lot of compound words and phrases in English and something in Irish that Gansey didn’t understand but contained enough venom that he was sure it wasn’t nice), and then slammed a number of doors before barricading him in his room. Noah and Gansey had exchanged tired glances, and Noah retreated to his room too, leaving Gansey to keep watch from his desk.
He can tell when Ronan decides to do something because the air in Monmouth changes noticeably. Suddenly, it carries the promise of poor decisions and more blood than has already been spilled today and the scent of bad beer that Ronan only buys because it makes him feel like his insides are burning and he thinks he deserves it for drowning himself in alcohol. Gansey looks out the window and sees high beams light up the wall of the building across from them and unconsciously reaches out to grab the keys to the Pig. Ronan has never even sat in the driver's seat, but Gansey knows how much he wants to.
Ronan’s room stays quiet, but the energy coming from his room is electric.
It’s well after dark when his door shoves open, sending a couple speeding tickets fluttering to the ground as it hits the wall. Gansey looks up sharply to see Ronan standing in his doorway, one hand braced on the door jamb, swaying a little with a look of calm fury on his face. Gansey swears quietly under his breath and only gets away with it because Ronan is looking through him and not at him.
“Where are you going?” Gansey asks, knowing very well what the answer is.
“Out,” Ronan says, knowing very well that Gansey knows what the answer is.
Gansey sighs. “Don’t. Not tonight. You’re upset–”
“I’m not upset,” Ronan snaps. Gansey supposes he can concede that point. Whatever Ronan is - angry, furious, despairing, hurt - it probably isn’t called ‘upset’. ‘Upset’ is too mild for Ronan at any time.
Gansey sees something clenched in Ronan’s fist and shakes his head. “You’re drunk.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve been drinking. I’m not drunk.”
“You can’t go out and race when you’re drunk.”
Ronan slams an empty hand against the door. “I’m not drunk and you can fuck off.”
“Ronan.” Gansey’s voice is sharp, and usually that calms Ronan down, but right now, it just makes him look more furious. “What did you do to Declan?”
Ronan looks like he’s going to turn and storm straight back into his room, until he spits out, “Nothing,” like it’s a bad taste in his mouth.
“Nothing? I thought you said–”
“He was yelling about some shit and I spat on his fucking internship shoes and he punched me and I tried to punch back and got caught by campus security. There’s a fucking note in my record or whatever.”
“Oh. And then–?”
“And then he got in his shitty fucking Volvo and drove away to pick up his latest bullshit victim and I’m gonna slash his fucking tires.”
“He’ll know it was you.”
“I’ll key my name in his hood too, I don’t give a shit.”
“Ronan, please.”
“Would you rather it was yours?” Ronan demands, eyes burning. “I’ll fucking do it right now if you’d rather it was yours instead of fucking Declan’s.”
Gansey’s eyes get sharp and he stands up from his desk. There’s still a good few feet of space between him and Ronan, but suddenly the vast second story of Monmouth seems very small. “I know you won’t touch the Pig.”
There’s something in Ronan’s eyes that’s sparking, miserable and desperate, and it makes Gansey’s soul hurt. “How do you know? Maybe I already did. Don’t tell me what I won’t do.” His fist clenches and unclenches by his side.
Gansey, being who he suspects is the only person who ever gets away with telling Ronan what to do, takes a step closer. “You wouldn’t touch the Pig and we both know it, so stop trying to intimidate me into letting you go out and race.”
“Maybe I’ll take the Pig to race,” Ronan snarls. “Maybe I’ll fucking crash it.”
Ronan has never driven the Pig, let alone raced it, and Gansey knows that Ronan’s just trying to get a reaction. He tries not to let himself rise to it, but the idea of Ronan speeding down an empty street at a hundred miles per hour and slamming the Pig into a lane divider makes his jaw clench and something in his face twitch.
Ronan’s smirk is angry and victorious.
“Ronan,” Gansey says, voice low and in control. “Stand down.”
Normally, that would be enough. Whenever Gansey’s voice takes on that tone, Ronan usually stops fighting with Adam or takes his feet off of the desk in class or stops harassing other racers at school. He’ll give Gansey a resentful look that’s too soft in the middle to have any fire and Gansey will be pleased and Ronan won’t get killed, expelled, or injured. Gansey thinks it’s a good system.
It’s isn’t, however, nearly as effective when Ronan is looking for a fight. Fights have a habit of finding Ronan Lynch – he rarely has to find them. But there’s no Adam in Monmouth, and there’s no Declan outside hunting him down, and Gansey is standing between Ronan and his racing, so Gansey becomes the fight.
Ronan prides himself on being hard to read, but he’s painfully obvious sometimes.
He doesn’t stand down; instead, he tilts his chin up a little irreverently and says, “Fuck you. I’m out of here.” They look at each other for a minute more, and then Ronan shakes his head, like he was looking for something and didn’t find it, and then he starts to turn to head for the door.
In the second it takes for Ronan to put one foot in front of the other, Gansey runs through half a dozen scenarios that all begin with Ronan leaving Monmouth and end with Ronan in a body bag. Half of those involve Kavinsky, and most of them involve Ronan’s mangled corpse falling out of the crushed driver’s seat of the BMW. With the way Ronan looks, they’re not impossible possibilities, but Ronan is walking straight toward them with no indication of stopping until they hit him.
Gansey breathes out slowly through his nose, nostrils flaring, and then he takes a short running start and tackles Ronan hard to the ground.
Ronan yells has he hits the floor back-first, already trying to get on his feet before they make impact. He swings at Gansey out of instinct and Gansey dodges by half an inch and then thumps Ronan hard in the chest. Ronan flinches and groans and tries to buck Gansey off of him, but Gansey clamps his legs around Ronan’s chest as tight as he can. He’s been rowing for the crew team, putting extra shifts in to live up to his captaincy, so he’s stronger than Ronan like that. Ronan’s upper body strength is absurd, but Gansey keeps his power low to the ground.
Ronan lands a blow that’s more open handed slap than anything to Gansey’s face, so Gansey retaliates, catching Ronan’s wrist and slamming it into the ground. Ronan shouts again and Gansey feels a little guilty, but Ronan is trying to kick him off and punch him at the same time, so it doesn’t keep him from digging his knee into Ronan’s sternum.
Ronan wheezes but he manages to roll Gansey off of him. Gansey is on his feet immediately, falling back into a defensive stance as Ronan hauls himself up. He’s favoring his right side, but Gansey knows he can strike nearly as hard with his left. There’s something in his eyes that’s a little looser, a little more blue and a little less black, but it’s surrounded by a challenging sneer.
Ronan goes for a wide blow that Gansey has plenty of time to block, and then tries to kick his legs out from under him. Gansey shouts in pain as a heavy boot connects with his shin, but he’s fast enough to catch Ronan’s leg with his foot to unbalance him and shove into his hands hard into Ronan’s shoulders. Ronan loses his balance and looks away for a second, which gives Gansey just enough time to push him to the ground again. Ronan lands on his ass and grabs wildly for Gansey, and Gansey catches his arm and shoves him over onto his stomach. Ronan tries to get up, but before he can even make it onto his knees, Gansey has one knee on his back and one hand on Ronan’s neck, pinning him. Ronan swears loudly and reaches back, but his range of motion is limited and Gansey hears the moment it hurts his body to fight more than it hurts his pride not to. Ronan spits insult after insult at him, clawing at the ground and trying to shrug Gansey off, until Gansey digs the heel of his hand hard into the back of Ronan’s neck and Ronan, crushed between Gansey and the floor with dirt digging into his cheek, finally goes still.
Gansey takes a few deep breaths and wipes a bit of sweat off his forehead with the back of his free hand. “Are you done now?”
“Fuck you–”
“No. Tell me. Are you done now, or do I need to take you lower than the floor?”
Ronan shivers. “No, I’m– I’m done.”
“Good.” Gansey doesn’t let up on the pressure on the back of Ronan’s neck, but he strokes his thumb up and down a few times along Ronan’s damp skin. Ronan lets out a long breath, blowing a bit of dust across the floor.
Gansey holds him down for several more minutes, until Ronan says, “I’m good. I’m okay.”
“Okay,” Gansey echoes. He gives the back of Ronan’s neck a small squeeze, and then lets him go. Ronan slowly pushes himself up onto his knees, and then turns over a little to sit hard on his ass. Gansey can see the imprint of dirt on his cheek. He wants to reach out and brush it away, but Ronan’s already there, scrubbing the dents away with his knuckles.
“You’re not going to go race,” Gansey says.
Ronan shakes his head minutely. “I know.”
“Good.” Gansey holds out a fist and Ronan eyes it warily for a moment before he bumps it with his own. It’s Gansey’s way of saying Are we okay now? and Ronan’s way of saying I know why you did it and I forgive you.
Ronan draws his knees up to his chest and settles his chin on one of them. He fidgets with his bracelets, turning them around and around his wrist. Gansey can’t help watching them, because they’re the only movement in an apartment that’s suddenly very still. Neither of them move or breathe or blink, and the bracelets turn around and around.
Eventually, Gansey breaks the stillness. “Ronan.”
Ronan lets out a small, shaky breath. “Can I go?”
“What?”
“Can I go now?” Ronan repeats.
“Go where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere. I just need to…” Ronan gestures jerkily around Monmouth. “Walk or drive or something. Just go. I can’t stay here.”
Gansey knows that I can’t stay here means I can’t stay still, but it stings a little anyway.
“You can go,” he says.
Ronan nods and gets to his feet. His stance is sturdy, but his face has that same swaying, lost look to it as he digs in his pocket for his keys.
“You can’t drive, though, you’re drunk,” Gansey amends.
Ronan shakes his head again. “Drinking, not drunk. And I feel pretty damn sober now.”
Gansey peers at his face. Ronan’s eyes are tired but not hazy, unhappy but not bloodshot. If there’s any alcohol still in his system, he can’t feel it anymore.
“I’m coming with you,” Gansey says in concession.
Ronan looks away, but he nods. “I hoped you would.”
They find coats and shoes separately and silently. Gansey watches Ronan out of the corner of his eye as he disappears into his room and comes back with his key ring clutched tightly in his hand. He chews on one of his bracelets. Gansey shoves his phone in his pocket and zips his jacket up and nods at him.
Ronan gets into the BMW without a word. Gansey gets into the passenger’s seat. Ronan throws the car into reverse and pulls out into the street, then takes off down the road. Gansey closes his eyes and lets the flashes of streetlights paint his vision red and black and red again.
They drive in silence until Gansey recognizes the road that they’re on and says, “Ronan, stop.”
Ronan doesn’t stop, but he does slow down a little. The speedometer creeps down about five miles per hour.
“Ronan,” Gansey repeats. “We can’t go there. Turn around.”
“We’re not going there.” Ronan’s voice is thin and tight.
“Come on, this is the road we always took to the Barns.”
“We’re not going to the Barns.”
“Ronan–”
“We’re not going to the Barns,” Ronan says angrily. “We’re going near the Barns. I won’t take us on the fucking property, okay? I’m not stupid.”
Gansey knows that Ronan isn’t stupid, but he also knows how much Ronan misses home. The two are not mutually exclusive. Ronan’s expression is as thin as his voice, and something about it is so sad that Gansey gives in. “Okay.”
Ronan nods once and never takes his eyes off the lane.
It’s late enough that there aren’t any cars on this road. There aren’t many during the day, but at night, the street is completely deserted. Ronan takes the curves in the road slowly, only a few miles over the speed limit. Gansey thinks that he must be truly and miserably high strung right now.
True to his word, the car starts slowing down as soon as the Barns come into view. They’re far away, probably another mile or so down a windy road, but Gansey can see them clustered together and feels a small pang of nostalgia. He had always loved the Barns – they were far nicer than Monmouth and far more homey than the house in Washington DC, and Niall and Aurora were always more emotional than his own parents, whether they were laughing or arguing or comforting. Gansey can’t imagine the hole inside Ronan that the Barns have left, and he understands even less why Ronan would choose to taunt himself like this, to look and not touch when he could have left them alone so much easier.
Ronan slows down and pulls off to the side of the road. There’s not much around them, just sparse trees and grassy hills and the occasional power line. The BMW grumbles to a halt several yards from the road, and then Ronan shuts it off and shoves the keys into his pocket.
“We’re here,” he says tonelessly, which means quite a lot for Ronan.
“Why are we here?” Gansey asks.
“Property lines are somewhere around here. We owned a lot of land.” Ronan leans back in the driver’s seat, looking out at the tiny Barns in the distance. “This is safe, probably, and we’re not on the premise, so if we get caught, they can’t do shit to me.”
Gansey doesn’t think that’s necessarily true, but if Ronan is stopping here of his own volition, he isn’t going to argue.
“What are we doing here?”
Ronan shrugs one shoulder. “I haven’t been back here in so long,” he says quietly. His hand is suddenly on the door handle, but he doesn’t push the door open. It just sits there.
Gansey nods. He can see the faintest outlines of paths that thread in and out of and around the Barns and remembers walking those paths so many times. He could probably walk them with his eyes closed. Ronan could probably walk them dead.
“I hate him for taking this away from me,” Ronan admits.
“I know you do.”
“He didn’t have to just roll over and take it.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.” Ronan sounds pained, like it hurts him that Gansey doesn’t understand. “You ran away from home. It was always there waiting for you.”
Gansey doesn’t think they’re quite the same. He isn’t sure that he would have given up a home like the Barns and a family like the Lynches. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to – maybe a family like the Lynches would have come with him. His mother’s brand of support and Ronan’s mother’s brand of support were always two very different creatures. Still, Ronan isn’t wrong.
“It wasn’t like this,” he says, only a tiny bit defensive.
“No,” Ronan agrees. “It wasn’t.”
They sit there for a while, Ronan lost in thought and Gansey unwilling to break the silence. The moon moves a little and clouds roll across the sky just fast enough to be noticeable. They fade in and out of shadow; the BMW gets very dark, and then is suddenly illuminated by moonlight again. Gansey glances at Ronan and Ronan has his eyes closed, like just looking at the Barns is too much. He wonders again why Ronan bothered coming out here, when seeing the Barns would hurt so much more than staying away.
He’s startled out of his drifting thoughts by Ronan opening the driver’s side door. Gansey jumps a little and is about to reach for his own door, but Ronan isn’t running toward the Barns. Instead, he’s walking around to the BMW’s trunk, popping it open and digging around inside it. Gansey undoes his seatbelt and rolls his head around on his neck. The open door is letting a bit of cold air in.
Ronan slams the trunk and then slams the driver’s side door and gets into the back seat, slamming that door too. Gansey looks back and sees him spreading open a thin fleece blanket and tucking it around the lower half of his body. He glances up to see Gansey’s stare and holds up a second blanket. “Get back here already. Were you waiting for an engraved fucking stone tablet invitation?”
Gansey slides quietly out of his seat and climbs into the back with Ronan. The back seat isn’t huge, but it’s miles better than the Pig; even so, he ends up shoulder to shoulder with Ronan as he wraps the second blanket around himself. Ronan presses buttons through his pocket until he locks the car up. Gansey leans into Ronan’s side.
“What are we doing?” he asks softly. The road is quiet in front of them and the trees are quiet around them. He’s afraid that anything over a whisper will break the moment.
“Resting,” Ronan replies. “Sleeping.” He slips one hand out from under his blanket and it worms under Gansey’s. His fingers are cold, but Gansey grabs onto them anyway. “Dreaming.”
“Dreaming of the Barns?”
“I never get there back at Monmouth. I get so close, and then I can never go inside.”
“Why would you want to go inside?”
Ronan’s brow furrows. “I miss it.”
“Doesn’t it hurt more to see it and then have to leave?”
“Just let me have this,” Ronan says. He sounds quietly desperate. “I’m not going there, I’m not breaking the law. I just want to dream. Please just let me have this.”
Gansey lays his head on Ronan’s shoulder and nods. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” Ronan’s hand tightens around Gansey’s. Gansey uses his free hand to tuck the blankets around them better, so no part of them has to be exposed to the spring chill. He huddles against Ronan and Ronan allows him to, tracing his fingertip around one of Gansey’s knuckles in slow circles. Gansey closes his eyes and Ronan goes to say something, and then changes his mind and follows suit.
Gansey doesn’t remember the point where Ronan fell asleep, but he becomes aware of it suddenly when Ronan twitches and makes a small noise in the back of his throat. Gansey holds his breath, waiting for a follow-up panic, but nothing happens. Ronan just turns his face against the seat a little more and his expression smoothes out into calm blankness. Gansey lets out a small sigh of relief and closes his eyes again. He can feel Ronan’s heartbeat where his forehead presses into Ronan’s neck. It’s warm and reassuring, steady and present and not spilling out all over the pavement. Gansey reaches out over the two of them and presses his palm to Ronan’s chest until he feels the matching rhythm, and then worms back under the blankets. Ronan’s breath rushes in his ear, shallow and even. Gansey counts each exhale until, suddenly, he’s asleep too.
He wakes up when early morning light filters through the BMW’s windshield. It’s a reluctant affair - first he pretends that he’s not awake, and then he pretends that it’s not morning so he can try to go back to sleep, and then he pretends that the space next to him was always cold and isn’t missing something warm and living to press against. When all of those delusions run their courses, Gansey groans and sits up a little, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and pulling his blanket tighter around him.
He looks out the window and sees Ronan standing in the middle of the road, staring off into the distance. Gansey doesn’t have to follow his gaze to know that he’s looking at the Barns. Ronan is very still, hands in his pockets and slightly hunched; he doesn’t look like he’s blinking, barely looks like he’s breathing. He stares and stares, until Gansey opens the car door and carefully walks up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder.
Ronan starts badly, jerking away and then looking embarrassed and then looking annoyed that he was embarrassed. “What?”
“Just… I’m up,” Gansey says, shrugging half-heartedly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Ronan grunts and turns back toward the Barns, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Last night, did you–?”
“No,” Ronan says shortly. “I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
He doesn’t say he’s sorry, and he doesn’t offer to try again. Being this close to the Barns is dangerous, both for Ronan’s inheritance and for Ronan’s mind. Gansey feels uneasy being here, even a mile away. But Ronan looks distressed now, and against all better judgement, he starts to say, “Do you want to…?”
Ronan shakes his head. “Let’s go home.”
The word ‘home’ comes out strangely, like a half truth that Ronan regrets telling. He never lies, but Gansey doesn’t think that he quite means what he said. Maybe he wants to.
“Okay. Can we stop and get coffee on the way back?”
“Sure. You’re buying.” Ronan gives him a quirk of his lips, and then he’s pulling the driver’s side door open and gunning the engine when Gansey doesn’t materialize next to him. Gansey rolls his eyes and takes his time sauntering around the front of the car, and when he finally buckles himself in, Ronan elbows him in the side and pulls around back onto the road.
They leave the Barns behind in the rearview mirror and Gansey is sorry to see it go, but not as glad as he is that Ronan comes back to Monmouth, calls the building a decrepit sack of shit, blasts music Gansey hates, and makes the second floor feel like his real home.