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Ronan hasn’t been able to take anything from his dreams since the collapse of the line.
Not on purpose, at least. Things still come out with him: the small corpse of a squirrel, broken eggshells, a pen that writes in motor oil, the broken half of a skateboard, crumpled mint leaves caked with blood.
The commonality these items share is they're all products of watching his friends die. Every time he sleeps.
The thing about the mint leaves, the thing that makes them so much worse, is that they’re the morbid punchline to a joke that's already been told.
When the paralysis wears off, Ronan screams. Tries to scream. It comes out as a strangled groan, syllables raked raw over coals, one word, two syllables.
Gansey.
There's green canvas on all sides of him; a blanket twisted around his torso, and it takes him a second to remember past the vividness of the memories still slashing their way through his mind’s eye.
He's gone he's gone he's gone he's GONE -
He came back he came back he came -
But what if that had been the dream? Shouldn't it make far more sense for him to be taken by the cold earth, golden sacrifice turned to mush and mulch and buried by snow, bones lost to time, to touch, to all of them, just like Noah, just like his father -
Desperation claws at his chest, breaking through the screaming emptiness in one long tear.
“Ronan.” Adam's voice. Ronan turns, dizzy, and finds him kneeling at the tent’s entrance, one hand outstretched. Blue is next to him, face flushed with terror, just like it had been when -
Ronan's breath is too hot in his lungs. He's boiling alive in loss.
Adam says something again and Blue disappears and then Adam's repeating something that's gibberish. All Ronan can hear is the ugly tear of his own gasps and the pounding of his heart in his ears; it’s pounding twice as hard now because it knows that Gansey’s can’t, that Gansey’s chest is silent and growing cold as Ronan presses desperate hands to his ribs, neck, searching for the drum he’s been marching to the past three years of his life.
“Ronan. He's alive. He's safe. He's alive.” Adam's lips keep moving but Ronan hears him through garbled feedback. Adam inches closer and Ronan looks around wildly, searching for the catch. “Ronan - ”
And then Gansey is there - Gansey, Gansey, alive - spilling through the doorway, “Ronan,” in his most concerned voice, and Ronan reaches for him, leaves to sun, and Gansey is here. Gansey’s arms around him, Gansey’s chest crushed to his, thrumming with life. Nothing exists except this: this, reality, not a dream, not a lie, Gansey, Gansey, alive -
Time pulls them forward along with it, a two-headed creature impaled on the sharp blade of memory and relief; a vivisection of joy and grief. “Gansey,” Ronan prays, and Gansey crushes him closer, wordless, because there’s no words for this.
Everything hurts, Ronan’s chest most of all; ribs full of sharp metal edges. The pain of it means nothing, because Gansey is breathing.
~
It takes a while for Ronan to find his footing again, and it’s not so much standing tall as crouching, collecting the jagged pieces of himself where they’ve fallen, Gansey’s presence guiding his movements. His hands are twisted so tight in Gansey’s shirt that the fabric’s at risk of splitting. Ronan forces his eyes open to gentle morning light filtered through canvas, shading everything with leafy hues.
“That’s it. We’re here, we’re safe,” Gansey murmurs against Ronan’s ear, one hand cupped to the back of his head, the other stroking his back. Here.
Scent of woodsmoke from the campfire. Sound of countless birds chorusing their joy at the morning from all around them. Feeling of Gansey’s breaths against his chest.
It’s June, Ronan reminds himself fiercely. He’s here, inside the tent; jumble of blankets that have ceased belonging specifically to any of them and have instead become shared between all of them strewn across the floor. They’re in - not Virginia, but some fucking middle state; hundreds of miles away from the clearing where Gansey had fallen. Adam and Blue are somewhere close by. Noah’s not here, but they’re going to find him, they’re going to get him back too.
The mint leaves are still crushed between his fingers, against Gansey’s shirt; staining it, probably, with his own blood. Ronan forces his fingers to uncurl, and they fall away, and he can finally believe that he’s really here.
Shallow breaths so that they don't catch. Sips of air so that his burning eyes don't leak again. It takes him two tries to speak. “You were gone. Gansey. You were gone.”
Ronan can’t see Gansey’s face, but he hears the stutter of his inhale, feels the way his head bows slightly. “I know,” he whispers, like the words hurt his mouth. A few breaths then, shared between them, siphoned back and forth. “But I’m here now.”
It’s always easier to believe things after Gansey says them. His voice coaxes consciousness from theories, wakes tired bones and sleeping kings, persuades peace from war. Ronan sags in his arms, cut free from his fear, and Gansey holds him.
~
Sometime later, they’ve shifted, lying face to face in the nest of blankets. Ronan’s hand is on Gansey’s chest. The steady metronome of Gansey's heart rests in his palm, tangible enough that it's light pouring out of him. One of Gansey’s hands is cupped around Ronan’s neck, like he needs to feel Ronan’s pulse too.
"Gansey," Ronan starts, then he doesn't know how to finish. Instead, he clasps Gansey's hand in his and slowly raises it to his mouth, pressing Gansey’s knuckles shakily to his lips. He doesn’t know if Gansey remembers it’s an echo of the way Ronan helped bring him back, but either way, Gansey lets out a breath and leans forward, pressing his forehead tightly to Ronan’s, and they stay that way for another incomprehensible length of time.
~
Gansey picks the leaves up from the floor of the tent, studying them dispassionately. Ronan can’t look directly at them, and he busies himself with tugging on his binder, then digging a mostly clean shirt out of his duffle.
Gansey sighs quietly through his nose and curls his fingers around the leaves, hiding them from Ronan’s sight. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Ronan shoots him a glare that says do I ever want to talk about it ?
Gansey nods a little to himself, then pulls a travel pack tissue from a pocket of his bag, wrapping the leaves up in it like they’re something he wants to save for later. It makes Ronan slightly nauseous. He takes a still-unsteady breath through his nose, hands tightly pressed to his knees, and Gansey sits down next to him on the half-rolled sleeping bag. “Are you sure you’re ready to go?”
“Yes, I’m fucking ready,” Ronan snaps, but a moment later, his hand snakes around Gansey's waist and curls in the soft fabric of his shirt. His head touches Gansey's shoulder, and then hangs heavy on it.
Gansey wraps his arm around Ronan’s shoulders. Despite the fact that they’ve been clinging to each other for the better part of two hours, the motion makes the ball of pain and tension inside Ronan tug and unravel a little more. “Just a few more minutes."