Chapter Text
Gansey knew the secret to making more money was simply to have money in the first place.
It was harder to turn two dollars into four dollars than two million dollars into four million dollars.
Every Aglionby boy knew that basic math. They studied Latin, a dead language, and finance, a very living reality, because shepherding their family’s wealth from two million to four million was their destiny and purpose.
Connections were important- information was currency at the level of most Aglionby families- and who you knew mattered more than what you knew, in the end.
You stored your knowledge in other people- who you could call, if you needed to know something, or had a problem you had no solution for.
He’d had politeness and manners drilled into him as a survival skill almost from birth.
He was charming because of all the skills he possessed, that was the one that was most important to the Gansey legacy.
He knew Ronan had had a similar upbringing- similar elementary and middle schools, similar social events and expectations.
He knew Ronan had had a similar upbringing, because when he’d met Ronan, he’d been charming and blunt. Ungracious but never clumsy about it. When he cut you, he did it deliberately, as a power move.
Gansey knew all of that, and also knew that somewhere, somehow, Ronan had made the decision that he’d rather try to turn two dollars into four, forty-thousand a year into eighty, than be a shepherd of his family’s legacy.
He knew that, because Ronan seemed hellbent on being forcibly ejected from Aglionby, and thereby his inheritance.
He watched Adam’s jaw clench as Ronan snored on the couch, head tipped back and frame sprawled across the armrest, his small bird nestled against his neck under the edge of his black tee, also fast asleep.
“You’ve got to do something about him, Gansey,” muttered Adam.
Adam, who’d kill for a shot at Ronan’s inheritance, even with all of his hang-ups around deserving and earning and ownership.
Gansey eyed up Ronan, and sighed, shaking his head. “I am doing something,” he reminded Adam, looking around Monmouth pointedly.
“More,” said Adam, sounding exasperated. He jerked his chin at Ronan and continued, “He’s going to kill himself, going at that pace. And he’s not made for being poor, Gansey.”
Gansey considered that thought.
It had never quite occurred to him that Ronan had been made for anything except rebellion, fighting off societal norms, hedonism, and insulting every expectation made of him.
The thought that Ronan would not manage without his inheritance was a new one, and it shocked like a stone dropped into a deep pool of water, rippling every other thought he’d ever had about the other man.
Ronan, with his photocopied collection of speeding, parking, and traffic violation tickets plastered to his door with pride.
A collection for which he’d paid, easily, in the end.
What even happened to people who couldn’t afford to pay their tickets? mused Gansey absently, and with a dawning sense of horror. Jail time?
Ronan knew how to fight, but against the kind of people who fought with desperation, people who’d killed? People with no morals and less sense, all trapped together in some cinderblock hell?
Ronan was tough, Gansey knew that. He’d survived so much, already. He’d probably sneer if Gansey brought up the vision of jail as a distinct possibility, if Ronan didn’t achieve passing grades and graduate.
And there were other things, as well! Ronan bucked authority. With no degree, with the loss of social status that came from abruptly having no funding behind him, with, in fact, nothing to trade for anything of value or worth… Ronan would have to take a job.
An unskilled job, unless bird rescue or Latin translation was somehow well-paid.
Jobs came with authority figures- entire org charts full of authority figures.
He’d be fired from one after the other, Gansey realized, swallowing hard as he stared at his roommate.
Ronan was not built or trained or disposed for any level of the org chart but the top.
“What more do you think I can give him?” demanded Gansey, aware that his tone was too harsh for loyal, stubborn Adam Parrish.
“Dad lets me get away with-” Adam waved a hand at the general Aglionby-ness of Monmouth, “-well, everything I want to do, because everything I want to do is about building something, and even he can see that! …even if he hates it.”
A slight thickening of his accent, there, let Gansey know Adam felt what he was saying very strongly, from somewhere deep inside him.
Adam’s father did not, in fact, let him get away with anything that Adam’s father hated.
Gansey had seen too many bruises to think Adam’s father allowed him anything Adam didn’t play for with the pain of his flesh.
Gansey waited, letting Adam swallow, duck his head, and collect himself. “But… if Ronan was my cousin, or- or my brother, and he was acting out like he is, my dad or my uncles, they’d straighten him out the old fashioned way,” said Adam, his eyes steady as Gansey turned to look at him.
“You think I should beat him,” Gansey translated in a flat tone of voice.
“No,” said Adam firmly, his eyes steady, shoulders back. Convicted of what he was saying, then. Certain what he was saying was the correct answer.
Adam was so painfully easy to read, once you got to know him.
“No,” repeated Adam, shaking his head. “That’s not- what my dad does with me is about- about our fight. About him, not about me. My uncle James and his sons- that’s what I’m talking about. They all got a little wild, in their teens, and he- he held them accountable, Gansey, that’s all. Made them do homework on his schedule, go to bed on his schedule, that kind of thing. Sometimes… some kids can get lost, you know? And they need… guidance. I bet Ronan never even had a bedtime as a kid.”
“He didn’t,” murmured Gansey. “He fought his nanny, and they stopped making him take naps because he’d destroy the nursery with his tantrums.”
Adam nodded, turning to stare at the sleeping man in question. “Well, Uncle James wouldn’t have let a tantrum get far enough to destroy anything, and his butt would have been put in bed, Gansey, that’s all.”
This was how the poor lived, thought Gansey, turning it over in his mind.
Ronan was dead set on losing his inheritance, and all the privilege that came with it.
He was dead set on it, letting it slip farther and farther away with every skipped class, ignored assignment, late night partying, early morning hangover.
Maybe Adam… had a point about preparing Ronan for the life he was choosing.
Ronan would not succeed, in the world of construction or bartending, or wherever he’d find himself without a Aglionby diploma and an inheritance to shepherd or squander.
He was tough in some ways, but easily shattered in others, and he would not succeed if he couldn’t pay his tickets and tell the judge to fuck off without further consequences.
It unfolded exactly like a map, in Gansey’s mind. An elevation map, with all the ripples in every direction, showing the hills he’d have to climb, the valleys he’d have to pull Ronan out of.
Gansey had been trained in the art of man manipulation- social skills and charm offensive, yes, but also finding hidden motivations and using them for his own ends- from birth.
He’d never needed to know Adam’s kind of money math, where you tracked every dollar like it had meaning, like it could turn into two if you just watched it close enough.
He’d never needed to learn Adam’s kind of persuasion, where you wheedled and cajoled and campaigned to get your way.
Gansey eyed up the sleeping waste of talent sprawled on the couch and considered the first of the tactics he’d have to take, to get Ronan under control, again. To hold him accountable for his decisions, and their impact on his future.
“Uncle James says a teenage boy can’t think past the next five minutes,” said Adam quietly. “That’s why you have to make the consequences something that can happen in the next three.”
Gansey felt the words fall into his map of Ronan Lynch, and settle there.
“The next three minutes,” Gansey repeated slowly.
Adam turned his head, and, after reading his expression, nodded solemnly. “Yeah,” he agreed, turning back to stare at their friend, passed out on the couch after another late-night bender. “For his own good.”
It would be, Gansey felt. It very much would be.
Now he only needed to convince Ronan.
He snorted.
Well, he did like his impossible challenges and projects.