#not only that Ronan showed his dream to Declan first the way he wanted to when he was little

[clotpolesonly]

Mister Impossible ch 25 // Greywaren ch 53

[threewaywithdelusion]

Ronan/Adam Cheating Fic

Ronan always hated how casually Declan treated love. 

He watched his brother go through a dozen relationships with girls who didn’t mean anything. He watched as Declan showed them off like arm candy without learning anything real about them. As Declan dated for sex, or appearances, or whatever else ticked a box on his to-do list that week. He couldn’t understand how Declan could be with those girls without loving them. How he could use them, dismiss them, cheat on them. 

Ronan swore he would never be anything like his brother.

He looks down at the arm around his naked waist, tan skin against white sheets.

It’s not Adam’s hand pressed against his skin.

***

Adam is working when Ronan comes home. He’s sitting on the couch, laptop in his lap, looking through a database for reliable sources. He’s on his second cup of coffee even though it isn’t quite 9 am yet and he’s been trying to sleep in this summer. But the paper is due on the first day of class and Adam has spent most of the summer working at Boyd’s, jumping into the swimming hole at the Barns, and going on long drives where he and Ronan make out over the gearshift and then fool around in the back of the BMW. He told Ronan to go spend time with Gansey — back from traveling the world and staying in Henrietta for the month before he heads to Georgetown — this weekend so he could get started on the paper. He needs to impress the professor if he wants to get offered a research assistant position, which means he needs peace and quiet, and Ronan is much too tempting a distraction.

Adam is listening to music in one earbud, trying to motivate himself for several hours of sitting in the same spot and digging through obscure peer-reviewed papers, when the door opens. Adam shuts off the music. 

Ronan is quiet as he comes in, excepting the moment when he knocks into the table in the entryway and curses up a storm. 

Adam looks up from his computer when he hears that.

Ronan enters the living room a moment later, a disgruntled look on his face.

“The table hasn’t moved,” Adam says. “You could try walking around it one of these days.”

Ronan’s supposed to flip him off and say something about the ugly-ass table being too big for the hallway and how Adam should allow him to dream up a nicer one that won’t attack Ronan every single day.

Instead Ronan just says “yeah okay.”

It doesn’t even sound sarcastic.

Adam frowns. “Are you okay?”

Ronan tenses. “Yeah.”

“Hungover?” 

Ronan knows that Adam doesn’t like it when he drinks. They’ve reached a sort of unspoken compromise; Adam doesn’t complain if Ronan drinks and in return Ronan keeps the drinking in their apartment to a minimum and goes out when he wants to get shitfaced. It’s not unusual for Ronan to creep in early in the morning, nursing a bad hangover and grumbling over-dramatically, though it has become less common recently.

“Fuck off, Parrish, you’re not my babysitter.”

There’s real venom in Ronan’s voice, which takes Adam by surprise. Ronan doesn’t usually lash out so badly anymore, especially over something as innocuous as this line of questioning. 

Adam gives Ronan an unimpressed look and turns back to his laptop. If Ronan’s acting this shitty because of a hangover, he’ll regret it later. Adam will let him go chug some water and nap for a bit and talk it over with him when he’s in a better mood. 

Ronan does go into the kitchen. But instead of emerging quickly with a water and some Advil, the way he does when he’s hung over, he stays in there. Dull thuds echo all the way to the couch. Adam can picture Ronan slamming down plates and cups too hard, closing cabinets with all his strength just because he can. 

But he has to imagine it, because Ronan never acts like this. He’s loud and destructive, yes, but not like this. He drives too fast and blasts his music too loud and comes up with stupid game ideas that end up with them both getting road-rash, but he’s careful to only engage in a particular kind of stupidity. The dumb teenage kind that feels a bit like freedom, even as it’s wild and dangerous and occasionally angry. 

Ronan knows Adam doesn’t like slamming cabinets or plates being set down aggressively. That’s probably why he’s in the other room right now, trying to hide whatever aggression this is from Adam. 

It’s still really unusual for Ronan to be this careless, so Adam goes to check on his boyfriend. 

Ronan is standing over the sink, his head bowed down between his shoulders. All Adam can see is the back of his leather jacket, the tense line of his posture. 

There’s a plate of eggs on the table, with a cup of water and a coffee, but they’re all untouched. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Adam asks. 

Ronan spins around, startled, and Adam is surprised to see tears on his cheeks. He immediately softens, stepping further into the room. “Ronan?”

“Shit,” Ronan says, wiping aggressively at his cheeks. “I didn’t realize you could hear that. Shit. I��m sorry.”

He looks genuinely remorseful, no defenses or snarky attitudes to be found. He doesn’t say anything about the tears, though he must know Adam has seen them. 

“Ronan,” Adam says. 

“I thought you were listening to music,” Ronan says, still explaining the wrong thing. “Don’t you have a nerd paper due this week? You always listen to music when you do research.”

“I turned it off to say hello to you before I realized you were so cheery this morning,” Adam snarks. “But we can circle back to how to close a cabinet like a normal person. What’s going on?”

Ronan looks pained. “Just go do your paper. I’ll keep it down.”

“Lynch,” Adam snaps. 

“Parrish,” Ronan snaps back. “Just leave me alone. I have a killer goddamn headache and I can’t do this right now.”

Adam eyes the full glass of water on the table. He strides to the nearest cabinet, grabs the bottle of Advil, and pours two into his palm. He slams the cabinet shut a little harder than he needs to, trying to ignore the hypocrisy, and slaps the pills into Ronan’s palm. 

Ronan stares at the little red pills like he’s never seen them before. Then he sets them on the counter beside himself. 

Adam expects him to move to grab the water but he doesn’t, he just keeps standing there. 

Oh. This is Ronan punishing himself. 

Adam takes a deep breath. He’s trying to do better. He and Ronan don’t fight as much as they used to before they started dating, and a big part of that is because they’re both trying to unlearn their shitty responses to things and actually understand each other. 

Adam wants to scream that Ronan has fucking name-brand Advil and that he can get rid of his headache quickly, that he doesn’t have to suffer the way Adam did when he used to get stress headaches and not be able to afford the medication to fix it. 

But that would be Adam throwing his own shit at Ronan and that’s not fair. Ronan’s problem has never been access to things. Ronan’s problem is that he thinks he doesn’t deserve things, or distracts himself in dangerous ways, or hurts himself because he thinks he should. 

“What happened?” Adam asks. 

Ronan scowls. “I’m trying to be a considerate fucking boyfriend and let you finish your paper before everything goes to shit, so just fuck off, okay? We can talk later.”

“No,” Adam says. “I’m not putting up with you angry or moping or whatever until I finish, so tell me now.”

“Fuck you,” Ronan says, the way he only does when he has no better defense. 

Adam crosses his arms. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Because you’re going to break up with me!” Ronan snaps. He looks like he regrets it a moment later, but the words are already out. 

Okay. Ronan is feeling vulnerable and lashing out. That makes sense. 

What Adam can’t figure out is why it’s happening now.

“If this is some bullshit about me going back to school-”

“No, it’s not that,” Ronan says. Then, more darkly, “you should leave me.”

Adam huffs. Thinks of Ronan, who brings him breakfast in bed every time Adam comes home to him. Who pays attention to what Adam needs and gives him gifts, but always in ways that don’t push the boundaries Adam has set, even when Ronan doesn’t agree with him. Who dreams brothers and baby mice and magical forests and still thinks he’s nothing good. 

“What?” Adam says, “You had a nightmare or a bad night and you decided to punish yourself by tearing down our relationship?”

“I cheated,” Ronan says.

There’s a heavy silence. Ronan leans against the sink, staring at the ground, looking defeated. 

Adam’s brain feels like static. There’s nothing there, no Adam Parrish, no Cabeswater rustling in his ear, nothing. Adam plays the words back in his head, once, twice, but they still don’t make any more sense.

“You don’t cheat,” Adam says. A truth he knows down to his bones. Ronan doesn’t do casual. Ronan hates cheaters. 

“I don’t lie either,” Ronan snarls. “I’m telling you the truth. I slept with someone else last night.”

Adam stares at Ronan. 

He wishes he had listened to Ronan and gone to write his stupid paper. He wishes he wasn’t here, in this sunlit kitchen, feeling frozen and cold. 

“What?”

Ronan just shrugs at him, like he doesn’t know what else to say. He finally looks up and he looks absolutely miserable, new tears in his eyes. He looks defeated, like he’s just waiting for Adam to start yelling. To dump him. To break his heart. 

Adam thinks that’s really fucking unfair, because Ronan doesn’t get to be heartbroken. Not when he broke Adam’s heart first. 

“I’m sorry,” Ronan croaks. Adam’s never heard so many apologies from him in his life, never mind in one day. “I don’t know how it happened. I was really drunk and really fucking stupid. When I woke up this morning and realized what happened and that I wasn’t with you, I regretted it immediately.”

Adam feels like there are two of him, standing in the same spot in the kitchen. One Adam is burning hot with righteous fury. This is the Adam that kicked a box once in the attic of the church, scaring Blue away. The Adam that wants to scream and rage. The Adam whose anger feels like fire, feels like Ronan’s, feels like his father’s.

The other Adam has gone cold. A little numb, except for the tight ball in the center of his chest. This Adam wants to cut Ronan down with words, use every soft point Ronan has shown him to make him feel as bad as Ronan has just made Adam feel. Wants to make him feel even worse than that. 

Adam hates both versions of himself. 

He stands there, shaking, and forces the fire to melt the ice. 

 Ronan is staring at him, waiting for a reaction, but Adam can’t focus on him yet, needs to get himself under control first. 

It turns out that when the fire and ice consume each other, all that’s left is water. 

Adam blinks away tears. 

He doesn’t know what to do with this information. He knows Ronan, as much as he wishes right now that he didn’t. He knows Ronan hates hookups and casual relationships and one night stands with every fiber of his being. He can’t figure out what would make Ronan go against such a deeply held belief. 

Was it Adam? Was he not good enough? Too cold, too scary, too unknowable?

Or was it the stranger? Did Ronan somehow find someone so alluring that he couldn’t resist?

Was it just because Ronan was drunk? Was he too drunk? Did he know what he was doing enough to make the decision to climb into some guy’s bed?

Adam starts there. Ronan has a tendency to blame himself even for things that aren’t his fault, and Adam needs to figure out if he’s actually guilty before he escalates the fight. 

“How drunk is really drunk?” he asks. 

“I don’t know,” Ronan says, looking surprised by this line of questioning. “A couple beers. Enough to make stupid fucking decisions, I guess.”

“But it was your decision?”

Ronan stares at him for a moment, brow furrowed, before he gets it. He turns red and looks away, ashamed. “Yeah. I was sober enough for that.”

At least that’s one worry out of the way. 

“Okay. Explain this to me then, Lynch, because I don’t fucking get it. You went out last night, with Gansey. To a straight bar, I presume. And you decided to forget about your committed relationship and all your ethical hangups to hook up with some guy you met on a night out?”

Ronan’s face twists. 

“Well?” Adam demands. 

“Jesus, shit, give me a second,” Ronan says. “I’m trying to figure out how to say this without making it worse.”

“How could this get worse?” 

Ronan tips his head back, looks at the ceiling. Like this, his throat is exposed and Adam can see a faint hickey on one side of his neck. One Adam didn’t leave. 

It hits Adam like a punch to the gut. 

Proof. 

This is real. Ronan cheated.

It’s not like Adam really believed Ronan was pulling a long, unfunny prank, but part of him was hoping there would be another explanation. That Ronan was confused about what had happened or was blowing things out of proportion. 

Ronan really cheated.

“It was Gansey,” Ronan says. 

Adam blinks. “Gansey… set you up with a guy? Or egged you on?”

That doesn’t sound like Gansey at all, but it makes more sense than the other option. 

Ronan shakes his head. 

“You slept with Gansey,” Adam says, flat. The only other possible meaning to what Ronan just said. 

“Yeah.”

Adam doesn’t know what he’s feeling. There’s no betrayal, only disbelief.

“Gansey’s straight,” Adam says dumbly. 

Adam would know if Gansey liked men. He used to watch Ronan watch Gansey, back when they first forcibly became part of the same friend group, pulled together by sheer force of Gansey’s determination. Used to see the way Ronan’s eyes tracked over Gansey in the mornings, when Gansey was still sweaty from crew practice. Used to see the way Ronan lit up a little extra when he managed to make Gansey laugh. Used to see glimpses of a better Ronan, a less grief-stricken, less angry boy, in the way Ronan treated Gansey. 

Adam likes the Ronan who tells crass jokes and curses like a sailor and snarks in a way that borders on mean. But he never would have fallen for him if he hadn’t also seen the Ronan who lived underneath, the Ronan who loved so hard that it was killing him. 

The first time Adam had ever seen that softer Ronan, it had been directed at Gansey. 

Ronan had been so obvious, bleeding his crush all over the place. 

But Gansey had never looked back. Adam knew, because he’d been watching Gansey too. Because before Ronan was anyone who mattered, Gansey had been there, fumbling and earnest and unfairly handsome in his stupid rich-boy clothes. 

Ronan huffs. Shrugs. Says, “I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

Now, Adam feels the betrayal. But strangely, he’s more angry at Gansey. 

Gansey, who is supposed to be his friend. Gansey, who looked Adam in the eye and told him not to hurt Ronan, like this wasn’t a relationship that mattered to Adam. Gansey, who then turned around and tried to wreck it himself. 

Gansey, who has a girlfriend. 

“What about Blue?” Adam asks. 

Ronan winces. “Gansey is talking to her now.”

Shit. Blue is scary when she’s mad. And she holds grudges when she knows she’s right. It took her and Adam months to get over the awkwardness of their breakup, and that was a teenage relationship that had never felt quite right. 

What is going to be the fallout of this? Will any of them ever be friends again?

This is what Adam gets for trusting people. Depending on them. Building his life around the belief that they would be there. 

“She’s going to kill him” Adam says. 

“Maybe,” Ronan says. “Maybe not. Gansey says she’s the one who brought up the idea of non-monogamy months ago, but he turned her down. He wanted to stay exclusive or whatever. So. Could go either way.”

Jesus. 

Adam isn’t even sure how his own breakup was going. 

Is it weird that he feels better knowing it was Gansey? He’s angry at Gansey for going through with it, but at least he knows that Ronan didn’t decide to throw away their relationship over some guy he’d met last night. It isn’t because there’s anything wrong with Adam. 

It’s that Gansey is Gansey and Ronan is Ronan, and their relationship has always been deeper than an ordinary friendship.

“Did you kiss him?” Adam asks. “Or did he kiss you?”

Ronan clears his throat, blushing. “He kissed me.”

“Goddamit.” Adam pushes off the door, taking a seat at their kitchen table, across from where Ronan’s breakfast sits. 

“Sit down,” he says. “Your food is getting cold.”

Ronan blinks. “What?”

“Eat,” Adam says. “I need to think. And take your damn Advil. It doesn’t give me any satisfaction to see you in pain.”

Ronan sits tentatively. Adam watches as he takes the Advil then starts on his cold eggs. 

Adam… is not as angry as he should be. 

When he thought Ronan had slept with a random man, he’d been furious. He’d thought he was losing Ronan, or that Ronan was throwing them away because he’d decided Adam wasn’t worth it. 

But this feels different. It doesn’t feel like he has any less of Ronan that he’s always had. 

Adam has always shared Ronan with Gansey. 

Of course he has. Gansey had been there first. Gansey had shaved Ronan’s hair and held him through his grief. Gansey had fought to keep Ronan safe, to keep Ronan happy, to keep Ronan alive. Gansey had believed in Ronan’s goodness when no one else had. 

Adam has seen his boyfriend dream up dozens of epipens, a new one every week, because his love for Gansey is subconscious and ever-present. He’s seen the soft smile Ronan gives only to Gansey, different from the one he reserves only for Adam. He’s known about the nights Ronan and Gansey stayed up, talking over the model of Henrietta, two insomniacs baring themselves in a way they couldn’t by the light of day. He has found them, asleep together on Gansey’s mattress in the middle of Monmouth, on the nights when they hadn’t fallen asleep until sunrise. 

He has known all along that Gansey is important to Ronan. Equally as important as Adam, just in a different way.

He also assumed that Gansey’s heterosexuality was the reason Ronan had never tried to make a move on him. 

But if Gansey had kissed him first… yeah. Adam doesn’t blame him for kissing back. 

He doesn’t see how Ronan could have done anything else. 

That throws out all the questions people usually ask when they’re cheated on. “Why?” and “how could you?” are pretty useless when Adam already understands the answer. 

Adam doesn’t doubt that Ronan loves him. Has never been able to doubt it. Not when Ronan had wooed him so carefully. Ronan had made his intentions clear from the beginning. He’d seen the ugliest parts of Adam and stayed. He’d let Adam see him vulnerable, let Adam see the worst sides of him. 

Adam knows he’s seen parts of Ronan that Gansey has never seen. 

But he also knows Gansey has seen sides of Ronan that he’s never seen. 

Ronan loves them both. Ronan loves them differently. Ronan loves one of them more?

There’s his question. 

“You said I was going to break up with you,” Adam says slowly. Ronan looks up from where he’s poking at the eggs. “Does that mean you’re not breaking up with me?”

Ronan stares at him. “Why the fuck would I break up with you? The fuck did you do wrong?”

“So you’re staying with me because you think it’s the right thing to do,” Adam says. 

“I’m staying with you because I love you,” Ronan says. “I know you’re going to break up with me, and I know it doesn’t look true, but I don’t lie. I love you.”

“More than Gansey?”

Ronan looks pained. He doesn’t answer. 

“Do you love Gansey more than me?” Adam tries. 

Ronan pauses for a long moment. Then he shakes his head. 

Okay. So he doesn’t love Gansey more than Adam. 

But that isn’t the right question. That isn’t really what Adam has been wondering. 

“What I mean is,” Adam says. “If I break up with you, are you going to try to date him?”

Ronan’s head snaps up. “If?”

“Not the question, Lynch,” Adam says. “If I broke up with you, would you date Gansey?”

“I don’t know,” Ronan says. “Maybe. If he wasn’t with Blue. Or if you were already never speaking to me again.”

“And if I was speaking to you?”

Ronan swallows. He’s crying, silent tears running down both cheeks. “If you broke up with me, and we stayed friends, and you wouldn’t be my friend if I dated him, then I wouldn’t. I don’t want to lose you.”

This is a lot of very straightforward honesty from Ronan. Adam almost doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s used to Ronan hiding behind barbs or sarcasm, especially when he’s being honest. 

Maybe this is what Ronan acts like when he feels guilty. Or maybe this is Ronan when he’s scared. 

Adam taps his fingers on the table. “If I didn’t break up with you-“

Ronan perks up, looking hopeful and Adam holds up a hand, “I haven’t decided yet, Lynch. But if I didn’t break up with you, would you regret it?”

“I already regret sleeping with him,” Ronan says.

“No. Would you regret staying with me?”

Ronan looks shocked. “What the fuck? You think after everything I would leave you for him?”

“I think you thought he was straight,” Adam says. 

“Well, yeah,” Ronan says. “But you’re not like, a fucking consolation prize. You know what I thought the first time I saw Gansey? ‘That man has the stupidest shoes I’ve ever seen.’ You know what I thought the first time I saw you?”

Adam shakes him head. 

“Please.”

Adam arches an eyebrow. “Please?”

“I prayed, Adam. I saw you and I just…”

Ronan runs out of words, like he can’t explain everything he had felt in that moment. 

Ronan had seen him and prayed. 

Ronan — who goes to Mass every Sunday, who is reverent about his God, who treats his church like it’s sacrosanct — Ronan had seen Adam and prayed. 

Fuck. 

“So if you were with me, you wouldn’t be thinking about Gansey? Wishing things turned out differently?”

“Never,” Ronan says. He looks so serious that Adam can’t doubt he is speaking the truth. 

“Would you do it again?”

“If I could go back in time-“

“No. This isn’t a hypothetical. I’m asking, if we stay together, will you sleep with Gansey again?”

“No,” Ronan says without hesitation. “I made a mistake. But I don’t want to be a cheater. And I don’t want to cheat on you.”

Adam holds his gaze for a long moment. Ronan looks honest and desperate and all logic in the world dictates that Adam not believe a cheater who is still sitting there wearing hickies from someone else, but God help him, Adam believes him. 

“I’m not breaking up with you,” he decides, making Ronan’s eyes go wide with surprise. “You get a one-time pass because it’s Gansey. But Ronan-“

He makes sure Ronan is looking at him. 

“If you ever cheat on me again, with Gansey or anyone else, we’re done. No more second chances.”

“I won’t need another one,” Ronan swore wildly.

“And I’ll make you regret it,” Adam promises. He meets Ronan’s eyes and lets him see the anger and cruelty he’s capable of. 

Ronan knows how dangerous he is. Ronan has seen the vile nightmares Adam can dream up. Has used them to his benefit, to destroy Greenmantle, and been a little horrified at the darkness in Adam’s brain. 

He chose Adam knowing he was choosing a monster. 

“I would deserve it,” Ronan says, somber understanding and Catholic guilt. 

Adam could never bring himself to hurt Ronan too badly. Part of him hopes Ronan knows that. The other part, the part that’s still smarting at the image of Ronan in Gansey’s bed, hopes Ronan doesn’t know how horribly vulnerable he has made him. 

Adam feels like a declawed cat. He’s never had any problem hurting others to protect himself, but he doesn’t know what to do when the one person he can’t bring himself to hurt is the one causing him pain. 

Is this what Ronan felt like when Adam strangled him?

They look across the breakfast table at each other and Adam wonders if this is what love is. Does it always involve so much guilt and pain and hope and forgiveness? 

Adam remembers thinking that of all the options in the world, Ronan is the most difficult version of any of them. 

He wasn’t wrong. But he doesn’t think he was wrong to choose Ronan either. Despite everything that has happened, he can’t bring himself to regret them.

Ronan makes Adam feel special. Makes him feel daring, makes him feel young, makes him feel awake. 

It’s all Adam has ever wanted — to feel awake when his eyes are open.

“I love you,” Ronan says, like it is the barest and most intrinsic truth of his soul. 

Adam stands, rapping his knuckles on the wooded table. “I’m going to write my paper. Drink plenty of water and go sleep off your hangover. I’m furious with you right now and I don’t want to look at you.”

He turns to leave the kitchen and stops when Ronan calls out, “But we’ll be okay?”

Adam doesn’t turn around. He can’t look at Ronan if he’s going to say this. “We’ll be okay. You’re a fucking asshole. But. I love you too.”

It hurts to say. But it’s nothing but the bitter, hopeful truth. 

-----------

Coming soon to an AO3 near you! But first...

[death-and-other-myths]

The Dream Thieves Deadass Book Review

By Maggie Stiefvater

Blue and the gang are back in another thrilling installment of teenagers taking on way more than they should!

This is an unhinged book review/recap of this BEAUTIFUL STORY I LOVE IT!!

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

We kick things off with a cool prologue about Ronan Lynch and his enigmatic father, who apparently dissapeared for months at a time and returned with ridiculous amounts of money and treasure. It’s also heavily implied that Niall Lynch also had the ability to manifest objects from his dreams. He says weird shit like “Ronan on the day you were born, blue rose petals rained from the sky and all the cows started crying blood.” And Ronan says “Thanks Dad, a birthday card will suffice.” (Jk) But there are instances where Niall wakes up with blood and blue rose petals on his face and is like “Oh Ronan, I was just dreaming about the day you were born.”

Wow this family! (To recap, Nial was murdered with a tire iron and Ronan found him)

Was… was Ronan not birthed, but dreamed?? Did his father dream him into existence? I’m not sure. 

Well everyone is in the know because the kids meet up in the countryside with a telescope — still on their quest to chart the leylines and locate Glendower… who the trees confirmed exists, so that makes all this crazy magic even more real. Ronan demonstrates flying a toy plane that he dreamed into reality, which can miraculously fly without batteries. His raven, Chainsaw chases it and it’s adorable. 

It’s so fun to see the gang back together. Ronan can dream things into existence and we’re all okay with that. Adam is some kind of magic we don’t understand yet. Noah is dead. Gansey’s super power is loving his friends to the point of being annoying. And being obsessed with Glendower. Their new plan is to keep exploring the enchanted forest and hunt for the king. Blue continues to be adorable and poke fun at Gansey, who calls her Jane and likes to say shit to get a rise out of her. 

THEN we meet some dude who is described as the Gray Man. He has quite a pit of personality for someone who only wears grayscale shit. He walks into Declan’s dormitory at Aglionby and proceeds to BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HIM. Poor kid. He’s demanding to know where the Greywarren is?? And Declan is like “I have no idea what that is please stop hitting me.” And Gray Man says “You better find it for me or I’ll kill you and your whole family, kay bye.” Then he checks in to a bed and breakfast. 

I kind of remember Ronan saying Greywarren in the first book. It was something the trees called him in Latin and he was confused and said he didn’t understand. 

Anyway, both Gansey and Ronan have insomnia. So one night, Ronan wakes up with a puzzle box/decoder he manifested out of his dreams and takes it out to Gansey, who is also awake at 3am working on his scale model of Henrietta on the floor. They have a neat conversation about Ronan’s dream powers and the strange contraption he made that night. You type a word in English on one side and wooden letters rearrange in Latin, Greek, and some other language they can’t figure out. Gansey is very fascinated with how Ronan accomplishes this magic feat. Then he says “God I’m tired.” — “Then sleep.” — glare from Gansey, who would if he could. — “Wanna get orange juice?” … they get orange juice. 

The next day, Blue goes to work at the pizza place and the guys come. There’s a cute part where Adam touches her wrist. There’s an even cuter part earlier in the book, when Blue is thinking about the tree visions and her fate to kiss and kill her first love. She says to “fate”, if I’m destined to kill Gansey, I don’t want that to happen. If I’m destined to love him, I don’t want that either. It’s Adam I want. Eeeeee!!

While they’re chatting, the local douchebag Kavinsky shows up and exchanges some witty banter. Like genuinely witty. This kid is a dick, but he’s really funny. He gives Ronan some leather bands, just like the ones he’s already wearing and chewing on all the time… and this must have some significance but we don’t get it yet. So anyway, he leaves. And the boys are trying to figure out what the mystery language is on the dream box. Blue says “I bet Ronan knows what it is. Somewhere in there.” And Ronan snaps back “You don’t know shit.” And everyone at the table freezes. Gansey says in a threatening way to the table, “You are not to speak to Blue like that ever again, you hear me?” And Blue is like “BISH I don’t need you standing up for me! Fuck you rich boy and fuck you Ronan I will end you.”

The Gray Man is driving around town in a shitty rental car talking to the locals. Apparently there have been power outages and surges lately. He’s using instruments given to him by his boss… Greensomething. GREENMANTLE. And following the energy to a crazy rose bush and a creepy well. When he takes the lid off the well, the energy readings stop. 

Adam has been living in the musty little space above St. Agnes’ church paying rent to the nuns for a few months now. When he gets home from his mechanic job, Blue is there. This is such a BEAUTIFULLY written chapter (8) and Adam continues to be a beautifully written character. There is so much going on in this scene. From Adam pining over all the things he wants in life… to the anxiety of knowing he made a bargain with a magical forest that is hanging over his head because he has no idea what that fucking even means…. To his incredible attraction to Blue and deep desire to kiss her.

They have a sweet moment where they hug, and he’s getting signals, so he goes in for a kiss and she FREAKS OUT and steps back. This wounds him deeply, since it’s been weeks now, and he knows he should respect a girl when she says “no” but also just why?? I WISH BLUE WOULD JUST TELL THIS POOR BABY IF SHE KISSES HIM HE MIGHT DIE but I also see how that could be a difficult conversation, so she just keeps it vague like “I don’t want to move too fast.” — Adam takes a shower to exit from this awful interaction, and while he’s in there he catches sight of himself in the mirror and thinks he looks different. Like a little more gaunt than usual. And then he has this strange moment of scratching his skin. And the water feels like it’s falling in slow-motion. And then he gets this weird flash of water falling off leaves. 

So Adam steps out of the shower like “Wow. That’s weird.” And finds Blue talking to a Nun. The Nun explains that some weird tax thing happened and his rent has been lowered by $200. Adam is super relieved, and after she leaves, he opens a letter from Aglionby that he’s been ignoring… and that letter says that tuition has been raised by $200. He’s immediately like…… Gansey. He puts two and two together and is just livid. And he takes it out on Blue, so they get into a huge fight. And she storms out. And Adam feels like a fucking monster and more trapped than ever. And the chapter ends with him getting a flash of another image in his head. I THINK HE’S STARTING TO BECOME MAGICAL. But also, sweet baby. I hate that he carries all this pain. But god damn if he is not a fascinating character. They all are. I love them.

Gansey, Noah, and Ronan are dicking around a Dollar Tree when Adam calls. 

I love the idea of these 2 rich idiots and their dead friend just messing with chinsie toys and bullshit at the dollar tree. They went there for batteries but are standing around just being teenaged boys. Also the raven is with them. Adam tells Gansey he just saw a ghost woman in his apartment and it freaked him out. Noah finds a snow globe that he loves that is full of glitter, and Ronan and Chainsaw are being adorable and in an unusually good mood. Then Noah like, BLINKS OUT for a minute then comes back. The boys hypothesize that the leyline’s power is fluctuating. And it probably has something to do with Adam. 

Adam and Gansey get into a brief argument on the phone about the tuition… where it’s revealed to us the reader (but not the boys) that it was RONAN who adjusted Adam’s rent. There’s a great line like “The good thing about being Ronan is that no one ever expects you to be nice.”

Ronan has a dream about being in the forest and hanging out with a little blonde girl. He’s seen her before. And like everything there, she speaks in Latin and is super skiddish and afraid. She asks if he’ll take her with him before he wakes up. 

The next day, Adam calls Gansey again and Gansey invites him to one of his fancy rich people parties. He says there might be internship opportunities. Adam hates offers like this, because of that damn pride of his! But he actually considers accepting and pretty much says yes. Then he asks Gansey for some relationship advice about Blue… which makes Gansey deeply uncomfortable. 

Blue told him about her prophecy/curse when they were exploring the woods that one day. The same day he told her about the day he died of hornets. Again… it is driving me crazy… how none of these kids will just out and say this. But I appreciate the tension hahaha. Poor ADAM!! He asks Gansey if he’ll talk to Blue for him… maybe find out why she’s so skiddish about kissing in particular. Or if there’s something wrong with him. Gansey reluctantly says yes. 

Then there’s a cute bit with Ronan and Noah being boys and throwing shit out the factory window. Then Noah stomps back in all upset because Ronan threw HIM out the window. OH BOYS.

On Sunday, Ronan goes to church. He very much believes in God and the Devil… because he saw the devil once?? He saw his Dad talking to this goat-headed beast in the barn. And then Nial shot Satan 13 times in the head. And Satan flashed his dick at Niall and dissapeared. I AM NOT FUCKING WITH YOU. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. I’m just like… okay, Maggie. 

Ronan notices Declan all beat up and is happy to see it. But it’s weird. Normally the only people who can beat up Lynch brothers are other Lynch brothers. He says it was a robbery though. We meet Matthew, the most adorable of the brothers, who is kind of a clean-cut jock as opposed to being a brooding punk or a pompous future-senator. It’s worth mentioning that Noah joins Ronan at church, but no one acknowledges him. 

Ronan has a street race with that Kavinsky guy (who calls him a f**. REAL NICE.) — And before they race, Ronan throws a pair of sunglasses into Kavinsky’s car? They’re identical to the pair he’s wearing on his face, and he seemed kind of surprised by it. He asks how the hell he found a pair. Ronan doesn’t answer. And we all know we dreamed them. So that happens and it’s over. 

Is Kavinsky a dreamer too???

Meanwhile, Gansey and Adam are hanging out at Blue’s house. Gansey is in the kitchen with Blue and Adam is out in the reading room. Their fearless leader is talking with Maura and basically saying in much more fancy Gansey speak, “I think we’re going to have to go back to Cabeswater eventually. I can’t guarantee it’ll be safe, but I can say we’ll be as cautious as possible?” — Maura is like FINE. Then when they have a free moment, Gansey asks Blue if she’s talked to Adam about the whole “If I kiss you, it might kill you.” Thing. Blue gets flustered and is like “Of course not and it’s none of your business!” — Well he tried. Blue has a gentle chat with Adam who has laid out a deck of tarot cards and is just staring at them. He seems to be in a much better mood now, but things are still awkward between them. Gansey is adorable with his water bottle, which he pokes Blue with and is like “Fair Trade!” Like he deserves a prize for being more environmentally conscious. 

One day, the Gray man comes into the Blue House. He’s extremely charming. Says he’s there researching a book, but it comes out pretty quickly that he’s a hitman. The ladies aren’t really that afraid of him though. And he even plays little psychic card games with them before leaving. Persephone and Calla ask Maura why she allowed all that to go down, and she’s like… best to keep an eye on those types. 

So the gang is in the camaro on their way to Cabeswater, and things are still a little weird between Adam and Blue. He keeps getting visions and seeing figures (dead people?) and he’s worried that Cabeswater is going to like… take him.

Well they pull up to where Cabeswater is supposed to be and it’s just fucking gone. The whole forest… up and left like it never existed. And to make things worse, the camaro breaks down on the way home and they’re pretty far from civilization. Ronan is stomping around in frustration and Blue make some kind of comment like “Yeah let’s just throw rocks and be violent and do something manly like yell. That’ll really help.” and even though she says it to Ronan, Adam knows he was the one that was supposed to hear it (because he scared her by exploding in the apartment earlier). To make matters worse, Gansey and Blue formulate a plan together over the GPS and just seeing their hair touching is enough to make Adam feel real awful. He just presses his head against the seat back and groans. 

They ask Declan to bring a battery. Ronan pretends to be asleep, which pisses off his brother. It also pisses him off that Ronan’s leg is draped over Adam’s. He tells him to keep his fucking head down and out of trouble, drops the battery, and leaves. 

That night, Ronan has a truly AWFUL nightmare. He’s standing in Adam’s apartment, and there’s this mask on his wall that belonged to his father, but only in his dreams (??) and the little girl is there eating fried chicken lol. Well eventually, dream Adam shows up and puts on the mask, and the second it does it turns him into a MONSTER. Adam is both trying to get the mask off and posessed by some evil force attacking Ronan. Ronan manages to pull the mask off him easily, but when he does it takes Adam’s fucking face with it — so then he’s dying in the corner. And Ronan wakes up with the mask in hand. He has sleep paralysis so Noah talks him through it until he can move. This chapter ends with a weird clicking noise in the corner and I am very scared.

OH GOD IT GETS WORSE. Gansey is out sitting in his Camero in a thunderstorm because it’s 4:45am and he has insomnia. He’s feeling a bit sorry for himself at Cabeswater disappearing. I love this bit:

“…then instead gave himself over to feeling sorry for himself, that he should have so many friends and yet feel so very alone. He felt it fell to him to comfort them, but never the other way around. As it should be, he thought, abruptly angry with himself. You’ve had it the easiest. What good is all your privilege, you soft, spoiled thing, if you can’t stand on your own legs?”

I love Gansey so much. 

Noah comes out and flags him down, then leads him to the massive main room on the 1st floor that has no lighting and is full of dust and Ronan is just standing in the middle of it like a creeper while there is a storm outside. Chainsaw is there for levity… rolling in the dirt. So Ronan asks Gansey about the promise he made last year… after they found him in a pool of blood with slit wrists. He said he didn’t actually try to kill himself. He had a nightmare and brought the wounds back with him, but his father made him promise never to tell anyone about his dream powers, so he just let everyone think he was suicidal. And there’s still something banging and dragging around upstairs and I will fucking SHIT myself if it is Adam without a face.

Okay no it’s not that. But it’s still pretty fucking scary. Ronan grabs a crowbar. He gives Gansey a box cutter. And together they open the door to Ronan’s room to fucking fight some kind of… Raven person beast monster. It’s all claws and has red eyes and a huge beak but kind of a human body and totally fucks them up, but they fuck it up better. During the fight, Gansey notices Ronan has old scars on his arms beneath new ones from the claws. He asks Ronan if that’s how he got those injuries and he says “One got away”. So um… WOW. Like Gansey says, no wonder Ronan won’t sleep. That’s ten kinds of awful.

The next chapter starts with Gansey and Ronan fetching Blue with the dead, stinky bird man in the trunk. Then we get this phenomenal snippet:

“She wore a dress Ronan thought looked like a lampshade. Whatever sort of lamp it belonged on, Gansey clearly wished he had one. Ronan wasn’t a fan of lamps.”

Fucking beautiful. This is chapter 18 by the way. I love this whole exchange at the beginning. Blue is struck by Gansey wearing blue jeans and a tshirt. It makes him look his age and not like a senator, like he usually does. The plan is to pick up Adam next and then go bury the body in Ronan’s farm (which he’s not legally allowed to enter for some reason). Also Noah dissapeared when all the shit went down and hasn’t come back yet. I do not blame him. 

They drive out to Ronan’s forbidden home which is like gorgeous fairy farmland. They have to go find a shovel in one of the many barns and discover that all of the livestock is sleeping with their eyes open. So… creepy? Even the little barn birds are doing it. Oddly enough the only animals not in this state are some baby mice. And there’s an adorable scene where Ronan says the only way to feel their little heartbeats it to hold them against your cheek, and everyone does it and can’t help but smile. It’s so freaking cute. 

Great prelude to burning a horrifying bird creature. But once that’s done, they decide to go to Ninos. Adam, throughout this whole trip, is getting spacier and spacier. He did smile at the baby mice though lol. But otherwise he’s just staring off into the sky. Before they leave, Ronan asks if he can go see his mom (who apparently had a meltdown after his Dad died and stopped talking). 

Ronan’s house is COOL!!! It is not rich bougie opulent like Gansey’s. It’s a proper farmhouse, cluttered and warm and packed with dream things. Like a lot of appliances that don’t require electricity. And some blue lilies sitting in a vase with no water. And the fucking MASK!! Ronan nearly tackles Adam to stop him from touching it, then that becomes the last straw. Ronan loves his home and misses it like crazy. And it’s killing him that he’s legally forbidden to be there. He doesn’t know how to process emotions, so he just starts punching the wall and destroying stuff. Adam stands there numbly, letting him. So Gansey thunders over, catches his fist, and tells him to cut it out. 

Ronan goes to see his mother in a sitting room filled with still more magical shit, and she’s asleep just like the livestock. In a coma and surrounded by medical stuff (nurses come and check on her periodically). Basically by the end of this chapter, Ronan realizes that many of the things in his home were dreamed by his father, and that’s why they’re in this holding pattern/coma-like state….Including his MOM!!! DUN DUN DUN!!!

The next day or hours later (sometimes it’s hard to tell time in these books lol) - Blue tells Ronan “You need to go talk to my aunts about this dream stuff. Manifesting objects from dreams is crazy enough, but manifesting PEOPLE?!” — And here’s the funny thing about Ronan. He’s a total punk, but he’s also pretty religious. So they get in a fight about “Is spiritualism the devil” until Gansey breaks it up and makes Ronan go.

So they go talk to Calla, the sassiest of the psychics, who talks to Ronan while doing aerial yoga lol because reasons. She tells him that Cabeswater is a dream. And Ronan thinks his mom might be in there. I’m confused by this, but I think we’re supposed to be… Like, did Ronan’s father DREAM Cabeswater? She also tells him to get rid of that mask “It’s a bit of bad work”. I’m really glad Adam didn’t touch it now!!

Matthew and Ronan have lunch. This chapter is interspersed with excerpts from Nial Lynch’s will, which explains each brother gets 3 million dollars when they turn 18 ON THE CONDITION that they stay off the property. (And I guess Declan is real pissed because Ronan did just that. But I guess maybe it was okay since no one saw?). The will also leaves Ronan with the farm, which he can’t set foot on…. So thanks Dad. Mathew mentions that Declan is taking sleeping pills, knows about Ronan and Nial’s dream powers, and has a gun in his car. Ronan says he has a plan to get Mom back. 

The Gray man is an interesting character. He is there on orders from a man named Greenmantle… looking for the Greywarren (all very strange names). The only thing he is afraid of is his brother, who he keeps dodging calls from. He has depression/gray days where he just stays in bed all day. He has a few of those before he realizes he left his wallet at the psychic house. So he’s going to go get that…AFTER HE GOES TO MONMOUTH MANUFACTURING slash base camp slash where our sweet heroes live and oh my god I will fucking die if he hurts anyone. 

Gansey has been depressed since Cabeswater dissapeared. It’s really messing with him. So he goes on a spending spree and buys some things for the factory (a leather chair, pool table, and some air conditioners) — and asks Blue’s cousin Orla to help because they need someone who is 21 years or older to rent a trailer lol. Orla shows up to the factory in bell bottoms and an orange bikini, and Gansey and Adam exchange looks. RONAN DOES NOT BECAUSE HE DOESN’T LIKE LAMPS. Seeing them blush drives Blue nuts, since she and Orla don’t get along. 

Then we get this beautiful line of thought from Gansey:

“She wore two shredded tank tops and a pair of bleached cargo pants. In some parallel universe, there was a Gansey who could tell Blue that he found the ten inches of her bare calves far more tantalizing than the thirteen cubic feet of bare skin Orla sported. But in this universe, that was Adam’s job.”

So not only did he rent a trailer, but he rented a boat. And as the Gray man pulls up on the factory, he sees all this and also sees a white Mitsubishi idling on the road (Kavinsky!!). Gansey and the gang head out with their trailers and boat. Then the Gray man waits for Kavinsky to pull in, drop off whatever he’s dropping off, and leave. When the Gray man approaches, he sees that Kavinsky has dropped off a stack of REALLY CONVINCING looking drivers licenses with Ronan’s picture and a birthdate that would make him 70 lol. I think Kavinsky is a dreamer!!!! While the Gray man breaks into the factory and pokes around, he calls Maura and flirts with her about getting his wallet back.

But while he’s there, two MORE people break into the factory and are ALSO looking through things, but being assholes about it and wrecking stuff. They’re about to stomp on Gansey’s model of Henrietta, which the Gray Man can’t stand, so he steps out and fucks them up. Murders one of them right off the bat. Asks the other one who sent them, and the guy says they were hired by someone with a French Accent to find the Greywarren, which they think is probably a box. This is new info for the Gray Man, who didn’t know if the Greywarren was a person, place, or thing. So he says thanks and then kills the guy.

Okay so the kids are on a boat and it’s hot as hell. Gansey has purchased a sonar machine that Ronan is beating into activation and Orla is stretched out tanning. They drive around looking for something to pop up on the sonar, and it finally does! So while Gansey is thinking about how to strip down and dive with all these girls present, Blue takes off one of her tank top layers and is like “I’m going in. BRB.” — Orla stands up and is like “No you don’t. I’m the only one actually wearing swimwear. I’ll get it.” And she strips down into her sexy orange bikini. The boy's reaction to his is PRICELESS.

I LOVE this bit with Gansey:

“A tiny part of Gansey’s brain said: You have been staring for too long. The larger part of his brain said: ORANGE. “Oh, for the love of God,” Blue said, and jumped out of the boat.”

Ronan laughs hysterically because, again, he doesn’t like lamps. 

Orla swims around for a while and gives up. But Blue manages to dive and find 2 objects. A metal plate thing called a boss that used to be part of an ancient shield adorned with raven stuff (Glendower is all about ravens!) and a camaro tire that looks like it’s hundreds of years old. So that’s creepy. (It’s also funny when she comes back on the boat, she spits lake water on Gansey’s shoes and says “There! Now they’re actually boat shoes.” — and Gansey is like: [indignant rich people noises!])

More Gansey thinking Blue is hot:

“Gansey still felt he ought to avert his eyes. Everything was wet and clinging in ways that seemed more titillating than he’d come to expect from Blue’s wardrobe.”

They head back to land and Orla is getting in Ronan’s BMW when Blue asks, “Seen enough of Orla?”

And Gansey blurts out “What care of it is yours whether I’ve seen enough.” (And quickly regrets it because this sounds like a dare. Or flirting. Which he desperately doesn’t want to do because it will compromise his friendship with Adam.)

Blue replies, “Not at all.” And he knows she’s lying. So we get this neat bit:

“Blue Sargent cared whether or not he was interested in Orla. She cared a lot. As she whirled toward the truck with a dismissive shake of her head, he felt a dirty sort of thrill.”

Ganssseeeyyyy!!! Has so got the hots for Blue. Oh god, Adam though. I don’t want this poor baby to get hurt. I mean he’s already been through so much and the magic invisible forest is scrambling his brain… please just be happy. 

When Blue comes home (soaking wet) she finds Noah doing ghost shit on her front lawn. I’m sorry, that’s way too blunt. I just thought it would be funny to write it. But he is doing something she’s seen him do maybe 4 or 5 times before… which is re-enacting the moment of his death. We see him get hit by the invisible skateboard and shiver and shake on the ground for like 11 minutes making horrific noises. Then he just blips and is standing next to Blue like “Hey Buddy!! What’s up! Did you go swimming today? NEAT!” And she’s like “Heyyyy Noah. What’s going through your head when you do that?” And he simply replies that he wasn’t there. Like he wasn’t conscious of doing that. WOW BEING A GHOST IS WEIRD. Also I love how no one noticed their roommate was a ghost in the first book. Was he doing this while he lived with them and they were like “Noah, cut it out!”?

Mister Gray buries the two dudes he murdered at the factory, all while asking Maura out on a date. Later, he shows up to her house to get his wallet and has a terse conversation with Blue — who senses that he is smart, and not to be underestimated. Blue is a smart cookie. She notices the way Mr. Gray tries NOT to care when Maura comes in and says Gansey is on the phone because his place got broken into. Blue is like okay this guy is something…

The night before Gansey and Adam go out of town, Gansey is in a fucking mood. He and Ronan drive out to Kavinsky’s substance party (his words, not mine) in an abandoned fairgrounds where a bunch of rich kids are getting high and destroying their cars. When they arrive, Kavinsky has this great line where he goes “Hey lady. To join this party you gotta bring drugs.” And then Ronan punches him… lol Kavinsky is either too high or too charismatic to care. But I thought it was so funny when he said “Hey lady.”

He says it wasn’t him that wrecked the place, which tips G & R off that the same person who beat up Declan might be looking for them too. Kavinsky is like “Hey before you go, wanna blow stuff up?” And Gansey is in just crazy enough of a mood to do it. So they throw some Molotov cocktails at cars — and it’s all very cinematic and poetic. I love angry/scary Gansey. He’s not unhinged angry. He’s just as intelligent and confident as he always is. But he’s a certain shade of lethal. Freaking love it. Kavinsky asks Ronan if he’s coming to the 4th of July party and he says maybe. This chapter ends with Ronan admitting to himself that he’s bummed Gansey and Adam are leaving town without him.

Mr. Gray and Maura have their date and it’s actually pretty cute. He opens up about his brother, who sounds like a complete fucking psychopath (torturing him and small animals as a kid). Their flirting is kind of adorable, and they even kiss! When he gets back to the Bed and Breakfast, he learns that his room has been turned upside down and ransacked. Also, Maura stole his phone and replaced it with his tarot card in his pocket (The something of swords… I forget haha)

Persephone wakes Blue up in the middle of the night to help break into the Gray Man’s phone. These psychic ladies straight up do not give a fuck. They get Blue to show them his emails and phone calls and they figure out (through a mix of that and psychic ability) that he is there looking for the Greywarren. His problem, they say, is that he thinks he’s looking for an object when he should be looking for Ronan. So that’s interesting that the psychics know Ronan is a/the Greywarren! They know that word?? The Gray Man calls and isn’t even mad about the phone. He just flirts with Maura some more. 

That night, Ronan has a dream about his tattoo. He hasn’t really looked at it since he got it, but he can see it clearly in this dream. It’s made up of all the stuff he dreams about. Ravens and claws and the road to the Barns and other scary and beautiful things. In the dream, ADAM IS BEHIND HIM, TRACING HIS FINGERS DOWN HIS BACK on the road to his home. Then Adam turns into Kavinsky. And that tattoo shrinks into the size of a wafer and he eats it… and Ronan wakes up in a cold sweat feeling shame and adrenaline. Poor sweet religious baby, I think we all know what he is struggling with. And it’s not lamps.

IT’S THE WEEKEND OF THE BIG FANCY RICH PEOPLE PARTY and Helen returns with her helicopter to fly Gansey and Adam to Northern Virginia. I’m really excited for this party???? Poor Adam is just terrified though. Nervous and anxious. When they land, Helen runs into a Whole Foods so Gansey asks Adam how he’s doing. Adam just lays down in the back of the car and asks to talk about anything else. For a minute, Gansey thinks, Blue, but tells himself don’t you fucking dare. So he calls his British friend Malory who is at a PIGEON SHOW and is all in a tizzy describing the birds, and there’s this adorable scene with the boys trying to hold in their laughter while he’s describing the pigeons. At one point he describes “Pigmy somethings” and are “very feisty” and Gansey mouths to Adam “Blue!” And Adam actually cracks up and laughs out loud. Then he’s back to looking like his old self, which makes Gansey extraordinarily happy. This scene is so cute. I love it so much. 

When Adam and Gansey left in the helicopter, Ronan watched them from the hood of his car. He even blew a sarcastic kiss to Gansey before he was out of view. So this first thing he does now that he’s alone is test the set of dream keys to the Camaro lol. They miraculously work, though he dare not drive the car. Gansey LOVES that car. Then he gets a text from Kavinsky that says “You gotta check out my new wheels. See you tonight at 11”. I feel like Ronan is the teenager left home alone while Mom and Dad are out of town lol.

Noah lets Blue into Monmouth Manufacturing to have a snoop fest because everyone is out. I love these paragraphs where the author describes them just doing teenager shit. Raiding the fridge. Playing pool. PLaying with the telescope. Putting on a record. I mean, they totally go through Gansey’s stuff hahaha like go through all he draws in his desk and everything. Then they even LAY DOWN IN HIS BED and we get this phenomenal bit of literature:

Only inches away, Noah blinked sleepily at her. Blue crumpled the edge of the sheet against her nose. It smelled like mint and wheatgrass, which was to say, like Gansey. 

As they baked in the sunlight, she let herself think it: I have a crush on Richard Gansey. 

In a way, it was easier than pretending otherwise. She couldn’t do anything about it, of course, but letting herself think it was like popping a blister. Of course, the opposite truth also seemed self-evident. I don’t have a crush on Adam Parrish. She sighed.

AAAAHHHHHH!!!!! And also awww Adaaammm but also AWWWW BECAUSE I LOVE GANSEY AND BLUE. But omg I love Adam. IF ANYTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS TO ANY OF THESE KIDS I WILL NOT BE OKAY.

Okay so then Noah says he heard Blue won’t kiss Adam. And she tells him about the psychic prophecy, and confesses that Adam isn’t her true love, anyway. And she just has to go through life not kissing anyone for fear of killing them.  Then Noah has an idea: Well, you could kiss me. Oh my gosh I love this because the author completely unlocked a memory for me of how a first kiss feels. They are generally not great hahaha

His mouth mashed her lips until it met teeth. The entire thing was at once slimy and ticklish and hilarious. They both gasped an embarrassed laugh.

Oh my GOD this scene is so fucking cute. They sit up and keep trying, and the next kiss apparently feels like “kissing a dish washer” hahaha. “It’s hard because it’s you!” They say to each other, because they have what I think is firmly a friendship. When it comes to hanging out and being comfortable around each other, Blue is definitely closest to Noah… which I think is so adorable. He is so adorable. 

“Is it me?” She asks, because these kisses are terrible. And he’s like YEAH lol you’re too tense. Think of how they kiss in the movies and try to imitate that. 

I AM COPYING AND PASTING THIS WHOLE SECTION BECAUSE IT IS SO CUTE. 

She sighed and sifted through her memories until she found one that would do. It wasn’t a movie kiss, however. It was the kiss the dreaming tree had showed her in Cabeswater. Her first and only kiss with Gansey, right before he died. She thought about his nice mouth when he smiled. About his pleasant eyes when he laughed. She closed her eyes. Placing an elbow on the other side of her head, Noah leaned close and kissed her once more. 

This time, it was more of a thought than a feeling, a soft heat that began at her mouth and unfurled through the rest of her. One of his cold hands slid behind her neck and he kissed her again, lips parted. It was not just a touch, an action. It was a simplification of both of them: They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them. 

Oh, thought Blue. So this is what I can’t have. Not being able to kiss whoever she fell in love with didn’t feel so different from not having a cell phone when everyone else at school did. It didn’t feel very different from knowing she wasn’t going to be studying ecology abroad for college, or going abroad period. It didn’t feel very different from knowing that Cabeswater was going to be the only extraordinary thing about her life. Which was to say that it was unbearable, but she had to bear it anyway. Because there was nothing terrible about kissing Noah Czerny, apart from him being cold. 

She let him kiss her, and kissed him back until he pulled back on an elbow and clumsily wiped away some of her tears with the heel of his fist. His smudge had gotten very dark, and he was cold enough that she shivered. Blue gave him a watery smile. “That was super nice.” He shrugged, eyes doleful, shoulders curled in on themselves. He was fading. It wasn’t that she could see through him. It was that it was hard to remember what he looked like, even while she was looking at him. When he turned his head, she saw him swallow. He mumbled, “I’d ask you out, if I was alive.” Nothing was fair. 

“I’d say okay,” she replied. She only had time to see him smile faintly. And then he was gone. She rolled onto her back in the middle of the suddenly empty bed. Above her, the rafters glowed with the summer sun. Blue touched her mouth. It felt the same as it always did. Not at all like she had just gotten her first and last kiss.

I CAN’T. I CAN’T. I CAN’T. I CAN’T — THIS FUCKING BOOK. I AM GOING TO THROW IT ACROSS THE ROOM and then retrieve it and sob all over it and read it some more. That was the cutest fucking scene… Noah is so cute. Blue is so sweet. Poor baby having to go through life not kissing anyone except for her ghost friend who she also kind of likes I guess but it’s a non-starter with him being dead and all. GAWD. AUGH. And on Gansey’s bed?? Fuck. 

Alright onto the next chapter. 

Ronan picks up Matthew from school and says “Get in the car bitch, we’re going to the house.” (He does not say that. But that’s what they do). While they’re poking around their house, which they are very much not allowed to do, Ronan finds his father’s will and tries to translate a line from it with the puzzle box. It doesn’t turn up with any interesting results. THEN THE OTHER FUCKING BIRD MONSTER IS IN THE HOUSE. There is a truly terrifying scene with the brothers bracing a heavy chest against the door to keep it out of the room with their mother. Then the Bird Person just leaves… because MR. GRAY shows up and is poking a round the room while they hide. He steals the puzzle box (probably thinking it’s the Greywarren) and leaves. So do the boys. 

OKAY PARTY TIME. I’M A BALL OF NERVES.

The Gansey mansion is of course, gorgeous. And so are the boys in their tailored suits. Gansey is a GOOD FRIEND. When some rich whose-a-what’s it claps his hand on the back of Adam’s neck, and he notices Adam having PTSD flashbacks of his father throwing him down flights of stairs, he rescues him and gets the man off him with a charming smile and introduction. Adam is collecting business cards left and right. (Yay!) but he’s also kind of losing it a little. He catches glimpses of himself in the mirror that don’t look right and a spirit touches his elbow. Painted branches in paintings look like they’re moving. 

There’s this one interesting part where a lady is talking to Gansey and trying to guess his age — and pauses because he has a tendency to look both old and young at the same time. This comes up a good bit so I wonder what’s up with that. Gansey hates this party, by the way, but he’s good at playing the part. And he’s being crazy protective of Adam, knowing this is uncomfortable.

There’s this one really strange moment where the lights go out, and Adam is hallucinating seeing ghosts all around him. And he and Gansey hear the singing of a choir of women, chanting in Latin “Make way for the Raven King.” — then the lights come back on. Turns out Adam is not completely crazy, because everyone saw the lights go out. They heard the choir too, but dismiss it as the musicians being musicians lol. I like that these rich people are like “Oh a ghost choir, how quaint. Har har har”. Gansey meets Adam’s eyes from across the room. THE LEYLINE IS BEING WEIRD, YOU GUYS.

Meanwhile, back in Henrietta, RONAN IS OUT IN THE DAMN CAMARO WAITING FOR KAVINSKY. Ronan noooooooo!!! Noah appears in the passenger’s seat and tells him he doesn’t want to watch him die. He’ll tattle on him. He’ll do it. Ronan’s response:

“Noah,” Ronan said tenderly, placing his palm on top of Noah’s cold, seven-years-dead hand, “you’re starting to piss me off.”

Well they race. And Ronan loses. And just as Noah is saying “Are you happy now?” THE FUCKING NIGHT HORROR LANDS ON THE HOOD OF THE CAR AND BREAKS THE WINDSHIELD. Again I say Noooooooo!!! Noah is a cutie and helps out despite being terrified. He wrestles the bird man on the hood, and manages to take one out. But there’s another one? EIther way, Noah crashes the car into a telephone pole. And then Kavinsky shows up and TAKES OUT A GUN and shoots the night horror, saving Ronan’s life. They stand by the side of the road for a while, and Ronan is freaking out because Gansey is going to kill him, and Kavinsky is like oh my god chill out and come with me. So he does.

Back at the party, Adam and Gansey take a break to go stand upstairs in the hallway outside of Gansey’s old room. They’re drunk— because this whole time, Adam thought he was being handed ginger ale, but somewhere along the way it became champagne. And they talk about their feelings and inevitably get into a fight. I think because they realize they’re on separate paths. Gansey hates this world and never wants to return to it. He loves Henrietta. But Adam hates Henrietta and sees this glittering rich people life as his old way out. They talk about Adam stealing the Camaro to wake the leyline and get into a huge fight where Adam finally lets it out that he hates feeling like he’s always taking orders from Gansey, and if he wants his help finding Glendower, he has to let him search the way he wants to search. Then he ends with this venomous line:

“I don’t need your wisdom, Gansey,” he said. “I don’t need you to babysit me. I got into Aglionby without you. I got Blue without you. I woke the ley line without you. I won’t take your pity.”

AUGH. And breaks some fancy shit on a table. And then they part ways. BABIES NOOOOO!!! Also Adam is just straight up seeing dead people all around him now. Like random men in bowler hats and this chapter closes with a random woman screaming but making no sound. 

Alright so Kavinsky… is a character lol. He’s so aloof and crazy, he’s hard to get a read on. But he drives Ronan out to his fairgrounds hideout and reveals a parking lot full of white Mitsubishi cars. All with an identical spoiler and knife graphic on the side. Some have 2 doors. Some have no doors. Some have 4 doors. So Ronan realizes that Kavinsky is a dreamer too, and evidently a better one than he is because he can manifest a whole ass car. So I think these two are in some kind of plan to dream up a new Camaro. 

Sad Gansey is sad. With the party still raging, he goes out to a fountain in the garden and calls Blue, and doesn’t tell her anything, just asks her to describe what’s going on in her house. What is everyone doing? And he lays down on the fountain and listens to her talk. And that’s it. That’s the whole chapter. So fucking cute.

The next chapter is all about the Gray man going about his day… snooping around the Kavinsky household. Talking to his Mom?? Who is slumped over a toilet maybe high?? Then we move on. He snoops around Ronan’s BMW and sees that the VIN number is Nial Lynch’s birthday. He waxes poetic about Maura and how much he loves her while he beats up a priest at St. Agnes asking if the Lynch brothers had ever confessed anything weird. It’s violent and adorable at the same time. 

The next morning, Gansey is barely holding it together through his mother’s fussy book club luncheon, entertaining 50 year old women and drinking tea. Helen saves him though, noticing he looks miserable. So once he’s in the kitchen, he gets a second to check his texts and Ronan tells him he wrecked the Camaro, but it’s going to be okay and say hi to his Mom. Gansey is like… slowly unraveling at this point lol. He calls Ronan’s phone, but Kavinsky picks up, which is unnerving, and Kavinsky is impossible to talk to. It’s all jokes and quippy quips. He asks to talk to Ronan and Kavinsky goes, “Hey Ronan. WAKE UP FUCK-WEASEL, IT’S YOUR GIRLFIREND. Now he’s pissed. Can I take a message?” And Gansey eventually hangs up on him because Ronan won’t take the phone. 

Ronan wakes up in Kavinsky’s bougie home movie theater after a crazy alcohol bender. They talk a little about being Greywarens and Kavinsky reveals that he saw Ronan’s “suicide attempt” last year. His window was nearby or something. So he saw Ronan wake up and the scars appear and he’s known what Ronan was ever since. 

When Gansey finally plucks up the courage to talk to Adam, he realizes he’s GONE. He looks all over the place, then gets Helen involved. Then gets his family involved. Then gets the police involved. It’s a full-on Adam man-hunt until Gansey finally gets a phone call from him on some Virginia number he doesn’t recognize. Apparently Adam was found on the side of the highway fifteen miles away and can’t remember how he got there. It took him a while to remember Gansey’s number so he could call. When they pick him up, he looks AWFUL and barely talks. He talks to the family doctor on the phone and passes out on the couch soon after, so the Gansey family goes upstairs to talk.

I kind of love them. They’re rich, but they’re not complete assholes. Helen explains that the doctor said this sounded like a case of… Transient global amnesia. Which is kind of like a mental breakdown where people have spells of wandering off then kind of snapping out of it and not knowing where they are. It’s stress-induced, so the family asks Gansey why Adam might be stressed, and he spills the beans about Adam coming from an abusive household and refusing to live with him. They hatch a plan to try to give Adam a car, but make it sound like he’s taking Helen’s “shitty college car” off her hands….. when they’re actually going to just go buy like a 10 year old Honda lol. That’s cute. But OH GOD POOR ADAM!! He’s losing his marbles!!

Back in Henrietta, Kavinsky is trying to teach Ronan how he brings back such elaborate things from dreams. They’re practicing, basically. Kavinsky is super cavalier about dream stuff. He says to get in and get out before your dream place catches on to you. Take your stuff and leave. They pop green pills that Kavinsky probably dreamed, and it knocks you out immediately (and I think kills you briefly?? Like they stop breathing for a second, then wake up)

When Ronan wakes up, he’s paralyzed for a few seconds. This doesn’t happen to Kavinsky. When Ronan goes to the dream forest, Orphan Girl screams at him to leave (I think she might know his heart is stopping. Or it also might be hurting the leyline energy to manifest stuff from dreams). Ronan and Kavinsky spend basically 2 days doing this… sleeping in the dang car and surviving solely off drugs and Twizlers (Well, Kav does drugs. Ronan just sticks to the dream pills). He tries to bring the Pig (the Camaro) back and ALMOST does it successfully, only it has no engine lol. So Kavinsky gives him a RED pill this time, and we get this weird scene:

Ronan was a stranger in his own body. The sunset cut into his gaze, slantwise and insistent. As his muscles twitched, he lowered himself onto his chest and then rested his cheek against the hood, the heat of the metal not quite painful enough to be unbearable. He closed his eyes. This wasn’t the hurtling-to-sleep pill of before. This was a liquid fatality. He could feel his brain shutting down. After a moment, he heard the hood groan as Kavinsky leaned over him. Then he felt the ridged callus of a finger drag slowly over the skin on his back. A slow arc between his shoulder blades, drawing the pattern of his tattoo. Then sliding down his spine, tensing every muscle it moved over.

Then he passes out and is able to come back with the ACTUAL Camaro. The Orphan girl seems sad — asking him why he’s stealing from them. When Ronan is like “Okay thanks for the pills and the dream training. Bye.” Kavinsky freaks out and is like “You’re running back to HIM? I thought it was going to be you and me! If you’re not with me, you’re against me.”

I think Kavinsky likes Ronan. In other news, NOW THE PIG IS BACK! 

And now Adam has a car. Helen’s plan pulled off perfectly. They found a truly shitty car and pretended like the towing company failed to pick it up so it would be doing her a favor and saving her money if he just took it. The Gansey family is so cute. They all leave him little gifts. Adam laments about ruining their Saturday, but also can’t get over the fact that he doesn’t even remember Saturday. Adam is like… hanging by a thread. He keeps disassociating and seeing spirits and trees and has to snap himself back to reality. Even though they haven’t 100% made up yet, he’s touched by the fact that it’s taking every shred of Gansey’s will power to not ask “Are you okay? Do you need anything? You’re my best friend and I love you please be okay.” — So they head back to Henrietta.

The Gray Man comes to 300 Fox Way and I’ve decided I love him. He’s so cute and in love with Maura. He makes her a flower crown. They talk about the Greywaren and how he’s finally figured out it’s a person, not a box. And he can’t go through with kidnapping (Killing he’s fine with but not kidnapping minors lol). With Maura there, Gray calls Greenmantle and tells him, “Hey, the Greywarren isn’t here. I looked everywhere. I think the fault lines are causing the weird energy flow. We gotta keep looking.” And Greenmantle is like… “Okay fucker, you found it didn’t you? I’m on to you. I’m going to call your brother and tell him where you are so he can come fuck your shit up.” (Seriously, his brother sounds awful). So now THAT’S a thing! Greenmantle is coming for everybody. Also Gray Man’s name is Dean.

The next chapter opens with “Gansey only had a few seconds of warning before the Camaro hit him” hahaha. He is like.. LIVID with Ronan. They pull over and Ronan reveals the new Pig Dream car (that has an engine this time.. and is somehow INVINCIBLE. Like you hit it and the metal just pops back into place.) Gansey is struck by Ronan offering a sincere apology for stealing his car. It’s also kind of adorable how proud Ronan is of this creation (as he should be). Gansey is so relieved to see Ronan’s old smile and genuine laugh that he drops his anger easily. Ronan also thinks he knows why Cabeswater dissapeared. They have to stop Kavinsky because that idiot is draining all the magic with his 100 Mitsubishi cars.

Blue makes Calla look at the Camaro wheel and the Shield thingy and this is what she has to say:

Camaro wheel: “He’s not alone when he leaves the car behind.”

Sheild: “They were dragging him at this point. The horses had died. The men were weak. It wouldn’t stop raining. They meant to bury the shield with him, but it was heavy so they left it behind.”

I swear to god. If Gansey ends up dying in this book, I will not be okay. If there’s some kind of tie-in to him and Glendower.. like eventually the gang is going to have to DRAG HIS BODY and try to bury it with the Camaro I will lose my shit. 

When they get home Adam is on the front door step. 

He comes up to Blue’s room and they get into a fight. She finally tells him about the prophecy, and then she has to be honest and say that even if the prophecy didn’t exist… she realized she doesn’t love Adam. She really wanted to, but she just doesn’t. Blue can also be a little too testy for her own good sometimes. She gets easily offended by the slightest hint of misogyny… which is why Gansey makes fun of her for it all the time. Seriously, she kind of says some mean shit. Which is not great because Adam is losing his grip on reality. And now he just feels alone and unloved and so distant from everyone he thought were his friends. 

Persephone catches him on his way down the stairs, which is great because he is full on hallucinating, and she pulls him into the reading room. She says Blue can come if he wants her to be there. And he says no. He wants to do this alone. Persephone explains that he’s out of balance. And she gives him pie lol. And they do this scrying ritual where he looks into a pool of black water to finally confront himself and come to terms with what’s been going on. So he sacrificed his eyes and hands to Cabeswater, but he didn’t sacrifice his mind. So Persephone tells him to quit giving that up. Next, she explains that he hasn’t been listening to Cabeswater. It’s been trying to get his attention with all the ghosts and stuff, but he’s been too wound up in his own pain to listen. So he basically has a psychic acid trip and puts himself back in balance. When he comes out of the vision, he can FEEL tarot cards. Like a heartbeat.

He pulls the Magician which is like… his symbolic card. ADAM IS PSYCHIC NOW and will hopefully feel less crazy from here on out. 

He literally passes out on the couch and Persephone says he’ll probably be out for a while. Like a whole day, and when he wakes up he might feel sick. Something huge shifted in him and I can’t wait to see what happens next to this sweetheart. 

Blue is majorly depressed about the fight they had. “Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with Adam?” She thinks. She also thinks Adam is so attractive and she could have even kissed him without worrying about killing him. But she’s Blue. And she doesn’t do dishonest stuff like that. Also she’s got the hots for Gansey like whoa. 

SO SHE CALLS HIM. And asks him to take her somewhere. 

So he shows up with his dream car. And in her favorite kind of outfit — the casual kind with his wire framed glasses (not the done-up preppy Gansey). He asks what happened and she says that she and Adam had a fight. But doesn’t want to talk about it. Instead, like she did for him by the fountain earlier, Gansey tells her about everything going on in his life. About the party and Ronan’s powers and Pigeons etc etc. Blue is finally ready to hear about Adam, so he tells her about how he blacked out and wandered off after they had an argument. 

I’m going to copy and paste most of this chapter. DEAL WITH IT!!!!

“Oh, Jane,” he said suddenly. “If you’d been there when we got the call about him walking on the interstate, you would’ve …” He trailed off before she found out what she would’ve done. And then, all of a sudden, he pulled himself together. “Ha! Adam’s communing with trees and Noah keeps reenacting being murdered and Ronan’s wrecking and then making me new cars. What’s new with you? Something terrible, I trust?” 

“You know me,” Blue said. “Ever sensible.”

They have a great conversation about how they both come from families with a lot of love. And Adam never experienced that. So of course he reacts differently to things in life. Gansey talks about how much he hates Adam’s parents. The bruises he’d come to school with. It broke his heart. 

They drive up to a sort of “Lookout point” and park overlooking the glittering city. He says he’s been all over the world, but Henrietta is the only place that feels like home. He feels like he belongs here. But if he belongs here, why does it hurt so much?

SHUT UP AND READ THIS CUTE PART:

“Jane, in this light,” he started, “you … Jesus. Jesus. I’ve got to get my head straight.” He suddenly threw open the door and got out, seizing the roof to pull himself out faster. He slammed the door and then walked around the back of the car; one hand scrubbed through his hair. 

The car was utterly quiet. She heard the buzzing of night insects and singing of frogs and slow chirps of birds who should have known better. Every so often, the cooling engine let out a little sigh like a breath. Gansey didn’t return.

Fumbling in the dark, she pushed open her door. She found him leaning against the back of the car, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m sorry,” Gansey said, not looking at her as she leaned on the car beside him. “That was very rude.” 

Blue thought of a few things to reply, but couldn’t say any of them out loud. She felt like one of the night birds had gotten inside her. It tumbled and fumbled every time she breathed. He’s going to die; this is going to hurt — But she touched his neck, right where his hair was cut evenly above the collar of his shirt. 

He was very still. His skin was hot, and she could very, very faintly feel his pulse beneath her thumb. It wasn’t like when she was with Adam. She didn’t have to guess what to do with her hands. They knew. This was what it should have felt like with Adam. Less like playacting and more like a foregone conclusion. 

He closed his eyes and leaned, just a little, so that her palm was flat on his neck, fingers sprawled from his ear to his shoulder. Everything in Blue was charged. Say something. Say something. 

Gansey lifted her hand gently from his skin, holding it as formally as a dance. He put it against his mouth. Blue froze. Absolutely still. Her heart didn’t beat. She didn’t blink. She couldn’t say don’t kiss me. She couldn’t even form don’t. He just leaned his cheek and the edge of his mouth against her knuckles and then set her hand back. “I know,” he said. “I wouldn’t.” 

Her skin burned with the memory of his mouth. The thrashing bird of her heart shivered and shivered again. “Thanks for remembering.” He looked back over the valley. 

“Oh, Jane.” 

“Oh, Jane, what?” 

“I can’t — we can’t do this to him.” It was jagged inside her. 

“I’m not a thing. To have.” 

“No. Jesus. Of course you’re not. But you know what I mean.” She did. And he was right. They couldn’t do this to him. She shouldn’t do it to herself, anyway. But how it made a disaster of her chest and her mouth and her head. 

“I wish you could be kissed, Jane,” he said. “Because I would beg just one off you. Under all this.” He flailed an arm toward the stars. “And then we’d never say anything about it again.” 

That could’ve been the end of it. I want something more. She said, “We can pretend. Just once. And then we’ll never say anything about it again.” What a strange, shifting person he was. 

The Gansey who turned to her now was a world away from the lofty boy she’d first met. Without any hesitation, she stretched her arms around his neck. Who was this Blue? She felt bigger than her body. High as the stars. 

He leaned toward her — her heart spun again — and pressed his cheek against hers. His lips didn’t touch her skin, but she felt his breath, hot and uneven, on her face. His fingers splayed on either side of her spine. Her lips were so close to his jaw that she felt his hint of stubble at the end of them. It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if she’d done this before and already she longed to do it again. 

Oh, help, she thought. Help, help, help. He pulled away. 

He said, “And now we never speak of it again.”

THIS FUCKING BOOK I SWEAR TO GOD. I read this last night on my phone at like 1am and had to take periodic breaks to breathe and look at the ceiling. This is so fucking sweet. AUGH!!!

Ronan is trying to enjoy watching his Raven hide a cheezeit from him when Kavinsky keeps texting him incoherent shit. Some of it is threatening. Some of it is flirting. They also had a conversation about Kavinsky’s father trying to kill him, so I think this kid is not okay lol. So Ronan falls asleep without the help of the pills and dreams up his FATHER! His father explains that the will has a loophole. “This Will stands as a fact unless a newer document is created” ….. and I instantly feel stupid for not thinking of this sooner. It’s okay. Ronan feels stupid too. It’s like a fun little trick his father played that could have cost the brothers their entire future. THANKS DAD!!

Blue is trying to sleep when her Mom crawls into bed with her and there’s this cute scene where they both realize they’re crying. Blue because she realized she’s in love with Gansey and he’s going to die. Maura because she likes Mr. Gray and she’s worried this Greenmantle dude is going to kill him. 

Mr. Gray gets a call from Greenmantle saying he has 2 days to deliver the Greywaren or he’s going to come get him. Or sic is brother on him. Both are bad.

Adam ends up sleeping for 21 HOURS. When he gets up, Henrietta is preparing for the 4th of July. It’s also his birthday! Either the 4th or the 3rd when he was conked out. The author hurls a bunch of rapid fire information at us here. Like Calla’s office was broken into (wherever she works). A white Mitsubishi with keys in the ignition shows up at Monmouth Manufacturing with a note that says “This one’s for you. Just the way you like it. Fast and anonymous.”

And Gansey goes “I think he needs to come to terms with his sexuality.” LOL

When Adam leaves the psychic house, Persephone leaves shortly after in a taxi in the same direction. I guess we will figure out what that means later. 

Ronan texts Kavinsky and says “Would you stop bringing back dream shit if you knew it was destroying the world?” And Kavinsky goes, “GOD THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.” — so Ronan and Gansey think “Welp. Now we gotta kill him.” (Just kidding, they don’t say that)

Maura, Calla, and Blue show up in their Ford to pick up Ronan and Gansey. The amount of times people climb into cars in this book not knowing why or where they’re going is pretty funny. The boys are like “What is happening??” - the psychics say “Get in bitch. We’re going to the bed and breakfast Gray is staying at!” Just kidding they don’t actually say anything, because the next chapter starts with the boys standing around like “WHY ARE WE HERE?”

There’s a cute bit where Ronan notices Gansey and Blue are staying far away from each other, so they must have had a fight hahaha

I also love this line: 

He [Gansey] was clearly discomfited by what Maura had told him about Adam on the ride over. Ganseys were creatures of habit, and he wanted Adam here, and he wanted Noah here, and he wanted everyone to like him, and he wanted to be in charge.

I love this kid so much. I probably relate to him a little too much.

FINALLY Maura answers everyone’s questions as to why they’re standing in a bed and breakfast room. She says when Mr. Gray comes here, Ronan has to look him in the eye and convince him not to kidnap him. Ronan is like….. “So hit him?” 

“No, not hit him.”

“I punch?”

“No punch. You’re the Greywaren and he was sent here to bring you to some rich evil person. And he’s not the only one. There are people crawling all over this city looking for you.” (I’m paraphrasing all this dialogue, by the way)

“Why don’t we just let him take Kavinsky?” - Blue says.

“If they take that other boy, they’ll be back for the snake.” - says Calla.

Also Kavinsky is too stupid to know he’s hurting the leyline. — Ronan

Then the Gray Man arrives.

And explains that if he doesn’t turn in the Greywaren to this eccentric millionaire collector of magical things, his brother is going to hunt him down and torture and murder him. He reveals to Ronan that it was HE who killed his father (sent by Greenman to send a message to Declan, who he thought knew where the Greywaren was). Ronan, who had been pretty cool up until his point, launches at Gray and they get into a scuffle. Even cute little Chainsaw helps lol. It’s chaos up in this bed and breakfast and when Calla says “You, pretty one! Do something!” Gansey is like “Nah I think this is justified.” — Eventually they’re just panting on the floor. And Gray says that on the 4th of July, he’s going to call his boss and say that he found the Greywaren, but he’s keeping it for himself. And then he’s going to run. 

MEANWHILE. Adam is having a gay old time in the woods. Okay I don’t mean to make light of this. Actually, it’s REALLY NICE to see him so at peace and finally feeling okay with himself, and the world, and detached from the pain he’s been carrying his entire life. I mean a side effect is kind of…. Also being detached from his friends. Which sucks. But everyone knows you need to love yourself before you can love others, so I like this.

Can I also insert a note that NO ONE HAS SEEN NOAH SINCE HE TACKLED THE NIGHT TERROR??? Um guuyysss??????

Alright so Persephone comes out to help, and together they figure out that the leyline is like a frayed wire. So they drive around all afternoon beneath a big dramatic thunderstorm sensing out rocks. Adam can FEEL the leyline and Cabeswater and knows exactly where all of the special rocks are haha they rearrange them in certain ways, or in some cases, take them and put them in the car. 

So Kavinsky’s big 4th of July drug and explosion extravaganza starts. But not before he sends Ronan and threatening text because he has KIDNAPPED MATTHEW. Like an ACTUAL VILLAINOUS ASSHAT. I thought he was just like… Ronan’s rebellious, party hardy friend. Turns out he’s fucking crazy and real mad that Ronan “Didn’t choose him”. 

They show up and see Kavinsky arrive with 10 identical Mitsubishis driven by his friends. Matthew is in one of them. And Kavinsky won’t listen to reason. He pops a green pill and promptly passes out against the car. Blue and Gansey are like ummmmm….okay? But Ronan is like shit shit shit he’s going to Cabeswater. He’s going to bring back something awful. You guys find Matthew. I’ll be right back. And he pops and green pill too. 

I just imagine Gansey and Blue standing there like “UMMMMM????”

Of course through all of this, killing Kavinsky would be a simple solution, but none of our boys are murdererers so…

In the dream world (aka Cabeswater), Ronan finds Kavinsky getting the shit beaten out of him by the trees. They are sick and tired of these punks coming and stealing their magic. 

We get this exchange:

“You don’t have to do this,” Ronan said. 

“There isn’t anything else, man.” 

“There’s reality.” 

Kavinsky laughed the word. “Reality! Reality’s what other people dream for you.” 

“Reality’s where other people are,” Ronan replied. He stretched out his arms. “What’s here, K? Nothing! No one!” 

“Just us.” 

There was a heavy understanding in that statement, amplified by the dream. I know what you are, Kavinsky had said. 

“That’s not enough,” Ronan replied. 

“Don’t say Dick Gansey, man. Do not say it. He is never going to be with you. And don’t tell me you don’t swing that way, man. I’m in your head.” 

“That’s not what Gansey is to me,” Ronan said. 

“You didn’t say you don’t swing that way.” 

Ronan was silent. 

Thunder growled under his feet. “No, I didn’t.”

I love the way homosexuality is handled in this book. There’s not one ounce of cliche.

Kavinsky is strong though, and creates a DRAGON MADE OF FIRE, totally tapping Cabeswater and promptly disappearing back to the real world. Ronan is left alone with the Orphan Girl, who explains to him that “He is the only one”. There may be others in this world that have dream powers, but there’s only one Greywaren. I don’t know what that means. Probably just that he has a special connection with the leyline. 

Kavinsky has totally dried up the leyline magic. Adam can sense it. So using his newfound badass intuition, he arranges the rocks he’s been collecting, POINTS AT THE SKY LIKE A LITERAL MAGICIAN, and gets a lightning bolt to strike in the middle of it. Don’t think too hard about how this happens. Adam is magic now. That’s all we need to know. Ronan, in the dream, in Cabeswater, can SEE ADAM doing this in the real world, and they have an amazing moment of recognition where Adam says “I know it was you who arranged the rent. I figured it out.” But he’s not mad. He’s calm. (Maybe… appreciative?) — and then Adam is like “Now Ronan. Go.”

And with the leyline charged up from the lightning strike (thanks magic Adam!) Ronan tries to think of something to defeat Kavinsky’s dragon. But at the worst possible moment, all he hears is the sound of a night horror. He’s like um, no trees. Bad trees. This is not helpful. 

But the trees reply something to the effect of: A sword is only dangerous in the hands of someone… like… looking to hurt people with it. Or something. DO not fear your night horrors, Ronan. (But in pretty Latin tree speak)

A giant fucking two-headed albino raven manifests.

“Why do you hate you?” (The Orphan girl asks)

Ronan thought about it. The albino night horror swept in, talons opening. 

Ronan stood up, stretching out his arm like he would to Chainsaw. “I don’t,” he said. 

And he woke up.

Love it. Love this metaphor for Ronan coming to terms with himself. (Our religious boi… has a lot going on)

So back in the real world there’s an epic kaiju battle between a fire dragon and a lightning raven and everyone is too drunk and high to notice. They’re all cheering like “WHOA!! Kavinsky’s fireworks are always so crazy!”. Meanwhile Blue and Gansey are running around checking all of the Mitsubishis for Matthew. 

There’s fire everywhere. Everything is on fire and it’s getting worse by the second while Kavinsky stands on the hood of the car losing his god damned mind. He reminds Ronan that he killed his own father. AND EVEN HIS BEST FRIEND Propopenko. Then he just dreamed them back into existence — clever duplicates. This kid is actually insane. 

Finally, they find Matthew in the trunk of one of the cars. They get him out and hit the ground just before the fire dragon careens down toward them. Kavinsky won’t get off the car. And he utters “Life is a nightmare.” Before his own creation kills him. DUDE this kid is messed up. Once he’s dead, all of the dream things go into their coma state. Propopenko’s car crashes because he’s asleep at the wheel. 

Alright so the last knot to tie up is the Gray man. He’s in the dream Mitsubishi. He’s driving down the highway drawing out all the other hit men AND his homicidal brother. This goes on for a while and the author does a great job of building up the tension. They drive and drive and drive. He pulls into a gas station and has a lovely chat with some henchmen, convincing them to give up and go away. 

Then, the moment of truth. 

He has to face his brother, who has tortured him in the past and will surely torture him again. We’re all just dreading this. Like oh my god what’s he gonna do? WHat kind of epic battle are they gonna have in this parking lot? What are we going to have to endure reading as Gray’s brother ties him up and tortures him. 

Welp.

They pull up in their cars, side by side. And Gray’s brother is like “Hellooo brother.” And Gray just…. Reaches for a gun in the passenger's seat and shoots him. Twice. 

He’s dead now. 

All that build up and the guy gets shot and Gray drives off. I laughed out loud at this. Like literally, this is like Whelk dying by getting trampled by random dream beasts. Like… OKAY, WE’LL TAKE IT!!!

In the epilogue, Cabeswater is back. The leyline has been restored and balanced. Ronan and Mathew go get their comatose mother and take her to the forest. The second they arrive, she wakes up. Noah is back!! Ronan dreams a new will that allows him and his brothers to set foot at the Barns whenever they want. But they can’t live there until they’re 18. 

Ronan stares at Adam for an absurd amount of time, noticing how different he looks (now that he’s not depressed or crazy). Noticing how attractive he is. There’s this beautiful line about secrets. And how “Adam Parrish was Ronan’s second secret.” — AWWWWW

Adam shows the gang how the pool in Cabeswater dried up, and now it has revealed a black-rock cave leading deep underground. Gansey is immediately like “Do we go in it? Do we go in now? Glendower down there. I find Glendower.” And Adam is like “I don’t think it’s safe.” — and everyone trusts the boy with a mental link to the magic forest.

This book ends with everyone clamoring back to 300 Fox Way (I think they got a phone call) and they find a tipped over skrying bowl, and a sloppy note from Maura that says “Glendower is underground and so am I.”

DUN DUN DUNNNN THE END!!!!

Well, I just loved this book and I am ecstatic that I am halfway through this series. This world is weird. I love the writing voice. I love these CHARACTERS SO MUCH and I love how much they love each other. They just care about each other SO MUCH. I’m trying to avoid spoilers like crazy while I look at fan art. I am not okay about Gansey being fated to die. I am not okay about him and Blue being so in love and not able to kiss. This series is wrecking me. 

I can’t wait to read the next book and learn how the next villain gets killed anticlimactically lol. I do feel sorry for Kavinsky. He was very troubled. Poor boy had too much money and power and not enough love. And I like that the Gray man is part of the gang now. BUT NOW WE HAVE TO FIND MAURA!!!

Deadass Rating: 8.5/10

Unofficial theme song: “Trying to Sleep” byWolfie’s Just Fine

[theanimalsarecalling]

Adam had seen many of Ronan's dreams made real by now, and he knew how savage and lovely and terrifying and whimsical they could be. But this girl was the most Ronan of any of them that he'd seen. What a frightened monster she was. (TRK chpt 7)

I just read the part in CDTH where Ronan brings Hennessy to Lindenmere to get her to dream. Ronan is harsh with her. Demanding. Utterly unempathetic when she reveals her worst memory. Poor, traumatized Hennessy.

But Opal is there too. Where Ronan is harsh, Opal is gentle. When Ronan lacks empathy, Opal is comforting. Opal knows Hennessy is trying. Opal defends Hennessy. But Ronan thinks of Opal

. . . she couldn't be trusted. She had a soft spot for the downtrodden, being one of them. (CDTH chpt 67)

Throughout the whole series, both TRC and TDT, there is a whole lot of symbolism about masks, all surrounding the Lynch family. Ronan dreams of masks twice in TRC - once that Adam puts on a mask, and once that Declan puts a mask on Matthew. The most terrifying aspect of both dreams, is that the mask, in both dreams, melds into their wearer's faces and becomes a part of them, such that when the mask is torn away, what's left is terrifying and monstrous, even if it is the most true representation of who the person really is.

Awhile ago, Maggie implied that Declan was the most heavily masked of all, when she chose the song "The Mask" by Matt Maeson for him.

But if the CDTH prologue is accurate, aren't all three brothers masked? Masks are a way of both hiding yourself and protecting yourself.

Matthew's mask is the easiest. He is "sweet humored, pliant and gentle." Once he realizes what he is (a dream), he removes his mask himself, showing himself to be an ordinary teenager, desirous of agency and autonomy. Much to Declan's chagrin.

Declan's mask, of dullness, is the most impenetrable. Very little has actually been revealed about him so far. His family (and the reader) don't really know who he is. At this point, Declan's mask has become so much a part of him, that I don't think even Declan knows what lies beneath. But if it's torn away, he's afraid he'll be monstrous to himself. So, nothing to see here.

Ronan is interesting. He defends himself by being "as frightening as possible." His mask is to be harsh, demanding, unempathetic and this is quickly becoming who he is. You see this from his very first scene in RB.

But Ronan has also left clues, lots of clues, as to who he really is. Every single dream is a clue. And Opal is the biggest clue of all.

First of all, Opal is a hybrid creature - goat and human. Ronan is a hybrid too - dream and human. (Or dreamer and Something Else maybe?)

Second, Opal was very much afraid of dreams. She begged Ronan to bring her out of his dreams. She had to be forced into Cabeswater. Later, she only returned to Lindenmere with much coaxing. And yet, dreams are her natural habitat.

Third, Opal is caring and empathetic, qualities which Ronan very much has himself, but only shows to people he is most comfortable with, like his friends, as was gradually revealed throughout TRC. This is the Ronan most readers (including me) fell in love with. This is the Ronan he never shows to Declan.

Opal also has a soft spot for the downtrodden, because she herself is downtrodden. This means Ronan sees himself as downtrodden. He knows people in power want to exploit him. He wants to defend the weak.

But Ronan doesn't trust these qualities. Maybe that's why he dreamt Opal as a girl. He thinks these qualities are weak, liable to get you hurt, inherently feminine. Ronan has always shown a bit of casual misogyny, thanks to American culture and his particular upbringing by Niall, his only real role model.

Which is also interesting, given that the new prologue shows that Niall himself had some traditionally feminine qualities - like wanting a home and a family - making himself pretty for Mór, being openly loving etc. Maybe after she left, and his heart was broken, Niall decided these qualities were weak, liable to get you hurt.

Meanwhile. Ronan's mask is almost as much a part of him as Declan's. But as Calla says to Ronan:

. . . Get rid of that mask. It's a nasty bit of work (The Dream Thieves Chpt 21)

[crimeronan]

Ok so I’m into the dreamer trilogy and haven’t read the Raven cycle...what is Declan’s characterisation/journey there?

THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST ASK I’VE EVER RECEIVED. IMAGINE I’M STANDING WITH MY ARMS SPREAD USING DIFFERENT VOICES AND HAND GESTURES TO REENACT THIS STORY FOR A RESENTFUL CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

also declan’s TRC storyline is like. equal parts horribly fucking sad and unbelievably fucking hilarious so. i will try to strike a Balance

FIRST OFF.  there is exactly one (1) declan POV chapter in the entire series. it happens toward the end of the last book. up until then, everything we know about him comes from the observations and narration of others.

he is also a very minor character.  his importance grows throughout the series, but almost all of his actions happen offscreen.  it’s not until the last book that we know exactly how much he’s been dealing with the whole time.

when he’s introduced in the first book, he appears as a plot device.  here is a two-dimensional horrible controlling hardass who doesn’t give a shit about anything but his future political career.  look at his fake, smug fucking grin.  how did someone like ronan end up with a brother like him??  doesn’t matter.  it’s a convenient excuse for ronan to live with his best friend in a drafty warehouse, which means more room for YA hijinks!

declan’s introduction scene is Embroiled in Capital-D Douchebaggery. according to the narration (from gansey and adam), he loves to fuck women and then never call them back, cozy up to powerful people, and bitch about how ronan’s ruining his life by being sad about their dead parents.  SOME people can just get over their dead parents, ronan!

this intro scene is also Extremely Funny i 100% recommend reading it even if u don’t read the actual series.  ronan makes a nasty comment, declan goes “why are you the way that you are” and tries to salvage his date, gansey utters the phrase “man whore”

then later that night things go like. actually bad.

declan shows up at the same pizza place where ronan is with his friends.  this scene is gansey pov.  gansey runs out to the parking lot to find the two of them Very Literally Trying To Kill Each Other.  you don’t see that violence in cdth - there’s only the TINIEST shadow of it when declan confronts ronan over matthew - so i Cannot Express Enough that someone is going to end up hospitalized at BEST. ronan’s already slammed declan’s head on the car, declan’s already grabbed ronan and beaten the shit out of his face, like.

you do not get good old-fashioned Declan Lynch At His Actual Worst in cdth. u might be thinking, THAT guy???? doing THIS????

oh yeah. things are real bad between declan and ronan.

after gansey breaks up the fight (and gets punched in the face for his trouble, albeit accidentally), declan tells ronan that their dad would be fucking ashamed to see him now & that he’s washing his hands of it & basically if ronan wants to go off and fucking die, he can.

this is like. just a couple months after the magical suicide attempt referenced in cdth

in the aftermath of that scene it becomes clear that ronan absolutely unequivocally 100% will kill himself if he has to live with declan. hence. why he’s living with gansey instead.  gansey spends that whole night petrified that the declan altercation will lead to another attempt, and for Good Reason

so like, that’s how we first meet declan. he’s an uncaring wannabe corporate asshole who does not give a fuck and who only exists to exacerbate ronan’s mental health issues.

but then the opening of book 2 gets real interesting.

book 2 is where we start learning more about the lynch family.  we learn that ronan’s father was a dreamer who sold his creations on the black market, we learn that that’s why he was murdered. we learn that ronan’s a dreamer too. we learn that there are very powerful people looking for the greywaren, an artifact that takes objects from dreams. those powerful people just don’t realize it’s a person, yet.

so here’s the assassin who killed niall lynch.

he goes to declan’s dorm.

with everything we know about declan, the kid should be completely unprepared.  he can box, but the assassin knows that, so there’s no real advantage.  he’s alone, and he doesn’t have an escape route.

declan pulls out a gun.

this is an unexpected turn of events.

unfortunately he ends up getting beaten half to death with the butt of said gun, because he loses the ensuing physical struggle for the weapon.  the assassin is like, i need the greywaren.  declan is like, i know it exists but i don’t know what it is.  i’ll find it for you.  i’ll get it to you.  then you’ll leave me the fuck alone

now with everything we know of declan at this point - his attitude toward ronan, his general demeanor, and this new knowledge that he knew about the black market - there’s one obvious question.

will declan sell ronan out if he finds out about the dreaming.

and like, okay. their relationship is antagonistic in cdth but it is NOT what it is in trc. believe me when i tell you that at that point, when you’re reading, you can pretty reasonably go, “oh, god.  oh god.  oh god please no one ever tell declan what the greywaren is.  oh god.”

declan has some other interactions with ronan and the gang throughout the book, mostly where he’s just a hardass who tells ronan to stop causing trouble.  adam’s the only one who notices that declan is scared.  like bone-deep shaking to the core petrified.  about Something.

probably getting beaten to within an inch of his life by the man who murdered his father.  that’s the reasonable reader conclusion.

so imagine how everything changes when you find out that declan already knows.  that declan’s known about ronan’s dreaming for longer than ronan has.  that declan knew exactly what and who the greywaren was, and he lied to a man who was ready to torture him for information, and he got away with it.

suddenly a lot of things recontextualize.

“keep your head down and stop making trouble”? people are gonna NOTICE your magic bullshit, ronan, we do not have time for this!

“stop hanging with that loser druggie friend of yours”? you mean the loser druggie friend who sells on the magic black market and doesn’t care about protecting himself or anyone else?

“i got super weird for no reason about ronan sleeping close to adam”? i don’t have fucking TIME to be homophobic i’m busy with your POTENTIAL TO MANIFEST NIGHT TERRORS IN FRONT OF WITNESSES IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

“i’ll find out what the greywaren is and bring it to you”? i’ll die. i’m making a bargain to die. i’m never giving you the greywaren and i know you’re going to kill me about it and that’s fine as long as my brothers are safe

ronan doesn’t know that he dreamed matthew.  declan knows.  he’s known the whole time.  declan tells ronan in book 3.  and then things recontextualize even further, because ronan’s death is also matthew’s, and matthew IS close to declan in trc.

but declan never tells the goddamn truth unless it’s his last option.  he doesn’t tell ronan that he knows about the dreaming and he doesn’t tell ronan what specifically wants to hurt him and the lack of communication fucking destroys both of them.

in the last book, ronan realizes declan loves him.

more than that, he realizes declan’s loved him the whole time.

this is when declan finally tells the truth.  things are getting bad, plot-wise, and declan is scared, so he comes clean.  he tells ronan that niall specifically tasked declan with protecting ronan from the market.  he begs ronan to run from the danger.  “let’s pour gasoline on everything dad left and start over.”

this is also when ronan realizes that declan’s childhood was very different from ronan’s own.  and that niall and aurora lynch were not the same people to declan that they were to ronan.  and that their father’s decisions are what’s driven the wedge between him and declan all this time

(he’s still struggling with the cognitive dissonance of this in cdth. i don’t think he knows how to adjust his perception of declan to fit this new information.)

aaaaand the final scene with declan makes me cry every time i read it so instead of summarizing, here’s the important part:

Ronan delivered a sharp tap to the object, and a small cloud of fiery orbs sprayed up with a sparkling hiss.

“Jesus, Ronan!” Declan jerked his chin away.

“Please. Did you think I’d blow your face off?”

He demonstrated it again, that quick tap, that burst of brilliant orbs. He tipped it into Declan’s hand, and before Declan could say anything, jabbed it to activate it once more.

Orbs gasped up into the air. For a moment, he saw how his brother was caught inside them, watching them soar furiously around his face, each gold sun firing gold and white, and when he saw the spacious longing in Declan’s face, he realized how much Declan had missed by growing up neither dreamer nor dreamt. This had never been his home. The Lynches had never tried to make it Declan’s home.

“Declan?” Ronan asked.

Declan’s face cleared. “This is the most useful thing you’ve ever dreamt. You should name it.”

“I have. ORBMASTER. All caps.”

“Technically you’re the orbmaster though, right? And that’s just an orb.”

“Anyone who holds it becomes an ORBMASTER. You’re an ORBMASTER right now. There, keep it, put it in your pocket. D.C. ORBMASTER.”

Declan reached out and scuffed Ronan’s shaved head. “You’re such a little asshole.”

The last time they’d stood on this roof together, their parents had both been alive, and the cattle in these fields had been slowly grazing, and the world had been a smaller place. That time was gone, but for once, it was all right.

The brothers both looked back over the place that had made them, and then they climbed down from the roof together.

[spiltscribbles]

Okay but best friends Remus and Regulus 😭 Regulus being protective of Remus towards his own brother is comedy gold

Referencing This Post

OMFG BABEY!!!! I KNOWWWWW!!!!

I absolutely am MAD over the idea over their dynamic!!! It just feels so wonderful to me! They’re both so dry and sarcastic IMHO and both seem to have a tendency to stay reserved and aloof, especially in front of folks who they don’t consider important to them, only real when they’re around  friends and family. It reminds me a tun of the back and forth of Declan and Adam IMHO, especially that one scene in TRB (Or maybe Dream Thieves?? IDK i’m dumb) when Adam is taking both him and Ronan to task— like yes boo defend your boyfriend to his over baring brother but also criticize him, bahaha. God I hope that we get so much more of that in Mr Impossible!!!

But also like with Regulus, I love Declan to bits and always have hahaha 

But back to Remus and Regulus being bros, I just see them having their own language and such a quick wit and banter with one another and idk in my head from that post, I see them befriending one another accidentally with like Remus maybe taking Regulus’s typical table at the library or campus coffee shop, and Regulus— being the highfaluting son of aristocracy that he is— goes over to give him a quiet tongue lashing, and Remus is just absolutely ignoring his rant while he continues reading his textbook and sipping his caramel macchiato and when Regulus is done he’s like, “Grab an extra seat or leave me the hell alone,” so obviously Regulus is like, *Finally someone who’s my level of bitch* and they fucking vibe.

And then it’s like senior year, and they’ve been living together for like three semesters, and Sirius— who’s basically like Regulus’s pseudo parent because both of their’s snuffed it and Sirius is nearly a decade his senior— pops by randomly from the other end of town, because he needs like Regulus’s passport or some shit to plan for their vacation with Lily and James during Christmas and it’s the first time he’s visited during school term because they live in the same damn city and whatever.

And listen Linda!!!! Homie did not expect to open the door only to be smacked in the face with an entire fucking entree!!! A five course meal!! A babe to have shamed all babes!!! And he’s like gobsmacked and moving his mouth and trying to make words happen, and Remus is just like, *Holy fucking shit is Regulus’s older brother so damn hot.* And like obviously trying to figure out how to get railed and all that fun stuff. And then obviously Regulus would walk in, carrying take out, and he’d give Sirius a long suffering sigh for not calling or texting before hand. And then he would watch the way his older brother is so obviously trying to impress his roommate/best friend, talking about his degrees and his job and some batshit  case Regulus knows he’s already finished with like a month ago. So obviously he has to pop like five Advils because damn it his brother is trying to get into Remus’s pants and it’s a whole shit show.

This would probably include protective Regulus, and preening/pining Sirius, and Remus wondering how he could make the Black brothers dance like monkeys for him that particular day hahahahaha

Okay also, this reminded me of reading this absolutely delicious FIC from the total babe @livelovelupin  »  Fate and Other Ambiguous Notions !!!!  Ithas Slytherin!Remus, and Regulus and Remus being besties, and Sirius being a pining fool!! And it’s everything!!

Ugh, y’all I really want to write something like this now laksdjglkasdghoiaefjdklsghzlk.,gsjalhgjk 

[ganseybois]

an aged-up declan x gansey prompt for @we--are---not--afraid (who didnt even ask for this LMAO) but because this is where we are now and i’m feeling tired and chaotic so

Richard Gansey III didn’t want to be here, doing this, but ultimately he had decided he no longer had control over himself. There was no other explanation for what was happening, and how fucking often it was happening.

He felt so out of his own body that he had even been swearing more. But he supposed that’s what happened to you when you started sleeping with a Lynch brother. It started somewhere toward the end of Adam’s time at university, where they were all gearing up to get ready for the rest of their lives. Adam to return home, Blue and Henry planning trips and dreams, and Ronan preparing to spend the rest of his life with the man he loved. Where was Gansey? For some reason, he had felt unhinged. And when one was unhinged, they went to the Lynch brothers, and more often than not that led to two things: drinking, or sex.

He had chosen the latter.

The first time Gansey and Declan Lynch had slept together, it had been as disorienting as it had been pleasurable. They both assumed it was a one-night stand, something that was fantastic but would never happen again because it couldn’t. Because this was a dangerous line to walk. This was crossing some kind of code, probably, with Ronan. But it had just been too damn good to stop. So their one-night stand turned into something regular, where one of them called the other for what they needed, and before they knew it, they were casually sleeping together. Gansey knew he had to stop it but he had not yet found the courage. Every time he tried to talk to Declan about it, Declan would distract him, and he was just so damn good at what he did that Gansey didn’t fucking know how to stop.

But he was here now, at Declan’s annoyingly beautiful home, ready to try and stop it again. Matthew wouldn’t be home, he was living with a girl now, which meant he could talk to Declan privately. Talk. Talk, and only talk.

Gansey took in a deep breath and exhaled before he rang the doorbell. When Declan opened to him, Gansey had to remind himself immediately: it doesn’t matter that he looks like this, do not have sex with him.

Declan’s curls were, as always, perfectly tousled. He had the same straight nose Gansey had, the kind that hadn’t been broken upwards of three times the way Ronan’s had. He was annoyingly handsome, standing there in his casual clothes. When he wasn’t wearing a suit is when Gansey liked Declan best, in the same way that Declan liked Gansey best when he was wearing just jeans and a t-shirt. Gansey didn’t like that either—the very fact that they had things they liked best about each other meant that this had already gone too far.

“Hello,” Declan grinned, and it was so knowing that Gansey almost gave in right then and there. “I saw you this morning, I didn’t think you’d need it so soon.”

Gansey scoffed, trying to downplay the blush rising up his neck. “I wouldn’t think so highly of yourself, if I were you.”

“Oh?” Declan grinned, hooking his index finger down Gansey’s jeans, tugging at him. “I have video evidence that would prove otherwise.”

Gansey’s blush was disgustingly obvious now. “You will never show that to anyone.”

“No,” Declan agreed. “That’s just for when I’m lonely.”

Gansey cleared his throat, feeling hot. “We need to talk.” he closed the door behind him, Declan already leading him to the office. He must have been doing work.

“About what?” Declan asked, leading Gansey over to the desk. His laptop wasn’t there, but there were some books and papers scattered on the desk. A little neater than Gansey’s chaotic workstation back at Monmouth though. He pressed Gansey against it so his backside was digging into the edge. Gansey didn’t know what he was doing, but this time, he would talk to him.

“I just...” he frowned when Declan took off his shirt. “I don’t think this is a good idea, the two of us.” Declan, who was a boxer just like Ronan, had an impressive body. It made Gansey’s head spin.

“Why’s that?” Declan asked, his tone serious, but his smile suggested that he was mocking Gansey. He unbuttoned Gansey’s jeans.

“Well because,” Gansey swallowed, his hands suddenly unable to move to stop Declan from what he was doing. His hand had already slipped past Gansey’s underwear. He let out a long exhale, irritated. “Ronan would be furious.”

“What else is new?” Declan began to stroke him.

Gansey clutched the edge of the desk. Gansey sometimes wondered if Declan was also a magician. “We don’t even like each other.”

“You don’t have to like me to get fucked by me, Gansey.” He leaned forward, his mouth by Gansey’s ear. “And I think it’s very clear that you really fucking like me.”

Gansey wanted to say something witty, something smart, call him a name. But none of those things were really Gansey. So he did what he had already done a million times now and gave up, gave in to what he wanted. He pressed his mouth against Declan’s, moving up on the desk so that he was sitting on it, crushing papers underneath him. Declan was quite vocal about his fantasies, and Gansey wondered for a moment if doing it on the desk was another one of his. Knowing he had Gansey on the place where he worked.

“Jesus,” Gansey choked out as Declan tore his jeans off. They were moving fervently, as if they had been apart weeks rather than a few short hours. Declan had stashed lube in one of the cabinets of the desk, which confirmed Gansey’s suspicion that this fell into one of Declan’s fantasies.

It was funny, how Declan on the outside was a polite, presidential-looking sort, all business. But when it came to this, when it was just about them getting what they wanted out of each other, they both became other people.

“You’re still so open,” Declan murmured in his ear.

Gansey didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of moaning, he had already failed so much today, so he just grabbed Declan's face and brought him in for a passionate kiss, tongues clashing, each of them trying to gain ground on the other. It happened all so fast, Gansey being opened up, Declan putting on a condom, pushing in, knocking the wind right out of Gansey. He let slip a moan this time, right into their kiss, and that made Declan snap his hips so he was all the way in.

They both swore at the same time, but Declan smiled. “I like you like this.” he moved slowly. Gansey felt like someone was sitting on his chest. He was even having trouble sitting properly, the papers underneath him making it difficult. “Pliant, open, just full of want.”

Gansey wanted to argue, but the truth was, Gansey’s entire life had been full of want. Want for something more, something magical, and right now, something so pleasurable that it messed with his damn brain.

“Declan,” Gansey said kindly. “Please shut up.”

Declan laughed. “Yes, my king.”

Gansey nearly blew it right then and there. He tried to force that sentence out of his mind and instead focus on the sweet, sweet slide of Declan Lynch moving in and out of him. The way his back, legs, and ass were all hurting a little from the wood. How that even made it better. He wrapped his legs around Declan, one arm slung over his neck, kissing his shoulder, his neck.

Gansey shivered, a thought teasing him.

“You okay?” Declan asked, slowing down.

“Don’t stop.” Gansey breathed. “I just...” he put his forehead against Declan’s. “Next time, wear your suit while you fuck me here.”

“Oh, God,” Declan moaned, roughly thrusting, making Gansey whine. Declan soon began to chase that sound out of Gansey over and over, hitting that sweet spot that made Gansey want to scream.

It was over embarrassingly quickly, even for Gansey. He really couldn’t hide how much he wanted this, how good it felt. The way he enjoyed the sound of Declan’s skin hitting his, the way Declan knew that if he sucked at a spot on Gansey’s neck as he fucked him, it would bring Gansey closer faster. He liked when Declan didn’t listen to him and didn’t shut up, and instead whispered everything Gansey pretended he didn’t want to hear. It was all too much, and all too good.

“Come on,” Declan put his hand between them, wrapping it around Gansey’s dick.

Gansey tried to kiss him but Declan pulled away. “Wha—”

Declan’s smile was not so businesslike. In fact, it reminded him a bit of Ronan. “I want to see your face this time.”

Gansey felt scandalized. And then he felt stupid for feeling such a way. But he had to admit, it was a turn-on, Declan wanting to watch him climax, the two of them never breaking eye contact. It was even more pleasurable because his own climax seemed to spur on Declan who became ruthless with his thrusts, and as quickly as it had begun, it was suddenly over.

“What the fuck.”

Gansey and Declan’s heads snapped over to Ronan Lynch who was standing in the doorway, who looked just about ready to commit a violent crime.

“Ronan—”

He snarled at his brother. “I’ll kill you.”

“Ronan, wait—”

Declan pulled out too quickly and they scrambled for their clothes, and Ronan was walking over and Gansey did the only thing he could think to do because Ronan was raising his damn fist, and stood right in front of Declan, putting his hands up.

Ronan stopped.

Quickly, Gansey said, “Ronan, don’t.”

Ronan’s entire body spasmed. “Don’t use that voice with me.” It was the one he always used when the Lynch brothers were about to have a throwdown. “What’s he done to make you fuck him?”

Declan scoffed. “I was doing the fucking.”

Ronan stepped forward again but Gansey pressed his body against him, pushing him back. “Ronan, Jesus, nothing. Is it impossible to believe that I do this freely?” He felt a little more like himself now, now that Declan had, God help him, taken care of him.

Ronan looked like he wanted to throw up. After all, he had just walked in on his brother and best friend having sex, and judging from his expression, Gansey had been right and that this did seem to violate some kind of code between them. Gansey expected Ronan to yell, or push him aside and actually punch Declan in the face (it did make Gansey secretly happy that Ronan was angrier with Declan than with him), but Ronan did none of that.

He looked truly disgusted, but said, “Really?” he motioned to the two of them. “Are you sure?” He was, very clearly, only talking to Gansey. They had spoken badly about him enough times for Gansey to understand where Ronan’s confusion was coming from.

“As sure as one can be considering the situation.”

Annoyed, Ronan snapped, “I don’t know what that means.”

“I still don’t know what he and I mean.” Gansey stressed.

Ronan’s frown remained, but after looking between the two of them a few more times he mumbled, “Well, I’ll definitely have nightmares tonight. But fine. Whatever.”

Declan, who looked just as angry with Ronan as Ronan was with him, muttered back, “I wasn’t aware that I needed my younger brother’s blessing.”

“You do when you’re fucking my best friend,” Ronan growled. “I came here to plan Matthew’s birthday with you, and now instead I have to throw up into a toilet.”

“Grow up Ronan, we all have the same parts.”

Ronan looked at him incredulously. “What the hell does that even have to do with it? I still don’t want to see you having sex.”

“So then leave.”

“Fine! Fucker.” And leaving Gansey standing there, with his hair standing every which way, the middle Lynch brother stormed out, calling out a goodbye to Gansey, slamming the door hard behind him. And then he opened it to slam it again, just to piss Declan off (who did, in fact, yell out a curse word). Gansey wanted to be surprised by the sudden abrupt ending to the conversation, but this is what life was when you were involved with not one, but two Lynch brothers.

“Well,” Declan said. “That went well.”

Gansey turned around, and found himself grinning. “You’re an idiot.”

“You know, you don’t talk to anyone else so rudely.”

“No one else gets under my skin the way you do.”

Declan Lynch smiled, and it was, unfortunately, very beautiful. “Lucky me.”

[crookswithbooks]

Never the Favorite

Day Five - Declan has always hated the holidays but when Ronan brings a new person into the chaos of their lives he finds himself learning to finally appreciate them.

Declan had never liked the winter.

For as long as he could remember, the entire winter/Christmas season served only to be a nightmare and constant reminder of how estranged their family truly was. When they were younger and Niall was still alive, things had gone smoother but there will still small little inordinacies that you would find if you were willing to look close enough. Whether it was the tree that lit up despite having no visible lights, or the way he was often called away for “business reasons”, there was always something that gave away how different they really were.

Then, after Niall had died, Christmas had only worsened. Ronan was angrier now, less manageable, and Matthew would question why they didn’t have so-and-so decorations that year, or why whoever’s present showed up weeks after the actual date of Christmas. Pulling their family together for the holidays felt more like a chore than a vacation nowadays, and on top of school and dealing with Niall’s messy seconds from the fairy market, Declan didn’t have the energy or time for it. The return of January was always a relief.

This year, however, they had Adam with them. Declan had planned on just Matthew and him for this year, deciding he would skip the obligatory invite that Ronan had ignored for years. Instead, it was Ronan who approached Declan, asking about what their plans for Christmas were. 

“I figured we would just have a small celebration,” Declan had replied skeptically, unsure where this was going but not foolish enough to get his hopes up. “Just family.”

Even as he had said the words, they had been hollow in his mouth. “Family” really meant Matthew and him, something that had been understood for years now. Now though, he decided to stick with the vague term.

“I’m going to bring Adam,” Ronan said as fact, ignoring the fact that Declan had said just family and that Ronan didn’t come to Christmas anymore. He had already walked away before Declan could even attempt to reply.

Now Declan found himself standing at the kitchen counter of the Barns, a tray of cookies on one side of him and hot chocolate that burbled in a pot on the stove on the other. He had been up since five in the morning preparing the abandoned space for guests, and now, five o’clock on Christmas Eve, he exhaustedly finished the last of the tasks he had set for himself. Matthew had been recruited to help out at first until it was revealed that Matthew’s method of helping out was singing Christmas carols and undoing all the work Declan had put time and effort into. He had quickly been removed from helping after that.

Ronan was on Adam duty and was currently picking him up from Stanford. The two should be on their way home about now. Declan had been skeptical about Adam at first, the one person aside from Gansey and Matthew that Ronan had chosen to let into his heart. He had been worried that Adam would break the shakily taped together pieces that made up Ronan and that Declan would have to put him back together after Adam left as he had when Niall had died—not that he had done a very good job of it then. Once he saw the way Adam looked at Ronan, however, like a starving man gazing upon an unexpected feast, he allowed himself to relax a little. Adam loved his brother, that much was clear, and he made him happy. Declan hadn’t seen Ronan happy in so long that he almost hadn’t recognized it when it surfaced.

Now he wasn’t worried Adam would break Ronan. He was worried he would destroy him.

The knock at the door signaled the arrival of the couple in question. Declan smiled, knowing that the courtesy of knocking was Adam’s doing; Ronan hadn’t knocked on any door since he was five. He smoothed out his suit, a gentle gray that Matthew said made him look like a corpse and Ronan said made him look like a douche. He turned off the heat on the stove, whirling around the corner and opening the door.

One of Ronan’s hands was placed securely on Adam’s hip, the protective curl of his fingers a warning sign to anyone who would raise an objection. Adam’s head was turned partway towards Ronan, his lips open on an unspoken sentence, but he cut himself off when he noticed Declan.

“Oh,” Adam said, the word perfectly formed. “Hey.” He glanced up and down at Declan, an involuntary action, and frowned a little. “I didn’t realize it was a formal occasion.”

“It’s not,” Ronan interjected before Declan could say anything. He himself was dressed in a rumpled jacket and jeans that were torn from years of Gansey and he’s excursions. He was wearing neither a hat nor gloves, though Declan noticed the near imperceptible shiver caused from their absence. Adam was wearing a leather jacket that, instead of dwarfing his small frame as it would have a year ago, fit snugly around his torso. He seemed almost more grown-up than when he had left for college, and Declan could see from the way that Ronan stared at him that he had noticed too.

“Matthew’s upstairs,” Declan said, stepping aside to let them inside. “I’ll go grab him. Dinner should be ready soon, I’m just finishing up the last little touches. Feel free to make yourself at home.”

“It is my home, dickweed,” Ronan muttered, only to have Adam’s elbow dig gently and discreetly into his ribs. Ronan elbowed him back, but the gesture was affectionate without any real malice. The two made their way into the kitchen, bickering all the way.

Upstairs, Matthew was staring out his window. His attention was held by the snow falling in soft spirals to the ground, some of it pasting against the window. He held his hand up to it, so that each one of his fingertips was touching a different snowflake. Declan watched him for a moment before coughing, knocking on the doorframe. “Adam and Ronan are here.”

Matthew didn’t look away from the window, though his hand fell limply onto his lap. “I don’t want to have Christmas this year.”

Declan paused. Since the moment he was born, Matthew had been Declan’s to look after, a precious new baby brother, a dream in the form of a boy. Whenever Matthew had a problem it was Declan who fixed it, quickly and unquestionably because the reality of Matthew’s pain was one he never wanted to face. When Niall died, Declan had been there to curb the storm. When Aurora came back, Declan was content to sit back and let Matthew have a mother again. When Aurora was gone he was also the first to come to his side. He gave Matthew everything he wanted because when Matthew was smiling he was happy and when Matthew was happy Declan could be okay.

Now though, he felt his stomach clench unpleasantly and he dropped his hand from the doorframe. He sat down next to Matthew, the mattress creaking under the combined weight, and stared out the window with him. “Why not?”

“Because I’m a lie,” Matthew said, and with those simple words the world shattered around Declan. “I don’t even know if I like Christmas or if that was just something that was programmed into me. What if all the happiness I’ve felt with you and with dad and with Ronan was just a fairy tale that you guys let me live? What if none of it was ever real?”

The only one who hadn’t known Matthew was a dream had been Matthew himself, and it was a secret that the two brothers had kept for seventeen years. Both of them had agreed that the information was something that Matthew was better off not knowing—it was about the only thing they did agree on. Unfortunately, secrets are only kept for so long, especially when they relate to the person in question. Declan had never seen Matthew as desolate as he had been that day on the dock when he first found out about his true identity, and he had promised that he would never let him look that way again.

It was a promise that he realized now, looking at the pinch between Matthew’s eyebrows and his bitter frown, that he had failed.

“None of it was a lie,” Declan said after a moment, unable to look at Matthew as he spoke. “Ronan can’t influence your decisions. He only brought you into creation, like a mother would.”

“But that’s not how his dreams work,” Matthew protested. “A mother doesn’t get to choose her child—Ronan chose me. He…” He struggled for a moment to find the right words to explain and Declan waited with a growing sense of unease. “He picked my eye color and the shape of my hair and the fact that I’m happy and that you’re not and that I love him and that you don’t—”

“I love him,” Declan interrupted, Matthew’s words hurting more because he could tell he meant them. “Why would you say I don’t love him?”

“You’re always fighting,” Matthew muttered, picking at a scab on his arm. “And yelling at each other. The only time you ever talk to each other is because of me. I know that. I’m not that dumb. And I say I love him all the time. You never say that you do—not once.”

From downstairs, Declan could hear the clattering of plates that meant Ronan and Adam had started to set the table, and the soft murmuring of voices. He forced himself to look at Matthew, needing him to understand him, needing this Christmas to be a good one because if it wasn’t it meant that they truly could never be normal and Declan didn’t want to have to deal with that fact.

“I do love Ronan—and you. I love you both because you’re my family. And just because you’re a dream doesn’t mean that you’re not a person. Ronan’s dreams don’t always do what he wants them to. They evolve and they grow into something more than just a dream, in the same way that people do. You’re just as real as any of the rest of us. You’re just… different.”

Matthew glanced up at him shyly, a child uncertain at the love of a parent. “Do you… do you really think that? That I can be a real person?”

“You are a real person,” Declan assured him with a confidence he wished he could feel. “Now let’s go have dinner with the others. I’m sure they’re wondering where we are.”

Adam and Ronan were kissing when they finally came downstairs, though kissing was a polite word for what they were actually doing. Evidently the two had figured that Declan and Matthew wouldn’t be joining them for quite a while, as Adam’s body was pressed against the corner of one of the living room walls, Ronan’s body bearing down on him. From the looks of it, Adam’s tongue was halfway down his brother’s throat and Ronan’s hands were unaccounted for under the other boy’s shirt.

Declan opened his mouth to announce his presence, but before he could diffuse the situation delicately, Matthew bounded into the room oblivious to the scene, and starting serving himself up mashed potatoes. Adam jerked back from Ronan, the tips of his ears burning an embarrassing shade of red. Ronan simply leaned back, seemingly uncaring of the two new people in the room with them.

“Table’s set,” Ronan said, shark teeth flashing, a dare for Declan to say anything.

“Thank you,” Declan said coolly, not rising to the bait. “Matthew and I were just having a talk. Sorry to take so long.”

“I’m sorry—that wasn’t—” Adam blustered through a couple more half-sentences before Declan’s smile assured him it was nothing he wasn’t already aware of, knowledge that did nothing to help Adam’s already mortified state.

Dinner, usually a quiet affair for such events, was unusually lively. Ronan and Adam fell into easy conversation with Matthew joining after a moment, the boy seeming to have no end of things to talk about. Even Declan himself managed to get a sentence in or two without having his head chopped off, mostly due to the inclusion of Adam who defused most of Ronan’s snarky remarks.

In fact, as the evening went on Declan found himself having a genuinely good time. Adam and Matthew softened Ronan’s sharp edges, the presence of two of his favorite people together serving to curb his usual anger. There were even moments in the night when Ronan would laugh at a joke Declan made or respond to one of his questions genuinely without being his usual asshole self.

They ate cookies and drank hot cocoa that Ronan had apparently spiked with something, a fact Declan didn’t learn until the warmth in his gut was too pleasant for him to be sincerely angry about it. Matthew was the first to fall asleep, the unexpected alcohol being too much for him, and Ronan and Adam quickly followed pursuit. Ronan’s rested on Adam’s collarbone, their two bodies intertwined on the couch that was to be a makeshift guest bed, and Declan listened to their breathing slowly even out into a gentle hum.

Declan stood up, drawing a blanket over Matthew and going about the process of cleaning up and wrapping presents to put under the tree. Half an hour later, he stood over the pile of bodies in the living room and wondered at the people who had slowly become his family, his real family. Never before had Declan felt like he belonged, always seeing himself as a protector to his brothers and merely a colleague to his parents. Throughout the years, Christmas after Christmas had gone by, and every time Declan only found himself feeling worse as the night went on. In that moment, however, with Matthew’s face smiling and serene in sleep, and the sight of Ronan and Adam curled protectively about one another, he realized he had finally discovered a family that he could not only care for but that might care for him back.

He decided to join them in the living room instead of going to his bed like usual, and as he lay besides Matthew’s gently snoring body, he found himself content for the first time in his life.

[off-in-the-moors]

Joseph Kavinsky analysis, part 1

aka how did I get here and why is he the reason

Warnings: spoilers for the whole Raven Cycle, mentions of: drug-use, abuse, death, murder, homophobic slurs, xenophobia

Part 1 // Part 2

After finishing The Raven Cycle and analyzing every chapter, character and the overarching plot with my friend, we were left feeling empty. It's been few months, I kept looking-up more TRC related things, other people's opinions, look through fandom content and even read some post from the author's, now deleted, tumblr account, trying to find answers to why I'm feeling like this. Why the books seem to decline for me in quality as I kept reading? Why I can't see Ronan in the same light as the rest of the fandom? Why I couldn't like the author? And the answer was looking me in the eyes the whole time.

"Depending on where you began the story, it was about Joseph Kavinsky."

I loved his character from the moment we met him in The Dream Thieves and still think about him to this day. But why? In a way, Kavinsky is too familiar to me, from his attitude, through appearance to his voice. It’s like I knew him, and this isn’t surprising. I met/saw Kavinskys on the streets, I know Kavinskys, and I was a Kavinsky once in my life. Although I'm the opposed to him, I still sympathies with him and understand how it feels to be in dark places in your life. And I'm not the only one, many people adore him and don't deny his actions to be terrible. But on the other side, the majority of fans hates him and titles him "the worst/most evil antagonist of the series". But why? What about K makes him so polarizing? The simple answer is: the way he was presented and the function he played in the plot. Even then, K's whole arc in TDT was handled horribly and damaged the way readers will view, not only people like K but also themselves. This and also future posts, I’ll be analyzing everything relied to K, including his treatment after book's release by the author and what some deleted scenes and unused ending can shine on.

This is part 1 of a series of posts to come.

This part is about the narrative and characters views of Kavinsky.

Narrative and characters

Narrative is a powerful tool of telling a story, well crafted and coupled with character's internal-voice makes the reader view the story under different light. In a PoV of one character, one thing might bring-up different emotions and ideas, than the others. Exploring relationships and events differ, because everybody experience it differently. But problem begins when the narrative forces a reader to a opinion, without backing it up with reasons or giving a opposing one. In case of Joseph Kavinsky, before we properly meet him, we are told by the characters to hate him and the narrative backs them up in reasons to hate him. All the reasons given to us at that time, boil down to "I heard a rumor."

Gansey hates him, because "There was nothing about Kavinsky that wasn’t despicable" and "he thinks life is a music video". He doesn't want Ronan to associated with him, which is connected with him covering and getting Ronan's ass for the mess he made, having him project his anger and frustration he has with Ronan on to K, who part-takes in the same activities and probably with Ronan, is understandable. But I didn't expect much from a guy who: payed the school officials so they won't kick Ronan out; insulted Adam and throw Adam’s abuse at his face, just to instant of apologizing to him, make a pity party for himself (also having Adam apologies to Gansey for his rightful outburst isn't okay), is fine with having a romantic relationship with Blue while she's still with Adam, hurting him even further but makes it all about himself, etc. Him hating K, just because of his lifestyle, made sense. But were the line was crossed, was when he started to decide on other people's worth. Lines like "we matter" (on which I'll extend later in the post) or "Ronan is fixable and has a soul [Kavinsky doesn't]", were used not only to show what Gansey himself thinks of K (he isn't a human being to him), but also demonize K and make the reader not consider him an equal to the Gangsey (a teenage).

Blue hates him, because he's yet another Raven Boy. Her hatred comes mostly from her distance for them, rich boys with privilege to which Gansey gang is an exception (although two out of four are exactly the kind she hates, and she told Noah directly she wouldn't be friends with him if he was alive) (There can be made a whole post about Blue's hypocrites regarding Raven Boys, but this isn't it). She also talks about how she doesn't feel comfortable around K and "if she couldn’t forgive Kavinsky for always managing to make her feel so insignificant", which makes sense. But while describing him, she calls him "a import from somewhere else", not only lessening him as a person but also making a xenophobic comment, noting his long nose as one of the factors (you could say, she meant him being from New Jersey, but you don't "import" stuff from inside a country, you only "import" from abroad and K is Bulgarian, doesn't matter if he's an immigrant or just has Bulgarian roots). Later, while discussing what to do with K draining the ley lines, Greyman offers to talk to him, to which Blue asks him "can you make him feel worthless while you do?”. Yes, she asked a hit-man, who killed not only Niall Lynch but also multiple people (including three on pages, which was described in the case of the ones breaking into Montmouth) for money. (Yes, fans say it's fine he murdered Niall, because he was a dick and horrible father, but what we forget is that it wasn't a fast death. It was slow and brutal, having him bludgeoned to send a message to Declan. No "he was a weapon in Greenmatle's hand" can excuse it.). Plus, he beat-up and threatened Declan with a gun if he doesn't give him the Greywaren. "Making him feel worthless" can only mean the worst. Kavinsky was a asshole, but he didn't deserved that. Also Blue gives the idea to give Kavisnky to the Greyman instant of Ronan, which was shot down, but not because it's horrible, inhuman and they can't decide on someone else's life, but because they think Greenmantle's people will come back also for Ronan. They were ok, with K being basically a scapegoat so Ronan will live.

Adam just "hates that prick" and "looked at the table with a studied disinterest" when K approached their table at Nino's, those are his only interaction in anything Kavinsky related (In a part regarding the "original" ending, we'll see it wasn't always the case.).

Noah barely exists in the series after The Raven Boys and never comes in contact with K or gives any opinion on him, outside of "ducked his head down into his shoulders, but couldn't take his eyes off the newcomer".

Ronan's relation with K could be its own post all together and there already are some good post about it, but for this one, I'll only mention few things. He gives us a very "I hate him but I'm into this lifestyle" attitude. He races against K but doesn't want to have anything to do with him or he's "dogs". (Yes, Dream Packs canon name is "Kavinsky's pack of dogs" as Ronan calls them. Ironically, Ronan gets angry then Declan and K called him "Gansey's dog" but is fine when Gansey calls him "his dog".) He never thanked or acknowledged K saved his life from the Night Horror. He accepted K's help in dreaming-up the new Pig but afterwords ditches him without even a slit gratefulness (his motivation being remembering Gansey's words), and mocks that K thought there could be anything between them (friendship or relationship, it dependents how you interpret it), turning this into just using K to get what he wanted. And yes, what K did while Ronan slept (tracing Ronan's back tattoo with his finger) was unacceptable, if it really happened and wasn't just phantom-touch while falling asleep (if it was real, it can be interpreted as K acting out of his internalized homophobia, letting himself a moment of “curiosity”, but it still wouldn't make it fine).

Ronan and K insult one-another multiple times through-out the story but the difference is quite showing. K's insults are mostly homophobic, calling Ronan a "fag" or implying Ronan and Gansey are together. This is a typical teenage insults, but are also showing of K's internalized homophobia if viewed through "Don’t say Dick Gansey, man. Do not say it. He is never going to be with you. And don’t me tell you don’t swing that way, man. I’m in your head." and "It's a bomb. Just like you." scenes.

But Ronan, excepting the typical insults like "ball-sack", goes after who K is. "Bulgarian mobster Jersey trash piece of shit" or "Russian" (to the latter, K responded "Hey now, let's not make this ugly") are personal, referring not only to from where K's from, implying he's a mobster like his father and just calling him "a waste". Unfortunately, K's whole character is already one big stereotype of Slavs as viewed not only by Americans. But insulting someone for being "Bulgarian", something they had no control over, is xenophobic. (And for "Russian", as a Slav myself, let me tell you. Calling a non-Russian Slav "Russian" is a quick way to get on their bad side.) And if you're like "Ronan isn't xenophobic, because he's Irish" or "Maggie isn't xenophobic, because Ronan...", you have no idea how things work in Europe. This is the same argument as "He can't be racist, because he's black". TRC fandom is always ready to bring-up all K's sins and even enlarge them, but when in comes to Ronan, all his sins are either forgotten or excused.

One more thing I want to touch on is one of K's parties. After Monmouth got broken into by people looking for Greywaren (which Greyman broke into first), Gansey thinks it must be Kavinsky's doing, because of the fake ID left in front of the door. Him and Ronan go to K's party, he tells them, it's a substance party and asks where are theirs. As an answer, Ronan hits him in the face and throws through a car, just to show him his blooded knuckles with "This is your substance.". The rest is Gansey and Ronan not believing K, that he didn't trash their place, and a "different Gansey" throwing a Molotov cocktail at K's car. After that, they leave. But one thing isn't sitting right with me. The "This is your substance" is a beloved, may I say iconic, scene that is glorified by fans and cited as this "Ronan is so cool and K soo deserved it" thing.

Here's the thing. K is in full right. It's his party, on his rules. Gansey and Ronan just came from nowhere, probably for the first time, so the rule is stated for them. And Ronan's response? Physically assault K. Even if he's angry about the apartment, still he shouldn't just assault him. And Gansey does nothing. And one more thing: K never hits Ronan back. Not in next chapters, not at the end. Never.

Before the chapter ends, we get probably my most hated line from this book:

"Closing his eyes, Gansey leaned his head back on his seat, chin tilted up, throat green in the dash lights. There was still an unsafe sort of smile about his mouth — what a torment the possibility in that smile was — and he said, “There was never a time when that could’ve been you and me. You know the difference between us and Kavinsky? We matter."

We matter. And he doesn't. I could talk about this line and how damaging it is to people who see themselves in Kavinsky, but instant I'll say, why I hate it.

I have anxiety mixed with being introverted and back-in-the-day I felt isolated from my classmates, desperate for friends but only had toxic ones who dropped me so the popular girls would talk with them, just to be friends with me again after some time, bullied to the point of breaking multiple times, and hating myself for not fitting in, unable to connected with my peers in anyway. The line "we matter" echos my worst fear and thoughts from that time. "Everyone matter, you don't". I was too young to even have those thoughts, but they were always there. In the back of my head, like a recurring nightmare.

Just the idea, someone can say with confidence that someone, anyone, doesn't matter, makes me sick. No one has the inside to what's going on in someones life, to what thought are plaguing their head. Everyone's life matter and to say something like this in a book targeted to 12-18 year olds, who are at there most vulnerable stage, is not only irresponsible but enraging. Gansey is saying this about a guy his age, who is drug-addicted and self-destructive, because he doesn't like him and wants Ronan to stay away from. No one calls him out on it. Not Ronan, not the narrative. Nothing.

Until the kidnapping of Matthew and the paradox/question "did the tattoo tracing scene happened?", Kavinsky did nothing to earn hatred from the reader. He was living his life, being a stupid, reckless teenage boy with a power to get everything he wanted. Ask yourself a question: "If you had the power to pulled anything* from your dreams, wouldn't you go crazy with it? Maybe in a very selfish way?"

*  Throughout TRC and CDtH, we see no limit to what a dreamer can pull-out. From a pen or working car, living creatures (animals, copies of real people or purely made-up) to abstract things, like a word with power to animate the dead or an apocalypses.

Yes, K's dreaming drained the ley lines, causing Cabeswater to disappear. But did K knew about it? He knew that he needed to wait for it to recharge before dreaming more things and he did just that. The over-draining was cause by preparations for this Fourth of July party (dreaming many copies of his Mitsubishi) but same did Ronan’s dreaming (but Cabeswater acts as weird gatekeeper, so Ronan seems to be forgiven). But did he knew about Cabeswater? Or furthermore, Glendower? We can't confirm or deny it, but considering K isn't from Henrietta and probably is there only for school, he's there for about 2 years. Would he be interested in some random forest or some Welsh King, which just idea of him being in America is so far fetched to believe in?

No. All he was interested it, was parting and wasting himself away.

We don't get any other or opposing opinions on Kavinsky, only the ones given by Gangsey. They are the outsiders looking in, not having any inside, just rumors and their shallow observations/interactions. But we don't even get any "inside", not from other Raven Boys or even the Dream Pack (who are barely characters). After K's death, the only thing we get is Gangsey's not caring or being glad K's gone. Aglionby is silent and Henrietta, doesn't even acknowledge Fourth of July's Party even happened (but to be honest, the town feels like a theater stage than a living place). The only mentions about K that gives some idea someone noticed anything, was his name alongside Whelk’s and Dittley's in the newspaper at the end of BLLB (but this plot point is never mentioned again).

[willowbird]

Your pynch kiss drabble was so lovely aaa!! Could you do 31 and 32 for pynch too if its no trouble?

Weak sweaty kisses because it's too damn hot + whispered words of love against their lips!

Okay so this got away from me a liiiiiiittle bit. I don’t know if this is what you had in mind but I hope you like it!

-----

“This... fucking... sucks... dirty -- fuck! -- hairy... monkey balls!” Ronan grit his teeth around each word, panting as he fumbled around for the next apparent hand-hold and hauled himself up another few feet.

Maybe eight or so feet below him, Adam huffed out a breathless mockery. “You realize... that this... was actually... your idea,” came his half-grunted, half-growled response a few moments later. Despite the obvious strain in the other man’s tone from the effort of dragging himself up the side of a rocky cliff in the middle of August, there was no actual ire behind it. In fact, Ronan was familiar enough with Adam’s voice and how it shifted depending on his expression that was pretty confident that he was actually smiling. 

As they were currently about half a mile up along the side of a jaggedly sloped cliff face, though, he was less than willing to look down to be sure.

Also, Adam wasn’t wrong. It had been his brilliant fucking idea to climb up the side of a fucking mountain in the hottest fucking part of the day. Granted, he had a good reason, and he still thought it was going to be worth it, but hot damn fucking fuck this sucked ass. 

“Should’ve.. fucking... taken the.. fucking helicopter.” Now that was where he’d gone wrong. He’d thought it would be better climbing on their own. Then it could be just him and Adam, and it would make the moment... just... better or something. Plus, he knew that Adam didn’t like flying and he didn’t want to fuck it all up by making Adam do something he didn’t like. Besides, Adam had seemed excited about the idea of hiking to some secluded spot in the mountains. Granted, neither of them had realized that they’d have to scale a fucking cliff because the bridge across the river on the other side, where there was a path up to the summit, had gotten wiped out in a flash flood last week. 

They could have decided to turn back at that point. Honestly, when Ronan suggested that they climb up from the other side, he’d expected Adam to tell him he was fucknuts crazy and that would be the end of that. He’d just have to rethink his plan or try again another day. But Adam hadn’t written it off like he’d thought he would. Adam had looked at the steep but not vertical incline of the peak, then he’d grinned at Ronan and... well... 

Ronan had just sorta fallen in love all over again. 

So they’d climbed the cliff. Well, they were climbing the cliff. It was an in-progress sort of thing. Ronan was hating his life, but not actually -- because even though it was too damn fucking hot and he was soaked through with sweat and his arms hurt and his hands hurt and his everything fucking hurt... he was here with Adam and every now and then from below him he heard the other man laugh or huff with triumph and each time it gave him a shot of energy like espresso laced with lightning. 

Like now -- Adam laughed at his whining and it was like a punch to his pulse and suddenly he had the energy for another ten feet of climbing. 

“Nah...” Adam panted. “I definitely... have a better view... this way.”

Ronan rolled his eyes, but even with the heat of the August sun bitch-slapping him every time he looked up, he still felt his cheeks burn at the words. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to Adam openly flirting with him. They’d been together for fucking years now, and hopefully... 

Well, point being, it always made him feel like a twelve-year-old meeting one of the Backstreet Boys in person (look, they were fucking COOL okay?) and getting an autograph with a wink at the handoff. 

“Fucking asshole,” he grumbled, but even he heard the baring of a grin in his own voice. Adam continued to snigger from below, and Ronan shook his head, pushing onward. It was only a few more feet now, and seeing the promise of the top had Ronan feeling both more energized and more tired than he’d ever felt in his life. 

With an extra push and a grunt for emphasis, he dragged himself up and over that final lip, which was about four feet of a straight drop. His arms shook, but that didn’t stop him from pushing up to his knees and instantly turning around to offer his arm to Adam. Long, strong fingers curled around his forearm and he did the same as he pulled the other man up, losing balance and falling back with a groan of discomfort, because the pack he was wearing was not exactly a down fucking pillow. 

Adam chuckled above him and gave him a light shove so he could roll onto his side. This was less for Ronan’s benefit as much as it was so Adam could get to the canteen strapped to the pack. With considerable effort, Ronan at up and swiveled around as Adam drank. He didn’t hesitate when the canteen was then offered to him and gulped down the cool salvation with greedy intent. Only when the worst of his thirst was quenched did he drop the canteen and sigh, looking back over at Adam. 

But Adam wasn’t looking at him. 

Adam had shifted up to his knees and was staring out over the canopy, the winding river, and the deep valley beyond. Robin’s-egg eyes were wide with beauty-tinged wonder and Ronan could see the way his breath caught, the way his throat tightened at the sight. 

“Ronan...” Adam said. 

Ronan screwed the top back onto the canteen and set it aside, shrugging out of his pack and feeling instantly lighter. It was still too damn hot. He felt sticky and half-suffocated with the heat not only pressing down on him but radiating out from his overworked muscles after all that exertion. Sweat had soaked through his shirt and every other bit of fabric on his body and his eyes were stinging from the salt of what had been dripping into his eyes for what felt like hours, even though he’d thought to wear a bandana. All of that was forgotten as he looked at Adam, as he thought about Adam, as he pushed up to his knees beside him and touched his hand. 

All he thought... all he knew in that moment -- was that he was doing the right thing here. There were no regrets, no doubts, no second thoughts. 

“Adam,” Ronan said. And maybe there was something in his voice, because when Adam looked over at him he had the look in his eyes like he was still seeing something so beautiful it astounded him. Then his expression softened, warmed, and it was the look that Ronan knew best -- the one that greeted him in the morning, the one that was often the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes before he went to sleep. 

“Adam,” Ronan tried again, and his voice caught, but fuck it if he was going to let something stupid like emotions fuck up this moment so he bared his teeth and pushed through, quickly catching up both of Adam’s hands in his and gripping them tightly. “Look. I brought you here because. Shit fuck. I brought you here because it’s supposed to be the most beautiful view in the state. And I wanted to show you something of home and something of... of somewhere else... that is so beautiful it hurts. Because you... That’s you. You’re home, and you’re somewhere else. You’re new and you’re so familiar. You’re like a limb. My favorite limb. Some vital organ that makes it possible for me to breath right or think right or... or just... You’re the organ that gives me love and I don’t ever want to do anything without having you there where you can keep that.. that power running through me.”

Adam’s eyes were wide but Ronan couldn’t let himself focus on how the blue of them had gone hazy with the mist of tears. He couldn’t let himself see the tremble of his lips and the flutter of a smile. He pushed through and looked down to where they were clutching each other’s hands in shaking, trembling grasps -- both of them white-knuckled and numb to the palms. 

“For a man who can literally make dreams reality, can have anything I could ever fucking want -- nothing... nothing would make me happier than if you...”

His voice cut off with a surge of emotion. He thought of having this. He thought of Adam. He thought of his mom. He thought of the Barns and of Matthew and Declan and Opal. He thought of everything and everyone he had ever loved. He thought of his dad. He thought of the nightwash and the terrible things that lived beyond the realm of the waking mind. 

And he thought of Adam. 

Adam’s voice. 

Adam’s smile. 

Adam’s touch as he brushed his fingers over his hair, whether it was shaggy or freshly buzzed. 

He looked up and met Adam’s eyes, and even though the other man was already nodded, his breath coming in soft hitches around the way he bit just slightly into a his lower lip, Ronan pushed through. 

“Adam, will you marry me?”

Adam made a soft sound and Ronan didn’t understand it the first or second time, but by the third he recognized the curve of the vowel and the hush of the ‘s’. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes yes...”

There was no point attempting to hold back the grin that broke across his own face as the answer fully registered. So he didn’t bother. He smiled. He smiled with all the volume of a shout. Then he was pulling Adam close and kissing him. And fuck, he was so tired from the climb and the energy of all those damn words that he could feel the way his own lips were trembling. Weak, sweaty, giddy with dazed relief, but he couldn’t not kiss him. 

“I love you,” he murmured against his lips -- or maybe it was Adam speaking to him. “I love you I love you I love you...”

Forehead to forehead, their sweat and breaths mingling, Ronan clutched Adam, pressed their joined hands to their heart, and he smiled. 

“Tamquam,” Adam said, his lips just barely moving against his own. Still smiling, and the both of them crying now. Just a little. 

“Alter idem.”

[theanimalsarecalling]

When Ronan Lynch was first given voice in The Dream Thieves, I was excited. He is definitely the most interesting pov character.  By turns, he is poignant, funny and a total shit.  His dreaming is presented as a sort of cross between being a gifted child and having a chronic disease, both of which are isolating, and which both feed into the depression he regularly experiences.  He is an immensely relatable character. I think that's why so many readers take his pov at face value.

Chapter 12 in The Dream Thieves presents what, to me, is one of the most troubling scenes in the series. This is the chapter in which Ronan meets his brothers at church. Declan is obviously injured.  In chpt 2, Declan had just survived a terrible assault from the Gray Man.  As described, he had head injuries severe enough that I'm surprised Maggie didn't give him chronic migraines in addition to an incipient ulcer.  And Ronan's reaction to seeing this?

"Ronan's mood improved."

This nearly sank Ronan as a character for me.

This is his brother we are talking about. I know they don't have a particularly good relationship, and with the reveals in the Christmas story and TDT, we know it goes back farther than Niall's death or the will. But still.  Who gets happy seeing another person brutally beaten? 

Then the narrative switches to Declan's story that he was beaten up by burglars, which Ronan knows is a lie. Ronan briefly considers who could have beaten up his brother, who he knows to be a good fighter. But then he says to himself "It was like the truth was a disease Declan thought might kill him."

At this point in the story, we have been told that Declan is a liar, a calculating man-whore, who cheats on his girlfriends and trots out his brother's trauma to get laid, is bossy and controlling, and possibly homophobic and just a general asshole, all filtered through Ronan's pov. (In fairness, Declan's not perfect.  The lying, bossing and controlling are all true. He's also crabby.) But by bringing  up Declan's lying at this point, Ronan implies that Declan somehow deserved the beating because he's a general asshole.  But isn't this dangerously close to blaming the victim?

I eventually circled back around to liking Ronan.  He's still relatable.  He's also the victim of unusual circumstances, flawed parenting and his own poor choices. 

One of the central themes in The Dreamer Trilogy is coming to terms with your own self hatred.  Three of the principle characters hate themselves.  In Hennessey's and Declan's cases, this stems primarily from parental abuse and neglect.  In Ronan's case, it's a bit more complex.  I think Ronan's  is caused by three things:   

1.  The conflict between being a devout Catholic and gay man.  Personally, I think this is the least of it.  By the time you reach CDTH, he's pretty openly out, and seems to have made peace with it.  

2.  The gifted child / chronic illness thing.  These are circumstances beyond Ronan's control. And they are truly isolating for him.  The moment he realized he couldn't be with Adam at Harvard and he was stuck accepting that all of Adam's friends must think of him as a hopeless fuck-up, was truly heart wrenching. (And Declan's suggestion to Adam that he blame it all on Ronan, while practical, certainly showed some resentment on Declan's part).

3.  But the biggest reason is this. There was a very dangerous dynamic going on in the Lynch family.  Two children were favored, and one was isolated and excluded, made to work, and regularly placed in dangerous situations. Of course, Ronan only witnessed the first two.  But witnessing the abuse of a sibling can mess you up almost as much as the victim.  Ronan learned to think treating Declan this way was normal.  He accepted the narrative that Declan was somehow deficient and therefore deserved to be treated badly.  Even in CDTH, the way Ronan treats Declan is appalling.  

How do you reconcile this with the Ronan who fought Adam's father to protect him, who has such high ideals, who wants to be a hero?  Well, you can't.  In accepting the abuse Declan's received as normal and deserved, Ronan has been perpetuating it.  

For those of you who've read the other stuff I've written here, you've probably realized I keep circling back to the same place.

The biggest lie Ronan has been telling himself is that the way he treats Declan is normal and okay.  Until Ronan recognizes that he had been perpetuating his brother's abuse, and makes amends, he will never be true to his ideals, will never learn kindness, will never grow up and become a hero.  Eventually, this will affect his relationship with Adam, who has eyes and who is an abuse victim himself. 

So the only way forward is for Ronan to grow up, recognize his behavior and make amends by taking Declan's concerns seriously and treating him with kindness.

[andrea-lyn]

anyway, I couldn’t brain a way to ficlet this, so have a disjointed, non-linear abandoned trc au under the cut, featuring declan wising up early and running away with ronan. enjoy this glimpse into how my brain generally organizes my wips

Declan takes Ronan out pre-Niall's death

Declan Lynch is fourteen years old. He’s beginning to do the math and something isn’t adding up. His father cast himself as the hero in the tale. He is a large and imposing figure, a dreamer who is beginning to sneak Declan into the shadows to give him a look at his life. He inspires violence in him and Ronan, he pits them against one another. “You’re my apprentice,” he tells Declan when he shows him the shadowy business that funds their lives. Niall says the same thing to Ronan, thirteen and desperate for his father’s attention. “You’re my apprentice,” he says, showing Ronan how to dream. Matthew is left out, because there’s nothing for him to inherit. Declan is meant to be the practical child and Ronan is the one with his head in the clouds, bringing things back to earth. Their mother worships Niall. Matthew stares at him like he’s hung the stars in the sky. Given that it’s the Barms, there’s every chance that he <i>did</i>. Ronan still thinks their father is a hero, but Declan… He’s putting two and two together and getting a forest fire.

-

Adam Parrish meets Richard Gansey the III on the side of a road. His car is broken down and in the backseat, a broad-shouldered boy naps with his hands behind his head, his golden curls fanning over his face. He looks angelic, which goes completely against what he’s seeing. <i>Keep going</i>, his mind whispers. <i>They don’t need your help, especially not these boys.</i>

“Adam Parrish!” Gansey says, as if he’s met a senator and not just Adam Parrish, trailer trash. “You have the best grades in every class. You’re wonderful.” Adam gapes at him, then the boy in the back seat. “You’re joking, right?” “He’s not,” says the boy. Adam glances at him again, but now his eyes are open. The icy blue is fixed on him, warmed by the sunny smile on his lips. “That’s Dick,” he says, fumbling forward to fold himself over the front seat. “Hi!” he says, and suddenly, Adam knows what it would look like for a puppy to develop into human form. Honestly, he’s half a second away for checking for a wagging tail. “I’m Matthew!”

<hr>

Night horror temporarily kills Ronan, Matthew is in a coma for hours

“There’s pizza on the table,” Gansey indicates, gesturing to a half-open greasy box that looks like it’s already gone cold. “Normally, Matthew would eat the rest of it, but he’s...Matthew,” he calls, in the midst of adding eavestroughs onto one of his miniature Henrietta buildings. He flashes Adam a weary look. “Was he in a bad mood when you saw him today?” “Not that I remember,” Adam admits, ignoring the pizza to drift towards Matthew’s room. Matthew Lynch fills up a room. He’s boisterous and enchanting and happy. While his bright blue eyes have definitely given Adam a lot to think about at night, the rest of him is more golden retriever than crush, so for him to be sitting in his room silently means something is probably wrong. Adam raps his knuckles gently against the door. “Matthew?” He finds Matthew sleeping, Noah perched on the edge of the bed, staring at Adam. He looks eerie, half-there, and if Adam didn’t already know their friend was a ghost, this gray smudge of a boy would do the trick. “Noah,” Adam mutters, “What the hell are you doing being this creepy?” “He’s in between.” “What?” Adam asks, reaching down to give Matthew a small shake. “Hey, Matty, you want some pizza?”

Adam returns to Monmouth from Boyd’s that night to see a Volvo sitting out front. Visitors, it seems. But who? He drops his bag when he enters, interrupting a heated conversation between Gansey and two other boys that he feels like he should know. From behind, they look well-matched. Both tall, both with curly dark hair, but one of them has hair that’s more controlled than the other. On the one with riotously chaotic curls, Adam sees a tattoo peeking out from beneath the collar of a black leather shearling jacket. He’s drawn tight, and the controlled one is shouting at Gansey. “...you should have called us,” he’s hissing. “Declan, he’s fine.” Adam drops his bag loudly. The two strangers turn at once and Adam realizes he knows them. Barely, but he still remembers Ronan and Declan Lynch, who used to sit in the corner of Boyd’s and play-fight (and sometimes fight-fight) while their father’s BMW was brought into the shop. Technically, Adam hadn’t legally been allowed to work back then, but he’d done any chore Boyd had for him to make some money. Declan is confident and cold and handsome, with Matthew’s icy blue eyes, but it’s the other one, Ronan, that makes Adam’s mouth dry. It’s the cutting way he looks at him, how his cheekbones are as sharp as his glare. It’s the way he looks at Adam like he’s insignificant, which only makes Adam want to rise up and prove himself. It’s also the tight way he’s drawn in on himself, a palm clasped tightly to his forearm. Something’s happened. “He’s not fine,” Declan argues, dismissing Adam without even a greeting. “I asked you to look out for him until Ronan and I could find a safe place, so we could take him with us.” Ignoring the way Ronan is staring at him, Adam bursts forward. “You’re not taking Matthew away.” “He’s our family,” Declan says, waving a hand at Adam like he can get rid of him so easily. “Of course we can.” Adam shares a look with Gansey, puzzled and lost. First, Matthew goes into some kind of vegetative state, then his brothers turn up out of nowhere to take him back? “Where the hell were you a few months ago?” Adam snaps. “Your father <i>died</i>, your mother stopped functioning. That’s when Matthew needed you.” Gansey is shooting him a look that pleads for him to stop, but Adam wants to twist the knife now that he’s buried it deep. “What kind of brothers are you?” “The kind that protect each other,” Declan replies. If Adam thought he’d been icy before, it’s practically the northern tundra in here now. 

[happyandticklish]

Don’t Go

Adam needs to lose himself and Ronan is happy to help.

Head arched back against stained, white sheets. Flushed cheeks dusted lightly with freckles. The dip of Adam’s hipbone as he dug his fingers in, delighting in the accompanying laughter.

“Rohohonan!” Adam protested, in a voice that wasn’t really a protest, his words pitching into a breathy whine that flared something warm and molten inside Ronan. Adam fisted clenched hands into the other boy’s shirt, desperate for something to hold onto, anything to keep himself from stopping Ronan.

“Adam.” Ronan flashed him a shit-eating grin. His fingers climbed Adam, his own personal jungle-gym, needing to feel Adam’s convulsing body against him. Underneath his shirt, grabbing at bare skin; Adam squirmed and twitched in his lap, hips against hips, thighs against thighs, ribs against ribs. He needed this too, needed it in a way that neither of them fully understood.

Adam gripped Ronan’s arms tightly as the delicate touch strayed a bit too high, just hardly brushing the sensitive skin under his arms. “Ronan,” he warned, more a plea than a command. Not telling him to stop, not hardly. He pulled Ronan closer, arms trembling, and Ronan understood. Tonight, he needed to forget, to be pushed so far off the edge that unwanted thoughts of fathers and magic and the future weren’t even an option. Thinking wasn’t even an option. Ronan understood that feeling, had done whatever it took to satiate that need himself through alcohol and dreams and yelling. Adam’s method was different, more intimate, more chaotic and yet somehow more controlled than Ronan’s. Adam’s method was different and very much his own, just like how Adam liked it.

Adam bit his lip and Ronan moved his fingers up, dancing them lightly across the skin.

The reaction was explosive. Laughter spilled from Adam like a broken faucet, like a soda shaken too hard, like a mounting waterfall--like he was finally being released from a prison he hadn’t even realized he had been in and the relief was unending. His arms snapped down, unbidden, but they only trapped Ronan’s hands, prolonging his torture. Adam howled and spluttered, legs kicking desperately behind him, eyes squeezed shut.

As he watched him, Ronan felt his skin crawl, imagining what it must feel like. Fingers spidering mercilessly, torturously, against your skin, helpless to the sensations overtaking you. Ronan had no idea how Adam could stand it, let alone enjoy it. Ronan hadn’t been tickled much as a kid, and even recently only by Adam a few, lucky times before he claimed his revenge. Each time it had been unbearable, overtaking him in a way that suffocated him, trapped him. He felt lost, unable to find his way in an endless tangle of fingers and laughter.

But maybe that was what Adam liked about it. Losing himself to something bigger than him. Feeling completely helpless and yet knowing you could stop it at any moment if he wanted to. Choosing not to. A controllable chaos.

Adam couldn’t stand it for very long, never could even when he insisted to Ronan that it was okay, that he liked it. The sensations were too much, too fast, and after a moment his hands found Ronan’s arms, pushing back against him, sputtering incoherent pleas of enough. Ronan stopped immediately, stilling his fingers but still keeping them firmly pressed against his bare skin. Touching him.

Adam exhaled audibly, panting heavily as he tried to gather air back into his lungs. Ronan asked him often if he was okay, if he was going to far, but Adam always told him he was fine, even when it was obviously becoming too much for him. He curled up on Ronan’s chest, his head knocking against his collarbone. Ronan curled an arm around him, pressing into the small of his back and tugging his tiny form against him. It wasn’t that Adam was short, necessarily, he was actually quite tall, but his skinny frame, revealing sharp, bony edges, often gave off the impression of being small and fragile. Breakable.

Ronan hummed possessively, aggressively, resting his chin atop Adam’s head. Ronan only ever did anything aggressively, even affection. Adam laughed at that, the sound a rumble against his throat. Ronan was amazed he still had laughter yet.

“Never go anywhere,” Ronan murmured against his hair, the softs tufts of it tickling his chin.

“You’re ridiculous,” Adam scoffed, his voice muffled against his shirt, which was becoming rather quickly in the way, in Ronan’s opinion. “I’m not going anywhere, asshole.”

Ronan snorted. “Jackass.” The troublesome shirt was dealt with quickly afterwards.

I’m not going anywhere, asshole. But he did. The words had been a promise even if they didn’t realize it, a promise that Adam broke. College had seemed like such a far-off thing, something better left for the impossibility of the future. It wasn’t something to be considered in the warm bed of Ronan’s room at the Barns, curled into each other like puzzle pieces finally finding their home.

It came, of course. It came and it took Adam with it and for that Ronan would never forgive it. Gansey had always said school would be important one day, that eventually he’d realize the value of it, of everything it could give him. However, as Adam hugged him goodbye on his way to study at Cambridge, fucking Harvard, Ronan had a hard time believing it.

Now Ronan sat in a car with two people, at once his closest, and some might say only family, and at the same time perfect strangers. Declan’s gaze was stony on the road, watching for traffic with a highly unnecessary hawk’s eye. Matthew snored in the backseat, his headphones tangled around his neck, prompting Ronan to reach across and fix them so he didn’t accidentally choke in his sleep. Ronan himself was curled up against the window, one leg drawn up to his chest, the other sprawled across what little leg room they had in Declan’s shit-show he claimed was a car. He listened to the tinny music still playing from Matthew’s headphones.

And he thought.

He thought about Cambridge. He thought about finally finding a home, about the nightwash, about the nervous itch growing at the back of his neck that he didn’t allow himself to scratch.

But mostly he thought about Adam.

He thought about the soft space just under his right earlobe that made Adam’s breath hitch when Ronan put his lips to it. He thought about the quirked eyebrow and unimpressed scowl that said he was being an asshole and  that he wasn’t funny, Ronan. He thought about the smile that came out of hiding after years of being beat down, the smile that started out small at first and then grew until it took over his entire face, crinkling his eyes at the corners. He thought about the laughter that came tumbling from his lips frantically as Ronan maneuvered skilled fingers across his torso.

He was going to see Adam. At last, finally. All those months of waiting but it was finally now, and he was going to see him.

Ronan closed his eyes, settling in against the windowpane and feeling normal, finally. In just a few hours, he would be holding Adam. In just a few hours, Adam would smile at him again. In just a few hours, Adam would be his and he would be Adam’s.

And everything would be okay.

[crushpdf]

Ronan Lynch and Joey K for the character asks

RONAN:

First impression: mmm i see you edgy punk bad boy. sirius-black-renegade-rich-boy motherfucker. i see you.

Impression now:  talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before. seriously, though, he’s one of my favorite characters in any fiction i’ve consumed.

Favorite moment: oh lord. there are a million and one moments, so i’ll choose something that lights a fire in me every time. 

“It's only you," whispered Orphan Girl. She was holding his hand crouched down next to him. "Why do you hate you?" Ronan thought about it. The albino night horror swept in, talons opening. Ronan stood up, stretching out his arm like he would to Chainsaw. "I don't," he said. And he woke up.

Idea for a story: I think once I have more free time I’m going to write some stuff with Ronan in the midst of the dream pack, and that whole side of him. because surprisingly, we don’t really see that much of his criminal history. but it’s there.

Unpopular opinion: i don’t hate niall as much as other people do. i think entering the story through ronan’s pain made it so that i will always sympathize with him in that respect. and i dont want him to grow to hate his father as much as declan does.

Favorite relationship: RONSEY. But also, I love the Ronan+Declan relationship if we’re talking non-romantic.

Favorite headcanon: gansey was the one to shave his head, ronan crying in the dark, hair spilling onto monmouth’s floor 😔 also they’ve kissed

KAVINSKY

First impression: typical meathead jock (seriously, the way i pictured him was SO different than the way the fandom draws him). also, until i later thought about it more, i was CONVINCED. from like the VERY first line that he and ronan had been secretly hooking up. like i read the whole book with that in mind 😂

Impression now: complex, tragic character who was intrinsic to the plot of the subsequent 2+3 books happening, i want to analyze him under a microscope

Favorite moment: on a meta-level, i love that one-sentence chapter that’s just: something about the car and ronan blowing dick iii. I also love all his names for gansey. I think that final conversation they have (is it the final one?) is beautiful and desperate, with kavinsky kind of being like “well maybe you just dont like me because you dont like boys?” and then realizing no. ronan actually just doesnt like him. it’s one of his more humane moments.

Idea for a story: i’ve been reading so much dream pack fic and i just. there’s SO much potential with his dreaming and all the fun sexy shenanigans that can happen. i would love to explore kavinsky’s dreams.

Unpopular opinion: i mean the unpopular opinion is that i like him, right? 😂 also, though, as much as i love him and want more of him, i think it narratively felt justified that he died in the way he did.

Favorite relationship: i actually like the (completely fucked-up) relationship between him and proko more than his with ronan. oooh now i also want to explore his dynamic with declan.

Favorite headcanon: his pack of dogs are all in a big gay polycule

[astudyinfreewill]

Something Wicked This Way Comes: or, the Rising Dark in Ronan’s Arc

as some of you may know because i never shut up about witch!adam i’ve been convinced for a while now that adam would go darkside in the dreamer trilogy. what i did not predict however, was that ronan is probably headed down a dark path himself. i thought the basic premise of the trilogy would have ronan in danger from both the nightwash and the zed hunters (which obviously still applies; he is very much in danger from those things), and adam striking some sort of dark bargain in an attempt to protect him. but after reading cdth, i think things might be about to take a more sinister turn.

so here are some thoughts i’ve been poring over, under a cut for length. what can you expect? well, there’s rambling! there’s bullet points! there are lyrics-inspired section headings! (we have fun around here.)

let’s start with the obvious, shall we?

1. “The Sandman, He Comes”

so...bryde.

we don’t know much about bryde - who or what he is, how he’s able to infiltrate ronan’s dreams, whether he can do it to other dreamers too, why he didn’t want to reveal himself, what’s his agenda - but what we do know is that ronan trusted him very, very fast. suspiciously fast, in fact. fast enough that adam remarks on it in chapter 39: “earlier today you had a gun on me. i’m just asking you give him the same shake as me”.

to clarify: in the previous chapter, ronan was shaken enough to hold a gun to adam, the love of his life, and not lower it even when he feels reasonably sure it’s him; yet it never occurs to him in the book to question bryde or his motives. when adam says he wants scry to try and get more info on him, ronan seems almost annoyed by adam’s wariness (ronan narrowed his eyes. “don’t gimme that look, ronan”) to which adam replies, understandably, that it’s only fair ronan holds a complete stranger to the same safety standards as his own boyfriend, at least.

but why shouldn’t ronan trust bryde (apart from the fact that he has no information about him whatsoever)? well, bryde’s behaviour is pretty damn shady, and extremely reminiscent of the ways that a cult leader might try to recruit people to his cause. @deerlovelylily​ discussed it very eloquently in this post, but just to recap:

bryde is able to access ronan’s dreams at will, including interacting with objects from them: he had the hoverboard at the end, and he knew exactly what was on the stomach of the murder crabs. (@streghe​ had a very clever suggestion that there’s a nonzero chance bryde actually caused the crabs to manifest in the dorm, since ronan barely saw them in the dream; why would bryde do that? well, to make sure ronan was cut off from adam, his real life support system and, coincidentally, a psychic who doesn’t trust bryde)

there is considerable evidence that he can access ronan’s memories/other parts of his subconscious as well, since he knows a lot more about his waking life than he should, constantly referencing people and events from it (as well as obviously knowing where ronan is/what he’s up to, which is very stalkerish in itself)

bryde uses this knowledge to manipulate and influence ronan through the words of people in ronan’s life. in ch. 58 he asks ronan “are you going to be quiet?”, which we know from trk is what niall used to say to the brothers before telling them a story. in ch. 43, he talks about the “emotional costs” of saving someone’s life, mirroring almost exactly the words of warning adam had told ronan in ch. 33 (“there’s such thing as an emotional cost”). adam was warning ronan about trusting bryde too easily, and we know ronan values adam’s opinion; by repeating adam’s words to him bryde is pulling a see, i can’t possibly have shady motives, because i am acknowledging the same risk adam warned you about.

that’s far from the only manipulative thing bryde does. his behaviour constantly alternates between praising ronan, guilting him, taunting him, and ordering him about.

in ch. 43 he tells ronan he’s “the most expensive thing he’s ever saved”, reinforcing the idea that A) ronan is special, B) bryde cares about him, and C) it cost him a lot to save ronan so ronan should feel grateful/guilty/indebted to him. he does this knowing full well that ronan isn’t going to doubt his motives for saving him, because ronan himself - brave boy that he is - has just told him he would save a dreamer without any questions asked.

bryde never shows himself to ronan until the very end, which has the combined effects of keeping him in the dark/at a disadvantage, and making him more intrigued by bryde’s mystery; at the same time, he constantly asks ronan to prove himself and earn the dubious privilege of finally meeting him (“next box”)

bryde promises things that he knows ronan wants: first and foremost, understanding of his dreamer powers; second, a community, by hooking him up with other dreamers (ronan’s been asking what am i, why isn’t there anyone like me, am i the only one? for a long time); last but not least, he heavily hints that he can free dreams from their dreamers, something ronan is desperate to do in order to give matthew his freedom

on more than one occasion, bryde gives ronan direct orders: “scrub [the word ‘real’] from your vocabulary”; “i don’t want you to think this ever again: it was just a dream”. and ronan obeys him, or is at least very affected by it. where he at first questioned whether his dreams of bryde were real, now he questions reality (e.g. holding a gun to his very real boyfriend and asking himself what is real?); in ch. 24 he thinks about the words just a dream and how bryde “had forbidden him from ever saying them again”. since when does ronan follow orders? who is bryde to “forbid” him to do anything?

bryde constantly deploys examples Us VS Them rhetoric, creating a schism between dreamers and humanity, magic and humanity. we know (and bryde probably knows) ronan has always struggled with not feeling human and not knowing what he is; that he deeply wants to be able to fit into the real world. what bryde is effectively saying is no, you’re not human, in fact humans and magic are enemies, and the real world is not for you... unless you can shape it to your will. 

to me, bryde’s spiels sound very... dreamer-supremacist, for lack of a better term. at the moment, dreamers are oppressed by the moderators, so they’re right to rebel; but there’s an emphasis on dreamers being more powerful than anyone else, and what they could do with that power. it kind of reminds me of magneto re: mutants in the marvel universe. and i think that is the direction he’s headed in: separate ronan from his human family and escalate the conflict between humans and dreamers much further than simple self-defense from the moderators.

there’s plenty of reasons to be mistrustful (if not outright skeeved the fuck out), right? so why does ronan trust bryde? well, several reasons.

2. “On The Right Side Of Rock Bottom” 

ronan is at the lowest that he’s been since tdt. it’s better and worse at the same time -- in a way, it’s worse because it’s better. in tdt, ronan was deeply in denial about himself and the things he wanted; now he knows what he wants (a happy life with adam) and can’t go after it, trapped at the barns. in tdt, ronan was suicidal; now he wants to live, and so of course his life is threatened on all sides, internally by the nightwash, externally by the moderators. 

through all of trc, one of ronan’s main goals was to return to the barns, feeling like his key to happiness was in his childhood home. but as it turns out (and as i suspected all along), being stuck alone and isolated on a dream farm surrounded by eerie sleeping things and a handful of incredibly traumatic memories of his dead parents isn’t as fulfilling as ronan imagined. to make things worse, he’s created a security system for the barns that causes him to relive his fears and traumas over and over (ronan for the love of God, why would you dream something like that). his brothers live in DC, which is close, but not that close -- and though he’s mending fences with declan, they still are somewhat at odds. his best friends, gansey and blue, are travelling the country with henry, and we know from the opal story ronan misses them and feels left behind. at the start of cdth he tries to escape by following adam to cambridge -- and that immediately goes pear-shaped, whether by accident or, as said above, by sabotage.

now ronan is truly alone, cut off from visiting adam, living with the guilt of wrecking his dorm and the self-loathing following the fact that adam had to tell people he’s, essentially, an unstable drunk (the place he actually was at in tdt). it feels like the progress has been erased. this is the first time since tdt ronan has hit rock bottom, and cdth tells us he sinks into depression, staying in bed for days, not showering or changing, eating expired food. he thinks of a life trapped at the barns alone doing nothing, and feels understandably suffocated. all the more so because it feels like everyone else is moving on - declan has his own life, gansey/blue/henry have their adventures, and adam... well, adam is growing up, which ronan feels he himself can’t do. this comes up at several points in the book: in ch. 5 ronan doesn’t recognize adam, noting he’s “growing from something beaten down into whoever he was supposed to be”, but finds it ridiculous that adam doesn’t recognize him because he’s still the same: “adam was changing; ronan couldn’t.” later, in ch.23, he notes that he often dreams of adam as older/more adult, while ronan himself is stuck in arrested development.

essentially: ronan is stuck. so of course, any lead that comes up - whether that’s mór ó corra, the new fenian, hennessy, or bryde, is going to make him reckless and ready to risk everything, because anything is better than being buried alive at the barns.

3. “Guilty, On the Run, And I Know What I Have Done”

remember how i said ronan hits rock bottom at the start of the book? well, it’s time to grab a shovel and keep digging, because then there’s the matthew thing. 

so... we learn very early on in the book (in case we didn’t already know from trc) that ronan feels deeply torn about his dreaming. he loves to create, but feels guilty about creating life, because that feels like an act of hubris against God to him. and he feels especially guilty about creating matthew, because that means A) that matthew’s safety and life depend on ronan’s, and B) that matthew essentially has no free will, something that’s very important to catholic morals.

the moment matthew figures out he’s a dream-thing, and calls ronan out on lying to him, ronan is dropped into a fiery pit of shame, guilt, and self-loathing (and we already know that all of ronan’s emotions which are not happiness manifest as anger). he remains despondent even in dreams, and essentially, refuses to deal with matthew’s hurt and disappointment. which on one hand is justified, because he has ~Dramatic Dreamer Developments~ happening; but on the other hand, he’s essentially avoiding responsibility towards his brother, lashing out at declan in needlessly mean ways when declan tries to get him to be there for matthew (“dad’s working, sweetie”... really?). it’s a kind of pettiness that ronan hasn’t displayed in a while, and it speaks to me of his own restlessness and self-loathing more than anything.

we already know ronan feels alone, frustrated, isolated, scared, trapped -- now he also feels guilty on top of it all, and it just redoubles his determination to free matthew (something bryde has hinted he can do, knowing the power it would have on ronan). this is ronan at his worst, and we see it not just in how dismissive he is of declan, but in how he treats hennessy in chapter 67. he wants hennessy to dream up the lace, so he can show her how to stop dreaming of it (which in itself is dangerous, since lindenmere can manifest dreams, and in fact it ends up almost killing hennessy). but he gets absolutely furious when hennessy can’t dream properly -- because she’s, you know, kind of stuck on the slightly traumatic memory of witnessing her mom killing herself in front of her. it’s something you’d expect ronan to have sympathy for, seeing as he’s witnessed both of his parents’ violent deaths. instead, he’s impatient, snappy, insisting hennessy isn’t trying hard enough -- and downright cruel, shooting hennessy’s clone before her eyes, then trying to force her to shoot herself (especially relevant when you remember the church scene in bllb, and how shaken ronan was at having to kill a copy of himself).

this new ronan, it seems, has reached rock bottom and then some, and he’s got no time for empathy anymore. we see this in the metaphor of lindenmere, a darker, scarier, more dangerous version of cabeswater (i.e. trc ronan), because “dangerous things can protect themselves”. we see this once again at the end, when he assumes his sundogs have torn someone apart limb from limb and he feels absolutely no regret, only rage. yes, matthew was in danger... but kavinsky also tried to kill matthew in tdt, and ronan still didn’t feel like he could kill kavinsky in cold blood. this is a new, darker ronan, brought to this point by desperation. he reminds me a lot of anakin in the prequel star wars movies (i know, i know...) and how he let his fear lead him to the dark side by trusting a powerful, shady mentor that he should never have trusted. how does it go? “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to suffering.” and suffering leads to - or maybe is the dark side.

4.“Holding Out For A Hero”

still, you might say, why is ronan falling for bryde’s manipulation so easily? can he not see through it? how can he trust someone he doesn’t know, someone who refuses to be upfront with him? someone his psychic boyfriend with an uncanny character judging skills is understandably wary of?

in short... ronan needs a hero. 

or well, he needs a father, and those things are the same to him. ronan idolised niall, and he’s missed him terribly ever since niall diad. he missed him badly enough that he wanted to die for a very long time. now he’s coming to terms with the fact niall isn’t coming back, and not just that, but it turns out that niall might not be everything ronan thought he was (ronan hasn’t fully realised it yet, but he’ll get there; he’s starting to put the pieces together, from what declan and other people tell him of niall).

but if he accepts that niall’s gone, and worse, that niall wasn’t the infallible hero ronan thought he was... who has he got left to guide him? niall wasn’t just his father, either, but he was the only dreamer ronan knew for the longest time (the only other one was kavinsky, who sexually assaulted him and tried to kill his brother, so... not a great example) and yet he didn’t give ronan any guidance. and ronan needs dreamer guidance right now, with the nightwash threatening to kill him at every step.

enter bryde, promising all that and more. bryde’s not only a dreamer, he comes across like the alpha dreamer, ancient and powerful and all-knowing. he promises ronan tantalising answers, and even more importantly than that, he promises him community -- other people like him, so he won’t feel alone, so he won’t feel like a freak or an abomination; it has not yet occurred to ronan that (as maggie said in her video explaining the art/creation metaphor of the series) not all dreamers are equal: they don’t share the same skills or motives. 

ronan is desperate for what bryde is promising, for that kind of guidance in his life. all throughout the book, there is a lot of talk of heroes: ronan was raised on stories of the irish heroes of old, who accomplished amazing feats even though they were held back by geasa (magical weaknesses like his nightwash). ronan constantly thinks of these folk stories, while excluding himself from it (“ronan was no hero, but he knew fucking right from fucking wrong”). and how does he describe bryde when he finally sees him in ch. 79? yep, you guessed it: 

“he looked like a man who didn’t have to posture, who knew his strength. he looked like a man who didn’t lose his temper very easily. he looked, ronan thought, like a hero.”

ronan -- who is always posturing, who doesn’t know his own strength, who loses his temper very easily, who doesn’t think he’s a hero -- sees bryde as everything he’s not. and he’s willing to show him the same faith and devotion he once showed niall, because he needs a hero, a father, a teacher.

but i don’t think bryde is going to be the hero. i think ronan is going to be. there’s some early foreshadowing of this with ronan being depicted as “a gallant irish hero of old” while he kills the crabs (more posturing, really) but actually, we’ve known this all the way since trk, with niall asking declan to make sure that “ronan was the name of the hero, not the spear”; dreamers are weapons, but they don’t have to be. being a hero, ultimately, is about knowing fucking right from fucking wrong. and i believe ronan does.

but before he gets to be the hero, he’ll have to be the spear. and right now? he’s a spear in bryde’s hand. 

we know a dreamer is supposedly going to bring about the apocalypse through fire; we know ronan and fire have always been associated; we know bryde hates the modern world and would like to reboot it; we know bryde has selected ronan as his chosen one, for whatever reason.

when you connect the dots, they spell a whole lot of trouble.

[pynches]

memories we hold (as part of our soul) - chapter 1

a/n an anon requested a childhood best friend fic and i turned into a multi-chapter slow burn of sorts! i worked pretty hard on it so i hope you all like it!

word count: 2343

tw: mention of child abuse (canon)

He saw the bruise first.

The shadows from the late afternoon casted over the boy’s face making it appear bigger than it was.

“How did you get that?” Ronan had asked with childlike curiosity, his hand already moving up to touch the purpling skin.

The boy had flinched away, his hand coming up in front of his face to protect himself. Ronan’s lip jutted out, confused and hurt at the clear rejection.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, stepping back himself. He had learned from tending to the various animals at the Barns that if you scared them you had to make yourself look smaller so they didn’t feel threatened anymore. He sat down on the soft grass of the mysterious forest he often dragged Declan and Matthew to so they could build their treehouse further.

The boy’s face turned to the side a bit in confusion. Ronan waited patiently until he sat down in front of him and grinned at him widely.

“I’m Ronan,” he said, taking the hand that was stretched out to him. He giggled a bit at how grown up it felt.

“Adam,” the boy, Adam, had replied, gifting Ronan with a shy smile. His accent reminded Ronan of the sweet lady at the candy store who always gave him one piece of candy more when his mom’s back was turned, melodious and languid like the Henrietta sun.

“Wanna see my treehouse?” Ronan asked then, pulling Adam up by his hand when he nodded. Ronan didn’t let go of Adam’s hand, instead he let it swing between them.

“When you’re out with your brothers, remember to hold each other’s hand,” Aurora always said, right before they were running out of the door to another one of their imagined adventures. “That way you will never lose each other.”

He led Adam up the tree, showing him exactly where to climb. “My brother Declan helped me make it!” he said excitedly, showing Adam around the half finished tree-house. He brushed a dark curl out of his face but it stubbornly fell in front of his eyes again.

Adam looked around in wonder, not ever having seen a treehouse before. “I could live here,” he said quietly, his eyes roaming over the open space. Ronan noticed Adam was starting to look quite sad and despite not getting what had upset him, he grabbed Adam’s hands and spun them around in circles until Adam let out a laugh.

“We can come back,” Ronan said when they were laying on the wooden floor, splinters probably worming their way into their skin now. His vision was still tilting a bit. He pictured them on a pirate ship, the waves causing the motion sickness instead of childlike playing.

Adam turned to look at him, his eyes still slightly unfocussed. Ronan couldn’t help but giggle and poke Adam’s nose. He scrunched his nose at Ronan’s touch, his freckles more pronounced with them flowing into each other. “Do you mean that?”

“Of course!” Ronan answered excitedly. “We’re best friends now,” he added solemnly like he was making a great vow with the boy he had only known for an hour at most. “And best friends do things together!”

Adam gave Ronan his first actual smile then, one of his front teeth missing, the new one just poking through. The smile was cheerful and bright and Ronan couldn’t help but smile back.

And that was the start of a friendship that was supposed to follow them into adulthood. The kind of friendship that was unbreakable because you grew up together and thus understood each other better than anyone ever could. And for a while, it looked like it was headed that way.

They were inseparable for a while.

Now it was not three boys running off and using sticks to fight each other like the knights in the fairytales they read, but four. Adam was well liked by all three brothers for a different reason.

Matthew loved everyone and Adam was no different. He liked Adam a little better than most people, though, because Adam was always kind to him. Adam had put a bandage on Matthew’s newly acquired scratch wound once with practised ease and he had loved him ever since.

Declan loved Adam but he would never admit it. Even as a kid he had been closed off, hiding his true emotions and feelings within himself so he appeared as a blank slate for others to interpret how they wanted. He had never been carefree like his brothers, he never had the opportunity to, but he saw a resourcefulness and cleverness in Adam that he didn’t put into place until he was older and understood it better. Nevertheless, Declan admired him despite him being younger which was the biggest obstacle for his young age.

Ronan grew to love Adam the most. Adam was the first friend he ever really had outside of his brothers and he cherished it as much as a nine year old really could. Even when Adam was distant, fresh marks littering the skin of his small arms, Ronan tried his best to put a smile on his face because that's what friends do. He had learned to not ask about them but he asked his mom once.

“Is he sick?” he had asked her as she was tucking him back into bed after a bad dream. “Is that why he has bruises everywhere? Is he going to die?”

“He won’t die,” Aurora had said sweetly, the hesitancy before she spoke not going unnoticed by Ronan.

“Mom-“ Ronan had said fearfully, tears brimming in his eyes.

Aurora gently brushed one of Ronan’s curls behind his ear. “He is having a bit of a tough time at home, sweetheart.”

“We have to help him!” Ronan had said, eternally positive and kind-hearted. Aurora couldn’t help but let a prideful smile slip out.

“Trying to help him could only make it worse,” she said softly. She couldn’t possibly explain to Ronan that child-services weren’t always reliable and that she was afraid what would happen if they deemed his parents okay. She couldn’t explain what was really happening to Ronan because as much as she feared for Adam, as much she wanted to protect Ronan from all bad, she was wired that way after all.

“Sleep now,” she said and took Ronan into her arms, singing him a lullaby until he was snoring softly, his face resting peacefully against her chest.

Aurora would remain seated like this for a long time, silently worrying about the sweet but silent boy that had walked into her boys’ lives. Her motherly instincts extended beyond just her sons and so she sat there, with Ronan in her arms, praying for Adam, begging God to give Adam the help she was too cowardly to give herself.

“We’re going to high school soon,” Ronan said, two years later the day before the summer holidays came to an end. His feet were dangling off the side of the tree house. Adam was seated next to him, doing the same, his untied shoelaces blowing in the wind.

“Are you scared?” Adam asked, turning his head to eye Ronan for a second. He had grown a lot since they met but his face was still the same, youthful and radiating happiness. His dark curls bounced in the wind, Adam had the urge to smooth them back like he had seen Aurora do many times.

Ronan shook his head with a laugh. “It will be fun!” He slouched in on himself a little after. “My dad says so at least.”

Adam looked out into the forest, his eyes already wise beyond their age. “I hope it will be,” he decided on, shooting Ronan a small smile.

“We won’t see each other much once we start,” Ronan said, pulling his legs up to turn his body towards Adam, the noses of his beaten down shoes resting softly against Adam’s leg.

Adam turned around too, pressing his legs in between Ronan’s, their ankles now touching comfortably. “We won’t,” he agreed, an edge of sadness in his voice Ronan wanted to take away.

“We’ll still be friends,” Ronan said. It was a statement, a promise, unyielding. Adam smiled, his teeth fully grown out and straight.

“Promise?” he asked, a soft smile lingering on his lips as he stuck out his pinky for Ronan to hook around with his own.

“Promise.”

They kept their pinkies hooked as they watched the sun set, each others’ touch tethering them to the last moment they would have together.

They walked back out of the forest, waving at each other one last time before they both went their own way back home, not knowing this would be the last time they saw each other.

Ronan often wondered what he would have done or said if he knew life would diverge the paths that had interwoven together. If he had known he would lose his best friend and made room for another that didn’t quite feel the same.

Adam had gone to school the next day with nervous butterflies fluttering in his stomach and the distant reminder that he would see Ronan again that afternoon. He’d just have to survive the day and then he’d be in the presence of someone who had become just as familiar to him as he was to himself.

His father had other plans.

It started when he came home from school and didn’t end until much later, when Adam had already left Ronan waiting in the treehouse where they were supposed to meet up.

Adam didn’t want to explain and Ronan eventually stopped waiting.

The treehouse stood vacant, the walls holding children’s laughter and crude words written secretly underneath posters. It held childhood memories neither boy was bound to forget. It carried secrets and unexpected tears, names etched into the wood. It was empty now, present in every day thought but not in actuality anymore.

Adam wondered himself if it had ever really existed.

He had seen Ronan after their contact was lost. Many times even. It was inevitable with the size of the town. Dark curls bouncing as he ran through the street, carefree and wild as always, with a new boy at his side. Expensive glasses and straightened polos, someone Adam never had been and would never become.

Many times, Adam had punished himself in his mind for not saying something, waving at least. He always hid himself at least, watching as Ronan passed him by. It always left him with an ache in his heart, a loss he couldn’t put into words. Miserable wasn’t a word strong enough for what he felt. Losing Ronan was much greater than misery could describe.

The pain faded after time, still present sometimes but not a constant anymore.

Ronan still thought of the sun-kissed boy often, wondered what had happened to him, what made him turn away from him.

But he had found Gansey, who was much different from Adam but eerily alike him too sometimes. Earning Gansey’s friendship was something he was proud of and he admired Gansey like he did no other, but it wasn’t the same feeling he used to have with Adam. It was not something he could put into words but it was something undeniably present.

He was thankful for Gansey though and grew to love him more like a brother than he did Declan, someone who had grown to become the person who had to face his anger, his malice, his pain and take it in stride because he was the ‘man of the house’ now that his father was gone.

It was Gansey who hugged him close when Ronan broke down again, plagued by nightmares of his father’s death. It was Gansey who didn’t protest when he had to help put the tattoo cream on when he went off to the tattoo parlour with a snarl and a fake-id. It was Gansey who let him live with him when he was banned from the Barns.

If Ronan had looked closer and didn’t turn away at his father’s face reflected in Declan’s own, he would have known Declan would have done this for him too. He would have held his younger brother like his mother once had, comforted himself by the nightmares that were plaguing him too. He would have lectured him on the tattoo, sure, but he would have helped him. Because that is what big brothers do and he used to be the best one in Ronan’s eyes.

Ronan’s eyes were elsewhere, set on drag-racing now, drinking until he forgot about his father, about his failing grades, about the crushes he had on the wrong people, about the boy with the sad eyes that still plagued him when he closed his eyes.

A boy he thought he’d never see again.

Until he was there, pushing his bike forward on the small hill he had to climb. It was years later, both starting junior year now. He was still on the thin side, though Ronan now understood why, but there were muscles straining in his arms too. His freckles were still just as apparent, his hands bigger but still just as boyish. Ronan remembered holding it tightly as they rushed off a hill just as big as this one. His stance was determined, his thin lips pulled tight. They met each other's eyes once before Ronan sunk back, shaking his head at a confused Gansey who had slowed down the Pig. Gansey pressed down on the gas pedal again and Ronan blamed the racing of his heart on the speed.

“Please,” he prayed in his head, closing his eyes at the force of the word.

He didn’t know what he prayed for. Please, let this be another chance? Please, let me have one more conversation with someone that had meant so much to me for so long? Please, don’t ruin me because I can’t bear more pain.

“Please,” he prayed again and let Gansey drive them away, leaving Adam as nothing but a spot in the distance.