[9/19] when after you see your face

[thedreamthief]

Hywel is far from empty by the time Ronan makes it back. Hercules scampers over as Ronan stalks his way past the barn area and Cinnamon turns her large head to blink huge, brown eyes at him.

The upstairs is equally occupied, the door to Gansey's room wide open and Adam out in the front room, a scatter of books and papers around him. Ronan doesn't so much as say hello before he stalks straight for the bathroom, stripping off his shirt once he's inside to examine the bruise already blooming across his side.

Fuck.

He checks out his hand next, frowning at the singed skin between his fingers before dunking it under the faucet, trying to clean out the dirt and ash, hissing at the slight sting.

There'll be no hiding this from Adam and, already, he's trying to come up with a decent lie. A believable lie. He fucking hates lying, especially to Adam, but he can already picture that shuttered off expression of disapproval and disappointment. Ronan had made a promise and he'd intended to keep it, but he hadn't been expecting some asshole with his face and his name to show up and kick Noah around.

He doesn't know how he could be expected to not react.

Scowling, and stomach still twisted in knots, Ronan flings the water off his hands and reaches for a towel, ignoring the ache in his side all the while.

Comments

[incognoscibilis]

Once Ronan's in the door, Adam stands up, ready to greet him. Except Ronan doesn't say anything. He ignores them all and heads right for the bathroom in the kind of evasive, shifty way that Adam hasn't seen from Ronan in a long time. Immediately, he worries and turns his book over, open to its place, and stands up to follow.

"Ronan?" he asks, stepping into the bathroom with him. Adam cocks his hip, ready with some joke, and then he looks at the ginger way he holds his hand and the bruise on his side.

He's seen Ronan bruised before. He's seen Ronan come home from fight club, bruised and triumphant. This is something different.

"What happened?"

[thedreamthief]

"Jesus," Ronan breathes, nearly jumping at the sound of Adam's voice.

His expression tightens into a glare, walled up and defensive as his shoulders hunch. "Could've fucking knocked," he grumbles, turning away to hang the towel back up and grab his shirt, keeping his head ducked away from Adam's.

"It's not a big deal. Don't worry about it."

[incognoscibilis]

Ronan jumps, actually jumps. Adam doesn't think it's something he's ever seen Ronan do before and it only makes the sirens louder in his head. Something is wrong.

"Too late," he says. "Ronan who the hell hurt you?" If it's not fight club then Adam's concerned. Outside of those dingy basements that Adam avoids, he doesn't know many people who could take Ronan or who'd start a fight like this, much less land a hit.

God, he hopes it doesn't mean Declan is here.

[thedreamthief]

There's no disappointment in Adam's tone. No disapproval. It's that more than the obvious worry that has Ronan letting out a breath as turns back around, his injured hand curled to hide the burn between his fingers.

"Not gonna believe me," he says because, if he's honest, it feels like bullshit even to him. And he'd been there. "But I didn't go looking, alright? He fucking pushed Noah. I wasn't-- You can't expect me to just let that happen."

[incognoscibilis]

"But you don't lie." And he doesn't lie to Adam. The worry in Adam's chest is slightly to tip over into real fear and he reaches out for Ronan to steady himself, or both of them. The bruise is an ugly thing on his body and Adam worries that there's more elsewhere.

"Who was it?"

[thedreamthief]

Adam reaches for him and Ronan has to force himself not to twist away.

This whole thing is fucked, he knows that much. He's broken a promise and some asshole with his face and his name is wandering around and he's not so different from Ronan. Not different enough.

"It was me," he manages as Adam's hand brushes his skin. "Not-- It wasn't me, but it was some guy with my face and my name. He came over from that other Darrow, I think.I found him trying to beat the shit out of Noah."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam bites his lip, sucks in a breath. It makes sense, is the problem. The only one who could land a hit on a Lynch brother is another Lynch brother and now there are two here, after a fashion. "That rift," he says, frowning and also trying to find some other words to say.

"What'd Noah. Jesus, is Noah okay?" Adam asks. He isn't here with Ronan and that gives him space to worry. Carefully he traces the skin around the bruise but doesn't touch the discoloration itself.

"Go on the couch. I'll get you an ice pack." He hopes they have ice.

[thedreamthief]

"He's okay," Ronan replies, remembering the way Noah had appeared between them and stretched out his features, made himself a ghostly, decaying wall. It'd been unsettling, but appreciated. And it'd been enough to make the other Ronan fuck off, at least.

Adam's fingers are light on his skin, a stark contrast to what he'd expected, but he doesn't argue, only nodding as he ducks away to head back into the other room. The one couch is a mess of Adam's books and papers so he takes a seat on the other, relaxing back into the cushions. His insides are still a mess, still fucked up over what he'd seen and what it might mean.

And Noah... fuck. Physically-speaking, he thinks Noah's fine. He isn't so sure about the rest.

[incognoscibilis]

There are, they both know, many different degrees of okay but at least he doesn't have to dive into the ley line and try to search for Noah or attempt to seek out a spirit that needs re-anchoring.

"I don't like the sound of him," Adam admits. He's already met a strange version of Joseph Kavinsky, one who's the total opposite of the one they know. Who knows what Ronan's double could be like. Nothing good if he'd actually tried to harm Noah. Ronan, his Ronan, did all kinds of stupid things with the people he loved–throwing Noah out a window, dragging Adam behind the BMW on a dolly–but he didn't actually try to hurt them.

This wasn't good.

[thedreamthief]

"I don't like anything about him," Ronan agrees with a scowl, his arms hanging loose at his sides as he relaxes back into the cushions.

The fact that this other Ronan exists isn't the worst of it as far as Ronan's concerned. The worst part is he isn't so different from himself. He's still violent, still foul-mouthed. He's everything Ronan is, at heart. Everything he's become.

But worse.

[incognoscibilis]

Improbably, they have ice, though there's no guessing when it was made. Long enough ago that it's covered in chunky crystals and is difficult to extract, much less wrap in a towel but Adam's had practice in this kind of thing. He brings the towel over, gently putting on Ronan's side.

"Ronan..." he says, eyes trailing from Ronan's stomach to his hand where a raw mark is angrily made. Adam knows that mark, though he'd been bleakly fortunate not to suffer it himself.

[thedreamthief]

Adam sits carefully beside him and, just as carefully, presses a towel full of ice to his bruised side. Ronan hisses in protest, but he doesn't fight it at all, reaches down instead to hold it to himself, which is when Adam notices the mark between his fingers.

"Apparently this other version of me's a smoker," he says with clear distaste. He shifts to hold his ice pack with the other hand, curling the burned one so Adam doesn't have to see the mark. "It's fine, Parrish."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam's mouth twists in distress, unable to articulate his fear, the way he feels suddenly small and unprotected. Cabeswater wraps vines around his heart and lungs, trying to steady him. It offers the memory of quiet sunlight and undisturbed piles of leaves. It's enough to keep Adam from screaming.

He blows out a breath and lays a hand on the wrist of Ronan's burned one, thumb tracing the shape of the bones in his wrist.

"It doesn't seem fine."

[thedreamthief]

It's the same sort of fine as he'd been after his father's death, after Robert Parrish tried to bash Adam's head in, after he woke up in a hospital with his arms bandaged. It's the sort of fine that has to be because there's nothing else to be done.

"He's me," he says, surprising even himself when the words come. "He's me, Parrish. He's a fucking asshole and he's me."

[incognoscibilis]

"Bullshit," Adam says. The answer flies out of him so stubbornly, so immediately, that he looks shocked at himself. He doesn't take it back though. "Just because you have the same face, it doesn't make him you."

The Ronan in front of him, for instance, would never burn someone with a cigarette. He's angry and hurt and violent and he's gotten into more shit than Adam would like but his worst violence has always been directed inward.

[thedreamthief]

"It's not just the face," Ronan snaps back, confusion and terror and shame flaring white-hot. "It's not a case of some asshole just looking like me, he is me. He has my name, my clothes, my history."

The last of that Ronan's only guessing, but given everything else he's seen, he has no reason to believe it isn't true. "He has fucking Chainsaw."

He rubs a hand against his eye then, hard enough to make himself see spots as he scowls. "It's not like I have a fucking reputation to uphold, but it's still-- Noah thought he was me and that asshole fucking shoved him to the ground." And how many times has Adam told him not to go to Fight Club, how scared had he been when Ronan trashed Gansey's room? Noah'd been afraid of him just as Adam had. He'd had no reason to believe something could be wrong.

[incognoscibilis]

"I know," Adam says, because in his mind he's traveling back a year in time. He's remembering that dark, foggy Darrow. In his head he can still hear that other Adam that had spoken in his voice and said the most hateful things, been the cruelest version of everything Adam hates.

"Noah and Blue never told you what I saw in that other Darrow." Adam hasn't talked about it. He hadn't wanted to and the days after returning from Darrow had been fraught with other hurts, long since resolved. "He had my name, my clothes, my history too."

That's a cruelty that Ronan doesn't have. Even in the story Gansey had told him about Noah and the window. As rude as it'd been, it hadn't been done to harm Noah, a then-total ghost.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan doesn't know the other Ronan's history. He doesn't want to know; face and name and clothing are enough.

He hasn't thought of Adam's experiences in that other Darrow in months. Adam had never explained much and Ronan had known better than to push. That's Adam speaks of it now can only mean that it's relevant. It means he gets it, on some level at least.

"But he didn't act like you, did he?" he says, taking a guess based entirely off what Noah's told him, off what he's heard from others. "That's a difference, isn't it? You're not an asshole, Parrish. Not the way I am."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam presses his mouth into a thin line that manages to communicate what he thinks of that. They both know how capable he is of being brittle, the temper and violence that he fears inside himself. That other Adam was someone who had given into circumstances and never aspired to better but that doesn't change the intrinsic sameness he'd shared with his double.

"He acted like I would if I hadn't decided to be better than that," he says, very deliberate in his words because Ronan's made choices too. He believes that.

[thedreamthief]

There's a finality to Adam's tone, a clear implication that Adam isn't in any mood for argument of self-flagellation.

So Ronan shuts his mouth and stares straight ahead. The feeling under his skin doesn't slide away, the burn between his fingers still stings. And he's still worried about this guy with his face and his name might do. What more he could fuck up.

And how he's not so different from Ronan himself, whatever Adam says.

He hazards a glance then, just a cut of his eyes as he says, "I've never been afraid of you, though. Not ever."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam frowns and then slides a hand under Ronan's shoulders, gently pressing him to sit up just long enough for Adam to sit in that space and rest Ronan's head on his lap. Being the protective one feels like a strange. For the longest time, the status quo has always been Ronan charging in first like everyone's knight in a charcoal-colored Beemer.

"I've never been afraid of you either," he says. He's been scared by Ronan's actions and afraid for Ronan and what he's doing for himself but Adam has never felt reason to think that Ronan is anything but his ally.

"And don't call bullshit. It's not."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan arches an eyebrow at Adam's maneuvering, but doesn't fight it any, relaxing back against Adam's thigh and looking up at him. It's not a perspective he's used to, but it's far from unpleasant.

Even if he still has a hard time believing what Adam says.

He doesn't respond for a long moment though, studying Adam's jaw and throat, the hint of stubble on his skin, the stretch of fabric across his shoulders. "I would've killed him," he says finally, his voice quiet but sincere. "Your dad. If you hadn't stopped me, I would've kicked the living shit out of him and I wouldn't have been sorry about it."

[incognoscibilis]

It's true and Adam knows that. Adam cards two fingers through Ronan's mohawk, pushing little chunks of hair until they all go in the same direction. It's quiet, deliberate. Loving.

"Beating the shit out of my dad is different from hurting Noah," Adam says, because even Ronan's world of absolutes has to have room for that truth.

[thedreamthief]

Not for the first time, Rona's glad he's decided to grow his hair out some. It's not something he would've considered a year or so ago, but he likes the way it still makes people look at him, those gazes as appreciative as they are wary most of the time. But, more than that, he likes the way Adam curls his fingers through the strands, how it sends a slow roll of pleasure all down Ronan's spine.

"Well, I did throw him out a window that one time," Ronan reminds Adam, but it's hardly an argument. Despite Noah's protesting, that'd been as fun for him as it had been for Ronan.

He lets out a breath then, slowly relaxing under Adam's touch. Under his warmth. He closes his eyes as he lets out another slow breath and it feels easier then to consider things he's been trying to ignore for months, things he's tried to shove down. "Remember, uhm. Remember when Prom?"

[incognoscibilis]

"Well, yeah," Adam says, still playing with Ronan's hair. They both know it's not the same. Ronan is capable of rage and playful malice but not sadism. Adam wouldn't be here if that wasn't the case.

"What part of prom?" It had been an eventful night and an eventful few days after and though Adam thinks he can guess what part, it also feels important to let Ronan say what he means.