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[thedreamthief]

Ronan tosses the ball into the air, catching it one-handed in his palm and watching as its insides swirl with black and purple and red. The mix curves and bends as Ronan squeezes its soft outsides, realigns in a way that Ronan knows has nothing to do with gravity as he tosses it into his other hand, a burst of yellow streaking through its inner galaxies once its airborne.

It settles once again into purples and blacks when it's caught in Ronan's other hand and Ronan keeps it there as he pushes open the front door of Graymark Books and steps inside.

The place isn't entirely empty, but it's not packed either and Ronan looks over the tops of the bookcases as he wanders, in search of a familiar face or two. It occurs to him after a few minutes that Jack's probably in school right now or whatever the equivalent might be in a place like Darrow or for a kid as special as Jack.

Luckily, it's Luke Ronan spots just then, making out his hair first and then his voice as he helps an older lady looking for books on car maintenance.

Ronan gives him a nod when Luke happens to glance up long enough to catch his eye, but hangs back, idly bouncing the soft ball off the side of the nearest book rack, grinning as the glitter inside swirls a lovely black and gold upon impact.

"Hey," he says once Luke's finished up with his customer, bouncing the ball again and catching it tight in one hand. "Jack around?"

Comments

[notaretriever]

"I certainly don't despise you," he says. "I did my best to keep the people whose company I detest off my wedding guest list."

There's something else going on, something more than just an off-hand comment. Ronan doesn't usually speak of himself like that, but Luke doubts he's going to get an honest answer if he suddenly begins to push, so he lets the comment hang in the air for a little while. If Ronan wants to talk to him, he will eventually, and Luke is suddenly beginning to think there's a reason he's come beyond passing on the ball to Jack.

"I don't mind," he says. "You're always welcome here, no matter what else might be going on."

[thedreamthief]

There isn't a part of Ronan that doubts Luke means what he says, wedding list or not. A silence settles over them for a moment, Ronan returning his attention to the book in his hands though he's not really reading it at all. There's an itch under his skin still, gnawing and familiar.

But maybe he didn't show up here just to leave a dreamed up ball for Jack. Maybe Luke's the only person in Ronan's life who might actually listen to him without getting pissy. If Ronan can first figure out how to talk instead of just throwing his fist into a wall.

"Told you my dad died a few years ago, yeah?" he manages finally. It's not at all what he wants to talk about, what he needs to talk about. But fuck it, small steps. "Murdered, actually. With a crowbar. I was the one who found him. Found out after he was gone that he's the same fucked up breed as I am, but he never saw fit to tell me jackshit. About anything. Think that's just a Dad thing?"

[notaretriever]

"No," Luke says after a moment of consideration. "I don't think so."

Luke's own father was long dead and he doesn't have that experience, but he knows himself and he knows how he would have treated Clary. He would have told her in a second if Jocelyn had allowed him, he hadn't wanted her to find out in the manner in which she did. He'd never wanted her to be afraid of him, but it had happened all the same because Jocelyn had refused to let him tell her.

"I'm sorry," he says. "About your father. That you were the one to find him. That must have been awful."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan only shrugs because it's hardly the first time he's heard that sentiment. Years of hearing it have numbed him to the pitied looks in Henrietta, deafened him to the hushed tones. It's not the same from Luke, of course, but the prickling under his skin is similar.

"It sucked," he says after a moment, blunt in his honesty. "And afterward, shit kind of changed. Before-- I wasn't like this," he adds, trusting that Luke will know what he means. That he wasn't so gruff, wasn't such an asshole. Wasn't... Ronan. "Gansey was the only friend who stuck with me through it all. And Noah." Though, looking back, he can't actually remember when Noah came into their lives or if he'd always been there somehow.

He pauses then, partially because he doesn't know where he's going with all this and partially just to take a break. He's never been good at talking. Then asks, "You know them? Probably Noah, at least. Noah's friends with everyone."

[notaretriever]

Luke shakes his head, because the names aren't familiar to him. "I don't," he says. "At least, I don't think I do. It's good you had people who did stick with you, though. Sometimes something awful happens and people don't know what to do. They find it scary or they're unable to recognize what becomes of the person after a trauma and they put as much distance as possible between them."

His mouth lifts into a faint smile. "Trust me. That's something I know."

No one stuck with him through his change. Not a single person, not even his sister. He understands why Jocelyn couldn't, that protecting Clary had been more important than their friendships, but thinking of Amatis still makes his chest ache.

[thedreamthief]

He isn't surprised that Luke doesn't know Gansey, but only because Darrow is enormous compared to Henrietta. Everyone in Henrietta knew Gansey, partially as the kid with a powerful mother and partially as the kid weirdly obsessed with a dead Welsh king, but here it's like an entirely different world. And that feels like half the problem. For however many problems Ronan had with Henrietta, he'd never really imagined leaving it. He'd never ached for that kind of change.

And he's been forced to deal with it for nearly two years now.

But Luke's understanding has him wondering for the first time, brow furrowing as he says, "So, uh... when did it happen?" he asks, still aware of the few remaining customers. Because he's never really asked how Luke became a werewolf, how he is what he is. And it seems like a good time.

[notaretriever]

"I was nineteen," he says. "It's been nearly twenty years."

He's quiet for a moment, then, satisfied no one is listening, he looks at Ronan and says, "I was set up by my best friend at the time. He wasn't a good person, he was trying to hurt people who didn't deserve to be hurt. People who were kind and who were following the laws set down. In some cases, children. We were raiding what he told me was a rogue werewolf clan, but they were just a frightened family. I caught him burning the eyes of a little girl with silver coins and when I rescued her from him... well, that was the end of it for me."

He smiles and shrugs. "He expected me to die from the bite and when I didn't, he told me I should kill myself before bringing such embarrassment to my family. I didn't do that either."

[thedreamthief]

"That's a long fucking time." It's a blunt statement, delivered duly and without a hint of humor. Because that's longer than Ronan's been alive.

He's quiet as Luke continues, his frown deepening with every word. Despite what he's seen from Luke, despite the monster in the alley and the sword and all that shit about the precious cup, there's so much Ronan still doesn't know. So much he'll likely never know.

"And that's a shit friend," he adds when he thinks Luke's stopped for the moment. He pauses then, still watching Luke curiously. Wondering. Then: "Did you ever tell them? Your family."

[notaretriever]

"My father died when I was little and my mother left us not long after that, so there was only really my sister to tell," he says, thinking of Amatis and how much he still misses her, even after all this time. And even after all the things she said to him. There would be work to do if she was willing, but he knows he would be, beyond any doubt.

"She knows. She told me the same thing Valentine did," she admits with a small wince. "It wasn't exactly the best parting I could have hoped for and I haven't actually seen her since. I don't blame her, the culture we grew up in, the pressures that were being put on her... she lost everything after I was bitten. Valentine forced her husband to leave her so he could become his second in command and he couldn't have his second married to someone whose brother was a werewolf. Or someone whose brother had once been his second and had betrayed him."

[thedreamthief]

"Jesus Christ," Ronan breathes, realizing in that moment how fucking petty his own issues are. Sure, he's a veritable monster who can destroy as easily as he can create, but his entire family didn't turn their backs on him for it. His father did, in a way. And Declan. But even Declan at least pretended to care in his own way.

And Matthew... well, knowing what he does now, Matthew only sort of counts.

But the point is, he's had some sort of support. As fucked as everything is now, as splintered as he feels from the people he once considered as close as family, no one's gone that far. "You didn't have anyone?"

[notaretriever]

"No, not really," he answers. "I had my pack, but that was weeks after the change and there was always tension there, given that I'd once been a Shadowhunter. They never completely trusted me." Even though he had been their leader, their alpha. It had never entirely felt like home and that's why he had left Alicante for New York.

"I had a friend, Clary's mother, but the friend who set me up to be bitten, he was Clary's father and she suspected they might be in danger from him, so they left. Went into hiding. It took me five years to find them."

And it had taken Valentine fifteen years to do the same.

[thedreamthief]

What Ronan knows of Luke's family he's only picked up in bits and pieces over the past year or so. He knows about the cup and that sword and a little about whatever a fucking Shadow Hunter is. It all still sounds fucking ridiculous, but Ronan figures most people would say the same thing about a guy who claims to have a link with a sentient forest and a best friend obsessed with a dead Welsh king.

If Ronan can even call Gansey his best friend anymore.

"You're life's shit, man," is all Ronan says, letting out a huff of a laugh as he shakes his head. "'Least it's better for you here, yeah. With, like. Spencer and Jack and this place. You've got a good life now."

[notaretriever]

"No, it isn't," he answers with a shake of his head. "Bad things have happened to me, but all in all, I've been happy more than I've ever been sad. My New York pack was my family, I had ten years raising easily the funniest, smartest and most incredible child I've ever met, I had a successful business in Manhattan, I had a wonderful life there and I have a wonderful life here. I've been very lucky."

The bad things that have happened are simply part of that story. He can't fool himself and pretend he's been some saint, someone who's just suffered greatly and for no reason. At one time, Luke was the villain of the story, even if he hadn't realized it at the time.

[thedreamthief]

"So you'd go back then," Ronan replies, eyes narrowing a bit as he tries to interpret what Luke is saying. He sounds genuine, is the thing. He sounds like, despite all the shit about his family rejecting him and his best friend betraying him and being turned into a fucking werewolf, that he does think he's led a good life.

And Ronan can't help wondering how a person can get to that point? To be happy with life despite all the bullshit. All it took was one devastating event in Ronan's life and his entire world came crashing.

[notaretriever]

Luke laughs a little at that and shakes his head again. "Not necessarily. I'd like to combine the two lives, although I know that's not possible. I miss Clary and I miss New York, but I also don't want to leave Spencer or Jack behind. It's not such an easy decision as choosing one or the other. Both lives have made me happy and while I would love to spend the next fifty years getting to see Clary go through her life, she's also an adult now. She needs me less than Jack does."

That isn't entirely true, he knows she still needs him in the same way Alec and Isabelle need him, but Jack is a child and he has so much to deal with. So much Luke wants to help him with.

[thedreamthief]

In a lot of ways, it's an easier decision for Ronan. He might miss some of the people here, people like Luke and Jack and R, but the people that mean the most to him, the ones who are truly family exist back home, too. And back home they exist with him, not on some other timeline where they know more than he does, where they expect different things from him.

Ronan's been here a year and a half and all he's ever felt is wrong. Displaced. Like he's so far removed from where he needs to be.

"Maybe this Clary person will show up sometime," Ronan says. "And maybe we'll get some portal to New York or something. Never fucking know in this place."

[notaretriever]

"You never know," he agrees, because that much can certainly be said about Darrow. This place has thrown him for more than a few loops and he's taken them as well as he's taken anything else, unable to do anything but that. There's no choice, he can't simply stop, there are too many people who rely on him, and Luke can handle more than being thrown back into Idris, to the day he was turned into a werewolf. He can handle more than giant bats or the arrival of the Mortal Instruments.

But this isn't really about him. Ronan is asking for a deeper reason.

"You'd go back, wouldn't you?" he asks and it's not entirely a question. He has a feeling he already knows what the answer is going to be.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan doesn't even have to think about it, though he's still frowning even as he nods.

"This isn't where I belong," he says because it's nothing short of the truth. "My friends..." He stops there because he has no idea how to finish it. How do explain that everyone who's ever known you remembers a different you? A better you? How do you explain constantly warring with some ghost of future ghost of yourself you've never met and don't know how to be?

"Fuck, I can't say life was perfect back home," he tries instead. "Henrietta was a shithole. Still is, I'm sure. But it's-- I just don't know how to be here, I guess. And I'm fucking tired of it."

[notaretriever]

"Why do you have to do anything special to be here?" he asks curiously. He'd started to say something about his friends, but then cut himself off and Luke doesn't know if he's protecting them in some way or if what he wants to say hurts him to even acknowledge, but there's a reason he'd started that sentence. The expectations other people place on their friends and loved ones can be extremely difficult to live up to, Luke knows very well what that's like, which is why he'd stopped bothering a very long time ago.

Being exactly who he is has certainly lost him friends, but if they weren't prepared to love the person he truly is, they weren't real friends in the first place.

"What about your friends?" he asks gently.

[thedreamthief]

Both the questions are spoken quietly, compassionately, and they needle under Ronan's skin because he still doesn't know how to answer. If anything, he's doing more here than he ever did back in Henrietta. More than he would have without a dead Welsh king to look for, more than he would have without Aglionby and Duncan hanging over his head. He built a fucking barn, a fucking house. He has animals to look after, both dreamt and otherwise.

He has Adam.

But maybe some version of him back home has that now, too. And that same version lived through all the shit his friends did and somehow isn't such a fuck-up of a human being.

"They're different," is what he finally settles on, scowling when he looks back up at Luke. "Or I'm different, I guess. To them. They all showed up here from a time later than I did, they all lived through things I didn't. And nothing's-- It's fucked. It's like they've all fucking moved on or some shit."

[notaretriever]

"Moved on from what?" he asks. "From you? From something that happened?"

Ronan is here for a reason, for more than just passing off the ball to Luke to give to Jack. He's here because he wants to talk to someone and maybe he finds it difficult, so Luke is going to do what he can to gently prompt him, to guide him without offering too much in the way of advice. At least at first. Most people can talk themselves around to what they need to hear on their own eventually and Luke has never minded being a sounding board.

Sometimes the truth is that people may just need to move on. Maybe Ronan's friends required it in order to find themselves. Maybe he needs to do the same.

[thedreamthief]

Again, Ronan doesn't know how to answer. It all sounds shitty in his head. Why should he care if his friends are moving on? Some part of him had expected it, after all; there's no way Adam or even Blue would have stayed in Henrietta forever. And the only reason Gansey had ever been there at all was for Glendower. Ronan had always expected to be left behind sooner or later.

So why did it fucking hurt so much now?

"From everything," he manages finally, bouncing the dream ball roughly off the side of a nearby shelf, catching it hard in his hands as the insides swirled in reds and blacks. "It's like-- Like, I knew they'd all go off to college or whatever. I get that. I still had one more year of school and they don't. But it's like even though we're all stuck in this same shitty town, they still want to go somewhere else, want to be somewhere else, with other people." Like they're choosing some other life, other people and experiences, over Ronan.

It's something that would've sucked back in Henrietta, something he'd anticipated and expected. But there's a difference between living in a podunk fucking Virginia town to go off to college or explore the world than just not fucking being around in the same goddamn city.

[notaretriever]

"Have you talked to them?" Luke asks, although he suspects he already knows the answer. Ronan is here talking to him now, but it's taken them a long time to get to this point and even so, the words don't come easily. He's not used to opening up to people from what Luke can tell and sometimes that means telling the people closest to you how you feel is even more difficult still.

He doesn't know how to tell Ronan some friendships just don't last, not without sounding callous, but at the end of the day, it's the truth. The only person from Luke's past who still cares for him is Magnus, because even Jocelyn had sometimes seemed like she wasn't sure she wanted him around. All of his other friends are gone and he's made new friends since then, he had Alaric and other wolves in New York, he has wonderful friends here, but the Circle has long since forgotten him.

Alec and Isabelle's mother had once been one of his closest friends and now he knows she can barely stand to look at him, but the truth is he often feels the same.

[thedreamthief]

"What the fuck am I supposed to say?" Ronan replies with a sharp, biting laugh. "'Hey, shitstains, I'm not ready to let go yet?' How fucking pathetic is that?"

There isn't a chance in hell Ronan could say that. He can't expect any of them to change for him, he can't ask them to pretend like they're still stuck in Henrietta, still working to find Owen fucking Glendower. They've already either found him or have moved on.

And it isn't really about Glendower, but it is about what they had, what he can still remember so clearly and they've all been happy to leave behind. Blue's flipped the bird at fate, Gansey's suddenly decided he's queer and Noah's gone and befriended half the fucking city. There's no time for him anymore. No place. Ronan's sequestered himself in Cabeswater by choice, and he doesn't regret it, but he also doesn't think anyone but Adam and sometimes Noah gives on Goddamn where he is at any given time.

Scowling still, Ronan shakes his head and throws the ball again, hard enough this time it ricochets high over his head and Ronan has to stretch to catch. "I'm just fucking done. If they can move on, why can't I?"

[notaretriever]

"Why is it pathetic to want to hang onto the people who care about you?" he asks in return. There are certainly instances in which it can be damaging or perhaps even a little obsessive, depending on the situation, but Luke doesn't imagine Ronan is going to any of the extremes he's sometimes seen in other people. All he wants is for his friends to remember he's still here, to treat him like they used to, and maybe it isn't possible, but Luke doesn't see anything pathetic or wrong with wanting such a thing.

Change is difficult. Losing loved ones is harder still, even if they're only lost to distance and time.

"You can't expect them to read your mind," he says. "They might think you want space, they might feel as if you have moved on from them. You'll only know if you ask and you'll only be able to move on, if that's what you really want, if you know."