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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

[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."

[thedreamthief]

"They don't care if I want space," Ronan replies, scowling at the tone of his voice, at the hurt that seeps through despite his best efforts.

But he doesn't take it back. As sad and pathetic as it makes him sound, he knows it's the truth. It's not like Ronan's ever been the most social, but neither have the rest of them. Back in Henrietta, they had each other and a singular purpose. Here, the purpose is gone and they all have other interests. Other friends. And, after the argument he'd had with Gansey on his birthday, he has a hard time believing any of them are stupid enough to think Ronan's happy not having them around.

He could be wrong, of course. He's apparently been nothing but wrong since the minute he showed up in this place.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Ronan tucks the dream ball under his arm and glares at Luke. "They've made it clear what they want. I just have to accept it. But I don't fucking know how."

[notaretriever]

Assuming Ronan is right, Luke is quiet for a moment. There's every chance he's not, maybe his friends just don't know what to do or say, but if this is where Ronan truly feels they've all found themselves, Luke has to trust that and go from there. He doesn't know if Ronan is really looking for advice, but he'd be remiss to just stand here and not say anything when someone has come to him clearly looking for something.

He and Alec are terribly alike and Luke knows his job with both of them is to find the place where he's most needed.

"I don't know how either," he says honestly. "I don't think anyone does. Any sort of loss, it hurts, and it keeps hurting until suddenly you discover one day that it hurts a little less than it used to. You find something or someone else has filled the space where that other person used to be. You can't force yourself to move on, but if you actually want to try, I can come up with some ideas for you to fill your time."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan can't say he's expecting Luke to know how to fix anything. As far as he's concerned, it can't be fixed anyhow, not while Ronan's still stuck here, out of time and out of place. He's not even sure why he's telling Luke all this to begin with, but it's too late to back out now.

He frowns at the offer though, curious despite himself and cocks his head. "What do you mean? You're not going to tell me to get a job or something, are you? Because fuck that."

[notaretriever]

"You have something against being a productive member of society?" Luke asks with an amused arch of his eyebrow. "Look, if you want to move on, if you really want to make that effort, maybe it's time to try doing something different. Like getting a job. I need help around the store, you'd be able to spend more time with Jack, since this is his favourite place to be, and if you want, I don't have to pay you. We can call it volunteerism."

He's joking, of course, because if Ronan comes to help out around the store, Luke will absolutely pay him, but he wants Ronan to want to do it. Not only does he think spending more time with Jack will be good for him, but it give Luke the opportunity to look after him a little easier without Ronan realizing that's quite what he's doing.

"Or take a class. Take a bunch of classes," he suggests. "Dream yourself up a sailboat and learn how to sail. Take up painting. Do something new."

[thedreamthief]

As far as Ronan's concerned, he is productive. He's the fucking definition of productive, the ball securely tucked under his arm is proof of that much.

But he keeps his mouth shut for now, listening as Luke continues. He has no idea what use he'll be in a goddamn bookstore, but the prospect of hanging out with Jack more often is alluring. And he sure as shit doesn't need to get paid, not when he can literally dream up all the money he could want.

"I'm not taking any classes," he nearly growls a moment later. It was hard enough making him show up to class back at Aglionby, why would he seek it out now?

He falls quiet though, seriously considering the offer, arms still curled over his chest as he eyes Luke. "What would you need me to do?"

[notaretriever]

"Carry boxes," Luke answers with a small shrug, because he admittedly hadn't thought it through all that well before offer. Hild had mostly helped with customer service, but Luke doesn't think Ronan is going to be all that interested in helping people find the right book. "Probably take my truck to do pick ups of inventory. Jack likes going on those, so you'd be taking him with you. Nothing all that difficult, although you would have to be nice to customers when you're in the store."

He pauses, then asks, "What's so terrible about taking a class? I'm not talking high school or even college, I just mean... what if you always wanted to learn how to bake? You could take a baking class. Something you want to do, not something that's being forced on you."

[thedreamthief]

Luke at least seems to know better than to expect Ronan to deal with customers and he finds himself actually considering the idea, especially when Luke mentions Jack and how much he likes going on the truck. Ronan even has driving experience in that area after the few months he spent here with that shitty moving company. And he has the feeling he could avoid the customers for the most part, especially if he can choose his hours.

He glances up when Luke continues, quirking any eyebrow at the question. "Don't need to learn how to bake," he says, though learning how to cook probably isn't a bad idea. He can do some things, usually shit that comes in a box, but with Adam so busy working and studying, it wouldn't be a bad skill to have. "You done that shit?" he asks, tipping his chin almost in challenge. "Just take a class for no fucking reason at all?"

[notaretriever]

Ronan doesn't give an answer about the possibility of a job, so Luke lets him guide the direction of their conversation and gives a nod in response to his question.

"I took a painting class with Clary once," he says. "I wasn't very good at it, but she enjoyed it and so I had a good time, too. I also took a metal working class out of sheer curiosity and that was fun, although not enough fun that I wanted to go beyond the beginner class."

Luke's the sort who prefers to do his learning from books, but he knows that isn't always the best for everyone. Especially if they're in need of distraction like he suspects Ronan might be.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan's never been interested in painting or art or any of that shit Noah's into. His creativity manifests in the whatever he pulls from his dreams, a creativity of subconscious, he guess. It's not really the same thing.

He can even dream up food if he wants to, could dream a whole fucking gourmet meal for a dozen people if he wanted and, so long as he paid attention to every little detail, it'd work out just fine. There wouldn't be a single case of food poisoning, even.

But he can't dream all the time; Cabeswater here is as fragile as back home, they've found. It can be drained just as easily and there's no telling when Ronan's really going to need it.

So maybe he'll think about it.

In the meantime... "You're serious about the job?" he asks, regarding Luke with an arched brow. "Would it need to be every day?"

[notaretriever]

"I'm serious, yes," he says. "And no, not every day if you don't want it to be. I don't get shipments every day, it would likely only be once or twice a week for that. If you wanted to verify inventory and shelve the new stuff when it comes in, that might be an additional day or two, depending on what you want to do."

Luke certainly isn't going to stop him from coming to spend time here, even if he isn't working, but he would rather do it under the guise of a job, he'll be more than happy to play along with that, too.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan can't do every day, not with the animals to look after, but he can't deny he still has a lot of hours to kill most days, a lot of hours he spends locked inside his own head. Having an excuse to get out and do something, to be productive in a way Adam might even appreciate, to get to see Jack more often... it's all appealing.

"I can shelve and do inventory," he says because fuck it, even if he skipped most of his classes at Aglionby, he's still fucking educated. It can't be that difficult. A thought occurs to him then, brow furrowing as he asks, "Do you sell textbooks?"