And So It Begins [9/15/2017]

[thedreamthief]

It didn't feel like any ordinary dream.

That wasn't saying much when the dreamer in question was Ronan Lynch, but even for him, it didn't feel ordinary. Just how seemed impossible to quantify, but Ronan could feel it in the shudder of the wind against his skin, the hint of a whisper down his spine, the flicker of wings in his peripheral vision.

There was something lingering at the edges. A presence. Calling to him. Pleading.

He wasn't dreaming with purpose this time, his sleep largely dreamless and much easier to come by in the past several months with all his closest friends nearby and his mother only two doors down. There are no Terrors. Haven't been for months. Was this one now? When Ronan slept these days it was for hours on end, as though his body was trying to make up for years and years without.

But not tonight.

He woke slowly, in fits in starts that were far too familiar. A wisp of white fluttered across his eyes and a sinking dread hung in his chest as he blinked his eyes open. He was stuck in place, fingers twitching, gripping at nothing and, for a moment, he couldn't breathe.

And then he could.

He hadn't brought anything out with him, or at least nothing he could see. But the shiver in his room hadn't faded.

Frowning, Ronan checked the clock -- 6:21. The sun was peeking over the horizon already. He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

The door to his mother's room was still closed as he passed and Ronan quietly jogged down the stairs in only his boxers and muscle shirt, slipping into a pair of flip-flops that may or may not have been his own before stepping out into the crisp morning.

The chickens greeted him with quiet clucks as Ronan carried in the pail of bird feed. Hercules stumbled over on graceless legs while Cinnamon only blinked at him from near the fence.

Ronan sprinkled the ground with a handful of seed, still unable to shake the vestiges of the dream.

Comments

[incognoscibilis]

Adam slept a little longer, always instinctively clinging to sleep when he had it, but Ronan's movement was too obvious, the cold air that replaced his warmth only waking him further. Twisting an arm, he scratched an itch between his shoulder blades and hissed when he scratched too hard in his clumsy half-awake enthusiasm. He shook his head at himself and then retried a t-shirt and found a pair of shoes, following the sound of Ronan and clucking.

"You okay?" he asked.

[formicine]

Blue can't say if it's the pad of feet on the stairs or the sun that wakes her, or something else entirely. For a moment she doesn't quite remember where she is; then the heaviness of sleep, the tug of tumultous dreams she's already forgetting, lifts enough to take stock. The slightly odd angle her neck is at with a pillow against the arm of Ronan's couch, a song stuck in her head that Aurora might have been humming last night, the quiet nature sounds of a world waking up.

Ronan, on the stairs. The farmhouse.

She stays still enough to hear the door open and close, and lifts her head curiously, glancing at the clock.

6:21.

What is he doing?

Blue stretches and toes on the lowtop sneakers she's left next to the couch; she grabs a flannel Adam's abandoned to a coathook to shrug on over her dress and heads out, bare legs and oversized sleeves, into September dew and the bewildered cluck of chickens.

"Never took you for a morning person."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan heard the crunch of grass and twigs behind him and straightened up, turning slightly just as Adam's voice drifted through the crisp, morning air. His hair was still a mess, matted down on one side and lines from his pillow still creasing his face.

He looked soft. Warm. Ronan thought maybe he liked this side Adam even more than all the others, the side that was too tired for any sort of pretense.

"Just weird dreams," he replied as Adam drew closer. He grabbed another handful of seed and started scattering. "Figured I should at least get up and feed the girls."

[thedreamthief]

He heard the footsteps before the voice. It was a lighter step than Adam or Gansey, but not so silent as Noah's could be. That left only one of two people and Ronan's mother often seemed to float more than walk.

"I have a farm, Sargent," he replied without turning around.

Two months ago and the statement might have had an edge to it, a prickled barb of punctuation. Now, there was some bit of warmth under it, even if it wasn't outright fond.

He looked up a moment later as the chickens pecked near his feet, happily sucking up the little bits of seed and scrap. "It's a good time of day, anyway. Quiet."

[formicine]

The edge of Blue's mouth turns up into something like a smirk; she's not sure if it's because he knows her without turning around, or because the sarcasm is neutral. It feels like familiar terrain, a little, or at least a land she knows about even if she hasn't mapped it. Ronan's been more that lately.

"Get some sheep and it turns you into a responsible citizen," she replies. "Who knew." It's a little softer, a little less harsh, than she can be too.

"Yeah, it is," she agrees. "Sometimes when I can't fall asleep, I stay up to sit through sunrise." She falls into step beside him, watching the chickens do what chickens do. "It feels more like it was something I meant to do. And the world looks different with the light creeping up on it while everything's asleep. It's like a secret most people don't want to know."

It's weirdly vulnerable a thing to say, at least to Ronan, and she glances at him sidelong, sort of prepared for a snarky reply.

[incognoscibilis]

"What kind of weird?" Adam asked. In the early light, there was something fragile and new about the world around them. This place, steeped in Cabeswater's magic, was full of possibility and Ronan stood at the center of it all.

Adam thought he could be forgiven for coming over and wrapping his arms around Ronan, chin resting on his shoulder. "Not night horrors?"

[thedreamthief]

Blue stepped closer, the chickens swarming around her feet just as they swarmed around Ronan's.

He took another handful of seed and then passed the bucket to Blue; if she was going to stay out here, she might as well make herself useful. This was typically a chore Ronan performed alone every morning and it was strangely nice to have company.

"You're not even dating and Gansey's insomnia is wearing off on you," he remarked, once again with any edge. It wasn't a topic they talked about often. Or at all. But when Ronan's memories of home had come seeping back in, the anger and betrayal he'd held in his heart for her had dissipated. He couldn't say he understood her reasonings here any more than he had before, but he did understand Blue more. That meant something.

[formicine]

She makes a little face when he hands her the bucket, but she's still smiling. It feels good to be included again with Ronan. Ever since he'd woken back up things had been fitting back again slowly. It wasn't exactly like the past hadn't happened, and the things he'd said that had broken things between them had still been said, but it'd been a year almost. It wasn't worth it any more, and she'd almost lost him. Maybe. Maybe he'd never been almost lost, but everyone had felt like it.

She lets her hand sink into the seed, lets the little grains between her fingers for a minute before she lifts it and scatters it to the chickens. "I never slept that well," she shrugs. "But I think Gansey's insomnia wears off on everyone a little bit." She pauses and glances back at the upper level of the house. "Well, maybe except for Adam." Her smile curls up at the edge. Adam might work himself until he's ready to drop, but he can sleep when he needs to. Like a rock.

Ronan -- he can sleep, has to to be able to dream, but she's not sure how much he rests. She's never really asked.

[thedreamthief]

The curl of Adam's arms around his middle was an immediate comfort as was the familiar dig of a pointy chin into his shoulder as the chickens clucked at their feet.

"No night horrors," he confirmed, though his lips curved into a deeper frown as he considered it. They weren't horrors, but the feeling that lingered afterward wasn't entirely dissimilar. There was an unease under his skin, a sensation he couldn't easily describe. "But. Weird. I think Noah was there."

That felt like an explanation somehow, though Ronan wasn't sure how.

[thedreamthief]

Maybe that was true. When Ronan stopped to think about it, he wasn't sure whether it was Gansey or himself that had worse trouble sleeping all those years ago. Or if they'd only been enabling each other to some extent; it was always easier to fend off sleep when Gansey was there beside him sharing every useless fact about a dead Welsh king.

His lips tugged into a smirk as she revised her claim, acknowledging the truth in it. Of all of them, Adam had been the only one to appreciate sleep whenever he could achieve it. Of all of them, he was the one who needed it most.

Even here in Darrow that hadn't changed much.

"And Noah," he agreed, wandering away to grab the rake he had resting against the fence. "But only because Noah doesn't actually need to sleep."

[incognoscibilis]

No night horrors but something wasn't right either. Once, Adam hadn't believed in magic. He hadn't really believed in psychic visions and ominous dreams. It was only a few years ago but Adam could barely remember that version of himself, the one whose eyes were only partway open.

Sighing, he listened to Ronan and tried to think of some joke, some dismissal, but there was something unsettled about Ronan that Adam thought he felt too.

"Do you remember any of it?" Usually, Ronan did.

[thedreamthief]

Maybe that was the strangest part, the fact that Ronan couldn't remember beyond the general feel of it. Ronan didn't remember all of his dreams, but he remembered most. And always the ones where he pulled something into the waking world.

He still couldn't shake the feeling that he had this time even if there'd been nothing there.

"Not really," he finally answered, resting a hand over Adam's forearm where it remained curled around him. "Mostly just a feeling. Not a good one."

[iwasmore]

Noah appears next to Ronan. Faded for a moment before coming into focus, at once a mirage of what he'd been back home, and then the solid, warm person he's been changed into. A nearly carbon copy of who he'd been before he'd been beaten to death. Nearly.

"Something's wrong," he says ominously, conversationally, like he's been standing next to Ronan, arms crossed and resting over the top of the fence the whole time.

[incognoscibilis]

Adam frowned and made a speculative noise, his arm tightening slightly around Ronan's middle as if that could somehow be all the protection they needed. In the back of his mind, he reached out to Cabeswater, hunted for answers, but the forest was enigmatic, providing only images of its own damp leaves and dew black soil. Nothing.

"Maybe we should call a meeting," he said, nodding toward the house. However fraught things could get between them, in a moment like this, they were Gansey's court, Blue's Raven Boys.

[thedreamthief]

The sound of Noah's voice wasn't too surprising. His visits to the Farms were frequently unannounced; not even the animals were ever startled by his sudden appearances.

This time felt different.

Ronan didn't jump exactly, but he did look back over his shoulder quickly, a deep frown curving his lips. It relaxed a moment later, but only slightly, as he turned his attention back to the chickens.

"The girls seem fine," he pointed out, though it wasn't an argument. He felt it too, after all.

[thedreamthief]

Adam's arms tightened around him briefly and Ronan inhaled, sinking into the warmth of his familiar embrace as the chickens continued to cluck and peck at the seed at his feet.

"What the fuck's a meeting going to do?" he asked with a huff of a humorless laugh. "It'll just get Gansey on a tangent."

Though, honestly, that might not be a bad idea now that Cheng had disappeared. It might give him something new to focus on for awhile, something that may or may not be as fruitless as examining the mysterious of this fucked-up city.

[incognoscibilis]

"I could use a Gansey tangent right about now," Adam said, waiting for the elbow in his side and a laughed innuendo. It was true though. Gansey thinking out loud was likely to help them as much as anything, if they could get his thoughts to follow a track. And with ley lines, they usually could.

"I'm pretty sure that something weird in your dreams is probably a Thing we're not supposed to ignore."

[formicine]

"Mm," she agrees with a small smile, continuing to scatter feed to the chickens. "You know, it's a luxury. Like sleeping in on a day off. You might not need it but by god you're going to do it." For Noah, the ability to sleep like a rock is probably through sheer willpower of wanting to be alive, and that's a reason she loves him. He's more vivacious than some alive people she knows, even when he's a little soft around the edges.

"I wonder if Noah dreams," she says, after a moment. "Has he ever said?"

[thedreamthief]

It wasn't a bad thought. Sometimes Gansey's tangents actually landed on something solid and helpful. Less so here just because Darrow itself was a fucking mess, full of dozens of new variables none of them really knew how to handle.

But maybe he could figure out something. There were still ley lines, after all, even if there was no dead Welsh king anymore.

"Probably," he agreed, lips still curved in a frown. "But you think Gansey will have any fucking clue what to do? Could just Darrow fucking shit up again." Somehow, though, that idea wasn't exactly comforting.

[thedreamthief]

It was a strange thought, if only because Ronan had never before wondered or even considered asking. In their group, Ronan was the dreamer. A foregone conclusion. Sometimes Ronan forgot that other people had their own dreams, ones just as wild as his own even if nothing could be pulled from them.

"Never asked him," he confessed with a slight frown. Then, just to be a shit, he added, "Does haunting count as dreaming?"

[incognoscibilis]

Adam paused and let himself indulge for a moment, nuzzling against Ronan's neck, the corner of his jaw. In moments like this, there was a softness to Ronan, the boy you could fall on and cut yourself. It seemed a shame to waste it when they both needed the reassurance.

"I don't know, but he'll sound real official about it," Adam said. Even if it was just 'Darrow shit,' it could mean a lot of things and most of the time 'Darrow shit' was never good.

[formicine]

When Blue dreams, usually, it's vague: the sort of dreams you wake from crying, or wishing, or frustrated by, but can't remember what happened. Sometimes she has nightmares, but they're infrequent. Gansey, though, she's all too aware that Gansey dreams unpleasantly. She sort of assumes Adam has nightmares. And Ronan, well, they all know that Ronan dreams.

So it seems natural to think about Noah.

She smirks. "I don't think that counts. Unless it's the person being haunted, maybe." She glances at Ronan for a long moment as he starts raking up. "Is it weird or good, having your mom around?"

[thedreamthief]

Despite himself, a smile tugged at the corner of Ronan's lips. It was true, really. And there was a chance Gansey might actually stumble on something in his rambling. Even if it was just Darrow show, Gansey had been deep in exploring the city's origins since the moment he arrived -- both times. There was a chance he'd find something.

"Or maybe I'm just paranoid."

This time, his tone was almost more hopeful.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan wondered if Noah had ever snuck into someone's dreams before, if that was a thing he could do or if he just snuck into bedrooms and made people think they were dreaming. Either would be pretty badass, he thought.

He scattered more seed, Blue quiet beside him, though it wasn't quite as awkward a silence as it might have been a few months ago. It wasn't comfortable either, but Ronan didn't know if it ever would be. He was still trying to reconcile the Blue he remembered from back home with the one here in Darrow.

He figured she was probably trying to do the same with him.

The question came as a surprise and he arched an eyebrow as he straightened up, seed still slipping through his fingers. "Both," replied after thinking on it a moment. "Still don't really get how she's here. I mean, she's-- Dad's still dead, you know? And I thought something would be different between this Cabeswater and the one back home. Something's always felt different, at least. But."

He shrugged then because, as much as he didn't understand it, a part of him didn't want to. If he looked at it too closely, spent too much time trying to pick it all apart, maybe the city would take her away. Better to not ask questions.

[formicine]

Blue nods. There's a part of her that's a little stupidly jealous of Ronan having Aurora back; even she knows it's stupid. For one thing, Aurora is a very different sort of mother to have than Maura, even in terms of her life and being. But also, Ronan hasn't gotten to have his mother around and awake for the whole time that Blue had hers, so it's an unfair sort of jealousy anyway.

"I don't get it either," she says, carefully. "I mean. Maybe she's tied to you, the way you were asleep..." She still remembers the way they'd all been afraid with a sort of twist of her stomach, how angry at herself she'd been. It had been some sort of insanity to not just have Ronan wake up fine but wake up with Aurora. Can a dreamt thing be re-dreamed? She supposes it could, but Aurora doesn't feel like a copy of a copy, if something like that would even happen to a dream. "But who knows. Darrow doesn't exactly explain things."

"Gansey's been reading up on ley lines," she adds, probably unnecessarily, because Gansey will tell anyone who listens about his research on any given thing. "Here, I mean. We tried to tap into Cabeswater that way when you were asleep, to speak to it. I think -- whatever line runs through this place, it's different from Henrietta, but it's just as strong. Maybe that makes Cabeswater similar enough."

[incognoscibilis]

"I think we've earned the right," Adam said. Their lives were plagued with conspiracy, hitmen, murder, and magic, Ronan even more than most. By now, when something felt wrong to Adam's gut, he trusted it. He didn't want to say or believe that something wasn't right but the evidence was pretty compelling.

"It'll probably seem less weird after breakfast," he said in that same almost hopeful tone. Adam hoped they were wrong.

[iwasmore]

It was true. The girls did look fine. They looked like chickens, they were pecking the ground as usual and making their soft clucking sounds. Everything looked real and normal...and yet.

"I think something's going to happen," Noah said dubiously, running a hand absently through his hair in the back. It was a strange claim, he was linear now, wasn't he? He wasn't psychic, he couldn't really know.

But somehow he did.

[thedreamthief]

"Yeah, maybe," he said because it seemed reasonable enough. Cabeswater was a living thing, he knew that much. He hadn't created it so much as brought it into being; it had a mind of its own, could decide when and whom it helped. If Darrow's ley line was just as strong as Henrietta's, it made sense that Cabeswater could be happy enough with it. Or more than happy.

And Cabeswater had its own rules.

"Whatever it is, it's... fuck, it's nice, I guess," he said, wondering a bit at himself. At the fact that he was sharing this with Blue of all people. "Good to have someone around who can actually cook. And the animals all love her."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan arched an eyebrow at that, relaxing just slightly.

"You trying to say something?" he asked, his voice almost teasing even as the unease stayed firm in his belly.

Glancing over at the house, he gave a jut of his chin. "Mom up yet? We could see if she wants to make eggs. Haven't checked the coop yet, but I'd bet there's enough in there for french toast."

[thedreamthief]

Noah looked uncomfortable. Restless. Anxious.

Ronan had seen it before, largely back in Henrietta, and it never meant anything good. But Henrietta wasn't like Darrow.

"Something like what?" he asked, his voice a little sharper, almost accusing. Because if Noah knew specifics, Ronan wasn't about to fuck around. Not that Ronan had any clue how Noah could know that sort of thing. It'd been different back home, after all. Noah had been different.

[incognoscibilis]

"I'm trying to say," Adam replied, his own light tone doing the exact same as Ronan's. "That breakfast sounds damn good and we both know it." Cavalier didn't really suit him, not unless he was going over the top with a quiet yee-haw, but Adam thought he got points for trying.

"I don't want to wake her if she isn't." Which was to say, Adam wasn't sure exactly how much license he could take with someone who was, essentially, an in-law.

[thedreamthief]

With the chickens still happily pecking near his feet, Ronan shifted the bucket from one hand to the other as he started back toward the house. He trusted Adam to follow, but glanced back just in case, still not quite smiling.

"I can wake her," he said, though he figured he'd just make breakfast himself if his mother really was still in bed. It wouldn't be good, but.

The smell of coffee greeted them as he pushed open the back door into the kitchen and, finally smirking then, he looked over at Adam just as Aurora looked up from the book she was reading at the table.

"Well, there you are," she said as Ronan closed the door behind him. "How are my chickens this lovely morning?"

[incognoscibilis]

As always, Adam put himself behind Ronan in Aurora's presence. Although she was a person who had been made to love, it was still hard sometimes to believe Adam Parrish was a person who could be loved by someone like Aurora. Ronan, yes, because they understood the ways they were broken, but not Aurora.

"They're eating," he replied, an unspoken ma'am on the tip of his tongue, barely suppressed.

[formicine]

The vulnerability, the admission from Ronan is a moment that's been stumbled into, like Blue's snuck out and ended up in the chapel of a church she doesn't attend. A strange, privileged and confused sort of feeling accompanies it, and she just smiles in a sort of encouragement of the two of them talking like this.

"Everyone loves her," she points out. "Or, she loves everyone, is maybe what I mean." She rubs her neck and ventures, "She seems really just glad that you have friends? I feel like I'm cheating, a little." It's also more open than she meant to be, and she rolls up the sleeve of Adam's flannel, concertedly.

"Feels a little more like home, with another woman balancing us out," she adds, because teasing is easier.

[thedreamthief]

His mother's smile was as warm and welcoming as ever, her gaze lighting upon Adam as she quietly closed her book and set it aside.

"Well, I suppose they shouldn't be the only ones so lucky," she said, throwing Adam a wink before glancing over to Ronan. She stood up from her chair and grabbed the apron off the hook behind the door. "How about some eggs and sausage, then? Ronan sweetie, can you see what we have in the freezer?"

After washing her hands off in the sink, she turned her attention back to Adam. "Do you have class this morning, Adam? Can I make you a lunch to take with you?"

[iwasmore]

"I don't know," Noah admits, sounding more helpless than defensive. He wishes he did know, then maybe he could figure out a way to prepare...if there even was something to prepare for. That's the thing about linear time, you don't know what's coming.

"It's different here, but I have a bad feeling. Maybe it's my Sculpture project coming up," he lies, trying to push back on the feeling of things being off-kilter. "I don't have a Demi Moore to do that wheel thing with, it's such a waste."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam paused, feeling oddly singled out by the question. Lunch would be something made for him, not them. He barely suppressed the urge to glance at Ronan, as if he'd provide the right etiquette. As if Ronan had ever provided any etiquette.

"I do," he admitted. "But you don't need to worry about me." That was what sandwiches were for, something easily put together. Rarely satisfying, but doable.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan arched an eyebrow at that, wondering silently what she might mean. How was someone supposed to cheat at friendship? Their own had been rocky, to put it mildly, and maybe he wasn't as close with her as Adam or Gansey or Noah, but they were at least no longer sniping at each other.

His lips twitched into a smirk as she continued and he threw another handful of seed. "We're not turning the farms into your Fox Way," he remarked. "I'll kill myself first if just to save you all the fucking trouble."

[thedreamthief]

It wasn't exactly a helpful response, but Ronan took an odd sort of comfort in it all the same. He wasn't alone in feeling like something felt different and he also wasn't alone in not knowing what the fuck it could be.

His lips twitched into a bare grin at the remark and he arched an eyebrow.

"Pretty sure you could find someone," he said, playing along. "Not making a vase, are you?"

[formicine]

He looks more confused than he does judgmental, and Blue shrugs a shoulder at him in self-consciousness. If she feels as though she hasn't been quite the friend to him that Aurora treats her like she has, at least they're no longer giving each other loud, childish silent treatments.

It's a mannerism that feels as though she's borrowed it from Adam, and realizing it makes Blue square her shoulders a little. If Ronan isn't dragging himself through the mud about reforming this friendship, she has no reason to either.

"Shut up," she says to that, and shoves him a little bit with her shoulder. "Darrow will do it for you, if you make wishes like that too loud. Anyway, you'd be lucky to have Fox Way here," she adds with a smirk.

[thedreamthief]

"How the fuck would I be lucky for that?" he asked, voice gruff, but something nearly like a smile still playing at his lips. He was standing straight now, bucket dangling from the fingers of one hand as the chickens happily pecked at the scattered seed. "Don't let the hair fool you, Sargent. I've never been a masochist."

It seemed a strange conversation to be having. Or maybe it just felt strange after nearly a year of barely speaking to one another.

Or maybe it felt strange because it didn't feel strange. Nothing between them was really forgotten; Ronan couldn't say it was really forgiven, even. But maybe neither of them really needed that.

[formicine]

Blue considers him for a minute, turning over the implication that his hair might make him look like a masochist and what she had missed there and if it was a function of some sort of experience she'd skipped on. (As if it was that, and not his free and easy treatment of his own life, that would imply that, anyway.)

"It's good to have psychics around," she says, smile elusive.

Really, she just misses her family and she gets to be defensive of them, she thinks. There's a part of her that's almost sickly jealous of Ronan, of whatever the hell brought Aurora to them, even though she's glad she's here, that he gets her. Maybe it's hopeful, too.

She looks at the sky, the way it's going orangey over the pink. The chickens are ignoring them, happy with their feed. "You hungry?"

[thedreamthief]

Two years ago and Ronan might have argued that. His experience with psychics prior to Darrow had been relegated almost entirely to the women of Fox Way and, while he definitely couldn't say he held any sort of disbelief in their validity, he couldn't say he'd found their presence good in any way.

Gansey probably would have disagreed. Adam, too.

Either way, it didn't matter anymore. Not here. And having Noah around sometimes felt like having a psychic anyway.

Blue tipped her head back and Ronan took a moment to just watch her. Study. She seemed relaxed enough but weighted, too. He still couldn't read her like he could Gansey or Adam or even Noah. She was still something of a mystery, his memories of her back home and in Darrow often conflicting.

"You offering to cook?" he asked with an arched brown, something like a grin nearly playing at his lips. "Mom's probably got something on the stove already."