#see also gansey calling ronan his dog all the time

[gaygollum]

book series of all time

#see also gansey calling ronan his dog all the time #the hand cat and the boar that can turn into gasoline scented air #and we cannot forget the cow balloon. the bovine blimp. #the raven cycle #maggie stiefvater #trc #mine #i made like 20 of these 😭😭 this series is so weird and ridiculous #why do i spend every waking moment thinking about it #wait update like 5 mins after posting #‘hair conditioning’ is it hair CONDITIONER??? DAMNIT #In my Defense i have a cold. but also english is a stupid language

[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).

#joseph kavinsky #anti maggie stiefvater #anti raven cycle #anti trc

[the-ace-with-spades]

(1/6) the best is yet to be

five times someone realized Ronan and Adam were basically married and one time they actually were

Part 2 │ Part 3 │ Part 4 │ Part 5 │ Part 6

Read it on ao3

Gansey did not expect anything to change in their group dynamic when Ronan and Adam admitted they were in a relationship — not because he thought it wasn't a big deal, but because Adam and Ronan did not seem like the type of a couple who was very affectionate in public, simple due to their exteriorly harsh personalities. He was sure that, with time, they were going to be whispering sweet nothings and devouring any small touches they could give each other behind closed doors, but he never hoped to be a witness to any of it.

 Although Gansey loved them dearly, Ronan and Adam were both heavily experienced by life and for them, expressing emotions was greatly limited to those of negative nature. They were getting better, both of them, and the progress of the last year was evident but Gansey did not expect them to get rid of those habits easily.

Gansey, as he often is, was wrong.

Now that they search for Glendower was forgotten, they all had more time and they all spent it differently. Gansey himself was having a bit of a mid-life crisis — or after second death crisis — and was desperately searching for something else that could provide life-long interest and simultaneously be useful for a future degree in history as his mother expected that he would at least attend some kind of higher education.

Adam was doing things only Adam could do, which consisted of things mundane but exhausting. Working three jobs, interviewing for scholarships, preparing for exams, and helping Ronan with the Barns didn't leave him much freedom and he still managed to somehow fit his friends in between. Apparently, he was even also meeting up with the psychics at the Fox Way, although Blue didn’t know the details — she was also preparing for exams, helping her family with the business and working, so in between the sparse time she didn't spend with Gansey or Gansey and the others, she wasn't present for most of Adam's visits.

Out of all of them, Ronan had the most empty calendar. He hadn't dropped out of school yet but at this point, it was only a formality — his absence was so frequent and his grades so nonexistent that no one was deluding themselves, Ronan wasn't going to graduate. It meant that there would be days Gansey wouldn't see him at all while he stayed in the Barns, repairing anything the time consumed and making the place resemble the warm home it used to be.

It made Gansey feel incredibly lonely, more than usual, especially at night, when he was now the only person pacing around the Monmouth Manufacturing.

But there were days like the one now, and Adam would come for a study session that would slowly track off into a different territory and he would stay until his night shift was about to begin.

Another benefit of having Adam at the Monmouth was that Ronan had an almost abnormal gift of knowing when Adam was going to be there and therefore always showed that day too. He would mostly provide to be a distraction and more often than not he would still leave for the night, either to Adam's or to the Barns, Gansey never asked.

He figured that Ronan being there every time Adam showed up was in itself a public display of affection and the only kind Gansey would ever witness from the two.

He should have known something like that would happen sometime mid-evening but he purposefully ignored it.

Adam was sitting at the coffee table, his body curving on the hard floor, things scattered around him. He'd been sitting like that for an hour and there wasn't anything unusual about it.

Ronan, who had previously been in his room, blasting that awful thing he calls music, materialized behind the sofa an hour into the session when they were already slowly going off-topic. It confirmed Gansey's suspicions, as Ronan indeed had a sixth sense when it came to Parrish-related things. It was kind of funny, kind of heartwarming and kind of weird to observe this unusual sign of love from him.

Ronan did not stay behind the couch long, instead deciding to throw himself onto it, lying on his stomach. For the most part, he didn't say anything, not even a greeting Adam could reply to. Observing that, no one would have said, if they didn't know Ronan and Adam as well as Gansey, that they were a couple.

Adam didn't seem to mind much, still paying attention to his math homework and still giving Gansey glances from time to time, to show that he was still listening.

Ronan provided to be a distraction, but not to Adam — to Gansey. The further from studying they were, the more obvious it became how close Ronan's face was to Adam's neck.

Finally finished with his homework, Adam leaned back.

Gansey tried — really, really tried — not to stare but he was utmostly sure Ronan was nuzzling into Adam's neck. The touches could be easily mistaken for tiny little kisses scattered over Adam's freckled skin. It was a very strange sight, as it was simultaneously looking seductive, almost like tiny little kisses scattering over Adam's freckled skin, and disturbing in a way that made Gansey feel hot all over his body but it also made Ronan, who was slightly curled onto himself and hiding his nose in Adam's nape, look like an overgrown lap dog that was pawing its owner for attention.

Adam didn't react at first, and Gansey would say he didn't notice, but he also leaned further back, allowing Ronan's thumb to brush his shoulder blade.

This wasn't exactly outrageous but it was also enough that Gansey noticed. More wasn't allowed to show, but Adam and Ronan's affection wasn't exactly public in the sense that no stranger would call it affection.

Gansey wasn't a stranger so he could see the way Ronan's breathing calmed down and the way his eyes hovered closed a second or two longer. He almost looked sleepy, or peacefully content.

And then Adam had to get up.

And Gansey could see how Ronan's body sharpened within seconds, lazily turning onto his side and shaking off any easiness off his shoulders.

"You sure you don't want me to drive you?" Ronan asked, voice rough and lazy from not talking for so long.

Gansey's brain, at that moment, was showing him red flags — there was a way too much intimacy within this short period of time and this little question was another example of it. Ronan hadn't said anything for the duration of his stay on the couch. This was a conversation he hadn't been a part of.

The corner of Adam's lips quirked up, almost unnoticeably. He adjusted the strap of his bag, filled up with notebooks, textbooks, and his work uniform and there was something light about his posture.

"No, Lynch," he said. "Not today."

Gansey wished he could, just like that, offer Adam a ride, and not be placed under his questioning gaze and assessed for ulterior motives. Maybe it was a boyfriend privilege, or rather — a Ronan privilege, as this had been happening even when they weren't in a relationship.

"I will see you tomorrow in the library?" Adam asked, snapping Gansey out of the stupor.

"Yeah, and at lunch."

Adam waves at them, turning around.

"Hey, Parrish," Ronan spoke up. He waited for Adam to turn back to them before continuing.

Adam raised an eyebrow, slightly amused. "Huh?"

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Ronan asked. Adam gave him an empty look. "You suck."

And then Ronan turned his face, his jaw slightly up so that his side was directed at Adam. He tapped his cheek with one finger, brows creased, and waited.

Adam rolled his eyes but his expression was unbelievably fond. Gansey stared.

Adam took a step back to the sofa. Gansey stared more.

Before Gansey could even register what was happening, Adam leaned down over Ronan's sprawled body and kisses his cheek, an inch away from his chin, so long and so sweet that Gansey's mouth opened as he gaped. It was casual but looking weirdly domestic — it reminded Gansey of early childhood and the way his parents would often kiss in the doorframe, whenever one of them was leaving for work, or grocery shopping, or dentist appointment, or to pick up the kids from school.

Ronan's hand searched for Adam's and they met in a soft squeeze.

"What, no tongue?" Ronan asked, with a face that could easily be synonymous with the phrase the cat that got the cream.

"Screw you," Adam said, a tiny smile present over his reddened face.

Ronan's hand gave him a barely-there squeeze again.

Gansey couldn't tell if this was something normal for them or something Ronan played up to tease him and Adam simply indulged. It seemed too smooth and too habitual to be something done on the spot, especially with the level of softness they both displayed — it was almost as if Gansey wasn't in the room with them, silently observing everything; he didn't feel teased, he felt absent.

Ronan was usually the one that walked Adam to his car or took Adam home — Gansey hadn't seen them saying goodbye yet and quite frankly, he didn't think they would be saying any kind of goodbye at all. This seemed like something only sappy couples would do and although he could easily call Ronan sentimental, there was a difference. Out of the two of them, he had never thought that Adam would ever allow himself to be this vulnerable — the intimacy felt like something earned too early, something that shouldn't be there for months or years.

(It was. Something normal for them, that is.)

#pynch #my writing #my fics #TRC #outsider pov #pynch fic #idk how to tag this #the raven cycle

[lothloriien]

the raven cycle

with the exception of the first half of 'the raven boys,' i last read these books over a year ago. im going to note down everything i remember happening:

THE RAVEN BOYS

- gansey accidentally calls blue a prostitute

- blue gives adam her number

- adam spends a ridiculous amount of time worrying about a fray on his sweater

- blue goes to the church with neeve on st marks' eve and sees gansey

- the camaro breaks down and ronan brings adam to help fix it

- declan said he wants the gangsey (minus blue who they dont know yet) to meet his date

- ronan and declan get into a fight

- gansey tells ashley about glendower

- the latin teacher comes in for a reading but maura and the others get angry and make him leave

- gansey, ronan, and adam come in for a reading. blue is there and its very awkward

- the latin teacher realizes that he was right about glendower if gansey was also looking for him in henrietta

- blue and adam start dating

- ronan dreams up chainsaw

- blue becomes a part of the gangsey

- adam gets beat by his dad

- gansey's sister flies them in a helicopter to cabeswater

- neeve does some ritual with the latin teacher

- the gangsey finds out that noah is czerny who is also dead (and has been for 7 years)

- adam becomes cabeswater

- there's a funeral for noah

THE DREAM THIEVES

- ronan and kavinsky have their weird dreaming thing

- kavinsky finds out ronan is gay

- the gangsey going spelunking

- adam's trial with his dad?

- noah and blue kiss

- mallory and Dog

- there's a weird mirror-pool thing where blue and ronan have a very cute bromance moment

- ronan dreams about adam

- aurora and matthew lynch are dreams, niall and ronan lynch are dreamers. declan is neither

- blue gets detention and ronan is very pleased with their ingluence on her

- ronan and adam visit cabeswater

BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE

- blue finds out that her dad is a tree

- adam and blue break up

- adam has anger issues

- ronan dreams up eye cream for blue

- they find the screaming girl (gwennlian or something??)

THE RAVEN KING

- the gangsey go to ronan's house

- noah is having trouble staying present

- greywaren and the greenmantle

- ronan and adam kiss

- they find glendowers tomb but glendower is dead

- blue and gansey kiss and gansey dies

- somehow, gansey returns

- noah disappears forever for some reason

- bees

- yeehaw

- the gangsey is racist all of a sudden

- henry cheng and his toga party

#the raven queen #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #the raven king

[brophigenia]

If you fed me more dark Gansey I would ascend spiritually it would change my life monumentally

Ask and ye shall receive. 

I give you: 

dick gansey and his pack of dogs 

(TW: mentions of sex work, class differences, dark!gansey) 

***

ronan

The collar is thick, handsome brown leather with a glinting gold buckle. Tasteful. Classic. 

It could’ve almost been a fashion statement. Outlandish, yes, but excusable, especially when you knew that Ronan had always been a bit eccentric in his tastes. 

Almost, except for the shining O-ring fixed in its center. 

Almost, except for the way he wore it, with his uniform unbuttoned to expose it, brazen against his fair skin and the black-as-night ink wrapping around his throat, feathers brushing his adam’s apple. 

Almost, except for the way Dick Gansey would curl his fingers into it, possessive and transparent, whenever he and Ronan were within four feet of each other. 

… so, always. 

Gansey holds onto it while he fucks Ronan, always like he’s got all the time in the world. So leisurely with the pounding grind of his hips, as if it were only his right. 

And it is— Ronan is nothing but Gansey’s, now. Nothing but his bare scalp and his ink and Gansey’s fingerprints smudging black-blue into his skin as a reminder that Niall Lynch is dead and Ronan is fatherless, drifting, tethered to the earth only by Gansey. 

Nothing else matters. 

(In another world, where Gansey was less selfish, perhaps it might be different; in another world, he might be able to swallow down his terrible obsession with Gansey’s everything to have his own life. 

In another life, Ronan is freer but no happier for it.) 

“Ronan,” Gansey murmurs quietly, always quietly— whether he’s balls-deep inside of Ronan or holding Ronan’s leash or setting him loose on some ruffians, Gansey always speaks so gently to his most faithful dog. 

(Gansey speaks softly to everyone; he carries a big stick named money.) 

***

adam

His parents die in a tragic accident when he’s fourteen years old. 

He stands in front of their graves with dry eyes and a bruised cheek, and then uses their life insurance checks to prepay four years’ room, board, and tuition at Aglionby Academy. 

The money goes quick, after the burials and the school expenses, but Adam sees it as an investment. 

So too is making friends with G and Lynch, at first only because he can see the writing on the wall and he knows they are his best chance for connections both above- and below-board. 

Letting G put a Rolex on his wrist and the keys to a Range Rover in his pocket is just another investment. Where once his pride would’ve boiled over into rage, all Adam can feel is numbness. Is ambition, choking him. If the way to the top is through sacrificing his dignity, then so be it, except G doesn’t want his dignity. 

G wants him to sit up late into the night and look pretty and talk to him for hours about Glendower, wants him to stretch out naked and speak of Welsh legends and ley lines with Ronan’s mouth stretched around his cock. 

He could love Ronan, if it weren’t for the fact that Gansey outshined the morning goddamn sun. If it weren’t for the way Gansey must be loved, whole-heartedly, in order for his hunger to be sated. Gansey would allow them this, and call it a kindness, call it taking care of his boys. 

Gansey would not allow them to take all his generosity and spit in his face for it, though. 

It was alright— Adam could love Gansey, and fuck Ronan, and drive his Rover, and do whatever else Gansey asked of him. 

It was a political alliance. He didn’t need to get everything he wanted to be satisfied. 

***

noah 

Noah is dead; Noah is tied to Gansey. 

Noah could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. 

Noah watches Gansey, so different from Barry had been, but no less magnetic. No less the king of everything, everywhere, everyone. 

(Sometimes, he thinks he picked wrong; sometimes, he thinks he should’ve died quiet and let Gansey die, too, his young body pricked and tortured and stung.) 

Sometimes the only way he feels alive is by pressing against Gansey when he’s on fire with it, when he’s wrapped around Ronan as he bloodies his knuckles on the faces of whoever for whatever, when he’s kissing Blue for Gansey at Gansey’s behest, when he’s watching Adam clean blood off a switchblade with the steady hands of a practiced killer. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

***

blue 

Raven Boys are useless except for when they’re not. 

There are too many bills and too few clients; more than once, Blue patches up Orla after a particularly nasty one, one who was more interested in the sideline services than the actual fortune telling. It pays better, the fucking does— but it’s riskier, legally and physically and mentally. Riskier in every way, except for how much quicker they can make rent, can pay hospital bills and grocery bills and car insurance. 

They tighten their belts, all of them, and sometimes Blue can’t remember the last time she ate anything but yogurt, but it’s still not enough.

Gansey leaves her a two hundred dollar tip the first time she serves him at Nino’s, and Blue goes home and vomits because she’s so furious, so angry, so humiliated that he took pity on her to do it. She wants to throw the money back in his goddamn face, but she can’t, because she needs it. They need it, and every dollar keeps them afloat. 

Gansey thinks he can buy everyone and everything. 

Or, he doesn’t think about it like that- instead, he thinks he’s being generous. Being kind. Thinks that any girl in the world would find it romantic, or something, to be taken care of. 

Gansey wants too much; he wants too much from the world, and from Ronan, from Adam, from her. He doesn’t understand that there are so many things he can’t buy; he doesn’t understand that while part of her adores every inch of him, the very pitted core of her is curdled sour by humiliation and resentment. 

If the world was fair, or just, it wouldn’t be like this. 

The world is neither fair, nor just. Blue sits at Gansey’s left hand because he wills it so, because he doesn’t give her a fucking choice, because he’s paying the house payment and for her youngest cousin’s braces, because he doesn’t trust anyone enough to see if they’d stay without the added bonus of Gansey’s cash and his cock. 

She watches Gansey fuck Ronan, because Gansey wants her to. Gansey wants them to surround him, to press against him, to remind him that he’s alive and not alone. 

Gansey wants so much, and Blue hates herself for forgetting, sometimes, why that should even be called a bad thing. 

“Jane,” he will say, inside of Ronan, and draw her down until she’s touching Ronan, too, Adam down Ronan’s throat and her hands on his back, his ribs, tracing featherlight over his tattoo. She does it because it drives Gansey wild, but also because it’s comforting to feel Ronan’s feverhot skin beneath her hands and know that at least she wasn’t him. At least she didn’t need Gansey like this. 

(Oh, and what a spectacular lie that is.) 

***

Ronan is Gansey’s dog. Adam is Gansey’s right hand. Blue is Gansey’s girl. 

They are all his. 

[naometry]

Ronan and his hero journey

Alternatively: if Gansey is the Arthurian knight in the shining armor type or hero Ronan is the tragic one.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR CALL DOWN THE HAWK

“Once the spear was uncovered, it wouldn't matter if the hero's truest love or family was in the room with him; the spear would kill them anyway. Killing was what it was good at, and so killing was what it did...The spear, Dad told me, was him...He told me to make sure Ronan was the name of the hero, and not the name of just another spear.” – The Raven King

As we all well know, Maggie’s books have a lot of mythology and history in them. Varying from Glendower, Gwenllian and Boudicca to some less obvious ones, like king Arthur and his knights, the holy grail, to Fionn Mac Cumhaill, Fintan mac Bochra and finally, the one that I would like to talk about, because this is the journey that Ronan mirrors.

Cu Chulainn.

Before we start, beware that this will be quite long and I’m going with The Raven Cycle and Dreamer Trilogy timeline, more or less.

Cu Chulainn is part of the Irish/Celt mythology in the Ulster cycle. Cu is a demigod, son of a mortal woman – Deichtine, the sister of Conchobar, the king of Ulster and one of the most important gods in the Irish mythology - Lugh. In a very very very short version – this is the most popular version, there are others –: Deichtine was missing for three years with fifty maidens with her. They were turned into murderous birds that devoured everything on sight, so Conchobar and his warriors hunted them but were hit by a snow storm. They found a house and asked for shelter. In this house there was a woman and a man. The man was Lugh and the woman Deichtine. Lugh fucked off as soon as the morning his, leaving Deichtine with a child to take care of. A very powerful child.

It all depends on the source you’re reading really, but the most common version (at least that I know of, please keep in mind that mythology has different interpretations/versions depending on the source material) is that Lugh wanted an avatar to bore his power on the mortal real. In certain ways, we can say that Cu Chulainn is, in fact, Lugh reborn. Here is a Wikipedia small passage of him: “Lugh is portrayed as a warrior, a king, a master craftsman and a savior. He is associated with skill and mastery in multiple disciplines, including the arts. He is also associated with oaths, truth and the law, and therefore with rightful kingship.”

Does this story sound familiar?

Be it as it may, Lugh won. He got what he wanted in the end, an avatar on earth that bore the same power he had and then he is gone. Which is exactly what happened with Ronan. Niall got his dreamer, Niall is gone. Ronan was left to whoever wanted him and had the patience to be there for him. Who turned out to be just like Cu in the myth: Cu had Deichtine, Conchobar and Deichtine new husband, just like the warriors that where with Conchobar in that day. Ronan had Aurora, Ronan had Declan, Ronan had Matthew and later on, the Gangsey.

Well, speeding up ahead:

Just like Ronan wasn’t born Greywaren, Cu Chulainn also wasn’t born Cu Chulainn. His actual name was Setanta. Cu Chulainn is actually a title-kind-of thing. Cu Chulainn does in fact mean “The Hound of Culann”. Almost like Ronan “Gansey’s dog” Lynch.

The name was given to him because, at six years old, Cu Chulainn – part of the boy-corps at the time and already better them they all together, thanks to Lugh’s heritage – was invited to a banquet at one of the most famous smiths at Ulster, Culann.

Conchobar, who was the one to invite Setanta, forgot he was coming. So, Culann ordered that the hound of the house - who he said had the strength of a hundred men - to be freed to patrol the outside. As Setanta arrives the hound attacks him. And the boy, at the tender age of six, kills the dog smashing his head into a rock after throwing a ball so hard into the dog’s mouth that he mortally wounded it. As gruesome as this one is, Ronan’s new name is considerably less bloody. He too could have the power to do miracles that comes from heritage.

After all, what is Cabeswater if not a miracle that gave Ronan his new name?

But this is not exactly how the name “Hound of Culann” is given. Do you know why is that?

Because Setanta promised to guard Culann’s propriety until they could get a new dog. And so he did.

Many thieves, one greywaren, right? Many guard dogs, only one worth of Culann’s hound title.

Life went on, Cu Chulainn keeps getting more and more impossible things done until the point that some people just… got quite enough of him.

The thing with Cu Chulainn is that even with all the demigod fuckery, there were still warriors that could match him, in one way or another. Just like there is more than one dreamer and they all excel at different things.

What made Cu special on itself is a different thing. Ríastrad – the battle frenzy berserker mode that had his body contort in unnatural shapes and distorting him to the point of being unrecognizable as a human. This alone doesn’t seem much but when you put it along a few lines in Call Down the Hawk that I found specially interesting, it can be something else.

“It was The Dark Lady, the painting that had taken them hours upon hours upon hours to copy for the Fairy Market, but with Hennessy’s face and throat and knuckle tattoos. A perfect and cunning forgery, as good as theirs. No. Better. Because it oozed with the same magnetic, otherworldly desire that the original had and that their copy had missed. This was not a real-world copy of a dream. This was a dream of a dream. Perfect. Beyond perfect.”

Now, I’m not sure if the wording here is intentional or not but it seems to me that it means to be taken as Ronan’s version of The Dark Lady is a better of version of Nialls.

And then:

“And how would you know? Did you see the painting he did? Out of his head? It took him no time at all, maybe even better than the original Dark Lady. He said he might be able to do something just for you. You didn’t even let him try.”

Ronan might very well be a better dreamer than Niall. Is a better dreamer than Hennesy until this point – this can change along the series, so I’m not putting my hand on the fire for it yet – and is also an arguably better dreamer than Kavinsky, if you take in consideration the amount of tries he needed to get the Mitsubishi vs amount of tries that we are shown that Ronan needs to get the Camaro as stated in The Dream Thieves:

“Yours. I practiced, man!” Kavinsky gestured broadly to the field of Mitsubishis. “You see all these losers? It took me months to get it right. Look at that bitch!”

Now, this doesn’t mean in any way that Kavinsky is a bad dreamer or inferior dreamer or anything like that. Kavinsky actually is possibly on par with Niall but sadly we won’t be able to measure if because they are both so very dead. Niall exceled at the originals, like Robobee, The Dark Lady and another myriad of dream objects we see him with at some point or another. Kavinsky exceled at copies. He prided himself as a forger, as it also said in The Dream Thieves. I would even go a little further, maybe, and say that they also have another point in common in their dreams – creating life. BUT Aurora is not a perfect copy of Mor O Corra (and I can’t even say if this is deliberate or not so let’s leave this one open) while Prokopenko, on the very little we saw of him on The Dream Thieves, seems perfectly human. He is K’s favorite forgery, after all.

The thing with Ronan is that he can do both /and/ more. The thing with Ronan is that he had Cabeswater and then Lindenmere.

Which, tied with K, are the next point here.

Now, going back to Cu Chulainn’s story, Cu fell in love with a woman called Emer. Emer’s father, Forgall, wasn’t very happy with the idea that they could come to marry and probably would if he didn’t do something. Which is, in fact, very fair because Cu isn’t exactly a nice guy. He killed quite a lot of people, he is cocky, he is young and he is arrogant because he knows he is gifted and nothing will stand in his way if he puts his mind into it. Forgall calls him “the madman from Emain Macha”.

It does sound kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Even if it’s in a less tragic/dramatical way. Cu is in a path that has absolutely no other outcoming than self-destruction if he goes on like this. Here is why:

Another nice or not so nice thing about Cu is that at seven, Cu overhears the magician Cathbad – it’s nice to notice that not all scholars seem to agree in the term magician, some use wizard too. The important fact is that he is a druid and he makes prophecies. He is also the guy who gave Setanta Cu Chulainn as a name/title thing.

Anyway, Cathbad makes a prophecy for his students: any warrior that decided to pick up arms and armature would have his name to transcend all other Ireland’s youths BUT this warrior would also die really young. Can you guess what Cu, at the peak of his seven years do right? He goes on to Conchobar and asks for arms and armor. Now, Cu at seven was already a fucking menace and no arms were match to his strength. So Conchobar goes ahead and gives his own arms to Cu.

You can probably guess what I’m equaling Conchobar’s arms with right? Yeah, you guessed it. This is Cabeswater. A very dangerous thing in the hands of a teenager.

Now, going back to Cathbad prophecy, we know that K and Ronan are mirrors yeah? And that Kavinsky is what would have happened to Ronan if he didn’t choose different yeah? (Also correct me if I’m mistaken but I think it’s also said somewhere that dreamers tend to die young.)

But Kavinsky is a lot more than Ronan 2.0, he just has the same formula of a teenage dreamer with lots of trauma. They are not even close to be the same person. So, I present you the idea of Ferdia.

As I said before, Forgall didn’t really want Cu to marry his daughter so he proposes a plan to Conchobar – why Cu Chulainn doesn’t go ahead and train with Scathach? He would come back stronger and better right?

This is the time where you’re very welcome to slap me for giving this much information in a back and forth way but please bear with me I’m trying very hard to it all understandable without seeming too crazy. Just crazy is actually ok, thanks.

Now, Scathach is also part of the Ulster Cycle just like Cu. Known as the shadow maid, she is a warrior who excels at martials arts and in the use of the lance. She is, in fact, one of the most fearsome warriors of the Ulster Cycle and known to be a really good teacher. Scathach lived in Dun Scaith which more or less translates as Fortress of the Shadows/Castle of the Shadows. For you to be taught by Scathach, the first trial was to get in her home and then survive her training. It wasn’t even remotely unheard-of people dying under her tutelage and this was Forgall’s hopes for Cu.

Now, here I think it’s one of the most interesting parts. Cu has A LOT of fuckery going on in Scathach’s training that doesn’t matter much on the meta so let’s get to the parts where K is:

Kavinsky kind of fills a double role here – he has a little of Scathach as in: just like Cu kicks out her metaphorical door and demands that she teach him. (Among other things, but those are not important and this is already LONG).

Which is what happened with K yeah? Ronan learned what he needed with him and then fucked right off to nicer places.

Another interesting bit is that at the time she was teaching Cu, Scathach, as the warrior she is, was at war with her twin sister, Aife. Fearing for Cu’s life in the war, she gave him a sleeping potion so he wouldn’t go around and get himself killed.

While K motives weren’t nearly as nice as Scathach this happened too. Kavinsky repeatedly puts Ronan to sleep in order to teach him how to properly dream. Even if his properly dream is Kavinsky style – which we learn latter that his not the best way to dream for Ronan but that’s not the point I’m going for.

Long story short, Cu wakes up, defeats Aife, makes a son on her (this will be important afterwards, I promise) and fucks off to keep learning with Scathach.

Fits of parts of what happened between them yeah?

So here comes the next role K fills and this one he fills fully and not just partially – Ferdia.

Ferdia was also under Scathach’s tutelage and was the best friend – also depending of the source lover too – and during to the circumstances of the war with queen Medb which again, are not important here – he ends up battling against Ferdia. For better or worse, they were there for each other for quite a long time and loved each other a lot, until Ferdia’s and Cu’s circumstances and choices differed and they end up in different sides of battle.

Now, they battled for three days, until Ferdia got the upper hand, even with Cu Chulainn in his battle frenzy monstruous state. Ferdia had the advantage of an armor that was impossible to pierce so he called for Gae Bolg (which we will, again, talk later about) and as Ferdia heard of it, he made a mistake – leaving his chest open. Cu throws a spear at him which makes him distracted and then impales him with Gae Bolg,

While the situation is not exactly the same, Ronan and Kavinsky had a battle that was a lot like that. Kavinsky had Matthew, who Ronan loves more them himself and they battle for the right of it. Until Kavinsky gets tired. Until Kavinsky let things get out of control and commits suicide. As in:

“A second later, the fire dragon exploded into Kavinsky. It went straight through him, around him, flame around an object. Kavinsky fell.”

Again, I think Cu and Ronan are mirrors, so they don’t follow the exact same path neither the exact same formula. But I still think this is the right path to think about his journey.

Then we get to the demon, to being unmade, to Matthew, to Lindenmere and how both Ronan and Cu Chulainn hold the war for enough time until the enemy can be defeated.

This piece of Cu’s story happens both before and after Ferdia’s battle so please bear with my lengthy explanations.

First of all: the demon and how it ties to being unmade, to Matthew and the similarities is bores with the ríastrad. When the war with Medb started, the Ulster warriors were cursed – for the lack of a better word – and they couldn’t fight.

So, Cu Chulainn fights for them. During months he invoked the right of single combat with Medb’s warriors. Which is basically what he does with the demon during quite some time. And in the process he ends up being unmade. Now, the process of being unmade is described to being gruesome and violent into Ronan’s body.

He is dying after all.  

And it all happens because he is special. To Ronan, it happens because he is very deeply tied to Cabeswater, he made it, he is the first one that needs to go if the demon wants to win the war. Which is basically what happens to Cu too. Medb’s warriors tried every dirty trick in the book to take Cu out and he fought until he couldn’t to hold them.

Ronan (and Adam, but this meta is about Ronan) hold him down until they all can come up with a solution, until their win is possible. (The nightwash is a similar thing to being unmade, which also, again, happens because Ronan is Ronan, because Ronan is a dreamer, because Ronan has a big gift, sometimes too big for him.)

He is special, his gift is special, they both can do it.

So they did.

Which leads to Matthew and Conla, Cu’s son. While Ronan didn’t really meant to dream up Matthew and Cu for sure did meant for Aife to become pregnant with his son, the similarities are quite lengthy.

Cu Chulainn killed his own son and it was his fault. There is no way around it. He himself made Aife promise that Conla wouldn’t identify himself, that he wouldn’t deny any battle and that Conla would search for him. Conla did search for Cu and in a truth “the apple doesn’t fall far from the three” fashion he goes around wreaking havoc exactly like young Cu did, until Cu himself comes to battle him. As he couldn’t refuse any duel, Conla and Cu battled until Cu killed him with Gae Bolg,

Ronan, during a very long time, also didn’t know Matthew was his dream. They were brothers, how could Matthew be a dream? But Matthew is and Ronan almost kill him too in his battle with the demon. And now in Call Down the Hawk we see Ronan, once again, for some reason or another, is influencing his dreams. They all search for the riverside yeah?

Do you all know what else had a deep connection with rivers?

Gae Bolg.

How Gae Bolg is used depends a lot of your source material but the most widely known version is that Gae Bolg is a spear made from the bones of a sea monster. It’s a spear that divides itself in thirty barbs and it’s thrown with a foot. It’s a terrifying weapon that if it strikes you, there is no chance of getting out alive. But it has a condition: it can only be used in streams. Now, if Cabeswater was the first weapons Cu Chulainn used as a young boy, Lindenmere is Gae Bolg. Lindenmere is dangerous, it’s wild and it’s unpredictable.

Just like Gae Bolg, there is little chance of you scaping alive if it strikes.

As Ronan himself put:

“I let Lindenmere be more of itself, whatever it was in that other place.”

“And what it is over there is dangerous.”

“Dangerous things can protect themselves,” Ronan said.

Now if Ronan and being unmade and unmaking Matthew where tied to the first weapons Cu wielded, doesn’t seem too farfetched to say that Lindenmere and the riverside problem with the dream things is connected yeah?

Another similarity is the geasa. But this one is already on CDTH:

Even the most invincible heroes could be trapped by conflicting geasa. The mighty Hound of Ulster, one of the boys’ favorite heroes, had a geis to never eat dog (“Shame,” Niall said, “it’s very tasty.”) and a geis to never refuse hospitality, and so when he was offered dog meat by a host, what other choice had he but to spiral into tragedy?

One of Ronan geis is that he can’t stop dreaming. And what is the other? Adam? Declan? Matthew? Geasa means taboo, so what is that Ronan needs to do? Or can’t do? I’m dying to know.

Also you all want to know another funny thing? Cu Chulainn was so ferocious in battle that absolutely no one dared to go ahead and verify is he was really dead. Do you all know how they knew?

Because a raven sat on his shoulder and drank his blood 😊

   Please take this meta with a grain of salt, because this is my own interpretation of the story, of Ronan’s journey and my own studies in mythology in general. It’s totally possible I’m reaching a little bit too far too but who knows, right?

Also, I have absolutely no idea of why I wrote this or where I wanted to go with it. I just think the parallels are quite neat, if they are indeed true to Maggie’s (quite numerous, that’s what tipped me off) discreet mentions of Cu Chulainn along her books.

So yeah, hit me up if you wanna talk or something?

#the raven cycle #trc #ronan lynch #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #cdth meta #joseph kavisnky #call down the hawk #cdth #trc meta #idk how to tag #mom come pick me up I'm scared #also #I'm not a native speaker so there will be plenity of mistakes #but alas #CDTH #CDTH theories

[pynches]

a/n it’s finally here... the tennis fic (let me know if you want a smutty bonus chapter)

word count: 2073

Adam Parrish doesn’t lie to himself. He doesn’t make a situation better than it is so he feels better in a false sense of comfort. He doesn’t lie to himself about his past, not about the decreasing number of saving money stashed away in a little box beneath one of the old floorboards of St. Agnes, not about the things he wants and what he is willing to do to get them.

Adam Parrish doesn’t lie to himself about his attraction to Ronan Niall Lynch.

It’s a dangerous attraction, one that is threatening to consume him violently, but also one Adam can’t let go of. It has been there since he met Ronan, when they were younger and Ronan was sharper, angrier. Ronan was a reckless beauty, one that predicted nothing but destruction and agony.

Adam was addicted.

That fateful day they met and the months after, Adam figured that, yes, he did notice Ronan’s rugged handsomeness, but that didn’t mean he was attracted to him. Everybody saw Ronan and there was no denying that his beauty was incomparable.

It took him months before Adam realised that shit I actually am attracted to him in a "please fucking kiss me" type of way.

If he hadn’t realised it before, he definitely would realise it now. The skin-tight, white tennis shorts were positively sinful and Ronan was starting to sweat through his white t-shirt, making the material cling to his skin.

It was indecent.

Not for the first time, Adam wondered what had possessed him to watch Ronan’s tennis practise. He should have just walked home instead. If it wasn’t for his flat tire, that he couldn’t afford to replace, and Gansey having a row club meeting, Adam wouldn’t have had to expose himself to the most erotic thing he had witnessed in his short life.

“Ronan can take you home,” Gansey had said apologetically. He hadn’t quite mastered the sad puppy dog look like Noah had but it was good enough to make Adam feel bad.

“It’s fine, Gansey,” Adam had replied with a small smile. “I can just walk home.”

Gansey had shook his head vigorously. “No, I made a promise I didn’t keep so let Ronan take you home today. I’ll come pick you up from St. Agnes tomorrow.”

Adam hadn’t felt like arguing, so he agreed and asked Gansey were Ronan was right now. He hadn’t seen him since he walked out of the classroom last period. Adam had assumed Ronan already left.

“Tennis practise,” Gansey told him with a quick look at his watch. “I really have to go. Sorry, Adam.”

And off he was.

Now, Adam was seated on a little bench, right next to the tennis court with an excellent view on Ronan and his opponent. It was Ronan’s serve and he bounced the ball on the floor a couple of times.

The wrist of the hand he bounced the tennis ball with a with was usually bound in leather bracelets, but Ronan had taken them off for practice. Adam could reason that it was probably annoying to have them constantly sliding up and down your arm every time you moved, but he still cursed Ronan for it as he could not concentrate on anything but the pale white of the inside of his wrist. The scars were barely visible from where Adam was sitting but he knew they were there and he wanted to kiss them softly, which was definitely the purest thought he had so far.

The poor guy looked terrified as Ronan seized him up before he reached up to serve.

I don’t blame him, Adam thought as he watched Ronan’s biceps bulge, showing off the muscles he’d gained from sleepless nights filled with training and his need for fighting every person he encountered.

A little strip of skin showed as Ronan’s shirt rode up as he jumped, part of the v leading down his abdomen visible. Adam felt his breath halter and his skin flush, desperately praying nobody would notice.

Who the fuck gave Ronan the right to look like this?

The ball shot from Ronan’s racket like a bullet, flying past his opponents own racket, despite him jumping to reach for it.

This time, it was the opponent who was given a chance to serve by an uninterested coach who spend more time on his cellphone than actually watching the game. If it wasn’t for the guy complaining that he didn’t have a chance to practice because, “Lynch keeps serving and it’s not fair!” he probably would never had the ball the entire match.

Adam couldn’t help but feel proud.

As Ronan’s opponent got ready to serve, Ronan himself bent through his knees a little, leaning forward more than Adam was capable of handling. As if Ronan knew he was staring at him, he glanced at Adam quickly and gave him a smirk that momentarily made Adam’s heart stop beating.

Adam’s hands clenched into fists as he watched the quick back and forth, each slam of Ronan’s racket deadly precise and harder than Adam now was. It took merely seconds before he made the point.

As the walked back to their place Ronan slowly lifted the edge of his white t-shirt. Adam was sure he was going to black out when more and more of his abdomen was revealed, his muscles shifting as his hand lifted the shirt farther up. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the edge of his shirt and dared to wink at him after.

Ronan ruined him from everyone else, Adam decided. There was really no coming back from this.

The match lasted both too long and not long enough. Adam could have watched him play forever, but he was in a desperate need for a cold shower. Maybe he should ask Ronan how confessionals work.

“Didn’t know you were a tennis guy.”

Well, I fucking am now.

“Ehm- yeah, I mean, I guess.” Adam was blabbering. Why was he blabbering? He felt a hot rush of warmth shot up to his cheeks which were undoubtedly even brighter red than they had been before. His embarrassment grew further at Ronan’s sharp smile, eyeing him up and down like he had him figured out entirely. Adam hated how well Ronan knew him, how easy to read he was despite trying his best to remain unknowable.

“Have you ever played tennis, Parrish?”

Adam briefly wondered if that was an implication of something else but reprimanded himself immediately.

Get your shit together.

Please.

“No,” Adam admitted. “But I’d like to learn.”

No, he really didn’t. He thought tennis was a sport meant for preppy rich people and he was certainly not one of them. Ronan stared at him, probably knowing what Adam was thinking but Adam held his stare, steady. Or, well, as steady as he could be in this situation.

“Come on then,” Ronan smirked, walking back to the edge of the tennis court. Adam remained frozen in his seat. Ronan made a beckoning motion and Adam moved towards him without remembering getting up.

“Here,” Ronan said, handing Adam his own racket. Adam gripped the handle tightly, his hands shaking. “I’m gonna throw you a ball and see how you handle it, okay?”

Adam nodded dumbly. He moved into a poor imitation of Ronan’s stance he had more than analysed a few minutes before. Ronan stood not too far from him, backlit by the sun. His body glistened in the reclining rays of sunlight dancing off his skin.

He’s a god.

Adam was too busy staring at the way Ronan’s glorious body moved when he threw the ball to even move his racket up in a poor attempt of hitting it. Ronan raised an eyebrow.

“You’re supposed to hit it.”

“I know that,” Adam bit out, picking the ball off the ground. He closed the distance between them and pushed the ball into Ronan’s chest, ignoring the muscles he felt through his thin shirt.

“You sure you’re ready?” Ronan asked, a teasing smile playing on his lips.

Not even remotely.

“Yes.”

This time he managed to concentrate enough to actually hit the ball. It didn’t go far, though. Ronan shook his head as if this was the biggest disappointment in his life.

“You’re hitting it all wrong,” he told Adam moving closer. Ronan came to a halt behind Adam, stopping him with two hands on his shoulders when he tried to turn around. “Let me show you.”

Adam bit his lip and quietly thanked every god he knew that Ronan didn’t see his face right now.

Ronan’s body aligned with his, standing closer than was necessary but Adam wasn’t complaining. He tried not to lean into the touch when one of Ronan’s hands moved down his arms and gripped his wrist firmly. His touch was searing through every vessel in Adam’s body and it took everything to not turn around and jump Ronan right then and there.

“This is called the forehand stroke,” Ronan whispered in his good ear right before he swung his arm outwards and upwards in one swift motion.

“Got it?” Ronan asked softly. Adam nodded despite not remembering anything but the feel of Ronan’s skin against his.

“Good,” Ronan said normally now. He stepped back and Adam immediately felt the loss, though he was thankful for the opportunity to finally breathe.

“Now, show me.”

“What?” Adam asked, staring at Ronan who just smiled at him savagely.

“Show me the forehand stroke,” Ronan repeated, his voice dropping an octave. Adam felt his mouth open slightly. He took in Ronan’s relaxed stance, his hands buried in the pockets of those ridiculous shorts that clung to his thighs in a way that should be illegal, the way his arms nearly ripped the sleeves of his drenched t-shirt to shreds, the wicked glare in his eyes that dared Adam to take the jump.

So he did.

With a few long strides, he positively threw himself at Ronan, his hands pulling Ronan’s head down desperately. Ronan let out a soft laugh against his mouth but Adam had enough. He had been teasing him the entire afternoon and Adam needed to kiss him now or he’d lose his mind.

Adam bit Ronan’s lip in warning and relished in the moan Ronan let out. Adam took the opportunity to slot their lips together and finally get the kiss he deeply craved.

Ronan curled his arms around Adam’s lower back, pulling him flush against himself. Their kiss deepened and Adam hung on for dear life. Ronan’s lips against his sent a wave of heat through his body. The contrast of Ronan’s soft lips and the hard lines of his body left Adam trembling in his arms.

All thoughts were drown out besides fuck and more.

He broke the kiss to take a breath and took his time to angrily glare at Ronan.

“You planned this!” he said accusingly, poking his finger in Ronan’s hard chest who laughed breathlessly.

“I took an opportunity, Parrish,” Ronan had such a triumphant smirk on his lips, Adam had to kiss it off them. It was Adam’s turn to smirk when he licked into Ronan’s mouth and felt him tremble under his hands.

“Didn’t take you for an exhibitionist,” Ronan said, his voice gravelly. Adam felt his knees weaken.

“Didn’t think you knew a word as long as that one,” Adam retorted and brushed a hand through his hair. Ronan let out a surprised laugh at Adam’s snark, one he heard often when he commented on other Aglionby students. It always made Adam feel warm and proud he could make someone like Ronan Lynch laugh.

“I don’t do casual,” Ronan needlessly pointed out. Adam rolled his eyes.

“Nothing between us has ever been casual,” he replied.

This had been building for a long time and Adam knew they would ultimately come to a crashing point. This was that one point they could never return from, no matter how hard they tried and Adam was ready to let himself fall head first into this.

Ronan smiled at him, a soft smile that made Adam’s heart beat faster than it already was. It must have shown on his face because Ronan stepped closer again, letting a hand linger on the side of his face. He leaned in and whispered, “let’s get out of here”.

Adam reached for his hand and pulled him towards his car.

No holding back.

#pynch #pynch fic #pynch fanfic #pynch fanfiction #adam parrish #ronan lynch #adam x ronan #ronan x adam #trc #trc fic #trc fanfic #trc fanfiction #the raven cycle fanfic #the raven cycle fic #the raven cycle fanfiction #the raven cycle #mine

[toast-the-unknowing]

ahhh definitely the one that always comes to my mind it's where ronan and adam are getting married, it's so dear to my heart. there's a lot of proposal fics but not a lot of where we see the actual preparation/process! also the yoga/boxing au, i was so happy to see the sequel

I had a couple of bits that I ended up cutting from faith, hope, all that bullshit that are still in my junk drawer because apparently I’m incapable of throwing anything out. One was a scene where they were opening wedding presents, which I ended up not having enough to say about, and also it didn’t really tie in with the timeline, nor with the theme, which was otherwise pretty consistently developed:

[get a wedding present from somewhere in France, addressed to Messieurs Lynch, with a note inside that’s in Old English and there’s only one person who could have send that.

Ronan scowls at the envelope. He still has a grudge against French for not being Latin, because why let a perfectly good grudge die just for being pointless, irrational, and several years out of date?

He scowls at the note, too. He still has complicated feelings about Mr. Gray, which is rational.

The gift is an old dream thing of Niall’s that he tracked down, Ronan’s like, that’s one of dad’s]

I don’t actually remember where this bit was supposed to fit – somewhere in one of the Adam & Blue scenes, I suppose. The idea was going to be that in this past conversation Blue had said something about being creeped out by the fact that Niall dreamt Aurora, and there was going to be some consideration of how Ronan feels about getting married without his parents alive to see it, but it didn’t really fit the tone and it bogged the pace way down and, again, I didn’t really have anything interesting to say about it. I like this bit though:

It reminds him of a weekend at Blue’s last year when she’d been sick as a dog. Gansey had been out of the country and called, frantic in a choppy Skype call, to plead with Adam to go check on her; Adam was packing before Gansey had finished asking. He’d spent a long and surreal three days making Blue soup that she wouldn’t eat and tea that she hated while she napped with eleven blankets and the heater on.

Adam has no idea how much she remembers about that weekend, so he’s never brought up the fact that she scribbled out an annotated list of Declan’s most glaring character flaws, or that she had done a Calla impression so pitch-perfect it nearly gave Adam a heart attack, or that she had described her first time with Gansey in excruciating detail, even though Adam kept getting up and leaving the room. If she doesn’t remember, he doesn’t want to embarrass her or, God forbid, invite a repeat performance.

#Anonymous #not a fic

[emjenwrites]

@ganseyweek Saturday, August 17: Wings/Crows/Seeking you out

Welcome to what might be one of the weirdest AUs in this fandom. I think this one might manage to actually stick to the prompt though, so that’s good.

Let the record show that it really frustrates me that we don’t know Mrs. Gansey’s first name.

Warnings: Blood, a lot of ignorant opinions about mental illness

The wings appeared three weeks after Richard Gansey III’s first death. Actually, that was not quite true. They probably started growing the moment he was resurrected, it just took them three weeks to first break the skin.

It was a very gruesome happening, worthy of a place in a horror movie. Gansey woke in the middle of the night in horrible pain. He got out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom attached to his room. When he pulled off his shirt he could see the outline of something dark beneath his skin. He only had time for a strangled gasp before huge, black wings ripped through the skin on his back, spraying blood all over him and the room.

When the first jet black feathers pushed through Gansey’s back slick with blood, Gansey almost screamed and ran for his parents. Three weeks before he probably would have, but in the weeks since his death things had changed. When he’d first come back to life and stumbled back to the party, skin still covered in welts from enough stings to kill someone who wasn’t allergic to hornets, Glendower was all he could talk about.

“A voice said that I was going to live because of Glendower,” he’d told his father over and over. “Who’s Glendower?”

“I don’t know, Dick,” Richard Gansey II had said, throwing a desperate pleading look over his shoulder to Gansey’s mother. Mrs. Gansey was in the middle of calling 911. Her voice was high with terror and her hands were shaking. That was the scariest thing about the whole situation. All other things aside, Mrs. Gansey was a politician as iron-spined as they came; Gansey had never seen her anything less than perfectly in control.

An ambulance rushed Gansey to the hospital, but there was nothing for the doctors to do. Richard Campbell Gansey III, ten years old and deathly allergic to all types of bees, had been stung hundreds of times and somehow he was still alive and mostly well. There was no explanation.

“It’s a miracle,” one of the nurses had told Gansey’s parents. “You should say prayers of thanks.” Mr. and Mrs. Gansey had just nodded; neither of them were particularly religious, though they went through the motions for the sake of Mrs. Gansey’s political career.

After all the tests there had been the therapist. Gansey had gone on an epic Googling spree while in the hospital so by this point he knew who Owen Glendower was--if reading his Wikipedia page could be calling knowing about him, something high-school aged Gansey would later doubt. He was more than happy to tell the therapist all about the voice and Glendower. “I need to find him,” he’d finished. “I need to ask him why he saved me.”

He’d expected the therapist to believe him, but instead the man had explained that when people almost died they sometimes saw things which weren’t actually there. “Glendower had nothing to do with what happened to you,” the therapist told Gansey in the sickly patronizing voice some people used on children. “It was just a hallucination. It wasn’t real.”

In much later--read as, college--years, when he finally did research on the diagnoses that therapist gave him, Gansey would know that the man had not been implying Gansey was crazy. The problem was that ten-year-old Gansey didn’t know that. He’d grown up around adults who talked about how mental illnesses were over-diagnosed, how mental healthcare was drugging up perfectly normal people instead of teaching them how to deal with their problems, and how ADHD had just been made up to medicialize elementary school kids who didn’t sit still in class. When one of Gansey’s sets of grandparents--Dick Gansey I and the grandmother he would later describe as “bald and racist”--found out Gansey was seeing a therapist they’d had an hour long argument with his parents. They thought he couldn’t hear, but he could and therefore knew that the argument contained gems like “I can’t believe you’re taking him to see a shrink like a lunatic! There’s nothing wrong with him!”

Suffice to say, at the age of ten, Gansey was convinced that the therapist was going to tell his parents that he was crazy and should be locked away. The wings only made it worse. No one believed him about Glendower so what if he told them about this and they didn’t believe him either? What if they couldn’t see the wings at all? Then they would know Gansey was crazy and that would be it.

No one could ever know about the wings, Gansey decided. He’d make sure no one found out and he’d make sure no one thought he’d be crazy. Then he’d be safe and everything would be okay.

At age ten Gansey had never kept a real secret from his parents. He had always been a good kid. The bookish sort of child who got described using words like “charming,” “precocious” and “gifted.” The less flattering descriptors, things like “eccentric,” “strange” and--on one memorable occasion which lead to Helen punching one of their great-uncles in the face-- “not all there” didn’t come along until he hit puberty. At the age of ten, Gansey was a perfect child, and perfect children did not hide things from their parents, but Gansey was going to do it anyway.

That night he scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom with the cleaning supplies the maid kept under the sink until not a spot of blood remained. He got in the shower and washed the blood off himself too, using shampoo to clean the feathers of his new wings. He was briefly terrified that he would have to cut the wings off with a kitchen knife or something, but they folded neatly into his body in a way which shouldn’t have been possible, but made them invisible when he was wearing a shirt. When he and the room were clean, he bundled all the ruined clothes and towels and carpets up and snuck them out to the dumpster behind the house. That left the problem of how to replace all that stuff, but luckily Gansey knew where the housekeeper kept the key to the basement room where they kept spares of such things just for emergency. He knew that eventually someone would do inventory and realize things were missing, but hopefully that could be long after the garbage truck came and took the evidence away.

When everything was as back to normal as he could make it, he collapsed into his bed to snatch what minuscule amount of sleep he still could between the fast-approaching dawn and his nightmares. When he got up the next morning, he was tired but he lied and said that he had slept fine. When his mother asked how he was feeling he lied and said he was feeling good. When he went to the therapist, he lied and said that he’d realized the thing about Glendower was a hallucination, and lied and said anything else he thought might make the man happy. When he came home he kept lying. He lied and lied and lied, and got better and better at lying. He learned what he needed to say to keep people happy and not worrying about him, and he said them. He learned to be everything that he was supposed to be. He learned how to seem perfect again.

No one ever seemed to notice that it was all a lie.

~~~~

Monmouth Manufacturing was empty which meant it was time for a routine Gansey dreaded.

Actually, it could barely be called a routine because it happened so infrequently these days. There had been a time when Gansey had done this every night, but that had been a long time ago. Over the years, he’d begun to do it less and less. He’d always told himself it was because he was getting busier, or didn’t have the room, or because he had roommates who might see, but he knew it was really because he didn’t want to see them and he didn’t want to think about them.

The wings were still there, just as they had been since he was ten. Actually, they were bigger than they’d been before, having grown with him. Gansey had done a lot of reading on the subject and he knew that scientifically these wings were not anywhere near big enough to lift his weight, but they were also too big to fit as snuggly against his back as they did, so he was pretty sure the laws of physics didn’t apply to them.

Not that he would know, because he’d never tried to fly.

But that was not what the routine was for. The routine was necessary to make sure he was not discovered.

Gansey’s wingspan was too big for the bathroom in Monmouth, so when he needed to spread his wings he had to do it in the main room. However, he obviously had to make sure no one would walk in and see him when he did it, so he had to wait for those rare moments when no one was around and he knew they wouldn’t be back for some time. Today was one of those days. Ronan was out keeping Adam company at work, Blue was dog walking and Noah had already appeared today which with the way things were going meant he probably wouldn’t be back today. It was the perfect time.

Once Gansey was absolutely certain he was alone he made his way to his bed and stripped his polo shirt off. He knew that if he had a mirror, he’d be able to see the wings tucked impossibly tightly against his back. It had been years and he was still shocked that they were that easy to hide. The only way to make them really visible through clothes was to slouch, so Gansey simply didn’t slouch. As long as he did that and didn’t take his shirt off for anything, he was perfectly safe.

It had been weeks since the last time he had spread his wings and they’d long since gone numb from lack of motion. He started with the left one, opening it carefully mostly with his hands. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the sight of the extra appendage. When he’d first gotten them they’d been terrifying but beautiful and powerful. Now years of being closed firmly against his back for the vast majority of the time had ruined them. They were attrofied and dull-colored and over the last year or so most of the flight feathers had fallen out. They were hideous. 

Logically, Gansey knew that keeping the wings closed all the time was not good for them and that if he’d just actually use them they would become stronger, the feathers would grow back and they’d be beautiful again, but he couldn’t. Even in a place as out of the way and special as Henrietta, a boy with raven wings would not go unnoticed. Recently he kept catching himself going back to the “cut the wings off with a bread knife” idea even though he knew he would bleed to death if he tried that. 

He massaged the stiff joints of the wing until it loosened up enough for him to cautiously flap it. Back when he still had flight feathers, he had to be careful not to knock things over with the sheer force of the air displaced when he flapped, but that was much easier to avoid now. Several more feathers came loose and settled to the floor as he moved. He’d pick those up and throw them away when he was done, but now that Ronan had Chainsaw he didn’t have to be as careful because the other boy would just assume all random raven feathers were hers. The flight feathers were slightly more of a problem because they were so big, but there were so few of them left. 

Once the wing was somewhat loosened up, he swung it forward and began checking the feathers, removing the dead ones and straightening the bent ones and making sure everything was as in order as possible. He hated the way they felt. He washed them as best he could whenever he showered, but they needed a thorough clean which was impossible in Monmouth’s tiny shower. A thorough clean would be difficult in his shower at his parents house these days. The feathers felt greasy and gross and sick.

Logically he knew things could not go on like this. He knew that things were only going to get worse if he didn’t make a change, but he didn’t. At this point, he reasoned, it didn’t matter anyway. He was going to be dead in a matter of months, probably before anything really horrible happened on this front.

When he moved on to the right wing, he found it in worse shape than the other. It was missing all the fight feathers accept for one damaged and twisted one. He tried to be as gentle with it as he could, but when he tried to straighten it out it came loose in his hand. 

He stared down at the dead feather in his hand and suddenly and dramatically burst into tears. They were tears that had been building up slowly over the last few months as he grew closer and closer to the April 24th deadline for his second and real death, but they were also tears for the years of fear which had gotten him to this place. His wings should have been a joy, he would have loved to fly under his own power and he was sure he friends would have admired them in their healthy state, but it was too late. They were so ruined that the thought of showing them to anyone filled him with shame. He never wanted his friends to see the wings like this. 

The worst part was that he knew that no matter what he did, they would see. Once he was dead he would not be able to keep any more secrets. His friends, and his parents and everyone else would know. He’d probably make at least the local news given how famous his mother was these days. Everyone would look at his body with it’s disgusting, atrophied wings and know was he really was: a ruined boy hiding behind a mask of normality. He hated it, but there was nothing to be done unless Ronan spontaneously dreamed something to keep someone from bleeding to death while they performed home amputation on their extra limbs. He was going to be found out. 

His cell phone began to ring. Gansey lifted his head out of his comforter, unsure of how long he’d been lying face down on his bed crying. Embarrassed that he’d spent so long feeling sorry for himself when others had it far worse, Gansey snaked his arm across the bed and snatched up his phone. The Caller ID announced Blue’s name—Gansey had put the home phone at 300 Fox Way into his phone under her name. Gansey sat up and took a deep if slightly unsteady breath in an attempt to balance himself. His wings moved just a little and he folded them back into his body both so he didn’t have to see them out of the corners of his eyes and to feel more like the Gansey that Blue knew. When he felt he could wait no longer he answered the phone. 

“Hello?”

“Hi, Gansey,” Blue said from the other side. She sounded like she was having a good day. Gansey squashed the jealousy which rose up inside him. “Are you busy this afternoon?”

“No,” Gansey said. He wasn’t quite done checking over his wings but given that he’d just spent some unknown amount of time sobbing because he’d lost a flight feather, he figured now was as good a time as any to stop. “Why are you asking? Aren’t you supposed to be out walking dogs?”

“Mrs. Boyle says that the pavement is too hot for Muffins’ delicate paws,” Blue snorted. “The pavement’s not hot at all, but I’ll take any excuse not to have to walk the Demon Dog. Anyway, I finished early; do you want to hang out?”

In spite of everything Gansey’s heart leaped at the idea of spending more time with Blue. The pain and fear that surrounded the wings faded away. If Blue came over he’d be able to forget all about them for a couple hours. “Yes, I do,” he said, hopefully not so quickly that he seemed desperate. “Ronan’s hanging out with Adam at work so it will just be the two of us.”

“Alright,” Blue said. It was impossible to tell from her tone of voice if she was excited by the idea of spending time alone with Gansey. Gansey hoped she was excited by the idea of spending time alone with him. “I’ll be right over.”

“I look forward to seeing you,” Gansey said. When they hung up he sat in the middle of the bed for a minute before forcing himself up and reaching for his polo shirt. 

He had to make sure there was no trace of feathers by the time Blue arrived.

#ganseyweek #the raven cycle #trc fanfic #richard gansey iii #mine #tw blood #tw ignorance #I have no idea how to tw tag this

[womantryingtoexist]

57 for TRC (pynch)?

57, I`ll call in sick… again

(This is going to be some pre-canon, pre-pynch stuff, tw: child abuse)

Adam was not at work. Adam had also not been at school, but that was not unheard of. Work however? Parrish really had to be dead in a ditch. 

And no, Ronan did not worry. He just wanted for Gansey to shut up, thank you very much. If Parrish was done with work, good for him. That fucker probably fucked up to wherever he went when he wasn`t with them or at work. The trailer, probably.

It was week 16 of Parrishs occupation of Gansey. Not that Ronan was counting, of course. Ronan could have bet that a straight-laced kid like Adam would fuck off the second Gansey started talking about his Glendower obsession, but no, he stuck around. And did it still. Just not today. 

Which was weird, okay? They had something planned. And not that Ronan was memorizing shit or something, but Adam was never late - except for school on the bad days.

Ronan hated thinking of the bad days. Hated thinking of someone else shitting on Parrish and his bruised ego. That was his job. 

Maybe that was why Ronan said goodbye to Gansey, who still looked lost in front of the Adam-less garage. But Ronan did not plan to participate in his usual after-school activities. Nah, he wanted to tell Parrish to bring his precious ass over to Monmouth so Gansey could stop complaining.

Against poplar believe, Ronan was no complete idiot. He parked the BMW far up the dirty road that led to Adam`s trailer. He even shed his leather jacket and opted for only his black tang. No need to make things harder than they already are.

Virginia heat is a special kind of heat, Ronan mused. It is fucked up hot, fucked up moist, and everybody knows that shit that can be described as moist is disgusting.

When he reached the trailer, sweat plastered his shirt to his body. The run down thing in front of him was silent in the way abandond buildings are silent. The same could not be said for his surroundings. A dog was barking, kids screaming - some of joy, some definitely not - and a woman yelled something in the distant. 

Ronan knocked. 

He had a bad feeling. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it would have been better to wait it the fuck out and to make fun of Parrish when he reappeared. What if his dad opened the door? Ronan didn`t trust himself enough not to throw hands. 

Adam opened. 

He looked like shit. There was no other way to describe it. The circles under his eyes were pronounced as fuck, a bruise colored almost all of his face. But that was not unusual. This would normally only mean a day or two of missed school. But something else had to be fucking wrong for Adam to also miss work.

But Ronan knew he had no way of figuring that out if Adam closed the door in his face. So, before Adam could really react besides a raised eyebrow, Ronan already pushed past him into the trailer.

“Shiiiit, Parrish”

Not the most eloquent, but what looked fucked up from the outside did certainly not improve on the inside - at least not with this double wide. 

“No shit, Lynch. What do you want?”

There was defiance in Parrish`s eyes, not that Ronan had counted on anything else. But he also didn`t move, still leaning against the door frame. Ronan had the sinking suspicion, that the door did a better job at keeping Adam upright than Adam himself did. 

“You didn`t show up for work, Pisser. Gansey has his panties in a twist, wanted to know where you are…”

It was not a lie. Just also not the whole truth. But Adam Parrish did not need to know that Ronan cared. Hell, he didn`t even want to know it himself.

Adam scoffed:

“I had better things to do, as you can see!”

There was so much bitterness in his voice. Adam reminded Ronan of himself. Which also meant that Ronan knew how to deal with this certain kind of asshole.

“Piss about all you want, but Gansey wants his tabs on you updated. Hell, if you don`t show up tomorrow here himself and your neighbors are sure not ready for Dick Three and the Return of The Fucking Republicans. So, are you going to be a little shit or can i tell Gansey you are back tomorrow?”

Ronan knew he was a bit loud. But he also knew that Adam would not have opened the door if his parents were here.  

Parrish looked at him for a long time. When he finally sighted tension left his body like a fucking waterfall. With a few stilted steps Adam reached a kitchen chair. Sitting, he motioned for Ronan to take the other one. 

“I am not gonna be back at school tomorrow, Lynch… or at work”

Something hitched inside Ronans chest - it might have been feelings. 

“Then what are you going to do?”

There was honest concern in his voice. He had seen Adam beaten down many times before but today he looked defeated. 

“I am going to call in sick… again”

In this moment Ronan was sure that Adam Parrish would die if he didn`t move out soon. And that thought terrified him. 

“But what is so fucked up that you missed both school and work?”

This was probably nicer than anything Ronan had ever said to Adam and yet it did not come close to the questions he wanted to ask:

How can I help? What can I do? Should I drive you to the hospital? Will you let me help you?

Maybe he didn`t ask those questions because the answer would only be a fight.

“Nothing I can`t handle, Lynch. Are you happy now? I am not dead and you can say Gansey, I did not forget his thing, okay? I`ll be back in a few days…”

If Ronan could only believe him. His concern must have shown on his face, because what only moments before had been an exhausted Adam was suddenly a guarded Parrish again.

“And now piss of, before one of my neighbors steals your precious big shit car!”

“Fuck off!”

But Ronan did leave. With a bad taste in his mouth and the need to burn something down. Maybe Kavinsky was available. 

_______________________________

Thank you for this Drabble Prompt!It did definitely turn out angstier than intended…. but then again, i cannot do Pynch without Angst!

Send me Prompts and I will wirte a Drabble

#ask #Anonymous #asks ask and answer ask me #trc #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #gansey #tw abuse mention #swearing

[blueseyforthesoul]

Take Me Home, Country Roads

2.5k, rated T

“Morning, Jane,” Gansey smiled down at her as she doctored her coffee in the breakroom.

“What do you want?” Blue answered without looking away from her cup.

“Who says I necessarily want something?”

Blue sighed and looked up from her cup.

“You have that face on,” she explained. “The ‘If I’m really nice Blue will give me what I want’ face.”

Gansey gave an exaggerated pout.

“The stage lost a great actor when you decided to become a dog trainer,” Blue laughed, but waved at him to ask his question.

“My ten-year high school reunion is fast approaching.”

“Congrats on being old,” Blue interrupted.

“We’re the same age!”

Blue shrugged.

“I need a date.”

“Oh hell no.”

“Please, Jane? I need someone who can abide by their nonsense and also make them all super jealous! Just for one weekend and I’ll never ask you for anything ever again!”

“That’s a lie and we both know it,” Blue crossed her arms over her chest.

Gansey clasped his hands in front of him and made his best puppy dog eyes.

“I’ll pay for everything, hotel, travel, dinner, you just pretend to be my girlfriend for a couple of events. Please? You’ll get to sass pretentious prep school boys! Your favorite past time!”

“It is not my favorite past time, it is just something I have to do a lot because they won’t shut up.”

“I take offense to that,” Gansey sniffed.

“Noted.”

“So, will you do it?”

“No.”

“Please, Blue? I can’t show up to this depressingly single!”

“Your relationship status should have no bearing on your happiness,” Blue retorted.

He just pouted back at her.

“When is this thing anyway?”

“September 15, a month from tomorrow,” Gansey grinned, sensing she was caving. “I’ll forward you the email with the dress code.”

Blue rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she gave in like she always did at that pout. “But If I have to go clothing shopping for this I will kill you.”

“You are magnificent, Jane!” Gansey exclaimed, ignoring her threat.

“And you are bringing me coffee every morning for the next month.”

“Done!”

keep reading below or on ao3

Thankfully for Gansey, Blue did own clothing that more or less fit the dress code of the brunch and cocktail mixer to which she was escorting Gansey. She texted him that his murder would not, in fact, occur and largely put it from her mind.

The coffee each morning was nice though. Gansey hadn’t even had to ask how she took it, they ended up in the break room together often enough, she supposed. At least the training facility gave them good coffee.

The Friday before the weekend away, Gansey came by with the coffee, as usual, and asked if she was packed.

Blue thanked him for the coffee and patted the duffle bag beside the chair she was sitting in.

“Great. See you at 5, Jane.”

She waved him off and took a long swig of the coffee. She would miss the morning coffees. Just a little.

On the drive down to West Virginia, Blue nudged Gansey into telling him who she would be meeting.

“My best friends were Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch. They’ve been together since senior year and both keep threatening to propose but I honestly don’t think they ever will.”

“Don’t usually hear the word threat tied to proposing. But you do you, boys,” Blue chuckled.

Gansey grinned and continued onto an hour-long ramble about his various friends, acquaintances, teachers, and less-than-friendly classmates that she would meet the next morning.

“But Adam and Ronan are the big ones to know,” Blue cut in when he seemed to run out of people.

“Yeah, that’s probably safe.”

“What do they do? Should probably know if they’re your best friends and I’m your girlfriend. Or did you tell them it was fake?”

“Oh, no, they don’t know I’m bringing anyone at all.”

“Why not?”

“Ronan is a farmer, though he’s not what you’re expecting, I promise,” Gansey sidestepped her question. “Adam is a professor at the school we all went to, Aglionby Academy.”

Blue nodded.

When they got to the hotel, Gansey let Blue take the bathroom first and she gladly washed off the day and the car ride. It had only been three hours but she was glad it was done with.

As she ceeded the bathroom to Gansey she paused.

“What should I call you? Do I have to call you Dick? Because I don’t know if I can handle that.”

“Please don’t. Gansey is just fine.”

“Most girlfriends don’t call their boyfriends by their last name,” Blue pointed out.

“Most boyfriends aren’t named Dick,” Gansey retorted and disappeared into the bathroom.

“Sorry,” Blue mumbled after him. Must have struck a nerve.

When he emerged 20 minutes later with wet hair, his smile was back in place.

“Alarm for 8 alright with you? I’d like to get a workout in before this brunch.”

“Suit yourself,” Blue agreed from her bed.

Gansey nodded and climbed into his own bed. He fiddled with his phone for a few moments before plugging it into a charger and turning off the bedside lamp.

“Goodnight, Jane.”

“Goodnight, Gansey.”

~

Blue managed to sleep through Gansey getting up for his workout and only woke up when the shower turned on in the bathroom. She checked her phone notifications as she waited.

“Jane? Are you awake?” Came a voice from the bathroom.

“Mostly.”

“Um, I forgot to bring in a change of clothes. Is it alright if I come out in just a towel? I promise nothing untoward!”

Blue laughed. “Yes, Gansey, that’s fine. Come get your clothes.”

It turned out that Blue was not prepared for the sight of a half-naked Gansey, though. His skin was still damp from the shower and his hair curled adorably at the nape of his neck. And, holy shit, he had a six pack.

Blue quickly turned her gaze back to her phone, grateful her dark skin didn’t easily show a blush.

Gansey grabbed some clothes from his suitcase and disappeared back into the bathroom, while Blue gave herself a very stern talking to.

You are here as a friend, not to ogle your coworker, get it together!

When Gansey emerged a few minutes later, hair styled and fully clothed, Blue’s heart rate was more or less under control.

“So,” Gansey sat on the edge of his bed and looked over at her. “We didn’t really discuss boundaries for this. What are you comfortable or not with?”

“Oh, well, a little PDA is alright, but no kissing, please. Cheek would be okay. Hand holding. That kind of thing.”

“Perfect, exactly what I was going to suggest.”

Blue smiled at him, trying not to think about kissing him.

“Should we talk backstory?” She said to distract herself.

“Good idea. Met at work seems safe since it’s the truth. Together six months? Short enough that no one will bug us about long term plans but long enough it’s not odd for me to have brought you.”

“Perfect. First date?”

“Hmmm, we aren’t really sure, because we got lunch together all the time and then realized we were basically dating. But we count it from the first time I took you to dinner and kissed you good night.”

“Richard Gansey, who knew you were such a romantic?” Blue teased. It sounded like a nice way to start dating someone. It sounded like a nice way to start dating Gansey.

“Any other details I’m forgetting?” Gansey asked, a dusky blush on his cheekbones.

“That should do it. Any weird questions I’ll divert to you.”

Gansey studied his shoes for a moment, thinking.

“Thank you again, Blue. For doing this. I don’t know if I could face them all alone.”

“You’re welcome.”

The silence hung heavy for a moment until Blue began to climb out of the bed.

“Let me just freshen up and get dressed and we can head to the brunch.”

Gansey nodded and Blue took her clothes and toiletry bag to the bathroom.

When she emerged in a soft pink dress and sensible boots, her hair pulled back with a few clips, Gansey looked her up and down briefly then blushed and hid his face.

“Ready?” She said, ignoring him. It was for the best. They worked together.

The brunch was… awkward.

Gansey was asked what the hell happened to him at least ten times in the first hour, followed by offers to set him up with a “proper” profession four times, and given a strange stare before a change of subject thrice more.

Adam and Ronan were nice, though. They didn’t seem the sort to have been Gansey’s best friends, but she supposed he’d changed a lot since high school if his classmates’ invasive questions were anything to go by.

Adam had asked how he was doing and if he was happy and how he and Blue had met and all the appropriate questions. Ronan had hugged Gansey gruffly, told him, “You look good, man,” and let Adam do the talking, holding his boyfriend’s hand and running a thumb along his knuckles.

“So,” Blue asked when she had stolen Gansey away for a moment. “Is this why you didn’t want to come alone?”

Gansey nodded, pulling at his tie.

Blue touched his elbow softly. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just keep making those eyes at me, the boys are all jealous.”

Blue snorted. She was not making eyes at Richard Gansey. Definitely not.

“Yeah, alright. Ready to head back in?”

“We should, they probably think we’re making out back here.”

Blue cocked an eyebrow and raised her hands up around his head. “May I?”

Gansey nodded, his eyebrows a bit furrowed, and Blue grinned as she mussed his hair.

“Now they really will,” she whispered conspiratorially, then winked, grabbed his hand, and led him back to the party.

Gansey followed.

When they had made it back to their hotel room, Gansey walked in and flopped face first on the bed.

“My God,” he moaned, his voice muffled by the bedspread.

“That was rough,” Blue agreed. “What’s it their business what you do, anyway?”

Gansey rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “Aglionby is a networking tool, more than it is a school. It’s about meeting people who will later help your careers. My mother is in Congress, Jane.”

“I’m aware. Didn’t think you wanted any of that, though.”

“I don’t,” he told the ceiling. “And the ones who knew me then, really knew me, knew I didn’t want to go into politics. But they thought I’d go into History.”

“That’s your degree, right?”

“Yeah. But I couldn’t do academia like that. It ruined history, to be a historian. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but--”

“Gansey, you don’t have to explain it,” Blue interrupted. “It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you.”

“Thanks, Jane,” Gansey said quietly.

“Do you want to take a nap before the cocktail mixer?” Blue offered. “I’ll wake you in plenty of time.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

“Should take off your fancy clothes first,” Blue said, then blushed. She hadn’t meant it like that.

Gansey blushed, too.

“Another great idea from Jane. What will she think of next?”

“I’ll let you know. Go change and nap.”

Gansey smiled tiredly at her and went to the bathroom to change. He passed out quickly and Blue opened a book.

She soon found herself distracted from her book, though, as his soft snores began. She looked over and found him… God, he was gorgeous like this.

She glued her eyes back to her page. She was not here to ogle him. She was not. She was here to support a friend.

A friend who trusted her to fake-date him at his high school reunion, a very stressful event.

A friend who trusted her to sleep beside him and to nap in the bed next to her.

A friend she maybe, possibly, wanted to be more than a friend to.

When it came time to wake him, she didn’t want to. He had been so stressed and he looked so peaceful now.

“Gansey?” she called softly. He didn’t stir.

She stood and leaned down to touch his shoulder.

“Gansey? It’s time to wake up.”

His eyes scrunched shut a tiny bit before blinking open.

“Jane?”

“Something like that,” Blue smiled at him. “Time to wake up.”

Gansey groaned. “Do we have to go?”

“Well, no, but if we’re going to, you have to get up.”

“You’re too kind, Jane.”

Blue shrugged.

“You should probably get up either way, actually. But if you want to ditch, I’m down.”

Gansey finally opened his eyes all the way, studying her face. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“I would what?”

“Ditch this ridiculous party and go on a crazy adventure with me.”

“I’m pretty sure this already qualifies as a crazy adventure,” Blue teased.

“Jane,” Gansey began, then shook his head. “Blue. You’re amazing.”

Blue blinked. “You’re not so bad yourself, Gansey.”

“No, you’re missing the point,” Gansey sat up, grasping for Blue’s hands where she stood beside his bed. “There’s literally no one else I’d rather have here with me.”

Blue felt her face burning.

“Gansey, I’m... honored but a little confused.”

“You’re kind and supportive and beautiful and I guess I’m saying, if you’ll let me, I’d like to take you on more adventures. As many as you’ll have me for.”

“Are you… what?” Blue stammered.

“Will you real-date me?” Gansey asked.

Blue gaped.

Gansey’s face fell.

“I’ve read this wrong, I’m so sorry, please forgive me--”

Blue, however, regained her senses and leaned down to kiss him, catching him mid-word and rather awkwardly ending up kissing his bottom lip more than his mouth as a whole.

She laughed and drew back an inch, tilting her head and leaning in again.

This time, Gansey met her perfectly.

It was exactly what she had though kissing Richard Gansey would be like. He tasted of mint and his lips were soft. His hands came up to rest on her waist and she threaded her fingers through his wavy hair.

When they broke apart, both of them were a little short of breath.

“I don’t want to go to this cocktail hour. I want to take you out properly,” Gansey mumbled against her lips.

“Okay,” Blue answered.

~

Monday morning, Gansey brought her coffee again.

“Is this a thing we do now?” Blue smirked.

“I thought perhaps I could trade a coffee for a kiss,” Gansey offered.

“I think I could be down with that,” Blue smiled, leaning up to kiss him.

When she had taken her first sip of coffee, Gansey seated beside her in the break room, he spoke again.

“I told Adam and Ronan about… well, all of it.”

“Yeah?”

“They want to meet you properly.”

“Is that okay?” Blue’s eyebrows shot up.

“Is it okay with you?” Gansey asked instead of answering.  

“Of course, Gansey. I want to meet your friends. I want to meet everyone important to you.”

“You really are amazing, Jane.”

She just kissed him again.

#bluesey #blue/gansey #trc #the raven cycle #trc fic #fake dating #fluff #non-magic au

[trb-reacts]

The Raven Boys, Chapter 4

Gansey had once told Adam that he was afraid most people didn’t know how to handle Ronan. What he meant by this was that he was worried that one day someone would fall on Ronan and cut themselves. 

I love this so much, not least because I am very biased for Ronan right now and he just... like [Gansey] was worried that one day someone would fall on Ronan and cut themselves. Like wow, poetry in motion and double meanings. Why am I sensing a Ronan/Adam vibe here?

I mean, I was about to skip over it but: Believing in the supernatural, tolerating Gansey’s troubled relationship with money, and co-existing with Gansey’s other friends. The former two were problematic only when they took time away from Aglionby, and the latter was only problematic when it was Ronan Lynch. There’s definitely something about Ronan and Adam together? Adam seems very much like the guy that also gets along with everyone else in a very distant polite way, except when Ronan Lynch brings out very true and undeniable genuine feelings in him (the good, the bad and especially the ugly).

Or maybe I’m just choosing my ship too soon.

Girlfriend, in fluttering white silk, looked a lot like Brianna, or Kayleigh, or whoever Declan’s last girlfriend had been. They all had blond, shoulder-length hair and eyebrows that matched Declan’s dark leather shoes.

I really don’t like Declan so far, just from the way Gansey and Ronan react to him and his propensity to switch girlfriends. Adam is also weirdly throwing me off here because we’re told that Declan’s lastest girlfriend’s name is Ashley but Adam is kinda insistent on just calling her Girlfriend in this very objectifying way?

He wasn’t quite sure how to put this feeling into concrete terms. It was a stare caught out of the corner of his eye, a set of scuffed footprints in the stairwell that didn’t seem to belong to any of the boys, a library clerk telling him an arcane text had been checked out by someone else right after he had returned it. It wasn’t that Adam wondered if Declan was spying on them. Adam knew he was, but he believed that had everything to do with Ronan and nothing to do with the ley line. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to do a bit of observation.

Intriguing. So Adam is the Practical Friend, which I buy since he is very much a commoner in a high class surrounding that he’s not used to that he just has to notice everything.

Also, messed up brotherly relationship much? Resorting to spying?

Adam watched the way Declan’s lip barely brushed the bottom of Girlfriend’s earlobe as he spoke to her; he looked away just as Declan glanced up.

I don’t know why just this line makes me think that Adam is gay. The focus of this line is very much Declan’s lips doing intimate acts and Adam watching that (being gay) without being seen (outing himself).

Adam was very good at watching without being watched. Only Gansey ever seemed to catch him at it.

I just like the thought that Gansey is very observant and the reason why they’re such close friends. It also gives this other dimension to Gansey, that Adam may be the Practical Friend, but Gansey is not really the Oblivious Friend. Gansey only plays the Oblivious Due To Immense Focus On Other Important Stuff Friend because he can trust Adam to watch his back.

Not the tidy stacks of an intellectual attempting to impress, but the slumping piles of a scholar obsessed. Some of the books weren’t in English. Some of the books were dictionaries for the languages that some of the other books were in. Some of the books were actually Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Editions.

I love this type of characterization so much??? Especially Not the tidy stacks of an intellectual attempting to impress, but the slumping piles of a scholar obsessed.

Adam felt the familiar pang. Not jealousy, just wanting. One day, he’d have enough money to have a place like this. A place that looked on the outside like Adam looked on the inside.

Oh, Adam. Also, I can’t quite figure out what  A place that looked on the outside like Adam looked on the inside means exactly. There’s lots of metaphors for me to parse out in this books, and we’re not even five chapters in.

Girlfriend held her hands to her chest in an unconscious reaction to masculine nakedness. In this case, the naked party was not a person, but a thing: Gansey’s bed, nothing but two mattresses on a bare metal frame, sitting baldly in the middle of the room, barely made. It was somehow intimate in its complete lack of privacy.

I do love the image of Gansey’s bed as an island in the sea of books and there’s something about it that speaks of his obsession, like he spent all those money on books that he could careless about the place he sleep in. Masculine nakedness, I’m not sure where that comes in. Ideas?

Adam was struck, as he occasionally was, by Gansey’s agelessness: an old man in a young body, or a young man in an old man’s life.

Adam’s really observant. I had a feeling of Gansey like that, but he describes it so well with his comparison.

There were two Ganseys: the one who lived inside his skin, and the one Gansey put on in the morning when he slid his wallet into the back pocket of his chinos. The former was troubled and passionate, with no discernible accent to Adam’s ears, and the latter bristled with latent power as he greeted people with the slippery, handsome accent of old Virginia money. It was a mystery to Adam how he could not seem to see both versions of Gansey at the same time.

I like it and I’m curious to see how the other slipper Gansey who is born in money acts.

He knocked fists with Adam. Coming from Gansey, the gesture was at once charming and self-conscious, a borrowed phrase of a another language.

Gansey and Adam, both charmingly awkward in speaking the other’s vernacular.

She glanced at Adam. Her eyes didn’t linger, but still, he remembered the fray on the shoulder of his sweater. Don’t pick at it. She’s not looking at it. No one else notices it.

With effort, Adam squared his shoulders and tried to inhabit the uniform as easily as Gansey or Ronan.

Why, hello, Imposer Syndrome. I do really feel for Adam. This is such a nice detail to include. Also, mentions of Gansey and Ronan but not Noah? I’m very curious about the fourth member of their group now.

Ashley blinked vapidly, then said, "Sounds like a metaphor." Perhaps she wasn’t as dumb as they’d thought.

Rude. Just because she’s with Declan?

He left out the part about how he believed the eternally sleeping Glendower would grant a favor to whoever woke him. He left out the part about how it haunted him, this need to find this long-lost king.

And the award for obsessiveness goes to none other than Gansey. Also, though, why? What favor does he need granted? Why is this need to find the long-lost king haunting him so much that it hurts?

Some days, some rotten days, Adam believed the former, and only barely. But being Gansey’s friend meant that more often he hoped for the latter. This was where Ronan, much to Adam’s dissatisfaction, excelled: His belief in the supernatural explanation was unwavering. Adam’s faith was imperfect.

And the barely disbelief feels like betrayal, in some ways, to Adam, when Gansey had reached out to him. I’m also getting a very opposite attracts vibe from Ronan and Adam. I think Adam’s faith is imperfect only because he is practical and believes very much in forging his own destiny like Blue. Ronan and Gansey have what Adam wants to have - money, power, connection -, sees that forging their own destiny isn’t really a thing even with those things, and so turn to the faith in supernatural.

Or so that’s what I think so far with the stuff that I’ve read. Maybe I’m reaching too much and later details will prove me wrong.

"That’s Noah," Declan said. He said it in a way that confirmed Adam’s assumption: Monmouth Manufacturing and the boys who lived in it were a tourist stop for Declan and Ashley, a conversation piece for a later dinner.

Why, just why? It’s like using a dog to start a conversation with a cute girl. Except now Declan dehumanize them to dogs and parade the boys around like clowns, turns around to his girlfriend with laughing eyes to say, “aren’t they just so strange?”

"Oh! Your hand is cold." Ashley cupped her fingers against her shirt to warm them. "I’ve been dead for seven years," Noah said. "That’s as warm as they get."

I can just imagine Noah saying this in such a deadpan way that no one would know if he’s telling a joke or being serious.

Ronan and Declan Lynch were undeniably brothers, with the same dark brown hair and sharp nose, but Declan was solid where Ronan was brittle. Declan’s wide jaw and smile said, Vote for me while Ronan’s buzzed head and thin mouth warned that this species was poisonous. "Ronan," Declan said. On the phone with Adam earlier, he had asked, When will Ronan not be available? "I thought you had tennis." "I did," Ronan replied.

?? I thought Declan was gonna stop by when Ronan has class, not tennis. Also, the idea that Ronan is brittle fits oddly well, along with his appearance that warned he’s poison. I’m thinking about poisonous plants and self-protection via self-destruction, since the only way for Ronan to poison someone is for someone to take a bite out of him and harm him first.

As he pulled Ashley out into the tiny stairwell and down the stairs, Adam heard the beginnings of damage control: He has problems, I told you, I tried to make sure he wouldn’t be here, he’s the one who found Dad, it messed him up, let’s go get seafood instead, don’t you think we look like lobster tonight? We do.

I’m sorry and excuse me, what WTF? Wow, Declan, wow, really? Why did you even go there in the first place? Also, he’s the one who found Dad, it messed him up. Is this hinting that Ronan found their father’s dead body after he committed suicide or I was just obsessing too much about Kakashi and Sakumo recently?

I also just remembered there’s three of these brothers. I’m gonna assume Declan is the oldest if he holds the key to Ronan’s freedom (tho that seems odd to me seeing as how Declan doesn’t seem to quite able to hold Ronan’s leash at all, even in this short conversation), I’m wondering in a I-Don’t-Really-Want-To-Meet-Him-Way if the other brother’s just as bad.

Ronan’s expression was still incendiary. His code of honor left no room for infidelity, for casual relationships. It wasn’t that he didn’t condone them; he couldn’t understand them.

I can buy that, tho I’m wondering if Ronan is really only angry at Declan because Declane switches girlfriends a lot (hence the reference to infidelity) and does it really have nothing at all to do with the brothers’ tumult relationship or the fact that Declan seems to be constantly talking down at him and talking shit about him.

Ronan was not really Gansey’s problem, either, in Adam’s opinion, but they’d had this argument before.

I beg differ, Adam. When you’re friends, everyone is each other’s problem.

Ronan looked chastened, but Adam knew better. Ronan wasn’t sorry for his behavior; he was only sorry that Gansey had been there to see him.

Aww, interesting. From ‘I didn’t take notes for you because I thought you died in a ditch’ to ‘I’m sorry that you had to see this ugly side of me’.

But surely Gansey knew that as well as Adam. He ran his thumb back and forth across his bottom lip, a habit he never seemed to notice and Adam never bothered to point out. Catching Adam’s gaze, he said

Lips again. Like, when I write I have the tendency to over focus on the lips quirking, hand gesturing, eyes looking, but this is Adam looking at Gansey’s habit with his lips and just... never bothering to point it out and always very aware of it. But here’s also Gansey showing that he always knows more than he points out or lets on, like with Ronan and now Adam, since he catches Adam’s gaze as he looks.

Because of his money and his good family name, because of his handsome smile and his easy laugh, because he liked people and (despite his fears to the contrary) they liked him back, Gansey could’ve had any and all of the friends that he wanted. Instead he had chosen the three of them, three guys who should’ve, for three different reasons, been friendless.

Okay, it’s done. Everyone can go home now. This sums everything up about them so nicely that I’m just like let’s stay here forever. The story doesn’t need to go on. Let them be frozen in this period of youth and friendships despite odds.

Also, Gansey is obviously the center of their friendships so when he dies, I can just imagine all of the others breaking down and shattering in different ways and when that happens, all of them will cut each other with the sharp edges of their broken remains.

"I’m not coming," Noah said. "Need some more alone time?" Ronan asked. "Ronan," Gansey interjected. "Set your weapons to stun, will you? Noah, we won’t make you eat. Adam?"

More eccentricities. Why doesn’t Noah eat?

Also,  Set your weapons to stun. That’s such an odd phrase to say, but coming from Gansey, it works? I also think here we see a bit of the other side of Gansey. When he comes out of his obsession long enough to bring his friends together, i think we can see a bit of the other side of Gansey that Adam mentions, the slippery side of Gansey that knows what he wants and knows exactly how to get it.

But Gansey and Adam sought Glendower for different reasons. Gansey longed for him like Arthur longed for the grail, drawn by a desperate but nebulous need to be useful to the world, to make sure his life meant something beyond champagne parties and white collars, by some complicated longing to settle an argument that waged deep inside himself. Adam, on the other hand, needed that royal favor.

I... still don’t really get it? The more that’s revealed, the more befuddled I get.

Even though Ronan was snarling and Noah was sighing and Adam was hesitating, he didn’t turn to verify that they were coming. He knew they were. In three different ways, he’d earned them all days or weeks or months before, and when it came to it, they’d all follow him anywhere.

And their journey continues, this odd band of rich misfits. This chapter as a whole reminds me a bit of a fanfic analysis after everything said and done occurred.  

#the raven cycle #the raven boys #chapter 4 #trc #trb

[off-in-the-moors]

Joseph Kavinsky analysis, part 2

aka no voice and no dream pack

Warnings: spoilers for the whole Raven Cycle, mentions of: drug-use, abuse, death, s*cid, xenophobia

Part 1 // Part 2

Before starting, I wanted to thank for likes and support, not only on part 1 but also on my other posts. I was writing this more for the catharsis, after months of seeing and not really speaking about a lot of stuff. It’s nice to know, somebody read it. Some say, Kavinsky is their comfort character and, well, he will stay with me for a very long time. But enough of that. Let's talk about the point of view, xenophobia and the Dream Pack.

PoV

The running motif in TRC is, all antagonists get PoVs. No matter if they appear in one book (like Whelk) or reoccur (like the Greenmatles). The reader gets multiple chapters with their backstories, internal thoughts and goals. This move by the author is a double-edged sword, on one hand we get a better understanding of them but on the other, by knowing them better they become less effective antagonists and the air of mystery and surprise of what they're up-to/what they know is lost. E.g. In TDT we are first told about Colin Greenmatle and what is he capable of, making him a good threat for our main characters. But when we finally meet him in BLLB, with his attitude and scenes like dissing Ronan's Latin grammar or making cheese crackers while his wife is held at gun-point, he becomes more of a comedic antagonist than a villain to fear.

But here's the thing: I already lied to you. In TRC, all antagonists get PoVs, except for Kavinsky. It's a odd exception from the rule, considering Gray Man in TDT and The Wasp Demon in The Raven King, also got PoVs. But why? There are two things to look at. One I already mentioned. By giving a character PoV, the reader gets better understanding of them. By not giving Kavinsky one, Margaret didn't give anything to make K or his actions clear or understandable. By not knowing his motivations, K is left to pure interpretations, but how the reader will do it mostly will be influenced by his demonetization. Of course, not everybody will just accept what the book tells them without thinking for themselves but most fans don't.

"Bang", he said softly, withdrawing the fake gun. "See you on the street."

Alone, this single line can be interpreted in many different ways. Is it K being angry and threatening Ronan? Or maybe Joseph breaking inside because he was proofen, he really has no one? It all depends on the reader.

Second, when asked on her tumblr, if she'll ever write anything from K's pov (in 2015, before The Raven King was published), M*ggie said she won't, because: she already explored that type of character ("the thoughts and motivations of a powerful, suicidal, creative person with few inhibitions") in Sinner (2014, spin-off/companion book of her older series, The Wolves of Mercy Falls, 2009-2011 for the main three) with Cole St. Clair; that writing through PoV of such character is emotionally and mentally draining for her (which is understandable); and even if she wanted to explore it again in the future, she would through a different character's lenses than K's.

Let's talk about St. Clair.

The characters of Cole and Kavinsky have some similarities: both are drug addicts, who are rich.

That's where they end.

Cole was a famous musician, having the stereotypical rock-star life (drugs, alcohol and sleeping with fans included) with good family relationships, while K was a son of a mobster who tried to kill him and a mother who was a drug-addict herself. While their perspectives would have similarities, there is also other problems. Cole St. Clair already got PoVs in his series and a stand-alone book, Joseph Kavinsky got nothing and will get nothing. Cole had friends that cared for him and helped him, Joseph Kavinsky had his Dream Pack (which whom we don't know what type of relation he had) and his customers who we can safely say, only cared for what he can provide them with, he tried to befriend or start a relation with Ronan who rejected even the idea of it and no one even reached out to him. Cole got his happy ending and (hinted at) a girl he loved, K got rejected by everyone and committed public suicide. (Now, I heard a opinion that K didn't commit suicide, because the dragon killed him. Here is the thing, K could move out of the way multiple times, even Ronan shouted to him to move. But he didn't. He watched the dragon fly towards him and just said "The world is a nightmare.". He choose death.)

People wanted K's PoV, because they wanted to know, what pushed him to do what he did in TDT. But, in my opinion, even if M*ggie gave K pov, she would use it to further demonize him than to make the reader understand him more. She already did write a whole post exaggerating and straw-manning the canon, just to also say "Kavinsky has a very logical backstory that leads him to this place". A backstory we as the reader never truly see and one she forgot to write into her book. At the end, she truly cared only about Ronan.

Xenophobia

The Raven Cycle is a very flawed and problematic series, there are already many other posts taking about racism, misogyny, lack of diversity and many other issues with it, but in regards to Kavinsky, I'll only touch on the xenophobia. (I could talk also about portray of metal-illness, but I'm not the person to talk about it and I would feel comfortable with it.)

Kavinsky is a stereotype of a Slavic person, one we see in American media since the Cold War, especially in 80s movies. The Evil Russian trope. The son of the mobster, drug-addict, forger who can get you anything even illegal stuff, a thief.

When describing Kavinsky, one of the things Ronan mentions is: "refugee's face, hollowed-eyed and innocent". One could argue, "refugee" has many meanings, but boiling it down, is a person who came to the country to escape and seek a refuge. Many people moved to America to find a better life, in the believe of the American Dream, and many of them where driven to do that, especially from ex-Eastern Bloc countries. Kavinsky's Bulgarian, unknown if an immigrant himself or a son of immigrants, but the point still stands.

About Blue’s comment "import from somewhere else" I don't need to say much. First, obvious: You don't import people, only foreign goods, like cars. Second: this shows, he is "the other" in the eyes of the characters.

There is more to it, then just the physical description. We need to look at the outfit he wears. White tank top, white sunglasses, a small earring in one ear and a gold chain around his neck. This gives two images: one of a typical douche-bag, party asshole and the rich kid; the second of a Slavic stereotype, especially of a Russian criminal. If Margaret wanted to make K even bigger stereotype, she would dress him like a dress/gopnik, in a tracksuit.

The thing is: M*ggie could had saved the situation if she had subverted the stereotypes. E.g. K didn't wanting anything to do with the crime live, his family was forced into by circumstances or K being the guy to get stuff from, but he isn't doing it for any gain.

The truth is, K being Bulgarian doesn't add anything to his character, except for xenophobia. (Personally, I tried to find where the surname "Kavinsky" came from. It is Slavic, that much I can tell you for sure, but the rest is my speculation and searching. My best guesses are: Russian (it appears most commonly in Russian, after USA and a use in Russia set novel) or Polish (because it has uncanny simulates to the surname "Kawiński", if it was anglicized like e.g. "Kamiński" into "Kaminsky"). This isn't a common surname and with Peter from the To All the Boys trilogy and the musician, it's hard to find any information.)

But for now, K's portray is one of the many issues.

The Dream Pack or the lack of it

The Dream Pack is the unofficial name for K's group, with whom he parties and races (the canon name is "Kavinsky's Pack of Dogs" which is ugh). They're unfortunately, a non-characters. It's bolt to even call them background characters. Their portray, or again, lack of it, leaves them as props, their only role is to be K's followers and to show K as a leader on a equal ground as Gansey. We're lead to believe, they are like Kavinsky, yet another raven boys, and to make are main characters so “not like the other raven boys”. Problem rises in connection to the previous point, out of four members, only one has an English surname.

Prokopenko is a Ukrainian surname and for his description, we get "ears like wingnuts", "crooked shoulders" and his voice as "milky with drugs". It's said he had "recently attained official crony status", and was noted being in close desecrate to K for a while. Later we discover Proko is a forgery, a dream creature like Matthew and Aurora. It's heavily implied the real Prokopenko is dead, but if K had something to do with it, is unknown. He is the only character to "chortle", which Margaret said she hates and also "fratty boys and the chortling men they turn into". From this we can deduce, that not only the Dream Pack and people at K's parties but all raven boys (with the exception of the main characters) were writen like this on purpose as the personification of everything M*ggie hates. We are also informed, he drives a Golf.

Skov, who according to a deleted scene, full name is Blake Skovron, is polish (or at least anglicized version of it). In said deleted scene he's described as "major asshole, minor bigot" (unfortunately I couldn't find it to confirm it). The only canon stuff about him is: he drives a RX-7 (Mazda RX-7).

Jiang is Chinese, making him one of three canon Asian characters we see in the series (not counting Henry's father, because he's just mentioned, same goes for the Vancouver crowd). Like Proko, his role is a little bigger. In the Raven King, after Ronan finally returns to school after a long time of skipping, he tells him: "Hey, man, I thought you'd died". Ronan doesn't respond, but tells the reader he doesn't want to see Jiang outside of his car, racing. The only other thing we know about him: he drives a Supra (Toyota Supra).

Swan is the only one with an English name, but all we know about him is: he drives Volkswagen Golf, one that matches Proko's.

(For future writers: what car a character drives, isn't a personality trait.)

With the already minimal diversity, this shows the non-Americans as the antagonists or at least "the worst". On the opposite side, we have our main characters. Richard Campbell Gansey III, who has the whitest and British name I ever saw; Adam Parrish, born and raised in Henrietta, Virginia; Ronan Lynch, son of a Irish immigrant, whose Irish identity starts and ends on tit-bits; Blue Sargent, who is half-tree and ambiguous, but was drawn as white by the author multiple times (Yes, I am aware of the Instagram post, but Margaret herself said, she isn't confirming anything that isn't already written in her books. She couldn't even confirm Adam's hair color and made a joke out of it.) The only exception is Noah Czerny, whose surname is Slavic (probably Czech), but this bares no effect on his character.

The Dream Pack are the whole communities babies, created by head-canons and fanons, their relations with Kavinsky and themselves are explored, who they are as people, their appearance, their interests... This is beautiful how many different versions and interpretations of non-existing characters is there. (I, myself also made a version for a rewrite, based partly on the fanon.)

But at the end of the day, the fans did the author's job of creating believe friend group and in the end, their only function was to show, Kavinsky is a king, just like Gansey.

#joseph kavinsky #the dream pack #anti maggie stiefvater #anti raven cycle #anti trc

[bazypitchandsimonsnow]

Crossover Day

Rating: T

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 2612

Summary: Baz gets attacked by a raven and meets a strange man.

Read on AO3

Baz

I think I’m reconsidering DC as Snow and my vacation spot. Which is a bit late, since I’m currently standing in the middle of Lincoln Park. We could have gone to Paris or something. But we somehow settled on the American capital, a relatively chilly city with a lot of museums. Not very different from London, where we already live. Yeah, we’ll go to Paris next time.

I’m waiting for Simon now. He’s run off to find some after-lunch before-dinner snack. I’ve decided to wander around this gorgeous park. It’s lovely place, decent sized with trees and a honking huge statue. The sunlight speckles the ground through the leaves. People mill around, laughing and playing. It’s all sort of nice, sort of peaceful.

Then a bird flies straight for my face.

I yell profanities and stumble back, trying to bat the giant raven away from me. It screeches and pecks at my skin.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Chainsaw!” Some American yells. “Get back here, you little shit!”

The bird yells in my face one more time and flies off. It lands on the arm of a very odd man. He looks about my age, but much...rougher. What with the shaved head, muscle tank, and combat boots. His fashion sense reminds me of Aunt Fiona's. His face is all sharp, hardened lines. Stranger still, there’s a hint of a tattoo crawling up his neck. It hooks viciously on his pale skin.

“Why the fuck did you fly away like that?” He growls at the bird, as if it’ll answer him.

Kerah! It caws, then turns to me, making the rough American turn too. He takes a few steps forward.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “She’s been antsy ever since we got here. We’re from out of town.”

“You brought a bird on a trip to DC?” I blurt out. I’m in too much shock to be polite, sue me.

He scowls, blue eyes burning with angry fire. “Yeah. Great observation, dickhead.”

I scoff and roll my eyes. “Well, what I’m really asking is why?”

The man pets the raven’s head almost instinctively. “Because she freaks out even more without me. No different than a dog or something.”

My resolve softens slightly. I kind of understand. Especially considering the way he looks at this bird. I sigh. “Alright. Apology accepted.” I offer my hand like the gentleman I am. “Basilton Pitch. Most people call me Baz. Pleased to meet you.”

He looks at my hand a little apprehensively, almost disgusted. I push it forward a bit more.

“C’mon,” I say. “I don’t bite. Not most of the time, anyways. Depends if you piss me off again.”

The man chuckles. A smile spreads across his face, but there’s nothing kind about it. It’s a smile made for war. He takes my hand. His grip is strong and calloused. And the oddest little jolt goes through my veins. It’s not an emotional response, certainly a physical one. It reminds me of the feeling of magic, but it’s foreign. There’s something strange about it.

“Ronan Lynch,” he says. “And I usually bite right off the bat.”

I laugh myself and give his hand a firm shake. “Pleasure to meet you. Mr. Lynch”

We let go, and Ronan immediately falls on the bench. He spreads his arms and legs out like he owns it. Crowley, he looks like he could take over the world with a single sneer. The infernal raven rests on his shoulder. I sit politely next to him, ankles crossed and hands in my lap.

“What’s a Brit like you doing in DC?” He says gruffly.

“Vacation,” I reply. “Had a hard year at school and decided I needed a break.”

He scoffs. “That’s what school does. Melts your brain and calls it learning. It’s all shit.”

“What an eloquent opinion.” I earn a glare for my deadpan response.

“Not everyone needs school.”

“You’re not in uni?”

“Nope,” he says with another evil smile. “Don’t need it.”

“What do you do then?”

“I’m a farmer.”

I let a loud laugh, head falling back against the bench. I expect Ronan to laugh at his joke along with me but he says nothing. When I look back, he’s looking at me blankly, completely unamused.

“Wait, you’re serious?”

“Yeah. I don’t lie, man.”

“Pfft.” I look out towards the park, crossing my arms. “Everyone lies.”

“Not me.”

He doesn’t elaborate and we fall into silence. Birds chirp, people walk past, the wind whistles in the leaves. Ronan doesn’t say anything. He seems to be comfortable without words. Sort of reminds of Simon’s preference not to speak.

“So what are you doing here?” I ask. “Some sort of American bird convention here in DC?”

Ronan scoffs. “I fucking wish. My best friend is back in town and he wanted to come here. He’s a fucking nerd, likes all the museums and shit. I don’t.”

“Hence why you’re sitting in a park.”

“Yes, ‘hence’, you pretentious shit.”

I chuckle. “Sorry my advanced vocabulary is annoying.”

“Bullshit. You’re not sorry.”

I flick my eyes over to him, and see he’s looking back with a sort of cool resignation. A corner of my lip tugs up.

“You’re right. I’m not.”

He scoffs, but he’s smirk slightly too. “Knew it. You’re just like Gansey.”

“Gansey?”

“Nerd friend. He’s a stuck up ass just like you. You’d like him a lot.”

“Hm. Not so sure about that. Us pretentious arses tend to repel each other. We’re like territorial dogs. My boyfriend’s best friend is one and we bicker endlessly.”

His head turns suddenly, sharp face all scrunched up. “Boyfriend?”

Crap. Well, it’s good to know leather jacket wearing punks with ravens can be homophobic too. I raise a singular eyebrow, keeping my composure. “Yes, boyfriend. Got a problem with that, farmer?”

Surprisingly, he grins, but it’s more amused than evil. “No. It’d be weird if I did though. Considering I’ve got one too.”

Both my brows shoot up to my hairline. Ronan laughs maniacally, enough to make his shoulders shake and Chainsaw flap and caw in protest. “Man, your face, dude,” he gets out between sputtering giggles. "Fucking priceless."

“Oh fuck off,” I mutter. “You were shocked first.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t look like a goddamn deer in the headlights.”

Bit by bit, Ronan controls his breathing. He flicks a laughing tear from his eye, then tilts his head back to look at the sky.

“So what’s your’s like huh?” He says.

I smile, sorting through the best words to summarise Simon Snow. “Reckless, destructive, idiotic, impulsive. Also one of the bravest, most kind, most compassionate people on the planet. So sometimes I don’t understand why in Merl- God’s name he’s with me.”

Ronan chuckles. “Sounds like a real catch.” With that statement, you’d expect sarcasm. But he actually he seems to mean it. I chuckle as well.

“Yeah, he is. How about your’s?”

Lynch sighs, smiling at the sky. There’s an almost dreamy look in his eyes. I’d point it out, if I didn’t fear he’d kill me in some horrific manner for it.

“Mine, well,” he chuckles. “He’s not reckless but he’s also an idiot. He just thinks it through then does dumb shit, usually for a good reason. Stubborn and prideful as fuck too. But he’s actually really smart, also brave, and a lot nicer than he thinks he is. Gotta keep reminding the dipshit of that.”

I tilt my head back like he has, smiling like him too.“Your’s sounds like a catch too.”

“Hell yeah he fucking is.”

We fall back into silence, both staring the clouds above. They swirl and twist across the bright blue sky. It’s sort of nice. Just easy. I think this Ronan Lynch likes it too.

“I don’t usually talk to strangers,” he mutters. “Don’t really like new people.”

“Me neither,” I reply.

“But you’re okay I guess. Got nothing better to do.”

“You’re alright too.”

“Well if that isn’t the most amazing fucking compliment.”

“Hey, it’s the best you’re going to get, Old Macdonald.”

He lifts his head up, throwing me a narrow eyed glare. “Seriously? Old Macdonald?”

I shrug (I’ve picked up the habit from Snow.) “You told me you were a farmer. The jokes write themselves.”

“Well if you aren’t a-”

“Ronan Niall Lynch! Where have you been?!”

Both our heads snap to the left. A weirdly beautiful man in a Harvard sweatshirt and faded jeans is marching towards us. His eyes are pale blue, deep set in his face above impossibly high cheekbones. He’s got unevenly cropped dusty hair and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. And he looks ready to kill Mr. Lynch right where he sits.

“Afternoon, Parrish,” Ronan says with a very large shit eating grin. “What’s up?”

“‘What’s up?’ I’ve been looking for you everywhere. All you texted was ‘in lincoln park’. That’s quite a large area. You couldn’t have been more specific? And this all could’ve been avoided if you bothered to pick up your goddamn phone, and Gan-” He suddenly notices me, blinking confused a few times. “Who are you? Is Ronan bothering you? He does that.”

“Good afternoon,” I start. “I’m-”

“A British dickhead,” Ronan mutters with a smile. I glare viciously.

“It’s actually Baz.” I stand and offer my hand to Mr. Parrish. “Baz Pitch. Mr. Lynch’s raven attacked me and we started chatting from there.”

Parrish’s eyes go wider than humanly possibly. She shakes my hand mechanically, and the same spark as before runs through me again. So there’s something strange about both of these Americans.

“You chatted?” Parrish says to Ronan. “Who are you and what have you done with Ronan Lynch?”

Ronan shrugs. “Dude’s a gay asshole like me. We bonded.”

I smile at him, and he smiles back. Parrish turns back to me, shaking my hand more firmly. “Well then, nice to meet you. I’m Adam Parrish. You must be some sort of miracle worker.”

I chuckle. “No no, nothing like that. Like he said, we’re both gay arseholes. Easy to bond.”

“We were talking about you, actually.” Ronan tugs on Adam’s arm, sending the freckled boy tumbling into his lap with a yelp. He wraps his large arms around his waist, keeping him from standing up. “Comparing boyfriends and all.”

Ronan’s eyes acquire the same dreamy look as before. The raven caws, nuzzling against Parrish's head. It obviously shares the same affection as Lynch. Adam’s face goes bright red. Ronan’s grin gets even more shit eating. I just laugh.

“So this is him?” I say. “The stubborn, smart idiot?”

Adam’s embarrassment goes away, trading it for an annoyed look at Ronan. “You been talkin’ shit about me, Lynch?” There’s the faintest hint of a southern accent in his voice, the ‘g’ slipping off and vowels extending.

“I don’t lie, Parrish, you know that.”

Parrish rolls his eyes and hits Ronan’s chest, but he’s smiling. “Yeah yeah, I know. Now let me up.”

“Fine, if you insist.” Ronan loosens his grip, but plants a kiss on Adam’s still slightly red cheek before letting him stand. That only makes his blush worse.

“We’re done with the Glendower exhibit,” Adam says firmly. “Gansey says it inaccurate, unsurprisingly. Blue and Henry won't stop telling him 'I told you so.' They’re all at an ice cream place now.”

“Did you get Opal ice cream?”

“Of course.”

He groans. “It’s the afternoon. She’s going to be up all fucking night now.”

“Hey, you try to tell her ‘no ice cream’ at an ice cream parlour.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. He turns to me, looking exasperated. “Word of advice, Pitch: don’t have kids. They’re amazing but also the worst.”

I blink stupidly. Ronan can't be that much younger than me. And he has a kid? I feel like this leads to a longer conversation we don’t have time for. “Al...right. I’ll remember that.”

“Good.” Ronan jumps to his feet, one hand shoved into his leather jacket pockets, the other around Adam’s middle. “Now it’s been nice talking but we’ve got to-”

“There you are Baz!”

Adam and Ronan peer over my shoulder. I turn around, and a grin spreads on my face. There’s my idiot boyfriend, in his favourite orange coat and blue jeans, walking towards us with a paper bag in hand, no doubt carrying a cherry related pastry within. Simon puts his arm around me and kisses my jaw before realising there are two other people with us. He looks shocked and quite embarrassed.

“Oh,” he says. “Uh, hi. I-I don’t know you.”

I chuckle, putting my arm around him too. “They’re new...acquaintances, love.” I indicate Ronan. “Meet Ronan Lynch,” then Adam, “and Adam Parrish. Lynch, Parrish, this is the aforementioned boyfriend, Simon Snow.”

“Oh! Hi!” Snow enthusiastically shoves his hand out. “Nice to meet you!”

Ronan chuckles, but he still shakes his hand. “You forgot to mention he was so fucking hyper, Pitch.”

Snow’s brow furrows, turning to look at me curiously. “What did you tell him about me?”

“Only good things, love. I promise.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Well, only true things.” Ronan flashes me a proud grin.

Simon takes Adam’s hand too. “Hi. Sorry if my boyfriend was an arse to you. He does that. Though I have a feeling you’re used to it.” He tilts his head towards Ronan.

Adam nods. “Oh yeah. I definitely am.”

“We have more in common than appearance than.”

Both Ronan and I go wide eyed. Now that he mentions it, yeah, they do look alike. Tanned skin, lots of freckles, blue eyes, light brown hair, and currently matching amused smiles. Lynch and I look at each other simultaneously.

“I think we may share a type, Lynch,” I say flatly.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

Adam and Snow laugh loudly. I flick Snow’s ear, and he sticks his tongue out at me. Lynch pinches his boyfriend’s side, making him convulse. It takes a bit for both of them to calm down.

“We should get back to the others, Lynch,” Adam says when he's fully calm. “Gansey will worry.”

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Dick is always worrying.”

“Yeah, because you give him a reason to. So let’s get going.” He looks at Simon and I with a kind smile. “Nice meeting you two. Thanks for babysitting my boyfriend, Mr. Pitch.”

“My pleasure. And it’s Baz, please. If you two ever end up in London, feel free to look at us up. Without the bird, preferably.”

“No promises,” Ronan says, flashing another war smile. Though I should be annoyed, I just smirk back. There's something endearing about his annoying stubbornness.

“We should be off too,” Simon interjects. “Enjoy the ice cream!”

Adam nods. “Will do. Have a nice day.”

“You too.”

We all simultaneously turn and walk in opposite directions. Simon sighs and leans his head on my shoulder. I pull him closer like always.

“Hey, Baz?” he asks, voice low.

“Yes, darling?”

“Did you feel something...weird, when each of them shook your hand? Like magic, but not quite?”

“Actually, yes. You did too?”

He nods vigorously. “Definitely. There’s something, odd about them. I mean, I like them, but there’s something else going on.”

“Agreed.” I turn my head slightly, catching a glimpse of the other two boys walking with their arms around each other. They do look utterly normal at a glance (minus the raven), but I swear there’s something strange. “Maybe we’ll find out, if we see them again.”

“Maybe. Mystery for now, I guess.”

“Yeah,” I say. “They’re definitely more than a bit strange. Nice, but strange.”

Turns out DC was a good vacation pick.

Okay let's pretend this takes place in a universe where Ronan would not just walk away from Baz almost immediately after meeting him. But still, I think Ronan and Baz would get along. They have a lot in common, including their taste in guys :D Also Gansey, Penny, and Baz would get along because they're all nerds and would compare nerd notes.

Fun fact: I actually started the Raven Cycle because I clicked on fan art of Adam thinking it was Simon. Then I found out it wasn't, looked up where it was from, and said, "huh, I should read this series, it sounds cool." Soon I fell down the damaged-boys-and-girl-looking-for-a-Welsh-king rabbit hole :)

Anywho, hope you liked this TRC crossover. Sadly, I don't have time to do WLW, but I probably will publish one on my own later. So stay tuned, Theo will return on December 12th with "stuck together"!

#carry on countdown #coc 2017 #carry on #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #pynch #the raven cycle #crossover #mysnowbazfic

[swimmingwolf59]

Of BMWs and Cadillacs

(Also can be read on my AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingwolf59 )

The BMW is on its last legs.

Ronan has been driving it for ten years, and his father had driven it many years before that. Adam had briefly driven it during his college days, because no way in hell would Ronan ever let Adam drive all the way to Princeton in that old shitbox, but after he’d risen in the ranks as a civil engineer the keys were handed back to Ronan as Adam proudly bought a car for the first time. Ronan hardly goes anywhere—half of his drives are out into the middle of nowhere because he just wants to drive and not think about anything but the wind blowing through the open windows and the cradle of the stick shift under his palm—but when he does he always takes the BMW.

Even if Adam has a rather nice Cadillac that Ronan wouldn’t mind taking for a spin if his husband ever let him.

Adam has kept the BMW running for years, always taking it upon himself to give it regular maintenance and oil changes, as well as coming to save Ronan and jumpstart the engine whenever it stalls in the middle of nowhere. Ronan honestly loves how much Adam respects and cares for his car – if he hadn’t already been head over heels in love with him for twelve years, hell that probably would’ve done him in.

However, Adam’s patience with Ronan’s stubborn grip on his old ass car eventually runs out, as Ronan always knew it would. It probably has something to do with the fact that this is the third time in one week that he’s had to drive out to random fields to pick up Ronan because the BMW broke down. Ronan would laugh at how ironic it is that now he’s the one with the unreliable and dying car, rather than Gansey, if he wasn’t so sad that it means he has to let the BMW go.

Everyone he has ever loved drove this car. Matthew, when he was first learning to drive. Declan, if Ronan is ever in a good enough mood to admit that he loves him, when he’d first learned how to drive. Gansey, when he’d had to pick up Ronan’s drunk ass way too many times to count. Blue, when she’s angry at Gansey or the world in general and needs something that will let her drive recklessly and vent her pent up frustration, a feeling Ronan knows all too well. Adam, all of the time really (and not always just driving). And then of course his father, with Aurora always smiling in the passenger seat.

Ronan has had so many memories in this car, both good and bad, that he can’t bring himself to get rid of it. He gets as frustrated as Adam does when it breaks down everywhere he goes anymore, but he holds such fondness for it inside of him that it tears him apart thinking about sending it to the trash heap.

His trusty stead for so many years deserves better than that.

So he stubbornly keeps driving it, even though he knows that it likely won’t last long enough to get him back home. He and Adam have fought over it too many times to count, but Adam at least respects the sentimental side of why Ronan wants to keep the car.

He just can’t understand why Ronan doesn’t want to get a new car.

“For fuck’s sake Ronan, you don’t have to get rid of the BMW when you buy a new car!” Adam snaps as they’re driving back home in his Cadillac, the BMW abandoned on the side of the road for now until Adam can get a tow truck to come retrieve it. They’re practically friends with the tow truck people by now, Ronan thinks wryly as Adam continues, “Wouldn’t you enjoy driving in a car that can actually handle your ridiculous speeds without breaking down in the middle of fucking nowhere?”

It isn’t unusual for Adam to swear, but the fact that he’s swearing so frequently tips Ronan off that he’s actually really mad this time. He sinks down into the passenger seat, trying not to get angry himself. “I just don’t want to deal with shopping for a new car, alright? Those dumb fucks at the car dealer always think they know better than me and walk me around in fucking circles instead of just trusting that I know which fucking car I want.”

“It’s their job to know more about cars than you, Ronan – you can’t blame them for wanting to make a sale,” Adam says tersely, and Ronan can practically feel his eyes roll. He has to bite back a rude comment about the salespeople, knowing it will only make Adam angrier.

It’s quiet in the car for a moment before Adam sighs heavily and says, “What if someone bought a car for you?”

Ronan snorts. “Alright, first of all – who the fuck would do that? And second of all, I don’t trust anyone knowing what I’d want in a car. Except for maybe you.”

Adam doesn’t say anything to that, so Ronan tugs the hood of his hoodie over his head and stares out the window. Most of their fights end like this, both being too angry to even say anything sometimes, so they just remain in a stony silence until one or both of them reaches out to gently touch the other and signal that, at least for now, things are alright. They’ve survived for ten years like that, both too stubborn for their own good, but it works for them somehow.

Since they fight about this often, the silence only lasts until they make it into the kitchen at the Barns. Ronan had been experimenting earlier with a pasta dish that had exploded in his face, so they just pop some macaroni and cheese in the microwave and collapse onto the couch together. Opal has just started college this year, so they’re alone as Adam draws his fingers through Ronan’s short curly hair that he’s finally started to let grow out again and Ronan rubs his hands along Adam’s thighs in appreciation.

It won’t be long before they fight about the BMW again, but at least for now Ronan is content to just doze into Adam’s side, tangled together like they have been for so many years.

 --

The next day, Adam is home later than usual.

This isn’t exactly unusual, as Adam often has to work late when there are big projects that need to be finished by an upcoming deadline, but he usually texts Ronan that he’ll be late. Today there is absolute radio silence. He doesn’t answer the two times Ronan calls, and he hasn’t even contacted Gansey when Ronan calls him in a panic.

“He’s dead somewhere, I just know it,” Ronan says into the phone, cradling it with his shoulder as he rubs along Daisy the dream cow’s flank. These days he always goes to the cows when he’s stressed about something. His and Adam’s three dogs wind their way between his legs, but even their presence isn’t at all comforting to him right now.

“Don’t jump to conclusions – there’s been nothing on the news about a dead body, and it’s not like Adam goes anywhere discrete on his route home,” Gansey responds logically, but it does nothing to calm Ronan. “He probably just forgot to text.”

“Parrish doesn’t just forget, and you know it!” Ronan practically shouts. Daisy startles under him, and he coos softly to her in apology.

“Ronan, I’m sure he’s fine! There’s no need to panic yet.” But there’s every reason to panic, and Gansey’s calm tone just infuriates Ronan.

He’s about to spit fire at him into the receiver when just then he hears a car—no, two—pull into the Barns’ driveway.

“Oh thank fuck,” he sighs as he leaves Daisy and rushes out of the barn.

“Ronan is that him—?” Gansey asks, but Ronan is already hanging up on him as he runs across the field, relief flooding through him. The three mutts lumber after him, always eager to see Adam.

“Parrish you goddamn motherfucker!” he shouts as he skids down the hill towards where Adam’s Cadillac and another car are parked next to the BMW in the driveway. He stomps towards Adam’s figure climbing out of his car, worried anger quickly replacing his relief. “Where the hell—”

He trails off as he finally comes to a stop next to Adam and actually gets a glimpse of the car that is tethered to the back of the Cadillac. For a moment he can only blink at it, uncomprehending. “…What the hell is that?”

Ronan, of course, knows what it is – it’s a navy blue BMW Alpina, the newest model that Ronan has been secretly admiring. It doesn’t surprise him that Adam had picked up on that, his love for cars is so strong it’s practically tangible, but that doesn’t explain to him why the car is here. He knows what it is, but he can’t comprehend a world in which it would be sitting in his driveway next to his old BMW and Adam’s shiny Cadillac.

Adam is grinning from ear to ear when Ronan forcibly draws his stare from the Alpina to gape at him. “Your new car!”

Ronan can’t even begin to process that, so he avoids a reaction entirely by saying instead, “Why the fuck is it covered in glitter?”

Adam’s expression turns somber as he reaches out to gently trace his thumb along the back of Ronan’s hand. “Because Noah would’ve wanted that.”

The thought of their old friend makes Ronan’s chest and throat tight. It’s been ten years, and he still isn’t over the fact that Noah had been ripped away from them so violently and suddenly. He knows of course that it was supposed to happen, Gansey’s life for Noah’s, but he hates that he never got the chance to say goodbye. That he never got to tell Noah how much he loved him and thank him for getting him through those first few years when his dad died, for making him laugh and doing stupid stuff with him.

He’d been trying for years to find a proper way to honor Noah; leave it to Adam to find such a perfect solution.

He leans into Adam, his husband automatically wrapping an arm around him, and buries his nose into Adam’s hair. Breathing in his scent of pine and motor oil, even after all of these years, is the most comforting thing Ronan knows, and he’s so relieved and angry that Adam made him worry just to go out and buy him a fucking car that he can’t help but bark out a laugh.

“I can’t believe you were so angry with me that you went out and bought me a fucking car.”

Adam just snorts. “Don’t feel so high and mighty – I did it for myself. I’m tired of rescuing your stubborn ass from some cornfield.”

I love you, Ronan wants to say, but instead he just presses a firm kiss to Adam’s forehead as he stares at the Alpina.

He loves it and he hates it, but mostly he can’t breathe through how moved he is. This car isn’t his dad’s and it’s not full of all of the memories the BMW has, but it’s completely his, in a way that no car has ever been before. It’s something Adam bought for him, something Noah in spirit can passionately decorate with glitter, something they can make completely new memories in. Even though they share a bank account now, he knows how much of a hardship it must have been for Adam to buy him such an expensive car, and he feels so loved and blessed that for a moment he worries he’s going to cry.

“Do you like it?” Adam asks quietly.

Ronan has to swallow through the thick wad of emotions building up in his throat. “I fucking love it.”

It’s of course in that moment that Chainsaw decides to descend onto the car, checking out the intruder. Ronan and Adam watch as she hops around the top of the car, ruffling the feathers on her wings to help keep her balance on the slick surface. Ronan doesn’t mind her poking around, until she stretches her wings to take off and immediately drops a huge crap down the side of the passenger door.

For a moment he just gapes as Adam dissolves into laughter beside him. Chainsaw flies off like nothing happened, and Ronan breaks himself out of his shock enough to shake an angry fist at her as she soars over his head. “Chainsaw, you fucker!!”

“I guess that means she approves of it!” Adam snorts, bending over double as he wheezes with laughter.

“I hate that fucking bird,” Ronan growls, and yet it somehow feels fitting at the same time. Everyone that means something to him are leaving their marks on his new car, exactly how it should be. The only thing it’s missing now are a bunch of random sticks and stones that Opal discovered in the woods somewhere. Maybe she’ll bring some home from Washington during Thanksgiving.

“You gonna take it for a drive, Lynch? Break it in?” Adam asks when he recovers from his laughter.

Ronan hums – the idea is appealing, but at the same time, there’s something else he’d rather do. So he pins Adam to the car, pressing flush against him and kissing him deeply. It apparently catches Adam off guard, as he doesn’t even respond until Ronan has already pulled away, grinning. “Later – I need to show a certain someone my appreciation first.”

Adam’s smile is wide, but he finds it in him to roll his eyes anyway. “I can’t believe it took me buying you a car to teach you how to thank people properly.”

Ronan barks out a loud laugh and leans down to cover Adam’s face in small kisses and nibbles. He leaves a kiss for every beautiful freckle that adorns his beautiful face until Adam pulls at his head impatiently and they kiss on the lips. It’s strange how Ronan never gets tired of this – he’s been lucky enough to get to kiss Adam Parrish every goddamn day for the last ten years, but every time it still takes his breath away. It makes him feel alive, and he doesn’t think it will ever stop.

Fucking hell he loves this guy.

“Hey, you know?” Adam says between messy kisses. “The Alpina has a pretty nice backseat – I tried it out at the dealer’s.”

A grin slowly grows on Ronan’s face, but he pretends not to know what he’s suggesting. “Oh yeah? Is it good and soft for the mutts?”

“Oh shut up.” Adam rolls his eyes fondly before turning around to wrench the back door open and push Ronan down onto the seat. “You know what I fucking mean.”

Ronan snickers and proceeds to make good use of the new backseat.

When he pulls into the Sarchengsey household the next morning, Gansey’s eyebrows are to the top of his forehead, Blue is practically on the floor roaring with laughter, and Henry is nodding gleefully in approval.

“Nice car, Lynch!” Blue howls through her laughter.

Ronan wants to hate her for it, but he loves the car more than he can ever say. It has a little of everyone he loves on it after all (hopefully the backseat will always smell like Adam). So he just scoffs and scuffs the back of her head when he makes it up the stairs to their front door.

“Shut the fuck up, maggot.”

#pynchweek17 #pynchweek #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #gansey #blue sargent #I know absolutely nothing about cars so I'll apologize in advance #my writing #day one #something old #something new

[saywhatjessie]

Light Mange

It was Adam’s birthday. I made him and Ronan rescue his dog.

2.5k (read on on ao3)

Adam wasn’t homesick. Not really. Kind of.

Not homesick for the double wide trailer where he used to live and cower, but for one specific resident of the trailer park. A furry, four pawed resident with mange and a chunk missing from her left ear.

Thinking of her didn’t really inspire thoughts of home. He’d never really had a concept of home before the Barns. But companion sick? Maybe. He had companions, still.

“Heads up, Parrish.”

The warning came just a second too late as a goat came barreling into him, knocking him off-balance so his oblique collided with the hindquarters of the horse he’d been brushing. He released a soft ‘oof’ but otherwise recovered quickly to make sure the horse wasn’t startled.

He shouldn’t have been worried. The particular horse he was attending to was a dream thing, straight from Ronan’s head. It would take a lot more to startle such a creature.

Adam turned to Ronan, eyes narrowed but his mouth betraying just a hint of his amusement. “This is why I didn’t want to have kids with you.”

Ronan’s laugh was a firecracker – whimsical and dangerous.

There weren’t words to describe the Barns that couldn’t also be used for Ronan. They had the same spirit, the same softness, the same magic. Ronan was and wasn’t a home and a place and the Barns was and wasn’t cutting and violent and all of those things were true at the same time. Accepting that the Barns was more than Adam’s apartment at St. Agnes because it demanded so much more was what convinced Adam to let his lease run out and move in with Ronan for the summer.

Living at the Barns meant participating in chores. For Adam, at least for the first couple weeks, this meant maintaining the house and the young satyr girl living with Ronan inside of it. After Opal had grown into the idea of being ambassador to the farm animals, however, Adam had been given more responsibility on the grounds. Namely: doing whatever Opal told him the animals wanted.

Today, Mitsubishi wanted brushing.

Another goat glanced off of Adam’s shins.

“Is there a reason you’re propelling goats at me?”

Ronan shrugged, scratching under the chin of yet another goat. “You were looking pretty broody over there. So it’s like ‘Whinny for your thoughts?’”

Adam snorted. “It’s horses that whinny.”

“I can send a fucking horse at you, I just thought goats might be gentler.”

Adam laughed, hiding his face in the side of the horse.

A goat collided with the back of his knees.

“Fuck!” But he was still laughing when Ronan came up and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“For real, why are you pouting?”

Adam sighed, leaning into Ronan’s hold. “I’m not pouting,” he protested. Ronan’s thumb brushed his hip and Adam sunk deeper into his hold. “I was just thinking about Aayla.”

Ronan’s thumb stilled. “That blue chick from Star Wars?”

Adam laughed. “No! Well, yes, but my dog.” Adam shifted a bit. He didn’t like talking about the Before. “We got her when I was 10. I really liked the Clone Wars.”

Ronan grunted. “You have shit taste, Parrish.”

Adam hummed in acknowledgement.

He patted the horse on the ribs before turning in Ronan’s hold. His hand came up to cup Ronan’s elbow. “Did you ever meet her? When you would drop me off or pick me up?”

Ronan frowned, his eyebrows coming together in thought. “Did she ever take a snap at my tires?”

“Maybe.” Adam huffed a bit, an unamused laugh. “She didn’t pick up the best habits when it came to rich fuckers.”

Ronan grunted, rubbing at his jaw. It remembered well the kind of aggressive habits she might have picked up regarding rich fuckers.

“But she was a good dog” Adam continued, brushing Ronan’s jaw with his knuckle, once, before bringing his hand back down to Ronan’s arm. “It was nice having a living thing around that actually liked me.”

Ronan’s face went stony and Adam immediately regretted his cavalier words. He’d meant to help endear Ronan to his beloved mutt but all he’d done was remind Ronan of how much he hated Adam’s parents.

With a roughness that only came from years of fighting as a substitute for loving, Ronan crushed Adam against his chest, burying his cheek in Adam’s neck.

Adam was used to such aggressive displays of affection at this point but he still flinched away from the scratchy whiskers on Ronan’s face tickling the sensitive skin of his neck. Ronan deliberately rubbed the spot again with his chin and Adam laughed, shoving at him with no intent to actually push him away.

“We’re going to get that fucking dog.”

Adam did actually pull away this time. “What? Ronan–”

“Hey, everything in this house loves you, but if I can add something else to the ‘I love Adam Parrish’ party, you damn well bet I’m gonna.”

 The plan was this: Ronan didn’t have a plan.

That wasn’t entirely fair – Ronan had dreamt a scouting light that would go check to see if the Parrishes were home before they went in and grabbed Aayla. They would have asked to borrow Robobee for the mission but Henry was still off with Blue and Gansey exploring the greater mysteries of the world. And, according to Ronan, ‘Why would I need Cheng’s bee? I can dream something way cooler.’

Adam wasn’t sure if a floating light that would change color to tell them if it was safe or not was in any way ‘cooler’ but that wasn’t an argument he was willing to have right now.

They were waiting at the end of the dirt road that led into the cluster of double-wides. Adam’s eyes kept skipping around to the lights in the surrounding field, each time feeling disappointed that is was just an ordinary firefly.

Ronan grimaced at the front window, hands gripping the steering wheel in a chokehold of anxiety. His eyes never wavered.

Adam reached out and put a steadying hand on Ronan’s knee.

“You know,” he started, Henrietta accent buoying the vowels in his speech, making them shallow and twangy, “these fireflies are really romantic.”

He picked at the loose thread in the hole in Ronan’s jeans. “If we weren’t on a secret mission, we could be makin’ out right now.”

Ronan snorted, the sound seemingly startled out of him. “Like I need manufactured ambience to get you to make out with me, Parrish.”

Adam slid closer, the edge of his butt slipping off the seat and into the center console.

He nuzzled his face into Ronan’s neck. “It just seems a shame to waste it is all.”

He kissed the bolt of Ronan’s jaw. Ronan’s breath hitched.

But then, “There!”

There was another light floating toward them above the grass, clearly other from the fireflies that had set the mood. It was flying directly toward them, not in the dip and sway way of most insects but smooth like it was being pulled on a line.

It was also pulsing bright purple.

“Why purple?”

Ronan turned toward him. Adam could still make out his expression of disappointed disgust from two inches away. “What, you wanted it to be green? This is supposed to be a secret mission.”

Adam rolled his eyes and slid into back his seat as Ronan put the car in gear.

It was still early evening, not yet so dark that they couldn’t get away with driving without headlights. Ronan eased the bmw down the dirt road as stealthily as he could manage.

It didn’t make much difference that they were trying to be covert. Everyone in Adam’s old neighborhood knew this car. They knew this was the car of the boy who beat the shit out of Robert Parrish. They knew that this was the car Robert Parrish’s son drove back in only a month or so ago. They suspected the owner of the car’s relationship to Adam. They might have suspected that the car being back meant nothing good.

But, like all those years when Adam got hit and no one called the cops, they kept their heads down and minded their own business like good Virginia folk.

Ronan did a k-turn in front of the double wide, nose of the car facing back toward the road in case they needed to make a quick getaway. Adam had half-expected Aayla to have met them up the road, snapping at Ronan’s tires. That would have made everything easier.

If they could pull up to the trailer and she hadn’t yet come out to greet them, that meant she was inside.

“Fuck,” he said. Ronan rubbed his knee.

Adam didn’t think the trailer was locked but he had a spare key if it was. Robert Parrish held close to the mentality that no one would ever want to fuck with him and his things so he would leave his house open as a show of dominance. Really, he had nothing worth taking.

Nothing except the dog. Which Adam was actually there to take.

The screen door creaked alarmingly when it was opened and Adam tried not to flinch. He trusted Ronan’s dream-light, he knew no one was home, but that sound had for so many years been the split-second warning between Robert Parrish returning home and Adam having his teeth knocked in. Tensing up was just sense memory.

A hand clapped down on Adam’s shoulder and he did flinch.

It was only Ronan.

“Didn’t we agree you were going to stay in the car?”

Ronan smiled, cutting. “You shouldn’t put a skittish dog in a strange car with someone she doesn’t know. I’m going to let her know me first.”

Adam sighed. It was as good a reason as any but Adam suspected Ronan had ulterior motives.

Ronan didn’t want Adam coming back into the trailer alone.

He hadn’t wanted him to after graduation either but Adam hadn’t given him a choice back then. He didn’t think he’d given Ronan a choice now but here Ronan was.

Adam sighed.

He made his way to his old room, sure if Aayla was anywhere, she was there.

He knew she wouldn’t have come out when she heard the door open. She’d been trained out of that after the first few kicks she’d received as a puppy.

“Quit yapping, bitch. What, you tryin’ to trip me? You stay out of my face or I’ll take you out back and shoot you, you ain’t better than old yeller.”

Adam turned the corner and found the door to his old bedroom open. The room had been stripped, whatever Adam hadn’t taken with him probably sold and turned into beer. The only thing left was the bed that had come with the trailer, naked of bedclothes and the resting place of dirty animal, just waking.

Adam grinned, unrestrainedly, as he came up to cup her doggy head. “Hi, baby.”

Her tail started thumping before she’d even gotten a good look at Adam, responding to his gentle hands and soft words. Adam guessed she hadn’t received such affection since he’d left.

She started whining and hopping up and he sat down on the bed, allowing her to lick all over his face. “I know! I know!” he whispered, laughing, attempting to pet her into quietness. “I know, sweetheart, I missed you too. I hated leaving you here.”

Aayla curled into his lap, despite being just too big to quite fit. She squirmed and craned her neck to give Adam that many more kisses. Adam let her, hugging her close and bringing his own face down to kiss any part of her body he could reach.

When he finally looked up, he found Ronan leaning on the door frame, a complicated mix of emotions on his face. First and foremost, there was tenderness.

“Aayla, honey,” he gestured for Ronan to come forward. “This is Ronan.”

Ronan reached out a hand, palm up, for Aayla to sniff. She sniffed once before licking, trailer her tongue up Ronan’s wrist before turning back to Adam and licking his hair.

“Well looks like that’s something you didn’t have to worry about, Lynch.”

Ronan laughed, bringing his now slimy hand up to pet at the mutt’s head. “We’re gonna have to treat her mange, you know. I can’t have her spreading it to the other animals.”

Adam nodded, his head nuzzling Aayla’s ears. “I’m not worried. My boyfriend’s a farmer, he’s really good at caring for broken things.”

Ronan cuffed him on the head then immediately leaned down to kiss it.

Adam let himself enjoy it for three beats of his heart. Here, in this bed, in this room, in this double-wide, he’d always sat up and wanted exactly this. Someone who loved him, a loyal pet, a future he could hold with both hands.

The beats passed. Adam missed the Barns.

“We should go.”

Ronan nodded, gripping Adam extra tight before releasing him and backing out of the room.

“Hey, Aayla, you’re gonna come with me now, okay?”

Aayla just kept wagging her tail, trying to lick whatever part of Adam she could reach.

“Okay, girl, follow me.”

As soon as Adam stood up from the bed, Aayla shot out down the hallway. Adam jogged after her, laughing. Ronan held the front door open and she breached the night air, her tongue lolling out in a puppy smile, before, with no warning, her hackles raised and she started growling.

She’d spotted the BMW.

Everyone in Adam’s old neighborhood knew this car.

Adam rushed forward and crouched in front of her. “It’s okay! It’s okay! This is the car that’s going to take us away! We’re getting out of here, huh? Right?”

“Adam.”

Adam looked up. Ronan’s face and shoulders were tense. He was looking over Adam’s head to the top of the BMW. The light was flashing yellow.

“Shit.”

He looked back to Ronan who nodded and tore off to round the car. He jumped in the driver’s seat and turned the car on. Aayla started barking at the growl of the engine.

“No! No. Shh, shhh.” Adam could see headlights. “I love you, please don’t bite me.”

He wished he’d thought to have a blanket when he picked up this squirming dog, at least to spare his exposed arms from her claws as she squirmed. But he didn’t have time to dig for one in the trunk. The headlights were getting closer.

The passenger door swung wide as Ronan pushed it open from the inside. Adam collapsed in the seat, holding Aayla close and shushing her even while she continued to bark.

“Go!”

Ronan wasn’t used to dirt roads. He started off the mark as if he were street racing and the wheels spun out a bit underneath him before he slowed the car down enough for them to get traction.

Once he had the forward momentum he kept it. They did not pause as they passed Robert Parrish’s truck. They did not slow down when he tried to run them off the road. Ronan was a good driver: he swerved then kept on driving.

They burst onto the main road and Aayla stopped barking. She whined, she curled up close in Adam’s lap, she cried.

Adam didn’t stop stroking her. Petting her. “It’s okay, we’re gonna be okay.”

It was okay.

They were going to be okay.

#Pynch #The Raven Cycle #Jessie writes pynch fic #Oops I wrote a thing #does no one else wonder what happened to that dog in chapter 14 of The Raven Boys? #Is that just me? #Whatever she's living with Ronan and Adam at the Barns now #sorry I don't make the rules #Happy Birthday Adam!