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theirmagictheirquest · 1 month ago

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ronan lynch: your mind is not your friend

hiiiii i wrote a little short fic character study for ronan lynch a while back, a previous version is on ao3 and below the break here is a slightly edited version :)

summary: the leyline is awake. in the aftermath, Ronan finds himself questioning his choice to keep his own supernatural secret hidden from his friends. he lies to them everyday about who he is and what he can do, and he hates himself for it. he is different from them. he doesn't know what he is, or why he can do the things he can do. but his desperation to ease the deep loneliness inside of himself tempts him to consider the possibility of offering them the secret he's held so close his whole life.

Ronan felt a pounding behind his eyes, headache prodding at his senses. His body was slumped forward in his car parked on the side of the road. It was dark, the sky covered entirely in deep gray clouds. The moon wasn't visible, but it illuminated the edges of the clouds with a haunting glow. Wind rustled the trees along the side of the road, generating quiet whispers - the only sound besides Ronan's ragged breaths.

His hands gripped the wheel with white knuckles and rigid arms. He only had a few more blocks to travel before arriving back at Monmouth Manufacturing. His car was off. He didn't know how long he'd been there. His eyes were squeezed shut. Not asleep, his face was far too tense to be anywhere close to dreaming. His face was in the form of a grimace. It was a grimace holding back so much fear, so much shame. His head was tilted back, the very same angle he’d let his head rest at when he would stare up at the ceiling while in church. The cushion of his headrest was the only resistance keeping his head up. His body was weak. Exhaustion wracked through him with every breath. He hadn’t slept properly in two days - the only way he could get through the night was to go out driving until he was too tired to think.

Ronan usually considered himself decisive. He was not one to ponder on his choices. He avoided things that seemed useless and pointless. He didn’t go to class if he didn’t want to. He didn’t talk to Declan if he didn’t want to. He didn’t explain himself to Gansey if he didn’t want to. He did the few things he considered sacred: He told the truth. He fed Chainsaw. He went to church. He called Matthew. Following these guidelines, he’d been able to remove most indecision from his life and operate on autopilot.

Except about this. He gnawed on his cheek as his mind wandered further away. He was full of heavy dread when he thought about going home to Monmouth. Gansey could tell something was on his mind. Ronan hated looking at him, couldn’t stand it. Not with this running circles around his head. The headache was worse now. Oh god.

Ronan had been trained to hide who he was. To conceal the things he could do. To bury whatever it was that made him this way so deep that no one outside of his family could ever glimpse it. If he’d uttered to Declan that he was considering breaking the number one rule in the Lynch household, he’d never hear the end of it. Declan and Ronan held their secrets close for different reasons, both a manifestation of fear. For Declan, this was out of obligation to his father, to protect the family secret worth more than their wealth and their lives. For Ronan, he was petrified of what he was. He was alone in this world. The only other person who'd been like him, his father, had the life beaten out of him years ago. His father had been knocked off this shithole plane before he’d bothered to teach Ronan anything about who he was, about what he could do.

Now, Ronan would sit in church every Sunday and apologize for everything he’d dared to dream into the world that week. He’d also plead with the Lord, please God tell me what I am. Why can I do these things? Finally, he’d wonder why God hadn’t bothered to smite him yet - acting as a false god by creating life when God hadn’t willed it must be up there as a smite-able offense. This concluded the tally of people Ronan could currently talk to about his otherness – Declan and God. One of which was useless to speak to (Declan) and the other was hopeless in providing any answers (God). This was driving him crazy. He was alone and so confused, all the while never uttering a word of this to anyone else.

He'd wanted to tell Gansey everything for years. It would make everything so much easier. No more lying to Gansey, an act Ronan felt was detestable. No more Gansey walking on eggshells around Ronan, thinking he would break any second and repeat what he'd promise he'd never do again. And Ronan knew it would change Gansey’s world. Ronan was proof of the supernatural here in Henrietta – living right in front of Gansey's nose. It would be refreshing to have someone view this ability of Ronan's as something magical, something thrilling, not a curse to fear. The temptation to tell him all about it grew stronger as he lingered on this thought. The idea of someone finding joy in this secret was intoxicating.

He blinked. This dislodged a tear from his eye that he didn't know was there. Ronan recoiled as it slid down his face, leaving a shimmery trail along his cheek. His breathing slowed, grip on the wheel looser. His head hung forward now, bowed as if in prayer.

You’re going to get him killed, a harsh whisper echoed through his head; the voice sounded annoyingly like Declan. Ronan scrunched his face. He hated agreeing with the little metaphorical Declan on his shoulders. But Ronan had seen what his secret did to people. His mind - Ronan would blame the evil Declan that resided in there apparently - supplied a visceral image of his father’s brutalized body. Ronan hated how he recalled the details, pulling them to the forefront of his mind, each thought stabbing like a sharpened knife into his forehead, radiating in tandem with the pre-existing pain from his headache. His eyes were screwed shut, as they often were when he thought about this moment. He wished he’d screwed his eyes shut then. He wished he hadn't stared for as long as he had. But Ronan was never one for self-preservation.

You’re going to get them all killed. Ronan thought of his friends, tried to redirect his mind toward them and their recent adventures into Cabeswater instead of his final memory of his father. His friends. He felt shameful even calling them that, knowing he was hiding what he was from them all. That he was something different from the rest of them, something awful, something unfathomable, something unlovable.

His mind wandered to Noah then. They were all going his funeral tomorrow. Ronan had fished his suit from the depths of his closet earlier, the same one he’d worn to his father’s funeral. The suit looked the same, Ronan didn’t. At his father’s funeral, Ronan hadn’t shaved his head yet. His dark curls had matched the stark blackness of the suit jacket. It was the funeral that made him want to shave his hair, Ronan recalled. “You look just like he did,” funeral attendees who'd known his father had said this to Ronan throughout the whole affair. Each time someone pointed it out, it made him want to squirm, it made him want to puke, it made him want to scream. He’d just nodded at them then though, looking away, down toward his polished black dress shoes. The same ones he’d be wearing tomorrow. Nothing had changed. Except Ronan, who'd worked to change himself as much as possible. He'd put as much distance between himself and who he used to be before he'd lost his father. Ronan tried to push the thoughts of his father far away once again. Noah’s funeral was different, they were going to see him again. They all planned to dig up Noah’s bones the following night, the newly awoken ley line would provide him with more than enough energy to manifest consistently and solidly. They’d have Noah back.

Another thought radiated through Ronan’s head, this voice lighter and hopeful. It sounded like Matthew. They all accepted Noah. They’d accept you.

Ronan couldn’t be sure of that. Noah had this done to him. His normal life had been beaten to death by his best friend. Forced to live an eternity in an incomplete existence. Ronan had always been this way. He’d been born different. He’d been created with a power that he didn’t understand. He was fundamentally not like the rest of them. He didn’t know what he was, but he'd created many monsters. Didn’t that make him a monster?

And they’d all be in danger. Ronan ran a hand over his head. He knew the threat was real and dangerous. He’d be risking his friends’ lives, offering them up like lambs for the slaughter to possibly the same people who killed his father. It was selfish to even consider telling them. Friends take risks for each other. This passing thought once again felt like speaking to Matthew, endless optimism coating his words. Ronan let himself hold onto the thought for a moment longer, twisting it and examining it further. Had they not all taken risks just this week for one another, while the ley line was woken? Ronan felt a sliver of hope for just a moment. Maybe knowing the truth would make his friends safer. They could prepare for the worst, as opposed to being utterly ignorant to whatever worst that could be out there waiting to destroy everything Ronan loved.

Ronan let himself indulge in imagining what it would be like to tell them. Gansey would be ecstatic, academic interest peaked. Fascination would radiate from him when Ronan spoke of his powers. Adam would look at Ronan with his intense stare, skeptical and passive – but Ronan knew Adam would been unable to resist his curious instincts. Blue would scoff and call bullshit. However, her years of exposure to the unexplainable would allow her to believe once he’d proved it. Noah wouldn’t say anything. Ronan suspected being a strange ghost meant he already knew about Ronan’s own strangeness. If anyone could come to understand and embrace a mysterious phenomena in the form of a teenage boy, it would be his friends. They would keep moving forward, all together, hunting for Glendower far and wide, for Gansey.

Ronan ached to tell them everything. His heart strummed in his chest with longing. He wouldn’t be alone anymore. He could break down this wall he’d built around his secret. It would change everything for Ronan, but simultaneously change absolutely nothing between them all. He knew this to be true, no matter how hard his mind worked to twist his certainty into despair and convince himself to isolate further. He was going to tell them. He’d do it after the funeral, after they brought Noah back.

His chest felt like a weight had been lifted from him, as his breathing settled back to normal. He shifted his car into gear and rolled back onto the road, toward Monmouth Manufacturing. His headache was gone. He'd made his decision.

#trc #the raven cycle #ronan lynch #trc fic #adam parrish #greywaren #gansey #blue sargent

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