riverviewlogs | They say if you die in a dream. you die in real life [open]

Entry tags:

They say if you die in a dream. you die in real life [open]

who: Ronan Lynch and others
what: After being attacked by his own nightmares, Ronan recovers in the hospital and thinks about how much he hates himself. People come to tell him he’s an idiot or laugh. Who knows.
when: November 19 to late November
where: Riverview hospital
warnings: Self-loathing, references to past suicidal ideation, will update as needed

Not much impressed Ronan and the advanced medical t. The first day, while his stomach healed, he lay in bed viciously chewing on one of his leather wristbands, having thrown the other at the wall. The next few days, when he could bear to stand, he got up and paced and punched a wall before being forced back into bed.

Mostly, he stared at the walls and imagined tearing them apart and he hated. Oh God, did he hate and it was all at himself. He did it again. He did a-fucking-gain. The thoughts ran through his mind in a spiral. The last time this happened, his best friend had been there to question and judge and make him promise. Ronan said that it wouldn’t happen again. He'd meant it.

He lay in bed, gnawing on the leather bracelet like a dog. The hole in the band grew until it began to break into pieces. Only then did he stop, in order to tear it apart. Well, he tried to. What actually happened washe gritted his teeth in pain and snapped the band hard against his bed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ivar's hand was now throbbing, and while he very much wanted to hit Ronan again, he decided turning his friend into a bloody pulp wasn't going to do much besides give him some satisfaction. He yanked his arm away from Ronan. "Yes. Don't ever do something like that again without telling me." Now he sounded less hard. There was something worried in his tone instead.

He sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly tired. It was hard, this feeling of caring about someone enough to be worried when there was a chance of them dying. It made him hurt inside and he hated that feeling. "You're one of the dumbest people I know. I would have loved to see what you would have done if I hadn't shown up. What were you going to do, hope you had enough bullets?"

Ronan wasn't ready to let go of his anger yet. His jaw hurt. He'd have another bruise to explain. Most of all he was so, so sick of all of this. Who was Ivar to judge? If he was so set on doing so, if he was so desperate for an answer, then he'd get it.

"Lock them in the building long enough to get away or die. I would've been fine if there weren't three of the fuckers." It had worked before. He'd had help finishing them off, but he'd gotten away on his own. "You want me to give you a call every time I fall asleep?"

In the moment, Ronan didn't care if Ivar already knew he'd dreamed the night horrors. He didn't care if he found out. Hell, he wanted to throw it in his face. This was Ronan's ugly truth. They were all his creations, all his monsters, and he'd fought them in his dreams nearly every night for the past month.

"You don't understand a damn thing."

"Die? Die?!" Ivar's voice rose up, reaching almost a shrieking tone most unlike his usual growls. "You are not allowed to die! I-- I forbid it!" The words would have been absurd had he not meant them wholeheartedly. There was a certain arrogance from being on the top of Viking society that sometimes presented itself in Ivar, where he just expected people to obey him.

Ivar folded his arms, face impassive as he heard what he thought of as excuses from Ronan. "I understand enough to know that you don't have an ounce of common sense in your head. Instead of turning to someone else for help, like me who's killed more creatures in the past eight months than you've had hot dinners, or even that idiot boyfriend of yours, you thought to handle this all on your own. That's sheer idiocy!"

Frankly, the fact these creatures had come out of Ronan's mind didn't concern him as much as it should have. Ronan's powers have always been strange, so this just added on another aspect to them.

That reaction was so ridiculous that Ronan felt no surge of guilt at Ivar's distress, but his worry did stop him from laughing. The absurdity almost made him forget his anger. Then Ivar had to go and insult his boyfriend.

"Don't call Adam that. You have no idea what he can do," he snapped. "And don't even think about touching him." Some of the details of last night were fuzzy, but trying to keep the two of them from killing each other wasn't something he could easily forget.

With that out of the way, he leaned back to rest against the bed. "What the hell can you do anyway? Babysit me every night? I don't need--" He cut himself off with a snarl of frustration. He couldn't say what was obviously a lie. He very clearly did need help.

"If like must meet like to be happy, you two are the perfect fucking couple. Matching idiocy." He spat the words out with no small part of bitterness and jealousy. Ivar was just going to brush that mention of going after Adam again under the rug. He never forgot an insult and having a gun pointed in his face after he'd just been trying to help was a pretty big one.

"--Help?" Ivar finished the thought off. Some of his anger was starting to fizzle back down to a manageable level. "Ronan, if there's one thing I've learned from being a cripple all these years, it's that no matter how badly you want to do things all on your own, sometimes, you just have to swallow your pride, and let someone else help you out." Words of wisdom from an angry Viking that couldn't use his legs.

"I said don't call him that!" Ronan's chest and stomach hurt from yelling, but it was an outburst that he didn't even try to stop.

He was fairly confident that Ivar wouldn't seriously hurt him, that was why he was here yelling at him. But Adam-- Ronan resolved now to keep them apart. Aside from the death threats, there was something dark in Ivar's voice. It almost reminded him of when Ronan...

He lost his train of thought and couldn't get it back. He just knew that things could get ugly and he couldn't stand to hear Adam insulted like this. His hand shook and he clenched his hand into a fist to stop them. The anger was harder to contain.

Ivar was just trying to help. He was a viking. He didn't get these things. He reminded himself for the hundredth time.

He breathed out through his clenched teeth and tried talking again. "It's not pride. I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. So yeah. Obviously, I fucked that one up." The message there was: you're right. He just didn't know how to get around saying the words.

Ivar snorted like an angry horse, but he didn't press the issue. He'd made it clear to Ronan exactly what he thought of Adam and that's what the whole point had been. "I'd stop yelling if I were you. That can't be good for the healing process."

It was all Ivar could do not to reach out and shake Ronan until his head snapped back and forth. Gods, he was so stupid. The worst part was that Ivar could even see part of his point of view. But the difference is that Ivar, while emotional, was able to put that side of himself aside when he wanted something. He used whatever he needed to get that, whether it was emotions or cold tactics that would win out. If he'd been in over his head, he would have eventually swallowed his considerable pride, and asked for help.

"You've got a bad habit of hurting people even when you don't mean to." There's still that acid sting of bitterness in his tone. Let Ronan stew on what he meant by those particular words for a while. Ivar wasn't going to spell it out for him, especially not now when he was in the middle of being yelled at.

Ronan glared at Ivar. He wished he could just shut him up and they could go back to riding chariots and doing other adrenaline fueled activities instead of yelling at each other. Finally, Ronan got a sense of what it was like to talk to himself and found it as enjoyable as he expected.

"Well damn, Ivar. I've never heard that before. How could you help me? I told you I don't want a babysitter." Ronan's mind tried to keep up with two diverging lines of thought. One was this conversation, the other was how Ivar was acting. They were related. He knew that. He just had to think.

They were pissed at each other but he still sounded panicked last night. And then the things he said and the way he said it, because he could have easily said the same to Adam when he was dating--

No. Oh, no. Ronan was not thinking straight. This was all from the blood loss and whatever medicine they gave him. That wasn't what was really going on.

Ivar's fury, while great, came in two forms. One was the white-hot intensity that had allowed him to easily slaughter a monster last night and caused him to initially yell at Ronan. The other was dull and red, the kind that sustained the Viking through all the normal hardships life threw at him.

Right now, the first kind was fading out, leaving just Ivar's usual nature. They were now at a point when an immovable object met an unstoppable force. "I didn't offer to be your damn babysitter. I'm offering help. Figure out what that means yourself, Christian boy. I've made it clear you're not allowed to go through this on your own again."

Had he known what great discovery Ronan had finally made, he likely would have left the room entirely in mortification. He'd half-hoped Ronan would be dense enough never to figure out that Ivar had feelings for him. That would only add in complications.

Ronan's expression went from angry to-- well, angry but also baffled. Any time he tried to make sense of the thought of Ivar liking him, he felt like he was walking through an ever deepening swamp. He couldn't get very far before turning back feeling worse off than before.

He had to force the muscles in his face back to their usual alignment. Normally his surliness was natural, but he knew how to make it more pronounced as needed. Soon he looked as cold as before though his rage had subsided.

"Is this about your shitty knives commercial? I'm not gonna pay you to teach me how to slice and dice people."

Ivar was perceptive enough to pick up that Ronan's expression was changing, but he wasn't sure why. Unless he'd become even more doltish than he usually was in the past minute, he couldn't figure out why he would suddenly look confused. Unless he'd figured out-- No, it couldn't be that.

"You could certainly use a few lessons!" Quick as a flash, he'd drawn out one of his knives, putting it to Ronan's throat to prove his point. Then he pulled it away. "At least that way you could stab one of those things before it stabs you next time."

In fact, Ivar was already planning out how he could train Ronan when he got out of the hospital. His mind was already made up regarding this. He wasn't going to leave his friend defenseless against the night horrors that came from his own mind.

Ronan instinctively jerked away. His reaction was too slow for Ivar, but still pronounced. He shuffled back on the bed, almost overbalancing, and threw up his hands up to shove away the knife that was suddenly gone. Once pain overrode instinct, he pressed his good hand to his stomach. For a second he was afraid his stitches split open, but he didn't feel blood.

He closed his eyes and yelled curses until he could form actual sentences "Damn it, Ivar! You didn't have to pull a fucking knife on me. I get your fucking point, alright." He slowly leaned back. "Jesus."

The fierceness in Ivar's eyes dimmed a little bit after he proved his point to Ronan. That's what he'd been trying to get through that thick shaved head this entire time. He began to roll his wheelchair back towards the door.

"Good! We'll start after you get out of here." Ivar seemed a lot calmer now that he had a plan of action. It would save him a lot of time spent worrying over Ronan's sorry hide.

"Asshole," Ronan muttered but finally there was no heat in his voice. No affection either, but it was a start.

Though if Ronan was right, maybe it would be best to keep any sign of affection minimal. If he was. Because he couldn't- Fuck it. His body hurt too much to think, never mind his head.

"I'm paying you back for that punch!" he called after Ivar.

Once was alone, Ronan was going to curse either until he'd purged his pain and frustration from his system or he passed out. It'd probably be the latter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They say if you die in a dream. you die in real life [open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject