riverviewlogs | The Secret Life of an Irish-American Nerd [Open]

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The Secret Life of an Irish-American Nerd [Open]

who: Ronan Lynch and Open
what: The Butterfly Effect strikes Ronan. He sprouts hair and loses his tattoo and PTSD. Now he can no longer hide the fact that he’s a nerd. Reading Virgil and playing bagpipes by a river happens. Ronan has no clear memories of his stay in Riverview but will remember how he feels about people he’s met here.
when: June 15th-24th
where: Communal floor one, Buttercup Farms, by a river like the magical creature he is, the library, and with his boyfriend
warnings: He’s rattled from almost being killed by a demon but nothing other than that.
Also as always, can switch to brackets

a. Library
No longer oozing black goo, Ronan needed a day to calm down. After a night spent listening to Gaelic music and struggling against nightmares, Ronan headed to the library. His predecessor-- him-- God, that was confusing, hadn’t left behind any books.

He grabbed some works by his favorites, Virgil and Seneca, adding Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations later. His last addition came as a surprise to him. Books on demons didn’t belong in the Lynch family household and certainly not at Aglionby. Ronan hesitated, running his fingers over the spine of one book before taking it. Just in case.

When he finally found a place to sit, he went back and forth between books, but the one on demons remained untouched for a good while.

If anyone who’d previously met him ran into Ronan, they could be forgiven for not recognizing him what with the curly dark hair, lack of tattoos, and the books.

b. Communal housing floor one

Ronan had lived with his parents and two brothers. He had also, basically lived with his best friend Gansey and a ghost, when he and either his father or Declan (or worse, both) kept butting heads. But this did not prepare him for sharing a whole floor with other people, even if one of them was Adam.

He moved as quietly as possible, worked even harder to keep control of his dreams, and did everything he could not to attract attention. Unfortunately, he was still Ronan Lynch, which meant that aside from being a messy eater, he radiated magical energy without even trying. But even if one didn’t notice that, the fact was that the angry eighteen year old with a shaved head and a tattoo was replaced by a amiable if anxious eighteen year old with dark curly hair without a tattoo in sight. Whatever his roommates thought of it, it unnerved his raven Chainsaw, who’d taken to flying away from Ronan and screeching at random intervals.

c. ~~In a van~~ Down by the River
Even without the trauma of his father’s death, Ronan was still different and, some would say, difficult. For instance, his hobbies could be considered incredibly annoying. In the case of bagpipes, Ronan had learned that the sound was something of an acquired taste. Back at Aglionby, he’d used that to his own advantage several times just to piss people off late at night. Here, he wasn’t keen on having his embarrassing hobby discovered.

Sitting by the river, tempting fate like all the heroes in the fairy tales his parents told him, Ronan serenaded anyone who came close with the unmistakable sound of the uilleann bagpipes. Even out of practice, he wasn’t bad. But not many people appreciated the music of his people, especially when he played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” just for kicks.

d. Wild Card!

[OOC: Ronan’s all over the place. Your character can find him checking out Riverview and also working at Buttercup Farm with a very distressed raven watching from a distance.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I what?" Ronan stared at the raven-- his raven-- some more. "That makes zero sense but cool." Ronan had sworn off of creating living things, accidentally or not. He had a feeling that wouldn't last. He took Chainsaw's presence to mean he'd created her some time after almost dying. But then, Adam's reaction suggested otherwise.

"I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you have no idea what happened to me."

He watched as his creation tried to burrow her way beneath Adam's shirt. He snorted, causing a little more black goo to ooze out.

Adam frowned, concerned and also upset that Ronan was being so flippant toward Chainsaw, who was clearly unhappy. So he had hair and couldn't remember his bird, who he made last year.

He flinched at the goo and looked down, trying to avoid most of this issue. "Uh, no. What you're talking about wasn't that long ago, but you weren't... like this then."

It was hard to express what was different beyond the most obvious two things. "You haven't had hair for as long as I've known you and you've had Chainsaw since... even before we knew what Cabeswater was. It's like you're a different Ronan."

A different Ronan.

Ronan made no response for a while, too preoccupied with considering what on earth that meant. There was another him without hair but with a raven named Chainsaw? Did that meant the demon wasn't the only reason Adam couldn't meet his eyes and looked, for lack of a better word, horrified.

"But I'm Ronan," he protested, as if that would change anything. "I've always been Ronan. I'm not different."

Ronan's first thought was to blame the demon but any further thoughts banished that possibility. The demon couldn't rewrite time, especially not if it happened here.

His gaze shifted from Chainsaw to Adam, who steadfastly refused to meet his eyes. Somehow the effect left him wanted to apologize for existing while simultaneously refuting this other Ronan's existance.

"Why didn't I have hair? Did I get one of those undercuts? Jesus, Mom would be in tears."

This definitely wasn't his Ronan. Surely his Ronan would have been angry if Adam had said there was another Ronan, would have been cursing and insulting space and time itself maybe. This Ronan was weirdly softer. How was he supposed to deal with a Ronan who wasn't angry by default?

He looked up once Ronan mentioned his mom, eyes wide. He had no idea how to respond to that and looked at Chainsaw as if she would be able to figure out a response.

"You shaved your head," he answered. He didn't want to say after what. "Got a tattoo, used street race, still drink... None of that rings a bell?" He had a theory that he was going to keep to himself.

Ronan stared at Adam as if he'd sprouted two heads and Chainsaw had also fused with his body.

"Ho. Ly. Shit. How did you guys not kill me?" He left parents out of that statement but not for the standard reason. Ronan was fairly sure his father would be secretly pleased with at least half of that and his mother didn't have a violent bone in her body. But he couldn't imagine Gansey doing anything less than murdering him.

Alright, he could imagine a lot less. Still, the idea of any one of what Adam told him happening was entirely foreign. Except the tattoo, but as far as Ronan knew he held no real desire to have one on his body forever.

Chainsaw had stilled but she was making a gurgling, croaking sound.

"Chainsaw, I'm not gonna eat you," Ronan slowly stretched out his hand.

The raven cawed and Ronan promptly withdrew the hand. Apparently she liked the angry Ronan better and not the impostor.

Adam laughed quietly at the idea of any Ronan not enjoying the punk life. This was so weird. But he did actually want to get to know this Ronan, unlike Chainsaw.

"I didn't know you before all that. Neither did Chainsaw," he said, by way of explanation. He carefully nudged the raven and told her, "Hey, he's still Ronan. He still likes ravens."

Though he raised an eyebrow in Ronan's direction, because he honestly couldn't be sure of that. Gansey had told him the cause of Ronan's behavior when they met, the way the tattoo was to piss off Declan, so the lack of it had to mean the lack of any instigator.

"I guess your car wouldn't be able to handle all the racing?" It was the most subtle way he could check. If Niall was still alive, Ronan probably wouldn't be driving the BMW, right? He wondered what kind of car this Ronan would have.

Slowly, Chainsaw jumped onto Ronan's hand. He winced at her claws, unfamiliar with them. It didn't help that Chainsaw wasn't particularly delicate. She poked at Ronan's arm with her beak.

Ronan allowed it for now. He was curious to see if she'd realize it was him. The real, genuine Ronan and not street racing nightmare Ronan.

"A Lexus? Probably. That asshole seemed to think so." Unfortunately, Kavinsky had been obssessed with this Ronan too.

Ronan didn't think about that very long. With Chainsaw digging into his arm and his head oozing, he felt the need to get out of here. But he had a question of his own first. He just didn't know how to put it.

"Are you and that Ronan..." He trailed off.

Yeah, still didn't know how to put it.

Adam made a face at the idea of Ronan driving a Lexus. It just wasn't an image he could reconcile with his boyfriend. The BMW was as Ronan as Chainsaw was.

He raised an eyebrow at the question. How could Ronan not know? Well, it was fair. He couldn't get defensive yet.

"What? What are you and that Adam?" He could only assume he and Ronan were together even if most other things were different. Why wouldn't they be?

He took Ronan's other arm and started lifting the both of them up. His shift was about over anyway.

Now with support and more time between him and nearly dying, Ronan rose more easily. Enough color had returned to his cheeks that he could blush.

"You know," Ronan said even though he wasn't sure Adam did. Whatever feelings and vague memories he had might just be a mix of his past and his hopes. But Adam had to be teasing otherwise Ronan would consider drowning himself in the shower.

"Together?"

Chainsaw took her leave of them, waiting at the door for them.

He sort of wanted to laugh again when he noticed Ronan blushing and acting coy about them dating. He managed to keep it in so Ronan didn't think he was mocking him.

"Yeah," he said warmly, moving his arm around Ronan's waist to keep him upright as they walked. He supposed that at the point Ronan was coming from, they hadn't done more than make out and assume a relationship. It should have been obvious, though. Of course they would get together after.

"Sounds like you're the only thing that's different so far." He did want to know about the other Adam. If this Ronan was happier, he wondered if that Adam was happier. He was strangely jealous and hopeful of the idea. "It happened during your birthday, right?"

"Us? Yeah. Best birthday. Except when I was six. That was an awesome cake... Kidding," he said as if it weren't unmistakably a joke. His voice held only affection. His tone wasn't even dry.

It was easier now to see how Gansey had grown attached to this Ronan.

All the same, if it were anyone but Adam, this Ronan would have pulled away. But by virtue of the fact that his feelings for Adam were, even in their beginnings, nothing next to what he felt for any previous boyfriend, Adam was allowed. Plus they'd made out a lot. Ronan had enjoyed that, but he liked this better. After almost dying, he was in need of affection and some protectiveness. It reminded him that he had to be strong and not break down.

"I can't believe you like that other me," he said. "Why did--" He stopped himself.

Ronan knew, deep down, he wasn't ready to know why that Ronan had rebelled so thoroughly. He wanted to just keep talking to this other Adam. He gave him the kind of comfort that kept his mind from unraveling. He was here. He'd be O.K. He'd get home. He wouldn't die. This was just a break from it all. Whatever else Ronan couldn't believe, he had to have faith in that.

Adam laughed, more out of wonder than the joke itself. He was sure he would have liked this Ronan a lot more when they first met, but now it was weird. This wasn't the Ronan he'd grown to love, and he didn't feel entirely comfortable with him. After all, so much of their time together was based off avenging Niall's death or trying to wake the dreamthings.

Without that, he wasn't sure where their relationship was at. Maybe it was a lot more simple than the one he knew. Just teenagers who liked each other, not partners in crime.

"I didn't at first," he admitted, which was just common knowledge. He ignored the other question Ronan was set to ask. There was no way he would subject another Ronan to the trauma of his parents' death. He would lie through his teeth, even if his Ronan would hate him for it, to keep him from experiencing that pain again.

"You hated me and I hated you. But I guess you were fun to be around." He walked them in the direction of the communal housing, hoping Ronan would come to his senses after some sleep. Then he had a thought. "Do you still do those dancing competitions?"

The more Adam talked of this other Ronan, the less favorable opinion current Ronan had of him.

He frowned for a moment. A muscle in the corner of his mouth twitched from the action. If anyone was in need of a hot shower for both hygiene and relaxation, it was Ronan.

"I don't think you ever hated me. We just got off on the wrong foot."

Ronan hadn't liked sharing Gansey. Adam hadn't liked someone who looked and frequently acted like your average Aglionby student.

But speaking of feet, Ronan huffed.

"Who has time for that anymore? I have to keep my eye on Dad, keep Gansey from getting himself killed over his history-crush, help Noah with his ghost thing, study, and then there's Cabeswater." And now Adam, he guessed. But maybe he wouldn't have to worry about Gansey when he went back. ...And maybe not Noah, for a different reason.

He didn't want to think about that either. That list kept growing.

Ronan turned a corner before Adam did. Somehow he still knew his way around as some sort of muscle memory that transferred across time and space. When he glanced at the people passing, he caught their looks of alternating surprise and disgust as his face and neck, which was now also stained with the black ooze that had come from his ears.

Deciding to treat this like it was school, he ignored them.

"I still play the bagpipes, before you ask. Gansey banned them from Monmouth."

Adam tried to imagine meeting this Ronan. He tried to imagine the wrong foot, less severe than Ronan's intense jealousy and Adam's negative judgement. He wondered if this Ronan still would have dragged him in a dolly behind the BMW.

He coughed when Ronan mentioned studying. What a strange thing. Gansey and Declan must have been happy.

"You ever play them for me at St. Agnes?" He was sure that Adam would have banned them from the church as well, but it was a nice thought. Maybe these weren't the questions he should have been asking, but they had time. Probably.

After a moment, he added, "Do you, uh, want to go to college? After graduating?"

"No, you haven't asked." People usually weren't begging Ronan to play for them. He hadn't expected Adam to be interested, especially given Ronan's history of sneaking into Aglionby late at night and playing the bagpipes really loud outside of one of his bullies' room.

The faculty hadn't appreciated it.

"And no, I'm not," he answered the second question, one that he and his Adam had discussed several times. "I promised Dad we'd find another ley line if he stopped stealing from Cabeswater. You know." Honestly, Ronan wasn't convinced that Adam did, which was why he added. "He wants me to follow in his footsteps or whatever." Ronan did not sound terribly thrilled with this prospect. The way he talked about his father was less despondent and more like a disgruntled teenager chafing against his parents' expectations. "I'm going home after. You and Gansey have talked to me about college but what's the point for someone like me?"

"Guess I don't appreciate it enough," he said, only mildly teasing. That Adam couldn't appreciate what a blessing a happy Ronan was. It wasn't that he didn't love his Ronan, but he knew he was forged from suffering.

His shoulders dropped a little in disappointment. It was an entirely selfish desire to have Ronan go to college. He wanted Ronan with him, and to not have to go back to Henrietta regularly, but he wasn't going to push like everyone else did.

"Sounds dangerous." He hoped Niall wasn't going to get this Ronan killed in his shady business. The question made him shrug. "You don't have to be like your dad. You have the power to do whatever. Even be a normal college student."

Adam's reaction didn't shock Ronan. He could imagine how a bald, tattooed Ronan felt about college.

"Normal's boring." Not that Ronan would ever know what it meant to be normal. "I'm not going to be like my dad either. I'm not a thief." Ronan loved his father beyond words, even beyond life, but he no longer idolized him. Cabeswater had existed before Ronan, but it reached out to him, it manifested because of him, and his father's actions actively threatened it. Working out a truce had been a hard fight. The memory of it was still bitter. "I promised him I'd help with his ley line. I haven't promised anything else." He held out his blackened hand. "Hell, this should get him off my back about it."

Ronan suddenly and violently hated it all-- every single chain of events that lead him to this point. It extended far past the demon and though the hatred diminished with each link in the chain, the anger was still there by the time he got to his father. When it reached his magical abilities, it turned to resentment.

College, he thought as he looked at his palm, couldn't be worse than this.

Adam had never heard Ronan talk about his dad like that, but he hardly ever heard Ronan talk about him at all. All he had were stories Gansey had told him, as if he had been trying to make Adam see this Ronan past all the drinking and racing.

But he thought that was where he and Ronan understood each other, and where Gansey lost both of them. He knew that they couldn't be fixed, that their brokenness was permanent but that didn't make them any less of themselves.

This Ronan probably had no experience in that. "Almost dying should earn you a break, I think." But he had no idea what Niall was like, so he could be wrong.

Once they arrived at the communal housing, Adam carefully brushed his knuckles against Ronan's neck. He swore he could still see his hand prints there. "I'm sorry, by the way. I wish it didn't happen in every timeline." It was just an idle thought of his. He nodded to the hall. "You want a shower?"

Adam's touch set him on edge in multiple ways. Part of it was the memory of having his hands on him a short while ago. While Ronan placed no blame on Adam's shoulders for it, his body had a mind of its own at times. That made things even weirder when his skin tingled beneath Adam's hand.

"It wasn't you," Ronan said. No matter what this other Ronan was like, he was sure that wasn't the first time Adam had heard him say that. "And yeah, I do." He looked down at his clothes as if noticing them for the first time. They had not changed with him.

...God, he never thought his life could get this weird and that was saying something.

"I need some time," he said. Which was the closest he'd come to saying don't expect him any time soon, he needed to have a mini-mental breakdown.

Adam knew Ronan would respond that way. Gansey seemed to think the old Ronan and the new Ronan were entirely different people, but Adam knew that there was a particular core of him that couldn't be changed.

That didn't mean he wouldn't feel guilty for it. It was awful to relive that particular day, and it weighed on him more to know that another Adam would have to go through those same feelings.

He nodded, and pulled himself away from Ronan. If this were his Ronan, he would give him a kiss or some other sort of affection. It didn't feel right with someone who was practically a stranger, though.

"Right. I'm going to work on homework." Which meant he was going to partially work on homework and partially map out this change in timelines to understand it better. "Just... yell if you change into someone else again?"

Ronan wouldn't know what to do if this Adam kissed him. He hadn't noticed any differences yet, but even if there weren't any, he wasn't his Adam. He didn't know if it would be cheating, but it didn't feel right. This Adam was like... actually, he didn't know that either. But he knew he wanted to be near him. That didn't stop Ronan from stepping away from as well.

"Yeah, sure." With the promise of a shower mere minutes away, Ronan slowly let himself begin to unravel. Currently, he had entered the process of not bothering with a joke about changelings.

He went right for the shower, stripped off as fast as he could, scrubbed his face and neck, and lost his God damn mind.

A little over an hour later, he gathered himself, found clothes that weren't dusty or covered in demon-ooze, and went to Adam.

"Does your Ronan have any actual shirts?" he asked by way of hello. He tugged on the black muscle t shirt left to him. He made no complaint about the leather bands around his wrist.

The redness of his eyes was no longer terribly obvious, but it was there. Evidently, one of the core parts of Ronan was refusing to mention any sort of trauma in his life.

Adam was at his desk by the time Ronan was out of the shower. He'd made an entire timeline of events that would have changed with Niall being alive, though it was difficult without this Ronan to clarify some things. That was tucked away in his notebook and now he was actually looking at homework.

As always, Ronan was a distraction.

"No. He likes to show off," Adam said, though his tone suggested he didn't really mind it. He turned to look over, noting the light redness around his eyes because he always looked very closely at Ronan. He wasn't sure what to do about it, though. It probably wasn't because he'd found himself in a new place, but most likely because he'd almost just died.

He suspected Ronan had gone to shower so he could be alone, and didn't want to talk about the subject. So Adam didn't.

"What do you wear, then? Don't tell me you dress like Gansey."

Ronan knew that Adam could tell what had happened. He'd already experienced this before. How had that Ronan taken almost dying? Better or worse?

Ronan reminded himself not to think about it. He'd already decided not to. This was his break before going back into the demonic frying pan. He was going to make the most of it.

"Don't insult me." Ronan sat down on top of the desk though he was careful not to crush any of Adam's things. In order to do this, he was mostly off of the desk, but Ronan was always fond of dangling precariously from various surfaces. "Shirts with sleeves. Jeans." He picked at the fabric of his current shirt, making no comment on the leather bands on his wrist. "This isn't bad but does he drown himself in sunscreen?"

Oh, Ronan had no idea what he'd stepped into there.

"Is this where he has tattoos?" He flexed his arms because he also didn't mind showing off.

Adam watched him, trying to pick up small differences in Ronan's movements and analyze them. He wasn't suspicious, just curious. "You can try going out without the sunscreen. See what happens." He hoped that this Ronan was smart enough to not take that challenge. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

He watched Ronan flex, then reached out to touch at his back gently. "No, it's across his entire back." He traced a pattern and then pulled his hand away. It was disappointing to see Ronan without the tattoo. He wondered what the other Adam would trace in bed... but that wasn't exactly a question he could ask his boyfriend's alternate universe self.

"Couldn't tell you what it is. Unguibus et rostro, that's all I can see. It cost nine-hundred dollars." The last sentence was said flatly enough that it contrasted with how Adam seemed to feel about the tattoo.

"By the way, for however long this lasts, you're going to have to do the other Ronan's job at the farm. I don't want him getting fired."

Ronan held his breath while Adam touched him.

Claws and beak.

No wonder Adam didn't seem to know what to do with him. It sounded like they weren't day and night, but perhaps twilight and night. Perhaps they were the same but the one lived in a far darker world. That's what Ronan's gut told him, anyway and Ronan himself could be considered a reliable expert in the subject of himself.

"It must not be bad if you're still dating me." Ronan wanted that on the record even now.

Ronan twisted his fingers beneath the leather bands on his other wrist. "If it's a farm, no problem. I grew up with that."

Ronan waited for Adam's reaction. He wasn't the only one now trying to feel the other out.

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