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Summer Test Drive Meme

SUMMER TEST DRIVE MEME
Application FAQ | Taken Characters | Reserves | Application
Welcome to the Current Test Drive for The Revival Project!
This game is a spin-off from the closed The Drift Fleet game. For more information about the game, including more details on the setting, please check out the FAQ here or the premise here.
A thread on the TDM will be required for all applications. Please view the FAQ for information about how this works. Any questions about the game please direct to the comment section of the FAQ as well.
If you are a Drift Fleet alumni bringing your character from the game, please label your character as 'DFAU' on your top level. Also, keep in mind you have complete flexibility on how your character comes here. They could be taken before endgame, after endgame, two years after, one year before, etc. It's up to you! If you want to completely restart your character, they're not considered DFAU anymore and won't need the label.
So go! Explore Agra 10! And, as always, HAVE FUN!
Thread ideas:
Hot Summer Time!
If hunting for food isn't what you came here for, then sunbathing is always an option. Even if the color seems odd, this sand, also, likes to go literally everywhere.
Simply hopping into the water is also rarely a bad idea. This close to the coast there are no harmful creatures in the water, so whether you brought a swim suit, hop in fully clothed or have no care in the world about who might stumble over you naked, Agra 10's ocean is yours to play in.
Explore the city!
Most of the buildings are run down and have clearly been abandoned for years; fortunately, the water treatment center appears to be working, but power is intermittent and unreliable. What used to be stores or places to live in lies in ruins, but there may still be something to scavenge among the rubble. Do you want to risk a swim in the flooded area that has turned into a deep lake that has yet to be fully explored; or does it draw you to some of the more prominent and partially restored buildings, such as the hotel, the hospital or the amphitheater.
If you are lucky, you might even stumble over The Deep End, the bar located on one of the mid-levels of the tower residences in one of the residence towers. Unfortunately no bright neon signs can lead you there, but it does exist.
Visit the spaceships!
Maybe look around anyway. Or try your hand at some repairs?
Try the network!
There be storms...
Should you step inside the storm, or even get lost in it, it will show ghosts of people you know and those you don't. It drains you of any super-human abilities and tries its best to keep you from getting to its origin. Are you going to try anyways? Or are you going to chase the whispers of people from your past? Maybe you will simply find yourself calling for help or stumble across another lost soul in need of assistance.
More information can be found here.
Wildcard!
✧ Premise ✧ FAQ ✧ Rules ✧ Test Drive ✧ Taken ✧ Reserves ✧ Application ✧
✧ Map ✧ Devices & Network ✧ Data Points ✧ Ships ✧ Flora ✧ Fauna ✧ Supply Requests ✧ Calendar ✧
✧ Activity Check ✧ Player Plot Suggestion ✧ Player Contacts ✧ Player Permission Code ✧ Hiatus ✧ Drop ✧
✧ Navigation ✧
ronan lynch | the raven cycle
[The thing is that at first, Ronan is amused by the idea of it all more than anything else. The glowing orbs, the way the information slides directly into his head-- it's dream logic, and that means it's familiar, and there's that certainty that he'll wake up in his own bed, with the same family and same best-friend as every other day of his life. But he can't make himself wake up. And something about this place feels... it doesn't feel like a dream, not something he can twist into the shape that he wants. One hour turns into three, and that initial thrill and curiosity that drives him to explore fades into slow realization:
He's alone. He doesn't know how to get home. He's alone, and he's never really been alone in his life.
So if you don't run across him in the initial rush- laughing and bright, dark brown hair falling into bright blue eyes as he throws himself into exploring the spaces that spread out from the fountain, then headlong into the underbrush- maybe you find him later. After the realization hits, splitting him open. First circling back, tracing his steps, trying to get the fountain to send him back... but that just leaves him very wet.
Eventually he just finds a wall, something cement and steady, something that seems like it wont break. Something to withstand the terrible force of this strange sort of grief -- loss that bubbles into anger.
Leather jacket hanging to dry, a surprisingly good boxing stance on a boy that can't be out of his teens. He's tall but still growing into it, probably a welterweight. Maybe a little heavier for the muscles in his shoulders that flex under the wet tank top that clings to his body like a second skin. He slams his fists into whatever he's found that seems sturdy enough to hold him; he hits hard and he does not break his hand.
Don't think about the fact that it hurts.
It's hesitation that damns people. His father taught him early to accept the consequences before he threw a punch... His father, his mother, his brothers, his best-friend. They all feel lost beyond his reach, and that leaves him empty, and he fills that space up with anger because it's easier than anything else. His knuckles skinned, but the surface doesn't give, so he doesn't stop. There's something wild about him, but it's a wildness that speaks to the absence in the space beside him, in the world he's found himself in.
Every punch carries a weight that speaks to a shadow that would catch his hands, and pull him in a direction less self-destructive. Maybe you decide to stop him anyway, even if you're not who he's expecting. Maybe you find him later, back pressed to a wall, tears in his eyes as he tries to still the sound, picking bits of rock from his hands with his teeth. In the end, everything gives a little. He hears a sound and looks up, scrubbing at his eyes with his palms.]
Who's there?
[His voice is wary but not scared, chin lifted in bright-eyed defiance. Maybe you find him later still, wrapping his hands with a salvaged strip of fabric. Whatever, he's fine. Ronan has always been a barely contained bundle of emotions, but back home these were bright things more often than not.]
ii. exploration
[Exploration comes next, after the tantrum. After pouring his anger and hurt and disquiet loss into throwing his body at something that can withstand it. Without his family or his single friend, he doesn't have the words for his feelings anymore, so he was left saying them the only way he knew how- letting them vibrate through his body.
This isn't the exploration of careless exuberance and laughter. This is quiet, a sharp-eyed teen trying to catch his bearings now that he's sort of on his feet. Even if every glimpse of his reflection that has always looked too much like his father's just reminds him of it all over again. Gone-gone-gone. Alone. They'd been a family bound by secrets, by magic and so much love they all overflowed with it. Few outsiders had ever seen the Barns, tucked away in the Virginia hills at the end of a twisted road. Only one person had ever stayed, ever felt like home, like a piece Ronan hadn't known he was missing until he'd found it. Gansey. Gone too.
He picks up something that feels heavy enough to be aerodynamic and hurls it into the space, letting it bounce and clatter around the ruined theater. He walks on the backs of the benches, more graceful than most people would assume from Ronan and long limbs he needs another year or so to grow into. He almost seems disappointed when nothing pops out of the shadows, heaving a breath as he runs a hand through the curls that hang in his face.
It's sunset.
He doesn't know what to do with this place. Every beat of his heart says not a dream, and if it's not a dream, how does he get back? Eventually he throws himself onto one of the benches with a feral sort of snarl, though his eyes are hurt more than angry, uncertainty.]
This is so fucked.
][He kicks the bench in front of him once, twice, and then again, flings his head back to look at the ceiling, tasting evening on his lips, but nothing familiar. It should be morning. He should be taking his dad's BMW to drive over to Monmouth and help Gansey clean out more of the junk that still filled its walls. Maybe when he got back he'd even apologize to his older brother for the stupid fight they had a couple nights before. Hug his mother and let her tell him one of the stories she's been telling him since he was small. But he doesn't know how to get back to a place where those things can happen.
He didn't know how to rebuild this world, he didn't even know how to rebuild his own life in this place. He pulls a small gold cross from under his shirt, rubbing it between his fingers, like he can conjure his father's smile, his Irish accent, just by doing so. He can't help thinking that this feels like his fault.
He balls his leather jacket up under his head and looks like he might just sleep there on the bench. He doesn't.]
iii. spaceships!
[Of course, he hears the word spaceship and there's only so long he can stay away. It's fantastical enough that even if by this point he's sure it's not a dream, it gives it an edge of the familiar. This is his dreams brought to life, and that's familiar too. His moods see-saw, almost okay with it then wanting to rage at the sky. This is one of the better moments, where even when he sees his father's face in the metal paneling, the only reaction it sparks is a thought that he needs to get his long hair cut-- shave it off so he doesn't think of him whenever the world shows him his reflection. Maybe if he doesn't think of all the people he needs, being here wont hurt so much.
Besides: space ships are fucking metal.
So he walks around around it, taking in the damage, his smile going from something warm and bright to something tighter, not as open and kind, but still miles away from cruel.]
I'm guessing the last person that tried to fly this really sucked at it.
[He toes it with his leather boots, puts a little bit of weight on it, like he half expects it to collapse under the weight. When it doesn't do so immediately, he shrugs and tentatively steps inside, a jerk of his head towards anyone else that happens to be standing nearby.]
You mind helping me scope it out? Spaceship repair wasn't in my electives.
iv. nightmares
[Eventually, he finds somewhere to sleep, and he dreams. Tortured, messy things. Darkness, fueled on guilt and self-loathing, twisting into anger and frustration that veers wildly into despair. Ronan feels everything so intensely, and a world without the only people that have ever mattered to him brings out the worst thing:
Night Horrors.
He's never dreamed them before.
He certainly doesn't mean to bring one back with him.
He just means to get out before they tear him apart. Dying in a dream doesn't kill him, but he still feels the suffering, feels the dying. So he wakes in paralyzed stillness, and suddenly there's a shadow in the forest. But for anyone that happens to have been nearby, close enough to catch the moment where the forest went from still to haunted with a walking horror, there's a twist of wrong logic. A moment where their mind plays tug-of-war between whether or not it had always been there- no telling which side wins.
Maybe you don't catch the moment where one of his nightmares accidentally falls out. Maybe it's the fighting, the struggle, the sound of something inhuman and bestial. The crash of beaks and claws and shadows and a feral boy fighting against something that hates him. Maybe it's a gasp or a shout or wrapped knuckles thudding into shadows that sound like flesh that doesn't give.
Maybe you catch on to what's happening just in time to realize he's in over his head. Maybe you see the glint of claws like razors.]
[ooc: So Ronan is pre-series, and more properly from before his father's murder, because I had a bout of midnight insanity. For questions or commentary or TRC shitposts I think is funny: PM me or find me at safeaslife#0150 on Discord. Ronan is sixteen here, btw.]
4 Someone Needs A Hero
Tommy ran, ran with a burst of inhuman speed, before he caught sight of what was going on. He saw in slow motion the fugly creature reaching out with horrible claws to get at some hapless teen who really didn't belong in the wild. So he ran, moving easily in front of the creature to scoop up the kid who was way out of his depth, and pulling him almost twenty feet away from the creature.]
Yo genius, don't sleep in the forest at night. It's when predators come out.
he absolutely needs a hero ;-; Tommyyyyy
[He curses, sputters in shock, blue eyes wide as he finds himself suddenly more than a dozen feet further away from where he'd been. Not what he was expecting, and it shocks off some of the horror.
The speed, is what he means. There was just him and the creature, the shadow with beaks and claws and clicking teeth, and then there was this guy, out of nowhere. He had been losing his ability to keep those terrible claws away from him, slowing down as it pursued him, his leather jacket with more than a few holes to show for it. And then he'd pulled him away, faster than he could follow, faster than he could think.
He doesn't explain why he'd slept away from everyone else, tried to put it off, but it's fine. He offers an explanation that Ronan is more than willing to accept.]
Yeah, sort of figured that out a few minutes ago. I'll put it in my notes.
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[Tommy offered a smirk and picked up a fallen branch. It was a nice, heavy one, terminating in a naturally sharp tip. No doubt it will shatter against the creature, but it's a nice distraction. And threats are more worth playing with thatn the victim. Because the threat could kill, right? That's Tommy's logic when he took a fraction of a second to close the distance between him and the nightmare, thrusting forward with the tree branch at full speed into the breast of the thing.]
decided he needed his own account oops
[It's meant to be lightly sarcastic, but after the dreams he's had it sounds flat. There's a monster from his nightmares that had just been trying to tear its claws into his skin, its hate made into a visceral, tangible thing. He's just glad that the silver-haired guy that had come to his rescue doesn't seem particularly bothered by the creature, as if he fights peoples' nightmares all the time.
Really, he was just hoping this meant that there wouldn't be questions that he wasn't allowed to answer afterward. The way that he moved at least allowed Ronan to cling to the belief that his nightmare wouldn't hurt him. How could anyone keep up with him? When Tommy moves it's like the horror is standing still. He can't help the awe, even if he prefers to be intentional in his reactions, the moment steals it from him.
He sort of doubts the suggestion of there being somewhere safe- at least somewhere safe he wont be putting people in danger. But he stays, he watches as the branch shatters, it doesn't kill it, but it does make Tommy the recipient of its attention. It's rather like some blend of shadows and a crow, married to parts of human anatomy that serve to make it more strange not less. It makes a sound somewhere between a caw and a scream and lunges for the speedster with beak and claws.
It moves fast -- faster than Ronan expected. Not enough to be a match for Tommy, but like its struggles with Ronan had been more playing with its food.]
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[This is said with an offhand sort of snark as Tommy's hands come up to grab the thing by the neck. A hand has to knock an outstretched claw aside, but it's done with enough speed and force that the crack is absolutely audible.]
You picked bad prey, monster. This one? I'm protecting him.
[With that the hand around the thing's neck started to blur as it vibrated. Time for a nice explosion. Or at least to seriously hurt the thing.]
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He doesn't move from where Tommy left him, and he stays quiet, not wanting to draw the thing's attention, or make things any harder for the silver-haired guy that had just saved him. The fact that the moment feels a little bit lighter doesn't change that fact. It is not a long fight; there's that crack and then Tommy's hand started to blur, and suddenly the monster was just a corpse.
Ronan exhales, cursing shit softly under his breath, his tone something that's both shocked and fascinated. His world had been a very small and insulated thing: the Barns, his family, school, and the occasional trip. The idea of someone else who was impossible and didn't share his blood had never occurred to him before that moment.]
Hey. You're alright? I mean- thanks.
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i
No one but us Exos.
[Amber light spills from his throat as he offers the explanation that probably does little to clarify anything, and despite the metal features, he definitely appears to be grinning somehow. His glowing blue gaze takes the boy in as he folds his arms again, head lifting just slightly.]
Don't mind me. Be a little gentle with the wall, this place has seen better times.
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All alone on an alien world, he's not exactly taking anything for granted just yet. There's a slightly petulant curve of his expression for a moment as he lets the silence stretch, but then he relents.]
Exos? Is that your name? ..And the wall pissed me off.
[Which is clearly not the case, but Ronan isn't about to tell some stranger about his feelings over being here, how lost he feels, robot or not. He sniffs a little as he shrugs his shoulders, trying to seem like he's handling this better than he is. It probably doesn't work.]
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[A metal brow lifts, and he flicks a glance back at the wall as though to rethink his previous assessment on it while he tries not to pay the kid too much attention. At least, not directly.]
Really? Huh! Guess you can't trust anything these days.
[He snorts, stepping away from the wall, setting his arms akimbo as he sizes the thing up before he looks back over at the teenager.]
Walls usually win in the end though, depending. I think this one's learned its lesson. You new here, kid?
[Not that that's really something he hasn't figured out, especially when you got to know people around here pretty quick.]
oh i made him a separate account sorry for switching journals lol
Ronan.
[He offers it easily, genuine and without suspicion. He was the favorite, insulated from the darkness and paranoia that courted his older brother. After a moment there's a glint of helpless amusement in his eyes at the way that Cayde sizes up the wall, the way that he moves. If nothing else it's something else to focus on, even if it doesn't change the hurt in his chest. He's quiet for a moment, seeming to consider the words.]
Maybe you're right. But you've gotta put your foot down once in a while.
[But he nods at the question, a bit of a helpless shrug to his shoulders.]
Yeah. What about you?
Haha! 's cool XD
[Cayde grins roguishly, one of his optics shuttering open and closed in a wink.]
Ronan, huh?
[A nod.]
I've been here for a while now. Things might look a little dour around here, but there's other people around so no one's going to get lonely any time soon, at least. I'll be honest with you, not the most ideal of situations to find yourself in, but it's not supposed to be a permanent thing at least.
1
tantrumbeating he gave the wall is short. More than short, really, she's a woman in miniature, perhaps not quite even three feet tall, with pointed ears and huge violet-brown eyes. She's dressed in dyed leather clothing, and there's a wolf walking beside her.When she notices Ronan, she hesitates, then sends Steadypaw ahead of herself. It's not that she doesn't know how to deal with a teenager (or the equivalent in elf-years), but he's human and hurting and lost, and that's sort of terrifying to her. Humans who're hurting tend to be dangerous, volatile, and though she's armed (a knife long enough to be a short-sword for her tucked into her belt), she doesn't want to start that fight.
So it's the wolf, the grey-furred wolf with amber eyes that snuffles at Ronan while he's back to the wall and trying to tend to his hands.]
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He's wild, but not cruel -- that's always been the difference between this Ronan and the other one.
It doesn't mean he's not dangerous, but he wont lash out at her just for existing near him when he's wounded. He lifts one of his hands toward the wolf, his palm up; not touching, but offering it for examination to the amber-eyed creature, if it chooses. He's always found animals a little bit easier to negotiate than people, but maybe that was because he'd been raised on a farm of rainbow-hued Irish cattle and other strange and impossible things.]
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I can get some water from the fountain, if you'd like to wash that off. Cleaner than letting him slobber all over your hand, probably.
[There's no judgment in her voice. She's used to watching men with bad tempers punch trees and end up with hands that look like that. The entire male line of her family all ran hot; her father and brother in particular.]
I decided he needed a separate account sorry XD
You don't mind?
[Ronan had been insulated by the secrets that ran in his blood, family and friends all the same people. Gansey the only one that had been able to step into Ronan's life. So he was not particularly accustomed to kindness from strangers. Or strangers at all, honestly. School may have been a sea of them, but it was all just part of the struggle, things that Ronan fights to pay attention to when there's a world outside of the windows. He felt like he was built for better things, but he tried.
He'd slowly lift his other hand, petting the wolf's ears if it allowed him to. His body language intentional and easy to read; giving it time to pull away. Growing up on a farm, and with his father's strange menagerie, Ronan had learned early that making sure animals had the space to decide if they wanted to be touched was a good way to avoid getting hurt.]
It's cool. I am canonblind, so it's no matter either way.
[Unlike Ronan, Moonshade comes from a small, close-knit community of forest-dwellers, where everyone has to do something to support the whole tribe. Her default mindset is that if she can help someone around herself, she ought to.
Meanwhile, the wolf gives Moonshade a glance, almost as if asking permission, before he leans up against Ronan's leg, accepting the petting. While he's clearly not exactly a pet, he's accustomed to being pampered a little.]
I'll leave Steadypaw with you, while I'm away. He'll watch over you.
ii
[Kavinsky had been doing his own share of exploring, trying to figure this place out, figure out why he was there. He'd been snatched a split second before what he assumed would have been his demise, staring down the hatred in the eyes of his own dragon. He hadn't shied away from the inevitable, and he didn't regret anything except not getting his prize.
That was the way he lived his life; no regrets, only looking forward, thinking about the now instead of the past. Here in this place, he wasn't even sure he wanted to go home. He missed his boys but that was about it. He could create a new life for himself here, no matter how fucked up the whole situation of being kidnapped here in the first place was.
He kept his distance, not because he valued personal space in any way, but because he thought it would be the smart thing to do. He'd recognize Ronan anywhere, but something was different. Kavinsky just didn't know what Ronan with his hair grown out meant. Was there such a big difference in the time they'd been brought here? Had Ronan been here that much longer or- no.]
It's good to see a familiar face, Lynch.
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[He says it like there's no resentment, like they hadn't fought, but also like they're not close, either. Something in the way he says you that makes it sound like he knows the other teen more by reputation than anything else. Even without the tragedy, without the darkness, without choking, being strangled on his own sharp edges, Ronan still has an adrenaline streak. He hasn't actually been to one of the other boy's parties, but there are moments where he thinks about the racing. He wouldn't dare race in his father's car, but he's thought about it sometimes.
There's a certain pleasure he's not proud of in the fact that Joseph Kavinsky knows his name.
Kavinsky's a legend. No matter what you think about him, you still knew about him. Whether it was the rumors or the stories, or a kid that totaled his car trying to beat him; the whispers that said he could get you anything for the right price. Ronan isn't quite so dew-eyed as to think it's still possible in this place, but even just having someone whose name he knows makes the loneliness feel a little bit less desperate.
He swings his feet, rubs his fingers against his scuffed knuckles when he'd lost his temper the first day.]
I thought I was all alone here. I know it sucks, but- I'm glad I'm not.
[He smiles at the other boy, open and soft edges despite the lurking anger as he drags a hand through the curls of his long hair. His demeanor says younger. Younger than the Ronan that had shown up to the first day of school after that awful summer joined to Gansey at the hip. He'd never had friends before that, and he'd never seemed to care. He had Declan and Matthew and what more did he need?]
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[Funny in that they'd been brought together again, and funnier still that Ronan didn't seem to hate the sight of him. Kavinsky wasn't just imagining things, was he? Ronan did seem younger. But what did it mean Was it real? Was it a trick? Not of Ronan's, but of this place.
He meandered closer, slowly, before dropping down to sit next to Ronan. He resisted the urge to touch him, to prove that he was real. If Kavinsky didn't know better, he'd think that maybe he'd dreamed this Ronan up himself. But this wasn't the way he'd do it. There were differences that he wouldn't have implemented, no matter how delightful the idea of Ronan with longer hair was. No, he'd wanted Ronan just the way he'd been, except the part where he'd brushed Kavinsky off.]
Hell's gotta be freezing over if you're glad to see me.
[But despite how weird it was, despite how he'd never thought Ronan was glad to see him even when he'd saved his life, Kavinsky grinned. If Ronan didn't hate him, that meant he had another chance.]
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[He laughs a little, wry but not quite bitter, not cruel or cutting. He's different, but there are traces of the Ronan he turns into. Later, his softness and happiness is stripped away and the pieces that were left sharpened and turned bitter. But for now, he's still a boy that's a bit too much raven, that likes things that burn; he's still a Dreamer.
But there isn't that shift in his body language when Kavinsky draws closer, when he slides into the seat next to him. Ronan had never been alone before this place. He'd always had his father, that he adored like a hero, his soft spoken mother. Most people had friends, but for most of his life it had just been Declan and Matthew. The Lynch Brothers. The Brothers Lynch. Bound by flaming swords and the knowledge of impossibilities, by magic and love.
They've never been close, they don't even really know each other as far as Ronan is aware. But right now Kavinsky is the only thing that's familiar, so at the jibe he shrugs his shoulders, opts to be daring and reaches out to shove against the other boy's shoulder. It's playful, light, a lopsided sort of grin as he tilts his head and looks at him, a little too earnest. Honesty he hasn't wrapped up in venom yet.]
C'mon, you're not that bad. People just like to make up shit, or they say something true so many times that it's not. If people hated you, they wouldn't keep looking.
[He doesn't hate him. He doesn't even seem to catch that there could be a reason that Kavinsky would think that he might, beyond just the general attitude the student body held towards him. That strange mix of awe and desire and disgust. But Ronan and Kavinsky were both boys that didn't get their money the proper way, came from families that weren't built on white towers, where the forgery was hidden under financial regulations and dutifully filed 10-Qs. Kavinsky might not know it, but Ronan does.]
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Not even in my wildest dreams.
[There was something funny there, because his wildest dreams were fucking wild. And he could bring any of them to life if he wanted to. But not even in his wildest dreams had he imagined an alien planet.
When Ronan shoved his shoulder, he didn't resist moving with it. Instead, he laughed. Everything was so different right now. If the other boy said he wasn't that bad, Kavinsky wasn't going to bring up the kidnapping or the party or the dragon. Or his father or Proko, or any of the other fucked up shit he'd been involved with. He'd let Ronan think he was just a drug dealer and forger and street racer, if that wasn't 'that bad'.]
If you say so. And if people hated me, I'd be out of business.
[No he wouldn't. People came to him even if they hated him. He was the only one who could get them what they wanted, and everyone knew it. He resisted the desire to drape his arm around Ronan's shoulders, reaching over to give him a little shake instead, just for the sake of touching him.]
How've you been settling in?
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2
He isn’t certain what he’s looking for, but he knows this sensation. Knows that it means that something here is demanding that he Find it.
So he searches, scouring the area for some artifact or item that demands to be freed of dirt or rubble.
Nothing. He finds nothing. There’s no hint of whatever it is that is calling to him. At least not until he begins walking past the theater. Then the ‘voice’ gets louder, more demanding. The whisper turning to a maddening burble of almost conversation, to almost shouting as he enters the building and starts focusing on trying to find what created that din.
Eventually he finds himself in what must have been the main stage area. As he walks between the seats, he looks around, trying to find some sign, some clue to what will still the demanding voice in his head.
He almost trips over some ruined bit of seat or flooring, stumbling into one of the benches. Letting out a curse that he’d learned from Ronan, something Gaelic and somehow more satisfying than his usual defaulting to French, he thinks he sees someone lying on a nearby bench.]
Who’s there?
[His voice is steady, with no hint of the unease he feels, or the strange clamoring of sound raging in his head. As he speaks, he realizes that the person might not be a danger. They might be someone who needs help. Gansey’s gift for Finding had never really been connected to a person before, but maybe if someone is hurt, he’d sense that they needed to be found.]
Are you all right?
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[The voice that speaks is soft and hopeful, boots that are comfortably worn instead of intimidating kick off the bench and then hit the ground with the weight of a six-foot-tall teen, as Ronan stands up suddenly. He leaves his jacket-slash-pillow there, so it's just a boy in a tank top and slim jeans, one hand against a hip as his curls fall into his face and across his forehead, feathering against the sides of his jaw. He's rather recognizable even in the dim light, this place that is all ruins and shadows.
It's the curse word that he'd taught him, the sound of his voice, the stature of him that gets his attention and pulls him out of his thoughts, has a thread of jitters running through him. Out of the fact that he's not sure he trusts himself to dream when he's away from the Barns. There were reasons that Ronan had always been jealous of Matthew and Declan and their sleepovers. They never talked about Ronan's dreaming, but it was there in all the things he wasn't allowed to do, in the lies Niall or Declan claimed about his sleepwalking.
He rolls his shoulders, a lop-sided grin that blossoms across his face. Gansey is something, not just someone he knows, but a part of his life, as good as family. Familiar as the scent of hickory smoke and lemon cleaner that clings to Ronan's fair skin, like the Barns had a home in his skin as much as Ronan had a home in its hills and bowers.
They were both made from his father's dreams, after all.]
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[As soon as the figure speaks, the sound inside his skull slows. The need to search quiets down to a murmur. Of course Ronan would be the first one that his gift demanded that he find. The realization pulls a rare grin from him, the one that isn't polished by politics and meant to distract people so they don't realize Gansey is keeping them at arm's length. It's bright and young and full of the exuberance he always feels when he's around his best friend.
Maybe in this strange place, one that has rules that Gansey doesn't know yet, he should be more cautious. But he knows that this is Ronan, not some magic that is projecting what Gansey wishes for. This couldn't be an illusion. He knows the tumble of curls and bright blue eyes that are only slightly dimmed in the darkness. The stance and the clomp of work boots and the frustrating way that Ronan is taller than him. The only person he's truly close to in the States, the boy who he'd somehow stumbled upon and instantly felt kinship toward.
The grin does something odd inside Gansey's chest that he tries to ignore even as it catches his breath. He steps closer and something inside him relaxes the way it always does when he's around Ronan. While another part of him feels wound too tight as he pulls Ronan into a hug.
It's not something Gansey normally does. He shakes hands and bumps fists, knocks shoulders with the boys at Aglionby, but rarely does he indulge in more contact than that. But this is a different situation. They're far from home and this is Ronan, not someone that Gansey only knows in passing at school.
As soon as his arms are around Ronan, the last of the demand to Find settles, quieting completely.]
Jesus, Lynch. I thought I was alone here.