What do you know about Welsh kings?

It fucking worked. He heard K say. Those words cleared the rest of the fog from his head. Memories slipped back into place. The Barns. Noah. Dreaming Gansey. Killing him, too bad they can't make that part of this ordeal go away. He's staring down at the dream thing in his arms as Blue is yelling in his face.

Ronan knew when he decided on this path that eventually he would have to face them with the truth. They would know that the boy who never lied, lied to them all, asked for favors to conceal the truth from them and drug them all down into this dirty business without asking permission. The only permission that had mattered to Ronan was Gansey's and he had that. His friend knew he was going to try to save him by whatever means necessary. And he had.

He looked past Blue to K. "It worked." But he couldn't ignore her for long. Or how Adam was pushing K.

"STOP IT! BOTH OF YOU! FUCKING STOP!" His eyes dropped to Blue, jaw set tight. "We saved his fucking life, that's what we did! That's what I made you do!" He shouted to Adam. "Don't fucking shove him again, Parrish. I did this."

The last thing he was going to do was let K take the blame. He had helped Ronan pull this off but it wasn't his idea.

"Everyone just STOP and I'll explain!" Ronan took a deep breath. "He's at The Barns. Noah is with him. He's been there for days. Sleeping, if you can believe it." He almost added that Gansey needed the sleep but thought better of it.

From:

Blue's anger hits him first, and while he knew it was coming, he wasn't prepared for the intensity of it. This Gansey was a fake, a dream. He had to think like that. They all did. "That's not him, don't you get it? It's not him! The real one is still alive! He's fine! I dreamt up a drug that would knock him out a little and make it seem like he was dead, but he isn't. You didn't do anything wrong, Blue. You didn't kiss him."

He just wants them to understand, wants to respond to Ronan, but then Adam is shoving at him, and he really does feel like he might puke this time. Cabeswater is getting angrier and angrier, and he knows they all have to calm the hell down.

"Parrish!" He stumbles back, then grabs at Adam's wrists to keep from getting shoved again. "We can go there right now, okay? Just all of you, calm the fuck down, or you'll undo all of this. We fucking did this for everyone!" He looks Adam dead on. "You didn't kill him. You didn't fucking kill him. He's alive, at the Barns. This was a fake. A god damn fucking dream." He knows it isn't true. A dream is still a person. He hates that it isn't true. But it has to be, for all their sakes.

He finally looks to Ronan again. "We have to do something with that body. Bury it, keep it in a cave, something. We can come back and deal with it. We should get to Gansey."

From:

"THAT WAS HIM!!" Blue's venom turns on Kavinsky, but it's so much more than simple anger. "It was him. He was every bit Gansey that Gansey is." She could feel it, when they were close. Same sense of static, same way her heart raced faster, the smell of him, the way their hands fit together. "He had memories and feelings. You think because Ronan just dreamt him up that's not true? And... Adam hit him. You think because he's a dream that doesn't matter? It all matters. Gansey died today, and you're saying it doesn't matter because he's not real. He's fucking real."

She blinks quickly, staring at the dream version, and Blue's crying again. It's mourning for this Gansey, as much as is a relief that this might've negated Gansey staying dead, Gansey still very much died today. She folds her arms and steps away from them both. "Put him in the cabin." At least he could be somewhere warm, where he belonged as much as the rest of them did.

Blue takes a step forward and leans over, kissing dream Gansey on the forehead, smoothing her fingers through his hair. And then she glares at Ronan and Kavinsky. "You're both a couple of complete bastards." She wasn't going to thank them for killing one version of Gansey to save another. There were other ways.

She turns on her heel in her rainbow polka-dotted boots, heading for the cabin. She had no other words for them. They needed this done, so they could go get Gansey from the Barns. She walks ahead of them, so she can cry alone, tears of anger and grief and more anger and Blue just lets them fall.

From:

leylined

"Fake?" Adam laughs, a humorless and frightening thing, muscles straining though he hasn't begun to fight back. "Is Matthew fake? Is Aurora fake? Is Prokopenko fake?" His anger is nowhere near gone, hot and pulsing beneath his skin, tantalizing a war song into the air around them. Adam's been angry and enraged to the point of nigh-incoherence before, but never in Cabeswater. It's an extension of him, or maybe he's an extension of it in this moment. It doesn't matter though, because with his rage so much more than just a hot flash and unintentional violence, it's clear now more than ever that Adam isn't the same person who walked into Cabeswater to wake a ley line nearly a year before.

"I told you. I told you guys that this would happen!" He looks at Ronan then, in this moment not caring that he's holding the source of his disgrace. Lightning flashes above and catches in Adam's eyes, looking much like he had the night that Boone had ended its rest for the briefest of moments. The trees cry out as well, for the first time in ages too out of synch to understand what they're saying.

He pulls from Kavinsky, too angry to accept his placations, too used to remember that in some small way he had helped to set this in motion. "Say whatever the hell you want. You're not the ones with blood on your hands." He follows after Blue then. The trees quiet some, and the storm abates only partially, only because Adam knows that the job isn't over yet.

Edited Date: 2015-03-20 08:35 am (UTC)

From:

She wasn't wrong. He was a bastard. This was news to no one. He was also a selfish enough bastard to do this if it meant Gansey lived. The end result was what he cared about.

"He's as real as I made him. I made this. From my memories of him, my dreams. That's all this is. A manifestation of my dream."

He groans at Adam's words, closing his eyes and letting the sound push out through his nose. "Yes! YES! They fucking ARE! AND THEY ARE FUCKED UP BECAUSE THEY ARE FAKES! MY mother gave BIRTH to me, Parrish. Matthew has been in my life since I was three! It's a little fucking different than a dream version of Gansey that has existed for a couple of days!"

Ronan heads for the cabin but it won't be where this dream stays. "Funny you weren't this torn up when it was my doppelganger dying on the floor of St. Agnes, Parrish. Fuck you."

He glanced back at K. "Take them to the Barns. I'll take care of this."

From:

Kavinsky knows it was really Gansey somewhere in there. He realizes that now, because of Adam, and Ronan, Gansey. He realizes that these dream people are just that. People. Not drugs, or cars or toasters and things. It's why he reminded Ronan of that when he first told Kavinsky of the idea. It's why he made sure he knew that they'd be getting rid of an actual dream person here. And once he let that sink in, and Ronan said they should do it, that's where he stopped thinking of this Gansey as a real person, because that's what they had do to. It's all there was to do.

So Blue and Adam can yell it at him till they're blue in the face, but Kavinsky forces himself to be numb over it, because that's just the way it fucking is.

When Adam brings Ronan's mother and brother into it, Prokopenko into it, it all twists and turns inside his head and he looks at the dream in Ronan's arms. "The real Gansey didn't die today and that's all that fucking matters, alright? That's all there is. Would you rather he die instead? I don't fucking think so. You told us nothing, Parrish. We did it, it's done, it went the way it was supposed to."

Ronan yelling at Adam is a low blow, though. He knows the guy is still torn up about hitting someone who looked just like his friend. Still, he shakes his head, catching up to Ronan. "Ronan, we're not leaving you. Not right now. I'm not fucking leaving you with this. You don't even have a car right now. We'll all go together. We fucking stay together."

Edited Date: 2015-03-20 09:18 am (UTC)

From:

Blue scoffs loudly enough for Ronan to hear her when he tells K to take her and Adam to the Barnes. No way she was leaving until this Gansey was somewhere peaceful, where no harm would come to him, where Cabeswater could take care of him and keep him safe until they could get back here and give him a proper burial.

She keeps heading for the cabin, and it's all revealed, the pool of water nearby at its banks and threatening over. The ground is muddy, but she doesn't care. Up the steps, and she pulls the door open, resting her back against it. She's not budging, not going anywhere if they're not all together, even if she wants nothing to do with Ronan or Kavinsky for a good long while. Some anger seeps out toward Adam, but it's misplaced and she just has nothing to reel it in right now.

"I do have a question. This all hinged on me kissing Gansey. How the hell did you pull that off?" Her eyes narrow, puffy and stinging and ringed red from tears, but her gaze is still ferocious, every ounce wild, angry Blue, unhinged and ready to start swinging. She's not a violent person and she pretty desperately wants to punch Ronan in the face.

Her eyes shift to Gansey again, and she bites her lip, looking at the ground. They did something to her head, to make her forget the prophecy. And now she kissed some other Gansey. As much her Gansey as the other, but not, and she feels like she committed some terrible sin.

From:

leylined

Adam's eyes widen in shock, then narrow in fury once again at both of their words. "Don't talk like you fucking know what's going on in my head, Lynch." It's pure venom on his lips, a malediction rather than a name. "It doesn't matter how they came around. They're around. They lived lives, they had thoughts, and feelings. They're people, and I killed one of them. So fuck. You. Both." He says it through grit teeth and continues walking. He had been affected by seeing Ronan die, both times he'd had to live through it. It was why he was so against the plan in the first place. He tries to let his anger simmer down from its boil, though. He can't be responsible for any more damage today.

He continues following Blue through the door, turning on the light behind him, flooding the cabin with iridescent light before moving on into the kitchen. He braces himself on the counter, perched above the mini mini Henrietta comprised of tiny cereal boxes.

He lets himself breathe, trying to comprehend everything when Blue asks the question Adam didn't want to dwell on. Still, he turns his head, only enough to see the other two. He knows he isn't responsible for it, and though Kavinsky knows some strange people outside of this group, something tells him that their field of options isn't that wide.

From:

"He lived a life for a couple days." Ronan shook his head. "A life for a life, Parrish. That's how this magic seems to work. A price had to be paid to save his life. I'm not sorry for what I did."

This wasn't a plan he had hatched overnight. He had planned and dreamed for months to be sure he could pull it all off. Ronan had taken contingencies to ensure that he was prepared to deal with as much of the fallout as he could in one sweep. Including the body. Like hell he was dumping a body in that cabin to wait for them to come back. They all knew they weren't the only people that could cross over and enter Cabeswater. Wouldn't it be great if a hiker wandered this way and poked their beady little eyes in the door to find a dead kid left to rot? Or some other asshole looking for Glendower? They had been warned before that other people were looking.

There was also the issue of decomposing. It would happen. What if they couldn't make it back here for days? Noah's body was found on the ley line decomposed. This place wouldn't stop that from happening.

Ronan had a plan and he was sticking to it. He just wished they would have gone back to the car not the cabin. Of course it had to be difficult. As if it weren't bad enough without an audience.

"Fine." He said to K. "But, I'm not fucking dumping his body in some shack in the woods. Go wait with them."

He doesn't follow them into the cabin. Ronan keeps wandering past it and further into the trees. There is one tree that is unlike any other. Taller, greener, with twisted roots that stretched across the foliage covered ground like snakes. Between the roots, right below the V from where they branch off the tree, is an perfectly dug grave. Beside it a heap of black earth sat with a shovel waiting to be used. Ronan set to work. Carefully he lowered the body into the hole. Standing back he said something that sounded like a prayer under his breath. Something in Latin. Something in Gaelic. And apology in English. Then he methodically started to shovel the dirt to fill the hole in and bury the boy he had brought to life.

Edited Date: 2015-03-20 10:35 am (UTC)

From:

There are all kinds of horrible insults on the tip of Kavinsky's tongue. Most of them having to do with Adam learning how to be a better driver, but they don't get past his lips, for once. It isn't fair and though he really is a bastard, and both Adam and Blue are angry, yelling at them, he wants to believe they're still friends.

But maybe they're not anymore. He did this for all of them, but maybe in the end it'll only matter to Ronan.

"We used magic," he says simply, not knowing if he should even drag Persephone into this just yet. It's all too much shit right now. Too much upheaval. He's far too sober right now and while it helped get them here, it's really starting to bother him now. "We made everyone forget."

"Ronan..." He starts, but he lets him go. He would have gone back to the car with them if he had known about this part of the plan, but instead they're here at the cabin now, and it's a shitty fucking thing. He turns back to them, rubbing his forehead. "Your mad. I fucking get it. I know it was fucked. This whole god damn thing is fucked. But when you see Gansey alive and well, you'll know it was the right thing to do."

He moves to the window, looking out toward the direction Ronan went in. Then he digs into his pocket, trying to ignore the eyes that are on him and does a bump of coke off his hand, then another.

From:

She wants to follow Ronan, because he has Gansey, but she's not going to. She can't, and the minute Gansey's out of her sight, her shoulders shudder. Blue takes a deep breath and steels herself, the words 'we used magic' settling in her head.

There weren't many magic users in Henrietta, and her family knew them all. That meant someone was involved. Her mind went immediately to Orla, since she was the most likely culprit, but there was no mention of who. It was all suspicion, and Blue feels like there's no one she can really trust. Rocked to her core, right then. Adam seems as angry as she is, and he was the one to come to her and tell her this plan was still underway, but he'd clearly kept more from her than he'd told her.

Stay away from boys because they were trouble. Stay away from Aglionby boys, because they were bastards.

Anger is what fuels her to walk over and knock the cocaine out of Kavinsky's hands, kicking the bag across the floor, powder emptying and scattering across the floorboards. "Your boyfriend is burying mine. Could at least have the decency to wait until we're done with this to get high, Kavinsky." Her eyes flash angry when she looks at him, then she stomps away as her eyes well up again. She catches sight of the collages she put up, the pictures of her and Gansey at Christmas cuddled up on the couch drawing her focus.

She feels physically in pain, and wants to get to the Barns. She needs to see that Gansey's alive.

From:

leylined

"We could have found another way," Adam tells him, turning around finally but keeping himself braced on the table. His voice is raw now that he's let some of the rage out. "I had a vision about this happening, K. I knew I was going to do this, and even if it's not him, it still-," his voice chokes and he has to take a moment to find his composure again. They've seen him cry enough already. "Even if it wasn't him, I still killed him. Blue still kissed him. Everything we've been trying to stop still happened."

It's been a horrific day and Adam doesn't feel nearly as understanding as he normally would, so something tears when he sees that Kavinsky needs to get high now of all times, but then there's Blue, knocking the cocaine from him, and the only thing he feels there is jealousy that it wasn't him that didn't do it. "This needs to stop. All of this. This is what I've been talking about. No more fucking secrets. No more running off and trying to do what you think is best. Me, you, her, Ronan, it doesn't matter. It only makes things worse."

But he can't even abide it right now, he can't stand to hear their reasoning, and what Persephone told him to remember is too easily drowned out in the turmoil. Maybe when he's had time to cool off, but now isn't that time. He launches himself from the counter, past Kavinsky and Blue, and heads through the front door. The raging storm's died since then, giving way to a misty sort of rainfall, the sky above gray-blue-black. He takes a deep breath then and forces his way back down the path and toward the Evo.

From:

Ronan worked hard and he worked fast. The Orphan Girl kneeled next to him shoveling dirt in with her small, pale hands. They didn't speak. She didn't yell at him and demand answers, just silently helped him complete his task. When the mound of dirt had been moved and pat down carefully Ronan sat down next to the grave. He laid his hands on the dirt and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them the wildflowers of every color covered the ground at the base of the tree. He gathered his jacket and headed for the car. As he passed the cabin he yelled out for K.

"K! Let's go. Let's get out of here."

Silently he made his way back to the Evo.

From:

"Everything you've been trying to stop still happened, and Gansey is still alive. That's the part that doesn't seem to be sinking in." Eventually it would though, he hopes. He didn't do all of this with Ronan, just to be thrown back to the start of it all, with all of them hating on him again. It's frustrating.

He reconsiders that thought when Blue knocks his drugs out of his hand and he turns to her angrily. "What the fuck! You bitch! I needed that! I took a pill to get myself sober so I could drive you assholes over here!" He's two seconds away from getting down on the ground and wiping up what he can, but his pride keeps him from doing so. The two bumps will just have to get him through.

"This is worse? Worse than your actual dead friend? I'll be sure to fucking tell him that when I see him," he spits out at Adam before he manages to get out the door, then presses the heels of his palms against his eyes.

When Ronan calls out to him, he wants to be out the door in seconds, but he waits for Blue, making sure she heads out of there first. "Come on. Now you get to see your actual boyfriend. Lets go."

From:

"Don't talk to me." Blue angles herself widely around Kavinsky. There was some moment, when they arrived, that she cared. That she liked him and appreciated him and felt like Kavinsky belonged, and now she feels dirty for it. It all feels like terrible betrayal and she's furious for it. The only saving grace is that Gansey is alive at the Barns, and they were going to him.

She's furious, and she's aching. She has to go see Gansey now, the real Gansey, and all that would be on her mind beyond the relief that he was indeed alive and that this whole mess might've saved him was that she'd kissed someone else. Gansey, yes, but not him. She gets to know what it's like, how perfect and amazing it was, that whole evening cemented permanently at the forefront of her memory, and it wasn't him. She's not sure who'll have it worse there, Gansey for not getting to know, or Blue for knowing.

Until she's sure of all of it, until they have proof that this whole thing changed the course of what was to happen, she couldn't kiss him again. She can't go through this again.

Her mind races, and she averts all eye contact from everyone as she gets closer to the Evo. She gets into the back seat and slams the door, folding into as small a ball as she could, seatbelt on, neck of her jacket pulled up around her face as she stares out the window.

From:

Ronan hangs back just enough to wait for K. His hands are dirty but he still takes hold of one of K's. Right now all he is sorry for is that they are putting all this shit on him. This was his idea. His plan. K had only helped him. To keep him from getting hurt during the process of saving his friend.

"I'm sorry, K." Rare words for Ronan to ever say. "None of this is on you."

Anything else he had to say would be far more unkind than any words he had already spoken. When it came to Adam and Blue, Ronan opted for silence. He takes K's keys from him as they get closer to the car.

"I'll drive. You can clean up."

Meaning he could do what he needed to do to sort himself out. Ronan hadn't missed that something was going on with K. He saw him take pills but has no idea what they did. Obviously the effects were leaving him not feeling so hot.

He got in the car, the door slamming behind him. Ronan doesn't bother with his seatbelt but he does turn on music. Loud. The tires kick up dirt and loose rocks as he hits the gas and heads back to the main road and on to The Barns.

From:

Kavinsky closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, then heads out of the cabin as well, slamming the door shut. He can hear the trees, feel the vines trying to curl up around his feet with each step. Everyone is angry and Cabeswater can feel it.

Ronan's hand in his is like an life boat, pulling him out of his thoughts, keeping him from drowning. He holds on tight and shakes his head. "It's okay. We knew this was coming." He doesn't mind if they take it out on him. They're more Ronan's friends in the end, he figures. He wouldn't want that bond to be severed. Blue never liked him anyway. Adam, he would miss.

He looks at Ronan with relief when he says he will drive, a silent thank you in his eyes. He hands the keys over to him, getting in the passengers side, flinching when Ronan turns the music up loud, but doesn't say anything. He rummages through the glove compartment instead, coming up with a couple small bottles of vodka, then reaches under the seat in a hidden compartment for another baggie of coke. He's glad he always comes prepared, and he gets to work on 'cleaning himself up'.

From:

They leave Cabeswater, and Blue ignores everything else that's going on. She wants to yell and accuse and be angry about all of it, and she simmers there in her seat in the back. Kavinsky's getting high, music that makes her want to rip her ears off pulsing through the car, trapped there with two people she wanted to be as far removed from as was physically possible, anger palpable from Adam too.

She hates this. She wishes she'd skipped St. Mark's last year, and never got involved with any of them. Not really, because just the idea of that makes her heart ache worse, but Blue's anger knows no real bounds at the moment. She's furious and worried.

But Blue does feel done with Joseph Kavinsky and Ronan Lynch. The only person she trusts in that car right now is Adam, to whom she reaches over. It's an old movement, finding his hand with hers, and she doesn't care if he's opposed, she's taking his damned hand, because she needs someone that she doesn't hate or she will start screaming and things will end with her trying to strange Ronan with the laces of her boots while kicking Kavinsky in the face.

From:

leylined

Adam's in his own world again. It's not as bad as it was, but there's still rain. It's too much noise and they're moving much too fast. Adam wants to object, but inside he knows he'd only be ignored at this point. He doubts he can find his own voice in this moment as it is. One hand is gripped much too tight on the door and the other is dug into the seat. He can barely breathe. He can't open his eyes, he's- everything's a sickly shade of red, slowly washed away into a pink mess.

Before he's lost in the rabbit hole, though, something grabs for his hand and he jumps, before recognizing the feeling of it, and memories change to something simpler, of two awkward teenagers trying to find how they could fit. He latches onto it in favor of what's going on around him now, his breathing calming down down. He still doesn't open his eyes because he doesn't know how he'll react if he sees as well as feels, so he just holds onto Blue's hand and tries to put everything out of his mind.

From:

Had Ronan bothered to look in his rear view mirror he might have noticed Adam's face and the way he pinched his eyes shut. He hadn't, with good reason. Ronan didn't want to look. The road stretched out ahead of him and that was all he had the heart to pay attention to right then.

Shifting into the highest gear they pick up speed. He glances at K. The more he thought about it the more he realized that it might be better if Gansey was already awake when they got there.

"Call Noah at the house. Number is under Barns in my phone." A dream phone that wouldn't be put asunder by the rain. "Tell him to inject the shit to wake him up into his IV. We should be there by the time he's up."

From:

Kavinsky does what he needs to do, then puts it all away and rests his head back, closing his eyes. He misses his sunglasses and he figures he probably left them at Swan's house. At least he's starting to feel a little less agitated now, and a little more balanced.

He looks over at Ronan when he tells him to call the house, frowning just slightly. "He's gonna freak." He knows he would, if he were in that position. "Maybe we should all be there when that shit goes down." Especially if something goes wrong with the drug he dreamt up and he needs to dream another one. "I think we should be the ones who give it to him." Noah doesn't seem like he'd know what to do anyway.

From:

Blue doesn't even look over at Adam, just takes his hand and hangs onto it. It's hard to not to let out snide comments in regard to the two of them waking Gansey up. How it wouldn't be necessary, all manner of other things that weren't at all helpful to the situation. There was no sensibility in Blue at that moment. She's hurt and angry and in mourning and there was no snapping out of it because it was some dream version of Gansey.

"I want to be there when he wakes up." It's all she's contributing. She wants to be there and have that moment she wished for so hard in the back of the Bentley. Somehow try to coalesce the two things into one, and make some effort at breaking off this horrible mourning she's in and knows she's not coming out of any time soon. Blue squeezes Adam's hand again, tightening her fingers around his. This was going to be a hell of a day.

From:

leylined

Adam squeezes back, trying to get his mind in the right place, but it's slow going. It takes all of him not to start freaking out again, but when the others start talking, he manages to talk. "We need to be there," he agrees with the other two. His voice is rough and quiet, barely audible over the music. "We need to explain what was going on to him as soon as we can. He deserves that." He inhales and speaks louder. "And Ronan, for god's sake, slow down."

From:

Ronan pulls his bottom lip through his teeth over and over until the skin feels raw. His hands grip the wheel so tight his fingers ache. He nods several times in agreement with K. "Yeah, you're right, we should do it."

More importantly Ronan needed to do it. He needed to wake Gansey up and explain to him what he had done. Shaking his head he let out a breath. "We don't need to explain shit. I do. All you know is what happened today. He deserves to know and he's going to hear the truth from me. I'm waking him up." His eyes find K's. "I need to tell him. Me. I did this."

Gansey had told Ronan to do whatever he had to do, but Ronan had never told him what he was going to do. The only one he told the full plan to was K. He needed to talk to Gansey alone and explain himself without anyone else interjecting.

Ronan doesn't slow down. The roads are wet but they aren't dangerous. He's done listening to Adam tell him what he needs to do. The only time the car slows down is when he slides around the turn and pulls onto the gravel driveway that leads to the main house of the Barns. The gate is opened and Ronan pulls the car up to the house.

"Wait in the living room."

He doesn't even close the car door after he gets out. Throwing open the front door he storms inside calling out for Noah.

"Noah!" Right then he really needed him. Just to have a friend on his side. Noah knew the truth, he didn't like it, but he had been there and helped Ronan when he needed it. "Noah!" Ronan pushed open the door of his old bedroom where Gansey was left fast asleep. His heart surged seeing him laying there right where they had left him. "It's time to wake him up."

From: