Fantasy, Heist, Romance, Found-Family - Chapter 24: Chapter 24

Ronan did not want to fall asleep.
He sat upright in bed even as his entire body sagged, terrified he might miss something. Amir would appear on the other side of the cell, flanked by armed guards, and Ronan would somehow sleep through it. By the time he was jostled awake and escorted out of his cell, Amir would be out of arm's reach, watching his acquittal from across the castle courtyard.
The mattress was hard and scratchy and the pillow was so thin it might as well have been an illusion. There really was no blanket, and a certain dampness clung to the air, so Ronan's skin prickled with goosebumps. Staying up should have been easy.
Still, he nodded off, shaking himself awake just to slip lower, until he was flat on his back with his head caught at a terrible angle against the wall.
Ronan came to with an aching neck, clutching the pillow against his chest. A cup of water and another bowl of guck waited for him.
He took inventory of himself and his situation. Starting easy, he went over the things he knew.
1. The knife in his right boot had been confiscated.
2. His earrings had been taken, too.
3. He was being used as bait.
It was an unfortunately brief list.
Then there were the things he could guess. That Amir would take the bait. That escaping probably wouldn't be so easy the second time around - the castle had some pretty high towers.
And then, the question he pondered in a rush, knowing he was running out of time to come up with an answer: What could he do to help?
If he could escape this cell, or break free of his guard on his way out and intercept Amir, or figure out where Amir would be kept and use the tunnels to get to him...
His thoughts boiled over in a great steaming mess. Curling his body tighter, he buried his face. It burned with shame. He had never been smart in the ways that mattered. He punched the pillow and wished for Vito; clever Vito, charismatic Vito, who could plan around almost any issue and talk his way out of everything else.
Ronan wasted hours thinking in concentric circles. What he knew, what he could guess, what he could do to help; what he knew, what he mostly knew, what he didn't know at all; what he felt, what he feared - why was he so useless?
His next rest was fitful. He splayed out on his stomach and imagined returning home after this, knowing his life had effectively been traded for Amir's.
When a helping of porridge slipped beneath the bars, Ronan batted his eyes at the guard and asked demurely for something yummy next time, snickering at the disgust with which he was ignored. He reckoned he couldn't exactly call it the last laugh when he was the one spooning gruel. Why did a royal kitchen even have such flavorless food? Maybe they were feeding him horse oats. He pouted around his spoonful, knowing damn well that there were more than enough leftovers in the kitchens to provide him a better meal than this.
That line of thought was promptly hacked into segments and scattered, before it could point him back to a secret corner of the castle's kitchen, that little capsule of time where Ronan had been treated to a four-course meal by- by a prince.
It was too late. He was there, tasting raspberry pudding and fucking blancmange in their first kiss-
Anything else. Think of anything else.
Reason #1 I can't stand the rich: They lie.
That would work. That would do. Ronan washed down a massive bite of sludge and thought bitterly that this list applied to Amir now, too. Especially Reason #1.
Reason #2, he recited in his head. They're selfish.
Reason #3: We have to face their consiquenses.
By the time he had noticed the misspelling, it felt wrong to fix it.
Reason #4: They accept love greedily and without giving in return.
He could picture his god-awful handwriting, the dark lines at the start of the sentence scratching out 'Loveless' because he hadn't been sure it was a real word and was too embarrassed to ask.
Reason #5: They care more for their reputations than their families.
Reason #6: They always crave something even though they have everything, and still they won't give anything to the people who have nothing.
That one was tricky to recall. He remembered feeling very poetic about it.
Reason #7: They're fake people, all of them, made of glass. Take off the jewelry and you can see right through them, and they hate their spouses and their kids and they don't give a damn about the poor, and they're not all that pretty after all.
Reason #8: Their gifts don't mean a damn. They throw their charity balls, toasting to the 'hardworking poor' with one arm and digging our graves with the other.
Reason #9: The world belongs to them. They have land and ocean and sky in the palms of their bejeweled hands, the freedom to travel and the freedom to learn, and they have the nerve to be bored, to not appreciate every second of every fucking day how lucky they are.
It got hard somewhere around Reason #20, past the pages he had flipped through many times over the years. The order got jumbled and reasons slipped his memory. He had to slow down, back-track, muttering out loud with his head against the cobblestone. It passed the time. Or, he hoped it did.
The next time he awoke, he counted the seconds instead of thinking about Amir, beginning the moment he heard the guard coming through the door with his food and stopping at thirty-six hundred, the span of an hour. Then went back to one.
Eight hours. That was the amount of time between his meals.
Ronan did some math and deduced it was his fourth day in the cell.
On the fifth, somebody came to speak to him.
His visitor was a very tall, very wiry bespeckled man. He introduced himself first as Conrad Lange, then as a doctor, and asked Ronan about his day.
Ronan scoffed halfheartedly. "Are you serious?"
It was hard to tell in the dim light, but Conrad the Doctor's smile seemed sympathetic.
"Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Mr. Hastings?"
"Sure do."
Dr. Lange only laughed. Ronan didn't find anything very funny. But rather than implore for details on a certain runaway's whereabouts, the doctor asked Ronan about his leg. That and the food, and the bed, like an innkeeper trying to get a statement on his establishment. Ronan gave a scathing review.
The questions were arbitrary, dotted with one-sided conversation. What do you think of the castle? Bit outdated, isn't it? But I find the history charming. Are you interested in architecture?
He chuckled at all of Ronan's withering responses and nodded along to his complaints like he could somehow understand from the other side of the bars, with his clean suit and his full belly. It made Ronan want to say something nasty.
But he didn't, because it was also the first voice he had heard in days that wasn't his own, and it was gentle and indulgent. Dr. Lange was not his friend, Ronan knew that, but he was a gust of clean air whisking through the dingy cell, and Ronan was too needy to plug his nose.
"You seem tired," the doctor said kindly. Ronan sighed with his whole body, tipping forward to cross his arms over his knees.
"I am," he said. "Even if I have no right to be."
"You have every right to be. Just existing in a space such as this one would wear anyone thin. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but you were first discovered in the middle of the night, yes? I can imagine you didn't sleep well after that."
"You'd be right there."
"Your body is still catching up. Even if you've slept here since, it isn't the same as the sleep you'd get in your own home."
"Yes," Ronan agreed, validated. "Yes, that makes sense."
"What is it you were doing out so late, anyway? Something fun I hope."
Ronan opened his mouth, then caught the words between his teeth, a puff of breath coming out instead. "Dammit," he grumbled.
"What was that?"
Ronan only glared.
"Forgive me. I meant no harm, Mr. Hastings."
"Fuck all the way off."
Lange sighed like this was suddenly very tiresome. "You have fewer than ten days left. Do you know that?" When Ronan did not respond, he proceeded, "I am not your enemy. My job is to help people, and the only way to help you is-"
"Your job is to serve the people that pay you," Ronan spat. "Try all you'd like to help me, I will not say another word about my life before this."
"You are protecting someone who won't come to save you."
Lange lingered after that, asking a few more questions that subtly but certainly approached Amir. Ronan answered none of them. Eventually the doctor left, pledging to return in a few days. "Please don't," Ronan said, with less conviction than he would've liked. Then he was alone again.
He wondered whether they'd torture him if he continued to hold his tongue. In typical Ronan fashion, he beat them to it. The sixth day came and he tortured himself. He started making lists.
The first was short and true. Ronan cataloged his relationship, what it was and how it ended.
1. Amir fell for him quickly.
This was simple enough to rationalize. Ronan had been told enough times to believe, in an outside-looking-in sort of way, that he was attractive. Dark eyes, long lashes, a graceful form - and for whatever reason, people were enticed by his odd white patch of hair. So, okay.
2. Amir came to know him and kept falling.
That part was harder to understand.
3. Ronan fell slowly, then reluctantly, then all at once.
Suspicion, wary friendship, desire. The attraction had always been there, because Amir was the prettiest damn jewel on this crooked island - and somehow Ronan had gotten his gloved hands on him.
4. When he came to know Amir - fully, without secrets - he rejected him.
Finest treasure he'd ever stolen, and Ronan had thrown him away. Amir would give up the life he'd always wanted for a boy who had denounced him for his birth just like everyone else.
The second list was endless.
Mistakes That Led Me Here:
1. I forgot to cover Amir's face on the walk home.
Ronan scratched that out. Too narrow. He started again.
1. I let Amir into my house.
Ah, but really, Amir had let himself in the first time. What Ronan should have done was disentangle himself before he could get trapped. Amir had given him an out, and Ronan hadn't taken it.
1. I didn't knock three times when Amir showed up on my doorstep.
That might have been an okay place to start, but he kept moving backward.
1. I left the Merry Men.
1. I watched Vito burn out of control and did nothing about it.
1. I fell in love.
1. I joined the Merry Men.
The list grew from the front end, stretching on until it stopped being Mistakes That Led Me Here and became Mistakes, and the #1 spot finally stuck.
1. I looked for my father.
For all the times he had lamented that he didn't deserve his hand in life, he sure did mess up a lot. It was starting to look like he'd been the dealer the whole time.
You're causing your own problems, Vito had said to him many times with that patronizing air of someone older and better-liked, who believed he was allowed to say anything to the people he cared for because he cared for them. Do you realize that?
I do now.
Ronan spent the seventh day, the halfway point, contemplating goodbyes.
He had never been good at them. He could count on one hand everyone he had bid a proper farewell. On one finger, actually - and to Mitch of all people.
But maybe he had been onto something. "Goodbye" was generic. As if relationships could be shipped away in matching square packages. That wasn't how he wanted to go, but he wished he would've thought more on what he'd say instead, if he had just a few words to exchange for "goodbye."
To Tony, I'll miss you.
To Felix, Take care of yourself.
To Mitch, You've grown so much.
He had little to say to Vito, except to ask, Why?
And to his father, Why not?
To Wendy, I love you, or I forgive you.
To the old locksmith, Mr. Hughes, I wish I could learn more from you.
To Amir...
I'm sorry would be appropriate, surely. But Ronan was as hurt as he was sorry. How could you? Too accusatory. If Ronan really did get the chance to see Amir face-to-face, even if only for a second (and he didn't know how he would go on otherwise - if they didn't get even a passing moment mid-transaction), the most important thing to say would be thank you.
How shallow was that, though? As if all he had for Amir was gratitude. Ronan had so much more to express to him.
Like I love you. He still hadn't said it, not really. But it would be cruel now.
Ronan agonized over this with his temple to the cool bars of his cell, scratching the pads of his fingers along coarse metal until they were tender. Do you resent me? he wanted to ask, pathetically. You've ruined me! he could scream. I'll find you - a promise, if he was a hypocrite.
A hundred possibilities and Ronan could not find peace with a single one of them, or any combination. There was a meaning in there, somewhere.
It struck him hours later, on the brink of sleep, that perhaps Amir was not someone he was meant to say goodbye to.
Ronan noticed that he was cold, then that he was hungry.
This wasn't exactly news. He already tended to run cold; without a blanket, the chill in the cell was constant. His meals were paltry and tasteless, only sometimes served with water.
But eight days in, he felt a shiver course through him for the first time, one that remained even when he hugged his pillow between his chest and knees. The grumbling pang in his gut didn't fade at his next meal, or the meal after that, and there was a lasting tacky dryness to his mouth. His lips cracked at the corners and he tasted blood.
He hadn't expected to be here so long.
The dreams started on day nine.
They weren't really dreams - Ronan hadn't been having those. These came when he was awake. He thought he might prefer a nightmare.
He heard his name called in the voice he'd been yearning for and nearly tripped in his mad stumble out of bed. His breath came fast, then not at all, as he grabbed the bars and heard it again - Amir, calling him from down the hall. That wondrous voice, normally smooth and deep as molasses, wrecked with worry and rapidly approaching.
But it kept approaching as if from infinitely far away, and the hallway wasn't nearly that long - Ronan knew how much time it normally took the guard's footsteps to reach him - fuck, why couldn't he hear footsteps?
His knees twinged when they dropped heavily to the floor. He let his head slump against the bars between his white-knuckled grip and couldn't believe he was this weak.
He was very aware of what could happen in solitary confinement. Had to be, in his line of work. He just hadn't thought he would succumb this quickly.
Dropping onto his side with his fingers still wrapped around the bars, he lay with the crushing guilt of having been relieved to hear Amir coming for him.
By day ten, the doctor still had not returned. Ronan tragically wished he would, just to hear a real voice.
The light down here was scarce. He couldn't see its source from his cell, but it flickered often. The shadows it cast were uninspiring and repetitive, until Ronan looked at them long enough and suddenly they weren't.
He saw shapes that he couldn't be sure were real, so he turned away, but there were shadows there, too, shifting, lurking on every wall. Approaching, receding, reaching. Whimpering, he closed his eyes.
There was a gentle hum somewhere above his head. A woman's voice and a familiar tune. Ronan couldn't place it right away, but it eased the lines of his face, smoothing the crease between his brows like a gentle hand might. And he could almost feel it, waited for it: knobbly fingers carding through his hair, paying extra close attention to his birthmark.
Ah, it came to him. Momma's song.
She sometimes hummed it to him when he couldn't sleep, but mostly when she was drunk.
The illusion shattered immediately. His eyes snapped open, and he didn't close them again, terrified he was going fucking crazy.
This must have been what Dr. Lange predicted. After all, he hadn't specified what kind of doctor he was. He'd asked about the bite wound but made no move to check on it. Maybe he had checked on Ronan's mind instead, had diagnosed his fragility and determined that he would break on his own given enough time, without interrogation or torment.
"I won't," he said, hoarse from disuse. He fiddled for the pearl in his left ear only to remember it had been taken. Shadows danced around him, almost like they were laughing as he curled up in the bed to hide. And if it was childish, well. Ronan was just a boy who missed his mother.
Day eleven. Ronan wanted a hug.
Compared to people like Felix and Amir, he did not seek out touch often. Sometimes he shied away from it. But he'd never gone long without it.
There had been Wendy holding him in their shared bed, then Vito affectionately ruffling his hair and Felix nervously grabbing for his hand and Tony using every available lap as a pillow or leg rest. Mitch was all arm punches and hip bumps - Sadie, too, and what a strange comparison that was. Amos liked to clap Ronan's shoulder with every job well done, his sons did the same in passing, and Amir-
It always circled back to Amir.
Amir, tying Ronan's cravat in a Van Doren washroom. Amir, sliding Delancey's rings onto Ronan's fingers, offering him a shoulder when he wavered, wrapping around him on Bandit's back, catching him any time he stumbled, kneeling atop him as they sparred...Amir, his lips, his legs, his hands, always finding some way to hold on and get closer. Ronan wanted to feel his skin so badly and knew he never could again, and he would do anything to go back and stop himself from ending their last kiss so early.
He was hearing voices again. This time they blurred the line between delusion and dream. He could have sworn he'd just been asleep, but the sound persisted as he shifted upright. Distant, muffled shouting. Footsteps, then a crash, then a door slamming open. A nearby holler of his name. Ronan frowned blearily. That voice...
Again, "Ronan, you bastard, where are you?"
Mitch was the last person he thought he'd hallucinate. He responded even though it hurt to yell and he knew he was losing it. "Here!"
"I hope you're as smart as you think you are!" Mitch's voice shouted, oddly muffled.
The footsteps drew closer, then, impossibly, stopped. Just beyond his cell loomed a huge dark figure, another trick of the light, and shit, Ronan was really seeing things now. The door banged again, the shouting came much clearer, and the shadow jerked, sending something skidding along the floor and under the cell bars with an awful noise. Something that sure as hell wasn't a shadow.
It was black and sheet-thin, curved toward a center with a strap connecting the ends and some sort of disk on either side of the swell. Ronan had half a second to register, I've seen this before, and the other half to do something with this information.
I've well and truly gone insane, now, he thought, then held his breath.
The dungeon exploded in white smoke. Savage laughter rang over multiple loud thuds, and, okay, not a hallucination. Maybe still a dream.
He lunged for the spot where the item had fallen anyway. It was tangible beneath his fingers, cool and metallic, indented with little grooves in the disks. He pulled at the strap - stretchy - and slid the whole apparatus over his head. It molded to his face like it had been made specifically for him, sealing over his mouth and nose.
"You still standing?" barked Mitch's voice - barked Mitch.
Ronan crossed his fingers and yelled, "Getting there!"
And he didn't pass out. Felix, you son of a bitch.
He pushed onto shaky legs as the massive figure appeared before his cell through the slow-dispersing fog, examining something in his hands. It was all a little fuzzy.
"Too fucking many," Mitch was grumbling. There was a clatter against the ground that sounded suspiciously like keys. "Can you fit your hand through these bars?"
Ronan's mind was spinning. "Can I...huh?"
"Someone hit you over the head or something?"
Ronan could only squeeze four fingers and some of his thumb between the bars.
A grudging huff, then a stone wedge was jammed one bar from the lock, and a hasty "Step back!" was the only warning Ronan got before a sharp clang rang out, then another.
Mitch was going at the wedge with a fucking sledgehammer.
When the bars stopped vibrating, he said, "You'd better not be rusty." Something else slid beneath the bars, something leather, and Ronan fumbled to catch- his toolbelt?
And Ronan was not rusty, thank you very much, but the medieval bars sure were. They had bent beneath famously superhuman strength, just enough for Ronan to fit part of his forearm through with a pick held between two fingers. The angle was terrible, but the ancient lock gave way easily.
The door popped outward. Ronan still wasn't convinced he was awake.
But Mitch looked very real on the other side of the door. Now that the fog had somewhat cleared, Ronan noticed his unusual wear: baggy back clothing with a hood pulled over his head and a contraption identical to Ronan's own hiding the bottom of his face. No fox mask to be seen.
Dizzying relief had Ronan stumbling forward, grabbing onto the bars as his knees gave out.
He breathed, "Mi-"
"Don't call me that," Mitch hissed.
Right. "Knuc-"
"Not that, either."
"Hell am I supposed to call you, then?"
"Fuck if I know. Savior. God. Knight in Sexy Armor..."
Ronan swiftly found the strength to push through the door and past him.
Mitch - Knuckle, Ronan instinctively corrected in his head (he had to think of him as something, and like hell would it be a sexy knight) - grabbed his elbow as he passed, leaning close to murmur,
"But just between you and me: it's good to see you, Skeleton."