[ Winter Wonderland meets World War Insomnia, and it's down to the clean-up crew to bury the casualties. The Barns never vindicated Ronan's childhood nostalgia and revived to overnight stardom on the Southern socialite real estate catalogue — there are roof tiles to right, fences to fix, random but disturbing patches of land to flatten. Cows to herd before they wizen up and form a union. Filth that's been reproducing at the rate of the average rabbit colony in explicit health. It all capitalizes on time Ronan's got in spades and energy he's decided in his infinite wisdom to dedicate to birthing twenty-one new breeds of fennel in the upcoming 2.0 edition of the new, improved, but delayed Cabeswater. It's all going according to someone's plan —
Until Declan learns the nitty, gritty and inevitable, and it's a battle of logistics that Ronan never wanted to fight against the world, and yet here he is, applying for permits, registering property, falling in line with a lawyer who's determined to make the property market their personal innuendo slave, minus the actual fornication. We need to protect this place, except for the part where Declan, urban knight in a cheque-stitched shining armor, hasn't bled a single God damned tear throughout this ordeal. It's been Ronan, finding or... generating the papers, Ronan accepting the suited invasion of surveyors and city folks, Ronan exiling the livestock to corners of the farm and the known universe that didn't exist until ten minutes ago, to accommodate inspections.
...and it's Ronan who breaks, one fine powder-wintered morning, when the snow's thin haze and the cold cloys down corridors where pipes groan out of retirement and into the stupor of slow, heat-swelling service. He wakes to anger, gashes on his legs, Chainsaw spread above him like every tyrant claiming her land — and at the feet of his bed, coating the carpets, down the fine-scratched wood of his mother's stairs, a spread of fellow ravens: smaller, if dreamed awake in adult form. Sullen, though never silent, searching the grounds, until Opal's screams force Ronan to dare the legions with the baseball bat he's risen in the ranks to standard bedside protection.
They let themselves be steered out easily enough, but plant themselves like a dark woodland in his back yard, litterer points of contrast in token snow and sharp, teeth-stripping cold. Chainsaw corrals them and flies warning circles, whenever she thinks they've come too close to entering the home that's already lost their interest. Opal declares a tacit protest. Ronan... opts for caffeine and codeine, the winning breakfast combination against the migraine he's waged upon the world, and the one roiling in his head.
It's only fitting, really, that it's a rare Saturday when Adam's due in by three, after his morning shift. Spend some quality time together, grab the books and go. It's them, the bleeding cold, winged killers and Ronan's ongoing hatred of humanity and its derelict, nightmare-born spawn. Romantic.
He thinks, if he were a better boyfriend — one adept to ticking at least three boxes down a standard checklist's line — he'd warn Adam ahead of his arrival. Let him determine on his own if fighting Ronan, his bed and his unearthly critters is the best use of the handful of spare hours Adam would sooner not spend comatose in restitution of his interminable sleep debt.
But there's selfishness that's poisoned the well of Ronan's soul for months now, a quiet need to accorporate and keep and call his own. What Adam doesn't know until he's on the patio, Ronan already out with his friend, the sturdy bat, to greet him — can't hurt him. The murder of ravens has strategically decided to follow Chainsaw in investigating the back, before Ronan could contemplate his own thoughts on bird culling.
He waves Adam close, as soon as he's in line, thick rows of melting snow on the t-shirt and choice ripped jeans he's dragged on enough to indicate, ah. Perhaps he's been playing welcome committee for some time now. Eager. ]
Don't freak, but hooligans raided the Barbie house. [ And because they're at the point in this thing they're studiously not upgrading to a relationship that transparency gets some boys hot under their collars: ] Wasn't the usual suspects.
no subject
Until Declan learns the nitty, gritty and inevitable, and it's a battle of logistics that Ronan never wanted to fight against the world, and yet here he is, applying for permits, registering property, falling in line with a lawyer who's determined to make the property market their personal innuendo slave, minus the actual fornication.
We need to protect this place, except for the part where Declan, urban knight in a cheque-stitched shining armor, hasn't bled a single God damned tear throughout this ordeal. It's been Ronan, finding or... generating the papers, Ronan accepting the suited invasion of surveyors and city folks, Ronan exiling the livestock to corners of the farm and the known universe that didn't exist until ten minutes ago, to accommodate inspections.
...and it's Ronan who breaks, one fine powder-wintered morning, when the snow's thin haze and the cold cloys down corridors where pipes groan out of retirement and into the stupor of slow, heat-swelling service. He wakes to anger, gashes on his legs, Chainsaw spread above him like every tyrant claiming her land — and at the feet of his bed, coating the carpets, down the fine-scratched wood of his mother's stairs, a spread of fellow ravens: smaller, if dreamed awake in adult form. Sullen, though never silent, searching the grounds, until Opal's screams force Ronan to dare the legions with the baseball bat he's risen in the ranks to standard bedside protection.
They let themselves be steered out easily enough, but plant themselves like a dark woodland in his back yard, litterer points of contrast in token snow and sharp, teeth-stripping cold. Chainsaw corrals them and flies warning circles, whenever she thinks they've come too close to entering the home that's already lost their interest. Opal declares a tacit protest. Ronan... opts for caffeine and codeine, the winning breakfast combination against the migraine he's waged upon the world, and the one roiling in his head.
It's only fitting, really, that it's a rare Saturday when Adam's due in by three, after his morning shift. Spend some quality time together, grab the books and go. It's them, the bleeding cold, winged killers and Ronan's ongoing hatred of humanity and its derelict, nightmare-born spawn. Romantic.
He thinks, if he were a better boyfriend — one adept to ticking at least three boxes down a standard checklist's line — he'd warn Adam ahead of his arrival. Let him determine on his own if fighting Ronan, his bed and his unearthly critters is the best use of the handful of spare hours Adam would sooner not spend comatose in restitution of his interminable sleep debt.
But there's selfishness that's poisoned the well of Ronan's soul for months now, a quiet need to accorporate and keep and call his own. What Adam doesn't know until he's on the patio, Ronan already out with his friend, the sturdy bat, to greet him — can't hurt him. The murder of ravens has strategically decided to follow Chainsaw in investigating the back, before Ronan could contemplate his own thoughts on bird culling.
He waves Adam close, as soon as he's in line, thick rows of melting snow on the t-shirt and choice ripped jeans he's dragged on enough to indicate, ah. Perhaps he's been playing welcome committee for some time now. Eager. ]
Don't freak, but hooligans raided the Barbie house. [ And because they're at the point in this thing they're studiously not upgrading to a relationship that transparency gets some boys hot under their collars: ] Wasn't the usual suspects.