i came down over the sleepy mountains.

[nightmarist]

WHO: Ronan Lynch & Dick Gansey III
WHERE: The Meadows
WHEN: Late November
WHAT: Sad times at the dream farm.
WARNINGS: Who knows!

Mornings at the Meadows are silent now. Like its twin back home, the farm has become a memorial to the lives that used to inhabit it, a graveyard for all the things that have gone. Ronan wakes to the sound of pouring rain on the roof, a clatter that only emphasizes the quiet of the house. The fieldwork will have to wait for another day, and the light coming in through the windows is the faint gray of dawn, which means it's too early to get much of anything done.

He leaves his bedroom (his cell, really) and drifts through the dark halls without bothering to turn on a light. He knows the place by heart, even if it's colder these days than he remembered telling it to be. After a few minutes of wandering, he finds himself at Gansey's door.

One day he'll open this door and find Gansey's gone, too. That's the way of things: everyone goes, Ronan stays. He shuts his eyes and says a prayer, then pushes it open.

His shoulders sink in relief. Gansey lies in a heap of blankets and books on his bed in the center of the room, glasses still perched on his nose though he's fast asleep now. Ronan creeps over to him and plucks them from his face, setting them aside, then crawls up to settle against his master's side like some human-shaped Great Dane.