abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] break the earth with your tiny head.

Ronan has done his very best to ignore it. It's not like he gives a shit about Yennefer. She's proven to be a huge pain in the ass and he's reasonably sure she wants to get him out of the way so she can have his man all to herself. Her business is her business and Ronan's business is Ronan's business and they only ever overlap where Kylo is concerned.

But he's noticed. He can't help but notice. He can't believe no one else has noticed, or if they have, they haven't done anything about it, because it's still going on. Why the hell are they letting it go on? Around the castle, okay, fine. But at the Summit? Where the other factions could easily see what he's seeing and figure out they've lost one of their most powerful assets?

He can't keep being quiet about it. If no one else is going to say it, he's going to have to.

When he finally finds her skulking about the halls (intentionally avoiding contact with anyone, he's pretty sure), his long legs carry him to her faster than she can escape. "Hey," he says when he catches up to her, cutting straight to the chase. "What the fuck happened to your magic?"

Ronan could tell something was wrong the moment he woke from the dream.

He'd awoken paralyzed, as usual, which meant he'd brought something back with him. Observing his body from the outside, however, he couldn't immediately tell what it was he'd manifested. His frozen body had looked wrong to him, but that was typical of the waking dreamer, that lifelessness. The dream always takes everything from the dreamer. It's an amputation of the soul, cutting out a piece to create something new from it.

And this dream... This dream took a very big piece of him.

He hadn't realized it at the time, but it also took a very big piece from something else: the Singularity. Ronan's body lay there for over an hour, faded and funereal, and this was wrong because the ambient magic of Thorne was ordinarily so thick in the air that he'd be restored from even the most complicated dreams within minutes. But there was nothing there to nourish the dreamer, and the astral Ronan watched in helpless panic, wondering if that body's heart had stopped beating altogether.

It hadn't. Some agonizing amount of time later, he'd regained the use of his limbs and finally sat up, searching for his dream.

Now, hours later, he still hasn't found it. There's nothing worse than knowing he manifested something enormous without knowing where it went or what it even is. It wouldn't be the first time a dream has appeared some distance away from his body, but it's definitely the first time he's failed to find it. Something powerful enough to have taken a gigantic gulp out of all the magic in Castle Thorne. What the hell could it be?

Drifting through the corridors, trying to investigate without arousing suspicion, his body is still shaky and weak enough that he has to stop now and then to brace himself against the wall. He feels like he's not getting enough air. It's not air he's lacking, though. He knows. He'd tried to create magic out of magic and now he's cannibalized himself. If the Singularity doesn't restore itself soon...

It takes almost a full week for the nightwash to appear. Previously, he might have regarded that as some kind of miracle. Before he was summoned to Abraxas, death had always been just hours away, and the only thing that could delay his impending doom by a few more hours was dreaming or ley energy. But for over nine months in Thorne, he's been able to live a normal life. He's been able to forget the feeling of wasting away, the desperate hunger, the quiet terror.

Now it's caught up with him.

The first time it slips, he's in the dining hall. A drop of inky liquid blackens his stew. He freezes when he sees it, watching it contaminate the food that was failing to satisfy him anyway, his stomach turning with dread. Within seconds, the nightwash is flowing from him like a bad nosebleed, spilling over his mouth and down his chin.

It comes and goes after that, severity rising and falling with the fluctuations of the Singularity. When magic is surging, he's temporarily cured. When it dips again, his starvation returns — and the nightwash with it.

People start to notice it immediately. It's impossible to ignore, after all. When he's walking down the corridor and the black starts to spill from his ears or from his eyes, the courtiers stare and scuttle away from him, whispering to each other about a curse, it must be a curse. When he's in the training yard and he doubles over retching on the toxic stuff, the guards order him away and tell him not to return until he's recovered. When he's in the library, searching frantically for answers in the mages' books, they're snatched away from him after his black tears stain the pages.

As the week progresses, he can't pretend to keep living his life. He's confined to his dormitory because he can't walk, can't see, can barely breathe around the fluid bubbling up from his lungs. The sheets of his bed are stained with it, a black so dark all light seems to disappear into it. The moment it's wiped away, more of it spills out of him. It's a horrible, grotesque sight to behold.

The nightwash is eating him away from the inside out.

Rhy drops his training sword to catch him. He's careless, tossing it aside with a clatter, his knee hitting the stone hard enough to prompt a reflexive wince-- but he can see Ronan crumpling, and he won't let him hit the ground.

The guards' rough demeanor is not appreciated.

"Leave us," Rhy snaps, as though he has any power here. "I'll take care of him."

Ronan snarls, "I don't need—" But whatever he was going to say next is lost in another round of gagging. He can feel the nightwash coming up his throat like bile, and he whips his head away from Rhy to spit as much of it as he can onto the dirt.

He gets his throat clear enough to drag in several deep breaths and then he straightens his back, refusing to let Rhy carry him around like an invalid. His legs still work.

"Don't fucking worry," he calls to the guards, who keep gawking at him and his black-stained mouth. "You won't catch it."

Rhy's hand settles comfortingly on his back, waiting for him to finish before helping to pull Ronan up to his feet once he makes the attempt. He won't insist on making Ronan lean against him if he doesn't seem like he'll double up again or go weak-kneed, but he stays close regardless, within arm's reach as much as he can.

Hiding the panic he feels while Ronan moves away from the black substance he coughed up, Rhy doesn't bother adding anything aloud to the asshole guards, but the cold anger in his eyes makes an attempt to freeze them in place with disdain alone. He leaves them to clean up and follows Ronan back inside, struggling to keep from reaching out for him again until they have a bit of privacy.

"Ronan," he calls when they reach an empty hallway, soft but urgent. Rhy touches his shoulder. "Wait. Look at me. What happened back there? Are you sick?"

Ronan despises the worry in Rhy's eyes when he meets them. For so long, he's been able to pretend this isn't happening, and they only just got to be together again, and now he has to explain this shit. It's going to be like it was with Adam all over again.

"Not sick," he mutters, tasting nightwash on his tongue. He swallows it down and wipes furiously at his mouth with the back of his hand.

He might as well get it over with while he can still talk.

"It happens when I don't dream. I stop being. You know, use it or lose it. I'm rotting."

Rhy doesn't understand. His lack of it is written on his face despite his best efforts, his eyes searching Ronan's for answers. He sounds incredibly blithe about the whole thing, leaving Rhy feeling at once frustrated and unsettled.

"Why can't you dream?" is the first question he asks, considering that seems the most apparent fix from what Ronan has just said himself.

Of course Ronan sounds blithe about it. It's the most stupid, tedious, pointlessly cruel aspect of his entire existence.

"Everything's fucked up." In case Rhy hasn't noticed. "The Singularity. The magic around here. It's too slippery. When I try to take something out, it gets away from me."

It's not like he hasn't been trying. Even with Kylo's help, trying to keep him as steady as possible, it's just too hard to dream when the signal keeps cutting out.

"This is fucking fucked."

It's been a long week of slowly watching Ronan die while being utterly unable to stop it, which means that Hennessy's vocabulary has become a steady stream of curses when she deigns to speak to anyone at all. It's also been a week since she's gotten more than twenty minutes of sleep at a time, so her coping skills -- as much as she's ever had any -- are compromised.

She's mostly been avoiding their room like the coward she knows herself to be when it comes to anyone's death but her own. She's seen herself die; she knows how that goes. But this -- this sense of utter powerlessness is worse than even the fact that she's going to lose one of the few people she's let mean anything at all to her again, and that's what's kept her away more than anything else. But she keeps finding herself back here, because not so long ago she'd been the one dying, and he hadn't let her.

She doesn't have to let him die alone. So she's here, pausing in her pacing around the room to flop on the end of his bed and inform him of just how fucked this whole entire situation is.

Of course Rhy's noticed. And he's noticed Ronan acting a bit odd the last week too, which he'd assumed related, mostly because he can tell it's affecting him too. Not the steady sapping of magic like the Dimming, but a fractured, uncertain ebb and flow that's left Rhy anxious since the eclipse and wanting to linger near Ronan when he can.

His brows furrow. He bites back a sigh, and manages a nod instead. So that's how it affects Ronan.

Tentatively, unsure if Ronan wants the touch, Rhy attempts to place a hand on his shoulder.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Usually when Ronan's feeling drained and vulnerable, his instinct is to run and hide from anyone who might feel tempted to pity him. But when Rhy touches him, he doesn't flinch away, leaning closer instead to seek out his warm. Not the warmth of his physical body, but what little he can feel of the Singularity flickering inside Rhy. Moth to a flame.

"It looks worse than it is," he says, which is mostly true. For now. "There's nothing anyone can do. It just comes and goes. As soon as I dream something, I'll be back to normal."

When Ronan opens his mouth to speak, his words gurgle out between wet gasps of air, "What... the fuck... are you... shitting yourself... ov—?"

He loses the last word to a violent cough, nightwash spurting up from his throat and past his lips like a horrible little volcanic eruption. He throws his face to the side, hacking up several more mouthfuls of ooze before he manages to suck in a real breath of air.

"Jesus fuck," he hisses, wiping his mouth in vain. There's really no point. Everything around him is soaked in black, but it's all he can do to preserve some dignity, trying not to lie here drooling on himself.

As soon as Ronan leans in, Rhy draws him into his arms, uncaring of any of the black substance that might have gotten on Ronan's clothing or his own. He slides a hand up the back of Ronan's neck, fingers curling gently at the nape in a grip meant to be reassuring.

"This happens often?"

Rhy knows the color of pure magic. The pitch black. Even before Ronan's explanation, he'd recognized it wasn't any sort of flesh and blood sickness. Ronan says he's rotting; Rhy is afraid to push him to explain further. It reminds him too much of the Black Night in London, and all the people who had died bleeding darkness from their mouths and eyes, burnt up by power they could not control. It had eaten them from the inside out.

"Ah-- We don't have to talk about it out here. How about a bath? One of the private rooms," he suggests. Their training was cut short, but it still feels earned.

Of course, the problem isn't that Ronan can't sleep, exactly. It's the issue with the magic keeping him from dreaming, but his first thought is to suggest something relaxing anyway.

"Bath," Ronan agrees, his eyes drifting shut for just a moment as he savors that simple touch. Even if he hadn't been vomiting nightwash, a bath after training is always ideal, especially in Rhy's company.

He stays close even when he draws back to lead the way. He's dizzier than he'd like to let on, his vision dimming in a way that makes him sure the nightwash will soon be spilling from his eyes, too. Fortunately, the baths aren't too far from here.

"This used to happen to me every day," he murmurs grimly. "My world wasn't like this one. There wasn't enough magic to keep me alive there."

Rhy notices his proximity, the way Ronan lingers just a little closer than usual, but he doesn't comment. He's not sure if Ronan is doing it for comfort or because he doesn't feel well, and it doesn't really matter; Rhy walks with him close enough to touch without quite doing so, restraining himself from openly hovering.

"That sounds awful."

Ronan concurs, "It's total shit."

Which is an understatement, but he doesn't want to add to Rhy's distress. There's no point in giving him the details about something he can't help.

Though he doesn't normally give in to the urge for public displays of affection, he reaches for Rhy's hand now, holding it in a loose grip. It's getting harder to see, and he keeps his face slightly turned away in the hopes that Rhy won't notice the nightwash gathering in his eyes, turning them black.

Immediately and without comment, Rhy takes his hand. Lacing their fingers together, he squeezes, gentle but steady.

"It's the result of insufficient magic, then? Or... your own being too much?"

He can't help but ask. Ronan doesn't seem entirely against talking about it, and Rhy wants to understand. Needs to reassure himself as well, and shove aside the stomach-churning discomfort that strikes with unexpected force when he catches a glimpse of Ronan's eyes filling up with black.

"It's..."

Well, he doesn't honestly know for sure. The only person he ever had to guide him on the matter turned out to be no more of an expert than Ronan himself. How much of Bryde's teaching can he even consider true?

"It's like running out of food. When you're starving, your body starts eating up its own muscle or whatever just to keep going. My body's eating itself up trying to make a dream happen, because there's not enough magic to make it work. And I need to eat even more magic than most dreamers because I'm not... made like them. That's why this happens to me every fucking day and not once a decade."

He remembers Ronan's warnings that sleeping in the same room as him would be dangerous for Rhy, specifically. Because of his need to consume so much magic while he dreams. If the supply is insufficient or unsteady, like the magic has felt lately--

Rhy leads them into the bath chambers, the rooms for changing first. He stops, letting go of Ronan's hand only to reach for his buttons instead, beginning to peel him out of his dirty clothes.

He is quiet for a few moments, as if focused on the task at hand. Considering. With Ronan's shirt hanging open, Rhy presses his palm to the center of his pale chest.

"Take it from me. I know you can."

Ronan reaches up, laying his hand over Rhy's. He holds it there for a long moment, then pulls it from his chest to his mouth, kissing Rhy's knuckles and murmuring against them, "Not a chance."

Yet his lips linger there, tempted by the offering. It almost looks as if he's contemplating whether he should take a nibble, whether he can get away with slipping a couple of Rhy's fingers into his mouth for a small bite. Everything gets very confusing when he's this way. His body never seems to know what to do with this craving.

When his dark lashes rise and he flicks his gaze to Rhy, his eyes are almost completely black. Ronan can't truly see him, but he can feel the erratic pulse of the Singularity emanating from Rhy, beckoning him.

"What do you think? Asshole."

She grumbles resentfully, refusing to look at him. It's a little late for I told you so, but she's been radiating the general sentiment at him for days now. Dying like this is the worst thing he could've done to her, worse than stabbing her through the heart with VEXED TO NIGHTMARE, which she'd always fully expected him to do one day in retaliation for what she'd done.

But this way -- this way forces him to watch the end that waits for her if she intended on living very long after him. She doesn't, but that's beside the point.

"I always knew you'd die helping someone who didn't deserve it. Kinda thought it'd be me, though."

McCoy really only knows of Ronan by reputation, by sight, pointed out to him by the mages who seem to be slightly in awe of the man. Quiet, pale but handsome, with a thoughtful face he vaguely remembers first seeing under a full moon, on a battlefield he earned a title for and promptly discarded.

They don't travel in the same circles, even in a place as relatively small as Thorne so, what glimpses he has of the other man are always brief. McCoy doesn't know anything is wrong until well after his own magic troubles have started, but soon he can't ignore the smell in the dormitories, the telltale stink of sour putrefaction slipping under his own door. To say it's alarming would be putting it lightly-- the few courtiers he questions look uncomfortable and simply scurry away, but one he nearly collars like a misbehaving pup finally points out Ronan's room.

It's horrible to see another person like this, left to suffer, to sink slowly in the sticky wash of fetid black ichor. Bones sweeps in with the sweet scent of Georgia spring and gapes for just a second, automatically breathing through his mouth so his stomach doesn't churn into useless knots from the smell. He's handled a fair few corpses in his lifetime, in various states of decay; doesn't like it but needs must when the Devil drives, and for a moment he honestly thinks he's got to do it again, steeling himself for the inevitable when he draws nearer to Ronan's bedside.

Except he's breathing.

"My god, kid." Ronan's probably, what, close enough in age to him, but the phrase falls from his mouth like a bad habit. A look of pure venom gets flung over his shoulder, like he could sling it back at everyone who's walked past the man's room and done fuckall for him, before he turns back to swipe black away from his mouth with a handkerchief.

"Ronan, I'm a doctor; Doctor McCoy. I'm gonna roll you onto your side here, and try to make it easier for you to breathe."

Useless reaction goes followed by useful action, a second's hesitation before he commits to getting his hands dirty: literally, pulling back soiled bed linens and moving to maneuver Ronan into the recovery position.

Edited (lil cleanup) 2022-03-20 21:02 (UTC)

Though he knows what's causing it, and he'd glimpsed the black at the edges of Ronan's eyes, it still sends a shock through Rhy to meet his gaze like that. He squeezes Ronan's fingers reflexively, perhaps a little too tight.

"I've told you before," he murmurs, loosening his grip to continue removing Ronan's clothes for him. With gentle, methodical movements, he pulls Ronan's shirt from his shoulders, reaches for his belt.

"You can't kill me."

He'd give Ronan what he needed, if only he knew how. He doesn't. Ronan has to take it -- but Rhy already knows he won't, that he considers it too high a risk. There's nothing he can do but offer.

She says that like it hasn't already happened. Ronan's lips pull back into a bitter sneer, his sharp teeth smeared with black. She deserves to watch him die like this. More than anyone else, she's the one who should have to see it.

"What did you expect to happen," he asks, "when you ripped the ley line away from me?"

Was it not this? Did she not know he'd be dying like this within hours? Rotting on the side of the highway like roadkill.

[ OPEN ] break the earth with your tiny head.

closed to yennefer;

open to all; bad moon rising

open to all; nightwash

training yard.

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dormitory

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dorm; cw for body fluids, emeto, talkin' bout dead stuff, the whole 9 yards

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