A/N: Hey guys! This is the longest one-shot I've ever written, but I just didn't feel like there was any spot to split it up into multiple chapters. This could be considered a companion piece to "Fate Be Told" (also Blue and Ronan friendship) but each can be read separately. I love their friendship and enjoy exploring it through my writing. Thank you to LibzJackson for being my beta. Please read and enjoy.
Third POV
Blue didn't expect to be woken up by Calla in the middle of the night, holding a phone less than an inch away from her face. She whacked the elder woman's arm away, sitting up.
"What do you want?" Blue asked Calla, scrubbing her eyes clean of sleep. Calla grinned maliciously, dropping the phone onto Blue's lap and sauntering back out of the room.
Confused, Blue picked up the phone, putting it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Jane." Gansey sounded relieved. "Sorry for waking you."
She checked the clock. 2:14 glared back at her, an irritatingly bright red.
Gansey took her silence as acceptance for waking her at this unnatural hour. Well, that or he just didn't care enough to wait for her response. "Ronan's… missing. He's gone off again. I hate to ask, but would you help us search the town for him."
Blue blinked slowly, processing this information. "Why are we so worried?" It seemed like a rather Ronan thing to do.
"He may be drunk, hurt, even dying, Jane." Gansey let out a suffering sigh. "I don't want him to get into trouble without anyone with him. Please, Jane." Please help. Please stop questioning me. Please this is important. Please. He didn't say any of it, of course, but Blue heard it all anyway.
She heaved herself out of bed, rustling through her room for a pair of shoes and a jacket. There was no point changing out of her pajamas. "Where do you want me to look?"
"Can you check by Nino's?" Gansey said grateful. "Thank you."
Blue confirmed and said goodbye, promising to contact him if she found Ronan, and hung up. She was out the door in a matter of minutes, informing Calla of her plans before hopping onto her bike straight to Nino's.
Turns out she didn't have to go that far to find him.
Ronan stood facing another guy. The guy looked rich and pompous, roughly the same age and height as Ronan, probably another student at Aglionby. Their cars were haphazardly parked on the side of the road. A road race gone wrong? An "I hate you and now is the perfect time to rearrange your face" moment? It was hard to tell, but the animosity between the two was almost tangible.
It was a dirty and vicious fight. Kicks and punches were hitting so hard the resulting sound seemed to vibrate through the air. Dirt and dust flew everywhere. Ronan eventually got the upper hand. Although Blue didn't doubt he would, she had never seen him fight like this, with this much ferocity. He took the guy to the ground with a solid fist to the jaw. Following the fallen body, Ronan dove. The punches kept coming, striking with frightening accuracy and power.
Blue knew she needed to step in and do it fast. But she wasn't Gansey, what could she do? Her eye wandered to the BMW. The driver's side door was flung open, keys in the ignition.
Might as well get his attention, Blue thought to herself, guiding her bike over to the car and popping the trunk open, without getting myself injured. She carefully fitted the bike in the trunk of the black BMW.
The guy on the ground tripped Ronan, causing the latter to stumble and tumble over the fallen boy to join him on the ground. A cloud of dust puffed up, a brown fog visible in the headlights. Ronan quickly got on top of the other boy and began a steady beat of punches to his face.
Blue quietly slid around the edge of the car, wary of getting underfoot in the fight. She did not want to be Ronan's next drum of choice. She happened to be happy with the way her face was currently arranged.
Curses were blasting out of both the fighters' mouths. Ronan's punching bag had managed to wriggle his way out from under Ronan's fury, if only for a temporary relief because they reconnected with resounding blows, trading hits as if they were magnetically drawn to each other for the sole purpose of combat.
Blue slipped into the front seat, shutting the door behind her. Ronan snapped his gaze up to the car, pausing in the middle of the punishment he was giving the bloody pulp of a boy left in his grasp. He saw her behind the wheel and grinned viciously, turning back to talk to the person in his clutches before roughly heaving the guy onto the hood of his own car.
Cackling, Ronan launched himself into the passenger side, startling Chainsaw, who'd apparently been sleeping on the dash through the entire fight and yelling, "Hit it!"
Blue twisted the key. The car roared in delight as she pressed the gas. They shot off, headlights and swearing slowly fading as they drove along.
Ronan leaned his head back, petting the baby raven in his lap. He seemed to be completely drunk. Covered in blood (which Blue guessed most of it probably wasn't his own) and bruises, but alive enough to be sufficiently drunk.
"Don't take me to Monmouth," Ronan slurred, pushing the wheel. Blue quickly righted the vehicle while also obeying the objection.
"How about my house?" Blue found that she was suddenly unsure on how to deal with a drunken Ronan. Why couldn't Gansey have found him?
He shook his head rigorously. If anyone else had done it, Blue would have said it was almost childish, but it was Ronan, muttering about not wanting to stay at her house with psychics and a bunch of other choice words that she believed were all most likely dedicated to Calla.
She sighed. "Well, where do you want to go?"
Ronan paused in his complaints. "Home."
It was Blue's turn to pause now. That was illegal, but on the other hand, if she were in his position, she'd want to visit home too. Besides, it's not like they had to tell anyone that they'd been there. She looked at the drunken boy next to her. It was only for a night. They'd be fine.
"You have to give me directions," she informed him. Ronan gave Blue a savage smile, cranking up that thing he calls music. And they set off.
The Barns looked the same as the last time they had been there, not that she'd been expecting anything to be different. It's not as though anyone besides Ronan's comatose mother and sleeping cows lived here anymore.
Ronan led the way into the house picking up blankets from one of the closets in the house and leading her into the living room where his mother sat hooked up to various tubes and wires. The medical equipment hummed and beeped, but Ronan's mother remained an immovable being.
Blue thought she had been very patient. She had even called Gansey and Calla to let them know she had found Ronan, but refusing to tell them where they were going to stay for the rest of the night, and now she wanted answers. "What happened back there?"
Ronan didn't even look up from where he was setting up two spots on the floor for them two sleep on, blankets and pillows splattered about the area. "I was fighting. What never seen a fight before?" There was his scathing tone. Even drunk, Ronan was a vicious guy, maybe even more vicious than usual.
Blue rolled her eyes, not rising to the bait. "I meant why that guy? Why pummel him so much? Why in the middle of the night while you're drunk?"
Ronan scoffed. "I felt like it. Who are you to judge?" He gestured out the windows in the direction to where they hid the car. "You rode your crappy bike in the middle of the night to the middle of a fight between two guys that could easily hurt you on their own."
"I'm not judging you. I'm trying to understand you. And do I detect a sense of worry in your tone about my welfare?"
This time Ronan actually snorted. "I don't care about you running wild into the night, pipsqueak," he said. "Probably to it all the time, naked too, for your family ritual psychic crap."
"You know," she observed as he finished building their mini beds. "When I look at you I can only think of one thing"
"Aw, and what is that?" His tone was almost scalding.
"How in the world did you out live infancy?"
He gave her another one of his wicked grins, flopping unceremoniously onto his mini bed. Chainsaw flapped her wings, settling in next to him. "Lepore." He closed his eyes, throwing an arm around them. "My charm, of course."
Blue laughed, sinking gratefully into her own mini bed, which was surprisingly more comfortable than she thought it'd be.
They laid in companionable silence for a while.
"Matthew and I used to do this for Christmas every year."
Blue froze even though she hadn't been moving previously, allowing Ronan to continue talking at his own pace.
"He was always so excited to see Santa, we'd stay up, build a fort down here, fall asleep and wake up to presents."
Blue looked around the dark room, trying to imagine it like it had been that night on Christmas Eve.
"The guy was asking for a beating," Ronan finally continued after an extended pause. Blue had thought he might have fallen asleep. "He shouldn't have insulted my father." His voice was slurring even more now, but Blue wasn't sure whether it was from the alcohol or lack of sleep this time.
Ronan didn't speak after that. Blue was about to say his name when she heard him snore. He must've finally passed out. Blue might not have been drunk, but she found herself quickly following him into sleep.
When she woke up, it was to the smell of bacon.
She followed the scent trail into the kitchen where Ronan moved around making breakfast. Who knew that any of the Raven boys could actually cook?
He didn't acknowledge her presence in the room until he set her plate in front of her on the counter and stood across from her with his own plate of food. "Eat." Ronan commanded, feeding Chainsaw her own breakfast.
Huffing a bit at the blunt order first thing in the morning, Blue ate her surprisingly good food quietly. They seemed to have come to the silent agreement that last night would not be mentioned again in the morning.
They quickly cleaned up all evidence of their little sleepover before heading back to the car. This time, Ronan took the wheel.
They drove back to 300 Fox Way. The only sound being Ronan's horrible selection of music, the bass vibrating the car, even Chainsaw was silent.
Parked in front of the driveway, Ronan surprised Blue again by also getting out and fishing her bike from the trunk.
He slammed the lid back down, thrusting the bike at her. "Don't ride out at night by yourself again."
"Don't go pick fights while drunk on your own at any time," she retorted back, a smile beginning to form on her face.
Ronan snorted, slipping back into his car. After a moment of indecision, Blue leaned back into the car through the open window.
"You're a good brother, Ronan. They're lucky to have you." They. Matthew. Gansey. Even Declan.
The Raven Boy in front of her didn't say anything, but she thought she saw something flicker across his face. And that was all she needed.
Blue waved at him from her front door as she stepped inside. She could see Ronan's signature roguish grin, sharper than any blade, gracing his face as he revved his car and drove off.
They were all very lucky.
They. Matthew. Gansey. Declan. Even Blue Sargent.
