the butcher's bill must always be paid.

[nightmarist]

WHO: Ronan Lynch & YOU
WHERE: The Black Box Fight Club
WHEN: Before Ronan's inevitable capture
WHAT: Business with a certain dealer.
WARNINGS: Who knows?

The Black Box isn't an official name. It's simply the name visitors eventually bestowed upon the worn-down brick garage that belonged to an honest mechanic before it was repurposed and doused in pitch-black paint. Most of the time, the place is abandoned. Fight nights are random, announced just hours in advance and only by word of mouth. Fighters and spectators have to know someone or know someone who knows someone, and even then, the muscle might deny entry to anyone who stinks of narc. It's a private event, buddy.

The entry fee is $90. The winner will walk away with $100,000.

Inside, the fighting ring is just a square delineated by steel traffic barricades. There are no seats, no bleachers for the audience. They'll stand on their own two feet and watch a succession of bareknuckle boxers fight round after bloody round until the champion is declared. Bets can be placed at the bar, which offers two beverage options: cheap beer or cheap whiskey.

This illegal enterprise serves as the cover to an even less legal, even more dangerous business being run out the back.

Ronan Lynch likes to fight a round or two to get his blood pumping, but his associates know he's not there for the prize money. He drops out when his real clients begin to show up and meets them in the place he jokingly refers to as his office: the locker room. This room serves no other purpose these days, as the lockers for some reason refuse to open for anyone other than Ronan Lynch. Each one holds a different treasure, or weapon, or enchanted item. He'll introduce prospective buyers to every single one, if they haven't arrived with something already in mind.

This may seem like a risky strategy, but anyone who might have once considered fucking over Ronan Niall Lynch has since learned better. One time, a would-be thief emerged screaming from the locker room with his hands half-devoured by 24-carat gold scarabs, which only returned to their jewelry form once they'd finished eating the rest of him. Another thief somehow ended up blind and too terrified to describe how he'd come to be that way.

Ronan Lynch doesn't have many friends. But as long as he doesn't deem them a threat to himself, personally, he'll sell anything to anyone. No questions asked on either side of the table.

Comments

[nightmarist]

No.

Ronan's lips have parted to allow the sucked intake of a breath, but the scream he wants to let loose remains caught in his throat.

No.

He turns all of his focus to the cell phone, to will his thumb to send out a warning to Declan, but his fingers don't so much as twitch.

No.

He tries to shed his body altogether, to flicker out of this reality, to slip away like a forgotten thought. But he's rooted to the spot. Trapped in this corpse.

[photophobic]

Kylo considers Ronan silently for a few more heartbeats, then curls his fingers. The cell phone glides out from Ronan's grip and flies smoothly to his palm, where he scrolls up to read the last few exchanges before discarding the device with an absent flick. It scuttles, shuddering across the concrete, and comes to a stop. Kylo's head swings to fix its blank masked stare on Ronan's face. He reaches towards him, towards his mind. He's an ice floe over the surface of his thoughts.

"Who supplied you with the capsules?" Kylo asks, his voice deceptively light.

[nightmarist]

Ronan's mind unfolds like a book falling open to the precise correct page. Like he was always meant to be read, if only someone thought to skim. If he passed for human before, he doesn't come close to it now. Humans have a will of their own. They have a natural resistance to influence. But Ronan is a wish that other people make.

He hears himself answer, "No one."

[photophobic]

How beautifully, blissfully simple it is, to press in— Ronan gives way like he was always waiting for Kylo to ask. He's like... a gift, so eager to be claimed it unwraps itself.

"No one," Kylo echoes. He can already see the outline of the truth beginning to take shape. "It's the same for all of them. Isn't it. All your... miraculous finds. These expensive toys and trinkets. All of them."

He paces forwards.

"Where do you find them, Ronan?"

[nightmarist]

"They come from me."

He has spent his entire life terrified that this truth might be discovered. Now, confessing it to a malevolent stranger, Ronan doesn't even experience the fear that seized him a minute ago. He can't fathom freedom enough to fight for it. His entire purpose has been recalibrated to the desire of the one holding his mind.

He breathes slowly now.

"From my dreams."

[photophobic]

There's no need to be afraid, as long as he submits. Kylo's will hums with satisfaction, feeding thick, heavy encouragement into Ronan's mind. Like this. Just like this.

"You could find more for me," Kylo prompts, almost softly now. "Couldn't you. If I wanted them."

[nightmarist]

It can't be called submission. That would imply Ronan ever had a choice to surrender. He doesn't submit to Kylo's probing any more than marble submits to the sculptor. Dreams are meant to be dreamed, ideas are meant to be shaped, and the Greywaren is meant to actualize.

Answers. Wishes. Terrors.

Light.

"Yes."

[photophobic]

"Who's waiting to hear from you?" Kylo asks. An idea is drawing together in his mind as he skims through Ronan's thoughts, coalescing into a wish. A desire.

Why content himself with the merchandise, when he can have the manufacturer?

"Your safeguards. Protections. List them for me."

[nightmarist]

"My brother," Ronan answers without a moment's hesitation, "is waiting in the BMW parked in the back alley. I'm texting him every fifteen minutes. If he doesn't hear from me, he'll put out a call to our muscle. They're in the bar across the street. They'll come in from the front. Declan will come in through the fire door."

The one on the other end of the locker room, propped open just an inch so it can be accessed from the outside. That's how it is when Ronan acts alone. He's never more than one text away from his brother. It's why he's still alive.

"He knows what you can do and he can stop you. He's also got a gun." A dispassionate warning. It doesn't seem to matter to Ronan, now, whether Declan rescues him or not. "It's been more than ten minutes since my last text."

[photophobic]

Kylo considers, taking a moment to reach out for confirmation.
It's an effective list of protections, yes, particularly if he wants to avoid drawing undue attention to himself and his activities. But it's hardly impossible to take apart.

"Come here," he says, reaching for Ronan's discarded phone and weighing it thoughtfully in his hand as he waits to be obeyed. "I can feel him. Waiting for you, in the car. Gripping the wheel to steady himself. Counting seconds. Let's not give him any reason for alarm, shall we?"

It probably isn't difficult to imagine a number of ways Kylo could kill Declan from here, if he really can sense his presence. The gun, for example. Kylo could have it in Declan's hand, pressed to Declan's temple just as easily as he has Ronan's fingers curling around his phone.

"Send him the check-in signal."

[nightmarist]

As mindless as a marionette, Ronan steps forward to take the phone. He stares at the screen for a long moment, like he's puzzled by it, then slowly backspaces away the letters of the message he'd been in the middle of composing when he was captured.

all cl
all c
all
al
a

He replaces it with:

nothing yet

And he holds up the phone for Kylo's approval before he hits SEND.

[photophobic]

Kylo takes the phone, checking it over. Sending the message too early could be just as much of a cause for concern as sending it too late, and they have a couple of minutes remaining. In the meantime...

"Turn."

It's remarkable, really. Ronan's height and build. With Kylo's surcoat, cowl and helmet, he could easily pass for his twin. Behind Ronan comes the strange click and hiss release of the latch as Kylo Ren, for the first time since his creation, unmasks outside of the comfort of his own apartment.

"Hold this," he says in his own voice, putting the helmet into Ronan's hands. He wastes no time pulling the cowl and gorget collar over his head. The surcoat follows.

"You are going to walk to my car," Kylo instructs smoothly, beginning to dress Ronan as he speaks. "Do you understand? Directly to my car. I'll be following behind you."

[nightmarist]

Ronan turns. Without the phone screen to focus on anymore, his eyes gaze forward into nothing. His captor unmasks and it makes no difference to him. The consciousness piloting his body isn't his own. Information stacks up in his memory with no one there to sort through it. Useless to him.

He holds perfectly still while Kylo drapes his body in dramatic black costuming, concealing his ragged muscle tee and his intricate ink. A mannequin until it's his turn to respond. Then he utters, "I understand."

Directly to the car.

[photophobic]

There. Time. He sends Ronan's message, then tosses the phone aside. All that's left now is to take his helmet back from Ronan's hands, carefully place it on his head and seal it in place. He lifts the hood of the cowl, steps back and admires his work with a wild rush of satisfaction, then gives Ronan the first nudge to turn towards the door and stride out.

To the casual observer, the masked man from earlier will be leaving the Black Box, tailed at a short distance by another figure in black— easily assumed to be one of the operation's heavies.

[nightmarist]

Ronan has imagined his capture a thousand times. Declan made it impossible not to. It almost became a game between them. He would invent a hypothetical scenario and together they would run through solutions, deceptions, escape plans.

But even in their preparations for today, neither of them imagined Ronan simply walking out the door.

Caged in the costume of his kidnapper, Ronan leaves the safety of the Black Box, his own feet carrying him in confident strides away from his life. The brothers knew that people out there wanted to own the Greywaren. Neither of them understood how readily the Greywaren wanted to be owned. Ronan always had such a strong will, after all. So many years of fighting, only to go down without a fight.

[dauntless_son]

Fourteen minutes.

Declan isn't prone to nervous habits, but now he feels restless and bothered. Something isn't right, he knows it. He stares at the last text message Ronan sent. Nothing yet.

He looks toward the fire door and flips through his contacts to the hired muscle they have to help with problems. Usually Declan Lynch can handle it, whatever it is, but other times a show of overwhelming force is necessary. Especially when there's a pair of meta brothers the government would surely like to get their hands on. Ronan's ability to manifest anything; Declan's ability to nullify other metas. It's one of Declan's recurring nightmares. He doesn't care what happens to him, but he can't let anything happen to Ronan.

Fifteen minutes.

He looks at his phone but there's no text from Ronan. Declan rolls out of the BMW and closes the door quietly. The gun from beneath the seat ends up hidden in a holster under his jacket.

Something's wrong.

He heads for the fire door, heart pounding as he prepares to render any meta in the building helpless. Even for people that have trained to fight without their power, the shock is usually enough for him to get the upper hand. Declan slips into the locker room, outwardly unconcerned. If he walks in a deal, he'll play the part he's meant to.

But there is no deal happening.

There is no Ronan.

For a few precious seconds, Declan just stands there, listening hard as if Ronan might just be in another part of the room. But there's nothing but the sound of his pulse throbbing in his ears. Maybe Ronan left and didn't text. It wouldn't even be the first time. Maybe he's circled round, back out at the BMW--

Then he sees it. Ronan's phone discarded on the floor. Slow and deliberate, Declan goes to it, crouches down to pick it up. There's nothing there but the open message window.

Nothing yet.

For most of his life, Declan Lynch has done everything in his power to keep his brother safe from everyone, even himself. And in the space of fifteen fucking minutes, he's lost him. He takes a deep breath and pushes down the rising panic. Panicking won't help him find Ronan. He slips the phone into his pocket and texts their backup. He can't alert anyone to this. They can't know the Greywaren is a person.

Fuck fuck fuck.

"Goddamnit, Ronan," he whispers into the empty space. "You better stay alive."

Wherever he is, Declan will come for him.

But first, he needs resources.