Chapter Text
The Barns was where Adam went to get away.
Also to see Ronan, but after spending the work week in Washington, the farm was a welcome respite from city life. Convenience and variety made D.C. nice—Adam could buy toothpaste at midnight and go a month without eating the same kind of food twice—but it was exhausting: his daily commute, tourists at the Garden’s conservatory, all the noise from cars and buses and the Metro.
Most weeks, by Friday afternoon he was more than ready to leave the city, even if it meant a two hour drive before he could really begin his weekend. But with every mile he put between himself and Washington, Adam relaxed a little bit more, so by the time he pulled into the Barns' driveway, he was as loose as he could possibly be.
It wasn't any different for him that Friday, and, for once, he was glad to be at the conservatory; it was a few minutes faster getting out of D.C. from there, and Adam would take any advantage that got him in Ronan's presence closer to seven than eight. Shortly before five, Adam slipped into the administrative offices, said goodbye to Blue, and then he was in his car on his way out of the city. He didn't even need to stop home first. Over the past year, like some of Ronan's clothes had migrated to Washington, some of Adam's clothes had migrated to the Barns, and he had a duplicate of every toiletry and creature comfort he had in his condo in Ronan's bathroom and bedroom.
Because Adam had a home in both places.
And because the Barns was as much his home as his condo in D.C., Adam sensed there was something wrong as soon as he stepped through the front door. Not wrong wrong, because their Friday routine seemed intact, but like the time he came home to a leaking ceiling courtesy of a toddler, an inattentive parent, and an overflowing bathtub. Like that night, the base of Adam’s skull hollowed, the skin on the back of his neck prickled, responses unique to something being not quite right.
On the surface though, everything seemed right. Adam had parked next to Ronan’s BMW, and Ronan’s usual shoes sat in their usual pile beside the front door. The rich fragrance of cooking onions, peppers, and spices filled the house, which meant Ronan was making dinner, and that gave Adam a little relief. Fajitas, too, by the smell of it, a recipe Ronan had silently added to his rotation after Adam mentioned he liked Tex-Mex. Everything had the familiar trappings of their standard Friday night.
Except normally, by the time Adam shut the door behind himself, took his jacket off, and lined his shoes up next to Ronan’s pile, Ronan would have at least stuck his head out of the kitchen, if not stepped all the way into the front hall, depending on the level of attention dinner needed.
Ronan didn’t do either, the first concrete sign something wasn’t quite right.
Then Adam noticed the silence.
Not absolute silence. Between the life lived within it and the age of the farmhouse, the Barns was never completely quiet. There was always a creaking floorboard, the low rumble of the dryer, a glass being set down on a table.
From the kitchen, Adam heard the sound of a spatula scraping a pan and the quiet squeak of the oven door as it opened and closed.
What he didn’t hear was music from the Bluetooth speaker on the windowsill, no jaunty Irish folk song, no thudding EDM, sounds that broke up the monotony of the knife hitting the cutting board as Ronan sliced, chopped, and diced.
And that was almost more concerning than the lack of greeting.
Heading down the hall, Adam walked into the kitchen, half expecting to find Ronan wearing a pair of massive, expensive headphones, using them to listen to music instead of the speaker. But he wasn’t. He stood at the stove, pushing the fajita filling around in a cast iron skillet, and as Adam entered the kitchen, he glanced over his shoulder and said, “Hey.”
“Hey.” Keeping the unease in his voice to a minimum, and not bringing up this was decidedly abnormal behavior for Ronan, Adam asked, “You good?”
“Why wouldn’t I be good?” Ronan put his spatula down and turned around to face Adam, furrowing his eyebrows. He looked genuinely confused—a look Adam didn’t like because Ronan wasn’t often confused unless he was faking it with one of his nieces—until Adam waved toward the front door and then at the Bluetooth speaker. Following Adam’s gestures, confusion left Ronan's face after a moment, enough for it to be bearable, and he scrubbed a hand over his jaw before he looked at Adam and said, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Are you? Because—no offense, Lynch—you don’t seem like it.” Crossing the kitchen to stand in front of Ronan, Adam hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of Ronan’s jeans before spreading his hands over Ronan’s hips. His fingers slipped under Ronan’s t-shirt, and Adam pressed them into Ronan’s skin, letting the warm solidity of Ronan ground him for a second before he asked, direct and plain, “Is this still about the doctor thing?”
Adam didn’t really want to rehash an argument they’d had earlier in the week about Ronan not going for a basic check-up in years. It had been bad enough the first time, and Adam didn't care to reprise the biggest fight they'd had, even though it had worked out in his favor. Even if he still didn't understand why.
Ronan had taken care of his ailing mother for more than a decade. He knew how important medical treatment was.
Yet he hadn’t gone for a basic wellness exam since his early thirties.
Adam’s reaction to learning that had been very candid and, in hindsight, more than a little callous. Ronan was, understandably, defensive and belligerent, until Adam blurted out he wanted Ronan to take care of himself because he loved Ronan and wanted him to be around for a long, long time.
After that, Ronan almost immediately agreed to call a doctor and Adam felt miserable enough to sincerely apologize, even though they rarely said they were sorry.
But if it still irked Ronan, Adam wanted to get it behind them so they could enjoy their weekend. The Barns was meant for good weekends, a paradise where they could lose themselves for a few days together before returning to real life.
“No. Jesus. Don’t be a shit about that again. I told you I’d make an appointment.” Ronan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and let out a long breath between his teeth before he looked at Adam again. "I'm in a—funk. Or something."
"A funk. About?" In lieu of response, Ronan grunted and waved his hands around as if to say everything, and Adam raised his eyebrows. He knew Ronan, but he'd need a little more than an all-encompassing gesture to weed out what the problem really was. "That helps a lot."
"Go to hell," Ronan said without malice, moving closer to Adam and dropping his forehead onto Adam's shoulder. Unhooking his thumbs, Adam wrapped his arms all the way around Ronan and held him until Ronan murmured into the side of his neck, "I can't—I need to do something."
If it got Ronan talking, they could do something—anything—and Adam nodded, cheek rubbing against Ronan’s buzz cut. “Okay,” he said. Fajitas tasted just as good reheated, and he moved away from Ronan to turn the stovetop and oven off before holding his hand out to Ronan. “Come on. Let’s walk.”
“Dinner, Parrish.”
“I’d prefer eating with you when you’re out of your funk.”
“Might starve, then.”
“Come on, Ronan.”
Ronan took Adam’s hand and, together, they walked into the hall and shoved their feet into shoes. Adam threw Ronan’s leather jacket at him before he could leave the house without it, and, hand-in-hand, they walked down the front steps and onto the dirt track that ran between the farm’s long-fallow fields. In better weather, it was a route they took often, a long walk out to where the dirt road ended at the edge of the woods before turning around and walking back to the house or sometimes out to where the driveway met the main road. Being quiet for most of that walk wasn’t unusual, and, this time, they were nearly to the treeline before Ronan spoke.
“I can’t do this,” he said, voice gritty and strained, almost as if it were being drawn out of him by torture.
Adam knew it wasn’t meant in an I’m breaking up with you way, but that didn’t stop a thorny vine from wrapping around his heart in a vise for a moment. It took a few breaths for it to untangle itself, but once it did, he waited, watching Ronan out of the corner of his eye. Ronan’s head was tilted back, his gaze on the dusty purple of the spring evening, and his grip on Adam’s hand was as tight as the look on his face. All Adam wanted was to reach over and rub away the tension in Ronan’s jaw, but he didn’t, not wanting to interrupt Ronan’s struggle with getting his thoughts into words.
They were all the way to the woods when Ronan sighed, groaned, and scraped his free hand over his face. Then he continued, “The other night, you said you wanted me around for a long time.”
“It was a long, long time, if I remember correctly.”
“Don’t be a dick.” Ronan bumped his shoulder into Adam’s, and when Adam glanced at him, Ronan had relaxed enough to smile a little. Staying close so their arms brushed as they made the turn to head back toward the house, he said, “I don’t want to be around like this. Weekends and random Tuesdays and shit. It works, but—I want to be around all the time.”
With that statement, Ronan pushed them into an inevitable conversation, one they’d been dancing around and avoiding since they’d talked about their future after Adam met Ronan’s family. A conversation Adam hadn’t planned on having that weekend, but one that was rooted in the fight he’d started, so he didn’t feel like he could change the subject. And he didn’t want to change the subject, because he’d willingly admit he liked the prospect of seeing Ronan all the time. Leaving him, watching him leave—those weren’t Adam’s favorite parts of the week, even if he knew it was only a few days before he saw Ronan again.
Letting go of Ronan’s hand, Adam wound his arm around Ronan and Ronan wrapped his arm around Adam, and they walked hip to hip in comfortable quiet for a few yards before Adam said, “You want to move to D.C.”
He didn’t pose it as a question, because it wasn’t. The joint future they’d talked about depended on them living together permanently, even if they hadn’t put a timeline on when that would happen. What Ronan was suggesting was only possible if he moved to Washington; Adam didn’t have the luxury of remote work, and a four hour round-trip commute everyday wasn’t sustainable. As much as he liked driving, as much as he loved the Barns, that arrangement could end up worse than what they currently had. So their option was Adam’s condo or continuing with what they were doing, and Ronan didn’t appear interested in the latter.
Adam wasn’t either.
“Yeah,” Ronan replied, easy, casual, like Adam should have intuited what he was going to say. “Your mattress is terrible, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to wake up on it every day.”
Laughing a little, because only Ronan would insult Adam’s bed when he wanted to fall asleep in it every night, Adam said, “We can get a new mattress.”
They could redecorate the whole condo if Ronan wanted to. Whatever it took to make it theirs. Which was apparently what Ronan had in mind because he said, “And a new couch.”
“That’s going a bit far.”
“I’ve sat on it enough to know it sucks.”
Adam laughed again and leaned into Ronan for a few steps. For the mood he’d been in when Adam arrived, Adam had expected they would pace the dirt road until it got dark while Ronan told him what was wrong in fits and starts. He hadn’t expected Ronan’s revelation to come so easily, to already be out before they were a quarter of the way back to the house. But it made sense. Ronan had had the few days after their fight to think things through. He already knew what he wanted.
But that didn’t explain Ronan being in a self-described funk when he’d already made up his mind and had moved onto interior designing. Ronan wasn’t prone to lying, but he was prone to omitting a fact or two, which meant the crux of Ronan’s bad mood wasn’t moving to D.C. Gently, Adam said, “You didn’t make up your mind today, did you?”
It took Ronan a moment to answer, and Adam heard him breathe in and let it out through his teeth before he said, “No.” Then Ronan scraped his hand over his jaw again and shook his head. “No. That wasn’t a hard decision.”
“Then why were you—are you—in a funk?”
Again, it took Ronan a while to answer, and before he did, he slowed them to a stop. “I want it,” he told Adam, “but I feel shitty for wanting it.”
Taking his arm from around Ronan, Adam stepped in front of him. The sun had sunk further behind the mountains to the west, leaving the Barns in the last dregs of dusk, and Ronan’s face was shadowed. It didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t looking at Adam but at the field over Adam’s shoulder as Adam asked, “Why?” Any other time, he would have said something about Ronan having too much Catholic guilt, but it didn’t seem like the night for that.
“Because why would I want to leave this?” Ronan held his arms out, jabbing his hands at the fields and outbuildings around them, frustration thinning his voice. “There’s so much—I used to do donuts in the BMW there.” He pointed to a field to the right of them. “God, it was so fucking muddy. It was great. And Declan broke his arm when I dared him to jump off that roof.” Ronan pointed to a shed that looked unstable but probably hadn’t been twenty years ago. “I grew up here. I took care of my mom here. Why would I want to leave this?”
As much as he wanted to give Ronan one, Adam didn’t have a good answer. There wasn’t a good reason why Ronan would want to replace the Barns with Washington, D.C.. The Barns was a paradise, an idyll, a respite, and Adam loved it too, though he knew his love was dwarfed by Ronan’s. Ronan, who had known nothing but living at the Barns for almost forty years, who had all those years of memories of the place, be they good or bittersweet.
Ronan, who was willing to uproot himself for Adam because Adam couldn’t uproot himself for Ronan.
Adam, who was a good enough reason for Ronan to leave.
Except—
“You’re not leaving forever,” Adam said. It might not have been intelligent or wise or sage. It might not have been what Ronan needed to hear.
All that mattered was it was true.
Though with the darkening evening he couldn’t see Ronan’s grimace or his narrowed eyes, Adam knew they were there, because Ronan’s voice was still thin when he replied, “Stop, Parrish.”
“You’re not,” Adam repeated. Stepping closer to Ronan, he put his hands on either side of Ronan’s neck, fingers finding the hooks of the tattoo that crawled up from Ronan’s collar. That close, Adam could see the tight line of Ronan’s lips and crinkles at the corner of his eyes, and Adam’s thumbs itched to rub them away, but he didn’t. “The Barns doesn’t disappear when you put your back to it. It’s magic, but it’s not that magic.” He smiled a little when Ronan made an argumentative sound in the back of his throat. “And, Ronan, if you don’t want—”
“I want to,” Ronan interrupted. He put his hands on Adam’s shoulders and held them tightly. “I want to so fucking bad you have no idea.”
“So then move to D.C.,” Adam told him quietly. There wasn’t anything he wanted more than for Ronan to move in with him, but it wasn’t Adam’s decision to make. He wasn’t the one leaving the place he’d lived his whole life behind. He wasn’t the one who’d have regrets. “Move to D.C. with me and we’ll come back here whenever you want. Every weekend. Every holiday. I’ll drive.”
Ronan laughed, loud and sharp, and Adam knew there was nothing else he’d have to say. He wrapped his arms around Ronan’s neck when Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam’s shoulders, and Ronan kissed Adam’s cheek before he said, “Like shit you’re driving.”
“Fine,” Adam replied, already making the first of many concessions, “if that’s what it takes to get you to Washington.”
Holding Adam tighter, Ronan kissed his cheek again, then he moved his lips to Adam’s ear and murmured, “Parrish, you’re more than enough.”
They stood there for a while, hugging and swaying as the moon came up and cast the Barns in silver paleness, then they kissed and swayed some more. Eventually they started back toward the house, arms still around one another, talking about the practical at Adam’s insistence: where Ronan would set up a new woodshop, when they’d tell Gansey, Blue, and Ronan’s brothers, how they’d split expenses, when they’d start looking for a place meant for more than two.
It certainly wasn’t the night Adam thought he would have, beginning to plan the rest of their lives.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t all very good.