Work Text:
1.
The Pig had stalled—again—which meant Adam, Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Noah were stopped on the side of the road—again—as Adam crouched over the open hood, fiddling with the engine in attempt to relieve them from the humid Virginia summer air, draped over them like a thick blanket.
Gansey stood next to Adam, half pretending to be helpful and half trying to show off in front of Blue. After his ninth chorus of, Oh, yes, of course, that makes sense, connecting those two wires, I see what you did there, wonderful job Parrish, Adam had banished him to stand next to Ronan, who was, as far as Adam could tell, attempting to slice a hole through the Pig’s front tire with his fingernails.
Blue might have been some help had Noah not been there, but because he was, they were busy playing some elementary school hand game that involved a lot of clapping and rhyming phrases and required both of them to stand frozen at the end (which, Adam thought, gave Noah an unfair advantage, what with being dead and not having to breathe and all).
“Alright,” Adam announced, shutting the hood. “Should be good to go.”
The group breathed a collective sigh of relief and piled back into the car, meaning Gansey practically skipped to the driver’s side door, Ronan rolled his eyes and fell into the passenger seat like it was his throne, Blue and Noah trampled each other for the middle seat, and Adam resumed his position behind Ronan, forehead leaning against the window.
“Adam Parrish, you are a king among men.” Gansey spoke over the roar of the engine coming back to life, his eyes finding Adam’s in the rearview mirror.
“I can’t even see the guy,” commented Ronan from around his leather wristbands, “and I know he’s giving you the you’re-making-me-uncomfortable-Gansey-please-stop half-smile every human is born knowing how to do. You know, like for a predator and prey type situation. Wards you off or whatever.” The mildly offended look Gansey shot Ronan allowed Adam a moment to picture his own facial expression and, indeed, wipe that smile off his face and close his eyes, eager to find sleep.
Gansey pulled off the shoulder of the road, ears reddening as Blue and Noah’s laughs confirmed that they, too, were familiar with that awkward smile.
“Hey, old man,” Noah said, leaning between Gansey and Ronan. “Put on some music.”
A moment later, a loud Russian voice blared from the stereo, complete with chimes and a lot of whimsical sounding instruments.
“The fuck?”
Gansey frowned at Ronan. “Malory showed me this last summer! He said they use it in Eastern Europe to, what was it, attract forest spirits?”
“We’ve already attracted a forest spirit,” said Ronan. “He’s sitting right behind me.”
Adam opened his eyes just in time to see the look Gansey gave Ronan, one resembling that of which an embarrassed mother would give her young child when he said something rude in public.
Ronan fiddled with Gansey’s phone for a minute, and then the Russian wailing was replaced by his loud, vibrant EDM, and Gansey, Noah, and Blue groaning in unison.
“Ronan,” said Gansey witheringly. “Our friend is trying to sleep in the backseat.”
Adam spoke up. “Trying to sleep, Gansey, not wish I lost hearing in my other ear, too.”
Ronan laughed out loud, a surprised, wicked sound. Gansey sputtered, looking in the mirror for Blue and Noah to support him, but they were cracking up too.
“Oh, man, Dick, our forest spirit just shit all over your weird Communist fairy songs. Fuckin’ marry me, Parrish, that was gold.”
Adam allowed himself a soft smile and curled up against the window again, drifting into sleep with Ronan’s music.
---
2.
A few months after Ronan kissed Adam, they said I love you to each other for the first time.
And after Ronan had said it, he couldn’t stop.
It was like a dam had been opened, and everything Ronan had wanted to say to Adam for weeks, months, had come tumbling out, little by little. Every kiss good morning was punctuated with an I love you, every I’m going to work, I’ll be back after my shift answered with a Bye Parrish, love you, every I had a nightmare soothed with It’s okay, you’re here now, you’re with me, I’ve got you, I love you .
After months of knowing Ronan, it wasn’t until months into their relationship that Adam had realized the extent of his bizarre non sequiturs. Adam would ask if they were out of orange juice, and Ronan would say You’re fucking pretty, Parrish. Adam could ask if Ronan wanted to spend the night at St. Agnes, and Ronan would hand him a dream key to the Barns. When Adam told him he had work and too much studying to hang out with Ronan, Ronan would say, So what time should I bring McDonald’s to Boyd’s? Your break will probably be around 7, right? Adam would call Ronan an asshole after he inevitably did something asshole-y, and Ronan would laugh and say I knew I picked a smart one. My boyfriend’s fucking Ivy League.
So, all things considered, Adam supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when he let himself into the Barns one December night and found Ronan and Opal on opposite ends of the couch, their feet tangled in the middle, both sucking on Ring Pops as they watched Moana with avid interest. Even Chainsaw, perched on the back of the sofa, pecked at her own Ring Pop, lying in front of her on the cushion.
Ronan spotted Adam in the doorway, and Adam raised an eyebrow. Ronan raised one back, somehow making the gesture look sharper, stronger, more powerful. His hand was raised to his face so he could suck on the Ring Pop, and Adam suddenly wished Opal wasn’t in the room.
“Adam!” Opal exclaimed his name without moving her eyes from the screen. “Veni.” Her and Ronan both pulled their legs away from the middle cushion, leaving a space for Adam to sit.
As soon as he was settled, both Opal and Ronan leaned their heads on his shoulders.
“Do I get one?” Adam asked, nodding to Ronan’s Ring Pop.
Ronan pulled it out of his mouth with a loud pop and slid the ring off his finger, offering it to Adam. “Marry me, Parrish?” he said, voice laced with humor and tongue tinted blue from the candy.
Adam felt his heart stutter for half a second, knowing the words, the context, the goddamn ring were not real, but going blank at hearing Ronan say it anyways. All he could do was roll his eyes and shove Ronan’s Ring Pop in his mouth defiantly, like taking candy from a moody and aggressive teenage boy.
“Gross!” Opal yelled at the scene. Ronan flipped her off, and she flipped him off back with both hands, and then slumped back into Adam’s side, attention going back to the movie.
“Really, Lynch?” Adam asked. “Moana?”
“Fuck you, Parrish, she’s gonna explore the damn ocean.” Adam laughed, and Ronan resumed his position against Adam’s neck too, muttering, “Can’t believe I wasted a perfectly good proposal on someone who hasn’t even seen Moana.”
It wasn’t until later, when everyone’s Ring Pops were long gone and Opal had been tucked in after the movie, that Adam passed by their bathroom and heard Ronan humming a song from Moana.
Adam snorted and shook his head. With Ronan’s sweet voice coming through the door, it was easy to muse on how he would have accepted a Ring Pop proposal from someone who sang Disney songs in the shower.
---
3.
He could hardly remember what they were fighting about anymore, but he knew it involved him and Ronan and work and tuition and money and stupid fucking pride. It involved yelling at the Barns, and then Adam driving to St. Agnes, and then Ronan coming with the intention of hearing an apology but escalating into more yelling once both parties figured out neither was willing to back down.
“If you would just stop being so goddamn stubborn—”
“Me? I’m the stubborn one? Who drove all the way here in the middle of the night just to yell more?”
“You don’t need the money anymore, asshole! That’s kind of the whole point of a scholarship!”
“I don’t expect you to understand, Lynch! There are more expenses than just tuition!”
“Put away your stupid pride and just listen for once Parrish, god, you’d work yourself to death—”
“Why do you care, Lynch? It’s my time, my energy, my future. Not yours.”
This, at last, after hours of this back and forth, was clearly the wrong thing to say. The implication that Ronan should not care about Adam because Adam was not part of Ronan’s future had the force of an arrow, striking Ronan in one spot where his armor was weakest, where it didn’t build up from his bones and extend around him, an invisible shield against heartbreak.
“Really, so I can’t care about you because I’m just your boyfriend ?” Ronan’s tone was cruel, but his words were soaked in hurt, and Adam nearly flinched. “Who gets to care about you then, Parrish? Who gets to be in your future? Maybe we should fucking get married, then would I be allowed to care about you, or would your husband not get that fucking privilege either!”
The door slammed behind Ronan before Adam had time to gather his words for an apology. His feet were frozen to the floor, unable to even chase after him, not when he heard the engine of the BMW start up, not when he heard Ronan screech out of the parking lot, sure to be headed for empty roads and abandoned highways at this hour. Because of what Adam had said to him.
He closed his eyes and exhaled very slowly, burying his head in his hands, the palpable pain in Ronan’s voice when he said Who gets to be in your future? playing through his mind over and over again.
---
4.
A week before Adam was supposed to move into college, him and Ronan lay in their bed at the Barns, letting the late afternoon sun sink into a half moon, making no efforts to get up anytime soon.
Adam was tucked into Ronan’s side, face buried between his shoulder and neck, letting Ronan run his hands through Adam’s hair and connect the freckles on his shoulder. Hours felt like minutes; they talked about Ronan’s cows, about Opal’s growing collection of strange stones, about Blue and Gansey and Henry and their latest postcard, about Adam’s classes and packing list.
They’d lazed in bed all day whispering sweet nothings, falling in and out of sleep—Ronan had awoken from a brief nap with a bouquet of daisies around noon—as if they were back in Cabeswater, where time ran slower and they had an infinite supply of it, as if Adam weren’t about to leave for months.
It was nearing eleven now, and both of them were tired, but neither was willing to trade the other’s company for the pressing lull of unconsciousness.
Ronan arched his back in a stretch and hummed softly. “I’m so proud of you,” he told Adam, tracing his jaw. “So fucking proud.”
Adam squirmed under Ronan’s gaze, feeling like he was glowing from his boyfriend’s praise. “You better come visit. A lot,” Adam said.
Ronan’s mouth hinted at a smile. Had it been daytime, had he and Adam not been curled around each other, had he not felt so warm, he might have said, To see your bitch ass? I’ll come up every weekend.
But as it was, Adam was nosing at Ronan’s neck, and his hands traced his tattoo where it curled over his shoulders, so Ronan merely said, “I will.” Adam paused. Ronan Lynch did not lie.
“Just wait,” Ronan continued, gently shoving a pliant Adam onto his back so Ronan could crawl on top of him. He dotted his face with kisses, aiming to get every freckle, and said, “You won’t even want to leave next week. You’ll be driving away in the shitbox, and you’ll look in your rearview mirror and see me on the porch, looking pathetic in your fucking Harvard hoodie, watching you drive away, and you’ll forget all about the Ivy League and stay right here.”
Ronan’s voice was light and happy, and both of them knew that that would not be the case. Adam would not give up Harvard for anything, and Ronan didn’t want him to, and they both loved each other more because of it.
Adam yawned and turned on his side, letting Ronan hook his chin on his shoulder from behind. “‘m going to sleep now,” he informed him. Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam, and Adam brought Ronan’s fingers to his mouth and kissed them.
“Night, Adam,” Ronan said softly, reaching over to turn off the light, and Adam hummed a goodnight in return.
Adam let himself sink into the promise of sleep, let himself chase the idea of it, but wouldn’t quite let himself be taken by it. Not yet. He was content, and a small smile graced his face without permission. He wanted to be awake, if only to not let this day with Ronan come to an end.
Nearly an hour later, when Adam’s breathing had evened out but he still hung to the last threads of wakefulness, he heard Ronan’s whisper from behind him, clearly assuming Adam was long asleep.
“I’m so happy you’re getting everything you want,” Ronan whispered. Adam’s breath hitched, but he didn’t allow his breathing to change. Ronan continued.
“Fuck, Adam, you deserve everything. I’d dream a million constellations for you if you’d let me. I’d marry you if you’d let me, I’d get a fucking house in Boston and fill it with books about science and grammar and trigonometry.”
Ronan leaned his forehead against Adam’s spine, and Adam was sure he was going into cardiac arrest. He wanted to be awake with Ronan forever. He wanted to roll over and tell Ronan he’d let him do all of those things, he’d get married at an altar of Calculus textbooks Ronan had dreamed or stolen or vandalized if it meant he got to keep this moment forever, if it meant he got to keep Ronan forever.
Just when he thought Ronan was done, when he was about to turn over, Ronan went on.
“But it’s okay, though, because I know you’re coming back. So we don’t have to do that now. You’re coming back.”
Ronan said it like a mantra: You’re coming back, you’re coming back . If Ronan thought he was the only one being pacified for the next four years with that thought, he was wrong. Adam hadn’t even left yet, and suddenly the only thing on his mind was coming back. Not to Virginia, not to Henrietta, to Ronan.
He slipped into sleep with one last kiss pressed into his shoulder, and the words I’m coming back leading him into slumber.
---
+1
Adam was woken up by something cold and hard pressing into his cheek.
It was the summer after Adam’s freshman year at Harvard, and he’d come back to the Barns, back to Ronan and Opal and, apparently, back to being prodded into awareness by various dream things appearing in Ronan’s bed (although, last week, Adam woke up to a squirrel in their bed, and had been petting it for nearly twenty minutes before Ronan woke up and told him he hadn’t dreamt it, and then Opal had come crashing into their room asking if anyone had seen her new pet).
Ronan still slept, his sharp features softened by the rosy haze cast on them from outside. It was dawn, much earlier than either of them would normally get up on a weekend.
Whatever had woken Adam up was clearly not dangerous enough to wake Ronan, as the boy still slept with one arm tucked between him and Adam, and the other hand splayed on Adam’s cheek, the cold dream thing hidden under his palm.
Adam’s desire to not have an unknown device lie on his cheek overwhelmed his desire to not disturb Ronan’s sleep, so he carefully lifted Ronan’s wrist away from his face and reached up to snatch whatever was under his hand.
It was cold, and smooth, and round, and—fuck. No.
But, yes. Adam held the ring in front of his face, and stared and stared and stared, and his brain confirmed that, yes, Ronan had dreamt a ring. A ring with a stone sunk into the center of the band. A dark silver ring with an unidentifiable stone in the center of the band because Ronan had dreamt the metal and the stone and neither of those things were real except that they were because Adam was holding them, and they formed a ring, and Ronan had pulled it out of his dream, and Ronan was still asleep while Adam might as well have been asleep, too, for how poorly his brain computed his thoughts.
He held it daintily between his thumb and index finger, rolling it around, and caught a glint from the inside. He angled it toward him and squinted, and when he saw the tiny inscription he nearly dropped the ring on Ronan’s face. Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit, cras amet.
May he love tomorrow who has never loved before; and may he who has loved, love tomorrow as well.
Adam couldn’t breathe. He glanced at Ronan, still asleep, long eyelashes brushing the top of his cheekbones. He couldn’t breathe even harder.
Ronan. Ring. Him. Ronan dreamt him a ring, because Ronan wanted to marry him. Even through the thick fog of his brain, he could deduce this much; Ronan didn’t take things out of his dreams unless he very much wanted to.
What the fuck.
Ronan twitched in his sleep, and Adam froze. When Ronan didn’t wake, Adam went back to staring at the ring. It was simple and elegant; the dark silver was chromatic and sleek, and the stone atop it seemed to shine different shades of blue and green and yellow and white all at once.
He slid the ring onto his ring finger, experimentally, just to feel, and was flooded with emotion. He knew it wasn’t some strange dream power making him feel things, it was just him. The idea of him and Ronan, married. Calling Ronan Lynch his husband. He still had three years of undergrad ahead of him, but, god, he was picturing them in an apartment in fucking Massachusetts, with Opal and maybe a dog and an entire lifetime ahead of them. And then, more realistically, he pictured this: himself, but being called Adam Parrish-Lynch. Him and Ronan spending the first three years of their marriage apart, only seeing each other holidays and occasional weekends. Doing what he’d already done—school, work, call Ronan, study, sleep, repeat—but with a ring on his finger, with a marriage certificate in a filing cabinet—or actually, probably framed in the doorway, knowing Ronan—at the Barns.
And he wanted it. He wanted all of it. He wanted him and Ronan and ten thousand more rings, and he wanted to be married now, not next summer, not next month.
He couldn’t believe it, but it felt like he should. He was going to marry the fuck out of Ronan Lynch.
Ronan began to stir, and Adam was dragged out of his thoughts. He quickly pulled the ring off his finger and closed his fist around it, and with a glance at the clock, realized he’d been thinking for over an hour.
“Mm,” Ronan said. “Morning, Parrish.”
Adam swallowed. “Parrish-Lynch sounds better, don’t you think?”
Ronan’s eyes went wide; he was alert and awake now, mouth slightly agape, eyes belatedly searching the sheets for the ring he now remembered dreaming of. Adam held it up between his fingers, and Ronan stared at him, terrified.
“I didn’t—that wasn’t—” he stuttered, but Adam interrupted him with a kiss to the tip of his nose.
“I do,” Adam said. It was a promise.