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It was the first time they’d touched-- really touched-- since everything that had happened. The demon’s destruction, it’s possession of Adam. Ronan’s near unmaking and all his dream things with him. Blue fulfilling her prophecy. Gansey second death, his second resurrection. The loss of Cabeswater and their dear Noah. It was the first time they’d been able to bring themselves to do anything but sit in the show and grief of it all.
But, right then, all the wanted, all they needed was each other. They needed to touch the other’s skin, feel the beat of their hearts and rhythm of their breath, bask in the heat radiating from each other’s bodies.
They needed to feel that they were alive.
They were at the Barns, in Ronan’s childhood bedroom where they had kissed for the first time. It seemed oddly appropriate, their reunion taking place in the same place as their beginning.
Though, if they were being honest with themselves, their start had been far earlier than that.
It was Adam who had initiated the touch. They were lying in bed together, the sun having set for the night, five days having passed since the terrific end of their search for Glendower, since they saved the world. Adam on his stomach and Ronan on his back, mere centimeters between them.
They’d been so hesitant, so cautious to get any closer than this in the last few days-- as if they were scared to break the other, to cross the phantom echo of a boundary that had already been torn down.
It was Adam who initiated the touch. He propped himself up on his elbows and turned his head to look at the gorgeous boy beside him. The bruises around his neck from Adam’s hands had been stolen from him were just beginning to fade into a sallow yellow and murkey green. It made it easier to say what he was about to, knowing that Ronan was beginning to heal, no matter how slowly.
“Ronan?”
His voice came out hoarse and trembling but, for once, Adam couldn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed.
“Mm?” Ronan hummed in response, turning his head slowly to face him.
“I want to kiss you,” Adam said, the words coming out like a breath he’d been holding for too long.
Ronan didn’t answer with words but, the sudden brightening of his eyes, the relief in his relaxing shoulders, the upturn of the corners of his lips-- it was all the approval that Adam needed.
Adam pulled himself the small distance between them with his elbows, his face hovering over Ronan’s briefly, their breaths mingling, before lowering his lips onto his.
It was slow, hesitant, as if this was their first time all over again. But, that was ok. They both needed the pacing, to ease themselves back into the intensity that came with sharing themselves so intimately with the other.
Adam’s breath stuttered when he felt Ronan’s hand come up behind his head, tangling his fingers in the fine hair at the nape of his neck. When he felt the other boy give a slight tug on the strands, Adam pressed his lips firmer against his, slipping his tongue out just for a moment to wet Ronan’s lower lip.
Ronan reacted immediately, opening his mouth against Adam’s, encouraging further use of the other boy’s tongue. Adam eagerly obliged, opening his mouth in turn and moving his tongue slowly, softly against Ronan’s. He let out a soft moan at the contact, the wet heat, the intimacy of it all. Ronan responded by sucking gently on it, pulling another moan from Adam.
Adam pushed himself higher on his hands, placing one on either side of Ronan’s head and moving his legs so that one was placed between Ronan’s thighs and the other on the outer side of his hip, never moving letting their mouths part.
Adam had planned to keep a steady distance between them, to keep himself raised just so with his forearms and his knees. Ronan’s plans, apparently, differed, as he took no time in wrapping his arms around Adam’s back and pulling him down against his chest.
Adam wasn’t going to complain.
Somewhere along the line their lips had begun to move more frantically, tongues tangling, teeth knocking and pulling, their mouths wet and sloppy with their intensity. They were panting and grinding against one another, eyes shut and hands roaming, trying to feel every bit of the other at once.
In one quick movement, Ronan grabbed Adam by the ass with both hands-- startling a gasp from the other boy-- and flipped them so that their positions were reversed. Adam’s eyes startled open and he was met with a blown pupils ringed with vibrant, icy blue. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Ronan kissed him again, ferocious and purposeful, trailing a line up Adam’s jaw and to his ear, his left ear, and tugged lightly at the lobe with his teeth.
Adam recognized that this should have felt pleasurable, that that was Ronan’s intent with the gesture, but the slight sting brought the image of his fall from the steps of the double wide, his father’s screams as the side of his head made contact with pavement.
Ronan’s hand moved to grip Adam’s hip and another memory flashed before him: his father cutting into his hip with the jagged edge of a beer bottle. Ronan’s lips pressed to his neck and sucked: Adam’s father pressing the burning end of a cigarette to his jugular. Ronan’s other had running up his ribs: Robert Parrish’s foot colliding with his side with a crack. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe.
Adam was paralyzed but for the trembling of his hands and the gasping through his mouth, memory after miserable memory flashed before his eyes. He wasn’t there, he wasn’t present in his own body. Instead, he was back in that trailer being beaten half to death by his father, watched idly by his mother.
“Adam?” Ronan stammered, his eyes wide with horror. “Adam? Adam what’s wrong.”
He couldn’t answer. He wanted to, he really wanted to. He wanted to let Ronan know that it wasn’t him that was causing this, that it wasn’t his touch that he feared. But, Adam couldn’t get the words out. All he could to was gasp and tremble and sob.
“Adam, Adam please talk to me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I shouldn’t have pushed I shouldn’t have… Adam, please!”
It was the sorrow, the guilt, the fear in Ronan’s voice that pulled him out of it, just for a moment, to explain.
“No,” he choked out, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks in wet, hot, bursts. “Not you… not you.”
“What?” Ronan said. “I don’t understand.”
“My dad,” Adam sobbed. “He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere and I can’t get him to go away! I can’t make it stop… Ronan, make it stop!”
Next thing he knew, Adam was pulled up into a seating position, arms were wrapped around his back and his head, pulling him into the hard, warm surface of Ronan’s chest. Adam welcomed the pressure, the warmth, the security, breathing deeply into the other boy’s neck. He tried to still his hands, his whole body, to keep the tremors at bay but, it seemed to be impossible.
“Breathe, Adam,” Ronan whispered into his hair, rubbing his hand slowly over Adam’s back. “C’mon, with me. One… two… three… four…”
Adam did as the other boy instructed, taking in and breathing out long shuddering breaths until they were even and steady again, until he had feeling back in his face and his hands. His tears had soaked the front on Ronan’s shirt but, he didn’t show any sign of caring.
“Better?” He asked. Adam nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice raspy and trying. “I don’t know why that happened… I’m sorry I let that happen.”
“Don’t,” Ronan chided but, there was no hostility, no force behind it. Only concern and love. “You’ve been through hell with him. It’s not your fault that your body is reacting to trauma.”
“You weren’t hurting me, though,” Adam tried to argue. “It felt.. It felt good. I shouldn’t-- I shouldn’t have--”
“Stop,” Ronan pulled back so he could look Adam in the eye. “This isn’t your fault and I don’t blame you for it. I’m not mad, I’m not going to leave you. I’m right here and I will do whatever yo need me to do.”
Adam wanted to protest but, he didn’t have it in him so, he just nodded and burried himself back into his neck.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.”
They laid back into the bed, Adam curled into Ronan and Ronan holding him tight against him, hands running down his back and through his hair, whispering soft ramblings into his good ear until he could see the other boy’s eyes begin to droop.
Just as Ronan thought Adam had gone to sleep, he felt the brush of lips and puff of breath against his neck.
“Ronan?”
“Yes?”
Adam paused, taking a deep breath in as if mustering up courage. He clutched Ronan’s shirt tighter, pulled himself closer.
“Thank you.”
Ronan pressed a kiss against his freckled forehead.
“It wasn’t a problem. Not at all. Not for you. Not ever.”
“Ronan?”
“Yes?”
Adam stammered. “I love you.”
Ronan didn’t hesitate to answer.
“I love you, too.”
They fell asleep wrapped around each other, no starts, no nightmares, nothing pulling them out of their slumber or out of each other’s arms. For the first time in a long time, they felt safe.