Work Text:
Ronan Lynch never obeyed speed limits.
There was no point in getting behind a wheel for any less than seventy miles per hour. A perfect Sunday was disrupting the serenity of Henrietta forests and whipping past blurry stop signs until the wind threatened to peel back his skin. He liked the feeling of his heart beating just a little faster, his stomach dipping just a little lower as the BMW curved around a sharp bend, tilting dangerously to one side, but never enough to make him stop. Sometimes, on a long drag of highway in the dead of night, he would close his eyes and release the wheel, giving into the chaos and fate of the universe. He could cross and recross state lines before Gansey even opened his eyes for school the next morning. He could stay out all night, ignoring the dreamer screaming inside of him.
He could gamble with his life, because there wasn't anyone to bet against him or, worse, call his bluff.
Ronan Lynch never obeyed speed limits, especially with Richard Campbell Gansey III in the car.
He laughed as a story about Aglionby was cut off by the thrum of his engine. Laughed even harder when Gansey gripped the handle above his door with white knuckles, muttering a startled, "Shit," under his breath. Gansey was too polite to say anything, merely watching the spedometer rise to forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, seventy-five... And Ronan knew this, calling out a smug, "What was that you were saying?" because Ronan drove to get away from Aglionby, to escape reality. Ronan preferred to watch the nervous bounce of Gansey's left leg rather than the road. Gansey was always in motion, in more motion than the BMW. Ronan was still unless he was driving.
What must it be like to be so full of life?
Ronan Lynch never obeyed speed limits, even after he met Blue Sargent.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" she snarled, throwing open the door of the BMW and stumbling into the parking lot of Nino's. She had needed a ride to work and no one but Ronan was able to help. Blue wouldn't exactly call it helpful. "Well?" she demanded, leaning into the window and crossing her arms tightly enough to fracture her own ribs. Ronan clutched the steering wheel and stared straight ahead through the windshield. Blue wasn't very fun to play games with. "Don't you care about our lives?" she had asked.
Not really.
Ronan Lynch never obeyed speed limits, which was never a concern of Noah's.
He'll never forget the chill that ran down his spine when the spedometer hit eighty-seven and Noah simply gasped, oh-so quietly. His teeth chattered in the cool breeze, but he couldn't stop grinning. It made Ronan want to grin, too, because Noah wasn't grinning to be polite and he wouldn't yell when the car stopped, unless he yelled at Ronan to keep going.
Noah was already dead. Ronan just acted like it.
Ronan Lynch never obeyed speed limits until he had Adam Parrish in his passenger seat.
With Adam, he was careful, unsure. He didn't want to scare the other boy away. He couldn't go seventy and blindly find a hand to hold over the console at the same time. Sometimes, he still forgot to look at the road, but only because the sunlight dancing through Adam's curls and bouncing off his teeth was mesmerizing. But Ronan couldn't risk getting pulled over, because Adam didn't particularly like cops now that every one knew his name after what happened. And cops didn't like Ronan anyway. Ronan never interrupted Adam. He hung on every word that came out of his pretty mouth, imagining that each syllable was constructed just for him, that every muttered curse word was because of him. And if Adam wanted to yell at him, he would force himself to look him in the eye.
But he hoped Adam never had a reason to yell at him, not now that Ronan Lynch felt the most alive he had felt since the day he was born.