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"Your mother was in your room today and she found something. Can you guess what it would be?"
Adam’s knees were slowly liquefying. He did his best to keep most of his Aglionby life hidden from his father, and he could think of several things about himself and his life that wouldn’t please Robert Parrish. The fact that he didn’t know precisely what had been found was agonizing. He couldn’t meet his father’s eyes.
Adam was internally running over the many things that would make his father angry. Robert was easy to anger, but enough to have him met at the door, there were only two he could think of. Either one would be a nightmare. His hidden money would cause a beating and a major setback to Adam’s eventual escape plan. The second… his father would possibly kill him if he had found his secret stash. Oh Adam kept it discrete, nothing actually pornographic, or even suggestive really, but his father always thought he was “ not right” so the images of well dressed male models all tall and dark-haired, or the images of high-end cars with attractive males ( most of whom looked an awful lot like one of his best friends,not that Adam ever really thought about that part) in the pictures instead of bikini-clad women would be enough to set his father off. He braced himself for the vitriolic hate-speak.
Robert Parrish grabbed Adam’s collar, forcing his chin up. "Look at me when I’m talking to you. A pay stub. From the factory."
Oh.
Think fast, Adam. What does he need to hear?
"I don’t understand why you’re angry," Adam said. He tried to keep his voice as level as possible, but now that he knew it was about the money, he didn’t know how to get out of it.
Fuck.
This was still not good. This was bad.
When it was over, and he had a million things in his mind from where would he live, how would he survive, how pathetic he would look to his friends, the one thing that kept coming back to him more than the rest was Ronan. That savagely handsome boy full of secrets, that came across as cold, who tried so hard to be casually disinterested in everything around him, risked his future for Adam. Adam owed him something for this, he had very little to give, but he had his secrets, secrets had power.
He could give a secret to Ronan.
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After carefully closing the door, Adam sat on the edge of the bed in Noah’s room next to where Ronan had hurled his bags. He still clutched the dented fruitloops box ( extra large econo-size, no name of course) with the transformer hanging out of it. Ronan gently tugged it from Adam’s hands, surprised a bit at the weight of it. Ronan tugged the toy out of the box and stood him on the dresser before peering into the box to see what else was there. The bottom was filled with loose change and along the side of the box was a slim folder almost the same shade as the box board. Ronan quirked an eyebrow at Adam in question, Adam shrugged, not really looking at Ronan or anything.
“You can go ahead and look,” Adam says, slow and quiet, all pretense of clipping his vowels gone with his exhaustion, anger, and sadness. He dares a quick glance up to Ronan’s face before turning his eyes to his own hands, picking at his nails. “Not like I have anything left to hide from you anymore. You probably already know.”
Ronan slid the folder out of the box, placed the box on the dresser then sat down next to Adam.
“Parrish….” Ronan holds it out to Adam to take back. “I don’t need to pry into your life to know you, I bet this is your best tests, or your scholarship letter or some nerd shit like that” Ronan tries to play it off lightly as if Adam, stubborn, prideful Parrish was not offering something of himself to Ronan.
Adam took the folder from Ronan, swallowed hard and opened it.
“ I am not ashamed of this but had to keep it a secret. My dad… where I live... this town.” Adam let out a huff of breath as he passed the folder pack to Ronan. “Lynch, how do you think I had you figured out? I know you tried to let my comment in the helicopter slide, I know you are not really ashamed, just private. Not like you hide it either, but you don’t advertise it.” He darts his eyes up to see that Ronans ears have gone a bit pink as he looks at the image at the front of the folder. Adam looked back at the page and inwardly smirks to himself. He almost forgot that one was there, a tall slender dark-haired tennis player drenched in sweat, mid-serve, muscles taught, lay in the folder on Ronan’s lap. Adam can feel Ronan’s eyes flick to him, then back to the pages in front of them. Adam flips through more of the pictures slowly, letting Ronan get the idea.
“This is what I thought my dad found out about. If it had been this he found I would probably be actually dead” Adam shook his head “ being a smart, sneaky, lying, hoarding shit is one thing, but daring to be a ‘fag’ is another, never mind that I am actually bi not gay is worthy of death in his mind.”
Ronan had been silent, looking at the pictures flipping past his face, trying to take in what Adam has just revealed. Sure he might have suspected a little, guys who check out guys sometimes notice others who do the same. Obviously, Adam had the little shit. Just Adam watches everything, is ultra-observant so Ronan was never sure. He noticed there were no pictures of women, no blonds, no muscle-bound men. The men in designer clothes could all pass for Declan.. ...his heart fluttered and he had flipped back to the front picture. Ronan schooled his expression even as he smirked internally wondering if Adam realizes just how much of himself he just exposed to Ronan.
“Why now? Why tell me this?” Ronan cleared his throat, his voice came out a bit strained. He turned and looked at Adam in confusion.
Adam sighed out a heavy breath. “I have nothing to give you in thanks for what you did, I’m basically homeless, need every cent I have, and only have my clothes and the one and only memento from my childhood that was worth anything to me. Secrets have power Ronan.. You can have my secret. Do what you want with it.” Adam looked up again, scared, nervous, ashamed that this was all he had to give.
Ronan bumped shoulders with him gently. “Fuck off Parrish, you don’t owe me shit for that. That fuckwad had it coming long before now and if I could go back and do it again I would. You already gave your thanks by pressing charges against the waste of human skin you call a father. Consider it done with.”
Adam nodded at Ronan, swallowed down the anger he felt at Ronans summary of his life. “Well I guess the secret is just a freebie then” he choked out.
Ronans face split into a shark-like grin. “Now I owe you one, and you have to take it” Ronan barked with laughter at this, the thought of forcing a favour onto Adam fucking Parrish, army of one amused him to no end.
Adam stood and moved to the door. “We should get out there, I do not want Blue or Gansey thinking he broke me forever.”
Ronan gently grabbed Adams wrist to stop him for a moment. Adam turned and caught his gaze, eye to eye, all their layers of armor and thorns and bravado gone.
“Thanks,” Ronan whispers.. “For making me feel less alone”
Both took a moment to wipe all emotion from their faces before heading out to face Gansey and Blue.
It was harder for Ronan, his mind raced with possibilities.
That night Ronan dreamed an armful of Oxeye daisies before he was disturbed by Adam's latenight carjacking of The Pig.