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It was the Crying Club’s idea, a suggestion tossed out in the middle of a Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition marathon one Saturday evening.
“Boston Pride is next week, right?” Eliot said from where they lay on the couch of the common room, one leg draped over the arm and their head on Benjy’s thigh.
“It is indeed,” Fletcher replied. He wore a replica of the hobbits’ green elven cloaks and the One Ring around his neck.
“We should go,” Benjy said. “You know, celebrate the rioters who threw the first rocks for our--well, rapidly decreasing under this horrorshow administration-rights.”
They were all on campus for the summer, electing to stick around Cambridge for various reasons: jobs that would keep them on over the break, cheap housing, unfortunate family situations which would only be made worse with 3 months of togetherness after nine months of separation. For Adam, it was the former. His near-full tuition scholarship was just that: near. Not complete. Which meant in order to avoid loans, debt, and the crushing weight of inferiority in the face of Harvard’s wealthy elite, he needed to work over the summer. And Boyd’s wages were no comparison to the library’s.
“Will Scary Spice be here?” Eliot said.
Speak of the devil--Adam’s phone buzzed with a series of text from Lynch.
“Yeah. He’s coming Thursday,” he answered absently, already typing a response to Ronan in defense of his assertion that yes, lemonade was a juice because it was made from the juice of lemons , and no, it didn’t matter that it came in a powder: just because some people grew up in a household that only served juice from Aurora’s hand-picked-this-morning oranges doesn’t mean that all powdered KoolAid is discounted from what counts as “juice”, and also, why was he debating him about this right now.
“Think he’ll come with us?”
Adam paused. To be honest, he wasn’t sure. Ronan didn’t particularly like cities, or large celebrations, or people, and Ronan had never been particularly “out”, so to speak. But then again, neither had Adam when he’d lived in bumfuck Virginia with “Trump 2020” signs already painted on the back of pickup trucks.
By that same token, Adam wasn't particularly fond of people or loud celebrations, either. And he wasn’t very out, either.
“Maybe,” Adam answered honestly. “I’ll ask him.”
If they both went, though, at least they could leave together if they decided that their general dislike of large crowds of human beings outweighed their desire to be really really gay together.
“Oh, oh, oh, shhh, quiet! It’s Fanghorn forest!” Fletcher exclaimed.
Gillian groaned. “Fletcher, stop ruining it.”
Adam’s phone buzzed again.
lemonade is not a fucking juice and ill fight u
if u wanna go to pride sure
Do I have to wear rainbows?
I’ve seen your closet. Your most colorful shirt is dark grey.
Wear whatever you want
“Stop eye-fucking your phone, Parrish, and watch zombie Gandolf spit some truths,” Gillian snapped. She threw an Oreo at him.
Fletcher gasped. “He is not a zombie ! It’s the archetypal ascension of Christ!”
And before anyone could start a debate about whether or not Jesus Christ counted as a zombie, Benjy decided it was the perfect time to see how many pieces of popcorn could fit in Eliot’s mouth.
######
Ronan appeared on Thursday in a whirlwind of black jeans and vicious scowls, collecting Adam from his summer job at the library and kissing him senseless up against the BMW while parked in a “No Stopping” zone.
“So. We’re going to the gay parade,” he said once they pulled away from one another.
“Pride, yes. Saturday.”
“I tried to dream a rainbow shirt, but ended up making a shirt that’s made of a literal rainbow. So. That was a fucking fail.”
Only Ronan “God Among Men” Lynch would call making a shirt out of prismatic light refraction a fail.
“It’s fine. You’re gay on the inside. You don’t need to be gay on the outside.”
“Are you wearing anything?”
Adam shrugged. “I have a tie-dye shirt I made during a hall program this year.”
“See, I’m going to be the only one. ”
Adam raised a brow. “Since when does not conforming upset you?”
“I don’t want to look like a loser.” And Adam could tell Ronan wasn’t just talking about Pride.
“You don’t look like a loser,” Adam said sweetly, tracing his cheekbones with a featherlight touch of his thumb. “You look like an asshole.”
That got a laugh out of him.
“C’mon, Fletcher’s gone for the afternoon,” Adam said. “Room’s all ours. But you have to park in the visitor lot.”
Ronan groaned for ten whole continuous seconds until Adam smacked his arm. “You’re wasting time. You know that, right?”
Ronan never rushed to follow parking regulations faster in his life.
######
“What brought this about?” Ronan said softly, playing with Adam’s fingers as they lay on Adam’s bed that evening. “Going to pride, I mean.”
Adam shrugged. “My friends want to go.”
“Since when do you do shit just because other people are?” Ronan said, in a mimic of their conversation earlier. Adam rolled his eyes and elbowed him in the ribs.
“I don’t. I just--” he paused, measuring the words in his head before speaking them aloud. “I’ve never-- we’ve never--been able to be this, ” he gestured up and down the length of their tangled bodies, “before. Not in any place where people could see us.”
“We’ve been out around here,” Ronan said. “Around your friends. Our friends, too.”
“That’s different, though. That’s still behind closed doors, in a sense. It’s not in public. Like, out on the street, where people we don’t know could see us.”
Adam closed his eyes for a minute, brow furrowed and mind working hard enough Ronan could nearly hear it. Ronan took his thumb and smoothed the wrinkles of his forehead.
“I had to hide so much back in Henrietta. To be safe,” Adam said, soft and careful, as if even now someone might hear. Why didn’t need to be asked; Ronan could answer on his own. Aglionby Boys, not exactly known for being “open-minded”; St. Agnes, where most of its members would bring pitchforks and torches if they dared mention gay rights at Sunday Mass; Rockingham County, a place so red it might as well be the next Republican headquarters; Robert Parrish, a constant shadow no matter how far Adam ran.
Ronan’s life had never been safe. Not since he pulled the first flower from his dreams when he was one and three-quarters, and the first nightmare when he was two. Homophobia was just one threat on an ever-growing list, and Ronan had decided long ago that if he looked like a serrated knife held at the neck of any who dared cross him, it would be the one ranked lowest in order of Most Likely to Kick His Ass.
But for as much as Ronan was, and had always been, a resident of backwards-ass Shenandoah Virginia, he was separate. Kept apart by Niall. By wealth. By his power. By their unconventional family. He lived in Rockingham County, but Singer’s Glen was its own little world. A Fortress of Solitude, where the Lynches could be who they were without fear. Where Ronan, now its Lord and Master, could live apart from all the others.
Adam never had a safe place where Adam was all he needed to be. Even when he spent the summer at the Barns, the threads that kept him tied to Henrietta meant he was constantly slipping masks on and off. There was the Adam who moved through Henrietta as quietly and as unnoticed as possible, else his father or the hatred of the town make themselves known; and then there was the Adam of the Barns, who was complicated and thoughtful and wanted so much and who loved to fuck around with cars and play in makeshift pools and make breakfast with Ronan and watch thunderstorms from the hay loft and stargaze on the roof and who loved Ronan shamelessly and without reservation and who made Ronan dizzy with how much he cared.
But then his watch would beep and it would be time for another shift at Boyd’s and Barns Adam would fade and Henrietta Adam would take his place.
“This would be the first time we could be us without being careful, in a place where people could see,” Adam said. He turned to Ronan, and Ronan could see that all his masks were folded neatly and set aside for a moment. Ronan kissed his forehead. “I think I want to see what it’s like,” Adam continued. “Being somewhere where I don’t need to be afraid.”
“Okay,” Ronan said, because that was all that needed to be said aloud. All the rest he could say with his hands on Adam’s hips and his lips pressed into his.
######
Adam’s friends didn’t fully understand how someone could have nothing but black in their closet.
“I get the whole punk rock ‘fuck the man’ aesthetic, I really do,” Eliot said, They had a full rainbow ensemble--suspenders, bowtie, socks, and collar shirt--with only their jeans and chucks left as a solid color. He looked disparagingly at Ronan’s not-so-artfully ripped black jeans and inky muscle tank. “But have you ever considered what life might be like if you didn’t dress like an emo fourteen-year-old in Hot Topic for the first time?”
“You never thought to buy, like, one rainbow shirt when you came out for the first time?” Benjy asked, wild blonde hair pushed back with a rainbow bandana.
“Rainbows don’t come in black. So, no. I didn’t,” Ronan said. Adam smirked.
“You’re going to frighten the children,” Gillian said, her rainbow tie knotted perfectly. She thrust a palette of costume makeup at him. “At least try to look a little festive. It’s a celebration, not a funeral.”
Ronan looked like Gillian had handed him a roadkill possum. Adam took the palette from him. “I’ll handle it,” he said, took Ronan by the wrist, and led him to the shared bathroom down the hall.
“You better not fuck up my face,” Ronan said, standing with his back to the sink.
Adam smiled, fingers coated in each color of the rainbow, with the first pointer finger an inch from his cheek. He was wearing his tie-dye t-shirt, but otherwise looked as he always did.
“There goes my plan of drawing a dick.”
“Literally fucking it up ,” Ronan said. Adam snorted.
“Stay still or it’s going to look ugly,” he chided.
Ronan growled, but leaned against the sink and did as Adam requested. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Adam drew one long line after another across his cheek, brow furrowed in concentration.
Adam’s finger stilled suddenly. Ronan turned and raised a brow in question.
“We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to,” Adam said softly, almost--guilty? “It’s not--just about me.”
Ronan took Adam’s hand from where it had paused, and kissed each of his knuckles. Adam smiled, a soft and fragile quirk of his lips that came unconsciously whenever Ronan kissed his hand, or brushed his fingers through his hair, or when Adam caught him looking with longing and want burning in his ice blue eyes.
Ronan brought a hand to Adam’s neck and guided his cheek with his thumb until Adam was forced to look at him. “I want to,” he said.
“Okay,” Adam said, and he smiled. “Check it out.” He pointed to the mirror. Ronan turned and assessed the rainbow streaked across his cheekbone.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Terrifying,” Benjy said, opening the bathroom door.
“And gay,” Adam added.
“Good.”
“Are you two decent and ready?” Eliot called from the hallway.
“Why would we be indecent in the communal fucking bathroom?” Ronan said.
“Ah. The innocence of youth,” Feltcher sang.
“Spare him, Adam. Let him live in his world of ignorance for just a little longer,” Gillian said.
“There’ve been rumors of people having sex in the showers,” Adam told Ronan.
“Really?” Adam nodded. “Pretty sure your tiny-ass beds have more space than those things.”
“ Exactly our point,” Eliot said.
“I think it’s the scandal that’s appealing. The adrenaline of it,” Benjy said.
“Because contracting flesh-eating foot fungus is so daring,” Gillian said.
“Can we cease this discussion of people copulating in the showers?” Fletcher said.
“Red line is leaving in ten, all,” Eliot announced. “We need to book it. C’mon Edgelord-and-friend, let’s go."
“Fuck you,” Ronan said, not unfriendly. He tangled his fingers with Adam’s, and let himself be led through the Cambridge streets.
####
The parade was loud, and crowded, and overwhelming, and hot. Not in the sexy way--although, maybe for some it was--but in the I’m-sweating-my-fucking-balls-off-95-degree-scorcher way. Pop music blasting from every bar and restaurant. There were people everywhere. Stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Meandering through the crowd. Dressed in leather, in drag, in so much clothing and nearly none at all.
Adam stayed on Ronan’s right, keeping his deaf ear buffered so he didn’t get shaken by the jostle of the crowd. He held on tight to his hand, willing to fall a few steps behind the Crying Club just to make sure Ronan was at his side through the crowd.
Ronan knew stress on Adam Parrish like he knew it in himself. The way his shoulders tensed, how his mouth drew into a tight line.
“Hey,” Ronan said, pulling him back to him when they hit a lull in the crowd. “We can go whenever. We don’t need to stay.”
Adam looked at his friends up ahead, and then back to Ronan. He took a deep breath.
“No. It’s okay. I want to do this,” he said. Ronan kissed his hand and saw Adam’s eyes dart to the side. Instinct. A reaction based on years of hiding. But then he softened. His shoulders fell just a bit. He offered Ronan a small smile. Fragile and unsure, but growing stronger.
“Keep up, lovebirds!” Gillian called through the crowd of rainbow streamers and flags and tutus and t-shirts.
They found a spot along the parade route, not right at the front but still close enough to see most of it without craning their necks or resorting to climbing trees. Ronan’s hand stayed on Adam’s waist, holding him close and tapping a finger when he wanted to say something so Adam could turn his good ear to him.
As the parade began, Ronan felt Adam relax further into him. Watched as Adam smiled more frequently, started to cheer with the crowd, tried in vain to wipe the fuckton of glitter from his arms.
“Where did it all come from? I didn’t touch anything with glitter on it.”
“Pretty sure it’s raining from the skies,” Benjy noted. His rainbow tank was also covered in glitter, but he seemed far less perturbed by it. Sure enough, another confetti cannon burst over the crowd from a passing float and cheers erupted.
Despite the crowds, despite the heat, despite being covered in offending sparkles, Adam was finally glowing. Smiling and laughing with his friends, with Ronan, easily pulling Ronan into the conversations, whispering private jokes to him,
The parade was full of people, all cheering, and smiling, and kissing and shouting with joy, with excitement, with defiance, with pride. He saw Adam, true Adam, in that moment. No mask, no longer afraid. He tapped Adam’s side, and when Adam turned he captured his lips with his own. He felt Adam smile in surprise.
“What was that for?” he asked when they parted, blushing and maybe a little sunburnt beneath the constellation of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, his soft and fragile smile undoing every last inch of Ronan and reorienting him around the sun that shone in those Virginia blue sky eyes of his.
Ronan pointed to the sign held aloft by a passing parade walker: KISS WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT.
“You’re who the fuck I want,” Ronan said in Adam’s right ear, so only he would hear.
Adam’s smile was radiant. He laughed, and leaned his forehead against Ronan’s.
“Such a romantic,” he said, and then put his hand on the back of Ronan’s head and pulled him in to kiss him again. With joy. With excitement. With defiance. With pride.
“Get it, Parrish!”
“Niiiice.”
“Oh my, is that tongue?”
Ronan and Adam simultaneously flipped off the Crying Club, who made a series of indistinguishable but clearly grumpy noises in return. Adam laughed again, and Ronan smiled, and he didn’t care that Adam’s thumb had smeared the rainbow on his cheek, or that it was twenty-seven million degrees, or that his ears would be ringing for the next four years, or that his all-black fuck-off ensemble was now permanently covered in fine glitter. All that mattered right then, in this sea of rainbow, was that he could kiss Adam again, and again, and again.
And that was worth everything.