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1.
Paying attention in class has never been Ronan’s forte.
He can’t be blamed, really, for the teacher’s lack of captivating presence. He has the compelling personality of a plank of wood and the topic of his droning isn’t much better. Ronan doesn’t need this. He doesn’t need lessons upon lessons on Charlemagne, or Charles I, or whoever the fuck. He needs open fields and a herd of cows, quiet nights and space to dream, graduation in June and the promise of freedom so sweet he can almost taste it.
It’s not surprising that other things in the classroom catch his attention.
Like the way Adam’s left hand splays across the history textbook on his desk. How his long fingers keep the pages in place while his right hand frantically takes notes. The way the April sunlight from the classroom window illuminates the smattering of freckles that normally go unnoticed; a tiny constellation from the tips of his fingers to the tops of his shoulders (and further, Ronan imagines, but that’s an image for another time). They’re dusted across his wrist and settled into the curve between his thumb and forefinger like little flecks of brown paint. Ronan had joked once that perhaps he might have dreamt Adam, but even his wild imagination could never have conjured up something so striking.
He’s not often prone to flights of fancy like this, at least not in his waking hours – there are dreams and then there’s reality – but for a second he imagines how it might feel to reach over and take that hand in his own. How it would feel to have Adam’s fingers wrapped around his own, the warm pressure of his palm against Ronan’s.
Ronan doesn’t realise his own hand has stilled on the page beneath it, the few notes he bothered to take long forgotten, until he catches Gansey’s curious gaze. It’s a look that says Ronan is some kind of puzzle, but Gansey has all the wrong pieces to even begin to put him together. It’s enough to make Ronan pick up the discarded pen again.
This time when he starts to write he clenches the pen in his hand with enough force that his notes leave deep scores in the paper.
---
2.
Adam is already finished for the night when Ronan pulls up in the BMW, the headlights illuminating Adam’s figure in the garage entrance. Ronan finds himself somewhat disappointed. Like Gansey, he hates that Adam puts himself through this menial torture just to keep himself in Aglionby. Unlike Gansey, however, he has to admit there’s something very appealing about watching Adam work. There are few things Ronan finds more attractive than Adam Parrish covered in motor oil, tinkering underneath the hood of a nice car. (Adam behind the wheel of a nice car is a very close contender.)
The door of the BMW clicks open and slams shut without a word. It’s a familiar routine by now, one that Ronan would never admit to finding so much comfort in.
“We’ve been invited round to the witches’ den tomorrow,” Ronan says after Adam has had a moment to get settled. He doesn’t have to take his eyes off the road to see the way Adam’s face softens.
“You mean Blue’s invited us over.”
Ronan smiles wickedly. “You’d call Sargent a witch? Tsk, tsk, Parrish.”
This time he does take his eyes off the road – just briefly – to sneak a glimpse at Adam’s face. He catches the end of Adam rolling his eyes and takes it as a compliment. He knows just what to say to get under people’s skin, but he’s getting better at knowing what to say to make Adam laugh.
The rest of the drive is quiet for the most part, which Ronan doesn’t mind. It’s a comfortable silence. Adam seems to think the same judging by the way the pent-up tension from the day’s work has bled from his body. Ronan’s usually much more intensity than tranquillity, but he thinks perhaps he could get used to such stillness.
Until he catches Adam’s hand move out of the corner of his eye and his heart leaps traitorously in his chest – but then Adam’s hand falls on the stereo and his hopes are drowned in –
“Squash one. Squash two. Squash –“
Adam swears and scrambles to eject the CD. Ronan flashes a grin that’s half a snarl to mask his disappointment.
---
3.
They’re sitting side-by-side on the kerb outside Monmouth, close enough that their knees knock together. Tyre tracks mar the empty parking lot, a souvenir from the day’s activities that will likely take months to fade away. The scent of burnt rubber lingers in the air and Ronan breathes it in. It’s a horrible, acrid smell and yet it makes Ronan feel alive in a way few things do. The tyre marks may last for months, but this memory will stay with him a lot longer.
They’d spent the day in and out of the BMW, each of them taking their turn to drag the other around on a moving dolly that really shouldn’t have held either of them. It didn’t, in the end, and they both have the injuries to prove it.
Ronan already feels the urge to pick at the fresh scrapes along his arms and legs as he does every time, but Adam swats his hand away when it inches too close. It’s infuriating, like an itch he can’t scratch, and he’s at a loss for how to spend this restless energy. He stills for a moment with his hand resting on his knee, then – mischief in his eyes and wickedness in his heart – he reaches over to grab at Adam’s. This time he gets more than a swat as Adam shoves him off the kerb, but he barely feels it beneath the lightness in his chest.
“God, you’re a pain in the ass, Lynch.”
There’s no bite in his words and a half-smirk of amusement tugs at his lips. Ronan feels the lightness in his chest threaten to burst its way out of his throat and he chokes on the snarky reply he’d planned on giving.
He falters for a beat – and then another. A moment too late, he bites out, “Whatever, shithead. Let’s go get you patched up.” But there’s no real fire in his voice, just enough of an edge to save face.
He’s trying not to think about his own hands hovering over Adam’s arms – Adam is perfectly capable of putting band-aids on himself, after all – when Adam reaches his hand out to pull him to his feet. After that, he feels his brain short-circuit and he opts to stop thinking at all.
---
4.
Ronan can’t remember how he got here, but he doesn’t care. All he cares about is that Adam is here beside him, turned on his side, his face just inches from Ronan’s. He’s looking at Ronan through sandy lashes, his eyes half closed and his limbs sleep-heavy.
“Mornin’,” he says and his voice is still rough from waking up, but the words drip like honey from his lips. Is his accent always so strong when he wakes? Ronan can’t seem to recall ever having a frame of reference.
“Morning,” Ronan says in reply. Neither of them say ‘good morning’, but this may just be the best morning Ronan can remember.
Adam gives him a crooked smile with one side of his face still pressed into the pillow. It’s soon swallowed by a yawn and Ronan can see every muscle in Adam’s jaw flex. His hand is raised to trace the movement before he even realises what he’s doing and he pauses when his thoughts catch up to him with his hand hovering over Adam’s face, the ghost of a touch on his jaw, his cheeks. When Ronan makes no move to take it away, Adam catches it with his own. He brings both of their hands down slowly to rest on the mattress between them and then leans in closer. His cheek brushes Ronan’s. This is what divinity feels like, Ronan thinks.
“Tamquam,” Adam says. And then again. “Tamquam.” A litany of Latin; “Tamquam, tamquam, tamquam, tamquam.”
Ronan doesn’t know what the word means, but Adam’s face is achingly close. He turns his own to align their mouths, to capture those words in his own, and –
“Fucking suffering Christ,” he growls as he comes to. His bed sheets are tangled around him, but his bed is empty, empty, empty.
His first thought is that he’s thankful he hasn’t brought anything back with him this time. His second is that he’s never been so disappointed to escape from a dream untouched.
He pulls his pillow over his head and all he hears is Adam’s voice – “Tamquam, tamquam, tamquam.”
---
5.
When Adam stalls the car for the second time, Ronan lets out a string of curses that would have had his mother threatening to wash his mouth out with soap if she could hear him.
“Come on, man,” he growls, the cherry on top of his swear-based sundae.
He’s been trying to teach Adam how to drive stick shift for the best part of the past hour, with Noah and Gansey watching from the sidelines in varying states of delight and horror, depending on how well things were going. As of right now, they’re decidedly not, but Ronan refuses to accept that as any reflection on his teaching methods. He’s clear, he’s succinct and he’s perfectly fucking capable of driving stick. It’s not his fault that doesn’t transfer over to his protégé, no matter how well things had been going beforehand.
As if hearing Ronan’s thoughts, Adam mutters, “It’s not my fault this thing handles like shit.”
Ronan struggles to shake off the temptation to give him another mouthful. The BMW handles like a dream – and not the kind Ronan is accustomed to either – and Adam knows as much.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Parrish, were you expecting something a little more upmarket? A nice Toyota? For Christ’s sake.” He takes a moment to draw his hands down his face and take a deep breath. Then: “Okay. Again. You’re letting the clutch up too quickly.”
Adam nods, bold defiance forgotten in the face of Ronan’s self-restraint. He turns the keys and the engine purrs to life again, a low rumble that Ronan can feel deep in his bones. It’s unreasonably attractive for reasons that Ronan isn’t yet interested in putting a name to.
This time, Adam’s attempts go better. It takes him little time to pick up speed – which says more about the BMW’s capabilities than Adam’s, but Ronan’s feeling generous – and he moves to switch gears again.
Once again the car lets out a loud and deeply troubled sound as Adam pulls it out of gear and fumbles with the gearstick.
“Watch the clutch,” Ronan hisses, clenching his fist. But Adam is losing his normally unshakeable cool and the car continues to growl in displeasure.
Ronan releases his fist and makes a move to grab Adam’s hand himself and put his beloved car out of its misery, but Adam finally slots the stick into place before he has the chance. The change is instantaneous. At once the suffering sound of the engine stops and the car glides smoothly across the asphalt once more.
Adam lets out a barely audible sigh of relief, the tension in his face plastered over with a reassuring smile. “See? I’m a quick learner.”
Ronan raises an eyebrow in disbelief. “You’re something alright.”
---
+1.
There’s always something magic about summer at the Barns. Even without the vast array of dreamthings that make up Ronan’s childhood home, the place has its own magic. When Ronan was younger, summer had seemed endless. They’d spend hours in the garden in the sweltering heat with the garden hose turned up full. Aurora would inevitably have to turn it on Ronan and Declan when one of them went a little too far in their roughhousing, while Matthew laughed heartily in the background, finding amusement in everything he saw. Occasionally when he was home, Niall would join them and Ronan would throw in an extra kick to Declan’s ankles, knowing their father was watching. (“That’s my boy!” Niall would whoop with a hearty chuckle. It had made Ronan feel invincible.)
It had been hard being forbidden from coming back here for so long, and even harder to do it alone, but Ronan is learning to recognise the magic again.
Though Niall is gone, the Barns is still soaked in reminders of his presence. Ronan turns one of his father’s dreamthings over in his hands absentmindedly. His focus is on Opal, frolicking with the cows in the near field, childish laughter filling the air. He’d warned her not to go near them, but her stubbornness had won out in the end. Sometimes he wonders where she gets it from, but then again, she’d lived inside his head for long enough.
Adam sits by his side, barely a foot between them. Before the distance would have been excruciating – so close and yet so far – but now it feels comfortable. Right. This is how things are meant to be, Ronan thinks.
He doesn’t think about Adam leaving for college in the fall, doesn’t think about the hundreds of miles from Singer’s Falls to Cambridge. He’s spent the last month trying to forget about the uncertainty and the sinking pit he feels in his stomach when he counts the hours between the two.
They’ll work it out. They’ve managed everything else life has thrown at them thus far. They’ll survive this.
His attention is drawn away from Opal by Adam’s arm reaching out to bridge the short distance between them. His palm is upturned, expectant but still patient. Ronan turns the dreamthing over in his hands once more – a kind of kaleidoscopic marble that he thinks is some kind of puzzle – then relinquishes his hold on it, placing it carefully in Adam’s hand. Adam’s mouth quirks up into a wry smile.
“Thanks,” he says and sets it on the grass beside him. “But that’s not what I was looking for.”
He holds his hand out again and Ronan feels a thrill run through him as he understands. He hopes they never lose that spark or the electric feeling that dances down his spine when he looks at Adam, a magic all of its own. It finally feels like he’s where he’s meant to be. He takes Adam’s hand.
Adam’s smile only grows, an unspoken reciprocation of all of Ronan’s thoughts.
“Tamquam,” he says, soft in a way he rarely is with others.
This time Ronan doesn’t have to puzzle over the word. He’d recognise it in sleep and from all the way in Cambridge. He’d recognise it always as long as Adam’s lips are the ones he hears it from.
“Alter idem,” he replies and feels Adam’s hand squeeze tighter.