Work Text:
The first time Ronan finds him, it’s hidden in the inner tube of one of those large, outdoor, plastic playscapes.
Ronan has been looking for a bit, at Gansey’s request. I’m worried. He left in something of a panic. Could you search for him, Ronan? He’d asked and, though Ronan wanted to say no, Parrish is a big boy who can handle himself, he’d gone anyway.
He left his bicycle, and can’t have gotten too far on foot, so Ronan trudges on until he overhears a couple of kids complaining at a local playground.
“He just climbed in and won’t leave no matter how hard I poke at him!”
“How are we supposed to finish our game now?”
This strikes Ronan as odd enough that he stops, backtracks, and eyes the plastic structure with a frown. He doesn’t believe in coincidences, not anymore, not since Gansey has come into his life. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Ronan stomps over, past the small group of children, who go quiet the instant they notice his intimidating presence. His cold gaze narrows, arms crossing against his broad chest, while he considers how it might appear for a teenager his size to crawl inside. He decides he doesn’t actually care.
It isn’t exactly an easy journey. The tubes aren’t built for someone that isn’t child-shaped, but Ronan goes in anyway to search for the so-called playtime ruiner. He catches sight of a familiar, navy Aglionby blazer and khaki slacks quite far in, where the other boy is curled into a tiny ball, face buried in his knees.
“What the fuck, Parrish?” Ronan says, reaching out to shake Adam’s shoulder. He gets promptly shunned, the boy jerking away from his touch like a wild animal might. “You flipped, man?”
“Screw off, Lynch.” There’s something very un-Adam-like about how the words are said, hollow, with none of the usual bite to them.
Ronan’s heart sinks to his stomach, forming a heavy and unyielding pit. "Jesus,” he huffs out. “What’s gotten into you? Come on, let’s get the hell outta here. Gansey’s got his panties all in a bunch.”
“I…” Adam seems like he’s going to say something but trails off, taking a few deep, shaky breaths. “Okay, okay, just...give me a minute.”
Rather than leave, like Parrish probably wants, Ronan sinks back against the hard-plastic tube and waits. He wants to ask what the hell? But he doesn’t because it’s not his place, nor his style, to intrude on personal matters, and it’s not as if Adam would tell him even if he did.
They don’t have that kind of friendship.
*
The second time Ronan finds him it’s a little more intimate.
Adam moved into the small apartment above St. Agnes recently, with a lot of help from Ronan. Things between them have changed. There’s something different about Adam, after barely escaping the dusty trailer park with his life and making the sacrifice to Cabeswater. He’s frightening and further away, sometimes more forest and less human, sometimes more human than the rest of them combined.
It isn’t a surprising occurrence for Ronan to show up at St. Agnes unannounced. He likes to come over and get on Adam’s nerves, remind him You’re still human, dammit, to which he’ll likely respond with something along the lines of, Oh, that’s real rich coming from you, Lynch.
Ronan knocks once, twice, three times to no answer.
He presses his ear up to the door, checks for the sound of a running shower, or for any sign of life inside.
Nothing. Silence.
It isn’t locked and Ronan lets himself in. He figures Adam has fallen asleep, dead to the world after working himself to exhaustion, as per usual. But he’s not on the twin-sized mattress left on the floor with no frame or box spring to hold it up.
Taking a few steps in, he tilts his head and looks around. “Parrish?”
Ronan almost misses how the few tiny, potted plants Adam keeps are all reaching in the same direction. His eyes follow to where they point, landing on the second-hand desk then down, and Ronan finally spots him.
Hidden in the tiny nook underneath the desk is Adam. He holds his legs tight to his chest, face pressed into the gap between his knees, still as a picture.
The memory of finding Adam stashed away in that plastic tube months ago comes back; the way he’d shied away from Ronan’s touch, how he’d only needed time before becoming the same, pragmatic, know-it-all, Adam Parrish he’s used to.
“Adam?” Ronan asks, softer, with a sort of careful consideration he isn’t well known for. His voice elicits a panicked, pained gasp from the other boy, who turns to side-eye Ronan. There’s a similar emptiness to what had been in his voice last time, frightening in its intensity, leaving Ronan to wonder if he’s ever known anything about Adam at all.
He stares for a long, hard second and hides his face again. “What are you doing here, Lynch? Go away.”
Rather than respond, or make the same mistake of moving too close and touching Adam, Ronan walks over to the bed. He plops down, snags a colorful rubber ball off the floor, and begins to bounce it against the opposite wall.
For a while, it’s the only noise. Ronan concentrates on the rhythmic thump of rubber on cheap drywall, using it as a distraction to hold back whatever urge he has to ask questions. No matter how much their friendship has evolved over the last few months, it isn’t enough.
He’s afraid of crossing that line. He's afraid of acknowledging his rapidly changing feelings, like a supernova growing inside of him may explode soon and leave behind nothing but disaster in its wake.
“I’m fucking bored,” Ronan says, still bouncing the ball. “Wanna go for a drive?”
Adam stays quiet and Ronan assumes he’s being ignored. He hears shifting, tries not to look, and then, Adam finally replies, “Alright, let’s get outta here.”
*
The third time Ronan finds him is different from the rest. Probably because he doesn’t really find Adam, at least not in the most basic sense of the word.
They’re having an especially large bonfire at the Barns that night. It’s not just him and Adam, no, although they have been spending a lot more time alone together. It’s him, Adam, Blue, Gansey, and Noah. He’s having more and more difficulties manifesting lately, his humanness deteriorating with each passing day. The truth is there, but nobody dares speak it into existence.
Maybe that’s why Adam stands up so fast it startles everyone. Maybe he can’t take looking at a half-corpse, half-ghost any longer.
It could also be the lame joke Gansey makes and how easily Blue laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world. Their break-up had seemed amicable, but Ronan has been watching Adam closely for a while, long enough to know he’s far from okay.
Or, maybe, Ronan’s presence is the real problem here. He’s well aware Adam knows how he feels. It’s not like Ronan has been hiding it and, even if he were trying, he’s pretty sure the only person who can’t see his crush like a big, rainbow flag waving right in their face, would be the painfully unobservant Gansey.
He’s too much, too soon, too familiar, a little too close for Adam’s comfort. Whenever Ronan thinks he’s getting the hang of Adam Parrish, he pushes a little too far, drawing out the guarded, abrasive boy who would do anything and everything in his power to push all the good out of his life.
Somehow, it feels like the closer he and Adam get, the further away they become.
Gansey calls out for him but there’s no indication Adam hears him, no hesitation in his walk towards the old farmhouse, nothing.
Two sets of human eyes, and one not-so-human, land expectantly on Ronan. Leave it up to him to handle this. It’s his house, his crush, his problem.
This is all your fault, anyway. You’re coming on way too strong. Rein it the fuck in.
Ronan rolls his eyes and hops up, following across the wide-open field and into the back door of the house. Everything is dark save for a bright light emanating from the kitchen. The sound of a wooden chair scraping tile is all he needs to know exactly where Adam’s gone.
He wanders through the threshold into a seemingly empty kitchen. It’s all mismatched cupboards that he’s been skipping school to fix up, old granite countertops, and a large, antique, solid oak table with matching chairs, but no Adam.
“Where’d you go, Parrish?” Ronan says, knocking his knuckles on the table a few times as he thinks. It takes a moment for his brain to slot the pieces together, to recall the last two instances he’d searched for Adam, only to discover him somewhere peculiar. He holds onto the side of the table and squats down, peering through the pulled in chairs. There Adam is, huddled in the modest space left underneath. “The fuck are you doing down here?”
Adam angles his head up to stare at him through choppy, dusty brown hair. Ronan notices it again, spread across his features, how very vacant Adam is in this moment. It’s like something important has been carved out of him, leaving only a human-shaped shell.
“Scooch over, I’m coming in.”
“Ronan.”
Ronan doesn’t give Adam a chance to protest. He pulls out a chair and crawls in, settling down next to the other boy. Shoulder to shoulder, Ronan tells himself now is not a good time, Lynch and tries to ignore how exhilarating it feels being this close.
“You don’t have to—”
“To what?”
“Be here. I’m fine, really, just needed to get away.”
“Fucking hell, me too. If I have to hear one more pun, I’m gonna end it all.”
Adam stays silent for a couple seconds, his near translucent eyebrows furrowed. “Hey, Ronan?”
“What’s up, weirdo?”
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
He glances at Adam and away before the other boy notices. “About what? This?"
Adam nods, slow and reluctant.
“You want me to?”
Now he shakes his head, quicker and with tightly pursed lips. “No.”
Ronan gives it some thought and says, “Then why the fuck would I?”
Adam’s mouth twitches up in the slightest hint of a smile, there and gone in an instant. He buries his face in his knees, takes a deep breath. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
*
The fourth time Ronan finds him, it’s both hilarious and heartbreaking.
Getting together was supposed to change things. Ronan supposes it has, in a way, but he’s quickly coming to understand that this is only the beginning of a long, complicated journey. One full of passionate disagreements and makeups, things said in the heat of the moment they don’t mean and things they do, times where he worries Adam will realize he’s not worth all this effort, and the ones where Adam says I love you with his whole heart, wearing away the edges of doubt for another day.
They’d gotten into it earlier over one of their many, many points of contention. Ronan dropped out, it’s no big deal. However, between school, homework, his three part-time jobs, and the unfortunate distance between Singer’s Falls and Henrietta, Adam has very little free time while Ronan is left with a surplus.
The smart thing would be for Adam to move into the Barns. "That way,” Ronan argues, "You can quit that damned factory job. Concentrate on school."
"And you?” Adam quips back. Though Ronan thinks yes, and me, he doesn’t dare say it out loud.
But Adam refuses, citing his stupid need to get by on his own, to prove he can do this without help from his rich boyfriend, and, "it’s just something I want to do my way, Ronan, but once I graduate I’ll stay here, I promise."
Ronan doesn’t know why he’s so upset. Maybe the boredom is finally getting to him. Or it could be the loneliness, the knowledge that, once Adam finishes senior year, they don’t have much time left.
No matter how much he doesn’t want to be left alone, Ronan will never ask Adam to stay. Not when getting out of rural Virginia, away from a place full of traumatic memories, has been his goal all along. He’ll never ask, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still sting a little.
When he storms off, Ronan slams the door on his way out of the Barns. He’s sure the house shakes from his efforts, but he doesn’t care.
The next couple of hours are spent driving too fast down country roads and finding a nice, empty field. Ronan parks there, leaves the BMW on so an electronic beat pumps from his stereo, pounding out in the same rhythm as his heart. He crouches down, hands on the back of his head, squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth, staying like that until he’s calmed down.
He goes back home fully intending to apologize. The Shitbox is still here, meaning so is Adam, but his search of the usual rooms is fruitless.
The only reason Ronan thinks to check the closet in his bedroom is that he’s looked everywhere else Adam likes to hide. He doesn’t see him, at first, just a mess of jeans, doc martens, t-shirts, old Aglionby textbooks he never returned, and various dream items tossed around haphazardly. This is where I like to keep my mess, Parrish, neatly tucked away where only I am aware of its existence. It’s a motherfucking metaphor, get it? Ronan had once said and Adam replied, in a dry tone, no, I really don’t. Clean out your closet, Lynch.
Ronan is about to shut the door when a shift underneath a pile of clothing alerts him that something is off. He reaches down to pull at jeans and shirts and mismatched boots, unearthing an unkempt Adam Parrish, who stares up at him with parted lips and wide, wild blue eyes.
What Ronan had once misconstrued as emptiness, he now recognizes as something else altogether. An Adam that is so full, he’s turned inward, compartmentalizing each piece of himself until there’s nothing left.
“Parrish?” Ronan raises an eyebrow and cocks his head.
His lips purse into a straight, thin line. He looks pretty pissed as he says, “Leave me alone.”
Ronan considers this and shakes his head. “No way, you finally came out of the closet, now you want me to leave you in there again?”
The irritated expression soon gives way to relief and Adam bursts into a loud, melodious laugh. He goes until it seems like he’s going to stop, then he keeps going, on and on and on until, when it finally comes to an end, he has to wipe tears from his eyes. “You asshole,” Adam says through a hitched breath. His voice wavers as he continues, “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. I just…”
Can’t.
It doesn’t need to be said out loud, Ronan doesn’t want it to be.
He sinks down onto his knees and leans over, scrambling to wrap his arms around Adam, to pull him in close and bridge any distance, physically and emotionally, that he’s inadvertently put between them. “Jesus fuck, what are you even apologizing for? Thought I was the asshole.”
“You are," Adam points out, voice muffled from where his face is pressed into Ronan’s shoulder. “But I am too.”
“Yeah, well, I love it when you’re being a total bastard,” Ronan says in another attempt at humor.
Adam snorts, amused, and Ronan’s heart soars. “You would. Masochist.”
“Sadist.”
“Mm, maybe.”
“Does this mean I’m gonna have to tempt you out of the closet with my sexy body and winning personality?”
This earns another burst of giggles from Adam, but one that soon turns into a choked sob. Ronan doesn’t know what he did, doesn’t know what he could say to make things better, doesn’t know if Adam wants him to acknowledge the sudden vulnerability. So, he says nothing at all, just holds Adam in the messy closet and thinks about how, no matter what, things are going to change, but if they put in the work it’ll be for the better.
*
The fifth time Ronan finds him, it’s right after Adam has officially moved into the Barns after graduation. Ronan thinks he’s ready but he’s not. That’s the thing about Adam Parrish – you can never, truly be prepared for him.
They’ve got everything boxed up and moved out of the St. Agnes apartment. Ronan can tell Adam is having a difficult time adjusting. He’s so used to going nonstop, that when he finally gets a chance to take a break, it’s as if he has no idea what to do with himself.
Sit on the porch and have some fucking tea, Parrish, and let’s go dig our own swimming hole out back, and wanna do donuts in the backfield?
It’s like Ronan has to teach Adam how to act like a normal teenager for once in his damn life, but it’s a worthy endeavor. Ronan would do anything to bring a smile to his boyfriend’s face and help him unwind, no matter what. There’s nothing Ronan wants more than for Adam to have the best summer ever, before he moves off to Cambridge to follow his dreams, and leaves Ronan, stagnant and waiting.
If only it stayed that simple. When a new, bizarre condition starts to plague him, the blackest of black ooze seeping from his nose, ears, eyes, mouth, and into his lungs, things start to get a little tricky. Nightwash. Sounds sexy, is actually the opposite. It’s frightening but Ronan pretends he’s unaffected because, if he lets on how scary it is for him, he knows Adam will say it again. Maybe I should stay here until we figure this out.
Ronan can’t take being the reason Adam puts off the very thing he’s worked so hard for. He’d rather die. Not like that’s an option, but it’s a thought.
He’s just had a particularly nasty bout of nightwash, sequestering himself in the bathroom to clean up. Ronan wanted to do this away from Adam, a lame endeavor at hiding how bad it was. His shirt is soaked through, ruined, nostrils caked and getting crusty, his teeth streaked dark. No matter how many times Ronan spits into the sink, his saliva remains tinged grey. It’s as if no amount of scrubbing, brushing, picking, scraping will ever get it off but, after a hot shower, Ronan thinks he’s managed well enough.
His first stop is their shared room, where Ronan picks out some clothes from the closet. He can’t be certain they’re clean, but they don’t smell bad, so he puts them on and heads downstairs in search of Adam.
The sitting room is empty, a peek in the kitchen seems to be the same, a quick walk around the house offers no obvious sign of his boyfriend’s whereabouts. Ronan checks the back, asks Opal if she’s seen Adam, but all the girl has to offer is a shake of her head before she goes back to arguing with Chainsaw in choppy caws and squawks. He gives each barn a once over, the swimming hole, the mud pit where they’d spun the BMW around in circles last night, nothing. No Adam.
Up to the house again, Ronan looks in the usual spots, even in his disaster closet, underneath all the clothes, despite being in there prior. As he looks underneath the table, he sees pots piled up on the countertop, and his eyebrows raise curiously. He pads over, drops down to his knees in front of a lower cupboard, hastily tugging the old wooden panel open.
And there Adam is, curled up in the smallest ball Ronan has ever seen him manage, squeezed into a space no grown boy his size should rightfully be able to fit. It’s a wonder he’s managed to get in there, but Adam always finds ways to shatter his expectations. Even if it’s only how he manages to wedge in somewhere he doesn’t belong.
“What the hell?” Ronan asks, because he can’t think of anything else to say. He’s too caught up trying to figure out the logistics of Adam crammed in the cupboard.
Adam has no room to look up. He tilts his head to look at Ronan, but that’s about it. “I was…” He drifts off and buries his face into his knees. “Checking for mice.”
Ronan grimaces at the lie. He figured they were past this, after all this time, but apparently, Adam still isn’t ready to admit to his strange habit. Like a frightened, wild animal, Ronan will have to wait for him to warm up and come around on his own.
“Mice,” Ronan echoes.
“Mhm.”
“Find anything?”
There’s a long pause. Adam breathes in deep, holds his legs closer. “No.”
“No shit, you probably scared them all away squeezing in there. Might have to use the butter to get you out.” He brings out the dumb jokes, hopes it works.
“Lube would work better, actually,” Adam says, his own try at being witty back.
Ronan plops down onto the tile floor, legs sprawled out in front of him. He stares at the compact Adam. “We got better uses for that, not gonna waste it on you.”
“Technically speaking…”
“Don’t you fucking pull that, Parrish. You know damn well what I meant.”
He doesn’t respond and after a while, Ronan can’t take the silence anymore. “Are you ever gonna tell me what all this is about?”
“Yeah, someday. Promise.”
It’s not an answer, but it’s almost better than one. The words assure there is a someday between them, and that’s enough.
Someday means a future where Adam comes back.
*
There isn’t another time Ronan finds Adam because he doesn’t need to. Not anymore.
While Adam is off working shifts at Boyd’s, he often gets bored. An under-stimulated Ronan is one that needs to do something, anything and, when the idea strikes, he works fast to accomplish it before the familiar hum of the BMW pulling up the driveway speaks of Adam’s return.
Ronan assesses the fruits of his labor, simultaneously proud and nervous of the masterpiece he’s made. The closet has been cleaned out, clothes in one pile, shoes in another, textbooks, dream items, everything not-so-neatly stacked up. Now the space is full of colorful sheets leftover from his childhood like a miniature fort. Inside, an assortment of throw pillows for comfort sake, and a flashlight just in case. It’s not much, but it’s the best Ronan could manage on such short notice.
He hops down the stairs two at a time to meet Adam at the door, a shit-eating grin spread so wide across his face that Adam stops, blinks, and frowns in confusion.
“What did you do?” Adam asks while he peels off his old, stained tennis shoes.
The sight of Adam in greasy coveralls, a smear of black on his face, fingers and under his nails tinted as well, sends a thrill down Ronan’s spine. He ignores it, snatching Adam’s dirty hand with his own to tug. “You’ll have to see for yourself.”
“I don’t know if I want to.”
“Oh, you do. Trust me.”
They’re halfway to the stairs when Adam says, “Last time you said that, you threw me in the pond.”
Ronan lets out a loud, obnoxious laugh at the memory. “Good times.”
“I was fully dressed, Ronan!”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
Adam rolls his eyes and allows himself to be pulled into the bedroom. His frown deepens at the sight of everything that was in the closet now outside of it. “What is this?”
He lets go of Adam only to grab the doorknob, pulling it open to reveal the colorful fort inside. “I call it The Parrish Tiny Space, for whenever you, y’know,” Ronan shrugs. “I got my old school tie here, you just put it on the knob when you’re doing the whole hiding thing and want me to leave you alone.”
At first, Ronan worries Adam doesn’t like it. All he does is look, his mouth set in a straight line, features wiped of any sort of emotion that would give away his feelings. He stares until Ronan begins to think he might have done something terribly wrong, crossed an unspoken line, that when Adam had said he didn’t want to talk about it, he meant acknowledging the quirk in any way whatsoever.
You’ve really gone and done it this time, Lynch, Ronan scolds himself. His mouth opens, about to apologize, when Adam’s arms wrap around him so suddenly, Ronan stumbles back somewhat in surprise. It takes a couple seconds for his brain to catch up but, when he finally does, Ronan envelops Adam in such a tight hug that the other boy grunts.
“I love it,” he whispers. “Tamquam –”
Without missing a beat, Ronan responds, “– Alter idem. You do? Really?”
“Yeah, really,” Adam repeats, hesitates, then says, “If you want, I’ll tell you.”
Ronan shakes his head, squeezing until they’re pressed flush. He buries his face in Adam’s neck, takes in a breath that smells like grease and dust and something distinctly Adam. Moss, morning dew, cheap body wash. “I can wait.”
Adam makes a soft, happy noise. He nuzzles into Ronan, refusing to let go. “Do you remember that first time?”
His only response is a hum, too content to remain nestled in Adam and not wanting to move.
“I was so glad you were the one who found me,” Adam goes on, his fingers curl into the fabric over Ronan’s back. “I didn’t understand back then, but I get it now.”
“Hm?”
“You’re the only one who wouldn’t pry. I think I needed it, for someone to know without really knowing. Does that make sense?”
Someone to know without knowing.
A person who is aware, but who doesn’t force the details. Ronan’s specialty. “I think so.”
Adam clutches closer then lets go. He twines their fingers together, drawing Ronan towards the closet. “Let’s check it out?”
"Let’s? Like—”
“Together.”
Coming from Adam, together sounds like a multitude of other words. It’s I love you and thank you and I’ll always come back to you. Most of all, it sounds like the promise of a future.
It builds in Ronan until he thinks he may burst but, instead, he says, "Okay. Together."