Work Text:
During midterms, the stately Aglionby library became an ugly thing. The hushed page turns punctuated by footfalls and murmurs were replaced by sighs, groans, and the rustling of illegal bags of chips. Unwashed heads hunched over formerly empty tables, satchels weighty with books piled at their feet. So many boys packed into the space, the dusty old-book smell was replaced with the cedar-chip and feet odor of a hamster cage.
Gansey actively despised the intrusion of so many squabbling rodents into what he considered his domain. It was a personal affront to the more dedicated scholars who made the building their second home during the rest of the year. By osmosis, Adam had also come to hate the library at midterms. Ronan, being Ronan, had no opinion on the matter. He generally scorned the library at any time of year, except when sent on a fact finding mission by Gansey. On those occasions he managed all right, although the librarian tended to eye him as if he was planning to drag a strike-anywhere match across the shelves and incinerate the carefully curated collection.
Instead of the library, the boys had spent the first two weeks of March using the apartment as their study space. Well, Adam and Noah and Gansey had been studying. Ronan was doing...whatever Ronan did instead of assignments. It was physically easier for Adam than riding home with the weight of books on his back and a cold wind seeping through his sweater. Keeping the books out of his home also protected him from his father’s “opinions” on Aglionby.
Earlier in the week Gansey had repeated his request that Adam move in to Monmouth Manufacturing. He was, as usual, polite but forceful, a voice for a televised debate.
“I can’t,” said Adam, roiling.
“But look, you’re here anyway. You use four hours a week, minimum, bicycling between point A and point B and back again. With that time returned to you, you could increase your time spent sleeping by at least 50%.”
Adam glared, but the bags under his eyes confirmed Gansey’s assessment.
“No,” said Adam, as if that was the end of things. He knew that it wasn’t.
*
The night before midterms began, Adam pulled third shift at the trailer factory and rode home as the sun was rising. He barely had time for two mouthfuls of cereal before Gansey and the Pig arrived to ferry him to his first test. The school’s generous testing-adapted schedule meant a two hour break before the next one. Just enough time to grab a sandwich and a quick, private nap in an undisturbed location. The library was out. And even though plenty of other students did it, after an unfavorable hobo comparison from Ronan, Adam had made it a point to avoid napping on the center green.
Having been conditioned to the space over the past two weeks, he stumbled groggily to Gansey’s. The building appeared empty but was unlocked, and Adam thought once again how careless Gansey could be with his belongings, then immediately chastised himself.
Gansey could replace watches and chinos and cars with a flourish of the pen, but the possessions in his building were more than money. They were time and effort and trips around the globe. Interviews with wizened old men with strange obsessions. Meetings in diners with downtrodden locals who lived in ley-line territory; locals who had a canny understanding of how need could sometimes intersect with wealth and had honed tools for exploiting that fact. Adam could spot them a mile off, having grown up surrounded by the breed. It was embarrassing that he could see them and Gansey couldn't. Or maybe it was just that Gansey's pocketbook afforded him the ability follow any lead, even the bad ones.
More likely, the building was unlocked because Ronan had forgotten to lock it, or hadn't cared to remember. His BMW wasn’t in the overgrown lot, which meant that he had decided to illegally park in the teacher spaces at Aglionby again. Or he had decided to rob a bank for the thrill of it and needed a getaway car.
Adam sometimes worried that if he speculated too long on what Ronan might be doing at any given moment, his thoughts would manifest in Ronan’s actions. It had happened more than once, Ronan coming home scabbed and bloody after Adam had mused aloud that he was probably off fighting somewhere (coincidence, with a 70% chance of accuracy at any given time). A few months ago, Noah had divined Ronan’s new tattoo. Either Ronan was predictable in his rebellions or Gansey’s supernatural had bled into the everyday.
He dumped his backpack inside the front door. Across the cavernous space, Noah’s bedroom door drifted open a crack at the vibration. Then Noah peeked out.
“Oh,” said Adam. “I didn’t think anyone was here.”
Noah’s hand gripped the doorframe, his face a shadow inside.
“I’m just going to crash out here for a bit,” Adam said. “My next midterm isn’t until 1:30.”
Noah mumbled a bit of response, already pushing his door closed.
Adam’s stomach grumbled and he was tempted to check the fridge for leftover pizza. But he was too tired, and the large bed was a black hole in the center of the room, drawing him in. He set the alarm on his battered watch, praying that it would go off at the appointed hour and counting on Noah to wake him up if it didn’t.
He woke up to Ronan’s face hovering over him, staring in that way that he had.
‘F off,” Adam said pulling the blanket over his face. There was no telltale grogginess to his voice, like he had been aware someone was there for some time but was waiting for the right moment to announce his consciousness. He was a light sleeper out of necessity, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
“Midterms are over. You slept through your own expulsion,” said Ronan. The mattress jostled as he sat down on it. His shoes thumped as they were nudged off his feet and onto the floor.
“False.” Adam’s watch read 12:05. He had been asleep, or something approaching it, for less than twenty minutes.
“Get over,” said Ronan, yanking the blanket.
“What?”
“I said get over. It’s drafty in here.”
It was not unlike Ronan to demand whatever most inconvenienced those in his company, but this was a new thing.
“Don’t you have a bed? Of your own?”
Ronan yanked harder, and Adam’s grip on the covers loosened.
Gansey’s bed was huge, with an oversized down comforter and more pillows than a man with only one head should need. There should have been plenty of room for both of them, plus Noah, but Ronan crowded into Adam’s space.
“Christ” said Adam after Ronan’s elbow had jabbed his ribs for the third time. “I’m over as far as I can go, unless you’d prefer I move to the floor.”
“You’re warm,” Ronan said.
“Yes, I exist. Blood pumps through my veins, keeping my temperature a consistent 98 degrees or so. So either kill me with your pointy ass elbows and wait until I cool off, or grab an extra blanket for yourself.”
“No, I said you’re warm.”
The tips of Adam’s ears turned pink. “You want,” he began incredulously, then stopped himself and said only in his head, to snuggle?