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Ronan Lynch is not a fan of anything to do with school.
His is full of assholes, riddled with boys who call each other things like pupils and acquaintances. It’s a sea of people — all alike in that they’re not like Ronan — and courses that are supposed to propel your career in the professional world. Ronan wants to be a fucking farmer. This school does nothing for him except remind him why.
“I think it’s exciting,” Gansey is saying to Adam when Ronan throws himself down at their lunch table, already considering getting back up and leaving. “And awfully kind of Jane to invite all three of us.“
Adam huffs a laugh, “I don’t think she invited all three of us so much as she’s expecting all of us to go, and if they stop us at the door she’ll find a way to sneak us in.”
Gansey waves the comment off, “I’ve always wanted to go to a real school dance.”
Ronan kicks Gansey’s leg under the table. “The rich boy dances at Aglionby not real enough for you, Dick?” Gansey gives him a withering look.
Aglionby doesn’t really have dances, and besides, it’s not like Ronan would know what they were like. Gansey had tried to get him to go to one once, a few years ago. It was Ancient Civilizations themed, which is about the nerdiest thing Ronan has ever heard, and Ronan had threatened to set the sphinx headdress Gansey had tried to buy for him on fire.
Gansey had gone, and then he had come home two hours early claiming that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be in the movies. They ended up working on his model of Henrietta instead.
“We should go,” Gansey insists. Ronan rubs his eyes, trying to think of a nicer way to say fuck no. Being in this school every day is shitty enough.
Adam scrunches up his face. “A school dance?”
“Fuck no.”
Gansey sighs, deflating. “I thought you might say that,” he says. “Although I don’t understand your objections.”
“It’s a country themed school dance, Dick.”
"It might be fun."
"Yeah, being trapped in a room with a bunch of sweaty people in cowboy boots is so fucking fun."
Gansey sighs again, the kind that expels the weight of thirty years. He looks at Adam. “Surely you see the appeal?”
“Not… really. I have to study on Friday.” He doesn’t, Ronan knows because Friday nights are reserved for studying History, and they have a test on Thursday. He smirks knowingly at Adam across the table.
Gansey looks between the two of them for a moment, “I would really appreciate it if you both came, I think Jane would as well. We hardly see each other outside of school anymore.”
“We live together.”
“Which makes it all the sadder.”
Gansey’s eyes move from Ronan to Adam to his food in front of him. Ronan can feel his resolve slipping, because try as much as he wants to march to the administrator’s office and drop out right now, he would go to a stupid rodeo themed school dance if Gansey asked him to. And it seems he’s asking them to.
Adam lets out a long suffering sigh beside him. Gansey grins at his sandwich like he knows their answers before they’ve even said them. He probably does.
Ronan should not have come to school today.
...
Contrary to popular expectation, Ronan does go to all his afternoon classes. Fitfully, and he hears “Mr. Lynch, lovely of you to join us” more than once in that sarcastic, patronizing way, but it’s tolerable when his chemistry teacher says “I don’t suppose you have to work,” and Ronan does . Copied from Adam and Gansey’s notes, but, still. He does.
It’s tolerable when he passes Gansey in the hallway after school, calling back a ‘I’ll cover Parrish bus duty!’ at Gansey’s pleased expression.
It’s tolerable now, as Ronan twists Adam’s padlock around his fingers, watching over Adam’s locker door as he meticulously shoves his textbooks into neat little piles.
“I never thought I’d catch you at a school dance,” Adam says, taking his Shakespeare book off the top shelf.
Ronan scowls, mood immediately soured. “Well, it’s not my fucking choice.”
Adam hums in reply. Ronan knows it’s in understanding. “Country themed.”
“For fucks sake, they couldn’t’ve thought of a better theme?”
Adam laughs. Ronan clenches his fist around the lock.
“You know,” Adam says absently, moving his bio book from the bottom shelf to the top, “you should learn to line dance.” Ronan nearly bites through his entire tongue. “So you don’t stick out like a sore thumb.”
Ronan Lynch, rumpled Aglionby sweater, buzz cut head, tattoo peeking over his collar, smiles wildly at him.
Adam shakes his head, fighting a grin. “Okay, but still. You should learn. Unless you want Blue to yell at you for standing around and brooding again.”
“I could take her.”
“I really don’t think you could.”
Ronan doesn’t even want to go to this stupid dance anyways, and if he does show up (which he assumes he will, if only because Gansey would never let him hear the end of it if he didn’t) then it’ll be to spike the punch bowl or vandalize the bulletin board. He’s not going to be doing any dancing.
But then Adam says, “I could teach you, if you want,” as he moves his Bio book from the top shelf back to the bottom, intently avoiding Ronan’s questioning eyes.
“You? You know how to line dance?”
“Don’t act so surprised.”
“I’m not. That’s the most Parrish bullshit ever. Of course you know how to fucking line dance.”
Adam looks at him over his locker door. Ronan looks back, fists clenched so tight the dial on the lock digs painfully into his palm.
“Fucking fine.” Ronan looks away first. Adam turns back to his books, zipping up his bag and heading towards the direction of the parking lot. Ronan closes his looker door before following. “Wouldn’t want Maggot to get expelled for starting a fight at the school dance,” he grumbles.
If Adam hears him, he pretends not to.
…
It's entirely Gansey’s fault that he’s in this mess, Ronan has decided.
If it hadn't been for his need to drag Ronan to every school event he possibly could, Ronan would be a lot better off, right about now.
Gansey is out doing God knows what, and Noah is God knows where and Ronan is here, in the Monmouth living room watching Adam Parrish scroll through his phone to find appropriate music to teach him how to line dance for a country themed dance they’re attending tomorrow. Jesus Christ.
Adam had suggested Thursday night, because he worked every other night of the week except Fridays. Ronan had rolled his eyes and said “Lemme check my schedule and I’ll get back to you.”
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Adam says, not looking up from Ronan’s phone, “I have a shift tomorrow morning.” As if Ronan forgot.
“I know, asshole.” Ronan crosses his arms, “I’m not going to keep you from your riveting oil changes.”
Adam levels him a look. Ronan doesn’t meet it. “We’ll see about that,” he says. Then he turns the volume up on Ronan’s phone to max. “Let’s start with an easy one, I’ll show you first, okay?”
Ronan wishes he was behind the wheel right now. “Whatever, Parrish. Let’s get this over with.”
Adam places the phone on the arm of the couch, some God awful upbeat shit playing off of it, and gets this over with.
It turns out Adam wasn’t kidding when he said he knew how to line dance. He begins by rocking side to side to the rhythm coming out of the speakers. And isn’t that a fucked up image, carefully put together Adam Parrish, rocking to some country song in his living room.
Ronan watches his feet move perfectly, stepping and kicking and jumping to the rhythm, like it's second nature. Adam looks in his element like this, something Ronan has only thought about while lying on his floor, watching Adam study the same notes four times in a row. It strikes him that maybe Adam is in his element. Both while line dancing to some country song, and while studying material he already knows inside and out. Ronan thinks maybe he’d feel more comfortable in a pair of cowboy boots than a tie and snickers into his arm.
It’s a little astonishing, to watch Adam be so competent at something so closely associated with all the things he’s tried his hardest to distinguish himself from. It makes Ronan wonder just how much Henrietta is left in him.
Adam turns to the side, facing Ronan and dancing now. Ronan brings his arm back up to his mouth.
Adam has never been a clumsy person, has always had an air around him, as if he could start fires and raise oceans in the same breath if he wanted to. His cool control over himself and the situation is something Ronan used to make fun of him incessantly for ( “Chill out, Parrish. Just let loose for one goddamn minute in your sad fucking life.”). Adam would yell at him to take things more seriously, and then Gansey would interject with some half-baked question about Glendower.
Ronan had never actually succeeded in getting Adam’s cool perfectionism to crack. Still, it’s strange to see him like this, so put together, effortlessly in tune with not only himself, but with the music around him.
He slides across the floor with careful precision. Ronan takes a step back, arm still up.
This must be why Adam chooses to leave fires unburnt and sea levels stagnant. It's born from the fact that he can tell his left foot from his right, from the way that his hands hover at his sides — daintily bent and yet oddly masculine as he tucks his foot to his knee — from the way his stupid invisible hair flops from side to side when he does that stupid looking little hop.
“Do it again, I missed it,” Ronan says.
Adam raises a dusty eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Tough shit.”
“You didn’t pick up a single thing?”
“You’re a bad teacher,” Ronan counters. Adam’s eyes flash. “Do it again.”
Adam bites his bottom lip, turning it white under his teeth and bright red when he releases it. “Fine," he says finally. “One more time.”
...
They fall into some sort or rhythm together, though not easily and not without complaint. Ronan steps on his foot (not on purpose), and Adam smacks his hand (on purpose), and there’s one instance where Adam jumps a little too aggressively, his socked feet slipping on the floor and sending him tumbling to his ass. Ronan had laughed at him instead of helping him up. Adam had almost left.
It’s not until Ronan actually tries to focus, somewhere into the fourth or fifth song, that he also realizes the moves are quite simple; simpler than what he used to compete with, at least. It’s similar to Irish dancing in that it’s mostly moving your feet. Familiar territory.
Dancing used to be a common occurrence in the Lynch family household. There was always some music playing from somewhere — Ronan wonders now if that had been magic, too — always little boys trying to outdo each other, in the dance room and out. Ronan hasn’t danced in many years, but the comprehension seems to have been sitting there, just under his skin.
“Do it with me,” Adam says, looking behind him at Ronan’s footwork. Ronan complies. “No, it’s- stop putting that foot down.”
Ronan glares, heat rising up the back of his neck. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Adam rolls his eyes, “I’m not trying to boss you around, Lynch, I’m trying to teach you a dance.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah, you can lament about how much you hate joy later. Now, stop putting that foot down.”
...
“You’re a disaster.”
“ You’re a disaster.”
“Mature of you.”
“I’m not the one insulting my fucking students. If you were a teacher I’d have you fired.”
“If I were a teacher you wouldn’t show up enough to have any kind of substantial dirt on me. Now go again.”
“I’d come to your class just to get you fired.”
“And I’d quit teaching just because you were in my class. Now go again. ”
…
“What the fuck do you do with your hands?”
“You put them, like,” Adam gestures vaguely to his hips,
“On your dick?”
“In your belt. Jesus, what is wrong with you?”
Ronan shrugs.
...
It turns out Adam’s not just a good dancer, but a good teacher, too; once Ronan stops purposefully trying to trip over his own feet. Ronan finds it unsettling, the way Adam is actually trying to help him learn the steps properly. Adam keeps looking at him the whole time he’s teaching, eyes heavy and calculating, like he’s observing more than Ronan’s ability to follow instruction.
He doesn’t complain, a little less out of his depth as Adam says “that’s pretty much the whole first three eight counts,” and it’s just a variation of the same step.
By the end of the hour, Ronan knows about two entire songs worth of steps and is embarrassingly out of breath. “Where the fuck did you learn how to line dance, country boy?”
There's a pregnant pause. “When I was a kid," is all Adam says, annoyingly not panting or sweaty. He doesn’t continue or elaborate, so Ronan fills the empty silence by saying, “lets go one more time. I want to see you fall on your ass again.”
“God, I hope you drop out of my class soon.”
…
The only school dance Ronan has ever been to was when he was in middle school. Declan was going, because he had been a fan of networking since age ten, and their parents had encouraged Ronan to go with him. Ronan had yelled and whined for an entire week about how he wanted to stay home with Matthew instead, but ultimately ended up in the back of his dad’s car, awaiting a nuclear explosion.
It was awkward and sweaty; one girl had asked him to dance and another had told him she wasn’t surprised to see him alone. So basically as miserable as Ronan had expected. He’d spent the majority of the night sabotaging Declan’s attempts to slow dance with different girls by running in between them.
So, this is better, at least, even if it’s still sweaty and awkward. The gym is decorated like an old western film, fake wanted posters, a fucking wooden arch above the DJ stand, and what Ronan can only assume is every single red, white, and blue decoration Party City had to offer.
Ronan has never seen this many dollar store cowboy hats in his life.
“Howdy, Pardner,” Gansey had said in a laughable parody of Adam’s accent when Ronan finally emerged from his bedroom earlier tonight. Gansey placed a brown cowboy hat on Ronan’s head, another one, presumably for Adam, tucked under his arm. “Ready for the rodeo? “ Gansey himself was wearing the ugliest bright yellow flannel he’d ever seen and a black cowboy hat that didn’t quite fit on his head. He was still wearing his boat shoes.
Ronan looked at him with an unwavering stare. “Yee haw," he said seriously.
Gansey had just laughed.
Now, Ronan stands next to the door with a half-empty cup of non-spiked punch and his hat in his hands. He’s gearing up to go. He wishes he’d driven here himself.
The rest of the group are line dancing. Or, rather, Adam and Blue are dancing. Gansey looks more like he’s flailing, one hand holding his hat to his head; but his smile is an easy one as Blue attempts to teach him how to bend his knee and jump simultaneously.
They’re playing something that sounds exactly like the shit Adam played for him yesterday. Ronan downs the rest of his punch with a scowl, contemplating how much shit he’d be in if he walked to the nearest liquor store.
“Well, aren’t you the picture of joy.”
Ronan looks up from his cup to find Blue in front of him, leaving Gansey to follow an amused Adam on the dance floor. She’s also clad in flannel, ripped to shreds on the back and arms, those pieces instead sewn to the sleeves in something resembling tassels.
Ronan’s scowl deepens. “What do you want?”
“I want to know why you’re standing at the door like an adult chaperone.”
Ronan bares his teeth. Blue doesn’t react.
“I’d be a great chaperone. Maybe then the punch wouldn’t suck.”
Blue laughs, a startled little ha, and turns her smile away from him. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Ronan shrugs, noncommittal; uninterested.
She tilts her head at him, looking him over from his plain black tank to his standard ripped jeans. “You should come dance with us,” she says casually, “since you’re clearly not just here for the punch.”
He regards her for a long moment, “Did Gansey send you over here or something?”
Blue huffs, “No, Lynch. Believe it or not, I opted to endure your cranky ass all by myself.”
He gives her a look of disdain. “I’m not cranky.”
“Clearly.”
Ronan just glares more.
It makes her lip curl up microscopically, like she knows something important, like she’s about to drop a bomb. “It was nice of Adam to teach you to dance,” she comments. Ronan’s thumb dents the side of the cup. “But you should actually do it. You know, to prove that you were paying attention.”
Ronan bites the inside of his cheek, Trying to make his face into something as malicious as he can manage. “Fuck off, Maggot. I’m not dancing at your lame ass school dance.”
Blue looks at him. He looks back, jaw clenched, challenging. For all the shit she goes on about not being a psychic, Ronan feels very much like he’s being read right now.
Blue’s face hardens. Whatever she had been looking for, it seems she didn’t find it. She shakes her head, looking back over her shoulder at Gansey and Adam before looking Ronan right in the eyes and saying, “then why did you even bother learning?”
She makes her way back to the dancefloor, where Gansey and Adam are still doing the Western cha cha slide. Only Adam is watching Ronan now, feet moving competently as a new song swells, equally as annoying but this time there’s a fiddle. Ronan puts on his best glare for him, too. Adam doesn’t relent with his scrutinizing stare, even as he flips him off with the hand still holding his hat.
Ronan wants to leave. He wants something other than fruit punch in his cup. He wants people to start slow dancing so that he can run through them.
Blue says something to Gansey, standing on her toes to speak into his ear. He frowns at her, and then at Ronan by the door, looking like his dad when Ronan had told him he hadn’t danced a single time the whole night.
Ronan slams his cup in the trashcan and pushes through the red, white, and blue streamers hanging over the door, Adam setting fires and raising oceans on the dance floor behind him.
...
“What the fuck, Lynch?”
Everything out in the corridor feels surreal, dulled music and fluorescent lights, too bright in contrast to the soft filtered spotlight in the gym.
Ronan turns his face away from Adam. “What do you want?”
“Don’t,” he insists, sneakers squeaking against the polished floors as he steps closer. “You showed up just to sulk in the corner all night.”
Ronan turns a glare on him, eyes wild. “So?”
“So are you gonna tell me what the hell’s the matter or not?”
It must be all the country music, or maybe all the kids shouting over each other with their Henrietta accents that makes Adam slip back into his own. It doesn’t seem like he’s even noticed.
Ronan glowers. “You’re not my fucking babysitter.”
“Feels like it.”
Ronan bites his tongue,
“So, what?” Adam continues, ”you just decided to waste my time after all?”
Something nasty and unpleasant rises in the back of Ronan’s throat. “I didn’t do it to waste your precious time , Parrish.” Ronan tries to pour venom into the words. “Jesus, if I’d known it was such a fucking bother I wouldn’t have agreed.”
Adam shakes his head, agitated, but when he speaks again it’s in that disbelieving, incredulous way. “What’s wrong with you tonight?”
“Nothing to worry your little cowboy hat off for.”
Adam just looks at him, that same way that Blue had, like he’s reading his insides.
In truth, Ronan hadn’t been sure what he wanted coming here, other than to placate Gansey’s need for them all to be at the same place at the same time. Whatever it was, it certainly didn’t have to do with line dancing in front of Blue’s whole school. It definitely wasn’t to take that horrid music and those familiar dance steps from Monmouth and put them on full display for all those intrusive, prying eyes; even if Adam had seemed perfectly happy to do so.
Adam’s eyes clear, his face shifting from searching examination to realization, understanding.
Whatever he’d been looking for, it seems he found it. Fucking psychic.
Adam keeps his eyes on him, taking another step closer. Like he’s taming a wild animal. Ronan looks back, fists clenched at his sides as Adam stops right in front of him and stays there.
Eventually, the song filtering from the gym turns softer, slower, and with it Adam’s shoulders lose their pent up tension.
Adam says, “you missed Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” like it’s a normal sentence for someone to be saying, “which is a real shame. I would have loved to see you fall on your ass.”
Ronan laughs, a small, startled thing that has Adam’s lip upturning. He shoves his shoulder. “Asshole.”
Adam shoves him back, his back connects with the locker behind him with a metallic thud .
“Go on,” Ronan says, stacking his cowboy hat on top of Adam’s. “Can’t leave Gansey and Blue to booty shake whatever the fuck alone.”
…
When Gansey drops Adam off that night, he leans down next to Ronan’s window and tips his hats. One of them falls to the ground.
The three of them laugh loud enough to start fires and raise oceans.
...
They don’t try to dance together again after that, line dancing or otherwise. Not when Adam graduates, not at Blue's prom, to which they’re all invited again, not even when Adam gets accepted to four out of the five schools he applies to. Ronan is content to leave it be. If Adam really wanted to line dance, he would, and that’s enough for Ronan to never feel the need to bring it up; not even when Adam moves in, the summer before college, and with him brings those goddamn cowboy hats.
It’s a clear night tonight, the stars uninhibited overhead at the Barns. Opal is out in the field, even though it’s dark, because she likes the way the stars look between her fingers. Ronan watches her from the kitchen window, mind absent as it anticipates the sound of keys in the front door.
He’s waiting, is the thing. He actually thinks that’s why Opal is so keen on being outside. They’re both waiting.
Adam’s been doing this a lot lately. Needing to run emergency errands or forgetting something at work that he has to get back immediately. Ronan knows he’s hiding something, and he finds himself increasingly annoyed every time Adam leaves with a quick peck to his cheek and a hasty “I just gotta grab something!”. Ronan can’t understand why he would choose now, the night before his imminent departure, to spend his time somewhere else.
The door opens. It catches Ronan completely off guard, because it’s not the familiar sound of Adam’s key sliding into the lock, but the screen door to the backyard squeaking on its hinges. Ronan’s head whips to the side, expecting to see an intruder or Opal or he doesn’t really know what, but it’s not Adam, his boyfriend, walking into the house in a full fucking cowboy gettup.
He’s wearing a red flannel, not unlike the one he wore to that school dance all that time ago. His jeans are new, or at least they’re ones Ronan has never seen before, and Ronan does their laundry; this pair looks well worn, a stark blue colour that makes Adam’s eyes look like the colour of ice.
“What the fuck,” he says slowly, standing up to pull his boyfriend towards him by the gigantic gold buckle of his belt. “Adam.”
Adam smiles at him with his most shit eating grin. “Howdy.”
“Jesus mother Mary Christ.”
Adam laughs, head tilting forward enough that the brim of his hat bumps right into Ronan’s mouth. “D’you like it?” His vowels are loose, that glorious drawl on his words that Ronan would commit real, serious crimes for.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Ronan smiles. “Fuck,” he says, gripping Adam by the hips. “You’re hot.”
Adam laughs again, then he takes one of Ronan’s hands and leads him back the way he came. “I have something to show you.” Ronan slips on the closest pair of shoes he can find and lets Adam lead him out the back door.
Opal is still out there, lying in the field with Chainsaw nestled under her chin. They’re both looking up at the stars through Opal’s fingers.
Opal smiles at Adam as they pass. Adam smiles back, squeezing Ronan’s hand.
He leads them out to one of the barns at the back of the property that Ronan hardly uses. Niall had hardly used it, and as far as Ronan knows, it has some old tools in it that had gotten replaced and thus were never needed again. He hasn’t been out here since the preliminary full sweep of the land he did the day he inherited the property.
“You’re going to show me my own house?” Ronan asks when Adam moves to open the doors.
“Can it, Lynch.”
The inside of the barn has been cleaned. Majorly. The table that used to sit in the middle as a workstation is cleared off and pushed to the wall, on it a speaker and some candles flickering in the summer breeze. There are lights strung up across the beams of the roof, the only other source of light in the barn. They make Ronan think strangely of Cabeswater.
Adam has put up curtains, soft looking and sheer, around the windows, and stacked a number of rugs on the ground. The whole place is so entirely sentimental Ronan nearly pushes the candles off the table and lies Adam down right there.
Adam is picking at the sleeve of his flannel when Ronan finally looks at him again. “Well,” he says, impatiently. “What do you think?”
Ronan looks back at the almost unrecognizable interior of the barn. What does he think?
“... you know we could have used ORBMASTERs for this, right?”
Adam rolls his eyes, disgustingly fond, and lets out a relieved sigh. “No dreams here tonight,” he says, like he's laying out some kind of rule.
Adam takes his hand again. Ronan disagrees vehemently with this rule immediately.
“It’s probably dumb,” he says to his fucking cowboy boots, “I know you don’t really like dancing anymore. But, I wanted to do something… different?” he winces. Ronan loves him. “I wanted to try again. I mean,” Adam continues, like he can’t stop, “this is our last date before I leave and I… I wanted to do something different,” he says again meekly. Ronan loves him.
“Parrish.”
“You hate it.”
“Parrish.”
“What?”
“You got all dressed up in your country best for me?”
Adam smiles, meets his gaze with a playful glint in his eyes. “Don’t feel left out, Lynch,” he says, and moves to pull something out from behind the table. “I got you one, too.”
Adam comes around to him with a blue flannel in his hand. Ronan lets out a bark of happy laughter.
“I’m not wearing that, fucking hell.”
“Sure are,” Adam says, and drapes the shirt around Ronan’s shoulders. Ronan lets him, far too happy to form any kind of real objection.
Adam’s hand finds its way back to Ronan’s, like it was meant to be there, like it’s pulled by gravity. He leads him to the middle of the barn, turns on more of that folky country music that reminds Ronan of Adam falling on his ass and Gansey flailing his arms around and stacked cowboy hats.
Ronan never thought he’d have to hear this shit again. He’d never admit it to Adam, but it grows on him every time it plays.
“Stop looking like you’re going to shit yourself,” Adam says, an easy smile on his face. “I’ll teach you again.”
Ronan scoffs. “Forgetting who the dancer here is, Parrish.”
He starts moving to the music, stepping and turning, something not quite as instinctive as muscle memory moving his bones. He stumbles over the rhythm a bit, because he hasn’t thought about this dance in over a year, but he still has some semblance of competency. Adam stands beside him, slack jawed, as he kicks his leg and shakes his hips.
“You gonna join me? Those cowboy boots weren’t made for standing around in.”
Adam gains control over his jaw again, opting to use it to say “you remembered,” not at all like a question.
“Course I fucking remembered.”
“I thought you hated it.”
Ronan does a hop. “Think again, Harvard Boy.”
“But,” Adam sputters. Ronan’s dancing ability has broken him. “Why didn’t you dance, then? At the school dance?”
Ronan raises an eyebrow, feet not ceasing. “Did you think I didn't dance because I didn't know how?”
“Yes.”
“That’s stupid. You taught me.”
“I thought so, too.”
Ronan rolls his eyes, turning to dance with his back in Adam’s direction. “Are you gonna dance with me or what, man?” He lets a feral grin stretch across his face, looking at Adam over his shoulder, “or did you just bring me here for the view?”
Adam rolls his eyes in return, an equally wide, happy smile taking over his handsome face. He joins Ronan on the next eight count.
Ronan is so full he can barely stay standing, line dancing here with Adam, wearing thrifted flannels in Ronan’s decked out barn. Adam knocks playfully into him, his happiness nearly spilling out of him. Ronan loves him.
…
Eventually, the songs change from upbeat and joyous to softer, more folky; less high-school-dance and more morning-with-the -person-you-love. Ronan does his best to fuck up just enough to send Adam into fits of laughter throughout the next two songs.
It’s nice, it’s painful, it’s everything at once.
Somewhere between jovial laughter and quiet kisses, Ronan ends up on the floor of their makeshift dance floor, lying on his back with Adam halfway on top of him.
The wind blows the sheer curtains around them, reflecting the warm glow of the candle light and framing Adam in what looks like halos of diffused light. Adam laughs into his mouth, both of them still out of breath. Ronan is in love with him.
Adam looks him over, studies his face, eyes tracing the shape of his nose, his hairline, his chin. "I'm gonna miss you," he says, Henrietta accent still unabashedly on display.
Ronan inhales, taking Adam’s hat off and placing it on the ground beside him. “Suck it up, Parrish, cause you're going.”
Adam tries for a smile. Less happy than the rest from the night, but nonetheless sincere. “You’re not gonna miss me?” he asks, probably just to hear Ronan say no.
“Fuck you,” Ronan says thickly, pressing Adam closer with a hand on the small of his back. “Of course I’m going to miss you.”
Adam bites his lip, nods too many times. “I’m coming back to you,” he says, has been saying for almost a year now.
“I know,” Ronan says back, has been saying for over a year now, has been believing for a few months.
Adam runs his finger down the slope of his nose. “I’m really gonna miss you.”
“Yeah, I got it, Parrish. You said that already.”
“But it’s true.”
“It doesn't make it more true the more you say it."
“It makes it more true to you.”
The song changes again, cutting roughly through the lump growing in Ronan's throat. Another upbeat thing that has Adam’s head hanging forward and his mouth turning up at the sides. “Fuck.” he breathes right into Ronan’s ear. “We have to dance to this one.”
Ronan tightens his grip around Adam’s middle. “No the fuck we don’t.”
Adam just rolls his eyes. “Get off your ass and Boot Scootin’ Boogie with me, asshole.”
Ronan does.
It’s not a very dignified dance, all loose limbs and reckless laughter. Ronan thinks they probably look a lot like a rough approximation of Gansey on the dancefloor. He doesn’t really care, when Adam is smiling at him like that.
It’s nice, it’s painful, it’s everything at once.
Adam crashes into him, always does, and Ronan catches him with arms thrown around his waist, their foreheads tilted together.
The song ends, and another one of those soft, acoustic songs that makes Ronan think of fresh tomatoes and kisses down his back. Ronan absently wonders if the music is watching them, knowing exactly which songs to soundtrack their little world with.
Maybe he dreamt this stereo and just forgot. Maybe Adam knows him too well.
Adam’s arms circle his neck as he sways them back and forth messily, reaching one of his hands up to curve around the back of Ronan’s skull. Ronan follows, because he loves him. Simple as that.
Adam brings their mouths together, gentle and wet and full of promises. “Tamquam,” he says, swaying merrily.
“Alter idem,” Ronan replies, swaying more.
Ronan thinks he could dance with Adam Parrish forever. It would be as easy as breathing, as easy as loving him.
Adam kisses him again, the two of them setting fires and raising oceans on the makeshift dance floor all around them.