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Ronan hesitated in the hall, knowing full-well the consequences of disturbing a stressed out Adam Parrish. Either he was ignored or everything just exploded, walls coming down with the venomous biting words they volleyed back and forth until there were slammed doors and squealing tires and regret. No, Adam was at the Barns, had been staying the night, since he got his acceptance letter to Harvard in the mail. Between work and school, he was sat in the kitchen, his college pro and con lists layered amongst his research notes and Ronan’s laptop covering pretty much every surface.
See, Ronan thought Adam would be relieved. He got into Harvard and he’d done the math a thousand times, going over his financial aid and scholarship packets, sure that he could afford it all with minimal loans after graduation. But he only allowed one night of celebrating before his head was buried in the stats, convinced that they made a mistake, that Harvard admissions would be calling soon to tell him, “actually, we meant to accept an Aidan Patridge, surely you understand.”
Gansey and Blue and Henry were too busy planning their after-grad trip to notice and Ronan thought telling them about Adam’s spiral would probably only make Adam angrier anyway. So after Adam went to sleep most nights, Ronan stayed up shuffling through the same stats that Adam had, acceptance rates, tuition costs, scholarship criteria, all to be ready to reason with Adam when he eventually voiced his fears aloud, which happened infrequently at best. Still, it was something for him to do, Ronan hated feeling useless.
Taking a deep breath, Ronan wandered into the kitchen, not shocked that Adam didn’t even look up from the table. The kitchen was bathed in a warm orange glow, the sun just beginning to set outside the window, which was open letting in a crisp early summer breeze. He could hear the crickets chirping already in the bush beneath the windowpane, the sun glistening off the water of the pond they built just a few weekends ago. Ronan stepped up behind Adam, squeezed his shoulders gently and pressed a kiss to his temple on his right side.
“When was the last time you ate something?” he asked quietly.
Adam grunted in reply, eyes still focused on the screen in front of him, as he shifted papers around to reveal a plate with half-eaten toast on it.
“Nice,” Ronan replied, grabbing the plate. He walked over to trash the cold toast and put the plate in the sink. He filled up the kettle on the stove and turned on the heat to let the water boil. He rummaged through the cabinets to find the canister of loose leaf tea. He knew he should probably make something for dinner, but he could normally coax Adam into taking a break when there was some tea or-
“Are you making cocoa?” Adam’s voice was rough from lack of use, quiet and delicate in the vulnerability of almost asking for what he wanted.
“Yep,” Ronan switched gears, taking the cocoa mix from the cabinet down and stepping over to retrieve some mugs. He nearly sighed as some of the tension broke, so grateful for Adam giving him something to do, someway to help.
He switched the kettle off and instead got a saucepan warming up with some milk from the cows - cocoa was always better with milk. He added too much chocolate because that’s how Adam liked it and was trying to remember if they had marshmallows when he heard the chair skid across the linoleum. He turned around just in time to be engulfed in a tight embrace by Adam Parrish, who immediately buried his face in Ronan’s neck and exhaled.
“I’m being an asshole, right?” Adam grumbled and Ronan squeezed his arms around his waist.
“Not more than usual,” he replied, hoping for humor but his voice betrayed him a little.
They fell silent, though Ronan swayed them back and forth a bit, not sure what else to do. Watching Adam unable to accept the best thing, the thing that he had been working toward his whole life, working so hard for, was heartbreaking. Some days it made him angry at Adam’s parents, angry at the world for allowing someone as wonderful as Adam to feel this way. Other days he just felt sad, upset that he couldn’t take the pain away from him even when he tried.
Now, though, in the kitchen at the Barns, he could at least physically support Adam as he surrendered all his weight to Ronan, exhausted and worn out. He maneuvered one arm behind him to lower the heat on the stove to a simmer and then moved it back to Adam’s waist.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ronan asked, choosing to fill the silence after however long. This was something new about Ronan, the person to always do rather than talk, act rather than think, was the first person to ask Adam what he needed, how he could help. The first time he had done so, months ago now, Adam’s eyes widened a fraction, lowered, eyelids fluttering, and then he took Ronan’s hand into his lap, laced their fingers together, and told him.
They knew each other, that was obvious. Ronan could guess what Adam was thinking about or worried about or stressed about, but he didn’t know what he needed. Sometimes Adam wanted to be alone, sometimes Adam wanted to go for a drive, sometimes Adam wanted silence and would wander the Barns for hours, Opal dancing circles around him. Other times, like tonight, Adam wanted to be held. So Ronan did just that.
After a while without an answer, he felt Adam’s arms slacken a little, so he did the same, thinking he needed the space to talk, but then Adam nearly fell without Ronan holding him up.
“Are you seriously falling asleep on me, Parrish?” he asked, trying to force away a smile.
Adam hummed and hooked his chin over Ronan’s shoulder and readjusted, hand bracing the back of Ronan’s neck, fingertips tracing lazy circles over the hair at his nape. His other hand felt around the counter for the spoon Ronan had been using earlier and once found, he used it to stir the simmering cocoa.
They continued to sway gently in silence, the only sounds were the crickets outside the window and the occasional twang of wooden spoon against metal from the saucepan on the stove. And their breathing. Close, intimate, deep. Breathing each other in, anchoring one another to the present moment despite racing thoughts and building anxieties of the future.
“Where’s Opal?” Adam asked eventually.
“Fuck knows,” Ronan murmured, voice like gravel when he spoke so low and quiet. He had closed his eyes at some point, lost in the feeling of Adam’s fingers on his scalp. He nearly whined when Adam pulled back from the embrace, but exhaled as their lips met in a chaste kiss.
When Adam looked at him, his eyes were searching, fingertips brushing his cheek and brows drawn in concentration as if he were memorizing every feature, something Ronan knew too well. He had Adam memorized already, but it never felt like enough. On days when Adam wouldn’t spend the night, he would invade Ronan’s dreams, but dream-Adam was never the same - familiar, but something was always a little off.
Ronan reached out and grabbed his wrist to press a kiss to his palm, his fingertips.
Adam sighed and knocked their foreheads together. “I know I’m being ridiculous.”
Ronan grunted neither a confirmation nor a protest to that statement. Adam noticed and rolled his eyes.
“But I’m just… this whole year…” he shook his head. “None of it seems real.”
Ronan leaned back against the counter, slumped down a bit so they were eye to eye, Adam standing between his legs, fingers hooked through his belt loops, keeping him close.
“I don’t know what to do when things go…” Adam trailed off.
“Your way?” Ronan guessed where he was headed.
“I guess,” replied Adam, his own fingers running over the leather bands on Ronan’s wrist over and over again, craving more contact.
“Well get used to it, Parrish,” said Ronan, twisting his wrists to grab Adam's hands and give them a squeeze. “The future’s looking fucking bright for you.”
Adam laughed.
Ronan eventually convinced him to leave his mess in the kitchen and they took their mugs filled to the brim with cocoa and marshmallows to the porch. They sat on the swinging bench, Adam’s legs thrown over Ronan’s lap, tucked close together, watching the fireflies light up the fields like stars in the night sky. Ronan tried to commit this moment to memory, to pull out on a rainy day in the months ahead when Adam was gone away to Harvard. The warmth of him, his smile, his laugh, the way his cheeks flushed when he caught Ronan staring and Ronan didn’t stop. After weeks of stress and anxiety and failing to communicate, Ronan finally felt at ease and he wanted to wrap this moment up and store it in a crystal globe, keep it protected from anything else that could go wrong and always return to this moment, always have this evening when everything felt good and right and like Ronan was doing something right.
Eventually Adam broke the spell.
“Is there any version of you that could come with me to Cambridge?”