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It was weird, Adam thought. It seemed like every time they were fighting nowadays, they were trying to say something else entirely.
He looked at the boy standing a few feet away, crossed arms and furrowed brows.
Well, at least Ronan was, for sure. Each glance holding a meaning. Under his contemptuous posture, a minefield ready to be set off. Still choking on his words before they could make it out of his mouth, forming, rather, an insult in mid-flight, thrown with all the strength he had and spit out with all the other emotions he decided to hold back.
Predictably, they had fought again. And unquestionably, they would fight once more; sometimes, it was simpler than breathing. Right now, however, Adam found the basic function of breathing to be almost impossible, tangled, all wrong. The walls of his apartment seemed abruptly too close, the space too tight, air too suffocating. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He quickly stuffed them into the pockets of his threadbare jeans and looked out the window at the street below, trying to concentrate on calming his quick, shallow breaths. Ronan was still staring back.
Adam couldn’t help but feel like they were dancing, back and forth, moving in an uncertain direction, in fact not really directed at all. He didn’t know how to respond to Ronan’s attempts to make sense of them. He didn’t even know if Ronan himself knew that he was trying to do so. Maybe Adam was so focused at every single thing Ronan did, contemplating his every move and lingering stare, that he just saw something that wasn’t even there. Maybe he was imagining it all.
But then Ronan would say something, inadvertently offering a challenge from which Adam could not back down - something he never could have, and just like that, Adam knew that behind his fixed gaze was something else, something that prevented Ronan from using his words, so he stuck them in the back of his throat, and they were at it again. This quiet dance that they were getting so good at and at the same time, so terrible at.
Even before Adam figured out what Ronan was trying to say with all his gestures and careful gifts, even before, he had been still playing this game with him. Fire, fight, hit where it hurts. That was them. All this time he had been analyzing him without realizing. He wanted to be him, not like he did with Gansey, but like when he’d first seen him that day in a store. A boy moving so gracefully and easily through the crowd, even though his heart was neither easy nor graceful, bravely baring his teeth at the world, seemingly with no mask on to hide under. Honest and horrible, no lies, laid out scars – that was Ronan Lynch. Dirt and ugly secrets – that was Adam Parrish.
He failed to see how Ronan could think they would work. He was almost certain that Ronan was just blinded with an idea of him, the possibility, but if he was to see his true self, he would turn away from him soon after, realizing Adam wasn’t worthy after all. And this was why Adam couldn’t make himself acknowledge what was happening between them in any of these silent dances. He was terrified he would destroy it.
Ever since he had caught up on Ronan’s wariness around him, ever since he had found out why he always felt watched, he was terrified that one day he no longer would be. It wasn’t just that Adam liked being liked; Ronan was making him feel like he actually mattered, like he was more than his roots and more than Henrietta. He never wanted to lose that.
Yet it was so hard for him not to do anything, when he knew Ronan was not the one who was going to make the first move. He would wait for Adam to make his decision, it was always ‘on his terms or not at all’, and although the unsaid words were still hanging on the tip of his tongue, he would never act on them. It was frustrating, their ritual of silent dares, and Adam wanted to – he just wanted.
Impossibly, it seemed just like another task he needed to handle, because Adam’s brain worked in a way that if a question occurred, it would pick on it and take it apart until he found the answer. Ronan and him; that was something he was trying to understand for weeks now, with less than unsatisfying results.
The only conclusion he came up with, after going through it over and over again, was that if he didn’t do anything soon, he would surely go crazy. What was stopping him was his fear.
One way or another, Adam was afraid his whole life. He was never safe, he was partly dead, he was playing pretend. It was a matter of time until he would get caught. And this was his deepest fear: Not being good enough. Unleashing the monster inside him. Ruining everything within his reach.
But Adam Parrish was awake now, and he could do this. Take a deep breath. Fire, fight, hit where it hurts.
He was still scared as he took a step and stood right in front of Ronan Lynch. Close, so close. His heart was beating fast. Ronan was eyeing him, warily as always, careful not to disturb him, like he was still giving him a chance to back out. Adam wasn’t going to. He hoped Ronan wouldn’t either.
They were here and they were now. No time better than right there.
He leaned in and closed the gap between them, Ronan’s lips suddenly soft against his, barely a pressure, and it felt like coming home. Ronan raised his arms and put them on Adam’s hips, drawing him closer, and it felt like everything clicked right into place. He moved his fingers gently over Ronan’s shoulder blades, over his shaved head, and then rested his arms on his shoulders. It felt like he finally belonged.
Ronan slightly pulled away so he was looking into his eyes. His cheeks were flushed and something in his gaze was glowing. Adam realized that this was Ronan Lynch at his most vulnerable. This was Ronan Lynch shamelessly happy.
“About damn time,” he said and smirked. This grin was more of a smile than his usual knife- smirk but it still sliced Adam’s heart in two. He was hit by Ronan again and again, and it hurt, but it was so good.
“You know, that’s the thing with time, it doesn’t really exist.” He closed his eyes, braced himself just like before diving into unknown waters, because he was, god, he was jumping off a cliff, and kissed him fully this time.
Everything they couldn’t say with words before, they could now whisper through their teeth, mouth to mouth, heart to heart.
Adam was not going to run away. He was not going to back down from the challenge that was this boy in front of him and if Ronan was in, Adam was in too.