Work Text:
I need a break, Ronan.
“No, okay.”
Ronan, I need to talk to you. About me. Well, us. I–
I need to sit down and think about my–
“Shit.”
Adam Parrish had been practicing in the small, permanently-stained mirror of his St. Agnes apartment’s bathroom for a very long time. He didn’t know what upset him the most: that he couldn’t find the right words, that he was actually considering breaking up with Ronan, that he felt like crying. It was probably a potentially disastrous combination of all three things, in no particular order. He gripped the edges of the sink, knuckles turning white. He couldn’t stop envisioning the way Ronan’s expression would fall apart when he told him – if Adam had the guts to go through with it. The fact of the matter was, losing Ronan was the last thing Adam wanted for himself. He knew it would break his own heart irreparably, because there simply wasn’t a fiber of his being that wasn’t hopelessly in love with Ronan Lynch. He’d come to terms with that a long time ago. Even before their first kiss, Adam had promised himself he wouldn’t start anything with Ronan unless he was undoubtedly sure, and he was. It wasn’t about that. He’d also been selfish, because he’d wanted Ronan, and told himself it was enough.
But.
But.
He was going somewhere Ronan couldn’t follow. The thought of losing sight of what he’d quite literally killed himself for for the past several years because of love, out of all things, was unbearable. So was the fear of becoming one of those people that talked to their significant other on the phone at a fixed time every day. So much of their relationship was about touch, presence.
If I can’t have both things I have to choose me, Adam had thought. So he was going to talk to Ronan.
“Maybe he’ll agree,” he muttered to himself, fully aware it was a lie as soon as the words left his mouth. Ronan wouldn’t agree. Ronan’s devotion wasn’t something that would just pass. His phone chimed from where Adam had last left it on top of the bed. Passing a weary hand over his face, he went to pick it up.
Ronan
I’m making club sandwiches. Fancy sandwiches.
You can’t say I’m not an adult now. Hurry upp
Sent: 6:04 PM
Adam sighed and picked up his car keys.
“Hey,” Adam said, sounding as enthusiastic as a cat suffering from a colic as he pushed the door to the Barns open. He grimaced at himself, taking his shoes off.
“In here,” Ronan replied. The kitchen, Adam had to admit, didn’t smell half bad. His stomach grumbled, both from built-up nerves and true hunger. Ronan turned from where he was fixing a pair of precariously tall sandwiches, shooting Adam a grin that made his heart thump against his chest.
“Hi,” Ronan said, walking up to him to kiss his cheek. Adam leaned into him instinctively; his mind might have had a whole speech prepared, but his body certainly wasn’t on board with it.
“Work okay?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll take that as a No, Ronan, I need one of your awesome shoulder massages,” Ronan said with a smile and a raised eyebrow. “Come on, let’s eat.”
Adam sat at the dark mahogany table, his finger picking at a splinter peeking from the edge. He smiled weakly as Ronan placed an inviting plate in front of him, the bread so visibly crunchy he could already feel the texture of it in his mouth. But as Ronan regarded him, his head tilted, Adam knew he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. He still had trouble with not being grateful for any shape abundance took in his life, so he took a tentative bite anyway.
“What’s wrong?” Ronan asked after a few seconds.
Adam swallowed. “I, uh, I was …”
Come on.
Adam made the deliberate mistake of looking Ronan straight in the eyes. They were brimming – with concern, with softness. Adam couldn’t bear it.
“I just–” he took a shaky breath. “It’s nothing, I’m just super tired. Long day.”
Ronan didn’t seem convinced, but he let it go. Not because he wouldn’t want to know if something was actually wrong, but because he’d rather wait for Adam to talk about it on his terms. Adam wanted to punch him for being so considerate. He wanted to kiss him, too.
They’d been on the couch watching some terribly cliché action movie, Ronan’s arm around Adam, who desperately wanted to curl into his side and forget about the whole thing. But he’d been thinking about it for a while, now, and if he didn’t let it out, he worried he might implode. And Ronan would be the one left to pick up the pieces, anyway.
“I can hear the gears working,” said Ronan quietly.
Adam didn’t turn to look at him this time; they were so close he didn’t trust himself not to kiss him.
He felt his eyebrows frown on his forehead, as if he was the recipient of the low blow he was about to deliver instead of Ronan. The words, though, wouldn’t come. Nothing smart would come, really, except for a small, pained, “I love you.” It sounded more like an answer to a difficult question, than an objective statement.
Ronan turned to search his face then, shook his head lightly. “Yeah, I know. Is that what’s making you miserable right now?”
“No. Yes? I–” Adam let out a frustrated breath. He slowly scooted away from Ronan, the arm draped around him slipping where his back had been on the couch. Ronan looked at the vacant place like he’d found a dirty spot there, something that didn’t belong. Adam’s absence did that, and he’d barely moved. How would me not being here at all be sustainable for him, either? Adam reasoned within himself.
Ronan absent-mindedly turned the tv off, feeling the remote somewhere next to him. His eyes were on Adam, appraising. What am I doing? Adam thought. As they sat slightly apart on the worn couch, Adam’s memory suddenly narrowed on a very specific moment in time. If he’d been an artist, or even a decent painter, he could have turned into color how the memory of Ronan choking on Nightwash the die Gansey died made him feel. That sound still haunted him, at times; it was so black and terrible it could swallow a person whole.
A life without Ronan would be as dark and ugly as that sound, as that memory. He still needed to be honest; but, maybe, he didn’t have to break anyone in the process.
“I want us to make the right decision,” Adam said, and it was true.
Ronan looked utterly confused. “About?”
“Me. Leaving. You. Here.” Eloquence, as it turned out, didn’t seem to be a priority. “I don’t … I don’t know if we’ll make it. I want us to. This is going to sound incredibly shitty of me, but I can’t–I can’t afford to be …”
“Distracted,” Ronan finished his sentence.
Adam nodded.
Ronan scooted closer, his thigh pressing against Adam’s. Comforting, not overwhelming. He reached out to brush his fingers over Adam’s knuckles. Adam turned his palm to hold his hand.
“What do you want? Really want?” Ronan asked.
The most spontaneous answers fought to get out first: You. To get in the best possible school. Freedom. Magic. God, you, Ronan.
But before Adam could muster an answer, Ronan added, “I will never be the guy that holds you back. You know that. I just figured we … that distance wouldn’t be, you know, enough. To–”
Break us, he didn’t say. He sounded small, and Adam hated that with a burning passion. Ronan was larger than life, in every possible way, and Adam could pretend good grades were more important than this all he wanted, but he couldn’t lie to himself. He knew then, with inexplicable certainty, that he couldn’t end things with Ronan if he’d tried. There was no end to the love they’d given each other. He didn’t want a break, or to break up,and he would never do anything that would hurt Ronan if he could help it, ever again.
“It’s not,” he finally said. “Enough, I mean. I want to get out of here, and I love you, and I don’t want to have to give you up.” He squeezed Ronan’s hand.
“You won’t have to. I fucking swear, Parrish, I won’t make things hard for you.”
“I am perfectly capable of doing that by myself,” Adam sighed, only half-amused by his talent for complicating things. “I’m sorry. I’ve been freaking out for a while. It’s just a lot to think about.”
“You could’ve told me,” Ronan murmured.
“I was scared,” Adam smiled sadly. “Still am.”
Ronan pressed a kiss to Adam’s knuckles. “Me, too. But maybe it’s less scary if we take it day by day.”
Adam had once thought he didn’t know enough about love to be good at it: it wasn’t something you could spend the night awake on bitter coffee to memorize from text. Neither was it something he could have learned from his parents, of course. But Ronan had showed him love. Patiently, unwaveringly. With no reservations, no conditions. Adam leaned in so that their foreheads touched.
“I love you,” he repeated.
“Thank fuck,” said Ronan.
Adam smiled.