Chapter Text
Adam couldn’t hold a tune. It wasn’t a surprise, really, if you thought about it. Not that Ronan did. It’s just he couldn’t help but dwell a little on the fact that Adam’s life have been bereft of music until so very recently, so barren his knowledge of genres could be counted off on one hand. He had no interest in grime or breakbeat or deathstep and often was irritated when Ronan insisted on blasting the thrumming music that calmed him in the car. Adam’s opinion on music was a lot like Adam himself. It infuriated Ronan to action.
Adam was humming under his breath, something sweet and syrupy from the radio Boyd often left on in the shop. It was edging near midnight, and Adam should really be asleep right now, but instead he was humming tunelessly, hunched over a problem set. He looked sepia-toned in the half-light.
Ronan threw a piece of his own work at his head if only to physically stop himself from looking any longer.
Adam swatted around but otherwise said nothing, accustomed to these assaults. Adam had known what Ronan was about from the very start of their acquaintance, a fact that twisted Ronan up enough that he refused to look at it head-on. Adam was always knowing. He knew how to get through every problem they faced, knew how to annoy the shit out of Ronan, and seemed to know even the deepest thoughts Ronan kept from himself. Ronan mostly was just baffled that the boy had stayed— very few people did after they knew Ronan to the rotten core of him.
Adam started up the humming again and Ronan resumed the throwing. Finally, after a particularly good toss that had bounced off his head into the wastepaper basket, Adam turned his glare onto him. Goosebumps flashed up his forearms at the attention.
“What do you want, Lynch?” He spoke low after 11 in St. Agnes, worried the pastor or god was listening in on them. Ronan’s smile turned into a sharp grin.
“For you to shut the fuck up, Frank Sinatra.”
Adam made a show of rolling his eyes with his whole body before returning to his work. He couldn’t help it though, he carefully erased something before stealing a quick glance back at Ronan. He was watching, of course he was. “Not like you’re any better.”
“Am too.” Ronan shot back, looking down to scribble obscene pictures in the back of Parrish’s notebook. If he included a heart in there it would be no one’s business but his own. Besides, he planned to throw it at him anyways. “Sorry Parrish, yet another thing I’m better at.”
Ronan heard him twist in the rickety desk chair. One of the legs was wobbling and stuck together with an inordinate amount of duck tape Ronan thought would rectify it. “You’re a liar.”
Adam was nearly smiling. He was always nearly smiling around Ronan. Adam never actually smiled, well, he did, but Ronan had been counting those like they were miracles. This current near smile meant the corners of his lips were ticking up and it made Ronan feel manic at the attention. He threw a ball of paper at him, and this time Adam caught it deftly.
“Am not.” Ronan said, reminded of his childhood fights with Declan from a reality that was no longer accessible to him.
Adam threw it back at him, and they played catch with his paper heart bouncing between them in the dead half-light of the single lamp on his milk-crate bed stand. Finally, Adam caught the thing and deposited it succinctly in the trash can. How apt. He raised a brow at Ronan. “I’m waiting for you to prove it.”
Ronan looked down, away, caught out. He wasn’t about to back down but the sudden quiet of the room felt immense. How was he supposed to fill it with something so intimate?
“I don’t wanna embarrass you.” He said lamely.
Adam crossed his leg over his knee, leaning back and regarding him with all the leisure of a king watching his subject. Ronan chewed at his leather bands, glare turning baleful. Adam leaned forward, half his face was honey-yellow from the light, dancing across the elegant planes of his face. Ronan hated him so much, he’d give him his own beating heart right now if he asked for it.
“Come on, Lynch.” A smile. Another miracle given. Ronan tucked it away quietly somewhere to the left of his sternum. “I wanna hear it.”
Ronan hadn’t sung since years before his father died, and Adam was the only person other than Matthew or God who could ask this of him. As it was he closed his eyes to reach for the one of the many songs Niall had taught him. He took a breath.
Óró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile,
Óró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile,
Óró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.
Adam’s face was blank as the song finally petered out into the unholy room. Ronan could barely take a second more, he felt flayed open-- St Bartholomew on the cross. He would leave his body here if it meant his soul could be relieved of the purgatory of this silence. Instead of saying any of those things, he chewed at his wristbands and continued to watch Adam, something as reflexive as breathing at this point in his life.
“Told you.” He muttered when the silence truly had become too much for even him to bear.
“What’s it about?” Adam’s voice was quiet still, but different. He sounded like Matthew after confession. Ronan shrugged.
“Some shit about revolution or whatever.”
Adam was opening and closing the hand on his lap, the tendons and muscles flaring with each movement. He swallowed. “Yeah.” He said as an afterthought, “You win.”
Then he stood and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Ronan didn’t feel like he was ever going to sleep again. He’d been feeling like that often with Adam recently, hot zings of shame or embarrassment or something, keeping him staring at the ceiling thinking of nothing and Adam all at once. He sighed, reaching for his boots and stuffing his feet in. At the noise Adam returned, toothbrush hanging from his mouth, a bit of paste at the corner of his lip. He was in his boxers and a large white t-shirt. Ronan could barely look at him— it was like staring at the sun.
“You’re leaving?”
Ronan focused on his laces, bunny-tying them tightly. “Not gonna get any sleep on your shitty floor, Parrish.” He grunted, launching himself forward and forcing his arms through the sleeves of his leather jacket. Adam returned to the bathroom, and Ronan turned to the door to make his escape.
Adam’s hand on his forearm stopped him. He was close, too close. Ronan wanted to shake him off. “Stay.” Adam said, and Ronan hated commands but they sounded so sweet in his accent. He glared.
“I told you-”
“And I’m saying take the bed. We can share it.” He said, eyes searching Ronan’s face for something. Ronan didn’t have words for that request, but he wasn’t about to argue with a miracle. Adam dropped his arm, but not before giving it a squeeze.
Adam went to bed without looking to see if Ronan followed.
He did. Of course, he did.