Work Text:
Ronan was fine with spending Christmas alone. He’d had his fair share of good Christmases as a child, with The Barns all decked out in lights and garlands and perfect dustings of snow that were probably, looking back on it, too perfect to have been natural weather patterns.
He’d also had Christmases with Gansey and Blue and Adam, later in his teenage years, that were good in different ways: loud and chaotic, with poorly-wrapped hand-made gifts and burned dinners and usually at least one argument breaking out.
And sure, maybe it hadn’t been his choice to be alone at The Barns for Christmas this year, but he was coping. He was a fucking adult, Declan, thank you very much, and he was doing just fine.
Ronan was pulling on his heavy winter boots, preparing to head out onto the farm for the first time that morning. Inside, he could still smell the coffee he had made himself for breakfast mixing with the scent of the mulled wine he’d made the night before. He’d heated the rest up and had it alongside his coffee. It was three days until Christmas. He could drink whenever the fuck he wanted.
He stepped outside, his first breath of the chilled air sinking coldly into his lungs, and let the front door slam closed behind himself. The shiny cedar wreath hanging on the door shook; it seemed to taunt him, calling him a loser for spending the holidays alone. Mocking him for giving up on decorating after the first few decorations he’d put up. He hadn't had much motivation to decorate for just himself.
Ronan ignored the pulling sense of loneliness as best he could and walked down the porch steps and onto the driveway; the gravel crunched under his boots, and when he got onto the grass, that crunched as well, frosty and frozen. He was wearing a lined jacket, but he still crossed his arms over his chest to preserve some heat. The tips of his fingers were starting to feel cold.
The fields and outbuildings shone in the pale morning light, frost sparking like glass over them. It was almost perfectly quiet except for Ronan’s breaths and his footsteps. He could feel his cheeks and his nose starting to blush from the cold.
As he walked, he imagined Adam beside him, holding his hand, shivering in his too-thin second-hand jacket until he gave in and finally accepted a warmer one from Ronan’s closet. Ronan had been thinking about him and Adam spending Christmas at The Barns since they’d made the plan back in early November. It was still hard to let the idea of it go.
The hazy blue mountains in the distance seemed to close the fields in, and Ronan felt like he could be the only one in this entire frozen world. It could have been him and Adam here, sharing this wintery abyss, doing whatever they wanted with no one to see them. Could have been him and Adam hidden together in the frost and the still air, the magic of the holidays thick around them.
But Ronan was fine to be spending Christmas alone. So fine, even, that he was going to get firewood to keep the house warm for himself instead of just sitting on the floor and waiting until he froze to death. Which he hadn’t considered doing. He’d only thought about it briefly, because it sounded kind of fucking metal in concept.
He found the wheelbarrow by the long barn and then wheeled it over the frozen grass to the woodshed, leaving a singular trail from the one wheel, and a path of his footsteps pressed into the cold ground. As he worked to push the wheelbarrow, his breaths hung like clouds in the air.
He parked the wheelbarrow outside of the woodshed and then pulled the sliding door open, rubbing his hands together once it was open to make them warm again after touching the freezing metal door handle. He wondered if Adam was growing away from him, and that was why he'd gone back on their plans.
Inside the woodshed, he found a pair of work gloves that he checked briefly for spiders before pulling on. He swung his head around, looking for the ax and mumbling curses under his breath for not having left it somewhere easier to find.
He found the ax tucked in an empty corner of the woodshed and grabbed it. He also found, behind it and pushing her beak experimentally into a crack between the stacked pieces of wood, Chainsaw.
“What’re you doin’ here, vermin?” He asked her, and then told her pointedly to stay in the corner so that he didn’t get her with the ax or accidentally drop any of the firewood on her. Sometimes Declan told Ronan he was worried Ronan talked to animals too much. Ronan thought that was fucking dumb. Chainsaw wasn’t just an animal.
Ronan loaded his arms with pieces of firewood he’d chopped the summer before and then walked them over to drop them in the wheelbarrow, humming to himself as he did. He would have worn his headphones, but he liked listening to the winter sounds of The Barns: the sparrows and the dripping of melting snow, the wind and the clunk of the firewood as he dropped each piece into the wheelbarrow’s metal bucket. He also liked the still silence between the other small noises, which seemed to stretch longer and longer sometimes like nothing would ever make noise again.
Once the wheelbarrow was full, Ronan turned back to the woodshed to collect some smaller pieces for kindling. He went to the shoddily-made bin where he usually left the ready kindling, and found it empty. Right. He’d made a mental note to cut more, then he’d promptly forgotten.
Sighing, he figured he may as well cut some now. He grabbed a large piece of wood from the stack, one that was still a full round, and then placed it onto the stump he used as a splitting block. He held the ax in both hands and lifted it over his head, and then swung it down to cut the round in half.
It fractured down the center on the first chop, and broke in half on the second. He let one half fall to the side, and then repeated the process until he was left with a handful of spindly pieces small enough to use as a fire-starter.
He chopped the other half of the round into kindling as well and then placed those pieces in the bin for next time. Looking over his shoulder once more at the wheelbarrow, he figured he may as well pile one more piece on, if he could find one the right size.
He scanned the stack of firewood and located the one he wanted at the top of the pile. He reached to grab it, pressing up onto his toes and hooking his fingers around it, and then reaching a little more to press his palm tightly to the top of it. The wood felt spiky and uneven under his glove.
Just as he was stepping back with the piece in his grasp, Chainsaw shot out of the corner, spooked by something in the field and cawing violently. She flew close enough to Ronan’s head to startle him, and he shouted in surprise, grabbing tighter to the wood and then accidentally pulling it off of the stack to cascade towards the ground as he took an unbalanced step backwards.
His step back was uneven, and he scrambled to not fall over, reaching his hands wildly. He only managed to land on his ass instead of his back. One of his hands just clawed helplessly at the air, but the other made purchase on the wall of the woodshed, which he used to catch himself.
Once he’d caught his breath, he laughed dryly and then called out, “Asshole!” towards where Chainsaw had flown high into the pale winter sky. The ground was cold under his ass, so Ronan moved to get up quickly. Except, when he put his hand to the ground to help himself up, he immediately pulled his hand back up with a sharp intake of breath. His hand hurt like he’d placed it down onto something sharp.
He frowned, confused, and then looked down at his hand. It looked fine, and there was nothing on the ground. He flipped his hand over to look at his palm. The center of his glove was starting to saturate red with blood. Shit.
As if his body had just needed to see the injury first, his hand started throbbing with pain. He braced himself and then pulled the glove off, hoping for something superficial, something he could stick a Band-Aid on and call it good.
Looking at his hand, there was a gash across the palm, only about two inches long and not very deep, but bleeding like a bitch. He searched his brain for a reason. That last piece of wood he’d grabbed, he figured, must have had some sharp bit sticking up, something that had bit into his hand when he’d grabbed onto it in his shock, and that had held its grip through his skin even as he’d slid away from the wood when he’d fallen.
He swore, clenching his hand into a fist and then holding it in his other hand. He was, for once, glad that he was alone at The Barns. Hurting himself while chopping firewood: what an idiot move. Maybe this was why no one had come to spend Christmas with him. He couldn't even get the firewood without messing it up.
He stood, a little shaky from his surprise, and managed to get the ax tucked away safely and the woodshed door closed once more. He would come back for the wheelbarrow. He stomped back across the field, the magic of The Barns in the winter feeling more cold and dull and less frosty and shiny now that he was hurt and just wanted to be inside already.
Ronan kicked his boots off and let his jacket drop from his shoulders to the floor once he was one step inside the house, and then he closed the door behind himself to keep the heat in. He huffed and picked his jacket up off the floor and hung it instead, because he wasn’t a heathen. And then he raced up the stairs two-at-a-time.
He cursed in the bathroom until he found the first aid kit hidden at the bottom of the cabinet under the sink. He sat himself on the closed toilet lid and placed the first aid kit in his lap. He took a breath and then forced himself to slowly open his injured hand out of its curled fist.
Looking at the cut again in the sterile bathroom light, it really wasn’t that bad. There were a few slivers from the wood that he pulled out with tweezers, and then he doused the whole thing in a generous amount of antiseptic. He inhaled sharply at the sting, squeezing his eyes closed until the pain had dissipated.
He slapped a Band-Aid on it, the first one he found. It had Spider-Man on it. It wasn’t really big enough to cover the whole cut, but it was fucking good enough. He just hoped the cut would heal before Declan and Matthew showed up. He didn’t want to explain to them that he’d fallen over while getting firewood. He had a reputation to keep up as a menacing farmer, and getting owned by a stack of firewood and a raven didn’t quite help.
Ronan was supposed to be like a home-base for his friends, with The Barns always ready to accept them for as long as they needed. A place where they could gather together to laugh and have good food, or at least that was what Ronan imagined for himself. The reality seemed to be that nobody wanted to come and see him. He supposed he hadn't considered that, in order to provide a place of comfort for his friends, he would need friends who wanted to be comforted by him. And apparently he didn't have any of those. Everyone was doing just fine without him,
Even Adam, he reminded himself bitterly, was just fine without him, probably looking forward to some shiny Harvard Christmas party with all of his shiny Harvard friends. Ronan hated them.
While he was putting the first aid kit back together, Ronan heard wheels crunching against the driveway out front of the house. A wrong-turn, probably, or someone using the driveway to turn around in. He didn’t think much of it, more focused on putting the first aid kit back where he’d found it while he tried to decide if he could bring the wheelbarrow back to the house one-handed or not.
It caught his attention more when he didn’t hear the sound of the car leaving the driveway. He really didn’t feel like entertaining conversations with his nosey neighbors. He sighed heavily, hoping that if he just kept quiet whoever was out there would go away.
He tiptoed back down the stairs and then flopped back onto the living room couch, watching the fire burning orange in the fireplace and waiting for whoever the fuck was in his driveway to get bored and leave. His fingers toyed absently with an old crochet blanket over the back of the couch, one left over from his childhood.
There was a knock on the door. Ronan swore loudly but didn’t move. “Go away!” He yelled. So what if it was rude. He didn’t particularly care what his neighbors thought of him.
The knock sounded again. And then again. Ronan growled and then threw himself off of the couch. Stupid needy neighbors. If someone’s car was broken down, Ronan was not helping them fix it. They could walk all the way to town for all he cared.
He stomped to the front door and then pulled it open harshly, ready to give whatever poor sap had chosen to knock on his door a piece of his mind. His words shriveled and died on his tongue, mouth hanging open, body momentarily frozen.
It wasn’t one of his neighbors or some stranded stranger whom he found standing on the other side of the door. It was Adam, hair wind-swept and cheeks rosy from the cold, a smile on his face like he had a secret behind his lips, or like he knew something already that Ronan didn’t. The warmth from the house reflected onto his face, and with the blue cold world out behind him, he resembled an angel or a ghost, here to rescue Ronan from himself.
“Adam!” Ronan said, breathless, and then his arms were around Adam’s shoulders, pulling him into a crushing hug. Adam, as always, felt so right pressed against him, even as Ronan carefully kept his injured palm hovered awkwardly away from touching Adam’s back. Having Adam here suddenly felt too good to be true, and if Ronan hadn't been awake all morning, he would have been scared that this Adam had come out of his dreams.
But no, this was his Adam, smelling slightly of sweat and motor oil even with his Harvard sweater showing under his jacket. His Adam hugged him back, curling his head in to press against Ronan’s neck. “Surprise,” Adam mumbled against his skin, and Ronan smiled, warmth spreading through him. He realized, with Adam in his arms, that it hadn’t really felt like Christmas at all until he’d arrived. Ronan had been silly to think he would have Christmas at all without Adam.
After a few more deep breaths with Adam pressed against him like a sunbeam he could hold, Ronan pulled out of the hug, kissed Adam’s lips chastely, and then pulled Adam into the house. He could already feel Adam starting to shiver, and Ronan, in just his tank top, was getting cold as well.
Even through his elation at Adam's arrival, Ronan’s fears quickly came crawling in. They were standing in the entryway, and there wasn’t a Christmas decoration in sight. He hadn’t been expecting Adam. He hadn’t gotten the house ready for him, not even just by picking his dirty boxers up off the ground. Everything was all wrong. The woodbox was almost out of firewood, and he wouldn’t be able to explain why without showing Adam the gash across his palm.
The gash that was covered by a terribly visible Spider-Man Band-Aid that Adam would surely notice soon. Ronan swore internally and then managed to convince Adam to go ahead of him to get warm by the fire. Before following him, Ronan found a pair of mittens hanging with the coats and tugged both of them on. He knew Adam would call him out on it, but he hoped he could explain it away. Convince Adam his hands were just terribly cold, or some shit.
In short, he didn’t seem as put together as he usually liked to pretend, and he was worried Adam would be able to tell.
Ronan found Adam facing the fireplace, palms held towards it. As he walked towards Adam, Ronan let himself hunger over the slender line of Adam’s square shoulders, the way his back tapered down to his waist. His thin hips. His ever-careful posture. How Ronan had missed him. How the home only felt real when Adam was there to give it life.
He stepped up behind Adam, curling his arms around Adam’s waist and hooking his chin over Adam’s shoulder. If only he’d been prepared for Adam’s arrival, then this would be perfect. He tried to push down the fear buzzing low in his stomach that Adam would get one look at what a mess everything was and then turn and leave. This was surely not the Barns Christmas he'd been expecting, and not the one he would have gotten if only Ronan had known to prepare.
“Hello,” Ronan said, voice pointedly warm and lazy. “Thought you had an exam still, you twerp.” This had been Adam's excuse, that Ronan had struggled to believe.
“Asked the prof to let me write it a few days early,” Adam replied, leaning back into Ronan’s touch. “You’re welcome.”
“You could have told me,” Ronan said, trying his best to not let any of his worry seep into his voice.
Adam stilled in his arms, and then stepped away from him, turning to look at Ronan’s face. Ronan averted his eyes, knowing Adam could always read him too damn well.
“You said you were fine with me coming later,” Adam pressed.
“I know I said that,” Ronan grumbled, still looking away.
Adam took a step back, and Ronan could practically hear his defenses coming up. "Do you not want me to be here? I thought you'd be happy to see me.”
Ronan knew he had one shot to get this right, or Adam really would be turning and leaving. He wasn't one to stick around when he felt unwanted. "Adam. I fucking love that you're here. Just surprised. You caught me in the middle of something." It wasn't entirely a lie.
Adam’s fair eyebrows drew together, but he didn’t seem to want to press the issue. He took another step away from Ronan, towards the cabinet on top of which Ronan had started to set up his mom’s Christmas village, and then had given up. Many of the little porcelain houses and figurines were still wrapped carefully in tissue paper and tucked inside the storage box that he’d placed on the ground beside the cabinet.
“Why’d you not finish?” Adam asked absently, visibly forcing himself to switch to a different topic of conversation. He reached into the box and lifted up one of the smaller bundles, carefully unwrapping the tissue paper from it. Ronan walked over to help him. He reached for the bundle, remembering too late what was on his hands.
“Why the fuck are you wearing mittens?” Adam asked, some humor in his tone.
Ronan swallowed. “Cold hands. Bad blood circulation.”
“Since when?” Adam asked, cocking an eyebrow. He very carefully finished revealing the porcelain house and then placed it onto the cabinet with the others. After, he returned to the tissue paper, his deft fingers folding it into a small square.
Ronan shrugged, watching Adam’s hands work. He clasped his own hands behind his back to hide them, then changed tactics for his explanation. “Felt more festive.”
“Felt more festive to wear mittens inside, but you didn’t even finish decorating?” Adam rolled his eyes. “I thought you said you never lie, Ronan.”
Ronan never lied about important things. This was a nothing thing. He hardly even considered it a lie, more just an improved version of the truth. He sighed heavily and then pulled the mittens off, tossing them in the direction of the couch. He really wasn't looking forward to Adam seeing the cut. Then, Adam would see once and for all what a mess Ronan was without him.
Ronan didn’t immediately offer the injured hand to Adam — instead kept it tucked against himself — but he did explain, “Cut myself getting the firewood. It’s still out there, actually, the wheelbarrow. We should go and get it at some point and maybe—” he was rambling, trying to distract from his original point.
Adam could see right through him. He grabbed Ronan’s wrist and forced him to show his palm; he had probably known which one because of how Ronan had been subtly turning that side of himself away from Adam. Ronan winced in anticipation. Adam laughed when he saw the shoddy bandaging job Ronan had done.
“Ran out of regular Band-Aids?” Adam asked, which really was the easiest question he could have chosen. Ronan felt something in his chest loosen, and he realized that at least a part of him had been expecting to be chastised for letting himself get hurt.
“Thought this one was hard-core,” Ronan replied easily. He tried to tug his hand out of Adam’s grasp, wanting the attention off of his fuck-up, but Adam held fast. Apparently the humiliation wasn’t done. Ronan let his gaze drop unhappily to the unfinished Christmas village.
If Ronan had known Adam was coming, he would have finished decorating. He would have baked Christmas cookies and bought ingredients for Christmas dinner and changed his bedsheets, and he would have been more careful while getting firewood. Since he hadn’t known, everything was a fucking mess. Adam deserved better.
He guessed that Adam had expected Ronan would be ready for the holidays regardless. That was probably a product of the version of himself he tried to get Adam to believe in, of the Ronan that was doing just fine here at The Barns alone.
He hated that Adam was surely seeing the cracks in that facade, starting with the fucking gash on Ronan’s palm that Adam was still staring at. Ronan tried a little harder to tug his hand away. “Lemme go, Parrish.” He was certain that Adam felt embarrassed for him, and maybe a little disappointed. That wasn’t how Ronan ever wanted Adam to feel. He had half a mind to run away and hide in his shame like an injured cat.
Instead of letting Ronan’s hand go, Adam used the connection to drag Ronan up the stairs and then back into the bathroom. Ronan followed reluctantly, still expecting that at some point Adam would get angry at him, or tell him off, or say that he regretted coming up to The Barns.
In the bathroom, Adam made Ronan sit down once more on the closed toilet lid and then, impossibly, found the first aid kit faster than Ronan had. Adam looked gorgeous and vital and cunning, even in the dull bathroom light. Ronan trusted him with his life, but didn’t really want to trust him with the cut.
Adam, lips pressed into a tight line, opened the first aid kit and took out some gauze and a roll of medical tape, saying, "This will make it heal faster. So you can chop more firewood." He balanced the kit on the side of the sink before walking over to Ronan.
Ronan, groaning that this was unnecessary, held his injured palm up. Adam took it, holding under it with one of his own hands and peeling the too-small Band-Aid off of it with his other. Once he’d discarded the Spider-Man Band-Aid, he looked down at the cut, worrying his lip between his teeth.
Maybe this was finally going to be the talk, the You’re a mess, Ronan talk that he was used to from Declan, but would hurt a lot more from Adam. Ronan was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to hear what Adam was going to say, but he couldn’t stand the way he could practically see the words hanging on to the tip of Adam’s tongue. He let his chin drop, and said, “Spit it out, Parrish.”
“It’s not like these, right, Ro?” Adam asked, and his voice was softer. He’d spoken quickly like he’d had the words queued up. When Ronan hesitated, Adam brushed his fingers lightly over the soft inside of Ronan’s wrist, over the thin white scars littered there. Ronan inhaled and quickly shook his head. He hadn’t done that in a long time.
“No,” he said firmly.
Adam nodded, almost like he was relieved, and Ronan felt a pang of guilt, but also he just felt more embarrassed that Adam thought he seemed like enough of a mess that maybe he’d reverted back to his teenage coping methods.
“I’m doing good here,” Ronan said, voice sharp. “I can take care of myself.”
“With Spider-Man Band-Aids,” Adam said with a nod, teasing. He pressed the gauze to the wound and then began to wind the medical tape over it, immediately covering it more completely than Ronan’s attempt had. "That feel okay?"
“I mean it,” Ronan said, because he didn’t think Adam had believed him. “I don’t need you here.” He paused, anger coiling inside of him. “Is that why you came here? To check in on me when I wasn’t expecting it? Did Declan send you?” He sounded scandalized. The last part was only kind of a joke.
Adam scoffed, unimpressed. “No, Lynch, I am not here as a spy for your brother. Come on.”
Ronan knew it was unlikely, but he’d still had to ask. “You’re not usually one for surprises,” Ronan argued dejectedly.
Adam finished taping Ronan’s cut. He held Ronan’s hand between his own, looking down at it as he said, “I wanted to do something nice for you.” He was blushing like he’d had to force the words out. Ronan was a little taken aback.
Adam a year ago wouldn’t have risked taking an exam early just to do something nice for Ronan. And he certainly wouldn’t have owned up to it if he had. Ronan realized, belatedly, that Adam had his own things, that Ronan’s issues weren’t at the center of Adam’s brain like they were for Ronan. He felt a little silly.
“Sorry,” he muttered, trying to remind himself that Adam wasn’t Declan, and that he wouldn’t look at Ronan and only see a project to fix. “And thanks, Parrish. I’m glad you’re here.”
Adam’s mouth finally cracked into a smile. “That’s more like it,” he said, and then he pulled Ronan up to standing and tugged him in for a kiss.
As they walked back down the stairs, Adam said, “I’ll go get the wheelbarrow. Is it by the woodshed?” If he was just going to let them move right on past all the things Ronan had left undone, Ronan was more than happy to let him.
“Yeah,” Ronan said, and then he followed Adam to the door, and put his own shoes on at the same time as Adam did, and put his own jacket on at the same time as Adam did. “Take one of mine, Parrish,” Ronan said. “That one’s too thin.”
“It’s fine,” Adam frowned. “You don’t need to come with me.”
Ronan wanted to go with Adam. He wanted to live out at least a little of his fantasy of taking care of the wintery fields together. He couldn’t tell Adam this, so he shot back, “Need to make sure you don’t freeze, apparently.”
Adam scoffed, then left, zipping up his thin leather jacket. They’d only made it across the driveway before Adam was shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders, trying to subtly make himself warmer. Ronan took pity on him and slung one arm over Adam’s shoulders, pulling Adam in against his side.
Adam didn’t complain or try to pull away. He leaned a little more against Ronan, reminding Ronan that, miraculously, he wasn’t the only one in the relationship that was in love with the other. It wasn’t that Adam was bad at showing it, it was just that Ronan was bad at remembering. He loved Adam so much, he sometimes overlooked that Adam loved him back.
When Adam was away, Ronan spent most of his time thinking about him, wondering what he was doing and if he was finding new friends that he liked more. He knew that Adam wasn’t thinking about him quite as much. He was always worried that Adam was just one new connection away from cutting Ronan off. He was often terrified.
“I missed you,” Adam said quietly, interrupting Ronan’s internal spiral.
Ronan kept his chin pointed forwards, knowing his expression was too vulnerable after hearing those words from Adam. The pale sky over them was darkening, obscuring the tips of the mountains in the distance. The air smelled icy. He wondered if it was going to snow.
“I missed you, too,” Ronan said back, the words easy on his tongue. He always missed Adam, sometimes even when Adam was right beside him. He jostled Adam against himself lightly.
They got to the woodshed, the wheelbarrow still waiting diligently just outside of it. Ronan had forgotten to hide the bloody piece of wood, so he hoped that Adam wouldn’t open the door to the woodshed to see it as more evidence of Ronan’s dumb mistake.
Luckily, Adam only moved to grab the handles of the wheelbarrow and then grunted as he started it forward.
“Got it?” Ronan asked, disappointed in himself that he couldn’t just do it for them.
“You’re hardly stronger than me,” Adam said back, which Ronan didn’t necessarily think was true, but knew better than to argue against. He kept pace with Adam as they made their way back to the house, enjoying the little breaths and grunts Adam made as he pushed it over the field.
When they got back to the driveway, Ronan had to double-take the vehicle sitting in front of the house. It wasn’t a car as he’d expected, but the dream motorcycle with Adam’s helmet carefully placed on the seat. Ronan walked over to grab the helmet as Adam continued pushing the wheelbarrow towards the house.
“You came here on your bike?” Ronan asked. “Wasn’t it cold?” He walked quickly to catch up with Adam.
Adam shook his head, mostly focused on the wheelbarrow as he maneuvered it around the corner of the house. “Not really. Maybe a bit.”
Ronan whistled. “You biked here from Harvard? The roads could have been icy. It could have started snowing.” Adam had stopped the wheelbarrow beside the door to the garage and was catching his breath. Ronan stepped beside him. “That’s a little reckless, Parrish.”
“I wanted to see you,” Adam said. He was blushing again and Ronan wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or the cold.
Ronan held his gaze for a moment, something clicking into place between them. “You really aren’t here to check in on me?” He asked, believing it more this time.
Adam laughed like Ronan was something he was fond of but annoyed by. “No, asshole. I don’t give a fuck if you forget to get firewood or don’t finish decorating. I’m not here for the decorations, believe it or not.” He moved a little closer to Ronan, grabbing around his side and pulling him in, chest-to-chest. “I missed you. I wanted to see you. I wanted to do this:” He pressed up just an inch to kiss Ronan’s lips, then leaned back, smirking, “and maybe this:” he moved one of his legs in so his thigh grazed Ronan’s crotch.
Ronan was blushing now, too, and definitely not from the cold. “That sounds good to me,” he said, breathless, and then he pushed Adam towards the door to the garage. They could come back and get the firewood later. Ronan started to lightly hum a Christmas carol as he pushed Adam back against the wall inside the garage, overjoyed that, finally, he was feeling the holiday spirit. Adam told him firmly to refrain from humming holiday songs until they were finished with sex.