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Adam shouldn’t be surprised that, even after two years, Henrietta looks the same; time hasn’t touched the town since the seventies, and his absence was insignificant in the grandest scheme of things. Only three living things, maybe, would have missed him- or, two if Cabeswater doesn’t count, and one to none if Blue and Roan are as angry as they have a right to be. Noah, if he’s around, will have missed him even if he’s bitter about him leaving. Noah’s always attuned to people, forgives because he understands, and only didn’t make the list because of the “living” stipulation.
He pulls into Monmouth when it’s dark, because he spent most of the day driving around, working up the nerve to do so, and because it’ll be easier to see him first. Ronan would yell and snap, and probably punch him in the nose, but the women of Fox Way would be contrary to one another; Blue would be cold, Maura would be sympathetic, and Calla would rip into him- he’d fare all of that a lot better if he was emotionally exhausted enough to just sit there and take it.
(Plue, he’d never been able to resist the draw of Ronan’s orbit, so he’d headed to Monmouth before he could stop to think about whether or not Ronan would even still live there. Monmouth had been Gansey’s, after all, and though he knew the Gansey family wouldn’t have been cruel enough to kick him out, he didn’t know if Ronan would choose to stay there with Gansey gone and no one left to keep him from moving back to the Barns.)
It feels wrong to pull in and not see the Pig. However much of an eyesore it was, Adam would give anything, everything, to have it back in it’s rightful place. He averts his gaze from where it should be so he doesn’t lose his nerve, and only lets himself sit in the car for another half-minute before he gets out.
It takes a lot of willpower not to run when Ronan actually opens the door. He, like Henrietta, hasn’t changed much; his shoulders sag a bit more, and his omnipresent look of exhaustion has sunk deeper into his bones and darkened the bags under his eyes. Adam only gets to see under the mask for a split second, though, before Roan seems to register that it’s him standing there, and that that’s not normal anymore. His tired eyes widen first in shock and the narrow and go chillingly cold. Suddenly, there’s no air left in Adam’s lungs.
“I know I’m not asleep.” Ronan drawls slowly, leaning against the doorframe. He looks dangerously calm, like a big cat mid-hunt. “But, I also know you’d never in a million years show your face around here again, Parrish.”
“Two years, a million; felt the same to me.” Adam know there are words coming out of his mouth, probably, but they don’t register. All he can process is Ronan’s presence and the fact that it isn’t a dream. He hadn’t gotten as far as this, when he’d started his plan of coming back.
Ronan begins to laugh and then remembers himself, so he bears his teeth instead. “ You left,” he said, accusation and cold fact in one. “All on your own, no one made you.”
“Not like you didn’t know I was going to, someday.” Adam counters, because his first instinct with Ronan is always to fight. “I couldn’t have stayed, Ronan. It was bad enough before, and after G---” They both flinch at the near slip, and Adam is silent for a beat before be continues. “I had to go, after. I had to, or I would’ve lost my damn mind.”
“And you don’t think I felt the same fucking way?” Ronan hisses. Good; this, Adam understands this he can deal with. Ronan angry is well-versed territory and the familiarity and fear were dulled by the roaring in his ears. “You don’t think I’ve sat here for two years and felt like there was a hole in my chest, felt like it wasn’t worth getting out of bed in the morning because there wasn’t a reason to give a damn anymore.”
“But, the difference is I didn’t run. Gansey’s--” Ronan struggles with the next word. “-- dead, but, guess what? We aren’t. We aren’t dream things, we didn’t stop living after he did. We’re still here, Adam- me, and Sargent, and Noah, and you left us. ”
“I know.” Adam says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Jesus, Ronan, I know , believe me. I’m not saying what I did was fair, or right, and I will never, never be able to say ‘I’m sorry’ enough to make it up to you even a little. I just… I had to go. I needed to breath, and I wasn’t going to be able to do it here.:
“You could've called.” Ronan is standing straight now, and Adam can see that he’s grown an inch or two, now. “Or texted, or sent an email, a letter, a telegram-- anything, Adam, anything would’ve worked.”
“I couldn’t look at any of you without seeing him.” Adam has to drop his gaze when he admits it, voice going soft. “I couldn’t listen to your without expecting him to chime in, and you all deserved better than someone who was going to look straight through you.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do with that.” Ronan’s anger seems to ebb a bit, shoulders slumping further and his exhaustion cracking through the mask again. “What do you want, Adam?”
I don’t know is half a second from tripping off his tongue, because that’s been true for so long now, but it isn’t in this moment. “You.” he blurts, and then backtracks because Ronan suddenly looks like a deer in the headlights. “I mean, I missed you- never really stopped mission you since I left? And, I just wanted to see you, and apologize, and-- yeah.” He’s blushing like he’s sixteen again and confessing his feelings to Ronan instead of just admitting that he’d missed his him- except, when he considers for the first real time why he misses Ronan, that might not be so far off the mark after all.
Before Gansey died, Adam had known full well where he and Ronan were headed; Ronan’s crush on him, while not obvious, was evident enough, and the idea of dating him- of reciprocating whatever it was Ronan wanted to ask of him- wasn’t all that unpalatable to Adam. Ronan had always held a separate place in his life, a niche just for him that spanned every facet of Adam, and opening the tiniest bit that was left hidden would have been so easy.
Then, everything had fallen apart; Gansey had died, and Adam had ran, but even without his physical presence, Adam couldn’t get away from Ronan. He dreamed of Cabeswater, and Ronan was always there, standing and staring and sometimes smiling in a way Adam had never seen- but, he knew the expression was right. In the moment, he can’t think of a single day he hadn’t thought of him, and the realization that he’d gone and fallen in love with Ronan Lynch dawns on him slowly, hope and shock coming with it.
The realization that Ronan might not share his affections any more hits him much quicker, hope dwindling as he watches emotions flicker across Ronan’s face. “Missed me.” he repeats, running a hand across the top of his head. “You waited two years to tell me that you missed me.”
“I thought you started hating me sometime during year one.” Adam says quietly, gaze dropping to the ground.
Ronan’s nostrils flare dangerously, and Adam braces himself for a punch that never comes. Instead, Ronan yanks him forward by the collar of his shirt and kisses him. Adam’s eyes go wide, because of all that he though would happen, this somehow never made the list. The kiss is over before he can reciprocate, Ronan pushing him away again with a snarl. “Hate you?” He laughs, and he sounds bitter. “Yeah, Parrish, there’s exactly how much I hate you- there’s about as much as I’ll ever be able to hate you.”
He tries to close the door on Adam, then, but Adam’s foot shoots out to catch it before it can fully close. “I--” he starts shakily, and the lets himself get angry again; he can deal with Ronan when he’s burning, but not at all when the both of them are breaking. “You have to give me the chance to kiss you back, asshole.”
Ronan’s eyes go wider than Adam’s had before when he pushes the door open again and steps into Monmouth. He doesn’t let himself register the familiarity and aching wrongness of being there with no touch of Gansey to be seen, choosing to focus instead on tugging Ronan forward by the wrist and kissing him. It’s not gentle, even when Ronan starts to kiss back, but neither of them need gentle right now, so the battling and biting and clinging work just as well as anything else.
They’re both breathless when they pull back. Ronan doesn’t immediately wrench his wrist from Adam’s grasp, which Adam takes as a positive sign, and they both stare at each other in silence before Ronan shatters the tension with a hysterical laugh.
“You’re a piece of work, Parrish, you know that?” he drawls, but there’s affection and warmth behind it.
“I know.” Adam huffs, finally feeling whatever dark thing that had been coiled in the pit of his stomach for two years dissipate. “But, I can be--”
“If you say ‘your piece of work’, I’ll punch you right in the mouth.” Ronan cuts him off. The threat sounds mostly empty, but, Adam doesn’t take the risk anyway.
“I can’t stay here permanently.” he says, and quickly adds “yet” when he sees Ronan tensing up again. “But, I can keep coming back in the meantime; weekends, breaks, all that. If you want it.”
“I want.” Ronan answers, and there’s a lot more behind that; Adam can feel it. They’ll get to all of it later, though. For now, he’s just content to smile and nod, and kiss him again.
“You’ve got it, then.” he says, squeezing Ronan’s hand like it’s just that easy.
(And maybe, for once, it can be.)