Archive of Our Own

Ronan was already on his way out of the southern mountains when Adam texted him. 

Meet me in Memphis.

Ronan never had to ask when. They always met right around dusk; it was more romantic that way. Neither would admit so plainly how much they enjoyed a rendezvous, but they didn’t have to, so they didn’t.

Ronan arrived at a loud, dirty, electric bar on Beale Street and waited for Adam to find him as he always did. Adam rolled his eyes at the place Ronan had chosen—its theme was vaguely Irish, and it mainly consisted of an outdoor courtyard whose main attraction was the enclosure in the back that held two billy goats. A couple of burly guards protected the goats from drunk people trying to climb the fence and pet them. Ronan didn’t understand the point of the goats if you couldn’t pet them, and he said as much to Adam, who knew that Ronan really meant that he felt bad for the goats. Adam led them away before Ronan got a noble streak and freed the goats, and so they ended up in a high-end hotel bar that was no quieter than the dive they’d been at before.

“I’ve got an assignment a few hours south,” Adam said into Ronan’s ear, refusing to shout over the noise. When Ronan’s arm circled him in close and he spoke with his lips on Ronan’s skin, there was no need to raise his voice, which was how they both preferred it. They sat side by side, looking not at one another but at the madness raging around them. “I was thinking we could drive down together, take a few days to enjoy the trip, see a few sights. Et cetera.”

Adam just faced ahead and sipped his cocktail when Ronan turned to look at him, a tease already on his tongue. “You were ‘thinking’…so you’ve already planned this road trip out minute-by-minute?”

Adam took a couple more slow, even sips, not rising to the bait. “There are some pretty interesting places along the way. I booked us a couple of places to stay, yeah. But it’s flexible.” He paused, swirling the dregs in his glass, ignoring Ronan’s finger trying to poke at his ribs. “If you can’t come, I understand.”

Ronan barked a laugh because this was ridiculous. Adam knew Ronan could and would follow him wherever Adam asked him to, and Ronan knew that he was just being bitchy to deflect how well Ronan knew him and his neurotic habits. Adam refused to smile about it.

But Ronan wouldn’t be deterred. Adam clawed at his hands viciously when they tried to dig into the sensitive spots above Adam’s hips. “If you’re coming with,” he said, resolutely even, “then we’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

Ronan was so helplessly amused by and delighted to be with this faux-nonchalant, beautiful-in-the-purple-lights man that he quit trying to bother him, instead wrapping himself around Adam and breathing in the smell of the sweat gathering between his neck and shoulder. Adam reached up to scratch Ronan’s head.

Adam sighed quietly, happily. Then, for Ronan to hear, “The assignment’s in Greenville.” He said, Green-vull. “Mississippi.”

Ronan would’ve made more of a face if he weren’t sedated by Adam’s smell and warmth. “Thought you said there were sights to see.” He ignored Adam’s elbow in his side. “Thought you said something about ‘interesting’—“

“Don’t be annoying,” Adam said easily, setting his empty glass on the bar behind them. Ronan caught his face and bumped their foreheads, noses together, giving Adam a look that was one part you are so funny to me I wanna put you in my pocket and one part I love you so much of course I’ll follow you to whereverthefuck. 

Adam gave him a look back that was superficially, flimsily, I am not impressed by your antics and was actually, plainly, I’m dying to give you myself and the entire world and all the stars but I’m trying to be at least a little bit cool about it so just bear with me okay. They leaned in together, brushed lips without kissing, because they would do plenty of that later. 

“I did some research,” Adam said, and couldn’t help but join Ronan in laughing at himself. Ronan squeezed his waist to say, I know you did. Adam let one side of his mouth smile shyly. “There are some places I wanna take you.”

Ronan grinned, sharply pleased, and nibbled at Adam’s ear. “Like a date?” he teased, sincerely delighted. Adam smoothed his hands across Ronan’s chest and pressed the smallest kiss to his pulse point to say, Yeah, like a date. 

They kissed finally, firmly, just once. Ronan looked at Adam like he was a sip of fresh water and it made Adam’s skin prickle pleasantly. “Tomorrow morning,” Ronan started, testing, hopeful. Adam hummed, nodding seriously for him to continue. “…can we stay long enough to see the ducks?”

Adam sighed, but grinned a little bit despite himself. The hotel ducks marched at 11; Adam had wanted to be on the road by nine-thirty. Ronan knocked his nose against Adam’s cheek like an affectionate cow. Adam let his smile and the cocktail and Ronan’s warm touches win; they kissed, enchanted, while someone played the blues.

---

After they watched the ducks march out into the decadent hotel lobby and splash around in the fountain for a while, they fell into the Beemer and headed south. Adam drove. When they crossed into Mississippi, the road got bumpier. The drive through far-north Mississippi wasn’t super engaging, mostly forever-stretching interstate framed by tall, reedy pines. 

No matter how Ronan pried, he couldn’t get much out of Adam about where they were going or what he’d planned. Adam just rolled the windows down, something he rarely did when they were going this fast, so that they could enjoy the early-spring air and the yellow sun filtering through the green pines. Even as they passed through winding backroads, Ronan spent most of the drive trying to figure out why these pines seemed so different from their Appalachian cousins further northeast. There was a sort of character that set them apart, he thought. He held Adam’s hand as country roads spit them back into civilization.

Adam was smiling proudly to himself, nearly preening, in a way that Ronan knew he wasn’t conscious of. Ronan watched him until Adam nudged him away. “This is Oxford,” he said. Ronan took a cursory glance around at red-brick buildings and white-painted columns and wrought-iron balconies, then ended up back at Adam, who slowed the car to a crawl around the town square. “They say that you might see Morgan Freeman here.”

Ronan grinned. “Me, personally? I might see Morgan Freeman?”

Adam pursed his lips against a smile and shook his head. “They say you might see him around Clarksdale, too, and even Cleveland.” 

Ronan smiled as Adam’s delicate hands guided the steering wheel, herded the BMW into free public parking. “Are we going to those places too?”

Adam turned to him with a coy look. “Dunno,” he shrugged. “Guess you’ll find out.” He hurriedly got out of the car and clicked the lock button on the keys before Ronan could get out, because that was his stupid idea of flirting. Ronan grinned and grabbed the jacket Adam had left behind because he knew Adam would be complaining about the chill in about sixty seconds.

He was right. As they walked the town square, Ronan held the coat out for Adam to wrangle his arms into, still lanky even in adulthood, but in a way Adam had grown into. Adam took his hand to squeeze thanks and to guide him into a bookstore on the corner in which Ronan could already tell they’d spend more time than they should.

Ronan was sitting on the floor with several books in his lap when Adam checked his watch and made a polite little sound that made Ronan frown. Adam was sitting at a small coffee table beside and above Ronan; he had several stacks on the table which Ronan assumed were sorted by genre or interest level or something else type-A and endearing. Ronan looked up blearily from the volume he’d foraged about occultist and otherworldly practices among the pioneer, enslaved, and Indigenous women of the Mississippi Delta. Adam looked back at him and tapped the face of his watch. 

“Lunchtime,” he said pleasantly, then looked at his book-stacks consideringly. Before he could start gingerly sorting them into “maybe worth buying” and “I can live without it”, Ronan bundled them all up in his arms along with his own haul and stumbled blindly to the counter. “Ronan,” Adam hissed, but there wasn’t much protest in it.

Ronan dumped the tomes in front of a very pleased woman with her glasses on a necklace like an old-school librarian. “Very good!” she said in a vaguely foreign accent. “Is this all?” Behind Ronan, Adam huffed a quiet, ironic laugh. Ronan pulled Adam to his side and palmed Adam’s wallet out of his pocket. They made eye contact as Ronan pulled Adam’s card out of the leather wallet Ronan had dreamt him years ago. Adam’s eyes were hot but he nodded. 

Ronan grinned at the lady as he handed her the card. “He’s buying, so yeah.” She grinned and commented something pleasant about each volume she scanned as she stuffed them all in a large brown paper bag. Then, as she rung them up, she took a large canvas bag down from the shelf behind her. 

“Here,” she said, putting the paper bags in the tote. “So the bag doesn’t break, you don’t drop the books. Terrible, to drop books! Why these bags are so good.” Ronan noticed that the bag was priced at $40 on the shelf right as Adam started to protest. The lady waved her hand and silenced them both. “You boys did so good, got so many books, it does not matter. Here, take and keep them safe.” Ronan knew without looking at him that Adam was conflicted, so he turned around and placed the strap of the bag in Adam’s hand. Ronan tried not to smile while Adam looked blankly at the bag in his hand, mouth moving without anything coming out. Then Adam met the woman’s eyes, and that’s what made him crumble.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a sheepish half-smile and his accent laid on thick. It would’ve charmed the fuck off anybody, but Ronan was especially compromised. He barely remembered to share a smile with the book lady before he followed Adam out, the tote now hefted onto Adam’s bony shoulder. Ronan grinned and skip-jumped after Adam, shaking the foundation of the bookstore a bit, which earned him a scolding but fond look from Adam, his head turned over his other bony shoulder. Ronan would kiss both of those bony shoulders later. 

They caught a late lunch at a soul-food diner on the next block that left them both slumped in the linoleum booth, bloated like beached whales and ordering more banana pudding and chess pie to go. They sipped sweet tea and pointed out every portrait of Elvis they could find on the walls until Adam was giggling and silly. Afterward, they walked.

“We’ve gotta work off that lunch somehow,” Adam said. He took a deep, conscious breath. “Digest.”

Ronan snorted. “Why are you working me on our vacation?” he teased, pinching Adam’s side. “Can we just go check into wherever we’re staying and crash for a couple hours? I could spend about half a day sleeping that off.”

Adam pulled Ronan’s arm tighter around him, but looked determined nonetheless. "We will later. We’ll have to check in later to get changed.”

Ronan raises an eyebrow. “Get changed? For what?” Adam gave him one of those coy, self-satisfied smiles that meant he was very happy with how his plans were coming along. This man and his plans, Ronan thought.

“Dinner,” Adam said breezily. Ronan grinned and leaned in close to nip at Adam’s ear, ignoring Adam’s swatting.

“What, Parrish, you taking me out on a date?”

Adam tried so hard to roll his eyes, but the effect was totally lost by his ear-to-ear grin. Ronan kissed it. When he pulled away, it was still there, so he kissed it again.

Adam pushed him away a bit and cleared his throat. “As long as you behave,” he said, “then yeah, Lynch. I’m taking you on a date.” He tried to look stern for about half a second before the delight spilled out of him again in a sweet grin. Ronan only let Adam keep leading once he’d been thoroughly kissed against a brick wall beside the dark entrance to some college-kid bar, still hours from open. 

“But right now,” Adam said finally, righting himself and pulling Ronan along the small-town blocks lined with gray-brick churches and corners guarded by live oaks, “we’re going on a walk.”

Ronan kept bothering him with kisses and wandering fingers along his ribs; they fell apart and pulled together like a tide as they walked. “Where are you taking me, Parrish?” he asked, as if he wouldn’t follow Adam anywhere.

Adam took him to a very large house on a very large piece of land surrounded by some very large trees. They toured the house that was frozen in time—they pointed and snickered at the silly portraits of Faulkner on horses and with his hunting dogs, and they observed with awe the mad writings of the author across the walls of his study. They held hands while they strolled through the gardens, both abandoned and so obviously loved. They strolled on and on through the garden of the city until they stumbled back to the car and into their hotel room.

They dressed for dinner early because they knew, from experience, that dressing nice for one another always set them back by at least thirty minutes. Once they pried their hands and lips off each other, they walked in the mild dusk to dinner. Ronan tried shrimp and grits and Adam only barely stopped himself from making fun of him for liking it so much. 

They ate far too much again, then drank only marginally less at the bar upstairs. The bar’s balcony watched over the courthouse and the heart of the town. The soul of Oxford, though, seemed to reside here on this balcony. 

Neither Ronan nor Adam were the type to make friends anywhere they went, at least not without trying, but the locals didn’t give them much of a choice. They somehow ended up listening to a blonde woman with tattooed wrists tell the rest of the balcony about her weekend-long date with a bible salesman in New Orleans, Hand to God, Bob, a bible salesman! A denim-clad professor with one small, gold hoop earring joined the blonde woman in asking Ronan and Adam where they were from, what they did, how long they’d been together, et cetera. They told mostly the truth, but the rest of the party were probably too drunk to notice or care. As darkness fell, someone in drag who Ronan swore reminded him of Hennessey was greeted by the balcony with cheers and whistles. Later, by moonlight, Ronan danced with them to Etta James while Adam grinned.

The bargoers told them all the places they still had to eat at before they left, which made Adam sigh. Ronan knew that there was not a spot in Adam’s plans to mess around with, that Adam’s need to keep his calendar prim and precise was clashing with his desire to eat through the town. Then the locals began to insist that Ronan and Adam had just missed Morgan Freeman, that he’d really been at the bar not ten minutes before they’d come, and this made Ronan laugh so hard that Adam forgot about any shortcomings in his plans to watch Ronan smile. 

They were supposed to have a brisk breakfast and leave Oxford by nine AM the next day. Instead they had a long, alcoholic breakfast at a local townie spot, then wandered around an antique store next door, then wandered around the bookstore again until it was time for the last-minute dinner reservations they’d made at the locals’ insistence. They ate okra-curried shrimp and mango chutney-glazed rack of lamb and drank one orange-soda cocktail after another until Ronan declared he would never eat or drink ever again. They crashed at the hotel after Adam sternly enforced an eight AM departure for the next morning. They left at nine-thirty. 

---

Ronan had bargained (begged) for Adam to let him drive this time, and Adam was sleepy enough to give in. Adam followed a map on his phone and told Ronan when to stray from whatever country road carried them. As they entered thicker pine groves with rougher roads, Adam’s sly hands started messing with Ronan’s stereo. Despite being swatted at, Adam, victorious, started to play something twangy and gritty through the speakers. Ronan rolled his eyes; but when he sided a glance to his right, Adam was smiling that smile again. Ronan grinned too and let his husband be pleased with himself. Ronan watched the road and remembered when they kissed to the blues in Memphis. Ronan took Adam’s meddling hand in his and pressed a special, singular kiss to each knuckle and each fingertip. 

Ronan pulled into a graying downtown as Adam instructed him. Ronan very nearly made a half-joke about I can’t wait to get mugged in an alley with you, how romantic but at the last minute held his tongue—something he was getting much better at. And thank God he had, too, because Adam’s face as he looked around with big, lovely eyes, dragging Ronan along by the hand, was something Ronan would hate himself for ruining.

“I almost booked a tour,” Adam said. Ronan bit down on the of what that came to him reflexively. But the grayness of the main street they walked now gave way, bit by bit, to movement and light and reds and greens and blues, God, so many shades of blue. Every shade of blue Ronan thought he’d ever seen and some he maybe hadn’t before.

Adam directs Ronan to a small parking lot in front of a red-brick building. Ronan registers one word on the sign in the front—“museum”—and groans. Adam smacks his arm and gets out of the car as soon as Ronan parks it. Ronan groans again, this time at the fact that he might’ve just picked a fight without even meaning to, then says to himself I will express enthusiasm and support for my husband’s interests three times before he gets out of the car.

He jogs ahead and holds the door open for Adam on their way in, which, he thinks with relief, stops the frost from spreading across Adam’s face.

“After you,” Ronan pants—it’s too hot down here for March. 

Adam looks at him sideways. “Thank you.” It’s a truce, albeit a tense one. Ronan follows him in.

And goddammit, he didn’t really want to give Adam the pleasure, but the place really is interesting. The guitars and the informational plaques are, at least. The wax figures of various Blues musicians are heinous but Ronan doesn’t say as much, just starts laughing and waits for Adam to join him, which he does, finally, the knot between them unraveling at last. 

---

Before they leave Clarksdale they stop at a smoking little shack not far from the blues museum for lunch. It’s some of the best food Ronan’s ever had, almost better than the fine dining in Oxford—and as they’re making themselves sloppy with smoked meat and pickles and sauce, the bells on the front door jingle and warm breeze swings in and Ronan clocks Adam’s eyes narrow. He turns around immediately, always subtle, even as Adam hisses around the barbecue in his bulging cheeks. 

A stylish, elderly Black man shuffles to a table of a few other stylish, elderly Black man and they all sing and whistle as he walks over, like they are just boys at the local haunt again. Ronan’s heart softly pangs but he ignores it while he watches Adam’s eyes, still searching, not any more subtle than Ronan, really. Ronan kicks him under the table.

“What?” he says lowly, rubbing a wad of napkins fruitlessly over sticky fingers. “Think it’s Morgan Freeman for real this time?”

Adam frowns at him and dabs at his face daintily with a napkin. There’s still some red around the edges of his mouth and Ronan scrunches his nose, wants to pinch his cheeks, goddamn. 

“Of course not,” Adam says, and gathers their trash, wipes crumbs off the table. He slides a sideways glance at the table of men as they make their way out and get six looks back. Adam smiles and nods, and they each return the gesture. None of them are Morgan Freeman. Ronan only pokes fun at him twice before they’re crossing the city limits, a testament to his self-control.

---

Despite the fact that they are already behind schedule—they’ve only got a couple of days to get to the place where Adam’s been sent, the whole situation a mystery to Ronan, because Adam has refused to talk about work yet, so whatever, but the suspense is killing him—anyway. Despite the fact that they are already behind schedule, Adam allows for a bit of diddling around in Mound Bayou just because. Specifically, it goes this way: Adam leads Ronan into another museum, one about social issues and race and whatnot that predictably makes Ronan entirely uncomfortable, but he supposes that’s the point. And so he reads the plaques anyway and learns some things that actually interest him, because an intimate proximity to history nerds for so many years has ruined him. He is startled when they reach the end of the exhibits and it’s been a whole hour, which means it’s time to get back on the road. His feet drag as they leave.

But as they walk out—after Ronan slips a few bills into the donation box, because why not—Adam casually mentions that he’d allowed an hour and thirty minutes for the Mound Bayou slot in their itinerary, so he drives Ronan down the main street that has Ronan thinking too much and to an artsy little building painted white. 

Inside it smells like wood and clay and a cheery-faced Black man greets them with a wave and a “Welcome in, y’all”. He says, yawl. He talks and talks to them about the history of the shop over the tittering noises of the other shoppers and Adam listens sincerely—a lover of museums, even talking ones—while Ronan wanders, which is probably rude, but there are so many things to look at. 

Most of them are dishes or figurines of rabbits or angels that all look mostly like things that would be in a middle-aged woman’s home around Easter or Christmas. And even the little clay nativity scene, the lines sharp enough to be skillful but soft enough to be inviting, the faces and clothing so detailed, the figures so strangely realistic yet seemingly archaic, it too would probably be in that woman’s home. But Ronan likes little figurines and his brother likes hand-made, artisanal artsy things like this, and they both like Jesus. Ronan’s made a real effort in the last few years to engage in his brother’s interests more, and a lot of the time this manifests as buying more and more art for Declan to put on his walls until the home he shares with Jordan is so cluttered with art it’s like a revolution, a death of the old Declan and a rebirth of the Declan who was always there, who shows his art out loud and even cries sometimes, too. 

Ronan brings one of the little figurines—the camel—up to the counter and asks the man (Peter, of Peter’s Pottery, Adam informs him politely) if he can please have it. The whole scene, not just the camel. Peter happily wraps up all the small pieces and packages them up carefully. 

Adam is smiling. “For Declan?” Ronan nods, wishing he still had the camel to turn between his fingers. “Gonna give it to him for Christmas?”

Ronan scoffs. “Of course not,” he says. “If I gave it to him at Christmas, he’d have to wait a whole year to actually put it out, and by then he’d have forgotten about it—“

“I’m sure he wouldn’t forget.”

“—No, I’m gonna give it to him, like, a couple months before Christmas so he can put it out as decoration.” Ronan is aware that it is still March, still months away from a couple months before Christmas, that he will agonize over the set until he gives it to Declan way too early. He is aware that Adam is still smiling at him.

---

The last stop of the day before the Holiday Inn Adam booked in Leland is (yet another) museum in Cleveland.

“It’s the Grammy museum,” Adam says earnestly, as if he really believes that means something to Ronan. 

“None of the songs that I like have ever won Grammies.”

Adam snorts. “Say that again, but slowly.” Ronan flicks his ear. “Really let it sink in. What do you think that says about your music taste?”

Ronan groans. “Dude, why the fuck would I care what a bunch of faceless lords of entertainment decide I should listen to?”

Adam sighs. “It’s—that’s fair, but that’s not the point of this place.”

Ronan doesn’t bother to ask, So what is? He just raises a sharp, dry eyebrow. Adam returns it.

They’re pulling into some small downtown much like the others they’ve seen in the past couple days. “It’s about history,” Adam says evenly. “It’s about culture. About these people, this place, what they can be proud of, you know? What they’ve created, against all odds—et cetera.” He sighs through his nose. Ronan waits, feeling properly scolded.

“I really want to go,” Adam says finally, quietly. Ronan looks at his profile for a moment, sighs. “It looks really cool.”

Ronan strokes two fingers along Adam’s wrist, watching him closely. Adam is highly focused on navigating the downtown blocks, hands tight on the wheel. Ronan squeezes his hand, tries. Tries.

“Then we’ll go,” he says. “Duh. You’re the captain of this ship, man, sail on.” Adam relaxes a little bit, finally, quietly. 

“You know,” Adam says quietly, “in Leland, there’s another museum…”

Ronan slants him a sideways glance. Adam’s smirking.

“Jim Henson, the guy who invented Muppets? He was born down here. There’s a museum about him.”

They look at each other for a moment, still.

“A Muppet museum.”

They finally break and snort laughter together.

They hold hands as they walk the gritty downtown. Somewhere, a band is playing; Ronan’s lips twitch helplessly when he notices Adam cocking his head to listen. It smells like fried food. He waits for Adam to say something.

“Early evening dinner?” Adam asks easily. 

Ronan squeezes his hand. “Abso-fucking-lutely. Starving.”

It’s only five-thirty, but when they get sucked into the hole-in-the wall where the music led them to, it feels like an all-night party has been raging for hours already. It’s dark inside, lowly lit by neon lights reflecting off of glass bottles. 

They sit at the bar while the men on the makeshift stage play something hot and lazy and electric. The patrons whistle and whoop while bartenders move at the speed of light to keep everyone fed and drunk. Adam is grinning.

They order fried pickles and fried mushrooms and split a fried bologna sandwich, then nibble at a salad, for balance. They lean back against the bar with hands on their bloated bellies as the band changes. The members of the first band shake hands with and clap the shoulders of the second; one guy seems to be a member of both, because he stays seated on his stool, bass guitar in his lap. When the others get settled, he flips a switch somewhere and begins a bone-rattling riff that gets the bar hot and shouting again. 

Beside Ronan, someone’s grandparents sway their hips and shuffle their feet and clap, the man and woman dancing together like they’ve been doing it for fifty years. A woman behind the bar grins and says something to them with an easy familiarity, wags her finger at them. She could be their daughter or their friend, but could just as easily be a total stranger. A toddler runs past Ronan’s knees and a young girl comes running after him; they both end up right in front of the stage, where they point together at the lead singer, crooning into the mic and softly abusing his guitar. He smiles at the kid and plays a spicy little riff just for him; the boy squeals with delight.

It seems like not very long before a third band is up and Adam is several beers in. He doesn’t even drink beer, not really; he prefers his fruity little cocktails. But he’s glowing and laughing and swaying just so to the music, so Ronan will watch him get as drunk as he wants. He lets Adam hold on to his shoulder and whoops and applauds the band with him every now and then, enjoys the music, really actually does. Between songs, he taps around on his smartphone, finds them someplace to stay nearby, because somehow it’s already nine-thirty and Adam shows no signs of leaving for Leland anytime soon. Ronan books the place, puts his phone in Adam’s back pocket, and whoops along with Adam as the next song starts.

He hopes Adam won’t be too disappointed about missing the museum. In the morning, he’ll swear to come back with him whenever. And Adam will probably be bitchy about it—purely because of how hungover he will undoubtedly be. Now, he falls against Ronan’s chest and throws his arms around Ronan’s shoulders, presses his lips to Ronan’s ear. 

“Do you love it?” he asks in a hoarse whisper. Ronan grins, helpless, and holds Adam tight around the hips. 

“Yes,” he says, simply. Kisses Adam’s temple. “Yes.”

Adam takes a deep breath of the air between them, buries his nose in Ronan’s neck. “I gotta tell you a secret.”

Ronan laughs softly. “Oh yeah?”

Adam groans, tries to swipe his bangs out of his face. Ronan smoothes them back for him. “God, Ronan. I lied to you.” He looks suddenly unhappy. Ronan frowns back.

Adam leans back in to whisper. “There was this place in Clarksdale.”

“Mmhm.” Adam’s sweat-dampness is mingling with Ronan’s while they hug; Ronan holds him tighter.

“It was—was kinda like this place. Music, bar.”

“Those sorta places arefairly common.” He pinches Ronan’s side clumsily.

“Mm-mm. No. This was—ugh.” Adam rests his skull on Ronan’s collar bone and shakes his head regretfully. “I could’ve taken you to this place, but it just didn’t fit into the schedule. My stupid goddamn schedule. I’m so sorry.”

Ronan is now less entertained and more concerned—Adam has always been an anxious drunk. He lifts Adam’s face to his. “Adam. What are you talking about?”

Adam’s eyes are wide and sad. “It’s—god. You know who owns that place?”

Ronan frowns. “No, I don’t. Who—“

“Morgan Freeman, man.” He head-butts Ronan’s chest again, forlorn. “And people say he hangs out there a lot. You could’ve met Morgan Freeman. But I’m too crazy. And I didn’t even tell you.”

Ronan has to hold his breath for a while, just to stop himself from laughing until he cries. He bites down on the inside of his cheek so hard it starts to bleed. He lets a few silent giggles out over Adam’s shoulder where he can’t see. Finally, he turns Adam’s sweet, anxious face up to his.

“Adam,” he manages.

Adam sighs. “Yeah?”

“I…” He looks deep into his husband’s neon-light eyes. “I will never forgive you for this.”

Adam groans loud and digs his knuckles into Ronan’s sternum as he finally laughs loud and hard over the music. He does have to wipe a tear from his eye, he can’t help it.

“Christ on a fucking cracker, Adam. God.” He gathers his miserable little man up in his arms and gives him a big smooch on the cheek. “I love you so much.”

Finally, Adam’s frowning mouth defrosts into the start of a smile. “You aren’t disappointed?” he says softly.

Ronan kisses his ear, then gives him a firm look. “Are you disappointed that we’re not gonna make the Grammy museum?”

Adam looks at his watch, blanches, and sighs. “Kinda.”

Ronan gives him a kiss. “We’ll come back, then.” He picks up Adam’s abandoned beer, finishes the last swig of it, and gestures at a bartender for another. When he turns back, Adam is watching the band again, eyes unsteady but now unburdened. Ronan hooks his chin atop Adam’s shoulder. “We’ll come back. Anytime you want.” 

Ronan only manages to drag Adam out when the final bands starts to pack up. He drives them to the little cottage-ish AirBnB he rented a few blocks away and nearly has to carry Adam in.

“Sorry I’m so drunk,” he says once they’re in. He collapses face-first onto the bed while Ronan fumbles to turn a lamp on. “Sorry I’m a disaster. This place is—“ he burps— “cute, good find.” Ronan tugs at him, tries to get him undressed. “Ugh, god. No, just leave me. Leave me to wither away.” 

Ronan snickers and lets him struggle to get his clothes off; they smell like grease and beer, both of them do. Ronan manages to get them both into their underwear and under the covers. The duvet is frilly and pink; this place might belong to somebody’s grandma. It’s cozy. Ronan can’t stop smiling, even as he and Adam melt and stick together with sweat. Adam thrashes and throws the frilly, pink duvet off the bed and right onto the floor. 

“Hot,” he explains into Ronan’s chest.

Ronan rubs his back, combs through his hair. He can’t believe he’s allowed to be married to this man. “D’you know that I like you?” he says.

“Hrmph,” Adam says. “Even when I’m drunk and disgusting. And a mess. And crazy.”

Ronan grins hard at the ceiling. “Especially then. All of those things.”

Adam struggles to pull his arm out from under himself. He clumsily finds Ronan’s nipple to pinch it, then clumsily finds Ronan’s cheek to pinch it, too. “Thank you,” he says. Ronan scoffs. “Thank you,” he says again. “Love you. Tamquam.”

“Alter idem.” Ronan kisses his head and reaches to turn off the lamp. He’s already nodding off; he rarely falls asleep this quickly in an unfamiliar place, but this man has worn him out. 

He thinks they’re both asleep when Adam whispers something into his neck.

“Huh?”

Rustling, shifting, unsticking of skin from skin. “I said, I promise. Promise you’ll meet Morgan Freeman someday. Dammit.” Ronan giggles; Adam squeezes his bicep. 

“Is that promise for me or for you? Let’s be honest.” Another pinch. Another giggle. Then they’re both out, finally.

---

Despite his predictably messy hangover, Adam gets them up before sunrise in order to drive to the forest. 

They’re both pretty equally bleary but Adam is now in work mode, which focuses him, so. Adam drives. Ronan watches the sun rise as they drive east, gives Adam his sunglasses. He doesn’t ask what the assignment is, just waits for Adam to wake up enough to give the debrief.

“So,” Adam starts at last, “Greenville.” Green-vull. “There’s a forest.”

Ronan feels his belly swoop a bit. He did not know there would be a forest. He likes forests. “I like forests.”

Adam’s lips twitch upward. “I know you do. There’s a forest—or, really, there are a lot of forests. And the forests are really swamps.”

“You’re losing me.” Adam swats his shoulder.

“Keep up. The forest-swamps—it’s not that complicated, really—are filled with cypress trees. Specifically, cypress trees in the genus Taxodium. Mainly the pond and the bald varieties.”

“I’m a bald variety.”

Adam takes a breath. “That you are, my dear.” Adam is steering them down an increasingly twisty road surrounded by increasingly thick tree cover. It is still dawn; the light of day still does not fully cover the sky. It is, to say the least, getting a bit spooky. Ronan grins.

Adam continues. “So, these types of cypress trees, they have this really cool feature—” Ronan grins harder; he’s entering full nerd mode. “—where their roots protrude above-ground in these sort of stalagmite-looking things.”

“Ooh, whipping out the cave terminology, too? Damn, Parrish, talk dirty to me.”

“They’re called knees.”

Ronan frowns. “Excuse me?”

Adam’s face is much lighter than it was at the start of the drive; he’s now fully awake, the sunglasses pushed up onto his head. He looks as young as Ronan feels, as excited for whatever they’re about to get in to.

“The roots that protrude above ground, they’re called knees. They’re really cool, and the forests themselves are beautiful, with all the water—I’ve only seen pictures online, but.” …but he’s pumped to explore this forest. Ronan can read between the wide-open lines.

“Alright,” Ronan says, snatching his glasses back, “so, there’s this forest. Cool, awesome. What’s fucked up about it?”

Adam wags a finger at him. “I’m glad you asked.” Ronan snorts. Adam leans forward in his seat as he navigates the road, now unpaved and twisting even tighter. “So, since the forest is so cool and awesome, this Preserve—it’s one of the biggest cypress preserves in the South, and one of the oldest—it’s become this tourist location. A pretty big one, believe it or not. There are whole festivals about these trees around here. And every few years, people can come legally harvest the knees, for art or decoration and whatnot.”

Ronan hums, now also maybe a little bit in work mode, whatever. “Poachers?” he proposes.

Adam nods. “Well, yes, there are occasional poachers. But that’s not exactly what we’re dealing with here.” He deftly pulls the car down a drive which seems to lead to a wooden shack which is probably supposed to be an information center. “We’re dealing with whatever has the park rangers scared shitless.”

---

The information center is not bigger on the inside. There’s a desk, an arrow pointing to one unisex bathroom, and three people in polos and name tags huddled together, whispering and wringing their hands. Only one of them is wearing one of those funny park-ranger hats, which Ronan finds disappointing.

“Good morning,” Adam calls out in his charming, confident work-voice. He reaches out a hand to the tense rangers. One, a woman with a slightly lined, severe face and neat bun, takes it.

“Morning,” she says. “Jill Lambert. I take it you’re our visitor from…”

She is obviously floundering for a government agency to assign Adam to, but the fact is that the agency Adam is loosely attached to is not allowed to be named or known by anyone outside of its exclusive little ring of confidential weirdos.

“DC,” Adam says with a smile, “yes ma’am.” She sort of frowns, but in his signature style, Adam’s disarming customer-service mode seems to keep her from lingering on the details. “I’m Agent Parrish, and this,” he gestures at Ronan, “is my associate, Mr. Lynch.” Ronan sucks his teeth; Adam thinks it’s hilarious to demote Ronan to “associate” status and to pointedly deprive him of the “Agent” title. 

Ronan just crosses his arms over his chest and nods. “‘Sup.”

The lady’s eyes linger on him for a moment, more confused than suspicious, which means Adam’s strategy has worked. One of the other two people in her circle pick up the slack.

“Pleasure to meet you, gentlemen,” says an older woman, white hair tied back loosely and framing her kind, crow’s-feet-lined eyes. “Excuse Jilly, she’s not so much of a mornin’ person, ha.” Jill does not look pleased to be called out, but doesn’t respond. She does, in fact, look about as half-asleep as she does severe. “And thank y’all for coming so early, I mean—you know how it is—or maybe you don’t, ha—it just gets so hot so damn quick, and we didn’t want to have any sun-fried federal employees on our hands!”

“And because the—situation,” Jill interjects in a mumble, “seems to be a bit worse in the wee hours.”

Adam just chuckles along with the older woman, though her laughter seems far more nervous than his. A smaller man sheepishly shuffles to her side, the same uncomfortable smile plastered on his mouth. “I, myself—my Christian name is Amelia Fontaine Billington, but folks I’m close to call me Milly, or Miss Milly, if you’re a formal kinda person. My hubby here,” she nudges the man, and he bares his teeth sheepishly, “likes to call me Milly the Hill Billy, ha! Though the last name is his fault—he being the one who gave it to me!”

Adam manages to smile politely and nod along to the woman’s rambling, then takes the man’s hand when his wife nudges him. He weakly shakes Adam’s hand. “But I go by Billy,” he says almost in a squeak. He blinks at Ronan with big eyes, then decidedly does not shake Ronan’s hand. Which is actually a bit disappointing, because he is the one wearing the funny hat. 

“Billy Billington,” Adam says seriously. Ronan silently curses him as he bites the inside of his cheek, hard. “A pleasure.” Ronan coughs, finally gets himself under control.

Finally, Milly steps aside. “And—c’mon, darling—this here is our granddaughter, Marion.” Behind the group is someone Ronan didn’t notice before—a teenage girl who is most definitely not a park ranger, though she’s dressed for the outdoors in rough-worn cargo pants, hiking boots, and a Preserve souvenir t-shirt, her braids pulled back into a high ponytail. She’s matching Ronan’s posture, arms crossed over her chest indolently, a scowl unmoving on her face. She can’t be more than fourteen. Ronan likes her immediately. 

“Hey there, Marion,” Adam says gently, waving. The girl looks at him, but doesn’t change a thing except to scowl harder. Scratch that—Ronan loves her immediately. He snickers, which gets him a look from Adam. 

“Alright, well, it’s lovely to meet you all,” Adam says, clearly done with the prelude. He pointedly checks his watch, ever polite. “Shall we head out?”

Jill takes the reins again. “We shall. Milly and I will take y’all out, show you the swamp, and where the…” she coughs. “The problem, um, where we’re having it.”

“I’m coming too,” Marion says. The others look at her, tense but not surprised.

“Sorry, Marion,” Jill says, not sounding very sorry. “This is official business, not playtime.” Ronan hates her.

Milly takes a gentler approach. “Honey, maybe you should stay and help Grandpa with the brochures—“

The girl steps forward, speaking directly to Adam and Ronan. “Nobody knows the Preserve better than I do.” She looks between them, then locks her eyes on Ronan for a moment, eyes narrowed. She seems to hesitate, but recovers quickly, and looks back at Adam. “If you really want to kill these things, you’re gonna need me. I promise.”

Adam stares back at her, head tilted, posture still and delicate. Ronan has the feeling that he is witnessing the moment before a boxing match, everyone still and poised to attack. He also has the feeling that Adam is seeing things that Ronan isn’t.

“Well,” Adam starts, tiptoeing, “we’re not exactly looking to kill anything, Marion.” He gives her a sober nod. “But it does seem we’ll need your expertise to navigate the situation.” The look he gives Jill is final. 

Ronan claps once, making Jill, Milly, and Billy jump. “Alright.” Adam nods at him and starts to lead them out the door. Marion follows him, but keeps her eyes on Ronan. Ronan grins at her. “Let’s see these knees, then.” 

---

The sun hasn’t quite finished rising when they start their hike, and the tree cover is thick, so it’s nice and cool in the swamp. The light is dusky, the first glintings of sunlight twinkling on the surface of the water. Ronan wishes Milly would shut up and let them enjoy the ambience, but no such luck.

“—while migratory birds, like the Prothonotary Warbler and the Blue Grosbeak, only make the Preserve their home during the spring and summer to keep warm. Fascinating, huh?”

“‘Prothonotary Warbler',” Ronan echoes. “Rolls off the tongue.” Milly giggles; it trails off into an awkward cough when Ronan remains sober.

Milly’s cheery trail-guiding is a poor mask for her obviously increasing anxiety. Ronan wonders, again, what exactly is in this forest; even Adam isn’t totally sure, since the brief he’d been given had only described preternatural creatures with an apparition-like appearance and a resentment for humans. When Ronan asked, hey, hadn’t Adam put his forest-haunting days behind him? Adam had given him a violent wet willy and they’d almost run off the gravel drive. Ronan bites down on a grin, then wishes yet again that it was just him and Adam out here, without the overly chatty company.

He falls back a few strides to where Adam brings up the rear of the group, proceeding and observing carefully. The girl walks ahead of them, but slows down just a tad, throwing another suspicious glare their way. Ronan could appreciate her level of distrust.

They walk in silence for a minute, Adam studying the forest and Ronan studying Adam, before Adam speaks, hushed and low. “Does she look familiar?” Adam asks. “The girl.”

Ronan looks at her and grins. “Reminds me of Blue. Like hell, actually.”

Adam blinks, then gives a startled sort of half-smile. “Oh. Yeah, actually. Huh.” He smiles wider, tries to shake it off with a wistful little shine to his eyes. “No, I mean, do you think…you may have met her before?” 

Oh. He was asking Ronan if she’s a dreamer. Ronan didn’t recognize her face; he’d never travelled to meet this girl in a dream, never responded to her metaphysical call of distress in the astral plane or in the physical one. He did get a vibe, though; he’d chalked it up to the undeniable presence of magic in this place, but perhaps it was coming from the girl.

He turns to Adam and gives him a blank-faced shrug. Adam nods in understanding and turns his sharp, assessing gaze back to the girl and the forest around him. Ronan catches him fiddling with his own fingertips, a tic he’d picked up in the last few years; it means he’s trying to discern the situation of something magical, and that his hands itch for his cards. Ronan finds it irrationally attractive. 

Adam stops suddenly. Ronan stops, too, then realizes that the others have also gone still, Milly’s chattering gone dead. Somewhere nearby, there’s an echoing screech like a hawk on the hunt. Milly lets out a stuttering breath. “Well, gentlemen,” she says. “Looks like the situation is coming to y’all.”

Adam kneels, digs a gentle hand beneath the leaf-litter and into the dirt. He keeps his eyes on the treetops above. Ronan watches Marion watch him.

Marion stares heartily, but her posture is relaxed—haughty, even. She tilts up her chin. “Here they come,” she says breezily. Ronan’s heart gives a shocked stutter; Adam slowly turns his gaze up to meet hers. 

Hilariously in-character, the last thing Adam says is, “How do they work?” He doesn’t get an answer because Ronan almost immediately tackles him into the dirt.

The creature narrowly misses slicing Ronan’s skull open with its talons—though the thing itself looks sorta Casper-y, up close one sees that it’s equipped with some pretty serious weapons. It’s actually pretty small, Ronan realizes, but doesn’t look that way when it’s swooping in blurred arcs through the air, seemingly everywhere at once. They’re…birds? Ghost-birds? Ghost-birds with knives for feet? Ronan feels that the latter has got to be the most accurate description, because he doesn’t have time to think of a better one before another one of the ghost-birds comes flying at the group from the west end of the trail. 

Ronan grabs Milly by the sleeve, yells at her to get down, but she rips herself away. “Marion, honey, down,” she shouts, trying to grab her granddaughter, but stops short with a yelp when one of the birds dives in front of her. 

Ronan watches Marion, who hadn’t moved a muscle throughout the last few seconds of chaos, as she takes a step toward where he’s trying to hold Adam back from doing anything stupid like standing up or moving. The girl’s scowl is firm, but he can tell that her steel confidence from earlier is wavering; her lip twitches as she glances to the side at Jill and her grandmother. 

“How do they work,” she says, steady over the birds’ shrieking and the women’s shouting. “You wanna know what they do? How they do it?”

Adam, curse him, struggles out of Ronan’s grip, but stays crouched as he meets Marion’s gaze. “Yes,” he says, cool-headed but earnest.

She lifts her chin and sets her jaw, looking down upon him. “They keep people from hurting the forest,” she says. “Poachers. Stupid tourists. Anyone who doesn’t pay the proper respect.” She startles a bit as two birds swoop down and nip at Jill, who screams shrilly, before flying away again. The creatures are multiplying. Marion redoubles her resolve. “And they answer to me.”

Adam nods, genuinely intrigued. He starts to stand up, then seems to think better of it, and sinks back down to his knees. “Alright. So, they have rules?” he asks easily, as though they’re having an academic discussion in a classroom, not a hostage negotiation in the midst of a swarm of shrieking ghost-birds.

Marion frowns. “Rules?” 

Adam nods. “Rules. Like, they only attack people who are trying to hurt the forest, or disrespect it, or whatever.” 

Marion nods and looks at him like he’s stupid. He shrugs. “Alright,” he says. “So then, your grandmother—she should be fine, right?”

That’s the stone that shatters Marion’s resolve; as soon as it leaves Adam’s mouth, he head snaps to where Milly is cowering on the ground. A red line grows thicker on her cheek as she darts her gaze to Marion and reaches out. 

“Marion, Marion, here!” She starts to crawl toward them even as Jill grabs at her desperately.

“Milly, stay here—“

“No—Marion—“ She cuts herself off with a yelp as one of the birds swoops in and carves a gash into her sun-spotted arm. 

“Grandma!” Marion, finally, sounds her age; she sounds like a scared kid. Ronan tears himself away from Adam with some effort and crouches next to her, an arm up to protect himself.

“Marion,” he says lowly, “I understand. Okay? I understand.” He thinks of destroying concrete in huge blows, driving a dreamt car into blinking switchboards and electrical cords. “You’re right to protect the forest—people are dumb, people are cruel, and nobody cares about this forest as much as you do.”

He points toward Milly, still trying to crawl toward her granddaughter, her wounds growing in number. “Except her.” He sees on Marion’s face when it hits home. “Your grandmother, and your grandfather, and even Jill. They care so much.”

Marion’s chest rises and falls quickly, and her eyes grow glassy. “But—the birds were only supposed to keep the tourists out.”

As a ghost-bird swoops close, Ronan pulls her out of its path and is close enough to see the shock on her face. He squeezes her shoulder. “Dream rules don’t always translate to the physical world how we expect them to,” he says, and she turns even wider eyes on him. He  gives her a wry expression. “Trust me—if you don’t think the rules out clearly in the dream…”

Adam has crawled up to them, now. “Then the dream thing may go a bit haywire once it gets here,” he finishes. He crouches down to Marion’s level, too, and fixes her with an intense stare. “They’re influenced by strong emotion, Marion. Like love. Like the love you have for this forest.” 

A single tear breaks over Marion’s waterline; she brushes it away just as quickly. “But—but—“

Adam takes her by the shoulders. “And you love them, too. I know. But you’re angry, too, huh?” She frowns at him; another tear falls, unnoticed. “You’re angry that they let the tourists in in the first place?”

Her lip trembles but she sets her jaw. She looks back at her grandmother, then nods. 

Adam nods, like he's been through this whole thing before. “But you guys can’t support the forest without the funding, right?”

The birds shriek in tandem and the flock seems to get thicker. Marion squeezes her eyes shut.

“I know, I know. But just think—what would happen to the forest if everyone was driven out?” Adam starts to look frantically over Marion’s shoulder at Milly and Jill, then turns her around by the shoulders. “What will happen to them, Marion?”

Both of the women are bleeding. Marion cries out.

Ronan nudges Adam aside. “Okay, Marion. We’re gonna get the flock under control. You ready?”

He reaches out his hand, and after a moment, she takes it. 

---

After Ronan coached Marion through her emotions with some deep breaths and other mindfulness shit he’d had to learn himself, the flock hid itself away in the trees. Then, while Adam corralled the others back to the tourist center, Ronan stayed with Marion in the forest, and they dreamt.

Ronan helped Marion come up with a protective charm to hang from a branch at the border of the forest that would protect the entire thing from poachers, natural disaster, and poor funding alike. The thing was small, sort of shaped like a Celtic knot, and most importantly, clawless.

When Ronan and Adam finally get back in their car—with an armful of complimentary birdwatching guides and touristy t-shirts—the sun is setting. Through the trees, it is shining and gorgeous. Adam leans over and gives Ronan a little peck on the cheek. 

He can’t help but grin. When he turns his head to his husband in the driver’s seat, he’s smiling sheepishly, dimples deep and cheeks rosy. He loves a job well done, Ronan knows. It’s adorable.

“Good job,” Adam says, and Ronan laughs. He puts his hand over Adam’s on the gear shift. 

“Where to now, Agent Parrish?”

They pull out of the gravel parking lot and onto the dirt road. 

“Somewhere nice to watch the sunset,” he says. 

Ronan squeezes his hand. “I hope you don’t mean the Jim Henson museum.”

“How’d you know,” Adam deadpans, and Ronan laughs and loves him. 

“You know, I hear that at the Muppets museum, you might see Morgan—“

“Go to hell, Lynch.”