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Adam washed dishes.
It was about the only thing he could do with shaking hands, and everyone had essentially just up and left their remains of the party behind. Declan and Matthew left ages ago, then Blue and Gansey weaselled their way out, and Adam...Adam stayed. But he'd been gently trembling for hours.
So Adam washed dishes.
Somewhere in the Barns he knew another person traipsed about in a similar mode of distracted cleaning. Adam knew it more because every now and then, that other person would stop in and drop off more dishes he'd discovered around the house. But mainly, Adam could just feel the presence of that person reverberating through him. Like he had before. Like he had for a while now.
Adam tried to tell himself that Ronan Lynch had that effect on people. Like being aware of ants or bees on a summer picnic. Like anticipating a jump scare in a horror movie. He'd just always had Ronan in the back of his mind like an imminent threat he'd have to tackle at some point, but maybe threat wasn't the word. But maybe it was.
For some reason, ever since Ronan's bedroom, ever since Adam found himself listlessly drawn to it, ever since he decided it was alright to pry into the private space of someone who was the shackled lock-box of privacy, Adam had been thinking about when he and Ronan first met.
Not the very first time, exactly. The very first time, Gansey had introduced them after he'd decided Adam was to be part of his court. The very very first time, Adam had bumped into Ronan in the hall and mumbled an apology and practically ran away from his glare. But the first time, the time that Adam seemed to really count, had dealt with Ronan and his BMW.
***
"Where's your Camero?" Adam asked in the parking lot. It was hot, and he wasn't exactly looking forward to the Beast's--no, the Pig, that's what he called it--to the Pig's crap air conditioning. But he was grateful for shade. And a ride.
Gansey was not suffering in the heat. He apparently didn't sweat. "Ah, well, the poor Pig got into a bit of trouble on the highway again," he explained, inconvenienced but not overwrought. "I had to catch a ride this morning. So we'll be driving with Ronan."
Ronan. Adam's mouth felt dry already, and when he looked ahead to see the massive BMW his lips folded in on themselves. This would be the first time he was in Ronan's car after hearing, far too often, about the hooligan's lead foot. About his unpredictable behaviour. About all the nasty things someone could say about Ronan Lynch.
Because Gansey wouldn't say them. Gansey was Ronan's master, which took no time for Adam to figure out, but he didn't have a bad thing to say about the kid. He just hummed and ah'd like a pretentious suburban Mom with a rebellious child. Boys will be boys, he really means no harm, I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding, won't you have some lemonade?
So Adam had listened to a lot of the whispers that followed Ronan around. He knew some of them, or knew of some of them, because even he could vaguely recall a wild-haired version of some blue-eyed teen with a smile to kill that this Ronan was a ghost of. But this Ronan was unfortunately the one Adam knew, and from all he'd heard it wasn't exactly exciting to be nearing his car as it was anxiety-inducing.
"You'll ride in the back, if that's alright," Gansey said as the black monster grew larger and larger. He gave Adam a sort of you understand smile and Adam just nodded.
"That's alright," he drawled out, quick to clear his throat and push that accent away as fast as he could. Gansey didn't sound like him. Gansey never would sound like him. But Ronan didn't either, and while Adam was fairly sure Gansey didn't think twice about his Henrietta accent, Ronan probably did.
"Excellent," said Gansey, and he reached up to pull the passenger door aside. Adam had already felt the bass pumping into the ground, but with the door open it almost made him put his hands over his ears. What the hell kind of music was this?
"Climb in," Gansey said as he himself had to pull into the seat. Adam caught the fastest glimpse of the Grim Reaper sitting in the front--shaved head, sharp eyes, sharper tongue--before the door closed and muffled the sound for a moment. In that moment, Adam questioned his entire existence at Aglionby, but then he got into the back seat.
The instant the door closed the car sped off, and Adam had to grab the handle by his head to keep from sliding across the seat. "Easy, Ronan," Gansey maybe said. Adam was having a hard time hearing anything with that music.
He scrambled for a seatbelt and buckled up as Ronan Lynch blew through a stop sign. "Music is kinda loud, isn't it?" Adam piped up. Mistake. The eyes that glared at him from the rearview mirror made Adam's skin freeze, then sizzle, and he ducked his head. He was used to ducking his head when threats were around, but it was a different kind of ducking when it came to those blue irises.
"Afraid very little will change that," Gansey chuckled from the front seat, but to everyone's surprise, a hand reached forward and turned the electric pulsing down just a notch. It was enough to make the bass less ear-popping, and the whirring of some electronic instrument less grating, and while Gansey said thank you and looked out the window, Adam stared at Ronan's hand as it retracted from the stereo.
That was the first of many kind things Ronan had done for Adam Parrish.
***
The front door banged closed and Adam nearly dropped a dish. How long he'd been holding this plate under this stream of water he wasn't sure, but the banging door made him first panic then sigh. He turned off the tap, set the dish in the drying rack, and wiped his hands. Which were soft, thanks to that person who had just stepped outside.
Adam ran over it again. He'd run over it a thousand times while Gansey made Blue laugh, while he smiled his Virginia smile, while Adam kept his hands in his pockets, and Ronan grinned with more ease than Adam had ever seen. But he ran over it again. Ronan's room--the bagpipes and the little toy car--the casual, simple way Ronan had sat beside him with a sigh, didn't even yell about his privacy being breached. The incredible, bubbling, electric feeling in Adam's limbs the moment Ronan leaned forward. And then his lips. Their lips. And everything became instantly clear and horribly confusing at the same time.
And Adam hadn't said a damn thing. It ended, a moment so sublime that Adam couldn't decide if it was the good kind or the bad kind, and he hadn't said a word. "I'm gonna go downstairs," Ronan had told him, and then he left! And Adam stayed there, sitting there, heart pounding and cheeks blazing, and he'd let out the softest, realest, calmest sigh he'd ever given. What it meant, he wasn't exactly sure, but after confessing to Gansey about the kiss...maybe he was sure.
Because he wasn't an idiot. And Ronan was not a thing to play with.
And Adam didn't really want to play.
So he meandered down the hall to the door, to the front porch, where he found that person waiting. Ronan. Ronan. Adam moved to his side slowly, leaning on a porch pillar in no where near the same careless, graceful way that Ronan did. He stared out across the field, watching the fireflies, watching the night, hyper aware as he always was of the person standing beside him. He could hear Ronan breathing, and it was a lot calmer than his own. It was peaceful, as if somehow Ronan no longer had that crushing weight of life weighing him down. Adam thought maybe, just maybe, he'd helped with that.
But his own mind raced. He couldn't actually find the words they raced with, however. There was just a jumble of things in him, like always. Cabeswater, his mother, his father, Adam Parrish, school, Glendower, Persephone...Ronan.
Adam wondered if this feeling, this spark, had anything to do with Cabeswater. With him, the Magician, and Ronan, the Dreamer. But if he stopped lying to himself, if he stopped trying to look past it and look at it, Adam had felt this spark long before his bargain. Long before he knew what Ronan was and what he could do and what he'd done. It had nothing to do with their connection now, and everything to do with their connection then.
Three deer made their way onto the lawn without any kind of hesitance. Adam almost smirked. He had a feeling Ronan was feeding them, or that they were his own creations. The strange, twisting horns of one pale buck seemed to suggest the latter, and the two of them just stared on in silence as Adam's mind was anything but quiet.
Finally, almost making him jump, Ronan said, "Adam?" Just his name. Just Adam.
Adam turned, reacting to the call from a daze, and stared into those blue irises that had lacked a glare for a very long time. Just like that, Adam could feel all the doubt fall off his face. All the questions, all the business of his head, seemed to fade like they'd been sedated. No. Like they'd been questions that were answered at long last. Because Adam finally realized just how often he'd looked at Ronan's face just this way, and his entire facade shattered.
Adam took one step, Ronan took another, and then Adam pressed forward. It felt instantly right. It felt like an answer to a question Ronan had been asking for months. The floodgates opened, and Adam closed his eyes.
It wasn't like before. It wasn't that soft, sweet, endless moment of rain on his skin and humidity in the air. It was a fire in his heart, it was a yearning he'd been nursing for far too long, it was...it was...
It was Ronan Lynch's hands pulling him closer, his fingers running across Adam's ribs before landing on his back. It was Adam's one hand fisting into the fabric of Ronan's shirt and his other spreading out across Ronan's back. It was a closeness he'd never known, a protective casing he'd always wanted but never asked for. It was foreign and wild and new and intoxicating. The way it felt to know that the lips under his were Ronan's made Adam drown in a sea of ravens, black tattoos, and pulsing music. It was the lotion on his fingers, the smiles across classrooms, his apartment at St. Agnes, and this. Just this.
When Ronan broke away, Adam leaned in for more, but a chuckle broke his concentration and made his eyes open. Ronan had a sharp brow raised, and with a hard swallow Adam pulled back breathless. Their limbs untangled from each other's and they stumbled back against their respective pillars, clearing throats, licking lips, adjusting clothes. They stared across at one another when the heat finally left their cheeks, and grins were twitching at both of their mouths. Who cared about the fireflies and deer anymore?
"So yes, then," Adam clarified uselessly. He had his eyes locked to Ronan's face, even as he looked up almost bashfully through his lashes. He wasn't used to this fluttering feeling in his chest, the slight but somehow pleasant feeling of embarrassment tingling his stomach.
"Yes what?" Ronan rumbled. His voice was low, quiet, and it made something else ripple through Adam's body. And he didn't shut it down. He let the feeling reign, because he didn't have to deny it any longer or question it further. He was allowed to do this. He was allowed to feel this.
Adam shook his head softly. "Yes to you. To this."
Ronan smiled his teasing smile. "To me? To what?"
Adam rolled his eyes. "I like you! You idiot!"
The laugh that poured out of Ronan was incredible. It was outrageous! It was freedom! Adam had heard Ronan laugh hard before, usually at horrible jokes, or at Blue, or at Adam when he actually managed to say something funny. But this was not the same. This was a glimpse into the Ronan that was. No, it was more than that. It was the Ronan that Ronan used to be plus the joy of the Ronan he was now, right in this moment, right here because of Adam.
Ronan wiped a false tear from his eye as Adam crossed his arms over his chest, but he was grinning ear to ear as he looked across the grass. The sound of footsteps made him look back, and when he did Ronan was so wonderfully close. "I kinda figured that one out for myself, Parrish," Ronan purred, making Adam's arms go slack. "I was waiting for you to figure it out."
"Shut up," Adam said instinctively.
"Come on," Ronan jibbed. "You don't flirt with a man like that and not wanna make out with him on his family property."
Adam snorted and looked away again. If he kept looking at Ronan he was going to do just that.
"So I had to kiss you for you to clue the fuck in?" Ronan asked. His voice was so close to Adam's ear, his deaf one, but he could still feel the breath of Ronan's words along his skin, his neck. It made goosebumps rise on his arms.
Adam managed to shoot a quick glare, but it was weak. "Maybe I was just waiting for you to make the first move," he lied. Adam had no idea what he was doing until this, until Ronan had finally bridged the gap between them.
"Do I wear the pants in the relationship, Parrish?" Ronan joked, but they both felt the gravity of that word. It wasn't a word to be easily thrown around right now, not with Glendower, not with a demon on the loose. But Gansey and Blue were in a relationship. They were seeing each other. Maybe there was room for something somewhat normal amongst all the chaos and confusion. All the danger their lives had become. Couldn't there be even a moment, just like this, for happiness and normalcy?
They looked out over the field again, side by side, closer than they'd ever stood before, and Adam felt Ronan's fingers on his. He didn't jump, he didn't even flinch as Ronan laced his fingers through Adam's and just stood there like that. Then, Adam slowly turned to watch as Ronan lifted their entwined hands and delicately--so delicately that Adam feared he would break--pressed Adam's fingers to his mouth. One little touch, one almost kiss to his knuckles, then Ronan lowered their hands once more.
"What was that for?" Adam dared to breathe.
Ronan, predictably, shrugged. "Kicks."
Adam chuckled quietly as they looked out, yet again, on the night ahead. "Is that what this is?"
"No." Ronan said it quickly, mildly offensive, and Adam felt his gaze. "Is that what you think?"
"No." Adam said it quickly, mildly offended, and met Ronan's eyes. He remembered Gansey's warning, that Ronan wasn't as tough as he seemed, and Adam knew that. He'd known that since the day he met Ronan with his big tattoo, big voice, and big car. But he also remembered Gansey's advice. Truth. "No," Adam said again, softer. "Not at all. Not even a little bit."
"Well what then?" Ronan asked. He knew the answer to that, he just wanted to see if Adam did.
Adam, unpredictably, shrugged. "A relationship?"
There was a very cold pause. "With everything going on?" Ronan asked.
"Blue and Gansey managed."
"You're going to college, Einstein."
Adam sighed. "You're jumping ahead."
"I've been doing that for a while," said Ronan, staring out across the field, his hand still entwined with Adam's.
Adam licked his lips and tasted the remains of Ronan's. "For how long?"
"You know how long," Ronan groaned, tilting back his head, so inconvenienced by something so simple that it made Adam smirk. "Don't ask me dumb questions."
Adam wasn't sure he actually did know how long. He remembered the day he realized Ronan looked at him differently than he looked at Gansey, than he looked at Blue, but did that count? Had it been longer? He himself felt that his own interest had started long before he clued into it. Then again, he also felt that he'd only clued in today.
"Should I ask any questions?" Adam wondered.
Ronan finally turned back to look at him, and with a wry smirk he said, "Do you actually need answers?"
"Not really," said Adam.
"Well there we are then," said Ronan.
They stood for another short while just holding hands, watching the sun dip down behind the trees, past the trunks, until the sky was a milky white glow on the horizon. They shifted their feet, they licked their lips, they saddled up closer. "Should we be doing something?" Adam wondered.
"Like what?" Ronan asked.
"Dreaming?" said Adam after a short pause. "Working on...everything? Right?"
Ronan took a slow breath in. Adam wasn't ready to go back to their insane, fantastic reality. He wanted to stay in this one a bit longer, and he thought Ronan did too. But duty called, didn't it? "I guess," Ronan shrugged, but he didn't let go of Adam's hand for another long moment. "Come on," he said when he finally did.
"Where?" Adam asked, turning to watch Ronan trudge back to the door.
Ronan shrugged again as he pulled it aside and headed in. "To work I guess," he said, but Adam wasn't convinced. He followed, because of course he wasn't ready to go home yet, and found Ronan sprawled across the old sofa in the living room. He gave a groan that Adam let himself enjoy as he spread out and stretched like a cat in the sun. Only it was Ronan in Ronan's element--night, soft lighting, and the Barns.
Adam was smiling when Ronan looked up. "What?"
Adam shrugged and felt himself moving forward. "Are you gonna share, Lynch?" he asked, nudging one of Ronan's knees with his own as it splayed off the edge of the couch.
Ronan was smiling when Adam looked up. "I'm not the sharing type."
Adam laughed through his nose. Everything was so easy now. "Make the exception. Shitbag."
It felt wrong and right to say that, to still mock each other, to still curse each other out. Ronan's responding grin told Adam that nothing had to really change. It told Adam that everything would just be better. "Aren't we dreaming or whatever?" Ronan asked with that sly smile. "I get the couch. You can set up in the chair."
Adam looked at it. It was far too far away for his liking. "Move your legs, Lynch."
"Make me, Parrish."
It took five seconds of struggle for them to both be on the couch and at each other's lips again. It was inevitable, they both knew it, and that's what made the taunting so much better. Because now there was a release allowed at the end.
They started upright, sitting together, facing each other, with only their lips touching. Eyes closed, it was an experiment to see whether they could be controlled, whether it wasn't just the heat of the moment. It was not. Adam had thought he was Ronan's first kiss, and he still did, but there was something so perfectly practiced about the way Ronan used his lips. He didn't follow, he didn't lead, he matched, and every time Adam paused or broke off for air, Ronan did too. And then they were back at each other, softer than the porch, longer than Ronan's bedroom, less fearful and cautious, and more indulgent.
Adam put a hand on Ronan's knee. Ronan slid his palm across the couch so his fingers just barely grazed the side of Adam's thigh. They kept kissing.
And then Ronan opened his lips. Adam knew what that meant, but he was absolutely, 100%, not ready for it. The very moment, the precise instant, the exact second Ronan's tongue brushed Adam's, everything changed. The fire was still there, but gasoline had been thrown on it. The spark which had been merely static was now lighting in his veins. When Ronan had kissed Adam for the first time, he'd felt it all over his body. With this kiss, the feeling seemed to be localized to one area...
Adam groaned with it. It was an odd sound to make with someone else in the room, embarrassing and private, but it elicited a very similar noise from Ronan's own throat. And it spurred him on until it wasn't just the tip of his tongue searching for Adam's, and it wasn't just one hand barely touching. Ronan took his palm and pressed it to Adam's jaw, cupping him close, and making every bit of tension in Adam deflate. He pushed him back, back, back, until Adam had to use his elbow on the sofa to stay aloft.
After kissing and kissing and, yet, more kissing, Adam broke to catch his breath. He wanted to look at Ronan, as if he had to remind himself that yes, indeed, you, Adam Parrish, are kissing him, Ronan Lynch. But Ronan bent his head, and as Adam panted he felt feather-light kisses being spread across his neck. Across his collar bone. Adam's hand braved to trail down Ronan's leg, but not too far. His fingers, instead, found the hem of Ronan's shirt, and slipped just past it.
Ronan's hipbone, his bare hipbone, felt just about as intimate as Adam thought he should get, but Ronan was still trapped in a wild frenzy. In a blink he sat up, removed his shirt as if he rarely wore one, and gave Adam one brief second of ogling before finding his lips again. Adam hadn't meant to get Ronan shirtless, but the heat of his skin, the bareness of it...he wasn't about to complain.
He never knew he could like this, want this, and it was tantalizing. The thrill of the find, Adam thought, only the find was male. And Ronan.
Ronan bent his head again and kissed down Adam's jaw, down his throat, and Adam opened his eye for one brief glimpse of the black swirls that snaked across Ronan's neck. He hesitated, thrown suddenly by that massive black tattoo, and in his pause Ronan stopped. He lifted his head, caught Adam's glance, and smiled like the devil. "Do you want to see it?" he asked, breathless, lips red, eyes blazing.
Adam smiled like a shy child. "Yeah."
Ronan sat up eagerly and spun. It was a youthful motion, a motion Adam imagined a puppy making more than this Rottweiler he knew, but it made him smile. He sat up as welland stared, jaw a little loose, at the thing he'd only really seen glances of.
Ronan's usual black wife-beater hid so much of the intricacies of his markings. This tattoo was as much Ronan as his piercing blue eyes were, as his fantastic dreams were, as this moment was. There were flowers and feathers, vines and bits of gears, and a black mass of nothing bringing it all together. If you looked fast, it was almost an ink splatter, but if you looked close, it was a mural of what made Ronan Ronan. Sharp edges and all.
Adam had his hand reaching forward before he could stop it. When his fingers touched Ronan's back, the other boy inhaled with so much peace and ease that Adam inched closer. He let his fingers trail down Ronan's spine, over feathers and beaks, over twigs and sharp corners, until he braved to trail closer to Ronan's ribs. To his hips. Then back up to the tender skin at his neck. When he reached it, Ronan tilted his head to the side, and Adam could see he had his eyes closed.
"Unguibus et rostro," Adam said playfully, forming the Latin in his head and watching for it to hit Ronan's face.
All he got was a soft chuckle and a slow turn. "You idiot," Ronan said, but he reached for Adam's hand and laced their fingers together again. Then, as he had before, Ronan carefully brought their hands up and kissed the arch of one of Adam's fingers.
"What's up with that?" Adam asked softly. It wasn't a demand, wasn't a scold, wasn't even a friend to a friend. It was soft and painfully intimate, just like Ronan's little kisses.
He gave Adam's fingers a squeeze and stared at them, mingled amongst his own, and said, "You have fucking beautiful hands."