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Toga parties weren’t, by any stretch of the imagination, Adam’s idea of fun.
Sadly, they were an also an Aglionby tradition, at least if you were in Latin class.
Adam was in Latin class. He was in all the classes. For boys like him, there was no such thing as “too many credits”. That still didn’t mean he thought wrapping a sheet around yourself and wandering around a front lawn getting royally drunk while poorly reciting Latin poetry sounded like a good time. (Adam was fairly certain the poetry-reciting would be poor, because he was nothing if not ruthlessly honest with himself. He hadn’t been trying to play teacher’s pet when he’d told Greenmantle their class was terrible: they really were not that good. Ronan was the best of them by far, but how much of a feat was that if everyone else was awful?)
However, he’d never let the idea of a toga party bother him too much, because he’d always been certain he’d never be invited to one. Technically, he still hadn’t, but Gansey had; and Gansey being Gansey, that was about the same thing. As soon as Henry Cheng had asked him, Gansey had nodded thoughtfully, then immediately turned to Adam and asked: “You’re coming too, right?”.
Technically, Gansey wasn’t supposed to invite people to the party, since it was Henry Cheng’s party. But practically, people were not in the habit of refusing Gansey anything he wanted. It was something in his bearing, in his square shoulders, in his winning smile. He always got what he asked for, simply by way of asking; or his version of asking, which was more of a statement, a politely phrased royal command.
Adam had sighed. He knew the crowd Henry Cheng ran with, and they were Aglionby through and through, all designer clothes and fancy motorbikes and boat vacations to the Bahamas, and, of course, disgustingly vast amounts of money. In any other circumstance, Adam would have staunchly refused. The idea of showing up to a party of Cheng’s in one of his worn-through t-shirts and tattered jeans was more mortifying than he could bear. In school, at least, Adam was kept moderately safe from humiliation by his uniform, second-hand though it was. Walking up to a crowd of Ralph Lauren polo shirts and Armani slacks in his grease-stained Converses was a different matter.
But this was a toga party, so Adam didn’t have his lack of suitable clothes as an excuse. He looked at Gansey’s face: open, earnest, certain. They both knew the outcome. Gansey wanted him there, so Adam would go.
“Alright,” he conceded with a half-shrug, and, turning to Henry, added: “As long as I’m invited.” Henry’s politician’s smile never faltered, but it was clear to everyone but Gansey that he was as thrilled to have Adam at his party as Adam was at the idea of going. Richard Campbell Gansey III was someone Henry wanted to consort with; Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch, with their rough edges and sharp smiles, were not. Regardless, Adam had no doubt that Ronan would be at the party too, for all the same reasons Adam would, plus one other extremely good one: he, too, possessed disgustingly vast amounts of money.
So Henry had nodded, a genial but of course! passing his lips, and Gansey had smiled in satisfaction, and just like that, all had been right with the world.
Now, a week later, as he tiredly shoved his books back into his locker, Adam was trying hard not to be annoyed with his past self about it. He was not, he told himself, a pushover. He knew this to be true because he’d been pushed his whole life, and yet he was still standing. When people pushed, he generally pushed right back; that was just a part of being Adam Parrish. But this was different. For whatever reason, Gansey really wanted to go to the stupid party, and he really did want Adam to be there.
And if that hadn’t been reason enough, there was the death list.
Ever since finding out Gansey was on it, Adam had promised himself to do anything he could to make Gansey happy, to keep him out of trouble and at peace with himself. Not that he had given up hope: they would find Glendower, they would get the favor, and they would save Gansey’s life. He told himself that everyday, because believing it was the key to not falling apart.
But in the meantime, he was going to try and be as good of a friend as he could. Just in case.
He was shaken out of his grim reflections by a call of hey, Parrish!, and looked up to see Tad Carruthers jogging towards him in the hallway. Adam felt his jaw going tight. Tad always seemed to think his presence was a gift. Adam had done his best to cure him of that impression by means of uneasy silences and judgmental stares, but Tad remained completely oblivious.
“Hey,” Adam greeted, closing his locker and turning his feet towards the classroom, hoping to signal I’m on my way, I’m leaving, let’s do this again never.
“Hey,” Tad repeated, drawing the word out as he leaned into the row of lockers and flashed Adam an easy, confident smile. He showed no intention of leaving, or letting Adam leave. Typical.
What was less typical was the way Tad drew a breath in — if Adam hadn’t known better, he would have said he was on edge — and immediately followed it with: “So, are you going to Cheng’s party?”
Adam tried to turn his grimace into a smile, with moderate success. “Yeah, I guess I am. My friends are going, and they need a designated driver, so,” he shrugged. Adam didn’t drink by choice, but he wasn’t sure if attending the party sober would improve the experience or make it even more dreadful.
“Right,” Tad said, nodding, and then in a different tone, “right. So, I was thinking, do you wanna go together?”
Adam blinked, sure for a moment that he’d missed something, but maybe Tad had just not been listening to him. Aglionby boys tended to do that, steamroll over other people’s conversation to get their lines in.
“Well,” he replied, very slowly, just in case Tad had recently hit his head on something, “I’ll be going with my friends, so I think we’re probably gonna take just one car.”
“Yes, yes, I got that,” Tad smiled indulgently, waving a hand, “but do you wanna go together.” He leaned in a little as he said that last part, his voice both quieter and more significant, but it was the quick, nervous glance he darted around that clued Adam in.
“Wait,” he said, wary, wondering if he’d misunderstood something crucial. He thought he was reading this right, but it still seemed so absurd that it might as well have been a particularly tasteless joke. That would have been less surprising, all in all. “You mean as— like— as a date?”
“Yes, Parrish, yes, as a date, come on, you’re killing me here,” Tad laughed, nervously.
Adam’s perception of the world shifted and rearranged very quickly. Tad Carruthers — jovial, annoying, cuffing-people-on-the-head-is-an-acceptable-form-of-greeting Tad Carruthers — was interested in guys. He was interested in him.
“Oh,” Adam breathed out, then racked his brains in search of a better response. “Thanks. I’m— that’s very nice of you, but— I can’t.” Tad’s face fell so spectacularly that for the first time since they’d met, Adam felt bad for him. He almost wanted to say yes just to cheer him up — almost.
“Oh,” Tad echoed, a little numbly. “Well, why not?” he asked after a pause, frowning, as if Adam had to have a very good reason for turning him down, and just like that, any sympathy Adam might have been feeling was gone.
“Because,” he started, about to follow it up with something sharp — because I don’t like you, and if you were used to interacting with people, rather than money, you’d have figured it out by now — but he lost steam halfway through, biting his tongue. He scrabbled for a better follow-up. “I’m just— I’m not…”
“Not into guys?” Tad finished for him, too quickly for the casual façade he was still trying to keep up. “Or not into me?”
Adam quickly considered his options. The former answer would have been a lie, but the truth seemed harsh to deliver, with Tad staring at him like a golden retriever puppy bracing for a kick.
“Not looking for anything right now,” he said instead. “Between school and work, I just— don’t really have the time for dating anyone,” he shrugged. It was not, strictly speaking, a lie: Adam technically didn’t have time to date. What he omitted to tell Tad was that he would have made time, if the person was worth it. He would have made time for Blue. He would make time for—
Stop, Adam told himself. Don’t go there. There’s no point.
“Right,” Tad nodded, through a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Right. I understand, of course. Shame.” His eyes darted around the hallway nervously. “Listen, uh. You’re not gonna like— tell anyone about this, right?”
Adam stared at him. “You mean that you’re gay? Or that you asked me out, specifically?”
“I’m not—” Tad protested, but then stopped with a sharp inhale. “Either. Both. I don’t know. Just—”
“Who would I even tell, Tad?” Adam interrupted, deciding to put him out of his misery. “I’m not exactly on speaking terms with any of your friends.” He didn’t say he wouldn’t tell Gansey or Ronan, though, because it would have been obvious to anyone that was a lie. The three of them were bound by something realer and stronger than normal Aglionby camaraderie; Tad was a fool if he didn’t know that by now.
“Right, true, true, yeah.” Tad, ridiculously, looked lighter now, relieved at the reminder that Adam was the resident school pariah, set apart from all the rich kids in their brand new uniforms and high-bred accents. Adam’s usual, vague annoyance towards him flared up with violence.
“Bye, Tad.”
“Oh— yeah, right, bye.” Tad started walking away, moving backwards, and flashed him another nervous smile. “See you at the party, I suppose?”
“Sure,” Adam muttered, rolling his eyes as soon as Tad turned his back. He finally retreated to the safety of the classroom, finding it empty except for Ronan, who was reclining in his chair in a way that was so forcibly casual it immediately made Adam alert.
“Hi,” he greeted. “Haven’t seen you in Maths for a while.”
“Yeah, well. Nothing fun was happening at the bleachers, so,” Ronan shrugged. After a moment’s pause he asked, with painstakingly studied indifference: “So what did Carruthers want? You were talking for, like, a month.”
Adam slid into his own seat next to him, frowning, still trying to wrap his mind about what had happened. “He wanted to ask me to the toga party.”
“What, Cheng’s toga party?” Ronan sneered. “Doesn’t he know the whole damn school is going? Why’d he have to tell you personally?” He seemed irritated to a degree that had nothing to do with Tad’s lack of practical planning. Adam had to fight down a smile, his stomach twisting in a pleasant way.
“No, he— he wanted to ask me to the party,” he repeated, with more emphasis, because lying to Ronan was never an option.
“Oh,” Ronan said, his tone growing, if it was humanly possible, even more casual. “What’d you say?”
Ronan was studiously looking at the ceiling as he asked that, but Adam still turned to stare at him as if he was insane. “I said no, of course.”
“Right,” Ronan nodded, still not meeting his eyes, “of course.”
Adam wished he knew what he was thinking. Did he understand Adam couldn’t possibly care less about Tad? Or did he think he wasn’t interested in going out with boys as a whole? Adam was desperate for him to read this right.
“I mean, why would I go with him?” he tried, hoping it would convey the message better. “It’s Tad Carruthers.”
“Yeah, man, that’s true.” Ronan smirked, all too happy to join in their private condemnation of anyone who wasn’t in their pack. Before Adam could add anything else, students were filing into the classroom, the bell obnoxiously reminding them all class was starting.
As Ronan rummaged into his bag for a textbook he was only going to vandalize, Adam looked at the back of his neck, the black hooks of his tattoo snaking out of his shirt collar, and thought, as intensely as he could, I’d go with you if you asked. I’d probably go anywhere with you, if you asked.
He didn’t think Ronan’s greywaren powers extended to mind-reading, but it was worth a shot.
When class started, as always, he focused all his attention on the lesson. His notes had to be perfect, because his grades had to be perfect, so there was no other option. But he could still see, out of the corner of his eye, Ronan darting glances at him, the expression on his face a shifting shade between insecure and hopeful, like a child deciding whether to dive into a pool. Adam could only hope he ended up deciding to take that jump.
Supposedly, Cheng was going to provide sheets for anyone who didn’t bring any, but Gansey had solemnly declared he was not going to walk into a toga party wearing someone else’s toga, so he’d insisted on bringing his own sheets anyway. His sheets, as it turned out, had monograms on them, which made Ronan laugh himself to tears and Adam cringe with simultaneous judgment and desire.
Ronan had offered to provide sheets for Adam, too, an offer Adam had initially refused.
“I have sheets, Lynch, thanks.”
Which was true, but it was also true he only had one set, which would mean sleeping on the bare mattress if something happened to them (and at an Aglionby party, from what he’d heard, something was sure to happen to them). Ronan, of course, knew this; he had to, after all the nights he’d slept over at Adam’s place.
Ronan rolled his eyes, thrusting the pile of sheets towards him again. “Look, if you don’t take these, I’m just gonna let Chainsaw shred them. I don’t need them anymore, I’ve decided I’m gonna switch to black satin,” he grinned wickedly.
Adam considered that for a moment. Somehow, it was getting easier and easier to accept things from Ronan, because Ronan, unlike Gansey, always looked like he didn’t give a shit if Adam accepted or not. It wasn’t true, of course, but two could play that game; and he really didn’t want to end up sleeping on his thin, scratchy mattress, either.
“You know, if you wanted to see me in your bedsheets, you only had to ask,” he smiled back, before reaching to take the sheets from a suddenly flustered Ronan.
Perhaps the night wasn’t off to such a bad start, after all.
They drove to the party in Ronan’s BMW, because Gansey was, as ever, particular about letting anyone drive the Pig, and Ronan refused to show up in the Hondayota. It fell to Adam to drive on the way there too, because Ronan insisted he needed all the practice he could get with a manual shift, which Adam couldn’t really argue with. It was no chore, either: the BMW was a magnificent beast, responding swiftly to all commands, the engine purring smoothly under Adam’s touch. One day, he told himself, patiently, the refrain only too familiar. One day.
The building they rolled up to was a stately mansion, though it had clearly not been lived in for some time. In case there was any doubt they had the right address, the thumping bass coming from inside and the rows of expensive cars outside would have been confirmation enough.
Suddenly, Adam deeply didn’t want to be here.
He looked at Ronan, who was cursing at his makeshift toga as he tried to adjust it, and then at Gansey, who was frowning distantly, probably disappointed in the music selection. Gansey spotted him staring, and his frown cleared away, replaced by a genuine smile. Don’t let him die, Adam thought desperately. Please, please don’t let him die.
“Are you ready, tiger?” Gansey asked, offering his fist. Adam bumped it, rolling his eyes.
“There aren’t words for how not ready I am.”
Ronan snorted. “Well, let’s get it over with already. Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus, right?”
“Show-off,” Adam muttered. “Fine. Let’s go.”
They followed Gansey in.
The party inside wasn’t very different from what the outside had led Adam to believe.
A throng of Aglionby students filled the various rooms, swaying with varying degrees of awkwardness to the beat of the synthetizer. Ronan beelined for the liquor stash as soon as they came in, promising to bring back a gin&tonic for Gansey, who was immediately dragged off by Henry Cheng to a cry of Gansey boy! Adam waved him off, grabbed a bottle of coke from a nearby table, and leaned against a wall, as out of the way as he could.
People kept coming and going, most of them known faces, most of them boys Adam had never even spoken to. Tad Carruthers walked in and gave him an uncomfortable smile and wave, which Adam returned as amicably as he could.
At some point, a group of girls materialized from apparently out of nowhere; Adam recognized a few from his old school, but the majority looked like they’d been taken straight out of a fashion magazine. All of them were undeniably pretty. They split evenly around the room, pairing off with boys they either knew or were keen on getting to know. About half an hour in, the music started getting even louder, proportionally to the amounts of alcohol going around. A fair number of boys had, by then, lost their sheets, or were dragging them behind themselves like the world’s most disappointing superhero capes.
And then, of course, there was Gansey, who, as usual – just by virtue of being there and being Gansey – transformed the room. Everyone else looked like they were playing dress-up in their wrinkled, beer-stained sheets; Gansey looked like he had just stepped out of a Greek myth. He was Achilles returned from battle, bronze shoulders and shining white teeth, people parting as he passed, a youthful warrior prince. For a crazy moment, Adam almost thought he could imagine Gansey holding a spear – Cabeswater playing tricks on him again, maybe; then he remembered that just last week, Gansey had managed to somehow mess up a microwave dinner, and the vision dissolved. Gansey was just Gansey, impossible and contradictory in his usual maddening way.
He seemed to be enjoying himself, though, Adam thought. The slight discomfort that idea awoke in him – the reminder that his friend was, in fact, as Aglionby as Aglionby could get – took a back seat to his determination that Gansey deserved this, this one uncomplicated night, to just be a boy, even though an Aglionby one.
Adam let himself out on the balcony, suddenly needing fresh air badly. Though he himself was still sober, the stench of booze and the pervasive, bitter smell of weed had his head reeling like he was intoxicated.
He leaned against the balcony railing and looked out into the night, the sprawling Henrietta fields as familiar as the back of his own hand. He desperately wanted to leave them behind. But that night he had bigger things to worry about, things that made it worth it to stay in Henrietta. His friends, Cabeswater, Glendower’s favor. We have to save Gansey, he thought, as intensely as he could. Sometimes, willing problems to the forefront of his mind made a solution crop up where he hadn’t seen one before; but he had no solution to this, he knew. Not yet, anyhow.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there when he heard steps: directly behind him at first, then hesitating a moment – slightly drunk, probably – before moving decisively to the right and approaching him from that side, the side of his good ear. That alone might have told him who it was, but he turned around anyway, and sure enough, there stood Ronan, his presence as arch and commanding as ever.
If Gansey was a greek hero, then Ronan was surely Dionysus: a dark and handsome god, wild with power and possibility. He felt like danger and salvation wrapped up in a single being, tied together with leather bands and black ink. Even now, draped in a sheet that would have looked ridiculous on most people, he was starkly beautiful against the night sky, piercing blue eyes shielded by deceptively soft, long lashes.
Adam wanted to kiss him very badly. It might even be worth being struck down by lightning, he thought.
“You okay, Parrish?” Ronan asked. His tone was one Adam knew well: genuine concern dressed up as boredom. Just as it had happened for Gansey, Ronan was suddenly a teenager again, but the aura of power around him had not dissipated, still hovering around his head and shoulders like a storm cloud of magic and anger and dreams.
Adam was nodding before he could find his voice. “Yeah, I just needed a break. It stinks in there.”
Ronan gave a short, sharp laugh of agreement, before coming to lean against the railing a few inches from him. “I bet it does. I think I’m immune,” he commented.
“Or you just don’t notice because you’re a part of it,” Adam winced. “Jesus, I could probably set fire to your breath right now. What did you drink?”
Ronan shrugged. Whatever he’d had, he was still much less drunk than he usually got on his bad days. They both knew that, because there had been many bad days.
“That would be kind of cool, if you could actually set fire to my breath. I guess I’d look like a dragon.”
“You’d look like someone who’s about to have his face burnt off.”
There was a brief silence as they stood there side by side, considering the implications of that scenario.
“You can’t dream a baby dragon,” Adam declared.
“Who said I was thinking of doing that? And who says it would be a baby dragon? Why not a fully-grown, badass dragon?”
Adam shot him a look. Ronan’s penchant for taking care of improbable, defenceless baby animals was legendary. In fact, Adam wasn’t sure a baby dragon would be much uglier or more dangerous than Chainsaw had been as a fledgling. Still, dragons were generally a bad idea, and without him there to remind them of the practical sides of life, Ronan and Gansey would probably be raising one together by now.
“No dragons. Of whichever size and age.”
“You’re no fun, Parrish.”
“As the sober designated driver who’s currently going out of his way to get as far as possible from the party, I kinda have to give you that one.”
Ronan laughed again. Surprisingly, there was a fruity note in the gust of breath that left his lips, something sweet and tangy. Adam didn’t know what liquor that would have been, but it was certainly nothing he’d ever smelled on his father, which helped more than a little. Somehow, it made even the smell of alcohol less unbearable to his senses.
“The scene in there isn’t exactly what I’d call fun, though,” Ronan said scathingly. “The music is shit, for one thing.”
Adam hadn’t thought the music was that bad, but he kept that to himself.
“I doubt people are here for the music selection.”
“Right,” Ronan snorted. “Half of them are passed out, the other half are trying their level fucking best to get into some girl’s pants. Where did the girls even come from?”
“Well, Ronan,” Adam started, even-voiced, “when a man and a woman love each other very much—“
“Fuck off,” Ronan interrupted, as they both dissolved into quiet laughter. “God, you’re such a little shit.”
“You love it,” Adam teased, only realizing his mistake when he caught Ronan’s shoulders stiffening out of the corner of his eye, hunching almost imperceptibly in self-defense the moment the l-word rolled out of Adam’s mouth.
“What’s Gansey up to?” he asked quickly, desperate to defuse the situation before he could somehow make it even worse. A wary Ronan usually meant a vulnerable Ronan, and a vulnerable Ronan was the shortest path to a furious, self-destructive Ronan. Mercifully, the diversion seemed to work.
“Playing beer pong with Cheng. Winning, too. Cheng sucks ass.” There was a pause then, entirely too casual not to be calculated. “Also I’m pretty sure I saw Carruthers sneak off with Cheng Two.”
“Oh,” Adam said, with a mild surprise that bordered heavily on disinterest. “Good for him.”
That apparently didn’t satisfy Ronan.
“So, you’re – you were totally chill with him asking you out?”
Ronan was staring off into the trees. Adam tried to assess what was going on, how he should respond.
“Would you have preferred for me to throw a fit?” he asked. “Just because I was raised in a trailer park doesn’t mean I’m a shitbag homophobe. Is this a bad time to tell you I don’t vote Republican?”
“I’m sure Gansey’s mom will be crushed,” Ronan drawled. “Relax, okay, I wasn’t saying that.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Just – I mean. You said no.”
“I did.”
“What if it had been Davidsen?”
“I would still have said no. I would also be pretty damn surprised considering he’s never even spoken to me once.”
“What if—“
“Oh, God, Lynch. We could play this game all damn night while you list everyone in school, so I’ll just save you the trouble. Yes, I would go out with a boy. No, not with Carruthers, or anyone at school really.”
Present company excluded, he wanted to add, but things were already awkward enough as it was.
Ronan’s swallow was audible even with the music drifting from the open window.
“You dated Blue.”
“I did.”
“You liked her.” It almost sounded like an accusation.
“I did,” he replied, simply, letting Ronan come to his own conclusions.
He looked up at the sky, trying to figure out constellations he’d never known the name of, waiting for Ronan to press the matter of him liking both girls and boys. He didn’t expect to be judged – not by Ronan – but it was still, somehow, nerve-wracking to talk about it relatively openly.
Instead, Ronan asked, quietly: “Do you still?”
Adam frowned slightly, not out of irritation but confusion. “Like Blue? No. I mean— I like her, she’s great of course, just not…” he shrugged. “I don’t think we’re a good match.”
Ronan nodded, cautiously. It looked so out of place on him that Adam scrabbled desperately for something to dispel the wariness from his face.
“Besides, I may be a lot of things but I’m not a homewrecker. Who am I to stand in the way of young love?” he said, relieved to hear no bitterness in his voice.
Ronan snorted, a crooked smirk appearing on his lips. “I knew you’d noticed. Gansey thinks he’s being subtle, you know. He thinks it would kill you to realize he and the pygmy puff occasionally hold hands.”
Adam chuckled. “That’s actually my fault. When we broke up I told him it would be awkward for one of us to date her, but— I don’t know anymore. They just seem to—“
“—fit?” Ronan supplied. “Yeah, agreed. It’s disgusting.”
Adam made a non-committal noise. “I don’t mind. I know it sounds fake, but I don’t, really. It’s good that they’re happy.” I want them to be happy, I want Gansey to be happy, I want Gansey not to die, he didn’t say, the thought weighing his heart down like lead.
“Anyway,” he added, cautiously, testing the waters, “it was nice getting to hang out with you more.”
“Right. So much fun, watching me sleep in a magic farm. That’s kind of creepy, Parrish.” Ronan’s tone was sarcastic, but the surprise on his face and the soft blush spreading from his cheeks to his pale neck were all the reassurance Adam needed that he was on the right track.
“Don’t be a dick. You know what I mean.”
“Right.” Ronan inhaled – it was the one Gansey called his ‘smoker’s breath’, or so Adam thought. “Me too. I mean— hanging out. It was nice.”
For a moment, looking at him, Adam was overcome with a rush of awe and fondness. The fact that someone like Ronan Lynch – tough, cynical, and handsome as hell – could be reduced to fumbling, especially by someone like Adam, felt like a small miracle. But then, Ronan tended to be a miracle unto himself: he was a dreamer of impossible things, a paradox, a tidal wave—and, right now, a flushed boy leaning against a balcony railing, blue eyes shining feverishly in the dim light.
Adam had never wanted to kiss him more.
He was generally very good at wanting and not having, but there was something about that night that made it unbearable to stand so close to Ronan and not touch him, not kiss him, not have him.
His heart was suddenly hammering in his chest, having picked up pace at a dizzying speed, out of the blue. That, Adam thought wildly, was the effect Ronan Lynch had on people. It was what Ronan was: zero to sixty on a nighttime highway, pedal to the metal, shouting at the stars.
He moved closer, a couple inches that felt like miles once he’d bridged the gap, close enough to hear Ronan suck in a breath, to feel him not move away. When he looked up, Ronan was looking at him, tense but trusting, which somehow felt like a gift in its own right. His lips were red where he’d licked them moments earlier, and Adam wanted, wanted so badly every part of him was aching. He opened his mouth, sure that he was about to do something incredibly stupid and incredibly important.
“Gansey’s on the death list.”
He heard the words before he’d even realized he’d said them, his mind racing to catch up as his heart stuttered to a frantic halt, his stomach dropping down to his feet. He didn’t know what had prompted him to say such a horrible thing, a thing that would almost definitely break Ronan’s heart—he didn’t know why he’d decided to say it now, when all he wanted was to learn what Ronan’s tongue felt like against his own, if he was rough or gentle with his teeth, if his lips were as soft as they looked.
All he knew was that he’d been overcome, suddenly and suffocatingly, with a single thought: Ronan doesn’t know. Ronan didn’t know, but Adam did, and Blue did, and Noah almost certainly did. He didn’t want to kiss Ronan with an untruth standing between them; more importantly, he didn’t want to kiss him for the first time with the knowledge it might be the last—and Adam felt sure, bitterly so, that after what he’d just said, there would be no next time.
Ronan was still looking at him, wide-eyed and paler than the sheet he was wearing.
“Is this some kind of sick joke? Because I swear—”
“You think I would joke about this?” The thought filled Adam with an anger he probably had no right to, considering he was the party at fault here; he tried to rein it in, with little success. “Because if that’s the kind of person you think I am, then you can go get screwed.”
“How do you know?”
“Blue told me.”
“She told you, but not anyone else? Well, shit. If I’d known that’s what it was gonna be like, I’d have sent her a cheap bunch of flowers too.”
It was meant to sting, which meant Adam did his level best not to let it. “She didn’t just come out and tell me, so you can stop being an asshole about it. I figured it out on my own, and then I pretty much made her tell me.”
“When?” Ronan’s voice was as hard as the set of his jaw.
“I—two months ago, give or take.”
“Two months. Two whole fucking months. And you never thought I might want to know. You never thought Gansey might want to fucking know.” Ronan was pacing now, radiating nervous energy like a lightning storm.
Adam swallowed. “No,” he said, hoping he sounded as steady as he was trying to feel, “because it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let him.”
“Not going to let him what? Not going to let him die? What the fuck are you even talking about here?” Ronan’s voice rose in volume and agitation, and a small, hidden away part of Adam flinched, an ingrained urge to appease trying to rise to the forefront. He squashed it, feeling nauseous.
“I’m going to make that my favor. When we find Glendower, I will ask for Gansey’s life.”
Ronan stared at him for a full five seconds before a harsh laugh broke out of him. “Are you for fucking real? When we find Glendower? Did you ever consider his precious dead king might not fucking exist?”
Adam had, at length. He’d spent a long stretch of his friendship with Gansey not believing in magic. As it turned out, it had all been for nothing, since magic apparently believed in him.
“He has as much chance of existing as a magical forest. As ghosts. As psychics. As greywarens.” Adam said flatly. “And right now, that favor is our best bet. Unless you have a better idea.”
For what felt like forever, they stood there staring at each other—Ronan furious and frantic, Adam stubborn and heartsick. Then, suddenly, Ronan thrust out a hand.
“Give me the car keys. I need to get out of here.”
A short, incredulous laugh left Adam’s lips, devoid of all mirth. “After drinking your body weight in alcohol? I don’t think so.”
“Give me the fucking keys, Parrish.” Ronan cut a threatening sight, even — or perhaps especially — in a makeshift toga, his sharp tattoo and his lethal eyebrows conveying the message of danger he aimed to give out at all times. But Adam had never been scared of Ronan, not in any way that mattered. Scared for Ronan, and scared of Ronan’s powers—but never, ever that Ronan might lay a hand on him like his father did.
“You’re plastered and upset. I’m driving. Just tell me where you want to go.”
“Who the hell said I want to go anywhere with you?”
That, unlike the shot at his cheap flowers, was a retort Adam had not prepared for, his balance staggering for a moment. Fair enough, he told himself. After that little nugget, I wouldn’t wanna go anywhere with me either.
“Tough fucking luck,” he said, out loud. “Stay here for all I care. You’re not driving, and I know you don’t know how to hotwire a car sober, much less drunk.”
Ronan glared at him, shaking his head, and spun on his heel like he meant to stalk off; he didn’t, though, electing instead to stand with his back to him, shoulders tense and head bowed. When he turned around again, his eyes were as glittering and hard as cut stones, the line of his mouth implacable.
“Fine. Drive,” he said, simply, managing to make it sound like an order rather than a concession; then he finally did stalk off, leaving Adam no choice but to follow.
“Where to?” Adam asked once they were in the car.
“Cabeswater,” Ronan said flatly.
“Why do you—“
“I don’t want to talk. Just fucking drive, okay?”
Adam drove.
The night breeze blowing in from the rolled-down windows felt almost unreal, too gentle and soothing for the heat simmering between them.
Ronan spent the entire drive glaring at the Henrietta countryside as it sped by. He was still staring out the passenger window when Adam parked near the entrance to Cabeswater, so still and quiet that when he spoke Adam was startled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. His voice was softer than Adam expected, but more wounded, too, something scrubbed raw in it. “Didn’t you trust me?”
Adam’s chest constricted painfully. He knew what loyalty meant to Ronan; it was one of the things he loved best about him. He had never meant to break that trust; it simply wasn’t what this was about. He needed him to understand, but how could he get him to do that without exposing his ugliest secrets? He licked his suddenly-dry lips.
“That’s not it. It has nothing to do with trust. Of course I trust you. I would trust any of you with my life,” he said. It was a strangely huge truth, and one he hadn’t fully realized was true until he’d actually said it. Trust was still a recent concept to him, the idea of relying on the people close to you completely foreign. Ronan seemed to realize that, too, because his voice was less hurt, more curious, when he spoke next.
“Then why?”
Adam swallowed and stared at his hands, which were gripping the steering wheel as if it might fly away any second. It was now or never.
“Because I’m the one that kills him.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Ronan slowly turn around to face him. He couldn’t see his expression, but his voice clearly illustrated his furrowed eyebrows.
“The fuck?”
Adam swallowed again. His throat felt tight, like no oxygen was coming through. “I saw it in the vision tree. That’s what it showed me. Gansey dying on the ground. There was—so much blood. And Blue was crying, and you were yelling at me, because it was my fault. Somehow, somewhen, I’m going to end up killing him. That’s why I need to find Glendower. I need the favor. I need to ask him for Gansey’s life.” His voice cracked pathetically around the last word, and he let his hands fall into his lap, defeated.
“That’s bullshit.”
Ronan sounded so sure of himself that it finally made Adam look up at him, half surprised, half affronted at having his confession dismissed.
“It isn’t,” he protested. “The tree showed me—“
“The tree is a fucking liar,” Ronan interrupted, snarling. “In what universe would you ever kill Gansey? It was just messing with your head, Parrish.”
Occasionally, Ronan said things in such a way that they seemed to be made true just by virtue of him speaking the words. It was a talent he shared with Gansey, and although he displayed it more rarely, it was especially fitting for someone who could actually dream things into reality.
Still, Adam hadn’t got to 18 by believing in everything he was told.
“How do you know?” he insisted, stubbornly, hoping with every beat of his heart that Ronan could somehow prove him wrong.
Ronan’s jaw did something complicated. “Because it showed me the same thing.”
Adam’s heart stuttered to a halt. “Gansey bloody on the ground?”
“Gansey dying,” Ronan replied, acidly. “Because of me. I had dreamt a swarm of bees—no, fuck, hornets or some shit—and they were all over him, stinging him, and—“ he shook his head before adding, quietly, “That’s why I keep dreaming the epipens. I did it before, too, once or twice— but ever since the vision tree, it’s at the back of my mind all the time.”
Adam felt like his brain was trying to catch up. Somehow there was relief in this shared guilt, in the knowledge that it was not he alone who felt dangerous, a monster in disguise. And certainly Ronan would never kill Gansey, would he? Even thinking it felt absurd.
“It showed you Gansey’s death, and it was your fault?” he repeated, needing to try the words out loud. Ronan nodded, hitting the dashboard softly in frustration.
“It’s what I’m trying to tell you, man. It told you you were gonna kill Gansey, and it told me I was gonna kill Gansey, because it knows that it was the worst thing it could possibly show us. How much do you wanna bet Sargent saw herself kissing him into the grave?”
It was a dreadful way to put it, despite the harsh poetry of it, but—it made sense. Suddenly Blue’s reticence to tell them acquired a whole new meaning. She hadn’t wanted to tell them about Gansey dying for the same reason Adam hadn’t: she thought it was going to be her. And Ronan was right about the rest of it, too—the tree had known exactly what to show them, the most horrible scenario of all. Not only because it was Gansey, their wonderful, kind, impossible best friend, but because without Gansey, there was no friendship. He’d brought them all together to begin with, and even though they now had relationships of their own, he was somehow still the lynchpin, the pivotal point, their magnetic north. Losing him would shatter them all.
“It wants us to feel guilty so we won’t tell,” Adam realized, with sudden, blinding certainty. “It wants us afraid. It wants us apart from each other.”
Ronan nodded, solemnly. “Divide et impera.”
“The third sleeper? You think?” Adam’s heart had surged back to life, beating madly into his throat. He was reeling with adrenaline, but it was a thousand times better than the cold dread that had threatened to choke him before.
“I mean, what else could it be?” Ronan shrugged with one shoulder. He sounded less certain than he’d been a few minutes ago, but it didn’t matter, because they could work with this; they could do this.
They were Gansey’s magicians, and they were going to see him safely through, one way or another.
“So what now?” Adam asked.
“We go into Cabeswater,” Ronan replied. “I speak to the trees. I want to know why they didn’t warn us. I want to know more about the third sleeper.”
Adam nodded. Cabeswater wouldn’t tell him, not any of the times he’d tried to scry for answers, but it would tell Ronan. He was its greywaren; the forest loved him.
They got out of the car, Ronan stumbling on the first step, but finding his footing as soon as the cool night air hit him, dispelling the remnants of the liquor haze. He was still – they were both still, Adam noted with some amusement – wearing their sheets as togas, two young ancient romans heading into an enchanted wood.
Ronan still looked magical – largely, Adam suspected, because he was magical – a creature made of pale moonlight and ebony hair. Without thinking, he reached a hand out and brushed tentative fingers against his shoulder, as if to make sure he was really there, not a trick of his mind, or some unknowable forest spirit. He was real, though, and his skin was warm and soft, which felt like it should have been surprising but it really wasn’t.
Ronan turned to face him, then, and he was both of his selves at once: the young god in the moonlit forest and the human boy, as warm-blooded and alive as Adam himself, so eminently touchable that Adam could hardly bear it. Ronan was still looking at him, with an inquisitive look on his face, and Adam thought he knew what he was silently asking. He thought he knew what answer to give.
This was a night for truths.
“Back at the party,” he said, his quiet voice loud in the silent wood, “I wanted to kiss you.”
Ronan looked at him for what felt like a long time, a kaleidoscope of emotions shifting on his face.
“I wanted you to,” he said eventually, softly. A truth for a truth.
Adam had known, or thought he’d known. He was good at keeping secrets—his own, and Ronan’s too. What he wasn’t good at was knowing what to do now that it was all in the open, his shortcomings and desires both revealed.
“Do you still?” he asked, barely able to hear it over his pounding heart.
Ronan gave him a look that would almost have been pitying, if it wasn’t so completely earnest.
“I always do,” he said, soberly.
Leaning in was as easy as breathing, and as inevitable. One minute, there was only the night air around him, smelling of trees and moss; the next, there was Ronan’s warmth, Ronan’s bare skin under his hands, Ronan’s lips. He shivered, or Cabeswater shivered around them, or both things at the same time.
Ronan tasted like fruit punch, like the mint of his toothpaste, like the leather he was always chewing, and when he opened his mouth to let him in, Adam thought, Oh. Oh, this is what all the fuss is about. Now that he’d tried it, he never wanted to stop kissing Ronan.
When they eventually did stop to breathe, however, he realized how close they were standing: his hands cupping Ronan’s neck, Ronan’s left hand at the small of his back, the right one between his shoulder blades, their chests so flush together he wasn’t sure whose heartbeat was pounding against his ribcage. It felt more like home than any place he’d ever lived.
“So,” Ronan said, at length. He sounded like he’d been running for miles, his voice breathless and shot.
“So,” Adam repeated, quieter.
“Is this going to be a thing?” Ronan’s ‘casual’ setting was completely broken, if it had ever worked at all.
“If you want it to,” he replied, fingers skimming Ronan’s scalp lightly, his buzzcut tickling slightly.
“Fuck yes,” Ronan said emphatically. Then, as if remembering himself, he added: “Please.”
Adam couldn’t help but laugh, short and breathy. He felt drunk, despite only having had a soda, yet startlingly lucid at the same time. Everything felt vibrant, alive, awake. He kissed Ronan again, quickly.
“Alright,” he said then, disentangling from Ronan’s arms. It was unfairly hard to, and he made a mental note that this was going to be a very real problem in the near future.
“Let’s go?”
“Let’s go,” Ronan agreed, nodding sharply. All of him looked sharp in the moonlight, Adam thought, except for his eyes. He held a hand out; Ronan took it, and laced their fingers together.
It felt different than with Blue — not better or worse, really, but different. More solid. Unshakeable.
They walked into Cabeswater, to talk to the trees, or scry into a pool, or persuade the ley line to do their bidding. For the first time in months, the constant knowledge of Gansey’s foretold death felt less like a certainty and more like a challenge, one they could rise up to.
Because they were magicians, and they were together, and they were not afraid.