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When Adam lets himself into the Barns, he’s greeted by a crash in the kitchen that’s just out of his line of sight. It sounds like a herd of goats has been let loose. That’s not something Adam would put past Ronan, but when he ducks his head around the corner it’s only Matthew and Opal in a tangle of limbs half under the table and half under a toppled chair. They both look up at him as he kicks his shoes off and comes in.
“Adam!” Opal shouts.
Matthew grins up at him from the floor in the easy, unselfconscious way Adam’s always envied. He’s stretching his arm out, straining to keep a long wooden box out of Opal’s reach. “Ronan said you might come! He even got you pajamas ‘cause I forgot. Sorry.”
“Pajamas?” Adam has pajamas. He even has pajamas here, because of the frequency with which he stays over. But Matthew is currently a red, yellow, and green bundle that makes Adam think ‘pajamas’ means something altogether more festive than the pair of soft flannel pants he stole from Ronan and the several old, stained t-shirts he leaves balled up with them.
Opal blinks her wide eyes and then uses the distraction to snatch the box from Matthew’s hands. With a lot of clamor and yet another chair casualty, she pushes herself up and gallops over to Adam. She tangles the fingers of her free hand in his and turns his wrist over, inspecting his watch. He had gotten it back eventually, replacing it with another one that had pink roses painted on the face and cost him three dollars at the church rummage sale. Opal inspects their wrists to make sure they still match, then dashes out of the kitchen without a word.
Matthew sits up and rights the chairs. “Ugh, she’s gonna ruin it.”
“What was it?” Adam asks.
“My dominoes. I don’t want her to eat them. She eats everything.” Everything is stretched with aggravated inflection.
Adam leans over and offers Matthew his hand. Matthew takes it and lets Adam pull him up. He’s had a growth spurt while he was away in DC and he’s almost as tall as Adam is now, which makes the fact that he is very obviously wearing a Robin onesie with little black feet feel foolish and hilarious. Adam stifles a laugh and Matthew beams at him.
“Aren’t they awesome?”
“They are sure somethin’,” Adam says.
Matthew looks proudly down at his feet and wiggles his covered toes. “Wait til you see Ronan.”
“Do I even want to know?” Adam wonders out loud, just as he hears Ronan admonishing Opal in the living room.
Ronan sweeps into the kitchen and shoves the box of dominoes into Matthew’s side. “I told you to keep your things in your room if you don’t want them chewed on.”
Matthew huffs and accepts it, inspecting the new tooth marks on the corners. “Can’t she just not chew on things?”
“I don’t know,” Ronan says, and Adam knows it’s the honest answer. They don’t know anything about Opal, about how she’s made or how she’ll grow. For now it’s all they can do to keep her from eating her weight in couch stuffing.
The question of Opal is one that’s as delightful to Ronan as it is frustrating, but currently the frustration seems to be winning out. His eyebrows are furrowed and the corner of his mouth is dipping down. It’s a thoughtful look Adam’s become used to seeing on him. It’s a look that is in direct contrast with what he’s wearing: a footed onesie to match Matthew’s, black and emblazoned with a bright yellow bat symbol.
Adam puts his knuckle in his mouth and bites down to keep from laughing. Ronan looks at him and raises an imperious eyebrow. “You got something to say, Parrish?”
“Nope,” Adam says around his finger. “Did you know you have abs?”
Ronan grins at him. It’s not as sharp as it used to be, but there’s still a hint of the felonious in it when he says, “I always have abs.”
“You don’t always keep them outside of your clothing.”
Ronan skirts around Matthew and the table to crowd into Adam’s space. “Do you want to taste them and let me know how they stand up to my others?”
Adam catches Ronan about his waist and pulls him in. He runs a hand up to Ronan’s chest and then down to his stomach, making a show of tracing the ab outlines in the pattern. “They’re very soft,” he mumbles.
Ronan kisses him.
Adam thinks that one day he’ll probably get used to this. One day he’s going to kiss Ronan and it’s going to feel like nothing more than coming home. But for the time being he still feels it in his whole body every time. There’s a tug in his stomach and his fingers feel electric. His cheeks go warm and his knees go just a little bit weak. He’s never admitting that last thing to Ronan, because he’ll never hear the end of it. Still, it takes an effort to not just collapse into him. Ronan winds one hand up into his hair and the other around his waist to pull him closer. Adam makes a small, helpless noise in the back of his throat when their hips bump together.
“Gross,” Matthew says, backing out of the kitchen. “You’re just as bad as Declan and Ashley.”
Ronan pulls away and sticks out his tongue to indicate just how he feels about that comparison. Adam laughs and kisses his cheek before pushing him against the counter. “If I’d known this was a costume party, I would have at least made a mask.”
“Don’t worry, Smallville,” Ronan drawls. “I’ve got you covered.”
“You didn’t,” Adam says. “I thought we were being spare with the magic these days”
“Relax, I didn’t dream it. I got it at the Wal-Mart, like a regular, boring person. And before you say anything no, it doesn’t matter how much it cost. It’s a present.”
“Ronan, it’s over a month until my birthday, and I don’t need a present.”
“For me. It's a present for me.” Ronan smiles at him, almost as slow and easy as Matthew. He tilts his face down and peers up at Adam, blue eyes searching for weakness from under the fringe of dark lashes. It’s unfair, because Ronan knows that Adam will do absolutely anything for that smile. Though, truth be told, it’s mutual. Adam’s won his fair share of things by retaliating in the same manner, but this feels like a whole other level of ridiculousness.
Adam sighs, giving in.
“You love it,” Ronan replies. “Don’t even pretend like you don’t.” He turns on his heel with a swish of a tiny black cape Adam hadn’t even realized was there, and stalks out of the kitchen.
Adam rolls his eyes and looks up at the ceiling, though he doesn’t know who he could be asking for help. The only god he’s ever known is just about to force him into red, yellow, and blue polyester, and damn it, he’s never said it out loud before, but he does love this, love him, which is the worst part of the whole thing. Okay, maybe not the worst part. It’s maybe one of the best things that’s ever happened to him, but still. Onesie.
“Parrish get your ass in here!” Ronan calls.
Adam sighs again, just so the universe has it on record, and follows Ronan’s voice out to the living room.
The living room looks absolutely tossed over. Everything but the couch has been upended and covered in layers of sheets in blues, greens, and whites. It’s less of a blanket fort and more of a blanket condo. The inside of it is lined with downy comforters and crocheted afghans. There are pillows scattered about. The flat screen TV has been removed from its place on the stand against the wall and installed in one side of the structure. There’s easily enough space left inside for all of them to curl up about six feet from it.
Opal’s already sprawled in the middle of the mess, hooves up on a pillow and sleeves pushed up on her sweater, playing with a clicking, leather pinwheel that sounds like a snake hissing if you spin it fast enough. The breeze of it ruffles the tips of her blond hair.
“You guys have been busy,” Adam observes.
Matthew beams. Ronan tosses a bundle at him and it hits him on the side of his face.
Adam catches it before it hits the floor. “I’ll just go put this on then, I guess.”
“You guess right,” Ronan says. “And hurry up, there are a lot of Fast and Furious movies and only so many hours in a night.”
“More than there are hours in a night, I reckon,” Adam says by way of protest, but he starts up the stairs toward Ronan’s room anyway.
Once up there he shucks out of his jeans and socks. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to keep his t-shirt on under it, but it seems warm enough without it, so he pulls that off too before climbing in and doing up the bright red zipper. The pajamas are soft, but there's a lot of room in them. He doesn't fill out the chest and shoulders nearly as well as Ronan does. He’s very glad that there’s no mirror in Ronan’s room, because he knows if he saw himself in full he’d chicken out, change back into his regular clothes, and live with the pouting consequences. It’s bad enough that he can see himself from his own perspective, but he supposes that partial ignorance is still partial bliss.
Back down in the living room Ronan and Matthew have joined Opal in the blanket structure and the movie’s been started. Matthew’s sitting too close to the TV with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, watching. Ronan’s sprawled out behind him with his hands under his head. Opal is curled up next to him chewing on the corner of his cape.
“I guess I know why she didn’t get one of her own,” Adam says, ducking in.
Ronan turns his head to look at her and sharply jerks the cape away. She caws at him. From somewhere in the living room Chainsaw caws back. “Brat,” Ronan snaps. Then, to Adam, “No, it’s mostly because we didn’t know if she’d be able to walk with no traction on her hooves. You remember the sock incident.”
Adam does remember the sock incident. It had been kind of funny, until she got frustrated by not being to run and started crying. It was a pitiful wail that tugged on every last string in Adam’s heart. He’d collected her in his arms and carried her to the couch to remove the bright orange hindrances. She fought him at first, just as frustrated with not being able to just wear what she wanted as she was with not being able to move, but eventually mobility won out.
Opal snorts loudly, a perfect imitation of Ronan’s own frustrated noise, and curls up behind Ronan again, keeping her teeth to herself. Once Ronan’s sure she’s going to stay put for a while he turns his attention back to Adam and looks him up and down in a way that makes Adam’s face burn. “It’s a bird, it’s a plane."
“It’s super dumb looking,” Adam finishes for him.
"Shut it," Ronan says. “If I have to suffer you have to suffer. I hear that’s what relationships are all about.”
“You got that from Blue. She has just as much relationship experience as we do, which is none.”
“I don’t know, she’s got two boyfriends now. I figure she’s learning twice as fast.”
“Am I not enough for you?” Adam asks in mock hurt. He stretches out next to Ronan and turns over on his side with his head propped onto a pillow.
“Sometimes you’re too much,” Ronan says earnestly. He rolls into Adam, arm hooked over his waist and cheek pressed against his shoulder. The four of them settle in to watch the movie. Adam promptly falls asleep.
Roughly two hours later Adam opens his eyes to the end credits. Matthew’s head is on his hip and Ronan’s snuggled right up behind him to hold him more tightly.
“That’s so cool,” Matthew breathes. “Ronan, I want a car.”
“Then have Declan get you one.” He says it into Adam’s shoulder, so it comes out muffled. “He’s the one with your money.”
“Declan says he won’t get me one until I pass Chemistry.”
“Better study then.”
“Hypocrite,” Adam says around a yawn.
“Kind of you to grace us with wakefulness, Parrish. You drowned out the movie there for a bit.”
“I don’t snore,” he groans, because it’s an old argument by now. Older than their relationship by a good couple months, having started when Ronan was just sleeping on the floor next to Adam’s mattress, afraid of dreaming freely in Monmouth. It’s not actually about whether or not Adam makes any noise at all in his sleep, it’s about Ronan never being able to sleep full stop and wanting to have a scapegoat. At the core, it’s about all the ways they can count on each other to bend so the other doesn’t break. Adam’s finding that he can bend in many more ways than he ever thought he’d have the cause to, and he’s mostly happy about it.
His stomach grumbles.
“Jesus,” Matthew says. “I think I just felt my teeth rattle.”
Adam shoves at Matthew’s golden curls lazily. “If you were using any of those twenty real pillows this wouldn’t be a problem.”
Matthew tilts his head back to look Adam in the eye. “You know that’s not always true around here.”
“Nothing is always true around here,” Adam says.
“Mmmm,” Ronan hums. He unfurls a little and kisses Adam’s neck. “Just you.”
“Get a room,” Matthew says, but he doesn’t move off Adam. He just taps around the screen of the tablet they’re streaming the movies from and chooses the next one to play.
Adam feels over warm in the costume pajamas. He thinks he’d probably feel over warm if he was wearing half as much, because every Lynch boy is a furnace and he’s currently being weighed down by two of them. He still doesn’t quite know what to do with the casual intimacy that Ronan’s family is accustomed to, but he’s learned to stop feeling trapped by it. Now he recognizes the intention of these gestures just as much as the physicality of them--comfort, kinship, love. The Lynches are a family of touch and Adam has been accepted into the family. Six months ago he would have found the very idea of this acceptance preposterous and impossible. Now he merely arches his back into Ronan’s chest as a way of saying ‘me too.’
His stomach grumbles again. He groans and sits up to stretch, knocking Matthew off his hip and onto the soft bedding beneath them. “Is there any popcorn in the kitchen?”
“Should be, kettle and strawberry, I think.”
Adam wrinkles his nose. “Where did you even find strawberry popcorn.”
“Japan,” Ronan says, matter-of-fact, as if this explains anything even though Adam knows Ronan has never been to Japan.
Adam assumes Japan means internet. He crawls out of the blanket condo and turns the living room light off on the way to the kitchen. Chainsaw flutters in and joins him as he pokes through cabinets. She picks at a roll of paper towels and piles the pieces up for him next to the sink. "Thanks," he says, and strokes her beak as he continues his search.
It doesn’t take him long to find the non-fruit popcorn variety. He sets a bag of it to popping in the microwave and eats two pop tarts before it’s finished. One day he’s not going to feel ravenously hungry approximately all of the time. One day.
Adam leaves Chainsaw in the kitchen and returns to the living room with the bag of popcorn. He pauses, just outside the pool of light coming from behind him. He can see Matthew, Ronan, and Opal through the opening in the blankets, glowing silver in the light from the TV. They are each in their own little worlds. Ronan has all of his attention on the movie. Matthew is playing a game on his phone and periodically looking up when Ronan laughs so he can join in the laughter. Opal, is slowly tracing the individual stitch patterns of one of the afghans with her finger, tongue sticking out of her mouth in intense concentration. They look easy and happy and idyllic, even though they’re anything but. They’re complicated and messy, dreamer and dreamt, all of them at least half a step removed from humanity, and yet.
And yet their presence as a unit makes Adam feel more calm and quiet, more worthy of his own humanity, than most everyone else he’s ever known. The only way he could feel more whole is if Blue and Gansey could be there with them. Hell, even Henry was starting to grow on him before they all left to traipse the world together. It’s a strange, duplicating feeling, realizing he’s living a future he never thought was possible.
“If you take a picture it’ll last longer,” Ronan says, without looking away from the screen.
“That’s the first good idea you’ve had all night, Lynch.” Adam tosses the unopened bag of popcorn at him and does a quick search for Ronan’s phone. It’s perched on the edge of the fireplace mantle. He snags it and crawls back into the blankets. “C’mon, Matthew, get in.”
Matthew is happy to oblige. He scoots back next to Adam and Ronan and smiles brightly into the front facing camera on the phone. Adam frames it so that Opal is visible in the background and takes a few different pictures. Matthew makes a new silly face for each of them. Adam texts one to Gansey and emails one to himself before handing the phone to Ronan, who promptly tosses it back out onto the living room carpet.
They settle back in. Matthew stretches out away from them, face right in front of the television. Adam feeds every other handful of popcorn over his shoulder and into Ronan’s mouth. Opal falls asleep and makes soft, wheezing noises as she breathes.
Adam doesn’t fall asleep this time. He’s more amused by the antics happening on screen than he thought he would be. He and Ronan laugh together when it calls for it, Ronan into Adam’s arm and Adam into the pillow. Halfway through the third movie Matthew falls asleep and begins to lightly snore in time to Opal’s wheezes.
Ronan kisses Adam’s cheek and down his jaw to his neck. Adam rolls in Ronan’s arms until he’s facing him and kisses him on the lips. Ronan returns it enthusiastically. He slowly unzips Adam’s onesie down to his stomach and then pushes it back so he can kiss Adam’s collar bone.
"Will someone think of the children," Adam whispers, and kisses the top of Ronan's head. Behind him two cars buzz their way through a Tokyo night. Inside of him, his heart buzzes its way up into his throat. “I didn’t know you had a cape fetish,” he says.
“Don’t,” Ronan says. “I have a you fetish.”
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. That’s worse than some of the dialogue in these movies.”
“These movies are masterpieces.”
“I’ll believe that when I see a massive spoiler hanging in the Louvre.”
Ronan nips at Adam’s chin. “Is that a challenge, or a hint that you want to go on a road trip too?"
"You can't road trip to France, Ronan."
Ronan ignores the interruption. "Because we’re going to have to find a sitter for the kids.”
Adam laughs as Ronan’s fingers slip into his pajamas and skate lightly over the skin of his chest. “I can’t believe that’s true.”
“Do you want to?” Ronan asks.
“Believe it? It’s not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to us.”
Ronan rolls his eyes. “No, you idiot, go to France. We could go to France. You’ve got a whole two months before you have to leave for school, that’s plenty of time. Shit, we could make SargentGanseyCheng meet us there.”
“I-” Adam starts. He pulls his head back. “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know? It’s France, not deep space exploration. No special equipment or moral consideration required. You either want to get out of this place or you don’t.”
That stings, and for once Adam knows that Ronan didn’t mean for it to. “No, I know, I just.” It’s just never been possible before, he thinks. It’s frivolous. It’s unnecessary. It’s a waste of resources. What he says is, “It would take me a long time to save up for that.”
Ronan lays his head down on his arm and gazes up at Adam thoughtfully, his face in shadow where Adam's blocking him from the TV. He’s tracing absentminded swirls across the skin of Adam’s stomach and Adam can feel his body waking to the touch, yearning for more. He can’t believe he’s being turned on by an asshole in a Batman onesie. Shit, maybe he has a cape fetish. He’s going to have to do some research. And if Ronan keeps doing that they're going to have to find another room.
“Okay,” Ronan says.
Adam reaches down and places his hand over Ronan’s, stopping the motion and pressing Ronan’s palm flat to his stomach. The touch is so warm. “Okay?”
“Okay, we’ll wait until you feel you can however you need to.”
“Shit,” Adam says, exhaling slowly.
“I know,” Ronan replies, because it’s not that they’ve never compromised before. It’s not that they haven’t both acquiesced to stuff they didn’t agree with or didn’t understand. It’s that it’s starting to come more easily to both of them. It’s become an impulse. Some part of Adam hums in perfect tune when Ronan Lynch is happy. Some part of Ronan rests easier when Adam feels quiet inside. Where the space between them used to be filled up with antagonizing comments and sharp looks, there’s now no space at all.
“I, uh,” Adam says haltingly. “I love, I-” The words burn in the back of his mouth, trying to smoke themselves out. This shouldn’t be so hard still. It’s just words. It’s just a sentiment Ronan already knows.
“I get it,” Ronan says. “Or I’m starting to maybe, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Hey, down in front. I’m trying to watch a movie here.” He pulls his hand free and shoves at Adam’s shoulder.
Adam pushes him back and leans in for a kiss. Ronan places his hand back on Adam’s chest and the warmth seeps in, making him feel hollow boned and light. Then again, then again, he thinks, maybe this won’t ever change. Maybe coming home is supposed to feel like fluttering. Maybe, cape or no, love always makes you feel a little bit like you could leap tall buildings, like you could fly.