Chapter Text
The first call came an hour before midnight, shrill and unexpected and echoing through the large and mostly empty house. The name on caller ID flashed once and then stopped so abruptly Ronan scrolled through the call history to verify that yes, he did not imagine it. All he wanted was to shut his eyes for a while, listen to some music, and wait for morning. A few seconds later, the cell phone on the nightstand lit up, vibrating with too much enthusiasm for this late at night.
Ronan tapped the green button and answered. "Parrish," he said, unable to smother a soft smile.
"I forgot Opal might be sleeping." Adam said. His words slurred with fatigue and his accent, which he didn't bother to hide any longer. College had exposed all kinds of unique accents and Adam was thrilled that the pressure to pretend that he fit in like he had at Aglionby was gone. Even after one year of school, out of state, nearly a three hour drive away, Adam's voice had never been more confident.
"She's camping with Dick and Jane out in the yard." He elbowed the long curtains out of his way and glanced down at the green tent and the circles of flashlights on the fabric from within. He could see hand shadows and outlines of shoulders shaking with giggles and Opal's tiny hands reaching for the stars while Blue braided her hair. "It's just me here."
"Why aren't you camping with them?" Adam chuckled.
"The only tent I could find isn't that big. And she kicks." Ronan huffed and let the curtains fall. He went to the kitchen for a glass of water and dropped down into a stool. "Getting ready for finals?"
Adam made a sound that Ronan could only interpret as meh and said quickly, "I need a favor."
"Shoot." Ronan said without thinking.
"I need you to come get me."
Ronan slipped off the stool and bent over to step into his boots, newly rimmed with puncture wounds from Opal's teeth. One of the laces was missing the tip but Ronan was still able to tie it. "Everything okay?"
Adam sighed. "Yeah. Just the shitbox won't start and I told my boss at the body shop I could come in for a shift tomorrow."
"Shit," Ronan said, pausing to remove his foot from the boot and pull out a handful of bright green leaves from a tree in the backyard. "I thought you quit that one?"
"No, I quit the factory over winter break. I was planning on coming back this weekend anyway because my classes were cancelled tomorrow. I was going to surprise you." Adam trailed off. Ronan could hear his fingers drumming on his desk hundreds of miles away.
"Dammit then." Ronan smirked, glad that Opal already had babysitters. "Give me a couple hours."
"Drive safely." Adam warned, but still sounding relieved. "And thank you."
Ronan hummed in response and picked the keys for the BMW off the hook. He made a small kiss into the receiver and hung up, pocketing his phone. He shrugged on a light jacket and grabbed another flannel blanket from the closet and turned off the kitchen light.
Blue shone her flashlight directly into Ronan's eyes when he unzipped the flap of the tent and poked his head inside. She also had her pocketknife within reach but it wasn't in her hand yet. His eyes burned as he blinked spots away. Gansey had been in the middle of a ghost story about a boy who loved skateboarding and haunted a factory in downtown Henrietta. Opal squealed and scrambled out of Blue's lap and threw her arms around his neck.
"You irrevocably ruined this story." Gansey groaned, rubbing his hands over his nose while Blue shoved him.
"I'm heading up to get Adam." Ronan petted over Opal's hair laced with the tiny purple flowers that grew in big patches in the yard. "We'll be back by morning. The house is unlocked if you need anything." He unfolded the blanket and draped it over Opal's shoulders and kissed her forehead to keep her still enough to cocoon her tightly.
They prepared a small bed between the open and half empty bag of marshmallows and the stuffed animals Opal insisted they bring outside among the sleeping bags and pillows piled so thickly they almost forgot that sleeping outside should have been uncomfortable. Opal curled back up in Blue's lap and Gansey reached out to bump knuckles with Ronan. "We'll see you tomorrow then. Call if there's trouble."
Ronan scoffed. The BMW, as far as he knew, had never broken down. It was the most reliable thing Ronan owned. He ruffled Blue's hair and zipped them back inside.
The drive itself was no trouble. Ronan hummed along to the radio and got through two electronic CDs, fondly tapping out beats to the Murder Squash Song and drowning the boringness of the roads by singing 80s power ballads.
Adam's campus was nearly as big as Henrietta and Ronan had only been to see it twice - once to help Adam move in, where they'd gotten lost trying to find his dormitory, and another time around Valentine's Day when Adam's roommate took a trip to Minnesota to see his girlfriend and Ronan and Adam played video games and made out until their lips were swollen and hearts were racing and Ronan helped Adam study for a philosophy test and they slept with their arms around each other and woke up warm and often didn't get out of bed until Adam insisted he had to go to class. Ronan knew Adam's room more than he knew the campus.
But he managed to find Adam's building and snuck his way past the half-asleep security guard up to the elevator - stairs were locked to nonresidents. Ignoring the smell of piss and the stain that was once vomit, Ronan got up to the fourth floor and walked down to the end of the hall where Adam's name was written on a piece of paper and taped to the door along with another sheet that said Trent. It was from a get-to-know-everyone program put on by the RA's at the beginning of the year so the new students could meet and introduce themselves. In a way, it had worked because names were exchanged and rooms were labelled and made polite requests between neighbors a bit less awkward.
Ronan tapped a knuckle on the door and it immediately opened. Adam was waiting with his backpack on over a too large Aglionby Tennis sweatshirt and a duffel bag full of dirty laundry. Neither of them could help their ridiculous grins as they hugged too tightly and too long and Adam planted a gentle kiss on Ronan's cheek. Ronan turned and caught Adam's lips briefly until Ronan almost forgot about the drive back to Virginia.
"I parked far away. Do you want me to carry something?"
Adam locked his door and Ronan hooked his arm around Adam's waist as they walked back to the elevator. "It's not heavy. I'm stronger than I look. Just tired" Adam replied, still leaning into Ronan's side. His eyelids languidly dropped instead of his usual attentive look, but when he caught Ronan's gaze, he still smiled. "Sorry you had to come all this way so late."
It was late. Ronan suspected Adam had stayed awake the entire time waiting and packing, even if he was only coming home for a few days. Adam didn't return to Virginia very often because the shitbox was not well equipped to handle distances over twenty miles at above residential speed limits.
"It's okay. I couldn't sleep anyway." Ronan mumbled.
It had been two nights since he'd last slept and that was more like a nap on a rainy afternoon with Opal tucked under an afghan Aurora knitted long ago on his chest. He'd dreamt of the comatose cows dotting the fields blinking awake and herding them into the barns where they once lived - more memory than dream. Ronan took Opal through the muddy fields the next day and let her climb over the big stones and run her fingers through the cows' soft fur.
Once unloaded, Adam stretched in the passenger seat and brought his legs up to his chest. The radio kept playing since Adam had silently rejected the electronica by taking the CD out while Ronan was packing his bags into the trunk. Ronan didn't talk and Adam quickly fell asleep with his arms hugged around himself. Every few miles, Ronan glanced over in the light from dashboard, imagining the slope of Adam's forehead and nose, the soft flutter of eyelashes, a warm blush coloring his face and neck like he always got when Ronan kissed him.
An hour into the drive, when Adam rubbed the indent of the window out of his forehead, he said, "Do you want me to drive the rest? Because I will."
"No." Ronan frowned, keeping his eyes forward, allowing Adam to tug his hand off the wheel. "I'm good."
Despite his words, he swallowed hard when Adam kissed his knuckles and almost slammed on the brakes. It had been a few months since he'd felt Adam's weight on top of him, felt wandering hands under his shirt and unintentional gasps when his teeth grazed over sensitive skin.
"Ronan, I'm serious." Adam said, resting his palm on Ronan's elbow. "Pull over. Let me drive for a while."
The car slowed a bit, the orange speedometer creeping down into the legal range. Adam's fingers tightened and when Ronan drifted onto the side of the road, Adam leaned over and pressed a kiss to Ronan's shoulder.
Ronan got out and walked around the car, kicking the tires as he did so just to be sure they weren't getting low, and still found Adam in the passenger seat. He was rubbing his eyes and slipping his feet back into his shoes. Ronan sat on the edge of the seat and bumped his forehead into Adam's. The cool air was drawing bumps on his arms but Adam's breath on his face was warm and Ronan flushed with the attention.
"I missed you." Ronan said before Adam pecked his cheek and scooted over across the console. After some adjusting of mirrors, they were off again.
Adam talked about his classes and his finals coming up soon and his roommate.
Trent, the roommate by a random assignment, was a tennis player and studying management and economics. According to Adam, he snored and sometimes cried when he was drunk because he missed his girlfriend and called his parents without fail every weekend, Sunday at 11 AM. They got along well enough, didn't fight about serious issues, and went their own ways on nights out. Trent liked to party and flirt with anyone who was remotely attractive while Adam sometimes stared for abnormally long periods of time at a blurry picture on his phone of Ronan smirking with Chainsaw balanced on his leg. Adam still didn't drink and occasionally had to pick Trent up from bars advertising cheap beer with neon signs at ungodly hours in the shitbox because Trent was too intoxicated to drive.
On those nights, Adam hung out with some of the guys he'd met through classes and played video games and talked about movies and played touch football in the field until it was too dark to see. Other times, when Adam was feeling less social, he wrapped himself in a blanket and laid on his bed making necessary phone calls to Gansey, Blue, and Henry about their nearly constant and spontaneous road trips and saved the later, longer calls for Ronan. More than once, Adam had fallen asleep to Ronan reliving his and Opal's adventures rebuilding the farm.
Classes, he said, were easy compared to Aglionby. He still studied religiously and found enough time to take a tutoring job at a local middle school helping with biology and math. He was thinking about majoring in biology or pre-law. Both perhaps, if he could organize his schedule properly.
Ronan tilted his head, sticking a fingertip into a hole on his knee. "Wait, why are you tutoring? I thought you got a shitload of scholarships."
"I did," Adam bit his lip. "I'm not paying anything to go to school, I just want to have backups. And I like tutoring."
"But you don't have to work at all. You've already done that for four fucking years."
Adam's mouth closed and his brows wrinkled. "I'm not quitting if that's what you're going for. I want to have savings in case something happens."
"Something like what?" Ronan crossed his arms and scratched at his inner elbow sharply enough to leave indents. His foot had started jiggling and he planted it firmly on the floor.
"Accidents happen, Ronan." Adam said softly. His hands kneaded the steering wheel and a moment of silence chastened Ronan. "I only have ten hours a week. It's my only job at school. I'm not overworking myself."
"How much are you sleeping?"
Adam quirked a tiny smile. "Eight hours. Nine on weekends." He reached over and rubbed the back of Ronan's neck. "How much are you sleeping?"
Ronan let out his breath through his nose and dropped his chin to his chest. "Not fair." Ronan said in response to Adam's question and his hand.
"How much?"
"I don't like dreaming without Cabeswater." He admitted, shrugging Adam away.
Adam understood. Before Gansey's resurrection, Adam hadn't realized how much Cabeswater had supported him - calmed his anxiety, settled his heart, and allowed him to be - until it was gone. Sometimes, he felt a beat in the back of his mind and Adam's breath would catch for a second. This was how he knew that Cabeswater was gone, yes, but not dead. No matter its location or state, it was not strong enough to give the graywaren his gifts back. Ronan was deemed an ordinary dreamer. For the time being.
They crossed the state line and even though Adam obeyed the speed limit, the rest of the drive was completed in an unpressing silence. He knew the way to the Barns from memory and parked on the driveway where Niall had been killed several years ago. Now there were flowers in the yard, paths of flattened grass where Ronan and Opal walked every day, an orange Camaro not too far away, and a yellow light still on in the upstairs bedroom.
Flashlights in the tent were switched off and Gansey's ghost storytelling was long over and birds were just beginning to chirp the sun awake. It was still dark though, and Adam looked at his watch to calculate how much sleep he could get before he had to leave. Adam refused to let Ronan carry his bags in but he conceded that he wouldn't begin laundry until the morning - after he'd rested. The shift he agreed to work began at noon, and he promised Ronan he'd be back by dinner.
Adam dropped his duffel bag in the laundry room and followed Ronan upstairs, pausing to take off his shoes at the door. Ronan stripped out of his jacket, shirt, and pants and sat on the edge of the bed. He stuck his feet under a blanket and switched off the light just as Adam's body sighed into the mattress.
Fragile was the word Ronan thought as Adam rolled to his side and matched his shape into Ronan's like nestled spoons. He'd only stepped out of his jeans and shoes for the night and pulled up the blanket around them both. After a moment, Adam blindly reached behind him to grab Ronan's arm over his side. He clutched it to his chest and Ronan flattened his palm.
Adam whispered, "You're using my pillow."
There was no shortage of pillows on the bed, but the one in front - the one Adam had worn countless dreams into, that smelled both musty and clean since Ronan recently washed sheets - was the one supporting both of their necks. When Adam unofficially moved into the Barns, Ronan insisted they go get new sheets and new pillows because sleeping on the same décor as Niall and Aurora slept was weird enough. They brought Opal with them to the home store and she had quickly torn into the softest and fluffiest pillow she found, and while Ronan flagged down a worker to pay for her taste, Adam picked another one up, stuffed it under his arm out of Opal's reach, and asked Ronan to pay for two.
Ronan inhaled, stretching his free arm under his ear, tempted to kiss the bottom of Adam's hairline. He did because he could and then said, "It reminded me of you."
"You sleep with it?"
"You didn't take it, what else am I supposed to do with it?"
Adam closed his eyes, content. "Nothing." He pulled the sheet and Ronan's arm tighter around him and Ronan flexed in a reassuring squeeze. "Good night."