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"I want you to get me drunk."
Adam watches as Ronan's hands pause in the middle of scrubbing spaghetti remnants off a dinner plate with a soapy sponge as he processes the request. Brow furrowed, he blinks at Adam a couple of times.
"What?" he asks finally.
"You asked me what I wanted for my birthday," Adam says, which is technically true. Ronan did ask him what he wanted for his birthday, but that had been several hours ago after they'd gotten back from a Nino's date with Gansey, Blue, and Henry where they'd been making Fourth of July plans. It's the last time they're sure to be in the same town for a major holiday for a while, what with Adam going off to school in the fall and the trio going on their road trip, and they're trying to make the most of it, which is great and everything, except despite all his best efforts, his friends recently came into the information that his birthday is the day before.
He'd managed to stay evasive about his birthday for years, even when asked directly, but he'd slipped up when filling out one of a about five million scholarship applications, and Gansey of all people had seen the date written out in his harried, chicken scratch handwriting, and now all of them knew. Half of their conversation at Nino's had been Adam fending off suggestions that they do something to mark the occasion.
It's not that he hates that his friends care about him, it's just that even with years of practice—and a brief stint aligning himself with a magical forest—he's still bad at it, and there are few things Adam loathes more than being bad at something.
So not only had Ronan's question been several hours ago, it also had been in jest. They'd gotten into the BMW to head back to the Barns, and he had asked, "So what do you want for your birthday?" It had been said with a smirk, because both fortunately and unfortunately, "unknowable" Adam is somehow quite transparently knowable to Ronan Lynch, and he knew it would get a rise out of him, and while they may still be in that honeymoon phase, their main love language is, and likely always will be, mildly pissing each other off for kicks. Keeps the relationship fresh, and all that.
Adam had replied precisely as he was sure Ronan had expected, which is to say he had rolled his eyes and given him the finger before telling him to, "Shut up and drive, Lynch," and that had been that.
So when Ronan says, "You want me to get you drunk for your birthday?" in a somewhat incredulous tone, Adam isn't sure which part is surprising him more—the idea that Adam wants to get drunk, or the idea that Adam would actually cop to wanting a birthday present.
"You're dripping on the floor," Adam points out. Soapy bubbles are dripping from the plate that Ronan still has suspended in midair, landing on the tile near his bare feet. Frowning, Ronan rinses the plate off and hands it over to Adam, who dries it with the damp washrag he's holding.
"Tell me what you meant," Ronan says, eyes following him as he goes to slot the plate away with the matching ones in the cupboard. He keeps watching even when Adam sidles back up beside him at the sink where the rest of their dishes from supper are submerged in lukewarm water. They have a dishwasher, but it takes forever to fill it when it's just the two of them—Opal doesn't use that many dishes usually, on account of the fact that she tries (sometimes successfully) to eat them—and it doesn't matter how many millions of dollars Ronan has to his name, Adam refuses to waste water. Besides, Adam likes the ritual of post-supper clean up. He knows Ronan does too, even if he'd never admit it aloud. There's something painfully domestic about it, which is something Adam never had from his family and something Ronan misses from his.
(It's still a pain in the ass to clean pots and pans, though. On the more lazy days, those often get to "soak" overnight, much to the chagrin of their future selves who then have to deal with them the following morning.)
"That is what I meant," Adam insists, and Ronan levels an unimpressed look his way.
"Are you being deliberately fucking obtuse?" he asks, making Adam smile. Ronan's vocabulary has always been just as ample as Gansey's—maybe more so, when you factor in the Latin—but Adam finds it charming the way he manages to cheapen it with unnecessary swears. The fact that he finds this charming should probably concern him, but he has, at any given time, at least seventeen different stressors, so he doesn't really have the time to worry about what exactly is broken in his brain that makes Ronan Lynch's unique brand of crude idosyncracies so attractive.
"No," he says, accepting a freshly scrubbed fork to dry. "I'm being straightforward. I said that I want you to get me drunk for my birthday, and that's what I meant."
"Okay," Ronan says, dragging out the second syllable. "Why? You don't drink."
And all right, this is a fair question, because it's true, he doesn't. Which is exactly why he wants this. He's not sure how to explain that to Ronan, though. It's not that he hasn't thought it through—on the contrary, he's given more thought to the idea of having a couple drinks than he thinks anyone in the world ever has bothered to—but his reasoning is complicated.
It takes him a minute to find the words, and when he does, he's not sure they're adequate, but they can at least get the conversation going somewhere productive, so he says, "I'm tired of being afraid of a monster that might not even exist."
Ronan abandons the remaining dishes in favor of facing Adam fully. Leaning sideways against the counter he regards him carefully, the crease between his brows still present as he tries to work through Adam's (admittedly somewhat inscrutable) explanation.
"You want to know if you're an angry drunk or not," he says finally, and the laugh Adam lets out is disbelieving, but in retrospect it really shouldn't be. Ronan does know him, after all. It's just that sometimes it's still surprising how thorough his knowledge is. Like he could be a scholar on the subject of Adam Parrish.
Adam does not voice this thought. Ronan does not need that kind of ego boost, even if it's true, besides he doesn't think he'd be able to get the words out anyway.
Instead, he says, "I don't want to make a habit out of it. In fact, I'd prefer not to. It's just... I think I have made the stuff such a big deal in my mind that I've somehow given it power when the whole point was to never let it control me."
Every time he has politely declined a drink, be it at some unsupervised Aglionby extracurricular he begrudgingly attended in order to have something to pad his academic resume, or at a networking function in DC with the Gansey family, a nagging voice in the back of his head has wondered: What would happen if you accepted that drink, Adam? What kind of person are you when you have alcohol in your blood?
Ronan hardly drinks around him anymore. He hardly drinks much period, anymore, which Adam's glad for. He never told him to stop, but Ronan's not stupid. He was fast to piece together that the way Adam shies away from him when his breath smells like beer is directly linked to the bruises that he used to bring with him to school, and while it's still a work in progress for Ronan to accept that he should do kind things for himself because he deserves them, it's never been difficult for Ronan to do kind things for Adam because he thinks Adam deserves them.
He's not a teetotaler, though. None of Adam's friends are, not even Blue, and that's fine. That's genuinely fine, he doesn't expect sobriety from them just because he has a specific set of demons, but it does mean on the rare occasions they imbibe around him he is sat there obsessing over whether or not the only thing separating him from Robert Parrish is the fact that there is soda in his glass instead of booze.
Distance has healed some of the wounds, but in the grand scheme of things, he's not that far from the life he lived in his parents' double wide—not that far from the night he lost his bondage, as well as his home and half his hearing, in one fell swoop—so while he can usually talk himself down from the fears that he's destined to turn into his father, sometimes the anxiety is louder than his logic. And when it gets like that, having this one unknown about himself keeps him afraid. His association with Richard Campbell Gansey III has made it impossible for him to be a skeptic, but he is still much better at accepting things as fact when he has concrete proof.
Examples:
Fact: He is intelligent.
Proof: His full-ride to Harvard.
Fact: He will not harm a child while sober, even if he's annoyed.
Proof: Opal can be aggravating as hell—she put clumps of mud in every single one of his socks while he was asleep last week—yet he has never once felt the desire to raise a hand to her. The thought alone is nauseating.
Fact: He is cared for.
Proof: Well, he has a lot of it, from several different sources, but Ronan goes above and beyond to make sure he knows it every single day.
But what he can't say as fact is that there isn't a monster lurking inside him just waiting to be unleashed by lowered inhibitions, because he has, quite purposefully, never lowered his inhibitions. And he is so over the not knowing. So over it that even if it turns out that he is actually his father deep down, he'd rather know it for certain than spend every social event worrying about it. Every college party he's bullied into making an appearance at; every holiday with Ronan and his brothers; every political function with those stupid skinny flutes of champagne. It would be shameful. It would be demoralizing. But he would also at least know that it's something that he can keep under wraps, keep hidden, and that's what matters the most. He's good at appearances as long as he knows what needs to be concealed.
"I don't want to do it on the Fourth," he tells Ronan then. "I don't want to be around everyone else. I want it in a controlled environment with you."
It feels like when he asks him to ground him while he scrys. In truth, it's actually not that dissimilar. He trusts Ronan above all others to know how to bring him back to himself when he's lost. He also trusts Ronan to not take any shit from him if things get nasty. So yeah, if he's going to do this experiment, he wants to do it with him and him alone.
Ronan is searching his face, looking for something, although Adam isn't sure what. Certainty, maybe? Doubt? Ronan isn't a liar, but they both know Adam is, at least sometimes, so it makes sense that he would wait to say yes to his proposal until he knew for sure that he was being honest about his intentions.
Finally, evidently finding what he was looking for, Ronan nods.
"All right. I'll get you drunk, Parrish."
"Liquor or wine. No beer."
Ronan scoffs, and Adam isn't sure if it's because it's obvious that Adam wouldn't want to drink beer, or if he's offended by the notion of getting Adam drunk on wine.
"Yeah, I'll be sure to get you a nice bottle of chardonnay, since you're apparently a fifty-two year old divorced aunt," he says derisively. So it was the latter. Fair enough.
They don't say anything else on the topic. Ronan washes the rest of their dishes and Adam dries them dutifully.
"What about the pots?" Adam asks when Ronan pulls up the sink plug to let the water drain. He nods at the stove where there's one large, starch-stained pot from the pasta, and a smaller one with much more daunting sauce stains starting to turn into a plastered crust along the sides.
"Put 'em in the sink," Ronan says. "Let 'em soak overnight."
Adam does so, and then sends an apology to his future self.
He's certain that somewhere in the circle of time, morning Adam is flipping him the bird.
*
Adam isn't sure why he didn't expect Ronan to put the utmost thought into this dumb experiment (even though, in his defense, they had not spoken about it once since that first night), but on the evening of July third, he is starkly reminded that the amount Ronan cares about something on the outside does not even touch the surface of the amount of care that he has on the inside. Adam's gotten better at recognizing this, but there are times, like now, that it catches him by surprise.
Opal crashed hard in her bed a half hour ago, after a long day of arduous chaos only a dream creature is capable of, and that was when Ronan started getting everything prepared. Adam is grateful that he hadn't had to even voice this stipulation; Ronan had known without being told that Adam is not comfortable drinking in front of a child, psychopomp or no.
"Getting everything prepared" in this case means, apparently, pulling out enough grocery sacks full of liquor and mixers to fuel an entire bachelorette party and putting the items on the kitchen table with the alcohol in order from clear to brown.
"You know," Adam says, as he watches Ronan set a jug of orange juice in between a two liter of Coke and a bottle of margarita mix, "when I said I wanted you to get me drunk, I didn't mean I wanted you to kill me with alcohol poisoning."
"I didn't know what you would like," he explains without looking at him. "I had to get a variety." The "duh" is implied, even though it really isn't obvious to Adam the way Ronan clearly thinks it should be. He had figured he would just take a few shots of whatever happened to be left in the Lynch family liquor cabinet and call it good. He's so puzzled by the sheer volume of options Ronan has acquired that he hasn't even gotten around to fretting about how much it all must have cost. (He decides he'll schedule that freak out for a later date, as a birthday treat to himself.)
"Is variety really necessary?" he can't help but ask. "I mean, it all has the same end result, right? Couldn't I just do shots?"
Ronan finally turns around in order to level a deeply unimpressed look at Adam.
"I'm not giving you straight liquor for your first time drinking, that shit tastes disgusting," he informs him, with that same air of "this is obvious and you're being dense" in his tone. "It also could be your last time drinking. And it's your birthday. You're going to enjoy it."
He says that last bit rudely and firmly, like it's fully non-negotiable. Like he's offended that Adam thinks he would let him just choke down bottom shelf vodka and call it good. And God, come to think of it, every liquor on that table is in real glass bottles with brand names that are in eloquent fonts. These are the bottles that get anti-theft tags locked around their necks in the spirits section of the grocery store, and there are so many of them. The amount Ronan must have spent...
( Tomorrow , Adam tells himself. Berate him about his spending habits tomorrow. )
Adam could point out that enjoyment is not the point of this. He could remind Ronan that he's doing this to find out if he's secretly an abusive shitstain of a person at his core. He could say that if he's sort of afraid that if he likes the drinks then it might make him want to do it more, and then what if it becomes a habit, and what if that habit then becomes a capital P Problem?
But Ronan has clearly put so much thought into this, and the fact that he apparently can't stand the thought of being the reason Adam wrinkles his nose in disgust because the taste of the alcohol he gave him was gross is endearing enough to make him hold his tongue.
Instead, he watches with mild bemusement and a little less mild apprehension as Ronan finishes setting up with the same sort of ritualistic reverie that Adam tends to reserve for important scrying sessions. He snorts a laugh when Ronan takes from the last grocery sack a long sleeve of red solo cups, which are quite contrary to the rest of it, like the juxtapositioning in Ronan's sentences full of SAT words and vulgarity alike.
"I have nice glasses," Ronan says defensively, in response to Adam's laugh, "but I can't write on those." From his pocket he produces a thick permanent marker and holds it up for Adam to see. "So we can mark which ones you like and which ones you don't."
The gesture is sweet and weird in equal measure, and Adam is appropriately touched by it.
"Okay, that's everything." Ronan surveys the table as though making sure this is true, and then nods once before turning back to Adam. "Ground rules." He puts up a finger. "Firstly, I'm not drinking with you. Nothing bad is gonna happen, but you'll feel better anyway if you know I'm sober to deal with whatever bullshit you're worrying might go wrong."
The back of Adam's neck prickles with the familiar annoyance of being read so easily by this lovely asshole. He scowls, but doesn't dispute it. Images of himself out of control, throwing dishes or remotes or fists, have been running through his mind more and more often the closer they've gotten to today, and Ronan's perfectly correct. It lowers his anxiety substantially when he pictures Ronan sober and in control and able to have the wherewithal to remove himself from any potentially dangerous situations.
He doesn't have the same certainty that Ronan has that nothing will happen. If he did, they wouldn't be doing this in the first place.
"Secondly"—his fingers make a peace sign—"I'm not gonna sleep with you, even if you're a horny drunk. If you wanted birthday sex you should have picked a different present."
Ronan's insistence and very, uh, charitable actions that morning suddenly make a lot more sense with this context. It's the combination of Ronan acting like he didn't already make sure that Adam did, in fact, get birthday sex, while also framing his refusal to fuck Adam while he's drunk as his own hard line, even though they both know it's actually Adam who's worried he would cross some kind of boundary while inebriated that makes his heart swell in his chest.
He wishes, not for the first time, that he was better with words, and with feelings, and with putting words to feelings so that he could properly convey just how appreciative he is of his strange, attentive boyfriend.
"Lastly"—he holds up three fingers now—"I reserve the right to cut you off at any time. I'm bartender, I get to decide when it's last call."
What Adam hears is, "I won't let you overdo it. Don't worry, I will take care of you," and he loves him so much for it. So much he's momentarily overcome, but he forces himself to swallow it down.
They've said "I love you" already, but they don't repeat it often. Adam suspects Ronan would say it more if Adam weren't so emotionally stunted. Sometimes he can see it on the tip of his tongue, but what comes out instead is a lighthearted insult or he will just kiss him. Adam usually feels a conflicting combination of disappointment and relief. As much as he craves Ronan's affection, he has a hard enough time knowing how to react to his own emotions, let alone someone else's. On the rare occasions they do say it, it's usually in the dark, often when they're post-orgasmic and vulnerable, and even then Adam tends to feel like an actor who doesn't know what to do with his hands. Like, what should his facial expression be doing? Does he have to make eye contact? For how long? What if they share eye contact so long that Ronan peers inside him and sees how fucked up he actually is and realizes what a mistake all this has been?
He also doesn't quite know what he'd do if one day he says it, and Ronan doesn't say it back.
So yeah, better to just swallow it down.
"Anything to add?" Ronan asks him then; he's dropped his hand back to his side.
Adam does have something to add, but he knows it will exasperate Ronan. He has to say it anyway, though, just in case.
"Don't let me hurt you," he says flatly, trying to keep the underlying fear out of his voice and failing only on the last word, when a bit of Henrietta seeps into his accent, subtle enough that anyone who isn't Ronan probably would miss it.
It's Ronan who's listening, however, and for a moment his eyes darken and then almost just as quickly soften.
"You're not going to," he tells Adam, because he needs to drive home the point. "But okay, I won't," he adds, because Adam needs to hear it said regardless.
"All right." Adam nods at the table. "Then get me drunk, Lynch."
Casting him a smile that's all knives and anarchy, Ronan gets to work.
*
The first real effect Adam feels is that his cheeks are hot.
Ronan has been very strategic in the most chaotic way in regards to the drinks. It seems he was serious about finding out what Adam actually likes rather than just feeding him alcohol until he's slurring and fumbling. To start, he'd set out several solo cups and made samples of different drink and mixer combinations for Adam to try, only allowing him a sip of each one, lest he accidentally get drunk on something he doesn't like the taste of.
Throughout these trials, Adam had made the following discoveries:
- Fruity drinks are good, but too dangerous because it would be too easy to overindulge and lose control.
- Whiskey is disgusting. Ronan makes a note on the side of the cup with the marker.
- It was probably a good thing Ronan made him eat a full meal, plus seconds, before drinking, because "just sipping" is still starting to feel like more alcohol than intended.
- He's pretty sure Ronan has set a timer because every fifteen minutes on the dot he makes Adam drink water.
- Rum is his sweet spot.
Specifically rum and ginger beer, which Ronan tells him is called a "dark 'n stormy" cocktail, and is respectable enough that he won't make fun of him for it. Once it was decided that he would like to stick with rum, Ronan had made him a proper drink, with a proper amount of booze in it, and now the two of them are lounging on the sofa while Ronan tries to find something worth watching and Adam muses over the fact that his cheeks are hot.
He is so overly aware of the fact that it would be easy to fall into a psychosymatic drunken state, convincing himself that he's drunk before it's really even hit his bloodstream, that he has swung too far in the other direction and is now doubting all evidence that he might be getting tipsy. Drowsiness could be easily mistaken as drunkenness, he figures, and he is usually pretty sleepy, so loopiness seems to be a subjective metric. He still feels in control of his thoughts, and the room isn't spinning, but what if he just thinks that he's thinking coherently? Or what if thinking that he just thinks he's thinking coherently is him overthinking it to try and simulate drunken behavior?
God, his head is exhausting to live in. He's surprised Cabeswater stuck around as long as it did.
Hot cheeks seem like tangible evidence, though. He can work with hot cheeks. The room is air conditioned, also it's unseasonably cool outside for a Virginia summer, and it would be hard to fake a physical sensation, so he thinks he can reasonably determine that the alcohol is doing something to him.
"My cheeks are hot," he says out loud without really intending to. Ronan glances over at him with a smirk.
"Yeah they are," he says, predictably. He turns back to the screen where he's scrolling through movies, lingers on Fight Club , which Adam knows is one of his favorites, but then seems to think better of it and moves past it.
"Are you worried I'll get too hot and bothered by all the sweaty, shirtless men and try and seduce you in my compromised state?" Adam asks, again, without his usual amount of forethought. He briefly furrows his brow at himself before taking a long drink from his solo cup.
"Yeah, that's exactly why," Ronan deadpans sarcastically, and then it clicks.
" Oh ," he breathes. "I get it. You think me watching fighting while drinking will trigger my..." He trails off, gesturing vaguely at his head, not entirely sure what he's indicating. His PTSD maybe? Does he have PTSD? Getting a PTSD diagnosis would require going to a professional, which is both too expensive and too terrifying for Adam to consider at this time in his life, so he doesn't actually know, but it seems plausible.
"What's the first rule of Fight Club, Parrish?" Ronan says sternly, clearly being evasive.
"Be very homoerotic," Adam says with certainty. When this startles a genuine laugh out of Ronan his heart speeds up, his cheeks growing even hotter. He regards Ronan with a stupid grin on his lips long enough for Ronan to take notice.
"What? Something wrong with my face?" he asks. Adam brings his cup to his mouth and shakes his head.
"No," he says once he's swallowed, the rum leaving a blunt, not entirely unpleasant burn down the length of his esophagus in its wake. "I just like it when you laugh."
Ronan grunts, averting his gaze back to the TV, seemingly unsure of how to respond to that and deciding the best course of action is to simply not.
Adam doesn't mind. He leans back against the cushions, legs drawn up onto the couch, and nurses his drink, feeling warm and sort of loose as Ronan finally gives up on finding a movie and turns on HBO's Rome , which is one of their go-to "we can't figure out what the fuck to put on so I guess we'll watch this again" shows.
"There are shirtless men and fighting in this, too, you know," Adam muses, mostly to get Ronan to shoot a glare at him, which he does. It is disproportionately funny for some reason, to the point that Adam hears himself let out what can only be described as a giggle. Slightly mortified, he covers his mouth with his hand and mutters, "Fuck, that was..." He trails off again, while Ronan snickers at him.
"Yeah, how much of that have you drank?" He peers over to see the inside of Adam's cup, which is very close to empty. He snorts. "Pace yourself, loser."
"That would defeat the purpose," Adam counters. "In fact"—he pokes him with his toe—"go make me another one."
Ronan huffs.
"I'm not your man servant, Parrish," but even as he's saying it he's starting to stand. He takes Adam's cup and replaces it with a different one that is messily labelled "WATER" on the side, which is unnecessary, but Ronan seems to want to get the most mileage possible out of his permanent marker. "Drink that while I'm gone."
Adam sticks his tongue out at him in response, but he does take a few sips, heeding what Ronan had told him the first time he forced a cup of water into his hand, which was that it would help stave off a hangover if he stays hydrated. That seems worth it. He doesn't particularly want to listen to explosives tomorrow with a throbbing headache if he can help it.
Staying hydrated has its downsides, though.
"Be right back," he tells Ronan when he returns from the kitchen, carrying a refreshed dark 'n stormy for Adam. He kisses him on the cheek as a thanks and mutters "bathroom" as an explanation before pushing himself off the couch.
Adam read or heard or saw a meme or something once that said that you never know how drunk you are until you are alone in a bathroom, and at the time he did not know what that meant.
He now knows what that means.
He hasn't had enough to make him stumble or trip over himself, but there is a definite off -ness to being alone in the tiny half bath that's just off the living room. The world around him is spinning extremely gradually, as if he's on the world's slowest merry-go-round, and his head feels foggy in a way that is reminiscent of those first couple of minutes of waking up after a really deep sleep. Like he's still present, his mind is still there , but it's... muffled. Just a little.
When he's done and is washing his hands he glances at himself in the mirror and can't tell if what he feels is unfamiliarity or hyper-familiarity. Either way, his reflection is vaguely trippy to look at. It's all kind of like when he used to have trees whispering instructions to him that only he could hear. It's off-kilter and othering , but when he takes a moment to assess his emotions, he doesn't find anything alarming. No irritation. No blatant anger. His anxiety is even muted. Mostly, he just feels lazy.
That is, until he returns to the couch and sees that Ronan apparently went and grabbed Adam's favorite throw blanket from where he left it in the bedroom, as well as paused the show so that he didn't miss anything, even though they've watched this a million times.
All at once, the pervasive feeling in his body, powerfully insistent and hot as his cheeks, is a profound sense of love. Adoration, even. He is absolutely overcome.
Ronan, oblivious to Adam's internal emotional upheaval, lifts the blanket up for him upon his approach, and even this simple gesture is unbearable, because he does it so effortlessly. Everything he does for Adam he does effortlessly, and Adam feels like utter dogshit for never expressing the depth of his gratitude. His awe.
He has to tell him. Right now. This second.
He climbs back onto the couch and immediately leans over and gathers Ronan up into a bone-crushing hug. Ronan lets out a huff of surprise, but returns the embrace all the same.
"You good?" he asks after the hug goes on for longer than a hug usually lasts, although he hasn't tried to pull away. On the contrary, he is absently running his hand up and down Adam's spine, treating him so gently even when he doesn't know what's happening. Adam buries his face in the warmth of Ronan's neck and breathes in his scent that he can never quite define. He's pretty sure it's what dreams smell like.
"I love you," he says against his skin. And then, because that seems inadequate, he finally pulls away in favor of looking him in the eye. "I love you," he repeats, emphasizing his words to make sure there's no way they're misunderstood. Ronan blinks at him, clearly bemused but not unhappy.
"I love you, too," he says, easy as breathing. He brushes some of Adam's hair back and Adam leans into the touch, eyelids fluttering closed for a brief moment before opening them again so that he can continue to look at Ronan.
"I don't tell you enough," he laments, heart panging with guilt. "I do, though. I promise I do. So much."
"Parrish—" Ronan starts and then falters. He tries again, "Adam, babe, I know that. I don't need you to say it every time we fucking, I dunno, go to separate rooms or something, okay? I know ." He traces Adam's cheekbone with the pad of his finger and huffs a laugh. "All that fucking worrying you've been doing, and it turns out you're not an angry drunk, you're a sappy one."
Oh.
Oh.
Of course that's where the outpouring of feelings are coming from. The urgency. Hot cheeks aren't the only effect after all. Lower Adam Parrish's inhibitions and you don't get a replica of his father—instead you get an Adam that can actually put a voice to his feelings for once in his goddamn life. The hard feelings. Anger is a simple emotion, it doesn't need dredging up. It's the vulnerable emotions that the alcohol is bringing to the surface and letting loose.
He should feel relieved.
Part of him is relieved.
Another part of him, though, is sad.
Sighing, he plucks up the drink Ronan made for him and sips at it while he settles himself with his head resting on Ronan's shoulder. Ronan wraps an arm around him and holds him close.
"Fucking lightweight," he murmurs in Adam's hearing ear. "Though I think maybe this is my fault, at least a little bit. I probably shouldn't have had you try that many different drinks. They weren't that strong, but it probably added up fast, especially since you've never had any before."
"S'okay," Adam mutters. "This is what I wanted."
"Mm, why do you sound so bummed about it, then?" He's still speaking so softly. The gentleness hurts Adam's heart. "You're being a lovey-dovey asshole. That's the complete opposite of what you were afraid of, right?"
"No, I know. It's a good thing."
"But something's still bothering you about it. What?"
It's easy to find the words for once, which is, of course, exactly the problem.
"I just wish I knew how to love you when I'm sober." He angles his head and sees Ronan's face make a series of complicated expressions. "Out loud," Adam clarifies. "I always love you, but I wish I knew how to do it out loud."
"It's honestly fine, Parrish, I told you I don't—"
"I know, but it's not even just for your sake. It's for mine, too." He takes Ronan's hand in his free one and laces their fingers together. "This feels good. It feels good to feel this... I don't know, openly, I guess. But I also know that when this wears off I'm gonna be embarrassed. Like I showed all my cards on accident and no longer have the upper hand, and that's so stupid , because I shouldn't need an upper hand. I'm not afraid of you, so why do I feel like I have to protect myself?" He sighs heavily and whispers, "I am fucked. Up ."
He doesn't mean because of the alcohol. He means just in general. He is one fucked up human being, and it sucks.
Ronan breathes a laugh and brushes his lips against Adam's cheek—a ghost of a kiss.
"I mean, it's not like I'm the fucking poster child for expressing emotions in a healthy way. We've both been... A lot of fucked up shit has happened to us both. I think it's pretty reasonable for us to be a little fucked up as a result."
"You're not the same, though," Adam counters, shaking his head. "Maybe you don't say the words, but you still love me out loud."
"How's that?"
"Like with"—he makes an all encompassing gesture with the hand holding his cup—"all of it. The way you are with me. Your actions. You... you dream me hand lotion and give me terrible mix tapes. You make sure my favorite coffee mug is clean in the morning even when I forget to wash it out the day before. You make sure to always talk to me on my right side so I don't have to ask you to repeat yourself. You help me get my shit in order so I'm ready for school in the fall, even though I know you don't want me to leave. You pick the peas and carrots out of my fried rice when we get Chinese... I'm drunk, I'm rambling, but you get my point, right?"
Ronan is quiet for a long moment. Then he pulls back far enough that Adam has to lift his head from his shoulder. He searches Adam's face and shakes his head slowly.
"Parrish," he says, sounding baffled. "Do you really think you don't do that same shit, too?"
Adam doesn't know how to answer that. He doesn't do that same shit. Or, at least, he doesn't think he does.
When he doesn't answer, Ronan barrels on, "You got rid of all Mom's fake medical shit without me telling you it was fucking killing me to look at it every day. You field calls from Declan for me. You go to lunch with Matthew, and play with Opal, and sneak pieces of your dinner to Chainsaw."
"Those last ones don't cou—"
"They abso-fucking-lutely count, Parrish, because they're mine. I made them. They're me . Besides, that's not even the half of it. How many fucked up dream things have you helped me bury in the yard, no questions asked?"
"Occasional questions asked."
"Ok, fine, but usually just like, 'what the fuck, Lynch?' which is a fair question. You do donuts with me in the Beemer even though I know you're convinced we're gonna die."
"Probably will eventually."
"Fuck you, we haven't yet. You pick the water chestnuts out of my Chinese food, because they're fucking gross and way worse than peas and carrots. You give fucking amazing head—"
"Okay, I get the point," Adam cuts him off, laughing. Ronan smiles at him, shy but unguarded. He takes the cup from Adam and sets it on the coffee table, then pulls him into another hug.
"I don't give a shit if we don't say the words, Adam," he whispers into his hair. "Like, if it matters that goddamn much to be able to be all emotionally open when you're sober, then we can start trying to do it more or something, but we don't need to. It's fucking like... I dunno, intuitive. Like I already know you're thinking it, and you know I am."
" Tamquam alter idem ," Adam says after a beat. He waits for Ronan to work out the translation and place it, and then smiles when he laughs.
"Cicero," he says, because he's a show-off. "That's it, though. That's what I mean. That's why it's enough."
Adam nods.
"Okay," he concedes. Ronan untangles them from the hug and then retangles them into a better cuddling position.
"I can't reach my drink," Adam protests.
"If I let you keep drinking are you gonna get even more fucking maudlin?" Ronan asks suspiciously.
"Maybe, but it's my birthday."
"Yeah, yeah, and you can cry if you want to or whatever. Here." He reaches over and gets Adam his drink, and then plucks up the remote. "Can we watch TV now or do we need to have more feelings first?"
"You're a shithead."
"Yeah, but you love me." He grins, all shark, and Adam rolls his eyes.
Even still, he says, "Yeah. I really do."
*
As far as hangovers go, Adam knows it could be a lot worse. He's seen Ronan the day after a proper binge, and he usually looks like he just came off the set of The Walking Dead . Mostly, he's just groggy.
Truth be told, he isn't sure he ever even got properly drunk drunk last night. Just tipsy enough to be embarrassing.
And he is, for the record, embarrassed, just like he predicted. He's burrowed in a nest of pillows and blankets in the bed, long after his normal wake up time, and is recounting the night's events with a vague sense of mortification. It does indeed feel like he showed his cards and lost some of his preciously coveted control, which isn't great.
But he feels lighter, too. Like the way it feels after a really good cry, with all the pent up bullshit inside finally purged. There's no monster waiting to be unleashed inside him, which is honestly a relief, and Ronan knows he loves him, which is somehow an even bigger one.
Still, he doesn't think he'll do much drinking going forward. Maybe now and then. Maybe on really special occasions. He doesn't need to, though, or really even want to—it's enough just to know that he can.
"You gonna get up sometime this year?" Ronan asks from the doorway. Adam grunts in response, and only bothers to poke his head out from under the comforter when the smell of coffee lures him. Ronan sets it down on the bedside table. It's in his favorite mug, like always. They share small, knowing smiles, before Adam divebombs his pillow, not ready to face the world yet.
The bed dips when Ronan sits on the edge. He places a hand on Adam's hip and asks, "How are you feeling?"
"Mrph," says Adam.
"That good, huh? You gonna be up for shit with the others later still?"
Begrudgingly, Adam turns his head toward him so that they can have a proper conversation.
"Yeah, of course," he says, voice scratchy with sleep. "I'm fine, just tired."
"Yeah?"
Adam hears the unspoken question in the single word: "Okay, but how are you feeling mentally ?"
"I'm really fine." And it's not a lie. He can handle the embarrassment; the lightness evens it out enough to make it bearable. He adds, "Thank you. For last night, I mean. I know it was a weird request."
"Everything about you is weird as fuck, Parrish, I'm used to it."
Adam hears the unspoken statement: "It wasn't a chore, because I love you."
"Takes one to know one, Lynch," Adam banters back. He means: "I love you, too," and he knows Ronan understands.
"Cool, well if you ever get up I'll be out in the field with Opal. She's been nagging me since six this morning about sparklers."
"You're going to let her play with a stick that is on fire?"
"It's a holiday."
"The house is going to get burned down."
"It's a holiday ."
"Things can burn on holidays."
"Whatever. Come join us or don't, killjoy. We're gotta leave for the witches' house by three, though, so be a human by then at least."
"Yeah, yeah."
Ronan leans over and kisses him on the temple before getting up to leave him to his semi-hangover. Adam props himself up on an elbow.
"Do you think there are any Chinese places open on the Fourth of July?" he asks.
"God I hope so," Ronan says. "I've been so pissed that you mentioned it last night 'cause now that's all I want to eat."
"You check online and I'll make the phone call?"
"Deal."
He gets to the door and glances over his shoulder. They hold each other's gazes for a beat.
On impulse, and with complete sobriety, Adam hears himself say, " Tamquam —"
Ronan's smile has no knives or sharks—only love.
Softly, he replies, "— alter idem ."