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When Adam arrives at the Barns, dusk covers all that his eyes can see. He parks the Hondoyota in the gravel drive, wincing as he stretches his left arm to flick off the car lights. He pauses to tug his shirtsleeve down before getting out of the car.
Ronan expected him back earlier, but he isn’t inside the house as Adam thought he might’ve been. His search brings him back outside, through the orchards and spattering of barns. He finds Ronan behind one of the empty barns back aways, mending a fence. Or examining his finished work, rather. Ronan pushes down on a post, testing its strength, and nods to himself, satisfied. Then he takes a step to the side for the next one, and does the same. He does this a few times more before tossing some tools back into the toolbox. Then–Adam’s breath catches–he strips his tank off and swipes it over his face and neck, shoulder muscles shifting nicely with the movement.
Adam’s so busy admiring he almost doesn’t notice Ronan’s gaze on him. By the time he does, there’s no denying his ogling, so he smirks and shrugs instead. Ronan, prone to staring himself, doesn’t seem bothered. If anything, the flush in his cheeks deepen.
“How long did you know I was here?” Adam asks, stepping closer. He can’t stop staring at Ronan, at his face, his torso, his forearms. He’s breathtaking in the golden, dusky light of evening.
“Long enough.”
“Did you hear me? I don’t walk that loud, do I?”
“Nah, not really.”
“What, did my presence make your farmer senses start tingling?”
“Fuck off,” Ronan says, but he laughs. The sound makes Adam swell up.
Ronan bends to grab his toolbox, and they start back toward the house together. Grumpily, he asks, “What kept you so long?”
Adam smiles down at their hands, the place where they brush as they walk slowly side by side. Ronan is terrible at hiding when he misses Adam.
“I was with Blue.”
“Studying still? Jesus God, I swear, Parrish, you’ll do fine on Civics if only you’d stop overthinking it.”
“Nah, I know.”
“Then stop being such an idiot about it.” Ronan raises an eyebrow at him and, when Adam doesn’t nod in agreement, leans over to nudge Adam’s shoulder with his own. It’s meant to be playful, Adam knows, but it still makes him stop and wince in pain, clamping a hand over his upper arm.
“Oh, fuck. Fuck,” he breathes, gingerly cupping the sensitive skin.
“What is it?”
Ronan peers at him, eyes wide with concern. He tries to pry Adam’s hand off, but Adam bats him away. Ronan narrows his eyes and tries again; they grapple at each other for a moment until Ronan succeeds in yanking Adam’s hand down and pushing up his left shirtsleeve. His brow furrows with confusion at the bandage revealed.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” Adam says with a sigh. “Now you’ve gone and ruined the surprise.”
It takes Ronan a few good seconds to piece it together.
“Wait, Parrish. Adam.” His fingers slide down to Adam’s elbow, and he doesn’t think Ronan even realizes. He looks breathless. “Did you get a tattoo? You really fucking got a tattoo?”
“Yes, I did,” Adam says. He can’t help but be a little smug at Ronan’s disbelieving tone. “Blue and I both.”
It’d started like this: They were at Nino’s one night, and Cheng was for some reason undeterredly preoccupied with asking Ronan questions about his tattoo. One such question was if it really hurt that much, and to everyone’s surprise, Ronan had laughed.
“Hurt enough,” he’d said arrogantly. “None of you could handle it. Sargent, maybe.”
Blue, indignant as she tends to be, had silently taken it as a challenge, whether or not Ronan meant it that way. Adam didn’t have any idea she had, at least until this afternoon when she shoved away the notes she was supposed to be helping Adam study and asked him if he wanted to go to the tattoo parlor.
Adam had never felt particularly compelled to get one himself, but when they were at the parlor a design caught his eye. Before he knew it, he was being pushed into the chair and gritting his teeth as his arm got inked up.
“Well, shit.” Ronan laughs. His fingers go to the tape holding the bandage down. “Can I see it?”
“No,” Adam says, shoving him away again. When Ronan frowns at him, he adds, “The bandage is supposed to say on for two more hours. Be patient.”
“What’s patient?” Ronan says obtusely.
Adam ignores him, slapping his hands away again. “Besides, it hurts. Stop, God, you’re a child.”
“Ha, I knew you wouldn’t like it,” Ronan brags, but he nonetheless keeps his hands away. Before they keep on, though, he leans down to gently press his lips against the edge of the bandage. Adam nudges him along before he notices the fondness pressing into the corners of Adam’s lips.
“You said Sargent got one too? What’s hers?”
Adam can’t help snorting a little. “Think of the most terribly cheesy, sentimental thing she could get. She said she wanted to get it now that graduation’s looming so close, and we’ll all be kind of, well. Going our separate ways.”
It isn’t something any of them like to think about too much, even though they all know they have good things coming, bright futures and all that. Things will just be different, that’s all. Adam doesn’t want to dwell on it either.
“Terribly cheesy?” Ronan repeats. When he realizes, he swings around to eye Adam, toolbox clanging against his knee. “No, she didn’t. A damn raven?”
“Yeah.” Adam stifles a laugh at Ronan’s horrified expression. “It’s not too bad, really. Just a tiny thing on her wrist.”
“So…she got Chainsaw tattooed on her wrist?”
Adam rolls his eyes. “She knew you’d say that,” he muttered. Ronan laughed deviously.
“God, I’m so flattered. Wait until Chainsaw sees. Opal, though, hm. Sargent’s gonna have fun dealing with that…”
Ronan blathers on in that grumpy muttering way of his, and Adam mostly tunes him out. He does grab his hand, though, and Ronan pauses, squeezes Adam’s fingers, then continues on complaining about the women of Fox Way spoiling Opal too much.
They eat leftover pizza for dinner while watching a cooking show. He’ll never admit it, but Ronan likes them, Adam has learned. It didn’t take too many times of turning on the TV and finding it on Food Network for him to realize. He’s taken to leaving it on that channel without a word, and now it’s basically their usual to watch an episode of Chopped at some point in the evening.
Not usual tonight, though, is Ronan’s staring. He hardly looks away from Adam, even during the closing moments of the show, and though Adam’s grown accustomed to the weight of Ronan’s gaze, welcomes it even, he knows Ronan would get sheepish if he pointed it out.
So he takes pity, simultaneously giving in to his own anticipation, and soon as the program is done, he sets his dinner plate aside and shifts toward Ronan on the couch.
“Wanna see it, then?”
Ronan’s face lights up in a malicious, beautiful grin. Adam hadn’t even thought the tattoo was a big thing, but he’d go back for a thousand more if only Ronan would react in the same way again.
Ronan’s fingers are gentle as he pushes up Adam’s sleeve once again and pulls off the medical tape holding the bandage down. His eyes are full of anticipation as he peels the bandage off, and soon as he catches sight of the tattoo, he freezes.
“Adam, fuck,” he breathes. He swipes his thumb over it, just barely. Adam hardly feels it, too arrested by Ronan’s face.
“What do you think?” Adam hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.
Ronan doesn’t even try to meet his gaze, but immediately he says, “It’s perfect.”
Adam exhales heavily. He’d thought so too. The deer skull caught his eye immediately; the antlers are intertwined with vines and flowers, and it wraps around Adam’s bicep like it fits, like it’s meant to be there. It reminds him of Cabeswater, of being a Magician, and of his friends and their adventures. But even more than that, more than Blue probably realized back at the tattoo parlor when she immediately loved it, it reminds him of Ronan, for Ronan has the tiniest deer skull among the myriad of tattoos inked into his back. Adam has learned that after hours of study, mornings lying in bed lazily and nights waiting for Ronan to sleep first so Adam could watch the vulnerable lines of his face. He doubts Ronan even knows it’s there, but that’s not really the point of it anyway. Adam wouldn’t mind if that stays his secret always.
“It’s perfect,” Ronan whispers again. He ducks his head absentmindedly to bite at the less sore skin of Adam’s elbow, and even though it stings like it always does when Ronan does that, Adam laughs. He thinks, you are perfect.
“C’mon, shithead,” he says, elbowing Ronan in the chest. “Help me clean it up? Don’t worry, I’ll let you keep ogling it much as you want…”
He darts away before Ronan can pummel him in retaliation.