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Adam enters his empty St. Agnes apartment, his feet dragging beneath him in a visible performance of the exhaustion that’s wrapped around his innards without the intention of ever allowing him reprieve. His apartment is something of bleak nature. There’s dust caught in corners he can’t be bothered with, paint peeling on his small windowsill, water stains running from the ceiling to the baseboards. It feels like him. Operating on battered goods.
He stands at the threshold, door kicked shut behind him, chest stuttering.
Robert Parrish was deemed guilty.
He’s free.
How can a free boy still feel like this? Surrounded by his abusers' fists and his cruel reasoning for the strikes they landed? He’s free lawfully, maybe, but he left pieces of himself behind in the trap laid by his father and brought something else back with him in a sorry excuse for a replacement.
His chin quivers. Not with the beginning of sadness but something hot, spreading out across his limbs until it reaches the very edge of them. His fingertips itch with the urge to express, to move into a direction that always ends in hurt.
There’s a secondhand lamp placed on a tall, more secondhand looking wooden stand next to the thin door that is the only exit and entrance to Adams apartment. This is the light source that he has been using since he’d moved in and It’s been in the exact same spot since, dirt collecting on its shade.
It’s there, as it always has been and then suddenly it’s not. Now pieces of it lay in a sharp pile on the other side of the room, the result of porcelain meeting wall. The outlet cover is cracked with the force at which the plus was removed. Its old stand teeters on its legs before settling.
Adam doesn’t remember deciding to throw it, only that he did and now that itch burns into an unbearable blaze throughout his whole fist. Frustration stings at his eyes as he tries to calm himself, refusing to turn into the man he was just released from.
His hands tremble at his sides. And then his right one meets the wall next to him.
It’s painful; a shock of hurt radiates down his fingers, splinters catch in his skin, his knuckles turn red. He didn’t break skin, didn’t draw any blood. The punch only attributes to the lack of energy he holds within himself.
He thinks of trying again – hitting the wooden wall repeatedly until his hand shakes because of fractured bone instead of ragged emotion. Then he thinks of Blue, of getting angry in her space. Then of Gansey, of breaking things in the hallway of his childhood home.
He doesn’t raise his fist again.
He moves – with sluggish effort – to sit at the end of his bed, the mattress groaning under his weight. A broken spring pokes his thigh as Adam stares at the cracks in his wooden flooring, eyes going blurry against the pattern of the grain.
This is the thing with being someone who is – in some version – free; you're still stuck with the memories of the times you weren’t. Memory never lets you leave. You can step away from it, have a sparse time to forget and to breathe in air that doesn't feel like gravel in your lungs but eventually you’re always tugged back by the callous hands of your unrelenting past and soon enough that gravel sits on the back of your tongue until you’re forced to choke it up.
Then it’s rinse and repeat.
Adam’s not sure how long he sits like this, staring into nothing, whether it’s been minutes or hours. Not that the difference would matter. Time is an unimportant concept to Adam now. He’s not sure how to move with it anymore.
There's a knock at his door. Just two raps but their familiarity relieves him immediately, eases the contempt at the idea of socialization that is always quick to rise to the surface. He stands, legs close to buckling under him as numbness leaves and feeling tingles through them again. So, definitely longer than just a few minutes. He peeks at the flickering red numbers of his alarm clock on his way over to the door. It reads 4:43. The court ruling was at noon.
It’s unsurprising to see Ronan there when he creaks open the door. He stands against the gray backdrop of the clouds, dressed in his usual choice of clothes, the propriety he wore at the court house absent by now. Adam realises that he’s still in the same outfit, tie sitting tight at his throat. He hurries to unknot it then. “Hi,” he greets, voice hoarse.
“Yo,” says Ronan. He’s all casual and confident leaning against the rickety railing of the stairs but Adam feels utterly depicted under his smart gaze.
Adam steps aside. Ronan steps inside.
Naturally, he has to duck somewhat in order to keep his buzzed head safe from any splinters but Adam’s just short enough he doesn’t have to worry about that. Though, he still hunches in on himself anyways. It’s always wondering with Ronan, Adam never knows what side of him he’s going to get.
Ronan eyes his suit. Then his hand. Adam unclenches it. “So. What you been up to?”
Adam shrugs. He finally toes off his shoes. He thrifted them specially for the ruling. There’s a hole forming on the sole. “Just,” he waves vaguely, “been hanging out.”
“Right,” Ronan sighs. “I call bullshit.”
Suddenly, irritation rises in him, faster than he can tempt down. So, this is the side of Ronan he’s getting today. The side that brings out the worst in him. He turns on Ronan. “Don’t start to piss me off, Lynch. Not today.”
Ronan throws his palms up. He walks to Adam’s small desk and perches on it, crossing his arms against his chest. “Wasn’t trying to, Parrish.”
“Sure,” Adam scoffs.
He glares at Ronan, then. His leather bands dangle on his wrist, teeth marks chewed to the core of them. His black sleeves are rolled up to reveal his pale forearms, moles stark in contrast. His face is a familiar thing, mouth a thin line, upset eyebrows. But his eyes are a menagerie of everything that he was born with; there’s his usual nonchalance, his integrated anger, his faux disinterest. But under all of that, his heart.
Adam has to look away.
Removing his suit jacket, Adam forces his next words through his teeth. “If you’re not here for any actual reason, I’d like it if you'd leave.” He hangs the piece of material in carved out space in his wall, an excuse for a closet. He’s left in his slacks and white button up. He undoes the first two buttons near his throat and mirrors Ronan in the act of rolling up his sleeves.
“You’re such a shit,” Ronan states. “You know that?”
Adam takes a deep breath and when it doesn’t help he whirls around. “Jesus Christ. Did you just come here to make me angry?”
Ronan seems to actually consider this. “Well, no. But I don’t hate the idea.”
There’s something simmering under Adam’s skin. Something building and waiting for the chance of a breakthrough. He can’t tell which part of him it is. If it’s the side of him that names him as his father’s son or the side he made, the one he owns.
It’s then Adam realizes Ronan isn’t the only one in this room who is unpredictable.
He clenches his jaw before speaking again, controlling voice with the little strength he has left. “Is it impossible for you to just be honest, Ronan? And don’t even start with the whole ‘I’m not a liar’ thing.You don’t have to be a liar to hold back. It’s always conceal don’t feel with you.”
Ronan's glare says he wants to snap his jaws in Adam’s direction. “That’s just fucking rich coming from you, Parrish.”
Usually, this is where his and Ronan's conversations end. One of them says something that pisses the other off and then one of them walks in the other direction, cutting the conversation short. Considering this is his apartment, Adam assumes Ronan would be the one leaving in that opposite direction, essentially walking out his door with a slam.
He doesn’t.
Adam tosses his arms out to his sides. “What do you want, Ronan? I’ve already have a shit fucking day and the last thing I need is you being just another asshole.”
“That! That’s what I fucking want. I want you to cuss and to get mad and to admit how you actually fucking feel.”
Fervently, Adam shakes his head. His eyebrows pull downward in something sad. He feels any simmering anger diminish, replaced with a tired sense of it. “I don’t want to be someone who's mad,” he confesses, his voice verging on a broken whisper.
Ronan steps away from the desk which means he moves closer to Adam. The room somehow seems even smaller with Ronan in its space. Not because of his height but because he’s him – everything all at once. “Why?”
“Because I don't wear it like you. It don’t look right on me. It makes me,” he cuts himself off. He doesn’t want to say too much. He always regrets it in the end. “God. I don’t know, Ronan. What the hell does it matter to you anyway?”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean? You think I don’t care?”
He steps past Ronan and over to the desk the boy was just sitting on. He needs something to do with his hands before he attempts to scratch this uncomfortable exposure off his skin. As he begins a pretense of organizing his clutter, he says, “I never know what you care about. You’re really not easy to read and I think you make it so on purpose.”
Adam is met with silence. It’s the regular Ronan kind, he thinks. But when he turns around to confirm so he is brought face to face with something he doesn’t get to witness often; Ronan completely unguarded. He’s revealed by the slouching posture that he wears now rather than his tough forced one, through the relaxed softness of his eyebrows and mouth rather than the more familiar harsh line of them. But especially by the absence of the smirking glint in his eye that has instead been taken over by absolutely nothing. It’s all just Ronan.
“Fine,” Ronan says. His voice is a replica of the early morning, it’s candid and ready to speak vulnerable truths without the shield of reason. “Lets fucking crack ourselves open.”
Thoughts stuttering, Adams croaks, “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Ronan smiles. It’s a small, personal revelation away from his normal demeanor and Adam thinks it’s his favorite. “I don't mean literally, dumbass. How would that even work?”
“I’m not sure but if anyone could find a way it would be you.”
Flipping him off, Ronan says, “I’m taking that as a compliment.”
Adam can’t tell him that it wasn’t one. He heaves a sigh – one similar to Ronan’s smoker breath – and sits on the side of his bed that faces the window. Ronan follows him but avoids sitting himself down onto the mattress. It’s a weird sense of comfort to Adam, having Ronan look down at him.
That is, until Ronan seems to change his mind and place himself on the ground under the lonely window, putting himself in a position someone would take in a room meant for abnormal respect. It feels inherently wrong; Adam isn’t worthy enough to look down at him and he sure as hell isn’t good enough to have someone like Ronan look up to him. He keeps his distant gaze on the dirty windowpane.
“Parrish,” Ronan starts, forearms balanced on his bent knees. “What does it make you?”
He huffs a laugh but it comes out wrong. There are many answers on the tip of his tongue but the easiest one falls off of it first. “Ugly.”
He finally makes himself meet the other boy's eye. It hurts. Ronan is looking at him with honest and naive disbelief. Adam’s not sure what he expected – Ronan’s a dreamer, after all.
“Adam. No.” The two words – his first name – of disagreement are spoken with such vehemence and it makes the base of Adam’s throat tighten with emotion. He doesn’t want to disappoint him.
He turns his gaze back outside. “It’s true. I’ve always been a little freakish but his anger makes me ugly. Plain and simple. It don’t matter whether it’s from a bruise on my face or the same look in my eye he used to get.”
“Shut up. Seriously. You’re gonna piss me off.”
Adam shakes his head, dejected. He chuckles something dry. “This is just me cracking myself open. Sorry if it’s not what you wanted.”
Ronan goes quiet. Then, “you’re right. I just – I can’t see it. I couldn't even dream of it. You don’t wear your anger like him. It’s not ugly it’s – fucking hell, Parrish – it's righteous.”
Righteous. Adam would like to think so. He lets himself imagine it, sees himself through Ronan's eyes, someone who always seems to find the best in the worst. Or at least tries to understand how that worst part became because he believes it’s worth something. Expect, this isn’t just a part of Adam, it’s every inch of him. It’s grown with the very roots of him.
“I’ve always admired your mind,” Adam says. “The way you believe in things.”
Sad eyes bore through his own. Ronan sighs, lips pursed. He’s frustrated, Adam can tell. It’s as if there’s something he wants to say but he’s not sure exactly which group of words to string together to encompass what it is he wishes to express.
A moment later, he makes a decision to forgo words entirely. Tensing, Adam watches cautiously as Ronan moves in front of him, shifting onto his knees. He scoots forward, until his chest is level with Adam's lap and turns his head up to him, attention complete and whole.
It’s derailing, in a sense. If Adam thought that their former positions were something of undeserved reverence, this is an entirely separate entity. His pulse kicks inside him, his face twists into a frown.
Ronan's hands draw toward his. Adam notices the urge within himself to flinch away from the sudden touch of a warm palm on top of his pair of knuckles. He doesn’t.
The weight of Ronan’s hands framing Adam’s balled up ones is something so gentle it’s unbearable. It’s made known to Adam then that this is what it feels like to be a strange creature held in the careful arms that is Ronan’s honest nature. He is a baby raven named Chainsaw waiting to be fed every two hours, a mouse held against the smooth swell of his cheek, a little girl with hooves for feet always waiting for the safety of his presence to come back.
Ronan brings his forehead down to their tangled fingers. Adam can hear him murmuring. A prayer – no. His name, over and over; Adam Parrish. It’s the same cadence he has heard from Ronan when the boy is either looking to the sky or to his feet, speaking to God. But he’s not talking to God right now, there's not enough room for Him. He's talking to Adam, about Adam.
“Ronan,” Adam replies. He doesn’t believe in God but he knows how to pray, too. He made a habit of it after he accepted his violent father and ignorant mother. Nothing ever came of it. Though, this is different. It is easier when your faith is right in front of you. “Ronan Lynch.”
“Adam Parrish,” Ronan repeats, turning his head to the side, cheek laying on their mess of hands. From this view he can see the details of Ronan’s tattoo, the curve of his ear, the trust of his bare neck. Adam clenches their fingers together, a mimic of the tightness in his chest.
“I prayed the first time I saw you. Me and Gansey drove past you once, you were walking with a bicycle. It was only a glimpse but I thought – please, God. Please let me know that boy with the bike. Please let me have this.”
It’s an honest shock to watch a tear roll down his cheek, dripping down onto his nose. Adam never thought that they would ever get this far with each other. He never wants to go back.
“I hadn’t,” Ronan starts, voice cracking out. He takes a deep breath, a small hiccup interrupting it. “That was the first time I had prayed since my father died. And it scared me.”
Adam lets all this sink in. This is Ronan’s cracked revelation, his confession. Adam thinks that it doesn't matter whether or not he believes he doesn’t deserve this sort of attention, this form of admiration, because Ronan is baring his truth and Adam doesn’t have it in him to hold onto his distrust anymore. It’s obviously selfish but he’s helpless to it today. From now on, probably.
“Why did it scare you?”
Ronan's eyes are shut. His body becomes a limp weight against Adam's legs. There’s a small, almost indecipherable shudder playing throughout his limbs right now that Adam wouldn’t have noticed if not for their proximity.
This is a point Adam never would have thought he would ever bring someone to, only himself. But it’s now that he gets to experience what both and together and tandem means; he feels that same uncontrol of shuddering parts and heavy, teary eyes transfer along to him. It’s like something between them has begun to mold together in the softest way possible. Yet, all consuming.
There’s a latin phrase for this, Adam knows. Tamquam alter idem.
“Because sometimes dreams are worse than nightmares,” Ronan answers.
It’s a cruel thing of hope he is referring to. Ronan began to hope because he was forced to dream far too young at a level that created impossibilities in the half of his world called reality and then he was expected to forget that condition. Adam understands this, in his own way, but more like he brought it upon himself. He’s tried to train himself to let that futile way of living go but to no avail.
Adam disentangles a hand and hovers it in an awkward position above the head taking territory in his lap, atop his other hand. This crosses a line of reciprocation he’s not sure that he is any good at but he still lets himself lower his hand and cup it against Ronan’s skull. The stubble of his preferred haircut is a strong sensation against his inexperienced palm. It’s grounding, the roughness of it.
It’s only when Adam witnesses a tear drop down onto the side of Ronan’s head that he realizes he didn’t register quickly enough just how much his composure has dissolved. But this is the point, isn’t it? He and Ronan cracking themselves open, turning themselves inside out.
Ronan opens his eyes. The action is a flutter of eyelashes and red rimmed lids acknowledging Adam’s touch and tears. He removes his head from Adam’s lap, looking up. He’s always been a contemplative thing, disdainfully curious. That’s not this. This up close stare isn’t asking for an answer, it just wants to look for the sake of learning in the art of silence.
Adam learns back. This is the part of them that is Cabeswater – a version that is the truest because it is shared. They are the space of in between, everything else that is before or after them isn’t an idea that’s comprehensible – or wanted.
He bends at his waist and brings his forehead to Ronan’s. Removing both hands from their previous spots, he places both to take hold of the back of Ronan’s neck. Whispering, he asks, “did God listen, then? Do you know me?”
Ronan’s answer is predated by warm breath tickling Adam’s upper lip and fingers wrapping around his wrists. He sniffs, then says, voice low and hoarse, “I’ve always been good at the unknowable. I’ve just never been this lucky.”
There; face to face, breath against breath, palms to buzzcut, fingers to wrists – Adam cries, then croaks, “tell me what I am.”
“Who,” Ronan corrects. He stands. The bottom half of his body pushes upwards but he doesn’t stop their current contact of foreheads. Instead, he uses it as leverage to then press Adam’s body backwards onto his bed, the rest of their bodies just barely brushing each other, his knees between Adam’s. “You’re not a what, Adam. You’re real.”
Adam’s breath shutters. “It don’t feel like it,” he admits.
It’s very apparent that Ronan could growl with disagreement. “You take up space. I think about you and think about you and think about you. Summer born freckles under the Cabeswater sun, the smell of gasoline and earth, the shape of your hands. But also your mind, everything inside of you that I can’t see but have felt.”
There’s nothing for Adam to say, or rather there’s a million things running through his head but he can’t stop crying long enough to properly speak. He shakes his head, dislodging Ronan’s forehead from his. “No,” he manages to whisper.
“Yes.” Ronan pulls back to look down at him. “Do you trust me?”
Trusting Ronan right now, in this very moment, means recalibrating everything he has thought about himself and that almost feels impossible. But, still, he does. It’s surprising in its own way; Ronan is reckless and always seems to bargain with the chance of bad results but he keeps his word and that’s the most important thing to Adam – the security in him. He trusts Ronan more than he believes in anything else.
He swallows hard and takes a breath before jerking out a small nod. He hopes everything he isn't saying is visible in his eyes. Confessing to this is like some version of relief. He can give his doubts over to Ronan, let him adjust them to his candid perspective, and then hand them back to Adam with less weight and the simple rule ‘this is what’s true, believe it.’
“Then trust me on this. You are known, Adam Parrish, and you are entirely beautiful.”
Adam doesn’t cry – he sobs, ugly and wholly. His body shakes with it, from head to toe. Everything that he’s been successful at holding back – until now, apparently – is leaving his body under the guise of tears. He squeezes his eyes closed, trying to seal his mouth shut.
Ronan lays the weight of his body down, delicately, onto Adam’s and touches their cheeks together, purposefully making it so their mouths are right by each other’s ears, like Ronan wants to hear everything of him. “No holding back, remember? You can let go.”
“Okay,” he hiccups. “O – okay.”
They're the most realistic pair in the world right now with their legs and feet dangling off the bed, clammy skin against clammy skin, Adam with his wet eyes and snotty face, Ronan with his heavy breath and forgotten casualness. This is the result of allowing a crack to continue its path towards an open dam; solace without having to give anything in return.
He wraps his arms around Ronan’s back. It’s not long before his crying makes his eyelids heavy, a different exhaustion overtaking him this time, one that’s more agreeable. “I’m tired," he admits, lips grazing the outside of Ronan's ear.
“I know,” Ronan murmurs.
He begins to sit up, disentangling their bodies. A new sense of disappointment crawls through Adam. He copies Ronan in sitting up quickly, waiting and watching for the end of whatever they’ve just created.
Ronan reads him at a rate that should be alarming but can now only be expected. “Nothing’s wrong. We should just get more comfortable. I can’t feel my damn legs.”
“Oh, alright.”
He wipes his face while Ronan moves. It’s a hard shuffle on his small bed but soon enough Ronan finds his new position in taking up the top part of the bed, his head on the only pillow and an open space between his legs. “C’mere,” he gestures.
Adam ignores the hesitancy buzzing inside of him. He shuffles the little way he needs to to get to Ronan, sitting inside of his bent knees.
He pats his chest, slightly impatient, asking, “what the hell are you waiting for?”.
Scoffing, Adam complies. He gently props himself down onto Ronan's chest, head tucked into the warm crevice of his neck, hands curled against his black shirt. Ronan wraps his arms around Adam, one hand scratching lightly on his lower back. Adam’s wariness flows out of him. He doesn’t resist the dropping of his eyes, the way his breathing slows into an unfamiliar pace.
He can feel Ronan angle his head down towards him. “Well, aren’t you just comfortable?”
The rumble of his comment brings a tiny smile to Adam’s languid face. In this small amount of time – meaning since Ronan’s knock came on the door – he’s grown to appreciate the different aspects to their relationship. How they can go from indulging in their ever fraying edges and then easily head back to their regular bantering ease.
“I am,” Adam mumbles, accent heavy. Then, softer, bordering unconscious, he says, “I want to do this more.”
“Cuddle?”
He makes a disagreeing noise. “I mean – yeah, sure. But everything else too, telling each other things.”
“Yeah, man. Is my emotional intelligence rubbing off on you?”
“Shut the hell up,” he slurs. “And don’t call me man.”
It’s silent and Adam thinks that the conversation has dropped. But he’s just barely crossing the line of slumber when the vibrations of Ronan’s voice bleeds through his chest again. “You don’t want to be my man?”
Adam wakes up, just barely. He cracks his eyes open, squinting as he shifts to sit his chin up on Ronan’s chest. Ronan is looking at the ceiling, chewing on his bottom lip. He stares before dragging a sluggish hand up to Ronan’s face to pull his bottom lip free with his thumb, letting it lay there while he speaks. “I’ll be your man,” he conceads.
Ronan finally looks down. Doing so pushes Adam’s thumb against the inside of his lip, leaving Ronan to speak against it. “And I can be yours?”
He drapes his hand on the pillow above Ronan’s head and slides his other one under his left shoulder, gripping the muscle there. “Mhm. That’s right.”
“Cool.”
Nothing is said after that. Sleep has never felt so wonderfully imminent. Ronan keeps switching between rubbing and scratching his back, his movements slowing as he follows Adam into the maze of rest. “Take us to Cabeswater,” he whispers. “Just us.”
“Already fucking on it.”