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Adam’s been breathing out of his mouth rather than his nose all day, and Gansey can’t just pretend not to notice. It’s not obnoxious or anything—nothing Adam does ever is, really—but of course Gansey notices, because it’s Adam, and when he parts his lips, Gansey tends to look at them. He sounds a little stuffy when he talks, too, but he’s not sneezing, and it’s the wrong season for his eyes to get that pinkish tint when the pollen count goes up, which means it’s not allergies. Adam’s lips are chapped and there are bags under his eyes that are darker than normal, and something is wrong. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what it is.
“Don’t ask,” Adam says without looking up from his homework when Gansey sits down beside him in the empty classroom, and Gansey bites back a frustrated sigh that he knows won’t help the situation.
“Who says I was going to ask?” Gansey counters, casually bumping his knee against Adam’s. They’re in one of the history classrooms, even though school’s already been out for 20 minutes, but their teachers never mind letting the two of them linger late. Adam has work soon, and he says that awkward time gap is why he doesn’t bother to go home right after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Gansey doesn’t know why Adam still pretends that Gansey doesn’t understand the real reason.
“It’s just a sinus infection,” Adam replies, as if Gansey had asked. Still, he doesn’t look up from his homework, though his pencil has stopped moving. “I’ll be normal tomorrow.”
“Will you?”
Adam looks over at him now, his blue eyes tired, and Gansey feels a prickle of guilt that he immediately pushes away—if he gave in every time Adam looked tired, then Gansey would never get to say anything to him at all, and Gansey rather likes saying things to him, even when Adam would rather he not.
“You don’t have to stay late to keep me company, you know,” Adam says, and Gansey raises both brows in surprise at the sudden shift in topic.
“I like to,” Gansey points out. “Besides, it gives me time to get a headstart on my homework.”
There’s amusement in Adam’s eyes now; there is no homework on Gansey’s desk.
“You already finished it all, didn’t you?”
“Couldn’t sleep last night,” Gansey says in answer, and he doesn’t mean to make Adam’s face fall once more, but it happens anyway.
“Sorry I couldn’t talk,” Adam replies quietly, looking away again, gazing at the blackboard at the front of the classroom. It’s blank. “My mom needed the phone.”
Gansey doesn’t have a clue who Adam’s mom could possibly be calling at such a late hour, but he doesn’t ask. The Parrish family house phone is a sensitive subject, and even though Gansey knows how frustrated Adam gets when he can’t use it, Adam gets more frustrated when Gansey offers to buy him a cellphone. Telling him that adding a new line to an existing phone plan is no hardship does not make it go any better.
“Will you call me tonight?” Gansey asks, quiet now too. “If you can?”
“I’ll try,” Adam answers.
Suddenly feeling restless, Gansey stands, abandoning his chair in favor of Adam’s desk, grinning as he nudges aside a notebook and hops up to sit, and his heart swells when he’s granted a toothy smile. It’s one of Gansey’s favorites on Adam, and he doesn’t like it any less when he notices again that Adam is breathing through his mouth, but he does notice it. Adam, for his part, doesn’t seem to notice where Gansey’s eyes linger.
“Do you have work Saturday?” Gansey already knows the answer, but he’s still relieved when Adam shakes his head. “Good. There’s a cavern on the ley line in West Virginia I want to check out. I haven’t heard much about it, but I figure we take the equipment and see what we see.”
“Sure,” Adam agrees, simple and easy as anything, and Gansey wonders if Adam knows how much Gansey loves him. He knows that Adam doesn’t really care about ley lines, about Glendower or magic promises, and maybe he doesn’t believe any of it could ever possibly be real, but he always comes along anyway, and he helps, and he takes it seriously the whole time. Gansey’s not quite sure what he did to deserve this kind of loyalty, but he’s very glad to have it.
Gansey doesn’t know what possesses him to add in a stupidly hopeful voice, “Maybe you could stay over after?”
The handsome smile on Adam’s face slips away, gone like it was never there.
“Don’t want to wait around all night for me to pick up the phone?” Adam challenges, and Gansey doesn’t bother to bite back his sigh this time.
“I don’t want your sinus infection to get worse,” Gansey replies, and Adam’s next exhale is heavier than the last. If Gansey were in shorts rather than their uniform pants, he may have been able to feel that breath against his knee. He wishes he was wearing shorts; it’s not a helpful train of thought.
“I told you not to ask,” Adam says, rising from his seat, and that’s the last thing Gansey wants, and he gives in to the impulse to reach out, to loop two fingers through one of Adam’s belt loops, to keep him close. Adam looks so shocked by it that he barely even looks angry for a moment.
“I didn’t ask,” Gansey argues. “You know I’m just concerned.”
“I don’t need your concern,” Adam snaps, anger clear as day on his face now, but for some reason, he doesn’t pull away from Gansey’s loose grip on his pants.
“I know.” Gansey sighs again, staring up at Adam, who’s looking away again, back to the blank blackboard, as if it’s far more interesting than the obvious adoration in Gansey’s eyes. “I’m not asking you to leave, I’m just asking you to take a night. Stay with me and Ronan and Noah for one night, and we’ll have a nice time.”
Adam shakes his head. “It’s not that easy.”
“It can be,” Gansey insists, reaching out his other hand now, looping two more fingers through another belt loop, still stunned that Adam is even letting him do this. There’s something suggestive about the way they’re positioned, with Adam standing in front of his desk and Gansey perched atop it, knees spread to accommodate Adam’s wiry frame, his hands practically on Adam’s hips. He can feel the warmth of Adam, so tantalizingly close, though their skin has yet to touch, and he has no reason to think it will.
“You think he’d be okay with me being gone for an entire night?” Adam finally asks, voice carefully devoid of emotion. Gansey knows without asking who he is. “You know he doesn’t like when I spend too much time with you. He already thinks we’re…” Adam trails off, sighing. “It would cause another fight.”
Fight isn’t exactly what Gansey would call it. In a fight, you defend yourself.
Instead of saying that, Gansey instead prompts, “He thinks we’re what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Adam dismisses, shaking his head again. “He’s wrong.”
“Adam,” Gansey whispers tenderly, every muscle in his body aching to reach out, to really touch.
“It’s not that easy,” Adam repeats, finally meeting Gansey’s eyes once more. “It can’t be.”
“Adam,” Gansey says again, more insistent now, and Adam’s eyes are glassy and his cheeks are pink and his lips are chapped, and Gansey wants it to be easy. He wants Adam to join his phone plan, he wants Adam to stay and never leave, and he wants more than anything to close the distance between them and taste the breath from Adam’s lips.
“I hate it when you look at me like that,” Adam whispers, and something in Gansey’s chest fractures. “Your pity is worse than your concern.”
Gansey lets out a frustrated exhale, but he doesn’t look away. There’s no point in denying that it’s pity, because Adam won’t believe it. Adam sees what he expects to see, and he’s never expected affection. The reminder that it doesn’t matter what Gansey says makes him feel utterly helpless; he’s nothing without his words, and he’s always known that. He’s tried a thousand times to talk Adam into believing that loving him isn’t a chore, and never once has Adam listened. Why should this time be any different?
Maybe Gansey should finally take a different approach.
“Adam,” Gansey whispers, a third time now, and he relinquishes his hold on Adam’s belt loops, one hand properly settling on Adam’s hip while the other reaches up to cup his cheek, warm skin on warm skin, and he runs the pad of his thumb over Adam’s bottom lip. Adam’s shaky exhale is soft and warm, and… and he doesn’t pull away.
Gansey pulls Adam down into a kiss, and for several glorious seconds, everything is easy. That’s when, of course, Adam rears back, pulling away from Gansey’s hands, Gansey’s lips, from Gansey, his eyes wide and his brow knit. The lips that Gansey had just kissed pull into a frown.
“Is this—is this your pity?” Adam demands in a voice that shakes. “Trying to make me feel better by giving me what you think I want?”
“I can’t just want to kiss you?” Gansey counters, tossing his hands up in frustration. “Things can be simple sometimes, Adam! I like you!”
Adam looks at Gansey like he’s grown a second head, like the concept of him liking Adam is that impossible, and it’s enough to make Gansey doubt—maybe it’s not that Gansey liking Adam is such an impossible thing. Maybe it’s Adam liking Gansey.
Face red with embarrassment, Gansey is about to apologize, to try and smooth over the mess he’s made, but then Adam is closing the distance between them and his lips are on Gansey’s again, and they’re kissing. It’s eager on both ends, and Gansey thinks maybe Adam’s never done this before, but it doesn’t matter, because Adam kisses the same way he does everything else—with single-minded devotion, determined to get it right. Adam’s hands are in Gansey’s hair, and Gansey’s tongue is in Adam’s mouth, and if Gansey could spare a thought for someone other than Adam right now, he would think about how this kiss is so much better than every other kiss he’s ever had. He’s not thinking of any of those other kisses, though. They’re the furthest thing from his mind.
Adam starts to pull back, and Gansey leans up, chasing his lips, but Adam takes a proper step back now, and Gansey’s heart falls.
“I’m—I just need to breathe,” Adam says, cheeks pink, slick lips parted, and Gansey feels a rush of guilt and relief.
“I forgot you couldn’t breathe through your nose for a moment,” Gansey admits, huffing a soft laugh, even though the circumstances around Adam’s difficulty breathing are hardly a laughing matter. Gansey hops down from the desk and holds out both hands. “Come back. Catch your breath closer to me.”
Adam laughs softly too, and he closes the distance again, and Gansey’s hands settle on Adam’s hips. Adam looks a little nervous, like he’s not sure where to put his own hands now that they’re not actively kissing, but Gansey’s sure he’ll figure out what to do with them. What Gansey is doing is pressing his lips to Adam’s neck, right above the crisp white collar of his uniform shirt, and the way Adam gasps surely isn’t helping him catch his breath. Gansey is undeterred, though, pressing close to Adam, as close as he can possibly get, as he kisses all that soft, warm skin. He finds Adam’s racing pulse, and he lingers there, playfully scraping his teeth over it, and Adam trembles in his arms.
“Gansey,” Adam breathes out, and for a second, Gansey thinks that perhaps Adam wants to stop, but then Adam is wrapping both arms around Gansey, those long fingers gripping at the back of his sweater, keeping Gansey pressed close. Even in Gansey’s most shameful dreams, it was never this good, this desperate, this real.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Gansey whispers between soft kisses to Adam’s neck, and Adam’s hands tighten in his sweater, overpriced wool stretching out under his hands.
“How long is a long time?”
“Have you caught your breath yet?” Gansey asks instead of answering, and that’s answered with a kiss that Gansey grins into. It’s easy, really, genuinely easy, and Adam doesn’t need to say it for Gansey to know that Adam’s clearly wanted this too, has thought about it, maybe even dreamt about it with the same guilt and longing and lust that Gansey has. Adam is kissing Gansey like he’ll die if he doesn’t, and it’s that loyalty again, that devotion that Gansey doesn’t think he’s earned but treasures all the more for it. Has it always been this underneath? All along? Was it always going to end up like this? How could Gansey ever possibly deserve any of this?
Gansey slips a hand under Adam’s shirt, smoothing over his back, eager to feel warm skin beneath his fingers, and Adam makes an approving noise into the kiss, but then his breath hitches in a way that doesn’t sound like pleasure, and Gansey realizes that the skin of Adam’s back isn’t just warm; it’s hot. Gansey knows how it feels to touch a bruise, has ghosted his fingers over purpling skin on Adam and Ronan enough times to know, and it’s clear that whatever Adam’s father did to him extends beyond a stuffed up nose. Gansey expects Adam to pull back again, to stop this completely, and then maybe Gansey will be stupid enough to show concern over the extent of Adam’s injuries, and maybe Adam will start another fight, but—but Adam just exhales shakily against Gansey’s lips and keeps kissing him.
Gansey’s hands return to Adam’s hips, and though he wants Adam so badly that he could just about die, he doesn’t let his fingers dig in, lest another bruise bloom beneath his hands. Adam’s pale skin is marred enough already; Gansey won’t contribute to that crime scene.
“Gansey,” Adam whispers again, as Gansey kisses across his flushed cheek, over his jaw, and back down to his neck. “Gansey, we—we’re at school.”
“That we are,” Gansey murmurs, then nips playfully at the spot below Adam’s ear, and he savors the way Adam shudders against him. “However, I am disinclined to disengage from our current enterprise.”
“God, shut up. I didn’t, ah, didn’t say I wanted to stop,” Adam replies. His hands are moving now too, a rough palm finding its way to the back of Gansey’s neck, and Gansey moans softly against Adam’s skin.
“Since the day the Pig broke down,” Gansey whispers, “and you pulled over on your bike to help.”
“Gansey,” Adam murmurs, a third time now. “Since then?”
“Yes,” Gansey confirms, tipping his head back to smile up at Adam, who looks rather dazed. “Every single day since then. Moreso with every passing day, really.”
“I…,” Adam trails off with a quiet huff of a laugh. “I have to get to work.”
Gansey sighs, and he presses one last kiss to Adam’s neck. “Let me drive you?”
“I don’t need—” Adam starts, and Gansey shakes his head.
“If you bike to work, you have to leave now,” Gansey explains, trying to appeal to Adam’s practicality. Adam’s the most practical guy he knows, after all. “But if I drive you, we have six more minutes of kissing before we’d have to leave.”
Adam gives Gansey a look, like he’s about to push back, about to refuse, but then something wonderful happens instead—Adam kisses him once more.