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Time seemed to slow down after Gansey’s second brush with death.
There was a brief recovery period during which Gansey and Henry camped out at Fox Way with Blue while more often than not, Adam found himself at the Barns.
It wasn’t until Gansey was back in Monmouth a few days later that things began to settle again. The five of them – Gansey, Blue, Ronan, Adam, and Henry – sat on the floor between the hideous couch and the pool table in a loose circle, trading truths by candlelight like that night at the Barns. Only this time the air smelled like Madagascar vanilla bean (thanks, Helen).
“First kiss?” Henry grinned, pointing at Gansey and wagging his eyebrows. Ronan began to snicker and Gansey dropped his head into his hands. Henry’s extended finger swung over to Ronan. “Oh, don’t worry, Lynch. I’m asking everyone!”
Blue nudged Gansey’s ribs with her elbow, grinning. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad!”
“It was awful!” Gansey wailed from between his fingertips. “It was actually at that party where I died for the first time,” he grumbled. “Her name was Mildred. A senator’s daughter, I believe.”
“Mildred,” Ronan teased, not even bothering to hide his feral grin.
“It was awkward and quick and then I died and she never wanted to talk to me again. I, quote, ‘freaked her out,’ if I remember her exact words.”
There was a brief pause as the group digested this information. Henry’s chuckle broke the quiet. “That’s dark, man. Parrish? First kiss?”
Adam felt his eyes flick over to Ronan for a half beat before he answered. “I think I was maybe 11 or 12? This girl Maisie from school kissed me behind the little league bleachers.”
“Classic!” Henry said, nodding.
Adam cracked a wry smile. “It was OK, I guess.”
Ronan snorted and bumped shoulders with Adam. “What, country girls not your type, Parrish?”
Adam raised one eyebrow back at him. “I think you know what my type is, Lynch.”
“Angry and opinionated?” Gansey quipped, throwing an arm around Blue with a grin.
“Hey!” Blue and Ronan chimed in unison. They shared a surprisingly good-natured glare across the circle.
“Wait, what did I miss?” Henry asked, head swiveling between Adam and Gansey.
Gansey leaned forward so he could send a conspiring smirk Henry’s way. “Did you know that Blue and Adam used to be an item?”
Henry feigned shock and fanned himself. Then, affecting a much exaggerated Southern belle accent, he cried, “Why, Mr. Parrish, I never! ”
“Do I need to fight for my honor, or...?” Blue chuckled.
“If anyone’s honor needs to be defended, it’s mine,” Gansey grumbled.
The group dissolved into a fit of laughter, and Henry beamed back at the chaos. When they all settled, Henry narrowed his eyes at Ronan. “All right. Lynch? Don’t think you’re getting out of this. Who was your first kiss?” Ronan’s face flushed all the way down his neck. Adam pointedly did not look at Ronan. “Wait,” Henry amended. “Have you never...? I mean, that’s totally cool, dude. You don’t have to-“
“I have,” Ronan growled, scuffing his boot against the floor.
“Then...?”
There was another brief silence – it felt like everyone in the circle was holding their breath. Finally, Ronan heaved a sigh and steeled himself. He met their curious gazes with defiance. “Adam.” It took a second for the name to settle over the group. When no one reacted, Ronan mumbled, “Adam was my first kiss.”
Blue and Gansey looked dangerously close to cooing, but before they could, Henry interjected. “Parrish? Nice.” He grinned and put his fist into the middle of the circle. When Ronan reached to bump their knuckles together, his smile grew wider and he laughed. “Good man.”
Adam was sporting a light flush on his cheeks. He knocked shoulders with Ronan and they shared a warm glance. Ronan kept their shoulders pressed together.
“Well, I guess we all know who Jane’s first kiss was!” Gansey chuckled, squeezing Blue’s shoulder.
Blue merely peered up with him and quirked a brow. “Do you?”
“Wait,” Gansey’s gaze flickered between her and Adam. “Was it...”
She gave a curt shake of the head. “Noah.”
The group grew quiet again.
“If... you don’t mind me asking,” Henry ventured, voice thick with apprehension. “Who’s Noah?”
“A friend,” Ronan answered, jaw tight. Adam slid his fingers between Ronan’s and squeezed. The sharp line of Ronan’s shoulders relaxed minutely.
Blue and Gansey were holding a rapid-fire silent conversation. Do we tell him? How much? I mean, he’s seen so much already...
Gansey cleared his throat. “Noah Czerny. He used to go to Aglionby, before he was killed.”
“Sounds pretty wild,” Henry nodded solemnly. “Does that mean you kissed a ghost, Sargent?”
She nodded, and Gansey turned a serious gaze on Henry. “We’ll tell you from the beginning.”
---
“Squaaash one, squaaash twooo!” A raven’s voice crackled from a small cuckoo clock on Ronan’s night stand in Monmouth. Instead of a canary, a little raven flapped its wings and turned in time with the beat of the alarm. Adam groaned at the awful sound and flung a hand out behind him to shut the thing off. After a minute of fumbling, he extricated himself from the warm arms around him to sit up and smack the clock into silence.
Those arms snaked their way back around his torso and pulled him back into the warm cocoon of blankets. Adam indulged himself by turning his face into the hollow of Ronan’s throat to rub his nose against the faint stubble there.
He could feel Ronan’s broad hands slide up the plane of his back to hold him close. Adam breathed in the scent of moss and sweat and cursed the cold reality of earning a paycheck. He could postpone getting up by ten minutes at the most – he slid a leg between Ronan’s and pressed his cold bare toes to his calf.
Ronan grunted and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Fuckin’ cold,” he mumbled. A few strands of Adam’s hair got caught in his mouth so he spat them out with a small huff of air that made Adam laugh.
“Real sexy, Lynch,” Adam murmured into Ronan’s throat. Ronan ran his hands up and down Adam’s back.
“What, you’d rather me eat your hair? Gross. Didn’t know you were into that, Parrish.” One hand slid up to brush Adam’s bangs from his forehead so Ronan could kiss him again, unimpeded.
Adam sighed and settled in even further. “Ugh, I don’t wanna get up.”
“Then don’t,” Ronan whispered. He was now peppering soft kisses all over Adam’s face. His eyelids. His cheeks. The bridge of his nose. His chin. His jaw.
“You know I can’t do that. I need the money.” Even though he was frowning, Adam’s voice was soft.
Ronan frowned, too, and ghosted his lips over Adam’s forehead again. An argument sat perched on his lips, but he swallowed it to press them against Adam’s in a chaste kiss. He could feel Adam melting against him like a caramel left in the summer sun, soft and sweet and golden. Their lips met again and again between quiet sighs and the rustle of sheets until Adam finally pulled back to groan. Ronan chased his lips for two more kisses before finally letting him go with a pout.
“I’ll see you at the Barns later, ok?” Adam reassured Ronan with a brief squeeze to his bicep. “I’ll bring something back for Opal to chew on.”
Ronan grinned at this and stole one more kiss before Adam dragged himself out of bed to get ready.
---
It was actually pretty easy for Adam to get a hold of knickknacks for Opal to chew on. He kicked his shoes off in the foyer of the large farmhouse, shoebox tucked under one arm. Feeling a stroke of mischief, he called out, “Honey, I’m home!”
Adam bit back his smirk when he heard the sound of scuffling fall silent. He ventured down the hall to lean in the doorway of the kitchen, where Ronan was trying to teach Opal how to use utensils to eat a bowl of Spaghetti-O’s. Orange-red sauce was smeared all over the bridge of her little white nose and around her mouth, as well as all over the baby bib she was wearing. Ronan stood behind her, trying to wrestle a spoon into her tiny hand. Adam found himself breathless at the sight. Something in his chest rattled, and it sounded suspiciously like this is what a family is supposed to look like.
Ronan quirked an eyebrow at Adam and gulped audibly. His voice almost cracked when he asked, “Come again?”
Adam grinned back at him and fought the flush rising in his cheeks. “I said,” he replied, Henrietta drawl in full force now. “Honey, I’m home.”
Even though Adam clearly meant it as a joke, he could see the very real physical jolt that wracked Ronan’s body the second the words were in the air. He dropped Opal’s spoon on the kitchen table and stalked towards Adam, never taking his eyes off of him until he slid his fingers into Adam’s hair and pulled him into a bruising kiss.
Adam met each brush of lips, each swipe of tongue, each tender bite with his own and wrapped his free hand around Ronan’s waist to pull him closer. In between kisses, Ronan breathed truth into Adam’s open mouth.
“God, I wanna keep hearing you say that ‘til the day I die.”
Adam replied with a truth of his own.
“I’ll keep sayin’ it as long as you want me to.”
Adam could feel a supernova budding in his chest, expanding and pulsing as it threatened to swallow itself whole. He felt like he was dying. Like he was living. Like he was careening through space on a stray comet, all fire and stardust.
The moment was interrupted when Adam felt a pair of small arms wrap around his leg. Adam pulled away from Ronan to pat the little blonde head that was knocking against the shoebox in curiosity. Ronan breathed out a laugh and tugged gently on a strand of her hair.
“Now he’s gonna have to do laundry, brat. This is why we eat with spoons, you little shit.”
She peered up at Ronan from beneath her skullcap and cawed, “Kerah!” Chainsaw replied from somewhere in the living room with her own bird noise.
Sure enough, Adam’s work jeans now sported a very orange smudge of not-quite-tomato-sauce. He cracked a smile and opened the box for Opal to peer inside. “They’ve seen worse. Here, Opal, go wild. Don’t swallow anything, though.”
Tiny, deft fingers plucked out a small squishy giraffe. One leg was slightly shorter than the rest – that’s how it ended up in the warehouse reject pile. All of the toys in the box had some minor defect or another, but in Adam’s opinion, they were all perfectly fine to play with.
“None of those are choking hazards, are they?” Ronan frowned and poked around the box a little.
Adam scoffed and bumped his forehead against Ronan’s. “What do you take me for? All of these are baby toys. They’re designed to be chewed on.”
Ronan’s lips pulled into a small, fond smile. Adam let Opal take the shoebox to investigate and leaned into another round of kisses. God, he could do this forever. He wanted to do this forever, he realized. It wasn’t as scary a thought as he’d imagined.
Again, the moment was soon broken – this time, by Adam’s growling stomach. Adam groaned and hid his face in Ronan’s shoulder. He could feel Ronan chuckle against his cheek. “Hungry? I made dinner.”
Adam’s heart swooped at those words, and the whole ‘Honey, I’m home’ thing took on yet another dimension. He wondered if it had really been a joke after all.
“What’s on the menu? Chef Boyardee? Hot Pockets?”
Ronan snorted and pulled away to tend to the stove. “What do you take me for, Parrish?” he echoed with a smirk. “I only made Spaghetti-O’s because the brat is the pickiest eater of food that’s actually meant to be eaten. I made us something else.”
Adam followed him in to lean against the kitchen counter. Ronan began pulling dishes from the cabinet and handing them to Adam in a silent request to set the table. Adam set two places across from the Spaghetti-O Disaster Zone while Ronan hurried to place steaming dishes of food at the center of the table. Adam could feel his mouth watering already.
When they settled in their seats, Ronan began gesturing to the different dishes. “Smoked salmon and cheese. Lamb and barley stew. Steamed carrots and shit. Champ – that’s potatoes. And for dessert, I made soda bread. All hand-me-down Lynch family recipes from the Old Country.”
Adam’s eyes danced over the array of dishes as Ronan spoke. They were all cradled in well-worn, well-loved ceramic cookware. He blinked twice and realized that his eyes were stinging. “Ronan,” he breathed, a beatific smile fixed to his face. “This... this is incredible! I didn’t know you could cook!”
Ronan rubbed the bridge of his nose and began to scoop food onto their plates. “My mom used to cook this on Sundays. She’d let us eat chicken nuggets and pizza rolls and shit during the week, but Sundays were for church and a full family meal. It’s pretty much the only stuff I know how to make.”
“Thanks,” Adam said, a smile tugging on his lips. He left a quick peck on Ronan’s cheek and unfolded his napkin.
“Yeah, well, no promises that it’s any good,” Ronan mumbled.
“It smells amazing. It looks amazing.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re so hungry you’d eat a fucking shoe right now.”
Adam snorted and tucked in to the meal before him.
---
Opal did not like baths.
In order to mitigate the effects of the Spaghetti-O Disaster, Adam and Ronan tried, in vain, to wrangle her into the bathtub after dinner.
After getting his shins kicked by tiny hooves and face smacked with tiny fingers and eardrums assaulted with hellish shrieks, Ronan hoisted the girl over his shoulder and marched outside.
“All right, punk. If you’re gonna act like an animal, we’re gonna bathe you like an animal.” He plopped her in the grass around the side of the house. “Parrish! Let’s hose her down.”
Adam began to unwind the coil of green garden hose against the side of the house. “Don’t you think this is a little cruel? The water must be freezing.”
Ronan was making quick work of Opal’s dingy gray sweater and skullcap. “Dream hose, man. It’s always warm.”
Adam tested the water on his hand. “Oh!” It was even warmer than he’d expected, like proper bath water. “Is anything in this place not from a dream?”
Ronan hummed in thought. “The dirt? Oh wait, no, the hay fields and orchard have magic soil. Did you grab the shampoo?”
Adam grinned and held the bottle up. “Never let go of it.”
Ronan moved into position behind Opal to keep her still as Adam handed him the bottle. “Ok, Parrish. Hose her!”
Instead of blasting the poor creature at full volume, Adam began to gently spray warm water by her hooves. Then, as she got used to the sensation, he directed the spray higher and higher until she was ready to be shampooed.
“You work with horses before?” Ronan asked as he rubbed shampoo into Opal’s unruly hair.
“No, why?”
Ronan smiled to himself and gestured for Adam to rinse her hair. He shielded her huge eyes with his palm as he replied, “That’s how you hose horses – feet first so they don’t freak out.”
Adam shrugged as he ran water over Opal’s head again. “I dunno. It just made sense to me. I thought she might kick you if I sprayed her in the face all of a sudden.”
Ronan pulled a towel out from under his arm and began to dry her off in brisk but gentle movements. “Just saying. You’re so natural with her.” His voice was soft in the twilight, and Adam felt his heart speed up.
“So are you,” he replied, just as softly. Opal began to amble toward the house and Adam caught Ronan’s eye. Just as Ronan opened his mouth to say something - maybe something romantic, maybe something idiotic - Adam sprayed him in the face with the hose.
“The fuck?” Ronan cried, but his grin threatened to split his face in two. He took a menacing step towards Adam only to get sprayed again. “Oh, you’re a dead man now!” In an instant, Ronan’s arms were tight around Adam’s waist and Adam was cackling into the quiet night, trying desperately to spray Ronan again and again. He had limited success in soaking Ronan’s whole torso until Ronan pressed the hose nozzle with his thumb and sent warm spray back into Adam’s face in retaliation.
They both ended up collapsed in a gasping, soaked heap by the house, laughing into each other’s mouths.
And all Adam could think was I’m home, I’m home, I’m home.
---
They ended up, like most nights, curled together in a tangle of limbs in Ronan’s bed. Adam’s hair was still damp from the shower, but Ronan didn’t complain when he pressed close, seeking kisses. Ronan brushed Adam’s bangs from his eyes and leaned in for more. The tips of Adam’s fingers traced Ronan’s tattoo at his neck as he licked his way into Ronan’s open mouth.
Ronan’s hands slid down the planes of Adam’s back until his fingers tugged at the hem of his shirt. Adam broke their kiss to pull back and wrestle himself out of his shirt before sliding Ronan’s up his torso. “You too,” he breathed between wet kisses. Ronan reached behind him to pull his T-shirt off, and then it was all warm skin on skin and electric heat.
This was as far as they’d gone so far – shirtless make-outs that ended by quietly drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms. But after the utterly domestic evening he’d just shared with Ronan, Adam was burning with want.
He trailed kisses down the column of Ronan’s neck, stopping just to the side of his Adam’s apple to graze his teeth over the soft skin there. Ronan’s breath hitched, and a strong hand cradled Adam’s head to hold him in place. Taking the hint, Adam began to suck a deep red mark into the spot. He felt his pulse thrum through his entire body as Ronan moaned and writhed on the bed beside him.
Ronan’s reaction only served to feed that hunger within Adam. He wasn’t thinking at all, just letting his body take over the task of eliciting these sounds from Ronan’s beautiful mouth. He rolled Ronan onto his back and climbed on top of him to press deep, wet kisses down his flushed chest.
“Fuck, Adam,” Ronan breathed. His voice was airy and higher than usual, his eyes half-lidded as he watched Adam move down his body.
“Is this okay?” Adam asked, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar to himself. Ronan bit his bottom lip and nodded, smoothing a hand over Adam’s bare shoulder. Adam sat up to catch that bottom lip – all red and swollen now – between his own to suck and gently bite. A much louder moan spilled from Ronan’s lips and somehow, their hips were rolling together. Adam gasped and let his full weight press down on Ronan so they could line up head-to-toe.
“Ronan,” Adam groaned as Ronan bucked his hips up again. His mind flashed white at the friction between them, at the unmistakable hardness he felt every time they rocked together. Adam could feel every hot exhale just below his right ear, where Ronan’s lips pressed frantic kisses and whispered a litany of pleas – pleas to never stop, to kiss him, to touch him.
Adam let his hands roam down over Ronan’s chest and ribs in soothing strokes, a stark contrast from the heated kisses and push of hips. Ronan’s legs fell open and bracketed Adam’s thighs as their movements began to gain momentum. Adam pushed himself up onto his forearms to accommodate the change in position. When Ronan’s hands slid down to cup his ass and pull him closer, Adam couldn’t hold back the moan that punched from his lungs.
“Ronan,” he sighed, letting his hips continue to be guided by Ronan’s strong hands. “I need... Can we?” Adam’s fingers tugged at the waistband of Ronan’s sweatpants. Ronan nodded and Adam shucked the pants off with more force than he meant to. Ronan grinned up at him and kicked them all the way off his legs, his underwear following quickly.
Adam pulled back for a moment to appreciate the hard lines of Ronan’s body, now on full view for the first time. His mouth watered much like it did at dinnertime as his eyes roved over the defined muscles, the glimpses of his tattoo at his neck and under his arms, the dark trail of hair under his navel and on his thighs. He let his hands trail up the inside of those thighs, over the V of his hips, along the soft skin of his flanks, before resting his thumbs on the jut of his hip bone to rub small circles there.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Ronan joked, but his voice was distorted with a hunger of his own.
Adam felt his lips quirk up to one side. “I just might,” he whispered, still mesmerized by Ronan’s body, open and pliant beneath him. “Can I... I want-“ Adam swallowed and met Ronan’s eyes. He lowered his voice even further. “I want to taste you. Is that okay?”
Ronan quickly reached down to squeeze the base of his cock. “Holy shit,” he whispered, eyes scrunching closed. “Give a guy some warning. I almost came just now.”
Adam continued to let his fingers trace light patterns over Ronan’s hips and abdomen. “Is that a yes?”
Ronan exhaled loudly. “Fuck yes. I’m not- I don’t think I’m gonna last very long, though.”
Adam’s face flushed even darker than it already was. “That’s okay. I’ve never- you know.”
Ronan nodded, slowly releasing his grip on himself. “Me neither.”
“Okay,” Adam breathed, lowering his head to drop quiet kisses just below Ronan’s navel. Ronan’s hands gripped the sheets on either side of them as Adam made his way lower and lower, swiping his tongue over Ronan’s skin every few kisses.
After what felt like an eternity to both parties, Adam wrapped a loose grip around the base of Ronan’s erection and gave an experimental lick to the tip. He watched Ronan’s entire body seize up at the touch, his hips nearly lifting off the bed.
“Adam,” Ronan groaned, louder than any other noise he’d made thus far. Encouraged, Adam began to suck softly on the head. He let himself become accustomed to the taste and feel of it in his mouth, gradually working his way further and further down. He felt his own cock throb when he took more of Ronan into his mouth and elicited another loud whine from above. It was awkward and difficult to establish any kind of rhythm while Ronan’s cock was still mostly dry, so Adam took a few moments to lick up and down the length.
Adam used his free hand to grasp at Ronan’s fingers and tangle them in his hair before he settled into a regular rhythm of licking and sucking and pumping with his fist. A glance upward revealed that Ronan was biting his knuckles with the hand that wasn’t gripping Adam’s hair, and Adam moaned at the sight, reaching down to stroke himself. Ronan was so unwound, so flushed with open desire that Adam wanted to burn the image into his memory.
Ronan’s hips bucked at the vibration and he tugged more insistently at Adam’s hair. “Adam, hey, I’m gonna- I’m so close, babe, you should- ah- you don’t have to-“
Adam pulled off of Ronan’s cock but continued to stroke it a breath away from his lips, pressing kisses to the tip every few strokes. He felt it swell in his hand a moment before Ronan’s thighs tightened around his shoulders, so he opened his mouth to catch whatever he could as Ronan rode out his orgasm with a shout. It was unlike anything he’d ever tasted before, but he didn’t dislike it. He sucked the last traces of come from the tip of Ronan’s cock before sitting back to wipe his chin and face. He was still painfully hard, but Ronan’s blissed-out expression distracted him from worrying about it.
He slid up Ronan’s body to leave a kiss against his sharp chin. Ronan’s legs and arms wrapped around Adam of their own accord as Ronan’s lips found Adam’s.
“Fuck,” Ronan sighed, leaning in for more kisses. “Adam. Fuck. You’re incredible.”
Adam’s lips tugged into a sideways smirk. “Babe, huh?”
Ronan gently bit the bridge of Adam’s nose. “Shut up. You like it.”
Adam giggled and ran his hands along Ronan’s sides. “Yeah, I actually do.”
They shared a few more lazy kisses before Ronan began to tug at Adam’s pants. “Your turn, babe.”
Adam grinned back at him and let himself be rolled over onto his back.
---
Halloween rolled around not even a week later. Henry invited the whole group to celebrate in style at Litchfield House. Blue and Gansey agreed immediately; it took a little more cajoling to get Ronan and Adam fully on board.
“We’ll gladly go on the condition that Tad fucking Carruthers won’t be there,” Ronan had insisted. Henry’s nose had wrinkled with what Adam considered a reasonable amount of distaste at the mention of their classmate.
“Rest assured, my guy, there will be no Tad to be had.” Henry’s face lit up at the rhyme. “HA! I’m a poet and I didn’t even-“
The whole group had groaned and pushed him out the door before he could finish.
They met up at Fox Way first – the psychics were taking Opal trick-or-treating with the little cousins. It was the one day of year when no one would think to question the hooves peeking from beneath her dress, and Adam pointed out that it might be a good idea to let her socialize with other children. Or, well. People who were closer to her size and relative age, anyway.
Blue had helped them make her a little deer outfit – a simple brown shift dress patterned with white dapples and a tuft of white tail. When they were about to leave for Litchfield House, Adam adjusted the little antler headband on her head and beamed. Opal just gnawed on the handle of her pumpkin bucket and poked at the gold leaf headband (borrowed from Orla, of all people) on his head.
“Family photo?” Maura asked, waving a small digital camera in the air with a knowing smile. Adam’s heart began to shift into overdrive as he felt Ronan’s heavy gaze settle on him. Family. He met the fond eyes head-on and tilted his head in question. Without a word, Ronan joined them and picked Opal up to sit perched on his hip.
“All right, punk. Smile for the camera,” Ronan said, moving to stand close to Adam. Adam slid one arm around Ronan’s shoulders and pulled him close. “No, not like that. You look like you’re trying to eat the camera. Christ, who taught you how to smile?” Ronan was failing to hide his own sharp but amused grin.
“I wonder,” Adam chuckled, suppressing a snarkier remark.
“Here, look at Parrish,” Ronan continued, turning so she could see Adam’s face. “See? That’s how you smile.”
“She takes after you, Snake!” Calla called from behind Maura.
“Quit canoodling and take the picture already!” Orla called from the vicinity of the porch.
“We’ll take it when we’re damn well ready!” Ronan retorted, but he was already shifting back into position to face the camera.
“All right boys, Opal. Say cheese!” Maura crooned, holding the camera aloft. Adam tilted his head so his temple rested against Ronan’s. Opal jumped at the flash and bared her teeth. The end result was better than Adam had predicted - his own sweet smile, Ronan's knife-grin, and Opal's menacing grimace all in a row. Like a family.
“Please send us a copy,” Adam murmured, his cheeks flushed but his smile pleased.
“Blue, Ritchie Rich!” Calla called, snapping her fingers. “You’re up!”
While Blue and Gansey were poked and prodded into position, Ronan tugged at the folds of Adam’s toga to pull him close. Adam slid his hands up and over Ronan’s shoulders to gently cup his neck and bring him in for a kiss.
“You look good in leather,” Adam whispered. His voice felt husky and warm against Ronan’s lips. He slid a hand over one of the broad leather straps that crossed over Ronan’s bare chest. Ronan’s leather-clad hands were teasing the folds of white fabric around Adam’s waist while they traded a few more kisses.
“I’d be your prize fighter any day,” Ronan murmured, patting the wooden sword latched to his hip with a smirk.
“Yeah?” Adam breathed. He leaned in for another kiss, but-
“Are you guys done being gross yet?” Blue called. They both broke apart to fix her with a blank look. “We still have to take a full group picture and then we gotta get this show on the road!”
“Whatever happened to being ‘fashionably late’, maggot?” Ronan quipped. He tugged Adam towards the group anyway so they could snap a few quick group shots.
It was already dark by the time they reached Litchfield House. Adam had no idea what to expect – Blue had gushed about the toga party he and Ronan had missed, though, so he was cautiously optimistic. He tried to gauge Ronan’s mood as they climbed the front steps, but all he got was a quirked eyebrow and a playful squeeze to his ass. Adam batted the offending hand away and fixed his most stern frown on his face, but the gleam in Ronan’s eyes said that he was in for an interesting evening.
They were instantly greeted with an entire production. The moment they stepped into the foyer, they were startled by vaguely familiar '70s music blasting through speakers hanging from the second-story balcony. It only got more ridiculous from there. Lee-Squared popped out of nowhere, blowing on a bubble pipe as he strutted down the stairs and introduced "Aglionby's finest intelligence operatives". To the group's mixed delight and disbelief, Rutherford, Koh, Ryang, and SickSteve all slid down the banister one-by-one with NERF guns and posed at the bottom of the stairs. Oh, and they were also all dressed in wigs, skintight black outfits, and stilettos.
In a voice oddly reminiscent of Pat Sajak, Lee-Squared announced that these were Henry's Angels - and taking that as their cue, Henry and Cheng2 descended the stairs, arm-in-arm with a glass of scotch each. They were wearing matching gray suits and had slicked their hair back in matching styles. They were also wearing probably the entirety of Litchfield House’s jewelry – class rings, a few gold necklaces, earrings. It was ridiculous.
“Gansey man, Wendybird! So glad you could join us again!” Henry clapped a hand on each of their shoulders once he made it to the bottom. He eyed Blue’s stark white wig and extensive body paint. “I like it. Is this from Avatar?”
“Atlantis,” Gansey corrected, pushing his Milo Thatch glasses up his nose and snapping his suspenders. The rest of the Vancouver crowd had broken out of their poses and were now crowding around Blue with cries of “Sargent!” and “What’s up, home slice!” Adam had never seen Blue give out so many high fives before. It was surreal, to say the least.
“Parrish!” Henry turned his attention to their corner of the room and grabbed his hand to shake it. “Looking good in the toga! Would’ve loved to see you at the other party, man!”
“Thanks for inviting us,” Adam replied, returning the handshake with a smile.
Henry’s eyes fell on Ronan. “Ooh, couples costume! Nice! Are we gonna tussle for the Emperor’s amusement?”
“Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant[1],” Ronan growled with a smile, drawing his wooden sword with a flourish.
“Authentic! I’m afraid I left my Latin comprehension back at school, though, so I have no idea what you just said.”
“You’d better have a spear under that snazzy suit, Cheng,” Adam commented dryly, already sheathing Ronan’s sword for him. “Only one survivor leaves the arena, and Ronan doesn’t go down easy.”
“Depends on who’s asking,” Ronan mumbled, jostling Adam’s ribs and shooting him a hungry look. Adam didn't want to even dignify that with a response (for fear of encouraging him), so he just held the gaze coolly.
“Well,” Henry huffed, a sly grin tugging at his mouth. “I’ll leave you all to it. There’s drinks, smokes, snacks, whatever you want upstairs. Help yourselves.”
After everyone had successfully greeted each other and costume secrets were revealed (“So, get this – Rutherford’s big bro goes to UVA, right? Well his roommate does drag bingo every semester, so we got the shoe and makeup hookup, dude!”), the party moved upstairs.
Within the hour, Cheng2 was perched on an upper bunk of one of the beds, a FourLoko (the original, contraband kind, of course) in one hand and a joint in the other, while he waxed poetic about Cameron Diaz to no one in particular. The four “angels” were in photo shoot mode, letting Blue pose them in increasingly bizarre configurations. Gansey and Henry were trying to recreate their game of lacrosse-stick-floor-pool while Lee-Squared was posted at bar duty.
Adam stood leaning against a bed post, watching the chaos as he sipped on something disgustingly fruity. While he appreciated the fact that skittle-infused vodka tasted and smelled nothing like his father’s cheap whiskey, he didn’t quite like it either. His eyes flicked over the rainbow of bottles lined up on the counter and idly mused that Noah would’ve wanted to try every flavor. The thought made his chest ache.
A sharp elbow to his ribs jostled him out of his thoughts. “I think Cheng2 is talking to you,” Ronan said, half laughing at the long, flailing limbs trying to get Adam’s attention from above.
“Oh, sorry,” Adam directed to the bunk above. “What was that?”
“I was asking if you wanna hit, man. I feel like I’m hogging it all.” He extended an arm down over the edge of the bed and dangled the lit joint in front of Adam’s face. It was so close he had to cross his eyes to focus on it.
“Hey, watch it,” Ronan growled, nudging Cheng2’s hand away from Adam’s face. “You’re gonna put his fuckin’ eye out with that thing.”
“Sorry, sorry! I can’t really see you from up here. Offer still stands.” He chugged some of his FourLoko, which Ronan had described as tasting like “grape cough syrup and ass”, while Adam flicked his gaze between the joint and Ronan’s impassive stare. Truth be told, Adam was a little curious. He'd spent so much of his life grappling for control that he'd never given himself a chance to just throw caution to the wind and experiment like a teenager. He felt like he was simultaneously very young and naive and very old and boring. It was an odd feeling, to say the least.
“You wanna try?” Ronan asked, his mouth twisting into an amused smirk. “I mean, you’re not really gonna feel anything from just one hit.”
Adam frowned, but it was more thoughtful than disapproving. “I’ve never smoked before.”
Ronan plucked the joint from Cheng2’s fingers and twirled it between his own. “That’s fine. I can shotgun you. If you still wanna try, that is.”
Adam watched the cherry glow red as Ronan pulled an inhale. He looked back at Adam with one eyebrow cocked in question. Adam shook his head and laughed. “Ah, what the hell. Carpe fucking diem.”
Ronan’s lips curled into a smile as he pulled Adam close. He pressed his thumb lightly on Adam’s chin to open his mouth and breathed a plume of smoke over his tongue. Adam inhaled the smoke and let it settle in his lungs before he captured Ronan’s lips with his own. Ronan’s tongue swiped against Adam’s and they pressed their bodies closer together. Adam’s fingers were beginning to dip into the gaps of Ronan’s costume to skate over bare skin – burning hot to the touch – when someone whooped at them from across the room.
“Get it, boys!” Rutherford called from where he sat perched on Ryang’s shoulders. Blue was working hard to hide her grin as she tried to help SickSteve climb onto Koh’s shoulders for another group photo. Gansey and Henry were engaged in a very heated game of lacrosse-stick-floor-pool and didn’t notice. Ronan rolled his eyes and returned the joint to Cheng2.
When he turned back from the upper bunk, Adam laced their fingers together and nodded his head at the nearby doorway. They meandered down a dimly lit hallway, poking their heads into the different rooms with quiet curiosity. The room at the end of the hall seemed to be a catch-all for items too big or awkward to keep anywhere else – there was a mountain bike, a treadmill, a few old game consoles, a random desk, and stacks of boxes here and there. Ronan closed the door behind him and settled against the desk, his hungry gaze uncensored for the first time that night.
Adam felt a shiver run through his body as he drank it in. He stepped closer until they were practically nose-to-nose. Ronan reached for Adam’s waist to pull them flush together. Adam chuckled into his mouth at the contact. “Hoping to get lucky, Lynch?” he teased.
Ronan gave him two chaste kisses before leveling Adam with a piercing and heated look. Adam felt fire in his veins again. “Fortes fortuna iuvat[2],” he breathed, moving in for a few more soft brushes of lips. Adam’s hands began to shake at the gentleness with which Ronan handled him. He laced their fingers together again to quell the erratic movement and pressed his tongue to the seam of Ronan’s lips. He opened up easily and it was like Adam was breathing in smoke again, but instead it was Ronan’s breaths, Ronan’s whispered promises, Ronan’s magic in his lungs.
The hand at Adam’s waist began to tug at the loose fabric draped around his body, hitching it up around Adam’s hips. There was so much fabric that it was difficult to hold up with one hand, so Adam pulled back to shuck off the top layer of his costume. Really, that part was just a bed sheet, and he could wrap it on himself again. Ronan’s free hand now slid underneath the short tunic Adam wore to rub the front of his briefs. At the touch, Adam swore quietly and buried his face in Ronan’s neck, letting his teeth graze the skin there. His own free hand, the one not still laced with Ronan’s, began to trail up under the leather pleats of Ronan’s costume to return the favor.
Ronan moaned quietly and pulled himself back to sit up on the desk. He caged Adam in between his thighs, hooking his knees tight around Adam’s waist and crossing his ankles behind his back. He tugged the tunic out from where it was trapped between them so he could go back to rubbing at Adam’s erection through his underwear. Adam threw his head back and bit his lip to keep a load groan from escaping his throat. He tugged Ronan’s hand away to rest on his chest, where his heart threatened to pound right out of its cage.
Ronan made a small questioning noise, but Adam remained quiet as he pulled Ronan’s hips flush to his. Under the loose leather pleats and soft tunic of Ronan’s costume, their cocks pressed together with only the thin barrier of underwear between them. Gripping Ronan’s thighs, Adam began to grind against Ronan in a steady rhythm while he sucked bruises into his neck. Adam became lost in the way he could feel Ronan’s breath against his cheek, how his large hands pulled Adam closer with each roll of hips, how their erections throbbed against each other, straining for release. Adam was on autopilot – it reminded him of scrying, of letting his soul wander away from his body to chase light and warmth. He bit down on Ronan’s shoulder, and Ronan began to really vocalize his pleasure.
“Adam, babe, fuck me. Please, fuck me.” He whined at a particularly languid roll of hips. “God! I want you to fuck me so bad.”
“Shit,” Adam whimpered, his thrusts growing more frenzied. Suddenly he felt like there was still too much distance between him and Ronan. He needed to get closer. “Y-yeah?You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” Ronan moaned, meeting each push of Adam’s hips with his own. “Want you inside me,” he breathed, eyes screwed shut and hands grappling for purchase on Adam’s back. He began whispering a lengthy dirty prayer into Adam’s good ear while they rocked together in the semi-dark. “Wanna ride you. Wanna take you from behind. Want you to come on my back. Want you to come inside me. Any way you want me.”
“Fuck, Ronan,” Adam hissed. He was done in completely by Ronan’s filthy confessions, consumed with the desire to grant every single one of them. He slid one hand down the front of Ronan’s briefs and pulled his cock out, quickly following suit with himself. Ronan turned his face into Adam’s neck to muffle his loud moan at the slick contact. Even though he could feel his hand cramping up, Adam jerked their cocks together with frenzied movements. In an instant he could feel himself unraveling against Ronan, could feel the warm ropes of liquid spilling onto Ronan’s abdomen between them.
But that didn’t matter because Ronan was straining against him, pulling him in close with his strong thighs and gentle hands whispering, “Please, Adam, I’m so close. Please.” Adam pulled his own hips back a few inches to jerk Ronan off quickly. Ronan shuddered into a sloppy kiss when he came into Adam’s hand a few seconds later. They took a minute to trade a few more lazy, soft kisses, sagging against each other in exhaustion as their skin cooled in the night air, before attempting to clean each other up.
Ronan was helping Adam affix the top layer of his toga back on when Adam asked, “So... did you, uh. All that stuff you said...” He fidgeted with the gold leaf crown on his head, which had become skewed with all the activity. “Did you really mean it? You want all that?”
To Adam’s surprise, Ronan didn’t immediately close off at the question, like he might have months earlier. Instead, he grinned earnestly and kissed Adam on the forehead. “You know I don’t lie, Adam.”
“So...?” Adam was fighting a shy smile, but his fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on his forearm.
Ronan sighed. “So, yes. I meant every word. But only if you want to.”
“I do,” Adam replied hurriedly. “Want to, I mean. Someday. We can, y’know. Work up to it... or something.”
Ronan nodded and pulled Adam into a brief kiss. “Or something.”
---
It was weird not having Ronan around at Aglionby anymore.
Adam recalled flirting with him by their lockers right when things had begun to really spiral downhill. Something in his chest ached and buzzed at the memory, but he tampered it down. Aglionby suffocated Ronan. He'd said that only Adam and Gansey had made it bearable, and even then just barely. Ronan knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life, and he didn't need Aglionby to do it. Wasting time at school kept him from focusing his energy on his dreams. Both literally and figuratively.
The three of them were on parallel paths, and for the first time, Adam did not feel angry at his friends for squandering their opportunities. He now understood that what he needed was very different from what Ronan or Gansey needed. That what looked like a wasted opportunity to him was happiness to the others.
And they'd always have Henrietta to come back to.
The more Adam rolled the notion of returning around in his head, the more it felt like the right decision. Parts of Henrietta - the dusty, broken down strip mall at the edge of town, the Shop-N-Save, the liquor store, the line of mailboxes outside the trailer park - still stung to think about. But Adam was building happier memories in the spaces between - Nino's, Monmouth, Fox Way, Litchfield House, where Cabeswater used to be, the Barns.
The day before Halloween, he'd submitted an application to Princeton's School of Engineering to be considered for early decision. He was restricted from applying early decision to any other private institution, but he'd decided to gamble on this one.
Ronan had woken up the morning before he submitted the application clutching a single camellia[3] - only it was orange with swaths of black like a tiger's coat. He hadn't told Ronan about submitting, but it seemed that his subconscious knew anyway. Any one of the psychics would tell Adam not to ignore this obvious sign, and though he wasn't superstitious, he was going to heed this one.
---
By December, the Hondayota had long since wheezed its last breath in the parking lot of Boyd's - since he didn't have to tow it, Boyd paid Adam $100 to relinquish ownership of the sorry looking thing. He planned to salvage for parts and then send the rest to the junkyard next door.
Ronan spent his days fixing up the Barns and constructing his mud track for doing donuts in the BMW while Adam and Gansey were at school. Though when the Hondayota died and Ronan handed the BMW keys over to Adam, he half-joked that he might need to dream up a new car to play with.
Opal trailed behind him wherever he went while Chainsaw kept watch from above. It seemed like every time Adam came back to the Barns, there were new creatures meandering around the property. His favorite was a baby goat the size of a small cat – she was a strawberry blonde color with white markings the shape of angel wings on her back. Every third bleat sounded like bells chiming, and her eyes were a supernatural shade of wild honey. Even though all the other animals were named after power tools, Ronan let him name this one Eve. She was also the only goat allowed inside the house.
Officially, Adam was still living at St. Agnes. But in reality, he was splitting his time between the small room above the church (on nights with really late shifts) and sleeping curled up next to Ronan at the Barns. Sometimes, when one of them would have a nightmare – about any of the horrifying events they endured in the fall – the sound of delicate hoofbeats would cut through the dark. Opal would wordlessly climb up onto the bed and snuggle in between them as if she had a sixth sense for distress. In fact, she probably did. When it was Adam’s nightmare, she would be sure to kiss him on the cheek before settling against his chest; for Ronan, she would nibble on his leather bracelets. The three of them would fall back asleep tangled in a warm heap under the blankets until morning, when Ronan would make blueberry pancakes (dream blueberries were always in season).
Adam couldn’t stop thinking about his acceptance to or rejection from Princeton. He could hear about it any day now. He had submitted regular admission applications to all of his other choice schools, but this was the program he was most excited about. He was constantly torn between cautious optimism and mind-numbing stress.
Luckily for him, Ronan was always more than happy to help him relieve some of that stress. They quickly escalated from quiet, furtive handjobs under the covers to Adam fingering Ronan against the shower wall until he was shouting. Adam figured out that Ronan loved to be shoved around a little – onto the bed, against the wall, into the shower, against a stack of hay bales. Ronan figured out that Adam loved to hear Ronan vocalize everything he was feeling, even though Adam himself was the quiet type. Every time Adam caught Ronan’s heated gaze his heart sped up, pulse thrumming with anticipation of what new ways they could learn to take each other apart.
Opal never walked in on them, but Ronan was still paranoid that one day they’d be at the point of no return and the little dream-monster would shuffle into Ronan’s room and think they were wrestling or something. Adam tried to tease him about it being a movie cliche, but secretly he feared the same. She occupied the weird space of mostly-daughter-but-kind-of-pet and they would be damned if she saw anything scarring.
That’s why it wasn’t until around mid-December that Ronan pulled Adam aside the second he walked through the front door to whisper in his good ear, “So, about that promise to fuck me...”
Heat rolled like a wave down the length of Adam’s body. Opal was spending the night at Fox Way while Blue’s little cousins were visiting, so they had the sprawling farmhouse to themselves. Oh.
Ronan was already crowding him into the corner by the coat rack and tugging Adam’s jacket off. Between kisses Adam mumbled, “I smell like car grease. Lemme take a shower.”
Ronan’s long fingers were unbuttoning Adam’s gray coveralls and pushing them off his shoulders at record speed. “I like it,” he husked, sliding his hands up under Adam’s T-shirt to draw circles on his skin.
“Freak,” Adam laughed into Ronan’s mouth. He kicked off his shoes and tugged on one of Ronan’s belt loops.
“Mmm, you love it though,” Ronan teased, finally pulling away so he could lead Adam up the stairs.
They had done this dozens of times already, but Adam was always left breathless at the sight of Ronan’s tattoo. He ran reverent hands up the back of Ronan’s calves, his muscled thighs, the curve of his bare ass, and the taper of his hips before reaching the edge of the tangle of black vines on his back. Ronan shivered and let his legs fall open while Adam traced soothing lines over the thorns and the Celtic knot on his back and the talons and the feathers and the curved beak at his shoulders. Adam trailed his fingers back down the length of his spine to rest on his ass, and Ronan canted his hips back into the touch with a whimper.
“Someone’s eager,” Adam joked, but his breathy tone betrayed his want.
He could hear Ronan snicker from where his head was pillowed in his arms. “Damn straight. Get on with it, Parrish. I don’t have all day.”
Adam sat back on his heels and snorted into his arm. He was having trouble hiding the grin threatening to break on his face. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”
“Don’t make me beg.”
A jolt of electricity zapped Adam down to his toes. “You sure you don’t like that, though?” His voice was at least half an octave lower but he had no idea how.
Ronan pushed his hips up again. “Adam,” he groaned. “Touch me. Please.”
“Yeah,” Adam whispered, returning his hands to rub the soft mounds of Ronan’s ass. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
Ronan whined and squirmed a little under Adam’s ministrations. Another thing Adam had discovered in mapping out Ronan’s body these past few months: Ronan loved to be praised.
Adam nudged one of Ronan’s legs with his knee and they spread open even further with ease. He popped open the small bottle of lube that sat on the bedspread to pour some on his fingers. He slid his dry hand over Ronan’s abdomen to guide his hips back just a little more to make things easier. Adam placed a warm kiss to the base of Ronan’s spine then began to work one finger inside him.
This was the easy part. They had done this a few times before, but always in the shower and always while standing up. It took a bit of awkward maneuvering and adjusting to find the most comfortable position for both of them, but by the time they had settled into it, Adam was spreading Ronan open with two fingers.
“You’re so good for me, Ro,” Adam breathed, brushing his fingers over a spot that always made Ronan sob. “So fuckin’ good.”
Ronan let out a guttural groan and pushed back on Adam’s fingers. He was chanting a litany of pleas when Adam slid a third finger in. Ronan bit down on the pillow and moaned again.
“You okay?” Adam asked, not halting his hand’s movements but slowing them. He slid his free hand down to stroke at Ronan’s erection just in case.
“’M fine,” Ronan grumbled, voice muffled by the pillow. “Better than fine. Fuckin’-“ He hissed when Adam thumbed the head of his cock. “Shit. Never been better, babe.”
“Good to hear,” Adam replied before switching his concentration back to his fingers. Within another few minutes, Ronan was thrusting into his hand and rocking back onto his fingers, begging for Adam to keep going.
“Adam, please,” he whined. “Fuck me, please. God, I wanna feel your cock.”
Adam growled at Ronan’s words and gently bit at the flesh of Ronan’s thigh to keep from moaning himself. He pulled his fingers out and began to fumble for a condom. “H-how’d you want it? Like this? On your back? Tell me what you want.”
Ronan heaved a deep breath and rolled over on his back. “Wanna see you,” he mumbled, throwing one arm over his forehead.
Adam glanced up from the small package – which was startlingly hard to open with slick fingers, he was finding – to smile down at Ronan. “You’re such a romantic.”
“Shut up,” Ronan retorted, but his words lacked heat. “Isn’t there something you should be doing right now?”
Adam playfully slapped at Ronan’s thigh and raised an eyebrow when his cock twitched and cheeks flushed. He’d have to investigate that later. Once he focused all of his attention on opening the little square packet and preparing the condom, he was able to put it on rather quickly. Ronan watched him slick himself up with lube and shuffle closer. Adam nudged his knee again. “Spread your legs a little more.”
Ronan opened his legs as wide as he could. Adam ran soothing hands up and down the length of his thighs and up over his hips before lining his cock up and pushing in. Ronan sucked in a sharp gasp, but before Adam could ask if he was okay, he said, “I’ll tell you if I want you to stop.”
Adam nodded and eased further inside. When he was about halfway in, he paused to let Ronan adjust and to hold himself together. “You feel fuckin’ amazing,” he whispered. Ronan closed his eyes and bore down on Adam’s cock; Adam took the hint and kept pushing in until the sharp jut of his pelvic bone met Ronan’s.
Adam took a moment to pepper soft kisses up Ronan’s chest and against his throat. Ronan reached up to brush sweaty bangs out of Adam’s eyes and held his gaze for a moment. “Fuck,” he whispered, and Adam couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“Fuck,” Adam agreed with a grin. He pulled Ronan’s bottom lip between his into a heated kiss and began to move.
It took a few tries to establish a rhythm – Adam ended up pulling one of Ronan’s legs up and around his waist for a better angle before they really began to move in tandem. Every thrust punched another loud cry from Ronan’s throat, another praise from Adam’s lips. They were a mess of sweat and limbs and swears, lost to the world outside of their bed.
“You feel so good, Adam,” Ronan moaned. His fingers were digging into Adam’s ass, pulling him deeper with each roll of hips. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I never wanna stop.”
Adam laughed into Ronan’s ear and bit the lobe. “You’re such a filthy blasphemer.”
“The secret to Catholics,” Ronan huffed, out of breath. “Is that we’re all filthy blasphemers.” He bucked his hips up against Adam’s and whined. “What do you think confession is for? Gotta keep ‘em busy.”
Adam’s arms were beginning to shake with exhaustion from holding him up above Ronan. It was almost lucky, then, when Ronan cried out and kicked the leg wrapped around Adam’s waist. “Charlie horse!” he groaned, pushing Adam up and stretching his leg out. Adam couldn’t help it – he exploded into laugher. He still massaged the back of Ronan’s knee to work the cramp out, but he laughed the whole time.
“Let’s change positions,” he suggested once Ronan seemed to not be in pain anymore. “My arms are killing me.”
Ronan wasted no time climbing onto Adam’s lap where he kneeled on the bed. Adam guided him into position and Ronan sunk down on his cock with ease. It didn’t take them as long to get back into a rhythm this time. Adam was able to push deeper inside and the angle seemed to be more pleasurable for Ronan, if his louder moans were anything to go by.
On one particularly deep thrust, Ronan threw his head back and yelled. His eyes screwed shut and he began to rock back onto Adam’s cock even faster. “Right there, shit, holy God, Adam.”
Adam repeated the movement. “Like that?” Ronan’s head lolled to the side and his jaw grew slack, but his grip on Adam’s shoulders remained firm. “You like that?”
“Fuck yes,” he hissed. Ronan clenched his muscles and rolled his hips to draw out the feeling. Adam thought he might faint from how good it felt.
“Jesus, Ronan. You feel so good. So fuckin’ good. Fuck. You’re gonna make me come soon.”
Ronan latched his mouth just below Adam’s chin and began to suck. Between breaths he murmured, “Touch me, Adam. Please touch me.”
Adam slid one hand down to jerk Ronan’s cock in time with his thrusts. He pressed his thumb just below the head at the same time as his cock found Ronan’s prostate again and Ronan was coming apart in his lap. The way Ronan’s entire body seized with his orgasm sent Adam over the edge with a full-body quake of his own. They rode their high out together, laughing into each other’s mouths before collapsing into the bed side-by-side.
Adam didn’t realize he’d fallen into a daze until he felt Ronan’s fingers slide between his. He squeezed Ronan’s palm and used his free hand to dispose of the used condom in the bin against the wall. Ronan tugged him until he rolled over to nestle in the crook of his arm and kissed him on the forehead. Adam absently used a corner of the bed sheet to wipe away the come on Ronan’s stomach before wrapping his arm around his waist. He tangled their legs together and rested his head against Ronan’s chest as their breaths evened out.
Adam was on the brink of sleep when the words slipped from his mouth. “I love you.”
Adam had always thought that Ronan would inevitably be the one to say these words. He thought that he would balk at them or at the very least be unable to return them. But here he was, laying his heart bare for Ronan, and he felt... calm. Quiet. It made sense, really - he had known what this was the moment he kissed Ronan on the porch that night. A small part of him probably knew it before then, even.
So he only felt warmth, not fear, when Ronan replied, “I love you, too.”
---
They were packing up Adam's precious few belongings at St. Agnes to bring to the Barns when Ronan found the letter. Adam opened it with shaking hands, Ronan clutching his waist and gnawing on his wrist bands.
Dear Adam:
Congratulations! The committee has reviewed your single-choice early action application and we are happy to offer you admission to the Class of 2021.
He couldn't read the rest through the tears suddenly streaming down his face. Ronan shouted with enough joy to shake the whole town.
---
Adam still couldn’t believe it. He’d taken a gamble – a modest one, but a gamble nonetheless – on Princeton, and he was getting a full ride to study mechanical engineering. The acceptance letter was safe in Blue’s hands as she, Gansey and Henry crowded around it to read every word.
But all Adam could see was Ronan. Ronan scooped him up by the waist and twirled him around the room like a Disney princess, shouting, “My boyfriend’s a genius! You did it, Adam! You’re going to fucking Jersey!”
Ronan only put him down when they almost knocked over an end table. But they couldn’t take their eyes off of each other – Ronan chattering excitedly about what he’d need for his room and how he’d have to beef up his winter wardrobe – and Adam had never felt happier. He felt the tears streaming down his face again as he leaned into a kiss, and Ronan wiped them away gently with his thumbs as he returned it.
When they finally pulled away, Adam grinned up at Ronan, who was beaming like the sun itself. “I can’t wait to come home for every holiday,” he whispered.
“We’ll be waiting for you.”
[1] “Hail, Caesar, those who are about to die salute you” – the salutation for Roman gladiators entering the arena
[2] “Fortune favors the bold”
[3] Camellia: for admiration, perfection, good luck, gift to a man