Work Text:
This is the correlation of salvation and love:
Don’t drop your arms, I’ll guard your heart
It might never have come to light, had it not been for the Crying Club.
Adam loved his new friends, with their kind hearts, whip-fast brains, and vibrant personalities. And Adam really, really loved Ronan. It was not always possible to reconcile his two worlds - the lush Virginia countryside he’d left behind, full of magic and secrets, and the new red-brick, polished life he had carved out for himself at Harvard - but sometimes it worked out. This Saturday was one of those times: Ronan had driven up to Cambridge, and Adam had persuaded him to go out for drinks with him and the Criers before they went on their way (“it’s the least we can do before kicking Fletcher out again, Ronan, come on”).
It had been a few rounds of drinks now - granted, soft drinks, because none of them had convincing fake IDs except for Ronan - but as the hours wore on, between the loud music and the chatter, Adam had lost track of the various conversations happening. Benjy and Fletcher were discussing some obscure German poet and whether he was worth translating into English at all. Eliot was talking Ronan’s ear off about something they referred to as “cottagecore”, which for some reason they believed Ronan would be very interested in. Ronan’s cursory nodding was becoming more and more distracted, though, as the minutes ticked by and he glanced more and more often in Adam’s direction. It made a warm, possessive bubble of joy rise in Adam’s chest; not that he had a leg to stand on, given he was staring at Ronan just as much. With some effort, he tore his eyes away and refocused on what Gillian was saying.
“...and I don’t know, I just think it’s really cool that it was a bunch of college kids who came up with it, you know?”
“Hmm?”
Thankfully, Gillian just assumed he hadn’t heard her over the music, so she just repeated herself at a higher volume.
“I just mean, it’s cool that they were engineering students, like you and me. Those guys who came up with the nail polish that can detect roofies.”
“Oh.” Adam frowned. He recalled Blue first telling him about the concept of date rape drugs a couple of years back; recalled his own dismay that it was even necessary to look out for such a thing. That anyone could be twisted enough to come up with something like that. Must be nice to be a man, Blue had said, bitterly, and Adam had just squeezed her arm in an attempt at comfort, not sure what to say. To Gillian, now, he said: “I hadn’t heard about that. That’s a really great idea.”
“Yeah. But, you know, at the same time… it’s kind of enraging that they even had to come up with something like that. That that’s something we even have to bother with,” Gillian said, her voice laced with the deceptive lightness that Adam knew meant she was really annoyed or upset and working her way up to a rant. “I mean, why should it be on me to make sure I have on a special fucking nail polish every time I go to a bar? Why do I have to waste valuable time putting on a makeup product - which I am staunchly against, by the way - only to dunk my hand in a drink I paid good money for, because of the ever-present risk that some asshole decided to spike my drink with a fucking roofie?”
Adam nodded as she spoke, sympathetic. He knew from experience that when it came to these things, listening was more important than replying. Only when he was sure Gillian was done, and she paused to take a swig of her ginger ale, he weighed in. “That’s really messed up. Are there no other ways to tell?”
He readjusted himself on the uncomfortable bar stool, and in so doing, caught Ronan looking in their direction again, but with a different sort of focus, one that suggested he had fully tuned out from Eliot’s enthusiastic chatting and was listening to his and Gillian’s conversation instead.
“Nothing that’s more convenient,” Gillian scoffed. “I mean there are cups, straws, coasters. But come on, who brings their own drinkware from home when they go out partying?” She shook her head. “It’s just frightening. That someone would do that to another person, drug them so they lose control over their own body and become completely helpless. What kind of absolute scumbag goes in for that? There’s nothing acceptable, much less hot, in touching someone without their consent,” she grimaced in disgust.
If Adam hadn’t already had Ronan in his line of sight, he would have missed it, it happened so fast: as Gillian spoke, Ronan’s eyebrows knitted together in a troubled way. His throat worked for a moment, as if he was trying to swallow down something, but he hadn’t touched his drink in a while: rather, he was staring down into it. Eventually, he took in a long, sharp inhale - what Gansey called his smoker’s breath - and seemed to shake something off, refocusing on Eliot with some difficulty.
Adam frowned, biting his lip pensively. The topic was a grim one, but he wouldn’t have expected Ronan to be so affected. And he didn’t think he was imagining the way his shoulders were drawn together, his posture somehow defensive.
It was a small thing, and perhaps in other circumstances he might have brushed it off, but Adam had learned to trust his gut feelings. It kind of came with the gig when you were psychic, and his intuition had only gotten sharper with practice. But perhaps more crucially -- Adam knew Ronan. He knew what made him tick, knew when something wasn’t right. And something - he decided with a sinking feeling in his stomach - was deeply, deeply not right.
As they walked back to Adam’s dorm room, Ronan was mostly back to his normal self, but Adam couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about him. His suspicions only grew after he closed the door behind them and turned to see Ronan absently chewing on his leather bracelets, an old nervous habit that hadn’t surfaced in more than a year. It was something from before, from the time when Ronan’s nightmares still hated him, though no more than Ronan hated himself.
Then, just as suddenly, Ronan let the leather bands fall out of his mouth - not indolently, but almost recoiling from it, as one would from a drink you’d only just realised was too hot.
Well, that was new. Adam crossed his arms, staring at him. “You okay?”
“Hm?” Ronan looked up at him, with a puzzled frown. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“I dunno, you tell me. You seem… jittery.”
Ronan let out a bark of a laugh. “You’d be jittery too, if you’d had to listen to Eliot go on about the perfect cottage aesthetic for the better part of an hour. They sure do love their Tumblr posts.”
Somehow, Adam doubted that was it. Not only because any distaste Ronan had for Eliot was completely fabricated (Adam suspected Ronan quite liked his little group of misfits, though foul-mouthed Gillian was his favourite), but because he had only started behaving weirdly after tuning in to Adam and Gillian’s conversation, and by that point Eliot had already been talking his ear off for a while.
“You should see their Pinterest board,” he replied wryly. Then, as casually as he could, he segued: “Did you hear what Gillian was talking about? With the drug-detecting nail polish? That’s pretty clever.”
Ronan grunted noncommittally, avoiding eye contact.
“Can you believe someone had to make whole ranges of products like that, though? God, that’s awful.” Adam wasn’t sure if he was still trying to check Ronan’s reactions, or just thinking out loud. It was awful, in a way he hadn’t really stopped to contemplate very often. At the very least, not as often as Gillian and Blue had. It was always striking - though, somehow, not surprising - just how far human meanness extended. Adam didn’t consider himself to have had a particularly happy life - and yet, in some respects, even he could claim to be privileged. “It must be terrifying to be a woman,” he mused.
“Doesn’t only happen to women,” Ronan muttered dryly. Adam raised his eyebrows, caught off guard. He supposed Ronan was right. But before he could agree, Ronan carried on, his tone biting: “It happens to anyone who’s stupid enough not to look out for themselves. You kind of get what’s coming to you for not being careful, don’t you.”
Okay, something was definitely off. Ronan could be rude, and Ronan could be sarcastic, but he wasn’t callous. He used to pretend to be, what seemed like a long time ago. That kind of venom in his voice was a ghost from the past, one that Adam had not missed visiting.
“Woah, Ronan. Bit harsh, don’t you think? It’s not like people choose to get drugged.”
“The world isn’t all roses and puppies, Parrish. You make bad choices, you get bad consequences,” Ronan scoffed.
“Bad choices? Since when is going out for a couple drinks a bad choice? That’s kind of rich, especially coming from you, don’t you think?”
Ronan’s frown deepened, then lifted, like he’d only just realised they were talking about different things. With a shrug that was far too casual not to be forced, he said: “Hey, I’m just saying, man. Judge not lest ye be judged, and all that crap. You got any extra towels? I was thinking of taking a quick shower.”
Without waiting for a reply, he started striding to the door. Adam stepped into his path.
“Okay, what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me.”
“Please. I thought your whole thing was that you don’t lie.”
Adam stared him down, one eyebrow raised. He didn’t know if it was because he’d thrown Ronan’s own principles in his face - a possibly dirty trick he absolutely didn’t regret using - or because of the steady eye contact, but Ronan didn’t try to lie again. His eyes flashed sideways for a second, and he clenched his jaw. “It’s nothing. I don’t wanna talk about it.”
So there was something to talk about.
Normally, Adam wouldn’t push. He’d lived with secrets his whole life, most of them ugly; so he’d never tried to get Ronan to give up his before he was ready to do so – that was Gansey’s deal.
But something about this felt different. He didn’t like the anxious energy coming off Ronan, the way he sounded and acted like the angry, restless Ronan of before. And he thought that maybe, on some level, Ronan did want to talk - otherwise he would simply have ignored Adam’s previous comments and changed the topic. Maybe he just felt like he couldn’t talk about this – or couldn’t talk about it to him. Adam wasn’t sure which option he found more alarming.
Regardless, he knew he had to tread carefully here. He let the challenge seep out of his face, and uncrossed his arms so he could grab Ronan’s hands instead. “Hey,” he said, softly. “Come on. It’s me.”
A muscle twitched in Ronan’s jaw. He didn’t pull back from Adam’s hands, but he still wasn’t meeting his eyes; he looked like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.
“It’s nothing. It’s stupid, anyway. It’s not like anything actually happened.” He tossed his hands up and paced back and forth a few times, full of kinetic energy, eventually sitting down on Adam’s narrow bed and running both palms over his buzzcut in frustration.
Adam stepped towards him, but didn’t close the distance completely, like Ronan was a wild animal he was trying not to spook.
“It’s not like anything actually happened when?”
The silence drew on for so long that Adam was starting to doubt he’d get an answer and was ready to let it go; then Ronan took a breath and exhaled heavily, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Okay, look. Do you remember when I wrecked the Pig?”
Adam did. He nodded to say so.
“Right. Remember how I dreamt it back?”
Adam nodded again, but he wasn’t sure what he knew amounted to the whole truth. He knew that Ronan had dreamt the Camaro back, but he’d found this out from Gansey, who didn’t know the details of it, because Ronan hadn’t told him anything about it; and Gansey, caught up in his ebullient elation at the miracle Ronan had managed to pull off, had not thought to press him on the circumstances of it.
Adam suspected he was about to find out.
“Well, I didn’t know how to take things out of my dreams back then - not big things, not on purpose.” Ronan said. “But I knew that I couldn’t go back to Monmouth without that car. I just couldn’t. Gansey would never speak to me again.”
Adam pursed his lips, pensive. Even knowing how much Gansey loved the Camaro, he didn’t think that was true. Yet, he understood how Ronan had felt. There was a time, not too very long ago, when Gansey’s approval had meant the world to him, too, and losing his esteem had seemed like the most disastrous of outcomes. He crossed his arms. “Go on.”
“Okay. So. I needed to dream that car back. And-” there was the briefest pause in Ronan’s voice, like he was bracing himself for what he would say next. “And Kavinsky said he could show me how.”
Adam narrowed his eyes. Kavinsky. That was a name he hadn’t heard in a long time, and he definitely had not missed that. Adam had disliked Joseph Kavinsky as soon as he’d first met him, before he’d even had occasion to hear about his worst exploits, because he’d recognised the most basic truth of him. Adam had grown up under Robert Parrish’s fist: he knew all he needed to know about men who took pleasure in making other people feel powerless and small.
Nothing that he witnessed after had made him like Kavinsky any better: not the gaggle of chortling cronies that followed him around school; not the street-racing he kept pulling Ronan into, as if Ronan needed an excuse to get into trouble; not the constant, not-so-vaguely homophobic taunts he directed at Gansey and Ronan. He himself had seemed to escape the brunt of it, but he suspected it was merely because he hadn’t even registered on Kavinsky’s radar: one quick scan had been enough to identify him – trailer trash – and dismiss him as not worth any of Kavinsky’s questionable attention.
Blue had told him, once, she’d felt the same way, like she had been invisible to Kavinsky; the kind of invisibility that came not with safety, but with a complete lack of respect. She had heard stories, and she’d recounted them while hugging herself as if cold. Some of them, Adam had already heard: Kavinsky was well known - infamous, really - both at Aglionby and his previous school; he was a sure but expensive bet to buy test answers, alcohol, or drugs. But Adam wasn’t familiar with the stories that Blue told more quietly, the ones that involved girls going to Kavinsky’s parties and coming back dead-eyed and sullen.
So, yes: Adam had hated Kavinsky long before he’d been personally involved. Stealing Cabeswater from them, kidnapping Matthew, and manifesting a fire-breathing monster had been the final nails in a coffin that was already pretty well-sealed; Adam felt not an ounce of regret or sadness over his death.
Suddenly, he had a feeling of dread about where this conversation was going, like a bad taste in his mouth that he couldn’t quite identify. Swallowing, he kept his attention on Ronan.
“It took me a fucking long time to figure it out, too. Two days? Shit. Three, maybe?”
Adam frowned. “You don’t remember?”
Ronan shrugged. “I was pretty drunk the entire time. Well, I say ‘pretty drunk’. Let’s go with ‘wasted’.”
It took Adam some effort not to react to this. He didn’t have the best of associations with drunkenness. To this day, the smell of stale beer and cheap bourbon made him instinctively sick, enough so that he had yet to try any alcohol for himself. He was not afraid of a drunken Ronan - he wasn’t afraid of Ronan in any way, shape, or form - but it was an unspoken agreement between them that Adam would rather not be around for it.
“Seems like a good way to focus on your dreaming,” he commented dryly, unable to keep a pinch of judgment out of his voice. That was a mistake, as it instantly made Ronan meet his gaze with an insolent look of his own.
“Good for falling asleep faster, though” he challenged. After an infinitesimal pause, he added: “So were the drugs.”
This caught Adam too off-balance to play it off. He knew he was letting himself fall face first into the trap Ronan had set - the angrier other people got, the more Ronan liked to act calm and insouciant - but he couldn’t help the way his voice rose when he replied. “You did drugs? With Kavinsky?”
Ronan tilted his chin up defiantly. “Yeah, I did.” The and what about it was implied, but it was also disingenuous: Adam knew there was no correlation between how penitent Ronan looked and how remorseful he actually was. In fact, there was a good chance the two things were inversely proportional.
“Besides, they weren’t really drugs-drugs. It’s not like I shot up heroin, or snorted lines off his car. They were dream drugs.”
“Oh, in that case, then,” Adam replied, sarcastically.
“Whatever,” Ronan scoffed, scornful. “I knew you’d be like this. I don’t know what I expected. I’m done talking about this.” He made to get up, and a stab of genuine regret went through Adam. He knew he was judgmental. He usually tried to temper it, but something about this conversation made him feel unmoored and uncertain, fear making him stupid about his reactions.
“No, hey– I’m sorry. Sorry,” he said, reaching out to put a hand on Ronan’s knee. “I promise, I don’t mean to be a dick. I just…” he let out a frustrated noise. “I just worry, I suppose. Retroactively, which I guess is pretty dumb.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say, but something about it seemed to work, because Ronan let himself fall back down onto the bed with a huff. “Yeah, I know. That big brain of yours just gotta overthink everything, doesn’t it? Honestly, the day you stop worrying about stuff I’ll be the worried one.”
Adam smiled wryly. “What can I say, it’s one of my many charms.” He gave it a beat, then asked, softer: “Finish the story? Please?”
Ronan chewed on his lip for a moment, then nodded. “Well, there’s not much else to it. We used pills to fall asleep faster. It was kind of like being thrown into sleep.”
Nothing about that sounded safe, but Adam kept his mouth firmly shut.
“But I just couldn’t get it right. The Pig, I mean. I kept fucking it up. At one point I dreamt up a flawless Camaro … completely without an engine. The one I gave Blue, you know? But I knew it wouldn’t be good enough for Gansey. It wasn’t his. It was a lie.”
Adam nodded. Ronan hated lies. And he thought he knew what he meant about the car - Gansey loved the Pig because of its flaws, not in spite of them.
“Anyway. I was frustrated. I took a break. Drank some more. Kavinsky gave me some more dream pills.” Ronan stopped, his eyebrows knitting together as his eyes went slightly unfocused, as if he was distracted by the memory. He was fidgeting with his bracelets again, twisting them and untwisting them with one hand. His leg started bouncing lightly under Adam’s fingers, restless. “And then he gave me another pill. Put it in my mouth. I thought it was the same– well, no, I didn’t. I mean, it was red, not green– I knew it was not the same. I didn’t know what it did. But it happened so fast, it was in my mouth and down my throat before I knew it.”
His leg stopped moving abruptly, his throat working for a moment as he brought his eyes back up to Adam’s. “Except I didn’t fall asleep. It was like– like my brain shut down. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak… sure as fuck couldn’t move. I sort of just… laid down on the hood of the car.”
Adam swallowed, his chest suddenly painfully tight and hot, in contrast to the cold sensation blooming in his stomach. He felt like he couldn’t speak or move either; his brain, however, was in overdrive. You didn’t know what it was and you took it anyway?, part of him wanted to shout, but he kept the words sealed tight behind his lips. Adam’s home life had done wonders to hone his survival instincts: Ronan accused him of overthinking, but paranoia and suspiciousness had almost always worked well for him. He knew things were different for Ronan, though.
For one thing, Ronan hadn’t grown up afraid and beaten down; he’d grown up loved and powerful, full of Niall Lynch’s fire and bravado: backing down from a challenge was not in his nature, no matter how dangerous the consequences. And for another thing, Adam knew that after Niall’s death, Ronan’s own survival instincts had taken an extended vacation.
He was better now, at least, though not entirely. Adam remembered a fight, one of their last ones, shortly before he’d left for Harvard. He remembered Ronan oozing black, his life trickling down his face, killing him faster with every dark, dense droplet. He remembered how his own frustration hadn’t been fueled by anger, but terror. He just wanted Ronan to do something – he wanted him to want it to stop. Instead, Ronan had just asked for a towel and told him to leave for college.
“It’s like you want it. It’s like some part of you always wants it.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s like you don’t care if it happens, then. It’s like you’re never afraid.”
“You already knew that part of me got fucked a long time ago, Parrish, and it’s not changing anytime soon.”
Adam knew. But that never made it any easier. He hadn’t been okay with it then, and he certainly wasn’t now. This, however, was the past-- and much as he wanted to, Adam couldn’t change it. His hand tightened on Ronan’s knee, in what he hoped was a comforting way. He knew it comforted him to touch Ronan, anyway, to have the reminder that he was here and alive and relatively okay. He waited to see if any more words would come.
They did, though it took Ronan’s eyes sliding off again, like he couldn’t speak and look at Adam at the same time. “I’m not really sure what happened then. I guess– I guess he got on the hood of the car too. I was face-down, so I couldn’t really see. But I felt the weight change. And then I felt his hands on– I mean, he touched me. My back.”
The banked heat in Adam’s chest exploded into a dark, blazing fire. Ronan’s words replayed on a loop in his head. He touched me. While Ronan was barely conscious. While Ronan was drugged. Suddenly it felt like a shame that Kavinsky was dead, because Adam hadn’t really had an active part in it; suddenly, he would very much have liked to.
Before he could even begin to figure out how to react, however, Ronan was already brushing his own words off, with a self-deprecating scoff. “I mean, it wasn’t… anything bad really. He just sort of– touched my shoulders. My spine. It wasn’t a big deal.”
But though Ronan may pride himself on not lying, it was clear that he was lying now, to himself first and foremost. It was written all over him: in the way his eyes couldn’t seem to land anything in particular, in how rattled his voice sounded despite his efforts to come off as blasé, in the way all of his muscles were tensed– shoulders hunched, back rigid, as if he was reliving that very moment.
In a more subdued tone, he added: “For a while I just thought it was a dream. You know, that I imagined it. After all, I was fucked out of my mind, right? I could have imagined it. But then tonight when Gillian was talking about… I don’t know. I guess maybe it did happen.” He shuddered, and tried to play it off as a shrug. Unfortunately for him, Adam’s hand was still on his leg, and caught the unmistakable, unsteady ripple of it.
“Anyway,” Ronan continued, louder, shaking himself out of it. “After that he just kind of fucked off to do more coke lines.” He forced a short laugh. “So that’s that. I told you. It was nothing.”
Adam didn’t think it was nothing. Adam thought it was pretty damn far from nothing.
“Ronan,” he said, surprised by how unsteady his own voice sounded, “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. I told you. Nothing happened.” Ronan got up, dislodging Adam’s hand. Adam curled it into a fist, clenching and unclenching against his leg, uselessly. He was shaking a little, and he wasn’t sure if it was more out of anger or shock. The indents he was leaving in his palm suggested anger was a substantial part of it.
“Ronan,” he said carefully, trying not to let the anger he felt towards Kavinsky seep through into his voice. “He assaulted you.”
Ronan scowled like the idea was ridiculous. “No, he didn’t. He offered me drugs and I accepted them. That was on me.”
“Drugs that you didn’t know the effects of,” Adam emphasised, getting up as well.
“Yeah, well. Like I said. That was stupid of me. But I still made a choice.”
“A choice?” Adam repeated. He felt a little dizzy. Fury and disgust were pounding in his head. It’s my fault. I should have known. I should have stopped it. If I’d been there– if I hadn’t been in D.C.-- but Adam knew that was not true. As he’d told Gansey time and time again, no one could keep Ronan alive and safe except for Ronan.
It didn’t mean he didn’t want to try.
“Yeah, Adam, a choice. I could have said no. I didn’t. That makes it my fault. End of story.”
“Your fault?!” Adam was aware he was just echoing Ronan, but he couldn’t help it, not any more than he could help the incredulous rising of his voice. “You were wasted out of your mind, and hopped up on who knows what nightmare pills, and he literally shoved another pill in your mouth– but yeah, sure, you could have said no.”
“You’re making way too big a deal out of this, Adam.” There was a warning in Ronan’s voice. Adam ignored it.
“I really don’t think I am. You were in no fit state to consent.” He could feel himself getting agitated, heat rising in his cheeks even though his hands felt icy. “Being too wasted to refuse isn’t good consent. You know what is good consent? Actual consent.”
“Jesus, Harvard, you read that in a counselling brochure?” Ronan rolled his eyes, and this was when Adam knew just how wrong things were, because Ronan hadn’t used that kind of cruelly dismissive tone in ages - not on anyone, and certainly not on Adam - and it still did nothing to hide his discomfort; his posture somehow suggested both fight and flight, his shoulders curled, his hands shoved deep into his pocket to hide his white knuckles.
Adam swallowed. “Ronan. He got you drunk and high, and then he gave you a mystery drug that made you completely pliant and powerless. And then he touched you without permission. That’s assault.”
There was a beat of silence where Adam could see his words register, and something pained sparked behind Ronan’s eyes. Then the moment passed, and he was shaking his head again, slowly.
“No. You’re blowing it out of proportion. Have you even been listening to me? I told you, we were doing drugs all day. That’s all it was.”
“Blowing it out of proportion?! Ronan, he fucking roofied you!” He saw Ronan flinch at the words, and hated himself for it. He and his ugly anger– every time he thought he had a grip on it, it surprised him anew. He wanted to hit something - preferably Kavinsky, preferably until something broke - but his itchy fingers would have settled for the wall, and he stopped them from even going that far, crossing his arms tightly over his chest again.
“Please,” he entreated. “You know it’s not the same. You said it yourself. You know it was different. You know it was wrong.”
“God, so what? It’s not like– It’s not like he raped me, or something. It was harmless.”
Adam didn’t know how to get it through to him that though the first statement might be true, the second couldn’t be farther from it. His mind was whirring, jerking, spinning out of his control. Ronan using the word had been enough to spool a number of nightmarish scenarios inside Adam’s mind, one where things went even worse than they had. Fear mixed with anger and sorrow, clouding his judgment.
“But he could have!” he exploded. He knew he should lower his voice, but he couldn’t seem to calm down, couldn’t seem to stop seeing it play out in his mind’s eye - Ronan, his Ronan, powerful and magical and vibrant and brave, listless and still on a car hood, robbed of his senses; a boxer with no fight left in him, a god brought low by chemicals. It was heartbreaking; it was terrifying. Adam couldn’t stand it.
“He could have done anything he wanted to you, Ronan! Don’t you see that? It’s not some fucking mercy that he didn’t take it farther - he shouldn’t have been doing it at all! Not when you had no choice! Not when you had no say in it! It wasn’t his to take!”
Abruptly, he thought Ronan did see it; the ugly truth of it, the uglier possibilities. Adam could glimpse it in his eyes: a flash of fear, there one moment and badly concealed the next, shored off with disdain and bravado.
“Jesus fuck, what are you in such a tizzy about? ‘Not his to take’,” Ronan snarled, mimicking him. “How is that any of your business, anyway? It’s not like we fucked, so you can untwist your panties, because there’s nothing for you to get fucking jealous over, or whatever.”
“Jealous?!” The word hit Adam like he’d been roundly slapped in the face, and he took a staggering step back, reeling.
He knew he shouldn’t have lost his cool, but it hadn’t occurred to him for a single moment that his anger could be so horribly misinterpreted. Hurt welled up inside him like blood from a cut, partially at the unfairness of the accusation, and partially at the twisted root of truth within it: jealousy had nothing to do with how upset he was right now, but he’d been jealous plenty of times before, still grappling with the idea that Ronan could possibly want him over anyone else. It was an ugly, dark insecurity, and it smarted to be reminded of it. He let himself fall down on Fletcher’s bed, and stared at his hands twisted together in his lap for a few moments. Then he sucked in a shaky breath and looked back up at Ronan.
“Is that really what you think? God, Ronan, I- that’s what you think I care about?”
Ronan crossed his arms defensively. “Well, you’re mad about something.” His stubborn expression was unsteady, clouded with something like confusion and hurt.
All at once, understanding dawned, and Adam could see it like a series of snapshots, each successive one bringing with it a wave of cold shock like being dunked in icy water again and again: Ronan did know what could have happened; Ronan thought he’d deserved it; Ronan was ashamed; Ronan thought Adam was mad at him. For… Adam wasn’t sure what for. For letting himself get drugged? For hanging out with Kavinsky at all?
It was a lot to sort through, and Adam had never been the best at doing so in the heat of the moment. He needed time to think, he needed clarity, he needed to analyze every word exchanged, every reaction–
But more than any of that, he realized, he needed to be there for Ronan.
“I’m not– I’m not jealous. And I’m not mad at you– I’m mad at him. At the piece of shit who dared to do that to you.”
He got up and took a tentative step towards Ronan. “And I’m mad for you. I’m mad that you had your agency taken away. You think I don’t know how that feels? To have no control over what’s happening? To feel powerless and afraid?” Adam shook his head. “But that’s me. I’m mad that something like that could ever happen to you. But most of all, Ronan, I’m just – fucking terrified. Just the thought of it–” Adam’s words died in his mouth, and he had to swallow past a lump in his throat. His eyes felt hot, a familiar stinging at their corners.
“I–” for the first time that night, Ronan seemed to be at a loss for words, and making no pretense at covering it up. Ronan Lynch wasn’t scared of anything, but he couldn’t stand to see anyone he cared about frightened.
Adam loved him so much.
“I’m sorry,” Ronan said, his voice softer. “It was stupid, I know it was stupid, I was stupid-”
Adam put a light finger to his lips, not forcing him to stop speaking, but asking him to.
“Ronan. It’s not your fault.”
Ronan’s knitted eyebrows said that he wasn’t convinced, that the statement seemed false somehow. Adam knew they were both very good at beating themselves up, when they wanted to. So he said it again.
“It’s not your fault, Ronan. Do you hear me? I don’t care how drunk you were. I don’t care how many pills you willingly accepted before that. It wasn’t your fault.”
Ronan’s lips trembled minutely under his touch. He closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he reopened them, the walls had crumbled.
“I was there, though. I said yes to the rest.” His voice was rough, but this time he wasn’t protesting. It wasn’t denial: it was a plea for Adam to argue with him. Adam was more than willing to do so.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter a single damn bit. You didn’t say yes to that. You didn’t say yes to being defenceless, to having your choice taken away. You didn’t say yes to letting him put his fucking hands on you. Are you listening to me? He had no right. You did nothing to deserve it. Nothing. You hear that?”
Ronan nodded. His eyes were suspiciously bright. Adam’s heart felt precarious in his chest.
“It’s just, the way I acted back then– the way I was, the things I did… I don’t like to think about it. I don’t think I like who I was very much.”
“You had a lot on your plate,” Adam said. It was an understatement. Ronan had been struggling with grief, with nightmares, with his sexuality, with the very nature of what he was. All in all, it was a wonder he hadn’t spiralled even worse. Suddenly, Adam felt for him so much he couldn’t seem to hold it in anymore. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry that you had to dig your own way out.”
Ronan raised an eyebrow, somehow perfectly arch and ironic despite the sheen in his eyes. “You mean while you were dealing with losing your hearing, working three jobs on top of school, breaking up with your girlfriend, and having a breakdown induced by the sentient magical forest I manifested?”
...Fair enough.
“I guess I had a lot on my plate, too,” Adam conceded, with a rueful smile. God, what a pair they were. He remembered a quote Benjy had read him once– something about soft epilogues. Adam thought he and Ronan deserved one of those. They’d been through their fair share of hardship.
He put his arms around Ronan’s neck and pulled him in for a hug. This close, despite all his smartass remarks, it was easy to tell Ronan was shaking. Adam held him tighter, fingers splaying protectively over the back of his head, lightly stroking his shaved scalp.
He didn’t know if it was the gentle touch or the fact that Ronan didn’t have to look him in the eye, but when he spoke next, his voice was small, and there was no trace of pretense in it.
“It was so fucked up,” he said, quietly, into Adam’s neck. “I couldn’t move a finger. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t understand what was happening. But–” His voice got even smaller, almost down to a whisper. “I was scared, Adam. It felt like I was on a knife’s edge, like if I moved it would only be worse. Like he would hurt me worse. I know he could’ve. I guess it was easier to believe I made it up, or that I chose it, but I know– God– even then, I knew. I knew what really happened.”
Adam felt like his heart might shatter. All he could do was hold Ronan close, cradling his head as gently as he was able. “It’s okay,” he murmured into Ronan’s ear, though he knew it wasn’t okay, not even a little. “You’re okay. You’re good,” he said, and then he said it again, the words changing their meaning even as he spoke them, like a spell. “You’re good, you’re so good. I’m sorry you were hurt. I’m sorry about everything. You didn’t deserve it. You’re good, you’re good, you’re good.”
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, with him murmuring soothing words into Ronan’s ear, Ronan’s arms clinging to him like a lifeline. When they pulled apart, Ronan’s eyes were rimmed with red.
Adam knew how much it cost Ronan to let anyone see him like this; how much it pained him to admit that he’d been vulnerable. He ran gentle fingers over his cheek, along the bridge of his nose, across the seam of his lips, feather-light touches that made Ronan let out a soft sound and close his eyes, his damp, dark lashes fluttering over his cheekbones. When he opened his eyes again, he looked a little more like himself.
“You wanna jump into bed?” Adam asked, softly. Ronan was nodding before he’d finished asking.
“Yeah. No. I still have to shower… fuck. Maybe just wash my face. Can we watch a movie?”
“Of course,” Adam replied, without hesitation. “Which one?” Not that it mattered. He would gladly suffer through whichever 2 Fast, 2 Furious trashfire Ronan felt like.
Instead, Ronan thought for a moment, then said, unexpectedly: “Prisoner of Azkaban?”
Ronan had forced Adam to watch all 8 Harry Potter movies over the summer, horrified when he’d discovered Adam had never seen them or read the books before. Even though he played it off like it’s a cult classic, or I’m doing this for your childhood, Parrish, Adam suspected he genuinely loved them– even more, that they were something of a feelgood activity for him.
“Sure,” he said. “That sounds really good. Go wash up. I’ll look for a stream.”
“Adam Parrish,” Ronan fake-gasped. “Fishing for pirate streams? On your Harvard-paid Wi-Fi?”
“Wash your damn face, Lynch,” Adam laughed. Having them return to something like their normal interactions lifted a little of the weight from his chest; he hadn’t realised just how crushing it had been.
If anyone ever hurts him again– he started to vow to himself, and then shook his head. Adam knew better than most people just how ugly the world could be. They almost certainly would be hurt again, both of them. He could only do his best to try to shield Ronan from as much of it as he could. He could only be there to love him back together afterwards.
Later, they huddled in Adam’s twin bed, their shoulders pressed close and their legs tangled. Everything was pyjama bottoms and soft hoodies and the glow of magic on the screen. As soon as the movie started, Ronan took Adam’s hand. Adam laced their fingers together, thumb rubbing soothing circles into Ronan’s skin.
It was shortly after the scene where Hermione punched Malfoy that Ronan spoke up.
“I wouldn’t blame you, you know. If you actually were mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Adam protested, trying to maneuver in the tight space to look up at him.
“I know,” Ronan said, pressing a placating kiss to his temple. “I’m just saying, I wouldn’t blame you. I knew you never liked it. That I hung around Kavinsky.”
There was nothing Adam could say to that. He had not liked it, and he’d never hidden that. Not just because of the trouble Kavinsky’s pack brought, but because it was staggeringly clear to him that Ronan was so much better than them. He and Kavinsky may both have been dreamers, but they weren’t even the same species.
“The way I was back then… I was fucked up. I was such a mess. I didn’t know what I was or what I wanted. And with the whole being gay thing– I just thought…” Ronan shook his head, in apparent distaste at his old self. “I thought maybe someone like Kavinsky was the best I could do. That it was all I deserved. I didn’t know anyone else who… and I definitely didn’t know about you, but even if I had, I mean– you were with Blue. I wasn’t going to mess with that.”
“I know,” Adam nodded, his chest aching a little. Ronan respected relationships too much to try to tear one apart, even one that hurt him. “I know. It’s okay.” He kissed Ronan on the cheek, as gently as he could.
“It’s not,” Ronan argued. “What I said before, it wasn’t okay. About you being jealous. It wasn’t fair.” Ronan’s voice was quiet. “I guess I was just afraid you’d– think less of me. That you’d be mad I let him do that to me.”
Adam thought he’d had enough heartbreak for one night, but clearly there was always more to be had, because he found himself absolutely gutted. Ronan’s downcast eyes, the slump in his shoulders, the way he held himself so very still, all spelled out his feelings for Adam to see. Shame, again. It looked so out of place on Ronan: this wild, wonderful creature who could bend the whole world to his will and yet chose to dream of beauty and light. Ronan seemed to Adam too miraculous and otherworldly to ever be bogged down by something as mundane as shame. But Adam, who had been made from dust and fear and toil, was intimately familiar with the ugly shape of it, and he thought he could pretty well guess what Ronan was thinking, lashing out at himself in the dark and fearsome corners of his head. Whatever fleeting fascination Ronan might have felt once for the destruction that Kavinsky represented, it had been turned to horror the moment Kavinsky had taken Matthew, threatening to kill him and everyone else Ronan cared about. The incident had only come up a handful of times in the months since, and every time Kavinsky had been mentioned, Ronan had looked physically sick. It had made sense then, and it made even more sense now, with the knowledge that Ronan had blamed himself all along, thinking he’d somehow been complicit with him.
“Ronan, you didn’t let him do anything”, Adam insisted, his voice unsteady but fervent. “If you had, I wouldn’t have cared.” It wasn’t exactly the entire truth - Adam would have been jealous, probably, but back then, he was jealous of pretty much anyone – Gansey, Ronan, Blue; and what right did he have to complain when he’d been the one dating someone else? More importantly, none of that mattered even slightly now.
“All I care about is that someone hurt you. There’s no excuse for that. None. And I could never, ever think any less of you for that. Do you think less of me because my dad beat me up? Because I let him do that to me?” he challenged. The words were hard to say, but not as hard as he expected them to. It was easier to deal with his bruised pride, if it was for Ronan.
“Fuck no,” Ronan replied immediately, voice dropping to almost a growl. “That was all him. You didn’t let him, it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault.”
Adam spread his hands, palms up, in a little there you go gesture. “Well, that’s exactly how I feel about you. And I will say it until you believe it. None of it was your fault. None of it says anything about your worth.”
Ronan’s expression softened. His lips tilted up a little - it was a small, tired smile, but a smile nonetheless, unguarded and sincere. “Yeah. I guess I’m starting to get that, maybe. Still sounds kinda fake. But a little less fake every day.”
Adam took a deep breath and let it out. It wasn’t ideal, but it was what they had. He knew progress was slow. He still woke up in a cold sweat sometimes, still heard his father yelling in his deaf ear, felt the blows, saw his mom always standing by, always silent, always blaming him. Progress was slow, but it was still progress. “That’s something, then.”
Ronan hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah. But, Adam…”
“Hmm?”
“I just want you to know, that even back then, even when I hung out with Kavinsky, even when I thought about going along with what he wanted-- all that time, it was still you. It was never going to be him.” Ronan looked right at him, the fierce expression in his ice-blue eyes making Adam’s breath hitch slightly. “It was always you.”
Adam’s chest felt very large and very tight all at once. His throat seemed to have closed up again, and all he could do was stare at Ronan’s eyes, unsure of how he had managed to capture such an impossible wonder of a man. He pulled Ronan’s hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it, then held it against his pounding heart.
“You don’t owe me that, Ronan,” he murmured, finally.
Ronan just looked at him for a long moment, his face serious. “I know,” he said. “But I owe it to myself.”
Adam could find no words to reply to that. Instead, he settled back more firmly into Ronan, and tilted his face up ever so slightly, a question as much as an invitation. When Ronan dipped down to kiss him, it was gentle enough to make Adam almost cry; instead, he kissed Ronan back, soft and slow and as full of love as he could make it. They kissed like that for a while– light, sweet kisses, barely more than the touch of lips and shared breath.
On the screen, Harry and Hermione used time travel to magically right all wrongs. Adam knew better than to believe in such an easy fix. Still, even in the movie, it was a bittersweet ending: the hippogriff and the innocent man were saved, but they were still fugitives, and the traitor got away. Justice was incomplete; the ending wasn’t fair. But Harry and his little family had each other, and that was what mattered in the end. Adam supposed that perhaps that really was all that mattered.
“Hey,” he poked Ronan. “You wanna hear a spell?”
Ronan snorted. “Sure.”
Adam leaned in to whisper theatrically in his ear. “Expecto Iloveyou.”
“Oh my God. You embarrassing deadass nerd,” Ronan laughed, but it was a breathless, unsteady sound. “That’s not usable magic.”
“And yet I seem to have summoned a boyfriend.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t let it go to your head.” Ronan poked him in the cheek.
“Oh, I don’t. Sometimes I wonder how I keep ‘im. Especially since I’m not all that great at the whole ‘talking-about-emotions’ thing.” Tonight’s a pretty good example, he thought ruefully.
“Hey. Cut that shit out.” Ronan tilted Adam’s chin up, his face suddenly serious. “I mean it, Adam. You’re a fucking great boyfriend.”
Adam couldn’t help the giddy way his heart accelerated at that. He didn’t know if it was true, but he hoped it could be. He wanted it to be. He scrunched his nose up. “In fairness, Ronan, you don’t really have anything to compare it against.”
“Damn right,” Ronan said, airily. “And I plan to keep it that way. Now put on Goblet of Fire, nerd.”
As Adam moved to comply, unable to keep a ridiculously happy little grin from tugging at his face, he heard Ronan mutter under his breath, Expecto Iloveyou. God. Nerdass.
Adam’s grin got wider. He thought perhaps he really had stumbled upon a spell, because the warm glow they’d settled into stayed with them all night.
You’re so brilliant, don’t soon forget
You’re so brilliant; grace touched your heart
With quiet words I’ll lead you in and out of the dark