Work Text:
When Ronan knifed through the door at Monmouth Manufacturing, anger and energy seeping off him in waves, Gansey didn’t blink.
“See Declan today?”
“Yeah,” Ronan replied, and slammed his bedroom door. Chainsaw cocked her head from her position on his bureau. He wanted to punch something, more than he had punched Declan, which was saying something. It had been almost an hour since Declan left, and Ronan was still a burnt fuse. God. Sometimes, Ronan hated what he’d say so much that he almost thought he just hated himself.
His room was too small to keep pacing, but he did anyway, pushing and pulling on his knuckles until he’d cracked each finger in each joint. There were words for how he was feeling - volatile, he thought, or maybe FUBAR - but when Ronan was this kind of raw, he didn’t speak in words so much as races.
Which brought him full circle. Dropping to his bed, Ronan reached for his phone lying cold on his bedside table. Kavinsky picked up on the fourth ring.
“Lynch?”
Through clenched teeth, Ronan said, “I need you to do me a favor.”
-
Going to Aglionby Academy was already hell, but it was worse today than it ever had been. Ronan kept his head low, hand gripped hard around the strap of his bag, so tight it dug into his skin and left red welts there. Gansey watched him, concerned, but Ronan waved off all his attempts at conversation beyond “Did you finish the Latin homework?” and “You were up late last night.” Kavinsky winked at him, lolling, from behind the door of a locker, and Ronan felt the same anger rise up in him like it had never left the night before. He dragged Kavinsky into the single-stall bathroom before sixth period and kicked the door shut behind them.
“You said this wasn’t going to be emotional or physical.”
“It isn’t.” It took everything Ronan had to keep his voice level. Kavinsky smirked at him, looking him up and down before leaning back against the wall.
“So why didn’t you ask one of your fuckbuddy roommates to date you for a day?”
“They wouldn’t piss Declan off like you would.”
“Ah.” His eyes glinted, and Ronan regretted this more every minute he had to look at him. “So it’s because I’m bad.” He took a step forward and ran a finger along the inside of Ronan’s collar, then hooked it into his tie and gave a sharp yank. Almost reflexively, Ronan brought his knee up swiftly into Kavinsky’s groin, and he leaned over hard, cupping his hand over his balls.
“It’s because you’re expendable street trash, and Declan hates you more than he hates me for what you did to Matthew.” Ronan straightened his tie, then pulled it loose again so it was hanging low over the Aglionby crest on his sweater. “Better you than them.”
He left Kavinsky groaning on the floor and went to English.
-
“You did what?”
They were all crowded into a booth at Nino’s. This last statement was courtesy of Blue, who was leaning over their table incredulously and pretending to take their orders. Ronan shot her a hard look.
“I panicked, maggot. And now I’ve dug myself into this shithole, and I’m going to a fucking dinner tomorrow in a suit with Kavinsky and Declan. Fuck.”
Adam leaned back into the corner, taking a long sip of his iced tea. For what must have been the third or fifth time, Ronan caught himself looking and cursed under his breath. Of all the situations he could have gotten into, he chose the worst possible one.
“You could have asked me,” Gansey sighed. “Or Noah. Or Henry.”
“You don’t piss him off,” Ronan replied bluntly. Gansey pushed his face into his hand and rubbed it. The rest of them seemed to agree with this - despite Declan’s insistent need to find flaws in Ronan’s everyday life, he could never find much to say about Gansey or Adam, and seemed to forget each time he visited Monmouth that he had met Noah before. Blue and Henry had never met him, but Ronan couldn’t see Henry being as gratingly rude as Kavinsky would, and Blue wasn’t exactly his type.
This sentiment, however, seemed to push Adam further back into corner, something Ronan tried not to notice and did anyway. He kicked Adam’s foot under the table, but Adam didn’t look up. The exchange was cheerfully lost to the rest of them as the chatter moved past Ronan’s predicament and on to Mrs. Gansey’s terrible new campaign slogan (“Stand for Standards”) and the press conference she was having that Gansey was obligated to go to. Conversation like this typically regressed to badly made jokes and relentless jabs at Gansey’s family, and Henry and Noah were not ones to disappoint.
-
Ronan did manage to catch Adam in the parking lot once they had all left. His car was broken down again, and, because he hadn’t had time to fix it, he was riding his bike. Ronan snagged the handlebars and dragged it towards the BMW before Adam could swing a leg over the seat.
“What are you doing?”
“Driving you home. This thing looks like it’s about to drop all the spokes.”
Adam seemed too tired to argue and shoved the bike into the backseat. It fit, barely; the wheels blocked Ronan’s rearview mirror and it was awkwardly twisted, like a bird with a broken neck. He sat in the passenger seat looking vaguely like a wet napkin. Ronan glanced at him as if he hadn’t been doing it all night and asked,
“Something extra sharp shoved up your ass tonight, Parrish?”
It did the trick, and Adam shot him a glare over the gearshift. “Something extra long shoved up yours?”
“That depends how you classify long,” Ronan smirked, and refocused his eyes on the road in front of him. “So what? Did you get an A-minus on a homework assignment? Did the seam fall out of your school pants?”
Adam didn’t respond. Silence stretched out, and Ronan let it, fingers itching on the steering wheel. He made the turn for St. Agnes and pulled up to the curb, waiting for Adam to either get out or to tell him something. Anything.
He opted for the former.
-
The next day, Ronan skipped school. Gansey gave him a look, but Ronan just shrugged and closed his door, and as soon as he saw the Pig pull out of the lot, he turned up his music as loud as it would go. Usually, when Ronan ditched, he would take off in the BMW and find something stupid to do, but today he was the locked-and-grounded kind of restless. He paced Monmouth for hours until he took Chainsaw to the bottom floor hangar and let her fly into the tall rafters. He was considering lighting something on fire.
Gansey returned in the late afternoon. Ronan was sprawled on the floor, knees bent, holding a piece of straw in his mouth and flicking more between his fingers. Having returned from her great heights, Chainsaw was standing next to his head, combing his hair - what there was of it - with her beak.
Once he’d reached them, Gansey said, “What is this, a trust exercise?”
“A ritual,” Ronan replied carelessly. He was well and truly surrounded by hay, and, upon catching Gansey’s bewildered expression, he added, “Dreamed for a bit.”
“So that’s what you do when you’re home alone.”
“Sure, Dick.” Ronan stood, moving the straw up and down with his tongue. “It’s like I’m a real farmer now.” He put on his best exaggerated southern accent. “Howdy.” Gansey looked perplexed.
“I’m going inside,” he said finally. Ronan spat out the straw and followed him. He hadn’t showered yet today, and he wasn’t entirely sure that the suit he owned fit him. The last time he had worn it was to Noah’s funeral, and even then it had been pinching his shoulders.
Monmouth was different with Gansey inside it. Everything became quietly busier. Even the sun found new purpose coming through the windows, and all the tables and chairs seemed to sit up straight despite their perpetual slouch. It made Ronan want to smash them all sometimes, but today, he was glad that the apartment was distracted with Gansey. It was easier to slip away without feeling like everything was watching him.
Two things were anyway, of course. He ran into one on the way to the bathroom with the other perched on his shoulder.
“Christ, Noah.”
“Not exactly.” Noah’s face was thin today. Ronan suspected that if he put his hand on the back of Noah’s head, he’d be able to see the pads of his fingers as if looking through a balloon. “When are you leaving?”
“Soon.” He pushed past him and started to close the door. “Let me know when you start walking through walls.”
-
“Soon” had come and gone. Ronan was at St. Agnes, and had been standing outside Adam’s apartment for a breath too long already. He knocked louder, scuffing his feet on the dirty concrete, and the door swung open to reveal Adam looking shockingly, unfairly disheveled.
Raising his eyebrows, Ronan peered around Adam into the apartment, swinging his head both ways. “Got someone in here?”
“You,” Adam said. “Other than that, no. What do you want?”
“Is that how you greet a friend?” Ronan slid past him and went to sit on the bed. Everything in this apartment was appallingly Adam-like; simple desk crowded with work, simple shelf crowded with books, simple bed crowded with Ronan. There was even a sorry bunch of highway flowers in an old green bottle next to the door. Something in Ronan twisted. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your date?”
“It’s not a date.”
“Then what is it?”
“Is that what you’re mad about?”
“I’m not mad.”
“Adam. You haven’t said a damn word to me since yesterday.”
“I haven’t seen you since yesterday!”
“You didn’t come over this morning.”
“Maybe I slept late.”
“Maybe you’re mad because of my dinner.”
“Why are you trying to convince me I’m mad?”
“You are mad. Or maybe this is the new Adam Parrish brand of Southern-soaked companionship that I just haven’t adjusted to yet.”
There was a pause.
“I’m not mad.”
“Bullshit you’re not mad. For once, just once, say you’re mad at me. Be angry with me. Are you angry?”
“Jesus.”
“Are you?”
“Fine! I’m mad. Okay? Are you happy? I thought- I thought-”
At some point, Adam had started pacing, and now Ronan had caught him in the middle of the room. His fingernails were digging into his palm, and then his hand was skimming Ronan’s collar. He swallowed.
“I thought…”
Their lips brushed, and Ronan pulled Adam to him so hard he thought he might have hurt him. He had only managed to bite his own tongue, but kissing Adam wasn’t poisoned by the taste of copper. It was just deep and slow and dizzying.
When they came up for air, Ronan leaned his head on Adam’s and brushed his hands over Adam’s shoulders.
“I’m not going to dinner.”
Adam kissed him again. “That’ll piss Declan off.”
“And Kavinsky.” There was a glint in Ronan’s eyes. “Standing up a fake date.”
-
This came back around, of course, when Kavinsky pulled him to the side between classes.
“What the hell, Lynch?”
He looked genuinely furious. Ronan, leaning against a set of lockers, was trying not to snort and only marginally succeeding.
“I had other plans.”
“Like what? I swear to God, your brother and his girlfriend - Ainsley or Alice or whatever her name was - sneered at me for an hour, and you had other plans?” He slammed his fist into the lockers next to them. “You owe me.”
Ronan pushed his tongue into his cheek. “Guess so.” He lifted himself off the wall and started to walk away.
Kavinsky called after him, “Aren’t you going to tell me where you were?”
In response, Ronan lifted his middle finger over his head and didn’t look back.