Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s not like Adam’s expecting it to happen straight away. They’re both new at this. They’ve both got other things on their mind. It’s not a priority. It’s fine. Between catching up on school work and taking on extra shifts to cover all the missed wages, Adam’s barely got time to think about it, anyway. Not to mention Ronan’s hardly around. He spends most of the first two post-Glendower weeks with his brothers, splitting time between D.C. and the Barns, caught up in funeral arrangements for his mother and legal guardian arrangements for Matthew and all the other painful processes necessitated by becoming an orphan in your teens. Adam spends endless Aglionby hours debating how much space he should give him, whether it’s better to risk coming across as clingy or distant, before realizing that, actually, he misses Ronan, and isn’t that more than enough reason to drive out there after school?

At some point over the course of that dreadful winter, things gradually begin to settle and Adam’s able to put his fears of this fledgling thing between them breaking apart under pressure to rest. They tell Gansey and Blue and Henry to a warm (if nauseatingly optimistic) reception. They tell Declan and Matthew to a reception that’s rather less nauseating but still positive on the whole. They fall into a routine of late night drives and double dates at Nino’s and making out on Adam’s shitty mattress (and on Ronan’s comfy mattress at Monmouth, and his even comfier mattress at the Barns, and in the BMW, and against the barn full of dream things, and at Boyd’s, and one time, memorably, in the back of the Pig) and it’s dizzying and electrifying and maddening and intense. It’s everything Adam’s always been too fearful to reach for. It’s perfect.

It’s also frustrating. Endlessly frustrating. Sexually frustrating, which is possibly the most humiliating problem Adam’s ever had to deal with.

It shouldn’t be a problem at all, that’s the thing. Adam’s used to not getting what he wants handed to him, and until recently sex had ranked severely low on his list of wants. It should be simple enough to carry on as usual and enjoy all these new things he can have, hot touches and casual affection and the simple pleasure of being known. But it turns out it’s not that simple, because any time Ronan gets too close to him, any time he thinks about Ronan getting close to him, Adam feels his braincells turn to mush and his nerves light up like a fancy suburb in the lead up to Christmas. He can’t go more than a few hours without thinking about lips on his neck, his hands tracing the swirling ink patterns on Ronan’s back, the hot, hard press of Ronan’s dick against his thigh, and god, how easy it would be to reach beneath his sweatpants and touch –

Safe to say, it’s distracting.

He considers bringing it up to Ronan, but talking about their relationship has never really been their forte. They’re better suited to just doing things, no communication required, and it works because because Ronan’s frighteningly adept at understanding what Adam wants, and Adam’s…well, he’s no expert at the nuances of caring, but he’s always been a quick study, and there’s no subject he’s more dedicated to learning than Ronan Lynch.

Anyway, what good would talking about it do when he’s sure Ronan already knows what he wants? When it’s Ronan, consistently, who puts the brakes on before anything can escalate? If Ronan’s not ready then Adam’s not going to make things weird by drawing attention to it. He’s not going to start the conversation just to inevitably be shot down.

He can wait. He can deal with it.

-

“The hell’s got into you?”

Adam tears his gaze away from the remains of his burnt pizza crust long enough to shoot Blue a glower that he hopes conveys Don’t start. Blue carries on watching him, undeterred, the slight arch of her brow saying I’ll start if I want to start better than words ever could.

They’re huddled in their usual booth at Nino’s, Adam, Ronan, Gansey and Henry. Blue should be working but, as if often the case, she’s hovering around, half-heartedly wiping a wash-cloth over the table across from theirs. To be fair, it’s unusually quiet for a Friday at the beginning of the month. To be less fair, he’s not in the mood to have anyone poking at his sore spots tonight, a feat that Blue has always exceeded at.

“I’m fine,” he says bluntly.

“Right. And I’m happy selling greasy pizza to raven boys that never tip for the rest of my life.”

“Y’know that’s not the lifestyle I would’ve pictured for you, but if that’s what your heart’s set on…”

“Hilarious,” she deadpans. “But seriously. I can hear you over-thinking from a mile off.”

He glances at Ronan out the corner of his eye, but he’s not paying attention to them. Gansey and Henry are locked in a frenetic discussion over potential sightseeing locations for the Great Sarchengsey Roadtrip (Henry chose the name, to no surprise) and Ronan’s been playing along ever since they got here, throwing out various suggestions of American towns he’s definitely just made up, you cannot be serious, no civilized person would name their town Buttzville, Lynch. None of them are made up. Adam’s not sure if Ronan has some bizarre encyclopaedic knowledge of American geography that he’s been keeping quiet all this time or if he actually spent the whole night researching stupid town names with the express purpose of winding Gansey up, and honestly, he can’t decide which of those possibilities is more endearing. He likes him so much –

“Ugh, forget it. You’ve got that look on you again.”

“What look?”

“You know what look. Do you really need me to embarrass you by saying it? Because I will.”

Heat rushes to Adam’s face. Blue rolls her eyes and says, “Yeah, I’d feel that way too if I was this far gone for a guy who still thinks booger is a funny word.”

He wants to point out that Blue is far gone for a guy who thinks Welsh kings are a solid conversation starter and owns polo shirts in every colour of the rainbow, but before he can gets the words out Blue’s manager starts yelling her name from the kitchen and she storms off, cloth forgotten.

Gansey, as if awakening from a trance, looks up and says, “What happened to Jane?”

“She fled the scene. Probably heard you talking about your Blue Ball,” Ronan says, loud enough for the freshmen three booths down to glance in their direction. The shame written on Gansey’s face would be funny if Adam didn’t feel just as embarrassed for wholly different reasons.

“You are a menace to public society.”

“Fuck you, man, you asked for my help.”

“And this is your idea of helping? By mocking the sanctity of our roadtrip?”

“If you want sanctity, I’d say Blue Ball’s a pretty good starting point.”

“That cannot actually be a real place,” Henry says, “and yet, past experiences indicate that I’d be woefully misguided to bet against you.”

“It’s real, I’m telling you. They’ve got pictures and shit.”

Adam is going to scry out of his skin if this conversation goes on any longer.

Thankfully by some sheer coincidence, Blue takes this opportunity to reappear. Gansey beams as though he’s seeing her for the first time in years, and okay, he sees what Blue means about embarrassing looks. He really hopes that’s not the way he’s been looking at Ronan all this time.

Speaking of Ronan, he’s kicking his foot beneath the table. Adam tries not to smile as he kicks back, then gives up trying altogether when Ronan twists their ankles together.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” he says. Murmurs, more like. When did he get so close?

“You were showing off that stellar Aglionby education. Didn’t wanna steal the spotlight.” Adam picks up the remnants of his frazzled pizza crust and starts chewing. It’s a lot easier to concentrate on non-sexy thoughts when half his attention’s taken up by trying not to break his teeth.

“Okay, but when we got here. Kinda seemed like you were pissed.”

“I wasn’t pissed.” He was, but not at Ronan. Not even at Gansey or Henry, although the latter did heavily contribute to the situation with all his talk during school of a certain upcoming consumerist scam of a holiday and innuendos about how one in Adam’s position might choose to spend it. He’s pissed at himself for letting any of this get to him. He’s pissed that it’s not getting to Ronan, because what does that say about him? Is three months really that long a time to wait or is that nothing in serious relationship terms? Does he have some kind of problem? Is he abnormal? Or maybe it’s some kind of stunted development thing. He never got enough hugs and kisses as a kid and now his body’s compensating by, what, making him desperately crave every possible form of intimacy from the first person to show any willingness to touch him? Wouldn’t that be pathetic.

“Okay. Sure you weren’t.”

“I’m serious.” And then before Ronan can start digging in any further, he asks, “Do you mind if I stay over tonight?”

“You don’t need to ask.”

“Right. I know that.” He doesn’t. “I’ve got a morning shift tomorrow, though.”

“What time?”

“Nine.”

“Isn’t that a long lie for you?”

“Right, but if I’ve not got the Shitbox–”

“Jesus, Parrish, relax. I can take you to work.”

Adam frowns. “Are you really sure you don’t mind?”

“Am I sure I don’t mind spending the night with you even if it means getting up at ass o’clock on a Saturday? No shit.” The tone of his voice suggests there’s no argument to be had here, that it really is that simple, that Adam’s company is somehow, miraculously, payment enough. “You wanna head right now?”

Why not? He finishes off the last of his burnt pizza crust and nods.

“All right, nerds,” Ronan announces, climbing to his feet and tugging Adam along with him. “It’s been fun but we’ve got shit to do.”

“I’m sure you do,” Henry says and shoots them a sly look that Adam elects to ignore.

“Should we get going too?” Gansey asks Henry. “I think Jane’s manager is on the verge of kicking us out.”

“Pshaw!” Blue cries. “He’s just pissed and thinks he can harass me because I told him I’m not doing Sunday. Like I don’t do enough shifts without covering everybody else’s.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Gansey says, turning towards him and Ronan. “We were thinking of going for a hike this Sunday. Henry hasn’t seen much of the mountains and I thought, surely it’d be a pity to start off on our roadtrip without taking in all the beauty at home. Ronan, is it too much to ask that you keep your phone turned on this weekend?”

“No promises, Dick.”

“Just text us,” Adam says, because he can’t bear to watch that hopelessly earnest expression on Gansey’s face crumble, and everybody knows by now that wherever Ronan’s phone is, Adam’s sure to be close by.

They leave the diner to a chorus of goodbyes from their friends and a not so subtle glare from Blue’s manager. Adam doesn’t have the Shitbox – he dropped it off at St. Agnes after school and then got a lift from Gansey – and half his clothes have found their way to the Barns by this point anyway, so there’s no need to make a detour to his apartment. They head straight for the Barns.

It’s a long, scenic drive that Adam’s gotten used to over the last few months, so rather than spend it watching the trees whiz by he takes to watching Ronan instead. He’s in his element behind the wheel, calm and controlled, every shift change smooth like he doesn’t have to think about it at all. And it’s unbearably sexy, that competence. Adam curses his one-track mind.

When they make it home, Adam’s first thought is to head for the bedroom and set up the TV. It’s a dream thing loaded with more movies than Netflix’s library, and they’ve been slowly making their way through a list of films that Ronan considers classics and that Adam considers more proof as to why Ronan’s barometer for quality cannot be trusted. He vaguely remembers them making plans to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious next, and Adam’s about to bring it up when suddenly Ronan’s reeling him in and kissing him, and forget it, the car chases can wait.

It’s slow and careful, all closed mouths and coy hands, until the pressure builds between them and morphs it into something more. The air around them grows thicker, hotter, as their breaths mix together, the curl of Ronan’s tongue in his mouth sending a dizzying rush of heat down his spine. Adam slips a hand beneath Ronan’s t-shirt and traces the tattooed lines he’s memorized by heart. He feels Ronan shiver in response and that, more than anything else in the world, sets his body on fire, this proof of Ronan’s desire for him. Knowing that he’s wanted by Ronan Lynch.

Ronan’s hands settle on his lips and guide him backwards, again, again, till he’s pressed up against the door. Then Ronan’s on him again, crowding his space, giving him nowhere else to go. His thigh slips between Adam’s legs and Adam gasps into his mouth and gives into the desperate desire to rock against him. And he thinks, this is it, the prelude to something more. Maybe that’s why Ronan invited him over tonight.

Then he remembers Ronan didn’t invite him over tonight. That was all him. He’s kidding himself if he expects something more to happen.

And just like that Ronan’s thigh is gone and Adam’s back on solid ground. He breaks away from Ronan in order to catch his breath, to reorient himself, to urge his dick to get the message, already. When Ronan kisses him again it’s no less intense, but it’s softer. Adam tries not to be disappointed, which isn’t that difficult when Ronan’s still holding onto him like he’s something worth taking care of. He gets lost in it, the tenderness of Ronan’s touch and the dreamy haze clouding his mind, and he thinks this is enough. It’s more than enough. It’s greed that drives him to want too much.

Ronan pulls away, watching Adam intently as though searching for signs of something he can’t find, but Adam can’t imagine what he’d be looking for that’s not already right there on his face.

Unable to handle any more of Ronan’s incomprehensible looks, he says, “So. 2 Fast 2 Furious?”

Ronan’s entire face lights up. “You actually wanna see it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Trust me, Parrish, you’ll like this one,” he says, as if he didn’t say that about all the other ones. “It’s gay as shit.”

So they settle down on Ronan’s bed and watch the movie. Or at least Ronan watches the movie; Adam spends half the time relishing in the unmasked glee on Ronan’s face and the other half complaining dickishly about how nothing in this film makes sense, Lynch.

“You’re watching this on a TV that came out of my head, and you still expect it to make sense?”

“That’s a totally different thing.”

“How is it different?”

“Because – I know dream things exist. The assholes who made this movie didn’t.”

“You don’t know that,” Ronan says, dead serious, and how can Adam not keep humouring him at this point? He needs to see where this leads.

“So you’re saying Paul Walker pulled an R34 that defies the laws of physics out of his head?”

“Sure, why the fuck not?”

“Because that would make the writing even shittier than it was before. They didn’t think to tell us that he can pull things out of his dreams. You can’t just expect the audience to guess at something as important as that!”

“Sure you can. It’s called reading between the lines.”

Adam resists the urge to burst out laughing. “I think every reputable film critic on earth would disagree.”

“Oh, what, you need everything spelled out for you now? Some things you just know,” Ronan says, and Adam’s struck by the realization that they’re not just talking about 2 Fast 2 Furious anymore, that this really is Ronan’s entire life’s motto, which is deeply absurd and deeply unsurprising and somehow does nothing to quell the deep pit of longing in his gut. “Like the fact that they’re boning,” Ronan adds after a beat. “Or did you need them to make a porno first to get the message across?”

“You’re impossible,” Adam says, and kisses him.

He’s really not thinking about sex this time. He can’t be blamed for the way Ronan pulls him into his lap, or the way he drags every kiss into something wetter, filthier, like he knows exactly what Adam wants and he’s toying with the idea of giving it to him.

“Wait,” Adam tries to say, but it comes out a garbled sigh. Ronan presses another kiss to the exposed part of his shoulder blade, drags his teeth along it and bites and oh, that feels too good. That’s exactly why he needs to – “Ronan, wait.”

Ronan pulls away. Looks right at him, doing nothing to minimize the hunger in his eyes.

“We should stop before…Right?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t. I mean. That’s what you want.”

Now Ronan’s frowning. Maybe he was right, not everything requires an explanation.

Except that’s bullshit, because some things do need talked about, and this is definitely one of them. Adam can’t just keep avoiding the conversation because he’s afraid of the result.

He moves off of Ronan’s lap to sit beside him on the bed instead. Probably easier to have this talk when he can’t feel Ronan’s dick against his leg.

“I don’t care if we don’t have sex,” he says, carefully avoiding Ronan’s gaze. “But I think we need to get on the same page about it and, I don’t know, maybe not do that so much.”

When Ronan doesn’t respond, Adam prods him. “Well?”

But Ronan still doesn’t talk, just holds up a finger to say just a minute.

“Okay,” Adam says slowly. “If you need to process…”

And then it occurs to him, an explanation so obvious he’s shocked he never thought of it sooner.

“Shit. Is this some kind of Catholic thing?”

Ronan bursts out laughing.

This is not how Adam expected this conversation to go.

He waits it out because he’s not sure he wants to know what the joke is. Is it the awkwardness of this whole situation? Hysteria? Or maybe Adam’s the joke. Maybe the joke is that Ronan’s just been messing with Adam’s head for months for absolutely no reason because, what, he gets off on that? Adam doesn’t know anymore. He gives up even trying to make sense of what goes on in Ronan’s mind.

The laughter dies down. Adam chances a look at Ronan and finds him already looking back. And he’s smiling. That can’t be good.

“What is it?” Adam reluctantly asks.

“Why haven’t we had sex yet?”

“I’m assuming it’s not a matter of Catholic virtue.”

The smile widens into something predatory, a shark’s grin. “What else?”

“Sorry?”

“You must’ve had other theories, right? C’mon. Hit me with them.”

“I don’t know, Ronan,” he snaps. “You want me to play guessing games all night? We haven’t had sex because you didn’t want to. How the fuck should I know what’s going on in your head?”

“See, I would’ve said we haven’t had sex because you didn’t want to.”

Adam blinks. Frowns. Processes. Then he says, “That’s ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You pull away every time we’re making out!”

“I don’t do that,” Ronan says. “You do that.”

What the hell? “No I don’t.”

“Sure you do.”

“No I – Oh my god, we’re not ten years old.”

Ronan says, “You do, though. Every fucking time. Like tonight. I figured you were hinting at something, that the whole reason you came over here was because you wanted to have sex –”

“I did want to have sex.”

“Then why the fuck did we waste hours watching 2 Fast 2 Furious? Why are we even talking about this right now?”

“You don’t actually believe I wanted to watch that shit, do you?”

“‘That shit’ is a master-class in cinematic tension and your ass is too uncultured to get it.”

“Right, exactly, we watched it for you.”

“We watched it because you suggested it.”

“No I –” Wait, he did. But that’s not fair. He was only following Ronan’s lead, not being greedy or demanding or chasing after something he wasn’t allowed to have. “You slowed things down right when it was going somewhere.”

“I slowed things down because you weren’t into it.” Ronan looks away. His fingers twist in the bed sheets. He said it so matter-of-factly that Adam almost wants to believe it himself, except that is definitely not what happened. How could Ronan screw up his own reading between the lines ethos so badly? How did Adam screw up so badly?

“If you really think I wasn’t into it then you couldn’t have been looking closely enough.”

“I was looking close enough to see you disappear into your damn head again. What was I supposed to think?”

Oh.

Of course he’d known that he was over-thinking things. That’s just what he does with everything. It never occurred to him that it might look to outsiders, to Ronan, like he was disengaged or pulling himself away. As if spending time with Ronan isn’t the highlight of his day, the main thing getting him through endless weary hours of work and school and studying. As if he’d ever want to be anywhere else when Ronan is right here beside him.

Adam lets out a harsh laugh. “This is a mess.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

He reaches for Ronan’s hand. That’s one thing he can’t mess up, at least. Ronan reaches back and curls their fingers together, and he gives into the impulse to rest his head on Ronan’s shoulder. There’s so many things he should probably say – I was stupid, I should’ve talked to you sooner, I should’ve told you what I want – but he knows Ronan’s thinking through his own mistakes too, and maybe it’s enough right now to simply exist together on the same page.

And as stupid as the whole thing is, Adam can’t help feeling a little pleased at how quickly the argument subsided. If this is the worst that comes from messing things up with Ronan, well, they can handle that. There’s room to be a little bad at this.

Still, there’s one thing that needs saying:

“I can’t believe we messed up sex so badly.”

Ronan shrugs and makes a hm sound, as if he’s not convinced.

“What, you think other couples are anywhere near as fucked up and incompetent as us?”

“Technically we didn’t mess up sex,” he points out, and then smiles slyly. “But if you’re gunning for that…”

“Are you really asking me to have bad sex with you?”

“I don’t know, Parrish. Read between the lines.”

“You are the weirdest person I’ve ever met.” Adam leans in and kisses him again, this time with a pretty good idea of what they both want.

Not that that makes it any less nerve-wracking. He’s never done this before and he knows Ronan hasn’t either. If he messes this up, what’s to say Ronan will even want to stay with him?

But no. That’s stupid. Ronan won’t care if the sex is nothing to write home about. So long as it’s –

Ronan sticks his tongue in Adam’s ear.

“Oh my god,” Adam says and shoves him away. “Please don’t say you have some kind of ear fetish on top of the hand fetish.”

“I don’t have a hand fetish.”

“Are you saying you do have an ear fetish?”

“You were doing that thing again,” Ronan says. “I wanted to distract you.”

“There are better ways of distracting me, you know.” Adam pulls his t-shirt off and then does the same with Ronan’s. Nothing new, they do this all the time, but it still sends a thrill of anticipation rippling through him. Ronan, having gotten the message, runs his hands over Adam’s chest, down his sides, igniting sparks everywhere he touches. They settle at the waistband of Adam’s jeans and Adam feels that coil in his gut tightening, his body shouting out yes, yes, that.

Ronan unbuckles his belt and pushes the jeans halfway down his legs. Adam shakes them the rest of the way off, takes his socks off too, and then he sits back up and pulls Ronan towards him, because as long as they’re kissing he won’t have to think too hard about other things, like being almost naked in Ronan’s bed, holy shit.

But then Ronan leans back, just out of Adam’s reach. Before Adam can protest he pushes on Adam’s shoulder, gets him lying flat on the bed, and pulls his boxers off. There’s a roaring in Adam’s good ear that he thinks might be his heart. He doesn’t miss the way Ronan’s throat bobs as he looks him over. He makes no move to touch him, though, just keeps sitting there staring. It’s uncomfortable. Adam wonders if he should do something seductive, but he’s got no idea how to pull that off. Probably he’d look like a nerd. He lets out a helpless laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Just. Are you gonna sit there all night?”

“Desperate much?”

“Like you’re not.”

Ronan shoves his jeans and boxers off in one quick move and then moves to crawl over Adam. Which would be fine, better than fine, except –

“Socks.”

“Hm?”

“I’m not doing this with you if you’ve got socks on.”

Ronan smiles in that way that says I’m about to fuck with you, so he adds, “It’s just weird. Like, I don’t know, you could leave halfway through or something,” and then he looks away when he feels heat rushing to his face.

“That’s the craziest, most neurotic shit you’ve said all night, and you’ve said a fuck ton of neurotic shit tonight.” He takes the socks off. “Better?”

Adam smiles. He feels drunk on it, that frightening feeling that Ronan elicits from him even when he’s being mean or difficult or jaw-droppingly ridiculous. Especially when he’s being mean or difficult or jaw-droppingly ridiculous.

“C’mon, Lynch,” he says before he can say anything stupid. “You promised me some bad sex.”

There’s nothing bad about it when Ronan climbs on top of him and presses their lips together, or when he finds the perfect angle to get their dicks rubbing against each other. Everything is hunger and heat and pure, heady sensation. It’s live wires sparking beneath every contact point, and there are a lot of contact points. There could still be more, though. He rocks up against Ronan’s stomach and oh, fuck, that’s so good. Better than good. They don’t have words in the English language for how good that is.

He’s not sure if he said any of that out loud or if it’s just the sight of him grinding desperately against Ronan’s body that does it, but Ronan lets out a string of obscenities that sound like poetry to Adam’s lust-addled brain. He tries to kiss Ronan again, needs to be touching him everywhere, but everything is so much-not enough and he can’t breathe. He tips his head back against the pillow instead and soaks in the feeling as it ravages him all the way down to the tips of his toes.

Adam’s so caught up in that mantra of more, more, more buzzing beneath his skin, that he doesn’t notice what Ronan’s doing until he feels the hand around his dick.

“Oh, shit.”

“Okay?”

He nods, although it chafes a little. Ronan watches him, considering, and then he pulls away completely and jumps off the bed. Adam barely has time to think hey, where does he think he’s going, before he’s back and dropping a bottle of lube down on the bed beside them.

“You’ve really had that in your room this whole time?”

“What? Figured we might need it some time this century.”

He wants to contest that – you’re as shitty a communicator as me, you weirdo, your blue balls are your own damn fault – but then Ronan gets a slick hand around his dick and it suddenly doesn’t seem so important anymore.

Ronan works him over not as quick or as rough as he’d do himself, but it’s better all the same. He curls his fingers against his palms hard enough to leave nail imprints behind, lets out noises that are needy and shameful and sound nothing like him at all, and still that pressure builds, his whole body pulled taut like cello strings, and he throws an arm over his face to smother every last embarrassing sound and keep the awestruck look in Ronan’s eyes from overwhelming him.

“Hey.” Ronan pulls his arm away, curls their fingers together instead. “You’re good.”

He is greedy and selfish and desperate for every last scrap of affection Ronan’s willing to give, but he likes the way those words sound in Ronan’s mouth, a reverent prayer, an exaltation.

“Adam.” And now he’s pressed up against him again, breathing heavily against his hearing ear, and Adam has just enough brain capacity left to get his hand down between them and touch Ronan too. He’s hot and hard and heavy in Adam’s palm and it feels so much better than it did in Adam’s fantasies, even though the position’s kind of awkward and neither of them can move properly and his wrist is starting to cramp. He keeps going through it all, relishing in every sound he gets Ronan to make, knowing fine well that neither of them are going to last. It’s a wonder he didn’t come in his jeans the minute Ronan got his hands on him.

“Fuck, Adam, I–”

He kisses Ronan’s neck, his jaw, any part of him he can find as Ronan shudders over him and comes. He’s close too, right there, just needs something more–

“Adam.” Ronan, holding him together after he just fell apart, always thinking about him, wanting him, god. “Fuck, you’re so good.”

Adam’s mind blanks out and he lets himself go.

-

It takes him a little while afterwards to get his bearings again, to remember that he can’t actually lie here for the rest of his life, as tempting as that sounds. They should clean up. He should set an alarm for work.

He burrows deeper into the blankets and ignores his common sense.

“I think you broke my brain,” he accuses, some time later, when Ronan reappears (when did he leave?) with a glass of water and a wet cloth.

“Good. You use the damn thing too much, anyway.”

Ronan places the glass down on the nightstand and then sets about wiping the cum from Adam’s chest. Adam makes a face at that. He can’t go into work smelling like this. Someone’ll notice. He needs to shower.

He sits up. Immediately lies back down.

Definitely broken.

He lets Ronan finish cleaning them both up and then beckons him beneath the covers, where it’s nice and warm and he has no intentions of leaving, ever.

“You know,” Ronan starts once they’re settled in, curled around each other. “We could’ve–”

“Don’t say it.”

“How do you know what I’m gonna say? Thought you couldn’t read between the lines.”

“That is so far off from the point I was making and you know it.”

Ronan falls silent, seemingly conceding the point. But then:

“We could’ve been–”

“Oh my god, we could’ve been doing that the whole time, I get it. Are you ever gonna let this go?”

Ronan smiles widely in that way that says not a chance, you neurotic weirdo and Adam thinks it might just have been worth it to get Ronan to look at him like that.

Maybe he does have a problem, after all.