Work Text:
Everything is fine. Adam goes to class. Adam does tarot readings, and he plays cards with the Crying Club. He studies. He goes home with Ronan after class, some nights. Some nights, Ronan takes him out, to bars, to see weird bands, to laser tag, one time, to a beer festival another.
He keeps things separate. Ronan doesn’t like the Crying Club, and they don’t seem to be interested in meeting him. He hangs out with Ronan’s friends; Gansey, Blue, Noah, and he hangs out with his own friends in a careful balance.
For months, everything is fine.
And then, over one weekend, everything in Adam’s carefully segregated life comes crashing down.
It starts when two things go wrong.
The first is that Blue Sargent shows up to Adam’s Thursday night tarot reading.
She smirks as she sits opposite him at the table in the Student Union loft.
“How did you get in here?” Adam says. Rude, maybe, but you have to be a student to access this building.
Blue smiles a secretive smile. “I have my ways.” She flashes Ronan’s student card at Adam.
“Oh. I thought it would be Gansey’s,” Adam says.
“P’shaw. He’s far too by the books. How much?” She gestures at the jar of cash. Adam wishes he’d hidden it under the desk when he saw her come in. Even worse, when she gestures, Adam sees the tarot card tattoo on her forearm.
He shakes his head. “No, I’m not gonna read your cards.”
“Aww come on!” She grins at him, wide and challenging, and Adam remembers why he likes her so much, remembers why she reminds him of Ronan so much. “Are you afraid that I’ll find out that you’re not a psychic, or that I’ll find out you are?”
Adam sighs. “I’m not a psychic.”
“Prove it.”
“What?”
“Prove it. Read my cards.”
Adam hands her the deck. She shuffles rapidly, with flair, and it’s clear that she’s done this before.
Adam takes them back from her, and fans them out to her.
Blue raises her eyebrows and takes three from the middle of the deck. Adam barely looks at them before he says to Blue, “You should just ask Gansey out yourself. He likes you but he’s intimidated, and he won’t do it because he doesn’t want to ruin what you have now. But you know that what you could have will be so much more.”
Blue snorts. “You got all that from the nine of coins?”
“Obviously not. I told you I wasn’t psychic.”
“Do it again.”
“What?”
“Do it again!” Blue insists, and she shuffles Adam’s cards back into a deck and holds them out to him. “This time, do it properly.”
Adam rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
Page of cups, two of wands, the lovers.
“That is literally what I already told you,” he points out.
“Why are you faking not being psychic?” Blue asks, narrowing her eyes. “And why do it like this?”
“It’s complicated. Ask Gansey out and I’ll tell you.”
“Ooh you are not playing fair, Adam Parrish.”
Adam smiles at her as he shuffles his deck back together. “You started it,” he says, petulantly.
Blue grins at him. “I guess I’ll see you later then.”
The second thing that goes wrong is this:
“You’re coming to the pub quiz tonight right Adam?” Gillian asks, Friday morning. “You could bring your boyfriend.”
Eliot laughs into their mug of tea.
He’s not my boyfriend. He almost says it, but lying about Ronan feels only one step away from lying to Ronan. Instead, he says, “Sure, I’ll ask him.”
“He’ll bring some diversity to the team,” Eliot says, and that could mean any number of things, and not all of them are good.
“So he is your boyfriend then?” Gillian says, as if it was Adam who started using the word first.
“Did you spend winter break with him?” Fletcher asks, as he strolls into the cramped, grimy kitchen. Adam’s only half grateful for the save. He wants to tell him to shut up.
“I stayed here.” Adam pours his cereal without looking up at any of them.
“Just because your parents were in the Caribbean didn’t mean you had to spend it alone,” Gillian points out. Adam doesn’t why the fuck she’d bothering. Saying it now doesn’t change the past. “You could’ve come to mine.”
“Did Ronan know you were alone?” Eliot asks.
“Yes,” Adam answers and then stuffs his mouth with cereal, so he doesn’t have to elaborate.
“Oh! Why didn’t he invite you to spend it with his family?”
“I’ll bring him tonight,” Adam says quickly, still with cereal in his mouth, cutting Gillian off before she can finish her sentence. It’s the only way he can think of to distract her.
“Oh! Brilliant!” she says. “Can’t wait!”
Adam’s relieved. He’s got thirteen whole hours to think of a good reason that Ronan won’t be able to come.
“So you’re coming tonight too?” Gillian asks. Time’s up, much sooner than Adam thought. She appeared from nowhere in the student union café he’s eating in with Ronan.
Ronan frowns up at her. “To what?” he asks, with a mouthful of burger.
“To trivia night, at that pub, The Golden Echidna, in Oakhill. Adam said he was bringing you. It’s a really fun night! They have a kazoo music round!”
An absolutely shit-eating grin spreads across Ronan’s face. “You didn’t mention that Parrish.”
“I didn’t think you were free. Don’t you have that thing.” He kicks Ronan’s shin under the table. There’s no way Ronan wants to go to this.
“Nope,” Ronan says, his grin growing broader.
“That’s great! See you both tonight!” Gillian says, and then she’s gone, merging back into her bubble of fellow Maths students.
Ronan’s still laughing at him. “What the fuck, Parrish.”
Adam rolls his eyes. He’d been expecting reluctance, if he’d mentioned it at all. Not this, whatever this is. “You don’t want to come.”
“Yes I do. A kazoo music round, you know I love those.”
“I know what you’re doing.” Adam stands up, and picks up his overladen bag. He’s got a lecture and then a shift at work before he has to deal with this.
Ronan stands up too, the thick soles of his boots adding two more inches to the three he already has on Adam.
“Do you now? I don’t think you do,” he teases.
Adam sighs. “Then I guess I’ll have fun figuring it out. And you’ll have fun trying not to upset my housemates.”
Adam’s late. Ronan’s waiting outside the supermarket he works in, and Adam is late coming out. Ronan’s already been in and bought a stupidly large number of packet sandwiches and he’s eaten one out of each of them.
Adam comes out fifteen minutes later than he was supposed to. He’s changed out of his work uniform, stuffed it in his threadbare backpack with his books. He looks tired, and he tugs absently on his backpack strap.
Ronan holds the plastic bag of sandwiches out to him. Adam takes it and looks inside.
“For fuck’s sake Lynch.”
Ronan shrugs. “You know I like a variety.”
“This is wasteful,” Adam complains, but he takes a BLT anyway. “Thanks, shithead.”
It’s a long walk up the hill to the pub, and they walk mostly in silence, while Adam eats the sandwiches. The closer they get to the pub, the more Adam’s shoulders come up, the more closed-off he becomes.
Part of Ronan wants to say fuck it, and tell Adam that they don’t have to bother with the pub quiz, but a larger part of him knows that will end in an argument: Adam stubbornly going to the pub anyway, Ronan storming off to, well, to a different pub.
So he goes to the goddamn Golden Echnidna.
There is actually a statue of a small, golden echidna on a plinth above the pub door. It’s wearing a top hat. Ronan takes a picture on his phone. “For Sargent,” he says, when Adam gives him a funny look.
“You know how to text pictures?”
“No. But you do. Maybe if you teach me, I’ll send you nudes.”
Adam snorts. “Like I need nudes.” The comment is a flicker of hope, that whatever Adam’s got on his mind, Ronan can and will distract him from it.
Inside, the pub is busy, and so whimsically decorated that Ronan hates it. It’s so gawdy that is ruins the echidna outside. Adam catches Ronan staring in confusion at a giant stuffed flamingo nailed to the wall.
“It’s fun,” Adam replies, in the most painfully monotonous voice.
“Hey! They’re here!” Adam’s housemates wave at them from a booth across the pub.
“Can’t believe Lynch actually came,” one of them says, too loudly to even pretend they were mumbling. Ronan doesn’t give a fuck what they think. He’s here for Adam. He’s here to piss Adam off out of his mood.
Adam has barely sat in his seat before one of his stupid followers is making a demand of him.
“Can you get nachos while you’re at the bar, Adam?” says the unnamed baby bird.
Adam hasn’t even said he’s going to the bar. The frown that flickers across his face is gone in a nanosecond. “Sure.”
Ronan grins. “Don’t forget I’m vegan.”
Adam, who saw him demolish a double bacon cheeseburger this afternoon, doesn’t miss a beat. “Of course. I hope that’s alright with everyone.”
“Oh!” says Sweater-Vest. “I thought you did agricultural veterinary.”
“Yeah, I do. I like cows, man, why would I wanna eat them?”
Adam disappears off to the bar. Ronan watches his shoulders come up in defence again as he crosses the bar. Closed-off Adam Parrish.
“I thought that was the point. Of like. Being a farmer,” one of the housemates is saying. “Eating cows. Making cows for people to eat.”
“I’m not a fucking farmer.” Fuck. Maybe he said that too aggressively, if the bewildered looks are anything to go by. Ronan feels like a wolf, forced into a booth with a bunch of sheep. He glares around the bar, trying to see where the shepherd has got to.
“So Adam’s never told us. Where did he find you crying?” the girl asks. She’s the one who approached them in the student union bar earlier. It doesn’t make the question make any more sense.
“What?”
“Maybe he doesn’t date criers, Gillian,” another one of the housemates suggests.
Gillian laughs. “Bad luck, Fletcher.”
Fletcher, Sweater-vest, goes bright red and looks uncomfortably at Ronan. Ronan wonders if Adam knows about this. He probably does. These are the four easiest to read people Ronan’s ever met. The conversation moves on, but Fletcher keeps glancing at Ronan like he’s afraid of getting punched.
Ronan passes the time looking at the menu. Even the vegan nachos are twenty dollars and the beer here is stupidly overpriced.
Adam comes back to the table, and he’s got back the pinched expression he was wearing earlier. Ronan watches it drop off his face as he walks back to the table. He’s got a wooden order number tucked under his arm and a beer in each hand.
Fletcher makes room for Adam on the bench seat, and when Adam settles into it, he puts his arm on the seat behind him. Ronan sits on the stupid uncomfortable chair outside the booth and watches Fletcher’s fingers twitch like he wants to touch Adam. Ronan doesn’t know if he’s feeling jealousy right now, or what. Fletcher lives with Adam, Fletcher probably casually touches him all the time, he’s only not doing it now because of Ronan.
Can’t casually touch Adam in front of his— whatever Ronan is.
“Adam did you pay for the team entry as well while you were up there?” Gillian asks.
The pinched expression is back on Adam’s face. “I thought one of you would have—”
“I’ll fucking get it,” Ronan snaps, and he stomps across the bar area to where a guy with a stupid hipster beard is selling entry to the quiz. His moustache curls at the ends and quiz entry is another twenty dollars.
“And here’s your team’s kazoo!” he says.
This is gonna be a long fucking night.
Adam’s distracted throughout the quiz. He’s got something on his mind, and that fact is visible from space. Ronan has no idea how Adam’s housemates haven’t noticed. He misses a bunch of questions that Ronan knows he knows the answer to, stuff about classics and weird science shit he’s heard him talking to Gansey about.
Fletcher doesn’t even notice, even though he’s sitting so close to Adam, he’s practically in his lap, and constantly trying to get Adam to laugh at his stupidly unfunny jokes.
Ronan’s been trying to do the same though, and even though his jokes are better than Fletcher’s, Adam’s still not engaging. He’s looking absently around the room, twisting his fingers together under the table. Ronan nudges him with his foot, and Adam focusses on him, laser focus from nowhere. His lips part and a tiny smile creeps across his face. Ronan knows that look. He swallows, and nods when Adam gestures towards the bathrooms.
There’s a bunch of individual cubicles, each with a full length door, so Ronan checks that no one is looking, and pulls Adam into one with him.
“Are you--?” he starts to say, wanting to check Adam is okay, but Adam has different ideas. He pushes Ronan back against the bathroom door and kisses him, hard and deep, tugging at Ronan’s shirt to pull him closer, kiss him harder. The kiss is intense, and Ronan feels consumed by it, like Adam’s a fire and he’s made of wood, like he’s a dam and Adam’s the surging river about to burst it.
Adam’s hand creeps down and rubs against where Ronan is already half hard in his jeans. Adam squeezes over the shape of his cock a little, and Ronan reads the intent.
“Here?”
“Yeah. Here.” He drops to his knees.
Ronan’s protests die on the tip of his tongue. He’s not sure if questioning Adam’s technique for distracting himself is exactly what he wants to do right now. He’s just also not sure that Adam’s technique is what they should be doing.
“Do you want to be here?” Ronan asks. He means to stop Adam from working his jeans open and pulling his dick out, but he’s achingly hard, an automatic response to the sight of Adam on his knees.
Adam looks up at him and frowns. He glances at the locked bathroom door, and then back at Ronan.
“Out there? Not really. Here? Why would I not?” His eyes flick back down to Ronan’s dick.
“You seem distracted.” Ronan wraps his own hand around his cock, a little defensively. He’s not sure he entirely likes the hungry way Adam is looking at it.
Adam’s tongue slides out and wets his bottom lip. Ronan can feel his warm breath on the wet head of his cock and despite his reservations about whether this is the right thing, it takes everything in him not to push forward.
“So give me something else to think about,” Adam says, his electric eyes back on Ronan.
“Are you sure you want this?”
“Don’t ask me that again,” Adam replies, voice hard and certain. His hands wrap around Ronan’s hips, holding him firm.
Ronan has no idea how he can feel so out of control when Adam’s the one on his knees.
“Fine. You want it. Ask me for it. Properly.” It’s a gamble, to see if it helps him regain control.
“Ronan,” Adam berates, like he knows what he’s trying. The mood shifts again, as Ronan tries to work out which version of Adam’s he’s really got, beneath his insistence. He wants something from Ronan; Ronan just has to work out what.
Ronan jerks his dick slowly, up and down. He cups Adam’s jaw with his free hand, rubs his thumb across his bottom lip. Adam’s lips stretch out in a smile beneath the pad of his thumb.
“Come on, Parrish. You want it so bad, so say please.”
Adam laughs and he leans forward to press his forehead to the top of Ronan’s thigh, breath ghosting across the base of his cock. He rolls his head to look back up at Ronan, and his grin is mischievous.
“Please,” he says, coy.
“Please what?”
“Fuck you,” Adam laughs, and he leans in further, starts licking at where Ronan has his fingers wrapped around his cock.
“I told you to say please.” He tangles his fingers in Adam’s hair and uses the grip to pull Adam’s mouth away from his cock.
Adam moans and he’s breathing hard, like he’s the one who just had a wet tongue teasing over his cock.
“I did,” Adam says.
“Say it properly,” Ronan says, and then, “This okay?” softer.
“Yeah. It’s good. Keep going,” Adam breathes.
“If I keep going, will you ask for what you want?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re the one that dragged me in here. I’m not the psychic.”
“I thought it was obvious what I want.” Adam twists out of Ronan’s lax grip on his hair and surges forward again but Ronan, mostly to be annoying at this point, steps back and holds his cock out of Adam’s range again.
He huffs. “Please, Ronan. Come on, I thought you wanted to give me what I want.”
Ronan lets him lick at the exposed head of his cock. He’s so hard, and pre cum wells up at the tip, pre cum that Adam licks away greedily.
“I want to hear you say it,” he tells Adam, pushing his fingers back into Adam’s hair.
Adam whines. “I wanna suck your cock. I want you to put your cock in my mouth, fuck my mouth, and I want to suck you until you come down my throat.”
“Fuck, yes.”
He lets his hand slide away from his cock, lets Adam replace it with his own hand. He swallows Ronan down immediately. Wet, wet, wet, all the way to the back of his throat.
Adam’s mouth slides back up and he sucks hard at the head, his tongue pressing into the slit. He stays there for a while, sucking hard at the head and jerking the length in his perfect hand. Ronan tugs at his hair a little, trying to get him to take more. Adam moans and swallows Ronan down again. He can feel Adam’s throat fluttering around his cock, and Ronan has to bite on his knuckles, so he doesn’t shout.
Adam moves his mouth up and down, a rapid pace, pausing every so often to lick hard at the head of Ronan’s cock. He’s working with single-minded determination, and Ronan’s going to die. Die from getting his dick sucked. What a way to go.
Adam pulls off. He’s breathing hard, and tears cling on his bottom lashes.
“Hold,” he says. “Hold.”
“You want me to hold you in place? Hold you down? Use your mouth?”
“Please.”
Yeah, Ronan’s definitely going to die here.
“You’re so good, Adam.”
Adam whines again and Ronan fists both his hands in Adam’s hair. This time, he pushes in, and Adam just takes it. He does as Adam had asked, holds his head still with his hands in his hair and fucks his cock into Adam’s waiting mouth. Ronan keeps it shallow at first, but then he moves deeper, pushing further in each time, and then pulling out to shallowly rub his cock over Adam’s tongue. Adam moans; the sound vibrates through Ronan’s cock and into his bones.
“Shit, fuck, fuck, I’m gonna fucking— I’m gonna come. Will you swallow? Will you take it when I come in your mouth?”
Adam nods rapidly, eagerly, and he opens his mouth up again, ready and willing for Ronan. He sucks hard at the head when Ronan puts it in his mouth, and his tongues pushes into the slit again. Ronan pushes in hard and deep, and he comes and comes, Adam swallowing around him.
Ronan collapses onto the floor next to him, his hands already working to free Adam’s cock from his tight jeans.
“So fucking good, Adam,” he says, working his hand into Adam’s boxers, helping him pull his cock out.
“I keep thinking about it,” he says and his voice is rough, but Ronan can hear his accent in it as well and all he wants is for Adam to keep talking. He’d edge Adam all night to keep him talking like this.
“Tell me,” Ronan says. “Tell me what you were thinking and I’ll get you off.” Ronan’s almost certain that sucking his cock wasn’t what Adam was thinking about, but no way is he calling him out on it now.
“Fuck. Thought about you taking my mouth as roughly as you wanted. Fucking my throat. Pulling my hair and making me take it. Wanted you to give me something real to think about.”
Ronan doesn’t know what that means but he lets it slide. “Yeah. Is that what I did? Are you gonna come now, or do you want me to take you back to mine?”
“Oh,” Adam says.
Ronan’s hand stops. “What?”
“Would you?”
“Take you back to my place? Take care of you there? Yeah, if you want that I will.” Ronan teases his fingers across the wet tip of Adam’s cock as he talks.
“I do. I want that,” Adam says.
“Do you want to wait then? Because there’s five fucking trivia rounds left. If you want, I’ll make you wait.”
Adam nods. Ronan’s mouth is dry. The most beautiful boy in the whole fucking world is sitting on the floor of a questionably clean bathroom, Ronan’s come and his own spit drying on his chin, his cock out, dripping wet. He looks a mess, debauched and ruined, and he’s asking Ronan for more.
“Fuck. Please make me wait.”
“Alright.” He swipes his thumb across the wet head of Adam’s cock. “But every time you don’t get a question that I know you know the answer to, I’ll make you wait five minutes longer. Do you want that?”
“Yeah,” Adam says. He doesn’t move to put his cock away though, so Ronan does it for him, tucking it back inside his underwear, and zipping his jeans. He squeezes the bulge in Adam’s trousers once, hard and Adam groans.
“Bastard,” he says.
“You like it. Come on. We don’t want to miss the kazoo music round. It’s the reason I came.”
Adam washes his hands, wipes his face, and runs his fingers through his hair, trying to get it to look less like Ronan’s hands have been pulling at it. His cheeks are pink, and his mouth is bright red, but there’s nothing to be done about that.
If anyone notices Adam’s mussed appearance when they return to the table, no one says anything. He doubts that they would even consider that their wonderful Adam Parrish is dirty enough to suck someone off in a pub bathroom.
Fletcher makes room for Adam on the bench seat again, and Ronan watches his eyes repeatedly darting down to Adam’s mouth. What had been jealousy before is now a very different animal in Ronan’s gut. He catches Fletcher’s eye next time he looks away from Adam and raises an eyebrow. Fletcher looks away quickly, guilty.
Adam hasn’t noticed. He barely pays attention to anything that isn’t the quiz, or Ronan. Every time he gets a question right, he looks at Ronan. He gets so many right, and Ronan loses track of the ones he gets wrong, or the ones he doesn’t answer. It doesn’t matter, not in the end, because Ronan’s forming a new plan. He rubs his fingers under Adam’s shirt, across the smooth skin of his lower back. Whatever Adam was thinking about before, he’s clearly not thinking about it now. Ronan’s going to make sure that it stays that way.
Inside the door of Ronan’s flat, Ronan presses Adam against the wall. He slides his thigh between Adam’s legs, up against the hard line of his cock, and pushes until Adam gasps against his mouth.
“Tell me what you want, Parrish,” he growls into his ear.
“I don’t—” Adam gasps, hips bucking down against Ronan’s thigh.
“Yes you do. You always know what you want.”
“I want whatever you want.”
“Are you sure? What if I want to make you wait longer? What if I want you to wait until I’m hard enough to fuck you, until I’ve taken my time opening you up for my cock. What if I want to you to wait until I’m inside you?”
“Please,” Adam whines. “I want—I want you to decide for me.”
Fucking perfect. Ronan kisses him again, and bites gently on his bottom lip. “Yeah. I’m going to do that then. Come on.”
He takes Adam by the hand and leads him into his room. “Strip for me.”
Adam’s hands fumble as he tries to rush through unbuttoning his shirt.
“No. Slowly. What’s the rush?”
Adam’s answering groan is almost petulant. He starts unbuttoning his green flannel shirt slower though, and eventually he’s shrugging it off to reveal the heather-grey Henley underneath. Ronan reclines on the bed and watches Adam slide the Henley slowly up his abs, revealing glorious tan skin as he goes. Ronan’s lips tingle with the memory of all that warm skin beneath them.
Adam works his jeans down next and it’s hard to do slowly, but he keeps looking over at Ronan through his hair falling into his eyes, like he’s checking to make sure he’s doing it right. No one can take socks off sexily, but Adam turns away from Ronan to do it and so he’s distracted by the movement of Adam’s tight, muscular ass beneath his striped boxer briefs.
“Come here,” Ronan says, when he’s naked apart from his underwear. Ronan’s cock twitches in interest at the way Adam just does.
He stands between Ronan’s spread legs and smirks, small and teasing. The smirk is an edge, evidence of Adam still holding something back and Ronan wants it gone.
“You’re so hard,” Ronan observes, tracing the outline of Adam’s cock. Adam exhales shakily in reply. “If I tell you to kneel, will you?”
“Yeah,” Adam murmurs.
“If I tell you to put your hands on the desk and bend over, will you?”
“I will.”
Ronan imagines it for a second, Adam bent over his desk, the mess of his course notes spread out beneath him, reaching back to hold himself open, to show Ronan his hole, asking to get fucked.
But this isn’t about what Ronan wants. “Good. What do you want more, to come or to get fucked?”
Adam whines and his hips buck forward. “Get fucked,” he says.
“Yeah, you do. Wanna come while I’m fucking you, right?”
Adam nods frantically. Ronan slides his fingers under the waistband of Adam’s underwear and starts working them slowly down over his cock. When it springs free, slapping wetly upright against his stomach, Adam moans again.
Ronan tugs him forwards to straddle his lap. Adam’s pale thighs against the rough denim of his jeans. Ronan’s still wearing his leather jacket; he’s still wearing his boots. Something about being fully clothed while Adam is naked makes his blood run hot. He strokes his hands over Adam’s thighs, teases his fingers lightly over his cock until Adam whines.
He kisses Adam hard, holds his hips in his hands, pulls him in closer to kiss him deeper, lets him rub his cock against Ronan’s stomach a little, lets him grind down against where Ronan is achingly hard in his jeans. Adam runs his hands over the worn leather of Ronan’s jacket, across his t-shirt, dipping beneath to trace the waistband of his jeans.
“Let me get undressed, Parrish,” he says, finally.
“No,” Adam says. “I want—"
Adam takes a breath and then climbs off his lap, and a surge of arousal swoops through Ronan as he drops to his knees in front of him again. He mouths at Ronan’s cock through his jeans a little, runs his hands up his thighs. Ronan tries to remember what Adam said earlier. I want you to decide for me.
He pushes his fingers into Adam’s hair again, remembering the desperate way he’d moaned in the pub bathroom. He uses the grip to pull Adam’s mouth away from him, to make him look up at Ronan.
“I thought you wanted to me to decide.”
“I do. I just wanted…” He trails off, like he’s thought better of what he was about to say.
Ronan hates it. He strokes through Adam’s hair softly. “Tell me what you want. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Wanted to undress you,” Adam says, breathing hard.
“Yeah.” Fuck, Ronan wants that too. “Go on. Start with my boots.”
Adam’s deft fingers start immediate work on the tangled knot of Ronan’s laces. Ronan watches him, strokes his fingers through Adam’s hair and trying to not to think about it what it says about him that someone else taking his shoes off is making him this aroused. It’s just Adam. On his knees for Ronan, doing this because he wants to, because he wants Ronan.
“Do you want me to tell you what to do?” Ronan asks.
Adam nods, but he doesn’t look up from where he’s pulling the laces loose.
“I know you’d tell me if you didn’t want to do something, right?”
Adam hums against Ronan’s knee.
“Adam, come on. I need you to tell me you’ll say if I ask you to do something you don’t want to do.”
Adam slides his hands up the back of Ronan’s right calf, getting him to lift his foot. He looks up at Ronan as he does it. “Yes. I’ll tell you.” He swallows. “I want to come, Ronan.”
“I know you do,” Ronan agrees. “But you have to wait. Earn it.”
“I want to earn it, please,” Adam whispers.
“You’re going to undress me first. Then I’m going to take as much time as I like prepping you,” Ronan tells him, running his fingers through his hair again. “Gonna open you up for my cock real slow.”
“Fuck, please. I want that,” he asks, louder than before.
“Yeah, you wanna be my boy.”
Adam whines madly and buries his face in Ronan’s thigh again. Ronan rubs his fingers on the exposed nape of Adam’s neck.
“You don’t have to be anything else right now. Just that. Just my good boy. You’ve only gotta do what I ask, and I’ll look after you.”
“Thank you,” Adam says, so quietly that Ronan almost doesn’t hear it. Ronan runs his fingers through his hair again and silently encourages him to finish taking his boots off.
When his boots are off, and neatly pushed away from the bed, Ronan stands so Adam can work on his jeans. His hands shake slightly on Ronan’s belt buckle, and Ronan wants to be down there with him, kissing him, touching him, telling him how wonderful he is, but he knows it’s not what Adam needs from him right now. All he wants is to be what Adam needs.
Ronan shrugs his own jacket off, but he passes it to Adam. “Hang it up for me,” he tells him, even though Ronan normally drops it on the floor, or over the couch in the living room.
Adam gets to his feet. Ronan stabilises him with a hand at his elbow, but he makes it across the room, hangs the jacket up on the coat hook on the back of Ronan’s door.
Ronan follows him, and when Adam turns back to the bed, Ronan presses him against the door instead and kisses him hard. Adam gasps with the surprise, but he moans when Ronan licks hard into his mouth. Adam’s hands twist in Ronan’s t-shirt but Ronan catches them by the wrists, pins his hands back to the door. Ronan works his thigh between Adam’s again and he lifts his knee to tease at Adam’s balls. Adam’s fist thuds against the door, and he moans into the kiss.
When Ronan lets go of his wrists, his hands stay against the door. “Good,” he whispers into Adam’s mouth. He kisses him again, fingers of one hand in Adam’s hair, his other hand on the small of Adam’s back, sliding down to tease between his ass cheeks.
When Ronan pulls back to look at him, Adam is flushed pink. His mouth is hanging open, red and wet, and Ronan wants to put his cock in it. He settles for sliding his thumb over Adam’s bottom lip. Adam sucks it into his mouth, and he licks at the pad of it.
“On the bed, on your back. Hands above your head, legs spread.”
Adam nods, and the expectant, desperate look on his face goes straight to Ronan’s already aching cock. He watches Adam practically trip onto the bed, his eagerness an incredible turn on.
He settles onto the bed, just as Ronan had asked. Adam’s cock is flushed dark, straining upwards and dripping onto his stomach. He moans deep and long when Ronan runs his fingers lightly over it.
“Do you think you can wait until I’m inside you? That’s all you have to do, hold off until you’ve taken my cock.”
“Yeah, I can. I can hold on,” Adam says, his eyes wide, his arms crossed above his head, spread out on Ronan’s bed.
“Yeah, I know you can.” Ronan tugs his shirt over his head and kicks his briefs off as he opens the drawer he keeps the lube in.
He kneels on the bed between Adam’s legs, and runs his fingers against the grain of the golden hair covering them. He wraps his hands carefully around Adam’s thighs and uses the grip to open his legs wider, exposing Adam’s hole more.
“Let me see you,” he says. “Hold yourself open for me.”
Adam nods. He bends his knees up, letting his legs fall at a wider angle, and he replaces Ronan’s hands with his own, doing exactly as Ronan had asked. Forget about Adam not lasting, Ronan doesn’t know how he’s going to hold off long enough to actually fuck him.
Adam’s never this shameless. Sure, he asks for what he wants, always goes after it, but there’s always an edge. Always something held back, like he’s afraid that Ronan will look and not like what he sees. Not now, not here.
Ronan slicks his fingers quickly. He told Adam he’d open him up slow, but it’s looking more and more like an empty threat. His cock aches, like he hasn’t come in three weeks, instead of just three hours. Ronan has no idea how Adam is holding it together.
He squeezes some more lube straight onto Adam’s hole, a little to be an asshole, but mostly to see the way Adam jumps and gasps at the cold sensation. His hips jump, and he whines as Ronan spreads the lube around on his pink hole.
His sigh is desperate relief when Ronan slides one finger into him. It goes easily, and Ronan quickly adds a second, twisting them in until Adam keens and starts bearing down against them. Ronan speeds up, fucking his fingers in faster and faster until Adam is panting from it.
“Thought you were gonna—gonna do it slow?” Adam pants, dirty smile flickering on his face.
“You’re gonna wish you hadn’t said that,” Ronan teases. Adam moans.
He keeps two fingers deep inside, and surges forward to kiss him. Again, when Ronan runs his tongue over Adam’s bottom lip, when he deepens the kiss more and more, Adam just takes it, just lets Ronan have what he wants. Ronan’s never getting used to that.
Ronan crooks his fingers, again and again, and Adam groans in time with the movement. He grits his teeth and whines through them when Ronan adds a third finger. He sits back to watch, to appreciate the view, to memorise it. He adds more lube and scissors his fingers, watching, mesmerised at the way Adam’s body draws him in, the way he stretches to accommodate him.
“Ronan,” Adam says.
“What?” He grins at Adam and twists his fingers teasingly.
“Enough.”
“I’m not so sure. I told you I want to take my time.” He’s built up a rhythm now. In, twist, out, in, twist, out.
“Please, Ronan. Please,” Adam begs.
“Fuck, I love hearing you say that. Do you want to ask me for what you want?” He stills his fingers.
“No,” he groans.
“Maybe I want to hear you say it. Go on, Adam.”
Adam’s hips jerk up like he’s seeking relief for his straining cock. There’s none to be had. Ronan starts moving his hand again, faster again, just for the way it makes Adam screw hie eyes shut, the way his mouth falls open.
“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” Adam chants, and yeah, Ronan doesn’t know why the hell he’s waiting anymore. He grabs a condom from the drawer and fumbles it on as quick as he can. Touching his cock to spread lube on it is a relief, but it’s nothing compared to what he knows the heat of Adam’s body will be like.
“I’m not gonna last long,” he admits, as the head of his cock nudges up against Adam’s rim. Adam shakes his head, and Ronan interprets the silent me neither.
He slides his cock in, and he doesn’t know if the gasps of relief come from him or from Adam, but when he’s finally deep inside of him, they’re both breathing hard. Ronan plants his hands on the pillow either side of Adam’s head and he fucks into him, deep, and slow. Slow, because he thinks if he moves too fast, he’ll come. Deep, because it’s Adam, and he wants to give him everything.
Apparently, it’s not enough.
“More,” he says.
“More? That’s my whole cock, sorry,” Ronan jokes.
Adam laughs, but then Ronan rocks out and in again and he chokes on the laugh. “Harder.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you harder.” Ronan drags his hips back, until the tip is almost the whole way out. When he pushes back in, he gives it everything, fucks back into Adam as hard as he can. Adam cries out, but before he has chance to recover, Ronan does it again. He fucks Adam in hard, long strokes that have him panting again, have sweat forming all over both of them. Adam’s fingers claw at his back, at his shoulders, and Ronan hopes stupidly that he leaves scratches, visible on the pale skin peeking through his dark tattoo.
“Come like this, Adam, come for me. You’ve earned it, waited so long. Sucked my cock so well, let me play with your hole. Giving me so much,” Ronan says, murmuring low into Adam’s good ear.
Adam moans and clenches down tight around Ronan’s cock, jerking his hips down to meet Ronan’s thrusts. Ronan scrapes his teeth against Adam’s jaw, and Adam screws his eyes shut tight.
“No, look at me. Want you to look at me when you come,” he commands.
Adam’s eyes snap open again, dark blue almost completely swallowed by black. Ronan keeps the pace, keeps moving his hips in the same way, but he speeds up, getting faster and faster, losing his rhythm as he gets closer and closer. Adam’s whining through his teeth again, and it sounds like he’s trying to stop himself from saying please.
“Let go, you did so good. Let go, come for me,” he says, and Adam does. He comes without a hand on his cock, cum smearing between them, his cock jerking wetly in the mess. Ronan lets himself go too, losing himself in the feeling of Adam clenching and twitching around him, beneath him. The orgasm goes on and on, and he feels it all over his body, like electric pulses snapping in his gut, in his head, in his legs.
Ronan slumps down onto Adam, and Adam’s arms come up around his shoulders, holding onto him. He presses a kiss to the side of Ronan’s head and Ronan turns so he can catch Adam’s mouth with his.
The kiss is lazy and soft, a stark contrast from the way they’d just fucked. Ronan likes it just as much. More, maybe.
He moves to roll off of Adam, to slide out of him, and get rid of the condom, but Adam clings to him, holds him in place with his legs too.
“Stay,” he says, a tiny whisper, that Ronan wouldn’t hear if he were any further away.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replies, gently. “I just want to take the fucking condom off.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t so gentle.
Adam nods, and he groans when Ronan’s cock slips out of him. It’s difficult, trying to take the condom off and tie it, with one arm. The other is beneath Adam’s shoulders, holding him. Adam’s not helping either, he has his arms around Ronan still, and he looks like he’s falling asleep.
Ronan has to free his other arm, but he manages to navigate getting the condom off without spilling come or disturbing Adam, and he knots it and drops it in the bin.
“Parrish,” he says. Adam blinks sleepily at him. He smiles again, sleepily, and fuck, Ronan doesn’t want to leave him. “I’m gonna get a washcloth. I’ll be back.”
“’Kay,” Adam says. Ronan extracts himself from the bed and he gets a washcloth and a glass of water as fast he can manage, again grateful that Gansey isn’t here to tell him off for wandering the apartment naked.
Back in his room, Adam is blinking slowly, like he’s fighting sleep.
“Here, drink some water,” he says, holding the glass to Adam.
“’m not thirsty,” he mumbles, but he takes the glass anyway when Ronan presses it to him. Adam drinks, and then puts the half-emptied glass down on the nightstand. Ronan climbs back onto the bed next to him. He switches the light off as he goes, casting the room into the strange, orange light from the streetlight outside.
Adam rolls closer and lays with his head on Ronan’s chest. Ronan cards his fingers through Adam’s hair.
“I liked it,” Adam says, quiet and rough into the dark room.
Ronan nods even though Adam can’t see him. “You said you wanted me to give you something real to think about. What did that mean?”
“Didn’t mean anything.”
“Adam.”
Adam huffs. “Fine. I was worrying about things I can’t do anything about. I wanted you to distract me. Give me something to focus on.”
“And what I did was right? It was okay?”
Adam nods. “It was just what I needed. Thank you.”
Ronan kisses the top of his head. “Anytime. And I mean anytime. Because fuck Parrish.”
Adam laughs, and he grins up at Ronan, wide and mischievous. “That’s the idea.”
“You’re such a shit,” Ronan laughs, and he kisses him again.
Saturday morning, Adam’s blearily making coffee before his work shift, when Gansey’s bedroom door creaks open and Blue walks out.
“I smell coffee,” she says, grabbing for the pot. Her hair is sticking up at strange angles, and she’s wearing a Gansey’s rowing team t-shirt. When Adam points this out, Blue snorts, and says, “Oh yeah, and is that your EDM festival t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.”
Adam shrugs and sips his coffee.
“Got any plans tonight?” Blue asks, climbing onto the counter.
Adam sighs. “Gillian’s been going on about this regression sessions thing for ages.”
“What is that?” Blue asks, curiously.
“It’s at Warehouse. They fill it with inflatables and, I don’t know, ball pits for people to vomit in. It really doesn’t sound like my—”
“Wow!” Blue’s looking at her phone already, event page open. “This sounds like so much fun! There’s a roller rink!”
The bathroom door bangs shut behind Ronan. He’s got a towel around his waist and Adam really wishes that he didn’t have a shift at work.
“Lynch!” Blue says. “Do you wanna drink vodka slushies and go drunken roller-skating tonight?”
“Is this that thing with the vomit-filled ball pit?” he asks, stalking across the apartment. He stands too close to Adam for Adam not to be able to touch.
“Yeah, but look, they have rules to stop that. And it sounds like so much fun if you’re not a fucking nerd like Adam,” Blue says, waving her phone at Ronan.
“Rules and enforced fun, sounds fucking nerdy to me,” Ronan says. “But sure, as long as you make Gansey go too.”
“Obviously,” Blue says.
And that, is how Adam ends up actually looking forward to a night spent in a packed warehouse-turned-nightclub, trying to negotiate drunk and over-excited students running between multi-coloured inflatables.
Ronan finds Adam in his favourite in spot in the library the following afternoon. The desk next to him is empty, so Ronan sits on it.
Adam doesn’t look up, but a muscle jumps at the corner of his mouth like he’s trying not to smile.
Ronan takes a packet of skittles from his pocket and pours a handful right onto Adam’s notes. That gets him to look up at Ronan, contempt written plainly on his face.
Ronan tips the rest of the skittles into his mouth and starts chewing obnoxiously.
“What do you want, Lynch?” Adam says, as he pushes the sweets off of his book and into a neat pile on the desk. His voice is soft, barely above a whisper. A reasonable library volume.
“Will you tell me what was bothering you last night?” Ronan has no reasonable library volume.
Adam taps his pen on the desk, and Ronan expects a no. A drop it, Lynch. Adam sighs instead. “They’re reducing my contracted hours at the grocery store. It’s not the end of the world. I still have a job. But I won’t be guaranteed as much money as before.”
“It fucks with your budget,” Ronan says.
“Yeah. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” Adam scrubs his hands through his hair, messing it up. “I can’t do anything about it.”
“You always work way more hours than you’re contracted anyway. And the reduced hours will mean you can take more time off during exams.”
Adam nods. “I know.” He goes back to his neat, colour coded notes.
Ronan snorts. “Besides, if you need the cash, I’m sure Fletcher will pay you to tutor him in something. He’s probably got some sexy tutor student roleplay planned out in his head. Oh Adam you’re so clever.”
“You’re projecting. And if you’re not going to suck me off under the desk, then stop bothering me during office hours,” Adam says, dryly, not looking up from his textbook.
Ronan laughs, far too loudly for this corner of the library. A girl with more textbooks on her desk than Adam, glares at him.
“Yeah, you wish.” He jumps off the desk, swiping a yellow highlighter from Adam’s 12-pack as he does. “See you around, Parrish.”
On his way out of the library, he almost walks right into Gansey. And by almost, Ronan deliberately swerves into Gansey’s path, so Gansey has to abruptly sidestep to avoid him.
“Lynch!” Gansey says, dropping an overflowing notepad on the floor. “What are you doing in here?”
Ronan looks around. “I could be studying.” It’s true, he has exams in a month.
Gansey looks suspicious. “Were you?”
“Nah, Parrish is up on third. Here.” He throws Adam’s highlighter to Gansey. Gansey frowns at it.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Ronan shrugs. “Give it back to him,” he suggests, as he leaves the library.
Adam goes with the Crying Club to Warehouse that night. He flinches at the entry fee, and then again at the price of drinks inside. He takes the shots that Benjy buys him, but declines a bright blue vodka slushie.
It’s not hard to find Ronan. He’s in the middle of the roller rink, balanced on his skates, bright blue drink in held in one hand, while he uses the other to catapult Blue across the rink, towards where Gansey is standing with his back to them, chatting away to someone: an unsuspecting target. There’s a member of staff in a high-vis jacket shouting at him, but Ronan ignores them. He sees Adam looking and raises his drink in greeting.
Adam wants to go to him. Everything about this night is going to be infinitely better if he gets to make fun of it all with Ronan, instead of—
“Adam, come on we’re going to queue for the inflatable obstacle course,” Fletcher says, and he does that thing, where he goes to put his hand on Adam’s back. Adam steps away so he can’t.
“I’m good here,” he replies, even though here is pointlessly in the middle of the space, between the crowd for the bar and the surprisingly full dancefloor. Fletcher follows Adam’s line of sight to where Ronan is being told to leave the roller rink.
“Oh. I didn’t know he’d be here,” Fletcher says.
“I did,” Adam says, and he can’t help the smirk on his face.
“I suppose we won’t be seeing you for the rest of the night then?” Fletcher asks.
The tone of Fletcher’s voice opens a pit in Adam’s stomach. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps.
“I just thought you could spend tonight with your actual friends. But as soon as he’s around, it’s like we don’t exist anymore.”
“That’s not true…” but even as he says it, he knows it is.
“Why don’t you just go with him, Adam. Just know that he’ll get bored of you, and you’ll find that you haven’t got your real friends anymore.”
Adam almost laughs. The sound is bubbling up in his gut, and he’s frantically trying not to smirk.
“Parrish. Fletcher.” Ronan throws his arm around Adam’s shoulders and sticks his bright blue tongue out at him.
“Give it some thought, Adam,” Fletcher says, and he turns and walks away.
“The fuck was that about?”
Adam frowns. “Nothing,” he says. And then, “Apparently you’re going to get bored of me.”
Ronan, to Adam’s relief, throws his head back laughing. “Im-fucking-possible. He’s jealous, forget it. Come on, let’s go make out in the ball pit.”
The ball pit is, just as Adam had worried, full of people who are too drunk to be in this kind of setting. There’s also a very large sign telling people not to bring drinks into the pit with them. Ronan walks right past it, vodka slushie in his hand. The balls are all white, and they glow under the ultraviolet light.
“Oh shit! Adam! Hey!” Blue shouts, as she wades through the balls to where he and Ronan are sat not making out. Not yet. “Ronan said you were gonna be with your housemates!”
Adam laughs. “How are you this drunk already?”
“She’s tiny. In fact, these balls are pretty deep, I’m worried we’re gonna lose her.”
“Heh, balls deep,” says Blue, sinking into them. She’s laying almost all the way back, when she sits up abruptly. “Gansey!”
“What about him?” Adam asks, confused. He’d spent hours in the library with Gansey that afternoon, completely distracted from studying, and completely uncaring about that fact. Gansey studies things just for the sake of studying them, and attitude that Adam is excited to be able to share with someone.
He’s brought back to the present by Blue, standing and shouting, “Bring the shots in here!”
Adam follows the direction of her shouting to where Gansey is standing at the edge of the ball pit, holding a tray of shots. “The rules!” he shouts back.
“Fuck the rules! Bring the shots here! Parrish needs a drink!” Ronan yells.
“I’m fine, Lynch,” Adam protests.
“Nah man, your roommate was a fucking asshole. Next time I hear him say some bullshit like that I’m gonna tell him the truth.”
Ronan doesn’t elaborate, and Adam doesn’t get a chance to ask because Gansey does get though the ball pit with the shots and Adam’s distracted by the one that Blue hands him that tastes like bananas.
It’s almost too easy to forget about Fletcher, and definitely too easy to forget about Adam’s insistence that he wouldn’t have fun here. He drinks the horrible, flavoured shots that Blue gives him, distracts the ball pit attendant with her while Ronan throws balls at where Gansey is talking to Henry Cheng, and he races Noah through the inflatable obstacle course. And yeah, he makes out with Ronan in the ball pit. A lot. Adam doesn’t drink anything neon blue, but at the end of the night, his lips and his tongue are stained like he has been.
“What time is it?” Adam asks, blinking rapidly against the sunlight creeping around the edge of Ronan’s blind.
“Sunday,” Ronan grunts, his face buried in his pillow.
“I said time, not day.”
“’S still Sunday.”
Adam rolls over the top of Ronan to reach his phone. He blinks at the screen, and 07:47 blinks back. He sighs and relaxes back into the bed.
His hard cock slides against Ronan’s ass as he spoons up behind him, and his breath catches in his throat.
“If you’re gonna do that,” Ronan says. “At least wait for me to get hard too.”
Adam snorts softly into Ronan’s shoulder and pushes his cock more firmly between Ronan’s ass cheeks. “Won’t take long,” he murmurs.
“Pretty arrogant of you Parrish,” Ronan replies, and he rolls over, underneath Adam, pulling him down between his legs.
Adam groans when his cock slides against Ronan’s, and then again when Ronan’s fingers rub at his hole.
“Still wet from last night?” Ronan asks. They’d fucked, quick and rough and drunk last night. Adam remembers being unable to stop laughing, even when he had Ronan on top of him.
Now, Adam kisses his affirmation into Ronan’s collarbone.
“Do you want it again?”
Arousal surges in Adam’s gut. He wants. “Yeah. You’re gonna fuck me how I like it, right?”
“Always do,” Ronan says.
“Now who’s being arrogant.”
Ronan rests his forehead against Adam’s. “Shut up, Parrish,” he laughs. His fingers are slick and Adam’s so relaxed, barely hungover and still a little wet from last night. Ronan’s fingers press into him, strong, stretching him quickly.
“Fuck, I’m ready. I wanna feel it,” Adam says, gripping Ronan’s cock beneath him and moving around to line them up.
Ronan’s fingers leave him and Adam sinks down slowly onto his cock. When he’s all the way down, their hips meeting, he sits still, throws his head back and revels in the feeling, the sensation of how well Ronan fills him up.
“Slow, yeah?” Ronan says, and fuck, he sounds like he did the other night, telling Adam to undress slowly, telling him what to do. Adam wants it again, that feeling, not having to think, not having to be in control.
He nods frantically, and rolls his hips once, controlled and slow. “Tell me. Tell me how to do it.”
“Fuck. Like that, yeah,” Ronan growls. “I love when you ride my cock real slow. How long could I keep you here for?”
“Long as you want.”
“Yeah,” Ronan says, and he sits upright, bending his knees to counterbalance as he leans in to kiss Adam, holding him tight. The change in angle shifts Ronan’s cock in his ass and Adam gasps against his mouth.
“Shit,” Adam says, and rocks his hips faster, suddenly overcome with the need for more.
“Hey, no. I told you to go slow,” Ronan admonishes.
“Fuck, please, Ronan.”
“Jeez, Parrish. Either you want to do what I tell you, or you don’t. Tell me what you want.”
“More,” Adam gasps, rolling his hips insistently.
“Greedy. Should get you to earn it. Earned it Friday night, didn’t you?”
The fact that Ronan is thinking of Friday night too makes Adam whine.
“You were so good, waiting for me,” Ronan says through gritted teeth. “Relax, Adam.”
Adam grinds hips, trying to accommodate the stretch.“I am.”
“You’re not. You think I can’t tell?” Ronan asks, his hands sliding up Adam’s sides. “Get so fucking shameless when you relax properly. It’s so fucking hot, the way you get when you’re desperate.”
“Make me desperate then,” Adam whispers in his ear.
“Ha! Don’t come then,” Ronan growls. “Don’t come until I tell you that you can.”
He plants his feet firmly on the bed behind Adam, and his cock shifts minutely inside of Adam, as he starts to rock gently into him.
“Fuck, don’t tease me,” Adam moans.
“I don’t wanna point out the obvious,” Ronan says, smirking. “But we’re kind of past that stage.”
“You’re such a shit.”
“Fine.” Ronan’s grin, sharp and wicked as a knife, spreads across his face. “Brace yourself, Parrish,” he says.
“What—Oh!” Adam is shocked out of his question because that’s the moment Ronan chooses to start fucking his hips hard and frantic into Adam. Adam does have to brace himself, he wraps his hands around the slats of the headboard and leans forward over Ronan, holding steady and letting Ronan take.
It’s not the slow morning fuck that Adam had thought of. It’s so much better.
“God, fuck. I love it when you’re like this, when you give me everything, when you—”
Ronan stops, and he pulls out. He extracts himself from beneath Adam, and kneels behind him instead. Adam groans. He just wants to get fucked.
But. “This okay?” Ronan asks, kissing Adam’s shoulder softly.
“Yeah,” Adam breathes. He doesn’t want to beg, but he needs Ronan to know how badly he needs him back inside. “Please Ronan, I need it, I need you to, I need you to take it.”
“No, I don’t have to take,” he says, low and rough into Adam’s ear, as he moves behind him. “You’re gonna give it up for me.”
Adam whines as Ronan’s slick cock head teases at his hole. He can feel his face burning, embarrassment at being so shameless, needing so obviously. He tips his hips back, trying to push back against Ronan’s cock.
“That’s it, show me how much you want it. I love it. I want it so much, want you slick and wet for me. Want you begging. When you give it all up, it’s so good, Adam,” Ronan says, low and quick, his cock still teasing against Adam.
“Yes, please, yes, give me it,” Adam pants. “Don’t wanna think, I just want—oh.”
Ronan slides his cock all the way inside. It’s so good, being filled like this, feeling Ronan moving inside of him, his hands skimming over Adam’s chest, squeezing around his cock. Adam stops thinking, just lets himself be, like he did Friday night. Ronan’s hands tangle with Adam’s on the headboard and he pulls Adam’s hands off.
“Jerk yourself. Make yourself come with my cock in you. You want that, don’t you?” Ronan asks, leaning forward to whisper roughly into Adam’s ear.
Adam can’t even control the sounds he’s making any more, let alone what his hands are doing. Ronan’s still touching him everywhere, his nipples, his back, gripping his hips. One hand tangles in his hair, and that’s something Adam’s learnt about himself, how much he likes that; likes Ronan tugging on his hair as he fucks him, to guide Adam’s mouth as he blows him, like reassurance that this desperation is reciprocated.
Adam jacks his cock fast and rough. Ronan rolls his balls in his hand, fucks him deep and fast, and murmurs, “Come for me, Adam,” and there’s nothing, nothing, Adam can do to stop it happening. He comes all over Ronan’s dark bedsheets, all over his own hand, moaning raggedly as he does.
Adam slumps forward into the pillows, buries his face in arms. Ronan grips his hips, and everything feels far away and hazy. Adam just lets it wash over him, the come down from his orgasm, the feeling of Ronan moving inside him, faster and rougher, chasing his own orgasm. He’s saying Adam’s name over and over, like a prayer, and Adam never wants to lose this, never wants to give this up.
*
Adam has to sneak back into his own house Sunday morning to get a clean uniform for work. It doesn’t start out as sneaking. There’s no one downstairs when he comes in through the front door, and he doesn’t see anyone on his way up to his bedroom.
The only reason it ends up as sneaking at all is because, on his way back out, as he comes down the stairs, he hears voices in the kitchen.
Adam doesn’t normally eavesdrop. It’s not something easily done when you’re already half deaf and he feels it’s a little dishonest. Better to gather information about people where they can see you doing it.
But the top of this conversation makes him pause.
“—don’t believe he didn’t know Lynch was going to be there last night.” Adam thinks it’s Fletcher talking.
“It’s like Adam becomes someone else when he’s around him.” Definitely Gillian.
“I just don’t think that Ronan is good for him,” Fletcher is saying. “I don’t get what Adam sees in him, he’s very difficult to get on with.”
“Oh God, yes. All those vulgar jokes he made at the pub the other night. Have his parents met him yet? They sound very similar to my parents, and I know they wouldn’t approve of me dating someone with a back tattoo,” Gillian replies.
“I don’t think they have. They haven’t been to visit since Adam started dating him,” Fletcher says, as Adam moves down the stairs, closer to the door.
“If it even can be called that. Are they really dating?”
Oh fuck. Adam should go in. He should stop this conversation. But his worst instincts are telling him to stay, to keep listening.
“What else would you call it?”
“Hooking up? Fuck buddies? I expect that’s what Adam is doing with him. Don’t make that face. I expect Lynch will be bored of him soon, that’s what guys like him are like. Or Adam will realise he wants something serious.”
“Do you think so too?” The hopeful note in Fletcher’s voice makes Adam feel sick. “I said something like that to Adam last night.”
“Did you? I doubt he took that well. But we all think you’d be much better for Adam than Lynch as well.”
Adam can’t tell if it’s nerves making his hands shake, or something else entirely. He quietly creeps backwards up the stairs. On his way back down, he thumps his feet on at least three of them. Fletcher and Gillian still jump when he comes into the room.
“Adam!” Gillian says. “We didn’t know you were here, we thought you’d spent the night with your friend.”
“Yeah, I did, I just came to get my work uniform,” Adam says, watching their faces. Fletcher looks guilty still, and even if Adam hadn’t overheard them, he’d have guessed that they were talking about him. “I’m going to invite Ronan to movie night tonight.”
He doesn’t ask if it’s okay with them, just watches the emotions flicker on their faces. Gillian narrows her eyes and for a second, Adam thinks he’s about to get called out on his eavesdropping.
“Sure,” she says, saccharine smile on her face. “That would be great.”
“I’ll see you guys later then,” Adam says, and he slides past, out the door, leaving them exchanging confused and annoyed looks.
*
Sunday night movie night is Adam’s favourite Crying Club weekly event. He doesn’t have to talk, doesn’t have to keep track of his lies, he just has to sit and watch a movie. Sometimes he’ll surreptitiously study, if he can, textbook nestled in his lap.
Tonight though, Adam can’t catch up on his reading. Ronan is whispering snide comments about the movie into his good ear, the warmth of him all along Adam’s side, his arm across the back the couch.
“Did your parents enjoy the Caribbean over Christmas, Adam?” Gillian asks, loudly. She looks at Ronan as she says it, and Adam sees it for what it’s trying to be. We know him better than you.
“Huh? Oh yeah, they did.” He doesn’t elaborate, and he hopes there are no follow-up questions. Ronan is picking the label off the weird IPA he’d been drinking.
“Did your mom find it too hot? You said she was worrying about the heat,” Gillian says. Benjy shushes her.
Next to him, Ronan tenses. Adam laughs awkwardly. “Yeah, she got used to it, I think.”
“Do you think they’ll take you with them next year?”
“Oh, no. I don’t want to go, and I think they want to go to Europe somewhere next year. You know.” He laughs awkwardly.
Ronan stands up and crosses the room. Adam flinches when the front door slams.
“Is he okay?” Gillian asks. Adam doesn’t think she could care less.
“Yeah. I’m gonna go—”
Outside, Ronan is leaning against the low garden wall. A taxi speeds past. Across the street, two people are making out on the front step while a third smokes next to them. Adam screws his nose up.
He sits next to Ronan on the wall. “Hey.”
Ronan exhales, a long, hard breath, like he’s blowing smoke. “You’re lying to them.”
“I am.” No point in not agreeing.
Ronan frowns and for a second, it looks like he’s going to walk away. Adam won’t ask him to stay. But then he asks, “Have you lied to me?”
“No.”
“How do I know that’s not a lie?” Ronan still hasn’t looked at him. Adam can’t look away.
“Because I’ve never had to lie to you. You’ve never asked so I never lied.”
“But would you?” His voice is steady, no hint of emotion, but it’s there. “If I asked about your family, asked about where you’re really from, would you lie to me?”
Adam’s eyes sting, and he doesn’t think it’s the cold. “I don’t know.”
“What?” Ronan steps away from the wall and turns to face Adam. “Either you’d lie or you wouldn’t, how can you not know!”
“Why does it matter?” Adam shouts back. The people across the street are staring. Adam takes Ronan’s arm and drags him down an alleyway between two houses.
Ronan tears his arm out of Adam’s grip. “It matters because I don’t fucking know anything about you. It matters because you lie to them so easily. It matters because I—” Ronan’s mouth snaps shut.
“Because you what?” Adam snarls. “Because you think you know me better than anyone else? You don’t know me at all.”
That’s the first time he’s lied to Ronan. It sits heavily in his gut, swirling with the greasy pizza and cheap beer.
“Fuck. You.” Ronan’s snarl is harsher than Adam’s. He kicks the garbage can so hard on his way back down the alleyway that he leaves a dent in it.
He told himself he wouldn’t ask Ronan to stay, but the plea comes unwillingly. “Ronan.”
Ronan stops at the end of the alleyway. Adam’s glad he doesn’t turn around. Tears run in hot stripes down his face, burning against the cold night air. He’s losing this. The only real thing he has.
Honesty is the only road out. He walks towards Ronan.
Adam takes it.
“I don’t want to be that kid. The one whose Dad beats him. The one that grew up in a trailer and had to work three jobs just to get through school. I didn’t want to be a victim. I don’t want people to pity me, to look at me and only see that.”
Ronan’s head turns to the side. He’s either going to turn around or walk away. Adam takes two more steps towards him. If he leaves, Adam won’t follow. If he tells himself that enough times, it will be true.
“Ronan. I don’t want you to go.”
He shakes his head. “Tell me you didn’t lie to me.”
“I can’t. I did just now,” he says, in a rush before Ronan can interrupt. “I told you that you didn’t know me. But you do. I don’t know why or how, but you’re the only person in the whole world that knows me.”
Ronan exhales long and hard again. His body turns to Adam, but he still doesn’t look at him.
“It matters.” He pauses. “It matters because I think I’m in love with you. And how can I be in love with someone who’d lie to me like that?”
“What?”
“You heard what I said.”
Adam’s fingers press to Ronan’s side through the soft cotton of his shirt. Heat pours from him and Adam wants to wrap himself up in it.
“I like who I get to be when I’m with you,” he says.
When Ronan turns looks at him, finally, finally, there’s no other word for the expression on his face. Hurt.
“I don’t understand why you think you have to be someone else,” he says.
“Neither do I.”
It doesn’t fix everything. There are still conversations to be had, truths that Adam needs to tell. But Ronan kisses him, puts his arms around Adam, and right now, that’s all that matters.
Adam goes back inside first. The movie has been paused, and the Crying Club are sat around on the broken couch and mismatched chairs like they’ve been waiting for him to come back in. Exactly like Adam thought they would be.
“I told you this would happen,” Fletcher says.
Ronan is standing right behind him, but he’s outside the door still, so Adam’s sure they can’t see him. Adam stops him from coming in with a look, and a shake of his head.
Adam takes a slow breath. He wonders if they can see the tear tracks on his face. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Why don’t you stop before you say something you regret?”
Eliot and Benjy exchange uncomfortable looks.
“No, he’s right,” says Gillian. “You’re better off without Lynch. He’s an asshole. You know, not our type of people.
“Thank fuck for that,” Ronan says, pushing past Adam into the living room. “Must be fucking awful to be so painfully boring, vapid and oblivious all at once. I’d feel sorry for you guys if you weren’t you know, calling me an irredeemable asshole to my boyfriend’s face right in front of me.”
The Crying Club gape at him. They gape at Adam.
Ronan huffs and stomps through the room to the door that leads to the stairs. He grabs the rest of his beer on the way past.
“Parrish?” he calls on his way upstairs. “You coming?”
Adam nods, and follows Ronan.
Later, up in Adam’s bed, he turns to Ronan and says, “She’s kind of right. You are an asshole.”
Ronan snorts. “Yeah, and you love it.”
“I actually do,” Adam says, and he kisses Ronan again.