Chapter Text
These days, Adam tries not to remember his Games at all.
He wakes, each morning, in the bed he shares with Ronan. Sometimes, Ronan is still curled around Adam, breathing hot air onto the back of his neck. More often than not, though, Adam rouses alone with a cool spot in the sheets beside him and the smell of freshly baked goods wafting down the hall to greet him. He sleeps with his hearing ear pressed into the pillow so Ronan won’t wake him when he goes.
Adam stretches out sleep-stiff muscles and joints. He’s slow in the morning, sitting up and flexing his right leg, testing the ache of his bum knee. It never quite healed right after the fall, the jump, from the rooftop. In lighter moments, Ronan teases him about it, reminding him of his own voice telling Ronan not to jump from the Capitol’s roof. In harsher moments, darker moments, Ronan kneels and kisses around the joint, chaste and worshipful and soothing. Today, Adam wraps a brace around the ache to hold himself steady.
He pads out of the bedroom on sock clad feet. He brushes fingertips against walls long since cleaned of any dust. Adam and Ronan, in the years since the war, have moved into a little house in District 11. There was great discussion about it in the beginning: whether Ronan could handle going home, whether Adam would ever feel like he belonged, whether the districts would be abolished in their entirety. The walls between the districts have come down, but the culture and the name of them remains. Adam took some time to adjust, at first, but he found that he quite likes Eleven, the earth-grown feel and the slow pace of life. Ronan, it turns out, can handle being home just fine.
He thrives here, really.
He’s settled in like he never left, and they both know that isn’t true, but it’s nice to pretend sometimes. It’s nice to wake to the smell of freshly baked goods, and it’s nice to pad down the hall on sock clad feet, and it’s nice to imagine that this—just this, quiet mornings and soft beginnings—is all that life has ever been made of.
It’s not the victor’s mansion where Ronan grew up, but instead, a small house with only as much space as they need. They keep their windows propped open as much as possible, letting in a gentle breeze and the botanic scent of the garden outback. Chainsaw likes to eat Adam’s plants. The experimented raven and the pearl earring were the two things stolen from Bryde’s mansion, that day that he died.
In the kitchen, Adam pauses in the doorway just to watch, for a moment. In the kitchen, Ronan has donned an apron and made a mess of the countertops. Flour sticks to the tiles and, when he looks over his shoulder, Adam sees that it sticks to Ronan’s cheek too. Adam smiles at him and murmurs a good morning, and Ronan turns back to the task at hand, cubing pears to set to simmering on the stove. As he does each morning, he’s making a batch of jam to go with the seedy crescent bread already baking in the oven.
Adam closes the gap between them. He presses his chest to Ronan’s back, wraps his arms around his waist. He tugs, flirting, at the strings of his apron.
“Fuck off,” Ronan says. His voice is still sleep rumpled, thick with his silence.
“No,” Adam says. His voice is cloudy too. He clears his throat. “No, I don’t think I will.”
He stands there, arms wrapped around Ronan, and he sways them a bit. It’s not dancing, but the memory of it. Sometimes, in the evenings, when they’re too happy to end the day, when they stay up past yawning and past stars rising, they dance in the living room, in the light of the fireplace and the moon. Adam presses his lips to the nape of Ronan’s neck.
Ronan lets Adam hold him until crescent loaves have to be retrieved from the oven. Then, he pulls away, and then Adam sighs. He starts the kettle, and he sets out their little jar of honey, and he slices a lemon. He sucks lemon juice from his thumb, and his face twists up at the sour bite, and Ronan laughs at him.
“Jam?” Ronan asks.
Sometimes, the jam is too sweet for Adam, too reminiscent of fruit pies and pear cobblers. Sometimes, he prefers his bread as dry as it was in the arena, or as dry as it was on Reaping Day. Other times, he takes it with butter—a compromise, a half indulgence. This morning, Adam sees no reason to deprive himself of good things. “Sure,” he says.
Ronan nods, and he slices the crescent loaves. He complains, to himself, that the loaves should rest a while before they’re cut open. Adam ignores him. He’s heard this rant more times than he can count, and really, it’s only Ronan’s own impatience that stands in his way. It doesn’t matter how slow Adam is to rise from bed. As soon as the loaves are finished, Ronan breaks into them, lapping up the steam and the scent and the temptation of nostalgia. If Adam isn’t up yet, Ronan brings him his breakfast in bed.
Today, though, Adam is up, so Adam pours boiling water into two mugs, and he prepares their tea with honey and lemon, and he watches Ronan smear jam on bread. He tugs, again, perfunctory this time, at the strings of Ronan’s apron until it falls from his shoulders. He hangs it up for him. Ronan gives Adam the slice with more pear, Adam gives him the mug with more honey, and they take their breakfast outside.
The sun beams bright over District 11, smiling down on them and winking when it drifts behind a froth of clouds. Chainsaw dances around them, waiting to be given their crumbs. Adam takes a sip of tea, and it soothes whatever stiffness is left in his throat. Ronan takes a bite of bread, and he smiles to himself, pleased and proud of his creation. Adam dips his head against Ronan’s shoulder, and they enjoy the warmth of morning.
✽
On Sundays, Declan visits from the Capitol—same as the districts, the heart of Panem hasn’t lost its name yet.
In a poetic sort of irony, the brothers have swapped places. The war ended the day Adam executed Bryde, but that was only the beginning of true revolution, true change. The days that followed were hectic. On day one, the rest of Bryde’s sympathizers were rounded up and arrested. On day two, the sleeping citizens of the Capitol woke all on their own—it seemed the electric current push was only needed when it was Ronan, when nightwash coursed through veins. On day three, Declan volunteered.
He gave himself over to the role of leadership. He led discussions about what was next: new government, new rules, new traditions, a new world. Months later, he was elected into that same leadership role by the citizens of Panem, and alongside a slew of other representatives, he has helped to keep the peace ever since. These days, Adam is glad not to have control. These days, Adam is eternally and unwaveringly grateful for Declan’s sacrifice. By taking the mantle of responsibility onto himself, he gave Ronan, and Adam too, a chance to rest. It’s the greatest gift either has ever received.
On Sundays, Declan takes the train from the Capitol to District 11 to visit. He sweeps into town, and he picks up meat from the butcher’s, and he knocks a familiar rap on the front door. Adam opens it for him, they exchange a series of pleasantries, and then Declan tries—emphasis on tries—to take over the kitchen. Ronan hardly lets him.
Food has always been such an important thing in the districts, riddled with scarcity and memories of games long since put to rest. No one is starving anymore, Declan has made sure of that. Resources have been distributed fairly, and yet, the importance still lingers. The sharing of food has become a language of its own:
Ronan makes crescent loaves smothered with pear jam, and with that, he tells Adam that he loves him. With the leftovers, he visits their neighbors and gives them all that remains, and with that, he tells them that he’s sorry for leaving Eleven for as long as he did.
Declan stops by the butcher’s on his way to Ronan and Adam’s home, and he always has some plan, some recipe handwritten and folded in the pocket of his coat, of what to make for dinner. With that, he tells Ronan that this, that he, is never an afterthought. He tries to take over the kitchen, to tell Ronan that he can rest, but Ronan doesn’t let him. Ronan bullies the recipe from Declan’s coat, and with that, he tells Declan that this is a burden they will share. He tells him he is grateful for all that Declan carries for him, and he tells him to let Ronan help, just a little.
Adam would like to say that he’s immune to this language of food, that he can say what he needs with his words, but that would be a lie. Adam makes tea for himself and Ronan in the morning, and that is a commemoration and an act of I love you both. In his garden, Adam plants flowers, herbs, and fruit bushes, and he brings his clippings to the local market or the apothecary free of charge. That is an acknowledgment of belonging and a show of loyalty to Eleven and its people.
If it were just the two of them, Adam would sit on the counter and watch Ronan make dinner. But on Sundays, it is never just the two of them, and Adam leans against the counter and watches the brothers bicker. Even after Declan gives in, the two never stop knocking shoulders or elbows, pushing buttons even as they prepare a meal together. It’s all posture; it’s sweet to watch.
Matthew comes by on Sundays, too. After the war, Matthew made himself busy tending to the wounded, and he’s never stopped. He travels around the districts and the Capitol in equal measure, though he sticks close to Eleven and home as much as he can. Usually, Matthew comes by on more than just Sundays, but he never misses the first of the week. Usually, Matthew stands on a prosthetic or sits in his wheelchair, and he joins Declan and Ronan in flicking each other with red sauce and wine.
Sometimes, Jordan comes along with Declan. She’s stayed in the Capitol with him, and they’re sure to hold a wedding soon. Adam is unclear on what, exactly, her role in their new world is, but he’s certain it’s more important than being Declan’s sweetheart. Adam likes when she joins them because she is apart from the Lynch brother madness in the same way that Adam is. Adam likes catching her eye and smirking—amused and united in their amusement.
Sometimes, Jordan drags Hennessy along with her and Declan. Hennessy, like Matthew, doesn’t stay in one place for long. Hennessy, unlike Matthew, doesn’t have much of a home base. Adam’s hearing rumors, though, that she’s met someone: Carmen Farooq-Lane, part of the new council of government, representative from District 1. When Hennessy comes along, the wine is put away and does not see the evening light of sunset. When Hennessy comes along, Ronan bickers less with Declan in favor of bickering more with her.
On Sunday nights, the spare room and the couch are taken over by well-fed and well-tired bodies. Adam and Ronan slip into their room, and they curl into each other close. It’s nice for the house to be so full. It’s nice for Adam to card fingers through Ronan’s hair, longer now and curling prettily, but still impossibly black, and ask, “Good day?”
On Sundays, the answer is almost always, “Yes.”
✽
Adam still has a collection of daggers.
He doesn’t use them much. Instead, they are nestled neatly and nicely in the drawer of his bedside table. They’re more for peace of mind than they are for actual practice. They’re more decorative than they are bloodied weapons.
Adam goes to the blacksmith in District 11 every few months, and the blacksmith makes him a new knife with a new design: swirling handles, etched initials in bronze plated hilts, loops to twist fingers through. It’s an art form in its own right. Every time Adam goes, the blacksmith asks him if he’d like to learn to make his own. So far, Adam has always said no, but he’s getting closer to caving. He’s getting closer to needing to do more with his hands than tending weeds and making tea and resting. Adam has always been a restless person, after all. He always knew the lull after the war wouldn’t last forever.
He lets it linger a little longer, though.
Adam doesn’t use the daggers much, but occasionally he takes one from the drawer. Today, he plucks the simplest one from the knife block, the one most similar to the ones he armed himself with in the arena. He cradles it in his hands like it’s something delicate instead of something deadly. He traces the sharp tip of the blade over the lines in his palms—never enough to cut or bleed, but enough to feel the sharpened point.
A blade used to feel like an extension of Adam, but now, it just feels foreign. The weight of it is too heavy, the burden too much to bear. Adam should put the knife back in the drawer, but instead, he keeps it in his hand. Instead, he slips out the back door, into the yard behind their house and through to the copse of trees beyond.
Adam plants his feet. Adam steadies himself. Adam takes a deep breath in, and when he exhales, he unleashes the dagger. He lets the knife fly through the air, metal whistling as it goes, and he watches the trajectory. The knife lands just where Adam intended for it to: in the groove between two lines of bark, embedded in the trunk of a tree. Adam takes a shallow breath in, and it shakes on the exhale.
He hasn’t lost his skill.
It should be a reassurance, but it feels like the opposite. It feels wrong that it’s been over for so long, and yet, he still has the skills of a killer.
Will he ever unlearn the trades of survival? Will he ever forget the instinct to kill? Will his aim ever falter?
Adam unsticks his feet from the ground. Adam unsteadies himself. Adam approaches the tree, and he traces his fingers over the place where metal and bark meet, nature and destruction conjoin. He almost apologizes to the tree. Instead, he inhales again, exhales again. Instead, he leaves the knife where it is, buried to the hilt, and he walks away.
He can replace the gap in his knife block another day.
Today, he walks to the blacksmith. Today, he asks the blacksmith to make him not a dagger made to kill, not a decorative piece to add to his own collection, but a butter knife. Something so dull Adam would have to wield more than just instinct to make a mark. Something that isn’t for him at all.
He waits in the oven hot shop until the knife is finished, even as it takes hours. He pays the blacksmith, even when the blacksmith tries to tell him payment isn’t necessary. The blacksmith asks again if Adam is interested in learning, and Adam says, soon. The butter knife, with a soft blade and a hilt decorated with vines, is packaged in a thin box. Adam says thank you, and he leaves the oven hot shop to be greeted by the cool breeze of an early autumn afternoon. He walks home.
“Ronan?” he calls.
He gets no answer, but that’s alright. Adam opens the box, places the butter knife beside the butter tray, and goes to take a shower, sweat damp and clammy as he is. He almost forgets about the knife at all.
It’s not till later, when Ronan is making soup and Adam is sitting on the counter pretending to help, that Ronan notices the gift. He stares at it, brown eyes narrowed and dark brows furrowed. “What the shit is this?”
Adam laughs. “A gift.”
Ronan picks up the butter knife. He turns it in his hands, fingers exploring the adornment and the shine of something brand new. Knife still in hand, he shoves Adam’s legs apart so he can stand between them. He has to tilt his head back further than normal to look at him; Adam likes it.
“We have a perfectly good butter knife,” Ronan says. It’s a question without ever asking one, a show of concern. Ronan knows that Adam only goes to the blacksmith when he’s feeling unsettled, when he’s remembering things he might not want to remember, when he’s trying to make something good out of something bad.
Adam nods. “We do, but this one is pretty, no?”
It’s an answer without giving one. I’m okay, he says, without ever saying it.
Ronan shrugs. He puts the butter knife down, and he reaches up to cup Adam’s face in his hand. “It’s fine,” he says. “Thank you.”
Adam nods again, and he leans down to kiss the bridge of Ronan’s nose, and Ronan scrunches up against him. Ronan tries to pull away, but Adam wraps his legs around him, and he draws him in close. He holds him, just for a little while. He holds him, just to remember that he’s capable of tenderness, too.
Their soup is burnt, but they eat it anyway, with thick slices of bread buttered with a brand new knife.
✽
They still have nightmares.
When it’s Adam, his dreams are dominated by violet fields and girls too young to die. He presses hands to wounds that gush with blood, and no amount of pressure makes the gushing blood stop. He hums to her until he’s out of breath. When it’s Adam, his dreams are violent storms and violent boys from District 10. He curls himself small in the fetal position, covered in a wash of mud, and he cannot move even when he can hear his loved ones dying. He is useless against his own fear. When it’s Adam, his dreams are another boy’s sleep. He sits at Ronan’s bedside in an underground infirmary, and Ronan refuses to wake. He sits with him forever, in limbo.
When it’s Adam, Ronan wakes him with touch. It’s the only way to jar him when Adam’s hearing ear is shoved against a pillow, when he can’t hear anything but the nightmare sounds of a child’s last breath, a mentor’s last word, a heart monitor’s endless beeping. Ronan puts gentle, callused hands on Adam’s shoulder, and he shakes him, jostles him. He rocks Adam like a buoy swaying in water until Adam resurfaces with a drowning, desperate gasp.
When it’s Adam, he wakes in full defense. Oxygen floods his lungs, and his eyes spring open in the near darkness of their bedroom and the bleeding bathroom light, and Adam lashes out against the gentle, callused touch of his lover. He throws Ronan off of him, and Ronan goes. Adam scrambles out of bed, tripping over sheets and blankets, and he falls clumsily to the floor. It’s so the opposite of their usual mornings. It’s so awful when Adam’s knees hit hard enough to hurt. It’s so terrible when he blinks up at Ronan with tears in his eyes, grief in his bones, and apologies on his lips.
“I’m s—”
“Shut up, asshole,” Ronan says. He knows by now what Adam is going to say, and he hates it as much as Adam does. “Get off the fucking floor.”
Adam does not get off the floor. Ronan already knows, by now, that he won’t. Ronan huffs a breath, and it’s all faux annoyance because he knows, too, that Adam will bristle at tenderness in such a state of vulnerability, and he gets up. Ronan drags the blankets from the bed, and he joins Adam on the floor. He does not touch him again, not yet, but he sits beside him, and they share a comforter, and when Adam tries to apologize again, Ronan tells him, again, to shut the fuck up.
Sometimes, they make it back to the mattress before morning. More often, though, when it’s Adam, they drift in and out of restless sleep on the hard floor of their bedroom. Sometimes, they curl up on the ground together, and other times, Adam just lolls his head against the wall as they sit up and fight exhaustion together. Ronan keeps talking about getting carpet put in or at least a rug. Adam keeps telling him it’s not necessary, but he knows it will happen eventually.
When it’s Ronan, his dreams are dominated by cold caves and dying fires. He is just a child in an arena, and he doesn’t know his father is dying. When it’s Ronan, his dreams are a second round of goodbyes and bedridden weakness. He is just a child in an arena, and he doesn’t know his mother is dying. When it’s Ronan, his dreams are inky black darkness and nightwash confusion. He is just a child, and he does not know what is true and what is a trick, and he is without understanding, and he is afraid.
When it’s Ronan, Adam wakes him with his voice. It’s the only way to jar him when touch only makes him cringe deeper into nightmares, when the press of a hand against skin becomes part of it: Bryde’s hands wiping tears, Bryde’s hands giving him a sword. Adam is awoken by Ronan’s frantic breath and kicking limbs. Adam turns the bedside lamp on before he does anything else, bringing the whole room to light. He wakes Ronan with gentle, rasping words. “Ronan,” he says. “Ronan. Wake up, darlin’. Ronan.”
When it’s Ronan, he wakes in stillness. His eyes open, and his pupils turn to pin prick points in the onslaught of warm light, and he barely breathes. Only once he’s awake does Adam touch him. He curls around Ronan, back to chest and an inverse of their usual sleeping embrace, and he puts his hand over Ronan’s heart. He feels its rapid rabbit beats. He doesn’t say anything right away, and Ronan doesn’t speak at all, and they just lay like that in silence. It’s so the opposite of Ronan’s usual bickering brashness. It’s so awful for him to be curled so small and so still. It’s so terrible when Ronan’s every inhale is wet and every exhale trembles, too quick and too afraid.
“Sh,” Adam says, even though Ronan is already so quiet. “Match me, remember?”
He breathes against Ronan, pressing his ribs against vertebrae. Ronan breathes with him, chest expanding against his palm.
“There you go,” Adam says. Sometimes, the lamp gets shut off again before morning. More often than not, though, it illuminates the room until the sun comes to do the same. Adam pets Ronan’s sweat slick hair and brushes his thumb over the swell of his pectoral muscles. “There you are.”
Sometimes, they play real or not real. Sometimes, Ronan makes Adam tell him he loves him in every version of the words. More often than not, though, Ronan doesn’t speak at all, just lets Adam hush him with soothing nothings.
They still have nightmares, but not always. Most nights, they sleep soundly with the bathroom light on, though the crack in the door is getting smaller each day.
✽
Most days, Adam finds Ronan out in the fields.
District 11 is still home to much of Panem’s agriculture, and Ronan has fallen in line with the trade, just as he would have if his name was never called on Reaping Day. No one asked him to work, but he does it anyway. No one asked Adam to work either, so he does not offer his body to the scorching sun and days spent harvesting wheat with the whack of a scythe.
Most days, Adam ends up in the fields, though, in search of Ronan.
Even when the fields are crowded with other farmers doing their part, Ronan is easy to find. There’s no reason for him to stand out. He’s not particularly tall. He has the same dark skin and broad shoulders as the rest of his people. There’s no reason Adam’s eyes should drag to him so easily, as if tethered by an invisible force, but they do. He finds Ronan, and he weaves through neat lines of crops to get to him. He has to excuse himself around two different people who pat him on the shoulder as he goes. Adam is still getting used to people recognizing him and respecting him.
“Lynch,” Adam says.
Ronan’s back straightens out, no longer leaning over in work, and he wipes a drop of sweat from his face. His hair is tied back in a sloppy little bun, dark black curls falling into his face. It’s a pretty look, though Adam has mentioned, more than once, that Ronan could dye his hair if the black bothered him. Each time, Ronan shakes his head, says no one but his parents and Calla ever touched his hair, and he’d like to keep it that way.
When Ronan sees him, a small smile curls at the corner of his mouth, a divot that Adam thinks about kissing. He keeps his lips to himself, for now.
“Adam,” Ronan says. He looks up at the sky, and Adam watches his eyes track the sun, and he watches him tick numbers off his fingers. It’s a familiar gesture, reminds Adam of another child of District 11 with dark curls. “Sunset is in an hour. I’ll be home in an hour. You didn’t have to come out here.”
Adam shrugs. Most days, Adam finds Ronan in the fields, and most days, they do this little dance. Ronan says Adam didn’t have to join him, just so he can hear Adam say he misses him. Today, Adam doesn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, he reaches up to tug at Ronan’s pearl earring. It was the first thing they fixed when the war was over, and Adam hasn’t seen him without it since. Ronan swats his hand away.
“You stink,” Adam says, because he does. Ronan smells of sweat and dirt and neither is particularly pleasant. Adam doesn’t mind it as much as he pretends to.
Adam touches Ronan’s neck, his shoulder, his bicep. He curls pale fingers around the bulge of muscle where a snake skin pattern has finally been finished with evergreen ink. The tattoo shines with moisture, glinting like real scales, and Adam does not pull away from the dampness.
“You’re an asshole,” Ronan says. “Are you going to let me finish my work?”
“Hm,” Adam hums. Adam trails fingers down the sensitive crook of Ronan’s elbow, leaving a trail of goosebumps so dichotomous with the evening’s heat. He traces the veins at Ronan’s wrist and then slots their hands together, squeezing. It used to be that Adam’s hands were rough and callused where Ronan’s were pampered soft. Now, the inverse is true. Now, Adam is smooth silk against Ronan’s jagged rock. “Don’t think so.”
He tugs, a little, at Ronan’s hand. But Ronan, predictably, plants his feet.
“Sunset’s in an hour,” he repeats. “I’ll be home in an hour, even if I don’t finish.”
Ash-purple light is already starting to drift over the horizon. Probably it won’t even be a full hour before the day grows dark enough that Ronan begs off his chores, long before any of the other farmers do. Still, Adam is impatient. Still, he fiddles with Ronan’s fingers, and he pulls idly in the direction of their little house.
“C’mon, Lynch,” he says. “Any of these people would be happy to pick up your slack.”
Ronan smiles, but it’s dull, nothing especially bright. “Not how it works around here.”
Some days, Adam gets lucky. Some days, he manages to convince Ronan to drop his scythe before sunset. He earns himself an extra stretch of time between brisk showers and lazy dinners, and he spends that time combing out Ronan’s unruly hair. Neither acknowledges this is Adam touching his hair, taking care of curls. Ronan just hums in gentle pleasure at the affection.
Most days, though, Ronan plants his feet.
Adam sighs, and he kisses the peak of Ronan’s shoulder, and he says, “See you at home.”
Ronan catches his wrist, tugs at his arm, doesn’t let him get away without a proper kiss. He says, “It’s just an hour.”
“I know,” Adam says. He smiles, and he squints under the sunlight, and he’s not upset. Chainsaw flaps overhead. Adam isn’t surprised that she followed Ronan to work; she does most days.
“Take the bird home,” says Ronan.
“You know she won’t come with me,” Adam says. She’s very attached to Ronan, after all.
Most days, Adam makes his way back through lines of crops alone, saying his same excuse mes to the same couple of people, who clap him on the back and wish him a goodnight. Most days, Adam goes alone back to the house, and he waits for Ronan to make it a home.
✽
On the anniversary of Reaping Day, Adam takes the train to District 5. It’s Ronan’s birthday, but they never celebrate on the actual day. They pick the closest Sunday, and they let Matthew bring a cake, and they let Declan bring gifts from the Capitol, most of which go unused. On the actual day, though, on the anniversary of Reaping Day, Adam wakes earlier than Ronan for once. He kisses his forehead, leaving him to sleep and leaving the same note he left the year before:
I’ll be back for dinner.
Adam walks to the train station, boards the train, and rides into District 5. Adam can count on one hand the times he’s been back since the Quarter Quell. One: in the days after Bryde’s execution, Adam visited with Gansey to assess the damage. Two: the first Reaping Day after the war, Adam freaked out enough that he wanted to run, and he ran away to the place he was born. Three, four, and each one that will come after: he continues indulging the desire to run on Reaping Day’s anniversary.
It surprises him, each time he returns, to find that District 5 has carried on without him. Naively, he expects to find Five as worn down by destruction as it was that first time. He expects everything to have halted in his absence. Of course, that isn’t the case. Of course, like all the other districts, Five has rebuilt. Some people still call this place home, Adam just isn’t one of them.
Adam walks by the spot where his father’s thin house used to reside. After the fire, the building was deemed unsalvageable. Every broken piece of it was torn down and brushed aside. Adam does not miss it. He prefers the tree that has been planted in its stead. Each year, the tree gets taller and wider and bigger. One day, it will trail fingertip branches against the sky, and Adam wonders if he’ll be there to see it. He wonders if he’ll ever stop coming here.
Adam stops at the bakery for a loaf of bread, and he tucks it into his bag, saving it for the train ride home. He walks by the mayor’s house, but he does not stop to say hello to Heather or husband—neither of the Gansey children live in Five anymore, something Adam is grateful for. He keeps walking, offering only polite smiles to passersby, until he reaches the row of houses that were once Victors’ Village, but are now nothing more than memorial sites.
The gate remains intact, and Adam pushes against it until rusting iron squeaks on its hinges. He walks right by the house he so briefly called his own, and instead, makes his way to the doorstep of Persephone Poldma’s home. Though there will be no answer, it is customary to knock. Adam taps his knuckles against worn wood.
He goes inside after a beat of silence. Each year, more dust greets him. He considers cleaning, pretending that it’s worth the hassle, but he decides against it. In the kitchen, he wipes down the countertop and sets down his tote of supplies.
Adam doesn’t cook much. It’s not that he doesn’t know how, but more so that Ronan takes such peace from it, and Adam has no interest in depriving him of that peace. On Reaping Day, though, Adam travels all the way from District 11 to District 5 just to make a pie in Persephone Poldma’s kitchen. These cabinets used to be stocked with everything one needed to bake, but now, they are empty. Now, Adam comes laden with his own bag of flour, sugar, eggs, water, and fresh fruit.
This year, he brings with him peaches.
This year, he makes a peach pie, and he makes a mess of Persephone’s kitchen. He gets flour everywhere, even in his hair. He gets peach juice everywhere, including on his face. He doesn’t clean up as he goes. He just lets life bleed into the corners of this room. He just lets himself enjoy the press of dough under his fingers, the sweetness of crystalline sugar on his lips, the smell of pie baking in the oven.
When it’s finished, Adam gets out four plates, and he cuts up four slices. He sets them around the dining table, as if he’s expecting company, and he sits alone. He eats before the pie has cooled down, letting hot fruit burn the roof of his mouth, and he eats faster than he wants to, forcing himself to finish his piece before the nauseated grief catches up to him. Cloying sweetness clings to the back of his throat and turns to a dull ache, but he does not wash it down with the mug of tea he so badly wants—that is a gesture of memory for every day but this one.
Adam puts the other three pieces outside for inky black and harmless ravens. Sharp beaks peck at slightly soggy pie crust. He washes four plates in the sink, and he puts them away in the cabinet to spend another three hundred and sixty-four days collecting dust. He packages up the rest of the pie, and he puts it in his bag, and he walks away from Persephone’s house.
He never did let himself outstay his welcome.
He never did get a chance to tell her all the things he wanted to. Thank you and I’m sorry and every other cliché of mourning regrets. Adam punishes himself with pie to keep these words choked down.
Adam walks back to the train station, and he rides back to District 11, and he nibbles on bread as he goes. When a stewardess asks him if he’d like a cup of water, he says yes, and he drowns it in two quick swallows. When the train grinds to a stop, he gathers his things and walks home.
He puts the remaining pie in the fridge. Ronan will eat it over the next few days; Adam won’t eat more than his single slice of peach flavored grief.
✽
There’s a ritual to Reformation Day.
On the anniversary of the war’s end, Ronan wakes Adam with a kiss to his scarred cheekbone and breakfast in bed, and they rise a bit earlier and a bit quicker than they normally do. They travel together to District 3, where Gansey and Blue and Henry have put down their roots, to spend the day in celebration with them. It is a day not to be bogged down by the weight of their losses, but instead, to acknowledge all the progress that’s been made, justice that’s been served, and freedom that’s been earned. It is a day to be proud.
On the outskirts of their family’s festivities, Adam sits side by side with Gansey. Warm glasses of heated apple juice rest like a balm in their hands; comfortable silence passes between them. Adam watches, contented, as Ronan runs around the backyard with Gray and Lucy, the orphaned sisters the trio scooped up after the war. They are not orphaned anymore, and they will never know the fear of Reaping Day, and Ronan throws Gray over his shoulder while Lucy peels with giggles, tugging at the hem of his pants as if demanding a turn of her own.
It’s a sweet sight. Adam sips at his juice.
It’s funny, really. Adam never considered himself a family person, and now, he has so much. He has his quiet mornings and soft beginnings with Ronan. He has Sunday dinners with Ronan’s brothers, Ronan’s brother’s girlfriend, and Ronan’s closest friend. He has the blacksmith who offers him lessons in an artist’s trade. He has the farmers who bid him good evening and grin at him, all knowing, when he comes in hunt for Ronan. He has his memories of Persephone, Opal, and Noah. He has Gansey, Blue, and Henry. He has their children tumbling around a backyard of high grass and crisp winter air.
One day, maybe, he and Ronan will have something like this: two daughters, or maybe two sons, or maybe even three. Maybe their family will grow more than Adam could have ever imagined, or maybe not. He’s content either way.
Gansey nudges him with an elbow, and Adam looks away from Ronan to look at his oldest friend, his oldest form of family. Battle scars trip over his face in the flushed lines of a dog’s bite, but the first thing Adam notices of him is still, and always will be, the crinkles by his eyes when he smiles. He’s such a warm thing, even on this cold day.
“Look,” Gansey says.
He wiggles his own arm, and Adam looks. A tracker jacker has landed on the sleeve of his knitted sweater. It stops there, for a moment, fluttering its wings and allowing itself a moment of rest. Gansey does not flinch at the newcomer, just says, look, all tender and curious.
“You’re not afraid?” Adam asks.
“No,” Gansey says. “Not anymore.”
He brushes a single finger over the delicate edges of the insect. The insect hums and buzzes at him, but does not fly away. Gansey lets it stay exactly where it is. Gansey presses to stand, and he brings the still dangerous, but no longer deadly, insect to his daughters, and he lets them marvel at the creature. Adam marvels that they will never be afraid of tracker jacker welts and cursing venom.
It does not take Ronan long to drop into the seat left empty beside Adam. He’s a little breathless from his play, and he steals Adam’s apple juice, and he drains the cup dry. Adam wipes away the sticky honey-orange mustache that tries to stain his upper lip, and then he puts his thumb to his own mouth and sucks it clean.
“Asshole,” Adam says.
Ronan grins at him. He’s still grinning when he says, “You’ve been staring at me all night.”
Neither points out that it’s late afternoon at best. Adam knocks his ankle against Ronan’s, and predictably, when given an inch Ronan takes a mile. He loops their legs together, and he uses the tangle of limbs to drag their chairs together, wood knocking against wood.
“Have I?” Adam asks, all faux-coy. All he does is stare these days, he knows.
“Mhm.” Ronan puts his hand on the back of Adam’s neck, and he massages at muscles that have never, and probably won’t ever, truly unwind. Adam leans into the pleasant touch, and he closes his eyes, and he opens them only when Ronan says, “Didn’t tell you to stop.”
Adam laughs. He looks at Ronan: brown eyes, brown skin, sloping cheekbones, pierced ears, delicate dark curls, beautiful, familiar, so fucking loved. He leans in close enough that their noses brush. “Sorry, darlin’,” he murmurs, a whisper, and then he kisses him.
Neither points out that he isn’t sorry at all. Adam keeps his eyes open even when their lips brush, and he catalogs the fan of Ronan’s eyelashes, the tiny scar at his temple, the freckle on his cheek. He’ll kiss those places too, if Ronan ever pulls away.
There’s a ritual to Reformation Day.
Adam and Ronan will stay in District 3 until the sun starts to wobble, and then they’ll board the train home to District 11. Later, it will rain, and Adam will stand at the bedroom window, listening to it fall against the glass and watching it water his garden of honeysuckles, magnolias, and violets, too. He understands exactly what Gansey means by not anymore. When it storms, lightning scars tingle up Adam’s arms and memories of Persephone flash behind his eyes, but he is not afraid. Instead, he welcomes the reminder of how bad things have been in order to remember how good they have become. He stands at the window, and he watches a beautiful, rainy sunset.
It is a quiet night and a soft ending.