the smell of polluted pleasure

[thedreamthief]

He's sore all over, bleeding from his bottom lip as well as from a re-opened gash across his chest. His sides and lower back ache, doubtlessly covered in not-yet-visible bruises, and his right cheek is already sore to the touch. Ronan hasn't taken a look at a mirror at all yet, has no real idea how roughed up he looks, but he can feel it.

And he feels like he's flying, utterly high with it, adrenaline still pumping through his veins as he heads for Adam's. He can't go back to woods like this, can't let Gansey's disapproving eye bring him down right away.

He's at least smart enough to text him, a short and sweet 'at Adam's' to keep him from worrying. Because the only thing worse than Gansey in lecture mode is a Gansey in mother hen panic mode.

Ronan doesn't have a key to Adam's place, doesn't have the access that St. Agnes provided. Though that hardly deters him.

Even bruised and sore, Ronan has little difficulty using well-placed windowsills and ivy trellises to climb his way up to Adam's second-story balcony. Grinning wide, he bangs on the glass door, then cups his hand to try to squint inside. It's late and it's dark and there's a good chance Adam's asleep already, but it's fucking Friday, Parrish, open the goddamn door.

Comments

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

Before he could hide the reaction, Adam's skin rose up in goosebumps and he drew in a quick breath before he could think to stop himself. Without Cabeswater, Adam knew that whatever electric feeling it was that shuttered across his skin, it was generated from his own self. When Ronan's hand slid back, Adam started to reach for it, only to grasp air and remember himself.

"Cabeswater's a forest. It has ears," Adam said. "As long as there are trees."

He couldn't think of himself as having any battle wounds. Calling it a battle wound implied that Adam had fought back, had done anything but curl around the soft parts of his body, tried to make himself an impenetrable stone. "There weren't any battles," he said. "I never defended myself."

It was curious, how bereft he felt now. Adam had rarely been touched affectionately in his life, aside from handholds with Blue and the occasional fist bump.

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

He doesn't miss the way Adam jolts a little, fingers twitching as Ronan pulls away. Adam isn't used to being touched, not kindly. And gentleness is probably the last thing he expects from Ronan.

"Bullshit," Ronan snarls, comforted by the flash of anger that flares in his gut. It's a muted sort of rage though, muffled by the stillness of the night and the fact that the one person its focused on is locked in some other dimension. "You spent your whole fucking life defending yourself."

More than that, actually. Defending. Surviving. Strategizing. Stubbornly planning an escape.

And he'd found it, eventually. Though some of Ronan's darkest nightmares are alternate outcomes of that night, 'what if' scenarios where he'd left sooner or hadn't looked back. Adam Parrish is, undoubtedly, his own goddamn savior, but there's still a part of Ronan that feels like he'd managed to do something good that night, something important.

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

"It didn't feel like that at the time." It had felt cowardly in a way that Adam hadn't condoned in others but had. "You're the one who saved me." He wondered if Ronan knew that Adam had only pressed charges to spare him expulsion from Aglionby. If it had been anyone else coming to his rescue, Adam would probably have refused and would still have been in that double wide, as damaged as ever.

All Adam could think about was the phantom sensation of Ronan's fingertip on his hand. Slowly, he turned in his seat and looked at Ronan, trying to find some signal, some proof that this was real. All he found was proof of his own hesitation and Adam glanced away and quickly stacked all the Tarot cards.

At the last second, he fanned them all out, face down and drew at random. The Four of Wands. Adam turned it back over and slid the card back into the deck. "Stability, happy home, romance," he recited.

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

Ronan shakes his head, just a slight movement though it gets the point across. Because it isn't true. He knows the only reason Adam didn't press charges is because he didn't want Ronan expelled, that he would've endured living in that shithole with those two sorry excuses for human beings for another year if Ronan hadn't been enough of a fuck-up.

If Ronan saved Adam that night then Adam saved him right back.

Adam looks back at him then and Ronan swallows, wondering what it is Adam sees in that moment, what he's looking for. Something curls inside him, shifts, but then Adam's turning away again, quickly gathering up the cards.

Ronan lets out a breath, relieved and disappointed at once, and rubs a hand across his face. He stops mid-movement as Adam, instead of putting the cards away, fans them out across the table and pulls one. Brow furrowing, Ronan glances down at it, noting the four upright pole-like things and some sort of building in between. Sighing, Ronan curls his hand around the back of his neck, ignores the unsteady hum of energy under his skin.

"That your card or mine?" he asks, meeting Adam's eyes.

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

"I don't know. Both of us, I guess. Or maybe it's someone else. Or maybe it's just a random card in a place without Cabeswater," Adam said. Without the line or that forest, anything he found in the cards was speculation, little more than a game.

If he were better at this, maybe Adam would spin some tale about potential romance, filling a more susceptible head with hopes of a new love in the future. If he was braver, maybe Adam would suggest that the romance the card indicated was theirs; the stability was something they could claim for themselves. Adam was not brave enough.

He slid the card back into the pile and stacked them neatly, running a thumb along the soft edges. Persephone's cards had been shuffled and shuffled, possibly for years. There was so much attacked to this deck that he'd never know now.

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

The buzz under Ronan's skin calms then, dying slowly. It's a random card, just like the rest of them. Doesn't mean fuck all.

"It's all bullshit," he declares then, breaking the tension with a flare of welcome anger. Reaching forward, he grabs another slice of pizza for himself. "Maybe it meant something back home, but it's useless here." It'd sound more cruel of Ronan wasn't painting himself with the same brush stroke. "We could go through the whole fucking stack and shoehorn every card into making sense, but it's still bullshit."

Holding his pizza in one hand, Ronan again lunges forward, this time pulling the top card off the stack, making out what looks like some kind of jester before flipping it over almost violently between thumb and forefinger to show Adam. "Let's start with this one. It means I'm a fucking idiot, right? Or you are. It means we thought we could do something important, thought we could matter, but then fate or magic or fucking God pulled up to show us how wrong we were."

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

"Never said it wasn't," Adam reminded him. The cards here were just cards without Cabeswater to guide them. It was the random nature of seventy-eight cards stacked and falling together in infinite ways in spreads and reversions. He could tell Ronan that the Fool was a card of new beginnings and child-like optimism, of hope, but what was the point.

"It means whatever you think it means here." There was no reason to tell Ronan not to be angry. It was like telling Ronan not to breathe. They could probably go out into the desert for months and starve, but Ronan would survive, fed on his own anger. Silently, he dared one of the Old Testament prophets to do better than that.

Adam took the Fool away from Ronan before he could hurt a card from Persephone's deck and then went for another piece of pizza. "The cards are telling me to eat."

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

Typically, Ronan can depend on Adam to fight Ronan's anger with his own, to snipe or call him an idiot when he gets too riled. But apparently, Adam of the not-to-distant-future doesn't bite so easily. He's calm when he takes the card back, carefully returning it to the deck before takes his own piece of pizza.

Ronan doesn't feel very hungry anymore.

"Then you should fucking eat," he answers, sullen now. "God forbid you do anything the cards don't want you to." He takes a huge bite of his own slice then, chewing obnoxiously, his gaze occasionally wandering to glare at the deck of cards sat harmlessly on the table.

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

Adam frowned at that misinterpretation and then scrunched up his face like he might pick a fight before changing his mind and grabbing another card at random, the Hermit.

"I'm getting something right now," Adam said, pretending to scrutinize the card. "The cards are now telling me that you should stop being such a shitbag."

He dropped the card harmlessly back into the deck and smirked at Ronan, waiting for him to bite back.

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

Ronan meets Adam's smirk with a glare, though some of his irritation ebs. He chews with determination before slowly lifting one hand, middle finger extended and smiles wide and bright, cheeks full of pizza.

"Just like I said," he grumbles against his half-masticated food, "total bullshit. I'm a fucking pleasure."

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

"No, sorry. Cards are infallible beacons of truth. You're a shitbag," Adam said. But it sort of didn't matter that he was being flicked off because Ronan was smiling and it almost didn't look totally sarcastic.

He leaned back on the couch and glanced at Ronan again, at all of his various bruises. "You better have won all those fights."

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

They fall quiet then, just for a few minutes, both of them chewing their respective slices. Ronan wonders how long Adam's been using tarot cards and why he started, if they really do help him interpret what Cabeswater says to him. He wonders if any of Blue's family would have a similar problem reading them here or if that issue is solely Adam's.

He'd wonder why he cares so much, but that one he knows the answer to.

Glancing over at the sound of Adam's voice, Ronan's lips curl into another grin. "I didn't," he answers, though he's hardly upset about it. "Felt good though." He lifts a hand to tap at his cut lip lightly then ghosts that same finger over his gradually swelling cheek. He thinks of the girl who'd nearly kicked his ass, small and vicious and wiry. He thinks of Grantaire, strong and swift and nothing but hard muscle. He thinks about his own pumping blood, the hum under his skin, the excitement and adrenaline.

He thinks he'll definitely be going back.

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

"We finally found someone who's a match for a Lynch brother who's not another Lynch brother, huh?" Adam asked. He only barely reeled in a comment about the Gray Man and the mess he'd made of Declan's face and then let Ronan punch him nearly to a pulp in retaliation. At least, according to Gansey. Adam had been unconscious at the time.

Adam fixed him with a wry smile, knowing why Ronan was here. "How long do I have to hide you from Gansey before he figures out where you were?"

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

Adam's comment is wry, spoken with a fond sort of exasperation that makes something in Ronan's gut clench tight and warm.

"How long do you really think I can stay hidden?" Ronan asks back. It's rhetorical. They both know the answer. And the answer is not long at all because Gansey is freakish about being able to find things, especially those things that belong to him. "Can't I just be here because I couldn't bear to go without your dazzling personality for one more moment?"

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

Adam fixes Ronan with a dry smirk. They both know that if Gansey wanted to find Ronan, they'd have been found out an hour ago, with Gansey scaling up the wall after him to have a slice of pizza. It would have been kind of nice, in their off-kilter way. Maybe then they would accept the apartments. As long as they were sharing a space.

Too bad he only had two bedrooms. The thought of sharing a bedroom, probably with Ronan, sent heat to his cheeks and Adam took another bite of pizza.

"I'm not sure I'd call it dazzling, but I don't know how many times you got punched in the head today yet."

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

"Several," Ronan replies with no small amount of pride. He flashes another wide, sarcastic smile, channeling a toothpaste commercial to show off the split of his lip and growing bruise on his cheek. "Obviously, if I'd gotten punched in the dick, it'd be a different story."

It's undoubtedly crude and hopefully just ambiguously douchey enough to not reveal anything. Still, it feels like a thrill, almost as good as fighting.

He takes another bite of pizza, wiping a crumb away from his mouth with the back of his hand and waggling an eyebrow.

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

"Don't do that," Adam said, knowing that Ronan was just going to open the split lip all over again at that rate. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed Ronan's wrist, moving the ice pack from shoulder to cheek.

For a second too long, Adam tried to puzzle out what Ronan meant by that, but got distracted in the thumb that passed across his mouth.

"You're going to look like shit in the morning."

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

Ronan isn't expecting Adam to reach for him, isn't expecting the feel of callused, warm fingers wrapping around his wrist. He doesn't fight it though, just lets Adam maneuver him until Ronan's holding the ice pack to his cheek.

He doesn't say anything, watching Adam carefully and again wondering how much has changed in the months Ronan's been gone, if Cabeswater has spilled Ronan's secret, if Adam is aware now of the want constantly lurking under Ronan's skin. And if he does know, that only brings up so many other questions.

"Fuck you, are you saying I don't look like shit already?" he says, pulling back just enough to loosen Adam's hold on his wrist before he loses his mind. "Sure know how to hurt a guy there, Parrish."

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

Adam withdrew his hand with barely-disguised reluctance. Even if Ronan wanted him and even if he wanted to be wanted, Adam didn't trust himself right now. Still couldn't figure out the source of the electricity under his skin, whether it was real affection or just pride at being desirable.

The first was frightening and the second was cruel.

"I think you could go be a model with that face. After the bruises fade."

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

As far as Ronan can remember, Adam has never said anything positive about Ronan's appearance. In general, Adam has never been exactly effusive with praise of any variety; even when he was dating Blue (and it's still strange for Ronan to consider that in the past tense) he never went on and on about her hair or her figure or even her personality. His attraction to her was a simple fact, as sure as his non-attraction to Ronan.

Which is why Ronan only blinks in reply, surprised and almost unsettled in equal amounts, a frown slowly curving his lips as he realizes Adam must know.

And he's being a dick about it, poking and teasing like it's a fucking game.

"Fuck off," Ronan grumbles, humiliation boiling in his stomach, itchy enough to push Ronan to his feet, dropping his half slice of pizza back into the box.

The ice in his make-shift pack is starting to melt and he heads for the kitchen, jaw clenched as he dumps the remains out into the sink. It was a stupid idea to come here, he thinks. He has no idea if Gansey knows too, if his silence has just been an act of pity, but he can't imagine that Gansey would be cruel about it. At least not intentionally.

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

Adam shrugged. Though he knew he'd offended Ronan, he couldn't pinpoint the exact source. Was modeling too silly? Too effeminate? Too gay. Maybe, all this time, he'd been wrong about Ronan's quiet gazes, too wrapped up in the self-indulgent flattery of thinking someone could want him. Of course no one did.

For a second, he was back in the Latin classroom on the first day of senior year with Tad Carruthers cuffing him on the deaf side of his head and suggested that Adam himself looked gay.

"You still want to crash on the couch?" he asked, carefully neutral now that whatever spell had come over them was broken.

Maybe Ronan was right when he pulled the Fool.

(frozen)

[thedreamthief]

Adam's tone is completely neutral, not so much as even an eyeroll evident in the familiar lilt of his quiet accent. Ronan focuses entirely on propping the emptied ziploc on the counter so it can dry (he knows better than to throw it out) before finishing what remains of the water glass he'd left behind earlier.

The anger under his skin still simmers, still bright enough that Ronan knows he should just leave, take it out on a bottle or a defenseless tree.

Instead, his eyes flash when he looks up again, lips curled to bear teeth. He almost says something, something he couldn't take back, a shadow of Kavinsky's influence still buzzing inside him.

Instead, he says, "I've given Gansey enough reason to worry."

He finishes his water, plopping the glass in the sink before heading back toward the window he'd crawled through. "I'll see myself out, Parrish."

(frozen)

[incognoscibilis]

Watching Ronan go out the window gave Adam the sense that he'd just seen a door slammed in his face. They hadn't fought, not the way that he'd lashed out at Gansey at his parents' house or how he'd hated Blue for the span of a day. It was quiet and unceremonious, with a sense of defeat.

He stood there until Ronan was on the ground floor and gone around the corner. Only then did he go back into his kitchen to wash the glass in his otherwise empty sink.