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]

"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.