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[thedreamthief]

It's not that Ronan hadn't considered Tris a fighter. It'd been obvious from his first day here that she could hold her own, just in the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her jaw. There's a little too much about Tris that reminds him of himself, in ways he finds entirely uncomfortable.

Which probably explains why he doesn't particularly like her.

And now, with aching sides and a bruised stomach, not to mention the gash across his brow from a well-placed knee, Ronan really doesn't like her. Ronan at least had gotten in some good hits of his own, but it'd been obvious right from the start that she'd been trained, and trained well. Ronan took boxing lessons when he was a kid, but he's never been trained in mixed fucking martial arts.

From what he can remember, Adam's scheduled at the garage for a few more hours so, using the key he'd dreamt up a week ago, Ronan lets himself in, quiet and efficient. There's no point going to his own allotted apartment, not when there's next to nothing in it in the way of first aid equipment and there's not a chance in hell he's risking Gansey seeing before he has to. Definitely not before he's no longer bleeding.

He doesn't particularly want Adam to see either if he can help it.

Which is unfortunate.

The door clicks closed behind him and scowls at Adam. "Aren't you supposed to be working right now?"

Comments

[incognoscibilis]

Adam grabs the tissues and dampens them with warm water again, dabbing at the skin around Ronan's eyebrow but not at the cut itself. The clean skin gave him room to properly ascertain how much it was bleeding. If his thumb might brush against Ronan's uninjured brow, it was in the process of helping check him for injury.

"It's not so bad, but it sure is bleeding," he said, holding tissue to his brow now in hopes of staunching the blood.

[thedreamthief]

Adam's careful, his touch gentle but purposeful. Ronan carefully keeps his face neutral, holds his breath when Adam's thumb brushes along his uninjured brow.

"Head wounds usually do," he points out once he can trust himself to speak, gaze flicking up to Adam's eyes briefly. He grabs the ointment off the counter and holds it up to Adam.

[incognoscibilis]

"I know." He didn't expand on that, didn't have to. Ronan was probably the one who knew best just how many reprisals had come down on Adam's head. He'd seen the worst of it. Saved his life.

Adam was careful with the ointment, leaning a little too close and too long as he soothed it across the cut.

"You'll be okay."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan hasn't known Adam long in the scheme of things. They haven't discovered all there is to know about each other which, obviously, is certainly for the best. But it does make Ronan wonder just how much he's missed, how much he's imagined based solely on the little he's seen, the little Adam has allowed to be seen.

Again, Adam's touch is gentle and careful, spreading the ointment over Ronan's cut. Ronan keeps his eyes upward, locked on the nearness of Adam's jaw, the fall of eyelashes across pale cheeks. He holds his breath.

He thinks of what Grantaire had said days ago, the idea of everything being temporary, fleeting, no time to waste questioning thought processes or motivation. It'd felt like bullshit at the time, bullshit weighted down by Grantaire's own issues. He hadn't wanted to see much beyond that.

"I know you know," he says, his voice somewhere between raw and accusatory. He swallows and balls one hand into a tight fist. "We don't have to dance around this shit anymore."

[incognoscibilis]

He could be coy, ask exactly what it is that Ronan knows he knows, but Ronan doesn't lie and he doesn't play games, not like this. "I know," he agreed. "I've known for a long time." Adam shifted his hand, sliding from Ronan's uninjured side and down the shape of his face until the pad of his thumb was on the corner of Ronan's mouth.

Inaction didn't suit either of them.

"I know," he said once more.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan's breath catches, his stomach twisting as Adam's fingers graze along the side of his face, thumb touching just the corner of his mouth. A part of him is tempted to bite, a snake coiled in the grass. His heartbeat thuds in his ears.

He isn't entirely surprised. Adam sees things, things Ronan would rather he not. But whether he sees and whether he welcomes are two entirely different things.

"You didn't say anything," he points out, turning his face lightly into the palm of Adam's hand, unable to help himself.

[incognoscibilis]

He could see the tension and worried for a second that Ronan really would snap at him, but Adam didn't actually flinch. This was Ronan and Ronan could be hard and angry and frightening, but Adam wasn't frightened of him.

"No, I didn't," he said. Neither of them was Gansey, who could persuade straw to turn itself into gold. Maybe it was better that he saw the truth unadorned anyway.

Stepping past him, hand still on Ronan's face, Adam sat heavily on the edge of the tub so that they were on the same level. So that he could lean forward, halfway to a kiss, and let Ronan close the space if he wanted.

[thedreamthief]

Adam moves slowly to sit on the tub and Ronan watches him the entire time, half expecting him to turn and leave, shut the door on the entire conversation. Instead, Adam leans forward, expectantly, and Ronan can't breathe.

His eyes dart downward to the soft swell of Adam's lips. They look even better close up than he'd imagined.

Drawn in, Ronan leans forward, but only barely, glancing up to meet Adam's eyes. Says, "This feels like a dream."

[incognoscibilis]

"It's not." Adam wasn't a dream. He knew he wasn't. Ronan did not dream boys like Adam Parrish because he dreamed up angels, heavenly, kindhearted things like Matthew Lynch. No, Adam was real and flawed and Ronan dreamed perfection.

It was the conflict of Cabeswater now in miniature. If he didn't act, someone was going to, or something would intervene. He could stay there, frozen, or he could cup the back of Ronan's head and kiss him.

Inaction or action.

Adam always preferred to act.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan can see Adam hesitate, the uncertainty clear in his eyes a full second before he gently wraps his hand around the back of Ronan's neck and pulls him into a kiss. The shock of it makes Ronan tense though he doesn't jerk away, couldn't even if he wanted to, not with the way Adam has a hold on him, literally and otherwise.

Still, he keeps it short, huffing out a breath when he pulls back just enough to separate their lips. Closes his eyes for a moment.

When he opens them, Adam's still there.

He swallows and licks his lips. "So when did this happen?" he asks, regretting the question almost immediately though he doesn't take it back.

[incognoscibilis]

"That's not the right question," he said, thinking of Persephone. Realizing he wanted Ronan had not been a 'when' but a 'why' as he tried to figure out if he was simply basking in being wanted or if there was something real in his own feelings. Then he had had time to get to know the Ronan of a few months ago anew, without the cloud of his own self-hatred and deprecation in the way. He did not want Ronan because of Cabeswater or the simple reason of being wanted. He wanted Ronan Lynch because he wanted a stupid, angry boy with nice eyelashes who dragged Adam on a luggage trolley behind his BMW.

"And I don't know when it happened anyway. So even if it was the right question, I wouldn't have an answer."

Kissing Ronan had not been like the times he tried to kiss Blue. That had felt weighty and required. This felt necessary. Like breathing. Or throwing up hands to protect himself when he fell.

[thedreamthief]

"Then what is the right question?" Ronan asks, his tone a little more gruff now, defensive. He doesn't pull away, refusing to slip out of Adam's orbit until he absolutely has to.

Or at least not until Adam asks him to.

He thinks about trying for another kiss, thinks about the press of Adam's lips against his own, the taste. But he already feels like he's taken too much that doesn't belong to him.

[incognoscibilis]

"I don't know exactly." There was no good answer to any question, no matter how it was asked. There was Ronan, eyebrow still busted and a sluggish trickle of blood flowing down and there was Adam, scarred in a thousand hidden ways. And they had just kissed in his bathroom without ceremony but the inevitability of falling asleep.

Adam watched Ronan and then his mouth, uncertain if he'd done the right thing given the lack of response.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan isn't at all sure how to interpret that, a fact that's unnerving in itself. Because Ronan does know Adam. Or at least he'd thought so back home, before Darrow.

Maybe not here.

Adam's eyes drop to Ronan's mouth and Ronan thinks of Krem, wonders if anything has happened there at all, if anything will. His stomach churns. "So what is this then? Pity?"

[incognoscibilis]

That question made Adam reel back and scoff a little, looking at Ronan with the kind of sharp humor that he'd, in fact, learned from him. "Ronan, when have I ever allowed pity in my life?" he asked. He did not accept pity, nor did Adam Parrish give it either.

He slid his hand away and leaned over again, giving Ronan a means to back away this time, even though he chose to kiss him again.

[thedreamthief]

Adam's hand falls away, but he's still leaning in close, almost as though he's challenging. His eyes wide and locked on Adam, Ronan holds his breath, but he doesn't pull back, can't when Adam's kissing him again.

It's a longer kiss this time by Ronan's choosing as he leans in despite his better judgment to better feel the press of Adam's lips against his own, to breathe in the scent of him with his eyes closed, drown in it. It's overwhelming. Impossible. He breaks away again, sooner than he'd like, but keeps close, his hands still balled into fists to keep from reaching out. Or punching a wall.

"Shit's different here," he points out, opening his eyes again. "You're different."

[incognoscibilis]

He'd been different ever since his bargain with Cabeswater. Ronan knew that. This wasn't Cabeswater. This was Ronan who was kinder in his unseen moments and who gave gifts that Adam could accept and allow. Ronan Lynch, who would tie his tie properly for Adam's court date.

"I knew about this back in Henrietta too. That's not different," Adam said.

[thedreamthief]

"Everything," is different, Ronan argues. "Everything about this place."

They're still close. Ronan can't stop sneaking glances at Adam's mouth, can't quite stop himself from leaning in for another taste, whispering against Adam's lips. "Did we do this back home, too?"

[incognoscibilis]

Adam shook his head. "I knew you wanted me then," he admitted. "I didn't know yet if I felt the same way." He was not careful in the same way as Gansey, but he had waited with Ronan, wanting to make sure he was certain in his feelings.

He was.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan doesn't need to ask. If he knows anything about Adam at all -- this one or the one from home -- it's that he doesn't do anything without being sure. Even when he's scared, even when he doesn't know the possible outcome, Adam is brave.

Swallowing, Ronan makes himself keep still. He can be brave, too.

He stays still and close, looking at Adam's lips again as he whispers, "So what about Krem?"

[incognoscibilis]

Of all the questions that Ronan could have asked, Adam hadn't expected that one. What about Krem indeed. They were friends and, frankly, had about ten years between them. Krem and Adam had been new to the city together a bonded based on mutual fear and uncertainty, then become friends.

It wasn't the same as what he and Ronan had gone through together and would go through.

"There wasn't anything between us." Honestly, he would have thought that Ronan would be making suppositions about Blue if anyone.

"I can't be as obvious with Kavinsky. I won't be able to dream a Mitsubishi for you and I'd never text since you hate your phone. But I do like you, Ronan Lynch."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan frowns at the mention of Kavinsky, unsure of what exactly that's supposed to mean. Maybe Kavinsky is to Adam what Krem is to Ronan, though the similarities between the two are almost non-existent. Ronan may not trust Krem or particularly like him, but Kavinsky is a entirely separate level of asshole.

Adam's words should be a comfort, or something like it. They should make him warm and relaxed and hopeful. But he still feels off-kilter, wary of showing his hand.

His lips curl into a mean sort of grin. "Was that the hardest thing you've ever admitted to?"

[incognoscibilis]

There was no comparison. Krem was a friend. Kavinsky was...Adam struggled to find the appropriate word before his mind settled on thief. Ronan was the Greywaren and Kavinsky had been a common dream thief who wanted to steal Ronan too.

He's almost glad Ronan doesn't remember that lost weekend.

"No," he says. "If this was something strange or awful, then it might be hard, but it isn't." The hard part was letting himself be wanted, in trusting that this was something real instead of the desperate need to be desirable. This was real. Ronan was real. What Adam felt was real.

"Kissing you was the easiest part. It was the one that made sense."

[thedreamthief]

"It's easier to kiss someone than to admit like them," Ronan clarifies, though Adam's response still needles under his skin, curls around his core. His gaze drops to Adam's lips again and lingers.

He can be brave, he reminds himself.

"You know it's more than that," he manages eventually. "You came here knowing more than I do. Does it get harder from here?"

[incognoscibilis]

"I know," he said. "I know it's more than that. It's why I waited to be sure." Ronan was right though. The kissing was easy. So was reaching out and threading fingers into Ronan's, even if he had to be mindful of bruised and split knuckles.

On impulse, he raised Ronan's hand to his mouth, brushing his lips against the bruises.

Against his skin, Adam admitted, "I didn't mean for this to happen in the bathroom."