never knew loving could hurt this good [2/23]

[thedreamthief]

They're in the Barns, in Ronan's room, the bed he's had since he was eight, a dream thing created by his father like so many other things in the house. Ronan can remember every detail, the exact pattern of the quilt, the dents and dings on the wooden bed legs made by errant skateboards and dog teeth and cat claws and carelessly discarded baseball bats. He can remember the dip of the mattress, the scent of his pillows, the strip of warmth from the sun peeking in through the window.

Adam fits as though he's always been here, the width of the bed expanding to hold him, to welcome him, blankets draping over his calves like an embrace.

They're tangled, legs entwined, bare from the waist up, Ronan with one arm under Adam's head and the other wrapped around his middle, fingertips tracing invisible patterns up the center of Adam's back. Noses brushing, Ronan breathes gently into Adam's mouth, still enthralled by the flush of pink across Adam's cheekbones, the line of his nose, the fall of dark eyelashes. Still amazed, even now, that he can have this even beyond his dreams.

In dreams, words aren't necessary. In dreams, Adam already knows what lies beneath Ronan's chest, all he wants and has to offer. In dreams, Ronan can press his lips to Adam's and paint his fingers over soft skin, can leave delicate, beautiful lines with only a touch and not worry that it's too much.

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[incognoscibilis]

He's dreaming. Or he's been subsumed into Ronan's dream. Adam isn't sure, beyond the fact that everything is touching the way it did on the 4th of July. Ronan had been dreaming that day too and Adam had been awake but the ley line had allowed them to be somewhere Between. He must have crossed through that Between here too.

Kissing in a dream feels like kissing when awake. Adam would have thought it might feel weightier or more surreal but mostly it just feels like Ronan and his hands mapping Adam out, finding the shape of him to be the same within and without dreams.

"What are you dreaming around us?" he asks. The Barns sounds, smells, and feels like it ought to, even though Adam knows they're dreaming. How far does the dream spread? Can they walk to the edge and find blank space? Or will it continue further, into a dream Henrietta?

[thedreamthief]

The kiss is slow, a lazy melting of mouths and warm breath as though they have all the time in the world. Dreams are finite, Ronan is well aware of the finality of dreams, yet there remains an endless quality to them while in the midst, a sensation of impenetrability. They're safe here. Untouchable.

And they can create whatever they want.

He pulls away just enough to meet Adam's eyes again, still close enough to share breath as his lips curl into a smirk. "Home," he says, brushing his thumb along Adam's spine. "Why, do you want to make a request?"

[incognoscibilis]

"Not really." Adam curves his back a little so that Ronan's hand slots against him more perfectly. "I was just wondering how far it went. Or what I'd see if I hit the edge. Have you ever tried?" It's not asked the way Gansey might, all over the spirit of scientific inquiry. It's less hurried, more curious without drive than Adam would be in the waking world.

"Does time pass the same way in here? Or is it like Inception?"

He grins and then leans forward for another kiss, not in any hurry for that answer either.

[thedreamthief]

As far as Ronan knows, there is no edge unless he dreams one. It will carry as far as he can dream it, one place melting into another into another, seamless and nonsensical, a labyrinth of his own making.

But he shakes his head because no, he hasn't really tried. In the past he's been afraid to push the limits, afraid of what could erupt with too much prodding. And now he pushes in different ways, asks for bigger things, beautiful things, living things. Not just space.

"Like Inception," he answers a moment later, the word muffled against Adam's lips as his fingers curl and flex against Adam's back. He hums softly as he pulls away again, lips grazing Adam's jaw as he adds, "Like stepping into Cabeswater. Could spend a lifetime in there that lasts all of five minutes."

[incognoscibilis]

"Not completely like Inception. The end of that movie fucked me up." He can't remember exactly when he'd watched it, though he associates the memory with Gansey, possibly on one of the occasions when he'd gone back to Richmond for some family occasion and brought Adam along to play court jester. As he thinks it, of the deep wine-red leather sofa, Adam can almost visualize it. The end table full of porcelain figures and collectables.

In the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees porcelain figures on a table where there hadn't been any before.

"I like dreaming. But I don't want to get lost here forever." He smiles. "I like waking up to you."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan laughs into another soft kiss, one hand curling around to Adam's side then down over his hip. The gesture lacks intent, nothing more than touching because he can, because he's allowed this, within the dream and without.

Distantly, he's aware of a shift around him and he peeks past Adam's shoulder to see his bedroom wall replaced with a long hallway, the floors a deep wood, the walls an immaculate white. Grinning, he turns his attention to Adam again, his hand smoothing up over Adam's chest. "Gansey's parent's?" he asks, but it's more statement than question. He recognizes the place for what it is. Then, with a slowly wider smile, "Dream us into Monmouth then. We can christen my bed there."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam shakes his head, smiling, teasing a little. "This is your dream," he says. Adam can change the wallpaper but it doesn't have the same weight and reality of Ronan's imaginings. If Ronan wants Monmouth, Adam's counterfeit just won't be enough. His dream of it would be imprecise, nothing like the sinew and skeleton of Ronan's.

Gently, he presses his chest against Ronan's hand and then loops a leg over Ronan's hip, a simple and beckoning gesture.

[thedreamthief]

"Our dream," Ronan argues because, even if it's his mind that's the backbone, his power the beating pulse, it's Adam who's giving it breath.

His grin widens as Adam draws him closer, the weight of Adam's leg over Ronan's hip a visceral thing as Ronan skims his thumb across Adam's nipple and leans in closer himself. "Sex is better awake," he says, lips brushing the curve of Adam's jaw. "Feels better."

[incognoscibilis]

"It feels solid," he agrees. Saying that it feels real isn't right; it invalidates the reality of the dream, of what Ronan can create. Ronan's touch over his body feels real, feels damn good, but Adam is all too aware of his sleeping body around him.

Sighing out, Adam catches Ronan for a kiss. "That your way of saying we should wake up?" It's only half a tease. Something about the temptation of having sex in a dream feels almost too precipitous, like a boundary they're not actually ready to consider.

[thedreamthief]

"Mmm, depends," Ronan replies against Adam's lips, his own parting for a taste as he shifts, arching his hips against Adam's, his hand as he curls his hand around Adam's side. "Will you fuck me when we wake up?"

He's never had sex in a dream, not like this anyway. In dreams, the sex is of his own making, the Adam (though it hasn't always been Adam) a forgery of perception. This would be different, he knows. It's still Ronan's dream, still his powers flowing through the canvas, but Adam holds his own brushes.

[incognoscibilis]

"I could be persuaded," Adam says it into Ronan's mouth, lets the implications get swallowed up in the kiss. It's been month and it still thrills and delights him in equal measure that Ronan trusts Adam enough to give him this. "But first you have to wake up."

He's not sure how they'll do it exactly, wondering if it really is like Inception and they need to fall, to startle themselves into waking.

[thedreamthief]

"Maybe you could fuck me into consciousness," Ronan says, his voice teasing even as the thought excites him, little more than breath into Adam's mouth.

It could work, he thinks. It wouldn't be the first time he's awoken in the middle of that sort of dream, pulled awake before he was ready, aching and covered in sweat. It would be the first with Adam with him in the dream, his actual hands and mouth as opposed to merely Ronan's perception of them.

He wants it.

Ducking in, Ronan presses a deeper kiss, groaning as Adam opens to him, his hand slipping lower still to the waistband of Adam's boxers, slow and full of intent.

[incognoscibilis]

"Rather fuck you when you're conscious." It's still strange to him–impossible–the way that Ronan allows himself to be so vulnerable to Adam. Outside of their home, Ronan takes his pleasure in being the aggressor, in dominating the moment. With him, it's not about ownership or aggression. It's about release.

It doesn't necessarily feel more real outside of a dream but it is something Adam wants to save, to retain for themselves in a place that feels like they have solid footing together.

[thedreamthief]

"Mmm," Ronan replies, neither agreement or disagreement, as he brushes his lips along Adam's jaw.

After months of practice, Ronan knows now how to pull himself from a dream, how to free himself of it's often-dangerous clutch. His dream is far from dangerous this time with Adam beside him, but he no longer has be dreaming to get what he wants.

When Ronan wakes, between one breath and the next, he finds Adam still beside him, eyes closed and breath even, still under. They aren't intertwined as they had been in the dream, but Ronan has the knuckles of one hand against Adam's warm chest. Ronan lets himself indulge in looking for a long moment. Adam is peaceful in sleep, relaxed in a way he never accomplishes awake, lips slightly parted with every breath, eyelids fluttering faintly with his own dream.

Slowly, Ronan lifts a hand to brush the backs of his fingers along one elegant cheekbone.

[incognoscibilis]

His first impulse, when he feels he rise out of sleep, is to shut his eyes more stubbornly and burrow deeper against Ronan's warmth. Sleep is a better, easier thing now in Darrow, less of a precious commodity than in Henrietta but Adam doesn't value it any less. It's that instinct and nothing to do with Cabeswater that makes him so reluctant to open his eyes, even for Ronan.

"Is it hard to tell apart?" he asks, eyes still closed and voice still muzzy with sleep.

[thedreamthief]

Adam wakes without opening his eyes, his breath turning shallow, lips twitching in a displeased grimace that makes Ronan grin. Ronan smooths a hand down Adam's neck and shoulder as Adam burrows closer and he lets out another hum at the question as he hooks one leg over Adam's calf.

"What's a dream and what's real?" he asks, his eyes never once leaving Adam's face as he lifts a hand to smooth his thumb between Adam's eyebrows, clearing the crease that's already forming there. No dream Adam he's ever created has ever done the real one justice. "Not really."

[incognoscibilis]

"Trying to smudge the worries out?" He's aware of the way he frowns and how Ronan seems to fixate on all the telltale signs of his strain and stresses. It's just that Adam usually works hard to ignore them and Ronan soothes them away.

Because he likes the sound of Ronan's voice, Adam buries himself in deeper, nestles against his warmth and doesn't open his eyes. "How do you know?"

[thedreamthief]

"No dream ever gets it right," Ronan replies easily, his hand slipping around to curl around the nape of Adam's neck as Adam burrows in closer, still clearly fighting the idea of consciousness.

Ronan's tempted to let him sink back into sleep. Even if it's not so rare a commodity for Adam as it had been back home, Adam has years of it to catch up on and, more selfishly, Ronan enjoys the feel of Adam in his arms like this, utterly warm and relaxed, trusting Ronan to keep him safe in his most vulnerable state.

[incognoscibilis]

"Keep doing that," Adam says, tipping his head back slightly against Ronan's fingertips. It feels warm, perfect, in that tiny way that comes from the sense of being loved. It's a feeling that Adam could bask in.

"I think I promised to fuck you." He chuckles against Ronan's skin, kissing his throat. "In a hurry?"

[thedreamthief]

"Not yet," Ronan says with a smirk, keeping his hand just where it is at Adam's request, his thumb brushing up the curve of Adam's neck, petting the soft skin just below his ear.

He can't keep the grin off his face or out of his voice, still reveling in the fact that he can stare at the sweep of Adam's eyelashes across his cheek, the purse of those lips before their hidden against Ronan's throat. "Why? You planning on holding out on me, Parrish? I can just go back to sleep," he says, clearly a tease. "Dream myself up a whole gang of Adam Parrishes to fuck me."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam snorts and his eyes finally open so that he can give Ronan an amused and disgusted look. "That's obscene, Ronan," he says, pushing gently at Ronan's side. It's barely the pressure of a fist bump but it's the only physical tease he can allow himself. Any harder and...he doesn't know. He is always afraid of what can happen if he lets himself hit.

[thedreamthief]

It does the trick of making Adam open his eyes and Ronan's grin only widens, particularly after Adam gives a weak-ass punch to his side.

Laughing, Ronan reaches down to curl his fingers over Adam's fist, shifting closer as he draws that hand up to his lips, kissing lightly over the knuckles. "Better give me the real thing, then. Save me from my own obscenity."

[incognoscibilis]

"If it's the only way to save you from yourself." Adam leans forward and kisses Ronan on the nose, a gesture that's as silly as it is chaste.

Shifting his head down, he echoes Ronan's kiss, dropping one along over their joined hands. "What kind of shit do you get up to without us to keep you out of trouble?"

[thedreamthief]

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Ronan replies, still smirking even as a tendril of warmth runs all down the length of his arm.

His leg still hooked over Adam's calf, he draws him closer, releasing Adam's hand between them to wrap an arm around him instead, content to pull more firmly now that Adam's eyes are open. "I do have one hell of an imagination," he says, voice still teasing before he abruptly rolls, pushing Adam into his back and lying over him.

[incognoscibilis]

Adam rolls his eyes and lets himself get pulled in. "I would like to know, shitbag. That's why I'm asking," Adam says.

When Ronan rolls them over, Adam breathes in sharply. It's not fearful, but excited, and a weird frisson goes through him. For that brief instant, he has no control, has an illusion of it being gone when Ronan pins him. That should terrify him but somehow he feels...

Relieved? Aroused?

"Ronan..."