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]

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..."

[thedreamthief]

Adam makes a sound beneath him, a soft gasp that might give Ronan pause if not for the fact that he hasn't gone tense at all. His eyes are wide and dark and fucking beautiful, locked on Ronan's.

A warmth slithers down Ronan's spine and he shifts a little, his weight still rested on Adam, thighs bracketing Adam's as he hovers over him.

He breathes.

Then he ducks forward, slowly, his heart pounding with words he still hasn't said out loud as he presses a slow kiss to Adam's parted lips.

[incognoscibilis]

"What if you did it?" Adam asks, breathless and confused at the sudden depth of want and trying to source its reasons. "What if you topped?"

What if, for just a little while, Adam relinquishes his control and lets Ronan have him. Lets himself bask in the sense of pleasure, of desire that can only come from trusting someone so much.

Breath still shallow, face flushed, Adam leans up into the kiss.

[thedreamthief]

Even phrased as a hypothetical, Ronan's breath catches, heat rolling swiftly down his spine. They're still pressed together from thigh to chest. Ronan can feel every breath Adam takes, can feel the skip of his heartbeat.

But it's not from fear.

"Do you want me to?" he asks, turning the question factual. Real. He shifts a little, brushes his thumb across Adam's temple.

[incognoscibilis]

He's nodding, even as his mind still works distantly on that puzzle. "Do you want to?" When they'd first started this, Adam had expected that Ronan would prefer that role, wouldn't want to relinquish it even to Adam.

The trust he'd been given had awed Adam then and now the amount he has in Ronan amazes him too.

"I trust you," he says. It's almost as weighty as 'I love you.'

[thedreamthief]

Heart thudding in his chest and eyes wide, locked on Adam's face, Ronan nods. As often as he's thought about, even dreamt of it, some part of him hadn't thought it might come to pass. Not soon, at least. It hasn't bothered him, being close to Adam, being allowed to kiss him, to stare at him openly, to feel the warm press of Adam's skin, the length of him inside... it's all been more than Ronan knows he deserves. It's all been so much more than enough.

"I want to," he says because Adam, as always, deserves the truth. He presses another kiss to Adam's lips then, soft and slow as he gives a gentle rock of his hips. "I'll go slow," he continues, a whispered promise. "And we can stop if you don't like it."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam arches his back, rolls his hips against Ronan's and it's more than teasing now. The faith Adam has in Ronan is a new and fragile thing, but a real one. Every part of him shivers, his fingers searching along the lines of Ronan's tattoo, the living and shifting lines.

Control is not a thing easily relinquished. It requires trust and Adam has had little reason for it until a certain handful of people. Of them all, he realizes his faith in Ronan is strongest and he wants it. He wants to fall back against the bed for Ronan to explore and open up and claim, though he will never own Adam. Adam thinks that Ronan doesn't want that anyway.

"I want you," he says, voice just as low.

[thedreamthief]

Adam arches with him, a glorious shift of sinew and bone from thigh to mouth. Ronan breathes into the kiss, swallowing Adam's words and relishing the way they warm him from the inside, a heavy, low thrum of electricity pulsing low between his thighs.

He laughs then, overwhelmed, as he ducks into the curve of Adam's neck, mouthing at the skin there, one hand smoothing over Adam's side, feeling every ridge and dent of his ribs. He kisses lower, sucking at the skin stretched over Adam's strong clavicle, his hands spanning Adam's narrow waist, muscles thick beneath his palms.

[incognoscibilis]

He can feel Ronan's interest, hard against his own thigh, and Adam laughs. The weight of the outside world–of everything beyond this bedroom–fades away. Just like the dream, all that matters is this tiny space that they've made into their own kingdom. "Manibus," he whispers, drawing his own, slender hands up Ronan's back again.

Without looking, he knows the shapes, even in the inconsistent lines.

[thedreamthief]

Adam's mentioned before, the dreamt container of lotion Ronan -- a different Ronan, the Ronan still back in Henrietta -- had given him. And the inscription. And even if that hadn't been him, not exactly, the connection is still there, it's an act this Adam recognizes as important. And that's more than good enough.

With a low, heavy breath, Ronan slides lower still, mouthing down the line of Adam's sternum to the dip of his belly-button, pausing there to flick his tongue shallowly inside as he slides his hands across the span of Adam's hips, holding him down.

"Too bad you don't have any of that stuff here," Ronan says, grinning as he slides one hand inward to wrap loosely around the length of Adam's cock, squeezing gently. "Could be useful right now."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam starts to laugh and it cuts off into a high sound as Ronan palms him, squeezes him. It feels tight in his stomach, the concentrated ache, and he digs fingers into Ronan's shoulders. It's not hard enough to hurt but it's insistent, yearning.

"You know where I keep it," he says, fighting a little to concentrate. "Lube and condoms, same place as always."

He shifts, leans up so he's hip to hip with Ronan again and rubs insistently against him.

[thedreamthief]

There's something intimate in that alone, Ronan thinks. Both the knowledge and the implication. Ronan knows where Adam keeps those things because they're often in this bed when Adam needs them. They might belong to Adam, but they're items Adam shares with Ronan, that they use together.

Before he can reach for the night table, however, Adam's arching beneath him, leaning up so they're aligned once more, rubbing against him.

Ronan reacts with a low groan. It comes out more as a growl and Ronan gives up his search for the moment to grind down, eyes dark and locked on Adam's. "Could just fuckin' do this forever," he admits, one hand still curved around Adam's side, the other holding his weight, his lips a breath above Adam's. His chest aches, heart beating wildly already as he breathes shakily. "Love... love how you feel beneath me."

[incognoscibilis]

"Yeah..." For a second, Adam thinks Ronan is going to say he loves him and the enormity of that possibility crashes over him. In a distant way, it makes sense. That's what's meant to happen when they do this long enough. But the possibility of not just being wanted but loved by Ronan Lynch is a strange, powerful thing for a boy who's never been loved.

He realizes then that he's going inside his own head again, falling, forgetting himself and Adam drags himself forward again, back to Ronan.

"Only forever?" he asks. It's not a good recovery.

[thedreamthief]

Adam slips away for a moment, eyes glazing even as Ronan moves against him. It lasts only a second or two before he's back, gaze locked on Ronan's.

"Too long?" Ronan replies, lips quirking into a grin before he brushes his lips to Adam's again.

He doesn't wait for Adam's answer, doesn't wait for anything at all, before he's reaching for the night table, fishing the lube and a condom from the drawer before dropping both onto the bed beside Adam's pillow and settling over him again. They're bare from head to foot and Ronan lets himself soak up every inch of Adam's warmth, his lips against Adam's temple.

"We don't have to," he says, a reminder. "I want to, I've thought about it. A lot. But we don't ever have to do it -- Hell, that's what dreams are for, right?"

[incognoscibilis]

"Worried you'd get bored of me," Adam confesses. It's almost the heart of what actually scares him. The fear and inability to know how to love, to be loved. It overwhelms him a little.

He leans into the kiss, gentle and warm against his temple. Lovingly. How does he accept that? It's too much, too important a gift.

"But I'm not worried about this." He gestures between them, indicating the act. "I know it'll be good. You'll be good."