all we do is think about the secrets that we hide

[thedreamthief]

There's nowhere to drive in this fucking town.

Ronan's been over every inch of asphalt and dirt road in the entire city, multiple times. The scenery never changes. Neither do the people. It's the same goddamn thing every single time he drives, and he doesn't choose to stop.

This cage isn't Henrietta and never could be, but the air through the window still feels good and the familiar rumble of the Pig beneath his feet is a comfort.

None of that changes with Adam at the wheel.

It's quiet. Still. Ronan won't delude himself into believing that everything is still okay. He still has trouble making himself sleep, still wakes up in fits and starts with new sorts of nightmares, ones involving needles and metal restraints instead of claws and beaks. Adam is still wary and Ronan is still careful and there is no filling the hole Gansey left behind.

But the days pass and they're still here.

Adam takes a familiar left turn and the trees become a canopy, shielding the sunlight from view as the Pig slows. Ronan hadn't been aware of any specific destination tonight and he glances over with a raised brow.

"I've always wanted to get dirty in a car," he says, smirking. It isn't a lie.

Comments

[incognoscibilis]

"You'd violate the sanctity of the Pig?" Adam asks, raising a skeptical brow. "Think Gansey and Blue ever did?" He doesn't actually care to know or speculate, but it seems the thing to ask when they're discussing vehicular encounters in a car that's still and forever Gansey's.

This close, he can feel the thrum of the forest and perceive the vines and blades of grades shifting slightly, parting for him. The forest knows them, its magician and its Greywaren, and it receives them eagerly.

Unbidden, Adam imagines having sex in Cabeswater and dismisses the idea quickly in his head. Cabeswater strikes him as a voyeur.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan lets out a snort of a laugh, his head tipped back against the seat. "No," says, barely hiding a grimace. "You think Gansey wouldn't violate the sanctity of the Pig like that?"

His grin is a sharp thing as he rolls his neck to glance over at Adam again. The headlights are still on and they cast low, eerie glow, sharpening Adam's jaw and cheekbones. He falls quiet for a moment, indulging in the opportunity to stare before he says, "You can feel it."

[incognoscibilis]

"Well, he does own it."

Pulling up to the edge of the road, Adam finds a dirt path and trundles the Pig along until they're at the edge of the forest. Adam kills the engine and leans back in his seat, looking at Ronan. It'd be easy to lay here and let the sun warm the car as they lose the afternoon. It's something they haven't had a chance to enjoy for a while. Not since everything went sideways.

Now that they're on the edge of having it again, Adam is itching with want for it.

"Hey," he says, as if they've just run into one another.

[thedreamthief]

It's not a confirmation or a denial and Ronan only smirks, allowing it to unanswered entirely. If Adam doesn't want to acknowledge the pull of the trees, then Ronan can play along easily enough.

"Hey," he says instead, still leaning back against the seat.

He turns his head then, looking out that the brush, the thick foliage swaying in the breeze. "Should dream a road through here," he says, idly. "One that goes on and on." It'd be nice to drive and not go in fucking circles. He could dream a road in Cabeswater that would go for miles while going nowhere at all. Like a treadmill or some shit with changing scenery. He could do it, he thinks. He might.

[incognoscibilis]

Adam laughs a little at the image, thinking of Looney Tunes with Bugs Bunny driving a car in front of a rotating background and seeming to go everywhere without going anywhere. The image is both tempting and futile and Adam shrugs. "You might get in trouble with the zoning laws or whatever," he said in a tone that suggested he was only saying it because he was obligated to play Ronan's conscience.

Turning a little in his seat lets Adam face Ronan as if they're lying in bed together instead of cramped into a sexy but temperamental Camaro. He reaches out for Ronan's thigh, resting it gently on his leg without any real pressure. Just a chance to touch.

[thedreamthief]

"Not if I re-write the laws," Ronan replies in a tone suggesting he was only saying it to make Adam roll his eyes.

Thing is, he could, if he really wanted to. He'd probably have to figure out logistics though, the inner workings of computers and networks and databases, how to overwrite the back-up files and a whole lot of bullshit that frankly sounds more trouble than it's worth.

He'd rather just dream the road and then dream a way to keep it a secret.

For now, he doesn't worry about any of it, not when Adam's shifting a little to better face him, a hand resting on Ronan's leg. With Ronan's left arm still in a cast, he settles only the fingers of his right hand over Adam's, squeezing lightly and still grinning. "I haven't, you know," he says then, his voice low. "Done anything in a car. Used to think about it sometimes, though."

[incognoscibilis]

"I kind of like it this way though," Adam says. The idea of there being a paved road to Cabeswater–magical or otherwise–just doesn't seem right. Maybe Gansey had rubbed off on him, because to Adam it doesn't seem right to be able to access a mystical forest without at least a little bit of struggle. It's the deeply-buried romantic in him. It's the mark Gansey left on them all.

He tries to look flirtatious but Adam never really thinks of himself as succeeding at it. Smiling at Ronan, he turns his hand over so they're palm to plaster and fingertip to fingertip. "We could change that." They could but they don't have to. And maybe, probably, definitely not in the Pig.

[thedreamthief]

As Adam shifts his hand, Ronan exchanges his one hand for the other, smirking down at the picture they make, Ronan's cast a mucky white against Adam's tanned skin. There's a tease in Adam's voice, an invitation that already has Ronan's body quietly responding.

"What, now?" he asks with a light laugh, turning his head to peer up at the Camaro's familiar roof, the rearview mirror clinging, the lines and curves where metal meets upholstery. He shakes his head and looks over to Adam again. "Want me to dream up a car real quick? I do miss mine sometimes."

[incognoscibilis]

"Not now, I don't think." Adam flexes his fingertips so that his nails scrap gently against the cast. It shouldn't actually stop them, for all that he does and will worry about the cast, upsetting the break. It's like Adam's hand injury all over again. They don't need sex but Adam loves being that for Ronan too and he knows Ronan feels the same. They've also been physically distant since Gansey. Since Kirin. Even now as they cross those divides, it all feels as careful as the first few times.

"I always thought that Beamer was the coolest thing in the world." The admission is quieter. "I used to keep a BMW add in the crapcan. For inspiration. To remember I wouldn't always be in that car."

[thedreamthief]

No, not now. Not now because sleep still comes in fits and starts. Not now because Ronan doesn't entirely trust what he might pull out, especially something the size of a BMW. Not now because he'd rather spend this moment right now with Adam, the real Adam, not some dream version.

Not now.

Ronan arches an eyebrow as Adam continues, his head still tipped back, watching shadows play across his face. "Was that your version of a porno mag?" he asks with a faint smirk. "Just whip it out and jerk it when you really missed me?"

His words and tone hide the warmth under his skin, the prickling. A reminder that Cabeswater truly doesn't have the influence on Adam that Ronan once feared. That, even if it's only a car, there's some part of Ronan that Adam associated as desirable even back in Henrietta.

[incognoscibilis]

"No," Adam says, a little embarrassed until he catches the softness as Ronan's expression. "I wanted to be the guy in that car. I figured, someday, I could just drive away from my problems." It's a foolish thing to think but he had anyway. Sometimes, on the very bad days and then the very good ones, Adam knows that he can't put everything about Henrietta, Virginia into a box and put it into an attic, never to be touched. He still wishes he could try.

"Even when I figured out what you felt, back home, I didn't do anything with it." It had felt too tenuous and fragile, too much like something Adam could thoroughly ruin just by touching. "Didn't feel right."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan's quiet at Adam's explanation, frowning thoughtfully with every word. None of it is surprising, of course, though a part of him wonders why it had to be a BMW. Any car, even the Pig with it's multitude of problems, could ferry Adam out of Henrietta. If it really had nothing to do with Ronan, then why a Beemer?

"Why not?" he asks eventually, ignoring the twist in his stomach that contradicts the calm he'd felt only seconds ago. His lips twist again, the words a bite to hide the unease under his skin. "Worried you only wanted me for my car?"

[incognoscibilis]

"Worried I wanted you for the wrong reasons," he admits. "I knew I wanted to be wanted but I wasn't sure about the rest."

It feels safe now to be honest, to admit to Ronan that he hadn't always known and that was why he'd been so careful. Why he is still careful. Because he knows he loves Ronan and he fears hurting him. It's why he fears saying the words before it's time.

"I didn't want to hurt you because I was selfish."

[thedreamthief]

The honesty is soothing and Ronan's gaze drops to the length of Adam's fingers atop his thigh. There's dirt and grease under his fingernails, calluses worn and weathered. Ronan sweeps his thumb over a delicate knuckle and breathes.

"Did you ever think about it before me?" he asks, voice low and calm. He doesn't look away from Adam's hand. "Boys. Or was it all cars and Ivy Leagues? And Blue," he adds with a faint smirk.

[incognoscibilis]

"I didn't let myself think about it." He doesn't have to say why.

Adam is much more interested in bracing his fingertips against Ronan's, touching them tip to tip like an odd, symmetrical creature. This is his world now; he doesn't have to divert his thoughts away from Ronan's cheekbones and eyelashes, the shadows they cast, or the intensity of the eyes beneath.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan nods in understanding, still watching the play of their fingers. As light of a touch as it is, Ronan can feel it all through his arm, can feel it mending the broken bone, warming and regrowing muscle and sinew.

I thought about it, he thinks, but doesn't say. I couldn't stop.

"Sometimes I wonder if this could've happened back home," he says, his voice a low confession. "Or if it would've just stayed in my dreams forever."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam looks at their hands for a moment and thinks about it. In theory, ever since the court date, he's officially free of his father. In practice, Adam wonders if he ever will be, if he can ever move past the shame and the beaten-in associations.

He likes to think, for Ronan, he could.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

"I'd have fallen in love with you anywhere, I think. If you gave me enough time."

[thedreamthief]

For all that he keeps to himself, all the secrets and lies he tells himself and keeps to himself, there are some things he can't hide. Ronan's spent two years learning Adam Parrish and the past six months has been an intensive study.

Adam hasn't had to say what he feels for Ronan to know.

But Ronan can admit that the words, so boldly stated, have an immediate impact, sucking the breath from his lungs as he lifts his gaze from their hands to Adam's face. He doesn't say a word for a long moment, Adam's voice on a loop in his mind. Then his lips twitch into a faint grin, nearly fucking gleeful for him.

"That good ol' Lynch charm," he says because the moment feels heavy and he slides his fingers between Adam's as he leans in over the console.

[incognoscibilis]

"Is that what your personality is?" Adam asks, because he can see the look on Ronan's face compared to what he's saying. He can see the light in Ronan's eyes, that rare and beautiful thing that he hasn't witnessed as often as they'd all like.

Ronan leans forward and Adam kisses him, barking his knee on the dashboard in his hurry to get close.

Smile more. He wants to tell Ronan that, because he'd trade its rarity for the simple abundance and beauty of that smile.

"Come on," he says. "Before Verity climbs on the car or something."

[thedreamthief]

Adam leans forward, kissing him warm and hard and determined. Ronan groans into it, raises his good hand to brush fingers along the curve of Adam's jaw, holding him there, stretching out the moment.

It's Adam who pulls away first, though Ronan's still smiling, still staring into those hazel eyes.

"She would never," he argues, leaning in again for one more taste before pulling away grabbing the door handle and slipping out.

"Should've brought some apples," he says, slamming the door once he's out because that's the only way to make it stick. "She loves that shit."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam cups Ronan's face and tries to hold him there a second longer. It's not in his nature to dawdle but with Ronan, time only becomes more irrelevant. More so when they kiss.

"I have one in my bag." He'd snagged a few hours of work at school by staffing an alumni event and been allowed to take home some of the leftover appetizers. Most of them had been eaten at Hywel but he'd forgotten the apple in his backpack.

"One of us has to be on top of things."

He smirked.

[thedreamthief]

"You keep up this shit and she's gonna start liking you more than me," Ronan says, eyeing the apple a second before heading into the trees, the sound of a twig snapping behind him ensuring that Adam's not too far behind.

Part of him isn't even expecting to find Verity. She may have sprung from Ronan's mind, but she's not beholden to him out here. She moves as she pleases, completely free. Ronan worries sometimes that he'll come out here and find that a hunter's gotten the better of her, that he'll find nothing but her lifeless body or, worse, nothing at all.

But that's something Ronan doesn't want to think about.

Instead, he glances over at Adam as they walk. "I've been thinking about building something out here," he says. "Once the arm's healed."

[incognoscibilis]

"Then start remembering to feed your own giant elk-moose," Adam says. He leans forward and takes Ronan's good hand, pressing the apple into his palm.

Listening to Ronan's pronouncement, Adam tips his head back and looks up at the trees. Already, Cabeswater presses curiously at his mind, asking for them both.

"What would you build?" He slides his hand up to Ronan's wrist so that he can hold the apple, looking forward now.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan brushes his thumb over the skin of the apple as Adam's hand slips up to coil lightly around his wrist. Their shoulders bump and Ronan hesitates for a second, feeling strangely self-conscious.

"A barn," he says, glancing over at Adam carefully. "A real one, not like what we have in Hywel. And maybe a stable or two."

He waits then, preparing himself for Adam's judgment, for an argument, for Adam unleashing his practical nature. He could do it, he knows. Whether it be by dreaming or with his own two hands. He could do it.

But Adam might still think it's a stupid idea.

[incognoscibilis]

"If you did it right by or inside Cabeswater, you could probably conceal it," Adam says thoughtfully. This bit of land is now very much tied to them but they don't own it and Adam knows the reality of construction and permits.

And there's a childlike part of him too that thinks a disappearing barn sounds like the best treehouse in the world.

"Then no one will bother the animals."