WHO: Ronan and Adam WHAT: Ronan's reappearance after the faerie WHEN: Backdated to 9/15 WHERE: The Barns WARNINGS: Mentions of emotional and physical child abuse
Adam was being ridiculous. He knew this. He was irritated by it. And he also didn’t fully care.
They had been through so much worse together, and this, in the end, wasn’t really anything more than the usual Tumbleweed trickery. Ronan had disappeared, scarcely been gone a day, and now he was back and fine.
But Adam was thrown off by the whole experience. He hadn’t been able to approach this practically at all. Most of that had been left up to Gansey while Adam was left with too many emotions that were like acid eating at his own insides. He didn’t like that -- this was why he didn’t like giving into those negative emotions so thoroughly. They were useless. They were stubborn and stupid, and made Adam incapable of thinking through and doing what he needed.
Even with Ronan back, those emotions were sitting dormant in his gut, refusing to be forgotten. There was nothing more to solve, no one to fight. It was just Adam with himself now.
He refused to let go of Ronan’s hands the entire way back to the Barns.
…
Thankfully, getting back to the Barns didn’t take long. They took off their masks and held onto each other tightly as the ball dissolved around them. Ronan was so damn glad just to have hands that weren’t painted, that could actually hold something. He could feel others holding onto him, too, maybe because they were relieved to have him back, maybe to make sure he was coming back with them, or both.
He had a brief word with Gansey when they were back. There wasn’t much to say. Ronan knew what he had done, that he hadn’t done it for Ronan, but Ronan hated it all the same. Knew that his capture had still been a motivating factor.
Something had come undone in Adam, though, and that was a higher priority. Ronan could see it in his eyes, feel it in his hands. He hadn’t let go of him even to talk to Gansey, and he was still holding onto him when everyone else had gone. He wondered briefly at his own emotional state, wondering if he looked the same; he thought maybe he did. Mostly, though, he just felt numb, as if the whole thing had been a bad dream. Except it hadn’t been, and Ronan would know.
The moment the door closed behind the last person to leave the house - even if they were only heading just to Monmouth - he pulled Adam in against him, tugging his hands out of Adam’s only to wrap his arms tightly around his boyfriend.
--
Adam went into the hug without any fight. He wrapped his arms around Ronan tightly in return and buried his face into Ronan’s shoulder. He shut his eyes and just stood there for a moment. He hated this. He had known it for some time, but having something to love could be so agonizingly painful, because it was also something to lose. And Adam hadn’t been able to do anything but watch as magic had, once again, snatched Ronan away from his grasp.
…
Ronan’s grip only tightened, and he pressed the side of his head against Adam’s, his nose pressing against Adam’s good ear. Words seemed useless in the face of something like this, but he had done nothing but curse at his loved ones in Latin all night, so he tried anyway. “I’m here,” he said quietly. “I’m back.”
He brushed his lips against the skin under Adam’s ear. He felt so good, so warm and solid. Ronan had felt cold and numb ever since the mask attached itself to his face, the whole time he’d been trapped in the painting. Cold and numb and… incomplete. He could feel all of himself again, especially with Adam in his arms.
--
Moments like these always felt a little surreal. They loved each other in their own ways, which often meant a far amount of cursing and sass thrown in, so these moments that were entirely vulnerable with nothing else underneath were perhaps rare. The idea of them scared Adam, but whenever they were in one, he found he needed it.
“I know,” Adam said quietly, his hands tightening against Ronan’s back.
…
Ronan knew that was only so comforting, because it couldn’t be guaranteed that he would stay here. He couldn’t say that it wouldn’t happen again. Things kept happening that proved they were fallible, and they could be torn apart.
He kissed Adam’s neck instead of saying anything, hoping the warmth of it could counter some of the awfulness. “I love you.”
--
“I love you,” Adam answered, settling back in against Ronan’s shoulder, breathing in the smell of him.
“Can we retreat to our bed and never leave again?” Adam asked. He knew it wasn’t a possibility, but he also liked the idea of being tangled up with Ronan for as long as he possibly could. He just wanted to keep holding him like this.
…
“Yes,” Ronan said, immediately. They would have to leave eventually, but they could stay there for a while. He didn’t have a real job, and Adam’s bosses at EPS knew about the curses. He wasn’t sure about the mechanic, but he figured Adam would remember that and handle it when he was ready.
He took a step back, and then another, heading for the bedroom without relinquishing his grip on Adam.
--
Adam followed Ronan without hesitation -- it was what he had asked for, after all. But being back in their bedroom undid something in Adam’s chest.
He forced his face back in against Ronan’s shoulder, already able to feel his eyes burning. He hated crying. It just didn’t solve anything. It was a waste of time and energy.
(And, of course, Adam had grown up in a household where emotional outbursts were violent collisions. The first time Adam had ever been hit, he had been five and burst out into tears over something he couldn’t remember now. His father had responded with an open-handed smack to his face. And in that, young Adam Parrish had earned two valuable lessons when it came to emotion: the first was that it would be punished by his father, and the second was that an emotional outburst was the realm of his father, and Adam did everything in his power to not be like his father. Which meant keeping too-strong reactions under wraps when they didn’t serve what Adam wanted.)
And even with Ronan, who Adam was learning to be more and more vulnerable with, this hadn’t really changed, because it hadn’t changed within himself.
But there was nothing to be done now. Ronan was back and safe. There was no one to fight. No problems to solve. And Adam was still scared.
He sobbed into Ronan’s shoulder.
…
Ronan felt, or sensed, something coming undone inside of Adam. His arms tightened reflexively as Adam pressed in closer against him, keeping him upright. That was all he could offer, really; words were useless, or at least, he didn’t know any useful ones for this situation. It wasn’t his fault he had been taken, and neither of them could have prevented it. There was just this, the picking up the pieces and holding each other together.
His own eyes stung at the sound of Adam sobbing, but tears didn’t fall. His heart ached, and he ran a hand over Adam’s back, comforting, bringing him in closer. He kept his head turned in and tucked against the side of Adam’s, his nose in Adam’s hair and his lips near Adam’s ear. He said nothing, didn’t try to stop Adam from crying, just held on tight and stayed with him.
--
He didn’t think he’d ever been held like this before, someone sharing in his grief and working through it with him. He didn’t-- Sometimes, he just couldn’t put into words everything that Ronan Lynch was. Because he could be a real jackass, but he also was too much for one boy to be, and by extension, that often made their relationship more. It couldn’t hold all of their emotions all together, and sometimes that meant things were messy and inexplicable and utterly unlike anything Adam had ever known.
He remained press against Ronan until his tears started to subside, his body giving out to exhaustion. He didn’t pull entirely away, but wiped at his face with the back of his hand.
…
Ronan didn’t loosen his grip, but his body relaxed as Adam’s did, and he let out a breath. He still held and accepted all of Adam’s fear and emotion, which mirrored his own.
“It feels good to be back,” he murmured quietly. He didn’t know if Adam wanted to say anything, but he didn’t think it would hurt to draw some of the attention from him for a moment to let him compose himself, or to try to refocus them on the relief of the moment instead of the fear.
--
“I’m sorry,” Adam said wetly, his voice stuffy, if only because he was at a loss for what else to say. He knew that Ronan wouldn’t really care that he cried all over him. He could have done so for a foolish reason, and Ronan still would have comforted him and put up with a snotty shirt.
…
Ronan made a vague noise of disagreement in the back of his throat, but didn’t argue. He didn’t want or need the apology, but he wasn’t going to tell Adam what to (or what not to) say. Instead, he said, “Opal and Chainsaw were alright?”
He had been two-dimensional, but he didn’t think his magic had been fully taken away. But he hadn’t been here to be able to know for sure.
--
Adam nodded, still trying to breathe evenly to calm himself down. He felt marginally better after the outburst, as if the weight of all the emotion he had been carrying had burst.
“Yes,” Adam answered out loud. “They weren’t affected.”
…
Ronan breathed out. He’d been worried about them, his creatures, that were dependent on him for their life. He hadn’t had any way of knowing whether they would be affected by what the faeries had done to him. He was glad to hear they hadn’t. He had already seen Chainsaw asleep once, and it still haunted his nightmares.
“All’s well, then,” he said, injecting a hint of dry humor into his voice. It wasn’t all well, but it was as good as it could be, considering. They’d all come out of it alive and at least physically unhurt, though not unchanged, in various ways.
--
Adam had come back down from crying, although his eyes still felt raw. He was so aware of what he had just done … and yet, the world kept going. Ronan didn’t look at him at all differently. Which was what he knew, but never how it felt.
“Yeah, at least we’ll have 30 seconds before the next asshole thing happens,” Adam answered back, matching Ronan’s tone.
…
“Better be at least half an hour,” Ronan answered, managing the hint of a smile. He pulled Adam back towards the bed, one hand in his shirt, the other curled in his hair. “Maybe we can just stay in bed and let the next one pass us by.”
Adam had wanted to go to bed, but they’d stopped before getting there. He had needed to cry, and that was fine, sometimes tears needed to happen. He would never judge anyone for crying over their loved one being hurt.