Ronan had very little idea what to expect from Pride. Henrietta damn sure hadn’t participated and it’s not like he’d ever been on Instagram or whatever, to see people’s pictures. Growing up in the sticks had involved very few queer experiences, especially when he’d had his head buried in the sands of grief and fear. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with this shit then. Now…
Well, he still wasn’t sure he wanted anything to do with it. But he did know he wanted to give it a fucking try. He’d given Blue permission to stitch a rainbow across the back of one of his tank tops and turned it into a ragged crop top. The rest of him was as it always was - black jeans, black boots, shaved head, stark tattoo, and a scowl for good measure. But there was a small rainbow flag painted across his sharp cheekbone and he was pretty sure someone had secretly put glitter in his shower because he kept finding little flecks of it everywhere.
He was trying to rub one such fleck off the bridge of his nose while walking in front of Adam down the street when he was suddenly surrounded by a high energy crowd full of color and noise. He froze in place, like a rock in the middle of a fast moving stream. His pulse sped up as people shouted happily back and forth, laughter and music getting louder as the crowd enveloped them. He'd already lost sight of their friends. A few people complimented his shirt as they passed by – and one, his abs – and after a minute Ronan reached back to sling an arm around Adam’s shoulders.
“Tell me this was a good idea, Parrish,” he said loudly next to Adam’s good ear.
Moving to Boston had rounded off the sharper edges of Adam's queer experiences. The people he met and considered friends there had been out and open with their sexuality. More than anyone ever had been in Henrietta. Telling his study group about his boyfriend was not a disaster. Explaining that he was bisexual to his lab partner had been met with a cool, so is my sister. No place was perfect, but Harvard had meetings and hang outs. There was a bar down the street that was queer friendly. Rainbow flags hung from various businesses year round.
Adam might have been more prepared for this than Ronan was.
Blue had helped him tri-color dye a shirt, the deep purple still staining his fingers. And it might have been Adam who was attracting the glitter considering he willingly allowed it on his body before they left for the parade. He did not mind walking behind Ronan—it was an added bonus that he could see part of the tattoo at all times without needing to get handsy in public. But Adam also noticed when the crowds became tighter, the music louder, and when Ronan stopped dead in his tracks.
—which meant so did Adam. He wouldn't push on ahead with Ronan, they were supposed to do this together. But if this wasn't his scene anymore, if either of them felt uncomfortable, Adam hoped that they could tell each other. They were already out in Vallo. Their friends and family had been supportive. That was all that mattered.
But then Ronan was reaching back for Adam, and he was quick to be scooped up under Ronan's arm. He took the opportunity to get the stray piece of glitter off Ronan's nose and smiled, victorious. "This was a good idea, Ronan," Adam said. "You've set a precedent for more crop tops, now."
Ronan grabbed at Adam’s wrist, tempted to keep that hand, those nimble fingers, close his mouth. Ultimately, the nearness of so many strangers kept him in check and he merely pressed his lips to the tips of Adam’s blue fingers before releasing him.
“Does that mean you’re going to stain more of your clothes? Join the hippies full-time?” he teased. In truth, he appreciated this shirt and what the colors represented. It helped to think of how furious Robert Parrish would probably be to see it. Ronan’s smile turned sharp and he glanced out amongst the crowd. The energy was palpable and it made him feel both energized and separate. There and far away. Adam was his anchor, as he so often was.
“I suppose I could get used to this,” he admitted as an ambiguously gendered couple swept by them with hands in each other’s back pockets.
"Oh you'd love that. The Barns is no longer just a farm but an eco-conscious commune. I'll start going zero-waste and teach you how to make eggshell powder," Adam said, dangerously close to Ronan's mouth. He was slouching into him now, giving into the energy of the crowd around him and the safety Ronan provided when the noise started to get overwhelming.
Adam took his gently kissed fingertips and slid them along Ronan's stomach to his side, pressing them into the bareskin of Ronan's tattoo at his back. He made a thoughtful hum, and squinting up at Ronan, haloed by the bright afternoon sun.
"You already don't give a shit about what people think of you. Or us," Adam said, a curious expression on his face. The kind he got while attempting to suss out what was on Ronan's mind, to say the right thing. Sometimes it took longer than usual, but Adam would get there eventually. "This is just an extension of that. But you don't have to get used to it if you don't want to, this is not what legitimizes our relationship."
“Zero-waste. You made that shit up,” Ronan sneered, just to be a dick. The ghost of a smirk at the corner of his mouth dampened the effect. The way he looked at Adam probably did too. But he couldn’t really be blamed with Adam’s hand on his bare skin and the ever present knowledge that everyone here could make the obvious assumption that they were a couple.
He’d never tried to hide it; they were just very private people and didn’t spend a lot of time in crowds like this to begin with. It didn’t feel bad, just weird. Like having a stranger flip through his sketchbook.
“I don’t give a shit what these people think, no. But I…” Ronan scowled at the crowd. He couldn’t even really find something to be cranky about besides people in a handwavy antisocial way. “I am proud to be with you.” He shrugged and pulled Adam closer to press a kiss to his temple. “And I don’t actually hate the idea of showing you off.”
"I don't hate it either," Adam said, but his words were careful and deliberate. He wanted to make sure Ronan understood exactly the depth of what he was saying. They had never really talked about it, but Adam remembered the way Ronan assessed his friends at Harvard. Like somehow Adam could do better than him. But looking at Ronan now, Adam could say with absolute certainty there would be no one else, they could be one else but Ronan.
He returned Ronan's kiss with one to his cheek, making sure not to smear the rainbow painted there. He also liked the idea that there could be no mistake what they were to one another around the crowd. It wasn't new for Adam to feel possessive of Ronan, but when it happened it devoured most rational senses.
"I would never be ashamed to be with you, Ronan. If anything, I want everyone to know that I'm with you," Adam said, fiercely, his one free hand framing the side of Ronan's face. "I want to be able to talk about you to everyone and anyone. Tell them about how incredible you are. About how I thought I hated you, but how I can't stop loving you. I want people to, to want what we have, because I have never regretted it for a second."
Ronan knew everyone around them was going at a normal speed, lazy and fun, dancing and jostling. But by the time Adam was touching his face, he felt like the whole world was a blur. Static. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how Adam felt. The words just seared a path across his skin, leaving him overheated and overwhelmed. He closed his eyes. He just needed a second.
“Adam.” His hands shifted, digging in at Adam’s waist then inching greedily up his back so he could crowd closer. His smile started small and grew with youthful joy and he finally opened his eyes back up again.
“That was so...fucking…sappy,” he grinned. Someone bumped into them but Ronan just moved them both with the clumsy force of it, unbothered by something that would usually have had him scowling or striking out. “I want all that too,” he admitted. “Especially the part where I annoy the shit out of people talking about how amazing you are and how stupid lucky I am, and how fucking grateful. You could’ve let an angry dickhead run you off that first year.” His smile tipped sideways with love and fondness. “Thank God you’re a stubborn asshole.”
Adam's smile matched Ronan's, all bright and impenetrable. Watching that grin blossom across Ronan's face had lit up something inside of Adam. And it was—happy, he was happy. Even when his boyfriend was calling him a stubborn asshole. "Don't be a shithead. I'm allowed to say sappy things to you because I love you. You're the one that has to listen to it."
Even jostled by the crowd, Adam kept himself plastered to Ronan; it felt impossible to get closer but he did. "God had nothing to do with it, I'm just not scared of you," Adam said. Ronan had been a dickhead, sure, but Adam dealt with his fair share at Aglionby. It was as if Ronan had wanted Adam to be afraid, and Adam couldn't be—not in the beginning when Ronan was his own brand of stubborn asshole; not when Adam knew about the dreaming; and not when Ronan's desire was so plainly across his face that Adam couldn't ignore it anymore.
Maybe it was the energy of Pride. Maybe it was the electricity that always buzzed between them, greywaren and magician. Maybe it was this super-charged moment latent with honesty of something so indescribable as Adam's love for Ronan put into words. No matter what, Adam surged up and kissed him, unashamed and certainly edging on inappropriate if they were anywhere else. If they were in Henrietta. But they weren't, that shit didn't matter now.
Another bump from the crowd, a whistle from a stranger, and Adam's mouth slipped from Ronan's. "We're in the way."
“Fuck that. They’re in the way,” Ronan panted nonsensically before grabbing Adam by the face and kissing him again. Words always tripped him up. He’d spent several years holding onto each and every one, barely letting any go but the sharpest ones he had. He needed to try now though. For Adam’s sake. For the sake of his own dumb heart, which pounded ferociously in his chest.
“I love you too,” he said, the full force of his intensity in every syllable. His grip on Adam’s face was tender by comparison. “I can’t imagine doing any of this shit without you. I wouldn’t want to. Falling for you is how I figured myself out.” The crowd nudged them out of the middle of the path and Ronan pressed Adam up against the side of somebody’s truck. His reflection in the window surprised him; he looked like a lovesick dumbass with a rainbow flag on his cheek. He looked happy. He shifted his gaze back to Adam and braced his hands on the door on either side of Adam.
“You can be sappy anytime you want. I talk you up to people all the fucking time,” Ronan snorted. “It’s not like I have any room to talk.”
Falling for you was how I figured myself out. Adam was stunned by the impact of Ronan's words, his mouth moving automatically to say me too.
Sometimes it was hard to bear the full force of Ronan's attention, of his devotion. Pressed up against the side of the truck, trapped between the safety of Ronan's arms and his intensity, Adam felt his whole mind sort of—short circuit. There were days where Adam thought he didn't deserve this, where Ronan couldn't be real. Those days were fewer now, far between. Slowly, Adam unlearned behavior that had been drilled into him from before he could remember. Ronan had helped. Ronan was the reason why.
All Adam had hoped for was that he could be that for Ronan. The selfish desire crawled up his throat for him to ask if he was, but he ultimately swallowed it back down.
Adam glanced away, shy and almost demure, an uncharacteristic look on him. His fingers played with the ragged hem of Ronan's crop top. "Oh, anytime I want?" Adam asked, in that way that meant he was absolutely up to something, yet to be determined. "So I could climb on the back of this truck, and start shouting about you to everyone here? It would be some really sappy shit. "
That timid tone immediately earned him an amused but highly suspicious squint from Ronan. Adam might have been demure with other people, as he navigated new relationships, but he was rarely anything close with Ronan. The threat, on the other hand, was more normal. It made Ronan laugh.
“If you wanna embarrass yourself in front of a bunch of strangers and potentially get busted for fucking with somebody’s truck, who am I to stop you?” He dipped forward to nip playfully at Adam’s jawline and smirked against his skin. “Just throw in something shallow about my ass and keep an eye out for Gansey. I promised him I wouldn’t bait you into doing reckless shit today.” It didn’t count as a lie if Adam thought this shit up on his own or was planning something else entirely.
"What could you have possibly baited me into doing that I wouldn't have already done?" Adam asked, knowing full well he would have hemmed and hawed at something ridiculous, before inevitably giving in. Trust in Ronan extended to trust with Ronan. He had walked that dark and dangerous path with him so many times, without hesitation or doubt. Adam would never truly turn Ronan down, because Adam would never let Ronan go alone.
Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath, a shaky inhale against the obvious heat in his gut when Ronan pressed his lips to his jaw. They'd more likely get in trouble for exposing themselves in public at this point. That didn't stop Adam's hands from finding their way from Ronan's waist to his ass and giving it a squeeze for good measure. "I'd rather not interrupt this day with getting busted, but I want to be clear that I wouldn't be embarrassed."
He kissed him, quick. "I have a better idea." Adam nodded with his chin over Ronan's shoulder. "We could actually walk in this parade? And I—we can spend the whole rest of the day telling everyone we meet all the shallow objectifying things I like about you. Spread the information more widely."
Ronan raised a teasing eyebrow at Adam’s question but didn’t answer. Adam knew damn well he was more likely to do insane things when Ronan was involved. If there’d been a shopping cart nearby, Ronan would have just pointed at it for emphasis. Instead, he trailed his fingers up Adam’s neck and zoned out for a second just appreciating the beautiful lines of his face. That was until Adam groped his ass and kissed him, knocking him out of his own embarrassing moment with a hum of pleasure.
He glanced in the direction Adam gestured, at all the people heading that way and seemingly getting to a starting point. The thought didn’t make him want to run. Who’d have fucking guessed?
“Yeah alright,” he agreed with a lazy smile, already looping his arm back around Adam’s neck. “Just as long as you realize this is probably going to turn into a game of who can make the other turn a brighter shade of red.” He moved them back into the flow of bodies and immediately tapped someone on the shoulder and pointed at Adam as they kept walking. “This is my boyfriend. His hands are actual fucking magic.”
Adam was all smiles, tucked securely under Ronan's arm and against his side. They were now walking more like a two-headed beast than two separate people. Adam felt like he was always coming together with Ronan in strange, new, fluttering ways. He never wanted this feeling to end. He was endlessly greedy for it, endlessly greedy for Ronan.
And okay, Adam maybe got a little red at Ronan's outburst about his hands, but he kept walking, giving a little wave to the stranger who was now privy to both Adam's hands and Ronan's compulsive interest in them. One of his magic hands reached across to cover Ronan's mouth, fingers tapping gently, teasingly against his mouth. "Yes, look how quickly they can get you to be quiet. Magic."
With his hand still against Ronan's lips, Adam twisted awkwardly to the person beside them, and said, "Did you know my boyfriend here runs his own business? He's not just unfairly attractive, but financially stable..."