“I should’ve made a getting high playlist. I’m ashamed of myself,”
WHAT: Adam, Ronan & Gansey have some high bonding time. WHERE: Where all the freaky dream things go. WHEN: March 25th, 2020 WARNINGS: Casual drug use of magical pot. Gratuitous use of Friendly Shotgunning. No nudity in this one! STATUS:Complete!
The inside of the long barn was rarely seen by anyone but Ronan. It held all of Ronan’s dreamt objects that were a little too embarrassing or broken or just plain strange to be left out where average people could find them. Some were in boxes, of which a few occasionally twitched along the side wall. Others were strewn about the edges of the barn, like the couch that floated a few feet off the ground to the left of the entrance.
There was an “office” in the back. It was just a separated space with a doorway and no door. A desk inside was used mostly to draw out sketches for dream ideas. The cot next to it was used for dreaming. And the occasional nightmare.
Ronan sat currently bent over the desk, an array of items spread out across it. There was the pot he’d acquired, a bong he only had half an idea how to use, and some rolling papers. His vice of choice usually came in a bottle. This shit was all new to him, so he’d gone the easy route and rolled a joint as well as a beginner could, licking the paper to close it like every crappy teen movie had taught him.
“I should’ve made a getting high playlist. I’m ashamed of myself,” Ronan muttered.
Adam liked the long barn. Even if it was off-limits, and Adam respected those restrictions, the thought of a whole place stuffed with the tangible creativity of his boyfriend only heightened his curiosity. He wanted to see deeper into his brain without having to scry. He wanted to know more about what made Ronan tick without having to deliberately ask. He knew Ronan, explicitly, by sheer proximity of what they shared, but it was his dreams that gave everything a strange and wondrous appeal.
Currently, Adam was sitting on the cot with his leg propped up, having snuck a sheet of Ronan's abandoned sketches to his side of the room to inspect. His attention was enamoured with Ronan's artistic interpretations, so he missed Ronan rolling the joint entirely, and only looked up when he muttered about music.
"Would it be any better than your normal choices? If not, then I'm not mourning its loss," Adam said, putting down the sketch and eyeing Ronan's work on the desk. "Let me do it next time, I looked up how." Because of course he did, ever since Ronan mentioned it. Ever since Gansey agreed. Ever since he needed to master something he didn't already know.
When the door to the long barn opened, Adam shot Ronan a pleased look, and leaned as far as he could to watch Gansey through the doorway of the 'office'. "We're in here."
It took Gansey more than a long second of righting himself in the Long Barn before he entered the doorway, arms full of snacks as promised. He’d given them an ETA, but was a minute late from that just because he’d dropped no less than three things on his way over, and had debated going back for a tote bag. But by the time he’d gotten to the barn door, it was pointless, and so was arguing with himself.
“Ah, right.” He set out to carefully set things down onto Ronan’s desk, but ended up just kind of dumping them all along the edge and having to sort through it all quickly. “Sorry I’m delayed, I overthought everything. But I think I got everyone’s favorites, at least.”
Ronan opened his mouth to smartmouth back about his music preferences, but Adam’s insistence on rolling the next one brought his imagination quickly around to Adam’s nimble fingers and how he’d have to lick the paper, and well, naturally, Ronan’s concentration took a nosedive.
“You can roll as many as you want.” He didn’t have unlimited weed but that didn’t stop him. “If you take back that shit you just said about my music choices.” Smirking, he pointed the joint at Adam and then popped it into his mouth to dangle there as he leaned around to watch Gansey shuffle inside with all the snacks ever.
“Jesus.” The joint bounced as he snorted a laugh. “You could’ve just brought like a couple bags of Cheetos, overachiever.”
"Guess I'm not rolling any," Adam said this to Ronan, then turned to Gansey, "Tell Ronan I don't have to take back the shit I said about his music." From his spot, watching Gansey dump all the food on the desk, Adam was warmed by the sight—Ronan laughing with the joint in his mouth and Gansey overthinking by bringing way too many things to eat. Was it nerves? Was it tension? Adam couldn't seem to unravel the knot that had formed in his gut. Maybe it was anticipation.
Something did seem to change whenever the three of them were together.
He heaved himself up sans crutches and did a weird shuffle-hop toward the desk. Adam leaned heavily on the edge as he assisted in nonchalantly sorting through the pile—Cheetos, chips, candy bars, individually wrapped snack cakes. He hummed in approval, while trying not to worry about what he didn't bring to this hang out.
"You can have the honors in lighting it then," Adam said, grabbing for the plastic lighter on the desk by the bong and offering it to Gansey.
“I didn’t want cheetos.” That was a partial lie that would likely be shoved out the window as soon as they’d settled in. He had just wanted to cover all the bases, truthfully. Ronan had been right - they hadn’t had time to just …. Be friends, in a while. Maybe he was overachieving, but it wasn’t an un-Gansey thing to do.
He took the lighter and leaned over the desk a little. “We all know your music tastes are terrible, and you,” Gansey glanced over at Adam with a concerned look. “Should still be sitting down.” He finally ignited the lighter and held it up to the joint in Ronan’s mouth, turning his look back. “We need to get you a nicer dreaming surface than just a cot, Ronan.”
Ronan’s eyes were bright with fond mischief hearing Adam echo his curse, but he pressed a hand as nonchalantly as he could to Adam’s hip to steady him as he came up close. He hid the fussing well enough by investigating the pile of snacks with his other hand until Gansey was guiding the lighter towards him.
“Yeah, yeah. Good job on the swiss rolls at least,” he smirked around the joint. He tilted his head to help guide the tip into the flame and then took a long drag to hold it in his mouth. The smoke slowly escaped through his nose as he held back a cough. He was pretty sure that’s how he was supposed to do it.
“Here,” he forced out, still holding his breath, as he held the joint out towards Adam. “The cot’s fine. It’s a fucking barn.” The smoke came out of him in a rush of coughing but luckily he turned his head away just in time.
Adam waved off Gansey's worry. The long barn was crammed with so many pieces of furniture and dream objects, that there wasn't a space he couldn't use as leverage to keep him upright.
He slipped the passed joint between his fingers and took a moderate drag off it. He was not as skilled as Ronan, holding the smoke in was almost impossible. He choked then coughed, all of it escaping too quickly from his lungs. How humanizing and humbling that there were still things Adam didn't know how to do perfectly.
It was Gansey's problem now, as he handed over the joint. Adam had two more chances to watch and observe his best friend and his boyfriend figure it out for him to mimic. "How about we sit somewhere that's not the cot?" Adam suggested to Gansey, while his hand came to rest over Ronan's on his hip. "We could wrangle the floating couch down."
Gansey snagged his baggie of granola from the table before accepting the joint from Adam. He really was regretting not grabbing a tote bag now. He was thankful for Henry on a fairly regular basis, but now he at least felt a little more comfortable with the magical drugs presented to him, part in thanks to the few times he’d seen his boyfriend do this very thing. He seldom joined in, but usually because he had another focus at the time.
Ronan’s abrupt approach to it had him admitting to himself that he could use the break, the muscles in his neck and shoulder were tense and none of them had really had a break since their arrival. He took a long, slow puff, followed by a longer, slower exhale. It wasn’t smooth, but he kept the coughing at bay even though his nose wrinkled.
“Please?” Gansey followed up Adam’s polite request with a pleading look to Ronan as he handed the joint over. “Dear God. That’s-- wow, Ronan.”
“Aw, Parrish,” Ronan laughed at Adam coughing his way through his first hit. It wasn’t a mean sound but it had a taunting edge anyway. He climbed to his feet and gave Adam’s shoulder a playful bite.
“Look at the hippie over here,” he smirked, watching Gansey take over the joint and show them both up. “Impressive.” Guessing that Gansey had probably done this without them was both jealousy-inducing and a weird comfort he didn’t understand. He scowled and claimed the offered joint to clamp it between his teeth, not yet taking a drag. Instead, he used the bottom of his shirt as a snack hammock and carried three swiss rolls and a bag of Cheetos out into the main space.
The couch bobbed in the air in front of him. He glared at it until the other two joined him and then he took a fortifying drag.
“If we hold it down,” he grunted at Gansey, lightly coughing out smoke, “Parrish can just fucking sit on it right?.”
Adam's affection was passed around like the joint. He touched Ronan's cheek with equally playful tenderness. He offered up a confused but strangely proud and encouraging smile at watching Gansey. "This hippie is schooling us both," Adam said, squeezing Gansey's shoulder. Adam felt good, as if the weeks of underlying tension decided to take a small vacation while the three of them squirreled away in the long barn.
Following Ronan was a little precarious and slow going, but Adam managed to get to where the couch was floating with little disaster. He did make sure to grab the weed, the lighter, and a few papers off the desk to shove in his pockets before they forgot or couldn't get off the couch.
He eyed the dream furniture. "However you decide to get it down for Parrish to sit on, it's probably going to require you not dropping shit," Adam said, as he swiftly stole the joint from Ronan and shuffled back out of the way. He used a stack of boxes to lean against, while he took his second hit. Less coughing involved this time as he exhaled in Gansey's direction.
“Stop calling me a hippie,” Gansey replied to both of them, immediately, and with his nose stuck up in the air. He tossed his granola bag up onto the floating sofa cushion. He went to one corner, arms reached up, glad they were doing this before his entire body got numb and things wouldn’t work properly, but also quietly determined to show that he had enough strength to do it. Throwing around haybales and lifting swords had been helpful over the last several weeks.
“Will it continue floating no matter how much weight is on it, Lynch?” He still had enough brain to ask a practical question, even as it started fogging up a little. “Because if not, we may have to hold it until Adam is on, and then make a leap for it.” There wasn’t any worry in his tone, just an easy grin that formed. “Could be a fun challenge, at least.”
“We might have to skip you next round if you keep talking about yourself in third person.” Ronan gave Adam a sharkish grin and started tossing each of his snacks up onto one end of the floating couch everytime it dipped low enough. The drug was already starting to make everything soft around the edges. Warm.
He was stupidly happy to be here with the pair of them in his private dream space.
“And you--” He pointed at Gansey once his hands were empty. “Better not land on my swiss rolls when you hop on, Dick,” he teased. The couch would keep floating, but in his experience it was mellow enough not to worry they’d tumble off in a drugged fit of dumbassness. Probably. “Last time I got on, it was like riding a boat. Never had three people on it at once though.” He caught an arm of the couch on the end of a downswing and pushed the couch down towards the ground.
Now, Gansey muttered, “Is it so difficult to just call me Gansey?” He caught his end and pushed it down at the same time as Ronan, until it dipped low enough for Adam to shuffle over.
Adam took the opportunity to flip Ronan off, matching his devilish grin. "Stop talking like I'm not here, and we won't have to skip anything," Adam said, as he hobbled over. The whole thing ended with a graceless flop onto the held-down couch.
"I'm on, I'm on," Adam assured, somehow still with the joint nicely poised between his lips. As he settled in, the room seemed tilted, and wouldn't correct itself. Adam couldn't tell if it was a side effect of this magic weed Ronan had procured or being on this dream couch—maybe everything was supposed to be sideways? A calming sensation of tingly bliss rolled over his limbs as he sat back against the cushions and took another hit.
He exhaled to the ceiling with just one awkward cough. "Here's to us being guinea pigs, ridin' this couch together," Adam said, with a brief momentary lapse into his Henrietta accent. He held his arm out with the joint to the space beside him. "The next person on gets it."
“Oh don’t pout, Gansey.” With an affectionate eyeroll, Ronan flung himself onto the couch as soon as Adam was settled. He had to be careful not to squash his food, so he ended up half sprawling across Adam’s lap, long legs likely getting in Gansey’s way.
“Give it,” he demanded, though he didn’t reach for the joint. Rather, he leaned forward to take a long drag while it was still clamped between Adam’s fingers. He was warming up to this and the smooth floaty feeling in his core. That might’ve been the couch, though. Or that little flash of Henrietta in Adam’s voice. Ronan wrapped an arm across the back of the couch and blew the smoke out towards the ceiling.
It took Gansey two attempts. One because he straight up wanted to continue arguing with Ronan and missed his shot entirely, and the second was almost missed just out of pure clumsiness. But he made it, and ended up half on Ronan’s leg as he climbed up to the corner. He snagged his bag of granola and settled against the arm, bumping his feet into Ronan’s leg and sharing the space easily. It was a lot like when they used to grumble about hogging the leather sofa at Monmouth during insomniac nights.
“Do you two want privacy instead? No-- don’t answer that. It’s too late.” Gansey was there now, and not moving. He opened his granola and snagged a bite. “Did you both know that granola was made popular by Kellogg - yes, that one - to feed the people in his own sanatorium? An inexpensive way to feed the people in his insane asylum. Not exactly the most holistic of endeavors in the beginning.”
"Too late," Adam echoed, slow, mischievous, shooting a heated glance to Ronan that somehow meant later. They didn't need privacy, not now, not after they were all together—finally—on this floating couch, leeching much needed contact off one another. They were like a current, passing their charge from one person to the other. Adam felt electric. But that also could have been the weed.
He blinked owlishly at Gansey. "Wait, why do you know that?" Adam asked. He didn't sound mad, only shook his head, then considered the information, before adding, "Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.Literally, in this case." He grinned briefly at Ronan, because Latin and sarcastic humor working in tandem was their thing. But in front of Gansey? A pang of guilt wormed its way in. Adam was quick to explain, "That's Seneca, by the way," for Gansey's benefit.
Adam made a lazy c'mon gesture. "Okay, what other trivia do you have? Ronan, you have to beat asylum granola."
The couch lifted up off the ground even with the three of them on it, bobbing rhymically like it was on the ocean. Gansey’s retracted question earned him a frown and Ronan’s booted feet landing in his lap. It wasn’t an especially long sofa, so he was stretched fully across the both of them now. He didn’t lay back though, choosing instead to take the joint from Adam, take one more drag, and then hold it out to Gansey.
“You’re lucky that factoid was hilariously fucked up or I’d have to worry you were trying to pick a fight today.” He smirked at Adam’s quote and quietly murmured, “Aliquando et insanire iucundum est.” He didn’t bother clarifying that was also Seneca, mostly because he was trying to think up trivia that would amuse the two geniuses he loved most.
His mouth curled into a crooked smirk and he moved his hands to mimic milking a cow. “There are three hundred and fifty squirts in a gallon of milk.”
Gansey pulled a face at Ronan’s factoid, but he was also focused on both of them quoting Latin at him. It hadn’t been his best subject by any means, but that was also in part due to the fact that they’d gone through more teachers than a Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Adam had gotten a look that was hard to translate, like Gansey wanted to open his mouth and be snappish but held back. Ronan just got an eyeroll.
“Thank god for modern technology. Three hundred and fifty..” He took the joint and leaned back, ashing it off the side before it landed on his bright t-shirt. “Henry or Blue- I can’t remember which. It was for some Kellogg fair wages protest in Michigan.” Gansey took a slow, long drag, and as he blew out the smoke, he said, “Let us live, since we must die.” An easier Latin statement to speak, but he gave Adam a smug look. “That’s Seneca too, Parrish.”
"Quam bene vivas refert non quam diu," Adam said in a way seemed to hold the same inflection of Gansey's Parrish. His expression though was softer, his incessant need to keep them all talking seeping out of him. Without the joint between his fingers or the concentration of keeping off his foot, Adam wanted to think about other things, float—literally and figuratively—in their presence.
Adam was quiet, almost silent; his attention was on the far wall, staring into nothingness or past it. This magic weed was fucking with him, faster and stronger than he had planned for. But he didn't say that. "Why do we all know such stupid shit?" Adam blurted out, instead. "The dark history of Kellogg, the amount of milk squirts in a gallon, Seneca's greatest hits. It feels—it feels like, like..." Adam was searching for the word compensating, like all their knowledge was to avoid other things, but he couldn't manage it out. Too many thoughts were vocally bottlenecking.
His hand rested very gently on Ronan's chest, grounding him as the couch bobbed. "Whatever you got is working."
Ronan smiled lazily at them and their snarky banter. He didn’t love hearing Gansey talk about death and Adam talk about the length of a life not mattering, but he was sinking into too high to argue too fast to put up much of a fight. His sprawl across their laps got looser and he dropped his head back against the arm rest.
“I think it’s magic,” he mumbled, before lifting his head again and scowling in the softest way ever to cross his face. “The pot, not the way we know weird shit. I mean, you’re both magic too, but that’s not what I meant.” Was he rambling? He touched his mouth to check. “Lips are weird.”
“Mmmhmm,” Gansey lazily made a noise of approval as he passed the joint back to Ronan, over Adam just because he felt like being a shit. Adam’s last quote had him falling to a blanket of silence, thinking far too much for someone who’s faculties were currently dulled. “Who’s job is it to judge how well, I wonder.” He winced immediately with that question, and his eyes shot to Ronan. “Besides the obvious, I mean. I just…”
He fell quiet with a shrug. Gansey had done better about not letting his inadequacies and worries shine through since they’d been hit with a bout of truth, but there were always questions about death. His own, to be specific. So a change of subject happened easily as his head dropped back against the cushion. “More germs are shared by shaking hands than they are by kissing, if you two needed more of a reason.”
"It's no one's job, Gansey. Don't think of it as a job. No one's job is to judge you, you judge yourself. You're your job." Adam was saying job a lot, but he couldn't stop himself. Somehow, he illogically figured that if he said it more, Gansey could believe it more.
But for how slow everything was moving, Adam was surprisingly quick to snatch up Gansey's wrist, and bring his hand with the joint to his mouth. He took a quick hit before letting go. Instead of releasing smoke into the air around them, Adam curled his fingers into Ronan's shirt and hauled him in for a kiss, exhaling into his mouth. It was the kind of kiss that was wildly intimate and filthily inappropriate. At least in front of Gansey.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but when Adam pulled away a strange, blank look crossed his face for a beat, then two, before he started laughing. And laughing, and laughing. "Lips are weird."
This probably wasn’t Ronan’s best plan. The idea had been to enjoy each other’s company, but also to loosen them all up so they could talk to Gansey about his insecurities, and here those insecurities were, peeking out into view, but getting his fuzzy brain to cooperate was turning out to be a fucking pain in the ass.
“Adam’s right,” Ronan frowned. “God’ll judge our hearts, sure, but yours has never been anything but good and generous, Gansey.” He was still scowling about that, trying to find better words and not touch his mouth again, so he was entirely too slow to stop the joint theft. It was a good thing in the long run. He sank into the kiss with a greed that had very little to do with getting high. Eventually he had to break away just to cough the smoke back out into the world and then catch Adam’s contagious laughter for himself.
He did touch his mouth again, and Adam’s hand in his shirt, and then he took the joint. It was getting short so he had to be careful not to fumble it. “Is that how we’re doing this now, Parrish? You gonna pass some on to Gansey that way or do you want me to do the honors?”
Ronan heard the words like they were coming from somebody else. He rolled a one-eyed squint up towards the ceiling. “Wow. Did I really say that out loud?”
Gansey flushed for a multitude of reasons. First, the kiss happening right next to him - which in a way was his own fault for the stupid factoid he’d thrown out - and then Adam’s laughing. It had always been something he wholeheartedly appreciated, given how stingy Adam was with that full-bodied laugh. He found himself grinning in return, unable to help it with the infectious laughter being so close.
It helped him to not sputter quite so hard with Ronan’s spoken thoughts, though the flush was back in full force now. It almost felt pointed, like a tease towards his relatively open lifestyle that had been adopted over the past year. But he knew Ronan, and knew it was probably more embarrassing to his best friend than it was to Gansey, which just left him with red ears and an amused smile.
He took pity on the pair, giving them a smooth - or so he considered it to be - out. “I wasn’t the one that needed help with it. You don’t have to stoop low on my account.”
Adam was too high for this. Or Gansey wasn't high enough. He was still forming cohesive thoughts, and while Adam would normally be adamant about sounding in control, his continuous, breathless laughter made concentration impossible. Everything was suddenly so hilarious. Like how small the joint was now, and that Ronan was offering to mirror what Adam just did, and that Gansey was turning a particular shade of red.
"You did," Adam affirmed Ronan, before sliding deeper into his seat. His chin could touch his chest this way, which seemed funny, and he snorted once, embarrassingly. Adam started to rummage in his pockets, pulling out all the things he had swiped earlier in the office: the lighter, the papers, this goddamn magic weed.
"No one's stoopin'," this was said to Gansey, and Adam waved a lazy finger between him and Ronan. "It's an honor, Ronan should get to." Adam said this as if it was fact, as if the decision was made before anyone could complain. He wouldn't hear anything but yes. And then right there, on his stomach with deft hands, Adam rolled another joint.
Gansey wasn’t the only one who was red. Ronan felt an embarrassed heat blanket his entire face and he rubbed a hand over it roughly. Still, Adam’s laughter was a balm. Especially the snort, which Ronan echoed from behind cover. If Adam was really bothered by this dumb thing, he’d have said something. Probably? Ronan wished he felt more confident about that and less full of reckless affection but…
Well, this was Gansey. He was outside of the rules, wasn’t he? Too precious to them both to be anything but safe, and not getting nearly as much mouth to mouth action as he should be, anyway.
“Stoop low. Shut the fuck up,” Ronan grumbled. He swung his legs forward, but reached an arm across Adam’s shoulders to keep contact and tug Gansey closer at the same time. “Come on then, old man,” he said, taking a deep pull from the dying blunt.
Gansey’s hand landed on Adam’s chest as he leaned in, Adam’s laughter still just as infectious as it was before. He was laughing himself when he leaned in to Ronan. This was newer to him, but Gansey had seen enough movies to know it wasn’t supposed to go as passionate as the pair had one just moments before. “Rude.” A pause, and then a low giggle. “You shut the fuck up.”
That helped alleviate a few of the heart palpitations, at least. He was still nervous, and grinning and huffing out another quiet giggle as as he leaned forward, his mouth staying open for Ronan as they got within a breath of each other. Lips not quite touching, and his eyes fluttered lazily closed for just a fraction of a second before he remembered who he was with and forced them open again, so he could peek through his eyelashes at Ronan as he inhaled.
It was already a funny thing, in his stomach. But he was good at keeping just enough distance, a practiced move for Gansey.
Adam had intended to light the new joint and keep going like they didn't just suck through one already. But Ronan's arm was around his shoulders and Gansey's hand was on his chest, and maybe he was too far gone to question the implications of what was happening but he understood them. His whole body stilled in his own dream-like paralysis, watching the smoke pass between their lips. Time moved in starts and stops and Adam could only watch with flushed appreciation as everything narrowed down to this.
At some point he breathed, inhaled in time with Gansey, exhaled with Ronan. Movement returned to his limbs. His fingers ghosted over Ronan's side, slipping under his shirt at his waist; Adam's other hand grazed the back of Gansey's. All of his gentle touching was done with a reverency given to kings, royalty, gods. For a touch-starved Adam, always hungry, always greedy, this was everything.
Ronan was right about being magic. They were magic.
"I made another one," Adam said, lamely. Without moving his hands from either of them, he turned his head to one side, then the other, obviously looking for something. "Where's the food?"
Gansey cursing was right up there with Adam laughing on Ronan’s list of enjoyable things so he smiled helplessly as he tipped his head into the transfer. He expected at least a press of Gansey’s mouth – he’d mentally prepared himself for a press of Gansey’s mouth - and when it didn’t come, he swallowed down a complex bundle of disappointment and relief. Having a hand pressed to the side of Gansey’s neck, his other hand resting on Adam’s knee, and Adam's fingers on his skin was enough to feel the circuit the three of them made.
It was enough to keep the flush high in his cheeks and a pinch between his eyebrows too. He scowled as he pressed forward just enough to ghost his mouth against Gansey’s for the last bit of exhale and then he pulled away to look for somewhere to discard the still smoldering blunt end.
“Uhh…” Food was an easier find than an ashtray, with the couch still bobbing several feet off the ground. He unhooked his arm from them both to reach over himself and pulled out a bag of Cheetos to hand over. He found a smooshed swiss roll package next and his face fell. “Aw. Damn it. Flattened my tasty cakes,” he pouted.
Gansey found himself falling back against the couch cushion with his face still flushed and his eyes a little dazed. Maybe it was the magical pot. Maybe it was the way Ronan’s lips ghosted his. He, like Adam, often starved for physical touch. Henry helped where Blue’s mouth couldn’t, and they’d all been fond of holding hands and gentle touches in the most casual of moments. It wasn’t something he usually got outside of them, though, especially not Ronan.
He made another noise when the Cheetos were brought out, and reached forward to snag them from Adam. It put him back in close, though, and Gansey was kind enough to open the bag and hold it out for Adam after he’d stolen a few for himself. “I’m going to get cheeto powder on my polo shirt,” Gansey dropped his head down to the cushion closest to Adam’s head, munching away annoyingly close to his friend’s ear. “Did you know it takes five thousand cows to generate a year’s supply of them?” He peeked at Ronan around Adam, eyebrows animating amusingly. “Better get to work after mourning your cakes, Lynch.”
He had dropped his head back against the couch, his eyes hooded, his body relaxed, the new joint still sitting abandoned and unlit on his lap—his brain had shut off somewhere, decided overthinking things was too difficult and to just do whatever came naturally. There was a Cheetos bag in front of him; Adam shoved a handful unabashedly into his mouth. His fingers had orange dust on them; Adam wiped them off on Gansey's shirt. Ronan looked sad about his swiss cake rolls; Adam touched his face in a tender way while he mirrored Ronan's pout.
It took Adam a moment, longer than it would have if he wasn't high, to realize Gansey was saying something about Cheetos. Without moving his hand from Ronan's cheek, Adam rolled his head to face Gansey, his deaf ear tucked against the cushion, his face unfortunately close. "That's too much information about Cheetos," Adam said, still sulking, though he had no reason to.
Adam rolled his head back to Ronan, his fingers now on the corner of Ronan's mouth trying to pull it up into a smile. "Tell Gansey that's too much information about Cheetos."
It felt like Ronan stared at the flattened swiss rolls for a really long time, but Adam’s touch snagged his attention, fuzzy as it was. Adam and Gansey looked haloed in the cozy dreamt lights that kept the long barn illuminated and it made him smile. He gave Adam’s fingers a playful nip and then tore open the swiss roll package to take a messy bite of the ruined contents.
“Is it though?” he hummed around a mouthful of cake, like he was sincerely debating how much information was too much when it came to delicious cheesy snacks. “Better idea!” Ronan pointed with his half-eaten snack and leaned heavily into Adam’s side. “Whyyyy. Why?”
He’d get there eventually.
“Why have you been so...so focused on being useful lately, Gansey?”
Gansey had been expecting to be teased and tormented or anything that was going to make him flush more red, so that was a far cry from the direction his brain had been headed.
It was probably for the better, even if he hated it. Going down the alternate route was a fruitless endeavor that had never went anywhere before, and the direction of Ronan’s question was just going to make him sad and annoyed at himself.
Thankfully, his brain wasn’t up to snuff as far as true, thoughtful conversations were concerned, and then there was Adam making his shirt messy, so distractions took precedence. He brushed a hand across his shirt, as if that would wipe off the cheeto dust. It didn’t. “I would ask if we could go back to sharing a breath, but then your boyfriend started acting like a heathen and I’m more offended you aren’t defending my honor instead.”
Sitting between Gansey and Ronan left Adam twisting in his seat. He frowned over at Ronan for the question, then back to Gansey for the answer. Neither one satisfied his weed-addled brain, and his frown only deepened at the word heathen.
"Do you need him to defend your honor?" Adam asked, seemingly confused by this suggestion, and his nose wrinkled up. "You can defend your honor. I defend my own honor." There Adam was, getting stuck on the word again. But he continued, leaning heavily over into Ronan's space. "But I like it when he does. I understand. It's nice."
Adam was smiling now, just for a second, before he realized that was not what they were talking about.
"Wait, you didn't answer. I know that move. I’ve done that move. We call that—" He made a motion with his arm, which looked suspiciously similar to wiping off cheese dust on a shirt. He meant it to be deflecting. "Please answer him, Gansey. Ronan, make him answer. He never listens to me." Adam's brain supplied him with the counterpoint you never listen to Gansey, but he ignored it, tucked the second joint between his lips, and lit that instead.
Ronan’s scowl deepened. Everything may have been surrounded in cotton, but he still knew evasion when he saw it. Unfortunately, he got distracted watching Adam’s mouth form so many nice words like I like it when he does and please, so all Ronan managed to do was reach over and poke Gansey in the chest.
“You don’t need defending from us,” he grumbled. “We fucking love you, stupid. And you!” He swiveled his attention back to Adam, pointing again with the half-eaten package of cake. “He listens to you more than anyone….Now gimme that.” Snagging the new joint from Adam’s mouth, Ronan vaguely realized he had no idea where the smoldering butt had gone. Thankfully, it had landed on a heavy barrel below them and died, but Ronan was too far gone to figure that out. He shrugged and took a drag.
Gansey’s happy mood went sour fairly quickly, his smile turning to a sad frown as he thought far too much for what his brain could handle right now. It was probably a good thing they were high as kites for all of this, because the moment Ronan started grumbling about loving him, he got side-tracked. Gansey’s brain went a little fuzzy, in a pleased way that happened every time Blue and Henry said the same to him. If it was a little more fuzzy, a little warmer because it was Ronan, well-- That could be chalked up to the drug.
“Tell that to my poor, defenseless shirt.” Gansey was back to smiling though, in a warm and pleased way. He didn’t even try to steal the blunt back, just enjoyed his own buzz quietly, leaning into Adam. “I love you too. I’ve learned more from you both than I have anyone….ever.” His head fell down to Adam’s shoulder, suddenly feeling heavy. “Except maybe books. Or the internet. But outside of that..... I dunno.” He tried to shrug but his shoulders didn’t quite make it. “I forgot what we were talking about.”
Adam did not fight when Ronan took the weed from him. He was too busy nodding in aggressive agreement to what his boyfriend was saying. Gansey didn't need to defend himself from them. He did love Gansey very much. How painful it was to fight with him, how much Adam tried not to, how badly that hope often vanished. But Adam never stopped trying. For Gansey, for Ronan, for himself.
"Wait, wait, wait," Adam said in a rush, gathering up Gansey's face in his hands, holding him still so that neither of them could look away. "We are. Better than. The internet." No, that's not what he meant to say. Adam tried again. "You are very important." Better. "You are so generous and I'm sorry that sometimes I don't understand your intentions." Too on the nose. Adam's face looked a little pale, but he kept going, pressing his forehead against Gansey's.
"We wouldn't know what to do without you. Don't think for a second we could do this alone." There it was.
He looked over his shoulder to Ronan, still holding Gansey's face, as if to say he’ll listen to that, right?
Ronan watched them both with a loopy fondness. Adam looking to him for some kind of confirmation made his heart feel stupidly warm. He leaned over, slinging his arms around them both, and knocked his head none too gently against theirs.
“Iiii….would literally be dead without you two. A couple times over,” he said matter-of-factly. Shifting to press his forehead against the side of Adam’s neck, he held the joint up and tapped the back of his hand against Gansey’s cheeto-stained chest. Hopefully he took it fast because Ronan was slowing down to a crawl and fire safety had never been one of his strengths to begin with. “Also you, um...what the fuck was I gonna say?...Oh! You should put that shit on business cards. Richard Campbell Gansey the Third…better than the internet.”
Ronan giggled.
Oh.
Oh, that was a lot. Emotion swelled up in Gansey’s chest, right up to the tears pricking the corner of his eyes with both of their words. It wasn’t often he heard things like this, the Gansey family wasn’t big on words outside of Values and Punctuality as far as good traits for their children, and it didn’t escape his thoughts that they’d be shitting bricks right now over this scenario. But that didn’t matter. His parents were a world away, and the lack of love they had shown him growing up was given forward thrice-fold by the two he’d made his family along the way.
It felt like an entirely different lifetime when he wondered if they even gave a care about him at all.
Now, there was nothing but love and affection coming at him in waves, and Gansey had to swallow the large lump in his throat just to even croak out words. “I have never felt more like myself when I am with you two.” It was true, even as he had to push the words out forcefully. But they deserved that.
“I--” He took the joint from Ronan and gave himself a deep inhale and pause before he allowed himself to talk again. Every muscle just wanted to lay back on the sofa and drift off, comforted by the two of them. “I can’t imagine my life without you. Cheeto dust and adorable giggles and-- Oh, Christ, We’re so high up.” A few feet seemed like a million from this angle. “How are we going to get down??”
A smile spread slowly across Adam's face. Not because he reveled in Gansey's emotional turmoil, good that it was, but because Gansey listened. Gansey finally understood. They had to be high as kites to get it out and to have this conversation, but it happened. It still happened. Adam knew, deep in the recesses of his mind, that this was not the last discussion they would have about this, but he absolutely knew it was a step in the right direction. He'd have to broach the subject when he could form cohesive sentences.
Adam giggled when Ronan did—it was unexpected and funny to hear his boyfriend laugh in a way that seemed not him. He nuzzled affectionately at the side of Ronan's head, liking the way the heat of his body added to that warm fuzzy feeling Gansey had provided by saying I have never felt more like myself when I am with you two..
"I plan to live up here forever," Adam said, gently slipping the joint out of Gansey's hands to take his own hit from it. "If I have the both of you, it doesn't matter if I live on a couch or on the moon or in the forest, I'm okay. We'll be okay."
The noise that came out of Ronan might as well have been a fucking purr for how content it was. If he were in his right mind, he’d have called them both saps and given them space. But his heart was full and his hands were frustratingly empty. He reached blindly around Adam to grab onto Gansey and pulled him into a hug, smooshing his boyfriend between them.
“We’ll figure it out later,” he mumbled warmly, throwing a leg over Adam’s knee. “Probably when we start to die of thirst cause our dumbasses only brought food up here.”