Ronan Lynch (alteridem) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-04-28 20:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, the raven cycle: adam parrish, the raven cycle: richard campbell gansey, the raven cycle: ronan lynch |
Log: Ronan, Adam, & Gansey
“Hey, what the fuck?” Ronan lifted his arm over his eyes to block the sun. He wasn’t going to pick a fight with a magical forest. “We worked out our shit. You’re not allowed to be a jerk to me,” he pointed at a wall of trees near him, like that was somehow Cabestwater’s “face” just because he needed a target.
Okay maybe he was going to get in a fight with a magic forest. Only a little one, though.
“Back me up, Parrish.” He plopped down into the grass, long legs sprawled out as he lifted one hip, and he dug around in his jean pocket for a bag of weed and a package of rolling papers. His body language was loose and relaxed, compared to the affectionate petulance in his voice.
"I don't know," Adam said, in that casual way that said he absolutely was about to not agree with Ronan at all. "It's probably annoyed about you grabbing the textbook literally out of my hands." He flexed his fingers in front of him, trying to remember the heft of the object no longer in his possession. It had come after Adam had spent a stupid amount of time highlighting passages and scribbling in the margins as a means to study. Because finals, his freshman year finals. It was terrifying, and the stress lines between his forehead were probably causing his headache.
Adam was, unintentionally, a grumpy bitch about it for all of ten minutes, until being convinced to come out to Cabeswater to smoke with his boyfriend and his best friend. That was a better use of his time. Barefoot and in his ratty jeans, Adam sunk down next to Ronan in the grass, running his palm over the slowly-but-unnaturally growing flowers in the fragmented beams of sun.
"Obsecro te conversari," Adam chided before laying further down, his head on Ronan's thigh. "At least this time, we don't have to worry about climbing down from a floating couch." Instead of hiding from the sun, he tipped his face up toward it, in all its irritating glory. "Any chance you were unintentional snack duty again, Gansey?"
“We had been at it for the greater part of five hours.” Gansey reminded helpfully, though he wasn’t exactly sure who he was helping. They had needed a break, realistically, and he was thankful to Ronan for stealing them both away.
But he still felt like he wasn’t ready for a few of his upcoming finals, and that made him twitchy. For the longest time he’d spent carefree and casual about his grades - Aglionby was good for his self esteem in that regard. Bare minimum had earned him A’s on a regular basis for such a chaotic school year.
Gansey wasted no time slipping into the spot on Ronan’s other side, putting him close to both of them. He swung his bag around to the front and started sorting through it, pulling snacks out to place on Adam’s chest.. “Let’s see, I have a few granola bars, some little packets of nut butters, a pack of roasted chickpeas, one clementine and--” Gansey winced at the last item, and tried to tuck it back in. “Nevermind, no one wants that.”
“Please. Cabeswater wouldn’t be mad if I threw you over a shoulder and carried you here.” Ronan’s hands were busy, sectioning out some of the pot into a square of rolling paper, or he would’ve put a hand in Adam’s hair and massaged his scalp. He tucked that plan away for later. Gansey finished rummaging around for his old man snacks just as Ronan licked a stripe across the edge of the paper.
“There’s something more embarrassing than roasted chickpeas in there?” He sounded utterly unconvinced but continued to wrap up rolling the joint between his fingers. He wasn’t great at this yet. It wasn’t a frequent enough indulgence for that. But it would do the trick. With one hand, he put the joint to Adam’s lips, and with the other, he sloppily reached to drag Gansey’s bag open more. “Kale chips? Are you punishing yourself for something? Jesus Christ.”
"Gansey has kale chips?" Adam asked, mumbled around the joint distractedly. He meant to sit up to look, but he was being used involuntarily as a storage unit, and began picking through the snacks on his chest instead. Adam let out a little laugh at the painfully healthy and clearly influenced snack choices. There would be no sitting on swiss rolls this time, which was probably for the best.
He settled on the clementine, and began to peel at its soft rind, his fingers immediately covered with citrus juice. He knocked his knuckles against Ronan's chest to get his attention, offering up little segments to him, then to Gansey. The whole time he skillfully held the joint in his mouth, unlit. That was mostly because—
"Lighter is in my pocket," Adam said offhandedly, as he finished picking the bits off his piece of the fruit. All of it in a tidy pile on his stomach. "I realize that my contribution to this outing is minimal, but if someone wants to grab it, we can light this thing which I think is the whole point. And I can't exactly—" Adam flashed his hands, sticky from the clementine.
“Gansey regretted those kale chips, to be fair,” They had been an impulse buy and an immediate no. He’d intended to give them to Blue, or really anyone else, and then had gotten pulled into Cabeswater to smoke. “I like the nut butter, it’s good on crackers when I’m between classes. I just have no crackers at the moment.”
“If I let Ronan start rummaging around in your pockets, I’m going to become an awkward third wheel,” It was a half-hearted joke, but Gansey had a free hand and a desperate need to feel helpful. He had his clementine pieces in one hand and his free on reached over to stick a hand in Adam’s pocket after a moment’s hesitation, realizing too late that Adam didn’t specify which pocket. After a second of digging around, he squinted. “Wrong pocket.”
Sometimes Ronan was a very simple creature. Watching Adam peel a clementine was one of them. He only just barely resisted claiming the segment with his teeth. But Gansey speaking in third person was enough to make him swallow the bite of clementine in his mouth and snort.
“If you keep rooting around in his pockets, I’m going to feel like the third wheel,” he teased, snagging the joint from Adam’s mouth. He clamped the joint between his teeth, already a little too eager. It maybe wasn’t his smartest move, so close after nearly falling off the wagon. But weed hadn’t ever bloomed into a gateway drug in their year here. Uncomfortable memories of Kavinsky giving him pills probably helped there.
Shoving that thought aside, he reached over Adam to dig out the lighter himself and lit the end of the joint. A long drag later and he held the smoke in his lungs as he put the joint back to Adam’s mouth. “We should do something fun when you guys wrap up finals. And I mean real fun, nothing on a fucking spreadsheet.”
Adam couldn't say he was surprised this was happening. But some part of him didn't think Gansey would immediately rise to the challenge of finding the lighter. And considering he couldn't exactly roll away with food on his chest and joint in his mouth, he couldn't only let his face scrunch up with the hint of laughter and a slight flush of embarrassment when Gansey went for the wrong pocket. He tried to correct him, but Ronan was coming in with the assist before he went from amusing to awkward.
"Do I not get a chance to be a third wheel here?" Adam asked as Ronan fussed with the lighter, and shoved a piece of fruit into his mouth. He had barely chewed and swallowed before his mouth was filled with the lit joint and he took his own drag—a strange combo of weed and citrus on his tongue—before he passed it to Gansey for a hit.
He offered another slice to Ronan, his fingers unbearably close to his mouth. "Just because your definition of real fun differs from mine and Gansey's definition doesn't mean it's not real or fun. A spreadsheet can be entertaining," Adam said, raising a brow in a suggestive way at Ronan, before tipping his head back to look at Gansey for solidarity. "Although I think we could be convinced of something else, right? Depends on what you have in mind."
After dragging his hand back and righting himself, Gansey had to inhale from the blunt before he could respond to their teasing. He needed that hit of calm - it was honestly a wonder he didn’t do this more, given how much it helped his anxiety. He chased it with his bite of clementine, after handing the joint to Ronan.
Gansey smiled down at Adam, before just letting himself lean against Ronan. “Sorry. You might’ve missed out this time.” He did support the spreadsheets, but Gansey honed in on fun and patted Adam’s shoulder consolingly.
Before immediately dashing any spreadsheet hopes. “As much as I appreciate a well drafted spreadsheet or powerpoint, I have a half-dozen other things I think I’d rather do first. Camping season is starting now, you know! It’s also a prime opportunity to go along the coast with one of the cars.”
Ronan could resist taking one clementine piece with his teeth but two wasn’t happening. It was only balancing the scales after watching Gansey dig into Adam’s pocket anyway. Ronan took Adam’s wrist in hand and directed the citrus slice into his mouth with a shameless grin before he took the joint Gansey handed off.
“You--” He took a drag and talked through his teeth, holding the smoke in his throat. “--Are both really lucky you have me.” Exhaling, he held the joint out to Adam this time. The warmth in his chest started to spread, smoother than ever. His magic weed might’ve outdone himself. “I’ll agree to camping only if you both agree to do something stupid with me while we’re out there. Jump off a cliff. Fight a badger. Something, I don’t give a fuck.”
"Are you trying to say that we wouldn't do anything objectively fun without you to push us?" Adam asked; he was eager to distract himself to keep that immediate heat of Ronan literally eating out of his hand at bay, and so he took another quick hit. Everything felt smooth as he inhaled—magic weed tended to make the world dreamier, quicker, and Adam didn't mind cutting right to the point—and he exhaled slow, holding the joint, his head tilting against Ronan's leg with curiosity.
"Are those the only two options? Jump off a cliff or fight a badger? I don't find small animals offensive regularly, so it would have to have done something truly insulting for me to go with that one. I pick cliff diving," Adam said, smugly, settled on his choice. "It's not like you have a hard time convincing us to do stupid things." Adam twisted onto his side, the bag of roasted chickpeas falling off his chest. He reached across Ronan's legs to give Gansey the joint again, but not before he took an extra pull from it.
"Neither of you do, if we're being honest," Adam said on an exhale. "But both of you know how to not take advantage of the situation either. You use your powers of persuasion for good." Adam grinned to Gansey, then to Ronan, and back. "Let's go camping. As long as Cabeswater doesn't get jealous we're picking another forest to hang out in."
Adam nearly rambling in response to Ronan had Gansey grinning at them both. Or maybe it was the weed. Or both. He was always weak to his friends coming up with ideas and wanting to do things, especially Adam, who so often was quietly determined to make all of his time be worth something in the long run.
He held onto the joint after taking a long drag of it, holding it in his mouth a little longer, and inhaling more than he usually did. He felt the edges soften and better by the minute. “There’s a few good cliffs, I can be persuaded to that one too. I’d rather not battle a badger if I can help it.” Gansey handed off the joint to Ronan, before reaching over Adam to snag the chickpeas from where they’d slid.
When he sat back up, he attempted to do it upright, with minimal leaning involved, as he opened the bag of chickpeas. “We can bribe Cabeswater with doing some studying out here for a few days leading up to it?”
Ronan’s loudest, most chaotic brain cell spent two whole seconds urging him to take the joint from Gansey the same way he’d taken the clementine from Adam but he shut it down with a flushed face and a reach of his hand to pinch the joint from between Gansey’s fingers. He took a longer hit to give his face time to cool down before he rolled back into the conversation.
“You know I was kidding about the badger, right?” That was directed at Adam, a helpless little thread of worry winding into the words. It was apparently too soon to joke about fighting, the way his conscience spiked just a touch, but he regained the humor in his expression as he threaded one hand into Adam’s hair. “Not saying I wouldn’t try to fucking bowl with one if he was a real bastard.” He took one more hit and held the joint close to Adam’s hand. “Anyway, I like that idea. Come out here with your laptops like weird business hippies and I can lay out in the grass with good snacks.”
Adam wasn't oblivious, with his chin on Ronan's leg now to watch Gansey, and he felt that moment of tension. He palmed at Ronan's thigh in an appreciative and soothing way. Don't worry, the touch seemed to say, and then Adam leaned unabashedly, into Ronan's hand in his hair, wanting more. Usually left to the privacy of their bedroom, Adam feeling the effects of the magic weed didn't really care at this point. He sighed, softly and helplessly; he'd be embarrassed later.
But he took the joint when offered, took another hit, and left it dangling between his fingers as he spoke. "You know, we keep talking about Cabeswater like we don't know what it might want and just guess. But we could ask, we could ask. It's not like we don't have a main line to the entire forest right at our fingertips," Adam said, hypocritically. Wasn't he the one that just moments ago thought Cabeswater might get jealous?
He was high, he knew this now, and it was only another slow beat that his sluggish brain remembered that he hadn't been connected to Cabeswater the last time he was.
”Cabeswater," Adam whispered, as he distractedly handed over the joint to Gansey. "Will you be mad if we camp in another forest?" The forest answered back by getting sunnier in the spot they were sitting.
Gansey pushed himself to obliviousness when it came to the display in front of him. He couldn’t be annoyed about it, even when he wasn’t high, given how much it hurt his heart when his best friends had been fighting. So this was nice to see, and it probably showed on his face as he gave in to the urge and leaned back against Ronan just a little and smiled so softly down at Adam.
It helped to alleviate the blindness from Cabeswater’s answer, looking down like he was. “I don’t know if that’s a yes or a no.” He squinted as he took the joint, and Gansey wasn’t sure if it was punishment or teasing when a spectral otter bounded down the path and took a flying leap onto Gansey’s lap. It sent a few roasted chickpeas in the direction of Ronan and Adam, but he held steadfast to the joint.
“Hello. I don’t know if that’s a yes or a no, either.” The otter settled on his leg. Maybe Cabeswater’s vagueness wasn’t the most forthcoming when they were all high as kites. But it also didn’t stop him from taking another hit and passing it to Ronan.
The otter’s arrival startled Ronan even though it shouldn’t have. He blamed his slow reaction time. It still earned a crooked smile out of him, as the creature made a mess and commanded Gansey’s attention. Ronan could relate, after all.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s trying to win you both over. Reminding you that it’s got shit the forest of Vallo can’t give us.” He let go of Adam’s hair to take the joint back, but claimed a nut butter with his free hand instead of immediately smoking it. With both hands full, he had to lift the cookie wrapper to his teeth to tear into it. He spit out a sliver of wrapper to talk. It landed in his lap. “We could shape Cabeswater to whatever campsite we wanted though, to be fair. Put a big cliff in here, base jump off that.”
Adam sat up abruptly, weirdly startled by the appearance of the otter. It felt like a lifetime ago when he made the bond again, causing the special creatures. Being in Vallo, with all its natural chaos, it very well could have been a lifetime ago. He watched Gansey settle with it, and Ronan wrestle with the wrapper. Adam, instead of using his empty hands to assist, leaned in to steal the joint from between Ronan's fingers with his mouth. If no one had done it by now, Adam was instinctively a go-getter and took the leap.
With the joint hanging out of his mouth, he picked up the piece of wrapper Ronan spit out, tearing at it into smaller pieces. "We could do it now," Adam suggested. Then, realized that was a terrible idea. Logic was crawling at a snail's pace in his mind. "Later. We can cliff jump later. But we could—" Adam circled his hand in the air, searching for the words that wouldn't come. But Cabeswater, ever attentive to their needs even when Adam was thinking in painful starts and stops, got the gist.
Leaves rustled, wind picked up between the branches, and water flooded the ground behind them. There was a long moment, then another, before a decent sized pond appeared a couple dozen yards away.
"You're right," Adam preened at Ronan, then to Gansey as he took a drag off the joint, which was nearing the end. "It's showing off. To all of us. And I for one would not be against testing out the water." His attention dropped to the food they had been eating, and added uselessly, "Waiting to swim after eating is a myth."
The otter was the first one to go dive in, ahead of them, after joyfully leaping off Gansey’s lap when he scrambled up at the sound of the water behind them. Gansey breathed out a laugh as Cabeswater shifted for Adam, and he glanced over at his friends. “Always still remarkable.”
Waiting to swim after eating may have been a myth but was it smart for them to go swimming while high? Probably not. But was it in league with other idiotic things they had done as teenagers? Definitely. And it made Gansey’s chest warm to see Adam so quickly jump to doing it, Gansey’s heart wanted simple things and one of them was for Adam to experience happiness in ways he’d never really gotten to growing up.
That was his excuse for removing his shirt and starting to toe off his shoes, though. When he got to the button on his cargo shorts, he stopped, brain finally catching up in it’s haze. “Wait-- we don’t have swim trunks.”
Time seemed to be slipping through Ronan’s fingers. He was still blinking at Adam for doing the thing he’d avoided - his pupils too big and his neck starting to sweat - when Gansey was suddenly stripping off clothes. Ronan closed his eyes for a second just to get his equilibrium back.
“Jesus Mary,” he grumbled. He lurched to his feet and yanked his own shirt off over his head. “We don’t need swim trunks, you dweeb. Unless you’ve suddenly started going commando under your khakis.” Ronan cackled and stole back the joint. After a drag, he held the joint clamped in his sharkish grin and kicked off his shoes, unbuckling his jeans at the same time. It was surprisingly coordinated considering everything was starting to blur at the edges and he was definitely listing to the side. He didn’t fall on his face, but it was a close call as he leered at Adam and spoke through clenched teeth.
“I promise if you get a stomach cramp, I’ll swim you to safety.” He shoved his jeans down his legs, revealing boxer briefs that were rainbow striped instead of his customary black. “Pretty sure I owe you a bridal carry anyway.”
Rational-brained Adam knew that they were careening toward something inherently dangerous and risky, and that watching his best friend then his boyfriend proceed to get undressed based on his half-cocked idea was a lot of responsibility. But that hard-edged common sense had long since taken a walk, and Adam's instincts were saying get up, go go go. He scrambled gracelessly to his feet, pulling his shirt over his head in a surprisingly graceful motion, his tattoo on full display
Adam slid up beside Ronan and snapped the waistband of his rainbow boxers in a dizzying playful display. With the barriers pulled down, and everything easy without overthinking, Adam was both at his most honest and most gullible. He bit his lip, flicking his eyebrows suggestively high, and backed away, just out of reach, toward Gansey.
"You can save it for our wedding night," Adam said, and then to Gansey, "What's it going to be?" He pointed at his pants, almost like a taunt before he took one step, then another, and backed right into the pond. He, however, did not take off his pants; and Adam would regret it later.
When he came up, pushing his wet hair back from his face, Adam was grinning. "Either you come in on your own accord or someone is throwing you in. I'm not going to tell you who, but you can probably take an educated guess."
Gansey flushed. He had lived with Ronan for how long? And they’d wandered around in various degrees of undress - Gansey had literally lived in the living room at Monmouth and Ronan was allergic to shirts. Yet he still bushed when it came to both Ronan and Adam stripping down around them.
Adam still being his pants did give him pause, but Gansey had no desire to end up with wet and dragging cargo pants, so he finished removing them the rest of the way, leaving him in his much more sensible blue briefs. He folded his shorts before setting them side and taking the joint from Ronan’s mouth, to take one last drag from it. To embolden him? Or just to draw out this feeling of listless pleasure.
He blew it into the air and put what was left of the joint right back into Ronan’s mouth, before patting his friend’s bare shoulder and turning tail to make a running leap into the pond.
Which was probably dumb, as he slipped on the very muddy edge, slid into the pond the rest of the way, and landed directly in front of Adam, as ungainly as one could possibly get. When he resurfaced a half-second later, he pushed the hair off of his forehead and back, sputtering. “Well-- Let’s hope that wasn’t a sign for things to come with cliff diving.” He turned around. “Do better before you talk shit, Ronan!”
A sober Ronan likely could’ve said something snarky and sharp in response to Adam’s suggestion but this Ronan just flushed red and watched his future husband walk into a pond in his pants. His distraction lost him the joint for a brief second, long enough for him to snark.
“You’re gonna chafe like a motherfucker walking back to the house, Parrish,” he laughed. The joint was shoved back in his face so he took another drag and watched gleefully as Gansey tumbled into the pond.
“God, you’re both hopeless.” He started waddling over to the pond with his jeans still around his ankles. Realizing that was going to end very badly, he kicked them off and tripped the last few steps into the pond face first, only barely holding the joint out of reach of the water. “Fuck,” he coughed, standing up in the shallow depths. “The dumbass is contagious.”
"You can carry me back, then!" Adam shouted just as Ronan hit the water. The laughter that bubbled out of him was loud and wild, uncontrolled in a way Adam didn't usually let himself be. It was only because of the two dumbasses who followed his dumbass into the water that he would allow it to show.
Adam swam closer to Ronan, and undid the buttons on his pants, shimmying out of them—almost losing his boxers in the process—and flinging them back toward shore. If they conveniently hit a brightly lit patch of grass or if that was Cabeswater, Adam didn't know. Lucky, that's what he was. He leaned into kiss Ronan, brief and terribly inappropriate as a distraction, while simultaneously stealing the joint out of his raised hand.
He placed it between his teeth and began to frog swim over to Gansey. "Delivery," Adam said, though it sounded more like eeveree with the joint in his mouth. He took his time putting it between Gansey's lips, not that he needed the help and unnecessarily trying to steady his face with his wet hands. "You get this for shit talking Ronan. It's better when it comes from you. People listen."
“I don’t think it’s contagious so much as you’ve finally embraced it,” Gansey laughed, the warmth spreading across his chest. It felt like his grin would never truly die down, as Adam kept laughing and was as joyful as he seemed when high. That was most assuredly contagious.
The dumbassery might’ve been as well, but Gansey was beyond caring. Especially now that the joint was back in his mouth, even with Adam’s coordination being a thing of true wonder right now. “Thank you,” which was just as garbled as Adam’s words. He was a sucker, though, and only took one short puff before holding it out for Ronan to come snag. “I wouldn’t want to make the king of our castle grumpy, though. Come get, Ronan.”
He was certain that Adam held far more allure than Gansey did in beckoning him over, but that didn’t stop the brunette best friend from flashing a megawatt smile across the pond.
Adam’s wild laugh and discarded pants lit up Ronan’s blood even better than the weed. He loved seeing him like this. Best fucking idea ever. He grinned stupidly even as the joint was stolen away and given to Gansey in a way that spiked his heart rate yet again. In all fairness, he probably didn’t need anymore weed. Everything was a deliciously warm haze and his hormones tended to get really fucking stupid on pot. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes to bask in the better-than-natural sunlight of Cabeswater.
“Richard Campbell Gansey the third calling me king,” he smirked, opening his eyes to sink down into the water and swim closer. One more hit wouldn’t kill him. When he stood, he eyed the joint in Gansey’s hand and then his own wet hands. His gaze drifted to Adam but everything was too fuzzy to overthink it. He took Gansey by the wrist and directed the joint to his mouth so he could take a drag without taking the joint from Gansey's hand.
He laid back in the water and blew out the smoke.
“Fuck. I lost my cookie.” Ronan abruptly looked around, nonsensically, like he’d find a nutter butter floating next to him in the water. “Parrish, did you steal my cookie too?”
Adam sunk down in the water, with just his nose and eyes above water. His laser focus observation skills turned into a game when his brain was addled with magical drugs, and it helped to hide whatever strange expression he couldn't stop as he watched Ronan and Gansey. He expected jealousy to rouse deep inside his chest, but instead it was a softer, kinder emotion. A desire to be that comfortable with Gansey as he was with Ronan.
But all of that was interrupted when Ronan asked him if he stole his cookie. The surface bubbled as he tried to hold in his laughter. It only led to him choking on pond water and he had to stand, unable to stop finding the word cookie funny. "Cookie, cookie, coooookie," Adam kept repeating with ridiculous inflections.
"I have your cookie," Adam said, abruptly stopping his chaotic repetition of the word. His eyes roamed hotly over Ronan's body, his hand beelining for the waistband of his briefs without hesitation. The thought of his tattoo on display caused his insides to be set ablaze.
"Gansey also has it, had it. He had cookies." Somewhere Adam believed this to be logical, but he was just spewing nonsense. With a dreamy sigh, he flopped back into the water. His cue to float. He made a flapping motion in the pond toward Gansey, an invitation to do it too. Or bring cookies. It wasn't exactly clear.
Gansey huffed out a laugh and splashed Ronan gently. The joint had barely nothing left on it, so he took one last hit before wetting it slightly and letting it float away with Cabeswater. He dipped down into the water again, submerging himself, grinning to himself at Adam’s tone. Every bone in his body was relaxed, though, and he didn’t want to leave.
Even if he was certain they probably should. At the very least, swimming while high was a bad idea, so was being relaxed enough to fall asleep. Gansey ended up floating, anyway, copying Ronan and Adam against his better judgement. It ended with him on his back easily, hand reaching out to skim Ronan’s arm, as they aimlessly floated closer to Adam.
“Your cookies aren’t my responsibility. If you want more, we’ll have to go back to the house. I’m not a hoarder of snacks.” He sounded almost lazy, for Gansey, face pointed to the sun, relaxed smile on his face, arms outstretched in the warm water. “This was a good idea, cookies aside.”
Ronan’s eyebrows rose comically high as he watched Adam babble and reach for Ronan’s waistband. He might’ve drowned in the next breath if Adam hadn’t laid down to float instead. There was a good chance he’d at least have swallowed a whole lot of pond.
“Jesus Mary, you’re high as shit, babe,” he said, snorting a laugh and treading water to stay afloat. With Gansey floating up on his other side, Ronan smiled his dumbest smile and closed his eyes. Drunk-Ronan would’ve injected some chaos into the moment, dragged them both under, something. High-Ronan was perfectly content to float away on a cloud with sunwarm shoulders brushing idly against his anytime the water made the three of them connect.
“This was a good idea,” he echoed. “My good idea. Now shut up you two and enjoy it. We’ll eat Gansey's old man snacks if we get desperate.”
"Babe," Adam repeated, only once, but he sounded inordinately pleased by the word. The water and the warmth, the low rumble of Ronan and Gansey's voices mixed with the mental slickness the weed provided was a recipe to remove all the rough edges of Adam's mind. There was nothing to think about, there was nothing to worry over. Cabeswater slid seamlessly behind his chest with an extra calming effect; its Magician at ease, happy, content.
Except for maybe lacking in cookies and cookies, but the thought flitted away as quickly as it came. He reached to touch Ronan then to Gansey, to pass the feeling along. Adam wanted to share. Adam wanted the best people in his life to be content too.
He made a small hum then added, "Ronan has to eat the kale chips, balance his good idea with a bad one."