Adam had never been to a wedding, and now this was his second in under a month. His second with Ronan in under a month. It was surreal, watching something that would inevitably happen between them, but Adam tried to keep everything close to his chest. Not get too ahead of himself. Not to want too much, too soon. Adam was built in patience, but anything involving his boyfriend tended to push the boundaries he had so skillfully constructed in self-restraint.
That was why he took his time getting ready: sharing an enthusiastic shower with Ronan, steaming up the bathroom in that pleasant way. He had spent far too much tangling together than washing up, and getting predictably distracted by the tattoo when Adam offered to lather Ronan’s back.
For someone who planned out every minute of every day, Adam allocated more and more to spending needy, indulgent time with Ronan in the secret spaces they could steal in a house full of people.
He was grinning as he stumbled out of the shower, tying a fluffy towel around his waist and tossing one back to Ronan. Adam swiped a hand across the foggy mirror, catching Ronan's reflection over his shoulder, eyes bright. There was a moment where he thought about how every second in this easy bliss came so naturally, absolutely sure Ronan could see that unending adoration there, before Adam glanced away—again, it was too much, too overwhelming.
Adam spun around, leaning against the sink. He reached a hand up, running his fingers over the top of Ronan's skull, his damp hair longer there than usual. "Do you want me to shave this before we go?"
Ronan was not at all complaining about the long shower or how distracted they got. He was in a suspiciously good mood. Embarrassingly, he was starting to realize he liked weddings. And the fact that this one was between two men just amplified the heady rush that romance gave him. He’d probably try to take that shit to his grave but the smile on his face was achingly soft as he swiped a towel over the back of bare chest and ducked his head to let Adam rub at his hair.
“It is getting a little long, huh?” He leaned in to press a kiss absentmindedly to the side of Adam’s throat. “I’ll get the clippers.” The bathroom wasn’t overly large by any means, so getting the clippers didn’t actually move him all that far out of Adam’s space. He crouched down to dig around under the sink and came out with a square black bag, unzipping it one-handed to lay it open on the edge of the sink.
“Glad you got so handsy in the shower,” he leered. “I might’ve gotten dressed already by now if you hadn’t.” Their suits hung on hangers attached to a hook near the door.
"I think you're full of shit," Adam said, his hand grazing Ronan's bare side, gentle and almost ticklish, but it was impossible to keep to himself around Ronan. After being allowed, encouraged, with casual affection, Adam never stopped. "You would have found another excuse to put off getting dressed, I know you. But I'll gladly get handsy with you again—" Adam squeezed his waist, leaning in. "Later."
Then he moved, rummaging in the bag to get the clippers and put on the guard. He clicked it on then off to check, the device buzzing, before he slid behind Ronan. Again, he was distracted, tracing a line between dark talon to another twisting knot in the ink. Adam had spent nights memorizing Ronan's design, could picture it perfectly in his sleep, but it was always a surprise when he felt he found something new.
"Sit on the toilet or bend over the sink," Adam said, pressing a kiss to the space between Ronan's shoulder blades. Adam's voice was soft, and painfully nonchalant as he said, "I'm surprised at how quickly they pulled a wedding together. Kind of proves that you don't need months of planning."
“If I bend over the sink we’re gonna be late,” Ronan smirked into the mirror, watching Adam move behind him. His stare was both heated and soft somehow. It was embarrassing how much a wedding made every touch feel charged, like a distant promise and an immediate salve rolled into one. He rolled his eyes at himself and straddled the toilet, facing the wall. It meant he didn’t get to look at Adam for a bit, but that was probably for the best with how close to the surface all his emotions and attraction seemed to be today.
“Hope you didn’t just curse them into having a jacked up ceremony,” he teased. He tossed his towel a side and reached behind himself to pull Adam closer by the backs of his thighs. “Wonder if it’ll be more religious than the last one? I don’t know about Jack but Bitty is from the south and says oh lord too often not to have some Christian hang ups to swim through.”
Adam bit his lip, only because he didn't think he could keep his commentary about bending over the sink to himself. Ronan was right, they would absolutely be late. So he shook his head and followed Ronan over the toilet, plastering himself against his back when he was pulled in.
"I don't have that kind of power, and if I did, I wouldn't use it to mess up someone's wedding," Adam said, curling his arms around Ronan's neck in a quick-but-loose hug, kissing his cheek. He clicked the clippers on, and began shaving away. His hand followed behind every pass, just so he could keep touching Ronan while being productive.
"Depends on who is officiating. It's not in a church, so there probably isn't as many hang ups as you think." Adam never had that problem, being an atheist, but he was well aware of the complicated relationship Ronan had with his deeply Catholic roots. Adam's hands paused, almost as if he was considering something, and then continued as he came to a decision. He let out a soft breath, and said, "Would you be disappointed if it wasn't in a church?"
“I dunno about the power part, but I guess I’ll give you the rest,” Ronan hummed. He closed his eyes and lifted his chin, arching into Adam’s grip. Between the buzz of the clippers and the buzz of Adam’s nearness, he felt like he was laying on a good massage chair with thumping music drumming through his headphones.
The question might have thrown him if he wasn’t so comfortable. Instead, he barely blinked, simply frowning in concentration.
“If what wasn’t in a church? Ours?” The world rolled easily off his tongue and didn’t even wedge behind his teeth. It did make his heart rate pick up though. The rest of his answer didn’t help there either. “Parrish, we could get married in a Burger King and it would still be the best shit ever.” He squinted up over his shoulder. “You’d be uncomfortable in a Catholic ceremony anyway.”
"Yeah, ours," Adam confirmed, without hesitation, smiling despite himself. That should have scared him, should have made Adam start to wall everything up and critically examine what that said, about how simple something that was supposed to be complicated was. But Adam had already done that, hundreds of times, and trained his mind to not trip over something that he wanted—a future with Ronan and everything that came with it.
Adam peered down at Ronan, with his half shaved head, squinting up at him. "If we got married in a Burger King, we could have the ceremony and the reception in the same place. It would be financially sensible." He huffed out a fond laugh, and curled over him to steal a kiss, then pressed another between his brow.
He understood what Ronan meant, but Adam didn't want to leave this up to interpretation. His expression was soft, and he slid a tender hand against Ronan's throat. "Why? Because it's long with a lot of standing around or because I'm not practicing? If it's important to you, it's not a dealbreaker for me. I'd take the necessary steps." Because naturally, Adam did not press into any conversation without already doing research.
Ronan’s ears felt hot. His quick snort turned into a full laugh. “Fuck, can you imagine? We could make Dick wear one of those paper crowns.”
As amusing as the image was, Ronan had embarrassingly specific ideas for a wedding to go along with his embarrassingly specific plans for a proposal so really he was just all kinds of fucking embarrassing and Adam didn’t need to know that. Yet. He covered Adam’s hand on his throat with his, caressing his fingers.
“It’s not...Even if St. Agnes was willing to do a traditional ceremony for two guys, the whole thing is kind of...cold. I don’t know. It’s not what you deserve. And it’s not what I want for us.” Church was where Ronan generally felt guilty for being who he was and made promises to try and be better. He brought Adam’s fingers to his lips and murmured against them. “Nothing about us has ever been cold.”
Oh. Adam was feeling particularly warm now. And while he probably should have been past the whole immediate flush of Ronan saying surprisingly sweet things, Adam did go a little red, unhidden by only wearing a towel. He wished he was wearing more than that, considering how this conversation was turning.
Adam often teased Ronan about his infatuation with his hands, but admittedly, Adam liked it too. The constant of it, the way touch seemed to weave its way into everything they did, how Adam sought Ronan with his hands first, then his eyes. Having his fingers on or near Ronan's mouth made his heart beat double-time.
He traced Ronan's lips so, so gently as he spoke. "You're not wrong about that. You're all fire, Ronan. You always have been." He replaced his fingers with his mouth, finding it difficult to place the words he wanted in the best order. Action had always been a good source of communication between them, and his kiss was anything but cold to prove the point.
"We have time," Adam said as he came up for air. "But eventually you're going to have to tell me what you want for us. I'm not the only deserving one here."
Ronan smirked into the kiss, half-twisting on the toilet to get better access. He liked being called fire. As long as it was like this - good, heated, welcome. Not the kind that burned and left nothing in its wake. The days he’d wanted to be that kind of fire were gone.
“Eventually,” he agreed. His raised eyebrow said it would probably be on his terms only. “Let’s try to keep this shit in order, huh?” Suddenly, painfully worried he’d stumble right into the most unromantic proposal of all time, Ronan turned back around and moved Adam’s hand up to his head. “Get back to work. We need to be in those monkey suits soon. Are you gonna shave?”
"I'm tempted to leave it half done, you can really make a fashion statement in your monkey suit and an avant garde haircut at the wedding," Adam teased, and got back to work. He was quick and efficient with the rest of Ronan's head, brushing away shaved hair as he went and catching the rest on the floor with another discarded towel.
When he was finished, Adam's hands were running down Ronan's chest from behind, and his mouth close to his ear. If the beginnings of his stubble happened to rub against Ronan's face, it absolutely was purposeful. "I'll be quick, if you get dressed while I do it," Adam whispered, then planted a swift kiss to the shell of Ronan's ear and slipped away, back to the sink to clean out the clippers.
The mirror still made their reflections blurry, and Adam tried to clear it more as he grabbed for his razor and shaving cream. "Unless—" Adam arched a brow, his tone half-teasing and half-serious, "—you were offering to help? Quid pro quo?"
“You’d give Gansey hives if you did that,” Ronan smirked. His neck and shoulders went loose and easy under Adam’s direction, and he tried not to enjoy the intimacy of this act too much. They really did need to get dressed at some point. That didn’t mean he couldn’t zone out in a comfortable haze for a bit.
Having Adam draped over him and hands on his chest snapped him out of the fog real fucking quick though. He shivered and spun around on the toilet as Adam moved away.
“Not gonna lie, shaving you sounds sexy as shit, Parrish. But…” He stood up, took the shaving cream to spray some into his hands, and started rubbing it onto Adams’ face with slow, careful strokes. “...That’s a lot of trust that I won’t slip and nick you right before we probably end up in a ton of pictures.”
Ronan wasn't wrong—allowing someone that close to do something so intimate not only required an extreme level of trust, but Adam was giving up a huge amount of control. But maybe that was the point: an understated way to say that he trusted Ronan, that he trusted himself with Ronan. With all this talk about marriage, and deserving, Adam was showing Ronan piece by piece how much he was committed to him.
Adam tipped his face up as Ronan started to rub shaving cream onto his face. He hummed out a pleased noise, and for a brief flash it was Adam's turn to zone out. "The razor slipping has nothing to do with my trust in you. If you don't want it to happen, it won't." He smiled with his foamy beard, knowing that explanation was some new age mindfulness shit. Mind over matter. "I doubt anyone is going to be looking at us in any of the pictures we end up in anyway."
Hopping up on the edge of the sink to be eye level with Ronan, Adam held up the razor to take. He waited, completely open, unguarded, a version of Adam that Ronan had uncovered in their years together. It had taken a long time, but here they were. "Don't miss a spot."
Ronan hadn’t meant for it to sound like a test, but he was still glad Adam hadn’t said no. It would’ve stung in a way he wouldn’t have been able to put into words. Even if he would’ve understood because it wasn’t like Ronan was some kind of shaving expert.
Only now he was stuck doing a good job of this shit.
“Right. Okay,” he grunted. “Don’t get twitchy on me.” He started very carefully shaving Adam’s face, rinsing the razor between passes. His focus narrowed and he moved Adam’s jaw this way and that, getting in close between his knees to make sure he didn’t miss a spot. Any other task, he’d have been too turned on by the proximity and their near nakedness to get jack shit done but when Ronan Lynch had a goal - and that goal involved making sure Adam was taken care of properly - he could shut off the loud and obnoxious parts of his brain.
Eventually, he set the razor aside and turned the water hotter to dampen a hand towel and press it to Adam’s face. “There. You want some of that fancy after shave oil we got from the Apothecary?”
Adam did not, in fact, get twitchy. He was focusing so hard on not moving, his hands resting on his knees in the most painfully nonchalant way. He wanted to touch Ronan, run his fingers across that glorious expanse of skin in front of him, but he was worried about being distracting, about drawing Ronan away from his task. Adam could chill for more than twenty minutes, it was possible.
So he went easy, pliant, with no resistance to how Ronan moved him. Adam should have shut his eyes and enjoyed the whole experience—the rough feel of Ronan's farm-worked hands on his face in such a tender way was making his breathing a little shallow. But instead his eyes were hooded, heated, watching Ronan's single-minded concentration.
He covered his hands over Ronan's when he pressed the towel to his face, almost in a daze. Lightheaded with the realization that he liked being taken care of, in small doses. He nodded belatedly at the offer, and twisted around to get it himself. As he went through the motions of putting the oil on his freshly-shaved face, Adam paused, squeezing his knees together around Ronan's waist.
"I love you, you know," Adam said, quiet but fervently. "We've been through so much shit, and sometimes it hits me all at once. How much I love you."
Those words had been traded in some form or another many times in the last two years, but they still always slipped right under Ronan’s ribs and helped fill in all the fracture lines that tragedy had left behind. His answering smile was small but intense, like the unwavering stare that came with it.
“Me too.” From someone else, that reply might’ve come off too casual for the moment, but Ronan didn’t do anything casually. He squeezed Adam’s thighs and leaned in to kiss him, ending up with his arms coiled around Adam’s back.
“Sometimes it’s the stupidest crap that sets me off. You’ll pet Chainsaw a certain way or hand Gansey the pen he’s reaching for without either of you even looking at each other. Seriously dumb shit, but I’ll think...damn. I love you so fucking much.”
Adam didn't want to move, he didn't want to get dressed, he didn't want to do anything but keep kissing Ronan in this tiny bathroom, barely clothed, swapping all these words that felt too vast for his brain to comprehend. His hands slipped along Ronan's hips, fingers pressing deep into the lower edges of the hooks and edges of his tattoo.
"I know." Adam said, in that equally casual way, leaning in for one more kiss. This was a dangerous path, because one would turn into two would turn into ten. But it felt important to not rush this.
"I'm glad we're here." Adam couldn't remember if he ever said that before, not so plainly. "This wasn't in the plan. I had told myself that I was going to have four long years driving back to you during breaks and holidays, and this—this has been so much better." Adam got everything he wanted, and he was still trying to convince himself he wasn't about to wake up from this nearly perfect dream.
His smile turned a little bashful, as if Ronan's comment of seriously dumb shit finally hit him. "You like it when I hand Gansey pens?"
“I’m glad too...for the most part,” Ronan admitted. There were a lot of reasons this place was an upgrade over home. Two missing pieces of his family and a lingering guilt over abandoning Hennessy and Jordan to be hunted were all that separated Ronan from being perfectly fucking happy here and wishing they never had to go back. That said, his eyes narrowed into slits when Adam called him out on his embarrassing example.
“Don’t be a shit until you’ve got clothes on.” He nipped at Adam’s bare shoulder before moving away to start pulling his suit off the hanger in pieces. “Anyway,” he grumbled, pulling on his pants. “I just...like that two of the people most important to me are so in sync with each other. Like...fucking puzzle pieces, right? It’d be fine if I was in the center and you were on either side but it’s better that we’re all a fit.”
For the most part. There were people that were noticeably missing, worries that went unsolved, bigger and more complicated than both of them had encountered. Some involved Adam, some didn't. Adam simply ran his hand down Ronan's bicep in a way that said I understand.
But the seriousness gave way to a laugh, Adam chasing after Ronan, sliding off the sink to put on his own suit. He was quick as he dropped his towel and put on his own pants. The bathroom seemed much smaller, now that it was both of them moving around in an attempt to keep their suits from being ruined. Adam used Ronan for balance—as he often did— with a hand on his chest as he put his foot into his pant leg.
"I like it too," Adam said as he straightened up and pulled his pressed shirt off the hanger. He shrugged it on, keeping his face down as he meticulously started to do the dozens of buttons. "I was lucky. You were already in sync with Gansey. I got the better end of this deal, even if you were a stubborn shithead for the first year. I think we managed okay."
Staying focused on the task at hand was harder when Ronan didn’t have a sharp object in his hand. His eyes kept straying to Adam’s as they moved deftly over his buttons. He felt soft around the edges. Eventually, he got his own shirt done up, but he’d missed one button and had to do half of them again after grumbling a curse.
“I think we managed more than okay.” He rolled his eyes affectionately and wrapped his tie around his neck, slipping it under his collar but leaving it to dangle there. Reaching for Adam’s tie, he inched closer to do the same to him. “I think we were all a fucking mess and smashed into each other just in time.” He smirked and tugged playfully at Adam’s tie. “You probably don’t want me to tie this, huh?”
"Now we're just an organized mess. Easier to keep track of," Adam responded, just as fondly. There was so much of his disastrous life that had been rectified just by having Ronan and Gansey in it. How simple not being alone for the worst of it made things better.
For a few seconds, Adam allowed himself to watch Ronan's second attempt to fix his shirt. Then his own hands followed up, with smoothing down the front in an inspection. He tried not to look so obviously affected by Ronan inching closer, crowding into his space to put on his tie. Adam schooled his expression into something pleasantly neutral. It felt like a game of chicken now.
Adam wrapped his hands around the silky ends of Ronan's tie and tugged him down. "You can leave that part up to me," Adam said, his fingers working fast and methodically. Adam didn't want to admit that he had practiced tying his own tie thousands of times, to impress his peers at Aglionby. But his dreams were filled with furiously undoing Ronan's tie just as many times.
He swallowed hard as he pushed the knot to Ronan's throat. A perfect Windsor. But his hands lingered. "I am embarrassed by how much I like seeing you in a suit. Sundays are brutal."
Ronan looked smug - head tipped back, watching all the tiny signs that Adam was keeping himself under a tight leash. If they had more time, he’d have been thrilled to see how long Adam could keep it up. Or rather, how quickly he could convince him to give it up altogether. As it was, he just snorted and stole a little kiss.
“Funny, one of the things that makes Sundays better for me is that look in your eyes. But we can debate that shit later,” he said suggestively. Leaning around Adam, he checked out his reflection and smoothed a hand over his head. “You did good.” His warm gaze trailed back to Adam and down over him from head to toe. Then he reached to open the door into their bedroom.
“We’re gonna look sharp,” he murmured. “I might need photographic proof.”
Adam shook his head, smiling. For as much as he wanted to be—no, believed he was—unknowable, Adam had so many tells. Whatever control he thought he had could be easily crumbled under Ronan's touch. They would debate this later, especially when it involved getting Ronan out of the suit he just put on.
He rubbed an assessing hand over his own jaw as he stepped out of the bathroom. "Not so bad yourself," Adam said, his attention back on Ronan. His eyes roamed across his chest, to the tie around his throat where the edges of his tattoo were just barely visible from behind his collar.
"But if you want a picture you better do it sooner rather than later. I know that tie is not going to last. And whether it's you or me that is the culprit behind messing it up remains to be seen."