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“Look at how much fun you can have when you take the stick out of your ass, Parrish.”
Ronan’s eyes were alight with the adrenaline he only seemed to have in his car, reinvigorating him from a draining day of bullying Latin teachers and leaning nonchalantly against door frames. Paired with the obscenely expensive leather interior of the BMW, the scene reminded Adam of magazine pages he had shamefully torn out and stuffed beneath floorboards back in the double-wide. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind.
“I’m only here as a chaperone to make sure you don’t end up in a ditch.”
Here was the BMW past midnight in the middle of a storm. Here was the pitch black Henrietta countryside, barreling towards some unknown location at a speed Adam was purposely not checking.
Adam felt the familiar weight of Ronan’s gaze on his cheek. Normally he would set his jaw, would keep his eyes adamantly forward. Normally he wouldn’t play this game, wouldn’t wander into dangerous territory. Tonight wasn’t normal. Adam met Ronan’s gaze.
Adam tried to remember how he had gotten into this situation. He was writing an essay, he remembered that. An essay on Wuthering Heights that was bullshit at best. He could only write so much about Heathcliff and Cathy before he wanted to tear his eyes out. He was halfway through it when Ronan showed up on his doorstep, black tee plastered to his body, jeans low on his hips, saying something about a drive. Adam can’t be blamed, really, for whatever happened after that. For mindlessly agreeing to whatever Ronan had suggested. For following Ronan down to the BMW, for slipping into the passenger seat on autopilot. Everything had faded out to static when he saw the outlines of muscle in Ronan’s stomach through his rain-damp shirt. A boy could only stand so much.
A bump in the road finally made Ronan look away. They’d only made eye contact for maybe 3 seconds. It felt like an hour. Adam let his eyes wander down, tracing from Ronan’s sharp cheekbones to the hard planes of his chest. His shirt was still soaked. Great.
Zoning back in, Adam could hear rain pounding harder against the roof of the beemer. He could barely see out of the windshield, much less make out the road well enough to navigate. Maybe their location was unknown to more than one person in this car.
“Um,” Adam said, glancing back over to Ronan. “Do you have a destination in mind or-?”
He could see Ronan saying something but with the combination of the BMW’s engine, the storm outside, the pounding electronica, and his bad ear, Adam couldn’t make out more than a mumble.
“Um, yeah, Lynch?,” he said, cutting off Ronan’s indecipherable response, “I cannot hear a word you’re saying.”
Ronan scowled at him, a universally understood expression. They drove a few more minutes, not able to carry a conversation over the din of noise in the BMW. Adam tilted his head to let his cheek rest against the cool window, allowing his eyes to slip closed. He was tired. He was always tired.
Without warning, Ronan pulled a hard right, jolting Adam back from the edge of sleep. His heart dropped into his stomach as tires screeched. He shut his eyes hard, and clamped his fingers down on the leather seat, hoping that he would die quickly, that it would be over before he realized it was happening.
The rumble of gravel under wheels brought Adam back to Earth. He waited until the engine cut off, to be certain they had survived, before blinking open his eyes. They were somewhere on the shoulder of a road, indistinguishable from any other winding backroad in Henrietta, an open field in front of them. He blinked again and turned to Ronan.
“We’ve arrived at our destination,” Ronan said, voice high and mocking. His words were easily discernible now, cutting through the gentler tapping of rain.
“Fuck, Ronan,” Adam bit out once his heartbeat had returned to a safe level. “Don’t do that. Why are we in a field?”
“We aren’t in a fucking field. Yet.” Ronan shoved his door open and pulled himself out of the car before stomping away.
It was still raining out, though with substantially less vigor. Adam had shoved his feet into his shittiest sneakers in his rush to leave St. Agnes, the soles of which were held together with dollar-store glue and a prayer. He was wearing a sleep shirt two sizes too small and threadbare plaid pajama pants. He did not want to wander out into this muddy field in the middle of a storm. He did not want to get involved in whatever dangerous endeavors Ronan surely had planned. It seemed too late for that. With a sigh, he opened his door and followed Ronan.
Ronan’s dark shoulders cut a striking figure through the field. His steps were sure, stepping over holes and winding through patches of hip-high grass with ease. Adam did his best to follow Ronan’s footsteps, less confident but remaining relatively unscathed. They wandered, Ronan leading and Adam following, to an unimpressive copse of trees. Ronan barreled through them, heading towards one of the larger trees that wasn’t visible from the road. As the tree came into sight, Adam saw that there was a structure in the branches. Not much more than four walls and a roof amongst the leafy canopies. A simple treehouse, small but seemingly in good shape.
He wanted to be surprised that Ronan had a secret treehouse, but it aligned perfectly with the childhood at the Barns that Adam pictured. He could see, vividly, Niall building this, teaching Ronan how to hold a hammer as Matthew played in the reeds and Declan looked on with disapproval. The brothers spending time up here, making a sign that said No Girls Allowed. Adam’s chest hurt. He felt like he should say something.
“I’m not going into that thing,” is what came out. Adam immediately regretted it, he didn’t want to scare Ronan back into gruff silence. Didn’t want Ronan to rescind this careful show of vulnerability.
“Stay out in the rain then Parrish. Get fucking sick if you wanna be stubborn,” Ronan grunted. He began to climb the rickety stairs, swift and confident, clearly having done this often. He didn’t even look over his shoulder, apparently uncaring of whether or not Adam decided to follow. Adam shivered. He followed Ronan up.
The treehouse was less than 10 feet off the ground, but the stairs were treacherous—rain-slick and hard to see in the dark. Adam’s foot slipped a couple of times on the bottom step before he found his footing and made his way up. The stairs creaked and groaned as he climbed, but if they hadn’t collapsed under Ronan he doubted they would collapse under him. He reached the top step and pulled open the door to the treehouse.
The interior was blissfully dry, and a single lantern was glowing warmly where it hung from the ceiling. Cushions were strewn across the floor on top of a colorful rug, casually artful in a way that screamed Aurora. A small overturned crate served as a table, covered with the same sorts of curiosities that littered the Barns. A vase of flowers that opened and closed, opened and closed. A swath of shimmering cloth that hurt Adam’s brain to look at too long. A mug humming Twinkle twinkle little star. Despite appearing abandoned from the outside, everything in the treehouse was in good shape. The only things that gave away how long the structure had sat empty were the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, the thick layer of dust on the windowsills. It was like a moment caught in time.
Adam gingerly settled on the floor on the other side of the room from Ronan, not that the tiny cabin granted much space between them. They lounged there, in silence, and it felt like just another night at St. Agnes. Adam fell into it immediately and felt his guard slip away. He found himself watching Ronan.
Ronan was staring out the window, watching the rain. It had slowed now to a gentle patter, comforting from the safety of their dry haven. Adam had loved the rain ever since he was a kid. He loved the smell of it, the sound of it. He loved the way it put everyone on equal footing. Rich and poor alike, running to shelter, dignity forgotten. Toddlers in rain boots, splashing through puddles with their parents in tow. Even the Aglionby boys had wet socks, and hair stuck to their foreheads on rainy days. Ronan was watching the rain with the sort of reverence Adam imagined was scrawled across his own features.
“My dad built this,” Ronan said, breaking the silence and confirming what Adam had guessed. “He stabbed himself with a nail putting the damn walls together. First time I saw him bleed.” He said it casually, and maybe a stranger wouldn’t have heard the grief laced through his words. Adam wasn’t a stranger. Ronan’s pain had lost the sharp edge it had in the year after Niall’s murder, the volatility, but it was still there. He was still grieving, but he seemed to have learned to manage the weight of it a little better. Adam didn’t know why Ronan had brought him here. He didn’t know what to say.
“When I was younger I built a birdhouse,” he started, the treehouse having dredged up a rare happy memory from his childhood. “Nothing fancy, just something I put together with scraps from around the trailer park. One of my neighbors, Mr. Clark, was a carpenter. He showed me how to hammer it together.” Later, Robert Parrish forbade Adam from talking to Mr. Clark, from learning how to create. But this memory was from before then, it was untainted. “I put it up on a fence behind the double-wide, hidden away in a little corner that was hard to find unless you were looking for it. My dad never found it, but neither did any birds,” at this, he let out an amused huff and lifted his eyes to meet Ronan’s.
Adam didn’t know when they had gotten so close together. Ronan was looking at him with a strange expression on his face, blue eyes startling. His eyebrows were pulled low, a little crease between them, and his mouth was sort of bunched up—like he was trying to figure something out. Adam wanted to kiss him. Adam had never wanted anything more than he wanted to kiss Ronan right then.
Ronan turned away. “Birds probably found it, Parrish, they just had higher standards than your shitty birdhouse.” It wasn’t said meanly, and Adam understood it for what it was—something to diffuse the tension. He took a shaky breath and tried to gather his thoughts enough to continue the conversation.
“A spider might have lived there for a while,” he wondered aloud, memories he hadn’t thought of in years trickling back into clarity. “The thing was covered in webs last time I saw it.”
“Oh, my bad, I didn’t realize a spider lived there. How impressive,” Ronan said, eyes wide in a parody of earnestness. He was smirking though, and Adam felt a spark of pride for having distracted him from his grief, for eliciting a smile. Adam was warm, although it couldn’t be much hotter in the treehouse than outdoors. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes off Ronan’s mouth.
They lapsed back into silence. Ronan was sprawled across the cushions, completely at home. Adam relaxed on the rug, surprisingly comfortable, and rested his head on a pillow, letting his eyes fall closed. He took another steadying breath. He was still tired, but everything felt too important right now to sleep. It was all so delicate, he was scared the moment would disappear if he looked away for even a second.
***
After an indeterminable amount of time in comfortable silence, listening to the rain, Ronan spoke up. “Hey Parrish, you ever seen a match burn twice?” Adam blinked his eyes open with some difficulty, having fallen into a light sleep against his will.
“Wha,” he managed around a yawn, a vision of eloquence.
“I said, have you ever seen a match burn twice.” The light of mischief was back on Ronan’s face, his mouth twisted into a familiar smirk. Adam took a moment before speaking to rub the sleep from his eyes. He ran Ronan’s words through his mind again to try to solve the puzzle, to give the right answer, but he came up blank.
“Can’t say I have.”
At this, Ronan’s smirk widened and he pulled a pack of matches out of his pocket. Adam’s first thought was that they wouldn’t light, they must be soaked. Then he remembered that if Ronan had it, it was probably dreamed, and Ronan wasn’t likely to restrict his creations with the laws of thermodynamics. The water wasn’t likely to be a problem.
“Fucking—c’mere then.” Ronan was definitely up to something, but Adam was past the point of caring. He was comfortable here, mentally and physically, and if Ronan wanted to show him something, who was Adam to stop him? Adam sat up from the wall and crawled the few feet over to Ronan, finally settling on a cushion directly across from him. He regretted the distance at once, simultaneously too close and too far from the other boy.
Ronan fought with the matchbox for a moment, struggling to open it. At least the rain had hindered it in some way, humidity swelling the box so that it was tougher to slide out. He got it open eventually and made a show of taking a match out and holding it in front of Adam’s face. He was playing the part of a magician, turning the match every which way so that Adam could see there wasn’t some sort of trick.
“Get on with it Lynch,” Adam huffed out, amused despite himself. Ronan must have caught it because he grinned and flourished the match a few more times before finally clearing his throat.
“Alright, Alright. Now just watch closely.” Ronan took a moment, seemingly building suspense, before he struck the match and its head erupted into orange flame. “Burns once,” he said through a shit-eating grin, which Adam foolishly disregarded. Ronan let the match burn for a second longer before he blew it out and immediately–before Adam had a chance to react–pressed the still-hot match to Adam’s forearm. “Burns twice,” Ronan said, smiling impossibly wider as pain, sharp and hot, reached Adam’s brain. He pulled his arm back with a gasp before dropping his jaw in shock.
“I—what the hell?” Adam was too caught off guard to form his words into proper sentences. His arm still smarted from where Ronan had burned him, and Ronan was still wearing that shit-eating grin. Adam felt himself smiling, unable to hold it back against Ronan’s contagious joy. “What the hell,” he repeated thoughtlessly, though there was no weight behind it.
“Pretty cool right?” Ronan had mirth dancing across his features, smug and proud and boyishly entertained in equal parts. He was looking at Adam, and Adam was looking at him, and Adam’s stomach was flipping, and then he was putting his hand on Ronan’s neck and pulling their lips together.
The kiss was clumsy. The angle was weird and Adam’s lip hit Ronan’s teeth. They stayed like that, smushed together strangely for a second before Adam pulled away, his eyes wide, suddenly realizing what he was doing.
“Fuck I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”
He was cut off by Ronan pulling him back in. This time, they were both ready. Their lips lined up and something in Adam clicked. This was right, this was what they should’ve been doing this whole time. Ronan pulled back for a moment, breathing deep, but Adam followed him, pressing their lips together again. He was a starving man, hungry for whatever he could get his hands on. Ronan was still sitting on the cushions and now Adam was looming over him, one hand tight to Ronan’s neck, the other holding himself up.
Adam sat back on his heels, breathing deeply, only then realizing what a compromising position they were in. He was straddling Ronan, pressing him down into the cushions of his childhood treehouse. He found he really didn’t care.
“Christ, Parrish. If I knew you were into pain I could’ve gotten into your pants months ago,” Ronan said, sprawled across the floor, propping himself up on his elbows. His shirt had ridden up a little, just baring a sliver of toned abdomen. His pupils were blown and he was breathing heavily. His mouth was red and shining, a pink flush sat high on his cheeks. It was obscene. Adam thought that if he didn’t kiss him again right then he was going to die, so he leaned back in to press their lips together.
***
They stayed like that for a while, trading kisses until they calmed down from desperate to lazy. Adam stretched out next to Ronan, and side by side they stared at the ceiling. Adam traced his fingers across Ronan’s palm, drawing ley lines and quotes and meaningless patterns. Adam was distantly aware that he should be stressed, should be panicking about what this meant, but he was too tired for that. He could only enjoy this strange new thing between them, could only let himself delight in the warmth of Ronan’s skin beneath his fingertips. He yawned.
“Should probably go,” Ronan mumbled against his temple. Adam didn’t want to go, didn’t want to move an inch unless the world was ending.
“Probably, yeah,” he said, burying his face deeper into Ronan’s neck. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this comfortable, this unburdened.
“C’mon Adam, up.” Ronan extracted himself from beneath Adam, though he did so regretfully, Adam noted with pleasure. Ronan put out a hand to help Adam up, which he took.
The rain had stopped sometime while they were in the treehouse. They meandered back to the BMW, not in any rush. It felt like time was endless out in the dark countryside. It was a sort of alternate universe, somewhere that normal rules couldn’t possibly apply.
Ronan pulled a flashlight from somewhere and used it to point out animals. The warm glow illuminated a fox who darted back into the undergrowth before Adam got a good look, a barn owl, a massive toad. They clearly weren’t magical animals, nothing like the creatures at the Barns, but there was an aspect of whimsy to them all the same. Like animals from a fairy tale.
The car stood at the edge of the field, like a relic from the past, right where they had left it. It seemed impossible that it existed, that it hadn’t been moved five feet to the right like Adam felt he had been. But there it was, unharmed, proof that this was real.
“What time is your shift tomorrow,” Ronan asked, standing close to his side, hand dancing across Adam’s skin wherever he could reach. He hadn’t let more than a couple of seconds pass without touching Adam since they had kissed. Maybe he was in as much awe as Adam was.
“Not ‘til 2, why?” It was one of Adam’s rare late starts, luckily. He would hate to have to suffer through an opening shift after such a late night.
“Barns are only a minute away, thought maybe it’d be easier for you to stay there tonight.” Ronan wasn’t making eye contact with Adam now, but there was a blush visible across his cheeks nonetheless.
“Yeah, okay,” Adam replied, not letting himself think too hard about it. Ronan finally looked up, making eye contact, and he grinned. Adam grinned back and he thought he might go crazy from the joy of it.
They climbed into the BMW. Ronan turned on his pounding electronica and they argued over music for most of the ride. The Earth kept turning, time went on. Adam was on a cloud, euphoric and disbelieving and high on remembering what Ronan tasted like. Ronan pulled into the driveway at the Barns.
Acres of magical Virginia dreamland stretched before them. A cool mist hung over the sprawling grounds and the crickets were playing Clare de Lune. Lightning bugs floated like motes of dust lit up by the sun, bringing the whole scene together. Adam had the strange urge to cry, to cope with this whole impossible, wonderful night. To cope with this wonderful, impossible boy beside him.
“I’m not carrying you in Parrish. Better put those legs to work.”
They walked in together, heading directly to Ronan’s room. Adam had been here enough to know his way around. Days spent with Ronan at the Barns had always felt like they were tiptoeing around something, like they were expecting something to happen. It all made a little more sense now.
Once in his room, Ronan shucked his shirt off and rummaged through the drawers for a dry one. He found one and tossed another over to Adam wordlessly. Adam put it on without argument, glad to be in dry clothes, glad to be in Ronan’s clothes. They stripped to their boxers together, and Adam took one appreciative look at Ronan’s ass before he carefully kept his eyes above Ronan’s waist. They were too tired to do anything, but there was no harm in looking. He caught Ronan doing the same thing anyway, so he didn’t feel too bad about it.
Once they had both crawled into bed, once they had mumbled sweet words to one another and Ronan had turned on the soft star lights on his ceiling, once Ronan’s breathing had steadied out and he began to let out little peaceful snores, Adam laid on his back and looked out the window at the stars. The storm had blown over miraculously fast, and Adam didn’t know many constellations but he could make out the big dipper.
He let the events of that night sink in and tried to come to terms with the fact that he was lying in bed with a boy. Not just a boy, but Ronan Lynch. He felt like he should be more surprised, like he should be struggling to determine how this had happened. Instead, everything seemed right. Yes, of course he wanted to kiss Ronan Lynch, and yes of course Ronan wanted to kiss him back. This seemed to have been what their relationship was working towards the whole time, the inevitable culmination of their fights and insults and too-long stares.
Ronan rolled over in his sleep so he was pressed against Adam’s side, his arm draped over Adam’s chest. Adam yawned and pulled
Ronan’s impossibly soft duvet up to his chin. He closed his eyes and, for the first time in 18 years, Adam Parrish drifted off to sleep without a single worry on his mind.