[ Winter Wonderland meets World War Insomnia, and it's down to the clean-up crew to bury the casualties. The Barns never vindicated Ronan's childhood nostalgia and revived to overnight stardom on the Southern socialite real estate catalogue — there are roof tiles to right, fences to fix, random but disturbing patches of land to flatten. Cows to herd before they wizen up and form a union. Filth that's been reproducing at the rate of the average rabbit colony in explicit health. It all capitalizes on time Ronan's got in spades and energy he's decided in his infinite wisdom to dedicate to birthing twenty-one new breeds of fennel in the upcoming 2.0 edition of the new, improved, but delayed Cabeswater. It's all going according to someone's plan —
Until Declan learns the nitty, gritty and inevitable, and it's a battle of logistics that Ronan never wanted to fight against the world, and yet here he is, applying for permits, registering property, falling in line with a lawyer who's determined to make the property market their personal innuendo slave, minus the actual fornication. We need to protect this place, except for the part where Declan, urban knight in a cheque-stitched shining armor, hasn't bled a single God damned tear throughout this ordeal. It's been Ronan, finding or... generating the papers, Ronan accepting the suited invasion of surveyors and city folks, Ronan exiling the livestock to corners of the farm and the known universe that didn't exist until ten minutes ago, to accommodate inspections.
...and it's Ronan who breaks, one fine powder-wintered morning, when the snow's thin haze and the cold cloys down corridors where pipes groan out of retirement and into the stupor of slow, heat-swelling service. He wakes to anger, gashes on his legs, Chainsaw spread above him like every tyrant claiming her land — and at the feet of his bed, coating the carpets, down the fine-scratched wood of his mother's stairs, a spread of fellow ravens: smaller, if dreamed awake in adult form. Sullen, though never silent, searching the grounds, until Opal's screams force Ronan to dare the legions with the baseball bat he's risen in the ranks to standard bedside protection.
They let themselves be steered out easily enough, but plant themselves like a dark woodland in his back yard, litterer points of contrast in token snow and sharp, teeth-stripping cold. Chainsaw corrals them and flies warning circles, whenever she thinks they've come too close to entering the home that's already lost their interest. Opal declares a tacit protest. Ronan... opts for caffeine and codeine, the winning breakfast combination against the migraine he's waged upon the world, and the one roiling in his head.
It's only fitting, really, that it's a rare Saturday when Adam's due in by three, after his morning shift. Spend some quality time together, grab the books and go. It's them, the bleeding cold, winged killers and Ronan's ongoing hatred of humanity and its derelict, nightmare-born spawn. Romantic.
He thinks, if he were a better boyfriend — one adept to ticking at least three boxes down a standard checklist's line — he'd warn Adam ahead of his arrival. Let him determine on his own if fighting Ronan, his bed and his unearthly critters is the best use of the handful of spare hours Adam would sooner not spend comatose in restitution of his interminable sleep debt.
But there's selfishness that's poisoned the well of Ronan's soul for months now, a quiet need to accorporate and keep and call his own. What Adam doesn't know until he's on the patio, Ronan already out with his friend, the sturdy bat, to greet him — can't hurt him. The murder of ravens has strategically decided to follow Chainsaw in investigating the back, before Ronan could contemplate his own thoughts on bird culling.
He waves Adam close, as soon as he's in line, thick rows of melting snow on the t-shirt and choice ripped jeans he's dragged on enough to indicate, ah. Perhaps he's been playing welcome committee for some time now. Eager. ]
Don't freak, but hooligans raided the Barbie house. [ And because they're at the point in this thing they're studiously not upgrading to a relationship that transparency gets some boys hot under their collars: ] Wasn't the usual suspects.
[Exhaustion weighs down Adam Parrish's bones as heavy as his skin, and today is no exception to that rule. Adam has never been a Thank-God-It's-Friday kind of guy-- due to working weekends and then filling up any free time his has with homework and studying-- weekends are just as much Adam's enemy as weekdays, and this Saturday had already tried him.
It's only a little bit of snow, but the snow is a product of the cold, and Adam's piece of shit car responds negatively any time the weather is colder than "Viriginia Summer," so there he was, knuckles turning red from the cold, 6 AM, running late because his starter just wouldn't catch.
When he did finally make it to the factory, it was ten minutes after the start of his shift and, though Adam was fairly punctual most days, he could feel his boss's disappointment, and his ears burned in shame. And so, to make up for it, he had skipped his lunch.
He told himself he'd eat before he went to the Barns, but then he didn't, and so he told himself he'd eat at the Barns, and he would eat before he attacked one Ronan Lynch with his mouth. A promise to himself.
And so, as Adam slams the door to his car and heads up the steps, his stomach is aching, and his eyes are tired, and his hands are cold as hell.
Ronan's words don't make sense to him at first, and he blinks once, twice, thrice.] Hooligans...?
[And then, all at once, he takes in the bat in Ronan's hands, and the screeches of birds that don't quite sound like Chainsaw, and the pieces start melding together. His stomach throbs.] How can I help?
[ It's an art, figuring out your boyfriend's needs when he's crested like storming waters from the safe haven of "disgusted with the world at large" to the narrowed tunnel vision of "disgusted with himself in the world's sphere, specifically."
Adam looks like what half of Henrietta is: a mess, rendered hot exclusively by Ronan's fondness and the statistic reality that, come what may, he's still sharing his bed with the 1% of the deadbeat, in-bred Virginian population. He's worn down to every bone Robert Parrish has tried to beat out of him, pulverized. Barely hanging.
And here's Ronan, with his bat and his mad following of turbulent ravens, peering their heads out like mad smears of trembled ink, before he waves at them — man and log and ancestral, cave instinct — and they retreat, with enough intelligence and elegance and instinct to understand, ah, Tarzan should be allowed to greet Jane first. He does, grin a wretched, knife-carved thing, glistened with the magic of the snow below.
There are constants in this world: first, the threadbare quality of Adam's clothes, largely depleted of any residual warmth they might have conspired to, in a kinder world. Then, Ronan's his own furnace, mad boy and frequent meals, and growing pains stoked by the sheer energy that rides his limbs, treacling.
He reaches long before he's asked, grasps both of Adam's hands in one of his own, brings them up for the token transaction of a kiss scattered over knuckles trodden by calluses — then eases the ice plates, his boyfriend's fingertips, against the warm stretch of his belly, under sweatshirt and tee, with animal compassion and the husk of an inevitable shiver. ]
Glare'em down, Parrish. Give them hell.
[ If anyone can reduce a living being to dust and withered shapes, it's Adam 'God damn you for moving when he means to sleep' Parrish. ]
Come inside, first. I've got it on good authority we've already discovered fire there.
[The thing about being touch-starved due to an abusive father and a negligent mother is that any simple act of contact feels unGodly intimate. So when Ronan’s warm stomach meets Adam’s icy fingertips, he suppresses a shiver could take over his entire body if left unchecked.]
I like the sound of fire. [His voice comes out weak, slightly hoarse, and he damns that skin under his fingers. It’s all Ronan’s fault. His presence has such an effect on Adam. Stronger than Blue Sargent’s effect on him months ago— his connection to Ronan is bigger than himself.
His fingers move against Ronan’s skin, index moving in small circles, and he moves down, fingers curling into the waistline of Ronan’s pants. He maneuvers himself around Ronan, tugs on that denim.] You can explain what kind of trouble your unconscious got us into while I rummage through your empty cabinets.
[ Us not you, because they’re a unit. Ronan’s hardships can easily be Adam’s, and Adam hopes that he feels the same.
He opens the screen door and presses inside, tugging on Ronan again to get him to follow. His feet carry him through the now-familiar home and to the kitchen, where his hold on Ronan finally relinquishes in favor of opening the fridge.]
[ The entrapment of Adam Parrish: a play in seven acts, alternating between soulful dedications to cats and mice and back again. Like any good squad, they infiltrate the home without alerting the sleeping enemy (Opal) of their presence and negotiate a slow, valiant journey to the great kitchen unknowns.
Warmth wafts around them, sickly. He lets the heaters scream out their metallic joy until there's a lick of comfort riding up the ice path where Adam's fingers crossed his belly earlier, demure. Until he looks at Adam's hands, straddling the counters and fridge surface, and sees something resembling human flesh and not frozen extensions.
Now, he supposes, would be a good time to remind Adam about the benefits of a decently well supplied pantry. Observe, from Ronan Lynch's dexterous hands, unto the world, delivered in two sheepish treks to and fro crowded shelves: Kraft mac. A virtual mountain of obscenely overpriced cheese, to complement it. And a wild, likely hazardous burden of spices.
Behold, too: a pot, dangling and respectably clean.
Lo, he is a provider, and his duties have been met. ]
How about you get cookin', good-lookin', and I spare you the theatrics til you no longer look likely to swoon all over me? [ A beat. ] At least fall on my dick, for fuck's sake.
[ He's not... deflecting. That's for lesser men, none named Lynch. But there's no harm in biding time and coming up with a solution to his tenebrous, long-winged problem, before he serves Adam yet another reminder of why going in for the Lynch long-haul is an eternally losing bet. ]
[Water fills the pot, and the stove clicks on, and Adam waits for the water to boil with his back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.
He's taking in Ronan, his body language and the expression on his face, and he's trying to figure him out. Trying to read what's going on in that mind of his-- that quick witted, tortured brain that Adam always feels like he's close to cracking but never quite.]
I'm not swooning. [But he kind of is. And damn Ronan for catching it. Asshole.
And the bubbles start in the water, little things at the bottom of the pot and Adam Parrish is not a man of patience. He does not wait for those bubbles to reach the top, just dumps the pasta in. He looks around for a spoon to mix it, ultimately opening a drawer and fishing one out. Nice.
With his free hand, he grasps for Ronan. His fingers twine with his boyfriend's. Chaste, or whatever.] There's no point in holding off. Just tell me, Lynch. [Last names. Because first names are too lovey-dovey.]
[ They're captive to each other for a moment, stars reconfiguring their gravity pulls: adrift, Ronan rubs the hard warmth of his thumb over the cautious spread of Adam's palm in soothing, carefree circles. Digs his nail in. Closes his palm.
And he breathes, letting time course and the heat of the boiling pot exude in coalescing wafts. Breathes, and lets the first, unrecognized shock of the morning disperse from his body, lets himself feel alive and well and a survivor of the moment, of the fresh invasion in his home.
He releases Adam first, nodding for his grudging but notably present and curious boyfriend to mind the dutiful task of assembling his lunch. ]
I woke up to them. [ No. That's not what Adam wants to hear, a doctor never fully satisfied with the dissection of Ronan's most private truths. ] I don't remember how. I didn't hit the sack angry. There was no trauma.
[ And the shrug that leaves him dissolves the lines of his back, renders him a puddle of waiting, untrained muscle and sinew. ]
Shit just happened. And now they're squatting out back. Hungry. And loud. And kind of mean, man.
[ Cabeswater, taking this particular moment to dart into the kitchen through the nearest open passageway, gives an approving croak, before nuzzling her beak against Adam's back with what can only be styled Lynch sentimentality. ]
[It's the simplicity of being welcomed by things from Ronan's mind that makes him swell. He turns, slightly, strokes the feathers near Chainsaw's beak, and turns to grab the strainer from the cabinet.
He takes a moment to drain the water, turning Ronan's words over in his mind. Looking for an explanation for these winged invaders.] Stressed.
[It's half a question, half a statement. Ronan has a lot on his plate even without having to worry about finishing school. All this land to take care of, Declan breathing down his neck and daring him to step an inch out of line... It would be stressful for anyone, but this is Ronan Lynch. Ronan Lynch who hummed with magic and other-ness and whose stress could release chaos onto the world as they know it.
Or just chaos onto this house, as it were.
And so Adam attempts to find a solution, as he so often does.]
Do you have anything we could feed them? Since they're hungry. Maybe we could lure them away. [Pied Pipers of the modern age. Though they'd have to stay within the property line. Regardless. It was an idea.
He finishes making his lunch, spoons some into a bowl. God, he really is starving. His stomach growls as he spears a macaroni noodle with his fork.]
[ Is there food to feed the beasts, Adam asks, and it takes all of Ronan's gradually depleting patience to stare with baleful thoughtfulness at the [1] boyfriend unit before him and blink, and blink, and whistle Chainsaw close. ]
The cement in your plate's looking pretty solid.
[ As things that pass for agglomerations of nutrients go, the 'mac' and its 'cheese' are dubious but worthwhile candidates on the list of pastes the average raven might deign to stomach once, then never again.
Even Ronan grudgingly decrees he is above that plastic, nodding thoughtfully at Adam with the sad understanding that, yes, he's into this man, despite his supernatural abilities to digest the loathsome and the profane. God help them both. ]
Eat your poison. I'll lure them out with your dead body. Win-win.
[ Jokes never resolve any situation, and even Chainsaw's giving him the one, sharp, crystalline eye to retaliate against the Lynch humor — but he can't help himself. Levity, magic, the works. Straddling one of the chairs, arms braced before him over its back, he lets his eyes ease shut, depth of his frown gaining vigour. ]
Shit's never going to go away, is it? This, or the next one.
[It's in this moment that Adam feels a burst of adoration for Ronan, and is reminded that he's just a kid. They're both just kids, and they're both bigger than themselves and each other.
He stands against the counter and eats his "poison", hates how nice and warm it feels in his empty stomach, and doesn't offer any to his boyfriend because 1) hunger and B) he would just make some snide comment if Adam had.]
Shit's never going to go away. [His way of affirming Ronan's suspicion. This is their normal-- Ronan's for being born a dreamer, and Adam's for stepping into that pentagram and offering himself as a sacrifice. He can still feel the thrum of the ley line under his feet.
And for this, there's no solution Adam can find.]
Hopefully next time it won't be such a mess.
[He pushes himself forward, taps his shoe against Ronan's foot.]
[ Next time. Because there will be one, and adulthood welcomed Ronan Lynch with the punch of death, decay and a ruthlessly perverse inheritance — along with the rare, but choice reminder that sharing is caring, and the universe is just making sure the cartoon-comedy bad luck makes the rounds.
They'll be here again, in a few months' time, if they're fortunate. Weeks, if not. Over a bad stretch, like the sunset days of November — days.
There's a moment, Adam reaching, when he wants to flinch — to deny his boyfriend their candid little underground reunion, leg flinching, for nothing but the private pleasure of seeing someone else suffer beside him. He fights his inner son of a bitch. In a moment of superheroic climax, wins. And then he's tangling their feet at the angle, delicately tugging Adam in, warmth of his limb spearing an indelible, prickling print on Ronan's calf. ]
We'll get'em with the hose.
[ Water, chaps, a symphony of angered birds. It would be theatrical, if Ronan weren't convinced someone might lose an eye for it. ]
And you'll God damned cuddle on the couch after. [ As if Adam were a long-suffering saint, once more exposed to the torture of his boyfriend's misplaced PG affections. ] And use that valedictorian brain to think up some... I don't know. Wards or blood spells or OUT WITH THE HEATHENS signs, or something.
[The bowl of slop masquerading as food hits the counter as he’s caught by Ronan and pulled in. Fingers stroke Ronan’s cheeks, move up and ghost over his buzzed head. He leans down and presses his lips against his boyfriend forehead, and Adam hopes he doesn’t comment on the sweetness of it. The gentleness. But he also hopes that his feelings for Ronan are conveyed in the gesture. An “I love you” without the words. Because he’s not ready for the words yet, doesn’t know if he’s ever said them to anyone.]
So violent. [The hose in the winter. Dear God, those poor dream creatures.] It’s a good plan.
Blood spells might be out a my wheelhouse, though. [A joke. A smile tugs at the corner of Adam’s mouth to show it.
He moves off of Ronan, holds out his hand, palm up. They should get to work. It’s already late afternoon, and the sun will be going down soon. The one thing worse than playing with water in the winter is playing with water in the winter at night. ] Let’s do this.
[ He leans into Adam like every flower rediscovering spring sun — hesitantly at first, learning to trust the motions. Weary, but steadfast. Strong.
I love you in cuts and bruises. In the cantankerous, coarse texture of Adam's dried lips. Drink more water, but then, Sleep and Eat and Don't topple over exhausted, and the rest of all that finery.
Adam has a lifetime of feel-good advice to implement. Ronan isn't changing his life today. He's moving instead — darting up, to seize Adam's hand by the wrist, because they've had too much softness for the past two minutes, and it's time for Ronan to remind his boyfriend why he's always destined for the bad end of a particularly terrible romantic deal. Getting dragged along for the ride comes with the Lynch territory.
( So, maybe he wants to touch his boyfriend a little longer, while they cruise between kitchen and corridor and the back door. Sue him.) ]
You realize I could just make you do it and abandon you. Every man for himself.
[ There are more sheds spread across the Barns landscape than Ronan cares to name or count. Better hope that hose made it into one of the first dozen.
Then, as if he only now remembers, softening with a parting glance: ]
[Leave him. Abandon him. Not now, with the hose, and not ever. They’re stuck together. A team. An item. And then Ronan’s next sentence makes it’s way to him and it’s a brief minute of confusion.
Cover his... ear? Adam wonders what Ronan what Ronan could possibly do to make a noise loud enough to hurt his ears, but he doesn’t question out loud, just does as he’s told.
A flash of a memory from years ago— or perhaps it is several memories combined- Adam, young, sitting against the wall of his bedroom with his knees pulled up to his chest, hands over his ears to drown out the sounds of Robert Parrish’s raised voice. Now, here in a safe space, his hands cover both hearing and unhearing ear; instinct, muscle memory, whatever you want to call it. Hands guised as earmuffs, he glances over at Ronan for him to do whatever comes next.
Lead the way, Captain, his eyes say, a glint of excitement behind the exhaustion. There’s always something exciting about dealing with anything magic. It calls to Adam even without Cabeswater to guide him.]
[ Good instinct, listening to the consummate hooligan, one's inescapable boyfriend: it's not that the ravens are attracted to soft roundness protruding from their skulls, but there's an overt vulnerability to ears that seems determined to absorb the lion's share of their undivided attention. They fly right by Ronan's, nipping or simply prodding, never quite drawing blood — and he's damn well aware that minor physical inconveniences for the able-bodied are criminal injustices for a boy who's already one ear bereft. No need to deepen his discomfort.
Then again, they're both men — and one treacherous bird, bee-lining behind them — on a mission, and Ronan mimes as much as he leads the way out back, where an intrepid investigation of several barns in a handy line-up reveals a colony of spiders, two heavily deformed potted plants, something not unlike a palm-shaped microcosmos Ronan supposes he may have dreamed up on Matthew's footsteps...
...and a hose, mangy but long, still bound to something likened to a water source. It'll do. It'll do handsomely, and Ronan weighs it in earnest consideration in one hand, before nodding outside, where the horde awaits and speaking slowly enough for Adam to understand it's safe to briefly lower his hands now: ]
[His hands lower and he looks at Ronan with level eyes. The cold had bitten through his threadbare jacket on their barn excursion, taking away any of the substantial warmth he had gained inside the farmhouse. He blows out a breath— just an exhale, but he’s aware it might sound like a sigh.
And Ronan’s words sound like a challenge. Parrish, are you hard enough to blast these fuckin’ dream birds? Adam is hard enough. Adam once stared their Latin teacher down, gun held in front of him, preventing him from running from his just death.
His hand closes around the hose.] I got it. Turn the water on?
[ Hell hath no fury like a redneck scorned. It's not that Ronan fears the mean cut of his boyfriend, now and then, so much as he's come to accept certain worldly inevitabilities: roses are red, violets come blue. Adam might fit the poster boy image of a serial killer wholesomely intent of ridding the world of every last nuisance, when he dons his college interview suits and his steel look, but he's soft and cuddly inside.
Deep down. Somewhere. In depths unseen, but suspected.
He gives his order, and who's Ronan to ignore it? With a careful nod, he waits for the ravens to righteously assemble, before one wrist bend unleashes true menace by way of a hungering water jet. To his credit, he didn't dream his flock stupid: they disperse before there's casualty, and maybe (just maybe) Ronan takes personal pride in the last protesting caw, before he elbows Adam like every dutiful accomplice and nods ahead: ]
Adam Ravenslayer. Come on. It's got a ring to it.
[ But the enemy hasn't been completely driven back, and there's no time like the present to be proactive. ]
Want to do the rounds, Parrish?
[ Kick'em while they're down. ]
I am so sorry this took so long!! It's been a rough couple of weeks
[It's a bit exhilarating; the stream of water blasting out if the nozzle, watching the dream creatures fly quickly away. A smile tugs at the corner of Adam's mouth as he aims his weapon and the raven's scream.
There are days when Adam Parrish pretends to be perfect, pretends to belong at Aglionby, pretends to be someone like Richard Campbell Gansey III, and then there are days like this. Days where Adam find a bit of joy in chaos.
It probably has something to do with the man next to him. And it probably has something to do with his upbringing. A deadly combination.
Adam Ravenslayer... the name makes him laugh, makes his smile grow, makes him want to grab Ronan by the collar and pull him in for a kiss so hot it would melt the snow around them.]
Yeah. [He doesn't know what Ronan means by "the rounds," if they're just going to force the birds back further or what, but he'll follow Ronan anywhere at this point.]
Let's hurry up, though. It's fuckin' freezing. [A dropped 'g'; his accent slips through the cracks as his teeth chatter together. Cold seeps in as they stand still.]
[ The trouble (inevitable) with owning so much land is that now and then, Ronan's condemned to walk it — and here's Adam, trailing after him, a grudging but benevolent acolyte, dragging the hose along like an impudent instrument to their crime.
They face off ravens at every turn, smudges and battalions of them, receding before the first nips of water as if they're the devil himself, expelled. Ronan wants to say, You assholes had it coming. Knows they get it, even without the pronouncement.
And then there's Adam, with him, faithful knight in shining armor, waving the hose around like Excalibur, in glory. Ronan concedes him the honor of exterminating their winged threat, neither feather nor beak of them left by the time he's done.
Then, carefully, one arm fastened around his boyfriend's shoulders: ]
[He melts into the touch, the weight of Ronan's arm around his shoulders. The hose, turned off now that the last raven has left their vicinity, hangs limp in his hand.
"You're my hero," Ronan says, and Adam snorts, rubs his cheek against the scratch of Ronan's shirt.]
Come on, Lynch. [Adam's arm winds around Ronan's waist, his fingers dropping the hose to the ground as they move back towards the farmhouse, where central heating lives. And, if Adam recalls, Ronan had promised cuddling. Or something.
They walk, and Adam's mind wanders as they move. Sometimes, Ronan's dreaming was a nuisance; an inconvenience. But at least he had...something. Ronan still had that other worldly, magical something to hold on to.
What did Adam have without Cabeswater? He was still trying to figure that out. His fingers itched for his cards.
They make it back to Ronan's childhood home still wrapped in each other, though it made walking quickly hard. But Adam didn't want to let go: he goes through moods of pulling away from any physical affection to wanting to be in constant contact.
He kicks his shoes off as they enter, and sighs.]
Issue solved. Crisis averted. Another victory for team Parrish-Lynch.
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no subject
Until Declan learns the nitty, gritty and inevitable, and it's a battle of logistics that Ronan never wanted to fight against the world, and yet here he is, applying for permits, registering property, falling in line with a lawyer who's determined to make the property market their personal innuendo slave, minus the actual fornication.
We need to protect this place, except for the part where Declan, urban knight in a cheque-stitched shining armor, hasn't bled a single God damned tear throughout this ordeal. It's been Ronan, finding or... generating the papers, Ronan accepting the suited invasion of surveyors and city folks, Ronan exiling the livestock to corners of the farm and the known universe that didn't exist until ten minutes ago, to accommodate inspections.
...and it's Ronan who breaks, one fine powder-wintered morning, when the snow's thin haze and the cold cloys down corridors where pipes groan out of retirement and into the stupor of slow, heat-swelling service. He wakes to anger, gashes on his legs, Chainsaw spread above him like every tyrant claiming her land — and at the feet of his bed, coating the carpets, down the fine-scratched wood of his mother's stairs, a spread of fellow ravens: smaller, if dreamed awake in adult form. Sullen, though never silent, searching the grounds, until Opal's screams force Ronan to dare the legions with the baseball bat he's risen in the ranks to standard bedside protection.
They let themselves be steered out easily enough, but plant themselves like a dark woodland in his back yard, litterer points of contrast in token snow and sharp, teeth-stripping cold. Chainsaw corrals them and flies warning circles, whenever she thinks they've come too close to entering the home that's already lost their interest. Opal declares a tacit protest. Ronan... opts for caffeine and codeine, the winning breakfast combination against the migraine he's waged upon the world, and the one roiling in his head.
It's only fitting, really, that it's a rare Saturday when Adam's due in by three, after his morning shift. Spend some quality time together, grab the books and go. It's them, the bleeding cold, winged killers and Ronan's ongoing hatred of humanity and its derelict, nightmare-born spawn. Romantic.
He thinks, if he were a better boyfriend — one adept to ticking at least three boxes down a standard checklist's line — he'd warn Adam ahead of his arrival. Let him determine on his own if fighting Ronan, his bed and his unearthly critters is the best use of the handful of spare hours Adam would sooner not spend comatose in restitution of his interminable sleep debt.
But there's selfishness that's poisoned the well of Ronan's soul for months now, a quiet need to accorporate and keep and call his own. What Adam doesn't know until he's on the patio, Ronan already out with his friend, the sturdy bat, to greet him — can't hurt him. The murder of ravens has strategically decided to follow Chainsaw in investigating the back, before Ronan could contemplate his own thoughts on bird culling.
He waves Adam close, as soon as he's in line, thick rows of melting snow on the t-shirt and choice ripped jeans he's dragged on enough to indicate, ah. Perhaps he's been playing welcome committee for some time now. Eager. ]
Don't freak, but hooligans raided the Barbie house. [ And because they're at the point in this thing they're studiously not upgrading to a relationship that transparency gets some boys hot under their collars: ] Wasn't the usual suspects.
no subject
It's only a little bit of snow, but the snow is a product of the cold, and Adam's piece of shit car responds negatively any time the weather is colder than "Viriginia Summer," so there he was, knuckles turning red from the cold, 6 AM, running late because his starter just wouldn't catch.
When he did finally make it to the factory, it was ten minutes after the start of his shift and, though Adam was fairly punctual most days, he could feel his boss's disappointment, and his ears burned in shame. And so, to make up for it, he had skipped his lunch.
He told himself he'd eat before he went to the Barns, but then he didn't, and so he told himself he'd eat at the Barns, and he would eat before he attacked one Ronan Lynch with his mouth. A promise to himself.
And so, as Adam slams the door to his car and heads up the steps, his stomach is aching, and his eyes are tired, and his hands are cold as hell.
Ronan's words don't make sense to him at first, and he blinks once, twice, thrice.] Hooligans...?
[And then, all at once, he takes in the bat in Ronan's hands, and the screeches of birds that don't quite sound like Chainsaw, and the pieces start melding together. His stomach throbs.] How can I help?
no subject
Adam looks like what half of Henrietta is: a mess, rendered hot exclusively by Ronan's fondness and the statistic reality that, come what may, he's still sharing his bed with the 1% of the deadbeat, in-bred Virginian population. He's worn down to every bone Robert Parrish has tried to beat out of him, pulverized. Barely hanging.
And here's Ronan, with his bat and his mad following of turbulent ravens, peering their heads out like mad smears of trembled ink, before he waves at them — man and log and ancestral, cave instinct — and they retreat, with enough intelligence and elegance and instinct to understand, ah, Tarzan should be allowed to greet Jane first. He does, grin a wretched, knife-carved thing, glistened with the magic of the snow below.
There are constants in this world: first, the threadbare quality of Adam's clothes, largely depleted of any residual warmth they might have conspired to, in a kinder world. Then, Ronan's his own furnace, mad boy and frequent meals, and growing pains stoked by the sheer energy that rides his limbs, treacling.
He reaches long before he's asked, grasps both of Adam's hands in one of his own, brings them up for the token transaction of a kiss scattered over knuckles trodden by calluses — then eases the ice plates, his boyfriend's fingertips, against the warm stretch of his belly, under sweatshirt and tee, with animal compassion and the husk of an inevitable shiver. ]
Glare'em down, Parrish. Give them hell.
[ If anyone can reduce a living being to dust and withered shapes, it's Adam 'God damn you for moving when he means to sleep' Parrish. ]
Come inside, first. I've got it on good authority we've already discovered fire there.
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I like the sound of fire. [His voice comes out weak, slightly hoarse, and he damns that skin under his fingers. It’s all Ronan’s fault. His presence has such an effect on Adam. Stronger than Blue Sargent’s effect on him months ago— his connection to Ronan is bigger than himself.
His fingers move against Ronan’s skin, index moving in small circles, and he moves down, fingers curling into the waistline of Ronan’s pants. He maneuvers himself around Ronan, tugs on that denim.] You can explain what kind of trouble your unconscious got us into while I rummage through your empty cabinets.
[ Us not you, because they’re a unit. Ronan’s hardships can easily be Adam’s, and Adam hopes that he feels the same.
He opens the screen door and presses inside, tugging on Ronan again to get him to follow. His feet carry him through the now-familiar home and to the kitchen, where his hold on Ronan finally relinquishes in favor of opening the fridge.]
Let’s hear it.
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Warmth wafts around them, sickly. He lets the heaters scream out their metallic joy until there's a lick of comfort riding up the ice path where Adam's fingers crossed his belly earlier, demure. Until he looks at Adam's hands, straddling the counters and fridge surface, and sees something resembling human flesh and not frozen extensions.
Now, he supposes, would be a good time to remind Adam about the benefits of a decently well supplied pantry. Observe, from Ronan Lynch's dexterous hands, unto the world, delivered in two sheepish treks to and fro crowded shelves: Kraft mac. A virtual mountain of obscenely overpriced cheese, to complement it. And a wild, likely hazardous burden of spices.
Behold, too: a pot, dangling and respectably clean.
Lo, he is a provider, and his duties have been met. ]
How about you get cookin', good-lookin', and I spare you the theatrics til you no longer look likely to swoon all over me? [ A beat. ] At least fall on my dick, for fuck's sake.
[ He's not... deflecting. That's for lesser men, none named Lynch. But there's no harm in biding time and coming up with a solution to his tenebrous, long-winged problem, before he serves Adam yet another reminder of why going in for the Lynch long-haul is an eternally losing bet. ]
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He's taking in Ronan, his body language and the expression on his face, and he's trying to figure him out. Trying to read what's going on in that mind of his-- that quick witted, tortured brain that Adam always feels like he's close to cracking but never quite.]
I'm not swooning. [But he kind of is. And damn Ronan for catching it. Asshole.
And the bubbles start in the water, little things at the bottom of the pot and Adam Parrish is not a man of patience. He does not wait for those bubbles to reach the top, just dumps the pasta in. He looks around for a spoon to mix it, ultimately opening a drawer and fishing one out. Nice.
With his free hand, he grasps for Ronan. His fingers twine with his boyfriend's. Chaste, or whatever.] There's no point in holding off. Just tell me, Lynch. [Last names. Because first names are too lovey-dovey.]
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And he breathes, letting time course and the heat of the boiling pot exude in coalescing wafts. Breathes, and lets the first, unrecognized shock of the morning disperse from his body, lets himself feel alive and well and a survivor of the moment, of the fresh invasion in his home.
He releases Adam first, nodding for his grudging but notably present and curious boyfriend to mind the dutiful task of assembling his lunch. ]
I woke up to them. [ No. That's not what Adam wants to hear, a doctor never fully satisfied with the dissection of Ronan's most private truths. ] I don't remember how. I didn't hit the sack angry. There was no trauma.
[ And the shrug that leaves him dissolves the lines of his back, renders him a puddle of waiting, untrained muscle and sinew. ]
Shit just happened. And now they're squatting out back. Hungry. And loud. And kind of mean, man.
[ Cabeswater, taking this particular moment to dart into the kitchen through the nearest open passageway, gives an approving croak, before nuzzling her beak against Adam's back with what can only be styled Lynch sentimentality. ]
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He takes a moment to drain the water, turning Ronan's words over in his mind. Looking for an explanation for these winged invaders.] Stressed.
[It's half a question, half a statement. Ronan has a lot on his plate even without having to worry about finishing school. All this land to take care of, Declan breathing down his neck and daring him to step an inch out of line... It would be stressful for anyone, but this is Ronan Lynch. Ronan Lynch who hummed with magic and other-ness and whose stress could release chaos onto the world as they know it.
Or just chaos onto this house, as it were.
And so Adam attempts to find a solution, as he so often does.]
Do you have anything we could feed them? Since they're hungry. Maybe we could lure them away. [Pied Pipers of the modern age. Though they'd have to stay within the property line. Regardless. It was an idea.
He finishes making his lunch, spoons some into a bowl. God, he really is starving. His stomach growls as he spears a macaroni noodle with his fork.]
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The cement in your plate's looking pretty solid.
[ As things that pass for agglomerations of nutrients go, the 'mac' and its 'cheese' are dubious but worthwhile candidates on the list of pastes the average raven might deign to stomach once, then never again.
Even Ronan grudgingly decrees he is above that plastic, nodding thoughtfully at Adam with the sad understanding that, yes, he's into this man, despite his supernatural abilities to digest the loathsome and the profane. God help them both. ]
Eat your poison. I'll lure them out with your dead body. Win-win.
[ Jokes never resolve any situation, and even Chainsaw's giving him the one, sharp, crystalline eye to retaliate against the Lynch humor — but he can't help himself. Levity, magic, the works. Straddling one of the chairs, arms braced before him over its back, he lets his eyes ease shut, depth of his frown gaining vigour. ]
Shit's never going to go away, is it? This, or the next one.
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He stands against the counter and eats his "poison", hates how nice and warm it feels in his empty stomach, and doesn't offer any to his boyfriend because 1) hunger and B) he would just make some snide comment if Adam had.]
Shit's never going to go away. [His way of affirming Ronan's suspicion. This is their normal-- Ronan's for being born a dreamer, and Adam's for stepping into that pentagram and offering himself as a sacrifice. He can still feel the thrum of the ley line under his feet.
And for this, there's no solution Adam can find.]
Hopefully next time it won't be such a mess.
[He pushes himself forward, taps his shoe against Ronan's foot.]
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They'll be here again, in a few months' time, if they're fortunate. Weeks, if not. Over a bad stretch, like the sunset days of November — days.
There's a moment, Adam reaching, when he wants to flinch — to deny his boyfriend their candid little underground reunion, leg flinching, for nothing but the private pleasure of seeing someone else suffer beside him. He fights his inner son of a bitch. In a moment of superheroic climax, wins. And then he's tangling their feet at the angle, delicately tugging Adam in, warmth of his limb spearing an indelible, prickling print on Ronan's calf. ]
We'll get'em with the hose.
[ Water, chaps, a symphony of angered birds. It would be theatrical, if Ronan weren't convinced someone might lose an eye for it. ]
And you'll God damned cuddle on the couch after. [ As if Adam were a long-suffering saint, once more exposed to the torture of his boyfriend's misplaced PG affections. ] And use that valedictorian brain to think up some... I don't know. Wards or blood spells or OUT WITH THE HEATHENS signs, or something.
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So violent. [The hose in the winter. Dear God, those poor dream creatures.] It’s a good plan.
Blood spells might be out a my wheelhouse, though. [A joke. A smile tugs at the corner of Adam’s mouth to show it.
He moves off of Ronan, holds out his hand, palm up. They should get to work. It’s already late afternoon, and the sun will be going down soon. The one thing worse than playing with water in the winter is playing with water in the winter at night. ] Let’s do this.
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I love you in cuts and bruises. In the cantankerous, coarse texture of Adam's dried lips. Drink more water, but then, Sleep and Eat and Don't topple over exhausted, and the rest of all that finery.
Adam has a lifetime of feel-good advice to implement. Ronan isn't changing his life today. He's moving instead — darting up, to seize Adam's hand by the wrist, because they've had too much softness for the past two minutes, and it's time for Ronan to remind his boyfriend why he's always destined for the bad end of a particularly terrible romantic deal. Getting dragged along for the ride comes with the Lynch territory.
( So, maybe he wants to touch his boyfriend a little longer, while they cruise between kitchen and corridor and the back door. Sue him.) ]
You realize I could just make you do it and abandon you. Every man for himself.
[ There are more sheds spread across the Barns landscape than Ronan cares to name or count. Better hope that hose made it into one of the first dozen.
Then, as if he only now remembers, softening with a parting glance: ]
Cover your ear. The one you've got.
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[Leave him. Abandon him. Not now, with the hose, and not ever. They’re stuck together. A team. An item. And then Ronan’s next sentence makes it’s way to him and it’s a brief minute of confusion.
Cover his... ear? Adam wonders what Ronan what Ronan could possibly do to make a noise loud enough to hurt his ears, but he doesn’t question out loud, just does as he’s told.
A flash of a memory from years ago— or perhaps it is several memories combined- Adam, young, sitting against the wall of his bedroom with his knees pulled up to his chest, hands over his ears to drown out the sounds of Robert Parrish’s raised voice. Now, here in a safe space, his hands cover both hearing and unhearing ear; instinct, muscle memory, whatever you want to call it. Hands guised as earmuffs, he glances over at Ronan for him to do whatever comes next.
Lead the way, Captain, his eyes say, a glint of excitement behind the exhaustion. There’s always something exciting about dealing with anything magic. It calls to Adam even without Cabeswater to guide him.]
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Then again, they're both men — and one treacherous bird, bee-lining behind them — on a mission, and Ronan mimes as much as he leads the way out back, where an intrepid investigation of several barns in a handy line-up reveals a colony of spiders, two heavily deformed potted plants, something not unlike a palm-shaped microcosmos Ronan supposes he may have dreamed up on Matthew's footsteps...
...and a hose, mangy but long, still bound to something likened to a water source. It'll do. It'll do handsomely, and Ronan weighs it in earnest consideration in one hand, before nodding outside, where the horde awaits and speaking slowly enough for Adam to understand it's safe to briefly lower his hands now: ]
You want to do honors, or shall I?
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And Ronan’s words sound like a challenge. Parrish, are you hard enough to blast these fuckin’ dream birds? Adam is hard enough. Adam once stared their Latin teacher down, gun held in front of him, preventing him from running from his just death.
His hand closes around the hose.] I got it. Turn the water on?
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Deep down. Somewhere. In depths unseen, but suspected.
He gives his order, and who's Ronan to ignore it? With a careful nod, he waits for the ravens to righteously assemble, before one wrist bend unleashes true menace by way of a hungering water jet. To his credit, he didn't dream his flock stupid: they disperse before there's casualty, and maybe (just maybe) Ronan takes personal pride in the last protesting caw, before he elbows Adam like every dutiful accomplice and nods ahead: ]
Adam Ravenslayer. Come on. It's got a ring to it.
[ But the enemy hasn't been completely driven back, and there's no time like the present to be proactive. ]
Want to do the rounds, Parrish?
[ Kick'em while they're down. ]
I am so sorry this took so long!! It's been a rough couple of weeks
There are days when Adam Parrish pretends to be perfect, pretends to belong at Aglionby, pretends to be someone like Richard Campbell Gansey III, and then there are days like this. Days where Adam find a bit of joy in chaos.
It probably has something to do with the man next to him. And it probably has something to do with his upbringing. A deadly combination.
Adam Ravenslayer... the name makes him laugh, makes his smile grow, makes him want to grab Ronan by the collar and pull him in for a kiss so hot it would melt the snow around them.]
Yeah. [He doesn't know what Ronan means by "the rounds," if they're just going to force the birds back further or what, but he'll follow Ronan anywhere at this point.]
Let's hurry up, though. It's fuckin' freezing. [A dropped 'g'; his accent slips through the cracks as his teeth chatter together. Cold seeps in as they stand still.]
it's all good!
They face off ravens at every turn, smudges and battalions of them, receding before the first nips of water as if they're the devil himself, expelled. Ronan wants to say, You assholes had it coming. Knows they get it, even without the pronouncement.
And then there's Adam, with him, faithful knight in shining armor, waving the hose around like Excalibur, in glory. Ronan concedes him the honor of exterminating their winged threat, neither feather nor beak of them left by the time he's done.
Then, carefully, one arm fastened around his boyfriend's shoulders: ]
You're my hero, Parrish.
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"You're my hero," Ronan says, and Adam snorts, rubs his cheek against the scratch of Ronan's shirt.]
Come on, Lynch. [Adam's arm winds around Ronan's waist, his fingers dropping the hose to the ground as they move back towards the farmhouse, where central heating lives. And, if Adam recalls, Ronan had promised cuddling. Or something.
They walk, and Adam's mind wanders as they move. Sometimes, Ronan's dreaming was a nuisance; an inconvenience. But at least he had...something. Ronan still had that other worldly, magical something to hold on to.
What did Adam have without Cabeswater? He was still trying to figure that out. His fingers itched for his cards.
They make it back to Ronan's childhood home still wrapped in each other, though it made walking quickly hard. But Adam didn't want to let go: he goes through moods of pulling away from any physical affection to wanting to be in constant contact.
He kicks his shoes off as they enter, and sighs.]
Issue solved. Crisis averted. Another victory for team Parrish-Lynch.