#Jessie writes pynch fic
Photo
Ronan and Adam volunteer to read for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in class. Shenanigans ensue.
Written for the @ravencyclebigbang! 15.6k art by @pygmypouter
Ronan was in class, which was strange enough to begin with.
Latin had come and gone and Ronan had been present, but then he’d stayed. He’d stayed through lunch, and World History with Gansey. And he’d even been there through a class neither Adam nor Gansey shared with him.
Adam raised an eyebrow at him as Ronan slouched into their British Literature classroom. The eyebrow said all of the mandatory ribbing like “Who are you and what have you done with Ronan?” or “Ronan? In class? I might die of shock.” without being so lame as to actually say it aloud.
Ronan picked up the message, in any case, because he hip-checked Adam’s desk on the way to his own.
Adam ducked his head with a smirk.
“Ah, Mr. Lynch,” Ms. Marzo greeted him. “So glad you could join us.”
The words were probably supposed to be a reprimand about Ronan’s tardiness but the event of his attendance was so rare that their teacher couldn’t actually hide the turn of her smile as she greeted him, making the comment seem altogether too sincere.
Ronan just saluted her, collapsing noisily into the desk behind Adam, his long legs kicking out and making contact with Adam’s chair legs. Adam subtly scooted himself back in retaliation, bumping Ronan’s desk. Adam could hear Ronan breath out quietly in a laugh.
Ms. Marzo nodded at them, her eyebrows slanted in disapproval but her lip twitching, before turning back to the board to continue her lecture of introduction for their latest assignment.
Or perhaps lecture was the wrong word. Her soliloquy. It was a soliloquy, wasn’t it? When speaking of tragedies? When Shakespeare was involved?
Adam made a note to look that up.
“Nerd,” Ronan said, leaning close enough to Adam’s hearing ear that his breath ruffled Adam’s hair.
Adam repressed a shiver.
“For writing something down?” he said softly, turning his head the slightest bit to make sure Ronan heard him. They were well practiced in talking in class and not getting caught. At least when Ronan was interested in not getting caught.
“Yeah,” Ronan said, with the slightest breath of a snort to punctuate his contempt. “Only nerds write things down.”
Adam breathed a laugh through his nose. “What do you do?”
“I forget things. Like a cool person.”
Adam dropped his head to his chest, rubbing his mouth with one hand to smother the snort that threatened to expose them.
He could feel the smirk on Ronan’s face: a victory that he’d gotten Adam to break. The chair squeaked behind him and Ronan’s legs kicked his chair again, telling Adam that if he turned around to look, he’d see Ronan reclining self-satisfied in his chair.
That wouldn’t do.
Adam raised his hand, aware enough in what was happening in class to know the teacher had asked for a volunteer but not aware enough to know what he was volunteering for.
Which was a mistake, obviously, as Ms. Marzo was looking at him like she’d never seen him before. “Uh, Mr. Parrish? You’d like to read for Lady Macbeth?”
Adam felt his eye twitch, even while he nodded. It was true that even at an all boy’s school where boys would have had to read the female parts, Adam probably wouldn’t have normally volunteered to read Lady Macbeth.
But Ronan had called him a nerd. So he was prepared to be the biggest nerd Ronan had seen.
“I know what I’m about, ma’am,” he said. And Ronan answered with the most disruptive, bark-like laugh Adam had heard from him. He fought to keep a straight face as he held Ms. Marzo’s eye.
She smiled fully, now, not even trying to hide her amusement anymore. “Well alright. Love the attitude, Mr. Parrish.” She turned to the rest of the class. “Now, as for Macbeth–”
A bang from behind startled Adam enough that he actually turned to look. Ronan had apparently smacked his own desk, so eager he was to raise his hand to volunteer.
Adam goggled at him, just a little.
There was a laugh from the front of the room that made Adam turn back around. “Ah, yes, I should have guessed.” She lowered her glasses enough to peer over the top of them at Ronan. Adam couldn’t imagine she could actually see him better that way, it was more for the effect. He could appreciate the commitment to the drama, if nothing else. “You do realize you’re volunteering to read not just today, Mr. Lynch. But every class until we’ve completed the play. That does mean we need you to attend.”
Adam turned to see Ronan nod, face serious.
He turned back to see Ms. Marzo nodding in return, something devilish glinting in her eye. “Well alright. It’s nice to see our lovely couple.”
Ronan’s grin was feral. “Yup. He’s the one. He’s my wife.”
And then he turned to wink at Adam.
Adam’s returning grin was rather feral itself.
Read the rest on Ao3
198 notes
·
View notes
Text
tag: people i want to get to know!
Tagged by @royalbounties and @kobalt-ink sank youu and sorry it took me so long :))
Relationship status: single and happy
Favorite color: purple all day everyday! hell my hair is purple!
Top 3 favorite ships: Ronan X Adam from TRC, Sirius Black X Remus Lupin, Nynaeve X Lan from The Wheel of Time ( I really need to step up my reading game for this series)
Lipstick or chapstick: Lipstick! Especially liquid lipsitck! I need more of those
Last Song: *is currently listening to music* Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep
Last Movie: Godzilla: King of Monsters if I remember correctly
Last Book: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton yuck yuck yuck
Currently reading: it’s been months but I am almost done with The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Fan fiction: errr I read FF when I am stressed as a coping mechanism so I have been binging some long alow burny fics with Pynch. There was one with time travel that I liked a looot
Tagging: @dreamwishing @fair-folk-nonsense @cataclysmic-writer @amaranthine-inscriptions @tayluinwrites @radley-writes @waterfallwritings
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
‘Cause Baby I’m a Slytherin and Boy you are a Gryffindor
I'm trying to write something else but have no motivation so I decided to write this as a warm up and it got way longer than expected go fuckin' figure. (Ao3) 2.8k
Adam made sure not to let Ronan catch him smiling as he made his way into the kitchen. He couldn’t let Ronan see him looking as Ronan’s face went a little pink in the cheeks, his eyes tightening and his lip pulled between his teeth.
“Morning.” He bent to kiss Ronan behind the ear, allowing himself a tiny grin as he noted the angry blush on Ronan’s neck. “Has Opal eaten?”
Ronan cleared his throat, avoiding Adam’s eyes. “Yeah, little shit is already outside, terrorizing the chickens.” His spoon clanged loudly on the side of his bowl in a way that was more to make noise than actually scoop cereal from milk to mouth. “You want eggs or something?”
“No, I’ll just have some orange juice.”
Ronan rolled his eyes, providing a break from his previous silent annoyance now to be vocally annoyed at Adam’s eating habits. “You need actual food, Parrish.”
Adam rolled his eyes back, letting himself smirk for real. “I will get food later, Lynch. It’s too early to put anything else in my stomach, so soon after waking up.”
Ronan snorted. “Well maybe if you didn’t sleep in to fuck all hours.”
Adam just shook his head. He’d asked Ronan for days after he’d started staying at the Barns to wake him up when Ronan got up. Ronan never did it. He wanted to let Adam sleep whenever he could.
“Jackass.” He said fondly. Ronan winked and took a bite of his cereal.
Adam smiled and poured himself a glass of orange juice, wiping the condensation from the carton on the red and gold fabric of his pajama pant legs. Ronan chewed on his lip again, averting his eyes. Adam grinned for real.
Ronan really really liked to see Adam in his clothes. Part of it was possessiveness and part of it was being the one to keep Adam warm (neither of which he’d ever admit to) but mostly, Adam knew, it was the concession.
Adam did not like to be taken care of. He did not like wearing or using or having something that wasn’t his – that he hadn’t bought or earned. By Adam wearing Ronan’s clothes, he was letting a little of that go. Something Ronan loved to see.
So Ronan loved when Adam wore his things. Except if those things were Gryffindor themed.
Adam hadn’t really grown up with Harry Potter the same way Ronan had – he couldn’t afford to buy the books as soon as they came out, he never saw the movies in theaters. His father wouldn’t even let him watch cable so he never caught a Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family. He was aware of it in the same way most people were aware of Harry Potter because it was the most popular book series on earth but he’d never given it much thought growing up. Didn’t have the time.
Ronan, on the other hand, names a literal cow after Harry Potter. So he was a fan.
Ronan introducing Adam to Harry Potter was endearing for several reasons. One, Ronan tried not to express too much enthusiasm. It was obvious to Adam how much Ronan cared about Harry Potter because of everything he’d ever learned about Ronan, but Ronan still tried desperately to keep cool and not get too excited when talking about it. The multiple times he’d woken up from dreaming holding a golden snitch or chocolate frog that actually hopped gave him away a bit.
Secondly, Opal, who had no hang-ups about looking too enthusiastic, loved Harry Potter. She must have known everything already, being an extension of Ronan, but she let Ronan teach her about everything as if it were the first time she were hearing it. And she was very excited about it.
Opal insisted they all get officially sorted on Pottermore.com. She and Ronan were in the same house which didn’t surprise Adam at all. Ronan had gone through his life proclaiming himself a Gryffindor and Pottermore agreed. Adam pretended to be surprised by this.
“Brave? Noble? Chivalrous? I thought you didn’t lie Lynch.”
Adam was Slytherin, which he quite liked the sound of.
“Cunning? Ambitious? Sounds about right.”
“Except I’m the snake, remember?”
Adam cuffed Ronan on the head. “Hush now, lion cub, the grown-up is talking.”
Blue and Gansey loved this. On their travels, they went out of their way to send back presents that related to Ronan and Adam’s Hogwarts houses. Ronan and Opal received hats and sweaters of crimson and gold with lions on them. Adam amassed a collection of smaller green and silver snake-adorned things like tie-pins and cufflinks.
Ronan obviously had more merchandise, having been collecting it for years, but Adam’s modest pile of Slytherin things was not to be ignored.
But ignore it he did.
Because wearing Ronan’s Gryffindor things when Adam was not a Gryffindor?
Made Ronan furious.
The five of them were at Nino’s over fall break of Adam’s freshman year at Princeton. Blue and Gansey had needed to be back in Virginia to be with their families for Thanksgiving so they’d all taken the opportunity to catch up. Henry’s family, being Korean and also Canadian, didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so he would be staying with Blue at Fox Way with the psychics.
“Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t think the witches would be into eating a slaughtered animal to commemorate the genocide of an entire people.” Ronan noted, casually.
Blue narrowed her eyes at him, throwing a balled up straw wrapper at his head. “We’re not. A couple of my half-aunts are Powhatan and they like to take the day and make it about actual sharing of cultures by making us a feast of their people.”
Gansey grinned. “Oh, Jane, that sounds fascinating! I wish I could come.”
“But you’ll be too busy celebrating your ancestors coming in to rape and pillage the Powhatan people with your own family, won’t you Dick?” Ronan asked, mouth like a pit viper.
Gansey looked crestfallen and Blue threw something else at Ronan and Adam squeezed Ronan’s hand in warning. Ronan shrugged apologetically. “I’m just saying.”
“I’ll have robobee email you a play-by-play, princelet.” Henry said, patting Gansey’s hand jovially. “I feel I will be too overwhelmed at the time to take notes myself. So many ladies a Cheng has never dealt with at a time.”
“Oh man, the psychics are gonna eat you alive.” Ronan was back to grinning. “I wish I could see that.”
Adam rolled his eyes and unzipped his hoodie, now too warm in the restaurant after the chill from outside.
“What the fuck, Parrish?”
Adam blinked, thrown off by the familiar words coming from Blue and not Ronan. “What?”
She gestured to his torso. “You told us you were a Slytherin.”
Adam looked down, having forgotten when he unzipped his hoodie what shirt he had put on that morning. A red and gold lion stared up at him.
“Oh, yeah, I am.”
Henry’s grin was feral. “So that would make that Ronan’s shirt.”
Adam’s grin matched Henry’s as his eyes slid over to see Ronan’s face painted red.
Blue cackled. “Oh my God, look at that blush. He’s all hot and bothered seeing his boyfriend wearing his clothes.”
“Jane.” Gansey scolded, he too going pink, but a smile flirting with the edge of his mouth.
Adam bit his lip, refusing to laugh. Ronan was bothered alright, just not in the way Blue meant.
Adam knew this. But he still batted his eyes at Ronan, reaching over to put a hand on his chest. “Did I get you all revved up, baby?”
Henry and Blue broke into fresh peals of laughter as Ronan tore his way out of the booth. “Fuck off, Parrish.”
Adam laughed, watching Ronan slump his way out of Nino’s. He’d come back when he was done being embarrassed.
When Adam turned back, Gansey was eyeing him reproachfully. “That wasn’t kind, Adam.”
Adam just shrugged. Gansey didn’t need to Ronan was blushing because was annoyed, not aroused. Gansey didn’t need to know Adam was wearing Ronan’s Gryffindor clothes on purpose. Gansey didn’t need to know any of their business.
“Don’t worry about it Gansey. I’ve got it under control.”
Gansey still looked reproachful and Blue Heny made whipping sounds and Blue waggled her eyebrows but by the time Ronan came back inside, the subject had passed, Adam’s hoodie was zipped back up, and everything was back to normal.
It would never make sense to Adam how Ronan could hate his phone so much but have no problem using his laptop for skype.
“I’m not expected to carry this fuckin thing around with me all day.” Ronan had tried to explain, once. “Nobody expects me to answer anything on this right away. I can take time away from this and no one gets pissed about it. But if Declan calls me on this fucker,” he held up his much abused phone as evidence. “and I don’t answer, suddenly I’m the asshole.”
“Well, not suddenly.” Adam smirked. Ronan flipped him off.
Adam had taken advantage of this weird loophole in Ronan’s aversion to technology by skyping him at least four times a week while off at school. His scholarship had included a student laptop which had webcam and skype capabilities so Adam could contact Ronan whenever he wanted and not rely on anyone to do it. It was the best case scenario as far as he was concerned.
He had called Ronan on Skype one evening, mostly because he missed him, but also to keep the nerves at bay about the oncoming networking dinner he had been invited to attend.
It was just a thing for Freshman: a way for Engineering companies to look at the best and brightest new students and try and start laying groundwork early in hopes that they’d come work for their firm after graduating. Not every incoming freshman was invited to the fancy dinner but Adam was. A revelation that made Adam panic and Ronan say “Duh.”
Ronan was being a great distraction at present, regaling Adam with a swear-filled tale of triumph involving Opal and a bucket of slugs.
“So this fucking snot has two hands in this bucket and I just scrubbed the goat shit off the goddamn walls from her last fuckery, but she’s already dripping pond scum onto my shitting carpet and– what the fuck are you wearing?”
Adam looked over, hands still on his tie, to see Ronan paused, his face screwed up and red. His hands are still raised mid-gesture from his story. “What?”
Ronan’s face flushed redder, giving him big pixelized splotches on his forehead on Adam’s laptop screen. “Your tie.”
Adam looked down. The ted was red and gold striped. He suppressed a smirk.
“Blue picked this outfit out for me.”
Ronan snorted. “You let Sargeant make fashion decisions for your big fancy dinner party?”
Adam shrugged, frowning at the knot of his tie. “I facetimed Gansey to ask him if my outfit looked okay, because google wouldn’t give me any helpful information about how to pair ties and suits and I’ve never had this many options before. Blue was there so she helped.”
“Why couldn’t you ask me?”
Adam shot him an exasperated look. “Every time I ask you if I look okay you either say ‘No outfit will ever fix your ugly mug, Parrish’ or ‘Fuck anyone who wouldn’t like your face no matter what you’re wearing, Parrish’.”
Ronan shrugged, unrepentant. “But why that tie?”
Adam brushed at his sleeved in the way he saw men do in high-end tailors. “It matches the suit.”
“And a Slyth– a green tie wouldn’t match?”
Adam bit back another smile. It’s true, a green – that is to say Slytherin – tie would go fine with his outfit. It was a navy blue wool suit jacket with a subtle plaid pattern and a light blue shirt. The green would have worked, all of the cool colors making him look dapper and sophisticated. But Blue suggested the red and gold tie and a yellow pocket square for interesting color contrast. To make him memorable.
And yes, Adam may have nudged her toward the red and gold tie, but Ronan didn’t need to know that.
“I like this tie.”
Ronan pouted, grumbling.
Adam smiled. “Are you going to finish your story about Opal and the slugs? I should probably get out of here in about fifteen minutes.”
Ronan swore but continued with his story, the climax of which included a slingshot, rubber gloves, and dream food-dye that changed color when sang to.
Before Adam hung up, Ronan stopped him with a “People will think you’re a Gryffindor, you know.”
Adam looked at him. This was the closest Ronan had come to acknowledging it. Acknowledging that Adam wearing Gryffindor things bothered him. “I don’t think anyone at this dinner is going to see my tie and think of Harry Potter, Ronan.”
Ronan grunted. “And if they do?”
Adam shrugged, grinning. “There’s a worse place for a Slytherin to be. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” He winked. “They’ll never see me coming.”
It all came to a head over Christmas break.
Adam almost snorted to himself as he thought that sentence. ‘Came to a head.’ How wonderful that phrasing was in the context of what he and Ronan were doing.
Ronan was mouthing along Adam’s collarbone, making his way slowly and agonizingly down Adam’s torso. Adam was ignoring him, or trying to, as he rid himself of every item of clothing between his body and Ronan’s. Which was to say all of them.
Ronan had been no help in this venture, too busy with Adam’s lips or hands or elbows. Ronan seemed keen on erasing every bad memory of a bruise Adam might have had with good memories of love and other kinds of bruises. Seeing as Adam had never catalogued everywhere he’d been bruised, Ronan took that to mean he had to worship anywhere.
Adam was very keen on letting him but that would be much easier if they were naked already.
Ronan basically was, only left in his boxer briefs, not being very clothed to begin with. Adam had had to start with his jacket and shoes and was still making his way to the full monty. And Ronan, his mouth biting into Adam’s neck, was not helping.
“Fuck, Ro.” Adam gasped through gritted teeth. Ronan chuckled, the air from his mouth cool against the damp spot he’d left on Adam’s throat.
As far as percentages went, Adam was doing well in clothing removal. He’d removed his jacket, shirt, belt, shoes, and pants. He really only had his boxers and socks to go. That was, like 90% if you went by square inch of fabric. 93% if you went by weight.
Good enough Adam thought, grabbing Ronan to spin him and throw him on the bed.
Ronan’s face was lit up and happy in a way it almost never was. It lacked the usual edge of malice or arrogance or scorn. This was Ronan untethered, unmasked. This was Ronan who was super happy his boyfriend was bossy in bed.
Adam’s grin was lethal as he stepped onto the bed, ready to hold Ronan down with his whole body when–
“Adam, what the fuck?”
Adam stopped, half-straddling Ronan. “What?”
Ronan lunged forward, grabbing at Adam’s calf. “Where did you even get these?”
Adam looked dumbly at his red and gold covered feet. He remembered putting them on, remembering thinking how funny it would be when Ronan noticed.
He was astonishingly finding it less funny than he was expecting to.
“They’re yours, obviously. I stole them when I stole the tie.”
Ronan looked exasperated at Adam, still clutching his calf. “Why?!”
“Because it’s funny, obviously.”
Ronan looked betrayed.
Adam laughed. “You get so mad! Just because I’m not a Gryffindor! But you refuse to admit you’re annoyed because that would make you a giant geek! Which you are!”
Ronan pouted, releasing Adam’s leg and crossing his arms. “You’re not fucking me while wearing those.”
Adam scrambled to take them off. “Fine, whatever. I was only doing it to see how long it would take you to mention it. This seems like as good a stopping point as any.”
Ronan rolled his eyes as Adam balled the Gryffindor socks up and threw them at Ronan’s face. “There. Your precious house pride is intact. Now then,” He crawled up the bed, bracketing Ronan’s still grumpy face with his hands. “Since you’re already here in this wonderful bed,” he leaned down to kiss Ronan, encouraging him to stop pouting and loosen up, “and you’ve already invited me to fuck you,” he continued, leaning down for a longer kiss. “Do you mind if I slither in?”
Ronan’s groan and Adam’s laughter help them up from having sex for another twenty minutes and it was still totally worth it.
#This is based off of a real situation except my sister's boyfriend wears her Slytherin things when he's a Hufflepuff#and I'm the one that gets annoyed#The Raven Cycle#Pynch#Oops I wrote a thing#I didn't even read this before posting#I just needed to write and finish something#Maybe I'll write and finish another short thing tomorrow. We can only hope.#Jessie writes pynch fic
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Light Mange
It was Adam’s birthday. I made him and Ronan rescue his dog.
2.5k (read on on ao3)
Adam wasn’t homesick. Not really. Kind of.
Not homesick for the double wide trailer where he used to live and cower, but for one specific resident of the trailer park. A furry, four pawed resident with mange and a chunk missing from her left ear.
Thinking of her didn’t really inspire thoughts of home. He’d never really had a concept of home before the Barns. But companion sick? Maybe. He had companions, still.
“Heads up, Parrish.”
The warning came just a second too late as a goat came barreling into him, knocking him off-balance so his oblique collided with the hindquarters of the horse he’d been brushing. He released a soft ‘oof’ but otherwise recovered quickly to make sure the horse wasn’t startled.
He shouldn’t have been worried. The particular horse he was attending to was a dream thing, straight from Ronan’s head. It would take a lot more to startle such a creature.
Adam turned to Ronan, eyes narrowed but his mouth betraying just a hint of his amusement. “This is why I didn’t want to have kids with you.”
Ronan’s laugh was a firecracker – whimsical and dangerous.
There weren’t words to describe the Barns that couldn’t also be used for Ronan. They had the same spirit, the same softness, the same magic. Ronan was and wasn’t a home and a place and the Barns was and wasn’t cutting and violent and all of those things were true at the same time. Accepting that the Barns was more than Adam’s apartment at St. Agnes because it demanded so much more was what convinced Adam to let his lease run out and move in with Ronan for the summer.
Living at the Barns meant participating in chores. For Adam, at least for the first couple weeks, this meant maintaining the house and the young satyr girl living with Ronan inside of it. After Opal had grown into the idea of being ambassador to the farm animals, however, Adam had been given more responsibility on the grounds. Namely: doing whatever Opal told him the animals wanted.
Today, Mitsubishi wanted brushing.
Another goat glanced off of Adam’s shins.
“Is there a reason you’re propelling goats at me?”
Ronan shrugged, scratching under the chin of yet another goat. “You were looking pretty broody over there. So it’s like ‘Whinny for your thoughts?’”
Adam snorted. “It’s horses that whinny.”
“I can send a fucking horse at you, I just thought goats might be gentler.”
Adam laughed, hiding his face in the side of the horse.
A goat collided with the back of his knees.
“Fuck!” But he was still laughing when Ronan came up and wrapped an arm around his waist.
“For real, why are you pouting?”
Adam sighed, leaning into Ronan’s hold. “I’m not pouting,” he protested. Ronan’s thumb brushed his hip and Adam sunk deeper into his hold. “I was just thinking about Aayla.”
Ronan’s thumb stilled. “That blue chick from Star Wars?”
Adam laughed. “No! Well, yes, but my dog.” Adam shifted a bit. He didn’t like talking about the Before. “We got her when I was 10. I really liked the Clone Wars.”
Ronan grunted. “You have shit taste, Parrish.”
Adam hummed in acknowledgement.
He patted the horse on the ribs before turning in Ronan’s hold. His hand came up to cup Ronan’s elbow. “Did you ever meet her? When you would drop me off or pick me up?”
Ronan frowned, his eyebrows coming together in thought. “Did she ever take a snap at my tires?”
“Maybe.” Adam huffed a bit, an unamused laugh. “She didn’t pick up the best habits when it came to rich fuckers.”
Ronan grunted, rubbing at his jaw. It remembered well the kind of aggressive habits she might have picked up regarding rich fuckers.
“But she was a good dog” Adam continued, brushing Ronan’s jaw with his knuckle, once, before bringing his hand back down to Ronan’s arm. “It was nice having a living thing around that actually liked me.”
Ronan’s face went stony and Adam immediately regretted his cavalier words. He’d meant to help endear Ronan to his beloved mutt but all he’d done was remind Ronan of how much he hated Adam’s parents.
With a roughness that only came from years of fighting as a substitute for loving, Ronan crushed Adam against his chest, burying his cheek in Adam’s neck.
Adam was used to such aggressive displays of affection at this point but he still flinched away from the scratchy whiskers on Ronan’s face tickling the sensitive skin of his neck. Ronan deliberately rubbed the spot again with his chin and Adam laughed, shoving at him with no intent to actually push him away.
“We’re going to get that fucking dog.”
Adam did actually pull away this time. “What? Ronan–”
“Hey, everything in this house loves you, but if I can add something else to the ‘I love Adam Parrish’ party, you damn well bet I’m gonna.”
The plan was this: Ronan didn’t have a plan.
That wasn’t entirely fair – Ronan had dreamt a scouting light that would go check to see if the Parrishes were home before they went in and grabbed Aayla. They would have asked to borrow Robobee for the mission but Henry was still off with Blue and Gansey exploring the greater mysteries of the world. And, according to Ronan, ‘Why would I need Cheng’s bee? I can dream something way cooler.’
Adam wasn’t sure if a floating light that would change color to tell them if it was safe or not was in any way ‘cooler’ but that wasn’t an argument he was willing to have right now.
They were waiting at the end of the dirt road that led into the cluster of double-wides. Adam’s eyes kept skipping around to the lights in the surrounding field, each time feeling disappointed that is was just an ordinary firefly.
Ronan grimaced at the front window, hands gripping the steering wheel in a chokehold of anxiety. His eyes never wavered.
Adam reached out and put a steadying hand on Ronan’s knee.
“You know,” he started, Henrietta accent buoying the vowels in his speech, making them shallow and twangy, “these fireflies are really romantic.”
He picked at the loose thread in the hole in Ronan’s jeans. “If we weren’t on a secret mission, we could be makin’ out right now.”
Ronan snorted, the sound seemingly startled out of him. “Like I need manufactured ambience to get you to make out with me, Parrish.”
Adam slid closer, the edge of his butt slipping off the seat and into the center console.
He nuzzled his face into Ronan’s neck. “It just seems a shame to waste it is all.”
He kissed the bolt of Ronan’s jaw. Ronan’s breath hitched.
But then, “There!”
There was another light floating toward them above the grass, clearly other from the fireflies that had set the mood. It was flying directly toward them, not in the dip and sway way of most insects but smooth like it was being pulled on a line.
It was also pulsing bright purple.
“Why purple?”
Ronan turned toward him. Adam could still make out his expression of disappointed disgust from two inches away. “What, you wanted it to be green? This is supposed to be a secret mission.”
Adam rolled his eyes and slid into back his seat as Ronan put the car in gear.
It was still early evening, not yet so dark that they couldn’t get away with driving without headlights. Ronan eased the bmw down the dirt road as stealthily as he could manage.
It didn’t make much difference that they were trying to be covert. Everyone in Adam’s old neighborhood knew this car. They knew this was the car of the boy who beat the shit out of Robert Parrish. They knew that this was the car Robert Parrish’s son drove back in only a month or so ago. They suspected the owner of the car’s relationship to Adam. They might have suspected that the car being back meant nothing good.
But, like all those years when Adam got hit and no one called the cops, they kept their heads down and minded their own business like good Virginia folk.
Ronan did a k-turn in front of the double wide, nose of the car facing back toward the road in case they needed to make a quick getaway. Adam had half-expected Aayla to have met them up the road, snapping at Ronan’s tires. That would have made everything easier.
If they could pull up to the trailer and she hadn’t yet come out to greet them, that meant she was inside.
“Fuck,” he said. Ronan rubbed his knee.
Adam didn’t think the trailer was locked but he had a spare key if it was. Robert Parrish held close to the mentality that no one would ever want to fuck with him and his things so he would leave his house open as a show of dominance. Really, he had nothing worth taking.
Nothing except the dog. Which Adam was actually there to take.
The screen door creaked alarmingly when it was opened and Adam tried not to flinch. He trusted Ronan’s dream-light, he knew no one was home, but that sound had for so many years been the split-second warning between Robert Parrish returning home and Adam having his teeth knocked in. Tensing up was just sense memory.
A hand clapped down on Adam’s shoulder and he did flinch.
It was only Ronan.
“Didn’t we agree you were going to stay in the car?”
Ronan smiled, cutting. “You shouldn’t put a skittish dog in a strange car with someone she doesn’t know. I’m going to let her know me first.”
Adam sighed. It was as good a reason as any but Adam suspected Ronan had ulterior motives.
Ronan didn’t want Adam coming back into the trailer alone.
He hadn’t wanted him to after graduation either but Adam hadn’t given him a choice back then. He didn’t think he’d given Ronan a choice now but here Ronan was.
Adam sighed.
He made his way to his old room, sure if Aayla was anywhere, she was there.
He knew she wouldn’t have come out when she heard the door open. She’d been trained out of that after the first few kicks she’d received as a puppy.
“Quit yapping, bitch. What, you tryin’ to trip me? You stay out of my face or I’ll take you out back and shoot you, you ain’t better than old yeller.”
Adam turned the corner and found the door to his old bedroom open. The room had been stripped, whatever Adam hadn’t taken with him probably sold and turned into beer. The only thing left was the bed that had come with the trailer, naked of bedclothes and the resting place of dirty animal, just waking.
Adam grinned, unrestrainedly, as he came up to cup her doggy head. “Hi, baby.”
Her tail started thumping before she’d even gotten a good look at Adam, responding to his gentle hands and soft words. Adam guessed she hadn’t received such affection since he’d left.
She started whining and hopping up and he sat down on the bed, allowing her to lick all over his face. “I know! I know!” he whispered, laughing, attempting to pet her into quietness. “I know, sweetheart, I missed you too. I hated leaving you here.”
Aayla curled into his lap, despite being just too big to quite fit. She squirmed and craned her neck to give Adam that many more kisses. Adam let her, hugging her close and bringing his own face down to kiss any part of her body he could reach.
When he finally looked up, he found Ronan leaning on the door frame, a complicated mix of emotions on his face. First and foremost, there was tenderness.
“Aayla, honey,” he gestured for Ronan to come forward. “This is Ronan.”
Ronan reached out a hand, palm up, for Aayla to sniff. She sniffed once before licking, trailer her tongue up Ronan’s wrist before turning back to Adam and licking his hair.
“Well looks like that’s something you didn’t have to worry about, Lynch.”
Ronan laughed, bringing his now slimy hand up to pet at the mutt’s head. “We’re gonna have to treat her mange, you know. I can’t have her spreading it to the other animals.”
Adam nodded, his head nuzzling Aayla’s ears. “I’m not worried. My boyfriend’s a farmer, he’s really good at caring for broken things.”
Ronan cuffed him on the head then immediately leaned down to kiss it.
Adam let himself enjoy it for three beats of his heart. Here, in this bed, in this room, in this double-wide, he’d always sat up and wanted exactly this. Someone who loved him, a loyal pet, a future he could hold with both hands.
The beats passed. Adam missed the Barns.
“We should go.”
Ronan nodded, gripping Adam extra tight before releasing him and backing out of the room.
“Hey, Aayla, you’re gonna come with me now, okay?”
Aayla just kept wagging her tail, trying to lick whatever part of Adam she could reach.
“Okay, girl, follow me.”
As soon as Adam stood up from the bed, Aayla shot out down the hallway. Adam jogged after her, laughing. Ronan held the front door open and she breached the night air, her tongue lolling out in a puppy smile, before, with no warning, her hackles raised and she started growling.
She’d spotted the BMW.
Everyone in Adam’s old neighborhood knew this car.
Adam rushed forward and crouched in front of her. “It’s okay! It’s okay! This is the car that’s going to take us away! We’re getting out of here, huh? Right?”
“Adam.”
Adam looked up. Ronan’s face and shoulders were tense. He was looking over Adam’s head to the top of the BMW. The light was flashing yellow.
“Shit.”
He looked back to Ronan who nodded and tore off to round the car. He jumped in the driver’s seat and turned the car on. Aayla started barking at the growl of the engine.
“No! No. Shh, shhh.” Adam could see headlights. “I love you, please don’t bite me.”
He wished he’d thought to have a blanket when he picked up this squirming dog, at least to spare his exposed arms from her claws as she squirmed. But he didn’t have time to dig for one in the trunk. The headlights were getting closer.
The passenger door swung wide as Ronan pushed it open from the inside. Adam collapsed in the seat, holding Aayla close and shushing her even while she continued to bark.
“Go!”
Ronan wasn’t used to dirt roads. He started off the mark as if he were street racing and the wheels spun out a bit underneath him before he slowed the car down enough for them to get traction.
Once he had the forward momentum he kept it. They did not pause as they passed Robert Parrish’s truck. They did not slow down when he tried to run them off the road. Ronan was a good driver: he swerved then kept on driving.
They burst onto the main road and Aayla stopped barking. She whined, she curled up close in Adam’s lap, she cried.
Adam didn’t stop stroking her. Petting her. “It’s okay, we’re gonna be okay.”
It was okay.
They were going to be okay.
#Pynch#The Raven Cycle#Jessie writes pynch fic#Oops I wrote a thing#does no one else wonder what happened to that dog in chapter 14 of The Raven Boys?#Is that just me?#Whatever she's living with Ronan and Adam at the Barns now#sorry I don't make the rules#Happy Birthday Adam!
25 notes
·
View notes
Text
Needs
Written for aspec fest. Prompt 1: ‘Coming Out’ 2.7k (Ao3)
It wasn’t like Adam to take the initiative to start a capital ‘C’ Conversation.
He didn’t like having to work things out in anything but his own head. If sometimes, this meant he was closed off to the people around him, well, at this point they were used to it.
Having Discussions was outside of his comfort zone. And he already spent enough time out of his comfort zone – what with the backbreaking labor hours, the constant studying, and the being dirt poor in a conversation about being rich – that he allowed himself this comfortable spot.
Adam was not likely to ‘we need to talk’.
But Ronan was even less likely to ‘we need to talk’.
“Ronan?”
The sound came out muffled against Ronan’s lips as he spoke it in the middle of a heavy makeout session.
Adam was unpracticed in Conversations, but even he realized this probably wasn’t the best time.
If they didn’t talk soon, however, Adam was going to have an embarrassing situation.
Ronan just hummed against his lips, his fingers flexing where they were laced with Adam’s, suspended above the couch cushion.
Ronan was spread out from armrest to armrest on one of the longer and more worn couches of the Barns. Adam was spread on top of him, their legs intertwined and their hips pressed together. While Adam struggled with that, Ronan appeared to... well... not.
Adam took a couple moments to be distracted by the callous on the edge of Ronan’s thumbnail scraping it’s way up Adam’s pinky. It deliciously echoed the play of Ronan’s stubble against his chin.
“Ronan,” he breathed. He flexed his foot against Ronan’s ankle trying to pull himself together. It didn’t work.
“You like this, right?”
Ronan snorted, the breath a gust against Adam’s jaw. “You tryin’ to dirty talk me, Parrish?”
Adam rolled his eyes, knocking their joined hands into Ronan’s temple. “No, asshole.” He kissed the corner of Ronan’s mouth. “Just taking an informational survey.”
Ronan pulled back a bit to raise his eyebrow. “Don’t surveys need multiple people? Who else you making out with, Parrish?”
“No one, Jesus.” He kissed the other corner of Ronan’s mouth again. “A survey is just like a study. Like a–”
“Performance review?” Ronan smirked.
Adam butted their foreheads together. “Yes. No. Kinda. Shut up.”
Ronan laughed, reaching his neck up to kiss Adam.
Adam waited probably a couple seconds too many to pull back. “So, uh, how much –”
“God, you fuckin nerd.” Ronan snorted, butting his forehead again with Adam’s. He grinned his wolf-toothed grin but his eyes were all lamb. “10/10.”
Adam grinned back, letting the scratch of Ronan’s buzzed hair make an irritated mess of his skin.
“I’ll be sure to jot that down.”
Ronan tightened his free arm around Adam’s waist as if Adam really was going to get up to jot that down. Adam laughed. “Not right now, obviously. You tyrant.”
Ronan playfully bit at Adam’s jaw. Adam cleared his throat.
“So this is good then.” He said, as Ronan hummed, making his way down Adam’s neck. “Have you considered… other things?”
Ronan barely paused. “Like?” he asked with a scrape of his teeth against Adam’s Adam’s apple.
“Sex,” Adam gasped.
Ronan paused, pulling back to look at Adam.
Adam tensed, sure he’d crossed some kind of line. Ronan had weird rules about things – it was the guilty Irish Catholic boy in him. But he didn’t look angry or scared or repulsed. Just mildly confused.
“Did you want to?”
Now Adam was confused. “Do you not?”
Ronan frowned. “I hadn't thought about it.”
That didn’t really serve to clarify things for Adam. Because Adam didn’t have to ‘think’ about it… it was one of the few things in his life he could just feel . He hadn’t ‘thought’ “Hm, yes, I’d like to have sex with Ronan.” He felt the thrumming in his kneecaps and the tension in his toes and the buzzing in his cheeks when Ronan touched him or kissed him or looked at him. It was a build of squirming guts and burning flesh. It wasn’t thought .
But apparently, Ronan had to think about it.
He started to pull away and Ronan held him fast. “Hey, no, wait.” Adam allowed himself to be pulled flush with Ronan. Ronan brushed his hand up from Adam’s waist to cup the back of his head. “We can do that. We can have sex if you want.”
Adam snorted unhappily. “Ronan, I’m not going to have sex with you if you don’t want to.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to, I just haven’t thought about it!”
“How?!” Adam’s voice was just on this side of angry. “I am pressed against you all the way up. I can feel your pelvis and I know you can feel mine.” He resisted the urge to grind down to emphasise his point. If Ronan really didn’t want to have sex, that would definitely be crossing a line.
“Our dicks are making contact through two layers of clothing. And this isn’t even the first time this has happened,” Adam continued. “And you haven’t thought about? Not even your dick has thought about it?”
Ronan frowned again, his eyebrows tipping into frustrated spikes. “I just like kissing you. So that’s what I think about.”
Adam could feel himself blush but he didn’t let himself get distracted. Instead, he decided to change tactics. “Do you think about kissing me a lot?”
Ronan rolled his eyes but his hand was still soft in Adam’s hair. “Obviously.”
Adam hummed, his thumb rubbing circles over the bolt of Ronan’s jaw. “When?”
Ronan’s body melted into the couch, his face going soft again. “All the time. When you’re in school. Before I go to bed and you’re at St. Agnes.”
Adam’s mouth twitched. “In the shower?”
Ronan tilted his head in a sort of shrug. “Sure.”
“And do you…” he kissed Ronan’s collar bone where it peeked out of his tank top. “Touch yourself?”
Ronan laughed, his chest jumping against Adam’s mouth. “Are you asking if I jerk off to you in the shower, Parrish?”
Adam looked up at him, pulling himself up to he was eye to eye with Ronan. “Yes, Lynch, that’s what I’m asking.”
Ronan just laughed again. “No, you weirdo. Who does that?”
“Uh, everyone?!” Adam gaped at him. “Teenage boys have been jerking off in the shower for as long as there’s been plumbing, Ronan. Longer if you count bath houses.”
“Yeah, maybe in porn.” Ronan’s face was set in a relaxed smirk. Adam was so confused. “Or if you’re Declan.”
“You think it’s only Declan– ”
“What, like you’re telling me you or Gansey actually–”
“Yes!” Adam choked. “Yes, I’m sure Gansey has! And I–” He swallowed.
Now Ronan looked stricken.
“... you jerk off to me in the shower?”
Adam nodded, his ears going red. “Yeah, uh–” he swallowed again. He had this annoying voice in the back of his head that sounded a lot like Gansey. ‘How do you expect to do it if you can’t talk about it, Adam?’
“Yeah,” he started again. “I get myself off to thoughts of you. Sometimes in my bed to help me get to sleep. Sometimes in the shower after a long day. Sometimes just because I was thinking about you.”
Now Ronan was turning red. Adam regretted everything.
“But,” Adam averted his eyes. “Uh, if that’s not how you feel about me–”
“Parrish. Adam.” Ronan cupped Adam’s chin in his hand and forced Adam to look at him. “Shut the fuck up. You know how I feel about you.”
And Adam did. Or he thought he did.
“Parrish, hey, look at me.”
Adam did. Ronan’s eyebrows were spiky again but Adam thought this time it might be in concern. “I don’t lie.”
Adam knew that too. But this made no sense.
“So you don’t think about it at all?”
Ronan raised an eyebrow. “Sex?” Adam nodded. “Not really. Not in a real way.”
Adam started to sit up and Ronan tried to pull him down again.
Adam batted him away. “I’d like to be sitting up while we talk about this, please.”
Ronan pouted in a very Ronan way. Which was to say he scowled and huffed and called Adam a ‘fucker’ under his breath.
Adam grabbed both of Ronan’s hands in both of his when they were both sitting and Ronan’s scowl lessened just a bit.
Adam was quiet for several moments, getting his thoughts in order. He ran his fingers along Ronan’s so Ronan didn’t get antsy while he waited.
First, Adam had to get past the major roadblock that was his insecurity. Adam had long ago accepted that he was the one Ronan wanted. That despite the trailer – despite the poverty, despite Robert, despite Adam’s own overwhelming insufficiency – this beautiful, ferocious, handsome, precious boy wanted him. Wanted him .
This moment – this denial of Ronan’s – felt like every contradiction Adam had been waiting for. Had expected.
But Ronan was telling him it wasn’t. That everything Ronan had told him was true. The kind of true that didn’t become untrue with time or a change of perspective or a change of opinion. Ronan wanted Adam. This was a fact.
Ronan didn’t think about sex with Adam. This was also a fact.
“Is it a church thing?” Adam asked, finally. “I know the relationship between Catholics and sex is always weird.”
Ronan looked down at their hands. “Could be.”
“But what about Declan?”
Ronan snorted. “Declan’s not the best Catholic.”
Adam couldn’t argue that. But– “Neither are you.”
Ronan couldn’t argue that either.
“What did you mean when you said you didn’t think about sex ‘in a real way?’”
Ronan shrugged, still staring at their hands. “I don’t know, man. Just like it wasn’t a real thing. It wasn’t something I ever thought of connected to me. It was something Declan did because he’s a slut. It’s something straight people were obsessed with. But it always sounded like something people did because people expected them to. I didn’t think anyone really wanted it, you know?”
Adam didn’t know. But he felt like he knew who might.
“Give me your phone.”
Ronan looked at him, eyebrow raised.
“I’m calling Blue.”
“The fuck you are.”
Adam reached into Ronan’s pocket, impatiently.
“Why would it possibly be in my pocket?” Ronan asked, letting Adam frisk him. “I thought you knew me.”
Adam growled, pulling himself off the couch so he could hunt down Ronan’s phone.
He found it plugged in next to his bed. Which was useless to Ronan while he was elsewhere in the house but still surprising that Ronan would take the initiative to make sure it was charged.
He brought it back down to Ronan, who had slumped sideways on the couch dramatically when Adam had pulled away from him. It was already ringing and on speaker when he curled himself into Ronan’s side.
“Hello Ronan,” purred Orla on the other end of the phone.
Adam sighed. “Orla, you have to know that I’m sitting right here.”
Orla’s cackle crackled through the beat-up phone speaker, making Ronan bristle. Adam patted his arm.
“May we please speak to Blue?”
“If I can find her…”
Adam rolled his eyes.
Blue must have been nearby because she came on the line just a couple moments later.
“Adam?”
“And Ronan,” Adam answered. “We needed an expert.”
Blue chuckled. “I have no idea what Ronan might need an expert in that you’d call me for. You two thinking about changing your clothes?”
“If I needed a clothing expert I wouldn’t call you, Maggot.” Ronan sneered. Adam was glad Blue couldn’t see him. His aggression was unnecessary but Adam knew he was just embarrassed. “I don’t like looking like I’ve gone through a blender.”
“Then why does your face look like that?”
Ronan snorted, unkindly. Adam rolled his eyes again.
“Okay, Blue, this is actually a question about sexuality.”
Ronan flinched. Adam grabbed his arm and pulled it around his own waist, hoping Ronan just needed something to hold onto. They had to get through this.
There was silence for three surprised heartbeats before Blue spoke a tentative, “Okay.”
Adam exhaled. He was so glad he could trust Blue not to ask any embarrassing questions.
“What do you call it when a person has never wanted sex?”
“Asexual.”
The answer was so fast it was almost not real.
Adam looked over his shoulder at Ronan. Ronan was frowning again.
“Can you explain a little about what that means?”
“Well,” Blue started, and it sounded like she was settling in to the couch of the sewing/phone/cat room. Probably for a long explanation. “Obviously it’s different for everyone. But, generally, it means that a person does not feel sexual attraction. The line varies – some people like kissing and cuddling and other people don’t want to be touched at all – but it’s just the absence of sexual desire.”
Adam carefully didn’t look at Ronan. He didn’t want Ronan to school his expression away from anything he might be thinking.
“So like abstinence?” Adam asked, not sure where this was going but needing Blue to keep talking. “Like a priest?”
“No,” Blue said, and it sounded like she was shaking her head. “No, because if you’re abstinent, you could still want sex, you just don’t let yourself have it. While a lot of asexual people have sex. Some people do it for their partner, or stress relief, or whatever. And they can enjoy it while it’s happening. But they just don’t think of it as something they need themselves. They don’t seek it out.”
Adam was nodding, though he knew Blue couldn’t see him. “So asexual people have sex?”
“Some of them.” He could hear her shrug. “Some don’t. They’re what’s called ‘sex-repulsed.’ But they can still have long-term relationships or whatever. Because they still feel the need to be close to people and have romantic feelings for them.”
Adam’s eyes tightened. Blue wasn’t stupid. He knew that she’d probably guessed what this was about.
He needed to get her off the phone.
“Thanks, Blue. See you at Nino’s”
“Wait, Ad–”
He hung up. He put the phone carefully on the floor.
He found Ronan’s hand and laced their fingers together before turning to him.
“That was easier than angsting for a couple days,” he said lightly.
Ronan’s face wasn’t blank. But it wasn’t any sort of identifiable emotion either.
“Did we learn anything?” Adam prodded, turning his body so he and Ronan were flush together again.
“Sure, Parrish.” Ronan flexed his fingers against Adam’s. “We learned that when you have needs you need to talk to me and let me handle them.”
Adam shoved him. He didn’t go very far, pressed into the couch as they were. “I meant about you, asshole.”
“I know what you meant.” Ronan leaned forward and kissed Adam’s eyebrow. “And yeah. It’s something to think about.”
They met up with Gansey and Henry later that evening at Nino’s while Blue was on shift.
Ronan kept his arm draped over Adam’s shoulder, just like always, and Adam kept a hand on Ronan’s knee, just like always. Gansey expounded excitedly over some artifacts Mallory had found and Cheng peeled the cheese off his pizza slice before folding it up small and swallowing it whole. Ronan and Adam expressed their feelings of equal disgust and reluctant appreciation. Nothing unusual.
Blue came by to refill their sweet tea, acting too casual for the situation to warrant. Ronan coughed into his fist.
“Fine, Sargent, if you’re gonna be weird, yes the questions were about me.” He shoved the empty platter at her. “Now go get us another pizza.”
Blue seemed shocked but pleased. She didn’t even flip Ronan off when she picked up the tray.
Gansey was too polite to ask what Ronan had been talking about. But Henry wasn’t.
“Wh–”
“None of your goddamn business, Cheng.” He pulled Adam tighter into his side. Adam squeezed his knee.
That was about as good as any of them were going to get.
46 notes
·
View notes
Text
Are You Missing Underwear?
Pynch. 2.7k. (Ao3)
Based off of this tumblr post
Adam almost completely overlooked the note hiding with the rest of his mail as he tossed the stack of bills on the coffee table.
It had been a long day. First, his bike had gotten a flat tire on his ride to campus. This had made him late to his 8am – robbing him of the title as the only student who had never been late to that class. Then, he had had a fight with his teacher in his medieval Welsh History seminar – she insisting that Welsh’s predilection towards Christianity making a belief in Ley Lines impossible and Adam disagreeing entirely. And then, to top it off, the pissclown whose Mustang Twister he’d been breaking his neck over for two weeks had cancelled his order, which meant it was now Adam’s job to try and sell this impractical vehicle to some other sucker or he was out a significant restoration commission.
So with that and having to walk his wobbly bike home in the late-July Virginia swelter, Adam wasn’t paying attention to his mail.
Not to be ignored, however, the small leaf of paper tucked carefully but loosely between two envelopes slipped free and fluttered to the ground, forcing Adam to stoop and pick it up.
Adam blinked at the bolded question at the top of the slip.
“Are You Missing Underwear?”
His brow furrowed as he snorted. Curious, he read the rest of the note.
“We have discovered that our bird has stolen a large amount of men’s underpants and socks from a neighbor.
“We live in the loft of Monmouth Apartments.
“If it is you we are very sorry.
“We have them here and we can return them.
“You’ll be pleased to know we’re moving…
“Please call or text Gansey on this number if you think it might be you.”
This was followed by a phone number and the apartment information.
Adam huffed out a laugh, wondering how many different apartment buildings had gotten these in their mailboxes. Monmouth was on the next street over from Adam’s building and there were three apartment complexes in the area. That’s a lot of leaflets.
His smile trailed off into a considering ‘Hmmm’ as he read back over the ad. Was he missing underwear?
He made his way with the paper to his bedroom to check on his undies situation. It was entirely likely that bird had robbed him: he didn’t have an air conditioner and his apartment would be absolutely uninhabitable if not for an open window.
He rooted around on his floor, picking through the dirty laundry scattered around it. He should have probably been embarrassed by how messy everything was but, between classes and his two jobs, he could hardly blame himself for neglecting his apartment. He was still eating regularly, he got a decent amount of sleep, and he got all of his homework done: something needed to be sacrificed.
And now he was facing the consequences of that sacrifice. By his count he was missing at least 15 pairs of underwear. He was kind of shocked he hadn’t noticed before that moment.
Sighing, he looked back at the flyer.
“Please call or text.”
Well that was all well and good, Mr. Gansey person, but not everyone had an unlimited cell phone plan. Glancing at his watch, Adam weighed his options.
It was nearing 6 o’clock, which meant there was a chance he would be interrupting dinner, but it also meant that the flyer distributers/thieving-bird owners were more likely to be home. Looking down at himself, he frowned at the coveralls and t-shirt that were his uniform at the garage. The coveralls, currently tied by the sleeves around his waist, kept the oil from staining the white of his t-shirt but Adam’s sweat had made it damp and discolored in places, making it cling awkwardly to his chest. He considered changing, thinking about the state of his closet and the empty spaces that begged him to look instead at the floor.
Well, these people were probably already judging him by the state of his underwear. Showing up looking like a greasemonkey couldn’t hurt him now.
Might as well get all the unpleasantness done in one day.
Making his decision, Adam grabbed his wallet and keys, shoving them back in in the pockets of his coveralls as he pulled the door open.
Adam’s decision not to change was validated almost instantly. It didn’t matter that his white t-shirt was already sweaty because anything else he would have put on he would have sweat through within five minutes of being outside. The walk to Monmouth was only a block, but the oppressive heat was like a physical weight, drawing down his limbs and demanding effort to keep them moving. Effort Adam barely had in him after his long shift and longer day of class.
The sooner he could be at Monmouth, the sooner he could return to his apartment, finally do his overdue laundry, and go to bed. That thought drove him forward.
Adam breathed a sigh of relief when the air conditioning of Monmouth hit him, only for the sigh to turn into a groan when he saw the elevator was out of order.
“Oh, well fuck me, then,” he muttered to himself, shoving his sweaty hair out of his eyes. He didn’t let himself dwell on how unpleasant the climb to the top floor would be as he threw himself into the stairwell.
Adam was not out of shape. He really didn’t have the option to be out of shape when he had to rely on his body to travel since he didn’t have a car and had a physically demanding job. But even with the shape Adam was in, his chest was still heaving by the time he was done climbing the stairs, gasping and sweating and in no state to make introductions.
Even so, he stumbled his way out of the staircase to the large warehouse-style sliding door that divided the upper loft from the entryway. Monmouth Apartments, formerly known as Monmouth Manufacturing, might have produced something important in its day, Adam didn’t know. But whatever the factory had been, it was now housing for wealthy douchebags who thought the warehouse look was so boho chic. Apparently there were hipster assholes who lived in Virginia, who knew?
And one of these hipster assholes had an underwear stealing bird. And that asshole happened to live on the top fucking floor and was blasting shitty electronica music.
Adam knocked on the door, ready to meet the asshole and have it be over with.
There was no answer, the music too loud in the echoey warehouse, so Adam knocked louder. When there was still no answer, he banged both hands on the door, not stopping until the music cut off.
Adam backed away, clumsily, as the big industrial door slid open. The size of the door didn’t lend itself to violent movements but the young man on the other side compensated by slamming bodily into the door frame, his bare torso colliding with the metal. He looked at Adam in a way that he could only describe as ill-tempered disinterest.
The angry young man crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Adam in place of a greeting, slumping against the doorframe in such a dramatic lean as to bring him to Adam’s height.
Adam bit the inside of his cheek, hard, then let it go so he could ask “Are you Gansey?”
“No.”
Adam waited for the man to continue or to slide the door shut and dismiss him completely but he did neither. He stayed slump against the doorframe, staring at Adam.
“Is Gansey here?”
“No.”
Adam waited. The young man stared.
Then suddenly there was an enormous raven on the man’s shoulder.
Adam gaped at it, disbelieving. “Holy shit, is this the bird?”
The man broke his mask of disinterest with a smirk, reaching one of his fingers up for the raven to peck at affectionately.
Adam pointed, redundantly. “This is the bird that’s been stealing my underwear? It’s a raven?”
The young man’s smirk stretched into a mean grin. He pushed himself to standing erect, the hand he had offered to the raven coming down to rest in his belt loops. Standing this way he was several inches taller than Adam “Oh, so you’re Captain Dirty Underpants.”
Adam flushed, glancing away, and pulled the flyer from the pocket of his coveralls. “I’m looking for Gansey.” He showed the flyer, gesturing at the print. “This said I could come pick them up–”
“It also said to call or text, if I recall.” The man interrupted. “Because Gansey isn't here right now and wow, that’s embarrassing for you.”
Adam bit his cheek again, anger squaring his shoulders. He looked unflinchingly into the man’s eyes, forgetting to clip his accent in his annoyance. “Look, can we just get this done? I don’t give a rat’s ass who gives me my shit back, I just need it. And seeing as it’s your bird–” Adam looked pointedly at where the raven was nibbling at the man’s ear “that stole my shit, I think you can get it for me. I don’t need some asshole with a corvid wasting my time.”
The man’s smirk had melted into a sneer by the end of Adam’s monologue. The sneer ruined the line of his jaw, which was cutting and attractive, like all of his features were sharp and perfect. The lines of his collarbone were sharp where they separated his neck from his bare torso. His knuckles were sharp where he curled his fists into the fabric of his jeans. His eyes were alight, a fury in them lending itself to either fighting or fucking. Adam swallowed, his eyes skimming down his body without his permission.
Slowly, the young man reached behind him, pulling something from his back pocket and tossed it at Adam. “Speed dial one for Gansey.”
He disappeared from the doorway, allowing Adam to examine the sharp lines of a massive tattoo covering his back as he walked away. Adam inspected the phone in his hands. It was a newer model than his own but not the sleek shiny number he expected from one of the rich bastards that lived in Monmouth.
He wasn’t sure what to do, but he guessed that calling Gansey from this man’s phone was a start.
He felt awkward lurking in the doorway with a ringing phone that wasn’t his, but he wasn’t willing to follow the angry young man with the bird further into the apartment.
The voice that picked up sounded almost panicked in its surprise. “Ronan?”
Adam registered the old-money accent with a pang of resentment before he answered. “Um, no.” He cleared his throat. “I’m calling in answer to your flyer? About the underwear stealing bird?”
“And who is this? Why do you have Ronan’s phone?”
Adam sighed. “My name’s Adam. I figured out I had underwear missing when I saw your flyer. I thought it would be easier to just come over and pick them up. I didn’t think you wouldn’t be home.”
A pause. “And Ronan?”
“If that’s the bald kid with the fucking raven on his shoulder then he gave me his phone after I knocked on the door. Told me to call you.”
There was a sigh on the other end of the line. Adam got the impression that Gansey was scrubbing a hand over his face. “Is he there?”
“Ah, no. He left me in the hallway and went back into the apartment. The door’s open, though.”
“Well you can follow him in there. I’m Gansey, as you might have guessed. Please ignore Ronan.”
Adam lowered his voice as he took a couple of tentative steps into the apartment. “But isn’t it his bird?”
“Yes, but it’s not his fault. She thinks he’s depressed so she’s been trying to bring him presents.”
“She?”
“Chainsaw. The raven.”
“Chainsaw?”
There was a squawk from further into the apartment and Adam jerked his head around to see the angry young man – Ronan – lounging apathetically on a couch, the raven next to his head on the back of the couch. The raven’s head was turned towards Adam, her eyes peering at him.
“Chainsaw.” Adam repeated.
The bird squawked again.
Ronan was staring at him too, absently stroking at the feathers on Chainsaw’s neck.
“Tell Ronan that your things are in the kitchen/bathroom/laundry.” Gansey said. “In the blue reusable shopping bag.”
Adam wanted to ask why he couldn’t just give Ronan the phone, but he had a suspicion Ronan wouldn’t take it. “Gansey said my stuff it in the kitchen… bathroom.. Laundry?” Adam started, unsure if he was saying it correctly. “In the blue bag.”
“Cool.” Ronan pointed absently towards the back of the apartment, not looking away from Adam. “It’s that door over there.”
“Adam, would you mind putting me on speaker?”
Adam did, holding the phone out so Ronan could hear.
“Ronan, go get this boy his things. It’s your fault for neglecting Chainsaw that he had to come out of his way to retrieve them in the first place.”
Gansey had already told Adam that it wasn’t Ronan’s fault but Adam thought it best to keep that to himself.
“Come on, Dick,” Ronan whined, “can’t we just wait for you to get back?”
There was some muttering on the other line, a higher voice coming through sounding irritated. “Jane says to stop being a lazy fuck-head and give the damn kid his stuff back.” Gansey said “Also, sorry, ‘fuck you for interrupting date night.’”
“Tell Sargent to mind her damn business.” But Ronan was smiling as he pulled himself off the couch. “And fuck you for having a date night when there’s underwear to deal with.”
There was a bark of laughter in that same high voice. Gansey spoke over it. “Adam, is he getting up?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’m going to hang up but you can call me back if he acts up or something . ”
Ronan and Adam snorted at the same time, blinking at each other in surprise. Gansey’s laughter came through the tinny speaker before he hung up, leaving Adam alone with Ronan and the bird again.
Ronan didn’t linger, throwing himself through the door he’s pointed at earlier. Through it, Adam could see a toilet precariously close to a refrigerator. Ronan was back out and closing the door before Adam could think on that too much.
“Well,” Ronan said, extending a blue reusable grocery bag to Adam. “Ta-fucking-da.”
Adam took the bag, gingerly. He wanted to open it and look to see if he had all of his underwear back, but if the underwear was still dirty he didn’t want to expose them to Ronan. Again.
“Are you gonna need this bag back?”
Ronan snorted, the action sounding less mean than it had talking to Gansey on the phone. “No, man, consider it a gift. Sorry I have a bird child that’s into criminal activity.”
The words were sarcastic but there was something endearing about Ronan calling Chainsaw his ‘bird child’.
“Thank you.” Adam hesitated then moved the bag to his left hand and extended his right to Ronan. “I’m Adam. Adam Parrish.”
Ronan looked at Adam like he was stupid. “Okay?” But he reached forward and shook Adam’s hand. “Ronan Lynch.”
Adam smirked, glancing at Chainsaw who was no longer watching them from the back of the coach, idly picking at the stitches. “You know, Lynch,” he started pulling his hand away, “it’s kind of pathetic that your bird thinks you’re so terrible at picking up men, she needs to steal their underwear for you.”
Ronan flushed red but Adam could tell it was more out of embarrassment than anger. He continued quickly, just in case.
“Is it bad it kind of worked?”
Ronan gaped, his flush extending down his chest. Adam took care to make sure Ronan knew he was looking.
“Well,” Adam continued, letting his eyes trail slowly back up to Ronan’s face. “If you need me, your bird knows where to find me.”
#pynch#dumb fic#oops I wrote a thing#Jessie writes pynch fic#The Raven Cycle#this was my first pynch y'all#I think it's alright#*shrugs*
13 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
superadventureboy-blog
Hafizh
theritualofourexistence
Cupcakes and Counterblast
bijouxcarys
squeeeeezy lemons
goeskba
无标题
