incognoscibilis | I was as pure as a river but now I think I'm possessed [Ronan 12/17/15]

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I was as pure as a river but now I think I'm possessed [Ronan 12/17/15]

It was stupid. So stupid. Someone at the garage had come up on Adam's left side and startled him and he'd flailed a hand back. That hand, his left, was now marked with a deep gash from where it'd struck the blade of the circular saw. He'd been too surprised to ask Cabeswater for help.The cut had bled like crazy but it hadn't actually hurt at first.

Driving home, Adam had realized that his left hand was damp inside the leather gloves he wore when cycling. Pulling over and taking the glove off had been like a horror movie. It reminded him of the time that his dad had slammed Adam's hand in a car door. In the nighttime shadow, he'd noticed the wetness of blood but it hadn't hurt. When he'd walked into the light and seen the blood it had been a switch in his brain. Everything had gone into pain mode.

He'd whimpered but learned by then not to cry.

Adam knew, now, not to cry either. He knew to take himself to the emergency room. He knew that–because he was actively bleeding–he would get taken back quickly.

It was morbidly fascinating once they'd shot in the local anesthetic because he could see the needle, feel the pull of the thread, but all of it registered as a distant tugging sensation. Like stamping feet that had fallen asleep.

He was given a tetanus shot and sternly told not to drive.

He didn't have to worry about the bill. Darrow was thoughtful about their healthcare like that.

He had to worry about getting home. Blue was scared of driving normal cars; Adam had a feeling she wouldn't come near his motorcycle. Gansey had the Pig but he must have been elsewhere because his phone didn't pick up. No response from Noah either and it was terrible of Adam but he wasn't sure if Noah could drive a motorcycle either. That left...

Please check your phone. I'm at the emergency room. Need a ride home. Please.

He didn't expect a response from Ronan, not really.

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It isn't at all unusual for Ronan to be alone in Hywel. Typically, he makes a point of it, only showing up when he knows Adam, at the very least, is out. But tonight, Gansey's out, probably with Blue and Noah's out, probably with Krem. It's just Ronan and Chainsaw and shitty made-for-TV movie that's somehow even worse than any made-for-TV movie Ronan ever caught back in Henrietta.

The buzz of Ronan's phone against the table is startling in its sheer rarity. Ronan frowns down at it as Chainsaw perks her head up from her perch across the room, blinking steadily.

Sure it's Noah texting some stupid joke or inane observation, Ronan nearly ignores it, but as the movie drops to commercial, Ronan drops his feet off the table and reaches for it, stomach dropping as soon as he sees who it's from.

He doesn't think twice, grabbing his keys and coat as assuring Chainsaw as he heads out.

The trip to the emergency room takes twenty minutes too long and Ronan storms his way threw the doors, ignoring the heavy rapid, terrified thud of his heartbeat until he finds Adam in the waiting room, hunched. It's a far too familiar sight, one that makes Ronan's blood run cold and he's in front of Adam in seconds.

"Jesus, Parrish, what the fuck happened?"

"Circular saw. Someone was up on my left side." His deaf side. His bad side. Darrow insurance probably covered him for a hearing aid but Adam didn't want the visibility of it. He had a smattering of scars here and there but they were faint and easy to hide. Bruises faded. His left ear was a permanent thing.

None of his coworkers noticed it, how Adam asked for repetitions or focused increasingly on people's mouths or canted his head to his right to hear better. If he got a hearing aid, they'd all know.

"I had to get fifteen stitches. They said I couldn't drive myself home."

He hated how much his heart leaped. If things hadn't gone so...wrong he could probably just throw himself into Ronan's arms right now, be melodramatic and ask for kisses better. That was, if Adam was the kind of person who had an ounce of melodrama in him. His dramas were tragically Grecian or else deeply buried.

Adam's hands are tucked in against his belly, but Ronan can make out the heavy bandaging around the left one. He isn't sure he wants to know what Adam's hand looks like beneath the gauze. What his mind conjures for him is more than enough.

He also doesn't need clarification that Adam had already exhausted all other avenues before settling on Ronan.

The surety of it is crushing, but deservedly so, and Ronan only nods before jerking his head toward the door. "Your bike still at the garage?" he asks, assuming Adam got here by way ambulance.

"No. It's in the parking lot." Because he'd been halfway home when he'd realized how bad it was and it didn't make sense to sit there on the curb waiting for an ambulance. He had been bleeding, not drunk, not an invalid. So he'd taken himself. His emotions reacted before Ronan did, because he knew how Ronan would react. Adam had been stupid, reckless in the worst way because he was supposed to be the one that was careful, the one who wasn't reckless.

"I just need a ride. You don't have to...do anything after that."

Want me again. Believe me. Believe that I'm in charge of my own mind.

But Ronan wore martyrhood too well.

"What the fuck do you--"

Ronan cuts himself off sharply, huffing out a breath as he shakes his head. It doesn't matter. Adam's first instinct has always been to think the worst of him and Ronan's only given him more fuel to support that. Lately that's been at least partially by deliberate necessity.

"I came in the Pig," he says, pulling out his keys and already heading toward the door. "I'll grab Gansey later to come back for your bike."

Adrenaline is still pumping under Ronan's veins, heart thudding. But Adam's okay. He's okay. And at least this time his injury wasn't care of Robert fucking Parrish. "I've got some pain meds back at Hywel," he says as he pushes open the door and steps out into the brisk evening air. "For whenever the shit you're on now wears off."

"I was already driving." Then, Adam paused looking at him. Ronan was walking in front. It would be easy to grab his hand. The infatuated, lonely part of Adam was telling the hurt part of Adam to fuck off. "And it didn't hurt until I realized it should."

Ronan had had plenty of injuries. He should understand that.

"I hope you don't plan to make Gansey ride my motorcycle." It would be hilarious in the worst way. Only slightly behind Blue in improbability. At least Ronan looked right on the back of that Harley-Davidson. More right than Adam did, sometimes.

Ronan glances back over his shoulder then, Adam walking just a half a step behind. The comment feels strangely almost like a truce, a mutual ability to find Gansey ridiculous, harmlessly endearing.

It'd be easy enough to brush off, easy to give Adam even more reason to hate him, push him away, shove him away.

Some part of him is still sure that's what he should do, but he can't get Noah's words from the other night out of his head. Or Blue's. Especially Blue's maybe.

He forcibly relaxes the muscles in his shoulders and lets out a breath. Says, "Don't need anyone else in the emergency room," as he unlocks the passenger door of the Pig and pulls it open. It's not chivalry but logic considering Adam only has one working hand at the moment, but he doesn't make himself look away from the way Adam folds himself into the front seat.

Once in the driver's seat, Ronan turns up the heat. The radio's off and he keeps it that way and he veers out of the parking spot, turning the Pig towards Hywel Industrial. "You eat yet?"

Blue would have fought the chivalry, but that was only one bullet point on the list of reasons that Adam wasn't Blue Sargent. This was the most conscientious that Ronan had been of Adam in weeks, aside from the backpack. It had been unlabeled but so obviously a dream thing and so obviously a dream thing made special for him.

Mostly, they had played games of not looking at one another. One being absent when the other was home. Just carrying on as best they could and pretending that none of their friends noticed the fractious, heartbroken elephants in the room.

And then Ronan asked if he'd eaten and the simple inquiry to his well-being was so surprising, after everything, that Adam was honest and said, "No."

With a nod, Ronan reaches into his pocket to pull out his phone. He has the closest pizza delivery place to Hywel on speed dial and he keeps his eyes locked on the road as he orders a large pizza. As close as they are to Hywel, it won't get there before them and he tosses his phone onto the dash as soon as the call ends.

It takes every bit of willpower to not look over at Adam, and he eventually caves, glancing over briefly, eyes dropping to the gauze wrapped around Adam's hand. His chest tightens, aching.

"At least you're right-handed," he says, letting a small hint of a smile curve his lips. "You can still wipe your ass."

Adam could feel Ronan's eyes on him and he struggled not to flick them back toward him, failing. If he moved his hand now, kept the gauze out of Ronan's sight, he'd know that Adam was doing it for his sake.

Then he made that crack and Adam snorted. "Thank God for small miracles."

He chalked it up to blood loss that he didn't insist on splitting the cost with Ronan. Sometimes, Adam felt a thousand more tired here at Darrow than he ever had in Henrietta.

Ronan looked so good when he smiled.

Adam laughs, brief and sharp, and Ronan feels the tight barb around his heart uncoil just a little. Though, not enough for him to make another snide remark regarding things Adam only needs one hand for.

Instead, he lets the conversation in an awkward silence, his smile fading as he grips the steering wheel tighter.

They reach Hywel minutes later, Ronan throwing the Pig into park. Adam doesn't need any help with the door this time, but Ronan's there anyway. Because of the drugs, he tells himself.

The factory is still empty when they step in, lights still on and TV blaring, exactly as Ronan had left it. He hesitates for a second, just inside the door, then steels himself as he holds up his hands to reach for Adam's coat. "Here, let me."

"It's a bandage, Lynch, not a cast," Adam said. He slipped out of his coat to prove his point. Yes, his left hand was stiff but Adam thought that came mostly from the anesthesia than the injury.

It occurred to him, too late, that the coat would have been an excuse for Ronan to touch him and Adam would have had an excuse to let him. Feeling stupid, he held the coat out if Ronan still wanted to take it.

Copper trots up to greet them, her tail wagging wildly before she flops at Adam's feet.

"You'd think you were the deaf one, all this volume."

Ignoring the weight of disappointment in his belly, Ronan only sneers as Adam slips out of his coat. "You look like you're wearing a boxing glove," Ronan points out with an arched brow. "Just trying to help, man."

Chainsaw swoops down from upstairs, either stirred awake by the sound of Adam's voice or Copper's barking, cawing noisily as she flutters to perch on the back of the couch.

Ronan hangs Adam's coat on the rack just inside the door before slipping out of his own, then heads toward the far corner that's been set up as their kitchen. He needs some distance for a minute, needs to pull himself away before he tries looking for any excuse, however small, to put his hands on Adam. "Needed something to fill up the space," he explains, opening the fridge to pull out two cans of Coke.

"You'd know better than I would." It was a surrender of words, hardly anything. If he wanted to be sharper, he supposed he could express surprise that Ronan even used gloves when bare-knuckle was so convenient. A moralizing voice–sounding suspiciously like Blue's–in the back of his head asked if they both hadn't done enough damage yet.

He took the Coke, grateful for the sugar. The hospital had told him that he hadn't lost that much but that he'd do better with sugar and food, just like after a blood donation. Adam had never donated blood in his life. Given it, spilled it, but not donated.

He let his fingers brush Ronan's, such a small gesture, but it was how they had started before.

Adam's fingers brush Ronan's, the touch fleeting but unmistakably deliberate. Ronan's eyes land on Adam's, waiting for regret to curve that elegant brow, but Adam stands firm, not backing down, his gaze unwavering.

So Ronan makes a choice.

Holding his Coke in one hand, Ronan gently takes Adam's left wrist with the other. He moves slowly, giving Adam all the time in the world to scowl and pull away before ducking enough to brush his lips to Adam's fingers, bare and cold to the touch. It's not the apology he knows Adam needs and he hasn't worked out how to get there yet, but may... maybe it can be a start.

His eyes don't leave Adam's for a second.

It was so much and not enough. Adam shifted his hand to cup Ronan's face, never breaking eye contact either. He wanted to fix this, somehow. Ronan only had to verbalize contrition, to say out loud that he'd done wrong, and Adam would have been happy. Ronan only had to believe that Adam did this because he wanted to.

It was not a magical forest that had made Adam note the length of Ronan's eyelashes, nor the way his tattoo wrapped beautifully around the juncture of neck into shoulder. Ronan was the Greywaren, yes, but Adam was the Magician. Adam had made a choice and he had become Cabeswater's agent, not its slave.

He remembered Persephone's words. Cabeswater is not the boss of you.

It wasn't. Cabeswater wasn't what made Adam want Ronan Lynch.

It's a clumsy touch, the gauze bumping Ronan's jaw, fingertips tickling he skin just below Ronan's ear. It doesn't quite feel like forgiveness, not yet, but it's something.

Swallowing, Ronan tries to fight the frenzy under his skin. He wants to smash something. He want to hide away.

He doesn't let himself do either, slides his hand down to gently curve around Adam's wrist, keeping him there.

"I thought I was doing the right thing," he says, voice almost a quiet plea, though it's still not an apology. "I didn't-- Fuck, whatever," he says, shaking his head with a huff and taking a step back. He needs to breathe. "I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought. You deserve to choose, alright? We're both fucking stuck here, but we still have the right to make our own goddamn choices."

"You guys have to trust me," Adam said softly. He mapped out the shape of Ronan's cheekbone. When was the last time they'd been this close. Ronan gave no apology and Adam held back on real forgiveness. They needed the words. Needed to say them as much as hear. "I made my choice."

He'd chosen to become Cabeswater's hands and ears. He'd chosen to give away any shot at Glendower's favor in hopes of saving Gansey's life. He'd chosen Ronan.

"You chose me. I chose you. Cabeswater had no part of it."

Even now, Ronan can't miss the past tense usage. Even now, when it's been past tense for over a month. Even now, there's a part of him that feels he should keep it that way, should push Adam away until Adam comes to his senses.

Adam's fingertips graze his cheek, mapping the jut of bone and Adam swallows his breath.

"I keep thinking I can convince it I don't want you," he admit, still watching Adam's eyes carefully. "It's not fucking working." He drops his hand from Adam's wrist, tentatively resting it on Adam's side instead, over the fabric of his shirt. There's a terror in every word that falls from his lips, like he's peeling back his skin layer by layer. "It's painful to look at you sometimes. Now. It didn't before, back home. It was easier when I didn't know it felt to touch you."

Adam set the can of Coke aside on the arm of one of the chairs they'd dragged up, moving in closer to to Ronan until their heads were inches apart. I chose you, he thought again. I choose you now. You just have to let me make that choice.

"You're the only one telling us that this isn't allowed."

They could have this. They just needed the words.

"Do you believe me?"

It shouldn't feel like a loaded question. It's not one. It's simple and straight-forward and Ronan really doesn't have to think before he nods because it isn't Adam he doesn't trust. It never has been.

But if he trusts Adam, maybe he has to trust Cabeswater, too. Or maybe he just needs to trust what's directly in front of him, grab the one good thing in his life and hold on tight. If Adam isn't fighting it, then why should he?

"I thought I was doing the right thing," he says again, weaker now as nerves rattle and buzz, shaking him apart inside. "The whole time, I thought-- Fuck. I didn't do it to hurt you, but I did. I know I did." He forces himself to take a breath, his hand still on Adam's side as he breathes in every one of Adam's exhales. "I'm sorry. I want... I want you to choose me."

Those words unlocked something in Adam and he nodded, breathing in those words. Ronan didn't apologize, never did. Gansey apologized for him and smoothed the troubles away with a poultice of charm and money. Ronan never looked at someone as openly as he was looking at Adam now and never ever apologized for anything.

Except now.

Adam was reminded again that he was holding Ronan's face. All he had to do was lean closer, close the space. It would be so easy to kiss him.

"I chose you," he said. "I'm choosing you again."

The words are gentle and so so quiet and Ronan feels his chest crack open under the weight. He drops his can of coke with a clunk, barely registering the sound at all before he's grabbing at Adam's shirt with both hands and crashing his mouth to Adam's.

He doesn't pull Adam any closer and he's all too aware of the gauzed hand still pressed to his cheek, but he does breath between Adam's lips, whining at the taste of him, still so familiar.

Ronan is shaking when he finally pulls back, heart hammering in his chest and nose pressed to Adam's. "How drugged are you right now," he says, forcing in another breath as he leans back enough to meet Adam's eyes more fully. There's a hint of a smile on his lips, but the question is a serious one. "Because you have no idea how badly I want to touch you."

It happened so quickly that Adam barely had time to register the sound of the can falling. Ronan was against him, kissing with all the want that Adam had tried to suppress, tried to forget. God, he'd missed this. Everything about Ronan felt certain. Real.

"When I was in that shit version of Darrow, I just kept thinking about getting back here. Getting back to you." Maybe the sight of Ronan wouldn't have fixed what they endured, but it would have been good, so much better than where he'd been.

To lose that had hurt. To get it back was amazing.

"I'm not even on drugs. Just local anesthesia. Not even a prescription."

It's not a dig, Ronan knows that much. Adam isn't saying it to twist the knife of guilt, but Ronan feels it in his gut all the same and, now that the words have been said once, they come easier. He smooths his hands down to Adam's hips and whispers, "Fuck, I'm sorry," against Adam's lips before pushing in for another kiss, this time deeper, hungrier, aching for forgiveness.

He pulls back just enough for Adam to answer, feels a jolt of anticipation rush through him before he quickly stamps it out. Adam's definitely of sound mind to say no and he still very well could.

"We could--"

His words are cut off by the harsh buzz of the door and Ronan scowls as he pulls back then forces his lips into a smile, though it comes out as a slightly irritated sneer. "Pizza."

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