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The first time Adam speaks the words out loud, it’s under the cover of night. Their legs tangle beneath the sheets and softly, more than a whisper but barely, just barely, he breathes out a quiet, “I love you,” against the cusp of Ronan’s ear. His smile is unmistakable even though Ronan can’t see it; a lazy, satisfied stretch of his mouth, his look of genuine satisfaction with all of this.
With him.
It’s so much more than a hot breath on his ear. Ronan feels it through his whole body, in his very soul as a rush of emotions growing, threatening to fill him until he bursts. He takes Adam in, his lips pursed tight, sharp eyebrows raising in disbelief. In a voice still hoarse from earlier, Ronan says, “You’re fucking with me. You gotta be.”
Adam answers with a laugh. It doesn’t last long, only a surge of amusement that quickly fades. “No, I’m not. I meant it. I really do love you.”
Silence hangs over them, lingering. Heavy. Ronan’s mouth opens and shuts, the words he’s meant to say stuck on his tongue, in his throat, suffocating in their intensity.
“Oh, oh—” Adam pauses. “Oh my god, you–you don’t have to say it back. I just–I’ve been giving it some thought for a while and I wanted to, y’know—”
Ronan’s chest aches from the admission, from how typical it is of Adam to overthink something like this. He swoops in, capturing Adam’s mouth with his own, and kisses him over, and over, and over, until he can’t anymore, until Adam laughs again and asks, “What? What’s all this for?”
“Not even an educated guess?” Ronan is answered with only a slight shake of Adam’s head and his gaze flicking down, his lashes low over blue eyes. “Okay, okay, I–Iloveyoutoo.”
Adam perks up, but a tense set of his shoulder gives away his nervousness even when nothing else does. “Yeah? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”
“You accusing me of lying? Me? Fuck off, Parrish,” Ronan says, trying and failing at sounding offended.
Practically melting against Ronan with relief, Adam’s fingers begin to trace a slow, deliberate pattern against his chest. “My bad,” He sighs, slipping easily and happily into the familiarity of this. “I forgot I was talking to mister forthright, mister never told a lie in his life, mister I’m always straight—”
“Alright, for real this time,” Ronan interrupts before he can go on, pushing at Adam in a half-hearted attempt to dislodge him, “I’m not saying it ever again, you can’t make me.”
“Well, now that’s definitely a lie.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I do. Want me to tell you how?”
“Not really.”
“I’m gonna anyway,” Adam says, leaning in. His smile comes back wider, sharper than before. “Ronan, I know you. Somedays, I think maybe I know you better than I do myself, and that means I know you love me too.”
And there it is–the truth laid bare once more. A hot flush spreads across Ronan’s face, up to the tips of his ears. What Ronan really wants to say doesn’t come. Instead, tilting his head slightly, he teases, “You wanna show me the proof backing up this claim?”
Adam’s mouth finds his, kissing Ronan leisurely at first. They have all the time in the world for this or, at least, Ronan likes to pretend they do. Pressing him into the bed, Adam deepens the kiss until it’s all there is and, against Ronan’s lips, he whispers, “How about I do you one better?”
If Ronan says those three words again, moaning them over and over until they lose meaning, Adam doesn’t say anything about it. And the next morning, if Adam is aware Ronan only pretends to be asleep when he murmurs them into his chest before leaving for class, he doesn’t say anything about that either.
~
"Something's different," Blue says, glaring at Ronan. "What did you do?"
Beneath the booth, Adam's shoe presses hard against Ronan's. He leaves it there, half a warning and half a promise for if he behaves. "Really? What makes you say that?" Adam asks drily, snagging an already cold french fry from the communal plate and swirling it in ketchup.
Blue makes a noise while gesturing vaguely. Next to Ronan, Gansey looks up from the book he's been buried in for some time now, his hazel gaze flicking between them. "No, Jane is right," he agrees with a nod. "You seem especially tense, are you feeling okay?"
Ronan rolls his eyes, grabbing a fry for himself to rip in half. "I'm fan-fucking-tastic, actually," he replies. "Maybe you're projecting. Are you feeling okay, man?"
Gansey rubs a thumb along his bottom lip, eyebrows drawing together in thought. "You're being defensive."
"No, I'm really not."
"Yes, you are," Blue chimes in and looks at Adam. "Are you guys fighting?"
Adam shoves the oversaturated fry in his mouth. It tastes terrible after sitting out for so long, but at least it's food. "Not really," he says, shrugging.
"That's a yes if I've ever heard one." Blue leans back, grinning smugly as she crosses her arms over a purposefully tattered Beatles shirt. "What's it about this time? Did Lynch buy the expensive cereal again?"
"Mind your business, maggot," Ronan snarls, flinging half of a french fry at Blue and laughing when her features scrunch at impact.
Digging the heel of his palms into tired eyes, Gansey sighs, “Can we not do this today?”
The table goes quiet instantly, three sets of eyes linger on Gansey and then look away. With his chin resting on his hand, Adam stares out the window into the parking lot. Trees are just beginning to bud, the grass grows greener with every passing day thanks to their near-constant spring showers, and summer’s humidity threatens to set in sooner rather than later.
Adam tilts his head, thinking about how much has changed since that night a couple of weeks back. They haven’t brought it up since, haven’t said it again except for in the moments they’re too delirious, too caught up in one another to care one way or another. He can’t help but wonder if it was a mistake; if he shouldn’t have said it; if maybe he should’ve waited for Ronan to say it first. But there’s no going back in time, only forward, which means all Adam can do is trudge on and hope for the best.
“Parrish.”
Something oily bounces off the side of Adam’s face. His eyes narrow, pretending not to have noticed.
“Earth to Parrish. Hey, hey, are you listening?”
Then it happens again, this time twice in quick succession. Adam peers over at Ronan, catching his wide, shark-like grin spread across his lips and another torn fry in hand. “Hey, asshole. You wanna see if you can catch this in your mouth?”
Adam’s eyebrows rise at the challenge, but he can’t give in so easily. Not yet. “I think,” he says with his own grin, “it’s more a matter of it you can land the shot.”
“Semantics”—Ronan waves his hand in the air—“Now, be a good boy and open wide.”
A wave of awkward heat rushes straight down. Adam squirms, forcing his arousal back, more exasperated with his own lack of self-control than Ronan’s clear attempts at getting him worked up. He turns fully towards Ronan now, nudging a leg firmly against his beneath the table, and raises a finger. “One try, that’s all you get.”
Adam shifts and opens his mouth. He waits for what feels like an inordinately long time over something so simple, waits until Ronan finally flicks the half-fry at him and it hits his forehead only to ricochet off. It lands in an innocent patron’s sweet tea with a cartoonish sounding plunk!, a surprised cry, and Ronan’s howling laughter. Adam blinks, too shocked to react even though he should have expected this.
Without looking up from his book, Gansey only just manages to cover his mouth quick enough to stifle his amusement. He does, but it’s a useless effort since, not even a second later, Gansey bursts with laughter of his own alongside Ronan. Blue follows right after, letting out a loud hah, and Adam feels it bubbling up inside of him, too.
He won’t.
He shouldn’t.
Adam tries to stop it, like Gansey had. He does, but that only makes it worse. The pent-up laughter comes out as a wail, louder and lasting longer than the rest. He’s the last to finally stop, wiping tears from his eyes. “You’re such a shitbag, Lynch,” Adam mumbles, smiling despite his words.
“Adam—” Ronan pauses, his mouth hanging open. A blush creeps across his face, turning his features a satisfying shade of red. He looks away after far too long, grimacing, as if he wants to say something else but can’t.
The temptation to pry is strong. Adam wants to pick, to poke, to prod until Ronan is too irritated not to snap and say whatever it is he’s thinking. He decides against it, to let it be for now, pretending like it isn’t a big deal as he turns his attention to Gansey until Henry shows up to whisk him and Blue off on a three-person excursion.
He hopes Ronan might open up now that they’re alone, but he keeps staring out the window until Adam gently kicks him and asks, “You gonna tell me what’s bugging you?”
Ronan shrugs. “Why would anything be bugging me?”
It’s a non-answer, a diversion—the sort of thing Ronan does to avoid outright lying. Adam scoffs, leaning forward as he softly says, “Ronan, you can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” Ronan replies, returning Adam’s kick. A smile plays at the corners of his mouth and Ronan still doesn’t look at him but that doesn’t matter. Not really. “It’s just–whenever you laugh like that–I get this feeling, this idea in my head—”
“Go on.”
“Asshole,” Ronan murmurs. He smirks, his light gaze catching Adam’s. “That I really do love you, y’know? And I wanted to tell you so bad, but I–it’s fucking weird saying it in front of other people, isn’t it?”
He reaches out to cover Ronan’s hand with his, jerking back when he realizes where they are. It hits him then, how precarious this all is. Adam nods, his thoughts racing, so many things he wants to say but Ronan’s right. It’s weird, it’s too much.
“Well,” Adam says, shifting back, “We’ll just have to find a way around that, won’t we?”
Ronan laughs, gentler than before. The sound makes Adam’s pulse race, makes his chest ache with a feeling he used to think himself incapable of. “Guess we do,” he says, “Something just for us.”
~
“De Amicitia,” Ronan says and throws himself on the couch, so close to Adam he can feel the heat radiating off of him. “You heard of it?”
Adam frowns, his light brows pinching together in a way that makes a crease form between them. He tilts his head towards Ronan and laughs, “Cicero? You’re seriously asking me if I’ve heard of Cicero?”
Mid-afternoon light spills through a crack in the curtains, washing everything in the room out until it matches Adam. He fits in here like the final piece of a puzzle, in this house, in Ronan’s life, like he’s belonged all along. The image encourages Ronan, it reminds him that what he’s about to say is right.
“Okay, well, there’s this quote,” Ronan stops, swallowing the lump forming in his throat. “Est enim is qui est tamquam alter idem.”
The words hang in the air, heavy with meaning. Adam gives it some thought before he finally says, “For he, as it were, a second self. Yeah, yeah, that’s good. I like that.”
“Right, so, y’know? Tamquam—”
“—Alter idem.”
“I love you, Adam. You’re the part of me I like the most.”
Adam gives Ronan a soft smile. “I love you too, Ronan.”