Author's Note

*******All characters don't belong to me; credit to the magnificent author, Maggie Stiefvater. This is a work of fiction on borrowed characters merely for entertainment and personal love for the characters*********

The following story doesn't contain any spoilers so feel free to read without worry :) I plan on continuing this story if any reader asks me to do so. Reviews and comments, whether negative or positive, are more than welcome. So please don't hesitate. Enjoy!

Chapter One

First Realizations

It's one of those lazy afternoons, sunlight filtering into the room casting light in a streak of dust particles that starts narrow and widens till you could see the particles swaying idly, some floating and some slowly heading to the dark wood floor and disappearing peacefully. Ronan watched, filled with tranquil intensity, feeling as if time was moving just as slowly. As languorously. He felt the cold from the wall behind him seep through his shirt but he didn't mind. He would have had his headphones on, blaring music on any other given day but he didn't want to. Not now. The silence was music enough, he thought, and Adam's concentrated breathing was the soft melody that soothed just before the drop in hard instrumentals.

Gansey and Blue had headed to Henry's party some time ago, he can't remember when. He only remembered the hurt look that briefly passed over Adam's face and the swoop of disappointment that pooled in his stomach. Adam had watched them go before turning to look at him and Ronan had quickly turned away before he could read the look on his face, he'd then started towards the door abruptly, needing to leave, to stop thinking, to stop feeling.

"You're not going either, are you?" Adam had said.

Ronan's hand slipped from the knob.

"Wasn't planning on it" He'd replied, "Why? Suddenly changed your mind, Parrish?"

Adam snorted at that "Not really" he said, gesturing to the desk before him spilling with open books and scattered with an assortment of pencils. Of course, Ronan thought, the ever over-achieving bastard. It's one of the things he hated about him, or loved. Hated to love.

"It's not much, it's just something I need to turn in soon" Adam said defensively as if he knew what he was thinking about him.

Ronan turned to the door again, almost reluctantly. He doesn't know what he wants exactly. He could sit back on Adam's bed and lie down as he was doing minutes ago, but then what? That ache would return again, So close yet so far. He couldn't deal with it anymore.

And yet, his hands hesitated. Stay he wanted to hear. Stay and –

"Stay" Adam says behind him and the word lingers in the room, like a forgotten curse, an echoing whisper, like something he just conjured out of his dreams. He wasn't sure if it was, so he turns around and Adam is watching him expectantly.

Ronan doesn't say anything. He walks back to the bed and sits across the bed with his back resting against the wall, head turned up as if he were about to sleep. He was more wide awake than ever.

And Adam knew that he was. His gaze hasn't wavered from him since blue and Gansey left. He'd watched as Gansey instinctively reached for Blue's hands, trying to tell her to hurry. She was bickering with Ronan and Adam was watching with a small smile on his face. If Gansey hadn't hesitated, it would have been normal, but he'd hesitated.

If it were someone else, it would've passed as awkwardness, but Adam knew Gansey too well, knew from the blank, innocent that his face took up in those few minutes after reaching that it was guilt and not embarrassment. He didn't want to hurt Adam. Typical Gansey. But he'd hurt him merely by not telling him. Typical Gansey.

He frowned as they shut the door behind them thinking that he'd see how long they'd keep this a secret from him when he'd turned to be met with Ronan's blue eyes. His breathe stuck in his chest for a few milliseconds, caught by surprise and held there with something else. Something he couldn't name.

The stillness in his features made Adam think of the calm before a reveal, the pain after speaking without thought. But it was gone in as instant to be replaced with the carefully controlled expressions. His eyes were closed now, his dark eyelashes fluttering against his cheek as if he was deep in thought behind his closed eyes.

If it weren't for the stark black ink that curled slightly to the sides of his neck, he would have thought Ronan's long eyelashes made him someone else. Someone softer, gentler; someone that's becoming more familiar these days.

With apprehensive curiosity, Adam's eyes trailed down the harsh edges of tattoos that were peaking to his collarbone then to his arms that were well visible from his black muscle-tee. They were corded with slight muscle, lean but strong as Adam had witnessed from the fight with his father.

As if feeling his eyes on him, Ronan tensed and Adam quickly turned back to his open books, trying to gather his thoughts to figure out where he'd stopped. Minutes passed by like that, hunched over the desk and trying to sort unnamed thoughts. He'd progressed a small amount on his essay but he felt his interest slipping away slick as oil.

He stood up abruptly and Ronan snapped his eyes open in surprise. His blue eyes shined with a question. Adam ignored it and hobbled towards the bed before he lost his nerve. He sat beside Ronan and breathed out a long sigh. It was exhaustion; exhaustion and confusion and helplessness. He wanted to ask a question or maybe answer one.

"Okay, Parrish?" Ronan's voice broke the silence from beside him.

"If it was Latin, I'd have had you do it" he replied, feeling like there was some other conversation going on between them and this one was background noise to that one.

"You'd have begged me to do it" corrected Ronan confidently and rightfully so, considering that this was one class that Ronan was top in rather than him.

Adam felt himself smiling. This he was familiar with. "And..?" he prompted.

"And I'd say no" Ronan replied, tasting the lie even as he spoke.

Ronan watched as a slow smile crept up Adam's lips. There was slight tiredness in his eyes but they still shone resolutely. This close, he could see the small freckles smattering the bridge of his nose and slightly on his cheeks. Ronan almost reached out to touch them. He didn't. Instead he focused his gaze on his long fingers that fiddled on his lap uncertainly. Adam's hands. Hands that occupied his dreams and occupied his thoughts long after the dreams.

Adam looked at him for a second and then dropped his gaze shyly. He was insecure, uncertain. Ronan wanted to assure him somehow. Tell him things that he'd never dare voice but had recited to him in his head constantly.

He reached out and placed a hand on Adam's wrist, stopping his fiddling and then without thought he pulled one hand onto his own lap, marveling at his braveness, at his stupidity. He rubbed circles on the back of his hand with his thumb and then he turned them up to trace the lines on his palm.

He didn't dare look up for fear of what look he might see, but beside him, Adam breathed evenly as if it was the most normal thing. He was watching Ronan closely as he traced his hands, head bent, eye lashes casting shadows on his prominent cheekbones.

Manibus. He'd once written.

Once again thoughts came rising back up nagging at him. Was it possible that Ronan liked him? Him of all people… He couldn't comprehend. His head already felt cloudy from the feel of Ronan's warm, calloused hands on his.

Unknowable. He heard in his head. The familiar voice that always nagged him. You're unknowable.

Silence stretched out between them, the conversation seemed to have come to a stop and Adam's heart stuttered in fear of what was to come next. He watched as Ronan finally looked up at him through his lashes. Adam's breath came out ragged and unsteady as he wet his lips and then slowly, slowly as if to give Adam time to stop him, he raised his fingers to his lips. Time seemed to stop around them and Adam grew more aware of Ronan's warmth beside him. Ronan whose own breath was as unsteady.

The first kiss was a quick one for fear of rejection. The second was slow and deliberate with the new found knowledge that he hadn't pulled back. Adam felt heat rush to his face when he felt soft lips pressing to the pad of his fingers.

And then Ronan's blue eyes, dark with the sight of Adam's parted lips, looked up at him fearlessly, answering all his questions, all his worries. He watched mesmerized as Ronan brought down his lips again slowly – so slow that the feel of his hot breath on the inside of his hands made Adam shudder. When he felt his lips again, soft as a whisper, on the center of his palms, he felt his heart break. The tenderness restricted his breath and his heart pounded in painful, deliberate beats. The sound filled his ears and begged him to breath but he felt he couldn't - wouldn't - breathe if he didn't kiss Ronan Lynch. So he did.

In his hesitation, he could only manage to brave touching his lips to Ronan's soft ones. Ronan let out a startled sound and before he could pull back to look at him, he rested his hand on Adam's cheek and leaned in for another one.

One kiss, then another and another and another.

Ronan's spine tingled slowly and torturously. Please don't be a dream, he thought to himself, feeling his eyes shut tight for fear of waking up.

Adam Parrish. Adam fucking Parrish.

It's a dream, something fierce hissed in his ear, but the feel of Adam's pillowy lips silenced it almost immediately. He felt Adam's warm breath so close to him and his head swam with the realness of it all. This was something he's always wanted. He never acknowledged it, buried it so deep that it was reduced to a subconscious thought that only resurfaced to his mind when he found himself looking at Adam, unsure what he'd been doing before and how he'd come to be held speechless by his deep-set blue eyes. It had resurfaced only in his dreams before he'd wake feeling happy and lost and in anguish. This was different though. The way their mouths met each other in nervous anticipation, familiar but hesitant.

It felt like a continuation of something they'd started long ago, like this was their place, this was theirs. It was real.

As if to affirm that last thought, Ronan grabs the back of Adam's head and pulls him closer. Adam adjusts his lips fondly, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Something snaps in the air between them suddenly like it had been tilting dangerously and falling surely. Suddenly Adam is grabbing on to Ronan's neck by both hands and Ronan is tracing his fingers over his cheeks lightly. Whatever insecurity Adam had been feeling was gone, replaced with a hazy drunk feel from the closeness of Ronan. This gentleness was so unlike Ronan would have been his first thought, but now he knew. The boy who conjured up creatures of his dreams that loved him, whom he loved more. The boy that had slammed his fist in to Robert Parrish's face like it was the easiest thing he'd done. This was him. With all the profanity, disregard for school and all that dangerous tinge. But also the unexpected care and lightness too. It was an impossible mix that made Ronan Ronan. Adam couldn't ask for anything else.

Feeling brave, Adam traces his hands from Ronan's neck down to the side of his bare arms. He feels Ronan's breathe hitch and Adam is filled with an intoxicating feeling of smugness before Ronan's lips dart out to slide across his bottom lip. His hands tighten their grip just above Ronan's elbows but Ronan doesn't stop. He bites the swollen bottom lip lightly and drags his teeth across it while simultaneously darting his tongue out to touch it again.

Adam can't help it, he moans. The sound reverberates across the room like a statement and he feels his face heat up. Surely Ronan had heard it and he knew he was right when he felt Ronan's small smile on his lips.

Smug bastard, he wanted to say but that would mean pulling away and that wasn't going to happen. Instead, he answered by slipping his own tongue between Ronan's lips. His lips part and then it's all the wet slide of mouths and desperate tangle of tongues. It felt like reaching for something that they couldn't quite reach, struggling to get somewhere but blinded with too much of something. Too much of something that couldn't quite seem to be sated. The distance between them disappears but neither is aware who reached first. Their hearts beat in incongruous manner that told them that there should be more, more of this, more of each other.

Ronan's hands reach up under his shirt and run up Adam's back in a manner that didn't match the fervor of their kisses. Their kisses pick up more desperation in an attempt to match the fervor that they wanted to reach with their hands. Adam's lungs ache and white spots flash behind his closed eyes signaling shortness of breath. He reluctantly pulls away and gasps for air, resting his forehead against Ronan's. His hands had moved to the other boys back and he can feel the strain of muscle and intake of breath as Ronan's breathe tangles with his in the space between them. He closes his eyes till his vision clears and then he opens them to find that the afternoon sun had subsided in that way that urged you to get things done before dark.

Ronan's blazing eyes, a stark contrast against his pale skin, look back at him. His lips were as red and swollen as his own felt. Their warm breathes mingled as their breaths slowed down. He wasn't sure if it was the vulnerable look that he saw behind Ronan's fiery, blue gaze or the handsome features that were so close to him, that displayed comfort and trust and home. But he found himself leaning to kiss the side of his neck that he'd been marveling at before. Ronan's breathy sigh was more than a welcome invitation.

Before he changed his mind, Adam reached for the hem of Ronan's tee and pulled it up. Ronan complied without hesitation, slipping it off and throwing it across the room.

Adam doesn't know where it landed, he didn't care either. His vision was filled with Ronan's lean body in front of him. Sharp edges of his tattoo have crawled out to his sides as if they would reach up from behind to pull him in. He reached to run his fingers over the peaking edges and heard Ronan hiss. The sound muddled his brain. He traced over the ink and then continued till his hands were on Ronan's chest and they were sliding down his naked torso.

It was strange, but Adam felt like this was one of the things he'd wanted that he couldn't name. Ronan's open gaze and his own hands tracing his back, tracing the ink, tracing all over.