A/N: Sometimes you have undiagnosed ADHD and your project onto characters a little bit. It's fine.
content warning for some pretty-self deprecating thoughts centered around school performance
The Call
"Come on, come on, come on, Ronan please pick up," Adam whispered into his phone as he paced his dorm room.
He didn't know why this was happening. He'd always been a good student. By his own resilience and grit he'd made it through three years at Aglionby, earning top marks in all of his classes. He'd snatched at sleep when he could, worked three jobs, and went on magical quests that almost gotten him killed on a near-daily basis. He started dating Ronan Lynch. And none of those things had ever distracted him from his studies before.
But here he was now, at his private college living the life he always dreamt for himself, on the verge of a panic attack.
He'd thought about calling Gansey, initially. After all, among his friends Gansey was the most scholarly. He'd undoubtedly be able to help Adam get through this Philosophy paper. Knowing Gansey, he'd probably bend over backwards and try to resurrect Immanuel Kant himself just to help Adam succeed.
But the idea of admitting that he was struggling (in Philosophy 101, no less) was humiliating enough to send Adam to an early grave. No, not even humiliating, but near impossible to conceive. Adam Parrish, the idea guy, staying up until 4 a.m. because he couldn't figure out how to write a five page paper on the Categorical Imperative. He was more willing to let himself fail the assignment than let anyone know that he was struggling.
Which was so stupid. What the fuck was the point of spending the last year and a half finally letting other people get close to him if he couldn't even ask for help for something as simple as this? His friends loved him, they mentioned it more times than he could count (a fact that Adam's mind always skirted around, wondering what they meant and why it was so easy for them to say things like that), and yet the idea of him admitting his shortcomings to them had him on the verge of a breakdown.
How could they not be disappointed in him?
It was enough to make him lose sleep. His chest felt like it was being slowly crushed, his heart beating like he'd just ran up a flight of stairs when in reality he'd spent the last two hours staring at the ceiling of his dorm room, frozen by his own self-hatred. This wasn't how things were supposed to happen.
It wasn't until 4 a.m. that he'd finally sat up. His brain was still unwilling to let him start his paper, but it was functioning enough to tell him he needed to do something. Anything. He couldn't ask for help. He couldn't call Gansey. He couldn't admit how hard this was. But just hearing a familiar voice—
He'd dialed the number before even thinking about how dumb that decision was.
Even while he whispered a fevered prayer into the receiver, he knew without a doubt that Ronan would not answer. Even if Ronan was awake (which he probably was), the thought of answering a phone call about sent Ronan into cardiac arrest, no matter who was calling. All this was going to do was make Adam even more upset than before, which maybe, subconsciously, was the point. Even at 4 a.m., Ronan wouldn't assume that this was an emergency. He'd avoid his phone like he always did, and Adam would climb into the bigger hole he had dug himself and lay there until the birds outside his window began to chirp (which was at approximately 5:15 a.m., a fact he never would have known before he went to college and ruined himself).
He hoped anyway. He wiped a clammy hand on his pajama pants as he listened to the ringer, praying that he'd hear the click of an answered phone call and the rough sound of Ronan's after-midnight voice, earnest and unguarded. He hoped he wouldn't have to face the rest of this night alone.
He waited until the last ring finished. Adam screwed his eyes shut and ended the call before he could hear the sound of Ronan's voicemail.
"Stupid," he whispered to himself, dropping his phone on his mattress and blinking rapidly. He was an idiot to expect anything other than disappointment. It was what he deserved anyway.
He looked to his desk, where his laptop sat, open and expecting, and then to the window, where the dismal night dragged on. Then he laid back down on his bed, pretending he was brainstorming ideas for his paper and knowing that he wasn't, that he was going to sit there like a failure, doing nothing, feeling nothing—
When the sound of his phone ringing sent a jolt through his entire body.
Adam sat up, grabbing blindly for his phone. Ronan displayed on his screen, a beacon in the looming darkness.
Adam took a deep, cleansing breath and answered the call.