A/N: Sorry if the formatting is bonkers. I haven't posted to FFnet in around 10 years, but I was asked so here is a story written December 2nd of 2014. Originally posted to AO3 (Same title and username).
It was the coldest winter that Henrietta had seen in years, dropping under thirty degrees by January. The only one of them that owned a car with a reliable heating system was Ronan, but whether by custom or tradition or some foolish idea that it will get warmer soon, they still drove the Pig everywhere.
This lead to Blue, Ronan, and Adam giving up the passenger seat to Noah, because Noah had no body heat and if they crowded together in the back then they could pretend for a minute that they were warm.
Ronan found it amusing that both Blue and Adam agreed that he should be in the middle, even though he was the biggest of any of them, because apparently he was a 'human space heater'. Blue kept to herself mostly, just pressing her side against his snuggly, but Adam decided it was best to shove his freezing cold fingers just under the hem of Ronan's shirt.
The larger boy felt himself flinch at the contact and told himself it was only shock of the cold, even though he could feel colder winds seeping through the windows of the Pig.
"Fuck, Parrish," he muttered, batting at Adam's hands. "Buy some fucking gloves."
Adam just shrugged and retracted his hands, and Ronan wished that that was what he'd actually wanted.
The next morning, Ronan shoved a pair of gloves at Adam before they got in the car. "If your fingers fall off then who'll fix this piece of shit car?" he offered as explanation before climbing into the back seat like the day before.
Adam looked down at the gloves, then up at Ronan. Down again, then back up, and Ronan didn't meet his eyes. Adam nodded to himself and shoved the gloves in his coat pocket, climbing into the Pig.
Five minutes in, his cold fingers brushed the skin of Ronan's back. They both pretended that they didn't notice, and Adam put on the gloves as they got out.
If there was only one thing that Adam Parrish knew about Ronan Lynch, it was that he didn't lie. The thing about Ronan, however, was that his definition of 'honesty' was different than Adam's.
Ronan thought that you could be honest if you just ignored questions you would have otherwise lied to or omitted facts you didn't want someone to be aware of, while Adam saw honesty as complete disclosure. Adam supposed that the difference between their definitions was that he didn't guarantee that everything he said was honest.
"You're hands are gonna freeze," Ronan muttered, grabbing Adam's left hand roughly and cupping it between his. Adam felt a burning warmth from their drastic temperature differences before Ronan dropped his hand like he was the one on fire.
Ronan looked away. "Put on your gloves, Parrish," he muttered, shoving his own hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. Adam kept looking at him for a few more seconds before dropping his eyes, too, and pulling the gloves out of his pocket.
"Did you dream these up?" he asked, looking at the black gloves cradled between his palms.
Ronan shrugged. "Maybe, can't remember. Had them for years. Why would it matter?"
"I dunno. Doesn't, I guess." He wiggled his fingers into the gloves. "Thanks, anyway."
"Just don't want you to freeze to death; not a big deal." Ronan started walking down the sidewalk again so Adam did too, resting a step behind.
"Still," he said, pulling up one of his shoulders before letting it drop back down. They didn't speak again as they walked down the street to St Agnes.
Ronan never said anything about it, but he slept better on the floor of Adam's shitty apartment than he did even at Monmouth.
"You sure you'll be warm enough?" Adam asked incredulously, eyeing the duvet that he held.
"Doesn't really matter." He tossed a pillow on the ground haphazardly and himself down on it, threading his fingers behind his head and crossing his ankles in an attempt to look like the picture of comfort. When he grinned at Adam, it was all teeth.
Adam shrugged. "If you get cold during the night, don't say I didn't tell you so."
Ronan followed him with his eyes as he disappeared into the bathroom, emerging five minutes later wearing thick pyjamas. Adam stepped over him and then burrowed himself deep into his covers.
"'Night, then," Adam muttered, stretching up and flicking off the lamp.
"'Night." He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, shifting to a more comfortable position.
When Ronan woke up again, it felt like he hadn't been asleep at all and his nose was cold. So were his hands and feet, sticking out at either end of the old comforter. He looked up to see Adam sleeping peacefully, swaddled in the warmth of his bed. The moon light was coming in through the slats of the blinds on the only window, making shakes on the floor and the bed and Adam's face. It seemed almost like between those points of light it was darker than everywhere else, though Ronan knew that that wasn't true.
He shivered as he shifted to pull the blanket back over him, letting a gust of cold air in under the blanket. There was a rustling sound above him and when he looked up, Adam was propped up slightly looking down at him with a smirk.
"Cold?" he asked, voice harsh from sleep.
Ronan glared at him. "Shut up, Parrish."
Adam shrugged, a poorly veiled smile threatening to break out on his face. "I'm not gonna say I told you so, but…."
"I said 'shut up'."
Adam rolled his eyes and started to wiggle around in bed so that he could hold up the blanket on the other side. "C'mon, get in here before you die of frostbite."
"It's not that cold," Ronan muttered, but he stood up anyway and carefully got in on Adam's other side, getting underneath the already warm blankets and feeling himself warm up immediately in response.
"You're really convince me right now, Lynch," Adam muttered, voice muffled from having buried his face in his pillow.
"Just go back to sleep."
Ronan listened as Adam's breathing slowed down and evened back out, closing his own eyes and trying to focus on getting back to sleep.
In the morning he woke up to cold toes pressed into his calves and cold hands spread across his stomach. He felt his body tense before he remembered where he was and that the person who was pressed against him wasn't a threat.
He tried to move away and get out of the bed without waking Adam but the smaller boy just shifted to tangle their legs together and wrap his arms around Ronan's midsection.
"Don't you have work?" Ronan asked, trying to convey annoyance in his tone and failing.
Adam's hair tickled his chin as he shook his head. "Not until noon."
"Studying? Anything?"
"It's too cold to do anything," Adam protested. "Stop pretending you want to get up."
Ronan didn't have anything to say to that, not without saying things he didn't think he was ready to, so he didn't say anything.
Blue threw herself down next to Adam on the couch at Monmouth.
"So," she said, looking up at him expectantly.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "So what?"
"You and…" she tilted her head to the back of the couch so he turned to look over it, seeing Ronan standing with his back to them and Chainsaw perched on his shoulder.
"Me and Ronan what?"
Blue rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."
"I really don't."
She twisted to look over the back of the couch, making sure that Ronan wasn't paying any attention to them. "You and him are, you know… together, right? That's what Noah told me, so don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about."
He felt his eyes widen in surprise. "Together? Like, as in dating?" Adam glanced at Ronan's back again and then turned to Blue. "No. I have no idea where Noah or you got that idea, but… no. I don't think Ronan even does 'dating'."
"But would you?" she asked, suddenly intently focused on him. If he didn't know she wasn't psychic, he'd think she was able to read his mind. "If he did 'do dating', I mean."
Adam dropped his head to his hands. "I'm not answering that."
"I'm taking that as a yes," she informed him. He felt the couch dip as she stood up.
He listened until her footsteps had left the room before sitting back up and dropping his head to hit the back of the couch. From the new angle, he could see Ronan, who was still standing in the same place as before. Only now he was turned to face the couch.
"What were you and Blue talking about?" Ronan asked, feigning nonchalance.
Adam looked up from his pile of homework, meeting Ronan's eyes with a confused look. "What do you mean?"
Ronan rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Yesterday. You looked annoyed. Why?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Doesn't, really."
They fell back into silence, but neither of them were really paying attention to their homework.
"She thought we were together," Adam blurted after a minute of twiddling his pencil agitatedly. "Noah told her we were."
Ronan nodded slowly as Adam spoke. "Huh." He snapped back to focus suddenly, turning to Adam. "Why were you annoyed?"
He looked down at his papers, not seeing the words. "Because we aren't," he muttered, feeling uncomfortable with the attention.
"Noah knows a lot for a dead kid."
Adam looked up questioningly.
"I just mean, he does that freaky almost-mind-reading thing, right?" Ronan explained, "So. He knows what he's talking about. Maybe. Sometimes."
Slowly, Adam got up from his desk chair and went to sit on the ground in front of Ronan. "I thought you didn't date."
Ronan shrugged. "Things change."
Even though he'd more or less just received a confession, Adam was suddenly hit with the fear that he was reading the entire situation wrong. Taking a deep breath, he pitched himself forwards and crashed his mouth against Ronan's. He pulled away, much too quickly for Ronan to respond, and let out the breath he'd held.
Ronan moved into a better sitting position than he'd been in, pushing his homework to the side without much attention to where it ended up. "Can we do that again?"
Adam nodded and they leaned in at the same time, meeting in the middle.
"I'm glad that I was wrong," Adam said later, when they finally remembered their homework.
Ronan shrugged. "I knew you'd figure it out."
Adam reached over and shoved Ronan's shoulder lightly, not enough to even move him. "Shut up, Lynch."