For Ronan, "stability" was what he sought out every moment after his father had died, found in the driveway with the tire iron just beside his head. He hadn't known there and then that his life would slip away, his mother becoming a fragment of herself, and his brothers would be distant extensions of his identity, but he had come to recognize it for what it was. When he reclaimed almost all that he lost (and lost his mother in the process), he had felt oddly at peace with himself. "Peace" and "Ronan Lynch" feel like contradictions at best, but they were the two words that suited his lifestyle.
It wasn't that much of his routine changed, either. He still drag raced around Henrietta, seeking out the next jackass who wanted to be as outstanding as Joseph Kavinsky. He picked fights in Nino's on Fridays when he got bored. But all of it suited him, a little chaos centered around his otherwise peace-filled life. He enjoyed sizing guys up and seeing how quickly they'd go in for the punch, and if they made it through his defenses, he smiled viciously, eyes blazing and body taught to go yet another round.
But there were changes. He didn't fight like he didn't care if his life was lost. He didn't race without hesitation, knowing that if he took it too far into the wrong part of the suburbs, that people would be out and wandering the streets at 10:30 PM. He showed restraint—and it was that restraint that showed Ronan's peace with the world. It was restraint that only those closest to Ronan could recognize, vicious smile well-honed in the face of every danger of the world.
And then there was this with Adam. Ronan had always enjoyed prying him out of his box. He had enjoyed reminding him of what it meant to be a kid, when his eyes, even wrapped around by bruises, would be full of life, beautiful lips twisting sharply in a smile before he held on for dear life with his rough, but delicate hands. Ronan was all instincts when it came to Adam, but he found himself fixated with his reactions and curious for when he might realize that this could go in two directions. He was glad, now, that he was still fixated on Adam's reactions: like the simplicity of Ronan's straightforward nature could carve out a new experience with Adam every time they were together.
Ronan could pinpoint the exact moment that he realized he wasn't dragging Adam back to Henrietta this time. It was twenty minutes outside of New Haven, air conditioning on full blast, the electronica booming out of his speakers like it was one with the driver. The BMW peeled over the road like it was nothing, and as he passed through the poorer part of New Haven (the part where Adam decided to live, even though Yale had insisted on having him closer, had insisted on having him on campus—but he was nothing if not stubborn, and Ronan had a feeling he might change his tune after a year full of cockroaches disturbing their make out sessions and, more importantly, Adam's three AM study sessions), he realized that Henrietta could wait.
When he pulled up, he tugged his phone from the back seat and dropped it into the passenger seat. Once Adam approached the car, he unlocked the doors, eyes pointed forward. "Call Declan and let him know to check on the Barns. We're going on a road trip."
To be fair, the ride between Connecticut and Virginia was always a road trip, but there was something different about the way Ronan held on to the steering wheel, like he had concocted another plan and he just assumed that Adam would be persuaded to go along with it.
Adam dropped himself into the passnger seat and scoop up the phone in one graceful swoop, easing back against the smooth leather with a deep sense of belonging. It surprised him every time that this was his life now: one whole continuous thing suffused with well-being. He didn't have to ration out his meager resources between happiness and survival, carefully playing the two against each other. He didn't conceive of his life in fractured contrasts that could never meet. This one, perfect moment on contentment, glancing across at Ronan with almost smug possessiveness, would not mean a disaster later.
Though Roman's posture did cue Adam that something was going on. Adam had gotten used to watching people very carefully, at first just as a hopeless tactic to brace himself against his father, and then as a means of fitting-in in a place like Aglionby where any gesture could mark him as an outsider. The code of Ronan's body was always easy to read because it followed from the rest of his personality: it never lied. In fact, it usually broadcasted enough to make being psychic fairly redundant.
Odd to think that he had once thought Ronan was unpredictable and dangerous. Observing him before had made Adam uneasy, like walking past a stray dog and not quite knowing if it was friendly or likely to bite. He couldn't imagine all that pent-up energy being spent in any other way besides a self-destructive supernova that would take out anyone nearby.
And now Adam had to stifle the automatic impulse to touch him, get his attention, his focus. He knew it wasn't that Ronan was ignoring him; the tension in him, the abruptness, were both familiar, and sent a frission of eager thrill through Adam. If Ronan was expecting Adam to acquiesce to being dragged off on some wild ride, it was because he usually did. Ronan had uncannily good instincts for when Adam needed something like a shopping cart race crash, something not subordinated to his carefully constructed hierarchy of needs. Adam liked being in control, but he was beginning to like not having to worry about it, sometimes. Just with Ronan.
At some point trusting Ronan had stopped seeming like a reckless move and had just become common sense.
Adam obediently tapped out a message to Declan and tossed the phone in the glove box, pulling his seat belt on.
The glance that Ronan chose to give Adam in response to that final question was wicked, all sharp edges and blades ready to attack. He liked the mystery of this. There was something thrilling in knowing that Adam wouldn't deny him. Ronan never asked a lot of him anyway. His thrills were cheap and easy to achieve. Throw down a hill in a shopping cart. See what the hell would happen if they raced a car past a police station. Things like this were easily obtainable, and Ronan knew when the limits would test Adam's control and path in his life. So, he didn't test them. (As it turned out, the cops didn't have a speedometer running—but Ronan still wouldn't ask Adam to do that. He knew what was and wasn't okay.)
Something about being near Adam made him feel impossibly strong. Like he could do anything. His head leaned back into the driver seat, limbs tense with energy that had no place to go except into the pedal of his car. "Gansey mapped the ley line all around the world," he said. It was clear that he only just decided where they were going in that instant. Some of the energy coursing violently through his veins abated, but not entirely. "Why don't we take advantage of them for once? It seems like it might be more fitting, you and I." The Dreamer and the Magician. Cabeswater was gone, but the magic still burned in Adam's blood just like Ronan would never be anything less than the Greywaren.
He could never be his father dashing madly across the country on raucous adventures. No matter what Declan feared for his future, he could never be Niall Lynch. Ronan had been denied what he had, and he felt comforted in its return.
No, this was something else ... and something that wasn't for him. Adam had achieved a lot in getting into Yale on scholarship and setting off into the great blue yonder of eventually being a white collar worker. But that meant ridding himself of the ley line. Ronan knew what it meant to him.
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i will make proper fanart icons tomorrow
It wasn't that much of his routine changed, either. He still drag raced around Henrietta, seeking out the next jackass who wanted to be as outstanding as Joseph Kavinsky. He picked fights in Nino's on Fridays when he got bored. But all of it suited him, a little chaos centered around his otherwise peace-filled life. He enjoyed sizing guys up and seeing how quickly they'd go in for the punch, and if they made it through his defenses, he smiled viciously, eyes blazing and body taught to go yet another round.
But there were changes. He didn't fight like he didn't care if his life was lost. He didn't race without hesitation, knowing that if he took it too far into the wrong part of the suburbs, that people would be out and wandering the streets at 10:30 PM. He showed restraint—and it was that restraint that showed Ronan's peace with the world. It was restraint that only those closest to Ronan could recognize, vicious smile well-honed in the face of every danger of the world.
And then there was this with Adam. Ronan had always enjoyed prying him out of his box. He had enjoyed reminding him of what it meant to be a kid, when his eyes, even wrapped around by bruises, would be full of life, beautiful lips twisting sharply in a smile before he held on for dear life with his rough, but delicate hands. Ronan was all instincts when it came to Adam, but he found himself fixated with his reactions and curious for when he might realize that this could go in two directions. He was glad, now, that he was still fixated on Adam's reactions: like the simplicity of Ronan's straightforward nature could carve out a new experience with Adam every time they were together.
Ronan could pinpoint the exact moment that he realized he wasn't dragging Adam back to Henrietta this time. It was twenty minutes outside of New Haven, air conditioning on full blast, the electronica booming out of his speakers like it was one with the driver. The BMW peeled over the road like it was nothing, and as he passed through the poorer part of New Haven (the part where Adam decided to live, even though Yale had insisted on having him closer, had insisted on having him on campus—but he was nothing if not stubborn, and Ronan had a feeling he might change his tune after a year full of cockroaches disturbing their make out sessions and, more importantly, Adam's three AM study sessions), he realized that Henrietta could wait.
When he pulled up, he tugged his phone from the back seat and dropped it into the passenger seat. Once Adam approached the car, he unlocked the doors, eyes pointed forward. "Call Declan and let him know to check on the Barns. We're going on a road trip."
To be fair, the ride between Connecticut and Virginia was always a road trip, but there was something different about the way Ronan held on to the steering wheel, like he had concocted another plan and he just assumed that Adam would be persuaded to go along with it.
Re: i will make proper fanart icons tomorrow
Though Roman's posture did cue Adam that something was going on. Adam had gotten used to watching people very carefully, at first just as a hopeless tactic to brace himself against his father, and then as a means of fitting-in in a place like Aglionby where any gesture could mark him as an outsider. The code of Ronan's body was always easy to read because it followed from the rest of his personality: it never lied. In fact, it usually broadcasted enough to make being psychic fairly redundant.
Odd to think that he had once thought Ronan was unpredictable and dangerous. Observing him before had made Adam uneasy, like walking past a stray dog and not quite knowing if it was friendly or likely to bite. He couldn't imagine all that pent-up energy being spent in any other way besides a self-destructive supernova that would take out anyone nearby.
And now Adam had to stifle the automatic impulse to touch him, get his attention, his focus. He knew it wasn't that Ronan was ignoring him; the tension in him, the abruptness, were both familiar, and sent a frission of eager thrill through Adam. If Ronan was expecting Adam to acquiesce to being dragged off on some wild ride, it was because he usually did. Ronan had uncannily good instincts for when Adam needed something like a shopping cart race crash, something not subordinated to his carefully constructed hierarchy of needs. Adam liked being in control, but he was beginning to like not having to worry about it, sometimes. Just with Ronan.
At some point trusting Ronan had stopped seeming like a reckless move and had just become common sense.
Adam obediently tapped out a message to Declan and tossed the phone in the glove box, pulling his seat belt on.
"Are you going to tell me where?"
no subject
Something about being near Adam made him feel impossibly strong. Like he could do anything. His head leaned back into the driver seat, limbs tense with energy that had no place to go except into the pedal of his car. "Gansey mapped the ley line all around the world," he said. It was clear that he only just decided where they were going in that instant. Some of the energy coursing violently through his veins abated, but not entirely. "Why don't we take advantage of them for once? It seems like it might be more fitting, you and I." The Dreamer and the Magician. Cabeswater was gone, but the magic still burned in Adam's blood just like Ronan would never be anything less than the Greywaren.
He could never be his father dashing madly across the country on raucous adventures. No matter what Declan feared for his future, he could never be Niall Lynch. Ronan had been denied what he had, and he felt comforted in its return.
No, this was something else ... and something that wasn't for him. Adam had achieved a lot in getting into Yale on scholarship and setting off into the great blue yonder of eventually being a white collar worker. But that meant ridding himself of the ley line. Ronan knew what it meant to him.
It was good to remind him.