Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/8818288.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Raven_Cycle_-_Maggie_Stiefvater
  Relationship:
      Ronan_Lynch/Adam_Parrish
  Character:
      Ronan_Lynch, Adam_Parrish, Richard_Gansey_III, Blue_Sargent
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Vampire, Blood_Drinking, Minor_Character_Death, Near
      Death_Experiences, Psychic_Bond, Hand_Jobs, Post-Traumatic_Stress
      Disorder_-_PTSD
  Series:
      Part 1 of Take_My_Hunger_(Pynch_Vampire_AU)
  Collections:
      Dream_In_Color's_Faves
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-12-11 Completed: 2016-12-14 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 12439
****** the Red of Your Blood ******
by bucketmouse
Summary
     In a different universe, Robert Parrish pulls a gun on his son
     instead of striking him in front of their trailer that fateful day,
     and Ronan Lynch has to act quickly to save him. Vampire AU, will
     update tags with new chapters as needed.
Notes
     Thanks as always to asael and notraelet for their encouragement and
     beta reading!
***** Chapter 1 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Adam had expected a confrontation when he opened the door. Yelling, absolutely.
Physical blows, almost certainly. He didn't know what for, it could be any
number of things. Being late. Being alive. Simply being Adam Parrish and
continuing to exist was a crime worthy of harsh punishment, but it was one he
was familiar with.
Seeing his father holding the gun Adam knew he had was a new problem, one Adam
was wholly unprepared for. He felt the brief weightlessness of panic, of
finding there was one more step at the bottom of a staircase you had not
accounted for. Just enough time to know you were going to stumble but not
enough to do anything about it.
The gunshot hit Adam in the stomach and he stumbled back, down the staircase
leading up to the door of the double-wide, his back slamming into the dirt of
the driveway. There was a dull whine screaming in his ears, blocking out all
other sounds. From his dimmed peripheral, he saw the red tail lights of Ronan’s
BMW, so bright they easily overpowered the soft cold glow of the few stars that
could be seen above Henrietta, twinkling in and out against the deep blue sky.
With great effort, he brought his hand up to touch at the wet spot on his
stomach. He was more cold than anything. ‘I'm going into shock,’ Adam thought,
pressing for the calm and reasonable to quell the panic, mentally running over
the symptoms and examining each as clinically as he did with his own anger. He
was going into shock. He was losing a lot of blood.
He was dying.
Something hit the ground next to him, a heavy thud pressing through the fog of
Adam’s desperately working mind. He struggled to turn his head enough to catch
the sightless eyes of his father staring blankly back at him.
A few feet away, the rest of his father sprawled out on the dry crab grass and
weeds that passed for a yard, a bloody stump ending where his neck had
previously attached to the aforementioned head.
Adam didn't feel sad, or angry, or much of anything. He had lost too much blood
to manage more than a mental ‘oh,’ along with the idle rationale that at least
he wouldn't have to emotionally and mentally cope with that. He didn't have
enough time left.
“Parrish - come on, Parrish, stay with me!” the voice of Ronan Lynch cut
through the haze as well, and Adam felt a harsh tug at his arm before he was
lifted easily from the ground. Ronan’s blue eyes blazed brighter than the
stars, like the tail lights of his car. Knowing the inhuman abilities his
friend had and witnessing them first hand were such starkly different things.
Ronan rarely made a show of what he could do, unlike Gansey who often seemed
unable to not.
Adam wasn't certain what Ronan was intending to do as he carefully placed Adam
in the passenger seat and buckled him in, dropping the seat down so he could
lay back. Adam thought he could probably make it to a hospital while he was
alive, but he would be too far gone for them to do anything but make it
painless. Maybe not even that. Also, he was getting blood all over Lynch’s car.
Ronan grabbed his own Aglionby sweater from the back seat and pressed it
against Adam’s stomach, ordering him to hold it there. Adam wondered what Ronan
intended to do about it if he didn’t agree, but he didn’t want to spend the
last moments he had arguing with Ronan Lynch, so he complied.
Ronan didn’t bother to buckle himself in - as soon as he had thrown himself
into the driver’s seat and slammed the car door, he was gunning the engine.
Forest and farmland passed in a moon-drenched blur, only the tops of the trees
visible from the window that Adam could see out of. As they left the main
populated areas the stars seemed to get brighter.
They were so beautiful. Blue would love this. She seemed to love the stars so
much.
He was cold, and Ronan’s sweater was beyond saving. Some people didn’t
understand how to take care of things.
The trees outside the window had come to a stop, which Adam supposed meant the
car itself had stopped. He didn’t see the multi-level hospital that was just
outside of downtown Henrietta, only trees.
He tried to blink away the blurring from the corner of his vision to no avail
while he heard the driver’s side door open and then slam shut again, only to
have Ronan at Adam’s side, pulling him out of the car with too much urgency to
be particularly gentle. It was faintly annoying but Adam also rationally knew
there was little point for gentleness now. It wouldn’t make his injury less
septic. It wouldn’t make him less shot.
The passenger car seat of Ronan’s BMW was clearly ruined. Ronan wouldn’t even
have to consider the cost to fix it. Adam was so annoyed.
“Why…?” he’d meant to ask why they were here, but the rest of the words fell to
the wayside as Ronan pulled Adam to carry in his arms, draping one of Adam’s
arms around his shoulders for balance.
“I’m better here,” was all Ronan said, as if it made sense - and it did after a
fashion. They were at the strange forest that Gansey and Ronan had taken him
and Blue to before. It was beautiful even at night time. Perhaps more so.
Adam was laid down upon the soft grass under the trees, their branches creating
shade from the bright light of the stars and moon even while they allowed some
light to gently peek through their leaves. Adam took a shaking breath as he
looked up at them. This was a very beautiful place to die.
How thoughtful.
Gansey would have probably apologized. Ronan did not. He gave Adam no warning
at all before gently tilting his head to the side, leaning down to lick at a
stripe of skin right over Adam’s carotid artery, then sinking his sharp fangs
in.
It hurt only for a moment, only the barest bit. The shock cutting through the
fog of death creeping into Adam’s mind, and something about the vampire’s
saliva dulled the pain. Once or twice Adam had let Gansey feed from his wrist.
Gansey had always been terribly careful about the ordeal, never went for the
neck.
It never felt like Ronan’s bite felt.
Adam couldn’t think, couldn’t focus as Ronan’s fangs withdrew, his tongue
lapping at the wound again before he began to suck there. Deep needy gulps of
what little remained of Adam’s blood that wasn’t spilled all over his car, and
in an instant the cold that had spread through Adam’s body had vanished under a
wave of almost unbearable heat. Adam blindly reached upward, his hand finding
the back of Ronan’s head, fingertips brushing against the stubble of hair there
and using new found strength to pull him closer and encourage the feeding. He
thought he heard Ronan let out a curse muffled against his skin, felt him shift
his position above Adam, slide his hand under Adam’s neck to hold so gently,
licking and sucking his life away.
That was fine. If he was going to die then let him die this way, with this
euphoria greater than anything he’d ever felt.
Adam wanted to cry out when Ronan pulled back, his mouth rimmed red with Adam’s
blood. He wasn’t quite dead yet, the blissful feeling was still with him but he
didn’t want to lose it. He felt on the cusp of something more intense than he’d
ever felt before - maybe he did cry out with the way Ronan’s eyes seemed to
darken, a mixture of desperation and desire Adam had never seen in his face
before. Never seen in anyone’s face before when they were looking at him.
“C’mon Parrish, don’t fucking die on me yet,” Ronan growled, bringing his own
wrist up to his mouth to tear the skin open there with one of his fangs. The
other hand at the back of Adam’s neck pulled him up with as much gentleness as
he could manage, just enough so that it was easier to bring his wrist to Adam’s
lips. He didn’t need to say to drink, his intentions were clear.
From the shadows of the trees above them, Adam could swear he heard whispers.
Echoing, formless, promising great things. Great power if he would help. Deals
and trades and things long forgotten. A hand for a hand, an eye for an eye. A
life for a life.
Why not?
What did he have to lose?
Adam wasn’t even certain he had a choice, not really. Gansey had asked him in
the past, if he wanted to be changed. Then later if he asked if Adam would
allow it, practically begging when Adam had shown up with bruises he couldn’t
hide. Each time Adam had turned him down, had wanted to live his life on his
own terms. The moment Ronan Lynch’s blood touched his lips it felt like no
choice at all. Just a taste, then practically a compulsion the need was so
great to taste it again. He licked at the bleeding wound, desperate to not lose
even a drop before sealing his mouth over it. It felt like his arms had new
found strength to them as he grabbed at Ronan’s offered wrist to pull it
closer, a sound escaping his throat somewhere between a whine and a growl. The
all consuming warmth he’d felt before was a candle compared to the inferno this
set off inside of him.
He heard the distant sound of Ronan’s breath catching, letting out a faint hiss
of something Adam felt certain wasn’t pain. He didn’t know how he knew but he
knew. Like he knew his own face reflected back upon him staring into a lake. He
was starving, and nothing in the world had ever tasted so good, felt so
satisfying as Ronan Lynch’s offered blood. He remembered how good it felt to
have Ronan’s mouth on his neck, how different it felt compared to Gansey
feeding from his wrist and an idea seized into Adam’s mind. He was like a man
possessed, a base need leftover from centuries past fueling him as he pushed
Ronan back then down upon the ground with a shocking ease.
“Parrish,” Ronan said with a gasp, silenced as Adam threw a leg over his waist,
gripped at the fabric of his dark shirt, and leaned in to bite at his neck.
Adam’s fangs were not yet grown but he could feel them growing, waiting for
them to come in simply wasn’t an option so blunt teeth worked against Ronan’s
skin needy and famished until one got sharp enough to catch and rip - it was
messy, likely painful, but Ronan’s hand only found Adam’s hair to tangle in and
pull him closer in encouragement.
Ronan’s blood spilled against the skin of his neck and Adam lapped that up as
well, sucked every trace of it off before sucking at the tear he’d made. He
wasn’t in control of himself, of the sounds of need he was making as he took
all that Ronan offered him. It was even better than before, he could feel
Ronan’s blood inside of him, making him stronger, filling him up in places he
never knew were empty. It felt like his heart was stuttering in his chest,
faster and faster until it would burst, infected with the speed that ran
through Ronan Lynch’s blood. All the while, the whispers at the back of his
mind, the voices seeming to come from the trees themselves encouraging the act.
Adam practically collapsed when he’d had all he could, just enough energy to
shift to the side so he wouldn’t fall literally on top of Ronan but instead
onto the grass next to him. Adam couldn’t even rightly feel like he was truly
full, just sated for the moment, gasping from the exhaustion after the euphoria
had crested and faded into a warm afterglow. He felt more relaxed and at peace
than he ever had in his life right there on the forest floor, eyes tracing the
moonlight’s shadows that washed out what little color was on Ronan’s skin,
stained here and there with red from either his own blood or Adam’s, the black
of his clothing hiding any that spilled on the fabric.
He wanted to stay awake, he wanted answers, but Adam felt his eyelids drooping
against his will. Ronan was looking at him, and he was certain he heard
something consoling - that it was natural to feel tired, that his strength
would return soon, but Ronan’s mouth hadn’t moved at all. Somehow it still felt
comforting, and Adam was not afraid when the darkness gently took him.
Chapter End Notes
     Sooo yeah if it's not obvious, Gansey and Ronan are vampires, Blue is
     like she is in the books, and Adam was human until like an hour ago.
     Noah's still a ghost. I have the other characters figured out as well
     but not sure if I'll write more of this AU and bring them in yet.
     Only the main 5 are relevant to the four chapters of this work.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     Adam wakes up a changed man.
Adam came back to a dim haze of consciousness in Ronan’s car. The seatbelt held
him in the passenger side where he laid with Ronan’s coat around him. It was
still dark out, and from the reclined position he could see the roof of
Monmouth, hear an argument outside of the car. The words were muffled, but he
could tell it was Gansey and Ronan.
Even as Adam occupied himself with peeling the bloodstained and ripped fabric
of his t-shirt up from his stomach, he knew what he’d find. He had to see for
himself, though. Had to see it with his own eyes.
No hole, no gunshot, nothing. Dried blood, certainly, but delicate prodding of
where the torn skin had been revealed no trace of what had caused it aside from
the hole in his shirt it left behind.
He still felt exhausted.
With a little work he managed to get the seatbelt off, to pull the handle at
the BMW until it opened. Before he could fall on his face out of the car Ronan
was there, strong arms around him to help him to his feet before Gansey was at
his other side to help keep him steady.
“I’m fine,” Adam said stubbornly. He didn’t miss the glare Gansey shot Ronan.
“Clearly. You’ll be tired for the first few days while your body gets used to
the changes,” Gansey said, giving a nod forward. Both him and Ronan helped Adam
towards the stairs. Either of them could easily carry him without assistance,
he was aware it was an act of sparing his pride to let him walk on his own two
legs and only have them for balance. “You can use Noah’s bed, we’ll put up the
black out curtains until we can get you something to let you survive daylight.”
Right, daywalking was no inborn ability, when he first found out about Gansey
and Ronan they had said something about enchantment and witches. Ronan’s
leather bands and Gansey’s fancy watch, if Adam remembered correctly. Exacts
attempted to slip away from him but he stubbornly held on nonetheless. He felt
it again, a feeling of confirmation of his suspicions - yes the bands, yes the
watch - but there were no words, and the thoughts were not his own.
“You’re going to get in trouble for this Ronan, you’re supposed to give people
a choice. There’s protocol,” Gansey lectured as Ronan shoved the door to the
loft above Monmouth open, letting the three of them crabwalk through to make it
without letting go.
Rapid explanations flitted at the edge of Adam’s mind. ’Like I care about their
rules’ ’They can suck my dick’ ’He would have died’
Ronan said nothing, just helped Adam into Noah’s vacant room, into the unused
bed there.
“We’ll get you a change of clothes and cleaned up when you wake,” Gansey
assured Adam, all poise and confidence. “Just let yourself sleep for now - it’s
what your body needs most of all. You’ll be hungry again soon enough.”
Adam said nothing, just closed his eyes and let them leave him alone in the
room while they searched for the black out curtains to hang over the one small
window. Even so, Adam struggled to stay awake, to try and make sense of what
had just happened. What was currently happening. ‘Tired’ was not the word for
it, Adam lived his life in a state of tired, this was a lethargy that sank deep
down into his very bones as if he’d been drugged into it.
He thought, as clear and carefully as he could, ’Ronan?’
The buzz of thought and energy at the back of his mind briefly dimmed, stilled,
and then ever so softly was the answering reply of ’Yeah?’
’Just checking.’
 
Adam had dreams mixed in with what he was fairly certain was sensory input from
the wakeful Ronan. Tense conversations with Gansey about what this meant. The
strange sensation of looking down at himself, passed out in Noah’s bed in the
blacked out room, of seeing himself being cleaned of the worst of the mess on
his stomach and face while only dimly feeling it. Gansey taking his cheap old
watch off, telling Ronan he wanted Adam to have something familiar to be
enchanted, to tell Adam that when he wakes if Gansey isn’t around (“You know he
probably knows already, right?”) Blue coming over at Gansey’s call to hear the
news, to check on Adam herself. They heavy bass of Ronan’s shitty EDM blasting
through his headphones while he fed his raven but still so carefully kept that
connection to Adam open on his end as well, ‘listening’ for any sign of
consciousness. A few times they touched briefly there in that space beyond the
physical, a questioning brush of not really fingertips from Adam against
Ronan’s back, the feeling of Ronan reaching back to squeeze his hand
reassuringly and ease him back into deeper sleep. The sensation of being
assured that he was safe without words, with just the feeling of fierce
protectiveness and caring that soaked through everything else.
Feelings that had been there before Adam was his responsibility and partial
creation. Deep roots from a quick growing tree.
 
When Adam awoke, hunger gnawing at his belly, at his very soul, he barely had
time to sit up and tug his ruined shirt off before the door was opening. Ronan
was backlit against the main room of Monmouth only briefly before he slid
inside and closed the door behind him. Thanks to the thick black out curtains
there was almost no light in the small room but Adam could see him as perfectly
as if he was standing in direct sunlight, every savagely handsome detail in
stark relief. If he stared long enough at the exposed bit of inkstained skin
along Ronan’s neck he was certain he’d be able to pick out the individual
needle punctures from the tattoo there.
Ronan’s neck…
There was a jagged healing bruise there, barely a mark at all, just a faint
yellowing of skin.
“... How long…?” Adam asked, his voice rough. He couldn’t draw his eyes away.
He felt his mouth watering.
“‘Bout three days,” Ronan answered, a brief flash of guilt burning out just as
quickly as it flared into existence, replaced by a sharp grin. “It’s almost
sunset. Enough time to have breakfast.”
Ronan’s bare feet were almost silent against the floorboards as he crossed the
small space to sit next to Adam, tugging his own tanktop off to toss on top of
Adam’s discarded shirt. He could see the differences in the individual thread
counts between them, feel it acutely in the sheets under his hands. Ronan’s
fingertips touched the edge of Adam’s jaw to turn the other boy to face him and
look away from the discarded clothing.
“Don’t lose yourself in the details,” Ronan said, voice quiet. Without words,
Adam could feel further reassurance along the invisible connection between
them. It happened to everyone, it happened to Ronan the first time too, it’s
overwhelming if you focus too much too fast, pay attention to him, only pay
attention to him right now.
Ronan tilted his head to the side, just a bit, just enough to make the offer of
his neck clear. Adam’s hunger seemed like a living thing inside of him again.
He remembered how good it felt to have Ronan’s mouth on his neck - how good it
felt to have his on Ronan’s.
Through that connection, another ripple of feeling.
It had felt just as good for Ronan.
Even starved as he felt, Adam was more careful, no longer bleeding out on the
forest floor or lost in a blood frenzy of the first feed. He prided himself on
his willpower and this was no different, no excuse to lose himself even if it
was apparently the norm. He tried to do as Ronan did to him, to find the
artery, to lick at the skin and let the saliva work in for a moment before
going for the bite - just enough to get the blood flowing, another lick to dull
any pain that managed to work through the initial preparation for it.
Ronan’s blood flooded into his mouth as he sealed his lips there and Ronan let
out a choked gasp. It tasted just as good as the first time. He wanted more -
desperately needed more, hunger threatening to hollow out everything inside of
him if he couldn’t fill it up with Ronan right there, right then. Ronan choked
out a curse as Adam sucked harder at his neck, steadied himself with his hands
at Ronan’s shoulders before throwing any sense of shame to the wind to straddle
his lap again and push him down on the bed. It felt good to do, felt right,
especially with the chorus that poured into his mind so sudden and unexpected
that he wasn’t sure were his own thoughts, or Ronan’s, or Ronan reading his and
reflecting them back to him… he needed Ronan inside of him, Ronan’s blood
inside of him. Nothing else could come close to bringing him satisfaction.
Like in Cabeswater, Adam only barely felt sated for the time being when he
finally pulled away from Ronan’s neck, leaning back against Ronan’s propped up
knees as Adam tried to focus through the way his mind was swimming. Ronan’s
hand went to his neck to cover the wound there. Without Adam actively sucking
on it, the puncture wounds healed within seconds - Adam’s gunshot to the
stomach had healed entirely in a few minutes, and the wound from a bite was
much smaller. Some blood had still gotten on Ronan’s hand just the same, and
the older vampire held it up after a moment to wonder at the slick red
glistening there.
Still slightly dizzy, unthinking, Adam only saw a chance at just a little more
and took it. He grabbed Ronan’s wrist with speed unfamiliar to himself, pulling
it up to his mouth to eagerly lick every trace of the blood away. As he held
Ronan’s index and middle finger in his mouth, teeth gently grazing against the
knuckles while his tongue slid between them, their eyes met. Ronan’s darkened
with a shock of desire that Adam was suddenly aware of his own reflecting.
A wave of hunger rolled through them both that had nothing to do with
bloodlust, and Adam realized how starved he was in an entirely different way.
How starved they both were.
It took a lot of the questioning out of it. A lot of the hesitation. That
shared consciousness, minds as close as their bodies were with Ronan still
sprawled on the bed and Adam still straddling his hips, holding Ronan’s hand to
his mouth. So much easier to understand each other than themselves, but that
understanding shared between them, working on a puzzle together instead of
trying to figure it out each on their own.
Adam was, for the first time, known. It was a darkly thrilling feeling, made
all the more so for how it was clear that Ronan was aware of that as well. Ever
so carefully, all falsely casual, Ronan’s other hand went up to Adam’s hip,
fingertips brushing against the skin there to steady him - to just feel him.
Even with Ronan’s fingers still in his mouth it felt somehow more illicit.
He could have it. Right here, right now. They both could have what they wanted.
They had connected in every other aspect, it seemed perfectly natural to take
the next one.
Then Adam remembered Blue.
The worst part was the fire hadn’t even dimmed from his blood. A part of him -
and he was certain it was him, no longer lost in the frenzy of bloodlust he was
better at distinguishing Ronan’s thoughts from his own - thought that it really
didn’t matter if he dealt with that now or later. It did matter though, because
even if the only thing Adam Parrish had was his pride, that was his own.
Ronan swallowed thickly and Adam couldn’t look away from how his throat bobbed
with the movement, skin purpled as the only sign left of Adam’s puncture mark
from his fangs, already fading into the muddled blue and red and yellow. Again,
again, again, his hunger demanded, hunger of every kind within him. The mantra
was practically deafening.
Ronan swallowed again, his eyes never leaving Adam’s as he slid his fingers
from Adam’s mouth and traced his thumb along Adam’s bottom lip. The hand at
Adam’s hip had gone from a caress to certain and steadying.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, Parrish. You look like shit,” Ronan said, all
casual, voice rough. It might have worked, convinced someone else of
disinterest, but Ronan was no liar and moreover Adam could tell his own blood
sang for Adam with just as much want, warming him from the inside out.
 
The sun had gone down by the time they got off the bed and emerged from the
room a few minutes later. Ronan felt more than thought or explained that Gansey
was out getting something enchanted for Adam, that Noah was wherever Noah went
when he wasn’t in the here and now. It was for the moment just the two of them,
though Adam was sure there could have been a mosh pit going on outside the room
he and Ronan were in and he would have never noticed because he was so occupied
with the feeding.
Adam wanted to ask if it was always like that, but again, he didn’t even need
to find the words before he felt Ronan’s consciousness against his own. Yes, in
the beginning it’s like this. It gets easier. You get satisfied on less. It
stops being a mad frenzy.
Adam wasn’t certain he believed that. Not with what Ronan’s blood did to him.
Ronan grinned, sharp and wicked and self-satisfied as he pushed open the
bathroom door for Adam and gabbed a clean towel from the dryer in there.
“I’ll be in my room when you’re done,” Ronan said, and it was a strange thing
to hear his voice aloud again.
“You aren’t going to…?”
“What, you need help in here?” it was an offer, with another wicked grin to
boot. Though Ronan made it sound flippant Adam had no doubt he was sincere.
Whether that was the shared connection or careful observation he couldn’t be
certain.
They would definitely end up doing more than getting clean if Ronan helped him
shower, though, and he had to talk to Blue before that, didn’t want to risk
Gansey returning to Monmouth in the middle of them sharing that.
“I’ve got a handle on it,” Adam reassured Ronan instead, taking the offered
towel.
Yes, they both would have a handle on it.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     This chapter contains too much exposition instead of steamy blood
     drinking. Sorry in advance.
It was a good thing they had waited. When Adam was finally stepping out of the
shower and going through the dryer to see if there was any of Ronan’s clothing
he could borrow in there, he heard the door to Monmouth opening again and
smelled the familiar odor of mint that meant it had to be Gansey. Tugging on a
pair of Ronan’s dark and artfully ripped jeans as well as a muscle shirt that
just truly felt awkward consider Adam lacked the muscle necessary for it, he
stepped out to the main room while still toweling his hair.
There Adam froze, just for a moment. Gansey was in the main room, certainly,
holding Adam’s grubby-banded watch, but he was not alone. There was a tall
older woman with him, one of those people who looked so painfully average in
every conceivable way it was impossible to be anything other than intentional.
Someone else might have forgotten her in an instant but when Adam searched his
memory he found he had seen her before around Henrietta once or twice, he had
seen her talking to Ronan before.
Another confirmation rippled through their shared consciousness. Ronan’s door
was closed, but upon recognizing the woman Adam was seeing he filled in the
gaps of Adam’s knowledge for him. This woman was, effectively, one part social
worker, one part cop.
Adam resisted the urge to straighten the shirt, instead trying to affect some
of the easy confidence that Gansey and Ronan held. He had been doing this since
he first started spending time with the two immortals, and found it
surprisingly easy even under her chilling gaze to meet it in return. As if
Ronan was right beside him the whole time.
“Mister Parrish,” she said, voice all calm and business, “I have some
questions. If you would be so kind as to answer them, I would greatly
appreciate it.”
Gansey’s room didn’t exactly have a lot of seating, so they remained standing.
She didn’t give a name and Adam did not ask, she filled him in first with what
had happened in regards to his father. Adam had spent his shower trying not to
think about it, to put it out of his mind. The only witnesses to the
altercation between Ronan Lynch, Robert Parrish, and Adam Parrish had been the
three involved. There were reports of a gunshot heard, and Robert Parrish had
been found killed with blood from Adam Parrish on the scene.
She delivered the news as carefully as she could, not without empathy for
Adam’s situation. Currently, the story was that a previously untracked cougar
had come down from the mountains after Ronan Lynch had dropped Adam Parrish
off. Robert Parrish had taken a shot at it after it attacked Adam, but he was
unable to hit it before it turned on Robert Parrish and decapitated him. Adam
Parrish had, on paper at least, spent the last three days recovering in the
hospital from the wild animal attack.
Adam didn’t bother to ask how they could falsify hospital records. That would
be easy, from what he’d seen of Gansey and Lynch’s connections. It wasn’t like
anyone would have visited Adam in the hospital who didn’t already know the
truth as well. As for the death of his father, Adam was surprised to find how
little he felt at all.
He turned the lack of feeling over in his mind, examined it from every angle
like he would with his anger. He was still in shock, he decided. The world had
moved on for three days while he slept, but for him it had still only been
hours. Satisfied, he tucked the feelings away once more until a more convenient
time.
“There is only one matter that needs attending to,” the woman said, breaking
Adam away from that train of thought. Ronan’s thoughts in the back of Adam’s
mind had gone conspicuously silent as she spoke. “As you may be aware, it is
strictly against our laws to create another vampire without obtaining their
expressed consent first. There’s affidavits to be filed to ensure that you
aren’t making the decision under duress as well. Did Ronan Lynch receive your
permission before turning you into a vampire?”
No, he hadn’t, and Adam knew - not even from Ronan, but from murmurings from
Gansey over the months they’d known one another - his punishment would be
harsh. Ronan was not a first offender, and this was a grave rule to break. He’d
be in trouble for the murder as well but that was a slap on the wrist. Even
that was less for the killing and more for the potentially public way it had
been done. Creating a new vampire without obtaining proper consent first was
one of the worst rules you could break, and while Ronan was still considered a
‘young adult’ he was now officially old enough to know better.
In Adam’s mind, away in his room, Ronan was still quiet.
“That’s my fault,” Adam said, without hesitation. “I apologize. I knew there
was protocol to follow from what Gansey had told me when he offered in the
past, but I was afraid I was dying. I begged him to turn me to save my life. He
was only trying to help his friend. If anyone should face punishment for what
happened it should be me.”
Confusion, even a little anger echoed in Adam’s mind. Adam didn’t look towards
Ronan’s door but tried to express as hard as possible for Ronan to say nothing,
to keep quiet. He was taking a gamble on her empathy but regardless Adam was
effectively a newborn and most importantly didn’t have a record.
The woman frowned ever so slightly, eyebrows knitting together. There it was
again, the sympathy.
“As long as you’re willing to give an official statement declaring that, I
think we can look the other way. Desperate times sometimes call for desperate
measures. The address on file for you according to your school is-”
“You can send it here, we’ll make sure he gets it,” Gansey interrupted, all
winning presidential smiles. “I’m so sorry, I fear I’m to blame partially for
this too, I should have filed ages ago about wanting to add another to our
coven…”
Gansey made more smalltalk while he escorted the woman out with a grateful,
tense, smile to Adam over his shoulder, and Adam let out a breath he had been
carefully holding as soon as the door was closed. If his heart still beat it
would have been racing.
Ronan’s door slammed open and he stalked out, crowding up in Adam’s space, fury
in his eyes and emotions raging in wordless swirls of confusion and anger.
“I don’t fucking need you to lie for me,” Ronan growled. Adam had felt the
hurricane of emotion from the main room and was braced for it, tilting his head
up to look at Ronan with half-lidded eyes. He had never been afraid of Ronan.
“And I didn’t need you to risk your life to save mine,” Adam countered. “What
would have happened to you if I hadn’t lied?”
Ronan didn’t answer, he didn’t need to. It was there, at the edges - maybe not
death, probably not death, but harsh punishment indeed. Inheriting what Niall
had left him would be out of the question for the rest of his existence. He
would never go home, he would never see any of them again.
“... You made me,” Adam said, carefully, quietly. “It’s your responsibility to
protect me until I can protect myself. You can’t do that if you get thrown into
some dark hole and forgotten about.”
Ronan said nothing as his emotions raged like the ocean during a storm at sea.
Adam had always known that everything Ronan felt that wasn’t joy was filtered
through anger, but this was the first time he had a first-hand direct
connection to the process of it.
Wait, there, right there... there was something else. Something else to this.
This, making Adam without obtaining his consent first, it wouldn’t be Ronan’s
first offense of this in particular.
Adam didn’t have time to ask about it, only saw the slight widening of Ronan’s
eyes as he understood what Adam had felt within him and then the door was
opening again and Ronan simply whispered through their mental connection that
Gansey didn’t know.
Before this week, Adam had thought there was nothing about Ronan Lynch that
Gansey didn’t know. He was starting to have to re-evaluate that.
“Sorry about the interruption,” Gansey said apologetically as he returned,
closing the door again behind him and coming up to where Adam and Ronan stood,
having moved an acceptable distance away from one another to not cause
suspicion. Gansey paused for a moment, like he wanted to say something else,
maybe thank Adam for covering for Ronan, but instead he let the moment pass by.
In just the few hours he’d been conscious (and days he hadn’t), Adam had gotten
so used to the silent communication he now shared with Ronan that it seemed
strange to not have that with Gansey.
Before this week he would have thought that he was closer to Gansey than he
ever had been to another person.
“You got his watch, right?” Ronan asked, cutting off whatever Gansey wanted to
talk about next and instead nodding to Adam’s watch still held in Gansey’s
hand. “He’s up and moving, I need to start teaching him to hunt. Gonna go
change.”
Ronan turned towards his room without a second look back, closing the door hard
behind him, effectively dismissing Gansey from the conversation. Gansey pursed
his lips but said nothing though the disapproval radiated off of him in waves.
Adam did not need a mental link to see it.
He took the watch when Gansey offered it, sliding the band over his wrist and
securing it there once more. It … felt different, somehow. Almost a small
tingle against his skin.
“It’s enchanted?” he asked curiously, while it felt different it looked no
different than it had before. At least, nothing that couldn’t be attributed to
having keener eyesight now.
“Yes, as long as you’re wearing it the sunlight won’t hurt you. It still won’t
be pleasant, but you won’t die. Even if you forget it though, as a new vampire
it won’t hurt you as badly - the vulnerability to it gets worse the older you
get.”
Adam had remembered Gansey saying something like that before - it had been part
of why Gansey theorized that Glendower was buried in some kind of tomb for
certain, far away from the reach of the deadly sun. If he had been turned to a
vampire the year he was said to be killed that would make him almost six
hundred years as one, and that was the most conservative of estimates.
“Anything else I should know?” Adam asked, twisting the watch on his wrist and
casting his gaze to Gansey. The other vampire sighed, glancing at Ronan’s still
closed door before he looked to Adam again.
“Quite a bit. I’m sure by now you’ve noticed your…” Gansey held a hand around
where his own forehead was, wiggling his fingers a bit as if to indicate a
wavelength, “With Lynch.”
“You could say that. I take it it’s a common thing?”
“Yes. As long as you feed off of his blood you’ll be connected that way. The
idea is it helps sires take care of their progeny until they can take care of
themselves. Once you become self-sufficient and start feeding on your own, it
will fade. You need not have Lynch in your head forever, don’t worry.” A smile
quirked across Gansey’s face as he crossed his arms thoughtfully, and Adam
couldn’t help returning the smile even as he filed that information away to
consider his options.
“Is there a - does it stop on its own?” Adam asked, “I’m… not certain I’ll take
to this quickly.”
“Oh, no. Don’t worry. Progeny can feed off the blood of their sires
indefinitely. Though keeping it up after you no longer need to is considered…”
Gansey trailed off, hesitated, and Adam let him flounder for a moment before
Gansey picked back up with, “Well, it’s generally assumed your relationship is
not familial in nature if you keep that up once you’ve learned to feed
yourself, outside of times of great duress and all. Don’t worry, though.
‘Childhood’ lasts quite a long time for us.”
Adam already knew that Gansey had never fed from his sire except for the time
he was changed and that he had effectively been abandoned at birth. He also
knew that Ronan’s relationship with his sire was that of father and son, the
same as Ronan’s two “brothers” had with Niall as well. For all that many
vampire stories were focused around romantic relationships, the only two
examples Adam had were platonic ones.
Neither Ronan nor Adam wanted a familial relationship out of this arrangement.
Now that Adam had been so known he wasn’t sure he wanted to hide anymore, even
given that option. Especially knowing that feeling was mutual to Ronan.
That was when Ronan came out from his room again, leather jacket and boots on,
his foundling Chainsaw with him.
“She’s gotta eat every two hours, we’ll be gone most of the night,” Ronan
explained when he saw Gansey looking at the young bird.
“Should I come with you?” Gansey offered, still wary as he looked between Ronan
and Adam.
“No offense Dick, but you’re a shit hunter. Better it’s just me and Parrish,”
Ronan said, heading out without a second glance behind.
Adam shrugged at Gansey, then followed. He knew where Ronan was thinking,
Cabeswater, where he had turned Adam to a vampire as well. Adam wondered what
that would be like, with the heightened senses now at his beck and call.
While he was asleep Ronan had gotten the upholstery changed. There was no sign
that Adam had been laying in the passenger seat while he bled out from a
gunshot wound to the stomach. The car was as immaculate as Ronan normally had
it, which admittedly was not terribly, but it no longer appeared as a crime
scene.
“Pretty tempting to just suck the blood out of the seat,” Ronan said with a
grin, catching the way Adam examined the car seat. “You tasted good.”
Adam kept his expression as neutral as possible by habit, not that it did any
good. He was pleased and Ronan knew it, could feel it. Could feel that Ronan
Lynch, who never fed off of people and complained that they tasted awful even
when his opinion was not asked, thought that Adam Parrish tasted good.
Gratification and embarrassment rolled through Adam both. There was one thing
he had to do before they went hunting though, as he looked at the clock on the
dashboard and saw that it was still a reasonable hour to bother the living.
“... Can we stop by Fox Way first?” he asked. He didn’t explain why. Ronan
knew.
 
He probably should have called first. Called ahead, explained, asked, done
something more than just shown up on front of Blue’s house after sundown, in
Ronan Lynch’s car dressed in Ronan Lynch’s clothes. They’d have to go to the
trailer park eventually to get his things, that much was certain. That would
require processing complicated feelings he wasn’t sure he was ready to confront
yet - speaking with Blue would be hard enough first.
Ronan gave Adam a questioning look as he killed the engine. He didn’t like the
Fox Way house, but he’d go in if Adam wanted him to. Adam shook his head
slowly. No, he’d get this on his own.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, really. He knew there wasn’t some anti-
vampire part of it or anything like that, Gansey and Ronan came and went just
fine to it in the past. He had been invited in before, did that invitation
carry over into his new existence or would he need to be invited in again?
Adam barely had time to knock before the door was opened, the waifish ageless
Persephone on the other side.
“Please, come in Adam,” She said as if she knew what he had been thinking,
stepping aside to allow him to come in. It was an effort to not look back out
to Ronan’s car, but he still felt the presence of the other with him. It was
embarrassing how quickly he was coming to rely on it when he prided his
independence so much. Persephone waited at the door a moment longer, looking
back to the car when Adam didn’t. “He may as well come in too… but I suppose if
you’re certain…”
Airily, she closed the door and gestured to the stairs.
“Blue’s in her room. It’s not time yet for you to speak to me, but please don’t
keep us waiting when it is,” Persephone didn’t deign to clarify on that
statement, heading into the kitchen with a wave of her hand. Adam was curious,
but if he didn’t do this now he feared he never would.
He held tight to his connection with Ronan as he climbed the stairs. The Fox
Way house was so… busy. Every surface was bursting with pattern, with texture.
Each smell was layered on top of other layers, none ever cleared away, just
covered again, food and spices and herbs of generations. Every step brought a
symphony of sounds from the aging home only a fraction of which were
perceptible to the human hearing. He kept drawing his mind back to being in
Noah’s nondescript room which at the time had seemed so overwhelming. It was
nothing compared to this and at the time he had desperately needed Ronan
insisting Adam focus on him, on just him to help block it out.
While it was not the whole reason, it made sense why Gansey was so terribly
fascinated with the house and Ronan so distasteful of it.
Just getting to Blue’s door and knocking was an ordeal.
When she answered it, she still smelled of wildflowers - it was an even clearer
scent than before, still dressed in the baggy but artfully shredded clothing of
the day, hair loose instead of pulled back with two dozen clips in an attempt
to keep it in check, her lips discolored from biting them throughout the day.
She was so beautiful.
At the back of his mind, a gagging sound. Thanks Adam thought sarcastically.
“You’re awake,” Blue gasped, reaching out to Adam to pull him into an embrace
he didn’t pull away from though he only barely returned it. He let himself
wonder what it would be like to try and keep this up. They might manage for a
little longer, but no matter how how Adam tried to work it out, there was no
way this could end between them but badly if they kept trying.
He still wanted it, wanted something all his own untouched by every terrible
thing in his life.
Except Gansey had to have told her what happened, how he had been put in a life
or death situation where Ronan was forced to change him. So now she knew that
as well.
Maybe under other circumstances, in another universe, he wasn’t shot by his
father that night. He lived on, still human, and she would not know why his
home was not a home but a place meant for leaving, and he could have it. Have
this. Have her. He consoled himself with that.
“Blue… we need to talk. Can I come in?”
They were alone on the second floor for now, and privacy was not something
allowed in a psychic house or while sharing a psychic connection with another
person, but going into her room and closing the door gave them the illusion of
it and that was important. Blue sat on her bed where a couple textbooks were
spread out along with a notebook she had been writing in. She pushed them aside
in clear offer of making space for him to sit there as well, which he took.
Silence fell for a moment between them, Ronan’s commentary fallen silent as
well in Adam’s mind to help with the sense of privacy as faulty as it was.
Maybe even he was genuinely attempting to not listen to Adam’s inner turmoil.
“You’re calling it off, aren’t you?” Blue asked, breaking the silence first.
Leave it to her to figure it out. Adam looked away briefly before he met her
gaze.
“I am. I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t care, I do, I just… I’m going to have
to learn a whole new way to be and I don’t want to put you in a position where
I could hurt you,” Adam explained, tried to sound as calm and even about it as
possible. It was true, though he wasn’t clear on what kind of pain he meant.
There was the obvious, which Blue latched onto.
“I’m not helpless, you know. I can take care of myself,” she scoffed, tugging
at a strand of her hair but fearlessly meeting Adam’s gaze. She had been
intimidated by none of them, even Gansey and Ronan, even after learning what
they were. What Adam was now, too.
Adam smiled.
“I know. That’s why I’m trusting you to do that.” Adam reached out to gently
take Blue’s hand between his own. She felt so warm, and though he had only fed
a couple hours earlier he could still feel the hint of that hunger returning.
Blue smelled so good, after all.
He squeezed her hand, then let it go.
“Thank you for giving me a chance Blue,” Adam finished, soft and sad.
It was that vulnerability that disarmed her, had always disarmed her with Adam.
She tucked her knees up against her chest and rested her chin on them,
confessing what she had been wary of doing so for weeks and weeks now.
“... I have a curse, you know. When I kiss my true love, he’ll die,” it seemed
so easy to say now that Adam was in no danger of that. So stupidly easy. She
had already told Gansey after all, why bother hiding it from Adam? It seemed
silly out in the open.
His smile took on the melancholy laced in his voice.
“Did you think that could have been me?”
“I don’t know,” Blue confessed honestly. “I wanted it to be.”
It was a strange thing to find flattering maybe, that someone wanted you to be
at risk of death from a curse. It explained so much though. Why she refused to
kiss him, to even come close to it.
It was a flattering feeling, to think that in another life maybe he would have
been her true love.
“I have to go. Lynch is teaching me how to - to hunt,” At Adam’s words Blue’s
face was all disapproval, and Adam half expected to hear a scoff from Ronan’s
end. “Can we still be friends, do you think?”
He wanted to believe he hadn’t ruined it, and Blue’s disapproving face shifted
to fully offended.
“Oh, you can just leave! How dare you think I’m going to be so petty as to
throw you all away because you dumped me!”
Though she got up to push Adam out the door, there was a smile on her lips she
couldn’t hide.
 
Returning to the BMW, Adam felt lighter than he had in some time. One burden
off his shoulders - not that Blue had been a burden. He wasn’t sure what love
was, if it was a real thing, but he wanted to believe it could have been felt
between them. Getting into the sleek shark-nosed car, Ronan’s shitty trance
music instantly assaulted his senses. The other vampire was still behind the
wheel, engine idling to play his music. Ronan glanced at Adam when he opened
the door, then looked away.
“I tried not to listen,” Ronan explained. “As much as I could.”
The mental link was, as Gansey had explained, a safety precaution. Turning it
off, especially on Ronan’s end, was not exactly something it was designed to
do.
Adam was still thinking of Blue, could look up and see the light on still in
her window, but that potential chapter of his life was a closed book. Adam slid
into the car, buckled in and just let the feeling of being there wash over him
- the bleed-off feeling of Ronan’s concern, his support, the catch of the
thought that Adam in his car, dressed in his clothing, smelling like him with a
whole night ahead of them was more intoxicating than Ronan had ever imagined
(and that he had imagined) … there was no place Adam thought he would rather
be.
“Cabeswater?” He asked, turning to meet Ronan’s eyes and smiling.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Summary
     In the woods, hunting doesn't go as planned, but Adam and Ronan learn
     their own way of doing things just the same.
Chapter Notes
     you may have noticed the rating has gone from M to E THEY GET FRISKY
     IN THIS CHAPTER.
The forest that had seemed so silent before was positively bursting with life
now visible to Adam’s heightened senses. He could hear every mouse as it darted
through the tall grass, hear even the displacement of the wind from the wings
of the owls as they swooped from branch to branch. The call of other night
birds, faint before but now a symphony. The flash of colors of the scales of
snakes coming out to feed under the safety of darkness. The smell of the
rabbits, the deer, and above it all the glitter of stars overhead.
“It’s incredible,” Adam breathed, letting the wonder fill his voice, and
Ronan’s sharp smile turned almost gentle at it.
“Come on, Parrish. We both need to eat,” Ronan replied, heading deeper into the
wood.
The beginning of the night was spent as Ronan had told Gansey, learning to
hunt. It seemed to share a lot of the same basics as hunting wild game as one
would with a bow or a rifle, not that Adam had experience with either. It was
about patience, about learning to be silent, to be still. Adam already had
those skills under different circumstances, and they came easy to him to
repurpose into the setting of the forest which seemed to breathe along with him
when he chose to. Learning was something Adam Parrish prided himself on, so
learning he was determined to do, though it was difficult to not let himself
get distracted by Ronan. When they were noticed by the forest creatures, they
rarely startled. They had to know Ronan was a predator, they gave him
respectful space when walking by his still form, but they showed no fear when
he approached them carefully. Deer, rabbits, small mice, all kinds of birds -
they seemed to trust him, this strange predator who was familiar to them all.
‘Hunting’ meant something different for different vampires - any kind of blood
as it turned out would do - whether you hunted by actually running down wild
animals, murdering the occasional human, took donations from willing providers
in small enough amounts to not cause them harm, or just went to the Asian
market on 3rd Street and bought the plastic container of pig’s blood. There
were as many different ways to get what you needed as there were different
people in the world.
Hell, grave robbing was applicable too if you were desperate enough to put in
the work for it, dead blood was only an issue for indigestion if left to spoil
too long.
Gansey had flocks of the willing ready to donate whatever he needed - a little
here and a little there that wouldn’t bring them harm but would keep him sated
enough to never risk a hunger frenzy. Ronan prefered his hunting to be actually
that. Adam knew both of these things, had fed Gansey a few times in the past
and witnessed the savage grace of Ronan Lynch taking down a young buck that had
already been injured during mating season. Watching it again, the way Ronan
effortlessly stalked, waited, then moved in for an instant quick and painless
kill with the crack of snapped bone, the way the fur shifted at his touch, Adam
felt like he must have been blinded the first time. It had seemed so easy when
Ronan had done it the first time Adam had seen, and yet the way he could
appreciate it now made Adam think he had never witnessed grace before this
moment.
Ronan’s grin to Adam was the serrated edge of a knife before he bit into the
neck of the deer and drained it dry within minutes. Adam wondered if Ronan
looked that way when he had fed on Adam the one and only time. It was an idle
thing at the back of his mind, and yet tossed like a bouncy ball from one of
the quarter machines at Nino’s, Ronan caught it and tossed it back. The way
Adam had smelled, the way he had tasted, Ronan had compared him to a faun a few
times, actually, in the quiet of his own mind...
“You get that, Parrish?” Ronan asked, all casual, once he was done. He wiped
his hand across the back of his mouth. Actled like he didn’t know very well how
captivated Adam had been by his work, how he wouldn’t be able to forget it even
if he wanted to.
“Yes,” Adam replied, and Ronan nodded his head towards where the other deer had
gotten to before moving off to head that way. Adam followed.
Other vampires might have caught and killed one for Adam themselves, or at
least caught the first one to make it easier, a little at the time like a
mother cat teaching her kitten how to hunt. Not Ronan. He respected Adam too
much to do anything other than throw him right into the deep end with little
more than a single demonstration and to point to the weakened older stag well
past his prime. Even that was less a matter of helping Adam and more a matter
of helping the herd. Ronan Lynch hunted, but he was careful when he did - the
old, the weak, the sick. He could catch and massacre the whole gang of them if
he wanted to, but that would do little for a sustainable population. He stuck
to the ones that the natural predators would target, culling the weak from the
herd to make it stronger.
Watching it was not a problem. Moving closer wasn’t a problem either. Adam was
a quick study, he could handle this.
Except…
When he had heard Ronan breaking the neck of his own stag, Adam hadn’t been
bothered. There was no hesitation to the watching. When it came time for him to
act himself, though - his steps faltered, briefly unsure, and before he could
make a recovery the deer turned to see him and it did see him, and Adam saw a
fear in there that he had seen reflected time and time again in the bathroom
mirror of the small trailer. Panic lanced through him, all he could hear was
the sound of Ronan breaking the neck of the deer from before but now all his
other memories of fear were searching for connections.
It had sounded so similar to when Adam’s father had gotten angry once when Adam
was in junior high school and grabbed his wrist, twisting it until one of those
fragile bones in his arm had broken. Over and over the sound replayed in his
mind, over and over the words of his mother telling him not to say anything
other than it being an accident when she finally took him to the hospital for
it.
It had been kind of his fault after all, hadn’t it?
The remaining deer scattered, but Adam was in no position to give chase. Before
he could quite sink to the ground, strong arms wrapped around his waist and
held him up, his back against Ronan Lynch’s chest. He wanted the earth to open
up and swallow him whole, his insecurities laid bare before Ronan who was
surely seeing and hearing everything, observing and experiencing as Adam’s
panicked mind caught in the obsessive loop of past injuries both physical and
emotional.
It had been awful enough when Gansey and Ronan found out that his father hit
him, even logically knowing that his mother was wrong, that it wasn’t his fault
didn’t change or lessen the shame that came from it. The shame of Ronan now
surely having to realize he made such an atrociously useless thing that
couldn’t even feed itself. Something that would have surely been better off
left there in the dirt of the trailer park where he belonged. How foolish he
had been to think he could ever stand alongside creatures like Gansey and Ronan
Lynch and be their equal. Not in this lifetime, not in a hundred lifetimes.
‘You have shown me the sky, but what good is the sky to a creature who’d never
do better than crawl?’
Ronan’s breath was hot against his neck, arms holding Adam tightly as he led
the other boy back until he was against a tree, until he could sit there
against its bark with Adam pulled against him.
“Listen, dipshit,” Ronan muttered against his skin, which seemed like such an
odd opener to not have anything to follow it at first.
Except he did have something to follow it, when Adam let himself try to look
outside of the obsessive pit of self-loathing, just for a moment turning his
head up to the stars above.
He saw himself. He saw himself in classes, where others controlled the
conversation with their (deeply lacking) charisma and misplaced confidence,
there was Adam shutting them all down with a quiet well-placed word. A correct
answer that couldn’t be argued with, dominating them at their own game while
refusing to take part in it and at the same time dismissing it as beneath him.
He saw hands - his own hands, clever and graceful, finding the source of the
problems with Gansey’s lovely and temperamental car and fixing them before
either vampire could even understand what the problem was, all as if second
nature to him. A language the others trained their best at but Adam was born
into fluency of, connecting to the beautiful machines they both loved in a way
they never could hope to.
He saw his influence on Gansey - frustrating but understood as deeply needed.
All that passion still within Adam shown with how he would stop at nothing for
answers once proposed to him, but tempered by caution to turn it from raw
potential into a fine blade of wit and intellect.
He almost choked as he realized - he was seeing himself as Ronan was seeing
him.
Adam couldn’t understand it, this strange and fascinating creature that Ronan
saw when he looked at Adam, who seemed to bear so little resemblance on the
person he saw in the mirror. He was divided - did he want to bask in the
flattery of Ronan’s idea of him or force him to see exactly what he held in his
arms? Ronan squeezed him tighter, the dry brush of his lips just barely felt
against Adam’s neck.
“I - I couldn’t - “ Adam started, they had come out here for Ronan to teach
Adam to hunt, to feed himself, and he’d failed spectacularly at that.
“Whatever,” Ronan muttered against Adam’s skin. “I’ll be your fuckin’ blood
bank as long as you need.”
He spoke the words so carelessly, but Adam could feel the tension there beneath
the surface. It wasn’t just that Ronan didn’t mind - he enjoyed it, Adam
feeding on him. Even with their shared mental connection that came with it,
that would be maintained as long as Adam kept it up - to be Known was just as
much of an thrill to Ronan Lynch as it was to Adam Parrish. If it was his
choice, it would never end.
Shifting in Ronan’s arms which obediently loosened to allow for the movement,
Adam twisted to sort of sit across his lap instead so he could look at Ronan in
the moonlight that filtered down through the branches. Adam didn’t want to
think about himself right then, Ronan had pulled him out of that spiral but he
knew from experience how easy it was to fall back into.
So he let himself be lost in the details instead.
The sharp lines of Ronan’s cheekbones, caressed first with eyes then with the
barest touch of fingertips. After that, the regal slope of Ronan’s nose. It was
funny, Adam knew Ronan technically shared no ‘blood’ relation with his brother
Declan, but they had the same nose. Ronan scowled as he heard that echoed
through Adam’s thoughts, any comparison to his brother coming with the silent
accusation of ruining the mood. Adam couldn’t help but smile the way Ronan’s
thin lips made a perfect frown, his dark eyebrows lowering expressively. The
soft lines of his eyelashes that framed such bright blue eyes - the same
impossible blue of a butterfly’s wing. Ronan gave a low sound that was
somewhere between a grumble and a growl, his emotions such a storm that for a
moment Adam couldn’t figure out if he’d genuinely upset Ronan or not. Just for
a moment, though. After that, Ronan was leaning in and kissing him, hard and
wanting.
It shocked Adam to stillness, the intimacy of it. Which was positively absurd,
Ronan had drank his blood, turned him into a vampire like him, he had Ronan’s
mind constantly at the edges of his own, he had Ronan’s blood in his body and
had sucked on his fingers while sitting across his lap and had known if he had
said he wanted more right then he would have gotten it. All of that had been
related to being a new kind of creature, though. This was an intimacy that was
universal. An intimacy that Adam had always been able to want but never been
allowed to have.
He was so hungry for Ronan in so many ways.
Adam’s hands found Ronan’s shoulders, gripping hard at the leather jacket as
Ronan’s arms tightened their hold around Adam’s waist. He tasted the blood of
the deer on Ronan’s tongue, it tasted good but not as good as Ronan’s. Nothing
ever would. Satisfaction and pleasure both rippled through their shared
connection as Ronan caught Adam’s idle thought. Adam needed to feel more of
Ronan’s skin under his hands. He needed Ronan’s hands to map his own body in
return. The leather jacket Ronan wore was thankfully made of stronger stuff
than was churned out nowadays, holding strong even as Adam fumbled to push it
off of his shoulders. Ronan let out a frustrated growl into the kiss,
exchanging letting go of Adam’s waist so the jacket could be removed only for
his tongue to invade Adam’s mouth. There was another sudden rush of the taste
of blood as his tongue caught on the edge of one of Adam’s fangs. Warmer,
better, Adam sucked on Ronan’s tongue and Ronan groaned.
“Parrish-” Ronan gasped when their lips parted, when he was pushed back just
slightly. They only needed to breathe to speak and out of force of habit, but
Adam couldn’t very well get Ronan’s shirt off while still kissing him.
That tore, a little bit, a testament to the newfound strength Adam had, to his
starvation for touch that he was willing to overlook it. His touch on Ronan’s
newly exposed skin was light, reverent. It was difficult to believe he was
being allowed this, that someone as supernaturally compelling as Ronan Lynch
would allow or even want for Adam’s bony hands on his skin-
Another rush of thought, of images. Not bony, elegent. Every curve, every line
memorized, beautiful and distracting. So sure of every movement, how often had
Ronan let himself be driven to distraction in the Latin class he didn’t need to
take but still attended as an excuse to watch Adam’s clever hands take their
notes out of the corner of his eye, to memorize the way the muscles moved under
the lightly freckled skin - so light that only Ronan who had paid so much
attention to them could see the faint patterns of color, who had brought
himself off more than once holding that image in his mind-
“Oh God,” Adam gasped, hands stalling just under Ronan’s collarbone, pressed
flat against the skin slightly warmer than normal now thanks to having just
fed. Thanks to Adam’s touch warming him.
Ronan took his hand, careful and slow, never breaking eye contact with Adam as
he brought Adam’s wrist up to his mouth and kissed it, sucked lightly on the
skin just above the tendons. He was better with his teeth - he’d had the
sharpened fangs for longer, so while he let them graze the thin skin of Adam’s
wrist they never scratched it, never broke it, though Adam wasn’t certain that
it would have made a difference at that point. Ronan’s touch already felt like
he was burning a brand into Adam’s skin, it was better this way, better that
Adam was already inhuman. Surely if they had tried this while Adam was mortal
he would have died from it. His heart couldn’t take it.
As opposed to Adam’s desperate frenzy, Ronan’s touch on Adam’s skin may as well
have been an act of worship. He took his time, dry lips brushing against his
palm, his knuckles, before drawing Adam’s thumb into his mouth to suck on it.
Adam felt the brush of the sharp teeth there but nothing more. As if Adam was
something positively holy. To Ronan, he was. Something, someone, worthy of
worship even when he was nothing more than a human. That changing him into a
vampire, forcing his nature to change, had been an act of blasphemy but an even
bigger one would be a world without Adam Parrish in it.
Ronan Lynch had waited sixty years to find Adam Parrish and now that he had he
could not conceive of letting the world go on spinning without Adam in it.
Adam pulled his hand away from Ronan to kiss him again and again, small kisses
segueing effortlessly into the next ones, easily an hour of lips and teeth and
tongue and nothing else but hands in hair and clutching skin because breathing
for them was optional and they could in fact do this forever if they wished.
They had time to perfect it, perfect what they both enjoyed, and then Adam
shifted in Ronan’s lap just a little closer and suddenly it was not enough,
that light pressure needed to be more. Ronan’s hands slid away from Adam’s hair
to grab at his ass instead, pulling him closer and Adam moaned against Ronan’s
mouth. They didn’t need words, a silent request if they could and then an eager
yes! without waiting for that thought to finish.
Adam could hear the faint ripping of fabric with the haste for Ronan to get his
jeans off of Adam, but they were Ronan’s jeans so it wasn’t like he could
really be angry. Ronan was pleased when Adam’s haste to get him naked yielded a
similar result. The pleasure of being wanted, of knowing how badly you were
wanted. Adam wanted to take more time, to better admire the hard lines of
Ronan’s body, but the hunger for his touch didn’t allow for anything else. Back
across Ronan’s lap, Ronan slid his hand between their bodies to take both of
them into his hand.
It felt so damn good Adam could have cried.
“Come on, Parrish,” Ronan’s voice was rough, thick with need, and Adam kept a
bracing hand on Ronan’s shoulder while the other went to entwine his fingers
with Ronan’s around their erections, slow movements made slick with precome.
Even with how dark it was, heightened senses let him see their flushed cocks
pressed together, the silken skin of Ronan’s foreskin rubbing against Adam’s.
He tried to warn Ronan, he wasn’t going to last long, he’d never had anyone
else’s hands on him and barely his own, but all that came in return was
encouragement from Ronan’s mind, his hand moving faster, hips rocking upwards.
Ronan wanted to see it, to see Adam lose control of himself, to see what he
looked like overcome with pleasure and if it was anything like how he’d
imagined it.
If there was the possibility of lasting at all before, it was wholly gone after
that. The soreness of his throat was the only thing that let him know later
that the shout of Lynch’s name had been something actually spoken aloud, his
and Ronan’s hand now slick with Adam’s come. There was a buzzing in his ears,
the whisper of the trees, everything felt perfect in that moment. He was not so
far gone though that he missed Ronan’s swearing, the way he shifted them to
press Adam back against the mossy grass, pinning his hands to the ground to rut
against Adam’s flat stomach and spent cock. He had a way of making his curses
sound like poetry, like prayers, and all of them had Adam’s name scattered
among them. In his mind was flash after flash of what he wanted to do to Adam,
do with Adam, to fuck him senseless and stay inside of him for hours, to suck
Adam’s cock until he begged Ronan for release. Adam was drowsy and the hunger
was returning, but he locked his legs around Ronan’s waist to buck back up
against him, sent a clear image in return of Adam on his knees in one of
Aglionby’s bathrooms sucking on Ronan’s cock like he wanted nothing else.
Adam’s name was on Ronan’s lips when he came, rolling his hips against Adam
until he was completely spent as well.
Ronan was still in the afterglow, letting go of Adam’s hands, pressing his face
against Adam’s neck and making drowsy contented sounds while Adam traced the
intricate pattern of dark lines on Ronan’s back. Letting himself think on it,
Adam thought that he wanted to do that since he first saw the hooking beak-like
designs peeking out from the collar of Ronan’s shirt.
He was getting hungry again.
“Mmf. Go ahead.” Ronan murmured against Adam’s skin, rolling his shoulders just
slightly. Not enough to shake Adam off, just enough to get the knots forming
out of the muscles. “Just fed, m’fine. Eat up.”
As long as Adam needed, as long as Adam wanted, Ronan would just eat twice as
much so Adam could feed off of him. It was no burden, but a privilege.
Besides, he could get at least one good ‘eating for two’ joke out at Gansey’s
expense.
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