Archive of Our Own

NIGHT SIX

Later, you'll understand why it had to start in a dream.

It does seem ridiculous, at first: if Ronan could only stay awake, he'd find the real Gansey right next to him. Thrumming and alive, with all that warm, golden flesh that makes a fool of Ronan's heartbeat.

But him staying awake is impossible. It requires many things to have happened differently, despite all of them being essential to Ronan's existence: having a father who was not a dreamer, a mother who was not a dream, a body that is incapable of turning nighttime questions into living beings, regardless of how derranged they are.

He cannot change the things that make him who he is.

So, he dreams.

He dreams of reaching his hand out. Of not being denied. He dreams of touch, of fingers swiping across his lips, hooking behind his teeth, looping around his back, tracing the curving flora of his tattoo, its defined spindles. Then, reaching lower, over trails of hair, finally getting between his legs, where Ronan wants it most.

He has been refused of it for days, now. Ever since he arrived at Gansey's stupid apartment in some stupid town to be poured over by Gansey's stupid smile.

Ronan missed him.

The feeling was absolute: it hit him all at once, the very first afternoon, and still hasn't gone away.

He misses their childhood– not because it was easy, but because it was together. Monmouth Manufacturing, their illogical home with such lackluster glory, always looking one windfall from total collapse. Yet, that building refused to crumble, as if Gansey's anointment of it as something worth saving was all it needed to stay standing.

Ronan understands that feeling well.

Ronan knows it well, like he grew to know Gansey himself: his fears scattered across the living room in the form of his journals, the midnghtness of orange juice runs ruining the capacity for secrets.

And then, there was this: orange juice half-finished in the fridge, Camaro engine long quieted. Yet, the night was still endless in front of them. They were giddy in the way you could only get from staved-off exhaustion. Whispers under covers, hands under boxers. I heard it helps you sleep. Sweet, soft laughter. Like your towel hasn't fallen off before. Their mouths both tasted of Tropicana.

Sometimes desire is immediate; other times, it lurks in shadows, swelling silently, waiting for the moment when you cannot deny its presence any longer: and, after you finally look it in the eyes, like an animal set free, it runs.

The first time could have been an accident. All the times after were not.

This time, happening ten years after Monmouth, is somewhere between. Ronan tried to stop himself from dreaming about Gansey, because he had known it would end like this. And, he had brought back creatures from is dreams before: what if Dream Gansey came to life? It would either force Ronan to hide the doppleganger forever or admit to the Real Gansey why there was one in the first place.

So, it's a shame that dreams are the landscape of Ronan's desires; Ronan wanted Gansey enough, so here Gansey is. And Ronan is defenceless against his presence, regardless of the fact he is its maker.

In the dream, Ronan is himself. Gansey is not. But Ronan is himself and there's a version Gansey on top of him, and it doesn't matter what is real or fake because Ronan, who was always a terrible student, is an expert at Gansey. The replica's eyes are the exact right shade of hazel. His breath even smells of mint.

"Gansey," Ronan moans, and the body is christened, and it is true.

They make out against a wall. Get naked. Gansey's teeth scrape against Ronan's throat, just how Ronan likes. Yes, this because the Gansey in front of him is made out of Ronan's mind–of course, Ronan knows this. But he wants to believe that Gansey outside of his dreams could intuit him this accurately. Pin him down, in more ways than one.

When Ronan pulls away, his face is raw from stubble. He jostles them around, settles onto his knees. Slides Gansey in his mouth.

Dream Gansey talks like himself. "Oh my, Ronan." But, he also speaks the way Ronan always hoped he would– which, is to say, like Ronan. "Shit. Your motherfucking mouth." And he gives Ronan praise without Ronan needing to ask, like Adam does; The kind that, if Ronan is being honest, he always wanted to hear from Gansey, too. "Yeah, baby, just like that."

In the same way, the dick in Ronan's mouth really belongs to Adam. With the distance between their youth, there are some things about Gansey's body too murky in Ronan's recollection.

Maybe Ronan should feel worse about it. The assemblaging of bodies, none of it quite right. Adam's dick, Gansey's hands, Gansey's lower stomach, Adam's filthy mind. But, from fucking Adam regularly, Ronan gets dream Gansey's knees weak in seconds. One look at that heaving chest and Ronan's dignity shatters.

And he looks. Ronan looks. Up at Gansey, beautiful Gansey, through his eyelashes. It's what Adam would want, so Gansey wants it, too. A quiet, "God," breaks from Gansey's parted mouth.

That mouth. That mouth. It is Gansey's, through and through. Ronan has looked at it for years, in all its iterations: joy, confusion, thought. Had studied it from the passenger seat of The Pig, Gansey chewing on a mint leaf, as Ronan chewed on his leather bracelets, stomach hot from a feeling too fiery to be the annoyance that he claimed it was.

Ronan knows that fucking mouth; It's perfect.

He drowns himself in self-made eagerness. He takes all of Gansey back in his throat.

Open, suck, swallow, lick, gag. Even in dreams, Ronan keeps his reflexes: the burn is all the fun. Pleasure comes with a price, and its one that Ronan would pay every time, just to see Gansey's eyelashes flutter as they do. To see his mouth left hanging open, wide and electrifying.

Later, Ronan will put his fingers in it. He has decided how this dream will go. Not yet, though. He's still busy on his knees.

Gansey moans and keeps moaning. The walls of the Barns swell inwards from the sound, not unlike Ronan's spine, curving, hips trying to reach the floor for friction. Ronan thinks the distance is too great, but his dick meets the ground, and he hisses. It is as if the floor is lifting itself higher to make relief possible.

Gansey's fingers comb through Ronan's curls, grown out from adulthood. Their eyes meet. Pull harder, Ronan thinks. I can take it.

What a wonderful thing, to be in a dream. All Ronan has to do is want and Gansey delivers. There are fingers in his scalp within seconds. Gansey's grip is fraught and unforgiving.

Ronan moans around Gansey; Gansey moans aloud; the room shakes up into Ronan; the cycle continues.

He feels both of them getting close. Gansey's breath is shortening, fingers coiling like the tell-tale build in Ronan's own stomach. His precum has already made a mess across the floor, wood beneath him slick from need.

"Ronan…. Ronan…." Gansey keeps sighing. Ronan doesn't have to ask: Gansey will come down his throat. And then he'll call Ronan a good boy for taking it all.

"Ronan…. Ronan…." Gansey's voice is getting louder. The room shakes more violently, as does Ronan's body.

"Ronan…. Ronan…." Suddenly, the words feel like they are coming from a place other than the mouth above him. Had Ronan dreamt two Ganseys? The thought prickles heat through him. He hadn't thought it possible, but he wants Gansey enough, and dreams are, after all, the laid-out center of his heart.

"Ronan…. Ronan…."

The scene in front of him starts to move. Light flows upwards, unlike itself. There's a zooming out, a moving away. Shapes loose definitions, all static, which can only mean one thing: Ronan is waking up.

In the dream, outside of the dream, Ronan panics. He wants to finish what he has started. Gansey's body becomes more distant and he sinks his fingers into that sunkissed back, trying to sing wholeness back into its architecture. It feels a lot like holding a wet piece of paper without ripping it. It is a losing game. It's slipping. He's slipping.

If only he knew what was waiting for him on the other side. If only someone could tell him.

"Ronan…. Ronan…."

He feels his dream body start settling back into real bones. He knows he can't win this fight. He takes one deep breath, breathing Gansey in–mint, salt, amber–before letting go.

His eyes open.

Days of denying himself and its evident. Nightwash everywhere. His eyes burn with it. He goes to rub it away, even though he knows that it will only bring minimal comfort. But it does restore his sight enough to make out the edges of a window above him. Its curtains, backlit from moonlight, become familiar.

He realizes he on the sofa in his living room. Seatrests soft against his face. Window above them, letting early morning inside.

But he is unreasonably warm. And the cushions underneath him, they're moving, as if in their own accord. As if he's still in his dream, with the floor, with the Gansey. He wonders, momentarily, if he has actually woken up. He feels something bony–a knee?–hit his upper thigh. Is that a body behind him? It has to be. And is it… is it moving deeper against his own?

His name returns. "Ronan… Ronan…."

He knows that voice.

But it can't be.

It can't be.

Ronan turns his head back.

NIGHT FIVE

Gansey is losing his resolve.

It is late. How late, exactly, does not matter: those values are just digits on a screen, some spikes on a clock. Their passing has no power against the pounding of Gansey's skull, the relentless running of his heart. So, there isn't a need to look.

He keeps scolding himself. Calm down! Get yourself together! But, as any lifelong insomniac will tell you, words mean little. There is something larger than that, perhaps cosmic, keeping Gansey's heart knocked off its center, and there is nothing Gansey can do to control his adrenaline until the source of it vanishes.

And that source is Ronan Lynch.

Ronan was born to disrupt, but he had been weilding that prophecy in particularly pointed ways for the past few days. Flash of teeth there. Patch of stomach there, exposed from a lifted arm and a too-small shirt. Touch here, on Gansey's skin, which still shivered all these hours later. The contact was too long to be meaningless. The meaning too dangerous to be offhand.

So, Gansey can't sleep.

Instead, he paces. He paces the interior of his bedroom, fingers fidgeting with his lips, brain busy with images of Ronan. He paces and paced and paces, still. He paces until it's obvious that his bedroom is no longer big enough to hold his anxiety. The walls may even whisper it to him: you need more than this.

Gansey makes his way to the living room.

He needs to pass the guest bedroom to get there. No light spills out. If Gansey continues walking, he can convince himself that Ronan had been asleep for hours, the darkness as the key proof.

But Gansey had transformed into some frantic animal over these last few days. So, he pauses at the bedroom door, as would any creature desparate to be… waiting for…

What exactly?

Gansey isn't sure. But the lack of expectation doesn't stop his shock when groans leak from inside the door.

Then, Ronan's voice. "Yes. Yes… Fuck."

It is high and breathy and a little broken. Gansey's body hitches at the sound.

He looks around himself, like there's someone to catch him. The only faces are in photographs, all smiles, frozen in joy. They can't hear anything. Gansey knows this, he knows this. Yet, he looks at them pointedly, as if to say, Don't you dare tell.

He turns his head back as he scrubs his hands through his hair. He lingers closer. He stays.

Ronan, again: "Christ, I gotta… "

The faint sound of covers rustling. The loud sound of Gansey's heartbeat pounding.

"Can I touch myself?"

A sharp inhale. Blood rushes to Ganey's ears. He realizes it instantly: he wants to be the one Ronan is talking to. So, yes, yes, he answers. You can touch yourself.

Desire shocks his body, leaving him shivering. He brings a hand in front of his boxers, but holds it there, covering the bulging line, ghosting above it.

Is he allowed to touch himself, too?

"Need it. I need to, Adam. Please."

A momentary lapse: a heart fall. Of course, that's what's happening: a silver sliver slotted next to Ronan's ear, Adam on the other line, helping him along. That's who Ronan always wants. That's who Ronan always turns back to.

Perhaps the realization should stop Gansey.

But, then, Ronan moans, "Oh, God," and it's clear: Adam gave Ronan what he wanted.

Can't Gansey have the same?

Gansey presses his hand down. A hiss slips through lips, hips moving in an instant– quaking, quaking into his unsteady palm. Gansey feels the wet spot that has formed on his boxer shorts. How embarrassing. How honest.

Ronan's voice disrupts the self-consciousness. "Yeah. God, yeah."

If only he was the person making Ronan say those things. Gansey looks down at his hand, hoping his sleep-deprived vision would transform it into Ronan's mouth: warm, wide, wet. He pictures that strong jaw split open. He swallows a sound in the shape of Ronan's name.

Ronan, again: "Fuck, Adam."

Gansey spits into his hand.

"Shit. Shit."

He slides it under his boxers.

"I'm gonna–"

The first bare touch: Gansey cranes his neck. The pleasure is excruciating. His knees wobble against the door, almost like he's trying to knock.

Did Ronan hear it? Why doesn't Gansey care if he had?

"Please," Ronan moans. "Please."

Fuck, Ronan sounds good begging. His desperation is infectious: Gansey's moving his hand rapidly now, hips stuttering, screwing eyes shut. It only takes a few tugs before Gansey's body tenses with the promise of orgasm.

Ronan follows suit: "Please. Can I come?"

It's Adam he's begging to, but Gansey still nods his head, anyway.

"Please. Please"

He pictures Ronan's body, bare and arched atop his guest bed. Gansey curves into his hand: ready, eager, waiting. He wants it synchronized. He wants it perfect.

"But I've been so good."

The sadness is overwhelming. Gansey pauses.

Ronan's voice is broken, his tone insistent. "But Adam… Adam!"

Silence follows. Gansey's body strains, asking for touch to return. He doesn't give in—not immediately, not yet.

"I understand. I promise… I won't."

The slowing of breathing. Gansey's thighs, sweat-laden, suddenly feel cold.

"See you soon…"

Silence.

Gansey looks at where his hand rests in his boxers. Desire once rang, pure in tone, but other voices now whisper, too: guilt, disgust, confusion. Gansey is nothing without Ronan's blatancy.

He lifts his hand away, skin still sensitive underneath fallen fabric. His bedroom calls, and he is listening.

He turns back.

NIGHT FOUR

Ronan's body is a car close to death. Which is, to say, it is something that resembles The Pig.

The lights in Gansey's guest bedroom flicker.

Ronan is not concerned.

His mind is already too busy recalling what happened earlier that day. He keeps seeing it. Can't stop seeing it. Gansey, morning-soft, saying, "Let's get out of the city for a second," and Ronan agreeing without hesitation, because there wasn't a thing he wouldn't do for that look in Gansey's eyes.

He had felt the glance in his knees. Wrenching want.

The lights pulse like a heart.

Hours in and sliding atop roads bracketing sloped pastures, The Pig sputtered to a stop. All sounds known: the swear from the mouth, the click of the lock, the groan of the door. New is Gansey's ease. The fludity with which he pushes up the sleeves of his button-down, exposing the thickness of his forearms, the prominence of their veins. Ronan watched them flex as Gansey lifted the hood.

Tensing muscles. Like these lights– pulling, stretching, dimming, glowing.

He pants from the memory: it's embarrassing, but he's alone. The heat of the day had collected on Gansey's arms. Beads of sweat ran from elbow to wrist. Ronan licked his lips then and does the same now: he still wants to trace their pathway with his tongue.

The lights waver in a wave of darkness to light, fully bright to whisper.

Back in the car. Gansey back at the wheel. Shirt sleeves still pushed up, like he was on a mean streak. "It breaks down so often, now," he said, laughing, "that I'm starting to keep a tally."

Ronan is starting to lose his mind.

The lights. The lights! Flashing like alarms. Blaring, now. On off on off on off on off on off and Ronan's groaning, lifting his head from the pillows, no longer able to ignore this.

He peers through the sliver of closed curtain. He expects rain or thunder or a tsunami, even. Maybe even hopes for one to provide some distraction. But the night is achingly clear.

He doesn't understand anything.

But he knows what he has to do.

He makes his way to the door, grabbing a faded Harvard t-shirt from the floor on the way, stepping into a pair of sweatpants.

He is at Gansey's bedroom door within moments. It is wide open.

The vision stops him in his tracks.

A rectangle of light leads to where Gansey stands on the balcony, looking out at the city. Billowing curtains frame the life happening outside: the noise of cars, flashes of stoplights, the late August breeze. From inside, Ronan watches him, thinking it looks a little too much like a scene from one of those pretentious indie films Adam watches that Ronan is long past pretending to enjoy.

There's no pretending here.

Gansey is a keliadascope. Tops of slippers brush against the bottom of slacks. His dress shirt–yes, the same one from earlier–hangs down on the sides, untucked, likely unbuttoned. Under it, Gansey's skin glows tender in the moonlight. He speaks into a phone in one hand, runs the other through his hair. Ronan's fingers twitch: jealous and hungry and suddenly cold.

Glitch one. Light gone in an instant. None from the buildings outside. None falls in a column on the floor anymore. Darkness takes up all space, swallows Ronan. Ronan swallows.

Glitch two. Seconds later. Column back. The world returns. Gansey is at Ronan's face. Within seconds, somehow. It doesn't matter how. Because Gansey is looking at Ronan. And electricity is back. And Gansey leans in.

Ronan's eyes fall.

Time stretches and slows, as if the space between their bodies is a river filling up as it rains. Faster. More. Now. Ronan's breathing is a snapped wish bone. He wants everything.

Yet, there is no touch. No warmth. Ronan waits for the fall of Gansey's mouth, just to feel wind blow on his face. He listens for its raggedness, just to hear cars howling in the distance.

It is August, yet the night is so, so cold.

Ronan opens his eyes.

And it is like nothing has changed. Gansey is on the balcony, beautiful back turned away from Ronan. Phone to his ear, hand in his hair. The world beyond him still turns and turns and turns and turns.

And Ronan doesn't understand anything.

But he knows what he has to do.

NIGHT THREE

Gansey still doesn't know why he agreed to it.

Lactic in his arms was already firming into soreness. The sun had a similar effect: mellowing him after a day of rowing. It was another race day for the recreational team he had joined last year and Ronan came to watch. Gansey had assumed it was just a nicety from him visiting, so he was surprised at Ronan's excitement when they had won. "We should go out to celebrate," he had said, and Gansey's body responded no, but his mouth said yes, anyways.

They were going up an elevator, now: the bar Ronan had chosen was on a penthouse rooftop. A building was all clean lines, steel edges. Simplistic modernism to provoke some kind of uncaringness. So was the elevator–unnecessarily narrow–with walls made of mirrors. All cheek against tongue. All good humor until what was reflected was something that you wanted to stay hidden deep inside.

The ground moved beneath Gansey. Up and up and up and, in the narrowing distance, the soaring bass was getting closer, faster, more immediate, like the feeling in Gansey's chest being so close to Ronan in a space so tight and unforgiving that Gansey smelled the detergent on his shirt, could taste the acridness of his oaky cologne. Gansey looked up at the floor tracker. There were twenty more to go.

Twenty more floors than his self-control could handle.

Gansey stared at Ronan through the mirror.

His eyes fixed on the reflection of Ronan's chest. Silver chains were flush against a wide traingle of pale skin, made possible by his black button-down being mostly left undone. What a tease, Gansey thought, not unhappily. He might have even accused Ronan of it, if he thought he was capable of speaking.

But, he wasn't sure. So, Gansey kept his head forward. He kept it forward so the movement of his head wouldn't give away his staring. Just his eyes shifted along, the rest of him innocent. So, Ronan would only know that Gansey was looking at him in the reflection if Ronan was also doing the same thing.

Too bad Ronan was already watching.

Gansey's eyes wandered upwards. Met Ronan's eyes. Their gazes locked through the mirror. Ronan's smirk was all dare. Gansey felt it in his toes.

Ronan's reflection moved, settling behind Gansey's. Ronan's black jeans pressed against his blue ones, broad body taking up almost twice as much space as Gansey's. At least, that's what it looked like in the mirror. A mouth landed on Gansey's neck: warm breath, sharp teeth. Gansey craned into the touch.

Gansey watched as Ronan's hands trailed across his shirt. Fingers splayed, palms curious, under fabric, all lines they drew ones made of fire. Gansey's breath hitched. Inches below the touches, a slash rose through his pants.

And the hands–perceptive, hungry, eager–veered down to that spot. Known sounds: click of buckle, fall of fabric, slop of spit into palm.

"Fuck, you're big," Ronan breathed. Gansey swore there was a glisten of drool on Ronan's chin.

But maybe that was just the light tricking his eyes.

Through the mirror, Ronan's hand wrapped around his hard cock.

"Ronan." It felt punched out of him.

Gansey curved into that tight, strong grip. He caught the flash of silver across Ronan's ring finger, but kept rutting into it without remorse. He should have felt worse about it.

But how could he, when Ronan's mouth moved to his ear, growling, "You look so hot fucking my hand?" He had been made so moldable by those hands.

Gansey moaned: it became fog on the glass, distorting their reflections even further.

The arrow in the elevator flashed. Another floor passed. How close were they?

How close was he?

It was a dangerous game, but Gansey couldn't care. Not when he was watching his own body tremble into Ronan's touch. There was a flush up his neck. Something wild in his eyes. His lips hung open, like he was hungry for more (he was). Gansey looked good with Ronan all over him.

Ronan picked up on it. Made a mess of him with it. "Look at you, watching yourself. Can't take my eyes off you, either."

"God, Ronan." How did he know just what to say? Gansey wanted to crawl out of his own skin, it felt so good.

Instead, he ground his hips rapidly into Ronan's hands. Ronan's body, his words, his warmth, all of it getting Gansey to the point where he was panting and shameless and, "Close, fucking close." Only when he was at that point did Gansey finally let his eyes close, throwing his head back against Ronan's shoulder.

"Ronan, fuck. I'm gonna–"

And then there was nothing.

No movement, no sound. Gansey moved. No hand.

He opened his eyes.

The elevator door was wide open. Keeping them ajar, with one long arm pressed out into the night, was Ronan Lynch.

Still, Gansey peered next to him. The instinct was ridiculous. But he didn't understand. How could he–

"Motherfucking Mary, Dick," Ronan said. "I thought you suddenly got claustrophobia. Come on. It's time to go do things you won't tell your mom about."

Ronan was happy with his comment: the shark-tooth smile returned. But didn't Gansey just have that mouth on his neck? He could still feel its heat. He didn't think he could forget it.

But Ronan's smile was all confidence. And the bar outside was a bar, booming with promises of alcohol and a mediocre time, as all of them always did. There was wind and air and wind in his hair and Gansey was breathing.

It must have been a trick. A vision. A deception. Ronan wouldn't have done all that just to turn him away. Right.

Right?

So Gansey just said,"Sorry, yeah, right," as he made his way between Ronan's body and the door.

Part of him expected to be pinned against the jam as he passed. Or to maybe burst out laughing: "Seriously man, you're gullible as updog!" But Ronan just kept looking at him like he always had. Like nothing had changed. Like Gansey wasn't smothering down the evidence of desire, still thick in his pants.

So, Gansey walked onto the penthouse's rooftop, hoping its crisp air might shock his body into truth.

NIGHT TWO

This early, the inside of The Pig had a bite to it.

Defrosters be damned: Gansey let the engine run, warming all three of them with the twist of his keys. The Pig's was probably broken, anyway.

"I think," he said, scrubbing his eyes underneath glasses, "there's a 24-7 corner store about ten minutes from here."

His voice was low with sleep. Ronan shivered, but it wasn't from the waning cold.

Ronan thought he could get away with walking past Gansey's bedroom wtihout waking him. But, Gansey was walking from the en-suite bathroom back to his bed, so no amount of noiselessness got past him. Their eyes had caught: Gansey seemed to shudder under his vision. When Ronan had called him on the reaction, Gansey had said, equally nervously, "Oh. I have pre-race jitters, you know. Why are you awake?"

Ronan didn't respond; He only had wrong answers.

So, when Gansey offered, "Orange juice?" Ronan had taken the out.

With a gear shift etched in memory, Gansey pulled into drive, and they were off.

Just another ride in The Pig. One of Ronan didn't even know how many. The passenger seat moulded to him comfortably: there was likely an indentation in the shape of his body. The carpet, worn with time and the heels of his combat boots. Out of curiosity, he placed his hand in one of the door compartments, fishing for details of Gansey's new life: plane tickets, receipts for pizza or grad school textbooks, earring backs from Blue. He pulled out a piece of buried treasure. Placed it on his lap.

It was one of his leather bracelets.

A stoplight forced lingering at the next intersection; Gansey glanced over. Red poured over his face as it shifted. "Well. What a coincidence."

Ronan said nothing back.

Back in drive. Back with the engine growling. Ronan watched Gansey's hands because it felt easier. Back on the curve of the wheel, scuffed against his smooth skin.

"Did you keep all of those?" Gansey asked suddenly. "The bracelets?"

Gansey wasn't looking; Ronan let his grin be mean. "Why? You want one?"

Gansey snorts, shaking his head. "I don't really think grunge wannabe is my sense of style. But thank you for offering."

"Hey! I wasn't a wannabe. I was actually grunge."

The look Gansey threw him had no humor, yet Ronan laughed, all the same.

Sometimes, he forgot just how little he could hide from Gansey.

"I still have them in an old shoebox," Ronan admitted. "It's under my bed."

Gansey hummed. "I still have my Aglionby Rowing Sweatshirt."

"That barely fit you by the end of senior year."

The look Gansey threw him goes right through him.

Sometimes, he forgot just how little he could hide from Gansey.

He looked down at Gansey's hand on the gear shift, again. Got distracted by it. Let his gaze drift up his arm, Gansey busy with driving, eyes scanning for imaginary traffic. It was 2:14 AM. He could be less safe, if he wanted to be. He could be like Ronan, looking at what he shouldn't be looking at.

Moonlit shadows rippled over him. Then, glimpses of neon as they pulled up to the corner store, signs for their all-day hours plasted in highlighted font. In the light, from such closeness, Ronan could see there was a darkness around his jawline where there didn't used to be. Ronan idly wondered how it would feel against his own face.

They went inside. Ronan tried to ignore looking directly at Gansey's threadbare t-shirt, which left little to the imagination. Strong lines underneath him, filled out with age. But, the blaring floursecent lights had bounced off of it, making distraction difficult. There was no clothing casual enough to distort the man underneath it.

They came back to the car. Settled in. Tropicana in his Ronan's lap. Bracelet in his pocket. Gansey by his side.

Ronan's heart was all adrenaline, no race.

It was so, so quiet. Until it wasn't.

Gansey looked over at him in that way that only he could. Like Ronan was suddenly flayed open under a microscope with nothing to shield him. Oh, how his pulse rang— both from the urge to be on display and to cower. They glowed in the neon light. Gansey's voice took up the whole world, intimate as a whisper, quiet as a scream.

"Why aren't you dreaming, Ronan?"

NIGHT ONE

That night, Gansey dreamt of Monmouth.

After selling it, Gansey had not checked up on the building. It could very easily be giving way to the earth. Perhaps the roof had finally caved in, the walls overtaken by whatever strains of wild ivy only Blue would know the name of.

But when Gansey dreamt, he dreamt of a Monmouth with a roof that was still whole. And he dreamt of himself staring up at it from his mattress in the center of the room. In the perfect dark, he could hear the stillness. Perhaps there was some subtle movement, like a car zipping far below the building, or a bellow of wind. That had been allowed.

What wasn't allowed was the hush of voices or the creaking of doors. Anything that would have alluded to someone being awake. Because Gansey had to do something about the dick flush against his stomach. Like all teenage boys, he was quick to horniness and just as fast to release. This had made the bed situation less than ideal. Luckily, Gansey had been practicing listening carefully for his entire life.

That night, the one he dreamed of now, he had heard nothing, so slipped his hand into his boxers. Hips met hand, rutting up. He had tugged his lips between his teeth, trying to keep quiet. Ronan had never slept the same after Niall Lynch's death and deserved any rest he could muster; Gansey would not steal that from him.

Too bad, then, that Ronan was still awake.

Ten years later, they would find themsevles in this very same situation: Gansey, thinking about Ronan a shared wall away, while Ronan lay in his bed. And, just like when he was a teen, Ronan was still desparately avoiding sleep.

This was easy for him to accomplish the night before visiting Gansey: he had Adam's body to use. Ronan's theory had been simple: get worked up, don't come, and his nervous system would be unable to settle, leaving him sleepless.

It helped that Adam had found it incredibly hot.

That night, Adam's hand had been wicked against Ronan's cock, and Ronan kept sputtering nonsense like he was going to ask for something, but never did.

Adam had risen an eyebrow above him. His perception of Ronan was both loving and cruel. "What you waiting for, baby?"

Ronan's mouth had floundered around words.

"You know you can ask for what you need."

Translation: tell me if you want to come, and I'll let you.

But, Ronan hadn't wanted to come. He had seen the dominoes falling in his mind: come, and he'd feel sated, and then he'd sleep, and then he'd dream. Ronan had felt some dark omen about dreaming that night. With almost thirty years of experience, Ronan knew when to trust his gut about potentially bringing back something he would rather keep hidden in his mind.

"I don't want…" Ronan had started, stopped, exhaled, inhaled. "Will you make me wait?"

Adam's grin was wild as he pumped faster. "How long?"

When Ronan had answered, it made Adam even more reckless above him. Adam fucked him, blew him, fucked him again, but would leave him hanging every time.

Then Ronan had begged. Just let me come. Please, Adam. Please. I'll do anything for you. Then, Ronan had said he had been kidding. Adam just looked at him with a mean expression. "Thought you never lied, Lynch."

"Please, Adam, just let me."

"No. You're gonna wait. Becuase you know it's gonna feel so good when you do."

It had worked: after swallowing the last of his wails, and all of Adam's come, Ronan had not slept that night. But, it had not made the next night easier to bear. He had nothing to keep him awake, here.

As he stared at the moving shadows on the ceiling of Gansey's apartment, Ronan thought of Monmouth. He wasn't sure what had spurred that particular thought. Or, what made him think of a particular night from his time there: the night where he emerged from his bedroom for orange juice, catching Gansey's body rustling beneath the covers.

A teenage boy himself, Ronan only needed an accidential glance to understand what was happening in front of him.

But that accidential glance grew into pointed minutes of observation. Ronan had stood, transfixed, watching Gansey–perfect, innocent, gold-plated Gansey–rut into his own hand. Unabashed. Unashamed. In a shared space, where Ronan could have appeared at any moment.

Had Gansey not cared that Ronan could catch him? Why had the thought turned Ronan on?

Why had the realization Ronan was there turned Gansey on? In his dream, Gansey looked to the side, recalling the moment he spotted Ronan. He stood in his bedroom's doorway, like a dark shadow, like a nightmare creature, lurking, waiting, tempting Gansey into danger.

"Ronan," Gansey had said, but it came out more of a gasp than a question. The name was a match being struck. The air in the room tensed like Gansey's spine at the sight of Ronan's canines. Ronan's attention had poured over Gansey: powerful, dizzying. Gansey had noticed a lift in Ronan's pants. It had made his throat thick with want.

So maybe Gansey shouldn't have done it. But he had let his hand keep moving. He was under the covers, under a pair of boxers, but still, he had felt exposed. Ronan's gaze had that kind of effect, cutting right to the center of him. There was nothing he could hide.

And it had felt so good, even though it was just his same hand. Even though Ronan had only been watching.

After minutes that were far too fast, Gansey had come in his hand in his boxers in his best friend's gaze.

Despite darkness, Ronan had made out the flush on Gansey's neck without an issue. With the hand that was not in his pants, Gansey made some kind of strange beckon towards Ronan.

"Are you gonna–" He hadn't said more than that.

Still, Ronan had understood the sentiment. He had felt himself getting hard the moment he figured out what was happening; Now, there was undeniable evidence, flush against him, singing him in heat.

But, despite that, Ronan had shaken his head. "I just wanted to watch you."

Somehow, that had felt endlessly more intimate than Ronan joining.

Mabye that's why Ronan had been thinking about it all those years later, finally staying under a roof Gansey owned again. He wanted to remember what it felt like for Gansey to let him see him.

Maybe that's why Gansey had dreamt of it all those years later: he wanted all of Ronan's attention, again.

It was too early to know any of this.

It was too early when Gansey jostled awake from his dream. He realized he had been rolling his hips into the mattress: wanton, shameful. All these years later and he could still hard and flushed from the mere thought of Ronan's body. Now, it sat, just a wall away, just like all those years before. Gansey snaked a hand between the sheets and his legs, but then, snapped it away. Gansey couldn't possibly do that. They weren't kids anymore.

Gansey cursed to himself, stuck his hands to his pillows, and waited.

Ronan's mind drifted away from Monmouth. Anything to keep his mind occupied.

After some time, Gansey fell asleep. Ronan did not.

This had to be the way it was for what was meant to happen.

And you already know why.

NIGHT TWO

That night, Gansey dreamt about Montauk.

That old cabin, owned by a colleague who had gifted Gansey a stay the previous summer. "She's a beaut," he had told Gansey over the phone. "There are three bedrooms, so please, invite your friends."

He had done just that: the only two who could make it were Adam and Ronan.

Days of sun-licked sand, sapphire surf. Bodies sheening from sunscreen, sweat, and saltwater, heavy from warmth. Adam was rested; Ronan was strong. Gansey kept catching himself looking.

Nights of waves crashing like rolling thunder: a restless sound for a restless body. Gansey was raised by forests, fields, and mountains, which all fell silent in the dark. The ocean's insistence reminded him that it may get too close. There was the potential for danger.

That night, that one night. The wind had picked up with particular cruelty, bellowing like some terrible, wounded creature. And that old cabin, with its wooden everything and failing electrical circuits, seemed a shallow breath from caving in. Gansey swore he felt the walls shake as night howled around outside.

That night, that one night. Hours into sleeplessness, might as well admit it fully. Gansey got up from his bed, teetering towards the kitchen for tea.

Should the wind have smothered the sounds? Should the waves–breaking– have blanketed the bed's shaking, the breathing's fractures, the baby, baby, baby, chanted out in bliss?

It hadn't. Whether it should have done so, whether they wanted it to have done so, Gansey would never know.

But it hadn't. And Gansey heard, and Gansey stopped, and Gansey shook from it, like the house he was inside, like the house was inside of him.

That night, that night. Gansey had thought about it so many times since. The way Ronan had whined and heat pulsed in Gansey's knees. The way the door was just a sliver open–in invitation? in invitation?–and maybe Gansey had exposed himself while craning for a look. The way Adam's back met his vision, long and tanned and freckled, flexing as he moved his hips forward: a summon and a taunt all at once.

Gansey had scorched in the doorway.

And Gansey replicated it now, in this dream. But in his head, he was braver. Or perhaps more foolish.

He went inside the room. There was always a part of him who wished he would have done it. And what was a dream except the place to get everything you ever wanted?

Ronan was wide, firm, muscled, but so willing to be shoved around. "Tug on his hair, Gansey, he likes it," Dream Adam had said. His tattoos flexed sinfully alongside his movements: Gansey wanted to lick every single one. "You look so pretty for us, baby," Dream Adam had said.

At one point, Gansey had looked at Adam after he spoke, and Adam had looked back at Gansey, and Gansey was at his mouth, a little too much teeth, fingernails into flesh, depraved and so, so good. Adam lifted up into him, made some little sigh that sounded so unlike himself, and Gansey had thought, in the dream, Finally, you're right here. You're here.

He woke up, seconds or minutes or maybe hours later. Rain was slating against the windows, angry, assertive, bright enough to see. Or, was it lightning, backlighting the downpour? The night had some awful song and rang it out against his apartment.

It felt too familiar. It was on the tip of Gansey's tongue. The fringes of his mind.

Montauk.

It was the exact same storm from his dream. Had Gansey brought this back, somehow?

No, no. He wasn't Ronan. He wasn't magical. He was strikingly ordinary. That was weather, science, something predicted.

Not like Ronan, whose body flashed back into his head without warning. Whose pull couldn't be described even in a matter of magnetism or gravity. There was something about Gansey's desire that went deeper than formulas and logic could explain.

Evidence, here, now: he was hard against his stomach. Gansey didn't need to, but he brought a hand down to himself to verify. The way he curved into it wasn't unlike the way he had curved into Ronan's parted legs. Or the way that he had flung himself into Adam's eager thighs.

"Fuck," he said under his own breath. It was painful, how much he wanted to be back in their imaginary arms. Violent, even.

Outside, lightning struck. It was the univere's plan, not his.

Because if it was his plan, if he had his way…

Then he wouldn't be spashing cold water on his face, trying to breathe away the want. He wouldn't have fled to the bathroom just to clutch the edges of the vanity, looking at himself in the mirror between deep, labored breaths, saying "You need to get a hold of yourself."

It was barely enough. Desire mellowed, body softening, he made his way back to the bed.

But Gansey couldn't help himself. He turned his head to the right, towards the door. Why? To check if the hall light was off? To see if the electricity was booming in and out from this storm (that definitely wasn't made by him)? To see if Ronan had been lingering there, like he did at Monmouth, waiting for Gansey, still wanting something from him, too?

The worst part was Ronan was there.

His frame took up the entire doorframe. Their eyes caught, stopping Gansey in his tracks midway across his bedroom. Slashes of lightning harshened Ronan's expression, hollowed from restlessness. Stark, white, the light had him looking even more lifeless. Was this the real Ronan? Or a monster from his dream, come awake?

Gansey couldn't bring back people from his dreams. He knew this. He knew this. Still.

"Orange juice?" he had asked: a test of the body's authenticity.

Ronan's mouth curved into joy and maybe this had just been a cruel trick of the universe; Gansey knew that smile, he could identify it anywhere. Yet, Gansey couldn't shake it, as he reached for his coat, grabbed for his keys; Someone was laughing at him, and Gansey didn't know who it was.

Another example: he opened his front door and the night was brutally clear. The sky cloudless. Not even a whisper of wind.

Ronan gave Gansey's rain jacket a pointed look. "Why you wearing that, Dick?" Then, he shoved past Gansey, through the door, and made his way to The Pig.

NIGHT THREE

Ronan still wasn't above his fair share of petulance.

Besides, all day it had been about Gansey. About Gansey's team and Gansey's nerves and Gansey's shoulders beneath the scorching afternoon sun and Ganseys' tight, relentless grip on the oars, then Gansey's trophy and Gansey's bicep as he attacked Ronan into a hug. And it was brutal.

Gansey, showing off. Gansey, with that same people-pleasing smile, going around to all these people Ronan didn't know and accepting their congratulations. Gansey, Gansey, Gansey, Gansey.

Ronan wanted his turn.

"Let's go out," he had suggested, lacing his voice with an artificial excitement. He didn't really give a shit about the seventh annual recreational co-ed crew county championship. Ronan thought seven was far too many. But, any excuse to flip this script.

So Ronan had won the initial expose. His shirt, low, his necklaces, glinting, his jeans, tight and slashed through, like his smile when looking at Gansey in a t-shirt. Despite it, the t-shirt still made Ronan feel not any more sensible than the quick collection of people that Gansey had rejected upon arriving at the bar. Gaining orbit, like a star, and Gansey shone out and out and out and Ronan hated that thin, cotton fabric clinging to Gansey's chest, his back, his shoulders, his arms.

Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Ronan scoffed to himself.

They are talking, but Ronan is mad–at Gansey, at himself–so he looks away momentarily.

He turned. Gansey wasn't on his left, right? But he was now. So Ronan swiveled his head, yet there's Gansey, on the right side. I need another drink, he thought, except the person he shoved up against to get to the front of the booth was also Gansey. The bartender slid down to take Ronan's order, and it was Gansey, as well, washcloth comfortable over his shoulder, hands busy with a shaker, the motion vulgar. Too bad Ronan had just lost the capacity to speak: he could have used something down it, just then.

Too bad the person who slid into the seat next to him and asked, "Are you going to order?" did so in Gansey's honeyed voice. Did so wearing Gansey's face.

He looked beyond them. Gansey here. Gansey there. Behind them. Gansey again. Gansey. Gansey. More Gansey. Gansey. Besides them. Gansey. Gansey robots. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey ghosts. Gansey fakers. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Non-Gansey's in Gansey's clothing. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey. Gansey.

Ronan was panting before he realized it. He moved, not deciding where he was moving to. Just go. Go! So he went, through all of those Ganseys, and it felt like he was sixteen again, Evo rolling up next to his side at a red, late night around them, the dare of it all. This game was similarly sick, his heart full of that same sweet-tasting fire.

Ronan didn't mean to get to the bathroom. But, he found it while pushing through the ocean of Gansey's, spotted it and there was a relief. He wiped the sweat off his brow, forearm clunking against his glasses.

Hold the fuck up. I don't wear glasses.

He turned. Shut the door. Flicked the lights on.

There, in the reflection, was Gansey. Of course, it was Gansey.

"What the fuck?" Ronan seethed. But it was Gansey's eyebrows that curved in towards himself. Gansey's thick accent that spoke the words.

"This is fucking weird, man," Ronan continued, because it was a strange kind of wonderful to hear his words in Gansey's mouth.

A sudden realization took hold.

He stuck his chin–Gansey's chin–up proudly. "Ronan, you have never been wrong about anything in your entire life," he said with gravity. "You are a fucking pleasure to have in class, metaphorically speaking. You can drive The Pig anytime you want to."

A glimmer shone in his eyes. Lips curled upwards. What couldn't he try?

The shirt was off within seconds. In the mirror, a tentative hand rubbed across Gansey's chest, freckled where Ronan's wasn't. Broad and defined from rowing. No nipple piercing caught against fingers. Gansey would never; Ronan wished he would.

Still, there was enough to be amazed at. Even more so when those hands travelled down, sliding off pants and boxers, cock bobbing up against a patch of dark brown hair.

Thicker than Adam, yet longer than Ronan: the best of both worlds. God, was he big.

"Fuck, Gansey." The whine was high. Red travelled all the way up that torso, tanned from hours on the water.

It was Ronan's thoughts, but Gansey's body. So, who owned the desire that made imaginations go wild, making skin shiver, dick twitch? The soul lives in the body; The body an extension of the soul. Did it even matter anymore? Did it ever matter?

Because it was inevitable, the way spit hit fingers, the way fingers reached between thighs. Toes curled in shoes. The pressure and pleasure felt the same.

He looked good like this. He couldn't pull his eyes away from the mirror. The fullness of these lips, caught around a rasp, the way that strong chest lifted with the roll of his hips. Across their bones, tan lines slashed at sharp angle: they were indecent. They should have had a mouth on them.

"Motherfucking Christ." The words were sugar-sweet, trapped in old-money vowels, and it only made it hotter.

Eyes on the mirror. Precum beaded between his fingers. Eyes on the mirror. Hips hastening. Eyes on the mirror. Tight circle of strong hands. Eyes on the mirror. Sweat sheening the expanse of muscle over chest. Eyes on the mirror. A hand was freed to reach upwards. Eyes on the mirror. A pinch of nipple between fingers, sighing sharply. Eyes on the mirror.

Eyes on the mirror and he would come like this, easily. He was surprised he had held out this long. Gansey was meant to be stared at– especially like this.

Teeth scraped across that obnoxiously plump bottom lip. Yeah, he was close.

Eyes on the mirror. Amber, pooled in black, carved with ferocity. "Shit… Shit…"

And suddenly, eyes off the mirror: a knock sounded at the door. Head on a swivel, brows narrowing at it, ready to yell "fuck off!"

But the voice that followed stunned that mouth into silence.

"Ronan, are you in there?"

Name like a crashing of glass. Like a breaking of spells.

A turn back to the mirror to reveal what he already knew: Ronan was himself once more. Hair, chest, cock, glassesslessness. Electricity in his spine dulled, as if his body was a house after an earthquake: all shock, no power.

His dick softened in his hands. Desperate for release, he wanted to touch, but the door seemed thinner than whatever shield had been snapped by the calling of his name.

It wasn't magic any longer, just a mistake.

So Ronan cleared his throat. "Yeah, I'm here." He even sounded like himself, too.

Gansey sighed in relief. "Good. I thought I lost you."

Ronan wanted to laugh. He wasn't the one capable of being lost. But the irony would be misunderstood by anyone except him and maybe God, so Ronan swallowed the sound.

"I'll be at the bar, okay?"

He made some grumble of agreement in towards the door, which was enough for Gansey: he left.

In the bathroom, Ronan turned to the mirror again. It was him, through and through. Taller, paler, pierced, tattooed. But maybe, just maybe if he wanted it enough, he could get what he needed. Maybe, just maybe. So he moved his eyes–open, close, open, close, open, close– desperate that the ones that would look back at him would eventually be different than the steel-ice blue that surfaced every time.

NIGHT FOUR

Just like he did all those years ago, Gansey calls Blue because he can't sleep.

Between other bodies, Blue always comes back to live with Gansey. It's called a nesting partner, she told him, one night, his chest between his ear. Her neck was purple from someone else's mouth, but Gansey knew better than to be concerned.

So, this bedroom is Blue's as much as it is his. It is clear from what populates the space: tarot cards here, books on Welsh mythology there, mismatched rugs, an Algionby hoodie thrown across a chair (which now only fits Blue), plants vining the railings of their small balcony. Most nights, swirls of joint smoke cascade from where Blue sits on the balcony, looking out towards the city. From inside, Gansey watches her, thinking the vision should be in some sweeping, cinematic masterpiece.

Tonight, Gansey is on it alone, missing her.

His phone rings and rings. Waiting, Gansey peers to his left, seeing lamp light spilling out from behind the curtains of the guest room.

Ronan is still awake.

Of course, he is still awake.

Gansey wonders. He wonders. Images muddle his mind. Is Ronan, could he be–

"Gansey?"

Blue's voice: warm, tender. He feels it on his skin, stronger than the moonlight touching him, though both feel equally far away.

"Blue," he says. "I keep having dreams about Ronan."

Later, he will apologize, feeling guilty that he didn't ask about her day. But, in the moment, he can't help himself: the truth wants to have its way with him; His body is weak against its will.

"What do you mean?" Blue asks.

Gansey explains. As he explains, his heart speeds up, he swears he sees the lamp light next door seems to get brighter, to swell in time with his pulse.

Similarly, the light dims as he waits for Blue to respond.

For some time, there is only static. Static, and the ragged sound of Gansey's breathing. Static, and Gansey's breathing, and the noise of traffic below, whipping the air around: false wind, overwhelming the hums of real engines.

When Blue speaks again, she speaks slowly. "Sometimes, we dream things, and they don't mean anything." A pause. "Do you want this in real life?"

Gansey swallows. "If I did…what would you say?"

"I'd tell you it's about damn time you realized it."

Horns shriek beneath Gansey; They sound like his heart.

He doesn't realize he has gone a long time without speaking.

"Gansey?"

A breeze through his hair. "Blue?"

"Tell me what you're thinking about."

Gansey does. He keeps his voice quiet. But his body betrays itself, trembling, stumbling. He tries to lean casually against the wrought-iron ledge of the balcony, but ends up falling over his own feet. A beam presses between his legs. Gansey doesn't need the friction to prove his desire, but it is there all the same.

He gasps. Feels shaken, changed. The bedroom light beside him flickers.

Again, it takes him too long to respond.

"You still there?" Blue asks.

"Yeah." He laughs at himself, the noise uncertain. Heat creeps over his neck, his nerves teetering.

"You sound…."

"Yeah," he repeats. "I am."

"See." Gansey knows she is smiling. "Told ya so."

So, this time, when Gansey laughs, it is true, and Blue joins him.

The light from the bedroom brightens. It doesn't really matter that this time, Gansey doesn't look in its direction: he knows it is happening. It's already something he can't ignore.

NIGHT FIVE

Ronan can't ignore it anymore: he calls Adam.

Honeyed whispers, sleep-slow from the other line. Adam's voice begins all yawn: so much gentler than the fire coursing through Ronan, which he tried to ignore for hours, building into this unshakeable resltnessness.

In the dark, in the quiet, there is just Gansey. The room made room for him in Ronan's mind, thoughts clinging to him as much as they tried to hide away.

Ronan's cock is hard against his hip.

So, does what he needs to do. He calls.

"Adam." His eagerness overflows into the other line, spilling, staining, giving him away.

Adam slips into it seamlessly. Sleep and Henrietta tangle together, softening his words. Oh, does Ronan love his voice at night.

He asks the typical questions. "What are you wearin'?" Ronan is just in his Calvin's, nothing else. "You touchin' yourself?" No, not yet.

Adam's exhale is biting. "Good. I'll tell you when you can."

Ronan whines, as if that's not what he wanted: to earn permission.

"What're you thinkin' about?" Adam continues.

This is where Ronan pauses. This is where the shame turns from blistered breathing to a thick lodge in the throat.

"Remember Montauk?" Ronan asks.

Over the phone, Adam laughs, like this was the punchline of a joke that was set up centuries ago.

"You want him," Adam says. "Gansey."

"Yes." The understatement is ridiculous: Ronan's phone trembles in his hand.

Adam takes his time. Considers this. In the silence, Ronan tries to imagine anything that would feel more painful than Adam's ring finger without his wedding band. Nothing comes to mind.

But then, all that worry fades: Adam's voice, low, raspy.

"What do you want from him?"

The better question would be what doesn't Ronan want? He wants to know if Gansey still kisses the same way. He wants to bite down on the moulded spot between his shoulders, rugged from rowing. He wants Gansey's thighs to part–eager for a mouth on his cock–as Ronan's fingernails etch crescent moons deep into the muscle.

He says it all. He says everything. The enormity is unavoidable: the pit in his stomach, only expanding, turning him into the hungry animal he was always doomed to become.

Heavy sighs from the other line. Sloppy, wet noises. Adam is touching himself. Ronan is not.

And Adam's voice is thick with it. "Want him to use you like I do?" He can be so relentless.

"Yes," Ronan moans. " Yes…. Fuck."

He aches. His Calvin's stretch in a widening, wettening line.

Adam's seethes, now. "Do you think he'd be rough with you? He's so fucking sweet."

Ronan groans; A twin one rings into the crook of his neck.

"God, Ronan. I bet he'd love your ass. Your mouth…."

The praise hits with a bullet-like intention. Ronan's hips slide over sheets, pretending that is enough. His hands become fists. Fingernails jab into palms: the sharpness could draw blood.

"Christ, I gotta," Ronan pants. "Can I touch myself?"

"What? Thinkin' about Gansey gettin' you all riled up? I bet your liftin' your hips up into nothin'."

"Need it," Ronan says, because yes feels like too much to admit. "I need to, Adam. Please."

"Yeah," Adam breathes. "Go ahead."

Calvin's–soaked through–pushed down. First pump, bare skin, body snapping like a rope pulled taut.

"Oh, God," Ronan moans.

The phone lodges itself into his neck: a proxy for Adam's teeth.

"Bet you wish that was Gansey's hand around you, huh? Or his mouth?"

"Yeah. God, yeah."

"Do you think he'd be good at suckin' cock?"

"Fuck, Adam."

"He'd do it. For you. Get on his knees."

"Shit. Shit." And Ronan can't stop seeing it: Gansey, beneath him, those stupidly long eyelashes batting as he looks up, makes sure it's okay. He'd check even though Ronan was throbbing in his mouth, arching up into it, rutting into his mouth. He'd wipe his mouth innocently: you sure it's feeling good?  As if Ronan wouldn't take anything from him. Move into his shadow. Eat his scraps.

Adam's words in his ear, Gansey's mouth on his mind, Ronan's hand on his own dick. His body tenses over and over and over. It was embarrassingly fast.

"I'm gonna–"

"No, you're not."

Eyes snap open. The blankness of the room suffocates Ronan. His heart falls so far, it almost escapes from his body.

From the other line, Ronan hears Adam's hand still moving.

He knows, by this point, to beg.

"Please. Please."

Ronan's hand isn't moving on himself anymore, but it's there, waiting, hoping Adam will give up this cruel game. Aching for movement, twitching with stillness, still wanting and wanting and wanting.

Adam says nothing back.

Ronan tries again.

"Please. Can I come?"

"No."

Ronan lets out a wail. He's trembling, hard, exhausted, with Gansey, confused, angry, with Adam, alone, close, so close. He wants to shed himself from his own body. He wants to dream. He wants to come.

"But I've been so good."

Adam's back, tone so mean. "You're not allowed to come until Gansey makes you."

Ronan's hips roll into nothingness at the thought. It's all he wants: it's cruel that Adam knows him so well, that he wants for Ronan what he wants for himself. Can't he ever just give Ronan the easy way out?

Something burns his face; He thinks he might be crying.

"But Adam… Adam!"

"Say you understand. Promise me." Adam's breath is getting shaky. He'll be giving himself what he's denying of Ronan. Another pang to Ronan's chest.

"I understand. I promise… I won't."

Exhale like a punch into his ear. Ronan can almost feel it.

"Good boy," Adam says, and it's so mean, the sharpness of his voice, the tenderness of his words, ones he's saying because he knows Ronan will respond to them. And his body does, arching again, useless, wanton thing.

Into the phone, Ronan keens.

"God," Adam moans, and it almost doesn't matter that Ronan has stopped touching himself. That sound. That sound. "I can't–fuck– I can't wait to have my hands on you. I'll see you next week."

"See you soon…."

The line dies. Because Adam is cruel. Because Adam is kind. Because Adam loves him. The line dies.

There, in the guest bedroom, Ronan lets his pleasure fizzle out of him. Tears slide down the glass of his phone screen. Much like him, still warm from Adam's touch, but fading with time. He knows he won't sleep. But that wasn't the point of him calling.

So Ronan's body quiets, just like Adam's does, except that his is thousands of miles away. Except that his stomach is sticky with white, and so are the hands he brings to his mouth, wishing they were slotted between Ronan's lips, instead.

NIGHT SIX

Gansey rattles awake.

It was from movement. Something making a bobbing ship of his body. What is it?

Momentary distraction: he looks around himself, hoping his surroundings might help, but he can't place their placement. There's a window where one wasn't in his bedroom. Moonlight bleeds through the panes. Shelves scattered about–ones that dangled with snark, too high to reach, threatening to maybe collapse.

And the movement against him happens again, and he's still groggy with sleep, and there's a groan, and he assumes it's the squeak of the thing–a couch!–beneath him. He wants to investigate the movement's source except–

Momentary distraction: something acrid enters his mouth, and he balks from it. The world becomes hazier, as if the power went out in his mind (they call the brain circuits for a reason, right?). The taste lingers throughout him, reverberating out. The world feels like he's a dream come to life, like he never woke up. He knows nothing at all. He knows everything.

The movement returns. And that groan. That groan. Gansey suddenly could identify it anywhere.

Ronan.

Gansey's vision sharpens. Focus snapped to center. He is in Ronan's living room. Right. He drove them there earlier that night. Right. Gansey decided they would spend the last night of the visit here, where Ronan can dream. Where there wouldn't be any excuses for him not to do what he needed to. Right.

So Ronan is dreaming. He rolls his hips back into Gansey and Gansey has a feeling he knows what's happening in this particular dream.

Nightwash leaks out of Ronan, stored over days of reluctance. It swirls around Gansey, is the thing getting in his mouth, but somehow, he knows, also his ears and nose and maybe all of his skin is swathed in it. The taste is awful, far worse than the alcohol Ronan poured for them upon arriving at the Barns. Yes, that's was why they ended up asleep in his living room, wearing the same clothes from earlier that day. Right. Gansey smells it on them, the whisper of gasoline and whiskey.

And now, nightwash.

It settles around them, as if a fog, a shield, a storm warning. Murky, ill-defined, charged. Under it, inside it, beneath it, Gansey feels acutely close to Ronan. Like his body is enclosed by Ronan's. Like he is part of its interiority.

And to make that knowledge literal…

Gansey's desire sharpens. Focus snapped to center–his center. Ronan pushes back, and there's a twist in Gansey's stomach. He's hard. When did he get hard? And his clothed cock feels the drag of Ronan's body and it's maddening, just how much he wants this.

It fell right into his lap, like Ronan himself, and it's scorching and blaring and can't be ignored.

Later, he'll think maybe he should have had more self-control. But here, now, with Ronan ripe for it–open, soft, warm- and the nightwash is in his stomach, mixing with the fading whiskey–which is all the same thing, anyway–Gansey only realizes that he can.

So he does.

At the next push of Ronan's hips, Gansey meets him in the center. Finally. Finally. He rolls his hips slow, and it's almost tender, except for the growl that tears from his mouth.

God, it's good.

Ronan's so sweet like this. Petulant frame softened in sleep, sulkiness replaced with unabashed movement. How is Gansey supposed to not gasp out Ronan's name? How is he supposed to do anything but let his hands fall on Ronan's hips, drawing Ronan into him even deeper?

Gansey's head falls against the back of Ronan's neck. Breathes him in. There's a hint of something woodsy–the dusty, lived-in smell of the Barns. He's so real. It's a sickening wrench to Gansey's gut. Why he thought Ronan might be fake is besides him, but now with proof of something so undeniably Ronan about the body underneath, Gansey's dick twitches, and he's fucking into Ronan in earnest.

Ronan's name falls like exhales from Gansey's mouth. "Ronan, Ronan, Ronan."

Fingers clutch into Ronan's waistline. Beneath him, that slow breath quickens, shallows, and Gansey's sick with a newfound need to have Ronan senseless like this all the time. Always reluctant, always brooding, always sneering–turned a tender little thing right now, so helpless. Gansey feels mean; he doesn't care.

"Ronan, Ronan, Ronan."

He says it like a spell, so it becomes one. Before him, there's a shift, and Ronan's face twists back, suddenly awake.

Gansey slows. But he doesn't stop. Why would he?

Shallow darkness getting shallower: the blue of Ronan's eyes bright enough to cut through anything. His mouth is mid-gasp. Pink and open. Gansey wants it singularly.

He watches it move around his name. "Gansey," Ronan pants. Saccharine, wretched music.

Greedy hands, moving everywhere. Gansey feels for Ronan's chest, catching on that goddamned nipple piercing, and Ronan wails, and it's just the sound Gansey's been waiting to hear, because his body starts to shake. His clutch on Ronan becomes bone-deep. And is the nightwash in his vision now? Because everything threatens to go dark.

Its fast and brutal and embarrassing, the knowledge that he could come like this: rutting the back of Ronan's thigh, both of them still in their pants.

They're in their twenties. But then, the nightwash flickers his vision black, and thier in their teens. Flash- they're at the Barns. Flash- they're at Monmouth, Ronan lingering like a promise, stepping closer, closer, closer.

It doesn't matter. It's all the same thing, anyway. Gansey wants Ronan throughout all time and place.

Wetness sears in Gansey's boxers. But he starts to slow his hips. He doesn't want to come. Not yet, because–

<"I want to fuck you," Gansey says, staring down the red hallway of Ronan's throat.

It makes a guttural sound.

Gansey has Ronan beneath him in seconds. Clothes tear off between kisses and gasps and groans. Heat is tender behind Gansey's knees: Ronan a goddamned vision in the moonlight. Swirls of dark hair, beads of sweat, coils of ink, all across filled-out muscle. Adulthood looks good on him. Adam's love looks good on him. Gansey nears the edge again, just from admiration.

His mouth latches onto Ronan's pulse point. The press of Ronan underneath him is tremendous. If he smells good, it's because he tastes it, too. Gansey's lips follow the curve of Ronan's torso down to already-parted thighs. His cock sits against his stomach, hard and leaking.

"Christ, Ronan," Gansey hisses. It's obvious: there will be a stretch. But, Gansey doesn't care–maybe even wants the burn–so brings his mouth around it all the same.

"Fuck, fuckkkk," Ronan drawls.

Thighs fall open idly, one calf rolling off the edge of the sofa. Gansey's fingers anchor into that overturned skin as he licks along Ronan's base, head, that thick vein up the side of his cock. Within minutes, Ronan's legs will scream violet, Gansey too preoccupied with his mouth to have considered the depth of his grip.<

But for now it's just this: Gansey sinking all of Ronan back into his throat. He's on his knees now, torso a long line between Ronan's legs. And Ronan bucks up into his throat, impatient, uncontrollable, but Gansey can't do anything but handle it when Ronan's making those high-pitched noises, scrubbing a hand, nonsensically, through Gansey's amber hair.

Gansey's hunger keeps overcoming him. He wants more. So, there's an obscene, wet pop as Gansey's mouth leaves Ronan's dick, a whine from above that turns into a groan when his tongue meets Ronan's rim, taste of nightwash returning.

"Fuck, Gansey. Yes," Ronan pants, and he wants his name to live in Ronan's mouth forever.

Ronan opens up under him so easily. There's a leg thrown up across the backrest, like all he wants to do is get closer. So Gansey obliges, goes deeper. Tongue becomes a finger becomes two becomes three. It doesn't matter that there's no lube: the nightwash is slick inside of Ronan and Gansey's fingers glide in and out. Gansey knows he should pause and ask, but then Ronan is fucking himself back onto Gansey's hands, groaning, and either it's good because of the wetness or the stretch, and Gansey can't find it within himself to care about why.

Not when Ronan looks like that: red pulsing over his chest, dark lashes fluttering, thick bicep tensing as it clutches the cushion. God, God… Gansey will die at this memory, taking his hand to himself after this night for weeks to come.

Climbing up his body, Gansey's mouth finds Ronan's ear. "Turn over for me."

Ronan is obedient. Gansey's whole body pulses.

Because he doesn't just turn over. No, no, Ronan makes a show of it, like all things he does. On elbows and knees, he arches that ink-spilled spine, that glistens from sweat, and he looks back at Gansey, waiting, blue eyes soft with bliss, mouth hanging open like a promise to be fulfilled.

Christ, Ronan's body is ridiculous.

"Ronan," Gansey says, and it's worshipful. His fingers trail from shoulder blades down, following the path of that godforsaken tattoo. "Jesus, your ass…". Here, they stop, dig into tender flesh. Ronan backs into the pressure, groaning.

Indulgently, Gansey takes his mouth to Ronan's rim again. He watches the end of tendrils–ones that curl over the small of his back–shorten and stretch.

With a free hand, he grips Ronan's cock. The jolt to Ronan's body is unmistakable. The sob that rings out is one that will stain this room forever.

"God! Fuck, Gansey. I'm close."

Gansey's mouth meets Ronan's ear. "Hold on for me, Ronan."

But Gansey doesn't stop stroking.

"Gansey, Gansey, please…can I come?"

And he's never understood how Adam can make him wait before; But, now, with the begging directed at him, something falls into place. Maybe, if Ronan didn't sound so good like this, Gansey wouldn't be eager to keep him pinned here. Maybe, if Ronan didn't look so good like this, he'd get what he wants.

"Not yet," Gansey says. "Wait until I'm inside you."

The dominance is foreign atip Gansey's tongue, but it matters little when all of the sudden, Ronan's nodding and shivering and saying a slew of yes yes yes. So Gansey gives in and slides his dick into Ronan's open, aching body.

Tight, tight, tight. Even after all that stretching. Gansey feels his mouth fall open. Feels his whole body respond, caving in, wanting more, closer, deeper in. The harshness of his moan shocks him.

Words only return when he bottoms out. "My God, Ronan."

Ronan just whines.

The sound shatters something inside of Gansey and he moves. Hips roll, skin slides, wet and hungry, the sound obscene. Gansey keeps it slow. He doesn't care about kindness, but he likes it thorough and deep. It is his favorite way to fuck: like time has stopped, like they have all of it. Like there's nothing else that matters. With Ronan around him–warm, pliant, perfect– there isn't.

Years of wanting it again, the reality incomparable. Ronan feels better than Gansey's wildest memories could muster. Gansey's fingers dig into his hips, his shoulder, like Ronan might move or dissapear or unbecome. But his solidity is astounding. And Gansey just keeps twitching into that tight heat.

He presses his chest to Ronan's back. Lips busy on nape. Let his mouth make some new permanent marks. Let this still be true, come morning.

"Gansey…. Gansey…." Ronan's panting now, the curve of him exquisite. Gansey presses to him deeper, as if his body is a conch, as if it will make the sound more pronounced.

"Gansey…. Gansey…."

It doesn't. But Ronan repeats it, and keeps repeating it, and Gansey can guess what he's asking for with that beautiful, parted mouth.

Gansey sits up just enough to slide his hand between Ronan's legs.

He pumps his fist. Ronan falls into it with a cry. His whole body tenses, twists. The squeeze around Gansey's cock licks his spine with fire, dazzles white spots into his vision.

His growl of, "Fuckkkkkkk," feels hours long.

Then, he pumps around Ronan, again; Ronan clenches around Gansey, again; Gansey thrusts deeper, again; the cycle continues.

"Please, Gansey, please," Ronan sobs. "It's too much."

"I'm almost there. You can do it. Wait for me."

And Ronan wails, but he doesn't fight back. Just stays underneath Gansey, perfect vision of restraint, tattoos shifting on his spine like a kailedeoscope, or maybe that's just Gansey's vision going in and out, maybe that's just the pleasure burning so bright his body can't keep it in any longer, and he says something that sounds like Ronan's name, says something that sounds like, "so fucking good," feels another squeeze and it's relentless, the heat and need and grasp, and his body a wire ready to snap, and he says murmured, spent, "come for me, darlin,'" then screams something that he won't remember tomorrow as his world is coated in a darkness as pitch-black as nightwash and he feels the spill in his hand at the same time as he finally, finally lets go.