#‘the end is here’ with gansey falling?!

[karouvas]

I had a lot I mean A LOT to say about the Blue and Adam ninos fight (and what I’ve written here does not even cover all my thoughts) so be forewarned:

“But I saw you guys trying to hide it. The crazy thing is — like, I’m right here. I’m with you guys every day. Do you think I didn’t see it? He’s my best friend. You think I don’t know him?” “Then why aren’t you having this conversation with him? He’s half of this, you know.”

Have spoken about this before but really I think Adam’s approaching Blue and only Blue about it comes from several different factors. I think one is that they got into a mild conflict in the last book when she and Noah went with him to help with Cabeswater and they were able to resolve it pretty easily and the world did not end, so maybe part of it is that has made Adam a bit more at ease with fighting with Blue being part of their dynamic, but doesn’t feel he has gotten there with Gansey yet. Then certainly Gansey’s looming death is a factor, their fights tend to be so explosive and to have one when he knows there’s a good chance he’ll lose Gansey is too big of a risk for Adam to take, and then combine that with his fear that he will kill Gansey or that any negative emotion he feels towards Gansey can become detrimentally hurtful and of course he wants to avoid that confrontation at all costs, meanwhile Blue is not destined to die and while he has some degree of fear of his anger/negative emotions in every relationship he doesn’t feel that with her in the specific heightened way he does with Gansey so he has freedom to have the fight with her as a stand in for both of them, even though that’s unfair to her as she correctly points out. Then there’s his revelation about Blue’s curse applying to Gansey. I’ve been attempting to track the dynamic of when/how Adam perceives Bluesey and I really think he is at least subconsciously/partially aware of it since late TRB but kind of is partly in denial about it or partly cautious about whether or not he’s wrong for a while, and kind of sets up some tests or opportunities for them (mostly for Gansey, specifically thinking of him asking Gansey to talk to Blue about why she won’t kiss him in tdt then being in a position to observe them together + the beginning of BLLB where he casually suggests to Gansey to take Blue to the next Gansey family function, there’s another instance in BLLB I think that I’m forgetting specifically) to prove this to him + tell him about it, and then when he asks Persephone how he can keep from killing Gansey and she replies with “why do you think your the one who kills him?” or something along those lines it fully clicks / he fully knows about them and the curse falls into place. So that was like a week ago (which by the way this book only being a week after BLLB is crazy pacing wise I have a lot of issues with it that’s for another post), and it’s still fresh. So this all has him connecting the guilt and self loathing and fear he’s been harboring for months about the possibility of killing Gansey, something that has fueled many of his actions (although like. really it’s what the vision represents that fuels all this not the vision itself which is a manifestation of those fears so you could get really theoretical debating that but putting a pin in that for a separate post also) and choices related to Gansey since the vision, to a tangible person who is destined to do what he fears, so he’s seeing what he fears in himself that potential to kill or hurt Gansey and also loving Gansey the two are linked, reflected in Blue who also is in love with Gansey and fears killing/hurting him since she knows it’s likely. So imo he’s projecting a lot of those pent up feelings he has about himself towards Blue. 

-And then specifically him taking her to task for being irresponsible enough to go on the date with Gansey and accusing her of being selfish and not caring about him enough if she’d put him in harms way like this… many things to unpack there first of all Blue would be well within her rights to slap him for that it’s really such an impressive display in self control that she does not, especially after their why-won’t-you-kiss-me conflict and how it played out. Secondly, it feels so true to Adam’s understanding of his own loving and fearing that he will hurt/kill Gansey dilemma, to him the answer is to compartmentalize the love and the hurt in the relationship and be super careful and avoidant to ensure he can’t accidentally hurt Gansey even if it makes him feel lonely and terrible and that when he’s hurt by something Gansey says or does he needs to bottle it up forever because the alternative is to be a monster, and seeing himself as fundamentally not worthy of Gansey, so Blue not treating her relationship with Gansey the way he does throws those compartmentalizations out of order and he sees it as a *wrong* way to feel / act on love for Gansey.

Also it’s sooo funny how he’s like. “Have you considered all the ways you two could potentially kiss in different places in different situations I can’t believe you two have left it to Me to do the math and imagine every possible scenario that could lead to you falling on Gansey’s lips and kissing him, I am of course only doing this on my own time because I am a good friend and a scientist therefore I need imagine Blue and Gansey making out, I must fall on this sword myself. Blue is nicer than me I would have forced him to explain in detail exactly what he meant by that

[nhasablogg]

How to move an immovable object

Fandom: The Raven Cycle

Characters: Adam, Gansey, Ronan

Summary: Adam worries he's not ticklish enough to be fun to tickle. Gansey and Ronan notice, like they always do.

A/N: Hey @happyandticklish guess what!! @tickles-tea commissioned this fic for you as a Christmas gift!! I took the liberty of using the prompt you sent me as a continuation of your own commission for this, and I really hope you like it!! Thank you @tickles-tea for the commission!

Read part one here.

Words: 2.1k

Adam kind of wished this conversation didn’t have to take place while he was somewhat trapped between them, Ronan’s elbow somewhere in his ribs while Gansey nearly wacked him in the face as he was talking. He sounded animated, although Adam had seen the signs of concern and should’ve known he would bring it up eventually. Had thought he could play it cool and they would let it go. How wrong he’d been.

Gansey’s animation was emphasized by Ronan’s silence, which made Adam more nervous than he could explain. He could feel his gaze on him and refused to meet it, opting instead to stare in front of him, watching the snowflakes fall outside the window as if this was any normal conversation. Gansey stopped talking when he noticed him drifting, not knowing just how much Adam was hanging onto every word he said despite pretending to be doing otherwise.

“Do you understand what I mean?” he asked, sounding uncertain in a way that was unlike him.

Adam looked at him. It was easier than looking at Ronan. “Sure.”

“Am I right, then? That you’re avoiding it on purpose?”

Adam looked away again, face burning. “Uhm. Maybe.”

Gansey seemed to wait a beat for him to elaborate, before saying, “Well, I guess the next question is, why? If you wanted to join in the first place?”

In order to understand, Adam was forced to remember. Adam was very good at remembering. Gansey and Ronan tangled up in situations that made him jealous, which wasn’t something he was used to. He was used to the bitterness of not having what other people had. Of never being able to reach out his fingertips to touch what other people had been cradling ungratefully their whole life. But this had been different. This had been silly and playful and embarrassing to admit that he’d wanted, for the first time not out of his reach at all, but on the contrary, just about to land in his own lap.

But Adam Parrish wasn’t good at asking for what he wanted. Adam Parrish wasn’t good at accepting the things he wanted without having to fight for them.

The whole tickling thing had been given to him after he’d spent weeks running away from it, and once it had been his - squeezes to his knees and pokes to his ribs, with the occasional proper tickle fights which left him giggling beneath his friends - he now didn’t know what to do with it. And so he did what he usually did: he started overthinking it.

It had started because he’d been watching Ronan tickle Gansey again, this time aware he would probably be roped into it and not fleeing until it would be part of the game; a game of cat and mouse which would end with him beneath merciless fingers. But Gansey had been screaming with laughter as Ronan discovered a spot on his lower stomach which they baptized as his Worst Spot, and Adam had never heard himself laugh like that. Had never seen Ronan beam down at him in the way he was grinning at Gansey. “This is the best day of my life,” he’d said, and Adam had never heard those words aimed at him. Had he been jealous? Not necessarily. Maybe a little. Maybe he was suddenly wondering if he was even fun to tickle, with his silent giggling and the way he curled up. No grandness once they got past his initial walls of trying to avoid it. Only stillness. He wasn’t even really that ticklish on most spots. It had been strangely devastating to realize.

He was looking at Gansey now, remembering another week of avoiding them again, this time for different reasons that were still somehow related. He wondered briefly why he couldn’t be normal about this. Why this had to turn into a thing each time it was approached.

“It’s really fucking stupid,” he said, choking up in a way he couldn’t stand. “Like, really stupid. Like you should probably just drop it, stupid.”

“Adam.” Gansey’s hand was on his arm, which was resting on Adam’s stomach, and so his fingertips were brushing over skin which should be ticklish but was merely sensitive. He didn’t even worry that Gansey would accidentally tickle him. “How many times do we have to say this? You can talk to us. We won’t judge. I’m sure it’s not stupid.”

Suddenly Adam couldn’t stand the way he was looking at him, and so he turned his head to the other side, coming face to face with Ronan. Ronan, who showed emotions through his eyes more than anything, and yet Adam couldn’t read him now. The embarrassment was different when facing Ronan. He felt like he could see into his very soul. Adam didn’t even want to begin to think of what he would find in there.

“Parrish.” His voice was low, as if he’d spoken before deciding to do so. On his other side, Adam could feel Gansey shifting, trying to twist his body so that he could look at them.

Adam exhaled. “Yes?”

“What is it that’s bothering you?”

“I feel-” Inadequate. “-not ticklish enough?”

Neither of them laughed. Neither of them questioned him. Ronan simply tilted his head, curiosity flickering across his face as he said, “Elaborate.”

And so Adam did.

“I’m worried I’m not ticklish enough and that I’m not fun to tickle because of that.” They’d long established that his initial reactions to being touched didn’t fully have to do with his sensitivity, but they’d not spoken more about it. Adam hadn’t wanted to. Now each question of “is this okay?” had more to do with touching him than with if it was tickling him. They’d taken it as a challenge when realizing not every touch was ticklish. Adam should’ve known they liked a challenge, and maybe that would’ve been enough had he not started lamenting over the fact that they rarely succeeded like he wished they would.

“It’s stupid, isn’t it?” he said when he was done, recounting the times Ronan had come out of a tickle fight panting for breath, or Gansey having fled into another room because he’d not been able to take it any longer. Adam had never done that. Adam was an immovable object.

“It’s not stupid,” Gansey said gently. “I just wish you’d come to us sooner. Have you been overthinking each tickle fight?”

“Not until somewhat recently.” That was partly a lie. Adam had been overthinking most tickle fights for entirely different reasons, but they didn’t need to know what. Not yet.

“It’s okay to not be super ticklish, you know,” Gansey continued. “We can still make you giggle. You still have fun during them, right?”

Adam was blushing now, unsure of what to do with himself. “Uhm. Sure.”

Ronan let out a laugh. “You don’t sound very convincing.”

“No, no, I do have fun, I just-” He shrugged, laughing too, feeling ridiculous. “Are you supposed to admit to that?”

“Why do things if you’re not enjoying them.” Gansey’s grin suddenly dropped. “Maybe it’s on us to make you enjoy them more, though. Change techniques. Maybe we just haven’t found your spots yet.”

“Maybe.”

Ronan hummed. “Only one way to find out.”

Perhaps he’d always known a conversation like this would end in an experiment, because what else could they do? Only he’d not expected to feel nervous about it, watching Ronan reach out while holding his breath. He kept his arms pressed to his sides, suddenly feeling exposed between them on the bed, but wasn’t that the point? To feel vulnerable and ticklish and helpless while trapped between them? Adam didn’t feel ticklish, although he didn’t necessarily feel not ticklish either. A strange middle ground. Wasn’t that just his life?

Ronan reached out and Adam held his breath and Gansey was probably watching intently on his other side, only Adam couldn’t stop watching Ronan’s approaching hand and so he couldn’t tell for certain. Anyone else would probably start curling up, or move their hands without meaning to in order to block the attack, giggling before being touched, but Adam simply remained still, watching.

“I know your ribs are ticklish,” Ronan said, stopping just above them. He said it matter-of-factly, although he could sense a teasing tone among each word, reminding Adam that this was supposed to be fun. “Tell me just how ticklish on a scale of one to ten.”

“Uhm. Maybe a six?”

“I’m sure I can turn it into a ten.”

With those words Ronan made contact, and while it did tickle - a twitch of the body, his breath coming out in a surprised laugh - Adam could remain as he was for ten seconds before he felt the need to push Ronan off, only of course Ronan didn’t let that deter him. That was partly the way their tickle fights went. Adam slowly fell into somewhat of a panic because he couldn’t stop it, not necessarily because it tickled too much. If that even made sense.

“See, if I do this,” Ronan sang, digging his fingers into his upper ribs. “I’m sure you’ll beg for mercy in no time.”

Adam snorted through his laughter, grabbing onto Ronan’s wrist without really thinking of it. “I don’t think I will.”

“Maybe you need to be gentler,” Gansey said, demonstrating his words by wiggling his fingers in the air and making Adam feel all the more flustered. “Maybe he’s the type to break under soft tickles.”

The casual way they spoke of this made Adam blush, much to their delight. Ronan did as Gansey said and trailed his fingertips lightly over his ribs, though Adam couldn’t feel it as much and so he slipped his hand beneath his shirt to try again, after Adam gave his consent.

Adam felt, for the first time since their tickle fights started, as if he needed to escape the tickling right that second, which translated into his arms flailing, his words becoming incoherent through his panicked laughter - laughter! - in a way that much resembled the sounds Gansey and Ronan would make.

“W-wait!”

“There we go.” Gansey seemed much too triumphant for someone who wasn’t doing the tickling himself, but he would eat that thought up soon as he decided to join in, spidering his nails lightly over Adam’s kneecap which seemed much more effective than simply squeezing at it.

Adam realized, in the midst of it all, that he wasn’t used to gentle touches and so hadn’t known how much they would tickle him. Maybe they realized it, too, but no one said anything about it. It didn’t seem necessary. Besides, they were a little busy now, turning Adam into a giggly mess. Gansey was zeroing in on a spot which had never elicited much of a reaction before, but he seemed determined now, curling his fingers over Adam’s neck over and over, the spot just beneath his ear which always made other people recoil. He wasn’t entirely sure at which point the sensation became ticklish, only that suddenly he felt he couldn’t stand it. Was suddenly giggling because of it.

“Stop!” he cried, raising his shoulder and finding it didn’t help. One hand occupied by Ronan’s hand which was holding onto it, the other desperately trying to shove Ronan’s other hand away from his bare ribs. Leaving his neck to fend for itself and his shoulder not doing much despite trying so desperately. Adam, never having had a weakness for neck tickles, was suddenly lost in a sea of giggles, feeling his whole body recoil at the gentleness, at the sensation which he couldn’t stand, and he suddenly understood them, his two ticklish friends. Understood why they fled and always came back.

“No offense, Parrish, but you seem really ticklish for someone who thinks they’re not.” Ronan was grinning at him, evading Adam’s panicked hand easily.

“This is fun, right?” Gansey had moved his other hand to the other side of Adam’s neck, leaving him trapped, all of them tangled limbs, all of them laughing.

To say he was flustered by it all - the tickling, the realizations, the patience and delight and gentleness Gansey and Ronan displayed toward him - would be an understatement. Adam was suddenly certain he would die here and be okay with it. The bed creaked as he struggled, although he’d not yet tried to get up. Maybe he would get there eventually. Or maybe not. He was okay either way. He trusted them either way.

“Are your armpits ticklish?” Ronan asked, finally - finally - letting his ribs be and trying to worm his hands under his arms instead.

“No!”

“No? I’m sure I can prove otherwise.”

Adam didn’t doubt it.

[lizpaige]

Hi!!! Your I live by your headcanons and prompts, I need all of them written stat.

But you have any favorite/recs for pynch breakup/makeup AUs?

hiiiiii anon! thanks for the kind words and the ask!

i love breakup/makeup fics this is my second favorite trope right under outsider POV fics. I feel like there aren't enough of these in this fandom or maybe they just have different tags than the ones I'm searching for. I'm dying for a messy divorce fic. please someone, anyone write this.

anyway, here are some recs:

The Ties That Bind by pinkhorizon "Six years ago, Adam left Henrietta—and Ronan—in the rearview. When Gansey and Blue announce that they're getting married on the other side of the country, Adam gets stuck driving from Virginia to California with the one person he never planned to see again." 💬 Anything by pinkhorizon is great and this just was so good in its awkwardness and yearning and bah I wanna reread it now.

if prayer were the answer, I'd fall on my knees by sprigsofviolets "It’s Bare: A Pop Opera, but Ronan is Peter and Adam is Jason. Or, if you haven’t heard of the musical, it’s basically the gangsey at Catholic school with a lot of drama." 💬 I LOOOOOVE Bare and am a musical girlie so this hit the spot.

come morning light by perchancetosleep This is a wip but updates post every Tuesday and Fridays. It's a Marauders!AU which I am a sucker for. We've got Remus!Adam and Sirius!Ronan drama around the big prank. I run to my inbox to read updates here. messy and heart-wrenching.

Where does the good go? by Daisyapples after a messy breakup pynch are reunited to be godparents to a new blusey baby 🥰 fluff, lots of drama but of course a happy ending

The Only Time I Miss You Is Every Single Day by Zee Pynch break up and then Ronan visits Adam at Harvard. They fall back into their friend shenanigans and then admit some feels. super cute!

Cold Dark Earth by EtoileGarden If you haven't already read every EtoileGarden fic (they are all gold), then please do yourself a favor and do that now. This is a fave - pynch are broken up, Adam is engaged, Gansey trying to bring them back together, it's sooooo good! Such a fun read!

Honestly I'm probably forgetting a bunch that I love, so plsplspls share your own!

[mossynebula]

TRC as songs from Unreal Unearth (Hozier)

EXTREMLY long post but I think its worth reading, Buckle up!!

Ronan: (De Selby part 1)

"At last when all of the world is asleep"

"to the bliss of not knowin' yourself"

"Bhfuilis soranna sorcha Ach tagais 'nós na hoíche, Trína chéile" (You’re all bright ease But you come on like night Entangled)

Kavinsky: (De Selby part 2)

"I wanna run against the world thats turning"

"I wanna run so far, I'd beat the morning"

"I dont need to know where we begin and end"

Prokopenko: (First Time)

"And the soul, if that's what you'd call it, Uneasy ally of the body"

" And some part of me must have died, the first time that you called me baby, and some part of me came alive the first time that you called me baby"

"but fighting off like all creation, the absence of itself"

Gansey: (Francesca)

"My life was a storm since I was born"

"I'd tell them put me back in it"

"I would still be suprised I could find you Darlin', in any life"

Skovron: ( I, Carrion (Icarian))

"If the wind turns, if I hit a squall, Allow the ground to find it's brutal way to me"

"If these heights should bring my fall, Let me be your own, Icarian carrion"

" I only pray, don't fall away from me"

Jiang: (Eat Your Young)

" Let me wrap my teeth around the world"

"put in front of the table, sellin' bombs and gun"

" You can't buy this, fineness, let me see the heat get to you"

Adam and Blue: (Damage Gets Done)

" Without shame, two outfits to my name"

" I heard once, it's the comforts that make us feel numb"

" You and I had nothing to show but the best of the world in the palm of our hands"

"If the car ran, the car was enough"

" That first car was like wings on an angel"

"But I know being reckless and young, is not how the damage gets done"

Swan: (Who We Are)

"Gettin' through still has a cost"

"To hold me like water, or christ, hold me like a knife"

"Chasing someone else's dream"

Noah: (All Things End)

"If there was anyone to ever get through this life, with their heart still intact, they didn't do it right"

" All that we intend, is scrawled in sand, it slips right through our hand"

"Never watched my future darken in a single tear"

(The entire choir section)

Declan: (To someone from a warmer climate)

"Uiscefhuaraithe" (water-cooled)

"all my dreamin', is only put to shame"

"There are some things that no-one teaches you, love That God in his awful wisdom first programs in"

Matthew: (Butchered Tongue)

"As a child, it was the place names Singin' at me as the first thing How the mouth must be employed in every corner of itself To say "Appalacicola" or "Hushpukena, " like "Gweebarra" A promise softly sung of somewhere else"

"But feel at home, hearin' a music that few still understand A butchered tongue still singin' here above the ground"

"And have your guarded heart be lifted like a child up by the hand In some town that just means "Home" to them With no translator left to sound"

Lynch Brothers: (Anything But)

"I'd fit all my joys and my pleasures in one perfect day I wish I was the sunlight, just sitting on the Mississippi I'd settle for a shopping trolley in the Liffey"

"I don't wanna be anything But I would do anything just to run away I don't wanna be anything like this at all"

"Look, I wanna be loud, so loud, I'm talking seismic I wanna be soft as a single stone in a rainstick I wanna be the thunder of a hundred thousand hooves moving quick If I was a stampede, you wouldn't get a kick I wanna be the shadow when my bright future's behind me I wanna be the last thing anybody ever sees"

Fox Way: (Abstract (Psychopomp))

"The feeling came late I'm still glad I met you"

"The memory hurts But does me no harm Your hand in my pocket To keep us both warm The poor thing in the road Its eye still glistening The cold wet of your nose The Earth from a distance"

"The speed that you moved The screech of the cars The creature still moving That slowed in your arms The fear in its eyes Gone out in an instant Your tear caught the light"

Gangsey and Dream pack: (First Light)

"Your eyes open, at first a thousand miles away But turning, shoot a silver bullet point-blank range And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in Could this be how every day begins?"

"The sky set to burst The gold and the rust The colour erupts You filling my cup The sun coming up

Like I lived my whole life Before the first light"

"One bright morning goes so easy Darkness always finds you either way It creeps into the corners as the moment fades A voice your body jumps to calling out your name But after this I'm never gonna be the same And I am never going back again"

[vicc000]

It was right, though. Gansey felt the feeling of time slipping - one last time. The sense of having done this before. He gently laid the backs of his hands on her cheeks. He whispered, "It'll be OK. I'm ready. Blue, kiss me."

The rain spattered about them, kicking up splashes of red-black, making the petals around them twitch. Dream things from Ronan's newly healed imagination piled around their feet. In the rain, everything smelled of these mountains in fall: oak leaves and hay fields, ozone and dirt turned over. It was beautiful here, and Gansey loved it. It had taken a long time, but he'd ended up where he wanted after all.

Blue kissed him.

He had dreamt of it often enough, and here it was, willed into life. In another world, it would just be this: a girl softly pressing her lips to a boy's. But in this one, Gansey felt the effects of it at once. Blue, a mirror, an amplifier, a strange half-tree soul with ley line magic running through her. And Gansey, restored once by the ley line's power, given a ley line heart, another kind of mirror. And when they were pointed at each other, the weaker one gave.

Gansey's ley line heart had been gifted, not grown.

He pulled back from her.

Out loud, with intention, with the voice that left no room for doubt, he said, "Let it be to kill the demon."

Right after he spoke, Blue threw her arms tightly around his neck. Right after he spoke, she pressed her face into the side of his. Right after he spoke, she held him like a shouted word. Love, love, love.

He fell quietly from her arms.

He was a king.

[wander-wren]

wrt to the “adam shouldve been a visionary” dreamer trilogy/greywaren post i’ve seen a few times (possibly reblogged?)….well, maybe, but also no.

it’s not that i don’t have my own gripes with tdt (namely, yes, not enough adam), but i just…i can’t get behind visionary adam. not canon visionary, anyway.

like. you’re telling me ronan “the choice was death or hurting adam, which wasnt a choice at all” lynch would have handled it with ANY amount of grace if adam “i will be your hands. i will be your eyes” parrish was given the ultimatum “hurt others every time you have a vision and live, or turn the visions inward and quickly die horribly”??? no!!

and maybe in this alternate version of tdt that’s the whole point, yknow. if that’s what you want, ABSOLUTELY go ahead, dream on about it, write the fic, send it to me i’d love to see. etc etc etc

but the point of the dreamer trilogy is that it’s about ronan. so if we’re keeping with that vision (ha), and with the basic premise of the series, then no, i don’t think visionary adam is a good idea.

which begs the question…what WOULD i have adam do?

[disclaimer i read each book as they came out and havent done full rereads since so my memory is spotty, pls correct anything i get wrong]

in all honesty i would keep call down the hawk essentially as it is bc i think it was good. it takes place during november, no? so potentially add in/exchange a shorter adam moment for thanksgiving break. he can help scry and figure out psychic things and be distrustful of bryde.

have winter break be during part of mister impossible. seriously where are adam’s school breaks lmao. adam is relentlessly practical and cares about ronan and he should be here to sow doubt and try to curb some of ronan’s more ecoterrorist tendencies. ronan can sneak around and hide from him and there can be tension and worry and anger. but also a lot of good pynch feelings still, ofc, bc its Them.

but don’t worry! they can still have a big fight/falling out over the ley lines/bryde/the ecoterrorism before adam leaves for school again. as silly as it is that ronan freaked out over an unread text when adam was literally napping, maybe this time it’s deliberate. or maybe adam really was napping again, or driving, or whatever. the rest of mister impossible can play out from there, or a condensed/reshuffled version of it to accommodate adam being there for a while.

greywaren can start the same, but for the love of god let ronan get out faster it is HIS BOOK. i do like henessey helping him do that i think its an important part of her character, and adam’s part in all that was very good and angsty so i wouldnt change it, but i would have it happen in the first half. ronan and adam make up and go off to do whatever was happening by the end of greywaren tbh i got confused. or something totally different! who knows.

also i just want to see adam interact with the actual visionaries and with carmen and henessey more and with bryde i think it would be very cool. very fun.

i also think gansey/blue/henry shouldve shown up literally ever at all but idk how they fit in so shh

[stormblessed95]

Hi Storm!

I'm obsessed with your book recommendations and just read aftg and loved them... do you know any other books like them?

Ah yes! I've recommended some of these before, but I'll include them anyway as "gives similar vibes but probably isn't as problematic/toxic as AFTG and yet still as wonderfully amazing and made me fall in love with it" list. Queer characters, character driven, slow burn, angsty at times, happy ending, achillean book recommendations....

(Andriel from AFTG in fanart above)

Icebreaker by A.L Graziadei

Seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league's top draft spot.

The only person standing in his way is Jaysen Caulfield, a contender for the #1 spot and Mickey's infuriating (and infuriatingly attractive) teammate. When rivalry turns to something more, Mickey will have to decide what he really wants, and what he's willing to risk for it.

This is a story about falling in love, finding your team (on and off the ice), and choosing your own path.

Tropes: Sports Romance, Rivals to Lovers, found family... I mean it's basically just reading about a depressed bisexual hockey prodigy in a Rivalry and romance with his teammate.

Content warnings: Abandonment, Anxiety, Depression, Tricholillomania, Alcohol consumption, Drug use mentioned, Suicidal Ideation

Quote I Love: "I hate you" "Prove it"

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

Tropes: Paranormal Adventure novel, forbidden love, found family, high stakes, going on a quest, human sacrifice, tall dark and snarky (mlm side pairing)

Content Warnings: there is a lot, so here is a link to a detailed list

Quote I Love: “When Adam kissed him, it was every mile per hour Ronan had ever gone over the speed limit. It was every window-down, goose-bumps-on-skin, teeth-clattering-cold night drive. it was Adam’s ribs under Ronan’s hands and Adam’s mouth on his mouth, again and again and again.”

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.

Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road, the boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane.

Ox was seventeen when he found out the boy’s secret, and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega.

Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces.

It’s been three years since that fateful day—and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

Tropes: Found Family, Alpha Male, jealousy, revenge, troubled pasts, Boy next door, Clumsy with a Crush, wait for me, own voices gay

Content Warnings: Abduction/hostage, Ableism, Age gap, Assault, Blood, Death, Emotional abuse (parental, past), SA (mentioned), Sex scenes (graphic), Torture, Violence

Quote I Love: "My future,” Joe said, “is Ox.” Ah god, that made me ache. “Is that so?” Mom asked. “How do you figure?” “He’s really nice,” Joe said seriously. “And smells good. And he makes me happy. And I want to do nothing more than put my mouth on him.”

Check, Please! By Ngozi Ukazu

Check, Please! is a comic about hockey, queer romance, and the frequent baking of pies. And you can read this one for free! It's online and free on the authors blog here, including a link to the where the start at the beginning of the story. It's super cute!

Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

Tropes: Forbidden Love, Enemies to lovers, royals, secret relationship, love letters, celebrity romance, heroes with titles

Content warnings: Addiction, Alcohol, Anxiety, Blackmail, Cancer (mentioned), Death (parental, mentioned), Drug abuse (mentioned), Forced outing, Grief, Homophobia, Invasion/violation of privacy, Neglect (parental), Panic attack, Politics, Racism, Sexual abuse, Sexual harassment (mentioned), Sexually explicit scenes

Quote I Love: "Should I tell you that when we're apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I've just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?"

Running with Lions by Julian Winters

I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my TBR as a gay sports Romance that sounded really cute!

Also, ao3 is a goldmine of amazing fics for the AFTG fandom. Like top tier beautifully done fics. AFTG is a great sandbox for fandom honestly. So definitely check that site out if you want more too.

[robobee]

actually icb voop and ray are the only ones subjected to my laumonier lore. here’s the rundown for everyone else 

laumonier is “””French”,,,’’ but he’s not really french. hes from quebec. somehow has the most stereotypical french accent u’ve ever heard 

when henry murderkills laumonier2 they accidentally end up in a haunted/hauntee situation. this is partially bad bc of aforementioned french accent but really bad because his ghost keeps trying to motivate henry into becoming a fairy market girlbossTM but henry’s in his depressive era and spends most of the time sobbing into a pillow 

gansey spends half of declan’s wedding trying to convince henry to fall back in love with him but henry is too distracted listening to laumonier’s tea on niall lynch to pay any attention to him

[karouvas]

Sorry (not) but I find anyone who acts like Blue is making something out of nothing when she’s mad Adam’s first question is about the kissing to be like. Deeply suspicious. Of course she is mad that’s the first thing he asked her! They’ve been walking on eggshells around each other and not really communicating since the last aborted kiss attempt which is on both of them to some degree, but when he comes around to her it’s only for this and when she has so many fears and insecurities about not properly belonging in the gang because she’s a girl (which is founded based on the fact aside from Noah they’ve all been misogynistic towards her at some point even if it was passive) and not being respected, when she’s also an outsider at home because of a different thing she can’t control. And you can not say that her feeling Adam is treating her like a thing to have and not a person he connects with is unfounded he again literally “I got Blue without you!” screamed at Gansey, consistently going to her after they fight (he did it end of TRB after repugnant too) to validate himself or just generally when he’s falling apart looking for validation from her like in the apartment scene. It’s not a bad thing to seek validation from your partner and in TRB before I’d say the last quarter I think Blue and Adam were genuinely connecting and developing a friendship while also exploring their feelings/attractions to each other, which did always have elements of seeking escape or validation for both of them in different ways, but it’s dissolved into that so much now. And I do think Blue is to some degree mad at Adam because he’s here and available to be mad at when she’s also mad at Gansey for it (I don’t think they’re *in the wrong * for not inviting her but they are in the wrong for not even considering she could want to go or at least want to be in the loop, also even though it’s Gansey’s party if Adam is trying to be her *boyfriend* it was kind of his place to ask her) so she’s conveying anger at Adam when the anger is for both of them, and also more general factors she’s frustrated by, but also Adam has the exact same response of channeling emotions that aren’t solely about Blue through their fights (and to his credit he is self aware that he does this) so again crucifying Blue for it is whack imo. Also to check myself on shipper-brain for the Adam-Gansey aspect of it, well obviously I read that here as a factor because I’m me, but for arguments sake on the premise Adam has No feelings about Gansey that are anything other than platonic Blue would still have a right to be mad about him prioritizing his platonic male friends over her and treating them with more respect, obviously, because misogyny exists (also these are not two contradictory readings in that I think they’re both factors. Signed an Adam Stan).

[nhasablogg]

The platonic ways of yearning

Fandom: The Raven Cycle

Characters: Adam, Gansey, Ronan

Summary: Adam keeps walking in on tickle fights between Gansey and Ronan and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

A/N: Commission for @happyandticklish! Thank you, I hope you like this!

Words: 2.6k

Part 2 here.

Monmouth Manufacturing was dark when Adam entered that cold December afternoon, the snow that was sprinkled over his hair a grave reminder of the hat he’d left there the previous night. He’d dropped it on the radiator to dry and had promptly forgotten about it, only realizing his mistake when he’d gotten home and had instinctively tried to shove it off his head.

He paused in the doorway, the spare key in his hand like a spear. “Am I interrupting?” he asked the outline of people - Gansey hunched over? - on the couch.

“No, no,” Gansey said hurriedly, voice low. Adam could see him look up, his knees sticking out on either side of him and melting into the shadow of the armrest and something else that Adam couldn’t make sense of. “Come in, I’m not doing anything.”

“I can see that.” He reached for the light switch. “Should I turn it on?”

“No, no,” Gansey said again, even quicker this time. “I, uh, don’t want to wake him.”

“Oh.”

Oh.

Adam could see it now, his eyes getting more used to the darkness. Ronan was leaning against him, arms crossed as if to maintain some sort of control of the situation, but he was truly and fully asleep. Adam could now make out his head leaning against Gansey’s shoulder, their arms pressed together, as if one was an extension of the other. He might’ve been frowning, but Adam couldn’t tell.

“He fell asleep,” Gansey explained, the smile audible in his voice. That one Adam could picture. Small. Fond.

“So you just-” Adam gestured to the vicinity of the couch. “-stayed there.”

“Yes.”

Adam could picture that, too. The falling darkness and Gansey not wanting to be a bother. Gansey sitting still and staring at nothing - or perhaps his book - until he couldn’t see anything anymore. Adam did lots of picturing nowadays. He had a hard time figuring their relationship out. He felt there was a version of it he hadn’t been allowed to see yet, and yet he kept hearing about it in the way that the past and words were usually attached to the hip. And now this, a glimpse of it, presented so innocently before him. He did know exactly what he was feeling and he refused to baptize it.

“I see,” he said, wondering if they used to do this when Ronan had longer hair, curls fluttering over Gansey’s ear when he moved and Gansey scrunching up his shoulder ever so slightly. “I came for my hat.”

He could see enough now to see how Gansey’s smile grew. “Just your hat?”

Adam flicked the keys between his hands. “Uh huh.”

Gansey pointed with his other hand. “It’s on my bed. I wanted to remember to return it. But Adam?”

Adam, who had started walking into the room, the door finally closing and shutting out the little amount of light outside, paused in his steps. “Hm?”

He couldn’t see Gansey at all now. “You can stay. You don’t have to leave just because you got what you came for.”

“Oh.” He flicked the keys between his hands again, aware of how the sound was louder than their breathing. “Okay. But we might wake him.”

Ronan made a sound, words forming at the end of it. “‘ready did.”

Gansey let out a laugh and Adam reached for the light switch only because he’d never seen Ronan Lynch awaken before.

Ronan blinked, whining in protest and covering his eyes with his palm as light washed over them. He was still leaning his head on Gansey, who was squinting up at Adam and looking like he’d never wanted to be anywhere but there. What Adam had missed in the dark was the fuzzy blanket sloppily slung over Ronan’s lap.

“Sorry,” Adam said, and Ronan waved his other hand at him.

“It was probably time to wake up anyway,” Gansey said and reached over to poke the side of Ronan’s neck which wasn’t pressed up against his sweater.

Ronan recoiled at the touch, groaning into his hand and swatting the other one around as if Gansey was a fly. “Fuck off.”

Gansey’s smile transformed. Adam had seen it before, but only on special occasions. Only when he felt like acting like the teenage boy he was. He’d never seen it aimed at himself, but sometimes Ronan and Noah managed to drag Gansey into their antics, and Adam would see a glimpse of it before Gansey joined in, even if only for a moment. Something playful. Something mischievous.

Ronan caught his eye through his fingers. “No.”

Three things happened when Gansey lunged for Ronan: Ronan screamed when the hand returned to his neck and didn’t retreat, Gansey laughed in delight before Ronan had even started laughing himself, and Adam felt so flustered that he didn’t know what to do with himself. It was more than just witnessing Gansey be his playful self - all laughter lines, all glittering eyes and oh reallys and is that sos at Ronan’s cursing - but to see him be like this while Ronan Lynch was giggling was turning Adam into a stammering mess, even though he was purely an audience member.

He dropped his keys, the sound melting into Ronan’s laughter, but when Adam, feeling his body turning hot, emerged back up from picking them up Gansey was looking at him anyway.

“Sorry,” he said to Adam. “I got carried away.”

“Why are you apologizing to him- fuckin’ stop.” Ronan grabbed his forearms, groaning as he tried to twist Gansey’s hands away from his body, but Gansey was stronger than he looked. All it did was make Ronan squeal when fingers collided with skin once more, and Adam had to excuse himself only because what the fuck does one do when Ronan Lynch squeals.

*

He noticed it more after that. The touches he never imagined either of them extending, and partly receiving. Which wasn’t fair. Despite his strange idealization they were both simply human, and humans had needs and weaknesses. Even Ronan Lynch. He wouldn’t say he’d seen each part of them anyway. His hubris didn’t reach that far. Not even close. And yet-

And yet.

It wasn’t necessarily all revolving around Ronan being able to laugh - Ronan being ticklish - as much as it revolved around Gansey being the one to make him laugh, which meant he had at one point realized he was ticklish, and Adam couldn’t determine how he thought that had played out. Something playful, or something quiet? A sudden discovery, or something slow?

It was less surprising when he caught Ronan tickling Gansey back, maybe because this wasn’t something new and unassociated anymore. Gansey’s laugh surprised him though. Loud. Panicked.

“That’s what you get,” Ronan said with a smirk, although Adam caught something timid behind his actions too. The way he smiled when he stopped to let Gansey breathe and he kept giggling. The way he maneuvered his sensitive spots, seemingly knowing them all.

Adam watched, fully aware he probably seemed like a creep. Gansey on the floor, Ronan hovering over him and clawing his fingers over his ribs. It was interesting how different their reactions were in relation to their personalities. Ronan squirmed like crazy, sure, but Gansey was nearly violent with how uncontrollably his limbs were flailing, no composure to be found. Adam found it mesmerizing, along with something he refused to acknowledge loudly, but it was there, quietly festering in the back of his mind.

“Ronan!” The way Gansey called out his name, breaking it up into two words separated with laughter, was enough to send a flutter of nerves through Adam’s body. He could nearly feel how ticklish it was, only because Ronan had done it once to him. Once and only once. He wasn’t sure what it was about him that had made it less likely for him to ever repeat it, but it stung a little, especially as he watched him obliterate Gansey’s ounce of self-respect just by sticking his hand beneath his arms.

He was jealous. He didn’t know how to handle it.

“Adam!” Two words, laughter to part them. “Adam, help- no!”

Adam felt like a deer caught in headlights at being addressed, and he met Ronan’s amused gaze before he could even open his mouth. “Oh, don’t,” he said, his grin lethal. “Unless you want to join him, that is.”

And Adam had the humiliating realization that, yes, he did.

He left, refusing to say he was fleeing.

*

Adam walked in on Ronan lifting Gansey, cradling him carefully in his arms like a bride or a baby. “What the hell?”

“Oh, hey.” Gansey waved at him as if this was just something they did. “Don’t ask. I’m not entirely sure either.”

Ronan, keeping entirely still as if Gansey weighed nothing, hummed. “I’m not sure either, to be fair.”

“Then why-”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, making Gansey sway along to the movement. “Why not?”

A hysterical laugh bubbled up Adam’s throat and he wasn’t quick enough to stop it from pouring out. “This- I- I have so many questions.”

Gansey beamed at him, something fond in his smile. It almost embarrassed him, the way he sometimes looked at him. “Oh, trust me, so do I.”

Ronan suddenly started squeezing at Gansey’s side, which was dangerous considering he was literally holding him, although he didn’t have to move his hand much from the way he’d positioned him in his grip. “I feel very questioned here.”

Gansey spluttered out something incoherent, trying to twist in Ronan’s arms to get away from the tickling. “Don’t!”

Ronan hummed. “Fine. But I’m not putting you down.”

“But why- oh, Adam, don’t go.”

Adam stopped in his tracks at Gansey’s pleading voice, turning back toward them sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“He’s scared he’s gonna be next,” Ronan said with an eyeroll and Adam cursed his very being for blushing.

Gansey, ever the innocent one, said, “I didn’t know you were ticklish.”

“Oh, he is,” Ronan said nonchalantly, although his grin was lethal. “I tickled his knee once and he nearly kicked my nose in. But I’m sure there are many more spots I don’t know about.”

It had been so casual Adam was certain Ronan hadn’t really been aware of what he was doing. Having brothers - as well as this more playful relationship with Gansey and Noah which Adam had slowly been seeing glimpses of - it probably wasn’t an unfamiliar action, but Adam wasn’t used to touches to his person not carrying any malice, so his kick had been partly due to a brief moment of surprise and partly due to it being ticklish. Ronan hadn’t done it again, although his smirk and the spidering fingers over Adam’s knee had stayed with him for longer than Adam was willing to admit.

He huffed now, trying to keep his cool while wondering why he was so reluctant to join in if he also felt jealous each time he saw it. Maybe there was more beneath the surface which he wasn’t ready to acknowledge yet. Maybe he really was just a selfish asshole.

Gansey was humming. “I think his ribs are bad.”

Adam’s head snapped up. “No.”

“No?”

“Agreed. He’s definitely a lower body type of ticklish,” Ronan said, nodding.

Adam took a step back. “No.”

Gansey’s face softened. “Don’t worry, we won’t tickle you if you don’t want us to.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Ronan.”

“Sorry, I-” Adam ran a hand through his hair. “I gotta go.”

Adam left. Maybe the worst part had been that Ronan had been holding Gansey throughout the whole conversation.

*

Adam avoided them. He wasn’t sure why.

(Except he was.)

(He refused to think about it.)

(Except it filled all his undistracted waking moments.)

(Typical.)

It genuinely wasn’t difficult to stay away from them, blaming his job and whatever else, only Gansey showcased his disappointment more and more clearly each time he declined coming with them on Glendower related trips. It made him feel guilty.

“You should talk to them,” Blue said one afternoon. Adam hadn’t told her why he was avoiding them, or even that he was doing it, but she’d noticed. Of course she had.

Adam sighed. “I can’t.”

Noah tilted his head at him. “Why not?”

“It’s so stupid.”

“All the more reason to explain yourself then,” Blue said sensibly. Adam hated that she was right.

It was only a matter of time before they confronted him, Adam knew, and when they finally cornered him one day, not letting him leave Monmouth Manufacturing even though he said he was in a nonexistent hurry after once again picking up an article of clothing that had somehow ended up there, Adam wasn’t really sure what to say.

“Talk to us,” Gansey pleaded. “I don’t understand what we’ve done wrong.” He was standing by the front door, all but blocking it.

“You’ve not done anything,” Adam mumbled, unable to maintain eye contact and feeling incredibly silly because of it.

“Then why do you quite literally run away when you see us?”

“I don’t-”

Ronan snorted. “We have eyes, believe it or not.”

Adam snapped his mouth shut, feeling the recently all too familiar burn of his face.

Gansey took a step closer. “You’re getting embarrassed. Why? You’re not usually shy.”

Adam shook his head. “I can’t explain it.”

“Please try.”

All his reluctance suddenly melted away, leaving him bare, vulnerable, terrified even though it made no sense. He couldn’t understand this yearning, only that he yearned, yearned for something he felt he didn’t deserve.

“I’ve been watching you,” he said, voice embarrassingly thick. “Well, not exactly watching you. I keep running into situations that I feel I shouldn’t. That I feel aren’t mine.”

“Parrish, you make no sense right now.” When Adam met Ronan’s gaze he found nothing malicious in it.

He swallowed. “You have tickle fights.” For some reason Gansey started blushing as much as he did. “I’ve not really seen you have those before.”

“Oh, that,” Gansey said, eyes darting from Adam to the floor and back to Adam. Adorable, Adam briefly thought. Rare and unusually vulnerable. Ronan seemed just as stoic as ever, which might’ve been the first hint at his own embarrassment because Ronan’s eyes showed his emotions more than anything. “It’s something we did sometimes. You know. Before we met you. I don’t know why it’s started again, but. Well.” He shrugged. “It’s fun, I guess.”

Adam tried to keep the words from spilling out and failed spectacularly. “I wish you’d include me.” It sounded fucking pathetic. “I mean. I don’t know what I mean.” He rubbed at his temples. “I just- It’s like a car crash. Maybe. I can’t stop looking but I also want to run away each time I see it.”

“And still you want to join.” Ronan’s smirk wasn’t lethal, but it scared him anyway. It seemed… kind. “Doesn’t sound like a car crash to me.”

“Adam.” Gansey had stopped blushing. His smile was also kind. “If you want to join in you have to stop running away.”

“Unless the whole point is for us to catch you, that is.”

Adam positively wanted to fall through the floor. “I don’t know what I want.”

“That’s okay. We can figure it out. Just stop running away.”

Adam covered his face. “I’m sorry.”

A hand was on him, gently touching his shoulder. He expected it to be Gansey, but when he looked up he was met with Ronan. “Don’t be. I’ll tickle you, don’t worry.” The laugh that left his mouth sounded slightly hysterical, but Adam felt calmer despite it. “I trust that you will,” he said, looking away.

Ronan snorted. “I need to figure out if Gansey was right about your ribs or not, after all.”

“And I need to see if you’re actually a kicker like Ronan said,” Gansey added, taking a step closer to them, suddenly grinning mischievously at him.

Adam gulped. “I change my mind.”

“Oh, no, Parish. You better take the heat now.”

“I’ll run.”

Gansey let out a laugh. “We’ll catch you.”

Adam - heart skipping a beat, smile fighting to emerge - had no doubt they would.

[morfinwen]

For the Christmas ship meme, Tear in My Heart, Like Real People Do, If My Heart was a House, and Leah and Nate, if you like? Merry Christmas!

So this was originally asked .... hahaha, never mind. I finished answering these earlier, but i wanted to queue it to show up at a more "thematically appropriate" time.

Already answered Chuck/Sarah here.

Elizabeth/Darcy -- Modern!AU? Modern!AU

who starts putting up decorations in october: Elizabeth is in charge of decorating, and October is too early. Have all the leaves fallen off the trees? Is there snow on the ground? Are there skeletons and ghosts and monsters in people’s yards (if they’re in America -- don’t think Halloween’s a thing in England)? Then it’s not time for decorating for Christmas yet. Everything in its place. Darcy wasn’t really a “decorate in October” guy, but he does like Christmas, so once Elizabeth starts teaching him the art of “harmless mischief”, she starts finding her fall-scented candles getting replaced with ones that smell of gingerbread or pine, wintry scenes replacing other photographs or prints, and ornaments or other small decorations hanging in out-of-the-way areas. It becomes a game if she can find them all before the “actual” Christmas decorating season begins.

who buys the advent calendars: Elizabeth. Though that’s more a thing once they have children.

who places mistletoes all around the house: Darcy more than Elizabeth, but while she lives with them, Georgiana hangs up the most.

who wraps the presents for other people: The Darcys have mastered the art of wrapping. Elizabeth is in awe, and though she is never able to match their perfection, she does improve. Somewhat.

who puts the final star/angel on the top of the christmas tree: Before they have children, Darcy gives Elizabeth a boost to reach the top. She is definitely not tall enough to reach it on her own.

who’s the one that hates eggnog: Elizabeth might not hate it, but i don’t think she’s ever developed a taste for it.

who’s the one that bakes christmas cookies for guests: Group project. They have very … disparate experiences with both types of cookies baked, and how to bake them: Darcy grew up baking a few specific “posh” cookies (probably more like cookie bars and sweetbreads) in a very tidy kitchen with his mum and Georgiana, following the recipe to the letter and instrumental Christmas carols on CD. Elizabeth, the kitchen eventually became a free-for-all where multiple recipes could be going on at once, with younger sisters trying to sneak “test cookies” or ingredients like chocolate chips from other bakers, and the radio blaring Christmas pop at top volume. 

who sends out the christmas cards: Joint effort. Darcy has the neater handwriting and more experience writing nice-sounding generic Christmas greetings, but Elizabeth is better at adding the personal touch.

who knows all the words to twelve days of christmas: Elizabeth. That song was not often part of the Darcy Christmas playlist.

who’s the better snowman builder: Elizabeth. Darcy had never made a snowman before meeting her.

who starts snowball fights: Elizabeth does it more frequently, though after a few years Darcy will occasionally sneak snow down her coat or even toss a (very small) snowball at her.

who’s the one that wakes the other on christmas morning by playing christmas songs really loudly: Elizabeth wakes up their children that way, but not her husband. He’s usually awake before her, anyway.

Blue/Gansey

who starts putting up decorations in october: Blue, though the ones she puts up are usually … a mix of like Halloween and Christmas, like a skeleton with a Santa hat. Her decorations in general aren’t very traditional. When their place is decorated for pretty much any holiday, it looks like a particularly weird thrift store display got dropped into a high end department store's model room.

who buys the advent calendars: Gansey.

who places mistletoes all around the house: … Y'know, i'm ignoring canon on the subject of whether or not Blue can kiss Gangsey without him, well, dying, but … i don't think it's a tradition they take to for a few years. Henry definitely sneaks some up when he visits, though. 

who wraps the presents for other people: They wrap their own. Blue can’t stand Gansey’s magazine photoshoot-perfect corners and inoffensively bland wrapping paper choices, while her uneven wrapping style and eclectic wrapping paper put his teeth on edge; to say nothing of how it would be received at his family Christmas.

who puts the final star/angel on the top of the christmas tree: Gansey. 

who’s the one that hates eggnog: Gansey politely tolerates it.

who’s the one that bakes christmas cookies for guests: Blue. Cookie-baking was not a part of Gansey’s upbringing, and though he tries to learn, he’s just too … put-together and proper to fit into the mess Blue makes. She usually pushes him out of the kitchen to do the Christmas cards when she's baking.

who sends out the christmas cards: Gansey. Blue adds her own messages to the ones sent to the other members of the Gangsey and takes initiative on any sent to her family, but if she even sees any of the other cards he's sending, that's the full extent of her participation.

who knows all the words to twelve days of christmas: Gansey.

who’s the better snowman builder: Has Gansey ever built a snowman in his life? Even basic snowman designs are outside his capacity. Blue’s aren’t much better -- lopsided, awkwardly-sized things that fall or melt in ways that make them look even more bizarre -- but part of that is because she’s always trying to make more unique things than the classic “head, body, carrot nose” archetype.

who starts snowball fights: Blue.

who’s the one that wakes the other on christmas morning by playing christmas songs really loudly: Gansey does it once. Once.

Leah/Nate

who starts putting up decorations in october: Leah didn’t decorate that early, but she did start considering where to put the tree, how to arrange the lights, what “regular” decor would be taken down to make room, etc.

who buys the advent calendars: Nate.

who places mistletoes all around the house: Nate.

who wraps the presents for other people: Leah.

who puts the final star/angel on the top of the christmas tree: Nate.

who’s the one that hates eggnog: Neither of them cared for it.

who’s the one that bakes christmas cookies for guests: Leah, and not just because of the aggressively-50s culture of her time period -- Nate would sneak cookies or add unauthorized ingredients, so after the Hot Sauce Fudge incident, he was banned from participating, by his parents, Leah, and himself.

who sends out the christmas cards: Leah.

who knows all the words to twelve days of christmas: Between the two of them, they could usually figure them all out.

who’s the better snowman builder: Nate. 

who starts snowball fights: Nate used to, before the war. He couldn’t find the same enthusiasm for it after the war.

who’s the one that wakes the other on christmas morning by playing christmas songs really loudly: Nate, unintentionally. Loud Christmas music is part of the Christmas morning celebration, and he would just forget about his poor wife trying to catch up on sleep after spending the last few nights buying, wrapping, and sending last-minute gifts and cards.

Thanks for asking!

[annabethvicit]

gangsey x hozier

this is half-assed, i just need to put thoughts on paper at the moment. 

gansey:

“so tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes no better version of me I could pretend to be tonight so deep in this swill with the most familiar of swine for reasons wretched and divine she blows outta nowhere, roman candle of the wild laughing away through my feeble disguise no other version of me I would rather be tonight and, Lord, she found me just in time 'cause with my mid-youth crisis all said and done i need to be youthfully felt 'cause, God, I never felt young”

+ this because i giggled “don't let me in with no intention to keep me Jesus Christ! don't be kind to me honey don't feed me - i will come back” 

“remember when you'd sing, just for the fuck of it? and any joy it would bring”

ronan: 

“babe, there's something lonesome about you something so wholesome about you get closer to me

no tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony no 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me

honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know i slithered here from eden, just to sit outside your door”

+ the obligatory “take me to church i'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies i'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife”

“my heart is thrilled by the still of your hand that's how I know now that you understand there's no plan there's no race to be run the harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun there's no plan there's no kingdom to come i'll be your man if you got love to get done“

blue: 

“i knew that look dear eyes always seeking was there in someone that dug long ago

so I will not ask you why you were creeping in some sad way i already know, i will not ask you where you came from i will not ask you and neither would you, 

honey just put your sweet lips on my lips we should just kiss like real people do”

“all the things yet to come are the things that have passed like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass like the bonfire that burns that all words in the fight fell to wasteland, baby i'm in love, I'm in love with you and I love too that love soon might end be known in its aching shown in the shaking lately of my wasteland, baby”

adam:

“my baby never fret none about what my hands and my body done if the Lord don't forgive me i'd still have my baby and my babe would have me when I was kissing on my baby and he put his love down soft and sweet in the low lamp light I was free heaven and hell were words to me”

“i’d be appalled if i saw you ever try to be a saint i wouldn't fall for someone i thought couldn't misbehave but i want you to know that i've had no love like your love and on the other side, why should we deny the truth? we could have less to worry about, honey, i won't lie to you but everything i do i've had no love like your love“

noah:

“and all things end all that we intend is scrawled in sand or slips right through our hands and just knowing that everything will end should not change our plans when we begin again we begin again”

“the very thought of you and am I blue, a love supreme seems far removed” 

“how big the hourglass, how deep the sand i shouldn't have hoped to know, but here I stand” 

[itwasabout]

There’s No Place Like My Room (1/1)

Summary: GREYWAREN SPOILERS. Sometimes endings are endings, but sometimes they’re just middles and the real ending is very, very far away. Or, the days between Ch. 53 and the Epilogue.

Please excuse any mistakes, I’m a wreck after finishing Greywaren :’)

Read on ao3  | Rated M | For the sake of spoilers, I’ve got the entire fic under the cut. 

Adam’s winter break is the only thing keeping Ronan from departing his corporeal form again. Because there’s a very real possibility that if Ronan had to turn around and go right back to long distance, with its missed phone calls and sporadic texts and unspoken I miss you’s , he’d never get out of bed. 

“I don’t have to go back until January 10th,” Adam had told him on the drive back to the Barns. Ronan’s grip on Adam’s knee had tightened. He was so far beyond playing it cool.  

“That gives us almost a full month.” Ronan turned a grin back to the road, shaking his head. “A full fucking month. Shit.” Adam smiled too, like even he couldn’t believe it.  

Now, they’re laying in Ronan’s childhood bed. It’s the same bed they shared the summer before, and it smells like that summer too, all clean sheets and the musky scent of the shampoo they both used when they were both here. Adam’s got one hand tugging the quilts up over his chin and the other flung across Ronan’s bare waist, fingers grazing over the fresh tattoo on Ronan’s arm. The curtains are pulled aside, allowing swaths of moonlight to flood over the bed and across Adam’s face. Ronan can make out the freckles there, mourns how they’ve faded with distance from the sun. Distance from Ronan. 

This isn’t the first night since everything ended, but it is the deepest Adam has slept since then. Something about this house. Something about being in Ronan’s arms without Declan’s footsteps padding alarmingly nearby or the seams of his soul feeling loose in connection to his body. He sleeps so soundly that Ronan runs the pad of his fingertip along the length of Adam’s elegant nose. The Adam who had once sacrificed his eyes and his hands to a magical forest, the Adam who could feel normal about touch, would have flinched awake. This Adam, the Adam that had killed all the others, sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. And oh, Ronan loves him.

He pauses the gentle strokes down Adam’s nose and looks at the watch on his wrist. The time is 3:37am, but Ronan doesn’t think about how early it is or about how tired he’ll be in the morning. Instead, he’s back on the ground, stuck in the lace and a molten hot misery, as Adam straps the watch around Ronan’s wrist. 

Ronan’s eyes fall shut. He tries to call to memory how much nicer it had been to give Adam the watch in the first place. How beautiful it had looked against his boyish hand. How the strap was dreamt to be the perfect size and material to suit Adam. How even though the moving watch hands always told the right time, the ticking was in time with Ronan’s heartbeat. But the latest memory is stronger and Ronan feels like he is drowning in it. 

Careful not to wake Adam, Ronan slips his fingers into the freckled hand holding the quilts. Adam stirs, but only for a second. Only to snuggle closer to Ronan, sighing lips pressed against Ronan’s shoulder. When he settles, Ronan tugs the hand into the cool air and presses it against his face. Palm to nose. Fingers to eyes. Lips to wrist. Then, he carefully returns the watch to its rightful place on Adam’s wrist. He presses a kiss to where the clasp sits against Adam’s skin. 

“Don’t take it off this time,” Ronan whispers. 

In his sleep, Adam’s hold on his waist tightens. 

*

Around 5AM, Ronan slips out of bed and calls Gansey. 

It’s 10AM wherever the Sarchengsey train is in Europe, so Ronan hopes that his late-rising friends will have a moment to spare. 

Apparently, they don’t. Gansey rejects the call. Ronan doesn’t have time to let his heart sink, because Gansey is calling back only a few seconds later, this time on Facetime. 

Ronan has a love-hate relationship with video calls. On one hand, Gansey and Blue’s faces are so supremely comforting, that they take Ronan right back to a time where everyone was in one place. A year when there were dead kings, thin-aired hikes, and so many boxes of pizza. A year when Ronan wasn’t sure who he was, but it didn’t matter because his friends knew him and that was good enough for him. But video-calls also mean seeing his own face, and seeing his own face means being reminded just how much he didn’t know. Just how alone he’d been. 

Only, this time he isn’t alone, is he? Adam is just in the other room. Declan and Jordan and Hennessy and Carmen are all their way, would be there by dinnertime. And after traveling with Bryde, after talking with Declan, Ronan knows more about himself than he thinks he ever has in his life. 

Ronan sits down on his porch steps. He accepts the call. 

“You’ll never guess where we are,” Gansey says without preamble. His hair looks like it’s been through a wind storm and there’s a glossy bead of sweat on his brow. In the background, Ronan hears Blue telling Henry a story he can’t make out the words to. His gaze travels behind Gansey’s shoulder, as if he’ll find Thing Two and Thing Three there, but all he sees is a cliffside and a distant speck that might be castle ruins. Ronan’s heart becomes heavy with a not-unpleasant ache. They’re in Ireland. 

“Ronan?” Gansey asks, because Ronan still hasn’t said anything. 

Then, Ronan covers his face with his hand and starts to cry. 

“Oh, oh Ronan,” Gansey murmurs. There’s some awkward fumbling as Gansey pulls out his wireless headphones and puts them in his ears. “What’s the matter?” 

“God Gansey,” is all Ronan can say. His voice is all hitches and scratches. He cries so honestly, he wonders for a moment if he’ll ever speak normally again. “God.” 

Gansey is an expert in comforting Ronan, but being half a world away brings a unique challenge. If he was here, he’d pull Ronan’s shorn head to his shoulder and run his hand up and down his back. He’d tell Ronan some silly story about a time he’d been in England with Mallory, until Ronan was ready to speak. But here, it’s just Ronan, the sleeping cows, and a fickle full moon.

“Ronan,” says Gansey in a voice that woke the dead. “What’s going on? Do we need to come home?” 

With the back of his hand, Ronan wipes the tears on his cheeks into dried smears. 

“No, don’t come home,” he says. The thought of Gansey coming home just so they could take more drives through the mountain in the Camaro is so tempting, it makes Ronan’s face crumple again. 

“That doesn’t look very certain,” Gansey falters. 

Stronger this time, “Don’t come home. Just.” Ronan wipes at his face again. “Everything was so close to just falling completely apart and I think it’s all just hitting me now. Like I had to choose between Adam’s life and saving the world. Who fucking put me in charge of saving the goddamn planet? And Jesus Gansey, I hesitated. I hesitated because I wasn’t sure I wanted the world if it didn’t have Adam in it.But then I knew that he would have never forgiven me if I had chosen his soul over everything else. I keep picturing an existence where even one thing had gone differently and we failed and—” He draws a deep breath in, forcing himself to breathe. Breathe. Breathe. “Why should I get so many second chances, you know? What have I done to deserve another chance?” 

Gansey is sitting now, resting his chin on the heel of his hand. He says exactly what Ronan hopes he will. 

“Because even though you hesitated, you made the right choice,” he says simply. “I don’t know what you’ve been going through. I expect it’ll take more than a single phone call to catch me up. But I do know that you are good, Ronan. You sometimes make mistakes, but you always do the right thing. You shoulder more responsibility than any other human has, and you do your best. I really admire that about you. I hope you know that.” 

Another stray tear slides down the side of Ronan’s nose and onto the wooden step before him. The strong winter chill bites his damp cheeks and Ronan gnaws on his lip so hard he tastes blood. He hasn’t told Gansey everything. The look on Ganseys face tells Ronan he almost doesn’t want to ask.

“And…Adam?” 

“He’s okay. Hennessey — my friend, another dreamer — she knew that…She saved him. He was lost, but she brought him back to himself. He’s exactly the same, Gansey. He’s alive.” 

Gansey nods, words unable to cover his relief,  but his jaw is tense. “What else? There’s something you need to say.” 

If Declan can tell him without breaking apart, Ronan can tell Gansey.

“Matthew’s dead.” 

A stunned breath whooshes out of Gansey. “What?” he whispers, voice cracking. 

“There was an attack on a hospital. An explosion. He was there.” 

Now Gansey is trying to be the strong one, but his eyes are wet and Ronan can see the news has pierced him down to old roots of this soul. He knows the feeling. 

“Ronan, God. No wonder. I’m so sorry.” He presses his lips together, bolsters himself. “Is everyone else okay? Declan? Your friend Hennessy?” 

“Yes.” 

“And—and Bryde?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Okay.” There’s a beat of silence where Gansey’s audio wooshes with the thunder of wind. Blue isn’t telling her story anymore. “I’m coming home. I know Adam is probably going back to school soon and I don’t want you to be alone at the Barns.” 

Ronan opens his mouth to argue, but Gansey cuts him off. “This is not up for debate.” Ronan hears the unspoken You’re my priority. You’re my highest priority and I need to be there with you. 

“Okay,” he says again. “I’m going to go back to bed. I don’t want Adam to wake up alone.” 

“Good. You both sleep in, okay?” Ronan nods, but his head feels like it’s filled with cotton. “Listen. I love you, man. You’re going to be okay.” 

There were days when a sixteen-year-old Ronan would’ve rolled his eyes and told Gansey to go fuck himself. But this Ronan only runs a hand over the skin around his new tattoo and swallows the rock in his throat. 

“Love you too, Gans. See you soon.” 

Then he hangs up. Ronan sits there for a few seconds, unsure if his legs will carry him back upstairs if he stands.  

A warm, comforting hand finds Ronan’s shoulder blade. He knows Adam’s touch without even turning around, leans into the steadfast comfort the simple gesture brings. The hand is joined by the other, sliding firmly over Ronan’s tense muscles and across his shoulders. Adam’s lips find his hair, a single press, then another, then another, until the kiss is at the nape of Ronan’s neck and he feels like he might start crying again. 

Adam seems to sense this, because he pulls back and moves to Ronan’s front. He says nothing about Ronan’s bloodshot eyes, or the deep frown on his face. He doesn’t complain about how cold it is, or the fact that he isn’t wearing any socks. The lines of his face, beautiful in the daytime and the waking, are somehow even lovelier in the night’s darkness. His lips move around a single word, so quiet it’s lost in another strong breeze. But Ronan already knows what word it is. He’s whispering back the answer. 

“Alter idem.” 

*

They sleep until noon. Adam hasn’t moved much since he wrapped himself around Ronan in an attempt to warm him up. The cold aching that had seemed so unconquerable just a few hours ago is dull and distant now, replaced by the heat of Adam’s body. Chest against chest, pulse falling into sync. Ronan is awake, but it’s only a few minutes before Adam is nuzzling his dusty curls into the skin above Ronan’s heart. 

“What are you thinking about so loudly?” Adam grumbles. 

“If it’s so loud, you tell me,” Ronan answers, the words tangling in Adam’s hair. 

Adam hums, the sound not too far off from another throaty sound Ronan has heard him make before. It turns his insides to something molten and soft. 

“You’re thinking that you’re crazy about me. So crazy, that you’re going to write a poem in latin about my eyes. Or you’ll commission Hennessy to paint a nude portrait of me just so you can stare at it while I’m away, and people will think you’ve become a hermit, but really you’re just—”

“Alright asshole,” Ronan growls. He wraps both arms around him, rolling them until he’s hovering above Adam. The air between them is so thick, Ronan thinks he’d be able to stick his tongue out and taste the need there. Adam’s hands are above his head, pliant and trusting. Ronan makes no move, so Adam smiles. Then, the leash snaps and suddenly Ronan is kissing Adam within an inch of his life. 

It’s not the first kiss they’ve had since Adam’s surprise visit to the Barns, but it’s the first one that Ronan doesn’t worry about. 

There had been a kiss minutes after Ronan had woken up, something so tender and quick, Hennessy had teased them and called them virgins. Then there’d been a kiss goodnight their last evening in Boston, clumsy enough that Ronan felt shaky and out of practice. At the time, he’d been so desperate for another chance, but too outside of himself to feel steady enough to try it.

This kiss is the one with their names scribed into it with red, soulmate string. It tastes like kisses used to before Bryde, before Moderators, before the end of the world. It tastes like Ronan’s prayers for a boy on a bike and every long car ride Adam ever made to the Barns. It tastes different than a second secret, better than snowfall at the Barns, warmer than anything Ronan has ever felt. 

And oh, Ronan loves him, loves him, loves him. 

Adam’s legs fall open, cradling Ronan’s body with needy, tender care.  

Just like that, Ronan feels like he’s been struck and rolls away. His chest is heaving, and though he wants nothing more than to press rewind and situate himself where Adam is hard and aching, he finds he cannot breathe. 

What the fuck is wrong with him? He wants this. In the months of separation, in the days on the run, the only real thing Ronan wanted was to be with Adam — kissing him, holding him, making him feel more loved than anyone else in a 500 mile radius. Now that they’re here, why does Ronan feel like he’ll die if he touches Adam for too long like this? 

It’s in the silent space Adam gives him that Ronan remembers they haven’t had sex in nearly a month. And it’s not the quantity of the separation that turns Ronan’s stomach sour — the piled up number of days — but the reasons . The way he’s changed. The way Adam’s changed. It feels like he’s been doused in ice water to realize that the man he loves — here, right now — is not the same man he’d last made love to. He doesn’t know what sex with this Adam looks like. He doesn’t know how it’s different because of him, either. Are they compatible? Will Adam still love what he sees when he strips Ronan bare, knowing what Ronan is? 

But Adam doesn’t blame him for it—for any of it. Maybe he’s wondering the same thing. If he is, he’s coming to a much more optimistic conclusion. He runs his thumb under the dark circles beneath Ronan’s eyes and gives a gentle smile. 

For a moment, Ronan thinks Adam is about to ask, Are you okay? Or Will you tell me when you’re ready to try again?

He’s relieved to find the question isn’t either of these things. It isn’t a question at all, really.

“You must be hungry.” 

I am hungry, Ronan thinks. Hungry to be able to breathe in air and not feel it burn. Hungry to feel equal parts dreamer and dreamt in his own skin. Hungry for more time. Hungry for the memories of days when he and his brothers were all alive, were friends. Hungry for every trace of skin on Adam’s body and every square inch below it, as far deep into him as he’d let Ronan go.

Ronan answers honestly. “I’m starving.”

In the kitchen, Ronan flips store-bought eggs because the chickens stopped laying in the wintertime. Across the counter, Adam is sipping his coffee (black, two ice cubes, and a splash and a half of creamer — like an insane person), munching on some toast. Without the stress of sleeping boyfriends and lost souls, the color has started to return to his face and his cheeks are almost back to their usual fullness. Ronan still has plans to fatten him up with a make-up Thanksgiving feast and a full Christmas dinner. 

Then, Ronan catches Adam looking at the watch on his wrist. He’s frozen, as if he just noticed it was there. Or, more accurately, as if he’d been so used to it being there in the first place that he’d forgotten it wasn’t supposed to be there. Because he’d taken it off when he tried to leave Ronan. 

The eggs on the stove burned at the edges. 

“I can…take it back. If you don’t want it,” Ronan hears himself say. This is a courtesy, something Ronan very seriously does not want to do. Surely Adam can tell this. Because if the watch had meant Remember me, think of me, Ronan does not want Adam to return that affection, those feelings, to sender. He does not want to move backwards with Adam. Not after everything. 

“I want it,” Adam replies quietly, easily. There’s something hooking back all of what Adam wants to say, but it doesn’t have to do with Ronan. Adam is frustrated with himself.

Ronan wants to cross the room. To pull Adam’s hands into his pockets to warm them. To wrap himself so completely around Adam’s frame that Adam becomes incapable of holding any negative feeling for himself. To speak in clear, articulate words just how highly Ronan regards him, how he believes to his core that Adam is even more magical and beautiful than he is. 

He does none of these things. But he does turn off the stove to keep the eggs from starting a campfire and gives his full attention to Adam. 

“Do you remember in the sweetmetal sea when we were…communicating? Share our, uh, thoughts?” Adam asks. The pit of Ronan’s stomach sinks and suddenly, he isn’t hungry for breakfast anymore. Whatever Adam is trying to get at, it isn’t about bliss of being one soul, or the awe of simply knowing the truth. 

Ronan nods, pressing his lips into a thin line to keep from frowning. 

“You showed me that memory of the way you felt when I took the watch off and left. And I keep seeing it. Ronan, I’ve felt pain and despair, but…” I never wanted to make you feel that way, Ronan hears in the silence. “If it had been the other way around…” 

If it had been the other way around, Adam’s trust would have been broken forever. If Ronan had left Adam sleeping, alone, in the dark, even a shared swim in the sweetmetal sea wouldn’t have been enough to repair the betrayal.

“But you didn’t leave. You came back. I knew every time you came back,” Ronan says. “We already apologized and forgave each other.”

“But you still think there’s a chance I’ll return this to you, like I don’t know what it means.” Adam holds up his wrist. Ronan sees his reflection in the clear glass, has to look away. “I do know what it means. I’m not giving it back.” 

There had been a time just four months ago when Ronan would have tried desperately to believe him. Then, he would’ve come to the conclusion that Adam believed his own words for now, and Ronan just had to be thankful for what he had before he lost it. 

Now, Ronan believes it, because he is well acquainted with the truth and he is even better acquainted with Adam. He loves both. 

“Okay,” says Ronan finally. “Don’t give it back. Come here instead.” 

He opens his arms and Adam falls into them. He smells like their bed and that strange, watered down coffee concoction he likes, and for the first time in several hours, Ronan feels like he can breathe again. 

Adam snuggles further into Ronan, sliding his hands down into the waist of Ronan’s pants so they can rest on the dip before his ass swells. It sends a bolt of electricity from the base of Ronan’s spine to the rest of his body. And in that moment, they are Ronan-and-Adam who survived the end of the world. But they are also Ronan-and-Adam who slow danced on Ronan’s birthday. They are Ronan-and-Adam who plan to fight tooth and nail for this Ronan-and-Adam thing they have. They are each other’s second self. 

“I kinda miss that weird sweetmetal communication thing we did,” Adam mumbles into Ronan’s neck. His breath is damp and hot where Ronan is sensitive, so he can only respond after a few moments of pulling himself together. He wants Adam’s breath, his feelings, his thoughts everywhere. Just the way it had been. 

“Yeah,” Ronan concurs, drawing a finger up Adam’s spine. “Me too.” 

*

Declan, the twins, and Carmen arrive as planned for dinner time. The first thing Ronan feels when they drop their luggage in the entryway is regret that he and Adam never did take advantage of having the house to themselves. But they have time. They have years. An eternity, if their souls wind up in the same place. 

Ronan is too busy mourning the solitude to notice the way Declan drops his last bag and marches toward him. Ronan is engulfed in the second brotherly hug he’s had in the last seventy-two hours, which is two more than he’s had in the last five years. 

“Don’t mind him,” Jordan says, hanging up her coat and scarf. The edges around each of her words are softer than the ones around Hennessy’s. It makes it easier to tell them apart. “He spiraled on the car ride down. Full on mental collapse. I think he very nearly convinced himself that you were still asleep and that he’d hallucinated the last three days.” 

Ronan digs his fingers further into Declan, then. He can’t blame his brother for the disbelief. There’s been a fair share in his own chest. 

“Hi Deklo,” Ronan murmurs, patting his brother hard on the shoulder. Declan mumbles something about how next time, he’s flying down. But he doesn’t let Ronan go. 

“Actually, I think I’m the one who’s hallucinating,” says a familiar voice in the doorway. 

Ronan jolts back and there is Richard Campbell Gansey III, beautiful and familiar and so much older than Ronan remembered him being. Maybe it’s the travel, maybe it’s the sun, maybe it’s living without fear of death. Beside him is Blue Sargeant, holding onto Gansey’s shoulder as she kicks snow off her heels. 

“My god, Gans, no one asked you,” she says. Then she’s sliding across the hardwood in her fuzzy socks into a hug of her own. Ronan catches her before she can glide right into the Christmas tree he and Adam spent the day putting up, hoisting her up so she can place the obligatory kiss on his cheek. Gansey falls to his other side, kissing his other cheek, creating a very misshapan Ronan sandwich. Blue reaches her hand for Adam, who rolls his eyes and joins the pile. And Ronan…Ronan holds on as tight as he can. 

Because there’s a lot that’s gone wrong over the last several days, weeks, months. During the moments he remembers Matthew, he feels so desperate for a redo that he wonders if a person can physically cut themselves on grief. 

But a lot has gone right too. And really? He’s just thankful his friends are home. 

*

Every time there’s a gathering at the Barns, the group just gets stranger and stranger. Three days after the world almost ended, the Barns is hosting its strangest group yet. 

There’s Carmen, the woman who tried multiple times to kill, then save Ronan. She’s sitting mulled wine they picked up in Henrietta on the way in, counting the number of trees covered in snow she can see from the window. She does not know what family looks like anymore, but Hennessy says she’s willing to learn with her.

There’s Gansey and Blue, napping on the loveseat across from the fireplace.

There’s Hennessy at Carmen’s side. Ronan found her one of his old sketchbooks, and it sits in her lap like it had been destined to be there since he dreamt it up in middle school. Her eyes open and close as she sketches what the lace looked like before the memory is erased from unpleasant history forever. 

There’s Jordan, sitting on the ground in front of the coffee table looking through the old Lynch photo album. She doesn’t say anything about how most of the pictures are of Matthew, or how the most creative captions are written in Niall’s script next to pictures of Ronan. She only runs her finger delicately over images of Declan, smiles, and says, “My, how dauntless you look.” 

There’s Declan beside her, careful not to look at the album for fear he’ll see a picture of Matthew that breaks through his careful resolve. Instead, he lays his head on her shoulder, rubbing her left ring finger, trying to imagine the ring he wants to buy her. 

There’s Adam in Ronan’s lap. He’s halfway through some book on government intelligence and how it can aid American social work, undisturbed by Jordan’s chuckling or Gansey’s snoring. 

There’s Ronan carding his fingers through Adam’s hair, also trying not to think about Matthew. Or the ornaments they’d put on the tree that day that Matthew had made in school. Or Matthew’s portrait on the banister. Ronan has to close his eyes. 

Then, there’s Matthew, coming in the back door as if he had only been out for groceries and not presumed dead. 

Declan sees him first, a broken sort of wail falling out of his lips. It’s enough to make Ronan open his eyes, before a shattered cry of his own has interrupted Matthew saying, “Hey, I’m home.” 

No one moves. Matthew’s shoulders droop.

“I walked,” he says simply.

Adam moves out of the way just in time to avoid being flung on the floor as Ronan practically tackles Matthew to the ground. His hold around Matthew’s back is crushing, and it doesn’t matter that he’s in front of a woman who tried to kill him or his brother’s girlfriend — he’s weeping. Declan comes to the back side of Ronan where Matthew’s face is squished up over Ronan’s shoulder. He twists his fingers into Matthew’s hair and presses his lips to his forehead. 

Their knees hit the ground in an unattractive heap, but Ronan feels like he’s finally learned to breathe on his own and the air is fresh, fresh, fresh. 

There’s questions about Bryde, questions about where Matthew has been, apologies, more tears. Then Blue Sargeant is wiping her eyes on the sleeves on her sweater and caressing the side of Matthew’s face. 

“Well, Mattie, are you hungry? There are leftovers.” 

Matthew practically sprints to the kitchen and it’s Dinner 2.0. Matthew eats two helpings of leftovers and gets to have as much dessert as he wants. Declan doesn’t stop him from talking with his mouth full. Ronan doesn’t shrug him off when he insists on eating with one arm hooked through his. All that matters is Matthew came home. 

Matthew came home, Matthew came home, Matthew came home. 

* 

When the commotion has ended, Ronan does the dishes, makes sure everyone has enough blankets, then slips out the back door. He can feel Adam’s gaze on him, even as the screen door screeches to a close. But he needs to get out of the house and if Adam wants to come, then Adam will follow. He always does. 

The frost stiff grass cracks beneath his feet. Cold seeps in through the soles of his boots, but the sensation is so grounding that it takes everything in Ronan to stop from stripping his coat off and lying in the dirt. He can’t remember when he began to feel numb, didn’t even realize how dazed he’d become, until it began to melt away.

 A few paces behind, the grass crunches as another person joins him in the middle of his empty field. 

Ronan turns to Adam, blue eyes bright and crystalline. He’s grinning so hard his cheeks hurt, so he grins some more. There’s laughter teeming at his lips, like a boiling pot about to spill over. Through the patchy moonlight, Adam raises a brow. 

“What is it?” he asks. 

“Post tenebras lux,” Ronan says. And then he does laugh. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and laughs, because there has to be a sound for all this overwhelming joy and it can’t be tears. He’s cried enough. 

It ends up being a failed effort, because once Adam joins in the laughter, they’re both doubled over in the field, wiping tears from their eyes. Hands clutch into stomachs, lungs heave in desperation to get ahead of the laughter, but they can’t stop. In the mess, their knees knock together and they tumble into the snowy mud. Ronan doesn’t care if they look crazy from the house window. He wants to live in this moment as long as he can — he doesn’t think he’s ever been so happy in his life. 

Eventually, the laughter dies down but the joy doesn’t. Ronan reaches for Adam, but finds that Adam is already reaching for him. They embrace — this new Adam, this new Ronan. They fit so perfectly together, it was a wonder Ronan ever doubted they would.

“I don’t think I’ve ever believed until now that I had the rest of my life ahead of me, you know?” he admits, swaying blissfully in Adam’s arms. “Especially when Glendower ended. Especially when the nightwash started. I was so angry and so lonely because I had it in my head that I had like, a year left. And a part of me was holding out for the future we talked about, but the more it crumbled about, the more I just resigned myself to the fact that I’d never be happy. No matter how hard I tried.” 

“And now?” Adam whispers. 

“And now I’m so fucking happy I feel like I’m gonna puke rainbows.” 

Adam groans. “Ugh, please don’t.” He presses a kiss to the underside of Ronan’s jaw, lingering longer than he probably planned to. “I know the feeling. When I lost my hearing and I left home, it felt like all my efforts were just worthless. But then someone helped me find an apartment, and then someone paid my rent, and I was on my feet again. But the best part was, I got to find out what it felt like to fall in love. That’s when I knew I could be happy.” This time he kissed Ronan’s mouth. “Now I get to help return the favor. But Ronan, you deserve to be happy, because you’ve worked for it. Those people in that house wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.” 

For the first time, Ronan feels himself believing it. Just a little. 

“Okay,” he says. 

Is it normal, he wonders, to adore a person so much? To feel your own blood, equal parts red and longing? It’s making his skin itch to be touched and his soul press hard against his ribs, trying an escape. But god, the ache is so nice. He wants more. He wants to feel Adam under his skin. 

He wants Adam to touch him. 

Across the field, the wind rustles the treetops into a quiet shhh noise. The apples of Adam’s cheek had turned bright red from the wintry bite. Ronan’s own are stinging. He tangles their fingers together in the cold dirt. 

“Let’s go to bed,” he says, love in every vowel and consonant. 

“We should probably take a hot shower. We’re filthy,” Adam laughs. 

“Okay,” Ronan agrees. “We’ll take a shower and then we’ll go to bed.” 

Now Adam’s face is red for a different reason. His eyes dart to Ronan’s chapped lips, then back up to his eyes. He doesn’t speak — only stands up, pulls Ronan up after him, and leads him into the house. 

The house is quiet in a way only Springer’s Falls can be as the extended Lynch family finds some well deserved rest. Ronan’s heart tugs hard when Adam navigates the house, successfully avoiding every creaky floorboard, every squeaky stair. He belongs here, Ronan’s heart sings. He’s always coming back. This is his home. He belongs here. 

When the bathroom door clicks locked, Adam undresses Ronan in the dark. He’s done this dozens of times — in bright summer morning light, in the dusky orange of the sunset, and in the blackness of their room. His movements are confident and faultless as Ronan’s shirt drops to the floor, then his pants, then his boxers. Adam’s touch is running up and down the length of Ronan’s strong thighs, dangerously close to where Ronan wants him. Adam reaches for him, ready to take him into his mouth, but Ronan drags him up by the chin. They’re eye to eye now, chests heaving. 

“You next,” Ronan murmurs, but he’s already tugging Adam’s shirt over his head. He takes his time, the way people unwrap Christmas presents when they know something fragile is waiting for them. His hands slide flat across Adam’s ribs and he can feel the racing of his heart underneath. His breaths come out in hot puffs against Adam’s bare shoulder. “Do you know that when I first saw you, I asked for divine intervention?” 

 A shiver trails through Adam, but he laughs. “You what?” 

“You became the subject of many, many desperate prayers” Ronan says, trailing his lips across Adam’s collarbone and up his neck. “Tell me, Parrish, do you think they were answered?” 

This time it’s Adam tugging Ronan by the jaw, pulling him into a sloppy kiss that’s all groans and tongue. 

“Not sure,” Adam replies, breathless. “But I want to give you everything, just to be sure.” 

He turns on the water almost as hot as it will go and pulls them both under the steaming spray. Ronan lets Adam fuck his hand until he’s gasping and teetering on a dangerous edge,  switching out Adam’s painfully hard cock for a bar of soap. Adam sags against the tile with a frustrated moan, though he leans into Ronan as he runs the soap up and down his back. 

For once, Ronan can take his time. They had fucked slow before, made love so tenderly it would’ve made Cupid cry. But in all those other instances, there’d been a quiet thought in his mind that he was taking his time because one day, he’d run out of it. 

Now they have forever. 

When they’re bare, under the quilts they woke up in that morning, Ronan feels that soul-deep longing under his skin once more. Adam is too far, he thinks. There’s barely an inch between them and they’re too far apart. 

“Touch me,” Ronan begs. Laughter trickles out of Adam because he already is touching him — up and down his legs, along his sides, across the swell of his ass. But Ronan can’t think straight, can’t hold onto words that are more than just mush in his mouth. “God, don’t stop touching me. Adam, please. ” 

Adam takes Ronan into his hand, giving a few perfect tugs. It feels unbearably good. It feels like Ronan is possibly on the verge of death. It feels like it isn’t nearly enough. 

With a snarl, Ronan fills his hands with Adam’s bare ass and tugs him into his lap. Caught off guard, Adam falls forward, chest to chest — just as they had been that morning. Ronan catches Adam’s mouth, paying him back tenfold for the filthy kiss he’d gotten earlier. How could he ever want anyone other than Adam Parrish? How could anyone in the world want someone who isn’t Adam Parrish? Each bite of lips in teeth is a staked claim, tossed back and forth between them until the message is unmistakable: I am yours, you are mine, I am yours, you are mine. 

The weight of Adam laying across him is still not enough. Ronan’s fingers tangle in the hand Adam is holding the back of his neck with, guiding it down between his legs. Adam mistakes the gesture, almost wrapping his beautiful hand around Ronan’s weeping dick. But Ronan shifts the lower, making Adam drop his face into Ronan’s chest. 

“God, yes. Whatever you want. Ronan, whatever you want. Ronan, Ronan, Ronan.” 

They work in tandem —  Ronan pulling one of his pillows to rest beneath his hips, Adam leaning over to the bedside drawer for a condom and the bottle of lube. 

Their foreheads are pressed tight together when Adam slips the first finger inside Ronan. The sensation is good, like the first piece of Adam’s being has begun to meld into him. The second finger brings some bite with it — it’s been too long since Ronan has had the privacy to do this himself. Too long since Adam has been around to help him. But eventually the muscle gives, and with the last finger, Ronan is writhing and ready. 

Ronan thinks there’s rustling as Adam puts the condom on and gives himself a few strong, lubed strokes, but he can barely focus over the roaring in his ears. Everything is Adam, Adam, Adam. He wonders if this is what it feels like to drown. To let your body go lax and slip deeper under a force that won’t let you breathe. If it is, it’s an awfully good way to go. 

Adam is lined up into place — one arm propped up next to Ronan’s head, the other guiding himself at the right angle. But before he can drift forward, Ronan grabs his cheeks. 

He’s overwhelmed, he thinks. If he doesn’t say this, he’ll start to cry. Or maybe he’ll cry either way. 

“I love you,” Ronan gasps. The tingling longing under his skin is finally breaking out. “I love you so much, Adam Parrish. Tamquam alter idem and all that shit, okay? I really love you.” 

With a single push, Adam presses in. Ronan bites his knuckles to keep from keening, but Adam brushes the hand away and kisses him. 

“I love you too, weirdo.” 

Then he’s moving slow and hard. What a fucking miracle, Ronan thinks, that this is all his. He gets to have this . What a miracle that he’s in Adam’s arms and he gets to just be Ronan Lynch. Not the Greywaren, not the Zed responsible for the end of the world, not the dreamer who brought so much good and bad into existence. Just Adam’s Ronan. 

Adam fucks Ronan with precision Ronan forget he had. But how could he have forgotten? Adam is studious about the things he likes. And this? This might’ve been one of Adam’s favorite things to learn. 

He tugs Ronan’s knee up, changing the angle, immediately hitting the spot that makes Ronan forget he’s a person. With Adam like this, he’s just energy of a man, not unlike the Lace, only purer and safer. Adam is muttering with each push forward. Something about how fucking beautiful you are, Ronan Lynch. I just can’t get over how much I love seeing you like this, gasping and begging for it. You’ll always let me have you like this, won’t you? Shit fucking damn. 

He must be getting close, because he reaches down and clasps  his hand tight over Ronan’s cock. Ronan gasps, fisting his hands into the sheets and letting himself give in to every last burst of pleasure as it swells and swells and finally crests over. Adam muffles Ronan’s broken cry with his mouth,  lips on lips for the sake of contact, but too far gone for a real kiss. Ronan wraps his legs tight around Adam’s ass, holding him in place and they both spend themselves. 

Ronan doesn’t want Adam to move, but he’s too sensitive to lay like this forever. Adam seems to sense this and carefully pulls himself away. He shifts to the edge of the bed to dispose of the condom, but Ronan doesn’t let him get very far. 

“I’m just going to get a washcloth,” Adam says, pressing his lips to Ronan’s forehead. 

It’s only when the door clicks shut behind Adam that Ronan covers his face with his hands and ponders how supremely fucked he is. But when Adam returns with a smile and a towel, Ronan opens his arms and decides he doesn’t want it any other way. 

*

According to the watch on Adam’s wrist, it’s 3:37AM. Adam is fast asleep and naked pressed up against Ronan. It’s convenient, Ronan thinks, that he found a life partner who looks so pretty when he sleeps. Otherwise being an insomniac would be pretty boring. 

Only, this isn’t one of the sleepless nights. Up until about two minutes ago, Ronan had been sleeping just as peacefully as Adam. There were dreams, of what though, he can’t quite remember. All he does know is that when he woke, there was a thin gold ring in his hand. Somehow, even in the dark, Ronan knows that the etchings he feels on the surface are mountains and trees — a recall to this place, to the Blue Ridge, to Cabeswater, to Lindenmere, to the Forest that dreamt him. 

It’s too early to give it to Adam yet, though. He still has three and a half years of college, and after that, who knew? But he’d give it to Adam — someday. 

Ronan slipped out of bed, just as he had the night before. Only this time, it’s to hide the ring away in a drawer of his father’s clothes. 

When he returns to bed, Adam stirs. 

“You alright?” he rasps, running a hand over Ronan’s chest. 

“Yes,” Ronan says truthfully. “I’m alright.” 

[wander-wren]

Wren’s Concept Box

i always have a thousand ideas for different fics in my head, so this is where i keep track of them! since these are just ideas i’m throwing around, you’re also welcome to take them for yourself, as long as you tell me so i can go see it and hype you up!!

my current wips generally take priority, but i’m always down to just chat about everything here. i’m also a rlly big pushover and easily convinced to write things, lol, so do with that what you will. obligatory disclaimer that there’s no guarantee i’ll write anything here, and if i stop being interested in a concept i’ll delete it.

Upcoming Fics

these fics are almost certainly going to be written eventually bc they’re connected to current wips/completed fics, i just haven’t gotten to start them yet.

three of swords- power of three rewrite following my other rewrite fics. main changes: three are born in windclan, sol actually has a purpose, and their powers have been…reimagined. also hollyleaf has a power.

sign of the four- omen of the stars rewrite. main changes: dovewing is the fourth cat, not firestar. other changes TBD.

hold my hand (i’ll lead you through)- working title, third installment in the emetophobic!adam verse, but WAY fluffier than the others. more montage/character study style of the gangsey helping adam.

Other Ideas

everything not 90% guaranteed. ordered alphabetically by fandom, and in no particular order after that. a few have titles, most don’t.

BNHA

there’s beauty in the bleeding (at least you feel something)- touch-starved!todoroki who doesn’t know how to get touch except via sparring. eventually some?? people?? figure it out and there is fluff

snowed in- huddling for warmth/mission gone wrong bkdk with todoroki third wheeling, and potential ot3?

only time we’ve held hands (i threw a punch and you caught it)- the title is the concept i just Like It. definitely bkdk, maybe…soulmark fic? idk.

dabihawks old guard au- i wrote in this universe for whumptober and had a lot of fun, so i’m definitely down to write a full longfic with it at some point. when i have fewer longfics in progress lol.

The Old Guard

joenicky character study- them through the ages. for the express purpose of writing their final death bc i have Thoughts and Opinions on it but i don’t just want to write it by itself, yknow?

The Raven Cycle

gansey and the ship of theseus- the world needs more gansey angst! i imagine my guy has weird feelings about being resurrected twice. sarchengsey roadtrip era

pynch & possession- just adam post That Scene at the end of the raven king hating himself/being terrified bc he hurt ronan

cambridge, take two- a different version of ronan going to harvard in cdth, with no murder crabs but still angst. honestly i don’t remember what i thought with this and my notes have like no details but i’m intrigued.

soulmarks- au where people get to choose soulmates, and they can be unrequited. once you choose someone, a mark appears on the first place they touched you, like a tattoo, that represents them. if they choose you back, same thing. ik that destroys the idea of soulmates but i like the idea of the gangsey choosing to be bound to each other.

pynch mind reading- after cabeswater possesses adam, either he can hear ronan’s thoughts or ronan can hear adam’s, or both. then they fall in love, or something.

genderbent pynch- no thoughts i just rlly like lesbians. girl!ronan owns my entire soul.

Six of Crows

character studies- thats all, just. getting in their heads. a little series. i have a nina one i wrote for a friend as a gift but that was like two years ago and i’m afraid to check if it holds up. but i like doing them.

Warriors

mosskit lives au- i had this idea ages ago where mosskit survives and somehow manages to reach bloodclan? and becomes it’s leader instead of scourge? idk about the logic there. but they (they’re nonbinary to me) are obsessed with revenge on bluestar and become the Actual big bad of tpb, pulling the strings on everything.

swiftgorse- i was introduced to swiftpaw/gorsepaw and idk what i’d do with it but i’m very interested

Welcome to Night Vale

ripping at the seams- cecil finally cracks under the pressure of being night vale’s voice. the “stuck in my booth, only able to narrate and not to help” quote inspired this.

carlos 113 aftermath- i have a note about carlos learning about the events of 113 and freaking out but i don’t fully remember that episode or my thought process. i’m still intrigued.

[froggybeans3]

richard gansey falling off his horse: a fan fiction

the enemy kingdom has seized your carriage, you're scared, frightened, your fingers tremble in fear as you reach for the dagger at your side. but oh no. a hand reaches and smacks the dagger out of your hand. you're defenseless as you kick and scream while they bind your hands behind your back. you feel hopeless, unworthy, betrayed. but what's that? on the horizon over there! a brave knight riding his horse to slay your captors! he makes haste with taking down your captors. slashing his sword in beautiful arcs all while maintaining perfect form on his snow-white steed. you're in awe as he lifts off his helmet. it couldn't be. the king's poet himself, richard gansey iii has come to your rescue. you look up at him in his horse, staring at his perfectly fluffy brown hair and wired framed glasses. his gaze is wild, a version that's very different from the all knowing, perfectly proper gansey you thought you knew. "just remember to keep your thumb outside of your fist when you're ready to strike" he says. and then with a laugh "trust me, it's a lot harder than it looks.” he prepares to dismount his horse, swinging his left leg over it's saddle. just as he's about to jump down he loses his balance, falling straight onto his face and breaking his glasses. your image of gansey is ruined form here on out so you look down, pat him on the back, and steal his horse. riding off into the distance you consider looking back, but chose not to. after all, his name is richard. the end.