#i wish my dad/his family were less secretive. its not that he purposefully obscures the truth but he doesnt want to talk about anything

[thechiton]

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[seekthemist]

I have not been able to stop thinking about Adam meeting the Lynches when Niall was still alive and being THIRSTY A F for Ronan's dad, it has been on my mind ALL DAY and I don't have the time to do a fic but one isn't magically appearing for me to read. How dare you. (💖)

Referring to this post over here.

LISTEN, THE LYNCHES ARE UNFAIRLY HOT AND ADAM AND HIS BI THIRST HAVE ALL OF OUR UNDERSTANDING.

And I mean, I was procrastinating wildly so excuse me while I just...

The thing is, in a universe where Niall never died and the Lynch family was never broken into pieces, Monmouth Manufactory keeps being the headquarter of the gang’s missions--when they don’t reconvene at Nino’s--and Ronan keeps them studiously away from the Barns.

Adam thinks he has a good grip on the Lynch family. He met Matthew, and Declan more than once, because the three brothers are messy but intertwined. He even occasionally witnessed Mrs Aurora Lynch molding Ronan into an approachable and affectionate human shape under the weight of some liberally applied motherly love--the type that left Adam quietly miserable on the inside and standoffish on the outside for the rest of the day.

Ronan’s father travels a lot and Ronan always has heat in his voice when he can be persuaded to talk about him, mostly by Gansey who apparently met Mr Lynch enough times to feel entitled to courtesy enquiries. That, too, is unrelatable for Adam, so he purposefully does not even try to dig deeper into it.

How much difference can it make, to be missing the head of the family? Adam has to deal with enough quiet yearning for the dynamic of the four-fifths he knows personally--and with Ronan’s heated stares, hidden in plain sight, leaving Adam to wonder what can this well-loved boy want from him, what can Adam possibly have to give him.

The only known fact is this: every time Ronan’s father deigns Virginia with his presence, Ronan bails on them as if it’s the Second Coming his catholic heart had been waiting for. Even worth texting Gansey over it.

But this time the boot of Ronan’s BMW holds a little pile of obscure books that Gansey recovered in an even more obscure town library at the border with Washington D.C., and apparently they have to have them.

Blue refuses to come all the way to the Barns in Gansey’s Camaro--which, to be fair, is notoriously unreliable and will make her late for work if stranded as its usual at the roadside. Adam steps out alone from the passenger's seat, and Gansey doesn’t even bother locking the car before leading their way to the main house.

The Barns are generally an organic mess, from what Adam has seen in the rare times he was brought over--alone like a cherished secret, for afternoons in which anything Ronan wanted to share with him hasn’t included his family or their friends.

Today, it’s more like a funfair striking through a war zone, or vice versa.

There is a shiny SUV at the drive away closer to the porch, all the doors and windows are open and for some surreal reason even the animals have gathered around--not only the barn cats or the chickens, but also the cows, and the rabbits, and Adam is pretty sure that thing moving among the closest trees are actually deer.

Adam feels his forehead tense with the disbelieving raise of his eyebrows, but Gansey is already advancing through the open front door so Adam can’t ask--he can only follow.

“Hello, good afternoon, this is Dick, may I be excused for the intrusion?” Gansey asks to the empty hallway, with a polite knock over the door frame to announce himself further.

The fact that he introduces himself as Dick induces another wave of thick envy--the type that is too close to longing--coling in Adam’s stomach. Apparently the Ganseys’ refinement is not enough, and Gansey can smoothly fit himself in another family as well, for good measure.

He drags his feet on the porch, unwilling to tag along like a third wheel--maybe not unwelcomed but not belonging. There is plenty to entertain himself with, after all, surrounded as he is of basket and boxes and fabric bags. It would be a perfect scene from a messy moving, be it not for the fact that the Lynch family has been firmly planted in Singer Falls for the last twenty years.

There is something shimmering through the tape fixtures of one of the boxes, overfull enough that the cardboard of the covering mismatches at the sides. Adam gravitates closer to it as leaves rustle in the wind and birds sing obliviously over the branches.

Even though he crouches beside it, head tilted sideways as if a different angle might give him different insights, Adam would never touch Ronan’s family properties.

He wouldn’t, so he doesn’t know why he feels so guilty when he finally notices the shadow looming over him--over him, and the box, and Adam doesn’t even know how long it has been there.

He jumps to his feet, turning around, and the person behind him doesn’t even move of half a step, forcing Adam to just face him.

The first impression of Niall Lynch is like a little note travelling unexpectedly through a time portal. This is how Ronan is going to look in fifteen years or so, a treacherous voice whispers in Adam’s mind. The blue of his eyes is exactly the same colour, the cut of his face is sharper with age and only made more marked by the not-so-casually perfect stubble. In the light of the afternoon, there are shadows on his face, bent and mutable, cast by the dark curls that frame his face--wilder than Declan’s primness, less innocent than Matthew’s cherubic look.

It’s so difficult, to look away, even if just to take in the effortless mixture of closes that bring casual into business-causal into actually I’m not so sure I care.

Adam’s mouth runs dry, and then drier, as Ronan’s father let him stew in silence and something that is not quite discomfort.

“So, was it interesting?” Niall Lynch says, with exactly the same accent as Ronan, but a bit more marked, his voice lower and whispering as if this is a private mischief between the two of them. “The box, I mean.”

“I didn’t touch anything!” Adam has the embarrassing suspicion that his cheeks are burning, guilty over something that has very little to do with trinkets spread over the porch. “I wouldn’t, Mr Lynch, sir.”

“Wouldn’t you…” Mr Lynch trails off, disbelief teasing in his tone. He raises his voice with distracted self-assurance. “Ronan, you misplaced one of your friends.”

Hearing him call for Ronan makes another wave of incongruent guilt rush through Adam, effectively silencing any attempt on witty reply. It is ridiculous in the first place, to yearn for a witty reply, and yet faced with Niall Lynch’s presence--staged as if they were all playing in his theatre production--Adam cannot not help but feeling the pull.

“Do you want to know what’s inside that?” Niall asks.

It’s a trick question, obviously, and Adam still stumbles over the trap and tries for argumentative with very questionable results. “I looked like it was shimmering, I wouldn’t touch it...but I thought it was interesting.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s plenty interesting,” Niall smiles, and for a moment it’s as suggestive as it feels dangerous, perfect white teeth flashing through.

And then, just as smoothly as he arrives, Ronan’s father walks away and cuts every bargain Adam really feels like making about the content of that box. It’s an infuriating power move, and Adam’s eyes stares him a bit too much on his way towards the inside of the house--all confidence, in all forms.

Adam squirms on two feet, swallowing thickly by himself, just to counter how much he feels like gaping over this first impression.

He should move but he doesn’t, especially because facing Ronan right now would be stupidly complex.

Someone should have told him that Niall Lynch was like this, and at the same time Adam wishes he never knew so first-hand.