**this chapter could be considered mature. also i mean to post it a month ago but i've been crazy busy. the story will continue once i have read book 3*

Blue stared at them, mouth open, and looked at Gansey as if for confirmation that she'd heard the words correctly and it wasn't a joke.

He gave her a nod and she narrowed her eyes first at Adam then at Ronan. The way her eyes skittered over him told Adam a lot about the awkwardness still between them. Would it ever go away?

"You're serious?" she said.

"I don't lie," replied Ronan, as he was fond. After all, it was the truth. He met Adam's gaze for a second.

"You've been hiding this for over a month?" she demanded. Her voice was skeptical, incredulous. Now she had to rearrange her entire view on them both. Adam's stomach knotted.

"That isn't that long," he muttered.

"We could've kept it for years," pointed out Ronan.

"No," she said, stubbornly. "You couldn't have. Not something as big as this."

Adam looked at Ronan. Was she right?

Adam left with Gansey to his parents' house.

The night before, he and Ronan lounged in Ronan's room and taunted Chainsaw and then they went for a walk and Ronan pinned Adam up against the wall of St. Anne's, the city dark around them.

Gansey rolled his eyes, knowingly, at them as they walked out the door. He was settling well, accepting well. Occasionally Blue teased them, even in public, but of course it was a secret to the rest of Henrietta. Except perhaps 300 Fox Way and Joseph Kavinsky.

It was all beginning to feel normal.

Adam came back. Ronan had crashed the Pig and then dreamt another one with Joseph Kavinsky. Of course, thought Adam, of course.

Gansey voiced this aloud.

Ronan sucked in air, blew out air. He looked at Gansey. "I have something else to tell you, too..."

Magic was real. He had shown them that when he told them about Chainsaw's origin.

Magic was deplenishing, he told them now. Nothing was the way it should be anymore. Thanks to Adam's own sacrifice, he could already feel that in his muscles, in his bones. Having words to it gave a certain bit of his mind peace, no longer scrambling quite as desperately.

"What can we do?" asked Blue, frown lines on her brow. Her hatred of being normal stood out in her eyes. She wanted to be able to help, to offer psychic insight. All she could do was speculate.

"I don't fucking know," Ronan answered.

None of them knew, until later.

Before that, Adam told Ronan about wandering around lost and not remembering a thing and his heart clamored in his chest and Ronan pressed his hand, palm flat, over it and kissed his lips softly.

It was nighttime. The barest of chills hung on the air. Magic flickered all over the place. Its erratic tempo thrummed in Adam's blood.

It thrummed between he and Ronan.

They stood in the little room above the church. The only light was throwback from street lamps and businesses, catching on the window like dew. Their foreheads touched. Ronan inhaled his breaths slow and careful, a guide for Adam to follow until his heart had slowed.

"We'll figure it out," Ronan whispered.

Adam wasn't sure he believed him. He wanted to. He fisted his hands at Ronan's shoulders and opened his eyes. Ronan was already looking at him, so he brought their mouths together. He undid the soothing they'd done with wet tongue and frenzied yanks, bringing his pulse up to speed again.

Ronan slipped Adam out of his shirt and scraped his collar bone with teeth. Adam unbuttoned Ronan's jeans. They were shoeless. It was easy to shove down pants, socks as collateral.

Adam paused with his fingers gently pulling on the waistband of Ronan's underwear. He was breathing hard. The mattress pressed at his ankles. Ronan's skin was smooth with shadows, swirling ink.

Their eyes met. Fingers grazed Adam's ribs. They hadn't really talked about anything more than a little fooling around since the time Gansey and Blue had interrupted.

"Are you sure?" asked Adam as he had then.

"Are you?" Ronan hissed. His lips pressed soft to Adam's temple.

Adam silently posed the question to himself. His skin flushed. He pulled away from Ronan, knelt by the desk, and pulled lube and condoms out of a drawer. Ronan gleamed. Adam flushed hotter, breath hitching.

"Yes," he said. His voice was stronger than it sounded in his head. His lungs trembled.

Ronan slipped off his underwear and didn't give Adam a chance to appreciate the nudity. He stepped forward, he grabbed him, he dragged him down to bed.

They moved more slowly than he had imagined they would, because of course he had imagined this. He wasn't surprised that Ronan was gentle; he had come to expect that a long while ago.

Ronan slid his hands up and down Adam's back, scratching the way he did Chainsaw's feathers, and kissed from one shoulder to the other. He murmured Adam's name and his breath and the urgency in his voice covered Adam in shivers.

He used his tongue to make a path down Ronan's torso and nibbled at his navel while Ronan twisted and sucked in air. He hesitated at his cock. Then, before Ronan could tell him he didn't have to, he took it in his mouth.

His reward was a bucking of hips, fistfuls of his hair being tugged, and a "son of a fucking, Adam".

He didn't have any finesse, wasn't sure, exactly, what to be doing, but Ronan kept moaning, his voice kept catching, he held his hips back so he didn't gag Adam. Instead he sort of swiveled on the bedsheets, and Adam took him in deeper while holding his gaze. Ronan choked, closed his eyes, threw his head back into the pillow.

"Yes," he hissed, and it was hard to smile around a dick, but Adam managed. He hummed, and Ronan hissed again, this time incomprehensibly. "Adam, you fucking-" His words cut off in a moan, as Adam tentatively cupped his balls and swirled his tongue on Ronan's tip. It was a heady taste, not entirely unpleasant, but the best part was Ronan's chest heaving, his half-formed syllables, every movement a curse and a plea. "Adam-" he whispered, and then his hips were jerking and he was coming. Adam wasn't ready and yanked back, lips popping off with an obscene sound. Cum hit him in the throat and chin and, startled, he laughed.

Ronan looked up. His face spread in a grin, and he laughed wildly, too. He tugged Adam up and wiped his face clean with the heel of his hand. He kissed him, and he reached blindly for the lube and a condom and pressed them against Adam's hip.

"Now I want you to fuck me," he murmured against the hollow of Adam's throat. He lifted his head and met Adam's gaze with heavily lidded eyes. Adam's skin went molten.

He smiled back and dragged his bottom lip against Ronan's ear. "I can do that," he whispered, nipping skin as he traveled downward again. He urged Ronan to roll onto his stomach, gaining confidence as his opened the lube and coated his fingers in it.

He dragged them down Ronan's ass. Ronan hissed, hissed louder and clamped teeth down on his arm as Adam rubbed around the rim of him.

He slid his finger in slowly, skin thrilling at the newness as Ronan stretched to make room, as Ronan let off a string of swear words and ground his hips against the sheets. "Adam," he groaned. Pleaded.

Adam had to smile now, euphoria and need mixing uncomfortably in his veins. He added another finger, a little more lube. He was aching, aching hard now, to think he was preparing Ronan for himself.

He added a third finger. "Fuck fuck fuck," Ronan choked hoarsely and arched back and took Adam's fingers deeper. On impulse, Adam skimmed his teeth over Ronan's ass cheek. His heart pounded, ecstatic. "*Adam," he repeated, desperate.

"Are you begging me?" he asked, breathlessly. His ribcage shook.

"Yes."

Adam grinned. He removed his fingers slowly and bit his lip as he slipped the condom over himself and then liberally applied lube. He slid up over Ronan and kissed the nape of his neck, the head of his cock pressing lightly into Ronan's ass. Ronan turned his head and met Adam's eyes. His cheeks were red, his eyes were damp, his breaths were ragged. Adam stretched his neck and kissed him, brief, then holding his gaze, he pushed himself, slow and gentle, into him.

"Oh God," he rasped, and choked, and buried his face in Ronan's tattoo. He sank in deeper. "Oh fuck, Ronan-"

They had to move desperately after that, Ronan meeting every urgent thrust, their harsh gasps and the slaps of their skin filling the little room. The nuns could probably hear them, Adam thought. A flame burst in his belly and he used one elbow to help hold his weight as the other arm collapsed, the limb brushing beneath Ronan's stomach. His hand grabbed Ronan's dick and pumped, wildly out of tune with their thrusts.

The insane thought that he loved Ronan popped, unbidden, in his head as his orgasm came over him in a sudden jerk of his hips, a sudden explosion in his stomach that curled his toes and practically combusted his sanity.

Weak and pliable and quivering, he sucked mouthfuls of air into his mouth and kept pulling on Ronan's dick until he, too, stiffened with a low groan. He came messily, all over the bed and his stomach and Adam's hand.

"Fuck," he whispered, and slumped as well.

For several seconds they lay there, still. Then Adam slid out and off and tossed the condom into the trashcan beside the desk. Ronan rolled onto his back and smiled at him, tired and satisfied. Adam's muscles - including his heart? - hummed. He smiled back.

He kissed Ronan softly and grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the desk. He wiped clean Ronan's stomach, then his hand, then, halfheartedly, the bed. He lay down beside him and Ronan rolled his head closer, lips brushing Adam's shoulder.

Adam's chest swelled. Tender words? Tender feelings? He didn't say anything at all. Neither did Ronan. They embraced the silence, breathed it in, a little longer, drowsy and smiling.

The stickiness got to Adam, though. He always seemed to carry dirt on him, someplace, but the cum beneath him on the sheet and on his own skin embarrassed him.

He turned his head to Ronan's hair and asked, hesitantly, "Do you want to take a shower?"

"Together?" asked Ronan, tilting his chin. The devil played in his eyes. Adam's cock stirred.

"Yes," he said, grinning.

The world was chaos. The world was lightning and magic and the Gray Man, who had—

God.

This was overwhelming, wasn't it? They were teenagers, for Christ sakes.

That nasty part of Adam reared its head, kept trying to blame Gansey.

But it wasn't Gansey's fault magic was real, wasn't Gansey's fault magic was here in Henrietta and unbalanced.

It wasn't Gansey's fault that Kavinsky was crazy and went up in flames and style.

It wasn't Gansey's fault Adam helped steady Henrietta's power.

It most definitely wasn't Gansey's fault that Adam and Ronan were...that he was...

It wasn't Gansey's fault Adam was scared - terrified? - of what he felt. Because Blue had been the simple thing, and a little attraction, and mutual like, and he did respect her, admire her, an awful lot.

What he felt for Ronan was those things - minus the simplicity, mostly - but also a whole lot more.

They stood in front of the cave and breathed in crisp air. But, before that, they stood among the trees and Adam teared up while Ronan's mother came back to life. He grabbed for Ronan's hand after he had hugged his mother furiously, and now she was with Matthew.

The world was all delight, and melancholy maybe, and the shimmer of power, vivid on the breeze.

Adam and Ronan shared a smile and Ronan squeezed his fingers. Adam was gloriously content. His eyes were yet damp with tears. Ronan's were red, as was the skin beneath.

Adam sidled up closer and kissed the shell of Ronan's ear. Blue was looking at them but that was okay. Caught on a whim, a fireball of feeling that would burn up and suffocate him if he didn't breathe out the smoke, he whispered, "I love you."

So now they were here, in crisp air, and Ronan hadn't spoken a word to him, and Adam felt the weight of a heavy stare, and Adam glanced over but Ronan was frowning at the darkness.

"Are we ready for this?" asked Blue, serious and also frowning. Sensible, though she'd hate to hear it, as she always did.

Ronan laughed, dry. "Is anybody ever ready for anything?"

Was that a dig? Adam didn't know for sure but it clenched his chest anyway.

The content from earlier was completely gone. It had dissipated when Ronan hadn't said anything back, or squeezed his hand again, or kissed him, or even looked at him. And he'd had plenty of time to do any of those things or all.

Blue narrowed her eyes at him, unappreciative.

They had to make the cave safe, and they weren't going to do that tonight. So they returned to 300 Fox Way.

The Gray Man was there, in the driveway. Seeing him made Adam feel sick.

Maura wasn't there, in her bedroom. Not seeing her made him feel sick.

Instead there was a note. The words seared Adam's eyes:

Glyndwr is underground. So am I.