#pluto tag

Adam had been allowed to indulge enough he grew comfortable in it. Work, school, homework, study, sleep where this could be caught. Meet Blue, on the rare occasion he sought an afternoon at Fox Way—they didn’t have much time to speak, but when this could be allowed, they took full opportunity to pilfer and raid. Gansey, at school, on calls. At Monmouth, when he had moments to spare. Summer was invading, pervasive though it fled and skirt months ahead, and they all jogged alongside this track too aware that the end of semester, and graduation’s grand toll came with a roll of victory and yet another loss. 

Gansey, leaving. Blue, with him. Henry, who Adam resented for coming with the appropriate components to find endearing. He and Gansey had been cut from similar cloth, similar mold. They’d be gone, by May. 

Time may have been running out. 

But for now, he’d accept this sip of greed and nectar in indulgence. Run to well, fill goblet to brim, and gulp, rapacious. Drew himself to max capacity in Blue’s ease in contact, in Gansey’s crinkle eyed laugh, in Henry’s unfortunately infectious energies. In Ronan, Ronan, Ronan. 

There’d been too much, to return to task at hand. Too much to dissect all his discomfort at thought of touching Ronan again; a schedule too piled tenfold high to dare slipping and allow a crumb, knowing it’d turn him ravenous, insatiable, and horrid beast in consumption. Therefore, he practiced in this final thread in restraint. 

Ronan would be leaving, too. Not Virginia. Aglionby, and the decision was not one which Adam provided much bearing or opinion beyond the settle of turmoil in knowing a top mark in Latin would now be his. Which, granted, was a minor blow to pride knowing he’d only won the title because Ronan had all but conceded and backed out the draw at all. But. It was different. Despite all Adam’s foolhardy, preposterous pride it was different. He was a magnificent fool and a slave to his ambition, but just as susceptible to desire as any other creature. More so, even. 

They took moments where could be scrounged, even as Ronan grit teeth through the process in dropping out (which revolved tremendously on Declan’s participation and Gansey’s silver lacquered tongue) and Adam pushed through, packed downtime to every additional shift every extracurricular, padded applications and GPAs to establish grandest echelons in candidate portfolios. Winters were busy, for Adam especially, so moments had become seconds, and Ronan’s drop out of Aglionby would further cleave their moments together. 

It was possibly, perhaps, Adam was about to act rash in his panic—Ronan’s last day, their last dalliance in front lockers, last coincidental premature collision in class period where both of them pretended they hadn’t arrived earlier for opportunity to snipe over shoulders. Grief kept Ronan occupied, too, kept him too melancholic for curling along Adam’s floor—or, they were equally filled with nerves over sharing proximity and temptation of contact when Adam had been so particular in which kind he dished out. There’s a necklace of my fingerprints, I’d rather wait for you to reaccessorize. And that had been respected, at least, for a time. Even if neither was happy about it. 

But Adam hadn’t wanted to return to form with a reminder of his brutality in broken vessel gossamer streaked across Ronan’s neck; so even in Ronan’s huff and the ensuing quarrel which had kept them both silent and scarring with equal jagged edges, he’d held his ground. 

Then, he’d broken. Spectacularly, actually. 

Officially, they’d kissed twice. If you counted the second instance as one, more an experience than it was a singular contact, but he tracked these in starts, stops, and he’d been unable to stop at the time. So, second kiss. There’d been yet to come a third, and the phantom of his first night in the Barns sent his teeth to jitter, pulse threatening to crack skulls inside out, had his fingers twitching to ruck Ronan’s shirt up one more time, one more run, please please please, and all his restraint to decide no, I won’t. 

He hadn’t gone to class expecting a third, but a third he’d gotten. A generous twenty minutes before first period, Ronan slumping in, brow raised at the demonstration in timeliness. Adam, ignoring this smug exterior in favour of shifting: knocking class door shut with a toe, flicking the lock, pressing Ronan against the blackboard until chalk and eraser dust huffed, puffed in distress. Separated, only in the time required to shuffle and accommodate shirts back about skin and belts to clasp pants in place where overzealous hands had begun seeking not-quite-foreign but future familiar ground. Separated only in the time for Ronan to snicker at the slick up in Adam’s bangs, where fingers made delighted plaything of fibers, and helped him press it down, snickering all the while. 

It was a third. In that classroom, a secret to covet in unison. 

Then, it was a fourth, and this was all Ronan’s fault. Really, properly was. Ronan, who’d taken Adam’s invitation as unabashed permission, yanking Adam to bathroom stall (which smelled like shit, and Adam recalled an anecdote that smell and taste were tangled, and winced, but he’d been overrun in sweat of adrenaline residue) and had Adam’s jacket shucked off before warning bells could ring, knee between thighs. 

Adam had gone to World History buzzing, hard, convinced everyone in the halls could read the imprint of Ronan all over him. 

Which he didn’t mind, not all too much. A detail he’d examine later, when time found itself ready to spare. 

Four, became five, became Adam catching Ronan in Gym changing rooms to jostle lockers, or closets and abandoned classrooms in six. Bleachers, on ring of seven, and that had won Adam’s knees incriminating grass stains, mulling back a rumour mill that had only died when a few peers had spotted him with Blue’s hand clasped. And admittedly, no, he didn’t mind, but he’d freaked nonetheless, hid it horridly, and left Ronan irritated enough they’d forgone eight, nine, further in passive aggressive pursuit, caught those markers in brief, frenzied pressures against lockers or Monmouth before Gansey walked in. Enough Adam registered this was possibly not the best way to resolve conflict. But it had worked. Mostly.

They’d forgotten much of their fight, when they hit ten. When Ronan offered Adam a ride, to work after class, and Adam had spent most the week coiled, stressed to pit stains. Had hardly waited, before he cranked both seats back, clambered to backseat, and yanked Ronan’s tie off the loop in favour of snatching all oxygen out vicinity, red in face, with five minutes before shifts and a heel grinding friction to Ronan’s crotch.

This has been just about the point Adam had ceased keeping count.

He had an inkling, far-fetched as it may have seemed, that they’d long run out of tallies to keep.