Gansey had stopped mussing his hair and was staring at him. How long he’d been staring, Adam had no idea. He stared back but found he could no longer compete. This Gansey was different. This Gansey was iron-clad. This Gansey was surveying him without insecurity in a way that was measuring something in his face but Adam couldn’t figure out what that was. He felt judged but not resentful, just wary, anxious. Gansey was sitting close enough that if he didn’t quit staring soon, Adam was going to get up and leave.

Ronan came into the dining room dressed in boxers. He came to stand right next to Adam, pressing into him a little.

“Fuck, it felt good to wash in an actual shower instead of just relying on convenience store pretend water to clean up.”

Gansey snickered. “Pretend-water?”

“Like that shit is actually from Fiji?”

Gansey actually had no idea. He liked Fiji water though.

“Hey, fuckface.” Ronan addressed Adam, poking him in the shoulder. “Play with my dick. It feels so clean.”

Adam, ears turning pink, actually laughed a little. “The fuck?”

“If you don’t, I will,” Gansey said, almost inaudibly, a glint in his eye that indicated he was actually serious. Ronan looked at him sharply; Adam saw this. Gansey didn’t care; his anxiety was weakened against his fury. He scooted his chair over and looked directly into Adam’s eyes, a weapon Gansey had always kept in his arsenal but rarely wielded. And he wielded it masterfully. “All around us, the world is falling apart and being rebuilt into something that does not like humans, magicians and dreamers alike. It's been preying on all of our weaknesses. Sometimes, we succumb.”

“I understand him,” Adam said, mouth dry. “But you, too?”

“Yeah,” Gansey said, suddenly angry. He stood up and adjusted his towel. “Me, too. All of it." He looked at Ronan but Ronan was pointedly staring down at the floor. "How many times? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred?” With the implications hanging in the air, he strode out of the room. Ronan let out a shaky breath. Adam felt as though he’d poked at an ugly truth and forced it to coil up and prepare to strike. He glanced up at Ronan, saw that Ronan wasn’t upset, disgusted, or offended, but ashamed of something, the tips of his ears red with guilt, a sharp edge of relief lining his mouth.

“Of course,” Adam said, the words hurting on their way out. The truth had struck, injecting its venom into Adam’s heart. “A lot’s happened since we last saw each other, huh.” It wasn’t a question.

--

Ah. A painful scene. Thank you for asking!

Other times, Ronan would find himself back in the Subaru, with his own projection of Gansey reaching for him in a way Ronan couldn’t— wouldn’t— let himself think about. Kavinsky was the one with the sex slave. Ronan couldn’t do that. Ronan killed enough people in his dreams. He wasn’t a murderer. He was a murderer. He wasn’t a puppet master. But oh yes, he was a puppet master. Ronan wanted to give in so badly. This moment, being in that Subaru, feeling the car explode beneath him as he raced through snow and light pillars and across impossible lakes and through nonsensical purple forests, he’d wanted to pull over within the absurd beauty. Maybe on the crystal cave lake with the lights at the bottom that turned the water turquoise. Or maybe he’d stop beneath a violet canopy, sunlight streaming down, casting them in hues of lavender and indigo. He’d sit there, in the driver’s seat. He wouldn’t look at Gansey directly; he wouldn’t allow himself to. But he’d undo his pants and pull out his cock. Ronan already knew he’d be hard because it would be a culmination of all the dirty thoughts he’d allowed himself to have about his best friend for years. Every memory, smell, touch. Gansey’s throat bare and sweaty on a humid night during a substance party, the sheen of moisture glowing faintly green from the lights. Gansey’s clothes and hair rumpled and boyish as they went for food in the earliest hours of the morning. Gansey breathless from - well, anything really. Breathless from a hike or a swim. Breathless from anxiety. Breathless from a nightmare or some other dream. Breathless from just having jerked off on webcam for an international girlfriend.

Purple petals would float down and land on the Subaru’s windshield and Gansey would get closer and closer, moving across the middle console and stick shift. Ronan imagined Gansey would look right at him, demanding something from him that Ronan wouldn’t be able to give in that moment, and ashamed, Ronan would turn his face away, but he’d hold his penis up and ready to be swallowed. He’d hold the foreskin back. He’d ignore the precum leaking out from the slit between the glans. He’d ignore it and dive into it simultaneously. He’d give in. He’d torture himself.

You are made of dreams and this world is not meant for you.

Ronan knew that the moment the head of his penis passed between Gansey’s lips, he’d explode like the engine of the Subaru. He’d turn into a pillar of light. Or a crystal shattering at the bottom of a glowing, turquoise pond. Or a waterfall careening down the sides of steep cliffs. He’d turn into that artist’s sunset. He’d fill Gansey’s mouth. Ronan’s fingers would be tightly wrapped within his best friend’s hair. He’d empty himself completely. Just take everything that I am.

The moment, the very nanosecond, that he climaxed into Gansey’s mouth, the image of his come splashing against the walls of Gansey’s mouth all too vivid and distinct, Ronan would jerk upright, sweating, shaking, hard. Painfully hard. And filled with embarrassment and longing and shame. He wasn’t Kavinsky. He wasn’t Declan. He didn’t bring such things into the waking world. He didn’t believe in infidelity. And it was during these times that he was grateful he didn’t have Chainsaw and Opal with him even though he found himself reaching out and over, as though he expected Chainsaw to be nested up on his bed (she’d only done that once). Ronan would blink in the starkness, his hand outstretched, and remember where he was. Then he’d find himself alone in the showers, ignoring the encroaching darkness of the ship, the remnants of apocalyptic ghosts taunting him. He’d stand beneath the spray, looking down at his abdomen, trying, shamefully, to recall the more illustrious details, like perhaps, the way Gansey’s lips looked covered in semen. And then he’d will those images away and think of Adam and try to remember what it felt like to have Adam inside him.

There was so much he wanted that he couldn’t vocalise and the frustration was threatening to tear him apart.

As if the diresome lust wasn’t bad enough, it was getting harder and harder to not wake up without some sort of blackness inside him. Ronan didn’t wake to literal greasy blackness draining from his eyes, nose, and ears. But he could feel it gurgling inside him, like a boiling oily black that was going to spout out of him if he wasn’t careful. Every time this happened, Ronan felt those eyes in the back of his mind, heard the whispers in the pipes, in the walls, under his bed, in the grout of the tiles in the showers, in the shadowy corners just on the edges of his peripheral vision: Greeeeeywaaaren…

--

I think this is pretty self-explanatory. As we can guess, things like hate, selfishness, greed, etc are what created the virus that caused the apocalypse, which is a Lindenmere in pain (a corrupted Lindenmere, spreading rapidly throughout the world). So we can guess that a lot of one's shameful traits, or traits that would betray you, are going to be maximised. The bad parts of people show more than the good, depending on how affected they are by the magical virus.

So, we know, canonically, Ronan's had a bit of a crush on Gansey, if not some diresome lust for him. So this is Ronan's lust beginning to be maximised by the apocalypse. And it gets a whole lot worse than this... :-D

Thanks for asking, Em!!