#trcholidayexchange

----

The Michaels parking lot is nearly empty, which is fine for Blue because it means no line, but probably less fun for Ronan who has no one to intimidate.

“You can hold my stuff for me,” Blue says cheerily.

Ronan looks wary, but this was his idea, so instead of backing out he reaches into his wallet. He extends his credit card to her between two fingers.

Blue looks at the card and laughs. “Is everything you own black?”

Before she can take the slick black card from his hand, Ronan pulls it back just out of her reach.

“This card is for selfish gain only. No buying for other people and no—I don’t know, philanthropic shit. Only irresponsible purchases or I take it back.”

Blue realizes that this feels hypocritical. She thinks of all the lavish things that Gansey could have bought for her had her principles not eroded his will to ask. She understands that Adam’s pride is only a more saturated version of her own in some respects, especially when it comes to money. Less than a year ago she never would have encouraged this: reckless spending of other’s money on her behalf. She had principles too, after all!

But. Seeing Ronan happy weirdly made her happy too. Another thing Blue wouldn’t have thought possible only a year ago.

She has an image to uphold, though, so she rolls her eyes. “Fine, fine. Are you going to make me solemnly swear that I am up to no good?”

“What?”

“Just give me the card.”

----

“Real talk, what do you even use all this yarn for?” Ronan asks. He’s been given the precious task of holding most of Blue’s haul, so approximately three hundred bags of crafting materials are buckling his knees a bit as he walks to the BMW. Blue, on the other hand, is holding two bags.

“I’ve been crocheting tiny little outfits for Chainsaw for months, now,” Blue says with a shrug. “You’ll see them when winter comes. It’s too warm for them right now.”

Ronan does not respond to this, probably because he can’t tell if she’s being serious or not. (She is.)

“I’m also pretty good at knitting fingerless gloves,” she says with pride, opening the trunk for Ronan.

“Why not ones with fingers?” he asks with a twist of his mouth.

Blue puffs out her chest. “Fingerless looks cooler.”

Ronan stares for a beat. Then another.

Blue sighs. “Fine, real gloves are harder to knit. Happy?”

And weirdly, Ronan is. His pale blue eyes are lighting up again, in that gleeful way that means he’s thinking of crimes to commit.

“I have another idea.”

----

They’re back at Monmouth, and for reasons Blue cannot fathom Ronan is taking one of her pairs of knitted gloves from Gansey’s desk and walking with purpose to his old bedroom.

“If you’re secretly a seamstress I’m going to lose my mind,” Blue says as she follows him, trying to figure out what this plan of his could be. She only gets more confused when he pulls out an umpire’s mask from under his bed, and a what appears to be a goalie’s hockey stick.

Blue looks at him, puzzled. “I thought you played tennis.”

Ronan extends the sports gear towards her. “They’re for you.”

In her confusion, Blue actually finds herself accepting his offerings in her hands, not understanding until she sees Ronan lying down on his old bed, her shimmery purple knitted glove lying on his chest.

“You’re dreaming?”

Ronan levels his gaze at her. “You better put your gear on, you get to squash anything extra I bring back.”

This definitely should have been on The List. Why wasn’t it on the list? What is he even dreaming for?

Blue doesn’t even get the chance to ask. Ronan’s already asleep, breath coming out even and slow.

“Jesus Christ, Ronan,” Blue says, scurrying to slip the mask onto her face and adjust the straps. It’s when she finally figures out how to fasten the thing to fit her head that she notices the gloves lying on Ronan’s chest have knitted fingers now, and Ronan is lying much more still than he was just a few minutes ago.

After a few moments of pregnant silence, Blue gripping the handle of the hockey stick vigilantly, Ronan awakens, sitting up and smiling victoriously and holding out a glove for Blue.

“Try it on.”

She slips her hands in, feeling lumpy spot in the palm where she missed a stitch. It’s still the glove from before, just with knitted fingers that perfectly fit her small hands. It takes a second for Blue to realize it, but after a second she asks:

“Are these generating heat?”

Ronan grins again, pleased with himself.

Blue looks down at herself. “What was the point of me putting all this stuff on?”

Ronan hums. “Mostly to make you look dumb.”

“Ronan!”

“It was also a precautionary measure.”

Blue glares, not fully buying it.

“Well, what do you think?”

Blue looks at her gloved hand, feeling the gentle pulse of heat warm her fingertips and knuckles, and admits that it’s a pretty damn impressive. She thinks of the bags and bags of yarn dumped on the pool table, and gets an idea of her own.

---

Gansey and Adam return the following day, exhaustion set deep in their bones after a weekend of political showboating.

“Do you think they’re okay?” Gansey asks Adam as they climb the dusty stairs to the second floor of Monmouth.

Adam can’t help the dubious expression on his face. “They probably would have called if something bad happened, right?”

Now they both look dubious.

Gansey reaches for the doorknob with an air of confidence neither of them really has, squaring his shoulders briefly before jimmying the handle and opening the door quickly, like ripping off a band-aid.

The scene they are greeted with is unexpected, to say the least.

There’s gloves everywhere. At least twenty pairs, strewn across the pool table, littering the floor, hanging off the edge of the leather couch—the leather couch where their significant others happen to be laying down, Blue on one end with her socked feet in Ronan’s lap, and Ronan with his legs kicked up on the coffee table before him. Blue is holding a plastic contraption with tiny pegs in her hand that contains about three-fourths of a glove, and Ronan is holding a bowl of unidentifiable food, extending a ladle towards Blue’s face and earnestly trying to get her to eat it.

“I told you! I am not trying your death soup!”

“How do you know it’s bad if you haven’t tried it?”

Beside Adam, Gansey clears his throat delicately.

Blue and Ronan glace over the back of the couch.

“Hey! You’re back!” Blue says sunnily.

Adam looks at the room skeptically. “Do we even bother asking?”

Blue and Ronan beam at him and answer simultaneously.

“No!”

Adam would have accepted that, but Gansey, being more inquisitive by nature, presses on.

“Gloves? You know it’s September, right?”

Ronan scowls. “Is this how you react to our collaborative crafting efforts, Dick? I expected better from you.”

Blue’s petulant frown matches Ronan’s, and that’s how Adam knows that they’ve allowed those two to spend far too much time together and it’s best to separate them immediately. Adam reaches over Ronan’s shoulder and grabs the bowl from his hands and takes it to the kitchen/bathroom/laundry, knowing that soon after Ronan will follow. He makes it to the sink before he feels Ronan pressing against his back and placing a kiss on his shoulder.

“Miss me?” Adam asks, turning to accept Ronan’s affection fully. Ronan Lynch, terror of Aglionby Academy and dreamer of treasures and horrors alike, is a cuddle whore in ways Adam would have never believed a year ago. Ronan nuzzles his face into the crook of Adam’s neck and hums.

Adam wraps his arms loosely around the small of Ronan’s back and they stay like that for a while, until Adam finally asks. “So how was your weekend with Blue?”

“Productive,” Ronan says. Adam can hear the smirk in his voice and isn’t sure how he feels about it.

Ronan disentangles himself from Adam without warning, striding from the kitchen portion of the room to the laundry machines.

“Got you a present.” Adam bristles a little, before Ronan amends, “Made you a present.”

Ronan grabs something from atop the washing machine and launches it at Adam, who curses and barely manages to catch it.

A pair of gloves. Adam isn’t sure why he expected anything else. They’re hand-knitted, clearly, the cuff and palm made of a few different types of yarn in various shades of green, almost making it look like interwoven vines. The moss-colored fingers themselves look different, the stitch much tighter and the texture feeling almost velvety. He flips the gloves over and back a couple times, but finds no seams.

“Well, try ‘em on, Parrish. We don’t have all day.”

Adam tries not to look skeptical as he slips his fingers inside, tugging the cuff of the glove with his other hand until his fingers are touching the tips of the glove. A perfect fit.

“They’re nice—” Adam starts placating but stops when he feels a warmth radiate from tips of his fingers down to his palms. That, and something else. There’s pressure on the sides of each of his fingers, almost as if the empty spaces between them were occupied. Like someone else was squeezing his hand.

Adam looks up, seeing Ronan’s own hands clad in gloves he didn’t see him put on. Black, but with an iridescent oil-slick shimmer to them. Ronan’s fingers push together for a moment and release, and Adam’s own hand feels the squeeze.

“For when we’re apart,” Ronan says with a shrug. Acting nonchalant when he’s feeling something big, another Ronan Lynch staple.

Adam grips Ronan’s hand, even though they’re ten feet apart, and smiles. “I love them.”

Ronan smiles back, an open and honest expression that only makes an appearance on the rarest of occasions. Adam only gets to marvel at his boyfriend’s happiness for a moment before he hears:

“There is NO WAY I’m letting you two start a magical Etsy store. That’s a terrible idea and a threat to your safety.”

“I’m just saying, I think Ronan and I could make a killing with our product. They look so good on you!”

Adam perks up a moment and looks at Ronan. “Hey, speaking of killing.”

Ronan looks at him curiously.

“Did you water Gansey’s mint plant?”

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