Archive of Our Own

The truth is, Adam Parrish dies and no one notices. 

He doesn’t either, but that’s probably because he wakes up the morning after. 

The thing is it happens before he even finishes high school. It happens the night he watches Ronan die in St. Agnes. To the real-Ronan he says Next time you can die alone and feels like shit immediately after he says it. That’s something no one deserves to hear from someone who is supposed to care for them, and Adam knows that he should know that better than anyone. He ought to go find Ronan, drag him out of the church, apologize maybe, do anything but keep thinking about his twisted, mutilated body on the stone floor, but then his father shows up at the door of his makeshift home, his room above the church office, his apartment, if you could call it that. 

 It’s not much, but it’s mine.

Nothing – or no one – is going to take that from him, short of his rent checks running out.

But his father shows up and casts a shadow over the space. He’s never been a particularly immense man, Adam’s father, but Adam knows what he’s capable of, knows what he’s done and what he could do.

A part of him wishes for Ronan to come back, to throw open the door, loud like a gunshot and haloed in a beam of light, big like he always is, a knight in a beat-up leather jacket.

But the rational part of his brain knows Ronan won’t come, knows he’s probably long gone in the BMW, homebound now that Kavinsky is no longer around to ease him into trouble. Ronan needs validation, just like he does, Adam reminds himself, but it’s so easy to forget when Adam sometimes seems to wear him like a shield of armour against the world.

Adam’s trying, though, to be self-sufficient, to be his own person. He needs to have his own back, he figures. But when he doesn’t, Cabeswater does, and his father leaves shortly after he picks out the thorn from his palm.

Adam didn’t realize he’d been crying until he felt the moisture dry on his cheeks. He crawls into bed, under the covers where Cabeswater awaits him.

But he sleeps fitfully, until he just doesn’t sleep at all.

His father leaves him shaking, stifling, too big for his shabby room and his single mattress on the floor.

And it’s that, that feeling of expansion, that drives Adam into the night on foot, walking past the hallowed ground and into the small town.

He’s already treaded a little past Nino’s when he hears her.

“Hey sugar, you got a light?”

The voice is female and the accent is from New Orleans. When she comes into focus under the dingy streetlight, Adam sees dark eyes and lips ruby red with lipstick.

She’s gorgeous, is his last thought. The white glint of her too-bright teeth is the last thing Adam sees before the sun the next morning.

***

The sun hurts in that way that bright lights do after you’ve come home from a full day of school, worked an eight-hour shift at the garage, and then passed out over a history text book that’s as thick as a tome.

Except Adam can’t remember studying last night, much less how he got here. “Here” being the operative word, as it appears to be beside the dumpster of a bar and a convenience store.

But there’s a gas station across the street. It’s the year 2014, and Adam couldn’t be more appreciative that payphones are only an endangered technological species instead of completely extinct. They still exist and he’ll count that as a blessing. Of course Adam would forget his wallet along with his memory, but the dollar and seventy-five cents in his pocket should be sufficient.

He dials Gansey’s number because of course he does. Who else is he going to call when he needs someone to actually answer their cell? If he’s in trouble and this is his God-given, legally sanctioned phone call, he’s going to need someone to bail him out. It’s can’t be later than 8am though, and Gansey’s probably in the shower. On the second ring he almost thinks better of it, but then Gansey picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hey Gans, it’s Adam. Is Ronan there?”

“Yeah, hold on.” There’s the sound of shuffling feet against hardwood and a brief shout of Ronan’s name, far enough from the receiver that it doesn’t strain Adam’s good ear.

“He does have a phone too, you know,” Gansey says matter-of-factly.

It’s an old joke between them so Adam obliges it with a small chuckle. It’s common knowledge that Ronan doesn’t deign to answer his own calls, rather letting Adam pick up if he’s around, or letting it go directly to voicemail. Come to think of it, Adam’s voice may be the one recorded on the answering machine, anyway.

“’Morning, douchebag,” Ronan greets. “Need a ride?”

“Something like that.” Adam lowers his voice in case Gansey is still in earshot. “Look, don’t say anything to him, alright? But I’m not at home. Get me at the station across from Nino’s. Please, Ronan.”

“Hang tight, Parrish, be there in a jiff.”

***

Ronan’s sleek Beamer in the early morning light is probably the most beautiful sight Adam has ever seen.

The car gingerly slows to a stop and Ronan rolls down the tinted window of the passenger side before he unlocks the door.

“I swear to God, Parrish, if you called me from your one night stand…”

Adam climbs into the passenger seat and tries not to slam the door. Adam reaches over and grabs the sunglasses off Ronan’s face, placing them on his own to shield his eyes. It’s only May, but he doesn’t think the sun’s ever been this bright.

“Shit, it’s sunny.”

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened to you?”

And that’s a good question. Adam was so caught up on the notion of being late for school, on figuring out why the fuck he can’t remember anything past his father storming out of his apartment, that he didn’t really take into account his attire. Funny, he thinks drily, it’s usually something he can’t stop fixating on.

That’s not a lie, but it’s also true that Adam looks probably worse than he ever has. When he flips the passenger visor it’s not a pretty sight that greets him in the small glass. The asphalt by the dumpster didn’t do him kind. There’s dust in his hair and he doesn’t want to think about what else. His jeans are covered in soot and his old, tie-dye Rolling Stones t-shirt is in worse shape than it was last night; the collar is completely torn on the right side, and on his left shoulder there are tiny holes that look like they could have been made by fingernails. If they were nails, then they must have been talons. And that’s not factoring in the bags under his eyes or the blood staining the side of his neck. Adam notices it’s sore, and makes a mental note to put antiseptic on it the second he gets back home

“I don’t know.”

“I just saw you last night, man.”

“Would you just take me home?”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Parrish. You won’t be late to school. Damn, that chick must have done a number on you.”

Adam doesn’t bother to correct him.

***

Adam leaves his bathroom door ajar as he cleans himself up. He gets under the shower only for a quick rinse, ties a towel around his waist, and instantly walks to the mirror over the sink. There’s something off about his reflection, but he can’t place it. His face looks sharper, the skin around his eyes slightly darker. He tried to slap some colour into his cheeks, but to no avail. He’s probably just tired.

As he brushes his teeth, he can hear Ronan’s facetious rambling from where he’s pacing around his tiny living space.

“What really gets me is that someone so concerned about his perfect attendance could stay out all hours of the night. Doing what? God knows. Calls me up at 7:30 in the morning and do you think I get a ‘thank you?’ I get no respect."

Adam’s sure he said thanks, but maybe it slipped his mind.

There’s some residual blood that the shower spray didn’t wash away, so Adam grabs a face towel and puts it under the faucet. He hisses when the damp cloth touches his skin. There’s bruising under the blood.

Ronan pokes his head through the door and Adam spares a thought to desperately hope he’s tied the towel tight enough or Ronan will get a show he didn’t plan on.

“Hey, are you okay?”

His voice is gentler than Adam’s used to hearing it, and his dark brows are furled in a look that would be concern if it were on anyone else’s face.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You don’t have to stay.”

“Shut up, man. I’m already here. I might as well drive us both this morning”

For a guy whose disinterested stare is basically patented, Ronan is a total mother hen. Ronan won’t say it in as many words, but Adam can tell he refuses to leave. He moves to the side, and takes Adam’s chin in his hand. Adam gulps. Then Ronan shifts his head slightly to take a look at Adam’s neck.

“Jesus, fuck. If that’s a hickey it’s the worst I’ve ever seen. Where the fuck did you find this one, Parrish?”

Adam’s not going to dignify that with a response.

Wordlessly, he unscrews the cap and hands over the Polysporin. Ronan squeezes out the white substance and dabs the antiseptic onto his throat, rubbing it in circles until it blends into where Adam’s skin purples.

“You’re all patched up, Parrish.”

“Jeez, Ronan. You’re a regular Florence Nightingale."

“Put some fucking clothes on and let’s go.”

Ronan steps back just when a bee flies into the small bathroom.

The buzzing comes up on his deaf side and, mindlessly, Adam catches it as if on reflex.

He’s so repulsed by the crushed insect corpse in his hand that he misses Ronan’s confused stare in the reflection of the mirror. 

*** 

The real pity is that the first time Adam sees Blue eat something that isn’t yogurt, it sends his gag reflex into conniptions.

She’s working and the three of them, plus Noah, are sitting in their usual circular booth. It’s no different than any other night out for the five of them. Ronan is spread out slightly, one knee raised with a boot on the leather seat, and Gansey’s in the middle. Adam tries to shrink himself, takes up as little room as possible beside Noah’s own ghostly form. Adam thinks about whether the other patrons in Nino’s can see Noah at all, or if they think it’s weird that Adam and Gansey sit so close together when there’s so much empty space at one end.

Blue’s hair looks slightly shorter than Adam remembers it was when he last saw her. The tips are dyed a shade of her namesake that blends into her dark strands. It looks good on her; she always manages to pull off an aesthetic of her own design.

She comes gliding toward the table, with a tray in hand.

“What’s wrong, boys? Already ate yourselves out of house and home, and had to move on?” She jokes.

Ronan leers. It’s a glance that’s not as unfriendly as it once was.

“Missed me, maggot?”

“I’m sorry,” she turns to Gansey. “You did read the sign on the door, didn’t you? It says ‘no pets allowed.’”

“Jane…” Gansey starts.

Not a beat too soon does Ronan respond.

“No, man, it’s fine. I mean, she must have missed your disclaimer too. ‘You must be this tall to ride.’”

Noah squirms, trying to repress laughter, while Gansey looks vaguely uncomfortable. Adam is just amused. He knows Ronan Lynch always gives as good as he gets.

Adam is a little impressed by Ronan’s ballsy display but Blue, to her credit, only clutches a hand to her heart, the other balancing the tray at the height of her head.

“I’m wounded, Lynch. For that, I’m taking a service tax,” she says. She removes her hand from her chest to take a garlic breadstick from the basket, and drops the tray on the table, right between Adam and Gansey.

Adam feels what he thinks is bile rise to his throat.

“I’m going to be sick.”

He climbs over Noah and hurriedly leaves the booth, leaving four apprehensive faces behind him.

***

He’s retching in the toilets.

Or rather, he’s going through the motions, but nothing’s coming out.

Adam thinks for a moment about how embarrassed he’d be if someone else walked in right now, and he’s there, kneeling on the old, dirty tiles, with one hand clenched around the toilet seat. The door to the stall is closed, sure, but Adam’s knees are still visible beneath the cubicle. He can’t manage to quell the sounds of his gagging, and remotely contemplates which one of his friends Blue is going to send to check up on him. Gansey, or Ronan? He can’t decide which would be worse. Gansey has an aura that doesn’t belong in the dilapidated restroom of the pizza joint, and for some indecipherable reason, Adam can’t quite handle having Ronan see him in this state.

“You smell weird,” Noah says from behind him in the too-cramped stall.

Somehow it never factored that Noah would be the one to inaudibly materialize behind him, but there he is, leaning on the precariously structured wall on the left of the cubicle. He doesn’t bother to ask how Adam’s doing, just keeps his voice intensely engrossed on his own line of questioning.

“Dude,” Adam croaks out. “Some space."

“Did you hear me, Adam? You smell really weird.”

Adam raises his head and bites the bullet.

“What do I smell like?”

“You don’t.”

“Noah, do you mind? I’m kind of trying to puke out my entrails here.”

Adam doesn’t like to get mad at Noah, doesn’t think anyone ever does, but this is testing his patience and it feels like someone is shutting the tube of his esophagus. Anaphylaxis, probably.

“You don’t understand. Usually you smell like engine oil, like sweat, like summer, I hear Ronan thinking about it sometimes, and Gansey, well he’s just a brew of Glendower, and Blue, and legends, but you. You don’t smell anymore. I can’t hear your thoughts. It’s never been like this, not even after Cabeswater… Adam, it’s like you’re not there.”

***

Gansey and Adam are lying on their stomachs on the floor of Monmouth Manufacturing.

Adam’s acutely aware of how clean the floor is, despite never having seen either of Monmouth’s resident raven boys lift a finger for housework. He tries to imagine Gansey, up to his elbows in soapsuds, or Ronan, vacuuming while humming one of his too-loud electronica songs, and nearly laughs out loud. 

Those are thoughts for another time though, since at the present moment they have their biology notes outspread in front of them.

They’d asked Ronan to join them in their scheduled study session, but he just gave a noncommittal wave before retreating into his room with his headphones on.

That’s fine by Adam. He’s not due for the factory tonight and he’s sort of been feeling like his coursework has fallen by the wayside. His grades are still impeccable, but Adam knows he’s not the type of student that can maintain that luck without putting in the requisite labour. 

Gansey taps the end of his pen twice on his notebook.

“Alright so what I don’t understand, is if the inhibitor is irreversible – Huh,“ Gansey stops suddenly.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I just could have sworn your eyes were green. But they’re not. They’re blue.” Gansey crooks his head. “Or like, a greyish-blue.”

“They change colour, I guess.” Adam says and turns his gaze downward.

As far as Adam remembers, they’ve always been a murky green colour.

***

When Adam gets home that night he shucks his shirt first, lifts it over his head and throws it on top of the dresser. He’ll fold it later.

He shuts the door to the bathroom even though no one’s there but him. Gansey got it wrong, though. His eyes aren’t blue, or even a blue-grey. They’re silver. Adam tries valiantly not to freak out. It could be his mind playing tricks on him. It could be Cabeswater. He could be tired. His reflection in the mirror shows bags under his eyes that are more pronounced than they’ve been in awhile.

His skin is looking sallow and it’s hunger, Adam decides. He can’t remember the last time he ate, or even the last time he felt the urge to, but now that he thinks of it, he can almost feel the enzymes eating away at themselves, his stomach like a gaping black hole waiting to be filled. The car won’t run if there’s no gas, his father once said to him, when he was nine years old and scrawny, a kid waiting to be shown how to pop open the hood. He knew how to fix cars before he could drive them. Right now, it feels like his body’s going to stall where it stands and break down.

He takes off his slacks and hangs them over a wooden chair before making his way to the fridge; it’s nearly empty and Adam thinks what’s left might just be expired. It must have been days since he last made himself a meal.

His saving grace is the carton of readymade noodles in the cupboard. He drums his fingers on the counter as he waits the minute it takes to heat them up, and when the microwave chimes, he hastily removes it from the hot plate, not bothering to let the food cool. It’s to no avail; he gags on the first bite, spits it up into the kitchen sink and tries to heave the taste out of his mouth.

When he throws out the barely-touched noodles, all he sees is money go down the drain with the broth.

He lowers himself to the mattress, is stomach cavernous and his mouth parched. He brings his knees up toward his chest and wraps his arms around them.

There’s a light breeze, before Cabeswater calls to him.

Magician. Somnus occupat vobis. 

***

Adam wakes up again.

This time to sunlight streaming through the room's only window, and for a second he thinks he might be back on the gravel by the dumpster. But he’s not. He’s in his bed and there’s a steely taste in his mouth. There’s dirt beneath his fingernails, and there’s hair in his bed that doesn’t belong to him.

He doesn’t think it’s human.

When he brushes his teeth he spits blood out into the porcelain sink. It’s not water tinged with red, like what happens sometimes when it’s been too long since you’ve flossed your teeth. He doesn’t think the blood is his own. He stands there and hyperventilates, the phantom feel of the breath he doesn’t have gets stuck in his throat.

The pair of eyes that he meets in the mirror is a muted blue.

---

It’s almost funny how fast his mantra changes from I am unknowable to I am undead.

His routine, on the other hand, doesn’t change at all. 

He still goes to school. He still searches for Glendower. He’s still attuned to the leyline. He still works as many shifts as he can fit into a week.

Death goes on almost exactly as life had for Adam Parrish.

That’s why Persephone’s death is like being doused in cold water.

Memento Mori.

Gansey’s died before, and it’s only Noah’s murder on the leyline that resurrected his life that should have been lost. And well, Noah is dead, but most of the time he’s just as alive as any of them. Remember you will die. Adam thinks it’s a phrase they’ve all probably forgotten. All but Ronan, who knows death too intimately, and the despair it leaves in its wake.

Something about the family at 300 Fox Way had Adam thinking they were invincible. A tightly knit and powerful unit indivisible of each other.

He wants to mourn, but he doesn’t know how. He can’t cry, and his anxiety flares being in the same room as the women, worried they may see through the fog of their grief to realize something’s not right with him.

He wonders if he killed Persephone, perhaps inadvertently. He wonders if he’s caused any more fatalities in the hours he can’t remember.

On the steps Ronan says “the fuck would we talk about?”

Persephone. Death. Undeath. Whatever it is that's happening to Adam, and to everyone around them. It’s weird, Adam thinks, that Ronan never had a chance to mourn Adam. Not when Adam sees so much more of him post-mortem. 

***

One of Adam’s earliest memories is of his mother. She stands now, still as a statue, mute and miniscule in the periphery of her husband’s rage. But this one is a good memory, from when Adam must have been around four years old. His mother is young and she’s luminescent. Her dirty blonde hair is wavy and thick, catching in the rays of the setting sun. There’s a daisy braided in a strand of her hair. Adam himself put it there. Her bubbling laughter matches her son’s as she swings him around in the overgrown weeds behind the trailer park. She clutches the child to her chest, kisses the top of his dusty blond head, and Adam forgets what happens next.

She’s nothing like the woman who asked him for a light.

No, from what he remembers that lady was less like a woman and more like a vixen. Like the photoshopped, made-up women on the skin rags they try to cover up at the gas station. There wasn’t a flaw on her skin, a hair out of place. He’s probably getting it wrong when he imagines her eyes as white. He thinks of it now, and he can’t remember if she was even holding a cigarette in her slim hand.

His sire. Adam doesn’t consider himself well versed in vampire lore or even pop culture’s poor representations, but he’s pretty sure that’s the name for the person who turns you.

He sort of wished she’d left a phone number, or a transitional manual.

But she didn’t. His vampire sire; just another absent mother.

***

Now that he’s dead, he’s got one more secret to keep.

Most days it feels like it’s trying to claw out of his throat, pry his jaw open and tumble out from between his fangs.

He feels them descend sometimes when his temper flares at Gansey. The thought scares him more than anything. He feels like he always knew he’d be the cause of his best friend’s death, but not this way. Adam won’t let it happen. Adam needs a contingency plan.

His contingency plan is the same as it always is.

He’s not sure if vampires need permission to enter private property or if he has a standing invitation, but Adam strides into Monmouth determinedly. Gansey’s napping on his bed in the middle of the flat, glasses askew and book on his chest, as if he fell asleep mid-sentence. Adam’s light on his feet and doesn’t wake him, just moves straight past the floor model of Henrietta, and barges into Ronan’s room.

“The fuck, man? Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

“You’re not doing anything.”

“I could’ve been jerking off.”

Adam doesn’t have a fluctuating body temperature anymore, but if he did it’d probably run hot right about now. It takes Ronan’s mention of masturbation for Adam to wonder if that’s still an option.

“Sorry.”

“You’re not. What’d you want?" 

Ronan’s wearing a muscle t-shirt like he usually does, but there’s not a stitch of black on him. His sweatpants are the Aglionby gym-issued grey ones, and his top is the colour of oxblood. It looks good on him.

That’s the problem with having vampirically heightened senses. Adam appreciates the medical miracle of regaining hearing in his deaf ear, but everything else is a little like a cloaked nightmare. He smells it all – garlic, so he knows when to avoid it, but also sweat, pheromones, and the god-awful perfume that the parish secretary wears in the office below his apartment.

And sight, well. Everything’s sharper. He looks at Ronan sometimes and he’s surprised he doesn’t suffer third degree burns. Now Ronan’s dark eyes look endless and the cut of his jawline is angrier. Ronan’s always been offensively good-looking, he knows. But the savage beauty, the enthralling sight of his lips surrounded by stubble when he lets it grow in… Adam thinks it must be how painters look at the work of Da Vinci. When he looks at Ronan now, sitting there on the bed, biceps straining his shirt, he wants to put his mouth on them. He’s unsure whether or not he wants to bite down.

This dance that they’re doing, whatever it is, makes Adam feel like he’s flying too close. Only this time he doesn’t think he’ll be the one to suffer the fall.

“We need to talk.”

“So talk,” comes Ronan’s dispassionate response.

“You need to actually look at me. It’s serious.”

Ronan looks up from where he’s drawing on the index of his homework and Adam feels a rush of annoyance course through his body. Ronan may be more beautiful to him now, sure, but he’s still just as infuriating. He’s thankful for that semblance of normalcy.

“I’m looking at you, shithead.”

He sees red and has to resist the urge to throw his hands up in exasperation or do something worse.

“Never mind. This was a mistake.”

***

For once it’s not Adam who feels bad about being an asshole, but in retrospect, Adam wishes it were.

This is what happens: Adam goes back to his room above the church sometime around six in the evening. He punches a tiled wall in his bathroom and it breaks around his fist, shards splitting the skin that stitches itself back together within an hour. He sits on what he calls a bed, so low to the ground that his knees touch his chest when he moves them close, and he rubs the heels of his palms against his eyes. But there’s no wetness there, there hasn’t been for a while now, and Adam can’t remember how long ago it was that he’d been turned into the creature he is now.

Ever since his transformation, Cabeswater’s presence has felt more solid. It recognizes a stronger host, thrumming through his bones and resonating in his skull. Now he hears nothing. He can’t remember how long it’s been since he last fed.

When his back hits the mattress he loses time and space. He can’t bring himself to stand, to hunt for an animal, small or large, anything he can find in the Virginian wood. 

It doesn’t seem like enough.

Ronan’s guilt must drive him to Adam’s door.

In silent panic, Adam registers that he didn’t lock it. He tries to call out to Ronan, to tell him to go home, but he finds he can barely open his mouth, much less talk.

Ronan sounds as incensed as Adam felt before when he says, “Don’t tell me you’re asleep already, Parrish.”

He can hear the screech of the door as Ronan turns the handle. He tries to move and pain shoots up his spine, like lit cables throughout his body, and that’s how Ronan finds him, pale-faced and writhing on the bed. 

Ronan doesn’t waste time.

He hears a barely audible “shit,” before Ronan’s leaning over him, pressing a hand to Adam’s forehead as if to take his temperature. He helps Adam sit up with his back against the wall, and climbs onto the mattress by his side.

He sees Ronan in thermodynamic hues, fixated on where he’s hottest, whole body pulsing with blood. Fuck. He's a monster worse than either of them could've dreamt up, and Ronan is a saint, kneeling by his bedside, cursing, and whispering a desperate prayer of “what do you need, what do you need?" 

It takes a lot of strength to look Ronan in the eye, and when he does, Adam can see Ronan fight the urge to flinch. Adam wonders if his pupils are white, wonders if he made a mistake in not telling Ronan when he meant to a few hours ago, so he could have staked Adam now, when he was weak. Adam wonders if this is how it ends. For him, for Ronan, for their friendship, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t have the energy to find out. 

Adam has always considered himself a person who doesn’t ask for things.

He asks for this: “Blood.”

And Adam thinks Ronan is so fucking stupid, the way he shucks off his leather jacket, leans toward Adam’s mouth, and instantly bears his neck to Adam.

Firmly, he says: “I’m not going to let you die.”

***

When Adam had drank blood in the past, it had been from animals in the woods.

Human blood is nothing like that.

It’s a thrill he’s never felt before, and when his fangs close around the skin of Ronan’s throat he can’t hear over the first momentary rush of blood. Adam closes his eyes and savours the taste, moving his hand to cup Ronan’s head and draw his body closer. Logically, Adam knows the properties of human blood, knows it can’t taste like anything more than iron. He sees visions of colour dance beneath his eyelids, feels power course throughout his body. It feels like an eternity he could get lost in.

But Ronan makes a pained sound and that brings Adam back to his senses. He pulls away and feels his teeth retract to their normal size.

The next thing he notices is the blood spurting from the four incisions in Ronan’s neck.

“Fuck. Shit. Ronan. Ronan, why the fuck did you let me do that?”

Ronan’s eyelashes flutter, and Adam chokes back an empty sob.

There’s a First Aid Kit in Adam’s bedside table and he does what he can. He’s not a nurse, but he knows the basics. He knows to start by applying pressure to the wound, and he holds it down for what must be more than fifteen minutes before the flow abates. He cleans it, and places gauze over the lesion, taping it tight against the skin.

Adam leans back against the wall at the end of the bed, and listens for the steady beat of his heart.

“You idiot,” he whispers. “You stupid, noble, idiot.”

Ronan sleeps on the bed that night, and Adam takes the floor. They don’t negotiate it because Ronan doesn’t wake up until noon the next day, and by then Adam’s already three hours into his shift. 

***

He sees Ronan less than twenty-four hours after what he’s mentally referring to as The Incident. He doesn’t have a choice in the matter, because Gansey insists on working on their chemistry lab report together. It makes sense: the three of them are lab partners, but the dread Adam feels while driving to Monmouth is nearly overwhelming. He’d crash his shitbox car if he thought it would actually kill him.

Adam’s always been scared of turning out exactly like his father. He’s pretty sure this is worse.

When he so much as blinks, he sees cinematographic scenes of gore.

He sees the clear rubbing alcohol spill over the sheets and shaking fingers.

He sees the shape of Ronan’s open mouth, gasping for air on the bed. A sight that’d be erotic in any other context, if not for his dark blood shooting through the tiny lacerations on his neck.

He sees his own hands, covered in red. 

When he finally sees Ronan, he’s wearing a black turtleneck. They’re inside, but it’s still the middle of spring. If Gansey thinks it - or the way Adam steadfastly refuses to meet Ronan’s eyes - is weird, then he doesn’t say anything.

***

Adam goes nine days without seeing his friends anywhere outside of school. It’s not too difficult because he has an arsenal of excuses – not feeling too well, overrun with school work, sorry, can’t do tonight guys, I’m working at the garage. 

It’s just his bad luck that Blue shows up on his only Saturday off. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she lied about not being a psychic.

“Well, you’re a little paler than usual, but you look good enough to go out to me!” Her sunny disposition before noon isn’t something Adam’s used to, having spent so much time around Gansey and Ronan.

“Blue…”

“No excuses. You know how long it’s been since I’ve seen you? Nearly ten days. That means you’ve left me alone with the dynamic duo, and they have more money than brains.”

Adam laughs at that.

“You don’t believe me, do you? Their place is a sty. Do you know what Monmouth smells like now? Testosterone,” she scrunches her nose as she says the word, and Adam toes on his shoes before locking up.

***

The marks on Ronan’s neck have healed and Ronan’s not a vampire.

It’s Adam’s first thought when he and Ronan are alone, trailing a significant distance away from the others. Adam doesn’t know how they ended up walking side-by-side, given how desperately he’s been trying to evade the taller boy, but he figures it probably has something to do with the way Gansey and Blue act as if they have a magnetic force around them, repelling everything around them for a solitary bond.

“You gonna talk to me, Parrish, or nah?" 

“I’m trying to avoid that, actually.”

“I couldn’t tell by the way we hadn’t seen you in nearly two weeks. I’m surprised you showed up to school, to be honest.”

“Ronan.” It’s a warning tone, but Adam doesn’t know what he’s warning against. Himself, probably.

“That’s what you were going to tell me the other day, wasn’t it? When you came into my room like a bat out of hell, a man on a mission.”

“Yeah.”

 “And you didn’t. You didn’t say anything. Not to me, or not to Gansey. Noah didn’t know either.”

“He probably does now.”

“Probably.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If I were someone else I might say it’s too late for that.”

That’s what Adam was afraid of. Adam wants nothing more than to fall to his knees at Ronan’s feet, to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. He tries for an explanation instead.

“I… I got angry. I couldn’t control it so I left, I was afraid I might do something rash.” He gives a self-deprecating laugh. “I guess I did anyway, huh? So much for precaution. I fucked it all up, didn’t I?”

Ronan doesn’t answer the question.

“I’m not a vampire. I haven’t changed. If the change is instantaneous, then it didn’t take.”

“No. I stitched you up. You healed naturally. There was blood, but I don’t think I went in too deep to seriously wound you… a few more minutes and I might have. I think there has to be a mutual bloodletting between the human party and the vampire, or else…”

“Or else the world is teeming with an uncontrollable vampire population,” Ronan finishes.

“Exactly."

“But there’s more of you.”

Adam nods. “There has to be. For one, there’s the vampire who turned me. I had never seen her before but I should have fucking known to run. The way she looked, Ronan… Shit, I was so stupid.”

“Nothing you can do about that now, Parrish. Where’d you go from here?" 

“You think I know? They don’t exactly hand out V-cards.”

Ronan turns his head slightly, and raises an eyebrow. Adam notices him bite down mirth before he catches on to his own implication. 

Adam gives an embarrassed, “oh,” and a bashful laugh, while Ronan snickers at his side. 

“Well… I guess I’m not losing that any time soon.”

“You can’t?” Ronan makes a lewd gesture with his fist.

“I’ve been a bit stressed… haven’t really tried…” They’re not about to have this conversation with Blue and Gansey a few feet ahead of them, regardless of whether or not they can hear. From what Adam can tell, they can’t, but he’s not risking it. “What I meant to say was they don’t meet monthly, or if they do, no one told me about it.”

“So you’re figuring it out alone, then?”

Lonesome. He’s never been anything but.

“That’s what being a teenager is all about, I’ve heard.”

“A vampire teenager.” 

“A vampire teenager,” Adam repeats.

“You’re not bursting into flames.”

“It’s overcast.” 

“In the sun, though. We’ve all seen you outside. You don’t turn to ash.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed about it.”

“You know I’m not.”

“It’s weird to explain… when it shines too bright I feel like I could collapse. It drains energy faster than it burns in the night. Three days ago, that really hot day, I didn’t have work. I went home and slept until nine o’clock. I’m better when I’ve fed recently, it doesn’t hurt as much. I’m fine on the dark days.”

“You’re still tan.”

“We’re not all pale and Irish like you, Lynch.”

Ronan ignores the chirp.

“How about feeding, how often do you need blood?”

Adam wants desperately to change the topic.

“From what I can tell, human blood lasts longer in my system than animal blood. I start to get hungry after about a week… ravenous at the two week mark. That’s what happened, that night. I could have killed you.” Realization dawns on him. “Ronan, I could have killed people and I probably wouldn’t know it.”

“You haven’t.”

“You don’t know that.” 

“You didn’t, because I watched you.”

“You knew?” 

“No. I heard the trees calling you one night, and suddenly you were there, in the thrush of the forest. There was an animal there, a deer, and then there you were. I thought it was a dream.”

A bad dream, neither of them says.

“I don’t dream anymore.”

“I never said you did. When did you last feed?”

Adam pauses for a moment.

“The last time I had you.”

It’s a bad turn of phrase, an innuendo that’s unintentional. Adam tries not to love the way the blush mottles Ronan’s cheeks. In the midst of his newfound bloodlust and burgeoning attraction to Ronan Lynch, he’d sort of forgotten that Ronan had found him desirable all along.

*** 

The next night there’s a pounding knock on the door.

“Open up, asshole.”

Begrudgingly, Adam opens the door.

“Christ, Ronan. It’s almost like you didn’t listen to me yesterday. Why the fuck are you here alone when I almost killed you the last time?”

“You can stop playing the martyr, Parrish. We both know you didn’t mean to.”

Adam gives him a look. He didn’t mean to, sure, but it doesn’t mean the possibility wasn’t there. There’s a thin line between intention and instinct; the two are basically indistinct when Adam’s fangs protrude.

“Okay, don’t freak out,” Ronan starts, and reaches for the buckle of his belt, unclasping it and thumbing open the button of his jeans. In reality, he does so at an average pace, but it could be slow motion for all that Adam experiences the dissolution of time as Ronan’s fingers glide the zipper down their metal teeth.

Ronan casually steps out of his jeans.

“What are you doing?”

When Ronan discards his jeans it leaves him in tight black boxer briefs and his tight black t-shirt. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination, the way his biceps bulge and the tattoo curves around the side of his neck. Adam tries valiantly to keep his eyes strictly from the shoulders on up. But it’s hard. Ronan’s blood calls to him like a siren’s song, pulsing in saturated colours beneath his skin, veins and arteries entwined together and surrounded by capillaries, like a humming livewire that Adam wants nothing more than to smother with his lips. 

It’s a catch-22 because Ronan’s body itself appeals to everything in him that’s still human. 

“You need it, right? I’ve got it.”

“I would never ask.”

Neither of them mentions that he did, the last time.

“You don’t need to. I’m offering.” 

“Ro-“

“No. Look. You killed yourself while you were human. You didn’t want help from anyone, right? And we let you have that. But I’m not going to let you do the same thing twice. I’m going to dream you up an endless supply of blood bags. We’ll keep ‘em in stashed in your godforsaken empty freezer. Until then, you have me.”

Adam wishes his dead heart could constrict at Ronan’s adamancy. He enunciates “we’ll” like Adam’s never heard it from anyone else. His speech is full of conviction. Ronan Lynch doesn’t lie, that’s something Adam Parrish knows. He says this like a fact, not a promise. 

“Ronan, last time…”

Ronan blushes. Adam can’t help the way his eyes dart up towards the blood pooling in his cheeks. In a way it’s a good thing; it keeps Adam’s wandering eyes away from anything else.

“I, uh. I googled some things.”

Ronan fidgets, uncharacteristically nervous. Adam doesn’t know why Ronan would be nervous. Adam did his research too; there are at least two different computers at the library with questionable search histories, and the Twilight fan-communities are utterly useless for his own brand of vampirism.

“Obviously I don’t know if it’s true, but you probably don’t need oxygenated blood, right?” Ronan asks.

“I guess not? That means we can stick to veins, but we probably shouldn’t go for the throat again. “

“Right. And no offense to your accuracy, but I’d rather not let you slit my wrists.”

Adam nods in understanding. 

“Gansey would probably assume the worst if you showed up with bandages covering your forearms.”

“Well, fuck, you’re not as dumb as your current predicament suggests, Parrish.”

“Can’t we go for capillaries?”

“Not sure, better not to risk it when your pupils are about to turn translucent.”

Adam’s frustrated at his own incapacity for control.

“Okay Einstein, how are we doing this then?”

The smirk Ronan gives is nothing short of diabolical – of all the fucking jerks in Henrietta, Adam has no idea why he’s the vampire here, when Ronan has the features so finely suited to it.

“On the bed and far enough from my arteries that I don’t bleed out.” 

Adam stares blankly and hates that he seems to be making a habit of it. 

“My thigh, fucktard. Don’t hit the femoral.”

Adam bristles at that.

“I’m not an idiot. I’m pretty sure you copied my bio notes. You’re telling me to go for the great saphenous… Ronan.”

“Hell, don’t get prudish on me now, Parrish.”

***

This is something Adam never anticipated.

“Should I kiss you first, or something?” 

“Mother of God,” Ronan swears.

It’s a valid question, Adam thinks. It feels like they’ve jumped from no contact to third base, the way Ronan is outstretched on the bed with his legs spread. Adam is between them, on his stomach. Adam’s shirt is off, so not to ruin it with bloodstains, and when he lifts his head from looking at Ronan’s inner thigh, Ronan’s dick is at eye-level. He can see it chub up a bit from beneath the cotton, but he doesn’t say anything. Adam understands that it’s an involuntary response. He knows exactly what this looks like, and he can’t say he ever envisioned it, but he briefly wonders whether or not Ronan has.

“Parrish, you gonna keep staring at my dick, or you gonna suck me?” 

Adam’s fangs descend at that, whether from verbal provocation or arousal, and soon after, they pierce the flesh.

It’s the same sensation as before, and Adam marvels at the blood flood through the hollow opening in his incisors. It’s a haze that clouds his vision and shuts his eyes. Euphoric is a good word for it. He wonders if any human blood has the same effect, or if it’s something uniquely Ronan that satiates what seems to be an unquenchable hunger. 

Adam shifts slightly to get his mouth at a better angle and oh, okay. Adam’s hard. He realizes it only when he inadvertently rubs up against the sheets and he didn’t know that was still possible. It’s a good thing, it makes Adam feel human, or as human as he can possibly feel when he’s got fangs vein-deep into Ronan’s thigh. But his dick is thickening beneath his plaid pajama bottoms and yeah, Ronan too. He’s fully hard now and that’s unmistakable when he’s in nothing but his boxer-briefs, by the way he pithily moves his left leg. Adam stills it and starts mindlessly caressing Ronan’s inner thigh opposite the one he’s sunk his teeth into, imagines a scenario where he isn’t draining Ronan of blood and energy. 

Ronan’s thinking it too, judging by the moan he lets slip. He wonders if Ronan gets pleasure from this as well, and hopes he remembers to ask. Brazenly, Adam moves his hand from Ronan’s thigh to stroke the length of his cock, and pulls his mouth off the skin of his thigh just in time to see Ronan come, back arched and lips parted, from nothing but Adam’s mouth and a hand on his cotton-covered dick.

Adam’s still hard but he ignores it. Instead, he moves up the bed to put a hand on Ronan’s chest. Ronan’s still wearing the black t-shirt he showed up in and there’s a light sheen of sweat on his face. Adam runs his hand gently over Ronan’s heart where it pulses feverently until he calms down.

Every fiber of his being wants to kiss him, and it’s only the taste of Ronan’s blood in his mouth that prevents him. It’s something Ronan shouldn’t have to get used to. 

“Hey,” Adam knows his voice is soft. He lifts his head off the space where Ronan’s chest meets his shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m good.” His breath is still heavy, voice still quiet.

“You sure?”

Adam’s afraid of the sight he makes, knows he must have Ronan’s blood staining his lips, his teeth, the fangs that have since retracted.

“Yeah. Just waiting for your gay crisis.”

Which, sure, there’s something inherently gay about feeding from a man’s inner thigh, and then wanting to kiss him afterward. Ronan looks like he has a mouth that could bruise. Adam is okay with that.

But he doesn’t know what to say; he’s not sure if Ronan’s just come-drunk, and he’s worried about fucking it up either way. He feels like he missed what should have been his gay crisis; he was too busy having a crisis over everything else. Anyway, he doesn’t know if gay is the word. All his prior infatuations have been with women, but what he feels for Ronan, now, transcends the frivolous term.

“Maybe I’m waiting for yours.”

Ronan scoffs. “You became a vampire, what, like three months ago? I’ve loved you longer than that.”

***

A few weeks later, Adam finds out that, yes, capillaries are as nourishing as veins and arteries, rendering their saphenous experiment both needlessly hazardous, and, ultimately, useless. It’s not a fortuitous happenstance, mind you. Rather, Ronan calls it his very own scientific experiment. Ronan Lynch has never been much of a scholar, but maybe he just needed a change of subject.

When Adam comes home from the garage, the smell of gasoline clings to his clothes, even if it no longer sticks to the pores of his skin. It’s Saturday night and Ronan is leaning triumphantly on his sparse kitchen counter. 

“Hah,” Ronan says, spreads his arms. “The return of the Vampire King.”

“Hilarious, truly.”

“I think you’ll be glad to know my short lived career as Adam Parrish’s chew toy is over.”

The good thing about being a vampire, and there aren’t many good things, per se, is that he’s got a little more control over his own body. He can school is face into not falling. This, Adam believes, is where he’d feel a pang in his heart if it still beat. It’s not that he wants Ronan to consistently put his life in danger by offering up his veins to Adam’s fangs, but he liked their… dynamic, he supposes. The feel of Ronan’s life force coursing through his own body, the knowledge that there are few ways they could be closer - although Adam thinks he wouldn’t mind trying some of them. 

Adam rolls his eyes nonetheless. “And here I thought you’d finally found your vocation.”

“I’ve moved onto bigger and better things.” Ronan’s nonchalant, as always. 

“I swear to God, Lynch, if there’s a dick joke in there somewhere – “

“Like being his boyfriend, instead of his food supply.”

There’s no question in his tone, and that shuts Adam right up. 

“You’ve never been just that to me, Ronan.”

Ronan smiles, and Adam thinks it’s more sad than genuine.

“Every single time I needed you, you came, and I never had to ask. Seriously Ronan, what you did for me… you need to know I’d do the same for you. Because I would. Anything.”

Ronan makes gagging noises.

“You’re getting sappy on me, man.”

“I’m saying I want to kiss you,” Adam says, his chin out defiantly. It’s almost funny, how Adam’s had his mouth over so much of Ronan’s body, but never there.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And you wanna stick by my side, huh?”

“If you want me there.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t?”

“You won’t be able to eat garlic. There’ll be feet in the bed that never warm up. The fact I don’t have a pulse, maybe.”

“Semantics.”

Adam opens his mouth to say something, he doesn’t know what, but Ronan cuts him off. They’re all about that these days, it seems, an outpour of emotion through speech.

“Besides, that’s fine with me.” Ronan’s telling smile lets Adam know he’s taking the bait; trying to embarrass him. “If you want that domestic fantasy, with cold feet in a shared bed. We can adopt tiny, orphaned vampire babies and raise them at the Barns. Blue can be godmother and Gansey can be uncomfortable in their presence. They’ll bring back mice in their fangs and we’ll have to say ‘no Rowena, you have to stop.’”

Adam rolls his eyes. “They sound like kittens, Ronan, not children.”

“Do you want one of those? We can have kittens too.”

Adam’s much more a dog person, but he lets that slide.

“And what about you?” When you’re old, and grey, and I’ll always be eighteen Adam doesn’t say, but Ronan picks up on it anyway, like he always does.

Ronan smiles that Cheshire cat grin of his. Once Adam used to think it looked dangerous, viciously beautiful like the blood spatter of a crime scene. Now he knows better.

“Me? Parrish, I’m gonna live forever.”

Their mouths meet, finally, and Adam's struck with the fierce knowledge that he’d do anything to make it so.