#I don't heavily edit these btw so if there are errors don't mind

[catboynecromancy]

Kissing prompts day 3, given to me by the wonderful @creativefiend19. Thank you so much for this one, I loved writing about their first date. 💕 Do I get the extra points for making it in canon verse? 😊

Pynch — An awkward kiss given after a first date.

-

So, how about a date night, Parrish?

This is the question that started it all. Adam had been in the middle of homework for his Interpretation and Application of Mathematics course, unable to hold back his groans and sighs of frustration, while Ronan bounced a Spongebob ball against the wall. At one point in time, Adam would have found this distracting, but now it’s become so commonplace it melts into the background along with the buzzing of his miniature fridge and the ticking of a clock on the wall.

“So,” Ronan says after a while, pausing his incessant fidgeting. “How about a date night, Parrish?”

Adam takes a moment to glare down at the paper, his overworked brain screaming for something to break the monotony and stress building with each passing minute. He’s been at this for hours now and he thinks, if he keeps going, it’ll probably be counterintuitive to getting anything else done.

So.

Date night.

“You want to go on a date? With me?” Adam asks, turning in his old, wobbly wooden chair to glance back at Ronan where he sits on the bed, black, ripped-up jean-covered legs spread out in front of him.

Ronan shrugs, an attempt at being nonchalant but failing miserably. “It’s been weeks since we started dating,” there’s a weird bite to the word when he replies, wiggling his Doc Martens. “We haven’t even been on a real date.”

His mouth opens to respond but Ronan quickly interrupts, “And making out in the BMW doesn’t count, ya horny bastard.”

And promptly snaps shut with an audible click. “Okay,” Adam says, giving a slight nod. “What were you thinking?”

“Dinner. A movie. Taking a long, romantic drive through the countryside,” he continues in a teasing tone, “Promise I’ll get you back at a decent time.”

It doesn’t sound like the most remarkable of ideas, no different from things they would normally do, but something about it changes when the word date is attached. All of a sudden, what they’re doing is too real, no longer just two horny teenagers giving into each other’s visceral desires, and Adam isn’t certain how he feels about this when it crosses the line between physical vulnerability into the emotional side.

But it’s Ronan and there’s no one Adam trusts to hold his heart in their hands more than him, even if he’s loath to admit it.

So he leaves his grueling coursework and they go on a date. Ronan takes him to Nino’s (Really, Lynch?), where they toss fries into each other’s mouths, laughing maniacally every time they miss (which is more often than not, admittedly). They find a dumb action movie to watch at the theater a town over, stuffing their faces with the plethora of sugary snacks Ronan purchases at the concessions stand, laughing more at how inane the film is.

Then, they climb into the BMW, and Ronan puts on an impossibly dark and sultry beat, the bass throbbing in time with Adam’s pulse. The whole atmosphere changes, the creature of wants and needs inside of Adam clawing to get out. He wants Ronan to pull over on the side of the empty street; he needs to crawl on Ronan’s lap and claim every part of him mercilessly, with abandon, until there’s nothing left to give.

Instead, when Ronan pulls over, he hops out before Adam can do anything and demands that he drive them back to St. Agnes. Adam thinks of protesting but, if he can’t have Ronan, the next best thing is getting to drive the BMW. So he does this, making sure to shift gears with careful consideration and intimacy, treating her like he would a lover. Or, well, maybe not, since the way he handles Ronan is often not so cautious with his touch.

They get back after midnight and park in the church lot, climbing out of the car. “Decent time my ass, Lynch,” Adam says. “Wanna come up?”

Ronan shakes his head, stepping around the BMW, edging nearer until they’re so close, Adam feels the warmth pulsing off of him in great contrast to the chilly, autumn air. “Nah. I don’t put out on the first date.”

Adam rolls his eyes but leans in for a kiss. His parted lips hit Ronan’s cheek and he pulls away, blinking, to look at Ronan. He’s turned, dark eyebrows drawn in, uncharacteristically nervous in a moment that should be simple and easy, like all the other times their mouths have met.

What’s so different about this?

“Uh…” It’s Ronan’s turn to try, but Adam’s taken a step back and he misses.

They hesitate, mumble excuses, attempting at the same time only to make it inches away before they both pull back. Adam feels a hot, anxious flush build in his cheeks that crawls up to his ears, and Ronan’s pale features have darkened as well, apparent even with just the flickering streetlight illuminating them in bursts.

“Fuck,” Ronan mutters, “Try again.”

Adam gives himself a moment to consider what is so dissimilar about this from every other time. Maybe, he thinks, it’s more real than the rest. It’s weird, how things change, when feelings are laid bare and actual romance is involved.

This Ronan isn’t the one who just wants to make out endlessly, this is the Ronan who cares, who Adam is pretty sure is in love with him. Who Adam, although still not wholly convinced, thinks he can fall in love with, too. Soon. Maybe sooner than he intends.

“Okay.”

He cups his hands around the sides of Ronan’s throat, brushing a thumb along the very faintly risen skin where pointed, black imagery has been etched in. Ronan takes a hitching, shaky breath, all nerves in the shape of a teenage boy, and Adam pauses to allow them both a second to bask in a rare instance of shared weakness.

When he bridges the distance, pressing chapped lips together in an awkward, chaste kiss, there’s a spark of something that Adam recognizes from the first time they did this in Ronan’s childhood bedroom. The gesture is returned, but just so. Ronan is shaking, or Adam is, or maybe it’s both of them. Heat spills from Ronan’s mouth into his own, lightning courses through Adam’s pumping blood, sending dangerous shocks straight to his heart. All that anchors him to this miniscule, human form is the boy before him.

Adam wants, he needs, and yet he realizes it might be okay to take things slow for both their sakes. He pulls away but not far, jittery with equal parts apprehension and excitement. “Sure you don’t want to come up?”

It’s Ronan who breaks their connection, stepping back to look at the pavement beneath their feet, it's cracks brimming with slowly dying plants. He palms his buzzed scalp, shifting back and forth. “Not tonight,” Ronan says. “I...got some shit I gotta do in the morning.”

He recognizes a Lynch not-lie-not-truth when it's given. Carefully skirting the truth but not outright lying, a compromise that doesn’t betray his earnestness.

“Okay, I’ll seeya later.” Adam doesn’t push, even if a part of him wants to.

“Yeah, later.”

Ronan is almost at the driver’s side door when Adam finally gets the nerve to say what he should have much earlier. “Ronan?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks. For the date. I really needed a break.”

Deep-set, ice blue eyes shift towards Adam, an intensity to them that is quickly broken by a wide and goofy grin. It’s one for Adam’s eyes only, more defenseless than anything else they’ve done this night. “No problem, Parrish. Someone’s gotta keep you from melting your magnificent brain with all that boring homework.”

Adam nods. They leave it at that because there’s nothing left to say. He watches Ronan effortlessly drop into his M6, watches as he caresses the steering wheel in a way Adam wishes was him, watches the red tail lights as they speed out of the St. Agnes lot and down the street, and he watches even once Ronan is long gone and only the memory of him remains painted there, an afterimage of his wants and needs personified.

With a sigh, Adam runs his hand over his face, letting a few curses learned from Ronan spill from his lips.

It had been almost too good of a night.

Maybe love isn’t as far away of a concept as Adam had assumed.