#and this year i’m finally starting to log and rate movies bc i want to watch more movies

[cheekblush]

who wants to be mutuals on letterboxd? 🫶🏻

[ahtohallan-calling]

chapter 16 of don’t read the last page is here!

masterpost

[kristanna / m / multichap / modern au with actress!anna and vetstudent!kristoff]

“I mean, even if that is what she’s filming today,” he said to a cat recovering from minor surgery as he held out a toy for it to bat around, “it’s not a big deal. I mean, she’s an actor, right? And anyway it’s for the movie, so no one else will see it yet, and everyone will know it’s fake. So it doesn’t bother me.”

The cat stopped playing and gave him a look that said even I know that’s bullshit, buddy.

Kristoff had always been a patient person. He wondered sometimes if it had started when his parents had adopted his oldest sister, or a few years before that when he had been a ward of the state waiting to be wanted, or perhaps he had just been born this way, stoic and solid, slow to anger and quick to forgive.

The magazine display in the checkout lane was testing that right now. 

She had been excited about that photoshoot with People just a couple of weeks ago. “They want me to be on the cover!” she had called to tell him on her way home from Sam’s office. “And do an article about, y’know, my rise to fame and stuff. I mean, it’s not Vogue or anything so it’s not a huge deal, but still!”

He didn’t really recognize her on the cover. They had slimmed her down for some reason, when just last week she had come home from a doctor’s visit upset because the doctor had told her he was worried about the rate at which she was losing weight when she had already been slender. “I just don’t have time to eat on set sometimes,” she had explained to Kristoff as they went through the grocery store together, both of them in sweatshirts with the hood pulled up. “And then I’m dancing all day, and then I’m stressed as fuck, and I just…”

(He’d packed her lunch every day since then and left a note in each bag. She sent him a picture one day of all of them taped up around her mirror.)

Somehow worse than that, though, was the little blurb in splashy pink letters: Anna Arendelle Rises To Fame...And Falls In Love? Find Out More On Page 36!

She’d done the interview before the Hans debacle, and when they’d asked if she had ever been in love before she had said, “Oh, absolutely. And it’s the most amazing, wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. I’d take that over the fame any day.”

It had been romantic when she had told him about it later that night when they laid tangled in bed together. It was less romantic now knowing that it was followed up in the article with a whole paragraph about her New Year’s duet with Hans Westergaard.

Between the two of them, they had almost all of the magazines on the rack covered, most of them promising “details about their budding romance inside!” One particularly abhorrent one actually had a picture of Kristoff next to her one day sitting on a park bench; he’d had his hood on, and she’d made the mistake of keeping hers off and leaving that unmistakable red hair on display. Still, he had no idea how anyone would be stupid enough to think he was Hans, considering he had a good five inches and thirty pounds at least on the other man. Then again, the same magazine promised proof Prince William was a lizard.

He turned that one around so no one else could see it, and then picked up a Twix-- Anna’s favorite-- and threw it in the cart. On second thought, he grabbed another; he needed one, too.

---

"Damn, is that really gonna work under latex gloves?"

Kristoff jumped and slammed his laptop shut. "Jesus, didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to look over people's shoulders?"

The vet tech grinned. "Yeah. But I think when you see your favorite intern looking at engagement rings, you can make an exception. That bloodwork came back clean, by the way. We can send him home tomorrow."

"Thanks, Ryder."

The other man plopped down in the seat across from him. "Pay me back by finally telling me more about this girlfriend."

He groaned. "Why are you so invested in this?"

"I already watched all the good stuff on Netflix. Now I'm bingeing coworker drama. Casey and Paul are fucking, by the way, which is why--"

"They suddenly both started volunteering for kennel clean-up, yeah. Obvious."

"So give me something better to talk about. Like why you were seriously looking at a heart shaped stone."

"It's romantic!"

"It's cheesy. She'll hate it. Probably."

"How do you know so much about women?"

Ryder waggled his eyebrows. "I'm kind of a love expert."

"Didn't you tell me once you were perpetually single?"

"Exactly. I know exactly why to avoid all the bullshit. Stop changing the subject. What's her name?"

"Anna," Kristoff said before he could stop himself, and Ryder grinned.

---

had to talk to hans today bc we r shooting stuff together again

he was super apologetic

said it was a waiter who filmed n leaked it n that he called the company

.

Do you believe him?

.

idk

he said the bowtie thing was to match the confetti not me

i think i believe that part at least i mean why else would he have had a silver one lying around

.

Maybe he already had some ready no matter what color you wore.

.

idk i think that’s too creepy even for him

it is right?

god i can’t think about that today

He waited a long time before texting her again, keeping his focus on the puppies he was giving their first shots instead of why today was apparently the wrong day to think about just what Hans would do to capture her attention. As hard as clinicals were and as exhausting as it was, this was the work he had dreamed of doing his whole life, and the fact that it required his full attention when he most needed a distraction from the rest of the world was the cherry on top right now.

But then the puppies were vaccinated, and it was already four o’clock, and all that was left to do for the day was check on the animals who were staying in the kennels overnight, and his mind couldn’t help but wander as he went from cage to cage.

“I mean, even if that is what she’s filming today,” he said to a cat recovering from minor surgery as he held out a toy for it to bat around, “it’s not a big deal. I mean, she’s an actor, right? And anyway it’s for the movie, so no one else will see it yet, and everyone will know it’s fake. So it doesn’t bother me.”

The cat stopped playing and gave him a look that said even I know that’s bullshit, buddy.

Anna had gotten home before him for once that night. She was already in the shower, and she didn’t emerge until he’d already cooked dinner and was half-considering digging in to his plate. “Oh! Hey, baby,” she said as she came into the kitchen, still only wearing her towel. “I thought I heard you in here.”

“Jesus, Anna, how hot did you have the water? You look like a lobster.”

“Nice to see you too,” she said, trying to tease, but she looked away from him instead of coming over to greet him like she always did with a kiss.

He went to her instead and stood before her, not touching her like his heart was screaming for him to do; she leaned away, just barely enough to confirm his suspicions.

“You had to do a kissing scene today, didn’t you?”

She only nodded.

“It wasn’t really you guys,” he said softly. “Just your characters. Did he-- did he try anything?”

“No, not at all. He was a perfect gentleman, and it went just fine, and after he made sure I wasn’t bothered since he knew I was kind of upset about all the hubbub but...I don’t know, Kris. I don’t know what’s acting for him and what isn’t.”

A tear slid down her cheek and spattered on the floor. Still he didn’t touch her, waiting to let her make the first move. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“Me too. I’m sorry I...god. I’m sorry for everything.”

“I’m not upset about it, though,” he lied. “In case you were worried.”

She stepped closer to him then, pressing her still-damp forehead against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, letting his thumb rub gentle circles over her shoulder. This is why, Kristoff, he reminded himself, this is why you can’t tell her.

“I love you,” she said, sounding so forlorn he could have sworn he felt a little crack open up in his chest.

“Love you too. More than anything.”

---

He still didn't understand exactly how to use Twitter, but he did know enough to understand that when he logged in and saw stuff about Anna before he even searched her name, something big was happening.

Exclusive new behind the scenes photos from Anastasia! Click here for more:

It already had six thousand retweets, and dozens of replies all screaming about the photo of Hans and Anna clinging to one another. They were in full costume, surrounded by cameras, and the photo was grainy, but still he couldn't help but zoom in on Anna's face, the way she gazed up so lovingly at Hans, the same way she used to look at him before she started running so low on time. Now it seemed he only ever saw her when she was asleep or halfway there.

"Didn't take you for a Disney fan, Bjorgman," Ryder said from behind him.

"Not Disney. It's Fox," he muttered, knowing it was useless to rebuke him for peeking yet again.

"My sister works on that set," Ryder said proudly. "She does Anna Arendelle's hair and makeup."

"...Honeymaren is your sister?"

"...what the fuck? I thought I was the nosy one. How the hell do you-- oh my god, is that your Anna? The one you’ve known since high school and you live with and--”

Kristoff stood up suddenly, his chair screeching with the movement. “You can’t tell anyone,” he said, his voice unnaturally harsh. “I’m serious.”

For once, Ryder looked serious. “Jesus, man, no need to go all ‘I’m six-foot-four on me’. We’re friends. I wouldn’t fuck you over like that.”

His heart was pounding. He could trust Ryder-- he wanted to, at least, but it had been a secret for so long, and already even without other people knowing his life had been upended, and if it got any worse he might have to--

“Kristoff. Seriously, man, I’ll forget you said anything.”

Ryder looked wounded somehow as he turned and left. Feeling guilty, Kristoff called after him, “Wait, it’s just--”

Ryder glanced back over his shoulder. “We’ve all got our shit. I’m here to talk if you need.”

He walked away, and Kristoff found himself standing alone in a room silent except for the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and his own breath, harsh and heavy in his chest.

---

Sweat poured down his back as he ran harder than he ever had before, his legs pumping like he was desperately trying to get somewhere that remained forever just out of his grasp. 

He had woken up that morning to an empty bed and a post-it on the fridge with an apology. Meeting with Sam before filming, completely forgot. So sorry xo

She hadn’t even remembered to grab her lunch from the fridge. She probably had forgone breakfast too, and they were in the thick of filming now, doing the huge dance scenes that seemed to take all day and half the night and left her so exhausted sometimes he had to help her undress.

Last night had been one of those nights, and the night before, and this night would be the same, and his lungs were burning, and he’d already gone five miles, sprinting the whole way, and by the end of the day he would be too sore to move, but he still didn’t know what the hell to do and so he just kept running.

---

He was covering the front desk today for the receptionist, whose daughter had just had a baby; normally he wouldn’t have volunteered for something like this, would have wanted to stay doing what he knew best and getting as much experience working with the animals as he could, but as much as he hated talking on the phone to people, he knew he was likely to do more harm than help in the back of the clinic today.

Mercifully, the phones hadn’t been busy so far that morning. He stared, distantly curious, at his hand as it rested on the mousepad, trembling as if he wasn’t sitting perfectly still in a room that was by all standards a little over warm.

A styrofoam cup filled with shitty breakroom coffee appeared just in front of his fingers. “We’ve been taking bets on how long you’ll last out here without falling asleep,” Ryder informed him. “I said another hour, but it was looking iffy for a second there, so I brought you this.”

“Thanks, man.”

He ignored the cup and went back to watching his hand. He didn’t know a lack of sleep could do this. He’d have to keep that in mind next time he was scheduled for a surgery the next morning, would have to find some way to fall asleep in spite of his own mind.

“I, uh, I told my sister I know you. And that I know about it. If that’s okay, I mean,” Ryder said hurriedly. “She’d told me before about hanging out with Anna, and so I just kinda put two and two together and assumed she knew.”

“‘S fine. She’s known the whole time.”

“I, uh, I asked her if she knew why it was a secret. I could have asked you, I know, but, uh...you know how you are with secrets. Figured if I wanted the truth--”

“Just tell me what you want to say. Please,” Kristoff said, taking a sip of the lukewarm coffee in the futile hope it would help.

“Just...that it sucks. Especially with this shit with them saying she’s dating Hans Westergaard. Wish I could tell you ‘I get it’ or something. But I don’t, so I, uh, just...yeah. But I hope the, y’know, engagement ring thing that I saw you looking at that one time...I hope it works out.”

Kristoff ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah. Me, too.”

---

“They seriously won’t just let you call in sick?”

“I mean, I could, but at this point, I’m in all the scenes that are left, and I can’t just halt production for a whole day just because I’m sore, especially when we’re going to Russia in two weeks, and they’re all depending on me, and I can’t just--”

“You sprained your wrist,” he said flatly. “This is more than just being sore.”

“I know, but we already filmed one scene with it, I got Honeymaren to put some foundation on it so you can’t see the--”

“Anna,” he said, his voice so strained she finally went quiet.

He grabbed one of her makeup wipes off the bathroom counter and came back to where she was perched on the edge of the bed. He took the injured wrist in his hand as carefully as he could and started gently dabbing at the nearly-invisible lines of makeup. She winced, and that crack in his chest widened a little more, deepening further as the green and brown smudges faded into view.

“Jesus,” he muttered, and her fingers curled into a fist as she tried to pull away, embarrassed. “Anna, no, I just-- how did you manage this?”

“There was this stunt with the train scene, and nobody else was going to have a stunt person do it, and so I...I wanted to try and see if I could do it, but I just...I don’t know, Kris, I just fucked it up, I guess.”

He bit back everything he wanted to say; what good what it do, anyway, when everybody else seemed to be encouraging her to push herself this way? Instead, he leaned down and pressed a featherlight kiss to her palm. “Let me get something to put on it.”

When he came back a few minutes later with a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel, she had already curled up on her side and fallen asleep, still fully dressed. He sat beside her, lifting her head onto his lap. She still didn’t wake up, and so he carefully raised her injured wrist, holding it gently as he could as he pressed the makeshift cold compress against it. 

He stayed holding her that way, for a long, long time, until the peas had thawed, and then he went to the kitchen and threw them out and leaned over the sink and splashed cold water onto his face, wondering how much one person could bear.

---

Mid-February had finally rolled around with all its gray skies and sappy pink storefront displays. She was leaving in thirty-six hours, and he hadn’t seen her since the night before, because he’d gotten up two hours earlier than normal to come in early so he could leave early and take her out on the date they’d been planning since even before New Year’s, the one to make up for her being gone for the next three weeks and missing their first Valentine’s together.

It wasn’t that he gave a single fuck about the holiday; it was that she did, and so he’d put his heart into planning it all out: they were going to drive outside of the city limits, just enough that anyone who saw them might do a double take but still keep walking, but not so far that they would get back home too late for anything else. He’d found a diner just like one they used to hang out at in high school, one where they could order a giant strawberry milkshake to dip their fries into and spend all the quarters they could find in her car on playing cheesy old love songs from the sixties, one where if they got lucky they could risk holding hands under the table without anyone seeing.

He was already half-dressed after showering off the day’s stress, expecting her to come through the door any minute, when his phone buzzed.

i’m so sorry

He was half-tempted to throw the phone out the window. Maybe if he didn’t read the rest of the message it wouldn’t come true.

He looked again anyway, that now-familiar crack in his chest widening into a full-blown chasm.

i’m so sorry, something happened with the plane tickets and then the schedules changed and so they want us to have a meeting

hans said we can do it at his place (🤮) since we’re all tired of the set

but at least that’s towards where you said we were gonna go 

i’m so so sorry kris can you pick me up from here? ill just ride over with him i guess so i can leave my car here

He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, putting the phone aside to bury his face in his hands. How the fuck had they gotten here? This wasn’t supposed to happen; they were supposed to move in together, and it would all be fixed, and he’d see her enough, and it was all going to be fine, but it hadn’t been fine for so long he was starting to wonder whether it would be again. 

His hand, his arm, his whole body felt like it had been filled with lead when he picked up the phone to respond. Of course, baby. Just call me when it’s over.

He finished getting dressed and went to sit on the sofa; figuring at least he could turn on the TV and find some stupid show to drown out his thoughts. His eyes flicked down to the Netflix button on the remote; what the hell, he thought, you already feel like shit, might as well see her during it.

He put her movie on, the stupid Christmas one he’d helped her run lines for, and watched her-but-not live through a dreamy, whirlwind romance, even almost smiled at the scene they had read together on his living room floor all those months ago; he closed his eyes for the kiss at the end, even though he’d seen the movie before with Sven when it first came out, he didn’t know if he could take watching it right now.

He kept watching while the credits rolled, jealous of all the people whose names scrolled by for every second they got to spend with her, not knowing how he coveted her time. It was getting dark; he glanced at his phone, expecting to see that he’d missed something from her, but there was nothing.

He went to the kitchen and cracked open a beer; he wasn’t normally one to drink when he got like this, but tonight-- tonight something felt different, like the air was suddenly running out of oxygen, like the walls of this house they had thought would be full of so much happiness were closing in on him.

He finished it; still nothing. It was late enough now she’d be too hungry to wait through the drive up. Fine; they’d get McDonald’s, or order a pizza, or he’d cook pancakes for her-- he didn’t care, he just wanted to fucking see her before she left, just wanted to be with her and no one else and pretend that it could be that way all the time.

He cracked open another beer. Another hour passed, and the frustration that had been pooling in his gut had started to ferment into worry. She was never quiet this long; something had to have happened, something had to be wrong. 

His jaw was clenched; he released it, thinking it would lighten some of the tension coiled tight in every part of him, but it didn’t. He felt hot and cold and too big and too small all at once, a bundle of aching and anxiety bouncing around the prison of his own skull while he waited to hear something, anything.

Suddenly he could take it no more and stormed out the front door, snatching up his keys and heading for the car. He had it started, had his hand on the gear stick to pull it into reverse when a sudden horrible thought hit him: what if she didn’t want him to pick her up? What if she wanted to spend her last nights here with everyone else, with all the other people like her, the ones who kept pushing her and and demanding so much of her, all in the pursuit of-- of whatever the fuck it was that kept her going like this.

He went back inside and sat at the kitchen table, his eyes never moving from the door.

Another half hour passed, and then suddenly it swung open and she was there, her eyes wild and her hair half-out of a ponytail. “Kris, I’m so fucking sorry,” she gasped out, and he stood, striding over to her.

“I-- I rode with Hans,” she explained, already reaching for him, “and then I got there and realized my phone was gonna die, and I didn’t have my charger with me because it was in the car, and no one else had theirs either, and then the meeting just kept fucking going on and on because everyone was asking so many questions, and then I had to borrow someone’s phone to get an Uber and it turns out that that just complicates things and I-- fuck fuck fuck I’m so sorry, I just--”

“I need to go,” he said shortly, catching the door before it could swing shut behind her and slipping out into the night without saying goodbye.

[fromchaos]

i like my body

read it on the ao3 at http://archiveofourown.org/works/7846558

(repost of an old fic just bc)

summary: adam has noticed for some time that while ronan seems to be getting more comfortable every day, he’s been feeling gradually stranger in his skin.

pynch, rated m, #everyoneistrans

title from the poem “i like my body” by e. e. cummings, which vaguely inspired this fic. in order to fully get into the mood, listen to the entirety of the front bottoms discography.

cw/tw for gender dysphoria, brief references to adam’s past, mentions of gender confirmation surgery, and non-graphic descriptions of sex. in addition, i’d just like to say that i am but one trans person and the experiences of these characters certainly don’t represent the experiences of all trans people. okay, enjoy!

the first time one of them leaves a mark, it’s almost completely an accident. ronan gets carried away lavishing attention at the meeting of adam’s neck and shoulder, and later there is a faint red splotch in that very spot. he doesn’t notice it until he’s brushing his teeth before he leaves for work. as he kisses ronan goodbye at the door, he comments on it as casually as possible, “nice leech action earlier.” adam swivels his head to the side, baring the little mark to ronan.

ronan looks embarrassed, which on him is really just one of many variations on “mad.” he won’t meet adam’s eyes when he snaps, “sorry, won’t happen again.”

and maybe adam should have expected he’d take it this way; physicality between the two of them has been a slow, rambling journey, ironically nowhere near as natural as it had felt with blue. they still haven’t done anything more than clumsily feel each other other up in the midst of a heavy makeout session. any verbal acknowledgment of it by either of them usually makes the other respond with teeth and claws bared, ready for a fight. “no, ronan,” adam says, trying for a tone that could be described as earnest, “really- nice.”

it’s still not enough, still awkward in the way words usually are between them. their flirtation had been about actions and spontaneous gestures for so long that it sometimes feels like things get lost in translation. when adam had asked gansey about it, his sage advice had been, “if you can’t talk about it, you shouldn’t be doing it.” and adam wants to be doing it, wants to be doing even more of it, so he bravely struggles through moments like this one.

ronan’s face breaks into something more open and unreadable, and he gives adam one more kiss before shoving him out the door. on opposite sides of the barn’s walls, they are both smiling.

from that point on, ronan and adam rarely appear in public without a few hickeys between the two of them. the others give them shit for it almost constantly, but adam just rolls his eyes because he doesn’t have words to describe how good it feels to have bruises that his friends can joke about, how it feels like he and ronan might belong to each other in a way that isn’t completely terrifying.

in january, ronan gets top surgery as a christmas present to himself. the surgeon is in dc, so he stays with the ganseys while gansey is up there for the winter break. adam asks if ronan wants him there, but he shakes his head and gives adam’s hand a squeeze where it’s held between them on the couch. he doesn’t explain too much, probably can’t, but adam figures he understands some of his reasoning. they’ve been working on it, but they still struggle with being vulnerable in front of each other, and adam feels uncomfortable with any behavior that could be described as “nurturing.” gansey had been taking care of ronan a lot longer, and he’d gotten his own top surgery more than a year before.

when he comes back to the barns nearly a week afterwards, adam is anxiously waiting at the kitchen table with opal, who is chomping on a fork and kicking her hooves. the pig pulls up, and he rushes to the door to see ronan slowly pushing himself out of the car while gansey carries his bag and fusses over him.

“remember, opal, no tackling.”

she snorts, clearly of the opinion that tackling should always be allowed. “how long?” she whines.

“two weeks. at least.” opal throws the fork angrily but comes to stand by the door regardless.

ronan grins when he comes in, even after gansey starts nagging him and overloading adam with care-giving instructions. he waits until opal has given ronan a surprisingly sweet hug to say his own hello. it’s just a light kiss, a whispered “welcome home,” in his ear, but when he pulls back, both ronan and gansey are looking at him with utter delight.

“stop making it weird,” he reprimands, leading the way into the living room so that no one can see the way his face has heated up. ronan takes the couch, lies down with his feet in the air so adam can slide under them, put his feet in his lap.

gansey settles in an armchair, says seriously, “i’m just so happy for you two. you know, this is exactly the sort of fluffy human interest story they put on local news networks, and it’s happening to you. that’s exciting!” ronan and adam sneak a look at each other that says exactly what they think of that, and adam has to hold back a laugh. a transgender fluff piece on local news would probably have a lot less dangerous magic, death, near-death experiences, and a lot more parents and heterosexuality.

“well, i’m just saying that i think it’s nice. things haven’t worked out half-bad is all,” gansey continues, “certainly not as terribly as they could have.”

“you’re right, gansey,” adam says, “we’re just being assholes.”

gansey stays for a while, until it’s obvious he’s just being polite by pretending he wouldn’t much rather be getting an enthusiastic welcome back from a certain tiny fashion disaster. “tell blue we say hi,” adam says as gansey is leaving.

“tell them to go to hell,” ronan adds with a small smile.

the last thing gansey says before he goes is, “i certainly will not.”

after adam makes a lazy dinner of instant mac and cheese and gets opal in bed, ronan gestures to him, says “c’mon.” he follows him up to the bathroom, where ronan starts unpacking the paper bag full of ointment and dressing gansey had left there earlier. he starts to roll up his t-shirt and stops halfway, admits, “my arms don’t really move that far yet.” adam tugs it the rest of the way up and off for him.

it’s not the first time he’s seen ronan shirtless, but it is the first time ronan doesn’t immediately curl up on himself or switch the focus to adam instead. his chest is still bandaged and a little swollen, but he looks good. the context isn’t quite right for adam to get worked up about it, but he admits to himself that his boyfriend is more than a little okay-looking. “you’re gonna have to get used to this glorious sight, parrish. soon i’m gonna be strutting all over the place half-naked. never wearing a shirt again,” ronan jokes when the silence stretches on a beat too long.

adam starts peeling away the first bandage, maybe a little too harsh at first. “it’s january. you’ll freeze your newly-placed nipples right off.”

ronan’s hands come up almost reflexively in a protective gesture. he huffs, “you’re just jealous.” it doesn’t really make sense, but the comeback sits with adam as he finishes cleaning the incisions and changing the bandages.

he isn’t jealous of ronan’s new chest per say, but he has noticed for some time that while ronan seems to be getting more comfortable every day, he’s been feeling gradually stranger in his skin.

over the past few months, he’s been more and more aware of his body with each passing day. maybe it started with cabeswater vanishing or with being in a relationship or the way his chest and shoulders seem to be broadening out. maybe he just has too much time to think about himself now that all of his spare time isn’t dedicated to hunting for glendower. whatever the cause, adam’s body feels at once the most his that it ever has and the most alien from himself that he can ever remember.

they sleep in the same bed that night, eager for more time together even if it’s spent unconscious. adam tries not to get too close to where ronan lies on his back, anxious about disrupting his healing, but he slides their hands together and holds on tight.

they get better at the physical stuff slowly and steadily, to the point where adam would even call it a major component of their relationship, but they stay firmly planted at second base for almost six months. there’s ronan’s weird catholic guilt, adam’s overtaxed schedule, and both of their individual body issues to contend with. adam can’t say he hasn’t thought about it- it’s actually become sort of an obsession. he’s lost precious sleep thinking about how it would happen: what actual acts would be performed, how it would feel, what ronan would look like in that final moment as he tipped over the edge. he’s a planner, and sex is no exception.

but the thing about ronan-the thing about adam with ronan-that he should have accounted for is the recklessness, the spontaneity. when it happens, it’s almost completely different than he had envisioned.

they’ve been having a lethargic day at the barns. no homework, no odd jobs around the farm, just catching up on sleep and heating up leftovers. there’s been a series of movies playing on the television in the living room, but adam has missed large chunks of every single one for trading lazy, sloppy kisses with ronan on the couch. opal had been sitting on the floor with declan’s old lincoln logs for the first movie, but had left shouting and making sounds of disgust once the kissing had started. it doesn’t feel like it’s building up to anything, going anywhere, until ronan comments, faux-casually, “we could be doing this upstairs.”

adam adopts the same tone when he adds, “in an actual bed.”

“with a door that locks,” ronan smirks, now that he’s sure they’re on the same page.

it takes them a while to actually get upstairs to ronan’s room, to remove clothing, to get into a workable position on the bed.

then ronan zeroes in on adam with laser focus, building him up first with his hand, then with his mouth. it’s good (really good), but there are still moments when he starts to get uncomfortable with the attention. he keeps turning his head to the pillow next to him, only to remind himself that ronan is on top of him, below him, not at his side. then ronan will pause and grin up at him, and his stomach settles, and he can just let himself feel good.

when he finishes, ronan crawls back up to his side and collapses, face down in his pillow. adam presses kisses onto his shoulder, his bicep, his shoulder blade- anywhere he can reach while his bones still feel like jelly. ronan turns his head, says, “i’m good.”

“i know. are you looking for a performance review or something?” adam teases between kisses.

ronan groans. “no, asshole. i mean- ugh.” he buries his face into the pillow again, speaks out of the side of his mouth, “you can return the favor tomorrow or next time or whatever. right now- i’m good.”

something about that doesn’t sit right with adam. it’s hard not to think of this as a one-sided exchange, a debt that hasn’t been properly paid, even if he knows rationally that it was a gift ronan gave without any expectation of reciprocation. as if he can hear the gears working in adam’s brain, ronan continues with difficulty, “look, it’s like- it’s- i- you.” he pauses, sighs, cracks a single eye to look at adam, “being with you, getting you off- that gets me off, okay? you make me feel like i’m getting off with the body i wish i had.”

he hadn’t thought of it that way. he isn’t sure he gets it, but adam never leaves something alone until he understands completely. “is that… enough?” “i mean, not always. i still fucking want you, okay? but tonight, just let me savor this shit.”

“okay.”

“okay,” ronan echoes. he wraps an arm around adam, pulls him closer until he can just flop on top of him the way he likes to when he’s on the brink of sleep. adam stays awake a little longer, puzzling out what it is about his body ronan finds so reassuring. in the morning, he does return the favor, and he tries to suppress the overwhelming feeling of smug satisfaction it brings him.

the gang almost always hangs out as a complete group, barring romantic endeavors. sometimes, though, ronan starts to get restless and awful, and gansey starts acting like he’s got a bee in his bonnet, and that’s usually when it’s decided he and gansey need some special friendship time. then things go back to normal again for a while. henry says it’s what adam and blue deserve for breaking up their boyfriends. they say it doesn’t matter why it works, just that it does.

while the two of them are off on their very special friend date, adam meets henry and blue for frozen yogurt at the usual place. at first it had felt wrong to go there without noah, to act like nothing had changed, but a new normal slowly asserted itself as time went on. also, there is only one frozen yogurt place in henrietta.

henry is trying to steal bites of blue’s fro-yo which usually would lead to blue wielding her spoon like a sword and henry getting injured. today, though, blue seems distracted, and ze has free access to her banana yogurt.

“i’m starting to suspect an ulterior motive for this trip,” he says once henry has eaten all of zir own fro-yo and about half of blue’s.

“huh? no!” she startles, then relaxes again, taps her plastic spoon on her lip contemplatively. “i guess i was just thinking about how it would feel to be the token cis person in the gang. it’s sort of weird, right? how all of us are this spectrum of trans identity and you’re…”

“boring cis adam?” he supplies. his stomach does a weird flip and he pushes what’s left of his fro-yo to henry.

“no!” she says again, “i mean, sort of. like, half of fox way is trans, and i didn’t really have friends at school, and now there’s all of us, and i guess what i’m saying is… i’ve never really had cis friends?”

“preach, bluester!” henry cries, drawing the attention of several other patrons at the fro-yo stand.

blue continues, “and i never really thought that a cis person could get it, could be so not-shitty about gender stuff. it sounds weird, but, like, what is that like?”

she’s looking at him so intensely, and now henry is paying full attention too, and adam feels sort of put on the spot. it had certainly occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t conventional for a friend group to be as diverse gender-wise as theirs was, but he’d always figured that was what had made them so intensely bonded. and he’d never really thought about what it meant to be cisgender. he stumbles looking for the right words. “thanks? i don’t know? i mean, what’s it like to be trans?”

“a-damn!” henry cries, “that is not the point of this very scientific inquiry. we are on a journey into the horrific and strange world of the cis mind!” blue nods absentmindedly, but turns back to adam with a strange, conflicted expression.

he shrugs, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. he wishes the conversation hadn’t taken this turn. he says, almost pleadingly, “i’m serious, guys. i’ve never really thought about it. i figured that’s what being cis meant: never having to think about it.”

blue’s face scrunches up further. she speaks like she’s choosing her words very carefully, “i don’t think that that’s the whole of it, though. like, yeah, i think about my gender a lot which is maybe part of having a more fluid identity than, say, gansey or ronan, but even when i’m not actively thinking about it, i feel it? i don’t really know how to describe it.”

this time, henry is the one nodding. ze says, “if i may, blue’s clues- for me, it’s a sort of like being hungry or being warm or some other bodily sense? sometimes i just feel off, maybe i’m crabby all day for some unknown reason, maybe i just feel uneasy, and i don’t really realize it. then it hits me later that it’s just time to try out some new pronouns because these don’t feel right anymore.”

“right!” blue chimes. “but, like, not always about pronouns. some days, i’m just, like, more aware of my gender and my dysphoria.”

“oh.” adam feels prickly, like his skin is stretched too tight, and then he flexes his fingers under the table, tries not to feel that way because that sounds sort of like- he stands, looks at his watch, realizes he’s not wearing a watch, says, “i should get going. i have a shift at the garage in an hour, and i wanted to pick up some stuff from st. agnes beforehand.” he’s sort of light-headed now that he’s standing.

“‘stuff?’” henry echoes, an eyebrow raised.

blue looks worried, but she puts on a big smile for adam as she goes to hug him goodbye. “i mean, if you have to. we’ll see you around. take care of yourself.”

he rushes back to his car and tries not to think about how blue and henry are totally talking about him right now. about how cis he is, how he couldn’t handle their conversation because he’s a hetero-cis-patriarch (hetero?), how stupid he is for never thinking about gender like they apparently spend all their time doing.

adam doesn’t even have work until that night, a graveyard shift at the factory, so he starts the car and speeds back to the barns instead. he really had meant to pick up some of his stuff from st. agnes since he has to be moved out by the end of june, but right now he’s craving the wide open grounds of the barns so badly that he allows himself this small moment of irresponsibility.

ronan finds him on the roof of one of the smaller buildings towards the edge of the property when he gets back from monmouth. adam had thought maybe he had heard a sound like wheels on gravel twenty minutes earlier, but he had been too stuck in his own head to do anything about it. he feels slow and sort of far away, like he’s scrying but in a closed, limited space.

“thinking about jumping?” ronan snarks, throwing himself down next to adam. when he only gives a noncommittal hum, ronan scootches closer and nuzzles his bristly head into adam’s neck. the sensation helps a little, so he brings up a hand to scratch at ronan’s scalp. “if you’re getting all emo over something, could you at least give me a hint what it is?”

adam chuckles before he can stop himself. “emo? it’s 2015, is emo still a thing?”

“punk might be dead, but emo is immortal, dude,” ronan claims, leaning into adam’s touch. his breath is humid on adam’s shoulder, but the day is mild. they sit and look at the grounds of the barns in silence. ronan doesn’t let it go. “seriously, what the fuck is up?”

he gives adam space to speak at his own pace, knows he doesn’t like speaking until the thought is complete. “do you think i’m a man?” he asks abruptly. “i mean, do you think i’m manly?” he can tell it’s not where ronan thought he was going with this conversation. he stills for a moment against adam’s shoulder before relaxing again.

“honestly?” adam nods. “i don’t get much of a vibe at all from you.”

“thanks.” his voice and his temperament make the words come out sour, but he hopes ronan knows he means it. adam has always been thankful for ronan’s brutal honesty at times when everyone else wants to coddle him.

he shrugs, slips down until his head in adam’s lap right as adam’s arm was getting tired. these little intuitive gestures are probably the most consistent part of their relationship. ronan reaches for his hand, kisses his fingers. “is that all?”

adam takes a shuddering breath. “would this all be over if i wasn’t a man?”

ronan doesn’t answer, just meets his eyes with a vicious intensity and keeps kissing his fingers, his palm. he feels like he might hyperventilate when he asks, “and what if i wanted to try ‘they’ pronouns?”

ronan takes a moment, and when he responds, every word is deliberately enunciated: “you don’t need my approval, adam. i’ll do whatever you want me to. shit, i thought that was pretty obvious.”

he knows that. he does, but he feels like he’s still practicing this whole business of agency, of declaring what he wants and expecting to be respected. adam says, “well, i do. want that.”

“as you fucking wish,” ronan whispers, leaning up to crush a searing kiss to their lips.