#but I’m off early tomorrow and wanna just get wasted when I get home :3c

[maraschino-dyke]

House to myself all this weekend hehe <3

[partyinthemysterymachine]

Harry + betrayed (looks at a&s au stuff like :3c)

looks at you like 🔪

===

Every time the mug came out of the steaming hot dishwasher, Harry clasped it in both hands. The ceramic was always scalding, and his palms always threatened to blister. Clouds reeking of dishwasher detergent lifted and swept over his forearm, humid as a summer’s stifling rain, its pungency sickening his heart. 

He hated to wash this mug. 

Bright and early at six o’clock every morning, Harry made coffee. It steeped dark and bitter, just how they liked it. The first pour went into his mug; the second filled his own. Then both were taken to the small, round table in the corner of their kitchen. Harry set the mug down on the wood itself to the right of the round, rattan woven placemats they’d found in a bargain bin at Williams-Sonoma. Harry’s coffee went on the placemat itself, edging the rim, at his left.

How charming it was to have their mugs across from each other like that. He always liked how they seemed to be having a conversation through the coffee’s dissipating flames of white steam. As they drained their caffeine and burned their throats, the heat shocking their stomachs, they’d talk. 

Talking didn’t necessarily mean words were used. No, words weren’t his forte, though he relished every sound that rolled off his tongue. He spoke with his face and through his hands, and if Harry ever had his way, he’d spend the hours morn to midnight simply gazing at his face.

Two hours later, Harry stood and took the cold, untouched mugs to the sink. Down the drain went the wasted coffee, dumped out at the same time. A swish of water from the faucet did a quick and fine job of cleaning them out, and Harry’s went, dripping, onto the counter. Then he ran the water again to piping hot, abusing skin rough and chapped from this daily ritual of cleaning, cleaning out his ice cold coffee, cleaning, cleaning out the dots of mold he’d let grow for two weeks because he couldn’t let that go, cleaning, cleaning out that damn spot, that damn spot, that damn spot.

The mug was as hot as it was when it came out of the dishwasher, and Harry clasped it in both hands. His teeth tried to send their roots into his skull with his jaw clamped like that, and he wished his tongue, sucked hard to the roof of his mouth and tastebuds rough as sandpaper, would swell and choke him. Every time it didn’t, which was every morning, every single morning for the past three years, Harry called it betrayal.

His kiss held tender on the warm rim. It was the last place his lips had laid where Harry could kiss him, for he couldn’t kiss his own cheek. Like every morning, his eyes slipped closed and he thought of their daily coffee date at their kitchen table. Autumn was in full golden, fiery bloom. People swarmed to Vermont to lose their breath to the vast garden of nature’s heavenly, untamed wildfire that never burned. 

Every single fucking morning it was autumn again, the mug had been scorching hot, then chilly, the phantom pressure of his kiss lingered on his cheek, and Harry tried to kiss him back too on ceramic that had been the last tangible thing to experience his lips.

Today, he set the mug down on the counter alongside the one in its puddle. The water brimmed its mismatched mate immediately and would leave an incomplete circle in its wake after Harry would take it up and wrap it in a soft towel. That puddle would dry on its lonesome over the course of as many minutes; Harry wrapped up his personal mug, too.

Remaining coffee got poured and locked in a thermos. They were placed in the coveted seat beside the driver’s - shotgun! one’s supposed to yell to reserve it for themselves - tucked safely behind a plain old box. 

The ignition chittered on. Rancid boomed and rattled the Jeep’s speakers. Harry absently wiggled the shiny, custom-made Magic Eight Ball fortune teller stick shift knob. He glanced down. ‘It is decidedly so,’ promised the triangular face washed behind blue, its text pressed on the circular window. 

A draw; and exhale. The YJ Wrangler shifted into gear, easing back out of the driveway, Harry’s arm slung around the shotgun seat and head turned to watch over his shoulder as he safely maneuvered to their personal gravel road leading to and from their remote, comfortable Vermont hideaway.

It’d probably take five, six hours, give or take, to get to Maine. He was looking forward to their coffee date. Five out of the seven days of the week Harry drove to Maine to hang out on the shore of Toluca Lake. Coffee was served into their mugs; he kept his at his side, and his tucked into the sand and mud at the water’s breach. 

Sometimes he’d talk, update his husband on his books, their daughter, the latest news that did and didn’t matter. Other times he’d sit in silence, listening and watching the new face of a man he loved. Harry was there in rain, sleet, and snow. He’d all but frozen his ass off before out there and sweated buckets in the heat. But they had their spot, and that’s where he’d always sit.

Silent Hill rested to the south. They took a vacation there once. Harry hates how it looks out across Toluca. Take your fucking eyes somewhere else, he regularly thinks. Don’t fucking look at him.

It oversees. One day, Harry’s promised five days out of the seven in the week, he’s going to tear that town asunder by his own bare hands. 

Tomorrow might be that day. Harry rises to his feet. It is decidedly so. He fetches the Jeep’s constant tenant for the last three years. It is decidedly so. 

“I hope you liked your coffee, honey,” he says to the lake lapping at his boots as he wades into snapping cold. “So, I asked the eight ball if I’d see you today,” Harry Mason offhandedly tells his husband residing in the lake. “Guess what it said? ‘It is decidedly so.’ Take that as you will. I know you know what I’ve planned to do, honeylove. Don’t get up in my tits about it,” warns the older man, now appropriately submerged mid-chest. “I’m not gonna do it today. Doesn’t feel right. But I thought it’d be nice to see you, anyway.”

“So you’re wondering why I brought the box in with me? Well, I’m glad you asked! For one, I fixed it up and made it waterproof,” he smirks, cradling it in his arm and popping it open. “And two.. c’mon, now. You know I’d lose these if I didn’t keep ‘em in here.”

Two pendants, no bigger than his thumbnail, each on their own thin chain, dangled just skimming the water’s surface. Two pendants, amber and glinting, somehow even in the thick grey mist rolling in from Silent Hill. “Check these out. I got ‘em made a few months ago and I’ve just now had the balls to bring ‘em out. It’s because the eight ball said I’d see you today. So.. here. One of them’s for you. I figure you can make yours glow in there, firefly. You have a knack for lightin’ up the dark.”

Harry chuckles, wagging his head back and forth, mocking himself. “Yeah, yeah, mushy, whatever, I’m a dork. Thbhtghbh. What’re you gonna do, divorce me? Shoulda thought about that before you went fishing, babe.” He collects the chains and their sculpted fireflies into his fist. One kiss is enough for both. Then he smiled, looked into the lake, and felt comforted by the thought that that sweet, pale man with yellow wheat field hair was watching him.

Projection is a very real, very psychedelic thing, for sometimes, Harry thinks he can see his face.

The water sways around his wrist. He gazes into Toluca Lake and waits, and hopes that the magic of the eight ball is true.

Will I get to see James today?

It is decidedly so.

If he were to do it all over again from the top, do you think he’d still do it this way?

It is decidedly so.

Does he know I love him?

It is decidedly so.

Does he know I’ll never forgive him?

It is decidedly so.

When the day comes, I’ll kill that motherfucker myself. I dunno how it’s gonna happen, but it’s gonna happen. Fucking asshole. He knows that, right?

….

.. right?

“I gotta go soon, babe,” Harry murmurs to his husband, James Mason (formerly Sunderland). “I’m gonna leave one with you. I’ll be back tomorrow. If you wanna trade, we can. Fuck, I don’t wanna get a fuckin’ yeast infection out here,” he gripes, turning to wade out of the lake. “Seriously, James. Not like a yeast infection wouldn’t stop me from comin’ out here but you bet your ass you’re gonna hear all fucking about it, because it will be your fault, and I fucking hate you, so goddamn fucking much, honeylove.”

Harry makes it out to the shore. He takes the box to its honored seat in shotgun! James’s coffee gets thrown into Toluca; he pours his out where he’d sat. Then the mason with rusted tools scans his exhausted, old, heavily lined eyes across the scenic lake where an orange (rare, so rare, extremely rare and mean everything) firefly swims. He’ll never get over the betrayal. It doesn’t matter if he understands it. It doesn’t matter that he’s (and he’s) been waiting for it long before they’d met. 

After all those thousands of years of looking for each other, this is how he chooses to betray him: like Judas, with a kiss.

A kiss on a ceramic mug that is going to be washed again today, and tomorrow morning, and will scald his hands.

A kiss, a kiss, a kiss from a man whose lips promised I love you with a simple brush. Lips Harry hasn’t felt in three years; his heart can break even more.

Will I ever get to kiss him again? Harry asks his stick shift as he drives towards his six (give or take) hour journey home to Vermont.

It is decidedly so, replies the eight ball.

Will it be soon? inquires a widowed man, widowed for the second time.

It is decidedly so, soothes the inky window.

When?

Turn right off this street, guides the knob too small to say so. Fifty miles out. It won’t take long.

Huh? I can barely see with all this fog. Where am I going?

To see James. 

James? What’s he doing all the way out here?

Waiting for you.

.. waiting for me? I’ll get to see him again?! Jeez.. damn, I’ve got a splitting headache all of a sudden .. fifty miles to Silent Hill.. hrm, seems farther than I remember, but.. 

He’s waiting for you.

.. forgot to clean up the coffee at home.. m’sure it’ll be fine.. Cheryl’ll be over at some point.. heh.. can’t believe he wants to spend our anniversary in Silent Hill.. fuckin’ weirdo.. a vow renewal? And he calls me disgusting..

He’s waiting.

I’m comin’. I’ll be there soon, James. It’s gonna be alright. I can’t wait to see you. We’re gonna have a great vacation, just the two of us, aren’t we, sweetheart?  

It is decidedly so.

[pnrrish]

♦ pynch :3c

♦ slow dancing

Uncomfortable heat and the clatter of too many voices swirl out the door as it opens, light from inside the conference hall spilling out onto the empty veranda in stark blocks of gold and almost-black on the cement. Adam doesn’t look up, only shifts his weight from one foot to the other; there’s enough glass in the French double doors that the difference between open and closed is minimal. He’s supposed to be schmoozing since Gansey had hinted at networking opportunities, despite that it’s just the graduation reception for this year’s crop of Aglionby seniors, but Adam just wishes he hadn’t left his jacket in the coat closet when he’d arrived. It’s either unusually cold for mid-May or he’s just having that much trouble getting warm.

“I thought I’d find you out here.”

Adam turns his head to see Ronan making his lazy way across the patio, thumbs in his pockets, cutting an impressive figure in the well-fitted charcoal-gray number Matthew had gently bullied him into wearing. He looks good in it–very good, in fact, and Adam has to turn back around to surreptitiously loosen his tie so that his suddenly-pounding heart doesn’t pop a button. Of course, Ronan doesn’t notice, just installs himself at the railing, close enough to bump shoulders and wall off a little of the night breeze.

Adam sighs and leans the side of his head against Ronan’s warm shoulder. “I needed some air. All that networking with fifteen-year-olds and their parents was giving me a migraine.”

Ronan barks a laugh, slips his arm around Adam’s waist and presses in close, burying his face in the cool skin of Adam’s neck and breathing deeply. Even though he can’t see it, he can imagine the face Ronan is pulling, that marriage of tolerant grimace and fond smile that he loves. “They love you,” Ronan says. “Best-looking salutatorian in Aglionby history. How many job offers did you get?”

Adam laughs and leans closer. “None. I got about six board members asking for yearly donations, though. I told them nobody’s getting anything until they take my shitty picture out of the brochure.”

“Serious?” Ronan huffs into Adam’s shirt collar, his smile poking through the fabric. “I would have paid good money to see the look on Pauls’ face.”

Andre Pauls, the decrepit and bad-tempered head of the Giving Society, would have very quietly had an aneurysm at the mildest of curses, so it’s with a wistful tone of regret that Adam says, “Well, I didn’t say ‘shitty’.”

“That’s real funny, Parrish. I didn’t think you were a wuss.”

The door glides open again and the dwindling chatter inside washes over them–it’s gotten late enough that most everyone has left in pursuit of sleep or a wilder party. Footsteps. A muttered oh, excuse me. The footsteps retreat; the door remains open. Grumbling, Ronan shucks his suit jacket and tosses it over one of the rusted wrought-iron lawn chairs, yanking at the knot of his tie.

How unfair, how that does nothing to ease the constriction in Adam’s chest.

“C’mere,” he says, tugging at Adam’s sleeve and pulling him close. He laces their fingers and buries his face in the crook of Adam’s neck, next to his right ear. Someone inside finds an acoustic guitar and starts plucking a skillful, if tone-deaf, rendition of some John Mayer song that Ronan groans at. But he sways to the music all the same.

I don’t think I wanna go to L.A. anymore; I won’t know what it’s like to land and not race to your door….

“I hate this song.” Adam smiles, leans more fully into Ronan’s warmth–he’s not listening to the music at all, just relishing the chance to be close. A chance he regretfully hasn’t had since Christmas—spring break had been a hectic maelstrom of internship interviews and service projects and twenty-page papers that left a total of zero time to go home—

(when had he started thinking of the Barns as home?)

��and so this light touch is more than enough for the moment, cheek to cheek, his fingers linked behind Ronan’s neck, Ronan’s hands settled on Adam’s hips, gently shifting weight from one foot to the other, not quite on the beat.

I’m gonna steer clear: I’d burn up in your atmosphere.

“Think you’re gonna be around much this summer?”

I’m gonna steer clear, ‘cause I’d die if I saw you, die if I didn’t see you there…so I don’t think I’m gonna go to L.A. anymore.

Adam really should have seen this question for what it was, but instead he answers without thinking. “Oh, I hope so. It’ll be tricky with the internship but I’ve got a couple weeks between that and my summer classes—”

His first hint that this conversation isn’t going the way he’d expected is Ronan’s wary interjection: “Summer classes?” This isn’t the first time they’ve talked about this. This isn’t even the first time Ronan’s given even the slightest hint that he might not be thrilled about the idea. Adam presses on, ignoring the sudden churning in his gut because if he can just explain one more time—

(The guitar stumbles drunkenly over a chord progression and skips a verse: Wherever I go, wherever you are, I’ll watch your life play out in pictures from afar….)

“Yeah,” he says, unable to keep a hint of annoyance from creeping into his voice. “The two summer classes that’ll take me a month and a half to finish. Seriously, Lynch, it’s like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said all year—”

“I heard the part where I get two weeks with you from now until Christmas—”

“You know Thanksgiving is a thing, right?”

“That’s two days, and I honestly don’t know why you’d bother when it would be so much cheaper to stay up in Philadelphia.”

“Because I want to? Because I miss you and I want to spend time with you?”

The second hint that this conversation isn’t going the way Adam expected is the barb laced in Ronan’s response:

“Why?”

The kid with the guitar has stopped playing and the conference hall is dark—and honestly, that’s probably for the best. With the party well and truly over, the only people privy to the argument are Adam and Ronan themselves.

“The hell do you mean, ‘why’?” Adam’s long crossed the line from bewildered and annoyed to pissed, not just at Ronan’s instant, overboiling hostility, but at all of this in general. The way Ronan gets moody and snappish the day before he has to leave. The way he answers every question with either deflection or unwarranted venom. The way he walks around like an explosive on a timer that’s steadily ticking down to an unknown deadline.

Like he thinks there’ll come a day when Adam decides there’s nothing in Henrietta worth coming back for.

Like he thinks it’s so inevitable that he might as well blow it all up now and save them both from wasting any more time.

When Ronan doesn’t answer, Adam keeps talking, his voice shaking and his hands numb with anger. It’s all he can do to scramble for the right words; if they’ve had this argument once, they’ve had it a hundred thousand times, and he keeps hoping he can find the magic combination that will make him finally understand.

“You really think I’d rather be in Pennsylvania right now? Where it starts snowing in September and traffic is always the shittiest and the only person I can have a normal conversation with is my eighty-year-old history professor?” His breath is growing shorter and shorter by the word, his fingers tremblingly clutched in Ronan’s shirt collar, his heart thudding painfully. Somewhere under his ribcage, an ache like roots is spreading, oily and deep. “If I keep doing summer classes, I–there’s a good chance of me graduating early. I’m not just thinking about tomorrow and next week. I’m thinking about in three years getting to come back and stay instead of doing this for one more year. I don’t want to stay up there. I want to come back home.” His throat catches on the last word, tripping over the h like a scratched disc, and he feels the burn of tears beginning to fall.

Ronan’s blinking owlishly, face full of understanding, silent only for a few moments.

“Oh, Adam,” he says softly. “Don’t cry. I’m not going anywhere.”

He can’t help it—his breath goes shuddery and deep and dry, groping dumbly for the air he’d almost been afraid he’d lose. Ronan’s hands are warm and soothing on his neck, thumbs swiping at cheekbones, forehead against forehead.

“You’re incredible,” Ronan murmurs. “Sometimes it’s hard to even look at you ‘cause I know you’re gonna do something amazing. And all I can think is, wow, I sure hope I get to watch it happen somehow. I wanna see where you go ‘cause it’s going to be fucking mind blowing.”

Adam is reminded, briefly, strangely, of the dreamlike summer before Penn: wandering the Barns for hours at a time, only working when he wanted, eating his fill, and Ronan a ghost in his own house for weeks, too insecure to start a real fight but too stubborn to try to talk it out. It had turned out to be nothing, but Ronan had made a similar confession the night before Adam left.

“You sure you don’t want to stay up on campus for Thanksgiving? That’s a lot of driving to only be down here for two days.”

“That’s stupid,” Adam said, rolling over to pull the blanket out from where it had fallen between the bed and the wall. “When would I see you?”

Ronan heaved a sigh. “I just figured you’d rather do anything except come back to Podunk Central.” His voice twinged, like it cost him a lot to admit. Adam went still, his arms still half tangled in the threadbare quilt.

“I’m coming back to you, dummy,” Adam said. He leaned across the pillow to pepper kisses along the expanse of Ronan’s mouth and cheek. “And I can’t wait.”

Finally, Ronan smiled.

“And what the hell,” Adam says now, “am I gonna do when I get there and you’re not with me?”

“Die, I guess,” Ronan says instantly, easily. “Since you always forget to eat.”

“Dickhead.”

Laughter shakes the azaleas in the blue shadows outside the veranda. Where the ache was, curling and twisting in his ribcage, now there’s only feather-lightness.

“Come on,” Adam whispers, sliding his hands into the back pockets of Ronan’s slacks and relishing the warmth. “I thought we were dancing.”

Ronan doesn’t answer, just smiles as he leans down to press their lips together. He hums tunelessly, and they spin lazily around the porch with the light off and the door open, and the cold night air stills at last.