Chapter Text
Ronan was high. He was usually high, these days, if he was honest with himself. It wasn’t something he liked to admit. In his head, Ronan Lynch chose to do drugs. He just wanted an escape for a little while, he needed a break. He needed to feel good. It was always a choice. He could quit any time he wanted. He just… didn't want to.
That was what he’d thought, anyway.
Until one day it wasn't a choice anymore. It should have been a wake up call when Ronan attempted to cut back on his drug use and found that he couldn’t.
And later, when Kavinsky overdosed, that should’ve been the moment that made Ronan come to his senses. It should’ve catapulted him into sobriety. After all, Ronan didn’t want to die.
But instead, Ronan simply took K’s untimely death as an inconvenience (albeit, a twisted sad, relieved, and guilty inconvenience).
Because then Ronan had to find a new dealer.
That was how Ronan ended up on a grubby couch, needle sticking out of his arm, blitzed out of his goddamn mind on a Tuesday night. It was a good high, Ronan thought, glancing around the room. The room stank of sweat and weed, and the coffee table had cigarette ash and cocaine debris coating its surface. There was terrible music blaring through speakers that rumbled the floor. Junkies and coke heads were abundant, and Ronan felt at once disgusted by himself for being one of them, and also relieved that he didn’t have to do this alone. Shooting up alone was the worst.
Still, he was out of it, happy and carefree, when he heard the front door swing open with a creak. A young dude walked into the house, someone Ronan had never seen before. That wasn’t unusual as a rule. Ronan didn’t know every addict in Virginia. Just… most.
Immediately, this dude looked out of place. Like a fish out of water.
Ronan’s head, which felt weightless, swiveled on the back of the couch to get a better look. He smiled lazily.
“Hey,” he told the guy. He was handsome. Ronan looked at his face and noticed how featherboned and elegant it was. The man’s blue eyes flicked over to Ronan with suspicion.
“Hi,” the hot guy said.
Ronan was unperturbed by his stoniness.
“Looking for Tony?” Ronan asked. For some reason, the thought of that was funny so he started laughing. The girl next to Ronan on the couch was laughing too so it must’ve been.
Hot Guy said, “Yeah,” which was even funnier. Ronan cackled. He couldn't picture this guy buying drugs, but well. Ronan supposed anyone could be an addict.
“Is he here or not?” Hot Guy asked with irritation.
“Fuck yeah he’s here. I think he’s getting his dick sucked,” Ronan said and that set off another round of giggles from everyone in the room. Well, everyone who was conscious.
Hot Guy didn’t laugh.
“I’m Ronan by the way,” Ronan said and he held out his arm to shake Hot Guy’s hand. Ronan’s eyes lazily roamed over his form. Hot Guy’s left hand was in his pocket, but Ronan could see his right one where it hung by his thigh. It was bony, with knuckles that looked too big for his fingers.
Hot Guy glanced down at Ronan’s outstretched arm and frowned. Ronan followed his gaze. Oh shit. He’d left the needle in. Well there goes that first impression.
Oh god, that was funny too. Everything felt funny right then. Hot Guy didn’t seem to agree. Well, that was fine because Tony, Ronan’s new dealer, emerged from the bathroom with a euphoric post-nut expression on his face, and Hot Guy immediately left the side of Ronan’s couch to beeline right to him.
“Oh, hey dude, you made it! I have your shit. Come here,” Tony said and led Hot Guy to his bedroom. Ronan admired Hot Guy’s ass in his jeans as he disappeared down the hallway.
Ronan closed his eyes. Was he just high or was he in love with Hot Guy?
“You’re high,” the girl next to him said through a fit of giggles. Oh, had he said that out loud?
Ronan barked a laugh, doubling over. He was crying, he was laughing so hard. Shit.
When Hot Guy reappeared, he had a brown paper bag in his right hand, and he immediately walked out the door.
“Oh no,” the chick next to him said. “Your husband’s leaving!”
Ronan fell off the couch laughing.
Nothing was ever that funny sober.
When he thought back on it, Ronan could almost pinpoint the time when his casual drug use became habitual. It was right about when Gansey and his girlfriend Blue left on their year-long trip following graduation. Ronan, who had dropped out by then, had already retired from alcohol to uppers, and being left behind that summer, had tumbled into a deeper depression and well, there wasn’t really anyone around to pull him out of it. Not that it was Gansey’s job to babysit Ronan but… he had a hard time caring about himself when there was no one around to reel him in.
Ronan got away with doing hard drugs for a long time without much suspicion because he was so functional, and that only added to his denial. People didn’t even know he was high. He’d go to church high and Matthew would be none the wiser. Declan was harder to read, but since he didn’t start a fistfight in the parking lot, Ronan assumed he didn’t know. Ronan could justify using everyday since it wasn’t really impacting much besides his bank account.
It became harder to hide when he switched to heroin. The track marks on his right arm were evidence enough that he was using. The full sleeve tattoo covering his left arm hid everything well enough that nothing showed there.
It was only once his brothers and Gansey found out about what he was doing that shit hit the fan.
The following months were a blur of self destruction, arrests, and fist fights with Declan that all led up to one thing: rehab.
-
“Hey, I’m Ronan. I’m 27, almost 28 actually. I’m an addict,” Ronan said.
Ronan had gone through rehab 4 times by the time he was 27. Maybe the fourth time was the charm. He surely hoped so. Ronan did not want to live in Declan’s spare room forever. And especially not since Jordan was pregnant and the room he was currently occupying was meant to be the nursery. The deal was Ronan had to be clean for a year before Declan would let him get his own place, and he was only on month seven.
“Hi Ronan,” the group said in unison.
One might think being unemployed, Ronan would have a lot of free time. That wasn’t really the case. He had numerous appointments every week. Individual therapy, weekly support group meetings, parol meetings, doctors appointments… So as you could see, he was fully booked and busy. It was exhausting.
And when he wasn’t blabbing to strangers about his feelings, he spent his time taking long baths, tending to his pet raven, lying on his bed staring at the ceiling wallowing in self-pity, or watching action movies.
It was lonely, crushingly lonely, to be Sober Ronan Lynch.
“Highs and lows?” the group leader prompted.
Even though everyone in this group knew him (he’d been attending for more than half the year), they still greeted each other the same way every week.
“High, my sister-in-law had a craving for ice cream so we got dairy queen at like 10 am this morning,” Ronan said. “Low, I would give my right nut to shoot up right now and I feel like shit about that.”
There was a general hum of understanding. The guy on Ronan’s left patted his shoulder consolingly.
The introductions continued around the circle. One new face, a girl. She looked rough. Probably pretty new to sobriety, Ronan thought to himself. He remembered how terrible he’d looked the last time.
The meeting ended, and Ronan stuck around to drink coffee and eat donuts like he always did. He couldn’t help but overhear the low murmur of quiet voices outside the door.
“You know, the meeting would probably be more beneficial to you if you actually came inside,” Mandy, the group leader, said from the hall. He could only just hear her voice from his position near the trash can. There was a mumbled reply, but Ronan didn’t catch it. He finished his donut and stuck his head out of the door.
Mandy was watching a hunched form leave up the church basement stairs.
“No dice?” Ronan asked.
Mandy bit her lip. “If they’re not ready, they’re not ready,” she said, all sage-like.
Ronan scoffed and helped put away the folding chairs. They cleaned up the space, tidying it back up and into mint condition for the Sunday school kids to use during the next church service.
Declan was waiting in the parking lot when he finished. Ronan wasn’t allowed to drive, and his older brother didn’t allow him to take a cab alone. Declan had imposed this rule during a long lecture after Ronan left rehab the last time, something about ‘trust is earned, Ronan’ or whatever.
Ronan allowed it, mostly because he also didn’t trust himself alone in a car either.
“Good meeting?” Declan asked, not looking up from his phone. He was texting with one thumb and one index finger.
Ronan shoved his booted feet on the dashboard of Declan’s fancy car.
“Fuck off.”
-
“I have someone I’d like to introduce you to,” Gansey said the next time he called. Ronan made a frustrated noise.
“Quit it,” he groaned.
“What? I’m only trying to help you make friends. If you would stop being so difficult, it wouldn’t be this hard,” Gansey replied, a little irritation bleeding into his voice.
Gansey did this periodically. He met other ‘troubled’ people through his mother’s charity. Ronan wasn’t particularly concerned with the nature of the Gansey family’s philanthropic organizations, but he did know that Gansey had a knack for befriending some of the people he met through them.
First it was Noah Czerny, who Ronan got on with like a house on fire, only for that connection to backfire spectacularly when Noah died.
Another person for Ronan to grieve.
Gansey tried again a few times, but Ronan refused to give any of them a chance. After a few unsuccessful attempts, most notably Carmen Farooq-Lane (who Ronan thought was an uptight bitch, and yes, he did feel emboldened enough to tell her that to her face), Ronan assumed Gansey had given up.
Apparently not.
“I didn’t ask you to do this. Just, let it go,” Ronan said gruffly.
“I just think—”
“Stop acting like a mom setting up their loser kid on playdates. I don’t want new friends. I have all the friends I need,” Ronan said. There was a pause long enough that Ronan checked to make sure the call was still connected.
It was.
“Do you have enough friends, Ronan?” Gansey asked eventually. “Who then, are these friends? Besides me.”
Normally Ronan liked when Gansey dropped his polite exterior and let his anger show, but not when it was directed towards him.
“Blue, I guess,” Ronan tried, knowing this answer would only spur Gansey on but not knowing who else to say.
“My girlfriend, yes. Go on then, who else?” Gansey sounded a bit like his mother just then.
“I have Hennessey,” Ronan said.
“She’s your sister-in-law’s twin, and also your tattoo artist. I hardly think that counts as friendship if you only see her on Christmas or when you’re paying her to work on you.”
Ronan laughed meanly. “Fuck you.” It came out like a snarl.
Gansey sighed into the phone speaker. Ronan knew that Gansey didn’t mean it like that.
It still hurt though.
“Did you ever think that the people I try to connect you with might actually be the ones who need a friend? And that I’m recommending them to you because I know that you're the most loyal and trustworthy person I’ve ever met? And that I believe anyone would be lucky to have you as their friend?”
Ronan had not considered that. His eyes stung a little. He swallowed thickly.
He cleared his throat. “Fine. Who’s it going to be this time?”
Gansey let out a pleased hum. “His name’s Adam Parrish.”
-
When Ronan met Adam Parrish for the first time, he was shocked to realize it was in fact not the first time he had met him.
They were meeting in a small diner in Alexandria. Gansey and Parrish had already arrived; Ronan could see them from the second he stepped in the door. There was Richard Gansey III, sitting in a dated brown booth in a salmon polo shirt. He spotted Ronan and quickly waved him over. Ronan could only see the back of the other man’s head. It was a head of dusty brownish-blonde hair, cut unevenly.
Ronan didn’t think much of it until the man turned his head at Ronan’s approach.
Oh.
Sitting there across from Gansey was Hot Guy. Ronan stared. Blinked a few times. Yes, that indeed was the mysterious attractive stranger Ronan had spoken to briefly several years ago. The guy who had crossed Ronan’s mind many times since.
His right hand was wrapped around a mug of coffee. Ronan noted the knobby knuckles, the veins that ran up his wrist, his boyish thumb.
Then Ronan’s gaze followed up his arm, all the way to his neck and then upward. His face looked mostly the same, older but still strange and beautiful, fair but somehow also tanned. Ronan looked into his eyes and saw Hot Guy’s had narrowed at him suspiciously.
“Hot Guy,” Ronan mumbled in disbelief.
He raised a faint colored eyebrow.
“What?” Hot Guy (no, Parrish ) said evenly.
Ronan ignored him. “Gansey, what the hell?”
“That’s no way to greet someone. Sit,” Gansey quickly ushered Ronan over to sit next to him in the booth.
“Parrish, this is my friend Ronan Lynch. I apologize for his behavior, he was raised in a barn,” Gansey said.
Ronan put an arm up on the back of his booth and scowled. Ronan tried not to feel like a bug under a microscope under Parrish's wary gaze.
“Ronan Lynch,” Parrish repeated, trying the name outloud. “Nice to meet you, I’m Adam Parrish,” he said but didn’t sound like he meant it.
“You don’t remember me?” Ronan sneered. “I’m hurt,” he said with a hand on his chest.
“I do,” Adam admitted easily. “I wasn’t expecting to ever run into you again.” His face was void of any emotion, which made Ronan feel angry for some reason.
“Um, how exactly do you two know each other?” Gansey asked, looking between them.
Ronan scoffed. “We don’t. He just bought drugs from one of my dealers once. What was that, like 8 years ago or some shit?”
Gansey’s eyebrows rose marginally. “Oh.”
Parrish stiffened at the mention of drugs. Ronan grinned.
“Surprised you remember that. You were strung out on heroin then, right?” Parrish said.
“Ah yes. Those were the days,” Ronan said dreamily, not letting Parrish get the rise out of him he was clearly expecting.
Gansey looked both uncomfortable and irritated.
“Ronan, can you please act civil for once in your goddamn life?” Gansey was rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Aye aye captain,” Ronan said with a solute.
-
After an awkward re-meeting, Ronan figured Gansey would let that one go. It was clear that they didn’t exactly hit it off. Plus, being around people who knew you from back when you were using could be triggering for some people. Ronan wondered how long Adam had been clean.
But to Ronan’s surprise, Adam kept showing up in Ronan’s life.
At Gansey’s birthday dinner, Parrish sat awkwardly at Gansey’s left. He didn’t talk much, but that was fine. Neither did Ronan. Henry and Blue talked enough for the table. Adam picked at his chicken tenders with his right hand. His left stayed under the table.
Or at Gansey and Blue’s house, when Ronan would arrive unannounced to bother them, Parrish would be there, a book propped up one hand. Another time he was having a cup of tea with Gansey at their antique kitchen table.
It was… annoying. Part of Ronan felt like Gansey was replacing him. Adam was better to be friends with. Easier, surely. But Gansey also called Ronan nearly every day, and they were as close as they’d ever been, so that couldn’t be it.
“I have a proposition,” Gansey said one day. They were in Declan and Jordan’s backyard watching Jordan cook brats on the grill. Declan always burned them, so he’d lost his rights as grill-master.
Ronan grunted for Gansey to continue.
“Adam’s lease on his apartment is ending. It’s the apartment that the charity set him up with, so it was only meant to be temporary. But…” Gansey scratched the back of his neck, “Adam would be very upset if he knew I told you this.”
“Okay,” Ronan said.
Gansey rolled his eyes. “So don’t mention it to him,” he said and waited for Ronan to nod. “Adam can’t afford a place right now. He needs a roommate.”
Ronan was unsurprised by this information. Anyone who spent more than ten seconds looking at Adam could tell that he was poor as shit. His clothes never looked new. No, they were fraying, old things that had to have been bought cheaply, secondhand. He never invited anyone to his place, he never mentioned a car or driving. He didn’t even have a bike, so he walked most places. Ronan thought at first this was because he enjoyed walking, but when Parrish arrived at Gansey's one time, thoroughly soaked from the rain, Ronan had come to the conclusion that he simply couldn't afford the bus fare.
And Parrish always bought the cheapest thing on the menu anytime they went to eat. Or sometimes, he wouldn’t order anything at all.
In those instances, everyone always ordered way too much and insisted that their leftovers would go to waste if Adam didn’t take them.
So no, Ronan wasn’t shocked to hear this.
What he was shocked to hear was what Gansey said next.
“I think you two should be roommates.”
Ronan thought he must’ve misheard. “What?”
Gansey seemed prepared for Ronan’s protests and had an argument prepared. “It makes sense! Adam needs half of his rent paid for. And I think I could convince Declan to let you move out if you were living with someone trustworthy,” Gansey was saying, but Ronan cut in.
“Okay, let’s say you get Declan to agree to this, which is a big if , Gans. Parrish hates me. Why the fuck would he agree?” Ronan asked.
Gansey contemplated his answer. “Adam doesn’t hate you. In fact, I think you’d be the best person for him to live with. He needs someone to challenge him a bit.”
Ronan scoffed. “Yeah, that’s me. I live to be a challenge for other people’s personal growth. Fuck off,” he muttered.
Gansey rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly. “I just know how you are. You don’t bullshit. That’s what Adam needs.” Ronan was about to disagree, but Gansey kept speaking. “And Adam might be good for you too. You’re more alike than you both realize.”
“For the record,” Ronan said, “this is the dumbest idea ever.” Ronan exhaled heavily. “But sure. Ask Parrish and see what he says.”
There was no way he’d say yes.
-
Adam said yes.
Possibly more surprisingly, Declan also said yes.
Ronan could hardly believe it. He was going to be able to move out, finally. (Not that he didn’t like Jordan, she was cool and all, but being a 28 year old fuck-up who still lived with his brother was slightly humiliating).
Having his own place was only the first of many steps on the way to independence, but Ronan finally felt like he was making progress.
Living with Adam Parrish was… interesting. Ronan slowly realized how little he’d known about Adam before.
Adam Parrish was poor, yes, but he was busy. He worked all the time. He was always going somewhere. It was like Ronan barely even had a roommate.
The other thing that stood out to Ronan on the odd day that Adam hung around the apartment, was that Adam’s left hand was… fucked up.
It didn’t look like it was a genetic thing. No, his fingers looked like they’d developed normally, only to be utterly mangled sometime later in life and then left to heal without being properly set. It almost looked like he’d clenched his hand into a fist, but the fingers wouldn’t quite open back up. From index to pinky, Adam’s fingers were curled in and bent at odd angles. All but his thumb, which seemed to function normally. Adam was careful to keep his left hand in his pocket most of the time, so Ronan had only glanced at it when Adam needed two hands to do things.
Ronan wanted to ask but he felt like Adam would not take too kindly to this questioning, so he ignored it. But Ronan had to wonder. What the hell kind of accident has to happen for all of your fingers to be so utterly warped?
Luckily, Chainsaw warmed up to Adam, and Adam didn’t seem to mind having a bird as a third roommate. That was something that Ronan had been mildly concerned about. Afterall, if someone had a problem with his bird, they had a problem with Ronan. But Chainsaw took to him pretty fast, even learning to say an approximation of his name, A-tom.
Despite his new apartment and roommate, Ronan’s life went on as usual.
Delcan still picked up Ronan for his meetings. It was more fun this way, Ronan thought. Because now Declan had to drive out of his way to chauffeur his fucked-up little brother instead of just driving him from his own home.
But he still felt a little bit like a juvenile when he got into Declan’s car.
“How’s it going with Parrish?” Declan asked awkwardly. Ronan rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” Ronan said, biting the leather bracelets on his wrist.
“He’s a recovering addict too, right?”
“Surprised you didn’t do a full background check on him before you let me move in,” Ronan said with a raised eyebrow.
Declan grimaced. “Is that what you think of me? Nevermind, just answer the question.”
Ronan shifted in the passenger seat. “Fuck whatever. Yes, he is. What about it?”
“He must have meetings and stuff too, then. I know he doesn’t have a car, so I was just thinking... If you two coordinated, I could drive him when I drive you. I mean, it would be easy if I’m already picking you up, he could just tag along.”
Ronan frowned. “You’re offering to drive my roommate around? Out of the goodness of your heart?”
Declan gripped the steering wheel tighter, clearly annoyed with Ronan’s attitude. He looked older than he was, right then. But hadn’t Declan always?
Then Declan exhaled and the tension seemed to bleed from his shoulders. Ronan sighed, feeling bad for picking a fight when Declan was trying to be nice.
But maybe he was just trying to make sure Ronan’s new roommate didn’t relapse and trigger his idiot addict brother.
Then something else occurred to Ronan. “I don’t think Adam goes to therapy at all.”
Declan hummed but left the topic at that.
But Ronan thought about it the rest of the drive. No ten step program. No group therapy. No individual therapy… How could he possibly be resisting his urges? Who did he complain about cravings to?
Adam was busy all the time, practically working himself to the bone, but he had no support system until recently when Gansey adopted him into their friend group. How was Adam holding it together? How did he manage it with nothing, while Ronan had everything Adam lacked and was barely holding onto sobriety himself?
It needled at him.
Ronan thought about it during his meeting.
My name’s Ronan and I’m an addict.
Hi Ronan.
Highs and lows?
Well, my high today is that…
Ronan knew logically that everyone was different. He had an addictive personality. He always had. Maybe Parrish had better impulse control or something? But then, how’d he get addicted to shit in the first place? Some people can do drugs a few times and never do it again. Others… well, he was the others.
A part of Ronan was bitter as he thought about this. Parrish didn’t even really act like an addict. He wasn’t twitchy or fidgety. He didn’t smoke cigarettes or pound donuts or drink coffee compulsively.
He just worked all the time.
Ronan felt his bad mood festering all evening. He’d eaten dinner, and was now on the couch in the living room, petting Chainsaw’s head when Adam got home from his shift. He looked up when their apartment door opened, and Chainsaw squawked at Ronan because he momentarily stopped stroking her feathers.
Adam looked amused at the pair of them. “She’s spoiled,” he commented, taking off his coat and hanging it in the closet. He said it fondly. It was the tone of voice he talked to Gansey with a lot.
Ronan grunted in acknowledgement.
He still felt bare from group, and this ugly feeling was welling in his gut as he watched Parrish make himself a quick bowl of cereal.
“What were you hooked on?” Ronan found himself asking.
Adam paused, milk in hand. Then he slowly closed the cap with his right hand and then put it back in the fridge.
“What?”
Ronan chewed on his lip. “You know I used heroin. What about you? What were you on?”
Adam’s face was unreadable. Ronan couldn't tell if he was upset, he was just. Blank.
“Why is that your business?” Adam asked coldly.
Ronan shrugged. “Just curious.”
Adam’s face was lit from only the stove light, which cast a harsh yellow light on his various sharp angles. He looked a bit creepy just standing there, staring across the apartment at Ronan.
“Nevermind, Jesus,” Ronan said when the silence went on a beat too long.
Adam eventually put a spoon in his bowl and started eating. Ronan looked anywhere but at Adam until he finished, put his plates in the dishwasher, and disappeared into his bedroom.