Unguibus et Rostro

Untitled Part 1

Adam turned off the bedside lamp before sinking onto the carefully made bed, burying his head into the soft pillow. The significance of what had just happened was starting to gradually creep on him as he tried to remember how it had happened, what had initiated it.

It had all started with just a seemingly innocent question.
"Ronan," Adam was huddled beside Ronan on the porch of the Barns, hugging his legs, his head resting on his knees."Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Okay," Ronan's head was resting against the wooden panel of the wall, his legs sprawled out in front of him.
"What's it like to kiss someone?" He avoided looking at Ronan and trained his eyes on a distant tree, obscure in the darkness away from the shimmer of the new moon's shimmer.
"What the fuck?" Ronan was looking right at Adam, his eyes round with bewilderment.
"I'd just like to know what it's like,what would be on my mind, how it would make me feel." He closed his eyes, trying to conjure up an image in his head, "Would I feel lit with fire or would I feel melancholy and grounded? Or would I feel nothing?"
"Jesus, Parrish," Ronan punched his leg, "It's just kissing, it's not gonna make you grow extra limbs or give you the ability to fly!"
"I don't mean it literally, you asshole!" Adam punched him back, a smile forming on his lips despite his annoyance.
"You know, I don't know how it feels either," Ronan picked up a yellow leaf off the wooden surface of the porch and started twirling it around in his fingers. Then, after a while he continued, his voice a distant whisper as his head was bent down, his eyes intently locked on the dancing leaf in his hand, "Maybe I could kiss you."
"What?" Adam, unsure if he had heard him correctly, tore his gaze off the leaf to stare at Ronan.
"We'd both know how it feels," Ronan finally looked up, his blue eyes fixed on Adam's, "It would be a win-win."
"You say that like it's a business proposal!" Adam protested, his gaze wandering to Ronan's lips, noticing its curve, sharp and sudden like Ronan himself.
"No, I mean it would be nice," Ronan corrected, looking at Adam in the way that he usually did when he didn't think he'd notice. He placed his hand close to Adam's hand on the porch, their fingers almost touching; his face was dangerously close to Adam's, eyes regarding him unapologetically.
"Are you sure about this?" Adam was at that moment quite sure he'd like kissing him. Ronan Lynch who out of all people had shown an interest in him; who had left him dream-made objects and had pushed him around an empty parking lot in a shopping cart, was now suggesting a kiss. Of course, that would be just a kiss, Adam told himself, it's just to satisfy their curiosity. Nothing more to it. Nothing to change their friendship.
"Yeah," Ronan inclined his head, pressing his lips into a thin line. "If it goes badly we could just pretend it never happened."
Adam, heartened by Ronan's remark, leaned in towards him, his hair touching the top of Ronan's short hair. He placed a hand on his jawline, a jolt of worried excitement running through him. Tracing his fingers over the rough texture of Ronan's stubble, Adam pulled himself even closer to him, their bodies next to each other, shoulder-to-shoulder. Ronan's lips were merely a breath away from his. From above his long nose, Ronan regarded him with his deep blue eyes, then he brushed his lips against Adam's, slowly and deliberately.
Adam felt a sensation, a discovery, a knowledge awakening inside him. He pressed his mouth to Ronan's, the sensation spreading across him, reaching every cell, every nerve, yelling the knowledge to him.
I like Ronan Lynch. He pretended not to have that knowledge and opened his eyes. Ronan was now merely a few inches away, his head bowed down, fingers pulling on the leather bands around his wrist. His lips were untouchable now, not to be kissed ever again by Adam. I like Ronan. He was doomed.

Before going to sleep in somebody's old unused bedroom-probably Declan's- Adam stayed on the porch with Ronan a while longer. They talked about their future; for Adam college, and the Barns for Ronan. Neither of them mentioned the intimate moment they had just experienced, brushing it aside like dust off an old.
Adam pretended not to feel an overwhelming excitement every time their bodies touched, slightly and accidentally. He pretended not to notice Ronan's lips, but he did.
He had been wrong, it wasn't just a kiss after all, at least not in his mind. It was like an explosion in him, loud and big like everything else about Ronan. It was a lot more than a kiss, it was more than he could ever have imagined. It was Ronan.
He could remember the texture of Ronan's lips, every feature of his face, the intimate smell of him, it was all etched onto his mind like a map, albeit an incomplete one. A map to Ronan Lynch.
In some way, he regretted the kiss. It left him with an itching for more where there would be none. What scared him the most was the fact that he couldn't-and wouldn't- know how Ronan felt about it. Was it, to him, just a kiss to be forgotten and never spoken of? Or just a story to tell over dinners and at parties in years to come? Was it, to him, perhaps nothing? Not even a memory worth keeping. And that hurt the most.

Adam closed his eyes, leaning his head on the pillow, and tried to take his mind off those thoughts. He tried hard not to, but his mind kept replaying the kiss, the moment leading up to it. Their proximity haunting him as he tried to fall asleep.

He heard a soft knock on the door of the bedroom. He got out of the bed and walked to the door. The screeching sound the door made as he swung it open reminded him of how old the Barns really was. He was surprised with what was awaiting him on the other side of the door.

"We didn't consider what would happen if it went well." Ronan was standing in front of him, his sleepwear consisting of just a pair of loose gray pants, the muscles on his torso exposed.
"What?" Adam mumbled, trying hard not to notice Ronan's body any more than possible.
"The kiss," he said it like a question, rather than an answer.
"You said we'd forget about it." Adam rubbed his eyes, and shuffled his feet.
"Only if it was bad," Ronan took a step closer, and Adam could feel his heart beating faster in the presence of Ronan's. "It wasn't bad, was it?"
"It wasn't," Adam's mind betrayed him, his tongue rolling the words out, spilling out his dangerous secret. "It was-"
Adam was cut short as Ronan took another step closer and placed his lips on his, putting his arms around him. Hungrily, Adam kissed him back, the map of Ronan becoming less incomplete in his mind. He wrapped his arms around Ronan, his hands touching the bare skin of his back, fingers stretching across his tattoo, his map expanding with every touch. In his mind, the map's title was traced in black ink, Unguibus et Rostro.

Ronan pulled Adam closer, their bodies enveloping one another as their mouths kept kissing, hungry for more intimacy.

And Adam felt himself going further and further down the disastrous path that was Ronan Lynch.