Work Text:
When Adam Parrish was told that his father had died of a heart attack, he was strangely surprised. He hadn't even known his dad had a heart.
But now, as he sat in one of the many church pews of St Agnes in his hometown of Henrietta, he wondered if maybe he was wrong. Maybe, just maybe, his father had returned from prison a changed man. Adam had left Henrietta long before Robert Parrish's release, so he couldn't exactly be sure of the previous statement but more people than Adam had expected had shown up to his father's funeral. The loud, obnoxious crowd to the left of him must be his dad's bar friends; the small group in the back had to be some of his co-workers, and the people that looked vaguely familiar to Adam who occupied the front rows probably lived in the trailer park where Adam had grown up.
Adam was the most interested in the person closest to the altar: his mother. Adam swallowed nervously and sunk lower into his seat in a desolate corner of the church once he concluded, after an intense period of observation, that she was indeed hunched over because she was crying, grieving over the husband she never had.
Maybe Adam should be crying too?
But all he could think about was the very first time Robert had hit his mother. The disgust and the hate in his voice as he yelled, the sound of his fist colliding with her cheek, the pained expression on his mom's face that transformed into sheer terror once she realized that her son had witnessed something he had never ought to, and the apologies that ensued right after Robert had promised it would never happen again.
Oh, but it did. It happened again.
And again.
And again.
Empty promises of change every time.
When it was Adam's turn to be a victim to the abuse, the boy had begun making his own promises.
When he found himself having to wear a sweater in the midst of the Virginian heat in an attempt to hide the bruises, he promised himself he would never hit his kids.
When he came home after another late work shift, and still had to run to the store to stock the fridge for the upcoming week, he promised himself he would never have his kids grow up before their time.
When he was counting the pennies on the floor of his new apartment on top of St Agnes, and noticing that he had just barely been able to pay his tuition for the year, he promised himself he would financially support his kids until the day they didn't need him anymore.
When Adam cried himself to sleep with no one to wrap his arms around him, he promised himself he would love his kids no matter what.
Suddenly, a very loud slamming open of the church doors tore Adam from his thoughts and interrupted the priest's sermon. Adam, even though he knew the identity of this rude un-Catholic Catholic, decided to follow the scandalized and intrigued crowd and glance back.
"Of course," he thought to himself as Ronan Lynch stood at the entrance of the church. He was clad in a dashing black suit that emphasized the sharp and defined lines of his arms and chest, and contrasted beautifully with his porcelain skin. Adam wondered how someone could look so dangerous and fragile at the same time. Ronan's brilliant blue eyes scanned the room before meeting Adam's and gave him that smile, the one that suggested that he was doing something forbidden.
