poeticallywrote
Tadgh Lynch had a fractured past. Life hadn't been kind, and it took him until he was eleven to realise he could fight for something better.
Starting at Tommen College in first year felt like stepping into another universe. Polished floors, towering ceilings, students who seemed born to belong. He didn't. Not then. Not now.
Over time, he carved out a place for himself, slowly earning respect, slowly learning who he was. But the cracks in his mind, the remnants of his old life, never fully healed. He kept to the same group of friends, the same girls he messed around with, the same routines that kept him safe.
And then Aidan Kelly arrived, and Tadgh's world quietly shifted. Aidan moved through life with precision and confidence, already knowing who he was and what he wanted. He carried himself with a certainty Tadgh couldn't yet understand, a knowledge of himself that made everything else feel... unfamiliar.
Aidan had grown up under pressure, believing everything he did had to be flawless. Mistakes weren't allowed, nothing was ever enough. He didn't understand why his mind worked that way until he was diagnosed with OCD. Routines became his armor, loops his comfort.
Then Tommen College offered him a scholarship, opening a world full of new faces, new expectations, and new opportunities. He had learned who he was long before he arrived.
Tadgh, on the other hand, had no idea that the life he thought he knew could bend in a completely different direction. He didn't know he could feel for another boy until Aidan showed him it was possible, slowly turning everything Tadgh thought he understood about love and desire upside down.