Chapter Text
When Ronan turned eighteen he inherited three million dollars and a home he couldn’t use. At the time it nearly killed him: the freedom, the helpless power, the longing for things he couldn’t have. Gansey was the only thing that kept him going, kept him from drinking himself into an early grave, kept him from wasting all his money on things he didn’t want or need. There was one particularly long and terrible jag, where Ronan vomited more alcohol and bile than his body could have ever held, and he missed his father and his mother and Matthew and, hell even Declan, like a hole in his chest. Afterwards, he’d walked into a lawyer’s office, narrowly avoided getting thrown out, and signed a piece of paperwork officially giving Gansey control over his personal assets. The lawyer clearly thought he was crazy, signing away all his money to some kid who had more money than he knew what to do with, but it was the best decision Ronan had ever made.
Gansey, with the help of his father’s financial advisor, invested the money right alongside his own inheritance. The interest and dividends were enough to live on, more than enough really, if he didn’t spend it on useless shit. Gansey bought the top floor of a building in D.C. and charged Ronan minimal rent. And he stayed in town most of the time, keeping an eye on Ronan, keeping him grounded, but just when Ronan was doing better, Gansey would jet off to someplace else and leave the apartment as haunting and empty as Ronan’s insides.
Ronan let the world spin around him. He ran across some street racers on his twenty-first birthday and that turned into a thrilling, dangerous, life-affirming mess. After, there was a restraining order that neither of them kept to and fewer nightmare creatures tripping over the booby traps Ronan had set up around the loft. Things were… better. For a while at least.
Ronan travelled some with Gansey but he always started to feel that sick sense of being too far from home. His dreams would get hazy and disconnected and normal. He didn’t like waking up without thinking about what might be in his hands.
Twenty-four hit him hard. It was almost twenty-five, and never, through all of his darkest days, had Ronan ever thought he would live to be twenty-five. Now it was encroaching and his hands itched. He took to driving the BMW in aimless circles for whole days at a time. He only felt alive with the growl of the engine under his feet, even when Kavinsky was nowhere to be found, and really the BMW was still the closest he could get to home.
Ronan finally answered Gansey’s calls on the second day because his back was aching from sleeping in the car and he wanted to hear his best friend’s voice. Gansey, the traitor, proceeded to drag Ronan back to the apartment through sheer commanding tone. Once there, Ronan was bullied into the shower, made to sit patiently while Gansey buzzed his hair and then guilted into cleaning up his car. The second part was actually nice, his hair had been getting a little long. And this last part was done with next to no complaint because honestly, Ronan cared significantly more about the state of his car than the state of anything else including the apartment. He then collapsed into his huge, soft, proper, perfect bed and slept for a whopping (for him) nine hours before waking at eleven to Gansey’s light snores.
Before the itch in his veins could turn into an itch for a bottle, Ronan was out and back on the street. There was something darkly pulsing and alive about a city after dark, especially the seedier neighborhoods. Ronan loved it. He drove from one sleeping tourist trap to the next, reveling in the filth and shadows in between. Unconsciously, his foot eased off the gas pedal and the car slowed. He passed two girls on a street corner, tight shirts and short skirts advertising exactly what they were selling. Ronan didn’t slow down.
He didn’t slow down as he passed a boy the next street over either. He was standing under a streetlamp, the forced casual set of his arms speaking as clearly as the girls’ outfits. Ronan turned right at the end of the next block. Then, not thinking about it, he turned right again. By the time he turned left, back on the boy’s street going the opposite direction, a thought was formulating in his mind. He stopped and rolled the window down.
“Hey!” he called, over the ever-present music as his pulse started to thunder like the moment before waking from a nightmare.
The guy walked over slowly and Ronan almost lost his nerve. Ronan didn’t hear what the guy said, only saw his mouth move.
“Do you fuck?” he asked, eyes caught on long fingers curled over the window and into the car.
“No.” It was sharp and final but before Ronan could even pull a ‘go fuck yourself’ sneer onto his face the next words were coming. “But I can suck you off.”
The guy was beautiful. The harsh yellow light of the streetlamps turned his cheeks into sharp shadows and his hair into shining dusty filament. Ronan couldn’t imagine being able to touch such a creature.
His mouth, unheeded, was asking, “How much?”
“Fifty.” Not much, although Ronan had no idea what things like this were supposed to cost.
“Where?” he asked, because it seemed wrong for this beautiful boy to get on his knees in the filthy alleys Ronan had been appreciating not ten minutes before.
“Wherever you want.” came the reply.
“Get in.” he said, unlocking the doors. Now the thrumming in his veins was back a thousand fold. Ronan was about to vibrate out of his skin and he jerked the car back into movement just to feel the engine purr.
He didn’t really know the area so he drove in the direction that felt right until they hit on a hotel. He didn’t really want to leave the safety of the car, which of course meant he forced himself out of it almost before it finished moving. He listened for the barely there thump of the guy’s footsteps behind him.
Ronan got them a room and got into it in record time. Or what he assumed was record time. It seemed pretty fast.
Once in the room he proceeded to question every single thought that had led him here. This was not a dream, he couldn’t control anything here. And it wasn’t drunken, vicious groping with Kavinsky or sloppy, late-night kisses with Gansey when they were still mostly kids. This was some nameless dude sucking him off in a hotel room.
“You have a name?”
“Ronan.”
This wasn’t the thrilling kind of dangerous. This was alcohol poisoning dangerous. This was fighting with Declan for the last time before he left. This was washing dirt and night horror blood off his hands while Gansey slept.
It was stupid and pointless and not really dangerous at all if he was being honest. Yeah, it was technically illegal but Ronan had done worse and he was fairly certain this guy was not a cop. But it still felt like a risk.
“You still want to do this?”
“Yes.” Ronan snapped automatically. Fuck this guy for second guessing him, even if Ronan was second guessing himself. Not letting himself think about it more, Ronan yanked off his shirt and turned to face him. Looking at him was actually reassuring. It reminded Ronan why he wanted to do this in the first place. He unzipped his fly and flicked open his button, feeling like the uncertain energy and doubt and want were going to engulf him.
The boy crossed the room and kneeled in front of Ronan, as if it was that easy. As if there was nothing strange or dirty or wrong about any of this. Maybe for him there wasn’t.
Ronan tried to control his breathing as he pulled out his cock. But the instant the guy took Ronan in hand and guided Ronan’s dick into his mouth, easy and careful, Ronan’s breath rushed out of him.
His hands found their way into the guy’s hair and it was just as soft as it looked, smooth against Ronan’s palms. There was just enough to hold onto which was good because otherwise Ronan thought he might do something drastic.
Ronan had never given much thought to virginity. It was useless high school bullshit and Ronan didn’t give a shit. He liked getting himself off but involving other people seemed more messy than it was worth. Now though, the guy’s tongue ran along the underside of his cock and Ronan suddenly felt like he might have been missing a crucial bit of information about what sex was all about.
He couldn’t process everything, couldn’t get past the wet heat and the savage pleasure of it. He was paralyzed by the feeling of someone else’s hands on him, someone else’s mouth. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the guy, from the fine-boned beauty of him. Something about him reminded Ronan of a bird in flight, effortless beating of wings and his hair like dusty feathers between Ronan’s fingers.
A choked off noise issued, unbidden, from Ronan’s mouth as he felt the head of his cock brush the back of the guy’s throat. He let go of his grip on the boy’s hair for a moment, shocked into helpless movement. Then immediately gripped it again, not yet ready to feel like he was slipping off the edge of the world once more. But he found, to his surprise, that he felt grounded.
The guy looked up and Ronan met his eyes. They were blue like sun illuminating a deep well, like the night sky through a telescope. Looking at him was like slamming on the brakes, force and energy, body tensing. Ronan bit his lip to stop from crying out. Everything was a fever dream: bright and sharp, just on the edge of too much.
His orgasm bubbled and burned in his gut, heating him until he thought he might burst. He forced his hands to relax and tried to get his mouth to form a warning. But Ronan’s body was no longer his own, it belonged to the boy kneeling before him. The guy pulled back a little as Ronan tensed and came. Everything felt hot: his pulsing dick, his sweaty palms; his eyes on fire.
The guy pulled away completely and Ronan scrubbed at his eyes, trying to push out the pain. Then he ran his hand over his head. God, he was a sweaty mess. He kept his eyes closed as he pulled his pants back on and grabbed for his shirt.
But no. He dropped the shirt and threw himself on the bed just as the first tear slipped down his face. He didn’t know what was happening. He wasn’t sad. He wasn’t crying. But his eyes were watering and the guy was still standing there and Ronan didn’t want to have to explain, well, anything really.
“Take your money.” he said, gesturing to where he’d left his wallet. He blinked rapidly into the dark space between his arm and the bedspread. He listened to the rustle of bills and then the quiet footsteps and finally the click of the door shutting.
Now that he was alone the embarrassment eased and he could breathe again. And the thing was, he breathed easier than he had in weeks. Not physically. Physically, he was still sweating and just this side of panting. But deeper, beneath his heaving lungs, there seemed to be more space in his chest cavity, as though all the junk and debris had been removed.
As the sweat and tears dried, Ronan slid quietly into sleep.
He woke up with handfuls of deep blue flowers.