Archive of Our Own

So, the Earth was back again, somehow.

After Ronan had barely managed to escape the destruction of the Earth by a Vogon ship to build a hyperspatial express route by hitchhiking on said Vogon ship with the help of his sort-of friend Blue Sargent (an alien from Betelgeuse who had completely missed the mark in terms of normal human names), he thought he would never see the Earth or bumfuck Virginia ever again. At the time, he’d been glad; his parents had just died, and he had wished and prayed for the destruction of himself and the world around him so many times that when it actually happened he thought his prayers had worked. Sure, he hadn’t expected some ugly aliens who had the worst poetry he’d ever had the misfortune of hearing to be the ones that eventually took the Earth out, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

It was only later, though, when he and Blue were kicked off the Vogon ship and suspended in space, that he remembered that the destruction of the Earth meant his brothers were now dead, too.

Words couldn’t describe the amount of anger Ronan felt, or the amount of pain and grief that tried to rip him apart from the inside. For the three years that he’d been in space, he’d spent his time racing with other ships and, when happening upon new worlds and time periods, discovering what on those worlds and in those times would make good punching bags. Blue and her longtime friend Henry, who’s ship Ronan was using for his escapade, let him for a while, as Henry couldn’t really remember what he was supposed to be doing or who he was supposed to be meeting anyway.

But after Ronan destroyed Henry’s ship and forced them to hitchhike from planet to planet, and Ronan’s rage still didn’t seem anywhere close to stopping, they dropped him off on the planet Krikkit so he could fistfight eternally with the killer white robots the planet had developed instead.

To make a long story short, Ronan had destroyed a lot of robots.

Then, about four years or so of this, Blue returned to Krikkit to tell him the Earth was back. Both of them were skeptical: they’d travelled through time, eaten at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and gone to parties that never touched the ground, but they had never encountered the resurrection of a planet that had been destroyed.

They’d decided it had to be false. Blue had left him again on Henry’s new ship to do whatever it was they’d been up to, as she didn’t really care about the Earth one way or another, but the idea that Earth was back nagged at Ronan. He couldn’t sit still, thinking about it. He destroyed more robots than ever before. He slept restlessly and had dreams of Declan yelling at him and Matthew hugging him so tightly his bones hurt when he awoke.

He hadn’t dreamed of his brothers in a long time, because the grief it usually gave him was enough to kill him.

But now they might be alive.

And he decided he couldn’t let that chance slip away.

He’d hitchhiked on the first ship out of Krikkit (which took a year alone considering that Krikkit had essentially isolated itself) and crash-landed on Earth the next month. The rumors were true, then: Earth was back.

Fuck.

It was raining when Ronan arrived, which was really so fucking fitting. He found himself on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, which meant he could be anywhere. He had no money, no car, no food, no water, nothing, except for the clothes on his back and his Cabeswaterian Raven who enjoyed sitting on his shoulder and pecking at his ear until it bled.

So he did what any sensible hitchhiker did when they found themselves on a planet with no money or form of transportation.

He stuck out his thumb.

-- 

Ronan didn’t let himself believe it was real until he saw the Barns with his own eyes.

By sheer luck, he managed to land in Virginia so the ride home was only twenty minutes. When he got dropped off at the start of the driveway, he just stood there, staring at the property. It was exactly the same as he had left it, which meant someone must have been taking care of it while he was gone. Unless the Earth had just spawned back into existence, in which case nearly no time at all had passed since Ronan had left. He had no way of knowing which one it was; he couldn’t even remember what the date was when he’d left.

But either way, the grass was mowed, the animals were fed, the mailbox was empty, and the gutters were clean. It was like he’d never even left.

As he walked up the driveway to the house, it almost felt like the last eight years were just some kind of fever dream.

But they couldn’t have been. Ronan still had the scars on his knuckles from punching robots. Chainsaw was nestled on his shoulder, pecking fondly at his ear. There was no way he was imagining her claws sinking into his shoulder and ripping holes in his shirt.

Right?

Luckily, he hadn’t managed to lose his keys in the long years of madness and travelling the Galaxy. They were still in his pocket, like they always were, and he pulled them out, unlocked the door, and stepped inside the house.

Inexplicably, his phone was ringing.

Experiencing much of the known Galaxy had not improved Ronan’s opinion of phones. He’d met all forms of them on the different planets and they all sucked: somehow, with all of the life that existed in the Galaxy, no one had figured out how to have a phone that let you see the person you were talking to while also letting you smack them or hug them if you needed to. It was like people only wanted phones for talking – like pure talking, not true talking that involved gesturing and smacking or hugging your listener occasionally.

In fact, taking advantage of a rare opportunity, he had specifically made sure that all of the phones on Henry’s ship and every other ship he hitchhiked on were broken. It was another good outlet for his anger, he thought. He definitely hadn’t missed the obnoxious ringing.

So he ignored the phone ringing now and instead started sifting through the pile of mail on the counter. Time must have passed then, for the mail to accumulate like that.

A second later, the door banged open and Declan stomped into the kitchen.

They stared at each other, both shocked. Ronan could hardly believe it – he’d thought Declan was dead for the last eight years. The fact that he was home finally hit him; he was home and his brothers were alive and he wasn’t the last human being in the Universe anymore. He could fight with Declan again and tussle with Matthew and everything was, for the most part, back to normal. It was a miracle. Relief shook him down to his bones.

At least until Declan opened his mouth.

“Ronan, where the fuck have you been for the last six months?!”

Ronan did a doubletake. Six months?! Only six months had passed here?! Ronan went through centuries; decades; eras. How the fuck had only six months passed since the Earth was not-demolished? If that was true, though, the Barns should’ve been in a much worse shape than it was. None of it added up at all.

So instead of answering, he said, “Who’s been taking care of the Barns?”  

“Me and Matthew. We came over one day to find all of the animals starving to death in their barns and realized our idiotic brother was missing.” Ronan was nearly mowed over by this, and he was abruptly angry; his animals has been starving, all because the Earth had blown up and then decided to come back again without telling him. What the fucking fuck.

Declan stomped closer to Ronan, anger like lava rolling off of him in waves. “What the fuck were you doing, Ronan?! You just took off without telling anyone where you went; we were so worried about you! We thought you had been killed, or kidnapped, or something! We had literally no idea what happened to you, no way to contact you! How could you be so be so irresponsible?!”

“I had no idea the Earth even fucking existed anymore!” Ronan exploded, swiping an arm out and knocking all of the mail onto the floor. “I watched the Earth get obliterated right in front of my eyes, along with everyone and everything I fucking cared about! It screwed me up for a while, alright? So sorry if you were so fucking worried!”

Declan’s eyes narrowed suddenly. “…Ronan, you’re not making any sense. What do you mean you watched the Earth blow up? We’re all still here, aren’t we?”

Ronan let out a harsh breath. He’d forgotten for a second that only he had lived that life. “…Six months ago, something major happened. It had to of, right? What do you think happened?”

“…Six months ago, everyone saw big yellow ships appear in the sky and panicked. However, seconds later, the ships vanished without doing anything and no trace of them was left. The CIA claimed that everyone had hallucinated them because of drug experimentation, though I’m not sure I really believe that. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence to the contrary though, so I let it go.” Declan watched him carefully. “What do you think happened?”

Ronan chewed his lip. “What if I told you that the Earth was destroyed by those big yellow ships, that I hitchhiked on them and ones like them for years, and that I just returned from the planet Krikkit where I spent the last four years learning to fly and fist fighting with white killer robots?”

“I’d turn you in to the insane asylum,” Declan said seriously. He looked worried.

Ronan turned away. “Alright, I won’t tell you then.”

Declan threw up his hands. “That’s all I’m going to get? You disappear on us for six months and all I get is some insane lie about aliens and other nonsense?!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Ronan spat harshly. “You know that.”

Declan shook his head. “I think the CIA may have been right about hallucinations, after all. Maybe…maybe you don’t really know where you were.”

Ronan rolled his eyes, but said nothing to rebuke the statement. He knew he had hitchhiked across the Galaxy, but if Declan wasn’t going to believe him anyway he might as well just let him think he was hallucinating. It was easier to explain.

“What day is it today?” he said instead, uncomfortable under the harsh gaze of his brother.

Declan’s face shifted back into something more neutral. “Sunday. Matthew and I were just about to head to church.”

Ronan perked up at this. “Matty’s here?”

“In the car – I just stopped by to feed the animals.” He paused. “…Do you want to come with?”

“Yeah, of course.” Ronan never missed church with his brothers, unless he was hitchhiking across the Galaxy apparently.

Declan nodded. “Alright. Just go shave all that hair off first – you look like a fucking Sasquatch.”

--

Ronan felt no closer to understanding how it was he’d managed to return home. He’d seen the Earth get destroyed by the Vogons; he’d hitchhiked all over the Galaxy because of it.

He couldn’t have just imagined that, no matter what Declan said.

And yet, here he was: sitting in his brother’s shitty car listening to shitty 90s music (that really should have been lost with the Earth) and roughhousing with his other brother like his life was completely fucking normal. If the CIA was covering the whole thing up by saying there were mass waves of hallucinations, then something must have happened at that point in time, but it still didn’t explain how the Earth was here.

But fuck, he couldn’t really complain when Matthew was beaming at him like he was the best thing he’d ever seen.

Though really, he was probably looking at Chainsaw.

“And where did you get this…bird again?” Declan asked, glaring murderously at the Raven as she glared right back at him from her perch on Ronan’s shoulder.

“From Cabeswater.” Cabeswater was the only planet he’d visited that he’d thought was beautiful in any way whatsoever. Most of the planets he’d visited were desolate or filled to the brim with annoying aliens who talked about everything, or even filled to the brim with annoying mattresses that talked about everything. He remembering thinking, is there really no goddamn place in the Galaxy where nothing talked?

Cabeswater was that place. It was a planet that was essentially all forest; each continent was separated by a relatively thin channel of ocean, but otherwise the entire surface area of the planet was covered in plants. There were carnivorous plants and herbivorous plants and insectivorous plants and pretty much any other type of plant imaginable.

It had everything except talking plants.

Ronan loved it.

He would’ve stayed there if he hadn’t been worried his anger would destroy the place. The first night he’d arrived there, he’d fallen asleep in a hammock made up of vines (insectivores – the first tree he’d tried had had blood-sucking vines) and woke up the next morning to find himself on the ground and that he had utterly destroyed the vines from all the thrashing he did in his sleep. To his further horror and guilt, the vines had apparently been a central component of the tree, for the entire tree was now wilting and sagging to one side.

He’d felt so horrible that he knew he couldn’t stay there. These plants didn’t deserve to be on the other side of his grief and anger.

So he’d left, but on the way he’d found a nest on the ground, broken egg shells scattered all around it. It was the only animal life he’d seen on the planet, but it couldn’t be the only kind since something had taken a giant bite out of one of the dead chicks. Feeling sick to his stomach, he’d side-skirted the nest, assuming that all the chicks had suffered from the same fate.

But before he got too far away, he heard the chirping. He’d picked his way back to find a sole survivor in the nest, her black, fluffy plumage wilted as she wailed and wailed for food. After seeing what had happened to her siblings, he knew he couldn’t leave her there so he’d carefully folded her into his arm and nursed her back to health once he’d been picked up by another ship.

She’d stayed with him after that. He had tried to release her onto another planet when she was old enough to fly, but she just came back to him so he decided to keep her as a pet. She looked like a raven, except her tail was much longer and her beak thinner than the ravens back on Earth, so he knew she wasn’t really that.

He named her Chainsaw the Raven, anyway, and she had been his loyal companion ever since.

Declan scoffed. “Just because you didn’t know you were hallucinating doesn’t mean you have to keep going along with it.”

“Sure it does,” Ronan said, just to be difficult. “And her name’s Chainsaw, you fuck.”

Declan made a disgruntled noise as Matthew laughed and leaned forward to run his finger gently down Chainsaw’s back. The Raven let him, surprisingly. She wasn’t usually fond of people, but then again, it was hard to dislike Matthew. “I like her, Ro. She’s pretty.”

“As long as she’s fucking potty trained,” Declan grumbled.

As if to personally spite him, Chainsaw immediately dropped a crap into Declan’s cupholder.

Ronan rewarded her with a French fry for that one.

--

When they got to the church, Matthew grabbed Ronan’s arm to slow him down, letting Declan pull ahead of them. “Ronan, is it true you were hitchhiking across the Galaxy? Declan says you were just hallucinating but…Chainsaw doesn’t look like other ravens.”

Ronan was proud of his little brother for noticing – people like Declan spent so much of their time refusing to believe what they saw if it didn’t make sense to them that they eventually lost the ability to see anything they didn’t want to see. “Yeah – I know it sounds crazy, but I really was. There’s a planet called Golunk that you would’ve loved; everyone there was obsessed with ice cream. They even swam in it. Don’t ask me how that works.”

“Really?” Matthew’s eyes were glowing. “That’s amazing! Can I go there?”

Ronan faltered. He’d just gotten back to Earth so he wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon, but hell, he was sure he’d get tired of the Earth eventually, and maybe then he’d go back to Cabeswater, since he wasn’t so angry anymore.

He could make a stop at Golunk along the way.

“Sure, kid – I’ll take you there someday,” Ronan said as he rubbed a noogie into Matthew’s skull and dragged him into the church.

Sitting through the sermon was…stranger than he’d thought it would be. Ronan didn’t believe in God anymore, which was probably part of the problem, but it was impossible to, after what he’d seen. He had seen the Earth blown to smithereens just to build a hyperspace bypass without even an attempt at interference by some higher being. He had seen so many planets full of the most sinful people imaginable living happily and working in high-end jobs. He had seen the destruction of the known Universe—had watched it over a nice dinner—and if God didn’t exist in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, then where the hell did He exist? And even ignoring all of that, with how big the Galaxy was, who could possibly give a fuck about one tiny planet in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy?

The answer was: no one. No one except Ronan, and he sure as hell wasn’t a God.

So for the first time in his entire life, listening to the sermon did not calm him. He listened to the words the Father was saying and could think of nothing except how pointless this all was, believing and praying, when there was nothing out there who gave a damn.

Most aliens didn’t even know the Earth existed.

It made Ronan feel unbearably hopeless.

It was even a relief when the sermon was over. Declan and Matthew got up to get in line for confession, but Ronan couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sit in that box, knowing that everything he’d grown up on was a lie, and spout some nonsense about how he had sinned or how he wanted to repent or how he had seen the worst the Galaxy had to offer and he still hated himself.

“I’ll meet you outside,” he said instead, and ignored the concerned way his brothers glanced at each other.

He sat on the grass in front of the church, stretching out and enjoying the sun on his face. With the wind on his cheeks, he could almost pretend he was back in Cabeswater, if he ignored the fact that here there was only one sun and not two.

Maybe that was another part of his problem. He had had all of these amazing experiences, seen so many different worlds and people and cultures, and he couldn’t tell a damn soul about it. He didn’t know where in the Galaxy Blue or Henry were, and if he tried to tell anyone on Earth they would send him to a mental hospital, like Declan had threatened to do. Eight years of his life had gone by and he couldn’t tell anyone about any of it, not even the Father in his confession box who Ronan had always told everything.

He’d thought he would feel better coming back to Earth. And he did, slightly – he had missed his brothers dreadfully.

But it was starting to feel an awful lot like he didn’t fit in anywhere.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice that people were starting to trickle out until Matthew was suddenly by his side, kicking at his shoes. “Hey, pal. Enjoying the sun?”

“Yeah, there wasn’t much of it while I was hitchhiking,” Ronan replied, shaking his depressing thoughts for now. He’d have plenty of hours later when he couldn’t sleep to agonize over them.

Matthew had a huge smile on his face. “You have to tell me everything!”

Ronan smiled thinly. There was no way he was telling Matthew everything – the kid couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and Ronan didn’t want someone sending Matthew to the mental hospital instead.

“You coming?” Declan asked as Matthew bounded off towards the car. Ronan was still lingering near the entrance.

He didn’t like the idea of leaving church feeling like this; it didn’t seem right. Going to church had always been something reassuring in his life, something stable, grounding. It was supposed to make him feel like he had found something that made his life a little bit easier, like he could face another week. It was a place where he could take a breather. A place where he felt safe.

It didn’t feel that way now. Instead it felt foreign, like a piece of him didn’t quite slot in right.

He had to find out if he could keep coming back to this place. “…Nah, I’m gonna stay here for a little while. Tell Matty I’ll get lunch with him next time.”

Declan stared at him for a moment before surprising both of them by pulling Ronan into a rough hug. “Do whatever you need to. I’m…I’m just glad you’re back, Ronan.”

The sentimentality startled Ronan, but he returned the hug. He breathed in his brother’s harsh scent of cologne and businessmen and felt something settle inside of him. No matter how far away he travelled or how little he fit in anywhere, his brothers would always be his home, even this asshole of a brother.

“Me too,” he murmured.

Declan patted his back roughly before retreating to his car with a hand raised in goodbye. Ronan waited for them and all of the other churchgoers to leave before he headed back inside.

It was a little bit easier to deal with, now that he was alone. It felt less like a parade and more like coming home. It still felt strange though, and as Ronan approached the alter he wondered if this place would ever feel the same again. He knew now there was no one to forgive him for what he did – no one but himself. He probably wouldn’t be coming back here.

But maybe he could try and make peace with himself while he was here.

Slowly, going through the motions as if it was the first time, Ronan kneeled in front of the Virgin Mary and tried to remember what it was he’d used to pray for.

--

It took him a little while to admit he was having a hard time adjusting to being home.

He didn’t know what to do with himself now that he was back, besides taking care of the animals and other farm-related chores. He’d actually managed to meet someone pretty early on—the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, if he was being honest, which he always was—but he’d lost his number almost immediately which made him so depressed and angry with himself that he could hardly stand it. He tried to move on with his life after that, but the problem was this: Ronan had spent so much time hitchhiking and visiting strange new worlds that being back on Earth, as impossible as it was, made him restless. He was moderately curious how the Earth had revived itself, but there was no easy way to find out and he honestly just didn’t give that much of a shit so it didn’t keep him occupied. Declan and Matthew visited every once in a while, which was great when he wasn’t fighting with Declan, but they never stayed as long as he wanted them to and he didn’t know how to tell them that he hated watching them go, that he was afraid he would lose them again. He tried to go to parties and bars—places he haunted so much in the past that the people there were still wary of him after six months—but the sound of a hundred thousand people saying “whop” made him instinctively start punching people, so he was always thrown out. A bunch of spineless wimps, humans were.

So instead, he wasted away at home, refusing to answer the phone when it rang and tapping on a strange silver fishbowl that had arrived in the mail and seemed to have no purpose other than to make a deep, glorious sound when tapped. Occasionally he played with Chainsaw, but she quickly grew bored with his refusal to attempt flying again and often flew off to fuck knows where without him.

He spent weeks alternating between depression and anger before he decided he needed to do something to occupy himself. Because he had nothing better to do, he decided to try and find the cave he’d lived in back on prehistoric Earth.

It had been a shitty cave, and he had no fond memories of living in it. For a person who liked sleeping outside surrounded by nature, Ronan had absolutely despised living in a cave – there had been something about it that made it feel like the walls were closing in or something was crawling through the dark to grab at him. It had made his nightmares worse, and he hadn’t even known that was possible.

But he had lived there for quite a while, and since his brain had yet to supply any other useful ideas, he went with that.

So he went out and bought some astronomical software and plugged it into the ancient computer that sat collecting dust in one of the back barns. It had been his father’s computer, and like most of his other things had been left completely untouched once he’d died. Ronan felt weird using it, but it was the only computer he had at his disposal since his hatred for most things electronic had prevented him from getting another one. Interestingly, Ronan’s travels in space had only led to him despising computers even more.

But that was a story for another day.

For weeks, Ronan sat at his father’s old computer and plotted the movements of the stars and drew rough—extremely rough—diagrams of what the stars had looked like when he’d sat outside his cave staring up at them. He must have looked at them at least a million times, since he had sat outside as much as possible so he didn’t have to be in the cave, but he found his memory to be spotty. He kept mixing it up with images of the stars outside the Barns or on Krikkit or sometimes, strangely, on Cabeswater, even though he had no conscious memories of the stars there.

But he refused to acknowledge this obvious skew in his data, because then he had to admit that the whole project was an absolute waste of time, and he wasn’t quite ready for that. There was also the slight problem that he knew absolutely nothing about math, but he ignored that too.

In the end, he got a result. If it was the right result, who fucking knew, but at that moment he honestly could care less.

Through the wild schemes of the Universe, he had managed to get the right location, not that he’d ever know that. He was just bored and had nothing else to do so he drove into Henrietta and knocked on the door of the house that he’d calculated to be in the same place as his cave a couple million years ago.

“Oh. I thought you were going to call first.”

Ronan gaped. He couldn’t even pretend to be suave about this.

For standing in the doorway was none other than Adam fucking Parrish.

--

They’d met when Ronan almost ran Adam over with his car. Well, actually, they’d met before then, but Adam had been black-out drunk at the time and passed out in the backseat while his supposed friend Noah ranted Ronan’s ear off about how shitty music was these days and how he thought something was wrong with Adam but he could never tell if it was just because he was high or not and on and on and on. Ronan hadn’t really been paying attention, too distracted by checking out Adam’s profile in the rearview mirror.

He would never admit it to anyone, but he’d felt something then: something that wasn’t anger or pain or grief. It was so foreign that he immediately dismissed it. It was probably just the byproduct of hitchhiking over a hundred thousand light-years across the Galaxy and thinking that he was the last living member of his species.

Anyway, that wasn’t important, because Ronan definitely hadn’t given any thought to Adam Parrish again whatsoever.

Until he’d nearly run him over, anyway.

After Ronan had gotten home from church and rested, the first thing he did was drive his car.

It was one of the only things he’d missed travelling the Galaxy. Spaceships were cool, too, but the computers on them were too annoying and complained at him when he drove too fast so, really, his good ol’, computer-less BMW was much preferable.

It had been pouring at the time, which seemed to be the case ever since Ronan had returned home. It had never rained on Krikkit, so Ronan was still trying to adjust to being wet and miserable and smelling the crisp scent of it in the air. He’d completely forgotten how to drive in it, too—it was a miracle he remembered how to drive at all, honestly—and was ultimately going way too fast when he happened to see Adam standing by the side of the road under a miserable-looking umbrella.

Slamming on the brakes didn’t do what Ronan had hoped it would do. Instead, it sent the car hydroplaning down the road, barreling straight towards Adam.

Ronan, in a great show of excellent driving skills, managed not to hit Adam with his car. Once the BMW came to a perilous stop, he did, however, manage to hit him with the car door as he flung it open. Adam’s umbrella, knocked out of his hand as he fell, went flying off into the storm, never to be seen again. “Idiot, what are you doing out here? Get in!”

Adam peered in at him suspiciously once he’d gotten back up. It was strange seeing him awake. His eyes were very distracting. “…I don’t make it a habit of getting into cars with strangers.”

His voice sounded like honey. Ronan was most certainly not trembling. “Then don’t stand outside in a fucking downpour, Jesus Christ, Adam.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “…How do you know my name?”

“Your friend Noah gave me a lift when I first came back to Ea—uh, Henrietta. You were passed out in the backseat.”

To Ronan’s surprise, instead of debunking this statement, Adam rolled his eyes heftily. “Of course – when complete strangers need a ride, Noah’s more than happy to pick them up, but when I need a ride, I’m left to stand in the middle of fucking nowhere in the pouring rain.”

Ronan felt that mysterious something again. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. “Well, you have two options here. Noah’s probably high somewhere.”

“…Alright, you’ve managed to convince me.” Adam gingerly slid into the passenger’s seat. “If you’re really a kidnapper, congratulations; you’re actually quite good at it.”

Ronan grinned and stepped on the gas, roaring off down the street. “Thanks – I’ve had a lot of practice.”

Adam snorted. “That’s not worrisome at all. Am I allowed to know your name, at least?”

“Ronan,” he replied, maybe just a bit too quickly. “Where am I taking you?”

“…Are you from around here?” Adam asked instead, strangely avoiding the question.

“Yeah, I’m up in Singer’s Falls. But I went to school in Henrietta, so I know the area pretty well.” Ronan did not know why he was saying all of this.

“…So you know where the psychics live?”

Ronan snorted rudely. “Yeah I know where the witches live, why the fuck are you going there?”

Adam’s mouth was a hard line. “Because there’s something wrong with me and I want to figure out why.”

Ronan side-glanced him. Now that Adam was awake—and physically next to Ronan good God—Ronan could observe him in more detail. He was tall, but not as tall as Ronan, with ocean blue eyes and dirt-colored, wavy hair that closely resembled the nests Chainsaw tended to make. His hands were long and bony and he had freckles over every inch of his skin that was visible to Ronan.

He couldn’t help but wonder if they covered the inches he couldn’t see as well.

“Nothing looks wrong with you to me,” he said honestly. In fact, he was absolutely perfect as far as Ronan could tell.

Luckily he managed not to say that out loud.

Adam snorted. “It’s not easy to spot, and I can’t show you while I’m sitting down.”

…Well that was a strange statement. It piqued Ronan’s curiosity, despite himself. “Has something always been wrong with you?”

“No – only since I hallucinated that the world exploded six months ago.”

Ronan nearly crashed the car. “…What?!”

Adam huffed. “You probably think I’m crazy, just like everyone else. Six months ago, I was sitting in a café waiting for my shift to start and this…message came into my head. I don’t know how else to describe it; the days leading up to this, I’d been antsy, like I was waiting for something. And then suddenly, there it was – a thought in my head that made everything else…make sense. Like it was the answer to the universe.”

Ronan chewed his lip. He knew the answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything and it hadn’t made much sense to him, but he stayed silent.

“Anyway, so I was about to pull out my phone to call my friend and tell him about this, right? And then…I felt the world explode. Everyone says I was hallucinating, like everyone else in the world apparently, but I could feel it in every cell of my body, Ronan; it felt like the ground was literally ripped out from under me.”

Ronan pulled over roughly onto the shoulder. He was so distraught by this story that it felt dangerous to keep driving.

Adam was staring steadily out the windshield as he continued, “The next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital with no memory of the message that had made so much sense of everything. And when I was discharged, I discovered this thing that’s wrong with me. At first, I just ignored it, but I kept feeling like I had missed out on something, something major. So I thought I’d go see the psychics and see what they have to say about it.”

Ronan stayed quiet for a long time after Adam finished. Together, they stared silently out the windshield, watching rain pound down onto the glass. Ronan debated what to do: Adam was the only person he’d talked to—not that he’d talked to very many—that believed something had really happened that day, that it hadn’t just been a hallucination. Declan sort of thought something had happened, but not to the scale that Ronan, and apparently Adam, knew that it had.

“I don’t know why I told you all that,” Adam said, something of an accent slipping out in his vowels. “My friends already think I’m crazy – I don’t need a stranger thinking that, too.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Ronan said harshly. He felt that Adam deserved to know the truth. “I don’t think anyone was hallucinating, either.”

Adam’s gaze was fully on him now. Ronan’s skin felt hot from the weight of it.

“…I need to tell you something, something important,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “Can you fuck off your visit with the witches so I can take you to lunch instead?”

Adam looked utterly too amused by this. Ronan was pretty sure his ears were bright pink. “Well, alright. Since you asked so nicely.”

--

Adam chose possibly the worst diner imaginable.

It looked like a place that had been popular in the 50s, except that it had been abandoned ever since then. The lights flickered ominously whenever the door opened and all of the booths were the same color as mold and looked no better than the wobbly stools at the bar area. The ceiling was cracked, the air smelled only vaguely like food, and the ancient juke box in the corner kept making strange staticky sounds instead of playing any music.

It gave Ronan the creeps.

“There has to be somewhere better,” he grumbled as he unhappily slid into a shredded booth across from Adam. The seat was so flat he could feel the hard board underneath the cushion against his ass.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Adam replied without any heat. “This place has fantastic milkshakes.”

Ronan snorted and shifted his legs, accidentally banging his knees against the table and making the whole thing wobble precariously. He raised his eyebrows at Adam.

Adam rolled his eyes, but he was hiding a smile in the collar of his jacket. “Just trust me on this one, okay?”

“Alright, but if I die from food poisoning I’m going to haunt you forever.”

Adam grinned and bumped his knee against Ronan’s under the table. Ronan tried not to blush.

“Can I get you any drinks?” the waitress asked as she approached them with tiny, murky glasses of water. Ronan eyed the cup suspiciously.

“Two chocolate milkshakes, please,” Adam said. He turned back to Ronan once the woman had waddled away. “Alright, so what is it you have to tell me?”

Ronan took a deep breath. “Six months ago—”

“I’m sorry, I forgot to ask if you wanted cherries on top?”

Both of them startled as the waitress suddenly rematerialized at their table. Ronan glared at Adam, as this was obviously his fault, and Adam didn’t even try to hide his smile as he said, “No, thank you though.”

“Alright.” She left again.

Adam laughed. “I didn’t think your face could get any angrier-looking.”

“This is only level two,” Ronan growled and was pleased when Adam laughed again. “Okay, so six—”

“Actually, we’re totally out of chocolate – do you want another flavor?”

“What other flavors do you have?” Adam asked, ignoring Ronna’s glaring.

“Strawberry, vanilla, orange cream, blackberry, raspberry, butterscotch—”

“Forget the milkshakes!” Ronan exploded. “Just, can we just…get some burgers?”

“Two burgers?” The waitress actually had the audacity to take out her little notebook and write this down. Ronan couldn’t believe how slowly she did it. “Do you want cheese?”

“No! No, no fucking cheese, just—two burgers. Please.”

“Alright.” The waitress dropped her notepad back into her apron and left the table.

Adam was dissolving into laughter. “But Ronan, I really wanted cheese on my burger.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan spat, but he was trying hard not to laugh, too. This was all so fucking ridiculous.

“I’ve never seen that worker here before, so she must be new,” Adam said once he’d caught his breath.

“So you come to this death trap often, do you?”

Adam shrugged. “It was a quiet place to study before I got a job and the food’s cheap. Now I just come because it feels wrong to go anywhere else.”

“You’ve lived in Henrietta for a while then?” Ronan couldn’t believe he was actually succeeding at small talk – Declan would be so fucking proud.

“Just since I started college. I lived…somewhere else, before.”

He didn’t elaborate, and Ronan didn’t press him. They were quiet for a moment, looking dubiously at their waters. Eventually, Adam said, “What about you? Have you always been in Singer’s Falls?”

Ronan finally saw his opening. “Yeah – born and raised there. Only left six months ago, when—”

“I forgot to ask if you wanted fries with that?”

Ronan slammed his fist on the table, absolutely livid. “No fucking fries! Just burgers – nothing else! I don’t fucking care about any extra condiments or sauce or what the fuck ever just two. Burgers.”

“It’s just my job to ask,” the waitress grumbled, like she was the irritated one, and retreated once again.

Ronan wanted to throw his fist into the wall.

“So six months ago?” Adam prompted, a huge grin on his face. “Maybe if you say it all in one breath you’ll get it out before she comes back again.”

Ronan sighed angrily and rubbed his temples. “Adam, I’m so fucking mad right now I can’t even remember what it was I was going to tell you.”

Adam laughed heartily and Ronan wanted to kiss him so fucking badly. Adam ripped a napkin out of the dispenser, pulled a pen out of his pocket, and scrawled something onto it. Then he slid it across the table to Ronan. It was a phone number. “Maybe you can call me and tell me sometime, then.”

Ronan grinned, grabbed the napkin, and bumped his knee against Adam’s under the table. “Maybe I will.”

--

Of course, Ronan had somehow managed to lose the napkin Adam had written his phone number on, so he wasn’t able to call him. He was so angry with himself that he’d spent the rest of his night smashing his fists into the wall and drinking until he couldn’t remember anything but the faces of those stupid white robots.

It was then that he’d spent so much time wasting away being angry and depressed before the idea of finding his old cave had occurred to him, and now here he was, blessed by the willings of the Universe and Adam Parrish. It almost made him believe in God again, because really, what were the chances he’d run into Adam again?

“I used to live here,” Ronan told Adam now as he poked around the room.

Adam’s apartment wasn’t much better than the cave, honestly: it was located in a sketchy alleyway, for one thing, but it was also a converted stable which meant that the door was connected to the second floor of the apartment and nine feet off the ground. Presumably its original purpose was hauling up hay for the horses, as a similar structure sat on the Barns at this very moment.

Adam had seemed surprised that Ronan knew how to climb the pulley system up to the ridiculous door, and seemed even more surprised when Ronan explained that it was because he lived on a farm.

No one ever believed him when he said that.

The inside of the apartment was only slightly better. Adam was obviously a minimalist, as there was barely anything in the place – there was just a bed and a lamp sitting on a box on the second floor, and when Ronan walked along the cracked concrete floor and went down the rickety stairs to the first floor, there wasn’t much more than a kitchen, a couch, a single bookcase stuffed to the brim with books, and a desk. The walls were blank, and there was only a single photo of a handsome-looking man and Noah sitting in a cheap frame on the desk.

It looked like absolutely no one lived here, just as the cave had.

The only thing that improved it was that Adam was here. And the record player – it was old, but obviously well taken care of, and next to it Adam had a box full of hundreds of old vinyl records, most of them classic rock. Ronan could barely contain himself from going through all of them. He wanted to play some of the records and improvise on his old bass guitar and kiss Adam as the beat thrummed through his pulse.

Of course, he didn’t do that. But he wanted to.

Adam looked skeptically around his apartment, as if he couldn’t believe someone else had ever lived in it. Ronan didn’t really blame him. “Am I supposed to apologize?”

Ronan snorted. “No. You just wanted to know how I found out you lived here.”

“Yeah, I asked that like half an hour ago.”

“And I’m answering you now.”

“Are you always this impossible?” Adam asked, but he was grinning.

“Yes – my brother finds it absolutely infuriating,” Ronan replied. He pulled out a Led Zeppelin record. “I’m going to play this.”

Adam’s eyes slid shut as Robert Plant began belting out lyrics. Ronan watched him, appreciative of the fact that he could do so without Adam noticing. “I love this album.”

“Me too. It’s one of the only rock albums that isn’t absolute garbage.”

“You are so utterly wrong about that,” Adam said, but he was smiling at Ronan.

Something inside of him ached.   

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened six months ago?” Adam asked after they’d listened to a few songs in charged silence. “I promise not to call the waitress over here to interrupt you.”

“Asshole,” Ronan said joyously as he tossed himself down onto the couch. It was so thin he nearly fell through it.  

Adam jostled him as Ronan’s legs sprawled all over his lap. To Ronan’s utter delight, instead of pushing his legs off, Adam just rested his hands on Ronan’s shins. His hands felt as good as Ronan had imagined, if not better. He abruptly wished he wasn’t wearing pants, and then felt embarrassed for thinking it.

“Comfortable?” Adam asked.

“Yup.” Ronan settled back, closed his eyes, and told Adam the story.

He told him all about the Vogons and the destruction of the Earth and the rage-induced escapades he went on with Blue and Henry. He told him about the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and the killer white robots of Krikkit and the cave he’d lived on in prehistoric Earth that had just so happened to be in this very spot. Adam didn’t interrupt him except to ask for details or clarifications; he was more interested than Ronan thought he would be.

It felt good to share the story – when he’d first returned, he seriously thought he’d never be able to.

As he talked, they somehow ended up pressing closer and closer together until Adam was practically sprawled on top of him, tucked into the space underneath Ronan’s arm and the back of the couch. Ronan absolutely didn’t mind this arrangement – in fact, he wished they were even closer.

“And now the Earth’s back, somehow,” Ronan finished and tentatively reached out to tangle his fingers in Adam’s hair. Adam leaned into the touch, like a cat. Ronan swallowed. “And here I am.”

Adam hummed as his finger lightly trailed up Ronan’s stomach. Ronan could feel the touch everywhere in his body. “That’s the weirdest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Ronan grinned at him. “Some weird shit has happened to me, Adam. You’re not the only one people think are crazy.”

Adam stared at him for a moment before untangling himself from Ronan and getting up to walk over to his bookcase. What he pulled out from it was so shocking that Ronan bolted upright upon seeing it.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was probably the most remarkable book to ever have come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor. It was also the most successful and renown book, despite the fact that the entire thing was written by drunk hitchhikers and at best had empty entries and at worst what was written in those entries were wildly inaccurate. But still, The Guide sold well for two reasons:

One, if you started to panic because you lost your most trusted source for wisdom and knowledge, The Guide had DON’T PANIC! written on the cover in big, friendly letters, reminding you not to panic, presuming that you found it before you began panicking, and two, it was slightly cheaper than all of the other encyclopedias and other garbage that attempted to tell the reader how the Universe really worked. Of course, no one actually knew how the Universe really worked—not even the President—so again, people tended to settle with The Guide.

Ronan only had one because he’d won it in a barfight. And it was convenient to know where to find the best alcohol on any given planet. He’d thought he’d lost it forever when he’d returned home only to find that he no longer had it on his person.

He had no idea how the hell Adam could have it.

Adam offered it to him. “Is this yours, by chance?”

Ronan just about snatched it out of his hands. “Where did you find this?”

“It was in Noah’s car.” Adam sat beside him close enough that their shoulders knocked together; Ronan could feel the warmth radiating from his body and he ached. “…What is it?”

“…The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Ronan said. Adam’s eyebrows rose into his hairline. “It’s a bullshit guide to the known Universe written by people who have absolutely no idea what the hell they’re doing, but it helps in a pinch.”

“Does it have an entry for Earth?” Adam asked curiously.

Ronan snorted. “Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up.” He took The Guide from its cover and tapped some buttons until the right page fluttered across the screen, and then he handed it to Adam.

It took Adam all of two seconds to read the entry. “’Mostly harmless’?”

“My friend Blue spent a shit ton of time here writing an entry for it but the editors cut it down to just that.” Ronan grinned, remembering Blue’s face when she’d read the published entry. “She was fucking furious.”

Adam gingerly took The Guide from Ronan’s hands and started flipping through it himself. He didn’t seem to mind that he was practically curled up in Ronan’s lap. “Blue’s a researcher for this?”

“I fucking guess – I’ve never actually seen her do any work.”

“Is she an alien?”

“Yup, from Betelgeuse Five. Her real name is impossible to pronounce apparently.”

Adam pulled up the entry for Betelgeuse Five and started reading. “Is she still on Earth?”

“I have no fucking idea. Why, want to meet her?” Ronan spat, his tone teasing.

Adam glanced up from The Guide briefly to smirk at Ronan. “Yes, since you speak so highly of her.”

Ronan flushed. “…I do not.”

Adam shoved him before continuing to read. Ronan took advantage of his lack of attention and close proximity to admire his features. He spent a lot of time staring at his hands, of course, because he was completely obsessed with them, but his eyes also kept coming back to the splash of freckles on the side of his neck. It was annoyingly adorable.

He wondered how it was possible to sit right next to someone and still want more of them.

--

“Have you ever been to Yokil?” Adam asked. He’d been flipping through The Guide for the last half hour. “It says the library there spans an entire continent.”

Ronan was slouched into Adam’s side, tracing his fingers up and down Adam’s arm and admiring the hair that stood on end because of it. “Yeah, it’s not worth going to – everyone there was a bastard.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “You’ve said that about the last five planets.”

“All I really learned on my journey was that the Galaxy is full of bastards.”

Adam laughed, a light thing that made Ronan’s heart stutter and stop. “What about Cabeswater?”

Ronan’s heart stopped again, but for an entirely different reason.

He stopped playing with Adam’s arm and instead watched over his shoulder as he scrolled through the entry on Cabeswater. Whoever had written it obviously hadn’t found it as magical as Ronan had—it must not have been Blue’s entry—because there wasn’t much on it. The person had merely mentioned that the place was full of plants, had no bars to stop at, and that was it.

Reading it made Ronan angry.

“This entry is fucking horrible – don’t listen to it,” Ronan spat acidly. Adam jerked a little, as if his tone surprised him. “Cabeswater is the most beautiful damn planet in the Universe.”

Adam turned to him slowly, his blue eyes full of a light Ronan couldn’t identify. They were sitting so close that their noses were almost touching; Ronan could lean forward and kiss him, if he wanted to.

He very much wanted to.

“Tell me about it,” Adam whispered.

So Ronan did. He told him about all of the different plants he’d discovered there, including the blood-sucking ones that had tried to eat him that first day. He told him how wonderful it had been, devoid of all annoying talking species. He told him about Chainsaw and how beautiful she was. He told him about how he needed to go back there to appreciate it better, to learn more about it, to discover everything there was to discover.

“…Will you take me there, someday?” Adam murmured when Ronan was done.

Ronan swallowed. “…If you want to go, yeah.”  

Adam stared at him, searching for something in his face. “…You know, it’s strange, I’ve only known you for a total of two days, but I feel…it feels right to be here, with you.”

Ronan’s hands were trembling as he reached up to cup Adam’s cheek in his palm. “…Have I told you that you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in the entire Galaxy?”

Adam smiled, a small, nervous thing. “That can’t possibly be true.”

“I don’t lie,” Ronan said, and leaned forward to kiss him.

Adam kissed him back and, for a brief moment, Ronan almost wished he was a writer for The Guide, because there needed to be an entry in there about how Adam Parrish was the singular best kisser in the entire Universe.

--

“You still haven’t told me what’s wrong with you,” Ronan said, finally, finally pressing his mouth to that little splash of freckles on Adam’s neck.

Adam kissed the top of Ronan’s shaved head; he could feel Adam’s smile against his skin. “Because you haven’t guessed yet.”

Ronan pulled back slightly to look Adam up and down, shivering at the way Adam licked his lips as he did. “…Your knee. Something is tragically wrong with your left knee.”

Adam laughed. “Not my knee.”

Ronan looked him up and down again. This time, Adam scooted closer and tossed his leg over Ronan’s lap. Ronan slowly reached out and ran his hand along Adam’s thigh. “…Your dick. You can’t get it up anymore.”

“Somehow I knew you were going to say that.” Adam grinned and leaned forward to kiss Ronan on the lips. “But no, thank God I have no problem with that.”

A sharp pang of arousal shot through Ronan. “Well, there’s obviously nothing wrong with your mouth.”

Adam rewarded him for this with another kiss.

“Your ear,” Ronan breathed when Adam released him. “Something’s wrong with your ear.”

Adam froze; Ronan could feel it with how close they were sitting together. He raised his eyebrows. “Was that really it?”

“…That wasn’t what I was thinking of, but there is something wrong with my ear.” Adam worked his lip between his teeth. “I can’t hear out of my left ear.”

Ronan frowned. “What happened?”

“One problem at a time.” Adam kissed him again, which was effective enough to distract Ronan for the moment. He made a mental note to ask him about it again at a later date, though. “Keep guessing.”

Ronan huffed. “I told you what was wrong with me; I think you should just return the favor.”

Adam rolled his eyes, a smile on his face. “…Alright, then. Pick me up.”

Ronan stared at him incredulously, but stood and did what he was told. Adam wrapped his legs around him as he lifted him and touched his fingers to Ronan’s face, which was entirely unfair because there was no way Ronan could focus on a conversation now. He was already too busy thinking about how much he liked the way Adam’s ass felt in his hands, and now he was thinking about Adam’s hands on him, too.  

They got distracted kissing for a while. Adam was a good kisser, not that Ronan had kissed many people to compare him to, but he had to be. He knew just how to tilt his head so that he could stick his tongue as far as possible down Ronan’s throat, and he knew how to apply the right pressure in all the right places. Ronan burned with the want, the need to have Adam touching him in every possible spot – even kissing him, chest to chest, hands on his ass, wasn’t enough.

He wanted more.

“Okay,” Adam said when they were forced to separate to suck oxygen into their lungs. They were both ridiculously out of breath. “Put me down again.”

…Right. Ronan was supposed to be paying attention to something here, rather than just how good Adam’s lips felt against his own.

Baffled, Ronan set Adam down again. Adam stared at him, his chin tilted up in challenge. “So what’s wrong with my feet?”

His feet? Ronan glanced down. Adam was wearing boring white socks that both had holes where his big toes were. “Those socks are pretty atrocious.”

“God, shut up.” Adam shoved him. Grasping at his hand, Ronan brought it to his lips and pressed kisses to each of his knuckles. Adam let him for a while before smirking and saying, “Those aren’t my feet.”

“I’m getting there, Parrish.” Releasing his hand, Ronan got to his knees so he could lean down and, in an overexaggerated manner, stare at Adam’s feet. He was so certain he was going to find nothing that he was surprised when he actually did see what was wrong. He set his head down on the floor and stared, just to make absolutely sure.

Then he sat up.

“So that’s it,” he said, “Your feet don’t touch the ground.”

“…Yeah.” He could hear Adam swallow. “So, what do you think?”

Ronan glanced back up. He very much appreciated seeing Adam from this view. They stared at each other, tension brewing between them. Ronan desperately wanted to grab the back of Adam’s thighs and press his mouth to his crotch, but didn’t know if he was allowed to. Besides, he was supposed to be focusing on Adam’s problem.

“…I think you can do what I can do,” he said and stood.

He strode across the apartment and clambered up to the second story, Adam following behind him with a raised eyebrow. When he got to the front door, Ronan turned to face Adam and spread his arms out wide, like he was putting himself on display, which he was.

Adam’s eyebrow inched higher. “What are you—?”

Ronan let himself fall backwards out of the apartment.

--

And immediately realized how stupid he was for doing it. He hadn’t done this in ages, didn’t even know if flying worked on Earth like it did elsewhere, and was he seriously going to die now, after he’d met the most beautiful man in existence? He was a stupid, fucking idiot. He was sure Adam was yelling that at him right now, though the wind whizzing around his ears was preventing him from hearing much more than the sound of his voice.

He was so distracted by how stupid the thing he’d just done was that he completely forgot the part about hitting the ground and thus, didn’t.

--

This is what The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say on the subject of flying (paraphrased, because Ronan had never bothered to read the whole thing):

Flying is the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing. A problem with this is that you have to miss the ground accidentally; it is no good to purposefully try and throw yourself at the ground and miss, because you will most certainly fail to miss. You have to be suddenly distracted by something else so that you forget about the ground and missing and how much it will hurt if you don’t.

If you are lucky enough to receive this distraction, ignore all thoughts about your own weight and let yourself float higher. Don’t listen to anything anyone says to you, because it will likely be something along the lines of, “You can’t possibly be flying!” and it is vitally important that you don’t believe them.

Try a few swoops. Drift above the treetops.

DO NOT WAVE AT ANYBODY.

--

The ground was hanging menacingly above Ronan’s head.

He tried not to think about it, because thinking about it was exactly what would cause him to crash headlong into it. Instead, he thought about Adam, how he would still get more chances to kiss him. It was a good topic to think about, because Adam easily took over all thoughts so that the ground was merely something out of the corner of his eye that his brain glanced at occasionally but otherwise didn’t acknowledge.

“Ronan…” Adam’s voice drifted down from somewhere. His name on Adam’s tongue was incredibly pleasant to hear.

Slowly, Ronan turned himself upright. It was weird, he thought, floating here. Not the fact that he was flying—he had done that tons of times on Krikkit, had mastered the art of it until all of the bird chatter up there had driven him insane—but the fact that he was flying on Earth. When Ronan had first returned to Earth, it had felt incredibly normal, like no other parts of the Galaxy had even touched this planet. It was completely void of anything pointing towards Ronan’s experiences. For a while, being home made Ronan feel like he really had hallucinated the whole thing.

But now that he was flying, he knew what he had experienced was real – this thing was possible, when everyone else on Earth thought it was impossible, so then every other impossible thing he had done or witnessed also had to be possible, too.

It was an incredibly enlightening feeling.

He glanced back up at Adam, a grin on his face. Adam was standing in his second-story doorway, his eyes as wide as saucers. “Ronan…you’re…flying?”

“Yeah.” Ronan carefully did a backwards swoop, just to expel any lingering doubts from Adam’s mind that he was really doing this. “Care to join me?”

“I can’t,” Adam said, his mouth a hard line. Ronan could see the fear on his face.

“You can.” Ronan floated up and held his hand out to him. “You can’t think about this logically, Parrish.”

Adam let out a bitter laugh. “That’s all I know how to do.”

“It’s easy once you shut your brain off. Not knowing how to do it is the way to do it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Exactly.” Ronan gestured his hand towards Adam, offering it again. “Here, step onto my hand.”

Adam shook his head. “You’re crazy.”

Ronan’s grin was sharp. “Everyone says you’re crazy, too.”

Adam swallowed. Looked at his hand. Looked skyward, as if questioning his very existence. And then carefully, nervously, like he was about to step onto the hand of someone floating in midair, he stepped on Ronan’s hand. Ronan couldn’t even feel the pressure on his hand; Adam was floating there too, like there was an invisible block between his foot and Ronan’s palm.

“Now the other.”

“What?”

“Take your weight off your back foot, Parrish.”

“Ronan—”

“Just do it.”

Adam fixed his gaze somewhere behind Ronan. Ronan could practically see the gears in his mind turning and he worried that Adam wouldn’t be able to do this after all, despite the fact that he was technically floating all of the time. Adam seemed like he was the kind of person who couldn’t stop analyzing everything, and analyzing flying was the one thing that made it impossible to do it.

But Adam lifted his other foot off of his porch. Ronan removed his hand.

Adam started to fall. For a moment, his gaze was still fixed on that point behind Ronan, but then his eyes focused and he did the thing he never should’ve done:

He looked down.

Ronan saw the moment Adam remembered the ground and how much it would hurt if he failed to miss it. He started to shout out to him, to try and distract him from that horrible fate.

He never got the chance.

A flurry of feathers suddenly exploded in Ronan’s face, obscuring his view. Claws scratched at his cheeks as mighty wings flapped around his head, loud caws splitting the air. It was Chainsaw – Ronan had no clue where she had come from, or why she was clawing at his face, except perhaps that she felt betrayed that he had decided to finally fly again without her.

“Ow, Chainsaw, stop that you fuck!” Ronan hissed, distracted by his Raven. Adam laughed, also distracted by Ronan’s Raven, which was lucky for him, because he was so distracted that he forgot about hitting the ground and therefore didn’t.  

They floated there together as Chainsaw finally settled on Ronan’s shoulder, a gruff kerah signaling the last of her annoyance. Adam couldn’t seem to keep his eyes focused on any one thing: he looked around him, he looked at Ronan, he looked at the ground out of the corner of his eye. He’d already figured that part out, then, which was the most important part.

Finally his eyes settled on Ronan. Ronan thought he was going to ask him about how this was possible, but instead he said, “You have a pet raven and her name is Chainsaw?”

“Yeah,” Ronan replied, didn’t elaborate. He was pleased Adam knew she was a she.

Adam laughed. Ronan wanted to kiss him, so he did, and together they drifted up and up, kissing and kissing. When they were just above the rooftops, the sleepy town of Henrietta spread out beneath them, Adam broke off and stared upwards, a large grin on his face. “God, Ronan, this is—I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment.”

“Maybe that’s why your feet never touch the ground – you’ve been training for this,” Ronan said, because he was feeling like a sentimental fuck just then.

Adam closed his eyes. “I always…I always hoped that I could be something bigger, something more. I just never thought it would actually happen…”

“Well I never thought I would hitchhike on an alien vessel and get stranded in space for eight years, so I guess the Universe is full of fucking surprises.”

Adam snorted and pressed forward to kiss Ronan hungrily again. If this was how Adam kissed in the skies, Ronan thought, then he never wanted his feet to touch the ground again either.

--

Those who are regular followers of the doings of Ronan Lynch may wonder how he survived as a gay man hitchhiking around the Galaxy for so long. Did he ever get the chance to meet his sexual desires, they ask? The truth is no – but not because he didn’t have the opportunity to. No, in fact Ronan had many opportunities because on most planets, same-sex reproduction is the norm. There are in fact very few planets that have species that reproduce the same way most species on Earth do. Even Blue Sargent, upon coming to Earth, had been shocked when she discovered that it wasn’t unusual there for her to like men.

So Ronan had opportunity, but he was a man of values: he didn’t believe in causal hookups. He didn’t believe in sex just for the fun of it.

He wanted a relationship. And no one had ever come along that was interesting enough for him to even consider it.

Until now.

Adam Parrish was the best thing to approach him in a long time, and he ached for him with a ferocity he’d never experienced before.

And what about Adam then, those people cry. How does he, a blatant bisexual, live his life? Does he really spend his whole life working and studying and working again to the point that when he finally does go to bed at night, he just falls asleep immediately? Is he interested in nothing more than his career path? Has he no spirit? Has he no passion? Does he not, in a nutshell, fuck?

Those who wish to know should read on. Others may want to skip to the last segment, which is a good bit and has Gansey in it.

--

They continued upwards, tangled together, wind battering their faces. When Chainsaw saw that they were only kissing—an utterly boring human act—she took off again in a flurry of wings, heading back in the direction of the Barns. Adam broke off to watch her go, a shine in his eyes. “You really have to tell me that story someday.”

“Sure,” Ronan agreed easily as he pressed a kiss to Adam’s neck. “It’s even better knowing that she’s an alien.”

“God, I almost wish my friend was here right now – he’s been speculating for months that aliens caused the weird shit that happened six months ago. He’d be ecstatic to find out he was right and pick your brain about your experiences.”

Ronan raised an eyebrow. “You almost wish he was here?”

Adam smirked. “Well, if he was here, I couldn’t do this.” He snuck his fingers down the waistband of Ronan’s underwear and rubbed them against his hips. A small gasp fell from Ronan’s mouth. “And I really, really want to.”

“Fuck,” Ronan gasped. He was already half-hard. “If I knew flying would turn you on, I would’ve shown you how to do it when we first met.”

Adam’s grin was devilish as he started to unbutton Ronan’s jeans. “You saying you were attracted to me since way back then?”

“Well, duh,” Ronan scoffed, but he was blushing as he took the hint and shrugged off his shirt. The wind caught it and blew it away, probably sending it off to land in a very confused redneck’s lawn. Ronan didn’t mind. “I thought I was being obvious.”

“I guess you were a little,” Adam said teasingly before his eyes caught on Ronan’s collarbone. “You have a tattoo?”

“Yeah, a real fucking big one – I got it done to spite my brother…fuck, I guess that was like ten years ago.”

“I want to see it.” Adam’s eyes gleamed. “Turn around.”

Ronan eagerly did what he was told, shimmying out of his pants as he did so. They didn’t so much get caught by the wind as plummet straight down; he could only hope that they would land on someone and scare the shit out of them. It was a good thought.

Adam pressed up against him, mouthing at where Ronan knew there was a vine on his shoulder blade. He was hard, and flush against Ronan’s ass like that Ronan could hardly stand it; he wanted Adam to fuck him. Badly.

He let out a small whimper.

“This is amazing,” Adam said after he’d spent some time mouthing at each segment of it. He was pushing Ronan down into…well, nothing really, but neither of them were exactly thinking about the whole flying thing right now. “Did you draw it?”

“Yeah,” Ronan said, and moaned as Adam suddenly ground against his ass. “Fuck, I doodle shit sometimes. I have some sketches of stupid aliens I saw if you ever want to see them.”

“Mm, I’d like to,” Adam said as he slowly started moving his hips against Ronan. “Later.”

Ronan failed miserably to hide another moan with a snort. “Well obviously.”

“Are you okay like this?” Adam asked as he pushed particularly hard into Ronan, which was really just unfair because how was Ronan supposed to say anything at all when he could barely see through the pleasure?

But there was one thing.  

“T-take off your shirt,” he groaned out. It was a miracle he could think at all, really, with Adam grinding into his ass like that, but dammit he wanted to see him, too! “I want to see your freckles.”

Adam let out a startled laugh, and when Ronan flipped over he was pleased to find a bright flush on Adam’s cheeks. “My freckles?”

“Yeah.” Ronan reached out a thumb to brush across the freckles on Adam’s cheek. “You have them all over your face, so I want to see where else you have them.”

Adam’s blush darkened, but he was smiling as he started to take off his shirt. “You’re weird.”

“You have a thing for fucking tattoos, don’t kinkshame me.”  

Adam rolled his eyes before tossing his shirt aside. He seemed to have forgotten they were up in the air because he looked surprised when the wind whisked the thin piece of fabric away. His eyes were glued to it as it sailed away across Henrietta. “I wish this didn’t involve losing all of my clothes.”

Ronan’s eyes were glued to Adam’s hands unbuttoning his pants. “I’ll just get Chainsaw to bring them back, she’s useful like that. Now hurry up and take your pants off.”

“So demanding,” Adam teased as he pulled his pants down to around his knees. He was straining against his boxers and precum had already stained a dark circle on the front. Ronan couldn’t hold himself back anymore and floated forward, holding Adam’s hips steady with his hands as he mouthed at him through his boxers.

Adam gasped, a quiet, aching thing that Ronan felt through his entire body. “F-fuck. Can I…can I fuck you?”

“Yes,” Ronan growled. He barely stopped himself from adding, please.

Adam shivered. “…Would it freak you out if I told you that I have lube and a condom in my pocket?”

Ronan barked out a laugh. “Fuck no – I’m glad you were as goddamn desperate as I was. Just remember to take them out before you drop your pants on someone’s roof.”

“Right.” Adam drew back from Ronan slightly so he could reach into his pants and pull out the stuff. He handed them to Ronan before kicking his pants all the way off, sending them plummeting down. To Ronan’s delight, his boxers were quick to follow.

Then, suddenly, all of Adam was before him. He was pleased to see that, yes, even the inches of Adam that people didn’t usually see were also completely covered in freckles.

He took his time kissing each and every one. He loved pleasuring Adam, and he loved hearing the little noises Adam made when Ronan scraped his teeth against a particularly sensitive piece of skin. Adam always seemed like he was trying so hard to keep quiet, which was why it was all the more satisfying for Ronan to do something that made him loud. He wanted to make him so loud that everyone in the town below them would be able to hear him.

“You’re—ah—gonna make me cum,” Adam gasped as Ronan licked a stripe over the freckles on his hips.

Ronan raised an eyebrow, as if to say so what? and stuck his tongue in Adam’s bellybutton.

“Fuck! You fucker,” Adam moaned before pushing forward slightly. His dick brushed against Ronan’s collarbone. “Let me fuck you.”

Grinning, Ronan floated back on his back and finally discarded himself of his underwear. He didn’t miss the hungry way Adam stared at his dick. “Go right ahead.”

Adam was on top of him in a second, kissing him breathlessly as he squirted lube onto his fingers. It had been a long, long time since Ronan had done anything like this, so he was tight and fragile, but it made it all the more worthwhile when Adam found his sweet spot and finger-fucked him until Ronan knew he was going to cum if he didn’t stop.

“Think of that as revenge for earlier,” Adam said and Ronan loved him with a sudden, passionate ache that nearly made him cum just from the feeling of it.

He meant to say fuck you, but it came out as a gargled moan instead.

Adam smirked, rolled on the condom, and slipped into Ronan. He was big; Ronan’s senses were overloaded with Adam Adam Adam as Adam kissed him and sunk into the hilt. He stayed there for a moment, panting heavily, eyes closed, and Ronan’s eyes rolled back as he savored the feeling of Adam inside him, all around him.

Fuck, he felt so good.

“Move,” he breathed a second later, needing the friction; he was so hard it was starting to hurt.

Adam exhaled, rested his forehead against Ronan’s, and started to thrust.

In the next few minutes, Ronan was absolutely unaware of anything but Adam. Adam felt so good pressing into him, kissing him, touching him with those hands that Ronan had no idea how he had survived until now without him. There was nothing in the Universe that compared to the feeling of Adam fucking him senseless; he had hard proof of that.

When Adam finally found his sweet spot, Ronan couldn’t even think. Adam slammed into it and Ronan was gone.

He was just about to climax when his back suddenly banged against something hard. “Ow, what the fu—?!”

“Ronan, fuck—” Adam scrambled for him and heaved him off of the cold metal, pulling so hard that it sent them tumbling through the air as something huge and fast screeched by mere feet away from them.

When they were far enough away to see what it was, they both glanced at each other before bursting out laughing. They were still doing summersaults, as there was nothing up here to stop their momentum, and they were laughing too hard to stop themselves. They couldn’t even find the air to speak for a moment.

Adam recovered first. “Did we just hit a fucking plane?”

“Fuck, we totally did,” Ronan gasped. “I’m pretty sure someone’s fucking window was open, too.”

They laughed again, grasping at each other so that they finally stopped spinning and were floating once again with Ronan on his back and Adam on top of him. Adam was beautiful from this angle, with hickies on his neck and a wide grin on his face. “I can’t wait to see what the news headline will be. ‘Two Naked Men Engaged in Intimate Activities Crash into Plane, Passengers Shocked’.”

Ronan snorted. “Intimate activities. I’m sure that’s the shocking part, and not the fact that we’re fucking flying.”

Adam laughed again. “Considering these are people flying into bumfuck Virginia, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Ronan grinned and pulled Adam close to him again. “Well, if they’re going to be shocked anyway, let’s give them a fucking show.”

It didn’t take them much longer to finish after that.

When they were spent, they just floated together, catching their breaths. The clouds dipped against them, cooling their flushed skin with mist. Wind battered into them and the sky was the same color as Adam’s eyes. Ronan didn’t think he’d ever been happier than he was right now.  

“How could you ever get tired of this?” Adam sighed. He was clinging to Ronan as if he was afraid Ronan would simply fly away if he didn’t.

Ronan pulled him closer, pressed a kiss to his hair, and said, “Trust me, the birds get real fucking annoying.”

--

Gansey was flying back from D.C., exhausted from yet another fundraiser. He itched to work on his thesis, which was based on the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him: six months ago, he had been lying on the ground, dying from multiple bee stings. As he’d laid there, choking for breath, he saw big, yellow ships appear in the sky. Bright lights appeared out of their hatchways, and then the world exploded around him. When he’d woken up, he was alive, the Earth was the same as it always was, and no one else truly believed they had seen a spaceship.

But Gansey believed. He hadn’t hallucinated; he had died, and so had the Earth.

But now they were both back again.

He’d been trying to research it ever since, to try and find out if anyone had any insights on what had truly happened. He’d been following dead ends and wild goose chases for months, but he was getting close, he could feel it. He had found Henrietta, where he had met someone else who remembered the Earth being destroyed; he had found the address of a woman who supposedly knew what happened to the dolphins after they had all disappeared six months ago. In fact, that was where he was heading as soon as he got home, rested, and picked up his friend. And his journal.

He didn’t have it with him because his sister had forbidden him from bringing anything of the sort with him, as she knew his nose would be buried in it the whole time instead of socializing. It had been a cruel compromise to make, because Helen knew that Gansey could barely stand to exist without his research.

But he’d gotten through it, and now he was excused from future family events for a couple of months.

Gansey drew the window shade open. He loved watching Henrietta come into view as they flew over it; he loved watching the hills and mountains unfold and then the buildings and roads and then the cars. He’d been charmed by the little college town ever since he first stepped foot in it, and even after six months of living here the magic had yet to wear off.

He hoped it never would.

As he was staring lovestruck out the window, something suddenly banged into the metal mere inches from Gansey’s seat. He flinched badly before craning his neck to see what it was. He worried that a bird had crashed into the plane, or something equally horrible.

He wasn’t quite prepared for what he actually saw.

He gaped out the window. He swore he just saw two naked men tumble off the wing of the plane—one looking startlingly like his dear friend Adam Parrish—and he didn’t know what he could have possibly mistaken this for.

…Perhaps Helen was right and that he was starting to see things just because he thought they should be there.

Gansey pulled the window shade back down, made a mental note to ask Adam if he had made any advances on the subject of human flight, and then curled up to doze for the rest of his trip.