bakerstreet | picture prompt meme;

Art review was never Adam's forte, but then he's never truly been beholden to such a gallery. He does Ronan the courtesy of drinking in the view, annulling his initial prejudice in favor of grudging, growing wonder. Eerie, yes, and the fog too sinister. No doubt, a proposal, but not the sophisticated version.

A fine effort that Adam, step slow and pervasive, can appreciate without awarding final approval.

"It's... a start," he offers, because Ronan's still got the artist's temperament that commands a dozen kisses of his ass every five seconds, when it comes to dreaming — even when he hardly asks for it, he's got the rich boy veneer of expectation.

Adam's learned when to withhold, and when to grant.

"You've got work to do." It costs him nothing to take Ronan's hand now, to clasp it tighter in a convulsive pulse, to start a harder step along the creek. "Let's find water. I want to see if you made me fish."

Adam's halting praise just makes Ronan smile. Close enough. He bumps his shoulder against Adam's as they change direction, following the creek downstream.

"I think there's a lake or pond or something," he says as they move, trying to remember exactly what he envisioned as it came into being. He reaches out through his own awareness. He wants there to be a small lake. Something pretty and calm with an island in the middle. And fish for Adam, whatever kind of fish he wants. Trout, koi, sturgeon, bettas, or something no one has seen outside Adam's imagination or Ronan's. A lake with clear, inviting water. An island with a soft bed of moss just for them.

Ronan can feel it against his back and he hopes that means it's manifested.

He feels the nudge of Ronan's subtle, gentle intrusion, can tell somehow the second when the world simply shifts underfoot in tremors of dwindling power. Magic at play, Ronan's command of it unpolished, crude enough that Adam — himself unsophisticated in his control — can notice.

"I don't know if you should change things now we're here." Dreamscapes need stability to thrive, and this one is already fledgling, subject to the drain of Ronan's whims, his creativity, his humor. Exerted, perhaps past its natural limitations.

What won't bend will break. The forest answers, the crisp scent of freshness and running water — stilling to pour into a calm lake as Adam advances — assaults him. He crouches at the shoreline, hand hovering gentle over the bed of winking, grey and dirtied stone, before his fingers stop on the chosen piece.

He collects it, then a few siblings, rolling them in his hand before he releases them in a shallow toss into the lake water — and grins, when flickers of tepid green movements herald trouts or friendly bass.

"You made me fish," he concludes, and tries his damnedest not to sound absurdly, childishly pleased, fond beyond measure.

Ronan breaks into a smile when he hears Adam's voice. It's worth it. It's worth the slight risk of adjusting the dreamspace while they're in it, worth the uncertainty he felt until just before he fell asleep. Opal did something stupid to make him smile and now he's glad she did.

He follows after Adam, basking in the grin that the fish have earned. He wraps around Adam, pressing against his back and letting his chin rest on his boyfriend's shoulder as he watches the fish flicker through the water.

"I like making you things," he murmurs. And if Adam won't let him make practical things and bring them out of dreams, then he wants to make things for him here. "Tell me something else," he whispers against Adam's good ear. He doesn't know if the Adam that appears in his dreams is deaf in one ear, but it's habit now.

"You're smug with godly hubris," he whispers back, because they've both read enough of their Greek classics to know how that ends: tragedy, humble repentance, begging on knees Ronan has admittedly already prepared in idle churchly courtship.

Dipping back, Adam leans more of his weight onto his boyfriend, reliant on being held up and dragging Ronan's arms before him to fasten Adam's waist. Pirates, and the sea before them.

"You could try the apples of youth?" Ambitious, maybe. Profane in ways Adam hesitates to investigate. The philosophy of what Ronan's powers can achieve with or without unearthly blessing never fails to awe him.

"Make it less dark. Less... emo goth. More Gansey proper."

Ronan wrinkles his nose at the idea of making it more Gansey. But he does his best to shift the mood. He thinks of sunlight filtering through the trees and sparkling on the water. He thinks of how clear the water'll be with light on it. He thinks of warm, soft spring days that are so pleasant before the oppressive heat of southwest Virginian summers. Bright. Soft. Pleasant.

Okay, kind of like Gansey when he's being very Gansey.

The world shifts around them to accommodate Ronan's will and he can't help the smile that flashes across his face when it works. He rests his chin on Adam's shoulder and tightens his arms around him.

"Better?"

Bright, soft, pleasant. Pale. Whitened. Glistening.

He laughs as the first spears of sun fly brazenly across the distance, mists dispelling, the forest breathing new life as if mantled by a fairytale. It's — pretty like this, and Adam thinks he can hear the start of bird trills, the pitter-patter of mutinous squirrels.

Strange, how delicate Ronan's craftsmanship can be.

"Better," he decrees. For Adam's taste, which should be — not the afterthought, but certainly a more minimalist consideration. Adam doesn't fool himself about his place in the grand scheme of things, the likelihood of the next magical act of their lives involving his disappearance.

"Hey," he says over his shoulder, leaning obnoxiously into Ronan's hold to weigh him down. "Don't just make things for your boyfriend of the day. Show me your favorite place."

Adam will never be his boyfriend of the day. He's Ronan's first and some part of him thinks he'd be happy if Adam was his last, too. He smiles and braces himself as Adam leans into him. He could stay like this forever, right here.

He nuzzles Adam's neck, breathes him in.

"Okay."

Ronan releases Adam and runs his hand down his boyfriend's arm to catch his hand. He walks along the edge of the lake and finds another stream running into it. They follow that uphill: it's not arduous, but nothing in the dream is. The forest around them is alive with familiar bird sounds: cardinals, chickadees, wrens, bluebirds, doves, sparrows, woodpeckers. The kinds of birds they'd hear while tromping through forests and fields with Gansey. The kinds of birds that could be heard at the Barns.

And maybe one or two that've never been heard anywhere in the world.

When they reach the top of the rise, the forest opens out onto a field with a view of mountains. The Blue Ridge peaks that Ronan is so fond of.

Trust Ronan to go full out with bells, whistles and a show: the entire mountain crown, splayed neatly before them, Southern regalia at its glimmering deadliest. Adam's grin sparks broad and even, master of a universe custom tailored for his whims.

He leans into Ronan, arm cast generously over his boyfriend's shoulder, possessiveness a new but slowly learned edge to their relationship. He rubs his cheek against Ronan's arm. Holds himself steady.

"Your mind is full of wonder." And beauty and poetry and delight.

This is the boy Adam Parrish set his greedy sights on. This is the architect of heady sighs and tender nods, of worlds cast and painted in an ethereal corner.

"I like it," he says quietly, and wilts into Ronan's body, whispering secrets he should know better than to confide, even to this man and his magical mission. "I really like it."

The unnecessary Parrish blessing, hereby awarded.

Ronan turns his head to kiss the top of Adam's, lingering there as his boyfriend offers tender compliments and perhaps the highest praise of all: he likes it. Ronan can't help his smile and he wraps his arms around Adam again, bolstered by his approval--no, his delight.

Adam likes what he's created, he feels good here. This is something Ronan can give him, even if it only ever exists right here.

He tips Adam's head so they can kiss.

"We can come here whenever you want."

"I can't." Ronan might, but Adam's reliant on a good star alignment, a prayer and a hope — a magical invitation, because scrying is whimsier than Savannah Miles deciding her pick for the fourth-grade barn dance. He lucked into being here, skill a permanent question mark.

Adam can look, but not touch. Behold, appraise and covet, but never own. He can lean into Ronan again, a master and commanded by Ronan's creation and know himself and his purpose scattered.

He's a crutch, somehow, a band-aid. Not a prince. Never a requirement. He turns to kiss the side of Ronan's cheek and breathes out both stupor and satisfaction. "Thought you'd grow raven wings and start flying across the mountains. Lazy good-for-nothing."

picture prompt meme;

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