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Gansey was blushing. A real blush. And he sounded...Ronan didn't take his gaze off Gansey, absorbing every detail, trying to read what was really happening. Kavinsky always set Gansey off. But he'd never seen Gansey react this way.

"Do you still have the picture?" He asked suddenly, his voice calm and curious, not explosive or taunting. This reaction of Gansey's started something in his chest that he was almost too scared to call hope. He shouldn't want to hope for something more with Gansey and risk losing the only family he had left besides Matthew and Declan. He didn't live with Matthew or Declan. He lived with Gansey. He loved Gansey.

The smallest bit of hope when there was previous none at all was a dangerous thing and difficult to ignore.

"I know you would."

If he wasn't so flustered, he would have found a way to deflect Ronan's question, but with his emotions in a disarray and jealousy gnawing at his thoughts. "Yes." One simple word. A simple word that could cause Ronan to hate him. "I'm sorry." It had been wrong to keep it, his guilt compounded by knowing that Kavinsky had taken it without Ronan's consent.

Part of him hated Kavinsky for doing that to Ronan while another part hated himself for being too weak to do the right thing. "I should have deleted it." Fighting back most of the blush, he turned in his seat to look at Ronan, still waiting for the accusations. "He shouldn't have done it and I shouldn't have kept it."

Gansey had kept it. Gansey had kept the picture and now Ronan couldn't stop imagining him pulling it up on his phone and staring at it. He only allowed his imagination to go so far. He could not and would not imagine when and where and how Gansey had looked at the picture.

Ronan rubbed his chin where his five o'clock shadow was closer to an twelve o'clock already.

He needed to shower and shave.

"No. He shouldn't have. If I'd known I would have broken his fingers and his nose and his jaw." Long inhale. In through his nose. He was trying to decide how best to handle blushing Gansey. "I would have preferred you had one from me."

Gansey knew that his morals were always too flexible in all matters related to Ronan, but this was an offense that Ronan should condemn him for. He should be furious with him as much as Kavinsky. But instead, Ronan seemed calmer than he had been in months. Part of that was their new circumstances, but the rest... Gansey wasn't certain why Ronan wasn't angry.

"I would have done the same to him, but you would have had to give me another lesson on how to throw a punch correctly first." Or perhaps he needed to have someone else teach him since Gansey could never seem to gather the necessary resolve to try to hit Ronan even when it was practice.

Most of the blush had faded and Gansey thought that the conversation might return to the BMW or the complexities of time when Ronan made a suggestion that Gansey couldn't quite comprehend. For a moment, he stared at his best friend, certain that he'd misheard. "Beg pardon?"

"You heard me." Only this time Ronan couldn't quite look at Gansey. He hoped, but he was uncertain. This was something he would normally take more time to analyze, careful and absolute in finding an answer.

He shifted in his seat and slouched a bit further, feeling the heat of the engine through his boots despite knowing there wasn't an engine under the hood. "I was thinking about a punching bag. You can't hurt a punching bag." He knew that was part of the reason Gansey pulled his punches. A good punch required intent. No hesitation.

He was waiting for Gansey's reaction. Hope rolling into a knot in his chest. He wouldn't lose Gansey, but it would change the way Gansey looked at him if he was wrong.

For a moment, all the generations of Gansey polish and decisiveness deserted him, leaving a confused teenager who was terrified that the wrong answer might cost him one of the people he loved most. Swallowing hard, he pressed his thumb to his lip, turning over possible answers, possible reasons why Ronan would say such a thing.

Ronan didn't believe in casual sex. He wasn't the type that would suggest pictures as a joke or as a way to embarrass Gansey after his confession. If Ronan made that type of comment, it was intentional. His heart stuttered at the thought, hope catching painfully between his ribs, delicate and fragile. Something that Gansey wasn't certain should exist, but he refused to say anything that might destroy it. "I would have preferred one from you."

He studiously ignored the flush creeping across his skin as he adjusted his glasses despite them being in the correct position. "That might work. I should have less of a problem hitting an inanimate object. It'd also be a way to start training again. I don't miss the rowing team, but I miss the routine."

Ronan leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. For a moment he hadn't breathed. He knew Gansey had to think it through, worrying over the answer ad the consequences, weighing the situation and the truth of things.

Hearing his words unraveled the knot, soothed the crease forming between his eyes.

"Would it help if I tape a picture of Kavinsky's face on the bag?" What he would give to see Gansey break Kavinsky's nose. He turned his head towards Gansey and for the first time since forever he let something more show. Not the steady gaze of a loyal friend, trusting and absolute no matter how much they might disagree about some things. Longing and warmth, like the heat that crept along Gansey's skin.

The smile completely distracted him. It was so rare that Ronan offered a smile without hint of mockery or the razor sharpness that he'd developed after Niall's death that Gansey almost thought he was hallucinating. It took a moment for Gansey to remember to breathe, then Ronan asked that question and he couldn't hold back his laughter.

Laughter was better than hatred. Better than the jealousy that had roared through him whenever Kavinsky had been near Ronan or insinuated...

Insinuated things that Gansey had carefully pretended he didn't want. "It might." It was terrible to think that way of the dead, but he would never be able to completely forgive Kavinsky for leading Ronan toward a path of self-destruction.

His heart stuttered into a painful rhythm that seemed to steal away both breath and thought when he noticed the sudden change in how Ronan was looking at him. It was a wish, a dream, that Gansey had carefully pushed aside, certain that Ronan would never feel that way about him. But there was the same wistful longing and unrequited affection that Gansey had been hiding for months, that he couldn't hide while Ronan was willing to let him glimpse those emotions. "But I might get jealous that you have his picture instead of mine."

Gansey laughing was like Adam smiling. Ronan would start wars for them both. He'd burn the world to ashes and build a new one if they would look at him the way Gansey was looking at him now.

"You haven't seen the picture yet." Gansey jealous. It was such a tiny little thing and yet it meant everything. Ronan didn't actually have Kavinsky's picture. He'd planned on drawing a stick Kavinsky on a piece of paper and writing his name on it in crayon just to give Gansey something to punch. "I only want a picture of you if you leave me."

Please don't ever leave him, Gansey.

"Does it involve the desecration of a flag?" He couldn't quite keep the jealousy out of his tone even when he shouldn't think ill of the dead. Kavinsky would be a sore subject for a long time no matter how charitable Gansey attempted to be.

His chest felt painfully tight at Ronan's words. Only if he left him... Maybe now that they were far from Henrietta...

Shaking off that thought, he smiled at Ronan. He would do everything he could to make sure he didn't leave his best friend. "I doubt that's true." As he spoke, he started the Pig again, the smile turning to a grin as it made its usual sound of protest. "You said that you wanted to send me a picture. If you do, I'll want to send one in return."

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