remusjohnlvpin:

Ship: Pynch – The Raven Cycle 

Rating: T

Link to AO3: x 

Synopsis: Adam’s the sober college student forced to come to the Greywaren bar every week to meet with his study group. Ronan’s the bartender who inherited his dad’s bar and has a tattoo of a raven on his back that Adam can never seem to tear his eyes away from.

In which Adam hates going to the bar to meet with his pointless study group until he finds a reason not to hate it so much and to keep coming back.

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Tightening his hands into fists, Adam wills himself not to argue with the rambling boy sitting across from him speaking ridiculous nonsense about the way they should structure this essay.

Teamwork has and always will be pointless for Adam who believed the absence of it would be one of the many saving graces of university but apparently not.

Well in the group’s defence, it’s not as if Adam was forced to partake as it’s a voluntary study group he joined. A study group which had been successful until Proko joined their group as a friend of Swan’s.

Why Proko is here, Adam has no idea because the only time he’s not retelling some drunken story of his, he’s playing with the gold chain on his neck while leering at the studious and usually silent Swan who looks like he’s avoiding Proko’s gaze but Adam’s noticed them playing footsie under the small bar table more than once.

He does try and get involved in the group sometimes but only to insist that whatever misjudged point he made is correct or detailing all the wrong ways they should tackle the topic.

Whenever he does this, Adam has to grit his teeth and refrain from asking him when the last time he actually attended a lecture was.

Along with Proko’s addition to their study group, the accompanying negative change was that now they meet up in Greywaren’s bar once a week instead of in the nice, quiet, respectful library on campus.

Although Adam doesn’t drink, the temptation to chug down any form of alcohol just to stomach this guy’s rude comments for the hour and a half he’s forced to spend in his presence makes him almost give in.

And today that temptation comes to the edge of being too much.

Proko is ranting and raving about how their professor was incorrect that morning and how she’s really not teaching them well at all and “Well, what else is to be expected from her?” in a voice that would have made Adam’s friend Blue from his hometown launch into a forceful lecture.

While Adam values the other members of his study group, he really needs to do well in his Winter finals to keep his scholarship so he takes his books in his hands, stands up and mumbles something about needing to clear his head and a lie about how he’ll be back in a minute and walks towards the counter.

Propping himself up on a barstool, Adam dumps his books down, removes a pen from where it was perched on a page and begins to write the plan for the essay he and his study group were meant to have written together at last week’s meeting.

He’s finished the plan and is halfway through his third paragraph when he hears a cough above him.

Forcing his eyes upwards, Adam then immediately straightens his back and allows a bashful blush to overcome his face at the disapproving gaze of the bartender opposite him.

He’s seen the bartender around before of course.

Proko’s been taking them to this Irish pub for over a month and well when the bartender is tall, seems to live in black fitting jeans and tank tops and proudly displays his large intricate back tattoo while working here every week, it’s difficult not to notice him.

Plus Adam’s pretty sure Proko mentioned that this guy owns the place which Adam can’t fathom seeing as the man with a shaved head and blazing gaze looks about the same age as himself.

“I-sorry” Adam apologises, “I did buy a beer; I just…left it at the other table”

He did buy one, he didn’t drink any of it but he bought one anyway because he learned from the first three times they came here, Proko would interrogate him for an hour on why he dislikes alcohol if he didn’t at least pretend he’d drink some.

The bartender immediately glances behind Adam to where the study group still sits, chatting away about something that’s not their subject matter.

Adam refuses to wonder why this guy knew where he was sitting before because rationally he probably spotted Adam sitting there as it’s their usual table and it’s not a particularly large place so it would have been hard to miss him.

When he looks back at Adam, his expression is still as rigid and stony as it was before but then he shrugs, “I was just going to ask if you wanted to order anything.”

Adam blinks twice before saying, “Just water would be great, thanks”

Nodding, the bartender leaves and then brings him back a tall glass of ice water within a minute and it’s only after Adam gulps half of the cool water down that he realises just how dry his throat had been.

The bartender turns to take someone else’s order and Adam can’t convince himself to look away from the tattoo peeking out from the back of the man’s black tank top.

It looks large and Adam can imagine that it takes up most of the man’s back and how painful that must have been to get done. All he can see of the tattoo is the black ink forming branches that crawl up his left shoulder and across the back of his neck to where the head of a bird that appears to be raven sits atop of his right shoulder.

Everything about it is detailed and precise and Adam can’t help but feel fascinated by it but before he can begin to wonder what the tattoo transforms into under the man’s shirt, Adam forces himself to turn back to his essay, banishing thoughts of tree branches, ravens and prominent black ink from his mind entirely.

Adam stays at the bar until half an hour before closing time and an hour after his study group have already left. He hasn’t spoken another word to the bartender other than when he ordered two more glasses of water but as he leaves, he sends a soft, barely there smile before he turns with two completed essays and his textbook in hand and leaves.

He didn’t particularly think he’d return to the pub again, especially without his study group but three days later he found himself back on that same stool, his textbooks taking up half of the countertop and a glass of ice water in front of him.

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