Tenebroso
by thesehands
Ronan was a portent, an omen, a sign that Adam might be in real danger; Declan had sent the most dangerous person he knew to protect him.
― thesehands, TenebrosoAs he lay in Adam’s arms, Ronan noted the differences between what he remembered and what he currently felt. Adam was not as bony as he used to be, no longer elongated with the awkward stretch of adolescence. He was warmer than Ronan’s memories, perhaps only because he was real and tangible and full of blood. Slowly, the Adam of his past and the Adam in his bed became one person, no longer a partial stranger made alien by a stretch of absence. He wondered if Adam had reconciled his own memory yet. Ronan didn’t think he had changed that much in that regard; his feelings for Adam were the same as they had always been, immutable and intangible and impossible to hide.
― thesehands, Tenebroso
CBR16 Bingo: Fanfic
This is a fanfic about two of the main characters in Maggie Stiefvater’s series The Raven Cycle and its spinoff The Dreamer Trilogy.
The AU (alternative universe) has Ronan and Adam as full grown adults in their late twenties, reunited when Adam is accused of stealing a Rembrandt at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where he is its chief financial officer. This AU takes place in 1967 in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C., and rural Virginia.
As teenagers, Ronan and Adam were together in secret until Ronan’s father was killed and Ronan’s other brother relocated the family to D.C. from their farm in Virginia.
Adam went to college, got a good job, and became a respectable citizen, with no trace of his accent and no evidence of his childhood of poverty and abuse.
Ronan is thrust back into his life as his bodyguard while the crime syndicate he works for is fighting over the painting they stole from Adam’s museum. Ronan’s family is directly responsible for putting Adam in danger as well as keeping him safe.
In addition to the reunited lost love storyline, there is period-appropriate music, cultural references, products, vehicles, and film. This piece oozes east-coast grittiness and the sultry seduction of 1960’s cinema. Think Steve McQueen plus noir but openly queer. Ronan and Adam are on the run, but they are not willing prey. Together, they form a plan to stop the head of the crime syndicate, who is someone from Ronan’s past.
This isn’t something you can read and really enjoy without knowing a bit about the characters. There is quite a bit you can infer since it is a free-standing AU, but as the original books were about the MCs as teenagers, their reactions and how they developed into adults as a result of their separate adolescent traumas greatly informs how they react to their present circumstances.
From the fic description:
This takes place in 1967, after the civil rights act, after loving v. virginia, during the vietnam war, after kennedy was shot, before the fair housing act, two years before stonewall, before any states had decriminalized homosexuality.
This fic sucked me in. It is just cool. It has the sleek 1957 BMW 507 roadster. It has the classic 1960s cool guy with the dark sunglasses and the black turtleneck and the suit-wearing, gun-wielding, deadly object of his affection.
The way the author describes the setting puts you directly in it. The period-appropriate touches make all of the difference, and the unbelievably gorgeous writing had me reading over particular passages again and again.
This story is also extremely, extremely dark. There are references to child abuse and sexual abuse, violent descriptions of torture, and so, so much murder. There are twists and double-crossing and triple-crossing. There are cross-country manhunts, seedy hotel rooms, and lots of kinky sex. It is breathtaking and disturbing and everyone lives and operates in the grey area.
For this year’s CBR16 Book Bingo Reading Challenge I’m choosing albums from the 1970s that helped raise me. When I think of both generational trauma and individual trauma, and how it can shape a person and the entire trajectory of their life, I think of Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas, from the 1976 album Leftoverture.
