InsaneJournal

People had been telling Gansey that he had a knack for finding things that didn’t want to be found all of his life. They’d been right a number of times through that span, with how he seemed to click the pieces together effortlessly.

He hadn’t expected to be using that skill on his best friend, with his other best friend hot on his heels.

Though, without Ronan right by him, he likely wouldn’t have been allowed to venture this far out into the forest. He’d made an agreement, and planned on keeping it. Likewise, Gansey had seen the struggles Ronan had been going through lately with his nightwash - and the oh so random bruising that had appeared on his face the day after Gansey’s arrival. All of it was worrying, and he wasn’t about to let his best friend out of his sight.

They hadn’t expected Adam to escape his Cabeswater prison and wreak havoc. It was just another distraction against the bigger enemy, but to them, far more important.

Gansey stopped in his tracks and took a second to look around. Back home, he would’ve used his Spirit Totem to boost his scent tracking, but here it was too risky to fire up very often. So he relied on all of his other senses, and that connection he had to Adam. Gansey felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “He’s close.” Maybe a little too close for comfort, if Adam was in turn stalking them.

This was Ronan's worst nightmare. Well, one of them anyway. He had a terrible imagination, after all. But he was selfishly glad to have Gansey here, racing along ahead like an arrow unerringly aimed for a target. If anyone could find Adam when he didn't want to be found, it was Gansey.

Ronan wasn't entirely useless in this forest either, though. He moved silently, knowing the signs of where not to step if you wanted to keep on your feet, and he scanned their surroundings with a shrewd gaze. He had his sword drawn and a handgun strapped to his thigh, but anybody who knew anything about him knew he'd sooner use both on himself than Adam. Still, he had to protect Gansey. From anything or anyoneout here.

"Stay close." He reached out to pull Gansey by the back of his shirt. "He's gotta be juiced up. There's no other way he got out."

Freedom was a heady thing, especially for someone who had been confined for years. Cabeswater was large by typical standards but the claustrophobia of someone who held magic inside him bigger than his own body could contain had been pounding, suffocating. But the thing—that had pulled back the branches and bark of the sentient forest with unprecedented ease to escape—was barely Adam Lynch. The reality of him in the light of day was darker, duller, more nightmarish than he had been in the smooth, clarity of dreamspace. Adam was a wraith of his own making.

He tested the limits of his escape, pushed at the magic at his fingertips, tasted the corruption that dragged him further down the edge he was always hanging off. But his anger was all-consuming with his freedom. The earth pulsed beneath his bare feet, and moved with his whims. The rot followed behind him, and the plant life decayed and withered in his wake. Adam was ripping apart the forest, people, things that crossed his path, without prejudice. Everything was an enemy to him.

But there were others in the woods.One was a light he had not felt in a long time, and the other was a light that burned for him always. Part of him hated the light, and the other part of him, the one that was oppressed, choked by his own doing, was trying to reach for it through the inky mess of internal corrosion for it.

Adam tipped his head to the bleary sky, letting his black eyes stare off into an unknown spot, scrying. He saw, he saw, he—

He closed his eyes in one location of the forest and when he opened his eyes again, he was not alone. There was Ronan and Gansey. From behind them, Adam said, "Stop following me."

Gansey saw the rot before he saw Adam. He felt Adam before he saw Adam. His eyes closed for a brief second, as if bracing himself, but then they snapped open as Blue’s reminders hit him square in the face.

He had his sword, but didn’t draw it. Adam might very well attack them, but if he’d been behind them and spoke without the immediacy of violence-- well, maybe there was a chance.

A chance both of them had to cling to. Gansey had his own Adam at home, safe and uncorrupted, and still felt a kinship to this one. A sense of responsibility, of hope, and the need to help. He loved both of them and didn’t want to leave this to Ronan alone, even knowing they had people helping them, others in the forest trying to keep an eye on Adam. It wasn’t the same.

Gansey turned slowly, hands out and empty. “We’ve found you, so no need for following anymore. Hi Adam.” He faltered as soon as his eyes took in Adam, with all the weight he’d lost and how he looked more like a walking corpse than the man Gansey was used to, and his eyes shot to Ronan, wide and a little manic.

"Fuck," Ronan grunted under his breath. Adam moving like that in a dream was one thing; Adam doing it out in the world was something else altogether. They were severely outgunned. Kratos wasn't far, but Ronan hoped they wouldn't need to go that far. He was forever, foolishly, clinging to hope it seemed.

Even when Adam looked like a walking nightmare and Ronan still bore double shiners from his broken nose.

"You know we won't stop following you." He didn't meet Gansey's startled gaze, but he moved closer, shoulder to shoulder. "There's gotta be enough of you left to know that the three of us are tied together forever."

He stared at the both of them, deadeye and unimpressed, as if their swords and gentle coaxing might cause some kind of hesitation in what he did next. Inside though, Adam was screaming, he had always been screaming. He was in a prison inside of a prison, his own worst nightmare and unable to wake up. He wanted to fight for control but there were some things in this world that had been too strong. But that didn't mean he kept trying.

This Adam, the one who began to slowly circle in his familiar predatorial way, never took his attention off them. "I do not want to be tied to you or anything anymore. You did this to me, why would I stay?" Adam asked, his voice a low growl, inhuman. With a sharp turn, his eyes pierced into Gansey, as if this ghost had affronted him. Because that was all he could believe—even with all his magic at his fingertips, even Adam couldn't have raised the dead. Right?

Adam didn't like how he had to doubt.

His head and body twitched, jerking with an unseen force from inside of him. His ears started to leak black rot, and the ground underneath Gansey and Ronan started to move. Vines and branches wrapped around their legs and started to drag them toward Adam.

In the same way Gansey greeted him, Adam echoed, "Hi Gansey," but he did not sound as kind.

Gansey was just as defensive of Ronan as Ronan was of him (though he could admit with Ronan’s history here, the Dreamer likely edged him out, and he’d allow it.) and put a hand out to tether himself to Ronan’s arm. “Don’t blame him. You willingly tethered yourself to Cabeswater.”

He was still sympathetic, though - Gansey wanted nothing more to help them. His heart hurt with how much they’d all gone through. Ten years passed and they were still his people and nothing would change that.

Even Adam being incredibly creepy. Gansey’s mouth turned downward in an exaggerated frown, he did his best to not appear visibly uncomfortable, but wasn’t sure how well that translated to Adam. “I wish that sounded like you were happy to see me. I’m here to help, Adam.”

Even having more experience with Adam like this didn't make Ronan immune to the eerie chill that climbed up his spine. He wanted to clean his husband's face, wrap him in a blanket, feed him soup. Stupid fantasies, really. He was almost glad they weren't in Cabeswater so the forest wouldn't react to his thoughts out loud.

Gansey's touch was comforting in a quiet way. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed the simple things.

"I did this to you to protect you," Ronan growled. "If you stay out here, Interitus will catch wind and make you a target for thrall. Do you want to be someone else's puppet?" He couldn't appeal to his husband's heart, but he could appeal to the corrupted creature's need for agency.

"I would be happy if you were real," Adam said, seething through his clenched teeth. His hand snapped out to grab Gansey's shirt collar and pull him in close. He sniffed him like he was something to be eaten, a test of if it was spoiled. Death smelled of sour putrefaction, and Gansey—this Gansey—didn't. Too alive, too untouched by this world, with an uncorrupted piece of Cabeswater living inside of him.

Shadows started to shift and crawl over Adam's shoulders, finding this abomination of Gansey not right, readying to rip him apart. Gansey was dead, every version of Adam knew this. He wasn't buying the Greywaren's tricks. Except now his words struck something inside of him.

Do you want to be someone else's puppet? He didn't want to be anyone else's puppet.

His dark eyes were on Ronan immediately, angry that he would suggest it. Losing his autonomy scared Adam—this corrupted one and the real one, who was trying to claim control. He couldn't be a Thrall, he didn't want anything to do with Interitus, even though the reason Adam was like this was because of the pseudo-god's arrival in the first place.

Between hitting a nerve and the presence of Gansey, Adam's eyes started to clear, though the snarling blighted thing in his body was still fighting for control.

Gansey’s flight or fight instinct sat at the back of his mind, wanting to run from this, but he held steadfast for Adam’s sake. And his own, because he had no doubt that Adam could rip him apart with just a flick of his wrist.

It was terrifying. But Gansey reached out mentally with the bond that was there - frayed, singed, rotted away. It was hanging on only by a thread, but it was there and Gansey could feel Adam. He held onto the hope that Adam could feel him too, so he both physically touched Adam’s boney arm and his mind at the same time.

“It’s me.” He didn’t know how else to prove he was real, but Gansey would’ve done anything in that moment to keep Adam’s eyes from clouding back up. “It’s me and I’m real. And I know the Adam I know is in there and won’t hurt me.”

Gansey didn’t actually know that, but he clutched to the hope of it with the same confidence of a mediocre white man.

Everything was happening too fast. Ronan jumped forward and braced an arm across Adam's chest, and then grabbed Adam's hand where it was tangled up in Gansey's shirt. It made a pretzel of all their arms and bodies, turned them into a three-headed beast. Once upon a time, he'd have been delighted at that phrase being used on the three of them. There'd been nothing he wanted more than staying tangled up in each other's lives forever.

"Don't do this. Look at him. Feel the shit that ties you together." He pushed on Adam's hand, pressing it against Gansey's chest. "You want to blame somebody for where you are, blame me. I locked you away. I love you and I hurt you anyway. Not Gansey. He'd never hurt the people he loves." He tried to wedge himself further between them. He'd brought Gansey here and he regretted it already. "Please, Adam. Let him go."

Kratos wasn't far. He'd find them soon and then Ronan would have very little control over the situation. He almost closed his eyes. He very nearly prayed. But he stayed focused on Adam's face instead, and hoped the love in his heart was enough.

Adam was shaking in both their grips, the rage and fury inside of him battling for control. Their words were piercing through all the tenebrous matter that had swallowed him whole. Not completely though, not forever. But Adam could reach for that piece of Cabeswater that Gansey was offering—it had been so long since he wasn't suffocating in the corruption and that he had felt the uncontaminated piece of Cabeswater that tied them together. And so he pulled himself up from the very long bottom of his internal well with his and Gansey's tether.

With a heaving gasp, Adam released Gansey and yanked his whole frail body from the two of them. He tripped over his bare feet, barely catching himself from hitting the ground. He was sucking in breath like he had been drowning; he had been. But the frightened and wild expression on his face was clear, his blue eyes no longer black for the moment.

Adam didn't know where he was, how he had gotten here. It was not unfamiliar to the transient amnesia he suffered a decade ago. But this was worse.

His attention found Ronan first, and Adam held out a shaky hand to him. Terror and shame made him want to turn away. He didn't move closer, afraid he might break this tenuous hold he had on lucidity. And that was when he saw a ghost, a very alive ghost. Adam's voice was so small, so tired and so sad, but it was undisputedly his, when he asked, "Gansey?"

Gansey wanted to protest about Ronan’s self-sacrificing - it was fair, given the number of times Gansey had done it to him, but it was still instinctively a protest as he didn’t want either of them hurt. To watch Adam hurt Ronan would be a fate worse than his own deaths.

But then Adam’s face cleared, and Gansey visibly relaxed. One hand reached up to cup Adam’s gaunt face and the other reached out to grasp for Ronan, to make sure he stayed close, right there with them. He wanted to protect Ronan, but wouldn’t deny him this close-up view as Adam’s blue eyes came into view for the first time since he’d stepped up to them. Maybe for the first time in years, but Gansey couldn’t say for certain on that end.

“Hey. Hi. There you are. It’s me, for real, and I know you can fight this, Adam.” There was no hesitation, only worry about his friend. He knew Adam was strong enough, and he knew that the three of them together had come out ahead of everything they’d faced head-on.

Ronan felt lightheaded. There’d been a few times over the years when corrupted Adam had tried to pull the wool over his eyes about who was in the driver’s seat, but this was immediately different. Adam’s eyes met his and it was like a switching train track clicking into place. He stumbled forward, meeting Gansey’s reaching hand and grabbing onto the side of Adam’s neck with a shaking one of his own. They were three points connected yet again, but it was like before everything had gone to hell.

“Hey you,” he whispered weakly, instantly too emotional to do this with any sort of walls up. “It’s really him. He’s here to help us fix this shit. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to free you on my own.” He stroked a hand over the side of Adam’s face. He was suddenly too aware of how fragile and filthy he looked. And how this wasn’t over no matter how much he wanted it to be. “I miss you so fucking much, Adam. We’re almost there, we just need you to hang on a little longer.”

A few tears slipped down his cheeks at seeing Gansey, his best friend—young, alive, whole. It felt like a dream. He shouldn't have been allowed to be near him, Gansey should have known better too. But something close to hope, that Adam had been denied for years, slipped in. He needed it.

"There's so much I want to say to you, to tell you—" Adam said to Gansey, choking back a sob. He was so tired and overwrought, but the sight of Gansey bolstered him, just enough to realize what had happened and where he was. Adam was on borrowed time.

"I don't think I can, I don't think I can fight it," Adam confessed in a rare display of vulnerability. Adam didn't like to admit his weaknesses, couldn't bear to have help, but he had been fighting a losing battle with the corruption for years. He still wasn't even certain how he had managed this much now, a moment of articulated clarity. But even Adam could feel the overwhelming feeling rushing up behind him; he was racing a tidal wave with Gansey and Ronan his only protection.

And Adam wanted to stay, he wanted to stay so much.

He pressed his cheek into Ronan's hand, regret and sorrow in his expression. He murmured a soft I love you and I miss you, before he said louder to the both of them, "You have to put me back. "

Gansey was already shaking his head, even if he knew what Adam was saying was true. They would have to put him back if this wasn’t fixed now, if there was the risk of it happening again. For his own safety, and the safety of others. A few minutes of true clarity wasn’t the same as cured, and none of them wanted to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt.

“We’re going to fix this. We’ve got a plan, it’s getting fixed, and then you can tell me all the things you want to tell me,” Gansey promised. He didn’t actually know if he’d be here too much longer after Interitus was killed, but he did want to see this through. Adam deserved that, and to have all of the things he wanted to say be said.

He both didn’t want Ronan to be shouldering the burden alone of putting Adam back, and didn’t want to make the call, but looked over at him. “I’m with you for however you want to do this.”

Even seeing it coming, Ronan wasn't prepared. It was like seeing a train coming and being stuck with a foot wedged into the tracks. His mouth trembled and his eyes glistened but he tried to hold it together for Adam's sake. It still took three tries to form any words.

"I…Fuck." His face crumpled. "This is so fucking unfair. I just--goddamn it." He pulled them both into a hug. He didn't know how long they had before the corruption would take control again but he needed at least this much to fortify himself. "I love you. Nora loves you. This will all be over soon."

Ronan kissed the side of Adam's dirty face and made himself pull back a step. He pulled a sleep dart out of his pocket and stared at Gansey with sorrowful eyes. "It's a long way to carry him, but I don't know if we can risk waiting."

Existence was a struggle. Adam had found enough strength to fight his way to the surface but that meant the corruption was just as strong, trying to drag him back under. But he needed to know what the plan was to put him back. He didn't think he could do it himself—that knowledge burned in the back of his mind every day, that he had waited too long to make the decision because his over analytical mind had to sort through every problem. He had been too late by the time the decision was made of his own volition.

This time, Adam wouldn't make the same mistake.

He nodded, slow at first and then quicker as he understood what was happening. "I can't promise, I can't promise it will last long. But I'll try, I'm trying, know that I'm trying," Adam said, begging really. The corruption wasn't him, and logically he knew they both knew this. But Adam feared that one day Ronan and his daughter wouldn't be able to separate the difference. He didn't want Gansey's time here to be plagued in the same way.

Wincing against a wave of dark nausea, Adam tried to shake it away. The corruption was coming back, and Adam reached for the sleep dart himself. He was strangely economical in his movements—removed the cap, adjusted his stance, and plunged the dart into his upper thigh. Dream thing, Adam thought, as the effects started to rush over him almost immediately.

"I'll see you, both of you soon."

Gansey had half expected they’d have to do it themselves, but in a much less pleasant way. Without Adam as himself, trying to kill either one of them. They’d discussed the plan ahead of time, even had a backup in case it all went to shit.

So having Adam gracefully slump into their arms was probably the kindest way to do this, though Gansey still had tears silently running down his cheeks as he caught Adam under the shoulders. Together, they could do this. It wouldn’t be easy, though carrying Adam was only half of that problem.

The emotional toll was a whole different story.

For Ronan, he had to be strong. Physically and emotionally. Gansey took a steadying breath and nodded at Ronan. “He’s in there, and he’s fighting. We’ll get him back soon, I promise.”

Ronan very nearly snatched the dart back. It was a good thing Adam was stubborn and strong, but Ronan hated that he had to be. He hated all of this. He quietly cried against the side of Adam's head as he and Gansey held him between them.

He nearly snapped, don't make promises you can't keep. But he was too emotionally winded to swipe at Gansey of all people. He wedged his arms up under Adam and lifted him into a bridal carry instead.

"We fucking better. Now start walking."