WHAT. Adam & Gansey have a chat that’s long overdue. WHERE. Great Library + a nearby park. WHEN. Sometime in the last week! WARNINGS. PG, but talks of death and stuff from the future plot. STATUS. Complete!
It wasn’t uncommon for Adam to spend his free hours at the library, doing research or notes or studying. Gansey had a habit of stopping when he was on a break or poking in to see if Adam needed anything when he was walking by, they often drove home together if Adam was still there when Gansey’s shift was done.
A month before, that happened once or twice a week. Now it felt like it was every single time Gansey was at the Library, he had Adam visiting.
It was fantastic having his best friend so close! He hated to rock the boat by asking why, so he waited several days, and got his fill first. To the point of starting to pack more in his lunch, so he could share with Adam in case he’d forgotten his own.
It almost felt like the Aglionby days again, which made Gansey feel warm inside. Sometimes, he missed those days, though not a lot of what came from the outside with it. Just their school times, where the boys were safe in their bubble of friendship and camaraderie, where nothing could hurt them.
At 1pm on the dot, Gansey found himself at Adam’s shoulder with his lunchbox. “It’s my lunch. Care to join me at the park?”
Adam knew he was being obvious. Normally he'd be more subtle about his hanging out for a reason. He had spent his early career in the federal government doing very similar stake outs. He was a 'gather information before approaching' type. But with Gansey they were already friends; lurking would prove nothing and then Gansey would ask more questions. Adam— with his thesis research in front of him for a degree he was stubbornly refusing to give up obtaining—was surprised he had gotten this far without Gansey finally giving in and asking why.
He'd take the stroke of luck with a grain of salt, but he'd take it nonetheless.
He had been keeping one eye on Gansey for days now. It was ridiculous to think that some alternative future could come true when they were working against everything that created it. Gansey wasn't going to die defending the Library, it wasn't going to suddenly go up in flames. Adam felt mostly confident in that. But the what ifs plagued him.
Forcing himself to actually study and read the books he was determinedly surrounding himself with, he hadn't realized that he had lost sight of Gansey until he was popping up beside him. Adam looked at Gansey, then his lunch, then back. Why did this feel like a trap?
"Sure," Adam answered slowly, before closing his book, and shoving all his notebooks into his bag. "I can hang out with you for lunch, I didn't bring mine with me." He had forgotten his and planned to have a vending machine dinner at Boyd's. He gestured toward the door; anything to usher Gansey out of here as fast as possible.
“Lucky for you,” Gansey was quick to smile at Adam as they left - oblivious to being ushered anywhere. “I packed extra.” And it was nothing fancy or special, just an extra bag of chips and the kind of sandwich he knew that Adam liked, because he knew anything too over the top would turn Adam off or cause that forehead wrinkle to pop up.
These days, Gansey tried to avoid that forehead wrinkle at all costs. It wasn’t always easy, and sometimes Gansey managed to pull it out inadvertently, but he still made the attempt.
It didn’t help that these days it seemed to come up a little too easily, and it had become increasingly more obvious Adam was in full Thinking mode. But he still lead the way to the park, pausing only for traffic as they crossed the street. It was a beautiful day, cool breeze, sunny. He picked a bench facing the little pond and settled in. “I know I missed them the second time around, but it’s probably a relief to not have any geese at the park these days? Quieter, too.”
Adam followed, unaware of Gansey's path to their lunch spot, and more aware of their path away from the Great Library. He knew his protection was ridiculous—he couldn't swing a sword, and his lessons with Ronan were more a study in overcoming trauma than actually learning how to box—but there was something about being there that felt important. And Adam would continue to foster that feeling until it backfired on him.
Naturally, all of this thinking left him not paying as much attention to what Gansey was saying, and he simply made a hm sound to Gansey's comment. Right, geese.
"We were still in the library when it happened. We hadn't found the simulacrum yet, and while I don't believe the Library is the safest place to be—" Adam paused, realizing he was circling an issue, but then barreled on, "The geese seemed uninterested in the book here and only about the food that was offered. The person most at risk was Ronan, since he was the one bringing in snacks."
He quickly held up his hand before Gansey countered him about food in the Great Library. "He really was careful, and I didn't let him touch anything after potato chips. I promise."
Gansey made an amused little noise as he zipped open the lunchbox on his lap. “If anyone is prepared to deal with rabid geese, it’s likely Ronan.” And Gansey hadn’t heard any harrowing stories from Ronan to worry too much about that. Nor had the ended up with a flock of them at the Barns like the time they had agreed to take on the angry chickens.
“I appreciate that.” Speaking of chips, he offered Adam a small bag. “I wasn’t worried, not truly, I know Ronan tends to have more respect for other people’s possessions than he might seem.” He wasn’t very good at beating around the bush or trying to circle around topics, even if it was easy to talk well of his best friends, so Gansey cleared his throat. “I am, however, curious as to why you’ve been spending so much time at the Library.”
He was just about to take a bite of his sandwich when he stopped and looked up at Adam quickly. “Not that I’m complaining about the company, it’s the very best. But it is outside of your normal schedule. Which is taped to the fridge.”
Adam didn't miss a beat. Someone else might have been surprised that Gansey picked up on his lurking. Between the Library, school, and Boyd's Adam couldn't remember the last time he spent time at home for longer than eight hours. He knew Ronan had caught on but wasn't saying anything, and it was pointless to pretend Gansey hadn't either. Gansey's intuition was its own force that could sneak up on a person trying to be sly.
But Adam took the chips and opened them carefully, taking his time to form the most articulate response. "It's my final semester in college for a degree that I'm not going to give up now. I have papers to write, a thesis to complete. The Library is quiet and has the books I need. And my best friend works there. Makes the most sense for me to be there," Adam said, punctuated by popping a chip in his mouth.
He lied to Gansey before, but it was a long time since he had done it to hide something that was unsavory between the both of them. That single chip sat heavy in his stomach. He was better off eating glass; it would have felt the same going down.
Adam glanced away. "And the future shit is bothering me. It's like our senior year in high school all over again, when we knew."
Gansey frowned, having not liked that answer even though the words all matched up. Those were words Gansey would like to hear, if they had been genuine.
And maybe they were, at least a little. He knew his friendship to Adam was just as important as it was to Gansey, but to feel as if there was something else soured it slightly and weighed his heart down. Adam following it up made sense, and Gansey froze mid-bite.
When we knew. Knew that Gansey was going to die. That year where most of them had known what was coming and were powerless to stop it unless they found Glendower. It was a race against the time and they’d run out of time.
Slowly, Gansey started chewing again. “We fixed it, in the future. The whole point of me going ahead was to help stop any of that from happening here in the first place.”
He could see the shift in Gansey's expression, watching him work out in real time what Adam was getting at. Usually, Adam was direct, but Gansey's death was a sensitive topic to both of them and the words never seemed to arrange themselves in a way that satisfied his perfectionist mentality. Not when it was about losing his best friend, it never would.
"You stopped Interitus from coming, but that's not how you—" Adam exhaled sharply, already feeling his emotions try to get the better of him. It hurt to shove them back down. "Stopping one thing in the future, to prevent a series of events doesn't mean those events can't still happen in another order, in a different way or from a specific event being a fixed point in time. You and I both know this, we've lived it. Twice, actually."
Adam rustled the bag of chips in his hand but he didn't take another one. Any outsider watching the two of them talk probably thought Adam was being overly contemplative about the sodium content of his lunch. "Gansey, you died in the library. Protecting books. I'm not, and Ronan's for sure fucking not, going to let you put your life before books."
Gansey hadn’t asked Blue or Ronan for details when he’d been in the future. He’d avoided the actual death part to the best of his abilities - it was easy when he had practice pretending everything was fine on that end - but also hadn’t wanted to make them relive their traumatic experiences if they didn’t want to.
He should’ve known Adam would find out. Adam hated being in the dark when it came to anything, and this was a big one.
Gansey let out a breath and put his sandwich down, to his lap, just to let it rest. “I doubt it was as simple as that. The attack on the library happened because of Interitius. Just like--” Gansey faltered in a way he hated, preferring to keep his shoulders square and outlook positive. “Interitus was the cause of the corruption, too. Is that something we should worry about?”
"Don't put this back on me," Adam snapped, not unkindly, just abruptly. He could see when Gansey was trying to shift things away from himself. Adam wouldn't let him. "We're not talking about that. We're discussing that at some point in your life you did, and might still, put an inanimate object or a— a concept above your own life. I need to know that that's not true. That you have more self-preservation than that."
This felt like a fight. But not about socio-economic status or how either of them chose to handle their home life. Not like it was in high school. This fight was because Adam was worried, his concern overwhelming all the other logic of the situation. Sure, Gansey was right. Interitus was the catalyst to many events, most impossible to predict and unlikely to happen without the fuel. But Adam wasn't looking at the obvious, he tended to dig.
Adam took a deep breath through his nose. "It might not have been that simple when it happened for them, but the core of it is the same. You're the point in all of this. We're not going to lose you again."
It did feel like a fight, enough of one that Gansey froze up in his way, the way that felt so familiar yet distant to him. It was fight-or-flight with Adam, and usually he was the type to flight, not ever wanting to hurt Adam. So it wasn’t unusual for him not to snap back, even if he knew he was right that this was about all of them.
Maybe Adam was right too. It didn’t feel like Gansey to die for only books - there had to have been something else there. People that needed help. His friends? Ronan had snapped something about not being there for him, so dying for Ronan seemed misplaced.
“It’s not like I want you to lose me. It’s not like I want to die. Again.” He was quiet now, but not meek. Quiet in a chilling way that was unlike Gansey, so cold and distant, like he was locking himself up away from Adam. “I already have enough nightmares about it. I’m already kept awake, I already have a spike of anxiety everytime someone says the word “demon” or “hornet”, even medicated. So no, I’m not trying to go out of my way to get killed just by living my day-to-day life, Adam.”
"Gansey," was all Adam managed to get out, before he was putting his hand on his forearm and squeezing hard. He could feel the shift of their conversation like it was a real thing. The way Gansey walled himself off was uncommon, strange, in Adam's eyes and now he knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end. But where Gansey used to back away when Adam would grow cold, Adam wasn't as kind.
"You didn't tell us, you haven't told us," Adam said, but he wasn't scolding. It was sad, hearing his best friend was scared. And there was nothing he could do about it. Fear wasn't a fixable problem by an outside person, no matter how much Adam wanted to be the one to solve it. "And I know you're not trying to do it on purpose, it's just that you are important. All of us know it, believe it, we—no, I need to know if you realize it too. And if you don't, if somehow I failed you in showing that then, I don't know, I'll keep trying. I'll always keep trying."
With his hand still on Gansey's arm, he shook him, gently. Enough to make sure what he was saying was getting through. "Seeing a possible future, where you didn't exist, where you died and we couldn't stop it, scared the shit out of me."
Gansey only shook his head. Once, twice, three times - he wasn’t sure, after he lost track. It was just a silent no, in the end. “Why would I? I mean- Blue knows. Some of it.” How could she not, sleeping next to Gansey for as long as she had. Their time in Vallo, their time back home in setting up an apartment together, the year of road-tripping, the ups and downs of his own anxiety had been there more than they were even here.
Vallo had made him complacent in a lot of ways. The threat of death was minimal on a normal day, given who their friends were. “It isn’t just about me, Adam. We’re all important. Take one away and it’s like we’re missing a vital organ. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone ten years from now.” Gansey’s sandwich was abandoned now, to the lunchbox. He instead opted to rub his hands over his face.
“It sucks. But that’s life, Adam. I don’t want to lose you, or Blue, or Ronan, or anyone.” He looked up, and finally to Adam. “I want you to spend time with me because you want to. Not because you’re afraid of me doing something stupid and noble.”
"You don't have to explain life to me, Gansey. I know how unfair and brutally short it can be. We've all lived through enough trauma that should have been spread over decades and not shoved into a few years, but can't it be both?" Adam asked, shifting closer since lunch was abandoned now. "If it was just about keeping you from doing something stupid and noble—your words, not mine by the way—then I would have gone about it differently." Taken shifts, hired people to track him, started researching magical solutions that wouldn't interfere with his autonomy but kept him in a protective bubble. He didn't say any of that thought. The point was moot.
"I'm here right now because between finishing school, handling Boyd's, spending time with Ronan, I have very few hours left, and it's you I want to spend it with. You are my best friend, Gansey. Why wouldn't I want to?" Adam paused, then reconsidered. "I'd rather it not all be at the library, but I'm making it work for the moment."
He looked down at his chips, considered Gansey's abandoned sandwich, and then offered out the bag. "So to answer your question, why would you? I don't know, but if there is something stopping you from doing it, I'm going to figure it out. Because I care about you and your feelings, even if sometimes it doesn't seem like it."
Gansey was a little too easy in a lot of ways. A little too sappy. A little too desperate for comfort and the family that wanted to be around him for him and not just as a political prop. Even if he knew, unquestionably, that both Adam and Ronan thought of him the same as he did them, it didn’t get said from any of them very often.
“Okay,” No. That was dumb. That was empty and only a portion of what he wanted to say as he frantically wiped away a few tears that had fallen in an efficiently quick way to not draw attention to it. It was probably still obvious, even as he took a chip that was offered. “I mean, I like when you do. It’s always nice. I just didn’t want it to be because of a very shitty future.”
Adam was right in that it was both. He would do the same for them. God only knew that if he thought there was a way to stop Adam from being corrupted, Gansey would have already been researching it. They just had to hope Interitus never came to be. “I’ll quit, if you all want me to.” No part of him wanted that, and he knew they wouldn’t ask, but for them? Gansey would do it.
"I can't speak for everyone, not even my charming asshole of a husband, but I know I don't want you to quit. I don't want you to give up something you love because you're just trying to live your life," Adam said, trying not to give the tears—that Gansey was trying to brush away quickly—attention. He ate his own chip in commiseration. "But if it ever came down to your life or the library, I'll retroactively make you quit if it's the library. I don't know how, but I'm sure I could figure it out."
Adam took another chip, but it wasn't out of hunger, just enough to give him another moment of contemplation, before he added, "Does this mean I should stop hanging out at the library for a bit so you don't think I'm doing it because of a shitty future. I have a paper to write, but I can use the study rooms on campus."
He had complained to Gansey before how impossible the rooms were to secure; how the stillness of the Library during the day was more conducive to his work ethic when he was usually surrounded by loud mechanic work all day; how he never knew if someone was speaking to him among the other various conversations in the student library unless he could squirrel away in one of the rooms.
How he liked hanging out with Gansey, even if it was for school work and researching how to defeat a terrible force in any timeline. He didn't say it enough.
"Are we going to be okay?" Adam asked.
Gansey shook his head to the first question, but it took a minute. A minute of letting his inner thoughts take over and run rampant, of the possibility that he would die for the library. He didn’t think it was true. Not for the library. But the people inside of it? His friends? Co-workers? Innocents, caught in a war with Interitus? He couldn’t deny that.
After a second, he let out a breath. “If you say you aren’t doing it for that, I believe you.” And even though he knew Adam was capable of lying, he knew that didn’t extend as far as Gansey, not without a very, very good excuse. “Besides, you hate the rooms on campus. But I’ll make an effort to spend more time at home, too. Or you could use my office.” He knew Ronan had a tendency to be distracting even without trying, when it came to home, but that was also where they were all most comfortable.
Gansey reached over to fistbump Adam, gently. “Always.” He was capable of lying himself, but Adam had always been able to see through him. He started rifling around the lunchbox. “But now I want you to get a proper lunch, because chips will not sustain you until dinner.”
Adam worried, brief as it was, that Gansey was going to say they weren't okay. He didn't know if he could suffer through a repeat of their highschool years, where everything was an argument. Being older now, with years between them, would make those fights more painful, more complicated. But before Adam could even overthink the possibility, Gansey was offering out his fist. There was a tiny, private smile Adam shared with Gansey as he fistbumped him back. Yeehaw.
But his smile was short lived and he was frowning—no, scowling. Gansey had cornered him unintentionally; the chips had betrayed him.
"I'd say you planned that, but I won't. This can be between me and you," Adam said, which was as close to an agreement to proper lunch as Gansey was going to get. As he stood, Adam held up his index finger to stop Gansey from saying anything. "But I'm paying."