WHAT Adam & Richard have a run-in with the Pig on the side of the road. It doesn’t go great. WHERE Vallo City WHEN Uh today? Yesterday? STATUS Complete WARNINGS Oof kind of heavy because of bad parenting. References to Adam’s shitty childhood. SAD BECAUSE THEY AREN’T FRIENDS.
Four days before, Richard Campbell Gansey the Third had been normal. He’d woken up at around seven in the morning, went for a run, said hello to a few of the neighbors on the way through his Cambridge neighborhood, prepped for the last exam he had before Thanksgiving break started, and put off packing his bag for his trip home this weekend.
Four days before, he’d been attending Harvard Law, had fist-bumped a friend as he’d walked onto campus, had smiled, and taken a few sympathy pats from others who had heard about his recent breakup.
Three days before, he’d woken up in bed with a woman he didn’t know, had been almost stabbed by her (he was sure of it), stumbled downstairs in an unfamiliar house, and experienced things in his life he’d never experienced before. Magic. For the entire first day, Richard had wandered around thinking all of this was a fever dream and he’d actually taken some kind of drug before exams and dreamed all of this.
But then two days before, he’d discovered the car. The car he’d owned, briefly, as a teenager. He’d bought it with his ridiculous allowance, when still attending Aglionby - it had been perfect. Bright orange, classic, roared as he put his hand on the hood. He’d only driven it a week when it broke down, but Richard had cheerfully had it towed and taken care of, and driven it again, until it broke down. Again.
His father had put his foot down after that. Said the car was garish and not respectable for a Gansey. He’d sold it from under Richard’s nose and purchased him a Lexus.
Richard had been seventeen at the time, but he still remembered that car. It had been his first true act of rebellion, and one that gave him great joy, because that orange color and terrible demeanor had been everything he’d wanted to be, locked in this shell of a human.
Eventually, he’d forgotten about it, gone to Yale, then gotten into Harvard Law and transferred for a change of scenery after he’d broke up with Lauren, the Political Science major he’d been seeing for three years. He’d skated through life thus far with very little ever happening to him, and now it was a shellshock.
Richard had fished the keys out of the bowl at the front door and sat in the car for a full ten minutes, with this feeling right but also wrong. Like he was breaking the rules. The woman he’d woke up with, Blue (a ridiculous name, but she seemed ridiculous and adorable, so it was fitting?) had told him it was his car, and that felt wrong.
Until he’d fired up the engine, took it for a drive, and it broke down outside of some of the shops in Vallo city.
Then it felt right, but Richard knew very little about cars, and also didn’t know any local tow trucks, so he stood there, the hood of this beautiful car propped up, smoke coming from something, and typed “how to stop car engine from smoking” into the youtube search bar.
Adam Parrish was having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week. Could that even be possible? No. Was he being dramatic? Probably yes. And Adam, prone to rationality and logic would not, realistically, be dramatic. But the stress had been mounting since he woke up in a strange house, in a strange bed, with semi-strange people. A girl he thought he remembered working at Nino's back in Henrietta (though he never had the disposable income to just have a slice of pizza to himself); Ronan Lynch, an absolute asshole who constantly tried to one-up him in Latin class but avoided all others; and Richard Campbell Gansey III.
A goddamn nightmare.
He was having pre-mid-terms stress, Adam told himself. He was hallucinating, Adam thought that was more believable. He should have been taking a multivitamin or something, perhaps his potassium levels were low (Like you can afford to buy yourself multivitamins, a dry sharp voice said in the back of his mind.) He was scrabbling for every answer that wasn't magic, and mystery, and uncanniness. But he had been moving through this "dream" for days now, and nothing changed. Nothing seemed to be strange enough for Adam to pick it apart to notice that everything about this was real and not some amalgamation of past and present memories.
Worse had been the pictures. Adam had half a mind to turn them all around so he didn't have to see them when he used the upstairs bathroom. But instead Adam did the responsible thing and just stopped going upstairs. He kept to himself, and continued to haunt the downstairs part of this house. Around the second day, the low-level panic had fizzled to the background, and he tried to science-brain out how he was here. That had been a waste of a day of brainpower and frustration.
What Adam had needed by the time he had gotten to three days into this confusing, complicated, still-possibly-a-dream situation, was to leave this house. Adam had never had this much space to himself in his life. The privacy made his skin crawl.
So, like much of Adam's life when owning a car was a luxury he couldn't afford, he walked. He walked from the Barns, he walked into the city, he walked endlessly to get his bearings. It had been hours now of walking and he still didn't have a single clue.
And then suddenly, like a lightbulb moment in the worst way, the line of smoke from Richard Gansey the Third's Camaro appeared on the side of the street. And Richard looked lost. Adam was not a good person, never claimed to be, but he hated how he felt with that little thrill of serves you right that came over him.
Against his better judgment, he approached, and gestured to the engine. "I used to be a mechanic," Adam said, realizing that it was already too much personal information for Richard to know. He could use it against him. The paranoia never stopped. "You're not going to learn how to fix it with five minutes and a YouTube video."
Of course the smartest person Richard had ever met had also been a mechanic. Everything he’d ever seen Adam Parrish do, since they’d gone to school together, had been smart. He seemed to have everything worked out, his path in life, his drive. He knew what he wanted, and he went for it.
It had always made Richard both insanely jealous and impressed. He had spent an entire year at Aglionby spotting Adam and either attempting to make small talk or bringing up work with this mysterious young man, to no avail. He’d eventually just given up and focused his friendships more on people that actually seemed to like him.
“Really?” Richard really hadn’t known the mechanic thing. Where had Adam found the time? But he looked down at his youtube search and shrugged a little, sheepish but not that ashamed. “Well I’ve never been one and I’d like to learn how to fix it myself rather than just having it towed, if I can help it. It seemed like the best option.”
The really burned a hole right through Adam's resolve. He was not going to get into a fight with Richard on the sidewalk of a strange place where people could see him. Adam had been someone who always kept his head down, trying not to cause a commotion. Even when he lost his hearing on his left side, Adam had come to, some time later, on the front steps of his house and walked the miles to the hospital. Paying off that hospital visit had been a terrible expense, but he never spoke about it again.
Regardless, Richard not knowing he was a mechanic was not surprising, it was the surprise from him that Adam did other things outside of school that seemed to make him uncomfortable. Made him want to make a commotion. "It's pretty obvious," Adam muttered about Richard never being one. He had to bite his tongue from saying no shit. That wasn't the Adam Parrish he wanted to put forward, and definitely not to a Gansey.
Adam glanced at the smoking car, then back to Richard. Something about him not immediately throwing money at a problem to fix it was enough to give Adam pause. But he was still annoyed at the sort of flippancy Richard was giving him. This was no different than in school. "If you're going to do it yourself, at least look up radiators and not transmissions. You're probably leaking coolant and that caused it to overheat."
Fine, alright, he wanted to demonstrate to Richard Campbell Gansey III that he knew what he was talking about. Prove that he was better than a YouTube video.
Richard raised an eyebrow at Adam, this man with such a chip on his shoulder, one that Richard was at least relatively certain he hadn’t put there. He wanted to stamp down any reaction he might’ve had, and just let it breeze on by, but it was so difficult not to sass back. “I guess it’s a good thing cars don’t require a good bedside manner.”
Then he immediately felt bad, because that wasn’t the kind of person he was. Especially as he was already following Adam’s directions. “Sorry, that was rude. I appreciate the help, and I think there’s a bottle of coolant in the trunk.” Richard abandoned his station to grab it, half full, from exactly where he’d seen it earlier. There was also a bucket, and a hose. “Do you think this is something they’ve clearly already prepared for?” He brought all three items back, even if he might not need them. “Okay--”
Richard didn’t want to ask what next, so he pulled his phone back up, flipped on the flashlight and leaned in close under the hood. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but leak was a good start.
Somehow, pushing Richard to be an asshole back was wildly comforting. That someone as perfectly composed and put together as him could be brought down to the level Adam was angling for. But the apology—that had been unexpected. Adam was left there mildly stunned while Richard went to the trunk for supplies. What the hell was going on?
Adam frowned, not quite realizing that that they had prepared. Some version of Adam and Richard had probably done this very thing, leaned over the hood of this Camaro and fixed an overheated radiator. Normally this would horrify him, but it just made Adam mad. In what world had he and Richard ever been friends? He had wanted to watch him fumble around for a few minutes longer, let him truly fuck up the whole car out of spite and then still inevitably throw money at him, but Adam was—annoyed. Confused. Confusingly annoyed.
"Cap," Adam pointed it out. "Coolant goes in there. You can usually check them on the side of reservoir, but this car isn't that updated." Then he gestured under the car. "You can usually tell it's leaking the moment you pour it in. But I'm not getting under your car." At least not for free, and not putting himself in immediate danger. Not that Richard would run him over, but the percentage was not zero.
And then, because Adam couldn't help himself, it was needling at him, he asked, "Does it bother you? The pictures around that house we all woke up in."
Richard ruffled a little, but followed the direction. Cap open, coolant poured. He spilled some, with his hands a little nervous in following direction on something that could very easily destroy this beautiful car. He was taking Adam to his word for that, trusting that things would not just implode in his face. “I can get under my car.” He was firm with that conviction, even wearing his chinos of a pale hue and the pavement was sure to stain them.
It would be fine, he had others.
But the question surprised him, that Adam would care about his opinion in any capacity. What surprised him even more was the urge to be honest.
Richard set the coolant bottle down and then knelt, wincing only a little as his knee immediately brushed against the dirty pavement. “It makes me jealous.” He didn’t look up at Adam or meet his gaze as Richard said it. “I’ve never had a house with stuff in it. My mother frowns on the idea of clutter. And animals.”
It was strange, watching Richard take direction. To trust what Adam was saying unequivocally. He wondered if he told Richard that the only way to fix his car was by kicking it three times in the wheel and tapping a tune on the engine, if he might actually do it. He didn't offer to get underneath the car though, even as Richard looked slightly put out about getting on the ground.
He was quiet still though, considering Richard's words. About clutter and stuff and animals. Adam had been equally deprived of the same things, but he didn't believe they were the same situation. Part of him wanted to let Richard know he wasn't alone, and the other part of him wanted nothing in common with his rival. The one who stole his spot out from Yale, the one who came to wreck his life at Harvard. The guy who had everything that Adam had wanted without having to work for it. The whole thing put a sour taste in his mouth.
And yet, Adam couldn't stop himself from saying, "Yeah, me too."
He was going to leave it at that, not say anything else, because lying had always been his default. And he didn't want Richard to know more about him than absolutely necessary. Adam had already said too much. "I looked around the office. I don't know if you have, but I wanted to know more about this place. There's a picture on your desk. Or what I think is supposed to be your desk. Of you in front of this car. And me. And the others."
Okay, so they’d found a little common ground, apparently. Richard was surprised that Adam agreed with him on anything. That had never happened before, that he knew of. He couldn’t look up at him, because the surprise and pleasure would be evident on his face, so Richard opted for looking under the car. A little dripping was happening, but he had no idea from where.
“I had a car like this when I was a teenager. Just like this.” He got back to his feet and started wiping his hands with a dirty cloth that was hooked to the bucket. “My father sold it and gave me something more respectable because it had a whole host of issues.” Like me, Richard had thought at the time, but like most things he had stamped that thought down and never let it see the light of day.
But that wasn’t the point, the point was the coincidence, right here and now. “And I’ve seen a lot of things in that house I can’t explain. The toaster oven. The car I walked into that wasn’t visible to the naked eye until I knew it was there. The barn that is large and off-limits but Ronan has disappeared into a few times. The girl with hooves. The giant boar that no amount of genetic engineering or hormone injections can explain. The art that no normal home would have just hanging up.” Richard shrugged, as if he didn’t know how to explain any of it, but he’d clearly poked around. “The dog and cat seem like the most normal out of any of it.”
Adam nodded, in the way that indicated he was following along. He understood what it was like for parents to intervene, to take away small bits of agency until there was nothing left. The car in front of them, with its whole host of issues felt like a bonding experience in the making. More than the cat and the dog. Pets had been strictly off limits in his own household, but the gray cat had seemed to take a liking to Adam the moment he woke up here. An indulgent thought—maybe I should get a cat when I'm back—crossed his mind.
"I was half expecting them to have hands. Or feet. There's something off about everything in the house. Not in a bad way," Adam said, important that he made that clear. It had been nice—strange, too—but nice. "There's just usually a reason for everything, sometimes not what we expect or know. I'm having a difficult time explaining most of it away like I usually do." Adam didn't sound defeated, mostly annoyed that he was coming up short. The hooved girl was stumping him.
He was quiet for a moment, fiddling with other parts of the car. He screwed in a loose spark plug. Checked a stray hose for any cracks. Idly pulled the dipstick out for the oil level—it was good—and shoved it back in. Adam hated how miserable and defensive he sounded when he finally said, "You don't think us being friends in the pictures is normal, though?"
Richard made a face at the image conjured up by thinking of dogs and cats with hands. No, thank you. That felt like something straight out of a horror movie to his brain, and the Barns, while weird, had charm more than it had horror.
It clearly was host to a lot of love. Something that he’d never had in a home. Pictures, family, large gathering spaces that weren’t just for hosting diplomats. Even if he didn’t belong there, Richard had never felt as at home as he did in that house.
He did narrow his eyes a little at Adam, though, like he knew he was walking into a trap. “I think that I tried a half-dozen times to make friends with you when we were at Aglionby, but every single time you acted like I was trying to trick or trap you. So I eventually gave up.” He tried to run through his mind all of those moments, and the flashback to the time Adam had brushed him off yet again and Richard just-- never went back.
It had been the week before school was over, not long after he’d gotten his acceptance into Yale, no doubt with his father’s influence. Something Adam had said - Richard didn’t remember what now, years later - had given him the impression it was pointless to attempt again. “Lauren used to take hundreds of pictures of us together for her Instagram but I’ve never had friends that took pictures without feeling like a prop. So- I don’t know.”
How did this become Adam's fault? The fury under his skin that Richard was blaming him for their lack of friendship in school had been on the cusp of bubbling over. But it was the hurt that Richard thought it was so simple, that made Adam's eyes burn. He was not going to fucking cry in front of Richard Campbell Gansey III.
"We went to an all boys private school in a small town, Richard," Adam said, laying out the facts in the same way he would present an essay. Thesis, supporting evidence, conclusion. "I was there on a scholarship and everyone knew I was the poor kid and didn't belong there. Every day some asshole with the same expensive smile, and the same expensive shoes, with the expensive car would give me shit in an attempt to be my friend." The word friend sounded sour and angry in Adam's mouth. He said it like friend was the word enemy. But friends at Aglionby had always been his enemy. No one wanted to align themselves with someone like Adam: poor, awful, a stain on their crisp veneer.
"The only thing I could offer them was being smarter than them so they could copy my homework because they were too busy yachting in Martha's Vineyard during the long weekend. That's not friendship." He assumed Richard knew the difference. "You acted like all of them too. How was I supposed to know you were different?"
He wanted to end it there, but what had really stung had been his one hope being crushed, in particular. "And then someone, probably your dad, threw a bunch of money at Yale to get you in. The counselor at Aglionby said they couldn't take two of us. It looks bad, and they didn't have to give you a scholarship. I was an expense they didn't want to pay." Maybe being friends wasn't normal. Maybe they both were just props for other people. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes in frustration.
Richard squared his shoulders a little, but he took a step away rather than closer. He wasn’t here to reassure Adam - he barely even knew him - and somehow now he was being attacked and yelled at for things beyond his own control. Instead of shirking away from the fight, which was his gut instinct, he gave as good as he got.
“You could have found out for yourself instead of making assumptions. I was never mean to you. I never asked you to copy homework. I never called you poor. I just thought you were smarter than all of us and admired that!” His own friendships with the rich kids had been surface level only, invited to their parties, and pushed to young politicians clubs that his parents enrolled him in.
Richard didn’t even remember most of their names, save for Henry, who had been different from the start. The Yale comment brought him up short, though, and he looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “I didn’t ask him to do any of that. Yale. But then I was in and how do you say no to that? I had no idea that was something you even wanted, Adam, because you never bothered to speak more than three words to me.”
"Your ignorance is not an excuse for bad behavior," Adam practically shouted, his hand slamming down on the rim of the Camaro's hood. That burst of anger inside of him was a miserable, awful thing, and his mouth went dry at it. For all his efforts to not make a scene, Adam made a small scene. He covered his mouth to give himself a pause before he said anything else that was an octave higher than he wanted.
His voice was low and dangerous, and no less seething than before as he was in Richard's space. "The fact that you're okay with it says enough about you. That when you're put up against doing the right thing, getting into college on your own effort or having your father throw money at it to make it happen, you didn't even question it. Doesn't that bother you? Doesn't the fact that you are just like all the other rich, entitled kids at the end of the day bother you or are you just putting on a show because you're in front of me?"
He needed to walk away. Adam actually started to. Richard could fix his own stupid car on his own time since he was so adamant about doing it himself. But as he started to, Adam spun back around on him as if to say and one more thing.
"And you know what? It doesn't even matter anymore, I did my time at Harvard and I'm just fine there," Adam said, though the way he spoke the words didn't seem to ring as true as his attempted conviction. But that wasn't Harvard's fault. He had known for some time that what he was supposed to love, he didn't. He hadn't for a long time.
"Maybe if you had a car like this in high school, it would have been different. I might have thought you had a personality outside of Richard Campbell Gansey the Third. We might have actually been like those people in the pictures instead of whatever this is."
Richard jumped at the loud clang of the hood dropping and again at Adam’s voice. Sure, he was surprised, but more than anything he was hurt. He didn’t usually take this level of vitriol from anyone, let alone someone he’d just confessed things to. With the hood closed, Richard just shook his head and started gathering the bucket and coolant up, so that he could go back to the trunk and put everything in how he’d found it.
“Everything about my parents and my upbringing bothers me, but I’m not here to be your verbal punching bag.” He’d learned a long time ago that trying to say what he was to someone who had already made their decisions was pointless, and it was much, much easier for him to disassociate into a world of fantasy in his mind.
Vallo, at least, seemed like the best place to do that very thing. With the bonus of being able to eat his feelings, as he desperately wanted to do in this moment to prevent himself from lashing out further or saying something he’d regret. The less words seemed the better against someone who was so skilled at turning them back on him. “I assume you can figure out your way back? Or will you hold roadside abandonment against me too?”
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t one to completely convince himself to take the high road here.
So that was it then. Verbal punching bag or not, Richard had shut the conversation with Adam down with a few choice words, leaving nothing further. It felt like court, it seemed appropriate for two law students. All of Adam's feelings on the matter had imploded in his chest, and despite his own usual pragmatic stance on people and relationships, some part of him—the inexplicable part, the one nudged by being in this place—had hoped maybe there would be common ground.
But Adam knew himself and knew what he was like and knew the people he was surrounded by. How deeply unhappy he was as a person. He remained silent as Richard cleaned up.
Instead of answering his question—would he hold it against him?— Adam shook his head, annoyed, and said, "You'll need to replace the coolant line to stop the leak. It shouldn't run you more than twenty bucks. Anything more and they're stiffing you."
And with that, Adam did finally walk away. He could figure his way back, he always did.
Richard wasn’t bred with much more than money and manners, but the manners part was important, as Adam was walking away, and Richard looked over his shoulder.