adam "now he's a spooky 10" lynch (parrish) (tamquam) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-02-16 14:46:00
WHO: Richard Gansey III & Adam Parrish WHAT: "Local Boy Struggles With Emotions And Missing Friends But Wants Happiness" WHERE: A little side parking lot. WHEN: Sunday morning, February 16 (aka today!) WARNINGS: No actual mechanics were consulted for this; dubious mentions of car maintenance that sound like innuendos out of context. STATUS: Complete!
It was only a matter of time before the Pig broke down. Gansey had been spoiled the last six months, driving the engineless version that Ronan had dreamt up on the road trip. There it served a purpose - one that was to keep Blue and Henry from being overly frustrated with delays, and the side bonus of it being good for the environment. Gansey wasn’t ashamed to admit that what made them happy made him happy, too, but in a weird way, he had missed this.
He’d half missed being able to work on the Pig with Adam - and half just missed getting his own hands dirty. It wasn’t an ethic he was raised with (though his parents certainly loved the idea of it) but it was one he had kept for himself. When he’d first met Adam, he told him that there was no point in not being able to speak its language, and that was still true.
Gansey had done his best to learn more, especially before Adam went off to Harvard, but there was still a large gap in his knowledge that had him absently rubbing a greased hand across his forehead when he looked over at Adam, petulant expression on his face. “At least it threw the temper tantrum before I was out in traffic.”
He didn’t want to ask for the solution outright, but looked hopeful at Adam, almost desperate to get it right. “The engine cranks when I try to start it, but nothing - that’s less alternator and more ignition?”
These were the times Adam liked Gansey the most. Adam had, for a long time, felt beneath Gansey, undeserving and unwanting of his charitable friendship. Realization was a funny thing, all his self-doubt found the reasons why he didn't measure up. Even still, it required Adam to school his feelings into something that was less prickly, less defensive of his choices. They did not have the same life, but they had found friendship regardless.
A close enough version that when Gansey insisted he learn instead of throwing money at a problem, Adam always felt like he had somehow affected Gansey's world view. Just a little.
Adam made a small, agreeable hmm noise as he reached into the engine space. He seemed pleased when Gansey guessed correctly, a tiny thrill of knowing that not only was Gansey paying attention, but he held onto the extensive amount of car maintenance he had imparted. There was something about leaving his mark, with this tangible evidence, that was overwhelming.
"Yeah, that's the ignition," Adam said, blindly straining to wrap his fingers around the hose he was looking for. "Probably fuel injector, it might have just come loose in its travels." Adam paused and glanced up at Gansey. "Confirms that this isn't some magic-Vallo hallucination version. Only the real Pig breaks down."
Gansey huffed out a quiet laugh in Adam’s direction, and he couldn’t deny it. He was glad for it, even, and the Pig breaking down was just a reminder that some things in life could be normal, and could give him joy. It seemed simple, after everything they’d been through, even just being here, it was a relief.
Which seemed silly, when he actually thought about it, but Gansey didn’t have to apologize to himself and feel the weight of guilt. Not when working on the Pig. That was a quiet, comfortable zone, much like Henrietta itself.
“You aren’t wrong. If there’s any constant in any universe, it’s the Pig breaking down.” Gansey didn’t let his voice fall into frustration, instead his curious nature took over and he moved in next to Adam, looking down at the workings of his beast. “Show me? We haven’t dealt with a fuel injector issue before.”
Constants in the universe weren't only the Pig. There was a solid energy that came off Gansey too. He kept them grounded in ways Adam only wished he could. Adam offered him a tight smile in return because he worried what might come out of his mouth.
He focused back on the car. "Come here," Adam said, straightening up and trading places with Gansey. He couldn't learn if he wasn't hands-on. "On the right side, there's a series of valves and hoses." He was now maneuvering the hanging underhood light over the space. "They each have two connections, one at the top and one on the bottom. They shouldn't move when you tap them, but if one does, it's causing an inconsistent flood into the main block, which won't be enough to start the car."
He moved to shadow Gansey, his own hand fitting in alongside his into the space to maneuver him to the correct lines on the engine. "Eventually you're not even going to need me to fix the car," Adam said in a painfully conversational tone, because he didn't know what he would do when that time came. "You're going to be able to troubleshoot and fix this thing all by yourself."
Gansey moved fluidly in with Adam, working in sync like they’d done a dozen times before. Maybe more, given how often the Pig was prone to breaking down in Henrietta. It was frequently called a death trap or worse, by friends and family, and Gansey just grinned in return and patted the Pig lovingly and called it his death trap. Or refuted their claims with practical numbers and facts, but in his head he lovingly patted it.
He had gotten to know the inside of his car much better since meeting Adam, though, and didn’t fumble as his hand went into the heart of it, brushing along Adam’s long fingers without even blinking. “Okay, yes- I feel what you’re talking about, now.” He went through the motions of his hand running along each hose, going slowly and with a delicacy that Gansey often had.
But he still turned to Adam, eyebrows creased together. He liked the idea of learning, he didn’t like the idea of Adam not being there any longer. “I highly doubt that, you know. There’s always more to learn, and I can’t imagine having a better instructor than you.”
Adam's expression was impassive, but he was purposely directing his attention to what Gansey was doing rather than his face. He had unintentionally driven the conversation into territory he wasn't ready to get into, and his internal wheels were spinning with how to backpedal and return to strictly ripping about the Pig and its temperamental motor.
But Adam found himself not doing that, and saying, "Not when we go back." He still couldn't look at Gansey, so Adam just moved his hand to the next set of coils and suggested Gansey check the air pressure valve too.
"But I'll teach you everything I know until then. There's not a lot of interest at Harvard about car maintenance when you can take public transportation everywhere. Or Uber." Oh, how nice it would be to have that much expendable income to throw at car service in Cambridge because he didn't want to walk. "It's nice to have someone who still likes to learn."
Gansey sucked in a breath. He’d deserved that reminder, since when they do go back, the pair were separated by 2500 miles - the farthest they’d ever been apart since meeting. And it sucked, in a few ways. Gansey wished he could have dragged them along for the road trip, but he knew Adam had to go his own way and follow his own path, and Ronan was another beast all together.
It didn’t make it any easier, when the previous few years had been an exercise in codependency. But Adam deserved his respect on the subject, and his support, so he had it, unconditionally. “That’s a true shame,” Gansey answered honestly, before pursing his lips together to concentrate on feeling the inside of the car.
His lips curled into a little triumphant smile when he found what he was looking for - a hose, loose. After tightening, he moved on to the next thing to check, following Adam’s instructions perfectly while he faltered verbally. “Do you like it? At Harvard, I mean. I know we’ve talked, but you’ve never said if you like it there.”
Now it was Adam's turn to falter. He pulled away from helping Gansey—he seemed to be able to handle it just fine without Adam's physical instruction—and watched, quietly, for far too long. Anything he said now would be considered a lie. Did he like being at Harvard? Yes, but somehow Adam knew the answer wasn't that simple. He struggled to find the perfect collection of words to satisfy Gansey's question, but nothing felt right. It had been easier to default when they had phones between them and Adam didn't have to hide what he was feeling, face-to-face.
"It's different," Adam settled on. He was different there, slowly and carefully shaping the narrative of his life. Adam went from having a secret everyone knew but no one spoke about, to having a secret only a few people knew about and he wanted desperately to tell. At Harvard, Adam didn't know what he wanted. He liked school, he liked learning, he liked tangible evidence of his accomplishments and hardwork. But.
He didn't have that in Vallo. So what did that mean for him now?
"I don't feel like myself there," Adam admitted,, before he reached to readjust the work light overhead. Couldn't they go back to talking about the engine? "It's been an adjustment, but I'll get through it. I always do."
It earned a double-take from Gansey, who pulled his hand out from the engine almost immediately so he could pay more attention to Adam. His friend’s feelings were far more important to him than his car, and he hadn’t heard doubt before. Or, not doubt necessarily, but a less than full stop positive. Gansey reached over and grabbed a rag from his emergency car repair kit he’d made up for instances just like this and started cleaning his hands.
“I think,” Now he sounded like old-man Gansey again. “Anyone who’s gone through what we have is bound to have adjustment issues anywhere.” It also wasn’t surprising that Adam wouldn’t feel like himself with everything they’d been through - things that no normal person could understand. And Harvard was full of “normal” people.
Gansey’s voice was quiet, but soothing. Probably too understanding. “You don’t feel like yourself, or you haven’t felt like you could be yourself?”
"Not really something I can have a candid conversation about during orientation," Adam said, trying to shrug it off. It didn't bother him, it didn't. He had more or less matriculated nicely into Harvard. He could play the part of studious, fresh-faced academic. He could have friends, attend study groups, and engage at social functions. He could be normal.
But that wasn't really who Adam Parrish was. He hadn't been normal in a long time. He had just been going through the motions, trying on a different skin to play a part. He remembered the almost-fight with Ronan about it in his dorm room.
Adam's attention was on the rag in Gansey's hands, because he didn't think he could take the understanding in Gansey's voice head-on. Gansey couldn't understand, could he? "I'm being enough of myself there, enough to get by. No one knows my past there, or the shit we went through, so I can start over, I only have to be—" A part of himself. A piece of Adam Parrish. It was such a fragmented life.
He felt whole here though with Ronan and Gansey. Left wanting for other things but complete in a way he didn't at Harvard. "I don't know what you want me to say, Gansey."
Gansey, to his credit, understood at least a little. He was occasionally dense, and his upbringing had been so wildly different from Adam that he knew it was hard for them to connect on the same level on occasion. More than a few occasions. But he couldn’t say something like I get it and not have it sound obnoxious, Gansey knew that. This was a wholly Adam thing.
“You only have to be what you want to be, not what everyone already thought of you.” Gansey finished for him, not sure if it was completely correct, but assuming it was at least partially on the nose. He leaned his leg against the front of the Pig, still cleaning his hands slowly.
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I..” He shrugged and tried to turn his concerned frown into a wry smile, but it probably just looked like a comedy of facial errors instead. “I just want you to be where you feel like you need to be.” With us. “I know Henrietta has a lot of bad memories.”
It was terrifying to be known so well. He had more than once expressed his fear to Ronan, that opening himself up enough that other people can anticipate his needs was like jumping off a cliff and not knowing if the ocean would catch you. But he knew Ronan wholly, implicitly, had come to accept this like a slow dawning awareness. He knew Ronan.
What was more terrifying now was realizing that Gansey knew him too. Maybe not in all the same ways as Ronan, but enough. More than enough. Adam sighed heavily and dragged a hand down his face. He felt embarrassed and ashamed that he tried to keep Gansey only peripherally in the loop of his life. As if they could be anything but close.
He matched Gansey's wry smile. "Henrietta has a lot of bad memories for you, too." But then Adam's mind dangled the summer before Harvard between them, and how easy everything had been for a while. He loved it, he felt at home. "But there are good ones. There are great ones. Is it so bad to want both? To start over and still be myself? I don’t even know if that’s possible anymore."
In that moment, Gansey wanted nothing more than to reach forward and pull Adam in for a hug. He resisted the urge, though it sat there lingering in the background, lying in wait. Emotions had been high since they arrived here, and even if it had been a few weeks now, things had only settled to a certain degree. If anything, having the Barns here and less of a hope of getting home might have made things even more raw.
He settled with just reaching out to touch Adam’s bicep, even if it didn’t feel like enough. “Henrietta is a lot of things for me, and I’ll always be connected to it. But I don’t blame you for wanting both.” He couldn’t, given everything that had happened over the last year.
But it was finally Gansey’s turn to flush a little and turn his attention away, back to the Pig’s innermost workings. “I thought going on a year long roadtrip would be what I needed after Glendower. Find a new passion.” He shrugged and dove his hands back into the tubes, fiddling with things, even if he wasn't actually doing anything. “But I missed you both more than I can say. It was like trying to fill an endless void.”
Adam's attention went to Gansey's hand on his arm. Adam used to think that was a sign of pity, and he might have shrugged it off. But they weren't those people anymore, and Adam's own hand came up to cover Gansey's in comfort and camaraderie before they split apart.
The silence stretched between them. Hearing Gansey say he felt the same way on his roadtrip was disorienting. He felt himself wanting to ask how that could be when he was surrounded by people who cared for him, but he inherently knew the answer. Adam had his own friends at Harvard, but it wasn't all the people he wanted most. He was always missing someone.
"I don't know if you're going to find what you're looking for here, Gansey," Adam said carefully, as he nonchalantly directed Gansey's wandering hands to another valve he should check instead of just fiddling with nothing; Adam knew that tactic. "But we missed you too. I missed you. It can get lonely in Cambridge when no one gets my Roman economics commentary."
He sighed, before offering up quietly, "It's not lonely here, not with you and Ronan. I feel more myself, even if this is not what I wanted. The void seems a little less endless."
Gansey appreciated the direction for his hands, as he was aimless and more than a little lost about it. The valve he was directed to was promptly tightened, and Gansey moved onto the next one, hoping to follow the direction without looking like a complete idiot. He still wasn’t fluent in the Pig’s language, but knew enough to fake it. Well, partially.
“They don’t appreciate Roman economic commentary at Harvard? Well, I guess that one’s out for me.” Gansey said it with an air like he actually knew what he was doing with his college. Which was a lie, he still hadn’t decided, still hadn’t even allowed himself to think about it. He already knew with his parents and grades he could get into virtually anywhere, but that wasn’t his Gansey way. That wasn’t a challenge.
Harvard had still been an option purely because Adam was there, though. His heart swelled a little at the confession, and he stamped it down to a warm smile. “I agree. Is it weird that I missed chasing something? Information? Research? Having a purpose? This place gives me that, even if it’s missing a few key things.”
"It wasn't my first choice either," Adam said with a short huff of laughter. And now he was complaining about his second choice of school, more or less, because his friends there couldn't keep up with his deep understanding of niche subjects. Not like Gansey. He wondered distantly what life would look like if Gansey came back, and Ronan could actually move closer, and Cambridge was their center for awhile.
It didn't look dissimilar to what they were doing right now.
"It's not weird. I don't think I would believe you were yourself if you didn't want to dive headfirst into something," Adam said, but he looked concerned as if his answer wasn't quite right. He rubbed numbly at the side of his face, regrettably, because he only smudged the grease worse on his cheek.
It was that part about purpose that didn't settle well with Adam. The search for Glendower might have been over, but that wasn't who Gansey was. Not to Adam. He would always be more than that. "You always have a purpose though, you don't need to rely on outside factors to prove your worth."
Gansey glanced up just as Adam smudged grease across his cheek, and it made him smile for unknown reasons. Maybe because it was so Adam, how Gansey had always enjoyed seeing him, when they’d first become friends. It was always better than the Adam that kept his head down and out of the way.
He swept up the cloth and instead of just handing it over, he leaned in to rub it gently against Adam’s cheek, to remove the grease without some comedy of errors in trying to point out exactly where it was. Mind you, he’d likely still have to wash his face later, but it gave Gansey a second to figure out where his thoughts were on a purpose.
Maybe Adam was right, maybe he didn’t have to prove his worth, but he’d always wanted to. To not be the kid that just was rich and privileged. “I didn’t even think I’d be finishing high school, let alone having to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life,” he confessed softly. “Care to enlighten me on that purpose?”
Surprise was evident on Adam's face as Gansey wiped away the grease. Parts of Adam wanted to push Gansey away, tell him it wasn't necessary, he could do it himself. But the other part, the part that won, let Gansey take care of something for Adam. As small and inconsequential as it was, a year ago this would have never happened. Adam knew he was different now, and he knew Gansey was too, but it was things like this that reminded Adam how far they had come.
Adam grabbed Gansey's forearm, not hard, just enough to shake him if Adam needed to. "I can't tell you that, Gansey. But it's not—not things," Adam said, almost sounding angry, but it was his frustration for not knowing, the inability to have the right answer for Gansey. To Adam, it was all subjective. "It's not about what you can gain. Your purpose shouldn't be just knowledge or just accomplishing one thing. It's not viable."
He knew it was hypocritical to say those things to Gansey, knowing what they knew. How many times he escaped death. But Adam needed to hear his own advice too; Harvard was a means to an end, not his purpose in life.
"It's what you leave behind. How you leave your mark on the world. Who you leave your mark on."
It might’ve been advice that Gansey needed to hear, but it wasn’t necessarily advice he was ready to hear. Or believed for himself. Adam’s tone immediately made his eyebrows furrow, and he gently extracted his arm from the other boy’s grip so he could take a small step back.
Glendower had been his purpose. He hadn’t known exactly what he was going to do after, just that he had to get there. And then when he found out he wasn’t meant to survive an after, there was no point in knowing.
So he knew Adam was right, but Gansey’s stubbornness rose up into his throat and he shook his head. “I don’t know how to do that, Adam. I don’t want to follow after my parents and I-” He laughed, a most frustrated noise that sounded nothing at all like an actual laugh. “Don’t even have my own name. Even that’s a copy of someone else. So at this point, I’m just winging it.”
Adam hated that laugh. He hated it more because he had, on more than one occasion, used that same laugh. The one that couldn't seem to cover up the hurt, no matter how hard he tried. It sounded wrong coming from Gansey. Was this how Gansey felt when their roles were reversed? This helplessness, this frustration at being helpless. There was a bitter taste on Adam’s tongue as he swallowed that shame for another time.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Gansey. Like, Jesus Christ, we're all winging it," Adam said, his own voice faltering when he realized that truth. For all of Adam's over-analyzing, for all of his careful planning, he was nowhere near where or who he had wanted to be. And it wasn't a bad thing, it was different, complicated. He had been making this up as he went along since—he couldn't really remember now. Since Harvard, since Cabeswater, since he first met Gansey.
"You have to realize that you, you—" Adam was pointing at Gansey, making sure he was listening, "have the choice. You make the decisions about your life, no one else. No tradition, no parents, no school, no books, no Welsh kings, or sentient forests, or curses. Just you."
It almost sounded easy, coming from Adam. But to Gansey, if he took away those things, there was nothing. There was a teenage boy, rich and full of privilege. His whole life had just been wrapped up in Glendower - too much of his life, maybe, but he’d never felt more driven before in his life than back in those days.
Except maybe here. Here, where he had jobs, he had most of his friends - save for the missing ones that left a little hole in his heart - and he had a task. One he wasn’t required to do, like school, but enjoyed regardless because it meant he got to bury his heart and soul into books and mythos again. The kind of an unknown world variety, that was new and exciting.
Adam’s words were such a switch from their normal fights, and Gansey could do nothing more than let his shoulders fall as he gave in. He didn’t want to fight - especially not with Adam.
But he also didn’t know how to give in.
Instead, he just let his hands fall to the front end of the car, bracing them as he glared at the engine. “I’ll find my way. I don’t know how, yet, but I know-” Gansey blew out a breath and looked back to Adam. “I know that I need you both to keep kicking me in the rear end until I do.”
Anger was a complicated feeling. Adam was angry, but he couldn't seem to hang onto it. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to be angry at Gansey. Honesty was always a difficult concept for Adam when it was easier to lie or avoid the truth altogether, but he couldn't be irritated that Gansey was being earnest with him now. Maybe another version of Adam would have found fault in his complaints about being directionless and without purpose—how nice to live every day on a whim. But that wasn't what Gansey meant, and that was why Adam's anger had no feet to walk.
It just bubbled up and dissipated. Gansey looked more defeated than Adam remembered. Even after Glendower there had been some hope that Gansey would bounce back, but then everything went sideways and there had never been a talk about it since.
Adam exhaled, hard and fast, and slid up next to Gansey, unconsciously mimicking his pose over the Pig's engine. "Ronan would probably say something about the hippie culture going to your brain," Adam said quietly, a little humor in his voice.
"So he'd be happy to keep kicking you until you do. And me? I'm never going to stop either. Sometimes it's hard to ask for other people's help." That was from personal experience, and Adam knew that Gansey knew it. "But sometimes you don't have to ask for it either. The people who care about you just give it to you."
Gansey made a little humming noise, contemplating his next words. He both wanted to point out that giving Adam help in the past had rarely turned out well for him, but he knew now how Adam’s brain worked, and didn’t want to dredge up old memories.
“Ronan’s got his own brand of farmer hippie going on right now,” Gansey quipped back, voice lighter now than it was before. He didn’t want to admit he hadn’t talked to Blue or Henry about the listlessness he felt, because it wasn’t something they could help him with, especially on a road trip. Instead he’d just fallen into the hope that he’d find himself and then ended up here.
He couldn’t find the words to say thank you, to Adam, so Gansey just straightened up and let a hand rest on his friend’s shoulder. “Want to see if we can get this beast started and take it for a drive?”
"Don't say that to him, you'll never get him to stop swearing. And I want to support his interests," Adam said, leaning into Gansey a little conspiratorially. After the heavy weight of their emotions gathering into what probably would have been the perfect storm for a fight, Adam was more than thankful that talk of Ronan had somehow smoothed it out. They really were inexplicably tied together.
Maybe there was purpose in that, maintaining their friendships no matter what happened. Adam couldn't even pretend to slot in his new social circle at Harvard into the spots that Gansey held in his life. No one could compare. The smile he offered Gansey was small but encouraging. Adam would not be able to survive this without them.
Adam nodded, maybe a little too much, in a way that betrayed that his thoughts were still revolving around their conversation and not the idea of joyriding in the Pig.
But still, Adam unhooked the light and closed the hood. "Yeah, let's go."