Work Text:
He is, he thinks, steeped in jealousy.
It feels like all he's ever known - from admiring the clean white sneakers on another kid at school, to feeling lightheaded and heavy hearted at yet another raven boy's muscle car pulling into the shop. All the way up to Gansey, Gansey and Ronan, Gansey and Blue. And now Ronan and. Everyone.
It used to be that he let jealousy jerk him into motion, made him work for things and kill for things and fight to the precarious top.
But he doesn't know how to deal with this feeling, so finicky and unfounded.
He watches Ronan cuff Gansey on the head affectionately, Gansey laughing easily and offering Blue a strawberry from their picnic spread. Cabesewater is still and golden, idyllic curls of foliage framing his friends like a vignette.
And yet.
He feels stupidly left out, stubbornly outside with his homework and excuses. It's easy to fall into uncertainty when they look like this - Ronan and Gansey; two peaks on the same unclimbable mountain. (He's pretty sure Blue can fly)
He feels fondness and envy struggling to the fore, watching the relaxation stretching Ronan like taffy, the way Gansey's jacket is rolled under his head, his feet nudging into Blue's thigh.
Noah flickers to Adam's side and pokes him in the face.
"Stop sulking, this is a good day," he says, with the particular intonation of someone who knows there won't be many more.
"Not sulking," Adam replies absently. He watches Blue feed Chainsaw pieces of crust, sees Ronan's expression change a fraction.
They're perfect, all of them. They're supermarkets, shopping malls, cities - full of beautiful, terrible traits, all jumbled together. Adam keeps checking price tags and rifling through bags and he still doesn't think he's seen half of what they have to offer.
"They're human," Noah says softly.
Adam scoffs. "Are they? Ronan's part dream, Gansey's been dead, you are dead. Blue's- a mirror, or whatever."
Noah frowns. "You're-"
"I'm a mechanic!" He says, edging into hysterical. "They might as well be mystical creatures and the most I am is what? A puppet for a magical forest? That's not my passion, or- or my dreams or my blood."
Noah looks suddenly transparent and rippling like a mirage. His eyes are on fire. "It's your sacrifice," he says, and then ceases to exist.
Adam glances back at the others and finds Ronan watching him with dark, intense eyes.
He considers that Noah knows a lot about sacrifice, probably.
It all feels a bit much for a sunny afternoon, but he let his green show on the surface, so he supposes it's deserved.
Suddenly he feels freezing cold in the shade, too far away to ever be a raven boy or at home at 300 Fox Way, to be Ronan's or Cabeswater's.
Ronan's still looking at him worriedly, and he sees Gansey and Blue slowly distracted from each other to where he's sitting. He feels trapped, as rooted to the spot as any of the great trees at his back.
He gets up, turns his back on it all, and lets Cabeswater gather his strings.
There's something in the tractor beam of their eye contact that sets Adam's teeth on edge.
Kavinsky is. Repulsive. Adam's least favourite person - or at least, the one he can put the clearest label to in his head. (Kavinsky equals muttered disdain, a Gansey brow raise. He's a snarl, a brawl, two hands at Ronan's collar, pulling him back)
And he keeps looking at Ronan like they've both served in a war. Adam's disturbed by how much Ronan's warped smile is starting to look like his, how much their behaviour seems more and more like a mirror.
Mostly he's sick at the way Kavinsky wets his lips before they dive into a fight; punches that look more and more like they mean something else, hands that linger then draw blood.
Adam doesn't think about it. He decidedly doesn't think about it, until he's staring at his dripping ceiling through draped shadows, thinking about Ronan like flipping through flashcards.
He cares about Ronan. Fact. He cares about Gansey, Blue, Noah, with equal fervour.
He wants Kavinsky away from him. Fact. He's a bad influence, a weight on Ronan's teetering scale of good and bad.
The way they look at each other makes Adam's stomach drop. Also a fact. One confusing enough that Adam leaves it largely untouched.
He reasons that he doesn't understand it, or that simple friendship between the two would be equally appalling but the fact remains that the thought of them touching, kissing - uncovers something wounded and furious in Adam's chest.
He tells Gansey about it. Not so much the kissing parts of it, but the concern parts, appealing to Gansey's mother hen sensibilities.
"I just think it's at the point where Ronan could go either way."
Gansey, predictably, raises a brow. "You think Ronan would abandon us. For Kavinsky," he says incredulously.
"I don't think-" Gansey's expression is a hair pitying and Adam feels himself flush. "I don't. I don't think he'd leave or anything, but I think Kavinsky is messing with his head. I don't like the way they're so wrapped up in each other's business."
"I'll bet you don't," Noah says from Gansey's right, newly corporeal and grinning in an unhinged sort of way.
Adam ignores him.
"Obviously it's Lynch's deal, we don't need to get involved. I just thought maybe you'd want to know how much they're together lately. I'd rather he do dangerous shit when we're around for the fall out. Kavinsky would leave Ronan for dead and you know it."
Gansey waves a hand airily. "I very much doubt Ronan would let himself get to that point."
Adam looks at him pointedly and Gansey sighs, amending, "Alright, perhaps he would. I do doubt that Kavinsky has that much bite for all his bark, though. I think he kind of likes Ronan."
Adam huffs and Noah laughs.
He doesn't say anything stupid like 'that's what I'm afraid of' but he thinks it so hard he's surprised Gansey doesn't hear anyway.
"Just. Keep an eye on them, ok?"
Gansey nods, already turning back to the textbook cradled in his lap.
Adam feels a cold hand brush the back of his, and he startles.
Noah's eyes are wide and clear when he says, "He prefers you. No contest."
"What?" Adam asks dumbly, but Noah's already turning away, his body sliding half out of focus like a holographic image, stuck in the middle.
The next time he sees them together, it's just after dreamed sunglasses and wristbands.
Kavinsky blows Ronan a kiss, hanging out the side of his parked mitsubishi. Ronan's hands curl harder around his steering wheel, and he reaches for the gearshift suddenly, pulling into the space in front of the other car and parking.
"Stay here," he grits in Adam's direction, getting out of the car and slamming the door.
Kavinsky's out front now, running one hand trippingly over the buttons and loops at his waistband. He smirks at Ronan.
He can't hear what they're saying but he can see the way Ronan's shoulders are tensing and tensing, his neck flushing pink the more Joseph speaks.
The first contact is a reach and a deflect, and it's too close to playful for Adam's taste. Then Ronan's shoving him against his car and following with his whole body, pressing in with knees and fists but also hips, chest. It's a second of contact and then Kavinsky has them flipped, has a hand cupping Ronan's neck when he punches him in the jaw.
Adam sees the way Ronan almost smiles when he takes the hit. The only time he ever looks alive like this is when there's more adrenaline than grief in him. They scuffle for a minute, and Adam picks out the words "Dreamer" "you and me" and "again", and then he's opening the door and halfway to them on autopilot.
"Get off him, we're going," he says, clipped and urgent. Ronan looks confused, excitement leeching from his face. Kavinsky's loosened his grip enough to be pushed away.
Something thrills through Adam at the way Ronan's attention snapped from Kavinsky to him like flipping a switch.
Joseph smiles, bared teeth and knowing eyes, and he snakes an arm around Ronan to yank him back in. He whispers something roughly, mouth close enough to brush the shell of Ronan's ear, gaze still trained on Adam.
Ronan shoves him so hard that he staggers and trips, and Adam feels vindication gasp out of him.
He's still not thinking about it.
Ronan slants a look at him, eyebrows raised.
Adam just shakes his head, bumps their shoulders together as he turns back to the car, trying not to revel too much in the way Ronan follows without thought.
"That dude needed to get knocked over."
Ronan nods fiercely. "One of many things I'd like to do to him."
Adam's insides burn, but he knows what he meant.
"I wish you wouldn't let him get in your head," he says quietly.
Ronan laughs harshly. "I wish he didn't have the keys."
Adam gives him a look.
"To Cabeswater, I mean."
"Right."
Ronan throws himself into the drivers seat when they reach the BMW, but Adam pauses, marches back to Kavinsky, who's dusting himself off angrily.
"He's not yours," Adam says matter-of-factly, tries his best to weaponize his smile the way Ronan does. Kavinsky gapes at him.
He doesn't stick around for a response, just brushes the last traces of pettiness from his cluttered mind and climbs into the passenger seat.
Ronan looks at him like he's never seen him before, and Adam turns his newly lethal smile on him.
The smudge of embarrassment is back at Ronan's neck, and it feels oddly like a victory for Adam.
He thinks about it again, later, listening to water ping off of his floor and feeling like all the pipes have burst in his chest.
He was jealous. Fact. Stupid and obvious and undeniable.
He made Ronan blush. Fact. It felt startlingly similar to holding Blue's hand or fist bumping Gansey for the first time. Achievement. Interest. Do that again.
Adam grimaces at the ceiling, feels painful certainty tug at him.
There's something different in the way he wants Ronan then the way he wants everyone else.
He closes his eyes and doesn't think 'fact'. Doesn't think anything at all.
"I need to ask you about something, but you're not allowed to say anything until I'm done."
Blue doesn't look up from her magazine, but Adam can see the way her shoulders change in angle, pulling together like she's bracing herself.
Adam breathes out.
"I'm a very jealous person."
Blue snorts as if to say 'no shit', and Adam frowns at her. He hates to be obvious about wanting things.
"I can usually understand- you know. What I'm jealous about. Someone has a nicer car than me, a better relationship with their parents. A home. A best friend."
Blue puts her magazine down and looks very much like she wants to speak.
"I don't understand this, though. I mean. I don't know why I feel this way. Over Ronan."
Blue's eyes snap to his sharply. Her shoulders roll back. Adam notes, with some aggravation, that it looks like she knew this as well.
"I really. I-" Adam clenches his jaw. He hates being inarticulate. "I hated Kavinsky. I hate him. I hate that he could share things with Ronan that I can't. I hate that Gansey and Ronan and Noah all have their place and their them and I-" he pauses. "I'm upset that I wasn't good enough for you. But Gansey. Is."
Blue looks down, juts her chin. She's doing that thing where she refuses to feel bad but she's doing it anyway.
"I have a lot of confusing… I don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to care about you, and I don't know how to stop feeling so - reckless. With Ronan. And I don't know how I'm meant to feel about Kavinsky dying. I can't ask Gansey about anything because. Of you. I can't ask Noah about it, lord knows. I can't ask Ronan about it, obviously," he laughs, nothing's funny. Blue is glaring at him.
"Is that all?"
He feels simultaneously relieved and like he shouldn't have spoken at all. He nods.
"You're an idiot, first of all. Like Gansey is rendered illogical at the mention of me, please," she mutters. "Also, you came to your ex for advice not only about your crush on a boy, but about your hurt feelings about said ex's love life."
Adam shakes his head slowly. "I came to you because you're Blue, and I trust your judgement."
Her face softens, but then, he didn't think she was really angry to begin with. She's so like Ronan sometimes that it throws Adam off kilter.
"Right. Well. I think you know how Ronan feels about you," she begins.
Adam bows his head, feels something thrilling and embarrassed shock to his brain like a head rush.
"-and I think Kavinsky is, and always has been irrelevant. Ronan wanted something from him for a while. He needs you, us, all the time," she smiles warmly at him.
"The thing about Monmouth is silly. You're a part of their home no matter where they are or who they're with. They would all move into St. Agnes if they thought you'd let them."
Something unspools in his chest, something tight and worried easing and easing, and he remembers exactly why he came to Blue with this.
"As far as the thing with me and Gansey. It's. We're. Neither of you are good enough for me, don't worry," her smile shifts up a notch, "You clearly have no common sense, you have a thing for a Lynch. Gansey wears fluorescent polo shirts. You both have your demons."
She pats his thigh.
"You've got to stop thinking about things like they're one or the other. Not every change has to be a lot, not every new relationship erases an old one."
Adam smiles, teasing. "You're starting to sound like a real psychic."
Blue rolls her eyes, nudges him with her socked feet.
"You were starting to sound whiny. Please go hug Gansey or kick Kavinsky's grave stone or something," she says.
Adam struggles free from the crochet blankets and her feet in his lap and she laughs brightly at him.
"Oh Parrish, I love you."
He grins, and reaches out to tweak her hair out of its barrette.
It's past late when the single heavy thud of Ronan's knock comes at his door.
He rolls over, caught in the foggy place between wanting to sleep and waiting for something to happen.
Ronan lets himself in.
"Parrish," he whispers. Even in the low light Adam can tell that he's containing his voice, straining to keep it quiet and level even though the rest of him is tensed for detonation.
"What is it?"
Ronan's demeanour shifts drastically when he knows Adam's awake, as if he's unholstering his weapons.
"Do you feel it?" He asks.
Adam sits upright, his heavy limbs fighting him all the way. He's aware, suddenly, that he does feel "it"; an unrest beyond his own tiredness, a branch full of unanswered questions, a sickness in Cabeswater.
"Give me a second to put on pants," Adam says in lieu of an answer, swinging his legs over his groaning mattress, ignoring Ronan's eyes tracking the motion.
"I'm sure Cabeswater will wait for you to construct your ensemble," he sneers.
Adam shakes his head, exasperated.
"Would you prefer I forgo the pants?"
Ronan's scoffs. His face goes cloudy as Adam tugs jeans over his hips. If there's embarrassment somewhere in there it's outshone by sharply glinting frustration.
"I would prefer if you hurried the fuck up. I would love to sleep somewhere where there isn't shouting and wasps and dead flowers and shit. You're like… Cabeswater's plumber."
"Magician," Adam says tersely.
"Whatever."
Adam purses his lips and steps into his shoes. "Let's go find the leak, then."
They're tramping through frost smeared grass, watered down blue skies peeking through gnarled trunks, rising sun at their backs.
Ronan's two steps ahead, running the tips of his fingers over leaves as he passes, periodically looking up at the trees sternly like he disagrees with what they're saying.
Adam can't feel his fingers, but he can feel a lot of complicated tugging elsewhere, like his body is reorganizing, moving whole filing cabinets. He feels more twigs catch at his clothes than is entirely plausible, every single branch on every single tree reaching for the both of them, imploring.
Adam stops walking. "Ronan, I don't like this."
Ronan glances back at him and sighs, back-pedalling. "I'm not thrilled about it either, to be honest, I was happily not sleeping, but this forest is obsessed with you. It wouldn't stop pestering me."
A gust of wind whistles between them, ruffling Adam's hair.
"This forest only speaks to you," Adam says carefully.
"I fucking know that, I'm its permanent goddamn translator."
"But it- it sends me feelings. It calls me if it needs me."
"Right," Ronan says, confused.
"So why didn't it come to me? Waiting for you to sleep to ask me seems. Convoluted."
"What are you trying to say Parrish? Spit it out." Ronan's voice jumps dangerously in the buzzing clearing.
Adam looks down at his shoes, where most of the cold is seeping through.
"I just think it wanted us here together. The two of us."
"Which means?"
"It's not about Cabeswater. It's about us."
"Us," Ronan echoes. He takes a step back. Adam watches the rising sun reach out to touch Ronan's slanted cheekbones, his soft eyes.
The wind brushes through the trees again like rushing water.
"Why did it- I mean. Why does a forest care about what we're doing?"
"Come on, you know why. You're the greywaren, you're like the most important thing Cabeswater has. And I'm an asset. It needs us to be okay."
Ronan shifts uncomfortably, and it's disconcerting to see him on anything other than high ground.
"I thought we were okay," he says quietly.
Adam steps forward. "I'm not. Okay. With some stuff."
Ronan looks up at him, catching his own worry a second too late. "What stuff?"
"I don't-" know. Don't think I can tell you. Don't understand anything the way I thought I did.
"What stuff," Ronan repeats, softer around the edges.
"I'm so tired of wanting things I can't have," Adam starts, glancing up to gauge a response. Ronan's eyes don't stray from his face but his eyebrows furrow. Something seems to register a second before Adam can continue.
"Blue," Ronan says grimly. "This is about Blue."
And well. It's not entirely wrong, but it's also one truth in an intricate puzzle that Ronan hasn't even seen the pieces of. "Partly," he admits.
Ronan nods, resigned. "Okay. So. Fix it? Get over it, I guess. I'm not really-"
"A lamp person, I know."
He cocks his head at him, and Adam shakes with discomfort at being so obviously read.
"That's not the point, anyway. There are a lot of things I'm pissed about, and a lot of things I wish I had, and a lot of things I wish you'd stop offering."
The space between them seems suddenly like a chasm, and Adam's voice is far too small.
"But I don't want - I don't want you to stop looking," he says, finally, finally. Ronan's whole face goes ashen.
"Adam."
Adam jolts into motion, picking across the root littered ground and refusing to break eye contact. Maybe ever.
"Please." Cabeswater roars in his ear. Sunrise has set the forest on fire, yellow glinting off of ice laced leaves, orange and red streaking Ronan's face in swatches.
Someone kisses someone, and hands are wound together, and Adam thinks that Cabeswater is nothing without them, that - together - they could easily save Gansey and wake sleeping cows and bring back the dead, probably.
They kiss fiercely, the forest settles into something smug, and Adam folds his arms around Ronan's neck.
He's so focused on the way his edges taper and curve that he doesn't have time to think about girls that didn't love him, or boys that gave Ronan fire.
They break apart, and Ronan smiles at him.
Cabeswater erupts into applause, something deafening and beautiful and natural.
He wonders if the sun's rising or they're falling and decides - hands cupping Ronan's smile - that daybreak has never been this bright.