Work Text:
It started way back in spring, when they'd first been dating. Blue hadn't know what touch-starved looked like, but she'd learned from Adam. He was hesitant and formally polite, almost too polite, in a way that was pleasing but also odd. Blue hadn't noticed at first, too used to cousins that hung from every arm and mothers and aunts who were always petting her head or squeezing her shoulder, but she'd realized after some time that touch didn't come naturally to Adam. He would stiffen then relax when it came unexpected and he was sharply aware of his surroundings. He could be standoffish sometimes and would not let himself take comfort in a friend when they freely gave affection.
Blue was pretty good at noticing things. Maybe not as good as Noah, with his ghost abilities, but good enough to notice that Adam had issues. Of course, she hadn't known what they were until everything about Adam's father and the hospital and his ear ended up out in the open, but- there was always something off about him.
Afterwards, it got better. He got out, he got St Agnes, they made it to summer, which was a miracle in itself.
They broke up on an unbearably warm day and the heat just kept building, climbing into the sky in an explosion of fire, and someone was dead, but none of them were. It was a guilty kind of relief.
Then it was fall. The weather chilled and Blue started wearing long sleeves again; Adam didn’t because he didn’t have to anymore. Adam was the magician and Ronan the greywaren and Gansey the king and Blue the mirror. They were doing okay; they were magic.
But there was an undercurrent of awkwardness between them. They got along: they rolled their eyes at each other when Gansey made some obliviously upper-class comment, Blue watched Adam out of the corner of her eye as he watched Ronan, she offered him decent-tasting tea when he came to visit Persephone, she tried not to let him catch her and Gansey at whatever it was they were doing. The image of the cave looms in the backs of all their minds.
So Blue figured it was okay to touch again.
The first time, when she sat in the back of the Pig because Ronan had claimed the front seat and won the stare-down this time, she kicked off her shoes and lifted her legs along the car seat, letting her socked feet nudge Adam's thighs. He'd shifted but let it be, so Blue figured it was alright and leaned her head against the window to watch the scenery pass on their trip.
The next time, they were at Monmouth, and Blue didn't have much homework so she was watching Adam do the pile that he had (most of it was probably optional studying). Ronan never did his, so it was just Adam and Gansey working. Adam was mumbling about his physics work aloud because he said it sometimes helped, so Blue leaned over his shoulder and stared down at the page of jotted notes and equations and tables. She didn’t comprehend a lot of it, mostly because Adam’s voice was too low and blurred together to hear, and a little because a lot of it went over her head, but she was enjoying Adam's more Henrietta-accented voice coming out as he continued. Adam didn't complain about her touching him – he didn't mention it at all. He just kept going on about alternate dimensions, which was not what he started talking about, but he was on a roll now so she wouldn’t stop him.
The third time, Blue uses words. She doesn’t always need them but sometimes they’re useful, especially with Adam, who in one moment could be as clear as glass to her, then in the next, as unknowable as the deepest depths of the ocean. Blue isn’t one to shy away from talking about difficult things, so she asks, “Is it fine that I touch you? We haven't talked about it.”
Adam is still focused on his essay. Blue is sprawled across Gansey’s bed, because they still don’t have a couch in Monmouth, for some reason, and Gansey, Ronan and an opaque Noah have braved the outside for a trip to the convenience store.
Blue rolls over and peeks over the edge of the bed down at Adam, who is leaning against one of the legs. He shrugs, being such a boy about it, and doesn’t look at her. Purposefully casual, no expression of opinion. “Sure. I don't mind.”
“Do you like it?” Blue presses.
Adam levels her with a cool look. “Why?” He’s clumsily trying to make her embarrassed and back down, the jerk, but Blue doesn’t care and isn’t embarrassed by honest conversations. He should know that by now, but he’s probably trying to make a last-ditch effort at avoiding anything that resembles opening up emotionally.
Blue is trying to be patient, but Adam is being rude on purpose so she figures it doesn’t matter that much if she gives up. “Well, if you don't like it, I'll stop.” She huffs at him and retreats from the edge.
“No, I like it. It's alright,” Adam says, perfectly smooth. He doesn’t seem to be lying, and though it’s always hard to tell with Adam Parrish, Blue believes him. He doesn’t sound like he feels bad for making fun of her a little, but she supposes that emotional vulnerability is hard for someone so determined to be solitary.
“Okay.” She stretches out on his mattress, several thick layers of clothes keeping her warm because Monmouth also has no form of heating. Why do all her friends live in terrible, cold places? “Sit up here, it's nicer.”
Adam doesn’t look convinced but he does as she asks anyway, moving from the floor to the mattress, his English literature essay pressed against a hardcover library book and pen in hand. He hunches over his paper and keeps scribbling away, and Blue slumps against his side and watches the words fall onto the page.
Adam smiles, something kind of far away and upset in the curve of his lips, but it evens out as he keeps writing. Maybe that’s his way of thanking her, and apologizing, and saying this is nice even though it’s also sort of awkward because we used to date and we had a really messy breakup. Blue is definitely reading too much into it, because Adam Parrish doesn’t communicate that much with his usually impassive facial expressions, but she’ll imagine it. When Adam’s done he reads his essay over once, twice, correcting parts and adding sentences in a different pen, then sets it down and slides back against a stray pillow.
Blue follows him, settling an arm over his waist and digging her nose into his chest. Adam winces and puts a hand in her face, complaining that it’s too bony, and she laughs at him and doesn’t relent. He ends up rubbing a thumb down the side of her neck into her shoulder, and it’s soothing, and sweet, and suddenly Blue misses Adam, those months they've been fighting and apart and unsure and awkward. Blue doesn’t think an 'I love you' is appropriate – not now, at least – but she can offer Adam something. “You're a good friend, Adam.”
He lets out a single 'ha', a bit ironic, but he smiles genuinely. “I think you're a better one, Blue.”
She just shakes her head and digs her nose in a little harder in retribution, and also to make her point. “Naw. We're good.”
Of course, things don’t go back to normal after that. Adam had no illusions that they would; one nice moment doesn’t fix a relationship that fell apart quite so thoroughly. But Noah has a way of both easing the tension and dropping the temperature in a room, or car, more accurately. He keeps his arm tight around Adam’s shoulders as they stumble down a hill towards where he parked his terrible car and Adam is grateful.
He has dollar-store first aid equipment in the trunk – even though he was given his car after he’d escaped Antiem Lane, old habits die hard, and Adam’s thrash and scream and resist harder than most. He presses a grimy rag from work to his hand, probably getting oil in the wound, and sighs. It would be a very impressive cut if it wasn’t on his hand.
“I am kind of sorry,” Blue says guiltily. “Not that I cut you, but- it is quite deep.”
Adam lifts the rag off his hand and watches blood bubble up again, and resumes keeping pressure on it. He got all his anger out in the cave already, and he doesn’t want to be mad at Blue for saving his life, because that is a bit hypocritical. “It’s okay.”
Blue roots through the tiny trunk of his car and finds the old grocery bag of bandages and disinfectant he keeps. “I don’t think you need stitches.”
“No, I’ll be fine.” The thought of stitches is sort of amusing. Imagine, someone suggesting Adam Parrish go to a hospital! If he’d gone to the hospital every time he needed to… well, he’d probably be in a lot better shape, but as it is he can’t change the past. And he doesn’t need stitches.
Blue compacts some gauze and trades it for the rag. She makes a face but throws it back in the car; hydrogen peroxide will clean it up and Adam’s sure she knows this. Tired and without Cabeswater’s insistent presence in the back of his mind whispering fix it, fix it, fix it, he sits on the edge of the trunk.
Blue is about the same height as him when he does this, and she eyes him like he’s going to collapse. “Are you dizzy?"
"No,” Adam answers honestly. “I’m fine, really.”
Blue lifts the gauze away and blows out a stream of air when she sees that the wound has finally stopped bleeding so steadily. “If you say so.”
Without much affair, she wets some gauze with the disinfectant and smears it over Adam’s cut. He holds perfectly still and doesn’t make a noise, being the perfect patient. This should make things easier on Blue, but instead she just gets this little pinch in the corner of her lips. Adam remembers normal people would hiss and pull away, but it’s too late to disguise the behaviors of his childhood. Adam doubts this particular habit will ever die, too stubborn.
He does bite the inside of his cheek when Blue gingerly pokes at the cut and holds the gauze to it, but he won’t let more than a small huff of air escape. It’s been a while since he’s had to do any serious injury management and suddenly it’s terrible, too much like a year ago when he’d do it in the trailer bathroom with the guttering light that gave out two months before he left and bite down on an old belt if it was really that bad, and it’s really not bad this time, but it feels bad.
Adam jerks his hand away and reaches for the bandages. “I’ve got it.”
Blue frowns. “You’re going to bandage your hand with your other, single hand?”
Adam’s done it before. “It’s not that hard,” he says dismissively, maneuvering a roll of bandages. He holds one end under his thumb and winds it around his palm with the other hand, only a couple of times. There’s no point using too much, it’s already stopped bleeding by now, it would just be a waste. He uses his teeth to rip the bandage and neatly tucks the ends under the wrapping. “It’s fine.”
“If you say so,” Blue repeats, looking doubtful and kind of sad. “You don’t want some painkillers…?”
“No, it doesn’t hurt unless I move it.” It did, but not enough that he’d waste a couple Tylenol. “We should hit the road.”
So they get back in his shitbox car and Adam flexes his hand around the wheel, does not wince, and starts the engine. Noah re-materializes in the backseat – Adam doesn’t remember him de-materializing – and leans over Blue to rummage in the glovebox. He doesn’t wear a seatbelt but Adam supposes he can hardly die again.
“You are not getting the squash song again,” Blue says sternly, slamming the glovebox shut. Adam hopes it’s sturdy enough to withstand the force. “Once was enough.”
“We didn’t even play it all the way through,” Noah complains, winding his arms around Blue’s seat to tickle the back of her neck. Blue twitches away but she’s put on her seatbelt. “One time.”
“No,” Adam and Blue exclaim together, both with equal amounts of exasperation and horror, and they catch each other’s eye and smile in commiseration.
Noah keeps chattering on and Adam readies to pull out of the parking lot when Blue cries, “Stop, Adam!” She grabs his injured hand and pulls it towards her, and Adam gasps and yanks it back.
“Ow, shit.” The bandages are dotted with red and it’s only been a few minutes; they’ll be even worse soon. Adam really doesn’t want to stain the wheel of his car with blood.
“I’m getting more.” Blue gets out of the car and goes around the back. Noah makes a moaning sound and fades into the seat- he’s not really a fan of blood, especially when it looks ugly. Adam hears the noises of her messing around in the trunk and sighs, tipping his head against the seat. The cut is deeper and stings more than he expected, which is mostly annoying rather than upsetting. How’s he going to do anything without splitting the fresh, fragile skin that’s going to form soon?
Blue yanks open the door, her other hand full of stuff. “Give it to me.”
Adam narrows his eyes at her. “Would you calm down? It’s not that bad.” It really isn’t. Adam’s had a lot worse.
“Don’t be obtuse,” Blue says sharply.
It’s such an obnoxious word to use, Adam snaps back, “Don’t Gansey me.” His look is steely and Blue leans away a little, mouth in a complicated shape.
“Sorry. He’s rubbing off on me.” She lets her lips curl up a bit. “How distasteful, right?”
Adam accepts the joke and rolls his eyes. “Horrendously so.” He acquiesces and holds out his hand, and Blue takes it, matter-of-fact and a bit gentler this time. Adam lets her handle it as she peels the soiled bandage off, both of them grimacing subtly at the dried blood, and wets the remainder with some water from her drink bottle. She very, very carefully cleans off the grisly remnants and re-wraps it much more thoroughly than Adam had.
It still hurts, of course, but at least now he won’t bleed on the car. “Pleasure doing business with you, Blue.”
“Yeah, sure.” Blue holds his eyes and smiles. Suddenly Adam can barely stand to look at her, she’s so… so Blue, confident and confrontational and kind, but he forces himself to smile back at her.
She gets back in the passenger seat and Noah miraculously appears. “You missed out on the grossest part,” Blue informs him, and Noah sighs, more air than person, and Adam thinks they will all ache a little forever, but they’ll be okay anyway. They have each other’s backs.
“It's been...” Blue says.
“Yeah,” Adam finishes.
It's been a lot. Preparing for Gansey's impending death is not an easy task, not even when split between the two of them. After Persephone's death and the cave and- well, everything, it's been a lot.
Blue stands awkwardly in the doorway of 300 Fox Way. Adam waits outside, just on the cusp of entry, similarly awkward. He folds his arms over his chest, rocking back on his heels. “Um, can I come in?”
“Oh.” Blue looks at her hand, on the doorknob, as though she didn't realize where they were. “Yeah, of course.”
Adam smiles thinly and steps inside. The 'of course' warms him- he isn't (wasn't) only Persephone's pupil. He's connected to Fox Way now, and his new and tentative friendship with Blue is still growing.
Blue gets him a mug of her mom's suspicious tea that Adam has developed a weird taste for now and grabs a pot of yogurt from the fridge for herself. They sit side by side at the old kitchen table, swallowing down everything they can't say.
“How are you?” Adam asks stiltedly. Is this the right thing to say? Since they went scrying in the caves with Noah, it's been more normal between the two of them, but Persephone's death and the cave has put them both on edge, taut and ready to snap.
“Do you wanna come up to my room?” Blue blurts. She winces, as if aware of the history she's inadvertently bringing to mind.
Adam blinks. He hasn't been in Blue's room since... since they broke up, he thinks. “Sure.”
He's not stupid; there's something going on between her and Gansey. This isn't for... reasons. Adam's mind won't land on the right adjective. He's not sure there is one. So Adam follows her to her room, and Blue closes the door behind him. Adam swallows.
This is a private conversation. Blue knows that if Maura or Calla were to overhear, they wouldn't be against it, but Orla's here and she's nosy, and Blue doesn't want her interrupting. “How are you?” she parrots.
“I asked you first,” Adam says.
“And I asked you last.” Blue isn't certain she's more stubborn than Adam on everything, but for this, she can definitely hold out against him.
Adam sighs, apparently not willing to take the challenge. “Yeah. I'm alright.”
“Me too,” Blue says. “Fine.”
Adam raises his eyebrows at her. Blue knew she could get him to show some spark. “So we're both doing great. Great.”
He shifts back on one foot uncomfortably. What are they supposed to do? Nothing is the same anymore and it never will be. Everything's spinning out faster and faster like a ball of yarn dropped down a staircase.
“Do you want...” Blue starts, unable to voice it. She's so used to just tugging people close when the moment calls for it, but with Adam, everything's different and difficult. He’s too unpredictable and Blue is feeling a little too unstable to say it out loud.
“Want…?” Adam repeats, going suddenly still. He doesn’t want to assume, but- if he's allowed to- if it won't ruin them again- he wants.
Blue sighs and crosses her arms. “A hug, Adam.” She’s about to say heard of them? then decides that would be too mean.
Adam bites his tongue and nods jerkily, eyes wide and darting off to the side every few seconds. He steps forward, arms reaching up, uncoordinated and clumsy. Blue wonders how often he's properly hugged before. If he could count the number on his fingers.
Blue crosses the rest of the distance and firmly wraps her arms around him, pressing her spread hands to his back. Adam drapes his strangely over her shoulders, his substantial height on her a minor barrier, and he’s graceful enough not to mention it, to make it work. He drops his head next to hers and disturbs some of her clips, probably stabbing himself in the face, but he doesn’t say anything about it.
The only thing he says, in a precarious murmur, is, “We're gonna be fine.” Blue squeezes her eyes shut at his unsteady attempt at comfort and forces her heart to beat in its regular time.
“What if we can't do it?” she whispers back. They're too fraught for full volume right now. It’s too dangerous to say too loudly.
“It's like Cabeswater. You have to believe it for it to be true,” Adam says. “We will fix it.”
“Okay,” Blue breathes, pressing her forehead a bit harder into his jutted collarbone. She should offer him something to eat, while he's here, yogurt or- or pie, surely he couldn't refuse pie- but it's too good, them wrapped around each other right now. “We’ll fix it.”
“That’s the spirit.” Adam doesn’t let go of her, even though the moment for them to casually release each other, smile, and pull themselves together has arrived. “What’s something stupid Gansey would say?”
“You can do anything if you believe in it enough?” Blue says, not realizing until she’s too late how pessimistic that is. “I mean-”
“And he’d say it about, like, college,” Adam interrupts. He’s trying to smooth it over, soften the blow Blue accidentally dealt. “Not knowing that all the people he knows were banking on someone’s donation instead of their glowing references and personal essay.”
Blue giggles, even though it’s a little mean, because it’s also true and Adam said it just to make her feel better. Adam squeezes her tighter and she can barely breathe for a second, not because he’s crushing her, but because everything else is.
Then it passes and she blinks water away from her eyes. “Hey.” She all at once detaches herself from Adam, and Adam pulls away like he’d already been halfway through the process of doing it. “Let’s stop standing in the middle of the room like weirdos.”
Adam’s eyebrows raise then he smiles a half-second later, like it took him time to catch up. Blue picks up a book buried underneath something on her overcrowded desk and lies perpendicular on her bed, shoving one pillow under her head and another beside her. Adam hovers until Blue says snippily, “Do you need a written invitation?” and he climbs onto the bed beside her and curls his long limbs up like a cat. Content, he lays his head on the pillow where it’s under her elbow and blinks up at the book she’s holding above her head.
“I didn’t know you were interested in psychology.”
“I take it in school,” Blue replies, “And I like it enough.”
“I didn’t know you took it in school,” Adam mutters, like he’s a bit ashamed, and Blue nudges him.
“That’s a personal failing.”
Adam laughs, caught off guard, and Blue triumphs. “You studyin’ to be a criminologist?”
“No.” Blue snorts. “I don’t want to be around police all day.”
“Nancy Drew, then,” Adam corrects slyly, and Blue hits him with a pillow, and from then it’s a war waged with friendly fire, and the book doesn’t end up getting read at all.
After that it’s like the end of a cold snap: a brief period of ice before it lifts, leaving the world feeling warmer than before, although that’s really just perspective coloring it.
The ache of Persephone’s death eases, and Adam does tarot readings at Fox Way with Blue’s amplification, and Blue goes to plant flowers in Jesse Dittley’s empty garden with Adam helping her dig plots. There’s something bad coming and they can both feel it, and Gwenllian trounces about Fox Way singing about omens and doom and it’s not very reassuring. Still, they carry on.
Adam picks Blue up from Nino’s one evening, in his own work coveralls. “I need to shower and then we’ll head to Monmouth,” he says, hardly waiting for her to buckle her seatbelt before he pulls out. It’s getting late; the dinner rush had lasted longer than planned so Blue had stayed an extra half hour.
Blue just nods and slumps back in the seat, tired from talking to people all afternoon. Adam gets it- the benefit of having a friend who is also employed- and doesn’t try to make conversation, just hovering on the edge of the speed limit on the rapidly darkening streets of their town.
He stops at the back of St Agnes, looking up at what is supposed to be his home. It might end up being his grave at this rate. Adam shakes his head and looks over at Blue, lightly dozing against the door.
He shakes her shoulder and she wakes quickly, blinking. “Here?”
“You can come up while I shower,” Adam says, getting out of the car. “I’ll be quick.”
He waits for her, impatient, while she stumbles out, then he locks the car and strides towards the back entrance of the church. Blue follows him, speed-walking to catch up, and slips in behind him.
It’s cold in Adam’s room, and Blue winces and folds her arms around herself. Maybe for Christmas she should crochet Adam some gloves or a scarf or something. She glances down at his sad little mattress and the old, fraying blankets. Maybe she should make him a quilt.
Adam gathers some clothes and disappears into the tiny bathroom. Blue sits on the bed because there’s nothing else to do and rests her forehead on her knees. It’s been too long of a day, and they’re supposed to go over to Monmouth to meet Gansey and Ronan, but she’s just too tired. Being around Gansey always feels like it has an edge, and now that her friendship with Adam is finally back on track, she doesn’t want to have to think about all of it.
That’s how Adam finds her, curled up with her arms around her knees. She looks small- well, smaller than she usually is. “Are you sick?” he asks, shuffling something around in one of his storage containers.
“Too tired for Monmouth.” Blue props her chin up on her knees, dejected. “You?”
Adam thinks on it. “I’m pretty tired. Want me to go phone Gansey and bail?”
Blue twists her mouth around. It was kind of a coward’s way out, but… “Yeah. If you don’t mind.”
Adam thumps down the stairs to the church’s office to use their landline, and Blue lets her shoulders relax a bit. She thinks it’s a bit forward to lay down on his bed without his invitation, but she invited him onto hers, so…
Blue wriggles onto the bed and kicks her shoes off, shoving her socked feet under the edge of a blanket. She drapes her arms over her face and exhales long and loud, letting herself be as exhaustedly dramatic as she wants to be.
“What’s wrong?”
Blue jumps and lifts her arms from her face. Adam is freakishly quiet. “What did Gansey say?”
“He said it was a tragedy,” Adam repeats plainly. Gansey had actually sounded very tragic at the knowledge that they would not be coming, which made Adam feel uncomfortable but not guilty. “And he wishes us well.”
Blue nods and puts her arms back over her face. Adam messes around with some things in his room for a time then taps her side. Blue moves over and he lays on his stomach next to her, textbook spread out over the pillow. Blue doesn’t attempt to read it; she’s sure it would just turn her brain into further mush.
They coexist peacefully in silence, and Adam flicks through the pages of his textbook occasionally. Blue recovers some of her energy after a while and nudges Adam’s side. “You ever imagine living in a medieval kingdom?”
Adam frowns, distracted. “Uh? No? Why would I?”
“We know people who lived in medieval kingdoms,” Blue says thoughtfully. “They live in my house.” Artemus and Gwenllian do not coexist peacefully, and neither of them really give any hint as to what living in a medieval kingdom is like, but it’s something Blue enjoys thinking about sometimes.
“I bet they’re grateful for things like modern plumbing and electricity,” Adam says. “Also, modern food. Radios.”
Blue goes quiet, a bit irritated. “Fine, it’s a… selectively historically accurate medieval kingdom fantasy.” She knows yogurt was invented a long time ago, but she appreciates the ones in little cups she can buy at the supermarket now. Modern food is, undeniably, an attraction of the 21st century.
Adam snorts. “Sure.”
Blue rolls over and lounges half on top of him, completely involved in her vision. “But, like, fancy costumes, swords, royalty to rebel against. Wouldn't it be fun?”
Adam twitches his shoulders. “Are you trying to irritate me on purpose?”
Blue huffs and rolls off him. “Not exactly.”
Adam shuts his textbook with a sense of resignation and shoves Blue off him to move onto his side, facing her. “We would both be burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft.”
Blue sighs sadly. “Yeah, I know.”
They just look at each other for a moment, Adam with a slight quirk to his mouth and Blue appearing genuinely disappointed. Adam cracks after a few moments and snickers, and Blue follows along with him.
They laugh at the ridiculousness of their conversation until Adam checks his watch. “Are you awake enough to go home? It’s past nine.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize.” Blue startles and throws herself off the mattress to quickly pull on her shoes. “Let’s go- will you drive me?”
“Yeah, of course.” Adam grabs his keys.
Of course. He doesn’t know when he threw himself into being Blue’s friend, when he realized that he would show up for her whenever she asked. It just happened by itself. But he’s happy with it, and Blue’s brilliant smile tossed in his direction is proof that she feels the same. Whatever’s coming, they can face it. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yup.” Blue links her arm through his and squeezes him close, and Adam lets her drag him down the narrow stairs out of the church and into the open parking lot, where the stars are Henrietta-bright above.