itinere | Thinking hard (OTA)

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Thinking hard (OTA)

Having made herself to home in both the dreams of Derek and Adam had left Venus feeling both disjointed and thoughtful. Such horror and such darkness, inflicted by other people. Not by chance or fate, but by human beings. It makes her so angry.

Perhaps it is that this place collects very damaged people.

On one of her days off from the health club, before she takes Derek his lunch, she walks. No longer in high heels, but in comfortable walking shoes (cute little pink Keds that please Venus when she looks down at them), she walk. There's just that hint of the coming fall and winter in the air.

Venus trades in optimism. She has to. The world is too dark otherwise. She finds herself sitting on the merry-go-round and thinks of the profundity of hope. Of what it means. Of the power of it. Even if it isn't real, if it's imagined. The idea of hope. "Ask not what this place can do for you," she whispers to herself, letting the words get lost in the breeze, "but what we can do for this place." And the damaged, beautiful people in it.

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He knows that his nightmare that she shared wasn't something anyone (but him) should ever have to go through or ever have seen. And maybe a part of Adam was worried she wouldn't want to still be his friend after seeing all that, after the things his dream self had conjured up and said. He remembers wishing she was his mom even while his own mom was in the trailer getting beaten up.

That's probably more than a little messed up. But Adam knows every time his dad worked his way into Adam's room his mom said nothing. Sometimes silence deals every bit the blow that a fist can. He doesn't think Venus would have kept silent.

When she gestures him over there's a lot of relief there. He walks over to her and lets her pull him into a hug. Adam isn't accustomed to being hugged and he doesn't hug her back. He doesn't do anything more than lean slightly into the hug so that she can end it when she wants to and so that he doesn't mess it up or make it awkward.

"Hi." He says, then quickly adds an apology for what she'd had to see. "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she tells him, the words whispered into his ear, before she gives him an extra squeeze and lets go, sitting on the merry-go-round and patting the metal beside herself for him to sit as well. "Not one single thing. How are you, sweetheart?"

Holding him, even in his awful dream-world, had been something that Venus didn't know she needed to do. Something she'd never been able to do with her own son. It opened a place in her, too, one that she just let set there, gaping, because there isn't a damned thing she can do about it.

Maybe there's nothing to apologize for. But Adam still feels as if he's inflicted the negativity that was his life in Henrietta on people who didn't need that in their life. He feels embarrassed. He feels dirty and worried that things will be weird out here in the real world where he's made friends with people like Venus. He feels like he should apologize tenfold.

Instead, he moves to sit in the place beside her where he patted. "If you go more toward the center, sometimes the wind will blow it enough to go around." He tells her randomly, scooting in through the handles into the center. "Like right here." He's left enough room for her in the middle too.

Adam shrugs. "I'm okay. I'm worried... about things." Things... like... "I feel bad that people had to see what they saw."

"Right there, hmm?"

Venus scoots carefully, crossing her legs to face Adam. When she's settled, she cocks her head at his. "You didn't do it on purpose," she tells the sweet boy. "I think this happened to quite a few people, actually. So it's hardly your fault. I can understand why you feel that way," she hastens to add, "but I do not blame you, sweetheart." She rests her fingers on his knee just for a moment. "How is Ronan? Is he doing all right?"

Shortly after Venus moves, the breeze starts to move them slowly around, slow and gradual. Sometimes the merry-go-round grounds to a complete stop then it eventually picks back up again. It's probably stupid to most people. But it's one of Adam's favorite things.

"It's like something you can't see wants you to have fun." Something like Cabeswater. Which sounds ridiculous the minute the words are out of his mouth so he dips his head and unrolls his brown paper bag to get a sandwich and a slim jim out of it.

"So we're still friends?" Her absolution is welcome. But Adam needs to make sure of that, that he hadn't messed this up, this one thing that's his outside of the group here from Henrietta.

At mention of Ronan, he looks back up to her, briefly into her eyes and then somewhere beneath that. Adam never holds eye contact for too terribly long. "He had to see the dream too. He... I don't think he wants to break up with me cause of it." He pauses. "Have you met him?"

"I met him at the champagne ball," Venus says with a smile. Ronan was terse, but not entirely unlikeable; a kind of terse that Venus is used to. "And of course we're still friends, sweetheart. Why wouldn't we be friends? I like you very much and I hope you like me."

Adam has nothing to be embarrassed about, not with Venus. She's probably one of his biggest fans, really. "So, I'm not breaking up with you and neither is Ronan. You're off the hook," she teases.

Adam likes Venus. He isn't really sure how to put that into words. It seems like it would be a simple thing but Adam is a complicated person in every way. He makes even the most simple of things more difficult just by nature of being himself. Nothing in his life has been easy. Therefore he has a difficult time with even the easiest of things.

He does look at Venus fondly for just a moment, as fond as Adam looks at anyone. There's no smile. But his eyes do look just a bit softer.

"I probably should have given you a warning label for him." He tells her. Because no one should have to go into meeting Ronan Lynch without a warning label. They might cut themselves on all his sharp edges.

"It's all right. I imagine I've told you at some point or another that many of my best friends when I was in Charming were motorcycle gang members. I'm quite used to the brusque nature that some men have," Venus tells him, smiling fondly right back at Adam. "I think it's very clear that he cares for you, sweetheart, which makes me like him all the more."

So, whether Ronan likes it or not, Venus likes him.

Venus has told him about that. He's never known any motorcycle gang members but he imagines them to be rough and dangerous. Adam can be a dangerous thing sometimes too. He just hopes they were nice to her. She's so nice to Adam and always has been without having any reason to be. Grown ups aren't usually nice to Adam. But Venus is. And by his way of thinking, she deserves people to be nice to her.

And honestly, if she came out of meeting Ronan thinking that Adam's boyfriend wasn't a horrible human being, then Ronan must have been nice to her too. Or, just nice enough.

Adam has to flush a bit at the idea that Ronan let Venus know how much he cares. Ronan cares more than most people ever have. He dips his head and opens the ziplock bag his sandwich is in. "He beat up my dad. Back home. Ronan beat up my dad. And then the cops came and... they were going to take him to prison for assault if I didn't say something about my dad using me for a punching bag. I'd never said anything before."

He takes out one of the triangles of his ham sandwich. "Do you want half?"

SAMCRO was nicer to her than most "normal" unpstanding citizens were. After all, it's not everyone who would kill her mother for her.

Almost automatically, she takes the triangle of sandwich with a murmured 'thank you,' still mulling over what Adam has said.

Yes, that's about right, isn't it. Ronan has earned a big, fat gold star in Venus's book for doing the right thing. And Adam, who already has a whole line of gold stars; well, she knows what it took for him to do that and she squeezes his arm with her free hand. "He did the right thing and you did too, sweetheart."

No one had come for young Vincent when he was being pimped out by mommy dearest. "He sounds like a keeper, then," she murmurs, blinking away the sting at the backs of her eyes. "Does he like apple pie?"

Adam just really wanted Venus to know that Ronan is good for him for some reason. That Ronan isn't all gruff and harshness. Granted, only Adam gets to see some of those softer bits of Ronan. But deep down, Ronan is a good person. Maybe the best person Adam knows.

"Sometimes I think he saved me. Sometimes I get mad at him for putting me in that position." Because Adam has yet to be able to separate who he wishes his parents were with who they are. He still wishes that they would love him.

He pushes a hand back through his perpetually messy hair and then takes a bite of his sandwich. "He likes food. Probably apple pie." He says with a nod.

But he's noticed that she looks like she might cry. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, me? I'm fine," Venus says, waving her hand dismissively. "I'm just overly emotional sometimes. Don't mind me." She just cares too much; something else her mother wasn't able to beat out of her.

"If you two don't mind, I'll make you an apple pie," she says first. "But ... I don't understand what you mean, getting angry at him. Do you mind explaining that a bit more? You can resent him at times when you feel that he rescued you?"

That makes some sense, really.

Maybe he likes that about Venus, that she's overly emotional. Hell, his boyfriend is overly emotional too, obviously so. And without all that caring, she wouldn't be Venus. So it works out. Adam just couldn't let a moment go by thinking he had upset her.

"I think he'd like that." So would Adam. But he doesn't want to seem greedy or needy or anything.

"Oh." He looks down thoughtfully, trying to figure out how to explain. "I had to leave them, when I told the cops the truth for Ronan. And I guess... there's a part of me that loved them and wishes they would... I know it's stupid. But I'll never get that now. And sometimes I get mad." It's the most horrible stockholm syndrome, loving the man who beat the shit out of him his whole life."

"I'm deaf in one ear. Have I ever told you that?" He asks.

"Oh, sweetheart," Venus breathes out. "Your father ...."

Well, Adam needed to get away. Which doesn't change how he feels, of course. "I understand," she says quietly. "And I know there isn't one thing I can say to make that better. What we do in those situations is that we find other things to fill those holes. It's like putting a blue block in the green block hole, but it's still a block and it works. We find love - other kinds of love - and if we're smart, we let those fill in. We don't concentrate on what we don't have. We concentrate on what we do have, you know?"

"Yeah." Adam knows she's right. And Adam has more now than he's ever had before. But that only means that there's more to lose. His luck is that he always loses it. Always.

"I've got friends now though." He glances up to Venus because she's a part of that. Having people who actually give a crap about him is a new thing. "And Ronan. And here I don't have to work three jobs. Just one." And truthfully, he doesn't even have to work that one. Adam just can't not work. He needs things to do to feel useful.

"That sounds pretty nifty," she offers with a small smile, nudging him with her knee. "Those things that may seem like small blessings become big blessings when they're looked at a little more closely, don't they? Like these shoes," she offers, waggling her feet. "I never had a pair of shoes like these and they weren't terribly expensive, but I love them. And my feet don't hurt when I wear them. Small blessings become big blessings when we let them. At least I think."

Adam stares at her shoes for a moment. It might seem silly and small and inconsequential to most. But Adam knows the importance of new anything, of having anything nice. He's had so few of both of those things in his life. Everything was second, third and fourth hand. Everything was worn and frayed, even his Aglionby uniform.

It's important.

He shrugs after a bit. "I guess Ronan has been a good thing." Ronan got him away from his parents. Ronan got him the room at the church.

"I've never met anyone like you." He tells her before taking another bite of sandwich. He says it in a completely neutral way that is Adam. But the barely noticeable spark in his eyes is fond and seems to emote the beginnings of a smile even if it's not an actual one.

"Honey," Venus says, teasing and laying on the drawl. "You ain't never gonna meet another one like me, rest assured." And Adam can decide if that is a good or bad thing. Personally, she likes to think it's a good thing.

"And, of course, your Ronan is a good thing, it sounds like to me." Of course, if Ronan ever hurts Adam and Venus finds out about it, well, she'll find herself a shotgun and go after him.

Venus is so confident. Maybe that's one of the main reasons he likes her. He seems to be drawn to confident people like her and Ronan. Adam finishes up his sandwich and shakes his head.

"I like it here... better than home." He wouldn't say that to just anyone. Almost everyone from his world would rather be home, searching for Glendower. Here everyone is safe. Gansey is alive. He hasn't killed Gansey like the prophecy said he would.

"I'm glad, sweetheart. I like this place too, because I wouldn't have met you otherwise," she tells him. "I wouldn't have met Derek. I wouldn't have been able to a job that would let me wear these little shoes and not have to ... "

Well, she pulls back from saying something more vulgar.

"Well, I get other opportunities, don't I? I like it here."

"You look happy." Adam says simply. He wonders what the difference between him and Venus is there. Venus looks genuinely happy. Adam, when he looks in a mirror, doesn't see happy. He sees a lot of negative things that he doesn't like, that no one should like.

There are moments. Like when Ronan had given him the bracelet he wears, like when Noah sits in the garage while he works, like when Gansey is less condescending and when he can forget how badly Blue's rejection had stung. He has moments of happiness. They're always so fleeting though.

He thinks too much. He worries too much. He always has to mess things up, make them complicated and hard.

"So he treats you well?" Adam asks. "He looks..." How to describe it. "He looks confident." Like he has his life together in a way Adam dreams of doing.

"He's strong," Venus says, thoughtfully. "He has had his dark moment just like we have. Perhaps that is part of what appeals to me about him. My dark finds the dark in him. Perhaps even that's true with you and I, mm? We both know dark, don't we?"

But Venus has deliberately and stubbornly focused on the good in life, even if "good" can be defined as different for everyone. "He treats me like a princess," she says and she's only teasing a little, because really, much of the time, he does treat her like royalty. (Even when he's having his pretty ass spanked that deep crimson.)

"I am happy," she decides. "I want to be happy and I want everyone I care about to be happy too. So I'm going to do what I can to make that happen," she tells Adam, reaching over to squeeze his arm. That includes him. And an apple pie.

Adam has never seen a relationship where people treated each other well. There are the elder Gansey's. But Adam has an aversion to them, always feeling like they're putting on a show. He has no idea what they're really like beyond that show.

Ronan treats him pretty well. But in truth, when Ronan isn't calling him douchebag or something similar, things just don't seem right. Ronan's insults are like terms of endearment. Adam has no idea how he does that. But it works for him.

He likes the way Venus sounds and looks when she's talking about her boyfriend. Maybe he isn't just a muscle head. Maybe he doesn't use that strength against her. She has no bruises that he can see.

"I always ruin happiness." He tells her. "I mean I'm trying not to. But..." Adam shakes his head. "I'm trying not to." With Ronan. With his friends. With Venus.

"You can't possibly," she tells him. And it's not a reprimand. The words are said gently. Kindly. "I think ... well, I think, sweetheart, that you are your worst enemy."

That could sound trite, but for Venus's sincerity. "I think ... well, I would offer, anyway, that you aren't always able to see yourself as clearly as some of us can. Would you mind ... can I tell you what I see when I look at you?"

She asks permission, because she doesn't want to make him feel defensive or nervous or anything else. She just loves this boy, is all.

Adam knows he's his own worst enemy. Deep down, he knows that. But in the day to day he tends to think a lot of what he's always been told and what he's compounded upon what he's been told has to be right. People always have that voice in their heads, a conscience. Adam's voice inn his head happens to be Robert Parrish's... which is never good for him.

It's hard when you want love and acceptance from your worst enemy. It's even harder when that enemy is a parent.

His look is cautious and uncertain as he mulls over whether he should allow it or not. He's never been very good at accepting compliments except when Ronan hurls them at him combined with insults. And even then... it's hard. But he feels like he owes Venus this after what he put her through in his nightmare. So he presses his lips together and nods.

Thinking hard (OTA)

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