Thinking hard (OTA)

[venusvandam]

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.

Comments

[adamparrish]

That first night he knew exactly what Venus was and what she'd been doing. Anyone else from his group might not have gotten it. But Adam did. He grew up in that world where those kinds of things happened. Some of his parents fights had even been about Robert being out with someone else. Suspicions. Maybe they were true. Maybe they weren't.

But why would Robert ever want to come home to this? To his bitch wife and his worthless son?

Venus thinks he's special. And for a moment, Adam lets himself feel special from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes. Venus sees him. Venus thinks he's special. He is not unknowable. He is knowable by a very few.

"You've always been nice to me." He says with a shrug. But it also implies that not very many people have been nice to Adam Parrish. Venus stands out in that way. Adam craves niceness without pity. Kindness is different coming from Venus than it is coming from Gansey.

[venusvandam]

"I will always be nice to you, sweetheart. You have my word on that," she tells him quietly. "You matter and you are worth all the good things."

Just briefly, she touches his cheek and then lets her hand drop. "I think," she then says with a low laugh, "that I might be showing my age and saying that going around in circles isn't doing my head any good at all. Do you mind if I move to the edge?"

[adamparrish]

It's a promise that Adam isn't sure anyone but Venus could keep. She just doesn't seem to have a cruel bone in her body. She seems like she could be fiercely protective of people, but not in an outright cruel way, more so in an appropriately reactive sort of way.

"You matter too." He says, wondering if that means as much to Venus as it does to him.

When she says she needs to move, he quickly shakes his head. No, he doesn't mind. He'll move to the edge with her and finish up his sandwich there. "When the fair was in town, here, I mean, I got to go for the first time. It was all free... somehow. But some of the rides made me feel sick too. Ronan made me ride them anyway."

And in spite of the sick, it was so much fun anyway. Being there with Ronan, doing things with Ronan. "I liked the ferris wheel the best... and the house of mirrors." The house of mirrors was only fun because he and Ronan had played hide and seek in it. Adam teased Ronan into eventually tackling him and kissing him. It was probably the most fun Adam has ever let himself have.

[venusvandam]

"That Ferris Wheel was fun, wasn't it?" she says, feet happily on the ground again. Her head will stop feeling swampy in a second, she's sure. "Derek and I went on that as well."

And he'd kissed her high up in the sky and it had been so nice. "Are you glad that Ronan made you ride all those rides? If I was feeling a little low, I'm not so sure I would feel so generous," she teases about herself. She does, though, reach over to give Adam's knee a squeeze. She does matter and it matters that Adam thinks so. That matters.