Open : Well, isn't this a relief?

[venusvandam]

There had been more than a few moments when Venus had threatened to lose hope. She is strong: she knows that. She showed that. It's just that things were so very grim for a while there: no power, food that was difficult to come by, things that chewed other things, all of it could get a lady down.

But, now that things are looking better, well, so is Venus. Now that the sky is back (and as strange as that is and things are just ... better. Showers are so very nice, and so is being able to cook. Between helping Derek to get the fitness center back into order and getting her apartment back into order (though she misses having a reason to sleep with Derek every night), Venus is busy. But when she has a bag of homemade food (chicken and potato salad), she ventures toward the garage where she knows Adam works. She wants to see him! She's missed him! She's worried. So, she hopes he's there. She hopes he's all right.

She hopes they've all come out the other side of all this insanity all right.

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[adamparrish]

Adam can't and won't argue that Ronan is a good catch. The truth is that Adam has always idolized him in every way even before he knew Ronan Lynch. Now, yes, he sees all those imperfections up close, and that's only served to make Adam admire him even more. Ronan's imperfections make him a little more attainable.

Now, why he's with Adam, Adam will probably never know.

"Did she beat you up?" It's such a forward question. But the way Adam asks it is so tentative and genuinely curious. It's a horrific thing but it's said so casually because of the dilution that happens when having experienced something similar.

[venusvandam]

Ah, if only. Venus's smile doesn't reach her eyes; it is small and tremulous and terribly sad. She tucks hair back behind her ear, ducking her head for a moment. However, she doesn't shy away from answering Adam. He deserves that.

"When she found out that ... well, that I am not the most normal of people, she used that against me. I became the foundation for her very lucrative video pornography business. I was young- I was so very young."

She will go into more detail if she needs to, but she may not need to.

[adamparrish]

She didn't need to go into more detail. And Adam figured that if she had stopped there then there was a reason for that, so he wouldn't push her to say more than she was comfortable with. He got the gist of it anyway so he nods slowly and shoves more potato salad into his mouth.

"I don't really like most people." He admits after a moment. People are judgmental and cruel. Grown ups and kids alike. His parents. His teachers who knew something was going on and did nothing. Kids at Aglionby who knew he was so poor. Adam never felt good enough for any of these people. He wanted not to care. It just made him try harder to be better.

He shrugs. "It probably evens out. Most people don't care all that much for me either." Adam pauses, setting the food aside. "Your mom deserves what she got."

[venusvandam]

Venus has wanted to like most people. And she has wanted most people to like her. The lot of the outsider, perhaps.

To what Adam says, though, she keeps smiling, albeit even more darkly before it fades away all together. "She does. She got shot point blank." Venus taps her chest. Right there, by Jackson.

Looking over to Adam, she asks, "and your father?"

[adamparrish]

It might make them both despicable people to subscribe to the 'she deserves what she gets' line of thinking. But Adam has never claimed not to be a despicable person, quite the opposite, actually. He knows fully well the darkness that resides in his own mind and heart and will never claim that it isn't there.

The difference here is that Adam has a sort of stockholm syndrome when it comes to his parents. He thinks he deserves what his parents did to him. He wishes they would love him. He wishes he were whatever they wanted him to be.

It's hard to reconcile those feelings with what he says next. "The night he hit me so hard he took the hearing from this ear, Ronan was there. Ronan beat the crap out of my dad. The cops showed up and my dad played the victim. I had to make a choice. I pressed charges so that the cops would let Ronan go."

He shrugs, looking over to Venus. What does she think of him choosing Ronan over his dad? "We went to court. He might be going to jail." Might. That much hasn't been decided yet.

[venusvandam]

Surely, Adam will notice that Venus's expression in no way turns judgemental about his choices. Her eyes do darken when he talks of his father causing permanent damage. In her mind, then, Adam of course made the right choice. How they both ended up here will remain a mystery, but it seems Ronan has, since the start, proved himself to be a good person.

Venus likes that about him.

"I hope he goes to jail," she says quietly. "I hope at least in that way, he pays for what he did to you. You did not deserve to be treated that way, sweetheart, not by a long shot. You deserve good things. Only good things."

[adamparrish]

"Sometimes I hope he does too." Adam says, a roundabout admission to his confusion on the matter. On one hand he knows his dad belongs in jail, or maybe Adam should have just moved out a long time ago. On the other hand his mother will be alone now. He probably did stuff to piss his dad off, legitimately. Sometimes that line is blurred.

He shrugs. "I kind of like it here cause I don't have to deal with it." As long as Robert Parrish doesn't show up here, then Itinere is far better than Henrietta could ever be. "But he's still, I can still hear him, you know?"

Adam isn't sure he deserves good things. People keep saying he does. But he isn't sure. He's done some horrible things. His mind is so dark sometimes. He's not always a good person. Maybe he's gotten exactly what he deserves. But he doesn't argue it aloud. He really wants Venus to like him. Talking himself down doesn't seem very smart. And even if Adam isn't always good, he is pretty smart.

[venusvandam]

What could he have possibly done to warrant being beaten?! Nothing.

Venus could spend all her days here trying to remind him of that. It's now one of her goals.

"If he does show up here for some reason," she says, quietly and tentatively, "something can be done like was done for me. But that is something that cannot be undone." She has a hunch, after all, that Ronan could deal with this, too. But sometimes it takes someone outside the situation too, like Jackson was.

She will not pressure him about this. There is nothing more personal. But the offer is out there and ideally, he will not take offense to being made such an offer.

[adamparrish]

After what Ronan and he had done to Greenmantle, Adam takes no offense to the offer. How could he? He's dark on the inside and now Ronan knows how dark. Venus probably knows too. He does look over to her for a long moment before he quickly averts his gaze as he always ends up doing first.

Right now Adam is selfishly wishing for Venus not to go away as people tend to do here. If this place runs on some kind of wish magic, then he's keeping her here through sheer force of will. How terrible of him.

"Do you wanna see what I'm making Ronan?" He asks her.

[venusvandam]

Really, were Adam to tell Venus that he wills her to stay, she would be quite flattered and very touched. She has no intention of leaving as she has nothing waiting for her of note back in Charming and here, she has Derek and Adam - people who legitimately care about her: a kind of family, really, in a place that, despite recent events, is and can be quite nice.

"I would like to see that," she says, making sure the food is in a state that it can be moved and saved for Adam to eat more of later.

[adamparrish]

Adam pushes up off the couch and moves across the expansive space. There's a dirty tarp covering something in the corner. Adam carefully peels it away so as not to mess anything up. Underneath, a nearly completed motorcycle is there. There's nothing shiny or new about it, which is very much an Adam thing.

He looks back to Venus and shoves his hands in his pockets. "He likes to drive really fast and... this barely weighs anything so it'll go really fast."

[venusvandam]

"Oh, my," she says, coming closer. While she may not be an expert on motorcycles, some of her time with SAMCRO has to have rubbed off or been transferred by osmosis. She reaches out carefully, respectfully, to touch, tracing along the seat. "This looks like it will go very face and I'm sure you'll do what you can to make it safe," she says, gaze flicking back to Adam. To control what can be controlled.

They both know, after all, that they can only control so much, but what they can should be controlled, if at all possible.

[adamparrish]

Up until this point, when she's walking over to the motorcycle and touching it, Adam hadn't known how much he'd wanted her approval. He doesn't know why it's important to him. But he's never gotten praise anywhere before, not from any adults. Just Venus. And he wants her to be proud of him on some very basic level instinct.

He realizes then that Venus is slowly but surely helping him to let go of whatever broken bits and pieces he's been holding onto of his parents. That realization surprises him. He's been subconsciously putting Venus in that empty space where he's been letting go of his hopes that his parents would someday love and accept him. He finds himself taking a step backward from her and the bike, giving himself some space to analyze that.

He's not sure he's ready to let go, or capable. Maybe that makes him a masochist. He has no idea.

[venusvandam]

Perhaps it does make him a masochist, and yet, Venus knows all to well how easy it is to hold to the familiar, be it bad or good. In their case, of course, it's bad. It's why she didn't trust telling her son about who she was: hate runs deep in their family; she would rather live a lie where her son loves her as a beloved aunt than risk him hating her as his father.

"You are very skilled," she tells Adam, turning her head to see where he now stands, fingertips still resting on the bike's seat. "I imagine Ronan will love this." For any number of reasons.

[adamparrish]

"I hope he does." Adam says with a shrug. He's never sure with Ronan. Ronan is rich, could have anything he wants at the drop of a hat. He drives a gleaming BMW, after all. This bike is all different colored parts, none of the shinned, everything mismatched and nothing like brand name bikes out there.

Adam made this.

"He's used to expensive, new things." Not like Gansey. But almost like Gansey.

[venusvandam]

"Well," Venus says, moving to face Adam more directly. "If he doesn't like it, he's a fool and if there's one thing he didn't strike me as, it's a fool." No, Ronan, in the brief time they talked, struck Venus as viciously smart. "Why, you put part of yourself in this, sweetheart. That makes it even better than something new and shiny."

Of course, the boys at SAMCRO would both agree and disagree all at once: sometimes she misses them. "New things aren't always what they're cracked up to be anyway."