itinere | open | i heard that you make old things new; so I give these pieces all to you

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the raven cycle: adam parrish

open | i heard that you make old things new; so I give these pieces all to you

Since the arrival of the other three members of their group, Adam had been scarce. He purposefully stayed at work at the garage extra late. The sickness had kind of made it an easy excuse for him to bow out of sleeping in the same bed as Ronan. His erratic presence at the apartment made it easy to avoid actually talking. On June 1st though, after hyposprays and everyone being magically healed, it was the first true test for him and Ronan and Adam failed.

Instead of going home, he stayed at the garage until he couldn't stand the same four walls anymore. Then he went out to the forests of Itinere where the ley lines were. He worked on repairing them for Ronan. At least he could do one thing right, one thing to help. Maybe Ronan would notice he had done this for him. Maybe he wouldn't.

Adam would stay out in the forests way past dark, taking his time, doing what he thought needed to be done. Then he would head back in town to walk through the park, sit on a merry-go-round and push at it with his feet to move it around. The metal squeaked and after a quick trip to the garage, he came back to dismantle and oil the merry-go-round to keep it from squeaking so loudly.

Probably another thing no one would notice. Productive, though. Adam Parrish felt productive and useful... busy, even now at some god awful time in the night or morning. And he supposed that was the point.

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That slight clicking against pavement alerts Adam toward knowing he isn't alone. But he expects whoever it is will walk on by. Adam is usually very good at being invisible. Of course, a boy in the park repairing a merry-go round at god knows what hour is noticeable, no matter how dark, no matter how dim the streetlights.

So when a voice calls out, he isn't entirely surprised. Only a little. And only a little, because not just anyone would call out to a stranger at this hour. Itinere seemed to have good people in it though. Whoever it was must have caught onto that too.

Adam twists to look back at the woman on the sidewalk. "Yeah, I'm..." He gestures to the merry-go-round. "It was squeaking. Loudly." And Adam fixed things, even when he and people around him, are so very broken and beyond his comprehension.

"That is very generous of you," she tells him, smiling. She would agree with the people of Itinere seeming to be on the whole good. That and she has weapons on her person, just in case.

Venus knows of broken people. Perhaps it is that she too is broken, she and Derek. But what is broken can be fixed.

Or at least the squeaks can be greased.

"Do you need any assistance?" she asks. She's not above helping, you see, even in a mini skirt and high heels.

Generous? Adam hadn't really thought of it that way. Mostly, he was trying to prove to himself that he was good for something, that he wasn't the worthless piece of shit his father always said he was. Right now he feels kind of worthless. He's messing everything up because he's afraid. He's the very definition of self-sabotage and self-destruction. It's all his own fault.

But maybe she's right. Generous. That's one good thing. Is one good thing enough to keep Ronan and keep all of his friends? Probably not. His mind is obviously in a tailspin, a dive bomb of emotions.

"I can handle it." It's mostly the mini skirt and heels that makes Adam answer with that. She doesn't look like she's up for getting dirty and greasy, for having grass stains on her pretty skirt.

"Why're y'out so late?" His Henrietta accent came through in that one, the accent that came from the wrong parts of town that he usually tried to hide around anyone Aglionby, including his friends.

Venus's accent was entirely adopted. She knows all about making things up. Faking it until it can be made.

She's also used to getting physically and psychologically dirty and isn't averse to it. So, at the moment, she sits on a picnic bench under a light that may reveal that she is not the most delicate of women. "My job is ... it's not fitting of banker's hours."

Adam wishes he were better at faking it. Unfortunately, he screams poverty. He always has. Even those times when Gansey has dressed him up to make him fit in with his family, people could tell the truth about him. It's a constant lesson he's learning to accept this about himself, to not let it define him. Someday, maybe he'll get there.

He knows a lot of jobs don't work bankers hours. Hell, he's out here fixing a merry-go-round at whatever god awful hour it was. That was by choice though. But he has no idea what her job might be.

He turns back to the merry-go-round to continue working. "I'm guessing you're not a mechanic."

Don't be too sure about being so obvious, cute boy. Poverty is in the eye of the beholder, after all.

Venus chuckles at his question, though, and shakes her head. "No, I am not, though, I suppose it can be argued that I tinker."

Just with bodies and desires rather than with motors and squeaky playground equipment.

"I haven't been in a playground in a dog's age," she says, looking around. She kicks off her heels and pads barefoot over to the swings where she can sit, kick off the dirt and start to fly, just a little. "Is that what you are? A mechanic?"

That's pretty much what Adam does, he tinkers until he makes things work. And he takes her comment at face value rather than questioning if it has another meaning. He has no reason to question it just yet.

"I'm not usually much for playgrounds either." But right now it was providing a safe haven that he needed for the moment.

The grass rustles and he looks up to see her walking barefoot in the grass to the swing set. Instantly, he thinks she's okay. High class people don't normally go walking barefoot in parks around strangers at late night or early morning hours. She seems more down to earth.

"Yeah. I own a garage in town." He looks up to her. "You need somethin' fixed?"

"Oh, no," she says, waving a hand as she swings higher. "I don't have a car or anything like that. But I did often wonder about those Segways. Have you seen those things? It's like ... well, it's like an upright scooter, I guess. That would be zippy around town, wouldn't it be?" She is down to earth. Down to earth enough to consider a Segway unironically.

"You must be a handy friend to have," she tells him, her legs out straight in front of her in a quest for more height. "I'm Venus, by the way, sweetheart."

"I've seen those." Among the rich kids at Aglionby. The looked so silly to him. Why use them when you had two perfectly good legs and feet? But they were also beyond his pay grade, and Adam worked three jobs. It probably didn't help that his money, what money his dad didn't steal for bills and beer, went toward paying his tuition.

Now his money was his own. And he still never seemed to have enough for things he didn't absolutely need.

"I'm Adam." He tells her. "I'm good in a pinch, I guess. If you need something." Friend material though, he knows how hard it is to be his friend a lot of the time.

It's funny, isn't it? Here in Itinere, two people who would never cross paths spend time talking in the middle of the night.

And the fact that Adam offers, even if it's meant lightly, means something to Venus - Outside of the Sons, it's unusual to receive such offers, even if Adam doesn't consider himself good friend material. Venus is more used to being mocked, honestly. And while she's never worked three jobs, it's only because of her freak status: she can ask for more money, you see.

"I wish I could offer in like, sweetheart, but ... I suppose I don't have much to offer, not really. Not for a nice boy like you anyway," she says with a rueful smile. "Except a good ear and I can actually make pretty good homemade ice cream, actually."

A nice boy? So few people had ever called Adam Parrish nice, or complimented him at all, that it makes him pause to look over to her again. After a moment though, he turns back to his work.

"If I were better at talking, I guess I could use that." He says this not to be rude, just to let her know that being a good listener is actually a good thing to offer, even if he sucks at giving her anything to listen to. Adam so rarely talks about himself though. Even his friends have to drag things out of him or find things out vicariously.

He sighs. "Where do you even start when everything is so messed up?"

Well, that had Venus's attention. Venus starts to slow her swinging, her brow furrowed as she drags her feet in the sand to slow down.

"If everything's all messed up," she says, the swing slowly stilling, "you work on what you can fix, sweetheart. One little bit at a time, I suppose."

Adam just sits there for a moment, taking in those words. Work on what you can fix. He taps the wrench in his hand lightly on the metal of the merry-go-round, making a light tinkering sound. He's doing that here, see?

"One little bit at a time." He says with a nod. Fat lot of good it will do him, aside from reminding him that he is good at something and good for something.

When her swing has stilled, Venus gets up, coming over to sit on the merry go round near the boy. It's a calculated risk, you see. The closer she gets under that pooled light, the more likely Adam is to see that she is not exactly what she purports to be. But he's sweet and he's clearly hurting and it is not in her to hold back if she can help in any way.

"I know," she say with a small smile, "that it can, at times, seem overwhelming. I really do. We have to take hope and solace where we can. There is always hope and there is always solace, even when it may not seem like there is."

The merry-go-round creaks just a bit when she sits on it, as metal things do with any amount of weight. Nothing to be done about that. It's the squeak when it's going around that Adam's trying to fix. He doesn't even really look at her just yet. Adam rarely looks directly into other people's eyes, a lesson learned well from his father and the way he beat on Adam so much.

"Where's the hope and solace when you might lose the only good thing to ever happen to you?" Yes, that's really how Adam saw Ronan. Ronan was the only good thing he'd had here. They'd worked so hard to get past Adam's uncertainty and insecurities. And now... Adam was the one tearing them apart because of those very things.

"Why ... "

That sounds dire. But Venus knows too well that sentiment. Why, any time Tig and the others went out, there was always the risk that he wouldn't come back. Here, well, the jury might still be waiting out the verdict of what would come of her and Derek, there is little argument that he is a good man.

"What makes you think you'll love it, sweetheart?" she asks, voice low.

While Adam is older for his age, forced to grow up quickly and having had little to no childhood, he is still only just eighteen. That transitional age between being a teenager and being an adult. Things are still dire to him, no matter how grown up he is.

It takes him a moment to finally look up, somewhere just below her eyes. He's still weighing his options on how much to say or what to say when he notices that she's different. She's not...

Oh.

He shifts his eyes back up from where the had dropped to just below hers again. All the names he can hear his dad calling him come to mind. Robert Parrish would say the same things of her (him?). Adam Parrish does not want to be like Robert Parrish. So he moves on. For now.

"Because I'm afraid." He says. "Of what people will think. And say." Adam cares about those kinds of things. He always has. He always will, even if he knows he shouldn't.

The first time he had kissed Ronan he could hear his dad's voice in his mind calling him a faggot or a queer, telling him what a disappointment he was, how worthless, a waste of space. Sometimes words were a harsher blow than Robert Parrish's fists. Now, he'd gotten past that for the most part. With his friends here, all of it had reared its ugly head again. Maybe he wasn't as past it as he thought.

"Oh, sugar." The words come out quiet, nearly a whisper.

Oh, yes. Venus can relate to that.

"If there is one thing I have learned, it is that we cannot control how other people think or what they will say." His look to her and away is ample evidence for that, isn't it?

"And it comes down, in my experience, to figuring out if what it is you have is worth the risk. Life is made of risks. And I think you know that."

There's something about Adam's eyes that tells her that.

"So ... if someone says something about your precious thing ... well, I say you fight for it." Her voice is still quiet, but firm. "Fight and hold on to it as if your very life depends on it."

"I'm not very good at fighting." Adam confesses. The statement is true, of course, unless the Greywaren has dreamed too much, broken the ley lines enough to drive Cabeswater, and Adam, to insanity. Then, Adam seems to do nothing but fight with people and slowly go crazy.

Otherwise, he's used to hunkering down and taking whatever lashing is coming, physical or not. Adam Parrish has been a punching bag for so long that it's second nature to him to block everything that hurts out. It comes off as being cold and distant. Really, it's just survival instinct.

Amazingly enough, talking to this stranger is easier than talking to anyone else. "If he doesn't want me anymore, now that our friends are here, how am I supposed to hold on? I mean he could have anyone. I know that. And I know... I'm a whole lot more trouble than..." He shrugs.

Once upon a time, two punching bags sat on a merry-go-round and talked about love ....

Venus is quiet as she parses through what Adam says. A boy, new friends, new dynamic.

"What makes you think you are trouble, sugar?" she asks, head cocked. "What makes you think you aren't exactly what he wants, mmm?" She smiles just a little. "From where I sit, you seem like a good catch." She's not just saying that either; he's cute as hell, conscientious, kind...

"I only just figured out that I like..." Boys and girls? Just Ronan? Was he gay? Was he bisexual? Was he Ronan-sexual? He has no idea. How people classify that kind of thing is up in the air and Adam goes back and forth between understanding that it's okay to like Ronan and being disgusted with himself, as his father would say he should be.

"He has to put up with me... figuring out how to be this way." It's obviously difficult for Adam to talk about. "You know... liking him."

He looks up to Venus again. "I'm not a good catch. I mean sometimes it's so easy." With Ronan. "And sometimes I can't... understand why it's so easy." So he makes it difficult as he thinks it should be. Adam Parrish is his own worst enemy in thanks to Robert Parrish's incessant voice in the back of his mind.

He should hate Robert Parrish. But in a sad and Stockholm syndrome kind of way, he loves him. And he misses him. There are too many layers here to fully explain to Venus.

Ah, but some of those layers show through very clearly in what the sweet boy says. Venus knows too well how love and hate can seem like the very same thing. After all, it wasn't that Venus killed her mother; Jackson had to do it, even as she spewed truly terrible things at him.

"He sounds like a wonderful boy," she says, because it takes patience to do that. Patience and kindness. "And that means that you mean something to him, too, darlin'. It takes time, doesn't it? Not to question things." As she does with Derek, as she has done. "To just ... go with the flow, as it were." When the flow can seem so very strange.

There is nothing disgusting about love, though. Nothing at all. Love is - or it should be - good and sweet and kind, patient.

"It sounds like," she decides, voice gentle, "you are so very hard on yourself."

"He's a pain in my --..." Adam trails off before he can use any language like that in front of a woman. The words have no sharp edges though, because really, Adam thinks Ronan hung the moon. He's wished he were more like Ronan Lynch from the moment he first saw him. Unfortunately, they're the exact opposite in every way.

He looks to her again, avoiding her eyes as he shrugs. "I deserve it." Things being hard, being hard on himself, all of it.

"I question everything." He adds. "It's a habit that you sound like you know about."

"Well," she smiles a little, looking down at her hands. "I don't often question myself, actually." And that is not a lie. It is only in times of extreme duress that her self-love fails her. She is very comfortable in her own skin, for better or worse. It is only when she cannot trust the emotions of others that she finds herself on shaky ground. "I wish everyone else were as reliable. But what makes you think that you don't deserve good things?"

The pain in the ass comment is taken for what she knows it is. Affection.

"That must be nice." Not to question yourself, to be comfortable in your own skin, to feel awake when your eyes are open.

Adam shrugs, pausing to give it some thought. He knows why he doesn't deserve good things. People who come from where he comes from don't get good things. Adam Parrish was worthless, just like his father had said. Adam Parrish was either going to kill Gansey or find Glendower first and wish Gansey's death away.

With the darkness he had discovered within himself regarding Greenmantle and Ronan, he feared the first possibility to be more true than the last. Would Ronan still want him if he knew the prophecy Adam had seen?

"Some people aren't worthy. They come from dirt and they're always dirt." He finally says, speaking of himself.

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