Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5195453.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Raven_Cycle_-_Maggie_Stiefvater
  Relationship:
      Adam_Parrish/Adam_Parrish, Richard_Gansey_III/Adam_Parrish
  Character:
      Adam_Parrish, Richard_Gansey_III
  Additional Tags:
      Self-cest, Oral_Sex, Hand_Jobs, Angst, Cabeswater_shenanigans, character
      death_mention
  Collections:
      The_Raven_Cycle_Ship_Swap
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-11-12 Words: 8846
****** And If It Makes You Less Sad ******
by Zee
Summary
     “What’s going on?” Adam asked, after considering and discarding
     several other questions.
     The other Adam shrugged one shoulder, and Adam’s gaze caught on his
     collarbone--christ, he was bony. “Several things at once,” the other
     Adam said, his voice dry and amused. “You’re doing a task for
     Cabeswater, which means you’re tapped into the ley line. I’m
     traveling on the ley line. And Cabeswater itself, well. It’s
     meddling.”
Henrietta was dealing with its eighth straight day of heavy rain. October
always had plenty of rainy days to herald the end of Virginia’s typically long
summers, but this kind of onslaught was unusual. It was taking its toll on
Adam--on all of them, really: Ronan snapped more than usual, Gansey looked
tired and forlorn, Blue often scowled up at the sky. Noah did not seem to care.
It wasn’t just that Adam missed the sun. Since Blue had given him the details
of her vision, every rainy day gave him a stress headache and a knot in his
shoulders, all his worry about Gansey taking form in his flesh. He kept trying
to find reasons why today couldn’t be the day: Gansey won’t die today because
it’s the weekend--he’s not in his Aglionby sweater. Gansey won’t die today
because all we’re doing is hanging out at Nino’s and Gansey can’t die in
Nino’s. Gansey won’t die today because his mother is in the middle of a media-
heavy political event and he wouldn’t do that to her.
He knew that Blue felt it too, every time they locked eyes when it was damp
outside. He watched her watching Gansey, her hands making abortive fluttering
gestures as if she wanted to touch him but couldn’t let herself. Adam tried not
to resent her for how badly she wanted him; this thing they shared, this heavy
morbid secret, was larger than any petty jealousy that still squatted inside
him.
He thought about telling Ronan, often. But he knew he wouldn’t, and he knew
why: because he had no idea what Ronan would do if he found out. He was an
uncontrollable variable. Adam was afraid that he might tell Gansey or do
something stupid, but more than that he was deeply reluctant to feel Ronan’s
wrath. Adam vividly remembered Ronan’s words from his tree vision, and he was
in no hurry to experience anything like that fury.
It was a Sunday, and the sky was spitting down raindrops, and for the first
time in weeks Adam had a day completely free of work. He didn’t sleep in.
Instead he woke at 7:30 to the feel of leaves and sticks brushing his cheek.
There was nothing there when he opened his eyes, of course, but when he swung
his feet out from the bed to his floor, he stood on wet river stones.
His floor turned back into the usual hardwood as he walked to the bathroom to
brush his teeth, but Adam got the picture. He wasn’t off the hook--he had a
different job to do today. Cabeswater didn’t care that it was wet out and Adam
didn’t own a good raincoat.
When he checked his phone, he found a text from Gansey, who’d been up even
earlier than Adam. Or maybe he’d never gone to sleep. Ronan and I are going to
go pick up an unholy amount of Egg McMuffins. Come over for breakfast? You can
bring your homework.
Can’t. Work. Adam texted back. He didn’t want to tell Gansey that he had to do
things for Cabeswater, because Gansey would be interested and maybe try to come
with. The thought made Adam nervous. He preferred to keep Gansey away from
otherworldly, potentially dangerous things on rainy days.
Besides, ever since Persephone died Adam preferred to do his Cabeswater tasks
alone.
He listened to Ronan’s shitbox sing-along on the way to the forest. Somehow
he’d gotten into the habit of putting on the tape instead of turning on the
radio; there was some decent stuff buried amongst the terrible meme songs and
Skrillex. And every time Adam thought about Ronan dreaming about the mix tape
in order to create it he made himself laugh.
The walk from his car to the edge of the forest was short, but still long
enough to soak him. When Adam stepped over the treeline, the rain stopped, but
the sky was still gray and joyless. Adam didn’t have much sunlight in him
today.
He kneeled on the forest floor and pulled out his tarot deck, drawing three
cards. The Lovers, the Tower, and the Moon. He stared and let his mind go
still. A direction nagged at him, and a vague idea of the task he had to do
floated to the surface of his vision. He gathered up the deck and got to his
feet, walking deeper into the forest.
He arrived at his destination before too long. It was a young aspen tree,
barely up to his waist, its delicate bright leaves utterly out of place among
the loblolly and shortleaf pine. Adam brushed his fingers along the branches at
the top, and it quaked at his touch. It didn’t seem right for it to be all
alone like this, and he wondered if Cabeswater would produce more of them, to
give it some company.
He kneeled and let the bag on his shoulder drop to the ground, fishing a small
trowel out of it. He dug carefully, doing his best not to injure any roots, and
it was good to focus on the task in front of him, good to feel dirt at his
fingertips and beneath his knees. It distracted him from thoughts of Gansey and
Blue and Ronan. The trees were whispering to him vaguely, but he knew it wasn’t
important enough for him to stop and really listen. They were just showing
their appreciation, their admiration.
When the tree was free, he grabbed his bag and headed West. He didn’t have far
to go before he came to the right clearing. Coming to the center of it, he got
back down on his knees and again began to dig.
Adam felt the intruder before he heard them. There was a sensation that he
could only describe as a sort of shimmer, running over his shoulders and the
backs of his thighs, and as he turned to look he heard the crunch of sticks on
the ground and the rustle of leaves. Adam tensed, thinking wildly of Whelk or
Greenmantle or perhaps some new enemy, but before he could even get to his feet
the person walked through the tree line and saw him.
It took a while for Adam to make sense of what he was seeing. The shapes were
there, the colors and the outline, but it all made up something so illogical
that his first instinct was to reject it. This new person was Adam Parrish. He
wore different clothes and he was skinnier, but it was still Adam.
This strange new Adam didn’t seem surprised to run into himself. He stopped
walking when he saw Adam, and smiled. It was a strange smile to see on his own
face: sardonic and confident, more like a sneer than a smile. It did things to
his features that Adam didn’t like.
“Hi,” the new Adam said. He wore a plain black t-shirt with a few small holes
at the collar and sleeves, and a pair of jeans that Adam recognized. He was
looking around the clearing with interest and scuffing a toe on the ground. He
didn’t seem to be in any hurry to explain himself. Adam sat back on his heels,
keenly aware of the quick pounding of his own heart.
Was he dreaming? He remembered what he’d felt like at the beginning of summer,
when he never knew whether he was awake or asleep, when Cabeswater’s pull
constantly shifted reality around him. This didn’t feel like that. This other
Adam was close and physical and real; when he stretched his arms up over his
head, his t-shirt slid up to reveal hair on his stomach below his navel.
Somewhere in the forest, Adam could hear birds. He was wide awake.
“What’s going on?” Adam asked, after considering and discarding several other
questions. A breeze was picking up in the meadow, the wind whipping past Adam’s
ears and ruffling the other Adam’s hair. He didn’t know whether this was
Cabeswater picking up on his own apprehension, or his double’s.
The other Adam shrugged one shoulder, and Adam’s gaze caught on his collarbone-
-christ, he was bony. “Several things at once,” the other Adam said, his voice
dry and amused. “You’re doing a task for Cabeswater, which means you’re tapped
into the ley line. I’m traveling on the ley line. And Cabeswater itself, well.
It’s meddling.”
Adam shook his head, more to clear it than out of any disagreement. Nothing
this other Adam was saying cleared anything up at all. “You’re traveling. Are
you from the future? The past? What the--what the fucking hell are you doing
here?” he said, letting some of his astonishment and apprehension slip through.
The other Adam shrugged again. That habit was beginning to get on Adam’s
nerves. “That depends. I don’t know when or where you’re from, either. Tell me
about this timeline. What day is it? What’s been happening around you lately?”
The way he said ‘around you’ made Adam bristle, as if he were implying that
Adam was somehow the locus of all the weird shit that happened in Henrietta.
Also, Adam had no idea how much he should tell him if this was, in fact, actual
time travel; didn’t giving a time traveler information often have dire
consequences? His thoughts were racing and he didn’t know how to react, what to
say. He was so used to Cabeswater throwing curve balls at him, but this was
entirely new.
When he expressed his fears about screwing up the timeline to his other self,
the other Adam threw his head back and laughed. He told Adam not to worry about
it, and added that he’d been in the forest for a very long time. There was
something about him, a looseness to his limbs and a lazy tilt to his eyes, that
made him seem more carefree, or perhaps simply careless. Adam was reminded
uncomfortably of Ronan, and much like when he let Ronan talk him into doing
stupid things, it was tempting to believe that anything he did in this
encounter could mean anything in the real world.
So Adam told him about rescuing Blue’s parents from the cave two weeks ago, and
about framing Greenmantle, and about Persephone’s death--the last of which made
the other Adam bite his lip and turn his face away. When Adam pushed, he found
out that Persephone was still alive wherever this other Adam came from. The
knowledge sank to the bottom of his stomach and soured. There existed a reality
where she lived, so what had gone so wrong with this one? What had Adam done
wrong?
They established quickly that this interloper Adam was from a separate world
completely, not necessarily the past or the future of Adam’s world. According
to the new Adam, Cabeswater spanned many realities, acting as a nexus of sorts.
That made sense; Adam remembered Cabeswater on the fourth of July, remembered
seeing a Ronan who was clearly dreaming. Anything was possible here, and it was
not so difficult to accept the presence of his double.
The other Adam said he’d met many other Adams as he wandered. Adam wanted to
know how he measured up against these other variations. Had others found ways
to succeed where he’d failed?
But when he asked about this, he got nothing. “It’s one of my rules. I can’t
tell myself anything about what’s going on in any of the other timelines I’ve
visited. There’s no way to know how I might fuck things up by doing that.”
“Surely you being here at all is fucking things up,” Adam pressed, but his
double just shook his head. They were sitting on the grass facing each other,
the aspen tree forgotten at Adam’s side. They were both uprooting blades of
grass, dissecting them and discarding them. It was odd to see his own nervous
habits reflected back at him.
“Probably I am fucking things up, yeah,” the other Adam said. “But all the
same, I try not to give out information when I visit myself. All I’m giving is
the gift of my presence.” He smirked, his tanned skin pulling taut over his
sharp cheekbones, and Adam wondered when was the last time he’d had a proper
meal. This Adam was practically a walking skeleton. He looked breakable, but
Adam knew he wasn’t.
“‘Your presence.’ What are you even doing here, anyway? Did Cabeswater send
you?” Adam couldn’t think of why Cabeswater would need to do something like
that, but it was one explanation for the impossible event before him. Adam
needed an explanation, needed to live in a world where it wasn’t just casually
plausible to run into another version of himself in a forest. If this was
happening, fine, but there had to be a reason.
The other Adam met his eyes. The smirk was gone now. “Cabeswater didn’t send
me,” he said. “I’m here because--I--well, first I should tell you--” He sighed,
the breath puffing out his lips. “This part never gets easier. All right. I’m
here because my Gansey died and I lost myself in the woods trying to get him
back.”
The words washed over him and Adam thought: eight straight days of rain.
Strangely, he flashed on the sound of the Hondayota’s windshield wipers
squeaking, on the sensation of his shoes sinking into the muddy ground as he’d
walked from his car to the edge of the forest. He heard my Gansey died and his
mind wanted to retreat to the same far-away place it used to go when his father
hit him. He heard my Gansey died and panic flowed into his bloodstream.
While most of him was still reeling, Adam heard himself say flatly, “‘Your’
Gansey.”
The other Adam inclined his head, hearing the question there. “The Gansey from
my timeline. And also--man, sometimes when I tell you this part you like it,
and sometimes you really don’t. I don’t know which kind of Adam you are.
Regardless, yes, ‘my’ Gansey because he was mine. We were together.”
Adam had to look away. He twisted the grass in his hand hard enough to bite
into the flesh of his fingers. The concept of any version of him being together
with Gansey was shocking, yet at the same time it made so much click together
and make sudden sense. Was this at the root of all of Adam’s constantly
conflicting emotions regarding his best friend? Was this what Adam had been
pining for all those nights he’d laid awake, unable to sleep because he was
obsessing over something Gansey had said or done?
For how long had Adam had a crush on Gansey without realizing it?
Confusion gave way quickly to an anger that pressed against his eyes and
flooded his mouth. He felt attacked by things he’d kept buried for such a long
time, and it was so much worse that it was his own self doing the attacking. He
stood up and watched as the other Adam scrambled to stand also, his body
language already defensive--god, was he expecting to get hit? Was that
expectation the result of the father they’d shared, or had other Adams attacked
him?
“What do you mean, together?” Adam ground out, then covered his face with his
hand, pressing his fingers hard against his eyes. “No, I mean--don’t answer
that, I know. Just tell me--” Fuck. What was it he wanted to ask? Could the
other Adam give him any information that would make anything he’d already said
easier to bear? “Were you in love?”
Adam let his hand fall from his face and looked up. The other Adam was staring
at him, studying him. “In all the ways that mattered,” he said.
Adam nodded. He wanted to throw up. The thought of falling in love with Gansey
was terrifying, perhaps more so because he had a horrible feeling that he was
already there. “Tell me how he died.”
The other Adam gave him a thin smile. “I don’t know how much it’ll help to hear
it, considering how much your world has already diverged from mine at this
point.” He reached out, cupping Adam’s jaw, and Adam was too startled to step
back from the touch. It was not a gesture he would have expected from himself,
but then the other Adam’s touch turned hard, his fingernails digging into the
skin beneath Adam’s eye, and yes, this Adam recognized.
The other Adam let his hand drop. He laid out his facts deliberately, and it
was plain that he’d told this story many times before. Adam stood there,
absorbing each piece of information like a physical blow. He learned that
Gansey had died in January, that Piper had pulled the trigger, and that it was
all Adam’s fault in the end.
“I thought I could find a way to bring him back in Cabeswater,” the other Adam
said, his voice flat and his eyes dead. “I was overconfident, and it never
occurred to me that I might get lost. Cabeswater won’t let me starve, but it
also won’t show me the way back. I keep finding other worlds instead. And
honestly…” his voice trailed off, and then he laughed, a blunt ugly sound. “I
don’t care to go back. There’s nothing for me there.”
Adam had to swallow several times before he was able to speak. His mind,
usually so frenzied with analysis at all times, was giving him nothing, a blank
slate, a glass pond. “Gansey--sacrificed himself for you?”
The other Adam nodded. “I’ve met so many other Adams. Some of them have live
Ganseys, some of them have dead Ganseys. And--I’m sorry to tell you this--but I
can tell you that being in a romantic relationship with me seems to be the
leading cause of death for Ganseys across the board.”
Adam closed his eyes. He remembered the first time he met Gansey, remembered
the flood of positive and negative feelings Gansey had given him from the very
beginning. Being in love with him seemed obvious now. It made so much sense
that Adam felt stupid for not seeing it on his own, for needing an alternate
self to clue him in.
And there was no way to separate the fact of Adam’s feelings from the next
immediate fact, which was that his love meant Gansey’s sacrifice. He wasn’t the
Magician at all, as it turned out. He’d been Death this whole time.
The other Adam was asking him a question. Adam opened his eyes and shook his
head to clear it, trying to re-focus on his surroundings. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I said, I take it you and Gansey aren’t together in this world.”
Adam looked down at his hands. Callused, ripped cuticles, dirt under his
fingernails. He tried to pull himself into the present, listening to his
breathing the way Persephone had once told him to. “No, we’re not.”
The other Adam nodded. “I thought so.” He moved to sit down again, up on his
knees this time, and pulled something out of his back pocket. Adam recognized
his tarot cards immediately, and it got a surprised laugh out of him.
“What are you doing?” He got to his knees as well, his curiosity momentarily
distracting him from overwhelming thoughts of Gansey.
“I want to show you something. I don’t know if this will help or not, but most
of the Adams I’ve met seemed to get something out of it,” the other Adam said,
shrugging. LIcking his lips, he pulled three cards and laid them on the grass
between them. The Fool, the Chariot, and the Moon.
It had been a while since someone had drawn Tarot cards for Adam. It had been
since Persephone was alive. When someone else was doing the drawing, Adam could
never divine the same meaning he could get from his own drawing. The cards in
front of him didn’t spell out any kind of magical quest or Cabeswater
instructions; they were just pretty pictures.
Adam looked up at his double’s face, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The
other Adam was staring at the cards and frowning slightly. Eventually he gave a
little nod and looked up, meeting Adam’s eyes and grinning wide. That grin--
there was something so off about it, something wild. It didn’t remind Adam of
himself at all.
“Here,” the other Adam said, and leaned forward to grab Adam’s wrist. He drew
Adam’s hand down until Adam’s knuckles brushed the Chariot. The second Adam
touched the card, the forest around him disappeared.
He was in the Pig, speeding along the stretch of highway that led from
Cabeswater to Henrietta, Gansey at the wheel. Adam was sitting in the passenger
seat, and he swiftly realized that his body was moving without him telling it
to, his head turning to look at Gansey and laughter coming out of his mouth. He
didn’t have any control over himself--it was like he was a passenger, just
along for the ride.
It was horrible and he was starting to panic. He didn’t know what the other
Adam had been thinking, dropping him into this ucked up vision or whatever the
hell it was, and he wanted out.
Gansey was laughing and clapping his hands on the steering wheel for emphasis.
“This is it,” he said, his excited voice ringing out like a bell. “This is the
breakthrough we’ve been looking for! Oh my god, I can hardly believe it!”
“I can’t believe it, either,” Adam heard himself say. “It’s been so long.”
What was going on? Adam didn’t remember this particular configuration happening
with these exact words, so it wasn’t his own memory. If it were a dream he’d
probably have more control. He doubted that any version of himself, let alone
the skinny haunted version he’d met in the forest, had the power to show him
the future.
Now that he was calming down, he realized that he could feel the feelings that
the Adam he occupied was experiencing. It was like they were sharing space in
the same head. This Adam was feeling deeply affectionate toward Gansey, and
wanted to kiss him.
This must be one of the other Adam’s memories, Adam realized. That was why he
couldn’t control anything--all of this had already happened. Already Adam was
tempted to look away, because it felt like intruding, like he was seeing
something he wasn’t meant to see. But the other Adam had wanted to show him
this, for some reason. So Adam paid attention.
“I know. Couldn’t have done it without you,” Gansey said. Still grinning, he
grabbed Adam’s hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the knuckles before
pressing the palm against his cheek.
Adam smiled and said mildly, “Eyes on the road.” His thumb stroked down
Gansey’s cheekbone. This was an awfully familiar gesture, and it would have
been out of place in Adam’s current relationship with Gansey. So Gansey and
this Adam must already be together.
“Oh, to hell with it,” Gansey declared, and then he was pulling over sloppily,
almost into a ditch. He cut the engine and then turned to Adam, who was already
leaning forward, into Gansey’s embrace. Then they were kissing.
It was really strange to be kissing someone without having any control over the
kiss. Adam felt almost like he was watching it happen, but no, he could feel
everything: Gansey’s tongue against his teeth, Gansey’s hair in his hands.
Gansey moaned when Adam tugged at his hair, and gasped when Adam dragged his
teeth across Gansey’s jaw. One of his hands gripped Adam’s shoulder while the
other was at Adam’s waist, deft fingers stroking over Adam’s ribcage. Adam was
half-hard and he had Gansey’s white throat beneath his teeth and tongue.
If Adam had been in control of himself, rather than riding in the back of
someone else’s memory, he would have pulled back. This was just so much, this
was plunging him into making out with Gansey when he’d only just barely
realized he had feelings for Gansey at all. He loved it and he was scared by
how much he loved it. It didn’t seem right to love it. None of this was truly
for him.
“Can I?” Adam breathed into Gansey’s ear, his hand on Gansey’s fly.
“Yes, god, please,” Gansey whined, and Adam effortlessly flicked open the
button on his chinos, his fingers moving so surely that there was no doubt he’d
done this many times before. He pulled down the zipper and Adam felt himself
leaning down, leaning his head over Gansey’s lap--
He had only just realized what was about to happen when the memory vanished. He
was kneeling on the forest floor again, and when he opened his eyes the other
Adam was in front of him, staring at him intently.
Adam gasped for breath. His throat was dry and he could feel heat in his
cheeks. Mortifyingly, he seemed to be in the same half-hard state that he’d
experienced in the memory. He shifted, wondering if the other Adam could tell.
The other Adam still held Adam’s wrist. Adam yanked his hand back like he’d
been burned. “What thehell was that?”
“One of my memories. Tell me you figured that out, come on.” The other Adam
didn’t look at all apologetic. He regarded Adam coolly, the hollows beneath his
eyes seeming deep and dark in the gray light. He didn’t look like the same boy
that had been getting ready to go down on Gansey just a few seconds ago.
“Yeah, of course,” Adam said. “What makes you think you can just--yank me
around like that? And why?”
The other Adam picked at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans and didn’t
meet Adam’s gaze. “I knew you wouldn’t mind. Or, no--I knew you’d mind, but I
knew you’d be more curious than angry. But you wouldn’t have agreed if I’d told
you before you touched the card.”
Adam ground his teeth together. He wanted to contradict him, wanted to say that
this other Adam could go to hell if he thought Adam was more curious than
angry. He was plenty angry.
The other Adam looked up now, his gaze sharp. “As for the why. You’re not going
to make a move on Gansey, are you? Not now that you know what the consequences
could be.”
Adam couldn’t respond. He felt as if briars were filling his throat, choking
him. Briars really were growing beneath him, thorny vines curling around his
knees and pricking him through his pants.
“This is as close as you’re ever going to get to what you want,” the other Adam
said. “My memories. The feelings there. You can say no to the other two cards,
if you want.”
He didn’t say the rest: But I know you won’t. He didn’t have to. Adam had never
felt more exposed or less unknowable. This level of intimacy, of being utterly
unable to hide, went beyond unnerving: it chilled him, it spooked some prey-
animal part of him that wanted nothing more than to run.
But he couldn’t. The other Adam held his gaze and Adam didn’t look away.
Already he treasured the memory he’d just experienced--now he knew what it was
like to kiss Gansey, to touch him, those were his memories now. He wanted to
touch the next card the way he wanted Gansey’s respect, the way he wanted to
escape Henrietta, the way he used to want to kiss Blue. He couldn’t think about
anything else.
“Show me,” was all he said. The briars retreated from his knees, disappearing
quietly in the grass. The other Adam’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t
quite a smile, nothing like the dazzling grin he’d given earlier. He nodded and
reached for Adam’s wrist again, guiding his fingers to touch the middle card,
the Moon. The world dropped away.
He opened his eyes lying down, staring up at the ceiling. It was Monmouth’s
ceiling, and this was almost certainly Gansey’s bed, as Gansey was peering down
above him.
Gansey was touching his arm, too. His fingers squeezed. Adam was wearing only
boxers, and he could feel sweat cooling on his chest. “God, you had me worried.
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk in your sleep. You sounded truly
upset.”
“This is only the second time we’ve slept together,” Adam heard himself say. He
pushed himself up on his elbows and Gansey backed off a bit, but still kept a
hand on Adam’s arm. He was shirtless, too. “For all you know I talk in my sleep
all the time.”
Gansey ignored Adam’s grumbling. “I couldn’t make out what you were saying.
Mostly you just sounded like you were in pain. It must have been an awful
nightmare, do you remember it at all?”
“Sort of. I was in Cabeswater, and it was pouring rain, and… Ronan was there, I
think.” Gansey’s eyes widened, and they both glanced at Ronan’s bedroom door,
which was shut. Adam could hardly believe that his other self had apparently
felt fine spending the night with Gansey at Monmouth, where Gansey’s bed was in
the fucking living room and there was no privacy whatsoever.
“I was running from something, and then I tripped and fell, and then I was--
drowning. I could hear Ronan shouting, even underwater, but I don’t remember
what he was saying. And then I woke up.” Adam could hear himself say the words,
but this memory didn’t include the memory of whatever nightmare this had been.
It didn’t sound like anything Adam himself had dreamed before.
Gansey touched Adam’s forehead, smoothing his hair back. “That sounds horrible.
I wonder what it means.”
“It might not mean anything. Drowning is a fairly common anxiety dream, I
think.” Adam turned into Gansey’s touch. He felt absolutely greedy for this,
for Gansey leaning lovingly down towards him with a smile on his face. They
weren’t fighting. Surely the other Adam had memories of that, but he’d chosen
to show Adam this affection instead. It wrenched Adam’s heart. He wanted more,
but this also felt incredibly dangerous, as liable to burn him as it was to
soothe him.
While Adam was agonizing over the situation, the other Adam’s memory self was
moving, reaching up to pull Gansey down to his level. “I don’t want to think
about it anymore, not right now,” he murmured into Gansey’s ear, and he was
close enough to hear the hitch in Gansey’s breath.
“All right,” Gansey said. He wrapped an arm around Adam and shifted until they
were both sitting up, Adam leaning into him, Gansey supporting them both. Adam
turned his nose into Gansey’s neck and inhaled. He smelled like mint and
laundry detergent. Nothing unexpected, but Adam breathed in deeper.
“Have you slept at all?” Adam heard himself ask. Gansey sighed.
“I slept a bit, but I woke up--I don’t know, probably an hour or so ago? I’ve
been wide awake since.”
Adam leaned back until he was looking Gansey in the eye. Gansey’s hair was
mussed and there was a pillow print on his cheek. A sleepy, loopy smile played
on his lips. Adam wondered if he would ever see his own Gansey like this, or if
this face was only shown to people Gansey slept with.
“I feel wide awake,” Adam said. “Do you want to maybe do something?”
Gansey nodded. He twisted away from Adam, reaching for his glasses on the
nightstand. Adam watched his back muscles flex. “Let’s go for a drive.”
They both stood up, hunting down their respective shirts as quietly as
possible, so as to not wake Ronan. Although there was faint music coming from
behind Ronan’s door; Adam saw Gansey pause, listening, as though he were
wondering if they should invite Ronan along. But they couldn’t hear any
movement in his room, and it was likely that Ronan had just fallen asleep with
music playing too loud in his headphones.
Besides, with Ronan along it wouldn’t be just the two of them. Adam watched his
hand reach out to take Gansey’s, and Gansey turned to him, smiling. He gave
Adam’s hand a squeeze and they both turned to leave.
Then the floor beneath his feet was gone, and Monmouth melted away. The
sensation of Gansey’s hand in his was the last to leave. Back in Cabeswater,
Adam opened his eyes.
The other Adam rubbed his thumb over the delicate veins on the inside of Adam’s
wrist. “I like that memory,” he said, voice subdued. “We went and got slurpees.
I didn’t get back to sleep until 5am, and I didn’t have any more nightmares.”
Adam swallowed hard. “Good for you,” he said, battery acid on his tongue. “I
was so concerned.”
The other Adam gave him a nasty smile, and when he spoke he matched Adam’s
bitter tone exactly. “Do you want to know how many more nights I had left with
him before he died?”
“Fuck you.” He was distantly aware that his rage was misplaced. This Adam, with
a dead best friend and a life spent wandering Cabeswater with nothing to do but
torture his other selves, was pitiable, but Adam couldn’t pity him. He was
boiling over with anger and want, and the only person here to take it was
himself.
The other Adam seemed unphased by Adam’s curses. “One more to go,” he said. He
still hadn’t let go of Adam’s wrist, and now his fingers tightened. “You
ready?”
“It hasn’t mattered if I was ready before,” Adam said. He couldn’t keep his
voice from shaking slightly. He felt wrecked, like this other Adam was a
weather system tearing through the landscape of his heart. And they weren’t
finished yet.
The other Adam shrugged. “You’re right.” He tugged Adam’s hand forward and Adam
uncurled his fingers, reaching out. The last card was the Fool, his hand
outstretched, his back arched. Adam touched it with his fingertips and held his
breath until his surroundings materialized into the new scene.
It was his apartment above St. Agnes this time. It seemed to be the middle of
the day and it was sweltering, so it was probably summer. Adam was standing
near the doorway to the kitchen and there was Gansey, hovering by the front
door. Adam could feel anger in his memory self. His arms were crossed tightly
over his chest, and he wasn’t yelling, but each word came out of his mouth with
force.
“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying. Blue and I broke up!”
“Yes, but--” Gansey’s hands spasmed in front of him, gesturing at nothing. “But
you liked her! She liked you! All I’m trying to say is that if you broke up for
my sake, that’s not--I would never ask you to do that.”
Adam dragged his hands over his face. He could feel this other Adam’s
frustration and exhaustion, and recognized the feelings from a thousand other
fights he himself had had with Gansey. This fight seemed significant, though.
Gansey’s cheeks were red, his shoulders were obviously tense and his eyes kept
darting around like he was looking for exits.
“I know you wouldn’t ask. And I did like her, but--Gansey, this is fucking
ridiculous, you’re acting like this Spring never happened.” Adam had no idea
what his memory self was talking about, but it was impossible not to get swept
up in this, not to feel all the anxiety and frustration and yearning that his
double had experienced at this moment.
Gansey’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“We kissed!” Adam shouted. “You kissed me! Several times, before I’d even met
Blue!”
Gansey flinched as if Adam had hit him. Adam was used to Gansey getting angry
in return, used to Gansey fighting back, but this Gansey seemed to shrink under
the weight of Adam’s wrath. “That was--I don’t know what that was. It didn’t go
anywhere and then Blue came along. I figured that was it.”
“It didn’t go anywhere because you avoided being alone with me for weeks,” Adam
said. He was describing a very different course of events than Adam himself had
experienced this past spring. Gansey, his Gansey, had not kissed him ever, and
certainly not before Blue came into the picture. Adam wanted to know what those
first kisses had been like, why they’d happened, and why they resulted in
Gansey apparently avoiding Adam for weeks. But he supposed that was a different
memory.
“Because I thought you didn’t like it!” Gansey’s voice was raised to match
Adam’s, and he looked pained. His hands weren’t clenched into fists, but his
whole body radiated tension.
“Why? You never asked me, we never talked about it. I was trying to decide how
I felt when all of a sudden you were talking to Blue for me and practically
demanding that we go out.” Adam took several heaving breaths, and when Gansey
didn’t say anything he kept going. “Well, I tried that, and it was fine but
it’s over now. Besides, I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire time.”
“Adam--” Gansey took a step forward, and Adam recognized that this was Gansey
ready to surrender, ready to stop fighting but his memory self was still going
off.
“You can’t just snap your fingers and decide who I’m going to date,” Adam said.
He wasn’t shouting anymore but each word felt like metal in his mouth, like he
was spitting out bullets. “You can’t decide that what happened with us didn’t
matter just because you’re scared. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I know! I know.” At some point Adam had stepped forward too, and they were
standing only a hand-width away from each other. When Gansey reached out, his
hands shook slightly, but that didn’t stop him from cupping Adam’s jaw with
both hands. He did it carefully, like he was expecting Adam to jerk away, but
Adam stayed still.
Adam’s anger was slowly draining away, replaced with hunger and confusion and
shyness. “I just--I want--”
“Yes,” Gansey said. “Can I kiss you again?”
Adam swallowed. Gansey’s palms felt warm on his cheeks. “Sure,” he said. Adam’s
memory self seemed stunned into stillness, held rapt by Gansey’s hands on his
face. Adam himself was teetering on a precipice. He didn’t have his own breath
to hold, but the feeling of holding his breath captured his mind and kept his
thoughts at bay.
Gansey gave Adam one of his radiant smiles, which Adam barely had any time to
appreciate before Gansey’s eyes fluttered closed and he leaned in. Adam’s eyes
were closed, too, and Gansey’s lips on his were softer than anything Adam had
ever had the right to feel.
The Fool tarot card symbolized new beginnings, optimism, discovery. This, then,
was the beginning of the other Adam’s relationship with Gansey, and it
overflowed with so much sweetness that it was near unbearable to experience.
Adam could feel the euphoria flowing through the other Adam’s thoughts when
Gansey deepened the kiss, when the kiss turned harder and more needy, when
Gansey let out a quiet sound that indicated he was just as overwhelmed.
Adam stumbled backward as Gansey stumbled forward, and they had to break the
kiss for a few seconds in order to make it to the bed. Then their hands were
all over each other, Gansey’s fumbling and Adam’s determined, as if they’d
already come to some unspoken agreement to take things further. Adam felt
Gansey’s hand slide up under his t-shirt while his own hands gripped Gansey’s
thighs, his fingernails digging in.
“Please,” Gansey gasped, and the other Adam reacted smoothly and instantly,
like he knew just what Gansey was asking. His hand moved to the bulge between
Gansey’s legs, feeling the shape of him through his slacks, pressing in hard
with the heel of his palm. Gansey shook.
This all felt like it was moving far too fast for Adam, and maybe his other
self felt the same way, because he said, “So--we’re doing this?” His voice was
strained and breathless, and Gansey met his eyes and nodded several times.
“Yes--please, god, I want to,” Gansey said, his hips pushing up into Adam’s
hand. Apparently that was all the encouragement Adam needed, because he was
moving, his hands efficiently going to unbuckle Gansey’s belt and undoing his
fly. Gansey let him, leaning back to give Adam room.
The other Adam seemed confident with what he was doing, yanking Gansey’s briefs
down to expose his dick. Adam himself could hardly believe this was happening.
He’d never seen Gansey naked before, and never touched another man’s dick.
Maybe the other Adam had, because he was handling Gansey without any
hesitation.
Adam stroked Gansey with a firm grip, almost bruisingly hard, and Gansey seemed
to like that. He let his head fall back and moaned, a low broken sound that
Adam wanted to hear more of. Gansey’s dick was smooth and warm in his hand, and
it felt--almost exactly like touching himself, but not quite. Gansey’s hips
were bucking up, he was fucking Adam’s fist, and it was surreal to have this
kind of control over someone else’s pleasure. Adam found that he liked it, a
lot.
Gansey didn’t last very long. The pumping movement of his hips stuttered and he
gasped, taking in big gulps of air like he’d just been drowning. Then he came
all over Adam’s hand and his own shirt, which neither of them had bothered to
remove. Adam found himself staring at the stripes of semen on Gansey’s pastel
lavender polo. He felt like he’d dirtied Gansey somehow, and oh god, he wanted
to make it worse.
“Adam, jesus christ,” Gansey said. He was leaning back on the bed, his chest
heaving. His eyes were closed, his lips parted and Adam couldn’t stand how
fucking beautiful he was.
Adam wiped his hand off on Gansey’s shirt, making it even grosser. He felt
unsure of what to do next, but as usual his other self seemed more confident,
leaning into Gansey’s space and putting his lips on his neck, sucking and then
biting.
Gansey groaned. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, touching
Adam’s hair and then his biceps and his ass before finally yanking Adam’s fly
down.
“Here, sit back on the bed,” Gansey said breathlessly, his other hand pushing
on Adam’s shoulder, and Adam scooted backwards. Gansey positioned himself
between Adam’s legs and tugged Adam’s boxers down, and Adam didn’t immediately
realize what Gansey’s aim was. He only had a few seconds of thinking
incredulously am I really going to get my first blowjob through someone else’s
memory before Gansey was bending down to take Adam’s dick in his mouth.
It was a lot like what Adam had always imagined a blowjob to be, late at night
when he touched himself and imagined not being alone. It was warm and wet and
deliriously pleasant, just as he’d predicted, but he never could have imagined
the exact feel of Gansey’s tongue. Gansey licked him up and down and swirled
his tongue over the head and Adam felt fireworks go off behind his eyes. He was
also feeling the remembered pleasure of his other self and it magnified his
own, the two of them building on each other, everything heightened.
It was a little difficult to just relax and let it happen. The other Adam was
worrying about what to do with his hands, first clenching them in the comforter
and then gripping Gansey’s shoulders before finally burying his fingers in
Gansey’s hair. When he touched his hair, Gansey lifted his head and said
“Please” in a slurred tone, so Adam didn’t move his hands again.
Adam’s thoughts were racing: was this the first time Gansey had done this, it
didn’t feel like it, who had he done it to before? Anyone at Aglionby? Of
course it had to have been someone at Aglionby, but who? Ronan? That seemed
unlikely and was extremely weird to think about, maybe Henry Cheng? Adam had
never liked Henry Cheng. Maybe Gansey was just naturally gifted? That also
seemed unlikely.
Eventually the feel of Gansey’s lips tight around his shaft made his mind quiet
down. There was only one thought going through his head now, and that was don’t
stop don’t stop don’t stop. He wanted to tell Gansey that he was about to come,
but the other Adam didn’t say anything, just tightened his hands in Gansey’s
hair and thrust his hips up. Gansey took the thrust, only gagging a little, but
when Adam came he coughed and pulled back. Adam wound up getting come all over
Gansey’s chin, and somehow that made the whole thing so much better.
When Adam was finished, he collapsed back onto the bed, staring up at the
ceiling. He could hear Gansey still coughing, clearing his throat and licking
his lips. Adam thought he should apologize, make sure Gansey was all right, but
his other self was just lying there, letting his limbs get heavy as the
orgasm’s aftershocks passed through him.
Adam heard the bed creak as Gansey moved up to his eye level, and then he was
looking at Gansey, who looked proud of himself with flushed cheeks and red
lips. Then it all disappeared.
Crashing back into himself, into Cabeswater, was almost painful this time. The
ground beneath him was so hard, and the October air was so cold compared to the
sweaty warmth of his apartment and Gansey. Adam wished fiercely to be back
there again, but whatever spell this was didn’t work that way. The memory was
gone. The other Adam wasn’t holding his hand anymore.
Adam didn’t feel like he’d just had an orgasm--he felt like he still needed to
come. His whole body was buzzing with energy and he could feel his pulse
thudding loud at his wrists. He was certain that his face was beet red. The
sensation of Gansey’s mouth on his dick was still vivid in his mind, and he
found himself chasing after it, desperate to feel that still, as much as he
could.
He felt deft fingers touch his jaw. Opening his eyes, he saw that the other
Adam was right in front of him, his face only inches from Adam’s face. “I’m
sorry,” he murmured, and then he was moving in to kiss Adam.
It was strange, how good of a kiss it was. Not that Adam had much to compare it
to, other than the memories he’d just stolen, but the other Adam moved when he
moved, used only as much tongue as he wanted, used just the right pressure. Of
course, that made sense: he was kissing someone who knew exactly what he liked,
and Adam immediately felt foolish at being surprised.
The kiss went on for a long time. When the other Adam finally pulled back, Adam
was gasping. Physical contact had simultaneously eased his arousal and made it
all the more urgent. He found himself reaching for the other Adam again,
wrapping his arms around him, pulling him into his lap. He felt laughter bubble
up in his chest at the sheer absurdity of this, but it didn’t deter him. He
needed exactly what this other strange Adam, this bizarre sad forest boy, was
giving him.
“How many other Adams have you kissed?” he said, speaking into his double’s ear
when they paused.
The other Adam laughed low and pressed a kiss to the skin above Adam’s
collarbone. “You’re definitely not the first.”
So this was what his alternate universe self was doing with his life after his
Gansey died: hiking through Cabeswater, searching for different Adams, then
showing them painful and sexual memories before making out with them. Now, Adam
found, he was capable of pity. He wasn’t sure yet whether or not he was also
grateful.
“Let me,” the other Adam said. He scraped his teeth up Adam’s neck and Adam
felt a hand in the center of his chest, pushing him down. He went with it,
lying on his back on the forest floor. This was good, wasn’t it? The other Adam
seemed like he was going to take care of him right now, and that was something;
it didn’t make any of this better, didn’t mean that he could save Gansey or be
with Gansey or do any of the right things he needed to do. But it was
something.
After they’d finished and Adam had cleaned himself up, the other Adam didn’t
stick around. He gathered up his tarot cards, sliding them into his back
pocket. He stood up and stretched, his back cracking. Adam still couldn’t
believe how skinny he was.
“You’re not sticking around,” Adam said flatly. It was a statement, not a
question. He knew his visitor wasn’t here to stay. This other Adam didn’t
belong here, and he knew it. Adam would be able to find his way back out of the
forest to his regular life, but this other apparition would have to go in a
different direction.
The other Adam gave him a sardonic look and didn’t bother to answer. He looked
down at the small aspen tree whose planting he’d interrupted, and brushed a
finger against its leaves with the same kind of tenderness he’d used with
Gansey in the memories.
“Good luck,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s impossible to
keep him alive.”
Adam’s chest constricted at the reminder of Gansey’s looming mortality, not
that he’d ever really forgotten. It was Adam and Blue’s job to keep Gansey
alive, and now Adam at least knew what not to do: don’t kiss Gansey, don’t make
him yours. Blue couldn’t kiss Gansey, either. It wasn’t much of a comfort.
“That’s good,” he said. He opened his mouth to say something else--thank you?
I’m sorry?--but nothing seemed right, and the other Adam didn’t seem to expect
anything else. He gave Adam a jerky nod and turned around, walking out of the
meadow and into the trees. Adam watched him go until he was just a spot of
black amongst all that green, and then he was gone completely.
Adam finished planting the aspen tree as fast as he could. He didn’t really
know if this task was actually necessary--it was possible that Cabeswater had
used it to trick him into meeting his other self, that the meeting was
Cabeswater’s goal the whole time. Or maybe Cabeswater didn’t care whether Adam
got jerked off by another version of himself. Adam was too exhausted to care.
When he got out of the forest, he discovered a flurry of texts from Gansey. It
had only been two hours since he’d arrived at Cabeswater. Gansey’s breakfast
with Ronan and Noah and Blue had apparently been hectic and argumentative. The
last text said Ronan and Noah played a game and now there’s egg on the walls :
( I’m getting out of here to do homework at the library if you want to join!
Adam’s heart felt heavy. He sat in the front seat of his car with his phone in
hand, the engine running. His thoughts ran in manic circles, trying desperately
to make sense of everything he’d just experienced. The last thing he wanted
right now was to be around people, but at the same time he felt desperate to
see Gansey, to verify that he was real.
He texted back, I’ll meet you there. As he pulled his car out into the road,
his phone was already vibrating with Gansey’s excited reply.
Adam had proof now that some version of Gansey, at least, had wanted him. He
knew what it was like to kiss Gansey and have sex with him. But it didn’t mean
anything--or rather, it meant plenty, but it didn’t point to any concrete
action Adam could take. It just added to the vast number of things in life that
Adam Parrish could never have.
He wanted to scream. He felt like Ronan, furious and full of a black reckless
energy that wanted to destroy things. Gansey was without a doubt the worst
person for Adam to see when he felt like this, but Adam didn’t care. Maybe it
would lead to a fight, and he could focus on being angry at Gansey instead of
miserable over him.
So here he was, acting at the beck and call of someone he couldn’t be with.
Instead of screaming, he laughed, and once he started it was hard to stop. Fuck
it. He was going to keep Gansey alive no matter what it took. Nothing else
mattered.
Adam pressed down on the gas pedal, and the trees on the side of the highway
blurred past even faster. The car felt stuffy, so he rolled his window down.
The rain, at least, had stopped.
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