ic inbox [box]

[unknowable]

"Please leave a message and I'll return it as soon as I'm able."

[if necessary, you can also leave a message for Ronan Lynch here]

Comments

[mintly]

[it takes gansey a moment to parse adam's words and his own thoughts on the matter, so the answer is a little delayed.]

There are two 'I's now, the one here and the one at home. Both are just as real, and each of us will always be ourselves, no matter what. All things end, Adam. That doesn't make them less real for it. The other I won't remember this I, but that doesn't mean the I that's here is meaningless.

[unknowable]

I think we agree on that.

[On everything, really, they're just coming at it from different directions. Gansey sees it as hopeful, in a way, maybe even freeing. Adam fears the possibilities that could arise. But it's something he can live with. Something he has to live with.]

Thank you for telling me.

[mintly]

[the classic gansey-parrish problem, really. gansey wants to embrace every chance at having something more and adam is afraid to reach too far lest he lose whatever he has.]

You needed to know. I'll figure out how to tell Ronan.

Take the chances you're given, Parrish. This place is a horror, but that's even more reason to gather every light offered. I won't let us fall apart, no matter what.

[unknowable]

I haven't been given many chances yet. We'll have to wait and seen what happens when this train finally stops.

[And he willfully ignores anything else Gansey might have meant by those words.]

[mintly]

[gansey, having several simultaneous motivations? never.]

Yes, we'll see. I'm just telling you so if they come up, you know.

Be kind to yourself, Parrish.

[unknowable]

You enjoy asking difficult things of people.

[mintly]

I know.

But I never ask anything of you that I'm not demanding from myself.

[and if he has to demand it of himself...well. certainly that says something.]

[unknowable]

Now you sound suspiciously like a motivational speaker.

We'll be all right, Gansey.

[mintly]

Gross. Also not what I meant.

My head knows that.

[unknowable]

Tell your heart. It's worse at listening.

[mintly]

Pot, kettle.

I'm trying.

[unknowable]

I'll say it again if you need to hear it.

Or send it, I guess.

about 5 minutes later, considerably slower than previous texts.

[mintly]

I might.

It will be better once we're together again, right?

[tell me i'm doing the right thing, adam. tell me that things are going to go back to how they were, sort of. tell me that i can keep everything from falling apart again, somehow.

why is it he always asks these questions of adam, the person least likely to entertain his self-doubt?]

[unknowable]

It will be. We're better together.

But we are all here, Gansey. Even if we're not next to each other.

[Not quite all. Blue is missing. But Adam thinks that's for the best, and it's better than if Ronan or Gansey was. Not because she's not important, not because of the messy history between them, but because the four of them here have an equilibrium, had one before she came along. They can go on without her in a way they couldn't if they were missing one of the others.

(Ronan or Gansey, really. Adam is a newcomer too, in his own way, and Noah is something else. But Ronan and Gansey could go on without them, always have been able to.)]

[mintly]

[love urself adam parrish

the impulse in gansey is strong to point out that no, blue isn't here, that her absence is a nearly-five-foot-tall girl-shaped hole in their group. except adam is right, he doesn't want jane involved in any of this, and if he had to choose between them...well, he'd choose any of his ravens to be beside him over her in this horrible place. not because she isn't resourceful or strong or smart, but because peace with jane is even more tenuous than peace with adam can be, and gansey can't exist right now with the worry of her coming to harm and the endless anxiety of saying the wrong thing amped to jane levels.]

You're right, as usual. Thoroughly trouncing me in the contest of keeping a cool head lately, Parrish.

Thanks.

[unknowable]

I didn't realize it was a contest. But if it is, I guess I'm glad I'm winning.

[Anxiety, of course, has never been Adam's problem. He has a laundry list of others, but even if he worries sometimes, anxiety is nowhere near the top of that list.]

Take care of yourself.

[mintly]

It isn't. But you're still winning.

[really, that was meant to be an apology for his recent behavior, which he knows isn't something adam is in any way prepared to deal with. nobody is meant to be dealing with gansey like this, as far as gansey himself is concerned. expressing negative emotions in public is just untoward and to be avoided at all costs.]

I will. You too.

[unknowable]

I will.