Chapter Text
“Jesus fucking Christ. What the hell is this?”
“What?” Adam stumbles over the words. He follows the man’s scrutinizing gaze and looks down at himself- takes in his collared shirt, sleeves rolled up, his Gansey the Second hand-me-down vintage tweed vest, his cuffed brown slacks, and beaten Oxfords.
“God, as if one Todd wasn’t enough.”
“What?” Adam repeats, head snapping back at the stranger before him.
The man sighs and hops off the ledge from which he laid upon casually like some Sports Illustrated cover model. Adam thinks for a second he should dwell more on this if everything else happening wasn’t already giving his logic and reasoning whiplash. Mere minutes ago he had been searching for his graduate interview and in an instant, he felt transported - suddenly overcome with a heady sense of bewilderment he hadn’t felt since Cabeswater. The thought unfurled something inside him. He fought the urge to cry.
"Eliot Waugh," He extends a hand as he reaches Adam, "You must be Adam Parrish. Welcome to Brakebills”
Adam’s jaw worked as they shook hands. He struggled to find any other words as to not repeat himself for the third time.
“Come, come.” Eliot walks off without warning, “You’re late.”
“Where are-“ Adam starts, taking in the quad that was decidedly not Yale. He hurries after Eliot. “What are-“
Eliot spins around and Adam nearly runs into him. “Listen, Parrish,” he sighs, “You have a lot of questions. I have a lot of answers. Fortunately for you, I don't have a lot of patience so let's cut to the chase. You’re a magician. Congrats. Welcome to real life’s Hogwarts. Do us both a favor and catch on quick because some of us have done this one or two or thirty-nine too many times. Who even knows, and, honestly? I’m exhausted. Cryptic revelations are more of Fogg’s forte but-"
Adam blinks.
“Right. Fuck. Dean Fogg. So imagine like a black Dumbledore?” Eliot explains with his hands as if it means anything.
Adam blinks again.
“You’re a wizard, Harry?”
Adam doesn’t react.
“Pity the living.” Eliot groans upwards at the sky. He looks back at Adam before continuing walking, “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.”
Something about the cadence of his swears, his dark curls, his polished apathy reminds Adam of his darkest thoughts and it takes everything within him not to break.
“Ronan Lynch.” Eliot continues casually as if anything about those two words could ever be causal. Adam’s heart stops and restarts between the syllables. “You know him well, yes?”
Adam chokes on the whirlwind of emotion inside himself. ‘Yes,’ he thinks immediately. ‘No,’ he remembers. ‘Better than anyone,’ he reasons, ‘better than myself.’ Yet, ’Not at all.’ Because the truth is he hasn’t seen Ronan in nearly 4 years. He thinks of Ronan’s birthday. He thinks of the awful dread between the soul-crushing possibility of a version of Ronan that could follow him to Cambridge and the gut-wrenching realization that this impossible delusion led to a version of Ronan that had began to quietly pull away. He thinks of the panic and anxiety he had not known how to vocalize. He thinks of Ronan’s 19th birthday. He thinks of the night he hadn’t known would be their last. He does the math. 4 years. 2 months. 7 days. He wants to laugh and cry in equal measures.
They reach a building when he looks up and finds Eliot staring at him. Adam doesn’t know how long they’ve been standing there. Adam doesn’t know how long Eliot has been studying him.
“Adam,” Eliot sighs. His gaze has softened to something like understanding. Something Adam swore he would never find in another being. Who could really comprehend the fucked up predicament Adam has found himself in? A self-destructive masochist with a martyr complex worst than himself decided to leave Adam for his own good and he had no choice in the matter. Actually, come to think of it, Blue may be uniquely qualified. But Gansey came back. Adam hates himself for the bitterness he feels. It’s not like they even still talked. “You still have a chance.”
“What?” Adam chokes. He realizes he sounds like a broken record but, fuck it, every part of him feels too broken to pretend otherwise.
“Ronan Lynch is alive.” And just like that the last 4 years feels like a dream - the question Adam never wants to think of, answered - it feels as if Adam had been living in a car crash since he last saw Ronan, having catapulted through the windshield but suspended in mid-air. Everything broken but too distracted by disbelief to notice. In an instant, he feels the impact. He feels utterly broken but...alive.
“The world is ending in 7 days” Eliot continues, "Because, fuck me, why not? It never ends, does it? Actually it might soon, since Ronan dreams it into existence."
Every broken piece of Adam shatters into a million more.
“We think you’re the only one who can stop him.”