fluxscape | On The Flip Side [OTA]

Entry tags:

On The Flip Side [OTA]

Who: Adam Parrish and YOU!
What: The AU event
When: 15th - 22nd November
Where: The Barns/all over the city
Warnings: N/A will update if needed!

The 15th - The Barns

It was a good day, all things considered. Things could be worse, and he was lucky for what he had. Friends here, a family waiting for him back home. Cottonball sniffed around his feet when he got out of bed, and he gave the white rabbit a few pets before hitting the shower. When he was finished in the bathroom and dressed, he scooped the bunny up and deposited her in his hoodie pocket before heading downstairs and to the kitchen, humming a cheerful tune to himself as he went. He was otherwise quiet as he made his way around the kitchen, working on preparing some breakfast for himself and Cottonball.

Any time during the event - The Greens

Since rabbits weren't typically allowed inside shops and restaurants, Adam was reading in the park, sprawled out on a blanket on the grass while Cottonball hopped around and climbed over him before eventually flopping down at his side, taking a little bunny nap while Adam turned the page on his book.

Any time during the event - Around the city

With Cottonball safely tucked away at the Barns, Adam could be found in various locations around the city when he wasn't working one of his two jobs. He was fond of browsing a book store, for instance, where he could be found looking at books like The Meaning of Dreams and other such things.

He could also be found at the local pizzeria, settled comfortably in a booth while he worked out his schedule for the week on his phone in between sips of soda. Though he was almost always busy, it was the good kind of busy and he was more or less happy with the set up of his life. Of course, working two jobs here wasn't going to get him out of this place, it could at least ensure he lived comfortably for however long he was here.

At one point during the week, he made a trip to the Greens Zoo, where he had a good time reading up about animals, even if he was a little saddened by all of them being in cages. He especially enjoyed the petting zoo area, which allowed him to give scritches and pats to all manner of animals.

[ooc: feel free to run into him in any of the suggested places or come up with your own encounter! He'll be out and about around the city during the duration of the event. Also for a quick recap on his AU, he's a dreamer and so is his father. His family loves him and treats him well, he never lost the hearing in his left ear, and he never became psychic. Cottonball the rabbit is a dreamt creature and his psychopomp.]

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Ronan stopped at the door to watch Adam for a long quiet moment. It was still strange to see him so...happy. Content with his life. The wild part of meeting this Adam here was that they had something in common. Something he'd never expected because the one thing his father had never really talked to him about was other Dreamers. He'd wondered about this Adam's Ronan, but he'd never asked and he probably wouldn't ever ask. It was unsettling to think about the possibilities of being someone other than himself.

Chainsaw joined Adam in the kitchen because she was always pestering to play with Cottonball so Ronan decided he should stop staring and actually get something to eat.

"'sup, Parrish?" He pulled eggs and some veggies out of the fridge to make an omelet.

As he always was, Adam was aware of Ronan watching him, if only because he caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye while letting Cottonball down out of his pocket so she could play with Chainsaw. He was used to it, but it never stopped the butterflies from fluttering in his stomach, especially here.

"Good morning," he said warmly, gaze flickering over Ronan before he returned to the pancakes he was making. The differences between this Ronan and his were so obvious, but that didn't stop Adam from being hopelessly in love. Most of the time, he thought he'd be in love with Ronan until the day he died, no matter what happened. "How did you sleep?"

"I didn't." Ronan cracked eggs over a bowl and set them aside so he could chop vegetables, making sure to offer Cottonball something. He crouched down and petted the rabbit before giving Chainsaw eggshells to mutilate. "I was doing some research on crops. I was thinking fruits and vegetables. How suspicious do you think people would be if I just fucking dreamed up some fruit trees?"

The veggies got mixed into the eggs while the pan heated on his side of the stove. He looked over at Adam's pancakes and added more eggs so he could trade omelet for some pancakes.

He frowned in disapproval. Not at the idea, but that Ronan hadn't slept. Still, he hummed thoughtfully, considering things. "In this place? They might not even notice," he said. "But there's still a risk." There was always a risk.

He was torn between erring on the side of caution and encouraging Ronan to do it. It wasn't the most dangerous idea he'd ever had--in fact, it was pretty tame. "Realistically, things change here all the time." He poured some pancake batter into his own pan. "Why can't there be some trees?"

"Being whatever the fuck I am I shouldn't be so fucking shocked, but I still can't wrap my head around you. When was the last time you dreamed something?"

When the pan was hot enough to burn his skin, Ronan turned the heat down just a little and poured everything into the pan.

Edited 2020-11-21 22:54 (UTC)

"What do you mean?" What had he done now that was hard to process? Or was it his sheer existence? He smiled either way, a little bemused, while he thought over the question.

"The other day," he said, keeping an eye on his pancakes. "It was a flower."

"Back home, my home, you fix cars. Your family could burn in hell for all I care. And I wouldn't have known you existed if it hadn't been for Gansey."

But that wasn't all of it.

Ronan carefully started checking the omelet with a spatula before folding it.

"My dad and I are the only Dreamers I've ever known. If there are others he never talks about them."

A flower?

He gave Adam a curious look. "A single fucking flower?"

Adam laughed. "I still fix cars. And I met you because of Gansey. But I love my family." And they loved him. He considered himself lucky to have so much love and support at home, no matter how poor they were. "What's my family like in your world?" He was morbidly curious.

"My dad was the only dreamer I knew for most of my life," he continued, flipping his pancake. "Until you, and Kavinsky." He wasn't sure that name would mean anything to this Ronan, though.

"Yeah, a flower." The tips of his ears went pink, and he glanced up. "What about it?"

"They're fucked up." Ronan admitted, leaving it at that and flipping the omelet. "Kavinsky left town not long after Gansey showed up. I didn't know him for long, but he was a shit. Loved to race me all over town. No respect for anything or anyone. I didn't know he was a Dreamer."

Maybe his Kavinsky was a Dreamer. He would never know.

He looked over at Adam, smiled, flicked the tip of his ear gently, "Was it pink?"

Adam nodded, accepting that answer without pressing the subject further. "Sounds like Kavinsky, alright," Adam said instead. "Except mine-" he stopped, made a face. He didn't like the way that sounded. "-the one in my world made it pretty obvious to us he was a dreamer."

His blush deepened, and he focused on his pancakes this time. "Pink and red," he admitted. The most beautiful flower you could imagine, like something out of this world.

Ronan laughed and went to get plates. He cut the omelet in half with the spatula and gave Adam one plate. He is definitely expecting a pancake in exchange.

"I dreamed an entire field of flowers once." It was nice to talk to someone other than his dad about Dreaming. He was sure Gansey had guessed, but he could never ask him. He'd promised his dad not to tell anyone. But if Gansey had guessed his secret was safe.

Adam would gladly share a pancake or two. In fact, it was why he made a couple extra, so there was enough for both of them. And why he made to gently tip a pancake onto Ronan's plate.

"It'd be pretty hard to give someone an entire field of flowers," he said before he could stop himself. A whole field of them sounded lovely, though in his experience almost everything Ronan dreamed was lovely. There was a reason he'd only dreamed one.

"It was an accident. I fell asleep in that field and woke up with freshly dreamed flowers."

Ronan took his plate to the table and started throwing butter and syrup and salt and pepper and things onto the table. Anything that sounded good with omelet's and pancakes.

"Why? You planning to give someone flowers? Just dream them a field and drag them out into it."

"Sounds like a pretty nice accident." As far as accidents went. With dreamers it could always be a lot worse.

"Maybe," he added, taking his own plate to the table--and stepping around Cottonball in the process--before helping grab other things. "I'm just...trying to find the right time." Or figure out if a right time even existed.

"My dad laughed himself stupid. Matthew loved them."

Ronan straddled his chair and started adding seasonings and syrup to everything before taking his first huge bite. Brainstorming made him hungry.

"They sounded like windchimes when you ran through them."

Adam smiled, settling himself at the table and reaching for the syrup after Ronan was done with it. "You dream so many amazing things," he murmured. Amazing, just like Ronan himself.

"That makes a single flower sound like nothing." Of course, he'd had a different purpose and intent, and sometimes one flower was better than an entire bouquet, depending on the flower involved.

"I bet you've dreamed some pretty amazing things." Ronan continued to devour his food, pausing only long enough to swallow so he could talk between bites. He got up and poured some milk for them both before going back to work on his food.

"Depends on the purpose of that single flower. Anything you create isn't nothing. It's a part of you. When I dream something it's a piece of me so it's not nothing."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess so." Don't get him wrong, he was proud of the things he'd dreamed, he didn't think there was anything wrong with them, but he was also horribly biased on the subject of whose dreams were more impressive.

Nodding, he bit his tongue and resisted the urge to tell Ronan to slow down on eating. He didn't have much room to talk, himself. "Everything we dream is special," he agreed. "There will never be anything else quite like it."

Ronan watched Adam over his breakfast, slowing in his eating only because he was thinking about the differences. The Adam he knew and the Adam sitting across from him. The biggest difference was this Adam had a happy, supporting family, a lot like his own. It wasn't amazing how different they were being the same person when one had a family and the other didn't.

It was terrifying. Not amazing. Ronan missed his family. Declan, Matthew, mom and dad. He missed them so much his heart physically ached. But they were alive and he couldn't imagine his life without them. How would it change him? Would he be more like the Adam he had known? Angry and defensive. Unable to ask for or accept help.

"I guess so?" He gave Adam a quizzical look, unimpressed by that answer. "Haven't you ever Dreamed something and just been like 'LOOK AT THIS MOTHERFUCKER! I MADE THIS!'?" He heled out his hand as if he were showing Adam something, his eyes bright and excited, so very pleased with the imaginary item in his hand. "Ask me what it is?"

"Sometimes. For the longest time I could only show my dad. I guess eventually I just worried it was...less impressive than it used to be." And then he'd met Ronan, and he hadn't been sure if he'd wanted to impress him or just...share the experience with him, dream with someone who wasn't his dad. No. He had wanted to impress Ronan, but he hadn't wanted to come off that way.

He glanced at Ronan's hand, then back up at his face, hesitating for a moment. "What is it?" Clearly it was nothing, but that wasn't the point right now. Maybe.

"Close your eyes and hold out your hand." Ronan insisted, still holding out his hand as if he held something amazing he wanted to share.

"It's an orb that looks like crystal clear glass, but so very thin you can almost feel the clouds, the air, the pressure, the gravity right in the palm of your hand. Everything held within that glass orb. Life. Blue ocean and continents. It's alive. A planet in a glass orb and it's a piece of you. You gave it life. You imagined it. You created it. It's beautiful."

Not a God. He would never think of himself in that way, but he could do this. He could dream into life anything.

"And you're holding it in the palm of your hand."

Ronan took a big bite of his omelet and pancake and just waited for Adam to realize he was done describing the thing he imagined. He washed it all down with his glass of milk.

"The only thing holding you back is you're trying too hard to impress someone. Your dad. Me. I don't fucking care who I impress. You're a Dreamer, Adam. A fucking Dreamer. And if you're anything like the Adam back home then I know you've got a lot of impressive shit inside that head of yours. Don't impress me or your dad. Impress yourself. What are you holding in the palm of your hand right now?"

Adam did as he was told, putting his fork down to hold out his hand. He listened quietly, patiently, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He could imagine it perfectly, and he felt a flutter in his chest in the moment of silence that followed Ronan's description.

Maybe Ronan was right, maybe Adam was holding himself back by trying too hard to impress other people, by caring too much about what other people thought. He could create anything he wanted, bring it to life like people brought home groceries. That was one of the differences between him and Ronan; Ronan didn't care what other people thought of him. Adam...cared too much.

He sucked in a deep breath. "It's a golden light, like a firefly. It's warm. The wings are like crystals, and it plays a beautiful melody when it moves. A lullaby." It was, maybe, a more literal version of a nightlight.

"You should dream a swarm of them and release them into the city." Ronan liked that idea so much he laughed and nearly choked on his omelet.

But it sounded like a very nice dream. Something he could imagine seeing at night around The Barns.

"Lullaby's are sweet. I'd probably choose something loud and annoying and then set the army of fireflies off to drive someone crazy. But I'm an asshole and you're not."

"Maybe I will." He wouldn't, but it was a nice idea. Maybe he'd release them around the Barns though. Inflicting them on the city at large seemed...risky. And who knew if people would even appreciate them.

"And I know you would." It was one of the differences between them. "You'd probably choose that song."

Adam wouldn't say he was sweet, just like he wouldn't agree Ronan was an asshole. He had decided though, that after they finished breakfast, he would do what he'd been debating on. And speaking of breakfast, he opened his eyes again, picking up his fork and setting to work eating a little faster than before.

"Which song are you referring to, Adam?" Ronan said it with such a straight, unemotional expression, while continuing to eat his breakfast.

He knew exactly what he was dreaming tonight.

At least Adam looked like he was feeling better about something. He was about to tell him not to choke on his food, but just snorted and finished his own breakfast. Later he was going to take the BMW out and see if he could find someone to race against. And maybe pick up some supplies for The Barns.

He waved his fork in Ronan's direction. "You know exactly what I'm talking about," he said. He wasn't going to speak of it by name, because that felt like bringing around some kind of curse. But maybe it was already too late for that, since he'd brought it up in the first place.

After he finished eating, he scooped his plate into the sink to be washed in a little bit, then turned back towards Ronan. "Wait here," he said, before disappearing upstairs.

When he came back into the kitchen, he held a plain blue vase in both hands, like it was precious. The vase might have been nothing special, but the flower in it was. It was unlike any other flower in the world. Red and pink, beautiful, delicate, eternal. It didn't even need water, and indeed there was none in the vase.

Adam's face wasn't pink, but his ears were. He took a deep breath. "This is for you."

If the Devil had a mischievous smirk that was equally endearing and threatening, Ronan would be called the Devil. He had been called many things, but not actually a Devil. Usually, that was reserved for his father.

He ate, watched Adam get up, put his plate in the sink, and then stared curiously as he ran off to do whatever he was going to do that demanded Ronan wait for his return. While Adam was gone he finished up his plate, added it to the dishes in the sink and started running water to wash them.

He was standing at the sink when Adam returned and the first thing he noticed when he turned around was how pink his ears were. And then he noticed the flower and the way Adam held it.

"You dreamed this. For me?"

He nodded. "I did." Maybe eating before doing this hadn't been the best idea. His stomach was in some kind of knot, which was almost kind of funny because he'd never quite felt this way around Ronan before. He'd been nervous plenty of times, sure, but not stomach-in-knots levels. Then again, he'd never given Ronan flowers before, either.

"I thought, since I'm not always the best with words, I'd try flowers." Not to impress him, but to--was woo the right word? He was glad he didn't say any of the rest of that out loud, because it sounded bad enough in his head. Too old fashioned.

Ronan stared at the flower for a long time, taking in all the details and imagining the kind of emotion a Dreamer had to put into something so beautiful. He thought of the things he dreamed. He thought about the conversation they had over breakfast.

He ran his fingers through his hair and then accepted the flower from Adam.

"Thank you." Inhaling, Ronan smiled softly. "You may not be the Adam I know from home, but you two really aren't very different." He set the flower on the counter.

Finding the right words was more difficult than learning to control his Dreaming. Especially when he cared about Adam. He didn't believe in fate or destiny or any of that shit. But he had to admit there was something invisible that connected himself to Gansey and Adam.

"I'm shit with words, but there is something I have to be clear about here with you and with myself. It's not easy because I haven't been honest with myself about it for a long time and I definitely haven't been honest with Gansey. Fuck." he rubbed his hair and turned to look at the flower. "I won't lie and tell you I don't feel something for you."

He looked at Adam again, the sharpness of his personality and his expression softened.

"I haven't told Gansey how I really feel about him and I can't stop loving him. I've tried. When he left for Gotham I thought it was better not saying the words. Fuck. I was too stupid to say them long before he left. I love him. And if I wasn't so fucking in love with him I'd kiss you right now."

For a moment, Adam's heart fluttered before his stomach twisted again as he listened quietly. He couldn't make up his mind what he was feeling beyond confusion. Ronan had feelings for him. But Ronan was also in love with Gansey. Adam didn't know which of those things had come first, but it was probably Gansey. How could someone not love Gansey? He was almost perfect, and if he wasn't so stupid sometimes he might be too good to be true.

He swallowed around a lump in his throat, and his smile was only half forced, but his shoulders didn't droop. "You should tell him," he said quietly. "It sounds like he's really important to you." It wasn't even that Gansey wasn't important to Adam, too, because he was, and Adam wanted him to be happy.

Adam had already been blessed with a happy, supportive family and friends in his own reality; he couldn't expect to have everything he wanted, no matter how desperately he was in love. It wasn't like Ronan didn't care about him, after all, and that was better than nothing. He just felt like it wouldn't be him, in the end.

"I'm sure you're important to him, too."

Ronan would say he was sorry, but he wasn't. He wasn't sorry that he was in love with Gansey. But he never wanted to hurt Adam. They were both important to him.

"If I ever see him again I will tell him." He watched Adam. The pain he must be feeling was almost tangible. It's what he imagined he'd be feeling if Gansey told him what he was telling Adam now. "You're important to me, too, Adam. That's why I can't kiss you right now. It would hurt you more if I can only give you a piece of myself."

He picked up the flower.

"I'm keeping this if that's okay."

"I understand." He understood something at least, and it was Ronan's decision not to kiss him. He was right; it would hurt more. It was better not to tease at things that would never be. No matter how badly he wanted to kiss Ronan, himself.

He felt a small flicker of something--pride? Happiness? That Ronan still wanted to keep the flower. It wasn't like Adam wanted to take it back. He'd dreamed it for Ronan, after all. "And I don't mind if you keep it."

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On The Flip Side [OTA]

The Barns

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