#and also implicitly understand the pynch dynamic

[adamprrishcycle]

Shatter Point

So, I’ve been working on this fic for a good while now and have posted multiple little snippets here and there. I wanted to post the first chapter on tumblr before I start posting it officially on ao3. Let me know what you think!

I have yet to come up with a synopsis, so let me be messy and just say everything that happens in the books has happened, only Adam never went to Aglionby and therefore, never met Ronan or Gansey. He escapes Henrietta, goes to Harvard and eventually ends up in his secret little government job. This job is in a department that polices dreamers, like the moderators but less we-wanna-kill-all-dreamers and more they-exist-amongst-us-and-aren't-going-away-so-we-must-keep-track-of-everything-they-do. ANYWAY, a job comes up in Henrietta (a place Adam hasn't been in a decade) and he is fucked up enough to take it.

Chapter 1: Returning

4.1k words, pynch, meet-ugly, canon typical violence, referenced past abuse

The road sign was rusty and warped by harsh weather and a traffic collision that left one steel leg bent at an odd angle many years before. Close up, it stood a good few feet taller than Adam Parrish as he squinted up at it, hand raised to shade his eyes from the glare. Beyond the sign, the road descended down the mountainside to arrive at the small town called Henrietta.

It could have been just the mere sight of the paper town below or the feeling of sweat running down Adam’s neck under his shirt collar in the warm afternoon, but he abruptly felt nineteen and every ugly year before it all at once.

He turned from the sign and climbed back into his car, grateful for the AC that swept cool air over him and then with a deep breath, pulled off from the rough ground and back onto the main road.

The town was the same as it had always been, though the last time Adam was here, he’d been leaving. He’d spent his childhood and teenage years leaving Henrietta in any small way that he could, and when the day finally came when he departed for good, he never looked back. He’d made his escape achingly slow, like digging a tunnel in the dirt with a spoon. He had worked his body to the bone over years of part-time jobs and a school career that would’ve made the town newspaper, if he had managed to show up any day without fading bruises or a fat lip. Now, looking back, Adam was able to shrug it off flippantly, the struggle of his adolescence diminished by the man he had fought to become.

He had never stepped foot in Henrietta since the day he left. But here he was now, driving the roads he used to cycle down in his youth, and it was already stifling him.

As he drove, he passed the public school he attended and he remembered a text message lighting up his phone a few nights ago and how he had never replied.

I can go home with you if you want.

It was from his best friend, Blue. He knew why he hadn’t replied, but to acknowledge it now, to open that door and welcome in the feelings of fear he’d dwelled upon ever since he left, the fear that while he believed he saved himself from this fate, he knew a part of him was and would always be seventeen years old with a bleeding ear that would never hear a whisper again. It wasn’t a rational thought, and Adam prided himself on always being rational and realistic, but to reply to Blue would’ve been to admit that he was scared out of his mind about being here.

About being home.

This was no home to Adam Parrish.

He stopped at a set of traffic lights and watched as two elderly people crossed the road. He looked ahead and spied in the distance the Catholic church where he had once viewed an upstairs apartment. It was a small habitation with little space to stand up straight due to the slanted ceiling under the eaves but he had daydreamed endlessly about being able to afford it and move out of his parents trailer.

Blue had visited the apartment with him and they’d held hands as they walked back down the narrow staircase, a brush of knuckles that led to fingers intertwined. And Adam would’ve kissed her in the parking lot. But that was before she had had a taste of his temper and before he had realised what it meant to have a true friend.

The lights turned to green and Adam urged the car forwards, passing the church that stood quietly, its stained glass dark and dusty. It was the middle of the day on a Thursday so there was no reason for it to be bustling with life, but the way it looked, sitting there solemnly with chipped paint on its door and dirt streaked windows, Adam couldn’t help but feel an air of desolation, and it was catching.

The buildings gradually grew further apart as he passed through town and out the other side, and then he was heading down a winding road, trees pressing in either side. He picked up speed despite the bends in the road and glanced at his phone, propped on the dashboard precariously. He caught it in his hand as he rounded a sharp curve and turned it over in his lap to follow the instructions on the map.

He almost missed the turning, concealed within the thick foliage, almost as though the trees were hiding something. Braking hard, he turned onto the muddy track. The oppressive, dry heat of the late June day didn’t hint that it had rained recently, yet the driveway was churned, moist earth and he cracked the drivers side window to take in the humid, living scent of the forest. It tugged at a natural, feral part of him sharply and he longed to step out of the car and take it all in, feeling the surge of energy and life under his feet from the ley line that he recognised from his childhood. The smell in the air and the hum all around reminded him that magic was real and he felt lightheaded with it for the first time in a long time.

Despite that, his job was all about magic, but the act of cataloging and policing dreamt objects under a classified department of the government had a way of sucking the life out of anything enchanting.

The brief that brought him to his childhood town was simple. There was thought to be a great deal of dreams residing on a farm under the name of Lynch in the middle of West Virginia. Go there, inspect it, and report back. When he saw the location of the job, he’d volunteered for it before he could think about it and change his mind.

Adam was no dreamer, but he’d been having recurring dreams for weeks.

They were similar to the kinds of dreams he was having in his final years of high school and they had always centered around Henrietta in a way he couldn’t describe. The dream always happened amongst trees but Adam always knew where he was. He could always feel his ley line, the energy filling him up like he was an empty container before and afterwards, he was brimming with potential. His hands shook in his dreams and there was a presence there. A dark thing. It felt neither good nor bad, it was just there and it seemed to cup the ley energy, the forest and Adam all in its hands. And Adam envied it. He knew it was in Henrietta and he wanted to find it and take the power for himself.

He felt as though he’d been starving his whole life, ribs protruding, limbs wasted. He’d been starved of the basic necessities to survive and nearing his thirtieth year, he felt vicious with the desperate need to feel full. And to do whatever it took to get it.

The car crawled slowly up the drive to the Lynch farm as Adam tapped at his phone with one hand when it informed him that he had reached his destination. He looked up at the track ahead and was distracted for a moment by small, glowing lights that caught his eye as they bobbed between the trees. The car rolled forward slowly as he leaned this way and that to get a better look at what he thought were fireflies out in broad daylight and then the car juddered and stalled, the engine cutting out.

But Adam didn’t notice.

Adam wasn’t there anymore.

He saw his father’s red face, his big hands, the fury in his eyes and the spit flying from his mouth. It was as though Adam was living a memory inside his own head and he cowered, smaller, childlike. He didn’t feel the impact of the first blow but his face stung as he saw the look in the eyes of the other people he encountered. His mother, his teachers, kids at school, strangers passing him on the street. Over and over again they looked at him and their foreheads creased and their eyes were grieving. He ran for his bike, he wanted to escape, but the chain had fallen off and no matter how many times he tried to fix it, his useless, stupid, good-for-nothing hands failed miserably, his fingers weak and shaking. Someone shouted his name and he flinched, turning and there was his father again. Red face. Big hands. The impact knocked him off his feet. His mother’s eyes were filled with disappointed tears. His teachers shared silent looks. Kids at school laughed.

Somewhere, tangled within the thoughts fogging up his brain, Adam pressed the clutch and turned the key in the ignition and the engine rolled over once, twice then surged back to life. He accelerated hard and the car lurched forward.

His mind was free.

He was alone in the car with the trees either side of the driveway watching him silently. He glanced in the rearview mirror as he drove erratically up the driveway, desperate to get away from whatever the hell he had stumbled into. He could sense its origin, being quite experienced with the objects he was paid handsomely to investigate. He was aware that he may have just stepped into some kind of dreamer's trick.

For the first time that day, what was ahead of him scared him more than what he had left behind. If the dreamer was able to come up with something as vile as that, what else could they have dreamt up on a secluded farm in a hushed valley in the middle of nowhere?

There was sunlight shining ahead of him as he reached the end of the treeline that splayed out suddenly and he drove up to a farmhouse that had seen better days. It stood there proudly despite this, and its shabby exterior and various outbuildings could be seen, wearily leaning against one another like drunken friends trying to make their way home. The fields rolled out to Adam’s right and beyond them, mountains stacked against the sky as purple as a bruise.

Adam closed his eyes, feeling the ley energy all around him and the dream objects with it, all centered around a sweetmetal that felt like a gravitational pull. Nothing could possibly fall asleep here, even if it wanted to.

In the near distance, he could see livestock grazing serenely and he parked up a few meters from the front porch of the house. Getting out of the car, he took a few steps back the way he came, peering into the gloom of the shaded driveway, darker because of the bright sunlight of the summer day. He didn’t dwell on the fact that he would probably have to leave that way and reached back into the car, pulling a small handgun out from under the passenger seat, tucking it into his waistband and he turned towards the house.

He knocked on the front door. Three, sharp raps and then he stood back, inspecting the building up close. The white paint was peeling and there was a woven mat at Adam’s feet, clogged with mud and unraveling. He knocked again, then moved to peer through a window. It was difficult to see inside with the bright sunshine at his back but he could make out a dark kitchen. It looked quite ordinary, but looks were deceiving.

When no one answered the door, he descended the porch steps and walked around to the back of the house. He looked up as a large black bird flew overhead, cawing down at him. It circled several times, then flew off over the fields.

Adam approached a garage with a corrugated roof and found that the door was unlocked. Pulling it open with a groan, inside there was nothing out of the ordinary. Garden equipment. Shovels, plant pots, various lawn mowers that got bigger in size. He picked his way through the objects, letting the musty shed smell fill his nose until something rushed past at shin height, nearly whisking him off his feet. He spun and watched as a cat ran away from him across the yard. He sighed with relief, but then the creature turned to fix him with a stare and he felt a spasm of panic as he noticed that instead of front legs and paws, it had very human looking hands. His heart pounded, half with alarm, half with excitement. Seeing a dream never ceased to amaze him, even after all these years.

He exited the shed and crouched down on the gravel, extending a hand to the cat with hands. Its features were one hundred percent feline, yet it managed to glower at him suspiciously before flicking small stones at him with its highly evolved digits, then turned and ran, disappearing into the trees beyond the house. Adam straightened and sighed to himself, unsure how exactly he was going to categorise that.

He circled the house a couple of times, knocking at the back door and then at the front door again before making his way across the fields towards a large barn. When he entered the field where the livestock were, he paused as the cattle slowly lifted their great heads and bellowed at him softly. Something sensible inside him told him he should be wary around them, but the other side of him who let magic seep up through his fingertips and scryed into every darkened window he came across, urged him on.

The cows let him pass and seemingly went back to grazing, but as he approached the barn and turned to look back, they all seemed to have shuffled after him silently. Surely impossible, surely a dream herd. Adam was getting more and more apprehensive to meet the dreamer and he laid his hand briefly on the gun in his waistband.

His shirt was sticking to his back as he pushed the barn door open and the warm, sweet stench washed over him. He could smell the hay and the scent of many creatures living and breathing together.

Something was moving at the other end of the barn and Adam stepped forward cautiously, sensing that the something was bigger than a cow. His hand returned to the gun but he didn't pull it out just yet.

“It’s okay,” he said out loud, his own voice startling him after not speaking a word since he checked out of the last motel he’d stayed at on his way down here. He cleared his throat. “It’s okay,” he tried again, “I’m not going to hurt you. Just come out slowly like your friends out there.”

There was a rough, croaking sound and then a thin snarl that had Adam gripping the gun firmly, freeing it and cocking it in one swift motion, one hand placed under the other to steady his aim. It didn’t sound like a farm animal. It didn’t sound like anything he’d ever heard before. He wanted to say something else so the creature might understand that he wasn’t there as a threat, despite the gun in his hand, but his mouth dried up and he couldn't bring to himself utter another word.

Fight or flight was clicking into place as Adam weighed up his options, glancing quickly over his shoulder to estimate how many milliseconds it would take him to reach the door, or whether he could dive for the ladder that led to a mezzanine level above and gain some higher ground. His mind was also on his experience in the driveway and he wondered if he was as scared shitless then as he was now. Which was worse? His childhood memories or fear of the unknown that snarled?

There was movement at the far end of the barn and Adam only caught a glimpse of something impossibly big with white, leathery torn skin, the beat of large wings before he opened fire. Three fast shots, one after the other, and then he was running. He locked eyes with a bored-looking sandy coloured cow chewing lazily and wondered how she could be so calm while he was running for his life and then he fell as the thing crashed into his back, tearing at him and sending him careening forwards. He smacked his head on the hard, packed earth outside the barn door and the gun was knocked from his grip, skittering through the dust. For a second he lay there, dazed but then the creature gave a high, thin cry and Adam rolled, one hand to his forehead as he watched the thing fly over him and up into the blue sky.

He rolled again, pushing himself up on all fours and crawled towards his gun, adrenaline surging through him as his fingers wrapped around the skin-warmed metal. As he stood, taking aim at the sky, something small and dark flashed past him, colliding with his arm and knocking the gun flying again. Adam recognized the black bird from earlier as it soared up into the sky after the creature.

“Hey!”

The human voice startled him, aggressive and laboured and to Adam’s great dismay, the owner of the voice reached down a few feet away to pick up his gun from between the weeds where it had fallen. He was a tall guy with a shaved head and his eyes were light in colour but they seemed to darken as he studied the gun, then looked up at Adam. He wore a sleeveless, black shirt and scales snaked up his left arm in dark green ink. His face was sharp angles and as he stopped a few feet away from Adam, he lifted the gun and pointed it at him.

Adam automatically held both hands up, trying to ignore the throbbing in his head and the stinging pain to his left shoulder. He took his eyes off the stranger momentarily to glance up at the creature in the sky that was now chasing the black bird and shrieking. The cattle continued to graze.

“Who the fuck are you?” The stranger asked. Most likely the owner of the farm. Almost definitely the dreamer.

“My name's Parrish,” Adam told him breathlessly and went to reach for his government issued badge but the dreamer stepped closer, gun trained at Adam’s head. He was unaware as to whether the dreamer knew how to use a gun, but it wouldn’t take an idiot to pull a trigger.

Adam froze and swallowed, his right hand now closer to his chest. The blood running out of his left hand seemed to be pooling at his shoulder blade and he gritted his teeth.

“Keep your hands up there,” the dreamer told him and Adam lifted his right hand higher again.

“I’m just gonna show you my badge—“

“You a cop?” The dreamer interrupted. Adam noticed that his hand didn’t shake as he wielded the gun and it spoke volumes.

“No, I work for the government,” Adam said, trying to keep his voice calm and even although it was getting difficult to ignore the pain in his shoulder as it seemed to have melded with the pain in his head so his whole body felt like it was beginning to vibrate with each fast pulse of his heart. His hands trembled midair.

The dreamer finally lowered the gun but his expression was no less threatening. “What do you want?”

“Can I get my badge now?” Adam asked and the dreamer nodded once so Adam reached into his back pocket stiffly and pulled out his badge, throwing it to the dreamer who caught it easily in one hand. He flicked the safety back on the gun and tucked it behind his back, then studied the badge.

“What the fuck?” Adam heard him mutter under his breath.

“Surely you’ve heard of us?” Adam asked incredulously. With this place so full of dreams, it was hard to grasp that he may have been free to go about this activity unsupervised.

The dreamer looked up from the badge with suspicious hostility. “No, I haven’t.”

Adam didn’t like that look. “I’m gonna need my firearm back,” he said but the dreamer didn’t move or speak, he just carried on looking at Adam until the sound of the creature and the bird flying directly overhead had them both looking at the sky, the bird teasing the monster and cackling as if it knew how to laugh.

“What is that thing?” Adam asked and he reached over his shoulder to press the fingertips of his right hand to his left shoulder blade. They came back smeared with blood. “Jesus. Shit. What is that thing?” he repeated.

“It’s a raven,” the dreamer replied before quickly closing the gap between himself and Adam, pressing the badge into Adam’s chest. The sudden closeness and contact had Adam stepping back like he’d been burnt and the badge fell to the floor between them. He scrabbled in the dirt to pick it up, almost losing his balance as he straightened up again with the throbbing in his temple. The world seemed to darken at the edges, then refocused.

“Not the bird,” he snapped.

“Hey, shit-for-brains,” the dreamer called up at the sky and after a few rotations, the raven plummeted, leaving the monster reeling.

The large bird landed cleanly on the dreamer's shoulder and it eyed Adam with a similar, hostile expression. Adam watched, surprised and silently awed at the tameness of the carrion bird. Then he felt a rush of air as the white creature sored down and he ducked out of the way as the dreamer pointed to the barn calmly without so much as shifting positions.

“Get in there or get lost,” he told it and the creature alighted on the barn roof chaotically, leathery wings flapping, sending a few roof tiles clattering to the ground. Adam took it in. It’s ruined, cadaverous body in a sickly off-white colour. The thing had two heads with ugly, half-humanoid, half-bird features and red eyes. He’d never seen something so terrifying in his life.

“What is it?” He demanded again.

“An angel,” the dreamer replied with a snort.

Adam managed to tear his eyes away. “You know I could have you arrested for keeping it?” he said.

There was something dangerous in the dreamer's face, worse than the expression he wore before. This one was a smirk, sharp as the talons of the raven that hunched on his shoulder. “I thought you weren’t a cop,” he said.

“I’m not, but I’m well within my rights to call them,” Adam told him. He sounded brave but he didn’t feel it. He really wanted to sit down. This time, when his vision blurred and dimmed at the edges, it didn’t return to normal afterwards. He swayed slightly.

“And what exactly is my crime?” The dreamer asked and he shrugged his shoulder, causing the raven to fly off. Adam didn’t watch it go as it was suddenly taking everything in him to stay vertical. He stared at the dreamer, his vision tunneling.

“That thing attacked me,” he said. “You’ve created something dangerous and life threatening. It’s—“ he searched for what he was supposed to say, but his brain felt foggy, words evading him as the tunnel seemed to lengthen, the dreamer getting further and further away. “It’s not allowed,” he settled on and flinched violently as the creature perched on the roof cried out. He brought a hand instinctively to his deaf ear.

“Who says it’s mine?” came the dreamer's voice, far away.

Adam looked about him for something to sag against. If he didn’t urge himself to move quickly, he was going to faceplant the ground again. The barn was a few paces away, he was sure of it, though it looked distant and foreboding.

“As if—“ he staggered to the barn, putting one hand against the weathered wood faster than he thought was possible, then he leaned his whole body into it. “As if I can’t smell it,” he said, lifting his heavy head to see the dreamer moving towards him again, “on you,” he finished, his voice slurring and foreign to his own ears. It wasn’t really the word he was looking for but it seemed to fit. All he could feel was pain, sparking up his whole body like his blood was lighter fluid and someone had dropped a match.

“What the hell, man?” said the dreamer.

“Don’t… touch me,” Adam mumbled as he slid down the wall to the ground like he was melting in the sun.

“I’m not gonna fucking touch you.”

The dreamer's voice seemed to come from very far away and then as Adam was fighting it, unconsciousness grabbed him and took him under and the summer afternoon slipped into nothingness.