no_voice | I want to run to feel again.

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adam parrish

I want to run to feel again.

Jason still doesn't know what to make of Darrow. He has his Welcome Packet, so to speak; a lot like the Orientation Packet at Saint Cecilia's, only with actual money, and a new phone unlike any he's ever seen before. He has keys to his own apartment, which also strikes him as odd and out of place. He's only recently a legal adult; how can anyone see fit to entrust him to his own place?

He crashed that first night with Noah, which was a relief, all things considered. He would have, most likely, attempted some kind of escape if he'd wound up sleeping alone. Especially after everything that happened.

He has all the makings of a new life here, Jason thinks. But he cannot reach out to those he left behind. His parents, Nadia, his friends - Peter. They are all in their own existence, believing him dead and moving on without them. And so he has to try and move on without them too.

Currently, he's throwing himself into exercise to distract himself. Ocean View Apartments, being located rather close to the beach, provides a perfect route for running. Jason, barely sleeping, wakes up mere hours after putting his head against his pillows to run while the sun is still in the process of rising. The aching of his muscles doesn't eliminate the pain and sorrow he's left behind, but it does make it easier for Jason to breathe. At least, for a little while.

He's coming home from one of these runs now, sweat soaking through his shorts and wife beater; even through his running shoes. He's ready to hurl himself into a shower when he reaches the front entrance. Which is when, of course, he realizes one very fundamental truth: he left his keys on the counter.

"Son of a bitch!" He curses, moving to lean against one of the railings by the door and hoping desperately that some kind soul or other will eventually come by to open the door.

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"Copper, huh?" Jason says, leaning down to immediately pet the dog when she flops down, starting at her chest so as to not to spook her. "Nice name. Seems to suit her."

"I'm Jason," he adds, smiling up at the other boy.

"It's nice to meet you both," he says. "Thanks again for helping out in my moment of stupidity."

Adam smiled thinly, only shrugging. "I watched a lot of the Fox and the Hound when I was a kid," he explained, only thinking afterward that maybe this guy didn't come from a world where Disney movies were ubiquitous, even for trailer park boys.

"Anyone could have done something like that. Don't worry about it."

Hell, Gansey had probably done that.

"Man, I can't believe I didn't get that reference," Jason says with a laugh, shaking his head as he continues to pet the other man's dog. "I watched a lot of Disney movies with my sister," he adds, not sounding nearly as defensive as he might once have. After all, this Disney movie had animals, not princesses. "But man. That was one of the tearjerkers. That and Bambi."

He's only just met Adam, but the other man seems to have an easy sort of presence that makes Jason not nearly as weary as he usually would be around strangers.

"I guess so," Jason says with a shrug. "At least it's a nice day to get locked out."

"My mom used to put me in front of the TV and go take care of things." It had only occurred recently to Adam that that was not actually a normal way of raising a child. His mother had parked him there, knowing he'd be fascinated, and had abandoned him to other tasks. Adam had better memories of Copper and Todd than he did of his parents.

"Probably one of the last ones before it gets cold too. Colors are turning on the trees."

"That was my mom's technique of getting us to leave her alone, too," Jason says, recalling how, when the nanny wasn't around, she would plant both him and Nadia in front of whatever children's program would be playing at the time and left with one of her girlfriends to plan the next big McConnell event. "Mostly so we wouldn't see her popping pills but, you know." Jason shrugs. It's never been as hard for him to talk about his mother and her worldly ways the way it is for him to talk about his father. Something about the way Adam describes his own mother makes Jason think he can understand what he means.

"Yeah, no kidding. It's beautiful. Almost reminds me of home," Jason says. The good parts of home at least, he amends to himself.

Adam didn't comment on Jason's mom. His own mother had been permissive, had convinced him that so many of his father's blows had been his own fault. Even so, he couldn't sell her out. If asked to actually condemn his father, even, Adam wouldn't have had the words.

"Where's home for you?" It was as much a question to himself as anything. St. Agnes, he supposed, had been the closest Adam had. Not the trailer park at Antietam Lane. That had been a prison and a place he hadn't been brave enough to leave, bound by so many reasons.

Jason doesn't miss Adam's silence, but he doesn't press, either. He knows only too well what it is to force someone out of their silence.

"Connecticut, technically," Jason says, still petting Copper with vigorous enthusiasm. "But I always felt more at home at school. Saint Cecilia's, in New York." Mostly because, to Jason, home was where Peter was, and where his father decidedly wasn't.

"How about you?" He asks, watching Adam. "Are you from Darrow, originally?"

"Boarding school?" he guessed. It wasn't fair of him, but Adam felt he could quickly summarize at least part of Jason's life. He said Saint Cecilia's the way that people back home said Aglionby, with self-assurance and—for the ones who succeeded—no small amount of affection. It was the way he wanted to say his school's name, once he'd earned the right.

"No. Henrietta, Virginia. I promise, you haven't heard of it. Maybe the school there, but not the town."

Not a place for leaving.

"Yeah," Jason says, only now just aware of how awkward that could sound. He flushes a bit, realizing how rare it is that he does come across other students who have attended boarding school. But also at the realization that, mostly, his affection for Saint Cecilia's hinges on his affection for one person in particular there. He at least has the sense not to mention that he would have gone on to Notre Dame after. Well, if he'd made it to graduation, that is.

"Henrietta? No, I can't say that I have heard of it. Or the school there. I probably should know it," he admits ruefully. "We might have played them at sports, or something."

"Aglionby Academy," Adam said. He was only vaguely aware that Aglionby had sports, in the sense that it was a school, so it must but extracurriculars had been largely composed of helping Gansey look for a Welsh king on a ley line.

"It's a boarding school too."

"Aglionby," Jason makes an attempt at pronouncing the name right, but even as he says it, he can feel the vowels leaving his mouth wrong. "Can't say I have heard of it, which is weird."

To say the least. This is probably what people meant by people arriving from different worlds when they were explaining Darrow to Jason his first night.

"Is Aglionby the school you attended before...all this?"

Adam nodded. Aglionby, with Ronan and Gansey, and then visiting Monmouth with Blue and Noah alongside them. Pizza at Nino's and sitting with Blue while they didn't eat gelato. All of those places were part of Aglionby, part of his idea of home.

"I didn't live in the dorms though," Adam said, a little closed with his words there.

Jason nods. They'd had some students at Saint Cecilia's who didn't live in the dorms, too. Students from the local town who commuted. Jason is aware enough at what not living in the dorms implies, and he's also aware not to bring it to attention, either.

"Did you like Aglionby?" He asks instead, hoping the question doesn't come off as intrusive.

"It was a hard school but, yeah, I did," Adam said. More than liked it, really. It was the first place that had affirmed his worth. Adam had always known he had some but Aglionby's report card had given him cause to believe it.

"Nice. I'm sorry the city pulled you away from it," Jason says. Saint Cecilia's had been plenty challenging in its own ways, academically, too. As the top of the class, Jason took great satisfaction in seeing his hard work pay off. "How long have you been here, anyway?"

"Since July. I showed up here and some people from school had been here longer. My friend. My..." He hesitated, thinking of Ronan. They'd used the word before but not to other people. Not even to their friends.

But now the word hung in the air too long.

"My boyfriend."

"That's good that you have other people from your school here, too," Jason says. "I wish I had - " He stops mid sentence when Adam mentions that word. That word so much a part of his life. That word so much a part of his secrets. He visibly tenses, though he tries to hide it in a shrug.

"Oh," he says, trying to act casual even as his thoughts are a whirl of panic and wonder all at once. "I didn't realize you were..."

One small word, and it's still too difficult for Jason to say.

"I'm not. I'm..." Adam shrugged. He hadn't actually put a word to it. Bisexual, he thought, was probably the word, but to just slap that label on now seemed flippant. Nothing about his feelings about Ronan should have been flippant.

"Let me get back to you on that."

He tried to coat the words in Gansey's charm but it didn't suit him well.

"You okay?"

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to assume." Jason rubs a hand over his mouth, as though the gesture could erase the awkwardness of the words coming out of his mouth. But he doesn't know how to discuss this sort of thing without making it awkward.

"Fair enough," he settles on eventually, managing the energy for a small smile though it lacks the usual luster of a Jason McConnell grin.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jason says, coating the lie with another shrug.

Adam shrugged, though he observed Jason's grin and thought that if anyone here could pull off a Richard Campbell Gansey III smile, Jason was the one. Despite it it all, he felt warmly disposed to Jason.

"What unit are you?" he asked, changing the subject as they walked.

Jason feels immediate relief when Adam changes the subject; so much so that it most likely shows on his face, and he doesn't hurry to mask it with a more appropriate emotion. He falls into step with Adam and his dog easily, glad to be heading a new direction.

"Number 14, and you?" He asks as they walk.

"Twenty-four," Adam said, nodding toward the second floor. It was higher than his old bedroom in the trailer but not as high as his little attic nothing at St. Agnes. Definitely though, it wasn't high enough to keep Ronan from climbing into his window.

"I don't think I've seen you in the halls before."

"Only ten numbers apart, what do you know," Jason eases into a joke, cracking another smile. He's grateful to be on another topic altogether. As they walk, it becomes easier for Jason to ignore the distinct unease that arose from the previous turn in conversation.

"I just got here recently, myself," Jason admits. "Almost a week ago, now."

Adam filed Jason's reaction away, knowing that it would always serve him well to know what made people angry or upset. There were few things more important in the world of Adam Parrish than knowing how to avoid someone's anger. This was the reaction of prey animals who knew their only hope was to be faster and fleeter than the thing that wanted to harm them.

Adam Parrish had been born prey.

"I've been here since July," he said, following down the hall for lack of anything better to do.

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