WHO: Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Opal (NPC), Ronan's Night Horror (NPC) WHAT: Adam is almost drowned by a kelpie WHEN: Sunday WHERE: River WARNINGS: Near drowning
Adam really should have known better.
He’d be around Tumbleweed and magic along enough to know that they were both unpredictable and that he needed to keep his guard up.
He’d just been so charmed by the water sprites and by the nuanced changes that Tumbleweed had gone through to make it seem a bit more like Cabeswater. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to the rest of his surroundings and didn’t notice the dark horse slide up in the water beside him, shifting quietly into the shape of a bedraggled man.
Abruptly, Adam was in the water, a strong pair of arms around his middle, dragging him down. He let out too much air too quickly in surprise, and then struggled, trying to pull free, mind blaring with panic.
…
Ronan also should have been more careful, because all the weird shit that happened in Tumbleweed really tended to fuck with him, but this time, he loved it. There were trees and animals and magic everywhere. His people were still here, and safe, and so were Opal and his night horror and his Ditto, and they had a whole new magical forest to explore. They went wandering, sticking together at first, but eventually splitting up (now that Gansey had a bulletproof dog Pokemon also named Ronan, it was a lot easier for the human Ronan to let delicate human Gansey wander off).
And he was so enchanted by the forest that he didn’t notice immediately that Adam was in danger. He heard a splash of water, and then an alarmed screech from his night horror up above, and he turned to see the giant white creature diving towards the water. It took him a moment to realize that the thing the night horror was diving for was Adam.
Ronan didn’t even take the time to curse under his breath or to shout Adam’s name. He dashed for the water, too focused to notice that Opal was doing the same. The kerfuffle in the water was a horrible, chaotic mixture of wings and beaks, all of which were the night horror’s, and limbs, not all of which were Adam’s.
Ronan ran straight into the river and tried to get hold of Adam, to pull him back to the surface.
--
Adam didn’t think that he was too far down when the water turned to chaos. He was aware that there was something else in the water with them, but he didn’t know what. His lungs started to burn. He kicked back against the kelpie, but didn’t manage to make any headway.
But then -- he felt human fingers wrap around his wrist, and Adam grabbed back with everything that he had.
…
Ronan got hold of Adam’s wrist, and pulled. At first he wasn’t getting much of anywhere, even though Adam got hold of him, but then the night horror stabbed the thing holding Adam with one of its beaks, and its grip on Adam released. Ronan pulled with all his strength, and finally pulled Adam to the surface, into his arms. With Opal’s help, he dragged Adam up onto the river bank, laying him on his back, while the strange fight in the river continued.
Ronan was worried about his night horror, but he was even more worried about Adam. “Adam,” he said, voice strained. “Adam.”
--
Adam wasn’t able to do much hang onto Ronan, chest aching, head dizzy. He was practically dead weight as Ronan hauled him out of the water.
Adam tried to breathe and instead started to cough up the water that he had breathed in while he was in the river. He clung to Ronan’s wrist the entire time.
…
Ronan helped roll Adam over onto his side so he could cough up the water onto the ground instead of swallowing it. He gave Adam a few hearty thumps on the back.
“Get it all out,” he said, voice still hoarse. It sounded as though he’d been screaming or shouting, although he didn’t remember doing that. “C’mon, Parrish, breathe.”
--
Adam was trying, but he didn’t seem to have much control over anything at the moment. His body was just reacting in the only ways it knew how in order to keep him alive. Finally, the water abated, leaving Adam raggedly gasping for oxygen, his throat burning wickedly and his eyes and nose running.
…
There was so much water coming out of Adam’s mouth. Ronan was gripping Adam’s arm way too hard, but he couldn’t make himself let go. He had just been running on adrenaline, and now that there was nothing else he could really do, it was starting to wear off, leaving him shaky and panicked.
“Parrish,” he said, when Adam was no longer coughing up water and dragging in air. “Adam. You gonna live?”
--
Adam nodded, still not sure if he could easily talk. He didn't yet try to lift himself up from the ground or let go of Ronan.
Now that he had the chance, he was starting to realize the magnitude of what had happened to him, of truly how close he had come to drowning. He would likely be dead if Ronan hadn't noticed he had gone into the water. …
“Thank fuck,” Ronan breathed out. He hadn’t let go of Adam either, and he wasn’t planning on it anytime soon. He’d turned his back for one second and Adam had nearly drowned. His heart still felt like it might give out.
He looked back over at the river. The night horror was still flapping its wings to remain above the water and using its claws and beak to fight the thing in the water. The only part of it that Ronan could see looked like human legs with hooves. It deeply unsettled him to see that, because that was how Opal’s legs were, except -- Opal was nothing like that creature. But that was a secondary concern next to his worry for the night horror getting hurt.
He opened his mouth to shout at the night horror to leave it alone, but he didn’t need to say anything. It knew. It flapped its great wings and pulled up into the air, giving a terrifying screech, and then flew over and landed on the bank between Ronan and Adam and the river, both of its eyes still on the thing in the water until it disappeared.
--
Adam lifted his head only a little at the sounds that were coming from the water, confirming that it had, indeed, been Ronan’s night horror that had saved him. Of course it was.
Adam didn’t have the words to even begin to think through how it was that Ronan’s dream creatures kept saving him -- kept such close attention to him. He knew they were an extension of Ronan in that way, just another way to prove just how deeply Ronan cared about him.
He was relieved the night horror seemed to be all right.
Adam flopped back against Ronan.
…
Ronan shifted, crossing his legs to sit down more comfortably instead of kneeling beside Adam. He sat close to Adam’s head, and, using his hands, cradled Adam’s head in his lap, his fingers stroking through Adam’s wet hair.
“It’s okay,” he said, to reassure himself as much as Adam -- maybe even more so. “I’ve got you.”
--
“I know,” Adam said, because he did know that beyond anything else. He knew that there was never going to be anyone who loved or protected him more than Ronan Lynch.
He concentrated on breathing for the time being, letting his heart start to slow down, the adrenaline leaking from his body.
“Are you okay?” he asked belatedly, voice a little rough, because he knew that Ronan likely had been more scared than he had been.
…
“Oh, yeah, fine,” Ronan said, a little too quickly and a little too sarcastically to be believed, but that wasn’t what he was going for. “Just had a fucking heart attack, that’s all.”
He hadn’t even seen it coming, or been prepared to deal with such a creature. He was so damn glad the night horror was here, otherwise, Adam might actually have died before Ronan and Opal could have gotten him out of the water. Or maybe it would have managed to drown all of them. Who knew.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Adam’s temple, still damp. “You’re not supposed to go and die on me either, you know.”
--
That answer came as little surprise. He would have felt bad for scaring Ronan so much if he’d had any control at all over what had just happened.
“I know,” Adam answered. He turned his head so that he could kiss Ronan on the mouth after he was done. “I’ll try harder.”
…
“You’d better,” Ronan answered. His fingertips stroked the lines of Adam’s jaw, his hairline, brushing some of the hair that stuck wetly to Adam’s skin. He was relieved that Adam had recovered well enough, especially in terms of breathing, to risk kissing him on the mouth, and he returned the kiss, briefly but heatedly. “You need to go to a doctor?”
--
“I don’t think so,” Adam said. “But this all seems a little less fun now. Can we go home?” All he really wanted to do was put on some dry clothes and roll up in their bed for a little while.
…
“Yeah,” Ronan agreed. They weren’t necessarily safer in their little cottage here, and it certainly wasn’t the Barns, but it seemed as good an idea as any. They could shut the door and hope that would keep all the weird shit out. “Let’s go home.”