InsaneJournal

Setting up for Parents' Day held a lot less weight than it would for Father's Day. Whether it was because certain fathers didn't hold an emotional stranglehold on the Barns residents this year or because this was far more a summer extravaganza than sole focus on close family, Adam couldn't quite figure it out. There were plenty of people who now were more parental than actual parents and maybe that was why Adam didn't feel an aching dread when Opal started her curious interrogation.

Lots of why this and why that. Why parents? Why do we have parents? Why doesn't everyone have parents? And then it devolved into who. Adam safely sidestepped that line of questioning, especially the who are your parents? when Gasoline had approached, then promptly disappeared into a noxious smoke, which Opal gleefully shrieked and ran after.

He'd get better, he knew this. Where years before the question might cause him to feel sick and anxious afterward, it now just brought up a single painful memory which he could promptly sweep away. It didn't hook its claws in, didn't drag out more unpleasant memories, didn't sour his mood for hours. Adam wanted to be present; he had other things to worry about, other memories to continue to unpack that needed his mental bandwidth.

But not today either, those could wait.

When he turned around, it was unsurprising to find Persephone behind him, backlit by the rising sun. Early to the market and the festivities, holding a pie. The feeling in his chest was, it was—Adam could only smile and walk closer, hand over his brow. "Do you want to bring that inside? It will get lost out here or Opal will get into it, hands first. And I know what she's been touching this morning."

She’d enjoyed just watching him with Opal, and just watching Adam’s careful movements. When he didn’t know he was under scrutiny was a true Adam, one that let more of his guard down than usual. She didn’t take any pleasure in seeing painful memories sweep across his face, but it was still a far cry from the Adam she had first met.

That gave her a measure of comfort, to see the difference, to see how his shoulders had grown out, how he carried himself now with more of a straight back, less of a burden sitting there. If there was anything she could have asked for, it was that.

“Please. This one is for you.” She’d come in with Maura, and given Blue her standard kiss on the cheek before putting out a large dirt cake for sharing - with a separate one just for Opal. The pie was for Adam to share with his choice, not for the masses that would be arriving in full force. “I left a dirt cake for her on the table, Blue knows. Is there anything not finished that you need help with?”


"I should have known you'd be prepared," Adam said, pleased that Persephone went out of her way to include Opal. Maybe Ronan's psychopomp didn't understand or care whether or not someone brought an extra pie that was specifically for her to mess up, but it was kindness that always seemed to floor Adam. And it was kindness from people like Persephone that knitted together that spot inside of him that had been torn so long ago.

He nodded over to the table he had been setting up before Opal made her quick, but furious, appearance and then ran off. "There's arts and crafts that I'm in charge of cataloguing and maintaining during the day. And I need to make an example of it for families to follow. Blue showed me, it's something with popsicle sticks and yarn. But I'm not very crafty and—" He looked at his watch, the one Ronan had dreamt him for Christmas before the end of his senior year because Opal had his other. "Less than thirty minutes to figure it out."

Adam began to set the parts out, which mostly consisted of untangling the mass of colorful yarn that had been shoved into the box. He handed one of the skeins off to Persephone.

"It's been better here," Adam said quietly, starting a conversation that seemed apropos of nothing, but Adam knew Persephone would understand. "We talked. I don't know if you figured out we did or if you were waiting for me to tell you."

Persephone brightened a little at the mention of popsicle sticks and yarn. Right in her element - the same element that had been there when Blue was young and in school and had crafts and the ladies of Fox Way helped her with. School projects had always been fun. She took the skein with a twinkle in her eye and a grin playing at her lips.

“I’d say I miss these sort of crafts but I did a portrait of a deer in string art with yarn and nails just yesterday.” She started wrapping her skein of yarn around her fingers to portion it off. “Are there pipe cleaners?” Important parts to any yarn and popsicle craft that she was about to teach him. There were a multitude of options, all of which she’d made at some point in her life.

She pulled up a seat and stared up at him expectantly and nodded. “It feels less tense, so I assumed. I’m glad, I knew it would just take time, and you two have been better about your feelings here.”

It was clear that Adam was not a crafty person, considering the look he gave Persephone when she asked about pipe cleaners. Did they need pipe cleaners? Did they have pipe cleaners? Certainly Blue wouldn't have left him without the proper tools for appropriate crafts? He paused only for a moment before combing through the box—washable markers were scattered at the bottom, though he assumed those were a Ronan dreamt thing, never to dry out. There were also bottles of non-toxic glue, and ah ha!

Adam seemed overly pleased to place them on the table between them. "Pipe cleaners," he announced, and abandoned his yarn untangling to untie the colorful fuzzy wires from the bundle.

"I think..." Adam paused, then corrected himself, "I know that a lot of our problems come from miscommunication. It's been a hard habit to break, but we both come around eventually." Adam smiled, a small private thing, like he was remembering an inside joke. He cheeks reddened at the thought of Ronan. "We love each other too much to let it fall apart without trying to fix it. That's why we're better here. It's easier to remember that when we're close, I just have to figure out how to make sure it's known when we're apart."

He had unconsciously twisted one of the pipe cleaners into a spiral. "Alright, what am I doing with these?"

Persephone finished rolling up the ball of yarn she had, and set it aside. She picked up another and started on it, making a little row of yarn colors for others to use. Persephone was seldom organized, so the area in front of her turned into more of a chaotic organization than anything else.

But that was at least better than her yarn bag at home. She could do that for Adam, who liked things organized and in their place, with a set list and rules. It was never Persephone’s style, but it also wasn’t about her. So she held up two popsicle sticks for him, gentle smile in place. “Yarn butterflies. Pick out two or three of your favorite colors.”

She reached over to snag a pink pipe cleaner from his pile for her own self. “I’m confident you two will always find your way, your path. It’s a road that winds together more than it parts. You just have to remember that when things get tough.”

Adam's eyes narrowed, not with any heat, at the popsicle sticks. It was taking him longer than he wanted to admit how those could become butterflies with yarn. But he trusted Persephone, skilled in an area he wasn't, and Adam was forever a student—always wanting to learn from others, whether it was in academia, the occult, or crafting. He followed her instructions, eying her neatly placed rows of yarn, and slid the ball of glittery ombre black and deep blue to his side of the table.

"I'm tired of it being tough," Adam blurted out. He was quiet for a long moment after he said it, like he was trying to decide if he was going to continue that train of thought or step it back. Adam was notorious for taking the hardest path because, he believed, success didn't come without suffering. He learned that sometimes good things could just be because he deserved them. What surprised him most was that he wanted that for other people just as much as he wanted it for himself.

"Not that I want to give up on it because it is," Adam clarified. "I want something to go right for once. I'm tired of it being tough for him, especially when I can't do anything about it. There's only so much I can say, but I'm competing with a lot of ghosts." His expression went a little sad and soft as he looked up to Persephone. Wasn't she a ghost in some way too?

He changed the subject, it felt too heavy to sort through now. "Where did you learn to do this? Make yarn butterflies?"

She eyed his colors with an interesting glint. It wasn’t the choice she would have expected for him, with the glitter speckled into it. But it was nice, and slightly refreshing to see him pick a less than practical option, even if the sensible blue was paired with it. It was a fairly unnecessary thought process, but it was nice. Comforting.

It felt better than watching his face shift to sadness. That, quite frankly, hurt her heart, especially knowing she was one of those ghosts. Possibly not one they wrestled with, or even thought of much back home, but if Persephone ever left-- well, that was it.

She might have been at peace with her own passing, but that rarely helped those around them. “You both have your own demons to sift through, figuratively and unfortunately literally.” She started sorting out popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners, and got two of her own with yarn that was olive green and speckled with confetti throughout. It wasn’t pretty, by any means.

“Pinterest.” Okay, that joke was only half true. She smiled at herself. “But mostly helping Blue when she was little. Start wrapping around the middle and spread the sticks like an x. If you wrap around the x with the yarn, it won’t fold in on itself.”

"Probably shouldn't use the d word," Adam said, also half-joking. There were too many that would ultimately sour the day—demons, Declan. But it was just the two of them, Adam would keep their little bubble of conversation protected. And she wasn't wrong, they did have internal complications that they needed to work through; many of them Adam couldn't fight for Ronan. He could barely fight them for himself.

He smiled though at her joke, and began to follow her instructions. His popsicle x, however, kept sliding back into an i, and he paused to watch Perspehone do it with years of precision and ease. He kept trying. "I can't remember the last time I made a craft like this," Adam said, casual, conversationally. "You know, not at the market for an event. But little, when doing things with glue and glitter was supposed to be way more fun than reading. I think I missed some kind of childhood milestone."

Adam didn't sound sad about it, just matter-of-fact. His mother's day and father's day gifts went ignored or untouched, until Adam was trying to squirm his way out of making anything for them in elementary school. He learned to shove his hard, crafty work into the trash on his walks home. It was easier.

"But I guess there is no time like the present?"

“It’s very good to live in the present,” Persephone confirmed with a little return smile. She’d wanted to make more light of the demon comment, to ask if Ronan would kick her out - he wouldn’t - for it, but she was one to turn light around for past traumatics. Sometimes it was better for that airy feeling to b low through, to wrap around them without that weight dragging them down.

But their thoughts were heavy enough, with the memories of Adam’s parents and the past that Persephone knew was just lurking beyond.

She was determined to make more happy memories now, though, and purposely went a little slower so he could watch her movements with his hawkish gaze. “We might still have the volcano Blue made in third grade at Fox Way. It was made entirely of pompoms.” Persephone grinned a little wider at the memory. “It was supposed to be functioning, and she went through with the experiment anyway, but instead of giving up, she rebuilt the entire thing out of spite when she got home. I think it had three bottles of rubber cement holding it together in the end.”

"Spite doing homework, that sounds like Blue," Adam said with a laugh, and shook his head. He tried to imagine a pompom-built active volcano and fell short. His brain lacked the vibrant creativity that Blue, and Ronan, and now—by the looks of her butterfly—Persephone. He continued with his own spiteful determination, but it was crooked and the yarn loose in spots. It was a droopy butterfly, but it still could pass. He'd show it to Ronan later, ask for his opinion, and feign being upset when he told him it was hideous.

He was quiet for a moment, trying to fix as many mistakes as he could before Adam gave Persephone a soft, tentative look. "Will you stay?" Adam asked, which sounded heavier than he wanted. He intended the question to be for the arts and crafts, but he couldn't help but feel the uncertainty of her presence lasting. With Hennessy coming and going, and it still plaguing Ronan, Adam's worry was top of mind.

"I mean with the table? I don't think I can troubleshoot what a kid is doing wrong yet, considering mine looks like—" He held it up, a little embarrassed, his face scrunching up. "This."

It was a testament to her age and experience that she didn’t let the shadow cross her face with that gentle rollercoaster. She had felt the -- maternal? Persephone had never had the attention span to be a mother, not when she had been at an age of having her own children, so she had been content to be that kind of weird aunt for Blue. By the time Adam came into her life, he hadn’t been interested in a substitute, so she filled that void the best she could as mentor.

The mother’s day flowers had been a surprise, and a pleasant one, but it still wasn’t a conversation they had had. It had been something unspoken between her and Adam, that she was there for him however he needed her to be.

But she smoothly recovered her expression in a second, with with the table. A reminder that she was there for him however he needed her to be floated through her brain again, and she flashed him a calm, serene smile. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, I’ll stay as long as you like.” She reached over to attach two googly eyes to Adam’s butterfly. “It’s perfect, though. You already have the hang of it.”

Adam watched Persephone with that casual observance he left for big group outings, for when strangers flocked into the room and he needed to get a sense of safety within minutes. He was safe with Persephone, but there was something else that troubled her that he noticed, and Adam hated that he might have been the cause. But much like he, and definitely Gansey, plastered on smiles over anxiety, Adam didn't let the moment trip him up. Did she know what he meant even when he scrambled to course correct?

He pulled the little yarn butterfly back to him, and shook it once, twice, to make the eyes move. It made him smile, something different but no less genuine. It was as if the child that he had put aside very quickly in order to survive felt a small surge of life.

"Hang of it, yeah, but we're trying to get people to come over here and make crafts, not run away. And we're competing with giant lawn games," Adam said, his voice going serious, the desire for competition growing. "Maybe we can make a few more to hang from the top of the tent? Try and draw a few more people over when they start coming in?"

Persephone wasted no time matching his level of competition with a smile that grew ever-so-slowly, in the most sinister of ways. It wasn’t really sinister but she didn’t get much of a chance to show off her more playful and devious side any longer. She offered him a ball of brightly colored yarn and more popsicles a moment later.

“If it’s a competition, there’s no one more competent and prepared than us. We need at least six butterflies.” She leaned in a little, as if the next part was a secret. “I have a hunch that we can get Opal to sabotage Ronan’s next jenga game, if our illusions don’t work.”