WHO: Adam Parrish and Matthew Lynch WHAT: Matthew finally takes Adam up on his Christmas gift and they talk about solutions to long standing problems WHEN: Sunday afternoon WARNINGS: Some vague spoilers for Mister Impossible STATUS: Complete
Matthew had been in Cabeswater before it appeared in Vallo. The magical forest was where Aurora was able to be awake, and where he’d last seen her, as real as she could be. He didn’t have the same rapport or innate connection with Cabeswater the way Ronan or Gansey or Adam did but he felt a tug in his chest, compelling him forward and into the forest. Like the dream stuff in him (of him, was him, he was) suddenly lit up in his veins and recognized something familiar. That happened too, with the sheep or the alpacas, or any of the other dreamed creatures, especially when they came from Ronan. It sounded silly, but sometimes when Matthew was stroking one of the sheep’s heads and looking at it, and it looked back at him, it was as if they were on the same...frequency.
Being in Cabeswater was like that, but more. It felt as if he was being watched--or, as if something wanted him to know he was being watched, wanted him to notice. There were light purple crocuses, so pale they were almost an icy white, sprouting up as he walked on the grass. He heard a bird calling and it sounded like the tune of a made up nursery rhyme Aurora would sing to Matthew about princes coming home from a long voyage. The breeze smelled like freshly baked waffle cones, roses, clean snow.
He patted a tree limb with the same sort of tenderness he did to a shy animal.
“I’m going to let you lead,” he told Adam, gently nudging him with his shoulder. “Pick a spot that feels good to you?” If that was how it worked, anyway, Matthew wasn’t sure, but he could certainly understand if it did! The ‘it’, in this instance, being tarot. Matthew had seen Adam read cards before, of course, he did so all the time at the market. Adam had noticed Matthew’s curiosity and at Christmas, offered a reading of his own. It had taken time for Matthew to actually take him up on it, but with the influx of new memories they all received, well. It seemed like a little guidance wouldn’t be a bad thing. Especially not when it was channeled through Adam, who Matthew trusted to tell him the truth.
Even though it was his Christmas gift to Matthew, so much time had passed that Adam wasn't sure if Matthew was ever going to take him up on the offer. But he should have known, given the state of the world and the way things tended to work, that waiting had been for an unseen reason. That the memories from home were right on the horizon. And that needing guidance was now and not a moment before.
Adam followed Matthew into Cabeswater, and watched with that observant curiosity that he left for new people or new experiences. It was not as if Matthew had never been in the magical forest, but Adam could count on one hand how many times that he had been with Matthew. The Magician around dreams was always a strange and heady experience, but this was different with Matthew now. He palmed the deck in his pocket for a bit of grounding, lest he float away in awe.
When Matthew said Adam could lead the way, he found this absurd. Matthew was doing his own sort of navigation in the sentient forest that Adam felt like a usurper to take over. But he took a few steps, only to pause between two trees. The trees themselves spread wider, making a gently sloping spot that seemed inordinately perfect for a reading. Cabeswater always bent its will to the Magician, happily, eagerly.
Adam sat. Folding his legs underneath him, he started to shuffle the deck, expecting Matthew to sit without instruction. "Do you know what you want to ask? Don't tell me what, just yes or no will do. That's the most important part and being here? It's going to require focus."
Matthew sat down as well, the action kicking up a gust of cottonwood that danced off in the wind. His brow furrowed in thought, serious looking even as the expression appeared odd on Matthew’s face. He took Adam’s talent to heart and didn’t want him to feel like he was wasting his time (oh no, please don’t feel that way).
But he didn’t have a question--well, not one that could be easily divined through a tarot reading. The sweetmetals weighed on Matthew, how they could be created, how long they would work, if they would work, but the answers Matthew needed for that were just too specific from what he understood tarot could provide, even in Adam’s hands. And a question forever looming to Matthew would he fall asleep was already answered. Yes. he would. He would sit in a school office, feel so very warm, and then his eyes would slide shut and no one would know what had happened.
A tree branch bent, contorted, and folded itself down to brush through Matthew’s unruly blonde curls.
Was he a good question? His own existence? What he was, who he was, his realness? Matthew decided the answer was yes. Decided, rather than asking. That seemed right. He looked up at Adam and nodded. “I know it. I can focus.”
Adam shuffled then passed the deck over to Matthew, let him cut it in a practiced manner, before he took it back. At some point, Adam had folded in the Sun card that he had also gifted Matthew for Christmas, designed by Ronan. There were so many layers to this deck, who it belonged to, how personal it had become in Adam's hands, that it almost felt like cheating when he drew the first card and had no doubt about what it was. He laid it face up onto the grass.
"The Sun. You," Adam said, placing it in the past slot. He continued without missing a beat. "Seven of Cups." That was in present, and then with a small hum, Adam finished with," And the two of Wands." Future. Adam had pulled a similar card for himself this morning. And while he could assume coincidences were just that—coincidences—Adam was a psychic. Coincidences were lies people told themselves to not let their brains break over the connections.
He was quiet for a thoughtful moment, as the sun shined brighter in Cabeswater and vine nudged at his foot. "You're projecting," Adam finally said, "You have a lot of ideas about the future but you haven't figured it out yet. It's paralyzing because you can't decide." He glanced up to Matthew then as he touched the Seven of Cups.
"It's not a bad thing, but.." His expression went a little more serious, because the future could be anything for Matthew if they figured out the one thing, which was... "Have you given any more thought about the sweetmetals?"
“Is it bad to project?” Matthew asked out of reflex, his nose wrinkling even as he did it because it wasn’t a critique, it was a comment. Matthew wanted to please everyone. Like a puppy his brain tried to supply, but he shut that thought down. No, because he wanted to do what was right. It was a slight difference, but important, because he made it.
“I feel like--like we have an answer but it isn’t the full picture? And I almost feel badly for complaining about it, because we didn’t have an answer for a long time and now we do and it still isn’t enough. Like in geometry, when you got the statement, but then had to prove why it was true.” Which, unsurprisingly, Matthew had always been terrible at. Proving something was true, was real. He swallowed. Well. Of course he had never been good at that.
He watched a fuzzy green caterpillar crawl up his pant leg and take a rest on his knee. Matthew reached out a finger to stroke it, and thought it purred at him in response.
“Jordan and Declan were talking about it a lot, and Jordan talked to me about it because Declan wasn’t saying anything at all to me.” It was hard not to be bitter about Declan, which Matthew knew was unfair because he wasn’t around to defend himself. And Matthew loved Declan, would always love Declan no matter what, but memories of Declan in Boston, free and happy because he stopped thinking of Matthew as someone real and could instead focus on himself had him curling instinctively inward. Matthew stared down at the cards, willing an exact answer that wouldn’t come. He shrugged, instead. “I think about it a lot. But without knowing how they’re made, really, or even a way to, ugh, test it to know if it worked? I’m not sure what to do.”
Adam frowned a little as Matthew tried to explain his feelings on the matter. Sweetmetals had been a topic of conversation between himself and Ronan, several times, usually in the late hours of the night. It was never anything solid, but it was always moving forward, always with an idea. Because as long as they kept trying, there was a solution. Adam, unable to make his own sweetmetal, would support Ronan and Matthew in finding a way. His mind was always attempting to work it out.
"You're never going to have all the answers right away," Adam said softly. It would be almost hypocritical coming from him, who fought for every scrap of information in order to understand. But as time went on, and Adam grew into himself and his relationships, learning was part of the beauty of it too. The journey to the answer was just as important.
He idly shuffled the deck between his hands, watching Matthew pet the caterpillar on his knee. "So just because you don't have all the pieces to the puzzle you're not going to do anything about it? I doubt it. You're not an inactive person, Matthew. Besides, there are plenty of things here that are still asleep. We can keep trying on a small scale. Use what we know to fill in the parts we don't."
Adam pulled Temperance and placed it horizontally across the top of the three cards. He tapped the center. "Balance. The middle path. This is telling you to accommodate all perspectives. More or less, try all the options. I don't want to say make a plan but make a plan with what you have and go from there."
Matthew tilted his head back to look at the sky through the tree branch cover. A leaf fell on his face, ombre in greens from pine to emerald to lime and he picked it off, twirling it by the stem. “You don’t want to say make a plan, but make a plan?” He asked, teasing. “Is that card advice, or is that Adam advice?” Both, probably, one bleeding into the other, but Matthew wouldn’t even have minded if it was just coming from Adam. He knew it was right.
“I have to tell people.” Mathew knew that was right too. It was the natural next step, and the biggest barrier to any progress. And it all rested on him. “But--Declan treated me differently. My own brother.” Jordan in her two minute therapy session said it was because if he didn’t think of Aurora as real, her death wouldn’t hurt so much, and if Matthew wasn’t real, then he wouldn’t leave Declan and it wouldn’t hurt. Which...made a lot of sense, actually. If it had come from Declan and not someone else. If Declan bothered to tell Matthew anything, instead of just pointing out dogs.
It was silly, Matthew knew, in a world where anyone could be anything, that he was so concerned about being a dream. But there it was. He could only explain it so much before settling on ‘that’s how I feel’. “So how do I get over that? How do I stop worrying and just...go and do it?” That too was directed at Adam and the cards.
"Card advice that aligns with my advice," Adam said, fingers ghosting over the Two of Wands. "You need to start plotting out a path with all the options you have. It doesn't have to be a solid plan, but waiting around until a path comes to you is kind of like waiting for the ocean to stop making waves." Adam, a person of action and of finely crafted patience, couldn't seem to function without some sort of guide in his life. He was more likely to follow it if he made it. He only hoped that Matthew could gain the same sense of satisfaction of dictating his own life.
The irony of getting advice from Adam and a reading was not lost on him. Sometimes people just needed a nudge. And so he shuffled the cards again as he said, "I'm not going to defend Declan and his choices. Those were his and his alone. But I don't know if there is ever a time when you get over it. You're never going to stop worrying about it on some level, but you have to weigh that against the cons of keeping it inside. And how long have you kept it inside?"
That was a rhetorical question, Adam knew Matthew was made aware of his status for over a year now. "Eventually you'll be hurting yourself to keep it in, if you aren't already, because you're trying to navigate other people's emotional responses to a hypothetical. But you have the choice to do what you want, and you know the outcome of that. Your feelings, your emotions, your actions, they're yours. If someone treats you differently because they know? Then that's on them. The only thing you can control is yourself."
Adam paused, placing a card face down, across the middle one. "That's Adam advice, not card advice."
“I like both,” Matthew promised, quickly. Because yes, the tarot with the magic from Cabeswater provided an amazing insight. Mathew knew the cards were coming out the way they were supposed to because something recognized him and wanted to help. But it wouldn’t be worth it without Adam, Matthew wouldn’t have wanted a reading from anyone else.
He stayed quiet for a while, as Matthew was wont to do, so that he could absorb it all and parcel it out on his own time. It was somehow harder to do in Cabeswater, with there being so much, as indefinable a word as that was. The leaf spun into ruby red, goldenrod, pumpkin orange, spring green. But it was also easier to focus too, Cabeswater was a shelter within a shelter, separate from the rest of the world.
“I think I didn’t have enough incentive before?” He said, after that long, reflective pause. “Like, I didn’t want to think about what it meant? Or what could happen.” But the Sword of Damocles hanging over him now in the form of Matthew falling asleep. “I remember falling asleep. And I don’t want to--I can’t do that.” Matthew swallowed and breathed out a shaky exhale. Even thinking about it built up a pressure behind his eyes and a tightness in his throat. “Sorry. Bet you were hoping this was going to be like me wanting to know what type of Pop-Tart I should buy next.” The answer was always S’mores, so he didn't need tarot for that.
"I never thought that," Adam said, plain, simple, factual. He wasn't about to tell Matthew what to do, not in the strictest sense, but Matthew's need to push the belief that everyone thought him superficial and his wants were base level wasn't something Adam particularly enjoyed watching. Or having the assumption foisted onto him. Adam knew there was more, as did the rest of the people who knew Matthew. And maybe it had been his choice to keep it artificial, for self-preservation, but Adam didn't have to like it. He hoped the tone in his voice was enough to squash that immediately.
Adam flipped over the last card he had put down: The Four of Wands. "All of this," Adam said, his hand making a circle over the cards—tarot was not just about individual cards or what each meant in its slot, but the all-encompassing feeling they gave off. "The Four of Wands is saying that there is success and joy here, a sense of completion. The outcome is good but whatever incentive you thought you didn't have before, you have now. But you'll never get here—" Adam tapped the card, "—if you don't start."
He sat back a little, realizing that his ferocity and intensity had caused him to lean into Matthew's space. It was more than just trying to get Matthew to move forward, to stop being stuck where he was unhappy. "The beginning is always the hardest. There are always going to be a hundred reasons not to do something, but you'll realize there are also a hundred people who will help you when you do."
If anyone didn’t care about personal space it was Matthew (his own, Matthew cared about other people’s personal space and as much as he was so big on physical affection it was always consensual!). “Hey, buddy.” He looped an arm around Adam’s shoulders for a moment, a side hug given their position, but it was filled with Matthew’s warmth and general affection for Adam. He had a lot of both, not just because Adam was so important to Ronan but because Adam was important to Matthew. And that Adam felt strongly about this, Matthew knew he was important to him as well.
“A hundred?” He asked, smiling a bit at the thought. “That seems like a lot, I think you said that to sound good, but I like it anyway.” Matthew studied the cards, and even with an occasional breeze with the scent of strawberry Starburst, pumpkin pie, and a new soccer ball wafting through, the cards didn’t move. Matthew wasn’t surprised, the forest very clearly liked Adam and wasn’t going to mess with his message.
“I should know better,” Matthew started, and then quickly clarified. “That’s not being down on myself, even though it maybe sounds like it? What I mean is, when Ronan wanted to tell people about being a dreamer, I was all for it! Because it was what he wanted and because I knew people would be okay and if not, we would all be there to help. So it should be the same. I think I just got shaken up with all of these new memories maybe? And what that all means. Are we going to be okay? Or is that,” he pulled a face. “Too broad? And not here, so maybe it can't be told.”
"The memories are recent though," Adam pointed out. He wasn't sure if that was helpful or unhelpful, simply fact. "You're talking at cross purposes here. Do you want to figure out a sweetmetal or do you want to tell people about the reason you might need a sweetmetal? One of those is a new problem, and one of them you've been hanging on to for a while."
That was the ultimate conundrum, but the solution was what Adam was trying to help Matthew figure out with advice and his innate psychic ability. Whatever he decided, whatever goal he settled on, there would be a positive outcome; Adam didn't need to pull any more cards to tell him that. It was clear by the ones already displayed in front of them. He swept them up and shuffled them back into the deck, because now it was Adam's turn to rest the page with this new question.
He placed the Sun card down again. Cabeswater knew, like it always did, that this was for Matthew. But at the same time, it was an answer to Matthew's previous question. "Still bright and full of energy, this is you, but this is also everyone else. We'll be okay, Matthew. You'll be okay." Adam picked up the card and handed it to Matthew—there was something important about holding the tangible answer in his hand. "I'm not sure how much clearer the cards will get without bordering on dangerous clairvoyance. Did it help?"
“Well now you’re just showing off,” Matthew said to the card and to Cabeswater, fondly. He patted the ground to show he was teasing and felt the earth move under his hand, like returning a fist bump. He smiled down at the card and had the same sort of sense he had at Christmas when Adam first showed it to him. Of being recognized, being seen. It was in Adam’s deck and of Ronan’s design and it was Matthew’s card all in the magical forest that the Gangsey had a connection to on the Lynch family land.
He handed the card back to Adam to be put back in rotation for someone else. “It did, yeah. It’s stuff I needed to hear? Even though it’s not new?” Which was somehow all the more important--sometimes all it took was just hearing what you already knew come from someone trusted and loved to have it actually sink in. Adam would have told Matthew the truth no matter what if he had just asked him straight out, he knew, but that magical element didn’t hurt.
“I think…” Matthew’s Lynch blue eyes squinted. “I need to put together everything we know about the sweetmetals and go from there? Just like, a word vomit on a page and then we can clean it up so it makes sense and then ask for advice? We know a lot of magical people.” But that felt right, Matthew thought, like when he had decided to go to school in Vallo and back home. A solid step that he chose.
And then, because he couldn’t resist because he was Matthew and giving out affection came as easily to him as breathing or snacking, he hugged Adam with a surety and solidness behind it. “Thanks. I appreciate you.”
"You say make a list as if I haven't been doing that already. We've just been waiting on you," Adam said with an encouraging smile. He knew how heavy this all weighed on the entire Lynch family, and Adam could only do as much as either of them would let him without being too controlling. It wasn't his problem to manage, not without both Ronan and Matthew's consent. So when Matthew hugged him, and said I appreciate you, Adam couldn't help but feel as though waiting had been the right decision. He hugged back briefly, before leaning away and staring up at the low-hanging sun in the canopy of Cabeswater.
"There was another reason I wanted to bring you out here, not just to fulfill your Christmas gift." Adam remembered pulling the Two of Wands this morning. He had been contemplating his own decisions, and now a plan had slowly come to fruition; one that he had barely voiced to himself, but if he was going to proceed in any way, being here with Matthew was the first step. Adam would be a hypocrite if he didn't take his own advice.
"I've been giving a lot of consideration about what I told you a while ago. When we were fixing the tractor," A lifetime ago in Vallo, but he knew Matthew would understand. Adam gave him a long patient moment, before saying, "I'm going to propose to your brother. Soon. I know he wants to wait until his birthday but ..." November was far away, and the factors that had made that patience possible were gone now with their memory update.
“But you don’t want to wait.” Matthew grinned, bright and warm and yes, absolutely sunny. “Good. I’m glad.” Not that Adam needed Matthew’s blessing or approval or anything like that, but Matthew had been giving it all along the way in subtle and Matthew-exuberant level ways.