adam "now he's a spooky 10" lynch (parrish) (tamquam) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-05-22 08:28:00
OPAL
ADAM
WHO Adam Lynch and Opal (NPC) WHERE The Barns, the swimming pond WHEN Sunday, late morning (after the Gangsey get back from camping) WHAT Opal wants to go swimming, so they do, and Adam reflects on growth. (It's a narrative, so whatever!) STATUS Complete WARNINGS None! ARThatepotionart @ insta
The day started off with a single-worded question: "Swim?"
Sunday mornings were usually for sleeping in. After camping for two days, and hiking back before the sun nearly passed the horizon, Adam intended to continue the tradition, despite being already up for hours.
Adam had kissed Ronan goodbye as he slipped off to church, and Adam—unable or unwilling to keep his eyes open—burrowed under the blankets for a few more precious minutes. An hour might have passed or thirty seconds, but whatever unconsciousness Adam managed to snag was interrupted by the hesitant effort at Opal's stealth. The floor creaked, her hooves scraping across the wood, and the general awareness of her caused Adam to shift, now awake.
She poked him once, right between his shoulder blades. Adam rolled over, rubbing sleep from his eyes with a soft, "hm?"
Opal's face was wide-eyed, her cheeks flushed, and she cleared her throat. "Swim?"
Adam sat up a little bit in bed, more awake than his half-assed attempt before. "You want to go swimming?" Her delicate expression transitioned into something devilish and pleased, the product of the creative shithead that dreamt her. She nodded, vigorously.
Convincing Opal to wade into any type of lake had taken months and continuous coaxing from himself and Ronan. For her to initiate it was not an opportunity Adam wanted to pass up.
"Yeah, yeah okay. Give me a minute," Adam said, though he barely got the sentence out. Opal was already screeching, high-pitched with infectious joy, before she galloped out of the room, out of sight. Her hooves hit the steps toward downstairs at a dangerous pace, and Adam waited one second, then another, with no resulting crash. He deemed that safe enough to get out of bed without panic.
Now fully conscious, Adam's brain breezed through the details: brushing his teeth, scouring through the dresser for his swim trunks, grabbing towels, and taking Opal's hand when she tugged on his fingers to keep him moving in the direction of the backyard, asking him to braid her hair back from her face for maximum hydrodynamics. Swimming was the priority, the top of the agenda, the only plan that he should have that day. Everything else was wiped clean suddenly for this and only this.
She had clearly missed them this weekend, while stubbornly not wanting to admit it. Adam was skilled in navigating the social terrain, from years of spending so much time watching other people. Opal was no exception.
"Jump?" Adam asked when they made it to the edge of the dock. The heat of the morning was starting to rise, and the sun was bearing down on his shoulders, gently kissing the back of his neck with a promise of growing humidity. He had remembered to put on sunscreen, and on a squirming, animated Opal.
This pond was a constant work in progress. From a pit, to a pool, to a pond, Adam expected to see it grow every summer to be bigger until a lake replaced the field they started it in. Adam's memories sloshed abruptly into the forefront of his mind—fixing the tractor, digging the hole, filling it slowly with a hose, convincing Opal that not every body of water was dangerous.
That had been tricky, tricker than manners, or using utensils, or putting shoes on when strangers came over to the house. Opal didn't share trauma with forks or not saying thank you. Adam was there the day the pool in Cabeswater, her only home, tried to swallow her and Ronan whole. Burning through her with acid while she drowned, while both of them drowned, reaching for one another. Few moments in Adam's life allowed him for sheer, unadulterated horror, and sometimes he doesn't quite remember what possessed him—literally and figuratively—to slam his hands on the ground and shout please to the sentient forest.
Love, actually. Before he even realized what it was and who it was for.
Adam spent his first summer at the Barns climbing into bathtubs, fully clothed, to convince Opal it was safe. He had walked directly into the pond without hesitation, to show nothing threatening lurked below the surface. He had held out hands and arms, always ready to take her when she found a moment of courage to dive in. Three summers now had changed her way of thinking, but never Adam's, and he wondered if there was ever going to be a time when she didn't let a flash of uncertainty cross her face.
Asking to jump was a test of this new development. Today was a day of firsts, overcoming the fear that constantly bubbled at the surface. At that moment, she was braver than he ever was.
"Utique, nos salire!" Opal shouted, before leaping into the pond. Adam held his nose and followed in suit.
Underneath the murky lake water, his senses dulled. The sun seemed just a little more distant. The view rippled above him, and sounds were so, so far away. Adam had this same sensation before—scrying sometimes felt like being underwater, blurry and insubstantial, deep in a fathomless hole, while time slowed. And in that breath, where everything burned in his lungs, he could let his mind float away.
Strange, how when Adam slipped from the present, Cabeswater was at his side pushing him back in. Ronan was physically pulling him there, finding ways to burrow in. Gansey was leaving questions unanswered to keep him tethered to it. Little reminders that without them, retreating inside his mind was inevitable. And Adam, too long awake, too long avoidant of fear, too long unlearning what others had dictated for him, liked the present.
The cool, calm nothingness of silence didn't bring him relief anymore. Not like it used to when he lived in Henrietta, before everything.
Ronan had told him that Adam couldn't change what things had done to him—it was impossible, logically speaking—but he could let it go. Mind over matter, and boy, did Adam have one hell of a mind.
Bubbles rose in front of his face as he exhaled hard. Thrashing above him continued, and then a small hand extended through the dark water toward him. Adam took it and kicked to the surface. Opal, bobbing just above the waterline, stared at Adam. Unspoken words passed between them, something like here, and stay, and things are better than before. Their worry about each other didn't hold the same weight. Adam was not on the verge of snapping in half when he had saved her life, and Ronan's, so long ago.
Satisfied with whatever answer she found in his answering expression, Opal sunk a little lower in the water, and snorted a bubble to hide that she was chewing on something. How long was he underwater?
"What are you eating?" Adam asked.
Opal's response was opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue, showing off the bits of a soggy leaf.
Adam couldn't even protest before she just as quickly closed her mouth and swallowed it. With amused exasperation, Adam paddled closer. "I thought we were swimming?"
Opal yelped and reached out to him. She clung easily around his neck, her satyr legs dangling weightlessly in the lake. As Adam coasted from one side of the pond to the other, Opal babbled in excited Latin until she let go to swim around herself. Not fast enough was her critique as she confidently paddled away.
Adam would realize later that he burned a bit on his nose, and find his own soggy leaf stuck to the inside of his swimsuit, and his hair would smell faintly of algae for days after, but for now, he flipped on his back content to float the rest of the morning—and most of the afternoon—away. Feeling at home, present, and lighter than the day before.