Ronan Lynch (alteridem) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-07-28 17:53:00 |
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At least he had a good reason. He’d felt it, the moment Cabeswater arrived. Like a tug on an invisible rope he hadn’t even realized was there. He knew instantly it was Cabeswater and not Lindenmere too. Maybe it was a little wilder. A little more chaotic. He’d gotten halfway out to that end of his property when he decided to head back. He didn’t want to do this alone. But he didn’t want to bring the entire troop all at once either. Better to lead Gansey and Adam to it, then they could tell others together.
He was a little worried how Matthew and Noah would feel about it being here.
He was a little worried about how he felt about it being here.
But he waited along the forest’s edge now, knowing Gansey and Adam had been close to figuring out their cards when he’d left the house. Chainsaw flew circles in the sky overhead. She was drawn to it too, he knew. Rather than think about his bird maybe not coming home as much anymore - or about the tangle of excitement and dread in his gut - Ronan tossed rocks down a stream that trickled its way into his dream forest. With every movement, the claws and wings of his tattoo flexed under the edges of his tank top, as if they too were torn between staying or fleeing.
“It’s about time,” he called out as he heard Adam and Gansey approaching from behind him. “I forgot my phone and I have no fucking idea how many days I’ve been out here.”
The card had been a surprise, though it was obvious who had left it. What was truly unexpected was how long it took to "unlock" the thing. He had studied the dancing fireflies, the dark woods, the old man and the badger. He had flipped it over, held it up to light, stood in an unlit hallway closet, traced the path with his fingers, clasped it between his palms, and wrote every possibility down on a piece of paper. That was when Adam ran into Gansey on the exact same, no similar, puzzle.
It wasn't until Adam murmured his thoughts out loud ("Honestly, Gansey, it reminds me of Brocéliande.") did he realize the whole thing was voice activated. Adam loved his boyfriend, but he was going to give him so much shit after he figured the rest of it out.
The 'telling the story' part was harder. There were so many stories, so many feverishly adored quotes, so many options, that Adam ended up going with the first thing he could think of, spurred on by Gansey's own choices for telling his card a story.
"The best thing for being sad is to learn something..."
He allowed himself one long, blushing and flustered, second to let Ronan's words wash over him when the image changed, when they uncovered the little dream thing's secrets. In perpetuum et semper flooded him with warmth.
He knew that spot on the map, an open field in the back of the property. Nothing was out there, and a cautious uneasy feeling started to churn in his gut. That, mixed with his personal unsettled feelings, plagued him. He hadn't pulled a card today. He didn't scry this morning. Adam regretted passing up the opportunity after being in the habit of tapping into that psychic side. But he didn't have time now.
They set out for the marked location. Adam heard Chainsaw caw before he saw Ronan standing at the edge of a copse of trees. He kept walking by sheer force of will and denial. No way, no way, no way.
Adam's pace slowed, then stopped. It felt like someone had reached inside of his chest, and squeezed. He burned with such visceral longing, it nearly took him out at the knees. "What the fuck," Adam breathed out. He didn't sound angry, he sounded dazed, awestruck. Hopeful.
Gansey didn’t reach inside his chest, but he did clap a hand on Adam’s shoulder from behind him and started laughing, leaning into his friend as they approached. The morning had been a flurry of action, between a few new arrivals and Chainsaw dropping off his business card. The card itself had been both unexpected and expected - he’d told Ronan he wanted this, but had no idea a timeline for this sort of thing.
What had followed was a lot, Gansey leaving work early - he didn’t confess that to Adam but really, his best friend shouldn’t have been surprised - and puzzling out the clues given to him via magical business card. A card he’d be saving forever, if he had his way.
He didn’t quite have the connection to Cabeswater that others had. But he loved it. He’d felt it. The connection to him was bolstered due to his connection with the two men in front of him, of that he was certain. So much had happened in their lives connected to it, and it was like a lightbulb flicked on the moment he saw Ronan, drenched in the dim, foggy light of the forest he created.
It seemed oddly appropriate that this was how they’d approach. Gansey’s grin was full, and telling. “It’s only been a few hours, if that. You’ve certainly gone longer without.” He turned his attention to Adam and squeezed his shoulder. “We’re brilliant.”
Ronan was glad he turned around in time to see both their faces as they approached. It eased some of the nerves. It had only occurred to him after he dreamt up the cards and delivered them that Adam and Gansey might already know Cabeswater was here, through their own bonds. But once he’d confirmed they didn’t look any worse for wear, he’d decided it was a question that could wait for an answer. Gansey’d wanted a puzzle and Adam usually enjoyed one too; that was reason enough to make a game of bringing the three of them together here.
“Yeah yeah. You’re smart shits. I’ll have to make it harder next time.” He thought he’d made it pretty hard so that was probably bullshit. Tossing his last rock, Ronan stepped up to stand between them, shoulder pressed to shoulder. “I didn’t dream it. I just woke up this morning and I could feel it out here. Like feeling the fucking bass in somebody’s car as they haul ass down the street.”
Adam was only half-tuned in. His focus was so acutely on the trees in front of him, the single rock being tossed into the stream, the words we're brilliant—he couldn't seem to figure out what he wanted first. He felt daunted by the presence of the forest that he had given up. Adam would never regret the decision, what and who he received in return for his second sacrifice was far greater than the selfishness of keeping his connection. But saying goodbye to a piece of him that he wasn't ready to lose damaged something deep inside of him.
And now here was Cabeswater, bustling and alive in front of them—not dreamed, just here. It explained the restlessness inside of him now. He had tuned that familiar gut-wrenching pull of Cabeswater out of himself awhile ago, afraid of giving attention to a phantom sensation that couldn't be real. This, though? This was real.
He touched his cheek, an unconscious self-conscious thing. No tears. Adam attempted to loop back into the conversation, casual as ever. "Someone plays their bass louder than you?" Adam asked, grinning. He exchanged looks between Ronan and Gansey and then proposed the obvious, immediate question: "We're going in, right?"
“I’m glad someone said it,” Gansey grinned in return to Adam and Ronan, the topic of cars being shoved to the side of his brain as he stared ahead, as much in awe as his friends. He shouldn’t have been surprised, given the sheer number of things that arrived here from various worlds. The Barns, Monmouth, The Pig, Fox Way… Maybe it was obvious that it should’ve been a matter of time.
But given what had happened the last time they’d seen Cabeswater, and how everything had gone down, there was a variety of feelings fleeting through his mind and his heart. Gansey’s ley line heart that stored a piece of this magical forest in him.
It beat in his chest like normal, nothing unusual about it, aside from the obvious, so he looked to his friends for answers that he didn't have. “Is it- It looks-” He wanted to ask a million questions, but stuttered his way through just the beginning of one before slowing down. “Is it healthy? Like it was?”
“Do you think I’d bring you out here if there were any fucking chance there was a demon’s corruption in there?” Ronan scowled. “I’d have called in the calvary and gotten everyone off the farm.” It was a fair concern and he wasn’t surprised Gansey went there first. Just instantly burning under his skin and trying not to picture Gansey dead. Adam possessed. His mother--
He turned his attention back to Adam, watching his profile too closely.
“I’d like to. Go in. But you gotta tell me if you feel like you’re bound to it again, Parrish.” A jerk of his head had him squinting at Gansey too. “If either of you feel off with this shit here, I need to know.”
Watching Gansey struggle through the same questions Adam had in his head felt safe. Knowing that their concern bounced between one another like a closed circuit felt right, safe. They were better prepared than the first and last times inside Cabeswater, and as Ronan explained how different this rendezvous would have been if there was corruption lurking in its roots, something settled inside of him.
Fear, Adam's mind supplied, you were afraid. His attention slid sideways to Ronan watching him.
"It's not like that anymore, it wouldn't change anything if I was," Adam said. He knew that his connection to the forest didn't make him a psychic, and Cabeswater being here now didn't take that ability away from him. But knowing he couldn't reach out and communicate in the same ethereal, spectral way was disarming. He swallowed hard and stepped closer to the forest's edge—did he feel something now or was he wanting it so much he imagined it?
"I'm more concerned about Gansey." He paused, a hundred different scenarios working through his brain between Cabeswater, Gansey, Gansey and Cabeswater, before he settled on, "You should walk between me and Ronan, just in case."
Gansey was shaking his head and already moving in to talk with his hands, more animated about this than he’d been about anything in the past week. He knew it was foolish to get his hopes up about answers, but he also assumed Ronan and Adam were feeling the same when it came as far as their own connections to Cabeswater.
He trusted both of them implicitly, however, and took a step forward, just ahead of Adam, staring into the lush foliage. “I don’t feel off. A pull? But it’s nothing unusual.” He glanced back at them both and squared his shoulders. “We aren’t going to get any answers without going in. I don’t think you need to flank me, if you don’t want to.” Adam’s connection, Gansey’s resurrection, the heart of ley magic, Aurora. All of it rattled around in there and he didn’t know if they were going to get answers, or just more questions.
Gansey had never been the type to wait and see if answers came to him, so he started walking, knowing the other two would follow. He pumped a dorky fist in the air as he stepped into the threshold of the magical forest, “Excelsior.”
Ronan frowned rather than saying it would abso-fucking-lutely change things if Adam was still bound to Cabeswater. It wasn’t entirely true anyway. They’d probably still be going in. He’d still be full of excitement-slash-dread. And Gansey would still be a giant dweeb.
“God you’re such a fucking dweeb.” It needed to be said out loud. It didn’t stop Ronan from slinging an arm around Adam’s shoulders and hurrying him along until he could do the same to Gansey. “Listen, remember how wild this place is. How--”
They stepped over a line and the magic in the air changed. It wasn’t the only thing. The time of day in Cabeswater was apparently afternoon. In fall.
“--Tricky,” Ronan finished lamely. His pulse hammered. The trees swayed. And somewhere in the distance, voices whispered Greywaren to greet him. He couldn’t have kept the smile off his face if he tried.
Adam would follow Gansey anywhere. Sometimes that fact didn't feel true, or wasn't spoken in such clear cut terms. But it didn't make it any less honest, and it didn't change the way Adam, shoulder-to-shoulder with Ronan, trailed after Gansey without missing a step.
He felt the change immediately, deep in his bones, as he crossed into Cabeswater. There was a humming there of acknowledgment, of awareness, soaking him through. A snap of cool air, the scent of sharp damp earth, Adam closed his eyes and breathed, listening to the trees welcome back their greywaren.
"It learned all its tricks from you," Adam teased, "so you shouldn't be surprised." When he opened his eyes again, the sun shined through the canopy, rendering them all in broken, balmy light. The urge to walk straight to the forest's heart and never look back was strong, but Adam stopped himself to place his slender hand against the warm bark of a tree.
"Salve, Cabeswater. Quid agis?" Adam asked, aloud. A cluster of monarch butterflies—red and gold, oranges and onyx, shimmery blue and purple, unreal—fluttered from the branches as an answer and return greeting. Adam held his hand up, a pearlescent one settling in his palm.
"I don't—I'm not sure what to ask. It's been too long," Adam said, looking to Gansey and Ronan, as if they would supply him with a question.
Gansey had been expecting Cabeswater to welcome Ronan and Adam with open arms. But he hadn’t known what to expect of himself. He had loved this place unconditionally, it was his quiet, his energy.
It was easier to focus on the wild energy of this place and smile over at Ronan as he agreed with a small nod toward Adam. He watched the butterflies, as conjured and magical as all of them combined, and turned in a slow circle, head pointed up as he breathed in deep. The latin floating around made him huff out a stupid, quiet laugh, mad at himself all of a sudden. “I haven’t been keeping up on my latin. I’ll have to fix that.”
Cabeswater heard him, and the breeze around him picked up, pushing leaves all around his body until one of them smacked him in the face lightly and took off into the sky. “I said I’ll fix that, I promise.” What he wanted to ask involved everything heavy and dark and a topic of conversation that he knew Ronan hated. So he didn’t.
“You could ask it if it likes it here?” It sounded lame, like a father worrying about his child’s first day at school. Gansey tried to cover it up with a shrug. “Just- if the magic of Vallo feels as nice as the ley lines in Henrietta.”
Ronan watched them both. At first carefully, out of the side of his eye as he moved away to look around. But his gaze lingered on Adam anyway. Sharp pleasure at the sound of him talking to the trees in latin curled the corner of Ronan’s mouth. Gansey getting leaf slapped snared his attention though, and it pulled a burst of laughter out of him.
“That’s what you get for letting your studies lapse, Dick.” He wished he sounded a little less soft but whatever. The butterflies were fucking distracting. He lifted his eyes to the canopy of leafy branches overhead, where dapple sunlight filtered through.
“Satin habes hic?” The nearby bushes parted and a skunk swam into the clearing, floating through the air. Three babies flew along behind her. The mother stopped - causing the babies to bump into each other like bumper cars. They all looked up at the young men loitering in their forest and their black fur glowed a soft purple.
“Satiata es nobis.”
Ronan couldn’t tell if it was the trees or the skunks giving the answer. “Way to make it a little creepy, Cabeswater.”
Adam didn't want to let go. He felt closer to the forest this way, his fingers rubbing along the rough bark, tangible instead of a dream, incongruous with what he knew as real. The butterfly left his hand, but Adam kept his palm open, waiting for something else. He had said goodbye to Cabeswater a lifetime ago, but to watch it now be playful with Gansey and answer Ronan so emphatically with skunks, felt nostalgic for a future he couldn't explain.
He stepped through the trees, one hand reaching over the other, always in contact with a trunk or a branch, climbing with his feet never leaving the ground. Adam tried to approach the small family of skunks, but they simply looked amused at Ronan calling Cabeswater creepy and swam out of reach and back into a bush.
"Et vos desiderabat. Nos vos desiderabat.." It wasn't a question. He didn't need an answer, but the cacophony of noise, the low rumble and high lilting of Cabeswater’s Latin, was enough. It hit him then, the emotional punch of missing something or someone so intensely, and a carefully held back tear slipped free down his cheek. He caught it, embarrassed.
"It's going to rain," Adam warned, a split second before a warm summer shower opened up above them, light and soothing.
Gansey laughed at them both, and rubbed a hand over Adam’s shoulder fondly before moving away and letting him have his space. They were all having their own moments, and it even as the rain started down on them, he couldn’t find it in himself to be anything less than overjoyed. He was thankful he was wearing his glasses even as they splattered with rain when he looked up and grinned at the sky again.
“It’s like- I know the Barns and Monmouth are home, but this feels-- like home.” He wasn’t quite sure if he knew how to put into words exactly how he was feeling, and Gansey blew out a breath. “I don’t know if it’s just me because of-” He gestured to himself, his whole self, still not able to verbalize Cabeswater remaking him. He gave up trying, and just looked over at his best friends-- his family. “Do you think everyone will mind if we take an hour to explore on our own first, before we tell them?”
It was probably bullshit but Ronan felt like Adam’s emotions resonated from where his hand rested on the tree trunk and wedged themselves directly behind Ronan’s ribs. Maybe it was just that he’d missed Cabeswater just as much. Maybe it was watching Adam’s face and wishing he could give him the connection he’d lost. His own expression seemed to swim between grateful and uncertain.
The rain spattered against his buzzed scalp. It wasn’t the happy-sad rain he’d dreamt for Lindenmere but he still felt that way. Thankfully Gansey’s words pulled his focus and he lifted an eyebrow at the way he vaguely gestured at himself.
“Because you’re powered by dream forest juice. Makes sense.” His gaze softened and he glanced away. “Yeah, Gansey. We can stay as long as you want before we go tell everyone. Not sure how Matty and Noah are going to take it anyway.” He lifted his face to the rain and closed his eyes.
This feels like home. At Gansey's words, Adam's attention turned to Ronan through the rain. Unconsciously, his fingers slid over his chest, where the key—crafted in the likeness of Cabeswater, his birthday present from Ronan—hung around his neck, under his shirt. Home was so many things now: people, places, a deep feeling of rightness. Being here with Gansey and Ronan was overwhelming, Adam was overwhelmed with it.
He knew what Gansey meant. They were dancing around the harder topics now. The longer they stayed inside here, the closer they would get—Adam's mind was already unhelpfully supplying the theories, exploring the possibilities of what Cabeswater meant being here with Gansey inside of it. Maybe they needed to talk about it, but not yet. Not yet.
Adam wiped the rain from his face, though it did little. To the trees, Adam asked, "Sol lucet omnibus, Cabeswater, te auxilium rogo?" The sun was brighter, the rain a little less, but neither negated the other. He was soaked anyway.
"If we're staying, we should follow the skunks."
Drenched as he was, glasses smeared with drops of water, Gansey walked back to his friends with a soft smile on his face. The sun warmed his bright yellow polo as Adam requested, and it improved Gansey’s own mood significantly, even if it was difficult to be mad at this place, even with all the drama surrounding it.
It had still been a large portion of his life, and important to all of them. But it contained some of their worst times in it, and a mass of complicated feelings on all ends was to be expected. But Ronan was right, they could have a little time before needing to approach that subject, the rest of the world was far enough away now.
He got within arms reach of both of them and let his hand drift to touch Adam’s back gently, both in thanks for the sunlight and as a no-word gentle check-in on his friend’s feelings. Reaching out, Gansey snagged at Ronan’s arm with his free hand. “Following the skunks with Ronan in the lead, right?”
“Sure. Follow the skunks.” Ronan blinked his eyes open at Gansey’s touch. Adam still directed the forest like a masterful conductor and he was trying not to think about how that made him feel. There was something else on his mind anyway. He stepped across the leaf-strewn ground in the direction of where the skunks had wandered and stopped just before leaving the clearing to press his hand to a tree.
I never got to thank you. For saving him. So...thank you,” he thought. Then he tossed a snarky glance over his shoulder at them as he started to push deeper into the woods.
“If I get sprayed by skunks, I’m rubbing it all over you both. Let’s go.”