Enchanted Series

Sailboats

Summary:

Part 10: Sailboats
-In which Adam finally comes to terms of his relationship status and moves on with a hopeful smile.

Notes:

Part 10 of the Enchanted Series loosely based on some aspects of Adam's Sailboats song.

(See the end of the work for .)

Work Text:

Enchanted Series
Part 10: Sailboats

There was a kind of charm that came with an as-of-now indefinite life, quite a morbid way of saying "college life", but that will have to do, of having been for so long but at the same time having been for no time at all. The sensation was difficult to explain and was only best represented in and of itself.

Much like how time existed in sections of seconds and milliseconds but was still collectively, time, his life existed in a progression of fantastical and wondrously new moments that yet still coupled together to be one Existence, as though every breath was his first breath and every thought and movement and beat of his cold heart was just as amazing and new and bright as the first.

It was a sensation that was completely innate and as confounding as it was spectacular. It wasn't so much memory as it was a feeling that there was once a time that the expanse of the ocean and the boundless blue was not his, not that he occasioned long enough on this sensation to allow memory to come. There was a vague awareness of sinking, of darkness flitting at the corners of his vision and the water catching defiantly against his lungs and being forced through his veins.

He remembered the uncomfortable coldness and the final welcomed numbing that spread from his fingers and toes to beat in time with his slowing heart and unblinking eyes. From his view, the surface of his new sky tossed and turned in its ephemeral state, as dark as it was crystal clear, diffusing and refracting the light into swirls and curls across his colorless skin, tracing the salty water that crept into his arteries which with his now silent heart, still roared in the way the ocean always did wherever it happened to be. There was a vague sensation as he stopped falling and allowed the darkness to close his still opened eyes. He slept with the rushing water in this blood and the memory of the fractured light in his silent mind.

Sitting mindlessly on the hill of the local, LA park, Adam Young lets the cool breeze of autumn night brush against his skin. There's something about autumn that would typically make Adam smile a bit wider, or in this year's case, feel just a bit more sedated. Perhaps it's because winter, the dreaded season, was spent nursing her broken heart and helping her family back on their feet. At least now, the flowers are beginning their cycle of life all over again, the air thinner and the scent of freshly mown grass every morning.

And it's one season closer to the winter.

Winter. Fireplaces. Hot coco. A guitar in one hand and another hand tightly grasp in his. The scent of lavender and the snow. Mom and Dad. Nights spent star gazing. Running around town without a care in the world. Those times are a non-existent, alternate universe which they never spoke of. Winter is the one season of the year when love exists in his life. Love which doesn't just directly root from Brielle, but from his surroundings. During the winter, Adam felt loved. By Brielle. By Mom and Dad. By his fellow townsfolk. By his counselors. By his surroundings. For someone like him, who thrived on acceptance but needed love, it was the one time he truly lived.

But those days are far gone. Returning to that time isn't an option, Brielle and Martha are finally spending their hard-earned savings on a cheap trip through Europe. Everything Adam has known winter to be; a season of love, two months of having the love of everyone all to himself and just being free is gone forever. Now all he has to look forward to are soulless, sunny days and a sun kissed tan.

It's better than nothing at all.

"Ahem," the comfortable silence is broken by the warily approaching figure of one Stephen Colbert.

He was Adam's best friend here, his first friend, quite frankly, his ONLY friend. It should have been a sad thought, but he was not really keen on keeping relationships far from his heart. He wasn't really looking for lasting friendships in LA, just acquaintances and nothing else.

But he did like Stephen, he was a good guy and an equally good friend.

"Hey, Stephen." Adam Says absentmindedly.

Moving his gaze away from the group of short, middle school boys kicking a ratty old soccer ball around, he moves them towards him before looking back down to his watch. A whole fifteen minutes late. "Sorry I'm late," adds Stephen, noting his eyes moving from him to his dad's old watch.

The two had a lengthy conversation after Adam and his dad talked the other night, of how he still felt grief after the break up with Brielle, of how she just walked away. The exact opposite of what HBIC, take no prisoners Adam Young would have done. But she's gone now, that girl whose tongue was as sharp as her heart, and though Adam so wishes she could regain that fighting spirit back, the reality of the hurt she caused made it impossible to attain. Maybe for the better.

She was gone and he was here.

Stephen said nothing as he sat down next to Adam, watching people passing by, enjoying the cool night air. He admired it, how calm they looked, how satisfied. Stephen wasn't much of a psychologist, but he strived to know what those individuals were thinking, how they could be so relaxed and live in the moment.

While the man sitting next to him had such a rush of thoughts, thoughts that seem to never end.

Adam, meanwhile, stared out into the sky; a deep, burnished blue scattered with its infinity stars almost as if it were holding its breath.

A streak of light left stardust in its path. Somehow, they reminded him of sailboats, sailboats pretending to be stars.

He scrambled for the brass telescope, hunched over and jammed the piece almost painfully into his face with a desperation that spoke volumes. He gripped the cool metal, disbelieving, cold and excited.

Another brush stroke of light across the navy blue.

His breath caught in a mixture of amazement and relief as the breeze ruffled his hair in congratulations. He forgot the bone freezing chill and the uncomfortable position of his hunched-over back.

One by one the lights changed from the countable to the uncountable

It had taken him an age, a whole age of loss but here he was and he was so small and so insignificant in the wake of it all.

The sky was scattered, thrown with a million pinpricks of falling light. An infinity of points that led into streaks and then nothingness, so fast he almost couldn't catch them if there weren't so many. The air he breathed felt charged, energized and almost magical.

He looked away from the telescope because he didn't need it anymore. The lights were around him, alive, still falling. He swallowed a lump in his throat because it was a moment of being utterly and completely overwhelmed by warmth.

Stephen saw the look on Adam's face, a look with an emotion he hasn't seen since he came to LA.

Peace.

Stephen smiled, he was gonna be okay.

Notes:

Up Next:
Part 11: The Bird and The Worm
-In which Adam becomes a bit sunnier after a few months of the break up.