Title: The Owl and the Moon
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,108
Summary: I will float until I learn how to swim.
Author's Note: This ficlet might be a little hard to follow in places; there are flashbacks, and things corresponding to flashbacks, and random symbolism, so ... have your wits about you, or something. I don't know if my twisted tangents translate well into others'.
P.S. The lyrics used in the summary and the fic are from Neutral Milk Hotel's "The King of Carrot Flowers (Pts. 1, 2 & 3)".
He learned to swim at midnight.
He remembers the water, so chlorinated it made him queasy; he remembers the moon, the way it seemed to creep up on him, suddenly there in the indigo sky. Bobby told him it was made of cheese, and that evil alien mice were watching them, all the time, every day.
John sat on the side of the pool, shivering.
"Even when you're in the tub?"
"Especially when you're in the tub," his brother replied grimly, moving his hand through the water like a writhing snake. "And when you pee."
"That's gross. You're a liar." John glared at him uncertainly, trying to think of ways he could prove it.
"Ask Gamma. She'll tell you," Bobby insisted. "They watch you in the tub and when you pee – and they come down to Earth at night and do experiments on you. I've seen them. Scout's Honor." He held up three fingers.
"You're lying! Liar, liar, pants on fire!" John yelled, finally frightened. Bobby rushed towards him through the glittering water, grabbing a bony ankle and pulling, almost dragging him in. John struggled and kicked.
"Shh! They'll hear you. They're all around ... you better hide in the pool else they'll catch you!"
"You're a li—"
Bobby pulled harder until his little brother, so skinny and small, finally fell in, splashing and struggling like a seal in the jaws of a shark.
When John surfaced, hot, angry tears were falling from his bloodshot eyes.
"I'm—" splutter —"I'm telling mom!" he managed to say, clinging to the side for dear life as he gasped and shuddered.
"You swam!" Bobby whispered in awe.
"What?"
"You did! You were here, and now you're there! You swam and you didn't need anyone to teach you!"
John paused.
"I'm still telling," he pouted, though slightly triumphantly.
—
and your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder
and dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
—
10:37 PM
On nights like this, when the moon sits high in the sky and the air feels like a second skin, she pretends their yard is the Garden of Eden. The trees, the cedars and the maples and the chalk-white birches, tower above their naked bodies; she as Eve and he, unwittingly, her Adam. She watches him more than usual, on these nights: quietly observing the way his muscles move, marveling at the flexibility of his bones, as though his very existence is a miracle. One day, she knows, those muscles will stop moving, and his bones will be rigid in his flesh—it's funny, she muses, how such an obvious thought could send such a pain through her chest.
"You're staring," he grins from the far side of their heated pool (his idea), clearly enjoying the fact.
"You're easy to stare at."
"Flattery will get you nowhere," he sighs, feigning boredom in a manner he surely learned from his grandmother.
"Pity," she says in the same nonchalant tone, "I was planning on giving you a treat tonight." A suggestive movement from her tells him exactly what his treat was going to be, and he tries—and fails—to hide his distress behind a vulgar hand gesture.
"You're gross," she laughs fondly, her fingers itching to smooth a stray tuft of hair on his forehead.
His reply is obscured by the cry of an owl; this really is the Garden of Eden, Abby thinks, craning her head up at the canopy-like group of trees above their heads, searching for the bird in question. The night is black, darkness interrupted only by the stars, scattered punctuation marks on the plane of God's canvas. It's hard to remember she doesn't believe in God, in any God, on nights like this, when the very air seems alive.
"I know how to do that, you know," she says absently, still scanning the sky.
"Hmm?"
"I know how to make an owl noise. With my hands," she explains, now studying her fingers and clasping them, trying to get the right position. A moment later, she's done it—she blows through a hole between her thumbs and a low hooting noise emanates from her fists, filtering through the quiet atmosphere.
"Hey, cool!" he exclaims excitedly, and glides through the water to get closer to her. "How d'you do that?"
"Magic," she grins. She loves this eager, childlike side of him; it makes her wonder what a son of his—of theirs?—would be like.
"Show me," he pouts, hoisting himself out of the pool and sitting beside her on the edge, his arms cold and slick as they twine around her. Water droplets fall from his nose and onto her legs.
"There's a towel right there, you kn—"
"So you put your hands like this," he interrupts, studying her fingers thoughtfully and trying to imitate their position with his own. Sighing, she looks down at his hands, and then at him.
"No," she says, "like this." She adjusts his thumbs herself, gently moving them into the right angle, again noticing the beauty in the way his body is linked together; she finds herself falling in love with every nerve, every cell, every atom, every possible particle of him. That'd be nice, she thinks, that'd be romantic, if it didn't make her ribcage ache and her heart race every time he left her for the possibility of getting blown up in the Congo.
"There," she murmurs when his hands are positioned correctly. "Now blow there."
He does as he's told, rather clumsily, and produces a wet-sounding raspberry, causing him to grunt in frustration. "It won't work," he grumbles.
"That's because you're not doing it right," she replies with exasperation, and illustrates her point by doing the trick with ease. "Like that. Really bend your knuckles."
"Hey! There! I did it!" he laughs triumphantly a few attempts later, blowing through his knuckles over and over. "This is so cool," he grins, calling to the owl again and again, spinning around and almost falling over as he cranes his neck back to find it in the trees above him. She observes him with amusement, her Adam in this Garden of Eden, and wonders absently how the real Adam and Eve had children.
"Who taught you how to do that?" he says, his eyes still alight with excitement. Drops of water cling to his broad shoulders, and she pauses a moment, letting herself be distracted by them.
"My dad," she admits finally. His eyebrows raise; the last time she talked about her father was the first and only time. "About a year before he left."
He's quiet for a moment, out of something like sympathy, and simply looks at her.
"Do you ever miss him?" he says softly.
Standing there with him, feeling the grass clinging to her feet, feeling the moon's gaze on her, she knows the answer almost immediately.
"No."
—
12:00 AM
There are some things, she thinks, that will always stay the same. The world could end and they'd stay the same, somehow, somewhere, in some forgotten dimension, somewhere time forgot to tread.
His eyes are like that, to her. When she gets right up close to him, even in the middle of the night when the only thing she can see is his silhouette moving above her or behind her or below her, even when they're just two black shapes that interlock and intertwine, she can feel his eyes; always the same depth, same shape. She remembers how uncomfortable she felt the first time it wasn't his eyes staring at her behind a black silhouette moving above her or behind her or below her, remembers the shiver that flowed through her and the way she came so close to letting herself pretend they were his. She's always relieved now, even though it's been so long, or seems so long; she's always relieved when she looks at him in the dark and, oh, it is his long nose and jutting hips and bony ankles. It is his eyes. Thank goodness, she thinks.
It's only now, contemplating his eyes and being startled by his mouth on hers, that she realizes she hasn't spoken in a long time.
"You okay?" he whispers softly, close to her ear, twisting a tendril of her wet hair around his fingers.
"Yep," she replies quickly in the same tone, grazing her lips against his jaw to reassure them both. He's long since pulled her into the pool with him, long since wrapped her body around his; his dark eyes that will never change, those eyes that seem to hold entire galaxies, stare down at her and into her. Black hole pupils suck her in and squash her flat.
"Let's dance," he blurts out suddenly, pulling his face away from hers and grinning, steadying himself in the chest-high water.
"Dance?" she replies, eyes alight with amusement. He always wanted to dance at the strangest of times.
"Yes!" he laughs, beginning to lead. "And," he adds, "we have to sing, too."
"Oh, no, no, no. I am not singing," she protests lightly, following him with ease. As they waltz—are they waltzing?—the water carries them, but the water could be air for all she knew. It felt like air.
"In the town," he crows, "where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea..."
"Oh, Jesus," she groans, burying her head in his shoulder.
"And he told us of his life, in the land of submarines!"
"I'm going to disembowel you."
"We all live in a yellow submarine! A yellow submarine, yellow submarine! We all live in a—"
Her lips attack his, interrupting the chorus, and it's hard not to smile as she's reminded of a similar situation years before. They're still dancing, swaying and spinning in the water like rose petals; she wraps her legs tighter around his hips and clings to his shoulders and thinks about how she's being sucked in, sucked in and squashed flat like a paper crane in a whirlpool. Sometimes her willingness to be sucked in, to be squashed flat surprises her, but this time she's not surprised by anything because being surprised would require thinking and that, frankly, well—thinking never got anyone anywhere, especially when he was involved.
The world could end and they'd stay the same, somehow, somewhere, in some forgotten dimension, somewhere time forgot to tread.
So let the world end, she thinks, and kisses him harder.
—
1:23 AM
"Did you know that all those stars up there are already dead?"
He floats on his back, naked, pale in the moonlight. She's having a hard time taking her eyes off the stark contrast between his pubic hair and his skin.
"Abby?"
"What? Oh." She glances at the night sky from her perch on the side of the pool. "Does it have something to do with the speed of light?"
He shrugs, blinks as a moth darts in front of his eyes.
"Don't know. Heard it on the Discovery channel yesterday."
"Nerd," she smirks, splashing him playfully with one of the feet she's been resting in the water. "Since when do you watch the Discovery channel?"
"Since yesterday," he grins back, still staring up at the sky. For a moment, there is nothing; only the soft lapping of the water against their skin and the crickets in the bushes. The owl calls again, quietly, high in one of the ghostly cedars above them.
"If those stars are all dead," she says slowly, "what about the ones that aren't? Where are they?"
"Going on vacation. Having tea parties. Bungee jumping, maybe."
She laughs lightly, studying a constellation she can't name.
"Maybe they hide," she murmurs a moment later. "Behind the others."
"Why would they hide?" he asks, watching her out of the corner of his eye. "Are they afraid?"
"No. They're just biding their time. Waiting for the right moment."
"But if it isn't the right moment until they're dead..."
"Then I guess," she grins, "they're star-crossed."
Groaning loudly, he flips over in the water and lunges towards her, grabbing her ankles and holding tight; for a moment she's scared he'll drag her in into the water, but he simply stares at her expectantly, as if challenging her to struggle. His eyes are dark again, the galaxies sparkling in them.
"What about the moon?" she wonders vaguely, running her finger along his nose.
"The moon's made of cheese," he states immediately, as though waiting to say it. A mischievous smile slinks across his features, and he bites her finger gently.
"Cheese?"
"Yep. And," he giggles softly, "evil mice live there." His head falls onto her left knee, and his hands strokes her right, making circles and watching the hairs raise on her skin with satisfaction. Her palm finds the back of his neck; his moan reverberates on her skin.
"Who told you that?"
"My brother. I was five," he murmurs.
"You believed him?"
"Every word. He told me they were spying on me."
"Poor thing."
"I know. He told me a lot of stories like that."
She continues to run her fingers across his neck, loving the feel of his nostalgic smile against her thigh. An ache is spreading through her, starting in her chest and radiating into her abdomen; she knows this ache, the one she sets aside for him. It's deeper than pity, deeper than empathy, deeper than almost anything she's ever felt; and somehow, dimly, she knows it has something to do with children.
"Do you miss him?" she breathes, holding him a little tighter.
"All the time," he replies, and plays with her fingers.
The ache intensifies.
—
and your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking
and dad would dream of all the different ways to die
—
Abby remembers it all so clearly.
The pungent smell of chlorine and other people's bodies; children splashing and laughing and yelling and crying all around her, Eric one of them; her father, beckoning to her from the shallows: 'come on, honey, it's just water, it won't bite you'; but most of all she remembers the bathing suit.
It was pink; that's the first thing she remembers. A bright, cheerful, energetic pink—the pink no one but Barbie has a name for. Happy little flowers with smiling faces jumped out from the surface of the material, coaxing her and everyone around her to be as joyful as themselves. The straps dug into her shoulders, creating angry red lines all across them, and she seemed to be in a perpetual state of wedgie-dom. She was a seven year old wearing a bathing suit meant for a toddler, and while Abby had always been small—"my, my," the midwife had said to Maggie, "are you sure she's not premature?"—even she was too big for this strait-jacket in disguise.
Her father, a squealing Eric under his arm, was still cajoling her gently.
"Look, sweetie, there's Sarah! You're still friends with Sarah, right?"
"Yes," Abby mumbled, watching two older boys splash and play-fight a few meters away. If she got into the water, they'd hurt her, they'd push her under and stand on her
and she'd be lost forever—
"Everything all right?"
Sarah's mother, an attractive, sweet-smelling woman, was hovering nearby. Her kindly face was partly obscured by her wet, stringy hair, and she moved it out of the way with an elegant finger.
"Abby doesn't want to swim," Abby's father said to her with exasperation in his voice, still struggling with a whiny Eric.
"Here," Sarah's mother said quickly, "let me take him; you sort little Abby out, and then we'll all have a nice time, hmm?" The way she said it made Abby wonder if she hadn't added 'or else' in her mind.
"Oh, Gina, you're a life saver."
"I try," Gina laughed, and carted Eric away, smiling in a way that made Abby uncomfortable, but a moment later her father was smiling down at her and reaching out his arms, and all was forgotten.
"Come here, honey," he said quietly. "Hey—why don't we play the owl game?"
"Okay!" Abby replied excitedly, her fears as forgotten as Gina's smile, and she immediately clasped her fingers together, waiting for instructions.
"This time," her father whispered, "we're going to do it a little differently. Every time you hoot, you have to take a step forward. Okay?"
Abby stared at him, nervous, but something in his steady gaze made her trust him, and she nodded cautiously, still watching the boisterous children at the other side of the pool; they knew how to swim, they could swim over and catch her, push her under—
Hoot. Her father had started the game; he was standing closer than before. Now it was her turn; could she do it? If she didn't, she'd lose, and disappoint him...
Hoot. It came reluctantly and quietly, but came all the same, and then she was stepping forward and water was over her ankles and—
Hoot. Her father was closer, looking her eyes, so warm—
Hoot. The water was warmer than she'd thought, now tickling her knees.
Hoot. He was so close now, close enough to touch—
Hoot. Bottom step—
Hoot. "You're almost winning!" he grinned, and held out his arms for her.
Hoot—was in! She'd won! The water embraced her limbs gently, like her mother used to do, warm and soft; the other children seemed so far away, and her father so close, his fingers tight around her arm, his face smiling down at her.
"Yes! You did it!" her father beamed. "See? Not so bad, huh?"
"I guess," Abby grinned back, splashing him experimentally, loving the feel of the water between her fingers, and her father's hands, and his eyes on her. She loved everything in that moment, she'll remember later, from the pink bathing suit to the boisterous children to Gina's strange smile; she loved it all, because she was with her father, and she was in the water, and she wasn't afraid.
She was swimming.
END