{Fic} Get Over Your Hill 1/1
Title: Get Over Your Hill
Summary: There will a come a time, you'll see, with no more tears and love will not break your heart.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,320
Prompt: #15 - Soothe
Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics or people expressed in this piece, except for Annabeth. The title and lyrics come from After the Storm by Mumford & Sons.
Author's Note: Crappy little thing written for Table A in the 100_prompts community.
- - -
She was fourteen, a minor of the world, nascent in existence, and Adam forgot that sometimes (usually). She’d been walking beside him and beside Kris since she was twenty-one months old, had visited more cities and more countries than another other kid her age, and just seemed more sagacious and mature than he was way back when.
It was so easy to forget when she was raised in an environment where transition and making mistakes couldn’t exist.
But tonight, her back leant against the porcelain tub, bathmat soft under her balled feet, she was as fragile and capricious as her age, thrown fully into the gauntlet, left to the plumbed spectrum, to its curves and freefalls. She rattled out a story interspersed with hiccups about the sophomore she’d been seeing the past couple of months, about how rumor had it he made-out with another girl at Doug Williams’ party last Saturday, how he denied it and accused her of not trusting him. He dumped her, she explained, shifting closer to Adam and burying her face in his shirt.
Adam held to her tighter, resting his forehead on her temple and gingerly carding his fingers through her muddled hair, and felt a piece of himself break off, drift away, out of reach. He’d hoped this sort of thing, however inevitable and unavoidable, wouldn’t happen to her, his little girl. It’d been a pipe dream that she would be immune to this specific hardship.
Kris stood at the door, sharing in Adam’s helplessness, transferring his weight from foot to foot uncertainly, fidgeting in his insecurities, feeling his usage dwindling to a svelte toothpick. It was the hardest thing, he decided then and there, having to watch his daughter cry, be torn down, and not know what to do to make it go away. Knowing there was only so much he could do.
“He didn’t deserve you, baby girl,” Adam whispered.
Annabeth shook her head in protest, mashing her lips together as a quake rippled through her body and her grip clenched onto Adam’s collar, and Kris swiftly parroted the sentiment, inching into the room to sit cross-legged on the tile floor in front of them.
She peaked over at him, forlornly inquiring, “Why’d he do that to me? What’d I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” Kris exclaimed harshly.
Adam casted a pointed look at him, tacitly berating him for the outburst, and Kris muttered an apology, wringing his hands in his lap. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Adam consoled.
“I did!” Annabeth insisted defiantly, pushing at her father’s chest. “It’s the only reason he would’ve done it. He wouldn’t have if I-”
“Nothing,” Adam repeated firmly, tipping his chin down to look her in the eye. “Boys, they can be so dense and do the stupidest things. They cheat themselves out of the good things because they don’t see what’s right there in front of them. And this Trevor guy, if he doesn’t see the amazing young woman that you are then that’s his loss. Okay?”
Annabeth sniffed, tears quieting long enough to refute, “I’m not amazing,” as she swiped a hand across her caked cheeks.
“Yeah, you are,” Kris extolled. Reaching out to place a hand on her knee, he canted his head and let a slight smile twist at his lips, assuring her to his words’ sincerity. “You are one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.”
“Same here,” Adam attested.
Annabeth scoffed, “You’re just saying that.”
“We may be a little biased, but not enough to lie. Right?” Kris hummed his agreement.
The small family going silent, Annabeth sighed, trembles ceasing summarily, and picked her head up from Adam’s shoulder, blinking tired, wet eyes up at him. The edge of his lips quirked as he evaluated her, took in the red rimming the cobalt blue and the swollen nose, the sheer glossing her cheeks and the disarray that was her mahogany hair.
Tentatively, he began to pick at the stray locks, fingers light and careful as he placed each one on their rightful side, managing the rats nest into something resembling acceptable order. He knew she wouldn’t appreciate looking in the mirror the next morning to find knots that needed to be detangled.
“Trevor’s not going to be the last boy to hurt you, let’s be honest,” he started quietly, “because you’re just getting started and some men never change. Trust me. You’ll get your heart broken more than once and there will be days when you don’t think you can get back up, like you want to stay in bed and sleep till tomorrow, days when you don’t think you can keep crying but you always do.”
Adam dropped his hand, winding his arm around Annabeth’s waist, and she responsively curled against his side, closing her eyes and exhaling, visibly deflating, letting her body succumb to the weariness.
“But other times…Other times, before the cracks appear and before you realize it’s really over, you’ll be deliriously happy. Disgustingly, even, because that’s how it’s supposed to be. And then that certain person will come along and he may break your heart a couple more times, may make you cry more than the others and you may hate him at times for making you fight so hard, but he’ll love you more than the others and everything before him…it won’t matter. But until then, you just have to take it day by day. You just gotta kiss the frogs and get through. Okay?”
Annabeth nodded. She knew he was right, generally was. She couldn’t stop everything because of one boy. It wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear at the moment, would’ve preferred something blithe, but it was honest and the truth, as horrendous as it was, and she could always count on her father for that, wouldn’t take him any other way.
Adam hooked her chin and lifted it so their eyes were level. “All in all, boys are idiots. And they’re assholes. And they suck. They’re sucky idiotic assholes.”
A breathy laugh emanated from Annabeth, the first all day, and it was a blessed relief to hear she could still conjure that up. “Yeah, they really are.”
She gradually moved into an upright position, stretching out her legs so her bare feet landed in Kris’ lap. “How bout a movie?” Kris offered.
Annabeth hummed contently, nodding languidly. “We can make some popcorn, dig out the ice cream, maybe whip up a couple vodka tonics,” Adam offered with an accompanying smirk. Annabeth laughed again; this would be exactly the time for him to break out a tipple. Instead, she raised a brow at him. “Or we could skip the vodka tonics and popcorn and have French toast instead.”
“French toast sounds amazing right about now.”
Kris started immediately, rising to his feet with a jovial cry of, “I’m on it,” vanishing from the room and bounding around the corner to the kitchen where a procession of clinks and slamming cabinets reverberated through.
Father and daughter lingered for a few more minutes, wrapped in each other’s comforting arms, Adam whispering to Annabeth, “You’ll be okay,” and depositing kisses in her hair.
- - -
Later, as Adam pulled the Rocky Road ice cream from the freezer to thaw, Kris wrapped his arms around his neck and kissed him, pressing close, pinching the ebony hair on the back of his neck between his fingers. Adam returned the embrace, coiling his own arms around the smaller man’s waist and drawing him flush, causing Kris to titter against his lips.
“You’re pretty amazing,” Kris stated by way of explanation. “You’d be wasted on a son.”
Adam laughed; god, he would.
- - -
Annabeth’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes that night or the next day when Kris took her to the studio with him, didn’t radiate the same resplendence, but she found it got easier to do so with each passing hour.
- - -
And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears
and love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears
Get over your hill and see what you find there
with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair