neutral_omens | (no subject)

Current Music: ATB - We Belong

Entry tags:

adam,
pepper

(no subject)

Date: January 4, 2001
Status: Private - Adam, Pepper
Setting: Pepper's Room
Summary: Adam wants to check up on his friend.

It had been three days since their New Year's kiss and Adam hadn't seen Pepper anywhere. He was starting to get a little worried. It could have gone better, sure, but she wouldn't just avoid him afterward, would she? He didn't want that to happen again.

Just in case, Adam went to the kitchen and armed himself with Wensleydale's best hot cocoa. When Wens had learned it was for Pepper, he added extra whipped cream and a mint leaf. Smiling faintly, Adam carried it carefully up the stairs and knocked on her door.

"Pep? You in there? I got somethin' for ya."

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Shrugging, she stared up at the ceiling, trying her best not to feel that gaze on her. "I mean.... When we played, when we were little. Was that just-just us messin' around? We thought we knew a lot sure, but-" But know there was a war, and there was the end of the world, and there were people and families and lives and things that they had never counted in any of their plans when they had all vowed to sail the Six Seas (they hadn't been able to find enough evidence that number seven existed) and all the rest. "Did it mean anything? Did it count for something?"

Otherwise it was all a lie. Just them postponing what they didn't understand. And that was perhaps the worst feeling, her greatest fear in all of this. Could she help with anything if nothing that they had done together had really prepared them for what was coming?

"Oh, Pepper..." he began. How could she not know what she, what they all had done? He sat up in order to catch her eye.

"It meant everythin'. It still does. Look..." and this was hard to talk about because they never did, but he forced himself to say it for her sake. "When I was born, I was 'posed to live with some ol' American ambassador an' have nannies and tutors an' learn all 'bout evil and takin' over the world. That didn't happen. I grew up a normal boy with you an' Brian an' Wensley. An' us playin' war or pirates or witches or ninjas or anythin' helped me learn 'bout good and evil together. 'Bout balance. 'Bout how you could be good one day an' bad the next. Or how the bad guys sometimes weren't if you looked at 'em diff'rent an' the good guys weren't always so good. You 'member how we felt when we found out 'bout the cowboys killin' all them indians by givin' 'em blankets with small pox in? You said that wasn't on and you were right. I learned what's right by playin' with you three. By havin' you in my life. An' I was able to make the right choice when the time came. So how isn't that the most important thing? If you c'n keep doin' that for me, keep me centered, keep me knowin' not just who I am, but what I want to be, mebbe you c'n save the world a second time."

At some point during the monologue, his arms had ended up around her and when it was done, he didn't let go.

And it suddenly floated in, so much at once, but so gently that she could take it all. Maybe that was why school had never been that much fun. What they could learn from adults never meant as much as what they had learned together. Discovery meant more than pie charts and textbooks. And they had discovered every important thing as a unit. It had always been true.

It still was.

Maybe it was even more true now. It sort of made New Years funny, in a way, ironic to the core....

She locked her arms about him too, leaned her head forward an inch or two. "Well then, I'm tellin' you right now; you want to be this. Just like this. Dun't you go changin' for anythin'. Not even those gapin' holes in your trainers."

He laughed, relieved. "Hey, these trainers got lots of life left in 'em. The soles are still stayin' on aren't they?

Squeezing her for a second, Adam grew serious again, nudging Pepper's head onto his shoulder. "You jus' keep on tellin' me that, Pep. You jus' keep right on tellin' me."

"And the rain never gets in," she reminded herself, smiling.

It was home, sitting just like this. More than the sum of all of Tadfield's parts.

"And also jus' keep your arse in line," she said laughingly, her cheek fitting comfortably against the indent above his collarbone. "Dun't forget I'm here for that too."

"Remember when I said that that thing 'bout people knowin' that if they kill a whale, all they've got a dead whale? So it is with my trainers. If I wear trainers with holes, seems the only sensible thing is that my feet get wet."

He chuckled, his laugh vibrating against her ribs. "That, too, I s'pose."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, because everythin' havin' to do with you is sensible."

When he laughed, her back arched a little and she wriggled in his arms, sniggering quietly. "Oy, knock it off, you tickle."

"Course it is!" he said in mock-outrage. "'m the most sensible Adversary there ever was."

Adam laughed again, holding her still. They seemed to have come to some sort of equilibrium and he was glad.

"Right, like the time that you tried to convince me that we could make chocolate chip cookies using cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips? That was right sensible."

She wriggled again, moving her feet about too until she was all tangled up. "You, you-" she was trying, but the words were failing her. It was hard to be cross with that face staring at you. "I hate you." This statement was ~~entirely~~ somewhat diminished by a crinkled nose and a smile.

"They were chocolate cookies. Not chocolate chip," he insisted. "An' they still tasted good..."

Adam smiled back and booped her on the nose. "I love you, too, Pep."

"They did taste good. Partly 'cause we forgot the flour that time too, 'f I r'member correctly. Just sugar'n'butter mostly." And they had been wired afterward. She remembered that pretty well too.

Her cheeks tinged pink, but she didn't look away. Rather, she poked a finger pointedly at the center of his chest. "You're such a bloody girl sometimes."

"Yup," Adam admitted cheerfully. "One of us should be," he added, teasing.

"Right," she agreed, amused. "So if I'm the boy, what sort of fun priviledges do I get, then?"

Adam thought carefully for a moment. "Um, you c'n wear a cup when you're playin' rugby?"

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