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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He looked thoughtful a moment. "Well, I never have before. Might be interestin'..."

Then Adam caught sight of Pepper's face and burst out laughing. "Kiddin', I'm kiddin'. There's some that like that sorta thing, but I don't think I'm one of 'em. So, I dun't think bein' the boy gets you any special privileges. Sorry."

"Never know 'f you like it 'til you try it," she shot back, grinning. Adam probably wouldn't, though. Brian might; she had managed to get him into women's stockings when they were twelve and he'd said that they kept his legs nice and warm.

She mock pouted. "Well, I feel gypped, then. Why does that Freud chap keep sayin' all us girls envy you lot 'f there's really nothin' to envy?"

"Dunno," he grinned. "I think you c'n have a pretty good idea in advance. But you barely stand 'em. Why would I?"

Adam chuckled. "Guess there was more to envy when he was writin' that stuff. Since girls mostly didn't have jobs and weren't allowed to do much of anythin'. Now there doesn't seem to be anythin' dif'rent, 'part from the physical..."

He sort of wanted to ask Pepper if she ever thought she'd like to have a baby someday, but with the revelation from October when Roger showed up and the relationship he'd denied her, it seemed too cruel to ask.

"Because your the girl," She said, rolling her eyes because honestly, he should have seen that roundabout coming a mile off.

"Well, that's not true everywhere in the world," she said, a little melancholy. It seemed a silly thing to get upset about with the end of the world dangling on the horizon, but she still felt awkward to know that she could have been born a few hundred miles away and not been able to wear trousers, or play with boys, or go to school. It had been something her mother had been very avid in pointing out through her childhood. Count your blessings, love...

Funny enough, Pepper had no idea how she felt about the idea of having children. She would have probably been damned surprised to hear Adam ask about it, though. She had just always figured that she would know when the time came, if it ever did. Details and planning had never worked out so well for her; she would just know it was right when it was.

She was more like her mother than she knew.

"Even if I'm the girl," Adam argued, "I'm not built like one. And I don't hafta wear a bra, jus' like you won't wear the cup." He got a far-away look in his eyes. "I wonder what we'd look like if I really was a girl an' you a boy, though. Wensley would have a heart attack," he laughed.

"No," he agreed. "But things have gotten better in some places, haven't they? Doesn't that mean that with time they will everyplace else? A hundred an' fifty years ago, women couldn't vote anywhere in the world an' there was still slavery. A lot has changed in not very much time. Ask any of the immortals an' they'll tell you how fast it's been. So when other people see how well it's workin', they'll wanna try it, too. Who knows what things'll be like in another hundred an' fifty years. All we c'n do is try to make it better now and let other people do the rest later."

That's what he expected really. Adam hoped she'd have the chance to make that decision someday but feared she wouldn't.

Pepper laughed at the thought of Wensley's face if she one day turned up as a boy. "Well, I'd 'ave shorter hair, for sure," she decided. "You'd prob'ly be all sorts of pretty an' people'd still be payin' to touch your gymshorts, only not the same ones." That was pretty damn funny the more she thought about it. "Other than that... who knows? Maybe I'd'ave been stockier, like my grandad."

She really wasn't sure how she thought the world was capable of changing. Seemed liked some things were just never okay with people no matter what. But it was hard to think that way with Adam around. "Yeah, that sounds about right." Her family was an example of that more than anything.

Adam blushed, thinking of the kind of shorts he'd wear if he were a girl. Of course, he doubted they could be more uncomfortable than those tiny rugby shorts he'd had to wear on his birthday. Willing the thought away, he said, "You could be a boy for Halloween, if you want. Then you could dress as a pirate or a lion tamer or anythin' an' no one'd know it was you." Well, until she started yelling at them anyway...

"'s why I let it keep goin'," he explained. "We're gettin' so close, it seemed a shame to end it all 'fore we could find out what happens. People of all dif'rent races an' religions gettin' married... Soon enough, we'll all be light brown." He held up his golden arm dusted with fine blond hairs and laughed. "An' you won't sunburn so easy then."

Yup, he'd wear something like the rugby shorts, only they'd probably have something written across the backside, which would make them even more embarrassing. Pepper giggled at the thought. "So it'd be like two Halloween costumes. Which would be pretty cool. But then who would we tell everyone I was? Your cousin? Wensley's long lost brother?" Yeah, no one would ever buy that she and Wensley were related.

"Well, we won't be light brown," she pointed out. "Our descendants'll be the ones who're all darker. So I'm still doomed to burn." She sighed. It just gave her more freckles, as though she needed them. "I dun't think that's the only reason you kept it goin', though."

Like 'sexy' or 'princess', although 'sexy princess' would just make his butt look big.

"We could say Destruction came back..." he teased, fully expecting to be thwacked for that one. "But really, half the people here still don't know the other half. Everyone'd just expect you were someone they hadn't met yet."

Adam smiled. "I like your freckles. You keep at it an' you will be light brown all over afore too long." He didn't answer her other charge. There were lots of reasons. Half of which he didn't fully understand himself. Better to just leave it.

Indeed, thwacking was in order, and Adam got a nice jab to the solar plexus. "How is that possible, I wonder? I mean, I know some folks like to keep to themselves an' all, but this place isn't that big...."

She rolled her eyes. "No one likes freckles. They make you look like a kid n'matter how old you are. And gettin' more freckly just makes me look like a giant freckle, it doesn't make me anythin' exotic." Pepper had spent most of her life avoiding the standards of beauty imposed by media and social norms, but one or two always inevitably wormed their way in there, and the unattractive nature of freckles was unfortunately one of them.

((*sporfleded* Now I wish that someone could draw us a picture of girl!Adam with his 'sexy princess' shorts. XD))

"...ffff..." he tried. Then took a shallow breath and tried again. "... Sometimes people... just don't wanna look."

Adam shook his head. "I like freckles," he repeated. "An' I don't think you look like a kid. But if you had one giant freckle, then you'd be all brown an' look like an exotic African princess or somethin'. Still, you're the only person I know with freckles. Makes you special."

((Oh dear someone, that'd be awesome! :D I wish I could draw...))

She laughed. "You sound funny when you try to talk like that. I should punch you in the lungs more often." Not that she didn't punch him plenty.

Pepper blushed a little (ungracefully, because she wasn't an exotic princess, she was sure of it). "Stop tryin' to butter me up. Not special. Just happened to get your attention by bitin' your shoe." She tried to think. Was she really the only person he knew with freckles? That sort of made it more embarrassing to have them'

Adam made a face at that suggestion.

"You had every right to bite my shoe. We were makin' fun of your name. I still think you're special, though. Anytime I see anyone with freckles, I'll think of you, 'cause you were first."

"Well, I didn't say I was wrong to bite your shoe," she pointed out. "I'd do it again." The rest of the comment did something odd, though. It shut Pepper up. She really didn't know what to say. She just sort of... stared at him. Not awkwardly, really. Just stared.

He blinked. "What? Is there somethin' on my nose?"

She smirked. "Yeah. I think you caught my freckles." And she landed her finger on his nose to see if his eyes would cross.

His eyes did cross and his tongue stuck out a bit. Then he grabbed her finger.

"Caught somethin'," he grinned.

Well, she could either initiate another struggle of tickling fury, or-

She gasped in mock horror. "You caught the freckle monster!" She peeked carefully at her trapped finger before clapping a hand over her eyes. "Do you know how incredibly rare this is? You could get written up in some big special records book for it."

"I'll be famous!" he exclaimed. "I think I'll call it Digitus adamski, an' carry it with me everyplace I go."

"What, part of it doesn't get named after me?" she shot back, mock offended. "'M the one who you associate with freckily things. You should name the bloody discovery in my honour. Dun't know it'll go with you willin'ly, tho'. Might have to keep it stunned."

"Oh, all right," he said mock-grudgingly. "Even though I'm the discoverer... It'll be Digitus adamski-pepificus."

Adam thought he probably shouldn't ask about how to stun it. That seemed suddenly rather dangerous.

"Pepificus?" she giggled. "That's a good one. Tack it on to the long list a nicknames I got piled up somewhere back in the Pit." She narrowed her eyes on him. "You'd be a terrible scientist, y'know."

Keeping it stunned probably would have been more dangerous for Pepper than Adam in the end. It was nature's way.

"You c'n use it the next time we have chariot races," said Adam generously. His brow furrowed. "Why would I be a terrible scientist?"

Her forehead crinkled. "Nah, can't be named after a freckle monster for a chariot race. Gotta be somethin' fierce."

Pepper blinked at the question. She thought it would have been obvious. "You stuck inna lab inna white coat? You wouldn't last three minutes. And your notes were always illeg'ble. No one'd know what you'd found 'cause they woudn't be able to read it."

"You wouldn't be named after a freckle monster," he argued. "It's more like the freckle monster would be named after the Roman charioteer." Adam hadn't let go of her finger yet.

"I could have a sec'tary take the notes. Or talk into one of them little tape recorders. An' I bet the coat would be fun. Only I'm not sure the science would stay the way it was s'posed to... Kinda hard to prove stuff when it don't want to be."