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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"...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."

She wriggled her finger about, trying to see if she could manage to get loose of his grip. "You know, you're surprisin'ly unworried 'bout this freckle monster. Could be deadly f'r'all you know. It might even eat Roman charioteers."

It said something for Pepper's imagination that when he said "sec'tary", she thought "Wensley". No blonde in stilettos and steamed stockings. It just didn't sit right. "You could change science," she said jokingly. "You could reverse gravity or make kiwis an explosive. An' you could tell us once and for all whether the chicken or th'egg came first." Which still bothered her, even now.

Nuh uh. Not this grip. He eyed the 'monster'. "Nah. 's jus' a baby one. Couldn't hurt nobody."

Caught up in thoughts of reversed gravity and explosive kiwis, Adam thoughtlessly said, "Chickens."

"Well, if it's just a baby, you might piss off it's mum," she pointed out sagely. "Besides, I think you're underest'mating it. I think it could be really dangerous." The finger continued twisting in a perturbed fashion.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? Too bad. I always thought it was th'egg."

Adam grinned. "I happen to know its mum lives pretty far away. It's here all by its lonesome with only its friends the spectaclemonster and the ruggersmonster to protect it."

Then he blushed slightly, shaking his head. "Didn't you pay any attention in Sunday school? Says right in Genesis that 'God created every livin' creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind.' He made all the animals first. Otherwise the world'd just be covered in eggs with no one to sit on 'em."

"That so?" she said challengingly. "And what's it bein' held by now, eh? The applemonster?" She tried to push her finger foreward, to see if she could get it to jab at his collarbone.

And then she snorted at him. "No, I never paid attention in Sunday school. Didn't you ever pay attention to me not payin' attention? I'd make paper airplanes and throw 'em at Wensley." She paused and thought about it a little harder. "Except I liked the story about the slaves leavin' Egypt. And the one 'bout Judith cuttin' off that man's head."

"Yup," said Adam, pushing her finger away from his collarbone, except that it ended rather close to his lips. Staring at it, he added, "Er, you would like those... Didn't we play Moses once? Brian liked all those plagues if I 'member right." Which was kind of creepy when he thought about it now.

His eyes went a bit crossed there. "What'd you go an' do that for?" she teased. He'd dug his own hole, he was going to have to climb out of it.

"We did play it," she said after thinking for a moment or two. "I got to be Pharoah for that one; that was brilliant. But I got mad at Brian b'cause he actually went and found live frogs and said he was gonna drop 'em on us for the plague, and I was worried 'bout the safety of the frogs."

"Didn't wanna get poked," he muttered, bringing her hand down and off to one side.

"'zat when we had that rain of frog*?" Adam asked, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth.

*In the end they played Charles Fort Discovering Things. This consisted of one of the Them walking around with the ancient remains of an umbrella, while the others treated him to a rain of frogs or, rather, frog. They could only find one in the pond. It was an elderly frog, who knew the Them of old, and tolerated their interest as the price it paid for a pond otherwise free of moorhens and pike. It put up with things good naturedly for a while before hopping off to a secret and so far undiscovered hideout in an old drainpipe.

"Then stop bein' fun to poke," she retorted, trying to tug her finger away again, now that it was in a safer place.

She grinned. "Yeah, rain of frog. One frog was okay, seven was just not on. Wonder if that ol' frog's even there anymore." It was probably dead by now, but she didn't want to say that.

"Fun to poke?" he repeated, cheeks colouring faintly. Absently, he let her finger go.

Then Adam chuckled. "Oh, I 'spect that ol' frog's still there." Things didn't change much in Lower Tadfield. "He didn't seem to mind too much bein' a rain."