neutral_omens | (no subject)

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Time: July 11, 2000
Place: Outside the manor, sunset
Status: Public
Summary: Brian has an evening jog

Brian had moved in several nights ago, and was already feeling better. Being around Adam always made things seem so much more purposeful. Adam was generally a good thing.

As he'd grown up, he'd come to understand a bit more of what happened-- but only a bit. He didn't feel like trying to decipher it all, cos it'd worked out for the best, really.

Despite purpose and faith, Brian wasn't completely satisfied, not yet. He did want things to do. Weekends down at the park wouldn't fill up all his time...

For now, though, he wasn't sure what was to do (perhaps meet this Hugo chap, learn about room service), so he was going on a jog. The manor was beautiful in the sunset.

He should have wondered how Adam'd come to have hold of such a huge house. What was meant by he 'kinda' owned it. But that was a flaw of his, wasn't it? Brian generally didn't wonder much, especially not when it came to Adam. Other things he might show some curiosity to, but not so much. He'd never liked deconstructing the world.

Brian was, in fact, a born follower. This isn't such a bad thing. Followers rarely start wars, and they usually wind up being essential. They can also appreciate beautiful things without asking themselves pesky questions..

He would have said 'wicked,' if he'd had much breath-- the place was full of gardens, though they needed a bit of a trim, and there were woods and a field...

It really was nice, here.

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Nope, he wouldn't do it, not in a million -

- well, that was a lot of air. In places where it didn't belong.

It took Pepper a few second to register what had happened, and in the end it was Adam dashing away the same manner that he had when he'd fingerpainted his sister's hair in her sleep that actually got her to look down and see what he had done. A halter top. And scrappy piece of fabric that couldn't have passed for a skirt on a doll let alone a full-sized person.

She rose to her feet and bolted after him - ...until she tripped and landed flat on her face. She tried to wrench the scrap of fabric down on her hips while she inspected her feet. Stiletto heels. Pepper had never even worn small, chunky beginner's heels, to say nothing of these little balancing acts, so naturally the shoes proved to be a problem. She yanked them off, shouting, "Adam! When I get my hands on you the pointy end of this shoe is goin' straight into your eye!"

Shooting a glare at Brian, who had the nerve to back out like he hadn't been a part of the whole thing, she staggered to her feet, one shoe in hand, and took off as fast as her legs-which-suddenly-needed-to-remain-very-close-together could carry her.

Oh, gosh.

Brian pulled off his shirt and chucked it after her. As far as cover went, it was about twice as big as the dressy thing she was wearing.

Apparently Brian was more worried about feeling her wrath than she'd originally anticipated... or he just didn't want to see that much.

Pepper whirled around, snapped the shirt up from the ground - crouching, as she realized that bending over would be a bad mistake - and threw it over her head, pulling it down far over her legs. She set her eyes in Adam's direction and spotted him in the distance.

"Right," she said, and dashed off.

Brian sighed meekly and turned towards the manor.

Now he needed a new shirt.

Adam looked over his shoulder. Bad idea. Pepper was gaining on him. Briefly noticing that she seemed to have acquired Brian's shirt, he turned into a wooded area hoping to maybe double back and lose her in the trees.

Adam was out of the clearing now, where it would be much easier to lose him. Pepper followed into the woods, trying to keep her eyes sharp, but it was hard in the low light with the leaves from the trees shadowing her path. Pepper found herself stepping on the twisted, mangled roots jutting up from the ground, which hurt something awful when she was in bare feet...

Now there was an idea.

After all, she'd been doing stage combat for the past two years, hadn't she? She reckoned it had to be good for something. The next root in her way she deliberately caught, turning as she fell so she landed on the fleshier parts of her back and behind. She was careful of where she landed too, made sure that she was crunching down on a good bit of underbrush so the sound was satisfying. In the end it seemed like she had hit the ground pretty hard. If she were lucky, he wouldn't expect. She'd never done it before to any of them, so maybe the element of surprise would be enough.

"Ow..." she said in a dazed voice, suggesting pain in the syllable as much as she possibly could. Come on, take the bate...

He couldn't ignore anyone in pain, but especially not a friend. Adam ran back to the clearing to find Pepper on the ground and fell to his knees by her side, eyes genuinely concerned and carefully focused exclusively on her face.

"Pep? You all right?"

He fell for it.

Pepper couldn't believe her luck. And he looked so worried too, which just made it even funnier. She'd have to thank that acting teacher of hers someday. Reaching out, she grabbed him by the shoulders and sat up, flipping him to the ground. "I can't believe you fell for that!" she laughed hysterically, getting a few good punches in for her trouble.

And then she remembered what she was wearing. And she was torn between wanting to keep laughing and suddenly getting very self-conscious. She tugged Brian's shirt down again (which had already ridden up far too high) and kicked Adam in the leg. "You deserved, though. You're a right bastard."

"Pepper!" he nearly wailed. "I was worried about you. Ow." He grabbed her wrists to protect himself from further blows.

Adam didn't want to ruin the conversation like he had earlier, but he couldn't let it go either. "It's okay now, but don't go cryin' wolf anymore, okay? I've gotta know for real when you're hurt."

But he let it go because his leg was aching where she'd kicked it. "Tell you what. You don't do that again and I won't change your clothes again. Fair?" Although secretly he thought she had the legs for that skirt...

"Aw, aren't you sweet?" Pepper simpered mockingly, fluttering her eyelashes like a flighty storybook princess. "Thank goodness you're around to make sure I haven't sprained my dainty ankle!"

She rolled her eyes as he tried to get serious on her and cut a deal. "Like it would ever work again, anyway." She was still leaning over him. He probably wanted to get up. Pepper backed off, trying to edge Brian's shirt down again. She caught the smell around then. "Oi!" she said, crinkling her nose pulling the fabric away from her neck to examine it. "Why did I take a shirt from Brian? 'Specially one he's been runnin' in? Now I smell like 'im..."

"That's not what I meant," protested Adam. "You're always takin' stuff the wrong way on purpose. I know you can handle yourself normally." He sighed.

"Never mind. There's worse things than smellin' like Brian, you know. But you can take it off if you hate it so much..."

Was that a grin? Oh yes.

"Do not take stuff the wrong way on purpose!" Pepper protested right back. "Just teasing you, Wonder Boy. Stop being such a sissy."

She shook her head. "You may think think there's worse things than smelling like Brian, but...." She caught the grin at the same time that she'd caught up with what he'd said. Oh, he was really asking for it, wasn't he?

She was not going to blush or look away. She wasn't. It was like playing Chicken, only with your will instead of a car. "Fine," she said simply, and pulled the shirt over her head and off, throwing it at him. And then she stared at him, one eyebrow quirked pointedly. There. She dared him not to be uncomfortable now.

Making a face, Adam pulled Brian's shirt off his head and caught a glimpse of Pepper still partly on top of him and now wearing very little clothing. All powerful antichrist he may be, but he was also part nineteen-year-old human male and it's quite possible that nearly anyone sitting on him half-naked would have some sort of effect. As it was someone his own age and female, there was more effect. Oddly enough, seeing Ellie in this particular ensemble didn't phase him. He took it in stride as part of who she was. But seeing Pepper in it, well, he had to find someway to extricate himself without saying anything or her noticing anything. It was a good example of being careful what you wish for, Adam Young.

He held his hands up. "All right, all right. You tricked me, you got your revenge, I'm a bastard, and you're braver and stronger and pr... a better person than me all around. And you hafta accept my surrender or else I'll use chemical warfare on you." Adam waved Brian's shirt around.

Pepper could have crowed in triumph. He was blushing, she could tell by the way he held his head. So it had worked, she had made him uncomfortable, she had won that match, and now he was... looking at her?

It didn't last long, but she caught it. And she started whirling a little because she wasn't quite sure what to think about it. Maybe it was best that she didn't, or that she challenged him on it more, or that she... well, watching him surrender was pretty good. As she was braver and stronger and -

- what? Was he actually going to say...? No, she'd heard that wrong, must have. He'd never say a thing like that to her. Not that she had anything to lose by trying to find out. She wasn't going to stop now, not when she had the advantage...

"What was that?" Pepper asked in an obnoxiously over-loud voice, knocking Adam's shirt-waving hand off to the side. She leaned forward just a bit more; he had brought it down on himself, anyway, putting her in clothes like this (which she was trying not to think about, or she might notice just how much skin wasn't covered), he should have know better than to think she wouldn't take the challenge. "What was that one word, I think you tripped over it a little? Braver, stronger, and...?" She smirked expectantly at him.

He knew he'd lost. There was nothing for it. She'd never give up. If he wanted to escape, he'd have to just admit it and hopefully get it over with quickly.

Unable to meet her eye and face blazing (whose idea had it been to make him fair anyway?), he murmured, "...prettier."

Pepper was probably blushing too, but since he wasn't looking at her it couldn't make a difference, really, could it? She just had to keep playing it up, and figure this whole conversation out later. Clapping a hand over her heart dramatically (normally this gesture was reserved for dying, but then, she'd never played a girl before) she swooned a little and said, "Well, bless my tiny skirt, Adam Young thinks I'm pretty! I may never recover! Though, you could speak it a little louder next time, as I'm liable to go deaf tryin' to pick the words out..."

The overacting collapsed all at once and she absolutely did not giggle. "Anyway, one would hope I was prettier, seeing as your the gentleman and I'm the lady." And to be perfectly ladylike Pepper stuck out her tongue for good measure. She tried to sit up, then realized that doing that the normal way would have her opening her legs, and decided to stay where she was.

Adam rolled his eyes. There was only so much sarcasm he could take at once, especially when it was directed at him for daring to compliment someone.

"I dunno 'bout that. Lots of people think I'm pretty," he said, trying to figure out how to get up or roll over or something. "Could you move? You're squishin' me."

Pepper snorted. "Yeah, fine, you're pretty all right, just not in a girl way. You think I don't remember school?" The way the girls had fawned over Adam since they'd all reached about thirteen or fourteen had been something of an annoyance for her to deal with. Not that the girls ever thought to try anything while she was around.

He squirmed a little and she checked her options. She was squishing him like he said, and while Pepper wasn't alien to being this close to a boy, he probably wasn't used to it. Didn't change the fact that she couldn't sit up proper. "Not without giving you a view that you'd normally have to pay for," she told him honestly. "Unless you'd like to give me my clothes back, O Great Destroyer of Dignity?"

At least he didn't have to explain who currently found him pretty. That would have been even more awkward. "Yeah, I remember. You ever stop chargin' those girls money to touch my gym shorts?"

Then Adam's eyes widened comically before he slammed them shut. Definitely too much information. Especially from a childhood friend. "I'm not lookin'. You can get up now."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "Oh, I never really charged them money. That whole thing was blown way out of p'portion." Well, not entirely. If she'd told him what those girls had wanted to do with his gym shorts... well, it didn't bear discussion.

He looked like a cartoon charater for a moment, and then he closed his eyes. Pepper waved a hand in front of them just in case, just to make sure he really had them closed, and sat up. She pushed the skirt down and pulled the shirt up. How this really made things any better was escaping her at the moment. It was still too much skin to be showing in her book. "I guess you can look now..."

Instead, Adam rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up. Then he opened his eyes carefully, so as to not look directly at Pepper in her skimpy clothes. But it wasn't like they were any more revealing than her bathing suit. Or at least that's what he told himself.

"Looks like it's gettin' dark. We should start headin' in."

"Oh, you 'fraid to be alone with me in the dark? Do I turn into somethin' sinister under starlight?" she teased. Though, in actuality, it sounded like a game they would've played at a sleepover as kids.

Pepper wasn't in the habit of asking people for help, so she scrambled into a crouching position and got up carefully as she could. She tugged the clothing this way and that again, wondering how women could normally wear clothes like this when they hindered so much movement and had to be adjusted every five seconds. Waste of time, that. "You better not 'ave sent my real clothes to another dimension or somesuch. I want 'em back." As an afterthought, she added, "You hungry? 'Cause I am."

Adam grinned easily. A few answers came to mind, but he didn't want to be hit again.

"You can have your clothes back when you admit to bein' a shoe-stealin' witch. This is s'pposed to be your torture, remember?"

He looked around the clearing before focusing on Pepper and giving a passable smirk. "Yeah, I'm hungry. Let's find Brian and go get somethin' to eat. If you confess first, you can even change before we go into the restaurant."

Pepper folded her arms across her chest, locking her posture in resolution. "I can just go up to my room an' change if I want. It just means that you an' Bri'll have to wait longer to eat." He could be stubborn all he wanted. She could be every bit as stubborn as he was, and while there was no way that she'd allow anyone else in the manor to see her in this getup, there was no way she was giving up that easily.

"Besides, if I'm a shoe stealin' witch, then you're a clothes stealin' sorceror."

"Who says we'd wait for you? Or that you'd be able to get to your room? You could get stuck in the lobby like that..."

Adam laughed. "I'll admit to bein' a clothes stealin' sorcerer if you'll admit to bein' a shoe stealin' witch."

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