(no subject)

[meatbrained]

( five + one )

how it works:

i. post a comment with the characters you play.
ii. go around and prompt other players with a 5 + 1 prompt (e.g. "Five times Hope said sorry and one time he didn't")
iii. write a fic for the prompts people leave you!
iv. enjoy your fic? we hope?

Comments

[greywaren]

Five times Adam refused help and one time he didn't.

or

Five times Adam thought about kissing someone and one time he actually did.

[unknowable]

Five times Adam refused help and one time he didn't.

one.

Adam is eleven years old. His teacher asks him to stay after class, and for a moment he's terrified. Are his grades not good enough? Has he done something wrong? His heart is not yet set on success at any cost, but it's a kernel in the back of his mind, something he will soon devote himself too. Even now he knows that he can't slip, not too badly, not if he wants to get out somehow.

But it's not that. She is carefully, awkwardly kind. She sits him down and asks about the bruise on his arm, and he knows she's also asking about the cut above his eyebrow from the week before, the slight limp from last month, the three missed days of school. He doesn't think she's ever done this before, because she doesn't seem to know what to say.

"Is someone hurting you?" she asks, and there's a set to her mouth, unspoken words in the way her eyes flicker away. She pities him. She doesn't want this to be her problem. Adam is only a child, but he knows what it looks like. He's seen it before.

He thinks of the pity in her eyes, the cold way his mother looks when she tells him it's a family problem, the anger in his father's voice when he tells Adam it's Adam's fault.

Then he says no, and she looks relieved.

She doesn't ask again.

two.

It's the second week of classes at Aglionby. Adam feels out of place every day, sticking out like a sore thumb. A duckling among swans, a Pinto among Ferarris. Everyone knows, just by looking at him, but none of them say anything.

Until Tad Carruthers leans over the desk Adam is sitting at and laughs.

"Hey, man, I got an old Aglionby sweater I could give you if you need a spare. Doesn't fit me anymore, but you're pretty skinny."

He laughs again, like an asshole. His eyes catch on the frayed edge of Adam's sweater.

Adam hates him.

In another world, it would be a kind offer, perhaps. Tad may even have meant it as one. But in this world, it instantly cements Adam's dislike of him.

He doesn't respond. He feels frozen, angry, ashamed. He collects his books and leaves, hearing Tad laughing with his rich bastard friends as he does. Laughing at him, or just laughing. It doesn't matter. There's no difference.

three.

"How about I buy you a sandwich?" Jerry-the-lift-operator says, looking at Adam with a poorly-concealed expression of worry.

It's their lunch break - or dinner break, maybe, since it's 11 at night. Adam looks up from the history paper he was writing, looks at his coworker, doesn't say anything for a moment.

He doesn't have money for lunch, of course. Sometimes he brings it, leftovers from home, but he doesn't get paid for another three days and his dad is out of work and their groceries are stretched thin. Adam did the math in his head, he always does, and his choices were bringing something to work tonight or bringing something to school tomorrow.

He doesn't want to see that furrow in Gansey's brow. He didn't think anyone would notice here.

Lunch was half a sandwich, an apple, and an energy bar. It was hours ago. Adam is hungry.

"I'm fine," he says, and turns back to his homework.

Jerry looks at him for a moment longer, then shrugs and walks away.

four.

They've had this argument a million times, or at least that's what it feels like. Adam comes to school with a new bruise, Gansey stews over it for a few hours or, at most, a day, and then they argue.

"You can stay at Monmouth," Gansey says, and Adam feels that familiar anger coil inside him. Gansey doesn't understand, could never understand. He's never been controlled the way Adam has.

He can't trade his father's control for Gansey's. He wishes he had the words to express that in a way Gansey could comprehend, wishes it didn't always turn to sharp words and distance between them. But he doesn't know how, and neither does Gansey.

He doesn't want this help, this pity. He doesn't want to be just another one of Gansey's things

He wants to be Adam Parrish. He wants to walk away on his own two feet, relying on nothing but himself. He wants to not fight with his friends.

He wants too much.

five.

It's not anger he feels when Ronan offers to teach him to fight. It's weariness, maybe, or even hollow amusement. What good would it do, except to get him hurt more? What good would it do to fight back, when his father is bigger and stronger and better with his fists?

He doesn't tell Ronan his father has a gun. He doesn't think a creature like Ronan would care, and he doesn't want to give Gansey one more thing to worry over.

Adam doesn't think any of it matters, in the end. He has to survive. That's all he has to do. Fighting back won't help with that - it'll only put him in more danger, make his father angrier, turn it into a real fight that Adam would inevitably lose.

Ronan is only offering to appease Gansey, anyway. He doesn't like Adam, is only barely beginning to accept him. When his eyes rest on Adam's bruises, it's not worry in them. Adam thinks it might be disgust, but he doesn't have a guide for Ronan Lynch, he doesn't know how to read him. He only knows that Ronan feels something when he looks at the wreck that is Adam Parrish.

So when Ronan offers, Adam shrugs it off. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't let it bother him. It isn't pity that Ronan feels, and that's all he can be thankful for.

+ one.

He wakes with a jolt, a choked gasp, the remains of his nightmare clinging to him.

For a moment Adam is frozen, not so unlike Ronan after he dreams, but it's fear that freezes him this time. His father's hands, his own hands, bruising blows. It's not the first time he's had this dream, it won't be the last, but it's the first time he's had it when he wasn't alone.

"Hey."

Ronan's voice is quiet, his body warm, his arms as they slide around Adam's waist solid and real. Adam's instinct is to pull away, hide his vulnerability, even lash out with a sharp word. But that's not him, that's not who he wants to be. He shivers, briefly, shaking off the last of the dream, and no sharp words spill forth.

"I've got you," Ronan says, and it's sort of meaningless, because Adam knows he really has nothing to be afraid of. It's only his past, clinging to him, the monsters he hasn't quite vanquished.

But he takes a breath. He leans against Ronan. He lets himself accept the offered comfort, lets himself exist in the moment, lets his thoughts quiet.

It gets easier every time.

[unknowable]

Five times Adam thought about kissing someone and one time he actually did.

one.

His first real crush is a girl named Katie. Her hair is a soft yellow and always in braids, her eyes are a muddy green. Objectively, she's not all that pretty, but she's nice to Adam and she never says anything about his secondhand clothes. She's new to town, so she doesn't know anything about where he comes from. They talk, they hang out a little.

They're twelve years old. It's not dating, it's not quite friendship either. Neither of them really know what to do with each other.

Adam thinks about maybe asking her to be his girlfriend. He thinks pretty hard about it. He thinks about asking if he can kiss her, or maybe just kissing her. Is that how it's supposed to go? He's honestly not sure. But he likes her, and she seems to like him, and he sort of wants to.

In the end, he doesn't. Even at that age, he knows what to expect when she starts talking about him to the other kids in their class. She stops hanging out with him, though she's still polite when they talk. And honestly, Adam thinks that's for the best.

Katie is nice. She always has clean clothes and a well-packed lunch. Her mom picks her up after school.

They wouldn't have worked out together anyway.

two.

At first, when Adam starts noticing boys, he tries not to.

Girls are normal. He's seen his dad's pinup calendars, heard enough uncomfortable comments about women's bodies. And that's - well, not fine, but it doesn't bother him that much. Girls are pretty and they smell nice and Adam does like them.

He knows that he shouldn't also like boys. He knows that, and he knows exactly what his father would say, and it leaves a pit in his stomach to even think about it. So he tries not to, and sometimes it works, but sometimes it just isn't that easy.

The first time he thinks about kissing a boy, it happens out of nowhere. He doesn't even like the boy that much - a guy in his science class named Jeff, loud and sort of obnoxious. But his eyes crinkle when he smiles, and he smiles at Adam a lot (he smiles at everyone a lot), and they're paired together on a project, and he's not nearly as much of a dick as Adam expects. He has nice shoulders and he's not actually a total idiot, even if Adam is pretty much carrying their grade.

And one day Jeff smiles at him and Adam thinks what if-

He knows he shouldn't, but it's too late. He doesn't do it - of course he doesn't - but he thinks about it, and that's just as bad, because that's when he has to admit boys are about as nice to look at as girls.

three.

He thinks about kissing Gansey not so very long after they've met.

It's less that he thinks about kissing Gansey, and more that he thinks about what it would be like to kiss Gansey. He's not even sure he actually wants to, he thinks it's more that Gansey is the first person at Aglionby to treat him like he's worth talking to.

It's not a crush, exactly. Adam is aware of that, because he's had crushes before, and this isn't that. Gansey is attractive, certainly, but that charisma is attractive to nearly everyone, and Adam is not immune, especially when it's focused on him. And Adam is - well.

He knows what he is. He knows, with a cold distance, that lacking affection at home will make him more susceptible to reaching for scraps of it elsewhere. He's wary, incredibly so, but that doesn't make him untouchable, and Gansey is the first person in a long time to act like a friend.

Some days Adam can't remember the last time someone touched him that didn't leave bruises. So of course, when someone like Gansey is too kind to him, he thinks about it.

But it passes, and that's for the best.

four.

If Adam is being honest, he would have to admit that the first time he thinks about kissing Ronan is months before he ever considers it in a serious way.

It's not like it was with Gansey. Ronan is not kind to him, barely seems to like him. In return, Adam doesn't let Ronan scare him off, ignores his more blatant attempts at intimidation, and they eventually settle into something a little more stable. Maybe it's not quite friendship yet - that doesn't happen for another month or two - but it's not quite antagonism, either.

It's around then that Adam thinks, briefly, of kissing him. It's a masochistic impulse. Ronan has not accepted him, does not like him, is packed full of warning signs. Do not touch, this animal will bite. And if there's one thing Adam knows, it's not to put himself in more danger than he already has.

He doesn't even like Ronan that much. But there is something magnetic about Ronan Lynch, a dark sort of charisma that mirrors Gansey's bright friendliness, something that draws the attention even while telling you to keep your distance. He's as handsome in the way a poisonous snake is, and Adam hates it a little.

Adam thinks if he kissed Ronan he'd get cut on his edges. It would end in bruises, and he has enough of those already. Ronan is a problem for someone else to solve.

five.

He thinks about kissing Blue a lot. And why shouldn't he? They're dating, or something like it. She likes him. He likes her. It should be simple.

It isn't. It's only too clear that she doesn't want to kiss him, and he doesn't know why.

Sometimes it doesn't matter. She still holds his hand and smiles at him and joins them on their adventures. She's still remarkably pretty, sitting across from him at Nino's, taking her break while they're there so she can join them for a few minutes.

Adam wonders what would happen if he just leaned over and kissed her, the way he wants to. He's pretty sure he knows, though. She'd stop him, like she has every other time. It's him, probably, there is something innately wrong with him that makes it difficult for anyone to like him, for anyone to want to touch him.

He accepts that, but it stings.

He watches her for a moment, then something curls in the corner of his eyes, and it's nothing but he's distracted because when will he stop seeing things? What's wrong with him? Why won't Blue kiss him?

He does eventually get his answers.

+ one.

"They still let you on school grounds?" Adam says, crossing the parking lot to Ronan's BMW, a half-smile on his face, a bag full of books over his shoulder.

"You think they're gonna try to kick me off?" Ronan is leaning against his car, arms crossed, all leather jacket and artfully ripped jeans, shaved head and sharp smile. Warning sirens blaring from every movement.

Adam steps in, puts a hand on Ronan's chest to steady himself, and leans in to kiss his boyfriend.

People can see. They're probably staring. It's not the first time that Ronan Lynch, Aglionby dropout, has appeared on school grounds to pick up Adam. It's not even the first time they've kissed in view of the entire world. But Adam doesn't care who sees anymore, doesn't care what anyone might think.

He only cares that he has this. That Ronan is warm under his touch, that he rests his hand on Adam's hip and pulls him in for another kiss, both of them always hungry for more, even if it's been months since the first time.

He's never gotten cut. There are no bruises. Part of Adam is amazed to remember he ever thought such things of Ronan, but he wasn't wrong then. They've both changed, grown into each other, fought their own demons and won, found each other in the end.

He kisses Ronan again, and it's so easy, so quietly perfect. Ronan kisses like a wildfire, or sometimes like a gentle rain, or sometimes just like a teenage boy, and Adam likes all of it.

It was worth waiting for.