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[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?

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[dedikated]

I. Five secrets Adam kept and one he revealed

[unknowable]

Five secrets Adam kept and one he revealed

one.

The dog hasn't done anything wrong. It's just being a dog, and Adam doesn't think it has any toys of its own. It belongs to a neighbor a few trailers over, and mostly just runs around the trailer park on its own, but it's friendly. Adam plays with it sometimes.

It's just a dog, it doesn't know not to chew up things that don't belong to it.

So when Adam's father roars through the trailer, looking for his lost work boot, Adam doesn't tell him that the neighbor's dog chewed it up. He doesn't tell his father that he threw the boot out, ushered the dog away, covered it up. Instead, he tells his father that he has no idea what happened.

He's already a good liar. He has to be.

He pays for it later, when his father's anger and annoyance spills out to fill their tiny trailer, spills over on to him. But it isn't as bad as it could have been, and Adam understands why, understands what he did to deserve it.

The dog wouldn't have.

two.

It really isn't difficult to tell when someone is cheating off you. Adam in particular is more observant than most, because he's always had to be. He's fifteen minutes into their algebra final test when he figures out the guy next to him is cheating off his test.

It's the quick, cautious glances that do it, the way he looks for too long. Adam thinks about telling the teacher. He studied for this, he worked hard, he has to keep his grades up if he wants to make it into Aglionby. It's not fair for someone else to profit off his hard work.

But since when has the world been fair? Adam knows this guy, Patrick. His uncle lives in the same trailer park as Adam, though Patrick doesn't, and they've seen each other around a couple times. Adam doesn't know the details there, but he doesn't think they're too dissimilar to his own. It's only their motivation that's different. Adam wants out and is willing to do whatever it takes to get that.

Patrick just wants to make it through school. He just wants to survive.

So Adam turns his head, their eyes meet. He wants Patrick to know he knows. It isn't going to happen again - Patrick turns red, looks away, embarrassed - and that's all that matters. Adam doesn't tell anyone. It's just one test.

three.

Outside of Gansey and Noah and - maybe - Ronan, Adam doesn't have any friends at Aglionby. It doesn't bother him, since three (two and a half?) friends is considerably more than the zero he's had for most of his life, but it's still noticeable. It's brought to stark relief when one of the other students shows up at Boyd's and looks at Adam like a deer in headlights.

It's obvious he didn't expect to find a fellow student here, not even charity case Adam Parrish. It's obvious he doesn't know what to do about it.

Adam ignores the stare, looks over his car. The headlights are smashed, the windshield cracked, and CHEATER has been scratched into the paint on the hood.

If he were better at being friendly, he might make a crack about angry girlfriends, but he's not particularly inclined to be friendly to someone who wouldn't even give him the time of day at school.

But when Adam quotes the price, his customer fidgets and looks embarrassed and asks him, quietly, not to tell anybody. His father would be furious.

Really, there isn't anyone Adam could tell. But just for a moment, he feels a sort of sympathy, and he knows he won't tell a soul - not even Ronan, who would probably think it was hilarious.

four.

Adam sways, catching at the edge of his desk so he doesn't lose his footing. It's Cabeswater, of course, Cabeswater curling through his mind, branches unfurling across his vision. He looks at the door to the classroom, dappled with the shadows of leaves now, and tries to focus on where he is. What he's doing.

He can calm the forest, usually, promise it he'll scry as soon as he can, find out what it needs and help it. But it reaches out to him still, and the sudden unmooring from reality never gets easier.

I'm at school, he thinks, ridiculously. He is sure a magical forest has no idea what school even is, much less why it should not bother him there.

He hears something and looks up. It's the teacher, but on the wrong side - his left side, with the bad ear - and with Cabeswater filling his senses it's almost impossible to understand her. He thinks she's asking if he's all right.

"I'm fine," he says, "just dizzy." And he's so used to lying that it almost feels true. It's funny, really, going from lying about the damage his father did to lying about the magic that's part of him. To Adam, there's a world of difference, it means everything.

His father was a shameful secret. Cabeswater is the most precious secret he's ever kept.

five.

Over the months since things began between them, Adam has ended up with a number of strange, impossible objects. It's what he should have expected, getting involved with Ronan. At this point, Adam just rolls his eyes and accepts the strange gifts he's sent, knowing there's no point in arguing. He doesn't even think about them much anymore.

Except now he's away at college and none of the people here could even imagine a creature like Ronan, could even believe that magic exists. Much less that someone could take things out of dreams. So every once in awhile there's an awkward moment - like now.

Adam lent a pen to the boy sitting next to him, and now the boy is full of amazed questions. Questions like where did you get this and how does it change colors on its own and I swear it corrected my spelling on its own, can pens do that?.

Adam takes a careful breath, reminds himself once more to be sure to hand over the cheap pen he got in a 12-pack at the dollar store next time, and murmurs something about a relative who's an inventor, and how he's testing a new product.

People always buy his lies, and it always relieves him.

+ one.

Adam isn't really used to people being interested in what he's doing, so when he pulls out his phone to check the time, he isn't expecting anyone to be watching. But someone is - Bryan, one of the people in his study group, sitting next to him. Bryan leans over, looking excited, eyes on the background of Adam's phone.

"Oh, hey! Is that you? Who are those people?"

At first Adam just looks at him, startled, but it quickly becomes clear that Bryan is not the only one who's interested in the 'mysterious Adam Parrish'. It's true that he doesn't talk about himself much, if at all - it's an ingrained habit from years of having to keep secrets. Most people are mainly interested in talking about themselves, so it's not difficult.

But in that moment, Adam realizes that his reticence has only increased their curiosity. The picture he has as his phone background is the first most of them have seen of his life outside college, and they actually seem interested.

He hesitates, because he's still not used to being open - talking about himself, sharing things. But, in the end, why does this need to be a secret? He smiles, just a little, and taps the picture.

"That's my best friend, Gansey, and my boyfriend next to him. And the rest of them -"