(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

[hollowly]

5 times he wished he was someone else and the one time he was glad to be who he was.

LATE!

[unknowable]

5 times he wished he was someone else and the one time he was glad to be who he was.

one.

"Yeah, but they live in a trailer park."

"My dad said his dad got fired for showing up late to work too many times."

"Come on, didn't you see the holes in his shoes?"

Adam hunkers down, tries not to listen. Tries not to pay attention to his whispering classmates. He's not the only poor kid here, but apparently he's the only one who couldn't afford the ten bucks for their field trip to a nearby museum, and apparently his teacher needed to inform him of this in a loud enough voice that the rest of the class could hear.

He wants to shrink away, wants to disappear. Usually he barely gets noticed - on purpose, of course - but now he can't avoid their whispers, their looks. The crueler ones think it's funny, the kinder ones just pity him, and he doesn't want any of it. He wishes he were somewhere else. He wishes he weren't a Parrish.

He wishes his dad hadn't spent half his paycheck on whiskey.

two.

He's biking home when the truck rolls up next to him, kicking dust in his face. It's an older model, beat up, and Adam doesn't immediately recognize it. Why should he?

He slows, but doesn't stop. Wariness is his first reaction, and it's warranted, as he quickly discovers. The window rolls down, an older man leans out. Adam didn't recognize the truck, but he vaguely recognizes the man, and he tenses.

"Tell your daddy to get me the money he owes, boy," the man - his father's drinking buddy - growls in a thick Henrietta accent. "I'm not gonna wait much longer."

Adam wasn't aware his father owed anyone money, but it's not a surprise. He nods, quick and jerky, just wanting to get out of this moment. Hoping that there's nothing but a warning here, no one who needs to prove a point with their fists and chose the smaller, less dangerous Parrish for it.

"Next time I won't ask so nice," the man says. He spits at Adam, barely missing him, then rolls up his window.

The truck drives away. Adam rides home, promising himself once again that he'll get out. Somehow.

three.

They aren't talking about him, not really. Not specifically. Most of the other students at Aglionby know Adam isn't as rich as them - know he's there on scholarship - but they don't really know the poverty he comes from.

So he reminds himself again that they're not talking about him. Not on purpose.

But they are, really. Him, and anyone else like him. The other people in the trailer park. His parents. Him.

They're laughing about the dollar store, the cheap crap they found there. Wondering who would use dollar store soap or dollar store dishes. It'd be as good as taking something out of a dumpster, they're saying, not caring that that's all some people can afford. Not caring that Adam has had to count pennies to be able to afford soap, that dishes break and replacements can be pricy.

One day he won't have to count pennies. One day he'll be able to smash a hundred dishes and buy more.

But he thinks even then he won't laugh about it the way they're doing. His hand tightens on his pen, he focuses on his work, he tries to block them out.

four.

The first time Ronan imitates his accent, it stings.

It makes Adam's spine stiffen, his lips tighten. It's all he can do to keep from snapping at Ronan, glaring at him, but he knows Ronan is only doing it to get a reaction. He knows it's just that Ronan thinks his hick accent is funny, that he still doesn't like Adam much, that he's trying to wound.

He doesn't say anything, but it smarts, and he watches his words even more carefully after that. Tightens it up, shortening vowels, doing his best to sound like any of the other students. Like Gansey.

Eventually he realizes that Ronan didn't mean to be an asshole. Or rather - he did, he always means to be an asshole, but not about that. Ronan likes to imitate anyone with a particular style of speech, mocking them casually. Adam wasn't the first and he isn't the last, and Ronan didn't know (or care - Adam won't give him too much credit) that it was a sensitive subject. Adam even finds himself biting back a grin at Ronan's careless impression of their biology teacher, or the posh accents of some of their classmates, or Gansey.

He didn't really mean it. Still, Adam is more careful, watching the words that slip past his lips. Trying to make it natural. Trying to make it second nature.

five.

He watches Gansey in class, watches him bent over his notes. He doesn't think Gansey is actually paying attention to the lecture - he thinks Gansey is writing about his lost king, instead. Gansey doesn't need to pay attention in class, not if he doesn't want to. Gansey has everything, so easily, and sometimes Adam yearns deeply for that.

A casual way with money, not caring what anything costs. Easy intelligence that he never seems to need to work for. Charisma that draws people to him, adults and other students and everyone in between. The devotion of a person like Ronan, fierce and frightening. A path laid out before him, and all he has to do is walk it, instead of clawing his way up inch by inch the way Adam has to.

It isn't so much that he wants to be Gansey. There are things about Gansey that make Adam cringe, things that annoy him. But Adam knows he doesn't want to be himself, either.

Gansey is a good person and a true friend. Adam is jealous of what he has, envious of the way the world turns at his will, but that includes him, too. As jealous as Adam might be, it's only right that Gansey has all of this. He deserves it.

Someday maybe Adam will be able to deserve something similar.

+one.

They're at Nino's, because of course they're at Nino's. Gansey ordered Adam's favorite, and for once Adam is letting him pay, because they're celebrating. Because there's something to celebrate. Because, after everything, he's done it.

Next to the pizza on the table are six letters, the collected responses to Adam's college applications, each one an acceptance. Each one offering financial aid in varying quantities. His future is assured, his goals - for now - met. Everything he worked so hard for. All those late nights and extra shifts, missed sleep and scraping for pennies.

They all want him, and now he gets to decide which he likes best.

And Gansey is across the table, with Henry on one side and Blue on the other, alive and smiling, laughing at something Henry said, his shoulder pressed to Blue's. He's alive, he's here, he's more content than Adam has ever seen him.

Under the table, Ronan takes his hand. Adam smiles at the boy sitting next to him, loose and easy and comfortable. The smile he gets in return is sharp, because Ronan is still full of sharp edges, but it's true and happy and it makes Adam's heart beat faster.

There's nowhere else he'd rather be. He's Adam Parrish, and this is the life he's built for himself.