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go_exchange2007-12-13 09:29 am
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ea_lyons!
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orngsnapdragon Summary: Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked.
Genesis 3:7
Rating: Light PG
Prompt: The Them, Christmas get together.
Genre: Gen., Romance
Word Count:2,812
Beta: My older brother, who does not have an lj, but whose fanfic.net account is AGodofIrony.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked.
Genesis 3:7
It was Christmas Eve, half past four in the afternoon, and grey-clouded and snowing. It was the second fact that had Adam Young, Antichrist and de facto leader of the Them, on edge and glaring at the clock in his living room.
“She’s late,” he said, for the fourth time in two hours and in a voice that implied a massive blackout in half of the American Midwest.
The first time he had spoken thus, he and Wensley and Brian had entered the Young household stiff-fingered and soaked from the Best Snowball Fight of the Season. (So far.) The second time, all three had finished their cocoa and Adam’s voice had shook with the implication of tremors of in Japan. The third time, Dog had slunk, tail between legs, from the room, and Brian and Wensleydale had pushed their game of Battleship a little farther away. A hurricane had also appeared off the coast of a small island in the South Pacific.
The clock ticked by another minute and Pepper was still Not Here.
“Where is she?” shouted Adam, flailing at the air in a sudden, violent gesture. The rest of the Midwest went dark.
Brian twitched. Wensleydale poked him. They exchanged looks, wide-eyed. Adam swiveled to face them.
“You,” he growled, pointing a terrible finger at them, “know something.” And the sky darkened, the gentle snowflake nudging wind outside rising to a momentary howl.
The boys quivered, their third round of battleship forgotten.
“She-” began Wensleydale and stopped abruptly, looking torn.
Brian, hunching down to make a smaller target, sent Wensleydale a horrified glance.
“She said not to tell,” he whined, “She said she’d-”
“But,” squeaked Wensleydale, too petrified to take his eyes off Adam.
Adam frowned and crossed his arms. It was his game now. He could wait. Whatever Pepper had threatened the others with (and Pepper was very good at carrying out her threats), Adam was present, and the leader, and Absolutely Terrifying when he wanted to be. Like now.
“She’s at Cynthia Botts’ Christmas party!” burst Brian, and he slapped his hand over his mouth.
Wensleydale whimpered. Adam scrunched up his face.
“Who,” he asked, “is Cynthia Botts?”
Head hanging now that the deed was done, Wensleydale shrugged and muttered gloomily, “Some girl. She invited all the girls in our year to the party.”
“But Pepper’s not a girl!” exclaimed Adam.
Brian and Wensleydale raised their eyebrows. It wasn’t that, at thirteen, Pepper had blossomed into full-blown pin-up curves womanhood, but she had- awkwardly- transitioned out of stick like androgyny and into something that, at first glance, was probably female.
“Well,” corrected Adam, grimacing, “She’s a girl. But she’s not a girl-girl. And why,” he demanded, voice rising back up into fury, in time with the wind, “didn’t she tell me?”
“Probably ‘cuz she knew you’d say no,” pointed out Wensleydale. Brian, still contrite with his hand over his mouth, nodded.
“Hmmph,” snorted Adam, “M’not her Mum. S’not like I could forbid her to go to anything.”
There was the flat sudden silence of a phone going dead. Brian and Wensleydale both very carefully looked away from Adam and pretended to be absorbed in finishing their game. Adam, brooding at the clock again, didn’t notice. Another few minutes clipped by.
“C, seven,” muttered Wensleydale, fiddling with his glasses and looking askance at Adam, whose outline seemed to be getting darker and blurrier.
Brian winced. “Damn, hit.”
The front door banged open. There was a flurry of snow, a rush of cold.
“Jesus,” announced Pepper, stepping inside, “What’s with the wind today?”
She marched into the room and dropped three small, badly wrapped presents on top of a pile of equally small, badly wrapped presents. She glanced inquiringly around the room.
“You’re wearing a dress!” exclaimed Brian just as Wensleydale shouted, “Your cocoa’s gone cold!” Both in order to derail any questions about whether Adam had been told.
But Pepper wasn’t paying attention to them. She stared across the room, red-cheeked from the cold and head high.
“You,” said Adam, who was holding Pepper’s defiant gaze with his own furious one, “are late.”
Pepper lifted her chin.
“So?” she sneered, “There’s no law ‘gainst people being late.”
She kicked off her snow boots and unwound her scarf. Adam glowered at her. Brian and Wensleydale tried not look guilty and prayed Adam wouldn’t call her out on the party.
She was indeed wearing a dress.
“Where were you?” demanded Adam, and Wensleydale drooped with relief. “Why are you wearing a dress?”
“For your information,” said Pepper haughtily, flouncing down onto the couch across from Adam, “I was at a party. My mother made me wear a dress.”
Brian frowned. “I thought your mum called dresses ‘masculine inventions designed to restrict movement and enforce an unachievable ideal of passive female beauty.’”
About a year ago, Pepper had forced the male members of the Them to go through sensitivity training with her mother as lecturer. They had retaliated by frequently quoting parts of the lecture, nearly verbatim, back at Pepper.
“Yeah, well,” grumbled Pepper, scowling at being found out, “she changed her mind.”
Adam smirked, wondering how long Pepper would allow them to tease her before turning into a cyclone of red hair and sharp nails.
“Hey,” said Wensleydale, who had been scrutinizing Pepper’s face, “You’re wearing makeup!”
There was a strained, awkward pause.
“I am not,” lied Pepper quickly.
Brian leaned over and peered into her face.
“You are too!” he shouted, gleefully, “You’re wearing makeup!”
“I am not!” shrieked Pepper. With one hand she shoved Brian away, and with the other she wiped at her mouth. A smear of pink trailed.
“It’s okay Pepper,” said Wensley, full of false conciliation, “When Adam’s sister gets here, I’m sure she’ll have lots of tips for you.”
Adam’s sister, who had recently broken up with the boyfriend she’d gone to Spain with, was traveling home for Christmas, and it was at the train station, waiting for her and huddling in the cold, that Adam’s parents were. His mother, who refused to drive when the roads were icy, had been torn between going to meet and comfort her oldest and ensuring her youngest didn’t set fire to the Christmas tree.
“I’m not wearing makeup,” insisted Pepper, and she wasn’t wearing much.
“Whatever,” laughed Brian, “but you are wearing a dress.” His welfare in mind, Brian had now moved as far away as possible from Pepper. Pepper, for her part, had picked up one of her snow boots and was hefting it, eyeing the distance between herself and Brian thoughtfully.
“I wish I wasn’t,” she told him grimly, “then I could kick you.”
“You could kick him now anyway,” said Wensleydale cheerfully.
Brian and Pepper both gave Wensleydale offended looks.
“That,” sniffed Pepper, “would be unladylike.”
“And we all know you’re such a lady Pepper,” drawled Adam angelically. He offered her a smile full of teeth and she scowled at him.
“Cretin,” she said dismissively, still holding her snow boot. .
Brian looked interested at this. “What’s a cretin?” he asked.
“It’s like lizard,” explained Pepper, offhand.
“No it’s not,” countered Wensleydale, who had, as an early Christmas present, received an etymological dictionary from his parents, “It’s French.”
“Then why didn’t she just call Adam French?” interrupted Brian, puzzled. ‘French’ had long been an insult for the Them, and was considered grounds for a duel.
“No,” said Wensley, with a long-suffering sigh, “I meant it’s from the French language. What it means is-”
“Lizard,” said Pepper, arguing just for the sake of it.
“It does not!”
“Does too!”
Pepper and Wensleydale argued back and forth for a few moments before Adam, who had been thinking hard and had magnanimously decided to forgive Pepper her faux pas, broke in.
“Hey, Pep,” he said. Pepper looked at him. “Would you really be more comfortable if you had a pair of trousers?”
“Who says I’m not comfortable now?” demanded Pepper scornfully. She was perched carefully on the sofa, ankles crossed, rather than in her usual personal-space invading sprawl.
Adam blinked at her.
“Well,” she admitted, “I would be able to kick Brian then.”
“Hey-!”
“Great,” said Adam brightly, cutting Brian off, “You left a pair of trousers in my room a couple weeks ago. You can pull those on.”
“Oooh,” catcalled Brian, “How’s that Pepper? Leaving your jeans in Adam’s room?”
There was the choking noise of a laugh being swallowed from Wensleydale. Pepper reddened, looking furious, and stood up. She flung the boot. Brian squeaked and dropped to the ground. The boot sailed over his head, narrowly missing the Christmas tree.
“Shut up Brian,” suggested Adam cheerfully, “It’s really none of your business.”
He winked, and Wensleydale burst into laughter. Pepper stood rigid.
“You,” she snarled, glaring at each of the boys, “Dead. All of you.”
She stalked into the hallway, Adam following, his grin wide.
“Hey,” he called, swooping in front of Pepper and grabbing the doorknob to his room, “Allow me.”
Pepper snorted, “How chivalrous,” and crossed her arms, still looking as if she’d like to disembowel someone.
Adam, ignoring Pepper, turned to the door and hesitated. Pepper had not actually left her jeans in Adam’s room. He squeezed the doorknob and turned it, squinting slightly. He opened the door.
“Jesus Adam. Do you ever clean your room?” asked Pepper behind him, a familiar Them refrain.
“Only under threat of torture,” replied Adam automatically. He was pleased to see a wadded ball of denim lying by his bookshelf. He trotted over and picked up the crumpled clothing.
“There you go,” he told Pepper, who had trailed him into the room, unabashedly stepping on any comic books that were in the way. (Though she avoided the science experiments.) She took the pants and shook them out.
“That’s funny,” she said, “I don’t remember having these.”
“Oh,” said Adam, “well. You left them that night you all slept over and we made soufflés.”
‘Made soufflés’ was a euphemism for nearly exploding the kitchen. It was part of a series of career ideas Adam was trying out, inspired by a long and fruitful discussion with his headmaster. The Them had so far tried- and rejected- firefighter, chemist, doctor, pastry chef, and electrician. All had resulted in some damage to the long-suffering Mrs. Young’s kitchen, and the Them had been banished from further experimentation in the house. Which was fine; Adam wanted to try Olympic-class skier or fighter pilot next. He was busily planning another break in to the Lower Tadfield Air Base.
“That reminds me Adam,” said Pepper, a little too loudly and her teeth gritted like when they were forced to recite in school.
Adam’s wandering, plotting mind snapped to attention.
“What’s wrong?” he asked sharply.
“It’s just,” said Pepper slowly, hugging her pants to her chest, “Greg,” Greg was Pepper’s chubby, blonde stepfather, “he says I probably shouldn’t sleep over anymore.”
“If that’s the only thing that’s bothering you,” dismissed Adam, “then don’t worry about it. We’ll sneak you out. It’ll be great.”
“Yeah…” Pepper stared at a point just past Adam’s shoulder.
“You don’t agree,” said Adam, his voice cracking halfway through agree. He cleared his throat, a chill stone feeling stinking into his stomach. Adam had spent the past nine years (mostly) in tune with his gang’s moods, and Pepper’s now was a peculiar kind of mulish embarrassment.
“No!” she said, then blushed, “Well, maybe. I dunno. It’s just,” she lowered her voice and Adam caught something about “hormones” and “growing up.”
“You’re not serious?” interrupted Adam, his voice higher than he’d like. His father had, very gravely, given Adam The Talk about two months ago. Adam, squirming and uncomfortable, had only half-paid attention. The whole idea seemed uncomfortable and while, so far, some aspects of puberty had been alleviated- (The Antichrist did not have pimples, for example. The Antichrist did not get pimples.)- his voce jumping octaves and this thing about hormones did not seem like good ideas. At All.
Pepper didn’t say anything, which was never a good thing and usually meant someone was going to be smacked.
Adam sighed. “We’ll discuss this later,” he said, trying to sound like his father. (Mr. Young, not Satan.) “You should change.”
“Right,” agreed Pepper. She smiled ruefully, “ And I guess I’ll go wash off this makeup too.”
She turned and fled towards the bathroom. Adam walked slowly behind her, feeling as if something bad and momentous and tragically inevitable had happened. It wasn’t that the sleepovers were an essential part of the Them experience, or even planned events. They just sort of happened, the Them being deep into something or the other that required them to continue into the small hours of he night. Not having Pepper there would be like chopping off a man’s right arm and expecting him to be a whole person.
It also set a dangerous precedent.
Adam paused at the doorway of his room.
“Pepper,” he called.
Pepper, halfway down the hall, looked at him. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.
“You look,” he began, slightly desperate, “You look,” he made a vague gesture around his face. “The dress and the makeup. You look nice.”
Pepper’s eyes widened, then narrowed, as if trying to figure out if he was joking.
“Thanks,” she muttered, pink at the ears, and, shoulders a little straighter, walked into the bathroom. Adam waited for her, leaning against the closed door of his bedroom. She exited, jeans under her dress and face damp, and managed a feeble grin. Adam’s answering grin was somewhat better, and he preceded her as they headed back towards Brian and Wensleydale.
“Hold it!” cried Brian as Adam was about to enter the living room. He held up an American football the Them had pummeled into near non-existence.
Adam smiled widely, eyes lighting up. “Go long,” he ordered.
Pepper bumped into him.
“Adam!” she said exasperatedly, and elbowed him in the side as she squeezed through.
“Stop!” yelled Wensleydale, face red with glee.
Adam and Pepper stood still.
“What?” asked Adam curiously.
Normally, when Wensley yelled at someone to stop, it was out of fear or irritation, not joy.
Brian dropped the football and crossed back into the room, bounding over the sofa and sprawling next to Wensleydale.
“Look up,” he said, his expression matching Wensleydale’s.
Adam and Pepper did.
“Oh,” said Adam weakly, “Mistletoe.”
The mistletoe, Adam believed, was his mother’s attempt to get her solidly English husband to show some affection to their son. Whenever the Young males were caught together under the plant, the result was an awkward pat on the back and a dry kiss to Adam’s head.
The Them, rather than suffer indignity, had decided a punch to the shoulder, not a kiss, was the proper example of Christmas cheer and goodwill towards man.
It was a custom Adam had momentarily forgotten.
“Mistletoe,” he repeated blankly. He looked at Pepper, her expression unreadable.
Adam had not yet hit his growth spurt, and Pepper was only an inch or two shorter than he was. Her face was still damp and she had not so much washed off her makeup as smeared it. Her hair, worn purposefully and defiantly short, curled around her ears.
He suddenly understood what Pepper’s stepfather was worried about.
Pepper smiled; the freckles off her cheeks rising and dancing around her eyes.
Adam leaned forward. Pepper leaned forward.
He opened his lips slightly.
Pepper punched him in the face.
Brian and Wensleydale cheered.
o~O~o~O~o(Falalalala la la la la)o~O~o~O~o
“’Oo di-ent haff ‘oo hit me do hard,” whined Adam later, holding a bloody cloth to his face.
Pepper, who hadn’t expected there to be quite so much blood, was abashed.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, kicking her feet and looking away.
“Id’s find,” sighed Adam. He could heal it, he knew, but somehow that seemed like cheating. Still… he twitched his nose and it didn’t hurt as much.
“You didn’t have to hit us at all,” said Wensleydale glumly, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
Brian nodded his agreement, rubbing his own bruise, “Yeah, we didn’t expect him to try and kiss you.”
“Shut up,” commanded Pepper, swatting Brian’s head. She smiled, pleased but apologetic, at Adam.
“C’mon,” she said, “I have to be home before supper- it is Christmas Eve after all. Are we going to open presents or what?”
Adam smiled back, suddenly full of Christmas cheer.
In Japan, the floorboards of Taku Matsuki stopped shaking. In the South Pacific, the population of a tiny island, Christianized by pirates in the 18th century, was saved by the veerage of a sudden hurricane into the open sea. And in the American Midwest, a fumbling technician flipped a switch, and thirty million Christmas trees blazed back into glory.
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Very Them-y, very festive, very fun. (Poor Adam's nose!)
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And thank you!
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Thank you! :D *snuggles*
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<3!!!! omgyay, I'm sooo glad you liked this!
Merry Christmas!
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Adam leaned forward. Pepper leaned forward.
He opened his lips slightly.
Pepper punched him in the face.
Hahaha perfect!
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Brilliant! This from a woman who moved home and bought a bra XD
Of course the Antichrist wouldn't get pimples. That's just Sense, that is.
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gotta love the them, anti-christ-ness notwithstanding :)
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And yes, yes you do.
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