rp for changehistory: life swings like a pendulum back and forth between pain and boredom

[hadtobeahero]

If you got right down to it, Peter was getting a little stir-crazy. Understandable, given that he and Adam hadn't left the house when they could avoid it, both of them too afraid of being grabbed by Nathan and his men, but it didn't change facts. The walls felt like they were closing in, and in the off minutes where he didn't quite feel like

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[changehistory]

Adam knew there was a lot going on out there...it was still a vague sort of concept, out "there", in his head. He'd retreated too firmly when he'd managed to get away from Arthur, ran too far at least metaphorically, and pulled away from all of them. He wasn't going to be caged again, not after what he'd gone through, and most certainly not for any of them, not for those who'd put him there in the first place. If they'd not caged him, or let him follow through with his plan, or any number of things...

There was still bitterness there, and he pushed it down when Peter was around, not wanting to let it spill into them, spoil things between them, but when it came to wanting to help those people, they were truly those people. Oh, he'd be up for stopping Nathan if he came for them, if he tried to take Peter, or him, but it was hard to mobilize himself to give a damn about Parkman or the rest

[changehistory]

"It sounds like a good way to ring in the New Year," Adam agreed, and let his smile bloom across his face at the idea of bringing in a year with Peter without a wall separating them the way it had for 2007. Truly together, and without lies and secrets and manipulations between them, either. It had been a very long time since he'd allowed himself to have any such thing.

He nudged back, and his smile took on a slightly wistful edge. "I remember my grandfather talking about him a bit, when I was a child. And my mother used to tell us the stories she could remember her parents telling, some nights when she wasn't...some nights by the fire, but my grandparents died when I was fairly young, and they closed the theatres before I was born, so it was something people talked about more in...whispers sometimes. It wouldn't do to make your neighbors think you missed them or anything."

[hadtobeahero]

"I bet it is," Peter agreed.

Silence followed, in which he gave Adam a mock-incredulous look for daring to nudge back, and then he was leaning into him a little. "I take it that going to a play wasn't exactly socially acceptable, back then?" He couldn't imagine why people would have to whisper about Shakespeare and his shows otherwise.

[changehistory]

"When I was growing up? No," Adam said dourly. "They'd closed all the theatres. Declared it a sin. Growing up under Cromwell and the Puritan's reign was hardly an enjoying experience.

That was putting it mildly, really.

"Even reading them could get you an afternoon in the stocks."

[hadtobeahero]

Peter nodded a bit, the smile slipping from his face and into something more thoughtful. Silence followed as he studied Adam, then at great lengths, he started, "You know, I never understood that. I mean, no offense to you since you grew up then, but it just -- seems a little harsh. There are plenty of things that are worse than going to go see a play or having fun, and yet people then were sort of obsessed with putting people away for having a good time. It's kinda stupid."

[changehistory]

Adam snorted slightly. "No offense taken. I always thought it was the stupidest thing ever. It was incredibly harsh, but that was the Puritans for you. Pleasures of the flesh could lead to eternal damnation, and plays were fun. Women were nearly devils, always tempting--thus with all the witch trials. It was a bit better, in some ways, after my father--after we left. Different when you're poorer and care more about surviving than morality."

[hadtobeahero]

He made a face. "I think that's the part that freaks me out the most. People thought that if you went to a play or whatever, that you were going to Hell, and then they went and killed people for no reason. Most of those women -- the witches -- were innocent people. They were just sick -- " He'd read somewhere that a few of the 'witches' had been lepers or mental ill, and neither of those things were their fault. " -- or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time." Like were natural phenomena had occurred and been mistaken for witchcraft.

"I think senselessly killing someone is a lot worse than having a little fun. It's stupid." He paused, taking a moment to come down off of his soapbox, and shook his head. "And yeah, I know I'm preaching to the choir. I just never understood the Puritans."

[changehistory]

Adam listened to him rant with a vaguely amused look, patient, but amused. Having lived it, he had a skewed sort of perspective, he knew. Until he'd had himself called a demon, part of him had bought it--and even after, he supposed part of that stayed with you, twisting in your head, the things you were taught

[hadtobeahero]

Truthfully, the mentally ill didn't really bother Peter. During his training to become a nurse, he'd been taught how to deal with them, that things like dementia and Alzheimer's happened, and that it wasn't really something to be afraid of. Not that he planned on running off to head a psych ward somewhere, but between his training and all the crazy things he'd seen, he figured a few guys with something wrong upstairs was the least of his worries, and so he tried to treat them like he would anyone else. Without fear or hesitation, even if they were on the streets rather than someone he was treating.

Adam was right, however -- for most people, when someone who had something wrong with them approached you, there was an air of discomfort. How can I get out of this and get away? And, like the other man had said, that was with knowing that mental illness existed and that it could be dealt with; he could only imagine what it must have been like back then, when people understood next to nothing about that sort of thing. Living in

[changehistory]

Adam sighed a bit at the slight tone he perceived and shook his head, reaching to touch Peter's cheek lightly.

"I didn't mean to..." He trailed off, unsure what he'd even done, and glanced down and away. "It was different, and it is hard to think of it, even now. Looking back and thinking how it was and how it is now and what I've seen and how things have changed in between...sometimes the grasp of it is so enormous I wonder how the span of time can contain it and where we'll be and what we'll think barbaric four hundred years from now."

He glanced out, a frown between his eyes, feeling very old all of a sudden, and out of place in some ways. Adapting wasn't always easy; being constantly in flux took its toll and at the moment he felt it.

[hadtobeahero]

Immediately he tilted his head into Adam's fingers, shaking his head every so slightly when he apologized. "It's fine," he assured him. "I wasn't trying to start an argument, I just -- you're right. It's different, and in a hundred more years, I bet it'll be just as different. It happens. Times change -- people move forward. We're not stagnant."

Even if Adam was right about things like war and famine and disease being constants.

[changehistory]

Adam brushed his fingers through Peter's hair lightly, just a touch, before he let his hand drop away. "Sometimes it's hard to think of, to remember that it will keep doing so," he admitted.

[hadtobeahero]

He nuzzled at his hand a little, lightly, sighing. "I guess it is, yeah. I guess it's kinda hard to see, though, living through it. I mean, being able to look at a history book and see how far we've come in a few hours is one thing, but having to wait around while it actually happens? It must feel like it's just -- just crawling along."

[changehistory]

"Sometimes," Adam admitted. "Other times it's more like it's flying. More in the span of others' lives, I suppose. When you realize how..."

He broke off, not wanting to upset Peter, to push that on him or bring the downside of immortality up. The people you loved and how quickly the years flew by when you knew each one was one closer to when you had to say goodbye. And how they stretched in an agonizing slowness when you had no one.

[hadtobeahero]

"Yeah." Even though Adam hadn't finished, Peter had more than a good idea of where he'd been going with that statement.

He made a face, resisting the urge to look away, and watched Adam quietly. He didn't know how to respond to that one without opening a can of worms for the both of them, so he said nothing.

[changehistory]

Adam reached for him after a moment, sliding his arms around him to hold him close. His head rested down on against his as he sighed slightly. There wasn't much else to say to that, really, but it made him want to hold on, to cling to him a little tighter, to know for once, at least, it wasn't something he'd have to go through alone. Neither of them would.