AN: The idea of John and Adam has taken over my life recently after an RP made the ship happen and a friend and I dove through the archives of the books for evidence of their interactions. John and Adam have a lot of the same scars and the same morals, they are going to be their best allies when they want to heal. This fic is a 5+1 fic with a bit of Counting the Days down. Enjoy.
He reflected his short life in the realm of romance on exactly month eighteen of the new world order. It was a year and six months(five months and twenty two days, more precisely) since Setrakus Ra met his end; it was a year and a half since the day his body was branded with countless thick, purple marks and his mind with endless weeks of nightmares.
Four used to remember simpler times to ease himself; but now, he didn't have to calm himself down from the horrific visions or the shivers.
Now. He recapped it all with the intention to finally go on.
The first time he kissed someone, his name was Daniel Jones and she was Tara, the most beautiful girl he'd ever laid eyes on. Truthfully, she was the only girl he let himself even look at. Their shared circle of vague friends laughed and cheered around them, lost in their own happiness.
Four wasn't allowed to make a lot of friends; friends could be casualties when you were the last of your own kind. But, he still did. He just kept them at a distance.
It was the only time he'd ever gone to a party. He always had to make excuses, claim sickness or family for reasons why he was trapped in his shack near the beach.
Four didn't kiss her on the lips, just brushed his own against the soft skin of her cheek while his ankle screamed in the radiant pain that told him that he would once again be running from the person he was trying to become.
He didn't want to count it as a kiss, but it was the first time he lit his nerves on fire enough to finally lean in and taste what affection could be like. What his life in Florida could have been like if he wasn't a Garde on a suicide mission.
The second time he kissed someone, his name was now John Smith and Sarah Hart was radiant in ways he could never imagine. She was kind, fierce, and serene all at once; she held Paradise, Ohio in the tight grip of her hand without realizing it and Four adored it. He adored her so much; perhaps it would prove to be even too much.
Technically, Sarah had kissed him first. He saved her and his friends from a routine bullying incident led by an ex boyfriend. Sarah had far more courage than Four could ever hope to earn in his lifetime, despite all that would happen after this sweet moment amongst two people in the woods learning about their feelings.
Sarah Hart couldn't be held at fault for all of the things Four would put himself through while she lived. Sarah existed while Four crumbled away without her every sweet embrace or knowing word. Sarah wanted to become her own person alongside of Four while he was driven mad with his only wishes to keep her safe and out of the way of the dangers his lifestyle would bring.
He'd lost his Cepan going after Sarah Hart. He'd almost lost Sam and his own freedom returning to her in Paradise. He'd almost gotten himself killed fighting for her memory to have a future with him; he almost died out of fear of having to spend his life without her.
Without his vision of her.
Four felt he loved Sarah enough to call her his one and only for the rest of his days. She was to be his one for life that he, a member of Lorien, could only have based around the old rules. She brought out the awakening stages of his hidden strengths. Without her, he was unsure how far his Legacies would have developed.
Without her, Four realized late, he wasn't sure he would have known just how much of his life he'd replaced with her. How much he would have given up for her.
Love itself can be pure but the souls behind a romance do not realize what it else it can do.
How secluded and altered would have Four's life been like had Sarah Hart survived the war? Sarah Hart brought out much in him but even he knew he'd lost too much with their relationship. He'd taken from her during their time together.
Perhaps he should have known better that he would be able to have a happily ever after with someone else amongst it all.
After all, Sarah died defending Six. She died too far away from his hold and kisses, fell too short for what she was meant to be.
Sarah's death was what broke him entirely. The knowledge that she could no longer call him to reassure him, hold him while the world demanded his head, shattered and ignited him all at once. Those broken pieces were lit ablaze with the need to avenge her, the want to fight and kill whatever got nine way with the strength of her memory alone.
But. It was also that change that drove everyone else away from him.
Four would arrive back to the military base blood stained and exhausted but ready to jump back out and continue his thirst for mayhem on the ones who took Sarah from him. Every ally he has tried and failed to talk him down from his high; they'd accepted that he would fight until he dropped dead if he had to.
It was a shameful way to remember it all and Foir knew that his conscious had become cruel when it came to Sarah Hart. But. In her absence, he'd learned that those who survived and fought besides him during those sadistic times was what he missed more.
Especially those who didn't shy away from his pain and changes.
The third time he kissed someone was, before Sarah Hart was dead and in a time her presence was almost all but long forgotten, after Four felt something in himself shift towards the incredible Number Six. Perhaps his Cepan lied to him, intended for him to turn into the example of a perfect Garde in all of the old ways of Lorien.
To this day, Four still was unsure of what their truly kiss meant. Maybe it was the means for breaking him apart from the uncertainty of a human relationship, if it meant empowering the connection with another of his kind, or even satisfying the old family history.
Four painstakingly waited every moment on the run to even get the chance and tasted fire and starlight on her lips when he finally was allowed one kiss. Their connection was special after that, though it quickly become far more complicated than either had hoped for.
Six returned from Europe and met him with Marina and Eight. They spoke nothing of their embrace, of everything that the kiss meant for both of them.
When Four reunited with Sarah and saved her life in New Mexico, their connection drifted to something else. When Six ran into the arms of Sam Goode and refused to talk to Four about their kiss, they became allies and friends rather than lovers.
But, Four couldn't find a reason to be upset.
The fourth time he wanted to kiss someone, well before he returned to either Sarah or Six, Four found his target had been too enthralled with the girls who winked and waved at them on the train through Chicago. His target awkwardly laughed when his jokes fell flat and painfully flirted with the female Garde as often as possible without even a stolen glance his way.
His target cared for him after a run in with a Mogadorian force field and taunted him for his humanity. That, was almost the end of his kindness.
But Four couldn't help how drawn he felt to Number Nine. Through every new dare, every new challenge that the burly threw at him in the forms of barbed wired words or rooftop intimidation games, Four couldn't pull away. Something about him wanted more, craved more of the rush that Nine offered him.
Four was no quitter and Nine was the biggest challenge of his life.
There were many times Four was sure Nine felt the tension. When he foolishly challenged Five to a fight and shattered his hand in the process, he demanded Four to heal him. When they reunited after Nine and the others departed for Florida, he led Four aside from the group but kept his words limited, almost like he didn't have enough to speak. When Four chose to save Five's life as well as Nine's, he hadn't been as angry as expected; when Four healed Nine's bleeding brain, the joy on the Garde's face to see his friend gave him away entirely.
He would have ripped apart the already crumbling city if it meant he could find and save Number Nine from himself, from the war around them. And Nine would have returned the favor for him always, no matter the cost.
He found that out of almost all of his friends, Nine was the least shocked by his change. Perhaps he even welcomed the terrifying twist, welcomed the chaos created in Four's wake with every new fight; created with every new twisted desire.
Nine told Four to live.
And so he did.
Nine was the one person Four chose to see first after he'd run from himself and what he became. Their reunion was everything he expected and nothing he wanted all at the same time.
The tension wasn't resolved, it was lingering and needy.
But, it never matched up. It never would.
Four was still unable to allow himself and Nine was certainly never going to take the step forward.
For every advance Four thought he made, from the start of their time together to the day he surprised Nine at the Garde Academy, Nine never bit back. Nine talked high about all of his progress with the children, of his progress with himself; Four took that was Nine progresses far passed needing him in any other way.
Even now, every once and while, Four wonders if they were both just too afraid to try.
The fifth time he kissed someone, a year after the days of war and torture, a year after Sarah Hart died on the other line of the phone, Four... didn't enjoy it. He lied to himself during it, after it, telling himself that he'll learn to love it the same way. He told himself it would be a lot easier this way.
Four and Seven had much in common; they were Garde, they lost those lovers whom they imagined were eternal, and they learned the hard way to come to terms with their new lives.
But he never loved her.
He couldn't. It wasn't her but at the same time it wasn't him. It was as though they'd only come together off of pure momentary inspiration and nothing else, the forces of coincidental old scars acting on their own.
However, Four was still desperate to try and end the deep longing he now lived to force himself to care more. To try and kiss back and spark a feeling.
Marina didn't agree with this mental torment; she always was smarter than he was, looking out for the wellbeing of others. She confessed shortly after that month that the kiss was entirely in the moment, an emotional reaction to another boy in the cave that practically belonged to her fallen lover. Because that one boy did something so thoughtless and sweet in the name and sacred home of Number Eight.
They were both too different in their alike journey to ever romantically love each other that way.
They were compliments in a different sort of way; opposites that attracted with different ideas in minds.
After the experience with Marina, he'd given up trying to kiss anyone. He'd given up letting himself open to someone who shared his scars and knew his nightmares. There was no such being alive that shared his horrors and could see his scars the way he did anymore.
Four was ready to accept that it was true; he loved once and never would again.
Henri was right.
Until one trip changed that.
It wasn't instant, in fact it took several weeks for him to come to terms with it, but it happened.
One simple answer. After the fright. When he placed a Lumen warm hand and carefully skimmed, almost lingered, his fingers along the cold, clothed back that shook from more than the nature, he heard it.
"Please."
Now, there next to him, asleep and bare skinned, buried into his shoulder like the rest of the world was about to fall around them and there wasn't a care to be found, someone laid.
Someone waited an entire eighty-four days to be with him in an intimacy like this. At first, it started out far from perfect; that sleeping form starting out angry with him for abandoning everyone and slowly moved to comforting of Four when he woke up screaming from his tenth nightmare in a week's span. The peaceful form besides him started to be completely open with him, even more honest than their relationship already had been, about every brutal detail from the widespread war and their personal battles, start to finish, no matter how much Four tried to twist all of his own actions into cold mistakes.
Four opened his eyes and glanced over at the body that curled into him.
Adamus Sutekh.
From his time spent on the run, from his time spent in Sarah's arms, and especially now from his time spent in the ruins of himself, Four never felt so sure of someone like this.
He stirred softly, inching closer to Four's warmth and letting out a deep sigh of content. The blonde Garde watched him, appreciating the brush of Adam's breath against his own skin and the pressure against his head against his body, and smiled softly to himself.
How did he ever get so lucky to be here at this moment.
It did not start so neat and perfect; if anything, it had been the opposite.
Day One, Four took Adam away from the prison of the Arctic. Adam told him he was there, with the people who tortured and condemned him to suffer, by choice.
Four couldn't bare to listen to it. Because he refused to believe Adam would choose this. He gave him a different kind of choice and stood there for an answer that wouldn't come until days later.
Until he'd visited Adam every day to see if anything else had happened; he returned to the same routine of Adam flinching at every ounce of interaction and insisting he was fine
Day One, almost two whole weeks after the actual first day, Adam's only word to Four as he arrived was 'please.'
Day Two, Adam completely exploded to him. Four hadn't expected it, though at the same time he felt it was bound to happen from one of his friends. Adam told him every word Four wish he'd heard months ago from someone who knew what it felt like. Words that only Adam, with his own scars and demons he'd overcome, could say to him. At the time, Four fought it. He retorted and spat back, even accused Adam of having no clue how deep the holes that were made in his life ran. They slept on opposite ends of the cave, ignoring each other for many days.
It became lonely, though the sounds of both boys scuffling about contrasted that there was only one person living there; it was lonelier than even when Four had exiled himself from the rest of the world. It was as though the warmth in his life, the feeling he couldn't physically feel but felt was part of him, diminished further.
He couldn't place why it was Adam's absence that took so much from him.
He didn't dwell on the feelings.
Four swallowed his pride on Day Fifteen and told Adam that he was right.
That he was sorry.
He didn't clarify why or for what, just that he was sorry. It was enough for Adam to turn around and face him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Those all knowing, dissective eyes. Not a verbal answer, but the short flicker of light in his dark eyes was like that of an acknowledgement.
And that had been enough for Four.
Adam finally spoke on Day Twenty-Two, after fiddling with an electronic device Four barely had the words to describe and the Mog couldn't bare to keep his silence anymore. He swore at the thing profusely and complained to Four about every little part about it that went wrong during his test run with it.
Four pretended to understand half of the terms his companion used and laughed along with him when he made a genuine joke or needed to know someone was listening. He didn't even care what the machine did; Adam was talking to him, it was all he needed. Though it wouldn't be until Day Forty that they'd talk about anything heavy, Four was content with the sound of Adam's voice, with his Mogadorian accent and the way his voice carried everything he said that he cared for with feeling. The only thing that made the initial moment better was that it was the sound of Adam's voice and Adam's laughter that brought Four back from the brink. They talked about everything, from the weather of the mountain chain or the cave's luminous light and the incredible view it gave up during the morning hours, to even some of the easier memories from the war only told with laughing and teasing.
It was the first time in almost a year that Four had felt a laugh through every inch of his entire body.
Four was falling in love with the feeling of someone in his life once more, in love with someone who wasn't afraid to be blunt and open with him about his thoughts and hardships the way Adam was.
On Day Thirty-Eight, Adam woke him from one of his many nightmares. For Four, nightmares, terrors, and the doubt that flooded him after every mental battle were all too common. The only thing different about this one was that Adam woke him up; there was someone here who now saw his weakness for what it was. It was what he told Adam after the first one; he told Adam to leave his mental damages behind and focus on himself,
Instead of snapping once more about Four never taking care of himself, about Four leaving himself to quietly rot while the world moved on around him, Adam waited patiently for the moment to address it.
He would then have another one the next night, provoking that need to finally open up and tell someone everything on that Day Forty.
Adam continued to listen to him after every new terror. He listened; it was something Four was not used to.
He would wait quietly, urging Four to talk about every inch that he'd withheld in his head, and only after he would ask to speak would he say anything at all. Adam went on about his own demons because he knew it would help; Adam was always incredibly open to Four, even if the start of their partnership had started a little poorly, but this was a step Four never expected. He never thought he'd the one worth confiding in, even if it was for his own benefit.
Adam started to sleep besides him after that night. Four blamed a poor schedule built after a year of sleeping problems; he would fall asleep and wake up besides Adam's sleeping form more often than not after the first few nights of Adam gently shaking him awake from a darkened, fake world.
He saw a side of Adam the world hadn't because the world outside had tried its hardest to shut him down.
Adam promised to keep a careful eye on Four if he passed out too early or woke up too much later. He was ready for when the next nightmare would hit, to offer himself as help for the next time Four screamed himself awake from visions of blood and ruin. There were times he woke up the first time from Adam's hand and the second time wrapped close in the arms of the Mogadorian as he softly snored besides him.
The first time Adam held him, Four could have sworn he begun to feel warm again.
The nightmares grew quieter, perhaps even vanished entirely. He couldn't remember the last time he had a nightmare since sleeping besides and in the arms of Adam.
For Number Four, every little detail had clicked on Day Sixty-Seven.
Every stolen glance, simple brush of skin, and deep conversation beyond the earliest hours of the day had new meanings. The overcoming desire to protect Adam from Lawson and the government agents, from the lingering Mogadorians in the arctic, and even from some of the words spoken by the other Garde became clear.
Four hadn't learned to let anyone else back into his life until he chose to sit with Adam and listen to the Mogadorian radio frequencies until his body couldn't stand it and collapsed beside Adam. He hadn't opened up until he practically begged Adam to let him help back on the Northern ice. Four hadn't even realized he fell in love with Adamus Sutekh until one night he had leaned over and brushed the hair from his face as the Mogadorian tried to sleep next to him after a long talk about each other's scars.
And those feelings began to scare him. After all, his lifestyle, his very being almost, got the last person closest to him killed.
But Four knew himself well. When he fell in love with someone, he plummeted straight down through the clouds into the earth with no fight. When he loved, he loved completely and honestly. He loved his Cepan with no remorse, even through the hardships of their last months together. He loved the other Garde like the family he was so lucky to finally have at his arms length.
He kissed first. He kissed first because it became too painful to be away from Adam's side and too hard not to try to show him how he truly felt.
The sixth time Four kissed someone, he was laying besides him on a lone bed in the depths of a cave in the far reaches of the Earth. He'd brought him here, stole him away from the cold reality of the government facility along with the truth behind every tortured soul of Mogadore that lived inside of it. Eighty-four days later, they were talking and laughing about everything and nothing in particular when the blonde Garde finally looked over at his friend and lost his ability to breathe. He suppressed every urge to reach out and pet his hair or take his hand into his own, especially when Adam turned back and looked him in the eye with the same look on his face that he felt in every inch of his body.
That feeling. It wasn't something he could convey with his words, especially since it took so long to even realize exactly why his heart fluttered and he lost every sound in the back of his throat. Four was bad at words but he was good with his feelings; he knew what it meant when you couldn't breath or when your heart pounded like it wanted to escape your body.
When he couldn't speak, he leaned over and capture Adam's lips in his owns.
Four lingered a hand up to his face, on his lips, with a soft, ever growing smile. He recalled that feeling like it was the best thing that'd ever happened to him. The soft texture of Adam's lips, the met need to keep their mouths pressed together. The need to hold onto the other body melted with theirs because to be without them in that passion was not an option.
The best part was how Adam returned it all back to him. They kissed for what felt like ages, like time no longer existed in this space because they were here embraced and sharing the same feelings and desires.
The first tug on his shirt from behind by Adam that lead to something even more showing of their shared emotions than just kissing.
That moment wasn't long ago. Just before they laid to sleep, just before Adam rested his head against Four's shoulder and told him he was the final peace he was waiting for. It felt like they were here for longer than that; that for those months, they were here like this besides one another instead of arguing for the first few weeks and confiding for the next.
Four turned to fully face Adam's sleeping form. He ran a quick hand through Adam's hair, now that he had the permission to touch Adam like he was the most precious thing in the world, and pressed a soft, delicate kiss to his face before closing his eyes once more. Finally, for the first time in eighteen months, he could sleep knowing someone else was watching him.
It was different than what they were doing before; it was different knowing he had let someone inside of every crevice of his mending and they weren't afraid of his demons.
Finally, he realized, that there was someone who saw every shadow of him but didn't turn away and opened up to every sharp edge as well as soft curve.