AN: I thought of this fic while cuddled up with my boyfriend's sweatshirt and thinking about hwo John doesn't have someone's clothes to hold for comfort like I do. So I gave him someone's help.
John had looked peaceful for the first time in four days beside him like that, one year ago. He had taken the chair directly next to Adam to listen in on Mogadorian radio frequencies with him and a government official. To keep himself working towards the finish. To keep himself on his feet.
He collapsed from exhaustion in moments.
Adam felt John's energy sap was to be expected. It was a miracle the Garde had energy to breathe on his own anymore with how hard he continued to push himself.
Even though Adam knew how much John would love to stay awake and listen to a language he didn't have the basics to try and understand and how bitter John might be when he would finally wake up, he left the blonde boy to rest beside him.
Peace looked good on him, Adam remembers noting. He had glanced over when he realized John stopped mumbling or uncomfortably moving around in his chair after the first five minutes and just stared. The way John's bangs had fallen across his forehead and how his mouth parted just enough to breathe in and out softly, all of it looked better than the struggling, occasionally cruel boy he was starting to get used to.
He still looked beautiful, even among the darker layers.
Nothing like the one he met in Chicago, but not a completely different being altogether. John had spent most of his time, when he wasn't arguing with the others or the officials, discussing and working with Adam.
John thought he was alone now.
Adam couldn't figure out why it hurt as much as it did at that moment to think about it. To place himself into John's head like that.
When John had slid a little to the side and landed against his shoulder during his nap, Adam never felt so warm yet so frozen all at once. He didn't know if it was John's body heat combining with his own, the fact that the basement of the facility was surprisingly warm, or that his face was the degree of ten suns from the contact.
That he was this close to and loosely touching John Smith in a room practically by themselves. That he was allowed to see John at such peace in a time where his world was nothing but absolute chaos.
John trusted Adam enough to sit with him when his body was ready to give out.
Adam almost wanted nothing more than to sit with him like this too.
Quiet. Warm.
Affectionate even.
Thus, why he was cold. Inside, he was isolated by these budding feelings. Who knew how long they'd been gathering like this.
Adam quietly hoped this moment would last forever, but he was still not completely sure why or how he felt that way. Or sure he could even want it to begin with.
John had started to shake after a while.
That's when things became the haziest.
Adam didn't know what compelled him to do what he did next in the first place. The temperature of the room he noted before, the rustling sound the fabric made when he stretched that interrupted the broadcast, the sleeping form practically buried in his shoulder that twitched and groaned midst his dreams. Maybe it was the smell of the chair next to him going up in char and smoke. Every part could have been a factor, or every part could have been an added factor to the choice he was now over thinking.
Everything of that day just added up, he deduced, because he wouldn't have given it up if the room wasn't so warm, if heavy cotton didn't make noise, if the mix of fabric and plastic didn't taste like sour salt in his mouth, and if his friend didn't sound like he was in the midst of a chaotic night terror beside him.
Adam took his discarded hoodie and draped it over John's shoulders as best he could.
Why would someone as open to fire and heat like John Smith need a hoodie? He can manipulate both of those elements to a point, doesn't he keep himself of a content temperate at all times? Wouldn't his body heat be at a warm, if it exceptionally hot cap at all times? Adam at that moment in time didn't think of these things; he didn't have the time or the liberty to think these choices over. Adam then was focusing on the Mogadorian frequencies he'd hacked into with some help from a government officer.
He just knew John was shaking beside him and he had to do something. Adam couldn't focus on the language of his former people beside the whimpering, grunting sounds of John in a bout against an unknown evil in his dreams.
Adam had to help his friend.
So he'd pulled off his hooded sweatshirt and tucked it across the blonde boy's sleeping, shaking form and woke him back to reality.
Brought him back.
He remembers the intoxicating smell of ash as John charred the arms of his chair with his Lumen in his sleep. He remembers the wild look in John's dull blue eyes, the kind of energy that he used to have in other forms a time before those last few days of war, as they met his in the minutes he took to come down. He remembers the way John's eyes reflected a pained panic, the uncertainty that a glimpse of John weakened by his nightmares would ruin the facade he'd built around him, but refused to leave Adam's sight.
Just before he'd stormed out to keep himself awake, to keep himself focused on his end goal.
To try and hide every ounce of that weakness once more. To keep Adam off of his shaking track.
John took Adam's hoodie with him and hadn't even realized and, in those last hours they had before the final stand, Adam expected him to return it with the same apologetic energy John tend to bleed out in every gesture.
It never came back.
Adam knew he'd removed his hoodie and he gave it to someone else, though reflecting back on it now made him think the action at the time was inherently stupid.
Adam remembers the details from the other days far more vividly.
The sadistic approach John took to fighting off Mogadorians to take the warship was only the beginning.
The picture of John after he had returned from the ambush against Phiri Dun Ra and the other augmentations at Patience Creek. He was bloodied and exhausted, branding a hideous, slow healing scar along the column of his throat. The thick mark matched Ra in all of the wrong ways but John didn't seem to care that it was there at all. Along the shoulders and mid sections of his back laid several puncture wounds, slow to heal and sure to scar the same way that the mark on his neck would.
John still didn't care for his injuries.
That validated the sinking fright Adam had started brewing.
John didn't care those holes were going to leave hideous scars along his back, he didn't care for the looks the soldiers and even those that other Garde gave him after he had returned. He left the others to their own concerns as he left his body to heal by itself, not wasting his or anyone's energy on his wounds because he only cared about making the most of his mistakes so he'd make none when he met with Ra.
They needed their strength to win; they needed his strength, no matter how reckless or much of an endangerment to himself John had become. No one argued with him this way.
He never spoke of much else except defeating Ra. He never spoke of what would come of the world, of its people, of the human Garde.
What scared Adam the most was how little John had envisioned for himself when they were to win. John would repeat those words, 'would win' like he was confident that this war was already over and these last days were the clean up.
Almost like he expected these last fights to be among his last moments alive, as part of this Earth. It should have been obvious in his actions, in his newly self destructive habits as he took on mission after mission and fought with government officials for all control of the operation.
When he saw John again, in passing of the room John locked himself in with the noose he'd taken from the Mogadorians who ambushed him, Adam found he had dispatched of his ruined clothing for something else. The blonde Garde pulled that same dark gray hoodie, one that didn't belong to him, over his head and kept it while he worked on some small project by himself. He would wear it for the remainder of his time as a soldier on the front, to his final fight.
After a final glance at John among his task, he spotted someone else with their face in his shoulder, pulling him into a tight embrace.
He immediately left after that, to anywhere he could remove the image from his head. It bothered him for a reason he was slowly realizing but trying to hide at all once.
Adam didn't care about losing the clothing when he saw what became of it, he realized late. When he saw the way it clung to John's frame, oversized but molding to his form, he thought it looked silly but the most right image he'd ever seen.
He almost broke when he saw what became of John in the end.
He survived his fall. He survived everything while Phiri, while practically every being from Mogadore, only wanted him to die, thanks to the chimaera he befriended during his time. He sobbed over the cold body of Dust, bloody where the chimaera bit him to pull him out of a grim ending.
Then, he had been wandering the empty halls of the medical wing.
Adam chose to ignore the agony that coursed through each of his limbs as he limps through the hospital wing of the government base in Patience Creek almost a week and a half later, searching for the room he knew belonged to John. He had no number, no direction, but he presses on to find him. He had to.
The last time that week and a half ago, midst his previous grief, all he had seen was blood and bone. He barely recognized the beautiful boy beneath it all.
He had to see what happened, see how he was. See him like he used to be.
His first clue he was slugging in the right direction was the softness of a voice that grew louder with every passed doorway.
His second clue was heartbreaking.
Adam had peaked into the crack of the doorway to see the muddled shape of what looked like two. The first voice's gruff, deep laugh gave it all away.
Nine was there with him.
Nine, he realized, been the one there before too, in the private space with John's greatest secrets on display.
The Mog withered a little to himself. He had hoped it would have been just the two of them again. That things could snap back into place. Maybe he'd let himself try and taste hope too much recently; a week's vacation but the work was starting to pile back up and his mind was the only one still programmed to fight onwards.
He also should have known better than to assume any of John's friends wouldn't be visiting him regularly. What kind of friend was he that this was his first time trying?
He glared down at his bad foot because in that moment blaming the injuries sustained by falling into the crater his Terric opened up felt better than blaming himself. He should have just let Marina heal it entirely. He should just come clean to her the next time he sees her.
He hates that he has to hold himself still outside the door, that he almost considered leaving it as is.
"Look at me, being a fucking idiot sitting here everyday just waiting for a response," Nine's tired voice sounds from the room and forcibly pulls Adam's destructive thoughts from his head. He turns an ear to listen in further. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard Nine speak in a tone that didn't sound arrogant or use words that didn't resemble poor flirts or sneers.
Nine even sounded a little defeated. If Adam knew one set thing about Number Nine, it was that even if it was wisest to accept the softer ways out, his warrior's pride would make it hell to quit anything. Defeat was not a word Nine's stubbornness felt worth remembering.
"Big talker, aren't we? What, can't use telepathy and sleep at once? What's the point of having big bad Ximic then," Nine inside the room snorts to himself before adding on even more words, thoughts he didn't realize someone was actually listening in on. It just wasn't the someone he wanted to hear from. The one he streamlined his words out loud for in that broken voice, even his jokes sounded like they were cut from him.
"You probably don't even know we've been sharing this room for the last week or so, either," Adam couldn't avoid the more hurt sound in his voice now if he had tried not to. "That I've been up everyday to check on you, even breaking doc's orders to get out of bed and sit here like this. Breaking out too, but you know all about that part more so. You know, just that one time we had talked and have had nothing since. No big deal."
Beat.
"So, you know. Whenever you get up again or not, John, then maybe I can get some kind of clue on what your head's like right now." Nine sighs softly when he's done speaking.
Nine never just called him John.
It was that moment that Adam realized it was only Nine talking. That meant John wasn't awake, and judging by what Nine was saying, hasn't been up regularly since the airship left West Virginia a week and a half ago. One sole time in a handful of days but nothing since.
Adam peaks into the room once more, taking in more of the scene. Nine sat by the hospital bedside that contained John, his head leaning against the wall looking off into space.
Nine's remaining hand is buried in John's hair, running through the mass of dirty blonde waves in soft, continuous motion. The taller Garde looks down at his unconscious friend with an expression Adam could only recognize so quickly because he too felt it.
Adam winces as that specific spot in his chest tightened painfully. But he couldn't look away from the two of them.
Even if it didn't seem that way half of the time, he knew the two of them were close. Perhaps… some things had clicked into place between the two Garde finally after all.
Nine takes a deep breath, turns to meet his eyes with a small frown and Adam freezes entirely. Nine knew he'd been here the whole time. The other boy dark eyes narrow after a moment's stare off but he doesn't say anything, just looks back to his spot on the wall across the room next to the doorway.
"Door's open you know," Nine drawls instead. No usual, annoying pep. No faked enjoyment or sign of a smirk waiting to pop up. They were dead words through and through. "I was wondering when you'd hobble your way in, Adam. Everyone else has already stopped by at least once. You're a terrible actor, by the way." He adds with a quick glance down at Adam's foot.
This wasn't the Nine he'd come to know over the last month or so.
"I didn't want to interrupt," Adam mumbles instead, keeping his eyes on Nine as they spoke stiffly. He shifts his foot back a little so it wasn't in line with his good one, almost trying to hide it even though it was useless.
"There's nothing to interrupt when you're basically having a conversation with yourself," Nine shrugs against the chair, his expression still reflecting a mix of annoyance and sadness. Like despite the words he just spoke he was completely buckled in by the fact that John was asleep next to him and that Adam was here to see every vulnerable detail on display.
For once, Number Nine wasn't trying to hide his feelings. He seemed broken, miserable. If not that, at least something else hurt along those lines.
"Maybe I didn't want to walk in on the real you for once, you know, give you some time to put your emotionless mask back on," Adam remarks dryly. Emotional or not, he wasn't about to put aside the things Nine has said or done that he's caught wind of.
Not when Nine was also sitting that close to John.
Touching him.
Nine's eyes snapped back to Adam's own gaze with a cold look.
"Everyone feels." He replies, simple but still icy. Adam welcomed the opportunity to argue with him.
"Then why do you act like it's a crime to?" Adam counters with an edge in his tone.
To his disappointment, Nine doesn't respond to him instantly. He doesn't try to fight, he doesn't explode in a mess of half assed rebuttals or poor excuses. He instead holds Adam's stare for what feels like ages, the look softening into one Adam could only describe as exposed. He stays quiet, just turning his head to look down at John.
"Believe me, Adam," Nine starts in that flat, defeated tone once more. The fight from moments ago was sapped from his voice after a few quick comments from Adam.
"I've been feeling the entire damn time." His hand runs through John's hair once more. His expression changes once more, from open to pained.
"You're fairly poor at it," Adam can't help but to retort as he watches Nine's fingers work through the other boy's beautiful blonde mess.
"If I was ever any good at it, maybe this kind of shit wouldn't keep happening then," Nine continues to argue less and make statements. He doesn't take his soft, solemn eyes off of John.
A confession. Quick, simple, and in a typical Nine fashion by being as vague and self deprecating as possible, but Adam knew it was there. His actions toward John only mirrored what he was trying to say. Adam almost felt bad.
Adam takes his eyes off of Nine finally and looks to where John laid still instead. He was curled up on his side facing towards the chair Nine currently sat in. The only indication that the other Garde was still alive was the faint rise and fall of his shoulders made that accompanied the barely detectable humming from his parted lips. He looked better than the time on the airship, with his skin back to its normal color instead of the sickening pale underneath all of the wounds. The purple scar crossing around his neck peaked up from the blankets and Adam could only guess what other marks now laid underneath the sheets. His injuries healed themselves, so medical procedures like wrappings or tubes were absent, but here he still laid anyway.
With Nine's care. Under Nine's watch. Listening to Nine's words.
Adam tries not to let that thought hurt, remembering the warmth John gave off when he'd slept against Adam's shoulder only two weeks ago now. The way he'd looked while resting against Adam and how in that moment it all looked so unique compared to how he slept now.
The one sleeping here didn't look the same as the one who curled into his shoulder. He could practically hear his inner voice arguing back at his building anxiety.
"I'm sure you'll want your time now," Nine's sharp sigh snapped Adam's attention back into the room. Adam felt his cheeks beginning to heat up knowing he was caught staring off in his own thoughts and he turned his eyes back to Nine. The other boy wasn't looking at him thankfully, keeping his eyes on John as he carefully pet his hair one last time and stood up with a low grunt. "I'll be leaving then."
"Is this not also your room like you said?" Adam asked as he limped into the room, keeping his eyes on Nine as he moved away from the door. Like he knew Nine was going to leave even if Adam felt like arguing for him to stay back. The dark haired Garde knew he'd been listening in anyway, no point in hiding that now.
Nine looked at him with a tired glare.
"It is," he retorts. "So make it quick, I'd like to nap sometime this year." He adds, walking towards the door but stopping to look Adam in the eye closer. A poor attempt at intimidation, like he thought his usual broad shoulder routine would have any effect on Adam after any of this.
Out of all the Garde, Nine was the only one who was remotely close to him in height, off by two or three inches max, so his dark blue depths were not hard to miss. Neither was the way they slowly shifted from an accusatory glare into a thoughtful one as Nine inched closer to him and dragged his eyes from Adam's head to his feet.
"So, it's yours," he said suddenly without moving away or looking back up to meet Adam's eyes. His tone was that uncomfortable mix of emotions again, too many for Adam to dissect at once.
"What's mine?"
"That ripped up hoodie John's been holding onto. I thought it looked too big to begin with."
Adam freezes when Nine backs away from his face with an unreadable expression, keeping his analytic, confused eyes down at Adam's feet. He opens his mouth to add more but closes it after a second thought. The Mog watches him, having nothing to respond with, as the Garde gives him one last careful look, still below his sight line, before he leaves the room. Adam listened to his footsteps, waiting for them to slowly grow quiet and vanish entirely before he finally hobbled over to the now empty chair besides John's bed.
Just the two of them at last.
He lets out a soft sigh of relief when he was able to sit, cursing himself for being too stubborn to let anyone look at his foot. He let the feeling wash over him for a minute, for both the seat and the lack of Nine that was now here.
Even though Nine was still on ordered bed rest for his arm, he still chooses to use his poor judgment and ignores the hospital's orders. Figures.
He glances over at the empty hospital bed that he knew belonged to Nine. The one he knew Nine crawled out of daily to sit where he was currently seated until someone threatened to make him move back.
Jealousy, he thought.
It was clear, blatant jealousy that Nine showed him over a scrappy piece of clothing. All because the damn thing belonged to someone else. Adam wanted to laugh, both at Nine and at himself. The realization of his feelings for John had come across almost instantly, born from reflecting on their shared time in Washington and through the last three days of the war. Adam knew at least a little of how his thoughts worked. He knew how bitter his temper could be or how closed off his trust could get. He knew when he appreciated someone for all they were worth, when it became clear how close someone became to him.
He knew when some kind of reaction towards someone stopped making sense, it was probably because he became almost too close. He knew when his face became warm just from brushed contact and his protective instincts kicked in when that one was faced in danger, too close wasn't enough to describe that person any longer.
But then, there was Nine who actually had no clue what to do with any of his. Nine who said all of the right things at none of the right times, whether on a battlefield before what could be his last breath or in a hospital room besides the one person who should hear them. Nine could have everything he wanted if he just talked to John instead of clashed with him or hide his softness from him. Anyone could toss away a sweatshirt, especially if Nine was that desperate to get his point across to John. If he was as hurt and jealous as he was trying to paint himself out to be. The whole thing was hysterical in its own way.
Adam finally looks over at John, feeling a soft smile finally break. Serene and beautiful, just like the last time Adam saw him like this.
He caught a glimpse of the black fabric under John's cheek and swore he almost melted under his gathering flush on the spot.
Adam moves to carefully peel the covers up to see where the hoodie ended, to see what it looked like. He avoided looking at any of John's exposed body, seeing what already looked like fields of colors out of the corner of his eye. Mainly because he didn't know if he was ready to see what became of him, but also because John would want to show them himself if he felt he had to.
Just as Nine described, the article was almost just a collection of long sherds left that clung together desperately to the backing of the hoodie.
But John still held it close to him and slept on the intact hood of it while the back with all of its new limbs was in a bunched up mess that laid out beside him. John, under the weight of Setrakus Ra and the burning ruins of a mountain as it caved in around him, held onto this simple little hoodie.
Did he even know it was Adam's?
John suddenly stirs softly in his sleep. Adam drops the comforter back on top of him instantly in a quiet panic, watching John's expression carefully for any signs that he was awake. That he was back here with him now, ready to come to and see Adam waiting for him.
But the only noise the blonde boy made was a soft groan in his sleep as he shifted an arm under the covers and pulled the remaining mess of fabric threads up closer to his head to press his face into.
Then smiled softly into it.
A genuine smile in his sleep at the feeling of something tattered under him. Just because it comforted him. But it was still a smile from someone who seemed to have lost his ability to weeks ago.
Adam found he couldn't breathe for a moment watching it happen. He was taken by some feeling he wanted to call giddy. John cherished something that wasn't his own and held it like nothing else could stand in comparison.
But his mind wandered back to his brief confrontation with Nine before. The look in his eye wasn't so completely foreign, Adam had ruled out that much. Was it because of the hoodie or was it because he felt Adam now took his place?
Adam saw the state John was in after the final fight. He had listened to Six describe the extent of his injuries in detail with Marina when they tried to speed up the healing process on the flight back. He didn't remember seeing any clothing left, just a mess of blood and ruin of someone beautiful that he could do nothing about. Sometime between the pair of girls and this exact moment, the discarded hoodie traveled back with them from point a to b.
And why did Nine leave it there if it bothered him so much?
Unless… Nine was the one who put it there.
It clicked instantly in that moment.
Nine can be as bothered and infuriated by it as much as he wanted to be, but if he knew something small could help John in a moment of need he'd do it without hesitation. Nine acted brash and out of line but it was John who he knelt back for. If anyone wanted to believe it or not, Nine had his own methods of helping and showing just a pinch of his true colors. But for John, he'd try many things.
It wasn't the comfort of the hoodie that bothered Nine, but that John sought the comfort of someone else through it. Someone that wasn't him, even despite it all. It was the comfort from someone that wasn't one of the two people John already had past feelings for.
Him.
Adam.
Nine's words from earlier rang in his ears. John has been awake one time since landing back at the military base, since lying in this bed. John and Nine have spoken once since the last stand in West Virginia, during that first time he woke up again. Nine's tone of voice when he thought no one was listening, his sudden distaste for Adam as soon as he had put it all together before Adam had.
Nine only dropped fights for one person. Nine bent his methods for one person.
John had asked Nine to get it and he did despite how much it pained him.
Even if it was something as small as retrieving a scrap of cloth from a worn airship stowed away somewhere inside of the base, Nine would do it because John asked him to.
Because John needed him to.
Maybe, Adam thought with a pinch of disdain, he was being a little too hard on Nine for once.
Now, he just needed to know why.
What was going on in John's head?
He turns his full attention back onto John's sleeping form. He took it all in, from the soft smile on his face to the way his hair waved down his forehead after Nine's hand messed with it. The soft sound his breath made against the sheets as he slept and the tight grip he even in deep sleep held on the black mess of fabric that remained.
Words couldn't describe John. Adam had already tried that before, but he was ok with it. He was ok with the mystery that slept peacefully next to him.
Adam reaches over and brushes aside the soft hairs that drooped from John's forehead over his eyes before he realized what he was doing. His heart almost stops when he feels John shift enough to push his head back into the contact, like he welcomed it, and smile a little wider.
His breath hitches when he hears John's soft, tired voice mumble out a hoarse, "thank you" before falling back asleep.
Adam felt the heat rising to his cheeks once more at the gesture, at the tone of John's voice.
But what did it mean?
He doesn't think about it as he sits with John for what feels like hours, appreciating the feeling of his hair and waiting for the chance to say everything he needed to. When he gets up to leave, he makes sure to cast one last long glance at John, on the off chance he'd wake up to say something. Anything.
When Adam walks through the doorway, he finds Nine had been standing outside of his, eyes closed and leaning against the wall next to his room. He opens an eye to meet Adam's gaze but doesn't comment. No clue as to how long the arrogant boy had been there waiting for him to make his leave, but Adam found he didn't care that much.
After all, he had been the one inside.
He never did see John before he decided he would left for the Arctic with the other Mogadorians.
With a mere twenty-four hours to spare almost a full week later, Adam chose today to go back to visit one more time after officially finalizing his plans to head to Alaska.
To try one last time to finally put into words the he's been learning.
That he'd fallen for John.
That he was scared of that. And scared for him.
But he found John was gone.
"You're late. He already left."
And it had to be Nine that was here to see him off before he could even say a word to the other Garde.
"Think I noticed that already," Adam replied dryly, leaning his shoulder against the door frame to contain a sharp sigh. To hold himself back from saying anything else, at least at first. "The room smells too much like disappoint."
Nine had been released two days after Adam last came to visit but here he still sat in the edge of his former bed, as if to torture him. To remind him that he was here while the Mog had avoided it.
While he had avoided himself most of all and was paying for it.
The Garde nodded to something behind Adam as the two exchanged similar glares.
"What?" Nine moves his hand from his chin to across his lap, almost on guard. "Not gonna look?"
Adam raised a brow and considered continuing to argue but John's soft smile in the middle of his dreaming and the mangy mess of cotton hoodie crosses his mind a second after Nine speaks. The sound of John's voice after Adam ran his fingers through his soft blonde hair.
He turned around to face the bed, maybe too quickly. He didn't know what he expected, or why he had let himself get tricked into hoping for much. Maybe he thought he'd see John materialize and embrace him after pulling a prank, or to see John has been waiting the entire time to see him. Maybe he took the form of Nine using transformation to surprise him.
But what he saw was just an empty bed to him, one someone who he desperately needed to see just used days ago.
"What about it?" Adam asked without bothering to hide the cold edge in his voice.
"He left about an hour ago."
The covers of John's bed were tossed almost completely off of the bed, the sheets exposed as a work mess of crinkles that barely clung to the brittle mattress beneath while Nine's had been freshly changed and sat in its regulation tilt.
Like he'd only just woken up and left mere moments later because the hospital confined him to a place that just reminded him of all he was without.
But you're not alone.
"And you got your chance to talk to your boyfriend, congrats," Adam retorted, aching to leave the empty room and every sign he'd been too late to make a difference behind. "When's the wedding. And why even bother telling me to look at some walls."
Nine let out a quick, forced laugh. Adam looked over his shoulder to eye the Garde.
"You know. For everyone callin' you some kind of genius, Adam, you're really not that bright," Nine settled the chin of his head against his hand again. Comments from Nine stopped bothering him long ago, but the mere idea that someone who spoke from his ass and held himself to a higher standard against anyone was able to tell John every little detail before he had a chance to even see the blonde boy drove deep.
Adam decided not to humor him any longer, turning on his feet to leave. Leave all of these things behind and focus his effort anywhere else but this moment.
On anywhere else that didn't involve Nine. John.
He made it to the doorway before Nine spoke up again.
"Wow, just getting up and leaving? No bites? That's not like you. Besides, I know you noticed it," Nine continued with a soft, disgruntled tone, closing his eyes like he was bored of withholding information and playing his usual games. It was the sound of his voice that made Adam hesitate.
"Let me give you a hint."
Nine paused, taking a breath. In a quiet, vulnerable voice, he adds on.
"Did you see what's missing?"
Adam turned around to stare at him, to analyze Nine's sunken yet lax posture as he spoke, then looked back to the bundled up comforter and pulled sheets that sat on top of the bed.
The hoodie was gone.
He didn't know how to process it, how to think about it.
John took Adam's old, torn hoodie with him to wherever he'd gone away to.
He lets out a single, deep sigh.
"There you go. God, you two saps make me sick," Nine closed his eyes with a small smile.
"He'll come back. Give him time," Nine slid off the bed to stand up and patted Adam's shoulder a little forcefully.
Adan turned to look at him, unsure what to say or what to feel about him. What to say to him. Nine, with his sudden open honesty and his obvious, unrequited feelings, who continued to surprise him at every turn during these last two encounters.
"And quit fighting your smile, idiot. As long as he's happy."
Good enough for him.
When Adam returned to his room on that same day, he found a small, plain box on top of his already small carry on of his heaviest condition clothes and the tooth necklace he'd made from Dust's fang.
He remembers how his hands trembled when he reached over his things that reminded him of his departure.
Would John know he'd chosen to continue the fight for the new world elsewhere? Would he know where to find him?
Inside of the box sat a plain, black beanie, made out of what appeared to be a worn cotton material. Adam noted to sub it out for something of a more abstinent fabric when he left to the Arctic for during the harder months on the Northern Hemisphere. He reached in and picked it up to examine in, but found the texture of the hat far too familiar to be a coincidence.
Written on the bottom on the box in shaky handwriting was a note.
'It's cold up north. For when you start shaking and I can't give you comfort. I'm sorry.'
The Garde found a way to turn the remains of his former sweatshirt into a hat for The Mog to take to Alaska.
And left.
Adam dropped the hat back into the box and stared at the note, trying to memorize the way the words curved or hear in his mind the way his lips would form the words.
He was a mix of emotions, from being touched special in every crevice of his bones to angry enough to shred the little hat and leave every reminiscence of the Garde behind.
Another day in the future would they talk, he settled on instead.
His life was changed because of John Smith; if his deepest feelings remained true, everything would only continue.
As much as he tried not to use it in the cold weather, as much as he did not want to agree with a poorly scribbled note at the bottom of a flimsy box, as much as he hoped not using the hat would draw John closer to finding him, Adam still wore that ragged beanie almost daily.
He found himself counting down to the days he'd see John again, even if he had no set day they were going to meet again.
He would be ready this time. He would be ready to say it all.
It gave him strength.
The beanie helped him through his mind as much as it helped through the cold. It no longer resembled the old hoodie it once was, in both material and smell. Now it appeared heavily used, seemingly stitched together by sloppy cross stitch and blind hope but smelled like John and some nights all he needed was John's presence to hold him together.
When John touched down in the arctic and spoke directly into his ear, it took all of his self control not to embrace the invisible mass that tucked behind him or to lash out in his general direction in front of several unsuspecting Mogadorians. When John laid a warm hand against his back and softly rubbed it as they spoke, Adam no longer knew what he wanted to happen.
No longer sure what would happen between them.
Adam wanted everything. But there were still no words that could describe John. There were no words Adam could use to tell him how much he wanted it all with him.
He just hoped, from the hat to the risk of landing to speak softly to him in the internment camp in Alaska, John and his own feelings mirror him.
When he finally saw John's face again for the first time in a year and a half, in this moment, in the safety of a cave in the far reaches of the earth, he made sure to try to memorize his eye color as well as the sound of his voice. He tried to memorize the various shapes of his smile, the ways his hair crossed and tousled over his forehead. He tried to ignore the patchy beard left untrimmed along his jawline. He felt himself fall in love further with the expressions John's eyes made, and every little, nervous habit he showed when his face seemed to wilt as he tried to apologize for leaving.
"I'm sorry," he tried to start in a shaking voice, unable to meet Adam's eyes as he stared down and played with his hands. As his one hand trailed up to rub along the dark scar against his throat. His breathing changed with every new piece he wanted to add, his posture shifted with every ounce of courage he seemed to lose.
Not now. He couldn't do this now.
The last thing Adam wanted to do was spoil this moment he'd replayed over in his head, this moment that they have both been waiting for.
"Let's do that another time."
He called on his last ounces of courage and ran his hand over John's other hand to show him. To distract him.
And it had worked.
They talked endlessly anyway, but instead about everything else they missed out on and everything they tried to accomplish in a year.
The things Adam wished they had done together.
Adam let himself stare at the gentle, peaceful faces John made, the way his whole body shook when he got him to laugh. He let himself listen to John go on about everything and nothing from the last year, from his worst demons to his best moments. His travels, his victories, his time in Himalayas with himself in the dark, gritty cave they were now sharing. And Adam told him about the internment camp, about the slow revolution happening amongst the Mogadorians, about the minor brutality from the government workers that Rex and he faced. He opened up more about himself to John than he remembered ever doing, even though they'd already felt close prior to this moment side by side.
As they continued to talk, they physically started to shift closer. Eventually, they were tangled in each other, with Adam's head resting against John's shoulder and John's hand softly pressed around his back on his hip.
He almost stopped breathing when John interlocked the fingers of their free hands and pressed his face into his hair, warming his head with an exhaled breath.
Adam let it slip right then, because he was in John's arms and always felt the safest besides him. Adam told him about how much he missed him, how something felt wrong about the time they spent apart from one another. After he realized what he had all said, how fast the words tumbled from his mouth, when John didn't say anything, he reached up to tug the beanie down on his head as a distraction for anything to come.
Adam could tell himself he was ready to tell John everything he felt. That he'd been feeling for John since the war, caring for John those long two weeks afterwards. That he'd fallen for him and waited for this chance to talk to him like this. But he wasn't ready for the waiting that came afterward, or the uncertainty that came naturally with the in-explainable John Smith.
He reached up to touch the beanie and froze when he felt John's hand leave its place on his side, playing with the underside of the seam. When John gently placed a hand on Adam's face to turn his sight line to meet his. He found those deep blue eyes as he moved, as John pulled down on the little scrappy hat in his place, losing of all words he managed to store up in the beginning.
John lowered it down a little, slow and gentle, as he held Adam's eyes and refused to look away with a soft smile. His hand had run across the side of the beanie once, settling on the side of Adam's head when John's long, unwavering stare traces every curve of his face over and over.
"I missed being this close to someone else. I missed having a place, a someone to call home in the worst times."
When John leaned in and closed the gap between them with a warm, electrifying kiss, Adam felt himself melt under the skin of his lips and the feeling of John's hands on the sides of the beanie he made. He buried his own into whatever fabric he could find with his eyes closed, holding onto John as if he was trying to live in this place with John and John's touch forever.
John pulled away first, but held his lips a breath's touch away.
"I missed you most of all, Adam," he whispered fiercely. "Something felt missing when I was away from you. I will not leave this place between us again."
Adam couldn't speak, couldn't make himself speak. The confession weighed on him so much but freed him from his internal war with his feelings all at once.
He spoke with movement instead. With the sweetest, most telling kiss he could manage, he crashed his lips back against John's. Holding onto him like this could be lost at any second.
But John responded to Adam's kiss immediately and Adam didn't couldn't be more happy for his bravery. John's hands held Adam's head still, his fingers feeling the tattered beanie fondly.
And this time, John didn't break it apart so fast, just kissed Adam like the rest of the time around them.