Mingle Event

[caffeinified]

The County Fair has come to Itinere! It just magically appeared overnight. Such fun, right? Absolutely. Here, you'll find every rickety ride you can think of from ferris wheels, water rides, pendulum rides and roller coasters to the horrifying Drop Tower ride, a reverse bungee experience and tilt-a-whirl. Pretty much if you can dream an amusement ride, it's here. Don't even think about going hungry. They fry everything at this event. And of course there are the old staples of any Fair, funnel cakes, corn dogs and shaved ice in every flavor. Careful, you just might get pulled into a massive tent to judge anything from pies to barbecue to pickles to jams. Oh, but it isn't all food. You might get pulled into a tent to judge livestock. Sheep, cattle, pigs and llamas are the name of the game. Who has the best of the best? Did anyone say horse races? Feel free to bet at the makeshift track where horses will be racing all day! The promenade has several live bands cycling through on and off all day. Grab someone and dance before you, yourself get pulled into a two-step.

Everything isn't entirely on the up and up though. Did that sheep just whisper to you? What is it telling you to do? Is that paint on that clowns face or is that just his face? No smile should be naturally that large. In the hall of mirrors, you might not see yourself looking back at you. One of the mirrors might even be empty. Anyone who goes through the tunnel of love will feel compelled to kiss no matter who they're with. The acrobats do death defying acts that seem far too unreal. And the animals in their cages, the lions and the panthers... they look at you with a sentient, knowing eye that would give anyone the heebie-jeebies. The music in the promenade might force you to dance, with or without a partner. The fortune tellers know far too much about you and your life past, present and future.

But hey! It's a Fair! Everyone loves a Fair, don't they? Have fun while the fun lasts!


ooc: This is a very stereotypical fair. Feel free to create your own adventures, good or bad. Want to play with some of the not quite right stuff in the Fair? Have at it! Basically, create your own muses storyline here, let your imagination run wild, mingle, and have fun! Want to plot with others? Comment to THIS post!

Comments

[fictor]

Ronan quirked his scarred eyebrow at Adam, clearly unimpressed with his descriptive, hypothetical death.

"The shit we've gone through and you think we're gonna die on a roller coaster?"

Yes. Adam Parris was getting on that roller coaster.

[adamparrish]

"You don't think it could happen? Irony happens all the time, Ronan. Look at us." He could mean them individually. He could mean them as a couple couple. He could mean the situation at hand. He could mean a lot of things. No matter how you looked at it, irony seemed to follow them everywhere.

He stared at Ronan stubbornly. His boyfriend was going to have to work a lot harder to get him on that death trap. "There's lots of other stuff to do here. And I've never done any of it either."

[fictor]

Ronan cocked that scarred eyebrow up at Adam's comment about irony and 'us'. He was trying for a moment to decide how Adam meant that because yeah, he could see the irony in them individually and together, in the situation at hand, in Adam's life, in his own life.

Oh? He wanted him to work harder did he? Perhaps he realized that the only thing Ronan did work hard at was annoying the ever living fuck out of people. That sort of applied to this situation. "I think the odds of us dying on the damn rollercoaster are so fucking low that if it's going to happen then we've got a fuck load more to worry about than dying on the rollercoaster. Full on Final Destination fucked."

A mischivous smirk made one corner of Ronan's mouth tilt up. "But hey, you don't wanna kiss me on the rollercoaster, I'll just go by myself." He shrugged and started to turn toward that death trap.

[adamparrish]

Ronan Lynch did the one thing that Adam Parrish had not expected him to do. He gave up. Adam watched him walking away with words ringing in his ears about Final Destination and kissing. Kissing. Kissing Ronan. His mind always tripped over that like a needle on a scratched vinyl record. He was stunned. And damn Ronan Lynch for how good his ass looked in those jeans.

Adam exhaled a heavy, breathy sigh and rolled his eyes up to the sky. Finally, he jogged to catch up with his friend. His hand reached out to grab his arm, not to stop him, just to let him know he was there. They kept walking side by side.

"But you're not gonna kiss someone else, right?" He was still highly doubtful that anyone could kiss on a roller coaster. But he still felt the need to clarify this one bit.

[fictor]

Oh, he wasn't giving up. He was baiting Adam, tempting him he hoped. He knew sometimes when Chainsaw refused to listen, when she refused to pay attention to him, if he got up and left the room she would come see what he was doing. He hoped if he walked away, Adam would follow especially with that sort of bait left for him. Any other time he wouldn't mention that, wouldn't say that, but they'd just been kissing. The elephant was in the room so to speak so he hoped that Adam would be intrigued by him pointing it out rather than scared. He still hadn't figured out Adam and his feelings on them in a romantic sort of way.

It worked like a charm. He knew exactly when Adam had started jogging to catch up with him,when he had decided to follow him, but the hand on his arm was good. He didn't pull away from it.

At Adam's question, Ronan scowled giving him a black look. "I told you I wasn't like Declan. I don't kiss anyone but you."

Not anymore and he hadn't really ever kissed Kavinsky and he certainly hadn't been sober.

[adamparrish]

In spite of the scowl, Adam continued to walk alongside Ronan with his hand on his arm. As if he could stop Ronan from going anywhere. Nevertheless, he kept his hand there in case he decided to try.

"No I know, I just..." He backpedaled. Then he forced out a question before he could stop himself from asking it. "Are you saying if I ride the roller coaster you'll kiss me?" Did that sound too much like he wanted Ronan to kiss him? He wasn't sure. So he tried to play it off like it was no big deal. "Not that I care, it's just... I'm curious." He felt like he was digging himself a hole here.

[fictor]

He wasn't going to go anywhere. Even if Adam pissed him off, he probably wasn't going anywhere.

Ronan quirked that scarred eyebrow of his up at Adam's backpedaling, watching him, letting him marinate in the silence between them for a moment. It was almost comical the hole that Adam was digging himself into. Yes, there was still a part of Ronan that wondered if he was who Adam really wanted to be kissing, but there was very little of him left that doubted whether Adam liked kissing him. "Depends on whether you want me to or not."

[adamparrish]

It was almost an unconscious movement when Adam licked his lips while giving that some thought. Did he want Ronan to kiss him? Yes, he did. Was he going to admit that out loud? Probably not without a whole lot of coercion. He felt that his kiss back on the ferris wheel had spoken volumes until Ronan had had to open his mouth and insert his foot by bring Blue into it. Yes, that still bothered him for a whole slew of reasons. Ronan didn't know whether Adam wanted to kiss him? Adam didn't know whether Ronan wanted him to kiss him either. Which was a crappy way to feel since he'd been so sure up on that ferris wheel.

So Adam didn't say anything, deep in thought, wheels obviously churning as they walked ever closer to the roller coaster. He had no idea what to say. He did realize his hand was still on Ronan's arm after a bit and pulled it away, embarrassed that he had left it there for so long. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

"Okay I'll ride the roller coaster." If just to save face in front of Ronan.

[fictor]

There was very little that Ronan missed and he didn't miss Adam's reaction, the way he licked his lips. That was enough answer for him. They still had a lot of issues between them, a lot of things to work out and a lot of emotions to confess to. There are a lot of words that need to be said, that likely won't get said without a curse.

Ronan let him keep his silence, all right with not saying anything until Adam pulled away from him and said he'd ride the roller coaster. A smirk slid across Ronan's lips, something sharp and triumphant.

"Front seat or backseat?" Yeah, he was actually going to let Adam pick. He shoved his own hands in his pockets as they got in line for the roller coaster.

[adamparrish]

If he weren't so distracted by the mere possibility of another kiss from Ronan, Adam might have called Ronan on the smugness that radiated off of him after Adam agreed to ride the coaster. As it was, Adam was desperately trying to understand why he liked kissing Ronan so much. He was desperately trying to understand why he thought about it so much, why he looked forward to it. And he desperately hoped that it wasn't just his own vanity that made him want those kisses. His own vanity, meaning that someone like Ronan Lynch could possibly want someone like Adam Parrish.

Adam Parrish wanted to be wanted by Ronan Lynch so badly. And that want was something that he had yet to be able to fully wrap his mind around. It was unsettling to not know his own mind in this matter.

He walked alongside Ronan, distracted by his own thought process. So his answer is an idle one, one that speaks toward Adam's need to know something from every angle before diving in but that is also vacant in light of his own distraction. "Which one is the safest?"

[fictor]

Oh, calling Ronan on his smugness wouldn't have affected said smugness. It might have turned into a fight (which was still par for the course with Ronan) but it wouldn't have made him less smug. In any case, it's probably best that Adam is distracted. Ronan notices that distraction, but hasn't any real idea of why he's distracted. It wasn't his own vanity. Ronan wanted Adam in a way that he hadn't ever really wanted a person. He'd spent most of the first year he'd known Adam figuring it out for himself.

As long as Adam didn't want to be wanted by him for the simple sake of being wanted by a generic somebody Ronan was okay with giving him some time to figure it out. After all, he'd taken some time to figure out his own wanting.

Ronan smirked at Adam's question. "The back, of course. Front is the most fun." He'd found that was true in most things, to be honest. Safest wasn't the most fun, but then Ronan hadn't ever really played it safe, not even before his father had been killed.

[adamparrish]

Ronan was not making this easy on him. If he sat in the back he would never hear the end of it. If he sat in the front he would probably lose his cool in a way that he would never hear the end of. It was really a lose-lose situation for him. Adam in no way wanted to embarrass himself in front of Ronan. Especially not over something as stupid as a roller-coaster. Yes, he had just decided that roller-coasters were stupid, or at least more trouble than they were worth.

This is why he decided to answer with this: "Maybe somewhere in the middle?" It seemed a nice enough compromise to him. Although he knew that Ronan might view it differently.

[fictor]

When had Ronan ever made it easy on anyone? Easy was not in Ronan's vocabulary. It never had been. If Adam expected Ronan to ever make things easy on him then he was with the wrong person.

That decision got a smirk out of Ronan and a shake of his head. "Fine. We'll do it your way. Somewhere in the middle." The carnie opened the gate so they could walk through to the cars and Ronan headed toward the middle of the row of cars. Compromise wasn't on Ronan's mind, even though a part of him knew that just getting Adam on this coaster was a compromise. He thought that Adam was picking the safer option and he understood that. He just thought safe was for grandmas and little kids, but he could compromise and play it safe-ish if that's what Adam wanted.

[adamparrish]

Adam tried to shake the feeling that he was letting Ronan down. He didn't like feeling like he had. And he didn't like feeling like Ronan wanted more from him that Adam hadn't given him. Should he have said the front? Should he have said the back? Adam didn't know.

All he really knew right now was that he was terrified as they got closer to the roller-coaster. "Okay. Good. Do they have more than a metal bar to hold us in?"

[fictor]

Actually, Adam was living up to exactly what Ronan thought he would. He was just pleased he'd gotten Adam on the roller coaster. He was more pleased that Adam hadn't picked the back of the coaster.

Ronan ambled toward the middle of the coaster, slumping down in the seat and sliding over. He tapped the silver ring he wore against the metal of the bar. "Safe as houses, Parrish."

Not that Adam's house had ever been safe; not that living with Ronan was safe.

[adamparrish]

Adam stood there eyeing Ronan in the seat of the roller-coaster car and then to the metal bar that was pretty much the opposite of 'safe as houses'. "Most houses I've been in haven't been that safe." He mutters as he finally slides in. The bar comes down over their laps and Adam grips it tightly with both hands so that his knuckles are white. All around him people are getting onto the ride with them and all Adam can think is that he's about to die. These rides always looked so fun from afar. Now that he was up close, he was silent and still, obviously worried as he looked over the edge to try to work out all the variables, all the risks, try to make out how this should work.

[fictor]

"Then you'll feel right at home," Ronan smirks, watching Adam as he slides into the coaster seat. He didn't miss the white of Adam's knuckles or the way his entire body went still.

As the roller coaster jerked to life, Ronan reached over and put one hand over the top of Adam's. Once they started up the first hill, he twisted, leaning forward and capturing Adam's mouth in a sloppy kiss that perfectly matched the chug and jerk of the roller coaster, teeth occasionally clicking, lips colliding almost too hard every now and then.

[adamparrish]

When the roller-coaster started, Adam could feel his heart leap up into his throat and pound in his ears. How in the hell he had let Ronan talk him into this, he didn't know. Even though logically he knew it was his own mind over-thinking the anticipation of falling to his death rather than the actuality of the roller-coaster itself. It was still terrifying.

They climbed higher and higher, the cars clicking their way up the incline and Adam felt Ronan's hand on his. He felt it first because he had been looking over the edge of the car at the ground getting further and further away. He looked over to Ronan, his eyes one of a deer in headlights, wide and uncertain. Then Ronan's lips were on his, the kiss jerky and sloppy with the cranking of the cars up the incline. At first, Adam wanted to pull away if just to look back over the edge. But as Ronan tried so hard with the kiss, Adam found himself trying to help him.

They were kissing on a roller coaster.

At least, they were kissing until Adam felt that weightlessness that comes with the car going over the first edge. "Oh my god!" He screamed against Ronan's lips before watching ahead of them as they sped down the descent of the rails only to quickly start rising again for the next one.

[fictor]

If it made Agam feel better, Ronan really hadn't given him any choice. He'd just made it look like Adam's choice. They weren't going to fall to their death. Ronan was reasonably certain about that.

Ronan knew how uncertain Adam was about going on the roller coaster; that was part of why Ronan had reached over to touch his hand. Of course, the other part was the kissing. He'd promised to kiss him on the roller coaster and Adam's uncertainty that it could be done had made Ronan more determined to do it. It hadn't been the smoothest kiss, the most comfortable or best kiss, but it had been a kiss.

He'd said they would.

Yeah. That happened. Ronan had expected it, but he'd succeeded in taking both of their minds off of it: him so that he could enough that surprise of weightlessness and Adam so that he wouldn't worry about it. While Adam screamed, Ronan tilted his head back and laughed. If he could be on a roller coaster constantly, or in a car going mind numbing speeds (with Adam at his side) he would.