oh, things couldn't be worse [adam]

when your parents (don’t) run the universe
july 28th, 2003
Stowe, Vermont

It had taken a moment for Killian to warm up to Adam. His impression of his camp roommate initially was of a boy who was not shy, exactly, but certainly kind of reserved. Slight sporty energy, from the skateboard. Adam didn’t talk much that first interaction - and Josie busting into their cabin and chasing him away certainly hadn’t helped.

But a little less than a week had revealed a wealth of things in common between the two of them. Well, mostly the muggleborn thing. Or the magbob thing, as it was called here. Or the “having normal parents and siblings” thing, as he and Adam called it. They were still discovering what else they actually had in common.

The muggleborn thing was a Big Deal, though. Ki had other muggleborn friends. Well. Ki had one other muggleborn friend, and Caleb didn’t seem to be as… upset at the wizarding world as Ki was. Killian couldn’t really blame Caleb for that - the dome had jaded him more, that was all. And Caleb didn’t have a genius sister at home that was starting a PhD at age twenty or whatever.

Adam’s circumstances were very different from his, true, but the way Adam talked about being magic, trying to be magic and normal at the same time… Ki kept interrupting the boy when they talked about it, just to agree loudly and empathetically.

So right now, as they slacked off on some Science activity, Ki was trying a different topic. One where he was less likely to yell “YES! EXACTLY!” in the middle of the class.

“Star Wars? You have to have seen Star Wars.” Ki stabbed another marshmallow with another toothpick, vaguely investigating the residue left under his fingernails. “At least one of them. They air the old ones on TV now, I think.”


@Adam Nguyen

Adam’s first impressions of people had gotten less helpful as he’d grown older and more judgmental; it was times like this that his thoughts turned to his grandmother, who was always telling him that he was too fast with his feelings. From first impression he’d thought his roommate was going to be a real drag -- geeky and quiet, like every other awkward nerd Adam had ever known except that he was also British -- but he’d persevered past that awkward first meeting (no help from Killian’s pushy friend) and Killian turned out to be geeky but loud.

Really loud -- he and Adam had been comparing magbob grievances for the last half hour, over toothpicks and marshmallows, and Killian kept raising his voice for emphasis.

It was a weird source of comfort, the emphasis -- it made Adam feel better to be not only agreed with, but agreed with emphatically. Most people hadn’t understood or empathized with any of his complaints, ever -- but here, at last, was proof that he wasn’t totally goofy. So even though Ki’s constant interjections were getting them weird looks from their classmates, Adam wasn’t quite ready to change the subject.

Killian was, though; now they were talking about movies, which was almost as good. It checked out that Killian would be one of those people who liked Star Wars: Adam shrugged and ate one of their project materials. “I saw whatever one of ‘em has all the like, little tree teddy bears.” Surely Ki knew which he meant. “My cousins were watching it but I missed the first one, so it didn’t make any sense to me.”

Felt like he was supposed to have a movie suggestion, now, but Adam mostly watched, like, actual TV and Disney -- most of his media intake was either a lazy babysitting technique or Family Movie Nights. “Uh, did you see Ocean’s Eleven?” he said.

Killian grinned. "Return of the Jedi!" He was raising his voice again - a white American counsellor glanced over at him and Killian ducked his head down towards the world's saddest marshmallow toothpick bridge. "There are two more before that one, no wonder you were lost." He thought briefly about Billie, and whether she would have had a hard time with Star Wars. Probably not, but the third movie in a set might be harder to follow than the first.

"Yeah, I did," Ki said, though he couldn't remember when he had. Must have been after Christmas lunch. He frowned, trying to wedge a second toothpick into a very beaten up tiny marshmallow to no avail. "I thought Bernie Mac's character and Don Cheadle's character were both a little like..." he trailed off, unsure of if he wanted to repeat his mother's analysis on the role of race in the make-up of the titular Ocean's Eleven. "I dunno. They weren't my favourite. And Julia Roberts could have had more to do." Wow, he sounded like a film snob, and or a complete crank. "I really liked the twist at the end, though. I thought that was clever." It had been neat to see problems - complicated problems - solved without Charms or Transfiguration or Potions. Was the heist in that movie a normal way of solving a problem? No, but it didn't involve a wand and therefore was far more interesting.

Adam had mentioned little sisters, so Ki racked his brain for a kids movie he had seen recently. "Ice Age?" He had seen that one on loop at the dentist.

“Aw fuck,” said Adam -- “Well, that’s Star Wars spoiled for me, I guess.” No point watching the first two when he’d already finished the series. Whoops.

He ate another marshmallow. There were plenty, of various sizes, so it wasn’t like scarcity was a problem here -- the greatest threat to their bridge was probably their mutual lack of structural sense. Adam swore he’d heard that triangles were the strongest shape but thus far, his attempts at triangularity had not been paying off, and eating the materials had.

Ki really was a nerd -- Adam’s cinematic analysis of Ocean’s Eleven had centered mostly around the fact that there had been guns and money and the criminals had gotten away with it. There had been an Asian and he’d been kind of a badass. Not a Vietnamese one -- movies that featured Vietnamese characters were generally either specifically about the war, or wanted to make Dong jokes -- but you couldn’t have everything. He said, “Uh huh,” to Julia Roberts and “Oh yeah" to the twist.

Ah, Ice Age. Adam had felt more kinship with the fat, grumpy, mammoth than he’d been comfortable with. “Totally saw the end coming like a mile away,” he said, though bragging about that in a kid’s movie was a little pathetic. Just to make sure it was clear, he added, “I saw that one with my little sister.”

With a shrug he made another stab at strengthening the collapsing center of their bridge -- it only seemed to weigh it down further, which didn’t help the collapsing. With resignation he chucked his remaining toothpicks onto the table. “Sorta always thought my mom was crazy wanting Ilvermorny to have, like, science classes, but I get it now,” he said glumly. He felt like a moron.