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prologue

- on how adam was born -

Adam was born sick.

That's how his mother always begins his story. 'Adam was born sick'. There's a hollow warble to her voice when she says it, too; a melancholy marked in lowered eyelashes and embarrassed scarlet. Her handkerchief will be black from dobbing at mascara run-eyes, and her hand will cling onto her wine glass for support.

Sick. Sick. Sick. Adam was born…sick. She's been saying it for so long that sometimes, when he's not careful, he starts to believe it.

The truth is complicated. The fact, however, isn't.

Adam wasn't born sick.

Adam was born blue.

It's called hypoplasia when an internal organ doesn't develop properly; a kidney, a liver, a brain, or, as it was for him, a lung. He started dying the minute they cut him out of his mother's uterus. Proper "the charge paddles aren't fucking working!"-type dying. The machines beeped. The beeps panicked. And the doctors lost their shit because panicking was supposed to be their job. Now who was supposed to know what was going on?

"Charge! Clear! Clear! Fucking clear!"

Aural pandemonium. Visual mayhem.

And silence.

From the newborn that still wasn't breathing.

He was pronounced dead three times before he was stabilized. Adam figures it's something of a record, albeit not the type anyone really wants to know about. Not even Guinness is that interested, but then they've already got a man who had twelve consecutive heart attacks in one afternoon. Hat-trick-Zombie baby pales a little after that. Adam doesn't take it personally.

Anyway.

After the delivery-room dramatics, the doctors discovered that there was more wrong with Adam than non-inflatable lungs. He was diagnosed with the genetic condition Xeroderma Pigmentosa. In English this translates to: "Allergic to sunlight. Please keep out of reach of a proper life."

His mother started crying when they told her. She cried so hard and for so long the doctors eventually drugged her so she could get some rest. She still cries to this day, actually. Same crying fit, but with added pauses for when she has to do something else – like apologize to everyone about how sick Adam is. His father has taken the situation a little better, in Adam's estimation. He's chosen to pretend that Adam, and by extension, the problem, does not exist.

Adam thinks his father's imagination could be better served, but he's too busy ignoring him back to give it more thought.

They've been living in darkness for years, like this. Exactly like this. Locked inside a vacuum sealed sanatorium of their own making. His father keeps to his study and drowns in expensive bourbon. His mother patronizes her living room, singlehandedly keeping the Kleenex company in business. Adam surfs the net and carves pornographic images into his desk.

Things are probably going to continue this way until his parents pass away and he can finally move in his Russian mail-order husband.

a/n: Story removed. See Chapter 2 for our new home!