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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 20:45:26 GMT -5
Adrian forced himself to smile, even as he shut his eyes and the faces rushed back into his vision.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 20:49:13 GMT -5
Adrien slipped into sleep without quite intending to, or knowing it was happened as his consciousness switched gears and gave itself a break. He didn't mind falling love around Adrian, anyway; he didn't distrust anyone so much that he wouldn't go sleep around them, even though that had been a mistake before.
And the sleep was nice, really, it was welcome, and it was very pleasant until after two hours had passed, at which point he proceeded to have one of those nightmares that makes you sit up very suddenly, your white shirt sticking to your body in sweat, your heart pounding, and look around for something familiar as you hunch over, your expression lost and upset.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 20:55:05 GMT -5
Adrian opened his eyes after being jarred awake by Adrien's thrashing and slowly sat up, looking a bit annoyed and with his hair a far cry from its usual perfection.
"What is it now, Adrien?" he groaned, the W sounding more like a V in its sleep-slurred state.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 20:56:42 GMT -5
He shuddered and almost started crying again, but that seemed too self-indulgent and impossible. He was exhausted and horrified. "Oh, Adrian..." he said softly.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 20:58:31 GMT -5
"What is it now?" he repeated, a little louder this time.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 21:02:15 GMT -5
"Adrian... Adrian... you never forgive yourself," he said, leaning against his knees, looking back at him over his shoulder with a pointed stare.
Almost as though he literally meant you, but of course he didn't.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 21:05:59 GMT -5
"What? Haben sie ein Alp- I mean, did you have a nightmare?"
With a weary groan, he pushed himself forward and put an arm around Adrien's shoulders.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 21:07:56 GMT -5
He pulled himself closer, nodding only when his head was pressed against Veidt's chest, tucked under his chin, and by then the answer was obvious.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 21:12:26 GMT -5
"You really are tremendously high-maintenance," he sighed, leaning his cheek toward Adrien's. "Fortunately, I find it charming."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 21:21:07 GMT -5
Adrien didn't think so, and might have said so elsewhere, but naturally, Adrian's second sentence removed all doubts. He nestled closer still, didn't say that he loved him, and swallowed audibly. "When you kill someone," he said wearily, after a moment, voice nonetheless clear with disturbing insight and characteristic resignation that left no room for hope, "they become part of you, only they're not at peace. You killed them. You never stop seeing them. They're there when you are sleeping, or walking down a hallway, or when you change your clothes... like a mirror of yourself, just under your skin, like a ghost that stands inside your body and doesn't move... You never really get away. And..." he hesitated, then sighed, although from the way he nestled closer it might almost have been an unlikely sigh of pleasure. "I am going to hell, Adrian."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 21:46:31 GMT -5
"Adrien..."
His lips moved almost convulsively for a long time, as he emitted a futile streak of mumbled sounds that he could not quite shape into words.
"Adrien, it's- it's-"
He seized the younger man by the shoulders and roughly jerked him around to face him.
"You listen to me, Adrien. This is nonsense, utter foolishness. All you have done is ended some stranger's biological processes, nothing more. There is no soul, only the firing of synapses and the flowing of blood. No God, only the impermanence of humanity and the striving to achieve something greater than our own temporary, corruptible flesh. The only Hell that exists is a world allowed to fall into ruin by those who do not care what becomes of it. Do you understand?"
He let go of the boy and pushed himself up from the bed, pushing back an errant forelock of hair as his slim, black-clad (in the absence of the blazer he had pulled off earlier) shape moved toward an elaborate mosaic covering most of one wall of the room. It depicted a strong-jawed, rugged-looking man, blond and dressed in Macedonian armor
"Do you know who this is, Adrien? This is Alexander of Macedonia, known in layman's terms as Alexander the Great. Do you know anything about him, Adrien? Do you know that he conquered nearly all of the territory that was known to his people by the time he was merely twenty-five years old? Do you know the era of union and order he created under his rule?"
He was still tired, and he leaned against the wall, one arm extended against the mosaic and the other crossed before his chest so that his splayed fingertips just barely stroked the glass squares comprising the image.
"Do you know how he died, Adrien?" he said in the same firm, resonant tone his voice had glided into since he had risen from the bed. "He succumbed to a simple fever at the age of 33. Thirty-three years old, Adrien, and this man who had held the world in his hand was gone. His great union did not last. Only the works of the pharaohs he sought to emulate have had any power to remain to this day.
"There is no soul, Adrien. Nothing that a fictitious god can cast into a make-believe hell. It is what we create that must last, for the people of the future. Once a man has died, there is no further existance, for the righteous or the evil. Do you understand?"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 2, 2009 11:28:14 GMT -5
This... this was worse than hell. Adrien had told him he was a Montmartre boy, oh yes, and that was not a lie; he'd heard all the arguments, had been invited to have a coffee with poets and philosophers, had laughed and jeered good-naturedly at them and tilted his head and listened perfectly at other times. That wasn't to say he fully understood any of it; he certainly wouldn't have said he did. But he had a fairly clear idea of what hell was; the willful absence from God, who was still there somewhere, after all, just being vengeful and unreachable.
This... this was something else.
And Adrien had a hard time believing Adrian, and worse, he couldn't picture Adrian believing this. That was too terrible a thought to stand. That Adrian, Adrian believed this... that this was how he lived his life...
It was so cold. It was so painful.
And Adrian wouldn't accept an embrace, would he. 'You pity me,' he'd said, with that stamp of disapproval.
Adrien was wide awake now, and sitting up on the bed, looking back at him with his head cocked. He was frightened, but to such a strong degree it was nearly awe. The fear of God, perhaps. Fear of Adrian Veidt.
"But, Adrian, Adrian, don't you see, if what we create is the only thing that's going to last, and we aren't, Adrian, don't you see, then, that who we create it for is... is other people, Adrian. They are what is really important, even if they're... if they're not permanent. So what would be the point of creating anything if they weren't there? So even if you're - " He felt a chill run down his spine - "if you're right, you're still wrong, because killing someone is still the worst, worst thing you can do, because you're taking away the only reason for what you say is the only thing that's not purely biological. If you kill someone, then you take away the meaning of anything anyone's created... because without people, it doesn't matter what you make with the world!"
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 2, 2009 11:38:37 GMT -5
"There will always be more people," he said quietly. "Occasionally, a certain sacrifice must be..."
He paused. For a moment he looked empty, drained.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 2, 2009 11:40:54 GMT -5
Adrien stared up at him, wide-eyed, looking as though Adrian was trying to push him into signing a pact with the devil.
"But how can you believe that! If any person is simply... simply dispensable, then all of them are, and that means nothing you make for any of them matters!"
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 2, 2009 12:15:38 GMT -5
"It's- never mind. Searching for reassurance and comfort when speaking of the value of human life is not an easy proposition."
He leaned back against the mosaic, his suddenly almost frail-looking dark figure against the bright shape of Alexander of Macedonia.
"Which is the real horror- the idea that everything is intensely significant, or the idea that nothing is?"
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