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Post by Adrian Veidt on Aug 31, 2009 21:03:12 GMT -5
He froze, momentarily taken aback.
"Yes... I know."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Aug 31, 2009 21:05:52 GMT -5
Adrien's cold expression only lasted a moment before something flickered behind his eyes, like he'd been kicked. He looked lost, bewildered, and almost fragile, but it did not even occur to him to embrace Adrian again.
When he again spoke, hesitantly, he didn't recognize his own voice, and it seemed like Adrian was farther away than he actually was. "If there's a... If there's a Hell, Adrian, I'm... I'm going there," he said, in a dim, choked voice.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 11:37:39 GMT -5
This lead to another long silence.
"Adrien, I severely doubt there is a Hell at all, or that you would deserve it if such a place existed."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 12:17:16 GMT -5
Adrien looked at him sadly. Or rather, he would have looked at him sadly if the word sad were used to describe a sort of deep sense of pious resignation to something horrific beyond his vocabulary, which it usually isn't.
"You don't know me," he repeated, voice soft as though much louder it would be untrustworthy. "And... Adrian..." He was going to say something about how Adrian wasn't God, but the words stuck in his throat, and he was briefly trying to figure out why such a statement as that would feel so blasphemous to him even when resting unsaid on his tongue.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 12:36:16 GMT -5
"Yes?"
He could see now how frightened the boy was, and adjusted his voice accordingly.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 12:43:07 GMT -5
"Nevermind." His voice felt stuck in his throat. He lifted a hand as though going to cough into it pointlessly and realized then how weak his limbs felt, how shaky he was.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 12:45:01 GMT -5
"You know you can trust me. Have I not looked out for you all this time?"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 12:56:51 GMT -5
"Are you going to look after me when I die, then, too?"
It was meant to be a joke, but the smile was thin and Adrien felt a chill go up his spine, and jerked his head away.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 12:57:25 GMT -5
"I can't very well help you if you don't tell me what's going on."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 12:59:02 GMT -5
He was shaking and he tried to smile. It did not work. "Oh, Adrian..." Almost a sigh. "I can't."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 13:01:08 GMT -5
"Then there is little I can do, either."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 13:06:35 GMT -5
Oh, God. He could feel the words just rising to mind - he was going to tell him. If not now, sooner or later. There wasn't any avoiding it, was there? He couldn't bring himself to look at him, to see his face, if he did it. Oh, oh God.
It was all coming to an end. It had been so stupid to think this was going to last! Getting into the party had been a fluke. Being picked up had been an even bigger one. And there would be loads of boys, loads of girls, ready and willing to take his place in Adrian and Micaela's lives.
He felt nearly ill with the thought of it, and as soon as he opened his mouth, about to speak, he turned and threw himself at Adrian again, holding him very tightly, head bent.
After a moment, voice partially muffled against Veidt's jacket, he managed to get out the beginning.
"Adrian... Adrian, I'm a..."
The word the followed was so soft and so strangled that it might have been anything.
It sounded the most like murderer.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 13:19:51 GMT -5
His back went rigid with shocked surprise. Adrian very nearly pulled his arms away, simply out of surprise.
Had Adrien been watching his face, he would have first seen Adrian Veidt, the unsurprisable man, looking more taken aback than he ever had before. This expression shaded into another after a moment- this time, one of trying to plan his next move- and then even this one became a look of grim irony.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Sept 1, 2009 13:32:14 GMT -5
Adrien did not look up and watch his face. He had the feeling he knew what Adrian was thinking; of course that would shock him. He didn't pull back, at least. Probably didn't even want to touch him. Out of respect, Adrien should have pulled back on his own, but he thought he might start crying hysterically if he tried.
In very much the same voice, he told him the story. He wanted to shy away from the fact of it, trying to make Adrian feel less badly towards him, and so instead did the opposite to try and curb that tendency, leaving nothing out. The details were simple and brutal with no amount of storytelling involved. He'd needed money, so he'd decided to kill for it. He was 16. It wasn't that he was starving, see, people worse off than he was didn't do this, it was just the want of money. He told him how he'd gone to the old man's door and got invited in, how he'd looked around for something to hit him with and gotten the idea while looking at him that the tie would work really well, and strangled the man with his own tie, then gone about cursing and trying to find the money until he accidentally knocked over a vase filled with francs.
He wanted to finish - to tell Veidt the horror of it, the sense that your own body, your whole life, everything you did, was haunted by the person you had killed - but he couldn't quite bring himself to keep going on, and his voice cracked in the same sentence as the vase. Suddenly losing the tension that had enabled him to hold onto Veidt so tightly, he slumped against him and started, very softly, but almost as though he were choking, crying.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Sept 1, 2009 13:40:27 GMT -5
There was nothing he could say or do at that moment. Artificial fingers curled into a tense fist beside their organic counterparts and then abruptly released as the other hand perched lamely between Adrien's shoulderblades.
Adrian shut his eyes for a split second. In that brief flicker of time, he saw a sea of anonymous faces, without distinction, melded into a screaming mass of flesh and bone and blood that suddenly silenced and vanished.
It was not the first time he had imagined this, and for now, he only was imagining it.
He opened his eyes, momentarily shaken and disoriented, and tightened his hold.
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