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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 4:39:06 GMT -5
He stood there in silence for a long time before it finally registered to him that the ring was still on the floor, and how much damage he'd caused.
He slowly knelt to pick up the ring. His hand was shaking.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Mar 14, 2011 14:17:12 GMT -5
Adrien went off cursing and sobbing alternatively under his breath, wildly gesturing and trying to talk some sense into an Adrian who wasn't currently there, trying to plead with him in ways he'd felt unable to do when they were talking - even Adrien, humble Adrien, had felt the bite of Adrian's comments enough that he didn't want to put himself in a vulnerable position in front of him.
Adrian wouldn't have seen sense. He felt stupid. Adrian was just another lover with an ego stretching beyond normal morality and Adrien had been too blind with love to see it.
But he couldn't let him get away with this, he just couldn't. He would have to tell someone. He would have to tell the others, distracted, he supposed, by their New Years party in the vivarium.
....to which Adrian had summoned them. Adrien's breath caught in sudden dread; he picked up pace, sprinting down the silent ghostly halls of Karnak. He was unwilling to think through the implications of his own thoughts, but the part of his mind that would have intercut something about Adrian's damn goodness faltered and died painfully. He had no idea what Adrian was capable of. Adrian had even tried to hide some of it from Adrien, warning him he might dislike it, and Adrien had blundered on ahead with bright optimism. God, how stupid could he have been? He and Adrian had known each other for less than a fucking year before marrying. Even Adrien could see now how foolish that had been. Then again, perhaps Adrian had done that as a gamble to keep Adrien with him. Maybe he'd thought Adrien wouldn't leave him if they were married in the eyes of millions. Well, he was wrong, he was dead wrong. He'd have to come up with some explanation as to why Adrien had left his husband and gone back to France in less than a week....
Adrien skidded to a halt in front of the entrance to the vivarium. He couldn't quite see at first, thought his mind was making things up, projecting a hazy fog instead of showing him reality. But it wasn't that - it was just snow, nothing but snow.
What had happened to the vivarium? It was covered in snow - all of the plants and wildlife would be dead or dying now - he pressed his face to the glass. He'd have to find where everyone was. He would have to warn them, alert them - and with back up he could either stop Adrian or convince him not to do this thing -
Adrien saw a frosty human hand suddenly and screamed, falling back. The scream lengthened and then died, replaced by shocked gasps, almost the sound of exertion. He saw a face, a few of them, but otherwise the mound was indistinguishable from snow.
Everyone was dead.
He fell back against the wall, slid to the ground, wrapped his arms around his knees and looked around nervously. They were all dead. Was Adrian going to kill him, too? He supposed he must have told them what he'd been planning, and then killed them.
It was only half a minute later, as he was shakingly getting to his feet, stumbling badly, that a sinking thought came to him with more than a ring of truth to it. He wouldn't have brought them if they hadn't known already. Everyone on this continent was planning on cold murder and Adrien hadn't even known. This theory brought with it further horror at the realization that these people must have agreed with his monstrous plan and supported it, and Adrian had killed them anyway. Did he mean to kill Adrien, too? Maybe Adrien had been precious enough to save or maybe he hadn't intended to tell him. Maybe telling him was just indicative of how little he currently cared for him - or maybe he'd been hoping Adrien would support him. Maybe by pointing out how evil this was, he'd sealed his own death warrant.
As he limped down the hallway, trying to get a hold on himself to try and think despairingly of some plan to fall back on, someone to contact, he became aware of a frightening sound growing gradually stronger. It sounded like radio static. His mind filled with ghost stories and horrors once more.
Instead he discovered it was indeed a radio. One of the guards' walkie-talkies had been abandoned, presumably before he'd left his station to go to the vivarium for a toast to Adrian's insanity. Adrien was at first reviled and saddened by the fact that the guard's personal items belonged to a dead man and he sobbed over that irrationally, blinding reaching out to touch them.
One of the items felt familiar, and he stroked it and then recoiled. Eyes open, he saw it was a gun, the same damn weapon he'd heard fire in Marchetti's little summer house, the same weapon he'd coaxed out of Marchetti's hand when it was pointed at himself or Roge in one of Roger's many, many moods. He knew how to use one, at least a little bit, because of Marchetti, because of Marchetti's men. He didn't know how to use it on someone he loved. He supposed he'd have to use it on somebody he didn't.
A long pause, and Adrien looked longingly down the hallway. He shivered. And then he picked up the gun.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 14:36:01 GMT -5
Adrian didn't move for a long time after he'd lowered himself to kneel on the floor, still clenching Adrien's discarded ring in a half-mechanical fist against his chest.
He was perfectly still, perfectly silent except for the sound of his breath.
This could have been prevented. He could have told Adrien that he knew what Manhattan was going to do and said that he, Adrian, was going to try to stop him. He could have just drugged him and left him with a doctor in New York to make sure that he'd remain safe and comatose during the attack.
He could have asked Manhattan to just destroy every nuclear arm in existence somewhere in the depths of space, and then issue a warning to Earth as a whole.
This last idea hit him with such startling clarity that he began to laugh- hoarsely, despairingly, stunned by his own shortsightedness. All this resignation to stepping over the dead and toward a better future when he could have just had the problem eliminated...
He was now laughing so hard that he slumped forward and dropped the ring, which landed with a tiny metallic ping. All he'd been able to think of was murder? Was he really that uncreative?
Was he that much his father's son?
It was as though Adrien had called up everything that had been set in his blood since the moment he was born. He was a fool for ever thinking that he could do anything to erase his father's legacy. Tonight, he was only compounding it.
By now, he was folded nearly in half, the regality of his cape spreading behind him masking his miserable hunched posture from one angle and only accentuating it from the others.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Mar 14, 2011 14:39:21 GMT -5
Adrien didn't know how to fight Adrian. Even as he moved as quietly as possible he suspected Adrian would hear him. The only thing there was to do was, perhaps, to hope Adrian still loved him too much to hurt him before Adrien would have the chance to hurt Adrian -
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 14:41:55 GMT -5
Adrian heard footsteps in the hall, little ones that meant the others hadn't made it yet. He stood abruptly and turned toward the door again.
"Adr-"
He stopped.
Adrien had a gun.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Mar 14, 2011 14:44:02 GMT -5
He held it out in front of him steadily, keeping a bit of a distance as he knew Adrian was fast and didn't want to make it unbelievably easy for Adrian to take the gun from his grasp. It occurred to him after this that he was also hoping to minimize the blood and brain matter splatter that would land on him when he did pull the trigger. He visibly shuddered.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 14:45:57 GMT -5
Adrian just stared.
"...would you rather have the end of the world than this?" he said quietly.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Mar 14, 2011 14:47:32 GMT -5
"My world already ended," he said softly.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 14:52:46 GMT -5
"I am setting back the history of warfare centuries tonight. The people who die will not have died in vain."
He bent to pick up the ring again.
"I'm sorry I deceived you. I couldn't think of any other way- I can't sleep without seeing their faces-"
He staggered slightly, and then smoothly pulled himself together again.
"But you... you should never have been part of this, I know that now."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Mar 14, 2011 14:55:43 GMT -5
"You mean you should have kept lying to me," he said through gritted teeth. "You bastard. Roger was better than you in this. When I cried to him after I heard him shoot a man and his girlfriend in his little summer house he shrugged it off and said what, was he supposed to pretend? Is that what you're saying, Adrian? You don't want to be a better person, you just want to pretend?"
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 14:56:36 GMT -5
"If I let the bombs fall-"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Mar 14, 2011 14:59:27 GMT -5
"You don't know they will -"
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 15:00:49 GMT -5
"Yes, I do! Do you think I just blithely danced into this? Do you think I ever wanted to be like him?"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Mar 14, 2011 15:02:18 GMT -5
"To be like-?"
He shooked his head right after. Adrian was being distracting -
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Mar 14, 2011 15:04:03 GMT -5
"My father-"
He spread his arms wide as he practically roared the word.
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