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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 20:55:37 GMT -5
Jon lived in an elevator.
Not literally (Adrian suspected, in either case), but enough to remind him of one. It was furnished like a twenty-year-old hotel suite, homely and stately, comfortable for a man who no longer desired comfort and was only a man by the closest analogy, regularly cleaned for the comfort of Jon’s keepers and Jon’s likely indifference, and with such a strong sense of being in between two real places, neither here nor there, that at times it felt to Adrian as though it were subtly moving up and down.
The lab, sterile and bright as labs tended to be, was the more comfortable prospect, Adrian thought, though he usually dismissed those kind of thoughts as soon as they occurred to him.
There was a heart in the pan. It was made of silicone and little gears. It ticked as it pulsed. Adrian, looking gaunt-faced in the light, frowned.
“It’s the battery that concerns me,” he murmured.
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Post by Jon Osterman on Jan 2, 2020 21:18:43 GMT -5
Jon, glowing softly like something found at the bottom of the sea, turned his bright, unassuming eyes on Adrian Veidt, the closest thing he had had to a partner, in more than one fashion, in many years.
"The lifespan of the battery is not likely to exceed that of any of its recipients," he said in a voice both gentle and impassive. "No heart needs to beat indefinitely."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 21:27:13 GMT -5
“The idea of a heart with a built-in expiration date isn’t likely to go over well, either,” Adrian said, leaning away from it to stretch his lower back. It felt uncharacteristically stiff, and that was troubling. He had always been more or less immune to such matters for most of his life. He’d need to pay more attention to that the next time yoga with Adrien came up. “Though I guess all of them do, in the end. Most of us just don’t know when it is.”
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Post by Jon Osterman on Jan 2, 2020 21:37:30 GMT -5
"Mm," went Jon, who probably was the exception Adrian's most of implied.
"I'm afraid what will and won't go over is more your department than mine, Adrian," he said lightly, tracing his fingertips over the artificial organ. "I can build to your specifications anything that you ask of me, but reassuring the public about their own mortality is well above my pay grade."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 21:56:08 GMT -5
“I’m getting tired anyway,” Adrian admitted. “I must have done something wrong today, I feel as though-“
He stopped short when he looked at the clock.
“Oh, good lord. It’s been six hours.”
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Post by Jon Osterman on Jan 2, 2020 21:59:33 GMT -5
"God, look at the time," Adrian was saying, in 1965, his voice higher by a margin and full of laughter; "I can stay if you want me to. Even if I had something better to do, this is more interesting..."
"Has it been? You'll have to forgive me. I tend not to wear a watch these days," said Jon. With a slow wave of his hand, almost sluggish but for its grace, the components of their tinkering began to put themselves away.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 22:21:05 GMT -5
Adrian sighed and pushed his hair back from his eyes. It was longer now than it had been in some time, though not nearly as long as it had been ten years ago, and he was still half-heartedly trying to figure out how he felt about this, when he had the opportunity to think about anything like that to begin with.
“Jon,” he said. Jon, of course, was nude- you got used to it after a while- and unblemished as a neoclassical bronze, in what never felt like much of a contrast to Adrian’s own state until Adrian found himself in the same room as Jon again. He had seen photographs of the man Jon had once been, and could never get the reconciliation quite right. Part of it was the utter normality of the man in the photos- awkward smile, brush-cut hair of some unremarkable middling color according to rhe only picture there was of him, broad shoulders but with a tendency to hunch- and some was the Vitruvian genericness of the form he had given himself on reforming. But that was Osterman’s mouth, he assumed, and the shape of Osterman’s eyes. Imagining Jon with hair was almost ludicrous.
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Post by Jon Osterman on Jan 2, 2020 22:30:44 GMT -5
The unassuming eyes, lit with a chilly blue glow, flickered to Adrian's again and rested on them.
"Jon," Adrian breathed, burying his face into Jon's neck, sliding one hand over the austere and simultaneously silly-looking costume he was wearing; the other touched his bare arm. Janey was waiting for him at home - Janey was simultaneously long gone - Jon had never known another man in this fashion. It made no difference, provoked no upheaval, produced no revelations of dismay or delight. If there was anything noteworthy in this, it was looking into Adrian's eyes and seeing them simultaneously young, excited, besotted, and lined and alert and a bit shadowed, and lined and bloodshot and angry-
Adrian had begun to age, it was true, but now it was more clearly apparent. Oh, it was in a subtle enough way and Jon doubted others had seen it. But to have such an immediate comparison, it became unavoidable.
"Yes?" he queried.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 22:35:33 GMT -5
"... before I go," he said, "I could... stay a bit longer, if you like."
His eyes lingered over Jon's body before meeting his gaze again. Adrian lifted his chin.
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Post by Jon Osterman on Jan 2, 2020 22:41:34 GMT -5
It had probably been many years since Jon had truly, properly smiled - more years than it had been since he and Adrian had shared a bed. But Adrian could see what was left of Jon's ability to smile; Jon did not need to modulate his feelings in a more obvious way for Adrian, as he did when he gave interviews or spoke to his government handlers. Others spooked as easily as horses if he did not, but Adrian was rather difficult to spook.
He wondered if Adrian knew what he'd said, or its resemblance to that first night, and suspected not, nor did he think he would want to know. He thought Adrian was contemplating his own lost youth sometimes; it wouldn't be kind to invite the comparison, as if Adrian were not already making it well enough.
So he merely, nearly, smiled.
"If it's what you would like," rejoined Jon, touching Adrian's fingers.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 22:53:22 GMT -5
“For old time’s sake,” Adrian blurted, and then he laughed it off. “Call it... nostalgia, I suppose.”
His hand tightened over Jon’s, well-accustomed to the soft, staticky feeling of Jon’s skin.
“After all, it’s already June.”
He smiled, but there was already grief in it for something he had not yet lost. Perhaps this was how it was for Jon all the time.
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Post by Jon Osterman on Jan 2, 2020 22:56:58 GMT -5
There was a strange sadness in Jon's face that appeared on it as if it had already been there rather than a change of his expression. It was subtle, but someone other than Adrian might have made it out themselves. If any other such person had been there, but then, it had been him and Adrian for many years now.
"It is always June," Jon reminded him softly, so softly his voice seemed to come from the room around them almost as much as or more than it emanated from Jon. But he had lifted his other hand and touched Adrian's chin with two fingers. "But not for you. Forgive me.... It is so easy to forget."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 23:00:47 GMT -5
“Of course,” Adrian said briskly. “And it works. There’s nothing to mourn, really, save... well.”
He sighed again.
“It will not be in vain.”
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Post by Jon Osterman on Jan 2, 2020 23:02:13 GMT -5
"No, Adrian," he said, pulling him in. "It won't be in vain."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jan 2, 2020 23:07:03 GMT -5
Adrian didn’t react at first- it was almost alien, at this point, to feel anyone embracing him, least of all Jon. It wasn’t disorienting, but reacting felt- wrong, almost.
“Jon,” he said. “I... I would like to go go bed with you.”
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