If I stumble, they're gonna eat me alive. [AU & RW]
-- Oh for fuck's sake. Adrien had never been someone who was afraid of voicing his opinion, and he rarely bit his tongue when he felt there was something worth saying, but this time he had obviously gone a little too far. He probably should have stopped when Cal threatened, because he knew well enough that Cal rarely made idle threats; there was no good reason for why he'd continued to run his mouth beyond the fact that he was rattled by the disappearances and that it was his nature. And then one minute he'd been sitting on the back porch with his phone, the next...standing on a street corner with his empty gloved hands raised. Times Square, possibly. At least on the edge of it, because parts were still blocked off for damage repair. He sighed, patted down his jacket pockets for their contents: besides a few American coins in his jacket pocket and his false ID that he'd apparently put into one of his breast pockets after his night out with Betsy, he only had his cigarettes and lighter. There wasn't even enough for a payphone. The only way he could contact anyone at the school was through his mindlink with Kevin, and he reached out gratefully to talk to his boss, but Kevin's mind was quiet and distant -- sleeping dreamlessly, it felt like. Probably crashing on the couch in the art room after staying up too long. Oh well. He could try again in a little while. Kevin deserved his rest. He understood that not knowing Laurie's whereabouts was wearing on Kevin, even if he didn't want to discuss it, and Adrien wanted to give him what little peace and quiet he could. He wasn't helpless; he could waste some time in the city in the meanwhile. If only he'd kept his wallet on him...

He started walking south, weaving his way with extra care through the crowds of people, even stepping into the street when the knot grew too thick for him to push through comfortably. It wasn't until he'd gone a few blocks that he noticed the stares. That wasn't unusual -- he was familiar with the sensation of eyes on the back of his neck, people glancing at him twice before nudging their companions -- but it was confirming what he'd always feared. No matter how much time had passed since the Cure attacks, no matter how many other scandals and intrigues took over the news channels after that, people hadn't forgotten his face. And they didn't look at him as a celebrity anymore. No, he was one step below being a criminal, officially excused but not forgiven. It must look even worse that he was returning to the scene of the crime, as though he'd chosen to come back here. Adrien would've been happy to never see the theater billboards and large virtual advertisements again. He remembered what the square looked like when it was full of bodies and dust, deserted like it had never been before, a disaster site out of some twisted horror movie that he'd never wanted to be part of. A disaster that he'd been at the epicenter of, clutching that bloody pipe and trying to catch breath that wouldn't come. He kept his head down and walked faster. Ideally, he could get downtown as quickly as possible, past the tourist attractions and into the office district where people were more concerned with eating their lunch before getting back to their desks than staring at a murderer. He would feel a little more invisible there. Safer.

Then someone caught his arm. Adrien swung around, his stride arrested by the strong hand holding him back, and had to look up an inch or two into the eyes of the muscular man behind him. Something about them sent a chill down his spine that he disliked; those eyes were cold and hard, reminding him of the guards in the apocalyptic future concentration camp where he'd had the pleasure of being held prisoner for far too long. They'd broken him so easily. It hadn't taken much... "Excuse me," he said sharply, shaking the man's fingers off of his jacket with uncharacteristic roughness. No one just touched him like that. Not even before his mutation had manifested. He was Adrien Bouchard. Even if that didn't mean anything to most people here, it meant something to him. "Can I help you?"

The man had let him go, but he didn't make any move to step away. Instead, he simply stared. It was unnerving. "My wife," he said at last, his voice deep and unemotional. "She went to pick up half-price tickets for us to see a musical together. You touched her. She's still in the psych wing of St. Vincent's."

It hit him harder than he wanted to admit. He didn't have Kevin's detachment, the years of experience in distancing himself from the damage his mutation could wreak. He didn't let it show on his face, refused to swallow back the knot in his throat, but he did feel it. Stronger than that, however, was the sudden spike of fear in his chest. He'd never come face-to-face with someone who had reason to want him dead before. People who wanted to hurt him, sure, and people who didn't like him, but this was a real confrontation. And he had the feeling that if it turned serious, no one was going to help him. "You have the wrong person," he muttered, the first thing he could think of, and he stepped back to leave -- but the man reached out again, caught his shoulder. He frowned and shook him off once more; someone behind him had other ideas, however, and he shied away from the new hand on his elbow. "The fuck--?" The other person was a woman, older, with a long black sweater and a tightness in her mouth that set Adrien's teeth on edge. "What now?" He was agitated, snapping at her because his temper was rising in an effort to control his uneasiness.

"You killed my daughter," the woman replied shrilly. "My daughter. She was six years old. You touched her and she was crushed by all the people fleeing. She died under other people's feet because she couldn't feel them. They told me it was fast but I knew they were lying." Her voice rose with each sentence, and other people around him had stopped to see what was going on, gathering at a safe distance. "She was six!" Adrien glanced around, quickly, and saw the realization dawning on their faces; expressions turned from curious to hostile in a matter of seconds, and no one was moving. The longer that people stood there, the more people stopped, and he realized that if he waited any longer, he wouldn't be able to get out of there. A veritable wall of bodies stood between him and freedom, and although he'd made short work of a crowd like this once before, it wasn't something he could or would do under his own free will. If anything, he reached to pull his gloves on more tightly.

"What are you going to do, take us all down?" He couldn't tell who said it, though he twisted around towards the source of the voice. "Grab us with your bare hands like you did with all those innocent people?"

"No," Adrien protested weakly, holding up his hands in front of him as though they were a weapon that he'd been caught with and wanted to get rid of. "I'm not--"

"Murderer!"

"You fucking killed human beings, freak!"

He tried to raise his voice again, denial on his lips even though he'd always known in his heart that it was true at least to some degree, but the shouted names and accusations were coming fast and hard from all around him, weaving a thick web of noise too loud for his lone voice to pierce through. There was only one way that he could be heard, only one person who he could still reach now; focusing inward for a moment, he followed the weak mental tie back to Kevin, not caring any longer that his mindbonded partner deserved his sleep. He needed help now and there was no other way that he was going to get it. Kevin, I -- Suddenly, without any warning, he felt the connection pulling at him. Like it was trying to...come free. He clung to it desperately, but it was growing weaker and more tenuous by the moment, and then -- it was gone. He staggered, clutching at his shaggy hair with his leather-covered hands, feeling a keen ache of loss tearing through his head. He was alone. Completely, utterly abandoned, with no one to rescue him from the furious mob of human bodies surging towards him. They hit him before he could fall, and for an instant they were even holding him up -- the crush of hands on his clothes pinning him upright -- then a hand crashed down on him from above, and his knees hit the concrete with enough force that he cried out. People were pulling at him. Fighting for the right to serve justice themselves, to get a piece of him for their spouses and brothers and sisters and children who had fallen beneath his hands. He saw flashes of faces, and he wasn't sure if they were the people in front of him or the people he'd killed -- he couldn't focus on any of them anyway, he couldn't get a grasp. His jacket tore, and his face was bleeding freely from somewhere, enough that he could taste and smell the blood iron-sharp and salty through the crushing sweaty bodies. His shirt collar was choking him. He couldn't breathe.

There was another tearing sound, and warm air hit his bare chest. Bare skin. If he wasn't terrified enough, suddenly it was like he couldn't think. There was only one thought in his mind: cover. Struggling, Adrien tried to pull his arms in close, curl into a fetal position -- pathetic and cowardly or not, he didn't care, he had to protect his skin from them or them from his skin -- but they had his hands and were forcing his gloves off, wrenching his wrists painfully around. He felt a distinct pop in his right hand and screamed as shock jolted down his arm. Dislocated. The ground beneath him seemed to lurch, losing solidity the more he fought to free himself, because he couldn't put his feet down anymore, lifted up by the people thrashing wildly to tear at his jeans. Underneath it all, under the pain and terror, there was a slow draining feeling that grew stronger by the second. His mutation was coming to life, pulling long-stored chemicals from within him and coursed eagerly into the bodies of the people holding him, but they weren't slowed or deterred: their shrieking drowned out his, leaving him voiceless no matter how much his open mouth poured sound into the world around him. No one could hear him through this. The strength of his powers took him by force, and whatever energy he had left in him to fight back was drained away, sucked up greedily by the bare skin contact against his. His head felt like it was going to burst. He was naked, defenseless, condemned to die. No one was going to spare him. No one had mercy. He'd always known -- it didn't matter if he was manipulated or not, whether or not he was guilty, whether what he'd done had made him a murderer or something else entirely -- in the end, God would exact the punishment that he deserved for being a vessel of madness and pain and death. He deserved this.

Adrien awoke with the sensation of nails gouging into his skin still fresh. He thrashed hard at the sudden restoration of his strength and, twisted in the blankets, rolled to the floor with sudden and unpleasant finality. It knocked the air out of him, and he lay there for a long minute, panting hard as he realized that no one was touching him. His clothes were on. His gloves were on. There was no deep draining feeling inside of him, and the room was quiet, absolutely silent, like a tomb.

Wrapping the blankets around him more tightly, he shivered.
[ NARRATIVE ]