connor est le (grandemauvais) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-12-29 22:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | big bad wolf, faust |
Who: Adam and Connor
What: Adam sells all his comics in a Sadness Sale.
Where: Adam's place.
When: Pre-plot
Warnings/Rating: Sadness
Adam was selling his nerd stuff. He wasn’t selling it online or peddling it to buyers who actually knew the value of each comic book, statue and limited edition trading card. No, Adam was having a garage sale in front of his clean condo. Boxes of comics that he hadn’t burned in a drunken stupor months ago where sprawled out across the lawn. Figurines with no price tag were neatly lined up with the more interesting ones in front. The rest he’d take out back and smash with MK watching on pretending not to be worried. Maybe she’d even pretend that she enjoyed seeing all of his fantasy worlds destroyed right in front of her very eyes. He hoped so. Adam was starting to like that twist of resentment she gave him.
Sitting on the lawn in a black t-shirt, jeans and sunglasses, he looked up at the sky and was briefly grateful that it wasn’t raining today. Maybe it would be better if it had. Adam imagined the sky opening up, literally blue tearing apart at the seams and waves of grey water washing away everything that he used to value as much as his friends. As much as his own ideals in Seattle about justice and helping people. All of that was up for sale, too.
A small boy walked past (presumably on his way to a friend’s house), stopping at the sight of an old Superman figuring and smiled brightly in a way most adults forgot how. “How much is Superman?”
Adam didn’t smile back. He looked up from his book about medical history and unconventional practices. “Whatever is in your pocket.” He murmured. The boy seemed suspicious it was that easy, slammed a button, some lint and a nickel on the table before reaching for the Superman figure. But, he didn’t take it. Even a little kid knew that it was worth more than a coin. Adam didn’t understand the hesitation. Why didn’t he just take like everyone else? “Yours.” Adam said and looked back down at his book. The boy didn’t move for a moment, his grip tightened around Superman and then he suddenly pulled the figurine to his chest and darted off like he had just stolen something valuable.
And, he had. That statue? Went for about a five hundred on ebay.
Connor had decided earlier that day that he owed Adam a visit. It had been too long since they'd talked, so long that he hardly knew what Adam was up to, and he could admit that he'd been lax in checking up on him. There seemed to be consistent drama with MK, that much he was certain of - that, and not much else.
He had been busy lately. There was much to do at the CIA in the wake of transferring over from the FBI. Much of his time had been spent poring over the information Marina sent in. For her to be a valuable asset, and, therefore, safe, he needed to find things to work with in her reports. Her usefulness would protect her in the utilitarian structure of the government, so he would make sure she was as useful as possible.
The CIA was long hours, an unpredictable workload, and a great deal of isolation. Not that he wasn't used to the idea, of course, but when he'd been working for the FBI he had been forced to spend a great deal of time around other people. He would often work out of LVPD, and that meant keeping the mask up all day. Now, when he walked into the security firm front for the CIA team in the back, he spoke to almost no one. He could do his work at home, or on field reconnaissance. It was quiet, and it meant he could keep himself to himself. But when he was back amongst other people again, his parts felt rusty, and the paint flaked on the facade. The work encouraged the part of him he'd spent so much time hiding, all his life, and it felt...strange. It gave him a sense of discomfort when he was face to face with someone and realized he couldn't remember the dance steps, so out of practice. He would have to be more vigilant.
At least he didn't have to put so much work into presenting himself for Adam. Adam had always taken him as he was, which was why they were friends aside from the brothers they'd become late in his childhood. When he walked up to the condo and saw the spread of comics and figurines, he felt a dull sense of alarm. He wore a grey suit, as nondescript as he put so much effort into seeming, and when he stopped, he was standing over Adam, blocking the sun.
"...cleaning?"
Adam had a certain amount of admiration for Connor simply because the fellow lost boy possessed something he had always wanted: sociopathy. Life had to be easier once the faked mannerisms for the sake of politeness were mastered. Adam had been accused of it and occasionally fell into the logic that most sociopaths possessed. He still had those emotions, though. The emotions of a dreamer stuck in a life that he would swear up and down wasn’t his own. “Making room.” Adam confirmed with a nod and offered Connor a smile. There were few people or things that Adam smiled at anymore. “Lawn chair.” He pointed to a spare one leaning up against the wall of the garage and then settled back with his newspaper. MK never let him read when she was trying to talk to him. Found it rude or dismissive. Adam didn’t have to worry about that with Connor.
He waited for Connor to get settled, turning the page and then glancing over to Connor. “How have you been? Dolores, old acquaintance, hunted me down. Reminded me we need to be better at staying in touch.” Another small smile at Connor as he glanced at a random 20-something bent over an entire box of old comics. Adam remembered being that guy. Being so invested in things and collections that he’d get excited at the very prospect of an old garage sale. He felt a twang of it now, a sharp pain of reminder, but nothing more.
Connor walked over and picked up the lawn chair, carrying it back to where Adam sat under the sun. Once the lawn chair was set up, he fished in his pocket for his sunglasses. He'd never bothered with them in Chicago, but in Las Vegas they were something of a necessity. It was lucky he'd remembered, today - he hadn't expected an outdoor visit.
Adam's pleasure at seeing him was a quiet comfort. he smiled back, just a little, enough to convey that feeling and not much more. He didn't feel unburdened by his missing pieces, because he last time he could remember even having nascent versions he'd been too young to know what they were. The growth of those feelings were all stunted, leaving him just shy of a good, true, dyed in the wool sociopath. Not by much, though, and not enough to bring him up to the norm.
The mention of Dolores received a nod of recognition. "I knew her," he said. "Before I was with the family. When I was in Las Vegas." In foster care, in other words. "I didn't know you'd met.” Connor idly watched the man bent over the box of comic books. He’d never been very invested in them, himself. His colleagues at work used to cheerfully mock him for his lack of hobbies and interests, though it wasn’t for lack of having any. He simply kept the things about himself that were true close to the vest. He’d feign an interest in one thing or another as it suited him to stay innocuous, but the things and people he actually felt some nascent affection for were private, and personal, and he kept them that way. They were totems in their way, proving that he was actually alive, however corpselike his soul appeared to be. “Where was it?"
Adam crossed his legs one way and then the other, a fidgeting move that his adoptive father had when he was reading the paper in the morning. It was more a movement of anxious calmness as if he were aware that this moment could end at any moment and he’d be back to feeling miserable instead of at peace. “Don’t remember, honestly. Messaged me on the journals. Remembered me. Good enough.” Adam lowered the paper and watched as a couple more people wandered towards his geeky offerings. “Rarely get friendly messages from those journals anymore. Take what I can.”
The paper was now folded in his lap and Adam turned his attention away from the garage sale in front of him. He turned, swiveling his upper body in that robotic fashioned that he seemed to move with and looked at Connor. “Have news. MK and I are getting engaged. Letting her plan the wedding. Wanted you to know.”
Connor watched Adam fidget back and forth out of the corner of his eye, even as he kept his gaze pinned on the street, waiting for the next customer to come. "You've done too good a job of alienating people," Connor replied. It was a guess more than a statement of fact, since he didn't really know why Adam wasn't seeing friendly gestures 'anymore'. He had clearly gotten them once. He couldn't know what had changed since he hadn't been checking in often enough. If he had to guess, though, he would have guessed that it had something to do with his troublesome girlfriend.
Adam's declaration of the engagement was met with a brief pause, then a long look as Connor turned his head to meet his gaze dead on. "You're getting engaged?" It was hard to tell, but under the simple verification of fact was the tiniest ripple of surprise, and that said quite a bit, coming from him.
Adam gave Connor a look at the comment about alienating people, as if that was something finally hitting too close to home after years of simply accepting it. The doctor didn’t actively try to push people away, it was something ingrained in him. A counterbalance to that natural skill in medicine that he never asked for and he’d rid himself of if his pride didn’t get in the way.
He caught the tiny look of surprise, partially because he was expecting it and tried to look happy. He smiled, but there was something missing in that upturn of his lips. It looked like uncanny valley, like a realist painting that accidentally used watercolors. Something was off and Adam was so used to being covered in ice that he didn’t even notice. “Been together for almost two years. Lived with her for a while. Makes sense.” A challenge to say otherwise.
“How romantic.” The statement was mild, and so toneless that it was difficult to even tell if he was actually being sarcastic. He could tell that the comment about Adam’s alienation had cut him some. He’d spent enough time watching people for their emotional reactions to recognize pain and name it. “Are you happy?” That was all that mattered in love, so far as Connor could tell. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever felt that particular emotion. Like so many things, it might have happened to him and passed beyond his notice, or been mistaken for one of the few things he did feel and feel keenly, like rage. It was so hard to know these things and tell them apart, so hard to say. Adam’s smile made him look like a doll that had gotten lost, and he doubted he even knew about it. Were they happy? Somehow, Connor doubted.
Adam didn’t care if there was sarcasm in Connor’s words. He had learnt to take things however he wanted. Twist a simple statement so that it benefitted him best. It was a sign of someone so miserable they latched onto any fantasy they could find. That once wild imagination now turned bleak and used as a simple sharp tool to keep him through the day. He couldn’t enjoy comic books or fiction anymore because it showed true happiness and love between characters that he couldn’t achieve. Real struggle and successful overcoming of the odds made him sick to his stomach.
“Happiness isn’t something you can feel all the time.” Adam said, leaning a little towards Connor as if he were finally being honest about something. “Unhappy without MK. Sometimes happy with her.” And, then came the sort of logic that could be expected from a man in his 30’s about to settle down. “Lived with her for a while. Know her. Better than being alone at my age.”
Connor listened and felt a vague sensation that might have been dread. He couldn't quite seem to place it, though. He stood up from the lawn chair and planted his hands thoughtfully in his pockets. "Doesn't sound like enough," he said, because that was all he knew to say. It didn't. It didn't add up. Not from the stories he'd heard and from Adam's rictus smile when he pretended pleasure at the prospect of marriage. "But if it's enough for you, then it'll work." He hardly had a right to judge anyone else's emotional decisions. But he thought he could see Adam's future, and it didn't look good.
Connor looked down. On the ground was a thin bundle of Spider-man comics. He picked it up, pulled a few crumpled singles from his pocket, and set them down on one of the boxes. He flipped through the comics, and he wondered when all of this had happened, when things with Adam had taken such a desperate turn. Where had he been?
He turned back to Adam. "If you need anything, you'll call." A statement - a demand - not a question.