Re: adrian's room: adrian m/newt p
[Adrian settled a little nearer to him.] Perhaps. [Admitted with softening reluctance.
He didn't think very much about extraterrestrial life. Cryptids and aliens had never been of interest to his own area of scientific study. He'd never had a drive to prove the existence of the unseen and undocumented. He was compelled by learning about what seemed so familiar that it was just part of the flow of everyday life - the common cold, the flu, cancer - and understanding what was unknown about them more deeply. Discovering their hidden mechanisms. Finding weaknesses yet unexplored. There was always something more to find, even in a world where so much could be catalogued.
Diaries held only the mysteries that their writer withheld, nothing more.] Depends on the person, I suppose. [Stated mildly enough. Not everyone had secrets to keep. If he wrote an honest diary about his own life, or dumped his own memories into a pensieve, discovery could be brutal. He toyed with the hem of his striped pajama shirt, looking down at his fingers. When Newt brushed the shell of his ear, he shuddered a little. It was an unusual feeling, soft and somehow very intimate. He nestled his head against Newt's shoulder, listening to his voice as it thrummed through his ribs and into his right ear.] Really? It's the first thing I look for when I meet someone new.
The memory came and went, and he stayed where he was.] He was twenty years old, snorting cocaine and having sex with another student at his school. And thinking about what his family would think. Not caring. [He twitched a little, loosening the residual tightness of the wound-up cocaine fizz.] The sex was good. The cocaine wasn't. [Not for him, at any rate. It made him feel uncomfortably heightened, and even made the sex, in retrospect, feel fisheyed and out of sync.
Then Newt was gone again, longer this time. Adrian canted his head, and he lifted his hand again, stroking the hair at the nape of Newt's neck.] Newt? [Then, when he didn't come back immediately, when he stayed so still, he started to grow worried.] ...Newt?
[The rush of relief Adrian felt when Newt slid into motion again felt silly. He knew exactly what was going on, but he couldn't stop the cold clench of fear. He dropped his arm again, sliding a hand under the hem of his shirt, flattening his palm against his skin. An act of presence, of grounding and comforting. In the dark, his eyes were sloe black, studying Newt, lips slightly parted in concern.] Do you want to tell me about it? [He didn't know what would be worse - hanging silently onto the memory of torture, or saying it out loud and exorcising it.] It wasn't you. [He stroked his thumb against the skin over his waist.] It wasn't you. It might feel as if it was, but it wasn't.