Re: quicklog: adrian/newt - the lake
[Adrian looked at the back of Newt's wrist, pale in the dimming light, familiar constellations of freckles spattered across it. Newt was concrete, and the hand laced with his own kept him grounded in the present when nothing, suddenly, made any sense at all.
He had never made much of a study of psychology. Diseases of the mind had never drawn him as diseases of the body did. They were too indistinct, the methodologies behind them too vague, the ethical questions surrounding a 'cure' shaded in gray. One could eradicate a disease in the human body - even rewrite the body to make it eliminate the vector on its own, as his work in gene therapy might one day be able to do. But what did a cure look like for trauma? Did it mean forgetting the thing occurred, or severing any emotional link with that memory? Did anyone have a right to tamper with how a person felt about something like that? He didn't require a hard answer to every inquiry, but he did prefer to work on something without needing to equivocate for it.
His lapses in memory had always felt like more of an inconvenience than a serious problem. The obscurus was like cancer in remission. It was a threat he would have to live with for the rest of his life. In comparison to that, some lost sleep and a few absent hours seemed trivial.
There was no rush of recognition as Newt talked, no sudden connection to moments of confusion, no 'aha.' It was all coming at him too fast for that.] Trouble? [Echoing. He didn't let go of Newt's hand.] You...had sex. And conversations.
[He stared at Newt. Remember, in school. In school.] How long has this been happening? [He hadn't looked away from Newt. Even as he stared across the water, Adrian squeezed his hand a little tighter. This wasn't a joke,o he reasoned. Newt wouldn't joke about something like this.
Then his lip curled away from his teeth. That sneer was distinctive - not a smile, not anything close to it. A pall passed over his eyes like a cloud over the sun, and he croaked:] Thanks a lot. Really. See if I let you anywhere near my dick again anytime soon.
[He blinked, and his expression changed again completely. It was uncanny to watch if Newt could look, an almost complete change in posture, shoulders tensing, that sneer dissolving into wide, dark-eyed, total panic. Adrian slipped his hand from Newt's grasp, stood from the table, and slid out from behind it. For a completely mad moment, he almost slipped loose fingers into his own mouth, felt out his traitorous tongue, pressed it down. He bit it instead.
Overhead, the orange-colored street lamp nearest the lake winked out, plunging them both deeper into the dark.]