Re: log; misha and adrian
Adrian liked Misha, and he had missed seeing him. When all of this was over, he planned to do a better job of spending time with his friend for his own sake, rather than contacting him only when he needed something. It was what Damian had criticized him for. He could use the excuse of the ongoing mess of his life, but that wasn't fair. Going forward, he was determined to do better with a lot of things. Hopefully this would go in a way that let him keep those promises.
The differences between Adrian and Sue only blared obvious once you'd spent enough time with both. Adrian spoke quietly, but not softly. There was an underlying hardness, a crispness with British vowels. He usually slumped, appearing even shorter than he was, and he drew his shoulders in tightly to seem smaller still when pressed. Sue stood as tall as his height could make him, and gave the impression, therefor, of being a little taller than he really was. No accent, pale fog eyes, and a voice that pitched up to a shout without much provocation.
Whatever came out of blurring the line between the two of them, it couldn't possibly be quite the same as either were right now. That was what scared Adrian. It scared Sue, too.
He had been listening to music as he walked up, a mournful song too, and he showed Misha the pause screen on his phone. "It's a good song," he said. He felt exhausted, hunted, worn out from weeks of arguing and feeling as low as he could remember feeling in his life.
Misha looked tired in a different way, careworn. "Are you all right?" he asked. He felt a pang of guilt. People had been telling him lately, almost daily, that he was selfish, that he didn't try to understand people. He hoped doing this thing wasn't being selfish with Misha. Misha was certainly doing him a favor. If he was worn out with doing good things, was it wrong to take something more from him?
He listened carefully and tried hard to parse what Misha said. When he mentioned bending time, Adrian thought of Connie, and his father, and he felt a pang of fear. "You won't need to do that," he said, resting a hand on Misha's shoulder, unthinking, assuring. "No bending time. Not for me."
Misha's smile was a comfort in the midst of a deep, dark pool, fear threatening to suck him under, loosening his stomach, making him think of running for the long drive and not turning back. He dropped his hand, and his stomach flipped again. Misha couldn't, wouldn't harm him. And he'd gone toe to toe with the obscurus before. He could handle himself.
The darkness inside him gnawed at his ribs, heavy and powerful, fattened by pain and swallowed anger. "I understand," he said, nodding for emphasis, like a stage actor. He had convinced himself. He would do it.