Adam Samuels (adamsammy) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2013-04-21 12:19:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | adam, adam and meg, day fifteen, meg |
How Important Is the Truth?
Characters: Meg and Adam
Setting: late morning, courtyard
Meg hadn’t thought it was possible to loathe an inanimate object but as she sat staring at her computer screen, hands balled into tight fists at the edge of the desk, she was fairly certain she’d never hated something so much in her life. Someone certainly but never a thing and, not for the first time, she found herself wanting to destroy the thing, illogical as that might be. After all it wasn’t the computer’s fault, it didn’t create the messages that had been there waiting for her. Still the urge to smash something heavy against the screen was there though so she pushed herself away from it before the last of her resolve could disappear and the thing wound up in pieces, grabbed her key and barged out of her room, wanting as much space as possible between her and it.
It was a pointless gesture really, the messages she’d received just as clear in her mind as they had been on the screen, but there was a small amount of satisfaction that came with slamming her door and something oddly soothing about the humidity that enveloped her as she crossed the courtyard, familiar and comfortable like slipping on well worn, well loved shirt. Reaching the bench, she flopped down onto it and laid back, her legs hanging off one end and pressed her hands to her eyes, trying to make something coherent out of the thoughts that swirled in her head and not just scream her frustration to the heavens.
Adam had been headed to the cafeteria. Kyle had left, which had upset him, but what could he do? Start that damn conversation over again and hear again how Kyle was into him but couldn’t be with him? Right, that wasn’t what he wanted to do. So he went for food. He was walking out of the cafeteria with it when she did her little scene and he was left sort of staring at her. He could avoid that, but it was him and Adam sucked at avoiding things like that, so after she flopped on the bench he followed and looked down at her. “So...what was that about?”
Meg really wasn’t looking for company, let alone conversation, and let out a small groan on hearing the familiar voice. “What’s it look like it was ‘bout Adam?” she said, not moving her hands from her face.
“Like you’re pissed as fuck at your door,” Adam told her before climbing over her to sit on the back of the bench, heels of his shoes near her calves. “Could be off though.” He took a bite of his apple. She didn’t seem like she wanted to talk to him, but he wasn’t about to just leave her here alone with the cameras out. Middle of the day or not.
“Perceptive ain’t cha?” she shot back, proving Adam wasn’t the only one capable of being unnecessarily sarcastic. It was telling though that as much as she might not have wanted to talk, she shifted her legs over a little to give him more room and let her hands slip back to fall behind her head so she could peer up at him. “And you still look like shit by the way, ‘case ya didn’t know.”
“That is what I do,” Adam said with a nod. He was painfully perceptive. Like how he noticed the way she moved, giving him space. “Face still hurts so I’m guessing yes I still look like shit.” He touched one of the bruises which was still slightly tender. “You ain’t looking that much better,” he told her, raising one eyebrow. “What was that anyway? Stabbing some woman?”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Lines like that it’s a wonder you don’t have all the girls chasing after you,” she replied. “‘sides, I look a fuck ton better than she does and she didn’t spend three days stewing down in detention so yay for me.” At his question, she fixed him with a look and, had it not seemed like far too much effort, would have folded her arms over her chest. “It was a fight and she lost, figure you of all people should be able to suss that out Mr Let’s Pick A Fight With Someone Bigger Than Me.”
“Not really into any of the girls around, so I’m not worried,” Adam said, before looking at her. “No offense. Obviously.” He took another bite of the apple. “I thought he hurt Becka and he’s a douchebag. It was a good idea until he decided to pummel me.”
“None taken,” she said with a shrug and there really wasn’t - Meg wasn’t a vain person on her best days and she hadn’t had one of them in a good long while. She also couldn’t help but nod a little in approval at the justification Adam had for his own fight, a wry smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “They always seem like a good idea at first even when deep down you know it’s a bad one.”
“Well at least he got punished for something this time,” Adam said with a darker turn to his voice. He was still upset about too many things to not let that bit of emotion slip through.
Meg wasn’t so wrapped up in herself that she missed the shift in Adam’s tone and her expression grew serious. “Am I missin’ somethin’ here?” she asked, confusion evident. “‘cause I’ll agree with ya that he seems like a douchebag but there ain’t exactly a shortage of them in the world, what’s he done aside from hand you your ass and play the victim card for doing it.” Which had definitely marked him down as a tool in her mind.
He looked over at Meg. “You saw the messages go around right?” he asked her. “That was Becka that got hurt.” He shook his head. “I can prove it. But he was talking about helping her when she was wasted and I just...it made uncomfortable.”
“Shit, that was Unicorn?” she exclaimed and straight away felt guilty for using Dom’s nickname for Becka now that the reason for it had been ripped away. “I didn’t know...have you told Wu ‘bout this?”
“Unicorn?” Adam asked, frowning at Meg. He shook his head and bit at his lip for a moment. “I told Jae. I told Aaron. So now we see if the cops do their job.”
“A nickname Dom gave her before they took him, one that’s in pretty bad taste now.” Really she was just grateful that Becka had graduated so she wouldn’t be able to call her by it an unthinking moment. The mention of cops had her scoffing a little, unlike Wu they had done nothing to earn her faith, but now the older man was effectively running their little asylum she wasn’t about to give up on justice being delivered. “Here’s hoping,” she said.
Adam frowned at he thought about it, chewing on another bite of apple until it hit him. “Because...oh fuck.” He ran his hand through his hair which was starting to actually look like hair again. “God that should have been me not him.” He’d thought of that for a while now. Since he knew. How he could have changed things with better luck. “Here’s hoping yeah.”
“Were you two a thing then?” Meg asked, selfishly glad to push her own issues aside a while to focus on Adam and the stuff she had somehow managed to miss.
“No. Not really. It wasn’t going to work out probably. I’ve got my own issues. And...feelings for someone else. But it got heavy once. It could have gone there. Maybe. I don’t know, I just hate that for her.” He ran his hand over his face and sighed. “Not much of a thing.”
“There don’t need a lot to be a thing,” she pointed out. “Even if it didn’t work out, there was still somethin’ otherwise you wouldn’t care like you do. Not that I’m any kind of expert on relationships...”
“You’re at least in one. Steps ahead of me. And I am in the process of fucking up the tiny shred of hope at the next one.” Which really wasn’t hope, but that was part of it. “So yeah maybe there was something there.”
Expression turning to rueful, Meg’s eyes dropped and instinctively she brought her hands in front of her and began twisting her wedding ring. “A relationship the universe seems dead set against happenin’,” she said quietly. Even with everything that had happened to her and Dom though, she wouldn’t have traded it in for anything so she couldn’t help feeling for Adam who was clearly longing for something. “What makes ya so sure you’ve fucked it up?”
Adam looked over at her, frowning a little. “Was it always like that or just before getting arrested?” he asked. At her question he shook his head. “Just...he’s not interested.” And every time Adam got close and got his hopes up Kyle reminded him how wrong he was.
“‘s never stopped being like it, ever since the start. Didn’t matter so much before tho, when we were actually together. ‘s why we got the ink we did, the two us together against whatever shit got thrown our way.” She let out a shaky sigh and looked back up at Adam, attempting a wry smile which fell more than a little flat. “Ain’t that hard for everyone though so don’t let my sob story put you off. And ‘sides it doesn’t sound to me like you fucked up, ‘s not your fault he’s not interested is it?”
“You don’t think you’ll wind up together again?” Adam asked, looking over at her Meg. He felt bad for her. He’d seen how hard she’d taken everything since Dom had been removed. At her question he shrugged one shoulder, something half hearted as he tugged at the stem on the apple. “No. But I kind of wish I was different or things were different and I can’t make them that way. I need to stop getting my hopes up every thirty seconds.”
“I want us to, I hope for it every fuckin’ day that they’ll bring him back.” She couldn’t afford not to hope because the reality of never seeing Dom was one she knew she wasn’t capable of dealing with. “But wishing won’t get either of us anywhere, just gotta focus on the stuff we can do, the shit we can deal with.” The look she gave Adam was a sympathetic one though despite the sharpness of her words and she gave his feet a gentle nudge with her leg.
Adam continued to twist the stem of the apple while she spoke until it snapped off and he didn’t have anything else to mess with. Flicking the broken stem away he shrugged. “So what shit can we deal with?” he asked instead, nudging her back with his heel.
Meg gave a little shrug of her own and let her head fall back so she was gazing up at the clouds. “That’s the trick ain’t it?” she replied. “Me I got farmin’ to do, a shitty cleanin’ job, hell maybe I’ll even try learn somethin’...” And there was still the matter of finding her own answers, a thought that brought the anonymous message she’d received back to the front of her mind and she frowned a little.
Adam nodded. “And I have unpaid patrol rounds and a bar to help run.” It was a start, but it still wasn’t much. He’d rather have the Kyle things sorted out properly. “What are you thinking of learning?” he asked, but frowned when she did. “What’s wrong?” Because there was no missing that.
There was a moment of debate with herself where Meg considered shrugging off Adam’s concern and just answering his first question but instead she found herself wanting someone’s opinion and before she had a chance to think it over, she was talking again. “How important do ya think findin’ the truth is?” she asked, eyes still fixed on the sky overhead.
That had Adam going even more quiet than before, looking at the apple in his hands instead of her. It was a loaded question for him in a way, possibly even more so for him than others. He didn’t know a lot of his own truths and was left with nightmares and his imagination to fill in the gaps. “Pretty important,” he settled on in the end. “I wish I knew the truth about a few things.”
When he took his time to reply, Meg shifted her gaze back to his face, frowning slightly as she tried to work out what he might be thinking. It was his expression she saw there as much as the answer he eventually gave that convinced her that Adam had been the right person to ask, that he understood a little of what she was feeling even if he had no way of knowing the specifics. “What would ya be willing to do to get it if you could?”
That was another loaded question and this time he took a bite of the apple, chewing it over both physically and mentally. “A lot,” he said after he swallowed. “An awful lot. In some ways...I think I have a right to know.”
“Even if ya knew ya might get hurt? That the truth could be something ya don’t wanna hear?” She pushed herself up onto her elbows as she spoke, Wu’s warning about not liking the answers she might find echoing through her head.
He watched her for a long moment then nodded. “Yeah, yeah I would want to know. Changes how I think of myself.” Which was the biggest part. “And sometimes it hurts and it’s not what you want to hear, but like...I think it’s better knowing Ky doesn’t want things rather than hoping.”
Meg nodded, her mind made up. “Yeah, me too,” she said quietly, more to herself than it was to Adam. Then the rest of what he’d said clicked into place and the surprise was enough to pull her away from her mysterious meeting leaving her staring up at Adam with a faint look of disbelief. “Wait, Ky as in Kyle?”
“Are you supposed to be finding something out?” Adam asked because it was better than the blush that creeped onto his cheeks at her question. He looked away from her, half shrugging his shoulders again. “Yeah...”
“Why they took Dom away,” she replied, giving both the simplest and least loaded answer possible, not ready or willing to admit to him her own culpability in what had happened yet. But just as Adam had latched onto questioning her to avoid his own embarrassment, so did she. “So Kyle just wants to be friends then?” she asked, having been able to piece that much together from what he had said already. “I mean I know you guys are pretty tight.”
“Why? Did you ask?” he asked her instead, really not wanting to go into Kyle things, but really, who else was he going to go into them with? Autumn had an idea that things would be fine if they’d talked about it, Maize was stoked for him and really, it left Adam out in the cold on his own in the world where it didn’t work. “Yeah, he says he can’t do anything right now. It’d have to be serious or something.” He shrugged. “He’s my best friend, so yeah, we are.”
Meg nodded, shifting herself so she was sitting up properly and pulling her legs up beneath her. “Yeah and it was like pullin’ teeth trying to get answers from ‘em. Still ain’t got everythin’ I wanna know either and you know how long ago that shit went down. ‘s a loada bull Adam, I’m tellin’ you so I’m lookin’ for ma own answers instead.”
“And where exactly are you looking?” Adam asked, fine with not lingering on Kyle because that was a dead horse that didn’t need to be beaten again. Kyle wasn’t interested. End of story.
“Wherever I might find ‘em, I can’t deal with not knowin’ anymore.” She let out a long exhale and pushed her hair back from her face, the curls turning to a fine frizz due to the moisture in the air which she attempted to pull back with the band around her wrist. “You do what ya gotta do to find the truth right?”
“Yeah but what are you looking at doing? Sounds like a lot more than just asking around,” Adam said, frowning more.
Meg just scowled right back. “What I have to Adam,” she replied, defensiveness creeping into her voice; she’d thought that he had understood. “That means me gettin’ hurt fine, it means someone else gettin’ hurt I don’t care. ‘s not like I’m a good person is it?” And with that she swung her legs off the bench fully intending to walk away.
Adam didn’t let her get away though, one hand out to grip her shoulder lightly, keeping her there. “Meg. Be careful. The truth is important, but if something happens to you, what’s the use?”
“I ain’t lookin’ to get myself killed Adam,” she said, tugging herself free from his grasp but not yet walking away, instead turning to face him. “All the shit I’ve been through in my life, this isn’t gonna be the thing that ends me, I won’t let it. I just sure as fuck ain’t gonna let it hang over my head no more.”
He watched her, hard, considering everything before nodding. “Alright then. If you need back up, let me know alright?” Because it didn’t seem right to send her into things on her own without at least offering to help.
The words ‘come alone’ flashed through her thoughts and Meg dropped her head. “Yeah I will,” she said, hoping the statement sounded more convincing to Adam than it did to her own ears. “‘ppreciate the offer.” She forced herself to look back up then and offered him a crooked smile. “Thanks for the talk.” That at least was genuine.
He didn’t believe her, but he got it. Maybe she didn’t want his help. “Any time,” he told her, about the talk because he could tell she meant that. “Let me know how it goes okay?”
“Sure,” she replied, turning and heading in the direction of the kitchen, only to pause and glance back. “And Adam? Sounds to me like Kyle ain’t saying never so maybe it ain’t wishes you need granting, just a little patience.” She smiled again, something warmer this time, and with a wave headed off on her way.