Doesn't Add Up Characters: Adam and Aaron Setting: On patrol, evening, block B
Adam was still somewhat down on himself when it was time for him to meet Aaron for patrols, but he was doing his best to hide it. The problem was though, he wasn’t nearly as good at that as others were, so it still showed in the lackluster of his eyes and the roll of his shoulders. It didn’t stop him from meeting Aaron where they’d agreed, ready to keep on patrol and make sure that no one else got hurt. Especially since as of yet, nothing had said the cameras were back online.
Aaron was already waiting for Adam when he turned up, and he nodded a brusque greeting, noting that the other man looked less than enthusiastic about this whole thing. From what they had talked about before, Aaron doubted that that had anything to do with the patrol. He assumed that it was the situation at large - and in that, Adam wouldn’t be alone.
Adam tried to square his shoulders more even though he didn’t quite get there. “Anything go wrong yet?” he asked looking up at Aaron, hands tucked in his pockets. The cameras were out after all.
“Well, that's a sweeping question,” Aaron commented, dryly and with a touch of humour in there, though not a huge amount. “At the moment, there’s nothing you need to know,” he said. Which wasn’t the same as ‘nothing is wrong’, but it was what Aaron was willing to commit himself to.
“Nothing I need to know? That sounds like a ‘yes’,” Adam pointed out, not looking amused at being kept in the dark. “Seriously, what’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that the cameras are still out,” Aaron replied. “And what else is going on is that you’ve got it into your head that the world’s gonna end and you’re looking for evidence of that. Now, if I tell you that everything’s fine, and it turns out that something’s gone on - anything’s gone on, whether or not I was privy to it or not, or maybe that hasn’t even happened yet - then you’re gonna take that as it being that you can’t trust the people that are meant to be dealing with security here. So, what I’m saying is that there is nothing going on that I can tell you about.”
Adam made a face, mostly out of frustration. “And saying that you can’t tell me about anything doesn’t seem slightly untrustworthy when you word it like that?” he asked. For a moment he went through what Aaron had said then nodded. “But you’re really trying to say is I am supposed to trust you. Beyond the few conversations we’ve had. Why is that again? I’m not trying to be a punk but...why did you want to do this? Be a cop among criminals?” Adam realized he was being a pain, but if they were talking about Aaron, they weren’t talking about Adam.
“Because people voted me into the position,” Aaron told him. “When they put the suggestions up, you may recall that I actually posted to tell people I didn’t want the job. But if they voted for me even knowing that, I was going to do it to the best of my ability.” Which was a substantial amount of ability, all things considered. More than most people appreciated. “You guys voted for me, and here I am. A cop amongst criminals.”
“You could have said no. We voted Kyle into working at the shop and he turned that down flat,” Adam said with a shrug before he started walking in a direction, assuming they were planning on moving at some point. “Why didn’t you want it?”
“Look, someone’s got to do this job. I wasn’t going to turn it down if that’s what people wanted, even knowing I’m a miserable son of a bitch,” Aaron told him. “As for - I didn’t want it because, honestly, who would? The kinds of people who are in here aren’t exactly fans of people they see as cops. Like you - what’s your opinion of the police?” he asked.
Adam thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “Don’t like them. But I was friends with a crime family and tended to attend the kind of parties they shut down,” he said. “And then I got arrested and....yeah, not the best. But...well the police weren’t the bad guys in my arrest.”
“Who were the bad guys?” Aaron asked, not commenting on the fact that, generally speaking, the police were never the bad guys.
Adam looked over at Aaron then up around them. The cameras were off, they were alone...there wasn’t much reason to keep the secret. “My friends. They suggested I take the blame for what I was arrested for or else and I still don’t know if I actually did it.” It felt good to say it, get it out there in the open like that.
Aaron snorted. “Some friends.” He had, however, noted the way the guy had looked around before confessing to that. “Guess they didn’t actually give you a choice in that then? And because you confessed, and you’d already been a suspect, the cops stopped digging?” He paused before adding. “Why don’t you know whether you actually did it or not?” he asked. There was also the whole question of ‘what did you do’, but they’d get to that.
“Not a real one,” Adam admitted with a shrug. “And they were the type to make good on it.” No one fucked around with Jeffrey’s family. “I don’t remember. I lost like...three days. When I came to the cops were at my door.”
“What happened?” Aaron asked, his tone softening a little, changing slightly subtly encourage Adam to respond. It was something the large man did now without conscious thought, long years of questioning the victims of crime, of making himself sound approachable, even if he didn’t necessarily look it.
Adam looked over at Aaron, noting that change in his voice and really thinking it didn’t fit the man at all. “The girl I hooked up with at a party was kidnapped then strangled. I was the last person she was seen with.” His voice was quiet. It had been a few days at least since he’d gone into really talking about his conviction and bringing it to the forefront of his mind always pulled Adam in on himself.
“You take something at the party?” Aaron asked him as they turned a corner and carried on walking.
Adam looked back at Aaron and shrugged again. “Yeah.” Probably a lot of somethings. “I wasn’t...not like that. Not that much.”
“But enough to lose you three days,” Aaron pointed out, mildly.
“That had never happened before,” Adam insisted. “But it did and I have no idea what happened. I wish I did.”
“So maybe someone slipped you something you’d never had before. Who was the girl? Anyone significant?” he asked.
“Maybe.” Adam shrugged a little. He thought about her for a moment, mind flashing between the real memories of kissing her and the nightmares that were supplemented with the help of crime scene photos. “Not really. Just a cute girl at my birthday party.”
Aaron nodded a little at that. “Your friends - they actually put it like that ‘take the blame’, not ‘admit what you did’?” he asked.
Adam rubbed the back of his neck. “They sent me a lawyer. The moment we were alone he told me someone had to take the blame. That I was doing it or else. When I agreed he went into lawyer mode again and got me a good deal.”
“You didn’t do it,” Aaron said, not changing pace at all. “One of your friends did. One of the family. If you did it, the lawyer would have told you to confess. Not to take the blame. Doesn’t line up. So, either they didn’t know who did it - which I doubt very much, if it happened at a party, and if your friends were the kind of people that I figure they were from what you’ve said - or they know damn well who did it, and someone else needed to take the fall to cover it up, no questions asked.”
Adam felt himself blanch a little, pace slowing enough that he fell a few steps behind. “I...what?” Just like that, it wasn’t him? After all this time? This guy didn’t even know him.
Aaron stopped and turned to face him. “Adam - the story you just told me stinks of a cover up. That, or someone was framing you but unless your friends had reason to want to get you out of the way, and for some reason they didn’t want the certainty of a shallow grave involved, I’m going with cover up. The kinds of people you say you ran with, wouldn’t be the first time, won’t be the last.”
Twice Adam opened his mouth to answer and twice the words just didn’t come. He took a moment, thinking it over and even if he didn’t mean for it to, not in front of this guy, something snapped. Tears were stupid and weak but they were in his eyes almost instantly. “I went through...do you have any idea...because of a lie.” He didn’t sound like he believed it, like it was too much to be true. He’d been repeatedly assaulted, he’d let himself believe he’d hurt someone for so long and now he was hearing it was obviously not true. “Who the fuck are you anyway? What do you know?” It came out angry, but the crack in his voice from the tears he was just barely keeping in took some of the sting out of his words.
Aaron could imagine what someone like Adam had been through in prison. There was a reason that Aaron looked the way he did now, after all. “Did you honestly believe you’d done it?” he asked Adam, looking at him kindly. What a fucking harsh deal to be dealt. At least Aaron knew he hadn’t done what he’d been convicted of. At least he could prepare himself for knowing his life was ruined because someone decided to lie.
Adam shrugged, rubbing at his still bruised cheek. “I worried I might have. That I could have. Even the lawyer, after he threatened me, he said I didn’t know so how could I say I hadn’t.” For a moment his lower lip quivered, eyes downcast as he fought against the tears. It took longer than he would have liked but somehow he swallowed past that large lump in his throat. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You’re still afraid I’m bullshitting you, aren’t you?” Aaron said. “I’m just a guy who’s seen a lot of crime. I know how people like the ones you describe work.” Aaron wasn’t going to admit to being a cop - let Adam assume that he had been heavily involved in organised crime if he wanted. Aaron figured he looked like the enforcer type now, and his self-made prison ink certainly supported the idea he had been in and out of jail most of his life.
“No. Yes. Maybe. I just don’t get how you’d know.” Though talking about knowing people like Adam had, that made sense at just first glance of the guy but...he didn’t talk like them. It wasn’t much, but the overall vibe just didn’t fit with the guys who looked like Aaron that Adam knew. “You’re like some sort of self-made prison lawyer,” he said finally shaking his head and forcing himself to start moving again. He could think about the world falling out from under him later.
Aaron chuckled darkly at that. “Yeah, well, sometimes it ends up that way,” he said, not accepting or denying anything there. He started up to walk beside Adam.
Adam made a face. “Kind of a strange way to just end up,” he said, not quite looking up and focusing more on wiping away the last of his tears.
“You think?” he asked, not looking at Adam, giving him the semblance of privacy to get his shit together again.
It wasn’t much but it was a whole lot more to hone in on than his own issues and Adam latched onto it completely, attacking the question with a gusto it really didn’t require. “Well yeah. I mean the guys in prison who became the scholars and the lawyers, they were all that way because they wanted to be. They found God or had some idea to be better. The way things ‘end up’ is more like, the guys who end up in gangs because they don’t have other choices.”
“Well, I guess that’s me - breaking free of the pack,” Aaron said, blandly.
This time Adam did look over at Aaron. “Riiight.” Because nothing about this guy’s look said ‘go against the grain’.
Aaron looked over then, glad to see that the other man seemed to have got rid of the traces of tears. “No?” he asked, giving Adam a look that said that he dared him to actively contradict him with more than sarcastically phrased words.
Adam just barely didn’t flinch at that look. It boiled down to a decision his body made, not to show how he felt about it. Sure, he sounded one way, but Aaron looked as intimidating as it got. “No,” Adam said finally shaking his head which kept him from looking at Aaron, but wasn’t looking away. “You don’t look the part. Something’s...not lining up.”
“That’s life,” Aaron said, all pleasantry disappearing from his tone.
That shut Adam up, not so much what Aaron said, but the tone. He didn’t think it was just life, but he didn’t want to upset a guy who looked like he could crush him more than Ryan had.
Aaron fell silent after that, stalking along as much as walking. He’d allowed Adam to get too close, he’d gotten too involved. He was slipping back into his old life and role too easily now that he had his position here. He needed to keep in mind that whilst people might put up with ‘law enforcement’, that didn’t mean that they would be okay with ‘cop’.