It's not just black and white
Characters: Adam and Charlie Setting: Kitchen, B Block, midday
Adam was feeling better after his conversation with Hunter. Maybe Wren’s cards were right. New people, new path. The whole ‘moving on completely’ from Kyle part was harder to digest, but at least he kept from going back to his room to see what Kyle was doing. No, instead he just loitered around until he was supposed to meet Charlie for lunch. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to this, but Charlie saying it was for Wren was motivation enough. He cared about Wren enough to try. Charlie arrived when he had said he would, being a generally punctual type person. He was hardly enthusiastic about this meeting, but he knew Wren would want him to do this, and that was enough for him. He would try just damndest with Adam. "Hey," he greeted as he headed into the kitchen. It was weird, seeing the other man dressed in his clothes. "How's it going?"
Adam considered the question then nodded. “Doing better than I was.” Which was honest. Meeting Hunter had helped with that, so had stalking Kyle. He needed to tell Kyle he could see him, because otherwise it was going to get creepy, but the feeling was still there, reassuring that he could check in on him. “And I think my shoulders are bigger than yours,” he added pointing to wear Charlie’s shirt clung a little more than his clothes normally would. Though he wasn’t exactly the type to wear anything that fit properly.
Charlie bit back a few highly sarcastic comments which sprung to mind and instead shrugged. "Glad to hear you're doing better. No offence, but you looked like shit yesterday." Casting his eyes over Adam's clothes, he held back on commentary. The top appeared to fit just fine. It simply wasn't as loose as the younger guy often wore them.
“Hard not to be offended by that one,” Adam said shaking his head. “But lucky for you I’m feeling better than I was.” He’d made a new friend and for the moment he was hanging in there. “How about you? Doing okay?”
"Well, I think this whole thing is bullshit. But I've pretty much thought that since I arrived here, so..." Charlie offered up.
Adam frowned. “You do know this bullshit got you Wren back right?” he said, heading towards the fridge to look for something to eat. “But you’re right. It probably is. The moving thing was for sure.”
Charlie quirked a smile. "Even bullshit can have its perks," he joked. "I can't see any legitimate reason for this whole moving crap. Dividing us down the middle like this? Definitely kicking us out of our rooms, with most of us without a hope of being able to get our stuff back? That's bullshit. It's got nothing all to do with 'community'."
“I’m sure there’s some sort of game they’re playing, but since I’ve only got a high school degree, I’m going to assume I’m not smart enough to figure it out.” He had done decent in school, but by the time he graduated Jeffrey had him headed into that life instead of college.
"Not gonna be able to help you out anymore than that," Charlie said, ruefully. "College dropout myself. But assuming you can work this whole thing out, at any level of intelligence, would be assuming this place isn't run by psychopathic madmen."
Adam found things for sandwiches and set them out on the counter. “Well the notes did say things about meeting new people and they left us in a spot where we had to share or we’d still have people walking around in their underwear. So who knows. Not saying they’re normal, but I’d do better if they were less nuts because I could use getting out of here properly over going back to prison.”
Charlie considered that, then asked, "What was it like? Mainstream prison? They sent me straight here. I never had to deal with any of that."
Adam looked up surprised, not expecting that Charlie hadn’t gone to any prison at all. “Um. It was hell...” His eyes ducked away, looking down at the bread in his hand. “I was a target. And when my nightmares woke people up, they dropped me in solitary. Or when I was attacked.”
"Shit," Charlie breathed. He might not like Adam, but he wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy. "Man... How long were you there for?" he asked.
“Almost two years,” Adam said. He’d been twenty, just barely. “So yeah, this and all this stupidity is much better than being...” The word was there on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say it. Raped. He was silent for a moment then tried to straighten his shoulders, looking through food to find what would work for him to eat. “It’s nice to have some control back. Even there, I couldn’t decide what I could eat or when I gave my insulin. Or if I could sleep.” He shook his head. “I’m not going back.”
"Good plan," Charlie agreed. He still didn't believe that he deserved to be locked up at all, but given that a jury hadn't agreed with him, he was grateful that he hadn't had to go through anything like that.
"I got the chance a few days back. To go back, have a retrial and maybe get my conviction overturned." Adam wasn't sure why he was telling Charlie of all people, but the words were there. "I decided to stay. Not risk what could happen if I went back." And he had Wren and Kyle here. They were worth staying for.
"I guess all things are relative, right? Given a choice: where you were, where you are... Sounds like that's not much of a choice. Retrial though? There new evidence or something?" he asked. He didn't know much about Adam's case, and he was cautious about asking. The other man could be so damn touchy.
"Not much of a choice." Adam looked towards Charlie for a moment. "More, there would be evidence. There might even be an investigation. I don't think I did it. And...I guess confessing because I was told to and threatened doesn't mean I did either."
"Sounds like you got a really shitty deal, all in all," Charlie offered. "You really got cornered into confessing to someone else's crime?" he asked. He shook his head. "Fuck, how many damn innocent people are there actually here?" A thought occurred to him and he chuckled, dryly. "Maybe that's part of their plan. Stick a load of innocents in here, people who aren't really a threat to society. Get them through the program, then crow about the results after."
Adam nodded. "I did. They weren't people you cross." He looked over at Charlie. "Are there that many people who are innocent?" Kyle came to mind, but Adam also knew that Kyle would deny that. "Because I don't think that's the case."
Charlie shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know that many people here. But there's you and there's Wren for starters. So I figure either there's a fair few in the mix, or a really strange coincidence that I know the only two innocents in here. Balance of probabilities and a hefty dose of cynicism has me betting the former."
Adam nodded. "I know at least two others who aren't in for the right crimes," he said. "But Mazie's guilty, hacker stuff or not. And Becka, the one that graduated, she was guilty. So, I think it just depends."
Charlie frowned. "Aren't in for the right crimes? How's that work then?" he asked, a little confused. Things tended to be black and white for Charlie. Good, bad. Right, wrong. Guilty... Or innocent.
"Yeah. Like bigger charges than what they deserved. Or being in for killing someone when it probably should be drug dealing instead." Adam was thinking of Kyle. "Things aren't always clear cut. That's why they dropped my rape charges."
"So, what did they get you on instead? Not that I guess it matters, given you didn't do it." Which Charlie actually believed. Adam might have been a lot of things, but a liar wasn't one of them.
"Kidnapping and manslaughter," Adam said, his tone plain as if he'd accepted it a long time ago. There wasn't much a of a point in lying, but really, Charlie was right in his thinking: Adam wasn't much a of a liar.
Charlie whistled, lowly. "No wonder they wanted someone else to take the fall." A kidnapping charge in itself was bad enough, Charlie had personal experience of that, but murder on top. Yeah, Charlie really couldn't see Adam being guilty at all. It was almost laughable, the idea that this guy had been put forward as a killer.
"I was the obvious suspect. She left my birthday party with me and wasn't seen again. And I didn't remember." He'd woken up three days later and she'd been dead and the cops were at his door before he even realized something was wrong.
"So you were the obvious suspect. They twisted your arm. And, of course, the cops didn't bother looking any further, because the cops never do," he said, dryly. He didn't hold the police force in particularly high esteem. Not after the things he'd seen over the years. Top of that list being what they had done to Wren. "It'd be terrible if actually getting the right person got in the way of that twinkie diet, right? Anything for an easy life, and you pleading guilty gave them that easy life. Another statistic for the politicians to crow about."
"They threatened my family," Adam said looking over at the other man. "It wasn't the cops being lazy, it was me confessing. They had every right to think I did it. I thought I might have done it. Even now, knowing more, seeing it from a different angle? I still worry."
"A confession's not the be-all and end-all, you know," Charlie pointed out. "If the rest of the evidence doesn't add up, a confession's not worth anything. The cops should still have bee looking at the rest of the evidence, to see if it supported your story. It's their job to protect the innocent - and that would include you. Someone threatened your family to get you to confess to something you didn't do. The cops should have protected you from that. They didn't. So either you're guilty like you say you think you could be. Or they failed you."
Adam made a face. "That's how you see things huh?" It was very black and white. Far more than Adam tended to see things, but he'd lived in that shade of gray for a long while.
Charlie nodded. "Yeah, that's how I see things," he agreed.
Adam nodded. "It's not really right, but sure. Go for it." He figured he deserved credit for nothing being snarky for the first half of the conversation at least.
"So, tell me what's right," Charlie encouraged.
"Something where things aren't so one or the other!" Adam heard his voice rise, but managed to check it for the next comment. "I lived with the son of a crime family. The cops didn't take a break they thought they got the right guy. They had no way of knowing I was threatened. The world isn't just one thing or another, right or wrong. People aren't just good or bad."
Charlie considered that. He was quiet for a long while before he said, quietly, "Do you not wish they'd looked deeper anyway? That they'd tried to corroborate your story. Maybe they would have found out what really happened. You would never have had to go through any if this."
Adam didn't answer for a long moment either. "For a long time I believed I could have been capable of it. They convinced me I could have done it." He paused looking at his hands. "A girl died Charlie. Slowly. Painfully. And what if they never found out who did it? I'm still responsible. If she hadn't hooked up with me she might have gone home with her friends and been safe." He shrugged a little. "I just don't know what they could have done. I was scared for my grandmother and scared of people I knew were dangerous. Maybe I could have been safe but what about everyone else?"
"I don't blame you for doing what you did," Charlie said, seriously. "Sometimes life puts us in shitty situations, and all we can do is take the choice that seems to be best at the time. And we get screwed over because of things other people did. If you didn't kill that girl, then you're not to blame for her death. If she hadn't hooked up with you... So what. You could just as easily say if she'd just stayed with you she'd be okay. Seriously, man, you can't live life by 'what ifs'. You didn't kill her, then you didn't cause her death. Forgive yourself for that. You've really got to, or it'll eat you up."
Except she'd been walked into a den of monsters. She'd been left there because Adam had let his normal control go and hadn't been functioning enough to stop whoever took her or hurt her. "Not everyone gets to play the hero Chuck. Most of us are just bad guys in disguise. Maybe I earned it eating me up for being stupid enough to think I belonged where I was. Just like I was stupid enough to think I'd be happy here." Adam shook his head and abandoned his attempts at lunch. He wasn't hungry now.
"None of us are heroes," Charlie corrected. "You seemed damn sure I wasn't one before. I made a choice and people died. I have to live with that as well. I had to have a hell of a lot of therapy to be able to deal with the choices I made... Something that I'm betting you haven't had the benefit of." He paused, frowning slightly. "This about yesterday? Or more to it than that?" he asked, figuring Adam would tell him to fuck off if he overstepped.
"I don't think you are but you act like you think you are. That you're only doing what's right for everyone and you're never wrong. That's what makes you so goddamn annoying. You don't know us." Adam shook his head at mention of therapy. "No. I started with the doc here, Autumn helps sometimes but...no." He was a shattered mess of a human being. "It's more than yesterday. Yesterday was just a bonus level of shitty added on to a whole life of it." And now he sounded massively depressed. Which he was starting to feel. Fucking Charlie.
"I... I've spent most of my adult life trying to help people," Charlie said, deciding to forego the addition of 'even when they don't know they need help'. He doubted Adam would appreciate that. "The attitude is habit. I don't think I'm a hero, but I'll stand up for my friends, and I'll express my opinion. Sorry to hear you're having a bad time of it. I thought here was better than where you were...." He rolled his eyes. "Are people giving you a hard time? Is there anything I can do?" Which would probably come across to Adam as him trying to okay the hero again, but whatever.
"Most of your adult life? How old are you?" Adam made a face and shook his head. "No dad people are not bothering me. It's better than where I was because I'm not constantly afraid someone's gonna assault me or rape me or whatever. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows either. Just...stop. You aren't going to make me one of your projects."
"You're really damn stubborn, you know that? Was just offering help, even a listening ear, but if you don't want it... Fine."
"You'd still try and fix me. I don't want my best friend's boyfriend trying to fix me." Adam made another face then stepped away. He really wanted to leave now. He knew Wren wouldn't be pleased but he wasn't going to be chummy with Charlie.
Charlie held his hands up and leaned back. "Okay, I won't do a thing. You're safe from my interference."
Doubt it. Adam managed to bit his tongue on the comment for now. "Look, I'm not really hungry. I never am after talking about that stuff. I'm just...gonna go."
"Sure. I'll see you around," Charlie told him, already thinking on what he was going to say to Wren.
Adam just turned and left, focusing more on not running back to his room, no Charlie's room, and not on how badly that had gone or all the memories he'd drudged up from the depths of his own mind.