#its all gunna go to hell when adam finds out about megan

[crystaldwightsworld]

Adam, post surgery, on medical leave...

So... I’ve got this whole, weird, crazy, obviously non canon idea in my head for something I wanna do.

It’s obvious that Adam is struggling even after the 6 months of medical leave Sarif has given him but what’s been on my mind is, what’s he been doing in the 6 months prior?

Surely, drinking up a storm, smoking and eating massive amounts of cereal to try and manage to cope but I can’t imagine the amount of pain he must have been in in adjusting to his augmentations. I mean, severe pain, agony and anguish. Not to mention the clear breakdown he has the first night he gets home from the clinic. I’m talking a severe breakdown, crying, beating on the wall of his shower, wailing, angry and pained tears. It’s all he can do on most days other than get out of bed. He’s fallen to the bottom pit of a depressive state that he can’t even be bothered to clean up after himself (i.e. the piles of empty cereal bowls strewn about counter tops and tables, unpacked belongings, etc), let alone look at himself (the first broken mirror). Adam loathes his augs, suffers greatly with body dysphoria now that more than half his body is gone and replaced with mechanical limbs he never consented to but on top of all of it, his ex-girlfriend is gone, whom he was really good friends with even after the break up. Even his dog is gone.

He’s become aware of how serious his neglect is getting. As much as he’d like to handle it on his own and as much as he prefers being a loner, there’s a big part of him that knows he can’t, especially when he has more days where he just wants nothing more than to lay in bed. So, he hires somebody. A maid in such words but she’s more like a house sitter but also called on to be a caregiver for Adam, to Adam. Her name is Adley and even though Adam isn’t quite sure at first with how young she is (she’s 24, yes, major age difference, if that bothers you, then I understand) she adheres and abides by his politely requested rules in keeping his apartment tidy and kempt following in keeping an eye on him, his health and his daily exercises in adjusting with his augs. It’s a long, grueling six months for them both but she’s been better than he would have ever asked for. She’s extremely mindful in keeping his privacy in mind, knocks on the door before entering, doesn’t touch anything she’s not supposed to or rearranging his possessions, keeps his extensive collection of cereals in stock, makes sure he takes his medicine and eats all while being even as quiet as he is, unless she’s playing music that she politely asks to play while she works on her surroundings, trip-hop she called it, some bands he’s never heard of, massive attack and unkle (to which he’s caught her on more than one occasion dancing to while she worked, and yes, he finds it rather cute). He appreciates her but doesn’t quite know how to show or tell her. She does more for him other than provide a service.

Adley, on the other hand, likes Adam, has grown to admire him. Like, really likes him although it’s something she’d never admit to anyone. She genuinely cares for him and his well being and has shown it to him, even in his supposed unawareness of it (i.e. covering him with a blanket after he’s fallen asleep on the couch or in his bed, closing the door and hardly bothering him on days where his pain levels are too much to handle, chatting with him in the early hours of the morning through messenger or skype when he can’t sleep, sending him memes she knows he’d find funny). Adam’s augmentations don’t bother her but when she shows up one afternoon after Adam’s taken off to an appointment at a LIMB clinic, she discovers just how serious his self loathe really is when she finds the mirror in his bathroom shattered to pieces, cracked and broken with one perfectly shaped impact of what she thinks is his fist. It’s not hard for her to put two and two together. Adam hated himself and would rather destroy a reflective surface than catch a glimpse of himself in it. It breaks her heart, especially since she found him more than attractive, augs or no augs, she’d feel the same. She’d worked hard to gain Adam’s trust and now that she has it, she feels that she might be jeopardizing it by bringing up concerns.

It bothers her immensely to the point where her bother shifts quickly in worry with a desperate need to tell him, to show him that he shouldn’t... when he does. She brings it up after he arrives back, genuine concern laced in her voice when she questions him about it.

“The mirror... did you- did you break it?”

But, alas, the stoic that he was, he brushes if off immediately and claims that it was nothing. Claims that he’s fine. Retreats to the confines of his room with nothing more than a peep uttered, leaving Adley to her thoughts, confused and conflicted. She knows better than to push him on it.

It’s the third one he’s broken. He hadn’t meant for her to find it. Had forgotten completely that it was one of those days where she made her routine visits. But even then, the mirror still would have been there, she still would have noticed it. He spends nearly the rest of the evening, glaring and gawking at his handiwork, reflecting on the force of his punch, the anger in what was left of his veins, the ache still hiding behind his steel heart (literally). He doesn’t realize just how long he’s been sitting there lost in a daze until she knocks on the frame of his doorway, announcing that she was about to leave for the evening and asking if he needed anything. That was Adley. Always so sweet and kind, worried about him way before she’d be worried about herself. With shoulders still slumped and his back still to her, he finally manages to speak, the first words he’s spoken to her in hours.

“Adley, can I talk to you for a minute?” His raspy low voice asks to her. There’s absolutely no lilt or fall to his tone but her heart nearly sinks to her feet, so certain that this was going to be the last time she’d ever see him, that he was going to fire her. Either way, she steps into the room and makes her way over to him, standing a few feet away from him in waiting for his dismissal, her fingers anxiously fidgeting in her nervousness.

It’s a long, empty and barren silence between them before he finally turns to match her gaze. There was no point in ignoring it any longer.

“I broke the mirror.” He admits. His confession surprises her.

“You’re not firing me?” She asks, to his surprise.

“Of course not, why would I?” He asks, genuinely confused.

“I thought I- I-I don’t know, maybe I had over stepped a line or something.” She brings up, her voice breaking and cracking. She’s nervous, Adam senses. “Why did you break the mirror?”

Adam inhales and sighs heavily, stretching his lengthy legs out in front of him and combing his fingers through his hair. He takes one last quick glance at his destroyed mirror before reminding himself not to look at it and shifting his gaze back to Adley. She’s not expecting it when he retracts his eye shields. She’s never seen him without them.

“Because... because I hate these fucking augs, I hate looking at them, what they make me. They’re apart of me now and there’s nothing I can do about it. I almost died on that table, Adley. They say they saved my life but... with what they had to do to do it, with what they gave me... sometimes I wonder if I’d be better off dead. Should have let me die there. I can hardly stand to look at myself because that’s not me, that’s not... Adam. I- for fuck’s sake, I can’t even jack off, cannot get my goddamn rhythm back- I-” He pauses, realizing what he just said with his mind running rampant with thoughts, he hadn’t even thought twice about what he was saying. Adley still stood there, waiting and listening to him although was now doing a horrible job to hide the smile that had appeared on her lips.

It’s faint, hardly there at all but even in the dim light seeping through his blinds that was the Detroit night, she catches the grin that appears just ask quick as it vanishes, watching Adam close his eyes against the embarrassment.

“I-I’m sorry Adley, I’m sure you don’t wanna listen to me vent and rant.” Adam breaks the awkward silence.

“N-no Adam, it’s okay, really. I don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to keep you, if you need to leave-”

“No, I don’t but... Adam.” She says, her gaze lifting towards the bathroom where his broken mirror resided. He catches her glimpse. She has no idea how to put it into words, that his augmented limbs didn’t scare her, how much she adored him, how much she pondered and thought about him, immersed in fantasies and scenarios that would never happen...

“Can I try something? I mean, show you, I don’t know.” She asks him, wanting his permission. He nods. She wastes no time in making herself comfortable in front of him, between his now pulled up knees and... on hers before him. This is, this was highly, highly suggestive but he waits for her, enamored in her tiny frame in the darkness of his bedroom.

Her lacquered fingers lift cautiously and reach for his alloy plated hands. Augmented hands didn’t sense touch the exact same way skin did but either way, he could still feel her hands in his, her flesh chilled but cradling his carbon black fingers with a tenderness he had all but forgotten. She has no idea where this new found confidence was coming from but with her trust that she held with him, she’s not afraid to let her hand explore his forearm, letting his other touch her face as she pushes her cheek against his palm, almost lovingly all the while a gawking Adam stared at her, mouth slightly agape, his heart, artificial or not, thudding rampantly against the steel wall of his chest cavity. She... had no idea what this meant to him, what it felt like to be touched again. He’s so overwhelmed and fixated on her hands on him that he has to remember to tell himself to breathe.

“I don’t see the augs, Adam. I... only see you. Yes, apart of you may be gone, may have been taken from you but... this is still you, this is the Adam I know. Augs or no augs, I’d feel the same way. Trust me when I say that I don’t let just anybody near me like this, let alone touch. I don’t see a machine, a product. I see you, a man, my um- well my friend, I guess, if I’m being honest.” She tells him. Of course if she were really being honest, she’d tell him he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, that no one compared to him.

He may not show the emotion on his face but it’s written well in his eyes, glimmering in the low light and contracting in taking her in. They’d been close before but nothing like this, nothing intimate. Her hands move to his face, her skin grazing against his and goddamn, he could almost melt with the tiny brushes of her pinky fingers invading into his hair line.

“I can’t change the way you think or feel Adam but... next time, come to me maybe? You know I’m always okay to talk if you need to. A three in the morning skype call has never stopped you before, don’t let this stop you now. Not because you’re paying me but because I want to. That’s what people do when they care for each other. They help the other.”

He’s speechless, has absolutely no idea what to say but he words have touched him somewhere deep down in the wallows of his broken mind. And her hands on his face, he had forgotten what it was like to be touched again. As much as he’s fighting to hold them back, he can’t help the stray tears that roll down his prominent cheeks, Adley’s skinny long fingers brushing them away as she still cradled his face in her hands.

It’s quiet for some time between them, nothing but the sound of Adam’s breathing filling the empty silence. She’s not expecting anything, especially from Adam, he’s always been so guarded and blocked off and she’s more than used to it by now. It nearly knocks the breath out of her lungs when he pulls her to him, his arms hooked underneath her shoulders as he clung to her. She’s more than happy to reciprocate the hug, her arms wrapped around his waist and holding him close, this moment, she had played over so many times in her head yet it had never went this way. Adam was quiet as he held and hugged her to him but she doesn’t mind, even when his hold on her tightens. She’d stay there for as long as he needed her to.

“Stay with me.” His low voice whispers to her in the pregnant silence. Her eyes widen at his request. “Stay with me tonight. Please?” He pleads, his voice longing and desperate.

“Adam, I- I don’t have any clothes with me.” She reminds him.

“You can wear mine.” He offers. She smiles.

“I-I need to shower as well, I should really get going.”

“You can use my shower.” He assures her. Again, she smiles, huffing out a laugh. He pulls away to look at her, his fingers tangling and intertwining with hers. “Please, stay with me. I don’t want you to go.”

She can’t say no to that.

“Alright, Adam. I’ll stay.”

As much as he preferred being alone, he felt comforted to know that she’d be there in the morning with him. Maybe they could cuddle in bed together until noon, get up and make breakfast together. Well, she could teach him, at least.

“Well, if I’m gunna be staying here, we need to figure out the food situation. I don’t know about you but I’m starving. You wanna order take out?” Adley suggests, pulling away and standing.

“What, no cereal?” Adam chides.

“Adam, I am not eating cereal for dinner!” Adley whines as she makes her way back out into his kitchen.

“Why not? It’s good!”

“Adam!”

He joins her back out in the kitchen, looking and searching through the massive collection of restaurant menus he had stockpiled. It’s the happiest he’s felt in months. He couldn’t wait to wake up next to her in the morning.