[JMM] 19.8.6 The Heart of the Matter
May. 13th, 2009 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changehistoryThere were times and occasions upon which Adam Monroe wished he could still get drunk. He'd, mostly, accepted his inability to do so centuries ago, but sometimes the sheer lack of an escape from his own thoughts, from himself, was a frustration that made him nearly hate the ability he cherished. In the burn of the whiskey, the slip into a haze, there had been comfort, release, reprieve that was denied him now. Instead he had to look for it in other places--the warmth of another's body, the burn of muscles pushed beyond endurance in a grueling workout, the adrenaline and pain of an instigated fight against someone sure to take him down. It was far more complicated that way, all around, and more interpersonally complicated. The whiskey had been simpler, pushing him toward oblivion he could lose himself in.
He stared at the glass on the table in front of him as if it were personally responsible for its contents being unable to provide a solution to the ache that scraped at his insides, making him feel raw. Didn't it know he wasn't supposed to feel that way? Not anymore, not him, not after everything he'd gone through. He wasn't supposed to have been charmed by three little towheads with their blue eyes and sticky faces and fingers. The possibilities they presented of a life he could have, an intriguing array of what ifs and maybes wherein he had found something like peace, like home, with others like him, not having to hide...And family. A family like he hadn't had since before he left England's shores on a boat bound for Japan, one he didn't have to leave, didn't have to lie to or lie for because of what he was...
They'd been here. Three little imps, far too precocious for their own good and his peace of mind, and each of them his, each of them representing some chance, some fate, some place where he...belonged. Representatives of hope, shining little beacons in their own ways, and he'd just been getting to know them, just had a chance to start to learn their smiles, pick up on their quirks, figure out just how much Stephen needed to eat, and that Eden had inherited his gift for snark and that Piera really needed to be kept away from sharp objects to not keep freaking out the neighbors, but he couldn't help but be proud of her spirit, and then...they were gone.
He'd told himself it didn't matter, not really. They were home with him and their respective mothers, just fine, back in their worlds. It wasn't like he'd lost them or they were hurt or in trouble. They were where they belonged. And he might never see them again, a small voice whispered. Because they couldn't all be just from his future. Maybe one, maybe even two, but at least one of them had to be from a different world, an alternate timeline, and that meant...he'd never see them again. He was left with the knowledge he had a son out there somewhere he would probably never get to know. There was a comfort in the idea that maybe the girls were possible, that he'd hold his daughters one day, but he couldn't be certain of that, either. After all, Elle and Claire had both had children with others as well, and who knew which timeline any of them had come from. He might not see any of them ever again. Telling himself over and over again that it didn't matter worked for a few days, a week or two.
But when he'd walked into the classroom to start his new job teaching at the prep school and seen all those young faces looking back at him...it mattered. It mattered with a visceral pain that he couldn't deny, couldn't talk himself out of. Already a bit nervous at the prospect of teaching for the first time and shaky from the fight over the weekend, all those bright shiny faces had made him nearly freeze up. Somehow he got through it, got through the day, managed to smile and charm and go over the lessons he'd prepared, but he couldn't find the glee with which he'd taken the job. All those young minds to mold, to introduce to the greatness of the likes of Machiavelli, even, and all he could think about were those he wouldn't have the chance to teach, to rear, to raise.
And so he found himself in the bar, because it was ritual from the days gone by so long before that no one else remembered them, staring at a glass filled with an amber liquid that would do nothing for him, even if he downed a bottle of it. It was the simplest programmed response, even after all this time, but it wasn't going to help. A fight or a fuck would've been more productive, but he wasn't sure he had the heart for the former after the weekend and the latter had been in even shorter supply lately, so he sat, and he stared at the glass as if it would magically supply the answers, and he wished to God he could still get drunk.
He stared at the glass on the table in front of him as if it were personally responsible for its contents being unable to provide a solution to the ache that scraped at his insides, making him feel raw. Didn't it know he wasn't supposed to feel that way? Not anymore, not him, not after everything he'd gone through. He wasn't supposed to have been charmed by three little towheads with their blue eyes and sticky faces and fingers. The possibilities they presented of a life he could have, an intriguing array of what ifs and maybes wherein he had found something like peace, like home, with others like him, not having to hide...And family. A family like he hadn't had since before he left England's shores on a boat bound for Japan, one he didn't have to leave, didn't have to lie to or lie for because of what he was...
They'd been here. Three little imps, far too precocious for their own good and his peace of mind, and each of them his, each of them representing some chance, some fate, some place where he...belonged. Representatives of hope, shining little beacons in their own ways, and he'd just been getting to know them, just had a chance to start to learn their smiles, pick up on their quirks, figure out just how much Stephen needed to eat, and that Eden had inherited his gift for snark and that Piera really needed to be kept away from sharp objects to not keep freaking out the neighbors, but he couldn't help but be proud of her spirit, and then...they were gone.
He'd told himself it didn't matter, not really. They were home with him and their respective mothers, just fine, back in their worlds. It wasn't like he'd lost them or they were hurt or in trouble. They were where they belonged. And he might never see them again, a small voice whispered. Because they couldn't all be just from his future. Maybe one, maybe even two, but at least one of them had to be from a different world, an alternate timeline, and that meant...he'd never see them again. He was left with the knowledge he had a son out there somewhere he would probably never get to know. There was a comfort in the idea that maybe the girls were possible, that he'd hold his daughters one day, but he couldn't be certain of that, either. After all, Elle and Claire had both had children with others as well, and who knew which timeline any of them had come from. He might not see any of them ever again. Telling himself over and over again that it didn't matter worked for a few days, a week or two.
But when he'd walked into the classroom to start his new job teaching at the prep school and seen all those young faces looking back at him...it mattered. It mattered with a visceral pain that he couldn't deny, couldn't talk himself out of. Already a bit nervous at the prospect of teaching for the first time and shaky from the fight over the weekend, all those bright shiny faces had made him nearly freeze up. Somehow he got through it, got through the day, managed to smile and charm and go over the lessons he'd prepared, but he couldn't find the glee with which he'd taken the job. All those young minds to mold, to introduce to the greatness of the likes of Machiavelli, even, and all he could think about were those he wouldn't have the chance to teach, to rear, to raise.
And so he found himself in the bar, because it was ritual from the days gone by so long before that no one else remembered them, staring at a glass filled with an amber liquid that would do nothing for him, even if he downed a bottle of it. It was the simplest programmed response, even after all this time, but it wasn't going to help. A fight or a fuck would've been more productive, but he wasn't sure he had the heart for the former after the weekend and the latter had been in even shorter supply lately, so he sat, and he stared at the glass as if it would magically supply the answers, and he wished to God he could still get drunk.
