[TM] 211: Old Acquaintance
Dec. 31st, 2007 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changehistoryShould auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?
Some days he wished he could forget. More than anything, really, parts of him wanted to wash the memories from his mind and make it seem as if it never had been. The breezes were warm in Santorini, as the old man had said to him, once. Even now, on the eve of a New Year, they wrapped themselves around him with soft promise of things to come, things that could be. The balcony of the suite overlooked the ocean. To the east, the horizon was a lighter grey than the darkness overhead, though the sun had not yet pushed its way up over the lip of the world.
Closing his eyes, Adam breathed in the smell of the sea, listened to the stirring of the streets, early risers making their way out, winding down to fishing boats he couldn't see from the spa, but knew were there. It was sharp, overlaid by flowers and the scents that lingered from the bath oils they'd used the night before, and the chlorine of the hot tub that shared his morning watch.
He still couldn't sleep the night through, waking startled whenever he sunk too deep toward oblivion. He found it was better, now, when he could wrap himself around her, use her warmth to anchor him here. But sleep had never been a priority anyway, so he'd given up in the darkest hour of the wolf, pulling himself out here, brandy in hand to banish the memories of enclosed spaces and pain biting through him with the smell of the sea air and a different sort of oblivion than the one found in heat and friction, though in truth, that was all he'd found to truly warm him.
His fingers rubbed absently over his sword arm. Not the one he'd cut so feverishly, again and again on a warm spring afternoon, watching in disbelief as it healed. It wasn't that arm anymore, nor the one that came after, nor the one after that. Thirty years was a very long time to be at the mercy of the demented scientists he'd hired. A sip of brandy, then, to ease the ache of a limb that no longer existed but insisted on imposing itself over the one that did. Strong, perfect, but some days he wondered if it was truly part of him--if anything was anymore, or if he'd been reduced to a medley of new parts like some organic tin man from a children's story he'd heard long ago.
If he kept his eyes closed, if he listened, he could almost hear the sound of her breathing out here above the wind. Perhaps not in fact, but in imagination. It was a soft sound to anchor him here and now and stop him drifting back through ghosts of memories and regrets. A warm presence to ease the cold of the grave. A naughty secret in the darkness to relieve the suffocating closing in of walls that tightened more around him each year when hope grew dim. But if he drifted back, further, it was pain, like everything else. A child allowed to test her powers under the ice cold smile of a man who wanted him dead but was stopped by others, constrained by Kaito's honor, if nothing else. Another sip, to find forgiveness and let the now erase the then.
Thoughts of Kaito pushed him back, further, falling into the darkness of memory. Of a smile, bright as the sun that sparked things in him and inspired him to be more than he thought he could be, before it was extinguished in slashing pain and loss and darkness so complete he'd never thought to see light again. He couldn't stay there, though, couldn't linger on what ifs and regrets that could eat him alive, when pride and belief slid to disappointment and anger and a broken look that should have been triumph but which tore into him as brutally as he'd meant Hiro to feel. Another sip of brandy for that pain, then, too.
The darkness had lifted, he noted, as the first tendrils of the sun crept slowly over the horizon and the grey became tinged with pink. But as it had before, her words echoed back. Shot. Hurt. Critical. No one knew. And gone, perhaps. No one to ask, no one to beg for news, no one to answer questions that pounded around him begging for answers for nearly 40 years. There was nothing but loss there, at the thought of what if, and the family that could have been his, had he not let ambition blind him beyond bearing. He could have asked. She would have said yes. He could have been his, in truth, without the questions. A family--something he'd never allowed himself and when it teased there at his fingertips, he'd pushed it into another man's arms for the sake of all of their advancement. A fourth sip burned down his throat.
He closed his eyes again imagining the sun rising higher, the sea below becoming a spreading sparkle of turquoise, bright and brilliant and pure enough to wash away the past, let it slide from him, with them, and warm enough to banish the chill of too many ghosts that flowed through his memory in laughter and tears. A new year. A new start. A new plan. It was time to let them go, and concentrate on moving forward, on eliminating them from his mind, one by one, until they burned up in the heat of flames he'd find a way to rekindle. He had to. He knew that. If he didn't, they'd pull him down with them, and he would drown in their cloying arms and never be truly free.
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?
Some days he wished he could forget. More than anything, really, parts of him wanted to wash the memories from his mind and make it seem as if it never had been. The breezes were warm in Santorini, as the old man had said to him, once. Even now, on the eve of a New Year, they wrapped themselves around him with soft promise of things to come, things that could be. The balcony of the suite overlooked the ocean. To the east, the horizon was a lighter grey than the darkness overhead, though the sun had not yet pushed its way up over the lip of the world.
Closing his eyes, Adam breathed in the smell of the sea, listened to the stirring of the streets, early risers making their way out, winding down to fishing boats he couldn't see from the spa, but knew were there. It was sharp, overlaid by flowers and the scents that lingered from the bath oils they'd used the night before, and the chlorine of the hot tub that shared his morning watch.
He still couldn't sleep the night through, waking startled whenever he sunk too deep toward oblivion. He found it was better, now, when he could wrap himself around her, use her warmth to anchor him here. But sleep had never been a priority anyway, so he'd given up in the darkest hour of the wolf, pulling himself out here, brandy in hand to banish the memories of enclosed spaces and pain biting through him with the smell of the sea air and a different sort of oblivion than the one found in heat and friction, though in truth, that was all he'd found to truly warm him.
His fingers rubbed absently over his sword arm. Not the one he'd cut so feverishly, again and again on a warm spring afternoon, watching in disbelief as it healed. It wasn't that arm anymore, nor the one that came after, nor the one after that. Thirty years was a very long time to be at the mercy of the demented scientists he'd hired. A sip of brandy, then, to ease the ache of a limb that no longer existed but insisted on imposing itself over the one that did. Strong, perfect, but some days he wondered if it was truly part of him--if anything was anymore, or if he'd been reduced to a medley of new parts like some organic tin man from a children's story he'd heard long ago.
If he kept his eyes closed, if he listened, he could almost hear the sound of her breathing out here above the wind. Perhaps not in fact, but in imagination. It was a soft sound to anchor him here and now and stop him drifting back through ghosts of memories and regrets. A warm presence to ease the cold of the grave. A naughty secret in the darkness to relieve the suffocating closing in of walls that tightened more around him each year when hope grew dim. But if he drifted back, further, it was pain, like everything else. A child allowed to test her powers under the ice cold smile of a man who wanted him dead but was stopped by others, constrained by Kaito's honor, if nothing else. Another sip, to find forgiveness and let the now erase the then.
Thoughts of Kaito pushed him back, further, falling into the darkness of memory. Of a smile, bright as the sun that sparked things in him and inspired him to be more than he thought he could be, before it was extinguished in slashing pain and loss and darkness so complete he'd never thought to see light again. He couldn't stay there, though, couldn't linger on what ifs and regrets that could eat him alive, when pride and belief slid to disappointment and anger and a broken look that should have been triumph but which tore into him as brutally as he'd meant Hiro to feel. Another sip of brandy for that pain, then, too.
The darkness had lifted, he noted, as the first tendrils of the sun crept slowly over the horizon and the grey became tinged with pink. But as it had before, her words echoed back. Shot. Hurt. Critical. No one knew. And gone, perhaps. No one to ask, no one to beg for news, no one to answer questions that pounded around him begging for answers for nearly 40 years. There was nothing but loss there, at the thought of what if, and the family that could have been his, had he not let ambition blind him beyond bearing. He could have asked. She would have said yes. He could have been his, in truth, without the questions. A family--something he'd never allowed himself and when it teased there at his fingertips, he'd pushed it into another man's arms for the sake of all of their advancement. A fourth sip burned down his throat.
He closed his eyes again imagining the sun rising higher, the sea below becoming a spreading sparkle of turquoise, bright and brilliant and pure enough to wash away the past, let it slide from him, with them, and warm enough to banish the chill of too many ghosts that flowed through his memory in laughter and tears. A new year. A new start. A new plan. It was time to let them go, and concentrate on moving forward, on eliminating them from his mind, one by one, until they burned up in the heat of flames he'd find a way to rekindle. He had to. He knew that. If he didn't, they'd pull him down with them, and he would drown in their cloying arms and never be truly free.
