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Feb. 6th, 2008
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Feb. 6th, 2008 01:31 am![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
sixwordstories
[MI] 1B -- Masks (NaF 'verse)
Feb. 6th, 2008 03:35 pmThe two-room cabin was cold, but a fire in both the fireplace and the wood stove slowly warmed it, though, either way, Adam barely felt it. He’d tossed his backpack down on the bed in one corner of the room, lit several candles and built the fires, then settled on the rug in front of the fireplace to stare into the flames. It wasn’t hard to imagine what they’d feel like, licking up his body, over skin, burning it away, before it healed right back up again. He’d felt it, more than once. It was a familiar pain, that, but one that went back to the heart of everything.
A hand extended. A curse. An explosion. Pain, physical and mental. A girl, and then another, and another as he ran across continents to escape the shadow of the man he had been and the outstretched arm of the one he could have been. A hero. A villain. A merchant. A sailor. A mercenary. A soldier. A courtier. A hunter. A leader. An assassin. A rum runner. A gambler. A bank robber. A mob boss. A decorated war hero. He had been so many things, so many names, so many lives, tried on, worn for a while, then tossed aside.
They said they wanted him, but they didn’t even know who he was, who he had been. Did they want Takezo Kensei, mythical hero of Japan? Richard Sanders, reckless charlatan with the charming smile? Adam Monroe, leader and visionary who dreamed of a world reborn? James Maddox, the boy from the streets who watched his mother and sister burn, not knowing he had an ability that could save them, and his beloved, his brother fall with no way to know how to heal his wounds?
His lips curved in a cold smile, fingers curling into his palm as nails bit through skin. The Company got Adam, all the way. Cold, ruthless, hard, with a shell around his soul, his heart, that they could not break through. Oh, they cracked it a time or two. They made him scream. They even made him beg to die, but he’d done that before. Always, he pulled it back around him, the façade, the person they saw, with ice blue eyes that mocked their cameras and took what he wanted from under their noses, giving nothing back—no remorse, no repentance, no answers to questions only he could.
( But three pairs of brown eyes had burned through that, looking at him, needing something he did not know if he could give. )
A hand extended. A curse. An explosion. Pain, physical and mental. A girl, and then another, and another as he ran across continents to escape the shadow of the man he had been and the outstretched arm of the one he could have been. A hero. A villain. A merchant. A sailor. A mercenary. A soldier. A courtier. A hunter. A leader. An assassin. A rum runner. A gambler. A bank robber. A mob boss. A decorated war hero. He had been so many things, so many names, so many lives, tried on, worn for a while, then tossed aside.
They said they wanted him, but they didn’t even know who he was, who he had been. Did they want Takezo Kensei, mythical hero of Japan? Richard Sanders, reckless charlatan with the charming smile? Adam Monroe, leader and visionary who dreamed of a world reborn? James Maddox, the boy from the streets who watched his mother and sister burn, not knowing he had an ability that could save them, and his beloved, his brother fall with no way to know how to heal his wounds?
His lips curved in a cold smile, fingers curling into his palm as nails bit through skin. The Company got Adam, all the way. Cold, ruthless, hard, with a shell around his soul, his heart, that they could not break through. Oh, they cracked it a time or two. They made him scream. They even made him beg to die, but he’d done that before. Always, he pulled it back around him, the façade, the person they saw, with ice blue eyes that mocked their cameras and took what he wanted from under their noses, giving nothing back—no remorse, no repentance, no answers to questions only he could.
( But three pairs of brown eyes had burned through that, looking at him, needing something he did not know if he could give. )