[TM] 333 What are you good at that people wouldn't expect?

I'm a pretty damn good pianist. Most people seem shocked when they find that out. I like playing down at the local bar, wouldn't mind a more regular gig. I sing well, too, and am actually really fond of music. I don't know why people end up being surprised by it--you live as long as I have, and you have time to get good at things, time to practice until you're more than proficient, even if you hadn't a great deal of natural talent.

Of course, music was mostly forbidden when I was growing up, which is probably why it always fascinated me. If it was supposedly of the devil, I was pretty determined to be a part of it. I'm contrary that way--that shouldn't surprise anyone, actually. But then I found that I loved music for itself. It has an inherent order to it, it grows on itself, it changes through the years, but a real understanding of music theory, of the past, allows you to create the new things of beauty that will last. I enjoy watching the trends change, and I love watching the instruments change, and yet the passion that drives musicians has been the same through the years.

Some things can only be expressed through song, through the poetry of mathematical progression of notes. It's an escape and an expression of the truest things about you. I can lose myself in a piece, and when I play...it connects me to the men I've been before, and the man I could be at the same time, past, present and future all united. It's some of the only time I truly feel like myself--no masks, no expectations, just me and the music.

Maybe that's why I'm good at it, and why it surprises so many. No one expects to see that side of me. Most don't think it exists, and if it does, why would I show any such vulnerability.

...Maybe that's why I don't tell most people when my gigs are.

[Mad] May 2.5 - "Blood on My Hands" - The Used

You felt the coldness in my eyes,
It's something I'm not revealing.
Though you got used to my disguise,
You can't shake this awful feeling.

It's the me that I let you know,
Cause' I'll never show,
I have my reasons.
I hate to say that I told you so,
But I told you so.

There's blood on my hands like the blood in you.
Some things can't be treated so,
Don't make me, Don't make me be myself around you.

For long stretches of time, it's easy to hide, to slip into the mask he's crafted for the younger man. Peter makes it easy to smile, after all, to let the lighter side of his personality slip out. His faith, his belief in humanity, even after so many times of seeing darkness, is light a beacon shining in the shadows of Adam's world, and for a time it's easy to cling to that, to use it as a guiding light to steer his way. He laughs, he jokes, he lets the cynicism slide and the centuries slip away as if they aren't dragging him down into some darker abyss of his own creating.

Sometimes he even wants so badly to be that mask, to slip it on permanently, and he wonders if he wears it long enough if it will be truth. Then something happens, some word rubs over his temper or some news article reminds him of too many memories dragging at his consciousness, or he wakes shaking from one of the constant nightmares that lives in his mind, and the shadows rise up again. Dreams of blood, dreams of destruction, dreams of glory, dreams of what should be, dreams of vengeance. He remembers what could and should be, and he wonders why this naive boy cannot see it, cannot see him, and temper flares again, ice cold and cutting in its boundless fury. Sometimes just a moment, sometimes longer, but it has to run its course before he can wrap himself back into the guise of the warm, congenial lover again.

Most times he tries to hide it from Peter, but others...others there's a reckless desire to see just what he'll let him get away with, how much of him he can handle.

He fears the answer is not enough.

Straight from your eyes it's barely me.
Beautifully so disfigured.
This other side that you can't see,
Just praying you won't remember.

Feel the pain that I never show,
And I hope you know,
It's never healing.
I hate to say that I told you so, but I told you so.

There's blood on my hands like the blood in you.
Some things can't be treated so,
Don't make me, Don't make me be myself around you.

How Peter has forgiven him, he already cannot understand. What he did was not something Peter can forgive, he thinks, not really. He seems to have accepted it, though, and Adam wonders if Peter thinks he believes it was wrong, that Adam has seen the errors of his ways, repented, been redeemed. Is it repentance that earns forgiveness, and would that acceptance even be stripped away if the boy knew how he ached for what was loss and the chances that slipped away.

He isn't broken, he protests, but he knows that's not true, and there are pieces of him lost in time that can't ever be put back together. Too much loss, too many betrayals, too many broken dreams, too much anger, too much hate. Not even Peter's light can heal it all, even if it is a soothing balm. If the boy ever realized...ever knew...ever really saw...

Adam is sure he'd lose him, lose all they have, lose the one sanctuary where he thinks, perhaps, he can rest, and at least pretend to be like them. Understanding doesn't come easy, and he doubts it's sincerity in the face of the full truth, so he keeps the carefully crafted mask. He says the right things, expresses the right emotions, tries to be the person Peter believes him to be, needs him to be. Maybe if he keeps it up, one day he'll believe it, as well.

But Peter pokes, pries, tries to make him open up, be more authentic, let him in, let him see the man behind the mask, and Adam is forced to wonder if his memory is just that short-term or if he really doesn't understand just how tragic that would be for the both of them. Because the day Peter really realizes the man he's let into his life and heart is the day Adam's sure will be their last.

[MBS] 76.2. Are You Lonesome Tonight

Sometimes when the night stretched out long before him, he thought of her in that big house, all alone, and what might have been, had fortune and fate smiled on them, and wondered if she ever sat and dreamed about him, too.