antietam | week 6 trial aftermath; luke's room

week 6 trial aftermath; luke's room

[ So. All of that happened. And it was terrifying. The possession was bad enough because Adam thought, of course, they were dealing with demons. He wishes that was it. Now it's strange creatures who want people dead, one who's escaped and who knows how many more out there? What if there's one inside him?

Not to mention, he's a normal human. If one of them got him, he would be dead in a moment. That would be it for him, no amount of Luke's defense lessons would save him. So he's in survival mode now, hunched over and defensive. Do monsters even care that he's valued? He sees Luke start to leave and he knows that's his only protection so he follows without thinking.

Luke could be one of them. But he also knows what it's like to be possessed and not in control, and after the nightmares he's pretty sure that's Luke's greatest fear too. Adam is quiet as they go, not saying anything and staying behind him. His eyes glance around nervously like he's expecting an attack at any moment but they reach Luke's room soon enough and Adam doesn't even think to ask permission inside, he just goes.

It's only when the door shuts behind him that he looks at Luke, distraught and terrified. He doesn't know what to say. ]

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Backbiter. [The answer's pretty quick as well. He doesn't trust enough people to share his space, though there are some he wouldn't object to. But for the most part he'd rather be alone and take care of things himself.] We've been a team for a while, it'd be fine. Avoiding Fridays is probably the best option, but if another alarm goes off I'm going out to see what happened. You don't have to come with me, but...it's kind of part of my new job.

[ Adam raises his eyebrows and then shrugs. If Luke wants to be alone, he's certainly not going to intrude. That was why he felt weird asking in the first place. He doesn't want Luke to stay with him out of pity. ]

You sound like a superhero. [ Don't they have enough of those here? ] I think I'll wait until the announcement. Even though Hancock was planned, I'd really rather not walk in front of a turret. Beyond our experiments.

Those guys wish they were half the heroes we were. [May as well throw in another jab at superheroes anyway. Sorry Adrien and Marinette.] Maybe we should consider not walking in front of a turret ever again. Just sayin'.

[Can we not.] You're free to crash here any Thursdays you want. Just give me a heads up if you plan to. [It might also help to keep some sense of time and humanity, too.]

It helped, didn't it? [ Not the walking in front of a turret part, but. He stands by it. He taps his fingers idly and turns around then to look at the papers on Luke's desk. Why not be nosy since he's already here. ]

You can come by my room, too. So that it's not like I'm scared of the monsters under my bed and need to stay in the grown-up's room. [ Because that's how he feels. ] It's a two-way street. By the way, I'm going to make a log for my whereabouts every hour. That way I can see if there's any lapses in my memory. Maybe you should try that as well.

Surprisingly? It did. I tried and came up with a good idea and so nobody can be mad. And nobody died so that's double the victory. [No, that's not how it works. He doesn't seem to care that Adam's looking at his notes, though he will find that the papers on top seem to be letters. The top-most letter is addressed to someone named Percy Jackson, and Adam may be able to read the first few lines--

"Jackson, you remember what you promised me? I expect good things from you. Don't let me down. I won't know if you're successful. I won't know if you've kept that promise…but don't you dare"

--before Luke reaches up and casually pulls the papers toward him.]

Don't be silly. I doubt the aliens could fit under these beds anyway. [But it's a fair point.] We'll cross-check each other. I know where your room is, you know where mine is. Shouldn't be too hard to keep up with each other. But a memory log…] You really think a log like that would work? It's not a bad idea, I'm just thinking of holes in the plan.

[ Adam is only looking for notes, not letters, so when Luke pulls them away after he accidentally reads part of it, he just gives a wry smile. He never took Luke to be the type to write letters to people. Still, it's not his business, so he doesn't pry. ]

Well, do you see any? I mean, they're probably laying dormant 99% of the time, but if I can catch that 1%, I'll be happy. The most important days would probably be Thursdays and Fridays since they apparently want to get in on the killing, but I just... want to be completely sure.

Edited (belated proofreading) 2016-07-20 20:57 (UTC)

[Aw, did you think his notes would be that easy to find? Nice try. But he hums to himself in thought.]

The only problem I see is that we know the aliens have access to our memories. For all we know, they could easily fill our heads with false memories or control us to write something down so it doesn't look like we're actually being controlled during certain times. [He leans forward, arms draped loosely over his legs and fidgeting a little from his seat.] But I agree with you that Thursdays and Fridays are the most important. We keep track of what we're doing on those days and at those times, we should be able to prevent an alien invasion.

To take it a step further, we could read each other's logs too to confirm we remember where we were each night.

[ It's entirely unknown if the aliens could create false memories, but Adam decides to be on the safe side so he considers that possibility. He wouldn't be surprised, at least, if that ended up the case. That would make finding them a whole lot harder, too. ]

Yeah, double-checking each other would be best. If I were going to possess someone, I'd try to get them as isolated as possible. [ He hesitates. ] That's what happened with me. Weird stuff kept happening and I didn't tell anyone. No one knew until I was strangling Ronan.

Why do you think Kronos only contacted me in dreams at first? [Dreams are a pretty scary thing. He pauses, suddenly realizing that he needs to pay more close attention to what Adam's saying. He doesn't ask the obvious question of "why didn't you tell anyone", if only because he's been getting a sense of who Adam is and also knowing that it'd be a hypocritical question.]

What kind of weird stuff do you mean? [That's the easy question, at least. He'll come back to the "strangling Ronan" part shortly.] Why did that demon target you? Because you were connected to the leyline? Or just because of your connection with Ronan?

[ Adam hums as he thinks about dreams again. He wonders if Elizabeth had any weird dreams. How could you not, when there's something in your head? ]

Like things coming out of my eyes, my eyes going in different directions, my hands moving on their own, appliances near me breaking. [ If he were reasonable, he might have told someone about it. He thinks for a long moment about the next question. ] Sort of. Guess I never told you all of it.

I sacrificed myself to Cabeswater—the forest. I had to. There was a ritual going to take control of it, and I stopped the people who were doing it... but I had to sacrifice something. The most important thing to me. Free will. I gave it my hands and eyes, specifically. I know it sounds stupid to ignore all that stuff happening to me, but it wasn't so different from what happened when Cabeswater was weak. I would hallucinate and the electricity would short-circuit because I didn't know what it wanted. One time, I... totally lost time. One minute I was with Gansey in DC, the next thing I know I was walking along the highway back to Virginia. I'd been walking for hours. So something was wrong with Cabeswater, obviously, but... [ He's trying to justify himself when he realizes he doesn't have to. He shrugs. ]

Anyway, the demon infiltrated Cabeswater, so it got access to my hands and eyes. I was just easy for it.

[It's one of the things he'd like to ask, one of the theories he has. Elizabeth's currently on the backburner though as he listens to Adam and the longer he explains, the higher his eyebrows raise. Adam. Buddy. This is the kind of thing maybe you should have told people? It all sounds a little freaky to him, more out of control than what Kronos was doing to him.]

…yeah you skipped over that part. Cabeswater's the forest that sacrificed itself to save Gansey after he took over for Ronan or however that all went, right? [He looks vaguely irritated at the word "sacrifice" because he's seen what sacrifices do to people, and he's still angry about a few sacrifices that were made in his own world.] How long were you at the loss of your free will? […did he ever get it back? He has to wonder that, too.] It's good that you knew something was up but when it's something like that…[He scrubs a hand over his face.] Do me a favor and promise me you'll tell me if weird shit like that starts happening here, okay?

[ He may have made some mistakes but at least he never tried to destroy the world? ]

Yeah, that's Cabeswater. Uh, I guess I only technically got it back about three months ago, when the forest disappeared. It was about a year? [ It seems like a lot longer than that, but everything happened pretty quickly. When Luke starts to talk about telling him things, Adam scowls. ]

Like I said, it was different. Those sort of things would happen to me from time to time. Obviously here I would be pretty surprised to get weird shit happening to me. [ A huff. ] You would be the first person I'd tell. Even nightmares. [ Don't make him call you out Luke. ]

[Excuse you it was only western civilization?? There's a difference. (No there's not...) He ignores Adam's scowl like he usually does because Luke's sort of a jerk that way, only really half-believing that it was really that different. He's already developed Opinions on Cabeswater for disarming someone's free will and not being much easier to work with, though he knows better than to pick a fight immediately.]

Still a year too long. [He settles for a sigh to play it off as being disappointed rather than annoyed. On the other hand, somewhat selfishly, he feels better knowing that those things have turned Adam into who he is now.] If that's your way of trying to get me to tell you about any nightmares I have, I don't know what to tell you.

[ Adam takes in a breath. He would agree because his free will is, obviously, everything to him, but he never really hated Cabeswater. In fact, he loved it. ]

It made me powerful. I'd never felt like that before. So I was... grateful to it. [ He looks over at him with a smile. It's weirdly fond. ] No, it's my way of telling you that if you never told anyone about the secret messages you were getting from a dead titan king in your sleep, then you can't blame me for what I did. We're both stupid.

[He opens his mouth to argue that it was different because he was dumb and impressionable and he gets about two seconds into that line of thought when he realizes that no. No, he and Adam were roughly the same age when Adam lost his free will and Luke started siding with Kronos. So okay. Maybe they were both stupid.]

He wasn't that dead. [Not the point.] And anyway…telling anybody about Kronos would've gone against what we were trying to do. Power was really that important to you?

[ Adam thinks that going against what Kronos was trying to do would have been a good thing, but also, it's done. Luke is dead and there's really no need for Adam to lecture on something he doesn't understand. ]

When you've been powerless all your life, yes. Power is everything. It's money and magic and status. It's how you have a good life. [ He hesitates. ] Even when Gansey was dead on the ground, I was still a little sad that I would lose Cabeswater's power when it disappeared. It's important.

[...this is the real reason he's taken a liking to Adam Parrish. It's because Adam Parrish is also, partially, a terrible person.]

I don't think you need me to tell you just how dangerous power can be. There's a funny thing about power. You could go after it and you can achieve it, but very few people get to hold onto it for very long. [....] You ever hear of fatal flaws? Our kind has really, really strong ones. Zeus's kids' fatal flaw is power. They want it so bad they might end up making all the wrong decisions. The wrong decisions could mean the end of the world. Which would you take, the power or the end?

Yeah? What's the flaw for Hermes kids, then? [ He's guessing criminal behavior, but.

The question makes him think. He doesn't answer right away, which is probably bad in itself but he's really considering it. He's stopped people from ending the world before but they were also Bad People. Of course, doing that would also logically make him a bad person. But does he really care about the world that much? ] Someone like me is never gonna have that sort of option. Where I come from, people are born with the power to do whatever they want and it never goes away. If you're born into it, it's yours forever. It's not fair that they don't have to decide.

... I wouldn't take power if it caused the end. Even if the world is pretty awful. But I would like to be equal with the people with power. All I want is the freedom that comes with it.

This isn't about me. [Which is to say he's not sharing. But he's curious about Adam's view on the world and...in a way, sure, it makes sense. Much like Adam in Luke's world people are born certain ways. The thing is, those people can pass off some power and not others. People can change alliances, people can change statuses even if their roots are the same. He sided with Kronos, but he was still a demigod in the end. The son of Hermes.]

I don't know where you're getting the idea that freedom comes with power. [It's a light tone, not entirely accusatory but enough that he wants Adam to elaborate further.] I could say you could work at gaining power but like I said, it's a fickle thing. It changes hands even if it's tempting to go after. [But it's something else that Adam's said that Luke's thinking about.] ...the kind of power you're thinking is something more obvious though. Money and status. Those things are really important to you?

[ Adam looks a little surprised at his refusal to answer. It isn't like Luke has had a problem with telling him things before. But since he does now, Adam won't push. Clearly that's not important. ]

Money is important to everyone. Even you managed to survive by changing prices and everything. If you don't have money, you don't have anything. And, well, freedom comes with money. If you have money, you can do whatever you want. Like Gansey searching around the world for Glendower or Ronan quitting school to become a farmer. [ He pauses, realizing he's sounding like he used to. ] ... but it's not the most important thing. I wouldn't destroy anything to get it. Because I'm working for it on my own. It'd be stupid to get it handed to me now.

[Part of it is because his fatal flaw isn't something he likes to discuss. ~~Part of it is also the author hates us and never said what it is.~~ He trusts the kid more than he trusts anybody else on the ship but it's still one of the subjects he'd rather skirt around, especially when Adam's still talking and Luke's starting to really really wonder about the old Adam Parrish.]

Hey, I did it because I was taking care of other people. [...] Believe it or not I didn't always like using my powers. So don't try that on me. [...but that's putting a lot of things into perspective.]

You've never had it, have you. [He can't judge but Adam being like this...he's actually surprised he didn't go for the money motive.]

[ Adam gives him a look that implies he still thinks Luke needed the money no matter what. But he also doesn't know how the demigod economy works, if there is one, so he'll let him off.

There is some clear hesitation in his expression. He doesn't like talking about it, but he's pretty sure Luke has had even less than him. And somehow that makes him feel better. ] I reckon not. [ He shrugs and looks elsewhere. ] That's why I'd really like to get back to school so I can go to college and not work three jobs for the rest of my life.

But I guess I should focus more on actually keeping my life here, right? It would have all been for nothing if I die.

[...not an easy life, huh? He can both sympathize and respect that. He's silent for a moment as he takes that in, nodding in the end and not quite looking at him head-on.]

Pretty feasible goal, I'd say. [There's a very small grin though. Adam will be fine...it's just a matter of making sure he gets home.] I already told you. Play the game right, we'll get you back there. I'm not going to let anything happen to you as long as I can stop it. That includes being killed, doing the killing, or bodysnatching aliens. All right?

[ Adam has some mixed emotions about that. On the one hand, he wants to tell Luke he doesn't need him watching over him. On the other hand, he kind of does. Normally it wouldn't be something he'd accept, but this is a life or death situation and having someone on his side isn't the worst thing that could happen. Still, his eyebrows furrow like he's not too pleased with it. ]

And I'd do the same for you. Don't forget that. [ At least make it equal. He looks over at him now. ] If I killed someone, you'd help?

[Sorry Adam you are officially now his adopted kid whether you like it or not. He recognizes the look as one he's worn on his face plenty of times before and all he can do is accept that.]

I know. [He'll still be the one to protect him in the end, but he has to trust that Adam won't let him down either. There's a sound that's close to a "maybe" at the question.] Depends on who it is, what the reasoning was and what you were doing. Out of the two of us, who's more likely to kill? [There's a slightly bitter smile.] Think about it that way.

week 6 trial aftermath; luke's room

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