Fic: Parachute (Watchmen)
Jul. 15th, 2011 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anactoriaTitle: Parachute
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anactoria
Characters/pairing: Adrian/OMC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: This uses movie!Adrian’s backstory, so mentions of Nazism.
Summary: A teenaged Adrian sneaks away from a trip with family friends, and encounters a fellow fugitive.
Notes: This is my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
help_japan fic, for fireez, who requested something about Adrian’s first crush. I’m afraid it got a little angsty (as seems to be inevitable with me…) but I hope you like it!
Thanks tosoltian for the beta!
You can see the parachute ride at Coney Island in action here. ;)
At the far end of the boardwalk, the lights still glitter off black water and the clamour of the fair is still audible, but the crowds are thinner here and it's dark enough to hide, just about. It'll give him at least a few minutes' respite, more if the Diederichs are caught up enough by the whirl of the amusements and the thrill of slumming not to notice how long he's been gone.
They're old friends of his father—the kind who give away, in sideways glances and strained, allusion-heavy silence, everything that Adrian isn't supposed to have figured out—and they have a daughter, two years younger and just as gleamingly blonde as he is. Both sets of parents are already starting to nudge them towards one another at parties, but thankfully she seems no more enthusiastic about the matter than he is, and all of their conversations have stayed painstakingly polite and reassuringly superficial. He's left her, and the rest of the family, queuing for a carousel, murmuring something about needing to be excused for a moment, so very sorry, and slinking off to the quietest available spot. Most of the time, Adrian's pretty good at maintaining the semblance of cheerful enthusiasm, but even he gets tired now and again, needs to disappear and be alone.
Well, almost alone, anyway. Adrian glances sideways at the soft plop of a glass soda bottle landing in the sea, appraising his unsought-out companion out of the corner of his eye.
It’s a boy of about his own age, dark-haired and almost as tall, though he’s hunched around the glowing end of a cigarette, elbows on the railing. He doesn’t acknowledge Adrian, or even appear to have seen him, just glowers down at the darkly lapping water. Clinging to his solitude, Adrian thinks, and he feels an unaccountable twinge of sympathy for this stranger, hiding away just like him. He wonders whether the dark-haired boy’s family are more or less insufferable than the Diederichs.
The boy’s shoes look worn-out, and there’s a patch on the elbow of his jacket. Not much money, then; this must be a rare trip out. Not something most kids their age would choose to give up, even if they are old enough to pretend they’re no longer interested in childish amusements. Fairly insufferable, in that case, Adrian decides.
And he’d be happy just speculating—anything’s better than going back to the Diederichs and their chattering, moneyed hypocrisy—but his train of thought is stopped in its tracks when the boy turns and looks him in the eye.
“You got a light?” he asks. Adrian blinks momentarily, and the boy gestures at his cigarette, gone out in the damp evening breeze. “I’m out of matches.”
“Oh, no. I don’t. Sorry.”
The boy shrugs, and flicks his cigarette-end over the railings to join the discarded cola bottle. He half-turns, stops, hovers, as though trying to decide between walking off or snatching a few more moments’ peace. Somehow, irresistibly—although solitude is what he’s been seeking, too—Adrian feels the urge to call him back.
“Who are you hiding from?” he asks, just loudly enough for the other boy to hear.
“Huh?” The boy blinks at him for a moment. Then, to Adrian’s surprise, he settles back against the railing, apparently coming the conclusion that an inquisitive stranger is still better company than whoever he came here with. “Oh, my brother and his wife.” His face wrinkles up. “All they ever do is argue with each other, and they still treat me like a little kid. I’m almost sixteen, for fuck’s sake, I’m pretty sure I can go on a fairground ride by myself.”
Adrian can’t help smiling at that, and the boy’s scowl starts to dissipate, giving way to a rueful half-smile. “I guess that makes me sound pretty childish, actually. They’re not so bad. Listening to them just gives me a headache a lot of the time.”
“I understand.” Adrian chuckles, a note of something that is not quite mirth under the surface of it. “Families can be quite insufferable, can’t they?”
“Yeah.” The boy inclines his head curiously. “How about you? Who’re you avoiding?”
Adrian drops his eyes, resists the impulse to bite his lip, but stays silent. He should’ve thought of another conversation-opener: he must seem rude, asking questions and then refusing to answer them himself.
“That bad, huh?” The boy is looking at him sympathetically, which is unexpected. “Don’t worry, I get it. I don’t always feel like talking about it, either.”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. Some friends of my parents’, that’s all. They’re not so bad, really.” Something inside him curls tight at the lie—though it shouldn’t, for this is an old lie, one to which he is accustomed. “Just very… proper, you know?”
The other boy raises an eyebrow, and his half-smile turns into a little smirk. “You seem kinda proper yourself, no offence. I mean, you sneak off on your own and you don’t even stuff your face with hotdogs or take or a ride on anything?”
“You don’t appear to be doing either of those things yourself. Are you ‘proper’, too?”
“Got no money.” The boy shoves his hands deep into his pockets and sighs. “But I guess you wouldn’t know about that.”
Adrian’s eyes widen at the remark, but he has to concede that his expensive clothes and his manner of speaking mark him out as a rich kid clearly enough that there’s no use in arguing. He nods, but he catches the other boy’s eye and sees him look down and redden immediately.
“Aw, shit,” he says, “that came out wrong. I didn’t mean—I wasn’t being—I mean, you can’t help being rich any more’n I can help being trash, right?”
It doesn’t sound like sarcasm. The boy’s eyes are still lowered, but his expression is solemn and entirely sincere now, and Adrian feels a sudden and unfamiliar twinge of something like sadness. He waits a beat, and then another, until the boy looks back up and meets his eyes.
“You don’t seem like trash to me,” he says, very quietly.
“Huh.” A half-quirk of the boy’s mouth. “Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome.” Adrian takes a step forward, holds out his hand. “My name’s Adrian. Adrian Veidt.”
“Jamie Collins.” The boy takes it and shakes, lips twitching, the quirk finally solidifying into a smile. “Nice to meet you.” And then he actually sketches a little mock-bow, eyes sparkling with amusement.
Adrian laughs. “I may be proper,” he says, dragging the word out so that he sounds like an English schoolmaster, “but you know, I think you were right. I should make the most of my freedom.” He pauses, waves an idle hand back toward the fair. “What’s your favourite?”
Jamie frowns and cocks his head. “I dunno,” he says, but his eyes wander upwards and Adrian follows his gaze. It lands on the parachute drop, its tower and the great round saucer atop it standing out like something out of H. G. Wells against the evening sky. The white carapaces of the parachutes descend slowly, like Chinese festival lanterns reaching the end of their journey and finally sinking to rest. From this distance, the motion appears gentle; easy not to think how dizzying it must be.
Catching Jamie's gaze again, Adrian smirks. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”
“What?”
“As you noticed, I have money.”
“Oh, no. I can’t—I can’t take that.”
He’s not disappointed, Adrian tells himself, and it’s not as though he was ever looking for company. But something makes him raise an eyebrow, and murmur, “You’re not scared, are you?”
Jamie frowns. “That’s cheating!”
He shrugs. "Suit yourself."
Then he turns, deliberately, on his heel, starting back towards the fair with measured strides. Jamie will follow, he's figured that much out from the way that the challenge gleamed in his eyes, but he's unprepared for the thudding rush of footfalls up behind him, the hand on his arm and the shout of, "Race you!"
And before Adrian has quite gathered his senses, he's running, too, breathless with it, Diederichs and parents and need for solitude all forgotten, cast off, for now, into the evening air.
By the time they reach the parachute drop they’ve slowed to a jog, but Adrian is still laughing, startled by the ease with which Jamie’s giddy excitement has infected him. They fall into line in the queue with upward glances of anticipation. From here, the height of the thing is dizzying, and Adrian feels something turn over deep in his insides, alternately uncomfortable and delicious.
Thinking about it, he suspects that this is what ‘being a teenager’ is supposed to feel like.
He hands over the money for both of them, straps himself into the seat beside Jamie, and folds his hands. He doesn’t look up; he waits.
“Still fearless?” Jamie asks, grinning, and he allows himself a small smile in response.
“I’m not the one who hesitated,” he points out, and smirks when Jamie gives him a playful shove. And his smile stays on, steady through the inching ascent, widening fractionally when Jamie practically bounces in his seat with excitement.
Towards the top, however, Jamie goes quiet, biting his lip, fingers tightening on the safety bar in involuntary twitches. Adrian pats his arm.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he murmurs. “It’s all perfectly safe, really. We just imagine it isn’t, that’s all.”
“I know.” Jamie’s voice is rough, but he clears his throat determinedly. “I'm not scared, I told you. It’s just—” His eyes dart up involuntarily, a quick, nervy glance at the cables and fasteners that are keeping them alive.
“We’re here now. There’s nothing to be done. Worrying would be pointless.”
Shaking his head, Jamie looks at him sideways, curiously. His nerves seem to have lessened, however, so on balance Adrian supposes the curiosity is a good thing.
“You don’t even sound like a kid half the time, you know that?”
Adrian opens his mouth around an answer—what it will be, he’s not sure—but then there is an almighty clunk and something releases and they are sinking and floating at the same time, descending in what feels like freefall towards the solid ground. The rush of air steals Adrian’s answer and the breath out of his lungs, and all he can hear is the night air whooshing past his ears. Jamie’s eyes are wide, mouth open in laughter or terror as they fall, fall—and then there is a bump and a shudder and already they’re back down to earth amid the crowds. Adrian inhales deeply as an attendant lets them out of the seat, offering a hand up to Jamie, who is still saucer-eyed, laughing and gasping for breath.
They find a railing to sag against while regaining it. Jamie’s shoulder brushes against his and doesn’t move. Quite accidentally, he’s sure, but his pulse skips briefly, and he tries not to wonder why that might be.
“I’ll pay you back sometime,” Jamie promises. “Next time, it’s my treat.”
Adrian swallows and frowns—only, he tells himself, at the strangeness of the evening, or perhaps at the implication he’ll be expecting reimbursement. Jamie’s easy assumption of continued friendship ought to disquiet him too, and perhaps it does, albeit not quite in the way he might have expected.
His parents would disapprove, certainly, and the Diederichs, too, if they should catch him, but charming his way into the good graces of adults is a skill Adrian learned long ago. But more than that, it’s the certainty that this moment must end soon, and that brief moments are all he can possibly offer, that catches in his chest. There is no room for an irrepressible, inquisitive, utterly inappropriate friend like this in his life. There never can be.
Jamie is still looking at him, head to one side, smile fading. Adrian forces the frown from his face. “Nonsense,” he says. “Gifts don’t need to be repaid. Besides, you’ve already done me a favour. My evening would have been considerably more boring without you.” He smiles. This, at least, is true.
“Yeah, but still,” Jamie is saying, but Adrian sees movement among the crowds, then: a trio of sleekly-groomed blond heads making their way toward him. He sighs.
“I have to go. It’s been—well, thank you. I mean it.”
Jamie follows his gaze. “Oh, right. Yeah.” He wrinkles his nose, and then looks at his watch. “I guess I should go find my brother, really. Our bus home leaves at half past. That's gonna be fun. And—I think I should be the one saying thanks.”
“Not at all.” They turn, awkwardly, towards one another for a moment, Jamie with arms half-outstretched, wavering over an appropriate gesture for goodbye. Then Adrian holds out his right hand and Jamie blinks, startled or amused at the formality of the action, but he takes it anyway, and shakes.
Adrian thinks about that handshake, later, in his four-poster back at home. He thinks about the warmth of it—and of all those smiles, too, bestowed so carelessly upon him throughout the evening’s brief meeting. Different from his own smiles, or those of his parents: ever-changing, fleeing and returning like sun behind scudding clouds, not measured or counted out. True.
How unlike one another they are. How unlikely that they'll ever meet again.
He ought to accept this for what it was, he knows—a moment of escapism, indulged in and then set aside, a tiny blip in the smooth rolling-out of his future. He should shut it, and all those remembered smiles, away in a corner of his mind, to be taken out and looked at only in private moments in that future, when he has time and leisure for fond recollections.
And he tries, he really does. But those smiles burst out all over—like sunshine, like sunshine—and right now, even Adrian cannot cover them with clouds.
* * *
Adrian checks the bus timetable from Coney Island, mentally running through the destinations of those that leave around half past the hour. Collins, he thinks, an Irish name, although Jamie's accent was pure Bronx. Kingsbridge. That has to be it. He catches the bus.
And then what? Adrian gets off on Broadway, looking up and down the thoroughfare: his turn to be curious.
No money, Jamie said. Perhaps one of these apartments is theirs. (Not theirs: where they live.) He'll need to ask somebody.
It's obvious that he isn't local here: his clothes are too neat and expensive, his glance around the street too unaccustomed, not enough true New York in his voice, with its smooth vowels and vague suspicions of the Old World. Adrian pauses at the bus stop for a moment, slotting his story together in his mind. Not that he ought to need one, really—who'd take issue at a teenage boy looking for his friend?—but, better safe than sorry.
After a moment, he settles on a middle-aged woman who is tramping determinedly down the sidewalk, in heavy overcoat and knotted headscarf though it's a sunny day.
"Excuse me," he says, and she stops and looks at him sharply.
"Yeah? Can I help you?"
"I hope so. I'm looking for the Collins family? I believe they live somewhere near here. You see, Mrs. Collins did some work for my mother, and—"
"Second block down, fifth floor."
Adrian blinks, spares a momentary glance at the building in question, and turns back to express his gratitude—but the woman is already on her way, and he finds himself murmuring, "Thank you so much" at her retreating back.
His heart thumps worryingly as he climbs the stairs, and he finds himself gripped with the irrational fear that this will be somehow awkward—irrational because he is never awkward, never tongue-tied or lost in nervous babbling, never anything but calmly and seamlessly polite. And irrational because it ought not to matter to him quite as much as it does.
Perhaps he should have listened to his head; perhaps this would have been best left as a one-off encounter. Perhaps things will be different in the light of day, away from that temporary wild space they somehow carved out together in the fairground. Perhaps Jamie will be unnerved, and not pleased to see him at all. He still has time to turn back.
But then he is knocking on the door, and after a stretched-out moment it opens and all worries are allayed, because there's Jamie and there is that bright, guileless grin again, and Adrian cannot help but return it.
They sit drinking soda in a diner. Adrian lets Jamie pay for them, because he insists so earnestly, and sips his Coke while Jamie scuffs his sneakers against the footrest of his counter stool. The rhythmic sound of it is comforting, somehow, not annoying. And they talk. Or rather, Adrian asks questions which make Jamie talk, and comments ("Yes, that does sound annoying." "And you told her that?" "Oh. Oh. I don't know how you cope, I'm sure.") at appropriate junctures. It's startling—and a little disconcerting—how willing he is to share, how it all comes out uncensored. Adrian finds himself not minding, however. He listens. It's easier to listen.
Eventually, though, Jamie runs out of steam and gives him an inquisitive look, chewing on his straw.
"How about you?" he asks. "Sorry, I just kind of...rant, sometimes. I'm sittin' here, talking all this shit about my mom and my brother, and you can't get a word in." He laughs. "Guess I oughta shut up for a while, huh?"
"Oh, well, you know." Adrian shrugs. "My family's nowhere near as interesting as yours sounds."
Worthy of a raised eyebrow, at least, he thinks, but Jamie just nods and offers Adrian a swig of his cream soda, and lets it drop—through naivety, maybe, or maybe out of kindness. Grateful, Adrian nudges his chair fractionally closer.
* * *
Jamie tastes of cigarettes and strawberry milkshake, his hands hot and unsteady on Adrian's arms. Adrian has known this was coming for a while, now, a few weeks, at least. He's been heartbreakingly certain of it, seen it in the intensity of Jamie's eyes, the way his hands linger for unnecessary seconds, the way he never wants to go home when it’s time to say goodbye.
Honestly, he didn't think that he'd let it happen. It would be kinder not to. They’ve been friends for half a year now, building a fragile camaraderie in snatched days and afternoons away from their families, an oasis of respite for both of them, and this new thing, this dawning realisation, threatens that. This can't last, can only lead to loss and potential embarrassment, for both of them, in the long term. To heartache, for poor Jamie, who is so sweet and so honest beneath his so very teenage scowls.
Adrian hadn't expected it to be this easy to give in. Or this hard to put a stop to things.
Which he isn't, currently, doing. He's kissing back, instead, nudging Jamie's lips apart with his tongue, his head swimming and heart hammering, dazed—so much so that he doesn't even hear the footsteps until they're right outside Jamie's bedroom door. He just has time to pull back, leaving them both gasping for breath, and his mind spins and leaps and then he does, too, grabbing something off a shelf and holding it triumphantly above his head.
"Got it!" he cries triumphantly as the door swings open, his voice artificially loud. "I'm faster than you, Jamie. Just admit it."
Mercifully, Jamie catches on, flopping back onto his bed with a defeated frown. "Fine, fine, you win. Getcha next time, though."
And standing in the doorway, Jamie's mother just rolls her eyes and sighs, "Boys. Jamie, I need you to come help me move the table. If you two have quite finished competing."
She turns and heads for the kitchen without waiting for an answer. Adrian lets out a measured breath of relief, and inspects the object he's been holding in his hand. It's a toy soldier, a relic of childhood, left on Jamie's shelf to gather dust but not yet packed away. He replaces it, and meets Jamie’s eyes.
“We’ll have to be more careful. That was close.”
Jamie is looking at him, not quite smiling. "You're really good at lying," he says.
"Thanks," Adrian replies, but then his brow furrows, because Jamie says nothing further, and there is something new and doubtful in his eyes.
* * *
"You can talk to me, you know. I'm not stupid, it's gotta hurt. You don't have to be strong the whole time.” Pause; expectant silence. “Adrian?"
They're curled up on the sofa in the spacious, empty den of Adrian’s parents’ house. Jamie's brought in a blanket from the spare bedroom for them both to curl up under, and he keeps insisting on getting up to fetch Adrian tissues or mugs of cocoa, which is endearing, if misguided. Adrian turns his head and smiles at him, covering Jamie's hand with his own.
"I'm okay," he says. "Really. There's no need for you to worry about me."
"C'mon." There’s frustration there now, he can hear it, though Jamie's arm doesn't move from around his shoulders, and his expression doesn't change. "I mean, I know there's no way I can understand how it feels, but—well, sure, I complain about my mom a whole lot, but if something happened to her my head would be fucked. I know you were raised to stay calm all the time, put on a brave face or whatever, but you don't have to. Not with me." Dark eyes regard him, pleading. “You can be honest."
"Honest?" Adrian says, and it feels as though he is watching himself through thick glass, his words muffled. His voice is steady, and not because he is keeping a stiff upper lip, as Jamie imagines. He's numb, but with something that is neither shock nor grief. "If you like."
Jamie nods, but his eyes widen minutely and he bites his lip, perhaps at the frozen neutrality Adrian can feel upon his face, or the level, uninflected tone in which he speaks. He sounds as though he is repeating something learned by rote.
"My parents left Germany for the United States because they feared retribution. Justice, rather. My father was a middle-ranking official within the Nazi party. He colluded with wholesale slaughter in order to advance his own political ambitions. My mother saw no problem with this."
Adrian looks into the middle distance as he speaks. Images pass before his mind's eye. Jamie, the first day they met, on the parachute ride, wide-eyed and gasping, surrendered to the illusion of freefall. Himself, watching and laughing, almost giving in to it, but not quite.
He wonders why he doesn't feel like he is falling now.
Voice and face still expressionless, he meets Jamie’s eyes. "Honestly? I don't feel. Anything."
Jamie spends the rest of that evening apologising to him, petting his hair, telling him—as if he didn't already know—that it's not his fault. But Adrian can't bring himself to be grateful, somehow, or relieved, or upset, can't summon any semblance of feeling at all. And when he looks at Jamie, little by little, he sees the shadows forming.
He is realising that he does not understand, Adrian thinks. That he has never understood. He is beginning to see the barrier between them—and to see it as something cruelly impassable, like a concrete wall. To Adrian it's something different. Soft and forgiving. Parachute silk.
Jamie comes to the funeral. He stays a few more days, afterwards, then says that he has to head home. Just for a little while, couple of days, maybe, to help out his mom.
Adrian calls him a cab, kisses him in the hallway, watches the car drive off from the front steps.
Then he climbs the stairs, and begins packing.
* * *
It's 1966. Adrian is standing in a room full of people, costumed and awkward in the Comedian's wake. They shuffle their feet and make excuses. Gardner gazes in despair at the charred remains of his display, then at his departing would-be teammates, his blue eyes pleading. He wants somebody to tell him it is going to be all right, to make it all right, Adrian knows.
It is not going to be all right.
Adrian pats his shoulder and thinks of parachutes sinking gently to earth.
"The Comedian's a cynic and a bully," he says. "He likes to make people feel inferior. Don't listen to him. We keep doing what we can. We all will. It'll help."
Gardner nods hopefully, his feelings apparently cushioned, for now. Adrian smiles and turns for the door. It is a cool, immovable smile, a piece of armor: nothing like sunshine.
Author:
anactoria Characters/pairing: Adrian/OMC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: This uses movie!Adrian’s backstory, so mentions of Nazism.
Summary: A teenaged Adrian sneaks away from a trip with family friends, and encounters a fellow fugitive.
Notes: This is my
help_japan fic, for fireez, who requested something about Adrian’s first crush. I’m afraid it got a little angsty (as seems to be inevitable with me…) but I hope you like it!Thanks to
soltian for the beta!You can see the parachute ride at Coney Island in action here. ;)
At the far end of the boardwalk, the lights still glitter off black water and the clamour of the fair is still audible, but the crowds are thinner here and it's dark enough to hide, just about. It'll give him at least a few minutes' respite, more if the Diederichs are caught up enough by the whirl of the amusements and the thrill of slumming not to notice how long he's been gone.
They're old friends of his father—the kind who give away, in sideways glances and strained, allusion-heavy silence, everything that Adrian isn't supposed to have figured out—and they have a daughter, two years younger and just as gleamingly blonde as he is. Both sets of parents are already starting to nudge them towards one another at parties, but thankfully she seems no more enthusiastic about the matter than he is, and all of their conversations have stayed painstakingly polite and reassuringly superficial. He's left her, and the rest of the family, queuing for a carousel, murmuring something about needing to be excused for a moment, so very sorry, and slinking off to the quietest available spot. Most of the time, Adrian's pretty good at maintaining the semblance of cheerful enthusiasm, but even he gets tired now and again, needs to disappear and be alone.
Well, almost alone, anyway. Adrian glances sideways at the soft plop of a glass soda bottle landing in the sea, appraising his unsought-out companion out of the corner of his eye.
It’s a boy of about his own age, dark-haired and almost as tall, though he’s hunched around the glowing end of a cigarette, elbows on the railing. He doesn’t acknowledge Adrian, or even appear to have seen him, just glowers down at the darkly lapping water. Clinging to his solitude, Adrian thinks, and he feels an unaccountable twinge of sympathy for this stranger, hiding away just like him. He wonders whether the dark-haired boy’s family are more or less insufferable than the Diederichs.
The boy’s shoes look worn-out, and there’s a patch on the elbow of his jacket. Not much money, then; this must be a rare trip out. Not something most kids their age would choose to give up, even if they are old enough to pretend they’re no longer interested in childish amusements. Fairly insufferable, in that case, Adrian decides.
And he’d be happy just speculating—anything’s better than going back to the Diederichs and their chattering, moneyed hypocrisy—but his train of thought is stopped in its tracks when the boy turns and looks him in the eye.
“You got a light?” he asks. Adrian blinks momentarily, and the boy gestures at his cigarette, gone out in the damp evening breeze. “I’m out of matches.”
“Oh, no. I don’t. Sorry.”
The boy shrugs, and flicks his cigarette-end over the railings to join the discarded cola bottle. He half-turns, stops, hovers, as though trying to decide between walking off or snatching a few more moments’ peace. Somehow, irresistibly—although solitude is what he’s been seeking, too—Adrian feels the urge to call him back.
“Who are you hiding from?” he asks, just loudly enough for the other boy to hear.
“Huh?” The boy blinks at him for a moment. Then, to Adrian’s surprise, he settles back against the railing, apparently coming the conclusion that an inquisitive stranger is still better company than whoever he came here with. “Oh, my brother and his wife.” His face wrinkles up. “All they ever do is argue with each other, and they still treat me like a little kid. I’m almost sixteen, for fuck’s sake, I’m pretty sure I can go on a fairground ride by myself.”
Adrian can’t help smiling at that, and the boy’s scowl starts to dissipate, giving way to a rueful half-smile. “I guess that makes me sound pretty childish, actually. They’re not so bad. Listening to them just gives me a headache a lot of the time.”
“I understand.” Adrian chuckles, a note of something that is not quite mirth under the surface of it. “Families can be quite insufferable, can’t they?”
“Yeah.” The boy inclines his head curiously. “How about you? Who’re you avoiding?”
Adrian drops his eyes, resists the impulse to bite his lip, but stays silent. He should’ve thought of another conversation-opener: he must seem rude, asking questions and then refusing to answer them himself.
“That bad, huh?” The boy is looking at him sympathetically, which is unexpected. “Don’t worry, I get it. I don’t always feel like talking about it, either.”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. Some friends of my parents’, that’s all. They’re not so bad, really.” Something inside him curls tight at the lie—though it shouldn’t, for this is an old lie, one to which he is accustomed. “Just very… proper, you know?”
The other boy raises an eyebrow, and his half-smile turns into a little smirk. “You seem kinda proper yourself, no offence. I mean, you sneak off on your own and you don’t even stuff your face with hotdogs or take or a ride on anything?”
“You don’t appear to be doing either of those things yourself. Are you ‘proper’, too?”
“Got no money.” The boy shoves his hands deep into his pockets and sighs. “But I guess you wouldn’t know about that.”
Adrian’s eyes widen at the remark, but he has to concede that his expensive clothes and his manner of speaking mark him out as a rich kid clearly enough that there’s no use in arguing. He nods, but he catches the other boy’s eye and sees him look down and redden immediately.
“Aw, shit,” he says, “that came out wrong. I didn’t mean—I wasn’t being—I mean, you can’t help being rich any more’n I can help being trash, right?”
It doesn’t sound like sarcasm. The boy’s eyes are still lowered, but his expression is solemn and entirely sincere now, and Adrian feels a sudden and unfamiliar twinge of something like sadness. He waits a beat, and then another, until the boy looks back up and meets his eyes.
“You don’t seem like trash to me,” he says, very quietly.
“Huh.” A half-quirk of the boy’s mouth. “Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome.” Adrian takes a step forward, holds out his hand. “My name’s Adrian. Adrian Veidt.”
“Jamie Collins.” The boy takes it and shakes, lips twitching, the quirk finally solidifying into a smile. “Nice to meet you.” And then he actually sketches a little mock-bow, eyes sparkling with amusement.
Adrian laughs. “I may be proper,” he says, dragging the word out so that he sounds like an English schoolmaster, “but you know, I think you were right. I should make the most of my freedom.” He pauses, waves an idle hand back toward the fair. “What’s your favourite?”
Jamie frowns and cocks his head. “I dunno,” he says, but his eyes wander upwards and Adrian follows his gaze. It lands on the parachute drop, its tower and the great round saucer atop it standing out like something out of H. G. Wells against the evening sky. The white carapaces of the parachutes descend slowly, like Chinese festival lanterns reaching the end of their journey and finally sinking to rest. From this distance, the motion appears gentle; easy not to think how dizzying it must be.
Catching Jamie's gaze again, Adrian smirks. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”
“What?”
“As you noticed, I have money.”
“Oh, no. I can’t—I can’t take that.”
He’s not disappointed, Adrian tells himself, and it’s not as though he was ever looking for company. But something makes him raise an eyebrow, and murmur, “You’re not scared, are you?”
Jamie frowns. “That’s cheating!”
He shrugs. "Suit yourself."
Then he turns, deliberately, on his heel, starting back towards the fair with measured strides. Jamie will follow, he's figured that much out from the way that the challenge gleamed in his eyes, but he's unprepared for the thudding rush of footfalls up behind him, the hand on his arm and the shout of, "Race you!"
And before Adrian has quite gathered his senses, he's running, too, breathless with it, Diederichs and parents and need for solitude all forgotten, cast off, for now, into the evening air.
By the time they reach the parachute drop they’ve slowed to a jog, but Adrian is still laughing, startled by the ease with which Jamie’s giddy excitement has infected him. They fall into line in the queue with upward glances of anticipation. From here, the height of the thing is dizzying, and Adrian feels something turn over deep in his insides, alternately uncomfortable and delicious.
Thinking about it, he suspects that this is what ‘being a teenager’ is supposed to feel like.
He hands over the money for both of them, straps himself into the seat beside Jamie, and folds his hands. He doesn’t look up; he waits.
“Still fearless?” Jamie asks, grinning, and he allows himself a small smile in response.
“I’m not the one who hesitated,” he points out, and smirks when Jamie gives him a playful shove. And his smile stays on, steady through the inching ascent, widening fractionally when Jamie practically bounces in his seat with excitement.
Towards the top, however, Jamie goes quiet, biting his lip, fingers tightening on the safety bar in involuntary twitches. Adrian pats his arm.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he murmurs. “It’s all perfectly safe, really. We just imagine it isn’t, that’s all.”
“I know.” Jamie’s voice is rough, but he clears his throat determinedly. “I'm not scared, I told you. It’s just—” His eyes dart up involuntarily, a quick, nervy glance at the cables and fasteners that are keeping them alive.
“We’re here now. There’s nothing to be done. Worrying would be pointless.”
Shaking his head, Jamie looks at him sideways, curiously. His nerves seem to have lessened, however, so on balance Adrian supposes the curiosity is a good thing.
“You don’t even sound like a kid half the time, you know that?”
Adrian opens his mouth around an answer—what it will be, he’s not sure—but then there is an almighty clunk and something releases and they are sinking and floating at the same time, descending in what feels like freefall towards the solid ground. The rush of air steals Adrian’s answer and the breath out of his lungs, and all he can hear is the night air whooshing past his ears. Jamie’s eyes are wide, mouth open in laughter or terror as they fall, fall—and then there is a bump and a shudder and already they’re back down to earth amid the crowds. Adrian inhales deeply as an attendant lets them out of the seat, offering a hand up to Jamie, who is still saucer-eyed, laughing and gasping for breath.
They find a railing to sag against while regaining it. Jamie’s shoulder brushes against his and doesn’t move. Quite accidentally, he’s sure, but his pulse skips briefly, and he tries not to wonder why that might be.
“I’ll pay you back sometime,” Jamie promises. “Next time, it’s my treat.”
Adrian swallows and frowns—only, he tells himself, at the strangeness of the evening, or perhaps at the implication he’ll be expecting reimbursement. Jamie’s easy assumption of continued friendship ought to disquiet him too, and perhaps it does, albeit not quite in the way he might have expected.
His parents would disapprove, certainly, and the Diederichs, too, if they should catch him, but charming his way into the good graces of adults is a skill Adrian learned long ago. But more than that, it’s the certainty that this moment must end soon, and that brief moments are all he can possibly offer, that catches in his chest. There is no room for an irrepressible, inquisitive, utterly inappropriate friend like this in his life. There never can be.
Jamie is still looking at him, head to one side, smile fading. Adrian forces the frown from his face. “Nonsense,” he says. “Gifts don’t need to be repaid. Besides, you’ve already done me a favour. My evening would have been considerably more boring without you.” He smiles. This, at least, is true.
“Yeah, but still,” Jamie is saying, but Adrian sees movement among the crowds, then: a trio of sleekly-groomed blond heads making their way toward him. He sighs.
“I have to go. It’s been—well, thank you. I mean it.”
Jamie follows his gaze. “Oh, right. Yeah.” He wrinkles his nose, and then looks at his watch. “I guess I should go find my brother, really. Our bus home leaves at half past. That's gonna be fun. And—I think I should be the one saying thanks.”
“Not at all.” They turn, awkwardly, towards one another for a moment, Jamie with arms half-outstretched, wavering over an appropriate gesture for goodbye. Then Adrian holds out his right hand and Jamie blinks, startled or amused at the formality of the action, but he takes it anyway, and shakes.
Adrian thinks about that handshake, later, in his four-poster back at home. He thinks about the warmth of it—and of all those smiles, too, bestowed so carelessly upon him throughout the evening’s brief meeting. Different from his own smiles, or those of his parents: ever-changing, fleeing and returning like sun behind scudding clouds, not measured or counted out. True.
How unlike one another they are. How unlikely that they'll ever meet again.
He ought to accept this for what it was, he knows—a moment of escapism, indulged in and then set aside, a tiny blip in the smooth rolling-out of his future. He should shut it, and all those remembered smiles, away in a corner of his mind, to be taken out and looked at only in private moments in that future, when he has time and leisure for fond recollections.
And he tries, he really does. But those smiles burst out all over—like sunshine, like sunshine—and right now, even Adrian cannot cover them with clouds.
Adrian checks the bus timetable from Coney Island, mentally running through the destinations of those that leave around half past the hour. Collins, he thinks, an Irish name, although Jamie's accent was pure Bronx. Kingsbridge. That has to be it. He catches the bus.
And then what? Adrian gets off on Broadway, looking up and down the thoroughfare: his turn to be curious.
No money, Jamie said. Perhaps one of these apartments is theirs. (Not theirs: where they live.) He'll need to ask somebody.
It's obvious that he isn't local here: his clothes are too neat and expensive, his glance around the street too unaccustomed, not enough true New York in his voice, with its smooth vowels and vague suspicions of the Old World. Adrian pauses at the bus stop for a moment, slotting his story together in his mind. Not that he ought to need one, really—who'd take issue at a teenage boy looking for his friend?—but, better safe than sorry.
After a moment, he settles on a middle-aged woman who is tramping determinedly down the sidewalk, in heavy overcoat and knotted headscarf though it's a sunny day.
"Excuse me," he says, and she stops and looks at him sharply.
"Yeah? Can I help you?"
"I hope so. I'm looking for the Collins family? I believe they live somewhere near here. You see, Mrs. Collins did some work for my mother, and—"
"Second block down, fifth floor."
Adrian blinks, spares a momentary glance at the building in question, and turns back to express his gratitude—but the woman is already on her way, and he finds himself murmuring, "Thank you so much" at her retreating back.
His heart thumps worryingly as he climbs the stairs, and he finds himself gripped with the irrational fear that this will be somehow awkward—irrational because he is never awkward, never tongue-tied or lost in nervous babbling, never anything but calmly and seamlessly polite. And irrational because it ought not to matter to him quite as much as it does.
Perhaps he should have listened to his head; perhaps this would have been best left as a one-off encounter. Perhaps things will be different in the light of day, away from that temporary wild space they somehow carved out together in the fairground. Perhaps Jamie will be unnerved, and not pleased to see him at all. He still has time to turn back.
But then he is knocking on the door, and after a stretched-out moment it opens and all worries are allayed, because there's Jamie and there is that bright, guileless grin again, and Adrian cannot help but return it.
They sit drinking soda in a diner. Adrian lets Jamie pay for them, because he insists so earnestly, and sips his Coke while Jamie scuffs his sneakers against the footrest of his counter stool. The rhythmic sound of it is comforting, somehow, not annoying. And they talk. Or rather, Adrian asks questions which make Jamie talk, and comments ("Yes, that does sound annoying." "And you told her that?" "Oh. Oh. I don't know how you cope, I'm sure.") at appropriate junctures. It's startling—and a little disconcerting—how willing he is to share, how it all comes out uncensored. Adrian finds himself not minding, however. He listens. It's easier to listen.
Eventually, though, Jamie runs out of steam and gives him an inquisitive look, chewing on his straw.
"How about you?" he asks. "Sorry, I just kind of...rant, sometimes. I'm sittin' here, talking all this shit about my mom and my brother, and you can't get a word in." He laughs. "Guess I oughta shut up for a while, huh?"
"Oh, well, you know." Adrian shrugs. "My family's nowhere near as interesting as yours sounds."
Worthy of a raised eyebrow, at least, he thinks, but Jamie just nods and offers Adrian a swig of his cream soda, and lets it drop—through naivety, maybe, or maybe out of kindness. Grateful, Adrian nudges his chair fractionally closer.
Jamie tastes of cigarettes and strawberry milkshake, his hands hot and unsteady on Adrian's arms. Adrian has known this was coming for a while, now, a few weeks, at least. He's been heartbreakingly certain of it, seen it in the intensity of Jamie's eyes, the way his hands linger for unnecessary seconds, the way he never wants to go home when it’s time to say goodbye.
Honestly, he didn't think that he'd let it happen. It would be kinder not to. They’ve been friends for half a year now, building a fragile camaraderie in snatched days and afternoons away from their families, an oasis of respite for both of them, and this new thing, this dawning realisation, threatens that. This can't last, can only lead to loss and potential embarrassment, for both of them, in the long term. To heartache, for poor Jamie, who is so sweet and so honest beneath his so very teenage scowls.
Adrian hadn't expected it to be this easy to give in. Or this hard to put a stop to things.
Which he isn't, currently, doing. He's kissing back, instead, nudging Jamie's lips apart with his tongue, his head swimming and heart hammering, dazed—so much so that he doesn't even hear the footsteps until they're right outside Jamie's bedroom door. He just has time to pull back, leaving them both gasping for breath, and his mind spins and leaps and then he does, too, grabbing something off a shelf and holding it triumphantly above his head.
"Got it!" he cries triumphantly as the door swings open, his voice artificially loud. "I'm faster than you, Jamie. Just admit it."
Mercifully, Jamie catches on, flopping back onto his bed with a defeated frown. "Fine, fine, you win. Getcha next time, though."
And standing in the doorway, Jamie's mother just rolls her eyes and sighs, "Boys. Jamie, I need you to come help me move the table. If you two have quite finished competing."
She turns and heads for the kitchen without waiting for an answer. Adrian lets out a measured breath of relief, and inspects the object he's been holding in his hand. It's a toy soldier, a relic of childhood, left on Jamie's shelf to gather dust but not yet packed away. He replaces it, and meets Jamie’s eyes.
“We’ll have to be more careful. That was close.”
Jamie is looking at him, not quite smiling. "You're really good at lying," he says.
"Thanks," Adrian replies, but then his brow furrows, because Jamie says nothing further, and there is something new and doubtful in his eyes.
"You can talk to me, you know. I'm not stupid, it's gotta hurt. You don't have to be strong the whole time.” Pause; expectant silence. “Adrian?"
They're curled up on the sofa in the spacious, empty den of Adrian’s parents’ house. Jamie's brought in a blanket from the spare bedroom for them both to curl up under, and he keeps insisting on getting up to fetch Adrian tissues or mugs of cocoa, which is endearing, if misguided. Adrian turns his head and smiles at him, covering Jamie's hand with his own.
"I'm okay," he says. "Really. There's no need for you to worry about me."
"C'mon." There’s frustration there now, he can hear it, though Jamie's arm doesn't move from around his shoulders, and his expression doesn't change. "I mean, I know there's no way I can understand how it feels, but—well, sure, I complain about my mom a whole lot, but if something happened to her my head would be fucked. I know you were raised to stay calm all the time, put on a brave face or whatever, but you don't have to. Not with me." Dark eyes regard him, pleading. “You can be honest."
"Honest?" Adrian says, and it feels as though he is watching himself through thick glass, his words muffled. His voice is steady, and not because he is keeping a stiff upper lip, as Jamie imagines. He's numb, but with something that is neither shock nor grief. "If you like."
Jamie nods, but his eyes widen minutely and he bites his lip, perhaps at the frozen neutrality Adrian can feel upon his face, or the level, uninflected tone in which he speaks. He sounds as though he is repeating something learned by rote.
"My parents left Germany for the United States because they feared retribution. Justice, rather. My father was a middle-ranking official within the Nazi party. He colluded with wholesale slaughter in order to advance his own political ambitions. My mother saw no problem with this."
Adrian looks into the middle distance as he speaks. Images pass before his mind's eye. Jamie, the first day they met, on the parachute ride, wide-eyed and gasping, surrendered to the illusion of freefall. Himself, watching and laughing, almost giving in to it, but not quite.
He wonders why he doesn't feel like he is falling now.
Voice and face still expressionless, he meets Jamie’s eyes. "Honestly? I don't feel. Anything."
Jamie spends the rest of that evening apologising to him, petting his hair, telling him—as if he didn't already know—that it's not his fault. But Adrian can't bring himself to be grateful, somehow, or relieved, or upset, can't summon any semblance of feeling at all. And when he looks at Jamie, little by little, he sees the shadows forming.
He is realising that he does not understand, Adrian thinks. That he has never understood. He is beginning to see the barrier between them—and to see it as something cruelly impassable, like a concrete wall. To Adrian it's something different. Soft and forgiving. Parachute silk.
Jamie comes to the funeral. He stays a few more days, afterwards, then says that he has to head home. Just for a little while, couple of days, maybe, to help out his mom.
Adrian calls him a cab, kisses him in the hallway, watches the car drive off from the front steps.
Then he climbs the stairs, and begins packing.
It's 1966. Adrian is standing in a room full of people, costumed and awkward in the Comedian's wake. They shuffle their feet and make excuses. Gardner gazes in despair at the charred remains of his display, then at his departing would-be teammates, his blue eyes pleading. He wants somebody to tell him it is going to be all right, to make it all right, Adrian knows.
It is not going to be all right.
Adrian pats his shoulder and thinks of parachutes sinking gently to earth.
"The Comedian's a cynic and a bully," he says. "He likes to make people feel inferior. Don't listen to him. We keep doing what we can. We all will. It'll help."
Gardner nods hopefully, his feelings apparently cushioned, for now. Adrian smiles and turns for the door. It is a cool, immovable smile, a piece of armor: nothing like sunshine.
