WATER
When afternoon fully transitioned into evening and the chilly winter snow-rain mix still pattered outside his blinds, Adam turned off all the lights in his apartment save for the ones in his kitchen, which he turned low enough to leave them as little more than a dreamlike, golden glow, and returned to the couch.
He was not alone tonight. He hadn't been alone for some hours now, but his companion was a quiet one, content just to sit with him in comfortable silence. Their conversations wandered from work to pleasure to musings on the nature of their world, and she always had something to say. Thirty-two years of life, along with all the experiences that entailed during her years in the Marines, meant she had insight in ways he did not. Sometimes, she echoed his thoughts, always in the same soft voice she always spoke to him with.
Settling into the cushioning a moment, he looked over at her, letting the sound of the rain fill the silence. Dimly lit, Aria had curled up half on her side, knees drawn close to her chest, and long ago drifted into a doze. He didn't know exactly how long she had been asleep, but though he knew the hour grew late and she had to leave eventually, he hesitated to wake her. The very thought of doing so was one that felt unpleasant. She looked completely at ease, unconcerned with the idea of sleeping in his presence, in his sanctuary.
That realization filled him with warmth and, also, a twinge of fear. He had grown accustomed to others being wary of him, keeping their distance, their hands to themselves.
But the time was past eight, and though it was a Friday, they both would be on call, even though it wasn't required of them to actually go to the office at all each weekend. At the very least, she needed time to wake up enough to make her way safely home. They lived in the same district, but quite a distance apart, and he didn't need her stumbling her way along in a dark neighborhood full of disgruntled fellow Augs.
He reached for her, and hesitated, eyeing the way the light glinted off the carbon fiber shell and gold-plated joints of that hand.
Then, he shook himself out of it and took her shoulder gently. "Hey, Aria. Wake up."
It took a few moments, but she stirred, eyelids fluttering. Long, thick, dark lashes stood in stark contrast to the pale skin and evidence of tiredness beneath her eyes, though her cheeks were touched with a soft pinkish hue he could just make out in the dim light. When her eyes flicked open, they moved to his, and as recognition settled in, her lips curved in a faint smile, and her eyes closed again. "Hey. How long I been asleep?"
"I'm not sure," he said, leaving his hand where it was, resting on her shoulder. "Almost time to leave."
"Kicking me out already?" Her eyes opened again.
"'Course not," he said, thumb smoothing over her shoulder. "Just figured you want time to wake up."
"Your couch is way too comfortable." The words came out in a bit of a mumble, but the smile stayed on her lips, and the sight of it caused something deep inside him to tie itself into a knot.
His hand slid off her shoulder as she stretched her arms.
Aria didn't say anything further for a minute, long enough for him to gather his thoughts. He had seen so many women over his lifetime, many of whom had been hopeless suitors, that he knew Aria couldn't be counted among the conventionally beautiful. She was rather plain by most standards, with her round face and thick brows. Yet, as he studied her, watching her slowly unfold and work the kinks out of her joints, he realized she... wasn't plain. Not to him. Not at all. She had smiled at him so much, had gazed at him with large, deep brown eyes thick with feeling, had always taken a moment of her time to talk with him or just listen, and been so happy to finally be invited here...
Aria was beautiful to him in ways he had trouble grasping... or, rather, didn't want to. He couldn't remember the last time a woman's smile had made him feel so... comfortable.
"Why do you trust me?"
Aria looked at him, blinking rapidly a few times, the moment of bemusement on her face echoing his own. The question had not been conscious at all. "Huh?"
The words hung in midair between them, unable to be unspoken. "Why... do you trust me?"
More blinking. "Adam, you're gonna have to make sense. I just woke up." The light, teasing tone did little to assuage his nerves, and she must have noticed, for the smile faded and she sat up straighter. "Why do... you're asking why I trust you?" Her head tilted slightly. "Where'd this come from, huh?"
"You're... here, you know, asleep in my apartment. Less than five feet away."
The haze of grogginess vanished from her eyes once she took a moment to rub them with both hands. "You haven't given me a reason not to," she said, brow furrowing. Confusion colored her voice. "What's this about?"
His fingertips rubbed over one another. "Just a thought."
"And I don't buy that." She turned toward him, legs folded up on the sofa, one arm at her side and the other resting beside her head. Open language, he knew. No fear. Nothing but curiosity and confusion, the very things he heard in her voice. Even when he triggered CASIE for a passive reading, that was still all he got out of her. There really was nothing more to her than what he saw. "Come on, Adam, give me something."
For a moment, he thought of sleepless nights and pacing restlessly, battling his own thoughts and trying not to let them wander. He was more thoughtful now, often caught up in his own mind to the point of forgetting the world around him, and it drifted more frequently than he would like to forbidden places. It drifted to memories of soft sheets, of the soft cascade of a woman's hair under his hand, of thin arms that felt strong around him, and no loneliness, never loneliness, the kind that ate away at him now, the kind that vanished when Aria came here and returned when she left.
Inside his own body, he felt trapped, the shell cold and smooth, untouched by the elements. There were days – most days – when he could forget it happened. Those were the days when he had so much to think about, and his body felt so worn, that he could sleep soon after his head hit the pillow. Those were the good days, when nothing mattered but the job, and he never had to think about anything but his work and the state of the world.
The bad days were less frequent. Those were the days when he stayed awake in bed, eyes closed but mind raging, and his skin felt cold. Those days, he could feel the ghost of a woman's arms around him, but there was no pressure and no warmth, and his body screamed for both, but no one could actually hear, and he wouldn't let them, he couldn't, because it was a bitterness few could understand, a physical pain he was ashamed to know so intimately. Distractions wrought by his own body, longing for a touch he hadn't felt in years, were not needed, not now, not when he had a job to do, not when so many people counted on him and needed him and–
But in the space of a few heartbeats, her steady gaze wore him down, and he could feel it pressing against the very high walls he had carefully constructed. Letting her in was out of the question, of course, but even though he knew better, even though he knew there were few he could trust...
"I never told you how I got these augs, right? Just that they saved my life?"
No. Not that. Not that. But he couldn't undo the words, and as she leaned her head against a hand, never taking her eyes – her natural eyes that further tied his heart into more knots – off his, he knew, already, he had made a terrible mistake.
"No, you didn't."
"And... you never asked."
"I was curious, sure, but it's your story to tell."
He wanted to tell someone. Only a handful of people knew the truth, and he hated the truth, he hated being reminded that his body wasn't really his own, that it had been violated and torn apart in ways that still sometimes made it hard to sleep at night and only now was he learning to accept.
That was a door he wanted to open and didn't, wanted to tell someone but couldn't.
His mouth betrayed him. "That was only kind of true."
"Only..." The furrows deepened. "...kind of?"
She was listening. She was listening, really listening, and wanted to know the answer. The ghostly arms were around him again, reminding him of small things – human things – he no longer had. Even now, after all her visits, he kept his torso covered in her presence. Everyone who saw the true extent of what had happened were appalled, or saddened, or they were responsible, and they couldn't look at it. Augmentations were ugly now, even the cutting-edge ones he sported alongside the mysterious experiments that had been carefully shoved in beside them.
"I worked for Sarif Industries. Think you knew that already." He leaned forward, arms dangling off his knees, the loose-fitting fabric of the shirt skating across his skin. It felt more noticeable than usual, as though his nerves were wide awake instead of in their normal doze. "There was an attack, and I went down to try and contain it. They got through all our– my security measures. Knew exactly where to go. They were after some... research the company was working on."
Patient X. The key to universal augmentation. The whole reason he had ended up in this personal hell.
"They were... there were three of them." He looked at her now. "All heavily augmented. I got through the labs, and was ambushed by the leader. Pitched me through plate glass."
Aria flinched, one hand coming briefly up to her lips before her fingers curled up tight. For a moment, he just gazed back at her, the memory – of so many bones in his body cracking as he impacted glass stout enough to withstand heavy blows under normal conditions – cold in his blood. He looked away again, at the darkened television panel, but didn't really see it.
"The only parts that needed replacing were my left arm and chest cavity. Both of them were full of glass, and the bones were wrecked. I also got shot point-blank in the head. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in the recovery room of a LIMB clinic, in a body I didn't recognize. I was scared."
There was no emotion at all in his voice. That fact frightened him more than the memory. Why did he feel nothing? He could remember the rage and fear at the first sight of his reflection, and a fist of metal flying out so fast that he hadn't even been sure he had commanded it, turning the mirror into shards that scattered across the counter, leaving his reflection as though seen through a prism. It had caused building security to be called on him due to a "possible domestic dispute", only to find him alone with a shattered mirror and crack in the wall behind it.
No one had said much. Building management had chided him for it, but replaced his mirror less than three days later with one almost exactly like it.
He had tried to drink himself into a stupor, took one look at his nude body in the new mirror – scarred, healing, an ugly fusion of metal and flesh he didn't know anymore – and tried to hold back, before his body had reacted before he could, breaking the flawless surface into dozens of shards. This time, they didn't fall, but he had, collapsing on the floor in shame and trying – and failing – not to cry.
He couldn't get drunk anymore. He had found that out quickly. If he slammed enough alcohol quickly enough, he could get a buzz, but it never lasted, his Sentinel system dutifully scrubbing all the chemicals before they even reached his liver. Even cigarettes did little except leave a sour taste on his tongue.
Management had replaced his mirror again, after a week this time, and warned him against doing it again. For their sake, and for that of his neighbors, he just... didn't look at himself anymore. The last time he had broken the mirror in a fit of pain and rage, it had never been replaced.
But he didn't tell her any of that. Though the words crawled up onto his tongue and demanded to be allowed out, he kept them tucked behind his teeth. Adam Jensen was not the type to pity himself, and he was not about to allow anyone else to do so. What had happened to him was no one's business but his own.
And yet, he couldn't stop himself. "It took six months for me to have any real control. Six months of leave. And that's all it took. A lot of people take longer, but my body adopted fast, like I was born with my augs. I didn't find out why until... later." He looked at his hands – carbon-black, well-crafted machines that didn't bother him anymore. Not like they used to. "Then I was back on the job, and didn't get a chance to stop and think after."
There was a long period of silence filled only by the pattering rain. Not wanting to look at her just yet, he kept studying the back of one hand, watching the light shift across the scuffed gold joints and pitted black shell. For as quiet as she was, he might as well have been alone.
When she finally did speak, her voice was so soft, he barely heard it. "They put more tech in you than... I'm... so sorry, Adam. They... you didn't have... you just... woke up like this. I can't imagine how it– I can't..." Pause. "I'm so sorry.."
He shrugged, but it didn't come off as confident as he would have liked. "It's what it is."
Another pause, then, "Why tell me this, now?"
"I..." He hesitated, not trusting himself to speak. The words still caught up inside threatened to come tumbling out, so he stood instead, moving around to the other side of the coffee table and folding his arms. He could stand how he looked now, but he didn't see the elegance and beauty that everyone said Sarif's work exuded. All he could see was an Aug, something fetishised, hated, or feared, sometimes all at once.
"There's something you're not telling me, but you really want to, don't you?"
He turned enough to look at her, trying to keep his face a mask of perfect stoicism, but knew he had failed when he saw concern deepen the lines of her face. For a moment, he considered lying, or half-lying, hoping it would be enough, but no, she actually cared what the answer was, and she would be able to tell.
He felt exposed and vulnerable.
Though he couldn't really explain what drove him to do so, he grasped the hem of the shirt and pulled it up over his head. Slightly humid, cool air washed over his skin, causing goosebumps, and he bundled the shirt and tossed it into the corner of the sofa. She would be able to see the near-full extent of his augs now – the evidence of a chassis under the skin of his chest, the hideous fusion of carbon fiber and pale skin at each shoulder – but she couldn't see the scars left when he was disemboweled by the glass, or the slash across his face from the same.
Those were all gone. He was the ideal poster boy now, a perfect symbiosis of technology and mankind, one of the very last remnants of a golden age that would never return.
"There. This is what they did to me." Though he felt a strong urge to cover himself and retreat into the shadows, he forced himself to stay still. He was completely vulnerable now, in a way he hadn't been in years. It was one thing to talk to David Sarif, who had witnessed the entire surgery firsthand, like this. It was quite another to stand in his apartment, in front of a woman, and wait to be judged.
Aria's eyes stayed on his for a long time before finally moving downward. Her expression softened, and he noticed that her pulse had changed, increasing a touch, along with a hitch in her breathing and a... blush response?
Feeling heat on his skin, he switched CASIE off again.
"I never would have chosen to do this. Never. I worked at a company that would cover the costs of augmentations if you opted to get them, and I'd never do it. Wasn't my thing. Didn't care. But my..." Mentioning Megan seemed like a poor idea, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to make good judgment calls. "...ex-girlfriend had an experiment she'd stolen my DNA for, and she found out I'm immune to DDS."
Her dark brown eyes flicked back up to his. "You don't... need Neuropozene?"
"No, and it's a long story, for another time."
Again, her eyes wandered, and he felt self-conscious. The last time anyone had looked at him that way had been almost seven years ago now. Even in the red light district, the looks he got made him feel like a product waiting to be purchased. It was a wandering gaze holding a hint of awe and twinge of desire, one that made him feel strangely warm.
"You're–" The word came out, and then she stopped.
He studied her face in the dim light, watching her look down at her hands. One of them was cybernetic, of a different brand and style than his, and it entwined with her natural one as easily as if it too were made of flesh. "I'm... what?"
She shook her head. "Not something you..." A pause, then, "A man who sees himself the way you do probably... what I was going to say isn't remotely appropriate."
"There's not much you can say I haven't heard," he said, quietly. "Just say it. You can't hurt my feelings."
The fingers tightened around each other. "It's not that."
"Then... what is it, Aria?" When she still didn't respond, he sighed. "Just tell me."
Finally, she lifted her head. "You're beautiful."
At a complete loss, he just stared at her. He thought he had heard everything. How hideous he was, how ugly, how pretty his augmentations were, how terrifying they were, how he was a robot and not a person, how he was at best half-human, how could he have butchered his body to do this instead.
She did not say his augs were beautiful. She had quite clearly said he was beautiful.
No one had ever made that distinction before.
"I'm... beautiful." He echoed the words without understanding them, looking down at his hands again.
The silence lingered a long time before his eyes were called back to her by a soft intake of breath. "Adam," she said, "come here a minute. Please?" She lightly patted the cushion beside her.
A prickle ran up his spine as he reminded himself of all the doors he shouldn't open, but he did as she asked, sinking back down onto the sofa only an arm's length from her. That didn't last, because she moved closer, to within a forearm's length, hands fiddling in her lap. She was dressed in a cap-sleeve shirt and long pants, having removed the jacket and sweater some time ago, and her hair was loose about her shoulders. Every detail of her body language and choice of clothes jumped out at him; he tried to relax, but couldn't work the tension out of his body.
The last time a woman had been this close to him in a similar state of undress, she had been beating him bloody and senseless. That, he could handle. That, he could pull out the snark and the attitude and deflect the harsh words, keeping his mind off the pain.
This, though, he had no words for.
Aria raised a hand toward him, then stopped halfway to his shoulder. "Can I...?"
It was stupid. Senseless. Ridiculous. He didn't need or want her pity, but when he looked at her large, unwavering eyes, all of his remaining pride dissipated like a wisp of smoke into the void.
So he nodded, slowly, just once.
Her cheeks darkened, as did her ears, as her hand landed on the place where his arm joined his heavily-modified, but still arguably natural, skin.
The response was so sudden and so long-forgotten that it scared him. A rush of feeling spread throughout his body, and the ghostly arms that had been wrapped around him abruptly vanished. His spine, once rigidly set, relaxed, and as a final betrayal, a soft sigh left his mouth, at the same time as his eyes fluttered closed. Warmth. Skin. A woman, touching him without any fear and no sign of disgust.
He already knew the significance behind her frequent smiles and taking time out of her day to say hello to him. He already knew what her wandering eyes and blush response had meant. None of this surprised him.
When her hand slid up over his shoulder, closer to his neck, it touched a sensitive nerve, sending a rush of pleasure through him – a response he hadn't experienced in so long that it felt brand new to him. Frayed nerves made him want to bolt and hide in the shadows, but he opened his eyes instead, feeling her other hand coming to his other shoulder now, and they stopped where they met behind his neck, palms and fingers pressed to his skin, and gently smoothing out onto his shoulders and over the remaining organic muscle below the modified skin.
"It's beautiful work." Both hands slid down his arms, thumb following a ridge of synthetic muscle. Her eyes stayed on one hand, seemingly oblivious to his gaze. "Always heard Sarif made good stuff, but I've never actually seen it in person, since it's always expensive, I was told. You got some amazing tech."
"Only the best for their chief of security," he said, but the words came out too soft.
She looked up. "Should I stop?"
All he could manage was the barest whisper of the word "no".
Her hands slid down, over his chest, stopping to run two fingertips over the support bar across his chest. She explored like a scientist would, tracing unnatural ridges and bolt points, but he felt painfully aware of every little touch. "So they link here, and bolt underneath," she murmured. "And this goes up... here?" As her hand rose again, to his neck, he curled his fingers against his palms – the thin skin of his neck was especially sensitive, always had been, and her innocuous wanderings were sending ripples of feeling and pleasure into his body, lighting every single nerve on fire.
She traced thin metal bars that partially protruded from his skin beside his natural tendons, and as she skated over the very thin skin that protected them, he sucked in a breath.
She stopped. "Oh, I'm... sorry. Th– do you want me to... not do that?"
The best answer, of course, was to tell her she needed to stop. It was the smart thing to do... but the lightest touch of her fingertips made every nerve in his body come alive, and the sensation of being utterly overwhelmed was so powerful that, even though he knew better, he didn't tell her what she needed to hear.
"It's fine." He looked at her, feeling his eyes and expression soften as the corner of his lips twitched. "Really."
She blinked, then looked down at his left hand, resting on his thigh. Her right hand took it and raised it enough to turn over, palm up, letting her run her fingers from wrist to fingertips. The artificial nerve replacements there triggered a shiver response down his spine that he couldn't quite surpress.
Her other hand came up to one of the shield sheaths, close enough to his eye that he felt wary, but he didn't flinch or pull away, trusting her to do him no harm, and she didn't, more interested in the tech for the moment than anything else as she traced the curve of smooth, sleek metal around that eye.
Then her fingers moved down, and he knew in an instant there was nothing innocuous or scientific about this time, as the tips moved to his lips, smoothed across, and lingered far longer than necessary. Her other hand touched the other side of his face, smoothing over the hollow of his cheek and along the line of his jaw.
"You have such an interesting face," she murmured, a faint, shy smile on her own lips now. "Ever since I saw your eyes, I thought they were so pretty. Maybe you don't think so, but they are."
His right arm pivoted on the elbow to bring his hand to her face. She wasn't bothered at all by an unnatural hand smoothing across her cheek and into her hair, the strands soft against his fingertips. Both hands were packed with so many sensors that they almost perfectly mimicked the natural nerves that had been stolen, and as far as he could tell, the mimicry was good enough that he wouldn't know the difference anymore. He felt every individual strand, a little coarse here and there, as they glided over the carbon fiber shell.
She leaned into his touch, eyes closing. "Don't make me a one-time thing," she whispered. "Don't do this tonight, then not talk to me tomorrow, or let me come back. Don't... touch me, and tell me things, and then act like it never happened. If that's what's going to happen, then stop it."
He cradled her face in both hands. "Aria, I've got my reasons for not telling you, or anyone, much of anything. I can tell you this, though: I like you, and I'm not..." Trailing off into a sigh, he looked down at the sofa between them a moment. "You aren't a 'one-time thing', not by a long shot."
He looked back up in time to see her eyes meeting his before she leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his, then turning her face to nuzzle the side of his. Cybernetic though it was, he felt his heart momentarily skip a beat and land one a little harder than usual as he breathed in her scent and indulged in the feel of her skin. Looping both arms around her waist, he pulled her close, quietly happy she'd broken that barrier between them first, caring for maybe a half-second that he was still very shirtless, and closed his eyes.
On the back of his neck and up into his hair, he felt her hand. "You're trembling. Did I do something wrong?"
With her voice right in his ear, he felt the instant all those walls collapsed. "No," he said, turning his face into her neck and hugging her a little closer, "you didn't." Her body relaxed a little in his arms at those words, so he gave in to the atmosphere of the moment and boldness that came with her having come to him first, and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her neck, eliciting a soft intake of breath from her.
"I still have to leave, you know, sooner or later," she murmured, "but you're making it difficult."
That reminder took some of the warmth out of his body, but he refused to let go of her just yet. She needed to go home and rest, since he knew she wasn't the type to stay the night, but if she wasn't in a hurry to untangle their bodies and leave his sanctuary, then he wasn't going to rush her.
"You started this," he said teasingly, and closed his eyes, the pattering rain filling the silence that followed.