Author's Note ~ I hope you enjoy
"I have a feeling I'm going to learn a lot while you're here." Jeff muttered, pointing to a bunk and assertively taking control of the situation. "Now hold still. This is going to sting like a mother."
Newt hadn't thought that he'd actually be able to sleep; he'd spent so much time hunkered down in his hammock over the last two days that the idea of sleeping through another day made him feel restless – and useless. The stress of the morning, however, and the roller coaster of emotional lows and fearful peaks had left him mentally drained. Before he knew it he'd slipped into a deep, restful sleep. Hours later, a gentle hand lightly shaking his shoulder brought him back towards the waking world. Caught in the twilight between asleep and awake, forgetting where he was, he felt a moment of panic at the touch. He froze, torn between fighting his way free of the hand and feigning sleep in an attempt to trick whoever it was into leaving him alone. Then a familiar voice, murmuring quietly, cleared through the fog in his brain.
It was Adrian. Of course. It was only Addy.
Newt groaned himself up into a seated position, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and stretching stiffly. When he got the room in focus, he saw the man standing patiently by the bedside, a contemplative look on his face and a steaming bowl in his hand. Adrian set the bowl carefully on the bed beside the boy, tucking his hands into his pockets and stepping away to gaze out one of the windows, the shutters now thrown open to the early afternoon light.
"Feeling?" He asked easily.
"Like a new man." Newt assured between mouthfuls. For the first time in days, he actually had an appetite. In fact, he realized after the first bite that he was absolutely famished, and he demolished the bowl of overcooked grain and vegetables with great satisfaction. Licking his spoon clean (and contemplating giving the bowl the same treatment) Newt gave the man the beady eye, the wheels turning as he tried to work things out in his head.
In the course of one day, Adrian had been strongly assertive, a bit of a bully, completely understanding, amazingly gentle, almost painfully kind, lightly teasing, and unquestioningly supportive. He made Newt feel safe, protected, even a little strong and brave. He'd flat out lied to Alby without any hesitation; keeping Newt's secret and preserving his dignity. He'd welcomed Newt into his home, all but carried him there, then joked with the leader. Then, without warning, he'd been calmly demanding about the meds, mildly threatening to assure his compliance, and more than a little distant and coolly dismissive before he just walked away without a backward glance. Now, on his return, his easy level demeanor had mostly returned but there was still a sense of separation, a hint of distance. He focused hard on the man's back, trying to puzzle him out. And through it all, Newt thought to himself, he never once wavered or hesitated in his determination to help me.
How could one person wear so many faces, all in a single day?
"Addy?"
Adrian turned smoothly, hands still in his pockets and his face studiously blank.
"Yeah kid?"
"Thank you. For...helping me, for letting me stay here. Thank you."
A soft smile eased across the man's face, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"No thanks needed. Let's just work on getting you back on your feel, alright?"
"Yeah. That sounds like a bloody plan, alright."
"Good." Adrian nodded, satisfied, glancing over his shoulder and out the window once more. "Now that you've been fed, I have something I want to work on outside for a while. You can join me if you like; keep me company. Or you can hang out in here until I'm done. Then we'll head back and meet up with the rest of the guys for dinner." His tone was friendly enough, but there was a barely discernible hint of strain behind the ordinary words.
"I'll come with you." Newt said, relishing the idea of being outside and having someone to talk to. As much as he enjoyed Adrian's home, now that he was awake lolling inside like a lump would just make him feel like an invalid. He may not be up to running, but that didn't mean that he had to just sit inside and sulk, either.
"Take a couple of minutes," Adrian advised, "do some easy stretches to wake up and loosen up your muscles. I'll be just on the edge of the clearing when you're done." So saying, he turned and strolled out, leaving the door open at his back.
Newt rolled his eyes a little but got up and did as the man suggested, gently working some of the kinks out of his body before heading out of the little building. The pain was still there, especially in his nether region, but it was far more bearable now after the rest and medication. Determined to suss out what was bothering Adrian, Newt went after his friend.
He carefully made his way across the grassy clearing, heading toward the man who, true to his word, was clearly visible at the edge of the small area. The scraping sound of metal repeatedly hitting dirt broke the otherwise serene silence of the day as the man energetically worked at digging a hole deep into the ground; he'd already gotten down a couple of feet by the time Newt joined him. A decent size mound of long grass and thin twigs, a bigger pile of long branches in a variety of thicknesses and a fat ball of twine lie in an orderly fashion a dozen feet away, all clearly brought in earlier. Wanting to offer a hand but unsure as to the man's plan, Newt picked a spot that wasn't in the way and gingerly sat down on the ground with his back against a tree, deciding to watch and wait for the moment.
Adrian had removed his shirt before he started digging, and sweat gleamed dully over the bare skin of his back. Old rags wrapped around both of his hands, protecting exposed flesh from the threat of blisters or splinters from the battered old shovel. Newt watched the muscles in his arms stand out as he lifted shovel after shovel of dirt, a little impressed with the smoothly efficient rhythm he maintained. Newt admired the strength of Adrian's back, his shoulders and stance as he fully applied himself to the task at hand. Life in the glade was rugged, and a sturdy physicality wasn't just vastly beneficial for a person as an individual; as a group, they could use every strong back they could find. With nothing else to do at the moment, Newt found himself thoroughly studying the working man.
In the dappled light at the clearing's edge, faint shadows were all that was left of the bruising on his ribs and back. Scars, some old enough to flatten and blur, others new enough to stand tight and shiny, stood out like pale paint strokes against his lightly tanned skin. The dark blue ink of his tattoo – a phoenix, Newt remembered – rippled as he moved, making the simple looking bird dance across Adrian's ribs as though it were trying to pull itself from his skin and fly away. Newt wondered fancifully if it would fly far and fast to escape the prison of pale red and orange fire flickering at its feet, or if it would merely stretch its wings before gratefully returning to the blaze.
He remembered how Adrian had once brushed off his questions about the scars, closed up tight at his query about the tattoo. Wondering over it all, trying to piece together a way to approach the subject that wouldn't cause the man to shut down, Newt's mind ran in fast little circles as he stared. Adrian's voice startled him out of his contemplation.
"Just ask. If I don't want to tell you, I won't answer."
"What?" Newt asked blankly, a little shocked.
"Ask the question, or knowing you, the questions that are buzzing around in that skull of yours."
"How did you know..."
"Kid," Adrian stopped him, both exasperation and amusement in his voice, "You've been staring holes through me for almost half an hour. If you were thinking any louder, you'd be scaring the friggin' birds away. If you've got something burning a hole in your brain, just ask already. Worse comes to worst, I can always tell you to shut up and mind your own."
"How did you get all those scars?" Newt blurted, any idea of easing into the subject stripped away.
"I was afraid it would be something like that." Adrian sighed, sounding too weary for irritation. He chucked the shovel up out of the hole which, by now, was fully shoulder height. He planted his hands on the surface and, with a little grunt of effort, jumped and boosted himself out of the hole. Not speaking, he walked over to the pile of branches and picked up a machete that must have been lying out of sight, grabbing a thick shortish branch and shaving one end into a sharp point. When he was finished, he picked up another, then another. After a few moments of silence Newt called out, hesitating a bit.
"You have...so many, old and fresh...If you don't want to tell me..."
Adrian shook his head, still sharpening his sticks.
"I know you're only asking because you're curious. Still, sometimes it's better to leave the past in the past. And that," Adrian sighed, stopping to rub a hand roughly over his face, "is a cop-out. Alright. Fine. I'll give you the abridged version."
He picked up the dozen sticks he had whittled, dropping them beside the gaping hole in the ground. Using the handle of the machete as a hammer, he began pounding them into the opposite wall of the hole at an angle, stabbing the sharp end into a point about two feet below ground level and laying the rough end over the edge of the side at his feet, bracing the mouth while leaving an opening at the center.
"The outside world can be a dangerous place." Adrian said carefully, keeping his hands busy as he spoke. "When you do the kind of research I do-I did," He corrected, a little bitterly, "you have to go into some pretty sketchy places, some pretty rough areas. Not everyone is friendly. I told you before that 'I'm damn good at what I do; careful, thorough, discrete' – and I am. But information always comes at a cost. My old scars are a testament to that, and they shout the message pretty loud and clear. Still, not all pain is physical. When you have no choice but to do...ugly things, it leaves a mark far more permanent than a new stripe on your hide. Sometimes 'careful' means avoiding a fight, sometimes it means winning one. Sometimes 'discrete' means going unseen, sometimes...sometimes it means taking out those that have seen you." His voice was quiet now, resigned and tinged with a shadow of sadness and regret. "The information that I sought was too valuable, too vital, too important to loose. I've done some awful things in the pursuit of knowledge, kid. The deepest cuts, the oldest scars from those actions will never be seen my skin."
Newt didn't stop to think, his words just tumbled out.
"I'm sure you only did what you had to do. That doesn't make you a bad guy. It doesn't change who you are."
"Didn't it?" Adrian asked softly, a clearly rhetorical question.
Finished with the bracing, Adrian brought an armload of thick branches over and lay them across the open mouth of the hole, first in one direction and then perpendicular to the first layer, until he'd managed to cover all but a two foot section directly above the middle of the muddy pit. He retrieved his shovel and was covering the branches with loose, discarded dirt before Newt dared to speak again.
"And the...fresh scars?"
"Those?" Adrian replied, speaking more easily now. He stabbed his shovel into the ground and leaned on it for a minute, rolling his shoulders as he considered his answer. "I already told you how that happened. I got cocky, I got caught. Like I said, information's valuable. The guys that got hold of me figured they'd try to beat certain things out of me. They pounded on me, burned me, whipped me, starved me. Shocked me with electricity. When I still refused to speak, they...finally gave up, and arranged for a one way ticket here. No doubt they were behind the wire and the bolts, those lovely little party favors I had when I came up here." Adrian sneered a bit as he explained, but shrugged as if it didn't matter one way or the other and went back to his dirt, cataloguing the brutalities that had befallen him as if they were a slightly distasteful memory. Newt was horrified.
Images of Adrian bound, burned, bleeding flashed vividly in his mind. He imagined the whistle and crack of a whip, the gnawing pain of hunger, and couldn't wrap his head around how casually Adrian spoke of it all.
"How did you stand it?"
Again Adrian shrugged, stamping the fresh dirt down firmly.
"Sometimes you don't really get a choice, kid. Everything considered, there are some things I'd gladly die for; and when it comes to the knowledge I've gathered over the years? I'd kill myself in a heartbeat before allowing it fall into the wrong hands."
"Don't." Newt said sharply, "Don't you bloody say klunk like that, about dying or killing yourself."
"I'm just one man, one life. Sometimes, there's more at stake."
"Just don't." Newt demanded tersely, jaw clenched.
"If you like." Adrian replied, making another trip to the piles of supplies and returning with an armload, sitting on the ground and hacking some fairly sturdy branches into roughly two foot lengths. While Newt watched in angry silence, the man bound the short wooden poles together tightly, side by side, until he had a long enough section to form into a circle. Firmly tying the last piece to the first, he made what looked like a small and surely leaky bottomless barrel about two feet in diameter. He lashed the bottom edged of the cylinder to four longer sections of sturdy branch, then carried the whole weird concoction over to the covered pit and placed it over the central hole.
"Why-"
"I think it's my turn to ask a question." Adrian said firmly, cutting the boy off. "Hold tight, be right back." He strode briskly over to the back of the house, returning shortly with a battered metal pail full of water which he promptly emptied over an extra mound of loose earth. He added bunches of dry grass and mixed them in the sloppy mud, making a thick gooey mess. He took chunks of the messy substance and packed it around the outside of the wood cylinder and the surrounding base, covering everything in a thick coat of mud and grass.
"You had a question?" Newt demanded, baffled at the man's actions. What the hell was he building?
"Ah yes, right." Adrian replied absently, engaged in his creation. "A couple of times now, I've caught a glimpse of strange little metal creatures skulking about. They don't appear aggressive, but I've yet to be able to take a good look at one. What are they?"
"Beetle blades." Newt answered shortly, thinking of the widely despised and irritatingly intrusive pests. "We don't know for sure what they are, but most of us think they're some kind of monitoring system, a way for the slintheads who sent us here to watch us."
Adrian nodded sagely, not looking the least bit surprised as he smoothed the top of the hollow tube into an even surface.
"Makes sense."
"Nothing here makes sense." Newt muttered. Adrian just chuckled dryly. "Speaking of; what in the bloody hell are you making?"
"Creature comfort." Adrian replied, stepping back from the mud covered lump and admiring his work.
"What kind of comfort is a hole in the ground?"
"Use your imagination," Adrian demanded. "Four walls around it, a roof overhead, a circular seat with a hole in the center fastened on top of the tube, a spot to hang some nice soft paper. Figure it out yet? A nice, private little..."
"You're kidding. You're putting all this effort into making a bloody toilet?"
"Well, yeah. Every guy needs a throne, doesn't he? Besides, squatting in the bush is the absolute pits."
Newt rolled his eyes, torn between frustration at the apparent frivolity of it and pleasure at the idea of actually having access to almost civilized facilities.
"Holy crap, Addy."
"No pun intended." Adrian said cheerfully. "Now, I should let this set up overnight before I do the walls and roof. I'll get cleaned up, then we'll go see what Frypan's thought out for supper. Sound good?"
Newt looked up at the sky, surprised to find that it was already late afternoon.
"Sure, works for me."
"Perfect. Back in a few." Adrian called over his shoulder, hustling his muddy self around behind his little house. Newt sat and waited, thinking deeply.
Despite the dark story and clear violence behind his old scars, Newt wouldn't – couldn't – believe that Adrian was anything but a good man. There's just no way that someone with that much kindness, that strong a desire to help could be a...a villain, Newt thought, unable to come up with a better word. He's so steady, so bloody easy going. Whatever harsh things he's had to do, whatever he thinks of himself, he's not a bad man. How could anyone torture someone like that? How could he speak so easily of it, like he'd just stubbed his toe or twisted his ankle? Newt's stomach rolled greasily as horrific scenarios danced behind his closed eyes. As he took several deep breaths to try and calm the nausea, he remembered that he hadn't asked about Adrian's vast changes in mood over the course of the morning; he'd been completely side tracked by the candid glimpse into the man's hard and ugly past. A specific phrase surfaced and reclaimed his attention. I hate it when he talks about dying like it's nothing. I can't stand it. I don't know what I'd do if...if he...died...
Phantom pain at the very idea struck him like a fist in the gut, almost leaving him gasping.
He couldn't stand it. He wouldn't allow it. It wasn't going to happen.
Consumed by his thoughts, he didn't hear Adrian approach; all of a sudden, he was just there.
"Ready?"
Newt opened his eyes, looking up at the now clean man; still shirtless, hair wet, and patiently holding a hand out to help the boy to his feet. He took it, letting Adrian pull him up. Just before he released it, Newt spotted something distressing across the man's knuckles and, with surprising strength, firmly turned the hand so he could study the raw red scrapes and neat lines of black stitching across the damaged skin.
"What..." he started to ask before he grabbed Adrian's other hand, yelping when he found it in a similar condition.
"What the bloody hell is this?"
"Just letting off a bit of extra energy." Adrian replied evenly, looking over Newt's shoulder and not meeting his eyes.
"By bashing your hands to bits? What did you do, beat the snot out of a tree?"
Adrian quirked his eyebrows and tilted his head a little, a gesture clearly conveying 'yeah, pretty much'.
"Why the he—wait." Newt stopped himself. He realized he was gripping Adrian's wrists hard enough to grind bone on bone, and the man hadn't so much as winced. He let go as if the skin under his fingers had burned him, disgusted that he'd added to Adrian's obvious pain, connecting the dots in his head. "Does this have anything to do with you nagging at me and bolting off this morning?"
"I needed to let off a bit of extra energy." Adrian repeated, moving away to retrieve his shirt and pull it on in an motion too jerky to be casual.
"Why?" Newt pressed, refusing to drop it. Adrian whirled back around to face the boy, chin up and eyes blazing. He spoke very, very quietly, but in a tone that would never be mistaken for calm.
"Because what was done to you makes me sick to my stomach. Because I couldn't shake the rage. Because if I didn't, I was afraid I would hunt down the guys who hurt you and..." He broke off and dropped his head, scrubbing both hands through his wet mop of hair and making it stick up in messy little cowlicks all over the place, his lowered face crumpled in misery.
"Look, I got it out of my system, it's done. I just...I needed to vent, okay?"
Newt's eyes were huge in his head as he tried to comprehend what was going on. The sight of Adrian's injuries had rattled him, but the obvious distress the man was feeling now, combined with why he was feeling it, allowed Newt to better understand the vast differences in mood he'd displayed that day. He felt an unfamiliar warmth spread in his chest and, following his gut, stiffly shuffled over to stand right in front of the man. Hesitant, unsure, he reached out and wrapped both arms timidly around Adrian's waist. He felt the man shudder a little before hugging Newt back, gently wrapping his arms around the boy's shoulders, still mindful of Newt's injuries despite his own turmoil.
For a long moment they stood locked in a loose embrace, each drawing comfort from the other. Finally Newt pulled back a little and slanted a cocky glance at the man, suddenly afraid that the spontaneous gesture of affection would make things awkward between them, and desperate to say something that would shift them back into their normal easy banter.
"If we don't hustle, the other shanks will lick even the pots clean before we get our supper."
"Wouldn't that be a terrible loss." Adrian said drily, shifting to loop an arm around the boy's waist and taking his weight, supporting Newt as they started walking towards the cook hut. "I would hate to miss out on what's surely another five star meal." Relieved that the distance between them had evaporated and grateful that the careless camaraderie was back, Newt chuckled all the way to dinner.
Author's Note~
For anyone who hasn't read the books; beetle blades are smallish remote controlled mechanical camera devices that look very much like a little metal mutant lizard. They didn't show up in the movies, but are an important part of the book series.
A big thank you to BrySt1 and Rosalie Barvik ~
3 Thanks for your reviews, and I'm so happy that you're enjoying the story! 3
See you next chapter!
~Ruby