(no subject)

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Date: August 17th
Setting: Tadfield Manor Bar
Status: Public - Adam, Belial, ?
Summary: Adam continues his trip through the Manor



Adam ran through the dining room and paused in the bar to catch his breath. He sat on one of the stools and put his head in his hands. The anxiety and doubt assailed him from all sides.

What had he done? Had he just frightened away one of the few real friends he'd ever had? Wensley and he had been friends for fifteen years. Was that all over?

He knew he had set up this safe place to protect people, but was it crossing the line? Eight years ago, the right thing to do was nothing at all. He had chastised others for meddling. Well, wasn't that what he was doing now? What suddenly gave him the right to use his powers and interfere? He didn't want to be hypocritical, but weren't his friends in more danger this time because everyone knew he was the real antichrist and not Warlock? What difference did that make in the real world?

Not even the fact that he had tried to make the place neutral was much of a justification. He knew he was being selfish in rearranging things for his own benefit at the expense of everyone else, but he couldn't bring himself to stop.

He groaned, wishing for a drink. Maybe this was Hell and he just didn't know it.

Comments

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

Belial was, somehow, not at all surprised to see the Antichrist lingering about the Manor, and even less so to find him in the bar.

Ineffable, he supposed, setting down the tray of clean glasses that he needed to put away. The Antichrist was a boy--a young man, really, and looked no odder than a young man should have at first glance--but he was different. His eyes held something strong and infinitely ancient.

And Belial knew--he'd done all the paperwork.

"Might I be of service?" he asked smoothly, presenting Adam with an empty glass.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam looked up at the darkly attractive and slightly glittery young man who had spoken to him.

"Oh, Belial isn't it? I'm Adam. Nice to meet ya. Do you think I could get a soft drink?"

Belial raised a disgusted eyebrow, but fetched a cold can and poured it into Adam's glass. Adam downed half of it at once, coughed slightly, and lowered it to the bar where Belial was resting his elbows watching him.

"This is prob'ly a dumb question to ask you, Belial, but have you ever done anythin' that you weren't sure was the right thing to do but you did it anyway?"

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

"My pleasure, I'm sure," he replied.

Belial pushed himself away from the bar, standing stiffly with his head tilted towards a far window. Uncertainty was something he had always dealt with and it had become somewhat of an old acquaintence, though he was not precisely on friendly terms with it.

"I suppose I have," he said ponderingly, brushing his black hair back from his face. He remembered Lucifer's lying smile and extended hand. They had been created all-knowing, but naieve, still.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam was glad that he was sitting down because the rush of images he was hit with was overwhelming. Had he been standing, we would have fallen to his knees. He always tried very hard not to know what people were thinking, but Belial's grief was so raw that it projected right past Adam's defenses and he gasped. It was Adam's first glimpse of Heaven and Lucifer as an angel, of a perfect, clear, blue stream and another angel at a podium. Was that Gabriel? He thought it must be. And through it all was a powerful sense of desperate longing.

"Stop!" he begged.

Belial turned and looked startled. It was enough for Adam to get back under control.

"I'm sorry, Belial. I didn't know. It wasn't a very nice question for me to ask. I just don't know if what I'm doin' is right. But I guess, like you, that I won't know 'til it's done."

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

Belial pushed the memories he hadn't known he'd had back down into the darker recesses of his subconscious. It made him uneasy that he did not know something about himself. He'd been buried in his job for so many centuries though, he supposed, that any being would forget their past in his position.

The more disturbing part was that they were resurfacing. There was something about this place--or maybe just the beings in it--that jogged his memories of things that had been a very, very long time ago, even for him.

"I-It's nothing," he said, surprised at the shake in his own voice. He cleared his throat and straightened, face stony. "There's really no need to apologize. But..." he hesistated, "I'm likely not the best person to ask what is 'right' or 'wrong'. My answer would be a bit biased."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam looked intently at the Prince of Hell in front of him.

"I think anyone would be a bit biased about what's right an' wrong. I don't see that you'd be any more so even if you are a demon. Prob'ly less 'cause you know that right an' wrong depends on whose doin' the tellin'."

He wondered how much he could tell Belial.

"It's just that I was supposed to do somethin' once and I did nothin'. Now I'm supposed to do nothin' and I'm doing somethin' and I'm scared that this time it's gonna cost me a lot more."

He stared into the remains of his Coke and sighed.

"Nevermind, it's not important."

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

Belial blinked, running a finger along his lower lip contemplatively. Adam really was lovely--it was a bit distracting.

"Perhaps it's not important to me, but it's obviously important to you," he said, relaxing against into a chair. The young man wasn't so bad, he supposed, for being the Antichrist. It was a rather heavy burden for any single person to bear at his age.

He knew that he damn sure wouldn't want to be elected for the job.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam watched Belial's frank appraisal of him with something approaching amusement.

"Yeah, I guess it is pretty important to me. But I'm beginnin' to realize that no one else can help me with it. I just gotta figure it out on my own an' hope for the best."

He finished off his soda and a thoughtful look came across his face.

"Can I ask you somethin' else? You don't hafta answer if you don't want to..." Adam's earnest, blue eyes caught and held Belial's, "Do you like fightin' angels?"

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

Belial flinched, not able to look away from Adam. Don't have to answer if you don't want to, my ass, he thought tiredly.

"I don't like fighting," he said, as evasively as possible, and managed to keep himself from saying something rather embarassing about angels. "I'm the Lord of Seductions. I haven't fought for a very long time." Not since the War. He bore the evidence of his only victim, quite literally on his back.

It was his private little burden for Falling from Grace. They all had them. The Almighty was creative like that.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"I don't much like fightin' myself," said Adam, breaking out in a genuine smile. "Angels or anybody. But I know more about fightin' than I do about seducin'. It's funny what's frightenin' sometimes, huh?"

He set his glass down.

"You know, Belial, I'm feelin' a lot better now. Thanks for talkin' to me. I'm sorry if I made you feel worse. Is there anythin' I can do?"

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

"I think I'll be doing fine," he said, twirling a wayward lock of dark hair between his fingers..

"It's not really frightening at all. Most people don't really know terribly much about the process of seduction, anyhow..." he said, canting his head slightly downward and giving a coy, gentle smile. "If you'd like lessons sometime though, I would... hardly be put out."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam blinked his big, blue eyes and grinned.

"I think I just got one..."

He stood up, replaced his stool under the bar, and looked up at Belial.

"Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll skip the rest, if it's all the same to you. I don't really think seducin' is for the likes of me."

His smile turned sad again for a moment and he turned to leave the bar.