Chapter Text
On his first day of work at Sarif Industries, Adam Jensen notices three interesting things. Amidst all of the glass and splendour, the offices glossy like magazine pages, there’s a technical lab, out of place, on the second floor instead of the fourth, where the majority of the building's servers are. The peculiar placement is enough to pique his interest, during his tour with Sarif and Megan both chattering brightly away beside him while Adam nods in all of the right places and studies the exits, but the second interesting thing is the person the door opens to reveal.
He doesn't have wings. For a moment, Adam stares at the empty, naked space where they ought to be. Then he remembers himself, stops gawking, and meets the other man’s narrowed grey-blue eyes.
“This is Frank Pritchard,” Sarif says, gesturing awkwardly with his hand. “He’s our head of cyber-security. Frank, this is Adam Jensen, the new chief of security, just like you wanted. I’m afraid, Frank, that you’ll have to share your office with him, until Adam’s gets sorted.”
Frank – Pritchard – narrows his eyes further, shifting his gaze to Sarif. “You never mentioned that.” His tone is acerbic, bitter like Adam's morning coffees.
“Must’ve slipped my mind.” Sarif chuckles, pats the air near Pritchard’s arm. “But we’ve got a tour to finish giving Adam, here. Clear him some space, would you? I know you’ve got computers to spare.”
Pritchard sighs softly and then closes the door – not quite a slam – in their faces.
Megan rolls her eyes and bumps her pale brown wing against Adam’s. “He’s not so bad,” she murmurs under her breath.
“He’s not so good, either,” Sarif mutters on Adam’s other side. “But he’s the best hacker this side of the equator, so he’s worth it.” He flicks his soft brown wings behind him in agitation.
They lead Adam away from the technical lab, to explore the other parts of the building, but his mind keeps drifting back, like dandelion seeds in a breeze, to Pritchard. He’d never be so gauche as to ask – but he’s curious. Curious how it happened – when it happened. If it hurt. If it still hurts, seeing the constant reminders of what he doesn't have – can never have again. There are wing augmentations, of course, but they're not the same. Instead of soft, glossy feathers, the augmented versions are mechanical and otherworldly, like something out of a nightmare. He wouldn't want them either.
When the tour is over, their goodbyes said – Megan giving him a friendly cheek kiss goodbye that Adam wishes she hadn’t, not in front of Sarif, her wings sweeping briefly around his own – Adam ends up back in front of the technical lab, half-stretching his wings behind him, wondering less about his new job and more about his new co-worker.
He glances down the hallway and then stretches his wings almost to the point of pain. Then he snaps them tightly against his back, like a rubber band, and knocks on the door.
It opens, automatically, and Adam peeks into the office. Pritchard’s sat at a desk, mostly hidden behind a bank of monitors. “You’re done posturing, then?” He looks over the monitors towards Adam, and Adam doesn’t need to see the bottom half of his face to know that Pritchard’s frowning.
“I was stretching,” Adam says, resisting the urge to flick his wings out, “not posturing.”
Pritchard stands, stretches his arms over his head, his fingers laced together. As he steps closer, Adam can see a strip of bare, pale skin between his sweater and his cargo pants. He drags his eyes upwards towards Pritchard’s face, and notices the third interesting thing.
Pritchard looks at Adam, not his wings. Which means he’d noticed where Adam was looking. He lowers his arms slowly, and Adam hates that he can’t read Pritchard’s expression. “You can use the desk behind you. Try not to get feathers all over my floor.” He pauses for a moment and his eyes narrow in annoyance. “And just to be clear, since everyone always asks: it’s none of your business.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Adam protests, his wings half-raising behind him before he snaps them back. He feels ostentatious, over-aware of every little movement that he’s made countless times before. He’s heard of wingless people – unfortunate souls that have had accidents, even more unfortunate people who have lost them in darker ways – but he’s never met one. There had been rumours in the police about a collector – someone in Detroit who paid good money for the wings of other people so that they could be displayed. It made Adam sick to even consider it.
And then, because he can’t help himself, he wonders if Pritchard’s wings are on someone’s wall, grey-blue and glittering like his eyes.
“Everyone asks,” Pritchard repeats, gesturing to something behind Adam’s back. “Come on. I have more important things to do than teach you how to open your emails.”
“I know how to open an email program, Pritchard,” Adam grumbles, turning to the other desk. He hadn’t really taken in the office earlier – he’d been too startled by Pritchard himself. It’s large – larger than it ought to be, the ceiling high enough that Adam’s wings would barely brush against it. There’s a motorcycle pushed up against the far wall, a wide couch with scattered papers spilling off the edges, a dozen band posters that Adam doesn’t really recognise. It looks more like a home than an office, and he wants to ask, but instead he sits obediently on the stool Pritchard gestured towards. His wingtips trail across the floor, and he flicks them, annoyed, bending down to adjust the stool’s height.
“Forgive me for wanting to do my job, Jensen.” Pritchard snaps, and Adam glances up from the stool’s mechanisms, wondering what’s made him sound even more pissed. “I set you a temporary password. Same as what you just got on my floor.”
Adam glances down. He hadn’t even realised. “Sorry,” he mutters, as he leans forward and types feathers in the password field under his name. He ought to be annoyed – Pritchard’s being unbelievably rude – but he feels chastised instead. Like somehow, he’s done something wrong, even though he can’t help shedding feathers. No one can.
“Make sure you change it, later,” Pritchard says, as he steps a little closer so that he can see what Adam’s doing on the screen.
“I won’t,” Adam says, a mixture of defiant and petulant. “No one would guess it.”
Pritchard glances towards him, his mouth thinning. “Because you’re in my office, which has a passcode to get into, I’ll let it slide, but you ought to change your password to something I don’t know, Jensen.” Pritchard starts the sentence sounding frustrated, but by the end he just sounds resigned.
“You’re going to know it anyway,” Adam points out, flicking his wings behind him, mindful that he doesn’t bump them against Pritchard. “So what does it matter?”
“You’re supposed to be the chief security officer. Act like it.” Pritchard shakes his head, his ponytail brushing against his shoulders. “And stop shedding on my floor.”
“I’m not shedding.” Adam shifts uncomfortably. He’s not due to moult for months – March, at the earliest – when his thicker winter plumage sheds. Losing a feather or two a day is normal. But then again – maybe Pritchard doesn’t know that. Adam bites the inside of his cheek as he surreptitiously glances towards his wingless back. His sweater has been stitched – haphazardly – along the back wing seams, closing them up. It would feel so unbalanced, to not have them. For a second, Adam’s wing stretches slightly towards Pritchard, before he snaps it back.
Pritchard’s staring at him when Adam looks back at his face, a crease between his brows. “Keep your feathers to yourself, Jensen.”
“I’ll sweep them up later.” Adam rolls his eyes. Hopefully Pritchard assumes he was just stretching, and not stretching towards him.
“See that you do.” Pritchard leans closer, his arm almost brushing against Adam’s feathers, pointing towards an icon on the screen. “Alright, so this is your email program…”
It takes Pritchard half an hour or so to walk Adam through all the Sarif-specific systems in place. By the end, his voice is rougher than it had been before they’d started, as though he’s unused to talking for longer than a sentence or two at a time.
Adam had noticed Pritchard’s fingers were chewed around the edges – a couple of them dotted with fresh wounds, the rest with scabs. Like he chews the skin instead of the nails. A nervous habit, probably.
“Let me know if you have any questions,” Pritchard mutters, standing back up and stretching his arms over his head. This time his sweater pulls up enough to reveal lines against his back, dark and sinuous, twisting around the muscles and disappearing beneath Pritchard’s clothes.
Adam is suddenly overcome with the urge to lean forward, to peel Pritchard’s sweater up and unravel the mystery of what the tattoo is. His first guess is – strangely enough – feathers, but there’s a motion to the tattoo lines that don’t quite fit with his assumption.
He wonders if there are scars where Pritchard’s wings had been. If he’d ever had them at all. And then Pritchard lowers his arms and Adam swallows and looks away, ducking his head behind the curve of his wing joint.
“Thanks, Pritchard,” he murmurs, feeling oddly shy.
“Don’t mention it.” He sees a flash of movement and lowers his wing to see Pritchard waving a hand as he steps back to his own desk.
The rest of the day – such as it is, when he’d only really started work after lunch – passes quietly. Slowly. He grows more self-conscious by the hour, his wings aching from forced stillness until he ends up tentatively reaching his wings behind him, checking with neck-aching glances to ensure he’s not about to brush against something of Pritchard’s and get scolded.
There are marks on the floor as though the desk has been dragged, though, like Pritchard moved it, so that Adam can stretch his wings behind him. He has almost half the office at his leisurely disposal, and he can’t help sneaking glances towards Pritchard under the pretext of checking his surroundings – he’s squashed between two walls of monitors, with no room to even stretch his legs. Adam wonders if he feels claustrophobic. Or maybe the walls of screens are Pritchard’s way of cocooning himself and feeling safe.
The only problem is how exposed Adam feels. His back is to the door, and it’s hard to relax when he feels as though anyone can open the door and barge on in. He’s had issues – so many issues – with people trying to sneak surreptitious touches to his feathers, as though he won’t notice. He’s never seen anyone else with feathers like his own – the outer feathers are jet black, shot through with faint threads of warm gold that tends to sparkle under natural lights. Under these fluorescents, though, they’re muted, dull. He tucks his wings closer to his body, strokes his fingers idly over the softer, golden underfeathers. Megan had wanted to keep whichever golden feathers he’d shed, had held them up against the sunlight, turning them over in her fingers. The light had refracted, rainbow, against her cheeks, and Adam had let her keep as many as she wanted, because she’d been so beautiful in the kaleidoscope light.
He doesn’t think they’ll have the same effect on Pritchard. When six o’clock finally rolls around, Adam leans back from his computer and stretches his arms over his head. He wants to stretch his wings out – he’s not sure if he has the entire nine feet he needs, but it’s probably pretty close, but Pritchard is standing up from his desk and giving Adam an undecipherable look.
“What?” Adam mutters, tucking his wings closer, hating the way they brush against the floor at the movement. They ache with the unnatural way he’s been keeping them so tightly tucked against him, and he wants to find the nearest rooftop and launch himself skyward. But he’d probably get a cramp and plummet to the concrete below.
“There’s a broom in the cupboard, there.” Pritchard nods, pointing with his chin. “Unless you plan to leave your mess for the janitors.”
Adam sighs and stands up, rolling his shoulders as much as he can, wishing he could stretch. “No, Pritchard. I clean up my own messes.”
“Good.” Pritchard hesitates for a moment before continuing. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Pritchard,” Adam calls out after him.
For a moment, Pritchard pauses at the door and looks him over. And then he leaves, and Adam releases a sigh that seems to come from his very wingtips. He stretches – carefully, slowly – his wings out with a strained groan. He feels stiff and sore, like he needs a hot bath. Maybe he’ll go get one – the days are getting colder, and he doesn’t have to worry as much about paying rent this month.
He stretches his wings intermittently as he sweeps up the handful of feathers he’d shed during the day. A couple more than usual, and he wants to chalk it up to stress. He blows the dust off of them with a sighing breath and tucks them into a pocket. If he’s cleaning, he may as well clean. And there’s enough dust under the couch to make him want to sneeze. Maybe the janitors don’t clean Pritchard’s office. He did mention a passcode – maybe Pritchard never gave it to the janitors. Cleans up his own messes – and forgets to sweep the floor.
Adam doesn’t know the code either, he realises as he dumps dust into the bin by his desk. He doesn’t know what time Pritchard gets to the office – though he’d guess nine, since they finished at the same time. He puts the broom away and sighs. He’ll just have to hope Pritchard’s kind enough to let him in.
He checks his emails, one last time before he leaves. There’s a message – from Pritchard. Like he could sense Adam thinking about him.
The door code’s 94647. I changed it before I left.
Adam puzzles it over for a minute before it clicks in his head, and he shakes his head, flicking his wings out behind him. Feathers and wings, like Pritchard wants to drive the differences between them like a well-honed wedge.
Adam resolves to not ask about Pritchard’s wings – lack of wings. He refuses to give in to the obvious bait. Pritchard might want to act like it's inevitable, but Adam's always been stubborn.
When he gets to the bathhouse after work, it's much too crowded for Adam to handle, and he flits home, flying intermittently, his wings protesting the entire way. He'll just have to settle for a hot shower and a dose of painkillers and hope it's enough to take the edge off.
It won't be, of course, but his apartment is too run down for luxuries like baths and proper drying fans. He'll have to sit for hours on the couch with the wing-dryer and nothing to do except watch television and think too much. Mostly about Megan and how much he misses her, sometimes, at times like this. But a little about Pritchard, too, wondering if he's somewhere else in Detroit thinking about Adam. What impression had he even made, anyway? He turns one of his golden underfeathers over in his hands as he takes a break from drying his wings, wondering what Pritchard's wings would've looked like. Grey-blue like his eyes? Dark brown like his hair? Shimmery or muted? He doesn't know, and he wishes he wasn't wondering, but he can't help thinking about how beautiful they must have been.
He wonders if Pritchard was as enamoured by Adam's golden-black wings as everyone else in the building had seemed to be. He's never been vain, not like some other people he's known, but he notices the stares, the looks people give him. Pritchard hadn't, though. Not that Adam had noticed, at least. Megan had showed him off and called him handsome so many times Adam had started to believe it, but maybe it won't be enough. Maybe Pritchard won't be interested.
The last time he cared about what someone thought of him, he ended up with a broken heart. He doesn't want to make the same mistake again. Adam sets the feather and his idle thoughts aside and puts on a comedy show that doesn't quite manage to make him laugh. He's too old to be nurturing blossoming crushes. And Pritchard's his co-worker, besides. There are a hundred reasons to dismiss his feelings, and Adam turns every single one of them over until he falls asleep, exhausted with the effort, his wings still damp against his back.
The next day, his wings aching, the hot shower having done little to ease the tension of being tucked against his back for half the day prior, he’s surprised to see an email from Sarif. Calling him to the penthouse – the one spot Adam didn’t see on the tour yesterday. With a sigh, he gets up despite just having sat down.
“Leaving so soon?” Pritchard mutters dryly. He’d been sat at his desk when Adam arrived, almost like he’d never left. Except he had, before Adam. He peeks his head out from behind his screens, an eyebrow raised. "Forget your breakfast?"
“Sarif wants to see me,” Adam says with a shrug, a tilted wing. “Want me to bring you back an energy drink from the vending machine?” He’d noticed the cans in the bin when he’d been sweeping the floors. And maybe the peace offering won’t hurt.
“No.” Pritchard snaps. “Get out.” He vanishes back behind the wall of monitors.
Adam lingers for a second, confused. Pritchard’s mood had shifted so quickly – without warning. He leaves the office, shaking his head and his wings. Whatever it is, it’s not his problem. Even though part of him wants to solve it regardless.
Without Sarif and Megan by his sides, there are more stares from the scattered employees he passes in the halls. Longing stares at his wings, stares that make Adam walk a little faster through the building until he reaches the safety of the elevator. The sides are made of glass, and Adam turns his back, momentarily mesmerised by the sprawling city beneath him as the elevator lifts him through the building.
He'd been stuck drying his wings for most of the night, hadn't gotten the chance to go for his usual late-night flight. He presses his fingers to the glass, his wings enveloping him as he leans forward, breath fogging against the cityscape unfurling beneath him. And the elevator’s roomy – but not roomy enough. Maybe he’ll find a fire escape and a quiet corner of the rooftop – not to fly away – not when he’s at work – but to stretch his muscles out before they cramp even more painfully.
Sarif’s secretary – a stern but polite woman, her dark grey wings spread artfully along the floor – lets him in when Adam arrives. He thanks her, politely, watching her eyes flicker to his wings and back to his face, and steels himself for whatever conversation he’s about to have.
He hadn’t steeled himself for the sight of Sarif’s office. There’s the usual – expected – ostentatious displays of wealth and power. Dangling ornaments from the ceiling, ceiling-to-floor windows looking out over Detroit, way too much empty space and not enough rugs to cover the marble floor.
But he hadn't expected the elegant wings, framed and hung above Sarif’s desk. Adam’s stomach turns, those rumours from the police station slamming into his gut like a knife. But this is a public display. Anyone could walk in and see these wings, grey and shimmering blue, like the ocean tides, the feathers pristine. The left one is inverted, revealing the soft, intimate underfeathers, delicate shades of grey blending into richer blues. There’s not a single crooked feather on either wing.
No. Not pristine. He blinks and narrows his eyes. The left joint – the inverted wing – has a missing feather, barely noticeable. He only spots it because he’s staring so intently, his vision swimming with red.
“Adam!” Sarif’s voice makes him jump, makes Adam’s wings curl tightly around himself. A reflex he’d thought he’d trained himself out of after he’d graduated high school. “I didn’t think you’d be so prompt to answer my summons.” Sarif chuckles softly.
Adam makes himself relax, tucks his wings behind him. “Heard it’s better to be on the boss’s good side, sir.”
Sarif waves a wing towards him. “None of that sir stuff with me, Adam.” He follows Adam’s gaze, still held by the wings above his desk. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
“How…” Adam swallows. He wants to ask who, but he has a sinking feeling in his stomach that he already knows. They're even more gorgeous than he imagined – if he's right about whose wings they are.
“They were a gift, I swear.” Sarif chuckles again, spreading his wings out in a shrug. “They’re to remind me of how far we’ve come.”
“How far?” Adam echoes, the knot in his stomach turning over and over.
“It’s not all sleek offices and fancy augmentations, you know.” Sarif shakes his head and his wings, the soft brown feathers fluttering softly. “We’ve been working with veterans, trying to replace limbs, wings. It’s gritty, ugly work. Terrible stuff.” Sarif frowns. “But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.”
“What are we here to talk about?” Adam finally drags his eyes away from the wings.
“I just wanted to see how you were settling in!” Sarif claps his hands together, flutters his wings. “Frank’s not giving you too much trouble, is he?”
Adam considers for a moment. He could say yes. He could probably – given the speculative look in Sarif’s eyes – find out more than he could ever need to know about his interesting new co-worker. But he shakes his head slightly. “No, he’s been no trouble.”
“It’s such a shame about his – well-“ Sarif flicks his wings and doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn't need to.
It’s an invitation to ask more, to pry. But Adam had resolved yesterday that he wasn't going to ask Pritchard, and it would be a betrayal of his own moral compass to circumvent that and ask Sarif instead. Even if he's desperate to know what happened. So he shakes his head again, spreading his wings in a shrug. “None of my business, though, sir.”
Sarif beams at him, and Adam has the unsettling feeling that he’s passed some kind of test. “That’s right. I’m sure he’ll tell you if he warms up to you. But enough about Frank! The other reason I called you here is because I’m planning to meet with Tai Yong – I don’t know if you know of them, but they’re a nightmare to deal with – and I thought you could use it as a test run for your security systems.”
Tai Yong sounds familiar – something more to do with Megan’s research than Adam’s work. “Sounds good, boss.” He leans forward at Sarif’s gesture, a layout of an unfamiliar building across the holographic screen of Sarif’s desk.
“We’re meeting in New York later tonight,” Sarif explains, pointing with an augmented finger towards one of the conference rooms – private, tucked away by a discreet entrance. Adam wonders which one of them the secrecy is for. “I’d apologise for the short notice, but that’s just how things are in this business.”
“Sure,” Adam says, flicking his wings out behind him in mild frustration. Megan had warned him that this job wouldn’t be as structured as his old one, that he’d have to learn how to roll with the punches. But he would’ve appreciated the warning yesterday, when he could’ve spent time going over the schematics of the building and comparing threats made to both companies. Instead, he’d wasted time on more trivial matters.
“I’ll send a copy down to your computer, Adam, you don’t need to press your nose to the glass.” Adam looks up to see Sarif smiling at him. “Malik’s going to fly us over in the helicopter at four. You don’t mind working overtime, right?”
“No,” Adam lies. “I don’t mind.” He'd wanted to try the bathhouse again, to spend the night relaxing after a day likely spent tucked up and on edge.
“Excellent. Look, I don’t want to shoo you out, but I’ve got another meeting in a few minutes. I’ll see you on the helipad this afternoon.”
“Sure.” Adam nods and flicks his wings out behind him. He spares one last glance to those hauntingly beautiful wings above the desk on his way out, the greys and blues striking against the muted soft brown of Sarif’s as he sits back down at his desk, something there catching his attention.
A gift, he’d said, but no one in their right mind would give up such gorgeous wings.
Adam eschews the helipad and goes hunting for the roof itself. He has to ask Athene – Sarif’s polite secretary, who smiles at him before pointing Adam towards a fire escape door that he hadn’t noticed, the signs tucked away behind an ornate vase. Once outside, he wishes he’d brought his coat. It’s cold, the air icy with the promise of snow.
But the roof – as he scans it quickly, stepping out to the wide centre – is blissfully empty. He stretches his wings to the dreary grey sky, peeking up between the outstretched feathers as he contemplates flitting between rooftops for a few minutes.
“Posturing again?” An acidic voice from behind him makes Adam startle and spin around, his wings drawing defensively around him.
Pritchard’s smoking a cigarette in the darkened corner of the roof, the glowing ember distorting his features with shadows. Adam doesn’t know how he missed seeing him on first glance.
“I was just stretching,” Adam says, though he feels self-conscious again, tucks his wings firmly behind him and ignores the way it makes the ache turn into a more acute pain.
“No one usually comes up here,” Pritchard says, and the words are an accusation. Another reminder that Adam is in Pritchard’s space, and the other man doesn’t want to share.
“I didn’t know,” he says, and it’s not exactly an apology, but Pritchard shrugs and steps forward, slightly.
“Do you smoke?” He offers Adam the package.
He quit when Megan had complained about the smell of smoke in his clothes, the taste of ash on his tongue. “I used to,” he says, and he carefully plucks a cigarette free, because the air is cold where it cuts through his clothes, it's icy against his feathers, and even though he has a thousand things to agonise over before four, he wants to stay here for a moment longer.
Pritchard flips his hand and Adam takes the lighter, still warm from Pritchard’s palm curled around it. It takes him a moment to light the cigarette, because the wind is breezing against him and he doesn’t want to shield himself with his wings. He settles for turning his back to the wind and lighting the cigarette, coughing slightly as he remembers precisely how to smoke.
“Old habits die hard, I suppose.” Pritchard steps forward, plucks the lighter out from between Adam’s fingers. “What did Sarif want?”
“He’s going to New York tonight. Wanted me to dry run his security.” Adam takes another drag and doesn’t cough, this time, blowing the smoke away from Pritchard’s face in a grey-blue plume that’s accentuated by his breath in the cold. It’s not even Halloween yet. It must be some kind of cold snap, which means winter’s going to be miserable. He’ll have to buy some new wing covers. Adam draws his wings closer, trying to stay warm.
“You’re standing in the wind,” Pritchard says with a shake of his head. “It’s warmer in the corner.” He gestures towards it as he steps out of the way. “I’m almost done, anyway.”
Adam hesitates for a moment. Pritchard doesn’t have his jacket on either, and his fingers are trembling against the cigarette in a way Adam’s not sure Pritchard notices. “Okay,” he says, shifting to stand in the dark corner – which is out of the way of the wind, as Pritchard promised, and warm from the residual heat of the building. A vent, somewhere, maybe, Adam thinks. “Thanks.”
Pritchard shrugs and looks away, towards the other rooftops. “When are you leaving for New York?”
“Four. Meant to meet a… Malik at the helipad.” He’s not sure if he remembers meeting them yesterday – he’d met a dizzying amount of people, their names and faces and wings all blurring together.
“Faridah,” Pritchard says. “Munroe piercing,” he gestures to a spot above his lip, “short dark hair.” He takes a drag on his cigarette and frowns for a brief second. “Black wings, pointed tips.”
Adam has a vague impression of a no-nonsense woman in a pilot’s jumpsuit. “I think I met her,” he says.
“She’s a good pilot.” Pritchard says as he finishes his cigarette, butts it out in the trashcan ashtray nearby. “Do you want a coffee?”
Adam hesitates and covers it by dragging on the cigarette. He doesn’t understand why Pritchard’s being so kind when he was so snappish half an hour ago. Unless it’s some peculiar way of apologising. “Yes,” he says. “Please. Black, no sugar.”
Pritchard nods. “See you in a few, then.”
“See you.” Adam says, as Pritchard turns on his heel and leaves through a different door than the one Adam had used. When the door slams shut, Adam leaves the scant warmth of the corner and stretches his wings out as far as they can go, ignoring the bite of the cold and the sting of his stiff muscles. He flexes them back and forth for a minute while he finishes his cigarette, and then he carefully makes his way back to his – their – office, retracing his steps and ignoring the allure of the mystery door Pritchard had used. Whatever secret paths through the building Pritchard has are for him alone, and Adam doesn’t want to intrude any more than he already has.
There’s a coffee on his desk when he gets back to the office, still steaming. Adam glances towards Pritchard but can only make out a mess of brown hair behind the monitors.
“Thanks, Pritchard.” Adam flicks his wings slightly and either his words or the sound of rustling feathers draws Pritchard’s attention.
He looks up, over the bank of monitors, and narrows his eyes. “You’re welcome. I saw the email Sarif sent you about the security detail. He missed some things. I’ve emailed them.”
Adam blinks. He hadn’t lingered that long on the roof. Just how quickly could Pritchard read? And analyse data? He feels slightly dazed, awed. Sarif had said something about him being a tech genius, but Adam had dismissed it as hyperbole. “Thanks.”
Pritchard’s face disappears back behind the monitors, a clear dismissal, and Adam makes his way back to his desk.
The coffee is bitter and hot, and Adam sips at it as he checks the promised emails. The one from Sarif is short – to the point – the bare necessities. It makes a little more sense, now, that Pritchard had been able to look over it so quickly. His email is much longer – full of schematics and diagrams and even a short dossier on the Tai Yong representative – a Zhao Yun Ru.
It takes him an hour to figure out a vague plan. He’s refining it when a hand waves in front of the screen and Adam startles and then looks up, his wings flicking wildly behind him.
“You’ll want to eat lunch,” Pritchard’s looking down at him over the screens. “Especially if you’re working late.”
“Right.” Adam gets to his feet, stretches his neck and arms. There’s a cafeteria that Sarif had boasted about, free lunch for all employees. But Pritchard’s still lingering by his desk.
“You don’t have augmentations, do you?” Pritchard looks him up and down, blatantly checking for any obvious signs.
“No.” Adam looks away, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. Megan had asked him a few times if he’d consider them. But he liked his body the way it is, the way the long hours he spent at the gym had paid off, the familiar muscled lines of his body finally making him feel more comfortable in his skin. He didn’t want to replace perfectly healthy limbs with something mechanical and unnecessary. And maybe he was just old-fashioned, but the idea of computers in his brain was too alien for him.
“Damn.” Pritchard sighs, rubs at his temple. “I could’ve patched through to you with an Infolink connection, fed you data in real time.”
“You have augs?” Adam’s wings flicker in surprise as he leans forward slightly, running his gaze over Pritchard’s exposed skin and not seeing any markers. He’d feel rude about it, if Pritchard hadn’t just done the exact same thing to him. And if his gaze lingers for a second too long on the way Pritchard’s hair curls against his exposed neck, then he’s just being thorough.
“Yeah.” Pritchard raises an eyebrow at Adam’s obvious scrutiny. “Not that you’d be able to tell just by looking.”
“Evidently,” Adam murmurs, leaning back and putting his hands in his pockets, pressing his wings together behind his back. “Under your hair?” He guesses.
“Masterful deduction, Sherlock.” Pritchard rolls his eyes. “Are you coming to lunch, or are you going to keep grilling me instead?”
“I’ll come to lunch,” Adam says, still curious about Pritchard’s augmentations, but not stupid enough to pry. Hacking augments, probably, if he had to guess. And an Infolink, obviously.
For a split second he wonders what it would be like to hear Pritchard’s dry, sarcastic tone in his ears, as though he was whispering intimately into them. Adam shivers, slightly, as Pritchard turns away.
“Good.” Pritchard leaves the office, not checking behind to see if Adam’s following him.
Adam hastens to catch up, stretching his wings for the briefest moment behind him while Pritchard gets the door. It’s just been too long since Megan, that’s all. If he was braver – more extroverted – he’d just take himself to a bar on the weekend and find someone whose touch didn’t make his skin crawl and his feathers prickle. But he’s got work to do, and his idle, intrusive thoughts will fade soon enough.
The cafeteria is expectedly busy. Adam gets the chicken pasta, on Pritchard’s recommendation, and they sit in a recently-vacated corner seat. Adam hesitates for a moment when Pritchard sits down against the wall, wanting to protect his wings from stray fingers but also not wanting to intrude on Pritchard’s personal space.
“You don’t need an invitation to sit down, Jensen.” Pritchard rolls his eyes.
“Sorry.” Adam drops to the stool and hunches his wings protectively against his back.
Pritchard’s gaze flickers to Adam’s wings for a brief second and then back to his face. Some unreadable expression flits across his features as he looks down and puts down his fork. “Fine,” he grumbles, sounding extremely put upon as he slides back up and gestures to the stool he’d just been on. “Go on.”
Adam hurriedly changes seats, leaning against the wall slightly in relief, his wings twitching outwards. Pritchard swaps their trays as he sits back down, back straight and stiff.
“I didn’t realise,” he murmurs, stabbing a piece of chicken like it’s caused him personal offense.
Adam wants to brush it off, to make some flippant remark. But he ducks his head behind the curve of his wing for a moment and takes a shaky breath. He feels vulnerable, seen in a way he hadn’t expected. Like Pritchard’s examined him the way Adam was examining schematics earlier and given him some sort of stamp of – not approval, but acceptance. The guys in the police force hadn’t been so aware of him – not even Megan had really noticed the way he usually took seats by walls and corners.
“Thank you,” Adam says, dropping his wing and straightening his shoulders. “For noticing.”
Pritchard’s grey-blue eyes narrow as he stares at Adam across the table. His mouth opens, and then he snaps it shut and looks away. “Eat your pasta before it gets cold. It’s better hot.” There’s a bite to his words, and Adam wishes he’d just been flippant instead of vulnerable.
He bows his head and eats his pasta, focusing mechanically on each bite. It is good, Pritchard was right, but there’s an ache in his chest that sours the taste.
Pritchard finishes eating before Adam, unpeels from the stool and collects his tray, hesitating for an obvious moment.
“See you back in the office, Jensen.”
Adam nods, not wanting to speak with a mouthful of pasta, and Pritchard leaves.
Without the barrier of Pritchard, the gazes of curious employees flit across him like feathers against his skin. Adam shifts, uncomfortable, and focuses on eating his food. But he can’t help overhearing the whispers, the murmured, soft conversations.
“-Pritchard in the cafeteria-”
“-he’s so handsome, though, maybe I should say hello-“
“-see his wings? God, I’d just die to touch-“
“-I bet Pritchard hates him, look how gorgeous-“
“-but I heard he only got the job because of Doctor Reed-“
“-snatch his feathers off the ground, honestly-“
Adam hunches over, curls his wings around himself. He doesn’t want to eavesdrop, but he can’t help himself. He'd learned how to listen in on conversations in the force, and it’s like a switch he can’t turn off at will. Between the increasingly bold and almost possessive conversations swirling around about him, and Pritchard’s attitude, he struggles to finish his lunch. It tastes like glue by the end, gluggy and disgusting.
He makes himself eat anyway. It’s just like protein shakes after the gym, unpalatable but necessary. When he’s done – his tray returned to the softly smiling cafeteria worker, who flutters his wings nervously as his fingers brush against Adam’s – the only thing he wants to do is go to Pritchard's office and hide.
Except it’s a different kind of cage when he’s over-aware of every tiny motion of his wings, hyper-aware of every movement of Pritchard’s. For a moment, Adam contemplates heading to the roof instead, to smoke and stretch his wings. But he doesn’t have any cigarettes, and he’s got to finalise the plans for Sarif’s trip to New York. So with a soft sigh, he heads back to the office that he wished felt a little more like his.
There’s a coffee waiting for him by his keyboard. Adam glances towards Pritchard, waits for a break in the constant soft typing and then realises that there probably won’t be one.
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“Uh huh.” Pritchard doesn’t lift his head or stop typing.
Adam sits down with a sigh. Megan had always praised his ability to make friends wherever he went, but he didn’t make friends so much as have people want something from him. And he doesn’t understand why Pritchard’s being kind to him, so blatantly nice with his actions and then yet so dismissive and cruel with his words. It’s a puzzle he wants to turn over in his mind until he’s found a solution, but he can’t, because he has plans to arrange for Sarif.
Sarif. Adam’s gaze flicks to Pritchard – not that he can see the man behind all the screens – and then back to his desk. He’s not going to ask. He told himself that he wouldn’t, and he wonders if perhaps that is why Pritchard’s being nice to him. Like it’s some kind of test, and as soon as Adam slips and asks, the tentative rapport will be destroyed.
And he has a job to do. Adam sips at his coffee, the cup warm against his fingers, wishes for a moment that it was the warmth of a hand instead, and then he puts Pritchard out of his mind and tries to focus. He wants to keep this job – wants to prove that he can do it. That Megan hadn't make a mistake believing in him the way she did. That he’s not just some pretty face who got the job because of who he knows, but because of what he can do.
It’s quiet in Pritchard’s office, Adam realises, when he’s finished with his coffee and is trying to concentrate on the maps in front of him. Except for the soft sound of ambient technology – the air-conditioning unit piping in cool air, the whirr of computer fans – the only human noise is Pritchard’s typing and the soft rustle of Adam’s feathers as he shifts.
But there’s posters for metal bands on the walls. Adam spins slowly around on his stool, considering.
“Pritchard,” he calls out as he completes his languid rotation.
“What?” Pritchard sounds annoyed.
“Do you usually listen to music?” Adam leans forward, trying to catch a glimpse of him between the screens.
“I don’t think you’d like my music, Jensen.” Pritchard peeks his head out to the side and glares at him. “And Sarif told me to behave.”
“Do you always do what you’re told?” Adam asks before he can stop himself. He can feel his cheeks warm with a blush and his wings flicker behind him.
Pritchard snorts and disappears again behind the screens. “No. And it’s my office.”
A moment later, music fills the office. Well, it starts as music. Then it devolves into shrieking lyrics and screaming guitars. For a moment Adam sort of regrets trying to make Pritchard feel more comfortable. And then the song sort of shifts, the melody surfacing under the low, deep voice of what Adam presumes is another singer, the words difficult to catch but the cadence enticing enough to make him focus for a moment on the rest of the song, picking out snatched words here and there.
When the song ends, Adam catches Pritchard glancing over at him, a crease between his brows. As though he’d expected Adam to complain, and now that he isn’t, whatever snippy retort Pritchard had wanted to use has to go to waste. The next song starts and Pritchard shrugs, ducks his head back behind the screens.
Right. Back to work. Adam relaxes slightly as he turns back to his computer screen, his wings flicking behind him. His fingers tap idly against the keyboard to the unfamiliar beats of the songs, liking some of them more than others. As the afternoon progresses, the music shifts – some of it more electronic, some of it more melodic, some with lyrics easier to idly understand.
Pritchard hums along to some of the songs, occasionally tapping his nails sharply against the keyboard and desk. Adam can’t help noticing, his ears pricked to hone in on every noise Pritchard makes, his wings flicking idly to every soft, barely audible hum.
At ten to, he stands from the desk and stretches his arms and neck. He’s planned as meticulously as possible, gone over a dozen different scenarios in his head. All he has to do now is meet Sarif and Malik at the helipad and get the job done. And hope that he doesn’t fuck up.
The music he’d gotten so used to cuts out as Pritchard stands, takes an uncertain step towards him.
“Jensen.” Pritchard’s voice is low. Serious. “Take this.” He holds out an earpiece, delicate in the palm of his hand.
Adam instinctively cups one hand underneath Pritchard’s as he carefully picks the earpiece up and then gingerly puts it into his ear. “I assume this goes to you?”
For a split second, so brief that Adam’s certain he’s imagining it, Pritchard’s fingers press against his before he drops his hand away. “Yeah. Obviously.” Pritchard runs his fingers through his hair, causing even more wayward strands to slip out of his ponytail and fall around his face.
Adam wants to spin Pritchard around and run his fingers through the long brown strands and tie Pritchard’s hair back up for him. Or braid it, maybe, luxuriating in the feel of silken hair against his rough fingers, inhaling the scent of whatever shampoo Pritchard uses.
But that would be unhinged. He swallows and takes a half-step backwards, crossing his arms over his chest and tucking his wings tightly against his body. “Anything else?” His voice is rough.
“No.” Pritchard frowns at him. “They’ll be waiting for you outside.”
“Right.” Adam takes a deep breath and turns to leave.
His fingers are on the doorknob when Pritchard makes a soft noise behind him, and Adam turns, his wings brushing against the floor at the sudden movement.
“Good luck.” Pritchard’s voice is almost halting, like he’s never said the words before, as though he’s speaking a foreign language and he’s afraid he'll mispronounce a syllable.
“Thanks.” Adam smiles, feeling warmth spreading through his chest, like he’s sunk into a hot bath after a long day, like all his tension is draining out of him.
Pritchard’s cheeks stain slightly pink. “Sarif doesn’t like waiting.” His voice cracks slightly, and Pritchard stalks back to his desk, sitting down with a heavy thud.
Adam leaves the office, feeling giddy and dizzy and like he wants to flit around the hallway. He checks that the hallways are empty, stretches his wings behind his back, and stamps down the ridiculous urge. He’s got a job to do, and he doesn’t need idle – insistent – distractions.
Even if Pritchard is irresistibly cute when he blushes. Even if Adam keeps replaying the moment in his head as he navigates the still-unfamiliar hallways to the helipad.
Even if he's absolutely getting a crush on his new co-worker.