Evenfall (149 page)

Boyd shrugged, falling silent as he studied the couch. He didn't particularly want to discuss at length the subject of torture, not after what he'd seen of Sin or even, as much as he tried not to think about it, what he himself had been through; so he didn't know what to say to that. Instead, he looked around the apartment, noting that there seemed to be more piles of paper and perfectly posed figurines than he recalled. It made it seem as though Ryan had been staying in his apartment more often than usual, which made Boyd wonder exactly how long he'd been as ill as he was. He looked back at Ryan and asked, "So what have you been doing lately? Anything interesting?"

"Eh, nothing much," Ryan said, once again in the same vague manner. "Work as usual, there were a couple of big assignments that sucked up months of my life. Oh, and I had a brief romance but it's not much to talk about."

"A romance?" Boyd asked with a raised eyebrow. "Now I'm curious. Is it the same person you were talking about before?"

"Who?" Ryan's eyebrows drew together and he frowned slightly before he seemed to remember. "Oh no, not that guy. Someone else. He's a field op; cute, athletic, friendly, closeted gay. I don't think you know him."

Boyd nodded. "Why was it brief, if you don't mind my asking?"

Ryan shrugged and stood up suddenly, looking around the room before trailing over to his desk as though he were searching for something. "I don't know. I just told him I didn't want to see him anymore. I guess I didn't feel like getting involved," He replied after a moment, not looking at Boyd as he shoved aside a stack of folders and pulled his glasses from beneath. "It was no big deal. It was just something to do I guess. It's probably better for him anyway, I'm kind of a drag."

Boyd watched him. "Ryan, you are the last person I would characterize as 'a drag,' but you have to do what you feel is best for you. Did those assignments have anything to do with meeting him. Or were you briefly suspended like Carhart and Jeffrey were?"

"Nope, me and Owen didn't really get any of the backlash to be honest so we carried on business as usual, even while Carhart and Jeff were out. I mean no matter what's going on with Janus I always have the other groups to keep tabs on; they put me in a couple of other units for two assignments which happens from time to time. Before this unit was created I was moved around pretty frequently. It was pretty busy for
a while
; I had one assignment that was totally unrelated to rebel factions entirely so that was kind of new and exciting. I had a lot of fun stuff to research; barely slept for a week because I was so into it." Ryan pushed his glasses up his nose and sat on the edge of his desk. "That's actually why I met that guy. I went on a late night coffee run and he was in the cafeteria just getting back from an assignment."

"What's his name?" Boyd asked in interest, trying to get a grasp on who this man was that had caught Ryan's attention. "What unit is he in?" "His name is Andrew. He works with Willis a lot, I'm not sure who else. We didn't really talk too much about work stuff because he isn't supposed to talk about most of his assignments even though I probably know more about it than he does generally."

"Damian Willis? I've heard of him in passing; his unit deals with terrorists, doesn't it?" Boyd considered what Ryan had said about him being athletic. "Andrew must be on one of the apprehension teams, then?"

Ryan nodded and a small, amused grin crept up onto his face. "Yeah. He gets all like, I don't know, noble about his job. Like he's saving the world by taking down these bad people and that makes him a superhero or something. It's cute in a way but after awhile I wanted to gag."

Boyd smirked in amusement. That made sense if he couldn't speak about his job; in truth, none of the units really discussed what they were doing with the others, as far as he could tell. It was a general matter of secrecy that encompassed the very nature of being in the Agency. He wouldn't be surprised if even the administrative assistants and clerical workers didn't discuss amongst themselves the information they dealt with on the computers or filing systems. "How much does he know about what you do, then?"

"I just told him I was a geek," Ryan replied, as proud as ever of his self-proclaimed title. "That I'm research and development for the Insurgency units. He seemed to think like, it dealt with kind of the same stuff as he does and I tried to tell him without telling him that mostly we just smack down the people who don't like our government and not the people who just like to destroy stuff because they're crazy."

That response was not one Boyd would have expected from before; Ryan had always seemed very positive toward the Agency and with that viewpoint he never really spoke of the rebels like Janus that way before. Boyd nodded. "Yes, his position could be considered a little more glamorized. Did you go off the compound with him?"

The grin melted off Ryan's pale face again and he looked away, tugging at the frayed end up his sweater. "No, that's why I said I'm a drag. He's all... I don't know. Outgoing and stuff."

Boyd raised an eyebrow. "Ryan, stop calling yourself a drag. You're not. Whether or not you leave the compound doesn't really matter, since I'm sure you were more interested in seeing him and you could do that anywhere. I was simply curious if you two had been anywhere I knew of but it doesn't matter."

"I guess," He replied quietly with a shrug and for a moment they fell into silence. There was something about Ryan's expression and body language that screamed depression; a melancholy in his dark blue eyes that made Boyd think that something had definitely happened to change his friend in the past year. But if Ryan wasn't ready to talk about it, he wasn't going to push.

Ryan looked up finally and completely changed the topic. "Are you happy to be back at all?"

The question caught Boyd mildly off-guard and he opened his mouth to automatically respond but then stopped and actually thought about the answer. He looked away.
Was
he happy to be back?

"I don't know," he said honestly, absently studying a nearby pile of papers that looked ready to fall. The only thing holding it up appeared to be a little black robot model with some sort of bat wings and scythe. "I don't know if 'happy' is really the correct word for it; so much has happened that I feel like I'm still adjusting. And for a period of time I wouldn't have imagined I could ever feel anything like happiness again." He fell silent briefly, brooding, then looked over at Ryan with a sincere expression. "But at least I can say that I'm pleased to see you. And I was pleased to see Sin and that he was better. It's a relief in both your cases, actually."

Ryan seemed to study him for a moment, eyes slightly narrowed behind his glasses as his lips pursed. "If... you could have just stayed away and like, still seen me and Sin, would you have been happy?"

"I think..." Boyd imagined that but it only seemed appealing if it was a scenario in which Ryan and Sin were as free to wander around as he was, if the people watching him had disappeared, and possibly even if the three of them were somewhere removed and relaxed like Monterrey. "No, I don't think so. Not unless we were all somewhere we could just... do what we wanted or at least we had some sense of equality. If you two were here and I stayed at my house between visits, I think it would just make it worse. I would feel... uninvolved and unable to do anything. Impotent, I suppose. At least now I have some sense of equality; I know I have some control over the situation and I have something to do with myself. Whatever the Agency is or is not to me, it does provide me with a chance to problem solve and improvise, and it keeps me near the people who are important." He tilted his head, making eye contact with Ryan. "But if it was a choice between the three of us in a place like Monterrey and unconnected to anything, and the three of here in our present situation, I would choose Monterrey."

Ryan answered with a solemn nod and for a moment it seemed as though he were choosing his words, or at least his next question, carefully. "It seems like... I don't know. Was it really that different there? What was it like-- just being that free?"

"The largest difference wasn't for me but for Sin," Boyd said contemplatively, remembering how it had been in Monterrey. "He could walk through a crowd without anyone caring or giving him a second glance; people spoke to him without being predisposed to fear or hate him. He had friends, he could joke, he could laugh. People invited him places and were honestly disappointed if he didn't come and when he quit his job. It was a place where he could just be normal and he wasn't used to that. I think... it gave him an opportunity to relax in a way he's never experienced before in his life. And for me, it also provided a sense of anonymity. Here..."

The changes between Monterrey and the Agency were really quite dramatic if he thought about it enough; there were so many things that had been different over there that weren't replicated over here. Considering that transition made Harriet's unimpressed expression and snide comments flash briefly through his mind; the implication that he was simply his mother's son, that he was only there due to her words and he didn't deserve to be. That he was basically a failure. Boyd sighed, shaking his head once. "They see me as someone receiving special treatment and in that way I'm just a Beaulieu and not really Boyd. And for those who don't like Sin or my mother... I'm more accessible and less intimidating to take it out on. There are some who don't care about any of that and that's fine, but for the others..."

Boyd shrugged. "I hadn't had many troubles with that for awhile before we left but I think it's probably something that will always be in the back of their minds. I suppose I hadn't realized until we were away from this environment how much that was wearing on me. But I suppose it doesn't necessarily have to be only on the compound in which that feeling exists; when I'm here, her presence is somehow larger to me, even at home where she is not likely to appear any time soon. In Mexico, she may as well have not existed. It's not that I brood upon the fact that she's my mother or I expect her to suddenly appear and start chastising me, but it's true that she's rarely seemed pleased with me. So in
its
own way, I suppose even if everyone at the Agency suddenly stopped caring that I'm a Beaulieu, or that I'm gay, there would be the potential of her presence dampening my spirits slightly. Or perhaps what's really occurring is that I had so many fewer responsibilities there, although it wasn't as though I was doing nothing, that it seemed like a vacation. And, naturally, I wouldn't want to give that up." He paused, then smiled wryly and added on a lighter note, "Besides, it was a hell of a lot easier to fuck Sin over there than it will be here. That alone made it worth it."

Ryan had listened to Boyd with an earnest, intrigued expression for the entire time he spoke but at the last moment he abruptly burst into almost startled laughter. "Man... I'm really, I know it sounds dumb or stupid considering you're both back here where everything sucks for you guys and like... everything that happened when you came back..." He trailed off for a moment but shook his head. "But I'm glad you had the chance to be there and be happy and like... get to get that close to each other. I don't know any people who needed someone to be close to them as much as you two did, even if neither of you wanted to admit it. I'm happy you were happy for at least the majority of the time you were gone... I'd wonder a lot about what you were doing. If you were okay, how you were getting along..."

He stood up and moved over to the couch again, seeming to be over his brief discomfort or whatever it was that he'd been feeling. He paused for a moment, toying with his sleeve again before speaking. "Did Hsin really change that much? What's he like when you're... you know, alone?"

Boyd smiled at him slightly for his words, for being someone who was honestly pleased that they'd been pleased. For caring about Sin and him that much. "I think he did," he said with a nod, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "They're all changes that would be normal for anyone but for him seem significant, I suppose." He paused as he tried to figure out how best to explain it to Ryan. The first thing that came to mind was sleeping; not when they were having sex but just the simple act of sleeping in the same bed. He pulled one of his legs up on the couch and leaned back in a slouch, resting an idle arm over his tilted knee.

"For instance, I remember watching him on the cameras and he never seemed to sleep, or when he did he was curled up. In our earlier missions, sometimes he would have nightmares and if I touched him he would react violently before he realized that he knew me and I wasn't an enemy. But even then he wouldn't necessarily relax entirely. By the time we left Monterrey, that didn't seem to be the case. But as for what he's like around me compared to what he's like around others, I couldn't say; I only know my own interactions. And as far as that goes, I suppose it's mostly that he's relaxed and will do things like smile or laugh. Or will talk in sentences that consist of more than sarcasm and a few words, which seems to be the case in the mission briefings and debriefings."

"Maybe you shouldn't have told me that," Ryan said with a wry smile. "Now I'll be hurt if he still acts that way towards me. Well, not really... I guess I always like, just wanted to, you know, I don't know... I always wanted to get along better with him or at least, I wanted him to not think I'm an enemy or a moron or someone he can't trust. But if not, I'll still be happy that at least with you he's that way. I just wish he could also trust the few other people that care about him too." His almost delicate fingers continued to toy with the hem of his shirt. "Y'know... Zachary was really... Well. I can't really explain it. He's such a hard ass. But he was really messed up for awhile."