(no subject)
His knock on the basement door is followed by the sharp pop of an explosion, and John shakes his head before poking his head in. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say here, but he has to at least try.
“Hey, Buddy, can I come in?”
There’s a moment before he’s answered. Adam’s voice has no trace of sadness in it that John can hear and it throws him off for a second before he can clomp his way down the stairs and lean against Adam’s work bench. The boy has it covered with vials he doesn’t even want to try and guess what they contain.
“You look like a geek with your glasses,” Adam tells him lightly, pushing his safety goggles up onto his head. John smirks at that.
“Look who’s talking, boy genius.”
There’s a grin instead of an answer, and Adam starts putting things away, careful and methodical. “What’s up? I’m not babysitting for you. I have to study. And you have a million kids my age to do it. And I need to call Me-someone. What’s up?”
John shakes his head, nudging Adam’s shoulder. “Don’t need you to do anything, kid. Just came to see how you’re holding up with Grandpa and everything…?”
“…Fine.”
“Uh huh.” John cocks his head, watching the boy. “You want to try telling me the truth now? I know you, Adam, you’re worse than I am. Out with it.”
Adam stops his tidying, resting his hands flat on the workbench. “I don’t know, okay? I mean…we all knew it was going to happen ‘cause he’s du-he was dumb. And wouldn’t stop smoking even after they told him he had cancer. And now he’s dead and…Arg, Uncle John. It’s not fair. I have to keep being okay because…everyone needs me to be okay and be around for them and stuff. So I’m okay. I’m sad, yeah. He was, like, my best friend except my grandpa? I don’t know. We did lots of stuff together all the time even after he got sick. But I’ve got to keep being okay for everyone else.”
John just watches his nephew for a few moments, then moves and drapes his arm around the boy’s shoulders, half-hugging him loosely. “Buddy, you don’t need to be okay for anyone. We’re grown ups, we can handle it. You remember when my dad died just a little while back?” He waits for Adam to nod before going on. “We did okay with that, right? Even when your mom was dead for a bit, too, we did okay with that. We can handle it. At least we got warning, right?”
“But-”
“Don’t but me, kid. Listen to what I’m saying to you here. You don’t need to do this. You’re scaring us by doing this, actually. You need to be sad about this. It’s okay to be sad about this, got it? He was your family as much as anyone else. We all need to be here for each other on this, not just one of us here for everyone else. You understand?”
“Yeah….” Adam bites his lip, then turns into his uncle and hugs him tightly. “I miss him, and it’s dumb because I’ve gone longer without seeing him.”
“It’s not dumb, buddy. I miss him, too.”