1965-04-30 - Curiosity is the leading cause of deaths in Jebediah Guthries
Summary: Jebediah is a self appointed monster fanboy.
Related: None
Theme Song: None
jebediah adam 


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Jebediah seeks out Morbius in the restaurant because this is the only place he knows to find him. It's not as if he's asked where he lives, or has his number. He didn't think to ask, maybe he had thought he had no right to them yet, as if he had to level up on his friendship or something of the sort. So Jeb comes here often, seeking Mister Morbius and occasionally running into someone instead that is just as fascinating. The young man is good at passing, he looks like a normal boy as he walks into the restaurant, scanning for a vampire… or even a satyr. Either of those people would do, but he would prefer Mister Morbius.

Instead, his eyes land on a huge, grotesque man who looked like he had perhaps been brought back from the dead and made up of a few different bodies that were not meant to be smashed together, which meant that Jebediah Guthrie thought he was the most astounding thing on the face of the planet. His mouth drops open, as if to scream and there's no doubt that Adam was used to that reaction but instead, he just emits a starstruck; "Whoooooooooooooooooa!" Quiet, even, not loud.


Adam, just minding his own business skulking around Saganaki's courtyard, investigating the bees and hives, and grape vines only starting to leaf out, whips around. He's wearing an enormous cloak, but the hood is down to show his terrifying face and incongrously beautiful long black hair. His white-on-black eyes narrow at Jeb, and his great form crouches back, like a cat ready to fight. When he speaks, his voice is as deep as a double bass, resonant in that huge chest. "I will not harm you."


Jebediah doesn't move away from Adam, like perhaps, a normal person would. He moves closer, the idea that Adam might hurt not remotely a fear in the young man's heart as he looks at Adam as if he were looking at a diamond. "Ah ain't gonna hurt you neither! It's okay, Ah ain't scared of you, Ah reckon everybody is, huh?" He takes slow steps towards Adam. "My name is Jebediah Guthrie."


Adam crouches further away, like Jeb is the monster here. "You cannot hurt me," he says, incredibly deep. He's eyeing Jeb warily. There's a definite air of role reversal. "My name is Adam. Perhaps you have heard another name attributed to me, but that one is not mine." He only has to look at a weird parody of himself on movie posters all the time. That flat head, man, nothing like the real thing. His cloak pools on the ground around him. "Jebediah Guthrie, why are you not afraid?"


"Well, Ah didn't wanna in the first place was the point Ah was tryin' to make. You looked scared, like maybe Ah was gonna go find the nearest torch and pitchfork and try and burn you down or somethin' was all." Jeb opens up his hands in a mock surrender and stops when Adam still seems to think he's about to be attack. "Why should Ah be? You already done said you ain't gonna hurt me and Ah believe ya. Ah wanna come closer to see you better because Ah think you're really cool already! Why should Ah be afraid, Mister Adam?"


Adam turns his head, eyeing Jeb. "You could call more of your kind," he rumbles, not quite an explanation. "I would avoid it if I can." Rising, now, he stands up—and up, and up. He is well over seven feet tall, with a long, muscular frame and massive hands and feet. Now the hem of the cloak is only an inch or so above the ground. His thick brow furrows. "You should fear me. All men fear me. You are only a man." A pause. "What is it that you mean by…'cool'. I am not an American." No, he's definitely got some kind of odd European accent.


"Ah got like two friends and Ah have an inklin' you might know the one, Mister Morbius, he's a real pretty vampire. Don't tell him Ah called him pretty. Listen, you out here just trying to live your life as normal as you can, Ah ain't here to ruin that for you. My brother? He's got wings and people are rude to him all the time because of it. Ah don't see why Ah should just be scared because you look different." Jeb says with a shake of his head as he moves closer and offers Adam his hand to shake as he tilts his head back to look at him. "You're like twenty feet tall! Damn! And cool… like… Ah think that you're really amazing, that's what Ah mean, not like the temperature cool, that you're just… wow."


"Ah." Adam takes this information with bemusement. "Americans. You create new English at such an accelerated rate." He wraps his massive hand around Jeb's. It's like an adult formally shaking hands with a toddler. He's got sharp, short claws instead of nails. He bows, very shallow, precise. "You should be afraid. I am a monster and a killer. Have you not seen the motion pictures?" Ironic. "They have many things wrong, but in that, they are correct."


Jeb brings his other hand up to wrap around one of Adam's massive fingers, marveling at them as if they were made of marble. "Ah don't get to go to the cinema much, Mister Adam, what am Ah supposed to be mistakin' you for? The… frankenstien guy? That's the only one Ah could think of but you already told me you wouldn't hurt me. Ah don't need to be afraid, Mister Adam. Do you want me to be? Maybe you did kill someone, you ain't gonna hurt me. Sometimes we gotta hurt people to survive… did they try to hurt you?"


Adam is not amenable to that, and withdraws his hand back into his cloak. "I have killed many," he says, low, although that voice of his is hardly ever genuinely quiet. "They wounded me. Not in the fashion you mean." He turns away, going back to the beehive. The bees are waking up from their winter sleep, and a few of them hum around. One lands on his cloak, and he lifts a fold of it to observe it, his ugly face transforming with curiosity.


Jeb frowns when Adam pulls his hand away, pouting a little. "Listen, if you wanna make more friends, you probably shouldn't tell them about murderin' people right away. Not everyone is like me, you know." Jeb says and side steps a little to get closer to the hive and Adam without exactly seeming like he's so much closer. He puts his hands behind his back. "So what's yer real story? You said the movies done got it wrong. Tell me about you. Have you met Mister Morbius by the way? He thinks that he's scary too but Ah like him a real lot too."


Adam nudges the bee ever so gently onto a long bony finger. It investigates him, tasting with its fuzzy little feet, before deciding he is neither a threat nor a flower and buzzes off. "It cannot possibly matter to a child like you. It was many, many years ago." He looks at Jeb. "Yes. Doctor Morbius brought me here, to New York." He pronounces 'New York' a little funny, like it's actually the York that's new. "He is a fine man. I commend you for understanding that."


It stings a lot to be called a child and to be told that it doesn't matter when he clearly just asked because he wanted to know. The hurt settles hard in the enthusiastic boy's chest, making him swallow hard and frown, looking down at his feet. "Well, Ah.. Ah wouldn't have asked if Ah didn't wanna know, Mister Adam." He says quieter enthusiasm dying a little. "The bee wasn't scared of you neither, animals are supposed to know precisely what to be afraid of, you know? So you're not scary at all."


"I only harm men," Adam says, eyes hooding. "Never animals. They are true innocents. No human being outside of Eden can maintain such an innocence, once they reach their majority." He frowns at Jeb. It's an intense, magnificently scary expression, pulling his already awful face into furrows and lines that don't do him any favors. "Why," he says, sounding honestly confused, "would you want to know?"


"Because you don't like that people don't know the real you, maybe it's a story you wanna tell and Ah'm here. Ah got ears, Ah can listen to you if'n you want someone to and Ah'm not scared at all. Yer real sweet to the bees, so you ain't all bad like you think you is." Jeb says with a shrug. "Also, Ah think you're fascinating, the same way Ah think Mister Morbius is. The only reason Ah ain't asking you nine thousand questions is because Ah don't wanna make you angry, Mister Adam."


"I do not wish to tell it. Others have stolen it from me. It causes me great grief to see the books and motion pictures created from quarter-truths and lies. They cannot know what happened, but they invent the tale whole-cloth." Adam's voice is extremely low, barely audible, a rumble. Then, he glances at Jeb, ice white eyes on black sclera. "However. You may ask me questions. I have studied myself at length."


"What does that mean, Mister Adam? Whole-cloth? Ah'm not very bright. Ah'm sorry that people stole yer story and Ah'm sorry that it makes you very sad. Ah wish you didn't have a bad start to life, Ah really don't, but Ah do still think that you are fascinating anyway, because you are. You look really amazing. Yer taller than anyone Ah ever did see and yer eyes are just as cool as Mister Morbius'."


That frown does not lessen up any, through this speech. "You are a curious child," Adam says, musing. "What makes you so fearless in the face of those who slay your kind?" Now he's the one asking questions. "I…thank you for your interest," he says, a little cautiously, as if feeling out exactly what he wants to say. "And your courage."


"Sometimes we need to be slayed and Ah'm not just a man." He steps back so as not to scare Adam or the bees any as he looks up at Adam to let him see the sparks as they leave his brown eyes. "Ah'm what they call a mutant, see. Ah'm not the same as regular men.


"Ah, yes. The next step in the evolution of mankind." This actually seems to put Adam at more ease. Slightly. He steps towards Jeb now, to get a closer look at those sparks coming from his eyes. "I am a more advanced race as well, in my way." Answering Jeb's question, he says, "From whole-cloth—it means to fabricate a story. To take the basest idea and cut and embellish it to one's purpose."


"Ah ain't never heard anyone call us that. Abominations, yeah." Jeb doesn't budge at all when Adam comes closer, still demonstrating that he's not afraid of the seven foot tall man. "Are you a mutant? Like me? Or somethin' else, like Mister Morbius and Mister Lambert?"


Adam murmurs, "I am something else entirely. I am a created species." It pains him to say it; his eyes close in a spasm of grief. "The only one of my kind. Aside from the clones created of me. You must beware of those, Jebediah Guthrie. If you see one who looks like myself, but seems …animal. Unknowing. That is a clone, and you must run."


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