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Adam has been in Siren Cove for four days now and in those four days he's heard a lot of stories circulating around town about the current state of the Matriarch and the situation the sirens now find themselves in. For Adam, it works in his favour. His family has never belonged to any enclave, has never answered to any Matriarch and the problems going on now give him the opportunity to slip into town unnoticed.

It won't last, he's sure of that, but that doesn't mean he's not enjoying the chance to move into his new condo without worrying about how he's going to present himself.

Rather, he'd be enjoying himself if it didn't seem like the movers were going to drop ever second box. A year ago and Adam would have done it himself. A year ago he would have talked some friends into helping him, bugged his little brother until he agreed to drive the van, and they would have unloaded together. He would have bought beer and pizza -- or convinced someone to give him beer and pizza anyway -- and it would have been an experience, even if it hadn't been fun.

But now his brother is dead. Most of his friends don't call anymore. And Adam's scars prevent him from doing much of anything when it comes to moving boxes.

"Jesus Christ, I'm going to have a heart attack before this is over," he says loud enough for the movers to hear as they manhandle another box off the truck, nearly dropping it in the process. "Please don't kill all my things before they even make it inside."

[Adam's in front of his new condo, a lovely building near the beach. Dry run tags can be considered canon if you'd like, or if you want to start fresh, I'm okay with that, too. :D]

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"Wings?" Les asked curiously, unsure whether Adam is kidding or not, but he's intrigued either way. He is good at magic, more than good, but he has no abilities to transform. He doesn't have any familiars or animal forms. It's just him. He's always a little jealous of people that can do things like that. Grow tails and fangs.

"Can you really do that?"

"Oldest siren form in history," Adam says with a little smirk and a nod, though he looks more embarrassed than anything. He doesn't turn into his siren form very often and he hasn't done it once since the accident, not beyond a simple change of eye colour to drive a point home if he has to. But the wings and talons, he hasn't let those come out in a very long time.

"Back before everyone started turning into fish and sharks and seal, there was the birds," he continues and he's heard this story from his parents so many times that it's almost ridiculous. "I think my parents told me that in order to make me feel like we were lucky."

Is this guy serious?

Adam looks serious is the problem, and Les makes a face at him craning his neck at his back then gives him a wide grin. "You have wings?" he asks eagerly. If the guy has wings, Les wants to see them. Of course, he wants to see them.

"Show them to me." He doesn't say it rudely. He says it the same way a kid would tell Adam he wants to see this cool thing he claimed to have because he half-way doesn't believe him in the first place. "What color are they?"

Adam laughs at the same time as he flushes and he shakes his head, looking sort of flustered. "I don't... I haven't changed in a long... a long time. They're brown, sort of... hawk-like, I guess. That's probably the closest comparison."

He doesn't want to change, though, not now. He's not ready. He doesn't know if he'll ever be ready again.

Les narrows his eyes trying to imagine Adam, who looks rather unassuming standing in front of him, with wings. He can't quite picture it, and he still wants to see them with his own eyes. But Adam says he hasn't changed in a long time and he doesn't really offer to try. This puzzles Les. If he could transform, he would do it all the time. Just to show off.

"Hmm. How come? Is something wrong with your powers?" he asks.

"No," Adam says, realizing he's getting uncomfortably close to having to admit things he doesn't necessarily want to admit. It isn't the accident he's ashamed of, though, but the scars it's left on him. "No, it isn't... it's just that..."

The news of the accident will get around, he has no doubt of that.

"I was in a car accident about nine months ago," he says. "A bad one. The driver of the car was killed and I was injured pretty badly. Since then I just... I haven't felt comfortable changing."

Les, who is actually good at reading people's body language, realizes straightaway that he pried into something he didn't actually mean to pry into when he asked the question. He gives Adam a look of apology shuffling his feet a little. He's only known this person a few minutes and now Adam is telling him something that sounds painful and rather personal.

He didn't mean to do that.

"Well." He pauses a little thinking how to backtrack off that line of questioning. "I'm just going to pretend you have huge pterodactyl wings since I can't see them."

Adam laughs then, grinning down at his shoes as he shakes his head. "Alright," he says. "I'll accept that. Pterodactyl wings actually sound rather impressive. Much more impressive than a hawk." He hadn't meant to make anyone feel awkward and he certainly hopes Les doesn't think he's angry about the question or the pressure to see his wings.

"I'm not sure my family goes that far back, though," he jokes. "That's pushing it a little."

"Look wings in general are impressive to me. They could look like glittery fairy wings and I'd think you were a badass. That's not the issue," Les assures him. He actually thinks the fairy wings would be particularly badass. Just the idea that Adam may have a other form intrigues him. The same way Corry's siren form does, or April's jet black scales, or Lara's talons. All of it kind of captures his imagination.

His secret siren daddy didn't give him wings. And it's disappointing.

He gives Adam a look, smirking a little. "You just meet all kinds of interesting people in this town," he says. "Don't you?"

"That's what I'm learning," Adam agrees with a little smirk of his own. "I guess coming here was probably a good idea." Because at least interesting people give him something to distract himself from all the pitying thoughts he tends to have. He's held onto so much anger and resentment toward his brother, which is difficult to work through, given that his brother is dead.

He should work through it, he knows that, but Adam has never been good at confronting the more serious parts of life, so he would truly prefer the distraction. "Not to mention good looking," he adds with a laugh. "This entire town."

"Good looking. Yeah," Les says returning Adam's grin. He doesn't know if Adam means him, but Les has enough of an ego that he thinks of himself as attractive so he just takes it to mean him anyway. Adam isn't bad looking himself...hey the guy said he was a model right? And even if Les is with Corry flirting with people is pretty much his standard method of communication.

He looks Adam over. "Hot model with secret wings. I think you might fit right in around here," he says.

"Hot witch with a not-so-secret broom fetish," Adam returns with a teasing grin. "I guess I'm in good company."

It's so nice to be in a town where no one knows what happened to him. For awhile, when his friends had still bothered to visit, there had been so much tiptoeing around him, waiting for him to break. There had been moments where he'd caught them looking at him, waiting for him to just fall apart, and that had been part of what had driven him to Siren Cove. And it's nice to be able just to talk to someone, to casually and playfully flirt.

"You are," Les agrees with another smile.

He realizes then that it's been his turn at the front of the line for a few minutes and people were now walking around him. "Maybe I should let you get back to moving in," he says turning back to Adam. "I think we're gonna see each other around. I hope."

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