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It starts as twitches. Barely noticeable, just little spasms of myomer and servos.
Adam ignores it, and hopes it will go away. Because the other options are going to a LIMB clinic or telling Sarif, and he doesn't want to do either of those. One will require him to at least be sedated, and he just - he can't. The other... well. He doesn't trust Sarif not to take the chance to add a few more augs whilst he fixes whatever's gone wrong with these ones.
The involuntary motions get worse, of course, because he's Adam fucking Jensen and nothing in his life can ever be straightforward. He manages to control it most of the time at work, putting all his strength into holding himself still, avoiding being around anyone who might notice - so, in other words, Pritchard, Sarif, and Malik. When he's at his apartment... it doesn't matter so much, with nobody to see him.
Except he can't work on the watches any more, with the way his arms and fingers keep twitching, jerking mid-movement, only barely under his control. It's like the worst days after he'd first gotten the augmentations, when he'd had to relearn how to use his body all over again - except this time, there's no prospect of things improving. Not unless he goes to LIMB, or to Sarif.
Adam considers it once, and only once, when a jerk of his left arm triggers the nanoblade to shoot out of its sheath. He stands there in his kitchen, staring at it. It had impaled a cereal box on its way.
That could have been a person, if it had happened anywhere else.
He's dangerous. A threat to anyone who comes near him. All because he's too much of a fucking coward to get his augs seen to.
Adam gets as far as the door of the Detroit LIMB clinic before turning around and almost bolting back to his apartment, where he slides down the wall and has something he refuses to call a panic attack.
He keeps going to work, just... makes sure he stays well away from people. It's not difficult; since the augs, people keep their distance from him, both in Sarif Industries and outside it. As long as he doesn't get too close to people, everything will be fine. The tics will fade eventually. They have to.
Then he's in Pritchard's office - he doesn't even remember why, afterwards. Just that Pritchard had insisted he come there for some reason or another, and Adam had grumbled but eventually obliged, if only because Pritchard had said he'd come to Adam's office otherwise. At least if Adam went to Pritchard, he could keep well away from him. Pritchard's office was bigger than his.
It's a particularly bad day, too. Adam hadn't been able to keep the spasms under control, and he'd nearly thrown his keyboard across the room twice. It's becoming more and more obvious that something is very wrong, and Adam has no idea what he's going to do when somebody else realises.
Things are going fine. Adam stays on the opposite side of the room to Pritchard, and it's working fine. Adam isn't a threat to him as long as he stays well away.
That's great, right up until Pritchard clears his throat behind Adam and snaps, "Am I really that boring you'd rather poke at my decoration than listen to what I have to say, Jensen?"
Adam whirls, heart pounding (how the hell had Pritchard crept up on him, how had he not noticed -) and in the split second of shock - he loses it. In the worst way possible.
His arm jerks, violently. The nanoblade shoots out. And everything seems to slow as Adam watches the blade knife through Pritchard's torso.
"-sen! Jensen! Oh, for - Adam!"
Adam realises abruptly that he's hyperventilating, still staring at where his nanoblade has impaled Pritchard. And then he realises that Pritchard's saying his name, in a remarkably level voice for someone who just got gutted. Adam would know.
Then there's a hand on his arm, pulling it carefully away. Adam nearly says something, he's no doctor but he knows you leave stab wounds plugged - but then there's another hand on his face, a little clammy but unbearably fucking good when nobody has touched him outside of surgery for months. His eyes slide closed and he presses desperately into the contact, face and arm alike, despite himself.
"I'm fine, Adam," he can distantly hear Pritchard saying, in a calmer tone than Adam's ever heard from him before. "It only caught my jacket. Which you will be reimbursing me for, by the way." Yeah, that sounds more like Pritchard. Francis. Since they're apparently on first names now.
Adam forces himself to open his eyes, to look down. He has to confirm for himself that what Francis is saying is true.
Sure enough, his usual jacket is ripped, and the turtleneck he wears beneath it is torn, too. But the tshirt underneath looks fine. And there's no blood. Francis isn't bleeding out in front of him. Adam didn't hurt him.
Francis guides him over to the couch. Adam lets himself be guided, lets himself be pushed down to sit, watches as Francis hits a switch that dims the windows. Then Francis sits down - not on the other chair, a sensible distance away from Adam and the danger he presents. No, Francis sits on the couch, right next to Adam, one hand still on his arm. The same arm that had just nearly killed him.
"Adam." There's no fear in Francis' voice, not even wariness. "You need to calm down so we can talk about what just happened. Breathe."
Slowly, with the warmth of Francis beside him and the solid pressure of his hand on Adam's arm, Adam calms down. Enough that he's not hyperventilating, at least. Finally, Francis leans back on the couch, and lets go - Adam makes a sound, at that. Francis raises an eyebrow, but settles his hand back on Adam's arm again.
"Tell me what just happened, Jensen."
So Adam does. The twitches, the spasms, the involuntary movements. How he'd ignored them. How they'd gotten worse.
"With the nanoblade, was that the first time?" Francis - Pritchard, he'd gone back to Jensen so Adam should do him the same courtesy - asks, his expression intent.
Adam can't meet his eyes, eyeshields or not.
"No," he admits, looking away. Pritchard clicks his tongue, and then his hand's on Adam's face again, pulling him gently but inexorably to face Pritchard. Adam doesn't fight it; doesn't want to. Instead, he lets the eyeshields slide away. His cowardice, his negligence, almost killed Pritchard. He owes him this.
"Why didn't you go to a LIMB clinic?" Pritchard asks next, the question Adam had been dreading. "Or speak to Sarif. The augmentations shouldn't be doing that - it's either a system glitch or Darrow Deficiency Syndrome, and from what I hear the latter doesn't affect you."
Adam decides not to question how Pritchard knows that. He probably found out from the emails Sarif sent to Adam's computer or something equally nosy.
He doesn't intend to answer Pritchard's question honestly. He plans to say something flippant, brush it off, imply he was just being reckless.
Instead, Pritchard's hands gentle on his skin and augs, Adam says without meaning to, "I don't want them to put me under again. I don't want -" His voice fails him. But it's enough. Pritchard's eyes widen.
"Ah," is all he says. His grip on Adam's arm tightens, just a little. The hand on his face is still gentle, and Pritchard's thumb has shifted to rub smooth, careful arcs across his cheekbone. Adam's not sure if Pritchard realises he's doing it.
The only sound in the room for a moment or two is the soft hum of the computer fans and the air conditioning.
Then Adam's arm - the one Pritchard isn't holding - shifts, the panels cracking open and slamming shut again in a way they were never designed to do. Adam hisses in pain, at the sheer wrongness of it. It doesn't hurt when he deliberately opens the panels, but this - it's like nerves misfiring, like a muscle cramp he can't escape.
"What if I could help?" Pritchard asks, and Adam stares at him, not sure he'd heard right. Pritchard clears his throat. "I can look at things on a, ah, software level, at least. And I do think it's a software glitch, rather than a hardware issue - I've seen things like this before."
Adam spares a moment to wonder where Pritchard might have seen malfunctioning augs before, given he works for Sarif Industries. Sarif doesn't tolerate malfunctions in the augmentations he creates.
The rest of his mind is consumed with dread.
Pritchard's going to have to put him under to check. To fix the issue. It's inevitable.
Maybe it won't be so bad, if it's Pritchard. At least he won't be interested in adding any new parts. Maybe it will be endurable.
Adam already knows that it won't.
"How are you going to do it," he asks dully. Pritchard's expression lights up, hastily hidden, the same as always when he gets a chance to explain some kind of complicated computer concept.
"Ah! Well, if I access -"
"Not that," Adam cuts him off. "How are you going to put me under?"
Pritchard stops, stares at him, eyes narrowed.
"You just said," he says slowly, "that you didn't want to be unconscious for a procedure. That the entire reason you haven't done the sensible thing and visited the LIMB clinic yet is because you don't want them to knock you out."
Adam shrugs.
"You need to, don't you."
"I don't, no," Pritchard says surprisingly firmly, and that catches Adam's attention. Hope rises like a fragile bubble in his chest, and he resists the temptation to crush it down. It's Pritchard, if he thinks he can -
"I'll need to connect physically to your augs," Pritchard goes on, gesturing to his desk, "and run some diagnostics. But I can do that with you wide awake and sitting on the couch, Jensen. It may not be particularly comfortable, but it shouldn't actually hurt beyond a sting when I make the connection." He shrugs. "After that, I'm actually fairly certain I know what the issue is already; the diagnostics are only to confirm it. And it should be an easy fix. At least for me, anyway. Who knows how long it would take LIMB to work it out?"
"Do it," Adam says immediately. "Please." He can't bear the thought of carrying on like this, losing his hardwon control over his augmented limbs, being a danger to the people around him, the people he cares about - no.
Pritchard looks a little taken aback, but he nods.
"Let me get my tools," he says, and it's only then that he seems to realise his hand is still on Adam's face, thumb still caressing his cheekbone. He turns pink, a flush creeping up his neck and ears, and hastily disengages, walking across the room just a little too fast.
Adam sits on the couch, doesn't let himself touch his face where Pritchard's hand had been a moment ago, and waits. Pritchard returns a moment later with a laptop and, connected to it, a wire with an unpleasant-looking spike on one end. Adam eyes it uneasily.
"This is the part that will sting," Pritchard says briskly, then pauses, eyeing Adam. Adam doesn't know what expression he's making. But whatever it is, Pritchard slows. Instead of going straight for the port on Adam's forehead, he reaches out with his other hand, rests it on Adam's face again.
"Relax, Adam," he says quietly. "It will sting, but it shouldn't hurt. If it does, something is wrong, and you need to tell me. Understand?"
Adam nods very slightly, trying not to dislodge Francis' hand. A moment later, Francis is expertly sliding open the panel covering the port in Adam's skull - unfairly easy for him to do, given that the one time Adam had poked at it, it had taken him an hour to open it and twice that to close it. Then he clicks the cord into place.
It does sting, but only for a split second. Like salt on a cracked lip. Adam waits for the rest of it.
"See?" Francis says, thumb moving across Adam's cheekbone again. "It's not meant to hurt."
He leaves his hand there as he taps away at the keyboard, purses his lips at whatever he sees there. It must be making it harder for him to type, limited to one hand and in an awkward position. But Francis doesn't move; doesn't take his hand back to type. Judging by the pink dusting the tops of his ears, he's fully aware of what he's doing. He just... does it anyway.
Adam is unspeakably grateful. Francis' skin is soft, no marks except for what he thinks must be a tiny scar on his thumb that catches a little on Adam's face as it moves. It doesn't bother him; it grounds him, if anything. His fingers are long enough to almost cradle the side of Adam's face, and Adam fights the temptation to close his eyes and lean into it.
Then he gives up, and just... lets himself relax into the touch, the spot of contact. It's not as if he's going to get anything like this again for a long time. If ever.
Francis glances up once; the last thing Adam sees before letting his eyes slide shut is the faint, small smile on Francis' face as he turns his attention back to the keyboard.
Adam doesn't sleep, not with the cable in his head and the still-present fear that his augs might do something they shouldn't. But he... floats, almost. More relaxed than he has been in a long time, knowing that he can trust Francis with this. He's so tired, and he thinks that in another situation he probably would fall asleep like this.
Adam's not sure how much time passes before Francis clears his throat.
"Done," he says, breaking the comfortable silence that's fallen over them. "Just a glitch, as I'd thought. It won't be bothering you again. Let me just take that cable out."
Adam opens his eyes, watches Francis disconnect the cable carefully from the port in his forehead. There's no sting of pain on removal, thankfully. Francis wraps it up and sets it aside.
Then Francis' gaze flicks between Adam's eyes and Francis' hand, still on Adam's face. He coughs and moves to pull away.
Adam reaches up and catches his wrist. Gently, so gently; in a way that Francis could easily pull away from if he wanted to.
Francis doesn't. Just lets Adam hold him in place.
"Thanks, Francis," Adam says quietly. There's nothing else that needs to be said.
Except -
"Want to go out for a drink sometime?" Adam asks. It's not just because of this; it's an idea that's been floating in the back of his mind practically since he met Francis. But this - the touching, the trust, the care - has definitely helped.
Francis smirks. It looks good on him.
"I think you'll find I'm an expensive date, Adam," he says.
It's not a no.