(rebels without cause)
Here’s the thing: Harold knows how to shoot a gun.
Of course he knows how to shoot a gun, he was raised by a single father in rural Iowa before the Internet was invented. There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment back there, in those days; Harold’s interest in birds was partially out of necessity.
And, above all else, regardless of its connotation or function, a gun is a machine. Harold has always been very talented with machines.
That being said, even without such a childhood, Harold still would have learned to shoot a gun. Arthur did, after all, and he grew up in west coast suburbia. Mostly, Harold blames Nathan–because Nathan is to blame for a lot of things.
Nathan, even five semesters into their MIT careers, touted anecdotes of his “grandaddy’s antique rifle collection” even though most everyone in his admittedly wide circle of friends had already heard it. There’s no way he wouldn’t have brought his best friends to a gun range at least once. And when you give Nathan an inch, he’ll take five miles and bring Harold and Arthur with him, even if he has to drag both of them the entire way.
Not that they often needed dragging.
So, yes, Harold can shoot a gun. He can shoot quite well, and many varieties of guns at that. He just doesn’t like to.
And anyway, Nathan’s been dead for years–why would he need to?
—
During their young and reckless years, Arthur got a tattoo. Harold, paranoid about identifying markers even then, did not get one. He did get a piercing–which he figured would be easy enough to hide if necessary–out of solidarity, which was close enough.
Nathan, afflicted with an all consuming phobia of needles, stood in the corner of the tiny but surprisingly clean tattoo parlor and was silently, supportively nauseated the entire time.
Since then, Arthur’s added a few more tattoos to his collection–including one with Dianne’s name and her favorite flower which secretly delighted her every time she saw it–but the first is always one of the more memorable ones, for good or bad.
Mostly good, Arthur thinks, because he looks back on his MIT years fondly, regardless of how it ended.
But everything has a tinge of sadness it seems, the older he gets. That first tattoo has been a cause for bitterness on more than one occasion–as Nathan’s name somehow became more and more synonymous with genius in the industry, as the years passed with no contact from Harold.
The tattoo is, in the way all firsts are, life changing and symbolic and probably ridiculous adolescent nonsense delicately painted over with the kind brush of nostalgia. A way to make those fleeting emotions and memories and relationships into something permanent, something that he can’t lose. Something that can’t be taken from him or ruined.
In the last few months of his life, Arthur thinks a lot about that tattoo.
—
If asked–by someone he trusted, that is, which basically means only Harold–Nathan would admit that he probably let the fame get to him. Being the face and name of an entire movement of technology–its akin to being a rockstar or an actor. Except without the drugs and sex scandals.
Not that Nathan was vice-free; but alcohol isn’t illegal, and at least his affairs were always with consenting adults. The same can’t be said for others in positions similar to his…
As if being better than scummy bastards made him good, as if it didn’t have the same results. Surrounded by the shattered remains of relationships, all of his sins paid for with the credit of genius that was never his to begin with.
Nathan hit the bottom–dove headfirst more like–and when he finally stopped to look around, all he was left with was a empty shell of a household, a company his in name only, and Harold. Who more often than not was hiding away, behind code and so many aliases that sometimes Nathan wondered if maybe Harold was just a figment of his imagination. A friend who would never leave–who can never be pushed away–no matter what Nathan did.
And, frankly, Nathan has done a lot to deserve far less.
~
A/N: … some more MIT trio! đ
JackSGreyson Says 