Mr. Duchateau

( @mrduchateau​ // adam );

— “We’re okay, bud?” Phillip called out, looking at the rear-view mirror to check on Samson, his 3-year-old Golden Retriever. Samson responded with a yip, meaning all is well, and that he’s enjoying the car ride. “Excited to see Adam?” He asked, making a turn as he drives along the familiar path to his friend’s house.

Not a moment later, after he’s secured a parking spot and has stepped out of his car, Samson followed suit, padding next to Phillip as they make their way towards Adam’s place. Not wanting to impose, Phillip took out his mobile phone and dialed Adam’s number.

“You’re right, it’s always best to call you first,” was Phillip’s quick greeting when the other line was picked up, “and that’s what I’m doing. Anyway, I’m near your front door. I brought Samson. Are you outside or…?”

Adam was doing a bit of a Christmas cleaning on his bookshelves when his phone all of a sudden started to ring. At first he was going to just ignore it, but as he glanced at the caller’s name he knew the phone was going to keep ringing if he didn’t pick it up. He didn’t even say a thing as he put the phone on his ear, he knew Phillip would take care of the talking and he could just listen.

For a second, Sil wondered if Mr. Adam was talking down to her, or asking simple questions to see if they really knew the answer.  Did he not know what daisies were? the short swimmer didn’t want to assume the worst, though, Mr. Adam seemed like a nice fellow who owned nice dogs and wouldn’t patronize people he just met, “Yup! And those by your feet are daffodils. They’ll be the last of the season before the cold comes. You can just put them in water, they’ll wilt in a week or so.”

Adam knew plants and flowers, but honestly he didn’t remember their names anymore. He had learned the names back at school, and of course some flower names did pop up in the books he read, but those books weren’t picture books. So he might know the name but not how the flower looks. But with these flowers he was quite sure they were daisies. At least they looked like daisies. He looked at those flowers for a bit and then at his feet. He took half a step back so he wouldn’t accidentally be squeezing any flowers -- there wasn’t any under his shoes, but better to make sure. He looked at the daffodils, still frowning. “Don’t those have some other name too?”

Iris knew, she knew she had too many references, too many photos she’d left to sit on her phone immediately after she’d taken them, scribbled notes of scenes in whatever she’d been watching that had stood out to her only to never be followed up on - but she also knew that if she needed to learn how to light every possible scene, then she needed to practice every possible scene, and to practice every possible scene, she needed a record of every possible scene. It wasn’t as if she had her phone’s camera on constantly, but it was good to know that she had it near, just in case there was a moment that had some colour, some reflection she needed to capture she couldn’t usually - and this was one of those moments.

“Hang on a second, stand still! Sorry, sorrysorrysorry, just - would you mind if I took a photo? It’s just for reference, for the colours and all that, I promise I’m not one of those guys in those movies and shows who take photos and hang them up and is just a real creep about the whole thing, and you don’t have to say yes but I promise it’ll be deleted as soon as I can get the lights down, and just - don’t move - would it be okay?” The words were tumbling out of her at a hundred miles a minute as she rushed to explain, grabbing her phone from her pocket. Sure, she could remember it just fine if she wanted - but it was always good to have something to double check with, wasn’t it?

@sunnysidestarters​ 

Adam had just popped at the grocery store right before it closed -- it was because he knew there most likely wouldn’t be anyone else in teh store at the last minute -- and he was on his way home when someone all of a sudden told him to stand still. The mountain of a man frowned, looking at this shorter person as she kept talking. Once he realised why he was supposed to stand still under the street light, Adam took a step back. He disappeared from the shaft of light from the streetlight and just turned into this glooming figure in the shadows. “No”, Adam said as a response to her request. “I do mind if you take a photo.” Adam didn’t like to be in photos, especially on those strangers took. Usually they were all like ‘oh this weird person is finally out of his huge house lets take a pic to show everyone who this freak is’ so Adam would rather stay away from photos if it was just possible.

Adam couldn’t think of a single more secluded place in the entire town? He truly did not know the town, “Monsieur, there are more options than you know,” Lumiere gave his friend a brush on the shoulder. Of course Adam had good reason to not call him earlier in the day, he could not blame the man for not jumping at the chance for social interaction, although it’s exactly what Lumiere would do, “The library. The theatre. The jazz club. The thrift stores. Tell me, did you know we have a dog park?”

He listened but then just sighed. “I was trying to be positive here and wish that the delay would be just a short one so going all the way to the library would cause more eyes on me and more time spent in public. The theatre isn’t open at this hour. A jazz club is a no. Have you seen how small those thrift stores are? I’d just knock everything down. And do you know how insane it’d looks if I’d be in a dog park without a dog?” Adam folded his arms across his chest and let out a huff. “So that’s why this bench, in the shadow of that tree, right next to the post office is the best spot to wait.” Adam was quiet for a bit, let out yet another sigh and looked at Lumiere. “Sorry. I really don’t want to be out at the town right now. In a way I thought I’d be fine with this since I’ve been out a lot more lately, but looks like I’ve just fooled myself to think that. I’d much rather be home or in the forest or something.”

            dismayed, eve crosses her arms. this time of year is always beautiful in sunnyside, but the absence of winnie seems to have put a damper on the entire town. every roof’s colors seem a little bit duller, and she isn’t sure if even some nicely placed hydrangeas could fix it. she turns to the person beside her, flashing sympathetic eyes.

“  isn’t it sad ?  the town, i mean… look how colorless and dull everything seems. ”

[ @sunnysidestarters​ ]

Adam frowned a bit as he glanced at the woman who happened to stand next to him by the bookstore. He hadn’t paid much attention on the colors of the town but he did agree on the dull part. But well, Adam had lived his whole life there and people were always gossiping about him on how he was a hermit and must have murdered someone and maybe even killed his own parents to get all their money. Some people even were sure Adam was like Quasimodo and therefore always hiding from everyone. There were a lot more rumors going on as well and Adam wasn’t even sure had he even heard all of them. But he knew the people talked and he wasn’t a fan of that. So therefore the town was definitely dull one. But the colors..? Hmm.. “What colors should it be then?” he ended up asking, because it started to bother him since he didn’t see anything odd with this.

Lumiere would be lying if he said it didn’t hurt to hear that coming from someone he considered one of his greatest friends. Perhaps Adam was simply lashing out or perhaps Lumiere really had stepped in it by speaking too enthusiastically, “I understand the frustrations, my friend, I do. But why not go somewhere that will make you less anxious? You make things inevitably worse for yourself by sitting here endlessly alone,” He gestured to the boardwalk filled with people with the flourish of his hand, “Could I not relieve at least some of the anxiety? You did not tell me you would be out today.”

Lumiere was right, Adam wasn’t lashing out for Lumiere being himself, he was just annoed by this wole situation and since he was the only one there unfortunately he was the one getting all that thrown at him. “And where would be a place with people not staring or talking? If going back home isn’t an option”, he questioned being silent a moment after that until he just sighed softly. “I wasn’t planning on being out today. But I needed to go and get one delivery and since Colin is having a day off and I need the package today I came to get it. Just to find out it hadn’t arrived yet because someone is late or something, so now I’m waiting.”

“Right–I never have gotten around to getting a pet yet,” she said with a giggle, glancing at the dogs quickly before looking back to him with a wide smile. “‘M havin’ a very hard time pining ya down. If ya haven’t studied plants, what do ya like to do? To study?”

“That’s okay!” Sil maintained a cheery attitude despite his rebuttal; despite the fact that Mr. Adam seemed so uncomfortable with the idea of picking flowers. His dogs certainly seemed to think it was a grand idea, but perhaps they’d think anything was a grand idea if they had pettings and treats, “You can have these one if you’d like,” Sil extended the little bouquet of Daises they had already gathered. Perhaps it would simply make a nice centerpiece for Mr. Adam’s mansion.

Of course dogs were completely different hting than Adam was. Especially since the dogs were just three years old, so techinically they were still kids. While Adam was far away from being one. Truthfully he never even got to be a kid -- he lost his parents at a young age and after that nothing was the same anymore. Adam looked at the flowers that were offered towards him and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to that offer. You could tell that by that deep frown as he stared at the flowers, but eventually he did extend his hand and extremely carefully took the flowers. “So.. these are daisies, right?”

“Monsiour, I see people giving glances to a man who has been sitting in the same position for half an hour, maybe longer,” Lumiere ventured to contest the point, though of course Adam’s reasoning was valid too. What Adam held close - things like his privacy or his personal life - were not what the people of Sunnyside held in the same regard when it came to the mysterious man. But of course, the mystery had worn off long ago for Lumiere, “I don’t think you give the people enough credit. You cannot tell me every single person you’ve met has given you the same reactions. You cannot, my friend.”

Adam turned his gaze to Lumiere, just looking him straight in the eye. “Right now you sound like a person who doesn’t even know me.” Of course he did understand why Lumiere was saying what he did, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying. “I’m not saying everyone is like that. But those are extremely rare. People rather go for their assumptions. And I’m sick and tired of them coming to me with the same old questions, thinking I’m this or that, and I don’t have the energy to explain everything all over again because they won’t listen because they rather go for what the rumors say. And if they won’t, well, they won’t stay around anyway.” He took his phone out of his pocket to check the time and then just put it back in. “So I rather keep those around who already know me. I’m not saying it’s ideal, but it makes me less anxious.”

Lumiere folded his arms and legs, mirroring Adam’s stony posture and attitude, “Ah yes, so we will just sit here. And sit here. And sit here,” The older of the two paused a long moment. Looked to both sides. Then at his watch, “Adam, surely you can think of a better way to spend a beautiful day than sitting and waiting!” He poses it almost as a challenge, pleading with his friend to let loose just a little bit. In the past, it hasn’t worked much, but who’s to say today wouldn’t change that? “How do you live with such boredom?”

Adam did notice how Lumiere was just mirroring him, but since it was Lumiere he didn’t say a word about it. He knew the man just meant well. Although as he kept talking Adam could only sigh, yet again. “Lumiere. Look around you. Do you see even one person who isn’t staring at me, whispering or pointing fingers? Do you really think I wouldn’t rather be somewhere else? Anywhere else than being stared and pointed at. So it’s better to just sit still and wait until I can leave. Then people have less to talk about.” It was clear how Adam was uncomfortable with this situation, but he knew he had to keep the walls around him. It was the only way to cope with all this.

Silvie laughed at Hawthorne’s antics and gave the pupper a pet, assuming she had the go-ahead now that they were all acquainted. When they return a glance up to look at Mr. Adam again, though, they could only return his frown with a smile, “Join me picking flower! Or you can leave it up to these boys,” Silvie grumbled, poking a little fun at Adam’s stony face. They meant no disrespect though, of course, Sil just found it interesting to be talking to someone the town knew very little about usually. Surely, Sil thought, there’s something interesting about everybody.

The petting was more than fine now that Adam had given a permission to roam freely around this new person, so when Hawthorne got petted he wagged his tail happily. “..pick.. flowers..” That was completely new to Adam and he certainly wasn’t a flower picking type of guy. “..that’s.. not really my thing.” He wouldn’t even know what flowers were the ones that should be picked. Sure he could tell what was a plant and what was a flower, he wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t recognise plants from each other. He had never truly studied that field that much that he’d know much details about it. He did learn something back in school on the biology class, but the amount they talked about plants and trees was just a soft scratch to the topic so it didn’t truly help a thing.

“And do you walk here often?” Roxanne said, as if questioning why anyone else was here, though she knew he probably came here more than she did. As she asked the question, she moved to look at a nearby blueblossom bush and gently ran her fingers along the dried petals and seeds. “Ya know, this plant is considered evergreen, but the flowers on bloom twice a year.”

Lumiere failed to break his smile or eye contact with Adam for a long moment, just waiting and hoping in vain the other man would break his stony gaze, “Let me guess, you trimmed to sides?” He ventured an arm resting on Adam’s shoulder. Though most of the town would be too off-put to go anywhere close to Adam, Lumiere had known the man too long to be afeared of him. One does not simply help raise a young man and not end up with a fondness for him, “Monsieur, your pallid face does not sway me. Since you are already out, shall we not make the best of it?”

As Lumiere just kept staring and smiling Adam let out a deep sigh through his nose and his expression did soften a bit. Probably no one else would have noticed any difference on his face, but Lumiere knew Adam so he certainly would notice that. “I haven’t done anything to my hair.” Adam turned his gaze away from Lumiere, now just watching forward, not really paying attention to those who walked past them or those who stared at them from afar. “I’m only here because I’m waiting for a delivery. If it’d be up to me, I wouldn’t have even left the house at this hour.”

Should she be taking notes on this? Because the tips seemed worth the effort of writing them down somewhere. Up until now, Tinsley had failed to notice that her little, jokingly stab at her friend had been received more seriously than intended. Getting that genuine advice Adam was giving away, was a nice change though. “Seems like too much to put together in a gift basket but thanks anyways, I’ll keep it in mind.” You didn’t need to know her that well even, to be able to see the blonde’s gratitude was heartfelt and as real as her big smile and glowy cheeks. By the time Adam gave some thought to her dog training proposal - instead of labelling her ridiculous for it - she practically looked more pleased than when she would’ve been the one who got the pet on her head. “Oh yes, you really should look into it! I mean, I can think of more than one problematic pet here around Sunnyside already, trust me, I can convince all of them to become your new clientele. And we could give it a cute name! Like… anything is pawsible.” Tins beamed, feeling really deserving of a shoulder pat now.

Despite her quickly evolving plans for a dog training facility, she breathed out deeply and relieved once the actual quadrupeds left. It gave her a safe feeling, standing here. Not unlike those moments when she was little and got to sit in her dad’s neck at the petting zoo or played airplane with her without ever dropping her once. All the muscles that had been tensed before, slowly eased back into their relaxed state as Tins followed Adam wherever, including those of her mouth it seemed. “Well, I can’t say I’m that familiar with their work. Like, I can’t really remember what they wrote about unless it were short stories or even shorter poems. Honestly, I’m thinking the last thing I have read was probably an Ikea manual or Instagram captions if paperless text counts? But I like that their names are matchy!” Too focused on her own gasbag, she almost walked past the library they’d stopped at. “Oh, wow, this place is even bigger on the inside it seems! Is this your hideout space?” Tins asked, oblivious to her own choice of words.

“You can’t really put something immaterial in a gift basket”, Adam noted, but didn’t comment more to that topic. He had never made a gift basket nor received one, but he certainly wasn’t that dumb that he’d think you could put respect in a basket. Adam looked over his shoulder at Tinsley and he squinted his eyes a bit at her suggestion. “The name should be something that tells right away what it is about. Not some nonsense.” He certainly was someone who was way too serious as a person to be naming any kind of company with some dilly-dally. Even his daily job was known as Duchateau Book Conservation. It was simple, all the needed information was on the name and that’s that.

Adam listened Tinsley’s babble, but didn’t really comment anything back -- other than confirming that there were short stories too. He wasn’t surprised one bit that she hadn’t read Hemingway or Hawthorne, or that the last thing she read was a manual that had mostly pictures. As Adam was taking the ink bottles out of the paper back he glanced in Tins’ direction and just gave her the ‘you aren’t serious’. “This is a library. Where I work.” Which was extremely obvious considering the amount of books there were and how the table was full of ink bottles, old books, different kind of brushes and tools, huge magnifier glass and a lot of other little things he needed for his job. But the library certainly wasn’t a small one with just few books in it. There were thousands of books and there certainly wasn’t much room for more bookshelves or more books. Which was the reason why there were huge bookshelves in the living room as well. And in few other rooms. Probably eventually most of the house would be the library instead of a house. But Adam was all fine with that fact. “Do not touch anything”, Adam said as his attention was on the ink bottles and getting them in the right places and just generally making his desk a bit more organised.

Sil wasn’t quite sure why Mr. Duchateau still had such a grim look on his face, they hoped it wasn’t due to them. With a laugh, Sil tossed Hawthorne a flower of his own so he wouldn’t keep nuzzling into their bouquet, “Well then, would you like to join me? It’s quite beautiful out,” Sil highly doubted Mr. Duchateau had ever gotten up to girl scout activities like them and their friends.

There really was no worry that Adam looked grim because of someone, technically he looked grim all around the clock. Sure there were few exceptions, but those were exceptions for a reason. Hawthorne tried to catch the flower that was thrown to him, but he missed. He didn’t let this bother him, he just dived down to the grass to find that flower. He didn’t really find just the flower, he yanked out a bunch of grass and then turned back to Silvie and just blopped all that out of his mouth right in front of them -- including that flower that was thrown to him. Adam was just frowning at the suggestion. “..join you on what?”

Since the school year had started, Lumiere treasured his afternoons off spending time with the town. Though he loved teaching, talking to people his own age had it’s charm as well. Meeting people when they weren’t stuck in a classroom could also result in some very different results. With a hop in his step, Lumiere took a seat next to another townie on the boardwalk, “Mon cher ami, you look wonderful today; did you do something different with your hair?”

Being out at this hour certainly wasn’t Adam’s favorite thing. If you’d ask him he’d go out only when it was dark and the amount of people being outside would be cut to minimum. Then it all would be great. He could go around in all peace and do what he had to do there and that’s that. But unfortunately the world wasn’t ideal to Adam, so he had to at leat try to handle the fact ot other people being around. The reason he was out today was the fact he was waiting for a delivery and the tracking said the order had arrived but turns out it hadn’t. So now Adam had to wait for it to arrive and since it wasn’t supposed to take long Adam hadn’t left home. So he was just sitting there, on a bench, just looking annoyed. Hearing Lumiere’s comment just made the man raise the gaze of his blue eyes and he just stared at his friend. And instead of replying a word he kept staring at him like he had just said the stupidest thing Adam had ever heard.

As she saw the second dog, her smile widened, but that sat dutifully at the other’s side, so she didn’t approach them. “Well, aren’t they cute!” Roxanne couldn’t help but giggle, looking back up at him. “’M not surprised ya haven’t seen me here before, it’s been a while since I’ve been here.” She gestured to the clearing around them and shrugged. “I come here every now and then when I get stressed to see how the plants are doing. I could ask ya the same question, though, couldn’t I?”