Adam and Lawrence contemplate their new found take on life as they fall asleep.
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Almost Perfect
He lay spent in Lawrence's arms, their bodies glistening with sweat. Lawrence ran his fingers through Adam's damp hair.
How many times had it been? Ten? Thirty? One hundred?
It didn't really matter.
He felt Lawrence's warm breath on his bare chest. His heart raced with passion, with wonder.
He had never known it could be like this. Was this how love felt? He often wondered if he was dreaming. How many other people in the world felt the way he did? How many people were still the way he had been before he had met Lawrence, totally unaware of the love that was possible if given the chance?
Adam had once believed he had experienced love before with her. He sneered at the memory as her image flooded his thoughts. She was nothing, and what they had had not been love. His time spent with Lawrence had taught him that.
Lawrence breathed deeply. Sensually. And he smiled at Adam.
He whispered something into Adam's ear. His words, his breath teased Adam's senses, sending a ripple of pleasure through his body.
Adam smiled.
Lawrence kissed his neck softly and Adam felt the warm wet of his tongue flicking his skin. He closed his eyes as a moan escaped his lips.
"Lawrence."
The sound of Adam's deepened breathing and his pleas for more made Lawrence tremble.
Lawrence remembered with fondness the first time they had made love. It had come months after they had been released from the hospital, mainly because they were both unsure about it. It had been a first for both of them, and Lawrence had taken the lead, but even his familiarity with anatomy hadn't fully prepared him. It wasn't a mechanical process, by any means. He had dealt with hundreds, if not thousands of bodies over the course of his career, yet only Adam's seemed to have the ability to send him spiraling into ecstasy. Neither had known what to expect. Adam lay wide-eyed beneath him, his naked body trembling with anticipation.
As he had watched Adam writhe in ecstasy as they moved together as one, he knew he was hopelessly in love.
Their love didn't end once they collapsed in each other's arms. They would lay together, their bodies entwined, and kiss for hours, talking and laughing, lost in their own universe. More often then not, Lawrence would end up holding Adam until he fell asleep.
He would sometimes just listen to him breathe, placing his hand gently over Adam's heart, feeling the soft and unceasing thud of life within him. Underneath his punk exterior, Adam possessed an innocence that Lawrence found impossible to resist. Lawrence was fourteen years his senior, and even though there were both grown men, Lawrence had a lifetime of knowledge and experience that Adam just didn't possess, and maybe, Lawrence thought, that was a good thing. Adam, unlike himself, could be carefree in a way that he had never known. He lived moment to moment, day to day, whereas Lawrence's life and been planned out from the day he opened his practice and had gotten married. A year later, he had become a father. His days of living for the moment had passed him by before he had ever known they were there for the taking. Adam hadn't been bogged down and broken by the corporate machine or the pursuit of personal glory that centered on the expectations of his family and his peers. He made his own rules, living as a freelance photographer, and keeping his distance from people in general, preferring to keep a camera lens between them.
Before he had met Lawrence, Adam had known nothing about the language of love. He remembers the look on his face the first time they had been together. Willing, yet completely lost. Over time, each had taught the other about love in some way. But Lawrence had some experience with intimacy, and he taught Adam how to open up to him, to talk to him, to not be afraid to take control and take the chance.
It may be one thing to walk into a relationship with someone who is naturally intimate, but a connection is born when one teaches the other such a beautiful thing.
Adam slept peacefully; his head nestled in by his chest. Lawrence gently ran his fingers through Adam's hair.
It always happened this way. It was always so intense, so gratifying. An exhaustion they both enjoyed in the aftermath of their deliriously intoxicating passion. He loved the sounds Adam made. He loved the way he gasped, the way he drank in every moment and screamed for more.
It had never been this way with Allison. He had often tried to compare it with her, but it was impossible. There was no comparison. Adam made him feel alive in a way she never could. Maybe it was because each was feeding the other's appetite with a passion and desire that equaled their own. Of course, there was more to it than what could be explained in mere words.
He still wasn't entirely convinced that his passions were confused. Adam was the only man he had ever been attracted to. Could such a bond be shared between two men? Could men be soul mates?
To both of them, the answer was obvious. Yes, they thoroughly enjoyed sex, and everything that came with it – the pleasure, the pain, the screams, the mess, but it was the little things that stood out most in his mind. The small gestures, the kind words, the letters, the kisses, the endless hours they had spent in each others arms, and the moments when silence seemed to be enough.
Everything seemed to be better when they were together. Each was the other's anchor, keeping life and all its petty cares in proper perspective.
As Lawrence kissed Adam softly on the cheek and settled in beside him for the night, he realized that even though perfection on the whole is virtually impossible to achieve, his life was as close to the impossible as he imagined it could be.