A/N: Hiii everybody! Here I am, back with another chapter! And I should probably apologize for Lawrence being an asshole in this fanfic, but… I won't. If he were nice, what'd the fun be in this thing? ;)
3: Hold Onto Something Barely Alive
Adam is in bed.
Adam's laying in bed. It's about six o'clock in the morning. He usually doesn't wake up until at least ten, but he's awake now, and he hasn't slept for the whole night. He hasn't dared to.
Because Lawrence is in bed with him.
Adam doesn't dare to fall asleep, hell, it took him an hour after Lawrence fell asleep before he dared to put an arm around his waist because he was scared that Lawrence was going to disappear if he did.
Lawrence doesn't think about any of that. He's sleeping. Adam feels like someone's filled his head with alcohol-drenched cotton balls because he's so tired, but he refuses to go to sleep.
He won't let him and Lawrence have a completely loveless life together.
Incidentally, it's at that thought that Lawrence wakes up. Of course he can't take the opportunity to sleep when no one's paged him yet, his head would probably explode if he slept past six thirty, but of course, every thought of that disappears when those damn blue eyes squint against him.
"Hey," Lawrence mumbles and rakes his hand through Adam's hair, wraps one arm around him.
Adam smiles uncertainly.
"Hey."
It's quiet for a while after that. Lawrence is probably just tired, and Adam's not sure what to say.
How do you tell someone you've missed him when you saw each other yesterday?
"Do you have to go to work today?" That's all he can think of.
Lawrence smiles against the top of his head.
"You know I do, Adam."
Adam nods. He knows.
"I miss having you around here, you know."
"Mm," Lawrence says. "I miss it, too. But… I'm needed there."
There are thousands of other doctors on that hospital. There's only one me.
"Aren't there anyone else there to do stuff?"
"Of course there are," Lawrence says with a smug smile that Adam hears in his voice. "But none as good as me."
Adam smiles weakly, pulls back his head to look Lawrence in the eye. Lawrence looks back at him, and Adam realizes that this is the most sincere smile he's seen on Lawrence's face in a long time, and also realizes that he really can't feel happy about it.
Lawrence does smile. But then he lifts his arm behind Adam's head and looks at his watch. He never takes off that goddamn watch.
"Ugh, I've got to go," Lawrence mutters, annoyed, and sounds like he means it, but once again, Adam can't feel it.
He can't feel what he's supposed to feel. Lawrence took that away from him.
Lawrence is supposed to be home. If he really loves Adam, he's supposed to be home with him.
Why the hell should Adam feel? Why should he feel anything at all?
Lawrence stands up, gets dressed in thirty seconds to not miss a fucking moment in his cozy little hospital that he loves so much. Adam sits up, watches him walk away. Walk away.
"You're not even going to have breakfast?" he tries, he begs.
"Nah, I'll pick up something on the way," Lawrence says and fastens the last button on his shirt.
Adam nods. Running out of time.
"Will you be home tomorrow, then?"
Lawrence rushes up to Adam, but not to plant that ridiculously chaste kiss on his lips. He sits down in front of Adam, both hands on his knees. Okay, Adam does feel that. There could be hope.
"Not in the day," Lawrence says, and wanders his gaze to the ceiling, looking through the busy schedule in his head. "But tomorrow night. Then I'll be home."
He means it. Adam nods. Then Lawrence gives him that chaste kiss and leaves anyway.
"I love you."
He means it. He does. But he leaves anyway.
Adam hates him.
He sits on the edge of the bed, his eyes pricking and his soul swelling with the black and the angry and he hates, hates, hates.
If he ever tries to fucking leave again, I'm going to tie him to the bed and set the house on fire.
xxxxxxxxxxx
Lawrence is so tired. It really shouldn't be humanly possible to be this tired.
Of course, that can be because most humans go to sleep long before they get this tired. But Lawrence chooses to ignore that.
Jesus, the letters on the chart are swimming back and forth. Maybe he should finish this tomorrow.
No. No.
Lawrence leans his head into his hand and determinately puts the pen to the paper again. He needs to finish this. It's just a damn updating of a chart. It needs to be there when the patient's post-op doctor comes in tomorrow. It has to. He knows he can finish it tomorrow, or dump it on the on-call nurse, since hell, most people in this hospital would do anything to keep him from burning himself out, but he can't.
It has to be him. Always has to be him.
Then Lawrence feels his head dropping in momentarily unconsciousness, the momentary bliss of just sleeping, sleeping and not thinking. He sighs, too tired to do any of the nervous fidgeting with the pen he usually does when he tries to make a decision, but eventually grumbles something and takes the chart with him to the on-call room.
Anyone else would've finished it.
Lawrence lies down on a bed. The hard, squeaking mattress feels like heaven.
Anyone else would've finished it. Even people who haven't sawed off their feet. Don't you want to save as many as you can when you lived through that?
Lawrence rolls over to the side. It's getting harder to keep his eyes shut.
He's so tired.
You can't even do this. You can't do this even though you've been given a second chance.
Lawrence squeezes his eyes shut. Should fall asleep. Doesn't.
Please. He's so tired. Please.
You're useless. You're useless.
Lawrence sits up, puts his lab coat on and grabs his chart on the way out.
He's going to finish this. Uselessness is all the encouragement he needs.