A/N: HAHA! I left you on a cliffhanger in the last chapter, and for that I hope you can forgive me. Anyway, this chapter became angst and fluff in a sweet mixture. And by the way: Many thanks to my beloved reviewers. I hope you'll like this one, too.
A/N#2: Since Adam is practically on his deathbed because of that goddamn Lawrence, this chapter isn't written from his POV. It's written from… Well, everyone's POV.
6: My Adam
No.
The words that floats screaming through Lawrence Gordon's mind are the same ones that rang in Adam's head that night about a year ago, when they kissed for the first time.
No.
No.
Please, God, no. Please, God, let it be a dream. Let it be an awful dream, let it not be real, let me back into the real world, let me sit on my couch with my hand on Allison's thigh.
Because I can't do this. It's too much. Too much. I can't do it.
That's the only thing Lawrence thinks as he looks at his pager with widened eyes.
It's nothing uncommon that stands on his pager. But when he picked it up and looked at the little screen, it still felt like a big, heavy blow at his head. The information has slide into his brain like viscous, slimy glue, but now, it slips around in there, doesn't get a toehold.
Because the words on the pager are:
Dr. Gordon, report to the second floor OR immediately. It's an emergency.
31 yr old male coding. Needs a sewn up artery, has at most thirty minutes left.
Tried to kill self with razor blade.
It's not those words that send a beam of panic and guilt through Lawrence's body. All that, or similar things, have stood on his pager before.
What scares him, drowns him, kills him, is on the last line in black, square letters, like a digital judgment.
Name: Adam Faulkner.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
The whole time while he's running towards the OR, Lawrence tries to convince himself that it doesn't have to be the Adam, his Adam, it could be someone else. Sure there has to be tons of unhappy Adams out there.
But when he's washed his hands, put his latex gloves on and walked up to the operating table with a needle and a thread in his hand, he gets another shock. Even though he, on some level, knew what he was about to see.
It's Adam. His Adam.
It's his Adam, his Adam, his Adam, that's on the table. He's pale, he's sleeping, and a bandage is tied around his wrist that's caked with dried blood.
"Attempt of suicide," a nurse says and put an oxygen mask over Adam's face. "He collapsed in the elevator, but I think he'll be okay if we're quick."
Sure as hell he'll be okay, Lawrence thinks as he put the needle to Adam's wrist. He's Adam. My Adam. He's a survivor, he's small, but he's tough and sarcastic, he made it out of Jigsaw's bathroom, he gets out of everything.
Lawrence is glad he has a surgical mask. When he wears that, it's not too obvious that he's crying, that tiny pearls of glass turns up in his eyes and pours down his cheeks.
He's a good surgeon. And Adam has been negligent, the artery is not entirely cut open, it just has a small wound. Lawrence knows he can do this; he's done a number of more complicated operations.
But during the whole procedure, Lawrence is nauseous with nervousness. He tries to be professional, tries to keep his hands from shaking, doesn't want a whole surgical team to see his weakness. Plus, one flinch can lead to death, Adam's death, and he won't cause him more pain than he already has.
"Okay," Lawrence says after just an hour. "He won't die, I hope. Pass him up to medical, make sure he gets a room and page me when he's in stabile condition."
The nurse nods. Then she looks at Lawrence with a frown.
"Are you okay, Doctor Gordon?"
Lawrence clears his throat and hopes that the tears on his cheeks looks like sweat drips.
"Sure," he says and strips off his gloves. "It's just that it's awful when things like this happens."
The nurse nods again.
"Go and get yourself a cup of coffee," she then says kindly. "I'll page you, I promise."
Lawrence smiles stiffly, even though he knows she can't see it. Then he turns around and walks out the door.
xxxxxxxxxxx
Waiting.
Long. Way too long. Terrible.
That's what Lawrence thinks when he's sitting in the doctors lounge with his palms resting against each other in front of him.
Waiting is an awful invention. Waiting is the worst thing on the planet.
He startles when the cell phone starts to ring in his pocket. He picks it up and answers with a tired, broken voice.
"Lawrence Gordon."
"Hi, Larry," Allison annoyed voice says. "Where the hell are you? Weren't you off six hours ago? I've called you a bunch of times, but you haven't picked up!"
No, Allison, I wasn't off six hours ago. I was off twenty-four hours ago. I'm off today, but I've drifted around in the hospital just because I didn't want to be at home.
And you know what I'm doing right now? I'm waiting for a person I love to wake up from a temporary coma. Because the one I love isn't you anymore.
Or, yeah, I love you. But I'm not in love with you. Not anymore.
The one I love and am in love with is a man. Not just a man, he's also a poor, drinking, smoking man with no hopes for the future or a reasonable apartment. The only thing he does is walking around all day and take pictures of people.
I love him. Not you.
Lawrence doesn't say any of those things, even though he wants to. The only thing he says is:
"I'm sorry, honey. I have so many interns, and they need help all the time. I don't know when I'll be home."
Allison sighs.
"Your daughter also wants you home soon."
"Me, too. Tell her I'm sorry and I'll be home as soon as I can."
She's quiet. Lawrence waits for her to consider if she should be mad at him or not.
"Fine," she says at last. "I'll see you sometime next year then, I guess."
Lawrence smiles weakly. How he can do that, God only knows.
"Probably. I love you."
"I love you, too."
He does. He loves her.
But not as much as he used to. And not in the same way.
But every thought of Allison goes away from Lawrence's mind when he hears his beeper beep frenetically. His hands shake so much when he lifts it off his belt that he almost drops it, but after a while, he gets it up to eye's height.
And when he reads it, he gets another whack at his head, but for totally different reasons than before.
Adam Faulkner in stabile condition. Is in room 378. Probably awake.
Lawrence gasps. The tears immediately start to well up in his eyes, but he doesn't have the time to cry. He must get up, and he must go to room 378, he must get to Adam and tell him.
Tell him that he loves him.
Lawrence will never, ever, in all of his future life, remember exactly how he got to Adam's room. He'll have vague memories of running down the hospital halls, of tears streaming down his face, of a sharp pain in the place where his real leg stops and his artificial foot begins,, but the only thing he'll have lodged in his mind forever, is how he finally stops outside a door with the numbers '378' on it.
Adam…
He slams the door open without wasting any time.
Adam!
Yes. Adam is here. His Adam.
Adam is lying in a bed in front of him. It's not the first time Lawrence sees Adam in a hospital bed. He's seen him lying in one with a grin on his face and say that he didn't take care of shit. But Lawrence has to forget about that now, he has to focus on the man in front of him that starts to flutter with his eyelids and groan softly.
Adam is waking up. Slowly and painfully, just like his whole life has been so far. But he's waking up.
"Adam," Lawrence says in a mixture of a sob and a relieved sigh.
"Whutysay?" Adam whispers blurrily and squints against him.
"Adam!"
It sounds like a prayer, and Lawrence is next to Adam in two quick steps.
"Adam, you idiot!" Lawrence sobs desperately and doesn't bother to hide his tears. "How the hell do you dare to cut our wrist like that?!"
"What?" Adam repeats and stares blankly at Lawrence.
He hasn't really gotten what happened yet. And his head feels heavy, a little smashed in a weird way. It hurts.
Lawrence just looks at him through a fog of tears. Right now, when he's to tired to be sarcastic and cursing, Adam seems so… Clean. So pure.
But that's not the Adam that Lawrence fell in love with. He fell in love with a man that was chained to a pipe, in a washed-down shirt and widened, frightened eyes.
And he loves the man that's in front of him now.
"You idiot!" Lawrence whispers lovingly. "You idiot!"
And then he bends down and wraps his arms around Adam.
Adam grunts, maybe out of pain, but Lawrence doesn't care. He just keeps whispering into Adams dark hair, his tears wetting them both.
"You little idiot. You stupid little fuck. You can't do that, you can't ever do that again!"
As if to a little kid.
"Okay, I get it," Adam says, being his wonderful, sarcastic self again. "Nice move, Larry. I'm having a fucking near-death experience, and the first thing you do when I get back is insulting me."
He starts to remember what happened now. He knows he should hate Lawrence, and that he actually did for a while. But now, he doesn't have the energy. He doesn't want to.
Now, all that exists is Lawrence, Lawrence's arms around him, Lawrence's whispers into his ear.
Adam doesn't have the energy to look back anymore. He's tired of it.
But he starts to cry, just in case, he cries with Lawrence, and they cling onto each other desperately.
"I'm so sorry, Adam," Lawrence sobs, he's words are muffled by the crying and he's shaking so much that Adam almost loses his grip on him. "All this was my fault, and I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…"
"Yes, it was," Adam says, smiling through the tears. "It was your fault. But that doesn't matter."
"Things will be different now," Lawrence promise. "Everything will be different now. I'll never leave you, and… You can't leave me, Adam! You can't ever do that again!"
"I promise," Adam says. "Unless you run off to Allison as soon as you stop weeping like a baby."
Lawrence doesn't even seem to hear him. He just squeezes Adam's shoulders even tighter, whispers his promises into his ear.
"I'll never leave you again… I love you, and I'll never leave you again!"
You don't miss the fluff until it's gone… And here it is!
Honestly, I have no idea how much information you can fit in a pager screen. But what the hell, if you obsessed about the details, this fic wouldn't exist. Adam positively died, remember?
And one more thing: If any of you had read my 'Pirates of the Caribbean'-fics, which I don't think you have, you know that I've used the phrase: 'But not as much as I used to. And not in the same way.' before. I just wanted you to know that I know that, so you don't accuse me of being spacey. (Well, I am. But there's no use pointing it out!)
Anyway, liked it? Please review!
