A/N: ARGH! Sorry about the long update, but my computer crashed, so… Anyway, I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't pretty much one of the angstier fics I've ever written, but I'm warning you: Things will get worse in this chapter! And then it'll get even worse, and then worse, and then worse, and then… Then we'll see…
8: People Don't Change
Lawrence is right. It's long overdone, and this one right he gets is nothing next to the giant disadvantage he's in right now, but he has right about this. Maybe the reason Adam kept it away from him this long is that he wanted to get as much upper hand as possible, and then throw Lawrence a bone. Maybe. If he's lucky.
But Lawrence was right. Now, he's right in what he thought before. About how when Adam's hot, gleaming lips left his own, when he rolled him over to his stomach, his future as Adam's doctor and his lover was spelled out for him.
That's his reality now.
Lawrence feels dirty. All the time. Those framed awards on his walls are things he's so undeserving of now that he feels like tearing them off that fancy-ass oak surface, because he's not a doctor anymore. Adam's his only patient right now, and he's stopped treating him. So why should he call himself a doctor?
He's gone from doctor to booty-call. Because every time he enters Adam's room, he can't keep himself from doing the mistake of looking up from his chart and see Adam's face, his black eyes, the clenched jaw, the fisted hands on the blankets that are Lawrence's loosened handcuffs, because Adam doesn't even have to lift them to make Lawrence walk up to his bed in two big leaps, bend down to Adam's level and once again give him everything he has to offer, give everything and get everything back just by the knowledge that Adam does want him, that he's not useless to him.
That thought has taken Lawrence away from an occupation that he used to love.
And the worst part is, as unimportant as that fact might seem, that he closes the door, he closes the fucking door after himself every time he enters Adam's room.
After twenty years of being a doctor, he's never done that, but he does now, because in reality, he knows what's going to happen if he does that.
And he wants it.
He wants it, and he doesn't even try to make Adam stop doing this, because he loves just to feel useful, hates being out of control but loves Adam's growl when his fingertips scrape against Lawrence's skull, tugs on his hair, loves it just because it shows that he needs him.
That no matter what he says, he did miss Lawrence.
No matter what he says, Lawrence is the reason of the black spots of nicotine on his chest X-rays, the traces of marijuana in his blood samples.
And it really is wrong that Lawrence is so grateful of that.
You know that's the first sign of midlife crisis? That mean little voice in Lawrence's head says as he sits in the doctors' lounge alone. To be so damn desperate for approval that you get happier than you've been since your daughter was born that a twenty-eight year old little junkie takes the time to fuck you after he's spent a year trying to drink you out of his head?
Lawrence doesn't answer. But yes, yes, that's true. He's happy about that, since that proves that even though Adam is so convinced of this that he doesn't even know that he's lying, it's not true that Lawrence looked down on Adam. It was Adam who broke them up, but Lawrence has always refused to believe that he never meant anything to him.
And just by grabbing his shoulders and pull him onto the bed with him, Adam's proved him right on that point.
He'd kill you if you said that to his face.
Lawrence chuckles. Yeah, that's probably just another thing that's true. But that's the Adam he knows, the Adam he loves.
The Adam he knows needs him.
So why the hell are they dancing around this?
Why do they do that, when Adam needs Lawrence, and Lawrence doesn't need Adam, he craves him like he's never craved anything before, needs him there to survive, can't stand the thought of going home to an apartment where Adam's pictures aren't hanging in clothespins on strings in the bathroom, where he can't run his tongue over Adam's hands to keep him with him through the day as chemicals and takeout.
When the thought of Adam all alone, without having someone who makes his life worth enough to keep him from doing what brought him to this hospital, makes his stomach turn.
So Lawrence stands up and walks out of the room. Through the hallway, up to the door of Adam's room. And later on in life, Lawrence will remember, even though right now, he's really too excited to even register the thought, that he thinks when he places his hand on the doorknob: Things are going to change now, Adam.
And later on in life, Lawrence will remember him as very childish when he thought that. Because people don't change, especially if they're like Adam, and hate their life but are too afraid to change it, because they know that they can't do that on their own. If they want to change their lives to the better, they're going to have to let people into it. And that's not a risk they're willing to take.
Maybe that's why Lawrence sees what he sees when he openes the door and steps into Adam's room.
Maybe that's why he sees Adam sitting cross-legged on his bed, his arm bare, shimmering in the fluorescent lights, with old scars, some almost faded away, some thin, white chalk lines, some are fresh and pink.
One that's splitting up right now. Like a highway that opens under the scalpel in Adam's hand.
Red blood that splashes softly onto the white sheets. Crimson on sharp white.
Crimson and clover.
That's the first song that Lawrence learned to play on a guitar. For some reason, that's what Lawrence is thinking of when he leaps forward, just like the other times, only this isn't sexy at all, not at all, only terribly red on white, only flashing and shrieking, only the cruel laugh in Lawrence's head that asks him how, how he could ever be so stupid that he thought he could make Adam change, and tears the scalpel out of Adam's hand.
Adam smiles.
It's a crooked smile, a mischievous grin, joyously sparkling eyes that look up on Lawrence. He's not ashamed at all.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Lawrence almost sounds polite. Like he's making conversation, and Adam's grin gets wider.
"Why are you asking, Larry?" he shoots back calmly and lifts up his blanket to put pressure on his new wound. "Are you saying that you didn't know that I was doing this?"
Lawrence doesn't answer. And Adam laughs, completely mirthlessly.
So much.
So much for trying.
"Come on," Adam says coaxingly, and can't keep the cringe away from his face when he wipes away some of the blood, the sheet gets even redder. "Why do you ask? And why do you care? You don't love me, you never have. We both know that."
Lawrence can't even answer. Can only stare.
How can Adam say that?
How can he be so stupid? How can any man be so perfectly, utterly void of any trace of intelligence?
"If you did, you would've done something sooner," Adam goes on, and it's not him talking anymore, it's someone else, someone very stupid and so evil that Lawrence feels himself shrinking under his gaze. "I mean, seriously. If you didn't know me well enough to know that after you left, I'd turn into a fucking train wreck, then I really was just a piece of ass, weren't I? So why didn't you come along on your big white horse to save me earlier if you loved me so much?"
Lawrence still can't answer.
It's hard to think of reasonable things to say when you feel the good will, that's been the only thing that kept you on your feet for a very long time, crumble in your chest and wither down into your abdomen, mix with stomach acid, turn into slime and filth inside of you.
It's hard to talk when you see all your efforts, everything you've done to save someone you love from himself, getting crushed under the sole of his shoe, when you realize that he never wanted you to save him, that he didn't want it and you can't do it, anyway.
But Lawrence does talk. Slowly, methodically. Completely calm. But without any control.
"Then why don't I just discharge you right now?"
His face is completely expressionless. Adam still has that grin on his.
"Yeah, why don't you?"
"Oh, I will," Lawrence says, and his voice has gone from toneless to empty, surrendering. "Because you're right. I never loved you. I just treated you for a while because I wanted to keep you in the hospital, where I could fuck you without having to drag my ass all the way to your apartment."
That grin. Lawrence hates it.
He does hate it, but he doesn't bother to care anymore. Adam doesn't want him, anyway, doesn't want to be saved. And right now, he's so damn useless to Lawrence that he doesn't really feel like saving him, either.
"I mean," Lawrence goes on, emptily, grey and dull, "it's not like you're all I've thought about for this past year. It's not like you saved me from myself, or that you opened up this whole new world where I didn't need to be in control, or a beautiful wife or a beautiful house or whatever. I just needed you. That was all. And as long as I had you, I could be whatever I wanted."
Maybe Adam's grin falters a little. Maybe. But Lawrence doesn't care at all. He's as empty as Adam's heart right now.
"That's not the case at all," he finishes off. "It was all about sex."
And then, Lawrence turns around and leaves the room.
Whatever it was inside him that Adam first brought to life, then killed, and then reincarnated again, is left behind. But he doesn't care anymore.
Aw... And I've still always thought of Lawrence as the more openly romantic one of the two of them! Who's to save their relationship now, you might wonder? Well, I'll tell you if you review...
