A/N: Weeee, I'm back with a chapter! And I'm not going to lie to you: Just like the last one, it's really angsty (but then again, that can have something to do with the fact that it's me who wrote it) but… That doesn't mean there can't be makeout-scenes. Thank God for that. XD Either way, READ!
9: It Doesn't Have To Be Love
Days go by.
Adam doesn't have a lot to do. He learns the TV tabloids by heart, since he rarely leaves the house. He smokes more than ever, and when the cigarettes are gone, he rarely has the energy to go out and get more. That leaves him edgy and fidgeting, but at least it works as a slow, and fairly inconsistent, rehab.
He sees the life passing by outside his window. People going to work, coming home a couple of hours later, when Adam's just managed to get out of bed and rummaged around in his fridge to find something to eat. He sees them bickering, shopping, having coffee, picking their kids up from school.
He's always known that they have something that he doesn't. But he's never really been jealous of them.
Adam's started looking through the job advertisements. One day, he notices that a food chain's looking for a photographer for their commercials. He scribbles down the location for the interview on a napkin and leaves right after, he gulps down the last spoonfuls of his cereals while he's putting on his shoes.
The company doesn't seem too excited. They're going to get back to him, but they don't. Adam doesn't really care, though.
He's never been on a job interview before. He tried this time. He didn't just stood by and thought he wouldn't get the job, anyway.
He tried. That's enough for now.
Days go by. Turn into weeks.
Adam doesn't smoke that much anymore. And he doesn't do a lot of drugs. Just sometimes, those times when everything just feels black and he curls up on a ball on the floor and thinks that he has to die now, this time he has to, even though he made it the last time he felt like this, nothing can feel this bad and not be death. But he never dies, he always wakes up the next morning. And life goes on after that, as weird as it may sound.
Adam keeps going to job interviews. Not a lot comes from it, but that's okay. His time will come.
And there's still something big and black and sharp settled in his chest. It almost gets too much sometimes, in fact. What Adam feels right now isn't happiness, it's just an unusually efficient form of the emotional numbness he felt before the bathroom. It's more like he feels too miserable for his body to hold it, so instead, he feels nothing. And since he has nothing to do, he might as well try to get to where the people outside his window are.
Hell, his life is already so messed up that he can't even be annoyed about it anymore. Why not use the opportunity to try to get it back on track?
Right now, it's mostly about making himself realize that there's a life without Lawrence. That insight is, much like his own misery right now, too big to fit into his mind or his body, so he hasn't been able to be upset about it yet. If he had, he might've realized that it's not possible, so he might as well stay on his couch and smoke and booze until he rots away. But he hasn't realized that yet, so he might as well take advantage of it.
He just wishes he could feel something.
When you don't feel the sorrow, neither do you feel the joy.
Just like when you aren't that shaken up about that you were almost killed a few weeks ago, it doesn't matter much that you survived, either.
Adam tries to find a life without Lawrence. And it goes fairly well. He's looking for a job, he smokes a little less. It goes fairly well.
The activities are available. It's just that they don't matter much anymore.
xxxxxxxxxxx
The physical therapy has worked. Lawrence can almost walk on his right foot by now.
The scars heal. They'll always be there, but they heal. Which is weird, since it's been so long since he saw the only thing he knows can heal him.
Lawrence doesn't have a recovering life to focus on. He has physical therapy two hours a day, but the rest of the time, he's left with his thoughts.
He misses Adam. His heart aches with how much he misses Adam.
It's like a part of him is missing. Like something so much more important than his foot was left behind in that bathroom.
Allison still comes to see him. She always brings Diana, and the few times she comes alone, Lawrence is faced with the always heartbreaking realization that they really have nothing to talk about.
He stays with her for Diana. He knows that. She's starting to get it, too.
But he's starting to wonder if that's enough reason.
xxxxxxxxxxx
Adam comes home one day and notices that there's a message on his machine.
That's such an event to him that he stops in the motion of throwing his jacket on the couch and stares at it for a while.
He's never had a message on that machine before. The only one who's ever wanted anything from Adam is his landowner who nags him for rent, and he can tell him that in the hallway. This is something else.
Wow. Adam's needed. Who knew?
Adam sits down on the armrest of the couch and presses the button on the machine - damn, it's been so long that he barely knows which button to press anymore - and feels something very deep stirring in him when Lawrence's voice fills the room.
"Hi, Adam."
Pause. Adam puts his foot on the armrest, places his chin on it.
He'd almost forgotten what Lawrence sounded like, too.
"I… I just called to see how things were. And since you don't pick up, I assume you're either out doing things, or have passed out on the couch. I hope for the former."
Adam smiles briefly. Lawrence doesn't say anything for a while.
"Please call me."
Softer now.
"You have my number, and… I miss you. Okay?"
Pause. Like he's waiting for an answer.
"Bye."
Click. Adam doesn't hesitate for a second, he picks up the phone right away and his fingers dial faster than he thought them capable of.
He knows Lawrence's number by heart. Even though he never dared to call him.
"Hello?"
Lawrence seems to have been eager, too. He answers so quickly, his phone must've been right in front of him on the nightstand.
"Hey, man," Adam says and rakes a hand through his hair.
He's already shaking. Lawrence doesn't say anything, and neither does Adam. When Lawrence speaks again, it's lowly, like something very fragile will break if he's heard.
Which it will.
So much can be ruined if someone hears them now.
"Can't you come here?"
Adam shakes his head, even though Lawrence can't see it.
"No."
"Please. Adam…"
"No."
Every fiber in his being disagrees with what he says. They seem to be boiling, aching, burning for him.
"Please."
"Lawrence…"
Adam didn't know what to say first. Felt nothing, just the slight melancholy when you realize that everything is ruined but the insight hasn't really sunken in yet, but now, he starts feeling again. And he could feel love, hurt, longing, but he doesn't. He feels anger, because that's so much simpler. Angry people don't get hurt as easily.
Not as easily as the quivering little being inside him, who's already so hurt he doesn't know if he's going to recover.
"I've worked hard," Adam begins, and the anger is welling out into his words, Lawrence must hear it. "hard on putting my life back together. Okay? I've worked really hard on making a living, because if I ever look like someone that doesn't love every fucking second of his life, that sick fuck is going to come back for me, and I'd prefer it if that didn't happen. So… Why are you doing this, huh? Why the fuck are you doing this now?"
He sputters out the last few syllables, it's hard to get them out between clenched jaws. But Lawrence just waits for him to finish. He always does.
"Please come here."
Just one sentence. That's all he needs to make Adam half-a-minute-rant to seem completely insignificant. Adam sighs.
"No, I won't."
He already knows he's lost, but like hell he's going to admit it. Lawrence makes some dull, whimpering noise, it sounds weird through the phone.
"I had this dream… This nightmare."
Pause.
"He was here. I saw him. It was so clear, I… I'm… Scared, Adam…"
Adam sighs again.
It hurts to hear Lawrence sound like this. Listening to his hero turned into something so small and pitiful.
"I don't think… I'm ever going to let this go," Lawrence says, with a little more strength now. "But I know it helps when you're here. I was an idiot to think I'd make this without you. Please. Come here."
Adam doesn't answer, since he doesn't want to make his defeat just that obvious. Instead, he hangs up without another word, puts on his jacket and doesn't even lock the door behind him.
It's not like he has anything anyone would want to steal, anyway.
Adam's sweaty when he reaches the hospital. He's probably walked a lot faster than he intended to, but who can blame him. Lawrence is a wound he just barely managed to close on his own, and now, he came along and tore up the stitches, and Adam's bleeding. It hurts, endlessly. But he does know how to make it go away.
He enters Lawrence's room without any lack of noise. His feet slam into the floor and the door bangs shut behind him, but Adam doesn't care, and Lawrence doesn't seem to, either. He reaches his arms out for Adam, and Adam crawls up into his embrace, melts into his warmth for a second, but doesn't waste too much time on that.
He needs bandages for his open wound. Right now.
Or, it doesn't even have to be bandages, the wound doesn't even have to heal. Just something to make the pain go away.
So Adam sits down across Lawrence's laps, puts both hands around his face and kisses him, kisses him, kisses him, deeply, with teeth and tongue, and his hands doesn't stay on his face for long, go straight to the hem of his gown and tears it over Lawrence's head. Wants him, all of him, and presses their lips together again.
Lawrence seems to say something beneath it all. Beneath the panting breathing, and the clatter of Adam's belt. Something that almost sounds like: "I love you."
If that's what he says, Adam doesn't want to hear it. He knows Lawrence will take it back tomorrow morning, anyway, so right now, he wants him to just shut up and fuck him already. Just wants everything to feel okay for a little bit, before tomorrow comes and everything will be taken back, the words and the kisses and the mutual need, and it'll be just like before, just like before.
AW! I love forcing those two to make out and then torture them by not letting them get together just yet! XD So, review and let me know how much you love it!
