A/N: Wiiie, guess who's back? Missed me? Either way, Adam and Lawrence and I have missed you! XD So, without further ado, here's another chapter! And also, in case you think this is accidental: There is a time-lapse between the previous chapter and this, and I'm perfectly aware of that. Hell, I even did it on purpose. Hope you like it!

10: I'll Be The Devil On Your Shoulder

One of the last memories that Adam has of loving his little sister is when he got is Xbox.

He was eight, maybe nine, way too young to get how much better off he was than most kids his age and why he would hate his parents because of it, and Claire a year younger. He'd gotten his Xbox, he was playing Fifa with Claire, and being the older brother, he of course beat her brains out. Claire thought it was fun for maybe ten minutes, and then she threw her control into the wall and said that this game was stupid. Adam had accepted that, and said that if she wanted, they could go make cupcakes. They did just that, and as a punishment for being better at Fifa, Claire slathered chocolate batter into Adam's hair and he chased her around the house until they were both out of breath.

Something Adam can think back of with a smile. A shameful smile, because yes, he is ashamed of having loved her.

And in the meantime, he can't understand what's changed since then. They loved each other back then because they were brother and sister, and they still are, aren't they? Why should their parents be able to ruin that?

He thinks that sometimes.

But then he feels that evil genius inside him, and then he remembers that he can't afford to love anything here. Because he's going to leave it as soon as possible, and then there can't be anything to hold him back.

xxxxxxxxxxx

She has one of her bad days today. Lawrence knows that, hell, he paid most of the price for it, but he still manages to get out of the trailer and off to school.

He's not sure how he does it, though. And he's not sure how well he's going to focus once he gets to school, that fucking school and he more or less lives and dies for now days. The knowledge of what he left Lou and Daniel with is cold in his stomach, like that feeling you get when you realize that you forgot to turn off the stove.

Except that it's not just a mini heart attack that's over in a few seconds. It stays with him the whole day.

Lawrence does get to class in time, but he has to run the last block, and he's sweaty and panting when he finds his classroom. His teacher sends him a quick glance, which is enough to make that weight in Lawrence's gut even colder, but she doesn't say anything about it, just unlocks the classroom and lets the buzzing herd of students in.

Lawrence walks inside, with a spasmodic grasp on his notepad, and feels his gaze anxiously wandering around the teenagers finding their places behind their desks.

Where the hell is Adam? Doesn't he get that Lawrence needs him here? He's stopped trying to deny it by now, but he does want Adam here, someone who calms him down by having the attitude that Lawrence hates when anyone else has it, calms him down in a way that Lawrence still doesn't get how he does it.

The teacher starts talking, and Lawrence quickly grabs his pen and starts writing down every word the teacher says, even though he knows that the part that's actually useful information won't come for another ten minutes.

His gaze keeps flickering over to the door. Adam doesn't show up.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam very rarely shows up before lunch, Lawrence should've seen that pattern by now. And if he does come before then, he usually leaves after lunch, anyway. This is one of the days when he shows up after lunch, which should mean he's slept for a really long time, but when Lawrence sees him in the cafeteria, he still has dark marks under his eyes.

Adam and Lawrence never sit together in lunch. Adam's perfectly aware that Lawrence is going to mutilate himself as much as he has to to become One Of The Kids That The Teachers Respect, so he hasn't even tried to make contact with Lawrence when they're in a place where everyone can see them. Since they stopped fighting, of course. And Lawrence, for his part, has never even tried to deny this, to himself or to Adam, so he sits with the kids that actually have rich parents, and don't just pretend to, like he does.

Adam doesn't mind, though. He doesn't like food very much, and Lawrence feels just like the kind of guy who would nag him until he snapped and threw the spaghetti and meat sauce in his face. He sits by himself with his feet on the opposite chair and reads.

Adam loves the expression on people's faces when he tells them that he loves reading. He knows he doesn't really look like the kind of guy that would read Nietzsche and Wilde voluntarily, and even worse, love every second of it, but he is. That's a side of him that actually goes against his evil genius.

Adam may not be very cultural, but god knows he's an esthetic. And the vibrant words in his books, burning from the pages, almost forbidden even though the whole world reads them, appeal to both those sides of him.

And all but lust is turned to dust, in humanity's machine.

He knows those damn things by heart.

Adam turns the page of his book, and he just manages to register that some ketchup gets on the corner of the page, before he sees Lawrence's fingertips resting on the table in front of him.

He looks up. Lawrence has that look on his face he gets when something weighs him down. More than usual, that is. Adam smiles briefly and folds the stained corner of the page.

"Care to join me?"

Lawrence smiles briefly at the polite intonation, since he knows Adam well enough by now to know that he'd never say that and mean it.

"I was hoping you'd join me on the schoolyard," he says quietly. "I'd like to… Why are you reading Oscar Wilde?"

Adam smiles shyly and puts the book in his worn backpack.

"You think punk kids can't like the old classics?"

Lawrence scoffs.

"Don't get a big head. Oscar Wilde was a bisexual, boozing junkie who had about the same ability to both resist temptation and listen to other people as my three year-old little brother. Of course you like him."

Adam chuckles and gets up, takes his tray with him. And despite the time that's passed since that first walk they took together, it's not until now that he suddenly knows that Lawrence is allowed to say that. Because despite what he thinks of it, and even though he's still not sure how it happened, they are in fact friends now, and it's going to be like this for a long time ahead.

When they're out on the schoolyard, Adam takes his pack of cigarettes out, and Lawrence rolls his eyes and follows him to the sidewalk outside the green-ish copper fence that marks the limits of the school territory. Once they're there, Adam lights his cigarette and inhales gratefully, and Lawrence sends him a venomous look.

"You know how many types of cancer you get from smoking?"

"Do you know how much I don't care?" Adam replies sweetly. "You should be a doctor, Lawrence."

Lawrence's bitter look falls apart, and he smiles slyly.

"I will be a doctor."

Adam looks at him.

"That's how I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to be a doctor."

Adam grins over his cigarette.

"Once again, you should be," he says, and Lawrence knows that he means it. "You'd be awesome at it."

Lawrence smiles, though with a lowered gaze. Like he's a little ashamed.

"But that's not what you wanted to talk about, was it?" Adam goes on.

Lawrence shakes his head. Still without looking at him.

It's still so weird that he's telling Adam this. And what's weirder is that it doesn't feel weird at all.

"She… Has one of her bad days today," he forces out.

Adam nods slowly. Takes another drag.

"She has certain days when she at least wants to be a mother," Lawrence goes on. "When she spends the money on pancakes, and pacifiers for Daniel if his current one is too chewed-up… Instead of cigarettes, I mean. But then there are days… Like today…"

He swallows and looks down on his shoes. The hole at the toes. Adam's not the kind of comforter that hugs you and whisper sweet nothings in your ear, he just looks at Lawrence. Waits.

"She's just so mean," Lawrence says, since there's no better way to put it. "She asked me today why I even went to school when I would never become anything and wasn't good at anything… She called me selfish for spending money on that suit instead of food for my family… She called me… Me selfish… She told my little sister that she wouldn't even been there if the condom her costumer used when he was with her had already been inside of five other hookers before her… She…"

He can't go on. Lawrence keeps staring at his shoes and swallows again and again, because he's not going to cry in front of Adam more than once.

Adam smokes in an almost frenetic speed, so he's finished with his cigarette now. He drops it on the ground, smothering it with the heel of his shoe, and doesn't say anything for a while. Just sighs heavily and rakes his hand through his hair, like he doesn't want any advice to be spoken unless he's absolutely sure that every word in it is exactly what it's supposed to be.

"Don't ever believe her, Lawrence," he then says, gravely serious. "As long as you don't ever do that, you'll be fine."

Lawrence looks up. Wondering. Adam shakes his head, and for a second, he almost looks grown up.

"People in these situations always blame themselves sooner or later," Adam says with a bitter undertone. "Especially people like you. And you know how happy your bitch of a mom will be then, if you voluntarily brought down even more of things that she should be doing on yourself? Don't give her that, man. She doesn't deserve it."

Now when Adam's made eye contact, Lawrence finds it hard to keep it. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, clears his throat, and looks at anything, the girls with their creased skirts who stand with their cigarettes a few feet away, the frizzy part of Adam's shoelace where it's been cut short, anything but Adam himself.

No one's said it that direct to him before. That's why it hurts so much that he knows what he's going to answer.

"I don't know what else to do," Lawrence says with a shrug, a hollow chuckle and looks up again.

Adam looks at the giant clock face in the tower of the school.

"Than to blame yourself?" he asks and starts walking towards the gates. "It'll come to you."

Lawrence follows him.

"Aren't you going home now that you've come here and gotten out of paying for your own lunch?" he asks when Adam opens the door to him. Adam grins.

"Claire's home sick, and one of the reasons I leave before or after her every day is that if I don't, I have to walk both to and from school with her," he says jokingly, but as always, there's a bitter truth underneath. "If I go home now, I'll be forced to socialize with her."

Lawrence takes two steps of the stairs in one big leap.

"Why do you hate her?"

"Why not?" Adam bites back.

It sounds too defensive for that to be the only explanation.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam's called to the principal's office later that day, without Lawrence, for the first time since their last fight. He and Lawrence exchange a look of mutual worry when Mr. Salin's secretary enters the classroom and calls for him, but Adam isn't as annoyed by their still fresh bond as he should be.

They're friends now. He's never really had one before, but from what he's heard, once you have one of those, there's not much use trying to get rid of them.

Adam lands heavily on the chair in front of Mr. Salin's desk and sends him that amused look that he knows drives all kind of grownups crazy.

"You wanted to talk to me?" he says merrily.

Mr. Salin puts his two enormous hands together and studies Adam thoroughly. It feels like he's in a dark X-ray.

"How's school, Adam?" he finally asks after being quiet for nearly half a minute.

Adam shrugs.

"Not worse than any other, I guess. Why?"

Mr. Salin lifts one of the papers in front of him.

"You have almost no attendance," he says as smoothly as it's even possible with that baritone-voice of his. "Do you care about your staying here at all?"

"You know I don't, Mr. Salin," Adam responds sweetly.

Mr. Salin nods slowly and drops the paper. Then he puts his hands together again, with another one of those characteristic breaks.

"Adam," he then says. "I know your parents very well, and fact is, I've known you since you were about six. I know you're the most spoiled little punk the world's ever seen and that it's your way and not even the hard way, but no way at all. I've made my peace with that. But if you don't get your act together, I will call your parents. And not to tell them one of those things you just get happy if they know, things that them knowing only make you even more cute and anarchistic, but things that would matter, to them and to you. And would have consequences. Okay?"

Adam grins and leans forward, puts his hands on the expensive desk, since he knows touching fancy things with your scary rebel-hands annoy the hell out of grownups, too.

"You don't want me here," he whispers, almost purrs. "My grades are the ones the rest of the students here had in preschool, and you wouldn't even let me onto the properties if my dad hadn't had a big job. What difference does it make to you if I skip half of my classes?"

"Because," Mr. Salin replies sharply before he even manages to finish the sentence, "you spend every second of the periods you do show up for with Lawrence Gordon, and probably a lot of his free time, too. You think I haven't noticed?"

"So?" Adam snaps.

"So," Mr. Salin goes on, "Lawrence Gordon is one of the smartest kids I've seen in years. He may be poor, but if he continues doing what he's been doing for the past three months, he will get a scholarship, and he will go off to college. If he continues what he's doing."

Adam should get what he's trying to say right away. But the connection is so bizarre that it takes him a few seconds, and when he does get it, his mask of smugness drops, his leverage is gone in a heartbeat and replaced with the easily defeated anger.

"Are you saying that I'll try to…"

"I don't think you'll try to do anything, Adam," Mr. Salin interrupts, his eyes narrowing. "But I do think that birds of a feather flock together. I know how kids work; if you spend enough time with someone, whether it's Hannibal Lecter, you become more and more like them every day, intentionally or not. And I will not let you ruin this for Lawrence, and if you care about him, you won't, either."

Adam can't respond right away. He sits on his chair a few seconds, lets the information sink in. Tries to wrap his mind around an idea that unfortunately seems more and more sensible by the second. Then he stands up. It takes him a while to gather up to that grin again.

"Mr. Salin," he says politely. "If Lawrence didn't have any bad influence, such as myself, he'd either work himself to death, gets a nervous breakdown and start killing prostitutes, or become like my parents. And I'm going to keep that from happening to him, by doing what I've been doing for the past three months, which is skipping the first period and hoping that he learns something from that."

Then he leans forward again, very cautious about putting both palms on the desk in front of him. Mr. Salin looks like he wants to swing his tree log of an arm against Adam's head.

"If you want me to show that he's my friend, I really can't do it any better than that," Adam finishes off.

Then he turns around and walks away. Now, he doesn't have to work to get that grin up again.

Lawrence can become a doctor, if that's what he wants. He can go to college, he can become rich, he can get out of here and take his family with him. Adam would never keep that from him.

But he's not letting Lawrence become one of them.

And if the only way to keep him from that is to skip half of his classes and hope that Lawrence will not do it, but at least see the glory of it, he's even got a reasonable cause for not showing up for history tomorrow.

Yeah, Adam's got awesome ways to show his love… ;) Pleasy-please, review!