A/N: Yeah I'm a slow updater and yada yada, BUT I WROTE ANOTHER CHAPTER AND SHIT ACTUALLY GOES DOWN HERE SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME HAVE A COOKIE AND NEVER FORGET HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

11. Never Too Late

Lawrence doesn't think about Adam anymore, that part is true. He thinks about his family sometimes, more often than he'd like to, but not Adam. Never Adam.

He had one last dream of him the night after he'd killed Amanda. It wasn't really a nightmare. Adam just stood there.

Lawrence thought they would die together. He wished they'd died together.

xxxxxxxxxxx

John's office is more like two separate rooms. All the gadgets and equipment in one room, with blueprints on the walls. The other one consists of John's bed, a chair, a nightstand, and the IV they've recently stolen from a hospital.

John can't digest real food anymore.

He used to keep Hoffman and Amanda in here when he needed time to think, or when someone needed to keep an eye on his breathing during the night, or when they were bickering too much to be of use to him.

As Hoffman sits next to John's bed, he doesn't think back of these times with sentimentality. He watches John, asleep in front of him, and he probably should feel something, since emotions have been rising in a rate he can't control lately. But no. It's all going to end soon.

He states it to himself coldly. It's ending and he's okay with it.

This wasn't what he hoped it would be, anyway.

Angie…

He wishes he had some whiskey with him, but that's about it.

Angie, I've been lying to myself. You wouldn't have been proud of me over these couple of years, would you?

Whiskey. Or her.

He's stopped hoping for that.

I can still make it better, though. Can't I? Wouldn't you have been proud of what I'm about to do? I'd been your hero again, wouldn't I?

Wouldn't I?

Hoffman stands up. He stands there looking at John for little more than a second, saying goodbye. If they see each other again, it's not going to be the same anymore.

Then he leaves.

xxxxxxxxxxx

It's been a couple of weeks since Amanda's death. Hoffman enters Gordon's room with a tray; some oatmeal, a cup of coffee. The days following what happened, Hoffman wasn't allowed to give him food, but he didn't keep that punishment up for as long as John had told him to. Partly to fuck with John, and partly because it was clear that Gordon wasn't sorry for what he'd done, and he never would be.

Hoffman kept watching him, waiting for him to at beg, to at least pretend, for basic human instincts to take over, but no. Gordon grew thinner, his face more sunken, but he didn't open his mouth in days, not to apologize, explain himself, or even mock them. Blank stare, like he barely knew what he'd done, like he didn't care.

Hoffman started feeding him again before long. It seemed like a waste of time to punish someone who barely seemed aware of being punished.

Gordon looks up when Hoffman closes the door behind him. Hoffman meets his gaze, holds it without really knowing why, before placing the tray in his lap.

"Eat up," he needlessly says. "We have some errands to run today."

Gordon picks up the plastic spoon and starts scooping up the oatmeal. He doesn't comment on how it's cold, or even acknowledge that Hoffman said something. The days when Hoffman found it useful to strike him across the face for that, though, are long gone.

"Adam's body's still in the bathroom," Hoffman goes on as Gordon takes a sip of his coffee. "We're going to pick it up and dump it in the river."

Gordon nods.

"Okay."

Hoffman glares at him.

"No one's going to look for him," he says, pushing. "The police don't care about people like him. It's going to be like he never existed ."

Gordon finally meets his gaze. He looks like absolutely nothing.

"Fine."

That's it. Hoffman grits his teeth, but manage to keep his fury contained.

He's not sure how Gordon is going to react once he sees Adam. He's not sure what he wants to happen, or why it's important to him in the first place.

xxxxxxxxxxx

About a week or so after Lawrence had killed Amanda, John had told him to sow a man's eyes shut. Lawrence did so, more or less on autopilot, even though he'd never done anything like it before. When it was done, he turned to John.

"What would you do if I cut his throat right now?" he asked.

His eyes were wide, either in anticipation for John's answer, or in pure wonder at the idea. John looked up at him. Rather than with the dull hatred with which he'd observed Lawrence since he'd killed Amanda, he met his eyes with what almost looked like sadness.

"I'd be disappointed," he finally answered.

Lawrence gave a weak smile. John isn't planning on letting him handle any further operations, but he won't have a chance to make that decision.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Gordon hobbles after Hoffman through the maze of hallways. They reach the garage without saying a word to each other, and Hoffman doesn't help Gordon into the front seat, even though he's visibly struggling with his cane. He's annoyed with Gordon, and again, he has no idea why.

Hopefully, he won't have to think about it long. They pull out onto the main street. The drive to the bathroom isn't very long, maybe twenty minutes, and Hoffman feels his grip on the steering wheel tighten the closer they get.

He also notices that he's fastened his seatbelt, and Gordon hasn't. He probably shouldn't be surprised.

"How do you feel about this?" he asks after a few miles.

Gordon shrugs. His face shows nothing to indicate that he feels anything deeper than that.

"We stalked you for months before we got you," Hoffman goes on, prodding again. "We saw you go to work and home, only sidetracking to pick your daughter up from school and fuck your interns. Never to see anyone important."

Gordon stares out the window. Hoffman glances at him.

"He was the only friend you've had in years. The only one that mattered. And no one else could understand what you've gone through."

Gordon is quiet for so long that Hoffman is sure that they're going to spend the rest of the drive like that, before he speaks up, voice raspy from lack of usage.

"I used to talk to him. He used to visit me." Pause. "He hasn't come to me in a while. It's been fine. He… he distracted me. From… from work."

Dead hands in his lap. Hoffman feels his stomach sink.

"I used to be afraid," Gordon concludes, barely more than a mumble. "I'm not anymore. It's better. It's better."

Hoffman wishes he hadn't taken Gordon here. However this ends, it's not going to be pretty. But it's too late now; they're pulling up on the cracked asphalt outside the sewage building where they've been heading.

Hoffman checks in his pocket for the keys John's given him, and then gets out. Gordon follows him to his best ability, up to the rusty metal back door. Hoffman opens it by a mere turn of the handle. No door in this facility has been locked in years, except for the one Adam is trapped behind.

The cold stench is like a punch in the face. Hoffman frowns and puts the back of his hand over his nose. But it only throws him off by a little; he starts walking, without checking to see if Gordon follows.

The click of his cane echoes through the dirty hallway. Hoffman is not as sure where the bathroom is located as he'd like to be, but after a few minutes of retracing his steps, he encounters a familiar pool of blood.

He halts and looks around. A steaming pipe. A pool of blood. And more importantly, a trace of the blood across the floor in front of them, leading up to where they're standing.

Hoffman keeps walking, until he notices the absence of a solid click behind him. He turns around.

Gordon has stopped, staring down at the blotch of his own blood, dried to flakes. Like it didn't happen, like evidence fading.

"Come on," Hoffman says.

Gordon looks at him. His face is gray, the cane trembling under his hand.

He looks so completely worn down with misery that Hoffman doesn't know what to say, so he just stands there for a bit, until Lawrence starts walking, slower than before, leaving the blood behind them.

It can't be long until they're there now. Hoffman tells himself that he's slowing down his steps so he won't lose track of Gordon, and no other reason.

He won't make it. He'll snap.

Hoffman turns another corner and the sight of the dirt-yellow door is like a cold flash, like he'd somehow hoped they wouldn't find it.

But here it is. This is it.

Okay. Here goes. Hoffman turns around when he hears Gordon stop behind him, raising a hand uncertainly.

"Gordon," he says. "Try to… what we're going to see in there might be hard for you to handle. Try to take it easy."

Gordon just stares. Hoffman nods, even though there's been no sign that his words were registered, and turns around, takes the key out of his pocket.

Are you proud of me, Angie?

That's his last thought before he opens the door.

If Lawrence had been paying attention, he might've noticed the streak of light under the door to the bathroom and been prepared. But he's lived behind a haze of morphine and self-hatred since the last time he was here, so the fluorescent glow causes him to squeeze his eyes shut. He hears the voice before he sees its bearer.

"Hey."

And it's not Hoffman's voice.

It's not Hoffman that now sees him.

"Lawrence?"

Said softly, like a prayer. Like anything spoken to someone you were sure wasn't real.

Lawrence opens his eyes. A second of adjustment. Blurry lines of dirty tiles, the toilet, his rotting foot, stomach churning. And a familiar shape in the other end of the room.

Adam.

No.

Adam.

Eyes hollowed, growing stubble, fingertips bloody, (tried to claw his way out) shirt hanging even looser than before. Alive.

It's like Diana mistaking a stranger's hand for his and looking scared before finding his shirt sleeve and hanging onto it even tighter than usual, like getting the milk perfect when he heated it and earning a smile from mom, like being on a flight home after a long trip and seeing the landing lights.

Lawrence feels his cane slipping out of his grasp. He falls against the door frame, without taking his eyes off Adam once.

Adam.

If Lawrence still had the ability to feel, he might've let that thought in.

It's like being safe again.