A/N: There really should be some kind of sacred ChainShipping-code that does not tolerate bitches ending with a sweet, emotional moment and then not updating for two months, shouldn't there? XD I'm really sorry. Christmas, real life and school can be a bitch sometimes. You didn't leave my mind once, though. ^^

Also: I got an anonymous review on this story a couple of days ago. And to the person reviewing: I assume you're not really checking up on this thing, since you didn't seem to like it much, but I couldn't find out another way to reply to you. And to answer your question about why people keep writing gay stories about Adam and Lawrence is pretty simple: A lot of people see a pairing between them when they watch the movie. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that the very first time I saw the movie, during that final scene between them in the bathroom, when they're clinging to each other and Adam literally begs Lawrence not to go, I sat up and told the guy I watched it with that I was going to write a story about those two. (Which later on turned out not to be the best idea. Apparently, thinking of different guys than the one you're cuddled up with when you're watching the movie is a bit of a turnoff… XD) Because they're both showing such a vulnerable side with each other right there, and they haven't done that before in the movie. Plus, they went through hell and back together in the bathroom, so it's very hard to imagine that they wouldn't have a connection when they got back out. Don't worry, though. There are a million "Adam surviving"-stories out there, you just have to dig through a thick layer of ChainShipping to find them. ;)

29: Did You Love Me Forever?

Lawrence has absolutely no recollection of falling asleep that night. Knowing him, it probably happened the exact second he thought that he might as well pull an all-nighter, since he was getting up in two hours, anyway. But either way, the alarm goes off at eight AM, and when he opens his eyes, it's like he hadn't slept at all.

But he must've, because his last memory is Adam sitting next to him on the bed, holding him steady in his little breakdown. And now, Adam isn't here anymore.

Lawrence knows he's on a tight schedule. He's gone over this day in his head pretty much every available second this week, he's calculated and shortened down and cut his time up in smaller and smaller pieces until he's worried it's going to stop existing all together. He knows he has to get up and make breakfast this exact minute if he's going to keep his schedule, and he does, after a too-long delay. But he keeps looking around the apartment, out the window, because Adam can be in the bathroom, he could've gone out shopping for coffee if they were out of it. He can still come back and say goodbye, and if so, Lawrence is going to wait for him. Only he knows that isn't the case. Adam's taken off, and he's not coming back until he's sure that Lawrence is gone.

Eventually, he wakes Lou and Daniel up and gives them their sandwiches. He doesn't have time for this nonsense. He's going to college. He has luggage he has to double check.

And since Adam removed the bucket that stood by his bedside last night before he left, he doesn't have to acknowledge how that really makes him feel.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam lets his legs spread wide as he sits down on a bench a couple of blocks from home. His stomach is rumbling, he didn't dare to get breakfast before he took off. This is the time of day where most dog owners go on their first walk, and the dew is just starting to fade from the leaves. He tries to appreciate that the way he used to as he rakes his hand through his hair, trying to come alive.

Back in the days, Adam would sneak out of his fancy house hours before everyone else woke up. He needed time if he wanted to get to the parts of town he preferred to see them come to life in the morning. Those neighborhoods that were beautiful for real, with frost-covered beer bottles lined up on the window sills in the winter, and when it had rained, brown, dirty water was running along the gutters, getting slurped down to the sewers. Not flowerbeds and matching curtains.

Adam hasn't done that since he met Lawrence. His need for broken, beautiful things were pretty much fulfilled from that day on.

He's not going to see Lawrence off at the airport. Wendy can do that. She's the one who's okay with the whole thing, and maybe it's just Adam being selfish, but he is not ever going to pretend to be fine with Lawrence leaving. He doesn't care if Lawrence never gets anywhere in life, if none of his dreams come true, as long as he's within the country borders. That makes him a much worse friend than Lawrence deserves, and he doesn't care. Lawrence always had too high thoughts of him anyway.

Adam lights a cigarette and watches the people walking their dogs. Next to him, there's a house with a barred window that someone's smashed, and then tied a bright red scarf around one of the bars, like some kind of trademark. He wishes he had his camera with him.

Maybe it's the thought of beauty and dirt that gives him the association, but he can't help but remember one night he spent with Lawrence. It must've been sometime during their second year, when they were just starting to be friends again after that fatal night when the lines were blurred. They'd been sitting on Adam's bed, Lawrence had been tired and ruffled, and Adam had been happy, despite the fact that his father was coming home tomorrow.

He'd had the bed filled with books, he'd started reading quotes from them to Lawrence an hour before and hadn't stopped even though he could tell that Lawrence was getting bored, because this was a part of him, and he wanted Lawrence to know him, every boring, geeky, annoyingly cuddly part of him.

"Oh, listen to this," Adam said and slapped Lawrence's knee, making him lift his head. "This is so you, man. 'The real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are a privilege of the rich.'"

Lawrence chuckled and sat up. He looked down into the book over Adam's shoulder, all warm and close.

"Wilde did get that one right," he said and took a closer look at the pages. "But why the hell have you underlined certain paragraphs?"

Adam looked from the pages, where he had indeed marked the lines he liked the most with a ballpoint pen, and shrugged.

"They're the parts I like the most. And I'm not counting on giving this thing to anyone else anytime soon, so it won't bother anyone."

Lawrence furrowed his brows, like he tried to figure out just how Adam was thinking, saying such stupid things. They were the exact opposite on that point. Lawrence wouldn't even mark important paragraphs in their school books. He wanted things clean and untouched.

"It's more my book if it's me fucking it up, you know?" Adam tried to explain, careful not to turn to Lawrence. His face was inches away.

Lawrence shook his head, breaking the spell, like Adam's idiocy was too much for him to bear, and laid back down on the bed. Adam grinned at his ignorance and crossed his legs beneath him. He loved it when Lawrence didn't see how much Adam loved him. Then he could almost show him affection without Lawrence noticing.

"'You will always be fond of me,'" he went on quoting, smiling wider now. "'I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.'"

Lawrence pretended to give him an angry glare. His gaze probably flickered across Adam's lips before he sat back up, but if it did, there was no reason to get hung up on it; it was one of many times.

As Adam thinks back on that night now, when his cigarette is slowly falling to ashes between his fingers, he thinks that he was prepared for this. Even then, he was prepared for this. He always knew Lawrence was going to leave, even before he got the scholarship. He just didn't dare to think it, because if he did, it'd be just like him to make the conclusion that what they had, whatever it was, hadn't been enough for Lawrence. That he was just a little represent of sins to him. The devil on his shoulder, just needed so the angel would have something to get evened out with.

He's made his peace with the fact that he wasn't enough for Lawrence. But if he even grazes the thought that he didn't mean anything at all, he won't stand it.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Lawrence gets a big, unexplainable lump in his stomach when he walks out the door to the apartment for the last time. He gets one of those weird series of flashes, like people get when they die, his entire life in this apartment gets played out before him, and he has to lock the door before he gets caught up in it. They have exactly thirty-eight minutes to go find Wendy, and even though he's calculated the time to get to the center of Bronx about an hour and a half when it actually takes half of that time, his head is going to explode if he breaks his schedule.

"Everyone's with me?" Lawrence says and pretends to check if both Lou and Daniel are there. "Did I leave anyone in the desk drawer?" They giggle, even though they're tired. "You both have everything packed, right?"

"You've asked us that a million times, Lawrence," Lou moans, making a big show out of rolling her eyes and dropping her head. "Can't we just go? What if we miss the plane?"

"We won't," Lawrence says and locks the door. "We're taking a bus that goes straight to the airport. It's specially designed for us poor people."

"But what about Adam?" Daniel asks gently as they walk down the stairs. "Isn't he going with us?"

Lawrence pretends that this is a question just like anyone else as they step out onto the sidewalk.

"We've been over this," he says. "Adam's staying here. My school doesn't want him, and he doesn't want it."

They don't say anything for another couple of minutes. When Lawrence gets to their scrap yard, where he finds Wendy, it feels good to have an excuse to let the tears flow freely.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam looks at his watch. Lawrence's train doesn't leave for another eight hours, but knowing him, he's probably left to go there already. It takes some time to go to LaGuardia, especially with two little kids. Even if he wanted to mend fences with him, it's too late now. And either way, what's the point? No matter what he does now, it won't change what's going to happen. Neither will it make him more sure about what exactly that is. No matter what happens in the future, he's pretty sure he's going to hate it immensely.

But what's already happened was good, wasn't it? some little voice in the back of his head says. You can bitch and moan about it all you want, but truth is, you don't regret a thing. Not kissing him, or having sex with him. You just wish you could've had more of it.

Adam sighs to himself and lights up another one. He's broken his cigarette budget for this month already, but he doesn't really care. Living in the apartment is going to be cheaper now, anyway. And no one's going to complain about giving him lung cancer. He's going to be on his own, not having anything to worry about but himself and his own stupidity.

Oscar Wilde could've written a book about Adam and Lawrence. He always did have a thing for love that was nothing and everything at the same time, like that scarf tied around the bar, like the way Adam feels when Lawrence crawls down in bed next to him every night, no matter how pissed they are at each other.

In his books, lovers always die. Adam never got the reason for that until now.

The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plentitude.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Lawrence almost breaks down completely when he tries to figure out which entrance they're supposed to go to at the airport. They all seem to look the same to him, but his ticket specifically tells him to go to terminal B, and truth is, he'd much rather focus on that than everything else that's going on in his head right now.

He's already said a heart-wrenching goodbye to Wendy. As he sat down on the bus to the airport, it felt like there was nothing left in him. But as he actually finds their terminal, he realizes just how much of himself he leaves behind.

The check-in is right in front of them as they go through the gates to the airport. Lawrence is fighting every nature he has by not going straight up to it, check in their luggage and then show their tickets to the flight attendant-guy on the other end of the long line next to the check-in. It's all right there in front of him. He should go right now.

"Lawrence?" Lou asks and looks up at him. "Aren't we going?"

Lawrence sighs. Looks at the clock on the opposite wall. He should go. He really should.

"The plane doesn't leave for another couple of hours," he says, hearing the words like they're from someone else. "We don't have to check in yet. There's no real difference of waiting out here than in there, right?"

Lou keeps looking at him. Cocking her head to the side, and for a brief second, it feels like she sees right through him.

"Okay," she then says. "Can I sit down and practice my reading?"

She beckons to the chairs in front of the huge window out to the parking lot. Lawrence nods.

"Sure. I'll come sit with you after I've dropped off our bags."

She and Daniel go to sit down. Lawrence doesn't have to struggle against that cold knot in his stomach for another hour or so. Now, he can settle for laying back and letting it take over.

Meanwhile, Adam steps into a cab about an hour away. He thinks his voice sounds normal when he tells the driver to go to LaGuardia, but his hands shake to an annoying amount as he reaches into his pocket to make sure his credit card is there. As they start driving, he has a moment where he realizes just how stupid it is to spend the majority of this month's paycheck on going to an airport to say one final thing to someone who he knows isn't going to stay anyway, but he's more than happy to do it, and wow, isn't that sad?

Out of reflex, he takes his Walkman out of his pocket. The songs he listens to within the following hour will forever be associated with nausea, sweaty hands and the feeling that his feet are so restless that he'd gladly jump out right now and run the remaining miles to the airport, and when Adam finally gets there, his voice is unnaturally graveled already when he tells the cabbie that he's going to pay with his card. Fuck. He wasn't going to do this.

Adam practically runs to the nearest entrance to the building. He has no idea where Lawrence is in this enormous maze of white, slick-shiny floor and big, black signs with departure times, and he likes to think that he'll search the whole damn building if he has to, and Adam does his best to ignore the fact that that might not be possible as he rushes up to the nearest desk labeled "Information."

"Excuse me," he says to the pretty brunette behind the counter. "Where do I go to check in to the 6:10 flight to Toronto?"

"That's through terminal B," she says kindly. "You can get there by walkway or bus."

"Where do the buses leave from?" Adam asks, feeling his heart sink slightly in his chest.

"Right out front. The next one leaves in ten minutes."

Adam nods and rushes back out the door. This'll be fine. Lawrence's plane doesn't leave for hours. It's just that teeny tiny thought, a mean little whisper in the back of his head.

Adam hasn't been on a plane in about five years. The second he was old enough to be home alone when his family went out of town, he did. He doesn't remember how this stuff works. But he's fairly sure that once Lawrence has checked in and gone to his gate, Adam won't be able to get to him without a ticket. And Lawrence is the way he is. Of course he's checked in at this point.

Adam's just going to have to hope that the devil on his shoulder has taught him something in the past three years.

He jumps on the bus outside the gates. Tries not to look at the time too much. It doesn't make a difference if he's actually aware of how much time with him he's lost or not. It's gone now. That's what he needs to focus on. It's all over.

But just like it tends to be with Adam and Lawrence, that's no reason to give up.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

He knew. That's Lawrence's first thought when he sees Adam run through the gates, sweaty and out of breath, because he still refuses to stop smoking, the stupid little punk, when the tears spring out and he has to stand up to meet him, drop his bags and run through an ocean of stressed passengers to get to his best friend.

Lawrence knew. He didn't check in right away because he knew that Adam would come for him. That's just who he is, he's stupid as fuck and he still always manages to come through for the ones he loves, and Lawrence loves that, he loves every stupid little part of Adam.

A smile ghosts over Adam's face even though he's panting, and that's all Lawrence sees before they join in a hug that's almost violent. He's engulfed in the smell of sweat and leather and cigarettes, and realizes that he's crying, but also that he has absolutely no interest in stopping.

Adam seems a little disturbed by it, though. Maybe he imagined this as a happy reunion, even though Lawrence feels every little pain that he tried to lock up in his Pandora's box inside is now breaking free; the fear, the uncertainty, and just the fact that Adam won't be with him through this.

"Come on, man…" Adam mumbles against Lawrence's shoulder. "You didn't really think I wouldn't say goodbye, did you? I was just being stupid, you know how I… Fuck, Lawrence, just calm down…"

Lawrence nods as they break free. Tries to put a lid on it, think that Adam shouldn't have to feel like the last thing they do together is him taking care of Lawrence as usual. He's just so scared. And the sight of Adam's face isn't helping.

"Listen…" Adam says, putting a coy hand behind Lawrence's neck. "I know it's scary. It's scary as fuck. I think so, too, and I'm staying within the country borders, okay? It's just… It's what you have to do. Right?"

Lawrence nods again. Tears hot and stinging, he puts a hand over his mouth.

"How can you be so calm?" he mutters, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eye. Adam smiles, either bitterly or sadly.

"One of us should be."

Lawrence tries to take a breath. It's more of a quivering sob than anything else.

It shouldn't be possible for something to hurt this much. It's not fair that he has to be punished for having what they have.

"Plus…" Adam says, shoving his hands down his pockets, like this is an everyday situation. "I'd say that even though we… Put a lot of things aside, things that maybe… We would've been better off letting out into the open… They weren't completely wasted high school years, were they?"

Lawrence shakes his head violently, taking a step closer.

"Not one bit." Stay with me. Please stay with me.

Adam smiles that way again. Another pain breaking free.

"Adam, I… I'm sorry I… You know."

"Don't be sorry. Don't."

Adam swallows. Lawrence tries to think that it's good that he's not breaking down.

"You were… The only thing I really did right. You… You know?"

Lawrence nods.

"Yeah. Thank you."

Another nod. Adam has to close his eyes when he sees the look on Lawrence's face. Like something that he spent three years trying to build up in there is being brutally butchered.

Then Lawrence leans forward and kisses him gently, and Adam parts his lips, placing a hand on the back of his neck out of reflex. He knows it's stupid, and it's not going to make this one damn bit easier. But he prefers to think that he's taking something that is his, one last time, and then never again.

When they break apart, Lawrence keeps one hand on Adam's cheek. Their foreheads touching, sweat-slicked, ruffled bangs against neatly combed.

"I love you," Lawrence says.

Adam stands up on his toes and hugs Lawrence tight. Tries to print it permanently into his memory, the warmth, even the soul-crushing despair.

"You really should go to your gate now," he mumbles against Lawrence's ear. "Or I'll tie you to a trashcan and keep you here."

Lawrence nods and lets Adam go. He keeps his eyes on him as he beckons for the kids to get over there, squeezes his hand one last time before he walks towards the check-in. He'd look over his shoulder as he left him, but one last look won't make this easier in any way. Adam waves goodbye to them as they go to stand in the line, and Lou and Daniel would go hug him, but they see right away that it's not a good time for that. Adam's head is filled with Lawrence right now, he wouldn't even notice that they were there.

Lawrence checks in. He takes Lou and Daniel to their gate, sits there for about two hours until it's time for boarding. Just as he's about to calm down, he sees a kid with a Sex Pistols-patch on his jacket going onto the plane with him, and then he cries silently all the way to the Canadian border.

Adam thinks he manages to stay somewhat calm. At least he can walk on wobbly knees over to the chairs where Lawrence sat with Lou and Daniel earlier. He also thinks he manages to stay somewhat quiet as he hoists his knees up and buries his face in them, until a security guard taps him on the shoulder and tells him that if he doesn't stop screaming, they're going to have to escort him out of here.

Adam squeezes his lips shut. It feels very important that they don't force him to go home.

He just sits there in spasmodic trembles with his knees pressed against his chest for another hour or so, because he can't cry, because he's too afraid, and he can't go home, because he doesn't have any money, and right now, he's not sure he has a home, either.

He knows what it feels like to go home to a place where no one wants you. He liked to believe that he wouldn't have to do that anymore.

Eventually, he trusts his legs to stand up. He digs some bills out of the pockets of his jacket and starts walking towards the bus stop. He's going to go home, but only in a lack of better words, and because he wants some closure, wants to leave this airport and declare it the end, the end of whatever they had, and this stupid fucking childhood that never turned out the way it should've.