"Two months, Jason. Two freaking long months and we've yet to sleep in a real bed."
"I know, man, but -"
"We're rotting away!"
Jay, for the most part, was at a loss as to what could possibly be done. Adam was currently spending every last penny he had getting himself drunk and angering quite a few bar patrons. The owner hovered ominously nearby, watching suspiciously as Jay tried to pry Adam off a stool.
"Motel 6 wouldn't even take us as poor as we are!" Adam continued, slamming down an empty glass and staring up at his friend, swaying a bit back and forth. "Look at them, Jay," he demanded with a vague gesture meant to indicate everyone else in the bar. "They all have normal lives! Jobs! They aren't living out of a car and on a box of Tic-Tacs a day, chasing after some dream that'll never happen!"
"I know, Adam, but we're gonna have to leave before -"
"Dammit, I wanna be like them!" Adam cried angrily, a hint of misery creeping into his voice. "I wanna be able to go to a bar, get drunk, and throw up in my *own* toilet, not alongside the road somewhere in some town I've never heard of! I - I wanna pick a girl up in a club and have sex in my own bed!"
Tired of reasoning and wary of the menacing bar owner, Jay grabbed Adam's elbow and dragged him out the door. As he found out, getting to the parking lot was the easy part.
"No."
"No what?"
"I'm not going. I'm not gonna live in that car anymore. I'll just walk."
Jay let out a heavy, suffering sigh. "Adam, you're drunk. I mean, if you really wanna try to walk back to Toronto, be my guest."
Adam only broke Jay's grip and flashed angry green eyes back at him before walking out from under the protection of the awning and into the pouring, icy October rain. "All this time we've been selling ourselves and everything we own, and for what, Jason? Where has it gotten us? My birthday's tomorrow, Jay. I'll be twenty-five and celebrating it eating a pack of M&Ms in a goddamned beat up Chevy that's older than I am! What the hell kind of life is this?"
Jay followed out into the rain, shocked momentarily by how very cold it was. He was shocked more still when Adam turned to face him and showed how gaunt he was starting to look and how desperate his eyes really were. For a brief second, Jay wanted to hold him until the pain left, but he knew Adam certainly didn't need any more weight on his shoulders.
"Listen to me. If you honestly think I listened to you talk about being a wrestler my whole life, skipped our college graduation party to help you pack for a cross-country tour, left my home and girlfriend -- who dumped me last week because of it, just so you know --and everyone I knew behind to go all across the entire North American continent so that you could, months later, get drunk, breakdown, and wuss out on me, you are absolutely fucking insane! You are *not* going to bail out on me now, Adam, and I'll be damned if I just let you pack up and run home to Mommy because things are rough. No, I don't like it any more than you do, but you were the one who made me think we could handle this in the first place. You're stronger than this. We both are. I'm not gonna let you quit on me. We've come too far."
Adam blinked.
Jay took a deep breath and ran a hand through his soaking wet hair. "Good. Now get your ass in the car. It's freezing out here."
He did.
Jay slid into the driver's side, risking their already faulty car battery by leaving ti on so the heater could unthaw their hands and noses. Adam all but molded himself to the door, trying to gather what little heat he could from his soaked leather jacket.
"I can't take this shit much more," he moaned through chattering teeth. Anger subsiding, Jay felt a sharp sympathy pang and reached over to pull the hair from his friend's face, wet and plastered to the skin, and then ran comforting circles along his back.
"Someday it'll all be worth it, Adam, I promise. I don't know when, but trust me."
It was hard for him to be the supportive one, knowing Adam had up to that point been the proverbial glue that held them together. He should have known the pressure would eventually break him, but Jay had always put Adam on a pedestal, seeing him as someone who saw good in everything and always stayed determined. To see him come so far only to now fall apart and sobbing quietly with his arms wrapped around himself was something like a slap in the face. It was all Jay could do not to break down crying too, though for reasons Adam would likely and hopefully never know.
Instead, Jay crawled a little closer and pulled Adam against him, letting him turn and bury his head on his shoulder. Jay tried to ignore how bony the shoulders were that trembled violently in his arms, or the too-sharp bone of the chin that jutted against his collar bone. That would only force the tears to come, and for Adam's sake, he had to be the strong one this time. Rather, he poked his nose into the mass of wet hair at his shoulder and whispered soft, consoling words.
Only when Adam's trembling eased and he fell asleep did Jay finally allow his own tears to fall.
******
The first thing Jay was aware of upon waking was the sound of light rain tapping against the car. The second thing was the foreign sensation of warmth coming from someone nearby.
He looked down, surprised to see Adam resting against him, arms locked securely around his waist as if afraid Jay would leave him while he slept. His long legs were tucked underneath him in a manner that made Jay hurt to look at. Long, just slightly damp blond hair tumbled over Jay's shoulder, tempting him to reach out and run his fingers through it. What got to him most, however, was the way Adam's head was tilted up, lips barely parted and so close to his Jay's own. He could sneak a kiss right now and Adam would never be the wiser . . .
Jay pushed the thought to the back of his mind. If he'd learned nothing else by rooming with him in college, it was that Adam was almost as straight as the Pope himself. It was for that reason Jay never mentioned his oft-times swinging tendencies or how he'd been well aware of them for the past few years.
Looking down at his best friend and hopeless crush, Jay came to the only logical conclusion that could be reached: God was a woman and She was out to make him pay for all the times he'd fallen asleep in church as a child.
He cursed himself inwardly for the utterly wrong thoughts that kept coming up unbidden in his mind. There were other guys in the world, surely - so why did he have to choose this one - this so very *straight* one - to develop such an unhealthy obsession with? Adam was his friend and would never be anything more. Maybe if he told himself that long enough and forcefully enough, he'd believe it.
There were still times, though, when he wondered if maybe the feelings were reciprocal. Of course, he could very well attribute that to his over-active imagination reading too much into a look, word, or touch. Even if by some act of God, Satan, or the IRS Adam would ever go after a guy, he certainly wouldn't go for such a scrawny runt of a man.
But damn it all, did he ever look like an angel.
Jay sighed quietly, taking advantage of the moment to admire Adam in all his angelic innocense. A few strays of golden hair fell into his face, a striking effect once coupled with the enviously long eyelashes that hovered just above high, pronounced cheekbones. Full lips were turned up into a perfectly natural pout as if taunting Jay with the promise of a kiss he would never taste.
He could already see his epitaph: "here lies Jason Reso, the world's own greatest masochist." As the thought was too much for even him to handle, he carefully disentangled Adam's arms from his body and stepped outside the car into the early morning rain. He fumbled through the duffel bags in the back seat, making sure not to wake his friend in the process. After a great deal of struggling, he uncovered his binoculars, ran a loving hand across them, and closed the door. They were the last things he'd brought with him and hadn't sold besides his clothes. Casting another glance to Adam, he tugged his jacket up over his head to guard against the rain and started walking.
******
There were three things in life Adam Copeland detested with every ounce of his being: rain, hangovers, and funeral homes. He could see through the spaces between the fingers cradling his throbbing head that it was raining. All he needed was to be dragged to a viewing and he could officially declare it a crappy day.
He let out a low groan, wishing the hammering in his head would ease enough to let him form a coherent thought. Unfortunately, all he could manage to register in his mind was the scent of Jay's cologne wafting under his nose. As nice a thought as it was, he didn't need that kind of shock to his system when his stomach already felt like it was crawling up his throat.
Looking down, he noticed Jay's light jacket tucked in around him. It was sweet almost to the point of being nauseating. Speaking of him . . . Adam looked around the car, a bit surprised to find that Jay was no where in sight. As if on cue, the driver's side door opened and Jay dove inside. As a matter of instinct, Adam whirled around quickly enough to send his vision spinning.
"You scared the hell outta me, you bastard!" Once his breathing evened, he had to actively stifle the grin creeping across his face when he caught a good glimpse of his friend. Jay, for all intents and purposes, looked very much like a wet, shaggy sheep dog. His face was nearly obscured by the hair clinging to it. Water rolled from the ends down over his jacket and vanished.
"Are you *trying* to catch pneumonia?" Adam asked with more anger than he really felt. Before Jay could reply, Adam reached over and pulled the soggy hair away, showing a tiny smile when he noticed a pair of wide hazel eyes staring back at him. "There you are. Should I call you Cousin It?"
Jay choked down the feelings aroused when Adam tucked his hair behind his ear. There was nothing there. At all. Stop fantasizing.
"Uh . . . Jay? Still there?"
"Huh? Oh . . . yeah." Jay snapped out of his trance with no small amount of embarrassment, more than a little disappointed to find that Adam's hand was no longer against his cheek. "Sorry."
If Adam had noticed the awkward pause, he chose not to comment on it. Instead, he opted to move to the next obvious question. "Isn't it a little cold and early to be out jogging?"
Jay forced a smile and a shrug. "Yeah, but I wasn't jogging. I got your birthday present."
Adam's brow narrowed suspiciously, remembering the last time Jay had gotten him a present without him knowing. It had been the first indication that there was something seriously wrong in Jay's mind, since a middle-aged man in a pink monkey suit showed up at their high school singing "Sixteen Candles." Adam had never really forgiven him for that yet; he was still trying to find proper retribution. "Do I even wanna know?"
"You'll find out later. Trust me."
"Prob'ly a meeting with a hitman or something."
Jay arched his eyebrows. "You don't have much faith in me, do you?"
"Sure I do!" Adam shot back, hand over heart. "If I had any more faith, you'd have to start your own religion just so I could worship you."
Jay grimaced; that was definitely not the image he needed at that moment. "Yeah, you're right. It's a hitman."