"Reso! Heads up!"
Too late. Jay yelped as he just barely managed to protect his face from a metal chair swinging toward him. Dazed and with aching hands, he fell to the mat and watched the gym rafters overhead spin around while his leg was lifted and he was pinned.
He groaned as he rolled slowly out of the ring to fall onto the thin mat at the side, shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs, and then began the slow walk to the back, though he kept veering to the right for some reason he couldn't place. Vision swimming, he made it in one piece to the locker room, where he promptly collapsed onto a bench and let his head sink down into his hands.
"Hey," Erin announced his presence. "Where were you at out there?"
Jay groaned and refused to answer.
"C'mon, man, it's not like you to get so distracted. What's up? You okay?"
"Fine," Jay snapped, massaging his temples in hopes of warding off the headache he could already feel forming. "Nothing's 'up'. I was just daydreaming, I guess."
Erin raised a skeptical eyebrow and began unlacing his boots. "Uh huh. Try another one."
"Look, I've just got a lot on my mind right now, okay? I just let it get to me. I'm sorry and I promise it won't happen again. Satisfied now?"
"Not really," Erin admitted with a grin, "but I'll say yes just to make you happy."
Jay groaned and got to his feet, grabbing onto an open locker to keep from toppling backwards when his vision suddenly blurred and went dim. Okay, so maybe taking very nearly the full brunt of a chair directly to the face hadn't been his smartest move ever. He could deal with the teasing he would no doubt suffer at the hands of his friends and coworkers. What worried him more was the source of his intense stress.
It had been almost a week since he'd walked out of the hospital and away from Adam's warped sense of loyalty. So far he had neither heard nor seen even the slightest hint that Adam was still alive at all. Being the proud person he was, Jay couldn't quite bring himself to go crawling back and begging for forgiveness and understanding -- especially when he knew he was right. Even if that meant lonely nights spent holding the telephone, kept company only by Ash and the cable he stole from a neighbor. Every time he found himself feeling guilty over not calling Adam, he comforted himself with the knowledge that he was right and Adam was wrong.
Naturally, that never helped matters any.
Completely unbeknownst to him, Adam sat in his room on the other side of town, ready to solve the problems for both of them. Having nothing better to do, he was seated at the end of his bed with a book he wasn't really reading open in his lap. All he'd been able to gather was it had wizards and dragons and knights as focus points, but none of it really mattered when his thoughts kept going back to Jay. At some point that evening he'd finally decided to swallow his pride and call Jay to explain himself, but so far he'd kept getting the answering machine.
Nevertheless, he pressed the redial button again and waited. As he expected, a tiny click sounded after the fourth ring, followed by the same recording he'd heard six times already.
"Hi, this is Jason. Either I'm not home or I am and I'm ignoring you. If --"
Not waiting for the message to finish, Adam pressed the talk button and tossed the phone back onto the bed with a frustrated sigh. Jay obviously wasn't going to make this any easier. He considered going back to his book and waiting for Jay to break down and call him, but quickly brushed the thought away. Besides the fact Jay was infinitely more stubborn, he was also right in being mad.
Adam closed the book, then let his gaze come to fall on his left arm. The heavy bandages had finally been removed yesterday, only to give way to series of stitches winding from the base of his wrist to just below his elbow. The doctor had made no attempt to sugar-coat the knowledge that a long scar would be left as a gruesome reminder of Adam's desperation to get away from his father.
Shivering at the thought, Adam picked up the phone and dialed.
"Hi, this is Jason. Either I'm not home or I am and I'm ignoring you. If this is Erin, I know there's a show. If this is Karen, burn my phone number. If it's Mom, I'm not moving home yet. If it's anyone else and you're still here, leave a message and a number at the beep. If you're not one of those people I'm ignoring, I'll get back to you when I can."
Adam cleared his throat, waited for the tone, and then started. "Uh. . .hi, Jay, it's me. Look, I'm sorry about what went on at the hospital. I never meant to upset you, but I have my reasons. I just don't wanna try to explain them to a machine. Come on, Jay, pick up if you're there. Please?" Adam paused, holding his breath hopefully. "Okay. I guess you're not going to. Don't be mad, alright?" The door opened suddenly, making Adam's eyes widen and voice quicken. "Shit. I gotta go. Just, uh, gimme a call when you --"
The tape cut him off, making him turn the phone off and fondle the antenna nervously.
David closed the door behind him. "Who was that?"
"Someone, not that it's any of your business."
"Let me guess -- your fag boyfriend?"
Adam scowled. "Get out of my room."
Downstairs in the kitchen, Sophie dropped a plate and let it shatter when the pained screams began.
"Mein Gott," she muttered in the mother language she hadn't really used since she was a child in Munich. Tears started to blur her vision as the screams grew louder and more helpless. "Er ist ein Ungeheuers," she continued, picking the broken pieces of porcelain off the tiled floor and throwing them into the trash can. "Ich sollte töte ihn selbst!"
"Sophie, you know I can't understand a word you're saying when you do that," Mike pointed out from his seat at the table. Sophie, in response, slammed her hands down on the counter and bowed her head.
"You don't even have to understand what I'm saying," she replied, teeth clenched tightly together. She jumped when another scream sounded, then pulled the phone off its wall mount.
"What're you doing?"
"Leave me alone, Mike. I watched that . . . that monster destroy Kim, now I'll be damned if I just keep sitting by and watch him do the same to Adam."
Mike lifted his eyebrows. "Put the phone down, Sophie."
"No."
"If you do anything rash, you know he'll get back at us. Please, Sophie, I've got a family. I don't want to put them in jeopardy."
Sophie's brow narrowed in determination, even despite the tears welling in her eyes. "Maybe you do, but Adam's the only family that I have. I've watched that poor boy suffer for years. I-I can't take it anymore." She paused to swipe the back of her hand across her eyes. "Listen, Mike. This isn't one of their typical fights. David's going to kill him this time if we don't do something."
Mike ran an indecisive hand across his balding head, then dropped it to rest against his mouth. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I don't, but it's the only thing I know to do."
An unsettling silence filled the house as soon as the words left her mouth, broken only by the sound of footsteps falling heavily overhead, gradually coming closer and thudding along the staircase. Sophie looked cautiously out the door leading from the kitchen to the main room, eyes widening when she saw David walking past without so much as a glance at her, shirt speckled and smeared with thin traces of blood. When she turned, she noticed an expression of fear and anger on Mike's face that was indentical to her own; she barely gave the front door time to close before she darted upstairs and into Adam's bedroom.
What she found there threatened to break her heart.
Adam was stretched across his bed, face buried in a pillow, fresh wounds opened in his back. She couldn't quite decide if his trembling shoulders meant he was crying or just shaking, but she didn't really want to know either way.
"Oh, baby," she whispered, tears finally spilling over and rolling unchecked down her cheeks. She walked slowly to the bed and lowered herself onto the edge of it, pulling the long hair out of Adam's face so that she could see him. Though not crying, he certainly didn't seem too far from it, judging from the slightly glazed look in his eyes; that just made Sophie's own tears fall harder. "Adam, honey, I'm so sorry..."
"Why does he hate me?" he asked meekly in a voice that cracked halfway through the question. "And why don't I fight back?"
Sophie shook her head, having no real answer to offer. "I don't know, hon. You definitely have every reason to." She frowned, tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear to keep it from falling back down into his face. "God knows no one would blame you for killing the bastard."
Adam flinched moments before closing his eyes. "He's still my father."
"By blood, and that's where the connection ends. Hold on a minute, sweetheart. I'll be right back."
She rose to her feet and left the room without another word, leaving Adam there to study the dotted pattern on his pillowcase and try to block out the searing pain in his back. It was such a common way to spend his nights, pretending the cuts weren't there and that he would wake up feeling better, that they didn't even seem to hurt as much now as he knew they should have. As with every other time, it was trying to deal with *why* they had been put there that bothered him more.
He jumped involuntarily when he felt a cold, wet rag pressing against his skin, then relaxed when he heard Sophie whispering soft, comforting words in German. He tried to keep himself occupied by seeing if he could actually understand what she was saying, then decided to just let her play mother hen and take advantage of it.
"I'm going to get you out of here, Adam," she promised once she switched back to English, though a hint of an accent still lingered in her words. She unwrapped a large bandage and began the delicate task of applying it without causing more damage than she had to. "God willing, I will."
"Then you'll have to kill me."
"Don't talk like that," she snapped angrily, wincing as the bandage caught on an exposed wound and made Adam yelp. "Sorry."
"S'okay."
"Mike's on the phone with Jason now," she began again, "and I think we've found your ticket out." Adam raised a skeptical eyebrow, to which Sophie gave a small, weak smile. "He said he's starting a cross-country tour with his wrestling . . . thing, whatever you call it in a couple days. It's my intentions to see you go with him."
Adam groaned in frustration and closed his eyes again. "It won't matter anyway. He'll find me."
"He's a powerful man, honey, but he's not God. He won't be able to find you if you're clear across the country." She shrugged, dropping the rag onto the corner of the bed and resting her hand on the portion of the small of Adam's back that had somehow gone untouched. "Besides. I have plans to keep him busy."
"Why are you doing this?"
Sophie thought the innocent question over for a long moment, then sighed quietly. "Because I promised your mother I'd watch out for you and make sure you got away from David, from this life. And so far, I've done a pretty miserable job at it. I can't . . . I can't just let him break you down the same way he did to her, baby, I can't." She tugged his shirt back down, careful to keep it from scraping against the bandages. "I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but your mother started a savings fund for you when you were still a baby. Mike and I have been making deposits in it every month since . . . she passed away, and we started saving a little a couple years ago so that we could get you something nice for your eighteenth birthday. Something that wasn't just meant to show off how rich your family is," she amended with more than a little bitterness in her voice. "Between the savings fund and the money we've saved, that should be more than enough to keep you and Jay until you get on your feet."
"He'll kill you for this," Adam pointed out softly, opening his eyes again to find Sophie's deep brown ones focused on his. She gave a warm, almost motherly smile in return and tousled his hair affectionately.
"No, hon, he won't. Trust me. I'll take care of myself."
Footsteps heralded Mike's arrival seconds before he poked his head into the room. He gave a nod, and Sophie sighed thankfully in response.
"What?" Adam asked curiously, craning his neck to see what was going on behind his back and crying out at the way the wounds twisted against his bandages. Sophie made a scolding sound and gently but forcefully pushed him back down.
"Nothing, dear. Just stay still before you hurt yourself."
"Don't patronize me."
"I'll patronize you if I damn well feel like it, now stay there and don't move," Sophie ordered, hands on hips. Adam grumbled something unintelligible but undoubtedly rude under his breath, but he didn't dare challenge an overprotective nanny when she was in full gear. Instead, he contented himself with watching her and Mike both hustle around his room, packing various things away in bags, suitcases, his backpack, whatever they could find that could be packed and carried. He watched the notebook he jotted down lyrics in go into his bookbag; two pairs of jeans were crammed into an already full suitcase before it was zipped; the leather-bound carrier he always kept his favorite CDs in was zipped and placed by the door, along with the remaining bags that were packed as full as they could be.
The too-familiar sound of a car door slamming outside jarred him, making him jump up suddenly before Sophie could stop him. He cursed as a result when a bandage scratched against a wound and pulled the skin.
"I told you to stay still," Sophie chided, pushing him back down onto the bed. "Calm down, honey. It's just Jason."
Adam's face paled at the remark. "What's he doing here? Sophie, no! I don't want him seeing me like this! Like . . . like some kind of fucking pussy who can't even take care of himself."
"I'm sorry, but I'm putting your well being above your ego."
She fell quiet, then the bustling in the room stopped; Adam turned to see it was only because both she and Mike had left. He groaned when he heard voices downstairs and then someone taking to the stairs and making a beeline for his bedroom. Seeing Jay standing there just inside the open door, face marred with evidence of his pity and something unable to be indentified was too much. Adam rolled over onto his side and refused to turn around.
"Hey," Jay started quietly, stepping further into the room and closing the door gently behind him. "Heard a rumor you were breaking out and they needed someone to drive the getaway vehicle."
"Go 'way."
"Mmm, no. Sorry." He walked around to the other side of the bed so that Adam was forced to look at him. "Got your message. You said you didn't wanna give your reasons to a machine, so here I am."
"That's not why you're here, you liar."
Jay gave his patented crooked grin while inviting himself onto the bed, stretching out and holding himself up on his elbow to look at Adam. "Alright, so I've got other reasons, too. You can't blame me for trying, though."
"Leave."
The demand was so sudden and unexpected it made Jay's grin slip from his face. "Uh . . ."
"Leave," Adam repeated, voice hitching a bit. He looked up to meet Jay's eyes, his own pleading with an untold fear. "Jay, please. I...I never meant to drag you into any of this. It was just a crush. I never meant . . ."
"...Yeah?"
Adam lowered his eyes to the mattress, letting his gaze flicker across the sheets. "Nothing."
Jay reached out with his index finger and tilted Adam's chin up so that they were looking at one another again. "Never meant to what, Adam?"
"T-to fall in love with you. I never meant for that to happen. And I never meant to pull you into my so-called fucked up mockery of a life."
"But you did, and it's too late to pull back now," Jay pointed out. "Cheesy as it sounds, we're in this together now and I'm not just gonna let you sit around and wait for him to finish you off."
"So you want him to finish us off at the same time?"
Jay shrugged. "Whatever. I learned how to do a really cool move off the top rope a few days ago. I can handle him." He paused and gave his crooked grin again. "Seriously, though, someone once told me that nothing's worth loving if you aren't willing to make sacrifices for it. Real smart guy who said that, so I'll take his word for it. Cute, too. Too bad I can't remember who it was. Maybe it was Buddha."
Adam rolled his eyes but didn't fight when Jay laughed softly and pulled him into his arms, going to great lengths to keep from brushing against the still-sore wounds in his back. Now with his head on Jay's shoulder, lulled almost to the point of unconsciousness by the steady rise and fall of the other boy's chest, he knew he was fighting a losing battle.
Then again, he'd never been one to easily admit defeat.
"He'll find us. You know that."
"Not if we don't let him."
"And what if I have to spend the rest of my life running?"
Jay reached down, threading his fingers lightly through Adam's thick hair and around to trace the outline of his jaw. "Then I'll run with you. We'll be like Thelma and Louise. Cheech and Chong. Sonny and Cher."
"Beavis and Butthead."
"See? You're already getting the idea." Jay chuckled to himself at some private joke. "Huh huh. Hey, Beavis? Whaddya think would happen if I lit this thing?" When Adam didn't answer, Jay prodded him lightly with a finger to his temple. "Hey, if we're gonna do this, you're gonna have to do your part. This is where you go, 'heh heh, fire, fire! Do it! Heh.' Or did you ever see that episode?"
"You're a moron."
"But that's why you love me, right?" Adam refused to answer, leaving Jay to shrug carelessly. "We're starting a tour Friday. Our first big one, really. Gonna be really neat, since I've never been out of Ontario. Well, I was in Ottowa once to see my grandma, but that doesn't count," Jay rambled, waving it away with his hand. "We're going all the way out to the northwest territories. And hey, maybe some of that French you've been trying to learn'll come in handy, 'cause I think we're doing a couple shows in Quebec, too. Only thing I know how to say in French is . . . hell, I don't even know what it means. I think it's got something to do with Germans taking over Paris and I'm pretty sure there's a cheese-eating frog reference in there somewhere."
"Okay, so you're a prejudiced moron."
"All the more reason to love me. But anyway, once we get that tour wrapped up, we're gonna come back to Toronto for a couple weeks, then we're going into the states for a little while. It'll be nice to see what WWF TV looks like when it hasn't been edited all to hell."
"Is there a reason you're telling me all this?"
"You really wanna know?" Adam nodded wordlessly; Jay smirked. "Because your housekeepers are putting your stuff in the cab and wanted me to keep you distracted."
"You evil little shit."
Jay grinned innocently and leaned forward to plant a quick kiss on the tip of Adam's nose. "Your life would be boring without me."
"Adam?" An almost timid voice sounded from outside the door seconds before it came open. Sophie walked in carrying a small gray box with a key taped to the top of it. "The cab's waiting for you two."
After ten minutes of listening to Sophie's explicit directions to call whenever he needed anything and making frequent promises to keep in touch even just to say hi, Adam and Jay both found themselves sitting in the backseat of the taxi, Jay arguing with the driver about the quickest way to get back to his apartment. Adam decided not to comment that the driver probably knew his way around Toronto much better and opted instead to cast one last, lingering glance to the house quickly pulling out of his line of vision. It had almost completely disappeared when a hand on his shoulder startled him back to awareness. When he turned back around, he saw Jay watching him worriedly.
"You okay?"
To both his and Jay's surprise, Adam nodded, grinned, and slid across the seat a little closer so that he could slip his hand into Jay's. "Yeah. Never better."
The car pulled out onto the main road and Adam never looked back.
Too late. Jay yelped as he just barely managed to protect his face from a metal chair swinging toward him. Dazed and with aching hands, he fell to the mat and watched the gym rafters overhead spin around while his leg was lifted and he was pinned.
He groaned as he rolled slowly out of the ring to fall onto the thin mat at the side, shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs, and then began the slow walk to the back, though he kept veering to the right for some reason he couldn't place. Vision swimming, he made it in one piece to the locker room, where he promptly collapsed onto a bench and let his head sink down into his hands.
"Hey," Erin announced his presence. "Where were you at out there?"
Jay groaned and refused to answer.
"C'mon, man, it's not like you to get so distracted. What's up? You okay?"
"Fine," Jay snapped, massaging his temples in hopes of warding off the headache he could already feel forming. "Nothing's 'up'. I was just daydreaming, I guess."
Erin raised a skeptical eyebrow and began unlacing his boots. "Uh huh. Try another one."
"Look, I've just got a lot on my mind right now, okay? I just let it get to me. I'm sorry and I promise it won't happen again. Satisfied now?"
"Not really," Erin admitted with a grin, "but I'll say yes just to make you happy."
Jay groaned and got to his feet, grabbing onto an open locker to keep from toppling backwards when his vision suddenly blurred and went dim. Okay, so maybe taking very nearly the full brunt of a chair directly to the face hadn't been his smartest move ever. He could deal with the teasing he would no doubt suffer at the hands of his friends and coworkers. What worried him more was the source of his intense stress.
It had been almost a week since he'd walked out of the hospital and away from Adam's warped sense of loyalty. So far he had neither heard nor seen even the slightest hint that Adam was still alive at all. Being the proud person he was, Jay couldn't quite bring himself to go crawling back and begging for forgiveness and understanding -- especially when he knew he was right. Even if that meant lonely nights spent holding the telephone, kept company only by Ash and the cable he stole from a neighbor. Every time he found himself feeling guilty over not calling Adam, he comforted himself with the knowledge that he was right and Adam was wrong.
Naturally, that never helped matters any.
Completely unbeknownst to him, Adam sat in his room on the other side of town, ready to solve the problems for both of them. Having nothing better to do, he was seated at the end of his bed with a book he wasn't really reading open in his lap. All he'd been able to gather was it had wizards and dragons and knights as focus points, but none of it really mattered when his thoughts kept going back to Jay. At some point that evening he'd finally decided to swallow his pride and call Jay to explain himself, but so far he'd kept getting the answering machine.
Nevertheless, he pressed the redial button again and waited. As he expected, a tiny click sounded after the fourth ring, followed by the same recording he'd heard six times already.
"Hi, this is Jason. Either I'm not home or I am and I'm ignoring you. If --"
Not waiting for the message to finish, Adam pressed the talk button and tossed the phone back onto the bed with a frustrated sigh. Jay obviously wasn't going to make this any easier. He considered going back to his book and waiting for Jay to break down and call him, but quickly brushed the thought away. Besides the fact Jay was infinitely more stubborn, he was also right in being mad.
Adam closed the book, then let his gaze come to fall on his left arm. The heavy bandages had finally been removed yesterday, only to give way to series of stitches winding from the base of his wrist to just below his elbow. The doctor had made no attempt to sugar-coat the knowledge that a long scar would be left as a gruesome reminder of Adam's desperation to get away from his father.
Shivering at the thought, Adam picked up the phone and dialed.
"Hi, this is Jason. Either I'm not home or I am and I'm ignoring you. If this is Erin, I know there's a show. If this is Karen, burn my phone number. If it's Mom, I'm not moving home yet. If it's anyone else and you're still here, leave a message and a number at the beep. If you're not one of those people I'm ignoring, I'll get back to you when I can."
Adam cleared his throat, waited for the tone, and then started. "Uh. . .hi, Jay, it's me. Look, I'm sorry about what went on at the hospital. I never meant to upset you, but I have my reasons. I just don't wanna try to explain them to a machine. Come on, Jay, pick up if you're there. Please?" Adam paused, holding his breath hopefully. "Okay. I guess you're not going to. Don't be mad, alright?" The door opened suddenly, making Adam's eyes widen and voice quicken. "Shit. I gotta go. Just, uh, gimme a call when you --"
The tape cut him off, making him turn the phone off and fondle the antenna nervously.
David closed the door behind him. "Who was that?"
"Someone, not that it's any of your business."
"Let me guess -- your fag boyfriend?"
Adam scowled. "Get out of my room."
Downstairs in the kitchen, Sophie dropped a plate and let it shatter when the pained screams began.
"Mein Gott," she muttered in the mother language she hadn't really used since she was a child in Munich. Tears started to blur her vision as the screams grew louder and more helpless. "Er ist ein Ungeheuers," she continued, picking the broken pieces of porcelain off the tiled floor and throwing them into the trash can. "Ich sollte töte ihn selbst!"
"Sophie, you know I can't understand a word you're saying when you do that," Mike pointed out from his seat at the table. Sophie, in response, slammed her hands down on the counter and bowed her head.
"You don't even have to understand what I'm saying," she replied, teeth clenched tightly together. She jumped when another scream sounded, then pulled the phone off its wall mount.
"What're you doing?"
"Leave me alone, Mike. I watched that . . . that monster destroy Kim, now I'll be damned if I just keep sitting by and watch him do the same to Adam."
Mike lifted his eyebrows. "Put the phone down, Sophie."
"No."
"If you do anything rash, you know he'll get back at us. Please, Sophie, I've got a family. I don't want to put them in jeopardy."
Sophie's brow narrowed in determination, even despite the tears welling in her eyes. "Maybe you do, but Adam's the only family that I have. I've watched that poor boy suffer for years. I-I can't take it anymore." She paused to swipe the back of her hand across her eyes. "Listen, Mike. This isn't one of their typical fights. David's going to kill him this time if we don't do something."
Mike ran an indecisive hand across his balding head, then dropped it to rest against his mouth. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I don't, but it's the only thing I know to do."
An unsettling silence filled the house as soon as the words left her mouth, broken only by the sound of footsteps falling heavily overhead, gradually coming closer and thudding along the staircase. Sophie looked cautiously out the door leading from the kitchen to the main room, eyes widening when she saw David walking past without so much as a glance at her, shirt speckled and smeared with thin traces of blood. When she turned, she noticed an expression of fear and anger on Mike's face that was indentical to her own; she barely gave the front door time to close before she darted upstairs and into Adam's bedroom.
What she found there threatened to break her heart.
Adam was stretched across his bed, face buried in a pillow, fresh wounds opened in his back. She couldn't quite decide if his trembling shoulders meant he was crying or just shaking, but she didn't really want to know either way.
"Oh, baby," she whispered, tears finally spilling over and rolling unchecked down her cheeks. She walked slowly to the bed and lowered herself onto the edge of it, pulling the long hair out of Adam's face so that she could see him. Though not crying, he certainly didn't seem too far from it, judging from the slightly glazed look in his eyes; that just made Sophie's own tears fall harder. "Adam, honey, I'm so sorry..."
"Why does he hate me?" he asked meekly in a voice that cracked halfway through the question. "And why don't I fight back?"
Sophie shook her head, having no real answer to offer. "I don't know, hon. You definitely have every reason to." She frowned, tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear to keep it from falling back down into his face. "God knows no one would blame you for killing the bastard."
Adam flinched moments before closing his eyes. "He's still my father."
"By blood, and that's where the connection ends. Hold on a minute, sweetheart. I'll be right back."
She rose to her feet and left the room without another word, leaving Adam there to study the dotted pattern on his pillowcase and try to block out the searing pain in his back. It was such a common way to spend his nights, pretending the cuts weren't there and that he would wake up feeling better, that they didn't even seem to hurt as much now as he knew they should have. As with every other time, it was trying to deal with *why* they had been put there that bothered him more.
He jumped involuntarily when he felt a cold, wet rag pressing against his skin, then relaxed when he heard Sophie whispering soft, comforting words in German. He tried to keep himself occupied by seeing if he could actually understand what she was saying, then decided to just let her play mother hen and take advantage of it.
"I'm going to get you out of here, Adam," she promised once she switched back to English, though a hint of an accent still lingered in her words. She unwrapped a large bandage and began the delicate task of applying it without causing more damage than she had to. "God willing, I will."
"Then you'll have to kill me."
"Don't talk like that," she snapped angrily, wincing as the bandage caught on an exposed wound and made Adam yelp. "Sorry."
"S'okay."
"Mike's on the phone with Jason now," she began again, "and I think we've found your ticket out." Adam raised a skeptical eyebrow, to which Sophie gave a small, weak smile. "He said he's starting a cross-country tour with his wrestling . . . thing, whatever you call it in a couple days. It's my intentions to see you go with him."
Adam groaned in frustration and closed his eyes again. "It won't matter anyway. He'll find me."
"He's a powerful man, honey, but he's not God. He won't be able to find you if you're clear across the country." She shrugged, dropping the rag onto the corner of the bed and resting her hand on the portion of the small of Adam's back that had somehow gone untouched. "Besides. I have plans to keep him busy."
"Why are you doing this?"
Sophie thought the innocent question over for a long moment, then sighed quietly. "Because I promised your mother I'd watch out for you and make sure you got away from David, from this life. And so far, I've done a pretty miserable job at it. I can't . . . I can't just let him break you down the same way he did to her, baby, I can't." She tugged his shirt back down, careful to keep it from scraping against the bandages. "I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but your mother started a savings fund for you when you were still a baby. Mike and I have been making deposits in it every month since . . . she passed away, and we started saving a little a couple years ago so that we could get you something nice for your eighteenth birthday. Something that wasn't just meant to show off how rich your family is," she amended with more than a little bitterness in her voice. "Between the savings fund and the money we've saved, that should be more than enough to keep you and Jay until you get on your feet."
"He'll kill you for this," Adam pointed out softly, opening his eyes again to find Sophie's deep brown ones focused on his. She gave a warm, almost motherly smile in return and tousled his hair affectionately.
"No, hon, he won't. Trust me. I'll take care of myself."
Footsteps heralded Mike's arrival seconds before he poked his head into the room. He gave a nod, and Sophie sighed thankfully in response.
"What?" Adam asked curiously, craning his neck to see what was going on behind his back and crying out at the way the wounds twisted against his bandages. Sophie made a scolding sound and gently but forcefully pushed him back down.
"Nothing, dear. Just stay still before you hurt yourself."
"Don't patronize me."
"I'll patronize you if I damn well feel like it, now stay there and don't move," Sophie ordered, hands on hips. Adam grumbled something unintelligible but undoubtedly rude under his breath, but he didn't dare challenge an overprotective nanny when she was in full gear. Instead, he contented himself with watching her and Mike both hustle around his room, packing various things away in bags, suitcases, his backpack, whatever they could find that could be packed and carried. He watched the notebook he jotted down lyrics in go into his bookbag; two pairs of jeans were crammed into an already full suitcase before it was zipped; the leather-bound carrier he always kept his favorite CDs in was zipped and placed by the door, along with the remaining bags that were packed as full as they could be.
The too-familiar sound of a car door slamming outside jarred him, making him jump up suddenly before Sophie could stop him. He cursed as a result when a bandage scratched against a wound and pulled the skin.
"I told you to stay still," Sophie chided, pushing him back down onto the bed. "Calm down, honey. It's just Jason."
Adam's face paled at the remark. "What's he doing here? Sophie, no! I don't want him seeing me like this! Like . . . like some kind of fucking pussy who can't even take care of himself."
"I'm sorry, but I'm putting your well being above your ego."
She fell quiet, then the bustling in the room stopped; Adam turned to see it was only because both she and Mike had left. He groaned when he heard voices downstairs and then someone taking to the stairs and making a beeline for his bedroom. Seeing Jay standing there just inside the open door, face marred with evidence of his pity and something unable to be indentified was too much. Adam rolled over onto his side and refused to turn around.
"Hey," Jay started quietly, stepping further into the room and closing the door gently behind him. "Heard a rumor you were breaking out and they needed someone to drive the getaway vehicle."
"Go 'way."
"Mmm, no. Sorry." He walked around to the other side of the bed so that Adam was forced to look at him. "Got your message. You said you didn't wanna give your reasons to a machine, so here I am."
"That's not why you're here, you liar."
Jay gave his patented crooked grin while inviting himself onto the bed, stretching out and holding himself up on his elbow to look at Adam. "Alright, so I've got other reasons, too. You can't blame me for trying, though."
"Leave."
The demand was so sudden and unexpected it made Jay's grin slip from his face. "Uh . . ."
"Leave," Adam repeated, voice hitching a bit. He looked up to meet Jay's eyes, his own pleading with an untold fear. "Jay, please. I...I never meant to drag you into any of this. It was just a crush. I never meant . . ."
"...Yeah?"
Adam lowered his eyes to the mattress, letting his gaze flicker across the sheets. "Nothing."
Jay reached out with his index finger and tilted Adam's chin up so that they were looking at one another again. "Never meant to what, Adam?"
"T-to fall in love with you. I never meant for that to happen. And I never meant to pull you into my so-called fucked up mockery of a life."
"But you did, and it's too late to pull back now," Jay pointed out. "Cheesy as it sounds, we're in this together now and I'm not just gonna let you sit around and wait for him to finish you off."
"So you want him to finish us off at the same time?"
Jay shrugged. "Whatever. I learned how to do a really cool move off the top rope a few days ago. I can handle him." He paused and gave his crooked grin again. "Seriously, though, someone once told me that nothing's worth loving if you aren't willing to make sacrifices for it. Real smart guy who said that, so I'll take his word for it. Cute, too. Too bad I can't remember who it was. Maybe it was Buddha."
Adam rolled his eyes but didn't fight when Jay laughed softly and pulled him into his arms, going to great lengths to keep from brushing against the still-sore wounds in his back. Now with his head on Jay's shoulder, lulled almost to the point of unconsciousness by the steady rise and fall of the other boy's chest, he knew he was fighting a losing battle.
Then again, he'd never been one to easily admit defeat.
"He'll find us. You know that."
"Not if we don't let him."
"And what if I have to spend the rest of my life running?"
Jay reached down, threading his fingers lightly through Adam's thick hair and around to trace the outline of his jaw. "Then I'll run with you. We'll be like Thelma and Louise. Cheech and Chong. Sonny and Cher."
"Beavis and Butthead."
"See? You're already getting the idea." Jay chuckled to himself at some private joke. "Huh huh. Hey, Beavis? Whaddya think would happen if I lit this thing?" When Adam didn't answer, Jay prodded him lightly with a finger to his temple. "Hey, if we're gonna do this, you're gonna have to do your part. This is where you go, 'heh heh, fire, fire! Do it! Heh.' Or did you ever see that episode?"
"You're a moron."
"But that's why you love me, right?" Adam refused to answer, leaving Jay to shrug carelessly. "We're starting a tour Friday. Our first big one, really. Gonna be really neat, since I've never been out of Ontario. Well, I was in Ottowa once to see my grandma, but that doesn't count," Jay rambled, waving it away with his hand. "We're going all the way out to the northwest territories. And hey, maybe some of that French you've been trying to learn'll come in handy, 'cause I think we're doing a couple shows in Quebec, too. Only thing I know how to say in French is . . . hell, I don't even know what it means. I think it's got something to do with Germans taking over Paris and I'm pretty sure there's a cheese-eating frog reference in there somewhere."
"Okay, so you're a prejudiced moron."
"All the more reason to love me. But anyway, once we get that tour wrapped up, we're gonna come back to Toronto for a couple weeks, then we're going into the states for a little while. It'll be nice to see what WWF TV looks like when it hasn't been edited all to hell."
"Is there a reason you're telling me all this?"
"You really wanna know?" Adam nodded wordlessly; Jay smirked. "Because your housekeepers are putting your stuff in the cab and wanted me to keep you distracted."
"You evil little shit."
Jay grinned innocently and leaned forward to plant a quick kiss on the tip of Adam's nose. "Your life would be boring without me."
"Adam?" An almost timid voice sounded from outside the door seconds before it came open. Sophie walked in carrying a small gray box with a key taped to the top of it. "The cab's waiting for you two."
After ten minutes of listening to Sophie's explicit directions to call whenever he needed anything and making frequent promises to keep in touch even just to say hi, Adam and Jay both found themselves sitting in the backseat of the taxi, Jay arguing with the driver about the quickest way to get back to his apartment. Adam decided not to comment that the driver probably knew his way around Toronto much better and opted instead to cast one last, lingering glance to the house quickly pulling out of his line of vision. It had almost completely disappeared when a hand on his shoulder startled him back to awareness. When he turned back around, he saw Jay watching him worriedly.
"You okay?"
To both his and Jay's surprise, Adam nodded, grinned, and slid across the seat a little closer so that he could slip his hand into Jay's. "Yeah. Never better."
The car pulled out onto the main road and Adam never looked back.