Rebirth – Chapter 25: Alone Time
Merry-2004: Aw yes, I think they're cute. Thank you, I'm glad you're still enjoying it!
RazGaiale: Thanks, I thought it would only be fair for Lawrence to get some feedback. :D The poor guy never seems to catch a break. And Adam, well, Adam will realize pretty quick that it was Lawrence that pulled him out of the dreary state his life was in. So he doesn't mind rubbing him the right way, when given the chance. Mehe.
Redrose2310: Thanks. I hope so. :)
AngelGardian666: XD I want that DVD. Give it to me. GIVE IT! …Er, sorry…Anyway, I'm glad you're not sick anymore. Sick is bad. Bad. …Bad.
Kei Arisugawa: I made someone's day, well Hell, that really makes my day. :D I'm glad that you like it. Many times I've been thumbing around thinking… "Gosh I wish there was a romance involving –insert random person A- and –insert random person B, but I don't have the time to write one." Don't cry! Look, look, more chapter! Sit down, have some cake, and read. 3
Me: Dear God, I've reviewed my own stor—wait a second, you're an entirely different person. Oh, tricky tricky…. Well thank you, I just thought they fit so well. :D I said, "I just don't have time to write an involved romance…blegh." But I really couldn't leave it alone. Or it couldn't leave me alone, rather. Looks like this story was going to be written whether I liked it or not.
Yet still, warning: chapter contains sexually affiliated subject matter. Hope this isn't getting repetative…
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"So…" Adam cleared his throat as he dropped down onto the bed. "…staying the night?"
Lawrence flipped through a few more channels and glanced over at him. "Yeah. No one's expecting me home, anyway."
"How'd you manage that one?" he pondered.
Lawerence gave a somewhat nervous expression as he looked up to Adam. "Um…I sort of told Allison that you…" he paused, looking away.
"…I'm not gonna like this, am I?" Adam slouched, eying his friend suspiciously.
"Well…I told her you were seeing a therapist. And you sort of…kinda…asked me to go." He sheepishly sank down where he sat on the bed, gnawing on the rim of his soda can.
"I guess that's, er, not so bad." Adam shrugged, though he hated the idea of someone thinking he was that mentally unstable. Well Hell, aren't you? A voice prodded him from the back of his mind.
"I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable." Lawrence apologized.
"Me? You're kidding." Adam looked towards the T.V. for a moment to catch a few seconds of some old Cops rerun before the channel switched. "I mean…I am seeing a doctor, aren't I?"
Lawrence stretched out his legs in front of him and settled on a movie that looked about halfway finished. Some John Travolta flick, Adam wasn't really paying attention. He leaned back next to Lawrence, propping himself up on his elbows and letting his eyes blur as he gazed at the television. It was a strangely casual mood for so new a couple, but the many ironies of their relationship were far from lost on him. The biggest being the most obvious. Adam was having an affair with the same man that he had been hired to prove was having an affair, he couldn't very well ignore that. But he could damn well try.
To be honest, he was pretty sure that neither of them knew how to handle this. He never had any feelings for men whatsoever up until this point. What was so different about Lawrence? And as far as he knew, Lawrence hadn't expressed any interest in men either, which left them both at a very odd stand. What were they supposed to do when they were so foreign to one another? And yet, even despite that…he felt, in yet another ironic sense, unnervingly eased about all of this. It shocked him, in fact, just how level-headed he was being about it.
"So um…how ya feeling?" Lawrence asked after a while of half-attentive watching.
"…Good." Adam said, almost shyly leaning his head against the other's shoulder. Lawrence smiled slightly at the affection, giving a lengthy glance over him.
"Well you look much better." Lawrence studied the back of Adam's head for a second before reaching over and carefully taking his hand. "What about this?"
Adam led his eyes down to watch as Lawrence touched over his broken finger, which was healing rather well. "It's fine."
"Does it hurt when you move it?" he continued, placing experimental pushes along the bone.
"Not much." He decided.
Lawrence leaned over and reached out to put his soda down on a bedside table. "Good. It should be better in no time." He straightened back up and placed his hands on Adam's shoulders, with special note of his harmed one. "Shoulder sore?"
"Don't worry about it." He assured, pulling away slightly, but he was held firm as Lawrence's hands began to knead into his muscles. "Ugh…" despite himself, he couldn't help but let fall a relaxed murmur as he felt it.
"Hey, just cool it…" Lawrence muttered to him, massaging gently. "You always tense up. Let me loosen you out a little. I know your shoulder still hurts, it's only really been a few days…"
Adam sighed as Lawrence placed a light kiss on said shoulder. "You're the one that's supposed to be taking it easy…" he reminded.
"I am." Lawrence defended. "I wouldn't call this strenuous."
"You know what I mean."
"…Come on, Adam. Hasn't anyone ever taken care of you before?" he purred as he worked his hands. "Haven't you ever needed someone? Haven't you ever been sick or something? Needed help?"
"Yeah. Sure. I guess. I don't know." Adam said distractedly.
"And what did you do?"
"…When I'm sick I take meds…hurl my guts out…lie around. Same as anyone, why?" He was slowly warming up to it, enjoying the pressure of Lawrence's soothing hands.
No one's ever there for him…thought Lawrence sadly. I really did take so much for granted. "Then I guess you're not used to this."
"Guess not." Adam agreed halfheartedly.
They stayed like that for some time, Lawrence tending to him willingly and Adam feeling the dull pain in his shoulder receed. It was true, Adam had never been paid so much attention. After all, when in a relationship with a woman, sometimes men were just expected to be the one who treats them as such. He was expected to be the seducer and the lover—he never thought that maybe he wasn't getting much in return. Maybe his relationships had always been at least somewhat shallow in that sense. With Lawrence, it seemed nothing was expected of him.
Adam was disturbed out of his state when he heard the phone ring. "Mmf. Hang on…" he grumbled as he pulled away from Lawrence's grasp, standing shakily and trudging to the hall to answer his phone. It only rang perhaps three or four times within that period, but he felt as though it had been a thousand, and it was starting to piss him off. He picked up the phone from the hook and tried not to sound so irritable. "Hello?"
"Adam! Fag, where've you been?" came a gruff, male voice.
"Hey. Duncan?" he searched the dammaged recesses of his mind to recognize the voice at the other end of the line. His friend. Sort of. Sure, they talked every now and them, but there was really nothing substantial about their friendship.
"Fuck yeah, it's me. You stoned already or what? It's like, five in the p.m., dude."
"No. Man, I'm just tired, okay? What do you want?" he let out an exasperated breath.
"Jesus, someone took one up the ass this morning." Duncan snorted.
Adam sighed. Duncan never quit with the gay cracks. …One more irony, he supposed. "Sorry. Now how the fuck can I help you?"
He heard laughter from the other end. "Nothing, man. Hey, I was goin' down to Rudy's tonight. Haven't seen you in a while, wanna come down and knock a few back?"
"I don't…"
"Before you say no, dude, you've gotta." Duncan persisted. "Didn't you hear? Rudy's is closing down, tonight and tomorrow are the last nights it's gonna be open."
"Seriously?" he responded, but with less enthusiasm than he thought he should've been using. He'd been going to that place for years.
"Yeah, now come on. Take one more look at all the memories?"
"The memories." He repeated dryly.
"Yeah, the memories! Like the time that guy mistook your drink for a girl's and slipped you one of those fuckin' date rape drugs? Dude! That was fucking hilarious! You totally ate shit right in the middle of the crowd! You should've seen all those people makin' faces at us while we scraped your ass off the floor!"
Adam mumbled as Duncan went off into a laughing fit. There wasn't anything funny about that situation as far as he remembered it. And if he remembered correctly, his friends dumped him in the bathroom and left him there. "That's supposed to persuade me?"
"Come on, dude…"
"Look, normally I would, okay? I'm just…really busy tonight." He said.
"What, you got a gig or something?"
"Yeah." Adam lied. "Need the money."
"Okay, okay." Duncan let off. "Hey, can I hire you to track down Sarah Jessica Parker for me?"
"See you later." Adam hung up the phone and shook his head. Truthfully, he doubted he would have gone with him even if he wasn't with Lawrence tonight. His old friends were mostly drunks and losers anyway…
He went back to the bed, trying to shake away his memories.
"Who was that?" Lawrence asked.
"No one." Adam mumbled, flopping back onto the bed and resting his forehead down on Lawrence's lap. "Nothing important…" he casually drew his hand up Lawrence's leg, stopping at the rim of his pants and crawling his hand up underneath his shirt a little.
"Hm…" Lawrence responded as though he didn't quite believe him, but was letting it drop.
"Just an old friend." Adam gave up, catching the uncertainty. "Sort of, anyway. Not that he was um…much of a friend. Or that old."
"I know what you mean." Lawrence chuckled, watching with interest as Adam's fingertips touched over his stomach.
"It's…sort of weird to think I ever hung out with those guys." Adam uttered, somewhat more to himself as he hooked three fingers just barely into Lawrence's waistband and pulled down almost imperceptibly.
"Had friends just like those, too…What're you doing down there, anyway?" Lawrence asked, swallowing the lump in his throat as he felt the motion.
"Just…being friendly." He replied, planting a small kiss on his exposed hip.
"…Well…" Lawrence nodded, continuing on. "I had some friends of my own that weren't exactly the greatest. Just…fakes, now that I think about it. But Hell, I can't say much. I mean, for a while there, God knows how long, I was one of them."
"Yeah? What makes you so sure?" Adam asked genuinely, shifting his hand on Lawrence's leg.
"I don't know…" was his answer. "It's part of the doctor mentality, you know? Maybe when you numb yourself to death, you numb yourself to a lot more things you never knew about. But when death doesn't mean anything to you…neither does life. … I was like a zombie or something. I never realized it before. Or if I did, I…guess I just didn't care."
"Man don't hate me for asking this, but…" Adam cleared his throat. "What…changed it?"
Lawrence uneasily shifted, resting a hand at the back of Adam's neck. "I…well…I was reminded that…death mattered to me. That I …did care."
Adam was silent for a while. "Me too…I guess." He kissed Lawrence's bare skin again and moved his hand edgily. He tried to keep the memories at bay. Drenched and shivering, white lights giving him a headache, the stench of death everywhere. His ankle hurt when he thought about it.
"More importantly, that…life matters too." Adam felt the warm caress at the back of his head, trying to comfort him.
Adam smiled slightly and rubbed his leg slowly, hands moving of their own accord as he thought to himself for a moment.
Lawrence looked down in wonder as Adam touched him, his hand dangerously close to a part of him that was having an increasing desire to be touched with all the attention. He didn't want to make Adam uncomfortable with that, and truth be told, it was a little embarassing, despite their past encounters… "Uh, Adam, y-you're sort of making me, uh…" he tried to come up with some way to finish that.
"What?" Adam looked up at him, then up and down his body in momentary confusion before his eyes settled between Lawrence's legs. "…Oh, sorry…" his eyebrows raised and he moved back slightly, but then stopped. So what? He thought, brain muddled. Shouldn't I…I don't know…be the one to do something about that? He pondered.
Lawrence looked down at him, unmoving as he sat befuddled at Adam's reaction.
"Well…" Adam scratched the back of his head for a second and leaned back down, hesitantly unzipping his pants.
Lawrence gaped, seemingly entranced by the sight as Adam took his pants down a ways, starting at his boxers as well. He didn't know exactly what he was planning, but he couldn't find the words to ask the question.
Adam took a breath and boldly pulled down the rest of his garment, showing Lawrence's 'problem' in clear view and trying to process his own motive. What are you doing? He asked himself. You've gotten this far, do something already. Either bail out or…what are you thinking of doing, anyway? Going down on another dude? Adam mentally sneered, and yet…he was shocked at how little that thought did to deter him. Shouldn't he be revolted at the idea of having his mouth on another guy's…? Well. For whatever reason, he wasn't. And whatever the case, he shouldn't leave him hard and wanting…Hell…maybe…he could give it a try… You're not serious. Said the voice in his head. You're actually considering giving head? Do you realize that a week ago you would've kicked your own ass for having a thought like that?
Ignoring those thoughts, Adam reached out and gripped Lawrence's erection, feeling the skin as both understandably foreign and oddly…normal all at once.
Lawrence jumped, sitting up straighter with a grunt as he looked down. "Whoah, Adam-"
"Just…let me…try here." Adam said nervously, biting his lip as he tried to figure out a way to start this. Can't have that bad of a taste…it's just skin, right? He shrugged and resituated himself so that he was in a less awkward position, swallowing hard once before he guardedly touched his tongue to the staff.
Lawrence's breath cut in his throat, nearly making him cough as he clenched his fingers into the sheets. "Jesus, oh, y-you're gonna—?"
Adam steeled his nerves again and pressed the flat of his tongue up against the tip, retracting it as he heard a light gasp. There…Nothing disgusting about it…He blinked, stunned as though this were some profound knowledge. More eased, he carefully pushed the head of it into his mouth, very aware of his teeth at the moment and trying to keep them out of the picture.
"A-Adam you don't have t—" Lawrence started to say something, but he was cut off as he suddenly became familiar with the exact sensation that made a man's eyes roll back into his head. He tried to shake off the lightheadedness, but the feeling was intense, and he was helpless. It had been a long time since this had ever been a factor. In fact, he could only really recall two or three times someone had done this to him in his life. Allison had never done it, and before her, his memory was somewhat faded. But oh God, this was…incredible, albeit amatuer.
Adam concentrated on being gentle, trying to imagine what would feel good from his own perspective. Being another man, he obviously had somewhat of an advantage. He managed about half of him into his mouth, using a hand to tend to the rest as he examained the feeling of what was sitting on his tongue. Well this is… Adam thought curiously. …strangely…erotic. He tried to remember how it felt, using his own personal experience as a guide. Just…move. Movement feels good. He reminded himself, pulling back and moving back down on him, extracting a deep-throated moan that gave him a small surge of victory. Finally he was giving something back to Lawrence.
Lawrence looked down and took in the sight in shock, keeping his hips still in the wake of Adam's tongue strokes. "Adam…ah…" he tried to articulate something. Maybe to tell him he should stop—after all, he didn't want him to choke. And he was pretty damn close to spilling himself. The warmth, the pressure, the moisture, it was almost too much to process. He returned his hand to the back of Adam's head, stroking over his hair lightly.
Adam knew that he was almost there by the alternations between tensing and shivering, the hand on his head dropping to his shoulder and gripping tightly. He wasn't sure how he expected to handle Lawrence's release, but he continued to move his tongue and grope the remainder of his pulsing length in his hand. He increased the pressure as he felt the hand on his shoulder go rigid and heard a loud outward cry from above him, wincing when he felt the fluid touch the back of his pallet. He swallowed instinctively when it hit his throat, momentarily giving him a sense of nasuea. He pushed it down and quickly got over it, moving his tongue in a slower rythmn until the grasp on his shoulder loosened up and Lawrence gave a heavy sigh.
Adam tenatively pulled up with a small cough, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in a semi-daze. Lawrence's hand was back on his shoulder. "A-are you…alright?" Lawrence asked worriedly, voice hoarse.
"Yeah, yeah." He nodded quickly. "Uh, w-was that good?" he awkwardly searched for some approval, looking down at Lawrence's lap and then back to him.
"…That…was a lot better than good, I'll say that much." Lawrence grabbed him, pulling him into a payful hug.
"Yeah, that really wasn't so bad." Adam agreed with relief, relaxing slightly against his form.
"You uh…need some help?" Lawrence asked quietly, his hand traveling very near to Adam's inner thigh for effect.
Adam nodded and pushed up against him. "…That'd be great."
"How do you want me to um…?" Lawrence trailed off.
"I-I don't care." Adam said, successfully keeping a blush out of his cheeks. "I…liked…the way your hand felt. …Slow."
"Sure." He kissed Adam's neck and pushed his legs back a little, slipping a hand into his shorts.
Adam leaned his head forward against Lawrence's shoulder and closed his eyes, mind swimming in thought as he felt himself touched. He felt good. Strange, but good. It was just odd, was all, to go from something of a ladies man to…well, as gay as they come. How had the change happened? Shouldn't this come with tight clothes and eye liner? Or neon-lit bars and a feminine lisp? Or…something? Stereotypes, he supposed…He'd never even known any gay people. Not that he ever put much thought into it—it had nothing to do with him, why bother? And now here he was, sitting on top of another man who was currently jerking him off, the bitter taste of cum still in the back of his throat. He would've laughed if he wasn't busy moaning.
Despite all of the sense that it didn't make, it still felt right. Normal. Natural. Two people who couldn't be more different, couldn't be more wrong for each other, but still, still fit. Those were his thoughts as he climaxed into Lawrence's waiting hand, chest heaving against his newfound lover's and his mind at last deciding that yes—it was all very weird. But who gave a fuck?
…He quickly remembered, however, exactly who would.
