A/N: Hehe… I know writing isn't the best way to cure tonsillitis, but what the hell… Anyway, yup, I'm sick and half-unconscious when I'm writing this, and I mostly wrote it because I felt an uncontrollable urge to do it, so… Enjoy, either way!

5: Reflections

Adam wasn't going to talk.

It hadn't entered his mind at all. Talking was so beyond his usual behavior, he hadn't even considered the possibility.

He really hadn't planned to talk.

But he does, anyway. In a weird way, Jake forces him to do so.

It starts off well, though. Adam drags an old mattress out of his closet and puts it next to his bed, Jake helps him to make it with some washed-down sheets he didn't even remember that he owned, and then, Jake lays down on it, remarkably casual for a guy that's sleeping in the same room as someone he really doesn't know.

And for a while, he actually is, in an unconditional and untainted way, happy. For the first time in a long time.

Because even though it's his apartment, Adam feels just the way he was joking about before: Like a teenager that's sleeping at a friend's house. When he and Jake make nothing but simple small talk, he still gets the same glittering, twitching sensation in his stomach as he got when he was fifteen, fairly carefree and actually had real friends, that feeling of security that isn't secure, the feeling of a tranquil breakout that he thought you only could get by sitting with your friends in a cramped room where the air is foggy with the smoke from homemade cigarettes that everyone smokes but that no one likes.

What's funny is that that's almost an exact description of the life he's lived since he was sixteen.

And it's not nearly as fun when you live it alone.

But Adam refuses to admit that it's the loneliness that's made him this way. He prefers to blame it on the rest of the world, the world that slowly slides by outside his window.

It can't be loneliness that's sneaked all those bitter comments into his sentences.

It can't be loneliness that's squeezed even the anger out of him and replaced it with a feeling of indifference.

It can't be loneliness that's emptied him of his soul, left nothing but an empty shell behind.

An empty shell that in the nights is turned into a human, a human that dreams and that cries, a human that's in pain. A human that mourns.

A human that feels.

A human that he hates. Simply because it's so fucking weak.

But this night, Adam is turned into a different human. Still not someone whom he likes, but at least it's a human that doesn't weep like a baby.

And it begins with Jake, that suddenly, after almost five minutes of silence, sits up on the mattress and leans his elbows against Adam's bed so suddenly that Adam wakes up from the light slumber he's slipped into with a startle.

"Adam?"

"Mm?" Adam says, blinks dazedly a few times and then closes his eyes again.

"Did you love him?"

The question comes so unexpectedly that Adam probably wouldn't be able to answer right away even if he'd been fully awake.

"What?"

"Did you love him?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Adam grumbles and rubs a hand against his eye.

"Lawrence. I know he was your friend, but… Did you love him? Like I loved my husband?"

It's a damn good thing that Adam is half asleep.

If Jake had asked him something that as much as brushed over this subject when he was awake, he'd never talked to him again. Jake knows that as well as Adam, and he's not sure of why he does it now.

Maybe he just wants to know. Know if Adam actually… Knows. Knows what it's like.

What it's like when that half of your heart that technically belongs to someone else is torn away. Taken back. Just when you've gotten used to how it feels to have someone else's blood running around in your veins.

Adam still doesn't open his eyes. Instead, he rolls over to the side and turns to Jake, his pale face almost shines through the darkness.

"None of your damn business," he mutters and furrows his brows.

"That's a yes."

"Go to hell."

"Come on, Adam…"

"Shut up!" Adam hisses and finally opens his eyes, they sparkle in black and red, blind, temporary fury. "What the fuck gives you the right to ask that stuff?"

Jake doesn't seem to care about his little tantrum at all. He just shrugs, moves his one hand dangerously close to Adam's tightened fist.

"Nothing. Really. But I… As I said… You'd feel better if you… Talked a little, I think…"

Adam shakes his head angrily.

He wasn't going to talk.

He wasn't going to talk.

He was never, never, never going to let someone into his life again.

But in some way, he can't stop himself, and he closes his eyes as he feels his own reluctance melt away, like the hatch to a dam that's opened, the truth pours out, big and black and overwhelmingly, horribly liberating.

For the second time in less than twelve hours.

"Yes, I did. I loved him, I still do, I've never loved anyone else and right now, it feels fucking impossible to do it again, I miss him every fucking second of every fucking night like he probably missed his foot those thirty fucking seconds he was alive after he crawled out the door to that fucking hell. Happy now?"

He doesn't cry this time, you're going to have to think of that as a progress. This isn't news to himself, he lives every night with this knowledge, and the days, too, if he's unlucky. But he never thought he'd be able to admit it to someone else.

He really thought he would manage to keep the rest of the world out of his life.

He thought that once he'd learned how it feels to lose something before you even gain it, he'd stay away from the slightest risk that it would happen again.

But it turns out that they're wrong when they say that what doesn't kill you make you stronger.

Adam was close to death. He stared death in its white, empty eyes, and in the ambulance reports, it even said that his heart was still for nearly a minute after Lawrence shot him.

He was so close to death.

But he only got weaker. His pride got weaker, the love for Lawrence was like a big club against that dam. And now, when it's open, he's not strong at all anymore.

Now, he has to talk. Even though he wasn't going to.

It pours out of him. Jake doesn't encourage him to anything, it's just Adam who suddenly props himself up on his elbows, looks steadily at him and starts to talk about something he didn't even dare to discuss with himself.

He talks about Lawrence. About the friendship. The love.

He talks about the regret that really was the only thing he got from it.

Luckily, Jake is an amazing listener. He just stares at Adam with a small wrinkle between his eyebrows, with occasional hummings and noddings, even when Adam talks about the guilt.

He doesn't even interrupt then. Even though Adam knows that he doesn't agree with him at all on that point.

Then again, Jake doesn't know about the pictures.

He didn't see Tapp stepping out of the shadows with his hundred dollar-bills in his hand.

After a while, Adam gets tired and falls back into the mattress. He feels completely drained. Like all the words he bottled up was a lump, a dreadfully dark bowling ball in his chest that's suddenly fallen off him, rolled away across the floor.

But he knows that talking to Jake about this isn't all. He has to talk to someone else, he has to say one thing, one single thing to one single person, and the other bowling ball, the one that's stuck in his head and keeps him from thinking about anything else, will roll away, too.

One sentence. One single sentence that he's not sure if he'll ever be able to say.

And he'll be free.

Adam props himself up again and looks at Jake.

"Are you going to tell me about him?"

Jake looks up at him, and on his face, there is a surprise that Adam's never seen on it before. Then again, he's only known him for a day, all together.

"What?"

Adam chuckles and throws his hand out.

"Tell me. Fuck, I've been babbling on about my long lost love all night. Aren't you going to tell me something, too?"

Jake lowers his gaze. Fidgets with the worn mattress. And Adam waits.

He knows Jake will start talking. He doesn't demand it. Waits for it.

And so, Jake slowly opens his mouth. He keeps his eyes on the floor, just like Adam did when he was talking. But in the same time, he has a determination in his voice, a strength in his words, that Adam never had.

It almost makes him jealous.

"I was a cop," Jake begins, silently, lowly and clearly. "I mean, I am a cop. Of course I thought that if anyone of us died out of something other than age, it'd be me, but… I was pretty stupid when I married him."

He stops talking. Adam waits.

It's a little weird that he hasn't even thought about asking that stupid question: "Are you gay?" Jake should almost be used to that by now, and it's something Adam would definitely do before, but now… It just feels stupid. Because for some reason, it's completely natural to him that Jake wouldn't marry anyone but a man.

It wouldn't have been before… That.

But Adam still refuses to believe that he's grown after it.

"I didn't know that if you catch a rapist or something, they know exactly how you work," Jake continues, still without looking at him. "They don't send someone to show up at your door and cut your throat. They find out what you care about the most. And they lash out at that."

He pauses again. Adam doesn't know if he's expected to say anything, and if he is, he doesn't know what that would be.

What do you say to someone who's lost that borrowed part of their heart?

What do you say to someone that you suddenly see yourself in, your own misery, your own loss, your own loneliness?

"So they got him," Jake says.

His tone isn't upset. Not careless, either, but Adam isn't sure what it is.

"He was on his way to work," Jake continues. "Michael. He was on his way to work, and… I think they must've been hidden I some bushes, or something, because they must've jumped out, and then dragged him in…"

His voice fades away. Maybe it even cracks, but he finds it shortly after.

"I went out looking for him when he didn't come home," Jake then says. "I found him just outside. They'd slit his throat. And taken his wallet. They were twenty-five damn feet away from our house, Adam…"

Now, he finally looks up. Adam sees his eyes reflect the glow from the streetlight outside.

So shiny.

So full of sorrow.

So full of the sorrow that Adam would never admit that he feels himself.

All the time.

He said it himself. Every second of every night, and the day, too, if he's unlucky, he feels that sorrow. That regret.

"Did you get them?" He asks quietly.

Jake shakes his head. And looks down again.

"No. They're still out there. Right now."

Adam shakes his head, too. He's not sure what he does it at, though.

"Bastards," he says into the air.

Jake laughs. It sounds a bit stifled.

"Very wise statement."

Adam grins insecurely.

"What? Fuck, I don't know what to say. What do you say to someone who tells you something like this? Calling people bastards has worked up until now, so I'm sticking to that. If you want some professional tips, dr. Phil is tomorrow at seven."

Jake laughs again.

"No, no. Bastards work fine."

They're quiet for a few seconds. Jake has rolled over to his back, he seems to be pondering over something. Adam looks down on him, looks at the way the streetlight paints his face and almost makes it look like a skeleton.

"I haven't kissed anyone in almost two years," Jake says suddenly. "But I think I could imagine kissing you."

Adam chuckles.

"Think? That hurts, man."

Jake smiles. But he blushes, Adam can see that, even in the darkness.

"Okay. I'd love to kiss you, Adam."

"What the hell are you doing down there, then?" Adam says and beckons upwards. "Get up here."

After that, he doesn't think.

He probably wasn't really thinking before that, either. If he thought, he wouldn't call Jake that night, would never say that he could stay over, he'd never swallow his pride as much as he'd done that time in the bathroom, when he fell in love for the first time in his life.

Adam doesn't think of things that are difficult.

He doesn't think of things that confuse him.

So he doesn't think when Jake gets up to his knees on his mattress. He switches off his thoughts and lets his feeling take over.

He doesn't think when Jake puts his hand on his cheek, when he actually gets reminded of how it feels when someone touches him without being half-dead, without his mind being clouded by the knowledge that the hand that touches him won't be around for long.

He doesn't think when he sees Jake's face approaching him, and he doesn't think when he feels the lips that press against his own.

He doesn't think.

He only feels.

It starts off gently. Jakes lips taste of the salty things that seem to dribble down from his eyes without either one of them noticing, Adam's lips of tobacco and the tears that he still won't allow to fall.

Jake thought it would end this way, too. It would end with a simple brush over the lips, without opening any mouths or use any tongues, but it turns into more, hungrier, lengthier, needier, when Adam puts his hand on the back of his head and presses his face against his own again, because then, he can't say no, and Adam still can't think about why he doesn't even feel a little repulse when he feels Jake's stubble against his palm, so he grabs his shoulders and pulls him into the bed with him, keeps pressing his lips to that warm, soft thing that it suddenly feels like he can hide in, like a sweet haven where he can crawl down, protect himself from his suffering and his anxiety, until it's blown over, disappeared.

They fall asleep a little later, entangled in each other, somewhat comforted, simply because a small part of what they both miss has now returned.

See? Up-heating! YAY! Anyway, I guess I won't have to tell you what I want you to do… But honestly, kind words work better than any penicillin in the world!