A/N: ARGH! Can you believe it? This fic is closing down! Damn, I'll miss it… However, this is not the last chapter, even though it's probably the only fanfiction there'll ever be where Adam wears a suit. I'm so proud!

11: A Two-way Redemption

Adam knows Jake won't be there.

Instantly, as soon as his eyes open, he knows immediately that Jake won't be there.

When Jake is in his apartment, he feels it. He feels it before he hears the simmering from the coffee pot on the stove, before Jake steps into his bedroom, ruffled hair, deep shadows under his eyes, a sleepy smile.

So beautiful.

But now, Jake isn't there. Adam can tell as soon as he rolls over to his side and sees the numbers on the clock radio on his nightstand.

He can tell it by the number 13:48.

He can tell it because the numbers would shine brighter if Jake were here.

And indeed. Then, he rolls over to the other side, sees the pillow that hasn't even been touched tonight, Adam knows it, only by a note, torn from a notepad Adam's spilled coffee on, scribbled down with Jake's almost sickly neat printing.

Had to go to work. Good luck today. Jake

Adam nods to himself and stands up from the bed.

He's not sad. He knew this was coming, knew that no good things last, that what happened to Lawrence was a premonition of how the rest of his life would be, a prophecy about how everything good eventually leaves you.

And we can forget for a second that he feels even emptier than before.

That the hollowness inside him, that thick gash straight across his heart and his soul and his dreams, that gash that Lawrence sawed open while he sawed off his foot and that Jake almost managed to stitch, now is torn open, oozes and bleeds, screaming, hissing evilly.

Bleeding love.

He doesn't know why he thinks that.

He walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge. A few days ago, Jake got sick of feeling like he'd crush Adam every time he was lying on top of him, he'd buy him a whole new food assortment so he didn't have to be so damn skinny, and Adam had said, without really being able to sound mean, that Jake would eat that assortment, too, and if he got anything more to eat, he definitely would crush Adam when he laid on top of him. And Jake and pinned him down on the couch, they'd wrestled, one of those wrestling matches that always ended with lips on lips, tongue roaming tongue, an angel's wings closing around him.

Adam slams the fridge shut again. The thought of eating any of that food makes his stomach turn.

xxxxxxxxx

The clear signs that a neat person lives here, but in the meantime, that said neat person rarely has time to tidy things up, are still there. Just like Jake left it. Only that now, it's all covered with a thin layer of dust, the flowers in the window are dried and frail.

Because you haven't been here in a long time, a little voice in Jake's head says. And you know why you haven't? You've spend every possible second with someone who needs you, someone who needs you a hell of a lot more than those flowers do.

Someone who need you now more than ever, but would never admit it.

And that you've left behind.

Jake sighs and closes the door behind him.

He'd told himself he'd at least be there when Adam woke up in the morning. But he can't even do that right.

He should be at work right now, actually. And if not because he was needed, then just to tell the truth, to be a good person in that aspect, since he obviously doesn't have the balls to be one in any other.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Tell Diana that I love her.

I will.

And tell Allison…

Lawrence quiets down. It sounds like he sighs.

It's been a while since Adam talked to him.

Maybe because he's got a new love now.

A love that thinks that Adam's cheating on him. With a dead person.

What do you want me to tell Allison?

That… I wish things had been different.

Adam understands this. He buttons his shirt and looks at himself in the mirror. Ruffles his hair a little.

But if things had been different, we'd never met, he answers and finds himself jealous of the girls that can just put makeup over those damn dark rings under their eyes. He looks like he's dead, damn it.

And he still goes to that funeral because he's happy he's alive.

That is true, Lawrence admits.

Pause. Adam takes the tie that he's hanged over the edge of the bathtub. He actually knows how to do one of these knots. Simply because he wanted at least one thing that separated him from the rest of the unemployed losers who never talked to their family.

Do you regret anything, Adam? Lawrence suddenly asks.

No, Adam says, with absolutely no hesitation.

He's never doubted this. Not even when he saw Lawrence dead, not even when he was strapped down on a gurney and felt the engines in the ambulance he was in working, did he ever doubt this.

I don't have any regrets at all, in fact, Adam continues. Everything in my life led me to you. And you taught me a lot.

He feels Lawrence's smile. That reassuring smile, that smile he wanted Lawrence to stand up and smile when Adam first saw him in that corridor, his hands pale and stiff, his black pants drenched in his own blood, when the grim reaper was hovering over him.

Like loving?

Kind of.

And that you shouldn't push away someone if you love them and they love you?

Fuck you.

Don't make the same mistake with Jake as you did with me, Adam.

To this, Adam doesn't answer. He just checks the knot on the tie, walks outside of the bathroom and takes the jacket that hangs on the coat hanger next to his front door, puts it on, and then bends down to tie the shoes he placed there yesterday.

Jake gave them to him when Adam had said that he didn't have any shoes but worn Converses, and they didn't fit with his tux.

But Adam tries so hard to ignore that thought when he walks out the door and doesn't care about locking it behind him.

He doesn't have time to that. He's already late.

Adam's mind is more or less switched off while he walks to the church. He knows that if he turns it back on, Lawrence's damn voice will be there, and he can't handle that right now.

He can't listen to Lawrence while all his focus is on The Words.

The four little words that Adam has to say. That he has to say to be set free, and maybe able to go back to Jake.

Four little words.

Okay. He can do this. Adam can do this.

He can spot the big gates to the graveyard on the other side of the street – apparently, he's been focusing so hard on these four little words that he hasn't even thought about taking the bus to a church that's four miles away – walk up to them, open them and half-run up to the doors to the church. He can even open them, too.

The uncomfortable benches are full of black-dressed people, they're all facing the priest that stands at the altar and reads from the bible. He doesn't look up, even when Adam closes the giant gate behind him and tries to walk as silently as possible up to the front row of the benches, though he feels a lot of disapproving looks from the other guests.

Adam sits down. There's a coffin up at the altar, he can't see what's in it and he doesn't want to, even though he knows it's not Lawrence. It's not Lawrence lying in there.

Adam manages to tear his gaze away from the coffin. It wanders up to the front bench on the other side of the isle, and spots a woman, all dressed in black, struggling with her tears, her sharply red lips are quivering, her blonde hair is a shining light in all the black, and even though he's only seen her once, briefly in Lawrence's doorway, when he kissed her goodbye in the morning, she's still stuck in Adam's mind like she's stuck on a picture that Adam took that morning and that was only meant for Lawrence, and he has absolutely no doubt that it's Allison sitting there.

With ghostly pale, ghostly silent, ghostly, overwhelmingly, silently sad Diana next to her.

Adam thought she'd cry. Thought that an eight year-old wouldn't even get the term of shock, get that some sorrows aren't big enough for tears, get that some things are so anguished and unfair that you don't even get that they've happened.

Diana doesn't cry. She's just shaking.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Jake is sitting on his couch. He doesn't want to admit it, but his gaze keeps flickering over to his clock.

It starts now. Adam is there now.

Alone.

And you can't stand that thought, can you?

Jake doesn't even try to deny that.

God, Jake, that little voice moans. I don't get why you're even trying. We both know you'll go there any second now. No matter what Adam treats you like.

Fuck. It's right.

Jake realizes that now. He doesn't get if it's the thought of Adam alone that stirs that usual nurturing instinct up in him, or if it's just being away from Adam that actually allows him to think straight for once, but suddenly, he realizes it.

He'll never leave Adam. And Adam will never leave him.

Jake has lived four years without anyone who gets it, gets why his heart is torn into bloody scraps that lay scattered around in his living room, coated with dust. Useless and grey.

And Adam gets it. He's never said that, their entire relationship is built around Adam, Jake's feeling and his loss aren't very important, but he gets it. Jake knows he gets that.

And Jake depends so much on that that he'll never be able to leave Adam. And Adam will never be able to stop seeing Jake as anything but Lawrence 2, because that's what he needs. He never really got to know the real Lawrence, so he gets a substitute. Then he doesn't have to deal with the loss of him for a while.

That's what Jake is to him. Lawrence 2.

And yet, Jake knows there's nothing for him to do than to stand up and jog out the door.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam's hands are almost spasmodically clasped in his lap. The tie slowly seems to turn into a noose that closes around his neck, gently squeezes life out of him, and he doesn't know why he feels that way, he doesn't know why he can barely breath or why his clogged-up throat burns with suppressed sobs. Because this isn't happening. This isn't for real.

He's not sitting on this uncomfortable wooden bench. He's not seeing Allison a few feet away with a hard grip on Diana's hand. He's not attending to the first funeral of his life.

And more than anything: The funeral isn't for Lawrence.

It's not Lawrence the priest is talking about.

It's not his Lawrence that's lying in the black coffin at the altar.

Because this isn't happening. This isn't for real.

Finally, Allison can't hold her tears back, and she sobs calmly and elegantly with her hand over her mouth, and Adam can't keep himself from looking at her, his eyes black, and think: What kind of fucking fake tears are those, you fucking bitch, you should be the one laying in that coffin, it was your fault Lawrence wound up in that bathroom, you were the one who made him unhappy, it was your fault, only your fault…

Adam knows it's wrong. He knows Allison really is upset, but right now, he hates her. He hates her from the darkest, coldest core of his hatred, because a simple fact remains: If it weren't for her, Lawrence would still be alive.

Adam doesn't know how long he sits that way. He doesn't listen to the priest, because he's just lying, anyway. Lawrence isn't in that coffin, he'll soon walk through the gates to the church and lay his hand on Adam's cheek and say that he's just wounded in the shoulder. But after a while, he still finds himself alone in here. The priest has closed his bible and went away, and the guests have walked past the coffin that Lawrence isn't, isn't, isn't lying in, and gone out, too.

Yeah, they have, the voice in Adam's head says, gentler than usual. Everyone is gone. And you know why, Adam? You know why Allison isn't sitting on that bench with Diana's hand in her right one and her left one covering her mouth?

Because they've all gone outside. They've left Lawrence behind.

They've said goodbye.

You have to, too.

Adam rarely listens to that voice. The truth is that it's wrong more often than not, and when it's right, he usually still doesn't listen to it, unless it tells him how useless he is, since in most cases, the advice it gives him involves him taking a risk, or asking for help, or be vulnerable with someone, but now, he gets up and walks slowly, slowly, in the fanciest shoes he owns, up to the coffin.

And it really is Lawrence lying there.

Adam actually has to smile. Even though everything is miserable. Even though his heart is slowly torn out of his body once again.

How beautiful he is.

His Lawrence. He's lying there in his tux and his combed hair, and he's pale, he's so dreadfully pale, but he's so beautiful. So beautiful.

Adam inhales. Slowly and shaky.

"Lawrence…" He says softly and puts his hand on the edge of the coffin. "Hey, man…"

His heart has been torn out. Twice. But he still hears his own pulse pound in his ears.

"I'll… I'll miss you…" Adam mumbles and slowly taps his fingers against the varnished, wooden surface. "And… I'm never going to forget you…"

What the hell is he doing? Is he doing a fucking speech, or something?

He didn't come here to become Miss America.

Adam came here to get one single thing out in the open, one single thing that Lawrence has to know, one single thing he has to say.

Even though it's too late.

Adam inhales again. The breath is even shakier this time, his eyes shinier, with more emotions trapped behind them than ever.

Let go, Adam.

"I'm so sorry, Lawrence."

And then, it crumbles.

Everything he bottled up.

Everything he wanted to hide away.

Everything he's ashamed of.

Everything in his life that didn't work out like it supposed to.

Everything he wanted to tell Lawrence, that he'll never get to hear, never again.

All of that falls apart and seeps out of Adam's eyes, and he cringes, the corners of his mouth goes down, like on a baby, and he sobs and trembles as the tears keep streaming down his face, and the crying wrings him out, squeezes him like a dish cloth, forces him down to his knees as his hands clutch to the edge of the coffin, clutch to something he only had for six hours, something amazing that he barely gained before he lost it, and he repeats the same thing, over and over, it feels like he's been wanting to say it for the whole life he lived in silence.

"I'm so sorry… So sorry… I'm so sorry, Lawrence…"

Adam leans his forehead against the wood. The crying is like a cramp, it works its way through his body like terrible waves.

Until two strong arms are wrapped around his waist and pulls him onto his wobbly legs.

Adam can't stand by himself. He'd never admit it, not even to himself, but he can't get by on his own. So he tells himself that the only reason he leans against Jake's chest is that it's like leaning against warmth, against the comfort he suddenly finds himself completely relying on, which he's too sad and drained to question himself about.

"It'll be fine, Adam," Jake mumbles and draws his hand through Adam's hair. "I know it doesn't feel like that now, but it'll be fine."

"I love him," Adam croaks out, and the tears keep pouring

"I know."

"I love him, Jake."

"I know. Come on."

"I love him."

"I know. Come on. Let's get out of here."

Aw… Adam comes off as a bastard here, but don't worry, he'll get redress in the next chapter! And in the next chapter, I'll also get to add another completed Saw-fic to my collection… Anyway, review!