A/N: Another chapter! YAY! I am still completely lost on this kind of angst, even though I'm a sucker for it… So let's all cross our fingers that I can pull it off!
2: Premonition
Later on in life, Lawrence will never understand how he could walk around for the whole day, more anxious than usual, sure, but still surprisingly normal.
He'll never be able to understand how he walked around in those hallways and treated patients for a couple of hours, at least, before the horror clutched to him, freezing, crushing and screaming, overwhelmingly big, just the way he recognizes it from those six hours in the bathroom that are the cause of Adam's nightmares, of the crippling scar that goes like a zip lock around Lawrence's ankle.
Maybe he just wants to walk around there and live his normal life. Maybe he knows on some level, even though it will be such a big shock later on, that the life he's built up soon will be broken, crushed and shattered, and nothing will be left.
But he doesn't think of that right now.
Right now, he treats his patients quicker than ever, jittery and fumbling, those calm, safe, soft hands he raked through Adam's hair just a few hours ago seem to have disappeared in flames, and then stands in the doctor's lounge, restless, pacing from wall to wall with his hands over his mouth.
Jesus.
Lawrence chuckles nervously and has to stop in the middle of the room.
He acts like he's sentenced to death. Like someone who's sitting in a cell for the last hours in his life, watches the second hand on his watch slowly ticking towards his faith.
And it's still just an ordinary day.
Lawrence takes his hands down from his face.
Yes. It's an ordinary day. He got to talk to Adam before he went to work for a change, he got to feel the warmth of his little body underneath the covers, and he doesn't have that many patients. He'll get off early, and he'll go home and find Adam sitting by the TV, see how his face cracks in a smile and how he puts his cigarette in the ashtray as he walks up to Lawrence, and he'll put his hand on his neck and allow his tongue and his bitter taste of tobacco to slide into Lawrence's mouth. And then, they'll go to the movies, and they'll hide in the darkness and the smell of popcorn, Lawrence will fumble after Adam's face and taste his cool lips.
It's a pretty common Friday night to them. Now. When they have each other.
Lawrence smiles faintly when that comes to his mind. He knows that's what's waiting for him at home. That soft, dark hair that's caressing his palm, Adam's taste, the only one who knows what he's been through. For real.
The only one that can listen. And that doesn't want to realize that Lawrence can do the same for him.
He knows that's all at home. And he still can't relax.
And just as Lawrence thinks that, like destiny wants to prove him wrong, Zep enters the room.
Lawrence startles more than he'd liked to when he sees those ice eyes bore into him again. Not over a cleaning cart this time.
There's nothing to protect them from each other.
"Hello, Zep," Lawrence says insecurely and picks up his chart, that he's thrown onto the couch and holds it in front of his chest out of reflex. Like he has to have something between them.
Zep just nods. For a second, they're just staring at each other, a struggle between two blue eyes, Lawrence in a lab coat, Zep in a janitor uniform, chalk white, like a cloud.
Lawrence has read somewhere that the guards in mental institutions wear completely white uniforms, because that calms the patients down. But right now, he really doesn't understand how that's possible, since Zep's clothes sort of seem to absorb his gaze so that he can't think of his own, so that another side of him takes over, a ruthless side, a side that wants to pick Zep up, grab his fucking head and scream, as those eyes look at him between his fingers in terror: You fucking bastard, you hurt Adam, you hurt Diana, and I'll crush your fucking skull, I'll crush you until you…
But he doesn't do any of this. He probably wouldn't have, even if Zep hadn't interrupted his thoughts.
"Would you come with me, doctor Gordon?" He asks with that light little voice, it kind of bounces into Lawrence's ears, flutters in there like an annoying little mosquito that he just wants to get out.
Without waiting for an answer, Zep walks out of the room. Lawrence stares dumbfounded after him for a few seconds before he starts following him. An old habit.
He's pretty used to obeying people by now.
Pussy, that little voice in his head says.
Lawrence can't disagree. And that annoys him.
When they're in the hallway, Zep opens the door to one of the supplying closets. He gets in there without even looking behind him, and when Lawrence follows him, he thinks that either he must be very predictable, or Zep just very predicting.
Both thoughts scare the hell out of him.
Zep closes the door behind him. The room is small, and it mostly contains shelves packed with blue little bottles with pink little labels, and Lawrence immediately wants to get out of there. Not just because of Zep's little ice eyes on his face, but also because he has claustrophobia from the bathroom.
Because the walls seem to close around him.
Because they're about to squeeze everything that's sensible out of him until he's left alone with a desperation that he'd gladly saw his foot off again to get rid of, and one single, pricking, flashing thought: Have to get out. Have to get out of here. Now.
But he stays. He doesn't know why, but he stays, and Zep takes a deep breath and says, with no expression in either face or voice:
"When are you planning to tell people that you've got a new lover?"
The question is still said with that voice. The mosquito voice. And it flies into Lawrence's head, it gives him the knowledge, but not the ability to accept it.
It just lies there and buzzes.
It takes Lawrence way too long to get it.
He knows.
Zep knows.
He knows about Adam.
Adam is in their apartment right now, probably all newly awakened, with a bowl of cereals and a small drop of milk on his bottom lip.
And Zep knows that.
"Hello?" Zep says, completely empty, completely blank. It doesn't even sound sarcastic.
Lawrence opens his mouth.
Okay. Zep knows. What do you do with a Zep that knows?
Does he really have to do anything?
No one else knows about his and Adam's relationship. Not even Allison. But that's really mostly because neither Lawrence nor Adam see a very big point in telling anyone, not because they necessarily have to keep it a secret.
Lawrence almost laughs in relief when he realizes this.
He doesn't care.
Zep knows. And he doesn't care.
And then, he can finally answer.
"I didn't have that many plans on doing that at all, Zep."
Zep's face is just as expressionless as before. His whole body is ice, not just his eyes.
He's a harsh, cold, slippery surface. Lawrence's words don't stick on it.
"Alright," Zep says.
Ice word. Ice eyes.
"Then I'll be frame," Zep continues. "I won't tell anyone about you two, either. If you give me two million dollars."
Once again, Lawrence almost laughs.
What the hell is up with this guy? The little voice, which actually seems to be on his side right now, says. Isn't he a little too old to play 'The Godfather'?
"That won't happen, Zep," Lawrence says and puts both hands in the pockets of his coat. "First of all, I don't have that kind of money, and second of all, you can tell anyone you want about me and Adam, however you've managed to find it out. I don't care."
And then, Zep actually smiles. It's a small and crooked smile, and a completely insane smile, it's the first one Lawrence has ever seen him doing. And he's never, ever, in all his life, not even when that saw moved under his own hand against his skin, been more afraid than now.
Because he's just realized something.
Zep doesn't need any money.
He just needs to do something horrible.
He needs to see people writhing in pain, and he needs it to be because of him. He needs to see them screaming, he needs to see blood and tears.
That's what he needs. Nothing else.
"There's more than that that I can use to make you do whatever I want, doctor," Zep says, his voice is a buzz-buzz-buzz in Lawrence's ears under the sound of his own heartbeat. "I happen to know the two things you care about most in the world."
Lawrence stares at him. His mouth hangs open, his eyes are wide, but he doesn't notice, and even if he did, he wouldn't have cared.
No.
Please, God, no.
Not Adam.
Not Diana.
He can't do it.
Not again.
Lawrence closes his mouth. Hopes that the freezing, crushing and screaming, overwhelmingly big horror that rises in him like cold water doesn't show.
Please, God, not again.
"What's it going to be, doctor?" Zep says, still calm, still with the ice face. "You've got those money?"
Lawrence has to open his mouth again. Even though his tongue is like sandpaper, even though his one hand is already on the handle. "No," he croaks out. "And if you lay a fucking hand on Adam, I will kill you. I'll crack your head between two rocks."
And then, he opens the door and runs away.
Zep smiles weakly once again.
Smiles because he gets a picture of Lawrence running in his head. How the tears are hanging like strings from the corners of his eyes, smeared by the wind, how his heavy breathing is mixed with his sobs, how he sits down in his fancy fucking car and drives back home, even though it's too late, even though it's been too late since the moment he said no.
Zep Hindle smiles. Because he feels that joy again. That quivering deep down in his soul, in the core of his truest, purest insanity, that he knows so well and that he's missed so much.
He picks up the cell phone from his pocket, dials a number with trembling, spasmodically tensed fingers, lifts the phone to his ears and listens to the signals until someone picks up.
"Hi, Amanda. Yeah, he's on his way home now. Wait for him. Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can. Just tie the kid up and put him in the car, and I'll bring him to John."
Oh, how I love these cliffhangers…. Anyway, many thanks those of you who's reviewed the first chapter… And I'd love you forever if you do it on this one, too!