Work Text:
Adam fumbled with his keys, his fuzzy mind unable to remember which one he needed. He stared intently at the assortment of keys in his hand, his eyes feeling tired the longer he focused on them. He stumbled slightly, his feet feeling uneasy and light against the floor as he caught his balance against the threshold of his apartment. Adam blinked a few times to bring his vision back into focus, his one eye feeling rather sore. He turned his bleary attention back to the keys in his hand, his mind struggling to understand what it was he was even trying to do.
“Fucking keys…” Adam muttered to himself tiredly as he stood up straighter from leaning against the doorway, feeling his back ache as he did. He sighed out a deep breath, trying to recollect himself in the few remaining moments he had to himself; before he went back into that apartment to be confronted about his drunken state. He hadn’t even wanted to come back to his apartment, but after a physical altercation with some random asshole had gotten him thrown out of the bar, he didn’t really have anywhere else to go.
He harshly swallowed back the vomit that was creeping up his throat, his stomach twisted in so many knots. Adam knew he shouldn’t have provoked that guy, he had a couple inches on him, and had more muscles that Adam could have ever dreamed of. But the guy was getting on his nerves with how obnoxious and loud he was being, and Adam was feeling a little on the precarious side. He had no care in the world as he insulted the other man, feeling so desensitized to his threats as he neared him. Adam could feel the sweat on his brawny body. He only continued to feel numb as he provoked him again, not too concerned with any consequence that would come his way, the first of which being a swift and hard punch to his eye. Adam only half heartedly tried to fight back, pushing the bigger man off of him and swinging recklessly, only to have the shit beaten out of him in return.
He could begin to feel his body ache as he stumbled back home, and the pain only intensified as he found himself in front of that apartment door, too reluctant to go in.
He picked a key at random and tried shoving it into the door to no avail, Adam again muttering under his inebriated breath. He chose another key and slid it into the lock, a bit satisfied that he had finally found the right one, but also worried about actually opening the door. He had left for a reason, and didn’t truly want to come back; but here he found himself, turning the handle and opening the door with unease.
He pulled his keys from the door only to drop them on the apartment floor once stepping in, slamming the door hastily behind him. His head pounded at the sound as his shoulders flinched, wincing at the pain caused by his left one. He reached his arm to rub it, his apathetic fingers feeling a scar beneath his tattered white shirt. If he wasn’t so drunk, he knew all the flashbacks of that bathroom would come to drown him again, they had left him for a while, but in recent weeks they came flooding back. He didn’t find much solace as of late, smoking and drinking seemed to be the only vices to keep the bad memories at bay. He thought perhaps listening to the kind words of a doctor he had grown to trust and love would work just as well, but after another argument earlier in the day that caused him to storm away, he figured not.
The apartment was dark and quiet, the only source of light being from the streetlights outside. It was a scene Adam hadn’t anticipated to come back to, but he was glad it was calmer than what he was expecting, what he was dreading. He was expecting Lawrence to be waiting by the door, brows furrowed and eyes angry, ready to pick up where he left off, now with new ammo with Adam’s drunken state. He was expecting to be yelled at, belittled, treated as if he didn’t mean anything to the doctor whatsoever; because that was how he felt at that moment. Like nothing.
He sauntered further into the apartment, gracelessly taking his shoes off and leaving them in the middle of the floor. His eye throbbed again, that muscular bastard really had gotten him good. Adam wasn’t sure what had gotten into himself, why he decided to goad that other guy in the first place. He wasn’t that type of person, he absolutely hated conflict, now more than ever, but he was overwhelmed with a sense of self depreciation that he couldn’t shake off. And no matter how hard the other man hit, it still seemed to linger.
He craned his neck, trying to work out a kink from when the man had slammed him against the bar itself, the pain running down his spine and spreading through his entire back. He whispered another curse under his breath, standing a bit wobbly as he noticed another light on in the apartment, one coming from Lawrence’s office. He sneered at the sight of it, understanding that was the doctor’s passive way of letting him know he was still awake and waiting for him, the door cracked open for Adam to invite himself in.
He’s so fucking subtle now, where was that attitude a few hours ago…
Adam turned away from the sight, too many angry thoughts clouding his already clouded judgement. He couldn’t bear to face Lawrence in the condition he was in, still filled with so much irritation and self loathing, and on top of that, his bruised and battered physical appearance wasn’t really a lovely sight to see. He heaved another sigh, feeling his heart ache in his chest as he made his way to the bathroom, stumbling over himself on the way there.
He flicked on the lights, grimacing in pain at the brightness of them; it only contributed to his insufferable headache. He ambled his way inside the room, too drunk and careless to close the door behind him. Adam heaved a deep breath as he leaned himself against the bathroom counter, his mind feeling disoriented and his body feeling weak. He hadn’t felt this low in a long time, and it brought back feelings he didn’t want to face again.
The bathroom game had left him feeling empty, as if he were living in a world he didn’t deserve to. Jigsaw’s words had cut him straight to the bone, and he had convinced himself in that bathroom all alone that this was what he deserved: to die alone. It had taken a lot to get him out of that headspace, especially after being rescued. Lawrence had helped him a lot, hell, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to recover as much as he had thanks to Lawrence. He had reached out to the younger man and taken him under his wing upon seeing his debilitating state, showing him the most love and care Adam had ever experienced in his whole life. It made him feel guilty, at times, seeing how much Lawrence looked after him, knowing how much Lawrence had sacrificed in his own right, and how much he was suffering, too. Adam liked to think at times that while Lawrence had saved Adam from that bathroom, Adam was in turn saving Lawrence from a life of shambles and loneliness since Alison had left him. It was a thought that made Adam feel alive again, needed and wanted in someone’s life again.
But not tonight. Tonight, it was a thought he didn’t quite believe anymore.
Adam had believed that he was getting better, a realization that was difficult for him to make. Lawrence had pointed out to him that he slept through the night more often than not; he at times slept without the light on to combat his fear of the dark; he was less disdainful towards himself, said such less mean things about himself; he was able to work through panic attacks rather than let them consume him; Adam felt as if he were truly recovering, and he was thankful for the gentle hands of Lawrence to guide him as he did.
Yet those same hands, he felt at that moment, had knocked him down a few pegs as well as he had drunk himself into oblivion, trying to forget as much as could, and feeling those awful things he had said about himself before returning to his lips once more.
As much as Adam had recovered, it wasn’t an easy road to trek. Neither was it for Lawrence. They had their good days, and they had their bad, but they were always able to work through them together; until recently. The two of them had gotten into more fights over the past few weeks, which wasn’t uncommon as Adam could get irritated easily and Lawrence could be rather blunt, but they happened more often than not. Adam would get annoyed by something Lawrence had done, Lawrence would get defensive and avoid taking blame, and the two would act passive aggressively towards each other until one of them broke; it was always Adam who broke. He truly loved Lawrence, more than he had ever loved someone before, and had a hard time staying mad at the man after all he had done for him.
But the fight that happened earlier that day was different. It started out all the same, Adam getting aggravated and Lawrence standing his ground. In his drunken state, Adam couldn’t exactly remember what sparked this argument, maybe Lawrence was working too much and not paying Adam too much attention, maybe himself had a bad day at work and took it out on the doctor wrongly, maybe Lawrence wasn’t as intimate anymore and that frustrated the younger man; he couldn’t remember, but he did remember that somehow, the bathroom got brought up and some very unkind things were spewed, burning Adam in the process to the point where he needed to get out.
As he stood above the bathroom sink feeling vomit rise back into his throat again, he regretted leaving in the first place. But the things Lawrence had said to him didn’t make him want to stay in their apartment for a moment longer.
Adam took a deep breath as he swallowed dryly, refusing to vomit, knowing it would make him feel even lower than he had right then. He had thrown up enough in his lifetime due to panic attacks and nauseated paranoia, and he didn’t want to sink further into relapsing; he was already on the brink of that what with drinking his sorrows away, and didn’t want those flashbacks to come back too.
He lifted his head drearily up to look at himself in the mirror, examining the damage that burly man had done to him, and thinking of how he was going to explain such a thing to Lawrence. If he was even going to explain anything to Lawrence, if Lawrence even cared to know at all. His eye already housed a dark bruise around his eyelid, a few popped blood vessels made his eye blister red. His bottom lip had been cut in multiple places as dried blood had dripped down onto his top one, two red trails seeping from both nostrils. His cheek had been cut open right below his other eye, and a purple laceration began forming around his neck from where the man choked him. It was at that point that the barkeep had separated them, throwing Adam out on his ass, telling him he wasn’t welcome there anymore. And it didn’t really feel like he was welcome at home anymore either.
He had been so caught up in his reflection that he failed to hear the sound of footsteps approaching the bathroom, uneven in their journey from across the apartment as well as the light tapping of a cane against the floor. He flinched slightly at a soft rapping at the half ajar bathroom door, followed by an even softer voice. “Adam?” Lawrence called to him, to which Adam didn’t reply. His eyes stayed glued to his roughed up reflection, his head too deep in awful thoughts.
Lawrence sighed as he pushed the bathroom door fully open to reveal the younger man hunched over the bathroom counter, his complexion rather pale in comparison to the injuries decorating his face. The sight made Lawrence’s heart sink, his previous regret turning into shame and concern. “Adam, are you alright?” Lawrence’s tone turned worried the longer he looked at the other man, taking a few slow steps into the bathroom himself. “What happened to you?” he asked, attempting to place a hand on Adam’s back.
“Doesn’t matter,” Adam snapped, shrugging Lawrence’s hand off of him, the sharp gesture aching his presumably bruised back. He didn’t bother to make eye contact with the doctor, keeping his head low as he looked back towards the sink, the feeling of vomit creeping back into his system.
Lawrence was taken aback by his statement for a moment, but sighed in defeat, understanding where Adam’s frustrations stemmed from. “Where were you?” Lawrence tried again, trying to warm back up to the photographer, resisting the urge to pull the man into a warm embrace and just forgetting about the events of the day. It was a day Lawrence wasn’t incredibly proud of, and he just wanted to push it out of his mind; but he had done this to himself, done this to Adam, and he would be a fool to believe his actions didn’t have consequences, to believe his words didn’t have consequences.
Adam sneered, an expression that pierced Lawrence’s heart. “Don’t pretend like you care,” Adam muttered, still hovering over the sink, his stomach burning as his stress piled up.
“I do care, Adam,” Lawrence professed, taking another step closer to the younger man, his hand about to touch him again before he refrained. His hand simply hung there for a moment before dropping back by his side, feeling a touch of anxiety wash over his face. “I care a lot.”
“Do you?” Adam retorted, raising his head from above the sink to look at Lawrence in the eye, feeling a pang of guilt at the amount of sadness in his blue eyes; but his enraged drunken state took over once again. “Because what you said earlier doesn’t make me believe you right now,” Adam confessed. “Do I need to remind you what that was?” he threatened, tilting his head, never breaking eye contact with the doctor.
Lawrence stood there frozen, a bit of irritation building up within himself too. He knew all too well what he had said to Adam, and he regretted every word as he saw them sink into Adam’s skin, just like that bullet back in that bathroom. He hadn’t meant those words he so coldly uttered, but that was beyond the point.
The point was that he had said them at all in the first place, and Adam took in every single one.
“Please don’t.” Lawrence bluntly stated, trying to remain strong, but Adam’s wreck of a state made it hard for him to stand his ground.
Adam turned his head away from the older man, shaking it in disdain. His nausea had subsided for now, but he could feel it still lingering around. “Just...just leave me alone, Lawrence,” Adam commanded, still feeling Lawrence’s eyes on him.
“Not until you tell me what happened to you,” Lawrence demanded, his tone more direct than it had been.
Adam exasperatedly turned to face Lawrence headon, his head feeling light and his eyes feeling weary. “Is it really that fucking important?” Adam fought, raising his tone.
“Yes, it really is that fucking important,” Lawrence boomed back, his tone scaring Adam just the smallest bit. Lawrence rarely ever swore, so the bitter word came as a shock to Adam. “It may not be important to you, but it’s important to me.”
A moment of silence passed over the room, Adam not knowing what to say to that. He stared at Lawrence for a second longer before returning to the sink, feeling another wave of nausea punch him in the gut. He wobbled a little, closing his eyes as he took a deep breath, hoping Lawrence would just give up and leave. But he knew the man too well to know he wouldn’t back down so easily.
“Are you drunk?” Lawrence rhetorically asked, already knowing the answer as the question left his lips. The disappointment in his words came crashing down on Adam all at once, something the younger man couldn’t stand to hear.
“Are you gonna stop pestering me with the f-fucking questions?” he slurred his words, biting back the bile climbing up his throat. He avoided Lawrence’s gaze. “I don’t wanna talk to you.”
Lawrence sighed, adjusting his weight with his cane. Walking with a prosthetic had become significantly easier over time, but it would be a lie to say the stress and tension of the situation wasn’t digging into his stumped leg. He backed down from his defensive demeanor, understanding that that was how they had gotten in their situation in the first place; he didn’t want to worsen matters.
He looked at Adam with pitied eyes, feeling awful for the man. He looked like he was in so much pain, and Lawrence couldn’t help but blame himself for Adam’s state. “I’m sorry, Adam,” he whispered, knowing those words didn’t amount to much, but hoping they offered Adam some sort of consolation.
They didn’t.
“Oh, good for you!” Adam mockingly exclaimed, turning his head back towards Lawrence, but his body remained hanging over the counter and sink. “You’re sorry! Wow, I feel so much better!” Adam ridiculed the doctor much to his agitation. “It’s like nothing happened at all! Everything’s great,” he sneered again, cutting himself short before Lawrence could interject with a snide comment; he was prone to doing that in arguments, something that infuriated Adam to no end. “That was sarcasm, asshole.”
Lawrence sighed, unamused. “I’m aware.” he said flatly, not appreciating Adam’s immaturity.
Adam hung his head again, closing his eyes for a few moments as his vision had grown blurry again. A few pieces of hair had fallen into his face, irritating his bruised eye which had begun to swell. “I...I can’t deal with this right now, I just want to go to bed”. The thought of being under the covers in a cold, dark room made Adam honestly shutter, bringing him back to that bathroom once more. Lawrence noticed this, another pang of sympathy aching his heart.
“Adam, please,” Lawrence practically begged, taking another step closer to Adam, “I just want to talk about everything.”
“What part of ‘I don’t want to talk to you’ doesn’t make sense?” Adam yelled, his frustration with Lawrence nearly reaching a boiling point. He felt tears gloss over his eyes that he tried to hold back, but he felt his defenses weakening one by one the more tired he grew. “I just want to pass out and forget about how much of a burden I am to you.”
The use of his own words against him made Lawrence overwhelmed with regret. He fumbled to find the right words to say to Adam in that moment, his bottom lip quivering a bit. He didn’t see Adam as a burden in the slightest, if anything, he was a blessing in disguise. “Adam, I didn’t mean that,” Lawrence mustered up the courage to say, Adam’s green eyes burning holes into him.
“It sure sounded like you did,” Adam slurred his words again as he swallowed back another wave of queasiness. “It sure sounded like you meant everything you said.”
Lawrence became frustrated at Adam’s childish demeanor. He was telling Adam the straight, open truth, but he was too crude to realize that. Lawrence felt another twinge of guilt at his own thoughts, but couldn’t help the frustration he was feeling towards the photographer. “You said some pretty hurtful things yourself,” Lawrence nodded his head justly, diverting the blame away from himself just as he always did. Adam’s eyes welled with tears that began to streak his cheeks, feeling as if his body was about to give out on him. His head pounded with rage, his stomach twisted itself in knots, and his heart was beating so loud, he swore Lawrence could hear it from where he stood. His lungs ached as he took deep breath after deep breath, but nothing seemed to ease his resentment in that moment.
“Yeah, well at least I didn’t say you deserved to die in that bathroom.”
The room fell quiet at that.
Lawrence took a step back, looking down in shame and regret. Adam shivered with vexation, tears streaming down his face as he looked away from Lawrence, unable to look at the man who had caused him such great pain.
Those words of Lawrence’s made Adam freeze when he first said them. He looked up at the doctor with disbelief in his eyes, unbelieving to have heard such cruel words come from the one he loved. Lawrence appeared to be in disbelief as well, immediately dipping his head down and covering his mouth. Before Lawrence had another chance to say anything, Adam had walked out of their bedroom, tears flooding his eyes.
He had known that his relationship with Lawrence was too good to be true. Everyone who had ever come into his life never stayed for long, friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends. It was either that he had chased them away with his hard-to-love and angry demeanor, or they just used him to get what they wanted, never caring about him in the first place. He thought once meeting Lawrence that things would be different, that he had perhaps met someone who refused to give up on him, who actually understood him, who didn’t think awful things about him behind his back. But as he stormed out of their apartment and down the road to some cheap bar, he realized that nothing had changed. Nothing at all.
“You’re nothing but a burden, Adam! Maybe I should’ve left you in that run down apartment where I found you...better yet, maybe I should’ve left you in that god damned bathroom, I probably would’ve been better off…’
Lawrence cleared his throat, feeling tears begin to cloud his own vision. “T...That’s not how I phrased it…” he weakly said, unable to bring his gaze back to the man in front of him.
Adam was silent for a moment, arms crossed as his body felt instantly cold. “But that’s how you meant it.” Adam replied, his voice just as quiet as Lawrence’s.
The two men stood there in silence for what seemed like years. Neither knew what to say at that point, Adam too afraid of riling Lawrence back up and Lawrence too afraid of hurting Adam once again. Adam tore his eyes away from Lawrence and to the tiled floor, a bit uncomfortable seeing Lawrence in such a frail state. He was always the strong one out of the both of them, perhaps too strong for his own good at moments; but with him being so stable and sound all the time, the moments where he was vulnerable honestly scared Adam. He didn’t know how to react, what to do, what to say in moments like that, and it made him feel guilty.
The quietness continued as Lawrence back fought tears, his hand gripping his cane a tad too tightly. He didn’t know what else to do in that moment, wanting to convince Adam that he was sorry, but not wanting to badger the young man any more than he already had. His heart felt heavy in his chest as he tried to calm himself down, but he couldn’t stray his mind away from the pain he placed in Adam’s lap. He didn’t mean to do such a thing, he didn’t mean those words he uttered so harshly in the slightest, and it crushed him that Adam didn’t believe that.
“I just want to go to bed,” Adam whispered, feeling sturdy enough to walk away from the bathroom sink, his nausea subsiding again and replaced instead by hurt. He took a few steps towards the bathroom door, trying to push past Lawrence in order to leave before he felt the older man grip his arm. “Fucking let me go,” Adam demanded, trying to writhe free from Lawrence’s grip, but Lawrence’s hand only tightened. “I said--”
“I…” Lawrence interrupted, his voice shaky as well as his grip on Adam’s arm. Adam looked up to him with hesitance, the two standing so close to see the pain that festered in Lawrence’s eyes. Lawrence met his gaze, feeling so helpless in his emotional state, but deciding to take that moment to open up to Adam before things worsened. Lawrence wasn’t the most transparent of people; sure he was direct in the language he chose, but he had always kept his emotions bottled up. It was difficult for him to overcome, but just as he had helped Adam slowly heal from his fears, Adam was helping Lawrence to do the same, unknowingly or not.
“I have...far too many nightmares about what life would be like if you never made it out of that bathroom,” Lawrence admitted, tears threatening to overflow onto his face as he looked directly into Adam’s glossy eyes. “And it’s a world I don’t want to live in.” He paused, trying to keep himself collected, never breaking his gaze with Adam. “I said those things to you out of anger. Out of fear,” his lip quiver again, “...I never meant to hurt you, hurting you is the last thing I would ever want to do.”
Another moment of silence passed between them, Lawrence’s grip loosening on Adam’s arm, but Adam didn’t take the opportunity to leave as he originally wanted to. Lawrence continued. “If you don’t want to tell me what happened to you, that’s fine,” Lawrence sniffed, “but I can’t just walk away, leaving you alone like this.” Adam’s anger had fizzled out. Lawrence always had some sort of charming effect on him, but this time it was different. Being so drunk, he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, but it made him feel better, safer, reassured that Lawrence did care about him, and this whole situation was just part of that rigorous road of recovery they embarked on together.
“All I want is for you to trust me, trust me that I care for you so much more than anything else in this world. Trust me that I would never take you for granted, Adam, never again…” Lawrence trailed off, “...and trust me to let me help clean you up.” Lawrence finished, his eyes fluttering around the bruises and abrasions of Adam’s face, each sight pricking at Lawrence’s own fragile heart.
Adam didn’t know what to say, he was at a loss for words for the first time in his life. The raw honesty from Lawrence’s words swathed him with a kind of warmth he had never felt before, and he couldn’t help but give into the feeling. “Okay…” Adam whispered, feeling Lawrence’s hand let go on his arm as he took a few steps back into the bathroom. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Lawrence as he took a few more steps into the room before rummaging through the medicine cabinet to help treat Adam’s wounds. There was something about seeing that vulnerable side of Lawrence that changed his opinion of the man, even in his groggy state. All the previous damning thoughts, shouts, and feelings seemed to fade away with each sincere word that came from his lips. It was enough to make Adam cry, and as he sniffled, he realized he had been.
With the help of Lawrence, Adam sat himself up onto the bathroom counter beside the sink, Adam quietly hissing in pain as the cold mirror touched his beaten back for just a moment. “Are you okay?” Lawrence asked, his eyes still glossy as Adam nodded, feeling exhaustion possess him. But the warm embrace of a hand on his cheek instantly revitalized him. Lawrence gently held Adam’s face as he went to work on repairing him, so to say. Adam relaxed into the touch, finding the situation kind of ironic and a tad cliche, having a doctor to help fix his own injuries. He would’ve laughed at the thought had it been better circumstances, but he decided to just stay quiet as Lawrence tended to him.
A sheet of silence was thrown over the bathroom for a while as Lawrence took care of Adam, wiping the blood from his nose with a cloth, having Adam hold a cold compress to his forming black eye, dabbing antiseptic into Adam’s cut cheek, applying arnica ointment to the bruise on Adam’s neck; Adam much preferred the gentleness of Lawrence’s hands to those of the muscular man who had hurt him. All the while, he didn’t know what to say to Lawrence. The silence of the room was sort of bugging him, but he couldn’t find the right words to fill it. Adam considered an apology, but now didn’t feel like the right time.
“You didn’t hit your head at all, did you?” Lawrence finally said something, picking up a small flashlight from the counter and clicking it on. He placed a soft hand to the right side of Adam’s face, gently pulling down his lower eyelid as he shone the flashlight at his eyes. Adam appreciated how considerate Lawrence was being, and appreciated their closeness even more.
“I don’t think so…” Adam answered, the more time that had passed since his incident at the bar, the less he really remembered the details. Lawrence asked him to move his hand away from his other eye for a moment, attempting to repeat the same procedure on Adam’s bruised eye. As Lawrence touched the other lid to pull it down, Adam cringed with pain, letting out a grunt of discomfort.
“Sorry, sorry…” Lawrence apologized, placing the compress back up to Adam’s eyes. Adam could tell Lawrence had a million more questions floating around in his head that he refrained from asking, not wanting upset Adam again. He took the compress from Lawrence’s hand and held it against his eye, allowing the doctor to continue working on getting a bandage for his cheek. Even without his teary explanation, this act of kindness alone had Adam forgiving Lawrence. He had proven himself more than enough that those words he had spit earlier in the day held no meaning at all, but he knew Lawrence would continue to bend over backwards for Adam until he too believed that.
Lawrence let out a short breath as he placed a small bandage to Adam’s cheek, running over it a few times with the tips of his fingers to make sure it adhered. “I went to the bar…” Adam quietly answered Lawrence’s question from before, the sound of his voice drawing Lawrence’s consoling eyes to his own. “I...I got super drunk, and got into a fight with some random guy.”
Lawrence’s eyes eased up slightly, a small smirk displayed across his face. “I have to be honest,” Lawrence replied, throwing away the bandage’s packaging, “he did get you real good.” His response earned a small laugh from Adam who agreed with a nod.
“The dude had muscles the size of bowling balls, I should’ve known better,” Adam joked, looking to Lawrence with kinder eyes than he had just a few moments earlier. Lawrence hummed alongside another of Adams' soft laughs before the room fell silent again.
Adam dipped his head down. Lawrence began placing items back into the medicine cabinet, the room no longer tense, but there still lingered a small amount of discomfort; almost all the air had been cleared, but even in his semi-drunken state Adam could feel things weren’t one hundred percent.
“I didn’t know that you had nightmares about that.” Adam turned his head towards Lawrence who closed the mirror cabinet, pausing for a moment before lowering his head, his eyes unable to meet his own. Lawrence had shared a lot of bad dreams with him about sawing off his foot or trying to find his family or crawling down that hallway all alone, but he never remembered him telling him about the ones where Adam never made it out alive.
“I don’t really enjoy talking about them,” Lawrence confessed, his eyes still focused on the countertop.
Another moment of silence passed.
“As...unideal as our situation was,” Lawrence continued after a minute, “I feel...almost lucky to have met you, to have this opportunity to truly have you in my life.” His eyes finally found the strength to return Adam’s gaze, still glossy and tearful. “I don’t like thinking about those dreams. Those dreams...they take me away from you, they take you away from me, and I…” Lawrence choked up a bit, taking a deep breath to try to finish his thought, but finding himself unable to as tears began to fall down his face.
“Lawrence…” Adam whispered as he scooted across the bathroom counter until he was in front of the blond man. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around him, Lawrence giving into the embrace easily. Adam nuzzled his head against Lawrence’s neck as Lawrence cried into Adam’s shoulder, holding him ever so closely. Lawrence never really let his guard down when Adam was with him; it was always Lawrence needing to be strong for Adam when he had panic attacks, nightmares, bad thoughts, or times like tonight when he came stumbling home, drunk and emotional. But Adam adjusted quickly to the role reversal, coddling the blond man as he let everything spill out.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you…” Adam heard Lawrence mumble as his back heaved with each sob. “I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m so sorry…”
“Everything’s alright, Lawrence,” Adam reassured the older man, pulling away briefly from their embrace, and placing his forehead against Lawrence’s. It was their own little thing ever since the bathroom, a grounding technique they used when one or both felt scared or upset; it was a simple notion, to let each other know they weren’t alone, and would never be alone again. “Everything’s okay, I’m right here, and I love you so much,” he whispered to Lawrence, holding both sides of his face with his slightly scuffed up hands.
Lawrence took a deep breath, placing his hands atop Adam’s as he began to feel alright again. No anger, no sadness, no inner resentment; just the love of his life with his forehead against his own, reassuring him that everything was okay. They were okay. “I love you, too,” he murmured, opening his eyes to see Adam’s battered, but beautiful face looking back at him.
They had recovered so much with the help of each other since that dreaded night in that bathroom, and things still weren’t perfect, both of them knew that. And perhaps that was okay.
In that bathroom, Adam had accepted that he was alone. But with Lawrence in his arms looking at him with love in his eyes, he knew that wasn’t the case anymore.