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After he experienced the life or death game in that filthy bathroom, Adam hardly felt right inside his own skin. Even as he sat inside the completely safe coffee shop with a hot cup clutched firmly in one hand, his nerves prickled the skin down his neck.
He tried to focus on the coffee to ground him in the moment: the heat against his hand, the rich smell wafting from the steam and the lingering taste on his tongue from a sip he had before deciding to let it cool.
In this moment of Adam's life, he was simply sitting there with a cup of coffee and everything was understandable and easy. There were no mind games, no shadows in the corner to abduct him, no screaming or blood.
There was just coffee.
"Ah, there you are." A voice called and suddenly Adam released the breath he was holding; he didn't even realize he wasn't exactly breathing until Lawrence showed up. His eyes quickly darted up from his coffee.
With little greeting other than a small smile and a nod, Lawrence was already helping himself to the seat opposite Adam. A second cup was on the table, the lid off in one hand as Lawrence dunked a bag of tea into the hot water.
Adam wouldn't call himself a connoisseur of coffee, but he was even more unfamiliar with tea. However, the owners of this coffee shop prided themselves on a great selection of both, so it was an easy place for him and Lawrence to have their sporadic meet-ups.
"Glad you found the place okay," Adam said with a chuckle. Lawrence scoffed in response and continued to bob the teabag in his cup.
"We must be men of habit, I guess."
Finally Adam gave his coffee another sip, finding the temperature much more bearable. As he drank, he shrugged casually with one shoulder. Why change something when it was good? he asked in his head.
"So how have things been going?" Of course Lawrence was one to start the questions right away. Adam had a choice now: tell the truth, or tell a substantial fabrication.
The truth was that most nights he did not sleep. Every few days, the exhaustion would finally get to him, causing him to overcorrect and end up sleeping an entire day away. Then he would wake famished, raiding his fridge and more often than not, he would eat multiple bowls of cereal on the cold floor of his kitchen.
His sleepless nights were mostly spent all but hanging out his apartment window, smoking like a chimney as he absorbed the sounds of the city. Listening to the sirens, noise of traffic and distant shouts of laughter was much easier than trying to sit in bed in the eerie, not quite silence.
And of course, Adam hadn't gone into his photography room for months. It was too dark in there, and the guilt of his voyeuristic past seemed to haunt him. There was a pang of near physical regret when he recalled stalking Lawrence with his camera.
Right, Lawrence. The man sitting across from him, waiting for an answer to a question that Adam had almost forgotten.
"Oh, nah, I'm... good. You?" Adam awkwardly croaked, hiding his embarrassment with another swig of coffee.
Lawrence quirked an eyebrow, as if he was perceptive to what Adam was saying, and not saying.
"Probably just as good as you." Lawrence said as he looked down at his cup, finally pressing the teabag against the side with a spoon and pulling it out. "I don't know how to talk about it either, I suppose."
His words made Adam's ears grow hot in shame. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lawrence was already continuing.
"I wish things were easy. We went through something practically impossible, shouldn't everything else pale in comparison? We don’t exist in that room anymore."
Adam immediately looked down at his drink as he tried to not think about that disgusting bathroom.
Focus. Coffee. Heat. Smell. Taste. Just coffee.
Lawrence sighed and fidgeted with the discarded teabag, pressing it into the table as dark liquid pooled around it. With little pressure, the bag split open like a wound, exposing wet black tea leaves. Adam continued to avert his eyes.
"Ah, I broke one of our unspoken rules, didn't I?" Lawrence grabbed a napkin and finally covered the teabag, cleaning the mess he made. "Mentioning it."
It.
That room. Bright lights, cold and dirty tile.
The chains, the pipes, the saws. The blood.
"Yeah," Adam replied curtly. "I try not to think about it."
Surprisingly, Lawrence's mouth curled into a dark grin as he chuckled. "Well that's an understatement."
"Just--" Adam inhaled a shaky breath and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes. "Just, okay, I'm not doing well. I sleep like shit. I eat like shit. I feel like shit. Nothing is changing."
Black shapes and shadows clouded his vision as he continued to press against his eyes. Lawrence didn't respond, and instead hooked his fingers around Adam's, pulling his hand away from his face. This caused Adam to finally open his eyes, the shadows disappearing to reveal Lawrence grimly smiling at him.
"I didn't intend to pester you when you're still not ready. Open mouth, insert-- well. You know." Lawrence shifted his foot forward against Adam’s, and of course it was his prosthetic one.
Adam's mouth twitched, rolling his eyes as he tried to not think about the joke too hard. "Asshole. Fuck."
"You're welcome to make very inappropriate jokes as well. Maybe it will help."
"I doubt it," Adam scoffed. "Only hard drugs and a shrink could help me."
"Well that sounds like fun, count me in."
They both laughed, briefly simple and carefree. Anyone watching them wouldn't see the loom of dark humor hanging above them.
Additionally, their hands were loosely clasped on the table. Adam finally noticed this and slowly pulled his hand away. "Ah, sorry," he mumbled self-consciously. Lawrence's hand twitched and sheepishly joined his other hand around his drink.
The awkward moment slowly passed. Both men sipped from their cups in silence as Adam started to tap his foot against the table in an off-beat rhythm.
"Adam..." Lawrence finally spoke. "I'm sorry."
"Huh?" The sound eloquently erupted from Adam's mouth. Lawrence's mouth quirked into a sad smile, though his eyes remained downcast.
"For... shooting you. And...." He hesitated for a moment before continuing, "and for leaving you at first."
The memory flashed before his eyes in a burst of gunfire. There was the surprising jolt of pain followed by the burst of adrenaline as he beat the life out of another man.
Then, of course, there was that first physical contact with Lawrence, both covered in blood and grime. It was weirdly intimate to finally touch another human being after hours of torture. He honestly did not want to let go, even though Lawrence was in danger of bleeding to death. It actually broke Adam's heart and mind to watch him weakly crawl across the floor to get help. It ended up saving both of their lives, but for a moment, it felt like it was truly ending instead.
As much as he did not want to remember that day, that brief moment together crept into his mind more often than he wanted to admit. Even in the midst of the blood and death, there was a comfort there, if you blocked out all the rest.
Gently, Adam pushed his hand forward and brushed his knuckles against Lawrence's.
"It's okay." He paused for a moment before briefly chuckling. "I had it coming though, didn't I? I was such an asshole."
Lawrence grinned right back, his eyes soft and kind. "Oh, but I couldn't bear living without your dashing personality, so the decision was simple."
"Hell yeah I'm dashing, I'm a fucking catch." Adam was faking confidence even though the most he had done all week was crawl out of his apartment to meet up with Lawrence. Still, it was progress, and it was better than wallowing in his misery alone.
Lawrence rolled his eyes and took a long sip of his tea. His fingers at Adam's hand lightly tapped against it, almost like he was communicating by Morse Code. After a moment, he set his cup down and touched a napkin to his lips.
"Seriously though," he started once again, the joking tone gone. "I want you to do better than you're doing. You'll talk to me when you’re able, won't you?"
Even a simple answer felt hard to push out of his mouth, but Adam still forced a quick "yeah" from his lips before ducking behind his coffee.
"I hope I can continue to confide in you as well. Through all of this we are..." Lawrence's eyes flicked to Adam's. "...partners."
That idea sounded fine to Adam, sticking by Lawrence as best as he could, so he nodded.
"Sure, as long as I, uh, don't drive you too crazy."
Lawrence chuckled, which caused Adam to crack a smile back.
"I don’t think you could drive me crazy when I’m already there."