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“You look terrible,” is the first thing Lawrence says when Adam opens the door.
“Merry Christmas to you, too.”
Adam rubs his blotchy face, eyes still stinging and puffy with the last remnants of his tears, and shuffles aside to let Lawrence in. It’s two in the morning and he’s crying over a fucking gingerbread house. Or, he was, a few minutes ago.
Like many poor decisions he’s made in life, it started with an impulse buy. He saw the gingerbread house kit at the grocery store and thought it would somehow make this Christmas feel normal, like he’d be a regular person again instead of Jigsaw’s roadkill kabob. He was going to celebrate; he was going to make the perfect little house and eat all of it afterwards for good measure, inhale that neatness and order until it was a part of him, too.
It didn’t take long for the plan to fall apart, though. His bad shoulder ached when he tried to press the walls of the house together, his weak fingers fumbled with the icing. The tears welled up before he could stop them and then there he was, wallowing in his own pitiful state and too angry at himself about it to sleep. He called Lawrence on a whim, fully expecting a quick trip to voicemail, only to be met with a very awake and very concerned doctor on the phone. He asked through his phlegm if Lawrence could come over, and sat up in surprise as he agreed without a second’s hesitation. There was a hint of relief in his voice, Adam noted, as if he wasn’t the only one who needed a distraction tonight.
Now he watches as Lawrence surveys the mess of his kitchen, the scattered remains of piping bags and candy detritus like a kid’s science project gone wrong.
“It looks…” Lawrence says with some deliberation. “Salvageable.”
He’s being polite. It looks sad. It looks like news footage of hurricane damage.
“I know you’re working on your bedside manner,” Adam says, holding up his hands, “but it might be better to let this one die.”
He sits at the kitchen table and rests his chin on his palm, noticing at once that the roof of the gingerbread house had caved in while his back was turned. It’s a perfect metaphor for his life, really, and he tells Lawrence as much.
“Don’t be difficult,” Lawrence replies, hooking his cane on the chair next to Adam and easing into the seat. “You’re not some broken object.”
“Then what am I?”
Lawrence’s mouth flattens. “You’re healing.”
Adam groans and narrowly refrains from banging his head on the table. He’s heard it all before, from his physical therapist and his regular therapist, and—that was it, actually—but the point is he doesn’t need to hear it again. “If I can’t do this,” he says, picking up a fallen side of the gingerbread house with his shaky right arm, “then why even bother?”
Wordlessly, Lawrence picks up the conjoining side and slots them together. The icing is still sticky enough to gel the two pieces in place under the combined pressure of their hands. “Maybe you just need a little—” Lawrence says, letting go to reveal a perfectly steady, standing corner of the house, “support.”
He grins at his own pun, and Adam wants to punch and/or kiss his lights out. Neither is socially acceptable at the moment, so he goes back to basics and throws a crumb at him instead. “Bastard. Help me with this.”
Lawrence helps.
They put together the rest in near silence. Lawrence’s eyes are wide and bright, all focused like he’s performing surgery instead of building a gingerbread house in the middle of the night. Adam wonders if he looks like this playing tea party with Diana. Forceps, he’d say, and put two imaginary sugar cubes in his cup. The thought makes him laugh, and Lawrence’s laser focus breaks to glance at him with surprise.
“Sorry,” Adam says, suppressing another burst of laughter at the mental image of Lawrence in a tiara. “Don’t mind me.”
“Everything alright?”
He nods, biting back a grin. At the same time, the thought of Lawrence’s home life brings an uncomfortable question to the forefront of his mind. “I hate to ask, but…why aren’t you with your family right now?”
“I was, I just couldn’t sleep. Things are…” Lawrence makes a trail of gumdrops leading up to the house. “..tense.”
Adam stays silent, letting him continue.
Lawrence blinks a couple times, and then exhales, long and sharp as if he’s been holding it in. “When I first got back home, we felt so close. All three of us. But things are different now. I honestly…I don’t know if it’ll ever be the same.”
Adam swallows thickly, a pang of pity hitting him straight in the heart. He’s spent the whole night worrying about his own problems, he didn’t even think about what Lawrence is going through. “I’m sorry.”
Lawrence grants him a soft, grateful smile. “I’m glad you called.”
A warm feeling thrums in Adam’s chest. His heart feels like it’s swelling, outgrowing the bounds of his body. This is it, he realizes with a start. This is what happened to the fucking grinch.
He’s too stunned to speak for the next several minutes.
After that, they spend a lot of time adding frivolous decorations. Lawrence pipes little icicles on the eaves while Adam presses peppermints to the foundations. He breaks the foot off of a gingerbread man and says “hey, it’s you,” and Lawrence looks him directly in the eye while snapping the head off another one. They put a single, anarchistic candy cane on the roof just for the hell of it. Adam has never been so proud.
Once it’s done, he leans back in his chair and beams. The finished product is slightly wonky, but mostly okay; it’d make a good home for an unmarried and childless gingerbread person if they’re into slanted roofs and such. He feels lighter, calmer. Maybe not jolly, but on the way to it.
“So what do we do now?” he asks into the peaceful silence.
Lawrence ponders for a moment. “Eat it, I suppose.”
Huh.
Adam almost forgot things can be that easy.
“Ok," he says.
It’s three in the morning, and it’s fucking delicious.