Photos, Music, Videos, and all the fun you can cram into a shoe!!!!

Lawrence couldn’t help but leave that pest in the bathroom for dead, he denies his own feelings and chooses to live in the stable yet unhappy environment he’s grown to love, but what happens when the dead don’t stay dead? AdamxLawrence. A Saw fan fiction.

Lawrence looked around his house, a beautiful two story house, where he, Alison, and Diana shared their living quarters As he looked at the house from the outside, getting ready to go to work, he felt the voice in his mind start to talk to him again.

Soak it up Larry, this is what you wanted, this is what you earned, what you lost me for, what you lied to me for.

Lawrence shook his head, fighting the voice in his mind. Adam was the main reason that he was stuck in the bathroom in the first place; Adam was the reason why he was stuck to that pipe with a shackle around his ankle, Adam was the reason for him having to cut his own foot off, Adam was the scar around his ankle for the emergency operation, Adam was the problem and Adam was gone. The only thing left was his voice, that damned voice that floated around in his head like a thin mist.

Well go inside Larry, go give the wife you don’t even love anymore a big kiss on her lips and give your daughter you never see a hug. Tell them your home from work, you know where you were. I know where you went, but I promise not to tell them anything. It’s so much more entertaining to see you lie to everybody like the coward you are. Right? Right Mr. ‘I promise you’ll be okay.’?

Lawrence looked at the driveway shaking his head again. “Shut up Adam….your gone.” Lawrence felt his throat closed up and sore, throbbing like he had a lump he just couldn’t swallow. A painful emotion he just couldn’t get down into his stomach where it could dissolve and leave him alone.

Aw. Isn’t this cute. I would think you missed me! The voice taunted above his grasp. Lawrence closed his eyes and looked at the picture that always came to his minds view. It was Adam, his white shirt covered in dirt and grime, his black matted hair in a perfect disarray, his jeans fitting so loosely on his thin frame, his eyes so clear and perfect they were. That very last second when Lawrence had put his hand on Adam’s cheek, had felt the fear, the trust, the love, everything in that boy had melted into a puddle on the floor with his blood, all pooling beneath the two. When Adam grabbed for Lawrence’s hands he felt so cold……so insanely cold…

Aw, I think you do miss me! Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?

“Shut the hell up already.” Lawrence walked up to the door, the door to his perfect house, with his perfect life, without that little imperfect vermin that his mind kept returning to…

“As I walk in a room filled with gloom. I don't know what to do”.

Alison was waiting in the kitchen, it seemed like ever since the bathroom everything was even more quite around here than it had been before and that made Lawrence uncomfortable beyond belief. There was something so empty that he hadn’t felt when he was in the room with Adam…stupid, ignorant, faulty Adam.

“Suddenly, my life has changed
As another one's been taken”

Sure, everything was my fault. I’m the one who told you to screw your interns right? I told you I don’t care what you do. So it must have just been all my fault right?

Lawrence didn’t want to say shut up, it would seem like he was talking to Alison and that would get her mad. He didn’t want to start a fight, not right now, not when his mind wasn’t…normal. His mind kept returning to that feeling, those cold small hands on his…

He planned on quickly kissing Alison on the lips, her parted chapped lips looked nothing like Adam’s soft perfect ones. He closed his eyes and for a second that mental picture of Adam, sitting across the room from him was there, only this time he wasn’t sitting across the room he was right in front of Lawrence. His hands on Lawrence’s hips, his body pressed close, he was freezing cold, and with his chest next to Lawrence’s he could barely feel a heartbeat. His lips were parted, his eyes closed, his lips so close…

Lawrence opened his eyes quickly and looked at his wife who was standing just as Adam had been mentally a few seconds ago. She kissed him quickly before he pulled away from her hands.

“I’m…I’m not feeling so great. I’m going upstairs to lay down…"He choked out, his eyes wandering down to the tiles on the floor. She couldn’t see what he saw; she couldn’t see Adam…

“Hope you’re not getting sick.” Alison said before returning to the stove, she was making some kind of stir fry for lunch but he didn't care, he tried to look calm as he made his way upstairs, his right foot hurting with the steps, the familiar pain now had another meaning.

“I find myself in a daze as the sorrow grows”

You can’t tell me your starting to feel guilty? Doctor Lawrence Gordon, guilty of killing the guy he has a crush on! What a great headline.

Lawrence was now in the bedroom, he closed the door before replying to the voice in his head.

“I don’t like you, I hate you for what you’ve done to me, to my family, I hate you so much and you deserve what happened. You deserved to die. So why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Please give them words of comfort so they may rest in peace.”

Larry, Larry, Larry, how can you hate me if you can picture yourself so easily kissing me! And I thought you just liked chicks man, boy was I wrong. I didn’t even read a little gay in you but oh well, Guess I’m wrong. Was that why you killed me? Because you wanted me?

The voice actually smirked, because now the voice was so much more than a voice, it seemed like the image that only appeared behind Lawrence’s closed eyes was before his wide open ones.

In one second there was nothing but an empty room before him with the voice of the man he loved, no – the man he hated locked up. Tucked away safely in his prison of a mind that held so many secrets and yet so few of them were good…

Then in the next second it seemed like somebody had taken an invisible paintbrush and painted the shape of the younger man on his wall, only it wasn’t on the wall, it was in the middle of the room and then it started to slowly fill in. First it was almost transparent, then the pale candescent skin began to fill in, like a nightmarish paint by numbers. His hair went from being a sheer grey to becoming the thick black curly locks that Lawrence wanted to take a brush to so badly.

Flesh and blood stood before him, only his face was void of the blood, where he should be flushed he was as colorless as any other part of his body, his thin framed seemed even thinner while it was still in a semi-transparent stage. His lips were etched with a seemingly permanent grin, displaying a perfect set of teeth, that by all means should be yellow from abuse.

An apparition. Lawrence’s mind wandered, now forming incomplete sentences, short phrases of no real meaning.

This isn’t happening…I have to be getting sick…some kind of … hallucination…guilt trip…tiles……stir fry…I cut off my own…he died…he can’t be……his hands……so cold…

If a mind could totally shut down, Lawrence’s did just that as Adam moved before him, yes that was Adam, no question about it. He was wearing what he had worn that day; there was a hole in the shoulder and a little blood but nothing else wrong. There was still a shackle on his left foot, and he looked like he had just got up and walked out of the bathroom sick of the games and fed up with sitting around.

The slim body moved closer to Lawrence who was sitting on the bed in a state of shock was so dizzying he couldn’t remember when he had sat down all he could get through his mind was ‘I left him. He’s dead. I left him. He’s dead. I left him. He’s dead. I’

You left me, yes, yes you did that and you also killed me. You said you were the only person. You said you were shackled to a pole and you cut off your own foot and you escaped by yourself. You lied to everybody. Its not like anybody would miss me, a nothing photographer. Just stupid little Adam who maybe sold some pictures every now and again, but everybody would miss you, a very important doctor. So, you promised never to leave me, and since you did, Well hell I decided that I’d never leave you!”

“And I can't stand this bad feeling,
Looking at you across the room today, today”

Lawrence watched as Adam walked closer and closer, his heart racing, leaping, failing, his mind screaming, pleading, begging, needing him to get up and run, run for his life and yet nothing wanted to move. The only part of him that moved was his lips.

“Adam…I…I don’t know what to say…I mean…I just…”

Yeah, this doesn’t happen everyday buddy. You are the only person who can see me of course, because I choose to appear to you. Which, if I follow you around like a coattail for the rest of your life then you can’t really talk to me unless we’re all alone and by “we” I mean “you” or else you’ll be called crazy, and sent far, far away. And before you think about that, realize then it would just be me and you in your nice little white room because I’m not going away just because of that.

Lawrence couldn’t do anything but nod his head slowly. Adam noticed and decided to speak up again.

Good, glad you got it. Now….About before, kissing me in the kitchen? Man you’re sinking low. Screwing your employees and imagining about a dead guy. Not only a dead guy but one you killed! Man, I don’t get you.

“How do you know what I think about…what I imagine.”

Well your imaging me, right now, so why cant I see your other little day dreams?

Lawrence felt everything leaving him, all his feelings, everything as Adam came closer and closer to him, inches away from the edge of the bed, he ran a pale, dirty hand through his hair, messing it up a little more.

So…you’ve been thinking about me for a while haven’t you? I mean you reek of it, seriously. You must be gay…Seriously, I know your little piece of ass downstairs is clueless but I’m not. You’ve been picturing me when you kiss her, her lips on yours turn into my lips against yours. Her hands are mine, her skin is mine, her hair is mine, god man, I don’t know if I should be shocked or what.

Lawrence felt the chills run through his body as Adam reached the bed, his thin body seemed … colder, paler, bigger than before, maybe it was because he was closer, or maybe it was because he was in Lawrence’s mind but either way Lawrence was freezing.

Now you know how it feels, to be so damn cold every damned second of your life, to come home to an apartment where the paint if peeling off the walls, where the only light is covered with so much dust that you can only see half the room. How it feels when it’s so bright outside, so warm, and yet you can’t get warm….

Adam looked down at the floor; suddenly he seemed like a child. A confused, small innocent child looking for his mom. Lawrence couldn’t keep looking at him without his heart breaking, he looked to the window. The yellow light streamed through the blinds unleashing thin rivers of the light on the ground in perfect lines, although looking at this made Lawrence feel like it should be a comfortable heat in the room it was freezing…

Adam leaned down to Lawrence, he was both not there and there, somebody who seemed intent on the topic at hand but yet not interested in the person he was talking to.

Well let’s see how much you like the real thing.

The sun is shining bright outside,
And I can't stand to fight

Lawrence looked up at the younger, dead, man to see what he meant and was instead caught, stuck in his place, suddenly soft, perfect, ice cold lips crashed down upon his own sending chills through his entire body, Adam’s hands worked their way to Lawrence’s waist and pulled him up from the bed. Lawrence couldn’t pull away, not because he didn’t want to but because he was frozen, it felt like he had just fallen off the Titanic and into water that was 20 degrees below zero. His body was stiff, void of all feeling, he felt for a few gut wrenching seconds his lungs stop, his heart stop as Adam breathed into his forcibly open mouth, feeling the icy fingers wrap themselves around his heart and squeezed, he felt it run through his body freezing blood in his veins, freezing everything about him, the ache in his mind, the pain in his ankle, the soreness in his chest, everything froze and was replaced with a icy chill.

Lawrence wanted to open his eyes more, pull away, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, the vision he did have started to get dull, dark, black….he was going to pass out, Adam was going to kill him. Instead just before Lawrence could pass out Adam pulled away. Lawrence fell, panting, clutching at his slowly defrosting chest, his slowly pumping heart, his heart that didn’t seem to want to work but had to, the room swam around for a bit, the bed was revolving in circles while Adam just stood in front of him, hands on hips and a smile on his arrogant face.

Finally Adam felt he could stand up, he felt like he could move and he had minor pain, yet he shivered, he didn’t think he’d ever be warm again. With the world finally settling down around him he felt Adam sit down on the bed next to him, felt a very light, movement, a very light weight shifting on the bed as if he only weighted a pound or two. Of course he was a fucking ghost what was he suppose to weigh?

I do pride myself on being a good kisser but I never took anybody’s breath away quite like yours.

Adam winked an arrogant wink, smiled a smile that seemed to charm everything with a heart, Lawrence felt something in his chest, something both cold and warm. Something like that icy hand that squeezed his heart but it felt like his heart was fighting back, as if it wanted to be squeezed again and again and again until there was no more fight left….

This is the start of a beautiful relationship. Adam said, letting his arm wrap itself around Lawrence’s waist, Lawrence felt a chill rush through his body and even through it was cold it also felt….good. Something about it felt right, something about it felt amazing and perfect and beautiful. Lawrence looked at Adam. He saw that blank look in his eyes, that cold chill and he felt that Adam had never been more right….

Got the world out, got nothing inside
Painted myself in a little corner
No one dares to knock at the door now
Biggest lie that I ever heard was
It'll be alright, you shoulda heard that one
Have a laugh when you think about it
Just try not to think about it that much
This time will be the last time
It's not that I don't admire your reserve
It's just that, I'm not feeling so good
Think about it, it'll be alright
Got the world out, got nothing inside
Think about me, I got nothing inside

Adam felt warm. Adam. Felt. Warm. It seemed like the first time in the whole world, he felt like a child who has just been held in the arms of his mother for the very first time and he couldn’t believe it. As his lips crashed ever so softly down upon Lawrence’s he felt something that could be mistaken for a heartbeat in the cave he called a chest these days.

A heartbeat? Never mind that was stupid, it really, really was. It was like trying to convince himself that he was still alive when all he could feel was the pain, the agony, the anguish of death, pulling him deep down, down to a place where the only thing to keep your only company was a dead body; the body of the person you killed, and your own demons.

Adam found himself lost in the thoughts, the feeling, that damn warmth that threatened to start his heart again. To force his blood to run thick through his veins, force his lungs to flower and breathe the air, force his cheeks to flush with the love and hatred and pain he was being forced to inhale. He was lost and only came back when he noticed that Lawrence was turning slightly blue – oh god he was killing him.

A million thoughts rushed through his head all at once, he thought about going further, one hand wrapped lightly around his neck and Lawrence would be no longer…but could he really bring himself to kill the man he loved so dearly….yet that same man was the one who left him, alone to die, alone to bleed, alone to cry until his throat bled and the only taste in his mouth was the metallic burning sensation that was to be etched into his throat for the rest of his existence. He pulled away at the last second. Lawrence’s face was almost comical and yet it was so deathly serious. He clutched blindly at his chest as if having a heart attack and fell backwards onto the bed. Adam wanted to laugh but stopped it before he could open his mouth.

Instead he watched Lawrence, his eyes open and close, open and close again and again, he couldn’t help the arrogant smile he had worn half his life to creep over his face, letting his lips pull into something that could almost pass for a sneer. He put his hands on his hips and watched Lawrence struggle. Adam wanted to watch more, watch Lawrence struggle and be in pain, clutch at his chest and yet he wanted to die 10 times again because of that deep dark love of wanting to see the man who had hurt him so badly, so deeply in pain.

Adam had acknowledged his love for the man long before he died, when his mind started becoming his only company they had talks, nice long talks about what Adam thought about when the hunger got too bad, when the pain in his shoulder got to fiery, when his head spun until he thought he was in the Exorcist. Talks about what happened when he went to sleep, what he wanted, what he needed, who he loved. And although he had passed all logic and stayed alive for almost 13 days he had admitted his love in only 5. Six short hours, with the person and 5 days later you can admit you love him enough to die for them and yet you hate them for letting you die. You were suppose to be willing to die for them but they weren’t suppose to let you die. They were suppose to save you, come in right before the commercial break, sweep you off your feet, and bring you back to their house where its warm and safe, kiss you goodnight as your eyes close and say they’ll never leave you because they love you.

Adam ripped himself away from his thoughts and winked at Lawrence who was sitting up on the bed now, and at some point in time Adam suppose he sat down next to the older man; the silence was becoming overwhelming so Adam had to say something.

I do pride myself on being a good kisser but I never took anybody’s breath away quite like yours.

He couldn’t help but wink after it, letting his scum – bagness come out. Yes that’s what he called it. When he tried to pick up (girls usually, right Adam? Right?) people he gave his sneer like smile that said something along the lines of (I’ll never call you back) let’s go back to my place. He winked that scum bag wink that made him feel like he was trying to be Fonzie or something. He hated (himself) feeling like that.

He wrapped his arm around Lawrence’s waist as if they were a teenage couple going to the movies, the only other thing he could say as Lawrence shivered helplessly (see how he fucking likes it) in his arm was something so cliché he knew it was almost a joke he didn’t have to make.

This is the start of a beautiful relationship Adam said, cracking that scumbag grin again, not being able to help it but feeling that Fonzie would do the same thing. Lawrence shivered again, this time it seemed to shake him a little deeper; and for the first time since Adam had seen him it seemed like he was older than he was. Every line, every wrinkle, every spot or freckle, every missing hair every inch of skin that wasn’t as perfectly taut to the bones as Adam’s was – it all stood out. Adam’s grin faded and he stood up, taking his arm from Lawrence’s waist.

So, old buddy, old pal; how’s life? Not too great with your little wife downstairs but other than that talk to me. How’s work? How’s your foot? How’d you get 2 of ‘em again?

I feel like an ass, Adam thought, pacing the room slowly, looking at his feet, then looking quickly at Lawrence who only seemed to stare ahead, not really saying anything but not asleep or passed out or even out of it, it looked like he was looking for what to say.

“Things are…” He started, slowly, his voice barely audible, “going okay I guess…” He seemed unsure about his answer as if he didn’t understand the question, then he continued. “About my foot, I got a kid – he was in an accident and died within the same 10 minutes I got to the hospital and well they said it might not work but it did….” Lawrence looked at Adam. He stood up and Adam almost jumped because now Lawrence looked not angry or upset but very, very pissed off.

“And what are you doing here anyway?!” He yelled, and then quickly covered his mouth. Adam could, in fact know some of his thoughts and he knew what the problem was even before he read it; he was scared somebody downstairs heard him. Adam knew nobody downstairs heard this, they didn’t even care. Another thought came to Adam in the same second – perhaps Diana could see him and hear him but she didn’t know who he was her mother would assume she had an imaginary friend named Adam or something and things would be fine.

Don’t worry nobody heard you, frankly nobody cares, they all probably think you lost your mind when you lost your foot but I’m here because I missed my little Lawrence and I knew you missed me so much so I decided to stop by and say hi for a few days, or maybe weeks, or months, or maybe even you know a century or two.

Adam smiled, Lawrence shook.

“You’ve got to be shitting me! No, no, no, no! This….this can’t be happening.” Lawrence shook his head viscously as if trying to shake Adam away with it. “You….you aren’t serious. I mean really. You can’t stay here forever…”

And why not? I thought we were friends. You said you wouldn’t leave me.

That was it, that was the card that made Lawrence’s eyes go glazed, his mouth slightly open his hands slack at his sides. He charged at Adam, almost going through him but not quite. Pushing him off his feet and against the wall. Adam was shocked, he hadn’t explained the rules to Lawrence yet but he was already making some brave (correct Adam, you better watch out for what he might do with that…) assumptions. Lawrence’s hands holding Adam to the wall by the neck of his shirt and in that moment Adam would give (your life again, you stilly little boy you never learn anything) anything to feel Lawrence’s angry hot breath on his face.

“You CAN’T do this to me! YOU CAN’T!” Lawrence screamed, no longer caring about the people downstairs. “You CAN’T stay here, you’ll ruin EVERYTHING. Go away you son of a bitch! LEAVE ME ALONE.’ Lawrence yelled shoving Adam’s back into the wall time and time again and Adam would give anything to feel the physical pain over the emotional. Instead of showing his weakness, the way he felt his undead heart fall through his chest he grinned.

Well for being a doctor you’re awfully dumb. I can’t just leave you alone. Don’t you know anything about ghosts.

Lawrence looked down, dropping Adam his eyes wide as he gazed at the floor, Adam knew exactly what he was thinking. It was that word – ghosts finally spoken aloud. The word had run through his mind hundreds of times in the past 15 minutes and the words dead had been spoken but it was just so …. Unreal. A ghost? Yeah, if Adam was in his position he wouldn’t believe it was real either. Adam stood up, he tried to stand strong and yet couldn’t, his knees felt like they were going to buckle out from under him at any second.

Lawrence looked up at his face, more vacant that ever he questioned Adam using his cloudy eyes; his innermost thoughts that were screaming and crying and kicking and punching.

Adam started to open his mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing at all came to his mind except a big blank space void of real thought. There were no witty comebacks, no suggestive comments, no ironic plays on words, there was just nothing.

“You’re right.” Lawrence said slowly and quietly. Adam’s ears deceived him, Lawrence would never say that to him; not after the hatred he confessed. Adam looked at him with the same questioning eyes that started into his. “You’re right….” Lawrence said again, letting it sink in.

About?

“I…I don’t know anything about ghosts.” Lawrence looked down as if he was a 5 year old and had just asked his mom the stupidest question in the world and she was laughing. Adam wanted to laugh, but held it back, he felt if he was still human with a working digestive system he would chuck. H ewatched as Lawrence slowly sunk down to the bed and sat down.

Would you like me to explain? (how can you explain something you’re not even sure of yet.) Lawrence nodded slowly and Adam sat down on the bed with Lawrence and began to talk, carefully telling his story over.

Well, it all started when I died, then there was a bring flash of light and then I don’t really remember (oh yes you do – why are you lying to him?) what happened but now I’m here.

Adam smiled although it wasn’t as promising as his normal smiles were. But it was still there and although he felt like sobbing he could still see doubt etched all over Lawrence’s face.

“So…like…how are things……how … um…”

A little tongue tied doctor? Lawrence stood up, Adam getting to his feet as well.

“Shut up. Just shut up. How could I have just picked you up there and shoved you against the wall, you’re a ghost, you’re suppose to go through things. You’re not supposed to get touched.”

See I’m not suppose to but I can, see it doesn’t hurt me like when you were shoving me against the wall – I didn’t feel (oh yes you did) that. It’s all about when I can control myself to do – try it again and I bet you’ll go straight through me. I can always touch you or anybody else although they won’t see me. Oh and another thing- I’m all in your mind so nobody can hear me except for you. You can see my lips moving but I’m really saying nothing but yet you can’t turn it off because you’ll still hear it in your mind.

“Oh that’s just great, just fantastic, really. I can’t wait to live out the rest of my hell with you, you son of a bitch. If it wasn’t for you we’d never be stuck in the damn bathroom then you never would have to die and then you wouldn’t have to follow me around just like you did when you were alive! Don’t you have some graveyard to haunt.” Lawrence crossed his arms as his eyes lost some of the confusion and gained their former anger. Adam struggled to stay strong, he thanked god he couldn’t cry even though he wanted to.

No, I don’t. I’m 'haunting' you and if you want to try to hurt me again go for it but you’re going to fail. Go for it, charge at me again, do anything you want but I’m not going anywhere.

Lawrence looked at Adam, the rage in his eyes as undeniable as the depression in Adam’s. They must had stood like that, staring at each other for god knows how long but finally the voice of Alison drifted from downstairs.

“Larry, get down here.” Lawrence looked away from Adam.

“I have to go.” He started to say taking a step backwards.

Well do you really think I’m leaving just because that bitch called? No, no, no. I’m coming with you of course. You'll learn to love it, I promise. Adam flashed his grin again and ran his fingers through his matted black hair.

“Fine…I just…I’m too fucking tried to fight. Do whatever you want.” Lawrence walked towards the door, Adam only watching before following him slowly. After leaving the bedroom the two descended the stairs; together.

I'm sorry so much
For bringing my own living hell to
your door
But things had gotten heavy
Everything was deep
Nothing really mattered
So I just went to sleep
I just went to sleep
And I can't take it back
I won't try

Lawrence looked into Adam’s eyes; pale, dead, cold, and suddenly so sad. Yet he didn’t want to believe it, he didn’t want to believe anything that Adam said to him. He lied to him once and it almost cost him his life and he wasn’t going to let Adam’s sad little boy eyes tell him any different. He felt nothing but hatred coursing through his veins as his eyes bore into Adam and he could only hope it hurt him as much as he wanted it to.

Suddenly Alison’s voice seemed to come from nowhere, drifting upstairs like a lost carol.

“Larry get down here.” Those few words were all it took for him to be brought back down to Earth. He looked at Adam and he felt something in his heart, something soft like a butterfly’s wings batting gently against the walls of his chest. He felt it for a split second and knew he had felt it someplace before, someplace a while ago; yet the worst part of all of it was that it felt good, it felt right looking into Adam’s eyes; together, alone in a bedroom in their own world where nobody could see either of them. Then he shook the feeling off – what the fuck was he thinking anymore. There was no logic there anymore.

“I have to go.” He took a step backwards, away from the man who was so confusing yet so damn simple. He watched closely as one pale hand ran through his thick locks.

Well do you really think I’m going to leave you just because that bitch called? No, no, no. I’m coming with you of course.

That was that. Adam gave Lawrence a look of “Go ahead; just try to shake me off your tail” and then followed Lawrence out of the bedroom and down the steps.

Alison stood at the foot of the steps, her hands on her hips, she wore a white tank top, black sweatpants and a disappointed look; the same thing she’d been sporting every day for the past year. The only thing Lawrence could think of was his disgust. Adam could tell.

Aw, you poor thing. What was the problem? Never liked her to begin with? Thought she was hot and she lost her charm? You obviously don’t love her.

Lawrence bit his lip and slid one hand behind his back to where Adam could see it and flipped him off; the only thing he could really do while under the watchful eye of Alison. It seemed like since the bathroom if he did anything just a centimeter out of character then she would have a fit.

Tisk, tisk Larry, you should know better. Oh well, let’s see what she has to say.

Lawrence waited, looking at his wife just as he had looked at Adam only seconds ago, the look of contempt and rage hidden below a mask of indifference.

Lawrence stared. Alison stared. Adam felt like they were going to have a western duel.

“Yes Alison?’ Lawrence finally asked, with all the emotion of a teaspoon. Alison’s face changed from a look of disappointment to a look of anger.

“What do you mean ‘Yes Alison?’ It’s like you have no idea what today is.” Her voice was dripping with poison and Lawrence could remember when they had both been young, he had called her on the phone and talked to her for hours about nothing just to hear her soft sweet voice, now he would do anything to get away from it.

Oh really Lawrence? Anything to get away from it? That’s why you just sawed your own foot off and left me.

Lawrence bitterly bit his lip and tried to think of what he was going to say when they got back upstairs alone.

“I’m sorry, I’ve had a long day and I really think I’m getting slipped it must have…slipped my mind.”

“Yeah, of course it slipped your mind just like everything else that’s important. Do you ever make it up to me? No, always your work, always your job, I always – “

“Are you going to tell me what today is or not?’

“It’s our anniversary. I just thought you might remember since you know you never have and I always yell at you about it I just figured you know, you might remember this year. It was a crazy though.”

Ah, she’s right, shouldn’t you remember your own anniversary, are you that desperate to get out? To leave her and this behind? Are you that anxious?

Lawrence bit his lip harder, sinking his front teeth deep into the tender pink flesh and sighed a deep sigh as he felt a little blood tickle his tongue with it’s warmth.

“Well are we doing anything Larry?” Alison asked, her face still painted with a mixture of anger, hatred, and disgust. Lawrence caught a phrase floating through his mind and seized it, he couldn’t remember where it had come from but he somehow could remember the exact words, somehow Adam’s voice was the messenger carrying the words from Lawrence’s mind to his ears.

Now I see you as a strange mix of someone angry yet apathetic, but mostly just pathetic. Oh that’s great Larry, now you’re quoting him to talk about you’re wife. Next thing you know you’ll be hooking her up to pipes in your bathroom! You going to leave her there too?

Lawrence ignored him, pushing on with Alison instead and although the cold was getting closer to his body he was hoping he could withstand it long enough to talk to Alison before bursting into uncontrollable shivers.

“How about if we go to dinner?” He asked, trying to pretend as if he didn’t care but he dreaded the next few hours. If she said yes they’d be running around getting ready, getting reservations, getting a babysitter, dressing up and then spending the night stuck in some awkward conversation where Lawrence would feel like a failure and Alison would order the most expensive thing on the menu. If she said no, she’d shoot him looks of ‘why didn’t you make me go?’ for the rest of the week and probably not talk to him for a week or two. Lawrence hoped she said no.

“Sounds fine” She said, crossing and uncrossing her arms.

Damn.

“But we’ll need to get ready, and reservations, and a babysitter, and – “

- - -

A few hours later Lawrence was ready, standing at the foot of the steps he already felt exhausted from having to do things that were normally annoying and a pain in the ass to do in the first place but today was special, today a bigger pain in the ass was following him around and he was the only person who would see him.

Several times Adam disappeared from his side, usually when he had to do something so boring that even Adam couldn’t make it worse and usually he could hear Diana’s voice in the other room begin to talk to something in the room. Several times he heard Alison ask the same question.

“Baby, who are you talking to?”

“He says his name is Adam. He says he’s dad’s friend.”

Then Alison would leave, usually with more wrinkles on her face than when she entered the room. Then Diana’s voice would quiet down and then Adam would come back to Lawrence, standing, watching, and waiting. Ever vigilant over the man who had forsaken him and left him for dead. When nobody was else in the room Lawrence finally decided to talk to Adam.

“Listen to me, you can’t come with me tonight. You just can’t. Alison and I….we’re not on great terms right now.”

Adam smirked that childish grin and laughed, but it wasn’t heartfelt, it was cold.

You didn’t have to tell me that – I might not be a doctor like some people around here, and I might not be Oprah but I can tell when two people hate each other – plus don’t forget. Adam tapped Lawrence’s forehead, giving him an instant headache I’m up here, so I already know everything you know. He winked. Lawrence frowned, rubbing his temples.

“So you’re not coming tonight?”

Adam let out another laugh, this time more heartfelt than before, although it still chilled Lawrence. Of course I’m coming, I can’t miss this, plus who knows you might need me

I pack my suit in a bag
I'm all dressed up for Prague
I'm all dressed up with you
All dressed up for him too

Prepare myself for a war
And I don't know what I'm doing this for
Trying to let it all go
But how can I when you still don't know?

The night went horribly, but it was to be expected, just the magnitude of how horrible it was shocked even Adam. The drive up filled and smothered by the deafening silence that fell around everybody in the car including a barely visible Adam in the backseat; then a dinner where the only conversation was being held between Lawrence and the waiter. Adam stood, sat, floated and waited besides Lawrence, sometimes making playful remarks although he knew he wasn’t really being seen or heard. Lawrence and Alison together, unmoving, staring, not saying a single word and Adam could almost believe that they were dead instead of him.

Every now and again Lawrence would push away from the table, walk into the bathroom and talk to Adam a little; sometimes saying something witty remakes back to a remark Adam said earlier in the night, and other times not saying anything at all not even letting the dead into his thoughts but Adam could sense where this was going. There was tension; a lot of it and there was going to be a blow up soon.

After a dinner where nothing was said, Lawrence asked in that voice that seemed to make it seemed like he was only a puppet being controlled by somebody in another room, if Alison would like to go to the café down the street, she said it would be fine and they left with Adam on their tail.

They got to the cafe, ordered two coffees and two pieces of strawberry cheesecake and sat staring at each other in the almost abandoned store front. Adam looked around for something to do while the two enjoyed hating each other face to face while he was busying himself someplace else. He found himself in the back room watching some strange guy making cake when he heard it start and he knew he had to see it even though it went against what his heart told him to do.

He watched as Lawrence and Alison started to talk, their voices low and yet still echoing in the room that now only had four (real Adam, don’t count yourself in there.) people, two of which were Alison and Lawrence who were now staring at each other murmuring in short curt whispers, however it was escalating, now they were talking, Alison would cut off Lawrence, he would give her a look of contempt and then cut her off, soon they were above indoor voices and yelling at each other.

Adam couldn’t help but admiring both of them in their moment of heated hatred, both looked perfect, both were holding the qualities he wanted so badly and would never admit to anybody, he wanted the strength they had, against each other and at some time for each other. Then things seemed to be over, they exchanged searing looks, Alison picked up her purse and then she left, her heels clicking against the tile leaving only Adam and Lawrence and two very confused workers looking at each other. Adam couldn’t say anything, he just couldn’t bring his mouth, or his mind to move or even think; instead he reached over to Lawrence wrapping and arm around him and waiting for the shivers that never came.

--

He knew it was coming. It was a matter of sitting back and waiting for the big boom, the argument to end all arguments and he believed that it had just happened tonight. They had just been sitting together, not saying anything, Lawrence had better things to do and he’d rather be stuck with anybody else.

Even me?

Lawrence had waited, he sat through the dinner listening to the clink of 50 dollar silverware against good china, the chewing, Adam’s small harsh comments, his own shallow breathing, and the tables around him talking and laughing, having a good time while he sat through a hell, a silent prison. Waiting for it to be over, when it was he suggested desert, he hoped she said no but liked the thought of it and they could go home, he could change and fall asleep on the couch and when he woke up he’d be there Adam would be gone and things would be typical. All a bad dream right?

But she said yes.

And they went to get cheesecake.

And she left.

She left.

She’s gone.

Now he stood in the almost empty café, with Adam’s cold arm around him and for once since he’d known the pest his arm wasn’t nearly as cold as he thought it should be.

--

Okay champ now what? Adam stood out among the ghosts of the morning to come and the night that has already passed, his fading in and out shape against the fog that seemed to blanket this whole damn city. Lawrence had seen a few horror movies over the period of time and it seemed like he was walking through one of those towns were all the people are gone and all that’s left is that damn stereotypical mist. If Adam hadn’t been right next to him he would have believe that everybody was gone from this city, there was some dramatic evacuation while he and Alison had the storm of a century and of course the horror movie fog rolled in. The only problem with that statement was “If Adam hadn’t been right next to him” see; he kept forgetting that Adam wasn’t really there.

The fact that Adam’s coldness was sinking into his bones so he didn’t feel as uncomfortable when he moved closer to him didn’t help Lawrence to put distance between the two. Instead the two walked down the street in their post midnight fog in a daze seeming as if the world had quit on them. Lawrence looked at Adam, and for once all day he saw a person. He blinked quickly, looking away, his mind filled with some kind of weird high.

“I don’t know…. I have no idea where I’m even suppose to go now….I don’t have anyplace to go to.” Alison’s words rang in his head, ‘If you so much as think of coming into the house tonight so help me god Lawrence I’ll call the cops, leave me alone tonight’ He didn’t feel tired but he sure as hell didn’t feel alive and he had work in a few hours. He was starting at 8 and he couldn’t wander the streets until that time, he looked at Adam and just knew exactly what he was thinking.

--

Well you can come to my place. (oh, way to go, you’re letting him go to your shitbag apartment, he’ll only hate you more. Seriously what do you want him to do? Despise you for these next few…well months. You want him to go over your apartment which hasn’t been even opened in about a year and see the dirt and mud and rats maybe, and all that good stuff? Great thinking)

Adam shook the voice off, trying hard to smile and seem confident, maybe things would look up, maybe he and Lawrence could just hang out for a little bit before he went to sleep, it wouldn’t be a huge step but it would still be a step all the same and you have to start someplace. Maybe they could find a movie and they could talk and –

“Well I don’t think I have that many other options right now so I think I’m going to have to take you up on that one, not that I want to, I just have to.”

Adam nodded, his smile fading slightly, as Lawrence continued to talk.

“Well is it still yours…you’ve been…well….” Lawrence eye’s met the pavement, “dead for a while now…” Adam knew exactly what state his apartment was in. After all, when you die and come back it’s not as if you know your fully dead yet. At first you think you’re having a nightmare so you go back to where you used to live, that’s why ghosts hang out where they were in life most of the time. Adam, after going to his apartment and going through is couch, nobody seeing him, and not being able to ‘wake up’ figured out he wasn’t dreaming. He had seen his apartment and realized it was a mess but maybe Lawrence wouldn’t really mind, after all he had no place else to go.

If you don’t mind a little mess I think things will be fine, I wired my neighbors electricity to go to mine too so the lights and TV should still work, I’m not sure if they found that out yet but I know I have a bed and clothes and stuff if you (why would somebody like Lawrence ever) need (anything from you ever?)….

Adam smiled, this time he meant it and hoped that Lawrence could tell and although the older man had been extremely cross all day, Adam could swear he almost saw the corners of his perfect lips turning upward in an attempt to hide the smile that would otherwise burst out from behind his icy cold mask.

Well I know it don't make much sense
I'm in love with your innocence
What you got what I need
You took my breath
Now let me breathe
What you got what I need
I follow where you lead
You make me wanna…

The door to apartment 1405 slowly opened, allowing a ray of light from the hall to seep into the deserted room. From the second Lawrence twisted the doorknob he could smell that disgusting old, rotten, dead stench emitting from the room as if something had died in there.

Oh come on, it’s not that bad. You can always go find someplace else where you’ll have to pay for the rest of your well, stay. Here at least everything is free and well isn’t all your money at home; or should I say was at your home, now it’s all at Alison’s plac –

Lawrence slammed his fist down against the wall, cutting off the non visible Adam quickly and efficiently.

“Okay, I get it; I’m an ungrateful bastard but still just shut up, I’m not bitching and moaning about it to you; I’m thinking about it and personally I could ignore you for the rest of my life and not care so just shut up. Thanks for letting me stay but if I don’t say it to you please stay out of my head okay?”

There was no sound but Lawrence felt rather than saw that Adam had nodded in the dark room in agreement to what Lawrence he just said.

“Now is there a light switch or something?” For a few blind seconds he groped about the walls for a switch he could use to turn on the lights and when he didn’t find anything he was only slightly shocked when they came on anyway.

They were to your right when you walk in.

Lawrence nodded and looked around the place, it was only slightly better than what he expected, at least it looked like nobody else had come in here for months. There was no real graffiti on the walls or cans on the floor but it was by no means paradise.

The walls were a yellowing shade of white most of the paint was peeling off and it looked like that place was as dusty as a crypt, the lights seemed to flicker every few seconds. The kitchen was attached to the living room and nothing really separated it, you could see right in it. One the far end there was a window, and then a couch and a TV, one chair, and a small coffee table.

Adam stood in the middle of the room.

Let me give you the grand tour sir, if you turn to your left there’s the bathroom, turn right, a bedroom, right here Adam pointed to the ‘kitchen’ is the scenic dinning area, Right now your standing in the foyer and I’m in the living room. He bowed dramatically. I hope it surpasses all your wildest expectations.

Lawrence really wanted to laugh but something stopped him, he wanted to but he couldn’t. He just stood there looking at Adam and waiting for something, anything to happen.

“I’m…I’m going to look around okay?” Lawrence said, feeling stupid, what kind of statement was that even? He had to live here he had every right to start looking around wherever and whenever he wanted to. He decided to start in the kitchen.

--

Let me give you the grand tour sir, if you turn to your left there’s the bathroom, turn right, a bedroom, right here Adam pointed to the ‘kitchen’ is the scenic dinning area, Right now your standing in the foyer and I’m in the living room. He bowed dramatically. I hope it surpasses all your wildest expectations.

(Oh great now he looks even more pissed look what you keep doing. You’re fucking everything up and every inch we’ve gained we’ll loose.)

The two looked at each other, it seemed like forever and the only things that Adam could think of were the same things he had thought since he had been sent back here. (Why do you keep bothering Adam/ Honestly? What’s the use? What’s the point in this? You’re never going to get him to feel what you feel for him back to you. )

Adam looked down at the floor, seeing how dirty it was, nobody cleaned this place in over a year, and like when he was alive he ever did?! That’s a joke. He didn’t care when he was alive if it was dirty or clean or on fire on underwater. To him it was simply a halfway point, he was always coming or going, almost never there. What he did was follow people, stay close to them and that rarely meant staying in his apartment, he only stayed there when he didn’t have a job at the time. Now it mattered that this place was so damn shitty because he let it get that way. All Lawrence could say was he was going to go check the place out and Adam would have paid any amount of money to be sitting chained up In the bathroom again…

--

The kitchen was normal, dirty but nothing strange and Lawrence believed that if he had to live here he could take a day or two off and clean the damn place. It wasn’t that large and everything seemed to be working okay. The bathroom was next. Passing through the living room he saw that Adam was sitting on the couch, deep in concentration, Lawrence really didn’t want to get involved, he was tired but still interested in his surroundings and although he didn’t think he’d get much sleep that night he wanted to see what he was up against.

First off, the bathroom had no door. That would have been fine if you were living there alone but of course now Lawrence was involved and things would have to change when it came to that. It looked okay, it was also very average, shower, toilet, sink and a mirror covered medicine cabinet. Lawrence’s head was still throbbing as it had been all day and in the hopes of getting an Advil or any other medication that was behind the slightly cracked mirror he opened the medicine cabinet and his jaw fell.

Inside there were rows and rows of bottles, all different sizes, with all different pills. There had to have been at least 50 or 60 bottles inside the cabinet and being a doctor Lawrence was shocked at what he saw. Reading off names he saw no real connection between them, as he was consumed by this he didn’t even notice Adam was standing in the door frame.

Ah so you’ve found my dirty little secret. God, now I know how a ton of people I’ve busted wide open feel.

Lawrence didn’t turn around but he knew Adam was smiling. He grabbed a few bottles and turned around.

“Nitrofurantoin monohydrate, dexamethasone, chlorpheniramine polistirex, seroquel? Where did you get these? You don’t have any of the conditions that these need, if you did you’d be dead before you hit the bathroom, you’d be dead in the bathroom, you’d just…I don’t get it!”

Adam laughed a cold calculated laugh that seemed to chill Lawrence more than his touch ever could. Do you really not understand? I don’t have any of those things needed, hell some of them are for herpes, some are for urinary tract disorders, some are for osteoporosis, I don’t have those things, but I still take the pills, never can be too careful huh Doc?

Lawrence shook his head flinging the bottles into the sink, a few lids popped off, letting some multicolored pills down the sink. “Don’t you understand you could have died from all those? Don’t you get that there are so many accidental overdoses and you’re just sitting in your apartment popping them like pez for kicks? You could have died!”

I am dead now, so no worries right?

They looked at each other for a few seconds, just looking, Lawrence into those deep, dead, sad eyes.

--

Why don’t we just go sit down and just watch TV? Please? Adam said breaking the pause. He had lived his entire life telling himself it was all okay, he had always walked away from that topic, hid it at first when it was still young and could be stopped and let it grow, it turned into another of his cancers and since he had never had to explain it to anybody the last person he wanted to explain it to was Lawrence, Doctor Lawrence Gordon. So he was more than elated to see that Lawrence shook his head yes.

“I guess that’ll be fine…” He said, walking over to the couch and sitting down. Adam walked to the kitchen.

Let’s see if we have anything….

--

It was 4 in the morning, Lawrence had work at 8. Lawrence was drunk off his ass. Adam found some old cheep beer in the fridge and although neither of them knew how long it had been in there Lawrence decided he’d try it. Soon he had 4 down, then 6, now he was on his 8th.

They had found some stupid scary movie on some channel where a guy who looked just like Adam was some sort of vampire hunter and was also a huge wuss out. Adam and Lawrence sat on the couch and laughed for a good hour watching the film, Adam was mostly laughing at Lawrence. Never in his wildest dreams would he think that Lawrence was such a sloppy drunk.

It was almost cute the way he laughed, the way his eyes gleamed, the way he sat and said exactly what was on his mind, if he was bitching about Alison or taking about his job or just ranting and raving every commercial break. If at all possible Adam fell deeper into the web that Lawrence unknowingly had thrown around him.

Adam wondered if he should say anything, after all Lawrence was drunk and wouldn’t remember anything in a few hours, hell if he even knew what he was doing now and what he was saying so Adam decided to take a chance.

You know, you’re really damn cute when you’re drunk.

Lawrence chuckled taking a sip from the can on the table.

“Hehehe, don’t you know.” Lawrence set the can back down and (dear god if I had a heart right now it would be stopping. What’s he doing? Oh my god I can’t believe - )

--

‘What the hell am I doing? What am I thinking? Why am I doing this…what’s wrong with me. Lawrence STOP. His mind screamed but he kept leaning forward until -

--

(What the hell’s wrong with you? He’s drunk! This is wrong! He has no idea what he’s doing! Make him stop.) But Adam couldn’t pull away. Since he’d come back he couldn’t taste or feel or smell, now everything was rushing to him so fast and hard that if he had blood he’d have a major nosebleed. Lawrence’s soft, sloppy, wet perfect lips on his, an arm clumsily around his neck, and seat pushing against his back. He could smell the sweet alcohol around him drifting in the air. He could taste it on Lawrence’s breath as his perfect mouth opened and let a slow deep breath into Adam’s mouth.

(It’s like true loves first kiss when everything is better, when everything is perfect when everything is amazing and bright and beautiful and )

Adam pulled away, gasping slightly and felt everything go numb again. (We should really think about that later shouldn’t we? Maybe we could use that somehow.) Lawrence let out a soft cry of protest as his lips trembled as if he was in cold water.

--

What are you doing? Honestly, what the hell is wrong with you! You should stop right now, really just seriously stop before any of this goes too far and - But he couldn’t hear it, all he could hear was the words that were so reluctantly stuck on the roof of his mouth come tumbling out into one long sloppy drunk string of a sentence.

“I need you…’ He begged silently, their eyes meeting, Lawrence felt it all over, the cold and the heat, the warmth and yet at the same time the grip of death and all he wanted was more. You almost said love, you don’t love him you’re drunk you don’t know what your doing STOP THIS NOW! his sober mind screamed but his drunk body was only listening to his heartbeat racing in his ears, the icy touch that seemed to wrapped around his back leaving a trail of shivers and goose bumps, the soft -

--

touches he would have given anything to feel. He would die again if he could only feel Lawrence’s warm skin beneath his lips. He would have happily marched himself right back into the bathroom if when he slid his hand up to Lawrence’s chest he could feel the heartbeat that he knew was racing. He couldn’t but he’d die just to -

--

- remember exactly what happened that night. Lawrence could remember the bitter cold biting away at his skin and yet nothing had ever felt better, and of course he could remember the blinding white void of pleasure that racked his body. After the kiss everything went, well white. Black wasn’t the word to describe it, he couldn’t remember what happened but he could remember the fact that everything had been toned out except that white light and he remembered he thought he was dying.

--

It was 5:30 am, Adam sat watching Lawrence sleep. Drops of cold sweat spotted his brow and he was breathing slowly, deeply as if in sleep still trying to recover from the events that had happened just a half hour ago. Adam was amazed by how amazing he looked, was, acting, sounded, he was so damn perfect. Watching Lawrence shiver every now and again beneath the thin blanket Adam was reminded of an image of an angel in hell, here sat the most perfect human being he’d ever met in his hell hole of an apartment sleeping like it was the Hilton.

Adam wished he could sleep, he wished he could be tired or hungry or thirsty or need to pee. That was one of the things, being a ghost meant you didn’t have to do things like that but when you didn’t have to do those things that you’ve done your entire life you feel empty, like something’s missing. Nothing on earth was better than being tired and coming home to fall asleep and the feeling it gave when your head finally hit the pillow and as Adam watched Lawrence sleep peacefully he dreaded he’d never feel something like that again.

(Hm, now should we start to talk about that little bit of information you learned earlier about if you kiss him everything opens up? How are we going to use that hm? Every time you want to do something you cant just make him lock lips with you. You - )

But he was cut off by a soft voice in the dark; thick and covered with sleep.

“Adam?” Lawrence asked, his eyes closed, his breathing deep, Adam doubted if he was even a quarter awake.

Yeah? Adam waited.

“What was heaven like?” He sounded like a child, like a little boy that’s scared to go to bed and yet Adam had never heard anything so serious in his life. He thought about his reply a few times before saying it, he didn’t know what he was saying now so he’ll never remember it in the morning.

Horrible.

“Why?” Lawrence rolled over to his side, pulling the blankets up, Adam saw his eyes weren’t even open.

Because you weren’t there.

I've watched you change from spring to winter.
Watched the sun drown out of the sky like it never was there.
Now that you vanished.
I see you the best.

Lawrence huffed softly, pulling the blanket over his head as his cell phone went off. “Hells Bells’ by AC DC seemed to be blasting at 100 percent in his ears instead of having it play at a normal level like medium or low. He couldn’t even bring his hand up to his face as he felt his temples throb as if he had been out all night. He couldn’t remember where he was, when it was, or why he was here. At first he thought it was his bedroom, blankets, cell phone alarm going off, normal right?

“Ally could you turn off that please.” He said, rolling over without even opening his eyes, now he realized he wasn’t in his bed. He was nose to nose with some sort of cushion that smelled like beer, smoke, pizza, and sweat. The music turned off and another voice came, softer gentler than Ally could have ever been in the morning.

Lawrence, you have work today, you have to go okay? You have to get up.

Lawrence rolled over again so he wasn’t face to face with the unfamiliar couch, the unfamiliar voice, the throbbing in his head but his movement only made everything that much clearer; that much more painful. He could smell coffee someplace in the air and although his eyes were closed he knew that the lights were off but the curtains were open.

“Just a few more minutes” he begged, slurring the words together and Adam let out a soft low chuckle. Larry, you sound like you’re in high school. Get up, you have to go, I got some coffee and the water and the bathroom works, come on. I can’t wait to get first row seats into seeing what you do every day.

Lawrence’s eyes opened quickly, suddenly he remembered where he was and some of what had happened last night. Adam stood in front of him, watching and waiting in the same clothes he had been. Lawrence shivered he didn’t know what they did but he felt cold all over and yet warm, like his heart was skipping beats or something.

Lawrence sat up, not being able to stop his first reflexes even when he felt the lump of vomit lodge in his throat, swallowing something that tasted like stale beer and cheesecake he put his hands over his stomach and bowed his head, hoping the waves would pass. On the table in front of him sat a glass of water and a cup of coffee, also three pink and yellow capsules were lined up.

After the waves passed he looked at Adam, his eyes questioning. He had so many questions but it was already 7 and he had to be at work for 8. Adam sensing (or reading, be careful what he’s reading into you about.) Lawrence’s rush of time decided to tell him what was going to happen, taking control shockingly well for being nothing more than a little boy playing dress up in his father’s clothes.

Go take a shower, we have water you know. While you’re in there I’ll remind you of everything, I promise not to look okay?

Lawrence nodded slowly, feeling if he moved his head too quickly it would just roll off and under the couch.

“What are those?” He asked, eyeing the pills on the table.

You’re a doctor aren’t you? Shouldn’t you know? Lawrence really wanted to yell, he wanted to slam his fist down on the table and tell Adam to quit the bull shit but he could barely talk and something like that would leave him in convulsions on the floor so instead he opted for asking him again.

“Stop shitting me, what are those?” He asked again, “I know I was drunk last night, if I got you wasted do you think you’d even think of photography?” He asked, hoping to get the answer to his first question.

You don’t get it, see my job failed horribly so a lot of the time I was buzzed or something so you’d better think of a different example.

“Just shut the hell up already okay? I’m not taking anything unless you tell me what it is and what it does or else so help me god I will bring you back from the dead and kill you myself.”

Just something called Sphenmix. It always cured my hangovers and crashes. Lawrence reached out taking the pills and the glass of water, popping them into his mouth and swallowing greedily he looked at Adam, his chest had another inner shudder looking at Adam, watching patiently for him to finish.

“Good, I’m glad I don’t have to bring you back from the dead to kill you, I don’t think I’d be able to do it this morning.”

They both smiled.

--

(Oh my god, Adam just look at that; in one day you’ve got Doctor Lawrence Gordon naked in your bedroom!) Adam laughed at himself and Lawrence looked accusingly at him.

Nothing, just thank God I can read your thoughts and not the other way around. He laughed again watching the dripping wet, towel clad doctor shift through piles of clothes laying haphazardly across the floor of the small bedroom.

Can’t find anything you like doctor? Adam said, cracking a grin. Lawrence merely scowled back at him.

“No I can’t. You know I’m going to a hospital and I can’t wear this…this shit.” He said, flinging a dirty Motley Crue tee shirt across the room. Adam shrugged.

Not my fault. Why don’t you wear what you wore last night? Lawrence merely huffed his disapproval.

“For one it’s dirty and smells like alcohol for god’s sake I can’t wear that to a hospital!” He flung a few more shirts around the room until he found one that wasn’t dirty or smelled horrible. It wasn’t the most appropriate thing but it’s better to be clean that to be appropriate right? It was one of the shirts Adam loved and took care of, going so far as to actually wash it. It was a Freddy shirt, with him on the front and huge ripped claw marks in the back. He dug out a pair of jeans that were clean and not ripped badly. He also took one of Adam’s hoodies to cover the shirt. It was a plain black thing that; even thought Lawrence was 50 pounds heavier than Adam and about three inches taller, was still at his knees and about two sizes too big.

“You wore this outside?”

My job didn’t require me to look as spiffy as yours does. Adam let out another laugh, what kind of faggy word is spiffy? He laughed again as Lawrence turned out the lights and walked outside.

--

Following Lawrence around a hospital was unusual, to say the least. Adam knew he was dead, he knew that he couldn’t feel things and he knew that people weren’t staring at him but he had grown up paranoid and it felt like every corner they passed everybody was starring at him.

(All eyes on the low life following around Doctor Gordon. Everybody can see you they just ignore you like they did when you were alive) Adam fought not to answer it back. He was truly waiting for somebody to say something. (“Doctor Gordon? Who’s that man standing behind you? Yeah the one with the blood on his t shirt, the one who doesn’t look like he’s ever seen a shower. That one.”)

Lawrence had put on a white lab coat over the Freddy shirt the second they got there then they did their rounds around the hospital. Lawrence checking on everybody who needed checking on, administering pills to people, who couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t shit, couldn’t think. Talking to people who talked to god and had seen how it was all going to end, taking temperatures, checking pulses, all that fun stuff.

Lawrence had only been paged once, an emergency a little boy was hit by a car, it wasn’t bad but his leg looked pretty fucked up and Lawrence got called down to see if he could help in the surgery. As he was as the operating table decked out with the yellow rubber gloves, mask and everything else Adam stood behind him emitting the draft that everybody else in the room felt.

Lawrence made an incision on the boy thigh, desperate to save this little kid’s leg as Adam watched in gross fascination.

Ew, dude seriously sick, what is that? Oh my god…that’s what’s inside all our legs?

(Everybody who’s alive.) Lawrence thought, and Adam felt it, shutting up but not going anyplace, he couldn’t tear himself away from the surgery.

Honestly, what’s that just like think it or something because all those whitish things…are they muscles?

(muscles and ligaments and tendons. We’re trying to repair his tendon first then work on everything else.) Lawrence was getting used to this, thinking to Adam instead of saying anything and (I hope he doesn’t start doing just this instead of talking to you. You just love to hear his voice don’t you?) Adam frowned watching them finish the surgery.

Finally after doing all that could be done at the moment Lawrence breathed a deep sigh of relief and walked out of the ER, removing his gloves and walking into the small locker room so he could change into a clean lab coat.

Doesn’t it upset you that what you do is called “practice?” I mean really, it’s like…isn’t that scary? If this is practice what’s the real thing?

Although Lawrence knew he was just busting his balls he couldn’t help but laugh, saving the kid’s leg had worked him up so much that he had to laugh and let off some of the tension. Adam seemed a little shocked but happy that he was finally losing up.

Then they continued their rounds, every room seemed to be the same. Adam couldn’t smell it but he knew everything around him smelled like death, not like the bathroom; but a clean sterilized death that was roaming in every corner, lurking in every shadow and waiting for the weak to give up.

Finally they arrived at a room, C-0075, and Adam stopped moving, talking, he just stopped.

Lawrence turned, usually Adam was as talkative as Diana or worse and he was always cracking off jokes, since he had seen him 24 hours ago he had sworn the man hadn’t shut up that quickly and stopped all movement. Adam’s eyes were set on the name under the door.

Roshlem, Linda Anne. Lawrence didn’t see anything weird. He looked at Adam waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to do something but his eyes didn’t waver from the name.

“What’s wrong Adam?” Lawrence whispered, nobody was around him and most people thought he would just be talking to himself.

I can’t go in there… Adam said softly, his voice so soft and child like Lawrence had to strain to hear him.

“Why not?” Lawrence said, crossing his arms.

That’s….that’s my sister… I can’t go in there….I haven’t seen her for years….

Lawrence’s heart fell, he couldn’t tell Adam that this was the wing where they put people who usually had no hope.

She’s my step sister but still…she’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to family and (why are you saying all this shut your mouth before he finds out too much!) I can’t go in there.

“Well if you’re sure about it.” Lawrence began, as Adam looked at him.

This is where they put you when you’re going to die isn’t it? Lawrence couldn’t say anything, all he could do was stare a hole into the floor.

LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME IF THIS IS WHERE THEY PUT YOU WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO DIE.

Lawrence looked up and nodded.

“I’m sorry…” He said, although he had told thousands of people they were going to die, told thousands of mothers their sons didn’t pull through, told millions of people their mother died or their baby didn’t make it this was the hardest thing he ever had to do.

I’m going in. Adam said, it was something that was said and although Lawrence wanted to beg him not to, tell him he couldn’t forbid him from doing it, he couldn’t say anything. He opened the door to the room and the two walked in.

In the middle of the room was the classic hospital bed, and in it sat a girl who at one time could have been beautiful, her skin was faded to a pale almost yellow tint, her lips were a beautiful shape but looked as if they couldn’t be pulled from the frown that seemed to be permanently placed there. She looked like at one time she had long beautiful blonde hair but now it almost looked white. She looked to be 80 pounds, looking old and feeble with wrinkles all across her thin body. The worst were her eyes, they held the shadow of the past beauty that was there; now they were a pale shade of blue hiding the sparkle that belonged there. She was 29.

“Hello Mrs. Roshlem.” Lawrence said, looking at the chart instead of her, it was so horribly sad to see what happened to such a beautiful girl. More importantly he couldn’t bring himself to look at Adam. Then she raised her hand, the IV needle clicking against the bed rail and looked past Lawrence. Her voice was dusty, as if it was only to be used on very special occasions and she sounded so far away Lawrence thought he was making it up for a second, but what she said was real and fear rode through Lawrence the second the words left her lips.

“Hello Adam.”

I want you now
I'll feel my heart implode
And I'm breaking out
Escaping now
Feeling my faith erode

(Oh no, no, no, not this, please nothing but this, please don’t say it’s her, please don’t say this is the place they put you when you’re going to die. Oh please don’t let him open that damned door, please don’t let me see her) Adam prays to nothing and no one. Nobody can hear him, nobody can see him, nobody wants him and now he sees something he’d never want to see.

(Oh Linda….oh Linda….what is that matter, Linda what’s wrong, Linda please don’t give up. Oh Linda, Linda, Linda please….I’m so sorry I’m so sorry for everything. Please don’t go.) Adam can’t think, he can’t see, and he can’t hear. Everything around him is gone, there’s nothing but the pale fragile sister he loved and hated passionately throughout his life.

A million memories, some suppressed, some truly forgotten, some pointless float around his mind, as his eyes sweep over the woman he can’t believe is his sister. She was always so beautiful, he had always since a child looked up to her, she was perfect and here she sat, withered like a flower waiting to fall from her stem, fall to the ground; be trampled and forgotten as if she was never there.

Lawrence’s voice cut through the silence like a knife, only Adam can’t hear it. Lawrence says something to her; he’s looking down at his papers because he can’t look at either of them and Adam knows that Lawrence might never be able to look at her again, let alone him. Maybe Lawrence can look at him later, after they forget about this, or he pushes it to the back of his mind and assigns another doctor to her so he won’t have to see her, see him watching them interact. Then she does something that pulls Adam out of his trace; because she couldn’t even do this in his wildest dreams.

She raises a thin, pale weak arm. Almost all the veins could be seen, her skin is pale, almost yellow modeled with streaks of blue and purple, and she raises her arm as much as she can muster as the IV tubes and needles they have laced through her thin skin click against the bed rails. Her eyes shimmer as if she were going to cry but couldn’t get any tears out; couldn’t afford the lose of water.

“Hello Adam” Her chest heaved and Adam would bet any amount of money that if he lifted her paper thin night gown that he could see her heart beating beneath her skin. Adam felt sick, not the kind of sick that a normal human feels, although this was close enough, he felt mentally sick like he was going to die again, like his brain was slowly shutting down parts it didn’t need and getting ready for another meltdown that would leave him bleeding and screaming alone in the dark again.

Wanting to cry but not really knowing what to say he raised his own hand, hopping she saw and wasn’t just dreaming.

Hey Munch. He smiles even though he wants to sob, to break down into tears on Lawrence’s white lab coat in this perfect clean white room. Lawrence looks up at Adam for a second and then back at Linda.

“Sorry, I’ll be right back in a moment.” He says as he walks out the door hinting for Adam to follow, even though he doesn’t want to he does anyway, outside the room Lawrence pulls him into the safety of the broom closet and although usually Adam would make some sort of joke about a quick make out or even a little more he feels dead, helpless, and alone, utterly unable to think of a single thing funny about Lawrence pulling him into the closet. The only thing he could think of was what escapes his lips before Lawrence can say anything.

What does she have and how long has she got left?

Lawrence looked down, at a broom, at a wall, playing with the oversized pockets of the coat as he explains.

“She was … having a problem about 2 months ago with … her menstrual cycle. And well. She came in and she was … missing a lot of blood and she couldn’t stop bleeding and we figured it was a hemorrhage or fracture in her uterus. We gave her a quick blood transplant from the first donor who came in with her rare blood type and through the transfusion she contracted Hemochromatosis. It’s so rare, we never test for it and her risk was only at a 0.62 out of 100.00 and we never noticed and let her go and then she came in complaining of spasms and dizzy spells and a lot of the other symptoms and we tested for everything and finally we did this test and it came back positive and – “

So you’re trying to tell me that my sister is in there dying because somebody didn’t test the blood?! Because some junkie came in looking for some money and you just let him give you whatever and you just it to her!! IT’S NOT LIKE YOU CAN FIX THIS!

--

Lawrence couldn’t look up, even though he wanted to fight with Adam, defend himself, his assistants what Adam was saying was the truth, his sister was dying because somebody in the lab was lazy one day and let a guy slip by without doing all the tests. So he looked at the ground, trying not to blame himself but in the end leaving it all on his shoulders.

“I’m sorry…” he said slowly, bringing his eyes up to Adam’s; seeing the pain, the hurt, the anger and confusion flashing in his pale grey eyes. Above all there was the cold and he couldn’t help but feeling worse than if his own mother were in there dying.

So how long does she have left?

Lawrence let all the air in his lungs out with a slow (almost steady, try to be steady) sigh as he fingered the papers clipped to the board.

“Well no matter what anybody has you can never be sure, with rest and the right medication – “

Stop shitting me, really. Look at her in there, she’s almost dead. Think about this for a second Lawrence, I’m a ghost and who can see ghosts?

(breath in) Lawrence cracked a pale knuckle.

Look at me and tell me who can see ghosts.

(breath out) Lawrence raised his head slowly like a child being scolded by his mother.

“I…I’m not sure… I mean … “

I’ll tell you, children like Diana, and Linda’s not a kid is she now?

Lawrence sighed again, letting his shoulders drop but keeping his head straight, looking at Adam trying desperately to find some passion in those eyes and coming up short.

Animals and she’s not a cow or anything. People I choose to appear to and I certainly didn’t choose to appear to her, and the dying. THE DYING LAWRENCE.

--

Tears, he would give anything to cry tears. All he wanted was to release everything into a fit where he could slam his fists down on Lawrence’s coat and feel his warm hands run through his hair telling him it was all ok. He wanted his vision to blur, and yet at the same time he was glad he couldn’t. He couldn’t be weak now, not in front of Lawrence. This man tried to kill him before; and was successful, now he was killing his sister.

--

He could see it in his eyes, he could tell, everything was colder, harsher, the hatred was spinning around the small closet as if he were in a merry go round on high speed. He looked at his watch.

“I’m getting off in literally 6 minutes so I’ll go tie things up with –

--

Mrs. Roshlem and –“

Stop calling her that. Let me talk to her and then we can leave. Please. Just let me have a few minutes. (you’re being a pest, she doesn’t want to talk to you, besides she’ll be dead in - ) Don’t you dare even think that Adam wanted to say, he wanted to think it but he couldn’t, it was in his heart not his mind and he was dead, there was no heart, no beating thing beneath the skin pulsing in rhythm with his breathing and flow of blood.

“Fine, do what you feel you need to do.” Was all that Lawrence said as he let his eyes slip back down to the paper. His heart pounding heavily.. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen no matter what Lawrence said so he stopped fighting, whatever Adam wanted to say would be said and Lawrence was weak; powerless to stop it. He let Adam walk away; a man whom he should never ever even think about or care about and yet he found himself hoping to god things didn’t go as badly as he thought they might.

He couldn’t even help the next thing he did. He believe it was instinct from being with Alison all those years, but maybe it was because somewhere under the hatred and blackness that seemed to lay over his heart like a blanket anymore there was something that was struggling to be alive and see daylight because of Adam.

“Adam?” A voice that wasn’t his own, something softer, something that could pass as human with emotions instead of the cynical doctor’s voice he had trained for years to use everyday. The boy turned, he looked so pure, so innocent; he looked like he was walking into his death all over again.

Lawrence kissed him; completely sober and his mind (only somewhat you still don’t know what you’re doing!!) clear(er than last night.) Lips clashing upon each other and there was something needy, under the surface of his mask; something that escaped through his tightly pursed lips and into the air of the closed space. Demanding wanting more, needing more, every muscle in his body pulled taut, his skin seething, begging to be cooled, and Adam; his own mind uncomprehending what exactly was going on, was more than happy to oblige.

If I gave you the truth, would it keep you alive?
Though I'm closer to wrong
I'm no further from right

Opening the door, Adam looked into the bright white lights, feeling the guilt wash over him. He had hoped, someplace down in the pit of his stomach that when he pulled himself away and opened the door they’d be in Lawrence’s 650,000 dollar house., or even Adam’s 150 dollar a month apartment, as long as they weren’t in the hospital with death looming between them, but they were still in the hospital.

Guilt, that was the only word that could come close to what Adam was feeling, coating his mind in a thin white film. Linda was in the room only 2 feet away, loosing the fight for her life while Adam romanced the doctor who was killing her. It was like some soap opera gone horribly right. Lawrence peeked out behind him, opening the door slowly, looking around and then once he saw that three nurses were staring at him with wide eyes, pulled a broom out.

“Just looking for one of these.” He said, straightening his lab coat and attempting in vain to brush his hair back down. Adam paid no attention, his eyes locked on the door that closed him off from his sister.

(So what are you going to say to her? Honestly what would she even want to hear from you? Since you moved out you haven’t talked to her once, not to call her, not to go to her wedding, you go the invitation and you burned it! You’ve always been jealous of her and now she’s dying what’s left to say?) Adam couldn’t think of a thing right now. Nothing came to mind as being good enough to say to the person he had been compared to since his 2nd birthday. Everything about her was always so perfect, there were no flaws, no imperfections, no faults. She was everything his parents had wanted that he had never been able to be or have or want.

A life’s worth of built up anger, rage, pain, everything that he had ever felt towards her suddenly lurched into his throat begging to be let free. This might be the last time he ever saw her alive, and he couldn’t let it slip by. He needed to tell her everything he felt, he loved her; yes he always had. She was only of the only people in his life who had never purposely crossed him; never truly hurt him because she wanted to; and when the nights were too cold in their run down house on the outskirts of town she was always there to be the light in the dark, giving him her blanket, helping him get to sleep, and always telling him it would be alright.

She was so damn perfect; she was the perfect example of the rags to riches story. She had come from a family with nothing, only to be given to a family with just slightly more than nothing and with nothing she rose to the top. She was a lawyer at the age of 24, she rarely lost the case. She had gotten married to a state trooper with war medals. They had the perfect family; two kids, a boy and a girl who had to be Diana’s age. Adam wasn’t stupid, it as all over the papers, marriages and the birth of kids was something that would be in papers; especially if the person who had these things happening in their life was a public figure. It was almost too perfect, her life in comparison to his. It wasn’t fair; he told himself time and time again in the darkness of his apartment, now he whispered the same words over and over again in the darkness of his mind; within the shallow cavity of a body he purred through bitten lips that this wasn’t fair.

“I’m going to the lab; I’ll be right back in a few.” Lawrence said, talking to Adam but looking at the nurses. Adam could hear him but didn’t care; this might be his last chance. He went through the door and let the monster out of its cage.

“Adam?” Her voice was soft and Adam could almost see through her, he wanted to know what she was thinking but couldn’t.

I heard, I should be there, not you. It’s not fair.

“Well, life’s not fair I suppose I’m just glad I stuck around long enough to see love and have my babies, maybe they can make it on their own.”

DON’T FUCKING TALK LIKE THAT! Linda’s eyes shut, she swallowed hard, maybe she was swallowing normally but there was a visible lump in her throat as she tried to swallow whatever she was planning on saying.

“Oh Adam, you haven’t changed a bit since the last time I saw you. Do you remember the last time you saw me?”

Adam didn’t answer, he couldn’t answer, because the answer was written everywhere, and suddenly it was 10 years ago and they weren’t in a hospital anymore. Adam could see the last time he’d seen her better than the last time he’d seen his own mother.

--

“Adam you can’t just do this! You’re as stubborn as you’re father!” the click of high heels running after him as he raced through the back allies as if he were being chased by bloodhounds. His head pounding, blood rushing to his ears. He stopped somewhere under a bridge, pressing his back against the wall as he sinks, falls against the brick, hands to his face trying to stop something he has no control of.

The sound of the water, only a few feet away from his rushing down into the ocean or lake or whatever the hell it used to go. He felt those hot, betraying tears stinging him like acid. He felt the throbbing in his stomach, the clenching of every muscle in his body, the way his feet gave from under his crouch and letting him fall into the disgusting stone and dirt square on his ass as the betraying tears fled his eyes.

Swiping greedily at his eyes yet not succeeding, nothing in his vision clear, all a blur of colors and a rush of sounds, and life can’t get much worse, and suddenly it does. There’s a soft hand on his shoulder, then an even softer voice.

“Adam?” He broke, shattered into a millions pieces that would never be whole again, torn limb from limb and sown back haphazardly. He wished the tears from his eyes were blood so he could just die already, only 17, too young to be on the streets for life and yet wanted nowhere.

“What the fuck do you want?” His voice, trying to be steady as Linda’s wide eyes stared at him in the darkness, his bruised face buried beneath his hands. He couldn’t see her face, he couldn’t stand it. He was sitting under a bridge with only 60 dollars and a camera with some film to his name; the clothes on his back were all he had and that wasn’t saying much.

He looked at her. She was wearing a pink dress, short and low cut; she was going to a party with her friends and his parents had no problem with that. Her hair had been tied back but now strings of loose blond hair framed her face in a series of curls and waves, her eyeliner was running in dark streaks down her face and her lip stick was smeared, perfect pink high heels, perfect pink dress, perfect life, perfect daughter and Adam was just Adam. He always had and always would be.

“Adam…” She said again, reaching out to touch his bruised face, examining the cheek that was slowly turning an obnoxious shade of purple and yellow. He flinched from her fingers and pulled himself back into a crouch.

“Leave, now Linda. This is where I’m saying goodbye.” He concentrated on the streetlamp off in the distance that he could see part of. He couldn’t look at Linda.

“But Adam…” She started again, her voice crushed, her eyes bringing up new fresh tears.

(You heard him back there, he told me to ‘get the fuck out’. So I’m getting the fuck out. You understand? They hate me and I hate them, they love you. Go back; you have a family, I have jack shit. ) He wanted to say, he wanted to hug her and give her a kiss on the cheek and promise to talk to her sometime soon, but he knew better.

They had grown up in the same house, yet the girl who appeared in his life just four days after his second birthday party was the star of the family, she was the one who would make something of the name and have children and be rich and amazing and perfect. She would go to college. Adam was the background, Adam was the problem, and Adam was the cancer the family had to share.

So instead of saying all these things, instead of telling her everything his heart told him to say, he looked at her, his eyes bloodshot, still seeing blurs and flashes and swivels, and colors.

“Go Linda. Go Home.” He looked at her, she didn’t move, she only gaped, her mouth wide, her eyes uncomprehending.

“I SAID FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE.” Adam screamed, his voice echoing off the walls of the small tunnel they were in, he stood, looking down at her.

“Adam…I’m…I’m sorry…” Linda said, her voice distant and slightly cold as she stood, she turned and ran away in the opposite direction, she was running home, the end of her short pink dress now black with dirt from sitting with Adam. She turned one last time before she rounded the corner.

Eyes cold and yet sobbing, begging and yet unforgiving, blond curls framing her face, her slender neck craned back to face him and Adam couldn’t help but feel this was the last time he’d see Linda.

He brought a bruised hand to his face, wiping the tears and hitting the blooming discolored blotches on his face. He shrank back into the shadows and let himself become swallowed by the destiny he was chosen to have since birth.

--

Now, even though the tiles on the floor were white and clean; he could only see dirt, the sounds were a harsh quick breathing in time with a heart rate monitor but Adam could only hear high heels, his own nasally thick breathing, and the sound of running water so close and yet so far off.

Linda, I ….

“Had to? Right? That’s what you’re going to tell me. You had to leave the house?”

You heard him! He said he didn’t want me! He said I was a disgrace, he fucking hit me!

“Well, Adam,” she said, making her words clearer than either thought she was capable of, “you hit back.”

So now it’s okay? He could hit me and fucking break my face just because I was never cut out to be a lawyer like you. I could never be a doctor like Lawrence, I could never fucking be anything. I was always nobody, I’m nobody now and that night when you listened to me you made the best choice in you’re life. I’d only bring you down.

“No, you let them down because you didn’t try harder, you didn’t understand them but they didn’t try to understand –“

If I wanted to hear this I’d turn on channel 6 and watch Doctor Phil say it. You know they never wanted me, you were the only person in that fucking house who would care if I died, you were the only person who cared about me at all. Failure breeds failure and that’s why you were always better than me. I’m telling you the truth.

Linda’s eyes were trained on Adam, her hands resting on her lap, her legs up as much as she could have mustered them to go up. Her heartbeat monitor was beeping loudly, quickly.

“Damn it Adam, I’m dying, I know you have things you want to say but please can we take a break and concentrate on something nicer? Something we liked and bonded over?”

Remember Mr. Yarchnick? He always gave us ice cream.

Linda smiled; Adam felt there was more to this talk than simply the last time they met.

--

In the darkness the filled the lab, Lawrence busily checked files, opening various folders, spreading its contents across tables and desks. He clicked away at the computer, his fingers flitting across the keys and he type everything and anything he could think of that might be a keyword.

Working under one small floor lamp he scanned through every document, until he found what he was looking for, and sighed with relief at what he believed he might capable of doing.

--

Linda looked like she was going to pass out and Adam couldn’t keep her up, making her waste all her energy on something that wasn’t even there.

I’m going to go. Now stay in there please, hang around and I’ll be back, I promise.

Linda’s eyes opened slightly, closed, then opened again as Adam approached the bed.

Bye Linda. He said, planting a kiss on her cheek. She shivered violently in her bed, curling up even further under the useless blanket.

“God Adam, you’re so cold.” She managed to gasp out as her teeth stopped chattering.

I know, I’m sorry. He said, hanging his head, he couldn’t tell her he was (DEAD! ADAM YOU’RE DEAD!) not alive anymore, there was something in her voice that made her feel so hopeful. He had to ask tomorrow about her family and if they ever came to see her.

Adam left and found Lawrence waiting outside, changed back into Adam’s jacket and holding at least a ream of paper. Although Adam wanted to hate him, he suddenly felt hopeful for once in the past 24 hours

--

So you’re telling me that she might actually have a chance?

Lawrence paced the width of the ‘living room’, the papers spread out across the tables, chairs and some of the floor.

“It’s something new and different and it’s only worked a few times, but then again not many people have what Mrs. Ros – I mean Linda, have. So it’s only been tried a few times. I don’t really have to get the whole staff to vote on it because, well hell, she’s mine, and I can do it all myself. I think that this might be the answer.”

Adam kissed him, he kissed him roughly on the lips, then again and again in between silently saying praises.

Thank you, thank you so much, I owe you everything, thank you…

And although he knew he was being weak Adam wrapped his arms around Lawrence’s waist and gave him a hug that could take your breath away.

He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came

“Doctor Gordon, paging Doctor Lawrence Gordon to wing B 64.”

Adam fallowed the doctor through the pure white halls, he dressed in his surgical gear; green latex gloves that would be switched once he got to the wing; a long white lab coat that was covered with a plastic apron, a mask covering his face from view but Adam could still see it all in his eyes.

It’s like we’re playing Bingo huh, Doc? Adam let out a low chuckle, letting his eyes drop to the floor as he followed Lawrence. He had always been sarcastic, he got even more so cracking lame jokes and nervously chirping away when he was scared or nervous. He would either curl up into a ball that couldn’t be pulled into speaking, or he could be sent into an (almost woman like) talking spasm that made Lawrence (fall deeper in love, right Lawrence?) think he bit off more than he could chew.

So just tell me once more time what are we doing?

(It should be easy, I hope. I can call for four more people in a backup team if I need other than my five paramedics and nurses with me. We’re doing a Moleculofusion Technotransmutation, all I need is a few tools that I’ve already requested and have set up in the operating room. We’re good to go.) In his heart he was only hoping that everything would turn out okay.

He hadn’t been sleeping lately, although he wanted to look around the apartment, he didn’t have time, ordering the tools to do this controversial surgery, looking up information, getting in touch with doctors who have done it. Three days ago he and Adam made out in a broom closet, since they barely had any physical contact. Adam stayed to himself, silent, almost uncaring while Lawrence tried to safe this girls’ – Linda’s life.

Now three days later, the two rushed to the operating room, Adam was more than willing to wait outside, but wanted to come in for a little while, when Lawrence said it would make him nervous Adam decided to stay outside.

Finally reaching the double doors Adam had never been more (happy. Is it because you want her to die? You want her to give up everything, you want her to just lay down and say ‘okay I’m done. You want everyone who loves her to hurt. Don’t you?) scared. Something about Lawrence’s walk assures him, as Lawrence turns, his mask down, exposing a reassuring toothy smile that lights up his face for a second. It’s a smile that screams ‘I know what I’m doing’. He turns and walks through the doors to the locker room, pulling his mask back up with his gloved hands; his walk is a purposeful stride, full of positive reassurance. Adam decides not to linger in his thoughts and pulls himself away and doesn’t even bother to see that once Lawrence is behind closed doors his legs are weak and willing to give out at any time. He can’t breath right, his head is pounding and even though his face says he’s sure, his heart has no idea what’s going to happen.

--

Adam waits. He sits in a chair. He paces the rooms. He checks on the kids and laughs and waves at them as they wave back while everybody else is oblivious to him. He looks in the gift shop. He talks to himself. He looks out the windows. He sits on the roof. No matter where he is, or what he’s doing he can’t get him mind away from Lawrence, from Linda, from the perfect life that they both and how he, such a lowly scum bag, is deserving of either of them.

(you’re dead you pompous asshole, honestly, you’re an idiot sometimes. I don’t get it. They’re still alive, both of them. They’re both in pain. They both have families and here you are with nothing at all trying to squeeze yourself into their lives. It’s ridiculous, honestly Adam, grow up already.)

Not true, it can’t be true. Lawrence loves me; he just …. He doesn’t want to say it because he can’t. I couldn’t say it if he were alive right here in front of me. I bet he thinks it and he can’t get it out. That’s probably all it is, I wonder if he thinks it enough if it can count….

(Adam, Adam, Adam. Always holding on to these petty false hopes that mean nothing aren’t you? You just sit and deny everything and when you finally admit it’s too late. ‘Lawrence loves me’)

He does!

(Open you’re eyes, he doesn’t ‘love’ you. He loves Ally, and Diana, and his job, and his house, and his family. You’re good for now while there’s a little riff, but after these 5 months he won’t think twice about you.)

Adam paced faster and faster until he couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed in a chair by a window overlooking the highway. His eyes scanned the scene, seeing and yet not seeing anything at all. Waiting for the world to end and hoping to god that just because he was already dead didn’t mean he couldn’t be freed from this damned inner hell.

--

Lawrence grabbed an Adaptable Lymph Retractor from the table nearest him, clipping it into the opening he had carved into her stomach. Since he had cut off his own foot viciously slightly over a year ago in a disease ridden bathroom he was painfully careful about doing operations. Sweat covered his brow. This was probably the most important operation he was performing in his entire life, and this was only the first of four or five. It didn’t help that he was fighting with himself the whole time.

(Lawrence, you know that what you think of Adam and what Adam is are two completely different things. Didn’t you’re parents raise you better? Shouldn’t you be crawling back to Alison.)

No, she never has the passion in her eyes that Adam can show in his. He’s dead and yet he can still display a beautiful radiant lust under those sad grey eyes.

(Okay, so you two weren’t the Jack and Rose of the century but you can’t tell me that what you’re doing now is right! For god’s sake you’re falling in love with a dead man, a man you killed to save your family. Now you’re LEAVING your family for the guy you KILLED!)

No, I didn’t kill him.

(How’s that?)

I shot him in the shoulder.

(Oh sure, that didn’t kill him, but you left him in the bathroom for dead. You LEFT HIM, You LIED and said you’d come back and you NEVER WENT BACK. Did you?)

Well that was just a mistake.

(Yeah and he died, great going there. When most people make mistakes they have to pay a fine, lately you’ve been getting off and other people are DYING.)

He clamped down on the vein, watching it pump blood slowly, as he though carefully and yet quickly about his next move; not only here but in the mental chess with words that was going on in his mind.

I’m not going to make that mistake again.

--

The time pasted, at some times Adam felt like it was only a few minutes and it had really been an hour, while other times he felt it was an hour and only the seconds hand on the clock moved. Finally after 4 hours of waiting Lawrence arrived at the waiting room. Adam stood, feeling (dread Adam, you don’t want it to work and you want it to work, you don’t know what you want.) a loud fear in his stomach,

“Don’t ask, I know what you’re going to ask and I don’t know. I – we, won’t know until today when they give her a test that has to be done tonight at 8, it shouldn’t last all that long but I won’t be here so they’ll page me or something.”

Adam sighed, feeling both relieved and upset that they wouldn’t hear until later.

So my place or yours?

--

After a long uneventful day, at around 6 pm, Lawrence clocked out, pulling back on Adam’s clothes and going back to Adam’s apartment with Adam trailing behind him. He felt like he was in a twisted Brady episode; Adam, Adam, Adam.

Finally sitting down on the couch after a long day felt like heaven, letting his feet up, letting his mind wander, trying to tune out Adam and failing so as he listened to the nervous chit chat he scanned the room, when something caught his eye.

Even though he had “moved in” almost 3 days ago, he was almost always with Adam on the couch, drunk, working, or going to work. He didn’t have the time to sleep in the bedroom, or fix the clothes, or look in the room that appeared to be a closet until now.

So I was just sitting there and I was watching this one person right? And they just come up to me out of the freaking blue and –

“What’s in there?” Lawrence eyed the strange door, with a twinkle of childish curiosity in his eyes. Adam shook his head.

Nothing, really. Lawrence, now with child like determination stood, walking to the door. Adam was in no position to push him back, he couldn’t if he wanted to so he only watched with wide horrified eyes as Lawrence made his way to the door of what Adam believed to be his soul.

--

“Adam, these are amazing!” Lawrence proclaimed, taking a few of the pictures off the walls. In the ‘darkroom’; formerly known as the “guest bedroom’, Adam had everything he loved. Lawrence, the only person he could admit, if only to himself, that he “loved” was now here, in the bowels of his heart fingering through the pictures that he didn’t get paid for.

He pulled up a scene that he had taken a few years ago, when he actually had a steady job at a firm, it was of a couple when they were first married, their first dace out side on some terrace, the sun shinning through the bride’s hair, both caught forever in a perfect moment; the faces forever smiling, the bride with her immaculately white teeth displayed in an open mouth laugh as the groom lovingly grazed her neck with a smile.

No, just, put them back please, let’s go sit on the couch, please. Lawrence ignored him, leafing through thousands of pictures, some of children, some of brides and grooms, some of flowers, some of scenery. He pulled out a waterscape Adam did only two years ago for fun. (that was the last picture you ever took for fun; ever.)

Adam wanted to sit down on the floor and pound his fists against the floorboards. He wanted to curl up and die again, he wanted to take Lawrence and shove him outside the room and lock the door; because with every picture that Lawrence looked at he wasn’t just looking at a tree sitting across a lake, or a child with a grin that size of New York; as he dripped ice cream on his shirt; he was looking into Adam.

“These are the best I’ve seen in a long time, why didn’t you sell these?” Lawrence asked, paging through more lying on a counter, his eyes displaying that childish excitement that Adam though he was incapable of. Adam could only feel his chest shiver and shudder and felt his knees tremble and his arms went numb.

Adam felt a rage, and anger so intense that he couldn’t control it rise to his throat, hot and disgusting and needing he needed Lawrence to get out of this room before he saw too far in. Although Adam knew how to fight, he knew how to yell he just couldn’t do it, his mouth wouldn’t open and his voice wouldn’t work. So instead he pushed himself against Lawrence. Quivering lips meeting pressed pursed lips; hands gripping in the darkened light, panting and pulling, pushing and grabbing, needing, desperate as the Lawrence stumbled his way back to the couch, Adam following behind, feeling almost human.

Pushed down on the couch and things were going to far for Lawrence’s sober mind to understand, too fast to catch hold of the feelings, the frost breathing into him, the hands under his shirt leaving hot and cold trails on his skin.

“Strangers, waiting, up and down the boulevard

Their shadows searching in the night

Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding somewhere in the night…”

Lawrence sat up, fixing his shirt and adjusting himself as he reached blindly into his pocket. (I want more, I want more, I want – Lawrence is out of the room thank god but I still want more and more and more and why cant he just get out of my mind and out of that room and give me )

“The surgery worked.”

Adam was speechless and this time a kiss couldn’t pull the words from him.

Break me down replace this fear inside
Take this nothingness from me
I want to find
I want to shine
I want to rise
Break me down

When Adam was 2 and a half he sat in the living room, his mother in the kitchen, his sister at pre-K, his father at work. He had wanted something on top of the table, a vase or something to that effect; so instead of going to his mother and asking, he simply climbed the table. A hour later when his mother saw him he had a gash on his head that was bleeding and yet Adam had a huge smile on, playing with his prize. She knew watching him, he was never going to be the weak one in the family. A runt in size yet he would never turn to others for help, he’d never tell anyone he needed anything, he’d never be needed.

25 years later Adam stood out side of room A-4700; Linda had been moved since the first time he’d seen her almost two weeks ago. Now she was getting better, the surgeries worked, and she’d be back to normal by November, or so everyone hoped.

Lawrence was being recognized as the shocking and amazing doctor who had saved this young woman’s life. At first, when the surgery was only in it’s first steps nobody cared, here was a man who was doing a suicide maneuver; oh but when it worked there reporters and photographers lining up from the doors of the hospital to ICU. Adam could only laugh.

Then there were the midnight calls from “fans”, from interviewers, from the people who had rare disorders and wanted Lawrence to treat them. Then there were the conferences. Lawrence would sit behind a long table, Adam would usually stand somewhere nearby and watch as the interviews attacked him with questions and the photographers couldn’t stop the flashing coming from every corner of the room.

No matter who was there, when it was, or what the questions were it always ended up in the same painful place; the bathroom.

First they’d ask ten, maybe twelve questions about Linda, about where he learned the operation, and why he did it in the first place. He smile and waved (like the friggen prom queen he is) and gave the politically correct answers. Then one reporter would stand and let loose the first of the real questions.

“Aren’t you the doctor Gordon who was in that Jigsaw trap?” Lawrence would turn red, Adam would laugh. Then the fun would really start. “Lawrence Gordon?” “Did you really cut off your own foot?” “How did you escape?” “Is jigsaw still out there?” “What is the most horrific thing you did?” “Why do you think he choose you?” “Do you have both feet?” “Is it true that he had somebody holding your wife and child hostage?”

And Adam would only watch and stare at Lawrence, letting them take their toll on him, letting everything sink in again and again. It was true Adam loved Lawrence, that was the truth, but Adam always felt the vindictive hatred seer through him when that came up. It was the painful memory of the gun echoing in the small bathroom, it was the warm blood trickling down his shoulder, it was the smell when he first opened his eyes, it was the puke that rose in his mouth when he saw that bastard lying “dead” in the middle of the room, but most importantly, it was the lies, “We’ll be okay, I promise.”

Now, Lawrence was in another conference, and Adam believed that if you saw one, you saw them all and that he gave about as much emotional support as Alison so he disappeared upstairs, to the patients to see Linda. In the past two weeks, she was getting better, and we all know the rules about ghosts. If you’re not dying you can’t see them; unless you meet the other qualifications, and Linda met none of them. Every day Lawrence checked up on her Adam came with him. She could see him perfectly on some days and other days she couldn’t even see him if she tried, soon she wouldn’t be able to see him at all.

(Adam, tell her everything, tell her every single inch of your soul that you’ve been waiting to tell her, just let it all out because after this she won’t ever see you again and do you really want her to think things about you that aren’t true?) Adam stood there, his eyes fixed on the numbers on the door.

Linda, we need to talk. I tried to talk to you on the first night and I just couldn’t get it all out but I have to talk about this.

He went against his nature, against everything in him and he walked into the room, head held high, chest out and walking as if he was so proud, so confident, so arrogant.

Linda…

She was sleeping, breathing shallowly, still but he knew somewhere in his heart or his mind that she could hear him. He was, after all, all in her mind. She might not remember what exactly he had said, when he said it, or even who had said it but he knew and that was all it was going to take. He let out a low sigh and began.

Linda, I’m sorry I have to tell you all this now, but I might never get another chance….

--

Two hours later Lawrence arrived in the room, Adam was shaking, alone, holding the still sleeping Linda’s hand, gasping for air. Lawrence wanted to wrap his arms around Adam. He wanted to grab the boy that stood on the side of the bed, now missing bed rails, and pick him up and run back to the apartment and throw him on the couch, nuzzle his neck, feel something between the two. He wanted to kiss Adam and try to dry the tears that couldn’t come out if they wanted to. He wanted to erase all the scars, even the ones he had no real right to even see. He wanted to peel away everything causing him to hurt, and seal up the wounds.

He was a doctor, with an oath to fix the broken, but here standing in front of him was the broken. Dead and yet dying again and again and he could do nothing but stand around and watch through glassy eyes.

--

“So what were you doing in there anyway?” Lawrence asked, his voice low as he threw on Adam’s jacket and slammed the locker shut, his eyes trying to remain focused ahead but always finding their way back to Adam’s.

I had to say something…Soon she’s not going to be able to see me at all. When she can’t I want you to tell her that … I … we.... no I just left one day and you haven’t heard from me since. Okay?

“Adam, why are you going through all – “

YOU DON’T FUCKING GET IT! He sighed, his eyes flaring; he was (seeing red? You can’t “see red” so you’re just pissy right? Snapping at him simply because he’s here?) not in the best mood ever, Lawrence continued slowly, cautiously.

“No, I don’t know so I won’t go butting in where I’m not needed. So I’ll just leave it there and I’ll tell her if you want. “ He left, he had punched out about 20 minutes ago and he had gotten changed and was trying to avoid Adam who hadn’t been the same since visiting Linda. His eyes were grey, lifeless more so than usual. He looked dead; although he was he rarely looked different than he had when Lawrence had known him to be alive.

Walking home was quiet, the wind blowing, tousling Lawrence’s hair from one side to another as Adam stalked slowly behind, in his own world of no wind or air or physical pain yet all the heartbreak anyone was possible of having. Lawrence kept returning to the passing thoughts he had in the hospital room.

(He’s broken Lawrence, he’d broken and even though it’s not all you’re fault you can help. You’re the doctor, you can stitch up all the wounds, you can fix him, and you can do it. You know how to do it you just can’t and why can’t you? Lawrence you can’t fix me.)

Lawrence stopped, in the middle of the road, unaware of where he was, unaware of anything, the wind seemed to stop, and he turned, his eyes meeting Adam’s, the pitch black wrapping around them like a blanket.

Lawrence, you can’t fix me. I’m not here for you to fix me.

“Then what are you here for?” Lawrence asked, his voice sharp and clear, cutting through Adam’s heart like it was cutting through the night. . Blue eyes searing into Grey eyes.

(because I LOVE you Lawrence. I FUCKING LOVE YOU. I WOULD DIE FOR YOU AGAIN.)

But Adam couldn’t open his mouth, he couldn’t say anything. And after a few minutes Lawrence turned and kept going as Adam just stood there, looking at the ground, damning himself to hell.

--

Lawrence popped the tab on anther can of diet coke, bringing it to his lips and taking a long sip before changing the station. Nothing was on tonight, nothing was ever on and in two weeks since moving in he found his shape indented into the couch. He set the soda down and kept flipping, Adam sulking silently someplace close by.

“Adam, come on. Stop being a prissy bitch.” It seemed so empty even with the TV turned to 40, no matter what sound was filling the small space it wasn’t Adam and therefore it wasn’t really there. For years Lawrence tuned things out, but Adam, he couldn’t tune out. No matter what he said out loud to anyone, no matter how he denied it, no matter how much he bitched Adam about it, he loved it. He loved not being able to tune out the person who needed him and who (you need back; you need him so bad you have no idea. You won’t admit it will you? Why not?) didn’t want help.

“Adam?” He called out again, the silence was deafening, seemed to fill every inch of the room, his heart seemed to pound. Where was he? He had to be here someplace, he was just in a mood and he’d be out of it soon enough. Was something wrong? Thoughts raced around his head, pictures filled his subconscious. He thought he would go crazy any time now when the phone rang causing his chest to heave, and he ran a hand wearily through his hair.

“Jesus Christ…almost gave myself a friggen heart attack.” He said, letting the phone ring a few more times. He looked at his phone, wondering who would be calling him at this time of night, who would even be calling him, not the hospital. Adam peered out from the bedroom, looking slightly upset but better than he had been.

Who is - never mind.

They both looked at the phone, subconsciously knowing who it was and why and yet neither or them saying anything, just watching the phone ring, vibrating on the table.

You’d better pick it up. But he didn’t want to. He knew who it was and picking it up made it all definite, made it all too real, made things run by him too fast. It hadn’t even been a month and yet…

He picked it up, and without even seeing who’s name was on the caller ID, without even hearing a word he already said the words he had dreaded saying and had feared would becoming sooner rather than later.

“Hello Ally.”

Oh - no hesitation
No tears and no hearts breakin'
No remorse
Oh - congratulations
This is your Haitian Divorce

October 21th, a Tuesday. The rain was coming down in a steady stream and Lawrence would do anything to have a ride that day, but alas, dead people don’t drive and rarely have cars ready to use. He stood, looking in the semi- cracked bathroom mirror, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in Adam’s suit. He was given literally half and hour in his house two weeks ago and he couldn’t find his. He managed to get some money, clothes, and a few other random things but nothing of worth really.

He had wanted his suit for this day; he couldn’t wear jeans and a tee shirt, even a nice one to the divorce hearing. Alison would be wearing a black dress; he would be expected to wear a black suit, like they were going to a funeral or something. Adam would be tagging along, as always. It was about 3 weeks ago that they had the phone call and about 5 weeks ago that Adam appeared.

Things were going great for the two of them, if you could call the suspended hell on earth “great”. But today, Lawrence had bigger fish to fry than his bouts of love, affection, and hatred with the man who haunted his being. He played nervously with his tie as he watched Adam pace back and forth in the reflection. Although he couldn’t sit still it was more of a happy I-Can’t-Fucking-Wait-I-Might-Piss-Myself kind of pace.

He wasn’t born yesterday and he knew that Adam had something up his sleeve, he just didn’t know what yet,

So Larry, Doc, man, what do you want out of this?

Lawrence looked at Adam, turning around and pretending like he hadn’t been watching him the whole time, trying to mask the confusion.

“What?”

You know, what do you want? House? Car? Money? Diana? What do you want? I’ll make sure you get it.

Lawrence opened his eyes, the idea of using a ghost to cheat in a divorce hearing never occurred to him, never in his wildest dreams would he use a ghost to cheat in a court of law. Saying something like that even in the privacy of his own mind made him feel like he wanted to be locked away, after all the kind of people who believed in ghosts were the kind of people bouncing off the walls upstate.

But he did have a short list of things he wanted, he wanted his life back, the things he earned, Alison could keep her damned purses and a quarter of his check, although she was asking for over half, she could even keep her damned Mercedes. Diana and the house meant more, and as Lawrence looked at Adam, grinning that childish grin in the mirror he knew that he was going to get what he wanted.

--

“All stand for the honorable Judge Richard Austrie.” Said one of the hulking shapes in the corner of the dark, empty room. Lawrence remembered the words that ran through his mind when he got into the room and most of it stayed true regardless of if there were people in the room or not. It seemed empty, barren, the walls a plain white with no decorations, no pictures, and no nothing. There were three tables all lined up in front of some strange podium and a chair sat next to that podium. There were no windows, only four floor lamps that lit the room. A clock ticked the seconds, giving Lawrence the déjà vu of being back in the bathroom.

Then Alison and her team of lawyers arrived, fixing their papers and playing with their manila folders. They all sat down. Alison in the middle like a queen, and since arriving she never even glanced at Lawrence. He sat, with his two lawyers on one side and Adam sitting at the judge’s seat.

Now they were all standing after two hulking figures in black walking into the room, one on Alison’s side, the other on Lawrence’s. True everyone there was dressed in black, after all this was the funeral, after they signed the last papers today then they’d be nailing the coffin shut and after they both threw dirt on the coffin and walked away they’d be offering drinks until 8, everyone’s invited.

Lawrence stood that weak feeling in his knees, the dull throb in his left foot, the pain around his ankle and the all too familiar itch encasing his entire leg. He ignored it as a man, who was young enough to be his son, walking it. He felt that things were going to be ruined, he knew what Adam was going to do but at the same time he couldn’t help but think about if it screwed up and they all blamed him. Hell, if it worked they would blame him first.

“Take a seat please” Said Judge Austrie, sitting down himself, looking like a child playing dress up in the robes that seemed to be five sizes too big for him. They all sat, Adam walked around the room, pacing letting Lawrence’s eyes follow him from one guard to the other. He sat down right on the judge’s lap and Lawrence sighed, rolling his eyes realizing this was going to be a long day.

--

“So are you saying that Lawrence here never paid attention to you? He was always at work?”

“Yes sir.” Alison said, her eyes burning holes through Lawrence. "I’m leaving him on the grounds of abuse, emotional neglect to be specific.” Her eyes roamed the room as Lawrence’s did the same thing and he held his breath, thinking she had seen the rustling of papers that was going on on her side. She looked at Lawrence, not seeing anything and he felt the drops of sweat roll of him in torrents.

“I believe we have evidence, all of Lawrence Gordon’s hours he punched in and out of the hospital.” That was the cue and the other of the two lawyers sitting at Alison’s table picked up the papers that Adam had just played around with. The tables had, luckily, cloths covering them and Adam was able to push the paper away under the table without anyone noticing and switched it.

It was a James Bond move if Lawrence ever saw one and it sure as hell helped that he was the only person who could see Adam in the first place unless anyone here was dying and not saying anything about it. Adam slid the paper under the tables and over to Lawrence’s side where he folded it up carefully, Lawrence leaned down as the Judge eyed him suspiciously.

“I’m sorry your Honor, about a year ago I was …. In a traumatic accident which involved my foot, it’s hurt and itched since. I can’t help.” The Judge looked at Alison as if for conformation of the story and Alison nodded her head in a silent yes and Lawrence slipped the folded papers into his inner coat pocket. He hadn’t felt like a spy since he was five and now he was doing it for keeps.

The man on the other side looked through the papers again and again, revolution forming on his face.

“What…What is this?” He stuttered out, his eyes wide as he paged through the papers. Lawrence knew that Adam had made him print out a bunch of papers, but not look at them. Actually Adam printed them while Lawrence kept watch so nobody would see the phantom computer; all Lawrence did was put them in his own manila folder and give them to Adam.

The lawyer came to the other man’s aid, looking at the photos as his own face formed a revolution.

“What the hell?” He said, letting a few of the pictures drop to the floor, Lawrence glanced at them, looking to see what was so bad and almost crying out in shock. It was a bunch of Goth girls in random pin up poses, all naked and some covered in gothic props, knives, blood, guts and gore.

Oh I got THEM right there! That’s great!!! Adam screamed out loud, laughing hysterically as the Judge stood up, his young face taking on a sterner expression.

“Let me see what’s so funny!” He said, as a hulky figure confiscated the photos without even looking at them. He paged through them, his own face reflective of the others.

“Judge, sir we – “

“ – Your Honor, no idea what – “

“ – I’ve never even – “

“ – how they got there and I’m so sorry about this whole thing – “

“Shut Up!” The Judge said, as Lawrence tried to fight off his laughter as the two lawyers fumbled and stumbled through their words. He brought his hand to his mouth as he looked at Adam, literally on the ground laughing and his two lawyers who were doing the same, their hands covering their mouths trying not to let the laughter out.

“I believe you two are playing games with me,. I don’t understand why but I’m fully aware that you are. I don’t know why you find this all a joke but if it’s not that importation to you then, Lawrence Gordon, who is obviously one of the only people in this room taking this all seriously will get what he wants on the basis of you having no evidence to testify against it except for the sworn in’s word. “ Lawrence wanted to hug Adam, to pick the boy up from the ground and thank him from the bottom of his heart but he had to sit still but he would make it up tonight, he knew that.

--

Five minutes after a lunch was called Adam, Lawrence, and his two lawyers filled into the room, single file, sitting down. Alison was now the first person in room, looking through the files with her anger almost visible.

“Lawrence, I don’t understand how you did it, but you fucked me over, and you may think that’s fine but its not you son of a bitch. It’s not at all fair. I don’t know what you plan on doing but so help me god, I will get what I want. You aren’t the man I married and I – “

“I never married a bitch,” Lawrence said, his eyes cold into Alison’s and in this moment he truly hated her more than anything in the whole world. More than that sick fuck Jigsaw.

That’s something I would say Larry Seems like you’re starting to think a while hell of a lot like me. I like that.

The room was cold with hate, and then Judge Austrie came back in, sitting down and reviewing whatever he had written over his break. He read the papers over and over again, studying them with his insanely young features through a pair of glasses made to be on an 80 year old. He was going to give his verdict, and it was taking forever.

“Go make five copies of each paper.” The Judge said, handing off some papers to one of the hulking figures who proceeded to leave the room. The Judge sat with the stillness of a statue as Adam sat next to Lawrence. Alison looked forward, not seeing anything, waiting for the gavel to come down with the statements she didn’t want to hear.

Suddenly something flew across the room, hitting Alison in the head before falling to the table with an audible sound in the eerie stillness of the room. Then came Adam’s childish victory cry as he laughed hysterically.

BULLSFRIGGENEYE! I GOT HER GOOD! Did you SEE that?!!? That was AMAZING! I wasn’t even TRYING and it still GOT HER IN THE HEAD! He said, pumping his fists up and down in front of Alison’s table. She turned to Lawrence, looking at the object, holding it between two fingers as if it were something diseased.

“You’re honor, he threw an M and M at my head.” She said, looking from the object to the judge, and then back to Lawrence’s table, who were once again all laughing except for Lawrence. He seriously looked at the judge, his eyes wide, and the next words out of his mouth made Adam cringe with pride, it sounded like not only something he would say, but his voice emitting from the doctor’s throat.

“Your Honor, she’s incorrect. I would never throw an M and M at her head.” then after a short thoughtful pause, he continued, “It’s a skittle. “

--

The verdict was simple, the hulking figure came back a little less than 2 minutes later and he had all the papers.

Alison would get her belongings and anything she paid half or more of. Lawrence got everything else. Alison got 25,000 of 174, 292 pay check which wasn’t a huge deal after all. When it came to Diana the judge had a harder time deciding so she would spend two weeks at Lawrence’s then two weeks with Alison, then two weeks will Lawrence, and so on and so forth. Alison got the car, and Lawrence got the house.

He was in heaven with the verdict. Especially when the Judge handed Ally’s team of lawyers a paper with everything she could get out of the house, the day she could get it, and how much time she could spend getting it. If Larry noticed anything missing not on the list he was to inform the court and Ally would be fined double the price of the object.

If Ally could kill Larry with her thoughts or her eyes Larry would be standing besides Adam in a happy invisible limbo. But she couldn’t and Adam was busily clapping him on the back, when everything he got at the end of this hearing was all his doing. He was amazing. He really was.

Great job man, I mean really you’ve been bitchen out there, honestly.

Lawrence smiled, and wanted to hug Adam to say something back but he only thought it.

(Hey, it was all you.)

Naw man, you did good yourself.

(Yeah but if it wasn’t for yo - )

He stopped, in the middle of his thoughts in the middle of his expression, in the middle of everything he stopped and looked right ahead. If it wasn’t for him he’d never be in this whole thing, he’d never have been in the bathroom, or cut his own damn foot off. He’d never be divorcing Alison and he’d live in happy misery for the rest of his days. He looked at Adam, and a million pictures cluttered his mind.

Adam’s face covered by worry and fear. The image of the blade sawing through his own foot with that horrible detached feeling. Alison’s disapproving face when he said something about Adam in the hospital. Seeing Adam appear for the first time before his eyes and the same detached feeling flooding his body. And for once in his life he wouldn’t go back and change a thing since the bathroom. He might have said that he blamed Adam for it all but he really …

(Thank you Adam….)

This thing is slowly taking me apart.
Grey would be the color if I had a heart.

You make this all go away.
I just want something.
I just want something I can never have

Minutes passed turning into hours, turning into days, turning into weeks, and soon enough turning into months. Lawrence had busily redecorated his house, conducting his own exorcism of Alison’s lost hopes and dreams. He bought himself a new car, he talked to Diana and he spent most of his days doing what he considered “normal life’ Wake up, go to work, come home, eat, if Diana was there play with her, talk to her, do work, then of course came Adam,

The two decided that Diana was too old to be seeing imaginary friends and so Adam was told to stay away from her, not to stay away from Lawrence, just out of eyesight and earshot of the little girl. That was one of the things that had changed since the first time Lawrence saw Adam, now he was a safety blanket a comfort and Lawrence could almost tell him that he (loved? Him?) Needed Adam around, but over the past few weeks it seemed like things were changing.

However as the days passed it seemed like Adam changed as well. He had gone from a self confident cocky son of a gun to what he was now, simply a curious child.

December 28, only a few days ago he and Alison pretended to be happy, pretended to be together and stayed at Alison’s house watching Diana unwrap presents, letting her believe they were from Santa, giving her the knowledge that both he and his estranged wife still loved their little girl.

Now, at 6:58 am Lawrence opened his eyes only to hear Adam’s voice in his ears as he did every morning for the past 3 and a half weeks. Every now and again Adam would ask a simple question making Lawrence stop and look around and think about how purely wonderful it was to be alive. Today, his head still on the soft cushion of the pillow was one of those times.

What’s it like waking up? Adam asked, his voice far off and distance, he was probably sitting in the corner of the room in the chair he always sat in. Lawrence looked at the wall, the sunlight steaming through the blinds forming perfect rays of gold across the plain white walls. He thought about his words, he decided to describe it as accurately as he could.

“Well, it’s the most amazing feeling in the world when you wake up and the world’s new. You wake up with this feeling in your heart like hope and you don’t mind. You can barely see and everything’s a little fuzzy. Most of the times you don’t even want to open your eyes because they feel so damn good closed. You sigh and let out this reek of morning breath and you get out of bed and look around. It feels like you were born again.”

No matter how accurate or inaccurate that was Adam seemed satisfied with the reply. Not really probing for greater detail as Lawrence ceremonially itched his foot and pushed one leg lazily out of bed.

I used to hate waking up. Adam said, his voice low, almost so low that Lawrence had to strain to hear him. I used to wake waking up to my life, waking up to the mess, the dirt, the jobs, the money, the living. I used to hate taking that first breath of air. I used to hate it. Now I realize that I kept waking up, no matter how much I hated it I kept waking up and I should have loved it. Every day is a damned gift. Every day you can feel like that….

(He sounds like Jigsaw) Lawrence couldn’t help the thought race through his mind quickly.

I know. Adam sulkily said, his voice seeming to come closer. Sometimes I think he was right…You have no idea why you do some things, like get up every morning and face a life you can barely take, and then when every feeling is gone you know why you did it. Something pushed you. Or maybe you were just empty all along…..

Lawrence turned around and looked at Adam, finding nothing in the room but empty space. Panic hit his heart, making his blood pound in his ears like a drumbeat.

“Adam?” He couldn’t help the panic rising in his voice, the panic that was flooding his body, blurring his sight with hot tears. It was still too early, to light outside, the limp was stronger than ever as he tried to stand strong but could do nothing but sit back down as his mind spun in circles. (Where is he, where’d he go, why isn’t he here? Is something wrong. Did I do something?)

A million questions, rushing and sending his heart through a series of loops and beats and pit falls. He called out again, fruitlessly, begging for a reply and trying so damn hard not to let the tears fall, trying so damn hard not to let his emotions get the best of him but failing as he felt everything in room spin until he felt the chill against the nape of his neck, the soft angelic kisses pressed against the small hairs on the back of his neck, making him shiver and at the same time feel so damn warm.

He turned and Adam sat, on his knees on the turned down covers of the master bed.

Miss me? Lawrence had never been happier, never in the past year had he been happier and his heart never felt the same freedom, the same lift as when he saw Adam sitting, arms at his sits and hair perfectly messy, just like every day. Adam, beautiful, unchanging, trapped Adam. Pulling the boy into a series of greedy needy kisses the voice hissed through his lips.

“You scared the shit out of me. Really, I just about had a damn heart attack. Don’t you ever scare me like that again! Or I’ll .. “Adam pulled away, the grin dancing on his face, in his eyes and just about everywhere else.

Or you’ll what? What are you going to do to me Doc? Remove my appendix?

That damned smile. It could melt your heart, your fear, your tears. God damn him for being so perfect. Lawrence wrapped his arms around the boy, feeling nothing and yet knowing there was something there, as always. The next words out of Adam’s mouth were something that took Lawrence by surprise.

I still have like two months left on my little trial here so …

“What?”

Oh…nothing never mind.

“Yeah? But what about the two –“

Forget it, your going to be – The next words shocked even the owner of them.

“But I can’t live without you….” They were soft, almost to himself and yet Adam would have heard him if he only whispered it. There was nothing really to say, nothing at all except to sit and look at each other, watch the next reaction. Wait for something to happen.

So tell me about your life. You know, before I came into it. Adam breaking the silence, doing the only thing he really knew how to do.

Lawrence, eyes wide and still glassy with the morning, didn’t know what to say. After his last revelation he couldn’t really do or say anything other than begin.

“I was born in … Oregon. Now before you say anything yes really. Then when I was 3 my mom and dad divorced and my mom moved to New York, and she married this rich banker. We really had nothing with my real father but with my step dad, Richard, we; well we had more. And…why am I tell you all this?”

So you don’t have to pay for a therapist in three years. Now keep going. Tell me all about it.

“Well, we, me my mom and Richard, we lived in this nice house and he got good income and I had enough money to do whatever I wanted.”

So did you get in trouble a lot when you were younger?

“’m not the rebel you think I was but there were a few times. “ The two sat like that, on the bed, waiting for something, anything to happen as the snow built outside. Lawrence decided, subconsciously, he was taking the day off. He had been called in on Christmas so he wanted and needed a day off. The two sat in the bed, cross legged as Lawrence told tales of his childhood.

He started with stories of Mrs. Grablewitz, the old woman who lived in the apartment above them and how he went upstairs and played with her tiny toy poodle, how went he was seven and a half he broke his left wrist and he became a righty, the cookies he made with his mom, the time he had chicken pox, and his very first kiss with a girl named Zoey Pottfield. He told tons of stories, it seemed like they were sitting on the bed, together for five months and in the middle of all the spoken words it seemed like Adam could almost feel Lawrence.

Every now and again Lawrence would move his hand over to cover Adam’s, or to brush against his cheek. Although Adam registered these little touches, these little passing acts of love, he couldn’t feel anything but he could almost feel the warmth……

If you win or you lose, it's a question of honor
And the way that you choose, it's a question of honor
I can't tell what's wrong or right
If black is white or day is night
I know when two men collide
It's a question of honor

Lawrence set down his fourth, empty bottle of beer onto the countertop and looked out the window in the kitchen, the sounds of parties were surrounding him in every direction. All he could really do was drink the sounds away. Limping over to the kitchen table he pulled out a chair and sat down and stared at the bottle sitting on the countertop just feet away from him.

Every time he tried to think of something, anything else his mind went back to the facts that always lay at his feet; yes, he could become an angry and vengeful drunk, yes he had escaped his trap and cut off is own foot and had somehow pulled through an operation and an close call with bodily rejection, yes he had given up his family for a dead boy, and yes it was New Years and they were out having fun, all of them probably in Time Square as he sat and got drunk and pretended not to hear them.

Them, Alison, Diana, and …What’s-His-Face. The man who had swept her off her feet so fast and suddenly that Larry knew it had to be going on for a while.

“And now a performance from a new up and comer….” Dick Clark said, just as every year as he introduced some singer who began to belt away, definitely lip syncing. If it had been the year before Lawrence would hobble in, crutches and all and sit down on the floor were all three of them were playing Monopoly. Diana was the Scotty dog, Alison was the car, and Larry was the shoe. They got the special edition after loosing the old one and Diana, although not even a teenager yet, knew how to cheat. The TV was playing in the background as Larry got Boardwalk and Diana got Park Place and Alison built up her hotels.

Lawrence stood up, getting another green bottle from the fridge and walking meekly into the other room. Adam set up the monopoly board, either he was reading Lawrence’s mind again or he was just that childish.

I wanna be the dog.

And what could you say? Nothing, just as always and Lawrence, getting drunk and hoping that it would be a happy veil that fell upon his world, sat down across from the boy and picked up the shoe piece.

[[----------]]

It was 11:42 pm, the TV was still blaring and .Larry already made two beer runs, finally he was satisfied. He had a little bit of this and that as Adam chirped away that he would do anything to taste some. Fingering the shoe he looked up at the boy, who had become increasingly more transparent as the days wore on.

‘Why ….. ‘ He stopped finding the words that seemed to not fully want to become unstuck from his tongue. He swayed in his seat a little, eyeing Adam lazily. “Why are you all like …Not here anymore?”

Adam let out a low chuckle.

What in the hell are you talking about?

“You know what I’m talking about ghost boy. You…you were all like here and now I …” he swayed a bit more, closing his eyes as a wave of nausea overtook him, rarely did he get this drunk. “ now I can barely see you….I can see through you….it’s weird…”

I can’t help it, really I can’t. It just sort of happens….there’s a time….that I’m going to have to go if you don’t help me and … well it’s getting closer every day.

Lawrence couldn’t help the laugh escaping his mouth.

“You want me to help you? Help you how…I’m a doctor and you … you’re dead… I can’t fix you…..You can’t even feel it if I did.” His stomach rumbled hungrily while Adam’s face contorted. Through blurry eyes Lawrence could see the anger somewhere beneath the skin trying to come out but for some reason it was repressed down and his face simply hardened

The way your saying it makes it seem like the best thing in the world, it’s not I’d do anything, anything at all to feel something.

Even in such an inebriated state Lawrence rolled his eyes, seeing all the irony.

“So you’d rather feel this godamn pain I feel every day? How about my leg, my foot all the surgeries?!? I’m a doctor, how about telling your friends, your co workers, people you don’t even know that their going….to die. How do you want … to have … to LIVE … with ….” He stopped, he couldn’t keep going because with every word out of his mouth he was seeing more and more red. The room around him was spinning with all his realizations crashing around him.

That itching, that limping, the weeks and months and hours of pain, pulling through all of this and for what? The money, the tears, the nights he couldn’t even close his eyes and this is what it came out to. Playing monopoly with his dead boyfriend?

How is this my fault? I didn’t make you screw your intern, I didn’t make you screw any of those other girls, I didn’t make you neglect Diana, or Alison for that matter, I didn’t make you do anything, I showed up but things were in hell long before I got around to poking my stick in the fire. (How the hell can you sit here and say all this like it’s nothing?)

Lawrence closed his eyes, only to see Adam behind his dark lids as well. No matter where he went he was haunted, cursed…blessed….(NO! You HAVE to stop thinking like that Lawrence. He’s not an angel, he’s a fucking rat who’s only hiding in your mind because its nice and dark in there. MAKE HIM GO AWAY.)

But of course he couldn’t, he wouldn’t. Those were the words that he knew he could never, ever say out loud along with a few others that he could only think in the darkest pits of his mind. He would never be the person to make Adam leave, never be the person to hurt him, never be the person to tell him the truth, at least that’s what he had been thinking for the past few months. Tonight seemed different, tonight he might be that person, the person who can get rid of the pest once and for all.

Adam let out a low hiss, almost as if it mattered if he could sense the air around him that thickened. The TV kept up in the background, it was the countdown.

“TEN!!”

“no…You………you didn’t make me do anything of that but you … “ Lawrence was going to accuse, point his finger at Adam and lie until he made sense but he could barely remember his own name. He didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t.

“NINE!”

He stood up on swaying uneasy feet and looked around the room. The reflection in the mirror was of him and a semi transparent dead kid, half his age with a look of rage coupled with sorrow across his barely there face.

When had he gotten that mirror anyway.? Was it Alison’s choice or part of the renovation? It looked old.

“EIGHT!”

Trying to think of anything but Adam, desperate to think of anything else, Adam made it impossible as he stood and walked to where Lawrence stood looking in the mirror.

“SEVEN!”

He put his lifeless hand on Lawrence’s shoulder.

Please Lawrence, you’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re saying…please just listen to reason. I didn’t do anything. He walked in front of Lawrence.

“SIX!”

Standing in front of the mirror and looking at Lawrence with a flicker in his eyes. He leaned forward as if going in for a kiss…

“FIVE!”

The red cloth over Lawrence’s eyes deepened, the red becoming as shade of blood.

“FOUR!”

The hand that was seemingly not even there bore down into him searing through his clothes and into his skin. The lips that came closer with every second.

“THREE”

He just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Adam…I’m warning you…”

“TWO!”

Oh come on man, you know you’ll never get rid of me…

“ONE!”

Lifting a hand and shoving it as hard forward as he could until he heard the cracking, the breaking, the shattering. Shards of the mirror fell to his feet as Adam pulled his hand away, stepping away, eyes widening, mouth open.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!”

Lawrence I –

“Go.” A drop of blood hit a chunk of glass, the blood reflecting as it dripped off the sliver and onto the carpet. The TV buzzed with excitement as thousands just blocks away cheered, ranted, raved, kissed, hugged, and made their New Year resolutions. Lawrence eyes closed almost enjoying the pain that started to burn within his hand, it was real, it was there, he could see the blood and the mirror. Neither could disappear. His hand couldn’t just go through the mirror. It was in the real world, not some fake world were ghosts talked to you.

I’m sorry, I –

“GO” As the blood dripped from his fingers and onto the floor. Lawrence turned, Adam was gone. He had left and the house he had once called home oh so long ago was empty. The TV buzzed, the dishwasher in the kitchen kept going, and the distant sound of happiness was still there. Having nothing else to do Lawrence walked to the couch, sitting down and looking at the board, monopoly only half played.

He touched the neck of one of the bottles on the end table, cringing with pain before grabbing it anyway. Feeling the heat of pain warm his hand he lifted the bottle up to his lips. After a sip he pulled away, throwing the bottle at what was left of the mirror. More shards feel to the ground, some green.

“Happy New Year…” He mumbled under his breath before curling up on the couch and dozing into an uneven and haunted sleep.

I wanna feel, all the chemicals inside

I wanna feel (I wanna feel)

I wanna sunburn, just to know that I'm alive

To know I'm alive

Don't tell me if I'm dying

Cause I don't wanna know

If I can't see the sun, maybe I should go

Don't wake me cause I'm dreaming

Of angels on the moon

Where everyone you know, never leaves too soon

Adam paced the streets, he had no real idea as to where he was headed but he knew he had to go. He had to go someplace; he just had to get away. After what had happened just seconds before there was something raw, something real something fearful the pricked the air and even though he knew he couldn’t feel it, he knew it was there all the same.

He passed through crowds of people going the opposite way, passing him, through him, around him, near him and none of them giving him a second glance. It killed him time and time again, the way he had spent his life was the way that he was now being forced to live his pain filled hellish after life. What kind of hell was it where a person could feel such immense pleasure and yet feel nothing at all. It was like that story of the man who drank himself to death because he couldn’t taste the liquid in his throat.

Finally he stopped, the world around him spinning while he stayed still, his eyes wide as the mess around him seemed to be as still as he was, it was almost impossible that only minutes before this place had been the center of celebration. People were still hanging around, listening to Dick Clark and whoever else was hosting. Then he saw them, those three sitting on a curb, Alison, Diana, and the guy whom Lawrence had been cursing out all night. They all looked so perfect, so beautiful together and if he had a camera it would be one of the shots that he would make a lot of money on.

Alison was in a red shimmery halter top under a South Pole winter coat, she had one arm around Diana who was sitting half asleep with, of all things, an ice cream cone in her hands. She took a few licks of the vanilla and then the man on her left, a guy who seemed to be dressed to the nines despite the fact that he was wearing jeans and a puffy white coat of his own, whispered something to her and she laughed, a real out loud laugh sending Alison into a hearty laugh herself. They all looked so perfect sitting there, being the family that Lawrence never had although he may have wanted at some point.

I did this…I ruined everything. And with that Adam took off to the only place where he knew he would be alone, as he began to feel himself slip away.

---

“So now everybody gets… exactly what…. They want!”

“Hang on a second, so you just blended a bunch of smoothies, ground coffee and made two different kinds of muffins …

Lawrence woke up with a tight warm knot in his stomach twisting and turning and taking on a life of its own. The second his eyes fluttered open he regretted it. The sounds of the wonderful “Magic Bullet” continued to play but now he was greeted by the sights that every hung over person hates. On the screen that never really turned off he saw the horrible infomercial equipped with infomercial food. Two overly happy people wearing overly bright clothes were pouring what appeared to be Smurf puke and chunky puss into muffin trays.

“Shit…..” was all that the usually oh-so-proper Lawrence could say as he twisted himself into a ball, although knowing it wouldn’t stop any of the cramps from ceasing. He writhed on the couch and tried to block out the sounds of the TV, the sounds of chopping and whirring and tried to form a big black hole behind his eyes.

As the waves of nausea washed over him he could only concentrate on trying not to puke, and after a few minutes of simply laying there, tuning anything and everything out he decided that he could open his eyes. At first he raised his hand to his face, to rub his eyes when a sudden flare of pain shot up from his hand to his wrist and it made it’s way up his arm and back down again.

“What in the hell is … “then he saw it. The first time he opened his eyes he only saw the TV with its overly happy prime time actors trying to pretend like that were actually eating whatever anyone set in front of them, and then he had simply lowered his head and close his eyes and tuned everything out. With his pissed off stomach rocking his body he simply couldn’t even try to remember what had happened the night before. He didn’t want to, he didn’t try to, and he didn’t even need for the time being. Now he couldn’t ignore it.

Shards of glass shown across the entire living room, the huge mirror lay in a million shinning pieces. Small poka-dots of deep crimson stained the rug in a small trail from the center of the shards to the couch and there was the matching puddle around his hand. The deep red had already soaked into the couch and he knew he would never be able to get the stain out. However that was the last of his problems.

He couldn’t hear Adam. He couldn’t see him anywhere and more important he couldn’t feel him. Ever since the first time they’d seen each other Lawrence had felt Adam was there, but now he was gone. He forced his mind back, trying in vain to remember what happened last night. There were only a few small memories that came surfacing to his mind. His stomach lurched angrily as he sat up and put his injured hand to his head lightly. All he could remember was playing Monopoly, Adam cracking jokes and some female singer screeching in his ears.

But then he had gotten angry. He couldn’t remember why, or over what, or what happened but now Adam was gone because of him. Yes Adam was missing; there was no trace of him. Of course he knew he was a doctor and he was suppose to be getting ready for work, he was suppose to be going in to save people lives. He was suppose to be strong and when he had time he could go looking for Adam.

He was strong and intelligent, and more importantly when he was sober he was very rational. He was sober, the all – over all – powering body ache proved that point, and so why was he picking up the phone with his good hand and dialing the hospital main office number? Why was he waiting for Anne to pick up and when he finally heard her voice why did he call off?

“I can’t come in, I’m sorry, I’ll make it up but I can’t even get out of bed. I’m just dying here.” He said lifting his fingers up to his cheek, feeling the damp trail streaking down his face. He was so scared and worried and yet sure at the same time he had no idea he was crying. There were only 8 words ringing through his ears, through his mind but it was his own voice screaming them.

As he hung up the phone he was unsure if he really said it out loud or if he was just imaging it.,

“Adam doesn’t know he doesn’t have time left.”

He could have driven, he could have grabbed a cab, he could have jumped on the bus or called a friend but he didn’t. Something, maybe Adam somewhere over the rainbow, told him that he had to run. He couldn’t sit around and wait for traffic to move, he couldn’t wait for old ladies to cross the street, he couldn’t count the seconds until the bus stopped and the painful seconds it took to open the doors. He couldn’t call taxi because there was only one small problem; he was running blind as hell.

He didn’t know where he was going exactly; he just knew he was going to where Adam was. He would do anything to just see that sickeningly sweet smile again.

As he took off down the street at a jogging pace, a thought finally hit him. An idea as to why he needed to find Adam before it was too late bulldozed through his mind almost too quickly to catch it, but he somehow did and he held onto it, repeating it to himself only once into the thick morning air as he jogged down the street, haphazardly making lefts and rights here and there, “I don’t need to find him because he’ll becomine nothing, I need to find him so I can make him something. “ As cheesy as it was it made everything clear in Lawrence’s mind and he knew what he had to do.

---

If there’s a hell on Earth I’m in it.

Adam wanted to move, he really did. He wanted to pace the floor, he wanted to sulk, to walk, to run, to pound on the walls and wake up the neighbors. He wanted to run to Lawrence but he just couldn’t move. It seemed like from the moment he sat down both of his legs had broken off into a million pieces like the mirror.

It was now some ungodly time in the morning and he was stuck here, stuck in this hell hole, feeling numb and sore and dead all at once. The phrase he had used so many times in life, “I feel so dead”, now became literal as he felt everything rushing to catch up with him. He couldn’t raise his arms, lift his legs, and he was starting to lose his mouth. Come to think of it are my eyes going or am I just not here?

Feeling drunk or high on some nightmarish trip he could barely see himself. Soon his eyes would shut and he’d be dead, dead and gone for good. At least his damn mind worked so long that he could still realize what a hell this was. He willed his arm to move, mentally begged it to move but nothing happened. He tried moving a finger and merely got a small twitch that didn’t even last. He couldn’t remember when he had layed down, he could barely see anything in the room around him. Everything was spinning, his eyes were covered by a thin milky white veil.

I’m dying – again. Adam thought, his mind slowly becoming foggy and while his last few inches of hope, prayed to god that Lawrence could find him although he knew just was all in vain.

--

Lawrence stood outside the door, heavy dark wood, a number stenciled in gold, the brass doorknob, his eyes seemed to take everything in all at once. He saw things he never saw before, the claw marks of maybe a cat or small dog near the bottom of the door, the letters carved into the brass. It would be open, it had to be open, all he had to do was reach out and touch the doorknob.

Just a flick of the wrist and it’s done.

And then he could face his nightmare.

His mind taunted him as he gasped for breath. He had just run up flights of stairs, maybe two, but it felt more like seventy. His breathe came in shallow gulps, (you are too late, you know you’re too late and now there’s nothing you can do. The governor didn’t call and now he’s gone. That’s what you wanted right?}

“No.” He muttered, not bothering to tuck his shirt in, ignoring his flaring hand, the pain sending red flares into his mind, his burning lungs, his pounding head, and reaching for the door knob. The cool metal slid into his hand as he twisted gently, a flick and the door pushed open. Nothing, nobody here, his mind mocked. But it was his heart that told him where to go.

Bedroom.

Doctor Lawrence Gordon the man who had once been so prim and proper. So perfect and flawless. The man who never cried and never let a patient die on him would never have noticed anything in the room and dismissed it as empty.

But Lawrence Gordon, the train wreck with drying blood on his untucked wrinkled shirt, the one who had been crying since he had basically woken up, saw Adam. A very small, thin, almost invisible Adam, not even himself anymore laying on the bed. He walked to the bed and dropped to his knees.

“Adam?”

--

Hey man it was almost too hard for Adam to talk and flutter his eyes open at the same time. His ears must be going to. Lawrence was here, he had come to see him after all, he didn’t mean it.

“Hey….I’m here…… and….” Lawrence sniffled, was he crying? Adam tried to look straight ahead, but the film was preventing him from details. He could barely see the outline of the doctor, but from the way he sounded he was a wreck.

Hey man don’t … don’t be a pussy. I’ll be …. Fine…. (Another lie from the oh – so – wonderful – Adam. Here’s the guy who finally wants to save you and you lie. Yeah you’re only going to Florida for a vacation why should he be worried? Right?)

Shut up.

“What??” Lawrence chocked out. Adam regretted it instantly.

Not you, me…Just I’m thinking some really …. Never mind…. I just …

“No, stop please…” Lawrence said, sitting closer to the bed.

--

He put his hand on Adam’s, although he knew he couldn’t feel it.

“Adam…it’s taken forever, five months and all you’ve done is follow me and annoy me and chase me and just …. “

Man I’m sorry – Can you –

“Listen to me!” Lawrence shouted, he needed to say something, he needed to make things right, even if they were too late. He prayed they weren’t but things were looking worse than he thought. This wasn’t Adam, this was the ghost. Just a ghost…..

“Adam…I…. love you…”

--

Adam let out a sigh as Lawrence let out another chocked back sob.

“I love you so fucking much that …. I just … I don’t know what I’d do without you. “

Adam strained his eyes, damn it … he should be getting better, maybe not instantly but he still felt like he was in hell.

“Adam please, you’re everything to me….so please just…. Wake up.”

-----------------------------------

Please understand, if love ends,
then I promise you, I promise you that,
that I shall never breathe again.
Breathe again, breathe again,
that I shall never breathe again.

Things were still too hard to think about, things were still spinning, things were still unfixed and that all made Adam feel nervous, but what made his eyes (almost) water and his breath (almost) catch was that Lawrence was looking through him. Lawrence was looking at him alright, Lawrence saw him but Lawrence wasn’t seeing him.

I am awake… He tried to say in the way that he had learned to project himself in the past few weeks, but instead of saying something back Lawrence merely titled his head to the side like a dog trying to listen to something very far away, tears still falling from his eyes but yet Adam couldn’t really see them more or less he knew they were there, maybe it was because he felt the light wet drops hitting his hand….

“Adam please wake up…please…” Like a broken record and this time Adam started to scream it

I AM AWA – Wait just a minute folks, his hand was wet. He felt the drops hitting his hand. Then he heard something like mumbling

“..imma ….. ke…..” Something so far and yet so close, it was like he was sitting 10 stories above a radio, he could hear it, but only so slightly. Then Lawrence looked around, whipping his head from side to side.

--

“NURSE, HE JUST TALKED, GET THE NEUROSURGEON IN HERE RIGHT NOW!” Lawrence cried, finally pulling himself back to normal again, trying for Adam who he hoped against all hope was finally coming out of it. The doctor had only really given him six months and then they shortened it to five months For a year they though he’d come out of it, then as the weeks wore down so did the ever dwindling supply of money to keep the emaciated body in therapy to prevent bone lose, to keep the body without a real heartbeat “breathing”, to feed it and care for it. Lawrence had spent a year erasing Adam from his mind although he couldn’t. There was something he couldn’t get rid of.

Maybe it was because the body of the boy was up the hall and to the right in his hospital. Maybe it was because for those six hours he felt alive. Not good alive, but alive not the less. Maybe it was because somewhere along the line he was going to need that scrawny helpless boy again. No matter what the reason the story stayed the same. Lawrence was released from the hospital only three months after the reconstruction surgery and he’d been going to therapy for a while to get mobility. Then he was asked, not only 3 weeks after he came back to the hospital, if he would like to monitor Adam….and his nurses said he would.

He had checked up on the boy so much, more and more and more until recently he found himself coming to the hospital on off hours. He found himself talking to him nonstop, sometimes sleeping in the room with him, sometimes taking breaks and coming into the room to complain to Adam about life in general. He had a nonstop series of stories about his childhood and Adam never complained. He could also complain about Alison.

Things were never good between Alison and himself, after the incident they had seemingly gotten closer but only for a short time. Then they were back to being from completely different worlds and she blamed Adam.

“Of course, blame the kid in a coma because I’m sleeping with him now right???” Alison hung her head and said she didn’t care what he was doing; he was spending more time with a dead guy than he was with his family, with his wife. He blames her, she blamed Adam and then she had stormed out of the café and never looked back. He had only grown closer and more dependant on the raven haired sleeping beauty waiting in the hospital.

Lawrence, although the primary physician, wasn’t in charge of how long he would be kept on life support. The neurosurgeon and an assembly of 6 doctors had a meeting and due to everything; Adam’s stability, lifestyle, family (or lack there of), and mostly money issues, quickly decided they were pulling the plug on February 1st. Due to some bank error, the money dwindled quicker than before and they brought the date up to January 1st, trying to save enough money for a coffin.

For 5 months Lawrence watched and waited for a sign of life in Adam. They had stopped exercises, knowing he’d never wake up and so his bones became frail and his muscles became loose. Lawrence didn’t give up; he had sat and had many meals by the bedside, many naps on the chairs, many nights on the side of the twin bed, and many long talks that could sometimes end in tears. He begged whatever was out there to bring his Adam back, but no matter what he said, or how he said it, he couldn’t admit to love.

Finally on his last chance he did and now -

--

At first he felt the light drops of Lawrence’s tears, the small pinprick of a needle in his left arm, the steady beep of the heart rate monitor. He tried to center on one thing, he tried to stop the spinning around him but he could only see blurs. He could hear Lawrence, but barely. It was like he was at one end of a tunnel underwater and Lawrence was screaming his name but yet he couldn’t think.

There was a beep, another beep, faster and faster until finally as the spinning stopped he could hear a steady monotone beep.

--

What the hell? I’m not supposed to be here.

--

“ADAM! Wake UP! You CAN’T quit NOW!!!”

--

Not hell….is this…….

Another voice out of the blank white vast landscape before him.

Hello Adam….

--

Lawrence sobbed, he couldn’t help himself. He was a doctor he could help and he wouldhelp if this wasn’t Adam. But this was Adam and he could only get pushed aside by another doctor who rushed into the room.

--

What the fuck!?!?!?! Why am I here???? I have to go back!

Why?

Because Lawrence needs me goddamn it.

A chuckle, as if he had said the most hilarious thing in the world.

He needs you? How do you know what he needs?

I just know, I’m not done. I have to go back….

Let’s see shall we?

--

Adam could see everything, suddenly it was very clear. NOW he was a ghost. Before whatever he had “seen” were simply hallucinations made up by what his drug induced coma fried brain was telling him, what Lawrence was telling him… but now he was really dead and it couldn’t be true. There was no pain, there was no nothing and yet Adam felt the rage to go back boiling within him.

He was standing in the doorway to his hospital room, there he was, barely visible among the copious amount of blankets and sheets around him, all of which were quickly being pulled off by various doctors. Then he saw Lawrence, sitting in a chair slumped over, sobs racking his body. His entire body was shaking with every whimper he managed to draw in. He looked up for a second, seemingly at the ghost of Adam, his eyes huge, red, and puffy already.

I’m going back.

--Rip—The doctors tore open the gown they used to cover Adam.

Are you sure? Once you do this you can’t take it back….You’re life will probably be pain filled. You two will never be what you think you will be….you will feel incredible amounts of pain and go through countless surgeries; you will feel pain like you never had. You will have to work to stay happy, and normal. Your life may be filled with heartache, the doctor will probably die before you and you must keep going.

“Clear!!!” A doctor in light orange scrubs yelled, pushing the defibulator down on Adam’s skinny chest.

Adam took another look at the shape of Lawrence, hunched over and sobbing, he whimpered almost too softly to hear but Adam heard it none the less. –

--

“Adam please…….” He sobbed and coughed rubbing his hands over his face. “ I love you…..I know I love you … you can’t leave me like this…I can’t do it alone….” Lawrence looked up, seeing something, some white flicker that could have just been his eyes playing tricks on him from the stress and emotional overload, but then he heard the heart rate monitor start beeping again.

--

The first thing he heard was the heart rate monitor beeping and then there was a bright flash of white light and he thought he had mistaken the chance and instead went to hell instead of the hospital. It felt like there was an elephant on his chest, and then something was tunneling through his head and down his neck into his shoulder. Pain encompassed his whole body, every inch felt like it was on fire with three thousand needles sticking from it. Words couldn’t describe the pain that filled his being, and then he opened his eyes.

--

Lawrence was up and at the bed and pushing the other doctors out of the way before they could fully stabilize him. He had seen a scare or two here or there but he had never had something like this, on the brink of waking up he had died, and now he was back. He was back and he was here and as Lawrence wrapped his arms around Adam he whispered a promise into the thick raven black hair, and as the words mixed with his tears he said it again and again and again ….

--

“I’ll love you forever, I’m never letting you go, I’ll always love you, always and forever, and I promise I’m never going to let you go ever, ever again. I love you so much I’ll never – “

Adam’s throat both dry and raw refused to work so he could only tilt his head against Lawrence’s shoulder and smile. And somewhere beneath the pain and sleep drugged system he felt like this was the start of a beautiful relationship.

Adam traced his finger over the scar spanning his palm, a habit that he had picked up shortly after the surgery that had caused such a scar to appear in the first place. When he woke up, it was amazing to every single person involved. Nobody ever thought he’d wake up, let alone at the very last second possible. After his funds had run out and hope had been lost the doctors stopped moving his muscles and so they fell into disuse and several now had to be rebuilt.  Both his legs, in different places, his lower back, one muscle in his neck and his hand. They started with his hand and his lower back and now he could sit up and move both his hands but as of yet he couldn’t walk or turn his head to the left.  His life in the past few weeks had been hell on Earth, countless surgeries, one close call with infection, and all the hospital food and free body burning therapy he could want, however today he was the most excited he had been in a very long time, but for now all he could do was wait for Lawrence to arrive. So he stopped tracing the scar and looked at it and  not for the first time, really looked at it.

The scar could be traced from his palm to the backside of his hand, where it formed a Y shape, starting  at his wrist and spreading out to his index and ring finger.  Lawrence had made sure only the best would operate and when asked if he would cover up the scars Adam shook his head, as much as he could anyway. They were a reminder, just like the knot on his shoulder, of all he had been through to be where he was today, and today was a very special day.

Today, Valentine’s Day and if it had been any other year Adam would be on his couch drinking and watching soaps. Sometimes he would be on a job, but very rarely.  Now it was all different, he could hear the radio softly playing at the nurses’ station. It was on some love song channel, and although normal he would have scoffed now he listened to the lyrics.

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
I don't know how

Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall

Never had any other words he heard in his entire life rang more true. He didn’t think it was a love song but then again maybe it wasn’t a love song station, maybe everything he heard anymore was a love song, something with the ending message of “Live and Let Love.”

There was a knock on the door pulling him out of his thoughts, dragging him away from everything and anything about love songs and instead he tumbled into his own personal song. Lawrence stood at the door, his lab coat hung open over the suit he wore and a white paper bag in his hand.

“Hey sleeping beauty, can I come in?” He leaned against the door frame, his hair had grown a little longer and his face was a little bit younger since Adam woke, it seemed he had both aged and yet grown younger at the same time.  Adam let a lazy smile grace his features as he nodded.

“Sure man, or do I have to call you prince charming or something?” His voice, from a year of unused was strained and always seemed raw. It sounded like he was sick and had a frog in his throat and if they could fix one thing he wanted it to be his voice.  If he was going to look like Frankenstein he could at least sound like himself, but Lawrence didn’t care what Adam sounded like, he was still there, he was still real and he was still Adam.

“So I promise I’ll love you forever if there’s some KFC in that bag.” Adam smiled again, this time Lawrence smiled too.

“Well I’m going to have to go out and buy some KFC…all this is, is the hospital special.”  Adam couldn’t let go of his smile, even though he hated hospital food.

“Well….I guess it’s better than nothing. But don’t think your getting into my pants, my father would be so disappointed in me.”  They shared a short laugh as Lawrence took of the coat and pulled a chair up to the bedside, then pushed it back and instead sat on the edge of the bed. Pulling out the retractable table Adam tried to sit up, much to the protest of his lower back and his flaring hand. His whole body still felt like hell, today they lowered his morphine and it was hell on Earth, but then again precious little could ruin Adam’s mood today.

Lawrence wrapped his warm hand over Adam’s and helped pull the boy up, together they simply sat in the bed, sitting there looking out the glass window into the nurses station, just eying the people in their scrubs walking around, some with pink and red on. Men and women alike were walking through the halls, most holding flowers or balloons or bears…finally Adam spoke.

“So we going to eat or just look at it?” He reached with his scarred hand towards the bag sitting on the edge of the table, when he noticed Lawrence who was hadn’t moved since sitting down. He stopped his hand halfway across the table and looked into the blue eyes that haunted him as much as he had “haunted” Lawrence.

Before Adam knew it he was locked in a tight embrace, it wasn’t necessarily “romantic”, nor was it fatherly. It was something that made his breath catch for a second as he reached up and locked his own arms around the doctor who was now grasping hold of him.

“Adam……I thought you were gone…….I thought you weren’t coming back……..I mean……I was so scared…..I don’t know what I’d do without you….” Adam felt the warm wet tears against his neck and felt the heat rise into his stomach, into his chest, wrap its fingers around him and squeeze. He tightened his grip and wished that they could leave this glass cage and go home…to a real home. Instead he ran his hand through dirty blonde hair and let the tears run their course. Finally Lawrence straightened up, swiping at his reddened eyes and then reaching for the bag himself.

“Sorry about that, I’m just still so happy you’re here….Ya’ know?” Adam nodded and Lawrence removed two plastic covered plates, setting one down in front of Adam.  Removing the plastic lid he gazed at the pot roast with what seemed like green beans and mashed potatoes covered in gravy.

“Ah damn, you shouldn’t have man, this is just so gosh darn romantic I don’t know what to do with myself.” Adam lifted the plastic fork and shoveled some of the potatoes into his mouth, Lawrence did the same, mindlessly reaching over and holding onto Adam’s hand. As they ate their meal Lawrence traced the Y scar again and again with his thumb as they made small talk, watching the people pass by outside the window. Finally the black dishes were empty and Lawrence smiled.

“I may not have sneaked in KFC  but I did manage to go out and get some – “ he was cut off by a short girlish squeal as he produced a tin of strawberry cheesecake, Adams FAVORITE desert in the whole wide world, or at least those were the words he used while talking about it to Lawrence.

“Man screw it I’ll love you forever anyway!” He reached out and took the tin and let his mouth water at the thought of the taste of fresh strawberries. Lawrence moved closer to Adam, letting his arm snake around the boy’s waist.

“I was thinking we could share but if you want to inhale the whole thing all by yourself that’s fine too.”  Adam laughed, popping off the lid and dipping his finger into the whipped cream; he pulled the sticky finger out of the cake and swiped it onto Lawrence’s nose, leaving a dollop of cream on the tip of his nose.  Adam chuckled and at the look on Lawrence’s face he laughed harder, until he coughed so hard he had to stop. Finally he leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose, removing the small dap of whipped cream.

Lawrence rolled his eyes, always the adult of the two and cut a piece of the pie for himself before giving the rest of the tray to Adam, they both dug in, holding hands under the table the entire time. Scar on scar it was like the two of them had matching wounds like some people have friendship bracelets. Lawrence’s knuckles showing the injury from New Years and Adam’s from his rebirth, together it seemed like one long perfect slice when they put their hands together.

And as they sat and “people watched” they both felt how perfect things were, and were going to be. Adam’s road was far from over, and  Lawrence was going to stand next to him every step and like strawberry cheesecake on Valentines day, like scars that make a perfect match, they found some things were just meant to be.