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Adam's back hurts. He's pretty sure he's pulled every muscle possible to pull and that knowledge really has him considering a subscription to the gym. In his defense, moving his tattered furniture out of his apartment and into his buddy's truck wasn't a walk in the park. Lawrence had wanted to call someone to take care of the furniture, but Adam insisted he'd do it the cost-effective way. Yeah, last time he's doing that shit.
Whatever. He no longer has to look at that hole-ridden ugly yellow sofa or the creaky fold-out dining table. He got rid of it all, every single piece of furniture being whisked away by an old friend who's going to do know God knows what with it. That left his belongings - the clothes and the trinkets and the photography shit. Thankfully, it all was able to squeeze into Lawrence's car in one trip, though it was a tight fit to say the least. It might not've been, had there been an unoccupied passenger seat.
"I can't believe you actually rode with me to do this."
"I can't believe you wouldn't let me in your apartment. That's the only reason I even came."
"I told you, you're never seeing that place. Never," Adam emphasizes as he slowly brakes in front of a stoplight he'll likely never be at again. Now that he doesn't live here, he has no reason to be at this dingy, poor part of town. He doesn't necessarily feel like he belongs in the more... luxurious part of town, either, but maybe he will with time. He just needs more desensitizing from Lawrence, who says things like, 'I think I'm going to purchase this electric stand mixer,' while looking at junk mail and doesn't think twice about the fact that it's over a hundred fucking dollars.
Lawrence sighs in disdain. "And I told you that I wouldn't judge you for it. I'm just curious, Adam. You lived there for quite awhile."
"You wouldn't be able to tell it was anyone's home except the fuckin' rats." Adam grips the steering wheel as he turns the car. "That place was nothing more than a roof over my head. I sure as hell didn't feel comfortable in there."
"Even before..." Lawrence trails off. He's gripping the grab handle on the roof of the car like Adam's about to send them both flying out the windscreen. He's not that bad of a driver.
"Even then, but yeah, it was increased tenfold after that. Lawrence, I think it's cool and all that you care to know about me, fuck knows nobody else does, but you're not going to find any traces of me in that place. Except for dried macaroni underneath the stove and spilled ink on the bedroom carpet."
Lawrence makes a chagrined little noise. He's silent for a moment after that, in which Adam fiddles with the radio, trying to switch it from the shitty adult contemporary station Lawrence had it on to the alternative rock station. When he finally speaks again, he gestures to the boxes in the backseat and says, "Maybe whatever's in these boxes will satiate me, then."
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Adam replies flippantly, squinting as his eyes dart from the road to the radio. "God, I hate this fucking song."
-
Lawrence voices his helplessness as Adam balances a stack of boxes in his arms. "I just wish I could carry more."
Adam knew he'd feel that way, hence why he put all of his clothes in trashbags so Lawrence could carry them easily. Apparently, that wasn't enough. "You can press the buttons on the elevator and open our apartment door for me. That's help enough."
The pronoun has Lawrence's frown lifting into a little smile that makes Adam's heart swell. He doesn't complain much after that, and he helps guide Adam up the concrete stairs to the apartment building. "Ironic, isn't it?" Adam grunts behind the boxes. "If I ever go blind, this'll be your reality, dude. Then we'll just be falling all over each other all the time."
"Does glaucoma run in your family?" Lawrence sounds legitimately worried at the possibility of this.
"If I say yes, will you make me put these boxes back in the car and go back to where I came from?" Adam's arms already hurt. "I don't know, I don't even remember my blood type."
"That's... almost just as concerning."
Minutes later, once all the boxes have been transferred and Adam's slurped down two glasses of water, he sits on the living room floor, loading his movie collection into the shelves in the TV stand. Lawrence is seated in his chair, unpacking the boxes for Adam, handing him the movies. Like always, their synergy comes effortlessly. Adam no longer questions it.
"You have a surprising amount of movies from before you were even born," Lawrence comments as he hands Adam Night of the Living Dead.
"Everyone owns Night of the Living Dead, unless they're like, Catholic or something."
"Yes, but you have the black and white version."
"'Cause it's scarier, duh."
"I'm glad you're livening up my excuse of a movie collection. It definitely needs it."
"Yeah, about that, why do you have three copies of Weird Science?"
"I liked that movie a lot when it came out!"
"Did you like it because it was good or because it was ninety minutes of two boys being in close proximity?" Adam teases, grinning madly when Lawrence averts his eyes. "It was the closest thing your closeted ass got to porn, right?"
"Oh, Adam, don't be silly. There are better movies to achieve that. The Outsiders, for example."
Adam laughs loudly. Lawrence is smiling, too, and their banter continues even as they work together to unpack Adam's music collection. Lawrence purchased a cool storage thing for Adam to put everything in, a unit of furniture that has drawers for cassettes, small shelves for CDs, and larger shelves for records. Lawrence doesn't even poke fun at the fact that Adam collects records in spite of not owning a record player. He thinks it's 'neat.' Adam has to exercise immense strength in not tackling Lawrence and wasting a lot of time.
Lawrence tears open another box and says, "Oh, you have books in here," in audible surprise.
"Always nice to find out I'm not as dim as you thought, I bet."
He sends Adam a scowl. "That's not how I meant it."
"It's alright." Adam gets up from the floor in favor of sitting on the armrest of Lawrence's chair, which is kinda his favorite place to be ever. He drapes his arms around Lawrence, resting his cheek against Lawrence's hair. "They're photography books," he tells him, pointing to the camera depicted on the book Lawrence is retrieving.
"I see." Lawrence flips through the pages in mild interest. "I'm glad you're keeping them."
"They were all gifts and I don't throw gifts away. Even though they're all from exes. Anyway, there's also an encyclopedia and some other random books in this box. Remember, this is the box that had me groaning out in pain while I was carrying it and you were trying to hide your boner."
"I was not!"
"Oh, you weren't trying to hide it? Well, that's good, 'cause you wouldn't have been doing a good job."
Lawrence neglects to respond to that. Instead, he scoffs as he pulls another book out of the box and says, "Where the Red Fern Grows?"
"Don't even try to tell me that book didn't make you cry. Don't even try your macho shit on me, Lawrence. If you tell me this book didn't make you cry, I'm not going to move in anymore."
"I read it when I was ten and couldn't sleep for an entire weekend."
"Good. Fantastic, even. There's no better judgement of character than the reaction to Where the Red Fern Grows."
Once the living room is officially Adamized, as he calls it, they migrate to the bedroom to put away Adam's clothes and toiletries. That's pretty anticlimactic. Lawrence puts away all the bathroom-related stuff while Adam loads his clothes into the dresser, bitching about how the apartment doesn't have a closet the whole time. "Who the fuck makes a bedroom without any sort of closet?" Lawrence says it's because this building is very old, but Adam thinks that's a shit excuse. Closets have been around forever.
Thankfully, Lawrence's dresser is quite large and all of Adam's clothing fits nicely. That leaves him with his massive assortment of miscellaneous trinkets. He's staring down at them with a ponderous expression when Lawrence shuffles in from the bathroom, saying, "Your shower stuff is on the left side of the shower, your other stuff is in the bottom drawer of the sink and the bottom shelf in the cabinet behind the mirror. I hung up your towels next to mine-- What are you looking at?"
"A lot of stuff that I don't really know why I can't part with."
Lawrence comes over and hums as he sees the items. "Seems like you have a story behind each one, I'd imagine."
"Some of them I just like. It's that stupidly simple."
"Nothing wrong with that."
"Where the fuck am I gonna put them?"
"There's your nightstand. Some could go in the living room. Otherwise, we could just put this in the apartment storage unit in the basement."
Adam raises his brows at this. "Do you have stuff in there?"
Lawrence shudders. "Too much."
Adam begins taking out random objects from the box, little figurines and such, to line them up on his nightstand. Lawrence is rifling through the box himself, occasionally smiling at what he comes up with. "It's interesting that you kept a lot of action figures from your childhood."
"It's totally not because I still play with them. Totally not."
"Lots of flattened coins in here."
"Yeah, there was a train near the house I grew up in, I put tons of shit on the tracks." Adam is too occupied with adjusting what's on his nightstand to notice what Lawrence pulls out next. At the sound of his chuckle, Adam glances back. "Oh. That's--"
"I like this," Lawrence says. He notices Adam's knit brows and hands it to him diligently. "What?"
Adam clears his throat. "It's, um. My dad and I used to have this tradition where we'd go to a paleontology museum every summer. We'd always go into the gift shop and usually, he'd get me a book, because believe it or not, my dad was all about the brains. Like you. But um, one year I asked him, I just asked him once if he could get me something else. And he got me this." Adam holds up the object. It's a little toy brachiosaurus with a neck that bobbles up and down. It's scuffed, some of the green paint giving way to silver underneath, and its tail is chipped.
Lawrence is silent for a moment, giving Adam that look he gives him every time he talks about his deceased father. Adam used to think it was pity, but he knows better now. It's pure heartache, as if Lawrence is feeling Adam's pain just as profoundly. It's oddly comforting. "Here- may I?" Lawrence asks, reaching out. Adam hesitates, then reprimands himself for being stupid over a fucking dinosaur toy and hands it to Lawrence. Lawrence takes it as if it's prone to shattering, examining it closely, and says, "Would you mind if I put this in my office? Safe up on one of my shelves. Not even Diana would be able to reach it, although I'm sure she wouldn't mess with it. I understand if you want to keep it in here, I just--" Lawrence sighs. "Sorry, I know it's an odd request."
Adam chews on his lower lip for a moment. He doesn't think long, though, before saying, "I don't think that's odd. Actually, I think I would prefer that. That's one of the only pieces of my dad I have and it feels kinda weird to have it so close to the place we fuck."
Lawrence laughs softly. "Not where my mind was going, but yeah, I see your point."
He leaves to go put it in his office. Adam blinks away the watering of his eyes, tells himself to man the fuck up already, and finds places for the remainder of his trinkets. No storage unit necessary.
For that box, at least.
Later, when Adam is heating up leftover stir-fry from the night prior, Lawrence asks, "What's in that last box?"
"Photography shit. My camera and equipment and photobook. That will be going in the basement. Fuck knows there's no use for it up here," Adam replies as he adds more sesame oil to the stir-fry (Lawrence never puts enough). Lawrence hums and walks out of the kitchen. Adam assumes that's the last of it.
Until he's dishing out the food into two respective bowls and calling out, "Food's ready!" The lack of response from Lawrence has Adam furrowing his brows. He walks out of the kitchen, into the living room and feels his heart drop to his ass. "Shit."
Lawrence is examining a multitude of photos himself with a blank look. Every step Adam takes towards him feels like quicksand.
"The fuck are you doing?" he asks, scrambling to gather the photos, which Lawrence had laid out on the table in perfect order. "You're not supposed to see these."
"They're of me," Lawrence replies, his calmness grating. "Shouldn't I get to see them if they're of me?"
"I know that may seem like the morally correct answer to you, Lawrence, but these aren't cute candids I snapped of you while you were cooking. These are weird. You don't need to see them." Adam's clutching the photos to his chest like a child. Lawrence levels him with a hard stare.
"Why are you being so defensive right now, Adam? It's not as if I don't know about what you've done. You know I don't care. What is this about?"
"I just said!" Adam retorts, his voice raising. "They're weird, dude, I took them only to get paid, in hopes that maybe I'd even get a bonus. It was a lifetime ago. It doesn't matter now."
Lawrence raises his hand. "First of all, calm down, you don't need to talk to me like that. Second of all, I raise my point that you're being strangely possessive over these photos. I'd just like to know why."
Lawrence, Adam has noticed, is so rational with him. Unlike the way he was in that bathroom, under all of that stress and anxiety, more logical than Adam but certainly matching Adam's pissed-off energy. But Adam doesn't think it's just the lack of terrible setting that has Lawrence so calm - it's also the fact that he now understands the wiring of Adam's brain better than Adam himself does. He sees that in the nurturing softness of Lawrence's eyes and it has him taking a breath, averting his eyes in shame.
"They're weird," Adam repeats, quieter this time, "they really are. They're photos I took of you when I had a completely warped perception of you, and some of them just hone in the bad too much. I don't like that, Lawrence. I don't like thinking about that time, okay? Knowing now that it was the calm before the storm. Knowing that... that the people you and I used to be would've never gotten along. I don't like that."
Lawrence sighs through his nose, his brows knit in contemplation. "Why did you keep them, then?" he asks after a moment.
Quietly, Adam says, "As a reminder, I guess. To not get too comfortable. Or to not forget what needed to happen to lead to now. I don't know, Lawrence, okay? I don't know."
"Love," Lawrence starts, patting the couch cushion next to him, "come here."
Adam trudges forward. Once he's seated on the couch, Lawrence pries gently at his arms and Adam drops them with great effort. Heat creeps up his neck as Lawrence takes the photos in his hands, stacking them together, examining them one-by-one. Some of them make Adam physically cringe - the photos of Lawrence at the motel, the one in the parking lot right before he was taken. That one especially.
He can't stop himself from vocalizing his regret. "I hate that one, Lawrence, because what if I had stayed? You wouldn't have been taken. Or you would've and I would've been able to get help."
"Adam, that's a very childish way to view that. I was going to be taken one way or another. Besides, how were you to know? As far as you were concerned, your job was done, you'd gotten your most incriminating evidence." Lawrence's tone is flat, void of emotion. Clinical, even. He hasn't spoken like that at home in a long while. Adam grips the sofa and looks down as Lawrence continues browsing through the photos. He shouldn't have kept these, especially not for such silly reasons. He should've tossed them the moment the police finished investigating his apartment. At the very least, he shouldn't have moved into Lawrence's fucking place with them - what was he even thinking?
He begins to stand, saying, "I can't--" but Lawrence stops him.
"I like this one."
Adam swallows and dares a glance down at the photo Lawrence is holding up. There's nothing harmless about this one, it simply depicts Lawrence in his sunglasses and suit. So photogenic it's almost as if he was aware of Adam's existence, crouched behind a trashcan, tucked away from view. Adam sits down slowly, taking the photo and examining it himself.
"This one was for me," he admits, his eyes big and nervous when he directs them toward Lawrence. Lawrence stares back in silent question. "I wasn't going to give this one to Tapp. I... liked it too much."
"It is a nice picture, that's why I like it," Lawrence agrees, a tinge of confusion in his tone, none the wiser as to where Adam is going with this.
"Yeah, but..." Adam forces a small smile in hopes to mask his discomfort, to play it all off. "Guess I had a dumb crush on you even then."
Lawrence frowns deeply. "I don't know how to infer that. Were you actually getting off to these photos or what?"
"As much as your ego would love to hear that, no, I wasn't. But the truth is more embarrassing."
"I would be highly surprised if that ended up being true."
Adam chews his lower lip. Everything in him tells him to flee, to just go back to the kitchen and drop this conversation, leave Lawrence questioning forever. But - he doesn't actually want that. He doesn't want to keep Lawrence in the dark and he especially doesn't want to start causing problems within hours of them officially living together. Even if Lawrence invaded his privacy by opening this box - well, at least they're even now. "You know how Diana is getting to that age where she's starting to put magazine cutouts of cute boys on her walls?"
"I loathe that you felt the need to remind me, but yes, I know." Lawrence blinks, shaking his head a little. "What does that have to do with--"
"That's what this photo was to me. I took it the day before we got put in the bathroom and it just kept catching my eye when I put it up in my dark room that night. I just... holy shit, this is humiliating." Adam covers his face with his hand.
"Adam, you can tell me."
"Can I? Because you don't seem entirely thrilled to be looking at these and lemme tell you, I was more than willing to just never have this conversation. You should've been, too."
"I'm not upset with you, if that's what you think." Lawrence grabs Adam's hand, squeezing it gingerly. "It's just hard for me to wrap my head around. The fact that this was your life before me. I feel this strange mix of sadness and respect for you. And... alright. I'm going to be honest about something, and hopefully in doing so, it makes it easier for you to say what you need to say. Alright?"
Adam nods, puzzled. "Um, alright, I guess."
Lawrence smiles sheepishly as he stares down at their entwined hands. "The thought of you having done this to men before me makes me feel jealous."
Those words don't even compute in Adam's brain. If he was a cartoon character, there'd be sparks coming from his ears. "Huh?"
"Silly, isn't it?" Lawrence shakes his head, laughing a little. "Such a juvenile way to feel, but it's true. For months now, when my mind wanders and I think of your photography, I just feel this harrowing jealousy knowing that there were other men before me. What makes that even more nonsensical is that I don't care about the men you dated or slept with before me. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. But this? It definitely... bothers me."
"That's insane," Adam musters. He shakes his head quickly when Lawrence sends him a look. "No, not like that. I just can't believe it. Coming from you, that's... wow, man."
"It's not a big deal," Lawrence insists, still poorly attempting to laugh it off.
"It is to me. Oh, I already love thinking about you driving yourself crazy thinking about me photographing all those other men before you..." Adam grins as Lawrence scowls.
"Don't start this," he warns. "I only said it to make you feel more comfortable. So, do tell me what I've been trying to get out of you for twenty minutes now."
"Fine," Adam complies, though he mentally stows away the jealous topic to bring up later tonight. He's already getting flustered thinking about Lawrence marking him up and whispering proclamations of possession. Nonetheless, he continues, "I guess you're gonna love hearing this, then. I guess I kinda... fantasized about you a little bit. Or a lot. I don't know, okay? It was a schoolgirl crush. I didn't lie about the crush part earlier. That's what it was."
Lawrence scrunches his face like he doesn't believe him. "Why would that be anything you'd refrain from telling me? Have you not noticed that we're together now?"
"Yeah, now." Adam rolls his eyes. "But remember, this was before we survived a deathtrap together. Back when I was a bigger selfish asshole and you were a cold, cheating doctor. And let me tell you, I used to get crushes all the time on everyone. That's what happens when your life is painfully uneventful. You weren't the first attractive guy I followed, but you were the first that had an impact. I'm serious, every time this photo of you caught my eye in my dark room I'd be having these stupid fucking fantasies of you catching me photographing you and being flattered instead of creeped out. Totally unrealistic and idiotic."
Lawrence seems to process this slowly. "So... you were going to keep this--" he waves the photo around, "--to have material to fuel your fantasies."
"That and to remember you by," Adam says. "You stood out to me even before what happened, Lawrence, I've told you that before. I could tell something was different with you, that you weren't like all the other guys just bored with their wives and chasing highs. Obviously, now I know that you just needed a hot, young dude like me to come solidify your suspicions about dick being the superior genitalia. To have sex with, not in, like, society--"
"Please stop talking."
"Right."
Lawrence rubs at his brows, his eyes closed. "You... wanted something to remember me by."
"Yeah," Adam confirms. He pauses, thinking for a moment. "I wouldn't call it a crush, actually. Just a liking. A gravitational pull, maybe? I don't know. I was really interested in you. It took everything in me to not talk to you, even just in passing, small talk about the weather, you know. But I sorta figured I knew how that would end..."
"I wouldn't have paid you much mind," Lawrence agrees somberly. "But I want to believe I would've given you a chance."
"Yeah, a chance to laugh at me like everyone older than me has been doing all my life. This is why I didn't want to tell you, man. Please don't get all existential about the past." Adam scoots closer to rest his head on Lawrence's shoulder, melting in relief when the older man wraps his arm around him.
He feels Lawrence inhale a sharp breath. "I don't like when you talk about how things used to be, how different we both were, how we likely wouldn't be where we are now. I don't like it, because it's all true."
"We can't even know that," Adam tells him. "Who knows? Maybe, somewhere down the line, I would've spilled coffee on you outside of a Starbucks and you'd be swooned. I mean, who wouldn't be?" he tries to joke, but Lawrence only makes a dismissive sound like he's hardly even listening. Adam looks up to kiss his neck reassuringly. "It's okay."
"The idea of a life without you terrifies me greatly, Adam," Lawrence whispers.
"There is absolutely no reason to think about it, much like most of what you think about. I have got to get you some edibles or something, man. You think too much." He leans up to kiss Lawrence's cheek, then the corner of his mouth, then his lips. Lawrence returns the kiss with fervor, his hand trailing up to Adam's hair, his other arm wrapping around Adam's waist. They linger like that for awhile, kissing until the tension begins to melt off of Lawrence's stiff shoulders.
"I don't know how you can always talk me down so easily," Lawrence mumbles against Adam's mouth.
"I don't know either considering I hardly even have my own shit together." Adam pecks his lips. "Maybe it's 'cause you always make me feel more stable."
Lawrence's eyes soften so much that it looks like he may cry. "Do I really?"
Adam cups his face in his hands and says, not for the first time, "I need you. I'm so happy to be moving in, Lawrence, you have no idea. Now, can we please put these photos back in the box, take it to the basement, and eat our dinner?"
"You don't even want to entertain the idea of leaving this one out?"
Adam bites his bottom lip in contemplation before standing up to make his way over to the opened box. "How about we take a new one instead?" He brandishes his camera and grins when Lawrence begins to beam.
"I think that's a great idea."
The photo, displaying the two of them smiling at the camera, ends up framed in their living room a few days later. When Diana comes back from Alison's, she notices it as Adam is putting her down from their mandatory, weekly bearhug. "I like that picture," she says, as simple and eloquent and wise as always.
Adam grins at her. "I quite like it myself."