Work Text:
Adam bolted upright out of his sleep, the room around him pitch black save for a blinking green light in the corner. He drew in a shaky, waking breath and rubbed a hand over his face, tugging hair beneath fingers when it ran up over his forehead. His breaths were ragged, eyes adjusting in the dark.
Where the hell was he?? His heart felt like it might explode out of his chest, his breaths ragged. He groaned as the muscle soreness dawned on him. Where had he been??? He felt like he’d been hit by a bus.
He threw the covers back, hopping off of the firm mattress he’d been on, bare feet hitting the wooden floor. He was shaky, on an adrenaline high, nearly blacking out when he stood. Not that he could see anything anyway, but the dizziness hit him hard and what he could see blacked out of his vision for a moment.
He swayed on his feet.
“… Jesus,” he muttered, the meat of his palm pressed to his eyes. It passed, but slowly, and he inhaled a deep breath before straightening up to continue, his hand dropped at his side.
He found the door alright, a lamp on in some distant living-room, and he tracked his way towards it. Slowly. A board creaked beneath his weight and he winced, body freezing up with one foot lifted mid-step, the finger of his right hand shakily raising to his own lips, as if to say ‘ Adam! Shut up!’ His eyes had skewered themselves shut, and he lowered his foot slowly, making his way into the next largest space. The lamp was illuminating the majority of the room now. There were obvious colors, so much, but it put a clear definition on shapes.
A large figure leapt off of the couch, feet hitting the floor solidly under its weight. Adam heard himself audibly whimper with fright, eyes squeezing closed again as he braced himself to be sprung on by some freakazoid murderer. A wetness warmed his hand, instead.
“W-what?” he queried, blinking his eyes open in confusion. He looked down, a large collie standing at his side, giving the fingers of his left hand a nibble. His shoulders relaxed.
“ That’s real fucking funny, you know,” he spoke in quiet tones, the natural pitch of his voice somewhat high. The dog didn’t answer, but Adam figured it would somehow understand his relieved sarcasm, anyway. He felt somewhat better, with a dog, and he maneuvered his way around the silent house and to the kitchen. The lights on the microwave blinked green, 4:34 .
He looked around, debating the next best move. Find the door, maybe? Or a window? He found himself pulling a chef knife from the counter knife-block, instead. No, seriously, where the fuck was he?!
He moved to turn away from the counter once he’d gripped the knife in his hand, knuckles white and shaking with the adrenaline still.
Click!
Light flooded the room and he stumbled back, flush against the counter with the lip of it pressing into his lower back, eyes skewered shut again. He held the knife flat to his chest with both hands, trembling as he muttered silent pleas to himself. I don’t want to die!! Jesus fuck! Please don’t let me die in this random fucking apartment!
There was silence, and after a moment he blinked open one eye to peek through it, sweat plastering dark hair to his forehead. His hands were clammy. His body was, too, the white of his shirt lightly sticking to skin.
“ Who are you? ” the blond man in the doorway asked. Not incredulous, but as if wondering what he’d just gotten himself into.
Adam’s shoulders relaxed, both eyes closing again in a moment of relief before he dropped the knife to his side in one hand. He took a deep breath, two, three, trying to even out their raggedness before he opened his eyes again. The man’s hair swooped over his forehead, a silky golden color. He was dressed in a set of matching pajamas in vertical stripes. The kind with buttons down the front, and a collar at the neckline. He held a mug in one hand.
“ Who— who am I?! Who are you?!” Adam exclaimed, still on alert. He had woken up in a strange bed and now he was getting asked who he was? It didn’t make sense!
“Dr. Gordon,” the man answered him, his voice even and matter-of-fact. He let his eyes roam over Adam, assessing the state the man was in. “Tell me, young man, what’s your name…?” he coaxed softly, watching the adrenaline coarse through the trembling twenty-something in front of him. He looked like a startled dog. The kind that might bite with its tail tucked between its legs.
“My— my name is Very Fucking Confused!!” he answered, dropping the knife to his feet where it clattered on the tile. Lawrence couldn’t help but think of how very unsafe a thing that had been for a man not wearing shoes. The young man pressed both hands to his eyes, fingers curled into fists. “What- what is this?? How do I know you’re not going to hurt me??” he questioned shakily.
Lawrence set his mug aside, very matter of fact. “I’m a doctor. My record’s as clean as a whistle.”
Adam dropped his hands, staring at the man. He was more incredulous, this time, exhausting all possibilities. “ Clean as a whistle, huh?! Well how do I know you’re not some freak that would watch me in my sleep or something?!”
He had woken up in a strange place with no clue how he got there.
Lawrence raised both brows.
“I was also sleeping. Doesn’t that seem like it would be rather hard to do if I was watching you??” he asked, not sure why the accusation would be appealing for him in any scenario.
Adam’s guard went down, some, though he waved a hand flippantly. “ Well, okay then, but…. if you’re a doctor, then why aren’t you at work?”
Dr. Gordon’s brows furrowed, astounded at the leaps in logic this man was making. “How do you think doctors work, exactly??” he questioned, truly curious of the answer, this time.
Adam sighed and leaned back against the counter, letting both hands grip the edges. He lifted one from it momentarily to rake hand through his hair again. “ I don’t know, man .” He was a bit clueless on most things, he admitted. “I just woke up in a room here and I have no fucking clue what is going on.”
Lawrence crossed one arm over his body, the other hand going to his chin. “Were you drinking last night??” he asked, rubbing a hand over a nearly invisible five o’clock shadow there.
Adam thought for a minute.
“ Yeah. Yeah I was.”
Lawrence hummed as if that was all the answer he needed, picking up his mug again as he moved into the kitchen, heading for the coffee maker.
“ There’s usually a note on the bedside. You must have woken up too panicked to read it.”
The coffee machine gurgled.
Adam jerked his head back some, stunned. What kind of operation had someone usually leaving notes for strangers on the bedside??
“ Uh… care to elaborate??”
Lawrence opened a cabinet and picked out another cup in red, filling both his own and one for the guest up with drinks.
“My house-mate is a bouncer down the road. He’s implemented a practice where he brings patrons to rest for the night if they’re too intoxicated to go home. Usually blackout drunks, people who come to the bars alone,” he explained. Adam’s cheeks heated. He wasn’t alone, he just. Didn’t have anyone who would join him.
“ What’s your name??” the doctor asked him again, turning to pass up a steaming cup of coffee. Adam took it in both hands. He always felt like a kid like that, gripping warm drinks between both palms.
“Adam.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Adam. I’m grateful you didn’t decide to knife me in my own kitchen, this morning.” Some light humor, there.
Adam breathed in slowly, deep. The slight burning on his palms soothed him some, the smell of roasted coffee grounds singeing the inside of his nose. “ Yeah, I imagine prison for manslaughter might suck,” he muttered back, a light joke under his own breath. The doctor’s lip twitched up in the corner.
“Well, Adam, I have a shift in an hour, but your keys should be hanging up near the door, if you had any, and as for your phone, I’m sure it’s under the pillow in the room you were asleep in. Anything like a wallet or ID too, I’m sure,” he offered.
Adam sipped at his coffee and nodded. His heart rate had evened out again, and he only then noticed the sour taste in his mouth. If he’d thrown up, at least he’d made it to a bathroom. His clothes looked pretty okay.
“And what, am I supposed to call you ‘Doctor’?" he asked, not having the stranger’s actual name. He wasn’t going to call him Gordon, that was for fucking sure.
The doctor smiled at him, hand curling around his own mug, and Adam’s insides turned into goo.
“It’s Lawrence.”
Adam exhaled a sigh of relief. All said and done, this was best case scenario.
He stuttered out again, mug raised and lips hovering near the brim.
“ Lawrence.”
“Well, I’m going to get ready for work. Leave or stay— the wi-fi password is somewhere around here, and the dog loves to be played with,” he remarked.
The blond man picked up the knife off of the ground near Adam’s feet and dumped it in the sink. Adam’s eyes followed him, tracking every movement. Somehow he didn’t want to be alone, feeling the most like he belonged somewhere with someone for the first time in months.
“ So what, I can just stay…?” he asked, in somewhat disbelief.
Lawrence headed to the kitchen doorway and winked at him, his mouth painted in a gentle smirk.
“If you promise not to pull anymore knives.”
Adam’s cheeks burned red, watching as the doctor turned to go.
“ Yeah ,” he agreed, and his voice was hardly a whisper. “ No more knives .”