#either way he's imagining how long it would take to castrate scott for squandering family

[marc--chilton]

(mgv) au where adam and lawrence lose touch after adam is saved from the bathroom without his help, both assuming in the aftermath that the other never wants to see him again -- lawrence doesn't even know adam made it out for the longest time. after that he thinks of him daily, particularly lingering on the memory of adam spilling why he took the job to stalk lawrence.

i'm good at it and i need the money. i, uh. i'm.... pregnant. i can barely scrape by just feeding myself and paying rent, so....

he remembered, vaguely, having placed one bloody hand on adam's cheek and one on his still-flat stomach, promising in a rattling breath, "i'll get help. you'll get out of here-- both of you."

it's adam who reaches out five years later. a message left at lawrence's desk phone at work he lets play while he hangs his coat up. the shaky timbre jolts him to his core.

he doesn't make sense at first, calling him 'andy' and mentioning a 'gig', but it becomes clear the call was made in secret by the way his tone shifts to something trembling, desperate, and terrified. lawrence manages to piece together only a few things from the hasty message; adam is living with someone (a friend? a mate?) who he's certain will kill him one of these days, and he's pregnant again (the likely catalyst for the call in the first place)

as he scrawls the address to a cafe to meet at that adam manages to list off through his sniffling, lawrence wonders with no measure of dread if adam managed to terminate the first pregnancy like he had planned. whatever is going on that's enough to bring a spitfire to tears is cruel to inflict on a pup.

the next time lawrence sees adam again, he's just as scrawny and pale as he was in the bathroom. only now he also holds faded yellow along his jaw and dark circles that have bruised just as brightly. his gaze is downcast when he explains in hushed tones how he had to move back in with scott ("the boy who stabbed you with a nail on your birthday?" "oh-- uh, yeah, i didn't think you'd remember that.") because the money he had saved for the abortion was stolen by his shithead landlord as rent money, and with medical debt, trauma, and no job on his back, he ended up kicked out anyway with the "bonus" of being too far along to terminate.

scott wasn't his first choice, but he was the first one to say yes and adam wasn't in the position to be picky. maybe they could figure out co-parenting -- the pup was his, after all. but adam knew scott better than that; scott didn't let him in out of the goodness of his heart, he wanted a warm body to knot whenever he pleased. that's why adam was there now.

"i can't bring another pup into this, lawrence, i can't. i can't even go to the clinic behind his back 'cause he keeps all our money with him and--"

"is that....?" lawrence had followed adam's jittering line of sight to where it kept flicking outside to where a little girl sat in a jalopy pretending to drive with a dog plush in her arms. adam had her stay in the car as to not 'manipulate' lawrence into taking them in if his heart wasn't in it, parked strategically so she was in full view from the booth.

"y-yeah," adam says back, fighting off waves of nausea from nerves and morning sickness. "sorry, couldn't leave her home, scott gets pissed if she bothers him and i couldn't risk it."

a splinter of his broken heart catches lawrence in the throat. he hopes jigsaw catches wind of him one day soon. "could you introduce me?" he asks him, head dipped so he has to look up to adam through his lashes -- a willful assurance that if he refuses, lawrence will respect the decision. in a small (publicly acceptable) way, lawrence is submitting to him despite holding their fates in his hands.

trina, he comes to learn, already knows about him. kind of. while adam excuses himself to have a minor episode in the bathroom, she asks if he's the bathroom pirate. "my daddy's got a friend with a pirate leg he met in the scary bathroom. is that you?" lawrence immediately adores her.

they're moved into lawrence's place in two days

misc notes:

adam's bondmark detox from scott is so harsh that lawrence has to keep a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't start miscarrying out of stress, and he still holds some scarring from scott's teeth

while using his 'claim' of an omega and production of a pup as status symbols to appear as a more attractive alpha, scott doesn't let trina call him any form of 'dad'. he opts for 'alpha', which chills adam to hear her refer to him as once they're out of there because it's like. giving him power even when he's not there.

trina learns a (child-friendlier) version of how adam and lawrence met after scott uses it to mock adam's vulnerability. adam leaves out the worst details.

"bothering scott" = when she sneaks out of her room past her bedtime to creep to the living room where scott is watching mtv and sit silently on the other end of the couch. she was completely silent until scott barked at adam "come get your fuckin' kid!" when she struggled to hold back crushed, apologetic whines ("you gotta leave him alone, baby," adam stressed as he rushed her down the hall, "you remember what happened last time? we gotta stay out of his way so it won't happen again, okay?")