YOU PROMISED ME FOREVER -- Sequel to "DIFFERENT"

21 -- TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO FORGIVE, DIVINE

After Caleb left, Phillip insisted Larry and Laurent take a break, they all needed one.  He asked if they still wanted to continue for the day, so that he could address them both together, going over Laurent's therapies, how well he had done during his time there, and what his post-course outpatient therapy in New York would entail.  They both agreed, yes they would.  They wanted it to be done.  Especially Laurent.  He could leave the clinic today, and ...... what.  What would happen then ?  What would Larry want ?  Would they leave together ?  Have that mini-vacation that Larry had wanted ?  They needed time alone, that's for sure.  He especially wanted to know the decision Larry had reached regarding their future together.  Whatever that was.  

They took a couple of hours break, and Laurent showed Larry around the clinic, meeting the other doctors and clinicians, the therapists and admin staff.  

"Would you like to see my room ?" he asked quietly.  He was nervous.  They stood apart now, not knowing how to be in one another's company, not quite knowing how to treat each other, what to say.  Eggshells crunching under their feet.  The tension between them was palpable.  It reminded Larry of the day that Laurent came home after the hostage situation, how he didn't know how to be with him.  How to be the so-in-love couple they were.  They had to get over it, they would have to.  As had always happened in the past, they would have to address the elephant in the room.  And it would happen at the right time, in the right place.  A word, a look, a touch, and it would be right between them again.  But not here.  Not now.  So. 

Laurent swiped his key card to his room, ushering Larry in in front of him.  He looked around briefly.  Laurent's room was plain, and stark, and bare.  No luxury here.  Magnolia walls, a mushroom coloured carpet, a plain navy blue comforter, white pillows.  Larry's gaze settled on the pillows, imagining his and Laurent's heads resting there, tucked under Laurent's chin, asleep in each other's arms.  He sighed deeply as his eyes shifted further into the room.  A dresser, a closet.  No T.V.  A closed door, assuming it was the bathroom.  No tchotchke's, no little pieces of home, no comforting things of familiarity to be found.  Only Laurent's rings, a watch, some jewelry, his phone, an I-pad, a lamp, some books for his reading homework.

"It's nice"  Larry lied.  He couldn't imagine Laurent being here, like this, for three months.  In this nothingness.  Alone with his fears and his nightmares.  Going through his own personal hell, again.  Larry's heart clenched in his chest at the thought.  He smiled politely at the nervous man still stood in the doorway, watching him as he ambled around the small space.  Larry sat on the edge of Laurent's bed, pushing his hands into the bedding on each side of his body, testing the mattresses plushness and give.  He patted the space beside him for Laurent to join him, which he dutifully, but coyly, did.  As Laurent fiddled with his fingers again, he was getting as bad as Larry used to be, fiddling to disguise the real anguish, the diversionary tactic that only served to make his angst and unease more discernible.  It really was as if they had changed personalities, traits, quirks, finger fiddling and all.  Larry grasped Laurent's hands with one of his, stilling them in his strong grip.

"Stop."  he ordered him, both of them now looking at their joined hands laying in Laurent's lap.  It was good to feel his skin again, and Laurent wanted, God he needed, to do his favourite thing right now, but he wouldn't.  It was the right time and place, but he just wouldn't.  They sat like that for the longest time, but never long enough it seemed, until Larry cleared his throat, and withdrew his hand from Laurent's.

"We'd better get back" 

"Yeah"  was all Laurent could come up with.  

"You sure you want to do this today ?  It's a lot to take in, Lau .... " Larry offered.