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The box had been nondescript, plain brown with an address scrawled on it, postage stickers stuck messily to the sides. No first name, just Stanheight , right there in plain black marker. He’d waited for Lawrence to get home to open it, unwilling- or unable- to do it alone. Whatever it was, he knew it was from his parents.
He watched as Lawrence ran a blade along the taped seam, splitting it open and checking for Adam’s nod to ease the lid off.
There was a note on top- a simple, folded over piece of paper.
Moving house- these are yours.
He stared at the paper for a moment, and then turned his attention to the box, and right on top there was a photo of his childhood home. A swell of some unnamed emotion rose up in his chest at the sight of it, and he felt his fingers start to crumple the edge of the paper as he held it. He hadn’t lived there in so long, but it was the only place he had ever considered to be home. Or at least, it used to be.
“Is that… where you grew up?”
Lawrence’s voice was soft, and Adam let him tug the slip of paper out of his fingers when he tried, setting it down on the table. He nodded- barely a jerk of his head.
He stared at it for a moment more, and then reached in to pick it up. It seemed to be a box full of memories, by the looks of it- he even thought he could see a couple of VHS tapes at the bottom of it.
“Well.” He tried to keep his tone light, but the slight wobbly gave him away. “You did say you wanted to know more about me.”
“Adam, you don’t have to-”
“No, it’s fine.” Adam leaned into the hand that Lawrence smoothed over the small of his back, grateful for the contact. It was grounding, and he carefully slid the first photo album out of the box.
He let Lawrence pull him down to half sit on his lap, his hand gripping down on his waist gently and watching as Adam flipped the album open.
“I think I was… three, here?” Adam smiled, a ghost of a thing- he was tiny in the picture, legs bare and pale as he sat on the carpet of the front room of the house, his hair long enough to be pulled back into a tiny little ponytail. “I didn’t like wearing clothes.”
“You still don’t.” A press to his shoulder, and Adam’s answering laugh was weak but genuine. Trust Lawrence to know exactly what to say.
He flipped to the next one- him, a little older, his hair now down past his shoulders. Wearing one of his dad’s old shirts, so long it was reaching his knees. He heard Lawrence make a soft noise.
“You were adorable, love.” His grip readjusted, his thumb rubbing against his back.
He hummed softly, going quiet at the next picture. Lawrence seemed to notice the shift, and pulled him a little closer.
It must have been a couple of months before everything had really and truly gone to shit, the beginning of the end, so to speak-he had just gotten his hands on a pair of scissors, cut off all of his hair with no attention paid to the way it looked, clothes strategically baggy enough to hide as much of his body as possible. There was a scratch on his face- some cat he had tried and failed to befriend, no doubt. He must have been eleven or so.
“My mom was so angry.” He said, his voice so quiet he wasn’t sure Lawrence would catch it. He felt the man’s face press into his shoulder though, and swallowed hard. “She got so mad, I hid in my room for the rest of the day. Thought I looked like a lesbian, no boys would like me.”
What, you want to look like a fucking dyke? Jesus Christ, you look ridiculous- what are the other parents going to think?
He remembered how he had apologised, voice shaking with panic- but he also remembered that first moment when he had looked in the mirror, sink full of hair and feeling more right than he ever had.
“I’m sorry.” Lawrence said, and that was all. There wasn’t really much more to say, he supposed.
Adam stared at it for a second more, and then turned the page. He wished that that kid could see him now, happy, and alive, and far away from everyone who had ruined his life so young.
He sniffed a laugh. “Oh, god.”
Lawrence kissed his shoulder. “The library?”
“I spent hours there every day, when I was a kid.” Adam hummed. “Parents were working, or busy, or just wanted me out of the house. The librarians loved me.”
“I’ll bet.”
Adam could hear the affection in the man’s voice, and he flushed. “I helped out enough that eventually they started paying me for it. I even got them to adopt the stray that hung around outside all the time.”
He could remember it clearly- the smell of the books, the dusty carpet- the way the librarians had snuck him drinks and snacks when his parents had left him there for hours. One of them had even dropped him home once or twice, when closing time came around with no sight of them. They had cared about him- something that Adam had sorely lacked in. Sometimes, when the quiet in his apartment got too much, he had thought of them- how they would be doing, what they would think of where he was now. Who he was. He wondered if they’d be proud of him.
The picture was of him sitting on one of the bean bags that had been stationed around the kid section of the library, a comic book open on his lap and his expression caught somewhere between snarky and laughing. Someone must have been talking to him- he wished he could remember who.
“You liked working there, then?”
Adam nodded. There was a lump in his throat that he couldn’t quite swallow. “Yeah- uh. Yeah I did.”
Lawrence reached out then, tugging out a photo that had been slotted between the pages- Adam reddened when he saw what it was.
“No, you don’t have to-”
He heard his boyfriend chuckle, a soft, delighted sound. “Oh Adam, you were so cute .”
Sixteen now, his hair cut up to a fluffy, pushed back mess and his eyes rimmed with messy eyeliner. He looked like an extra from a Hot Topic commercial- baggy jeans pooling around ratty trainers, faded tee of some band he couldn’t decipher and a hoodie that looked like he hadn’t washed it in weeks. He probably hadn’t, either.
“I look ridiculous , Lar.”
Lawrence pressed a kiss to his neck, behind the point of his jaw, but didn’t argue the point. He seemed to know that Adam wasn’t in the mood for it, not really. Adam stared down at the picture, smoothing a finger over the shiny paper. It was crazy, the amount of empathy he felt for the boy he was looking at now, when he had felt so little empathy for himself at the time. He could remember how intense it had all felt, back then, how world-shattering every emotion had been, how claustrophobic he had felt. It was all so far away now, like he was looking at someone else. Some poor kid, who didn’t know how much worse it could be, how much better it would get.
Embarrassingly, his breathing caught wetly.
He felt Lawrence’s grip tighten a little, his hand rubbing up over his spine. “Love? We can stop, if…”
Adam shook his head, set the photo aside. The next photo made his chest clench though, and he leaned back into his partner’s touch as if it could stop the sting of tears in his eyes.
It was Christmas morning, Adam looking about five. His parents were with him, someone else taking the photo for once- he was smiling, his mom tugging his hair back into a braid to keep it out of his face, his little feet sticking out of Christmas pyjamas. He looked happy. They all looked happy- the love was obvious on his parents faces, their shared joy painful to look at given the subsequent absence of it.
He cleared his throat harshly. “I didn’t realise they’d kept all of this. I thought they’d have thrown it away… after.”
Lawrence didn’t say anything, and Adam huffed a sad laugh. “I don’t know when they stopped looking at me like that.”
“Adam.” Lawrence sounded sad.
“When did they stop wanting me?” Adam hated how shaken his voice sounded, how the words choked off a little at the end. They had been so happy- what had Adam done that was so awful? What had he done that had made them discard him like he was worthless. He had been a kid, and he had had to fight and scrape and claw through life on his own. He had had to do it entirely on his fucking own, and they hadn't even called when he had almost died. They'd almost lost him, and he still hadn't been worth a five minute phone call. “What did I do?”
“Adam.” Lawrence’s voice sounded firm- it was almost the same voice he used with Diana. Adam felt like crying. “It’s their loss.”
His breath hitched again, a half-sob. He hated crying in front of the man- hated crying full stop, but he couldn’t seem to get a handle on himself. He thought he had been over it. “Sorry, sorry.”
“Don’t apologise.” Another lingering kiss on his shoulder, Lawrence shifting his grip until Adam was settled fully on his lap with Lawrence’s arm wrapped securely around him. “You didn’t do anything wrong, love.”
“I must have.” Adam felt stupid, the way the desperation leaked into his voice. Sometimes, he still felt like that kid begging for someone to love him, for someone to tell him he was good.
“What could Diana do, to make you hate her?” The question felt like a splash of ice water in his face- for a moment, Adam was at a loss.
“What? Nothing- she’s just a kid, man.”
The stretching silence after his words seemed to be the only answer Lawrence was offering. Adam didn’t mind- message received, he supposed. The thought of Diana feeling anything like he had felt made his skin crawl- he hadn’t known the girl for that long, just a couple of years now, but he loved her so much he could barely breathe with it sometimes. He would never let her feel as bad as he had. She was just a little girl- though he supposed he had just been a little girl too.
He slotted the photo back into the plastic, closing the album. There were more- photography ran in the Stanheight blood, it seemed, he had an album of Lawrence and Diana filled already. He hoped that Diana would look back on them someday and feel a lot happier than he was feeling right now.
Lawrence tugged the album from his hands, placing it on the table and turning Adam on his lap. He went easily, sniffing and flushing as Lawrence wiped the wetness under his eyes.
“Fucking embarrassing.”
Lawrence’s frown was soft. “Adam.”
“I know, I know.” He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, then glanced back at the box. “I think there are some home videos in there, if you want to see them.”
“I want to see whatever you want to show me.” Lawrence said simply, and traced a finger down over his face, brushing hair back. “You seemed like a sweet kid.”
Adam let out a shaky laugh. “You were probably a golden child.”
“Altar boy and everything.” Lawrence’s voice was wry, mostly for Adam’s benefit. Adam loved him so much. “Student council, teacher’s pet.”
Adam laughed again, brought his hands up to rest on his shoulders. “I would have totally tried to corrupt you, if we had been at school together.”
Lawrence leaned up to kiss him, a slow press of mouths. “You would have succeeded.”
Adam kissed him back, then rested their foreheads together. “Thanks, for doing this with me.”
He could have meant any part of this- calming him down, looking at the pictures with him, loving him in the first place. Any of them- all of them.
“It’s my pleasure.” Lawrence brushed their lips together again, hand warm and solid against Adam’s back. He smiled softly and then nodded.
“Can we look at more now?”
“Whatever you want, love.”
The albums were mixed and matched- the pictures bouncing back and forth between Adam as a young child, all smiles and pretty dresses his mother had loved, and Adam as a sullen teenager, angry and self-destructive. Him as a pre-teen, hair cut short and knees scraped, clothes picked specifically to hide in even if he didn’t know quite why, yet. A whole life, reduced down to pictures in a box. It struck Adam, then, that these would have been the pictures they would have used for him if he had died. That was, if anyone had cared enough to make any kind of memorial at all. He thought, for a moment, about the women he had worked with at the library hearing about him on the news, remembering that sad kid they had unknowingly changed the life of, before pushing that thought away. He was alive, there was no reward in dwelling on the alternative. There were even a few pictures of him and Scott, back when they had almost-dated. Lawrence wrinkled his nose at those, and Adam swatted him with a bright laugh.
At some point, they had relocated to the den so that Adam could slot the tapes into the beat-up old VHS player Lawrence still had, showing Lawrence all of the old, embarrassing videos he had sworn to burn back when he was still living at home. School recitals, Christmas mornings, his first steps. There was something healing about it- letting Lawrence see that part of him, seeing him love him regardless.
Lawrence’s smile was soft, adoring, as he watched toddler Adam chase their family dog around. “You always loved animals, then.”
Adam nodded, tucking his head into the man’s neck. His thoughts turned to the acceptance letter in his drawer, the loan he was waiting to get cleared. “Mmhm.”
He felt Lawrence kiss his forehead, his lips dry and warm. “I love you. You’re incredible, Adam.”
“Sap.” Adam lifted his head to kiss his cheek, and then cuddled back down again. “I wish…”
Lawrence squeezed his hand, waited for him to continue. Adam shrugged a little, mindful of Lawrence’s leg as he drew his legs up to sit across his lap. “I wish you’d been there, when I was younger.”
He felt his boyfriend’s mouth against his hair, the slow exhale of breath through the man’s nose. “I would have been smitten.”
Adam snorted softly. “You would have hated me.”
“I could never hate you.” Lawrence pulled him closer.
His eyes felt suspiciously wet again. “I know.”
He watched his child self turn to the camera, smile wild and bright, and felt something in his chest loosen just a little. That kid had deserved a hell of a lot better than he had gotten- thinking about how much pain that little girl was going to feel hurt his chest, made him think of Diana again. He hoped that she never felt as lonely as he had. He hoped his parents' new house was a shithole. He hoped that they had missed him, just for a moment, when they had filled that box with him and gotten rid of him once and for all.
He let Lawrence’s gentle hands pull him back to the present, and leaned into the warmth of him, his child self giggling happily on the screen loud enough to fill the room.