Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Ethan wasn't sure how he managed to get them checked in without going and sitting in the corner and sobbing. Adam had looked so troubled when he did his full declaration, as if Ethan would decide he wanted separate rooms, or that he wouldn't understand.

He added their last-ever conversation, that first and final kiss, to the whole slew of things he could tell Adam but had decided not to.

Signing paperwork, handing over his credit card, and then walking back to the car was a blur, but at least Adam didn't ask any questions when he got back to him.

"Room 65," Ethan said. "It's on the third floor, but we need to go in through the foyer. You okay to walk?"

Unease began as they approached the group of people outside the elevators. Ethan recalled Adam and his fear of small spaces, but would Adam remember?

Adam stopped absolutely dead outside the elevator. "I can't do this."

The doors opened. The people waiting with them held the door to let them in. Adam didn't move.

Ethan took him by the arm and stepped away from the elevators. "We'll get the next one," he said to everyone, his mouth curved in a reassuring smile as he looked at Adam.

"He okay, buddy?" a tall skinny man asked with concern. "You need medical help."

"I'm okay, I was mugged," Adam said. The man looked suspiciously from Ethan to Adam. Ethan pulled out ID and flashed it.

"And he doesn't like small spaces," Ethan explained.

As the elevator doors shut, the man nodded as if he understood. Evidently the ID was enough for the man not to get involved any further.

Adam gripped Ethan. "Is that true? Is that something else I forgot?"

Ethan half turned and released Adam's hold. Gently he guided Adam to the nearest seats and sat him down.

"You never liked small places," Ethan began softly. "When we were kids, we would explore the caves up at Silver Lake, and there was one year…." He stopped, evidently deciding how to phrase this. "You got your foot stuck with a boulder, and it rained, and the water started rising. We have flash floods, and you couldn't get out. You were eight or so, I guess."

"I don't remember that." Even so, the thought of it was clearly stressing him. He had his hand pressed to his chest.

"You never went back into the caves again," Ethan ended.

He looked at Adam critically. Adam looked like he was about to keel over; the stairs were out of the question. "I'm switching rooms to this floor." With a juggling of reservations, the receptionist managed to secure them a room on the ground floor, although she said it might be a little noisy.

Ethan didn't care; he just couldn't face making Adam use the stairs.

"I never lost that fear, then," Adam said.

"An instinct that primitive, maybe you never would. Like a fear of spiders or something."

"Or maybe whatever I did the last twelve years was enough to make me scared all the time anyway."

"Are you remembering something?" Ethan asked. He didn't understand what Adam was saying.

"No. Fuck." Adam cursed, more to himself, but Ethan nodded. He understood the frustration behind the words.

They made their way to the room. Adam wheezed a little and was über-slow as he walked. Ethan patiently waited for him, a helping hand on his elbow, and between them they managed to get to the room.

The inside was nice as far as rooms went. They hadn't stopped at a no-tell motel; this was a good room with two large beds and a view of the I-90. Okay, so the view wasn't that good, but the beds looked alright.

Adam yawned and Ethan helped him onto the nearest bed. "I'm going to get food."

There were many places around the hotel that sold food, and menus were stacked in a neat pile. All Ethan got from Adam was "Anything," before he closed his eyes and seemed to be asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Ethan debated for a while about whether he could leave but, in the end, he wrote a note on the hotel's letterhead and left it next to Adam on the bed. Then, cell in hand, he made his way out of the hotel and to the nearest restaurant, connecting to Jen as he walked.

"Allens, what the hell?" she snapped as soon as it connected. "You're driving how far?"

"You got my email, then."

"Chicago to Missoula. What are you, mad?"

"I need you to get my personal leave extended."

Silence.

"Okay," she finally offered. "But you couldn't get a flight?"

Ethan sighed. "Look, Adam doesn't like small spaces, and also, no ID, okay." Then he changed the subject. "Did you get anything on the tattoos?"

"Nothing on databases, no matches. I put some feelers out on the images."

"Thank you."

"Okay," she said and then changed direction. "How is he?"

"Exhausted, hurting, absolutely no memories of anything. What I mean is, he recognizes the phone, knows how to use it, but has no idea who he'd want to contact. He doesn't remember Montana, and he doesn't know what he's been doing the last twelve years."

"Fuck. Poor kid."

Ethan crossed the road. Adam was far from being a kid. When Adam announced he was gay, like it would mean something to Ethan, it took Ethan such willpower not to kiss the man Adam had become to see if his lips tasted the same as they had at fifteen.

"Yeah" was all he said in the end.

"Listen, Ethan." Jen's voice lowered and he got the sense she wanted to say something private. "I'm sorry it wasn't Justin. Sorry your brother is still missing."

"It's not easy," he said. And it wasn't. "But get this, if Adam is alive and has been living a life all these years, then who's to say Justin isn't out there as well."

"That's what I was going to say."

And she would have said that, and he would have accepted the assurances, because she knew him, knew he always carried hope inside him.

"I'm getting food. We're staying in Janesville."

"What's your ETA for here?"

"God knows. Adam only made it two and a half hours in the car today. By the end of the week, maybe." Today was Monday. Ethan was hoping to be home by Thursday at least, but that wasn't looking so good.

"Stay in touch, Ethan."

"And you."

Armed with food—both Mexican and steak—he juggled the bags to open the door and hip-checked it to pass through. Adam was still asleep; he looked like he hadn't moved at all.

They'd given him the food in foil wraps, so at least it should stay warm, but he could always go out again. For the longest time, he stood at the end of Adam's bed. In an entirely focused way, he stared at the man who was the boy he'd once known, only moving when Adam shifted in his sleep.

By the time Adam was fully awake, Ethan was sitting at the small table by the window, watching the trucks on the I-90 and eating steak.

Adam rolled up off the bed, cursing under his breath and stumbling into the bathroom without saying a thing to Ethan.

When he came back out a few minutes later, with his hair slicked back and his face wet, he still looked like death warmed over. The first thing he did was go over to the desk and get the bag with the tablets he needed, but he didn't take them. Instead he placed them on the window table and sat very carefully in the seat opposite Ethan.

"How you feeling?" Ethan asked. He didn't know what else to say.

"Like shit, but thanks for asking," Adam groused.

"You never were a morning person," Ethan pointed out with an accompanying smile.

"Apart from the fact it's getting dark outside, which means it isn't morning, is that right? That I'm not good in the mornings?"

He looked so hopeful for a scrap of information.

"You were fifteen when I last saw you. No teenager gets up early."

That earned him a smile, which turned into a grimace when Adam shifted a little. Yes, he looked exhausted; yes, he was in pain; but God , he looked good sitting there, a reminder that Justin could still be alive as well. More than that, he was a connection to Justin, and Ethan had that vague hope to cling to.

Adam sniffed the air, pausing only briefly before lifting the foil from a wrap and holding it to his nose. "Smells good. And if it smells good, I probably like it, right?" He sounded determined, but he was still looking to Ethan for confirmation.

"I guess so," Ethan said. "Try it."

Adam hesitated and looked like he might have questions. Probably along the lines of Did I like this stuff when I was a kid? Ethan steeled himself for the questions about what Adam had or hadn't liked, but he didn't need to worry as Adam simply took a small bite of the spicy wrap and chewed experimentally. For a second, Ethan waited, watching as Adam closed his eyes and a smile curved his lips.

"We can add that to the list of things that make up me," Adam announced before finishing off the wrap in short order.

The protective side of Ethan wanted to get Adam to slow down eating the spicy food—he'd had nothing but hospital food for the week he'd been in there—but the part of him that was just thankful he was sitting opposite Adam held his tongue.

"I'm not eating more of what you got." Adam cast a rueful glance at Ethan. "Sorry, I don't think I'm up to anything else."

"Take your meds now," Ethan said gruffly. "I need to make a call."

He left Adam where he was sitting, pulling the door shut behind him and leaning back on it.

That look—the one that apologized, the cute look with the eyes, the one Adam had used to get him and Justin out of so much trouble when they were kids…. Ethan didn't need such a strong reminder of the boy Adam used to be.

The boy he'd fallen in love with.

Adam wasn't sure what he'd done or said, but Ethan left in a hurry and with an expression that screamed discomfort, or anger. Adam wasn't entirely sure which. Maybe he had to make an emergency call and just had to leave at that moment.

Or not.

Maybe it was something I said. He thought back to what he'd talked about, food , or done, eaten said food . Nothing stood out.

He levered himself up out of the chair, wincing in pain; aches and hurts everywhere. He swallowed some more tablets, coughing as they caught in his throat and drinking more water to get them down. He crawled onto the queen-size bed he'd chosen. Sleep would make everything better… but when he got there, he couldn't relax. He felt like he wasn't right in his own skin, turning slowly this way, then that, trying to find a position he could handle. In the end he pulled all the pillows on the bed into the middle and made a nest, and finally managed to get halfway settled.

Sleep wouldn't happen until the pain edged to something he could handle, but he closed his eyes and went through all the exercises the hospital suggested. He cleared his mind, relaxed every muscle he could, and wriggled to get comfortable. The fire in his chest reminded him that moving was not something he should be doing.

"Fuck me," he muttered under his breath.

Okay. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out….

"What is your last memory?" Dr. Armitage had wanted him to answer that. Every single time he only had one answer.

"When I woke up here" was his fixed answer.

"Think back, farther away, your childhood. What do you remember from when you were five?"

"Does anyone remember being five?"

Dr. Armitage had tutted at him, made a note on his pad, and then sat back in his chair. "Scents, pets, a blue sky on a sunny day. All these things leave marks on our minds as much as the tattoos you have on your skin."

"I remember the sun."

"That's a good start." Dr. Armitage tapped his pen on his notebook.

"I saw it this morning from my window."

He hadn't been able to resist that comment, and even opened an eye a little to see the doctor's reaction.

Dr. Armitage had merely raised an eyebrow and looked at Adam with that pointed look that spoke volumes.

And now, lying here, Adam could replay the conversation, syllable by syllable, but the idea of recalling five-year-old him was a foreign concept.

He concentrated on the sun, something that had been rare in Chicago when he was in the hospital. It would sometimes peek out from behind clouds that scudded across the sky and dropped April rain on the people walking on the emerald grass a few stories below.

Then he thought bigger, expanding his thoughts from understanding that the sun was warmth and how it would feel on his skin. The touch of it tingled, and the brightness of it was enough to have him wincing. Dr. Armitage pointed out that Adam was tanned, that he apparently spent time in the sun, and that he didn't have the paleness of a long-term resident Chicagoan with winter painted on his skin. He wasn't burned or suntanned to the point of obscenity, his skin was warmed with a soft brown in and around the dark tattoos that climbed his arm and curled over his shoulder.

He expanded thinking about the sun, attempted to focus on the scent of something—trees, grass, even horses, although he guessed horses just smelled of manure and hay.

Horses.

A nebulous poke of a memory— or was it a sensation? —pricked his brain. Smoke. He couldn't smell it, but he could see the grayness of it, and white markings that moved in front of his eyes before lying flat on the ground.

And abruptly, stealing his breath from him, a startling pain stabbed at him.

Smoke was a memory. Smoke was something that meant so much to him. He just didn't know what. Tears built in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Everything would come back to him; he would remember it all.

Tired, he counted back from fifty, the remarkable ability to do so at odds with the fact that he'd forgotten everything else.

And he slept.

And the dreams came. But this time instead of running and the fear of recalling nothing, he was holding something in his hands.

However much he tried to look down, he couldn't see what it was. Whatever he recalled touching was soft, like velvet, and he was crying again, screaming in his sleep and sobbing that he'd lost everything and that the smoke was dead.

Ethan was there, a firm hand on his shoulder, a pressure that grounded him, and Adam looked up.

Adam, wake up, Adam….

Only it wasn't Ethan who looked back at him. It was a young man with blond hair and blood on his face. Who was it? Who was holding him down?

Come on, Adam. This isn't good.

Adam couldn't breathe. Acid burned in his chest, every muscle screamed, and he scrambled to get away from the hand. "No!" he shouted and curled up on himself, yelling out his pain and opening his eyes to a dark room.

"Adam? It's okay. Come on, I've got you, it's all right."

Ethan's voice, calm and steady, framing his return from the nightmares with solid dependability.

Ethan always made everything make sense.

For the longest time, Adam gripped Ethan hard, burying his face in Ethan's jacket and trying his hardest to settle the ragged, grating breathing.

And through all of it, Ethan talked.

"When you were eight or so, I found you and Justin with the horses. You had your own, you know, and my dad, he had this new saddle and you were trying to get it on your horse, and I came in, so much taller and stronger, being as I was ten. And I bragged I could get this saddle up and on the back of the horse in one go. I tried, and I slipped and fell on my ass, slap bang in a pile of shit. Justin snorted this huge laugh, and I was so pissed, my pride all hurt, until I managed to knock Justin's legs from under him and he went face first into the same, somewhat flattened, pile of shit. We were rolling around in this barn, scaring the horses. Kids with no sense, but I remember you laughing so hard you were crying."

The words were soothing. Warmth welled up inside Adam until it became all he could think about. The idea of Ethan covered in manure was something that made a laugh bubble up inside him. Even though he didn't let it out, it was enough to chase away the shadows of the nightmare.

"I had a horse," Adam murmured.

"Uh-huh," Ethan offered. He'd committed what Dr. Armitage had warned him about, the sin of feeding Adam too many memories.

"What was its name?"

"You should try and remember," Ethan said with regret lacing his voice.

"Is this the horse on my back, the big gray with the white markings? You said so, right?"

Ethan didn't answer at first, and then Adam felt him sag a little in his support. "Yes, I did."

"Tell me, Ethan."

"I'm not supposed to?—"

"One fucking thing," Adam snapped, his hands tightening momentarily on Ethan's biceps as if he could hurt Ethan into telling him.

"Smoke," Ethan murmured. "You called him Smoke."

Abruptly Adam knew he'd had his first memory. Albeit one sent to him in the pain of a disabling nightmare. Still, it was a memory, and he wanted to hold it close.

"He was in my dream."

"You want to talk about it?" Ethan asked carefully. Probably the last thing Adam wanted to talk about was his fucked-up head.

As an alternative to thinking about talking, Adam slipped his hands up Ethan's arms and around his back, slowly, so as not to jar his mending bones. In this position, half-sitting, clinging to Ethan, who was supporting him so strongly, Adam closed his eyes again. "I just need to sleep," he said.

Ethan didn't move, didn't pull away or unpeel Adam from his comfortable position. Instead he placed his hands behind Adam and tugged at the pillows until Ethan was supported as well. "We can do that," he whispered. "Go to sleep, Adam."

And like that, Adam slept.