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Lawrence Gordon did not pine.
Dr. Gordon was a top of the wire man, he did not dare lower himself onto the platform that stowed below him with the standards of fantasizing for something that never will.
He would never gravel at the feet of another organism.
Or, well.
That's what he thought, until the coming of February 2003.
The February of 2003 was cold, it was a dreary month until a light took him by the reins, when he troubled a young man by knocking him off his feet.
Adam Faulkner-Stanheight.
That's what this boy's name was, he heard it from ear to ear.
A game of longlasting telephone as he heard opinion after opinion rattled about this outcast.
'Adam' was apparently a professional photographer, Lawrence wasn't sure how professional the folk of New Jersey could stake a claim on something high-end.
Lawrence was at the top of the food chain, Adam looks like he tries to attempt his way up with a negative outcome.
If this was the case, why was he so golden in Lawrences eyes?
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Adam Faulkner-Stanheight refuses to submit to the capitalist holiday of Valentines Day.
Every little chocolate heart he passes, every 'Hug Me' candy heart causes him to hurry up and out of the shitty little drug store that he annually walks around the corner to for cigarettes.
A roll of the eyes translates to a beat of the heart, and he'd truly like to beat up Cupid who floats above.
It gives Adam a feel of taunting. Curse Cupid. Curse thy name.
Who do you think you are for bestowing this nausia-bringing holiday apon the cursed universe?
For a man who's been penetrated with a rusty nail, Adam likes to believe he's still running from the infection of 'true love', but just like the tetanus shot he'd received at an innocent 5 years of age with a snotty nose and birthday hat still crowning his little head, Adam knows he's destined to be stabbed in the back.
Maybe not as far as stabbed.
More like, bumped.
This let Adam feel special again, like how on the day of his 6th birthday it was themed around dinosaurs. That was a day for the kings, no rusty nails or pesky Scott's.
20 years later and that birthday still remains a feast for the royals of the land that Adam fantasized about living on one day. He truly wishes the aliens would come down take him away in their UFO, Earth remains too much to deal with.
The special day wasn't his birthday, but instead February 11th, 2003.
When the archeologist dug up the remains of Adams least-favorite feeling. Obsession.
A professional man dawned in a doctors coat was his Anakin Skywalker, Adam always related a little more to Padme in the way she lost it all in the end, that was until his Anakin came back for him as a light.
Darth Vader was misunderstood.
As this doctor stood before him, Adam felt a little like Darth Vader, he wasn't a no-good outcast. He was just trying to get by.
The way this doctor looked down on him with wide eyes, as if he wasn't the cause of the meteor in young Adam's prehistoric fantasies.
His nametag capitalized apon who this delicately put together man was.
'DR. LAWRENCE GORDON'.
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As a younger man, Lawrence Gordon believed Alison Potter was the woman he would live through his hopefully long-lasting life with.
But also as a younger man, she had him charmed until boredom struck. Beauty can't be the attractor forever. It couldn't keep Lawrence in bed most nights.
Staying up at his computer, typing through report after report became his favorite pastime.
As a man in his 30s he remembers thinking he hit treasure, that he discovered gold.
Her golden hair was like a lasso, pulling him in. A golden beauty, until the real Lasso of Truth had him wrapped tight and he broke down confessing his unfaithful actions.
Diana Gordon never deserved to be traded back and forth between her beloved parents weekly.
All she asked for Christmas was for mommy and daddy to love eachother again. Not even Cupid could come down on Valentines week and strike them with the high-titled arrow, so what worth was the holiday?
Lawrence Gordon never knew how to respond to this question. He never knew himself.
Walking away always seemed like the best answer.
And today, that seemed to remain as his default as he walked away from the poor young man he bumped into and troubled.
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Maybe Adam Faulkner-Stanheight was Padme after all. Except the story was true and Anakin left him.
"What the hell...." He muttered to himself, trying to occupy the suffocating silence, his Mp3 player having lasted him so long he's scared to use it more without needing a replacement.
The wired headphones he used as a connector occupying his ears still.
Getting up and dusting yourself off in public felt embarrassing for some reason. Adam chose to not care and just obey the need to be swallowed by his thoughts.
Who did this 'Lawrence Gordon' guy really think he was? Did he really believe he was on a pedastool above Adam?
Adam would never choose to gravel at the feet of someone who felt like they were better than him.
If this was the case, why did Lawrence seem so bright? Well he appears to be a doctor, so of course he's bright. But why did he reflect so much light? Brightening Adam's dull day.
Gotham seems even lighter than Jersey, and it's always raining there.
He seemed like the type of guy Adam might photograph, maybe even the type of guy he would be HIRED to photograph.
He'd love to take Lawrence's picture, in the dull light of his apartment.
What.
He shook away the thought the walked back to the mentioned location, ready to get 'home'.
New Jersey had some shitty corners.
This apartment that he rented really was the top of the foodchain in the shithole catagory.
If home is where the heart is, why can't he even call his living space home?
His heart is still somewhere else.
The redroom was the most color filled part of the apartment, falling asleep in the dull red lighting became a theme for Adam, a pastime even.
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Lawrence Gordon might be an idiot.
He thought that when he cheated on an exam.
He thought that when he left his parents house.
He thought that when he cheated on his (now ex)wife for the first time.
He even allowed those thoughts to filter the 3rd time he had to get up to get Diana to stop her crocodile tears in her infancy.
He definitely thought he was an idiot when he decided to walk from this lowlife that made him feel high.
Really, what was he thinking?
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Adam believes he has been possessed.
The obsession that festers through his damaged system, it refuses to leave.
Adam wishes he could detain and evict it.
But unforchunately, he doesn't hold this control.
He wishes Lawrence would hold him.
This is what happens, Adam will meet someone (if being pushed and abandoned counts as a meeting this time around) and his obsession with the idea of this person will gnaw at him, eating through sensibility.
February 12th, 2003.
Adam doesn't like the way the day previous effected him.
Waking up to faces surrounding him. Photographs of people contructed and Frankenstein-Monstered from eachother, it freaks him out when he thinks about how history says they all came from the same people. Adam doesn't like waking up in his redroom, the photos developing always takes up time and troubles his thoughts. Lately there has been someone else troubling him.
Adam doesn't believe in The Bible, he doesn't believe that God would bestow this apon him.
Who was Adam meant to be of not a background character with a shitty story?
No words were exchanged between him and Lawrence.
He wished to know his voice, even if it yelled and called him the scum of the earth.
At least then, he could imagine what it would sound like to wake up at dawn and exchange goodmornings.
He could atleast piece together a sad fantasy and smile at the thought.
Adam Faulkner-Stanheight curses the existence of Valentines Day.
He was doomed in 1977, the bright light of birth was the symbolism he never needed.
Adam wishes he wasn't born.
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Lawrence doesn't believe in rebirth.
It sounds more like a curse.
Even when one of his coworkers talks of her cat having to be a case of rebirth with how intelligent it is.
Lawrence scoffs.
Maybe in the night, Lawrence was rebirthed into a more tolerant man.
Rebirth sounds a little more sensible now.
Lawrence Gordon doesn't gravel at the feet of others.
Really. He doesn't.
This stupid freezing lounge he wondered into might counter this belief. He swears he waddled in like a penguin.
It's so cold. Might as well be the Iceberg Lounge.
"That's funny." a man behind him says. he even chuckles.
Oh, he said that out loud.
Turning around in this bar stool was easy, facing the man he saw the day before wasn't.
The mutually shocked expressions show neither party realized who the other was.
Such a small in interaction ate at both of them and it was clear.
"Hello, Doctor."
"Hi."
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Adam Faulkner-Stanheight might have a reason to thank Cupid.