(no subject)
taking back sunday, midtown/cobra, the academy is, 2002 - 2007
three ways adam lazzara broke his hip
adam/john, gabe, william, 3103 words
"you shattered your mother fucking hip?" gabs asks, pacing back and forth along the side of the bed. john is sitting by adam's bedside, reading some intellectual book with one hand and holding a juice box with the other. adam takes a sip.
"mm," he smiles, "fruit punch."
"you shattered your mother fucking hip?!"
"he didn't shatter it," john finally says, not even looking up from his book. "he just dislocated it, it's not that even interesting of an injury to be quite honest."
gabe shakes his head in disbelief, continues pacing as adam takes another sip of juice and grins, content with the situation at hand. john is in charge of his sippy cup, eddie is getting fluffier pillows and a wooly blanket, mark is trying to sneak some food into the hospital that isn't jello and shaun is getting adam's acoustic so john can entertain him. he's pumped so full of pain killers he keeps missing the straw and swatting at the air with his fingers to get john's attention.
"yeah," adam breathes, sinking lower in the bed, sleepy and smiling. "it would have been more interesting if i like, broke a few ribs in the process or got a concussion."
"adam," john laughs, tilting adam's chin up so his mouth can find the straw, "you do have a concussion."
"oh, right."
"guys," gabe interrupts their quiet giggling to stop pacing, sigh heavily and stare at them with a serious look in his eyes. "there was so much blood, i actually thought you died. this is-- this is serious, you could have really hurt yourself."
adam and john look at him for a minute, nodding in agreement until the silence becomes unbearable and they burst out laughing.
gabe says, "this isn't funny," and leaves the room.
adam turns his head to the side and smiles weakly at john, half closes his eyes and attempts to burrow his head into the flat hospital pillow. "you know what would have been cool?" he asks, though he doesn't wait for an answer (and when does he ever wait for an answer, really?) "if i had fallen out of a helicopter, or something."
john sets the juice down and rests his book on his knees. he still hasn't changed out of the torn and faded blue jeans he was wearing at the show, the ones with adam's blood all over them. "why would there be a helicopter?" he smirks, "how could a helicopter even fit into the venue? any venue, for that matter?"
"whatever," adam mumbles, half asleep already. "there should always be a helicopter involved."
-
gabe says, "dude he fucking fell!" and plops down beside a sleeping travis. he speaks plainly, but is already excited to delve into the story, laughing to himself as he remembers how it happened.
"see," he starts, rubbing his hands together like an eager child, "adam and i wanted to make a grand exit for our last show, just the two of us, you know. we wanted to helicopter it to vegas and put all our money on black, which was like twelve dollars, three cents and some lint but we were gonna do it, and get rich and buy everyone grills or something. anyway," he shrugs, takes a sip of travie's unaccompanied redbull and william knows he's not telling the truth (because he's a fan-- a fan-- and he knows that the dislocated hip incident did not happen on the last day of tour) but he listens intently anyway.
"so we're in this helicopter, celebrating the fact that we're in a fucking helicopter and we high five. now, bill, i don't recommend high fiving in a helicopter when the door's still open, cause i mean, i guess i don't know my own strength but when we high fived, adam lost his balance and fell like, a hundred feet!" he shakes his head and william thinks yeah okay, and, i love adam lazzara.
gabe says, "it was awesome."
william can't help himself, he says, "it sounds awesome."
-
adam wakes up with a pain in his side that he can't identify. everything is blurry except for the sleepy mass that is john nolan curled up on an uncomfortable looking chair beside his bed. he takes everything into account.
john, the small chair, the hard as hell bed he's lying in that most certainly is not his bed at home or his seat in the van, a bunch of strange looking monitors beeping strange little rhythms. he would sit up and look around some more but the pain is unbearable now and he thinks he might pass out. it's dark in the room but adam doesn't know if that's because his eyes are half closed or because he's woken up in the middle of the night. his best idea at the moment is to wake john up, so he does.
"john," he mutters, though his throat is scratchy so it comes out sounding like a hoarse whisper and nothing like a real word. he tries to clear his throat but that doesn't work very well. in the end he notices a book on the bed and manages to nudge it off over the slow course of twenty three minutes.
when it hits the ground with a soft thump, john's eyes flutter open and he smiles. "hey, gorgeous."
adam pouts and tries to shrug his shoulders, but it hurts. he remembers now how he got here, though it was fuzzy for a moment there. he almost thought he had dreamed it. he looks up at john and makes a face.
"oh," john says, "right."
he calls the nurse in so adam can get another morphine drip, some water and a cherry popsicle, sits down on the chair and lets adam flirt with a forty-something year old nurse who's day is probably made when she's told she should check in on him more often. she gets him an extra blanket and adjusts the bed so that he's sitting comfortably, almost completely numb from the neck down.
when she leaves, adam turns his head slightly to the side and smirks at john. "did you get my juice, nolan?" to which john holds up a pack of fruit punch he picked up while adam was sleeping. "c'mere," he mumbles and john sets the juice down to walk over and kiss adam's forehead.
"you okay?" he asks, and adam nods. "you scared me for a minute there." adam shrugs and starts to say something, but there's a knock at the door. gabe peaks his head in and waves, talking in a hushed whisper.
"the nurse said you were awake!" he grins, and john has to wonder how someone can be so animated in such a low voice. "i brought you guys some jello, it was all they had. the other guys are working on making this room more comfortable cause we knew once adam woke up he'd be a diva."
gabe turns on the lights, keeps them dim and john smiles warmly at him. he settles back into the stiff armchair, opening the pack of juice and taking one out. he sticks a straw in and holds it out to adam to drink. he'll work on the jello in a little while.
"so," adam says seriously. his blinking is quite irregular already and john knows despite the efforts of the other guys, to get him food and blankets and probably some entertainment, adam will be asleep before they get back. "what are we gonna tell people?"
john shrugs and gabe looks slightly confused. "uh, that you fell off the stage? what else would we tell people?" adam and john exchange alarmed glances and adam scoffs, incredulous.
he shakes his head quickly. "no, i don't think that's going to work."
"that's-- that's what happened!" gabe points out and yeah, that's what happened but adam and john both know it's not the best idea to tell people exactly what happened. it's not nearly as interesting as telling them a portion of the truth and some little white lies. "you were dancing," gabe continues, "you were dancing and you tripped and fell and fucking broke your hip, that's what happened. john, you can attest to this."
john sighs, picks his book up off of the floor and opens it to the page he left off. gabe starts pacing.
"shattered," adam corrects him, and john laughs at the lies he's already telling. "i shattered my hip and gabriel, listen to me." he looks serious again, but gabe doesn't stop pacing. "never, i repeat, never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
gabe blinks, taking note of what he's just said.
-
william isn't obsessed, he just wants to know the truth. this is how he justifies it to himself, going to the show ready to wait for hours in the cold. it's raining and mike is considering leaving him there but he could always call his mom to pick him up if mike bails, which he probably would. he only agreed to come because he wanted to talk to john nolan about guitars, and as much as william cares about that stuff (because he really does), now is not the time.
"adam," he squeaks, shy, practically hiding behind mike, who immediately turns his attention to john nolan (saint nolan! william thinks in his head, and also, god lazzara! all this moment needs is jesus lacey and it would be perfect).
william mumbles out a stream of words that don't make sense and adam lazzara says, "huh?"
"oh ha ha-- english," william laughs, "how did you break your hip?"
"oh wow," adam lazzara laughs. william squeezes mike's arm like a girl, and giggles. "it's a long story man. you really want to hear it?" william nods fervently so adam lazzara contiues. "okay so like, me and gabe saporta-- he's in midtown-- we got into a fight earlier on that fateful day cause he found out i had been sleeping with his girlfriend." he takes a minute to laugh, tap john nolan on the shoulder for a cigarette and nod along as he lights up, inhales copious amounts of smoke and exhales in perfect streams of grey. "we had some harsh words, gabe and i."
william nods along, unaware of the fact that he's still clutching mike's arm, most likely cutting off all circulation to his fingers.
"during our set, he just lost it, came on stage and started arguing with me. it got a little heated and we threw some punches, he pushed me off the stage like a douchebag and i'm like, mother fucker, that hurt! but it was all good. i finished the set and afterwards we talked and realized, you know, bros before hoes, so we were cool."
william inhales sharply as adam lazzara leaves out the l in cool. he can't help nodding, he probably looks like a bobble-head, but he's taking in every word.
"so gabe gets this mad throat infection or something, and totally loses his voice. we would have had to cancel the rest of the show but i stepped up, i was like, gabriel, i will play this show for you as an apology for sleeping with your hot girlfriend. so i played the set and fucking rocked that shit."
at this point, william isn't even breathing. mike and john nolan are listening too and adam lazzara is smiling broadly.
"we stayed outside talking to kids for like three hours and i thought, you know, my side kind of hurts, maybe i should get that looked at. so i walked to the hospital-- it wasn't far-- and i was like, dudes, my body hurts. the doctors ran some tests and they came back and were like, oh my god! you've shattered your hip into at least three hundred pieces! how are you still walking? you should be dead right now! you sir, are a medical miracle." adam lazzara nods, adding that last little bit of finality to his story.
william blinks.
"oh my god," he says.
somewhere behind them, floyd says they gotta hit the road and john nolan says a quick, guitar player goodbye to mike who is amazing for staying calm this long.
"i know right." adam lazzara pats bill on the shoulder and leans in, "check this out, i can pop my hip in and out." he moves from side to side, his left hand holding his hip tightly as he does. "pop it out, pop it back in, pop it out, back in, out, in."
mike raises an eyebrow and bill can't help but blink some more. "oh my god," he repeats, "are you serious?"
adam lazzara chuckles. "nah man, i'm kidding, i'm just moving my body."
floyd yells some more and adam lazzara reaches out to shake william's hand, exchange fond farewells. mike pokes william in the side and laughs as they drive away a few minutes later (during which adam stuck his head out of the window and yelled, "hey you didn't tell me your name!" and william replied, "william eugene beckett!" and thankfully did not add lazzara, because that would have been embarrassing) and says, "you know that was all a lie, right? a really elaborate albeit well told story?"
"shh," bill laments, eyes closed. "you'll ruin the moment."
-
"hold my hand, john." adam stretches his arm out and frowns when it takes john more than five seconds to find his fingers. "i think i broke something," he says.
"what happened to him?" another doctor asks, one that wasn't there when they rushed him in five minutes ago. "sir, what happened to him?"
adam and john exchange identical glances of pending mischief and john replies, "he fell down some stairs."
"i fell down some stairs," adam echoes, laughing his tyler durden laugh and wheezing in the crisp hospital air as he does.
he grabs john by the collar of his shirt, whispers, "get me some juice, thomas, you know what i like," and presses a hot, sticky kiss against his lips. when he pulls away, john's mouth is stained red with blood. "oh, fuck," adam sighs, sounding scared for the first time since they left the venue.
"hey," john smiles, dimples and all, "even the mona lisa's falling apart."
-
"he was dancing, actually." john smiles, and william's not sure he should have asked him, because there is a sadness hidden in his dimples that william doesn't like seeing. but it's the last day of tour and who knows if they'll meet up again.
john continues, sipping lukewarm coffee from a styrofoam cup. "we were both up there, dancing like complete idiots and he just tripped, probably over my left feet. i thought it was funny at first-- here's adam doing a hoe-down on stage and he falls-- but there was a lot of blood. i was," he pauses, takes another sip and whispers, "i was terrified."
william nods, slowly, and stays quiet. john's eyebrows do a quick jump upward and he smiles, all awkward and contemplative, but warm in the way his lips curve into a half frown, half smirk.
"that was," he says, "that was a long time ago."
--
this was originally titled "how adam lazzara broke his hip (and how gabe saporta learned to lie like a mother fucking professional)" but it turned into a huge gay adam/john angst-fest complete with taking back sunday obsessed william fangirling. these are my favourite stories, actually told to me by gabe, adam and john respectively. i've never laughed so hard in my life, adam lazzara, thank you. oh and john needs to rejoin taking back sunday, plees.