HEAL

6 -- SCHRODINGER'S CAT

"You're what ?"

Shit.

"I'm in love with you."  Larry beamed, seemingly more than happy at the thought.  Such a simple statement.  It was the only conclusion his far from perfect, far from normal mind, whatever passed for normal these days, could come up with.

"Apparently ?"  Laurent's face didn't dare give away the panic he felt rising from his gut into his chest. He also realised they didn't need to be having this particular conversation here in the corridor.

"It's the only thing I can come up with Laulau, it's how I feel.  You kissed me, and I felt .... "  Larry struggled with his words, trying to find the right ones.  As a result of his injury, he had even less of a filter between his brain and his mouth than he used to.  So now, you knew that whatever came out of it, was the pure, unfiltered, Gods-honest truth.  Well, the truth as Larry saw it, anyway.  

"Larry, we need to get you back in your room.  We can talk in there, OK ?"  Laurent was already trying to guide Larry by his elbow gently, trying to persuade his body to move out of the public domain, and into somewhere a little more private.  If they were going to have this conversation, no one else was going to hear it.

Helping his twin back to his bed, rubbing his back to calm him, and as much to calm himself too, Laurent's mind was going apeshit.  What can he even say ?  What can he do ?  Larry's short term memory could manage two or three days at a time now, so would he remember his memory tomorrow ?  Probably.  But would he forget it again, only to be back at square one ?  Would he remember it again, or another time he and his brother were together, equally as perplexing or frightening ?  What if he just straight out lied to Larry, and conjured up some kind of story as to why he was remembering what he was ?  If Laurent did that, and Larry remembered more, which was likely, what would that do to his already overwrought and emotional brother, to his healing, to their bond ?  

What the fuck ....... 

And if he told him everything, from start to finish, what then ?  How they found that their mutual, growing, "brotherly love", was more than that.  How they had taken every chance they could to be together, in those quiet, private moments that they so rarely had, to kiss and taste and touch and feel.  Feel each other's skin, each other's heartbeat, each other's love.  How they had become lovers, and had agreed one day to tell the world about their love, only to disagree the next, and argue, and worry, and lie.  Lie when they were asked anything near that one pertinent question that no one seemed to have either the courage or the balls to ask them outright.  

About how it was Laurent that had decided that their "arrangement" couldn't continue any longer, for both their sake's.  Being the consummate business mind that he was, it was for the good of their brand, their own mental health, and the bond they shared.  They still had to function as brothers, as "Les Twins", business partners, partners in crime.  Just not as ..... partners.  It would never happen.  It COULD never happen.  Laurent had decided, it was for their own good.  

Wasn't it ?

If Laurent told Larry all of this, if he dragged up everything in their past lives, their past relationship, didn't he risk Larry remembering it all , and send him hurtling downward into more confusion, more despair, one more thing to add to his already unfocused and distraught mind ?  And on top of all this, as if this weren't enough, that it had to be kept a secret, and Larry with his brand new no-filter mouth, how would it stay that way ?  It wouldn't be Larry's fault, but the cat would be out of the bag, so to speak.

It would be Schrodinger's cat.  Neither dead, nor alive, but maybe both.  The memory of their love was alive and well, but the physical manifestation of that love ?  It died a death, and when it did, Larry died with it.  Laurent hadn't cottoned on to that little morsel yet, the reasons, the time lines.  That when Laurent withdrew his physical love from his brother, Larry went searching for a comparable alternative elsewhere, but never found it.  Nor would he.  And look where that got him.  Got them.  Laurent, out of guilt and his own misery at missing his brothers tender, all consuming touch, tried to reconnect a couple of times, only to find Larry intolerably cruel in his emotions and words towards him.  When he started using drugs and drinking, he wasn't the same Larry anymore, in any way, shape or form. Their love had died.  Or so he thought.