A/N: I like to pretend that the Saw sequels never happened for obvious reasons.
Also, wtf, ? Only ONE other David/Adam story? It's double the Leigh, double the fun!
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And we numbed the earth's skin,
when we tried to strike a spark
Never known where to begin
Staring backwards from the start
And the needle skips and spins,
stumbling from blind to blind
Let the tables turn again
I will keep us safe tonight
- "The Past is the Prey", Raised by Swans
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Prologue
He couldn't taste his cigarette.
It was an uninspired, hollow thought that drifted as soon as it came, as the cigarette lay abandoned in a plastic tray on his table. He stared at it, through it, dimly watching the gray smoke waft into the air and disappear.
David hadn't thought much about the taste of rust and blood that had embossed itself into his gums and onto his tongue. It was permanent now, as much a part of himself as his skin. Once in a while he dimly tasted the bitter glaze of cheap vodka, or the bits of garlic caught in a gummy take-out pizza… but he couldn't taste his cigarette. Only rust. And his blood.
David gingerly pushed himself away from the table, gripping at his chair like it hurt to move. As he rose he tugged the head of a water bottle with him, and walked to his bathroom. In the medicine cabinet was tucked a prescription bottle marked for sleep. It was still early but waking hours had become an uneventful, colorless blur. There wasn't much to experience other than an occasional, unanticipated, biting sensation of fear that seemingly came out of nowhere, choking him. And then nothing. Only gray.
As he entered the bathroom, David paused to push an abandoned bottle of rubbing alcohol into a waste basket. The used cottons balls dabbed with blood were already settled at the bottom, brown and ugly. He stared vacantly at them as his mind wandered. How long had that bottle been sitting there? When did he last bleed? Was it from his mouth or from his face? He frowned, and touched the dry bits of scar on his cheek.
It bled when beartrap the mechanism dug into his cheekbone. He hadn't been awake to reverse beartrap experience the pain, but it was there in the end, along with the stinging, tearing sensations in the corners of his mouth, and the taste of like a reverse beartrap rust and blood.
Blood. There was blood on his hands. Bright, fresh and gleaming, wet, warm, all over his hands. He pulled his fingers away from his face, and looked at the pallid veiny flesh. No. No blood.
He closed his eyes and reached to push his bangs back. He'd forgotten why he was there.
Sleep. That was it. Black, lulling sleep. David pulled his fingers from the sweat-dampened hair and swallowed down two chalk-colored pills. When he turned, he took a swig from his water bottle and passed by his television in the living room. It was on, but near silent. He'd stopped sleeping in his bed and had taken to the couch, and though the TV was never actually watched he'd come to hate the white noise of traffic. It messed with his dreams, when he had them.
David gathered his blankets. He was just about to lay down when something caught his eye. There, on the television, was a reporter standing in front of a local hospital, near frantic as she held up a photo of a young man.
Brown hair. Hazel eyes. No, blue eyes. Smirking.
"… survivor…"
David slowly turned up the volume.
"… sole survivor…"
He frowned. The young man looked like him. But it wasn't him. No one reported his story. No press asked for his picture, or his name. All the world knew of his incident was that it had left scars.
He was one of the first. One of the only. But now…
"… jigsaw killer…"
David's body suddenly felt numb, engulfed by static. He heard the water bottle hit the floor before he felt it slip from his fingers. Again. The madman again. There was no name for him in the past, nor any concept of his purpose, his patterns, just who he was, but they gave him a title now. On TV. In papers. They offered sympathy for his victims, and his only other survivor, while David and the madman from back then were swallowed into the walls. Blending. Just like are you grateful before.
David listened to the reporter offer only the barest of details as she described the rescue effort. The survivor was only discovered when a homeless man found a mangled body outside a foreclosed industrial building. Police followed the blood trail to a room where the survivor was shackled. He was being treated for a gunshot wound, infection, and dehydration. But he would live.
Some people are so ungrateful…
David didn't remember the police referring to him as a survivor, or a victim. He didn't remember feeling your dead cellmate like it either. But he was alive. Barely living, but alive, and he would rather be this dead cellmate than dead.
David dimly wondered if the survivor saw blood too.
On his hands.
On his face,.
In his shirt.
Red.
Unexpectedly, a surge of feeling filled his entire body. Slowly, David slipped down to the couch, and cried.
Are you grateful, David?