Disclaimers: I do not own Saw or any of the characters. Yes, I have included some direct quotes from the movie (they're italicized, and in the form of flashbacks). I do not take credit for them.
Other: Good morning! I was rather eager to post the third chapter. I hope you guys are enjoying my story. :) Thank you for reading this far. I promise it'll only get better as I get used to fanfic and writing this. Anyway, I won't hold you back with my rambling. Go ahead, read and enjoy. Don't forget to review! :) Feel free to post suggestions or ideas.
Lawrence stared at the couch, stunned. No way. Not again. Adam wasn't there. The blanket was on the floor in a crumpled heap, and there was no small, lean body lying on the couch. In the two minutes he'd spent in the kitchen, Adam had completely disappeared.
"Adam, this isn't funny," Lawrence called impatiently, setting down the two cans onto the coffee table once he'd walked over. His gaze swept across the room. No answer had come back to him; there was only a heavy silence aside from the soft crackle of the fire. The doctor checked the rest of his apartment. The kid was gone. Finally, he walked into the small atrium that led to the front door of his apartment. The said door was open a crack.
"You infuriating child," Lawrence murmured under his breath. Adam had escaped. He stood there for a full minute, looking at the door before actually shutting it.
"Little Adam, you can't hide from me. You see, I have your cell phone, you fool," he said aloud, going into his bedroom. He opened up the second drawer of his nightstand and pulled out Adam's cell phone. Luckily, the phone had been mostly protected by the bush Adam had been lying near, so it was barely damaged. The screen was a little cloudy, but that was about it. He opened up Adam's contact lists, and scrolled down. There were not a lot of contacts, thank God, and he knew which one to call as soon as he saw it.
The Bitch (Landlady)
Real mature, Adam, Lawrence thought, rolling his eyes, holding the phone to his ear. He couldn't stand still. For some reason, anxiety ate away at his stomach. So he paced the bedroom while the phone rang. Each second felt like an hour. Six rings later, an elderly, grandmother-like sounding woman answered.
"Adam Faulkner, your rent was due three months ago. I was kind enough to wait this long, because I pity you. But no, I will not wait any longer. You have until tomorrow to pay the rent, or you will have one day to pack your things and leave my apartment." Her voice sounded like she regretted having to say this, and he felt sympathy for the old lady. Adam probably treated her terribly.
"Good morning, ma'am. My name is Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and Mr. Faulkner is a patient of mine. He escaped from my hospital this morning, and left his cell phone behind. I was wondering if you would give me his address so that I may return it. On my way to return his phone, I'll pay his rent, too," Lawrence said politely, adding his last sentence after a moment of thought. It was obvious Adam had no money. And knowing the kid, he'd end up living on the streets because he'd be too stubborn to admit he needed somewhere to live.
"Oh! I apologize, doctor. I am Lucille Norman. That is awfully kind of you to come all this way to return the phone. I understand you're his doctor…But why would you pay his rent?" the woman said. She gave him his address as well, And Lawrence wrote it down into a small notebook.
"Mr. Faulkner and I…have been through a lot together. I owe him that much, let's say," Lawrence replied. He thanked the woman and hung up.
Well, now he had Adam's address. All he had to do was drive on over. It wasn't a long drive; maybe ten minutes at most. He grabbed his checkbook and left the apartment.
Adam was not the most pleasant person to be around. And Lawrence knew that from the very beginning. He was an angry, apathetic child. He remembered when Adam had lurched out of the bathtub, choking and gasping. When Adam had finally gotten the water out of his lungs, they had a very small conversation consisting of Lawrence insisting that no, Adam was not dead.
"What's your name?" Lawrence asked. He felt bad for the kid who had just woken up in a nasty bathtub. From what he saw, the boy looked very small and helpless, like a soaked puppy.
"My name is Very Fucking Confused, what's your name?" Adam had snapped back. And helplessness went out the window.
Not only was Adam impatient and irritable, he was also paranoid.
"Do you see any scars?" Adam suddenly asked, looking over at Lawrence. Lawrence stared at him, a little confused.
"What?" he asked, not understand what Adam wanted to know.
"Huh? This is what they do, man! They kidnap and drug you, and before you know it, you're lying in a bathtub and your kidneys are on eBay!" Adam explained, his voice bordering hysteria.
"No one has taken your kidneys," Lawrence assured, unable to resist grinning. Adam was not soothed.
"Can you tell from way over there?" Adam asked anxiously.
"Well, you'd be in terrible agony or you'd be dead by now, trust me," Lawrence said.
"What are you, a surgeon?" Adam sneered, obviously still afraid. Lawrence chuckled.
"Actually, yes; I am indeed a surgeon."
He was also not exactly the brightest bulb on earth.
Adam pressed play on the tape recorder after sliding his tiny tape inside the box.
"Rise and shine, Adam. You're probably wondering where you are. I'll tell you where you might be. You might be in the room that you die in. Up until now, you've simply sat in the shadows watching others live out their lives. But what do voyeurs see when they look into the mirror? Now I see you as a strange mix of someone angry, yet apathetic. But mostly just pathetic. So are you going to watch yourself die here today, Adam, or do something about it?" said a dark, chilly voice.
"I don't get it," Adam said flatly after a moment of silence.
But despite these things, Lawrence still found that he loved him; which was why he was doing what he was; breaking into Adam's apartment.
Adam lowered his sore, aching body onto the couch. He hadn't even been sitting for a minute before Lawrence came into the room. Adam groaned loudly, annoyed.
"Oh, come on in, make yourself at home," he snapped as Lawrence sat down on an armchair beside the couch.
"You should be thanking me. I came all this way to give you your cell phone back. And I paid your rent," Lawrence said calmly, almost pleasantly. Adam blinked, catching his cell phone when Lawrence tossed it to him.
"You…You didn't have to do that, man," he mumbled, not looking at Lawrence. The doctor shrugged. There was a long silence, in which Adam fidgeted nervously and Lawrence looked around the room at ease. He now understood what Adam had meant when he said, once he woke up in the bathtub and had started yanking at the chain, "I went to bed in my shithole apartment and I woke up in an actual shithole," in the bathroom of Jigsaw. The place was an absolute wreck. It was quite obvious Adam didn't care about tidying up after himself. Dirty laundry and trash were everywhere, and he had a pyramid of empty beer cans going on in the far left corner of the living room.
"Do you ever clean up after yourself?" Lawrence commented. Adam crossed his arms over his chest.
"Why are you even here? I left for a reason. Did you honestly think we'd become tight buddies who go drinking every Friday night? Get your head out of the clouds, Lawrence. We aren't friends," Adam snapped. Lawrence looked at him.
"Why not?" he asked. Adam ignored him, tilting his head back to rest against the cushion of the couch.
"Okay…So are you going to tell me what happened last night?" Lawrence asked, after deciding that Adam was not going to answer his last question. There was a brief silence before Adam responded.
"Why should I?" the kid retorted.
"Well, because I brought you into my home, cleaned you up, dried you, bandaged and stitched you up, made you comfortable, and gave you a warm, dry place to sleep," Lawrence replied coolly. Adam shrugged, closing his eyes. Lawrence didn't think he was going to answer. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but Adam suddenly spoke.
"A woman hired me to follow her husband around. She suspected him of having an affair. Well, after stalking him for about six hours, I realized that 'an affair' was a major understatement. He was fucking everyone he could get his hands on. He'd told her that he was going to work. But instead, he went to at least twelve houses and had sex with the people of that house. And they weren't even all just him and a woman. He had fucking threesomes. It was disgusting, man. I took pictures of everything, obviously," Adam told Lawrence. He licked his lips, took a deep, shaky breath, and continued.
"Finally, later that afternoon, I was inside the house he'd gone into. I was sitting in the closet, watching him have at it. I don't know what happened. My camera's flash was on, and I didn't realize it. When I took a picture, and the fucking flash went off, they both froze. I would've booked it then, but the guy had locked the bedroom door before getting in bed. I ran to the door, but my fingers had just touched the lock when the guy grabbed me by my shoulders and smashed me against the wall. I can fight. But this guy was at least half a foot if not more taller than me, and he outweighed me by a hundred pounds. Well, more like seventy or eighty, but whatever. The guy just repeatedly smashed me against the wall, shouting at me. After about four hits against the wall, I thought my skull was going to shatter. He threw me to the floor, grabbed a wooden baseball bat from the closet, and beat me with it until I was unable to fight back. He would've killed me. But the chick was freaking out and screaming at him to stop. So he just grabbed me and dragged me outside. I don't remember really how I got to your apartment. I just…started limping. And before I knew it, I couldn't walk any further, and just collapsed by a bush," Adam explained.
His eyes widened suddenly.
"Shit! My camera's still in that closet!" he cried. He let out a long, exasperated groan. Lawrence stared at him.
"Adam, you barely got out with your life, and you're worried about your camera? Look, don't worry about it. You need to take some time off of that job anyway, to recover," the doctor said. Adam glowered at him.
"Thank you, Doctor Fucking Obvious. I'm going to go shower and change into some clothes," he snapped. Lawrence nodded and watched him go into the bathroom.
In the ten minutes it took Adam to shower, brush his teeth, and change, Lawrence had cleaned up the apartment out of pure boredom. He collected all of the clothes off the floor and dumped them into the hamper. The trash was all thrown into a garbage bag, and he made Adam's bed. The apartment smelled stale and less than pleasant, so he went to open the windows. But once he brushed the heavy curtains aside, he realized they were boarded up with heavy duty plywood. He stared at them, confused.
"What're you, my fucking maid?" Adam asked from behind, looking around his cleaner apartment.
"Why are your windows boarded?" Lawrence asked, turning to look at Adam. The boy merely got onto the bed and lay down. His shirt tugged up slightly, exposing a bit of his stomach. He ignored Lawrence. But the doctor was done with being ignored. He decided to figure things out for himself.
"You're afraid of Jigsaw getting in through the windows, aren't you?" he asked softly. Adam froze, his body tensing up immediately. Lawrence nodded, knowing he'd guessed correctly. He moved over to the bed, studying Adam, whose face was flushed. Lawrence felt that urge – again – to hold Adam. But he wanted more than a hug. He wanted to kiss those lips and touch that trembling, small body. He leaned closer to Adam, who gazed up at him curiously.
"What would you do…If I kissed you…again?" Lawrence asked quietly, stroking Adam's cheek. Adam's eyes widened slightly, his breath hitching.
Hmmm...Will Adam let Lawrence kiss him? :D Looks like you'll have to wait and find out! I hope you liked this chapter! Please review, thank you. :D