A/N: Hey, hey, I'm back with a chapter! I don't know if I make anyone happy with it, but… Writing is all I have now, and… Well, this is the result of it. Enjoy, my pretties…
3: Old Acquaintances
"What the fuck is this?"
"Calm down, just calm down."
Lawrence doesn't know if he's able to convince the young man in the other end of the room. It's possible that he doesn't seem very calming when he's not the least bit calm himself.
The steering wheel slips under his fingers, the black leather squeaks when he tries to turn, tries to turn fast enough, get there and save something if there's anything left.
"Are we going to be okay?"
No. They won't be okay. There's no fucking way they'll be okay. In fact, Lawrence knows that even if they make it out, neither one of them will be okay, never ever again.
But Adam doesn't need to hear that right now. He's scared enough as it is. And when he looks at Lawrence, with the childish hopefulness of a kid and the desperation of a young man, Lawrence doesn't have the heart to tell him at all.
"I wouldn't lie to you."
Lawrence hasn't run to his apartment. He's just been sitting in his car, barely noticed that he was crying, that he's crying still.
But he's still out of breath when he gets there and starts leaping up the stairs.
"Okay. We've narrowed it down to these two."
Lawrence looks at the movies Adam holds up in front of him.
"'The Shining' or 'Ring?' Can't we watch anything besides horror for once?"
Adam flips the movies to look at the covers with a half shameful, half smug smile playing over his lips.
"Shut up. If you got to decide, we'd watch 'How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days' every Friday night."
He puts one of the movies back on the shelf and waves with the final one.
"We're settling for 'The Shining.' You get to pick the chips."
But Lawrence knows it's too late.
He really knew it the same second he ran out of the closet, away from Zep, away from the best life he's ever lived that still was the result of the worst thing that's ever happened to him. He knows Adam well enough, loves him enough to know when he's safe.
He usually feels it. When he's at the hospital, when he does he's pre-rounds, and lets his mind wander over to Adam at home.
He feels it in his stomach, like something soft, warm and vibrating, calm and steady, like Adam thinks of him, thinks of how Lawrence runs around like an idiot, and sends some sort of mental message to him as he's reading from a cereal box: I know you worry. You always do. But I'm fine. You can cool down.
But he isn't now. Adam is gone.
When he comes up from the stairs, Lawrence immediately sees the scratches around the doorknob, sees the broken lock, bent and snapped, shattered, like it tries to symbolize that everything that Lawrence and Adam have built up, the fragile excuse for a life they had, is now opened up, cut into pieces, someone has stomped into the one, fragile thing they had, turned it upside down, torn it apart, smashed it into pieces. And Adam wasn't strong enough to stop it.
And then, he knows it's too late.
"Do it now."
Lawrence looks up. Adam looks firmly into his eyes, and there's some sort of fog over his gaze, like a veil of want and lust.
"Are you sure?"
Adam nods. And Lawrence only has enough self-control to hesitate for a second before he rolls Adam over to his stomach, swallows hastily and says in a shaky voice:
"This will hurt a little, Adam."
Lawrence opens the door.
And he sees a deserted battlefield.
He sees ruins of the life he had. Everything is just like he imagined, in a small, merciless, and still dreadfully sensible part of his brain.
It's broken. Everything is broken.
The bookcase is overturned.
The TV is smashed.
Papers and torn up books is strewn over the living room. And Lawrence cries even harder – still without noticing it, though – when he sees Adam pictures, the pictures he actually cared about, not the one he took as espionage, laying over the floor, wrinkled and torn, everything that Adam's done, the only thing in his life he succeeded with.
Ruined. Torn.
It might as well have been lying body parts all over the room. He might as well have lived in a fucking slaughterhouse.
It's broken.
And Adam is not there.
Adam is gone.
Adam is gone.
Lawrence puts a sweaty hand over his mouth.
Adam is gone Adam is gone but he can't be gone can'tcan'tcan't be gone can't be gone
Relax, Lawrence. Relax. Breath.
You've dealt with worse things. You've been standing over patients without a pulse, with their blood on your hands, rich and crimson, thick and sticky.
That was worse. You know it was worse. You can't freak out just because you don't find your lover the second you come through the door.
That is true.
And yet, Lawrence knows it's wrong, so terribly wrong. Because that voice doesn't know about Jigsaw, it doesn't know about the constant danger that hovers over Adam every second of every day and that neither one of them have ever wanted to discuss.
Adam is gone. Lawrence knows that. And it's true that he's had to deal with worse things, and more than anything, he's seen other people having to deal with worse things.
He's seen people having to realize that the one they love is definitely dead. Not just gone.
But in that way, Lawrence is almost even more childish than Adam. Because he never, ever thought that he'd have to realize something like that himself.
He's not meant to fight. And neither is Adam. So they made a world together where they only had each other.
Only had the only one in the world that they didn't have to fight.
So now, when he actually has to realize it, he can't. He had a weak moment before, but his life is too perfect and his mind too permeated by it, so this information doesn't reach him, it's just like when Zep talked to him, it doesn't get a toehold in his head, it just ripples around in there, even though that chilling thing that's replaced the warm, safe one that's there when Adam is fine is a sure proof that it's true.
Adam is gone.
Adam is gone. And everything is broken.
And on top of what's broken, on top of the broken couch that's on the broken floor in line with the broken wall, there's one thing that's whole. And it's a young woman that Lawrence doesn't know but that still smiles at him, with lips that are venomous and sharply red, in a way like Lawrence should find it completely normal to see her there.
"Hello, doctor."
Lawrence doesn't even have the energy to be surprised. He just has the energy to take his hand down from his mouth and slowly let every emotion pour out of him.
Just like he did when this happened with Allison and Diana.
Just like he did when the worst thing in his life happened for the first time.
He's not even scared. Because a pretty big part of him still can't understand that this is happening. It's more like he's standing there and watches himself, sweaty, panting and pale, from the outside, a few feet away.
"Who are you?"
The voice sounds like someone else's, too.
The woman's smile gets wider. And eviler.
"Don't you remember me?"
She cringes, wrinkles her face into a grimace, lets fake, exaggerated sobs trickle down her chin, like broken pearls of glass that bounces over those sharp lips.
"H-he… Helped me…"
She's making fun of herself. And it still isn't until now that Lawrence recognizes her.
"Amanda? Amanda Young?"
Amanda scoffs and picks a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her jeans.
"I've changed a bit since you last saw me," she says, her voice hollow.
She lights the cigarette with a lighter that's next to the ones in the pack. Then waves the cigarette a little and looks at him coaxingly.
"You mind if I smoke?"
"What are you doing here?"
Lawrence sees himself stutter the word out, hears himself say it. Because he still can't imagine this happening to him.
Amanda forms her lips around a ring of smoke that sails up against the ceiling. And she doesn't seem to want to answer at all.
"Adam," Lawrence croaks out.
He can't think of a better way to begin the sentence. He can't think of much at all right now.
"You know where he is, don't you?"
Amanda looks at him. Her eyes are cold, empty, like dark tunnels, but she's still smiling.
"Of course I do. He's fucking cute. Wouldn't take my eyes off him."
Lawrence should get annoyed over her saying this. But his emotions are broken, too. They're hidden in the shards of glass from the TV, in Adam's wrinkled photos. But they're crawling back out now. Slowly, slowly.
"Where is he?"
He doesn't sound like he cares. Amanda cranes her head against the door, like she's already getting tired of him and starts to think about leaving.
"Zep's already taken off with him," she says in a sigh. "I got to tell you: He was tougher than we thought. Kicked and screamed like crazy. You'd think that such a skinny little guy should be easily manageable, but I had to beat the little fucker over the head with a lamp for him to cool down."
Lawrence closes his eyes for a brief second.
Adam fights. His tiny fists hit Zep over the jaw.
Amanda.
Her arms are raised.
The empty cracking when the glass shatters against Adam's head.
Amanda's polished nails. Her hands on his body.
Fucking bitch.
A spark of anger finds a way through Lawrence's emotional numbness, and he feels how his nails bury themselves in his palms.
Fucking, filthy, goddamned bitch!
Then he opens his eyes again. Amanda's still here, which has to mean that she's not a bad dream, and her smile is wider than ever.
"He should be with John now."
Lawrence takes two big steps to the couch. Amanda looks up at him, and it looks like it's amusement that sparkles like little diamonds in those dark tunnels that are her eyes.
"What do you want?" Lawrence asks and makes an empty gesture with his arm against her.
His emotions are starting to return. He already feels that familiar panic licking at his nerve endings.
"You want money?" He asks, he pleads. "I have money. I'll give you anything, I promise, just let Adam go."
Amanda laughs. It doesn't sound joyous at all. And in his head, Lawrence almost laughs at himself, because how in the name of hell can he be so stupid that he asks something like that?
He knows what these people want. He knows what they want him to do.
He's done it once before. He knows how it works.
"Doctor," Amanda says, leans forward and puts the cigarette out against the coffee table. "The only thing I'm asking of you is for you to play a game. You know that."
Lawrence nods.
He should panic. He thought he would. But every trace of that kind of fear has suddenly poured out of him.
This was exactly what he expected her to say.
Soon, any second now, really, he'll kick and scream, cry and fight. But not now.
He'll save that for a moment when he's actually surprised.
And he won't beg.
He won't give Amanda that satisfaction.
"Are you in?" Amanda asks quietly.
Her face is right next to his now. He smells the smoke on her breath in every word she says, like a thick, fuzzy shell around her voice.
Adam.
Adam's taste. The under taste of smoke on his tongue.
His tiny hands inside Lawrence's shirt.
His absence.
"Will you play?" Amanda says, her breath still with her terrible impression of Adam's wonderfulness. "To get your lover back?"
Lawrence swallows. And for a brief second, he's not even afraid, he's just tired, he wants to lay down on the broken couch and sleep, he wants to let Adam take care of his own problems, because he doesn't have the energy, he can't do it, he can't go through it again.
But just for a second.
Then, he looks firmly into Amanda's eyes.
Tries to keep his eyes from displaying how the white, flashing panic that was about to overwhelm him is replaced with the silent, sneaking, pricking terror that emulsions with his blood, freezes him down from the inside, keeps him disturbingly calm.
Just like the last time.
"You know I will," he says.
He actually sounds calm.
Amanda smiles again. Then, she gets up, hauls the pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and picks something else up from it.
When Lawrence sees the syringe, sees the transparent liquid in it, a thorn of the unbalanced panic stings through his dead sanity, like a cold jolt, and his eyes are widened, the breath gets caught in his throat.
"You don't mind, do you, doc?" Amanda asks, in a tone like she just asks Lawrence to move a little to the right, so that she can get past him. "We're going for a little trip, and I'd prefer it if you didn't see what route we take.
Lawrence nods slowly.
Because he still won't beg.
And he won't even flinch when Amanda, with no further hesitation, raises her hand, like she did in Lawrence's mind just a few seconds ago, and jams the pin into his neck.
He won't even gasp when he feels the drug engulf him, matting his fear, drain his head, and finally force him down to his knees.
He won't show any weakness.
Adam wouldn't have wanted that.
Want to know what happened to Adam? (Hypnotizes) I know you do… Just as badly as you want to review…