A/N: ARGH! Sorry about the long update, but I've been far away… In a terrible place without Internet… (Shudders) Anyway, that didn't keep me from writing, so now when I'm home, chapter four is all postable and ready to go!

4: Lawrence Isn't Here

Pain.

One single word. One single word that shines white in the dark tunnel he's in.

Pain.

Maybe he reaches out his hands. Tries to get a grip on things, tries to find something, anything in this surreal haze of darkness and repressed fear that's true and real.

Pain.

Or maybe he lets his hands hang along his sides. It doesn't matter. He still doesn't find anything, in case he's looking for something.

Pain.

But after staring stupidly at the insides of his eyelids for a few minutes, he's still pretty certain that he lifts one of his hands, puts it on the side of his head, tries to stop that warm, sticky thing that's throbbing from there.

A hole. There's a hole in his head.

There's a hole in his head. And he can't even open his eyes.

Lawrence.

A new word. Lights up. In a kinder way than the last one did.

Don't worry. Lawrence is here. Lawrence is coming soon.

Lawrence is coming soon, and he'll furrow his brows, take your head between his soft, secure doctor-hands and graze his thumb over that hole in your head, he'll suck the blood off his finger, kiss your cheek and ask if you're sure that you don't want him to take you to a hospital.

You don't have to worry. Lawrence is here. Lawrence will fix you.

Lawrence is here. He'll make everything okay.

Lawrence.

It's possible that he's coming here. It's possible that he's going to plant that insuring kiss on Adam's cheek, possible that he'll come along with his gentle hands and fix even the most severe wounds like they were paper cuts. Like so many other times.

Like so many times he's seen Adam on the bathroom floor. Rolled up into a ball, his nails buried in his temples, with stubborn little tears rolling down his cheeks.

He might help Adam to his feet, kiss the marks on the sides of his head and clean his hands.

It's possible.

But he isn't here now, Adam feels that, Lawrence is shining with his absence like his name shines from the insides of Adam's eyelids, his entire body is screaming for Lawrence's warmth since it suddenly feels how awfully, awfully cold it is!

And maybe its' that. Maybe it's the fact that some emotions start to drive through that dark tunnel, brief and quick, like rushing, tiny cars, Adam has to throw himself over them and force them into his body. And then, he feels.

Maybe that's why he finally feels the strong bindings around his wrists, his ankles.

And then.

Then he feels that panic.

Deafening. Paralyzing.

That panic that's like photo flashes in front of his eyes, like a permanent, hollow beep in his ears, that panic that gets more control over his body than he has, that panic that makes him scream even though it's pointless, even though no one can hear him, even though Lawrence isn't here, even though Lawrence's doctor-hands are way too far away to fix anything, way too far away to comfort him.

That panic. And it's not the first time he feels it.

But it's the first time he feels it without having Lawrence's voice here to sooth him.

And then, it gets too much. Way too much.

"Be quiet."

It's a miracle that Adam can hear this voice over his own screams. But he does either way, and it makes him too surprised to remember that he's too scared to open his eyes.

The first thing he sees is himself. His own white t-shirt that's stained with the blood that pours from the wound in his head, he sees his jeans, his wrists that's already covered with sores from the strong leather belts that are used to tie him up.

It takes him a while to understand. His brain puts things together very slowly.

Okay. Armchair. You're sitting in an armchair. You're tied up with belts.

Your legs. They hurt. They hurt because they're sharply bent in a weird angle. They have to be bent that way for your ankles to be tied to the legs of the chair.

You're in a room. There's a bed in the room. Next to the chair. It's unmade. There's a window above it. There are boards nailed over it.

The floor. The floor is made of rotting boards. There is a door. It's locked. With a big chain. Big padlock.

There's an old desk. There's a TV on the desk. There are drawers in the desk. In those drawers, there are small boxes with marijuana cigarettes. You know this because you used to go here with your friends when you were a teenager. You used to smoke those cigarettes. This means you have to be in your hometown.

There's a chair in the other end of the room. Jigsaw is sitting on it. He stares at you with eyes that have only stared at you in your deepest, darkest nightmares, cold, blue, but this isn't a nightmare, it's real, Lawrence won't wake you up, rock you, hum quietly in your ear, and even if this was a nightmare, you wouldn't let him do that, because you're proud and you're stupid and right now, you think you were damn stupid for not letting Lawrence comfort you when he actually was there to do it, and now, you don't know if you'll ever see him again.

That's the situation. And you're absolutely terrified. Okay?

"Hello, Adam."

Adam just stares at him.

The voice in his head was right.

It's Jigsaw.

It's Jigsaw. Again.

And Lawrence isn't here. Lawrence is gone.

Adam is alone. And it's Jigsaw. Jigsaw is here with him.

"Where's Lawrence?"

Jigsaw doesn't even flinch. He almost looks bored, where he's sitting like a guard next to the door with his cape over his head.

"Where's Lawrence?"

Adam doesn't know why he's worrying over this. He knows that's it's mainly him who's in danger, that no matter what situation Lawrence is in, it can hardly be worse than this, but it doesn't matter. He wants Lawrence here with him, not like a man needs his lover but like a child needs his father, needs a comforting embrace to crawl up in, a warm chest to cry against.

Because he's so scared. He's more scared than the nightmares ever made him. Simply because it's not a nightmare.

It's real. Way too real.

"Where's Lawrence?"

The question comes out more impatiently now. But Jigsaw still doesn't seem to hear him.

"Where's Lawrence?"

If Jigsaw hadn't strapped him up, Adam had strangled him at this point. It feels like a stubborn little fire, a sadistic longing that burns in every fiber of his body.

His face was pale with fear for the first few seconds, but now, it's sparkling red, his restrained hands are fisted and opened irregularly, his eyes flash through the dim light when he makes a fruitless yank with his hands against the belts.

"You sick fucking bastard, where's Lawrence?!"

Jigsaw looks calmly at him. His bony hands are folded over his stomach as he slowly opens his mouth.

"Amanda has probably talked to him, he should be on his way now."

Before Adam manages to display his reaction to this, he says:

"I'm sorry about the wound on your head. I told Amanda that she would just give you the shot and take you here without hurting you."

"Who the hell is Amanda?"

Adam was going to yell the question, but most of his powers seem to be wasted on that last roar. He's still pretty dizzy.

"Doctor Gordon has told you about her," Jigsaw says patiently. "He listened to her testimony."

Adam searches though his battered head for a few seconds before he finds the right place in its files.

Right. The bathroom. Something Lawrence said in the bathroom. In the folder Things We Don't Think About Unless We Have To.

And Lawrence. Lawrence is with her.

"So she's…"

Jigsaw nods.

"My apprentice."

Adam rolls his eyes. Jigsaw's calmness annoys him. He'd actually preferred it if he'd grabbed Adam's shoulders, tried to make him quiet, punched him when he screamed, so that Adam…

Adam hadn't had to feel so powerless.

Hadn't had to feel like someone you can restrain with some pitiful belts.

"Okay," Adam says and throws his hands out as much as he can at the moment. "Your apprentice is with Lawrence, and she's smacked me over the head with a lamp, FYI. So far, so good. No tell me what the fuck I'm doing here!"

He managed to get that last part out as a scream. He's starting to recover, and by God, how good it feels.

Jigsaw looks at him with that stoical calm in his gaze that makes Adam hate him even more, and then says, with his raspy voice:

"I want you to play a game."

It's a good thing that Adam is so proud.

Well, it is the pride that's put him back into this situation. But still.

If he hadn't been this proud, he would've cried. His head would've fallen down to his chest, his shoulder would've shaken, big tears would've rolled down his cheeks. Simply because the same words that rang through Lawrence's head now are ringing through his own.

Not again. Not again.

It took me so long to get everything back together after the first time.

I did it once. But I can't do it again. Not again.

But now, that Adam is very proud, he just stares at Jigsaw for a brief second with widened eyes, one single second, before he opens his mouth, his weak chest heaves, and he screams once again, without words and without meaning, the air in his lungs are pressed out like one single roar of despair. And Jigsaw doesn't even flinch.

"I was out!" Adam yells when the first scream is over and he really doesn't have any breath left. "I was out! I got out, you crazy motherfucker! Why the hell would I have to do it again?"

Jigsaw still doesn't have any expression at all. Just those cold fucking eyes, oh, Adam wants to bang them out of his head.

"You got out of that bathroom because someone else helped you to do so," Jigsaw says.

If his lips hadn't moved, Adam would've thought that he was a ventriloquist doll.

"You learned nothing, you're still drifting around in your apartment all day long."

Now, Jigsaw shows that he's at least almost human. Because now, he smiles, a horrible, crooked smile that displays his discolored teeth and that doesn't even reach his eyes.

Skull.

A new word that shines like a neon light in Adam's head.

Those grinning teeth, the sunken eyes in the knotted face that's painted by the light that seeps in through the boards over the windows.

Yes. It's a skull. And it grins.

"The fact that you have someone to join you doesn't make a difference," Jigsaw adds.

Adam doesn't have the strength to yell anymore. His stomach retracts in irregular spasms in desperate attempts to regain the air he wasted on the first scream, and more than anything, he's so scared that it's his only way to breath, but that doesn't mean he's going to stop being angry.

"Okay," he says hectically. "I didn't learn a thing, I don't appreciate my life, I'm a bad little boy that hasn't done his homework, but Lawrence sawed off his foot in your first fucking attempt to act like you're giving two shits about what people do with their lives. So why the hell would you pull him into this?"

That smile doesn't go away. But Adam preferred the blank face.

"I have to make some sacrifices. And that was your assignment the last time, so this is only fair."

Now, it's another one of those seconds. A frozen second, a second when Adam just stares at him, stares at that face that's been in his nightmares for God knows how long now, with widened eyes, before he remembers who he is, and starts tugging on those damn belts that restrain him, thrashes back and forth until the chair starts to rock and his screams get hoarse.

"You fucking bastard!" He yells, and now, Jigsaw's smile finally goes away, at least Adam has that impact on him. "Leave him the fuck alone! Let him go, or I… I'll kill you, you hear me?! I'll take your fucking cancer-filled head and fucking crush it!"

Jigsaw cringes slightly when he has to heave himself out of his chair and onto shaky legs, like they're sticks that are about to snap, limps up to Adam and picks something out of the pocket of his cloak, something that's long and shiny and thin and that makes Adam quiet down immediately, reluctantly, like a grumpy little boy, as Jigsaw stands behind the armchair.

When Jigsaw puts the stiletto to his throat, Adam stops tugging on the belts. He's lost and he knows it, but he will at least do it with dignity.

"Then again, the rules are a lot like before," Jigsaw says quietly, like this is something he figures out while he's talking. "Your life still depends on doctor Gordon."

"Lawrence," Adam hisses softly.

He doesn't like when people call Lawrence that.

'Doctor Gordon' is what it said on the wrinkled little note that detective Tapp gave him, along with Lawrence's home address and his occupation.

'Doctor Gordon' is the man he was supposed to track down and take pictures of.

'Lawrence' is the love of his life. And he so badly wants those parts of his life to be separated.

Jigsaw scoffs. It could've been a chuckle if someone else had done it, but it doesn't feel that way. The hand on Adam's shoulder is cold, the blade against his neck is even colder, and the owner to any of this can't possible chuckle, he's sure of that.

"Doctor Gordon is going to prove his love to you," Jigsaw says while he walks back to his chair, not teasingly, more like Adam's comment is the buzzing of a fly that's annoying, sure, but nothing that he'd waste time on squishing. "And you're going to listen to me and answer to my questions."

He lands heavily on the chair with a sigh.

"And if you don't answer, I'll have to cut you," he says simply.

Adam doesn't even get scared. Not for his own sake, at least.

"Kill me?" He says gruffly.

"Not kill," Jigsaw says. "Cut. Your arms."

Adam nods.

He can stand getting cut, hell, the last time he did this, a lot worse things happened.

But Lawrence…

Adam doesn't even want to think about what he has to do. For the second time.

"Doctor Gordon is going to go through some tests," Jigsaw says. "If he gets through them all, he'll get here, he'll set you free, and I'll let you both go. If he doesn't, you'll slowly bleed to death."

He makes it sound so damn easy. So goddamn easy that Adam wants to kill him even more.

"You'll get this," Jigsaw says and picks something else out of his pocket. Something less frightening this time. "That you're familiar with."

A cell phone.

The same cell phone. The same goddamn cell phone that Adam once called the most beautiful invention on this planet, but that now makes him want to throw it away like it bore pest.

"And we're going to watch doctor Gordon," Jigsaw continues. "Which you're also familiar with."

He leans forward to turn on the TV on the desk in front of Adam, but stops in his tracks. For a moment, Adam thinks that the pain doesn't allow him to stretch too far, but when Jigsaw turns to him with that smile back on his face, he realizes that that isn't the reason at all.

"Angry and pathetic," he says in an evil little whisper. "And voyeuristic. You feel right at home now, don't you?"

Adam doesn't even get the time to react to these words, doesn't get the time to throw himself forward and try to smash those grinning teeth out which he so very, very badly wants right now, before the screen lightens up, in a black and white, blurred picture, but it's still something that hits a deeper spot in Adam's soul than any of Jigsaw's words, something that would've made him swallow his pride and reach out to touch the smudged picture on the screen with his fingertips if he'd only been able to.

Lawrence…

It's Lawrence. Lawrence is on the screen with a young woman that Adam's never seen before, he walks around in there and looks confused. Not in that polite way that he does when they're watching TV and Adam says that the cop in some British whodunit looks like Heath Ledger, but in that inhumanly torn apart way, that dreadfully worried way that Adam's only seen him in once and that he never wants to see again.

Lawrence… It's not supposed to be this way. It's supposed to be me that sob reluctantly into your chest, it's supposed to be me who don't understand, and you're supposed to explain to me. I'm supposed to be scared and you're supposed to comfort me.

You're not supposed to be afraid. You can't.

Then, I have nothing to rely on at all.

"Let the game begin," the raspy voice next to him says, and Adam has to swallow a big lump of tears in his throat when he hears Jigsaw standing up again, hears the metallic sound of the spring in his stiletto.

Hope I pulled it off… I haven't written a thing about Jigsaw, I just tend to kill him off. Anyway, please review!