A/N: YAY! Another long chapter! Not because I waited that long with the update, but mostly because the next chapter is the last trap, and I wanted that to be a seperate chapter… Anyway, my darlings, enjoy…
10: Unspoken Words
Now, Adam feels nothing.
He read somewhere that Jigsaw wants his victim to see as he sees. Feel like he feels.
Feel the rage, the fear, the bitterness that's turned him into a skull. And Adam understands that, and it worked with him. When he saw Allison's chest opening like a mouth, red and slippery, he felt it all. He felt fear and anger and he felt sorrow, but now, he feels nothing.
Now, he's empty.
He's as hollow as he was before the bathroom.
Because there's not point in feeling something.
Feelings are happiness, they're the slight irritation he feels when he and Lawrence are out of Cocoa Puffs, they're worldly little things that you feel outside, in the real world, the world he and Lawrence built up together, and he doesn't want to feel them right now, doesn't want to associate those two things more than necessary, and what feeling can be terrible enough to see what he just saw on the screen, what common fucking feeling can describe a scream that never ends?
(maybe not a feeling but memories can memories of Lawrence)
don't
(when he climbs up when blood drops down one drop landed on a screw made it look like lipstick remember that Adam)
don't PLEASE don't
(remember when he fell backwards remember the crunching remember that it was)
PLEASE PLEASE
(all for you he did it for you he did it for you and you never even told him)
DON'T DON'T
(that you loved him you never told him REMEMBER THAT ADAM REMEMBER)
"Don't…"
It comes out as a squeak. Jigsaw looks at him. Almost amused.
"You feel pretty powerless now, don't you?" He asks.
No. He doesn't. He feels nothing.
"And you want to get doctor Gordon back," Jigsaw says, states. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure you'll see him soon."
But Adam doesn't want to see him.
Lawrence is his comfort. Lawrence the love of his life, his home no matter where he is, he's the one who whispers into Adam's ear that he shouldn't hate. That's him.
The person on the screen wasn't Lawrence. And Adam doesn't want to see someone impersonating him.
"Until then," Jigsaw says and leans forward, "I have another question. And you don't really seem fit to answer it right now, but if you don't, I'll have to cut you. And unfortunately, your blood loss seems severe enough as it is."
Adam finally makes his eyes look at him. It takes what feels like his last powers, because he's tired. And by God, he's so cold.
Jigsaw's still sitting there. As a skull, but not grinning. His face is blank, and Adam hates that even more.
"If Lawrence was here," Jigsaw continues."What would you tell him?"
Adam swallows. Even though he doesn't have any saliva left.
That's hard to answer. His brain can't fit Lawrence into this room.
Almost as bad as it can handle the thought of another cut on his arms. And as Jigsaw said, they're bad enough as it is. They're as cold and stiff and dry as the rest of him, they seem to spread the mortality in him like a virus.
"Adam," Jigsaw says calmly. "I don't want to cut you. Answer me, please."
Adam makes a weak noise from the back of his throat.
If Lawrence were here, he wouldn't feel this way.
If Lawrence were here, he'd be home. The belts around his wrists and ankles would go away, his wounds would heal, Jigsaw would dissolve into the air like the ghoul that he is.
He'd be safe. And he'd never deny that only Lawrence could make him feel that way, never again.
It takes Adam's mind a while to register these thoughts. And when he finally parts his cracked lips, his voice sounds like someone else's.
"I…"
His voice is a string that snaps. But it's okay. It's okay. Start over.
"I… Never dared to tell him…"
The blood is caked now. The wounds are still throbbing, though.
"…How much I loved him," Adam says, and his voice is beginning to work again. "He… He was always there. He was the one thing that was always there. When I had nightmares and when I was afraid and when I was cold I was so cold and I was so scared…"
His words sound as foreign as his voice. But who cares.
Who the hell cares one tiny little fucking bit about what he says this now? Lawrence will sure as hell never hear this, because Adam's going to die in this room before he reaches him, and it's been stocked up for so long, they are that thing that has shaved in the bottom of Adam's heart like a stone in a shoe every time he looks at Lawrence, he has to say this now, and if he gets hurt, no one cares one tiny little fucking bit, either, because he got to be in love.
He got to experience it.
And nothing can be bad enough to make that time wasted.
He realizes that. Now. When it's too late.
"But he was always there," Adam goes on. "And he never got annoyed with me when I woke him up in the middle of the night and cried like a fucking baby. He just hugged me. Like I was, hell, I don't know, Diana or someone he'd always love no matter what, and then I actually thought for a little while that I wouldn't get hurt, that this could end well, that it would…"
He wants to cry. He thinks he should cry.
But maybe the tears, too, are too small to express this. Maybe he's dehydrated from the blood loss. Whatever.
It's all coming loose now.
Everything he wanted to say. Everything he bottled up and that he saved for Lawrence, but he's now telling the one person whom he knows really and truly wants to hurt Lawrence, the one person who's already done that.
It all pours out. He couldn't stop it if he tried.
"And… And I love him so much."
Big fucking newsflash.
He knew that he loved Lawrence. Lawrence knew that he loved Lawrence.
"I love him…" Adam chokes out. So dry and so cracked as his lips, there are fine little fractures in his words. "I love him more than anything in the world. He's… He's like a… Like a God…"
Sounds so stupid. Doesn't care.
"Like… He can do anything, and I'm not even worthy… I… I… Don't deserve him, and I… I couldn't tell him, because I thought he'd realize it one day, and he'd walk away, and I couldn't… I couldn't…"
Lawrence.
Lawrence in his head. Smiling, his blue eyes glistening, his warm hands on Adam's face.
When Adam realizes that those hands aren't there for real, he feels even colder.
"I couldn't… Tell him… Because I was so scared… But he was still… Wherever I was, I was home when I was with him, and everything felt… Alive, and I… I've never felt that way before, and I…"
And he just spews out the last sentence. Maybe because he's wanted to say that since he got here, has so desperately wanted to make Jigsaw understand, but he doesn't, of course, how on Earth could he ever understand.
"I'd give anything in the world just to see him again!"
He's panting now. He doesn't cry, but he's so cold, and so thirsty, his tongue is sticking to the floor of his mouth.
Jigsaw still doesn't move. His face is motionless, or maybe there's a small smile hidden somewhere in the wrinkles around his eyes.
"So my lesson hasn't been lost on you, at least?"
And then, the fear melts away.
The fear melts away from Adam's bones, and so does the sorrow, the unshed tears, the soft and the gooey and the vulnerable disappears from his body and is replaced with muscles, with strength, with fury, or at least the childish stubbornness that is Adam Faulkner.
And Jigsaw's face can't scare him anymore. Hell, he doesn't even see it, all he sees is red, all the fractures goes away from the voice when he starts talking again.
"'Lesson?'" He blurts out with hollow amusement. "You call this a fucking lesson? Sure! Why can't we call this a lesson! And you're the teacher, I assume! You're the teacher, and not a fucking psycho who spends half his days in a hospital bed and the other half jacking off to other guys making out!"
He throws out the word. Like they're rocks.
"And you're such a sweet guy, too!"
More rocks, at least he has one weapon.
"You do this because you want me and Lawrence to be happy, don't you? You don't just do it because you have cancer, and you couldn't even fucking kill yourself, because you can't do anything right! You don't do it because you're bitter that some people are alive and happy! Even if it's not according to the fucking manual! You don't just sit there and mope and think 'How dare those people be alive?' when you see us, you don't want to drag everyone down with you!"
Adam pauses. Because he has to catch his breath, not because he doesn't have anything else to say.
Jigsaw tries to keep his mocking stone face. And he succeeds, his face shows no emotions, sure.
But even Adam, dazed and vacant, can see both confusion over his sudden outburst and a slight sting from all the punches under the belt.
So Adam leans forward, as much as he can, he can even bore his eyes into Jigsaw's steel grey ones, he can even say the words steadily, simply because he's wanted to say it for so long.
"You're a fucking lying serial killer."
The words aren't stone this time. They're soft as velvet, but they're just as hurtful.
"You don't give a rat's ass about weather me and Lawrence appreciate our lives or not. And as for your own life…"
Adam pauses for effect. Even though he already sees pure hatred glistening like burning stars in Jigsaw's gaze.
"Trust me," Adam says calmly. "It is not. Worth. Shit."
Jigsaw doesn't even flinch. He never does, even though Adam knows he's hit a soar spot, no, not even that, he's hit the only spot, because Jigsaw only has one.
His will to live.
That's Jigsaw's only weakness. And he doesn't even show it.
Adam hates him.
Jigsaw doesn't even flinch at that, either, though. Which is weird, because Adam refuses to believe that his detest doesn't show. Jigsaw just opens his mouth again, the fury in his gaze is already gone, and says, as if Adam's said that he's cold or he's in love or something else that's obvious:
"I have one last thing you have to tell me."
"Oh, do you?"
"Yes, I do. Then I'll introduce you to your third and final test."
"I can't wait," Adam says. "Lay it on me, brother."
He doesn't hiss anymore. He doesn't hiss, simply because he's not angry.
His anger is his energy. It's either that or Lawrence.
Without any of them, this is him.
"Tell me about the last time doctor Gordon tried to tell you that he loves you."
Adam sighs. It feels like fire ghosting at the walls of his throat.
He just tells Jigsaw this time.
He'll die in here anyway. The bright light that flashes before his eyes is the only thing he has the energy to fight right now.
xxxxxxxxxxx
Adam immediately stands up when he hears the knock on the door. He doesn't get why Lawrence insists on knocking, he knows that Adam never leaves the house, but Adam doesn't mind. He likes the idea of Lawrence coming over spontaneously.
When he opens the door, Lawrence is indeed there. With a smile on his face that looks nothing like his usual one. This one is less polite doctor, more excited little boy who wants to tell his parents a secret. And that makes Adam smile back at him and raise his hand halfheartedly.
"Hey, man."
"Hey," Lawrence says and steps into the apartment.
Adam thought he'd get a kiss, but apparently not. Lawrence is standing in front of him in the living room after he's closed the door, and he seems determined to not do a thing before he tells him his secret. Adam looks quizzically at him.
"So, are you going to tell me, or should I just wait until your head explodes?"
Lawrence laughs, but it soon fades out. He takes one step closer to Adam, obviously on the brink of giggling like a teenage girl.
"I did it," Lawrence finally says breathlessly.
Adam cocks an eyebrow.
"What?"
"A divorce."
Oh. That.
Adam fins himself smiling in the same way that Lawrence just did.
"No way!"
Lawrence laughs and actually jumps up and down. Adam has to ask himself if this is the same man that left his house yesterday.
"I did it!" Lawrence repeats. "I signed the papers! And she did, too! And I'll live here with you! And Diana's going to come over sometimes, too, if that's okay with you!"
Adam's excitement goes away like someone's poured cold water on him, and he chuckles nervously and grabs Lawrence's shoulders to make him stay put.
Look at that, a cold little voice in his head says. A wife and a kid. Seems like that nap you took on the couch today lasted for about ten years.
Adam pretends not to hear it.
Pretends not to feel the tickling, stabbing feeling in his gut that this thought gives him.
Lawrence seems to notice it, though. His smile fades away, and Adam immediately gets guilty, but can't force himself to smile again.
He knows why Lawrence does this. Knows why he gives up everything, a beautiful wife and a beautiful house and a beautiful, perfect, fucking perfect life.
Knows that the reason he didn't do it before was that he knew what it was he gave up.
But now, Lawrence doesn't know that anymore. Because love is blind.
And Lawrence is in love.
With Adam.
"What is it?" Lawrence cuts off his thoughts. "Aren't you happy?"
Adam is, that's what's weird. He really is happy. But he's not certain if he's as happy as he is terrified.
"I…" Adam says with a chuckle and rakes his fingers through his hair, keeps his eyes on the floor. "Jeez, Lawrence…"
A sigh. Adam finds himself unaware if it's from him or Lawrence.
"This… Why? Why are we doing this?"
Any trace of joy in Lawrence's eyes disappears. Adam knows that, even though he doesn't look at him, at least not before Lawrence moves one step closer, puts two fingers under Adam's chin, forces him to look at him.
"Well, I don't know why you do this," Lawrence says, in an attempt to a stern voice, but he just sounds desperate. "But I do this, because… I want to be with you. I love you, Adam…"
Adam sweeps his hand away as the stabbing continues, stabs in his stomach, cold and icy and completely, utterly merciless, just as merciless as Lawrence's concerned eyes, though in a completely different way, and Adam draws in a quivering breath, tries to keep the tears away.
Lawrence, he thinks, still doesn't dare to look at him. I love you, too. I love you more than anything in the world, I've loved you since that first makeout-sessions and I'll keep loving you to the fucking end of time. I love you so much that it hurts.
But how do I know you love me for real?
How do I know that you don't love me like mom loved me? That way that always ends with… This?
Always ends with me being such a complete damn chicken that I can't even look at you?
Lawrence seeks for his eyes. Adam looks into the wall. The wall is okay, the wall can't hurt him.
"Adam…"
"No," Adam cuts him off, shakes his head, moves back. "Look, man, I'm completely for the moving in-thing, but… Don't say that. And don't give me that fucking look, I feel like such a jerk…"
He doesn't look at Lawrence. Still sees the ghost of a broken heart in the blue eyes, sees the furrowed brows on the wall next to him.
"Adam, just…"
"No!" Adam says, firmer this time. "Damn it, you knew this about me! Just… Just go, okay? And you can come by with your stuff and Diana and whatever you want later, but… I can't deal with this right now."
"I can't even tell you that?" Lawrence blurts out to his right. "But you know…"
"Then what's the fucking point of saying it?" Adam cuts him off. "Just go! I know you do… That, and that's great and all, but go now."
Lawrence sighs. But his expensive shoes still creak away to the front door, and then opens it, before they stop, and Adam feels Lawrence turning around and looking at him.
"I want to say it," Lawrence says clearly, but softly. "You know I do."
Pause.
"But if that's what it takes to be with you, I'll wait until you're ready."
Adam doesn't answer.
Partly because he doesn't know if he'll ever be ready. Partly because it's hard to talk when your throat is clogged up with tears, old memories and three little words that you so badly want to say.
Aw, those two are such good angst-bitches… Well, anyway, REVIEW! And look forward to the next chapter, because that trap is, like, the only part of the whole damn fic that I came up with! GASP!