A/N: WHO-HOO! We're closing in on an end of this baby, aren't we? Well, I'm sure you can all endure it, since this chapter actually is as good as it was in my wildest imaginations… Well, I've had wilder imaginations, and most of them involve Adam and Lawrence, but I don't think you want to know about those. ;-) Anyway, my perversions aside, read on!

13: Fear Is Not That Powerful

The first time Lawrence went to school on his own was the first time he got to borrow his big brother's cell phone. His mom had given it to him and explained that she would call him the second he left the house, and he'd have to tell her about every step he took while he took it. And that first time, Lawrence had giggled when he talked about the trees he passed and the kids who wrestled on the other side of the street, but now, when he and Adam do the exact same thing, he doesn't giggle at all, warm tears just run down his face, he just tries to keep his voice from crumbling like old wood.

When Adam was nine, he got a Sims-game. His mom would give a librarian her last change to let him use the computer in the library to play this very first computer game he'd ever set his hands on. But after playing for ten minutes, Adam had stormed out of the library with his small fists swirling through the air, because he couldn't do something that involved telling someone else, even if it was only an animated guy on a screen, to do exactly as he said, he'd never be able to handle that much control, never trust himself enough.

And now, he's back there.

Right now, Adam's nine even though he's twenty-eight, now, he has to gain a control he doesn't want, has to be able to control the one person he never thought would be okay with someone else controlling him.

He has to tell Lawrence how to walk straight into certain death for either one of them. And he has to pretend like he has no hesitations in his actions whatsoever.

Has to be strong, because for once, once, is that too much for Lawrence to handle. And Adam doesn't like that, because he loved the way it used to be, he loved to sit back and shake his head at Lawrence who sat with his calendar and chewed-down pen to plan things months from now, loved to sink into that warm scent of washed-out cologne on Lawrence's chest after he woke up from a nightmare.

Loved those situations that he right now wonders if he'll ever get back.

"Okay," Adam goes on and tries to keep his voice together. He has stopped crying now, so it shouldn't be impossible. "Walk through that door. And on the other side… Turn to the left. Because there's a painting of some other fucking ship in there, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Lawrence croaks out. "And a new door… Oh, God, Adam…"

Adam cuts him off. Doesn't want to hear someone who's so obviously not Lawrence imitate his voice like that.

"Walk through that other door, then," Adam says gruffly. "And keep walking down that new corridor. It's pretty long, I think, but go to the other end."

Lawrence nods. He has not stopped crying, but he keeps walking and god, he actually hears Amanda's sneer when she follows him.

"Adam…" He whimpers, since Adam doesn't have any instructions to interrupt him with now that he only has to walk straight ahead. "Has he… Has he hurt you?"

Adam almost laughs out loud. And all the while, the tears are streaming, keep streaming, don't want to stop. Damn it. He'd just gotten himself together.

Little Lawrence. Silly little thing.

How does he suppose that Jigsaw works? Hasn't he gone through this before, isn't he going through it right now?

Isn't that scar on his ankle, that's only just healed, torn up again?

Isn't everything they've built up together crumbling, inside out?

But Lawrence doesn't need to hear that right now. And even though Adam's never liked to cushion blows like this, he hears himself saying:

"No, Lawrence, I'm fine. I mean, I'm… Fucking terrified, I admit that, but… I'm more worried about you than me."

Lawrence chuckles, even though there's nothing funny about this situation at all.

His voice doesn't sound like his own at all. He sounds like Adam's sobs those nights when he sinks into Lawrence's chest, while Adam, on the other hand, sounds just like himself, only with someone else's words.

Lawrence's words. Because the tables have turned now.

And right now, Lawrence is too unlike himself to think about why that is, even though the person he used to be would immediately know that the reason they go through this is that Adam still is so stuck in himself, so unchanging from the person he was before they met that he still couldn't really let Lawrence in, that Adam is the one that had to be punished and that he needed to be punished in a place where he felt it.

And Adam really is someone who endures anything. Putting him through physical pain is useless, because he's brought so much of that down on himself before that he barely feels it anymore. So Jigsaw has attacked his heart, attacked the one closest to him, because that is something he will never forget, he will always remember what he's learned today.

If they make it out.

When Lawrence enters the new door, he finds himself cut off, and not by Adam this time. On the other side of the doorl he faces only a moldy wall, nothing's on the sides of him, and behind him, only things he never wants to go back to.

Just like this whole day has been. Nothing good is in the near future, and the past is way too much alike the future.

But before today, Lawrence didn't face a moldy wall. He didn't know what he faced, but he knew that he liked it, that it wasn't easy but it was beautiful, and he'd go through it with Adam, Adam would make it easy. And if it wasn't easy, he would endure, that's what he did.

Even if it was something is unendurable as this.

"Adam…" Lawrence whines, and now, his voice sounds like Diana's, for Christ's sake. "There's nothing in here… It's just…"

"I know, I know," Adam cuts him off again, almost annoyed, and he wishes he had his hands free to wipe his face. His nose is running, he must look disgusting. "But if you look up, I think there's… A trapdoor, even if you can't see it… And I think there's a latter next to a wall somewhere, it was when I were here…"

Lawrence looks around, feels the walls with his free hand until he finds something cold and rickety, something that probably won't bear him but that he still grabs and leans against the wall in front of him and that he climbs, even though it burns when he puts weight on the cuts in his feet.

Lawrence has to pin the phone to his shoulder and use both hands to feel over the ceiling once he's reached it, Adam's jittery breaths crackles in his ear. And he does find some sort of unevenness that he pushes upwards. Yes, there's a trapdoor, and Lawrence has opened it. He's getting closer.

"Hang on, Adam," Lawrence says and puts the phone on a greasy carpet of dust that lays on the floor above him before he grabs the edges of the entrance, heaves himself into this new room and lands clumsily on his back in the dirt. Someone's poured acid into the cuts on his back.

Through the cameras, Adam sees Lawrence when he rolls onto his back on the floor, and his heart aches even more than it did when he saw him before now, because now, he feels Lawrence, feels the warm, humming presence of him on the other side of the door, feels it and knows that it will soon be gone, way too soon be gone.

Lawrence… I'm so sorry… I…

"You okay, man?" Adam asks, but he doesn't hear Lawrence's reply, he's shaking so much that the phone falls down into his lap again.

When Jigsaw lifts the phone to his shoulder again, Adam says, still shaking, both in body and voice, but once again, get it together, get it together for him:

"Now, you see that door? It's right in front of you, you see it?"

Amanda heaves herself up through the trapdoor. Adam wants to die.

"Yeah…" Lawrence gasps out and rolls over to his stomach.

"I'm there, Lawrence," Adam says, and he sounds like a fucking girl and he cries, god, he cries so hard again and he smiles like a fucking kid, but he doesn't care, not one bit. "I can see you. Hi, man…"

Lawrence laughs, Adam can see a smile on his face that once again only is a god-awful impression of who he really is even on a blurry monitor.

"You're behind there?" Lawrence rasps out. "Is… Is the door locked?"

Such a childish question. Adam laughs, too.

"What the fuck do you think, you idiot?"

Lawrence.

Goodbye.

"But you can open it. Just…"

Throat that burns.

"Just shoot through the peephole with the gun, and I'll be there."

Lawrence stands up on wobbly legs, his eyes are widened and fretful,

(just like the other time, remember Adam remember)

and he touches the door insecurely, like it'll disappear if he's too eager.

"Oh, God, Adam…"

Adam gulps. Tears stream down.

"Yeah… Just do it, okay? You've lost a lot of blood, we need to get you home."

Later on, Lawrence won't have any idea of why he does it.

Maybe he just knows Jigsaw well enough to know that none of his options are painless.

Maybe he knows Adam well enough to know when he lies. And the latter seems more believable, since Adam has always been a terrible liar.

Even when he was someone that wasn't him. Even before Lawrence's insecure love turned him into himself.

But either way, Lawrence takes the gun out of his pocket, but he doesn't fire it. Instead, he leans down, without a trace of hesitation, and looks through the peephole.

He doesn't have to know Adam that well to recognize his t-shirt, though. Especially when he even sees a tuft of dark hair, a pale little glimpse of that neck whose taste he feels even stronger than the one of blood in his mouth.

Adam… For God's sake, Adam…

"Adam, you fucking moron," Lawrence almost laughs, he's really not surprised at all. "Did you really think I would fall for that?"

Adam doesn't even try to keep the act up.

"I kind of did," he replies coldly, even though the tears are still pouring. "But just fire the fucking gun already."

Lawrence shakes his head. It stays spinning long after the motion's stopped.

"I won't."

"Yes, you will," Adam hisses.

He's so angry now, in that same way as when Lawrence wouldn't buy his act before. Stupid fucking Lawrence.

"No, I won't," Lawrence says plainly and keeps moving his aching hand over the dirty wood of the door.

Amanda's standing next to him now. He doesn't care about her, nothing she can say or do can make this more painful than it already is.

"Yes, you sure as fucking hell will!" Adam yells so loudly that Lawrence hears it from the other side of the door. "Because if you don't do that, you're going to have to stick your fucking hand into that box-thing on the handle and cut it off, and then you will die! Either way, we won't get a fucking fairytale-ending, so just do it, for fuck's sake!"

Lawrence can't even answer right away. He doesn't show any reaction at all, he just stares at Amanda without seeing her, the sharp red lips and the way they crease in triumph, his eyes are all wide again.

Of course. That box on the handle.

Tears that well up.

Adam…

Lawrence as to put his hand over his mouth to keep from throwing up again. Adam…

He doesn't want to sob. He knows that it's bad enough for Adam to be strong when Lawrence is, too, so he really doesn't need this now that Lawrence already is a wreck, but he can't help himself. He does sob, simply because he cries so hard, cries so hard that he doesn't even hear that Adam's crying, too, that the picture of Lawrence on that monitor goes blurry from his tears, because Lawrence is so obviously out of control, and that's not him. Lawrence Gordon isn't out of control, the man he fell in love with doesn't do that.

The man Adam loves isn't on that screen anymore. Jigsaw has taken him away.

Adam does manage to keep his sobs down. But not the sorrow, not the blood of his broken heart that runs out the wounds in his arms in silent runnels as he recalls another one of those fights about the remote to the stereo that Lawrence won.

Remembers the line: Fear's a powerful thing, and cries because he suddenly learns how true it is.

Lawrence… Don't… Don't turn into someone else… I love you, I love you so much, so much just the way you are, don't turn into someone else, don't…

"Lawrence, goddamn it, listen to me!"

He has no idea where the words come from. They shouldn't be able to come from his mouth, his broken jugular, but apparently, they do, because Lawrence's crying stops like someone's pressed a button on him.

Adam takes a deep breath. Okay. Okay.

For Lawrence to keep being the man Adam loves, Adam's obviously going to have to be the one who turns into someone else. But that's okay. That's okay.

"Everything… Is going to be okay," Adam says, firmer than he thought himself capable of. "I promise you that. I… I was nothing without you, and if you go away because of me, I won't be worth shit anymore. Not to anyone. So just do it. Please."

Lawrence rakes a hand through his hair. Amanda's grin is even wider, and now, it's harder to ignore.

"But…"

"I forgive you, Lawrence. I do."

Adam does. He's not lying now.

Now, that it's required of him, he's going to be honest.

He's going to be someone he's not. Or he's going to be the one he's been inside all along.

Amanda's obviously listened to this whole conversation, Lawrence suddenly realizes. She's had her ear pressed to the back of his phone, and now, she rolls her eyes and stands back.

"I don't get why he even tries," she chuckles and shakes her head at Lawrence's half hateful, half dreading eyes. "As if you'd have the balls to grab that handle."

God, Lawrence hates her.

Hasn't he cut off his foot once to save people he loves?

Hasn't he done enough soon? Will they never be happy?

Apparently not. Because Amanda nods to the gun and waves her hand lazily, like she doesn't get what he whines about.

"Just shoot the damn kid and get it done already."

Lawrence doesn't see her anymore.

All he sees is red.

"Come on, doc. Just do it."

Adam's sobs in the phone. Her voice, heavy with cigarette smoke.

Her eyes. Cold, indifferent.

Adam's eyes. Vivid, sparkling. Living. And loving it.

Turned down. Always on the floor, because this is what he's been afraid of. These people. Their games.

Adam's living eyes, loving eyes, always on the floor.

And Amanda's eyes, dead already, but not afraid.

And that's when Lawrence realizes that neither he nor Adam are going to die today.

He stumbles through the door only seconds later, spots Adam on the chair, closes his arms around him.

And Adam's face is bored into Lawrence's chest so quickly that he doesn't have to see.

Doesn't have to see the red that's splattered all over Lawrence and all over the white door, doesn't have to see the hand that lays in the box with the razors like a dead spider.

But even in the mixture of overwhelming happiness and thick, drowning, death-cold and black sorrow, does he manage to register that there are two hands on his back.

Ah, yes, two hands… How is that possible, you might wonder? Nah, I don't think you do, it's kind of obvious. But drop me a line about how much you love me, please!