A/N: Yay for me! I have once again managed to stuff you guys with the promise that I'll wrap things up, and then made my chapters so long and melodramatic that I have to split the last scene up into two chapters! Who knew? Anyway, just read this, and I promise to make the next chapter the last one! …I hope…
15: One Thing They'll Never Reach
It's hard to fit two gurneys into one ambulance. In fact, it's impossible.
That means that they're going to have to fit two people into one gurney. And even if that isn't impossible, it's not easy, either, and it's not healthy, especially not if the two people both suffer from severe blood loss. Lawrence knows that, for Christ's sake, he's a doctor.
But Adam and him both suffer from shock, too. And right now, it feels like that shock will never be cured if Lawrence doesn't get to spend every possible second with him.
He's so scared.
Because today wasn't the rebirth Jigsaw seems to expect his victims to go through when he tests them. Lawrence doesn't feel like he's learned anything at all.
At least nothing good.
The only thing he's learned is that Adam won't always be there. Adam can disappear any time, some fucking psycho can come along as soon as he leaves, today, he only had to go to work for someone to rise from his and Adam's darkest nightmares, someone to come along and take him away.
How is Lawrence supposed to live now?
How the hell is he supposed to live when nothing is certain, when it only takes seven hours of horror for everything he believes in to be crushed, torn into pieces before his eyes, when the frail bubble that he's created for Adam because he thought it was a safe place has been blown apart, when it's only black, sad shards of glass, pricking in the wounds on Lawrence's hands?
That's why he will fit two people into one gurney.
He will, because he's been clutching to Adam, so desperately that he thought he'd break those slim little shoulders, ever since he ran through the door with someone else's blood all over him, and like hell, like fucking hell he'd let go of them now!
"Doctor Gordon," a paramedic says in a voice as calm and safe as warm oatmeal, and puts her hand on Lawrence's arm, "I understand that it's hard to let go of Adam right now, but I assure you that if you let him stay in his own ambulance, the paramedics will take perfectly good care of him."
Lawrence only hisses at her, because he recognizes that voice. He's used it himself and he knows it doesn't mean a thing, it means that this paramedic has worked a twelve-hour-shift, she's tired and wants to go home, and she doesn't want to deal with a delirious old doctor.
Never again will Lawrence use that voice. Never again will he be able to believe it, because how is he supposed to believe anything again, how is he ever going to be able to trust himself to take care of strangers when he can't even take care of someone he loves?
Lawrence steps up into the ambulance without waiting for the paramedics to roll the gurney down. And he carries Adam with him, the limp body with the cold, stiff fingers, lays him down on the gurney and squeezes himself down next to him, they almost both fall off when Lawrence wraps his arms around Adam again, but he doesn't care.
Lawrence runs his hand through Adam's hair, cranes his head back and looks into his pale face, something he used to do in a different life, when everything was real and safe and soft and warm, but that he now does with boots thumping, raw, cold air, uncomfortable plastic mattress, love in vain.
Adam…
Lawrence isn't sure if he says it out loud, but he doesn't think so, since his mouth is busy desperately kissing every piece of shiningly white skin he can see.
Adam, you little moron, I can't live without you! Why the hell would you scare me like that, why would you go and get kidnapped when you know damn well that my life is pointless without you?
That's not true. Lawrence has a work that he loves, a daughter that needs a father, but he doesn't think about any of that right now.
Adam is the only real thing. Everything else is black and sharp, shrieking, glistening pieces of metal, knives sticking out of a concrete wall.
What would Lawrence do if he had to climb up those knives and didn't know that he did it for Adam?
Lawrence doesn't even notice that he cries when he keeps kissing.
What would I do without you, Adam? What would I do?
He wouldn't know what to do.
He doesn't know what to do now, either.
So Lawrence keeps kissing, keeps sobbing and clutching and isn't sure if he says the things he thinks out loud, because he doesn't know what else to do. And he lets the ambulance take him and Adam to the hospital, even though he knows it's only in lack of better words, lets it bring him and Adam into an uncertain future, into the remains of a past life, a life that used to be wonderful but that now will be nothing but a stupid fucking confused love that no one else understands anyway.
xxxxxxxxxxx
The wounds on Adam's arms don't hurt as much anymore.
The scars are there, they haven't even healed, but they will. He just has to give them time.
Everything heals. If you have someone there to heal it.
Lawrence has healed pretty well. He still needs Adam to unscrew peanut butter jars for him because his hands hurt, and he's afraid of knives now, but it's okay. He will heal, too, and Adam can wait.
He just wishes things didn't have to hurt so much while he waited.
Sure, he's so ridiculously happy that both he and Lawrence made it out that it physically hurts whenever he thinks about it, and he knows he's lucky, not only to have made it out, but also because he has someone who he loves so much that he wants, more than anything in the world, to be the one who heals him, erase those red stitches on his hands, the dark marks under his eyes.
But it's still hard to be so worried that he barely dares to let Lawrence walk into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
It's hard to say that he loves him when it feels like he says it more out of fear than anything else. It's hard to watch Lawrence, the strong one and the safe one, not daring to do the dishes anymore, because he's afraid he'll cut his hands again.
Adam knows they'll get through this. They made it the last time, of course they'll do it now, too. But it really is hard. Especially when he knows that they wouldn't be able to do any of this if they didn't have each other, since that thought still scares the hell out of him.
Adam walks through the front door. When he sees Lawrence sitting by the kitchen table, that usual feeling of really paranoid relief washes over him, but when he sees what Lawrence stares at, laying in front of him, with an expression that isn't even his usual, secure melancholy, but just plain dejection, every trace of happiness disappears.
Adam knows Lawrence heard him coming in. But he doesn't even look up. And not when Adam hurries into the kitchen without even taking his shoes off, either.
Please, God, don't let this be what he thinks it is.
"What is that?" Adam asks.
God, his voice is shrill. He takes his jacket off and tosses it on the chair opposite Lawrence, like that's supposed to make him look up.
Lawrence sighs, leans his elbows against the table and puts his chin in one hand, still doesn't look at Adam when he answers.
"It's a tape recorder, Adam."
He just sounds tired. Adam takes two big steps up to him, avoids looking at the silver recorder but just wants Lawrence to look at him, which he still doesn't.
"I get that. But where the fuck did you get it from?"
Lawrence eyes are fixed on the refrigerator in front of him. Adam realizes he shouldn't be this annoyed, this is hard for Lawrence, too, but he is. The mere thought that Lawrence knows something about that sick fuck that Adam doesn't makes him want to break something.
Lawrence is the only one who knows what he's going through.
And if Adam doesn't know that Lawrence feels the exact same way about him, doesn't feel like he can tell Adam everything, even if it's just because he has no one else to tell it to, he would be filled with an odd feeling of failure.
But fortunately, Lawrence knows him well enough to know that he thinks that.
So he looks at Adam, and gives him, even though his gaze is just as weary as before, the revelation that he hasn't failed at all.
He's enough as long as he's there.
"The cops called me at work today," Lawrence says, and waves his hand lazily against the chair opposite him to make Adam sit down. "They found his will. Everything he owns is supposed to go to Amanda. Except for this tape recorder. It's supposed to be ours."
Adam still doesn't sit down. He's too terrified, angry, confused, heartbreakingly sad and head over heals in love to do something like that.
Why do they have to do this now?
Why does Jigsaw have to come and fuck things up after he's dead? Why does he have to ruin everything, now that it's actually started to heal, when Adam still isn't able to leave Lawrence without worrying, but at least is able to leave him?
Why can't anything be easy?
"Have you… Listened to it?"
Adam sounds much calmer than he feels. Lawrence shakes his head, his hands are clasped in front of his mouth.
"No," he says and looks at Adam again. "I was waiting for you."
"Good," Adam says, spits out. "Because there's nothing to wait for, alright? We're not going to listen to that. Fuck if we will. We're just going to…"
"Adam…"
"No!" Adam cuts off. "We won't, you hear me? Why… Why would you even go and get that fucking tape? Why can't you just let things be?"
Lawrence waits for him. Calmly.
Adam doesn't know what he'd do if he didn't have that calmness.
"Because I want to move on," Lawrence then says. Calmly. "I thought you did, too."
"That's exactly what I want!" Adam almost yells, clutches to the edge of the counter he's leaning against. "And that's exactly why we're not going to listen to that! How the fuck are we supposed to move on, how are any of us supposed to move on when we have to listen to that son of a bitch whining over what we do with our life even after he's dead? Fuck… Lawrence, how can you say that? You can't even fucking make your own goddamned sandwiches in the mornings anymore because you're so afraid of knives! How… How the hell can you want to listen to anything else he has to say after everything he's already done?"
Once again, Lawrence waits. For a second, Adam wonders if he even listens, and then he gets even more annoyed.
Until Lawrence takes his clasped hands away from his lips, and once again, makes sure to keep Adam on the right track. Doesn't let him go down any bad roads just because they're easier to take.
"How are we supposed to move on if we know that there are more things we need to know?" Lawrence replies calmly.
Adam just stares at him. Widened eyes. Shallow breaths.
He hates it when Lawrence is right.
Lawrence lifts one arm, beckons weakly.
"Come and sit with me, Adam."
Adam doesn't move. And finally, Lawrence smiles, the first real expression he's made since Adam entered the room, and Adam knows he's defeated, so he takes a step up to Lawrence and sits down on his lap.
He lets Lawrence wrap his arms around his waist, lets him pick up that damn tape recorder, and he manages to think, right before Lawrence presses the 'Play'-button, that maybe if he just allows Lawrence to do all this, it'll be at least as easy as it can be.
Lawrence puts the recorder back on the table. Adam fumbles blindly for his hand when it returns to his waist, and gets a grip on it right when that voice fills the room, clutches to it tight.
"Hello, Lawrence, and Adam, if you dare to listen…"
Grr… Jigsaw doesn't seem to know that if you make fun of Adam, millions and millions of fangirls will decapitate you within a near future… Anyway, review, and wait for a last chapter!